UC.NRLF 
 
 The GiRUii 
 
 HE MARRIED 
 
S /5 * Ays 
 
 V^. 
 
 ^JL 
 
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THE 
 
 GIRL HE MARRIED 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES GRANT 
 
 AUTHOR OF ♦'THE ROMANCE OF WAR," ETC, 
 
 " O ! good your worship, tell it of all things ; for I mightily delight 
 in hearing love stories." 
 
 Sancho Panza. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited 
 
 Broadway, Ludgate Hill 
 
 GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK 
 
JAMES 
 
 GRANT'S NOVELS, | 
 
 The Romance of War 
 
 
 Lady Wedderburn-s Wish 
 
 The Aide-de-Camp 
 
 
 Jack Manly 
 
 The Scottish Cavalier 
 
 
 Only an Ensign 
 
 BOTHWELL 
 
 
 Adventures of Rob Roy 
 
 Jane Seton; or.The Queen's 
 
 Advocate 
 
 Under the Red Dragon 
 
 Philip Rollo 
 
 
 The Queen's Cadet 
 
 The Black Watch 
 
 
 Shall I Win Her? 
 
 Mary of Lorraine 
 
 
 Fairer than a Fairy 
 
 Oliver Ellis ; or, The Fusileers 
 
 One of the Six Hundred 
 
 Lucy Arden j or, Hollywood Hall 
 
 MORLEY ASHTON 
 
 Frank Hilton i or, The Queen's Own 
 
 Did She Lov Him? 
 
 The Yellow Frigate 
 
 
 The Ross-shire Buffs 
 
 Harry Ogilvie ; or, The Black Dra- 
 
 Six Years Ago 
 
 goons 
 
 
 Vere of Ours 
 
 Arthur Blane 
 
 
 The Lord Hermitage 
 
 Laura Everingham ; or, The High- 
 
 The Royal Regiment 
 
 landers OF GLENORA 
 
 
 Duke of Albany's Own Highlanders 
 
 The Captain of the Guard 
 
 
 The Cameronians 
 
 Letty HYDE'S Lovers 
 
 
 
 Cavaliers of Fortune 
 
 
 Violet Jermyn 
 
 Second to None 
 
 
 Miss Cheyne of Essilmont 
 
 The Constable of France 
 
 
 Jack Chaloner 
 
 The Phantom Regiment 
 
 
 The Royal Highlanders ' 
 
 The King's Own Borderers 
 
 
 COLVILLE OF THE GUARDS 
 
 The White Cockade 
 
 
 Dulcie Carlyon 
 
 First Love and Last Love 
 
 
 Playikq with Fire 
 
 Dick Rodney 
 
 
 Derval Hampton 
 
 The Girl he Married 
 
 
 LcvE's Labour Won 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEK 
 I. 
 
 BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS 
 
 5 
 
 
 lAGH 
 
 » 9 
 
 II. 
 
 HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH-WESTERN LINE 
 
 . i6 
 
 III. 
 
 OAKWOODLEE 
 
 . 23 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH . 
 
 
 
 . 29 
 
 V. 
 
 BELTANE DAT 
 
 
 
 . . 36 
 
 VI. 
 
 DUST TO DUST 
 
 
 
 . 42 
 
 VII. 
 
 DAY DREAMS 
 
 
 
 . 49 
 
 VIII. 
 
 HESBIA VERB 
 
 
 
 . 54 
 
 IX. 
 
 DOCTOR ^E^^ERLEY , 
 
 
 
 . 60 
 
 X. 
 
 THE COUSIN LOVERS 
 
 
 
 . . 65 
 
 XI. 
 
 BLATKAVON HOUSE 
 
 
 
 . 79 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE DINNER-PARTY 
 
 
 
 . . 84 
 
 XIII. 
 
 HESBIA'S DRAWING-ROO.M 
 
 
 
 . 91 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A PROPOSAL .... 
 
 
 
 . . 96 
 
 XV. 
 
 BUSINESS .... 
 
 
 
 . lOI 
 
 XVI. 
 XVII. 
 
 A QUARTETTE 
 
 feCARTfe ..... 
 
 
 
 , , 104 
 . Ill 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 CROWDY OF THAT ILK . 
 
 
 
 . 116 
 
 XIX. 
 
 COME TO ME 
 
 
 
 . 120 
 
 XX. 
 
 TRAVICE REOPENS THE TRENCHES 
 
 
 
 . 126 
 
 XXI. 
 
 THE SECRET LEITER 
 
 
 
 . 133 
 
 XXII. 
 
 ^\^LL THEY BIEET . 
 
 
 
 . 141 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 IN THE TWILIGHT . 
 
 
 
 . 145 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 THE SILENT SHOT . 
 
 
 
 . 150 
 
 XXV. 
 
 AT BREAKFAST 
 
 
 
 . 154 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 VISITORS AT OAKWOODLEE 
 
 
 
 . . i5« 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 LENNARD OBTAINS A CLUE , 
 
 
 
 . . 164 
 
 XXVIII. 
 XXIX. 
 
 CONVALESCENT 
 
 THE VINEYARD OF NAEOTH , 
 
 
 
 . . 169 
 . 173 
 
 XXX. 
 
 AN EXCHANGE OF HEARTS 
 
 
 
 ' • '79 
 
 XXXI. 
 XXXII. 
 XXXIII. 
 
 THE WEEK OF JOY 
 
 THE PROOFS OF GUILT . 
 
 JUDEN GRABBIE's VISITOR 
 
 
 
 . 184 
 
 . . 189 
 . 196 
 
 XXXIV. 
 XXXV. 
 
 THE OLD QUARRY .... 
 
 HUNTED 
 
 CHEATWOOD's LAST CIGAR 
 
 
 
 . 202 
 . 208 
 . 216 
 
 563 
 
\iii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XXXVIT. 
 
 THE UURNIKG MINE . • . . 
 
 . 223 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 NEXT MORNING 
 
 . 229 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 HOPELESS 
 
 . 235 
 
 XL. 
 
 SIR CULLENDER ON THE TAPIS 
 
 . 240 
 
 XLT. 
 
 ENTOMBED ATJVE ..... 
 
 . 243 
 
 XLII. 
 
 SUNSHINE AND CLOUD .... 
 
 . 248 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 SELF 
 
 . 255 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 THE LOST TICKETS 
 
 . 260 
 
 XLV. 
 
 WHY DID I LOVE HER? . . . , 
 
 . 268 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 PARTED FOR EVER 
 
 . 275 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 A SERPENT IN ANOTHER SKIN 
 
 . 279 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 OUTWITTED 
 
 . 286 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 OFF THE BELL BUOY AT LAST 
 
 . 291 
 
 L. 
 
 ON BOARD THE "GOLDEN DREAM" 
 
 . 294 
 
 LI. 
 
 DONNA DORA DOMINGA .... 
 
 . 300 
 
 Lll. 
 
 CAPTAIN TROCADERO .... 
 
 . 305 
 
 LIII. 
 
 A DREAM THAT WAS NOT GOLDEN 
 
 . 310 
 
 LIV. 
 
 EN VOYAGE 
 
 • 314 
 
 LV. 
 
 CONCERNING THE STARS Al^D A CERTAIN 
 
 TORN 
 
 
 GLOVE 
 
 . 317 
 
 LVI. 
 
 THE PADRINO TAKES LENNARD TO TASK 
 
 . 322 
 
 LVII. 
 
 OFF THE BAYE DE BARADERES 
 
 . . 32S 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 THE PAMPERO . . o i . . 
 
 . 331 
 
 LIX. 
 
 WHAT CAME OF IT 
 
 . 335 
 
 LX. 
 
 THE RING 
 
 . 339 
 
 LXI. 
 
 TROCADERO MEETS WITH A SHIPMATE . 
 
 . 344 
 
 LXII. 
 
 LA GAVIOTA 
 
 ► . 348 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 WHAT KENTLEDGE HEARD 
 
 . 353 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 IN THE GULF OF MEXICO 
 
 . 357 
 
 LXV. 
 
 DORA ON THE ISLAND .... 
 
 . 362 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 CAPTAIN TR0CADER9 AS A LOVER . , 
 
 . . 365 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 THE ARENAS 
 
 . . 369 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 NEUSTRA SENORA DEL GUADALOUPE 
 
 . . 375 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 SEPARATION 
 
 . 380 
 
 LXX. 
 
 THE CASTLE OF SAN JUAN DE ULLOA 
 
 . . 388 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 THE VILLA LEONARDO .... 
 
 . . 395 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 DORA'S lETE 
 
 . 400 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 EL CASA DEL AYUNTAMIENTO . . 
 
 .405 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 TRAVICE CHEATWOOD REDIVIVUS , 
 
 . 413 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 LENNARD A LA MEXICAINE . , • 
 
 . 415 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 A SHOCK AND A PROPOSAL , , , 
 
 . 421 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 A DAY OF SURPRISES .... 
 
 . .428 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 UTOPIA . . . . • . 
 
 . 435 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 CONCLUSION . , . g . . 
 
 . 440 
 
THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. 
 
 Thus ran tlie brief but startling telegram which was 
 delivered late in the evening ; — 
 
 " Br. Feverlei/, Blairavon, to Lennard Blair, 
 
 Liverijool. 
 
 " Come home hy the first train. A crisis is at hand. Your 
 father cannot survive much longer.'* 
 
 From Liverpool to Blairavon, in Scotland, is more than 
 one hundred and sixty miles by rail, the only mode of con- 
 veyance now, and poor Lennard Blair thought nervously of 
 his chances of being at home in time to see — before the fatal 
 moment — that parent to whom he was so tenderly attached ; 
 and in a rapid and bewildered manner, acting as one might 
 do in a dream, he thrust a few necessary articles into a car- 
 pet bag, preparatory to starting by the night express train 
 for Carlisle and the North. 
 
 He glanced at his watch ; he had already lost two hours, 
 during which the telegram had been waiting for him, while 
 he had kept several business engagements between the 
 counting-house and the Huskisson Dock. In those two 
 hours what might he not have lost ! and from amid the 
 bustle of Liverpool, and the roar of its busy streets, his 
 memory flashed home to his father's secluded mansion in 
 Lothian. 
 
 To Mr. Abel Envoyse, the managing clerk or cashier of 
 Messrs. Vere, Cheatwood, & Co. — a meek-looldng little 
 gentleman with a bald head, who had been in the house for 
 
10 TUB GIRL HE MARRIED 
 
 years upon years, who had never set up for himself, and 
 never hoped to do so, whose ambition was probably satisfied 
 by the salary now given him, and who thought Vere <fe 
 Cheatwood the greatest firm in the world, even as Liverpool 
 was the centre of the universe — to Mr. Envoyse, we say, 
 Lennard Blair intimated the pressing nature of the telegram 
 he had received, and that he must start at once for Scotland. 
 Though a clerk in the establishment, and one who had to 
 work hard at his desk, Blair had a few thousands invested 
 with the firm, and ranked as a junior-partner therein, but 
 his name did not appear as such, so Mr. Envoyse felt him- 
 self compelled to consent, in absence of Mr. Vere, for Cheat- 
 wood and the Co. had long been myths. 
 
 " You will complete those bills of lading for Leonardo & 
 Co.. of Vera Cruz," said Blair, with nervous haste, " and I 
 shall see Mr. Vere about other matters, when I reach Scot- 
 land ; he is there before me. Meantime, I require, please, 
 a hundred pounds in gold." 
 
 " Gold V echoed Envoyse, rubbing his bald head. 
 " Of course ; English notes are useless in Scotland." 
 " Past bank hours. Do you want the money now T' 
 " This instant." 
 
 The sum was large for one in Blair's position. 
 "We never keep much in the house when Mr. Vere is 
 away," said the old cashier, reluctantly unlocking one of 
 Milner's great patent safes ; " but here you are, Mr. Blair." 
 
 " Thanks," and even in his haste, so strong was the force 
 of business habit, Lennard counted over the money, and 
 gave a receipt, while muttering in a broken voice, " I am 
 telegraphed for, because my poor father is— is dying." 
 
 " Good bye, Blair," said some of the clerks, with all of 
 whom he was an especial favourite. 
 
 " Wish I was going with you," added one, who was an 
 idler, and usually wished himself anywhere but at his desk. 
 "But not on such an errand, surely," said Blair, as he thrust 
 several dockets of papers into his drawer, and locked it. 
 
 " Oh, no, my dear fellow, I didn't mean that," replied the 
 young man, colouring, as he bent over his ledger, on which 
 the gas-jet cast a glare from under its conical green shade. 
 
 The counting-house of Vere, Cheatwood, & Co., was 
 then in an alley off Canning Place, and in the immediate 
 vicinity of the Revenue Buildings, the Custom House, and 
 Post Office, admirably situated for business, and in the most 
 bustling part of the quays. 
 
 Lennard Blair sprang into a passing cab, and " tipped '* 
 the driver. 
 
BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. II 
 
 " To where, sir ]" asked the man. 
 
 "Terminus— Great Howard Street — go like lightning, my 
 good fellow !" and the short distance between Canning Place 
 and the station of the Lancashire line was soon traversed, 
 yet scarcely quick enough for the impatience of Lennard 
 Blair. 
 
 The first bell had already been rung ; the carriage-doors 
 were being slammed to ; the last of the luggage was being 
 tossed into the guard's van, or hoisted on the roofs, and 
 pointsmen and porters were running hither and thither, as 
 Lennard hurried along the crowded platform, looking for a 
 seat. 
 
 He had not been without hope of getting a carriage, or 
 rather a compartment thereof, to himself, that he might in- 
 dulge in his own melancholy reflections, undisturbed by the 
 presence of strangers, the thoughtless, perhaps, and the noisj^ ; 
 but the first glance he gave along the train dissipated the 
 expectation ; the carriages seemed crowded — every seat ap- 
 parently was engaged. 
 
 Though far from being a sordid character, Lennard Blair 
 had been more used latterly to travel by second, and even 
 third class, than first ; and now, when paying for the latter, 
 he had certainly no desire to endure the useless discomforts 
 of either of the former. The guard saw that he was carrying 
 his own bag, and so left him to sliift for himself. 
 
 In the centre compartment of a first-class carriage sat a 
 young man, with long, fair moustaches. He was alone, and 
 dressed in a fashionable travelling suit, with an eye-glass 
 screwed into the rim of his white half -bullet hat, and through 
 thi"j optical medium he was leisurely surveying the bustle on 
 the platform, and about the departing train. 
 
 Thrice had Lennard attempted to open the door, but 
 found it locked, for the person in possession of the entire 
 compartment had doubtless a private key. 
 
 '• Engaged here," said he briefly, yet Lennard saw that he 
 was alone, the five other seats being vacant. 
 
 " Are you quite sure, sir V asked Lennard anxiously. 
 
 *' Quite— all engaged here," 
 
 " Awkward, excessively. I have looked everywhere else 
 for a seat." 
 
 " Ah ! then you may do yourseK the pleasure of looking 
 again ; there is just time," was the chaffing response, as the 
 other drew up the window-glass to cut the matter short. 
 He then imfolded Punch and the Times — placed his hat-box 
 on one cushion, his carpet-bag on another, some rugs on a 
 tJiird, his umbrella on a lourth, his feet on a fifth, and him- 
 
12 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 self personally on a sixth, ])roceecling thus, like a free-born 
 Briton, to occupy as much of the premises as he could, to 
 the exclusion of others. 
 
 Not a vacancy was to be seen elsewhere. The up-train 
 from the north was panting and puffing outside, its red 
 lights glaring in crimson along the line • the guard was 
 swinging his lantern, and shouting " Tickets ! have your 
 tickets ready," near the last carriages of the train. 
 
 " Guard," said Lennard, slipping a couple of florins deftly 
 into that official's back-turned hand ; "get me a seat, please, 
 anywhere !" 
 
 " Which class, sir r 
 
 "First." 
 
 " Plenty of room, sir, in the centre compartment of the 
 third carriage ; five seats unoccupied ; look alive, sir, please." 
 
 He of the eyeglass and long moustaches, who had been 
 watching Lennard's anxiety with some amusement to him- 
 self, had again lowered the window, as the gas lighted station 
 was close and dense in atmosphere, and the night— one of 
 the last in April — being warm and without a breath of wind. 
 Moreover, the supervisor of the tickets had thrown open the 
 door now. 
 
 " Sir," said Lennard, emphatically, when he saw that in 
 addition to other lumber, books and papers now strewed all 
 the cushions, " are those seats really engaged 1" 
 
 " Don't you see that they are f drawied the other, 
 
 " Now, this one, for instance '^" urged Blair. 
 
 " By whom 1" added the guard. 
 
 " Can't tell — by Flinch, and my hat-box, I suppose." 
 
 " Lennard seized the articles indicated, and tossing them 
 far out on the platform took possession of the seat, and 
 throwing some of the rugs, &c., from the opposite one under- 
 foot, proceeded to make himself at home. 
 
 With an angry oath, he of the eyeglass, who little antici- 
 pated so summary a proceeding, sprung out to recover his 
 property, and had barely regained his seat, being roughly 
 shoved in by the guard, when the bell rang, the shrill whistle 
 cleft the air under the lofty iron roof of the station, out of 
 which the train glided away between Great Howard Street 
 and the Leeds canal, while Lennard Blair and his fellow- 
 traveller, by the light of the carriage-lamp, eyed each other 
 with glances the reverse of friendly. 
 
 "If we are to travel together, considering your insolent 
 disposition, you will be none tlie worse f;i bemg snubled, 
 my fine fellow," thought Lennard. 
 
 " Curse liim ; some post quill-driver, or bumptious snoo, 
 
BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. 13 
 
 out on ttie loose, I suppose," muttered tlie other, almost 
 audibly, while stroking his moustaches with an angry and 
 supercilious air. 
 
 " Did you think, sir, to occupy the whole carriage?' asked 
 Lennard, whose cheek glowed with an emotion of indigna- 
 tion, which certainly served to repress his sorrow and anxiety. 
 
 " The whole carriage — well, perhaps so !" 
 
 " And may I ask why V 
 
 " Because in this world every man has a right to get as 
 much as he can for his money, and I always take deuced 
 good care to look after Number One," he replied, coolly. 
 
 He then began to whistle a low but popular street melody, 
 while Blair busied himself with his "Bradshaw,'' that volume 
 obscure apparently as the shastres of Brahma, inextricable 
 as the hieroglyphics of Memphis ; and through all the mazes 
 ofParliamentaiy and express trains, of first, second, and 
 third classes, the charges for cattle and luggage, &c., he 
 sought to reckon over the anxious hours that must inevi- 
 tably intervene before he reached Blairavon in AVestern 
 Lothian. 
 
 This young man in his four and twentieth year, wearing 
 the grey Tweed suit and smart wide-awake hat, pray observe 
 him well, friend reader, for he is the hero of our story. 
 
 His hair is a rich curly brown ; his eyes are neither brown 
 nor grey, yet there are times and lights in which they seem 
 both ; with clean-cut features, he is closely shaven, all save 
 a thick moustache ; he has a straight nose and handsome 
 mouth. His figure is strong and lithe, every muscle being 
 developed, as with bat and oar and rifle he has kept his 
 place among the best in England, and is moreover the 
 champion shot of the Liverpool Volunteers. 
 
 Blair's voice is very pleasant, and musical too ; there is a 
 singular chord in it, tJiat wins every ear, and seems to speak 
 of a gentle and tender nature, though there are times when 
 he can be bold and stern, but always a manly young man. 
 
 Swiftly sped the ni^t express train. 
 
 Liverpool, with its mighty vv'orld of wealth and work, its 
 wilderness of docks and forests of masts, the broad waters 
 of the ^lersey, on whose bosom uncounted lights were shin- 
 ing from ship and shore, from wharf and sea-wall, — all were 
 left behind. The dark masses of the Industrial School and 
 Kirkdale Jail on one hand, the scattered \illage of Bootle 
 on the other, were soon glided past ; houses became more 
 scarce and far between, and after emerging from the long 
 and rumbling tunnel, the train was careering through the 
 open country under the clear and lovely light of an April 
 
t4 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. | 
 
 moon, wliile Ormskirk with its market-place and coalpits, 
 Farrington and its moss, soon vanished in the distance. 
 
 Once or twice Lennard Blair, who had much to think of 
 and to reflect on, turned his eyes from the swiftly passing 
 scenery without to the face of his fellow-traveller, who evi- 
 dently was neither inclined to converse or make himself 
 agreeable ; for barely had the train emerged from the tunnel 
 beyond Bootle Lane when he produced an embossed silver 
 case of great size, and selecting therefrom a cigar (a rat's-tail 
 with a straw through it), he lit it with a flaming vesta and 
 proceeded to smoke without the ceremony of an apology 
 offered or permission given, and without the usual courtesy 
 :)f offering one to his companion. 
 
 This man's features were striking, but unpleasing; his 
 complexion was fair, almost to unhealthy paleness ; he wore 
 that species of beard denominated a goatee, and seemed ten 
 years or so older than Lennard, to whom his whole bearing 
 was eminently offensive, displaying a cool insolence which, 
 if he dared, might verge on open ruffianism ; yet his travel- 
 ling suit, his Albert chain, rings, scarf, and gloves, etc., were 
 all in the most unexceptionable taste. 
 
 It is seldom that people take much interest in their fellow- 
 travellers, even though they are to journey all night with 
 them ; but now Lennard Blair felt— how or why he knew it 
 not — an intense and intuitive antipathy for this person. 
 There was a strange expression in his pale green eyes which 
 (rather than their form or colour) made Blair recoil instinc- 
 tively from him ; and they had a stealthy and peculiar mode 
 of looking away when those of another met them ; yet 
 Lennard felt certain that whenever he affected to sleep or 
 look from the window the gaze of his companion was fixed 
 keenly upon him. 
 
 With this emotion of repulsion there floated through 
 Blair's mind some of the many stories he had heard or read 
 of attacks, outrages, snares laid, and even murders committed 
 in railway carriages ; but he almost smiled as he felt his own 
 biceps, for he knew himself equal to tossing the stranger out 
 of the window if the occasion required him to do so. 
 
 Little could Lennard Blair foresee how much, in a future 
 time, his fate was to be influenced by this cool and impu- 
 dent fellow who sat smoking in front of him, and supercili- 
 ously pulling the windows up or down, as suited his own 
 fancy or convenience. Lennard's intuitive dislike at last 
 became so strong, that while surmising whether this person- 
 age was one of the swell-mob, he asked : 
 ' " Are yo^ «oing far this way, sir— along the line I mean V' 
 
By the night express. tj 
 
 " liatlier too far, perhaps," was the dry response. 
 
 "How]" 
 
 " Into Scotland," he replied with a thick and unpleasant 
 voice, as if liis tongue were too large for his mouth. 
 
 " Too far, you think r' 
 
 " To West Lothian, if you know such a place ; I never 
 heard of it before. But here is Preston already. Sy Jove ! 
 we havft come at a ripping pace ! " he added, as the train 
 swept -^ith a hollow roar into that bustling and bewildering 
 station, where so many lines meet and intersect ; and then 
 ensued the usual banging of doors, the clinking of the ham- 
 mers on the wheels to test their soundness, the shouting of 
 newsboys, the swaying of lanterns, and hurrying to and fro 
 of porters, platform officials, and sharp-eyed pointsmen. 
 
 " Do we change here 1 " asked Blair anxiously, snatching 
 up his bag to be ready for the answer. 
 
 " Of course we do — change for the Black Sea, Calcutta, 
 and the Baltic," drawled the other, perpetrating an old joke, 
 which was meant as impertinence, while he lay back in his 
 seat and watched the smoke of his cigar rising in concentric 
 curls up through the ventilator in the carriage-roof. 
 
 " Tickets ! " shouted the guard, while a weather-beaten 
 and well-whiskered face appeared at the window, thus arrest- 
 ing a threatening gesture made by Lennard's hand towards 
 his companion's nose. 
 
 The smoker now made studiously a delay, to worry and 
 annoy the official, by slowly searching every pocket in suc- 
 cession, as well as his pocket-book, cigar- and card-cases. 
 
 " Smokin' is agin the company's rules — a fineable offence ; 
 and you should have your ticket ready, sir," said the official. 
 
 " Should I really ] " drawled the other ; " do you want 
 
 itr' 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then why do you bother about it 1 *' 
 
 "Because it must be shown and checked,'' replied the 
 guard, becoming furious, but restraining his passion, as he 
 flashed his bull's-eye full into the traveller's face. " Look 
 sharp, please, or " 
 
 "Or what]" 
 
 " I shall call a policeman.** 
 
 " Don't trouble yourself, my dear fellow ; if the pasteboard 
 is worth seeing, it is worth waiting for," replied the other, 
 who, after trying the man's patience to its utmost liiaits, 
 showed his ticket at last, expressing a hope that a sight 
 thereof " would calm his ruffled feelings and soothe his 
 troubled bosom." 
 
l6 THE GlEL HE MAllRIED. 
 
 Witli an imprecation, the official cliecked the ticket, 
 slammed to the door, and the laugh of the impudent travel- 
 ler was lost amid the clatter of the train as it steamed out 
 of the station towards Lancaster. 
 
 Full of disgust for such a companion, yet wondering who 
 he might be that was going exactly to the same part of Scot- 
 land as himself (T. C. appeared in large white letters on his 
 portmanteau), Lennard Blair lay back in a corner of the 
 carriage, and with half-closed eyes communed with his own 
 heart, thinking of the sorrows that awaited him, of the past 
 that had gone for ever, and the anxieties that might cloud 
 his future. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH-WESTERN LINK 
 
 On sped the swift night express by the great North -Western 
 line, its monotonous hum and motion being conducive either 
 to drowsiness or reflection ; thus Blair, though he closed his 
 eyes as if to sleep, permitted his mind to become a prey to 
 anxious and exciting reverie. 
 
 " In the morning of our days," says the eloquent Burke, 
 " when the senses are unworn and tender, when the whole 
 man is awake in every part, and the gloss of novelty fresh 
 upon the objects around us, how lively at that time are our 
 sensations, yet how erroneous are the notions which we form 
 of things ! " . 
 
 Lennard Blair was still in the morning of his days, yet in 
 some respects he had lived long enough to see many errors 
 and had won much experience. 
 
 He was going back on a sorrowful errand to the narrow 
 world — the little rural circle from which he had emerged 
 some five or six years before : and as the homeward train 
 sped on, faster than the engine, yea, faster even than the 
 electric telegraph, the posts of which seemed to be flying 
 past in pursuit of each other, did his thoughts flash back to 
 earlier years— the past returned to memory, and the present 
 fled. 
 
 Tlie only surviving son of Richard Blair of Blairavon, ho 
 liad come into the world with the fairest prospects of suc- 
 ceeding, if life was spared him, to an ample, even noble in- 
 heritance, which his father contrived, with the utmost assi- 
 duity, to squander on the turf and etee where, till the whole 
 of his property, save the remnant named Oakwoodlee on 
 which he resided, had, by mortgage, purchase, and otherwise, 
 
HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH-WESTERN LINE. IJ 
 
 passed into tlie hands of Mr. Vere, the wealthy Liverpool 
 merchant. 
 
 " fiome-keeping youths have ever homely wits," to quote 
 the " Two Gentlemen of Verona." Lennard soon learned 
 the truth of this, and resolved to seek his fortune — or, as his 
 father phrased it, in a moment of bitterness, " to earn his 
 bread' — elsewhere, having become early aware that nothing 
 was to be won by a life of dependence on his father's shriv- 
 elled purse ; and it was not probable the blind goddess 
 would seek him out on the pastoral braes of Blairavon. 
 
 He_ had accepted Mr. Vere's apparently kind offer of a 
 desk in his counting-house, and invested in the firm a mode- 
 rate sum that had accrued to him from his mother, the heir- 
 ess of a few hundred acres ; and thus he had gone south to 
 Liverpool, among its busy thousands, to labour and to learn, 
 to work, to wait, to make a way in the world, and to regain, 
 if possible, the position and wealth of which his father's ex- 
 travagance and imprudence had deprived him ; for Lennard 
 treasured in secret all that pride of name and family which 
 is inherent in the Scottish character, and he shrunk ner- 
 vously from the conviction that, unless he thus stiove, with 
 resolution and thrift, the old Blairs of Blairavon would go 
 down into the common herd (from whence they had sprung 
 centuries ago), and be heard of no more. 
 
 Komances which Lennard had read in boyhood, and tho 
 prophetic wishes or hopeful prophecies of his old nurse, 
 Elsie Graham, and of his father's attendant, Stephen Hislop, 
 once butler at Blairavon, now valet, groom, and general fac- 
 totum in the little household at Oakwoodlee, had all con- 
 duced to strengthen these honourable fantasies— this earnest, 
 but perhaps desperate ambition, in the young man's heart. 
 
 On the Blairavon knds is a grey old Druidical monolith 
 named the Charter Stone. It was a firm belief in the family 
 and county, and had been so for ages, that so long as a Blair 
 retained a right of proprietary in this unsightly block, the 
 race would prosper. Thus a thousand times had the im- 
 poverished old gentleman reminded Lennard, with glee, that 
 though " the wealthy jmrvenu, Mr. John Vere," had won the 
 lands at Blairavon " by his sordid and drudging industry," 
 the Charter Stone was on the remnant they still retained 
 near Oakwoodlee. 
 
 His father, though he heartily despised all manner of 
 business, and was totally ignorant of it, save in the items 
 that related to bills, kites, and I O U's, had, after gulping 
 down his old family pride, fostered the wish of his son to 
 the utmost. Hence, to buy back the old patrimony, or to 
 
 2 
 
ll THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 create another; to toil, and spin, and work; to emigrata 
 and dig, but only to return and regain the old place that 
 had gone out of the original line, was the object of Lennard 
 Blair, as it has been the Golden Dream, the romantic hope 
 (in no instance, perhaps, ever realised), of many a Scottish 
 wanderer in the woods of America, in the Australian bush, 
 the mines of California, and the diggings of Ballarat : but 
 this was the secret impulse which animated Lennard as he 
 drudged at his desk amid the roar of busy Liverpool, 
 
 During the first few years he had been in business he had 
 learned much, but had not clambered far up the social lad- 
 der. He was literally only a clerk in the great mercantile 
 firm of Vere and Cheatwood, with a small share in the pro- 
 fits derived from the money he had invested in the stock, 
 by the advice of Mr. Yere, whose acquaintance and patron- 
 age he had acquired when that gentleman jjurchased his 
 father's estate. 
 
 With all these sanguine hopes and delusive desires, the 
 combined result perhaps of early education and secret vanity, 
 there existed in the mind of Lennard no emotion of up' 
 braiding or reproach against his father. The poor old man 
 was dying now ; his weakness and his errors were things of 
 the past to be forgotten ; his virtues alone were to be re- 
 membered ; and the last time Lennard had seen his wistful, 
 kind, and saddened face, when he left home to push again 
 on his worldly way, came vividly to memory now. 
 
 To add to Lennard's troubles, he was in love — in love 
 with Hesbia Vere, his employer's only daughter ; a young 
 lady ere long to be introduced to the reader. 
 
 As a neighbour when at Oakwoodlee, and as one of the 
 best round dancers and most pleasant friends whom she met 
 at home, Hesbia Vere had always preferred, or seemed to 
 prefer, Lennard Blair to many other young men whose 
 wealth or worldly position were infinitely greater than his. 
 On whose arm could she droop or lean more pleasantly and 
 freely when breathless, flushed, and palpitating after a long 
 waltz or a furious galop ; and who so readily found her fan, 
 or bouquet, and so gracefully and deftly cloaked or shawled 
 her for the carriage 1^ 
 
 He had brought her beautiful flowers and the rarest ex- 
 otics : ferns, the most remarkable; a wonderful parrot from 
 a West India ship in the Albert Dock — a parrot that swore 
 most fluently, but luckily in Spanish. 
 
 He lost bets of gloves to her so adroitly; selected her 
 bi,H)ks and pointed out passages which, when underlined by 
 ijuicil, told so much more than he would hayg dared to say; 
 
HOMEWARD ON THE NORTH-WESTERN LINE. 1 9 
 
 they had exchanged innumerable cartes-de-visite, and he had 
 sketched and ^vritten in her album more than perhaps Papa 
 Vere would have quite approved; but that was a species of 
 book he never by any chance opened. 
 
 They frequently met by the most singular chances in quiet 
 and shady corners of the Botanical Gardens, or when she 
 was riding in the Prince's Park and other promenades. Len- 
 nard Blair, in virtue of the sum invested in the funds of 
 Vere and Cheatwood, rather than in consequence of his gen- 
 tlemanly bearing and good birth, was every way Hesbia's 
 privileged dangler, greatly to the envy of his fellow-clerks, 
 and to the annoyance of several admirers of more pretensions. 
 
 He had made love to her in every way that man could do, 
 short of actually declaring it, and in such a way the flirt — 
 for notoriously was Hesbia Vere a flirt — received it. 
 
 All this alluring intercourse with the bright and beautiful 
 girl had made more impression oa his heart than it left on 
 hers; for Hesbia became his sun, his centre, his pole-star ; 
 yet he was merely one among many privileged admirers who 
 hovered about her, especially when he was elsewhere; and 
 it was only a realization of what the old rhyme tells us of 
 the moon that looked on many brooks. So, as Lennard 
 thought of her in his reverie, he whispered to himself, — 
 
 " Oh what can ever come of such a passion as mine 1 In 
 love — in love with one of the greatest flirts in Liverpool % 
 A girl who is vain as she is beautiful, and fickle as she is 
 vain. What folly or magic is it that lures me to become her 
 shadow, when I know that she has jilted and trifled -with 
 wealthier, wiser, and better-looking fellows than I % Even, 
 her cousin Cheatwood has failed with her, if I have heard 
 aright; and I am to see her again, for she is at Blairavon 
 with her father. She, at Blairavon !" 
 
 So pondered Lennard amid his waking dreams in the 
 night as the train glided on, now through deep cuttings, 
 and then along grassy embankments, where the telegraph 
 wires sung in the wind like vEolian harps ; past darkened 
 or half -lighted stations, where the offices were closed, the 
 book-stalls shut, and the platforms deserted; the flaming 
 posters and huge placards on the walls alone remaining to 
 indicate that on the morrow's dawn the stream of life would 
 flow again. 
 
 On past red-gleaming furnaces and dark pit-mouths, the 
 clanking engines and whirling wheels, the smoking chim- 
 neys and murky atmosphere of the Black Country, whera 
 night and day, underground and above it, the brawny gangs 
 ©f grimy men are for ever, ever toiling ; on through the 
 
 2 — 2 
 
THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 gloom and uncertainties of the scenery, as the moon waned, 
 and white lights and green, or the crimson danger signal, 
 Hashed out of the obscurity; past green paddocks, shining 
 pools, and thick hedgerows; past villages buried in sleep; 
 past tall ghostly poplars, and those pollard willows and oaks, 
 the eccentric trimming of which is peculiar to England; past 
 huge manufactories and coal and iron mines, with cones of 
 flame that reddened earth and sky. 
 
 And so on flew the train by stately Lancaster, where the 
 stars shone brightly in the depths of the Lune, and on by 
 the picturesque vale of Kendal embosomed among beautiful 
 hills; on by the grassy fells of Westmoreland and the old 
 castle of Penrith, w^hilom built by Richard of England as a 
 barrier against the Scots — an open and gaping ruin now — 
 and thence onward by Carlisle; and the breaking dawn 
 saw the express train careering through the gTcen and pas- 
 toral glens of the Southern Highlands, while the early mists 
 were rising in light grey masses from the grassy summits of 
 the Hartfell, the highest of the Scottish mountains south of 
 Forth and Clyde. 
 
 With the aid of his private key Lennard's companion had 
 got out for refreshments — "nips and pick-me-ups," as he 
 styled them — at every station where the train stopped. 
 Blair had no desire to accompany him, but sat wakeful and 
 apparently listless in a corner, full of his own thoughts, 
 which increased in keenness and intensity as he found him- 
 self among the mountains and nearing home. 
 
 But he deemed it a singular coincidence that, though he 
 ©hanged carriages twice, and twice even to different trains 
 and lines, his unpleasant fellow-traveller was constantly 
 his vis-ct-vis, and made exactly the same changes at the 
 same times and places. 
 
 Influenced probably by the numerous brandies-and-water 
 he had inibibed, this personage now condescended to make 
 some inquiries about the localities they passed through ; but 
 as the replies were always followed by sneers, in which he 
 seemed prone to indulge, or by pitiful jests and disparaging 
 reflections on the country, the people and the features, oi 
 names of the scenery, Lennard Blair became irritated by 
 his rudeness, and relapsed into studied silence. 
 
 Once he offered the use of his brandy flask to the stranger, 
 by whom it was coldly and curtly declined, and after this he 
 proceeded to use his own. 
 
 It was now that sweet season, the end of spring, the last 
 few days of April, when the buds have burst in all their 
 freshest greenery in the gardens and woodlands ; when the 
 
HOMEWAED ON THE NORTH-WESTERN LINE. 21 
 
 daifodil, the yellow crocus, and the primrose peep iip from 
 under the sprouting hedgerow ; when the young lambs ars 
 basking on the sunniest slopes of the hills, and the swallows 
 arc returning from their mysterious flight ; when rivulets 
 and cascades are all swollen by the spring showers, and rush 
 down towards the glens with increased force and volume ; 
 when '' fresh flowers and leaves come to deck the dead sea- 
 son's bier," and a spirit of youth and new life seem in every- 
 tliing. 
 
 " Through wood and stream, hill, field, and ocean, 
 A quickening hfe from the earth's heart has burst, 
 As it has ever done." 
 
 And nowhere is spring more lovely than in our souihem 
 Highlands, and on the pastoral braes of Annandale. 
 
 Now Lennard Blair was drawing nearer and nearer to 
 his home, especially after he had passed the meadows, the 
 woody haugns, and morasses of Slamanan, an old Celtic 
 name which signifies " The Back of the World." 
 
 Last night amid the roar, the lights, the multitudes of 
 Liverpool ; this morning in a solitude where the shrill 
 whistle of the curlew, or the lowing of the cattle, as they 
 were startled by the passing train, alone woke the silence ! 
 
 But this was home, and with eager eyes did Lennard 
 scan the old familiar haunts and features. Every sight and 
 sound woke boyish memories in his saddened heart ; the 
 chaunting or whistling of the rustics, as they rode their 
 giant horses afield ; the black gleds wheeling in the sun- 
 shine from the ruins of Torphichen — that church and for- 
 tress where the Lords of St. John of Jerusalem lie cross- 
 legged in their graves, with shield on arm and sword at 
 side ; the mountain burn that gurgled under the green 
 whins, bearing the last year's withered rushes to the^ Avoi. 
 (the dark and winding river), the old church tower in the 
 distance, aiid all its sheltering groves of beech and chest- 
 nut. 
 
 In yonder burn- brae had he, aided by old Steinie H lop, 
 anearthed and killed his first otter ; from that pool he had 
 landed his first salmon, and there, amid the black bold ers 
 that lay in mid stream and chafed the waters into white 
 froth, he had filled many a basket with speckled trout in 
 the happy times of boyhood that could return no more. 
 
 On yet, and in the distance he could see on the green 
 slope of a hill a great gTey monolith upreared in its lone- 
 liness amid the pastoral solitude, and then he felt his pulsea 
 quicken. 
 
2i THE GIEL HE MAERIED. 
 
 It was the Charter Stone of Blairavon, and it stood, as 
 he knew, but a few furlongs from the house of Oakwoodlee, 
 where his old father lay on his death-bed. 
 
 In the middle distance was a stern group of aged Scot- 
 tish pines — the last remnants of an old forest, coeval with 
 the Torwood, where once had roamed the snow-white bulls 
 and ferocious bears of Caledonia — the stems of the gnarled 
 trees standing out redly from the feathery masses of bright 
 green fern, while the crags of Dalmahoy and the hill of 
 Logan-house, the highest of the beautiful Pentland-range, 
 little less than a mile in height, rose against the clear blue 
 sky beyond. 
 
 The next station was three miles further on than Oak- 
 woodlee, but the latter was still in sight when the shrill 
 whistle of the train cleft the morning welkin. The speed 
 became slower, and tickets were searched for, and bags, 
 umbrellas, and hat-boxes were clutched by the passengers 
 in their haste for release from their temporary imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 A handsome tilbury, a bang-up affair, with patent drag, 
 plated axles, and a high-stepping horse, with splendid har- 
 ness, was waiting the arrival of Lennard's companion. The 
 groom was in the Vere livery, and the Vere crest appeared 
 upon his buttons, the harness, and ostentatiously on more 
 parts of the vehicle than one. 
 
 With much fuss and obsequiousness, the groom collected 
 the portmanteaux, rugs, plaids, rods, and gun-case of the 
 traveller, and had a couple of pointer "dawgs," as that 
 personage called them, brought from the guard's van. 
 
 " How far is it from here to Blairavon 1 " he inquired. 
 
 "About three miles, sir," replied the servant, touching 
 his hat ; " you'll be there in time for breakfast." 
 
 " The old boy at Oakwoodlee is awfully cut up, I hear." 
 
 " If you mean Mr. Blair of Blairavon " 
 
 "No— you seem jolly verdant for a Scotsman— he that 
 was." 
 
 " Oh, sir ! folks say he is dying." 
 
 " Poor old fogey ; and so his lands have gone to those 
 servants elect of mammon, those worshippers of the golden 
 calf, whom he despised so much." 
 
 " They have gone to master, sir," said the puzzled groom, 
 touching his hat again. 
 
 "Exactly; jump up, all right," replied the other, assum- 
 ing the reins and whip, and -without a farewell nod or 
 recognition, he drove on, leaving Lennard Blair, who looked 
 somewhat earnestly after him, perplexed and stung by the 
 
OAKWOODLEE. i^ 
 
 remarks he had overheard, to trudge afoot with his bag 
 and nigs, as at that solitary little station there were no 
 vehicles to be had for hire. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OAKWOODLEE. 
 
 The mansion of Oakwoodlee, in which Lennard's father 
 had resided since the loss of Blairavon, had been originally 
 the jointure-house of the entire estate, and was first built 
 for an ancestress, Griselda Blair, of the Tor hill, whose hus- 
 band fell at the battle of Dunblane, in 1715, with the white 
 cockade in his bonnet, and a colonel's commission from King 
 James YIII. in his pocket. 
 
 It is a plain, small, two storeyed house, with great chim- 
 ney-stalks, crowstepped gables, and scroll-formed corbels at 
 the corners. The walls are massive ; in front are nine win- 
 dows, set deep into the masonry and whilom grated with 
 iron in former times of trouble. A coat of the Blair arms — 
 the star of eight points, and so forth — is carved above the 
 door, to which a flight of broad stone steps gives access, and 
 which is furnished with a great bell in addition to a ponder- 
 ous old-fashioned knocker. 
 
 In the south-western gable is built an ancient dialstone • 
 the front of the mansion faces the south, on the green slope 01 
 a hill surrounded by old copsewood, the shootings of which 
 were always let to add to the shattered income of old Richard 
 Blair. 
 
 Before the door is yet standing the identical " loupin-on 
 stane,^' with its three time-worn steps, by the aid of which 
 Lady Griselda, of Blairavon, was wont to mount behind her 
 butler on a pillion, when they rode together on one horse 
 weekly to the church of Inchmachan. 
 
 At the door he was warmly, even affectionately, received 
 by the two faithful adherents of their fallen fortunes, who 
 had been watching his approach. Old Elsie Graham — once 
 his nurse in youth, and now his father's in old age — a hard- 
 featured, but kindly, old motherly woman, who met him 
 with a scared and anxious face ; Hps that were white and 
 eyes inflamed by recent tears and long watching. 
 
 "Welcome back, laddie! welcome hame ! but oh, Mr. 
 Lennard, what a sorrowfu' hamecoming is this for you," she 
 exclaimed- covering her face with her faded black-silk apron. 
 
^4 THE GiRii HE MARRIED. 
 
 " Oh, sirs ! oli, sirs ! what is thirt that has come tipon us a' 
 at last ! " 
 
 "Hush, woman, will yon^' said old Steinie Hislop, 
 sharply interrupting her noisy but half-stilled grief ; " dinna 
 add to his distresses by your din and nonsense. But I say 
 wi' Elsie, welcome to you, Mr. Lennard, though it be in an 
 evil hour," added the old man as he shook Lennard's hand, 
 and then respectfully hastened to relieve him of his bag, 
 railway rugs, and cane. 
 
 "And my father, Steinie," asked Lennard, with a quiver- 
 ing lip, " how is he ? " 
 
 More composed now — more resigned to the great change 
 that is at hand — than when Dr. Feverly telegraphed for you 
 last night." 
 
 Lennard sighed bitterly, 
 
 " He is asleep, so dinna disturb him," added Steinie ; "and 
 while you are getting some refreshment the doctor will join 
 you." 
 
 " Then Dr. Feverley is here 1 " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Lennard ; but asleep on the dining-room sofa. 
 All night was he awake, and most attentive," said Elsie. 
 " But step your way ben to the breakfast-parlour ; fu' well 
 ye must ken the gate, my braw bairn." 
 
 " Is it likely I should ever forget it, Nursie 1 " asked Len- 
 nard, with a kind, sad smile, as he entered the old familiar 
 room, the windows of wliich faced the ancient grove of Scot- 
 tish pines that cast their shadows, as they had done for ages, 
 on the charter stone, while both Elsie and Stephen Hislop 
 hovered restlessly about him intent on kindness and com- 
 miseration ; for they had loved the lad from his infancy, 
 and since their own youth had been in the service of his 
 family. 
 
 Old Stephen, who had latterly been groom of the venera- 
 ble Galloway cob (which represented what was once a noble 
 ' stud) ; gardener of the little plot where a few edibles were 
 grown ; valet, butler, and, as already stated, factotum — still 
 wore a kind of shabby livery coat, with a striped -blue and 
 yellow vest, long and flapped, with drab breeches and gaiters ; 
 a kind of hybrid costume between groom and footman. He 
 . was a thin, spare man in his seventieth year, round-shoul- 
 dered ; with clear, keen, anxious, grey eyes ; thin white 
 hair, and hollow and wrinkled face. 
 
 At a glance, Lennard took in the whole details of the 
 room and of its furniture j the full length of his father — a 
 handsome man in hunting costume, with his favourite 
 hor^— by Sir J. W. Gordon, was an imposing picture ; but 
 
OAKWOODLEE. 2$ 
 
 tlie other appurtenances were relics of the "plenishing" 
 procured for his grandmother in the days when George III. 
 was king, and they seemed odd, quaint, and mosc unmis- 
 takably shabby when contrasted with much that he had 
 been accustomed to of late. Yet all were familiar as old 
 friends : the square-elbowed horse-hair sofa, with black 
 squabs and pillows ; the circular stand for curious old 
 china ; the corner cupboard, with its green dram-bottle, and 
 worm-stemmed glasses, the teapot of old Dame Griselda 
 Blair, and the punchbowl from which her husband had 
 drunk many a fervent toast to " the king ow're the water ; " 
 then there was the queer old chiffonier or bookcase, with 
 its faded volumes of Fielding and Smollett ; the dumb 
 waiter ; the mirror above the mantelpiece with its painted 
 border, and the old flyblown engravings of the death of 
 Nelson and of Abercrombie, in black and gilded frames. 
 
 He was more intent on these objects which spoke so 
 much to him of home and old home memories than on the 
 viands prepared for him by Elsie and Steinie, who bustled 
 about the table, and urged him to sit down and breakfast 
 after his long journey by rail overnight. 
 
 " Bodily wants ic'ill make themselves felt, ye ken, Mr. 
 Lennard,' said Elsie, as she poured out his coft'ee with one 
 hand and patted his thick brown hair with the other. 
 
 In vain he pled that he could not eat, for grief and the 
 rush of thought were choking him. 
 
 " But folk can aye drhik, however deep their grief," she 
 replied, placing the cup before him, "\\-ith such cream that 
 the spoon might stand in it, fresh eggs and butter, salmon 
 steaks and braxy ham, such as he had never seen since 
 he mounted his desk in the house of Yere, Cheatwood <fe 
 Co. 
 
 " We couldna' get you a bit of game, even if it were the 
 season, Mr. Lennard," grumbled Steinie ; " for in the fields 
 where the partridges used to be thicker than the turnips, and 
 on yon burn-brae where the grouse and ptarmigan blackened 
 the very heather, Mr. Yere, or rather his sporting friends, 
 with twenty guns and mair, breechloaders too, has made a 
 clean sweep o' everything." 
 
 " Never mind the birds or the breakfast," said Lennard, 
 impatiently ; " but tell me of my father's ailment. What 
 does the doctor call it 1 " 
 
 " A gradual sinking of the whole system," replied Elsie, 
 who, like Steinie, spoke English, but with a strong Scotch 
 accent, and only an occasional native word. " It is somo' 
 thing skill cannot grapple wi' nor care owrecome.'' 
 
26 THE GIRL HE MAREIED. 
 
 " Old age, Elsie 1" 
 
 " A broken spirit rather, tlie minister, Mr. Kirkford, and 
 the doctor say/' 
 
 Lennard sighed, while Steinie, reckoning on his fingers, 
 said,— 
 
 " He would only be sixty come next Beltane day, and I 
 am verging on seventy mysel'." 
 
 " Who have been here to see him beside the minister and 
 Dr. Feverley 1, " asked Lennard. 
 
 " Mr. Vere, from Blairavon twice, and Miss Vere almost 
 daily for a time ; there is well nigh a pack of her calling 
 cards in the silver basket on the chiffonier," replied Elsie. 
 
 " But why only for a time ] " he asked, as a sudden sus- 
 picion occurred to him. 
 
 " Visitors came ; among them a baronet, nae less." 
 
 "A baronet r' 
 
 " Sir Cullender Crowdy and other gTeat folks. So the 
 small ones at Oakwoodlee were forgotten," continued the 
 old woman spitefully, and without perceiving that her 
 words stung the listener, who had before heard of this dis- 
 tinguished personage, and dreaded Hesbia's flirting propen- 
 sities ; " when she did come it should have been on foot as 
 became her, and not on horseback cutting up the gravel, 
 she and her groom," added Elsie, who bore an especial 
 grudge at the Veres. 
 
 We have said, that with a Scottish accent, these old 
 servants spoke pretty pure English, which was lucky, as the 
 broad vernacular of the North, like the dialects of Lanca- 
 shire or Somersetshire, become boredom to a reader. 
 
 The return of Mr. Lennard had been a circumstance which 
 suggested a hundred kind offices, and these two old worthies 
 felt that they could not in any way make too much of him. 
 
 " He is fond o' this," said they ; " and fond o' that too— a 
 salmon trout from the Dhu-linn," so Steinie fished for it ; 
 " new-laid eggs," suggested Elsie ; so " this, that, and every- 
 thing" were alike provided for him, and all his wants, 
 wishes, and comforts affectionately studied. " It is not the 
 key of the street-door in your pocket," says Lever, " nor 
 the lease of the premises in your drawer, that make a 
 home. Let us be grateful when we remember that in this 
 attribute the humblest shealing on the hillside is not in- 
 fei'ior to the palace of the king." 
 
 " AVe are the last of the auld stock, and must be kind to 
 each other," said Steinie, patting the shoulder of his young 
 master, for he quite identified himself with the family 
 whose bread he had eaten for nearly sixty years— <3ver since 
 
OAKWOODLEE. Tj 
 
 he had been a turnspit in the almost baronial kitchen at 
 Blairavon. 
 
 " But here comes Dr. Feverley," added Steinie. 
 
 " 1 was loth to disturb you, sir, and resolved to wait," 
 said Lennard, rising from an almost untasted breakfast, and 
 presenting his hand, as the Doctor entered; "I have to 
 thank you for the telegTam — but — but 1 hope that you majr 
 have over-rated the danger — the urgency." 
 
 The Doctor, a pleasant and good-looking young man, 
 apparently not quite thirty years of age, shook his head. 
 
 " My dear sir, I fear that I have not exaggerated the case. 
 For days past your worthy father has been alternately coma- 
 tose and delirious : these, ■vsdtli the gradual sinking of the 
 pulse for the last thirty-six hours — a hiccough, a pursing of 
 the lips and puffing of the breath, show that the fatal crisis 
 is not far off,' said the Doctor sententiously in a whisper. 
 
 And a mournful shade fell over Lennard's face on hearing 
 it. 
 
 " Oh dear, oh dear ! " cried Elsie, covering her face with 
 her apron ; " and a' this to be, though I had water brought 
 ilka day frae the Bullion Well of Inchmachan." 
 
 " Tush — sulphuretted hydrogen — quite unsuited to the 
 case, my good woman,'^ said the Doctor, with the slightest 
 perceptible irritation, for he had a special animosity to the 
 mineral well referred to. " The patient still sleeps ; when 
 he wakes I shall let you see him," added Feverley to Len- 
 nard, who sat in a chair, wtth a crushed heart and a crushed 
 aspect, gazing dreamily at the fields that stretched far away 
 in the distance, dotted by sheep and lambs that lay basking 
 in the morning sunshine. 
 
 " I fear that this protracted illness must have intruded 
 on your time. Doctor," he observed after a long pause, on 
 feeling there was a necessity for saying something. 
 
 " The social hours and the professional hours of the 
 medical man who does his duty are alike beyond his con- 
 trol," replied Feverley, smiling. 
 
 " I have to thank you for unremitting attention — atten- 
 tion and kindness which I can never repay as they deserve,' 
 added Lennard in a broken voice, as he covered his face witJi 
 his hands ; " but are you sure that you have not mistaken 
 the signs % " he asked, clinging still, as it were, to hope. 
 
 " Too sure," replied the Doctor, a little emphatically ; 
 " compose yourself ; the end, thank God, will be a painless 
 one. The poor old gentleman is going fust 'to the far oil 
 land and to that city which hath no need of sun.' " 
 
 The Doctor was an anxious, active, and pleasantly- 
 
28 THE GIRL HE MARrvIED, 
 
 mannered young man, with a ruddy complexion, a cheerful, 
 smiling face, sandy-coloured hair, and a well worn suit of 
 black. After a hard and thrifty career of study at the 
 Edinburgh university, he had been thankful to take the 
 country practice at Blairavon, with the munificent guaran- 
 teed salary of forty pounds per annum for the first year, 
 with a prospect of being appointed to the parochial board, 
 and getting such patients as he might pick up under the 
 patronage of the minister, the family at the mansion-house, 
 and so forth ; but poor Feverley found the task of "making 
 ends meet '^ a hard one. As he told Lennard at another 
 time, " the blacksmith at the cross-roads does all the 
 dentistry of the parish, and the people hereabout are so 
 beastly healthy that I never have the chance of a good case. 
 They never have an ailment ; or if they have, a few 
 draughts, to be had for the drawing, from the mineral well 
 at the Tor hill, cure all." 
 
 " But my father's illness. Doctor : what is it — old age 1 " 
 
 " Scarcely. It has been as much mental as bodily." 
 
 " Mental r' 
 
 " More that, perhaps, than the latter. He was always 
 hard pressed for money, as you know ; and the worry of a 
 life of conflict with narrow means and its daily routine of 
 debts and duns, have proved rather too much for a proud 
 and haughty temper." 
 
 Lennard sighed bitterly, almost angrily, at the doctor's 
 freedom. 
 
 " Borrowing cash at ruinous interest from legal harpies, and 
 so on, and so on, till, as you are aware, acre after acre melted 
 away ; and now only the house and copsewood of Oakwoodlee 
 remain, of what was once a noble patrimony." 
 
 " I am young, Doctor, and the Charter Stone yet is mine," 
 said Lennard, with irritation. 
 
 The Doctor gave a feeble little cough, and smiled. 
 
 " I have conducted some of his correspondence, and have 
 thus learned that your farther has had much to wound his 
 pride during his downward and — pardon me for saying it — 
 improvident career. A Scottish gentleman of ^ the old 
 school — a quaint and often eccentric school, that exists in all 
 ages and countries — he has neither become ' Anglicized on 
 one hand, nor provincialized on the other ; ' yet he is full 
 of kindly and Queer old-fashioned thoughts and sympathies 
 — for instance, his faith in the possession of that ugly block 
 of stone out there, as the palladium of his family." 
 
 " Mv father was always, in the purest sense, a gentle- 
 man 1 ' said Lennard, emphatically. 
 
THE LAST NIGHT ON EAETH. 29 
 
 " Undoubtedly ; but as for gentlemen," said tlie Doctor, 
 •pursuing some angry thoughts of his own, "in Scotland 
 generall}'-, and in Edinburgh in particular, they have, as 
 some one says somewhere, ' so thinned off of late, or there 
 has been such a deluge of the spurious coin, that one 
 never knows what is real gold ; ' and nowhere is the spurious 
 brass more current than in all the supposed high places 
 among us." 
 
 " But you spoke of my father's ailment as chiefly men- 
 tal, Doctor," said Lennard, resuming the subject nearest 
 his own heart. "The bitterness of his losses, reverses, 
 and all that, I know ; but what more '^ 
 
 " The discovery of coal on the estate, at the Kaims, after 
 he had parted wdtli it, and the new and unexpected source 
 of great wealth it has become to Mr. Vere, proved the cause 
 of extreme chagrin. He never held up his head after he 
 learned that he had sold, in ignorance of its existence, such 
 a hidden mine of money and relief from all his embarrass- 
 ments." 
 
 " Poor man ! poor old man ! He had often bored the 
 fields of Kaims, and done so in vain." 
 
 " Vere only bored a few inches " 
 
 "Inches!" 
 
 " Yes, a few inches deeper in the same places, and found 
 the mineral — a seven-foot seam of pure coal, without the 
 least mixture of clay, and every way equal in quality to the 
 best that the mines of Edinburgh, Glasgow, or Carron can 
 produce." 
 
 Lennard bit his nether lip with irrepressible vexation on 
 hearing all this, even though the advantage accrued to the 
 father of Hesbia Vere ; and now Elsie Graham, who had 
 slipped away to watch by the sick-bed, came softly in, with 
 her pale and tearful face, to whisper that " the Laird was 
 awake, and asking for Mr. Lennard." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH. 
 
 With a heart swollen by many home memories and 
 mournful and tender emotions, Lennard Blair entered the 
 old accustomed room in which, as a little boy, he had been 
 wont to come each morning to receive his father's caress and 
 repeat a prayer. 
 
 The oppressive atmosphere of protracted sickness was 
 there now, and an ominous row of phials littered all th^ 
 
3© THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 mantelpiece. The bed and its faded hangings, the chairs, 
 the table and pictures, the old Indian screen and the oval 
 mirror, all reminded him forcibly of the past ; and he sobbed 
 as he hung over his dying father, whose emotions, however, 
 were less violent than he or the Doctor expected. 
 
 Around the room were hung pictures of a few favourite 
 racehorses that had once formed part of the Blairavon stud, 
 and, rivalling those of Lord Eglinton, had borne away the 
 bell at Lanark course, the Queen's Plate at Musselburgh, 
 and elsewhere. Some books lay near the bed ; one was a 
 Bible, the others were Sir Bernard Burke's compilations and 
 Nisbet's folio on " Heraldry." Lennard knew the old 
 volume well ; the ruling passion was strong to the last ; but 
 never more would the filmy eyes skim those leaves, to cull 
 out the honours, the quarterings, and the descent of the 
 Blairs of Blairquhan, Blairavon, and that ilk. 
 
 The sick man imbibed thirstily some cooling drink, from 
 an old silver tankard which had been filled and emptied at 
 many a jolly hunting breakfast and dinner. It had among 
 its chasings the Blair arms and crest, a stag's head caboshed; 
 and had been fashioned from nuggets of the precious metal, 
 iound long, long ago, among the green Bathgate hills, when 
 a Stuart filled the Scottish throne, and the Blairs were 
 Lords of Blairavon, f ortalice and manor, main and meadow, 
 wood and wold, and cocked their bonnets as high as the 
 Preceptors of St. John or the Lairds of Calder. 
 
 Lennard found his father, though wasted and wan to an 
 extent which shocked and distressed him, yet looking so 
 bright in eye and so collected in thought, that he almost 
 hoped yet that young Doctor Feverley might be mistaken ; 
 but those very symptoms only convinced the latter that this 
 was the last rally of the senses prior to chaos — to utter 
 extinction. 
 
 " My dear, dear boy," said the sufferer, with a quavering 
 voice, " so you have come in time to see me before the 
 starting-bell rings '^ It has rung. Lennard ; yet, please GocL 
 I shall rdach the winning-post. 'There is an hour appointed 
 for all the posterity of Adam,' and mine is comm^ fast, 
 Lennard," he added, a glance of deep afiection minghng in 
 his eyes with that strange, keen, and farseeing expression 
 which is often, if not always, discernible in the eyes of the 
 dying, as if the distant land of Destiny, though all unseen 
 by others, seemed close and nigh to them. 
 
 " The bonnie buds have burst in the summer woods, 
 Lennard." 
 
 " So I saw, dear father," said the young man, as he seated 
 himself, and retained a clammy hand within his owu. 
 
THE LAST NIGHT ON EAUTH. 31 
 
 " When the green leaves fall and wither, Lennaid, I shall 
 be far, far away, in the Land o' the Leal." 
 
 Lennard's tears fell fast. 
 
 The likeness between father and son was still striking, 
 though old Richard's hair — that had once been like Len- 
 nard's, a rich dark brown — was silvery, thin, and scanty 
 now. His eyes were the same hazel-grey ; he had the same 
 straight nose and handsome mouth, though the lips were 
 pursed now and had somewhat fallen in. He gathered a 
 little more strength after Elsie gave him a cup of coffee well 
 dashed with brandy, and with something of a sad smile on 
 his face, he said, — 
 
 "Elsie has been a perfect Sister of Mercy to me — hovering 
 noiselessly about my bed, doing a thousand acts of kindness, 
 bestowing blessings, Lennard, and receiving them." 
 
 Then he added, more gravely, 
 
 " You know what day to-morrow is V 
 
 " The first of May, father." 
 
 " An unfortunate — a fatal day for us, as you know, 
 Lennard." 
 
 " I cannot believe in such things, father." 
 
 " It was on that day my father died of his wounds a week 
 \fter the battle of Villiers en Couche ; at a Beltane time my 
 younger brother Lennard disappeared ; on another your 
 poor mother died ; on another, nearly my whole estate 
 
 Eassed into a stranger's hand ; and, by to-morrow, I shall 
 ave passed away too !" 
 
 " Father," implored Lennard, " do not talk in this way." 
 
 " Save that I shall leave you alone — most terribly alone 
 in the world, death is welcome ; and, save by yourself and 
 one or two more, I won't be much missed, Lennard," he 
 continued, querulously, and speaking with growing difficulty 
 and at greater intervals. " We old country gentlemen are 
 growing out of fashion ; we are behind this ' fast age' — that 
 is the phrase, I believe — and the sooner the last of us is 
 gone the better for those who succeed us. A sea of storms 
 3,nd tempests has the world been to me — a world I leave 
 without regret, but for you, Lennard. God has tried me 
 sorely, and yet, it may be, must be, that I, in many ways, 
 have sorely tempted Him." 
 
 Then, as if he remembered that all this morality came 
 rather late after a life of reckless extravagance, he added, 
 in a very broken voice, 
 
 " We too often mate our own destiny— so have I made 
 mine • and, in doing so, perhaps have blighted yours. My 
 poor boy, my folly has lost you one of the finest old estates 
 
32 THE GIRL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 in tlie tliree Lotliians, and were it restored -with my health 
 my tolly would too likely lose it again." 
 
 As if the bitterness of thought overwhelmed him, he 
 closed his eyes and breathed laboriously ; then came the 
 liiccough, that puffing of the lips of which Feverley had 
 spoken; playing with the bedclothes, as if the tremulous 
 hands gToped in darkness ; and when the eyes opened, 
 they seemed to look vacantly as if at passing atoms. 
 
 At last he spoke again. 
 
 " Better it is to be great than rich — better to be good than 
 either, especially when one comes to lie where I am now — 
 face to face with eternitjr. My boy— my poor boy, would 
 that I knew what Fate has in store for you after I am 
 gone ! Yet, if the great Book of Destiny were before me, 
 dear Lennard, I would shrink from turning the page. I can 
 only pray that there may be, at least, in the future, that 
 wealth of which I have deprived you." 
 
 " My father, do not speak thus ; besides, you will exhaust 
 yourself. Wealth does not ensure happiness. Fear not for 
 me ; I am industrious, and shall work." 
 
 " Work !" repeated the old man bitterly, almost scornfully, 
 as if the word stung him; "there was a time, but, pshaw ! it 
 is past — it is past." 
 
 It was not until he had found himself at home, in that 
 very chamber of sickness, and surrounded by so many well- 
 remembered features and objects, that Lennard Blair quite 
 realised — to use a now favourite and accepted Americanism 
 — that he was face to face with death, and that his venerated 
 father, the only link between him and all their storied 
 past, was actually fading away. 
 
 Poor old man I for a time, long as the lives of most men 
 now in this fast living age of ours, he had been used to 
 most of the luxuries, and certainly all the comforts, of the 
 position he had forfeited by careless improvidence — a posi- 
 tion which his son might never know or enjoy ; and now 
 the very expense of his own funeral harassed him ! 
 
 It had been an idiosyncrasy of Richard Blair's character 
 that while he scorned the imputation of being obliged to 
 any man, alive or dead, he never had the slightest hesita- 
 tion to eke and add to his miserable fortune by the con- 
 traction of debts, the liquidation of which was a somewhat 
 ▼ague and hopeless prospect ; but a long career of days 
 upon the turf, of nights at play, of contested elections, of 
 security for fast friends, and of a hundred other follies, 
 had rendered such contractions easy and familiar. 
 
 All was well nigh over now ; doubts, debts, and difficulties 
 
THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH. 33 
 
 were at times forgotten, and then he would imagine him- 
 self again the Laird of Blairavon, and in the great manor 
 house, the turrets of which overtopped its old ancestral 
 woods. 
 
 Tall in figure, though attenuated and thin, he was a man 
 with a decided presence ; the once bronzed face— bronzed 
 as that of any old Grenadier of the Garde — by exposure in 
 the hunting held, by fishing and shooting, was pale enough 
 now ; the long mustachios were wliite as snow, and the 
 sunken eyes were keen and bright, sad and unnaturally 
 beautiful : and so, while Leunard lingered there, glances 
 were exchanged full of grief and affection, while they 
 clasped each other's hands, and for spaces of time remained 
 silent. 
 
 It was evident that, without physical pain, the grim King 
 of Terror was gradually loosing the " silver cord" of the 
 sufferer, who spoke again, but this time almost in a whisper. 
 
 " I have little to leave you, dear Lennard — oh ! so little, 
 my poor boy ; but you'll take care of Elsie if you can, and 
 old Steinie too ; give the poor fellow my Galloway cob — a wel- 
 come gift — he is getting frail now. Keep what remains of 
 this old place ; and never, while you have life, part with the 
 Charter Stone ; promise me this T 
 
 " I do promise you, father." 
 
 " Slender though my means, I ought to have insured my 
 life for you, Lennard ; it was the least recompense I could 
 have made you for my bad stewardship.'' 
 
 " Oh, do not talk thus !" entreated Lennard. 
 
 " Yes, insured it, that something might accrue to you — a 
 help, who knows, to regain the old place — Blairavon I mean, 
 lost — lost by me ; but the thought came too late, and the 
 premium would have ruined me." 
 
 " I am young and strong, father, so think not of me." 
 
 " It was my fondest hope, my golden dream, that by your 
 successful efforts, I might one day drive up the old elm 
 avenue that leads to Blairavon gate, its lord and master; 
 but this wild hope can never be realised by me, though by 
 you it may be, Lennard. Oh, it gaJls me, even in death, 
 the thought that he should be there " 
 
 "Who, father r 
 
 " That man Yere — the trickster, the money-lender, whose 
 sole knowledge of his family consists in the fact that his 
 father was born before him. But his path has been upward 
 in the world— mine downward; and so the gentleman and 
 the parvenu have changed places." 
 
 "Vather, father/' urged Lennard, somewhat shocked by 
 
 3 
 
34 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 tliis pride and bitterness at such a solemn time, "yon ex- 
 haust and torment yourself." 
 
 " I am weak enough — wicked enough it may be, to hate 
 the man for winning what I have lost; and yet — yet, on one 
 account would I forgive him." 
 
 " I have no great esteem for him either, father; his man- 
 ner at times has been both cold and repulsive to me," replied 
 Lennard; " but name the means of your forgiveness — your 
 wish, and I shall tell him." 
 
 "Let him marry his absurd-looking daughter — what a 
 shocking seat the girl has on horseback — marry her " 
 
 "To whom f 
 
 "To you, and give with her, all the land that once was 
 your own. I have heard your names already jingled together 
 by gossips hereabout." 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, dearest father, do not think or talk 
 of such things," said Lennard, glancing hastily round; but 
 fortunately they were quite alone. 
 
 Then he became silent, and felt a pang, even in deceiving 
 his father by silence ; but little could the proud and queru- 
 lous old man have understood the honest and true love that 
 was in his son's breast for Hesbia Vere, the daughter of the 
 man he despised, unjustly perhaps ; or how nervously Len- 
 nard shrunk from the fear that any advance on his part 
 might be coldly repelled, as the trickery of a mere fortune- 
 hunter, following out the path so bluntly and openly recom- 
 mended. 
 
 " However, it is perhaps better that this should not be," 
 added the poor old gentleman, in his antiquated ideas of the 
 world, of men, and manners. 
 
 " Why, father 1" asked Lennard, anxiously. 
 
 " Because it is by such ill-sorted alliances that the pure 
 sangre azul, the blue blood of old families, becomes diluted 
 and spoiled." 
 
 Lennard thought otherwise- but he was silent, and full 
 of unhappy and mortifying reflections. 
 
 " How much would Mr. Vere value the sangre azul of the 
 beggared and bankrupt Blairs of Blairavon T he pondered, 
 and then reproached himself, as if the question conveyed a 
 censure on his father, who, as the day passed on, sank lower 
 and lower. 
 
 " Don't be surorised, Lennard," said Mr. Blair, as if he 
 divined his son s silent thoughts. " My remarks are only 
 the kst kick of the old horse — the ruling passion strong in 
 death • greater and weaker men than I, have shown it. As 
 Scott has it, inexorable death 'has closed the long avenue 
 
\ THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH. 3$ 
 
 upon loves and friendsMps, and I look at them as through 
 the grated door of a burial-place filled with the monuments 
 of those who once were dear to me.' Aye, aye ; the long 
 avenue of love and friendship is closing now, and growing 
 dark— very dark, indeed, Lennard !" 
 
 There were times when his mind wandered, and he seemed 
 to be living over the past again, the years that had gone. 
 Then he would speak of his dead brother as a little play- 
 fellow, or he thought of Lennard as a child once more nest- 
 ling on the knee of his mother, who had long been dead ; 
 and then he would mutter of the Charter Stone, of his race- 
 horses and incidents of the betting-ring. 
 
 Day passed, and slowly and wearily followed the night of 
 anxiety ; the summer sun was gilding brightly the summit 
 of the highest peak of the green Pentland range, the sun of 
 the 1st of May. 
 
 " So, so," said Richard Blair, with a smile, as the light 
 seemed to pass out of his eyes, and his clammy grasp of 
 Lennard's hand relaxed ; " I have passed my last night on 
 earth, and this Beltane morning I am now going to rejoin 
 her who is not lost, but gone before me— your poor mother 
 who is dead and gone, Lennard — dead and gone !" 
 
 He spoke slowly, humbly, and prayerfully of a happier 
 land, and a glorious promise. There was a solemn yet fond 
 farewell on his pinched features, as he turned from the hills 
 that shone in the sunlight, to search for his son's face, and 
 then his spirit passed away. 
 
 As the lower jaw fell, and a mortal pallor spread over 
 those beloved features, there rose in the heart of Lennard, a 
 wild desire to clutch at something, to rush away for aid, 
 though all the skill of the College of Physicians would have 
 availed him nothing now ! 
 
 After he had closed the eyes of the dead, he hung caress- 
 ingly about the hodj—it was his father, still ; but Dr. Fever- 
 ley and the parish minister, Doctor ^Magnus Kirkford, a kind 
 and benevolent old gentleman, unclasped his hands and led 
 him away, leaving Elsie with the body, for she would permit 
 no strange hands to touch it. 
 
 If it be true, as some aver, that the eyes of the departed 
 retain upon their filmy retina the likeness of the last person 
 on whom they gazed, then assuredly was the face of Lennard 
 Blair impressed upon the closed orbs of the old man who 
 had just passed away. 
 
 " I thought myself a stoic," said poor Lennard, as he seated 
 himself in the sunlit parlour again ; " a stoic," he repeated, 
 for like many other young fellows of his age. he was rather 
 
 3-3 
 
36 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 fond of deluding himself into the idea that he was a man of 
 the world, and rather knew what life was ; " but this blow, 
 Doctor Kirkford, has unmanned me quite, and I feel as if I 
 were a little child again." 
 
 " A follower of Zeno at your years, my young friend, you 
 know not what you say !" replied the old clergyman, patting 
 him kindly on the shoulder. "What would the world come 
 to, if men grew stoics at five-and-twenty ? Yet man is but 
 a shadow, and life a dream. So the old man hath gone to 
 his long home, and his dream of life is over." 
 
 " There are times, my dear sir, when I feel my heart like 
 adamant, in a stupor of grief, stolid as Binny Craig ; and at 
 others, weak as the water that trickles down its sides." 
 
 " All that will pass away anon, my young friend ; for hap- 
 pily God soothes, and Time softens all things." 
 
 Reverently, and with an emotion of compunction, as if 
 he was committing an act of sacrilege, he removed from his 
 dead father's hand an antique signet-ring, with his crest and 
 motto thereon, one which the deceased had always worn. 
 Lennard placed it on a finger, little foreseeing then the part 
 that trinket was to play in the chequered drama of his future 
 life. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BELTANE DAY. 
 
 " You shall look no more, my young friend ! The pinched 
 features which seem to mock life rather than to emulate it, 
 are but an unpleasant memory of a beloved relation ; so let 
 the chamber of death be arranged without you." 
 
 So spoke kindly but emphatically the Reverend Magnus 
 Kirkford — one of those big, shrewd, warm-hearted, large- 
 brained, and earnest men, with long upper lips, full mental 
 organs, and keen perceptive qualities, who make their mark 
 in the Scottish Charch — as he drew Lennard away for the 
 second time from the pesence of the dead; then the young 
 man took his hat, left the house, and issued forth into the 
 fields. 
 
 The early May morning was beautiful ; the sim shone in 
 unclouded brilliance, far away masses of cloud, fleecy-white 
 or cream-coloured, floated over the green wavy slopes of the 
 Pentlands, casting their changing shadows on eminence and 
 ravine, while buried in thought, Lennard strolled slowly on 
 by a deep and grassv path beside a trouting stream, where 
 aged larches and chesnuts spread their branches overhead, 
 
BELTANE DAY. 37 
 
 throiigli whicli the sunsliine fell in golden flakes and flashes 
 on the reeds and water-lilies that floated on the current, and 
 on an occasional brown trout, as it shot with the speed of 
 light over " the unnumbered pebbles." Amid the solitude 
 there was no sound but the gurgle of the water, and the hum 
 of the mountain bee as it buried itseK in the drooping cui>s 
 of the pink foxglove or the Scottish bluebell. 
 
 The place was conducive to thought and to melancholy. 
 Lennard's old trouting stream was flowing then as it had 
 flowed when he, a child, had launched fleets of walnut- 
 shells upon its bosom — unchanging, unceasing, never fading, 
 shrinking, or growing older — and he gazed on its gurgling 
 current as on the face of an early friend. 
 
 The rattle of a train of heavily-laden carts passing along 
 the distant highway from Vere's coal-pits at the Mains of 
 Kaims, was a novel sound there ; but whichever way Len- 
 nard turned, some old and familiar object inseparably con- 
 nected with the past, Tsith the dead, or with his happy, heed- 
 less boyhood, met his eye. 
 
 In an adjacent meadow his father's old Galloway cob — 
 one of those sturdy little horses alleged by the Galwegians 
 to have sprung from the stallions of the wrecked Spanish 
 armada — was quietly grazing. Here were trees and yonder 
 hedges of his own planting. Two miles distant some light- 
 grey smoke curled up from amid the green woodlands, and he 
 knew that there stood the stately old mansion of Blairayou. 
 
 Nearer on the sunny hill-slope was the less pretentious 
 house of Oakwoodlee, with all the window-blinds drawn 
 closely down, according to the Scottish custom at such a 
 solemn time ; thus by its aspect seeming so indicative of 
 silence, of desolation, of death, and of the presence of one 
 who would never cross its threshold save once again, borne 
 slowly shoialder high. 
 
 Yonder was the Charter Stone, round wluch so man^ local 
 and family legends hovered. The great block of ages past, 
 where his ancestors and King James IV. had hobbed and 
 nobbed at a hunting-party, in the days when fords were 
 scarce and waters deep, and when bulls and stags were thick 
 as wild berries in the woods of Blairavon and Calder ; and 
 fm-ther off, at the base of Craigellon— an eminence of grey 
 rock, tufted vdth. yellow broom, lay the pond, the lochlet or 
 rushy tarn, in which, on a Beltane daj^ some thirty years 
 ago, his uncle Lennard had been found drowned. 
 
 °Could it really be true that Beltane, the ist of May, was 
 a day of destiny to his family 1 Did such an idea not seem 
 absurd in these our days of steam and telegi'aphy, of mental 
 
 ower, of progress, and of paper collars 1 
 
3i> THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Till informed by Elsie Graliam and Stephen Hislop, Len- 
 nard never knew the exact story of his uncle's fate; for 
 something of sorrow and mystery in it had always sealed 
 his father's lips on the subject. 
 
 It would seem that before the marriage of Lennard's 
 mother, Richard Blair and his brother had both loved her ; 
 but she preferred the elder, so the younger disappeared on 
 the day subsequent to the wedding, Beltane morning, greatly 
 to the grief and dismay of all the family. 
 
 In vain was the country searched, and in vain were the 
 innkeepers and ostlers on every route and line of road 
 examined. There were no railways in Scotland then, so the 
 guards and drivers of the mails were questioned, and the 
 church-doors of all the adjacent parishes placarded. In vain 
 were advertisements inserted in the public prints, for no 
 trace was found of the lost man till the exact day twelve- 
 months after his disappearance, when Steinie Hislop's otter 
 terrier discovered a dead body, — sorely decomposed, dis- 
 figured, and almost reduced to a skeleton — among the reeds 
 and broad-leaved water-docks, in the little loch under 
 Craigellon. 
 
 From various indications, but chiefly the remains of his 
 dress, it was declared to be the body of Lennard Blair ; but 
 whether in his grief and mortification he had committed sui- 
 cide, whether he had fallen into the loch by accident, or been 
 assaulted and flung in, no one could assume with certainty. 
 The circumstance that neither ring, purse, nor watch were 
 found upon him seemed to indicate some dark tragedy, more 
 especially as gypsies had been seen in the woods about the 
 time of his disappearance ; but it was a case in which 
 neither the sheriff nor the procurator-fiscal for the county 
 could make anything. So the remains were laid in the 
 grave of the Blairs, in the old and secluded churchyard of 
 Inchmachan, and the story, a " nine-days' wonder " while it 
 lasted, was speedily committed to oblivion by all save 
 Richard Blau', who sincerely loved his brother, and long 
 mourned in secret his untimely fate. 
 
 From gazing on Craigellon and reflecting on this dark 
 story, Lennard turned thoughtfully to that other land-mark 
 of his family, the great monolith called the Charter Stone ; 
 the retention of which was alleged by tradition to be so in- 
 separably connected with the fortune of the Blairs, that it 
 had actually occupied the dying thoughts of his father. 
 
 Without being vulgarly superstitious — though to give un- 
 due weight to idle fancies is often the peculiarity of the 
 German and the Scot — Lennard was too much of the latter 
 
BELTANE BA* 39 
 
 to be able to tlirust aside the old and Inbred feeling. Though 
 no believer in spiritualism, or other seini-extinct absurdities, 
 he thought that there mi^^ht be a world unseen by and un- 
 known to us ; a world, of which we have lost the key, or 
 never possessed it He thought that nature might have her 
 night-shade, as Mrs. Crowe has laboured hard to shew us, 
 and that there might be " more things in heaven and earth," 
 than Horatio dreamt of in his philosophy. 
 
 A standing stone of the Druid days, it had probably been 
 there ages before the Eomans had their flying camps on the 
 Mains of Kaims, and was covered now by masses of green 
 moss and russet-coloured lichens. 
 
 It was a strange coincidence, that on the day before his 
 disappearance, his uncle Lennard, when probably wandering 
 there in sadness and bitterness of heart, had carved his name 
 on the monolith, in some freak, or lest he should too soon 
 be forgotten, perhaps. 
 
 Such solid symbols of the possession of land as this Cliar- 
 ter Stone are not uncommon in Scotland. 
 
 They were often used to denote a right to the soil long 
 before written documents became general, and frequently 
 had — like the Pillar of Eefuge, at Torphichen— ideal privi- 
 leges attached to them. If a man set his back against the 
 monolith of this description in Girvan, he supposed himself 
 able to defy the law of arrest ; nor could cattle fastened 
 thereto be poinded for debt. Such, perhaps, was the Char- 
 ter Stone of old Dailly in Carrick, which the people, a few 
 years ago, would not permit to be removed lest misfortune 
 should fall upon the locality. Such was the stone of the 
 Glove Clach-Mannan; such, no doubt, was the famous old 
 Blue Stone, some twenty feet long, now buried in the Castle 
 Hill of Edinburgh ; the Clach-na-Cudden of Inverness, and 
 such was literally the Chair of Fate at Scone, the charter 
 stone of the kingdom. So the story of the Charter Stone 
 of the Blairs was simply an old Scottish idea, and not a soli- 
 tary one either. 
 
 There was an angry blush on Lennard's cheek as he 
 thought of how his practical, hard-working, every-day friends 
 in Liverpool would have laughed at the dreams in which he 
 was indulging, for he had now gone back, as we have said, 
 to the pastoral, lonely, and narrow world^ from which he had 
 emerged under the patronage of Mr. Yere ; but from his 
 reverie he was roused by a sound, and on the highway at the 
 base of the slope on which the great stone stands, there 
 dashed past an elegant mail-phaeton, a very " fast " looking 
 
I 
 
 40 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 affair, with patent lever break and plated axles, drawn by a 
 pair of spanking geldings fifteen bands bigli. 
 
 A lady was seated beside the gentleman who drove them, 
 and Lennard felt his jDulses quicken as they swept along with 
 wheels and harness flashing in the sun. They were chatting 
 and laughing, even loudly, together ; in one he recognized 
 Hesbia Vere, and in the other, beyond a doubt, his imperti- 
 nent fellow-traveller by the express train ; and now, deep 
 though his present grief, some very unpleasant and conflict- 
 ing thoughts occurred to him. 
 
 fle looked at his watch : the hour was early— barely ten 
 in the forenoon — so whither could they be bound 1 To some 
 ic-nic, steeplechase, otter-hunt, or other scene of thought- 
 ess happiness, no doubt, while he he turned in bitterness 
 
 away. 
 
 A great grief makes us selfish sometimes ; even so does a 
 great love ; so in the midst of his sharp sorrow Lennard 
 Blair had almost forgotten the existence of Hesbia Yere 
 since the moment his father had spoken of her. 
 
 Amid that sorrow worldly thoughts luould intrude them- 
 selves, for he knew that even the wreck of his father's for- 
 tune was embarrassed, and thus, that his own monetary 
 future was uncertain and shadowy. 
 
 Lennard freely spoke of these fears to Doctor Feverley, a 
 kind and good-hearted fellow, who now spent much of his 
 leisure time with him, for he pitied the loneliness of young 
 Blair, who had now not a near relation in the world. 
 
 Cards " of condolence, '^ glazed and embossed, per pow- 
 dered and plushed footmen, came promptly enough from 
 Blairavon and from the houses of old country friends, who 
 remembered Kichard Blair when he was the JSIaster of the 
 Foxhounds and hunted the county as it had never been 
 hunted since, and when he was the king of good fellows, 
 with his cellars and stables full ; but Lennard took their 
 " bits of pasteboard " for as much as they were worth, and 
 clung thankfully and gratefully to the companionship of the 
 ^oung Do(?tor. 
 
 The mode of half -intimacy and half -patronage in which he 
 was received at Blairavon and some of the other great man- 
 sions in the neighbourhood— he a scholar, a gentleman by edu- 
 cation, by conduct, and by diploma— had stung Frank Fever- 
 ley to the quick at first ; but he had an aged mother to sup- 
 port, — a mother who doted on him, and who conceived him 
 to be the greatest light in the school of medicine, one to 
 whom Simpson, Bell, and Hunter were as nothing ; so the 
 Doctor consoled himself by the old Scottish proverb, " ha 
 
BELTANE DAY. 4I 
 
 yat tliolis overcomes," and thus, for her sake, was the con- 
 queror in the end. 
 
 After the mockery of dining that day, as they lingered 
 over a bottle of fine old Madeira which Steinie had care- 
 fully aired in the sunshine, the Doctor strove to encourage 
 Lennard by his advice. 
 
 " Your good father, Mr. Blair, fought the battle of life 
 stm'dily, if not wisely, and now ' after life's fitful fever he 
 sleeps well.' But you will agree with me, that it is futile to 
 be regretfully looking into the past as he did ; for the past 
 can retiu"n no more." 
 
 " True, Doctor, true — it has ceased to be ours." 
 
 " So our task should be to improve the 2>^'^se7itj and to 
 hope for all in the future." 
 
 " And such shall be my course, Feverley." 
 
 " I am glad to hear you say so, for such has been mine, 
 and I have seldom known the system to fail." 
 
 " My two or three thousands are, I know, but a trifle in 
 the great capital of Yere, Cheatwood, & Co., but still I am 
 useful, especially with their Spanish and South American 
 correspondence. I work hard — at times I literally drudge 
 like a slave — and may well hope to treble and quadruple my 
 little sum in time. Then I have still this old jointure-house 
 and the land of Oakwoodlee, or a fragment of it ; after the 
 — the funeral we shall know all," he added with a quivering 
 Hp. 
 
 For us, says a brilliant female writer, "mercifully the 
 capacity of suifering is blunted as the years go by ; the men- 
 tal nerves lose their sensitiveness ; the mind, like the body, 
 gro'J7s hard ; and the agony of to-day will become the pass- 
 ing annoyance of twelve months hence." 
 
 Though mortifications, jealousies, bitterness, and slights, 
 incident to his subordinate position and slender means, were 
 nothing new to Lennard Blair, whose naturally generous 
 and fiery spirit they chafed and exasperated, sorrow was a 
 novel sufi"ering, and he felt that the death of his old father 
 was indeed a keen, keen tvreiicL 
 
 But one more scene remained to act out the domestic 
 tragedy before he could leave Oakwoodlee — the funeral day, 
 — and it came in due time. 
 
4* 1?HE GIRL HE MARRIED | 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DUST TO DUST. 
 
 AmonCt the various cards that littered the table, Lennafd 
 looked in vain for one of Hesbia Vere. 
 
 " This may be an oversight, or it may be that she deems 
 her father's message sufficient," thought he, and thus strove 
 to allay the gnawing doubt that was in his heart. 
 
 The day of the funeral came, and for long after it had 
 passed away did the whole scene float like a dream in Len- 
 nard's memory. The bright sunshine, the green summer 
 woods, the gathering friends, the tread of many feet where 
 all had been silence before, the bustle of carriages • the 
 gloomy hearse, with its mocking plumes, under which lay 
 the last real friend he had on earth ; the mattocks and 
 shovels ; and by the old grey churchyard wall, the deep 
 grave, that lay "lurking and gaping for its prey ! ' 
 
 The whole affairs of the day seemed a species of phantas- 
 magoria, amid which Lennard acted and moved like an 
 automaton. His situation was, to him, a novel one ; and he 
 was watched by a few sympathizing, and by many curious 
 eyes, for he was the last of an old and long-respected 
 family. 
 
 Eichard Blair's inordinate pride of the latter, his old- 
 fashioned estimate of the fortuitous claims of birth, which 
 jarred so oddly with his poverty, were all forgotten now ; 
 and those who had often laughed at him therefor, as they 
 gathered in the antique and plainly furnished dining-room, 
 to partake of a little luncheon before the '' lifting," as it i.s 
 locally phrased, looked up with real respect and melancholy 
 interest to the portraits of the Blair s of other times — full- 
 lengths from Blairavon, a world too large for Oakwoodlee— 
 stately fellows in wigs and long waistcoats or cuirasses, who 
 had fought for the Stuarts at Killycrankie, Dunkeld, and 
 Dunblane ; and powdered dames, whose patches, rouge, and 
 smiles had vanquished the heroes of Falkirk and Fontenoy, 
 of Minden and Quebec. 
 
 How intensely Lennard wished the whole affair over ! 
 
 There was the darkened or subdued light in the apart- 
 ment ; the groups of half-strangers, who whispered ol tho 
 weather, crops, and cattle, or sat moodily silent ; the cold 
 greetings and formal grasping of hands ; the solemn faces 
 made up for the occasion ; the greedy fellows in corners 
 enjoying the cold beef and wine or the cakes and whisky I 
 
BUST TO DUST. 43 
 
 Then the absence of nearly all religions ceremonial .seemed 
 irreverent to the dead, and shocking to Lennard, accustomed 
 as he had been for some years past to the service of the 
 Church of England, to strange and ritualistic forms, and to 
 prayers intoned by surpliced clergymen in red-lined Oxford 
 hoods. Yet poor old Doctor Magnus Kirkford's extempore 
 invocation came straight from his earnest and honest heart, 
 though it might have sounded painfully harsh, and perhaps 
 vulgar, in the ear of a dainty Oxonian Lutheran, who may 
 lisp his devotions with the aid of a diamond ring, a cambric 
 handkerchief, and parted hair. 
 
 Close by the minister stood the portly person of Mr. John 
 Vere (in his own estimation the first man in the parish) 
 musing, and playing with large handfuls of loose silver, a 
 custom he had when plunging his hands deep into his 
 trowsers pockets, for Vere was never known to have a 
 purse. 
 
 The prayei of the Calvinist was followed by a chapter 
 from Isaiah, a new and excellent feature amid the almost 
 barbarous plainness that marks the Scottish funeral ; and 
 then the train of carriages wended slowly through the shady 
 lanes and summer woods towards the old parish church. 
 Mr. Vere was, of course, in his own shov/y vehicle ; it 
 brought up the rear of the funeral train, which was accom- 
 panied by many of the old tenantry afoot, and each and all 
 were clad in that clean and sober black-cloth suit which 
 few of the Scottish peasantry, however poor or humble, are 
 without. 
 
 Among his neighbours ^f former times, Eichard Blair had 
 been deemed a line jolly fellow, a boon companion over 
 a bottle of Burgundy or whisky-toddy, a good rider across 
 the stifFest hunting country, never was known to " funk " 
 at a double ditch or a stone wall, and as one who always 
 rode straight to hounds. Many of those old neighbours 
 of the hunt were dead and gone, and among their sons 
 he had been viewed simply as a bore — a proud, soured, 
 cynical, and morbidly discontented old man ; whxile Len- 
 nard, though not blind to his father's defects of temper 
 and former failings, could view him now only through the 
 ioftening medium of grief and filial regard. 
 
 " Poor old Blairavon ! " he heard Ranald Cheyne of the 
 Haughs — a fine old ruddy-faced country gentleman — say 
 to another, as they dismounted at the churchyard-gate ; 
 " he used to be a two-bottle man in my day, and the king 
 of all good fellows ! " , 
 
44 THE GIRL HE MARRIED, 
 
 " Hush, Mr. Clieyne, that is his son," said Doctor Fever- 
 ley, who was near. 
 
 '' Little Lennard — I remember, I remember him now," 
 replied the other, as he shook Leonard's hand kindly, and 
 pressed him to come over and see him and his girls at the 
 Haughs, ■jvhere a knife and fork wonld always be ready for 
 him ; but Lennard answered vaguely, for he was in a land 
 of painful dreams. 
 
 ' Good Heaven ! how the time passes," resumed Mr. 
 Cheyne ; " it seems but yesterday when we had that slap- 
 ping run with the Linlithgow foxliounds at Boghall, when 
 only three riders out of a large field were in at the death — 
 your worthy father, Mr. Lennard, old Hislop, and myself. 
 Poor Steinie ! he is, I see, sorely cut up," added Ranald 
 Clieyne, who, though the head of one of the best county 
 families, kindly shook the hand of the old servant. 
 
 Several other foxhunting friends were there voluntarily, 
 for they still remembered the jolly fellow of other times, 
 and recognized in the dead Laird of Blairavon a person of 
 consideration and distinction, and their sturdy champion 
 against Parliamentary Reform and the Corn-law League. 
 
 The ancient church dedicated to a holy man of the olden 
 time— the Scottish Saint Machan, who died in the 9th 
 century — crowns a steep and grassy knoll, at the base of 
 which flows a brawling stream. Thick old copsewood^ 
 amid Avhich the white walls of the pretty manse are 
 
 Eeeping, surrounds the knoll, which is studded with old 
 eadstones half sunk in the long rank grass that sprouts 
 above the dust of many, manj^ ge^ierations. 
 
 Ruined at the storm of tlie Reformation, and repaired 
 amid the stern wars of the Covenant, the old stained glass 
 of its arched windows has long since given place to square 
 panes of green-bottle hue, with buUs'-eyes in the centre of 
 many ; but the deep doors of the Scoto-Norman period, 
 with their zig-zag mouldings and gTotesque carvings still 
 remain unchanged as when the Crusaders of St. John had 
 their banner floating on Torphichen, and Scotland's kings 
 held royal state in their noblest palace at Linlithgow. 
 
 The vault of the Blairs had always been on the south 
 side. This aisle, or side of every ancient church, had the 
 
 g re-eminence in memory of an old tradition, that when our 
 aviour died he had turned towards the south ; so, in great 
 churches, there stood the abbot's chair, and there most per- 
 sons of rank were buried. 
 
 As the funeral train, all on foot now, passed into the 
 buryinf^-ground, a young man who stood on the slope by 
 
DUST TO DUST. 45 
 
 wticli the gate is approaclied, and who seemed to be loiter- 
 ing there out of mere curiosity, lifted his wide-awake hat 
 and stood nncovered. 
 
 As this token of respect to the passing dead is little 
 known in the lowlands of Scotland— or has been so since 
 the Reformation — Lennard regarded the stranger ^dth some 
 interest, and recognized the saucy face, the fair mustachios, 
 and goatee-beard of his railway companion. 
 
 ^^''hat secret emotion was it that made him, even in that 
 solemn time of grief, shrink from this man's cold, enquii'ing 
 and impudent eyes — eyes in which he read, somehow, the 
 expression of enmity and future mischief, for over the face 
 of the loiterer there spread something of a sneering smile, 
 as he replaced his hat and turned away with his fishing- 
 rod. 
 
 Before the dark procession, shovel on shoulder, marched 
 old Malcolm ]SIattox, the grave-digger. Even he was sad, 
 and soberly clad in a venerable and rusty suit of black ; 
 and thus he led the way to the ground where the Blairs lie, 
 " whar he had ne'er made a lair," as he whispered to Steinie, 
 since Lennard's mother had been laid beside that unfor- 
 tunate brother, who had not loved her " wisely, but too 
 well." 
 
 The summer wind rustled the green leaves of the old 
 woods with a sighing sound, that mingled with the sobs of 
 a few aged people, who thought of all the past, and sorrowed 
 for the kind and passionate, but ruined old gentleman; and 
 those sighs of the wind and sobs of the people seemed, 
 somehow, to speak to young Lennard's grateful heart of the 
 rest his dead father had found. 
 
 At last it was all over ; ^Mattox's shovel had batted down 
 the last sod, and he had touched his bonnet and withdrawn. 
 Friends and followers were gone, and with a pressure of the 
 hand, and a general invitation to Lennard to "turn up at 
 Blairavon," ]Mr. Yere went towards his carriage. 
 
 " Come over," continued Hesbia's portly papa, " when- 
 ever you feel up to the mark^that is, tired of your own 
 companv, or a longing for ours." 
 , "Thanks " 
 
 " We've always a knife and fork — a spare cover or two 
 laid, you can never be in the way. Remember, luncheon at 
 2, dinner at 7 — our old time for both, as out at our villa on 
 the Aigburth Road. But my advice to you would be, to get 
 back to your desk ; nothing is so soothing to the nervous 
 system as business;" and, jingling the handfuls of silver 
 that lurked in the depths of his right pocket, he retired. 
 
46 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Lennard found himself again in the lonely parlour of 
 Oakwoodlee, with Elsie Graham hovering near him. 
 
 His father's old and well-worn arm-chair was opposite : 
 he did not occupy it, but preferred to sit and fancy the out- 
 line of the old man in it, and think that son:ething of hi? 
 presence still hovered there. His silver-headed cane was in 
 the chimney-corner close by, and under the chair were still 
 his slippers and his favomite old otter terrier. 
 
 For reasons of his own, Lennard Blair was in no haste to 
 return to Liverpool ; he passed several days alone, seeing 
 nothing even of Feverley, nothing of his friends at Blair- 
 avon, and hearing of Hesbia only that which he had rather 
 was not told him. 
 
 Lennard found, as he had expected, that save the house 
 and its furniture, the old family pictures and mementos, 
 with the little piece of coppice, the shooting thereof, and 
 the right of fishing in the adjacent stream, notliing remained 
 to him ; that there were many debts to pay, and that now 
 more than ever must his chief dependence be on his desk 
 in the house of Vere, Cheatwoed & Co. But he experienced 
 somewhat of a shock, together with a glow of gratitude, 
 when he spoke of the future of his two old dependents. 
 
 " You have saved something, I hope, Steinie ] " said he 
 anxiously, to old Hislop. 
 
 " Saved, Mr. Lennard 1 " repeated Steinie, confusedly. 
 
 " You have been so long with my father, Steinie — you, and 
 Elsie too." 
 
 " Oh yes, Mr. Lennard," answered Elsie, curtseying and 
 answering for both ; " Steinie and I have both saved and 
 laid by for a rainy day ; but alack ! it has proved one of 
 wintry storm to us." 
 
 " I am so glad of your thrift ; those savings will help you 
 now." 
 
 " No muckle, Mr. Lennard, I fear," sighed Steinie, as the 
 colour deepened on his old and withered face. 
 
 " Steinie ! " ejaculated Elsie, in a tone of reprehension. 
 
 And now, after a time, and much circumlocution, Len- 
 nard learned that, during his father's protracted illness or 
 decline, these two faithful old creatures had spent all their 
 kittle hoardings in procuring for him much that he would 
 have been unable to obtain for himself ; and that he had 
 
 £assed away in ignorance of where the money came from ! So 
 lennard resolved that, in future, Oakwoodlee should be, as 
 it had hitherto been, their home, with such an allowance as 
 he could spare them out of his pittance at Liverpool. 
 Fierce and stubborn had been the long struggle between 
 
DUST TO DUST. 47 
 
 the old pride of the Blairs and their new poverty, ere 
 Richard, whilom of Blairavon, would permit his son, with 
 the money he inherited from his mother, to engage in mer- 
 cantile pursuits under the auspices of the more wise and 
 thrifty speculator who won the acres which he, himself, had 
 not the sense to keep ; but, luckily, Lennard liked business, 
 and prudently had been most attentive thereto ; viewing it, 
 perhaps, as the beginning of an end — as the means to an 
 ultimate consummation. 
 
 Yet now, when again in his native scenes, — when after 
 the weariness of incessant work, the ceaseless grinding, the 
 hurlybmiy, din and rush of life in Liverpool, by street and 
 dock, by road and river, he felt how grateful indeed was the 
 calm of Oakwoodlee, and the pure breeze that came from 
 the great slopes of the Pcntland Hills, laden with the frag- 
 rance of the purjDle heather and the golden bells of the 
 gorse bushes, while the scenery around the old house, the 
 older church of King Davids days, the trouting burn, and 
 the quaint bridge that spanned it, filled liis heart with soft 
 and gentle emotions. 
 
 The yellow broom, the hawthorn pink and white, the 
 gorgeous laburnum and purple lilac, the g-uelder rose, with 
 its snow-white bells and tender green leaves, were in all 
 their beauty now ; while the violet with its sweet perfume, 
 the pansy with its velvet leaves, the lily and tulip, were 
 duly developed under Steinie's care in the little garden. 
 
 Old Elsie had one great weakness of character. 
 
 Displaced from what she conceived to be her high estate 
 as housekeeper at Blairavon, she loathed the lucky Yeres 
 as veritable intruders, as if they had won the place by the 
 sword, by fraud or force, instead of in the open market ; 
 and poor Miss Yere came in for her share of especial 
 dislike. 
 
 " As for that madam. Miss Hesbia," said she, a few days 
 after the funeral, when Lennard was smoking moodily at 
 the parlour window, " she'll never come to any but an ill 
 rjid. 
 
 *' Of whom are you permitting yourself to talk so freely 
 Elsie r 
 
 "As the poor laird that's dead and gone used to call 
 her, the proud parvenoo's daughter, which means, I suppose, 
 something that s dishonest." 
 
 " Hovy' — why, what on earth do you mean, Elsie V asked 
 Lennard with undisguised asperity in his tone. " Do you 
 refer to Miss Yere V 
 
 " To who else, Mr. Lennard ! To see her in kirk, either 
 
48 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 here or at Inclimacliaii, flaunting her ribbons and laces, 
 smoothing her hair, fitting and refitting her dainty kid 
 gloves, and jangling her bracelets. And then she whispers, 
 and leers, and laughs so with that gentleman " 
 
 " Which gentleman — who T asked Lennard with forced 
 indifference of manner, thinking of him of the mail-phaeton 
 and white wide-awake. 
 
 " Oh any one — any one, a' are welcome fish that come into 
 her net." 
 
 Aware as he was of Hesbia's flirting proclivities, the 
 remark stung Lennard deeply. 
 
 " And on the Sabbath," resumed Elsie. " My only 
 wonder is ^" 
 
 " Is what ]" 
 
 '• That nae judgment has yet fallen upon her ; but her 
 pride will have a fall, sae sure as my name is Elsie 
 Graham !" 
 
 "Do not talk nonsense, or be so uncharitable, Elsie • 
 and leave me just now, as I would rather be alone," replied 
 Lennard, unwilling that this sharp-sighted old woman 
 should detect perhaps his secret thoughts, which were far 
 from pleasant ones,^ for she had mentioned incidentally more 
 than once that Miss Vere had been seen riding, driving, 
 ftketching, and rambling about " mair than was beseeming," 
 with a gentleman who was on a visit to her father. 
 
 He knew her weakness, her vanity — great almost as her 
 beauty ; and jealousy, with anger, grew strong within him, 
 for in his frame of mind, weakened by recent sorrow and 
 thus easily impressionable, suspicions soon became convic- 
 tions, as his heart began to change its grief for bitterness. 
 
 "I shall take Yere's advice, and start for Liverpool to- 
 morrow — plunge again into the whirl of business, of dissi- 
 pation perhaps, and forget all about her ! I must push on 
 somehow," he would say to himself ; " I must make more 
 rapid steps towards my El Dorado— towards fortune. I 
 cannot be a subordinate, a quill-driving clerk, for ever, 
 like poor old Envoyse and thousands of others, who have 
 let slip that chance which every man has at least once in 
 life. 80 Liverpool be it again !" 
 
 And yet he Imgered on at the lonely and almost voiceless 
 house of Oakwoodlee, in the hope of seeing Hesbia Vere, 
 though the complications of his position with her father 
 made his love for her a matter of difficulty to develop or 
 declare, much more so than if she had been the daughter 
 of any other man, even with all their great disparity of 
 means and prospecta for the future ; and yet he could not 
 
DAY DREAMS. 49 
 
 deny himself tlie half -desperate hope, the pleasmg flattery, 
 of creating for himself some lasting and permanent interest 
 in her heart ere it might be lost to him for ever. 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 DAY DREAMS. 
 
 Slowly passed the days while he lingered at home, where 
 the change was a great and complete one, away from the 
 bustle of Liverpool, with its theatres, concerts and fiov/er- 
 shows, regattas and balls, the rush of cabs and carriages, 
 the rattle of omnibuses and lumbering vans or laden lorries ; 
 away from its miles of docks and mighty fleets of merchant- 
 men ; aAvay from protested bills, discount and interest, 
 legitimate acceptances, custom-house clearances, ledger and 
 daybook, bills of lading, charter-parties, telegTams, letters 
 and files, invoices and inventories, and all the bother and 
 slang of business, which are as Sanscrit or Oordoo to the 
 upper ten thousand of her Majesty's lieges. 
 
 Away from the dingy counting-room in that narrow alley 
 off Canning Place ; away from the crowded quays, the 
 taverns, back parlours, tea-gardens, and billiard-rooms ; 
 away from Sundays on the river and trips to Birkenhead ; 
 away from cosy dens, where quiet little dinners were had, 
 and where clerks and confidentials like old Mr. Envoyse 
 took the air and drank their beer or Cape Madeira, and 
 compared notes of firms and failures, while pressing the 
 tobacco into their pipes or rolling up their cigarettes, with 
 knowing glances and eyes half-closed the while. 
 
 Lennard Avas away from all this now, and back once more 
 to the green, sequestered world of his boyhood. 
 
 The great house at Blairavon, he had been told, was full 
 of visitors, scarcely one of whom he had seen as yet ; but 
 he heard frequently of Hesbia, whose name was mixed up 
 with that of a certain mysterious baronet, who rejoiced in 
 the odd patronymic of Sir Cullender Crowdy. The fear of 
 rivalry grewstrong in his heart ; and as he brooded over 
 what was now, together with all that might have been — the 
 past, the present, and the future — he felt for the time no 
 very good feeling towards the great world that lay beyond 
 the windows of Oakwoodlee. 
 
 He remembered that ^liss Yere had called frequently 
 there— almost daily — during his father's last illness. 
 
 WTiy did she abstain from coming now % To be sure, 
 
 4 
 
^O THE GIEii HE MARRIED. 
 
 there was no lady to visit ; but Hesbia despised all prudery, 
 and was not wont to stand greatly on trifles or punctilio 
 either. 
 
 Days passed, during wliicli he never ventured near Blair- 
 avon ; an uncertain emotion of half doubt, half childish 
 pique at Miss Vere, withheld him. 
 
 Inspired by his father's teaching, Lennard Blair, though 
 by no means a visionary, but rather a practical and hard- 
 working fellow, had more than once, when standing under 
 the stately old trees, the leaves of which had fallen on 
 generations of his ancestors, looked with intense regret at 
 the old mansion of Blairavon, at the fair estate of fertile 
 field and grassy meadow, hamlet and hedgerow, stretching 
 away to the lulls, so rich and beautiful in aspect — he 
 looked, we say, but sadly and wistfully, for never would it 
 be his, as it had been his sires' in the days of old ! 
 
 It was gone, irrevocably gone, by no fault of his ; and 
 as he turned away, a vague, unuttered vow would rise to 
 his lips. 
 
 Dreams — golden ones certainly — of more active means of 
 attaining his ultimate hope, and of his father's desire, would 
 come upon him, as he lay stretched on the green sward, 
 gazing into the depths of the blue sky, while the old rooks 
 cawed monotonously in the great gnarled trees close by. 
 
 Of how many adventurers had he heard who, in the fertile 
 wastes of Australia, by the Swan lliver, the land of kan- 
 garoo skins, of the vine, and the olive, or in some remoto 
 isle of the Pacific or Southern Sea, discovered their "El 
 Dorado," where gold and gems and treasure were amassed 
 as in an Arabian tale "? 
 
 True ; but, suggested Prudence, of how many, many mcre^ 
 who strive only to fail and die, do we hear nothing] 
 Courage, energy, perseverance, and bodily strength were 
 required for such a vague and hard career. All these he 
 had ; but there was Hesbia— the light round which he had 
 fluttered like a moth — could he relinquish the chance, the 
 slender chance, of winning her love, or at least of relieving 
 his heart by the declaration of his own 1 
 
 The progress to fortune, at his desk in the dark alley oflf 
 Canning Place, would be a slow one. 
 
 " Oh, the heartless weariness of working eternally for 
 other people, and never for one's self !" he exclaimed bitterly, 
 as he struck his hands together. 
 
 Yet it was there, in that dingy Liverpool alley, he had 
 garnered up his hopes of realizing an independence — of 
 winning— dared he hope she would wait for him ] — Hesbia 
 
DAY DEEAMS. 5 1 
 
 Vere. He had always pictured a visionary ideal, as few 
 yoimg men have not, or what the woman he would love 
 ought to be ; and noiv he thought that he had found this 
 ideal realised in her. 
 
 "But how am I ever to propose to this proud and 
 coquettish girl," thought he, "with my monetary recom- 
 mendations — my paltry share in the firm, my small salary, 
 and the acre or two round the old Jointure House. With 
 much of hope, but no certainty in the future, could I go to 
 that most mercenary fellow, old Vere, and ask for his only 
 daughter and heiress T' 
 
 Then his father's somewhat selfish words occurred to him : 
 " Let him marry his absurd-looking daughter to you, and 
 give with her all the land that was once our own,' -- and he 
 shivered at the recollection of how they sounded, and at the 
 thought of how his passion might be viewed by Hesbia as 
 well as by her father ; and he nervously shrunk from the 
 double chance of rejection and ridicule. 
 
 " Her regard for me, if she has such, or her toleration of 
 my attention, may be a whim, and a whim only ; but, with 
 all her father's regard for her, how would he view even that 
 passing fancy T' 
 
 And Lennard smiled bitterly to himself. 
 
 He heard a light step— a shadow fell across him, and he 
 found two bright and beautiful eyes bent Avith a quizzical 
 expression on his own, as a tall and very handsome girl 
 stood beside him, with the bird-of-paradise plume in her 
 smart hat dancing in the wind, while she twirled with a rapid 
 little hand the parasol that rested on her plump and rounded 
 shoulder. 
 
 A large and showy girl, with a creamy complexion and 
 rich colour, a nose retrousse in the slightest degree, bright 
 brow^n eyes and soft brown hair, full red lips that were 
 rather large, perhaps, and a general complexion and expres- 
 sion of great brilliance ; she was Hesbia Yere, dressed in a 
 most becoming summer-suit of plain Holland linen trimmed 
 with blue braid ; but her gloves, boots, collar, brooch, and 
 earrings were all in admirable taste. 
 
 " Miss Vere !" exclaimed Lennard, as he sprang to his 
 feet ; " I beg pardon for not seeing you approach." 
 
 " Or hearing me either," said she ; " I have been watching 
 you for the last half -hour." 
 
 " Impossible !" 
 
 "For ten minutes—two at least Are you composing 
 poetry, or what 1 " 
 
 " Poetry !— no— but why 1 " 
 
 4— a 
 
52 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 " You were muttering and talking to yourself." 
 
 '* I have no one else to talk to." 
 
 " And whose fault, sir, is that pray 1 *' 
 
 " My own perhaps, Hesbia.'^ 
 
 " Miss Vere, say, please ; we cannot play at flirtation and 
 .^iLighing love-making among you sobersided Scotch folks, 
 as we may do at home." 
 
 ''Play at love-making !" repeated Lennard, with mingled 
 sadness and annoyance ; " it would soon be playing with 
 fire, if one attempted it with you." 
 
 Oh, don't try to flatter me, please, or I may get up a 
 ^)eautiful blush." 
 
 "You have been too much occupied ever to think of 
 me, poor lonely wretch, in the old house yonder," said he, 
 oifended by the levity of her bearing. 
 
 " Occupied, Mr. Blair ! with what, or with whom do you 
 mean'?" 
 
 " Visitors — one visitor in particular, by all accounts." 
 
 " I am watched, then, it seems, though I am accountable 
 for my conduct to no one but papa. But now, don't become 
 disagreeable," she added, with one of her brightest and most 
 tender smiles, as she took his arm uninvited ; " come with 
 me for a little walk, and I shall tell you why I actually was 
 about to visit Oakwoodlee." 
 
 " You were coming to visit me, Hesbia 1 " 
 
 "No, Lennard— but, for the future, remember that I am 
 Miss Vere, and you Mr. Blair— I was going but to leave my 
 own note in parsing — this, an invitation for you to dine with 
 us on the day after to-morrow, at six o'clock — you'll come, 
 of course." 
 
 " With pleasure," said Lennard ; and then he added, 
 gloomily, I suppose I must." 
 
 "Musf? Oh, fie! jealous again— poor Lennard— I beg 
 pardon, Mr. Blair, I mean ^ why, the gentleman you are 
 thinking of is only my cousin." 
 
 " Your cousin a baronet 1 " 
 
 " A baronet — my cousin Travice ; Mr. Blair, what arc you 
 talking about 1 " she asked, with a flush of irritation ; "but 
 don't be so jealous, I implore you," she added, with one of 
 her sweet waggish smiles. 
 
 " Oh, Hesbia, that I had the right to be ! " 
 
 " Men can be jealous whether they have the right or not" 
 
 "There can be no jealousy without love," said the young 
 man in a tremulous voice, and in a manner there could be 
 110 mistaking. 
 
 " Vou are in error," said Mis.-i Vere, pari-ying the speech 
 
DAY DKEAMS. 53 
 
 or unheeding its inference ; "jealousy may exist with per- 
 fect hatred. My cousin and I are together in a dull country 
 house ; he compliments my singing, which you have often 
 told me was excellent ; he praises my seat on horseback, 
 which you have admitted was admirable ; he finds it heavy 
 w^ork swaying me into the saddle, which., I think, you have 
 discovered also, — but he adjusts my foot so nicely in the 
 stirrup ! He pays me all sorts of attentions, just as you. Sir 
 Cullender Crowdy, and a hundred others have done and may 
 do, and yet don't mean anything. I take them for what 
 they are worth; and every pretty girl — you too have ad- 
 mitted that I am pretty, Lennard — does precisely the same." 
 
 Lennard sighed. Borne away by her rattling manner, and 
 bewildered by the strange charm of her presence and her 
 brilliant beauty, he pressed against his side the hand that 
 rested on his arm, and half thought the pressure was re- 
 turned upon it ; but Hesbia was too subtle in her coquetry 
 to do a very decided thing. 
 
 At intervals Lennard had heard of this cousin Travice 
 Cheatwood, but never for good, and always for evil and 
 mischief. He had heard of Hesbia being frequently with 
 him at public places in Liverpool, but singularly enough, 
 he and Travice had never met. He afterwards found that 
 when he had received certain hints of engagements, or more 
 plainly that he w^as not to Adsit ^Mr. Vere's villa near Aig- 
 burth, on particular evenings, they were invariably the 
 occasions on which " Cousin Travice " was expected ! 
 
 The memory of those suspicions came back to Lennard's 
 mind unpleasantly now. 
 
 Latterly, for some extravagance in his career at college, 
 Travice Cheatwood had been completely banished from his 
 uncle's family circle, so that it w'as a source of extreme an- 
 noyance to Lennard, his being domiciled at Blairavon now. 
 
 " Still pouting, Mr. Blair 1 Well, I shall call you Len- 
 nard, if by so doing I can smooth your wrinkled front. Let 
 us be as good friends here as w^e usually are at Liverpool, 
 for there I always find you charming. I am wilful, naughty, 
 tiresome " 
 
 " Hesbia r' 
 
 " Yes, tiresome at times ; but you will find me charming, 
 too, for all that ; and, like myself, you have rather an apti- 
 tude for fun and flirting." 
 
 " I am in no mood for fun." 
 
 " Of course not, just now, my poor friend." 
 
 " And as for flirting, you are the last girl in the world 
 ¥fith whom I would ever think of doing so." 
 
54 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 " The last — 1 — why 1 " she asked, with real surprise and 
 inquiry in her clear, deep hazel eyes. 
 
 His voice trembled as he spoke, and the colour deepened 
 in the cheek of Miss Vere, while gratified vanity flashed in 
 her eyes ; then her heavy lids drooped, and she said, with a 
 merry laugh, 
 
 " I shall not seek to lure you into danger ; so come, don't 
 let us grow serious, for you know how I detest serious peo- 
 ple ; and in the country for you and I to become so would 
 be equally unbearable and absurd." 
 
 Lennard sighed with real annoyance at the hopeless or 
 studied frivolity of her manner, as they walked slowly on- 
 ward through a shady and grassy lane. 
 
 There are some persons in the world who are said to love 
 whoever, or rather whatever, they pity. Hesbia for the time 
 was one of these, and in reality at that moment— though an 
 egregious flirt — she felt that she actually loved the sad- 
 eyed and lonely Lennard Blair of that broken home, that 
 desolate old house at Oakwoodlee ; but she would have 
 shrunk nervously from aflording him the slightest inkling 
 as to this temporary state of her thoughts. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HESBIA VERE. 
 
 The beauty of Hesbia Vere was certainly great and striking ; 
 but though perfectly English in its character, dangerous in 
 its quality, sparkling and brilliant, it was not aristocratic. 
 She had a remarkable bearing ; but it was the confidence 
 derived from a consummate knowledge of the possession of 
 that beauty and the admiration it excited, combined with 
 wealth and utter freedom of thought and action. 
 
 The county dames declared that Miss Vere was not lady- 
 like, yet admitted her attractions, while the gentlemen 
 averred that she was decidedly a " stylish girl," and that 
 phrase expressed all. 
 
 She had a singular fascination in the brightness of her 
 smile, in the modulation of her voice, and in all her ways, 
 particularly in a charming playfulness of manner ; yet she 
 was in heart and soul a coquette. A year or so younger 
 than Lennard Blair, she was more than ten years his senior 
 in experience of life in many of its phases. 
 
 Hesbia had little love for the country in general, and none 
 for Blairavon in particular. She rather liked the idea of 
 
HESBIA VEEE. 55 
 
 " papa having a place in Scotland," because the Oiieen had 
 made the possession of such a retreat fashionable, and it 
 gave her something to talk about in Liverpool. She cer- 
 tainly liked the somewhat baronial aspect of the old manor- 
 house, especially when it was full of visitors ; but she hated 
 the people around, for the old county families looked coldly 
 on " the parvenus " at races and elsewhere. The ladies, she 
 thought, were barely polite — almost insolent — to her, though 
 her appearance, style of dress, her carriage, grooms and 
 horses, were all certainly in most respects second to none 
 that the three Lothians could produce. 
 
 The county dames disliked Hesbia Vere not the less that 
 their sons and husbands both liked and admired her ; for 
 the girl was artful, and a student in the art of attracting 
 attention to the most minute degree. She knew exactly 
 when and how to look, to smile, and to blush; how to leave 
 a sentence unfinished, so as to give it double power or mean- 
 ing ; to droop her fine eyelids and iben look up with soft or 
 tender and childlike enquiry or with a bold and flashing 
 glance ; to play with her rippling hair or her gloves ; to let 
 her tiny foot, in its marvellous kid boot, peep out precisely 
 at the proper time ; and she knew well when to adopt the 
 tones of playful reproach, of gentle pleading, and of most 
 singular pathos. 
 
 Bright and beautiful — most beautiful — were those soft 
 brown eyes of Hesbia Vere ; but, strange to say, their smiles 
 were neither pure nor holy. Cast together in the country 
 with such a girl as this, after their first intimacy, — a girl 
 with such a singular amount of individuality in her charac- 
 ter and bearing,— poor Lennard Blair was certain to be help- 
 lessly lost. 
 
 Clasping her gloved hands upon his arm for a moment, 
 Blie said, — 
 
 " Though glad to see you now, Mr. Blair, I must deplore 
 the sad event which so suddenly brought you hither." 
 
 " And I have to thank you for many a kind visit to the 
 poor old gentleman before it took place." 
 
 " I dare say you long expected it V 
 
 " Yes— but when it did come— — " 
 
 " Ah, of course— yes, yes — we know all that," interrupted 
 Hesbia, whose mind had no turn for grave thoughts ; " but 
 I am glad you have come to lighten the days of my — own 
 banishment, for such I consider life here." 
 
 " Even in the sweet season of summer 1" 
 
 " Even in summer," she said, as they paused. 
 
 Two pretty hands cased in Houbigant's softest kids were 
 
$6 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 playing with liis Albert cliain and the charms that dangled 
 .thereat. The position had its charm, and the moment was 
 opportune, though he dared not attempt to make more of 
 it ; the very land he looked on, the giant elms overhead, no 
 longer his own, but hei^s, somehow forbade it. 
 
 " Yes, I weary here,'^ she resumed, as they again walked 
 onward ; " but we have got a delightful box of books from 
 Mudie's. Shall I send you over some ?" 
 
 " Thanks ; but 1 am sick of books, and while here would 
 rather ramble on the green hill-slopes or in the leafy woods.'' 
 
 " How romantic ! you are surely very much in love " 
 
 " In love— oh, Hesbia !" he began impetuously. 
 
 " Yes — with Nature. My cousin Travice was to meet me 
 here at the end of the Willow Loan, as you Scotch people 
 queerly call it, but I see nothing of him.'^ 
 
 Lennard's countenance fell, and without perceiving this, 
 —for she was scanning all the neighbouring fields and the 
 sunny landscape, — Hesbia resumed : 
 
 "What do you think Travice said about my foot, Mr, 
 Blair f 
 
 " That it is very handsome, of course." 
 
 " Yes ; and that if I will lend him a shoe, he will fill it 
 with champao-ne and drain it before all the gentlemen at 
 the first hunting dinner." 
 
 "Afooir\ 
 
 " Fie ! he is only my cousin ; and what cousins say or do 
 can matter little." And as she spoke she smiled from under 
 one of the daintiest parasols that ever shaded two bright 
 coquettish eyes from the glare of a brilliant sun. " You 
 must learn to master your piques, or they may master you." 
 
 " In many ways I am not my own master, and in more I 
 am a slave !" said Lennard, with a sudden gnish of bitter- 
 ness ; " and so there are times when I find the duty of obe- 
 dience somewhat of a task, and rail at fortune." 
 
 " We are all subordinate or inferior to some one in this 
 world, !Mr. Blair," replied Hesbia rather sententiously. 
 
 "True." 
 
 *' But you talk oddly of duty, of obedience, of fortune : 
 are you not a i)artner in papa's iirm T 
 
 " Yes ; but to so small an amount that I am scarcely re- 
 cognised as such, especially on 'Change ; and am neverthe- 
 less obliged to be your papa's most obedient servant for tlie 
 sum of two hundred pounds or so per annum. Of course he 
 pays his butler an equal sum." 
 
 " Lennard Blair, do you not know that you are becoming 
 very unpleasant V 
 
HESBIA VEP.fi. 57 
 
 •'Hesbia!" 
 
 " And positively quarrelling with me," she exclaimed, and 
 her half-closed eyes glittered with pleasure rather than per- 
 
 Elexitj', for she saw that he was inspired by a jealousy of 
 er cousin Cheatwood. 
 
 " I am not quarroUing with you, Miss Vere ; nothing 
 surely could be further from my mind, though there was a 
 momentary bitterness in it." 
 
 "Whyf 
 
 " I was strangely brought up. Miss Vere ;" said Lennard 
 colouring, " and I was taught to think very differently from 
 your city-bred boys, who are generally thoroughly practical, 
 and not apt to cherish illusions." 
 
 " I understand — oh, yes ! I know that your papa, poor 
 man ! always despised mine, because he had made his 
 money in trade." 
 
 " Despise r 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Ah, do not use a term so harsh." 
 
 " It was exceedingly behind the age, such a sentiment : 
 but I know, too, that he actually hated him, simply because 
 papa had acquired by purchase the lands and estate which 
 he had not the prudence to preserve for himself, and, more 
 than all, for you." 
 
 " Ah, had he but done so," Lennard was beginning with 
 a glance of tender meaning, when she again interrupted him 
 by saying, rapidly,— ^ 
 
 " All this was not just ; but the truth is, Mr. Blair, that 
 our country gentlemen and great landholders, if not politi- 
 cians, farmers, breeders of fat pigs and great poultry, or 
 something of the kind, fall into foolish or vicious habits, 
 and lose that on which so many set a store — their landed 
 estates ; their ' dirty acres,' as they are so fond of terming 
 them." 
 
 The dark expression which had been gathering on Len- 
 nard's face deepened, when Hesbia sharply withdrew her 
 arm from his, on the sudden approach of a gentleman who 
 came slowly sauntering along the footpath, and whom she 
 introduced to Lennard as her cousin, Mr. Travice Cheatwood. 
 
 They bowed, lifted their hats, and rather coldly surveyed 
 each other ; for Mr, Cheatwood proved to be his companion 
 of the night express — the cool, impudent, and intrusive pas- 
 senger from Liverpool ; and now there was the old super- 
 cilious smile on his lips, but none in his eyes, as he coaxed 
 his fair moustache and long goatee-beard, and saidj— 
 
58 THE GIEL HE MAERIED. 
 
 " How d'ye do, Mr. Blair 1 Glad to see you, to make your 
 acquaintance. Happy 'm sure." 
 
 " We have met before." 
 
 "Ah, yes— of course. In the Liverpool train I think it 
 was." 
 
 " We begun rather unpleasantly." 
 
 " Let bygones be bygones. I think you a thoroughly good 
 fellow," said Cheatwood, presenting Ms hand, which Lennard 
 shook; and, as he did so, he could see that though there was 
 frankness in the words there was none in the manner of the 
 speaker, in whose cold grey eyes he read an expression of 
 concealed dislike, if not hostility, which led him to feel that 
 an enemjr was before him; for, through Hesbia's art, she 
 had contrived to excite her cousin's jealousy of their friend- 
 ship. 
 
 " And now that I have met Mr. Cheatwood, I shall not 
 trespass further on your time, or lure you further from home, 
 Mr. Blair," said Hesbia ; " but how, are you alone, Travice ] 
 I thought the baronet was with you." 
 
 " Luckily I contrived to give him and that little lawyer 
 fellow, Dabchick, the slip in the coppice, and come here 
 without them." 
 
 " And why were you so long coming V 
 
 " You wearied for me V said he gaily. 
 
 " You flatter yourseK — absurd ! No such thing ! But 
 why I say V 
 
 " Because an old muff in a livery coat, whom I met herd- 
 ing a cob, scarcely understood me when I inquired the way 
 to Mr. Blair's diggings, which people hereabout call Aik- 
 wudlee it seems. Out of London, I find it is all Scotch, or 
 some such dialect that no fellow can understand." 
 
 " Travice !" exclaimed Hesbia, reddening, for she felt that 
 her cousin's tone was brusque and offensive, and knew that 
 the " muff" referred to, was poor old Steinie, who had been 
 attentively grazing his dead master's pony. "Then Mr. 
 Blair," she added, presenting her hand, " you will dine with 
 us on the day after to-morrow. It is no party, remember; 
 of course, how could it be, on a two days' invitation — only 
 ourselves and Lady Foster, whom you will find charming, 
 though a sad woman, who never flirts, like me." 
 
 " I shall be most hapi)y ; I need not write V 
 
 " Not unless you wish to have the pleasure of inditing the 
 finiest and pinkest of notes to me — ta, ta — good bye." 
 
 And kissing her hand with a bright glance, swiftly shot — 
 but concealed from the watchful Travice, by the skilfid 
 mode iu which she managed her parasol— a glance full of 
 
HESBIA VERB. 59 
 
 hidden meaning to Lennard, she took her cousin's arm, pat- 
 ting it with a gentle pressure, and swept away. 
 
 The parting glance, with all its bi-ightness and meaning 
 fondness, failed, however, to reassm^e Lennard Blair. 
 
 Why, thought he, did she with "Such nervous haste with- 
 draw her arm from his arm, on this cousin's approach ? 
 
 " The birds of the air, the beasts of the field, the fishes of 
 the sea have their instincts, and man has his." So by a 
 mysterious intuition — some instinct swift as thought or light 
 — Lennard felt that while he hated this man, he was in turn 
 hated, and that Travice Cheatwood was doomed to be his 
 bane, his enemy. He could not account for this intuitive 
 and mutual antipathy, but he read the certainty in the cold 
 keen eye of Cheatwood, and heard it in the tone of his voice. 
 It was the old aphorism of Dr. Fell realised, and he felt like 
 Romeo, — 
 
 " My mind misgives, 
 Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, 
 Shall bitterly begin his fearful date 
 With this night's revels. 
 
 So this was the Travice Cheatwood of whom he had so 
 often heard among the clerks in Canning Place as a black- 
 leg, gambler, and tabooed jockey, whose life since boyhood 
 had been a career of shrewd betting, sharp gambling, horse- 
 racing, cock-fighting, frequenting casinos, billiard rooms, 
 hells, and haunts of " the Fancy," with every species of low 
 dissipation. He was the only nephew of Mr. Vere, and son 
 of the late Mr. Cheatwood, whose share in the business had 
 long since been bought up, though the name was retained 
 in the firm, as it had been an old-established one in Liver- 
 pool, and was thought to sound well ; for more than thirty 
 years no name was better known on 'Change than "old 
 Cheat," as he was named by his cotemporaries. 
 
 A reckless fortune-hunting cousin, passably good-looking, 
 profoundly confident too, with a consummate knowledge ot 
 the world — Lennard's jealousy was roused to fever heat ! 
 
 He knew that he had left Hesbia in dangerous hands, 
 and the knowledge of her notorious propensity for flirtation, 
 with the freedom of intercourse, the facilities afforded by 
 their relationship and mutual residence in a large old 
 rambling house like Blair&von, made him feel that he was 
 on the eve of losing her for ever, if indeed he had not loat 
 her already. 
 
 / 
 
6o THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DOCTOR FEVERLEY. 
 
 An implied but undeclared lover — an understood but an 
 unaccepted one, unaccepted in any other sense than as a 
 species of privileged angler, Lennard Blair felt all the 
 doubts and miseries of his position most keenly now, and 
 resolved that he would, if possible, end them on the evening 
 of the dinner at Blairavon ; and that if all hope failed him, 
 then he should start at once for Liverpool. Indeed, he 
 did not see very well how he could remain away much 
 longer from his desk in Canning Place, and there was little 
 doubt of Mr. Vere taking the first opportunity of giving a 
 pretty pointed hint to that effect. 
 
 On the day subsequent to the interview just narrated,. 
 Elsie Graham summoned him to the dining-room windows^ 
 to see a cavalcade which swept on horseback along the road 
 by Craigellon. There were Hesbia Vere, and another lady, 
 attended by several gentlemen, among whom the old ser- 
 vant indicated the baronet, who seemed to be a tall, thin, 
 ungainly man, Travice Cheatwood, and one or two others, 
 adding, — 
 
 " Four father, poor man, Mr. Lennard, used to say that in 
 her saddle Miss vere had the worst seat of any lady in the 
 county ; and all the county kent how good a judge he was . 
 of such things. Set her up, indeed, wi' her laces and braws ! 
 But truly, as the Scriptures say, 'pride goeth before de- 
 struction.' " 
 
 All day Lennard had been conning, sorting or burning old 
 letters and family papers, the cares and correspondence of 
 the dead — mouldy and dusty relics of affections that have 
 passed away — old mementos of a thousand kindly descrip- 
 tions were there, among flue and cobwebs, in the drawers of 
 his father's escritoire ; antique trinkets and locks of hair — 
 mute symbols of hearts that once were faithful, passionate, 
 and true ; a broken fan, a glove rolled in tissue-paper, a 
 silver pomander ball, with its secret and forgotten story. 
 
 Pell-mell among farriery and veterinary bills, and racing 
 memoranda of Ptichard Blaii-'s plumy days, cuttings from 
 Bell's Lije of hunting meets and so forth, were many letters 
 of his uncle Lennard, written home when a boy at school or 
 a student at college, and there were letters, too, which to 
 the present Lennard seemed faded and old, yellow and 
 strange, for they were those of his parents in the days pf 
 their co^ship. 
 
DOCTOR FEVERLEY. • 6l 
 
 AVould children yet iinboni, in tlie days of after years, be 
 looking with the same melancholy interest over the letters 
 of himself and— well, yes, Hesbia Vere 1 
 
 So he closed the escritoire, and began to ponder over his 
 position again. 
 
 Often, as on the preceding day, had he trembled on the 
 verge of a declaration, which was perhaps expected j but he 
 shrunk from the attempt Avith an emotion of pride that 
 mingled with a nervous timidity of ridicule or rejection. 
 And noiv, for all that he knew to the contrary, some one of 
 those guests who were at Blairavon — the dapper little law- 
 yer, who bore the absurd name of Dabchick ; the baronet, 
 who was half suspected of being an adventurer ; or Travice 
 Cheatwood, who was both adventurer and knave, — might be 
 crossing the nibicon and making the wealthy flirt his own . 
 So, " tide what may," Lennard resolved that the evening of 
 the dinner should, if possible, end all his troubles, and place 
 their intimacy on a more defined basis, or destroy it alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Anything was better than this painful uncertainty. 
 
 Seated at a window of the dining-room overlooking the 
 little garden where old Steinie, who usually filled up his 
 leisure time there, was raking and trimming, Lennard Blair 
 had just come to this satisfactory state of determination, 
 when a hand was laid on his shoulder, and the cheerful 
 voice of Doctor Feverley said— 
 
 " Still mooning, Blair. Come, rous^ yourself, my friend ; 
 I have some news for you." 
 
 "Xews— of whatr^ 
 
 " I am to dine at Blairavon, and you too, my note men- 
 tions. Miss Yere adds that in a postscript, where ladies 
 have the reputation of referring to that which is uppermost 
 in their thoughts," Doctor Feverley continued. 
 
 " Your presence will certainly add to my pleasure." 
 
 " Who else are going ; do you know ] " asked Feverley, 
 who had always an eye to practice. 
 
 " None but their visitors. Miss Yere said." 
 
 " Ah ! you have seen her, then ? " 
 
 " She brought me her own note." 
 
 " Ah ! " and Feverley paused with a quizzical expression 
 of eye. " I feel didl this evening ; have been worried all 
 day with two bad cases at the colliery village ; a miner's 
 head terribly contused by a fall in the great pit, and another 
 of fracture through the condyles of the humenis, so I have 
 just dropped in to smoke a pipe with you, thinking you 
 misht be lonely." 
 
62 THE GIRL HE MAREIEb. 
 
 Kow, Steinie Hislop who, on seeing the Doctor arrive 
 had hastened from the garden and assumed his shabby old 
 livery coat, to act a new part, appeared in the room, and, 
 unordered, brought the decanters of port and sherry to the 
 table, just as had been his wont in the old Laird's time, 
 when Cheyne of the Haughs or any other visitor dropped 
 in ; and Feverley being, as he said, low spirited, did not 
 require much^ pressure to help himself to a glass of the 
 fine old madeira, which had been for years in its cobwebby 
 bin— one of the chief treasures of Richard Blair's diminishec' 
 household and curtailed luxuries. 
 
 Though the " Vere^ set" were not the most distinguished 
 in the county, the invitation to dine at Blairavon had been to 
 poor Doctor Feverley a source of much real pleasure and satis- 
 taction. Mr. Vere had been one of the two or three grand 
 parochial patrons who occasionally employed him. to physic 
 their servants, or even a child or so in some very mild case 
 indeed ; for in every serious one, though Feverley was a 
 very clever fellow, metropolitan skill was alone relied on ; 
 but here had come a special invitation to a friendly and 
 family dinner. 
 
 It made the poor and modest young fellow as happy al- 
 most as a young girl going to her first ball • and even now 
 his affectionate old mother — her face radiant with pleasure 
 — ^was busy in preparing, with her own tremulous hands, 
 one of three dress shirts of which her son's thrifty wardrobe 
 could boast 
 
 Perceiving that, in his flow of spirits, the Doctor ^as dis- 
 posed to rally him about Hesbia Vere, Lennard prepared at 
 once to turn the tables on him. 
 
 " There is a Lady Foster — a very pretty woman, shiB 
 frould seem — residing at Blairavon," said the Doctor. 
 
 " And rich, no doubt. Won't vou try your luck, Fever- 
 
 " What, I— a poor dispensary doctor 1 " 
 
 " Why not 1 you are just the veiy man. Let us see ; the 
 '.inconsolable affliction of a widow of twenty, besieged by 
 a lover of thirty,' that is about your mark, Feverley. ' 
 
 " How you run on, Blair ; you forget that, unfortunately, 
 there is a barrier." 
 
 " A canonical one 1 " 
 
 " Rather," said the Doctor, curtly. " The lady has a hus- 
 band." 
 
 " By Jove ! I thought she was a widow from the way 
 Hesbia " 
 
 "Whor 
 
DOCTOR PEVERLEY. 6^ 
 
 " Miss Vere, I mean, spoke of lier as being a sad littl(? 
 woman, who never flirted, and so forth." 
 
 " I have not met with either her or her hnsband. They 
 have just arrived at Blairavon on a visit, and appear to be 
 total strangers in this part of Scotland." 
 
 " Well, apart from her, I thhik a wife would be a great 
 advantage to a parochial medical man. It is a recommen- 
 dation for an extended practice, to be married, isn't it, 
 Feverley ] " 
 
 Feverley sighed and shook his head, while a gloomy ex- 
 pression came over his usually open and cheerful face, 
 
 " My exchecxuer is not a flourishing one, and the mineral 
 well is a severe opposition to its increase. I have my 
 mother — dear old soul ! — to attend to my wants, while I 
 attend to hers, and I am as happy as — as " 
 
 " A king," suggested Lennard. 
 
 " Happier than some kings, perhaps, for I am now per- 
 fectly content." 
 
 " But marriage " 
 
 " Don't talk of it, I pray you ! I was once nearly trying 
 my luck that way, but I shall never, never do so again." 
 
 " The bottle stands with you." 
 
 " Thanks," said Feverley, helping himself. 
 
 " Did the lady jilt you 1 " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Poor Feverley — she died then 1 " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " She married another 1 " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " What on earth happened 1 " asked Lennard, with grow- 
 ing surprise. 
 
 " Another married her." 
 
 " What difference does that make 1 " 
 
 " Not much to the ear, perhaps ; but there is a great dif- 
 ference in the sense," replied Feverley, as he drained his 
 glass of wine, to fill and inadvertently empty it again, as if 
 to drown some unpleasant thought. "In many ways I have 
 endured much in my time Blair ; yet I am not many years 
 older than yourself, being barely thirty ; but there have been 
 hours when, in the bitterness of my heart, the lines of Mil- 
 ton occurred, and his words rose to my lips, — 
 
 " ' Did I request the maker from the clay 
 To form me man? ' 
 
 and when I have asked of myself, why I was born into the 
 world, and for what purpose V 
 "And was a love-affair the cause of this T 
 
64 THE GlEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 *' A lo^'e-afFair, but one full of profound sorrow, suffering, 
 and wrong— yea, and sin too," said Feverley, in a broken 
 voice, while covering his face with his hands, though the 
 twilight had deepened so much that the wainscoted dining • 
 room was almost dark, and the grove of Scottish firs without 
 stood like giant trees of bronze against the ruby and amber- 
 coloured sky of the west. 
 
 " It seems hard for you here, to have a life of loneliness 
 before you," said Lennard, after a pause. 
 
 "jSTot Venus herself could tempt me into matrimony now," 
 replied Feverley, with energy ; "it would seem but a second 
 marriage in which I could ofier only the mockery of love — 
 all freshness of feeling having passed out of me." 
 
 There was a considerable pathos in the voice of the young 
 Doctor; and Lennard, circumstanced as he was with Hesbia 
 Vere, felt a kindred chord vibrate keenly in his breast. 
 
 " Feverley," said he, " I beg your pardon, if, by a heed- 
 less jest or thoughtless question, I have brought a forgotten 
 sorrow back to memory." 
 
 " Forgotten — oh, it can never be forgotten ! But how 
 could you know what you had probed *?" — he breathed 
 quickly as he spoke — " how could you see the shadow that 
 has been thrown upon my life, or the dear memory that is 
 enthroned in my inner heart, and shall never pass from 
 thence but with my life V continued Feverley. 
 
 Lennard was sincerely grieved for the emotion he had 
 excited ; and therefore, to draw the Doctor from his sad 
 thoughts, he spoke of the dark story of his uncle Lennard : 
 of his being found in the lochlet at Craigellon, on the alleged 
 unlucky day of the family ; of his own great secret — his 
 love for Hesbia Vere, his fears, and doubts of its success, 
 and so forth. 
 
 " But she whom I loved and who loved me so well— too 
 well, perhaps— was a very different girl from Hesbia Vere," 
 said Feverley, bluntly. 
 
 " Different f' said Lennard, not quite liking something in 
 the Doctor's tone. 
 
 " Ah. yes ; Mildred Montgomerie was altogether another 
 style 01 girl." 
 
 " In appearance 1'* ^ 
 
 " In face and stature, in manner and bearing. Miss Vere 
 has the rqiutation of being a beautiful coquette— whether 
 justly so, I know not ; she is a brilliant and sparkling gir], 
 ^vith admirers ever by her side ; but she that I — I loved 
 was a soft and tender, a fragile and gentle girl, as unlike 
 
T?fiE COUSIN LOVEilS. 65 
 
 Hesbia Vere as a modest little violet differs from a full- 
 blown moss-rose." 
 
 There was something still more unpleasing in this speecn 
 to Lennard, but he knew not what to say ; and now, after 
 a pause, Feverley, who, under the influence of the wine, 
 good fellowship, and a real liking for Lennard Blair, had 
 been seized by one of those fits of communicativeness 
 which possess all frank fellows at times, said, — 
 
 " I'll tell you my story, Blair, and how it came to pass 
 that I am but a poor country practitioner, content to 
 vegetate here at Blairavon ; and when you have heard it, 
 I shall be surprised if you do not think my love-affair was 
 a very sad one." 
 
 So what the young Doctor related deserves, at least, an 
 entire chapter to itself. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE COUSIN LOVERS. 
 
 My father was, like myself, a medical man, and though, 
 like myself, he wrote the honourable letters M.D.,F.R.C.P.E. 
 after his name, he had a difficulty in procuring a lucrative 
 practice ; and, having married early a Miss Montgomerie, 
 the pretty sister of a brother student, he was fain to accept 
 an appointment in Jamaica, and there I was born, in the 
 land of sugar, coffee, cotton, and the yellow fever. 
 
 I was one of five children, but tke sole survivor ; as the 
 rest of the little brood perished in succession, of ailments 
 peculiar to the island ; so I was sent home to be reared and 
 educated by my maternal uncle, whose residence, Monkwood 
 Moat, is an old baronial place of the Scottish and English 
 fighting times, situjited in a beautiful part of the Merse. 
 
 Though young Montgomerie of the Moat never forgave 
 his sister for marrying the poor medical practitioner who 
 had been his friend at their old Alma Mater, and with 
 whom he had chummed for years, and " ground" together 
 for many a weary night, he could scarcely decline to receive 
 her son, the poor little boy whom she had named Frank in 
 honour of him, and who had come so far to avoid the pests 
 of which his brothers and sisters perished. 
 
 My uncle, Frank Montgomerie, was not a wealthy man • 
 he had not taken high degrees at college, and he too had 
 made a poor marria^ge ; but then his wife was a daughter of 
 one of the best families on the Scottish Border, for he was 
 
 5 
 
66 THE GIEL HE MARHlED. 
 
 a man who, like the late Mr. Blair, set prodigious store 
 upon crests and mottoes, on name, heraldic honours, and so 
 forth ; and, being vain of his descent from the Montgo- 
 meries of Skelmorlie and Eglinton, had learned to look with 
 lofty contempt upon his sister's husband, the poor doctor 
 who was broiling among planters, niggers, and maroons in 
 Jamaica, and who could only boast of the common pedigree 
 of all, from that respectable old kitchen gardener who 
 handled his spade in Eden. 
 
 If his marriage had been a high one, it had neither 
 proved lucrative nor happy. His wife w^as much of an 
 invalid, and died in giving birth to their only child, a 
 daughter named after her, Mildred Home Montgomerie, and 
 iince that event my uncle had secluded himself in the old 
 house at Monkwood, where he rarely saw visitors, and more 
 rarely went abroad. 
 
 So there were _we, the cousins, a boy and girl — I a year or 
 so older than Milly — the only source of noise, merriment, or 
 smiles in the lonely old house, which was to be, for an 
 indefinite period, my home. We soon learned to love each 
 other as brother and sister, or something of that kind ; not 
 that any one taught us to do so, for we required no artificial 
 tutelage.; it came to us naturally, this child-like love— this 
 sentiment of mutual regard and endearment. 
 
 Though somewhat cold in his manner. Uncle Frank was 
 always kind to me, and would often smile kindly when he 
 saw me playing about in the same rooms and places where 
 his sister — now far, far away — had lived her happy girl life. 
 
 Happy, happy were those years of my boyliood at the old 
 house of Monkwood, in the companionship of that sweet 
 cousin Milly ! 
 
 The mansion-house is situated amid the most beautiful 
 portion of the Merse, some miles inland from its coast of 
 rocky precipices, and under the shadow of Clinthill, the 
 highest peak of the lovely Lammermuir range. 
 
 I shall never see it more, for never again could I look on 
 the old Moat of Monkwood ; yet in all its features and 
 details the beloved place comes vividly before me, with its 
 half -castellated outline, and a turret or two roofed wdth grey 
 stone, peeping up above the chesnut groves. 
 
 Around it are silent tarns or lochlets— remnants they may 
 be of the vast marsh from which the county took its ancient 
 name — with masses of water-lilies floating on the surface, 
 and islets of bulrushes where the coot and heron linger. 
 Dark clumps of old forest, too, are there, such as that round 
 the Haii'-stane Rig, varying the great expanse of green 
 
*HB COUSIN LOVERS. (i^ 
 
 pasture land, or" the upland slopes, where, when the lapwing 
 comes, the harbinger of spring, the young grain first begins 
 to sprout, and where it first ripens into golden yellow, in 
 the early harvest time. 
 
 In the heats of summer we found plenty of shady places 
 wherein to lurk amid the old forest trees, or the groves of 
 drooping willows, by the little lakes where we were never 
 weary of wandering in quest of childish adventiu'es, or of 
 nuts, berries, and butterflies ; or setting lilies or harebells 
 afloat upon the mountain-burn that came brawling from 
 whence and to where we knew not, though it was only 
 flowing from the green slopes of the Lammermuirs towards 
 the German sea. 
 
 Happy times were those ; we had the same tutor, the 
 same tasks, the same occupations, and the same amusements. 
 Milly never gTew weary of them ; neither did I ; nor did we 
 ever weary of each other. 
 
 Llilly was a rosy, laughing girl then — the picture of a 
 joyous, blooming Hebe; her dark eyes sparkling with health 
 and happiness, and her dark hair falling in a cascade about 
 her ivory neck and shoulders. 
 
 A_ little time — you may foresee the period that was 
 coming— and we would sit silent for hours, while I played 
 with that dark silky hair, and heaved strange sighs in my 
 heart, and felt deep unuttered thoughts of — I scarcely knew 
 what. But childhood was passing away, an older phase of 
 existence followed it, and we were beginning to wake from 
 our dream that all the world was contained in Monkwood 
 Moat, and that the hemisphere was bounded by the Lam- 
 mermuirs and the Frith of Forth ; and so were launching 
 into a newer, a more delicious, but dangerous dream of life, 
 that made each, and each only, all the world to the other. 
 
 I was sixteen when my West-Indian remittances began to 
 fail ; my uncle Montgomerie cared little for that ; but one 
 morning a letter arrived with a seal and edging of black. 
 
 My father, whose face and figure were little more than a 
 vague and dreamy memory now, was dead ! 
 
 Over-worked in his practice when the cholera had broken 
 out, he had died at his post in a great public hospital, and 
 my mother was left in such mea.gi-e circumstances that she 
 resolved not to return home until she had realized some 
 money or property my father had, or was to have had, and 
 so forth — I never could make it out exactly ; but for five 
 years she remained in Jamaica battling with the law courts 
 in the hope of achieving this realization, and prior to her 
 return many changes had taken place with me. 
 
 5-2 
 
68 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 By the time this crash came, I had learned to love my 
 cousin Mildred with all the strength and depth of an enthu- 
 siastic and imaginative boy's first passion, and certainly her 
 beauty was calculated to inspire it. By the time she was 
 eighteen, much of the girlish bloom of her hoydenish days 
 had been toned down, or changed in character. Her face 
 was small, pale, and colourless, very white a,nd pure, for 
 somewhat of her mother's delicacy had descended to her, 
 and the transparent cheek would flush upon the least excite- 
 ment. She had marvellously delicate and minute features, 
 eyes of the softest and deepest violet, with lashes of won- 
 drous length, that imparted to her face a charming 
 expression«ef modesty and gentleness. 
 
 Her figure was, perhaps, somewhat too petite. She was 
 timid among strangers, though we rarely saw any at Monk- 
 wood, and she seemed to cling with confidence only to me, 
 for her father's manner was more repelling than prepossess- 
 ing ; yet he was intensely vain of her beauty, and of the 
 delicate form of her hands, feet, and ears, which were, he 
 would pompously say, " such models of perfection as could 
 only come of the blood of the Montgomeries of Skelmorlie 
 And Eglinton." 
 
 We had learned to know that we were no longer children, 
 and had become lovers, when the time so dreaded arrived 
 that I had to choose a line in life — a profession, an occupa- 
 tion. Like other boys I had my visions of soldiering, of 
 sailoring, and of having, like Robinson Crusoe, a snug little 
 island of my own, with Milly as a companion in lieu of 
 Friday ; but those schoolday whims were past now^ and so 
 I resolved to adopt an avocation which has ever led the van 
 in all works of charity and benevolence — and nowhere more 
 nobly than in our native Scotland — the practice of medicine, 
 and to be, as my poor father had been before me, a doctor. 
 
 So sweet Milly Montgomerie and I were to be separated 
 at last ! 
 
 I remember the time when our aiiy bubble burst — when 
 the fairy palace in which Ave had been dwelling passed 
 away like that of Aladdin, and our first real sorrow came 
 upon us. 
 
 Summer had come. Over the green braes and upland 
 slopes the old limes and chesnut-trees were casting their 
 deepest shadows ; the white water-lilies and the dusky 
 coots were floating on the lovely blue tarns ; the wild 
 flowers and the guelder-roses bloomed beside the old deep- 
 rutted roads, where, in other times, many an English beeve 
 
THE COUSIN LOVERS. 69 
 
 and hirsel had been goaded northward by the wild moss- 
 troopers. 
 
 The atmosphere was laden with all the rich odours of the 
 season, and all nature around Monkwood Moat looked as it 
 ever did in its summer beauty and the sun shone as brightly, 
 but the hearts of Milly and I were sad. 
 
 " You know, Milly darling," said I — for the thems of the 
 5weet relationship, the more tender tie that was to be one 
 day between us, had long since been exhausted — " that I 
 have now learned to deplore the want of some useful pro- 
 fession, -vvhich would render me — I should say us, dearie— 
 us independent." 
 
 " But what need have you of a profession, or for slaving 
 at college to learn one '? " she asked impetuously. 
 
 " All men do something for their livelihood, Milly." 
 
 " All men w^ho are poor." 
 
 " And am I rich V I asked, sadly. 
 
 " You have me," she replied, laying her head upon mj 
 shoulder ; and I covered her little face with kisses. " Lis- 
 ten to me, Frank," she resumed, after a pause ; " we have 
 Monkwood Moat— at least papa has— and is not that quite 
 the same?" 
 
 " I fear he does not think so — and certainly never would 
 if he knew all. In his heart, and in his strange antiquated 
 ideas, he despises the name and blood I inherit from my 
 poor father, and has repeatedly hinted that I should push 
 my way in India, under the patronage of his friend Mr. 
 Wharton, or in some of the distant colonies." 
 
 " No — no — no ! this is not to be thought of for a mo- 
 ment. Here have we stayed for years, and here shall we 
 ever stay, dear Frank ; yes, all the days of our lives, as the 
 story-books say, and watch papa as he grows old. It will 
 do him good to see us ; oh, so happy, as we shall always 
 be!" 
 
 This scheme was not an impossible or iinpleasing one ; 
 but our fate was not in our own hands. Uncle Montgomerie 
 had detected enough to make him resolve on our immediate 
 separation • and long after that dread time came to pass, it 
 was my delight, when alone, to turn the soul inward, and 
 live over and over again the last interview we had together, 
 and to treasure the words and the wishes of my generous 
 and guileless cousin Milly. 
 
 He had seen enough, I say, to bring about my immediate 
 departure for Edinburgh, as he had other views concerning 
 his daughter, whom he was actually reserving as a wife for 
 his friend Judge Wliarton, who was returning from India 
 
70 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 with wealth that was reputed to be enormous ; and though 
 he made me a tolerably handsome allowance for my mainte- 
 nance at college, he proved in the end, the true melodramatic 
 father with a " flinty heart.'' Sternly he said to Milly,— 
 
 " Too long has Monkwood been a scene of fooling for a 
 moonstruck youth, with a spasmodic attack of the tender 
 passion for a silly girl who is barely past that age when 
 every damsel fancies herself in love with her music- master, 
 however stout, old, or married the man may be ; and I have 
 sworn," he added, " that though the nameless beggar. Fever- 
 ley, stole my sister, the beggar's son shall not add to the 
 injury by stealing my daughter ! " 
 
 These were bitter words ; and when they were communi- 
 cated to me in a letter from my poor mother — who was still 
 lingering in Jamaica after that imaginary property, for my 
 behoof rather than her own— they sank deeply and sorrow- 
 fully into my heart. 
 
 However, I knew nothing of my uncle's mood of mind ; 
 and looking forward only to college vacation, when I should 
 be free to rush back to Milly and the happiness of Monk- 
 wood MoPut, I matriculated at Edinburgh in October, and 
 became one of the most energetic of the many medical stu- 
 dents hi the Academia Jacohi VI. Scotorum Regis; on the 
 grand deep archways, the stately Doric columns, and the 
 vast and silent quadrangle of which I was wont to gaze with 
 something of profound respect — aye, and love too ; for there 
 on its balustraded terraces, and amid the hum of those lofty 
 and crowded class-rooms, had my father, in all the hope 
 and ardour of youth, studied and toiled before me ; and 
 now he wa6 lying, the victim of his professional enthusiasm, 
 far away in a West-Indian grave. 
 
 Self-conceit, the curse of your provincial Scotsman and 
 Englishman too, was not, perhaps, my greatest peril ; though 
 I could not believe myself to be quite the paragon my mo- 
 ther thought me in childhood, and Cousin Milly, during the 
 happy years at Monkwood Moat. 
 
 I remember that, on the very day I matriculated, I gave a 
 jeweller in Princes Street a lock of Milly's dark hair to put 
 in a pretty locket for me. "Whether the trinket I selected 
 was too small, or that I was rash in leaving the treasured 
 tress with him, I know not now ; but on receiving back the 
 lock, it was severed, cut in tivo ; and then a dim foreboding 
 came over me that something of evil to our love would hap- 
 pen, and little more than boy though I was, I trembled in 
 my heart. Was this a weakness, or an intuition of the fu- 
 ture ? 
 
THE COUSIN LtJVERS. 7I 
 
 God only knows. 
 
 From that day forward, I plunged deep into study, into 
 hard reading, and attendance at tlie classes for the prelimi- 
 nary examination in arts. It was some time before disgust 
 in the dissecting-room was mastered by curiosity, enthusi- 
 asm, and a genuine wonder at the marvels of Nature. I 
 \ad a chum who read with me, and we ground each other 
 up in everything that has been published of late years, 
 from " Fyfe's Anatomy," and " Bell, on the Bones," to the 
 seventh edition of " Quain's Elements." 
 
 Milly and I corresponded in secret, through the medium 
 of the village post-office ; and we both looked forward im- 
 patiently to the vacation time, which came in due eourse ; 
 but brought with it a letter from my uncle, informing me 
 that I was to spend the period between it and returning to 
 my studies either in Edinburgh or at Monkwood as I chose ; 
 but if at the latter I should be alone, as he and Milly were 
 to pass that portion of the year in the south of England. 
 
 This was a shock and a disappointment on which I had 
 not calculated. To linger on in Edinburgh amid the dust 
 of its hot and empty streets in summer was galling in the 
 extreme ; but still more galling would it be to go back to 
 lonely Monkwood House, where — Ichabod, Ichabod, the 
 glory had departed ! — Milly was no longer there. So I re- 
 mained in our northern metropolis, a dreary residence for a 
 total stranger. 
 
 But the summer passed, and brown autumn came with its 
 studies and its work, and I made the most rapid progress at 
 the university. 
 
 My uncle now fairly gave me to understand, when one 
 day I met him in town, that for the future — at least until I 
 passed and graduated — I was not to present myself at Monk- 
 wood. I understood completely what that meant, and from 
 that moment there was a species of secret warfare main- 
 tained between us. 
 
 I know that I was in error and to blame for acting as I 
 had done, but the love of Milly blinded me to every scru- 
 ple, and on every occasion in which I could spare time, I 
 took the rail for Berwickshire, and contrived to have many 
 a tender and delicious interview with her, unknown to all 
 save ourselves, at our old haunts, by the tarns where the 
 lilies floated and the wild ducks squatted among the bul- 
 rushes, by the burn that gurgled under its hawthorn bowers 
 from the Lammermuirs towards the sea, by the Hair-stane 
 Big, where the men of the Merse held their battle trysts of 
 old, and in the deep dark groves of Monkwood. 
 
72 TUB GIEL HE xMA^RRIED. 
 
 We had but one hope, tliat when I graduated, I should b« 
 more thoroughly my own master, and then we should be 
 married ; and each time that I left her, with her tears and 
 kisses lingering on my cheek, I returned to the drudgery of 
 study with fresher ardour, thinking only of the happiness 
 that awaited me when the term of probation was complete ; 
 when I could write the magical letters " M.D." after my 
 name, and my gentle, delicate, and ladylike Milly would 
 take upon herself the vows of a wife, and, more than ever, 
 be all the w^orld to me. 
 
 These hopes and fears kept me safely amid all the dissi- 
 pations and follies incidental to a student's life at the great 
 Scottish university ; and erelong I had but one session to 
 IDass before my final examination. 
 
 I can well remember the terrors of the preliminary, though 
 the most simple one ; from "writing an account extending 
 to not more than two pages," of my usual place of residence 
 (in which I accurately described Monkwood, not omitting 
 cousin Milly, to the great amusement of the professors), on 
 through Latin, French, and German, and so forth, till I 
 came to chemisty and the institutes of medicine. 
 
 One morning two letters of evil import reached me ; for 
 misfortunes are said never to come alone. One was from 
 Mildred, informing me that I had a rival in the field, in the 
 person of her father's old friend Mr. Philip Wharton, ^ who 
 had been long a Sudder judge in India, a political resident 
 at the court of his Highness the Nizam of Rumchunder 
 Chowry, for turning whose afiairs topsy-turvy till the inter- 
 vention of the Company's troops became necessary, he had 
 been made a K.S.I., and now came home with an enormous 
 fortune. 
 
 The little cloud that was no bigger than a man's hand on 
 our horizon, was fated to spread fast after this. 
 
 The second letter announced the return of my mother 
 from the West Indies, broken in health and prospects, for 
 the affair of the property (whatever it was) had turned out 
 a total faihire, and that for the future all her dependence 
 must be on me. 
 
 Still I did not let my courage sink, but worked away with 
 renewed ardour, for Milly's subsequent letters were always 
 reassuring. Wharton, a man old enough to be her father, 
 and yellow as a marigold, had proposed for her hand in the 
 first week of his arrival, and, of course, had been refused ; 
 but it was evident that he and her father were in league and 
 consultation about the matter. He had a leave of two years 
 from India, and could give her plenty of time. Her letters, 
 
TiiE COUSIN LOVERS. 73 
 
 I liave said, were reassuring ; yet, if too long a period passed 
 without my receiving one, I became inspired by a natural 
 uneasiness— a rather unreasonable jealousy. 
 
 Might it not be, I asked of myself, that the attentions of 
 a stranger, even of a man well on in years, and the novelty 
 thereof, ■v\T.th the flattering prospect of all that his wealth 
 jvould afford her — the pictures lie;could draw of Indian luxuiy 
 and Oriental splendour— might lure her to forget the boy- 
 lover of her guileless youth, and of the pleasant days in 
 Monkwood Moat 1 
 
 In these surmises I did my beloved Mildred a cruel wrong. 
 
 And yet, with such thoughts as these to torture me at 
 times, I had to go deep into surgeiy, general pathology, ma- 
 teria medica, and be able to explain to a nicety the differ- 
 e?Lces between the cell theories of Schwann, Goodsir, and 
 Huxley. 
 
 My small allowance had been reduced by remittances sent 
 to my mother in Jamaica, I had contracted several petty 
 debts in the city, and medical works, it must be remembered, 
 are somewhat dearer than lighter literature, but I had beer» 
 promised a handsome sum from Milly's father on the day I 
 gTaduated ; and vrith that promise were some unmistakable 
 hints about the scarcity of medical men in certain colonies 
 — an5d:hing to be handsomely rid of me, and that if I went 
 abroad he would settle an allowance on the now penniless 
 widow, my mother. 
 
 At last came the day of the final examination, with its 
 consequent doubts, terrors, tremors, parched tongues, fears, 
 and hopes, before which even those of the lover dwdndle 
 away. 
 
 I went, of course, accurately attired in black, the sombre 
 livery of physic, law, divinity, and too often the cloak of 
 hypocrisy and prosperous corruption in the modern Athens. 
 ]NIy grinder had done wonders for me ; he had put words in 
 my mouth and new ideas into my head. I wrote my own 
 thesis, however, which is more than some fellows do. 
 
 I was, somehow, very confident; I had worked hard, and 
 my famous essay on the " Eemoval of a cauliflower excres- 
 cence from the brain of a Bailie of Edinburgh, by means of 
 the galvano-caustic wire," and on the " Amputation of the 
 os-cocc7jgis of a j\Ianx cat, without the use of chloroform," 
 did the affair for me, and took the examiners by storm. 
 
 One ill-natured and surly professor of surgery was weak 
 enough to dance upon my little production, and tear it to 
 pieces before his class, as an impertinent intrusion on his 
 own line of business ; but as he had already done the same 
 
74 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 to one of the greatest works on surgery, I consoled myself, 
 though he pressed especially hard upon me. 
 
 Well, I passed with flying colours, and was Francis Fever- 
 ley, M.D. ; and that day, amid the congratulations of many 
 poor fellows who had been " plucked," I came forth into the 
 quadrangle. I seemed to tread on air, and felt myself several 
 inches taller as I issued from the great archway of the col- 
 lege into the sunlighted and bustling thoroughfare without. 
 
 Subsequent events came so thick and fast upon me that 
 the glories of the capping day, the ist of August, in the old 
 Academia Jacobi VI., when I figured in a black cloth hood, 
 lined with crimson silk ; and those of the graduating dinner, 
 with its dissipation and fun, passed away like a dream. A 
 jovial dinner it is too, even to be attended by those who 
 matriculate only to throw dust in the eyes of the old folks 
 at home, who cut the anatomical class as offensive, beyond 
 the reach of Eimmel or aromatic vinegar, and hate the lec- 
 tures as a stupid bore. 
 
 Amid the buzz and gabble round me — of Titjiens or 
 Mario's song; of chloroform and acupressure; of splendid 
 cases and excision of tongues, tumours and excrescences; 
 the girls at the last assembly; of the University Eleven- 
 the crack shot of the rifle company, the speeches, toasts, and 
 so forth, I thought only of Monkwood and of her whose 
 good wishes were so dearer by far than even those of the 
 hearty fellows to whom I was about to bid farewell — for 
 we, who for years had studied side by side in the same class- 
 rooms, were about to separate and be scattered in every land 
 under the sun. 
 
 ^ly health was proposed by a brother sawbones, with the 
 earnest wish that 1 might "settle in a fine unhealthy locality ; 
 that after opium and calomel failed, I should always trust 
 to nature for the rest." Handsome things were said about 
 the cauliflower excrescence, and then the toast was drunk 
 w^ith all the honours amid a noisy chorus. 
 
 " Fill ye up a brimming glass, jolly brother students; 
 Toss the bumper ere it pass, jolly brother students !" 
 
 On returning to my lodgings, fagged, weary, and excited, 
 a letter from Monkwood awaited me — iDut not one of gratu- 
 lation on my success, information of which I had duly tele- 
 graphed. My uncle simply stated that my correspondence 
 ivitli Milly had been discovered ; that, in consequence of my 
 duplicity, disobedience, and ingratitude, I should not, from 
 that hour, receive another shilling from him ; that any debts 
 I had contracted I might pay how and best I chose ; and 
 
THE COUSIN LOVERS. 75 
 
 tliat, on peril of sometliing vague and terrible, I was never 
 more to address my cousin, who was about to return again 
 to the south of England. 
 
 This was a crusher, on the very day of my crowning suc- 
 cess, too ! 
 
 Some time elapsed before I took in the whole situation. 
 I found myself encumbered by debts, which, though not 
 great, were great enough for me ; Milly on the eve of being 
 carried off; my mother on her way home; my only stay 
 gone; and I had but a few shillings in the world. 
 
 I was bewildered and benumbed by the shock, but had all 
 the next day for reflection. It was, I remember, Sunday, 
 which in Scotland seems as the burial-day of the past week, 
 rather than the first of a new one. To raise money for my 
 exigencies, I could see but one way — to take the humble 
 situation (which a friend offered me) of surgeon of a whaler, 
 which was to sail from Leith for the North seas in about a 
 month ; so September came, and found me still idhng in 
 Edinburgh, till a note from Milly, written too evidently 
 under extreme agitation, reached me. It contained but a 
 few lines, and had been dispatched in secret at a distant 
 country post-office :— - 
 
 "Dearest, dearest Frank, — 
 
 " Something terrible is about to happen to me— my 
 father is driving me mad — yes, literally mad ! Come to me 
 instantly. Each evening after dusk, or at midnight, when 
 all are in bed, I shall be in the arbour at the end of the gar- 
 den. For Heaven's sake, dear, dear Frank, do not delay 
 coming to meet your own brokenhearted, 
 
 " Milly Montgomerie." 
 
 The sunset of the next evening saw me looking down on 
 !Monkwood ^loat and coppice, from the green slope of the 
 Lammermuirs. 
 
 It was the season when the first leaves began to fall, and 
 " there was a Sabbath stillness in the autumn air" — all so 
 still indeed, that nothing seemed moving but the grey 
 smoke that curled up from the cliimneys of the house amid 
 the brown foliage. There was no sound in the solitude, and 
 I could almost hear the beating of my own heart. 
 
 It was one of those lovely evenings, when, as Longfellow 
 has it — 
 
 "There seems a beautiful spirit breathing now 
 Its mellow richness on the clustered trees, 
 And, from a beaker full of richest dyes, 
 
id THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Pouring new glory on tlie autumn ■woods, •» 
 
 And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds." 
 
 The memory of all tlie joys and hopes and happiness of 
 the past — of our many stolen interviews, ^ill the sweeter for 
 being so — came welling np strongly and vividly -within me, 
 as I looked on each familiar feature of that lovely land- 
 scape, which was now before me, as I fully believed, for the 
 last time. 
 
 The autumn evening appeared of interminable length, 
 and the dusk as if it would never come. Slowly the shadows 
 deepened in the russet woods, and the last rays faded from 
 the wavy range of hills ; then, leaping a wall, with which I 
 was familiar, I made my way towards the shady old arbour 
 in the garden. 
 
 Milly was not there, so I sat down to await her in the 
 place where we had so often played together in childhood 
 and met as lovers in later years. Every leaf that rustled 
 caused me to start in expectation of her approach ; but the 
 dewy evening deepened into night without her appearing at 
 our trysting-place. Was she ill % Had our intention been 
 suspected % Had she been carried off % What was this 
 terrible event that was about to happen, and of which she 
 dared not, apparently, trust herself to write % 
 
 In torturing suspense, I watched the lights in the windows 
 of the old house go out, as they were extinguished in succes- 
 sion, when the inmates retired to rest ; and, ere the quaint 
 fagade of Monkwood was sunk in an obscurity and darkness 
 that made its masses blend with the surrounding trees, I 
 heard midnight struck by the clock of the distant village 
 church. 
 
 With a plaid or shawl thrown loosely over her head and 
 shoulders, Milly came softly and swiftly to join me, and 
 threw herself hysterically on my neck and breast. The 
 pallor on her face, as I viewed it by the starlight, terrified 
 me ; her sobs were deep and painful, while her eyes were 
 inflamed and sparkling with combined anger and sorrow. 
 
 In a few words she told me all ; that Mr. Wharton had 
 again proposed for her hand and feeen accepted by her 
 father, who was now having the marriage settlements 
 drawn up ; that she had urged in vain the disparity of 
 years ] in vain that she did not love ISIr. Wharton, and 
 never could do so, even as a friend ; but resentment at me 
 and Wharton's great wealth were incentives which rendered 
 her father, a man at all times proud and passionate, now 
 uystematically inexorable ! 
 
THE COrSIX LOVERS. 77 
 
 Slie had stooped to appeal to Mr. Wharton, and in her 
 desperation to save herself from him, had avowed her love 
 for me, and our engagement ; but this appeal was made in 
 vain ; he had only laughed and said she " would get over 
 her girlish love in time, and when once she was in India, 
 would forget all about it." 
 
 She would fly from the house, she told me amid her 
 heavy sobs, but where was she to go with credit to herself 1 
 She was without money, or means, or friends who would 
 receive her, and thus her whole dependence was on me I 
 
 Domestic persecution does not exist in the pages of 
 romance alone. Here, by a studied system, it had done its 
 worst upon poor Mildred Montgomerie ; and when I told 
 her how I was situated — that I had certainly passed as 
 M.D., but without avail as yet ; that I was now more 
 desperate and penniless than ever, and on the eve of sailing 
 for the Greenland seas, — her agony seemed to reach a 
 climax. • 
 
 " Oh ! Frank, Frank, my sole hope, my last dependence 
 was on you, and yet you will not take me away — you Avill 
 no't save me from him or from myself, and make me your 
 wife— your wife, dearest Frank, as I have so often promised 
 to be, — yes, Frank, in this very bower !" 
 
 Her words wrmig my heart. 
 
 " Silent still V she resumed. " Oh ! Frank, hear me. We 
 have loved each other so long and so dearly— and so dearly 
 do we love each other still, that we cannot be separated. 
 The tie between us is too strong and yet so tender. Think 
 of me being sold to that old man — to lie in his arms and 
 not in yours. Do not desert me ; say that you will not — 
 another fortnight and it will be too late — too late — all will 
 then be over, and I — far, far away from you !" 
 
 Much more did she say as we sat in the bower entwined 
 in a close embrace. It was too dark for me to see the pale, 
 passionate little face ; but I felt how wildly her heart was 
 beating against my own. There was a storm of resentment 
 against her father and the rich intruder, conflicting with 
 the hot young love and pitying tenderness that inspired me ; 
 hini, I felt myself powerless, because I was penniless, and 
 anger made me feel revengeful. 
 
 The first gleam of day was brightening on the summits of 
 the Lammermuirs when we separated ; she stole back to 
 the house, and I darted into the woods. We had promised 
 to meet in the bower next night ; but a thousand times 
 better had it been if we had never met more ! 
 
 I loitered in the neighbourhood of Monkwood, and night 
 
7^ THE GIRL HE MARHIED. 
 
 after night we met in tliat old and secluded bower, where 
 she would lie for hours in my arms, till, out of the dense 
 obscurity of the place, I could see her little white features, 
 her delicate profile and the pearly teeth through the imrted 
 lips that smiled no more — even on me — though the eyes and 
 hearts and souls of both of us were still inspired by the 
 most passionate love, a love sharpened by the blind despera- 
 tion of our circumstances. 
 
 Daily in the great world around us we see hopes blighted 
 and affections crushed by poverty ; marriages contracted for 
 money or broken off by the lack of it, and some that are 
 about to be made for gold replaced by those that are made 
 for love ; but one might well suppose that, in an age so 
 advanced, coercion in such matters had ceased ; yet it was 
 not so in our case. 
 
 I cannot tell you all that followed — even my voice fails 
 me, as you may hear ; but there was no eye on our midnight 
 meetings save One, and that was forgotten. 
 
 It seemed to me that at our last adieu Milly was more 
 composed ; but an illness came upon her — a fever occasioned 
 by grief, agitation, and the chill hours of meeting ; I heard 
 that her marriage was delayed, and, in the hope that it 
 might yet be so for a longer period, I sailed as surgeon of 
 the Leith whaler for the North sea. 
 
 I was several months absent — a longer period than I could 
 have anticipated ; but when far away in the Greenland 
 seas, when the sharp peaks of Spitzbergen were rising 
 against the stars, or in Davis's Straits, where blocks of ice 
 and masses of rock lie mingling on the desert shore, my 
 heart was ever at home by bonnie Monkwood Moat ; and in 
 my dreams at' night, those meetings in the dark arbour, the 
 sweet, pale profile, the passionate kisses and endearments 
 came back to me with a strange distinctness that gave alike 
 exquisite pleasure and pain. 
 
 Our ship was the first of the Scottish fleet of whalers that, 
 after a successful fishing, hauled up for home. The Northern 
 Isles were soon passed ; a few days after we sighted the 
 Red Head of Angus ; and ere many hours were over I saw 
 the white waves climbing the stern bluff of St. Abb, and 
 the evening sunlight shedding a ruddy glory on the long 
 wavy line of the blue Lammermuirs. 
 
 I was up aloft in the fore-cross-trees, for my eyes were 
 full of tears, and I was ashamed lest any of the crew should 
 detect my emotion. 
 
BLAIRAVON HOUSB. f^ 
 
 The next uight saw me at Monkwood ; but, alas ! it was 
 already occupied by strangers. 
 
 " The proprietor had let it and gone to London ; and Miss 
 Montgomerie, that icas, had sailed with her husband, Judge 
 Wharton, for India." 
 
 Such was the brief infonnation a servant gave me, and so 
 ended my romance of love ; for, from that time — save once 
 through a newspaper — I have heard no more of Millj 
 Montgomerie. 
 
 "She diedl" asked Lennard, starting as the Doctor 
 paused abruptly in his story (which he had no doubt begun 
 under a momentary impulse), for his voice became strangely 
 broken by emotion. 
 
 "Died— no, God forbid!" 
 
 "And this newspaper notice " 
 
 " Was the birth of a son prematurely at Bombay ; and 
 then did I feel that, if possible, she was indeed AVharton's 
 wife and more than ever lost to me !" 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 BLAIEAVON HOIJSE. 
 
 On the day of the dinner-party, for the first time after the 
 lapse of several years, did Lennard Blair find himself 
 turning his footsteps up the stately avenue that leads to the 
 house of Blairavon, through an archway on which was 
 carved, in the days when James V. was wont to hunt the 
 stag in Falkland woods, the escutcheon of the Blairs, to wit: 
 on a saltier nine mascles of the field, and in chief a mullet 
 of eight points ; over all a stag's head cabosked; but a 
 luxuriant coat of ivy hid all the sculpture now, so Mr. Vere 
 was pleased to permit it to remain, or perhaps had forgotten 
 its existence. Even the supporters, two of those wild men 
 or demi-savages which are peculiar to the ancient heraldry 
 of Scotland, were completely hidden. 
 
 Close up to the low platform of rock on which Blairavon 
 stands are some trees which are the remnant of a forest of 
 the Coille-dhonean, or Men of the Wood — a forest old, 
 perhaps, as the days of the Roman wall. The oaks are aged 
 and hollow now ; but against their gnarled stems the boars 
 have ground their tusks and the snow-white bulls their 
 horns in the times of old ; and imder them, in autumn time^ 
 the dark brown leaves lie more than ankle dee©. 
 
8o THE GTKL HE MARPJED. 
 
 One of those quaint old places of the years bordering on 
 the Keformation — mansions which are scatterea over Scot- 
 land and the Isles by thousands — Blairavon was an instance 
 of the first improvement which took place in domestic 
 architecture when the gloomy old castle or lonely peel-S:ower 
 on the mountain slope, gave place to the gable-ended chateau 
 built in the sheltered glen, but also calculated for securit.^^, 
 so far as it could be imparted by strong walls, narrow win 
 dows, and iron bars* — hence the striking Scoto-Frencl 
 style of architecture which is peculiar to the country. 
 
 Blairavon, with its high, crowstepped gables, and threQ 
 turrets with steep slated roofs like those of an old chateau 
 by the Loire or Garonne, has a bold and pleasing outline 
 among the venerable timber, the grey rocks and green hills 
 which surround it ; and the mind is carried back to the dark 
 days of turmoil, of English invasion, and domestic feud, 
 when its inmates 
 
 *' Carved at the meal with gloves of steel, 
 And drank the red wine through the helmet barred.*' 
 
 In conformity with some ancient superstition, the masons 
 who built it are said to have mixed in their mortar the blood 
 of those animals which were killed for their food and of 
 the wild beasts of the adjacent forest, that the work might 
 be more lasting. It stood bravely enough in its massive 
 strength ; but no more for the Blairs. 
 
 Iron gratings and massive window-frames had given place 
 to sheets of plate-glass ; and many alterations — improve- 
 ments Mr. A^ere termed them— had been made on the old 
 dwelling-house ; but the removal of the dovecot and of the 
 great iron gate on one hand, with the addition of the showy 
 carriages, tlie sleek horses with plate harness and the liveried 
 servants that passed and repassed the archway on the other, 
 had often served to excite the regret and jealous bitterness 
 of the last proprietor. 
 
 It is an old tradition in Scotland that, if a dovecot hi 
 pulled down, the wife of the proprietor usually dies withi \ 
 the year; and though the one at Blairavon was a decidei 
 eyesore, its demolition was stigmatized by the old f ox-huntei 
 as the act of " an atrocious plebeian." 
 
 Though modernized internally, so far as possible, to suit 
 the requirements of the present day, it was impossible to 
 forget that the old " manor and fortalice " was a place of 
 those days, when, as the old ballad says, — 
 
 " A man might then behold, 
 At Christmas in each hall, 
 
BLAIR A.VON HOUSE. 8l 
 
 Good fires to curb the cold, 
 
 And meat for great and small j 
 The neighbours kindly bidden, 
 
 And all had welcome true ; 
 
 The poor from gates not chidden 
 
 When this old cap was new." 
 
 Lennard paused ere lie approached the entrance, for the 
 memory of much that his dead father had impressed upon 
 him from childhood — much that he had wisely forgotten 
 while working among practical men at his desk in Liverpool 
 —came welling up now, with something of a choking sensa- 
 tion, as he surveyed the stately old place that had gone from 
 his family for ever. 
 
 The rooms in which so many generations of the Blairs had 
 lived with dignity and died with the respect and love of 
 their dependents, where they feasted and roistered, ate and 
 drank, married their daughters with honour, and brought 
 home the daughters of others as wedded brides (whose 
 escutcheons yet were carved on turret and gable), seemed 
 greatly changed now. 
 
 The love of the young, the tears of the sorrowing, the pride 
 of some, the wrath of others, had those old walls witnessed 
 for years, as generations succeeded each other, to be gathered 
 at last amid the dust of their predecessors at Inchmachan ; 
 and Lennard felt that, though these, with their emotions, 
 had all passed away, there yet lingered in his own heart a 
 mine of bitterness and unavailing regret. 
 
 Though silent and lonely enough for eight months of the 
 year since it had passed out of the hands of the old fox- 
 hunting laird (or squire, as those south of the Tweed would 
 style him), Blairavon was instinct with life and gaiety now. 
 Whether it was the residt of the grand coal discovery on the 
 estate, Lennard knew not; but he was impressed by an 
 appearance of splendour there, which was not to be found 
 in Vere's villa on the Aigburth-road. 
 
 In the drawing-room, — where the shabby, old, oval-backed 
 chairs, chintz-covered sofas, and other furniture of those 
 lays of meagre taste, when George III. was king, had given 
 place to marchionesses, couches, and ottomans of damask 
 and velvet ; where Brussels' carpets showed their brilliant 
 colours ; where, in lieu of the old wax lights, were crystal 
 gasaliers, lit by the produce of the newly-discovered coal- 
 pits ; where were stuffed chairs of walnut- wood, of quaint 
 and beautiful design ; mirrors that rose from gilded and 
 marble consoles • water-colours by Garrick, Gilbert, and 
 Carl Haarg, all glories which would have filled with wonder 
 
S2 THE GIEL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 the wigged and cuirassed Blairs of other times— in th« 
 drawing-room, from which opened now a beautiful conser- 
 vatory, the shelves whereof were loaded with blooming 
 flowers of singular forms and cabalistic names, — Lennard 
 was received with a smile and blush of pleasure by Hesbia 
 Vere, and with a pretty cordial welcome by her father, and 
 was then presented to the other guests, most of whom were 
 friends then resident with them. 
 
 It was with some apparent fuss that Hesbia hastened to in- 
 troduce Lennard Blair — who was decidedly a distinguished- 
 looking young fellow — to their friends in succession ; to 
 Sir Cullender Crowdy, a tall, thin, sallow- visaged, and damp- 
 looking personage ; and to Mr. Dabchick, a dapper mannikin 
 of smart, but rather mean appearance. Her cousin, Travice 
 Cheatwood, gave Lennard two fing*ers only and a greeting 
 the reverse of cordial ; and then he v/as presented to a 
 charming little woman, whom Hesbia named Lady Foster, 
 whose air and singular beauty could not fail to interest him. 
 
 *' Is not the Doctor with you ^ " asked Hesbia. 
 
 " I have not seen him to-dSy, Miss Yere." 
 
 "You are such friends, Mr. Blair, that I never doubted 
 but you and he would come together." 
 
 And now, during the pauses that ensue before guests are all 
 arrived or introduced, and duly marshalled— the somewhat 
 dreary interval that so generally precedes a dinner party — 
 Lennard had time to look about him and see v/ho was there. 
 
 " Mr. Cheyne and the Misses Cheyne," were announced 
 by a servant in a preposterously sho\vy livery with aigui- 
 iettes. 
 
 So many more than Hesbia stated were present now, that 
 Lennard feared he and the Doctor had merely been asked to 
 fill two vacant chairs ; but before he could consider tliis 
 surmise, his hand was warmly shaken by Ranald Cheyne 
 of the Haughs (who, though Lennard knew it not, had many 
 a time kindly paid old Bichard Blair's subscription to the 
 West Lothian pack), who then jDresented him to his " girls^" 
 two handsome and blooming blondes, as "the son of his 
 oldest and dearest friend, poor Dick Blair of Blairavon.'* 
 
 Sir Cullender Crowdy, of Crowdymoudy and that ilk, as he 
 oddly designated himself, though a genuine and undoubted 
 Londoner, was, we have said, a tall, pale, black-haired, and 
 unhealthy-looking personage, of some forty-five years, with 
 narrow, stooping shoulders, and long, hairy fingers, with flat 
 tips to them. He inherited no small share of the blood of 
 Judah, though styling himself a baronet of Nova Scotia ; 
 his eyes were black as aloes, quick and restless in their 
 
BLAIEAVON HOUSE. 83 
 
 expression, and though his hooked nose had been brokon, 
 his face somehow always reminded one of a bird of prey. 
 
 He did not wear jewellery ; but exhibited, rather osten- 
 tatiously, a large signet ring, a Scottish amethyst oi 
 beautiful hue, whereon was carved the crest of the Crowdy 
 family, with the motto assumed by it in 1 707, Facie Tenus^ 
 which our friend, the Lyon King, assures us can only be 
 Englished as " up to the mark." 
 
 In this strange-looking personage, of whose title we shall 
 say a little at a future time, Lennard Blair erelong found 
 that he was likely to have a more formidable rival than the 
 adventurer Travice Cheatwood. 
 
 Rivalry ! as he looked on the wealth and ostentatious 
 luxury around him, how dared he, a poor and almost penni- 
 less fellow, think of rivalry ; yet he felt almost half assured 
 that the heiress, Hesbia Vere, loved him. 
 
 Ten years the senior of Lennard, a " plucked " medical 
 student, a sharp hand at billiards and sharper still at cards, 
 Travice Cheatwood had a very small income, which he 
 eked out in many ways ; but his betting-book was his great 
 resource, and the hope of picking up a wife with money 
 was ever before him. 
 
 ^ His cousin Hesbia he considered fair game, indeed almost 
 his own peculiar property, and he viewed with emotions 
 little short of savage any interference in that quarter. 
 
 Previous to his arrival, Hesbia, whose heart abhorred a 
 vacuum, had been dividing her smiles between Sir Cullen- 
 der and Mr. Dabchick — flirting desperately with each when 
 the other was not present- though she certainly experienced 
 some difficulty in coquetting with the baronet— a solemn, 
 strange, and reserved man, whose real character she had 
 early found the impossibility of fathoming. But now the 
 little Edinburgh advocate, ]\ir. Dalrymple Pennyworth Dab- 
 chick— "D. P. Dab," as he was usually called by the small 
 wits of the law courts— had been completely thrown over, 
 and his pique thereat was sobered down into settled dis- 
 gust ; for little Dab thought himself a personage alike o'' 
 consummate talent and the most colossal public value. 
 
 The dislike between Hesbia and the connty ladies was 
 quite mutual, so she received the Misses Cheyne with a 
 stately coldness that she should not have displayed in her 
 own house. 
 
 Nearly tall in stature, with, a rounded queenly figurd, 
 Lennard thought Hesbia was looking beautiful. The lily 
 was not whiter or purer than her skin, and her hands and 
 feet were perfect in contour. Her carriage at times was 
 
 6-2 
 
84 THE GIEL HE MARIIIED. 
 
 haughty and defiant ; and, when excited, she would maka 
 Uer soft-brown eyes flash, and the masses of her crisp chest- 
 nut hair more as if they were instinct with life. 
 
 Lennard was sighing in the conviction that he, of course, 
 could not be the favoured person who was to lead her as 
 hostess to the dining-room. He was somewhat relieved, 
 however, when he saw her take the arm of old Doctor Mag- 
 luis Kirkford, the parish minister ; and still more so when 
 she whispered to him behind her fan, just as the gong was 
 beginning to roar in the vestibule, — 
 
 " No word yet of your tiresome medical friend ; a plough- 
 boy ill with the measles, or some such thing, no doubt. 
 Take in one of the Cheyne girls, and sit on my left side, I 
 have so much to say to you." 
 
 It was such a whisper and such a glance as Hesbia alone 
 could give, and so poor Lennard's heart began to beat hap- 
 pily, and he was about to address a few words of common- 
 place to Lady Foster— a pale, little woman, with a clear 
 intellectual type of beauty, a singular sadness and sweetness 
 in her mouth, and deep violet ej'-es, which had long black 
 lashes, but whoso j)etite figure was towered over and out- 
 shone by the dashing Hesbia ; but ere she could reply to 
 his regret for the absence of her husband, Sir Philip Foster, 
 who had been telegraphed for eastward to Edinburgh, the 
 door was flung open by the taU valet of the calves and aigui- 
 lettes, who announced in a pompous style, — 
 
 " Doctor Francis Feverley ! " 
 
 Then as the Doctor came forward with a pleasant smile 
 and flushed face, nervous manner, and one of his kid gloves 
 torn, to apologise for being a little late, a faint sound like a gasp 
 escaped Lady Foster, who let both her fan and bouquet fall. 
 
 Lennard adroitly picked them up and restored them just 
 as the company began to move off to the dining-room ; then 
 he saw that the camellias of which the bouquet was com- 
 posed were not more white and waxen in colour than the 
 face of Lady Foster. 
 
 Why was this ? Whence the strange emotion % 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE DINNER-PARTY. 
 
 Such entertainments as this one at Blairavon are pretty 
 much alike everywhere, yet among the guests were a few 
 characters or ingi'cdients such as arc not to be met with 
 every day. 
 
THE DINNER-PARTY. 85 
 
 All the accessories that wealth and luxury can afiford were 
 there ; rich viands, various wines, glittering plate and shin- 
 in^g crystal, with pomp and servants in shiny liveries, and, 
 odaly enough, not all alike ; and, from the caviare and cura- 
 90a at the beginning, to the coffee and maraschino at its 
 close, through all its elaborate details of " potages, poissons, 
 tclev^s, entrees," and so forth, as the gilded and embossed 
 bills of fare had them (to the extreme bother of the parish 
 ministei and one or two others), Hesbia's small dinner party 
 was can ied out to perfection ; and papa Vere, with his red 
 and white clarets, did his part well. 
 
 Lennsrd could detect an elaborate attempt at high ton 
 which c(-.rtainly fell short of the mark, and may have excited 
 the secret ridicule of the servants, who had seen the true 
 metal elsew^here. 
 
 He experienced disappointment, however, at the begin- 
 ning, ia not getting the scat next Hesbia; for Miss Cheyne, 
 with whom he had been paired off, lingered to address 
 something to Doctor Feverley, who did not immediately 
 attend or seem to comprehend ; and this delay, brief though 
 it was, by the subsequent -contingency partially spoiled Len- 
 nard's dinner, for the chair on Hesbia's left hand was im- 
 mediately filled by the dapper Mr. Dabchick. 
 
 Travice Cheatwood on that very morning had made a 
 blunt and formal proposal to Hesbia, and had been rejected 
 by her, laughingly however. Cousin Travice was in no way 
 broken-hearted ; but though inspired by jealous anger of 
 Lennard and of Crowdy conjunctly and severally, feeling 
 bitterly revengeful, and by many secret circumstances almost 
 desperate, with considerable skill and coolness seemed dis- 
 posed to revenge himself on Hesbia by engaging in a flirta- 
 tion with Lady Foster. 
 
 This he soon discovered to be an impossibility, as the 
 pale little beauty seemed seriously indisposed, silent, ner- 
 vous, and incapable of attending to him on the one hand, 
 or to her host on the other ; for Mr. Vere could talk only 
 of shares, scrip, and the state of the money market. 
 
 Lennard was not without hope that when the ladies re^ 
 tired to the drawing-room, he might have an opportunity 
 (if Hesbia entered the conservatory, or was seated at the 
 piano) of addressing her, and requesting at least an inter- 
 view — a meeting, somewhere— as a proposal such as he had 
 first fancied seemed then an impossibility ; and even with 
 this thought in his head, and the words in which he would 
 give it utterance hovering on his tongue, and while exchang- 
 ing tender and meaning glances with Hesbia — glances by 
 
86 THE GIRL HE MAHHIED. 
 
 "which they could already understand each other without 
 words — he felt his courage fail. 
 
 Amid the wealth that surrounded her, and the stately as- 
 pect of the old house, once the home of his father, and now 
 of hers, Lennard felt himself a fortune-hunter like Travice 
 Cheatwood, and his proud spirit spurned the false position 
 in which his fate had placed him. 
 
 Vere, he knew, had great w^ealth. He had ships that came 
 and went from the vast docks of Liverpool ; argosies whose 
 keels ploughed every ssa under the sun. He had a magnifi- 
 cent mansion in the direction of Aigburth, gorgeously fur- 
 nished, with pictures and bronzes, marble busts and vases, 
 with a retinue of servants ; and now he had Blairavon, with 
 more splendours in the way of paintings and upholstery than 
 the old lairds thereof could have conjured up without the 
 aid of witchcraft ; and more grooms, gamekeepers, and gar- 
 deners, more men and women servants in and about the 
 place, than were requisite when Kandal Blair entertained 
 the Lords of the Congregation, or the l^gent Murray, w^hen 
 on his last fatal march to Linlithgow. 
 
 Amid the intervals during which the troublesome silver 
 mtree dishes, with cockscombs and mushrooms, boudoin of 
 lobster, and so forth, went round, Lennard strove to interest 
 himself with the pretty, fair girl by his side, who, sooth to 
 say, seemed very much interested in him, for there was a 
 sadness in his eyes, and an abstraction in his manner, the 
 real source of which she little suspected ; and thus, while 
 replying to all the graceful nothings she was saying, he was 
 glancing from time to time at Hesbia, and listening with 
 weariness to the topics discussed by those about him. 
 
 The sallow, lanky, and black-haired baronet, though at 
 times affecting to talk " Peerage," slid more easily and fami- 
 liarly into a discussion on the money-market with his host, 
 and seemed to be much more at home in the disbursements 
 of the dividends on consols, floating capital, biUs, and short 
 loans, and so lorth, than in the works of Sir Robert Doug- 
 las, or Sir Bernard Burke. 
 
 The subject of the probable winner of the Derby was, of 
 course, introduced by Travice Cheatwood, amid an aflfecta- 
 tion of talking of the county pack and races ; but no one 
 there seemed disposed to follow up the topic, not even old 
 Ilanald Cheyne of the Haughs, who knew too much of the 
 speaker to make even the smallest remark that might bo 
 distorted into a bet. Moreover, he was just then busy dis- 
 cussing with the minister— who, like most Scotch divines, 
 farmed his own glebe— the mysteries of top dr0fl«ing, subsoil 
 
'Sm DINNER-PAUT?. 87 
 
 drainage, and planting belts of firs, or turf dykea, and li(>dges. 
 Lennard being a crack shot of the Liverpool Rifle Corps, 
 Volunteering was next spoken of; but with great contempt 
 by Mr. D-abchick, as he had not been made a captain, at ) east. 
 
 At last the ladies rose to retire; and Lennard, thouglv his 
 eyes followed the stately figure of Hesbia, as she sailed out 
 of the dining-room, with her long dress floating behind her, 
 could not fail to detect a singular mutual glance, one expres- 
 sive of pain and sorrow, exchanged by Lady Foster and 
 Doctor Feverley, as she passed him in her way towards the 
 door. Strange* to say, the Doctor's face was nearly as pale 
 as her own, and he trembled as her skirt brushed past hun. 
 
 " Here lies some hidden secret !" thought Lennard. 
 
 And now the gentlemen began to close in towards the 
 host, and as the butler replenished the wine decanters, Tra- 
 vice Cheatwood, who was already a little elevated, and could 
 not resist the temptation of saying saucy things, begai i with 
 the doctor and lawyer, simply because they were inoflensive 
 fellows ; and certainly he had the peculiar art of dea ling in 
 unpleasantry, which could neither be accepted as a jest, nor 
 yet resented as an insult. - 
 
 " Did you drive over from your shop. Doctor f he a; iked. 
 
 "I don't keep a shop — if you mean a laboratory, Mr. 
 Cheatwood." 
 
 " Well, your diggings, bunk, whatever you call it ?" 
 
 " I rode. I can't afford to keep a vehicle yet.'' 
 
 " Though a rhubarb-coloured pill- box is usefid in its way, 
 you are, perhaps, better without it." 
 
 "Whyf 
 
 " Few Scotsmen drive well, or are good whips, except," he 
 added deliberately, having heard of Feverley 's connection 
 with Jamaica, " except in the West Indies, where they were 
 first-rate drivers of niggers. But the pill-box is useful ; it 
 may follow as an ejnpti/ compliment at a funeral, when you 
 are doctoring elsewhere," he added, laughing broadly at his 
 own jest. 
 
 " Sir, a doctor may very seriously regret the death of a 
 patient," said Feverley, reddening with positive annoyance, 
 yet unwilling to take offence. 
 
 • "Eegret, of course; he is concerned perhaps as much in 
 the demise as at it." 
 
 "How, sir r 
 
 " It is a loss anyway." 
 
 " Pass the decanter," said little Dabchick, who had vainly 
 and nervously made more than one attempt to interrupt 
 Cheatwood, " which wine are you taking, Doctor 1" 
 
«8 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 "White claret." ^ 
 
 " I was once retained in a singular case about white claret." 
 
 "Please Dabcliick, don't begin to talk law, Scotch law, 
 of all things," interrupted the constitutionally impertinent 
 Cheatwood. " I think that all who go to law are idiots." 
 
 " Indeed ! and Avhy so V' asked Dabchick, looking a little 
 ruffled. 
 
 " I am only quoting one of the fraternity in saying so " 
 replied Cheatwood, who having a design to lure Dabchick 
 into a game of billiards (for the lawyer was wearying oi 
 ecart^, which they had played every night, and always to 
 his loss), besides, he had no fear of him, so far as Hesbia was 
 concerned, Mr. Dalrymple P. Dabchick being a weak-looking 
 little creature, _ with sandy hair, sore eyes, and a retrousse 
 nose, with a chin, however, which indicated the most inor- 
 dinate amount of self-esteem, usually the strongest element 
 which now pervades the provincials of the Bar. " I once 
 heard of an avocat of Strasbourg, who, on being taken dan- 
 gerously ill, sent for a brother of the bag, to make his will, 
 in which he bequeathed to the hospital for the insane, the 
 sum of seventy thousand florins. On his brother-lawyer ex- 
 pressing astonishment at his bequest to idiots, — 
 
 " * Mon frere/ replied the repentant avocat ^ ' they are the 
 very persons on whom my ill-gotten gains should be be- 
 stowed. From idiots those florins were won, and to idiots 
 they shall return.' " 
 
 While this odd style of conversation went on, Lennard 
 w;^as recalling the repulsion he felt for Cheatwood on that 
 night when, total strangers to each other, they travelled by 
 the express train from Liverpool, and when again he saw 
 him at the churchyard-gate of Inchmachan. 
 
 It was, we have said, a peculiarity of Cheatwood's face, 
 that while his mouth was distended by a broad sardonic grin 
 at some of his own supposed witticisms, and showing all his 
 glistening teeth, his eyes remained stolid, unmoved in ex- 
 pression, or having, if anything, a species of cold glare in 
 them. 
 
 " Blair, come here beside me," said Mr. Vere, with one of his 
 
 Eleasantest smiles, pointing to the chair Avhich Lady Foster 
 ad recently quitted ; " I must have a talk with you now 
 that we have an opportunity." 
 Thus invited, Lennard with alacrity changed his place. 
 The truth was, that Mr. Vere had a great desire to acquire 
 the little patch of land named Oakwoodlee, "for has not the 
 vineyard of Naboth been always an eyesore to neighbouring 
 potentates 1" He disliked the interest that attached to the 
 
THE DINNER-PARTY. ^9 
 
 old family lingering in the neighboiirliood, and liad his own 
 secret views regarding Lennard Blair ; but he knew that the 
 latter set an imaginary, almost superstitious, value upon the 
 retention of the old Jointure House; he had also heard 
 something of the tradition of the Charter Stone, w^hich he 
 "wished to see macadamised into metal for the roads, and 
 which he considered as "a piece of old bosh, behind the 
 age, and all that sort of thing;" and he only waited for au 
 opportunity of sounding Lennard as to the sale of the 
 ground, but felt a delicacy in approaching the subject just 
 then. 
 
 ^ Times had been when Mr. Yere was not indisposed to 
 view with favour the intimacy of his daughter and the son 
 of old Blairavon ; but now there were secrets in the firm 
 known only to himself which perhaps compelled him to 
 have other views regarding her, 
 
 " You have looked very dull all the evening, Blair ; take 
 another glass of wine, and get up the steam," said Mr. Yere, 
 who, however, could bear with great philosophy the mental 
 or bodily pains of others, and whose mouth was compressed, 
 as is usual in those who are much in the habit of restraining 
 such emotions as they have. 
 
 " My father was born in this house, my uncle Lennard, 
 too ; and in this house I, too, saw the light, and here my 
 mother died," said Blair, as if to account for his abstraction. 
 " I can remember as if it were but yesterday, the nodding 
 of the hearse-plumes as the wdnd stirred the leaves in the 
 avenue when the funeral train went forth, and I sat at that 
 window watching it, and wondering in my little heart what 
 was my loss, why all about me were so sad, and why I was 
 not at her knee. So the old house is, to me, full of the 
 saddest interest, Mr. Yere." 
 
 _ " Of course — of course," replied the other, jingling some 
 silver in his pockets, and thinking there was no use of 
 speaking about Oakwoodlee when Lennard was in this sen- 
 timental mood of mind ; so, following out his own train of 
 thought, he blundered on in this fashion : " Your father, 
 worthy man, never could get on well with me, a matter 
 which I now deplore, as it is irreparable." 
 " Irreparable, indeed ! " sighed Lennard. 
 " As I could not trace back my descent— a thing which 
 no one values nowadays— like those knights and lairds, 
 or w^hat-d'ye-call-'ems of Blairavon, whose queer coats-of- 
 arms are stuck up over all the house, and who very likely 
 could neither sign their names nor earn an honest penny — 
 he thought little of me, indeed ; and never forgave me for 
 
90 THE GIRti HE MARRIEft. 
 
 being a prosperous and industrious trader, who acquired 
 that which he was throwing to the dogs ; but pardon me, 
 Blair, and fill your glass ; what I say gives you pain, I see." 
 Lennard did wince with secret annoyance at those re- 
 marks which he knew to bo perfectly just and true. Then 
 Mr. Vere, who shared some of the angry prejudices of his 
 daughter, added, with what he meant to be a smile, — 
 
 " In this rural district, however, Mr. Richard Blair, even 
 in his reduced circumstances, was always treated with more 
 respect by the cottars than I. Though I had legally bought 
 Blairavon at its marketable price— bought it with money 
 earned by years of hard and patient industry — the people 
 here view me as a species of intruder ; and though J spend 
 thousands in the place, it would be considered good news 
 at the smithy and spirit-shop if I broke my neck in one of 
 the new coalpits, or was found in the pond at Craigellon, 
 like your uncle Lennard.'^ 
 
 Lennard intensely disliked the bad taste of a,ll these re- 
 marks. He could barely forgive them even in the father of 
 Hesbia, and endeavoured to lead the conversation to the 
 business of the firm, and to some recent correspondence 
 .that he had been conducting in Spanish— a language in 
 which he was a proficient — with Don Juan Leonardo & Co., 
 of Vera Cruz ; then at once, while the baronet half turned 
 his chair and became all attention, Mr. Vere plunged deeply 
 into the matter of imports and exports — flour from America; 
 cotton, sugar, indigo, and spices from the East Indies ; rum, 
 coffee, and tobacco from the West ; and their transactions 
 with the merchants of Brazil, Chili, and Vera Cruz ; in the 
 midst of which he said, — 
 
 " We mean to send you out to Vera Cruz some of these 
 days, for the double purpose of cementing our connection 
 with Don Juan, and establishing a branch of the house there. 
 It will be a most lucrative agency." ^ 
 
 Lennard bowed an assent, but his heart, though set on 
 future fortune, sank at the thought of leaving Hesbia be- 
 hind him, and at that moment there was a move made by 
 all towards the drawing-room. 
 
 While one or two lingered to comment on the merits of 
 the portrait of a cherry-cheeked girl by Greuze, and a 
 savage mountain-pass in Calabria, by Salvator Eosa, Fever- 
 ley pressed the hand of Lennard, and said, — 
 
 " Would to heaven I had never been invited here ! " 
 
 " What on earth is the matter with you, Doctor, you look 
 positively ill 1 " 
 
 " And ill I am— ill at heart ; but hush 1 you remember 
 quizzing me about meeting Lady Foster 1 " 
 
fiESBIA*S DBAWII^G-ilOOM. ^t 
 
 " Perfectly ; the other night at Oakwoodlee." 
 
 " The night I was seized with a — perhaps foolish fit of con- 
 fidence." 
 
 "FooHshr' 
 
 " Pardon me, but my head wanders." 
 
 "WeUr' 
 
 " Oh, Blair ! * upon what slight threads do the events of 
 life turn ! ' flow little could I then imagine that she — this 
 Lady Foster — was the Milly Montgomerie of Monkwood ] 
 or could you suppose the dark and tender secret that was 
 between usT' 
 
 " Do you not confide in me 1 " asked Lennard, reproach- 
 fully, after a pause. 
 
 " I believe you to be true as steel." 
 
 " But her husband's name was, I thought you told me, 
 Wliartonr' 
 
 " Changed to Foster for a Cumberland estate, so Doctor 
 Kirkford told me ; and he was knighted by the Governor- 
 General at Calcutta as Sir Philip Wharton Foster. I cannot 
 face her again ; you know not Avhat we Lave both endured 
 during the last three hours ! I must leave •" 
 
 " Not without bidding adieu to Miss Yere ; she would 
 never forgive " 
 
 " True, true — poor wretch that I am ! " 
 
 And they passed on with the other guests. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HESBIA'S DRAWING-ROOM. 
 
 On entering the drawing-room, which was lofty, spacious, 
 and magnificently furnished, and lit up, Dr. Feverley looked 
 round with a hasty and haggard glance, and experienced a 
 species of relief on perceiving that Lady Foster vras not 
 there. 
 
 ]Mr. Vere immediately missed and inquired fQr her. 
 
 " She became indisposed while at dinner, papa,'* said 
 Hesbia ; " did you not perceive how pale she looked] " 
 
 " Paleness is her normal colour, I think," said Sir Cullen- 
 der • " as it is my own, I don't consider it altogether a sign 
 of ill-health. Miss Vere." 
 
 " But she is far from well," persisted Hesbia, " and has 
 retired to her own room, where I think the Doctor should 
 see her." 
 
 " Not unless she should "svish it," said Feverley, with ner- 
 
gt THE Glill HE MARRIED. 
 
 V0U3 haste ; " until she sends for me, I must be excused, my 
 dear Miss Vere, from intruding."^ 
 
 "This is her little boy," continued Hesbia, leading for- 
 ward a pretty child of some four or five years old, who had 
 been nestling on a hassock by the knee of Mrs. Kirkford, 
 the minister's wife, a kind and motherly old lady, who, tO' 
 gether with the Misses Cheyne, had been toying and playing 
 with him, after the manner of ladies with children in 
 general. 
 
 " Isn't he a little love, Doctor ? " asked one. 
 
 A clever observer might have seen how nervously Fever- 
 ley's lips were quivering, how pale he was, and with how 
 strange a glance he seemed to eye the unconscious child^ 
 who looked up to him with eyes of crystal clearness, not 
 dark violet in tint like his mother's, but bright blue like 
 Feverley's own ; he had crispy, curly hair, and cheeks that 
 were round and red as winter apples. 
 
 " What is your name, darling 1 " asked the Doctor, as he 
 lifted the child on his knee. 
 
 " Franky— little Franky." 
 
 " Frank is my name too," said the Doctor, in a somewhat 
 broken voice. 
 
 " I am called so from my grandpapa," added the child ; 
 " and I am papa's very good boy." 
 
 " True, it was his name— I remember," said Feverley, as 
 if spt^aking to himself. 
 
 The boy eyed with wonder, and something of distrust too, 
 this stranger who evinced so much interest in him ;— and 
 how was it with the poor Doctor 1 
 
 As he looked on the little boy's face, and traced there the 
 minute features and the likeness of the mother, all the man's 
 yearning heart seemed to gush forth, and, with something 
 like a sob in his throat, he kissed the boy so tenderly tliurt 
 the latter opened his great blue eyes wider with increasing 
 wonder. 
 
 Feverley kept the child on his knee caressingly till his 
 time for bed arrived, and to his nurse — who was sent by 
 mamma — he gave him with a reluctance which caused Hes- 
 bia and the young ladies to rally him for his fatherly way ; 
 but Travice Cheatwood whispered to them that it was " all 
 acting and professional bosh, by which he hoped to catch 
 mothers of families and lady patients." 
 
 Hesbia, who had been in conversation with the clergy- 
 man and Mr. Cheyne, now turned from them, and proceeded 
 to open the piano, a task which Lennard hastened to share. 
 
 " I am about to play," she whispered. 
 
HESBIA S DRAWING-BOOM. 93 
 
 "Whatr* 
 
 " Oh, anything you please/' said she, drawing her gloves 
 hastily off her very white and pretty hands. On her left 
 wrist was a present of which Lennard had begged her ac- 
 ceptance, a bracelet of those beautiful pink-hued Scottish 
 pearls which are now in such high reputation, and which 
 had belonged to his great-grandmother. " You know," she 
 added, " that I can thump out Rossini, Thalberg, and Men- 
 delssohn too ; but keep beside me — I am sick of those 
 dreary country respectabilities, with 'their weary propriety 
 and unendurable twaddle ; talk to me while I play, turn 
 the leaves, and make yourself generally useful." 
 
 Then running her fingers swiftly over the keys, Hesbia 
 awoke with spirit the tone of the grand piano — one of 
 Collard's best repetition-trichords — as she proceeded to play 
 and converse the while. 
 
 " How did you like Miss Cheyne ] " 
 
 " Very much." 
 
 " Not too much, I hope ! " 
 
 " She is a very pleasant, quiet, and lady-like girl.* 
 
 " But of a county family — most fearfully county family 
 —bah ! " added Hesbia, making a crash with her outspread 
 fingers, while her brown eyes sparkled. "I hate all such 
 stuck-up people." 
 
 " The poor girl gives herself no airs ; she does not require 
 to do so. 
 
 "Is that a hit at me?" 
 
 " Oh, Miss Vere ! " urged Lennard, colouring with vexa- 
 tion, but saying no more, as he knew this to be perilous 
 ground with Hesbia ; so he continued to listen in silence 
 and turn the leaves, for two of his rivals, Cheatwood and 
 Dabchick, were close by. 
 
 " ^liss Cheyne has, I know, very pretty hands," resumed 
 Hesbia, "and a foot of which she can make a wonderful 
 use at croquet, when she displaj^s her instep. Well, I 
 shall be thankful when this drawing-room is done up in 
 brown holland and lavender, and again abandoned to the 
 spiders for a time." 
 
 " Are you already weary of Blairavon 1 " asked Lennard, 
 with a marked inflection of the voice. 
 
 " Weary — I should think so ! " 
 
 " To me, who have been so long in Liverpool that I was 
 Almost forgetting what a mountain was like, this seems 
 strange.'' 
 
 "The country is all very well, but a little bit of it goes 
 a long way with me— Scotland especially. Pardon me, dear 
 Mr. Blair, but I ca.i't help saying so." 
 
94 THE GIRL HE MAREIED. / 
 
 The truth was that the county ladies, as Hesbia knew, 
 and was wont to say, "understood the whole situation," 
 and valued neither her nor her papa for their reputed 
 wealth. She simply hated them ; and knew that at races, 
 meets, and balls they "tolerated her," observed her fast 
 ways, her diamonds, and her dresses with critical eyes and 
 elevated brows, and with manners cold or shy— polite, but 
 never cordial. Even the overdone richness of her toilette — 
 always that of " a girl of the period," — the perfumes with 
 which every lace and skirt, flounce and flower, were redolent, 
 were commented upon, with her seat on horseback and bear- 
 ing in the carriage, where she always sat upright and fell 
 forward. 
 
 The county people she considered simply intolerable. 
 
 Yet many there were who admitted that, though Miss 
 Vere "was vain to her finger-ends," she might wear the 
 most brilliant colours and dresses beyond her years, the 
 most wonderful diamonds and jewellery, and yet, singular 
 to say, neither look over-dressed nor over-decorated, as 
 some girls might have done. This arose from the ampli- 
 tude of her figure, the purity of her complexion, the 
 brilliance of her expression, and the general coquettish 
 style of her undeniable beauty. 
 
 She sang many things in good style and with great good 
 nature. What they were. Heaven knows ; certainly, Len- 
 nard did not, for he was so full of her and his own thoughts, 
 and especially content with one feature in the performance 
 — that while lingeringly and lovingly turning the leaves, his 
 hand and hers were always somehow coming in contact. 
 
 He was awkward about it, perhaps. 
 
 To whisper anything of a private or tender nature into 
 Hesbia's pretty white car was impossible then, for Cheat- 
 wood was watching them closely • and Dabchick, though 
 jealous and disgusted too, was still disposed to hover about 
 the heiress, who could only understand the half of what 
 he said, as he spoke in that wonderful Anglo-Scotch patois 
 peculiar to his fraternity and the law-coui"ts of the modern 
 Athens. 
 
 Bored by his presence, Hesbia resigned the music-stool 
 to Miss Cheyne, and led the minister's wife into her little 
 boudoir, which was a miracle of elegance and luxury — for 
 she was not without taste as well as vanity. 
 
 The conversation was pretty general in the room ; good 
 digestion seemed to wait on appetite, and while the servants 
 went round with coffee and ices, Mr. Vere was jocose and 
 little Dabchick unusually joUy; even the tall, sallow baronet 
 
hesbia's drawing room. 95 
 
 relaxed his unpleasant visage and taciturn manner ; but 
 Tra^dce Cheatwood was vicious. Wine always had a bad 
 effect upon him. 
 
 He had been watching the scene at the piano, and thought 
 he discovered a silent but secret understanding between 
 Hesbia and Lennard Blair, on Avhom he now resolved to 
 fasten, and whom he arrested at the door of the boudoir, 
 whither our hero was about to follow Hesbia. 
 
 In his deep and angry suspicions of Lennard, the cousin 
 was anxious to discover the real state of matters between 
 him and Hesbia ; but though a cunning he was a blundering 
 fellow, and knew not how to go about it. Somehow, imper- 
 tinence came more natural to him than suavity, and after 
 luring Lennard to a long and stately corridor (wliich lay 
 between the drawing and dining-rooms) on pretence of 
 looking at a picture, — 
 
 "It is an absurd, even ugly, looking place, this house of 
 Blairavon," said he; "I wonder how the governor ever 
 came to buy it." 
 
 " Absurd ?" queried Lennard, reddening ; " ugly, do you 
 sayr 
 
 " Pardon me — by Jove ! ' I forgot that the old place once 
 belonged to your family," he replied, sneeringly. 
 
 "It was my father's and his forefathers', for centuries, 
 and is veiy ancient." 
 
 "Well, a place may be old and yet be unsightly and 
 absurd, just as a man may be old and disreputable, or a 
 Bpendtlirift." 
 
 " I don't see the parallel," said Lennard, abruptly turning 
 on his heel, and re-entering the drawing-room. 
 
 " Dry, proud snob !" muttered Cheatwood, savagely, and 
 with a dangerous gleam in his eye ; " but I'll take the wind 
 out of your sails yet, my fine feUow — our junior partner, as 
 you think yourself. By Jove, if you only knew as much of 
 old Vere as I do, you might be less easy in your mind." 
 
 Cheatwood, however, had no desire to quarrel outwardly 
 with Blair • he knew that the young man had some loose cash, 
 to share which over ^ cards would be very convenient ; then 
 there was the secret in regard to Hesbia, which he wished to 
 learn, so he became more suave in his manner, and artfully 
 contrived to get himself included in an invitation to a 
 dinner which Lennard was giving to the Doctor and Dab- 
 chick, "just to come over in a friendly way and take their 
 lamb and green peas with him at Oakwoodlee about six to- 
 morrow." 
 
96 THE GIRL HB MABRIED. 
 
 " Thanks ; I am your man," said Travice ; " do we play 
 
 ecart6 1" 
 
 " A little," said Lennard. 
 
 " Then we shall have a game to-morrow night, or cut in 
 for a quiet rubber, eh f 
 
 " With pleasure," said Lennard : but Dabchick, who had 
 played a good deal with Mr. Cheatwood of late, made a 
 faint response- and that gentleman, feeling assured that the 
 morrow would be a lucrative day, went gaily through the 
 drawing-room into the conservatory where Hesbia was 
 good-naturedly culling a nosegay for old Mrs. Magnus Kirk- 
 ford, before the good lady set out for the Manse. 
 
 Lennard, who was still speaking to Feverley, did not 
 observe where Cheatwood had gone ; he only knew that 
 Hesbia was busy among the shelves of brilliant exotics, and 
 went there also for the purpose of attempting to interest 
 her by the double announcement that he was soon to start 
 for Liverpool, and afterwards, for a long and indefinite 
 time, to Vera Cruz ; and he was fully intending to make 
 some allusion to a more defined and tender form of friend- 
 ship ; but this intention, like his feelings, received a shock 
 — a check, on hearing nothing less than a proposal made to 
 her by another, and his unintentional eavesdropping came 
 about in the following manner :— 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A PROPOSAL. 
 
 The conservatory was spacious, with a great pjrramidal 
 stand, or shelved partition in the centre ; and while passing 
 round this barrier, which intervened between him and 
 Hesbia, Lennard, to his extreme annoyance, was joined by 
 iiis father's old friend, Mr. Cheyne, who was a great florist, 
 ^nd was always pottering about bulbs, cucumber beds, 
 melon frames, and so forth. Unfortunately, being rather 
 deaf, he was quite unaware of the presence of others in the 
 conservatory, so he at once engaged Lennard in a discourse 
 upon hot-air apparatus and exotics with mysterious names 
 and properties ; but this did not prevent the unlucky lover, 
 whose ears were quickened by apprehension, from hearing 
 Hesbia and Travice Cheatwood in close conversation on the 
 other side of the great flower-stand. 
 
 "You remember our little confab, Hesbia T asked 
 Cheatwood. 
 
A PROPOSAL. 97 
 
 ** When 1 we have so many confabs, as you call them." 
 
 ** And disputes too ; but I mean this morning." 
 
 ** Well ; but don't recur to it, please." 
 
 "And why not?' 
 
 " It is useless to refer to your magnificent proposal" 
 
 *' Sneering again, and thereby adding pain " 
 
 " Pain !" echoed Hesbia, laughing ; " now don't be a fool, 
 Travice ; once and for all, I cannot and will not have you. 
 
 " Will not, and cannot ! Are you in earnest, or is this 
 gome of your flirting nonsense 1" 
 
 *' I am in stern earnest," she said, laughing again, and 
 Diu-ying her pink nostrils into the bouquet she was arranging 
 witli great taste and skill. 
 
 " Laughed at, am 1 1" continued Travice, grinding his 
 teeth. " Well, I came down to this outlandish hole, and 
 nave loafed about it on a precious fool's errand." 
 
 " JSTot entirely so, if papa gave you some days ago the 
 cheque for £400, which you spoke of this morning, to show- 
 me now high you stood in his favour." 
 
 Travice Cheatwood changed colour painfully, for the 
 document referred to had undergone some remarkable 
 changes in his hands. 
 
 " I am sure, also," added Hesbia, *' that you win money 
 from all our friends." 
 
 " I have won £60 from the baronet and Dabchick at 
 billiards, and done that soft snob of a Doctor into the odds 
 on 'Traviata' at the Epsom, though the poor fool knows 
 nothing about it— don't think he even knows where Epsom 
 is, though I suppose he has heard of the salts so named. 
 But it is hard to be treated thus by you, Hesbia, after 
 enduring your baronet, Dabchick, old Kirkford, and that 
 set to the last stage of boredom." 
 
 " Sweet cousin, you are very polite !" said she, curtseying. 
 
 " I'll not take to Tennyson and a cigar for breakfast, or 
 to Byron and moonlight for supper, at all events," he replied 
 while eyeing her malevolently. 
 
 " You would require to turn over a new leaf to suit me, 
 Travice, dear," said Hesbia, willing to coquette a little with 
 him still. 
 
 " I always mean to do so." 
 
 " To-morrow, no doubt f 
 
 " Yes, but I can never overtake to-morrow." 
 
 " \Vhy T continued Hesbia, banteringly. 
 
 • Because it is always twelve hours ahead. Your 
 governor " 
 
 " Say ' papa.' 1 am shocked by your slang, Travice." 
 
 7 
 
98 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 " Well, your papa makes money by the bushel, the old 
 name and spirit of Cheatwood are still in the firm; and 
 why should not I benefit thereby V 
 
 " Your father's interest was bought ; and you have always 
 been a bad boy." 
 
 Cheatwood uttered an oath. 
 
 " Come, now, Travice, let me pass to the drawing-room, 
 and don't be absurd, or make a fool of yourself by growing 
 angry." 
 
 " If any other person is the means of making a fool of 
 
 me, by (and with flashing eyes and a pallid visage, he 
 
 swore again, looking as rufiianly as his speech imported) I'll 
 make cold meat of him, and send him to old Fireworks 
 before his time !" 
 
 Hesbia shrugged her smooth shoulders, and said, disdain- 
 fully,- 
 ' " Don't_ indulge in tall talk." 
 
 " Who is using slang now f* 
 
 "Melodramatic threats are intensely absurd, and there 
 are rural police even in Scotland. You must have seen 
 them, cousin — big six-foot fellows, in sham military 
 uniforms, with thistles and St. Andrew's crosses on their 
 felt helmets. They are vulgarly muscular and unpleasant- 
 looking men." 
 
 Thus bantered, Cheatwood withdrew scowling, and in his 
 confusion, or irritation, stumbled without apology against 
 the pale and shark-eyed baronet, who was lingering at the 
 conservatory door. 
 
 Had he been aware of what was going on 1 Anyway, he 
 was looking as dark as if " things were wrong in Mincing 
 or Mark-lane — or the devil was upon 'Change." 
 
 The night was too far advanced now to aff'ord Lennard 
 time for the opportunity so earnestly sought. 
 
 Mr. Cheyne and his daughters drove off, taking the clergy- 
 man and his wife in their carriage, as the manse of Blairavon 
 stood on the way to the Haughs. Doctor Feverley now 
 appeared hat in hand, and Lennard, who had no excuse for 
 lingering, prepared to depart. 
 
 Hesbia bade him adieu cordially and with much empresse- 
 ment, slyly returning the pressure of his fingers with her 
 right hand, while the left, which was placed behind her, we 
 are sorry to add, she permitted Cheatwood to kiss, when he 
 pretended to stoop for a fallen flower. 
 
 Crowdy's quick, small eves saw the whole affair, though 
 Lennard did not ; and witn the memory of that coquettish 
 pressure of Uia hand, and pf thp soft, tender smUc of twp 
 
▲ PKOPOSAL. 99 
 
 beautiful brown eyes, he walked homeward almost a happy 
 2ian, with his friend the Doctor. 
 
 The latter was mounted, and rode slowly by his side, 
 buried in thought. 
 
 The night was beautiful, the air calm and soft, not a leaf 
 was stirring in the woods of Blairavon, the green hills stood 
 clearly defined in the moonlight on one hand, on the other 
 Lennard could see the blue sky reddened by the glare from 
 the engines by which those mines of wealth, the coal-pits, 
 were worked night and day by double gangs of men- 
 wealth, the loss of which had broken his father's heart. 
 
 The Vere " set" was not a very distinguished one ; such 
 was Lennard Blair's decided conviction, and he deplored it 
 Lady Foster was certainly irreproachable in bearing, mannei 
 and appearance ; but the baronet with the odd name. Sir 
 Cullender Crowdy, seemed to be a man there was no fathom- 
 ing, and he resolved to question Dabchick closely about him 
 on the morrow, for Dabchick knew something of everybody 
 or of everybody's affairs. 
 
 " It was a great relief to me, Blair, whea I found that 
 Lady Foster was not in the drawing-room on our return ta 
 it," said the Doctor, letting his reins drop on the horse's 
 mane. "I could not again trust myself in her presence. 
 There is more than the mere sentiment of a boyish first love 
 in this, for I am no longer a boy nor she a girl. I believe 
 in this strong and tender love, though not that it either 
 breaks the heart or completely blights a life " 
 
 " Except in novels," said Lennard. 
 
 " Novels of course— yet it has cast a shadow on my days." 
 
 After a pause, 
 
 " I would to God, Blair, I had not met her again— had 
 not looked upon her face !" exclaimed Feverley in a broken 
 voice ; " and then there is her old and palsied husb-and too 
 —tottering on the verge of eternity." 
 
 " It was lucky we escaped him, I think," said Lennard, 
 scarcely knowing what to say. 
 
 " My love for Milly has flamed up anew ; but it is as the 
 flame of the lamp which the ancients left with their dead — 
 a light I dare not show, dare not acknowledge even to 
 myself — a flame hidden in a tomb !" 
 
 And much more did the poor Doctor say and rhapsodise 
 to describe his emotions, till Lennard, to change the subject, 
 said, 
 
 " And now that you have seen him, Feverley, what do you 
 think of my rival f" 
 
 ^' Which f 
 
 7-3 
 
lOO THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 ** The deuce — have I two ?" 
 
 "Well, the lanky baronet with the broken nose and 
 Jewish looking eyes watched you and Miss Vere the whole 
 evening like a lynx. Of course she is a prize that many will 
 contend for ; but you refer to Mr. Cheatwood." 
 
 " Yes," said Lennard curtly, with an air of annoyance. 
 
 " I think he is 'a dog in forehead, and at heart a deer * — 
 or worse, a wolf rather. If Gall and Spurzheim knew 
 anything of their trade, I may say that fellow's head and 
 face should hang him !" said Doctor Feverley. 
 
 " Rivalry apart, though the features are good, I cannot 
 help agreeing with you, Doctor, and think that Lavater 
 would do so too." 
 
 " But he dines with us at Oakwoodlee to-morrow, does he 
 notr 
 
 " I had no desire to invite him ; but he was standing near 
 when I asked you, and politeness " 
 
 " Of course ; but I must beware of him ; he has entangled 
 me — how I cannot tell — in a bet on an English race, a 
 matter of which I am as ignorant as of what Professor 
 Smyth saw in the Great Pyramid. That Cheatwood has 
 views with regard to his cousin there cannot be a doubt, and 
 that he seems a reckless— even dangerous character too. But 
 that baronet " 
 
 " Oh, Feverley, the man is perfectly hideous !" 
 
 " He has a title ; Mr. Vere knows its value ; the baronet 
 is a man, I hear, well known on 'Change, though what his 
 line of business I never could precisely learn ; and I know 
 enough of Mr. Vere to see that Mammon is the god of his 
 idolatry." 
 
 They proceeded in silence for a time, and the lights of 
 Blairavon were hidden among the copse-wood now. Fol- 
 lowing up the last train of thought, Feverley said, — 
 
 " By the late melancholy event at home, your income will 
 of course be increased, Blair." 
 
 " My father left many debts ; but these and all expenses 
 paid by letting the shootings and a few acres of grass and 
 so forth, I shall have £200 yearly — and then there is a salary 
 or share in the business at Liverpool." 
 
 " All this would be wealth to me ; such are things by 
 comparison." 
 
 " Still all are little enough to oflfer for Miss Vere's ac- 
 ceptance." 
 
 " Yet how pleasant it is to put one's foot upon a piece of 
 land — even an acre or two — and feel that it is one's oz^w." 
 
 " True," said Leunard thoughtfully as he looked over the 
 
BUSINESS. 10 1 
 
 fertile miles of meadow and green-growing corn tliat should 
 have been his, stretching away in the moonlight to the very 
 base of the hills ; but now they had reached the little mcket 
 of the pathway that led to Oakwoodlee, the roughcast 
 fagade of which shone white amid its dark grove of Scottish 
 pines. There the friends parted, and the Doctor galloped 
 off towards his little cottage in the hamlet. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BUSINESS. 
 
 While this conversation was going on between Lennard 
 and Feverley in the moonlight, a mile or so from Blairavon, 
 another was being maintained on the subject of Hesbia by 
 Mr. Vere and Sir Cullender, as they lingered over their 
 cigars and a glass of Madeira, in the smoking-room, where 
 the gas-lights were subdued in the gilt brackets that projected 
 from the wall, and where, through the open windows, the 
 moonlight and the soft atmosphere of the summer night stole 
 pleasantly in together. 
 
 The decorations of this room were very simple. The walls 
 were of olive-green tint, and the carpet of cocoa-nut matting ; 
 divans and easy chairs of various kinds were there, with 
 spittoons of elegant patterns and boxes of cigars, while on 
 the walls were a few racing and hunting pictures, which 
 whilom had belonged to old Mr. Richard Blair. 
 
 Mr. Cheatwood and Mr. Dabchick were in the billiard- 
 room at the other end of the corridor. Indeed all the leisure 
 moments of the former gentleman were spent in that apart- 
 ment, practising cannons and Avonderful strokes, or in the 
 study of his betting book and his chances on the Newmarket 
 Craven meeting, the Catterick Bridge races, and so forth ; 
 in noting horses struck out of their engagements, arrivals, 
 entries for selling, and other sporting news ; and this branch 
 of study on " coming events " he usually pursued with knitted 
 brows and bitten nails, or strange exclamations, as hope or 
 perplexity influenced him. 
 
 Left to themselves for a half-hour or so, Mr. Vere and 
 the baronet were seated each under a gas bracket, by means 
 of which position each thought he could watch the play of 
 the other's features while he kept his own concealed ; for 
 the conversation ran chiefly on Hesbia and the baronet's 
 presents and attentions to that young lady — attentions which 
 he frankly admitted he had been paying, and she had been 
 receiving with apparent good grace. 
 
J65 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 Vere was angling to secure the baronet for a son-in-laW ; 
 while the latter was extremely curious to know how money 
 matters stood, or might stand in the future. 
 
 " You are young-looking, Sir Cullender — without a grey 
 hair," remarked Mr. Vere during a pause. 
 
 " Still I am past five-and-forty — you flatter me." 
 
 " A period not too old for love-making, I hope." 
 ^ " For romantic love-making certainly," said the baronet^ 
 Uis quick, small eyes twinkling hideously ; " but that is a 
 commodity in which we business men — we men of the world, 
 Mr. Vere, are not wont to traffic." 
 
 " No time for it— eh. Sir Cullender 1 Your title is recom- 
 mendation enough to any young girl," said Vere. 
 
 The baronet gave an uneasy smile. 
 
 " In what part of Scotland did the estates of your family 
 Her' 
 
 "In the north." 
 
 *• And they were lost, you say 1 ** 
 
 " In some of the civil wars. Since then we have resided 
 in England — taken root in London, in fact." 
 
 " And to better purpose, no doubt. At five-and-forty, it 
 is not too old, I hope, to admire beauty and enjoy all the 
 pleasures of life, which are in the flush in some measure." 
 
 " Your daughter, Miss Vere, is, I admit, charming," said 
 the baronet ; " and she has dazzled me greatly ; but she 
 Beems to dazzle all, especially that young fellow Blair." 
 
 " How 1 " asked Mr. Vere, angrily. 
 
 " His gaze was never off her to-night." 
 
 " Blair — pshaw ! They are good friends, that is all. He 
 is in my counting-room, and — and believes himself to have 
 a share in the firm." 
 
 An expression of intelligence and intense cunning played 
 for a moment over the sallow features of Sir Cullender, as 
 he echoed the word " Believes 1 " 
 
 " Yes— yes," replied Mr. Vere, with a careless air, while 
 rattling his pocketsful of loose silver ; " a thousand or two 
 sunk with us — that is all. The reason that I tolerate him 
 here is, that I want to get his patch of land called Oakwoodlee 
 into my own hands — it is a nuisance having it thrust like a 
 wedge into the heart of my estate— and then I shall find an 
 excuse for despatching him to South America— say Vera 
 Cruz." 
 
 I\Ir. Vere said all this very fast, and endeavouring to look, 
 "H^hat he wished to be thought— a god in the business-world 
 of Liverpool. 
 
 " But to return to Hesbia," he resumed, after a pause : 
 
BUSINESS. 103 
 
 ** You have means, Sir Cullender— though as you admitted 
 to me a few days ago, not much." 
 
 " True, Mr. Vere ; but I have my title." 
 
 Mr. Yere coughed — dubiously, it might have sounded to 
 some ; and certainly it did so to the large, projecting ears 
 of the baronet, whose sloe-black eyes gave him an angry and 
 uneasy glance, while he sharply puffed his cigar. 
 
 " And with Hesbia, as your wife " 
 
 "Without more means than I possess," said the other, 
 coming to the point at once, " a wife is a luxury I cannot 
 well afford, and accustomed as Miss Yere has been, to all 
 that wealth could give her ; " 
 
 " She shall have Blairavon at my death ; and if you cast 
 your lot with us, your title being added to the name of the 
 firm " 
 
 " Ah— you think it would sound well 1 " 
 
 " And perhaps prove a mine of gold to us ; doubtless you 
 must have found its value in your own business in London f 
 
 "Then there is your nephew, Mr. Cheatwood," said Sir 
 Cullender, abruptly changing the subject. 
 
 " A worthless fellow, I am sorry to say. He has no share 
 whatever in the firm, and he is not deserving of considera- 
 tion. Your "business " 
 
 " It is as a dangler after Miss Yere I mean," persisted the 
 baronet, who always with some nervousness evaded any 
 questions about his " business." Perhaps he was ashamed 
 of it, as a man of title and family. 
 
 " Travice is a dangler who will not be long here, and I 
 repeat that he is not worth considering." 
 
 " But this lad Blair is," rejoined the other, half sulkily. 
 
 " Well, perhaps, Hesbia has some friendship for him." 
 
 " Then his presence I will not tolerate," said the baronet, 
 who seemed determined to make the most of this ; " she 
 wears a valuable bracelet of pearls, which he gave her." 
 
 " The young man is frequently my guest and her escort, 
 when we are at home. The gift was openly given, and is 
 openly worn, so I don't put so much weight upon that 
 matter " 
 
 " As he may do, Mr. Yere." 
 
 " Since the thing annoys you. Sir Cullender, I shall desire 
 Hesbia to restore it to the donor." 
 
 "By no means; that would be attaching, perhaps, too 
 much importance to the gift." 
 
 " You have seen her playfulness : she is still a species of 
 child." 
 
 " At her years a child, Mr. Yere V 
 
104 THE GIEL HE MA:RRIED. 
 
 " Amid tlie splendour your wealth and business can give 
 her, in a year or so, she will look back on all this philander-' 
 ing and coquetting " 
 
 " With regret or shame, perhaps ; but meantime it won't 
 suit me," said the baronet, with the air of annoyance which 
 he always adopted when his mysterious business was alluded 
 to ; and this odd bearing had usually the effect of reducing 
 Mr. Vere to silence, or perhaps it set him thinking. 
 
 "You have not yet, I believe, addressed my daughter 
 formaUyr' 
 
 " I have not had a proper opportunity, and now that Mr. 
 Blair " 
 
 " Blair returns. to Liverpool in three days," said Mr. Vere, 
 with some asperity. " I have a little part to play with him, 
 wishing, as you know, to possess that place named Oak- 
 woodlee ; then the whole place shall be settled on Hesbia, 
 by a trust deed of disposition, divesting myself of it in her 
 favour, while solvent ; we never know what may occur in 
 trade and in the money market nowadays." 
 
 " Then buy up Oakwoodlee." 
 
 " Blair won't sell it readily, I fear." 
 
 " Won't r 
 
 " Moreover, the money-market is pretty tight just now ; so 
 I shall give him in exchange for his interest in the place a 
 share to its full value in our business at Liverpool. Another 
 time then. Sir Cullender, we shall go thoroughly into these 
 matters — perhaps when I go up with you to London, where 
 you must be equally frank with me in the details of your 
 plans and exchequer, and the close of the year may see my 
 daughter Lady Crowdy." 
 
 More might have passed, but Travice Cheatwood now 
 dropped in to smoke a cigar, as he said, " before going to 
 roost •" and as he^ stroked his fair moustache and smiled 
 complacently to himself, neither Mr. Vere nor his intended 
 son-in-law could have suspected that he had heard more of 
 their plans and wishes than they could have desired, for 
 Travice Cheatwood never entered a room hurriedly. 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 A QUAKTETTE. 
 
 The unwonted occasion of guests coming to Oakwoodlee 
 put the two faithful old servants composing the household 
 of Lennard on their me al. Steinie went forth with his rod, 
 
A QUARTETTE. 16$ 
 
 and was successful in landing a fine salmon grilse, seven 
 pounds in weight. The recesses of the wine-binns were 
 searched ; a bottle or two of the fine old Madeira were put 
 in the sun to air, and those of some other wine in the bucket 
 of the deep draw-well to cool; while Elsie, with sleeves 
 rolled up, made the most wonderful pastry, and put fowls 
 to the spit, being careful to select as one, in the old Scottish 
 fashion, the plump hen that sat next the cock on the roost. 
 
 Entrees, ices, camellias, champagne, and maraschino there 
 were none in Oakwoodlee ; but from his little garden Steinie 
 produced the sweetest of green peas, the most mealy of 
 young potatoes, luscious and tender esculents of various 
 kinds, with strawberries to the rich cream produced by El- 
 sie's favourite " crummie." So nature nobly supplied all 
 that was wanting in art or decoration. 
 
 Doctor Feverley arrived first, a few minutes before six 
 o'clock, looking a little paler than he had done on the pre- 
 ceding evening. 
 
 "I have had a little adventure since last night, Blair," 
 said he. 
 
 "Not an unpleasant one, I hope]" 
 
 " This morning, about daybreak, a mounted servant came 
 from Blairavon in haste, stating that the Lady Foster was 
 seriously indisposed, and that Miss Vere requested me to 
 see her immediately. That no time might be lost, I took 
 the groom's horse, and with intense reluctance and regret, 
 mingled with a painful longing and curiosity, galloped over 
 to the manor-house, where I was informed that the lady de- 
 clined to see me." 
 
 " Declined !" 
 
 " Yes, with many apologies. I could not reprehend her. 
 It all passed for the whim— the sudden caprice of a fine 
 lady. How little could Miss Vere, while pleading her ex- 
 cuses for disturbing me at so untimeous an hour, have sur- 
 mised the real state of matters, as she stood smiling and 
 bowing to me in the most becoming of morning dresses, 
 edged at the sleeves and bosom with soft white lace, and 
 her brown hair knotted hastily back over two very pretty 
 ears, imparting to her brilliant beauty that gala look which 
 is so characteristic of her. There is, says a ^vriter^ ' a class 
 of women who are born to be either pets or victims,' and 
 poor Milly has been both — a sacrifice^ at the two altars o( 
 Mammon and Misfortune. \Vhen I think of the wreck of 
 her young heart, my own seems to fill with tears." 
 
 " Cheer up, Feverley. Sir Philip is an old fellow, palsied 
 and all that; take time, she may be a widow one of these 
 
Io6 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 days.** Lennard Blair felt himself on the point of making 
 some such rantipole speech as this, when, with all the rapid- 
 ity of thought, he checked it, and blushed at his own bad 
 taste. He was silent, but after a time said, — 
 
 " Come, Feverley, we shall have but a dull, little party if 
 you begin thus. There are wines on the table and brandy 
 on the sideboard.'' 
 
 But the Doctor, abstemious like his profession in general, 
 declined both before dinner. 
 
 Lady Foster, on the plea that Sir Philip was unwell at 
 Monkwood Moat, was leaving Blairavon for Edinburgh at 
 that very hour. Poor Feverley was ignorant of this ; and 
 for several subsequent days spent much of his spare time in 
 hovering about the vicinity of the avenue and lawn, in the 
 hope of once again seeing the little boy with his nurse. 
 
 The Doctor was full of this new, or rather old, subject, 
 and continued to relate to Lennard how, during the long 
 and tedious dinner at Blairavon, he had watched her, and 
 observed what others did not — her eyes cast down or look- 
 ing round at times with a startled, wild, or desolate expres- 
 sion ; at others, wistful and dreary ; and how she would 
 anon force a well-bred smile, and make attempts to reply or 
 attend to the little nothings that were said around her ; and 
 how she seemed so girlish in appearance, that she could 
 scarcely be thought the mother of her son, and so forth. 
 
 In the midst of these remarks, the hard, shrewd Scotch 
 face of Steinie Hislop — ^who had donned his old and care- 
 fully brushed livery-coat — appeared at the door with his 
 mouth and eyes all puckered by a broad grin, as he an- 
 nounced two names which seemed to tickle his fancy, — 
 
 "Mr. Dalrymple Pennyworth Dabchick and Mr. Cheat- 
 wood." 
 
 These gentlemen entered, the former attired in accurate 
 evening dress, and the latter in his shooting-jacket ; and 
 then the usual greetings and meaningless discussion of the 
 Tveather ensued prior to dinner. 
 
 Dabchick, as a very soured Scottish essayist has it, was 
 exactly one of those " barristers of provincial education and 
 very mediocre parts — men who, in England, might become 
 Recorders or County Court Judges, but who affect to lead 
 a party in Scotland, because Scotland has become a pro- 
 vince, whose affairs are no longer in the hands of its aris- 
 tocracy (all the better surely for Scotland !) and whose ablest 
 men emigrate if they can." 
 
 With all his professional vanity and self-esteem, which 
 were inordinate, in the air of Mr. Dabchick among strangers 
 
A QtJAETETTE. 107 
 
 there seemed sometMng of always deferring — of perpetual 
 apology— of "booing," as Sir Pertinax would call it; but 
 this was simply the result of his training. 
 
 Cheatwood had early discovered one very weak point in 
 the character of Dabchick, — an extreme touchiness on the 
 subject of Scottish law; so, whenever they played, he cou' 
 trived to make the little barrister nervous, furious, and even 
 confused by \Tilgar ridicule of it, for his own acquisitive 
 ends. 
 
 If Lennard's dinner, in style and equipage, was a very dif- 
 ferent affair from the one at Blairavon yesterday, there was 
 a homely, snug, old-fashioned air about it, and the mode in 
 which it was served, that made it a very pleasant repast, 
 though Lennard's eye would wander at times to a certain 
 empty elbow chair, and to a corner w^here an old ivory- 
 handled cane was standing just where his father had last 
 placed it. 
 
 An old and wall-eyed otter terrier, named " Don," long 
 •his father's faithful friend, now nestled by Lennard's chair, 
 expectant of an occasional morsel. 
 
 Even while sharing his hospitality mth Cheatwood, it 
 was occasionally with difficulty that Lennard could preserve 
 an unrufflcdi aspect, when the constitutional and irrepres- 
 sible impertinence of that personage became apparent. 
 
 "And you go back to Liverpool in three days, Blair ]" 
 he observed, while taking more peas to his salmon. 
 
 " In three days at furthest — back to business once more." 
 
 " Ah ! you are just one of those sort of f eUows who always 
 go ahead." 
 
 " I hope so — you flatter me." 
 
 " No, I don't— not a bit ; for I never knew one of your 
 
 inf your countrymen otherwise. They get into the right 
 
 groove somehow, and then go forward. You'll be head of 
 the house of Vere, Cheatwood and Co. some of these fine 
 days, while I may enlist, or hang myself — it's the line any- 
 way.** ^''V f' ':. ' -i-;-'- 
 
 '•Steinie, as^st-Mr. Cheatwood -t& wine,", said Lennard, 
 tolouring a little. 
 
 "You are silent, Doctor — of what are you thinking T 
 asked Travice. 
 
 " Of the ease and contentment that must be often brought 
 by wealth, and are so seldom the lot of mere work and 
 poverty." 
 
 " True; if one had a little tin, this Vale of Tears— as that 
 old psalm-singing muff of a minister caUed the world yester- 
 day—would be a very jolly place. It is the deuce to be liko 
 
Io8 THE GIRL HE MAHEIED. 
 
 me, with small means and no profession, and to be constantly 
 trying to make a pleasant circle." 
 " Of what — acquaintances V 
 
 " No — by coaxing the two ends of my income to meet ; 
 but by no human ingenuity, of mine at least, can that mone- 
 tary problem be solved. 
 
 " Get a rich wife," suggested Mr. Dabchick, who was con- 
 stantly on the outlook for such an investment of his own 
 dapper person. 
 
 " A widow, or an amatory spinster of forty, if either had 
 money, would suit nje admirably; but I have never the luck 
 to meet them." 
 
 Lennard positively hated Travice Cheatwood ; but then, 
 as Hesbia's cousin, he was disposed to conciliate and, as her 
 rejected lover, he could afford to pity him. Still, as the 
 evening stole on, almost every remark made by Travice jarred 
 on Lennard's nerves, on his pet fancies or secret thoughts, 
 and as he imbibed the fine old heady Madeira, his guest's 
 general disposition was not improved. As he lay back in 
 his chair and surveyed the fine and fertile landscape that 
 stretched away beyond the grove of pines and the old Charter 
 Stone, — 
 
 " When Sir Bernard Burke, the Ulster King-at-arms, 
 writes a history of the unla,nded gentry, I hope he "vvill not 
 forget me," said Travice. " It is a fine thing to own a lump 
 of land ; people speak of the wealth of Vere and Cheatwood ; 
 but I expect, by Jove, that uncle's best and most lasting 
 mines of wealth are those pits at — what's the absurd name 
 of the place — Kaims of Mains, or Mains of Kaims 1 " 
 
 "Meaning literally 'the field of the camp.' A Eoman 
 camp stood there in the days of Julius Agricola," observed 
 Feverley. 
 
 " Now, I should not wonder but that uncle had a shrewd 
 notion of coal being there before he bought the estate from 
 your father, Blair." 
 
 " I think that scarcely possible, Mr. Cheatwood." 
 
 *' Ah — you don't know him as I do." 
 
 " You are of a singularly suspicious nature," said Feverley, 
 smiling. 
 
 " And perhaps with reason." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I don't know ; but I believe that very few things are 
 done in this world for the causes assigned to them • and you, 
 Dabchick, as a lawyer, must know that deuced well. Under 
 the surface of life lies a stratum of concealed thought which 
 no man can see in his neighbour." 
 
A QUAKTETTE. I09 
 
 " Of course, that may be," assented Doctor Feverley. 
 
 " Every man plays a double game in this world — a secret 
 and an open one ; and it is fools alone who let others see the 
 cards they hold.' 
 
 "A dark and unpleasant distrust this, surely 1" said 
 Lennard. 
 
 "Unpleasant]" 
 
 " Yes— for yourself." 
 
 " But useful ; I have lived a little longer than you, Blair, 
 in this nothing-for-nothing world, and perhaps know its 
 crooked ways better — that is all." 
 
 Whatever was the train of angry thoughts that passed 
 through the cynical and mischievous mind of Cheatwood, his 
 companions could only see that there was a cruel and male- 
 volent expression on his thin lips and in his cold, cunning 
 eye, as Feverley afterwards said, " A most hateful aspect to 
 read in the face of a man who had the most part of life yet 
 before him." 
 
 " There may be some truth in what you say," said Len- 
 nard, "yet I have been struck by a writer who remarks, 
 ' How little do we know of the hearts of others, and how 
 readily do we prate about seeing through a man, when, in 
 truth, what we see is but a surface, and the image conveyed 
 to our mind but the reflection of ourselves.' You do not, 
 then, think much of the world at large ? " added Lennard, 
 laughing. 
 
 "Neither then nor now," was the surly rejoinder ; "and 
 I don't expect much from its candour or generosity." 
 
 " Come, come, Cheatwood," exclaimed Lennard, pushing 
 the decanters towards the speaker, " you are turning quite 
 a cynic ; fill your glass, and be jolly. Life I know to be a 
 game of leapfrog at best." 
 
 " Yes," responded Cheatwood, his large tongue rendering 
 his voice still more displeasing as his secret irritation grew 
 vipon him ; " but I shall never, if I can help it, be the one 
 who stoops his back to his fellows." And, with a forced 
 ^iaugh, he filled his glass and held it between him and the 
 light of the setting sun to test the brilliant hue of the wine. 
 Then, though all unconscious of it, his next remark drew 
 upon him a very deliberate scowl from Steinie Hislop, who, 
 having removed the cloth, was replenishing the wine-decan- 
 ters. " By the way, Blair, I'd have that great upright block, 
 which looks very like as if it had been stolen from Stone- 
 henge— the Charter Stone, I think you call it, — blown up or 
 broken down for road metal" 
 "For what reason?" 
 
no THE GIRL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 " Because it must stand riglit in the way of the plough." 
 
 " We have never ploughed that piece of land." 
 
 "Others may, some day ; moreover, it is most unsightly — 
 positively hideous ! " 
 
 " Well— it may only be the association of ideas or custom, 
 but it does not seem so to me. Those great Druidical 
 monoliths that stand here and there all over the land are 
 calculated to inspire the reflective mind with many solemn 
 thoughts of all the mighty changes and the generations of 
 men they have survived. Moreover," added Lennard, with 
 a little laugh and almost with a blush, as if ashamed of the 
 admission to a sneerer, " through an old tradition, we believed 
 it to be inseparably connected with our existence as a family, 
 so much so, that an ancestor of mine was once very nearly 
 adopting it as a crest, in lieu of the stag's head cabosked." 
 
 "Bosh, indeed ! " exclaimed Cheatwood, with the first 
 genmne laugh he had enjoyed that evening, ; "when that 
 far- travelled individual, 'the intelligent foreigner,' or the 
 *New Zealander,' to whom the newspaper snobs alwaya 
 appeal or refer, comes this way, won't they stare a bit to see 
 such things believed in '* 
 
 " Nay— talked about." 
 
 "Well— even talked about, in these days of progress. 
 To be practical men, as you think yourselves, you Scotsmen 
 are sometimes very sentimental donkeys, with many sympa- 
 thies and superstitions that are all of a pre-railway age. 
 But now, that dinner is over and wine on the table, suppose 
 we cut in for a quiet little rubber at whist — crown points, 
 say?" 
 
 " Impossible for me," said Feverley, looking at his watch ; 
 " I beg your pardon, Blair ; but I'm almost due at tha 
 village — have a patient to see ; I shall be back within an 
 hour — you'll hold me excused." 
 
 " Certainlyj my dear fellow — return as soon as you can, 
 and light a cigar ere you go ; there are some prime Havan- 
 nahs in that box." 
 
 The Doctor retired, with a covert glance at Lennard to be 
 wary in his play. 
 
 ** Now, Mr. Dabchick,** said Lennard, " as playing whist 
 with a dummy is always slow work, I shall smoke a cigar 
 here while you and Mr. Cheatwood take to cards if you 
 like." 
 
 "All right," replied Cheatwood, "only I hate to play 
 while an idler looks on.** (He had his own private reasons 
 for this strange dislike I) " But now, Dab, to give you a 
 chance of revenge, suppose we cut ia for ^carte V 
 
iCARTi. Ill 
 
 "What do you mean by revenge'?" stammered Mr. 
 Dabcliick. 
 
 " You know that I have your I.O.U. for a cool fifty pounds 
 — perhaps you may win it back a^ain.'' 
 
 Poor Dabchick gave a sickly smile ; he could but ill afford 
 to take up that obnoxious paper, and had, he feared, but a 
 slender chance of regaining it from such a sharp player as 
 Tra\dce Cheatwood ; so a cold perspiration came over him. 
 How many pages of his guinea per column work for the 
 local papers, ^ith his other perquisite, the sale at half-price 
 to the libraries of the London books wasted for provincial 
 reviews— a trick of the country press— would be required to 
 cover that sum ; for he was one of the three hundred and 
 fifty unbriefed of his fraternity, so the consideration was a 
 serious one li^/v^ : » 
 
 A hectic^ crossed his face, and he was about to give his 
 place to Lerinard, but, somehow, before he knew how it all 
 came about, he found himself opposite the inexorable 
 Cheatwood at a little side-table ; while Lennard, thinking of 
 how he could contrive to have an interview with Hesbia on 
 the morrow, sat in a window apart from them, solely intent, 
 apparently, on rolling up and smoking a succescion of tiny 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ECAETE. 
 
 Entirely anxious to win, Cheatwood played with great 
 caution, and with his glass stuck in his eye. He had made 
 up what he conceived to be a sure and lucrative book on 
 both the Derby and the Oaks, and in both instances had he 
 lost ! Hence the origin of that bitterness of spirit which he 
 had displayed during dinner. Money he must make now at 
 aU hazards, and he valued Blair, Feverley, and Dabchick at 
 — not much — but about fifty pounds each at an average. 
 More he did not expect to get out of them by any ingenuity. 
 Having sufficient food for his own thoughts, Lennard sat 
 smoking in the open window, gazing out on the beautiful 
 landscape that stretched away towards the base of the green 
 Pentlands, steeped in the splendour of sunset, and for a time 
 he gave no heed to the two players, till the odd way in which 
 they were managing this very rooking game attracted his 
 attention. Dabchick was considerably flushed or pale by 
 turns. He had already lost several games and as many 
 pounds ; and found himself further than ever from recovering 
 that obnoxious I.O.XJ, 
 
112 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Travice Cheatwood was always overbearing and insolent, 
 even to equals ; so that to subordinates or inferiors his bear- 
 ing was singularly offensive. Dabchick he viewed as a 
 species of " muff," and thus made him a regular butt, but 
 always in an undertoned way. Perhaps it was that he had 
 a bad hand, or that Cheatwood had contrived to sting him 
 by vulgar banter, on their favourite subject of discussion— 
 the comparative merits of the law of the two countries ; 
 but when Lennard turned to the card-table, the game was 
 being conducted in this fashion : — 
 
 " I won't exchange my cards this time, Dab, old boy," 
 said Cheatwood. 
 
 "Then I score double for. the tricks.** 
 
 " Of course ; mild play this ; but as I was saying about 
 your Scotch law— only look at its phrases now ! How does 
 the panel appear when the diet against him is deserted sim- 
 pliciter ? very queer, I suppose % " 
 
 " What do you call a pu-isne judge, and how does he look 
 when he is sitting in Error V retorted Dabchick. 
 
 " How the deuce should I know % I'm not a lawyer,thank 
 God ! What do you mean by a double-gowned senator of 
 the college of justice, and how does he look when he takes 
 a case to avizandum— wherever that may be ] " 
 
 "You surely don't know Latin, sir !" 
 
 " Nor you Norman French ! " 
 
 " No — nor Choctaw nor Cherokee — where would be the 
 use 1 I mark the king— the card is in your hand — Je pro- 
 pose'' 
 
 " Then what do you Scotch lawyers mean by ! " 
 
 " Don't argue with me, please," urged Dabchick, against 
 whom game after game went dead and surely, for his adver- 
 sary could talk away on any subject, and yet be all the 
 while intent on his points and counters ; " bother Scotland 
 and her laws ! I don't set up for a patriot,— none of us 
 do." 
 
 " It doesn't pay you Scotch legal prigs to be so ; but some 
 day I hope you will get rid of your mediaeval law jargon." 
 
 " I don't know what you call jargon," replied Dabchick, 
 becoming seriously ruffled ; " but I consider the legal phrase- 
 ology of our courts quite as classical and comprehensive as 
 any used in the south ; to wit, what on earth is meant by 
 such terms as prochein amy, trover, replevin, formedon, no 
 unques, and accouple 1 " 
 
 Words to raise the wind, if not the devil, certainly," 
 said Lennard, thinking it time to interfere, and laughing at 
 the odd manner in winch they were managing their game of 
 
lECARTt 113 
 
 ** I have won tliat trick, Dab." 
 
 " Play another card, please— this is our last game, remem- 
 ber." 
 
 The tricks were rapidly played out, and when Dabchick 
 rose from the table he was minus twenty pounds. This Avas 
 not a great sum ; but as things are comparative, when^dded 
 to the I O U it was sufficient to render Dabchick wretched. 
 
 As the game had gone on, the reason why Travice Cheat- 
 wood "hated to play" with an idler by became painfully 
 apparent to the astonished and indignant Lennard Blair. 
 With a darkening brow and a louring eye he approached 
 the table, and the general expression of his face could not 
 fail to arrest the attention of Mr. Cheatwood when he 
 looked up, and, while shuffling the cards, asked if he had 
 "any objection to a little mild play." 
 
 " Decidedly I have ; I never gamble— don't like it," was 
 the blunt response, " yet, now that I think, I shall have a 
 little ecarte with you." 
 
 What Lennard had observed during the play between 
 Dabchick and Cheatwood was known only to lumself ; he 
 had seen enough, however, to convince him that Master 
 Travice -to use plain language — was sharping ! He was 
 enraged that such trickery should be practised in his own 
 house, and all his smothered dislike of Cheatwood glowed 
 to fever heat. 
 
 " How much to the point 1 " asked Cheatwood. 
 
 " Guinea points," replied Lennard, emptying a large glass 
 of cool claret at the sideboard. 
 
 "Agreed." 
 
 " You look flushed, Mr. Dabchick." 
 
 " The evening is warm," sighed the poor lawyer, who was 
 perspiring with irrepressible vexation. 
 
 "Try a glass of claret," said Lennard; "there is some 
 magnihcent old port there— vintage '47 — a favourite old dry 
 wine of my father's. Or will you smoke a cigar outside 
 till Feverley comes, and then we shall have our rubber ] 
 He can't be long absent now— he might have bled and blis- 
 tered all the people in Blairavon, rogues included, by this 
 time." 
 
 " Shall we divide for the deal ? " asked Cheatwood, who 
 was all eagerness to begin. 
 
 " Have you prepared the pack % " 
 
 "Yes — would you like to see for yourself]" he asked, 
 while running his fingers through hi» goatee beard, with a 
 fidgety air. 
 
 8 
 
114 THE GIRL HE MABRIED. 
 
 " No, sir- -I don't suspect jou ; and here I see are all the 
 twos, threes, fives, and sixes." 
 
 To decide the deal, the cards were cut at the commence- 
 ment of the game, and the lowest card fell to Cheatwood, 
 who dealt, and, as usual — won. 
 
 The deal then fell to Lennard, who played and lost again„ 
 Several games were played by them, but after the third 
 Lennard had no more luck. Still, he seemed in no way 
 discomposed ; he whistled, and talked on indifferent sub- 
 jeets— the last Derby — Hesbia's style of playing — the ex- 
 treme beauty of the evening, which had now given place to 
 night, and Steinie had lighted candles ; and ever and anon 
 Lennard— to the manifest annoyance of Cheatwood — wouild 
 stoop to pat and caress his father's otter terrier, Don, which 
 lay under the table. 
 
 " Let us double the stakes," said Cheatwood. 
 
 "With pleasure," replied Lennard, who rose to assist 
 himself to another glass of claret at the sideboard; but as 
 he had early been taught that a card-player should have at 
 least four eyes, he made such good use of the two given 
 him by nature that he distinctly saw Cheatwood, who was 
 dealing, give himself eight cards, and skilfully contrive to 
 drop three of these, till he could, by letting fall his hand- 
 kerchief, or some other ruse, return them to the pack. 
 
 There was a heavy score against Lennard now, a de- 
 cided hole would soon be made in the £ioo he had brought 
 with him from Liverpool, or, rather, in what remained of 
 that sum ; but he reseated himself with an air of uncon- 
 cern, just as Feverley and Dabchick, who had been smoking 
 outside, entered the room. By this time he was forty pounds 
 in debt to Cheatwood. 
 
 "Still deep in dearth, Blair, ehT 
 
 " Yes ; rather too deep." 
 
 "It's a game I don't like." 
 
 " Nor I, Doctor ; but I'm playing for a purpose." 
 
 Cheatwood knit his brows, and darted a keen glance at 
 the speaker, who was whistling again. 
 
 " What are you about, sir 1 is the terrier annoying you 1 " 
 asked Lennard, sternly, as Cheatwood secured one of his 
 dropped cards. 
 
 "i let a card fall, the king of trumps, by Jove ! That 
 scores one trick ; play on, please." 
 
 " You dropped a card, did you 1 " 
 
 " Yes — awKwardly." 
 
 " Yon have dropped half the pack, throughout the even- 
 ing ; there are a whole handful of cards below the table now ! " 
 
iCAETE. 115 
 
 "Impossible; d — nation, wJiat do you meanT' he de 
 manded. 
 
 "Look, gentlemen, Feverley and DabcMck, look here," 
 cried Lennard, furiously, as he tore aside the tablecloth, 
 and there certainly were several cards seen lying close to 
 the feet of Travice Cheatwood, who grew pale, dangerously 
 pale, but who still sought to brazen the matter out. 
 
 " Cards are there, certainly," he stammered ; " but how 
 the deuce they came there, I am completely at a loss to 
 understand.'' 
 
 " How is one to say an unpleasant thing in pleasant lan- 
 guage 1 " asked Lennard, grimly. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I am about to accuse you ^" 
 
 "Of what, sir; of what?" 
 
 " Cheating and card-sharping ; is that plain ? " 
 
 " I repeat that I know nothing about these cards ; on my 
 honour, I do !" 
 
 " Honour— a card-dropper, a rascally sharper, talks of his 
 honou}' !" 
 
 " "When you have quite done blowing off the steam, Mr. 
 Blair, perhaps I may talk to you," said Travice, rising as if 
 to withdraw, a ghastly glare in his light green eyes ; " till 
 then—" 
 
 " Do you take me for a child, or a fool ?" demanded Len- 
 nard, starting between him and the door. " At least ten 
 times this evening I have seen you drop your cards, and 
 now that I have exposed you " 
 
 " What do you mean to do ? kick up a row, eh ?" asked 
 Travice. 
 
 " I give you the choice of leaving the house by the door, 
 or a window. ^ Up with the sash, Dabchick," said Lennard, 
 giving full swing to his pent-up dislike, and heedless even of 
 what Hesbia or Mr. Vere might think. 
 
 " I shall prefer the door," replied Cheatwood, calmly, but 
 with a terrible expression in his cold and cunning eye. 
 
 " You are wise." 
 
 " I am one to three." 
 
 " I would not willingly assault a man in my own housej 
 even though he had sought to disgrace it by his conduct ; 
 but there is one little piece of business to be transacted ere 
 you go, Mr. Cheatwood." 
 
 " To the point, sir ; what is it ?" 
 
 " You have won twenty pounds from Mr. Dabchick, this 
 evening ; but while the discovery of your misconduct can^ 
 eels that debt of honour, it renders it necessary that you rc- 
 
 8-2 
 
/i6 THE GIRL HE MAERIE0. 
 
 turn his I O U for ^50 now in your possession. I give you 
 three minutes by that clock to do so, and if, at the end of 
 that time, it is not given up, by the Heaven that hears me, 
 I shall break every bone in your skin, and toss you head 
 foremost out of the window !" 
 
 Lennard's aspect was stern, resolute, and he seemed every- 
 Avay capable of putting his ugly_ threat in execution. 
 
 Cheatwood looked at him with a white gleam of malice 
 and hate in his eyes ; then an attempted smile of derision 
 spread over his face, as he deliberately opened his pocket- 
 book, tossed the document to Dabchick (who nervously and 
 instantly tore it to shreds), and with an ironical bow left 
 the room, and quitted the house, whistling the last street 
 tune, but leaving an indescribable chill on the hearts of the 
 three, more especially on that of Lennard, whose sudden 
 gust of anger soon evaporated. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CROWDY OF THAT ILK. 
 
 " I THINK that a quiet glass of grog will not be unacceptable 
 after this unseemly shindy, and in such a hot night, too," 
 said Lennard, ringing the bell for Steinie; "I never was 
 engaged in such a thing before, and I would to Heaven that it 
 had happened anywhere else than in my own house," he added, 
 as he thought of the future, and they drew their chairs round 
 the table, on which Steinie placed glasses, and the liqueur- 
 frame. 
 
 " He'll be for calling you out," said Feverley, laughing. 
 
 "Bah! if he does, I shall not go. The days for such 
 things are luckily past ; and even in the days when they 
 were not past, one wasn't obliged to go out with a swindler 
 and card-sharper." 
 
 "He'll w^ork you mischief somehow, if he can," lisped 
 Dabchick, who looked far from easy in his mind, and appre- 
 hensive, he knew not of what. 
 
 " Mischief, likely enough," replied Lennard, as he thought 
 of Hesbia Vere, and how much power his tie of cousinship 
 and residence at Blairavon gave him. 
 
 Mr. Dabchick felt greatly relieved from monetary embar- 
 rassment by the turn affairs had taken, in the restoration 
 and destruction of his I O U, and the cancelling of the fur- 
 ther debt of honour, and being grateful to Lennard, niado 
 many mental vows to eschew dcart(^ for e^'er. 
 
CKOWDY OF THAT ILK. 117 
 
 " By Jove ! never was present at such a scene !" said he, 
 after a pause ; " Doctor, what did the fellow look like, when 
 Blair taxed him as a cheat 1" 
 
 " Like a patient seated in a dentist's chair, anything but- 
 pleasant," replied the Doctor, mixing a glass of grog. "Peter 
 Pindar says that we should 
 
 Mind what we read in gocllj books. 
 And not take people by their looks. 
 
 But liis features bear the double stamp of open insolence 
 and secret dishonesty." 
 
 " And then the expression of his eyes as he gave up that 
 wretched paper of mine !" 
 
 " Yes ; a graveyard in a winter's day, is a jolly sight when 
 compared thereto ; but his eyes were full of dangerous hate." 
 
 "Hate 1 I hope to be able to defy him in anyway," said 
 Blair, who had been sitting in silence and full of disagree- 
 able thoughts. " If his uncle knew of to-night's work, he 
 could, of course, no longer tolerate his presence, at Blair- 
 ayon. It would injure Mr. Vere in the estimation of his 
 friend the baronet, with whom he has evidently every desire 
 tc^ stand well." 
 
 A strange expression, a very peculiar kind of smile that 
 stole over the weak features of Dabchick and twinkled in 
 his sore-looking eyes, made Lennard say, — 
 
 " Talking of Sir Cullender, by the way, I do not find his 
 name, arms, or family recorded in any of the ' Baronetages ' 
 of Nova Scotia or Great Britain, and I have looked ever so 
 far back." 
 
 "Pooh, my dear fellow.!" said the little advocate, whose 
 tongue was loosened by the good wine he had drunk, and 
 whose heart was fidl of gi'atitude for the recent release from 
 his double obligation to a card-sharper; "the whole affair is 
 a dodge, a sham — a humbug 1" 
 
 "What— the title r 
 
 " Yes— the assumption of it, at least." 
 
 " How — I cannot comprehend this 1" 
 
 " The fact is, that the man himself is, as you may see, a 
 London Jew ; his blood as old as Abraham's perhaps, but 
 not a drop of it Scotch for all that." 
 
 " Do, please, explain all this enigma," urged Feverley, for 
 Lennard was completely mystified. 
 
 " My friend little Mark Shoddy, the sheriff of a Scotch 
 county, told me all about it," continued the dapper advocate, 
 imbibing his grog with great relish ; " the baronet is one of 
 the most singular dodgers I ever met. He was once thread- 
 
Il8 THE GIKL HE MARRIED. 
 
 bare in London — tliankful for something less even than a 
 five pound note ; but lie inv-ented, or pretended to invent— 
 it is all the same at times— some useless necessity, which ha 
 had patented ; so a company was formed under that remark- 
 able system so favourable to schemers, the Limited Liability 
 Act. A board was appointed with a fussy secretary and a 
 fat and respectable looking president. There was an office 
 with a board-room and secretary's-room, carpeted with brown 
 cocoa-nut matting, and hung with highly glazed maps, mys- 
 terious diagrams, and gaudy prospectuses ; there were chairs 
 upholstered in crimson leather, flywire window blinds with 
 gilded letters, high desks and ditto chairs, and big ledgers 
 and daybooks with flaming red edges. So he whose linen had 
 long been represented by a paper collar and a dickey at 
 most — both turned at times— who had haunted low taverns 
 at the East-end of London and dined on a greasy chop with 
 a j)ot of beer, or on a biscuit with a refreshing draught of 
 pump-water— he, Benjamin Cullender Crowdy— soon came 
 forth in a new guise — a phoenix arisen from its ashes — a 
 caterpillar expanded to a butterfly, with a house at the 
 West-end and a villa at Richmond, with vineries and pits 
 for ice and forcing ; a deer forest in the Highlands, and a 
 snipe bog in Ireland, though he neither stalked in one no/ 
 shot in the other ; cellars with something better in the binns 
 than cobwebs and dust ; a box at the opera and a well-hung; 
 carriage ; but then, my dear sirs, you are aware that we live 
 in an age of progress, and it is a great country this !" 
 
 " This T queried the Doctor, " which do you mean — Scot- 
 land or England ?' 
 
 " I mean both, for knaves and hypocrites flourish in both, 
 with a success quite bewildering." 
 
 " But ivliat is his particular business T asked Lennard. 
 
 " That is just what no fellow can understand," replied 
 Dabchick ; " but we all know tnat he is Chairman ot the 
 Great Anglo-Saxon*Bccf and Mutton Company ; President 
 of the Imperial, Life, Loan, and Lucifer-match Office, and 
 Extraordinary Director of the Koyal Joint-Stock Company 
 for something else, and that he is connected with heaven 
 knows how many more ' limited ' aff'airs." 
 
 " If such is your view of this person, why do you continue 
 to reside with him at Blairavon T asked Lennard somewhat 
 gravely, for these revelations shocked and disgusted liim. 
 
 " Mr. Vere is about to have a dispute concerning a right 
 of way to his coal pits at the Kaims, and my legal advice is 
 necessary ; I expect to be retained in the case by Soaper 
 a"<l Sawmsinffer, W.S.^ his Edinburgh agents," replied poor 
 
CEOWDY OP THAT ILK, II9 
 
 Babchick, colo-uring, for he was of the many nnbriefed, as 
 we have said. 
 
 " But how about the baronetcy f persisted Lennard, who 
 thought that he was forgetting, or wandering from that part 
 of the subject. 
 
 "That is the greatest dodge — the most clever stroke of 
 all !" replied Dabchick, laughing. 
 
 "I cannot understand— he succeeded of course?" asked 
 Lennard. 
 
 " I shall explain to you all about it ; but first tell me if 
 there is any dormant or defunct Blair baronetcy T 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "The more is the pity." 
 
 " What matter — and why f * 
 
 " Because you might become Sir Lennard Blair to-morrow 
 after the fashion of Crowdy of that Ilk. My friend Sheriff 
 Shoddy — a great authority on family history and cavalier 
 biographies is little Mark— about a year ago had a petition 
 presented to him by a merchant of London, designating 
 himself Sir Cullender Crowdy of that Ilk, for general ser- 
 vice to Sir Eonald Crowdy of Crowdymoudy, Knight 
 Baronet, who died in 1650, for the purpose of taldng up the 
 title. Shoddy, like a sharp lawyer, ordered proof of propin- 
 quity to be given ; these proofs, of course, were never forth- 
 coming ; but Sir Cullender a*t once assumed the title, and 
 had it duly engraved on his cards and on most gorgeous 
 brass at his place of business in the city. Clever stroke 
 that, was it not 1" 
 
 " Mr. Vere should be told of aU this," said Lennard, fuU 
 of astonishm^ent and indignation at the imposture. 
 
 " It is not my part, or my interest either, to injure a 
 favourite guest in his estimation, especially as the man's 
 wealth seems undoubted." 
 
 "Well, then, Hesbia— Miss Vere, I mean " 
 
 " Oh, she, of course, cannot be supposed to understand 
 the dodge of the title — perhaps doesn't wish to do so," was 
 the significant and half-spiteful addition. 
 
 " You have tried to enlighten her, perhaps ? " 
 
 " Not exactly," replied the lawyer, carelessly ; but redden- 
 ing under the searching eyes of Lennard ; " thus, as I have 
 told you, Crowdy is a London Jew to the backbone. Of 
 course, the Crowdys of what's-its-name were an old Low- 
 land family." 
 
 " How came he to know about them 1 " 
 
 " Probably when searching for a crest — every snob must 
 have his bit of heraldry on his jw^teboard now, and many 
 
I20 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 a crest is there that never slione on a helmet in the line 
 of battle— he had seen that the baronetcy is stated to have 
 been extinct since 1650, when the last of the Crowdys was 
 killed by the English at the battle of Inverkeithing ; but 
 its extinction exactly suited Sir Cullender." 
 
 " This ought to be exposed," said Lennard, with growing 
 anger ; " it is an impudent humbug— an infamous assump- 
 tion." 
 
 "I think it a great .joke. The line has been defunct fol 
 two centuries ; but whose personal interest is it to expose 
 the bosh, the sham of the thing, or to insist that, after 
 two hundred years of obscurity as hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water, the affinity, even if it actually existed, 
 could be proved % " 
 
 " The Garter-king should interfere." 
 
 " He has no power whatever in Scotland, and our Lord 
 Lyon is abolished, so people may play what pranks they 
 please in the matter of arms and heraldry." 
 
 All this was a new view of the law of succession which 
 rather bewildered Feverley and his host ; but, as the night 
 was far advanced now, they separated. Doctor Feverley 
 rode off to the village, and Mr. Dabchick returned to Blair- 
 Hvon, escorted a portion of the way — as he felt nervous 
 among the woodlands — by Lennard, who extracted from 
 him a promise that he would not mention what had trans- 
 pired lest it might pain and mortify Miss Yere. 
 
 The dapper lawyer promised this all the more readily as 
 he was to leave Blairavon on the morrow for Edinburgh, 
 giving Lennard — whom he was quite aware would return to 
 Liverpool in three days— a pressing invitation to " look him 
 up soon," adding, as the address of his "rooms," a good 
 style of street, but omitting to add how many more of 
 the faculty chummed with him in the same house, for the 
 sake of economy and appearances, seeing the gaieties 
 of life, through the medium of the " free list," and being 
 the "utility men" of a penny daily— for in too many 
 instances to such small fry as these has the once brilliant 
 bar of Scotland sunk. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 COME TO ME. 
 
 Next morning when seated alone in the breakfast parlour, 
 Lennard lingered over his morning meal, and left his news- 
 paper untouched and uncut. The freshest of eggs, the 
 
COME TO ME. 121 
 
 thickest of cream, pickled salmon grilse, and cakes of bar- 
 leymeal— Elsie's own baking— with heather honey and so 
 forth, remained nearly untasted and forgotten by Lennard. 
 
 Last night's row and its contingent revelations were up- 
 permost in his thoughts, and the whole affair in all its 
 details and suggestive suspicions proved a source of much 
 distress and disgust to him. Though always distrustful of 
 Travice Cheatwood, he had never thought him a positive 
 swindler, yet the gambling of last night had proved him to 
 be so : and of what other treachery was not such a man 
 capable 1 
 
 When the figure of Travice came before his mind's eye, 
 notwithstanding his insolent brusquerie, his general accuracy 
 of toilet, his careful evening suit of black with silk facings, 
 cuffs and studs, and primrose-coloured gloves — his perfec- 
 tion of a tie, a bouquet at his button-hole, his laced shirt 
 and well-waxed moustache— more than all, when he thought 
 of him as the cousin of Hesbia, he would ask of himself^ 
 " Have I been rash and harsh — can I have mistaken him 1 " 
 And then the stern conviction that he had done right, and 
 right only, came fully and forcibly upon him. 
 
 Lennard could not, while he was at Blairavon, and after 
 all that had occurred, visit the Veres, even before depart- 
 ing for Liverpool. 
 
 That Mr. Vere should encourage attentions by a charac- 
 ter so doubtful as Mr. Dabchick represented " the baronet " 
 to be, caused to the young lover the keenest mortifica- 
 tion ; it roused a spirit of honourable and honest resent- 
 ment, and gave him a serious and most unpleasant doubt 
 of Vere himself— Vere, the man he had hitherto looked 
 upon as the mirror of integrity. With all this, he felt pity, 
 too, for Hesbia. 
 
 He would seek Dabchick once more. Starting, he looked 
 at his watch, and found that by that time the little lawyer 
 was being bowled homeward along the Edinburgh and Glas- 
 gow Line, or at that moment was probably cooling his heels, 
 and calculating the limits of human patience, at the Car- 
 stairs Junction, amid its Surbonian bog, if he went by the 
 other route ; and Lennard smiled to himself, as he thought 
 of poor Dabchick's pressing but hazy offers of uncertain 
 hospitality. 
 
 Ere leaving Oakwoodlee, he felt the necessity of seeing 
 Hesbia at least once more, and alone, to end his own doubts, 
 and to warn her of the baronet's unsound character, even at 
 the risk of apparent jealousy. But he resolved not to men- 
 tion the doings of Travice Cheatwood, lest he might thereby 
 
122 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 tround her feelings, for she had pride enough to be sensitive 
 on a point of family honour. 
 
 "Oh, Hesbia!" thought he, "had you a brother to be 
 your father's heir, or were you the heiress of something less 
 than his enormous fortune, I might love you openly, and 
 propose to you fearlessly ; but as it is— alas ! alas ! poor 
 devil that I am ! " 
 
 Music, flowers, fans, and books, her silky silver-haire^ 
 Skye terrier, little Fussy, he had given her, and even pre- 
 sents of more value, such as the pearl bracelet, and such as 
 few girls would have accepted from a mere dangler ; but all 
 these she had taken with a brilliant smile and the prettiest 
 words of thanks — taken as a matter of course ; though he 
 meant each and all for much more than that — each and all, 
 the titles of songs and music, the subjects oi selected books, 
 and so forth, to have an import and significance that Hes- 
 bia, coquette as she was, could not fail to understand. 
 
 He hurried over his breakfast, and was about to open his 
 desk for the purpose of writing to her, when old Stephen 
 Hislop entered the room in a state of high excitement, his 
 wrinkled cheeks and almost toothless jaws quivering -with 
 anger. 
 
 " Did you hear a shot near the house this morning, Mr. 
 Lennardr he asked, holding up his hands, which were 
 stained with Wood. 
 
 "Some boys firing at the wood-pigeons, probably— but 
 near the house, you say. A shot — when V[ 
 
 " Within these ten minutes, I should think." 
 
 " No ; but why do you ask — has anything happened 1" 
 
 "Poor old Don has been shot !" 
 
 " Where V asked Lennard, starting up. 
 
 " Close by the yett in the hedge — the yett near the high- 
 way ; I found the puir animal bleeding on the gravel wi' a 
 bullet in its body, just through the loins, and have carried 
 it here." 
 
 As Don had been an old, faithful, and favourite retainei 
 of his father — a present from Ranald Cheyne too — Lennard 
 fully shared the indignation and concern of Steinie, whom 
 he followed to the entrance-hall, where Elsie was pouring 
 forth her commiseration ov-er the dog, which had just died, 
 for the blood was still oozing from the wound in its loins. 
 
 " Most singular it is that we heard no report. Are you 
 certain that the poor dog was shot so near the house T' 
 
 "Quite certain. Master Lennard," replied Steinie, who, 
 from old liabit, still viewed the head of the Blairs as a boy 
 or a youth. " There was a little pool of blood where 1 
 
COME TO MB. 
 
 m 
 
 found it, but not a drop elsewhere. Don lay where the 
 shot had stricken him down, for I heard his sudden cry of 
 pain, and went to the spot instanter, and there he was, wal- 
 lowing in his death agony, and biting the gravel, puir 
 beastie !" 
 
 " And no one was near with a gun f 
 
 " Gun or not, there was no report— the dog fell as if elf- 
 shot !" 
 
 " A most extraordinary circumstance !" 
 
 " Exactly what Mr. Cheatwood said,^' added Steinie. 
 
 " Was Ae there f 
 
 " He was passing along the road at the moment I heard 
 poor Don's terrible cry." 
 
 "And had he not a gun or other firearm V asked Lennard, 
 with darkening face. 
 
 " Nothing in his hand but a thick walking-staff." 
 
 " Go to the police station, and offer a reward for the dis- 
 covery of the offender, and get, if you can, the bullet with 
 which the poor dog was killed. '^ * 
 
 Lennard was seriously concerned for this sudden death of 
 an old household pet, and felt extreme exasperation against 
 the unknown perpetrator of an outrage so wanton. The 
 bullet was brought to him by Steinie ; it was conical, with 
 a little wooden plug for expansion, and in size was some- 
 thing smaller than those used for the ordinary Enfield rifles. 
 It retained no odour of powder, or appearance of having 
 heenjired; but the blood amid which it had been imbedded 
 might have washed those signs away. 
 
 Lest it might be required in evidence, Lennard put it 
 carefully by in his desk, while Steinie buried the terrier 
 under a moss-grown stone seat in the garden, where, for 
 many a year in the soft summer evenings, and in those of 
 the ruddy autumn, he had nestled beside the feet of his 
 departed master ; and old Hislop sighed and shook his 
 white locks, muttering the while to himself, as those well 
 on in years will do, as he hung on a nail in the parlour, 
 among similar relics (such as bits, spurs, and the shoes oi 
 favourite hunters, that had long since passed from the sand- 
 cart to the knacker's-yard), the little chain collar of the 
 "auld master's otter terrier." 
 
 Of the somewhat trivial affair of the dog's death, the 
 great lumbering rural police could make nothing ; so Len- 
 nard's reward was proffered at the turnpikes in vain ; but 
 there came a time when it was regarded as an important 
 evidence in another matter. 
 
 Though greatly ruffled by this incident, with which h^ 
 
124 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 somehow mingled the idea of Travice Cheatwood, the 
 thoughts of Lennard soon reverted to their former channel, 
 and having but two days now to spare, he reopened his 
 desk and pondered, pen in hand, on the fashion in which 
 he was to address Miss Vere. 
 
 He had grown painfully sensible that, though still made 
 welcome at the house of her father — though still free as of 
 old to make presents of tickets, flowers, bouquets, and 
 graceful trifles to Hesbia, and frequently to be her escort — 
 that, as the baronet (whom he had never met before) became 
 more intimate, she had grown more sisterly — at times even 
 more distant in her bearing towards him. 
 
 To Lennard this was intolerable, after all the early years 
 of pleasant intercourse and the terms on which they were. 
 
 If, from among her friends, Hesbia had been compelled to 
 make choice of a husband, then Lennard Blair, by his 
 handsome face and figure, his winning manners, and general 
 air of distinction — their past comj)anionship, and so forth, 
 would undoubtedly have had the preference ; but, then, he 
 was poor, and she — in some respects — was not much better, 
 being completely dependent on the will of her father. 
 
 Wealth and luxury, with aU their pleasant concomitants, 
 were as necessary to Hesbia's existence as air or sunshine. 
 Her father's wealth was— she knew, and often had he told her 
 so— liable to the sudden crashes, failures, and contingencies 
 of trade • so she paused ere she let her heart go quite out of 
 her own keeping. 
 
 On the other hand, Lennard reflected : why should not 
 he as well as any other man marry Hesbia, and so realize 
 the golden dream of his poor father's deathbed — the restora- 
 tion of the Blairavon lands and manor-house to the old line 
 of Blair. Better it seemed that he should become its pro- 
 prietor—bred as he was to trade, cautious, and steady— tnan 
 a person like Sir Cullender, or it might be some penniless 
 and sj)endthrift peer. 
 
 Business training had made Lennard Blair careful and 
 thrifty ; the experience gained at the desk in Liverpool 
 would be eminently useful at home. Then with the brilliant 
 Hesbia for his wife, how happily would time glide away at 
 Blairavon. All the future would be but an anticipated part 
 of Paradise. 
 
 Intimate though he was with Hesbia Vere, on this occa- 
 sion Lennard wasted a dozen sheets of note-paper ere he 
 schemed out a few lines to the effect that, owing to an 
 unpleasant affairwhich had taken place at his house last night 
 he was unable to visit Blairavon while Mr. Travice Cheat- 
 
COME TO ME. 125 
 
 wood resided there ; and, as lie had to start for Liverpool in 
 two days, lie begged that she would grant him an interview 
 that he might take leave of her alone, as he had much to 
 explain. " Come to me at any hour or place you may name, 
 for there I shall be waiting," he wrote, and concluded by 
 imploring her to do so, as, on reaching Liverpool, he would 
 probably have to go at once and for an indefinite period to 
 South America. 
 
 " If I possess any real interest in her eyes or in her heart, 
 this must surely rouse it," thought he. 
 
 " My dear Miss Vere," he added in a postscript, " you may 
 write me a note so worded, that even if it falls into the 
 hands of another, its true meaning will not be understood." 
 
 Lennard had an eye to Cheatwood when he wrote thus ; 
 but when he had sealed up the note, he found that hi^ficlus 
 Achates; Steinie, had gone out in search of a salmon grilse, 
 for the good old fellow was never idle. So Lennard went 
 forth himself in search of a fitting messenger to take his 
 missive to the great house — one upon whom he could depend 
 for placing it safely in Hesbia's hands. 
 
 He had not proceeded far along the highway bordering 
 the closely-mown and smoothly-rolled lawn of Blairavon, 
 when the sound of merry voices led him to look through 
 the closely clipped beech hedge, and there he could see 
 Cheatwood with Hesbia and the two Miss Cheynes, mallet in 
 hand, and all intent on croquet, the girls becomingly dressed 
 in summer hats and white piques. 
 
 " Heavens !" thought he ; " if old Ranald Cheyne knew 
 the real character of the fellow his girls are playing with !" 
 
 And now, as chance would have it, he overtook Mademoiselle 
 Savonette, Hesbia's French maid, with whom he had the 
 good fortune to be an especial favourite. She was a hand- 
 some, dark girl, with a bright and pleasing expression, rather 
 ladylike in her dress and bearing, but with strongly-defined 
 eyebrows, and a slight indication of a moustache darkening 
 her upper lip, particularly in the corners of her curved and 
 very pretty mouth. 
 
 " Good morning, m'sieu," said she, with her thick, French 
 burr, bowing and smiling ; " are you going to join miladi 
 and the demoiselles at croquet %" 
 
 " No, mademoiselle,'' he replied, " I am unfortunately 
 pressed for time, and leave this to-morrow^ for England." 
 
 " So soon ! — and we have seen so leetle, oh so ver' leetle 
 of you at the chateau yonder !" 
 
 * Ah, you will see still less, I fear, my good friend 
 Savonette ; but will you do me a favour ?" 
 
t26 THE ami. HE MARRIED. 
 
 "A thousand if I can— m'sieu is always so ver' polit« 
 to me." 
 
 " Give tMs note to ^liss Vera on the earliest opportunity, 
 and bring me the reply, if you can do so with convenience ; 
 if not, post or send it." 
 
 "I shall have ze greatest gratification, m'sieu," replied 
 Savonette, almost blushing with pleasure at w^hat seemed to 
 savour of a good share in an intrigue. " Tres bon ! tres 
 bon !" she added, as she pocketed the note together with the 
 sovereign which Lennard adroitly left in her hand as he 
 kissed and pressed it ; and then, lifting his hat to the pretty 
 Boubrette, walked back to Oakwoodlee, very well pleased 
 with the first stage of matters. 
 
 How little could he foresee all that was to follow, and 
 that, instead of departing for Liverpool, the morrow would 
 find him still at Oakwoodlee ! 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 TRAVICE RE-OPENS THE TRENCHES, 
 
 The event of the preceding evening and other discoveries 
 that were certain to be made in the fulness of time, rendered 
 Travice Cheatwood as thoughtful and dull over his croquet 
 as Lennard Blair had been over his breakfast. Even Hes- 
 bia's high-arched instep displayed from time to time upon a 
 ball, exhibiting the dainty kid boot, the smooth white stock- 
 ing, over a lovely and tapering ankle, could not lure him to 
 forget the devil that occupied his heart. 
 
 The minds of both gentlemen were occupied by the same 
 object, though they regarded her from two very different 
 points of view. Travice was desperately resolved to make 
 one more effort to secure her lo'vs — or that which he valued 
 much more, her hand — as a protection to himself amid dis- 
 coveries that were inevitable, and to insure a right over 
 whatever she might possess. 
 
 His more immediate troubles were likely to arise from a 
 " kite" — one of those "little bills" which he was incessantly 
 having " done," and very often to the undoing of others • 
 and his failure in rooking Lennard and the other two would 
 prevent him meeting this when it fell due— a circumstance 
 which inflamed his fury against his detector. 
 
 The croquet, a game which he loathed from its extreme 
 slowness, and luncheon, too— perhaps the most pleasant 
 meal in a country-house— were both over. Mr. Vere was 
 
I'EAVlcJE RE-OPENS THE TRENCHES. 12^ 
 
 writing to Mr. Envoyse, in the library, for he possessed one, 
 though he never read anything beyond "Bradshaw," the 
 Times' money article, or the Mark Lane Express. The 
 baronet was inditing one or two telegrams for London ; the 
 Cheyne girls were in the drawing-room, trying over the ex- 
 cruciating Tannhaiiser overture ; and, to the extreme aston- 
 ishment and satisfaction of Travice, he was invited by Hes- 
 bia to accompany her on an exploring expedition through a 
 portion of the house in which she had never been before, so 
 the colour mounted to his usually pale cheek, and his heart 
 — or that which passed for such— beat quicker and more 
 lightly. 
 
 " Everything in this world is a fluke," said he, " so here 
 goes !" 
 
 The part of the manor-house through which they proceeded 
 was one that had remained almost untouched in its architec- 
 ture or furniture during at least three generations of the 
 Blairavon family, and it seemed, in fact, to be a series of 
 lumber-closets or queer corridors, and little wainscoted 
 chambers, with one or two turret stairs, and steps up, and 
 steps down, where shins might be broken and skirts torn ; 
 little windows were there, thickly grated with iron and half 
 darkened by intervowen cobwebs and depending ivy or the 
 upper branches of the old trees without, giving a dubious 
 light to these places, while there was about them a dusty, 
 damp, and mou'ldy odour, which seemed to be emitted by 
 the old lumber lying forgotten there, such as square-backed 
 chairs of the Covenanting times, covered with tapestry or 
 faded Utrecht velvet ; tripod tables or gueridons of buhl 
 and ebony of the days of James VII. ; Chinese screens and 
 japan cabinets of the First and Second Georges, — and Hes- 
 bia wandered among this chaos as if she had penetrated into 
 a hitherto unknown and uninhabited land. The girl had 
 taste enough to be delighted. 
 
 " Oh ! Travice," she exclaimed, her brown eyes sparkling 
 with pleasure, "when next we act charades, won't these 
 things come splendidly in for scenery T 
 
 " Some of old Blairavon's Wardour Street antiquities, I 
 suppose," grumbled Travice ; yet among these faded relics 
 were some of the household lares of old Richard Blair ; "a 
 beastly old hole," continued Travice ; " but we are alone in 
 it any way. Save for you, Hesbia, I would soon cut this 
 deadly lively den and be oif by the first express train for the 
 south." 
 
 "But for mer she exclaimed, as she seated herself in one 
 of the old tapestry chairs, from which the moths flew out as 
 
I2S THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 slie did so; "surely I do notliing to hamper your movements 
 or to alter your plans, whatever they may be." 
 
 " You alike order and derange the whole progTess of my 
 ^jfe, Hesbia." 
 
 " Travice, I don't deal in paradoxes." 
 
 " May I repeat again, how dearly I love you V he said in 
 an earnest whisper. 
 
 " Pray don't, Travice ; it becomes stale, flat, and unprofit- 
 able from unimpassioned repetition." 
 
 " Indeed !" said he through his clenched teeth. 
 
 ** There is plenty of love on your tongue, but not a trace 
 of it in your eyes ; so pray do not attempt to act the part," 
 she replied, laughing. "With my hair powdered over a 
 toupee and a Pompadour dress, wouldn't I make a picture in 
 this old chair, with my dimpled elbow on that buhl table 
 and the Japan cabinet behind] Then you might come in as 
 my adorer — a Sir Charles Grandison or a Scottish cavalier— 
 at my feet." 
 
 " Hesbia," he continued, keeping down his wrath, coming 
 as close to her as he dared, and leaning over her as he 
 lowered his voice, " I shall get a special license by return of 
 post, and " 
 
 " What are you talking about, Travice*?" said she, with one 
 of her merriest and most musical bursts of laughter. " You 
 forget that, even if you had a bride, which you have not, so 
 far as I am concerned, a license from the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury would be as useless here as a cheque on the Bank of 
 Elegance." 
 
 "Whyr 
 
 " Because we are in Scotland." 
 
 Though desperation and monetary difficulties imparted 
 somethmg of real depth and earnestness to all he said, find- 
 ing that he made no progress, and that she still bantered him, 
 he became, perhaps naturally, irritated, and the native inso- 
 lence of his character caused him to adopt a brusquerie of 
 bearing but ill-suited to the submissive part of a real lover. 
 
 " Tell me, my wicked cousin, 'm my rival the baronet or 
 Mr. Blau-r* 
 
 " You have rivals in both, perhaps," replied Hesbia, with 
 ier bright hazel eyes half closed, while she clasped and un- 
 clasped Lennard's bracelet on a wrist that was white as the 
 pearls themselves. 
 
 "Now that the absurd old boy who sold this place is 
 gone, what will his son Lennard have in possession— a dozen 
 of silver spoons, a baptismal mug (oh, the people of tliis sour 
 Presbyterian country don't believe in such holiday vanities 
 
TRAVICi: RE-OrEN'3 THE TRE.VCHES. I2<) 
 
 as god-parents), well, a family Bible, the old boy's dram-bot- 
 tle, of course, and his last blessing in broad Scotch." 
 
 " Travice," said Hesbia, her soft face clouding with real 
 annoyance, " how cruel of you to talk thus, and how bad is 
 the taste that inspires you to do so 1" 
 
 " Come, Hesbia, be sensible," he resumed, bending over 
 her again ; " you can't care for this fellow. I hate your 
 * has beens' — your shabby-genteel people ! There is no one 
 so amusingly vain or so profound a bore as a reduced gentle- 
 man — a Scotch or Irish one particularly." 
 
 Hesbia's full, red lip curled and quivered slightly, but 
 she made no reply, so Travice continued in his o^vn peculiar 
 style. 
 
 " I suppose this fellow thinks himself a trump-card here, 
 since he has returned to his own place like the travelled 
 monkey who has seen the world," sneered Travice. 
 
 " He has come back, poor fellow, to all that remains of 
 what was once his place." 
 
 "Jolly jealous and envious he must be of your governor, 
 who owns nearly the whole of it." 
 
 " You judge of his heart by your own, Travice." 
 
 " Is it proper or becoming that you should be always j3irt- 
 ing and philandering with this fellow, as I have heard you 
 ilid in Liverpool ]" 
 
 •'How, sir]" asked Hesbia, growing absolutely pale with 
 anger. 
 
 "With (vmere clerk in your father's counting-room," con- 
 tinued Travice, with irrepressible wrath, as he found him- 
 self blundering on the verge of a quarrel. _ 
 
 " A partner in the firm, you mean, Travice." 
 
 "Idiots, to take one of his country in at all. Howe-ver 
 humble or mean the snob may be in a firm, he always creeps 
 up to be chief of it some day. I forget what Macaulay 
 says in his history about this sort of thin^." 
 
 " How long would you be in rising so % ' taunted Hesbia. 
 
 " Besides, a partner— ha, ha ! I doubt very much if his 
 name will ever appear as such in the books, if they are aired 
 some fine day in the Bankruptcy Court," said Travice, with 
 one of his ugliest smiles, which Hesbia totally failed to 
 understand. "I am but ill-inclined to render you without 
 a struggle to such a lover, Hesbia," he continued, attempt- 
 ing to take her hand between his ; " for I thank Fate that 
 I know a little of life, and am not like him." 
 
 " In what way T 
 
 **A kind of ass, who quotes Byron and Bunyan, and 
 
 9 
 
130 THE GIEL HE MAEEIEiJ. 
 
 spends his evening in holding wools for gu*ls to wind and 
 unwind." 
 
 " Byron and Bnnyan — such a conjunction— Don Juan and 
 the Pilgrim's Progress ]" exclaimed Hesbia, with a genuine 
 burst of laughter, which increased the growing rage of 
 Cheatwood ; but he, too, gave a kind of laugh, and, laying 
 a hand upon her soft and half-averted shoulder, — 
 
 " Listen to me, dear Hesbia," said he ; " I am not a bad 
 kind of fellow in general : I would agree with the devil 
 himself " 
 
 " If you saw that it was your interest to do so. You 
 must not forget, cousin, that we have known each other 
 since childhood." 
 
 " And your experience teaches you that I shall probably 
 come to an evil end, like the bad boy in the spelling-book." 
 
 " I hope not, Travice, for the sake of the blood we share 
 in common, and for your father's memory." 
 
 " By Jove ! I know nothing about him, except what a 
 handsome marble slab in the church of St. Martin-in-the- 
 Fields, at Liverpool, tells me — that he seems to have com- 
 menced life, like your father, as a boy at the Bluecoat School, 
 and must have been jolly rich, to judge by the many virtues 
 ascribed to him in gilt letters, though he left me poor 
 enough, God knows !" 
 
 " He was a man who stood well with the world, Travice." 
 
 " The world 1 Curse the world ! I shake my clenched 
 hand in its hypocritical face — snap my fingers at it, and 
 spurn alike its pity and its patronage !" exclaimed Travice, 
 while a terribly malignant expression shone in his pale 
 green eyes. " What is it, Hesbia, that one gets for nothing 
 in this world T' 
 
 " Why, nothing, I suppose." 
 
 "Exactly." 
 
 " It is a detestable idea, though." 
 
 " It is truth, as my experience of it has been." 
 
 There was a moment of silence ; and Hesbia, as Tra- 
 vice looked at her, seated in the antique chair among all the 
 quaint lumber, in a brilliant blue silk trimmed with white 
 lace, seemed, even to his unartistic eye, a lovely picture. 
 In the sunlight that shone through the deeply embayed and 
 ancient window behind, her hair, which was a rich brown in 
 the shade, seemed then a golden red ; her face was half in 
 shadow ; her dark-brown pencilled brows lent a piquancy 
 to the soft eyes which formed her greatest fascination, but 
 there was a provoking smile on the beautiful li]^. which 
 Bome might have thought too large and full. Tne fine 
 
TEAVICE EE-OPENS THE TRENCHES. 13! 
 
 texture of lier colourless skin, tlie symmetry of her hands 
 and arms, all made up a charming whole, though her figure 
 seemed moulded on a scale that promised perhaps over- 
 stoutness in the years to come. Travice thought, that after 
 a period of matrimony, one might tolerate the change. 
 
 " Listen to me, Hesbia, for it is the last time I shall ever 
 address you, on this subject at least," said Travice, with a 
 tone of passion for the first time in his voice ; " but you 
 must promise not to laugh at me." 
 
 "I promise. Say on, Travice." 
 
 He drew nearer, but whatever he was about to say, a 
 malediction came instead ; for threading her way among 
 the lumber of the closet appeared Mademoiselle Savonette, 
 whose dark eyes were sparkling with malevolent pleasure, 
 as she had an especial dislike for Travice Cheatwood, who 
 was always grasping and kissing her on sly occasions, yet 
 never gave her even a crownpiece to buy a ribbon or pair 
 of gloves. She saw at once that she had come at a tinie 
 most inopportune for him, and she now resolved to give 
 him a further sting if possible. 
 
 "A letter for miladi. Pardonnez moi, M'sieu Sheet- 
 wood," said the black-browed Abigail with a low curtsy. 
 
 " A letter, Hesbia. Thank Heaven it is not for me," said 
 Cheatwood, affecting to laugh. "Nothing ever finds me 
 out but old bills, and they or their senders are inexorable. 
 Fair cousin, you look disturbed — as the novels say. What's 
 upf 
 
 " It is from M'sieu Blair," continued Savonette. 
 
 Hesbia reddened with evident confusion and annoyance, 
 but tore open the note, saying as her smiling maid with- 
 drew, — / 
 
 " \\Tiat on earth does he write to me about. I don't think 
 I have any of his books or secrets either V 
 
 " Is your note actually from that fellow Blair T 
 
 " Yes ; how strange 1" said Hesbia, with such a pretty air 
 of wonder that one might have thought Lennard had never 
 written to her before. 
 
 " What does he want, or mean T asked Cheatwood, with 
 a deepening frown on his face. "Is the fellow mad that 
 he writes to you ?' 
 
 " He simply mentions that an unfortunate circumstance 
 will prevent him from visiting Blairavon prior to his depar- 
 ture. What can it be ]" 
 
 " How should I know T was the sullen response. 
 
 ** You quarrelled last night, that seems evident." 
 
 **He certainly caught that legal adventurer, little Dab- 
 
 9-2 
 
132 THE GIRti HE MAKUIED. 
 
 chick, cheating me at 6cart6 ; there was a bit of a row, and 
 that was all," replied the unabashed Travice. 
 
 " Impossible !— Mr. Dabchick cheat at cards ! The poor 
 little creature has not the brain of a snipe ; he never could 
 win a game from me, even when we played for bonbons or 
 a pair of gloves. Tell me instantly all about it," she added, 
 colouring with real vexation ; " how did it happen %" 
 
 " Well, you know '' Travice began slowly. 
 
 " No I don't know !" she interrupted him impetuously. 
 
 " Well, you see " he faltered. 
 
 " I don't see — I hear,^' exclaimed Miss Vere, beating the 
 floor with her foot as she started from her chair. 
 
 " Bother ! how is a fellow ever to get on with such a spit- 
 fire as you V' 
 
 "Any way you have had a low quarrel at cards." 
 
 " One must always have cash in hand, Hesbia. What the 
 blind goddess omits to give us, blind hookey or ecarte 
 sometimes will." 
 
 " Travice, Travice ; I say it with sorrow, you have long 
 since lost your reputation for honour." 
 
 " Have I % Well, Hesbia, I have never missed it, and, for 
 some years, have been jolly enough without it." 
 
 " Take care, sir ; you have a notoriety ^" 
 
 " An attribute apt to become annoying and expensive," 
 replied her unabashed cousin. 
 
 " But to pluck people at cards '* 
 
 " You wrong me, Hesbia. People do not win at cards 
 always by legerdemain, but by exercising the brains that 
 God has given them. It is simply science against folly, 
 mind against matter. It is memory and observation." 
 
 " Knowing the backs as well as the fronts of the cards— 
 ehr 
 
 " No ; but having a lightning eye, a quick hand, a memory 
 of sequences, a memory that never fails — these enable me to 
 win at cards ; but, enough of this ! I would speak of my 
 passion, my love for you, Hesbia " 
 
 " Enough of that, say I, and let us recur to it no more," 
 said she emphatically, as she swept away from his presence 
 with an expression of resolution and coldness in her great 
 brown eyes, such as he had never seen there before, and 
 which there could be no mistaking. The pretty smile, that 
 from childhood she had been in the habit of according to 
 all, whether they pleased her or not, had quite passed out 
 of her face. 
 
 Cheatwood stood for a time with a dark expression in his 
 l)ale eyesj and a cruel one on his thin lips, as he gnawed his 
 
THE SECRET LETTER. 133 
 
 moustache and ran his fingers viciously through his goatee- 
 beard. 
 
 " She has gone to answer that beast's note," he muttered ; 
 " and that answer I must and shall see, as the best means 
 of discovering the actual terms on which they ^and with 
 each other." 
 
 And though a coward in soul, a craven at heart, Travice 
 Cheatwood felt towards Lennard Blair all the hateful spirit 
 of another Cain glow within him ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 THE SECRET LETTER. 
 
 Aware that it must be by fraud or cunning, and not by 
 force, that he could obtain a sight of any answer which his 
 cousin might send to Lennard Blair, Travice, after observing 
 that she was seated at her desk, and at a little buhl table in 
 the inner drawing-room, -svriting— an occupation the sight 
 of which filled him with the keenest jealous suspicions — 
 Travice, we say, after remarking this, stole out to the avenue, 
 there to watch the departure of any servant or other mes- 
 senger towards Oakwoodlee ; but without a thought as to 
 how he was to intercept the missive, for neither the intellect 
 or imagination of Travice were of the highest order. 
 
 He hovered near the gate-lodge, and after a delay of about 
 twenty minutes, saw the page — the " Buttons " of the house- 
 hold— coming down the avenue with a note in his hand. 
 The heart of Cheatwood beat fast with mingled pain and 
 impatience ! 
 
 Ideas of open bribery or of violence immediately occurred 
 to him, only to be dismissed, as either would lead to ultimate 
 detection and a final quarrel. What was to be done — to 
 what device could he resort to secure even a sight of the 
 note, and let it go to its destination after 1 
 
 Boylike, the little messenger made several detours, dances, 
 and gyrations from the gravelled carriage-way, round the 
 bay-trees, cypresses, and clumps of shrubbery that grew 
 among the smoothly mown grass of the lawn : and during 
 one of these performances, while he was indulging himself 
 in a species of break-down dance and singing a few lines of 
 tlie last street song, Cheatwood contrived to throw a walking- 
 stick between his legs in such a skilful manner as to trip him 
 up, and poor Buttons fell heavily on his hands and face amid 
 the rough gravel of the avenue. 
 
 His hat, with it* lace band and cockade (it had one to 
 
134 THE GIRL HE MAEKIED. 
 
 please the vanity of Hesbia), rolled off in one direction, 
 while the wind blew the note from his hand in another. 
 
 Ere he had gathered himself up and looked about, Cheat- 
 wood's foot was planted adroitly on the billet, and the boy, 
 with a lugubrious expression, looked around for it in vain. 
 The page was yoimg enough to be on the point of tears • he 
 had scratched and torn his hands, soiled his livery, and lost 
 the note — a triple calamity ! ^ 
 
 " Now, Mr. Cheatwood," said he, " after having your joke 
 and knocking me over as if I was skittles or Aunt Sally, 
 perhaps you'll help me to find my young lady's note, or I'm 
 blow'd if there won't be a jolly row about it." 
 
 " Look alive. Buttons, and you'll be sure to see it some- 
 where." 
 
 " Not while you're standing on it, sir,'* replied the boy, 
 whose sharp eye saw that a portion of the note was visible 
 from under the heel of Cheatwood's boot. 
 
 " The devil ! and so I am," said he, stooping, and picking 
 it up with a glow of rage, that deepened when he saw that 
 it was addressed to Blair, and in Hesbia's handwriting. 
 
 " Now, sir, the note, if you please," said the boy, boldly. 
 
 " It is for Mr. Blair at Oakwoodlee, I perceive." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Were you to wait for an answer 1 " 
 
 " No— just to deliver it, and come slick off ; but look how 
 precious dirty you have made it," added the boy, beginning 
 to whine ; " I can never, by no manner of means, give it to 
 a gentleman in that state ! " 
 
 "And you cannot take it back to your mistress," said 
 Travice. 
 
 " It was all along o' you, sir ! " exclaimed the boy, whose 
 eyes were now full of tears. 
 
 " Bid Miss Vere give it to you in person 1 " 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "Who, then]'* asked Cheatwood, wishing to gain time for 
 consideration. 
 
 " Mamselle Savonette ; and she got it from the wally, who 
 said it was a hinvite to dinner. I ain't noways to blame, 
 and I'll tell Mr. Blair and Miss Hesbia so, though she guv 
 me warning that the next mistake as I committed, after 
 treading on Fussy's tail, I should go back by the fust train 
 for Liverpool." 
 
 "You shall do nothing of the kind. Here, Buttons, I 
 have got you into a scrape, and I shall get you out of it, if I 
 can," said Cheatwood, giving the boy a crown, an unparal- 
 leled jjiece of Jiberality on his part. " Bun to the gate-lod^e 
 
THE SECRET LETTEli. 135 
 
 and get from the keeper's wife a clean envelope, a pen and 
 ink — quick as greased lightning — and 111 -w&it lor you here." 
 Brushing his hat with his cuff to smooth the nap, as he 
 ran, Buttons — a sharp, town-bred boy — started at full speed 
 to the gate-lodge, while Cheatwood, without a moment of 
 hesitation, tore open the envelope, and made himself master 
 of the contents, which ran thus : — 
 
 " I shall be much obliged (as I have to make a sketch at the stile on 
 the path to Craigellon, which will be one of about nine I am preparing 
 for my album) if you could kindly let me have some crayons, of which I 
 am quite out. To-morrow eveniny will suit. I do not know a more 
 pleasant occupation than drawing, and trust it will not fail me for many 
 a year to come. Believe me, yours ever, Hesbia. Veee." 
 
 In the veiled language of such correspondence the flirt 
 was perfect. There was a flattering subtlety in the letter 
 having no real beginning— no introductory phrase ; thus the 
 imagination of the reader was at full Liberty to supply the 
 most endearing epithets ; and though she knew by past expe- 
 rience that Lennard Blair would be conscious that he was to 
 read, as the real meaning of her letter, only the underlined 
 words, she had not the slightest idea that they would be 
 read, and equally well understood, by a third party. 
 
 The plan was, perhaps, a shallow one ; but after being 
 puzzled for a minute, and supposing that the word " crayons " 
 alone concealed the mystery, Travice Cheatwood, as he ran 
 his eye a second time over Hesbia's note, took in the hidden 
 sense of it at once, and then saw that it was a regular assig- 
 nation to meet at the stile on the path to Craigellon at nine 
 o'clock the following evening, with the tender addition, " do 
 not fail to come." 
 
 If proofs of a secret understanding were required, he held 
 them in his hand beyond a doubt, and something like a 
 hoarse and bitter malediction escaped him ere he was aware 
 that Buttons was by his side. He now saw, or thought he 
 saw, the reason whj'- Hesbia received his oddly and brusquely 
 paid addresses with banter that bordered on contempt. 
 
 The " henwelloper," Buttons called it, was not quite so 
 fine in its texture as that used by Hesbia, which Travice 
 tore into very small pieces, and put in his pocket, being too 
 cautious even to scatter the white shreds on the green turf. 
 He placed the note in its new cover, addressing it in a 
 hand as closely resembling Hesbia's as he could achieve, and 
 gave it to the messenger. 
 
 "Now, Buttons, my sharp one," said he, "pocket your 
 crown and keep dark about this, or it may prove a worse 
 affair than treading on Fussy's tail ! " 
 
r36 tup: girl he marpjed. 
 
 "All riglit, sir," said the liveried imp, with a finger on 
 one side of liis snub-nose and a look of intense cunning 
 in his large protruding grey eyes. He then touched his 
 hat and soon vanished on the path to Oakwoodlee. 
 
 From habit and his own evil training, and through the 
 character of those among whom his lot in life had been 
 cast, or rather among whom he had cast himself — for men 
 are often the makers of their own destiny — it was the na- 
 ture of Travice Cheatwood to assign to every human crea- 
 ture the worst possible motives for every action in life. 
 
 Hence he saw in this proposed meeting at the stile on 
 the path which led to Craigellon, a lonely and sequestered 
 place in a rural district, but a portion of a deep intri^e ; 
 and while he ground his sharp teeth at the idea, he resolved 
 that he would frustrate the interview^ at every hazard. 
 
 Should he be there in person 1 He had no precise right 
 to interfere ; but the simple fact of his presence might mar 
 the object of their secret meeting. Should he bring Mr. 
 Vere to the spot, or have Hesbia shut up 1 She was not a 
 girl now, and was rather too womanly and too imperious by 
 nature and temperament to endure constraint ; and if the 
 circumstance of his interference was in any way discovered 
 by Hesbia, all hope of his success for the future would be 
 over for ever ! 
 
 He had not much time for considering what he should do, 
 so Mr. Travice Cheatwood was between the horns of a 
 dilemma, and turned into a cool and shady copsewood, where 
 the broad-leaved fern and rank grass grew rich and deep in 
 all their summer fragrance, to think over the matter undis- 
 turbed and in solitude. 
 
 "I am sick of flying kites— bills, those cursed acceptances, 
 which at one time or other are sure to fall due — so inexor- 
 ably due ! Something must be done — but tohat ? I shall 
 not, if I can help it, let Hesbia shunt me on one side for a 
 smooth-tongued snob like Blair, or for that shady baronet 
 either, though she keeps both as strings to her bow. If 
 Hesbia won't have me, and Uncle Vere won't 'book-up' 
 again, my look-out is rather a bad one," he muttered 
 gloomily. " Done on the Derby, done on the Oaks ; exposed 
 by that fellow Blair — d— n him ; and that hill, too ! Old 
 Envoyse has already got wind of it. Qh, my God, where 
 will all this end f 
 
 He clenched his hands, ground his teeth, and wiped his 
 forehead, down which some clammy drops were trickling. 
 
 " Shall I for ever be a Bohemian !" ne exclaimed, witli 
 something like an imprecation and a groan mingled, " shall 
 
THE SECRET LETTER. 1 37 
 
 I for over be doomed to trudge along tlie shady, and never 
 oil the sunny side of the road of life 1 Yet I have had my 
 chances ; every fellow has them at some time or other (so 
 old Vere says, at least), and like a fool I have thrown them 
 away. Perhaps so ; but I may have one throw of the dice 
 left yet— in Hesbia." 
 
 He remembered what he had heard ^Mr. Yere say, when 
 suddenly he had come upon him and Sir Cullender, of his 
 desire to possess Blair's little place, called Oakwoodlee, and 
 his intention of then settling, by a trust deed during his 
 life, and while solvent, the entire estate of Blairavon on 
 Hesbia : and a black storm of fury seemed to gather in the 
 heart oi Travice, as he thought of all he might lose by Len- 
 nard's successful rivalry. 
 
 He was still lingering in the woods Avhen the bell rang for 
 dinner, and he found that evening had already drawn on, 
 and that he had to hasten home to complete a hurried toi- 
 lette. 
 
 All that evening during dinner and after it, while linger- 
 ing in the drawing-room, Cheatwood was undisguisedly 
 silent and spiritless. Flora Cheyne, who was a lively and 
 ladylike girl, did her best to rouse him, but strove in vain ; 
 for he was too sulky — too ill-bred in fact — to act a part he 
 did not feel, while Hesbia, who was studying him closely, 
 almost flattered herself that it was love for her and disap- 
 pointment consequent to the sharp and final rejection of that 
 morning. 
 
 That it was disappointment there could be Kttle doubt ; 
 but, added thereto, were jealousy, avarice, and hate ; the 
 dread of a shameful detection, and the maturing of a des- 
 perate purpose. 
 
 He pleaded that he felt indisposed — had smoked too 
 much, he feared — or perhaps it was the walnuts at dinner 
 and so forth, when Mr. Yere remarked his strange appear- 
 ance ; and times there were when his aspect was so "s^Tctchcd 
 that Hesbia, who was naturally land and good-natured, tried 
 to flatter, soothe, and cheer him; but this change of bearing 
 on her part served only to exasperate, as it failed to inspire 
 him with the hope that througii her means his embarrass- 
 ments might pass away. 
 
 Without real love for her, his blase heart was full of jea- 
 lousy ; dread of the coming toils — toils that must inevitably 
 close around him— with avarice and intense selfishness, filled 
 up the measure of his misery. He imbibed much wine that 
 night, more than ever Hesbia had seen him take since he 
 came to Blairavon, and all the following day he required 
 
138 THE aiEL HE MAERIED. 
 
 from the butler sucli a plentiful supply of brandy and soda, 
 that the sleek and portly custodian of the wine-binns was 
 quite perplexed ; and ever and anon Travice would mutter, 
 while the glass rattled against his teeth, for his hands shook 
 nervously, — 
 
 " Whatever I have to do to-night, the more I drink, the 
 more fit I shall be to do it ! " 
 
 As this fatal evening drew on, he never lost sight of 
 Hesbia. In his desperate soul his ideas were as yet vague, 
 and the quantity he had imbibed over-night, and during the 
 past day, had certainly not served to lessen that peculiar 
 emotion of expansion which all wrongs or slights assume 
 when viewed through the medium of alcohol. 
 
 The sun was in the west, and the evening w^as as beautiful 
 and balmy as any lovers could desire it to be, when Hesbia, 
 who had some intuitive dread of Travice, conceived a plan 
 for getting him out of the way, and sending him in a direc- 
 tion exactly opposite to that of her trysting place. 
 
 On the lawn before the house, he was lingering after 
 dinner, amid the greenery of the grass, and the rustling of 
 the trees, whose Avavy shadows fell eastward far athwart it 
 now ; but to him the green cloth of the billiard-table was 
 worth all the verdure of nature. His eyes were bloodshot • 
 his cheeks rather paler than usual, and his fair moustache hid 
 the dark and unhealthy hue of his lips. He was still in his 
 dinner dress, and absently held a cigarette between the 
 fingers of a daintily-gloved hand, and put it in his mouth 
 from time to time, totally unconscious that it was quite 
 unlit, or had long since gone out. 
 
 " Will you do me a great favour, Travice, dear ? " asked 
 Hesbia, who suddenly appeared before him with a roll of 
 music in her hands, and one of her wonderful and winning 
 smiles in her clear hazel eyes. 
 
 "I'll do anything in the world for you, Hesbia," said he, 
 in a voice that was husky. 
 
 " Last night Flora Cheyne forgot Tannhauser, and some 
 other music, wliich I know she requires. Will you have 
 the kindness to walk down to the Haughs with them for 
 me~f or her, I should say 1 It is only a mile beyond the 
 mains of Kaims ; the load is beautifully wooded." 
 
 "Ah— indeed.^' 
 
 " And you are such a favourite with dear Flora ! " 
 
 " Pleasant — very." 
 
 Hesbia paused, for though she had got up her brightest 
 and most pleading expression for the occasion, it was prac- 
 tised in vain ; for Travice, not being naturally a lover, looked 
 
THE SECRET LETTER. 1 39 
 
 on the bright face, the seductive eyes, and wavy hair, with 
 coldness, hardness, and distrust, while he thought, — 
 
 " How sweetly she can smile on ' dear Travice,' when she 
 has a secret object to serve, some little game in view." 
 
 " The evening is beautiful," said he ; "will you accompany 
 me?" 
 
 " Impossible !" said Hesbia, colouring. 
 
 " Why 1 " he asked, with knitted brows. 
 
 " I have to write letters — to see the housekeeper, the cook, 
 and attend to ever so many things ; but if you decline to do 
 me this little service, Travice, I can send a servant, or one 
 of the under-gardeners," she replied. 
 
 " I do not decline ; but I must make some change in 
 my dress." 
 
 " Thanks, Travice, dear. I knew that I had but to ask, 
 and you would be sure to oblige me," she replied, and, patting 
 his hand, placed the roll of music in it, and, gathering her 
 flowing skirt with singular grace, tripped through one of the 
 low windows of the drawing-room, and disappeared, after 
 giving him a brilliant smile, and a Idss blown from the tips 
 of her fingers ; while with a strange grimace on his features, 
 and an ugly word on his tongue, Travice, who shrewdly sus- 
 pected zfA?/ he was sent in a direction exactly oppositeto Craig- 
 ellon, ascended to his room to make some change in his dress. 
 
 His mind was a chaos of bitterness and wrath. 
 
 The heat of the summer evening seemed stifling. Who 
 the deuce, he thought, could have expected such an atmo- 
 sphere in the North 1 His throat was parched ; he cast oft' 
 coat, vest, and necktie. He had already drained his water- 
 carafe. He tried a havannah, a cigarette, and a pipe in 
 turn ; but all were failures to soothe. 
 
 Was he going mad, or should he get vulgarly drunk in 
 earnest •? His hand was on the bell-rope, and then he 
 withdrew it, for he was nervously infirm of purpose. 
 
 No ; reason, reflection, fear, prevented him from imbibing 
 more than he had already done at dinner, lest he should 
 commit some extravagance, and betray himself ; for what- 
 ever outrage or trick he might be tempted to perpetrate for 
 the purpose of preventing the interview at the stile, and its 
 too probable revelations from taking place, the instinct of 
 self-preservation remained intact and strong in the mind of 
 Mr. Travice Cheatwood. 
 
 " Well, well, in a month or so, the game will be up with 
 me at last — played out," he muttered, " and this afi"air more 
 or less won't be much in the sum total of delinquency. 
 Anyway, I may have to deprive this country of the benefit 
 of my society, and go to America, the devil, or anywhere." 
 
t40 THE GlltL HE MAERIED. 
 
 And he remembered tliat lie had only about five sovereign* 
 to carry him to any of the places so vaguely indicated. 
 
 He looked hastily round the room, which was too luxuri- 
 ously furnished to be relinquished without regret. Shining 
 above the tops of the old trees, the evening sun was stream- 
 ing cheerily in, and a red spark seemed to fill the eyes of 
 Travice, as they fell upon a weapon in a corner— his air-gun 
 — the same by means of which he had shot the terrier, Don, 
 the real or pretended caressing of which had led to the card- 
 dropping discovery. 
 
 In an evil moment had Travice Cheatwood won that ille- 
 gal weapon from a poaching companion at cards. Often 
 had he been inclined to sell or throw it away, lest he might 
 be tempted, as he was now, in a dark hour, to use it with a 
 fatal effect ; so often is it the case, that the power of doing 
 mischief will cause mischief to be done. 
 
 He had already thought of its effect — silent, noiseless, 
 deadly, and sure ; and had striven to turn a deaf ear to the 
 bad promptings of his evil angel ; but now his eyes lit up 
 with a strange malevolence as he looked at it. 
 
 He was certain that none in Blairavon knew that he pos- 
 sessed such a weapon ; for, to the casual eye, it appeared to 
 be only a, large and heavy walking-staff. 
 
 " If it is to be done at all, why not be done now — now, 
 when I am in the mood for it 1 But I must not kill him if 
 I can help it; though hating him with the hatred of a devil," 
 he muttered ; " I must only seek to maim — only seek to 
 maim— it may be to disfigure him for life, and then he'll 
 fail to please the dainty eye of the flii-ting Hesbia Vere !" 
 
 He took up the pneumatic weaj)on, removed what seemed 
 to be merely the knob of the stick, examined its barrels, 
 lock, and trigger, and as he did so a grim, but desperate 
 calm, seemed to come over him. Then to his eye the light 
 appeared to darken, and the atmosphere to become more 
 stifling : he rose to throw open the window, and felt the 
 floor as if unsteady under his feet when he^ walked. It 
 seemed to heave up and down, and to meet his steps half- 
 way. Strange things, he thought, were passing round his 
 head and whispering in his ears. 
 
 " Bah !" said he, suddenly rallying, as he dropped a few 
 bullets in the pocket of a shooting-jacket he hacl donned ; 
 " 1 must not allow the cursed superstition called 'conscience' 
 to mar my fortune in any way. One good shot to-night, 
 and then this gun must leave my hand for ever !" 
 
 And he who yesterday only shrunk nervously from the 
 ujcposure of a card-sharping row, was now— "so quickly do 
 
■^VILL THEY MEEtI UI 
 
 men's steps acquire an impetus on the downward pvith " — 
 stealing forth without necktie or vest, armed, and almost 
 heedless whether or not he committed an assassination. 
 
 He still carried, however, the roll of music, which he 
 meant to deliver at the lodge of the Haughs, in time, he 
 hoped, to prevent the meeting at the stile on the path to 
 Craigellou. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIL 
 
 "WILL THEY meet] 
 
 The sun was just dipping beyond the western hills, an un- 
 dulating line of dark purple against the amber sky, and then 
 Hesbia knew that it would be nearly a half-hour's walk in 
 the twilight, ere she reached the place where she promised 
 to grant the interview to Lennard Blair. The last red rays 
 were lingering on the tops of the trees, on the gilt vanes and 
 carved gablets of the old manor-house — little pediments 
 which bore the stag's head caboshed and the cognizance of 
 many an alliance of the old line of Blairavon. 
 
 She did not issue forth by the avenue, as she knew that 
 the baronet and her father generally had a quiet cigar there 
 together about that time ; but she Avent through the garden, 
 where the deep old box-edging bordered the long ribbon-liko 
 stripes of verbenas, calceolarias, and geraniums, which now 
 wore all their gayest hues ; past the old and quaintly-carved 
 sun-and-moon dial, which bore the arms of the Blairs, with 
 the date 1590 ; past the vineries and great conservatory, till 
 she reached and opened a little private gate that led to the 
 spacious lawn (which has not been ploughed, but ever under 
 grass, since the Union of the Crowns, according to the Gazet- 
 teer of Scotland), and walked with hasty pace to reach the 
 roadway, that led almost directly to the narrow, diverging 
 side-path* which ascended the knoll, or round and isolated 
 rock known as Craigellon. 
 
 The weather was warm— even sultry. Hesbia had on a 
 piqu^, striped "with green ; a black lace shawl floated over 
 ner shoulders, a most knoA^dng and piquante little hat, with 
 « gleaming bird of Paradise-plume added to the natural 
 charm of her soft, bright face. 
 
 Hesbia was intensely curious to learn what Lennard 
 wished to say to her so particularly and so secretly, too ! 
 
 Did it concern Travice, of whom she had so many suspi- 
 cions ; or did he mean at last to make a formal proposal to 
 
14:2 THE GIRL HE MAEEIED. ^ 
 
 lier 1 The beating of her heart increased as she surmised 
 thus to herself. 
 
 Until she finds that she is about to lose a lover, a coquette 
 like Hesbia Vere never knows how much she might have 
 learned to like him ; and now that Lennard Blair was about 
 to be sent to South America for an indefinite period — there 
 seemed something unpleasantly vague in the locality and 
 term of his absence — he acquired a new and enhanced inter- 
 est in her eyes. She had questioned her sleek and some- 
 what taciturn papa about it, and he fully confirmed the in- 
 formation conveyed in Lennard's note ; and so quite a gush 
 of sympathy for the poor fellow welled up in her heart — for 
 she was thoroughly a sensationist by nature ; and that she 
 might look well in this— perhaps their parting interview — 
 she hung in her pretty white ears a pair of beautiful gold 
 and pearl pendants, wdiich Sir Cullender had presented to 
 her with great formality at breakfast that morning. 
 
 Whatever Lennard had to say to her must be of interest 
 — must be odd — strange, she thought, and would be certain 
 to take a very lover-like tone ; of that she had no doubt, 
 and the conviction and anticipation gave a lustre to her eye, 
 a colour to her cheek, and a springiness to her step. 
 
 " He looks so well when making love, with his dark and 
 earnest eyes," she murmured, for all Lennard's love and 
 adoration had been implied hitherto, and not declared ; for 
 the doubts and difiiculties, the dread and timidity that with- 
 held a declaration and fettered his tongue were known to 
 himself alone. Hesbia looked at her watch. 
 
 " Ten minutes from nine !" 
 
 She could not stay long at the stile ; but then, as Lennard 
 w^ould of course be waiting there, he would accompany her 
 homeward along the road, and through the lawn to the gar- 
 den gate, to prevent the possible locking of which, and to 
 secure her retreat, she had, with much forethought, put the 
 key in her pocket. 
 
 The black, flinty brow of Craigellon, fringed with the 
 yellow bells of the beautiful broom, rose against the clear 
 and opal-tinted sky. She could see the path that wound 
 over the grassy upland slope towards it, between two tall 
 cedars ; she could also see the old, well-worn and mossy 
 stile, but Lennard Blair was nowhere in sight 
 
 This was scarcely courteous. 
 
 If he came as a lover he should certainly have been there 
 before her ; so Hesbia paused, looked around, and then pro^ 
 ceeded at a much slower pace than she had hitherto adopted. 
 To be first at the trystiug-place would never do. 
 
■WILL THEY MEETI I43 
 
 She listened ; all was still, but the cawing of the rooks as 
 they T\dnged their way homeward to the old coppice or the 
 ruined church of St. John of Jerusalem. Not a footfall 
 broke the silence. The calmness of evening — the soft, balmy 
 gloaming — lay over everything. The trees were assuming a 
 bronze tint ; the wavy line of the Pentland Hills was deep- 
 ening from russet green to pyrple and indigo blue, and their 
 glens were darker still. 
 
 Save in the west, where the crimson flush of the set sun 
 lingered beyond Clackmannan, the sky was all of an opal 
 tint that blended with aziu-e as the twinlding stars came out, 
 and the air was full of fragrance ; for near the stile, which 
 Hesbia now had reached, there was a grove of balsam pines 
 and silver firs, which were old and decaying, and the breeze, 
 as it passed through them, seemed to be laden with the per- 
 fume of the strawberry and pineapple. 
 
 All_ unused to the most petty disappointment or delay, 
 Hesbia felt extremely annoyed on seeing no sign of Len- 
 nard's approach ; and now her tiny gold watch indicated 
 that the time was three minutes past nine— decidedly past ! 
 
 The place was lonely, and the great cedars by the stile 
 cast a gloom over all the place. They were trees of vast age, 
 and were said to have been raised from the seeds of those 
 that grew at Lebanon, brought from the distant East long, 
 long ago, by some pious and valiant Brother of St. John of 
 Torphichen— tradition avers by Sir William Knollys, Lord 
 of St. John, who fell by King James's side at Flodden ; for 
 the whole district, like every other in broad Scotland, teems 
 with old, old memories, that even the railroad fails to obli- 
 terate. 
 
 The flames from the works at the coal-pits on the mains 
 of Kaims now flared out upon the deepening sky at times, 
 and Hesbia felt that she could not, with propriety, loiter 
 where she was much longer. 
 
 What was she to say if he proposed 1 
 
 One may have thoughts, but how seldom has one the right 
 words to say at the proper time ! Should she accept him ? 
 Poor Lennard ! at that very moment, over their " quiet 
 weed," in the great stately avenue yonder, perhaps her papa 
 and the unhealthy-looking baronet were casting her horo- 
 scope — her future — after a very difi'erent fashion of their own- 
 Always attracted most by externals, the finished cut of 
 Lennard's coat, whatever its fashion, his choice of vests, his 
 perfect gloves, and a certain courtliness of manner which he 
 inherited from his father, a modulation of voice and soft 
 expression of eye when addressiug ladies in general, and 
 
144 THE GIRL HE MARlllED. 
 
 lierself in particular, had always led Hesbia to admire and 
 like liim. 
 
 At that moment there came through the air a strange, 
 weird cry-^almost a shriek, that made her shudder. Unlike 
 any sound she had ever heard before, it seemed as the voice 
 of one in mortal anguish and agony. Shrilly it came to- 
 wards her on the breeze of the darkening evening ! She 
 listened intently, but as no other sound followed she re- 
 turned to her own thoughts. 
 
 " What can detain him after all our fuss, secrecy, and as- 
 signation'?" she exclaimed, mth impatience that bordered on 
 anger, as she tapped the steps of the stile with her parasol. 
 " He must have misunderstood all about my letter and will 
 no doubt be sending me some crayons to-morrow ! Would 
 that I had been plainer, less mysterious; but it is not like 
 Lennard to be so provokingly stupid !" 
 
 His absence, unless he had been suddenly seized by illness, 
 seemed to Hesbia totally unaccountable. What could have 
 happened 1 
 
 An accident 1 He did not ride, and she knew that he was 
 without horses. That distant and wailing cry had made her 
 heart stand still ! 
 
 A dread came over her now. Intent upon her own 
 thoughts she had not perceived how much the shadows had 
 deepened, and how gloomy the great cedars made the path- 
 way by the stile. 
 
 Somehow she felt inclined to take note, with strange and 
 intense acuteness, of all the features of the now sombre 
 landscape; the number of steps in the stile— there were 
 four, worn, hollow, and spotted with yellow lichens ; the 
 forms of the stones in the rough field dyke ; the hedgerows, 
 the chirping of the last swallow as it went to its nest ; a 
 hawk winging its flight sharply across the clear, calm sky, 
 over which the darkness was stealing like an impalpable tide. 
 
 A quarter to ten by the tiny watch ; ten minutes— five 
 minutes to ten, and still no appearance of Lennard Blair ! 
 To remain longer was unseemly — absurd ; and, in perplexity 
 and alarm she arose and hurried home, while the dew was 
 falling heavily. 
 
 Unseen she crossed the lawn, reached the garden, entered 
 the house, and went straight to her own room, when Made- 
 moiselle Savonette, who alone had been cognizant of her 
 absence, informed her that "M'sieur Sheetwood had come 
 home about an hour since— quite unwell— malade — indispose 
 iuid had retired to his bed." 
 
IN THE TWILIGHT. I45 
 
 Hesbia paid little attention to this information at the 
 time ; but there came an occasion when she recalled it un- 
 pleasantly to memory. She felt some alarm — for the cry 
 she had heard haunted her : but she felt a great deal more 
 surprise than anger. 
 
 Mademoiselle Savonette saw that her mistress was seriously 
 ruffled ; but, suspecting a meeting with " M'sieur Blair" as 
 the cause thereof, she was too discreet a Frenchwoman to 
 make any unnecessary remarks, while dressing Hesbia's 
 masses of chestnut-coloured hair for the night 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 IN THE TWILIGHT. 
 
 To the beauty of the evening, and the soft charms of the 
 suiTounding landscape, rendered so lovely by the mingling 
 of wood and stream, of farm and meadow, with the bolder 
 mountain scenery over all, Travice Cheatwood was totally 
 insensible, as he walked onward with feverish impatience 
 and uncertain step. 
 
 The tower of the village church— a structure old as the 
 days when its founder, David, the Scottish Justinian, sat at 
 the gate of his castle of Edinburgh, to administer justice and 
 relieve the wants of the poor — stood up in dark and solid 
 outline against the radiating glory of the setting sun, of 
 which it seemed for a time the focus. 
 
 Cheatwood apologised to his conscience, or sought to 
 stifle his selfish fear for the result of the crime he intended 
 to commit, by a steady review of his own desperate fortune ; 
 by nursing or fanning his wrath against Lennard for the 
 card-exposure, till it assumed the proportions of a deadly 
 and wanton wrong ; by a knowledge of the imperative ne- 
 cessity that no meeting or revelation should take place, as 
 he knew the dangerous pride of Hesbia, the frail teniure of 
 her friendship for him, and her decided preference for Len- 
 nard Blair : yet he flattered himself that he only meant to 
 maim — not kill — his rival, though in reality not caring 
 much, whatever the result, provided he was neither dis- 
 covered nor suspected; and he believed that no one was 
 aware of his possessing a weapon so dangerous and illegal 
 as that with which he was armed j though, by some means, 
 during a visit to his rooms at Blairavon, Mr. Dabchick had 
 become cognizant of the circumstance. 
 
 Travice was not without fears that, by having to proceed 
 in an entirely opposite direction, in obedience to ilesbia'a 
 
 10 
 
146 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 wily message, he miglit miss Lennard, and that the inter- 
 view, every way so fatal to his interest and credit, might, 
 after all, take place. 
 
 He had thus, first to get rid of the music entrusted to his 
 charge, that he might, if necessary, have the means of prov- 
 ing that, at the time the event occurred, he was in a direc- 
 tion quite away from Craigellon — where, doubtless, the lovers 
 would linger long enough, and where he was resolved, if he 
 could steal upon them unperceived, that he would shoot 
 down Blair, even if he stood by Hesbia's side ; and as he 
 hurried on towards the Haughs, Travice longed for the meet- 
 ing, and felt a Avild, a desperate, and clamorous anxiety to 
 get through the last and worst of what he knew to be a dark, 
 a disreputable— and, that which was worse than all, person- 
 ally — a dangerous affair ! 
 
 He looked at his watch as he walked along the cool and 
 shady road, which was bordered by high hedgerows and old 
 trees, the intertwined foliage of which rustled pleasantly in 
 the passing breeze. The sun had set bej'^ond the mountains ; 
 the old tower of the village church seemed darker than ever, 
 and sharper in outline. Twilight was stealing on, and in 
 half an hour the meeting would take place at the stile. 
 
 At the gate- lodge of the Haughs he delivered the roll of 
 music, with one of his cards, for Miss Cheyne, muttering to 
 the keeper something about " the sultry state of the weather," 
 probably as an explanation of his flushed and somewhat dis- 
 ordered appearance ; and then hastened to reach a lane which 
 led, he knew, through the fields towards the place of meeting, 
 grasping with feverish impatience his weapon as he went 
 
 To those who know not what it is, we may explain that an 
 air-gun has two barrels, one inside the other, the inner being 
 of necessity of a smaller bore ; down these the balls are put 
 by means of a ramrod like that of any muzzle-loader, and 
 from thence they are expelled. A syringe is fixed in the 
 stock of the gun, by which the air is injected into the cavity 
 between the external and central barrels. Another valve, 
 on being opened by the trigger, permits the condensed air 
 to expel the bullet, which comes forth without sound, but 
 with deadly force. If this valve be opened and shut sud- 
 denly, one charge of condensed air will suffice for the dis- 
 charge of several balls ; but if the whole is emitted at once, 
 the force of expulsion is great indeed. 
 
 " I've seen many a sensation drama (Travice never read 
 novels, as he hated them), but by Jove ! I never thought to 
 figure in one," he muttered through his clenched teeth, as he 
 wiped the clammy perspiration from his face and ears. 
 
IN THE TWILIGHT. 147 
 
 Ere reaching the lane which diverges at a ri^ht angle from 
 the highway and leads westward to Craigellon— being, in 
 iact, but a continuation of the same path which Hesbia was 
 traversing from the eastward to reach the stile, a central 
 point — Travice heard footsteps, and his heart leaped pain- 
 fully for a moment, and then for another seemed to stand 
 still, when the figure of Lennard Blair, theve— there wliere 
 he least expected to meet him, crossed the road and entered 
 the footway before him. 
 
 The truth was that Lennard had been sharing a farewell 
 dinner with Doctor Feverley, at the latter's little cottage in 
 the hamlet, and was now hastening, with a light and hope- 
 ful heart, to keep his tryst with Hesbia— a last and to him 
 it might prove a most important one. 
 
 Travice sprang forward ; not a second was to be lost — his 
 game, his victim, his rival was before him, in sight, in range ; 
 but Travice was rendered for a brief time powerless by a 
 sudden and painful but spasmodic contraction of the heart, 
 by a singing in his ears, and a species of blindness that came 
 upon him. 
 
 The grass was growing rank and deep in the old and un- 
 frequented path, so the footsteps of the victim and the de- 
 <5troyer were alike muffled, as the latter glided after the for- 
 mer, whose figure loomed darkly against the twilight of the 
 west ; then Travice levelled his weapon, and aiming low — 
 intent to wound, but not to kill — pulled the trigger ! 
 
 There was a sound like a hiss as the ball was shot ; then 
 Lennard uttered the wild cry that was heard by Hesbia— 
 one of agony, as if struck in a vital part : he threw up his 
 arms, and fell heavily on his back. 
 
 Travice saw this, but he saw no more. He forced a pas- 
 sage through a dense and thorny badge, tearing his hands 
 and clothes in the process, and, dashing into a coppice, 
 rushed away by what he conceived to be the nearest route to 
 Blairavon. 
 
 Through the deep rank fern, the lair of the deer and the 
 hare ; over water-courses and rivulets ; over sunk fences, 
 stone walls, and turf dykes ; across fields of sprouting corn 
 and wheat, he ran, with a speed he never thought to exert, 
 stumbling, falling, rising, and plunging, as if pursued by 
 something unseen, and with a mortal terror in his heart — a 
 terror that came upon him the moment he pulled the fatal 
 trigger. 
 
 Bathed in perspiration, weak as a child, feeble and tremb- 
 ling in every limb and fibre, he was compelled at times to 
 •lause, to lie on the cool earth, and recover breath and the 
 
 lO — 2 
 
148 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 power of further volition. Then, through the singing in 
 his ears and the memory of Lennard's cry. there seemed an 
 awful, a preternatural, a dead stillness in the air of the 
 summer evening. His heart beat madly, painfully ; there 
 was still the old clamorous anxiety about it ; but added 
 thereto was a gnawing terror of the future, of suspicion and 
 discovery. The very trees that cast their gloom upon his 
 path seemed as if they were mute witnesses against him ; 
 the stars in the sky, as they came twinkling out one by one, 
 were as eyes observant of the new and terrible crime he had 
 committed — for might not Blair be dead 1 
 
 He would have given worlds — years of his life— to know 
 that Lennard w-as only wounded, not dead — not dead ; but 
 he dared not go back to look ; he must away — away to con- 
 ceal himself, and escape, if he could, the alarm and, perhaps, 
 detection of the morrow. 
 
 Away — but to where 1 
 
 Cunning rather than wisdom suggested that to pass unseen 
 into Blairavon House, to get to bed and feign an illness, 
 were his best plans ; and he staggered wearily on to put 
 them into execution. 
 
 The extra bullets with which he had provided himself, he 
 threw far into a cornfield ; there, if ever found, they would 
 lie at least unseen till harvest-time. He feared to cast away 
 the air-gun, lest it should give a clue to the committal of the 
 crime ; and he knew not where to conceal it. 
 
 In the root of a tree — none were hollow ; in a rabbit-hole 
 —none was near ; to bury it might only lead to its certain 
 discovery by the disturbance of tlie earth ; in the bed of the 
 trouting-stream it might be found by the first fisherman who 
 came whipping the water with his line ; in a ditch it mi^ht 
 be discovered oy the fir^t truant-boy who came bird-nesting 
 or some ploughman going afield : of all such instances he 
 had heard or read in trials and at inquests held by coroners. 
 There were no such officials in Scotland • but he knew that 
 in each county was a Procurator Fiscal, the terror of whose 
 name — there was something foreign in the sound of it— he 
 now felt fully for the first time ; and with this came visions 
 of arrest, of shame and imprisonment, of trial and suff'ering 
 —even of Calcraft, that finisher of the law, so cold and 
 ;5tern, white-haired and inexorable ! 
 
 Thus instead of casting away the weapon he took it home 
 with him, though he had sundry vague ideas of leaving it in 
 some one's house or room, that on them might fall the sus- 
 picion and the punishment ; his remorse for the murder, if 
 such it was, being ouite secondary to his terror of personal 
 implication in the deed. 
 
IN THE TWILIGHT. 149 
 
 Why, oh why had he not yielded to the occasional better 
 impulses which had prompted him to cast away this deadly 
 but silent weapon, the tempter to a crime like this ] 
 
 He had read or heard of men — yea, and of women, too — 
 who, after such an act, felt as if the crime, the sense of 
 being a destroyer, added to their own secret importance ; 
 Avho felt actually elevated in the conviction that they had 
 sent an immortal soul from earth on its long, long journey. 
 
 Amid all the wild incoherence of his thoughts— the sense 
 as if his mind wandered among cliffs and pitfalls, precipices 
 and caverns ; places of dread, and doubt, and danger — no 
 such emotion as this occurred to him. 
 
 It was all misery and fear — intense and selfish fear ! 
 
 As he staggered through the vestibule and up the stair- 
 case of Blairavon House, leaning on what appeared to be a 
 thick walking-staff, but which was actually the means of the 
 crime he had just perpetrated, his pale and wretched appear- 
 ance excited the surprise of Mademoiselle Savonette, to 
 whom he muttered something of being ill, and to send the 
 butler to him as he required some brandy-and-water, and 
 then he reached once more his own room. 
 
 An age seemed to have elapsed since he had left it ! 
 
 " Candles T no ; he did not require them — his head was 
 throbbing and his eyes could not bear the light ; but the 
 brandy-and-water he drank with the thirst of one who 
 might have been in the Black Hole at Calcutta. How his 
 teeth chattered against the rummer, and how grateful was 
 the ice which the thoughtful butler had dropped into it ! 
 
 Then, by chance, his eyes fell upon a mirror. He started 
 back on beholding the ghastly pallor of his own face, which 
 seemed white as that of a spectre in the twilight. 
 
 It was no longer like his own ; it had a dark scowl upon 
 it, and he drew fearfully and doubtfully closer, to assure 
 himself that it was really a reflection and not the spectrum 
 of another. His chest was heaving, and the bead-drops of 
 a cold perspiration were on his temples. He concealed the 
 air-gun between the mattresses of his bed for a time, and 
 after placing his tremulous hands upon his brow, as if he 
 would compress his brain and recall his scattered energies, 
 he muttered, — 
 
 " To bed— to bed ! I must not be seen thus !" 
 
 Then, hastily undressing, he tied up for future conceal- 
 ment or destruction the suit he had worn that evening, 
 sprang into bed and buried his face among the pillows ; but 
 a new terror seized him— that he might become really ill ; 
 and, if a fever, conduced by his pa»t potations and present 
 
150 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 terrible emotions, came upon him, he might, in his delirium, 
 reveal, and so bear witness against himself. 
 
 " Let me be calm — be calm, or I shall go mad !" he mut- 
 tered again and again, while striving to reason quietly on 
 the chances for and against the death of his victim and the 
 hazards of discovery. Strange to say, the latter seemed to 
 grow less- and, after reviewing all the features of his 
 position, the prospect appeared more re-assuring — or was it 
 an insane and defiant recklessness that possessed him 1 
 
 Amid it all, in his ears and in his soul was the echo of 
 a terrible cry, and he seemed to see a human figure Ijing 
 on its back, in that dark and lonely path, with pallid face, 
 with fallen jaw, and stony eyes that stared at the silent 
 stars 1 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE SILENT SHOT. * 
 
 This had been the last entire day that Lennard Blair 
 expected to spend at Oakwoodlee, and he had many 
 arrangements to make with Stephen Hislop concerning the 
 future letting of the house, and with Elsie on other matters, 
 during the tearful pauses in which the poor old woman 
 indulged while packing his portmanteau. 
 
 He had to dine with Feverley and then to meet Hesbia ; 
 and, that other matters might not be wanting to occupy his 
 thoughts. Maxwell, Mr. Vere's valet, brought him a brief note 
 from that gentleman, and it ran thus : — 
 
 " I hope nothing will prevent jou starting duly for Liverpool to- 
 morrow. I see by Bradshaw that the first train is the 7.30 a.m. from 
 CarstaiM. A forgery to the extent of £1,400 has been committed in my 
 name — so Envoyse writes me. See him at once about it, and he will 
 give you all the particulars — at least, so far as he knows them." 
 
 " A forgery !" repeated Lennard, pondering ; "I shall not 
 go without seeing Hesbia, at all events, and learning my 
 fate from her own lips." 
 
 , Having no intention of keeping the reader behind the 
 curtain, we shall simply mention that a cheque for .£400 
 with which, on a very remote chance of repayment, JMr. 
 Vere had favoured Travice Cheatwood, had passed into the 
 Jiands of others for ^1,400 — a little additional penmanship 
 liaving made a difference in the document, of which the 
 bank entirely disapproved. 
 
 Matters had not been going on very satisfactorily witli 
 'iiQ house of Vere and Co. lately ; so old Mr. Envoyse had 
 
THE SILENT SHOT. 151 
 
 acquainted Lennard. Several ships had been lost, and the 
 insurances ejffected thereon were about to be toughly dis- 
 
 Euted in a court of law ; two were openly alleged to have 
 een scuttled on the high seas. Other untoward events had 
 occurred ; and Mr. Vere seemed to be by no means easy in 
 his mind, to judge by the tenor of his communications. 
 
 " Once again in the old alley off Canning Place, m have 
 a general overhaul of these_ matters," thought Lennard. 
 " Perhaps the old head clerk is unnecessarily anxious ; but 
 he has thrice hinted mysteriously of ' untoward events,' and 
 I don't much fancy the phrase." 
 
 And a time was to come when Lennard would dislike it 
 still more. At present he was full only of the pleasure and 
 anticipation with which Hesbia's coquettish letter had 
 inspired him. He dressed carefully for his rendezvous ; yet 
 his toilette was artistic in its apparent carelessness. His 
 browned but handsome hands were gloveless, as he was in 
 the country, and he now wore the only piece of jewellery in 
 which he indulged — his father's large old-fashioned signet 
 ring • he wore a black velvet shooting-coat, with a lilac vest 
 (a colour which he knew Hesbia admired), a spun-silk shirt, 
 and white wide-awake, the contour of which set off his fine 
 face, with its straight features, dark complexion, darker 
 eyes, and smart curve of moustache.^ 
 
 The sorrow and affectionate solicitude of his two old 
 domestics, as they hovered about him during the entire day, 
 had proved somewhat of a " worry" to Lennard ; but the 
 earnestness of their kindly wishes and suggestions filled his 
 heart with gratitude and a regret that he could not effect 
 something permanent for their comfort. He arranged, how- 
 ever, that they were to remain at Oakwoodlee tiU the place 
 was let or otherwise disposed of. Not that Lennard ever 
 meant to part with this last fragment of his patrimony ; 
 he remembered too well his dying father's wishes and the 
 old traditional virtue ascribed to the retention of the 
 Charter Stone ; but all that he proposed to do for Elsie 
 and Stephen he did in kindness of heart and a sense of 
 gratitude to the two faithful old creatures, in a land where 
 such faith and love as theirs are daily growing less. His 
 father would have done so too, though it would have been 
 with something of the stately old feudal, or, better still, the 
 old Scottish patriarchal idea, of ministering to two humble 
 but hereditary claimants on his bounty and protection -but 
 Lennard viewed their future and his own chances of ability 
 through the medium of experience, and as a practical young 
 man of business. 
 
152 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 " You will look after my two old friends when I am gone, 
 Feverley," said he. 
 
 " I shall, my dear fellow — with a heart and a half !" replied 
 the Doctor, in his earnest and impulsive way. 
 
 Amid all the kindness and hospitality displayed by 
 Feverley and the kind old lady, his mother, Lennard w^as 
 watching the shadows as they deepened on the slopes of 
 the hills, and longing for evening. The dinner at the 
 Doctor's little cottage was excellent ; for Mrs. Feverley, in 
 honour of her son's friend, had made unusual exertions : 
 the hotchpotch was voted a great success, the lamb had been 
 fed on the Pentland slopes, the greon peas and cauliflower 
 were of the Doctor's own culture, and the salmon was line 
 though curdy, so Lennard and Feverley fed like two heroes 
 of the Waverley novels. 
 
 At last the moment came when Blair must bid the Doctor 
 adieu, if he would be at the stile in time, as he had to pass 
 through the hamlet of Blairavon, and traverse the road by 
 the Haughs, a gi-eater distance than he had first reckoned 
 on ; and, full of what he would say, in what terms he would 
 describe his nervous dread of being deemed a fortune-hunter, 
 how he should explain his prospects and his hopes for the 
 future ; his too probable despair if he was compelled to sail 
 for Vera Cruz without a pledge— a solemn promise from 
 her ; how he would seek even to soften the faults of Travice 
 Cheatwood,— all passed through his mind as he proceeded 
 along the old shady roads, where tlie stately trees — the 
 beech, the lime, and chesnut— entwined their rustling foliage 
 overhead. He hastened on. 
 
 Already the farewell rays of the setting sun were resting 
 redly on the whinstone face of Craigellon, at the base of 
 which the black coots were floating in the loch where his 
 uncle Lennard had been found ; and erelong the stars would 
 be twinkling from the sea of azure, amber, and opal over- 
 head. The sunlight faded out, the blue deepened, and the 
 Bhadows in the woods grew darker. 
 
 " Oh, which of all these stars shines over the fortunate 1" 
 thought Lennard, as he gazed at Hesper twinkling over the 
 summit of Craigellon ; " what is the secret that governs, 
 aids, or inspires the great element of human success, or 
 that enables men to light the great battle of life with a 
 clear brain, a brave heart, and a strong hand T' 
 
 Would the golden dream of love, of wealth, and success 
 ever be realised by him 1 He increased his pace, for he had 
 now turned into the grassy footway that led directly to the 
 stile, which was only about half a mile distant ; but he had 
 
THE SILENT SHOT. 1^3 
 
 not procaeded far wlieii a sudden cry ol anguish escaped 
 him — the same cry heard by Hesbia at their trysting-place— 
 while his right leg seemed to break under him, and he fell 
 on his back in a bewilderment of terror and exquisite pain. 
 Save a crashing of branches, as Travice Cheatwood, clutch- 
 ing his treacherous weapon, tore unseen through an adjacent 
 hedge, there was no sound in the woods or in the air near 
 him. 
 
 Panting rather than bleeding, Lennard endeavoured to 
 struggle to his feet, only to sink again more helplessly and 
 in greater agony. His hrst idea was, that his leg had mys- 
 teriously snapped — given way — under him ; and just before 
 being thus stricken down, he had been conscious of one of 
 those unaccountable shivers, called in Scotland a grue, which, 
 according to superstition, comes only when a human foot 
 treads on the ground where one's grave is to be made. 
 
 " Oh God !'' he exclaimed, while the bead-drops were 
 wrung from his temples by pain and perplexity, "what 
 misery — what strange calamity is this that has come upon 
 me — at such a tim-e too — and Hesbia — Hesbia ! '^ 
 
 Rallying his energies, he examined the now^ useless limb, 
 and found the blood flowly freel}^ from a w^ound inflicted 
 some inches aJDOve the knee-joint, over which he had no 
 
 Eower, for the bullet' had fairly smashed through the thigh- 
 one. He felt convinced that it was the effect of a shot ; 
 but fired from whence, by wdiom, and from what species of 
 projectile— a rifle, musket, or pistol 1— for he had been un- 
 conscious of hearing a sound ; and full as his mind was with 
 the image of Hesbia Vere, he could not have failed to detect 
 the report. He was bleeding fast ; again and again he 
 called for help — for succour ; but, as the place was lonely, 
 he heard only the voices of the wood-pigeons, as he scaretl 
 them from their nests, and he feared lie might lie long 
 enough in that unfrequented path, ere a passer that way dis- 
 covered him. Did not a year elapse before the remains, 
 .said to be those of his uncle Lennard, w^ere discovered by 
 a dog among the sedges by the adjacent loch 1 
 
 The terror of bleeding, perhaps to death, alone and in 
 the night, came vividly upon him ; to stop the haemorrhage, 
 he tightly bound his handkerchief round the wound, and 
 again shouted with all his strength. This time he was suc- 
 cessful in attracting the attention of a passing horseman, 
 who drew his bridle and paused on the highway. 
 
 The Reverend Doctor Kirkford, who had been dining with 
 Ranald Cheyne, at the Haughs, and was jogging along the 
 highway on his barrel-bellied Gttlloway cob, heard Lennard's 
 
1^4 THE aillL HE MARRIED. 
 
 cry, and, coming to the spot, was grievously shocked and 
 horrified to find the son of his old friend stretched on the 
 pathway, pale, exhausted, bloody, nearly speechless, and 
 what was still more bewildering, totally unable to explain 
 or assign a cause for his being reduced to such a condi- 
 tion. The old minister ^vas a sturdy and humane man ; he 
 lost not an instant in procuring assistance ; and about the 
 same time when Hesbia Vere, with a pouting lip and angry 
 eye, was having her long chestnut tresses manipulated and 
 arranged for the night by Mademoiselle Savonette, Lennard 
 was being placed in bed, helpless and faint with agony and 
 loss of blood, in the old house at Oakwoodlee, while the 
 worthy minister — leaving Elsie and Stephen Hislop to moan, 
 and marvel, and wring their hands — was lashing up his old 
 cob, and galloping like a madman, to fetch Doctor Feverley. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 AT BREAKFAST. 
 
 " If you write of tliis coarse work-a-day world," remarks an 
 author recently, " you can no more ignore certain rex3ulsive 
 phases of society than you can write a history of London 
 without mention of its courts and purlieus." 
 
 Mr. Travice Cheatwood is certainly one of those repulsive 
 characters ; but his introduction to the reader is as neces- 
 sary to the course of our narrative as that of Lennard Blair 
 himself. The deep and dreamJess sleep which is so soothing 
 and reviving, and which generally follows a severe exertion 
 of the mind or body, came not to him. Sleep he did ; but 
 his slumber was a mere succession of frightful nightmares 
 and fitful startings. Pity for Lennard's death — if he was 
 dead, or for his sufferings if alive — he had none in the 
 slightest degree. His sole, or dominant emotion, was a sel- 
 fish aching, and craven fear for himself ; and that by the 
 recent act he had put a climax to a long career of secret 
 crime, which was now on the verge of inevitable discovery. 
 From having been hitherto parti-coloured, his prospects now 
 were involved in utter gloom. 
 
 In the morning, the valet who answered his bell was al- 
 most scared by the wan, sharp face, that spoke of an inward 
 struggle of no ordinary magnitude, and by the haggard ex- 
 
 Eression of his pale-green bloodshot eyes. The sound of tho 
 rebkfast-gong made him leap in bed with a convulsive start, 
 thm showing how thoroughly his nerves were unstrung and 
 his whole system shaken. 
 
AT BREAKPASt. 1^5 
 
 " Maxwell," said Mr. Vere, to the aiguiletted servant wlio 
 «i-rved and brought Mm cold beef and game-pie from th^ 
 sideboard ; "where is Mr. Cheatwood this morning "i" 
 
 " Studying in the billiard-room," suggested Sir Cullender. 
 
 " 111 in bed, sir," replied Maxwell. 
 
 " I don't wonder at it — the cigar is never out of his mouth," 
 said the hawk-eyed baronet, decapitating his third egg. 
 
 " Yes, papa — I have heard that Travice is very lQ," said 
 Hesbia, who was presiding over the tea and coffee depart- 
 ment with a splendid service of Wedgwood-ware before 
 her— the pots and urn of silver, and so chased and massive 
 that they might have graced a palace, while all the break- 
 fast-table glittered with crystal, plate, and ivory, in the flood 
 of morning light that streamed through the painted oriel 
 behind her chair ; but now the matter of Cheatwood's ill- 
 ness was eclipsed in interest, when the butler, with his usual 
 calmness of visage, and imperturbable company-bearing 
 somewhat changed, came forward rather nervously and hur- 
 riedly, to announce that "one of the under gamekeepers was 
 just arrove in the servants 'all with the hawfid news as how 
 young Mr. Lennard Blair had been shot dead ." 
 
 " Dead !" exclaimed Mr. Yere. 
 
 " A'most, or very nigh it." 
 
 "When— where?' 
 
 " Last night, sir, in the fields.** 
 
 The low, sharp cry that esciiped Hesbia, as she let her cup 
 drop from her trembling hand, drew the black, shining eyes 
 of the unmoved baronet somewhat inquiringly on her. 
 
 "Shot— shot, do you say]" resumed Mr. Yere, in great 
 excitement. 
 
 " Sorely wounded, sir, at all events," replied the butler, 
 who was a large, bald-headed, and remarkably sleek-looking 
 personage, attired in black, with an ample white vest. 
 
 " But shot — shot by whom V demanded Hesbia, who had 
 grown deadly pale. 
 
 " Hirish navvies, or some of the pitmen ; who else here- 
 abouts would have done so, for the people a'most hadore the 
 young gentleman : but I wish, Miss Yere, as we were all safe 
 out o' this, and 'ome in Liverpool — I do." 
 
 Hesbia now remembered the strange cry that had reached 
 her as she sat by the stile ; and there she had loitered and 
 lingered in growing anger, while he was lying bleeding, 
 helplessly, it might be, dying in the open fields ! 
 
 " He was found quite faint with^ loss of blood by the 
 clergyman of the parish. Doctor Kirkford, who took him 
 'ome^ and sent for the Doctor at the village ; but he can't 
 subtract the bullets, nohow." 
 
15^ THE g:bL ee .MAr.paED. 
 
 *" Bulleis— liOAV many are tliere V exclaimed Mr. Vere. 
 
 " One in each leg and tliree in liis head, as they do say," 
 replied the butler with growing animation. 
 
 " T must see him at once/' said INIr. Yere, proceeding to 
 finish his breakfast in haste ; " he was to have started to- 
 day for Liverpool, with some very impo-rtant documents f-or 
 Envoyse — for we have some very unpleasant — ugly matters, 
 in fact, to disentagle ; how the deuce can the catastrophe 
 have occurred, in a country so quiet as this V' 
 
 " He probably became involved in some low quarrel," said 
 Sir Cullender, with an angry gleam in his sloe-black eyes, 
 for Lennard was no favourite of his, and Hesbia's interest — 
 her too evident excitement and abstraction excited his sus- 
 picions; "there are, I hear, both poachers and gipsies in 
 these parts." 
 
 " What was the cause, or whoever was the perpetrator," 
 said Hesbia, " of one thing I am assured, the fault would 
 not be Lennard's." 
 
 " Lennard's V queried Sir Cullender, lifting his thick eye- 
 brows. 
 
 "Yes — Mr. Lennard Blair," she added stoutly, her full, 
 firm lips quivering, and her eyes sparkling. 
 
 " Like all your sex, you are delightfully and daringly irra- 
 tional in your arguments as in your sympathies — your lik- 
 ings and dislikings," said Sir Cullender, with a quiet sneer 
 in his tone and eye, as he played with the large signet-ring 
 which bore his crest so ostentatiously, and the characteristic 
 motto, Facie temiSfWhich has been translated as "up to the 
 mark." 
 
 In her independence and impulsiveness, Hesbia would at 
 that moment have put on her hat and shaAvl, and hastened 
 on foot to Oakwoodlee, but something in the expression of 
 Sir Cullender's sharp Jewish eyes arrested her, and she felt 
 lierself compelled to linger in the room, and hear a few re- 
 marks that passed between her father and the baronet, nei- 
 ther of whom felt their naturally fine appetites impaired 
 either by Lennard's accident or Cheatwood's illness — and 
 some of these remarks brought an angry blush to her cheek. 
 
 " If this feUow should die," the baronet began, while his 
 nose seemed to become more hooked and an avaricious 
 
 gleam i)assed over his eyes 
 
 " Blair do you mean V 
 
 " Yes— to whom would his little place at Oakwoodlee go V 
 " I cannot say — but, though small, I know the place to be 
 of more value than he deems it," said Vere. 
 ".All I the coal seams lie that way." 
 
AT BREAKFAST. 157 
 
 " Ex<actly— under 5T=ry foot of it. He lias now not a re- 
 lation in the world that I know of." 
 
 " To whom would it fall, then]" asked Sir Cullender. 
 
 " To the Crown as the ultimate heir." 
 
 " The deuce it would !* 
 
 " Of course— if he does not leave the place to two old ser- 
 vants who live there." 
 
 " Bah !" said the baronet, " where do people ever do such 
 things, except in novels ]" 
 
 "But you don't know these Blairs," replied Mr. Yere, 
 manipulating his huge pockets fidl of loose silver; "his 
 father was a strange, proud, and eccentric old fellow, with 
 queer Scotch superstitions. He actually believed in the 
 virtue or charm of possessing an old block of stone on his 
 lands ; in there being in each year an unlucky day for his 
 family ; and so forth. But with all his sound practical 
 sense, Lennard Blair is quite capable of bestowing the rem- 
 nant of his patrimony as I say.' 
 
 " Unless " and here the baronet paused, and gave a 
 
 furtive glance at Hesbia. 
 
 "WTiat, Sir Cullender r she asked— " unless what T 
 
 " He left it to youP 
 
 " Xot unlikely, egad — they are such good friends," said 
 Mr. Yere, in excellent humour at this idea, and the sudden 
 prospect of obtaining the poor vineyard of Xaboth. 
 
 "Wliile they conferred thus, there passed over Hesbia's fair 
 face that undefinable expression which led se many to doubt 
 her good birth and gentle breeding; it was genuine and 
 honest scorn for the time, but it took the usual phase of de- 
 fiance, of challenge, and of covert resistance. 
 
 " Maxwell, order round the carriage — no, the mail-phaeton 
 will do," said Mr. Yere ; " Ave shall drive down to Oakwood- 
 lee immediately, and see about all this affair, which will cer- 
 tainly be one for official inquiry." 
 
 "And I. papa," said Hesbia, coming anxiously forward, 
 "may I go too f 
 
 " You surely are not in earnest T 
 
 " Of course I am — why not % "VVhile with you there can 
 be no impropriety in such a visit." 
 
 "Well— for the sake of the drive, you may accompany 
 Sir Cullender and me," replied Mr. Yere, who thought if 
 there was any prospect of wills being framed or bequests 
 made, it might be advantageous if Lennard saw or knew 
 that Hesbia was under his roof ; and with the permission 
 thus cunningly accorded, she hurried away to her own room, 
 to exchangQ her morning dress for one more suitable to her 
 visit. 
 
158 THE GlEL HK MAREIED. 
 
 Hesbia head miicli to think of — much that she dared 
 scarcely to admit — even to herself. Lennard's non-appear- 
 ance at the appointed place was now, poor fellow, fully ac- 
 counted for, and the cause filled her with more of sympathy 
 and with more of love for him, than she ever thought to 
 have been inspired. 
 
 Until now, she never knew how much she really cared for 
 Lennard Blair ; or was it that they were both secluded in 
 the country, and that she was without other objects or at- 
 tractions 1 Perhaps that had much to do with the present 
 amount of her tenderness and solicitude. The illness of 
 Travice at this crisis was strange. 
 
 Savonette, Buttons the page, and the butler, too, had told 
 her how white — how fearfully white his face was, how inco- 
 herent his manner, and how wild his eyes, as he made his 
 way to bed last night ; and Hesbia actually thought for a 
 time that all these might be symptoms of a hopeless love 
 for herself (and not the result of late hours, of selfish hate, 
 and wholesome fear), and that her cousin had become a re- 
 gular victim to his passion. 
 
 Suddenly an alarming idea — a terrible suspicion struck 
 her^ a new idea, at which she felt herself grow pale, and 
 which she endeavoured to thrust aside as soon as it occurred. 
 She remembered the fierce threat that Travice had made in 
 the conservatory. Then a cry almost escaped her, as she 
 rushed away to the gun-room, for, as in old Richard Blair's 
 time, there was still an apartment of this kind in Blairavon, 
 though casual guests alone used the weapons now. All the 
 fowling-pieces, rifles and other firearms— even to some 
 trophied muskets of the Russian war — were in their usual 
 places ; not one was missing, and a swift, keen glance at the 
 locks of all showed Hesbia that not one had been used 
 overnight. So Lennard Blair had been shot down, as she 
 Jiad been told, in a district where he had not an avowed 
 enemy, but many, many friends— shot down and left to die, 
 without further molestation ; his watch, purse, and rings 
 were all untouched, so plunder had not been the object ; 
 and he had fallen by an unseen hand, just as his favourite 
 dog perished shortly before. The whole affair seemed the 
 result of witchcraft — ^it was so mysterious and unaccountable. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVL 
 
 VISITORS AT OAKWOODLEE. 
 
 DoCTOB Feverley was soon by the bedside of his friend, 
 and after an examination , found that the> bone of the thigh 
 
VISITOES AT OAKWOODLEE. 1 59 
 
 had been severely fractured above tlie knee by a bullet, 
 which was lodged in the wound, and the probing for which, 
 with its subsequent extraction, caused the most exquisite 
 agony, nor w^as it fairly brought forth until chloroform had 
 been resorted to. It was then found to be a bullet of exactly 
 the same kind as that by which the dog had been shot ; 
 conical in form, with a little wooden plug for expansion, it 
 was marked with two letters, A A ; and now the mystery of 
 the affair was greatly increased. 
 
 " Truly, as Sterne says, ' We live in a world beset on all 
 sides by mysteries and riddles,' " was the remark of Feverley 
 as he surveyed the bullet. 
 
 " What the devil do you mean, Doctor 1" asked Lennard, 
 with a sigh of anger; "I have been shot at by some 
 scoundrel " 
 
 " Yes — by whom and for what V 
 
 " I cannot tell." 
 
 " Well — is not one a mystery and the other a riddle T 
 
 " But both shall be solved by the police." 
 
 And so, while Lennard lay abed, securely fixed with splints 
 and bandages, a prey to pain, weariness, anger, and suspense, 
 and, worse than all, afflicted by a fever, for which the cards 
 left by a score of neighbours (even those of Hesbia) afforded 
 little or no solace, great lumbering rural police, and sharp- 
 witted little detectives, together with Mr. Grabble, a local 
 legal functionary and practitioner, hunted and scoured all 
 the neighbourhood in vain. 
 
 The Reverend Doctor Kirkford, who had first found Len- 
 nard ; Steinie and Elsie, who had seen him go forth hale, 
 and well, and thereafter borne home faint and bloody ; Doctor 
 Feverley, with whom he had dined ; and others who could 
 have no possible means of knowing anything about the 
 crime or the perpetrator of it, were precognosed, examined, 
 and worried by the Sheriff- Substitute and Procurator-Fiscal, 
 but in vain. Days passed on ; nothing was discovered, and 
 by the time he was able to leave his bed, and be seated in a 
 chair for a few hours, " the mysterious case of shooting at 
 Blairavon," as the local papers called it, was beginning to 
 be forgotten by all save himself and his little circle. The 
 authorities, of course, pretended to have "a clue" to the 
 perpetrator, but always failed to follow it up. As a J. P. for 
 the county, old Ranald Cheyne made himself very busy in 
 the matter, and was unsparing in the expenditure of money 
 and horseflesh, but to no purpose. 
 
 "By all that is atrocious !" said he one day, as he clutched 
 
l6o THE GIRL nil MAEPwIED. 
 
 his hunting-whip in his energy, " such a crime as this never 
 before disgraced the county, and the perpetrator must one 
 day be discovered and brought to strict justice. But you 
 are getting over it famously, Lennard, my boy ; the bone 
 and breeding of the Blairs are in you, and they never suc- 
 cumbed to anything. Your misfortune is likely to furnish 
 talk for the fireside, the cover-side, and the harvest-field for 
 many a day in West Lothian." 
 
 Ail this, though it soothed, failed to console Lennard ; a 
 foul wrong had been done him, by a secret hand, by some 
 one unseen, and as yet unknown ; he had thereby endured 
 great suffering ; was sorely wasted in body and "worried" 
 in mind by the obscurity in which the outrage was involved. 
 
 It was a severe blow to be suddenly stricken down from 
 health and strength to the extremity of helpless weakness, 
 and to become, for a time, a lamed and bedridden man, with 
 the chances of amputation — of death, perhaps, by fever, and 
 to know also, that while all this was being endured he had 
 been mthout the long wished-for explanation with Hesbia 
 Yere. Then, when remembering her fickleness and coquetry 
 —how many she was alleged to have jilted, even before girl- 
 hood was passed, he writhed on his pillow at the thought of 
 her being left now entirely to the attentions of others, for 
 though the mysterious Sir Cullender Crowdy had returned 
 to London, new visitors of both sexes were at Blairavon. 
 Among others, some of the Hussar officers from the barracks 
 at Hamilton or Perth ; but those men^ he was told by 
 Feverley, seemed to be somehow proof against the witcheries 
 of their coquettish hostess. They shot and raced— it was 
 not the hunting season— and while enjoying their wine, 
 secretly voted "old Yere a bore." To Hesbia it was 
 annoyingly evident that they preferred the Cheynes to 
 herself. 
 
 " Why was this T she one day inquired angriljr of her 
 cousin Travice, who was pleased to see her mortified, and 
 who had won a small mint of money from the unsuspecting 
 dragoons. 
 
 " The plain fact is, Hesbia, that in these girls those fellows 
 find something more akin to themselves." 
 
 "Howr 
 
 " To their own order." 
 
 Then the old feeling came over Hesbia, and her eyes 
 gleamed with their most unpleasant expression. Elsie and 
 Steinie hung over Lennard even as nis own father and 
 mother would have done. In their earnest and loving old 
 eyes there was ever an expression which seemed to say, "Oh, 
 
VISITORS AT OAKWOODLEE. l6l 
 
 if we could only die for you !" so great was their devotion 
 to him, perhaps quite as much because he was the son of 
 Richard Blair and one of tlie " old sto^k," as for any per- 
 sonal merits, though he was a very amiable and loveablo 
 young fellow. In the first days of his lassitude, pain, and 
 fever, he seemed to be living over a portion of his past 
 existence. 
 
 The smiles and tears of childhood seemed to return with 
 tliose memories of the spring of life when he had been going 
 step by step along a flowery path towards its summer ; but 
 ever and anon, among old familiar sounds, such as the caw- 
 ing of the rooks without, the creaking of a vane overhead, 
 the patter of rain on the roof, the sough of the wind in the 
 pine-woods, with the voices of Elsie and Steinic, otJiers 
 seemed to mingle — others that were stilled for ever ; so, in 
 his delirium, he would fancy that the years which had 
 passed were rolled back, and that he was a child again, with 
 Elsie his nurse as of old singing him to sleep in the same 
 room and the same bed where he had often cowered in the 
 winter nights, with fears of the spunkies and spectres, and 
 other pre-railway phantoms, who had long made the vicinity 
 of Blairavon their abode. 
 
 Elsie Graham was much mollified in her views of !Miss 
 Yere, who daily sent INIaxwell or Mademoiselle Savon ette 
 with inquiries, cards, and occasionally comfits and cordials, 
 and who frequently came in person to ask for Lennard, 
 but, of course, never alone, as she had always with her 
 Flora Cheyne or Mr. Vere ; and on one of those occasions, 
 when the latter spoke of the afi'airs of the firm at home, 
 and of the forgery which was yet involved in so much mys- 
 tery, Lennard could perceive that his agitation was visible 
 through even his long-practised and habitual system of 
 self-control, and that the loose silver was jingled in his 
 pocket more vigorously, but more abstractedly, than ever. 
 
 During one of the early days of Lennard's convalescence, 
 when he could sit in an arm-chair under the drooping labur- 
 num and fraoTant lilac-trees near the door of Oakwoodlee, 
 and enjoy a cigar in the bright sunshine, or the cool breeze 
 that came from the belt of pines around the Charter Stone, he 
 received a visit from Hesbia, who was accompanied on this 
 occasion by the daughters of Eanald Cheyne and by— her 
 cousin Travice Cheatwood ! 
 
 The postman had just brought a letter, which Lennard 
 perceived was from Mr. Dabcbick, but he had not time to 
 glance at its contents (fortunately, perhaps, though they 
 were, in one instance, very important), for he heard th« 
 
 II 
 
1 62 THE GIRL HE MABRIED. 
 
 voice of Hesbia, and a thrill passed through his breast ; he 
 thrust the letter into his pocket-book, and grasped the knobs 
 of his arm-chair in a feeble, and, as it proved, vain attempt 
 to rise, when she, with her three companions, crossed the 
 little piece of green sward to the place where he sat under 
 the trees. So Lennard Blair was fairly out of danger ! 
 Travice Cheatwood felt, for the time, out of it too ; and so 
 all his old hatred had returned with renewed force. 
 
 " Exposed me, did he !'' thought he, again and again : 
 "exposed me, and saved those beggarly snobs, Dabchick and 
 Teverley, from the unmerciful ' milking ' I had in store foi 
 them (and himself too). Well, I shot surely, and he'll never 
 trump that card, confound him !" 
 
 Travice had been posted recently as a turf-defaulter on 
 the course at theDerby, Epsom, and Catterick Bridge— posted 
 beyond remedy or avail ; for though he had heard of other 
 persons taking high grounds, instructing their solicitors to 
 sue, and so forth, no such method was open to him. He 
 could only grind his teeth — grin and bear it. 
 
 " When things are at the very worst," thought he, "they 
 are almost sure to mend ; and perhaps it may be so with my 
 affairs. I have still my chances with Hesbia ; and when all 
 is lost or over, I can at least levant to the diggings or the 
 land of the Stripes and Stars !" 
 
 Such were the thoughts that flitted through the mind of 
 Travice as he approached the invalid — his victim, — who sat 
 almost powerless in his cushioned arm-chair, his slippered 
 feet upon a stool, a stick and crutch by his side ; his straight 
 features, in their pallor and thinness, looking straighter 
 than ever ; his eyes with the glare and hoUowness of suffer- 
 ing apparent in them ; his hair uncut, and, like his beard 
 and moustache, looking, as Hesbia thought, unpleasantly 
 ample ; while his tasselled robe-de-chamhre flapped loosely 
 and widely about his attenuated limbs. Hesbia and the 
 Cheynes approached and greeted him with genuine kindness 
 and commiseration expressed in their charming faces, and 
 their inquiries and congTatulations were uttered with 
 such real interest and feeling, that Lennard felt his heart 
 beat happily, and he even held out his hand with forgive- 
 ness to Cheatwood, thinking the while, as old Steinie hob 
 bled foi-tli from the house with chairs, how the appearance 
 of the three fashionable-looking girls in their light summer 
 dresses, smart hats and feathers, and perfect toilettes, from 
 their gathered hair to their tiny Balmoral boots, made 
 gay and bright the exterior of Jiis somewhat lonely and old- 
 fashioned placeu 
 
VISITORS AT OAKWOODLEE. 1 63 
 
 On this day Hesbia had almost to compel Travice Cheat- 
 wood to accompany her, nor would she listen to one word of 
 the quarrel which he openly alleged as the reason of his 
 having no desire to meet Blair again ; while his secret one 
 was his dislike, aversion, and fear to meet face to face one 
 whom he had wronged in a mode so dastardly. But he 
 found there was nothing for him but to trust to Blair's gene- 
 rosity for silence concerning the ecarte, and to escort Hesbia, 
 who, more by chance than motive, had reminded him of the 
 "threat he uttered in the conservatory on a certain night ; 
 and Travice, when she did so, changed colour, or rather lost 
 it, most visibly. 
 
 " I bear you no malice for our shindy, Blair," said he, pre- 
 senting his hand ; "ecarte is an ugly game, and no born Briton 
 is ever really master of it as it is essentially French. Sorry to 
 hear of all you have suffered in this devilish affair ; hope 
 you'll soon be quite well." 
 
 *' Thanks. Hand chairs to the ladies, please — nearer me. 
 Steinie has placed them half-a-mile distant." 
 
 While Travice with nervous haste was placing the chairs, 
 Hesbi&'s eyes beamed kindly into Lennard's, as she said in a 
 rapid whisper, — " I was not far from you on that fatal night." 
 
 "Indeed " 
 
 " I was at the stile on the road to the craig — you know the 
 place — and actually heard your cry." 
 
 " Thanks for telling me so, Hesbia," said he with a sigh ; 
 and a quick, but unseen, pressure of their hands closed the 
 secret intelligence, which brought a flush to Lennard's cheek 
 and a lustre to his eye. 
 
 Travice Cheatwood, bent on making a good impression, 
 was " got up" even more carefully than usual, in a suit of 
 lilac-coloured tweed, a white vest, a slender blue silk tie 
 drawn through a ruby ring ; a wide-awake hat, with an eye 
 glass screwed into the rim thereof; lavender-coloured gloves, 
 with elaborate black seams ; glazed boots, and a tooth-pick 
 umbrella. His goatee-beard was carefully trimmed, and 
 while doing his best to preserve a nonchalant bearing, there 
 Was a restlessness apparent in his eyes and manner. Flora 
 Cheyne and her younger sister were gentle and lady-like 
 girls. To a close observer, even to Lennard's lover-eyes, it 
 was evident that, while infinitely less beautiful than Hesbia, 
 there was about them less of that bearing of perpetual self- 
 assertion which distinguished the heiress of Blairavon. 
 
 ii-a 
 
164 THE GIRL HE MARRIED, 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 LENNARD OBTAINS A CLUE. 
 
 After a few commonplaces were uttered, kind enquiries 
 made, and messages given, by the three ladies, Mr. Cheat- 
 wood feeling all the awkwardness of his position, notwith- 
 standing his profound assurance, found an absolute neces- 
 sity for saying something, more especially as Lennard's eye 
 had twice regarded him with an expression of calm, cold 
 scrutiny ; he therefore observed, — 
 
 " Singularly enough, I happened to be in the fields when 
 this unhappy affair occurred, Mr. Blair; and, like Miss Vere, 
 I was not far from the spot." 
 
 "Indeed," replied Lennard ; "this is the first time I have 
 heard of the circumstance. Yonr name did not appear 
 among the precognitions of the Procurator." 
 
 " Oh yes, but he was in the fields on that evening," said 
 Flora Cheyne, with a readiness that won her the gratitude 
 of Mr. Cheatwood, " for about the very time you were at- 
 tacked, he was at the Haughs with some music for me." 
 
 This was not strictly true according to time ; but her reply 
 greatly encouraged Cheatwood, who resumed, — 
 
 "It has been a serious business this of yours, Blair." 
 
 "Serious, indeed — Feverley, it seems, at one time was 
 sorely afraid of gangrene setting in, and then nothing could 
 have saved me but immediate amputation." 
 
 " Poor Mr. Blair !" said Hesbia ; " all your round dancing 
 would have been at an end then." 
 
 " But you are getting rapidly better, Mr. Blair — and we 
 are so delighted to see it," lisped Flora Cheyne. 
 
 "Yes— thanks to Frank Feverley; among all the thousands 
 of practitioners on the human race, I do not think I could 
 have found a more careful fellow. I can absolutely move 
 my leg a little to-day !" 
 
 And, making a most horrible grimace while he did so, 
 Lennard lifted his foot about two inches from the soft stool 
 on which it rested. 
 
 " All right, old fellow — never say die !" exclaimed Cheat- 
 wood, patting him on the back, — a patronizing process which 
 Lennard never relished, save from intimate friends, and 
 under which he winced now, as he detested Cheatwood's 
 slangy and free-and-easy style ; " You'll be up and about in 
 a week or two ; but you are in comfortable diggings — this 
 queer old bunk of your father's — and so should take your 
 
LENNAED OBTAINS A CLUE. 1 65 
 
 own time of turning up at Vere and Co.'s, in the old alley 
 at Liverpool." 
 
 " Can this really be the rascal I suspect him ]" thought 
 Lennard. 
 
 " As soon as you are able to move a little, remember that 
 the carriage is quite at your disposal— papa told me to say 
 so," said Hesbia. 
 
 " And mij papa desired me to place my bay pad at your 
 service, as a first mount," said Flora Cheyne, with a little 
 blush ; " it is quiet as a lamb, Mr. Blair, and rides on a 
 snaffle." 
 
 " Have a weed," said Travice, opening his cigar case and 
 proffering it, ere Lennard could thank the ladies ; '' Hesbia 
 and Miss Chepie will, of course, excuse us here in the open 
 air — you are forbidden to smoke — " 
 
 " More than one— thanks— and I have already done so." 
 
 " But, Mr. Blair," said Flora, looking into Lennard's face 
 with her dark eyes full of interest ; " is it quite the case 
 that, as papa says, you did not hear a report when shot 
 down 1" 
 
 " I heard nothing— saw nothing 1" 
 
 " You are quite certain T 
 
 •* Quite; I heard no sound, but the cry of pain that 
 escaped me," added Lennard, glancing at Hesbia. 
 
 " How doocid odd !" commented Travice, as he carefully 
 bit off the end of a cigar, and proceeded to light it. Turn- 
 ing again to Lennard, with the fixed eye glass shining in Ms 
 ej^e, imparting thereby a grotesquely sinister glare to his 
 expression, he asked, "have you no suspicions of any one]" 
 
 " There are times when I have." 
 
 "Times only r 
 
 " It is awkward, without solid proof, to bring forward an 
 accusation of guilt, Mr. Cheatwood." 
 
 " Of course — of course," replied Travice, composedly puff- 
 ing his cigar ; " the pitmen hereabout are, I have heard, a 
 rough lot ; but every man must be held innocent till he is 
 found guilty." 
 
 "And, in doubtful cases," continued _ Lennard, with a 
 
 Eeculiar smile, " we have in Scotland, as in France, an ugly 
 ut necessary verdict — ' not proven.' ' 
 Travice Cheatwood thought of Dabchick, and in his heart 
 anathematized all law in general, and Scotch law in parti- 
 cular. 
 
 "Beyond acceptances too often protested, I have had 
 little to do with the law," said Travice, with a tone of re- 
 tort ; " because, like your worthy father—" 
 
1 66 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 "My father?" interrupted Leonard sliarply, with a led- 
 dening of his pale cheek, and an emphasis on the words. 
 
 " Yes — I have been, like him, animated by a gentlemanly 
 love of spending much and making little." 
 
 The remark, though smilingly made, simply originated in 
 Travice's desire to be impertinent. He saw the feverish 
 hectic of suppressed irritation in the now usually pale cheek 
 of Blair; but pity he had none, and all fear for himself had, 
 in this instance, completely passed away. 
 
 " Listen," said Hesbia, during an unpleasant pause, while 
 the cooing of the cushat-doves came softly out of the Blair- 
 avon woods ; " listen to the sweet notes of the wood 
 pigeons." 
 
 " How romantic— bah !" was the blunt reply ; " I like 
 them best when their toes are peeping up through a covering 
 of good pufF-paste." 
 
 " Just as those white lambs which dot the green sward ii? 
 the foreground would please you better with the accompani- 
 ments of green pease and mint sauce." 
 
 " Precisely, my dear cousin ; and you might add, with a 
 glass of good dry sherry." 
 
 " You have charming tastes, Travice !" said Hesbia, open- 
 ing and shutting her parasol with an air of annoyance, and 
 fearful that he might commit himself unpleasantly, as a 
 sullen expression was beginning to gather in his eye ; so 
 with the kindest manner she could assume, she now rose to 
 retire, giving a promise of coming soon again — a promise 
 which kindled a glow of love and gratitude in Lennard's 
 heart. 
 
 " Travice," said she, angrily, as they quitted Oakwoodlee 
 by the wicket which opened into the highway, " you are re- 
 markably cool over all this painful affair of Mr. Blair's." 
 
 " Cool ! — yes, as a dog's nose at Christmas — why should I 
 be otherwise "i" he asked, tipping the ashes from his cigar by 
 the ivory handle of his " toothpick" umbrella ; " my own 
 affairs are quite worry enough for me, and it happens that 
 just at present my betting-book is not the most pleasant 
 reading in the world, and is likely to continue to be so, un- 
 less I can get a lady with a jolly pot of money to take pity 
 upon me for better or worse." 
 
 " Oh, fie ; how mercenary !" said Flora Cheyne, holding 
 tip a tiny finger in mock rebuke. " Is not money the root 
 of all evil r 
 
 " So says the nursery rhyme—and so say the parsons, too 
 —but how the deuce is one to get along without it T 
 *' True," sighed Hesbia, as she thought of all the luxuriea 
 
LfeNNAED OBTAINS A CLUE. 1 67 
 
 \)y which she was surrounded, which were now the neces- 
 sities of her existence, and wnich she knew Lennard Blait 
 could never yield her, unaided by her father, and from him 
 there had been dropping many unpleasant liints of losses and 
 money disasters of late ! 
 
 After his three \dsitors had left him, Lennard sat long in 
 iv pleasant reverie, thinking over all that Hesbia had said, 
 for though she had uttered but commonplaces, she had a 
 modulation of voice and a varying power of eye, that lent 
 point to her most trivial remarks ; her smiles had been win- 
 ning and tender — too winning and too tender to suit the 
 taste of one who detected them, Travice- her kind manner, 
 and the honest warmth of her parting hope that he would 
 be able to visit them at Blairavon, as the carriage was at his 
 disposal, more than ever won poor Lennard's heart, and feel- 
 ing that for her sake he could quite forgive even the uncour- 
 teous and dishonourable conduct of her cousin, he forgot all 
 about the letter of the fussy little barrister, and sat in a long 
 and happy reverie, listening to the rustle of the green leaves, 
 overhead, the soft cooing of the cushat-doves, and the mur- 
 mur of the adjacent stream as it chafed over its bed of brown 
 pebbles. 
 
 To have excited so much interest in Hesbia's breast, and 
 won so much of her sympathy, made Lennard think that 
 all he had suffered had not been endured in vain, or without 
 a pleasing reward. At last he proceeded with half vacant 
 interest to unfold and read the dapper lawyer's epistle, and 
 while doing so the piping falsetto voice, the general meek- 
 ness of visage, and great pomposity of bearing, which were 
 characteristic of the writer, came to memory. Like many 
 of the great obscure, even in these practical days, Dabchick 
 affected heraldry ; thus his note-paper was adorned with no 
 less than three crests, one for each of his names, in chief 
 being a chicken proper^ for the noble line of Dabchick. 
 Lennard could have laughed at this display, but a pallor 
 settled gradually over his face, as he read the letter, one 
 part of which closely affected himself. 
 
 "Everything is dull here, and as usual the streets of Edinburgh look 
 abo*t as crowded at noon as those of London do at four o'clock in the 
 morning ; and nothing is doing in our courts, for yearly our legal profes* 
 sion is going more and more to the dogs, and|the honourable position of the 
 Scottish Bar becomes more and more traditional — a thing of the past ! ' 
 Orennis pro paupertate 'Edinensi ! " 
 
 Dabchick was evidently discontented ; he had not been 
 retained in the only case of which he had a chance of figuring 
 
l68 THE GIEL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 in since his " call to the Bar," the right of way to the mains 
 of Kaiins. 
 
 " IIow fares it witli la belle Hesbia ? Some cavalry ruon from Perth 
 barracks, or from those at John's Lodge (near Edinburgh), are ut 
 Bluiravon, I hear; so the old game of furious flirtiug will, no doubt, 
 be a-foot, and we civilians nowhere." 
 
 "John's Lodge— pitiful snob!" muttered Lennard, Avho 
 knew the Scotch, or local name of the barrack referred to ; 
 •' but what the deuce is this 1 " 
 
 "I heard of "your accident through the papers, and have since 
 learned from Feverlej when he was in town fur a day, that jou were 
 fast progressing to convalescence. Pray accept alike my condolence, 
 and congratulation. I always feared that a certain party, from whoso 
 extreme sharpness at cards you saved both tlie Doctor and nie, would 
 work you a mischief. In fact, on that night, I saw it in his eyes, and 
 we lawyers can read a man as a book. Are you aware that once when 
 getting a fishing-rod out of his room at Plairavon, I found among liis 
 other appurtenances an — air-gun. 
 
 " An air-gun ! " exclaimed Lennard, starting so convul- 
 sively, that for some minutes his wounded limb gave him 
 exquisite torture. 
 
 Here there was a clue to the whole affair, and though the 
 lawyer had been too cautious to commit the name to paper, 
 Lennard knew that Ti'avice Cheatwood had been the villain 
 who wounded him — who had contemplated alike the gratifi- 
 cation of a revenge and the removal of a rival by deliberate 
 assassination ; and yet, not an hour since, he had stood 
 smiling and talking by his side, offering him a cheroot, 
 patting him on the shoulder, and warmly shaking his hand 
 prior to departure. 
 
 And now Lennard remembered the bitter threat Travicc 
 had made to Hesbia in the conservatory. It seemed but 
 empty sound then, though it had a terrible significance now. 
 
 At the hand of Travice, then, had he endured ail this 
 peril, all this suffering, and misery of mind and body, this 
 deprivation of light and air, and sunshine— a bed-ridden 
 patient— for so many days ! An access of liis fever almost 
 came upon him— so keen was his sense of wrong, so fiery 
 his resentment, so determined was he on a terrible retri- 
 bution ! He must go to Blairavon, reach unseen the rooms 
 of Travice Cheatwood in his absence, secure the silent proofs 
 against him, and try if the two bullets he possessed fitted 
 the muzzle of that murderous and illegal weapon, beneath 
 which he had so nearly perished. Then came a dread lest 
 Cheatwood might have destroyed or concealed it beyond all 
 chance of discovery. However, that he should not mar his 
 own purposes, he felt the imperative necessity of bemg 
 
CONVALESCENT. 1 69 
 
 patient, calm and vvaiy, and of keeping for a time liis own 
 counsel ; and he did so, concealing liis suspicions from 
 Feverley, from Hesbia, and even veiling liis emotions to 
 Travice himself, though never again would he permit the 
 hand of that personage to touch his, when they met cr parted. 
 
 " Till the fitting time comes, I shall speak of this to no 
 one — for a secret ceases to be such Avhen shared by another.'' 
 
 And he folded and docketed the letter of Mr.*^ Dabchick, 
 ere he locked it in his desk, with all the precision he had 
 acquired in the house of Vere and Co. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 CONVALESCENT. 
 
 Notwithstanding that his offers and attentions had been 
 declined, at first jocularly and then very angrily and deci- 
 dedly, by his cousin Hesbia, Travice Cheatwood — that man 
 of dark purposes and desperate fortune — still continued to 
 reside at Blairavon, where his presence was tolerated by Mr. 
 Vere out of mercy to a dead sister's memory, though ho 
 was by no means an over-indulgent uncle, and certainly had 
 no suspicion of the matrimonial schemes which the plotting 
 brain of liis nephew might conceive, while he knew, more- 
 over, that Hesbia was quite able to take care of herself. 
 
 Travice had no fine feelings to blunt ; after being so de- 
 cidedly, almost contemptuously refused by Hesbia, a real 
 lover would have quitted her presence for ever ; but Tra- 
 vice was little more than a desperate money-hunter, and 
 Avilling enough to accept a fortune of his uncle's making, 
 and to take it encumbered with such a charming appendage 
 as Hesbia ; so he lingered on at Blairavon — in fact he had, 
 at present, nowhere else to go. The atmosphere of Liver- 
 pool and of London also being alike too hot for him, he had 
 the pretence of a country visit to remain where he was, and 
 resolved to protract it to the last day. 
 
 Perhaps the first ramble in which Lennard indulged — 
 when, after nearly two months of convalescence in an arm- 
 chair, and in hobbling about the grounds of Oakwoodlee on 
 crutches, he was able to walk abroad with the aid of a staff- 
 was to the spot where he had been shot down, in the little 
 pathway that led through the fields to Craigellon. It was 
 now nearly the end of July, and, through various contin- 
 gencies, he had never found a proper opportunity for recur- 
 ring pointedly with Hesbia to the object of that assignation 
 which she, apparently, had kept, while he had been com- 
 
170 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 pelled to fail ; and latterly a fear had haunted him that 
 the Vere household would return to Liverpool, leaving him 
 with his secret untold — his story unsaid to Hesbia ; for 
 already their periodical visit to Blairavon was protracted 
 long beyond the usual time, for Mr. Vere's mind seemed 
 much occupied by developing to their utmost, the resources 
 of the coal mines at the Mains of Kaims. 
 
 As Lennard stood in the solitary path, vividly the 
 memory of the shock he had undergone, with all its pain 
 and bewilderment, came upon him. He surveyed the place 
 and saw the exact spot where he fell, recognizing the chest- 
 nut trees, the branches of which had interposed between 
 him and the sky as he lay prostrate among the long grass; 
 and again, as on that eventful evening, the last red rays of 
 the sun were fading from the flinty brow of Craigellon, and 
 at a distance he could perceive the sequestered stile where 
 Hesbia had awaited him, and heard, without understanding 
 it, his cry of dismay. But for that atrocious act of Travice 
 Cheatwood, the meeting had taken place, and Lennard had 
 been now the accepted lover of Hesbia Yere, — or have 
 known the worst, and left her sphere for ever. 
 
 By the wayside the thistles were in full flower, the summer 
 grasses in the fields were deep and dewy, and the fledgling 
 partridges whirred up from them in brown coveys ; but the 
 mavis and merle had ceased to sing now, for the dog-days 
 were setting in and the golden butterflies and dragon-moths 
 fluttered about lazily in the last light of the sun. 
 
 As Lennard, with an eye rendered keen and sharp by long 
 suffering, surveyed the spot where he had lain till found 
 by Doctor Kirkford, something glittering among the grass 
 that grew thick about the roots of the hedge close by cauglit 
 his attention. It proved to be a gold sleeve link, to which 
 was attached the fragment of a cuft", frittered and frayed 
 by two months' exposure to the wind and rain. To the 
 link were two small Indian gold coins, and from what 
 remained of the cufif, which was of fine linen, it appeared to 
 have been neatly edged, or bordered with dark needlework. 
 
 How carelessly detectives and others had examined the 
 scene of his suff'ering the discovery of this relic evinced. 
 
 Lennard had a vague recollection of having seen such 
 cuff's and sleeve links worn by Travice Cheatwood ; and, 
 after a longer and more careful scrutiny of the place, he 
 placed what he had found in his pocket-book, as another 
 link in the necessary chain of evidence, and turned homeward. 
 
 " How rarely do our instincts mislead us \" thought 
 Lennard ; " and I always hated that fellow l" 
 
OONVALESCENf. t?^ 
 
 He was frequently tempted to make a confidant of 
 Feverley, and ask his advice ; but as further proofs were 
 still wanting whereby to criminate Cheatwood (and could 
 he do so without disgracing Hesbia 1) he resolved to wait ? 
 little ; yet on the very night of this fresh discovery neal 
 the scene of his attempted assassination, he was nearly 
 tempted into additional confidence by the friendly and trust- 
 ing manner of the young Doctor, who dropped into _ Oak- 
 wood] ee, as he frequently did, on his way home to the village. 
 
 "You are somewhat moody and silent, Frank,'' said 
 Lennard, who perceived that the Doctor sat with an air of 
 abstraction, smoking and sipping his wine. 
 
 "Moody, am I'i perhaps I am a little weary," replied 
 Feverley ; " I have had many patients to visit to-day— and 
 the days of July are long and hot." 
 
 He tipped the ashes from his cigar, sighed, and relapsed 
 into silence. 
 
 " There is something else than medical visiting in your 
 mind," said Lennard ; " did you observe anything that inte- 
 rested you in yesterday's paper V 
 
 Feverley changed colour visibly. 
 
 "I observed," said he, "that old Sir Philip Wharton 
 Foster had been struck with paralysis at ]Monkwood in the 
 Merse " 
 
 " And was so dangerously ill that he was not expected to 
 survive." 
 
 " He died the same night," said Feverley in a faint voice ; 
 " I read his name in the obituary this morning. Poor old 
 man — don't talk about it." 
 
 " Why T asked Lennard somewhat vacantly. 
 
 " Because — it must be a severe blow to — to — his wife." 
 
 "Your cousin — your cousin Milly Montgomerie of the 
 Moat. Ah, Frank ! I have not forgotten your sad little love 
 stoiy, and that untoward meeting at Blairavon." 
 
 Feverley, who had gTOwn very pale, started a little, as 
 Lennard could perceive by the light of the candles, and he 
 strove to dismiss from his mind the subject on which he had 
 no intention of talking ; but the poor Doctor was only 
 human, and he could not resist the current of the thoughts 
 that came unbidden to his mind. 
 
 After a pause, during which he had pushed aside the wine 
 decanter, and mixed for himself a rummer of whiskey and 
 water, he said in a voice that was broken in tone—" I cer- 
 tainly have no reason to mourn the demise of Sir Philip 
 Foster. That marriage of my cousin Milly to him, when I 
 was far away in the Greenland seas, off Spitzbergen Peaks 
 
172 THE GIRL HE MAPKIED. 
 
 and Davis's Straits, was an act of atrocious cruelty on the 
 part of lier father, and may God forgive him (I never can) 
 for all he made us endure ; but Sir Philip was rich and I 
 was poor — yea, poor as Job — and what right have the poor 
 to possess either hearts or feelings, wants or wishes ]" 
 
 Lennard sighed, for after his late sufferings he was easily 
 depressed ; he thought of his own chances and hopes in 
 relation to Hesbia Vere ; and, somehow, on hearing the tone 
 of Feverley's voice, and the hollow bitterness it possessed, 
 his heart sank within him for a time. 
 
 " 1 thought I had got over all the bitterness of our first 
 great sorrow when separated by the Indian seas, and, as I 
 supposed, for ever ; I had learned to be content — always 
 cheerful — even happy at times, as you have seen^ for a 
 gloomy doctor had better try some other art than that of 
 healing ; but still, in my lonely moments, the past was ever 
 before me, vividly and sorrowfully." 
 
 "And now that obituary in the newspapers has brought 
 back all the memories— all the past — in full tide like a sum- 
 mer's flood." 
 
 "Exactly." 
 
 There was another pause, till Lennard said, "Lady 
 Foster will be a free woman — a wealthy widow now. Her 
 stern and courtly old husband she may — nay, must — have 
 respected, but never loved." 
 
 " Respected V said Feverley, bitterly ; " I have my doubts 
 if, in her darker hours — and dark Itours she must have had 
 — poor Milly could have respected him ; for he took her at 
 her father's bidding and from his merciless and avaricious 
 hands, after a long course of domestic tyranny and sys- 
 tematic oppression ; and only the stern consciousness that 
 she had perhaps anticipated her revenge, made her go 
 through the mockery of a holy rite at tlie altar with him, 
 Philip Wharton Foster ; but peace be with him now ! . . 
 .... If I have suffered much, Milly has suffered more ! 
 I have had the world of active life, such as it is with me 
 here, to engage me — a world where I can at least be useful 
 and merciful to my fellow-men ; and in seeking to relieve, 
 so far as I may, the ills that flesh is heir to, forget the keener 
 pangs that have wrung my own heart. I had this resource 
 left me ; but she— she— had only the consciousness that her 
 young life had been utterly cast away !" 
 
 The Doctor's pale face flushed as thoughts c^ime fast upon 
 him ; and he seemed, as he paused from time to time, with 
 his cold and forgotten cigar between his fingers, to be speak- 
 ing to himself as much as to Blair. 
 
THE VINEYARD OF NABOTH. 1 73 
 
 " Never shall I forget, Lennard, if I were to live for a 
 century, tlie memories of those nightly meetings, stolen in 
 secrecy, in sorrow and rapture, in the bower at Monkwood 
 Moat — her despairing appeals to God, and to me — poor help- 
 less wretch that I was ! — not to leave her — her lips pressed 
 to my cheek — her imploring voice — her clinging gestures — 
 her declarations that she was mine and mine only ; the fire 
 of her spirit and her energy, as contrasted with her petite 
 fig-ure and delicate beauty, — yes, the memories of all those 
 hours of passion are ever with me, in one of those secret 
 places of the soul, which we can open and shut at pleasure, 
 and keep unknown to all the world, Blair !" 
 
 " ' All's well that ends well,' " said Lennard ; " and we 
 have yet to see the end of all this. The old man has gone 
 to his last account, and we may freely say, ' God rest him, 
 now ;' but there can be selfishness in " 
 
 " Hush ! say no more, if you love me, Blair," said the 
 Doctor, starting up ; "I have dread enough of my own new 
 thoughts, and shrink from having them fashioned into 
 words by another." 
 
 " You may yet be very happy, Feverley." 
 
 " Perhaps ; but worldly happiness, I fear, — 
 
 " ' It is the gay to-morroio of the mind, 
 That never comes.' " 
 
 Soon after this, Feverley made a hurried departure ; and 
 though his manner, his story, and his confidences might 
 have lured Lennard Blair to speak again of his own aspira- 
 tions towards Miss Vere and of his grave suspicions con- 
 cerning her reckless cousin, he still delayed. Hence, in the 
 matter he lost the valuable advice of Feverley, through 
 whose calmer judgment means might have been taken for 
 the suitable exposure and punishment of Travice Cheatwood 
 — most certainly for his final expulsion, at least ; and thus 
 the great catastrophe which afterwards ensued might happily 
 have been avoided. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE VINEYARD OF NABOTH. 
 
 The happiest period, perhaps, of Lennard Blair's life^ as 
 yet, was now to come ; and if ever lover had the neld 
 entirely to himself it was he ; for much about the time that 
 he became well enough to stir abroad, though still too feeble 
 and ailing to return to Liverpool, a telegram from Mr. 
 
174 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Envoyse summoned Mr. Vere to that place for an indefinite 
 term ; and Travice Cheatwood, to recruit his resources, had 
 followed to Perth or Piershill Barracks some of his recently- 
 made cavalry acquaintances, whose I O U's he held for 
 more than a thousand pounds, and who had not, as yet, 
 discovered his peculiar proclivities, or that his name had 
 figured so unpleasantly on the course at Epsom and else- 
 where. Prior, however, to Mr. Vere's departure, a little 
 speculation in a piece of land which he had long coveted 
 was agreeably achieved. 
 
 Mr. Vere had not been so blind as to fail in perceiving 
 that Lennard Blair had a great tendresse for Hesbia ; but, as 
 he had certain views regarding her, and other intentions 
 concerning him, he tolerated their intimacy because, as 
 Hesbia was somewhat self-willed, it might have been difia- 
 cult of prevention ; and having long wished to obtain pos- 
 session of Oakwoodlee, of which he had no hope during the 
 life of Kichard Blair, he now resolved to lose no time in 
 setting about it, especially as he had ascertained secretly 
 and satisfactoriljr the dip of the coal-seams in that direction. 
 
 It had been said of Vere that, through life, "he was ever 
 gTeat in traffic, had a keen eye to business, knew his Bible 
 by rote, and never failed in getting a slice off every cut loaf 
 /or himself." Yet ready money had mysteriously become 
 scarce in his hands of late ; all his private resources had 
 been turned to the development of the coal-pits, and 
 Lennard had seen with regret that nearly all the grand old 
 oaks— the woods of Blairavon, once his father's pride— had 
 become timber for sale under axe and saw. 
 
 As Hislop said, with a groan and with unintentional wit, 
 " nothing would be left but the genealogical tree, and even 
 the last branch of that was not a flourishing one." 
 
 "Yes, Steinie, and the dule-tree yet remains," replied 
 Lennard, with a grim smile as he referred to the old gallows- 
 yew on which the lairds of Blairavon had executed justice 
 on their vassals in the times of old. 
 
 On the first day he dined at the manor-house after his 
 partial recovery — though he had to walk there and back 
 with the assistance of Steinie's arm — when the cloth was 
 removed, Mr. Vere resolved to speak to Lennard of the 
 affair that occupied his mind. The fat, solemn, and would- 
 be dignified, but nevertheless servile butler, in his accurate 
 suit of black and amplitude of white waistcoat, thinking 
 himself in all — save purse — quite the equal of those he con- 
 descended to attend, dispensed the wine, and duljr arranged 
 the decanters before his master. He was a white-haired, 
 
THE VINEYARD OF NABOTH. 1 75 
 
 bald-headed, sleek and selfish specimen of his class, looking 
 " f orrard to keeping his own 'otel some fine day with Mam- 
 selle Savonette as its missus," for her savings, perquisites, 
 and peculations, when added to his own, would make a 
 tolerable sum ; and now he hovered at Mr. Yere's back, till 
 told that he might withdraw, a hint on which !Mr. Maxwell 
 acted to ; and as Hesbia and Flora Chej^ne were already in 
 the dra^^ing-room, Lennard found himself alone with Mr. 
 Vere, who hospitably pressed him to take wine again and 
 again. 
 
 Playing with the grape-scissors or a wine-glass in one 
 hand, while the other was plunged among the loose silver in 
 his pocket, Mr. Vere said — " Now that we are quite alone, I 
 wish to speak with you on a subject which may prove greatly 
 to your future advantage ; but which, with your local pre- 
 judices, and family sympathies, you may consider one of 
 delicacy." 
 
 Mr. Vere paused and Lennard bowed, and assisted him- 
 self to gi'apes. 
 
 " I have some advice to offer." 
 
 " Say on, sir," said Lennard, half suspecting and dreading 
 the nature of it. 
 
 " In fact, Blair, I hope you won't think — even as a father, 
 and many years your senior — that I take a prematiu-e or un- 
 justifiable libertj^ in talking of it at all." 
 
 " Can it be my regard for Hesbia to which he refers T^ 
 thought Lennard, whose heart had begun to beat wildly 
 during all this preamble, but who was somewhat relieved 
 when he found the subject was Oakwoodlee, one he had al- 
 ready mentioned once before. 
 
 " The estate of Blairavon is incomplete without those few 
 acres of the old Jointure House, which it surrounds on every 
 side. Hand these over to me, Blair, and I shall assign you 
 their full value — as made up by a siu-veyor, or other com- 
 petent person — in further shares or interest in our firm, 
 which must jdeld you a much greater return than such a 
 patch of land can ever do. At present I am able to indicate, 
 if you would prefer it, a splendid investment in a monetary 
 point of view. You know how successful the line of steamere 
 from Panama to Australia has proved, creating the necessity 
 for a connecting link between the Isthmus of Panama and 
 New York, the Cunard line having decided upon running a 
 branch line in conjunction with the mail steamers from the 
 United States to London. You understand me V 
 
 "I think I do, sir." 
 
 " Take your wine ; the port stands with you. WeD, my 
 
176 THE GIEL HE MAEIUED. 
 
 friend, Sir Cullender Crowdy, has a new and original sclieme 
 for a line of screw-propeller packets, from the Mersey direct 
 to Carthagina, and on through the Carribean Sea, touching 
 at Cuba, San Domingo, and so forth, through the Straits of 
 Bahama and so on to Boston, and thence back to England. 
 Packets, the engines of which will be worked w^ithout steam 
 or coal, or fuel of any kind, by an entirely new motive 
 principle— a system of condensed air, known to a very few 
 — and so cheap in its operation that we cannot fail to de- 
 stroy the enterprize of the great British and North American 
 Koyal Mail Steam Company, unless they are pleased to 
 amalgamate and cast their lot with us ; and then we shall 
 have in our own hands the entire steam-navigation round 
 the habitable globe !" 
 
 Listening to all this like one in a dream, to Lennard the 
 vaunted speculation sounded unpleasantly like the enter- 
 prizing Captain Hawksley's famous galvanic scheme ; but 
 though his faith in Mr. Vere was great, he eminently dis- 
 liked the baronet's name or share in any plan or enterprize 
 whatever. He sat silent, and knew not how to reply. 
 
 " By bold speculation large fortunes alone are made now," 
 said Mr. Vere • " but if shares in this proposed new South 
 and North- Atlantic Packet Company are not to your taste, 
 you may place the money you receive for Oakwoodlee into 
 the old firm—" 
 
 "That I should prefer infinitely," replied Lennard ; "for 
 with the scheme of Sir Cullender I shall have nothing what- 
 ever to do !'' Mr. Vere winced at this remark, and knit his 
 brows. " And now w^hen I remember the last words of my 
 father, poor old man, I have sore compunction in assenting 
 to part with the last fragment of Blairavon." 
 
 " Blairavon is gone," said Mr. Vere, tartly ; " it is no use 
 crying over spilt milk." 
 
 " But it is hard that poor little Oakwoodlee should follow." 
 
 " Think of the result — the return for your money ; it may 
 be sufficient in time to enable you to buy two such places as 
 Blairavon, and certainly twenty times such as Oakwoodlee, 
 Besides, you arc young, and cannot see your future. When 
 you have cleared up some of those cloudy matters which 
 shall be put in your hands for elucidation at Vera Cruz, and 
 established a branch of our house there — if all turns out as 
 well as I expect^ you will find the result of the confidence 
 we have placed m you pleasant, I am assured, in more waya 
 than one. ' 
 
 Lennard's heart beat lightly and happily as he immedi- 
 ately applied this vague promise to the position of himself 
 and Hesbia ; but there was one Remark of hia father's con- 
 
THE VINEYARD OF NABOTH. 177 
 
 ccniing licr, wliich came like water on tlie rising flame, and 
 repressed by pride the avowal that was trembling on his 
 tongue, so he tilled and drank his glass of wine in silence. 
 
 " I should like your decision soon," s;iid Ylt. Yere, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Give me one dav to think over it— to take counsel witli 
 myself]" 
 
 "Then one only, as I leave for Liverpool by an early train 
 to-morrow, and hope you will not be long after me — three 
 v»eeks more should see your health quite restored." 
 
 " I hope so, sir." 
 
 " Well, then, we shall have the land valued ; the sum 
 agreed upon assigned to you, or placed by Envoyse to your 
 credit in the funds of Vere and Co. I shall assume that 
 you only want time to make up your mind — not that you 
 will change it." 
 
 Mr. Vere went to a side table, opened a magnificent wal- 
 nut davenport-desk — and while the voice of Hesbia, as she 
 sang at the piano, came floating from time to time througli 
 the folding-doors of the drawing-room, he made a jotting of 
 the proposed transaction which Lennard Blair initialled. So 
 now, perhaps, even the Charter Stone was about to go — that 
 palladium and old Druidical monolith, the legends and 
 memories concerning which went beyond even the days of 
 our Saviour. 
 
 But Lennard was in love, and " all books— even novels — 
 will tell you that a man in love is not a good judge of what 
 he is doing." Perhaps, but for the voice that thrilled in his 
 ears and in his heart, Lennard might have declined the 
 whole transaction. 
 
 In the little oak-panelled parlour at Oakwoodlee, Lennard 
 sat long that night, pondering over all Mr. Vere had said, 
 the promises he had made, the hopes he had held out, and 
 others vaguely hinted ; and weighed all against his father's 
 dying injunctions never to part with Oakwoodlee. But was 
 he actually parting with it in spirit, if the value thereof was 
 invested in a firm of which he, himself, would one day be 
 an active, a prominent, and perhaps ultimately surviving 
 partner 1 More than all, if he succeeded in gaining the love 
 and hand of Hesbia Vere, Oakwoodlee and more would be 
 her portion ; and if he lost her, of what value would life hel 
 He thought long and regretfully over the matter, and finally 
 resolved that he would fully accede to Mr. Vere's wish ; yet 
 that in memory of his father's wish and the old family tra- 
 dition, he would reserve the Charter Stone ! 
 
 Lennard actually blushed when he spoke of the proposed 
 
 H'i 
 
lyS THE GIEL HE MARRIEJ). 
 
 transaction to old Steinie Hislop, for whose startled look he 
 was quite prepared, and to whom he felt himself compelled 
 to frame a specious story to the effect that out of the return 
 the investment would bring him, he should be enabled to 
 purchase an estate six times larger than the patch of grass 
 and coppice called Oakwoodlee. 
 
 " Better a wee bush than nae bield," responded Steinie, in 
 doubt, as he shook his white head thoughtfully. 
 
 " With Oakwoodlee, Steinie, I should be but a bonnet 
 laird after all, with — as the proverb of family pride has it — 
 ' a wee pickle land, a gude pickle debt and a doocot.' " 
 
 " But hold ye .by the Charter Stone, Mr. Lennard, for if 
 other saws say true, gude will ever come o' that." 
 
 "Whether or not Oakwoodlee goes from me, you and Elsie 
 shall never want while I live," said Lennard ; " and I must 
 tell you, Steinie^ that, though feeling compunction for so 
 soon violating — if it can be deemed so — my father's last wish 
 in parting with this poor fragment of all that once was ours 
 —I will realize quadruple its value in another fashion, and 
 with that, his dreams of wealth and station ; and I feel 
 grateful to Mr. Vere for affording me such an opportunity." 
 
 But again the old man shook his head doubtfully, for his 
 instincts made him cautious, and his years of hopefulness 
 were passed away. 
 
 When next they met, and Lennard hesitatingly— for he 
 had a sensitive dread of ridicule — spoke of his wish to retain 
 a right of proprietary over the Charter Stone, Mr. Vere first 
 smiled, and then laughed outright. It seemed to him a 
 queer affair altogether, as he was too much a man of the day- 
 book and ledger to understand anything about a sentimen- 
 tal investment such as this, unless Lennard conceived, as he 
 laughingly hinted, that "there was a good pot of money 
 hid under the old block." However, he agreed to let him 
 retain it as his own, and shook his hand with a warmth and 
 cordiality that made him feel quite happy. Mr. Vere then 
 sprang into the carriage which was to take him to the train 
 for CarHsle and the south, and they separated. 
 
 Vere had lost no time in leaving ample instructions ; so 
 through the medium of Mr. Gideon— or, as he was locally 
 named^ Juden— Grabble, a species of lawyer in the village 
 of Blairavon, the deeds of transfer or sale were drafted, or 
 martially drawn out, to be further executed and completed 
 by a more experienced conveyancer, and dulv recorded in 
 form of law, as Mr. Grabble could not act legally as a writer 
 or procurator ; and then Oakwoodlee passed like Blairavon 
 Dut of the line of Blair for ever — Blairavon that for cen- 
 luries had been the home of a race that, until the days of 
 
AN EXCHANGE OP HEARTS. i79 
 
 poor, simple, and unthrifty Eicliard Blair, had never known 
 reverse, save such as were common enough in the old cut- 
 and-thrust days of English invasion and domestic raid. _ It 
 passed away, all save the Charter Stone, and a saturnine 
 smile spread over the coarse visage of Mr. Juden Grabble, 
 as he penned the clause, wherein " the said Lennard Blair, 
 reserved to himself, his heirs, executors, and assigns, the 
 upright pillar or block, known as the Charter Stone, with a 
 space of six feet around the same, in perpetuity ;' for Grab- 
 ble, whose father had been a rat-catcher and earth-stopper 
 on the estate, knew the tradition well ; but he valued as 
 lightly as Mr. Vere the sentiment or superstition which led 
 Blair to retain it. Yet it was in something of the same 
 spirit which has inspired many old Highland families, whose 
 estates have passed from them, to retain a rock, an islet, or 
 a burial-place ; as the family of Borthwick still retain the 
 mere rock and ruin of that name near Edinburgh, when all 
 else — even their title — has passed away. 
 
 So Lennard soon found himself a species of visitor, or 
 tenant under the roof that had once been his own ; and a 
 time came— but he then was far away— when the old family 
 portraits, after being touched up by Sanders M'Gilp, E.S.A., 
 were removed again to Blairavon, to form the nucleus of an 
 ancestral gallery for the new proprietor, and when the pic- 
 tures of Richard Blair's favourite hunters and racers, with 
 many similar sporting relics, were sold to adorn the walls of 
 the village inn, and those of its less pretentious rival, the 
 alehouse, where many a time, when the Atlantic lay between 
 Lennard and the house that had been his home, old Stephen 
 Hislop would sit regarding them wistfully, and sigh for the 
 days that were gone, as he lingered over his gill-stoup of 
 Grlenlivet, or his mug of Preston beer at the Blair Arms, or 
 the humbler tap. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 AN EXCHANGE OF HEARTS. 
 
 In the happiness that awaited him after Mr. Yere's depar- 
 ture, Lennard's compunctions for the sudden sale of his 
 old place were soothed, or almost forgotten. Mr. Vere 
 had gone for a doubtful time ; Travice Cheatwood was 
 absent, none knew precisely where, visitors who had been 
 expected at Blairavon were sending apologies, and thu3 
 Lennard Blair and Hesbia were left entirely to themselves. 
 Hesbia, who felt bored in the great old house, had pro 
 
 12—2 
 
l8o ffiE Ollit Hfi MARRIED. 
 
 posed to Iiave several guests for a few weeks before return- 
 ing to Liverpool. " Poor, widowed Lady Foster and her 
 little boy Frank," of course, and some of tlie married officers 
 from the nearest barrack, and their wives, whom Flora 
 Cheyne would help her to entertain ; but the issue of these 
 invitations, even for the short period proposed, Mr. Vere 
 had, for the first time, forbidden, hinting at the necessity of 
 retrenchment, much to the astonishment of Hesbia, and it 
 would have been to her intense disgust, had she not had 
 Lennard Blair with whom to fill up her spare time. 
 
 " But retrenchment," she would repeat ; " why — what on 
 earth can papa mean V 
 
 " He has, perhaps, a husband in view for you," said Flora 
 Cheyne, laughing. 
 
 _ " A husband for me ! Well, I suppose something of the 
 kind is necessary in the end— to marry and to pay one's 
 debts ; but I can always get one without papa's aid, I hope." 
 
 Hesbia was past girlhood in experience certainly, but 
 would a time ever come when the vague but bright dreams 
 of that happy period— if the flirt ever had them — with all 
 the secret thougnts and emotions inspired by love would be 
 absorbed and intei-woven with her maturer state of existence 1 
 
 Some of the county ladies — " awfully county ladies," as 
 Hesbia called them, shrugged their shoulders and lifted up 
 their eyes in protest and astonishment at her being left alone 
 in the great house without a matron. Hesbia had some- 
 where an aunt w^hom she might have invited ; but she was 
 at variance with the spinster in question, and would brook 
 no control ; so she was thus, and from the other contingen- 
 cies alone, and for a brief period, her own mistress. The 
 censorious resented this, and remarked — "Her only com- 
 panions were the Cheynes -and they are motherless girls," 
 added the less good-natured. 
 
 The evening of the second day after Mr. Vere had gone, 
 saw Hesbia and Lennard seated in the beautiful little bou- 
 doir which opened off the great drawing-room at Blairavon. 
 He had arrived to escort her to the Haughs, as she preferred 
 walking, the evening was so fine, and the carriage would 
 come for her aftpr supper ; and now she was attired in one 
 of her most accurate toilettes, for with Hesbia her gloves, 
 cuffs, skirts, and anything, even to her brass-heeled 13almo- 
 rals, were each and all a careful study, that made a charm- 
 ing but certainly showy whole ; and, as she felt assured that 
 tlie frustrated meeting at the stile would be recurred to, and 
 tliat the conversation might certainly take a veiy remarkable 
 turn, there was something almost of nervousness imparted 
 to her usually very nonchalant bearing. 
 
AH EXCIIANGK OP HKARTSr iSi 
 
 Leiinard thought he had never seen her looking so bril- 
 liant and handsome, for there was a flush on her cheek, and 
 a coquettish smile in her bright hazel eyes ; but he ie\t a 
 secret emotion of intense annoyance, for, while hat in hand, 
 ?i waiting her appearance in the drawing-room, he found no 
 less than two envelopes addressed to her in the hand- writing 
 of Sir Cullender Crowdy. They had been posted from Lon- 
 don within a week, and lay tossed carelessly among stray 
 cartes de visite, invitation notes, and other litter in the card- 
 basket. What had been the contents or purport of those 
 two letters, written within a week of each other, as the post- 
 marks showed 1 and what had been her answers ? 
 
 Lennard had observed that whenever he spoke warningly 
 or slightingly — which he always did with reluctance — of this 
 dubious personage, that she invariably evaded to reply to, 
 or skilfully changed the subject. Well— this might be natu- 
 ral enough, as he was involved in several private schemes 
 and speculations with her father. He shrunk from speaking 
 of him now. They were setting forth considerably before 
 the hour in which they were due by invitation at the Haughs, 
 and Lennard had promised himself a delightful and critical 
 interview, the memory of which might never be forgotten.^ 
 
 " How silent and empty the old house seems now," said 
 he, as they issued from the conservatory door into the sunny 
 lawn. 
 
 " But while you are at Oakwoodlee, I shall not weary so 
 much as I should have done had you gone with papa." 
 
 " You flatter me," said he, as he lightly touched her arm, 
 for her reply was encouraging. 
 
 "I never do so, Mr. Blair; but ennui I may feel never- 
 theless—one can't read novels for ever, and even IMudie's 
 box ere long becomes a profoui d bore. A girl at school, I 
 used to count the days till vacation-time ; so here, I have 
 been wont to count the days as if they were those of exile," 
 
 " Exile— Miss Vere V 
 
 " Yes— you know I always hate the country." 
 
 "Whyr 
 
 " It bores me by its intense nonotony. I am never so 
 happy here as when I have friends with me from home — I 
 \nean, of course, from Liverpool, for then we have so many 
 topics in common to talk of — faces and places we know ; 
 houses we mutually visit ; our partners at the last ball ; the 
 last concert ; who are engaged and who jilted. But when 
 summer is past, to be left as I am just now in an evening by 
 my dressing-room fire, with my back hair loose, listening to 
 the broken English of Savonette. staring at the epabepi 
 
1 82 THE GIRL HE MAEBIED. 
 
 while the wind sighs round that great, gloomy old house, is 
 dreary indeed. But I crave your pardon, I quite forgot that 
 the gloomy old house was once yours." 
 
 While she had been running on thus, Lennard had drawn 
 her arm through his, retaining her hand for a time with a 
 tender and lingering pressure, as he looked into her eyes, 
 while their footsteps were bent, involuntarily as it seemed, 
 towards a secluded part of the lawn, where a narrow path- 
 way threaded the copsewood. 
 
 "You were at the stile, Hesbia, on that fatal evening 
 when — ^when — " Lennard began. 
 
 " You suffered so fearfully 1 — yes ; I kept our— our ap- 
 pointment," she replied in faint voice. "You had something 
 particular to tell me '?" 
 
 "What I had to tell you then, I search my heart in vain 
 for fitting words to tell you now." 
 
 Lennard paused, for his emotion was deep, and never 
 before had been a more fitting opportunity to bring matters 
 to a crisis with Hesbia, who fully expected what she was to 
 hear, for she leaned heavily on his arm, over which her 
 tightly-gloved hands were clasped, while she looked up into 
 his eyes with a half timid but wholly loving expression, and 
 then, blushing, drooped her eyelids. 
 
 Then as doubt gave way to certainty that she loved him — 
 loved him at last— there came a rush of rapture over every 
 nerve and fibre of Lennard's frame — a wild careering of the 
 blood through all his pulses, and he grew giddy with joy as 
 he pressed her to his breast, and showered unresisted kisses 
 on her brow, and eyes, and lips — on her hair and on her 
 hands, while he poured into her ears the old, old story that was 
 first whispered among the roses that bloomed in Eden. For 
 a time they lingered in the shady wood, hand in hand, with 
 eyes bent lovingly on eyes. In those of Hesbia there could 
 be read a kind of expression which seemed to announce that 
 she was overcome, conquered at last, but did not quite like 
 to own it ; after a time even that idea appeared to pass away, 
 and love only lit them up— those beautiful, arch, and winning 
 eyes. 
 
 Hesbia Vere had been a flirt all her life, and when flirts 
 are really stricken with the tender passion, they are said to 
 suffer more than quieter girls. Be that as it may, Hesbia 
 reclined with her face on Lennard's breast, completely over- 
 come for a time, while he, between intervals of silence— nmte 
 eloquence, indeed— uttered broken sentences expressive of 
 the love he had ever treasured for her in his heart, and told 
 of the comparative poverty that had fettered his tongue • 
 
AN EXCHANGE OP HEARTS. 1 83 
 
 that he knew her father's alleged colossal wealth, and sus- 
 pected his ambitious desires and views regarding her future; 
 but that to withstand the passion that preyed upon him was 
 impossible ; and alike was it impossible for him to leave 
 home for a vague period, perhaps for ever, without the 
 avowal which he now made ; and much more to the same 
 purpose said Lennard, with pauses between— pauses that 
 were filled up very pleasantly however. Compared with hia 
 deep, full, passionate earnestness now, how strange and 
 heartless seemed the half-bantering style he had used in 
 times past at Liverpool, and which we can only describe as 
 a dangler's fashion of making game when he dared not make 
 love to Hesbia ! 
 
 All that was over and gone ; they seemed to know and 
 understand each other fully now ; and as they progressed 
 through the coppice, solemn and tender vows were inter- 
 changed under the grand old trees which had heard the 
 same love whispers from buried generations of men and 
 women — for the summers of many centuries had seen the 
 foliage bloom on the slopes of Blairavon — the same Blair- 
 avon that might once again be Lennard's home ; for did not 
 its mistress love him, had she not accepted his love 1 So he 
 might yet die under the same roof where he had first seen 
 the light. It was a great triumph, slowly, but successfully, 
 and most unselfishly brought to pass ! In the dehght of the 
 time, he forgot all about lands or wealth ; he remembered 
 only that he was with Hesbia, and that she loved him — 
 loved him at last. 
 
 It was a soft evening in autumn, among the earliest of 
 August ; the rich harvest fields of West Lothian were laden 
 with bearded grain that waved beneath the wind like the 
 billows of a golden sea. No sound was near the loitering 
 lovers but the voices of the birds and the rustle of the 
 leaves, while the amber sunset poured aslant between the 
 branches of a long forest vista, which was terminated in the 
 distance by the picturesque little village of Blairavon, its 
 red-tiled cottages with whitewashed walls peeping through 
 masses of brilliant greenery, and clustering romid the steep 
 knoll that was crowned by the parish church. 
 
 Was it any wonder that hours passed on while the shadows 
 of mountain and wood deepened and lengthened, that the 
 last rays of sunlight faded from the highest hill top, and 
 darkness crept upward from the low places of the landscape, 
 and that the invitation to the Haughs was forgotten, or 
 remembered suddenly, only to be considered a dreadful borel 
 
 But the tumult of their thoughts had to be stilled, their 
 
1 84 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 glances to be studied, and faces modelled to an air of well- 
 bred indifference, and all tlieir nerves to be calmed down and 
 attuned to spend a quiet evening — after making shallow 
 apologies of mistaking the way, or the time — in a quiet 
 family circle, to endure the dawdling by the piano, a stupid 
 and silent rubber at whist, or Mr. Clieyne discussing the 
 
 Eoints of his hunters, and the prospects of the grouse and 
 lackcock shooting— while their minds were full of all that 
 had passed in yonder greenwood shade, where the dew and 
 darkness now lay deep on flower and tree. 
 
 Slowly passed the evening ; but the butler announced 
 "Miss Vere's carriage" indue time, and again the lovers 
 were alone. The harvest moon was shedding a flood of 
 yellow light over all the scenery now ; the spreading oaks 
 that bordered the way seemed in the dew as if gemmed with 
 crystals ; the great green hills towered into the blue sky in 
 silence and distance far away ; but Lennard and Hesbia 
 took heed neither of the scenery nor of the time. 
 
 Hand in hand, and cheek to cheek, they sat whispering a 
 renewal of their vows again and again, while the softly 
 cushioned and well-hung carriage rolled on ; and they were 
 only roused from their delicious trance by the valet banging 
 down the steps and opening the door — most startling and 
 unwelcome sounds to them. Hesbia set down Lennard at 
 the wicket in the hedge, that led to Oakwoodlee, and then 
 he lingered in the moonlight till the last sound of her car- 
 riage wheels had died away ; and she was driven home to 
 ponder over all he had said, over all she had promised, and 
 to convince herself that she was irrevocably in love, and 
 engaged faithfully at last ! 
 
 How intolerably lonely, dark, silent, and ghostly the old 
 house seemed to-night ; but that period would soon pass, 
 and she knew where and when she was to meet Lennard 
 again on the morrow. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXL 
 
 THE WEEK OF JOY. 
 
 " Some one has written that ' every existence is prosaic ;* 
 but surely ours here is not so, Hesbia," said Lennard, "here 
 in this lovely country, among those green woods, where we 
 may wander at will, and build our airy castles fashioned out 
 of daydreams, and made radiant within by love — the old 
 fabrics that cost so little- and yet, at times, so much." 
 " Yes ; if never realized T replied Hesbia, sighing. 
 
THE WEEK OF JOY. 1 85 
 
 Tlioy were again in the autumn woods, rambling hand in 
 hand, and talking in soft whispers of themselves and their 
 future. It was impossible to shut their eyes to the fact that 
 no small amount of tact and diplomacy would be requisite 
 to undermine the influence of the baronet and others per- 
 haps. Though such fears came as an alloy to their happiness, 
 neither as yet gave them utterance j and they strove to 
 dream on, and suffer themselves to ghde on the current to 
 which they had committed their fate. 
 
 Yet it was strange and sad, and terrible to think that they 
 were communing there under the old oak trees, their faces 
 flushed in the evening sunshine — alone in that beautiful 
 solitude — Hesbia's tears of joy falling on Lennard's cheek as 
 they reclined against each other lovingly, their lips meeting 
 ever and anon, his hand pressing hers to his breast, or stray- 
 ing with fatuous fondness among the soft tresses of her rich 
 brown hair, and still, for all that, they might be governed 
 by influences beyond themselves, and a day might come 
 when they would be nought unto each other, when they 
 would separate and pass through life, perhaps, as strangers ! 
 This secret dread made Lennard cling more to Hesbia, and 
 feel more anxious about the sequel of their new position. 
 
 They were engaged now ; it was the joyous period of 
 looking forward to greater and more lasting joy, yet it had 
 that alloy already mentioned, and Lennard at times felt 
 conscious that he might as easily make the river Avon run 
 up a hill as win the consent of Mr. Yere ; and yet with Hesbia 
 he was as successful as the most enthusiastic lover could 
 desire. Was it possible that there was a hidden virtue in 
 the proprietary of the Charter Stone, after all 1 Laughing 
 in his joy as he asked himself the question, it almost seemed 
 as if its retention was a pledge from Destiny, that with 
 Hesbia he might yet regain all his family had lost ! 
 
 Though somewhat artificial by nature and education, it was 
 difficult for Hesbia Yere to wander with Lennard Blair over 
 the grounds that had once belonged to his family and now 
 to hers, and \sdthout interest to listen to his voice, which 
 was a very winning one, as he told her of the legends and 
 superstitious memories that haunted each local feature, such 
 as usually hover about every rock and wood, monolith and 
 tumulus in Scotland. There were the old green mounds of 
 the Roman camp at Kaims, where three beautiful women 
 attired in green, with golden hair and glittering girdles, met 
 some hunters, who, after a long day's sport in Strathbroc, 
 the adjacent valley of Badgers, had slain a buck and were 
 merrily preparing a supper in the w^oods. The fair visitors 
 
1 86 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 shared their wine and venison, and spent what seemed a 
 night in gaiety and dancing in the moonbeams ; but when 
 morning came and they suddenly disappeared, a year and 
 a day were found to have elapsed — a year and a day in 
 Fairyland ; the bones of the buck, bleached white and bare, 
 lay deep among the rich grass and the leaves of last autunm. 
 The doublets of the bewildered huntsmen were tattered and 
 rotten ; their boots mouldy, and their knives and arque- 
 busses were each a mass of rust • and like he of the " Sleepy 
 Hollow " they had each a long beard, while more than one 
 stately tree that had spread its branches over their rustic 
 fete, lay prostrate with age and rotting in the mountain burn. 
 
 And weird and strange were other stories that Elsie could 
 tell of the old silver mine in the Bathgate hills, where ancient 
 miners — squat little men with conical red caps and beards 
 that hung below their knees — worked o' nights in the an- 
 cient levels, and minted uncounted coin ; of kelpies who 
 lured belated travellers, and witches whose spells wrought 
 evil to their enemies ; of Ringy Rattles, the chain-fiend ; of 
 ghost-haunted houses ; of voices that came from the old Dule 
 Tree of Blairavon, and little people in green that were wont to 
 dance in the ring that was traceable round the Charter Stone. 
 
 On yonder hill was the ruin of a hut wherein Steinie's 
 father had found an old woman — a reputed witch — labouring 
 in vain to extract from her leg a bullet he had fired at what 
 he conceived to be a mountain hare flitting past him. Kor 
 was the house of Blairavon without a ghostly tenant, for 
 it had been said at times that the figure of a tall young 
 man wearing the costume of George II.'s reign — the little 
 triangular cocked hat and powdered bobwig, the heavily- 
 cuffed coat and small sword — was seen, in the evening 
 generally of the ist of May, to linger among the trees of 
 the avenue ; but his form, which was always distinct at a 
 distance, gradually faded out or melted away on the approach 
 of the bewildered spectator. Even the railway whistle had 
 failed to scare away this unpleasant personage, who was 
 averred to be a Cheyne of the Haughs, who, on the occasioi? 
 when Admiral Vernon took Portobello, had greatly distin- 
 guished himself there, and led a body of seamen and marines 
 m the attack on the iron Castle. There he slew, sword in 
 hand, a Spanish cavalier of prodigious stature, whom pre- 
 viously he had thrice encountered on the high seas, and 
 thrice fought without avail till the muzzles of their lower 
 deck guns were in the water. On his return, laden with 
 Spanish doubloons. Captain Cheyne was married " to Mrs. 
 Betty Blair, spinster, with a fortune of £io,ooo," as thg 
 
THE WEEK OF JOY. 1 87 
 
 Caledonian Mercury records, according to the fashion of the 
 time. 
 
 " Married ; but there the alliance ended, ere it was well 
 begun,'' said Lennard, when he told his story to Hesbia ; 
 *' for on their wedding-day, when dinner was served up in 
 the great dining-room, and all were making meriy in the 
 presence of the bride and bridegroom (for it was not the 
 custom then for the newly-wedded to run off per rail to hide 
 their blushes and their whereabouts), a servant entered and 
 whispered to Captain Cheyne that a gentleman was awaiting 
 him below, one who craved an audience. 
 
 " * A gentleman — at this time ! ' exclaimed the captain. 
 
 "*A foreigner— a seaman apparently,' the sei-vant said; 
 * very tall and very dark-complexioned, wearing a peculiar 
 dress, and having a half -healed wound in his face.' 
 
 " ' Show him in, and set a chair and cover for him at the 
 table.' 
 
 " But the servant said that the stranger declined to enter 
 the house, and was waiting in the entrance-hall. On hearing 
 all this, the captain changed colour visibly ; and though a 
 jovial, ranting, roaring British seaman, who took his grog 
 always double-shotted, with two glasses instead of one, 
 appeared sorely disconcerted ; but he kissed his bride's hand, 
 excused himself to the company, and descended to the front 
 door, through which he was seen to pass, and thence slowly 
 down the avenue in close and earnest, some said angry, 
 conversation with the dark stranger, who wore a Spanish 
 doublet and toledo of enormous leng-th. An hoiu* elapsed 
 and he did not return ; two hours succeeded, and his friends 
 began to look blankly and inquiringly into each other's faces, 
 for fears of a duel or other outrage began to suggest them- 
 selves. The bride became terrified, and her apprehensions 
 soon developed those of the wedding guests ; for evening was 
 now at hand ! 
 
 "With lighted torches, armed with swords and pistols 
 and accompanied by dogs, they sallied forth to beat the 
 woods and search the grounds, for at the gate-lodge the 
 keeper affirmed that no one had passed forth from the avenue 
 that day ; but the woods were beaten and the fields were 
 searched in vain, for of Captain Cheyne not a trace was ever 
 found. Years rolled on, and though the bride lived to see 
 the days of Waterloo, she never heard tidings of the hand- 
 some young husband who was so mysteriously borne away, 
 as it was thought, by the unquiet spirit of the Spaniard 
 whom he had slain at the storming of Portobello. 
 
 " Is it not strange Hesbia (and you will smile when I say 
 
1 88 THE GIRL HE MARllIED. 
 
 so), that Beltane day, as we call it, has often been an unlucky 
 epoch for our family, and so we have never been without 
 our fears or superstitions concerning it. On that day my 
 ^andfather sank under the wounds he had received long 
 before at Villiers-en-Crouche ; on that day, as you know, my 
 father died ; and on that day, my uncle Lennard ^vas 
 drowned in yonder loch." 
 
 "Good heavens, you are most unlucky and mysterious 
 people," said Hesbia, laughing ; *' and one must be coura- 
 geous, indeed, to marry among you ! " 
 
 Even while suffering from his lameness, which was gradu- 
 ally passing away (after his " accident," as he named it), and 
 though the future was involved in clouds, how rosy seemed 
 the life of sweet intimacy he was leading now with Hesbia 
 Vere ! 
 
 " Papa has yet to be told," she would say, thoughtfully, 
 from time to time ; and who was to take courage and do it ^ 
 Lennard or herself. Oh, it must be Lennard, of course. 
 How she wished it all over, and that she knew the best or 
 the worst. There would be a storm, and assuredly she 
 dreaded it, for Hesbia, to do her justice, both loved and 
 feared her only parent, though she knew that he was 
 grasping and selfish to the last degree. 
 
 They had arranged all their programme for the future ; 
 that, on returning to Liverpool, Lennard was to trust in 
 Heaven and his own eloquence for moving her father a 
 heart and gaining his consent ; and that, perhaps ere winter 
 they should be married — even the day was vaguely hinted 
 at, — on his return from South America. 
 
 Travice was still absent, and now was the favourable 
 opportunity for searching his rooms, and obtaining, if 
 possible, distinct trace of the crime he had committed ; and, 
 moreover, in their moments of tender confidence, occasions 
 were not wanting to Lennard for mentioning his strong sus- 
 picions to Hesbia • but she looked so bright and beautiful, 
 and they were so nappy, that he was loth to cast a blight 
 over her by Avounding her self-esteem and making her blush 
 yet more for so near a kinsman, and Feverley approved of 
 his silence ; so the days passed on, and Lennard never told 
 lier how nearly he had died by the hand of Travice Cheat- 
 wood. He had written to Mr. Dabchick, thanking him for 
 the information, or hint; so warily conveyed in his letter, 
 adding that he meant to act upon it when a fitting period 
 came ; at the same time he begged the lawyer for the sake 
 of the Veres, to say nothing of what he suspected — a useless 
 request perhaps, so far as the instinctively ^nd professionally 
 
THE PROOFS OF GUILT. 1 89 
 
 wary little man was concerned. And so, before otli^r events 
 began to transpire, a whole week liad slipped away— a w^eek 
 winch we can only describe as being one of joy. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE PEOOFS OF GUILT. 
 
 From their pleasant dreams they were roused to the neces- 
 sity for action, when letters came from Mr. Vere. 
 
 "Dearest Lennard, our week of joy — as you name it — is 
 fairly over now, and we must return to the realities of our 
 former existence," said Hesbia, one evening, as he met her 
 at the accustomed trystiug place, the stile on the path to 
 Craigellon. " By a letter I have just received from papa, it 
 appears that my cousin Tra^dce A\ill arrive here to-night or 
 to-morrow^, to take me with him to Liverpool, Blairavon is 
 to be immediately shut up, and the plate counted ; the 
 drawing-room to be given over to brown hoUand and laven- 
 der, to solitude and the spiders ! ' Tell Mr. Blair, if you 
 see him,' adds papa, ' that as soon as he can travel we expect 
 to see him in the alley. Change of air, even to this place, 
 will completely restore him.' " 
 
 Lennard was grieved, but not much startled, as he had 
 daily expected some such summons ; to Liverpool he knew 
 they must inevitably return ere their ultimate fate was de- 
 cided. It would be but the beginning of an end, and better 
 commence it to-morrow than at a later period. He was 
 nearly well and strong enough to accompany her ; but in 
 the society of Travice Cheatwood — even for the brief period 
 of a railway journey — that was not to be tolerated, or even 
 thought of. 
 
 " Cheatwood here agam !" he muttered, while his brows 
 became knit and his eyes sparkled, for there was no time to 
 be lost in getting into his rooms at the manor-house, and 
 making a search there for anything that might corroborate 
 the suspicions caused by the hint from Mr. Dabchick. 
 
 *' Again T repeated Hesbia, looking up at him archly from 
 under her hat and feather ; " and why not again, Lennard % 
 You are surely not jealous of poor Trav;ice ]" 
 
 "I am jealous of no one now, Hesbia," he replied, caress- 
 ingly. 
 
 ''You had a quarrel about cards or something, I know ; 
 but all that w^as made up, was it not T 
 
 " It was pardoned, Hesbia— not forgotten ; but he, to be 
 hero once more 1" 
 
tQO THE GIRL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 " Do not be angry with my cousin," urged Hesbia, passing 
 a hand caressingly round Lennard's arm ; " the poor fellow 
 is only his own enemy — a species of rolling stone that gathers 
 n* moss.'^ 
 
 *' And so he seems to make your father's house his home 
 now T' 
 
 " Never when we are in Liverpool, but temporarily while 
 we are in the country. At present, he has no other home.'' 
 
 " And seems incapable of making himself one, or of gain- 
 ing reputable friends either." 
 
 "You are very severe, Lennard," said Hesbia, demurely ; 
 •' and did I not love you very much, I should quarrel with 
 you now " 
 
 " Quarrel about him 1" 
 
 " Yes, about anything, that I might have the pleasure of 
 making it up again with you." 
 
 "Listen to me, Hesbia," said Lennard, taking both her 
 hands in his — tightly and softly gloved little hands they 
 were— and gazing into her face with a tenderness and an 
 earnestness that were not unmixed with anger concerning 
 the secret he had kept so long : and then, briefly and rapidly, 
 he told her of all he had suspected ; of the two silent shots ; 
 of the peculiar bullets that had been found in the body of 
 his dog and in his own limb ; of the cuff and sleeve-link he 
 had found ; together with the important information he had 
 received by a letter — he did not immediately say from whom, 
 nor did she inquire — that Travice Cheatwood possessed an 
 air-gun (an illegal weapon) ; and that jealousy, animosity, 
 and dread of a final exposure concerning his foul play at 
 cards had doubtless driven him to use it. 
 
 They were, as yet, both in ignorance of how Hesbia's 
 somewhat outre but enigmatical letter had been tampered 
 with, taken from the hands of its custodian. Buttons^ read, 
 and so fully understood that it led Travice, on the night in 
 question, to lie in secret like an assassin, waiting for Lennard ; 
 but as the latter unfolded all this web, Hesbia could only 
 weep, amid all her indignation and shame (for the conduct 
 of Travice inspired both), on finding that her worst suspi- 
 cions—she had not been without them— were now confirmed 
 and realized ! 
 
 " And this weapon — the air-gun— is, you say, in his room^ 
 
 " Is or was. Certainly, Mr. Dabchick saw it there," replied 
 Lennard, a little doggedly. 
 
 " Oh," said Hesbia, with something of disdain, "^e waA 
 your informant 1" 
 
 " Why should I conceal it 1— yes." 
 
THE PROOFS OF GUILT. I9I 
 
 " Come home with me ; we shall summon the housekeeper 
 and make a search." 
 
 " Thanks, Hesbia — you speak my very wishes ; but I feat 
 our scrutiny may be in vain ; your cousin would surely not 
 be such a simple blockhead as to leave openly, or lying about, 
 the means of committing a crime, which filled all the county 
 with wonder, and excited such a spirit of inquiry." 
 
 " Come with me at all events — come with me this instant, 
 itnd we shall see !" she exclaimed passionately, as she passed 
 her handkerchief over her eyes, which sparkled through their 
 tears, while her cheek flushed with excitement ; " what will 
 papa say, or think, or do, when he learns that you have suf- 
 fered all this at our hands — at the hands of one of our family, 
 and suffered it in silence too !" 
 
 " It was for your sake, dearest Hesbia." 
 
 "My darling Lennard — my dear, good, amiable pet — 1 
 shall love you more than ever !" 
 
 " But _ do not distress yourself — all is over now, and I am 
 well again, though I could not exactly vault over a five-barred 
 gate yet ; but the good time, even for that, is coming." 
 
 " And now to examine Travice's rooms," resumed Hesbia, 
 who in her eagerness almost ran till they reached the door 
 of Blairavon House, where the servants, under the direction 
 of the solemn and pompous butler and the bustling house- 
 keeper, were carefully closing and securing windows and 
 shutters, taking up carpets and down curtains and hangings, 
 reversing pictures and shrouding statues, glass shades, and 
 so forth, in linen covers, so that already the great drawing- 
 room, when doubly reflected in its opposite mirrors, seemed 
 a long and silent perspective of ghostly grotesqueries. 
 
 Summoning the housekeeper, Hesbia desired to " conduct 
 Mr. Blair to Mr. Cheatwood's rooms, as there was a gun — 
 no, a pipe — a book, or something there which he wished to 
 obtain before they were finally shut up ; " and while the 
 domestic curtseyed and withdrew with Lennard, Hesbia 
 threw aside her hat and gloves, and resolving to make a 
 most accurate search the moment he was gone, seated her- 
 self on a sofa in the dismantled drawing-room, and threw 
 open a window, that the evening breeze might cool her 
 flrushed cheek, for the aroma of the lavender branches strewn 
 about so plentifully by the housekeeper, was somewhat op- 
 pressive. Her mind was full of exciting thoughts — of grief, 
 of shame, and bitter indignation against Travice, who had 
 so nearly brought scandal upon her and her father; and 
 these sentiments were not unmixed with a hope that this 
 outrage, if privately proved and brought home to the perpe- 
 
192 THE GIRL I/E MAUPJED. 
 
 trator, might be successfully used as a lever power, when 
 Lennarcl urged their suit, aud sought a consent to their mar- 
 riage. All was still in the gi-eat mansion ; she could hear 
 only the beating of her heart and the buzz of the flies in the 
 vast space of the stately room ; and without, in the calm 
 evening, all Avas intensely quiet. No sound broke the still- 
 ness but the cawing of the sable rooks in the autumn woods, 
 and -the distant clatter of a long train of carts, passing from 
 the mains of Kaims, heavily laden with what she was wont 
 to call her " papa's black diamonds." She w^as restless ; she 
 looked at her watch ; ten minutes had elapsed, and Lennard 
 had not rejoined her ; what had he found — what was he 
 about — and why had she not gone too "i Her curiosity be- 
 came too great for endurance, so she hastened towards the 
 rooms which she knew had been assigned to her cousin, 
 traversing a long and antique corridor, through the deeply- 
 embayed windows of which the sunlight fell in flakes of 
 golden light, while on the lozenged panes the leaves of the 
 clustering ivy, and those of the loftier trees, were rustling 
 with a sound that was dreary enough when heard in the 
 nights of winter. 
 
 Lennard had not yet left the quarters of his late rival, for 
 now that he was in them he felt all the awkw^ardness of his 
 position asa stranger, and the impossibility of fulfilling the 
 object of his visit, as he dared not break open lockfast places, 
 and yet where else would that probably be for which he was 
 seeking 1 So he followed the housekeeper with vague but 
 restless eyes, as she showed him through Mr. Cheatwood's 
 bed-chamber, dressing-room, and bath-closet. How well 
 Lennard remembered the first, for when in infancy it had 
 been his nursery, and there had he often nestled and cowered 
 in his little crib at night, when the winter blasts rumbled in 
 the great hollow chimneys, and when the hail and ivy leaves 
 clattered on the corridor windows, while he feared the spec- 
 tres that filled the stories of the servants and th« peasantrj^ 
 Captahi Cheyne, perhaps, returning from Elfland in his red 
 coat and bob-wig, or Ringy Rattles, the Chain-fiend, whose 
 red-hot links swooping through the air could overtake and 
 enfold even the swiftest horseman ; or the kelpie who lured 
 Uncle Lennard into the loch, and many other desperate hob- 
 goblins unknown to those who live in an atmosphere of gas. 
 Though altered and modernized, it was the same room in 
 many respects, and the massive stone fire-place, with its 
 Scoto-Italian mouldings, was quite unchanged. Its adjuncts 
 and appurtenances were more luxurious and splendid than 
 tasteful or elegant ; but pipes of all sorts and sizes, caries-di 
 
THE PEOOFS OF GUILT. 1 93 
 
 visile of opera-dancers, old cards, racing calendars, odd num- 
 bers of Punch, BelVs Life, and so forth, littered the mantel- 
 piece and console, while brilliant French crayon heads of 
 somewhat languid and disheyelled beauties were hung on 
 the walls in slender maplewood frames. 
 
 " Now, sir, do you see what you want, please — a book or 
 pipe I think jMiss Vere said]" urged the housekeeper, who 
 grew somewhat perplexed by the dreamy air of Lennard : 
 he had entirely forgot her presence, and now that he was 
 actually in the apartments of Travice Cheatwood, continued 
 to survey with a oewildered and irresolute eye the suite of 
 Elizabethan furniture, the elaborate bed with its stately 
 canopy and hangings of coral-coloured damask, the hand- 
 some dwarf and French wardrobes with mirror panels, the 
 cheval glasses which had so often reflected tlie accurate and 
 fashionable toilettes of the absent desperado, the writing- 
 table— a miracle of carving — and his luxurious easy-chair ; 
 but where the deuce was he to look for the air-gun % 
 
 Not in the chest of drawers or wardrobes, most of which 
 were locked, and which he had no right (though the best of 
 excuses) for opening ; and no such implement or weapon 
 was to be seen among the rods, sticks, billiard-cues, um- 
 brellas, and hunting-whips which littered a corner of the 
 bath-closet. 
 
 " I see nothing like that which Dabchick has mentioned 
 in his letter," said he to Hesbia, who now joined them. 
 
 " I hope to Heaven he may have been mistaken,'' said she. 
 " He had his own reasons for disliking Travice, apart from 
 the card squabble." 
 
 And in her anxiety, quite forgetting how much her speeck 
 conveyed to Lennard, and that the " reasons " referred to 
 must have been jealousy of Travice when he first came to 
 Blairavon, she proceeded with great energy to pull out and 
 push in several of the drawers which wore left unlocked. 
 Some were empty, others contained some articles of clothing 
 only ; but she was nervous, excited ; and after tossing them 
 vaguely about, began to survey the apartments with a sharper 
 scrutiny than Lennard. 
 
 " When or how was this injury done ; and so clumsily 
 repaired too % " she asked, pointing to a portion of the wains- 
 cot skirting of the dressing-closet, which had evidently been 
 roughly removed and replaced, and to conceal which the 
 window-hangings had been disposed so awkwardly that her 
 foot caught them. 
 
 The housekeeper shook her head ; she had never observed 
 the damage before \ but a moulded piece of the wainscot, 
 
 13 
 
|94 THE GIRL HT5 MAREIED. 
 
 some four feet in length, had evidently been forced off and 
 restored in a very unworkman-like manner ; and now, all 
 unused to excitement, very much was that portly dr.me as- 
 tonished (and such a story it would be to relate in the ser- 
 vants' hall ! ) when she saw ]\Ir. Lennard Blair make a dash 
 at the wood with the poker, and, after wrenching it off, 
 utter a cry of fierce satisfaction ! For there, concealed by 
 the floor-skirting of the room, he found the identical object 
 of his search — a double-barrelled iron tube, the air-gun, 
 with a package of its bullets rnarked aa on the back of 
 each, conical in form, plugged with wood and precisely like 
 the two in his pocket-book, which we may add exactly suited 
 the bore of the inner barrel. And that more complete evi- 
 dence might not be wanting, there too lay the ciifi' of fine 
 linen edged with dark needle-work, and having two Indian 
 gold coins as a link, exactly corresponding with those found 
 by Lennard mth the frayed fragment in the hedge. In fact 
 Travice, on discovering that he had lost one on that eventful 
 night, had been wary enough to conceal the other with the 
 instrument of his crime, in the very place where — thanks to 
 the sharpness of Hesbia's eye — Lennard found them now ! 
 Being ignorant of all this cause for excitement, the house- 
 keeper's usually stolid visage seemed to expand and grow 
 round with wonder. 
 
 " Most fatal proofs ! most fatal proofs ! " exclaimed Hes- 
 bia, clasping her hands. 
 
 "So, so — you see now that 'the trail of the serpent' is 
 complete ! " 
 
 " Oh, how you have suffered at his hands, my poor, dear 
 Lennard ! " said Hesbia, forgetting the housekeeper, wkose 
 eyes opened very wide indeed ; " how shall we ever convince 
 my poor deluded papa of the extreme guilt of which his 
 nephew is capable 'i " 
 
 " Were the scoundrel here, face to face with me," — Len- 
 nard was beginning furiously, when— 
 
 " Hollo ; what's up ! — by Jove ! " exclaimed a voice close 
 by, and they found themselves confronted by Travice Cheat- 
 wood, whom an imprecation escaped, sworn bitterly and 
 huskily through his clenched teeth. 
 
 At his back stood Mademoiselle Savonette, whom a laud- 
 able curiosity had drawn hither, her dark French eyes glit« 
 tering -svith gratified malice, for she especially disliked him, 
 and seemed to take in the whole situation. He was looking 
 very pale, and his attire was in disorder ; he was minus hat 
 and gloves ; his cravat and coUar were torn and awry, and 
 his whole appearance bore the strongest traces of his having 
 
ITHE PROOFS OF GUltT. 195 
 
 been engaged in a recent scuffle. Yet thougli a strange ex- 
 pression of spite and rage mingled with that of terror in his 
 sallow face rendering his green eyes almost white, he mustered 
 courage to say, " What is the meaning of all this, Hesbia ; 
 and why the devil do I find this fellow in my room, and 
 knocking my traps about — eh ? " 
 
 Hesbia surveyed him with a very mingled expression of 
 face ; but shame was more predominant there than pity. 
 He was again about to bluster, but the moment his eye fell 
 upon the weapon which was in the hand of Lennard, who 
 had kept it partly concealed, lest there might be an attempt 
 to wrest it from him, a deadlier paleness spread over his 
 face, and he reeled against the wall like a drunken man. 
 
 KotAvithstanding all his constitutional insolence, there was 
 not, perhaps, within the three seas of Britain, a more com- 
 plete moral coward than Travice Cheatwood ! On this 
 occasion his aspect was pitiable, and it so happened that he 
 had greater and more immediate cause for terror than even 
 the present discovery and probable vengeance of Lennard 
 Blair. 
 
 " Treacherous and malevolent scoundrel 1 " exclaimed the 
 latter in a low voice of concentrated passion, while his eyes, 
 dark, honest, and indignant, seemed to glare into those of 
 Cheatwood — literally flashing death and terror into his soul: 
 "thank your cousin that her presence alone prevents me 
 from beating you to the earth with this, your own infamous 
 weapon ; and thank her further, that for her sake alone, I 
 do not send you to pick oakum for life, by handing you over, 
 as you deserve, to the nearest police magistrate ! ' 
 
 Then he added in a hurried whisper to Htsbia — " After 
 this complete discovery, I cannot trust myself in his presence 
 longer, lest some terrible scene ensue,— thus you must per- 
 mit me to withdraw. I shall leave my card here to-morrow," 
 said he to the housekeeper — in short he scarcely knew what 
 to say — " and if I can be of any service in tlus hurry and 
 confusion, command me. If you, my good woman, are ever 
 called upon to state on oath the discovery of this evening, 
 it is to be hoped that you will remember all the details 1" 
 
 " Lor, sir ; yes, sir," rej)lied the poor woman, looking 
 utterly and miserably mystified. 
 
 Then, gently touching the hand of Hesbia and whispering 
 " To-morrow at the stile," he left the house, carrying with 
 him all the proofs of the guilt of Cheatwood, who never 
 made the least attempt to recover his property. 
 
 But there was no meeting at the stile on the morrow. 
 
 13—2 
 
196 THE GliiL HE MAllRlED, 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 JUDEN GRABBIE's VISITOR. 
 
 Before explaining the reason of Mr. Clieatwood's remark- 
 able appearance on this occasion, we must change the scene 
 to the office of a certain local official already mentioned in- 
 cidentally in a preceding chapter, Mr. Juden Grabble. It 
 stood in the pretty village of Blairavon, the white-walled 
 cottages of which, with fluted or overlapping red tiles, and 
 crow-stepped gables tufted with green moss, and having bril- 
 liant trailers round their windows, clustered about the 
 grassy knoll on which the church is situated. 
 
 Diverging from this, the older portion of the hamlet, there 
 had sprung up in the direction of the coal-pits a new street 
 of plain little cottages, built of hewn stone, blue slated, and 
 having square windows with iron frames (all lozenge- 
 fasliioned and of dreary uniformity). This little street had 
 a bleak, hard, bare, and somewhat grimy aspect by day ; and 
 the dark figures of the colliers, like pantomimic gnomes with 
 lamps flickering in their caps, when passing to and from the 
 pits, lent a gloomy air to the place, even when the sun was 
 shining, and there groups of noisy children contended in the 
 g-utters with dogs and ducks and hens. But on the night 
 preceding the denouement which closes the last chapter, flakes 
 of warm light from the gas-lit windows streaming athwart 
 the thoroughfare made the collier dwellings look bright and 
 cheerj'. 
 
 These cottages bordered the path to the Kaims, where at 
 intervals ruddy gleams shot upon the sky of night with a 
 strange and weird eff'ect, bringing out of the darkness fan- 
 tastic-like erections, revolving wheels, ropes, chains, and 
 the figures of grimy men. That path had been in former 
 days the paved Roman way to the camp of Agiicola, and 
 in more recent times the old mail-coach road. It had long 
 ceased to be used, all traffic being transferred to the rail- 
 way ; so it became more rugged, more encroached upon by 
 hedges, wild brambles, and trees, and by borders of grass 
 that grew rank and deep, than it had ever been, even in the 
 days of old, when Mary fled from the field of Langside, or 
 when her father, the fifth James, rode to the Jousting Hau^h 
 of Linlithgow, in time to see the battle between the Hamil- 
 tons and Douglasses, when culverins beomed in the hollow 
 glen, and axes flashed on casques of steel, and when Len- 
 nox, " the best and bravest man in Scotland," perished be- 
 
JUDEN GRABBIE'S VISITOR. 1 97 
 
 neath tlie sword of tlie Higli Inquisitor ; for it is an old, 
 old road-way, and lias seen generations of strange wayfarers 
 in its time. At the junction of the old village Avith the new, 
 as a species of connecting-link, stood the office and dwelling 
 of Mr. Grabble, a small but snug cottage, with a little gai • 
 den-plot before it. 
 
 Mr. Juden Grabble was a personage who exercised, but in 
 the matter of advice only, the distinguished functions of a 
 country-writer {Anglice attorney) and messenger-at-arms, 
 and who not unfrequently stooped to do the humble work 
 usually assigned to criminal officers. He was a cunning, 
 servile, greedy (and outwardly most religious) wretch, who, 
 under the pretence of local agency, hacl contrived to get a 
 great many of the title-deeds and other documents of the 
 district into his dingy hands. He occasionally " did " little 
 accommodations, too, at "a mild forty per cent. ;" he was 
 a source of intense dread to the poor and needy, and to all 
 who were in his power, and who had no desire to contem- 
 plate the charms of Scottish scenery through the iron grilles 
 of the nearest Tolbooth. 
 
 ^ In his office, the walls of which were somewhat ostenta- 
 tiously hung with insurance advertisements and prospectuses, 
 roups of turnips, and green, white, and live stock, all yellow 
 and fly-blown, intrenched deep among bundles and doquets 
 of papers and letters, surrounded by well-thumbed ledgers 
 and green tin boxes, piled on an iron frame, Mr. Grabble, in 
 a well-worn suit, on tliis evening was seated at his writing- 
 table, working intently by the light of a green-shaded gas 
 jet, when his slipshod so»rvant-girl came timidly in and 
 placed before him a square glazed card, whereon was the 
 superscription of " Mr. Nab, Liverpool! 
 
 " Nab — Nab — is it no MacNab % Never heard of such a 
 name — what is he like, lassie T he asked, glaring sharply at 
 her through his spectacles, while pausing with one finger on 
 a column of figures, and his pen held over the ink-horn. 
 
 The girl hesitated and seemed doubtful, so, after rubbing 
 his grey grisly chin, Mr, Grabble desired her to show the 
 visitor in. Then he made a marginal mark in pencil, so 
 that no time might be lost in resuming his summation 
 again, wiped his spectacles with a dingy brown handker- 
 chief, and readjusted himself in his chair, so that he could 
 sit in perfect shadow, while the visitor would be exposed 
 to the glare of the gas jet ; and all this he did rapidly by 
 system as well as habit. 
 
 The stranger, a pleasant-looking little man, about forty 
 years of age, with an intensely keen eye, and an appeai-ance 
 
198 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 tliat was almost gentlemanly, was carefully dressed in black ; 
 he entered quietly, bowing and smiling, and placed his 
 umbrella, hat, and grey cotton gloves upon a chair. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Grabble," said he. 
 
 " Morning — good evening would be nearer the time o' 
 day, I think," growled Grabble, suspiciously ; " be seateci^ 
 sir." 
 
 "Thank you; I am a stranger in these here parts— just 
 come by the Carlisle train, and have been specially recom- 
 mended to you, sir.'' 
 
 Mr. Grabble now gave one of his brief nods ; the stranger 
 had certainly come about a money matter — perhaps a sum- 
 mons against some one. 
 
 " You know this county well, of course, sir 1" 
 
 " The county !" said Grabble ; " I should think so ; I was 
 born and bred in this village — was never out of it, except 
 for a few years' drudgery in the office of Snap and Grinder, 
 the writers in Glasgow. Well V 
 
 " You know Blairavon House T' 
 
 " Perfectly — Mr. Vere's place now." 
 
 " Perhaps you may have seen a Mr. Travice Cheatwood 
 there or hereabout V 
 
 Mr. Grabble, from being blunt and almost indifferent in 
 manner, now became suddenly interested. 
 
 " I have never seen him there, but I have seen him once 
 too often here." 
 
 "In this officer 
 
 "Seated in the very chair you occupy ; but," added 
 Grabble, closing his teeth with a snap, " he is not in this 
 neighbourhood just now." 
 
 " He soon will be." 
 
 " Ah — ^you know that, and wish to see him V 
 
 "Very particular," replied the little man, winking and 
 smiling pleasantly. 
 
 " May I inquire what you are V asked Grabble, sharply 
 after a pause. 
 
 " You may, sir ; I'm Mr. Nathan Nab, of the Liverpool 
 detective police." 
 
 " Whew !" whistled Mr. Grabble, lying back in his chair, 
 and raising his spectacles to his brow, while a smile of mali- 
 cious satisfaction spread over his face, puckering up his 
 cunning and sunken eyes, and then these two men sur- 
 veyed each other for a moment in silence. 
 
 No person would for a moment have supposed that Mr. 
 Juden Grabble was or ever had been a gentleman. In his 
 sixtieth year now, his appearance was vulgar, yet tolerably 
 
199 
 
 respectable. Mean in visage, lie had a cruel mouth, shaggy- 
 brows, and keen eyes, with a kind of red malevolent spark 
 in them. Cunning, as we have said, he was deep, cautious, 
 heartless, and brutal at times, especially to the helpless aiid 
 poor ; yet he was always scarer], restless, ^ and nervous in 
 the presence of his superiors, and being quite aware of this 
 defect in his temperament, he strove to conceal it by an 
 <tssumed frankness and cordiality of manner, that made 
 such men as Ranald Cheyne and Richard Blair draw them- 
 selves up to their full height, and silence him by a steady 
 stare, which excited his secret hate ; but over the last- 
 named unfortunate Grabble had revelled in triumph and 
 revenge, when he had him seated in that same office, per- 
 spiring with vexation at the ruinous renewal of bills, granted 
 at nearly fifty per cent., by him — Juden Grabble — the earth- 
 stopper's son ! 
 
 Now Mr. Grabble, among his other characteristics, was a 
 good hater ; and most cordially did he hate Travice Cheat- 
 wood, whom he had " accommodated," and by whom he had 
 been more than once insulted. " The man who has a pur- 
 pose to achieve, or a secret to hide, should never make an 
 enemy ;" but Travice had a purpose to achieve, and more 
 than one ugly secret to hide ; and yet he had made an 
 enemy of Mr. Grabble, for that personage, when venturing 
 to Blairavon on one occasion, sent up his card by Made- 
 moiselle Savonette, Maxwell and Buttons having both 
 eschewed his request, and while waiting in the hall, had 
 heard Travice say, impatiently, — 
 " A person wanting to see me, you say T 
 " Qui, m'sieur— M'sieur Grabble from the village." 
 " Then give this to M'sieur Grabble from the village, and 
 tell him to go to the devil, Savonette, translating it into 
 French or Scotch as you please !" 
 
 And the soubrette brought back to Grabble his card — 
 torn in two ! Grabble could barely pocket the affront ; but 
 his fury knew no bounds when he discovered that Mr. 
 Cheatwood had that night, without leaving any address 
 behind him, taken the train for Carstairs Junction, where 
 all trace of him was lost. 
 
 " You belong to. the Liverpool detective force?" said Mr. 
 Grabble, with a wicked but gratified smile. 
 
 " Yes," replied the other, proceeding to light a cheroot. 
 
 " No objection to this sort of thing, I hope?" 
 
 " None. And your business is with Mr. Vere's nephew X* 
 
 " Yes ; it's a queer bit of work, but common enough with 
 
 our profession. It is simply concerning a bill for ;^ 1,400 — 
 
 a forgery." 
 
200 THE GIKL HE MARRIED. 
 
 " On wliom t** 
 
 "Mr. Vere." 
 
 "To that amount r\ _ 
 
 " Ji,ooo over the original sum." 
 
 " And by Mr. Cheatwood 1 Odds, man ! I think that a 
 wealthy gentleman like Mr. Vere might have taken it up 
 and said nothing about it for the sake of his sister's son." 
 
 " So perhaps he would had he known ; but naturally 
 enough he denied all knowledge of it, and telegraphed to 
 Mr. Envoyse that it was a forgery. By tliis time it had 
 been duly honoured by a bank, and the affair was before 
 the police ere the number and date remaining in his cheque- 
 book showed Mr. Vere that it was one originally for four 
 hundred given to liis hopeful nephew. It has been paid 
 away to other folks, and now I am here with a warrant for 
 his arrest and conveyance to England." 
 
 Mr. Grabble rubbed his rough chin and coarse hands with 
 intense satisfaction. 
 
 " I have never been in Scotland before, sir ; and the way 
 of doing dooty here is strange to me. ^ Your name was men- 
 tioned to me by the head of our force in Liverpool, as having 
 been already in correspondence with him concerning the 
 whereabouts of Mr. Cheatwood." 
 
 " Anent a protested two hundred pound bill of my own 
 -yes." 
 
 " And so having a direct personal interest in his capture." 
 
 "Troth have I ! But I don't see how his capture for 
 forgery will bring me much nearer payment." 
 
 One hundred and twenty was the sum given to Travice on 
 liis own acceptance for two hundred, and it proved to be 
 almost the only rash transaction of Mr. Grabbie's long pro- 
 fessional career. In the end he had trusted to Mr. Vere 
 taking it up to prevent exposure ; but that gentleman had 
 found other affairs of greater magnitude to occupy him, and 
 never replied to his letters. 
 
 " So the bill has been paid away ?" 
 
 " Yes ; from 'and to 'and till it's reached them as won't 
 be trifled with. Mr. Vere has been driven rather wild by 
 the pranks of that same nephew, and he is — if all folks do 
 say now in Liverpool — perhaps not quite so rich as he 
 seems." 
 
 " Do you really say so ?" exclaimed Grabble, as his eyes 
 s]-)arkled with a pleasure he could not perhaps have ex- 
 ])lained. "Why, ne bought a bit more land here lately — 
 Oakwoodlee ; and these pits of his are one of the best-paying 
 epees in the West country." 
 
JTJDEN GRABBIE3 VISITOR. 201 
 
 " Well, lie lias had many losses of late. I have walked 
 over all his place since I came by the afternoon train ; and 
 I learned by inquiry at the house, that Mr. Travice Cheat- 
 wood is absent, but expected to-morrow, or the next day at 
 latest ; and so I shall be on the watch to grab him !" 
 
 Grabbie ground his teeth with e\ident satisfaction at this 
 new prospect of vengeance for his loss, adding, " You will 
 not require the aid of the Kurals unless necessary V 
 
 " Oh, no ; gents never resist. I'll just slip the bracelets 
 on and have him off to Liverpool, second class, by the night 
 train. I wish the thing done quietly. Mr. Vere is a gent 
 that will come down 'andsome if I does it 'andsome and 
 awoids exposure." 
 
 " You have the warrant all right, I suppose ?" said Grabbie 
 with a keen glance at the dapper little detective. 
 
 " That is what I especially mshed to ask you about, for I 
 was dispatched in a precious hurry, I can tell you ; but here 
 it is, all re^ar." 
 
 " And isn't worth so much waste paper," exclaimed 
 Grabbie, the moment he cast his keen fierce eyes over it. 
 
 Mr. Nab looked aghast, but incredulous. 
 
 "An English warrant in Scotland is as useless as a Roosian 
 one, and, even if signed by the Lord Chancellor, must be 
 indorsed by the sheriff of the county or stewartry in which 
 the person who is to be arrested resides. Why, Mr. — ^Mr. — " 
 
 " ISTab," suggested the little man mildly. 
 
 " Mr. Nab, you must be very new in your business not to 
 know this. A warrant signed by the Lord Advocate em- 
 powers the arrest of any one in any part of the kingdom of 
 Scotland. But that is never asked for in such petty cases as 
 this. The sheriff's signature is necessary, and if resistance 
 is apprehended " 
 
 " Lor, what do you do in that easel" asked Mr. Nab, who 
 had vague ideas of Scottish mountain passes bristling with 
 swords and pistols ; for he had seen " Rob Roy" at the 
 Alexandra Theatre, and the total rout of the British troeps 
 amid much blank cartridge and blue fire. 
 
 '' Well, in that case, the presence of a Scottish criminal 
 ofiicer is necessary, and I can act in that capacity." 
 
 " But what the dooce is the meaning of all this fuss about 
 a Scotch sheriff's signature]" asked Mr. Nab, with some 
 mitation of manner. 
 
 " Do you no ken, sir," asked Grabbie, with a small burst 
 of patriotism that was perhaps professional — he was not so 
 degraded as to be without that— for though a legal shark he 
 wii3 not a legal snob like Mr. Dabchick— " Do you no ken, 
 
202 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 sir, that by the Act of Union passed in the reign of Queen 
 Anne, no Scottish subject, or person resident in Scotland, 
 can be taken forth the kingdom by a warrant from any 
 authority hailing from the region of Westminster; for 
 Clause 19th saith, that ' no causes in Scotland shall be cog- 
 nisable by the Courts of Chancery, Queen's Bench, Common 
 Picas, or any other court in Westminster Hall ;' and to 
 further ensure such protection, the sheriff's signature is now 
 necessary for legality." 
 
 Mr. Nab listened to all this with some bewilderment, as he 
 now heard, perhaps for the first time, of a Treaty of Union 
 and a queen called Anne. He had, however, been recom- 
 mended to the right quarter by the head of his department 
 in this instance ; for in the promptings of his rage against 
 Travice Cheatwood, Mr. Grabbie gladly promised to make 
 all sure and certain. Before the afternoon of the next day 
 he had the English warrant completed, and watch set at the 
 two railway stations eastward and westward of Blairavon ; 
 and the first shadows of sunset saw him and his English 
 compatriot, after a comfortable dinner at the Blair Arms, 
 loitering near the front lodge-gate of the mansion-hcase, and 
 smoking a couple of exceedingly bad cigars with great 
 apparent satisfaction. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE OLD QUARRY. 
 
 As the time of Mr. Cheatwood's arrival at the manor-house on 
 this occasion was unknown, no smart tiger, topbooted with 
 cockade and belt, no handsome Tilbury and high-stepping 
 horse with splendid harness, awaited him at the solitary 
 little railway station ; and all unaware of the plans laid far 
 his capture, and of the discovery and complete disgrace that 
 so surely awaited him, he had sped along the Edinburp^h and 
 Glasgow line by the afternoon ejf press train, till he re^.ched 
 the branch of single rails for Blairavon. He was not in the 
 sweetest mood of mind with fortune. He had hung about 
 his new cavalry friends until they had become perplexed by 
 the run of luck at cards and billiards being perpetually in 
 his favour ; so his mode of play was watched, and being 
 found unsatisfactory, he was one wet night collared by a file 
 of the main-guard, and trundled without much ceremony 
 outside the barrack gate, where he found himself in evening 
 press and glazed boots under a torrent of rain. 
 Following at some distance the porter who was carrying 
 
THE OLD QUAKRY. 203 
 
 liis portmanteau and rugs, Travice walked leisurely along 
 with a cigar in his mouth, and no more formidable weapon 
 in his hand than the most slender of umbrellas. The beauty 
 of the evening, the great green hills, towering into the blue 
 sky, their peaks yet reddened by the last farewell light of 
 the sun that had set ; the soft russet and brown that were 
 stealing over the autumn woods, the golden grain that 
 stretched far away till lost in evening haze ; the silvery 
 smoke ascending from cottage roofs into the dewy air, and 
 the voices of the cattle, as " the lowing herd wound slowly 
 o'er the lea," had all no charm for Travice, though he paused 
 at times in reverie, with his cigar between his daintily- 
 gloved fingers, and then muttering an imprecation, would 
 tread slowly and sulkily on, immersed in his own trouble- 
 Bome thoughts. But at a part of the path he was pursuing 
 —between two cornfields and not far from an old quarry, he 
 suddenly found himself confronted by two men, in one of 
 whom he recognized Mr. Grabble, and in the other he felt 
 instinctively the presence of a foe, though he was a weU- 
 dressed, smiling, and dapper little man. 
 
 " Beg pardon, Mr. Cheatwood," said he, " but we have a 
 small piece of business with you." 
 
 "With me, fellows !" said Travice, instantly on Lis guard. 
 
 " Yes," replied Grabble, with a growl of rage, while his 
 companion fumbled in his coat-pocket for a pair of hand- 
 cuffs ; " I hold a protested bill of yours." 
 
 " Oh, bother your bill just now. Grabble — I'll make it all 
 square in a day or two. I give you my honour " 
 
 " Sorry, sir, to deprive you of so waluable a commodity," 
 said Mr. Nab (not one of whose motions escaped the eyes 
 of Travice), smiling more pleasantly than ever, as he dropped 
 his umbrella, and suddenly producing a pair of handcuffs 
 (bright and well worn, e\ddently), he added, " I have a war- 
 rant for your arrest," and made a clutch at the wrists of 
 Travice, who, ever on his guard, had warily sprung back two 
 or three paces, and stood prepared to show fight. 
 
 _" My dear sir," said Mr. Nab, with a pleasant and even 
 friendly air of expostulation, though he felt that he was 
 managing matters with less professional skill than usual ; 
 *'it is a mere waste of time to resist !" 
 
 But Travice did not see it in that light. Knowing some- 
 thing of the science of self-defence, and being pretty strong 
 and active, notwithstanding his dissipated habits, he was 
 resolved not to be taken without a desperate struggle ; but 
 his cheek grew pale, his eyes glared with a strange and fishy 
 expression, and his fair moustache and upper lip quivered 
 with the agitation he could not control. 
 
204 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Those who are living in a tangle of falsehoods never know 
 when or where the danger of discovery lies ; so it was with 
 Cheatwood ! His network of treachery and deceit had been 
 gradually growing tighter around him, and he knew that a 
 crisis, a climax, must come at last ; yet there glowed within 
 liim a sjDirit of defiant desperation, not unmixed with terror. 
 Could his secret shot at Lennard Blair have come to light 1 
 Was it the " doctored billl" thought he, or w^hat the devil 
 was it 1 Any way, he was resolved not to be arrested as a 
 felon without a struggle for liberty. 
 
 " At whose instance is your warrant T' he asked. 
 
 " The police magistrates of Liverpool." 
 
 " On what charge V he asked, in a husky voice ; " but 
 stand back, I say, on your peril !" 
 
 " Forgery !" 
 
 The word fell horribly on his ear ! Often had he named 
 it to himself ; but now when uttered to his face in open 
 daylight, it filled him with dismay. For a moment he pre- 
 sented a pitiable spectacle ; that of a human being degraded 
 by his own acts — hunted, detected, and brought to bay at 
 last ; pale, shrinking, fierce, and desperate, without friends, 
 or hope of refuge. But the next instant saw his constitu- 
 tional assurance come to his aid, and on Mr. Nab preparing, 
 cat-like, to make a spring, he exclaimed, furiously—" Be off, 
 you mangy scoundrels, if you would reach your kennel with 
 a skinful of whole bones." 
 
 " You cannot be so mad as to attempt resistance ! " said 
 Mr. Nab, who seemed more amused than surprised, while 
 the bullying Grabble grew savage, and proceeded to turn up 
 the cuffs of his coat. 
 
 " You can't arrest me here on English warrant. I know 
 that much of law." ■ 
 
 " But it is duly signed by the sheriff, and its legality shall 
 be enforced, sir — enforced ! " cried Grabble ; " surrender 
 peaceably in the name of the Queen, you dyvour loon, for if 
 you dare but to strike one blow — " 
 
 What the threat of Grabble was to have been Travice 
 never knew, for observing that the speaker in his wrath and 
 excitement had drawn unusually close to the edge of the 
 quarry, he made a sudden rush, and dealing him a blow (a 
 regular facer) fairly between the eyes, and well planted in 
 too, he shot the legal bully of the village clean over the 
 brink, and with a half-stifled yell Grabble fell headlong 
 crashing among prickly whin bushes, gorse, and loose stones 
 to the bottom, some thirty feet or more below. 
 
 Despair gave Travice pluck, and closing instantly and 
 
THE OLD QUAPvRV; 265 
 
 recklessly upon ]\Ir. jSTatlian Nalj, be strove to lift liini off 
 his feet and send him after his companion. Nab fought 
 desperately, and with all the more energy that he felt him- 
 self armed with all the majesty and authority of the law ; 
 but in a second he found Travice too much for him, and felt 
 his ribs compressed, himself half lifted bodily from the 
 ground, and hurried toward the brink of the rocks, over 
 which he was deliberately flung on the top of Grabble ; and 
 then, with the hot perspiration pouring in bead-drops over 
 his temples, the old wild clamorous anxiety and terror in his 
 heart— the same revulsion of spirit— wJiich he felt on that 
 night when he shot at Lennard Blair, Cheatwood rushed back 
 through the fields towards the railway, in the hope of being 
 soon able to put as great a distance as possible between 
 himself and the scene of this new and most unexpected 
 catastrophe. 
 
 He knew the depth of the quarry. It was old, long unused, 
 and water generally lay there. So his hope was that if they 
 were not suffocated in the slimy puddle, these legal wolves 
 might escape with a few broken bones; any way they must not 
 look upon his face again, for he had committed a fresh — and 
 he knew not how serious — violation of the law. Onward he 
 ran through the fields and under the shadow of the hedgerows. 
 He was but two miles from the station, and could he but 
 reach Glasgow, there all trace of him would be lost, and there 
 were ships in plenty for America and everywhere else. But 
 a cry, a malediction escaped him on discovering that he had 
 not a farthing in his purse ; his last shilling he had given to 
 the porter who was carrying his portmanteau ! Hesbia would 
 replenish his exchequer, he had no doubt ; then to her he 
 would apply. There was yet time to reach the house, to 
 restore ms attire to order, to explain the desperation of his 
 affairs, obtain money from her or the butler, and get away by 
 the first night train, before ^Messrs. Nab and Grabble had 
 scrambled out of the quarry-hole, if they were able to do so, 
 and could rouse the rural police and others on his track. 
 
 " If," thought he, " they have but one broken bone each, 
 I am safe ! " 
 
 He lost no time in putting his plan in execution, and, 
 seeking the nearest and most unfrequented^ paths to the 
 house, reached it, as we have seen, just in time to be con- 
 fronted by Hesbia and Lennard, with the proofs of another 
 crime in their hands. To seek his friend Feverley's cottage 
 and relate what had taken place, had been Lennard's sole 
 idea on leaving the manor-house. He had no intention of 
 appealing to authorities or of demanding publicly the expo- 
 
206 THE GIRL HE MAHRIED. 
 
 m 
 sure and puiiisliment of Clieatwood, even for all he had made 
 him suffer, for much of the shame and obloquy of a criminal 
 prosecution would recoil on the Veres, and from such an 
 event he shrunk. Confirmation of his suspicions, and a true 
 key to the cousin's secret character, were aU that he required. 
 If love for Hesbia did not make liim magnanimous in his 
 secret thoughts towards Travicc, it at least made him politic 
 but there was a storm . of fiery indignation rankling in his 
 heart as he walked slowly down the avenue in the twilight, 
 and crossing the highway sought the shortest by-path that 
 led through the fields to the village. 
 
 A few drops of rain plashing on the still leaves gave 
 warning of a coming shower ; it came in time, and fell so 
 heavily that he was compelled, for more than half an hour, 
 to seek the shelter of a thicket. While there he heard in his 
 vicinity strange sounds, which after a time he became certain 
 were the moans and cries of some one in pain ; and these, on 
 examination, he found to proceed from a man lying at the 
 bottom of the old quarry near the pathway. 
 
 Lennard knew well every nook, crevice, and shelf of the 
 quarry ; on many a day in boyhood he had birdnested among 
 the gorse that fringed its mouth, or fished for minnows and 
 " pow-wowets " with a luggie and string in the slimy pool at 
 the bottom ; so now safely but carefully he made his way 
 downward in the gloom, to find the sufferer, who lay help- 
 lessly on his back, so severely shaken and bruised as to be 
 almost unable either to walk or stand. He proved to be Mr. 
 Nab, whose companion, having suffered less injury, had 
 clambered out and gone to the village intent alike on succour 
 and pursuit. 
 
 "'Elp me, for Godsake, whoever you are, out of this 
 'orrible 'ole ! " cried poor Mr. Nab in a piteous voice. 
 
 " How the deuce came you here— any bones broken ? " 
 asked Lennard, stooping over him, kindly. 
 
 " I can't tell — I fear so— I feel smashed a'most, from 'eel 
 to 'ead — oh dearie me ! " groaned the other. 
 
 " Get up, if you can, please— try to stand, and I shall help 
 you out. I know every part of this place, as well as if I had 
 dug it." 
 
 He had almost said " owned it," but failed, for such had 
 once been the case. Half supporting and half dragging the 
 little man, who every second implored him to stop (and who, 
 between the combined effects of the slimy puddle, the recent 
 tain, the blood which had flowed from some cuts and 
 Icratches, with his bruises and fears, was in a deplorable 
 condition), Lennard had nearly reached the mouth or summit 
 
tHE OLD QtJABRY. ICfJ 
 
 of the quarry, when he heard voices and saw the flickering 
 light of a couple of stable lanterns, as Mr. Grabbie arrived 
 in all haste, with the efficient aid of two rural policemen, 
 big burly fellows with gilt St. Andrew crosses on their felt 
 helmets, a brace of gTooms from the inn, and several colliers 
 from the village, all of whom immediately recognized " young 
 Mr. Blair," and uttered his name in various cadences of 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Glad to see you able to exert yourself so well, sir, after 
 vour strange accident," said Juden Grabbie, whose head was 
 bound up by a handkerchief. " This is a dangerous hole for 
 one to venture into in the dark." 
 
 " I never thought of the danger when some one required 
 help or pity, Mr. Grabble.'' 
 
 " And it was like ane o' the gude auld stock to fear neither 
 deil nor darkness ! " said one of the policemen, touching his 
 cap to Lennard ; " mony a day lang syne, when bairns, hae 
 you and I shot rabbits and fuimarts here in this auld 
 quarryhole." 
 
 " How came all this about, Mr. Grabbie % " asked Lennard. 
 " Did your friend — he looks very pale — fall into the quarry f 
 
 " No, Mr. Blair," replied Grabbie, grinding his teeth with 
 pain and rage ; " but both he and I were knocked into it 
 like a pair of ninepins when in the lawful execution of our 
 duty ! What think you of that, sir % " 
 
 " Knocked into it ! by whom % " 
 
 " I am ashamed to say by one man — that unhanged villain, 
 Travice Cheat wood." 
 
 " You use strong language, IMr. Grabbie." 
 
 " Not stronger than the occasion deserves." 
 
 " Do you forget that he is the nephew of Mr. Vere % " 
 
 " That matters little ; and no action at laAv for speaking 
 unadvisedly of him will ever follow, we may be sure of that !" 
 continued Grabbie, with a dogged insolence of tone. 
 
 " You had a scuffle ; so that accounts for the disorder of 
 his attire when he reached his uncle's house." 
 
 " Re is there^ then ! " cried Grabbie, in a hoarse voice, 
 with a start of anger and satisfaction. 
 
 Lennard hesitated. 
 
 " Speak, sir— evasion is quite useless." 
 
 "I certainly left him there half an hour ago ; there is 
 little reason why I should cloke or conceal his movements." 
 
 "Give me your warrant, Mr. Nab, and the bracelets too ! 
 Lads," exclaimed Grabbie, with angry triumph to the po- 
 lice and other men from the village, " you'll follow me. j&r. 
 Blair will attend to Mr. Nab — he is too kind-hearted and 
 brave to leave him. * 
 
2o8 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 " I beg that you fellows will not make a row in the man- 
 sion, and alarm Miss Vere. She is alone, or with servants 
 only," urged Lennard, angrily. 
 
 " We shall do nothing unseemly, be assured, sir," replied 
 Grabbie ; " but we must surround the house and capture Mr. 
 Cheatwood, or Cheat-the-wuddie ; by my. soul he is well 
 named ! " 
 
 And Grabbie grinned in savage glee at his own pun. 
 
 " On what charge do you arrest him — assault 1 " 
 
 " Yes, and worse — fraud and forgery." 
 
 " Good heavens ! the amount 1 " 
 
 " He received a bill of exchange or cheque for ^400 and 
 paid it away for ^1,400— clever dodges ; but soon detected." 
 
 Lennard felt his breath taken away ; this must be the 
 very document about which there had been so much corre- 
 spondence and telegraphing between Mr. Vere and old Mr. 
 Envoyse. But ere he could ask another question Grabbie 
 and his followers, all full of natural excitement and vulgar 
 curiosity, had departed to surround the manor-house, while 
 Lennard felt his arm clutched nervously by Mr. Nab, who 
 groaned heavily. 
 
 "Don't leave me, jplease sir, till Pm in a safe place. IVe 
 a wife and little 'uns in Liverpool — my poor missus, bless her 
 'art; she knows nothing of my most miserable plight to-night." 
 He seemed on the point of weeping ; but changing his tone 
 to anger, he added with something of Bailie Jarvie's emotion, 
 " It was in the hexecution of the lawr ; but I wishes as my 
 old boots 'ad been red 'ot, when I came on such a herra^.d 
 into this cussed houtlandish country. However, dooty, you 
 know, sir, is dooty." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 HUNTED. 
 
 Travice Cheatwood felt that the worst was known now. 
 Cowering for a moment under the bright and scornful eyes 
 of his cousin, whose slender nostrils and upper lip seemed 
 to quiver with mingled shame and passion, he was convinced 
 that this was an extremely awkward time to ask her for 
 money ; so he delayed for a little, being unluckily ignorant 
 how closely the reinforced beagles of the law were on his 
 track. Lennard Blair was gone— that was one relief ; and 
 the wondering servants, whom the too evident disorder of 
 his bearing and attire had filled with a)! the curiosity of 
 
HUNTED. 209 
 
 their class, had retired with lingering steps and listening 
 ears, and at last the cousins were left together face to face 
 in the dining-room, where the gas had just been lighted, 
 and where, by Travice's order — for his tongue was cleaving 
 to the roof of his mouth with thirst and excitement — the 
 startled butler had uncorked and left him a bottle of cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 " You're badly hill, sir," said he, pausing, as he cut the 
 cork with his scissors. 
 
 " Yes, I've had a spill as I came along the road — ass that 
 I was Rot to order down the wagonette to meet me at the 
 station ; there— there — that will do ; you may go." 
 
 And the solemn butler bowed himself out, and hastened 
 to join the conference in the servants' hall. Travice leaned 
 against the massive walnut-wood sideboard, quaffing the 
 sparkling wine, and more than once deepening its pink by 
 a ci^.ash of brandy from a liqueur-frame. He felt how miser- 
 ably "small" he seemed under the proud flashing glance 
 of Hesbia, whose silence was becoming somewhat oppres- 
 sive, and whose brown hair glittered like a shower of gold, 
 as she stood under the lights of the gasalier, erect and tall, 
 the broad pink stripes of her white pique adding to her 
 stature, and a pearl-grey jacket, trimmed with swansdown, 
 thrown partly back from her handsome white neck. 
 
 " So — so, you're getting the whole place into hoUand pin- 
 afores and paper bags — eh 'I " said Travice, making an effort 
 to speak, while his tongue seemed to have become larger 
 in his mouth, and his voice more guttural. "Here's a 
 jolly row about a beastly kite of Uncle Vere's." 
 
 "Or yours, rather." 
 
 " Well, Hesbia, can you lend m.e a few pounds ] " 
 
 " For what purpose, sir 1 " she asked, sharply. 
 
 " To help me out of this place ; I am in a regular hole, 
 upon my honour— a devil of a scrape ; bailiffs are after 
 me ; I knocked two over, and am in danger of arrest — no- 
 thing less." 
 
 " Arrest— for what? debt, or for courting, as you have 
 done, the fate of a felon 1 So, sir, in flying from capture as 
 a swindler, you find yourself convicted of an attempt to 
 murder. Forging on papa and seeking to kill one of his 
 friends ! oh, Travice ! Travice ! " 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, if not for your own, speak lower, 
 Hesbia— consider the servants. I only meant to wing Blair, 
 not to kill him • by Jove I did, and that was ali ! But you 
 are so deuced snarp with a fellow. It is my love for you, 
 
 14 
 
210 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Hesbia, that has brouglit all this to pass," lie added, seek- 
 ing, but in vain, to soften her. 
 
 " Say, rather that idleness and wickedness have done it," 
 replied Hesbia, giving way to tears and mortification. 
 
 ** I have no time to put oflF, cousin," said he, in a low and 
 agitated voice, " and if you would not see me arrested here 
 on a warrant from Liverpool concerning that blundering bill 
 of exchange — you understand — give me your loose cash, for 
 I have not a sixpence, and a sojourn in foreign parts will 
 be of vast benefit to me. I thought at one time to have 
 taken up the bill myself in time to prevent discovery, but- 
 being ignorant of business transactions, failed. I expected 
 to have made a good book on the Derby, and that would 
 have scored off everything, Hesbia ; but all failed me. Fly- 
 ing Scud — d — d brute — only ran a good second, and I got 
 but ^150 — a beggarly X150, by judicious hedging. Then I 
 was a horrid defaulter at Catterick Bridge and elsewhere. 
 I was in a desperate fix, and neither lansquenet or unlimited 
 loo could help me. Among those dragoon fellows— regular 
 heavy swells, half ennuied and wholly self-satisfied idiots, 
 who seem to have lost the use of their limbs and their brains 
 too (if they ever had any) — I won a thousand pounds here, 
 but all went again elsewhere — where, don't matter now ; so 
 money I must have from you, my dear cousin, that I may 
 decamp, hook it, be off " 
 
 "To where r' 
 
 " What does it matter "J America or Boulogne ; plenty of 
 scamps bolt to both places, and why not IV* 
 
 The brow and lip of Cheatwood grew supercilious, as he 
 thought he had very elSiciently defended himself. His eyes, 
 we have said, were ptile in colour ; keen when excited, lan- 
 guid when otherwise ; his cool insolence of deportment was 
 returning, and became effrontery as the wine invigorated 
 him. He took another draught of the foaming Cliquot, and 
 listened intently for a sound that might indicate pursuit or 
 alarm. 
 
 " Have you no remorse for the shame you are bringing on 
 my good papa "i " asked Hesbia, with streaming eyes. 
 
 " None, by Jove ! Your governor has always had an eye 
 to the main chance, and to every minor chance, too ; but 
 he'll be checkmated, choused, cheated by that precious 
 * baronet ' of his in the end, or I am a Dutchman." 
 
 " Slangy as ever. Well, Travice, have you no remorse 
 for the shame and disgrace your conduct may bring on me?" 
 
 " Oh, my sweet cousin ! you can take jolly good care of 
 yourself " 
 
HUNTED. 211 
 
 "On me," she continued, "whom you have even pre- 
 tended to love 1 " 
 
 " Pretended — yes, that's about the mark," replied Travice, 
 into whose brain the fumes of the mixed champagne and 
 brandy were mounting fast ; " but give me some money, I 
 tell you, and let me be off w^hile the night lasts, and ere it 
 be too late." 
 
 "Off to where, I ask your' 
 
 " Why, what need is there for yoii to care 1 — anywhere — 
 'anywhere out of the world' as the song says. By the 
 way, talking about winging Blair," said he, resuming some- 
 thing of his old bullying and insolent bearing, " what right 
 has that fellow to be prowling about this house, when you 
 are in it — alone too 1 And why were you left in it alone 'I " 
 
 " Papa started in such haste for Liverpool," urged Hesbia, 
 reddening with anger. 
 
 " But for that old muff— pardon me, but he is my uncle 
 as well as your papa — writing for me to come here, and 
 escort you to Liverpool, I might have escaped this dia- 
 bolical scrape and row to-night. ' 
 
 " What scrape 1 — ^what row 1 — And how dare you speak to 
 me thus f 
 
 " I repeat to you," said Travice, nodding his head with 
 tipsy solemnity, "that sheriff officers, both Scotch and 
 English, are after me concerning that blundered bill, and if 
 1 am arrested here, many other things will come to light, 
 and then what will your fine friends — ^your swell county 
 acquaintances say, eh V 
 
 This probable contingency had the deepest sting, even 
 vulgarly as Travice worded it. 
 
 Hesbia dried her tears, which were bitter indeed, for they 
 were those of the keenest rage and shame mingling with a 
 nervous pride that prevailed over all. She thought of the 
 county ladies who nad— she knew not why — treated her 
 coldly ; who had even mocked her attempts and show, and 
 reprehended her " fast ways," as they termed them ; and, 
 hastily turning aside, she was in the act of unlocking her 
 escritoire, while Travice, who had taken a pair of scissors 
 from her work-table, was sedulously snipping off his entire 
 goatee-beard and long fair mustachios— a task which he 
 had barely achieved when the bell at the entrance-door was 
 rung furiously thrice in quick succession, and the stout 
 fussy butler, with a face as white as his vest, entered 
 hurriedly to announce that the^ " Rooral perlice were holler- 
 ing at the door, and the hentire 'ouse was surrounded on 
 iiall sides r 
 
212 THE GIRL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 '• Keep fast the door, and don't open it on yoiii peril ')!' 
 tliundered Travice. 
 
 " But tliey says, sir, as they've a warrant, and will force it." 
 
 " Let them do so, if they dare ; an Englishman's house 
 is his castle." 
 
 "But we ain't in England, sir," urged the butler, who, 
 though usually stolid and solemn, was simply petrified now. 
 Among all the families he had ever served, " and worry 'igli 
 class families they wos," as he assured Mademoiselle Savo- 
 nette, he had never witnessed such an esclandre as this !_ 
 
 Pale and terrified, Hesbia, who kncAV that a criminal 
 warrant could not be resisted, placed some gold in the hand 
 of Travice. Then looking from the windows, she could see 
 several men loitering in the lawn before the house, while 
 the unmistakable burly figures of the county police in their 
 long blue coats and black felt helmets, were visible at the 
 front door, where they rung and knocked with all the 
 vigour and assurance of vulgar authority ; and then was 
 heard the voice of Mr. Juden Grabbie, loudly demanding 
 entrance " in the Queen's name." 
 
 " He at least is out of the quarry-hole !" thought Travice ; 
 " But how about Mr. Nab ]" 
 
 The last time that old house had been assailed it was in a 
 very different fashion, when Crichton's Grey troopers on 
 their march to the wild and lone Airs Moss, surrounded and 
 searched it for certain recusant divines whom the laird 
 was supposed to shelter ; but they failed to force an entrance 
 till trumpets were blown, and many a musket and carbine 
 had flashed redly from the greenwood shade on one side, 
 and the old loop-holes and turrets of the house on the other. 
 Jn addition to the precaution of having several auxiliaries, 
 Travice knew well that Grabbie would take other measures, 
 and have the more remote avenues of escape, the roads and 
 lines of railway watched, and that descriptions of his person 
 would be telegraphed along the wires to Glasgow, Carlisle, 
 and elsewhere ! 
 
 " Good-bye, Hesbia ; God bless you, girl, if you care for 
 such words from such a fellow as I," said Travice, with 
 something between a sob and an imprecation in his throat, 
 as he pi-epared for instant flight ; "I shall get out of one of 
 the corridor windows and drop clown by one of the trees." 
 
 " You will be seen, Travice : you will be seen !" 
 
 "By whom r 
 
 *' Those wretches on the lawn." 
 
 "Well, I must make a bolt of it to the coal-pits • there i 
 may find concealment somehow or somewhere for the night; 
 Mid to-morrow is a new day." 
 
HUNTED. 213 
 
 He rushed away, and from tlie corndor llesLia saw liim 
 pass safely tliroiigii a window and reach the branches of a 
 tall old chestnut-tree, down which he dropped just as the 
 house-door was forced with a crash, and Grabble entered in 
 triumph with the warrant in his hand and ajjosse at his back. 
 
 Hesbia took no heed of the distant noise ; her whole 
 anxiety was that Travice should finally escape ; for better, 
 she thought, was any sequel — alas ! but she could little 
 foresee what that sec|uel would be — than th8 protracted dis- 
 grace of an arrest, imprisonment of so near a kinsman, and 
 his trial, with all its consequent exposures. The moon was 
 up now, and clear and brightly streamed her flood of lustre 
 across the smoothly-mown lav,^n ; thus, the moment Travice 
 reached the ground, there was a shout from different points, 
 and she could see several scouts rushing towards him. 
 
 " Away, Travice ! — Away !" cried Hesbia ; but he never 
 heard her voice agahi. 
 
 Turning like a hunted hare, he fled in the direction of the 
 coal-pits, throwing aside hat and coat as he ran, wildly, 
 blindly on with despair and bitterness in his heart. Once 
 or twice in the red gleams that shot occasionally from the 
 workings she could detect his white figure as he glided along 
 between the hedgerows, and once or twice she heard a dis- 
 tant shoist from the pursuers, who were pretty numerous 
 now, all those who had been at the forcing of the front door 
 having drawn off and left the huge old mansion to perfect 
 silence. 
 
 Among those who joined in the pursuit of the fugitive 
 towards the pits was Lennard Blair, who, having conveyed 
 the querulous Mr. Nab to a place of safety, now hurried 
 towards the Mains of Kames as fast as his stiffened limb 
 would permit ; and ignorant of how the whole affair would 
 terminate— whether in the arrest of Travice, in Ids conceal- 
 ment among the miners, or in his ultimate escape from the 
 vicinity, a result for wliich she devoutly prayed — Hesbia in 
 tears and extreme agitation, with her heart oppressed by 
 shame and anger, sat by the open window of her dressing- 
 room, with her eyes fixed on the moon-lighted landscape 
 (while the now silent Savonette dressed her long flowing 
 hair) anxious to catch any distant sound from which she 
 might gather information, and longing for the morrow when 
 she was to meet Lennard Blair at their trysting place, the 
 stile, and for the coming night which would see her en 7'oule 
 for home again, and far away from the scene of all this 
 mortification. 
 
 But there was to be no tender meeting on the morrow I 
 
214 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Save the bay of an occasional watch-dog at the yellow 
 harvest moon all sounds had died away, and the far-stretch- 
 ing landscape seemed to sleep in the calm and liquid sheen. 
 Up soared the moon, her disc seeming to grow smaller but 
 clearer, as she climbed into the wide blue vault, and then 
 the angTilarities, the slated turrets, and quaint masses of the 
 old castellated house came forth alternately in vivid light, 
 while portions between were sunk in deepest shadow. Over 
 the dark bronze or russet-coloured woods the hills towered 
 up to heaven, and Hesbia sat with her hands clasped, her 
 cheek pale and wet mth recent tears, praying for the escape 
 of Travice, that all might be saved from further shame on 
 his account. Then, amid these aspirations, she wondered 
 in her heart whether all that she and Lennard hoped for 
 would ever come to pass, and felt with something like awe 
 that when again she looked upon these moonlit hills and 
 woods their fate would be decided, and that all would be 
 over for better or for worse — that they should have one path 
 in Hfe, or be parted for ever ! For ever 1 and he loved her 
 so much ! 
 
 Anon the pale face of the miserable fugitive came vividly 
 before her, with all its alternate insolence or craven 
 cowardice, as passion moved him ; his bitter hate and utter 
 absence of all shame for his degraded position and dishon- 
 our of his friends. 
 
 "Oh, is such a creature's earthly future worth praying 
 for T she exclaimed, with more of exasperation than pity, 
 as she thrust aside even Fussy, her silky-haired Skye terrier ; 
 for so pre- occupied was Hesbia, that the little animal, wont 
 to be so petted, quite failed to obtain the smallest caress. 
 
 Hark ! what was that 1 Suddenly the placid stiUness of 
 the night and of the air was broken by a strange, a terrible, 
 and most unwonted sound ! 
 
 A tremendous roar — an explosion— as of thunder shook 
 the ground, making the affrighted birds fly hither and 
 thither in wood and field ; it was dull, mufiied, and alto- 
 gether peculiar, for it seemed to be under the surface of the 
 earth • then all the lights at the Mains of Karnes disap- 
 peared, and in their place a vast black column of smoke and 
 dusky vapour, earth, and stones shot high into the calm and 
 clear blue moonlit sky; and Hesbia, as she gazed with 
 strained and starting eyes at a scene and circumstances so 
 unexpected and bewildering, felt her heart grow still with 
 terror and apprehension— she knew not of what ! 
 
 The obscurity about the Kames continued to increase till 
 the dark vapour seemed to shroud the whole place, and th© 
 
HXJKTED. 2 IS 
 
 waning of tlie moon beliind the hills added to the sudden 
 gloom that involved all the once bright and busy scene. 
 Then flickering lights, like those of torches, began to glim- 
 mer out of the darkness ; excited voices and shrill cries, 
 even painful shrieks, rang forth upon the night ; and she 
 could hear the footsteps of many persons running along the 
 nearest road, as they seemed to make with all speed to the 
 point of alarm, — the Mains of Karnes. 
 
 " What catastrophe is this 1 what horror can have hap- 
 pened 1" asked Hesbia, starting from her seat, as the butler, 
 with Savonette, rushed in, exclaiming, — 
 
 " Oh, Miss 'Esbia ! oh, Miss Vere ! the most 'orrible, the 
 most hawful noos ! The coalpits have blown hup and are 
 a-fire, with the men in the workings, and not one will como 
 alive to hupper hair again !" 
 
 " Speak, Savonette !" said Hesbia, pressing her hands on 
 her breast ; " is this actually the case 1" 
 
 " Oui, miladi, and worser — much worser !" 
 
 "What cati be worse than such a horror?" exclaimed 
 Hesbia. 
 
 " Ah, Sacr^ Dieu ! ah, Mere de Dieu !" cried the excite- 
 able Frenchwoman, throwing up her hands and eyes ; " how 
 can I tell you— tell you all 1" 
 
 "Of what— what f 
 
 "M'sieur Travice hid himself in ze pits, and Messieurs 
 Blair and Grabble went down after him, and are all there 
 with the poor workmans now, in one gTeat conflagration !" 
 
 " In the pits 1" said Hcobia, in a faint voice, as she turned 
 with terror to the black column that towered into the sky. 
 
 "Yraiment — oui, in ze pits, which is all as one huge 
 morgue — one grave of death and fire !" 
 
 Though her heart was chilled by a deadly and devouring 
 terror Hesbia neither screamed nor swooned, nor made a 
 scene of any kind ; but a desperate calmness seemed to pos- 
 sess her ; and, moreover, she could not believe that Lennard 
 had actually gone where her soubrette asserted. She felt 
 assured that he was the last person to make himself un- 
 necessarily active in the arrest or prosecution of her erring 
 kinsman. 
 
 " Savonette, get me a hat and warm cloak ; I shall go to 
 the pits in person, and you shall both accompany me ; and, 
 to prevent mistakes," she added, " send a servant at once to 
 Oakwoodlee, to inquire for Mr. Blair, and say that I require 
 his assistance instantly." 
 
 Hesbia set forth with her excited attendants ; and But- 
 tons, who had been despatched with her message to Oak- 
 
2l6 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 woodlee, soon overtook her, with the assurances of the start' 
 led Stephen Hislop that " Mr. Bhiir had not been at home 
 since noon, and that no one knew where he was !" 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 cheatwood's last cigae. 
 
 In the hunted fugitive who flew past him on the highway 
 near the village, Lennard Blair had barely time to recognize 
 Cheatwood, so he stood irresolute, till Juden Grabble and 
 his legal posse came up in full cry, and then he joined ap- 
 parently in the pursuit, but solely in the hope of aiding in 
 the ultimate escape of the offender, for the sake of Hesbia 
 and her father. 
 
 After they had lost sight of Travice, traces of his route 
 were found ; in one place his hat, in another his overcoat — 
 a smart reeling jacket, which he had throAvn away that ho 
 might run with the greater ease. A shout escaped the pur- 
 suers when they came in sight of him for the last time, as 
 he sped tlu'ough the street of the collier village. He was 
 seen to turn up a lane towards the nearest coal-pit, and then 
 all trace of him was lost, and Grabble, Lennard, and those 
 who accompanied them were completely at fault. They 
 searched the engine-house, the piles of coal, the waggons, 
 and all the various sheds and out-buildings, in vain ; Tra- 
 vice Cheatwood had vanished ! 
 
 While his followers were examining the premises, Grabble 
 had been peering into the pit-mouth, down which the long 
 chain was still descending ; he was listening to every sound, 
 but none came upward on the cold rush of air, save the oc- 
 casional jarring of the circular basket, as it slid swiftly into 
 the profundity below. 
 
 Two men who were superintending the winch or steam- 
 engine would accord him no information, and surlily warned 
 him to " be off about his own business ;" but, heedless of 
 this order, and intent only on the purpose which brought 
 him there. Grabble drew the attention of Lennard to certain 
 footmarks which, in the imited glare of the gas-lights and 
 furnace of the engine, w^ere distinctly visible in the soft 
 black mud about the mouth of the pit. They were evidently 
 made by a pair of fashionably-shaped boots, with high and 
 small round heels ; and they could be traced distinctly up 
 to the wooden platform round the verge of the pit, from 
 whence the wearer did not seem to have returned. 
 
 " Should you know this Travice Cheatwood, Mr. Blair, if 
 
CHEATWOOD^ l.A.&!T CIGAR. _ 217 
 
 you saw liim ?" asked Grabble, with a grin, as he rubbed his 
 grisly chin. 
 
 " Yes — perfectly." 
 
 " Even if dressed as a collier '?" 
 
 " I think so— in any disguise ; but I don't believe it at all 
 probable that he would adopt one so grimy and unpleasant," 
 urged Lennard, anxiously, and about to turn away. 
 
 " We are on the right scent, I'll take my affidavit that we 
 are !" said Grabble, emphatically ; " the basket or tub has 
 just gone down, and I am certain our man is in it, though 
 these two rapscallions won't admit that such is the case !" 
 
 Grabble, though inexorable in his spite and wrath, was 
 strictly legal, however, in all his measures. Leaving certain 
 men to watch the mouth of the pit, and sending others to the 
 escape or air-shaft, he proceeded in quest of the manager, 
 showed his warrant, and insisted on admission to all the 
 mines if necessary. Permission was at once accorded, for 
 well did the manager know that the legal bully of the vil- 
 lage would brook no trifling. 
 
 Still anxious to save Travice, Lennard left nothing unsaid 
 to dissuade all from seeking him underground, till in the 
 end he resolved to go down also, as he was not v/lthout a 
 hope— a feeble one, certainly — of concealing or getting him 
 away by some other outlet, for this pit communicated with 
 others ; and in the six years during which Mr. Vere had 
 possessed the property and done so much for these coal- 
 mines, Lennard had frequently been through them, and was 
 familiar with most of the seams, cuttings, and workings of 
 the place. 
 
 When Travice was tearing at his utmost speed along the 
 road^ he almost wished that his way lay near some steep 
 precipice, over which he might fling himself ; or near some 
 deep water, in the silent depths of which he might plunge 
 headlong, and never rise to light or life again. ^ Mortifica- 
 tion, despair, and rage were his prevailing emotions — mor- 
 tification for his baffled schemes and loss of position ; despair 
 at the jjrospect of being taken, tried, and sentenced to a 
 penalty, the seclusion and c\egradatlon of which would be 
 maddening to one of his temperament ; and, finally, he felt 
 a bitter rage at all who were now in league against him. 
 With all these was the exasperating sense of being help- 
 lessly and pitilessly hunted like a wild animal, and in his 
 heart, though ^it was a craven one, there rose at times a 
 fierce longing to face about, to close with, and to strangle 
 or otherwise destroy, the nearest of his pursuers ! But 
 onward he ran, past trees and hedges, cottages and farm- 
 
wf8 THE GIEL HE MAERIED. 
 
 yards, where children shouted and dogs barked after him, 
 the tramp of feet on the hard roadway behind adding speed 
 to his flight, while the openness of the country and the 
 brilliance of the moon rendered futile any hope of escape 
 through the fields on either side. 
 
 The suggestion of one peasant to another as Travice flew 
 past the cottage door at which they were smoking, " he was 
 surely one o' the folk frae the madhouse, where twa were 
 tint (missed) yesterday," led him to infer the danger of 
 seeking refuge in any dwelling. 
 
 Could he but reach the Kaims ! There he knew were, 
 many outhouses, sheds, stables, and other buildings, wherein 
 he might lie concealed for a time. Inspired by this idea, 
 he hurried through the village in full view of his pursuers, 
 and turned up a little alley, as already related, towards the 
 nearest pit. Some miners were just getting into the basket 
 as he drew near, and very like melo-dramatic fiends the poor 
 fellows looked, they were so black and grimy, with their 
 teeth and eyeballs glistening white, in the lambent flames 
 of the safety-lami)s, which each carried on his head, as if to 
 complete the illusion. 
 
 " I shall trust these men," thought Travice, and, ere giving 
 the word to descend, they paused and swung in the basket 
 over the vast profundity of the pit, as he approached them 
 in hot haste. 
 
 Travice feared that if he asked permission to descend on 
 the plea of curiosity at that unusual hour, with his attire in 
 such disorder after his flight, and being minus a hat, the 
 miners would for a certainty deem him one of the missing 
 lunatics ; and to attempt to join them without some proper 
 explanation would ensure his rough expulsion from the 
 basket. 
 
 " My good men," said he, " I am an unfortunate fellow 
 who is about to be arrested for debt. That sordid wretch, 
 Juden Grabble, is after me with the police, and ever so many 
 of his people ; you will save me, won't you 1 " 
 
 " If we can, we shall ! " said emphatically one of the 
 miners, who all knew Grabbie*personally or by evil report. 
 
 "Then take me down with vou for to-night— for this 
 idght only — by Jove Pm lost — I hear these scoundrels com- 
 ing 1 " 
 
 " A' richt, sir— jump in ; come alang wi' us," said the 
 miners, cheerily : we'll be aucht hours in the pit." 
 
 " That will do— eight hours 1 " 
 
 " Aye, sir— one shift o' aucht hours^ and then a longer 
 spell in the slack or off shift." 
 
CHEATWOOD*S LAST CIGAfi. ^IQ 
 
 This was about as intelligible as Sancrit or Oordoo to 
 Tra^ice ; but he knew that eight hours of successful con- 
 cealment might enable him to escape. 
 
 " Gie me your hand, sir— jump, sir— steady, so— and we'll 
 tak' gude care o' ye ; " and the moment he was in, a signal 
 was given, and they vanished from the surface. 
 
 Travice had never been in a pit before, and he seemed to 
 lose his breath in the rapidity of the descent, as it seemed^ 
 into the bowels of the earth. Fixed in the basket, he stood 
 erect, like his four companions, and all grasped the chain. 
 Down, down they glided, with a steady and scarcely percep- 
 tible motion, through a cylinder of some six feet in diameter, 
 solidly built all round. He could not and dared not look 
 below ; he cast his eyes upward to where the surface of 
 the earth was receding, and to where the sky was reduced 
 to a small round patch of deep cold blue, out of which 
 some stars twinkled with a brilliance that seemed unnatural. 
 Noises and voice overhead became indistinct, and anon 
 passed away ; then nothing was heard but the rush of cold 
 air upward, and the jarring of the basket as it swept down 
 its cylinder of stone. 
 
 The lamps in the miners' hats gave a grotesque horror 
 to the deepening gloom, and when at a vast depth Travice 
 felt his head grow giddy, compelling him to look down, he 
 struck his brow against the side of the pit, and might have 
 fallen from the basket, had not the strong arm of a miner 
 (who growled an angry oath in his ear) been cast around 
 him. His face, which had been all a-glow with exercise, 
 and seemed so red in the glare of the lights near the pit- 
 mouth, looked so cold, white, and stern in the gleams of 
 their safety-lamps, that the miners regarded^ him and each 
 other with an instinctive uneasiness that might have been 
 the foreboding of what was to ensue. 
 
 Down, down yet, through strata of limestone, trap, and 
 friable slate ; and now icy drops of water and tiny pieces 
 of coal struck him at times on the face. Dreary was the 
 silence, and dreary the darkness, and now voices and sounds 
 began to ascend as from a world below; then lights and 
 moving figures appeared, as the space suddenly widened on 
 all sides. 
 
 " Steady the basket ! " cried a hoarse voice ; then the mo- 
 tion ceased, and Travice Cheatwood found himself more 
 than two hundred feet below the upper earth and air ; 
 while the novelty of his situation, and the suddenness with 
 which it came to pass, though it brought a certain sense 
 of security after his recent flight, made his heart beat almost 
 
220 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 painfully. Yet lie strove to carry a brave air to those about 
 Iiim. 
 
 " My good fellows, you have been very kind to me," said 
 lie, as be opened his purse and put into the hard palms of 
 the men almost a handfid of Hesbia's money. 
 
 " By my faith, sir ! " exclaimed one, " had I been like 
 you " 
 
 " In what respect 1 " 
 
 " Sae rich, I mean." 
 
 "Rich, indeed! welU" 
 
 "I'd hae seen this black hole at the deil, before venturing 
 into it." 
 
 "Atthedevil-ehr' 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " ]My dear fellow, I fear I was going that way after all, 
 and only took this e7i roitte, you see." 
 
 " It's hard to hae to flee for honest debt," said the miner ; 
 " but tak ye tent noo, and learn for the future to put your 
 hand twice to your bonnet for once to your pouch.' 
 
 For a time the fugitive could distinguish nothing ; all 
 seemed dark or vague, and shadoA^y uncertainties ; ghost- 
 like outlines of human figures were passing to and fro : 
 then columns of coal, caverns of coal, seams of coal, black- 
 ness, damp, grime, horror, and discomfort everywhere began 
 gradually to make themselves visible by the light of the 
 covered lamps. The columns were generally composed of 
 that slaty kind of stone which usually accompanies coal, and 
 exhibits the impression of fossil fish, of ferns and other 
 plants which had grown and passed away ere the seas and 
 volcanic fires of unknown ages hurled rocks and mountains 
 upon mighty forests till land and water changed their places. 
 
 In no disposition to moralize, Travice Cheatwood looked 
 shudderingly around him. Some thirty men or more were 
 at work in the pit, and three several Shetland ponies were 
 employed to draw the coal from the more remote parts of 
 the workings to the main shaft ; and all these sturdy little 
 animals by the darkness were rendered blind now, and were 
 more shaggy and uncombed than when they had roamed in 
 wild herds over the green grassy holms and surf -beaten voes 
 of their breezy native isles. 
 
 " Eight hours !" thought Travice, as he looked at his 
 watch ; " if I reach the surface again by two or three to- 
 morrow morning, I may get clear off to a distance before 
 daybreak ; but to be eight iiours here— perhaps more — ugh I 
 how shall I endure them V 
 
 After a time he began to see objects with more clearness 
 
CHEATWOOD's last cigar. 221 
 
 and could move about between the pillars of coal or slate 
 tliat were left at regular intervals to support the roof of the 
 mine (about a foot or so above his head), and he could not 
 avoid shuddering, when he saw in some places men nearly 
 nude, lying at full lengih, and working sideways, or, like 
 rats in a drain, crawling into the narrower seams that sloped 
 upAvard or downward as the strata lay at various angles, and 
 picking out the coal with an axe from between the succes- 
 sive layers of lime and iron-stone. 
 
 " Work, my man," said a collier who had been eyeing liim 
 with some curiosity, for his story had been noised about in 
 the mine ; " it will be gude for you, and help to spend the 
 eerie time ; there's a baggie — a wee slype for three hundred- 
 weight ; drag that to the nearest seam, and fill it wi' coal if 
 you can fyle your dainty hands wi' sic work." 
 
 The half scornful laugh of the man sounded harshly, as 
 it was reverberated among the echoes of the mine ; but Tra- 
 vice looked with wonder and horror at human beings drag- 
 ging those "slypes,'^ some of them on hands and knees, 
 through narrow seams -in the stratum of coal, in literal suits 
 of harness composed of straps and chains ; and by such 
 miserable means as these are b>ought to upper air the gar- 
 nered stores of past and unknown ages, to meet the require- 
 ments of our time, and to aid with iron and electricity in 
 bringing together the ends of the earth, and achieving a new 
 destiny for man ! 
 
 _"0d' man, when I was a halfiing bairn,'* resumed the 
 miner, " I've dragged four and forty rakes a day, in a fifty- 
 six pound timmer basket, andkeepit my auld mother in ease 
 and comfort by her ingle cheek ! What think ye o' that ]" 
 
 But the AATctched Travice, who scarcely understood a word 
 the Scotsman said, only shivered, and made no response. 
 Though not of a very imaginative turn, when he looked 
 around him and contemplated the dreary vault from which 
 the moisture (distilled, perhaps, from drains and rivulets far 
 above their heads), plashed in the unseen pools below, the 
 blackness everywhere, save when the Davy lamps of the 
 workers gave out uncertain gleams ; the strange noises ; the 
 clank of unseen chains ; the singular and unnatural echoes ; 
 the noxious vapours ; the exhalation of gases and the in- 
 tense heat of the atmosphere, suggestive of fire-damp (of 
 which there had been many unpleasant rumours of late), all 
 might have conduced to make him believe that he had 
 passed away from mortal life, and was now in the infernal 
 regions ! 
 
 juden Grabble he knew was on his track ; but what of 
 
222 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Mr. Nathan Nab, of the Liverpool detective force 1 How 
 had he fared after his rough tumble into the old quarry 1 
 What if he was dead ! What would the coroner's inquest 
 say 1 There was no such tribunal in Scotland ; but there 
 was a local Procurator Fiscal whose name was suggestive he 
 knew not of what ; and Travice remembered how he once 
 saw an inquest in England, with all the genteel idlers of a 
 petty cathedral city, the curious tradesfolks, the grimy mob, 
 and the street urchins hovering about an inn where a dead 
 body lay on a table, in all its rigidity and horrid angularity, 
 covered by a white sheet. Was he the same Travice Cheat- 
 wood, who, notwithstanding all his monetary trouble, gamb- 
 ling shifts, and recklessness, had led a life of tolerable lux- 
 ury, ease, idleness, and fashionable dissipation ; who at times 
 when he had made up a successful book on a few races had 
 kept his hunters and drag, with a box at the opera, and a 
 cottage at St. John's Wood ; who could prove himself a judge 
 of the best wine and a good horse ; who occasionally asso- 
 ciated with men of rank and money, tuft-hunters, turfites, 
 and gamblers however ; and who, from being a member of 
 his uncle's luxurious household, the companion— even the 
 would-be lover of the beautiful Hesbia— Z'mfo'we du maison, 
 ever since Sir Cullender Crowdy ("that peculiar fishy party,' 
 as he always called him) had left — could he. he asked of 
 himself — be the same man who was now sunk to an ebb so 
 low that he was a fugitive, glad to lurk in a hideous coal 
 mine, fleeing from charges of felony, the associate and the 
 protected of those he deemed but poor degraded slaves, yet 
 each of whom was fearless and free, and when compared 
 "^th him, to be envied ! 
 
 Travice could almost have wept in his rage ; and with in- 
 tense bitterness of heart he sighed heavily. He looked at 
 his watch again. Another hour had actually elapsed — but 
 only one hour ; how long and dreary it had seemed ! 
 
 Six, perhaps seven more hours must be passed in that 
 horrible place, for such it seemed to Travice, though the in- 
 dustrious bread-winners of half the adjacent village toiled 
 there in sturdy cheerfulness. Hastily he put up his watch, 
 for it was a handsome gold one, and he trembled lest it 
 might excite the cupidity of some of those grimy men, who 
 worked like pantomimic fiends or the gnomes of a German 
 Itory in those dark seams and fissures, where a blow from a 
 pickaxe mi^ht find him a sure and secret grave for ever. In 
 searching his pockets he found a last cigar in his case, and 
 with a muttered exclamation of intense satisfaction, he drew 
 it forth, leisurely bit off the end. and, ignorant of the atmo- 
 
THE BURNING MINE. 223 
 
 spheric dangers by which he was surrounded, looked about 
 him for a— light ! Near him was a Davy lamp, which one 
 of the miners had placed on a pillar of coal. It was one of 
 those very lamps which the philanthropic Sir Humphrey in- 
 vented, with a lid of tissue wire so constructed that it might 
 be used with safety even in the most explosive mines. In 
 his ignorance, the unfortunate Travice unlocked and re- 
 moved the tissue cover, and was proceeding very deliber- 
 ately to light his cigar, when a heavy hand was laid on his 
 arm, and his eyes were met by the malignant smile that glit- 
 tered in those of Juden Grabble. 
 
 Ere either could speak, there came a wild cry — a shriek 
 of alarm from various parts of the mine — " The lamp, the 
 lamp ! Fly to the shaft, fly for your lives ! Fire, fire !" 
 
 ^ Then followed a terrific — a blinding explosion, and aU the 
 pit was involved in darkness, smoke, and chaos— agony and 
 death. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE BUKNINa MINE. 
 
 Accompanied by Mademoiselle Savonette, and one or two 
 other servants, Hesbia was soon at the scene of the disas- 
 trous calamity, where a soul-stirring, bewildering, and ter- 
 rible spectacle awaited her. The engine-house, the ofiices, 
 and sheds around the mouth of the yawning shaft were 
 crowded by pale and terrified people who, on the first note 
 of alarm, had rushed there from the adjacent village. Many 
 of these were the wives, mother;?, children, and friends of 
 those who were in the mine, and their wailings and lamen- 
 tations were heard at intervals amid the fierce roaring of the 
 red flames that rushed skyward from the pit, and the excited 
 voices of the gathering workmen, who were bravely ready 
 to do any task that might be assigned them by any one in 
 authority. 
 
 Two hundred feet and more below where they stood, it 
 was known that from thirty to forty men, living or dead, 
 were immured in that subterranean tomb of fire, the sides 
 and roof, floor and entire substance of which, aU served to 
 feed the great element of destruction. 
 
 The flames from the shaft Ht up the whole locality, dis- 
 pelling the gloom of night after the moon waned, and casting 
 strange weird gleams and shadows on the faces of the excited 
 and agonised watchers, and on the mysterious-looking machi- 
 nery, the clumsy beams, the grimy wheels and chains of the 
 
224 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 engine-Iiouse. And now, to add to the grief and consternation 
 of many who might already be widowed and childless, yet 
 knew it not, a bellowing roar at a little distance announced 
 the explosion of anotlier mine, with which the workings 
 of the first one communicated and a dense pall of black 
 smoke filled all the air, overhanging the startled and now 
 almost deserted village, where every door was left wide open, 
 and every fireside abandoned ; and in fatuous grief and 
 terror, the names of those who were too surely supposed to 
 be perishing, were lovingly called in varying tones, amid 
 sobs and shrieks that seemed to load the air. 
 
 In the first shaft the fiames soon began to subside, or to 
 shoot up their black mouth at intervals only ; so fires of coal 
 were speedily set ablaze, and the wavering light of these, as 
 they flared upon the night wind, tipped every neighbouring 
 object "s\dth fire. On the brown, crisp woods of the old 
 manor house, and far away by Oakwoodlee ; on the beetling 
 brow of Craigellon, and the slopes of the more distant 
 hills ; even on the gilded weathercock of the secluded 
 church, making it shine like a red star, fell the ruddy light ; 
 and on the gTeen mounds of the Kaims (or old Roman camp), 
 which were verdant and grassy, and had been old, by more 
 than a thousand years, in the days when Hector Boethius 
 (who knew neither of coal nor of coal-pits) recorded that 
 the men of Fife and the Lothians were wont to dig a black 
 stone, which, when Idndled, gave forth a heat that would 
 melt iron. 
 
 Till the flames completely subsided below nothing could be 
 done in the way of exploration or descent, and the gathered 
 people, the wailing, the weeping, and the hopeless, could but 
 watch and wait, and wring their hands and pray. Clutching 
 Savonette (who had completely exhausted the entire and 
 somewhat ample vocabulary of French interjections expres- 
 sive of wonder and horror), Hesbia Vere, seated or standing, 
 lingered among the heaps of debris, coals, shale, and rubbish, 
 wliile continuing to gaze in a species of stupor at the mouth 
 of the pit, which for a time seemed but as the vent of a 
 mighty furnace. 
 
 Of the vast monetary loss this calamity would inevitably 
 
 {)rove to her father, and how it might yet affect herself, she 
 lad not then a single thought. From the men in charge of 
 the engine-house, both of whom she questioned closely, she 
 learned beyond a doubt, that Lcnnard Blair, with whose 
 appearance they were quite familiar, one whom she knew 
 must be her cousin Travice, and a third, Mr. Juden Grabble, 
 were all in the pit, and too probably would never leave it, 
 
THE BURNING MINE, 225 
 
 for already the engineer, the manager, and others in charge 
 vv^ere speaking of having it deluged with water, " lest,' as 
 they phrased it, " the seams might fire again.'' 
 
 Could it be possible, she thought, that he who loved her 
 so well, the handsome Lennard Blair — he whose dark eyes 
 had so lately been gazing with tenderness into her own ; 
 v/hose kiss had been so recently on her cheek, whose voice 
 and loving smile were vividly in her mind, was down — down 
 that dark, flaming, and mysterious gulph ! It seemed all a 
 phantasmagoria — a nightmare — a horrible unreality. 
 
 He was absent from home, of that there could be no doubt, 
 and the rapidly spread rumour that " the young laird " (so 
 was he fondly named still by many) was in the pits, speedily 
 brought to the spot his two dependants — the tottering 
 Stephen Hislop, propped on his stafiF, and the active yet 
 querulous Elsie Graham ; and there too gathered fast to give 
 advice or aid, Dr. Feverley, the Rev. Dr. Kirkford, mounted 
 on his cob ; Ranald Cheyne on a foam-flecked roadster ; the 
 Ground Baillie : the Sheriff, a solemn and priggish person- 
 age ; the Procurator-Fiscal, a fussy little country solicitor 
 with keen ferret-eyes, a white shirt frill, and a huge Lau- 
 rence-kirk box, from which ever and anon he took pinches of 
 snuft' ; the chief constable in his uniform, and hundreds of 
 others to gratify their curiosity, till a dense throng on foot 
 or horseback filled up all the excited neighbourhood. 
 
 Community of sentiment or grief drew Elsie near to where, 
 with a warm cloak and rich velvet hood drawn over her, 
 Hesbia Vere was seated on a pile of stones. 
 
 " Oh, Elsie," said Miss Vere, weeping freely when she saw 
 how bitterly the old woman wept, " this has come upon me 
 as if it had been a thunderbolt from heaven ! " 
 
 " Aye, madam, and from heaven came the stroke, though 
 why or wherefore, we canna say and canna see ! " moaned 
 Elsie, rocking her person to and fro in all the abandonment 
 of grief. 
 
 " It is a great, a most unaccountable accident." 
 
 " Hech, aye, aye ! " replied the old woman shaking her 
 head ; " and when sic accidents come, they bode mair ill- 
 fortune than folk may at first decern." 
 
 " Evil-fortune, Elsie, woman !" expostulated Steinie, whose 
 silver hairs were glistening in the light of the watch-fires. 
 " The ill-luck and danger, the suffering and death are a' 
 here in plenty without boding mair." 
 
 " Aye, but mair must and ivill happen ! " croaked Elsie. 
 
 " Do you think so 1 '" asked Hesbia, anxiously. 
 
 " She says truth, Miss Yere," said the minister, Dr. Kirk- 
 
 15 
 
226 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 ford, wlio had now dismounted and held his Galloway by 
 its bridle ; " from what the engineers are saying, I fear that 
 your father's pits are ruined for ever." 
 
 " I heed not the pits, sir," said Hesbia, amid a torrent of 
 tears ; " I think only of those who are in them. Oh, Dr. 
 Kirkford, how long may the fire continue to burn thero 
 below?" 
 
 " Who can say "? There are mines in Fife that have con- 
 tinued to smoulder on for ages.'' 
 
 " Ages ! and what is the first cause T 
 
 " Fulminating damp, which in general can only be kindled 
 by flame, through gross carelessness or deliberate malice." 
 
 " Malice, Doctor ! " echoed Hesbia, connecting the idea 
 with her cousin Travice. 
 
 - " Yes," replied the portly old man, as he patted her shoiAl- 
 der ; " such things have been." 
 
 " But wilfully or maliciously to set fire to a coal-mine is 
 felony, without benefit of clergy, by the tenth Parliament 
 of George II.," said the Procurator-Fiscal, who stood by, 
 tapping his snuff-box complacently. 
 
 " Tell me. Doctor, do — do — do you think that all in the 
 pit must be " 
 
 " Be what, Miss Verer 
 
 " Dead by this timeT asked Hesbia, in a broken voice. 
 
 "I cannot say; I would earnestly and prayerfully hope not!" 
 
 " Oh, why should such horrors be % It is surely not the 
 will of God." 
 
 "Why have we war and pestilence, shipwrecks, earth- 
 quakes, and sudden death ? Man is a free agent, my dear 
 Miss Vere ; but strange it is, that such wholesale calamitie« 
 as this should come of our enterprize, and our development 
 of science and skill ! So what avails the promise that was 
 given of old : ' I will bring thee to a land whose stones are 
 iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass : where 
 thou shalt lay up gold as dust, and the gold of Ophir as the 
 stones of the brooks.' Science draws together the ends of 
 the earth, yet in its pursuit and development men must di< 
 as these poor fellows are too probably dying now." 
 
 And politely lifting his broad-brimmed hat, the stout and 
 kindly old clergyman moved away to those whom he thought 
 required his ministrations and comforting assurances more 
 than the fashionable young lady — the wives and children of 
 the men who were in the pit. 
 
 Miss Hesbia drew a little way aside with Elsie and 
 Savonette. In the horror of a conviction that Lennard had 
 perished, impressed by the active terrors of the scene, and 
 
THE BURNING MINK. 227 
 
 by the noisy but natural grief of the people around her, 
 she forgot all her (occasional) selfish fears of how a life of 
 comparative poverty could be spent with him, in case her 
 father cast them ofi", or commercial disaster overtook them 
 all ; for such fears she had not been without of late. 
 
 But Lennard was gone — too probably gone for ever — ^by a 
 dreadful death, scorched perhaps out of the semblance of 
 humanity, and entombed in that subterranean catacomb— 
 so she could weep for him freely now, and, for a time, cared 
 not even if her cold father knew that she had loved him. _ 
 
 Her absorbing question was, what purpose had taken him 
 into such a strange place as the pit, and with such a pitiful 
 creature as Juden Grabbie 1 That secret object, alas ! she 
 might never know, and she might never look upon his face 
 again. The pit was on fire and he ivitkin it ! ^ So there was 
 nothing to be done but wait in agony — nothing, nothing — 
 but to wait for the end. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Vere," said Elsie in a low voice, as she crouched 
 at Hesbia's feet and still rocked herself to and fro ; " the 
 pnir lad that's gane loved you— loved you weel !" 
 
 "Hush, Elsie! hush!" 
 
 " And wherefore should I hush T asked the old woman, 
 almost sternly, as she lifted her head. " My brave lamb was 
 proud of it, and surely you dinna feel ashamed T 
 
 " Ah no, Elsie, you mistake me ; but you see how sorrow 
 and trouble come upon us all in turns, rich as well as poor." 
 
 " True, true. Miss Vere, to every one in the world ; but 
 this stroke is a heavy one to me. I was his nurse in the 
 aald house up the brae yonder, and he became to me even 
 as my ain bairn when his puir mother died. You are young 
 and rich and winsome, and may soon find others to love 
 you ; but I am a lonely, forsaken auld body, and shall never 
 have another to love me as he did ! And oh, Miss Vere, it 
 seems but as yesterday when I had him on my knee a smil- 
 ing wean, round as an egg and straight as a lance ; but never 
 mair can these auld hands of mine smooth his shining curls 
 o' gold ; for they were golden as the bells o' the bonnie 
 broom bush, when he was a bairn !'' said Elsie, her native 
 accent deepening with her grief, which at times became 
 uncontrollable. 
 
 " Blairavon is gane — wood, hill, and muirland ; and now 
 the last o' the auld stock that hae hunted and hosted, feasted 
 — aye, and fought wi' kings— hath gane too," said Hislop, as 
 he struck his staff into the turf. "So you and I, Elsie, hae 
 been ower lang here ; we hae outlived our kith, our kindred 
 and our time !'' 
 
228 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 " His name, I fear me, was an unlucky one. Wliy did the 
 auld laird name his first-born after his drowned brother 
 Lennard 1" 
 
 " Because he did so love that brother," said Steinie. 
 _ So the exciting hours of the night wore on, and Hesbia 
 lingered there listening, as one in a dream, to those about 
 her, speaking of fire-damp, of gaseous exhalations through 
 fissures m the rocks, of Davy lamps, and the recklessness of 
 miners in leaving them open or unlocked ; of their smoking, 
 and having lucifers in their pockets ; of turning water into 
 the mine ; and to the vague and often wild suggestions made 
 by the excited, the ignorant, or unthinking ; till murmurs of 
 hope began to mingle with the sobs of women and children, 
 as the flames from the pit became less and less, and after a 
 time died completely away, leaving its round black mouth 
 of calcined brick and stone, yawning in the light of the 
 flaming cressets and coal-heaps. Anxiously and intently 
 many an ear and many a yearning face were bent over the 
 fatal pit • but no sound came upward from the horrid depth 
 below. Had all then perished 1 
 
 Hesbia was liberal and open-handed, and from the great 
 house she had brought and distributed by the butler's hands, 
 spirits, wines, food, and money too, among the workers, and 
 the anxious, pale, and affrighted women who lingered in 
 sorrow around that disastrous grave, which certain brave 
 fellows were now making vigorous preparations to descend 
 and explore. 
 
 By this time Mr. Vere had been telegraphed for by his 
 ground bailie, and was speeding north by the Lancaster and 
 Carlisle Railway ; and now when his handsome young 
 daughter, whose soft dishevelled hair seemed turned to 
 ruddy gold by the lights that flamed around the pit, rose at 
 last to retire, the eyes and the blessings of many followed her. 
 
 Hesbia was becoming exhausted, so Mr. Cheyne resolutely 
 took her home, urged by Feverley, whose professional duty 
 kept him at the scene of the accident. And now the long 
 and miserable night, which had seemed like an age to many 
 there, was passing away, for in the east the faint grey of 
 dawn was stealing in ; the peaks of the highest hills began 
 to brighten, as the light stole down their grassy slopes, and 
 the shadows gave place to it even in the valleys. The 
 cold stars paled and faded out one by one, and the light of 
 the watch-fires began to sink and die, as the brilliant sun of 
 a glorious autumn morning, through bars of crimson and 
 amber, shed his warmth over the beautiful scenery; the 
 birds twittered in the hedgerows, and the hawk hung aloft 
 
THE NEXT MOENIKG. 229 
 
 in mid-air ; the corn-fields rolled their golden billows, and 
 the dewy woodlands rustled their crisp foliage in the soft 
 wind that came from the western hills. But many an eye 
 was red with weeping and watching ; many a heart was sick 
 and sore with grief ; and many a hardy bread-winner's place 
 and chair were empty in the once busy and happy little 
 village of Blairavon. 
 
 CHAPTEB. XXXVIIL 
 
 THE NEXT MORNING. 
 
 The early morning train brought Mr. Vere to the place of 
 the calamity, where he could do^ nothing but hear clamours, 
 griefs, complaints, and applications, with threats of legal 
 proceedings for underground mismanagement, — from all of 
 which he turned away wearied, worried, and profoundly 
 disgusted, to the now half-dismantled and partially shut up 
 manor-house. There Hesbia, pale, unslept, and exhausted, 
 was awaiting him. She had never been to bed, but for a 
 time had reposed on a sofa in her room, in momentary ex- 
 pectation of hearing some tidings from the fatal mine. After 
 sunrise she rang for her attendant. 
 
 " Papa has been telegraphed for, Savonette ; he will be 
 here this morning, beyond a doubt, to breakfast ; and he 
 must not perceive or detect the great grief this accident has 
 cost me." 
 
 " Why, Miladi f' 
 
 " I have my ovrn reasons." 
 
 A few hours had served to make Hesbia again politic, and 
 partially to restore Vere's influence over her. 
 
 " Oui, mademoiselle ; I comprehend now," said the sou- 
 brette, v>ith a sad but knowing smile. 
 
 " Good ; then make my toilette one that may deceive 
 him, at least by removing, so far as possible, traces of all I 
 have undergone since last night." 
 
 The soubrette applied herself diligently to her mistress's 
 beautiful hair, and produced from the magnificent silver 
 inlaid dressing-case the Bohemian crystal _ and Dresden 
 bottles of perfumes, pomade, Rimmel's Vinaigre de Toilette, 
 Blanc de Perles, and many other mysterious compounds, 
 wherewith to cool Hesbia's skin, to brighten her eyes, and 
 remove all appearance of languor, tears, and the sorrow of 
 the past night. Her dress, a morning robe of bright blue, 
 trimmed with white braid and with much white lace, espe- 
 pecially about the bosom, neck, and loose wide sleeves, 
 
230 THE GIRL HE MAREIED. 
 
 suited well the fulness of her figure and the usually bril- 
 liant character of her beauty; but now her colour was 
 gone, her lips unnaturally red, and the lids of her handsome 
 eyes were heavy and drooping. 
 
 Hesbia was doubtless somewhat of a sensationalist, and 
 for a time had fully indulged in all " the luxury of woe ;" 
 but now her chief task was to conceal from her own father 
 the misery of her heart ; that one whose step and voice 
 could send the life-blood careering through it, and through 
 every pulse, was gone too probably to the world of shadows, 
 and that the touch of his " vanished hand" would thrill on 
 hers no more ! She repented now of many times when she 
 had wounded and piqued him, parried his attentions or 
 ignored them : received them coldly, and even flirted fur- 
 iously with otliers for her own amusement. All that was 
 long since over now. 
 
 This was the day when she was to have bade farewell t4 
 him and returned to Liverpool, escorted by Travice— fare- 
 well but only for a short time, as he was so soon to follow 
 her, and then a crisis would come for sorrow or joy ! There 
 she had many gay friends and gossips to meet and gaieties 
 to plunge into— gaieties such as were unknown to rural 
 Blairavon ; but where were now the joys of future years'? 
 where the bright visions she had begun so recently to picture i 
 Her Eden was blasted— blighted even as the fabled Rose 
 Garden of Irem was blighted to punish the pride of the Son 
 of Ad. 
 
 Morning stole on ; the train was long since in, but her 
 father did not appear. Maxwell, his valet, however, arrived 
 with a message "that, though weary with travelling all 
 night, he had gone to the Kaims, and should soon be home 
 to breakfast," and so in the desperate hope that he would 
 bring her some sure — she could scarcely hope for happy — 
 tidings, she sat at an open window of the dining-room, 
 listlessly waiting and watching. Through it the soft breath 
 of the cool autumnal morning came stealing in, and wafting 
 the fragrance of the monthly roses and the borders of mig- 
 nonette ; but now the gardeners had left their task of tend- 
 ing the cuttings of pansies and pinks, the planting of poly- 
 anthuses, the propping of gorgeous dahlias and towering 
 hollyhocks, and other flowers and work of the season, to 
 use their spades for a better purpose in digging at the pits 
 in the cause of mercy and the nope of rescue. 
 
 The fragrance of the last few flowers of autumn came 
 unpleasantly and without charm to Hesbia ; there would be 
 no meeting to-day at the lonely stile on the grassy path to 
 
THE NEXT MORNINa. 23 1 
 
 Craigellon ; and as sncli occasional tender excitements were 
 necessary to her existence, after her past coquetries, the 
 world seemed an emptiness— a horrid blank, indeed ! When 
 Mr. Vere entered, she rushed into his arms. 
 
 " What news, papa, from that dreadful place of sorrow f 
 
 " Sorrow and loss, too — very considerable loss, let ms tell 
 you, my dear girl," said he, sourly. 
 
 " Of course, papa — well f 
 
 " Not a sound can be detected in the pit, Hesbia. At the 
 edge of the shaft, two of the miners lay down -with their 
 faces over the edge, and together raised a shout that was 
 both loud and long, and it rung with a wondrous sound in 
 dark profundity. Again and again they shouted, and there 
 came back " 
 
 "Oh, papa— what f 
 
 " Only the long-drawn echoes of their cry, and when these 
 died away all remained silent as the grave below. But 
 workers and diggers are going down in regular gangs and 
 spells to clear away the rubbish, which has accumulated or 
 fallen in the cuttings of the pit, and ere long they hope to 
 get at the bodies " 
 
 "Oh, Heavens!" 
 
 "And send them up in slings. The carpenters of the 
 village have already prepared several coffins — plain deal 
 things (however plain I shall have them all to pay for !) to 
 the pit -head. And now let me to breakfast,' he added, 
 seating himself at the table. "I've been travelling all 
 night — came off the moment I got the telegram, though it 
 was useless to send for me. But can there be any truth in 
 khe story of Travice Cheatwood and Lennard Blair, too, 
 being both in the pit ?' he asked, suddenly, while observing 
 her keenly ; but Hesbia kept her face in shadow. 
 
 "Yes, papa," she replied, while the tears rushed to her 
 eyes ; " they are there too surelj^ I fear." - 
 
 "Why, what business, — coffee, not tea if you please, 
 Hesbia, — what business had either of them down there ; at 
 night, too 1 It seems incredible — unaccountable ; yet I have 
 heard it on all hands, from that old blubbering Scotsman 
 Hislop, too, Avith some story of a previous struggle and 
 attempted arrest — arrest of whom 1" 
 
 " Travice, papa ; you could not think it was Mr. Blair." 
 
 " Of course not — but hush at present ; I know too much 
 of !Master Travice and his precious affairs. You have begun 
 to pack I see. and to have the house nearly ready for shut- 
 ting up. Maxwell ! the marmalade — Thanks." 
 
 He was her f»^*^'Her, yet Hesbia gazed with wonder at the 
 
232 THE GIRL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 placidity with wliich lie sat before her, looking so calm, so 
 sleek and young in air and bearing, and with his perpetual 
 smile while making his morning repast ; yet a keener eyo 
 than hers might have detected under that commercial mask 
 a secret expression of worry and harassment, w^hile he took 
 ham and egg, game and fish from the butler and Maxwell, 
 who were both in attendance, and ventured from time to 
 time to join a little — a very little, as Mr. Vere was not con- 
 descending—in the conversation when it turned on the 
 recent catastrophe, for in that locality of course every one's 
 mind was full of it. Though she endeavoured to conceal 
 her emotions, Vere saw his daughter's grief, and knew that 
 it was not all for her cousin Travice ; but he ignored it. 
 
 "By Jove," thought he, wdien they w^ere left to them- 
 selves by the withdraw^al of the servants, whose presence on 
 this occasion was boredom to them both, " I never imagined 
 that she cared so much for that fellow ! So you don't know 
 what object took Blair down the pit ?" he asked, heedless of 
 how he might sting her heart by the abrupt question. 
 
 " No, papa, I do not ; I cannot even suppose." 
 
 "I have been told that he was not unfrequently there— a 
 strange taste !" 
 
 " Yes, he used to go when little more than a boy, while 
 you w^ere first having these pits made ; and sometimes he 
 pressed me to accompany him." 
 
 " Indeed ! — What business — but you never went V^ 
 
 " Never, papa ; I was too terrified. Then he was such a 
 favourite with the miners, and all the workpeople here- 
 about." 
 
 " Yes," said Vere, with a grimace, " more, perhaps, than 
 I, who have spent so much wealth among them, and have 
 literally created that collier village where only green fields 
 lay before. Such a row they make about a few wretched 
 lives lost in a coal mine ! I'll warrant these folks here took 
 the news of the battle of the Alma, the Indian Mutiny, or 
 the great earthquakes in South America quietly enough !" 
 
 "The death and the suffering incident to these events 
 were far from their own hearths, papa." 
 
 " And they even threaten me with legal proceedings— the 
 ungrateful wretches ! " 
 
 Prosecution, papa— you— how?" 
 
 " Oh, under the ' Mines Inspection Act,' concerning work- 
 ing with unlocked safety-lamps, as if I could know whether 
 or not such were the case. Y et that fussy little beast of a 
 Procurator Fiscal and that legal snob of a sheriff, both hinted 
 as much. Aud then there is Travice " 
 
NEXT MOEXlJfG. 233 
 
 " Oh, papa, do not talk of poor Travice now— I implore 
 you— with anger at least." 
 
 " But others will, and handle his name pretty roughly, for 
 there are a thousand scandals attached to it. If he has 
 })erished there, whatever be the errand that took him — it is 
 the best fate that could befall him. Yes, Hesbia, and he I 
 speak of is my only sister's son ! " 
 
 " Do be merciful, papa," she urged, with clasped hands, 
 and eyes full of tears. 
 
 "Misfortunes, especially commercial ones, never come 
 singly, Hesbia," said Vere, resuming his old habit of jing- 
 ling his loose silver, which he did now with angry energy. 
 " I have had some awkward affairs to settle in Liverpool, 
 and if these coal mines are totally destroyed — I— I know not 
 what may be the result." 
 
 ''- How, dear papa 1 " 
 
 " I have sunk so much money in them, and trusted to 
 their resources, perhaps too much," he added, lowering his 
 voice. 
 
 The sleek expression of his face changed for a moment, a glare 
 came into his light-coloured eyes, and then they seemed to 
 pale out almost to extinction, and he looked old and unplea- 
 sant. 
 
 " Dearest papa," said Hesbia, caressing him ; " I am truly 
 grieved to see you look so worried. Tell me, how long do 
 you propose to stay here 1 " 
 
 " Not long ; I can promise you that, Hesbia," he replied, 
 snappishly. 
 
 "Then you— you '' 
 
 " Return to Liverpool to-night, and you go with me." 
 
 " To-night — so soon 1 And — and — and poor men in the 
 mine 1 " 
 
 " I can do nothing. Dead or alive, the fellows, T suppose, 
 can be found without my assistance. Bother the men ! — ■ 
 Some drunken wretch among them has unlocked his lamp 
 and done all this ruinous mischief ; and then come the cla- 
 mours of their families to madden me, quite as much as the 
 threatened actions for damages. Til hear all about the affair 
 at home, through the papers or otherwise, soon enough. I 
 have enough — and more than enough— to attend to at the 
 counting-house, and home we shall go," he addedj emphati- 
 cally, looking at his watch, " by the 4 p.m. train this evening. 
 So i)lease to have the whole place shut up at once, and left 
 as before to the care of the gardener and his wife. ' 
 
 Though an only daughter, Hesbia kne^v that her father 
 was not one who brooked either trifling or delay ; so with a 
 
234 THE GIEL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 sigh, for she would fain have lingered a few days longer to 
 learn the last and worst, she was preparing to obey him, 
 when Mr. Cheyne was announced, and he came in, hat and 
 whip in hand, and wdth his spurs and spatterdashes on. 
 
 Bluff, jolly, weather-beaten Kanald Cheyne looked pale 
 and weary now ; all night long he had been hovering about 
 the scene of the recent catastrophe ; his smiles were gone, 
 and the wrinkles in his face were deeper. He was a kind- 
 hearted, plain and honest old country gentlernan, and the 
 sight of so many poor women and children in grief and 
 terror had quite unmanned him. He shook hands with 
 Miss Vere and her father in silence, seated^ himself ere he 
 could be invited to do so, and drew a long sigh. 
 
 " I heard of your arrival, Vere, and just rode over to see 
 if I could be of any assistance." 
 
 " Thank you, 'tis very kind, I'm sure." 
 
 " An awful business this," said Cheyne, after a pause. 
 
 " Shocking ! " exclaimed Yere. 
 
 *' The loss " 
 
 " Of money to me will be serious, I must tell you.* 
 
 *' Sorry to hear it, sir ; sorry to hear it. But it was the 
 loss of human life I was about to refer to." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " I have just come from, your pits, Vere. The workers 
 have already reached the bodies, and are rapidly bringing 
 them to ' bank,' as they technically term it. The first pair 
 I saw slung up, all grimy and scorched, and hanging limx) 
 and lank in the slings, were a father and son — poor fellows ! 
 poor fellows ! God rest them ! — old Davie Burt and young 
 Colin. I knew them well, and my heart felt ready to burst 
 when the women of the village closed shrieking round them, 
 and Frank Feverley— who, like a brave good fellow, is work- 
 ing there in his shirt-sleeves — declared that both were dead, 
 and must have been so for some hours." 
 
 "What followed r' asked Vere, coldly. 
 
 " What could follow ? They were coffined at the pit-mouth, 
 carried home, and laid side by side in their little cottage at 
 the Kaims." 
 
 Hesbia wept freely, and Mr. Cheyne sat eyeing Mr. Vere 
 with a curious expression, while tapping liis strong white 
 teeth with the loaded handle of his hunting-whip. 
 
 "My girls. Flora and her sister," he resumed, "with 
 many other ladies, are among the people in the village, to 
 be of service, if they can. Miss Vere remained at the pit 
 last night till I literally forced her home ; and now we must 
 do something, Vere. The people about the place are mar- 
 
HOPELESS. 235 
 
 veiling mucli wliy you are not there. I think you should 
 come with me, and put a few pounds in your pocket. I am 
 not rich, but I'll give a hundred or so towards the matter 
 to begin with. Kemember, these widows and orphans will 
 all be cast on the highways for food, or the tender mercies of 
 the parochial authorities " 
 
 "If the works are destroyed," hissed Yere through liis 
 teeth, closing the sentence, with a covert gleam of rage in 
 his pale eyes. 
 
 " Then come with me for an hour or so, my good friend." 
 
 " Well, for an hour ; but I must leave for Liverpool to- 
 night," said Tare, tossing Bradshaiv angrily on the table, 
 "and have not much time to spare." 
 
 " Papa, should you hear any news of — of " 
 
 " Your precious cousin Travice — eh 1 " interrupted Yere, 
 with a smile on his lip and much suppressed fury in his 
 eye. 
 
 " Ye-es, papa " 
 
 " Or of Lennard Blair," said Eanald Cheyne, kindly, in a 
 low voice, " instant word shall be sent you. Poor young 
 Blair ! what would his jolly fox-hunting father — old hard- 
 riding Dick — have thought of this^ 111 leave my horse 
 here, and we shall walk over to the pits together." 
 
 " I cannot be of the slightest service," grumbled Mr. Yere, 
 as Maxwell brought him his hat and gloves ; " I hate all 
 scenes, especially those of sorrow. Have luncheon — game- 
 
 Eie and deviUed turkey— an early dinner prepared, for I 
 ope Mr. Cheyne will join us. Then we'U be off by the 
 4 p.m. train, remember." 
 
 And as they retired, Hesbia buried her face in her hands 
 and wept bitterly, not the less so that her father seemed so 
 heartless as to excite quietly the very decided contempt of 
 Ranald Cheyne of the Haughs. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 HOPELESS. 
 
 On arriving at the Kaims, they found that the underground 
 manager, the oversman, and some fifteen or twenty miners 
 — all more or less suffering from asphyxia, from scorching, 
 broken bones, bruises, or shocks of the nervous system, but 
 none in imminent danger — had been dug out, slung up, and 
 conveyed to their homes, each of which formed a centre of 
 attraction to the morbid and the curious ; so the crowd had 
 greatly lessened, much to Mr. Yere's satisfaction. Several 
 
236 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 other men were in the mine, and yet unaccounted for ; but 
 expressions of thankfulness that the loss of life had noi 
 been so great now took the place of those wild ravings of 
 grief heard before. 
 
 Feverley had his hands full ; but many medical men froni 
 other villages were humanely and charitably ariving in 
 haste, and Vere thought with rage, almost consternation, of 
 all the bills he might have to pay. 
 
 " All that have been brought to bank are miners, I pre- 
 sume, Doctor ]" said he. 
 " All," replied Feverley, sorrowfully. 
 " Have not the explorers seen any trace of Blair or of 
 Cheatwood f 
 
 " None— none," replied the Doctor, with growing emotion. 
 " More than eighteen hours have elapsed, Mr. Vere, since the 
 event, and some parts of the mine are still on fire ; elsewhere 
 the choke-damp, which always follows an explosion, proves 
 death to all who inhale it. Poor Blair ! I have no hope !" 
 
 " I leave by the afternoon train for Liverpool -' 
 
 " So soon !" 
 " Business, Doctor." 
 
 " But there will be so much to be looked after here." 
 " Imperative business requires me elsewhere ; but you'll 
 telegraph to me the result of the final exploration." 
 
 " There comes a signal from below ; some one else has 
 been found !" exclaimed Feverle}^, as a bell was heard to 
 ring in the engine-house. Then the wheels began to revolve, 
 and the great rope in the centre of the shaft to glide steadily 
 upward, while all who were about the verge drew nearer ; 
 every voice was hushed in expectation, every eye bent more 
 eagerly and wistfully on the round yawning mouth, the dark 
 and deep uncertainty of which made the heart recoil ; and 
 a long-drawn " Ah !" or a sound like a sigh of expectation 
 rather than relief, escaped from all, as the rusty iron roof of 
 the cage or basket rose into the sunny air, with four miners 
 standing erect therein, and grasping its sides to steady them- 
 selves. The grime that coated them hid the pn,llor of their 
 faces, but their eyes were wild and bewildered in expression, 
 for they had been half -poisoned by the polluted air below. 
 
 "Twa mair corpses to streek !' they exclaimed, huskily, 
 and two human figures, one clutching the other tightly as 
 with a death-grasp, were removed from the cage and laid ou 
 the bank in the sunshine. 
 
 '■• Juden Grabble !" exclaimed several voices, but none of 
 them very sympathizingly. 
 And who was the other 1 None recognized his dress, 
 
HOPELESS. 5137 
 
 which was nearly burned to rags, or his figure, or his face ; 
 the latter was black as that of a negro, and all his once fair 
 hair had been scorched off. It was Travice Cheatwood, from 
 whose collar Grabbie's hand had never relaxed even in Ms 
 last extremity, for that unflinching legal functionary had 
 been partly asphyxiated and partly crushed to death by 
 falling debris. 
 
 "Keep back the crowd," said Feverley, with an air of 
 authority, to the police. "Grabble is dead — hopelessly gone; 
 but the other is only senseless, and may recover ; his pulses 
 are beginning to beat, and already respiration is returning !" 
 
 " Who is he 1 — who is he ]'' asked several eager voices. 
 
 ** A total stranger ; let him be conveyed at once to my 
 house," said the Doctor, " and I shall attend him there. Mr. 
 Vere," he added, in a whisper, after a rapid examination of 
 the prostrate figure ; " this person so blackened and dis- 
 figured is — your nephew !" 
 
 "Hush — gracious Heaven — in such a state !" 
 
 " He is only suffering from the effect of partial suffoca- 
 tion — there is net a bone broken, nor even an external injury 
 traceable ; turpentine and the cold douche will soon restore 
 him. By Jove, I begin to have hopes of my poor friend 
 Blair 1" 
 
 A miner by means of his pocket-knife had to cut away 
 the piece of Cheatwood's collar that was sternly clutched by 
 the dead hand of Grabble, as if in a vice of steel, ere they 
 could be separated. The body of the dead man was then 
 conveyed to his cottage, at the junction of the two villages, 
 wliile Travice, still insensible and breathing, only in spas- 
 modic gasps, was placed on a door tenderly and gently, and 
 borne by rough and toilworn hands to the little dwelling of 
 Feverley, who, by applying electricity to the spinal column 
 and other external stimulants, soon brought him back com- 
 pletely to consciousness. 
 
 Among those who-saw him borne away and yet failed to re- 
 cognize him, was his chief source of terror, little Mr. Nathaniel 
 Nab ; but that personage had not his warrant now, and even 
 if, armed with it, he had attempted anything like an arrest, 
 or the enforcement of his office, at that particular juncture, 
 the excited people might have sent him down the shaft with- 
 out the use of the cage. 
 
 Aware of the unscrupulous and clouded character of 
 Cheatwood, and of the legal dangers that hung over him, 
 the Doctor would allow none to have access to the room 
 where he lay, in his medical capacity debarring even the 
 fussy Procurator Fiscal, and other officials. When sufficiently 
 
23^ THE GIUL HE MARRIED. 
 
 recovered to bear questioning, he was still unable to explain 
 how the explosion took place, as, in fact, he knew not the 
 full extent of the danger he had inadvertently drawn upon 
 himself and others. 
 
 "Mr. Cheatwood," said the Doctor, earnestly, when he 
 thought the proper time had come ; "collect yourself, please, 
 and tell me, did you see Lennard Blair in the pit V 
 
 " I saw him but for an instant — at the very time of the 
 explosion — and then — then all became darkness." 
 
 " And was that all — anything more ¥' 
 
 " After a time I heard his voice— praying I think — and I 
 spoke to him ; but what he said, or what I replied, it is im- 
 possible for me to remember. He was blown away by the 
 second explosion ; then the earth seemed to fall upon me, 
 and I became senseless. Blair must be dead — oh, yes, he 
 must be dead — dead," continued the patient, with an air of 
 dreamy bewilderment. " I might have made my way to the 
 foot of the shaft,'' he added, after a time, " but for the hor- 
 rible clutch of that wretch Grabble ; I could in no way work 
 myself free of his corpse !" 
 
 "He is gone to his last account, and the secret of his 
 errand will be buried with him." 
 
 " For a time only. Doctor— for a time only," replied Travice, 
 w^eeping in very weakness and prostration of spirit, after all 
 he had undergone. 
 
 " None have recognized ^you,"_ said the young Doctor, 
 soothingly ; " remain here in quietness and safety, until I 
 can get you away. In acting thus, I am only doing wliat 
 your uncle would wish, and poor Blair would have done, for 
 Miss Vere's sake." 
 
 Weak though he was, a grimace distorted the face of Tra- 
 vice at the name of Hesbia, for their last interview, and the 
 discovery of the air-gun, rushed upon his memory. Till that 
 moment he had forgotten it utterly. 
 
 On rejoining Mr. Vere, who was lingering in the parlour 
 with old Mrs. Feverley, and feeling intensely bored by her 
 grief for all the suffering around her, the unwearied Doctor 
 proceeded again to the scene of the event. 
 
 Eight more men had been brought up dead, either suffo- 
 cated or grievously scorched and mangled, and were borne 
 away in sheets or blankets, followed by wailing and shriek- 
 ing women and children (whose bread-winners the poor 
 fellows had been) to their now sorrowing, and from thence- 
 forward, desolate homes. 
 
 "Eight more men 1" muttered Vere, looking at a list of 
 names which was handed him by the oversman, who had 
 buffered severely in the explosion, and could sc4ircely stand 
 
HOPELESS. 239 
 
 " And all tliese poor fellows ha^ve large families," said Mr. 
 Clieyne, with kind commiseration in Ms tone and glistening 
 eyes. 
 
 " Witli Grabble, they mike thirteen dead in all. Theii 
 friends will make fine capital out of this, if mismanagement 
 can be proved underground," he added sternly, to the fainf 
 and shrinking oversman. 
 
 " Poor fellows," said Ranald Cheyne ; " after long years 
 of toil, it seems hard to perish thus in the battle of life." 
 
 " Toil was their inheritance," added Feverley. 
 
 "Dead or alive, sir," said the ov^ersman, in a weak voice, 
 " all are now, blessed be God, out of the pit except one "' 
 
 " Who had no business there — Mr. Blair !" 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and I have no hope, for fire is still raging in 
 some of the remote seams, and the adjoining pit is yet in 
 flames."- 
 
 The cries of those who had been bereaved were now con- 
 fined to their own humble homes ; the last dead body had 
 been slowly, reverently, and aflectionately borne away, and 
 now a solemn silence seemed to pervade all the place where 
 there had been so much excitement, bustle, sorrow, and con- 
 sternation — a silence broken only at times by the ascent and 
 descent of the cage with a fresh party of explorers, searching 
 for the still missing man ; and with hearty good will the 
 brave fellows worked, for Lennard Blair was a favourite 
 with all the little community. 
 
 Like a solid mountain or landsKp by the destruction of 
 the intermediate pillars, the earth had fallen down in many 
 places ; torrents of gas issued through fissures of the rocks 
 m others. Ever and anon the foul air drove the baffled dig- 
 gers in consternation and exhaustion from their task to the 
 bottom of the shaft ; then the bell would be rung furiously 
 in the engine-house, and the cage ascended swiftly with its 
 load of gasping miners, their lips baked, and eyes bloodshot ; 
 another gang would cheerfully descend, still resolved to push 
 on and explore ; but with no better success. 
 
 Mr. Vere grew weary of waiting, and frequently consulted 
 his massive gold watch. 
 
 *' Only two hours to dine and catch the 4 p.m. train !" he 
 muttered ; and making his excuses of urgent business, and 
 leaving instructions with Mr. Cheyne and Dr. Feverley to 
 let him have instant news if Blair was found, he hastened 
 awaj^ leaving them both under the very decided conviction 
 that he would not become a prey to grief if that circum- 
 stance never took place. And at present Lennard's recovery 
 seemed hopeless — perfectly hopeless ! 
 
240 THE GIEL HE MAKRIED. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Sm CULLENDER ON THE TAPIS. 
 
 To Hesbia tlie departure from Blairavon station seemed 
 somewhat of a dream ; and to one less sensational — perhapa 
 less artificial — leaving at such a juncture would have been 
 a more acute and protracted agony. The active Maxwell 
 had "seen" to all their luggage, rugs, &c., and got the tickets 
 for herself and Mr. Vere, with second-class ditto for their 
 entire staff, the third-class of the Scotch lines being so 
 proverbially wretched that the butler and his companions 
 " couldn't abear 'em." 
 
 In the same carriage with the domestics went little Mr. 
 Nathaniel Nab, who had strange stories to tell to his bre- 
 thren of the Liverpool force, concerning his brief sojourn 
 north of Tweed. 
 
 Aware that Hesbia would rather be without the annoy- 
 ance of strangers at present, Mr. Vere had desired Maxwell 
 to secure the coupe of a first-class carriage for them, and she 
 felt very grateful for this little piece of forethought and at- 
 tention. 
 
 Swiftly went the train, shrieking, whistKng, thundering, 
 and smoking along the line ; now through echoing tunnels, 
 or along green bankings ; and anon past cuttings, where the 
 summer grass had withered or been scorched away by sparks 
 from the engine ; and Hesbia's face grew sadder, her eyes 
 more full of tears, and her heart more yearning after the 
 place and the lover she had left behind. But the scene 
 changed fast as the express train swept over the moorlands 
 that border on Glengonar's " ore-stained stream :" by the 
 Moffat hills, that tower above the Scottish Cheltenham ; 
 past Lockerbie, and on through lovely and fertile Annan- 
 dale, on the green braes of which the last rays of the setting 
 sun were falling. 
 
 Ere leaving, fain would Hesbia have visited the cottage 
 of Dr. Feverley, and questioned Travice Cheatwood as to 
 what had passed between him and Lennard Blair in the 
 coal-mine, and what he had said — his last words, too, pro- 
 bably — perhaps a message to herself ; but her father nad 
 not permitted her to go near her cousin, so the inquiry was 
 never made. Though silent on the subject, she felt all the 
 heartlessness implied by Mr. Vere leaving while the tragic 
 fate of their friend was undecided. She could but hope that 
 the journey southward — flight, it almost seemed — was really 
 caused by press of business ; but still she had her doubts. 
 
SIR CULLENDER 9K THE TAPIS. 2^1 
 
 Yesterday slie had been picturing lier return per rail witb 
 Travice ; lier tender adieux to Lennard, and she had been 
 endeavouring to frame the probable speeches in which he 
 was so soon to break the subject of their engagement to her 
 father ; she had been tliinking even of the fashion and the 
 trimmings of her wedding dress ; of who should be her 
 bridesmaids — the Cheynes, certainly, for two — of who should 
 be invited " if papa consented f and so forth. But now ! 
 
 Behind the tnick screen of her tied Shetland veil her tears 
 could fall unseen ; and so the pair travelled far in silence, 
 her papa immersed apparently in the Times city article, 
 while she affected to be busy with her crotchet work. .Len- 
 nard was dead, she could scarcely doubt now, and she who 
 loved him so, dared not put on even a black ribbon in hon- 
 our of his memory, for their engagement had been a secret 
 one ; and ere long she was to learn that his death would be 
 the only small feature in the whole calamity taken from her 
 father's point of view. 
 
 She was so full of her own thoughts that, amid the mono- 
 tonous hum and other noises of the train, she had not been 
 aware of Mr. Vere addressing her, till he suddenly raised 
 his voice, and said an^ily — 
 
 " Can you not put that stupid crochet aside for a moment, 
 and listen to me 1" 
 
 " Yes, papa ; but wait till I am at the end of my row, 
 please." 
 
 "Whyl" 
 
 " Because if I lose my place *' 
 
 " "What matter if you do 1 " he asked sharply. 
 
 " It is so difficult to find it again." 
 
 " I was talking to you of young Blair, but you are not 
 attending to me.' 
 
 " Pardon me, papa ; but I did not hear you," said she, 
 becoming all attention ; " poor, poor Lennard Blair ! You 
 were saying " 
 
 " That though he was about as well born as ourselves, 
 Hesbia, the lad was poor." 
 
 Hesbia shuddered, for she knev/ that her father was in- 
 dulging in a sneer. 
 
 "Poor'? perhaps so, but he was strictly honourable— a 
 gentleman in every sense, papa." 
 
 " True ; there is a play which says that ' honest men arc 
 the gentlemen of nature ; ' he 2vas open, generbus, and, as 
 you say, strictly honovi'able, otherwise we should never have 
 employed him." 
 
 i6 
 
24^ THE GIRL HE MARHlEJi). 
 
 , Hesbia shuddered again. It seemed so strange, so terrible, 
 to be speaking of him already in the past tense. 
 
 " But though poor and my dependent, he considered him- 
 seK more than my equal in some respects — quite a patrician. 
 in fact, for he inherited all his stupid old father's nonsensical 
 ideas," continued Mr. Vere, who seemed to be talking or 
 working himself into a fit of ill-humour ; " and I hate your 
 patricians or aristocrats — they are all so preciously cold- 
 blooded." 
 
 "But they are usually courteous, papa," urged Hesbia, 
 "while plebeians may be equally cold-blooded, and are often 
 coarse and brutal. But, talking of patricians, do you con- 
 sider your friend Sir Cullender one 1 ' 
 
 " Yes — by birth unquestionably ; but then he has been a 
 man of business, of utility, and common sense ; a successful 
 speculator, and the architect of his own fortune. By the 
 way, he has written to you since he left for London, I believe T 
 
 " Yes, papa." 
 
 "How often?'' 
 
 "Twice, I think.'' 
 
 "Twice only r' 
 
 "Yes," replied Hesbia, curtly, with annoyance, for she 
 was in no mood to brook much about Sir Cullender just then 
 
 " And what did his last letter contain % " 
 
 " Merely an absurd photograph." 
 
 "Why absurd r^ 
 
 "It was of himself, and his hooked nose, black, gleaming 
 eyes, and pale, unhealthy-looking complexion were all most 
 severely reproduced.'' 
 
 "And was this portrait aU ?" 
 
 " I think so," replied Hesbia, colouring behind her veil 
 with pure annoyance and vexation, for an offer of marriage 
 was pretty pointedly made in the letter referred to, and it 
 was evident that Mr. Vere knew and approved of it. 
 
 Following up his own ideas, his suspicions, or actual 
 knowledge, after a few minutes' unpleasant silence, he said, 
 somewhat markedly and bluntly, — 
 
 " Do not let us misunderstand each other, Hesbia, or even 
 
 {)retend to do so. It is as well for all concerned that this 
 ad Blair is gone." 
 " Dearest papa, do not say so !" 
 
 " I have other, better, and brighter views for you, and so 
 
 let there be no more, now and for ever, of this Lennard 
 
 Blair," said he gravely, almost sternly. " I have permitted 
 
 .too much intimacy, and ought to have seen it as others 
 
 have done — one especially.'' 
 
ENTOMBED ALIVE. 243 
 
 ** One — who f " asked Hesbia, looking up. 
 
 " Sir Cullender Crowdy." 
 
 " Oh, papa ! a man as absurd in appearance as in name,'' 
 said Hesbia, with something of asperity in her tone. 
 
 "If our firm become insecure— iu the mercantile world 
 vre can never see very far before us now-a-days — if our firm 
 were to fail, I say, how would it fare with Lennard Blair ]'' 
 
 " I do not comprehend you, papa." 
 
 " Have you no dread of poverty ?" 
 
 " Oh yes !— a horror of it ; that is — but I never thought— 
 cannot anticipate such a thing." 
 
 Mr. Yere looked gloomy, for he had his own ideas and 
 secret fears. 
 
 " If poor Mr. Blair is really dead," began Hesbia, with a 
 soft chord in her voice and a sob in her throat, *' if he has 
 indeed passed away " 
 
 " Then his share in the business, such as it is, falls to the 
 firm entirely." 
 
 This was not what Hesbia was about to refer to ; but now 
 something of mocking duplicity in her father's tone and eye 
 were so apparent that she felt shocked. She had a fear that 
 Lennard had been duped, and yet she knew not why or how. 
 
 "Papa must have injured him m some manner — else 
 whence this coldness about his fate — a coldness amounting 
 almost to dislike ]" she asked herseK. 
 
 " But, papa," she resumed, " surely you can never become 
 poor, whatever happens. Even if your business failed, you 
 have the estate of Blairavon, with all those mines of coal — " 
 
 " You know not what you talk of, Hesbia : and as for 
 these pits, I have for the present utterly lost them, with all 
 the plant and rolling-stock underground, by that horrible 
 catastrophe, which may render them unworkable for years, 
 if ever again, for the fire is still unconquered." _ After this, 
 he fussily reopened the Times, and relapsed into silence, 
 leaving his daughter a prey to thoughts more than ever 
 gloomy and depressing. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 ENTOMBED ALIVE. 
 
 IkloEE than an hour perhaps had elapsed after the explosion, 
 before Lennard Blair became conscious that he was still 
 living, and so far as he knew, alone in the niine— or alone 
 with the dead ; and then rushed upon his mind the awful 
 sense of being buried and abandoned ; alone, without even 
 
 16—2 
 
344" THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 the sad communion of others in suffering ! There rose in 
 his heart a terrible emotion, with a wild beating ; life 
 seemed to be only a spirit of agony, and a cold perspiration 
 trickled over him ! He heard not a sound, and all Avas 
 darkness — a great and opaque darkness, which seemed as if 
 it would be for ever between him and the sunshine. He 
 had been blown into some portion of the workings in the 
 mine unknown to him, and though he had not suffered any 
 serious injury, the poisonous after-damp had cast him into 
 a state of insensibility which, with some less tenacious of 
 life, had already ended in the last fatal sleep. How long 
 he had lain on the damp floor of the mine he knew not, for 
 day and night were alike where time seemed to stand still. 
 
 Was it midnight now, with the diamond stars and the 
 yellow harvest moon looking down on the quiet woods and 
 the great solemn hills '? Or was it the next morning, with 
 the bright sun shining cheerily on the waving corn-fields, 
 the tossing foliage, and the green meadows, which were more 
 than two hundred feet above him ? He had his watch, but 
 amid that density of gloom it was useless as a pebble or 
 stone. 
 
 His first idea was to seek the bottom of the shaft, but he 
 knew not which way to turn, and in groping about seemed 
 to find himself obstructed on every side by fallen masses of 
 soft earth, or piles of coal, stones, or slag, and more than 
 once he stumbled over a dead pony, or that which with a 
 shudder he knew to be the corpse of a miner. He tried to 
 pray ; but at that moment the extremity of horror had put 
 even prayer to flight ! He could consider nothing with co- 
 herence, yet seemed to think of everything past, present, 
 and to come, in a chaos of reflection. 
 
 • The last human faces he had seen, ere they vanished amid 
 a whirlwind of flame, smoke, and sable dust— seen in that 
 moment of terror when the uncovered lamp set the air on 
 fire — were filled with grief, care, and dismay. Grief and 
 care for wives and little ones they never might see, and dis- 
 may at their own sudden proximity to a terrible death. In 
 liis half fatuous wanderings, he trod upon a body which had 
 still some life left in it ; for he heard a piteous exclamation 
 in a voice that was familiar. 
 
 " Travice Cheatwood ! " he called aloud, for the sufferer 
 was certainly Travice. To speak to him of his past impru- 
 dence then, would have been worse than useless, so he asked, 
 " Are you injured in any way 1 " 
 
 " Who speaks 1 " inquired the other, groaning heavily. 
 
 ••I-Lennard Blair." 
 
ENTOMBED ALIVE. 245 
 
 " God help us ! can it be that you and I are the only suiv 
 vivors here 1 " 
 
 " It would seem so. Let us help each other." 
 
 " Speak again, Blair ; I am half stupefied." 
 
 " Can you stand up '? " 
 
 " Impossible ! " 
 
 "Why so]" 
 
 " My lower limbs are buried under a mass of earth, and 
 stones also, I believe ; and the hand of that reptile, Grab- 
 ble, is still grasping me with the clutch of a tiger, so my 
 situation is anything but rosy." 
 
 " Bid him let you go." 
 
 " I have done so repeatedly, but receive no reply ; so 
 whether he is dead or alive I cannot say, for the earth is 
 partly over him too." _ - 
 
 Cheatwood again moaned heavily, and then said, — 
 
 *' You know, Blair, that my poor mother was John Vere's 
 only sister." 
 
 ""Well, what of that now V 
 
 " I lost her when I was an infant. Had she lived, I might 
 not have become the pitiless and pitiful scamp I am ! " 
 
 " We generally make ourselves, Cheatwood, by our own 
 actions and deeds," replied Lennard, a little touched by the 
 new tone of compunction or repentance adopted by the 
 other in his desperate extremity. 
 
 " I am certain that had my poor mother lived," he resumed, 
 "I had been differently g-uided in youth and advised in 
 manhood, and might not have been dying here to-night 
 amid this horror and misery ! " 
 
 " Let us put our trust in God, Travice. He is ever kinder 
 to us than we are to ourselves or to each other." 
 
 Then Lennard heard him sobbing heavily in the dark. 
 Groping about, he was attempting to yield him some assist- 
 ance, and endeavour to drag him from under the superin- 
 cumbent load of earth that weighed him down, when lo ! 
 there came another roar that shook the most remote galleries 
 of the mine, and a momentary flash that illumined them 
 with a lurid glare ; then a rush of poisonous air came past, 
 and, while instinctively covering his mouth and nostrils, 
 Lennard felt himself swept away before it for some thirty 
 or forty yards. There again he sank down overcome by 
 the dreadful and suffocating odours of the atmosphere, and 
 then for some time he slept heaWly. 
 
 After that slumber passed away, he continued to lie 
 where he had fallen, half asphyxiated and in a state of 
 semi-stupor. Sounds there were none, and while he felt 
 
246 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 himself, as it were, listening to the silence, a dull sense of 
 unconsciousness mingling with a strange idea of still life 
 came over him. Already it seemed as if the world of mor- 
 tal life — the upper world wherein men lived and moved — 
 was gliding away from him, and that the angel of Death 
 was pointing to that which was to come ; to judgment and 
 eternity — eternity, the "pleasing dreadful thought" of Cato. 
 He was now entombed, he thought, until the resurrection — 
 buried deep among the fossils of ages long since passed 
 away. 
 
 When he did attempt to rouse his energies, it was only to 
 become a prey to vivid and horrid thoughts. There was a 
 dull and seemingly distant roaring in his ears which he could 
 not understand, but it proceeded from a more remote portion 
 of the pit then in flames ; and though he knew it not, it was 
 a fortunate circumstance that he was so far from the princi- 
 pal shaft, up which at that moment a volume of fire was 
 ascending like a crimson column into the midnight sky. 
 Staggering and groping about he seemed to spend hours of 
 hopeless and futile wandering among the tortuous galleries, 
 cuttings, and seams of the pit. * Twice or thrice he raised 
 his voice and uttered a loud hallo ; but the sound, as the re- 
 verberating echoes alone returned it, appalled him. 
 
 It was lucky, too, that while wandering thus, he was not 
 far from the air-road, and hence the greater purity of the 
 atmosphere enabled him to think and act with coherence. 
 He had been asleep and long overpowered, he believed, by 
 the gaseous exhalations elsewhere ; but how long 1 In his 
 confusion of ideas, he knew not whether days and nights, 
 or a week, had elapsed since the first explosion. 
 
 How long, long ago it seemed since the discovery of the 
 air-gun and all the other episodes in connection with Travice. 
 It had been yesterday — only yesterday since then — and yet 
 a lifetime seemed to have passed away. Would Hesbia ever 
 know of his fate % Had the time come and gone when he 
 was to have met her at the stile, or had days intervened, 
 and she taken her departure for Liverpool % He was very 
 ingenious in tormenting himself. How long would she mourn 
 for him, and when her period of sorrow was past, whom 
 would she marry % The pale face, the black gleaming eyes 
 and cadaverous, unhealthy, and almost diabolical visage of 
 Sir Cullender seemed to come out of the solid darkness, and 
 to mock, leer, and jabber at him in answer to the question ! 
 
 Seated there on a heap of earth and slag amid the in- 
 tense gloom, with his aching head resting between his 
 tremulous hands, and his elbows placed on his knees, ho 
 
ENTOMBED ALIVE. 247 
 
 would have doubted his own identity and almost his exist- 
 ence at times, but for the pangs of stinging thirst, and the 
 thoughts that well nigh drove him mad ; yet strange it was, 
 that as he sat there in his state of sudden and most un- 
 looked-for misery^ absurd scraps of street songs and melodies, 
 with the roar of Liverpool, seemed to hover in his ears. 
 Light, au', and sunshine — balmy spring, with its hopes of 
 rosy summer and brown autumn ; jolly wdnter, with its 
 hopes of spring again— what were they now to him, when 
 Hesbia, life and all were lost for ever 1 
 
 There time, as we have said, stood still, and, with him, 
 existence was reduced to a mere system of loud pulsations; 
 for his overcharged heart beat painfully. Wild ideas of 
 quaint hobgoblins, of devouring rats, and of cold, creeping 
 things occurred to him, and he fancied himself in his grave 
 — a grave two hundred feet below the upper soil, so deep 
 that the sound of the last trumpet alone could pierce to 
 where his ashes lay. 
 
 Among other horrid thoughts, he feared he might die 
 mad, or that water might* be tiu-ned into the mine ; and 
 though he was perishing of thirst, the idea of being drowned 
 in the dark made him shudder and start convulsively. 
 Would he be the last to perish, or had others been rescued 
 and he left 1 He had heard of persons shut up in a mine, 
 contriving to live for months by eating their horses ana 
 shoes, while striving to dig their way U2nvard—h.\mg long 
 after those above had abandoned them as lost, working and 
 toiling upward vdth. spade and mattock — but in vain, to 
 perish at last, one by one, when the last morsel was con- 
 sumed, and the last brave man's heart failed him ; and all 
 this was gathered by the position of their remains, when 
 their memory had become a tradition of the Black country, 
 and a future generation re-opened the place. 
 
 But he was without companionship, save the dead, and 
 he strove to remember the prayers that Elsie had taught 
 him in childhood, and amid the loud beating of his pulses 
 to trust in a belief that "whoso dwelleth under the defence 
 of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the 
 Almighty." A Great Hand was over him there as well as 
 elsewhere ; yet he felt it hard to perish thus, unseen, un- 
 known, unaided, and so yomig too ! 
 
 " We are an unfortunate race ! " he muttered ; " but how 
 little could my poor father or my dear mother have fore- 
 seen such a fearful fate as this for me ! Was it for such, 
 to die under and not on the lands of Blairavon, I so super- 
 stitiously retained the Charter-stone Even Hesbia— to 
 
248 THE GIEL HE MAHEIED. 
 
 Have whom from further affronts I ventured here — can never 
 know my doom — my sufferings ; and how long will they 
 last till the end — the awful end — arrives ! Oh, how much 
 worse than death is life while lingering thus ! " 
 
 As from a long dreamy sleep, he appeared to waken with 
 a start, on seeing at a distance — afar off it seemed — a ray of 
 light shining, and he rose to make his way towards it. Men 
 were there, too, evidently working, for he could hear their 
 excited voices and the ring of their shovels. But now the 
 throbbing of his temples amounted almost to agony ; the 
 light and the darkness swam around him ; sense seemed 
 finally departing ; a great feebleness came over his recently 
 wounded limb ; all his strength appeared to pass out of 
 him, and in his despair of being left to perish unseen, a 
 wild cry escaped him, as he staggered forward and fell agaiu 
 insensible on the floor of the mine. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 SUNSHINE AND CLOUD. 
 
 Afteh all he had undergone for full thirty-six hours in the 
 mine — prior to his rescue by Feverley in person with a party 
 of volunteers, and being revived by a timely jorum of brandy 
 from a flask with which they were provided — Lennard's body 
 seemed to come to life, if such a phrase may be permitted, 
 before his mind. The actual consciousness of all he had un- 
 dergone, with a sensibility of real deliverance therefrom and 
 of safety, only came fully over him when he found himself 
 once more in his own room at Oakwoodlee, and surrounded 
 by faces and objects with which he was familiar. 
 
 Next forenoon, lounging at full length upon a sofa, which 
 Elsie and Steinie had drawn close to an open window — for 
 it seemed to Lennard that now he could never inhale enough 
 of pure air— he lay in all the easy comfort of a soft dressing- 
 gown and cosy slippers, while the breeze witliout swayed 
 the blinds, the faded leaves and few flowers of the window- 
 creepers, and the dark gi-een ivy that coated the old walls, 
 the buzz of the flies in the sunshine, and the lowing of cattle 
 in the distance coming ever and anon pleasantly to Iiis ear, 
 with the murmur of the flowing Avon. Was he the same 
 being who but some twelve hours before lay dying amid tlie 
 poisonous atmosphere and gloomy darkness of yonder sub- 
 terranean pit, over which a dark cloud of fiery dust was now 
 hovering like a pall 1 for the fatal mines had been on lire 
 again, and were then aflame through all their most remote 
 intricacies j so death had been close to him, indeed. 
 
SUNSHINE AND CLOUD. 249 
 
 "Well, old fellow," said the cheerful voice of Feverley 
 who appeared at the window ; " how are yoii this morning 
 -ehr 
 
 " Better, better — thanks to God's kindness and to you ! 
 How can I ever repay you, Frank, for the succour you 
 brought me — how repay you ]" 
 
 " By saying nothing about it," replied the Doctor, fixing 
 his eyes on his watch, while laying a finger on Blair's wrist. 
 
 "Pulse reg-ular already — a trifle low perhaps; but you 
 are making a wonderful recovery, for your symptoms were 
 like those of paralysis, with a tendency to the comatose state, 
 but electricity and the cold douche have restored you ; so 
 just make your mind easy, my friend, and don't bother your- 
 self about anything — I'll look in again in the evening." 
 
 " One word ere you go, Feverley, — so Miss Vere actually 
 returned to Liverpool while knowing that I was yet in the 
 mine T 
 
 " There you begin to worry yourself already [^ 
 
 " Answer me, please." 
 
 " Well, I suppose she knew ; but she was not quite a free 
 agent." 
 
 " How so — who was with her ]" 
 
 " Her father ; he conveyed her away, saying that the press 
 of business at home was enormous." 
 
 " Indeed ! and from a combination of events here have I 
 been since May, and the crops that were green or sprouting 
 then are yellow and ready for the reaper now. How sweet 
 the sunshine is ! Well, Feverley, I never thought to hear 
 the voice of a bird or the hum of a bee again !" 
 
 " You won't hear much of either, I fancy, at this season, 
 imless among the rooks in the old trees yonder." 
 
 " Well, there are the glorious blue sky, the pure air — the 
 fragrance of the leaves and the clover. I shall never forget 
 the hours spent in the mine — the poisonous air, the gloomy 
 l)lackness, and that kind of unbroken stillness which a. 
 writer describes as ' the most awful thing in nature.' " 
 
 " All that is past and over, so think of it no more. A 
 week or two must see you at the desk again ; and now good- 
 bye — my hands are full enough this morning, I can tell you, 
 and ere long the Sheriff and other folks in office will be 
 worrying you by a visit to make a deposition of all you 
 know of this affair." 
 
 Though "past and over," Lennard was haunted long by 
 the memory of all he had undergone, and by nervous starts 
 in the night, when he would waken Avith his old emotion of 
 horror from a dream that he was again in the pit ! 
 
250 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 In the Scotch papers Mr. Vere read long and amply de- 
 tailed reports of the whole catastrophe prepared by the use- 
 ful Mr. Dabchick, who had gone expressly to the spot, being 
 one of the reporting staff of a " penny daily," and as such 
 was fully resolved to make the most of it per column. He 
 also learned from this source that the entire pits had fired 
 again, and that their total destruction was in rapid progress ! 
 Telegrams and then letters from Feverley informed him and 
 Hesbia of Lennard Blair's escape and safety, and that he 
 was almost well. Ere long a letter from the latter confirmed 
 all this, so with a clear conscience Hesbia could visit her 
 circle of friends and receive at her father's luxurious villa a 
 round of visitors who welcomed her return home. 
 
 From his impaired constitution and dissipated habits, 
 Travice Cheatwood was longer in recovering than Blair ; 
 but there was a pressing necessity for him quitting the neigh- 
 bourhood as soon as possible, for on the second day of his 
 convalescence Feverley entered his room with some concern 
 visible in his manner. 
 
 "Mr. Cheatwood," said he, "I find that the Procurator 
 Fiscal insists upon visiting you, as he has examined all the 
 other survivors as to the source of the accident, for whether 
 it was the result of gross carelessness, of malicious design, 
 or natural causes beyond human control, must be fully 
 proved for the satisfaction of the public." 
 
 Travice consigned the entire British public to a very warm 
 latitude, and then added — 
 
 " But on seeing me, this fellow will discover who I am !" 
 
 " Of course ; and we all know that will never do." 
 
 " I must remain incog. ; he comes, when do you say V 
 
 " To-morrow, at twelve o'clock." 
 
 "So soon r 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then to-morrow before daybreak I shall cease to trouble 
 your hospitable household. Doctor, and be off." 
 
 ^ " Exactly. Blair suggested that I should drive you in a 
 gig over to the Craigellon station, and book you there for 
 Glasgow, where you must ship for abroad." 
 
 " To ship for abroad requires money, and I have none,** 
 grumbled Travice • " I spent as bribes or lost every fraction 
 of what I had in that most accursed coal-pit." 
 
 " And your hopes of more " 
 
 *' Are blank as my banker's book.*' 
 
 "And you have nothing " 
 
 " Save a piece of land— a very small piece, certainly." 
 
 " Indeed f said Feverley, all unaware that the other was 
 bantering and sneering at Fate. 
 
SUNSHINE AND CLOUD. 25 1 
 
 " I can give you a post obit right to it." 
 
 "Is it larger 
 
 "Small, I told you— in some churcliyard— place unknown 
 as yet." 
 
 " Stop, Cheatwood," said Feverley ; " I don't like this 
 style of jest. Blair has sent you thirty pounds — use the 
 money with discretion." 
 
 " Blair is a jolly good fellow after all." 
 
 " He is one of Nature's noblemen !" exclaimed the Doctor, 
 emphatically ; " and it was to save you if he could, and the 
 Veres from disgrace, that he so nearly lost his life." 
 
 " I'm a luckless devil, Doctor ! All this sort of thing 
 comes of living fast — 'not too wisely, but too well.' I'll 
 turn over a new leaf some of these days ; but like the * old 
 gentleman ' in the couplet, I have often been a monk when 
 sick, and a devil when well. I am well now, and so shall 
 sedulously avoid all examination by your Procurator Fiscal 
 or that bumptious little pettifogger Dabcliick, and all other 
 legal and scientific snobs in the matter of the explosion. By 
 Jove, I think I've had quite enough of it !" added Cheat- 
 wood, his natural sauciness and brusquerie returning with 
 health, as he slipped Lennard's thirty pounds into his pocket 
 with perfect satisfaction. 
 
 Closely shaven of his hirsute appendages, and supplied 
 with a suit of clothes and a pair of dark moustachios erst 
 worn by Feverley at amateur theatricals in his student days, 
 even Juden Grabble would have failed to recognise Cheat- 
 wood, especially in the twilight of the dark autumnal morn- 
 ing when he was driven away from a locality which he now 
 loathed. His disappearance caused serious suspicions to 
 exist that he was an incendiary, and hence the good-natured 
 young Doctor was subjected to many legal " precog-nitions " 
 and much annoyance ; but Lennard was enabled in a day or 
 two to acquaint Hesbia in distinct terms that he had sought 
 the pit on that most fatal night to avert, if he possibly could, 
 the contumely that would be consequent to the arrest of her 
 enterprising cousin ; that he had, by monetary assistance, 
 been able to save him in the end ; and that through the in- 
 strumentality of Feverley, he — the luckless Travice — had 
 been sent to the nearest port, and doubtless now was far be- 
 yond the sea ; and in reply Lennard received a warm and 
 tender —yet he thought somewhat short — letter of thanks. 
 
 Oakwoodlee was no longer his — he was actually a visitor 
 there now ! He had no object in remaining but to get well 
 and strong, and to kill the lagging time till he could follow 
 her to Liverpool ; and when able to walk abroad he loved 
 
252 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 to linger in, those places where they had wandered together ; 
 and by association these spots always brought her voice, her 
 laugh and smile more vividly to memory ; and so w^ould he 
 dream the sunny days away, recalling how she had looked 
 in her smart hat and feather when she sat on that mossy 
 bank, her pretty balmorals and ankles just visible under the 
 skirt of her piquet ; there she culled a bouquet of wild 
 flowers, and in yonder pool she had dipped her round white 
 hand while vainly seeking to catch a fleeting trout. Her 
 letters were his only solace ; tender at first, and daily almost 
 like his own ; but they speedily became less frequent, for no 
 doubt she was immersed in a round of gaieties ; and now, 
 as they came at longer intervals, he thought them less tender 
 in tone, and she seemed always to close " in haste to catch 
 the post." 
 
 Little fears began to wake within him, making him long 
 more than ever to be gone ; and in spite of the advice of 
 Feverley (who would not yet permit him to travel) he daily 
 taxed, rather than developed his health. A letter from Mr. 
 Vere urged him to prepare at once to start for Vera Cruz, 
 where he must have an interview with Don Juan Leonardo 
 and Co., who held certain papers relating to the alleged 
 scuttling of a ship upon the high seas. " Your passage,'^ he 
 added, " is secured and paid for, on board the Valparaiso, 
 mail steamer, which sails from Liverpool on Wednesday, the 
 24th current." 
 
 " Wednesday the 24th — and this is Saturday !" exclaimed 
 Lennard, as he sprung to his feet ; " this is conclusive ; this, 
 then, is a fixity !" 
 
 So permission was at last accorded by his medical friend 
 for his departure, when he was to bid a short — or perhaps it 
 might prove a long and lasting adieu to Blairavon and to 
 Oakwoodlee ; and now, he knew not why, he was full of sad, 
 almost of foreboding thoughts, as he wandered forth alone 
 when the evening sun was shining on the heath-clad hills, 
 and the brown autumn woods looked almost red or russet in 
 the western glow. 
 
 Though young Lennard was still old enough to feel or to 
 understand that emotion which has been aptly described as 
 " the superstition of the heart, which gathers round accus- 
 tomed relics, making household gods of them and shrinking 
 painfully from their displacement by an unthinking stranger's 
 touch." So all that remained of his father's household 
 lares, and all of his other possessions were to pass to 
 strangers now— all save the Charter-stone ; and on this even- 
 ing in particular, he felt a melancholy satisfaction that ho 
 
SU^SllINE AND CLOUD. 253 
 
 had obeyed the quaint wishes of the dying in retaining the 
 somewhat useless proprietary of it. Grim and weather- 
 beaten as when the painted Pictish warriors and stern Druid 
 priests had knelt around it in the worship of Woden, Thor, 
 and Frei, stood up the rough palladium amid its groYe of 
 Scottish pines ; bronzed and red-stemmed they bristled 
 against the ruddy sun-set, and seemed to exhale a peculiar 
 fragrance on the evening air ; while the rabbits and hares 
 shot swiftly to and fro among the long rank gTass and the 
 fallen fir cones. 
 
 Lennard ascended the slope of the hills to take a farewell 
 view of the rich landscape that for leag-ues upon leagues 
 stretched far away, clad in red, in russet, and in golden 
 brown, the lovely tints of the Scottish woods in autumn — all 
 the lovelier that in many places the bright green lingers 
 still. And he thought of the days when his father and 
 Eanald Cheyne used to draw the covers there, or pot and 
 bag the grouse in August, and the blackcocks in November 
 not with percussion locks and breech-loaders, but double- 
 barrelled Joe Mantons ; and so on he wandered until he 
 reached the summit of Craigellon, with its deep loch, evi- 
 dently an extinct crater, and when he thought of his uncle 
 Lennard whom he had never seen, the lines of Bryant seemed 
 appropriate to the spot : — 
 
 " There is a tale about these gray old rocks, 
 A sad tradition of unhappy love, 
 And sorrows borne and ended long ago !" 
 
 This was Lennard's last Sunday in the home of his boyhood 
 and infancy ; and as he lay on the green slope of the hill (of 
 old the Piper's Croft) with the last of the mountain bees 
 humming drowsily around him, and the leafy rustle of the 
 pleasant woods in his ear, the tolling of the village church 
 bell came at intervals on the passing wind. It was a familiar 
 sound, like that of a friendly voice, and was associated with 
 his earliest years. 
 
 He was about to rejoin (for a brief space, indeed !) — her 
 he loved, she who had sat by his side when he sat last on 
 that very spot ; yet his heart was not without sadness, for 
 the final time we look on a long familiar scene, or hear a 
 long familiar voice, while knowing that we may never see 
 one nor hear the other more, cannot fail to produce a solemn 
 emotion in a reflecting mind. 
 
 On the next Sunday eve, when that old bell was tolling at 
 the same hour, and summoning the same people to prayer, 
 he would be far away •, on the following weekly festival he 
 
254 THE GIUL SE MAERIED. 
 
 would be further still — out on the open sea ; and many 
 months, and even years, must inevitably come and go, and 
 much that was of vital importance to his future life must 
 have been decided and past ; many a doubt must have been 
 solaced, many a fear soothed, and many a difficulty sur- 
 mounted, ere again — if ever — he heard that old, old bell 
 booming in the distant tower ! 
 
 Then he thought, almost with a cynic's smile, where were 
 now the doubts, the fears, the joys and sorrows of the past 
 generations which slept under the green turf, whereon the 
 shadow of that village spire was cast by the setting sun, 
 now, as in the evenings of seven centuries ago ? For around 
 that fane generations had been born ; within it they had 
 worshipped ; there they had been wedded, and in the end 
 been gathered to their kindred dust after a life spent in the 
 narrow world that was bounded by their native hills ; and 
 still the old church stands on its holy knoll— God's Acre— 
 the landmark of the rural district now, even asit was when 
 raised by a certain Scottish knight, Sir Baldwin of Strath- 
 broc and Almondale, who had been grievously wounded by 
 an English arrow at the battle of Northallerton. Deep in 
 his thigh had sunk the fatal barb, and all the leech-croft of 
 those primitive days when St. David I. reigned in Scotland 
 failed to extract it ; so for years the knight who had become 
 a Brother of St. John, and a hermit by Lochness, was lame 
 and enduring torment. Yet he made pilgrimages afoot, say 
 the legendaries, to every church that was dedicated to the 
 blessed Virgin, imploring her intercession, and as the ballad 
 has it : — 
 
 " Far, far he rade, and far he gaed, 
 
 He often saildd the sea, 
 And crossed owre the Alpine hills 
 
 To distant Italie. 
 Beyond Lochnesse his Tempill stoode, 
 
 A cell of mickle fame ; 
 A knicht of gude Sanct Johne he wai^ 
 
 And Baldwin was his name." 
 
 Once he vowed that, if cured of his wound, he would 
 found a church in honour of Our Lady on the hlair^ or open 
 field beside the Avon ; and then even while he vowed and 
 prayed, he felt the corroding iron pass forth from his limb ; 
 not a trace of the wound could be found, and he became a 
 hale man and strong. Thereafter in fulfilment of his vow, 
 for the health of his own soul, the souls of all his ancestors, 
 and of David, then King of the Scots, he founded Mary's 
 Kirk upon the knoll, where, four hundred years after, an 
 
SELl?. 255 
 
 ancestor of Leiinard's contrived to save it from total demo- 
 lition amid the general chaos of the Keformation. 
 
 But ere the church was finished, Sir Baldwin, with tha 
 cross upon his breast and shoulder, had departed in company 
 with otner Scottish Brethren of his Order to close their days 
 in defence of the holy sepulchre, and he fell in a conflict in 
 the valley of Jehoshaphat. Still true to his adoration of the 
 Mother of God, continue the legendaries, as he was expiring 
 he cried — 
 
 " Hail, O Mary, Mother of mercy !" 
 
 Then there appeared by his side a beautiful lady oyer 
 whose face there was a wondrous brightness ; she had shin- 
 mg white raiment, flowing tresses of gold, and around her 
 head shone a glory studded with thirteen stars. Then the 
 dying crusader knew that he beheld that Mother Mary unto 
 whom he had prayed so often, and he passed away in rapture 
 with his head upon her arm. So Baldwin of Strathbroc and 
 Almondale, found his last home beside the brook of Kedron. 
 
 While Lennard was dreaming of those pre-railway times 
 and legends, how fared it with Hesbia m Liverpool 1 Her 
 letters to him — alas ! that we must confess it !— had become 
 markedly cold and strange, and then they— ceased ; at least 
 he had received none for several days. Was she ill 1 Her 
 father's last, his only and most impressive letter concerning 
 the journey to Vera Cruz, made no mention of her. Painful 
 doubts began to rise in Lennard's mind. He strove to keep 
 them under ; but they would recur again and again with 
 growing poignancy. However, with the morrow's journey, 
 he hoped to solve them all, and while he is making his final 
 arrangements, therefore, we must leave him for another 
 chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIIL 
 
 SELF. 
 
 "Another letter from that young man Blair, and for you, 
 Hesbia T said Mr. Vere, in a tone of angry inquiry, select- 
 ing the missive in question from the heap of letters, notes, 
 and papers which the butler emptied at lus elbow from the 
 leathern post bag on the breakfast table ; and though Mr. 
 Vere had imbibed a most excellent meal, which included 
 coffee and hot miLffins, marmalade, ham, bloaters, and eggs, 
 a stormy expression darkened his usually placid face— an 
 expression which grew deeper as he took in at a glance the 
 addresses and postmarks of some of his correspondence. 
 
256 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 "Tliaiiks, papa," said Hesbia, colouring sliglitly as she 
 received the letter, with which her father seemed to part re- 
 luctantly. She did not open it, however, but laid it by her 
 cup. 
 
 "Thanks!" echoed he, contemptuously, after the butler 
 had withdrawn ; " this absurdity must cease 1" 
 
 " What absurdity, papa T 
 
 " This almost daily correspondence." 
 
 *• But he has had so much to tell us." 
 
 " Well, Ave have heard that he escaped safely, and Travice 
 too ^ that he is recovering, and all that sort of thing ; that 
 lie IS coming here, and then going to Vera Cruz, by the 
 Valparaiso ; so what need, I say, for all this useless corre- 
 spondence T ^ 
 
 " Papa," said Hesbia, her heart beginning to beat quicker, 
 though the colour left her cheek ; " a little time will tell all." 
 
 At this pretty plain hint which somehow escaped her 
 unintentionally, Mr. Vere thrust aside his pile of unopened 
 letters, and regarded her gravely. 
 
 We have already liinted at losses by sea and otherwise, 
 sustained by the firm of which he was the head ; of policies 
 of insurance in dispute, consequent on dark rumours of 
 alleged scuttlings among the West Indian Keys, and off the 
 shores of South America ; then came actions at law for 
 damages to widows and orphans under the Mines Inspection 
 Act, and many other involvements resulting from the destruc- 
 tion of his valuable pits at the Mains of Kaims, all of which 
 entanglements had produced a serious effect upon the exche- 
 quer of Vere and Co., who were secretly affirmed in Liver- 
 pool to be getting " shaky," " fishy," or into shoal water ; 
 and nods and winks of deep import were exchanged by 
 knowing clerks and cashiers over their pipes and beer in 
 those little clubs and snuggeries where they were wont to 
 congregate after business hours. 
 
 Hesbia saw her father's frown, and knew what was coming. 
 Of late many hints and mysterious or cutting speeches, had 
 prepared her mind to view the cadaverous baronet as an 
 actual suitor for her hand. In fact, by letter, he had openly 
 proposed, and that letter remained as yet unanswered. 
 
 On the night of the catastrophe, when Lennard's death 
 was considered a certainty, and on the previous occasion of 
 his suffering and danger, Hesbia's emotions of repentance 
 and grief for many little acts of coldness, duplicity, and 
 coquetry, have been referred to, and her love for him then 
 seemed to become genuine ; but now there were momenta 
 when in her worry— it did not amount to a meJo-dramatic 
 
SELi*. 257 
 
 agony of distress— a feeling of angry selfishness actually 
 filled her liciart. 
 
 Why should she suJffer alone *? Why — she thought — be 
 the victim of an impoverished father on one hand, or of a 
 half -penniless lover on the other ] Wealth and luxury were 
 necessary to her existence as rain and sunshine to nature ; 
 but Lennard Blair could give her neithe.?, and if her father 
 spoke truth, lie could not continue long <k) do so ; thus on 
 the baronet -with the absurd name must centre all her hopes 
 of continuing her present mode of life in splendour and 
 affluence. All these considerations were rusliing through 
 her mind, as she sat with her ears tingling, and Lennard's 
 letter unopened in her hand ; but now she became aware 
 that her father was speaking again. 
 
 " What does all this mean % You are still, I find, in cor 
 respondence with Mr. Blair, who in a short time now must 
 sail for South America at last.'' 
 
 " Papa, you know not what you speak of." 
 
 " You are polite, Hesbia !'' 
 
 " I mean, how you rend my heart." 
 
 "The very cant of novels and dramas. It cannot be," 
 said Mr. Vere T\dth something of genuine astonishment, "it 
 cannot be, Hesbia, that you have really allowed your heart, 
 as you call it, to be fooled with by that dangler Blair T 
 
 Hesbia was silent ; but her eyes were full of tears, and her 
 paleness increased. 
 
 "Speak!" 
 
 " I do not love Sir Cullender at all events." 
 
 " Fool ! who asks you to love him % Who pretends that 
 love is necessary on either side ] There is money on both — 
 splendid wealth on his, at least, and what more can be 
 necessary V 
 
 " But you did not think thus when you married mamma T 
 
 " Yes— decidedly ! Had she not had those fourteen thou- 
 sand pounds which were of such use to me when I began 
 the Avorld, she had never had the honour of being your 
 mother." 
 
 " Oh, papa, how can you talk thus T 
 
 " Sir Cullender is rich ; he proposes marriage, and that 
 begins the affair." 
 
 " Does it end it T 
 
 " What do you mean, girl V 
 
 " Can any one foresee the end of a marriage that is made 
 without love T 
 
 " No ; but one can very easily foresee the end of one that 
 is made without moneys 
 
 17 
 
^5^ THE GIIIL HE MARRIEIi. ' 
 
 " You are severe on me, papa." 
 
 " Hesbia, I am just and sad— yes, and desperate, too, if 
 you could but understand it." 
 
 " Desperate T' said she, in a faint voica 
 " Sir Cullender has become possessed of several of my 
 acceptances to a great value, and if I cannot meet these and 
 other claims within a month at the latest," he continued, 
 lowering his voice, and glancing about him with a stealthy 
 and cunning eye, "the house of Vere & Co. will inevitably 
 collapse like a paper balloon 1" 
 
 " But to marry him— Am— oh, papa," exclaimed Hesbia, 
 her pale lip trembling. 
 
 "It must be so — there is no resource for you— for me. 
 Money is wanted imperatively ! Our firm has met with 
 many an ugly loss, and I shrink from the investigation of 
 them." 
 
 " Yet is not Lennard Blair's errand to Vera Cruz one of 
 scrutiny and research V 
 
 " You do not understand," said he, speaking hurriedly ; 
 "the world knows not all yet; but dark whispers are, I 
 know, muttered on 'Change. Sir Cullender can pull us 
 through, and will do so, Hesbia, if you favour his suit " 
 
 " So he makes me the price of his pecuniary assistance T 
 said she, scornfidly. 
 
 " As the wife of a barone$, Hesbia, you will have many 
 advantages, such as my daughter .merely, you could never 
 possess. You will be eligible for the drawing-rooms — for 
 
 presentation at Court " 
 
 " Has Sir Cullender ever been presented V asked Hesbia, 
 to whose memory some of Lennard's hints and slighting 
 remarks occurred. 
 
 " Well— no — I believe that he has not." 
 "Why, papa f 
 
 " He cares little for such things, probably ; though a man 
 of family, of course — of course — he is thoroughly— a man 
 of business, Sir Cullender." 
 
 "WTiat a wonderfully magnetic power lurked in the deep 
 hazel eyes of Hesbia ! Even her father was sensible of this, 
 when at that moment they were full of mockery, flashing, 
 and magnificent with disdain of the baronet and his so- 
 called passion for her ; but the next instant saw them cloud 
 and droop with sorrow for Lennard, and fear for herself — 
 fear lest sue should become poor ! 
 
 " What say you to all I have urged ?" asJied Mr. Vere, after 
 a long and very uncomfortable pause. 
 " How can I ever pretend to show a love for this man V [ 
 
SELF. 259 
 
 "To demonstrate much regard before marriage, would be, 
 I presume, unbecoming." 
 
 " But I bate, papa — almost bate bim." 
 
 "Any strong feeling is better than total indifference. 
 Regard will come after marriage. I did not care a doit fur 
 your poor mamma before I married lier." 
 
 Not much after, be migbt liave added, thougb be gave ber 
 a pompous funeral, and a wbite marble slab ; and now this 
 living mass of selfishness was ready to yield up bis daughter, 
 even as Jepbtba did of old. 
 
 " Ah, dearest papa, she urged," with uplifted hands, " can 
 you really ask me to sell myself V 
 
 " No— I do not/' 
 
 "What then f 
 
 " To save yourself and me from impending ruin — it may 
 be poverty — the most humiliating poverty, in this very place 
 where we have been so honoured— so long looked up to. I 
 ask you, will not such a reverse be intolerable t*' 
 
 Again those ominous words and that chilling prospect, 
 which in her mind was only associated v/ith seedy and 
 anxious governesses and poor needlewomen, in garrets and 
 places of squalor or of close work-rooms, where for sixteen, 
 or it might be twenty hours out of the twenty-four, she had 
 seen young girls of all ages, making up those elaborate 
 toilettes which were to figure in Rotten Row, the ball-room, 
 or the levees of British Royalty— their cheeks blanched, 
 their eyes bstlcss, temples throbbing, and premature death 
 only as the award of a life of suffering — for such scenes she 
 haci beheld, and they haunted her. She looked at her father 
 timidly, and recognised a peculiar expression in bis smooth 
 and flabby face, and knew it of old — a species of subdued 
 fury, when he meant to crush those who opposed his will ; 
 so her tears began to fall. This completed his exasperation, 
 for, sooth to say, he had external matters more than enough 
 to worry him just then, and every letter he tore open and 
 half perused with a malediction on his lips, seemed to add 
 fuel to the flame. 
 
 " Begone to your room, girl, and there weep like a child, 
 if you will ; but remember that such folly as you have been 
 gudty of, and still persist in, suits not me, and certainly 
 becomes not you !" 
 
 And here ended this remarkable conversation. 
 
 Hesbia retired to her room, and wept, and pondered, and 
 gazed listlessly at the broad waters of the Mersey, which 
 shone at a distance amid the golden haze of noon — for so 
 long bad their conversation lasted. Broken by many a 
 
 17—2 
 
26o THE GIRL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 hedge and fence a vast tract of stubble-fields lay tliere, vAth 
 pasture-land of yellowish green, interspersed by autumn 
 woods, and the white sails of the craft that studded the 
 river far above the docks by Dingle Bank and Sefton Street. 
 One moment she thought she would fly with Lennard Blair 
 to South America, to exile and penury, even if their reverse 
 of fortune came to that ! But could she ruin her father, 
 selfish though he seemed to be 1 Then she thought of the 
 splendour and luxury she would lose on one hand, with a 
 make-shift life of prudence, parsimony, and hardship — it 
 might be sordid poverty — on the other ; and the result of 
 her pondering was, that there came to be a lapse in her cor- 
 respondence with Lennard Blair, whose last letter imploring 
 an answer to several sent before was not attended to, and 
 long before he reached Liverpool, the mind of Miss Vere 
 was " made up" as to the course she would pursue— made 
 up irrevocably. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLIV. 
 
 THE LOST TICKETS. 
 
 So the final, or fatal day, as Elsie Graham thought it, came 
 at last, when Lennard Blair was to leave Oakwoodlee ; and 
 when she and Steinie were to become the joint tenants of a 
 little cottage which he had t^aken for them in the village — a 
 dwelling rendered empty b:/ the recent catastrophe. 
 
 " Go, Master Lennard, my brave lad !" said Steinie, with 
 confident enthusiasm, as he strapped the portmanteau, rugs, 
 and so forth, in the hall ; " go on, and you cannot fail to 
 prosper ; though, as we are told, the race is not always to the 
 swift, nor the battle to the strong ; yet— yet, with youth and 
 experience, what may a man not achieve 1 What brae may 
 he no climb, even were it ten times as steep and high as 
 Kirkyetton Craig r 
 
 Even Steinie was, like Lennard, of a different tempera- 
 ment from his late master, who had been fonder of retracing 
 and falling back upon the past than of boldly facing the 
 ''lUure. 
 
 As a treat for his young master's last dinner at home, poor 
 Steinie Hislop went forth with his rod to whip the old 
 familiar pool for a salmon trout — he was doubtful whether 
 such fish were to be found in English waters— he rather 
 thought not — but whether it was that he was growing dim 
 of sight, or less expert than of old, or that the fish of the 
 Avon preferred those vagrant flies which floated on the 
 
THE LOST TICKETS. 20l 
 
 stream to the mimic insects of Steinie's manufacture, we know 
 not, but lie came sadly home with his basket empty ; so 
 Lennard and Feverley, who took a farewell dinner at Oak- 
 woodlee, had to content them without fish. 
 
 "Frank," said the former, as Steinie removed the cloth 
 and lingered a little, after placing, with a wistful expression 
 of eye, the last bottle of the old wine-cellar before him — 
 lingered, as one who would from that hour find his " occu- 
 pation gone," his old labours at an end ; " Feverley, in a 
 combined spirit of vanity, perhaps of sentimental supersti- 
 tion, or what you will, I preserved the proprietary of that 
 old block of stone upon the lea, when I forgot to make quite 
 an adequate provision for these two faithful old servants of 
 my father ; but, whatever they may require, you will see to 
 it — you will take care of them, and not fail to draw on nie 
 at once V 
 
 The Doctor promised, and filling his glass, drunk to Len- 
 nard's pleasant journey, and to his "joyous success at the 
 end of it." 
 
 " And now, with regard to this sort of thing," began Len- 
 nard, lowering his voice, " I may as well speak now, for I 
 have little time to spare. Your cousin Milly is still a 
 widow " 
 
 " True," said the other curtly, as a flush rose to his temples 
 and then passed away. 
 
 " When I come back I shall hope to find you in a better 
 location than yonder little cottage in the village. You 
 understand." 
 
 " Poor Milly ! I should never have revealed our wretched 
 story." 
 
 "Even to me f 
 
 "Not even to you, Lennard; but there are times when, 
 inspked 'by some strange impulse, the heart uncloses the 
 secret cell wherein lie hidden the thoughts and treasured 
 hopes of years. So, on that night, either some instinct told 
 me that you would sympathize with our sorrowful separa- 
 tion, or the memory of it loaded me ; I know not which," 
 said Feverley, sadly. 
 
 " And so you poured your story forth." 
 
 "Well, such revelations often soothe the human heart, 
 though men may, at after times, repent that sorrow, or win© 
 perhaps, made them so garrulous and communicative." 
 
 " But not in you to me, I trust V 
 
 " Ah no ! my friend ; but do not speak of Milly now, and 
 foster the old hope that can revive no more." But Lennard 
 only laughed at this. 
 
262 THE OIEL HE MAEIIIED. 
 
 An hour later saw them separated, with all good and kind 
 wishes on both sides, and Feverley waving his hat on tho 
 platform of^ the solitary little station, while fast sped the 
 thundering iron-horse which bore Lennard back to England. 
 He chose _ the same time and train as when Hesbia went, 
 that he might see the same scenery on which she had looked 
 at the same hour and under the same light, for there is no 
 such day-dreamer as a lover ; but, in many points, the vary- 
 ing landscapes were changed even since then. In fields which 
 had been laden with waving grain, the thick green clover 
 was replacing the brown stubble ; a shot or two in the dis- 
 tance, and white puffs of smoke among the dark hedgerows, 
 reminded him that pheasant-shooting had begun ; the last 
 of the martins had passed away, and the wild duck and the 
 jack-snipe were seen about the marshes and lochs of Lanark- 
 shire. 
 
 As the train sped away into the green mountain gorges, 
 an old man and an old woman were lingering on the lower 
 slope of Craigellon, watching the white streaming steam of 
 the locomotive, till it finally melted into thin air, and the 
 sound of the train died away in the distance, when, with 
 slow steps, they sought their new home in the village. They 
 were Elsie Graham and Steinie Hislop, who seemed to stoop 
 more than ever over his staff, and communing in their own 
 fashion, they were marvelling when again they might see the 
 comely face of the lad they loved so well ; for to their 
 humble comprehension and localised ideas. Vera Cruz was a 
 genuine terra incognita — a land beyond the moon. 
 
 " We've seen the last o' him — the last o' them — it's a sair, 
 sair wrench !" said Elsie, clasping her hands. 
 
 Lennard had many thoughts crowding on his mind, as he 
 lay back in the corner of a well-cushioned first-class carriage 
 and puffed his cigar leisurely and reflectively. Much had 
 happened since last, in the same carriage, jjerhaps, he had 
 traversed the same line of railroad for the north. He was 
 going away, perhaps finally, from Blairavon and Oakwoodleo 
 (he gave a backward glance, but both the old places had 
 vanished now, and even Craigellon was out of sight), away 
 from the S])ot where the graves of his father and mother and 
 the most of his kindred hiy ; he had a long sea-voyage before 
 him ; but then he was first going to her — to Hesbia, drawing 
 nearer and more near, at the rate of forty miles an hour. 
 Posts and wires flew past as if they madly ran a race towards 
 tho north ; yet to the lover how slow seemed the tivain— a 
 very laggard. 
 
 Is ow xt was at Covington, under the giant peak of Tinto 
 
THE LOST TICKETS. 263 
 
 — " the Hill of Fire," — and by the hamlet where the Cove- 
 nanters were wont to conceal themselves of old, burying so 
 much treasure that, when an old house is pulled down, 
 specie enough is always found in the walls wherewith to 
 build a new one ; now it was at Lamington, with the old 
 castle wherein the mother and daughter of Wallace resided, 
 in the stormy days when " the Hammer of the Scots " won 
 his battle at Dunbar, and the Forth at Stirling bridge ran 
 red wdth English blood ; and now they were among the 
 Lo-tti:her hills, the finest of the mountain ranges in pastoral 
 Lanarkshire ; but, heedless of the scenery, Lennard was 
 indulging in dreams of his own ; he had actually vague ideas 
 of a private marriage, if Mr. Vere refused his consent to a 
 public one, — of solemnly written promises and terrible vows, 
 and all manner of melodramatic denouements, even of asking 
 Hesbia to elope with him to Vera Cruz, if a "flinty-hearted" 
 father drove them to desperation. 
 
 Would the train be behind time % He sat with his watch 
 in his hand, and consulted Bradshaiv, as the sunset declined 
 on the Border hills and the towers of Carlisle ; and so on, 
 and on, till erelong they steamed into the crowded station 
 of Preston, where much bustle of changing carriages ensued. 
 
 "Twenty minutes' wait here, gentlemen," shouted the 
 guard, or some other official. "Change here!— change car- 
 riages for London, Liverpool, Manchester/' and many more 
 places were enumerated. 
 
 The gas was lighted now, so Lennard sprang forth to have 
 a cup of coffee and another cigar. 
 
 Amid the bustle of the platform, the banging of carriage- 
 doors, lighting of lamps for the various night-journeys, be- 
 wildered passengers jostling each other in search of their 
 trains, the transference of luggage and goods from various 
 vans and carriage tops, and all the hurly-burly, secret tipping 
 of guards, and intense care of self — the "looking after 
 Number One" — which pervade a railway-station, Lennard 
 prudently buttoned his paletot over his watch and its ap- 
 pendages, while drawing near a crowd which had gathered 
 round a lady and gentleman with whom the guard and 
 ticket-collector v/ere maintaining an angry argument— angry, 
 at least, on one side ; mild and expostulatory on the other. 
 
 They appeared to be foreigners, and the lady alone spoke 
 English. 
 
 " Jack," shouted the guard, " have you made a thorough 
 search through that Scotch first-class T 
 
 "Yes, bloVdif I ain't." 
 
 *' Well, look again ; I doesn't want to be unpleasant." 
 
264 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 y/itli an oath, tlie already exasperated official flashed his 
 lantern into every part of the carriage, and fussily tossed 
 about the cushions and seat-rugs ; then he growled—" Well, 
 I s'pose you're satisfied ; there ain't nothing there — so help 
 my Bob ! there ain't." 
 
 The foreign gentleman, a sallow little personage, with deep 
 dark eyes and large grizzled mustachios, seemed to under- 
 stand that the final search was over, for he lifted his hat to 
 the guard, and said with a low bow, " Sin complimiento, 
 Seiior Guarda, le doy las gracias." (Without compliments, 
 Mr. Guard, I give you thanks.) 
 
 " Precious gammon !" growled the other. " Why the devil 
 don't he speak English 1 But them foreigners are an absurd 
 lot ! I'm not to be come over, though," he added, for the 
 politeness of the Spaniard only added to his suspicions ; but 
 now Lennard, on hearing the Spanish language, with which 
 his commercial experiences had rendered him familiar, be- 
 came interested and pressed forward to listen. 
 
 " I assure you, sir, that my guardian's pocket has been 
 picked of his portmonnaie— tickets and all ; it is most un- 
 fortunate !" urged the young lady to the guard ; "and I have 
 but a few shillings in my purse." 
 
 "Gammon !" was the response of that personage, now ap- 
 pealing to the platform-superintendent, or some such official 
 whose livery and hirsute appendages gave him a semi- 
 military aspect, "I ask this here foreign gent for the tickets 
 of hisself and his girl ; but they ain't f orthcom.ing. ' You 
 must pay from the station from which the train started,' 
 says I ; but he parleyvoos in some foreign lingo, and the girl 
 tells us in English that they are towerists on a tower, booked 
 through from Hedingburg to Manchester, and that their 
 tickets have been stolen. ' Can't help that, miss,' says I ; 
 ' you must pay again.' * Pay again !' says she, quite proud 
 like ; ' blow'd if we does !' * You must, miss,' says I ; ' them's 
 our rools and regulations. Any passinger as carn't produce 
 a ticket pays full fare from the pint of departure. This 
 train is from Hedingburg and the North ; and from Heding- 
 burg and the North you two pays at once, or I call in the 
 perlice !' " 
 
 " Of course," said the other official ; " but this will be a 
 last resort, I hope." 
 
 " Then the old covey whispers something to the girl, and 
 she tells me that his pocket had been picked ; that he ain't 
 got no money — yet travels in a first-class like the Prince of 
 Wales hisself 1 I asks if his luggage is labelled ; then says 
 
THE LOST TICKETS. 265 
 
 tlie girl, ' We ain't got no luggage— it's gone by sea to Liver- 
 pool from Glasgow/ " 
 
 " First-class folks don't usually travel without luggage of 
 some sort — doocid pretty gal, though ! " muttered several of 
 the bystanders. 
 
 "Luggage gone by sea to Liverpool from Glasgow, and 
 themselves booked through from Edinburgh to ^lanchester ] 
 I can't make it out ; it's a rum start. Jack," said the guard. 
 
 " I should rayther think so ; but look sharp now — full fare 
 from Hedingbourg it must be ! " he added, raising his voice, 
 after the fashion of all Britons when speaking to a foreigner. 
 
 " Hija de mi corazon,* tell them again,' said the old 
 gentleman, with grov/ing alarm. 
 
 " Come, come, young 'ooman, you understand the Queen's 
 Henglish, and must pay for both," said the guard, as he very 
 deliberately laid his hand upon her arm. 
 
 " Dare you touch me ! " she exclaimed to the speaker, a 
 burly red-headed fellow in a brass-bound cap and elaborate 
 collar-badges, who shrank back, muttering, — 
 
 "Well, lam blowed!" 
 
 ►She looked like a little lady playing the part of an Empress, 
 the carriage and will were so grand and proud, and the 
 power so tiny ; yet she seemed so lovely and so fearless 
 amid all that gathering and cold-eyed crowd, whose chief 
 emotion was curiosity, tinged, of course, with suspicion, 
 as the tAvo infringers of the railway bye-laws were only 
 foreigners, penniless apparently, and utterly unfriended. 
 In vain did the young Spanish lady repeat that the old 
 gentleman must have had his pocket-book and portmon- 
 naie, which held their tickets, abstracted by a passenger 
 who sat next him and had left the train at Carlisle, or 
 some station before or after it — she was not quite sure; 
 and in vain did she promise to pay any fares that might be 
 demanded on reaching Manchester, where they were known 
 and had friends. " Es verdad — es verdad ! " she added, in 
 her energy lapsing into her native language. 
 
 " Neither money, tickets, nor luggage — here's a go ! " 
 
 The fair stranger was evidently a lady — a Spanish donna; 
 but, in lieu of the orthodox veil, high comb, and black 
 mantilla, she had a little black velvet hat with a piquant ruby 
 feather, a yachting jacket of dark blue cloth with gilt anchor 
 buttons, a rich silk dress of paler blue, tiny Balmorals 
 with high brass heels, a Japanese parasol with a deep white 
 fringe, well-fitting gloves on marvellously pretty hands, and 
 was in bearing as thoroughly English as any girl one may 
 
 * Child of my heart. 
 
266 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 see on Brighton pier or Margate sands. She was considerably 
 under the middle height, and seemed to be barely eighteen ; 
 a vast quantity of golden hair, drawn back from her ears, 
 fell in heavy volume behind ; she had a pure, small profile, 
 a minute and lovely little face, with large, soft eyes, of a hue 
 that appeared to alternate between hazel and dark grey, but 
 were really violet, and with her long lashes and dark brows 
 they seemed to be black as night. 
 
 We have been thus minute in describing these personages, 
 as they were fated to have a very material influence in 
 shaping out the future destiny of Lennard Blair, who met 
 them more than once again. 
 
 Two policemen now appeared upon the scene, stolid in 
 aspect, blue-coated, and helmeted; dexterously thrusting back 
 the crowd, they placed themselves on each side of the old 
 gentleman, and one, with a thumb pointed over his shoul- 
 der, briefly indicated the route they were to pursue. The 
 little man started and tAvisted his large moustachios with 
 nervous anger, for already the first bell had rung, the guards 
 were shouting "seats''' and " tickets," and there was much 
 swaying of lanterns and clinking of hammers, as the sound- 
 ness of the wheels was tested, amid a vast bustle and hurrying 
 to and fro ; and looking piteously about him, the* old 
 Spaniard urged in vain that lie was a " caballero— y hombre 
 de bueno — hombre honorado !" 
 
 Lennard could no longer resist interfering. 
 
 "Pray allow me to settle this," he exclaimed, pushing 
 forward and drawing a ten-pound note from his porfcemon- 
 naie ; " I think you mistake these people, my good fellow. 
 I shall advance what is requisite to send tkcai on to 
 Manchester." 
 
 "I thank you, sir— thank you sincerely for this great 
 kindness. Once in Manchester we shall be neither without 
 friends nor funds," said the young lady, with an air of great 
 gratitude, curiously mingled with haughty reserve. ^' Mv 
 father (here she mentioned a name, which, being foreign, 
 Lennard failed to catch) will not allow you to be a loser by 
 this politeness if you will favour me with your card." < 
 ■ " Quick, get their tickets for Manchester," said Lennard, 
 slipping a little bribe into the hand of a porter, " and bring 
 tliem to us in the refreshment-room." 
 
 Then he hurried the stranger out of the crowd, but there 
 was scant time, and the very grand young damsel who, with 
 her hair frizzed, and dressed in the extreme of the mode, 
 presided over the realm of dry sandwiches and old sausage- 
 lolls^ buttered bread, doubtful-looking fruits, and scalding 
 
THE LOST TICKETS. 267 
 
 tea, was in no mood to hurry herself, and the tickets were 
 brought with the warning, " Train's a-going, sir — look sharp, 
 please," before a glass of wine had been finished by the young 
 lady, who was reiterating her thanks, while her guardian, 
 father, or friend, though the receiver of Lennards kindness, 
 was cold, sullen, and, like a true Spaniard, an observant 
 and suspicious little man. 
 
 The deep liquid eyes of the Spanish girl were fixed upon 
 Lennard with a beautiful expression of fervent thanks, which 
 he never forgot ; he had saved her from a serious and public 
 afi'ront, and her voice, when she spoke, had a charming chord 
 in it that was full of tremulous pathos. 
 
 " Gracias a Dios ! and thanks to you, kind sir ; all this 
 shall be amply requited, be assured of that, and that we shall 
 not forget your address." 
 
 Lennard was about to take her hand, when — 
 
 " Come, seiiora , we must be gone, if we would not lose the 
 train," growled her male friend in Spanish, and pulling her 
 hand so impatiently that he bm^st her lavender-coloured kid 
 glove. 
 
 The impulsive girl's eyes sparkled as she tore it off, and 
 threw it on the floor. 
 
 " Senor Saavedra, you forget yourself ! Good night, sir — 
 a thousand thanks, and a thousand more," she added, holding 
 out her hand, a lovely little one, on which more than one gem 
 was glittering, and then she was hurried away. 
 
 Bang went the carriage door, the bell jangled, the whistle 
 screamed, and away shot the crowded night train for 
 Manchester, with all its varied lights and faces ; the pretty 
 Spaniard was gone, and the adventure over. 
 
 "Who the deuce can they be]" thought Lennard, as he 
 loitered at the door of the refreshment-room ; not father and 
 daughter, certainly— the affair of the glove showed that- 
 more likely husband and wife — a Spanish actress or dancer 
 and her secretary — a singer, perhaps ; the girl seemed tho- 
 roughly a lady. ^ Poor tiling ! how glad I am that I was at 
 hand. Only think if llesbia had been in such a fix among 
 a parcel of foreign felloAvs ! Well — I hope some one would 
 have befriended her, as I did the little Donna. But what is 
 this 1 My card, by Jove ! The old fellow has either dropped 
 it or left it with her glove — so my ten pounds are gone ! 
 Awkward that. Have I been fooled after all ] But what a 
 pretty hand the girl had ; and such eyes ! " 
 
 " Seats for Liverpool !" cried a voice without. 
 
 Almost without thinking he put the glove into his pockot 
 as he sprang into the train, and was whisked away at a 
 
268 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 right angle from the line traversed by his foreign friends. 
 And so for the next forty miles Lennard was agj' in left tc 
 his own reflections, ronsed only now and then as the whistle 
 blew, and the train glided slowly into some station, the name 
 of which would be shouted in that singularly professional 
 and totally unintelligible mode peculiar to railway officials 
 everyivhere. At last he found himself in a region of ten 
 thousand lights, as the train on emerging from a long tunnel, 
 swept over the Leeds canal, and he saw himself again in 
 Liverpool 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 WHY DID I LOVE HER *} 
 
 "I FIND that I have loitered too long at home— or rather, where 
 was once my home ;" thought Lennard, as he found himself 
 in his slippers and dressing-gown, seated before the fire 
 in his old lodgings in Liverpool late on Monday night ; 
 " to ship on board the Valparaiso, and drop with her down 
 the river on Wednesday evening, leaves me but one entire 
 day to see Hesbia, to propose to her father, to pack up, and 
 do Heaven knows what more." ^ 
 
 Next morning he was up betimes, and when again he saw 
 the beams of the morning sun streaming lazily athwart the 
 dense forest of masts in the docks, and on the huge ungainly 
 masses of brick-buildings, his sojourn at home among the 
 silent woods and hills, his father's death, his wound and the 
 catastrophe of the mine, more than all his engagement to 
 Hesbia seemed a dream that had passed, and as if he had not 
 been out of Liverpool an hour. 
 
 He remitted home money to Dr. Feverley for his two old 
 dependants at the vi]lage, and as the hour was too early for 
 calling on the Veres, after visiting the dock where the Val- 
 paraiso lay to ascertain her exact locality, he proceeded 
 along Bath Street and the quays to Canning Place, where 
 he turned, almost mechanically, into the old Alley and the 
 counting-house. There, as if they had never quitted their 
 desks since that night when he came in such haste to draw 
 money and announce his departure for the north, sat old 
 Abel Envoyse, and all the juniors of the establishment, 
 seated on the same stools in the same corners, busy amid 
 the same day or letter-books, and red-edged ledgers ; the 
 same hazy light and sombre shadow in the office ; the same 
 cobwebs and fly-blown prospectuses and almanacks on tha 
 
WHY DID I LOVE HES^ 269 
 
 discoloured walls ; but now all sprang from their places and 
 crowded about Lennard, who was a favoiu-ite among them, 
 and now regarded as something of a lion after his strange 
 adventures at home, his reported death and escape. All 
 their expectations, however, of " a jolly little dinner some- 
 where, and hearing the news," were nipped in the bud by 
 his announcing that he had not an hour to spare, but hoped 
 to see some, if not all of them, at an hotel near the dock, 
 ere the Valjxi.raiso got up her steam on the morrow. 
 
 " Mr. Yere has gone to London," said Mr. Envoyse, polish- 
 ing his bald head with his handkerchief till it shone like a 
 billiard ball, '' and we've had no end of things to worry us 
 here since you left — things I dare say you are pretty well in 
 the dark about ; but I shall have your South American 
 memoranda ready for you to-night." 
 
 " In London !" exclaimed Lennard, with disappointment 
 in his face and tone. 
 
 " Yes — and his address if you wish to write him, is at Sir 
 Cullender Crowd/s place of business. By the way, it is 
 whispered on 'Change that there is a chance of Sir Cullender's 
 being taken into the firm ; but Mr. Yere has hinted nothing 
 about it to me." 
 
 A stern expression gathered in Lennard's face as the quiet, 
 contented old man said this unthinkingly. 
 
 " Sir Cullender a partner ; by Jove it will then be high 
 time for me to cut the concern if I can !" was all he said, as 
 he turned way muttering that he had much to do, but would 
 return to the Alley in the evening for his instructions, money, 
 and so forth. 
 
 Again he sallied forth into the bustle of the sunny streets, 
 and turned his steps southward, through the Princes Park, 
 till he reached the Aigburth Eoad, and proceeded on until 
 he was quite in the suburbs. The hour was eleven now, 
 and though still very early, he thought that, under the cir- 
 cumstances, he was fully warranted in breaking through 
 conventional rules, and venturing to call on Hesbia. Her 
 father's unfortunate absence in London, and the knowledge 
 that he, Lennard, would have to sail without seeing him, 
 somewhat deranged his previous plans ; and the rumom*, 
 though perhaps groundless, that Crowdy was about to come 
 into the firm considerably disturbed him. Crowdy, whom 
 even the little pettifogging Scotch barrister, Dabchick, had 
 so openly denounced as a charlatan and projector of bubble 
 companies 1 The idea was intolerable ! 
 
 He was about to see Hesbia again — she who must have 
 mourned for him as one who was gathered with the dead ; 
 
i7d THE GIRL HE MAREIED. 
 
 but why was it that all the hope and ardour of yesterday 
 seemed to have passed from him ! Why was it that he felt 
 so low in spirit, and had in his heart a sense of immediate 
 evil rather than of joy"? Do "coming events cast their 
 .shadows before ■?" was it only the gossip of Abel Envoyse, 
 with the inevitable separation, or was it something Avorse 1 
 Anyway a shiver came over him, when he saw Vere's beau- 
 tiful Tuscan villa that crowned a plateau to which a succes- 
 sion of grassy terraces and gravelled walks bordered by the 
 rarest flowers, gave access ; its walls of red brick were 
 covered by carefully-trained rose-trees ; its oriels were all 
 of polished stone ; and its plate-glass windows shone brightly 
 in the morning sun. It was situated in a lovely spot on a 
 gentle eminence that commanded a view of the upper por- 
 tion of the Mersey. Liverpool was almost in the distance, 
 and the only sounds near, were those which usually occur 
 in the open country, the cawing of the rooks, or the twitter 
 of the little birds in the hedgerows. A faint silvery mist 
 enveloped the Cheshire side of the river, and into the pure 
 bright air above it, the smoke of many a cottage ascended 
 from the woodlands in high unbroken columns ere they 
 melted away, and the dew yet lingered under the shadow of 
 the gnarled oaks that bordered the old coach-road to War- 
 rington. 
 
 The household of Mr. Vere did not seem to be in a great 
 state of activity, for Lennard had to ring twice, and had full 
 time to rally his thoughts, ere the great front door was un- 
 folded by his small acquaintance Buttons, who greeted him, 
 as he thought, with a grin and a leer in his boiled grey eyes, 
 rather than with a respectful bow of welcome. The double 
 ring had also brought a lumbering, hugely-whiskered, and 
 amply-calved " Jeames" in plush to the door. 
 
 " Mr. Vere was in London," this solemn personage con- 
 descended to observe ; " he was not sure whether Miss was 
 at 'ome at that hour ; but if Mr. Blair would give his card, 
 he would be 'appy to henquire — he rather thought the 
 carriage 'ad been hordered." 
 
 All difficulties on this head were abruptly solved by the 
 appearance of Hesbia in person ; attired for visiting, with a 
 charming little hat and feather, and one of her most showy 
 striped piquets, in her fancy for which she almost rivalled 
 the famous Marchioness de Gallifet, who frequently favours 
 the promenaders at Dieppe with a view of sixteen different 
 striped dresses in one day. She started, coloured, and then 
 grew pale, painfully so, on being so suddenly confronted by 
 Lennard. Knowing when he would be in Liverpool, and 
 
WHY DID I LOVE HER] iff 
 
 that but one entire day would intervene ere the Valparaiso 
 sailed, she had feared to see him, and shrunk from denying 
 herself ; blushing to do so even before Savonette, who was 
 wholly in his intereat, she had been on the point of issuing 
 forth betimes, to spend the whole day in visiting, or in the 
 park, the gardens, anywhere away from all chance of meeting 
 him whose eye she dreaded, and now — now he met her face 
 to face m the hall, and under the observant eyes of several 
 domestics ! 
 
 "Welcome, Mr. Blair," said she, presenting her hand, 
 nervousty, but politely, and feeling constrained to turn back 
 with him, an inconvenience for which (though he heard 
 Maxwell ordered to " countermand the carriage"), he did not 
 feel himself called upon to apologize, and they entered the 
 drawing-room together. 
 
 " And you arrived in Liverpool " she began. 
 
 "Late last night, Hesbia — too late to call here,''' said 
 Lennard, about to embrace her, but Hesbia skilfully con- 
 trived to keep several tables, couches, statues, and glass 
 shades between herself and him, whilst she personally and 
 fussily closed two of the windows, readjusted some of the 
 blinds, and caressed little Fussy, her terrier, which lay coiled 
 up in a beautiful basket on a console. 
 
 Again Lennard felt the cold shiver come over him. He 
 was painfully sensible that in her manner and in her eye, he 
 could read the evidence of a change since they had parted. 
 Yet he looked at her wistfully, and thought — was this the 
 rapturous re-imion, aftei; an escape such as his '?— this the 
 meeting for which his soul had yearned ] 
 
 " Mr. Blair," she was beginning, when an exclamation of 
 surprise and grief escaped him ; " so thank God, you sur- 
 vived the horrors of that night V 
 
 " I escaped and am before you still a living man, Hesbia ; 
 but have you not one kiss for me, dearest ] Oh, what do 
 all this coldness and agitation mean T' 
 
 " Ah, do not ask me !" 
 
 Her agitation was excessive— almost painful to witness. 
 She threw her parasol and hat upon a table, scattering the 
 bijouterie that lay on it ; she pulled off her gloves and cast 
 them on the carpet ; she tossed back her rich br(j»wn hair 
 from her throbbing temples as if to court coolness, and, whilf 
 («he did so, her white hands trembled violently, and her face 
 grew ashy pale ; yet she strove to steel herself for the cruel 
 part she had resolved to play. 
 
 "I sail to-morrow, Hesbia," said Lennard, steadjdng himself 
 by placing a hand on the back of the couch whereon she sat. 
 
272 I'HE GIRL HB MA]ElRlSl>. 
 
 " To-morrow— SO soon T 
 
 " Yes, so soon ; but what does this change mean in you 1 
 Are you ill f 
 
 ^ " Oh, no— not ill— not ill. You are going to see grand 
 sights and a beautiful country, after a long sea voyage." 
 
 " Two thousand six hundred miles and more, dearest 
 Hesbia." 
 
 " And you will soon learn to forget me, to love another, 
 perhaps." 
 
 "Hesbia," he exclaimed, with positive alarm, for her 
 manner became hysterical ; he approached her, but she 
 started and withdrew to another fauteuil. Then he gazed 
 on her with reproach and pity mingling, as he said, " Have 
 I escaped assassination at the hand of your precious kinsman, 
 and afterwards, by God's mercy, from a horrible death in 
 yonder mine, only to meet with you and to part from you 
 thus % It is inexplicable !" 
 
 As yet not a tear had fallen from her eyes, but the bright- 
 ness had gone out of them and they looked hard and stony. 
 
 " Let us be brief and end this most painful interview at 
 once, Lennard," said she, speaking rapidly, with something 
 of a sob in her throat. " Oh, forgive me and spare me your 
 reproaches, for I should have written and explained all, but 
 I pitied you — I pitied you— and could not trust myself to 
 write." 
 
 " Pitied me — all, Hesbia— all what T he asked, furiously. , 
 
 " I am to marry this man Cowdy. Papa is even now in 
 London arranging the settlements. I am but one victim 
 more among many of the curses brought about by the love 
 of money, ' that joining of house to house and field to field, 
 which corrupts the better part of man's nature.' " 
 
 "And woman's too, I think— to marry Sir Cullender T' 
 exclaimed Lennard with growing rage. 
 
 "Listen," said Hesbia, imploringly; "do you remember 
 the situation of Pauline in 'the Lady of Lyons,' when 
 Claude Mehiotte returns, and when Beauseant offers to her 
 bankrupt father the means of extrication from his monetary 
 difficulties?" 
 
 _ " Yes— yes ; but what raving is this % Your father is not 
 situated as old Descliapelle is in the drama." 
 
 "I cannot tell you, but I have given my promise in writing." 
 
 "To whom r 
 
 "ToSirCuUender." 
 
 There was a pause, during which Lennard stood with a 
 pale, almost ghastly face looking down at her, as she cowered 
 upon the sofa with her eyes covered by her hands. 
 
WHY BID I LOVE HER? 273 
 
 " Betrothed to that man say you — betrothed after your 
 promise to me 1 " 
 
 " I deserve your upbraiding — -" 
 
 "I do not upbraid you — heaven forbid ! I have too 
 much sorrow, too much horror in my heart for that. But 
 tell me more, Hesbia ; how came this about *? " 
 
 " I cannot — I cannot — save that papa has suffered severely 
 by the loss of his mines. Sir Cullender proffers him every 
 monetary assistance, and my hand is the price of it. Now 
 leave me, Lennard, for I cannot bear your presence, while 
 your eyes are full only of indignation and contempt, though 
 I feel myself to be well deserving of both." 
 
 " This change is incomprehensible ! But oh, Hesbia, be- 
 fore planting the arrow in my heart, you might in mercy 
 have written to me, were it but to take away the poison 
 from its point, though the rankling barb remained. This 
 shock is somewhat sudden ! Do you really mean to say 
 that all is at an end— all over between you and me ] " 
 
 " It must be so, Lennard." 
 
 "Mustr' 
 
 " Yes — I am powerless." 
 
 "Is all the past, with its tender vows and passionate 
 kisses, no tie between us "i " 
 
 " None — none ! " 
 
 She was weeping freely now, and he held her right hand 
 between his own. 
 
 "You reject me, then?" he whispered, with intense sor- 
 row. 
 
 "Now and for ever," replied Hesbia, who had thoughl 
 over all this beforehand, and had secretly and resolutelj 
 schooled herself to brave all rather than risk the life of losi 
 wealth and luxury — the career of thrift or poverty predicted 
 by her father. 
 
 " Dare you say so, after all that has been — vows and pro- 
 mises 1 " 
 
 " All are broken or given to another. I have no power, 
 no will of my own, so, dear Lennard, do not torture me." 
 
 He was going, but the words " dear Lennard " made him 
 linger, and in a torrent of eloquence, supplied by his love 
 and desperation, by the charm of her presence, the brevity 
 of his time, and the priceless object at stake, the retention 
 or re\ival of her regard for him, he pulled her hands from 
 her face, he showererl kisses on her eyes and lips ; he prayed 
 her in mercy and in the name of God, not to cast him off 
 for ever ; not to bliglit and blast his future life, for he loved 
 her— loved her bettjer than his own soul ; lie urged her to 
 
 18 
 
174 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 elope with liim, to leave her father's house that instant ; to 
 > marry and sail with him on the morrow ; but poor Lennard 
 urged, and she heard him, in vaim She wept bitterly, but 
 steadily refused. His strong, dei|) passion, so tender and 
 so true, was it, he thought, to be received thus, by one so 
 shallow, so fickle, and so faithless 1 Love, it would seem, 
 might be foregone, a heart trampled on, and hopes crushed ; 
 but while wealth and luxury were secured and kept, what 
 did a few tears matter, hot and salt though they were ! 
 
 He dropped her hands, and for a few minutes regarded 
 her gloomily and in silence. Then he said, — 
 
 " Had you written and broken to me this sudden change, 
 Hesbia, I might have been spared the horror and grief, and 
 you the shame, of an interview like this. And you are 
 actually engaged to this fellow, Sir Cullender, as he calls 
 himself f 
 
 "lam." 
 
 " Since when came this cool event to pass 1 " 
 
 " Ask me not. What can that item of the affair matter 
 to you, Lennard 1 " 
 
 " Have you weighed well the end of such a love as hia 
 may be for you 1 " 
 
 " I have — I have," said she, weeping. 
 
 " Oh, think what is before you, Hesbia Vere, with such a 
 mate as he. 
 
 " ' As the husband is, the wife is : thou art mated to a clown, 
 And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. 
 He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, 
 Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse !' 
 
 How often have we read those verses together, Hesbia ! 
 What a bleak history will that of your married life be ! " 
 
 " The happiest woman, like the happiest nation, has no 
 history," replied Hesbia, quoting a popular author ; " we 
 have ever been good friends, Lennard Blair, and as good 
 friends let us part." 
 
 The bitterness of the storm was over, and he could be 
 calm now. 
 
 " Then you will not leave your selfish father's roof and 
 trust to me 1 " he urged. 
 
 "No, Lennard— now and for ever, no ! There are others 
 in this world more deserving of you than I— others whose 
 love you may win." 
 
 "True, Hesbia* but; none that can ever be to me what 
 you have been," he replied, wj.t)i his eyes full of tears, as 
 he again forcibly took her han4 i •vnd Hesbia, fearing her 
 
PARTED FOR EVER. 27) 
 
 own resolution, abruptly requested him to go, to leave her, 
 to release her, and he did so at last, retiring a pace or two 
 and taking up his hat, but slowly and reluctantly. 
 
 " Miss Vere," he said, in a low but piercing voice, " for 
 the last time I ask you, is all over between us 1 do you 
 actually cast my heart back upon myself, and finally reject 
 mer' 
 
 " Despite myself,'' she replied, amid a torrent of tears, " I 
 am the promised wife of another — one of whom my papa 
 approves." 
 
 " Then be it so ! Fool that I have been, wh^/ did I ever 
 love her ? " 
 
 He turned away, reeling like a drunken man. He tried to 
 open the door on the side opposite to the handle, and Hesbia 
 had not strength to ring the bell as a warning to the ser- 
 vants in the hall below. She heard him descend the stair- 
 case unattended, his steps die away, and the street-door 
 close. 
 
 In a burst of passionate sorrow, that triumphepl for a time 
 over her own selfishness, Hesbia buried her face in the down 
 cushions of the blue satin fauteuil, exclaiming, as an apo- 
 logy to herself, — " Oh, if he could only have looked into my 
 heart, he would have seen how I loved him — loved him— 
 though he is too poor to marry 1" 
 
 Lennard Blair was gone ; the closing of the house-door 
 found a terrible echo even in her hollow heart; for she 
 knew his indomitable pride, and that never again would he 
 cross her father's threshold. Never again ! 
 
 For a time the pretty sensationalist was touched — actually 
 cut to the soul ; and certainly, with all her impulsiveness, 
 it was seldom that Hesbia Vere was so deeply moved. 
 However, it was past now, thank Heaven — that worrying 
 interview ! it could never be gone over again, though she 
 might get letters full of reproaches and upbraiding ; and 
 now she was compelled to hasten to her own room and 
 gummon Savonette, for a carriage with visitors had stopped 
 at the front garden-gate, and already Maxwell was ascending 
 the stair with their cards on a silver salver. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVL 
 
 PARTED FOR EVER. 
 
 He was again out into the bright sunshine, and walking 
 away mth lagging steps and a heart full of bitterness, 
 sorrow, and rage. In the strength of the first emotion, ho 
 
 1 8— 2 
 
276 THE GiRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 cursed the hour in wliicli he first saw Hesbia Vere, so fair 
 in face, so seductive in manner, and yet so false in heart ! 
 In his sorrow he felt that he could forgive her yet, and take 
 her to his breast again ; and while his rage lasted it would 
 have been a perilous moment had he encountered the 
 pale cadaverous face and Jewish eyes of Sir Cullender 
 Crowdy. 
 
 " Hesbia, with her Judas kisses !" he muttered ; " shame 
 on her; she is well fitted to be the daughter of such a 
 father — the bride of a truculent Jew !" 
 
 Deluded and tricked, as he felt himself to be, Lennard 
 lashed his wrath into fever-heat. Avoiding the city, he 
 strolled further into the fields to the end that he might talk, 
 mutter, consider, and commune with himself alone, un- 
 watched and unseen. One fact stood vividly before him — 
 that all was over between Hesbia and himself — a fact most 
 difficult of realization ; and that, unless summoned by her, 
 no more would he present himself before her, and never 
 again look into those eyes whose smiles in times past haunted 
 him still. Ever and anon the bitterness of wounded self- 
 esteem rose poignantly in his heart. 
 
 "I might have read this girl's cautious and intriguing 
 character— cautious amid all her external air of impulsive- 
 ness—before I threw my heart away, before I wasted my 
 honest love upon her. Who but she,' he asked of himself, 
 " would have conceived in such veiled and curious terms 
 that letter which her rascal cousin must have read— and so 
 correctly, too T 
 
 Memories of her past flirtations, of coquetries he could 
 remember, seemed now to assume colossal proportions in his 
 jealous mind. He could recall visits of Travice Cheatwood 
 long ago, when he was denied admittance, or her non-ap- 
 pearance was excused* and thoughts of these and other 
 instances of petty duplicity came back now like oil upon 
 the flames. 
 
 Amid the misery of his mind, he imagined and talked to 
 himself matter enough to have filled an orthodox three- 
 volume novel. Of all the heroes of whom he had ever 
 read, he considered himself the most scurvily used, and now 
 came to the conclusion that, however pleasant love-making 
 may be in reality, tlie misery of disappointment, rejection 
 or falsehood, was much more entertaining in print than in 
 practice. Giddily he walked on, and heedless whither he 
 went. His hatred and jealousy of the " baronet " who had 
 supplanted him, were only equalled by his contempt for Mr. 
 Vere, and— alas ! that such should ever be— for his daughter j 
 
PARTED FOR EVEE. 277 
 
 though with this growing scorn, were much of sorrow and 
 of pity mingled. 
 
 Long smouldered wrath and aching doubts all set to sleep 
 of late— the same doubts which tormented him on the night 
 of his journey homeward, months ago- were blazing in his 
 heart again ! In fancy, he saw his bright Hesbia in the arms 
 of the snake-like Sir Cullender; he saw them at the theatre, 
 the opera, in the park, on horseback or in the carriage, ever 
 and always by that man's side, while he— he who loved 
 her so ! 
 
 * <t * * # # * 
 
 Harrowing were the pictures he drew of Hesbia's future, 
 amid all her wealth a joyless, hopeless lot; and in his wrath 
 he pitied, for he loved her still. Were all those years and 
 days and hours of loving dalliance gone for everl More 
 galling was his regret rendered by the conviction that had he 
 possessed wealth enough to have given him virtue in the eyes 
 of Vere, he and she had not been thus separated, and he had 
 never known her secret selfishness ; she had never sold her- 
 self, and as he pondered thus, the r frain of the sweet old 
 Scottish song came now to memory : — 
 
 *' Oh, why should fate sic pleasure have, 
 
 Life's dearest bonds untwining, 
 Or why sae sweet a flower as lore 
 Dc'pcnd on fortune shining?" 
 
 By angry thoughts he strove to nurse himself into a steady 
 and settled emotion of contempt, but failed most signally, 
 for times there were when he thought his heart would break, 
 yet only as some wdll do that " breakingly live on." He 
 thought he would get over it in time ; but at present the 
 wrench was sharp and keen ; and so completely was his 
 spirit crushed and oppressed, that for the first few hours he 
 cared not what became of him ; then there grew in his heart 
 the craving, aching desire to get from Liverpool as fast and 
 far as possible. 
 
 Oakwoodlee was gone ; he had no dependence now, save 
 on the house of Vere & Co. ; and yet to be a subordinate, a 
 clerk, a mere fractional partner therein ; or be even an agent 
 for Crowdy (if, as Envoyse hinted, the baronet came to the 
 firm) — Crowdy, his rival and successful supplanter, was an 
 intolerable prospect and rankled in his som. The golden 
 dream of wealth which his father had fostered in him, the 
 superstition of the Charter Stone, and his hopes for the 
 future seemed to be sorely blighted now or blotted out for 
 ever. 
 
 A dim hope, a tender longing, a mere human instinct that 
 
278 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 she might prove true after all— that she might write to him 
 again — lingered in the heart of the poor fellow. Even now 
 — now— a letter full of love and repentance might be wait- 
 ing for him at his lodgings in the city ! He looked at his 
 Avatch, it was now three o'clock, four hours had he been wan- 
 dering in the fields, and already shorn of every ray amid the 
 smoke of Liverpool, the autumnal sun was shining in the 
 westward above the villas of New Brighton and the moutk 
 of the Mersey. 
 
 Full of the new hope that inspired him, Lennard turned 
 and hastened homeward, and a cab soon whirled him through 
 the streets to his temporary residence. 
 
 " A letter 1 Yes, there was a letter !" 
 
 He snatched and tore it open only to toss it on the mantel- 
 piece again. It was merely from old Abel Envoyse, contain- 
 ing his instructions and a letter of credit on the house of Don 
 Juan Leonardo & Co. at Vera Cruz. 
 
 So the whole day passed aAvay ; darkness set in, and the 
 lines of gas-lamps came, like fiery garlands in the streets to 
 replace the set sun ; but no message, no letter arrived, and 
 the last hope faded away. 
 
 " Yes, life is over," thought he bitterly ; but he learner' 
 ere long to know that there are overmuch of life and hope 
 too, in the heart at five-and-twenty, to indulge in a convic- 
 tion so disastrous, save for a time. 
 
 He had looked for the last time on a bright and sunny 
 face. The loneliness of his lodgings became insupportable, 
 and heedless of his landlady's request that he would take 
 some food, he walked forth into the streets feeling himself 
 intensely forsaken amid the vast multitudes that hurried to 
 and fro. 
 
 "Well, well, to-morrow, thank God, shall see me far away 
 from this, and on the broad Atlantic." 
 
 He turned his steps towards Canning Place to post a letter 
 of farewell and of explanation to Feverley. 
 
 "Ah, my good friend," he had written, "I now know and 
 feel all that you must have endured in that past time at 
 Monkwood Moat ; but your love was true to you, while minb 
 has been false to me. Yet our stories are the same in efi'ect." 
 
 As he passed up Canning Place he saw the gas-lights 
 gleaming from the windows of the old familiar countin§- 
 nouse, and heard within the merry voices of some of his 
 hard-worked but heedless young chums of the desk and 
 ledger. He knew that in common courtesy he should bid 
 them all a formal farewell ; but shrunk from the task, lest 
 they should see the misery which he felt was so legibl^jr writ- 
 
A SERPENT IN ANOTHER SKlJf. 279 
 
 ten in his face ; and so lie turned away and trod restlessly 
 on and on, without object, through the streets, though now 
 the night was chilly and the rain was falling heavily. 
 " Parted for ever !" he muttered ; " parted for ever 1" 
 Thenceforward the paths of Hesbia and himseK in life 
 would be separate — separate as two parallel lines, which can 
 never, never meet. 
 
 CHAPTER XLYII. 
 
 A SEEPENT IN ANOTHER SKIN. 
 
 In his errant and reckless mood of mind, Lennard had wan- 
 dered far, so completely immersed in thought that it was not 
 until he found himself in a part of the town with which he 
 was quite unfamiliar and almost in the dark, for the lamps 
 were few and irregular, and the rain pouiing heavily, that he 
 thought of a necessity for turning homeward. 
 
 A suspicious-looking personage, with his hat drawn over 
 his eyes, and a muffler up to his nose, bluntly inquiring the 
 hour, sharpened Lennard's faculties ; but at that moment a 
 church clock striking eleven, relieved him of the necessity of 
 parrying the question, or puUing forth his watch, and being, 
 perhaps, released from all future care for it. 
 
 "Eleven, and where am I^" thought he • and as he turned 
 in the du-ection which he conceived to be homeward, the 
 rain and the wind came with increasing violence against him. 
 
 A recess off the street — a species of arcade of bricks and 
 timber — within which he could see the flywire blinds of a 
 tavern of humble, even of mean appearance, lured him to 
 take advantage of the temporary shelter it afforded, amid 
 the gloom of the narrow street, from the chill wind and the 
 drenching rain. He had been there some time before he per- 
 ceived that another person shared the same asylum— a pale- 
 faced and shivering wretch, apparently the same man in the 
 hat and muffler, who had so recently accosted him. Com- 
 pletely roused and suspicious now, Lennard drew nearer to 
 observe him by the light that streamed from the "window of 
 the tavern. 
 
 " 0-o-oh ! it is so jolly cold, isn't it V said the stranger, 
 shudderinglj% while rubbing one hand over the other in the 
 vain attempt to warm them. 
 
 Startled by the voice which was familiar to him, Lennard 
 drew still nearer, but kept in shadow while reconnoitring 
 his companion, who was exposed to the full glare of light 
 from the window. Then, despite the broken and soddea 
 
28o THE GIEL HE MAERIEB. 
 
 hat, the greasy muffler, the worn and tattered surtotit but- 
 toned well up to the chin, the trowsers all frayed at the feet 
 — despite the gaunt misery that hollowed the cheeks and 
 bloodshot eyes, in this squalid creature he recognized Travice 
 Cheatwood — and Cheatwood in the same moment recognized 
 him ! 
 
 In no mood to speak, Lennard gave him a glance of min- 
 gled detestation and contempt, and turned away. 
 
 " Perhaps, Mr. Blair, if you knew that for eight-and-forty 
 hours I have scarcely tasted food — " he was beginning. 
 
 " Bah ! do not appeal to my clemency — you who would 
 have shot me if you could. Begone, sir !" 
 
 " This place is as free to me as to you," said the other, with 
 a little of his old hrusquerie; "so I won't 'begone, sir T " 
 
 " Not if _ I call in the aid of the police ^" 
 
 "That is about the last thing you would do,*' replied 
 Cheatwood, quietly ; " I know you better than you do your- 
 self, perhaps. I shot at you, true ; but, by Heaven, and may 
 I never taste food— I who am starving and know too well 
 what hunger is — if I meant to do worse than merely to 
 wound — to wing you !" 
 
 " A cool admission ; but why— what wrong had I ever 
 done you X^ 
 
 " You had exposed my play at cards, and I was mad—." 
 His thick unpleasing voice became more husky as he spoke. 
 
 "Madf 
 
 " Yes, with love for my cousin Hesbia." 
 
 This was not quite true, for love had never disturbed the 
 equanimity of Cheatwood's mind ; but to own it served his 
 purpose now, better than he supposed, for as " a fellow feel- 
 ing makes us wondrous kind," Lennard was disposed to view 
 the erring Travice with a more compassionate eye. 
 
 " 1, too, am almost mad," he mu tered, " if you knew all. 
 And you are starving T 
 
 " Yes— look at me." 
 
 For the entire day no food had passed the lips of Lennard 
 Blair • he had never missed it, bui now a frightful thirst was 
 upon iiim. 
 
 " And all the money I gave yon Cheatwood " 
 
 ** Is gone— gone beyond recall." 
 
 " Come with me," said Lennard, " you shall get some food 
 in this tavern. I have but a few hours to spend in Liver- 
 pool, and they may as well be passed here as anywhere else. 
 First tell me, why were you so iv 3h as to venture back to 
 this town T 
 
 " When in Glasgow," replied the unabashed Travice, " I 
 
A SERPENT IN ANOTHEK SKIN. 28 1 
 
 thougM that instead of trying a distant colony, I might find, 
 
 ferhaps, ' fresh woods and pastures new ' in Ireland, where 
 am unknown. I got screwed with your horrid poisonous 
 Scotch whisky, tumbled on board at the Broomielaw ; but 
 instead of being for BeKast or the Liffey, she proved to be 
 for Liverpool, so here I am again." 
 
 " Then, how about — about the bill of exchange T' 
 
 " Somehow, the idea has luckily been set about by Nathan 
 Nab, that I perished in old Yere's mines, so at present I'm 
 pretty safe, being supposed to be defunct. A devil of a mess 
 that affair was underground, and all through my lighting a 
 cigar !" 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Cheatwood, think of all those who perished in 
 the pit!" 
 
 " Why ]" said he, with disdain in his pale green eyes. 
 
 " Have you no pity V\ 
 
 " Is that a pun, my friend ? — for, if so, it is a deuced bad 
 one. What were they but a parcel of obscure wretches, of 
 whose lives, had they survived, no trace would be remain- 
 ing fifty years hence, more than of the rats and mice in 
 yonder old store. Bah ! such people are foredoomed to 
 oblivion anyway." 
 
 In _ the shabby coffee-room of the tavern the waiter, after 
 scrutinizing their appearance (and having evident suspicions 
 of Lennard from the equipment and general air of his com- 
 panion), brought to order a supper of chops and ham and 
 eggs for Travice, with brandy-and- water hot for both, all of 
 which were paid for by Lennard, who had not failed to per- 
 ceive, above the mantel-piece, a framed and flyblown pla- 
 card, announcing to aU whom it might concern — " Pay on 
 delivery." 
 
 Travice having removed his sodden hat and worsted 
 muffler, placing both within the influence of the fire, the 
 flame of which he roused with the carving-fork— the poker 
 having been removed from motives of prudence or economy 
 — proceeded to eat like a famished ostrich, and to talk with 
 increasing fluency, while a succession of brandies and water 
 hot were ordered, and duly paid for by Lennard. 
 
 "Yes, by Jove ! I'm low enough now, Blair — seedy, as you 
 see. God knows, I'm come down like the man on ' his last 
 legs,' from ' sunshine and champagne to clouds and bottled 
 porter ;' and times there are when, in lieu of a petit verre of 
 cognac or La Grande Chartreuse, pure as crystal, I take a 
 draught from the nearest pump as a relish to my dinner — a 
 dinner at which a cat's-meat man would turn up his nose, 
 and the cats, too, perhaps would tm'n up theirs." 
 
2^2 THE GIRL HE MAllIltED. 
 
 As he ate and talked, his hollow cheeks seemed to expand 
 and the colour to return to them. 
 
 " That thick moustache— well corked, I think— alters your 
 appearance greatly," said Lennard. 
 
 " Artistically done— isn't iti Ah ! my fair moustache has 
 changed its cut as well as hue, and I have done for ever with 
 the goatee beard — of Yankee rather than of formal cut. If 
 I could only revive my toggery — but even the pump won't 
 do that !" 
 
 Lennard's heart was softened— his spirit crushed by what 
 he had undergone with Hesbia; hence he was more enduring 
 to the fallen and degraded Travice Cheatwood. 
 
 " Eeform if you can, Travice," said he, after a pause ; 
 " you have had many warnings of evil — many chances for 
 good. Take heed while you may." 
 
 " It is too late— too late," replied the other huskily and 
 \alf-savagel5-, with his mouth full. 
 
 " Too late for what ]" 
 
 "To become the prodigal son— to do the * repentant 
 sinner' dodge. I am a deuced deal more likely to continue 
 the ' frightful example' the parsons cant about." 
 
 " It is never too late to do good — never too late to see the 
 truth on this side of the grave." 
 
 " Don't bother in this sententious fashion, and don't take 
 to preaching, whatever you do. Drink and be jolly ! I am 
 as thirsty as the camels in the desert — or was it the Cossacks 
 we used to read about at school, in Hume's History of Eng- 
 land—or some such book 1 And so you sail to-morrow for 
 South America 1" 
 
 "Yes— by the Valparaiso^ 
 
 " I wish your luck were mine ! For, though the affair oi 
 old Vere's bill has partly blown past, I am in danger of arrest 
 for other pranks and misfortunes." 
 
 " Hush — in danger T 
 
 " Yes— hourly," said Cheatwood, drawing down the dis- 
 coloured window-blind, lest some face might be peering in 
 from without. 
 
 " Such a life must be horrible !" 
 
 " Deuced unpleasant anyway. But how do you and the 
 divine party stand— eh ^ Speak— you look uncommonly low 
 to-night." 
 
 The supper had been removed, and more brandy— double 
 allowances — ordered. Lennard had barely eaten a morsel, 
 and now the fumes of the potent spirit were mounting into 
 his head. The tavern was lonely and silent ; the shabby- 
 looking old waiter sat half-asleep in the bar without the 
 
A SEE^EJCT IN ANOTHER SKIN. 283 
 
 room, wishing the two late visitors in a very warm climate 
 indeed. In the streets no sound was heard but the rain, as 
 it lashed the windows and bubbled in the choked sewers 
 and surging gutters. 
 
 In the fulness of his overcharged heart — in his anxiety 
 perhaps to share his secret with another — even with such a 
 creature as this cousin of Hesbia Vere — Lennard was weak 
 enough to relate all that had transpired at the Villa in the 
 forenoon ; and a covert gleam of malignant triumph and of 
 satisfaction gradually stole over the face of Travice as he 
 listened. 
 
 " You tell me just what I would expect of her," said he ; 
 " she is a case-hardened lot— barely had she left school when 
 8he had two engagements, and half a dozen very serious 
 flirtations, so don't sorrow for her, or fancy that she'll 'waste 
 her sweetness' on old Crowdy. Not a bit of it ; I knoAv my 
 gentle cousin better. Why, I was her fool and i)lay thing, 
 when she had no better game in the cover !" 
 
 " Don't talk of her so slightingly, Cheatwood. I am sorry 
 I told you." 
 
 Travice laughed hoarsely and loudly, and then added, "A 
 confounded skittish jade ! She'll lead that fellow Crowdy a 
 dance yet, or I am much mistaken. I wonder who the lucky 
 swain may be that— that " 
 
 " She will really love T said Lennard mournfully. 
 
 *' Not at all— nothing so stupid." 
 
 "What then r' 
 
 " Endow with her worldly goods after he has put the magic 
 ring on her third finger." 
 
 " Crowdy is to be her husband— did I not say so 1 — Crowdy, 
 who is to become a partner in the firm of Vere &, Co," said 
 licnnard, bitterly and emphatically. 
 
 Cheatwood gave a long and angry whistle, for he con- 
 sidered that his uncle had somehow, in the matter of the 
 firm, always used him scurvily. 
 
 " You can never know, Cheatwood, how much I loved your 
 cousin ! It was for her sake I have ev^r sought to screen 
 and serve you." 
 
 " Thanks— don't for a moment imagine that I ever sup- 
 posed it was for my own sake, or my oAvn virtues. And your 
 constancy, my unhappy Lothario " 
 
 " Will endure for ever !" sighed Lennard, as he drained 
 his glass and sighed. 
 
 "For ever is a mighty long time — wish these goes of 
 brandy would last so I 
 
284 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 Acting on tlie hint Lennard rung tlie bell, rousing once 
 more the sleepy waiter. 
 
 " I could cure you of this love of yours in a year— or a 
 month or two more at furthest." 
 
 ;|Howr 
 
 " By a very simple process if I had the power. I'd marry 
 you to your Dulcinea, and by the time mentioned she would 
 
 be sure to bolt with some tenor singer or d d dragoon 
 
 fellow ; or see the error of her ways, perhaps, and leave all 
 her money past you for the conversion of the Spaniards or 
 the Feejee Islanders." 
 
 " The hour is late," said Lennard, impatiently, for he was 
 in no mood for banter. 
 
 " Don't be in a hurry, pray ; it is so jolly comfortable here 
 —so cold and wet without." 
 
 " But consider the waiter." 
 
 " Bother the waiter — who ever considers such people 1" 
 
 "Are your lodgings a long way off?" 
 
 " Yes, a deuced long way off— so far that I don't think I 
 shall ever find them," was the significant reply. 
 
 " You have a little money — of course f 
 
 " A little— yes," said Travice, eyeing wolfishly the port- 
 monnaie which Lennard was holding open ; " devilish little 
 indeed 1" 
 
 " How much, now T' he asked, smiling kindly. 
 
 " Pray spare my feelings— don't inquire. How much is a 
 man likely to have in his purse who has been starving for 
 eight-and-forty hours T' exclaimed Travice, with a strange 
 but ferocious laugh. 
 
 " True — pardon me." 
 
 " Go-ahead ! ' What's the odds so long as you are happy V 
 a beautiful axiom that, old fellow, and many a time I've 
 found it answer me." 
 
 ^ Lennard sHpped a couple of sovereigns, and all his loose 
 silver, into Cheatwood's hands, which closed like a vice upon 
 the welcome cash. 
 
 " Thanks — thanks ; but one good turn deserves another — 
 you'll have a cigar from me 1" 
 
 " With pleasure," said the other, but doubtfully, as he had 
 a serious horror of a bad cigar. 
 
 " I am not so poor as to be unable to procure a luxury of 
 this peculiar kind," said Travice with a smile, the analysis of 
 whicn was impossible, as he produced (not as he used to do, 
 from a beautiful silver case, but from a well-worn old pocket- 
 book) a couple of cigars and proffered them to Leiniard, 
 who bit the end of one and proceeded to light it, and saying, 
 
A SERPENT IN ANOTHER SKIN. 285 
 
 " Try mine," laid liis eml ossed case on the table. 
 
 Travice watched the pro-; ess of lighting the cigar, and the 
 first few wliifFs thereof witl more interest than such a simple 
 action seemed to merit. 
 
 "You like it f 
 
 " Yes/' said Lennard, as Travice accej)ted one of his. 
 
 "It's a real Lugerdita brand — thirty shillings per hundred." 
 
 Lennard made a grimace — for he thought this but a poor 
 recommendation. 
 
 " You can have a light from me," he said. 
 
 But this offer Cheatwood hastily declined, preferring one 
 from tlie gas jet. 
 
 " You'll have a tidy lot of tin to take out with you, I sup- 
 pose"?" he observed in his old slangy way. 
 
 " Not much ; but I have ample letters of credit on the 
 bank of Vera Cruz, and on the firm of Leonardo and 
 Company." 
 
 " Ah — indeed — and who are they 1" 
 
 " Spanish merchants. So I shall get on very well, no 
 doubt." 
 
 " And your passage is taken in the Valparaiso^ you said 1" 
 
 " Yes — luggage packed at my lodgings — all ready to start 
 after breakfast to-morrow — and then — then, thank Heaven, 
 I shall turn my back on Liverpool," said Lennard, who 
 began to feel strangely exhilarated and light in the head. 
 Fearing what he might say, for he seemed to have lost con- 
 trol of his tongue, he continued to smoke and listen to 
 Travice. 
 
 " A sly, cold-blooded old humbug is Vere,"said the latter ; 
 " but he is safe to come to grief, with his Great Pacific ana 
 Panama circumbendibus line of steam clippers, or whatever 
 the deuce it is — and his precious baronet, too ! even the 
 little Scotch lawyer prig — what's his name— Dabchick- -saw 
 through that fellow ! So you like the cigar, eh % they are 
 pretty strong ; you won't smoke another," added Travice 
 Cheatwood, with a laugh so mocking, that Lennard, whose 
 faculties were rapidly becoming more and more obscure, 
 and who was striving to excuse himself, and explain that he 
 had been without food since morning ; that the brandy or 
 the cigar were hence making him extremely giddy — si: k in 
 fact ; that the room was whirling round him ; that it seemed 
 to be full of mocking Travice Cheatwoods ; that he must 
 begone and so forth ; striving we say, but in vain, to speak, 
 for his powers of utterance and of volition seemed alike t » 
 have left hinL Then he suddenly fell on the floor in a fit of 
 utter stupefaction, the last sound of which he waa sensibl© 
 
286 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 being the fierce derisive laugli of his companion. The cigar 
 had been drugged by a powerful narcotic. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 OUTWITTED. 
 
 Cold and stiff, benumbed and sick, giddy and utterly 
 bewildered as to his whereabouts, Lennard awoke for a few 
 minutes, and then closing his eyes again, believed that he 
 was dreaming, for the place in which he found himself 
 seemed so strange and unusual in aspect. A bare little 
 chamber, totally destitute of furniture, with a small and 
 very dirty window, high up in the wall, and well secured 
 inside by bars of iron, between which a network of dusty 
 spiders' webs had been spun and left undisturbed. He 
 found himself in his shirt and trousers, lying on a hard 
 and bare wooden bench or bed, the pillow of which was 
 like a wooden step, but only some three inches or so in 
 height. 
 
 "A strange dream this!" he muttered- but anon the 
 fumes of coarse tobacco, stealing through an open door 
 from an outer chamber, forced upon him the conviction 
 that it was no dream, and shudderingly he sat up and 
 looked around him. 
 
 The loss of Hesbia now rushed to his memory, rousing 
 him to full consciousness. It seemed as if his sky had 
 grown dark ; as if tlie face of nature had changed, and the 
 old crushing, blinding, and bewildering sensations of yester- 
 day returned in full force. All that had made his course 
 of life so hopeful ; all that made wealth and position worth 
 the struggle and attainment had passed away. Before him 
 were doubt and grief ; behind a past to be viewed only with 
 regretful contempt and disdain. 
 
 But his present plight was more bewildering than all. 
 He knew not what to say, or do, or think. Where was he t 
 Had he gone mad 1 His blood ran cold at the idea. What 
 strange place, what desolate den was this in which he 
 found himself 1 How had he come there ? had he been 
 tipsy 1 in a row, or what 1 and where were his clothes ? He 
 strove to recollect ; but the memory of last night had passed 
 from him. He only remembered the last glance of Hesbia, 
 and leaving the villa to wander aimlessly in the fields. 
 
 " Hollo tnere !" he exclaimed, on hearing voices and foot- 
 steps in the outer chamber. 
 
 The door was thrown open, and two men— in one of whom, 
 with disgust and alarm, he recognised an inspector of police 
 — appeared. 
 
OUTWITTED. 287 
 
 " What— stirring at last !" said tlie latter, a pleasant and 
 Jolly-looking man, with a strong Lancashire accent. 
 
 " Have I slept here long T stammered Lennard, who was 
 Btill giddy and confused. 
 
 " Long, by jingo ; I should think so ! some eighteen hours 
 or so, more or less." 
 
 " Eighteen hours %" 
 
 ** Yes— by my watch." 
 
 "Audit is now — now — '^ added Lennard, feeling for his 
 own ; but he sought it in vain. 
 
 *' About six in the evening." 
 
 "The evening, and I should have been on board the 
 Valparaiso by noon !' he exclaimed, staggering to Ms feet, 
 only to fall back on the bench, as his limbs refused to 
 support him. 
 
 *' Take care, my good fellow," said the inspector, kindly, 
 " or you may hurt yourself. The Doctor said that some 
 time would elapse before you got over the effects of it." 
 
 "/^— effects of what r 
 
 "The cigar that v/as found beside you when taken in 
 charge. You've got yourself into a fine mess, my lad." 
 
 " Sir, I do not understand you," said Lennard, haughtily. 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but how came it all about V' 
 
 Lennard's facidties were still far from clear, so he could 
 not reply to the question. 
 
 " Water," said he, " give me water— for I feel as if dying 
 of thirst." 
 
 Then he drank deeply from a jug of water which was 
 handed to him by a little man who had not yet spoken, but 
 whose sharp ferret-like eyes had been regarding him atten- 
 tively ; and Lennard, though he knew it not, had a black 
 ring round his hard baked lips, while both his eyes were 
 bloodshot and rather wild in expression. 
 
 " You must have fallen among bad company last night," 
 said the inspector, " and got yourself drugged and robbed, 
 it would appear, for when found in a low tavern near this 
 station-house, you had been stripped of every article save 
 your boots and trousers ; but the Doctor has seen you twice, 
 and says you shaU be all right in a day or two." 
 
 " Travice Cheat wood !" muttered Lennard, through his 
 clenched teeth, and he saw it all now. 
 
 The cigar had been drugged ! Travice had then, on its 
 taking fully effect, stripped him of hat, coat, vest, and tie, 
 for his own adornment, leaving in their places the old 
 tattered surtout, the dirty muffler, and the sodden wide- 
 awake, girt by a rag of black cr^e ; but Travice had doae 
 ^orse, for i>^ l^d carried off Lennard's watch, card and 
 
288 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 cigar-cases, his portmonnaie and pocket-book. Even a set 
 of valuable studs had been torn from his shirt-front. An 
 attempt had evidently been made to wrench off his father's 
 signet-ring. It alone was left ; but the finger it encircled 
 was severely bruised and sprained. Re had been found 
 thus by the waiter, who immediately summoned the police, 
 so the mystery was a very prosaic affair after till. 
 
 " So — so, this has been your doing, scoundrel !" he ex- 
 claimed, in a husky voice; " but I may yet overtake you, to 
 your fear and confusion. I have no cause for mistaken 
 mercy now, Mr. Travice Cheatwood !" 
 
 " Who did you say, sir? " asked the little man, now bust- 
 ling past the inspector ; " did you mention the name of one 
 Travice Cheatwood 1 " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " Then this here has been one of his little games ; but is 
 he alive— can it be the same 1" 
 
 " I have been again the victim of a wretch, compared with 
 whose horrible career that of Thyestes was a joke ! " 
 
 " I don't know the gent as you're speaking of, but this I 
 know — you've been the victim of one of the most precious 
 rascals in Liverpool, and that's a wide word, as Inspector 
 Smith will tell you. And now that I looks at you, I find 
 we have met before." 
 
 " Indeed !" said Inspector Smith suspiciously, as he came 
 a pace nearer Lennara 
 
 " Lor' don't you mind o' me, Mr. Blair— Mr. Nathaniel 
 Nab as came to Scotland with a warrant for the arrest of 
 Travice Cheatwood, on charges of felony, and got flung into 
 an 'ole or hold quarry, along with one Grabble, in the 
 hexecution of our dooty. 
 
 " Who, then, is this person V asked the inspector. 
 
 " Mr. Lennard Blair, of the 'ouse of Were and Co., in the 
 halley off Canning Place. I knows the young gentleman, 
 very well, and a very 'spectable young gentleman he is." 
 
 " All right — in that case you'll be able to take care of him, 
 see him home, and so forth." 
 
 "With pleasure. I read in the papers all about your 
 escape from the coal-mine ; but s'help my bob, I thought 
 you had surely had enough of that ere Cheatwood to make 
 you avoid him— keep out of his way at least V 
 
 " I was doing him a kindness, even after all the mischief ho 
 had wrought me — a mere act of human charity, for he told me 
 that he was starving— and this is his mode of repayment." 
 
 " ICnowing his character as you do, why did you condo- 
 to sit at the same t^able with him V asked Inspector 
 
OUTWITTED. 2«9 
 
 " You may well ask the questiuii ; but the night was cold 
 and wet — I was broken in spirit, too — but how singularly 
 constituted is the human heart I" 
 
 " Yes, by jingo, a remarkable utensil ; but only a forc^ 
 pump, arter all," commented Mr, Nab. 
 
 " This is Wednesday, the twenty-fourth of the month — the 
 day on which I am to sail by the Valparaiso steamer for 
 South America, on important business. I h ave not a moment 
 to lose," said Lennard, starting forward; "would you kindly 
 get me a cab that I may drive off at once T 
 
 " Wait a little, please Mr. — what name did you say V 
 
 " Blair," suggested Nab to the inspector. 
 
 "You may yet be required by the poUce magistrates,* 
 
 "Detention may cause the greatest confusion!'' urged 
 Lennard, with an emotion of intense annoyance. 
 
 " Can't help that, sir ; as Mr. Nab says, ' dutj- is duty,' 
 and mine is to have a memorandum made of this affair, and 
 a note of all you have lost — the number of your watch, for 
 instance, if you know it. Such may readily lead to the 
 arrest of this Travice Cheatwood, for Mr. Nab and other able 
 detectives shall at once be set on his track." 
 
 " I thank you sir," said Lennard, to whom the delay was 
 intolerable, while the inspector slowly and deliberately 
 entered a list of all the items he had lost with a minute 
 description thereof into an official book ; after this a cab 
 was procured, and Lennard, in a fever of impatience, was 
 driven to his lodgings, accompanied by Mr. Nab. 
 
 On turning into the familiar street, and arriving at the 
 equally well-known door, a fresh surprise awaited him, 
 though the emotion of his landladv on seeing him in his 
 present peculiar plight was only equalled by her astonishment 
 in seeing him at all ! 
 
 "Ain't you gone, sir — ain't you sailed]" she exclaime:!, 
 with uplifted hands. 
 
 " No— do not you see that I have not ; I have come L r 
 some clothes." 
 
 "Lawk, sir, at ten this morning your luggage and everj-- 
 thinw were taken on board the Valparaiso." 
 
 "By whomf 
 
 . " The gentleman you sent for them." 
 ^"I sent no one," said Lennard, T\^th a groan, while Mr. 
 Nab gave a low whistle, expressive of surprise or professii>nal 
 satisfaction on hearing of a fresh piece or roguery. 
 
 " And is everything of mine gone T asked Lennard. 
 
 "All but some letters you left on the mantelpiece, and 
 "which, fortunately, I forgot to give to your friend" 
 
 " Friend, indeed !" j^ 
 
•290 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 " Lor' bless me, Mr. Blair, what lias happened f she asked 
 kindly, when Lennard reeled, as if intoxicated, towards his 
 old room ; and then, leaving him to tell his own story, Mr. 
 Nathaniel Nab plnnged again into the cab, and was driven 
 at a furious speed on an errand of inquiry to the dock where 
 the Valparaiso lay, or rather had lain, for by that time she 
 was out of the river, and at sea under sail and steam. 
 " Mr. Lennard Blair was aboard with all his luggage," as he 
 was duly informed by a clerk (at the Shipping Office), who 
 averred that he had seen that gentleman — or one who called 
 himself Blair — select his own berth, and thereafter take a 
 glass of sherry and Angostura bitters with the captain, in 
 the saloon cabin. 
 
 " It is as rum a start as I ever come across ! so he's off 
 to Werra Crooz 1" soliloquised Mr. Nab, as he drove back to 
 Blair's lodgings, and then the whole story was made plain. 
 
 At ten that morning a well-dressed gentleman, whose de- 
 scription and personal appearance exactly tallied with those 
 of Mr. Cheatwood, arrived at Lennard's residence, and, 
 showing a card which the landlady at once recognised as one 
 of Lennard's own, announced that he had come with instruc- 
 tions to settle her bills, to give Mr. Blair's kindest regards, 
 and take his luggage to the docks. A cab had been called, 
 and with all Lennard's property, the enterprising Mr. 
 Cheatwood had gone on board the Valpa?^aiso in his name, 
 just as she was slowly steaming out into the fair way, and 
 had sailed with her for South America, leaving all his debts, 
 duns, and rogueries as a legacy to his friends and country. 
 
 " Another jolly swindle is the cabin-fare — thirty-six pounds 
 to South Merricker by the bi-monthly line,'* said Mr. Nab, 
 laughing heartily ; " he's given us the slip anyway. S'help 
 my bob, but it's enough to cure one of smoking this is ! 
 By one cigar, in a coal mine, this fellow blows hisself and 
 every one else up, and by another he floors you outright, and 
 gets a free passage to Werra Crooz, with no end of houtlit 
 and plunder. Brayvo ! it's as good as a play, it is '" 
 
 " To you, sir, perhaps it may be," said Lennard, angrily ; 
 " but you must excuse me from seeing it in the light you do.' 
 
 To Mr. Nab the whole affair appeared a joke— a clever 
 trick ; for every hour of the day he was face to face with 
 roguery. But it was a serious loss for Lennard. Everything 
 he possessed was gone, save his letters of instructions and 
 credit, which yet lay on the mantelpiece, with a torn glove 
 beside them— the tiny kid glove of the pretty foreign girl 
 whom, in his now jaundiced views of humanity, he believ( 
 to be ttlso an impostor, or the aider and abettor of one. 
 
OFF THE BELL BUOl? AT LAST. 29I 
 
 He felt baffled, beaten, and disgusted with the game of 
 life ; and, after despatcliing an almost illegible note to 
 worthy Abel Envoyse, stating all that had just happened, 
 he retired to bed, for his whole system was yet oppressed by 
 the poisouons nature of the cigar by which he liad been 
 deluded. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 OFF THE BELL BUOY AT LAST. 
 
 Ill and alone at his lodgings — ill and miserable — Lennard 
 found even the visits of old Abel Envoyse a species of relief. 
 To his more heedless chums of the counting-house he ordered 
 himself to be denied ; and no message or letter ever came 
 from the Veres. Abel had secured a passage for Lennard 
 in the next vessel, the Golden Dream^ one of those large and 
 magnificent ships of the West Indian and Pacific Company 
 which was to sail on the loth of the next month for Vera 
 Cruz, vid Port-au-Prince and Kingston. 
 
 " It's aU arranged, for I've just been to Dale Street ; and 
 this time I shall see you on board myself, sir," added the 
 old man, laughing ; and then he gave Lennard much good 
 advice, urging upon him the necessity of cultivating that 
 which he justly termed " an enthusiasm in life." " You are 
 too young," he would say, for he shrewdly suspected Len- 
 nard's secret, " far too young to have that glorious emotion 
 either blunted or dissipated. You have not come in contact 
 with mankind sufficiently to be so ; and in battling with 
 the world, the spirit of enthusiasm should be deepened and 
 strengthened in the hearts of us all !" 
 
 Then Lennard would blush for himself as Abel Envoyse 
 spoke, for he knew that the hard-working managing clerk 
 had a sickly wife, a large family, and several poor relations 
 aU dependent on his health and exertions for their daily 
 bread ; and yet this tine old fellow could preach thus of 
 enthusiasm in life ! Something of his spendthrift father's 
 pride of birth, with other emotions he had learned to deem 
 absurd or behind the age, would come back at times to Len- 
 nard's mind ; and then he would think, with a revengeful 
 scorn, which, if not soothing, was nearly so, of the cold- 
 blooded parvenu and his selfish daughter who had so lm*ed 
 and beguiled him. 
 
 A letter came from Feverley, with a package from Steinie 
 and Elsie. The gift of the former — having heard of his 
 jJlness—was an old hunting-flask of his father's, full of th© 
 
 19-3 
 
292 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 purest Glenlivat : from the latter came a well- corked bottle 
 of water from the well of the Tor Hill, her own sovereign 
 remedy for all ailments ; also, some thick woollen comfort- 
 ers, stockings, and wristlets, to keep him warm and cosy in 
 the tropics— a quarter whereof Elsie's ideas were somewhat 
 vague and strange, 
 
 Mr. Envoyse mentioned incidentally that Miss Vere had 
 gone to London to join her father. " To London — where 
 Crowdy is !" thought Lennard. This quite accounted for 
 her oblivion of him and of the ill-treatment he had received 
 anew from her wretched cousin. She had, indeed, thrown 
 him completely over ; and now there were times when he 
 felt himself alone — almost as much alone in spirit as when 
 he had been shut up in that mine, that living grave, with 
 God and the Dead ! In anger and with hatred, he recalled 
 the face and figure of Mr. Vere, jingling, as was his custom, 
 his loose silver, as if the sound thereof was grateful to his 
 ears and to his soul ; Vere, whom he now deemed the very 
 incarnation of mammon and of mercantile hypocrisy, com- 
 bined with an assiduity to business and a regularity of habit 
 unsurpassed by the sun himself ; Vere, rigidly wearing 
 black, sleek and smooth-faced to unpleasantness, rather in- 
 clined to corpulence, very fair-complexioned, with colourless 
 eyes, and light hair barely tinged with grey. He could pic- 
 ture him now, with his subtle suavity to the supposed 
 wealthy Crowdy, with his bland smile, and his jaw which 
 might have been modelled from that of a tiger-cat, and, 
 like those of a tiger-cat, his large and quick eyes ever 
 watchful and on the alert. He was a regular attender at 
 church too, especially when at home in Liverpool, where 
 none made louder or more sonorous responses than he. 
 
 Of him and " the Crowdy,"— as Lennard termed the baro- 
 net, in angry derigion — there came no news to Mr. Envoyse, 
 not even the most vague rumours now. 
 
 " Had I not assigned Oakwoodlee for a further interest 
 in the firm, I might have turned its value to other account,** 
 thought Lennard, " or perhaps retained it altogether ; but to 
 be their petty neighbour at Blairavon— Aer neighbour — no, 
 no, never ! I must realize what I actually possess as soon 
 I may, and get rid for ever of Vere, Crowdy, and Co. But 
 action and change of scene must first be tried— so Vera Cruz 
 be it !" 
 
 That his son, by industry and toil— though, oddly enough, 
 Richard Blair despised them both— might regain the wealth 
 and jDosition of which extravagance had deprived him, had 
 ever been, as the old gentleman a thousand times averred, 
 
071* THE BELL BIJOY AT LAST. 593 
 
 " his earnest prayer— liis golden dream ;" and Lennard, wlio, 
 despite his practical experiences, was by education some- 
 what of a visionary and one who clung to foreshadowings, 
 deemed it a strange coincidence that the very ship on board 
 of which Envoyse had secured his passage for the second 
 time should be named The Golden Dream. 
 
 So the time passed on ; the loth of the next month came, 
 and Lennard found himself on board the great ship and 
 bound for the sunny tropics. 
 
 Would he ever return % At that moment he cared little 
 whether he ever did so. His first desires were action, 
 change, and excitement— to be away from where he was ! 
 If he did return, months or years hence, how might Hes- 
 bia be situated ] A widow, perhaps ; there certainly did 
 not seem to be overmuch of life in that cadaverous baronet. 
 Anyway, in the first instance, there seemed to be ninety- 
 nine chances to one that, unless death or disaster occurred, 
 she would, ere the month was out, be the wife of Sir Cullen- 
 der. Well, well, ere that came to pass he would be under 
 the Southern Cross. 
 
 Even if she did not figure at St. George's, Hanover Square, 
 would 7w, Lennard Blair, marry her now % No, a thousand 
 times no, and he struck the deck with his heel at the 
 thought. 
 
 Farewells were passing around him on all sides— fare- 
 wells that were warm and kind, or earnest and sorrowful, 
 according to the ties that were being broken or the hope of 
 return. His old chums of the office stood on the receding 
 quay waving their hats ; little Joe Slobkins, who played the 
 flute and sang sentimental songs ; Jenimy Piper, who was 
 so great in private theatricals, and believed himself quite 
 equal, if not superior, to Toole ; old Abel Envoyse, with 
 his green goggles, huge gingham, and yellow bandanna ; 
 Smith, Brown, and Jones all were there crying, " God bless 
 you, old fellow — God speed you, Blair !" and his heart 
 yearned towards them— poor drudges of the desk and 
 ledger— and he thought of all their well-worn jokes and 
 little enjoyments in which he would share no more ; but 
 he knew that all of them would drink to his health and 
 succe^ that night, when he should be far away on the world 
 of waters. 
 
 Evening was closing when the great ship was warped out 
 of the wilderness of docks, and began to steam slowly down 
 the broad bosom of the Mersey, with her fore and aft can- 
 vas set. They were soon abreast of the Bell Buoy, and 
 when they rounded the Battery and Point of Newbrighton, 
 
294 THE GIRL HE MARRIE». 
 
 with all its beautiful villas, Liverpool was sinking amid the 
 haze and mist astern, and the Golden Dream was hauled up 
 for the Irish Sea. 
 
 On her lofty poop, Lennard remained long watching the 
 flat shore grow fainter and more faint, dimmer and lower, 
 as they glided past lights and headlands, bays and sand- 
 banks. 
 
 The cordage strained ; the bell clanged out at times ; the 
 engine-room lights cast weird red gleams aloft on sail and 
 spar and smoking funnel, and new the square canvas was 
 braced sharp up, for the wind and sea were setting hard in 
 shore. The great ocean-steamer heeled over to port, and 
 ever and anon, as she plunged amid the black waves, the 
 spray flew over her, hissing white and salt to leeward. 
 
 " The gloomy niglit was gathering fast;** 
 
 it was already stormy and cloudy in aspect-; yet Lennard 
 continued to linger on the poop, as he preferred it to the 
 crowded and brilliantly - lighted saloon — crowded with 
 strange people, strange faces and voices, though with many 
 of these he would become familiar enough on the morrow ; 
 and when ultimately he sought his berth and turned in for 
 the night, the revolving lights that twinkled at the horizon, 
 were those of the rugged and precipitous island known as 
 the Calf of Man ; and they then bore north and by west, 
 as the Golden Dream flew through the Irish Sea. 
 
 CHAPTEH L. 
 
 ON BOARD THE "GOLDEN DREAM." 
 
 Supposing, of course, that there was not a soul on board in 
 whom he could feel the slightest interest, and wishing to be 
 as far as possible on the long, long voyage of many thousand 
 miles which lay before him, Lennard Blair lay long in his 
 berth next day, having no desire to encounter a host of sea- 
 sick passengers either on the deck or in the saloon, and gave 
 full swing without reserve to the unprofitable task of wor- 
 rying himself by useless reflections on the past ; a tone of 
 mind or tendency of thought to which, no doubt, a few qualms 
 of the mal-de-mer contributed, while the Golden Dream, a 
 stately Clyde-built ship of two thousand tons' burthen, and 
 more than five hundred horse-powcr, steamed on through St. 
 George's Channel with all her canvas set, and a rippling 
 torrent of black smoke issuing from each of her short and 
 stunted funnels, which were painted red, with a rake aft. 
 
0>T BOARD THE " GOLDEX DREAM/' 295 
 
 In tlie evening, liowever, he could not resist the invitation 
 of the steward to " turn up " (while supplying him with a 
 libation of brandy and seltzer) and take a last view of the 
 land, which was then sinking into the waste of waters on 
 the port quarter. According-ly he dressed in haste, muffled 
 himself and came on deck in time to watch, wistfully, from 
 the mizzen-rigging, up which he went a little way, the faint 
 grey stripe — the last of Britain's isle — melting away at the 
 horizon, and he was told by the boatswain, Mr. Kit Kentlege, 
 a personage of whom we shall hear more hereafter, and with 
 whom an exchan.i^e of tobacco-pouches on the previous 
 evening had established an acquaintance, that it was " Saint 
 David's Head on the coast of Pembroke ; and lower down, 
 out o' sight a'most, lay Milford Haven ;" that now busy and 
 crowded port, the name of which is so full of the memories 
 of Shakespeare, the cave of Belarius, and the sorrows of 
 Imogen — the gentle, the tender, and the true. There were 
 few passengers on deck, and these were chiefly men, who 
 were smoking abaft the funnels, because there the motion 
 of the ship was less felt ; so Lennard Blair had the poop 
 nearly to himself. There were, he knew, some lady pas- 
 sengers on board ; but now all were below ; the evening was 
 louring, the sea and wind were heavy ; dark clouds enveloped 
 aU the sky, save where a red and fiery streak lingered to the 
 westward, and against it, the waves, as if traced by a brush 
 dipped deep in ink or indigo, were rising and falling alter- 
 nately in monotonous succession, while, with both her 
 engines clanking, panting, straining, puffing, and literally 
 tearing a passage through the foaming sea, the gi-eat steam- 
 ship flew on, the billows racing past on either side, to meet 
 and bubble, seethe and boil in her long white wake astern. 
 
 Occupied entirely with his own thoughts, somewhat 
 soothed by the whistling of the wind aloft, by the hiss of 
 the careering waves below, and by the sense of rapid motion 
 and progi-ession, though personally quiescent and inactive, 
 Lennard leaned over the taiFrail and gazed dreamily down 
 on the sea, on the ship's pale wake, which he could trace for 
 miles astern— homeward — through the darkening sea ; for 
 under the clouds of the coming night it was darkening fast 
 and far. Away to the westward, where the fiery streak was 
 lingering, but where the clouds were setting darkest, he knew 
 the coast of Ireland lay — the mountains of ^lunster — but 
 no trace of them was visible, for some eighty miles of water 
 rolled between, and this time to-morrow should see the 
 Golden Dream far out on the wide Atlantic. " What is it," 
 asks a novelist, " that so inevitably inspires sad and depres- 
 
296 THE GIEL HE MA.E.RIED. 
 
 sing thoiiglits as we walk tlie deck of some craft in the 
 silence of the night's dark hours ] No sense of danger near, 
 we hold on our course swiftly and steadily, cleaving the dark 
 waves, and bending gracefully beneath the freshening breeze. 
 Yet still the motion, which in the bright sunshine of the 
 noonday tells of joy and gladness, brings now no touch o( 
 pleasure to our hearts." Amid the thoughts, the time, the 
 place, and the utter novelty of his situation excited, there 
 were periods when his soul became filled with intense pity 
 for Hesbia. Then all his old love would return ; a longing, 
 aching desire to go back devoured him with the desperate 
 hope that he might see her once again— speak to her, look 
 into her eyes once more, and implore her to be true to him, 
 if not too late ! 
 
 But all this was impossible now, for the great ship was 
 rolling ceaselessly on and on — and every revolution of her 
 inexorable Avheels increased the distance that was — itmightbe 
 — happily yawning between them. Then a sullen desperation 
 took possession of his heart, and luckily for him, his pride 
 and wounded self-esteem found a temporary solace in rage 
 and contempt ; thus ever and anon were a thousand wild 
 fancies careering through his mind. His past life seemed to 
 be partially blotted out, and a new one lay before him— nay, 
 had actually begun ; a new home, new friends, and new 
 faces were there, and all the old seemed far, far away, or to 
 have been looked on, long, long ago. Yet still in vivid 
 recollection, he saw Blairavon with its slated turrets and 
 crow-stepped gables rising above the old forest trees ; the 
 white- washed walls of humbler Oakwoodlee, with old Elsie 
 and Steinie Hislop dozing about in the sunshine that cast 
 the shadow of the hills upon the woods and river ; there was 
 the Charter Stone too, with its grove of solemn Scottish 
 pines ; yonder rose Craigellon with its deep and silent loch, 
 and the trysting stile— pshaw ! he turned his face resolutely 
 to windward and resolved to think no more. 
 
 Among the passengers were few who, to him, seemed of 
 much interest. Some were gentlemen of colour, well-bred 
 and pleasant fellows, returning to Hispaniola and Cuba ; a 
 British officer or two returning from leave, and en route to 
 join their regiment at Jamaica ; a Spanish skipper, who was 
 a sullen and quarrelsome fellow ; a Yankee supercargo, who 
 was somewhat loquacious and possessed of a large organ of 
 curiosity ; there was also a Frenchman of the cor2:)s diplo- 
 matique ; but there were none apparentlv bound for Vera 
 Cruz, or that part of Mexico, save himself, a Spanish lady 
 and gentleman (neither of whon he had seen), and a couple 
 
ON BOARD THE " GOLDEN DREAM." 297 
 
 of wealthy sugar-planters, for the mouth of the Rio Tampico, 
 the last port at which the Golden Dream was to touch ere 
 she got up her steam again for old England and the Mersey. 
 
 The sound of a female voice singing in the saloon below and 
 accompanying herself on a piano, lured him to the break of 
 the poop, where the fire-buckets hung, and he lingered near 
 the door from whence a flood of light was streaming forward 
 on a group of weather-beaten tars and grimy engineers, who 
 were also listening. Her voice was full, deep, and flexible ; 
 exquisitely tender too ; the instrument was a very fine one, 
 and as she played and sang, her performance was both 
 brilliant and pleasing ; but the w^ords were so much in con- 
 sonance with his own thoughts that they stirred the heart 
 of Lennard strangely. 
 
 "Spanish, pure Spanish every word!" thought he, as he 
 paused and bent his ear to listen. " ' Todos, piensan que no 
 quiero ' — it is an old song of Pedro de Padillas." 
 
 *' The flame that burns within my lieart 
 
 Can find no outlet through mj tongue. 
 And so they know not tliat the smart 
 Has sunk so deep or burned so long ; 
 And thus they call the mighty throng 
 Of passion, — fleeting whim, while I 
 Despairing die ! 
 
 ♦* The tumult busy in my breast, 
 
 I name not; so — short-sighted men ! 
 They call me, as they deem me, blest, 
 
 And turning oft will say again 
 To me, ' You never knew love's pain, 
 O happy, happy maid !' — while I 
 Despairing die !" 
 
 She was still singing the last of the six verses of which 
 Padillas' lament is formed, when he threw off his reefing- 
 jacket, and softly entering the saloon, passed up between 
 the double row of tables, round which the passengers were 
 seated in groups, the ladies sewing, reading, or chatting, the 
 gehtlemen at cards, chess, or backgammon ; but all had 
 paused for a short time to listen to the fair musician, who 
 was seated unseen within a small after-cabin, formed between 
 the stem and rudder-case, on each side of which an arched 
 door gave entrance to it. 
 
 The long saloon-cabin was magnificent, and lighted by 
 many lamps, which sAvung from the beams in chains of 
 bronze. It was fitted up iji a kind of Romanesque style, 
 with arched doorways, na\'ing elaborate Tuscan pilasters- 
 capitals and archivolts, the keystone of each being the heaa 
 
298 5:he girl he married. ,' 
 
 of a faun or satyr half hidden in vine-leaves. All the wood- 
 work was of dark oak with gilded mouldings. Bronze 
 statues in niches that were lined with niirror-glass, alternated 
 with views of South American scenery and life, all of which 
 Lennard hoped to see in reality ; and one or two of the 
 illustrations were historical, such as the landing of Hernan 
 Cortez and his cavaliers amid the wondering natives who 
 crowded that strange and sunny shore ; Vasco Nunez de 
 Balboa opening his helmet with joy on beholding the vast 
 expanse of the Southern sea ; Pizarro dying beneath the 
 daggers of his enemies, and applying his lips to kiss the 
 cross which his finger had traced with his own blood upon 
 the marble floor. 
 
 Others showed the castle of San Juan de Uloa at Vera 
 Cruz, with the volcano of Tustla in full flame ; the alameda 
 of Mexico, with black-robed monks and bare-legged arrieros, 
 planters in broad hats and striped ponchos, galopinas at 
 market, and donnas flirting through the sticks of their fans, 
 with the handsome gachupins or Spaniards of the province ; 
 there was the vast plain of Toluca, \\ith herds of wild cattle 
 and troops of wilder horsemen careering across it amid 
 clouds of fiery dust ; here were soldiers, muleteers, and 
 robbers fighting in a Avild barranca or ravine ; yonder were 
 the vast chain of the Cordilleras, with their bases of brilliant 
 verdure and their peaks of eternal snow, with all manner of 
 wild animals in the foreground, from the fierce venados or 
 giant stags of New California to the chattering monkeys who 
 swing by their tails in the v/oods of Anahuac, It was an 
 epitome of the strange land he was going to see. The 
 rudder-case was completely framed in mirrors, and round it 
 ran a fernery or cabinet of glass, about three feet high, filled 
 with the rarest exotics. The little inner cabin beyond was i\. 
 species of half-circular boudoir for the exclusive accommoda- 
 tion of the ladies. It was exquisitely fitted up, and a soft 
 divan of crimson satin, stuffed with down feathers, was 
 placed round it from the stern to the bulk-head on each side. 
 Herein stood the piano, and it was not until he made his 
 way quite up to one of the open arched entrances, that 
 LennRrd was able to see the fair performer ; and while she 
 was slowly repeating, by request of some one, the last verse, 
 he was compelled to overhear the whispers of a whist party 
 concerning her. 
 
 " She is awfully handsome, I can tell you," lisped Ensign 
 Algernon Sidney Jones, of H.B.M. 5th West India Begi- 
 nient, who was on his way to rejoin at Up Park camp, (and 
 who wore his hair parted in the middle, and was more par- 
 
0^ BOAEB THE "GOLDEN DEEAM.* 29^ 
 
 ticular than a young girl about the whiteness of his hands) 
 to a sallow-\dsaged planter from some Penn on the Cabaritta 
 river. 
 
 '* Oui, Monsieur," chimed in the fat little French diplo- 
 matist, who was bound for some official situation in the 
 province of Hayti, and consequently had the inevitable red 
 ribbon of the Ordre at his button-hole ; "such eyes she has, 
 — parbleu ! one might light a cigar at them." 
 
 " I assisted her to grapes at dinner to-day," resumed the 
 warrior of the 5th West India, playing with his long fair 
 whiskers, "carefully selecting for her with the embossed 
 scissors the sweet muscatel, which I soon found she preferred 
 to the dark Hamburghers — by Jove I did !" and the hand- 
 some, stupid fellow laughed and looked as if he ought to be 
 envied, and had done or said something clever. 
 
 " Ah — vrai — a good taste she has, Monsieur, even in that." 
 
 " I mean to cut in for some fun with her to-night — by 
 Jove, I do!" 
 
 "But her guardian — her father, Monsieur," said M. Fabien, 
 the little Frenchman, with an air of mock propriety, but 
 with a wicked twinkle in his eye. 
 
 " Bah ! the old fellow is in his berth as sick as seventeen 
 dogs — at least the steward says so. Play, Captain Trocadero 
 — a spade led," he added to his partner, a short and thick- 
 set Spaniard of very sinister aspect, who had also paused in 
 his game to listen. 
 
 "Nunca gano — demonio !'* (I never win) growled the 
 Spaniard ; " Si Senor— spada,'' and then he added, after 
 throwing down the card, " que bonita !— bonita % par cielo, 
 parece tan hermosa como un angel !"* 
 
 " With her dark eyes and golden hair, she is a veritable 
 little Lucrezia Borgia !" resumed the Frenchman ; — "thanks. 
 Monsieur le Capitaine— but I trump your spade. What is 
 her name f 
 
 "Xo one knows anything except that her old friend, 
 whatever he may be, always calls her Donna Dora," said Mr. 
 Jones ; " queer, ain't it — do you know anything of her, Mr. 
 Nutmeg r 
 
 " Snakes and alligators ! only that she is a woman," re- 
 plied the supercargo, whose country there could be no doubt 
 about, and whom Ensign Jones viewed superciliously and 
 with elevated eyebrows. 
 
 When Lennard entered the after-cabin or boudoir — or had 
 penetrated so far as etiquette permitted to the door thereof, 
 
 • How pretty ! — pretty? by Hearsn she is beautiful as an angel ! 
 
300 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 he saw seated at the piano, with her back to him, a young 
 girl of striking appearance. She had tossed her tiny hat 
 with its veil and ruby feather on the divan ; an Indian 
 shawl of alternate stripes of yellow, red, and black, was 
 carelessly thrown over her shoulders, but half -falling from 
 them, and he could see by the reflection of the mirrors, that 
 she had a pure and beautifully-cut profile, with dark violet 
 eyes, and a shower of golden hair, which seemed heavy 
 enough to bend her compact head and delicate white neck, 
 and that she was perilously handsome and attractive. 
 
 Young ladies haye a secret and intuitive sense when a 
 gentleman is hovering near, as if their pretty eyes could see 
 behind as well as before ; or it might be, that she caught 
 the figure of Lennard Blair reflected in one of the many 
 mirrors, for she turned herself sharply round on her piano ■ 
 stool, and a sudden exclamation of mutual recognition 
 escaped both. She proved to be " the little foreign adven- 
 turess," as he had supposed her — the young lady of the lost 
 tickets at the Preston Station ; and starting at once from 
 her seat, she approached him, with a blush of confusion, 
 pride, and shame suffusing her whole face. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 DONNA DORA DOMTNGA. 
 
 " You here, sir !" she exclaimed, in her pretty foreign accent, 
 which was mingled with the best style of an English one. 
 " Oh, how glad I am ! how happy ! but how strange it is !" 
 
 " We are to be fellow- voyagers it would appear," replied 
 Lennard, bowing politely, yet with a little coldness in his 
 tone and constraint in his manner, which she was quick 
 enough to perceive. 
 
 "Mj" extreme satisfaction arises from the circumstance 
 that we shall now be able to repay your great kindness to us 
 at that odious and noisy railway station, where the picaros 
 stole the Sefior Saavedra's pocket-book, tickets, money, and 
 everything. This'^ she added, turning to two ladies who sat 
 near her, " is the kind gentleman of whom I have told you, 
 and but for whose politeness and generosity an affront (her 
 eyes flashed as she spoke), yes, a most terrible affront, had 
 been put upon us. Ay de mi ! what must you have thought 
 of us~the Seiior and me— never to have heard of us again V* 
 
 " Eeally I had other things to think of; and if some mia- 
 tiike "^ 
 
DONNA DOEA DOMINGA. 30I 
 
 " The Seiior Saavedra is so stupid ! He lost your card, so 
 we knew not where to write, or to whom to send." 
 
 " The sum was so trifling/' urged Lennard. 
 
 " We advertised for you, by description, in Manchester • 
 but never hearing from you, knew not what to do, or what 
 to think, and thus had no opportunity of repaying " 
 
 " Oh, say no more, I beg !" interrupted Lennard, anxious 
 to change the subject ; " the Sefior Saavedra is with you*?'' 
 
 " Of course I could not travel without him ; but he is so 
 — so sick, poor man !" 
 
 " Mareamiento 
 
 " So we call it in Spanish," said she, her eyes becoming 
 brighter and fuller. " Do you know Spanish V 
 
 " Intimately." 
 
 " Oh, we shall be quite at home here, and may speak ifc 
 whenever we tire of English, or wish to say anything absurd. 
 But I fear we shall tire of everything, for we have a long, 
 long voyage — ah, so many thousands and thousands of miles 
 before us ! Do you go all the way to Tampico T 
 
 "Not quite ; but nearly so far," replied Lennard, while a 
 cloud came over his face. The question brought him back 
 to himself and his wayward fortune, though the speaker was 
 well calculated to lure him away from all but the present, as 
 her eyes, of the darkest violet blue — eyes that seemed black 
 by night — all light and animation, looked into his, while the 
 masses of fair hair that flowed over her shoulders, in golden 
 ripples, glittered as if powdered with gold-dust. There was, 
 moreover, an indescribable air of youthful bloom, of bright- 
 ness, piquancy, and freshness, about her appearance and 
 toilet. 
 
 " It is a pity that Hesbia could not see her now — the com- 
 panion I am to have/' thought Lennard, bitterly, and with 
 something of angry triumph in his seared heart. 
 
 Born and bred during her earliest years in the sunny south, 
 there were much of heedless joy and careless abandon in her 
 air and manner ; and when she laughed, she showed such 
 teeth as one sees rarely, so closely set, so small and regular. 
 Lennard could perceive at a glance that his new Spanish 
 acquaintance was not an " every-day young lady ;" her ex- 
 tremely good English puzzled him ; but the reason therefore 
 she subsequently explained. 
 
 " Had I not been so angry with Seiior Saavedra, when in 
 his impatience to be gone he tore my glove — he had not 
 perhaps lost your card ; but somehow, Sefior, I am for ever 
 in scrapes, involving in them those who are about me too. 
 I always act first and think afterwards." 
 
302 THE GIKt HB MAREIED. ' / 
 
 "But Donna Dora " 
 
 " What— you know my name ]" 
 
 " I merely overheard it mentioned by one of the passea- 
 gers, and could not forget it." 
 
 " Why ?" she asked, smiling. 
 
 " It is so characteristic — so pretty." 
 
 "My name is Isidora Dominga. I was so named for 
 mamma, who was a Spanish lady of Tampico ; but my papa 
 is an Englishman." 
 
 "So— so," thought Lennard; "from England come the 
 pure complexion and innocence of expression ; from Spanish 
 America, the glorious eyes and charming abandon of 
 manner." 
 
 " What are you thinking of, sir %" she asked ; ** you were 
 about to say something." 
 
 " Only that the steward's bell has rung twice for tea in 
 the cabin, and that if no one has a prior right, you will allow 
 me to lead you there." 
 
 " Thanks, serior — sir, I mean • no one here has any par- 
 ticular right to me," she said, laughing, "save poor Jose 
 Saavedra, and he is in bed below." 
 
 And thus privileged, Lennard gave her his arm to the 
 other end of the cabin, where the steward and his assistants, 
 towel and salver in hand, were purveying the tea, coffee, &c. 
 
 " Eh — aw, what the deuce ! if that sulky fellow don't seem 
 to know her, and intimately too — some damned old friend, 
 by Jove !" ejaculated Mr. Jones, of the 5th West India, as he 
 adjusted his glass and surveyed them with an emotion of 
 great inward annoyance. 
 
 "No chance of cutting in and winning to-night, old 
 fellow," said his brother officer, an elderly captain, who had 
 long since learned to prefer a quiet rubber and glass of 
 brandy-and- water to flirtation and cream ices. 
 
 In reply to some remark of a Jamaica planter. Captain 
 Trocadero gave a smile and a grunt, which meant to be a 
 cough, while the Yankee supercargo concealed his quid in 
 the deepest recesses of his lantern jaws, and would fain have 
 planted his feet on the tea-table ; but the presence of so 
 many "darned strangers" repressed his national love of 
 elaborate ease. Tea over, a game of chess was somehow 
 proposed, and, at a small marble table apart, the little Donna 
 Dora soon proved herself an expert player, for whom Lennard 
 was no match ; but the pretty tiny hands, so white and 
 nimble (though her cheek often rested on one, wliich became 
 lost amid the masses of her hair), were doubtless much more 
 attrftQtive to his eyes, than the bishops, knights, and rooks j 
 
DONNA DORA DOMINGA. 303 
 
 and she kept talking the whole time very gaily, but in a Ioav 
 confidential tone, that was not without its charm. 
 
 " And so your papa is an European I" he observed, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Yes — so I have been at schools in Paris and in England," 
 she replied ; and then with all the garrulous confidence of 
 girlhood, proceeded to tell him all about herself. " I have 
 relations in Britain somewhere — but where I don't know.'* 
 
 " Could you not discover them f 
 
 " Their [addresses and papa's letters were lost in a ship on 
 the way to me. Besides, over the sea in America, we soon 
 lose sight of Europe and all there — it is such a small place. 
 Play your king, please." 
 
 " Why, senora 1" 
 
 " Because you have made a false move.'' 
 
 " And you have friends in Britain f 
 
 " Yes — dear papa has many business friends in Liverpool 
 and elsewhere. I was to have visited them, and, if possible, 
 sought out his relations, but there was not time given me. 
 I am a great pet at home, being the last of several children, 
 for all my little brothers and sisters died of the yellow fever. 
 A sudden illness of papa's is now hurrying us away, ^,^d I 
 may never, never again see the country we have left. Not 
 that I care much — it is always so cloudy, and all over Eng- 
 land the sun invariably sets in mist." 
 
 "So you left hurriedly r 
 
 " Yes ; letters were waiting us at Manchester — which place, 
 but for your kindness, we might not have reached so readily." 
 
 " I parry your check, senora ; you say ive — have j^'ou a 
 party with you V 
 
 " Oh, no, only the Seiior Jos6 Saavedra — he and I." 
 
 " And — and he — " stammered Lennard, still watching the 
 pretty hands rather than his chessmen, when the young lady 
 laughed, and threw back her hair with both hands, ex- 
 claiming, 
 
 "What are you tliinking of? How oddly you playi 
 Don't you see that you are touching your men, and without 
 playing them going to others quite gravely 1 That you make 
 false moves, yet never play your king, and don't know when 
 you are checkmated f 
 
 " I beg your pardon— pray excuse me," said Lennard, who 
 indeed was too much abstracted on one hand, and bewil- 
 dered by the young lady's esjneglene on the other, to attend 
 much to a game requiring such deep application as tJ^Q 
 knightly one of chess. 
 
 " Ajjd this Seiov Saavedra," he resumed. 
 
304 Tm: QiRh he maeried. 
 
 ''What of him r 
 
 " He seems to exercise some control over your movements/ 
 
 " Control ! the old bobo ! I should think not," said she, 
 laughing ; " he is full of the old Spanish — or rather the 
 Morisco-Spanish — idea of keeping women and girls under 
 lock and key, like wine or sweetmeats ; and would very 
 possibly faint if he saw me sitting thus with you now." 
 
 "Why so r 
 
 " He is my padrino." 
 
 " Oh — your god-father !" 
 
 "Yes— that is all r 
 
 " I feared that he — he was " 
 
 "What— you surely never thought that he was my — 
 husband ?' 
 
 " Yes, sefiora." 
 
 She burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, and then 
 said, while tears of fun flashed in her eyes, " Why should 
 you fear it? but I would no more marry him than — than 
 youT 
 
 From which terrible impossibility Lennard came to the 
 conclusion that she was either betrothed or married — the 
 former, most probably, from her extreme youth — and then 
 thought no more of the matter. He was pleased to reflect 
 that he would have a delightful companion during the long 
 voyage. It proved somewhat longer than any one on board 
 anticipated. However, lest he might labour under any fur- 
 ther mistake as to her " padrino," she informed him that the 
 Senor Jose Saavedra was an old business friend of her 
 father, who had taken advantage of his return from a visit 
 to Europe, to act as her guardian^ escort, or escudero, until 
 she reached her own home in Mexico. This naturally led to 
 a reference to Mexican life and scenery ; and when their 
 game was over— and a pretty protracted game it was, so 
 much so, that Ensign Algernon Sidney Jones sought conso- 
 lation with a soothing weed on deck— as they promenaded 
 the saloon or cabin, she explained to him all tnat the some- 
 what garish landscapes, empanelled round it, meant. 
 
 There was the great castle of San Juan de Ulloa : she 
 liad been in it twenty times ! That was the Santiago Fort 
 opposite, with the Vergara Bay, so full of shipping, between ; 
 and that was the desolate marsh of Gallego to the north, 
 covered with mangoes and brushwood. She had seen that 
 volcano, in the background, often spouting red and yellow 
 flames ; and her papa had such a pretty country house not 
 far from its base. Those wild horsemen, with brandished 
 spear, with looped lasso, and levelled musket, scouring 
 
CAPTAIN TROCADERO. 305 
 
 across tlie plain of Toluca, were in pursuit of tlie herds of 
 horned cattle that fled in clouds of dust before them ; and 
 the savage animal, lurking in a corner among the tail, slen- 
 der sugar-canes and big yellow gourds, was a jaguar. That 
 magnificent double row of trees — trees to which those of 
 Europe were as cabbage-stalks — was the Paseo of Mexico. 
 Those men, riding the weary mules, and having such long 
 beards, with their le^s and arms in bandages, were invalidos, 
 poor soldiers, returning from war, with the full permission 
 of a generous Republic to beg for the rest of their days. 
 The young girl, whose beauty was so much enhanced by the 
 red umbrella held over her head by an old man, was his wife. 
 He was a ranchero, or farmer, and the demure old daiae 
 behind, in black, with a high comb and long cane, was her 
 dueiia, and so forth ; but in time Lennard began to know 
 all those people and places for himself. 
 
 Then pleasantly she bade him adieu for the night, and 
 retired to the ladies' cabin. He remained for a time in the 
 saloon, looking at the pictures they had examined, or it 
 might be, perhaps, that a sense of her presence hovered 
 there. Then he joined the gentlemen who were smoking 
 on deck, and remembered, suddenly, that during all the past 
 two hours he had spent with the fair stranger — thrown into 
 her society completely, and as people can only be on board 
 of ship — he had never once recalled his past disappoint- 
 ments or his sorrows. 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 CAPTAIN TROCADERO. 
 
 Chancing to ask, of a promenader on deck, for a ligTit to 
 his cigar, he found himself face to face with the captain, 
 Luke Maynard, a pleasant, lively, and gentlemanly man, 
 with wonderfully little that was nautical in his air or ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 " A light— with pleasure, sir," said he, and lield forth his 
 cigar. 
 
 "Thanks — by the way, captain, who are those Spanish 
 folks you have on board— passengers T' 
 
 '• I can guess whom you mean— the young lady with the 
 golden hair, and the old gentleman with the huge mus- 
 tachios." 
 
 " Exactly — I have not see» Jjim yet, but I believe he la 
 on board." 
 
 20 
 
3o6 l:itE GIRL HE MAHEIEB. 
 
 " I tliink you might have found it all out by this time. 
 You were together a good spell, and must have turned it to 
 account," said the captain, drily, and laughing as he thrust 
 his hands deep into the pockets of his reefing-jacket, and 
 turned his back to the night wind. " However, Donna Dora 
 and Seiior Jos6 Saavedra are rich folks, hailing from Tam- 
 pico, or some other port on the Gulf of Mexico." 
 
 " Rich, I suppose T 
 
 " Ay, rich as a Jew ! This ship cost above one hundred 
 thousand pounds ; a better was never built even on the 
 Clyde ; her father could build and launch two or three such 
 and never miss the money— at least so says old Trocadero, 
 and he should know all about it, if any one does." 
 
 "Wealthy are they? money — always money, as a virtue 
 above all human virtues !" muttered Lemiard, as the cap- 
 tain went forward to hail the officer of the watch and give 
 some orders. " Well, with all her charms, and the little 
 Spaniard has money, the events of the last month have ren- 
 dered me proof against her without that warning. And so 
 the Captain Trocadero knows all abov.t them, does he ] Now 
 that I think of it, where have I heard that name before T' 
 
 After a few moments' reflection, it flashed upon him, and 
 hurrying to his state-room, he opened his portmanteau and 
 sought for Envoyse's letter of instructions. There it was, 
 packed up with the torn glove— the tiny kid glove—of the 
 Spanish lady, which oddly enough, he had, perhaps inad- 
 vertently, stuffed in with his other property, and which he 
 now placed in his pocket-book. He was requested to make 
 particular inquiries as to the circulation of rumours to the 
 effect that three large ships belonging to Vere and Co. had 
 been nefariously and feloniously scuttled in South American 
 waters, by a skipper named Trebucio Trocadero, for the al- 
 leged purpose of realizing the insurances effected thereon ; 
 concerning the failure of a house in Costa Rica and non- 
 
 })ayments elsewhere, all of which were stated with a singu- 
 ar vagueness ; and finally he was to start a branch of the 
 firm of Vere and Co. in Vera Cruz, with two Spanish and 
 two English clerks, or such others as he might find neces- 
 sary, &c. 
 
 " Trebucio Trocadero," said Lennard, involuntarily, as he 
 re-entered the saloon and glanced towards a table at the 
 further end, where the Spaniard was intently perusing a 
 Spanish shipping gazette, and imbibing from time tc time 
 some cold brandy-and-water. 
 
 He was a short, thick-set, piratical-looking ruffian, of sm 
 gularly uninviting appearance ; in visage swarthy as a negro, 
 
CAPTAIN TROCADEEO. 307 
 
 oeetle-Lrowed, with large frontal bones, a hooked nose, and 
 square, angular jaw. His black hair was becoming grizzled, 
 bnt was thick as the fur of a bear. He had enormous round 
 shoulders and arms, every muscle and fibre of which had 
 been developed to their utmost tension by tallying on ropes 
 and hard work of all kinds ; he had powerful bandy legs 
 and large hands, resembling bunches of knotted rope that 
 had been dipped in tar. An occasional twitching of his 
 thick sensual mouth, and a covert expression of his small 
 fierce eyes, seemed to indicate much of a cunning, savage, 
 and cowardly nature. 
 
 Such was this pleasant Caballo Marino, or regular old sea- 
 horse, of whom we shall hear more anon, and who now raised 
 his eyes from his tattered shijjping gazette to fix them in 
 stern inquiry on Lennard, who with perfect coolness drew in 
 a chair and seated himself at the opposite side of the table. 
 
 " Excuse me, Captain Trocadero." said he in Spanish, that 
 was so pure as to make that joersonage open his eyes very 
 wide ; " permit me, without intrusion, to make your ac- 
 quaintance." 
 
 " Por que, Seiior T was the surly response. 
 
 *' I have one or two questions to ask with your permis-' 
 sion,'' replied Lennard, still politely. 
 
 " On nautical matters V^ 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " That is well ; I don't know much about the land — Dioa 
 110 quiero !" 
 
 " You have been much at sea T 
 
 " Ever since boyhood, when I ran away from Cadiz as a 
 cabin boy on board a slaver." 
 
 " You know something of the Straits of Bahama, perhaps 1" 
 
 " Si, Senor — every island, rock, and key of them, from the 
 great Fresh-water-ponds of Imagua to the Florida Reefs— a 
 matter of two hundred Spanish leagues. Motre de Dios ! 
 Many a tearing pampero I've weathered there, and never 
 worse than in the windward passage between Tortuga and 
 Cuba." 
 
 " Did you command a ship of five hundred tons that was 
 lost last summer on the Salt Key Bank in the Santarem 
 Channel r 
 
 " No !" replied the other, with knitted brows and flashing 
 eyes. 
 
 " Nor another that was lost on the Cayo Verde, south-east- 
 ward of the Great Bahama Bank T 
 
 "No— no— I tell you no 1 Santo de los Santos T li« 
 
 20—2 
 
3o8 THE GIRL HE MAr.EIED. 
 
 added, witli blasphemous fury, wliile smiting the table with 
 both his clenched hands, " I never lost a ship in my life !" 
 
 " Strange ; and your name Trebucio Trocadero P 
 
 " Yes ; Trebucio Trocadero — once of Cadiz, and now any- 
 where to where the sea or Satanas may send him. But, talk- 
 ing of names, what is yours, my fine fellow T 
 
 " I do not answer questions that are asked in such a tone," 
 replied Lennard, haughtily. 
 
 " Then keep your name to yourself ; but what the devil 
 are you V 
 
 " Administrador — agent for Vere & Co., of Liverpool — a? 
 well as partner in the firm.'' 
 
 An expression of surprise and half-incredulity stole over 
 Trocadero's face for a moment, and his manner betrayed 
 hesitation. 
 
 " Pho 1" said he, after a pause, " I don't care if you were 
 the Governor of all Mexico. Par Dios ! Why all these 
 questions 1 I can only tell you," he added, with a steady 
 glance of mysterious and unutterable ferocity, " that if you 
 don't happen to be lost overboard in the night, I shall have 
 yoLi ashore for this on the first land we see, and there try 
 which of us is the best man, in any fashion you like, witli 
 pistol, knife, or knuckleduster." 
 
 " Come, come, gentlemen, what the deuce is up between 
 you," said Captain Maynard, of the Golden Dream, who with 
 others had drawn near them unperceived ; " remember that 
 T will permit no quarrelling on board my ship. A challenge] 
 It is well the ladies have all retired — a most unseemly row 
 this would have been to them !" 
 
 " I merely asked Captain Trocadero two simple questions 
 concerning certain wrecks in the Bahama Straits, and he 
 flew into a fury which leads me to suppose that he knows 
 more than he cares to admit. If I do him wrong," said 
 Lennard, who deemed it prudent for the time to dissemble 
 alike his anger and his suspicions, "it was without intention 
 — if I have unwittingly offended him I shall indeed be sorry." 
 
 " You're a good fellow, Mr. Blair," said Captain Maynard ; 
 " come shake hands on't, my old Buccanier !" 
 
 But Trocadero gave Lennard a withering scowl as he 
 started from the table and turned away ; and during the re- 
 mainder of the voyage, which was a long one, tliey carefully 
 avoided each other. 
 
 "Beware of Trocadero,'^ whispered Captain Maynard; 
 "he's a dangerous kind of fellow, and not likely to be 
 bothered by scruples." 
 
 Convinced that there was some mystery in all this anger 
 
CAPTAIK TROCADERO. 309 
 
 of tlie Spaniard, Lennard was about once more to peruse 
 the letters of Abel Envoysc, wlien liis arm was twitched by 
 Mr. Jaleel Nutmeg, the Yankee supercargo. 
 
 " Sir-ee,'' said that personage, who had extracted a plug 
 of tobacco from his mouth, and was airing it on the point 
 of a jack-knife ; " Pm gwine to liquor up," he drawled 
 through his nose ; " will you jine me in a cocktail T 
 
 " Thanks— Pve been nettled a little." 
 
 " Worried a bit I can see, by that old Mexican cuss, Tro- 
 cadero.'^ 
 
 " Yes ; I was simply endeavouring " 
 
 " To take his soundinp ; wal — he's a py-ratical old rowdy, 
 if ever there was one. Blow'd if he wouldn't pass for twin 
 brother to Captain Kidd." 
 
 " Do you think so f 
 
 " Yes ; so beware of him, stranger — beware of him, for 
 he's half bear, half alligator, with a good cross of the cobra ; 
 so I'd leave him and his navigation alone." 
 
 " You have been listening to our conversation T 
 
 " I rather guess I have — to every word. Now, stranger, 
 what's yer bisiness out there about the Bahama Channel T 
 
 " I've nothing to do with the Bahama Channel." 
 
 " You're one o' them critters as travel to write books 1" 
 
 " I am not," replied Lennard, curtly. 
 
 " How do you make your livelihood — get fixings — ^your 
 plunder and all that 1" 
 
 Lennard laughed at the coolness of the American. 
 
 " Wal— I don't want to be curious," he resumed • " but 
 come and let us have our cocktail before that darned Brit- 
 isher swell in the biled rag comes below," for so he termed 
 Ensign Jones, who, as the vessel had been but a short time 
 at sea, showed as yet an unusual amount of shirt-front (the 
 boiled rag in question), Avith magnificent studs, always dress- 
 ing carefully for dinner out of deference to the ladies, and 
 to the great disgust of Mr. Jaleel Nutmeg, who appeared in 
 a perpetual state of dishabille and general disorder of coUar 
 and hair. 
 
 '• Ah," he resumed, " for all the show the crittur makea, I 
 guess that captain, or whatever he is, of Queen Victoria's 
 niggers, may be almighty poor ; there'll be no pickings or 
 stealings in her service as in that of Uncle Sam, or that of 
 his new friend the Emperor of all the Boosias." 
 
310 THE GIKL HE MARRIED. 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. f 
 
 OF A DREAM THAT WAS NOT GOLDEN, 
 
 The weatlier was fine, the wind generally fair, and the great 
 ocean steamer went on her voyage prosperously. After 
 Senor Jos6 Saavedra came on deck and found his "sea-legs" 
 —which only enabled him to stagger to and fro, and to grasp 
 wildly at ropes, belaying-pins, or any one who chanced to be 
 near him, whenever the vessel rolled or plunged— Lennard 
 had seldom an opportunity of speaking long v/ith Donna 
 Dora Dominga, as the little escudero, muffled in an ample 
 black poncho bordered with red, and having a tasselled cap 
 surmounting his tawny visage and enormous black musta- 
 chios, was ever on guard and suspiciously hovering nigh, 
 like a character in a melodrama rather than one of real life. 
 On one occasion they contrived to exchange their vignettes, 
 for the Donna had an album and Avas anxious to show her 
 papa a likeness of the gentleman who had come so timely to 
 their aid at Preston • and by effecting this important barter 
 publicly under the Senor's angTy eyes, deprived it of all ap- 
 pearance of subtlety, and really none existed. On an ex- 
 amination of those trifling— but often, according to circum- 
 stances, ties, or separation, interesting — little sun-pictures, 
 they found that the resemblance of each to the other in face 
 was alike strange and striking ! Yet Lennard was dark- 
 haired and tall — she, fair-haired and petite. There was evi- 
 dently a world of romance in the heart of this impulsive 
 Spanish girl, so she laughed excessively at the coincidence, 
 though surly Senor Jos6 saw no likeness between them 
 whatever. 
 
 The passengers were all usually on deck now ; even the 
 most inveterate whist-players found no excuse for lingering 
 below ; the sun was so bright, the sea so calm, and ever 
 swelling past in long blue glassy rollers ; chess, so far as re- 
 garded Lennard and the donna, was an interdicted game, 
 now that her watchful padrino — to the regret of the former 
 — had fully emerged from his cell or state-room, where for 
 hours he had lain under the hands of the steward, alternately 
 cursing the sea and imploring our Lady of Guadaloupe. 
 The light dresses of the ladies fluttered on the poop, making 
 all seem gay on board ; the odour of cigars incessantly 
 floated upward from the main-deck, where the gentlemen 
 generally promenaded, pausing now and anon at the break 
 aft to exchange a few words with the fair passengers who 
 W^re seated on the poop rails, which they generally preferred 
 
OF A DREAM THAT WAS NOT G0LDE5. 3II 
 
 to seats between the guns or cusMons on the after-gratings ; 
 and there crochet, tatting, and novels were the order of the 
 day, till the steward's bell announced a meal, causing them 
 all to rise like a covey of partridges and seek the assistance 
 of the nearest gentleman's hand or arm for the arduous de- 
 scent pi Jacob's ladder — the best staircase in the world to 
 exhibit to advantage a pretty foot and well-turned ankle. 
 
 _ And daily some new wonder of the deep occurred to ex- 
 cite interest or afford conversation ; now it was the sargasso, 
 the green bunches of Florida Gulf weed, which floated past, 
 shining like gold in the sunlight, or phosphorescent and 
 white under the colder beams of the moon, for then Corvo 
 and Flores, the most w^estern of the Azores, lay distant some 
 twenty leagues or so upon their lee. Then came the catching 
 of the first dolphin, when it was found, to the disappoint- 
 ment of all, that its changing hues were more brilliant and 
 beautifiil when ^?^ the water, than when dying out of it ; the 
 silvery flying fish would start from the bosom of one green 
 wave to vanish in the rising slope of another, and ever and 
 anon, no matter how far from land, there were old Mother 
 Gary's chickens in brown flocks, and the stormy petrel so 
 called after St. Peter by the pious mariners of old, hovering 
 perhaps round a piece of drifting wreck that was covered 
 with sea ware and barnacles ; and all such little incidents, 
 with hailing an occasional craft that was homeward bound, 
 formed most animated subjects for discussion in their nar- 
 row circle, especially for a lady passenger of uncertain age, 
 who wore a false front and blue spectacles, and who, as she 
 kept a diary, perpetually worried Captain Maynard and his 
 mates as to where the ship was " now ;" and so the first 
 week passed on, till the Saturday night came with its fun 
 and fiddling in the forecastle, its dances and songs under the 
 leech of the foresail ; music of a more choice nature in the 
 cabin, with the toasts of " sweethearts and wives," and " all 
 ships at sea ;" and then Sunday followed, when a church 
 was rigged on the poop, with stools, hassocks, and spare 
 bunting ; Jack appeared in his best jacket and ducks, and 
 Kit Kentledge, the boatswain, piped all hands to prayers, 
 while overhead the scarlet union floated out in honour of 
 the day, though there was no eye abroad upon the waste of 
 waters to see it, save One. 
 
 The recollection of Trocadero's strange phrase, or half- 
 threat, " if you don't fall overboard in the night,'' occurred 
 from time to time to Lennard's memory, with an unpleasant 
 effect. The words unmistakably contained a dark hint, that 
 if a feasible opportunity occurred, the captain was quite ca- 
 
312 THE GIUL HE MARRIED. 
 
 pable of ridding himself by a most summary process of any 
 one he disliked, or whom he suspected of holding a key t(^ 
 some secret act or generally unknown portion of his nautical 
 •career. 
 
 When few men were on deck, in a dark night, with the 
 wind blowing hard, and a heavy sea on, this muscular ruffian, 
 at a moment when unseen, by a blow and a hoist over to 
 leeward might easily render Lennard's berth an empty one, 
 and blot out his existence for ever ; so, knowing this, the 
 young man resolved to avoid him as much as possible, and 
 oven was so careful as to bolt his state-room door in the 
 night, because that of Trocadero opened on the opposite 
 side of the saloon. As for a duel when ashore, he never con- 
 templated such a result ; but, if attacked, was resolved to 
 shoot down Trocadero like a dog, and without mercy. But 
 so full was he of those suspicions, and the anxious thoughts 
 the daily presence of this truculent Spaniard inspired, that 
 one night he dreamed that the covert threat had been put 
 in execution, and that he had actually been knocked off the 
 taffrail, headlong into the sea by Trocadero ! Gasping for 
 breath, he felt himself rise on the summit of a wave only to 
 see the ship leaving him behind, for he was whirling help- 
 lessly in the white eddy of the waves, amid her wake, on 
 which the varied lights of the cabin windows streamed. 
 Above these, over the taffrail, and the stern boat which 
 swung there, he could see the ferocious Trocadero, pale with 
 fury in the moonlight, the veins in his forehead knotted and 
 swollen, his thick lips twitching, his huge hands clenched. 
 
 Lennard strove to shriek for aid, but the sound died away 
 from his powerless tongue. Why should this man exult in 
 his destruction, or seek for it ? What wrong had he ever 
 done him 'I And there now was Donna Dora (how strangely 
 like Hesbia the violet-eyed and bright-haired Spanish girl 
 looked !) She screamed and held forth her hands to him ; 
 but at that moment Trocadero tore her back, while he— the 
 victim — floated away astern into the waste of darkness and 
 of death, for the water seemed to close over him ! Then, 
 with a painfully nervous start, he awoke to find himself 
 snug in his own berth on board the Golden Dream, the first 
 beams of the night lamp that swung from a beam struggling 
 for mastery with the fainter rays of early morning that stole 
 through the little round yoke in the side of the vessel, 
 against which the waves at times were surging. He was in 
 his own berth — true ! But what other sounds were those he 
 heard 1 A liand trying to undo the latch— to unfasten the 
 brass bolt on the door of his little cabin 1 
 
OF JL DREAM THAT WAS NOT GOLDEN. 313 
 
 " Who is there 1" he demanded, and sprung to his feet. 
 
 But there was no response ; so, arming himself with a 
 boot-jack, he threw open the door, and looked forth just in 
 time to see that of Trocadero's cabin closing on the opposite 
 side of the saloon, which was almost dark, as only one lamp 
 burned now, of the many that swung from the beams. Re- 
 closing and fastening his door more carefully than ever, 
 Lennard looked at his watch. 
 
 " Morning is at hand ; so — so — I have now had a double 
 warning, and more than ever shall I closely watoh that 
 scoundrel Trocadero !" 
 
 The result of his watching was, that the mystery concern- 
 ing the Spaniard greatly increased. Next day, betimes, and 
 before any of the other passengers were up, he found him- 
 self face to face with Captain Trocadero on the poop, v/here 
 however they took opposite sides, the Spaniard keeping to 
 windward when he proceeded to make up a cigarito and to 
 light it, heedless or unwitting that his smallest action was 
 watched by Lennard Blair. 
 
 Having made full arrangements for his morning whiff, he 
 crumpled up and tossed away the remainder of the paper in 
 which he had rolled the tobacco, and went forward among 
 the morning watch, as he generally preferred the society of 
 the forecastle to that of the cabin. The fragment of paper 
 did not, as he supposed, fly to leeward ; but fell at the feot 
 of Lennard, who at once took it up, not caring whether the 
 man at the wheel observed him ; and on inspection found it 
 to be the upper portion of a letter — a letter to Trocadero — 
 and in the handwriting of Mr. Vere ! 
 
 " Vere in correspondence with this man— the very rascal 
 accused of scuttling his ships, and concerning whom I am 
 to make inquiries T thought Lennard ; " what can all this 
 mean*?" 
 
 So this man had actually been in Liverpool and in direct 
 communication with Mr. Vere, as this torn missive proved, 
 for it was dated from London, and only two days before the 
 sailing of the Golden Dream ! It was simply the commence- 
 ment of a letter, the contents of which it would be vain to 
 conjecture ; but Lennard had now many painful misgivings, 
 whicli he sought fruitlessly to soothe or analyze ; while he 
 carefully consigned the fragment to the inner recesses of his 
 pocket-book, the result of a mere business habit, perhaps, 
 which he had acquired in the service of Vere & Co. 
 
314 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 EN VOYAGE. 
 
 Now Donna Dominga came on deck, alone and tlie first of 
 all the ladies ; so he hastened to offer her his arm, and to 
 lead her to a seat improvised for her, with cushions on the 
 deck gratings aft, where he wrapped her shawl around her. 
 The morning was a lovely one ; sea and sky ahke so blue 
 and so bright that save for a speck or two at the horizon, 
 the eye failed to detect where water ended and the thin 
 faint clouds began, while through the ambient air, the dark 
 smoke of the funnels could be traced for more than twenty 
 miles astern over the water which the ship had traversed in 
 the dark. 
 
 " Ah — ^buenos dias de Dios d, vuestra Donna Dora," had 
 been Lennard's first greeting when she came on deck, as he 
 lifted his hat at the risk of its going hopelessly over to leeward. 
 
 "Good morning, sir," she replied, laughing; "but pray 
 speak English, for, a little time and I shall hear nothing but 
 Spanish — yet why do I say so, when I love my native lan- 
 
 fuage so dearly]" she added, while shaking out the skirts of 
 er pretty and becoming dress (but all her dresses seemed 
 pretty and most becoming), and seating herself somehow as 
 to show more than usual of her handsome ankles cased in 
 tight white stockings, her little feet and tiny kid boots. 
 " English, papa says, is the language properly of commerce." 
 
 " And so in English I shall hope to make my fortune — 
 money ; but in Spanish " 
 
 " Bueno ! what will you make in Spanish f 
 
 " Love,^' said Lennard, colouring, as he gallantly lifted his 
 •wide-awake. 
 
 " Then don't let us talk Spanish by any means/' said she, 
 with fun lurking in the corner of her eyes. 
 
 " A little flirt, T fear," thought Lennard, as she sat very 
 demurely fanning herself, though the morning air was quite 
 cool, yet pleasant. Soured by the memory of Hesbia, be 
 deemed himself proof against the charms of the fair Spaniard 
 and even almost mockingly made love to her till— till there 
 came a time when he found that the game was growing too 
 perilous, for she was altogether unlike any other young lady 
 lie had met ; she was so full of piquant girlish spirit and 
 beauty, with the softness, the dimples, and the purity of a 
 child, and yet in coolness and determination would act like 
 a woman of years and experience if occasion required. 
 
 With all her knowledge of her own great beauty, the 
 
EN VOYAGE. 315 
 
 Spanish girl could see that the respectful, though admiring 
 glance of the grave, almost sad-eyed Lennard Blair, was very 
 different from the cool inspection, the dilettante curiosity of 
 Ensign Jones, of little M. Fabien the French Chevalier, ol 
 Mr. Nutmeg, and others who passed her on the poop, and 
 who sought to establish with her that which may be termed 
 an acquaintanceship of the eye. 
 
 Lennard, on his part, now found himself looking for her 
 Erst in the morning, and watching her till the hour of retir- 
 ing, when he would walk for hours on that side of the deck 
 where she lay, a piece of attention with v*'hich she would 
 willingly have dispensed, even had she known who the 
 assiduous promenader was. 
 
 " Why does the face of this girl haunt me V he began to 
 ask himself ; " she is a total stranger, yet she fills my mind 
 with strange impressions of previous acquaintance with, or 
 knowledge of her — a fancy that we must have met long be- 
 fore that momentary meeting at Preston ; and so her face 
 grows on me, as if foreshadowing that it might become a 
 good or evil star in time to come. . . . What 1 mooning 
 again, Lennard ! Pshaw !" 
 
 But that bright little face, with its beautiful eyes — and 
 truly " haunting eyes " they were— came between him and 
 the blue sea when he gazed dreamily at the far horizon ; it 
 came out of the darkness of his cot at night ; it mingled 
 with that ugly dream of Trebucio Trocadero, and would not 
 be thrust aside, though the fact of its being in his mind's 
 eye was, he believed, a species of treason to one who had 
 rejected and cruelly trifled with him. 
 
 " Let me not think thus," he w^ould say to himself ; " let 
 me not give way to this new fancy, which may so soon ripen 
 and expand in the narrow compass of a voyage ; for what 
 will be the purpose, the use, or the fate of that fancy when 
 the voyage is over, and the hour of separation comes f 
 
 Though Donna Dora was fond of having a circle around 
 her on deck, or when at the piano in the after-cabin (espe- 
 cially when her old Mentor Avas near), she generally preferred 
 the society of Lennard, whose knowledge of her native lan- 
 guage was a gi'cat bond between them ; thus some of the 
 Spanish gentlemen of colour scowled at him very undis- 
 guisedly, forgetting for the time, perhaps, that the fact of 
 their being half-bloods, quadroons, or even octoroons, ren- 
 dered them ineligible society for her, according to etiquette 
 in some of the native provinces. Ensign Jones and his 
 brother officers were unpleasantly dry to him ; the Yankee 
 supercargo voted him a " darned unsociable spoon," and the 
 
3l6 THE GIRL HE MAIIEIED, 
 
 officers of the ship, as the youths in brass buttons and semi- 
 naval caps designated themselves, quizzed them both, and 
 averring that " they mortally hated /wm," indulged in various 
 speculations and schemes by which to put some ridiculous 
 affront upon him before they were under the Tropic of 
 Cancer. Then there were times when Seiior Jose Saavedra 
 took her to task, saying—" Has it never occurred to you, 
 Seiiora, that this young man, of whom we know nothing, is 
 not a proper companion for you 1" 
 
 " I hope he is not an improper companion, Padrino mio," 
 she would reply, with a smiling but reddened face ; so that 
 ere long the piquancy of secret intelligence, the most dan- 
 gerous element of all, began to steal into their intimacy. 
 
 Lennard's knowledge of the Spanish language formed, we 
 have said, a peculiar link between him and the young Donna; 
 but someway it came to pass that they always lapsed into 
 more prosaic English when her father's confidential friend, 
 old Senor Saavedra, who knew it not, drew near or joined 
 them. Why was this] Their eloquent eyes might have 
 given an answer ; but as yet no serious conversation had 
 taken place between them, and there were some features in 
 Lennard's bearing which seemed to pique the curiosity and 
 excite the imagination of Donna Dora. 
 
 Why, thought she, was this young man so reserved and 
 grave, so sweet and sad in eye and manner at times ; — so 
 obstinate and cynical at others— to men especially "i What 
 had happened to him 1 What had cast a shadow on his life 
 already — what but love, of course 1 Poor fellow — and he 
 looked so handsome and drew long sighs so interestingly 
 when he thought no one observed him ! Yet, but for the 
 romance of her nature, this interesting youth might only be 
 worried by the toothache, as Seiior Jos6 once ventured to 
 suggest, to the great disgust of Donna Dora. There was, 
 she averred to the ladies, when in their own cabin they 
 nightly discussed the merits of their brother voyagers— a 
 dreamy expression in his eyes quite calculated to interest, 
 and they agreed wdtli her, some suggesting that he was an 
 author probably, or an artist, a musician — " or a lunatic," 
 added the fair diarist who wore the false front and blue 
 goggles. But Dora felt herself irresistibly attracted, she 
 scarcely knew why or how. 
 
 And how was it with Lennard 1 Why did he feel an un- 
 usual interest in this girU She was beautiful certainly, 
 sparkling, and so forth ; but was he " about to fall in love 
 again,'' he asked himself, " to become as great an ass as be- 
 fore 1" No— l^e hoped not ! It was only propinquity, which, 
 
CONCERNING THE STAES, ETC. ji; 
 
 like opportunity, is so often tlie devil's game— liis loneliness 
 in the world — the steamer, &,c. Surely he had enough to 
 think of — his late sorrow — the mystery of Vere and Troca- 
 dero — his future prospects in a strange land ; and so ho 
 blushed for himself and shrunk with dismay from the feai 
 that he was about to feel, or had already felt, an interest too 
 tender in Donna Bora, and from that moment resolved to 
 act like a Stoic, and surpass Zeno himself ; but alas ! for his 
 rivalry with him of Citium, for when Seiior Jos6 retired to 
 bed early that night, growling with a fit of lumbago, and 
 when the Donna came on deck as the moon rose to shed a 
 splendour on the glassy sea, and when she expressed a wish 
 to peep into the engine-room and see the mysteries thereof, 
 the hand and arm of Lennard Blair were the first proffered 
 to assist her down Jacob's ladder, and to lead her forward 
 along the deck. 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 CONCERNING THE STARS AND A CERTAIN TOR^ GLOVE. 
 
 They were now almost in tropical regions, and the night 
 was one of fully tropical loveliness. The great steamer was 
 gliding through the water at her utmost speed, with every- 
 thing on her that would draw, even to a main-royal, for she 
 was shiprigged, and went easily through the water, the revo- 
 lution of her enormous paddle-wheels producing little more 
 than a monotonous hum. The breeze was soft and steady; her 
 towering shadow went far away to leeward, out upon the 
 moonlit sea, and even the smoke of her funnels was reflected 
 there as in a mirror. Immediately below the counter on 
 either quarter the water was dark as ink, and each time she 
 gave a kind of plunge when cleaving the long rollers in suc- 
 cession, the bights of her wake met together astern in double 
 eddies that were full of phosphorescent and silvery light. 
 The sky was full of stars, and all of a wondrous bright 
 blue ; but though beautiful the night, there were very few 
 passengers on the poop, where the fifth mate, who had the 
 watch, with his hands thrust into the side- pockets of his 
 reefin^-jacket, trod to and fro, giving, from time to time, a 
 look aloft, another to windward, a third at the binnacle, and 
 anon, a fourth over the quarter, as if he expected something 
 novel to appear in that direction. 
 
 The men of the second dog-watch (which extends from six 
 to eight p.m.) were gathered in a knot forward, spinning 
 yarns, jesting, and now and then breaking forth into songa 
 
3r8 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 and choruses ; and once tlie clear mellow voice of Kit Kent ■ 
 ledge, the boatswain, who was a great favourite with the 
 crew, rang out upon the night, as he sang an old Buccaneer 
 ditty: 
 
 " Oh sweet it was in Avis, 
 
 To catch the landward breeze, 
 A'swing, with good tobacco, 
 
 In a hammock 'neath the trees, 
 With a coal-black lass to fan you, 
 Whilst you listened to the roar 
 Of breakers on the bar outside, 
 That never reached the shore." 
 
 " Bueno — how pretty !" exclaimed Dora, pausing near the 
 long-boat which was on its chocks over the main-hatch and 
 well lashed to ring-bolts in the deck amidsliips. She listened 
 with her hand uphfted, as if she would hush even the still- 
 ness while the seaman sung. 
 
 Euffled and wafted out by the wind, her golden hair 
 seemed of greater volume than usual, as her shawl fell from 
 her head over her shoulders ; and in the moonlight there 
 was a wonderful whiteness in her uplifted hand, that re- 
 minded Lennard of the white rose-leaf, just as her cheek did 
 of the pink of a great shell when it blends so softly with the 
 hue of snow — if snow can be said to have a hue. As they 
 were peeping through the grating of the open hatchway into 
 the engine-room, where the mighty powers of locomotion 
 were in full play and in all their bravery of polished steel 
 and brass, and shining in the fiery glow that streamed occa- 
 sionally through the jaws of the furnace ; while grimy men 
 went to and fro upon the iron floor below, Lennard looked 
 upon the bright and intelligent face of the young girl who 
 clung to his arm, he felt the pressure of the little hand which 
 closed upon it — as if the vastness, the power, the tremendous 
 clanking and the general akof mystery down there appalled 
 her, and while the touch of her hand sent a thrill to his 
 heart some strange and tumultuous thoughts occurred to him. 
 
 " She is beautiful and winning, but she is rich, while I, 
 in circumstances, am narrower than ever. A woman 
 played with my heart and trifled cruelly with it ; why then 
 should I shrink from trifling with this girl V So was ho 
 wont to think in his cynical moments : but wotf— and inti- 
 macies ripen soon under the same roof, sooner still on board 
 of ship— in such a time as this, under the happy smile of 
 the bright little Spaniard, such bitter communings were 
 forgotten or thrust aside as coarse and ungenerous. Was it 
 that he had acquired the habit of loving something, and 
 that there was a void in his heart requiring to be filled I 
 
CONCEHNINa THE STAItS, ETC. ^ig 
 
 "Was it that some absurd thought of avenging himself on 
 the sex hired him into loving now ; and if so, why make 
 this young girl the victim 1 She had more heart and was 
 full of deeper thought than Hesbia Yere. Lennard Blair 
 could remember that her conversation had been chiefly of 
 people, gaiety, racing meets and hunts and balls, the change 
 of fashions and of dress ; with seldom a remark about the 
 past or the future. Hesbia lived for the present alone, and 
 m that spirit had dismissed him from her heart ; and now 
 the memory of all she had made him endure promj)ted him 
 to give full scope to his admiration — shall we say his grow- 
 ing passion— for the young Spanish girl. Hesbia Vere had 
 cast him off for ever, and all their ties were broken now, so 
 surely as the deep blue water rolled between them. 
 
 From the formidable but somewhat prosaic mysteries of 
 the engine-room Donna Dora turned her face to the stars 
 which shone brightly overhead, spangling the entire sky from 
 the horizon to the zenith, in some places clustering in con- 
 Btellations which exceeded all we ever see of brilliance in 
 Europe ; and new planets seemed to flash out all the more 
 brightly when viewed through the dark squares of the 
 rattlins, from amid the streaming smoke of the funnels, or 
 when seen by glimpses under the arched leech of a swelling 
 sail. 
 
 " How glorious they are — how gloriously beautiful," she 
 exclaimed, looking up, while her eyes beamed with enthusi- 
 asm, and her lips seemed to quiver, for she had a finely cut 
 and sensitive-looking little mouth, not unlike Lennard's own ; 
 and hence perhaps the resemblance in their photographs. 
 
 " Beware of cold — I would not for worlds that you 
 caught one," said Lennard, in a low and earnest voice, 
 while looking into her eyes and drawing her shawl again 
 over her head, he confined the soft tresses within it, and 
 with her brooch fastened it under her chin. He felt her 
 cheek touch his fingers during this process, and more than 
 once her hands met his ; and finally he drew an arm through 
 his own and gently press-ed it there, as if to reassure her 
 and guide her steps, as he led her to the ship's side, where 
 they could see the stars, and the ocean with all its waves 
 careering fast astern. 
 
 Lennard Blair knew right well that there is a scale in 
 the order of familiarity, and that much may be said or done 
 without oS'ence being taken or reprehension given ; but he 
 trembled already to avail himself of the present pleasing 
 situation, and somewhat nervously he began to talk about; 
 the stars, while thinking only of Dora's eyes. 
 
320 THE GIEL HE MAHEIED. 
 
 "Never in Europe— certainly not in England— did you 
 ever, Seiiora, see Orion's belt shine thus, or the Serpent flash 
 so brightly about his foot." 
 
 " And I do so love to see the steersman look at the stars, 
 as that man at the wheel is doing now. It seems to me that 
 he trusts to them quite as much as to his, compass when 
 guiding us over this mighty waste of trackless water— guid- 
 ing us so unerringly to our home/' 
 
 " To your home in the sunny south, Donna Dora ; mine 
 lies far away — ^if indeed I have a home in the world." 
 
 She looked at him earnestly for a moment, and then re- 
 sumed the current of her own thoughts. 
 
 " To me the skill seems wonderful that teaches our timo- 
 nero — our helmsman — to steer by night, 'to read' — says 
 some author — ' the vast book ever open above us, which we 
 call the heavens, and on whose azure leaf God has written 
 with letters of diamond.' " 
 
 Then passing at once from grave to gay, she began to hum 
 and half sing, — 
 
 " Senora ! estrella luciente," &c. 
 
 As she sang dreamily thus, her eyes chanced to meet those 
 of Lennard regarding her fixedly, tenderly, and with an ex- 
 pression that made her pause. It was a mournful glance, 
 in which anger and scrutiny seemed strangely to mingle, for 
 many thoughts were at that moment conflicting in his heart. 
 
 " You look sad, Mr. Blair," said she ; " you have some se- 
 cret sorrow, I am sure." 
 
 "Perhaps." 
 
 " All the ladies on board say that you have !" 
 
 " They watch me then V said he, smiling. 
 
 "Of course we do," was the naive reply; "you regret 
 leaving home ; is it the mal dupqys ?" 
 
 " No ; I have no such regret now." 
 
 "Why, seilorf 
 
 " I have no home to leave," was the cynical response. 
 
 "Friends then?' 
 
 " I have none— they are all dead." 
 
 " Then you sorrow for some one who lovsd you 1" persisted 
 the pretty querist. 
 
 "I do not— sorrow is past." 
 
 "For some one you love then — I must discover your 
 secret." 
 
 His lip curled slightly— quivered perhaps, but he only 
 sighed and looked away. 
 
 " Of what are you thinking, senor 1" 
 
CONCEHKIKG THE STARS, £fC. 3:?1 
 
 *' Tlie beauty of — of— tlie sea to-niglit." 
 
 "Is that all f 
 
 " Yes, senora !" 
 
 There was another pause, after which Donna Dora found 
 that she must again take the initiative or the conversation 
 might languish. 
 
 *'How quiet— almost taciturn you have become ! If you 
 have a secret grief, I am so sony for having jested about 
 it, or hinted of it, so pray pardon me. Or," she added, 
 laughing, "is it only that Avhich the French so happily term 
 la solidite des Anglais^ that affects your manner T 
 
 " Perhaps — but I don't happen to be an Anglais." 
 
 " Are you a North American ]" she asked, abruptly. 
 
 " No, senora." 
 
 " What then f 
 
 " I happen to be a Scotsman — Escoto." 
 
 " En verdad ! But you are not dressed in the same 
 fashion of the Scots I saw represented in Lucia di Lam- 
 mermuir at Paris T 
 
 " I should think not, and hope never to be," replied Len- 
 nard, laughing, as he thought of the silk tights and general 
 absurdity of the operatic costume she referred to. 
 
 " Escozia," she repeated, thoughtfully ; " I have read all 
 Scott's novels about that country ; and I have heard papa 
 speak of it — he was certainly there in his youth." 
 
 " Oil, very likely ! all the world seem to go there once a 
 year now." 
 
 " But what makes you usually so thoughtful %" 
 
 "An idea." 
 
 " And this idea — I must know it V' said she, laughing. 
 
 " Why are women so fickle T 
 
 " Because men are so strange, perhaps ; but I make a 
 wrong admission, and must deny your premises." 
 
 " Are they not sometimes false %" 
 
 " You are actually bitter, senor ! But men are so seldom 
 true." 
 
 " I could be trae as steel —true as time, or as the sun 
 itself to — to one who loved me !" 
 
 " Heavens !" said she, laughing louder, " you are quite 
 carried away ; seiior, do please to preserve your senses." 
 
 ^ Lennard laad begun impetuously ; but, suddenly changing 
 his tactics, he opened his pocket-book, and said, while pro- 
 ducing the torn relic of their casual meeting, which, by a 
 fortuitous chance, had been preserved among his papers : 
 
 " See how I have kept this glove— you remember it f 
 
 21 
 
325 THE GlRii HE MAERIEB. 
 
 She flushed scarlet, and Lennard coloured too ; for the 
 rogue felt that he was rather acting a part. 
 
 " I was very angry then," said Dora, growing pale again. 
 " Ah, what must you have thought of me ! But how did 
 you come to preserve such a thing as this — you never could 
 have hoped to meet me again ?' 
 
 " Another, by a happy chance, preserved it for me," he 
 replie-l, somewhat unwilling to play a card so false, though 
 the young girl— who quite recognized her glove— seemed 
 both puzzled and gratified. 
 
 Her left arm was pressed within his, and against his heart. 
 He was actually stealing her left hand within his own, and 
 he was looking alternately into the shrinking soft dark 
 eyes, and at the parted cherry lips. A new love was filling 
 fast his heart. The memory of the old, ill-fated one was 
 gone, and that beating heart seemed flying to his head ! 
 
 An avowal of esteem, of deep interest, of love, or of some 
 kind, was trembling on his lips, when it w^as arrested by the 
 appearance of a huge dark visage, which appeared above the 
 gunnel of the long-boat close by, and by a sound between a 
 cough and a laugh that came most gratingly on their ears, as 
 Captain Trocadero, who had been sleeping, or more probably 
 lurking and watching them, suddenly upreared his squat 
 figure from amid the lumber which usually fills a long-boat 
 on deck, and leisurely proceeded to clamber out. 
 
 With a gesture of impatience Donna Dora snatched the 
 torn glove from Lennard's hand, and tossed it away to lee- 
 ward, saying — " Oh, seiior, how could you think of preserv- 
 ing such a trashy relic as an old glove f It is too absurd !" 
 
 As he led her back to the gaily-lighted saloon, Lennard 
 scowled at the Spanish skipper and thought — while his 
 strange dream of the other night came vividly to memory 
 — " Disgusting devil ! but for him— well, there is a glorioua 
 opportunity gone for ever 1" 
 
 CHAPTER LVI, 
 
 THE PABRINO TAKES LENNAKD TO TASK. 
 
 The watchful Senor Jos6 Saavedra was now daily on deck 
 again, or in the saloon cabin, quietly observant of his charge ; 
 BO Lennard found the difficulty — almost the impossibility— 
 of reverting to their last conversation or bringing it back 
 to the point so nearly gained, and lost through the sudden 
 apparition of the truculent Trocadero, who now ventured 
 occasionally to address the Donna in Spanish, and sought 
 
tHE PADRINO TAKES LENNARD TO TASK, 323 
 
 to draw lier into conversation ; but slie always shrunk from 
 him with unmistakable dislike and hauteur, for the man's 
 aspect was singularly repulsive. She could not fail to bo 
 pleased with the attentions of Lennard Blair; he was 
 decidedly a handsome fellow, engaging in manner, and 
 modest and unassuming in bearing. She felt intuitively 
 that the admiration which fettered him to her side, that 
 made him hover near her, despite the chilling presence of 
 old Saavedra, ever ready and prompt to profier those little 
 attentions a lady requires so incessantly on board of ship, 
 was fast ripening into an emotion very tender indeed. 
 
 Lennard perhaps had no serious ultimate intentions, for 
 he had no hope, and late events had shaken his faith severely. 
 Donna Dora, he knew from Captain Maynard, was reputed 
 to be enormousJy wealthy— in fact, one of the richest 
 heiresses in Spanish America, and the old Hidalgo Dominga, 
 whoever he was, would no doubt look at any stranger who 
 addressed his daughter in the light of a presumptuous 
 fortune-hunter. Loving her would be a pleasant delusion, 
 which would end with the voyage. There might be a pang 
 at the parting, an honest, heartfelt regret— and then he 
 w^ould set to work with a will in the elucidation of the 
 Mexican affairs of Yere and Co., and the mysteries of their 
 correspondence with the Captain Trocadero. 
 
 Strong head winds had latterly checked the speed of the 
 Golden Dream^ but about the morning of the twentieth day, 
 as he sat at breakfast in the great saloon pleasantly chatting 
 to Donna Dora and her Padrino, the cry of " land ahead" 
 gave him the very pang he dreaded or anticipated, and liis 
 eyes met those of the Donna, as he gave her his hand, when 
 with all the other passengers they hurried on deck. The 
 steamer was now fairly in the tropics ; over the poop w^'^s 
 spread a graceful awning of white canvas fringed with 
 scarlet. Beneath this, the deck for coolness was well soused 
 with salt water and carefully swabbed every morning, under 
 the special eye of Mr. Kentledge, and now the sun was 
 exhaling a steam from the deck, together with a strong 
 odour of wood and pitch — an odour given in such warm 
 latitudes alone. At the far horizon away to the south-west, 
 amid the white haze that floated on the morning sea, the 
 dark outline of the land, consisting of several ranges of 
 mountains curving upw^ard till they culminated in one great 
 peak, appeared like a streak of floating cloud, for their bases 
 were shrouded in thin mist, which gradually rose skyward 
 and passed away altogether. 
 
 " That is Hispaniola, ladies," said Captain Maynard, as he 
 
324 THE GIRL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 handed liis telescope to the mature literaiy maiden with 
 the blue spectacles. 
 
 "Hayti — or San Domingo f said she, to show her erudition. 
 
 " It's all one which you call it, ma'am. Yonder low streak 
 just above the starboard cat-head is the Island of Tortuga 
 ov tortoises ; and the headland higher still is the mole of St 
 Nicholas. We shall haul up due south for the bay directly." 
 
 " And that mountain peak V asked Dora. 
 
 " Cibao — it rises in the very centre of the island ; and it 
 is in the rocks of Cibao that the gold-mines lie," 
 
 Many vessels of various nations and of varied rig, polaccas 
 and schooners, ships and steamers, and nearly all with their 
 colours flying, — the red and yellow of Castile and Leon, the 
 tricolour of France, the stars and stripes of Brother Jonathan, 
 and the garish union of Britain with its absurd conglomera- 
 tion of crosses, were now in sight, standing to or from the 
 windward passage between Cuba and Hispaniola. 
 
 Under steam and canvas the vessel crept fast inshore ; 
 the mountain ridges attained gi-eater altitude, their valleys 
 afforded glimpses of the vast plain of La Vega Real, with 
 all its fertility ; then farms, sugar and coffee miUs came in 
 sight, and luxuriant plantations of cocoa and indigo ; and 
 ere long the city of Port-au-Prince, with its harbour full of 
 shipping, the palace built by the black emperor, Faustus I., 
 the Senate House, and the spires of the churches rising white 
 against the backgi'ound of verdant green, could be distinctly 
 discerned, while much bustle ensued on board the Golden 
 Dream. One officer was busy with a gang in getting the 
 anchors over the bows, and the ground tackle rove ; another 
 in preparing the donkey engine for hoisting out the cargo, 
 while a third made several clearances on deck prior to start- 
 ing the hatches when the order was given to " break bulk." 
 Amid all this, little M. Fabien, accoutred in a suit of black 
 with the red ribbon at his buttonhole, was collecting his 
 baggage and paying his adieux assiduously to all— the ladies 
 in particular — for Hayti was to be the scene of his diplomatic 
 labours — his exile from the joys of Paris. 
 
 Left almost to themselves ainid the general bustle and 
 pi'e-occupation of all, Lennard remained by the side of 
 Donna Dora, and gazed upon her from time to time with 
 growing interest. She was apparently wJiolly intent on 
 observing the features of the coast through her lorgnette, 
 and, like himself, was unaware that two persons were 
 closely watching them. These were the Senor Jos6 and 
 Captain Trocadero, both of whom had a great mistrust of 
 Lennard, but from different motives. The former disliked 
 
THE PADRINO. TAKES LENNAED TO TASK. 3?5 
 
 his systematic attentions to his ward ; the latter dreatled 
 that Lennard possessed a clue to some dangerous secret in 
 his past life, and meant to use it against him. Lennard 
 heeded neither them nor the picturesque shore; he was 
 intently occupied by his fair companion, 
 
 " Her manner has betrayed what she — herself — ^begins to 
 feel— that I am not indifferent to her," he said, mentally ; 
 "alas— I never thought to love again !— and this dear little 
 Dora is in some things still a child — but a child with a spirit 
 of her own. What if her Padrino should land with her 
 here, to get rid of me perhaps ] Then I should never see her 
 more ; yet the captain spoke of her home being near 
 Tampico." 
 
 This sudden doubt or supposition caused him some agita- 
 tion, and he half dreaded to question either her or Saavedra, 
 lest the answer might be in the affirmative ; and he sighed 
 almost bitterly at the fear that he might have but a few 
 hours more of her charming society, and that if not at Port- 
 au-Prince, at the next island they might be separated 
 finally. Was all this pleasant daily intercourse, were those 
 rambles round the ship in the starlight, the music in the 
 cabin at night, the bright smiling greetings on the pcop in 
 the sunny mornings, their interchange of thoughts, of jests 
 and kindness, their glances so full of tender and merry 
 meaning, and more than all, of thoughts unspoken, to go 
 for nothing now, and to be but as a forgotten folly, perhaps 
 on the morrow, when the Golden Dream might be plougli- 
 ing through the Carribean Sea, and he would be standing 
 on her deck alone— the subject perchance of many a jest by 
 the vacant Jones and others who had envied him] 
 
 " You go on with the steamer to the Eio Tampico, I 
 believe T said he, after a long pause. 
 
 " Not quite so far," she replied, and then added with pre- 
 cipitation, " but you don't land here V 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Nor at Kingston — I hope f 
 
 This " hope" made Lennard's heart beat quicker, and he 
 "O-id, 
 
 " No, Donna Dora ; I go to within two hundred and fifty 
 miles of the Tampico River." 
 
 " Then you must be going to La Vera Cruz !" she ex- 
 claimed, with unconcealed pleasure dancing in her eyes. 
 
 " Yes— that is my destination." 
 
 " How strange— how delightful ! I live in Vera Cruz, or 
 not far from it." 
 
 " You, senora T 
 
326 THE GIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 " Yes — I shall live there with my papa, of course. But 
 you, senor — what are you about to do in Vera Cruz V 
 
 " Donna Dora," said he, smiling at the girlish abruptness 
 of her question ; " I go there to better my fortune. I have 
 a hope, a desire, a project to return to my own country a 
 rich man, or return no more. But desires like mine are 
 Beldom fulfilled, and such hopes are often blighted. We 
 hear of the few who succeed in the race for riches ; bit 
 never of the many who fail and perish by the wayside." 
 
 " Do not speak so sadly. Papa is very powerful in many 
 ways ; and as an Englishman himself — though quite a 
 Spaniard in habits, tastes, and ideas — he may be well in- 
 clined to aid and serve you. And be assured that all — that 
 — that is in my power " 
 
 She paused and coloured deeply, drooping her eyelashes 
 as if she was already saying, or perhaps thinking, too much, 
 and admitting too great an interest in this casual fellow- 
 voyager. She then gave a timid but smiling glance upward ; 
 and, as their eyes meet, there was a world of secret intelli- 
 gence conveyed by that swift and fleeting glance. 
 
 " Donna Dora," said Lennard, perceiving that they were 
 almost alone, and as he thought unnoticed, " if the emotions 
 of a heart that— that," he continued, in a voice that became 
 tremulous and soft. What he was about to say, it might be 
 unsafe, perhaps, to speculate upon ; but unfortunately he 
 got no further, for at that moment Senor Saavedra came 
 abruptly forward ; and while begging a light for his cigar, 
 by an inclination of his head and d-ark expressive eyes drew 
 Lennard aft to the taffrail. There, stroking his huge musta- 
 chios and bustling himself out in his poncho, which he wore 
 as a defence alike against heat and cold, he proceeded to ask 
 Lennard a few questions, with intense gravity of manner, in 
 the Spanish language, his English being hopelessly unintel- 
 ligible ; and it only came on him after dinner, or supper, 
 when he added champagne to his sangaree and curagoa punch. 
 
 " Senor, you will pardon my curiosity; but you go further 
 with us than Hispaniola, I perceive ?" 
 
 " Yes ; I do not land here, at all events." 
 
 "Do you cross the Gulf r 
 
 " Si^ senor ; I go to Vera Cruz." 
 
 " Diabolico ! Do you say so V 
 
 " Why, senor, what possible interest can you have in my 
 movements "J What can it matter to you where I go, or 
 where I do not go T' 
 
 " Pardon me— a little further this way— I would crave the 
 favour of a word or two apart.'' 
 
THE PADRINO TAKES LENNAKD TO TASK. 327 
 
 " I am at your service, senor," said Lennard, bowing. 
 
 " Hark you, Senor Lennard — for such I believe is you? 
 name — you are, I think, nay, I am sure," he continued, bow- 
 leg low, but haughtily, "a gentleman (gentil-hombre), a 
 caballero T 
 
 " I hope so. I have never done aught to forfeit the name,'* 
 replied Lennard, who began to think that a duel with re- 
 volvers or bowie-knives was in prospect. 
 
 " Then permit me to ask, if it is right in you, as a mere 
 pastime — for it can be nothing else — to compromise a young 
 lady of good position, by assiduous and intrusive attentions'?" 
 
 "What, and whom do you mean?' asked Lennard, 
 haughtily. 
 
 "Who could I mean," continued the little man, whose 
 black eyes shot fire ; "but my alsijada (godchild), the Donna 
 Dorar 
 
 " Stay, sir, I have no wish to offend or to quarrel with one 
 so much my superior in years, and perhaps in position, I 
 have done nothing beyond the bounds of simple politeness, 
 and if honoured by her friendship " 
 
 " Bagatela ! do you take me for a fool — a very ass, senor 1 
 By friendship for a girl like her, you mean — love !" 
 
 " Well, and what then, seiior 1" asked Lennard, who dis- 
 liked intensely the loud tone and towering bearing of the 
 little Spaniard, 
 
 " I ask you, seiior, is it just, honest, or honourable in you. 
 of whom we and she know nothing, to take advantage of the 
 many chances afforded by a sea- voyage " 
 
 " Chances— advantage T interrupted Lennard, angi-ily. 
 
 "Yes, is it honourable, I repeat, in you to compromise 
 her, as you seem determined to do"? Excuse my making 
 these remarks ; but your English freedom of manner suits 
 neither New or Old Spain, and I have the honour to be a 
 native of the latter." 
 
 " And consequently possess some very narrow prejudices, 
 perhaps 1" said Lennard, greatly provoked at being thus 
 lectured and taken to task. 
 
 " What you term prejudice, T, senor, deem prudence. Her 
 father, who is my best and oldest friend, intrusted the care 
 of her homeward journey to me. He wall demand a strict 
 account of my stewardship — thus I stand here to-day in his 
 place." 
 
 Lennard bowed. The Spaniard had resumed his polite- 
 ness of tone, and thus disarmed the young man, who felt 
 that the questioner had right on his side • but not knowing 
 what to say, Lennard could oily give a sigh of impatience. 
 
3^.8 THE GIRL HE MAHRIED. 
 
 " Pardon me one question," said Saavedra ; " are you a 
 mercantile man V 
 
 " Yes, seilor." 
 
 " I hope you are a wealthy one ]" 
 
 " Far from it ; and I may be very poor ere long. I know 
 not what is before me," added Lennard, as he thought of 
 Sir Cullender Crowdy, his doubts of Mr. V ere and his desire 
 to leave their interests altogether. 
 
 " Your admission is honest, and I like you the better for 
 it," said Seiior Saavedra, patting Lennard on the shoulder. 
 " Donna Dora's family are immensely rich — none are more 
 so in all Mexico perhaps ; so in seeking to protect her, I am, 
 perhaps, but saving you from yourself. Beware of this tri- 
 lling — this pursuit of a bubble, for in the land to which we 
 are going, the land of fire and fever, of bullion-mines, of 
 earthquakes, and tidal waves — a land where the bullet and 
 dagger take the place of sober laws— a land totally unlike 
 the Europe we have left, we have means — very unpleasant 
 '■means, by which at times we rid ourselves of those who mar 
 our plans or cross our paths." 
 
 And with these ominous words, which contained a most 
 unmistakable threat, Saavedra turned away, and as a Still 
 more unpleasant sequel to such a conversation, joined Cap- 
 tain Trocadero. 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 OFF THE BAYE DE BAEADERES. 
 
 The very palpable threat of that little spitfire, Sefior Jose 
 Saavedra, inspired Lennard with just anger rather than 
 alarm. But after a conversation so marked in its character 
 and so unpleasant in its context, he did not feel himself 
 quite at liberty to improve his already delightful acquaint- 
 ance with Donna Dora, and still less to urge any useless suit, 
 though there is nothing so suggestive of the tender passion 
 as propinquity, and daily almost constant association with a 
 
 Sretty girl. Studiously he saw as little of her as possible 
 uring the three days which the Golden Bream lay at Port- 
 au-Prince, coaling, taking in goods and passengers, chiefly 
 coloured folks in the steerage for Kingston • but still some 
 of the warnings uttered by Saavedra rankled bitterly in his 
 mind. 
 
 " Biches, wealth — these words again— here, even here !" 
 thought he ; and in his hatred of the terms, he felt for a 
 time a radical— a republican, and almost afj one of those w)io 
 
OFF THE BAYE DE BAYADERES. 3:19 
 
 view in every man who possesses fairer prospects or a larger 
 purse— an enemy ! And he loathed those worshippers of 
 the golden calf he Avas himself in search of — the vulgar and 
 overw^eening aristocracy of wealth. 
 
 Then there was the threat of w^hat mir/ht be done against 
 him in a land so lawless ; and with the threat he remem- 
 bered the immediate and ominous turning of the Senor to 
 Trebucio Trocadero, a man of whose secret character he had 
 the worst suspicions ! And he w^as totally destitute of arms, 
 without even the inevitable revolver and bowie-knife with 
 wdiich all wanderers provide themselves for vague contin- 
 gencies in those regions of revolution and disorder — of rows 
 and recklessness of human life— lands where the worst and 
 most fiery passions of Europe are heated to excess by a tro- 
 pical climate and by association and intermarriage with the 
 savage. A revolver pistol bearing his name had once been 
 in his possession, but that now had gone, with all his other 
 ])aggage, to assist in outfitting ]\Ir. Travice Cheatwood for 
 the tropics. 
 
 The fifth morning after the peculiar conversation saw the 
 Golden Dream running through the channel of La Gonave, 
 with a light breeze aft, full steam up, and a bright sunshine 
 gilding all the rippling sea around her. Donna Dora w\as 
 on deck under the poop awaiing wdth a fan and parasol, and 
 looked with something of pique and surprise at Lennard, 
 w^ho after a simple and studiously modest salutation, had 
 gone forward to smoke wdth the Yankee supercargo and 
 others, leaving her entirely to the flattering attentions of En- 
 sign Jones and one or two others, young doctors and planters, 
 who were resolving to make the most of the thirty-six hours' 
 run or so, which would bring them to their destination. The 
 water was intensely blue ; the waves rose and fell in golden 
 light, with tiny specks of foam upon their tops ; the ship's 
 wake astern could be traced for miles like a path upon the 
 water. The sun streamed brightly upon the long stretch of 
 deck, and all the ship w^as instinct with life, for again the 
 cocks and hens w^ere clucking in the replenished coops, 
 where the steward was searching for new-laid eggs, and 
 several investments made by the ladies, in the shape of tiny 
 paroquets, w^ere swung in cages from the lower rigging. 
 
 Greatly to the disgust of those gentlemen wdio hovered 
 near her. Donna Dora seemed disposed to absorb in conver- 
 sation the boatswain, Mr. Kit Kentledge, w^ho on this morn- 
 ing was occupied in preparing a new dog-vane, made of fea- 
 thers and bunting, for the use of the ofl&cer of the watch by 
 night ; and she persisted m asking him questions concerning 
 
330 THE GIRL HE MAREIBD. 
 
 the coast and its features, and his replies always savoured 
 sufficiently of salt water. 
 
 "And that opening in the land, dear Mr. Kentledge, just 
 now ; do you see it f she inquired. 
 
 " You means the bight, just by the weather-brace of the 
 foresail, mam T 
 
 " Yes ; just over there," said she, pointing with her para- 
 sol ii\ the direction indicated. 
 
 " That is the Baye de Baraderes, that is, mam, in the 
 easi^most pint of tlispaniola ; and just where the sea i? 
 abreaking over that rock, and where the blue sharks ar& 
 always found thickest, there's lying in twenty fathom water 
 a privateer brig, as was ballasted with silver dollars and gold 
 doubloons took from the Jack Spaniards in the old war ; "but 
 she capsized and went down with all hands aboard 'cept the 
 captain's bulldog. He had a caul, if you knows what that 
 is, mam, as a charm aboard agin danger, and also three 
 horse-shoes nailed on his stern ; but they warn't no use, for 
 he had his warning o' what was to come." 
 
 " A warning ; in what way V 
 
 " When a thousand knots off the land, a full-grown rook, 
 as black as the cook's face or a parson's coat, lighted on the 
 jib-boom end ! Now if that warn't a sign of something ugly 
 about to happen to that ere craft I'm a Dutchman !" 
 
 " And what happened V 
 
 " The rook sat there in defiance of all the shots the crew 
 fired at it, croaking and flapping his wings till a fear came 
 over them, and for days and nights the brig went through 
 the water like a hot knife through butter, till she was oft' 
 yonder rock, when, as I said, she capsized in n stiuaO, and 
 went down trucks foremost. Nothing has evex been sce-n of 
 her since, 'cepting some of the yellow doubloons which are 
 washed up in the Baye of Baraderes, and thejr-nro always as 
 black as the barnacles on the ship's bottom, s-iving your 
 presence, mam." 
 
 " That will do. Kentledge," said Captain Maynard, laugh- 
 ing ; " ship your dog- vane, and get some of those new sails 
 bent on forward while the weather is fine, for I have fears it 
 may not be long so." 
 
 The boatswain touched his hat and went forward. Mr. 
 Kentledge did not affect the dandyism of the mates. In 
 lieu of their semi-uniform with brass buttons, he exhibited 
 a great amount of check-shirt ; a pair of trousers tight at the 
 waist and loose about the ankles ; a well- varnished liat in 
 wet weather ; a straw one in fine, with a long blue ribbon 
 floating from it, and always perched on the back of his head. 
 
THE PAMPERO. 33 1 
 
 Round his brawny throat was a black silk neckerchief, 
 knotted in a style on which he rather prided himself. He 
 had a handsome but sunburnt and weatherbeaten face ; a 
 pair of merry blue eyes and set of strong w^hite teeth. He 
 had a rolling gait, a wide step, large brown hands, ever 
 ready apparently to grasp and tally on to something. He 
 seemed about five-and-f orty years old, and displayed a wealth 
 of that rich curly hair and whisker peculiar to most of those 
 who " go down to the sea in ships and do business in great 
 waters." Trocadero also looked every inch a seaman ; but 
 of the bulldog and ruffianly type— the pirate, the slaver, and 
 the Coolie crimp. 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 THE PAMPERO. 
 
 Islet h Pierre Joseph, the most western point of beautiful 
 Hispaniola, was sinking like a purple cloudlet into the blue 
 water far astern, when certain rapid atmospheric changes 
 began to arrest the attention and excite the anxiety of 
 Captain Majmard, who seemed to have many consultations 
 with his senior mates, and with Captain Trocadero, who 
 knew those latitudes well. The sky, usually one of the 
 deepest blue, had given place to one enveloped in murky 
 masses of swiftly-sailing cloud ; there was a gloom aloft and 
 in the now turbid sea, with a close and sultry state of the air 
 that seemed to presage thunder ; and ere long red lightning 
 was seen repeatedly to flash upward from behind a dense 
 and dusky bank of vapour that rested on the ocean away to 
 the north-west, where the waves broke in white and frothy 
 outline against it. 
 
 Kit Kentledge with a''seaman's instincts was always look- 
 ing out to windward, and the dark, stern eyes of Trocadero 
 turned frequently in the same direction ; both shook their 
 heads from time to time, and watched the shifting vane on 
 the mizeu truck, where it caught currents of air as yetunfelt 
 below ; and as the day w^ore on the gusts or blasts of hot 
 \vind veered more and more ahead, increasing so much in 
 strength, that after taking in all the light sails. Captain 
 Maynard ordered the watch on deck to "take everything 
 else oft' her, to the reefed topsails and forecourse." He was 
 frequently in the engine-room in consultation vnXh. the 
 engineer ; often he inspected the glasses which were falling 
 rapidly and steadily, and he seemed prepared to pass the 
 night on the poop or the bridge between the paddle-boxes. 
 
532 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Lennard noted all these anxieties perhaps more than tha 
 other passengers, because lie had, unwillingly, been made 
 the interpreter of some of the questions asked by Captain 
 Maynard and the senior mate of Trebucio Trocadero. This 
 sullen and taciturn individual seemed also to prefer facing 
 the common blast on deck to waiting for it in the cabin ; 
 and when the night closed thoroughly in, the rolling and 
 lurching of the ship was so great, that all the ladies retired 
 to their own cabin earlier than usual ; whereupon, having 
 no one to mount guard over, Senor Jose, after a mild jorum 
 of sangaree dashed with brandy, tucked himself into his cot ; 
 and after having a rubber or two at whist, Mr. Jones, his 
 two brother officers, and the planters, retired also. 
 
 Mr. Nutmeg, the Yankee supercargo, had long since dozed 
 off to sleep, with his head on a sofa, his heels on a table, a 
 (piid of tobacco between his teeth, and another stuck on the 
 ])oint of his knife ready for nse. 
 
 Lennard was now the only other occupant of the long and 
 elegant saloon cabin, where he lay on one of the sofas or 
 cushioned lockers, endeavouring to reflect if possible amid 
 the incessant and increasing noises on deck, and wondering 
 whether Donna Dora was also awake and similarly occupied 
 within yonder double door which closed the ladies' sanctum 
 for the night. 
 
 " Ain't you going to turn in, sir f asked the steward, who 
 was making his way from lamp to lamp by a succession of 
 zig-zag lurches, and extinguishing all save one, while his 
 mates were shipping the dead lights, with ring and batten 
 in the after-cabin or ladies' boudoir. 
 
 " No, I mean to sleep here," replied Lennard ; " I fear we 
 are about to have a rough night, and should like to see 
 it out." 
 
 " Fear we shall, sir ; it'll blow great gims afore morning, 
 and there are pleasanter places to face than just where we 
 are now, with the reefs of Navasa showing their black teeth 
 through the white breakers to leeward ; but more canvas 
 has been set on the ship, and all braced up to give 'em the 
 go-by." 
 
 " Navasa ; what place is it f 
 
 " An uninhabited island, sir. Last voyage but one we 
 took off from it two shipwrecked men, who had been there 
 a'most three weeks ; just two hours before we hove in sight 
 they had made up their minds to die, for they were a-starving, 
 and on their knees they both swore a very strange oath." 
 
 '' What was its tenor V 
 
 "That whoever died first should Jiot be eaten by tlie sur* 
 
THE PAMFEEO. 333 
 
 vivor. It was blowing precious hard at tlie time, but Mr. 
 Kentledge and six volunteers went off for them in the long- 
 boat, else their bones had been there still, poor fellows." 
 
 " And where is this island V 
 
 " Leeward, and I hope well-abeam by this time, sir." 
 
 " I mean where situated V 
 
 '* Midway a'most between Hispaniola and Jamaica." 
 
 *' Midway — well, thank Heaven we arc so far !'' 
 
 ' True, sir ; but that is a wide word in these here sea^, 
 and in such a night as this is likely to be,"' replied the 
 steward, a curly-headed and florid little Englishman, who 
 had been substituting a rough storm garment for his natty- 
 blue jacket with its brass buttons, and was tyin^ a sou - 
 wester under his chin. Even he, though haK-waiter and 
 half-seaman, was preparing for the contingencies of the night, 
 
 Lennard was in a sullen and thoughtful mood, and at that 
 moment felt somewhat defiant alike of fortune and the ele- 
 mental war. Stretched on the soft cushions, with the fag- 
 end of a cigar in his mouth and his hands clasped under his 
 head, he lay listening to the piping gusts that ever and anon 
 shook the ship to her centre, the hiss of the hea\y spray, 
 and the booming sound on deck, as a sea occasionally pooped 
 her ; the orders given hoarsely through the tmmpet, half 
 heard and half lost in the bellowing wind that swept them 
 off to leeward ; the rattle of the great rudder in its case, as 
 four men now at the wheel, with bare feet planted on the 
 dQck-grating, had hard work to keep the vessel, though under 
 steam and close-reefed canvas, to her course. 
 * In the storm, for it almost amounted to one, there was 
 something strangely congenial to Lennarcl's mood of mind. 
 Donna Dora, piqued by his recent inattention, had barely 
 smiled to him an adieu, Avhen she and the ladies retired ; 
 and the memory of the threatening conversation with her 
 padrino still rankled angrily in his mind. The months he 
 had spent at home, at Oakwoodlee and Blairavon, had proved 
 a term of exciting events ; his previous life at Liverpool had 
 been one of routine and monotony, varied only by the hopes 
 and f e^rs of a futile passion, now to be no more remembered. 
 All these were exchanged for a long and varied sea voyage, 
 under tropical skies, in a magnificent steam ship ; and the 
 present, he felt, should be a period of pleasure, and must 
 have been one perhaps without alloy, but for the monetary 
 doubts and anxieties already referred to ; the strange mystery 
 of Mr. Yere being in secret correspondence with Captain 
 Trocadero, and his proposal to t-ake Sir Cullender as a part- 
 ner. From this point he strove to turn his thoughts away ; 
 
3H THE aiRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 he let his cigar-end drop on the floor, and, rocked by the 
 swaying of the vessel, was about to fall dreamily asleep with 
 thoughts of Donna Dora's violet eyes and golden hair, when 
 lo ! — There was a shock — a thundering, booming crash, as if 
 the vessel had been torn asunder ; a terrible vibrating or 
 tremulous sensation thrilled through the vast length from 
 stem to stern, and Lennard was flung with violence from 
 the _ portside away over to starboard, amid a wilderness of 
 chairs, campstools, cushions, books, backgammon-boards, 
 and other debris from the various tables. Partly stunned 
 and bewildered, he lay for nearly a minute where he fell, 
 while pale and startlecl faces were instantly thrust forth from 
 state-room doors and curtained berths. 
 
 " Hollo — what's the doocid row T elegantly drawled En- 
 sign Jones, timorously peeping forth with parted hair, and 
 eyes very wide open indeed. 
 
 "Jerusalem and apple sarce, Captain ; but we'll find that 
 out too soon — there's a darned smash o' something on deck, 
 I reckon," said Mr, Nutmeg, plunging his arms into a pea- 
 jacket. 
 
 Exclamations and inquiries made in varying tones, and to 
 v/hich no one could reply, were now heard on all sides, with 
 yild and excited screams from the ladies' cabin, and cries of 
 — "Stewardess — stewardess — dress me immediately! the 
 ship is sinking — sinking — sinking — oh !" 
 
 _ " Ave Maria Purissima !" moaned Jos4 Saavedra, muffling 
 himself up in his berth and preparing to go comfortably to 
 the bottom with all his blankets about him ; " O— o — o, 
 Jesu Maria y Jos^, el Padre de Nuestro Senor !" 
 
 " Get up, you darned crittur, and make yourself useful !" 
 growled the American ; "airthquakes and ginger nuts, 
 skipper, what is the matter ]" he asked of the steward, who 
 came into the saloon drenched with spray, and with a bleed- 
 ing hand 
 
 "Bad business on deck, gentlemen, the main-top sail 
 blown out of the men's hands ; the foresail split nigh to 
 ribbons, and the shij), with all her breadth of beam just on 
 the point of capsizing, when the topmasts and jibboom 
 snapped right off at the caps like barley-sugar, carrying 
 three men away with them to leeward ; and that ain't the 
 worst," continued the steward, as he knotted a handkerchief 
 round his bruised and bleeding fingers, chiefly with the aid 
 of his teeth ; "the starboard wheel is useless, the shaft 
 snapped when she heeled over, burying it in water, for we 
 are caught in a regular Famj^ero !" 
 
 Long ere this had been narrated, Lennard had made his 
 
What came of it. 3? 5 
 
 way to tne poop-rail, where he clung for some minutes in 
 utter confusion and dismay before his eye and mind, amid 
 the darkness and chaos of the scene, could fairly understand 
 the nature and danger of their disaster. 
 
 CHAPTER LIX* 
 
 AVHAT CAME OF IT. 
 
 The roaring of the wind, mingled with the blowing off of 
 the steam, made a terrific medley Avhen combined with the 
 flapping of the split forecourse and loose mainsail, the ex- 
 cited voices of the crew, the lashing of _ ropes that cracked 
 like giant whips on the blast, the groaning of the ship, the 
 deep hoarse boom of every sea that struck her in succession 
 as she pitched like a helpless log. But on falling away before 
 the wind, she rose and fell in heavy plunges on each succes- 
 sive surge that rolled towards her, with sulky crest and 
 heaving ridge dark and curling, till it bu^st in foam and 
 fury on the decks, sweeping loose spars, buckets, and so forth, 
 to leeward. Around, all was pitchy blackness, and the sea 
 was dark as if its w^aves were ink, whitened only by foam 
 and spray. 
 
 In no way daunted by the critical situation of the ship. 
 Captain Maynard and his mates were already getting her 
 fast into a w^orking state. The starboard shaft— the snapping 
 of which had caused all the mischief — was in reality outside 
 the ship, and as the wheels were of great value, to save one 
 and get the other in motion were their chief objects. In 
 such a sea, with the ship disabled aloft, some might have 
 thought these ends impossible of attainment, and would 
 have cut the disabled wheel adrift ; but not so the gallant 
 Maynard. Every man on board was now on deck, and at 
 once two gangs were formed ; one, under the chief mate's 
 orders, proceeded to get the loose wreck cut away ; the main- 
 sail and rags of the forecourse handed and furled ; another, 
 under Maynard and the engineer, was busy upon the star- 
 board wheel, getting off the buckets and hoisting them on 
 deck. Perilous and slippery work was this, in a wild black 
 night — amid a tearing pampero, with the spray and foam 
 flying over them every moment ; but here Avorked Lennard 
 side by side with Trocadero, and in the excitement of the 
 time he forgot alike the ominous remark of that personage 
 jLiid the threat of Saavedra, for now life and safety depended 
 on the exertions of all on board. Seeing that the men aloft 
 were sorely impeded by the fury of the wind, " Quick, my 
 
336 THE GIRL HE MABPvIfiD. 
 
 lads, with tliat mainsail, and stow the bunt !" shouted Maj'' • 
 nard through his trumpet from the bridge ; " have we the 
 crew of a collier up there ] Stow away, and then every man 
 must bear a hand upon the starboard wheel !" 
 
 Every hand, ere long, was busy upon it ; the wheel was 
 lashed to the timbers of the engine-house by ponderous 
 chains and powerful hawsers, while the car])enters were hard 
 at work placing chaffing boards l)etween it and the ship's 
 side ; and after some hours of iMcessant toil, the crew gav(; 
 a faint cheer, when, with one wheel revolving, a staysail and 
 reefed mainsail set. the Golden Dream began slowly to move 
 through the water. By this time the gale had expended its 
 fury, and a faint light indicated the approach of day. 
 
 " Now we shall be able to creep along," said Captain May- 
 iiard to Trocadero, " at the rate of some six knots or so, with 
 a weather-helm, if we can't keep our rudder amidships." 
 
 The Spaniard gave a growl of satisfaction, and the Cap- 
 tain added : — 
 
 " Mr. Kentledge, give an order to the steward to issue a 
 tot of grog per man forward— all have done their duty 
 nobly." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," replied the boatswain, as he -wrung the 
 water from his jacket prior to seeking the steward's store- 
 room ; " a caulker does make the gear of human life run 
 smoother in the blocks, and Ave've had a rough night. Some 
 go to sea for fun and to the devil for pleasure ; but I should 
 prefer to look elsewhere for either." 
 
 " Waal — they've pluck after all, these Britishers, and don't 
 use their hands only for tearing their hair, like that Spanish 
 crittur in his crib below," said Mr. J aleel Nutmeg, as he took 
 an approving survey of the crippled ship, prior to once more 
 seeking his rest in the saloon. 
 
 The excitement past, the ship going slowly and laboriously 
 through the sea, which was still rolling in enormous waves, 
 but more gently as the wind had gone down, Lennard was 
 reclining wearily for a few minutes against the break of the 
 poop-deck which there projected a few feet, and formed a 
 kind of shelter in wet weather. The time and place were 
 both gloomy, for the blackness of night yet rested on the 
 sea, though a stripe of distant light showed where day would 
 dav/n. Lennard eyed it wistfully, and was just about to 
 solace himself with a cigar, prior to seeking a little repose, 
 when his hand was timidly touched by another, whose soft 
 t-^xture and taper fingers taught him by a thrill to whom it 
 belonged. 
 
 "You here. Donna Dora- in the chill air of the early 
 morning !" he exclaimed iu a low voice. 
 
WHAT CAME OP IT. 337 
 
 " But I am so warmly wrapped up— see how thick my 
 shawl is," said she, cheerfully. 
 
 " Where is Senor Saavedra V 
 
 " Where he has been during all this terrible hubbub — 
 quaking in bed and praying to our Lady of Guadaloupe. 
 Anyway I have not seen him ; but you at least will not leave 
 me — will take care of me," said she in a low tone that stirred 
 the inner chords of his heart ; and drawing her arm within 
 his, he pressed it closely. 
 
 " You scarcely spoke to me all yesterday— did I offend 
 you ? " she resumed. 
 
 '• Offend me— oh no." 
 
 " Then why was this r' 
 
 " Another time I shall tell you all." 
 
 "Why not now ^" 
 
 " The explanation would have its perils." 
 
 "Is it true that some of our poor sailors have been 
 drowned V 
 
 " Three unfortunate fellows — yes." 
 
 " Three ! Ave Maria ! God bless them— bless and receive 
 them !" said she very devoutly, and shuddering a*s she looked 
 at the desolate aspect of the ship aloft, and the black sea 
 that was rolling away to leeward ; " but is all our danger 
 past V 
 
 " Not quite." 
 
 "Ah, tell me how r 
 
 " I understand there is such a strain upon the port wheel, 
 that the shaft may snap again with another dreadful crash." 
 
 " Oh, merciful heaven," she exclaimed, not quite under- 
 standing what he meant, but inferring something terrible ; 
 " if we should perish— die to-night ! " 
 
 " I care not — if I die thus — with you by my side," said 
 Lennard with a flush of sublime joy, as he bent his face 
 close to hers and could see a tender light in her eyes — a light 
 which the long and tremulous lashes failed to hide. 
 
 " You love me, then "i " said she, after a little pause filled 
 up by the pulsations of her heart. 
 
 "i do— passionately — dearly — hopelessly, Dora !" said he, 
 bewildered by a speech and deduction so unexpected. 
 
 " Then why should you not care to die — would you not 
 rather live ]" she asked in the same artless manner ; and in 
 the same breathless whisper he replied : 
 
 " To live would be to waken from my dream." 
 
 Then his arm stole round her. and the graceful head, yet 
 muffled in the shawl, dropped for a moment on his shoulder 
 — close to his heart, which was beating wildly. So the 
 
 22 
 
33^ THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 secret of eacli was out— that they loved each other. Sha 
 was silent now, and his conversation was made up of dis- 
 jointed sentences, expressions of tenderness — of love — all 
 said in tones that were soft and low and thrilling ; and 
 moments there were of perfect silence, more eloquent per- 
 haps than anything tongue could utter. And this love scene 
 ensued in no green lane or leafy woodland, in no arbour of 
 roses and honeysuckles, or blooming garden, with amber 
 evening stealing through the trees ; but on the deck of a 
 half-dismasted ship, crippled, drenched, and wave-worn, 
 toiling through the stormy Carribean sea, which the fury of 
 the pampero had flaked with snowy foam, and while a cold 
 grey dawn was spreading with tropical rapidity over the 
 cheerless waste. 
 
 " By Jove, Brown, if that Scotsman isn't actually spoony 
 upon the little Spaniard, even in the middle of all this dis- 
 gusting row r' said Ensign Jones, of the 5th West India, 
 shivering as the spray hissed over him, v/hen he came from 
 inspecting with vacant wonder the broken v/heel, and cling- 
 ing with the tenacity of a cat to successive belaying-pins, 
 and getting his feet entangled in the bight of many a loose 
 rope, ere he made a sliding rush to reach the door of the 
 saloon. 
 
 Dora was at that very age when courtship becomes the 
 most exquisite time of a young girl's existence. She was in 
 the first flush of a first passion. With Lennard Blair it was 
 not so, and yet he loved her dearly, deeply, and devotedly, 
 clinging to this new passion all the more that he had lov^ 
 and lost — loved and been disappointed, having his generous 
 and ardent heart thrust back upon himself. He had not 
 told her that he had never loved before, for that would have 
 been untrue ; but he told her that he adored her with all the 
 strength of which his nature — one impulsive as her own — 
 was capable. " The first symptom of true love in a young 
 man is timidity ; in a girl it is confidence," says Yictor 
 Hugo. "This will surprise, and yet nothing is more simple ; 
 the sexes have a tendency to approach, and each assumes the 
 qualities of the other ;" and hence it was that the fearless 
 question of Donna Dora, so artlessly put, drew forth the 
 avowal that loaded Lennard's tongue. 
 
 The chilly state of the atmosphere now led him, however 
 delightful the situation, to urge that she should retire, and 
 with her soft, deep, liquid eyes, she looked lovingly in liis 
 face, as she clung with both hands to his arm for a moment, 
 and with a strong intonation of her glorious Spanish ming- 
 ling with her Englisli, said, — "Adios, Lennard— adios, mi 
 
THE RING. 339 
 
 fiuerida— I shall go to sleep if I can, after a night of terror 
 
 2 >> 
 
 " And a dawn of joy, beloved Dora." 
 
 " Yes, of joy !" and kissing her hand, she glided away 
 with a beautiful smile, leaving Lennard Blair a little bewil- 
 dered by the suddenness with which the new position had 
 come about, and ^svith a heart full of happiness, but a happi- 
 ness that was not without alloy, — 
 
 They loved each other and had avowed it, 
 But how about the future ? 
 
 CHAPTEE LX. 
 
 THE EING. 
 
 " Aw~aw— rough night the last, by Jove !" drawled the 
 vapid Mr. Jones, using his customary phrase. 
 
 " Eayther, Colonel ; have a gin cocktail on the head of 
 it %" responded Mr. Nutmeg. 
 
 " Thanks ; I prefer having brandy-and-soda in a long glass, 
 with ice in it, if the steward has such a thing. This isn't a 
 late breakfast, but rather a smart little early luncheon, 
 garnished with gruyere and caviare ; but we sorely want the 
 kimmel nips, the plovers' eggs, and pickled oysters to make 
 the thing complete." 
 
 " Queer fixings for breakfast, I reckon. Colonel," replied 
 the Yankee to the officer, who Lennard, while dressing 
 hastily, knew were seated at table, with some of the other 
 passengers, engaged in partaking of a hasty but late break- 
 fast, such as the steward and his weary assistants could pro- 
 vide after the confusion of the previous night, and the fall 
 of the spars from aloft having damaged the cook's galley. 
 
 Roused from happy dreams, Lennard had sprung from" bed 
 and proceeded to finish his toilet with all speed, half fearing 
 that some of the events of last night might also prove a 
 dream. 
 
 " And so this haar Jamaikey is your lo-cation. Colonel "i" 
 continued the Yankee, with his nazal drawl, while cramming 
 his long leathern jaws with many condiments at once. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Nutmeg ; but, as yet, I have the honour only 
 to be ensign," replied Jones, drily. 
 
 "A small bit of honour that, I take it. Now, in the 
 United States, we seldom have anything under the rank of 
 colonel. I once knew a Lieutenant Colonel, but he kept a 
 eoal store in a small way too, at gnflBUo. Waal, and so your 
 
 32—2 
 
340 TEE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Queen locates ye haar 1 That ain't much to be grateful for ; 
 it's an almighty place for rep-tiles "i Mosquitoes will bite 
 you all day ; wet lizards crawl over you in your first sleep at 
 night : torpedoes lie under your pillow, and the land crabs 
 will look out for you, after being reduced to bare bones by 
 the yellow fever. Sorry for you^ I reckon. Ensign Jones." 
 
 "Hope you won't find Jamaica so bad a place, after all, 
 sir. Mr. Nutmeg speaks of the past," said the cheerful 
 voice of Captain Maynard. "Pass the word for'ard for 
 more toast, steward. That is Saltpond-hill abeam of us now, 
 for we are in the pilot's hands, and he is taking us between 
 the Sandy Keys, straight for the harbour. Yonder is the 
 train just starting for Spanish Town. We shall be abreast 
 of Fort Charles directly. 
 
 And so the vessel proved to be, when Lennard came forth, 
 after a more than usually careful toilette (how particular he 
 was on this morning about his hair, tie, cuffs, and studs, 
 &c.), to find the saloon already littered by the baggage of 
 the passengers, all of whom were for Kingston, except Senor 
 Saavedra, Donna Dora, Captain Trocadero, and himself. 
 The crippled aspect of the dismasted steamer attracted some 
 attention from the shore, as she crept slowly into that mag- 
 nificent basin, which is overlooked by the mountain-range of 
 the Liguanea, and sheltered on the seaward by the long neck 
 of the Palisades, within which the fleets of all the world 
 might anchor with ease and safety. Seated together at 
 luncheon, or breakfast (for the meal partook of the nature 
 of both), while the Golden Dream, now aided by a sturdy 
 tug-steamer, came slowly abreast of Fort Augustus and Mos- 
 quito Point, Lennard and Donna Dora were conversing on 
 ordinary topics, and pointing out to each other's notice the 
 opening charms of that beautiful Haven, as they appeared 
 'n succession, like a panorama, through the now open win- 
 dows of the saloon, which admitted the soft, warm breeze 
 from the land, the luxurious grass-fields on the west, and the 
 wooded hills of Healthshire on the south ; but while seated 
 tlius, wc say, no one, even those who, like the ever- watchful 
 padrino, remarked an unusual flush in Dora's damask cheek, 
 or a brightness in her veiled eyes, would have suspected the 
 secret, so mighty and so tender, which the break of tho 
 poop-deck had overheard but a few stormy hours before. 
 
 The old Senor Josh's nervous system had received a severe 
 shock by the catastrophe over-night ; and having a constitu- 
 tional horror of all bustle, on finding the ship given over to 
 noisy gangs of carpenters, white, yellow, and black, who 
 proceeded to sway up and rig al^^^t spare spars and masts, 
 
THE RING. 341 
 
 while other gangs of Coolies and Negro porters were at work 
 upon the cargo hoisting out and lowering in, and the hammers 
 of a third party were at w^ork upon the damaged wheel : 
 then, added to all af this, were the merry farewells of the 
 officers, who were bound for Up-Park Barracks, of the 
 planters for the Cabaritta River, and many a pen in the 
 Liganea hills ; of the faii: Diarist, Avith the false-front, blue 
 goggles, and scalplock, as Mr. Jaleel Nutmeg ungallantly 
 termed her "back hair ;" in short, the general hubbub 
 proved too much for the sombre little hidalgo, who, after a 
 vain attempt to face it out sulkily on the poop, in his poncho 
 and sombrero, retired to his berth once more, and left his 
 golden-haired alsijada to the care of the only person he 
 dreaded now— Lennard Blair ; and amid the intense preoc- 
 cupation of all around them, though the great ship lay nearly 
 four days in Kingston Harbour, the young couple found 
 themselves isolated and alone. Yet not so much alone as 
 they supposed ; for Captain Trocadero, who never left the 
 ship, had been taken into the confidence and secret service 
 of Saavedra, who having early discovered that the sulky 
 mariner had a private grudge at Lennard, requested him to 
 keep an eye upon his ward. This the truculent Spaniard 
 readily promised to do, and thus saw much of an intimacy 
 which he was, as yet, without the means or direct authority 
 for stopping ; but which nevertheless led him to form some 
 very daring plans on his own account, and of these we shall 
 hear more elsewhere. 
 
 So they promenaded on the poop under the broad awning 
 without interruption ; played many a dreamy game of chess; 
 again and again she sang to him the little romance of Pedro 
 de Padilla (which he had heard on the first night they met 
 on board), and many mo-re beside ; but how could Trocadero 
 stop this ] And their evenings on the deck, when the glo- 
 rious moon lighted up the harbour like a mirror, and seemed 
 to fill its w^aters with phosphorescent fires, that shot in 
 strange forms to and fro, mingling with the tremulous rays 
 of the lamps reflected from Kingston and Port Boyal — tran- 
 quil and starry evenings that were full of happiness and 
 hopeful promises to be read in each other's eyes ! 
 
 How was Trocadero to stop these either 1 He could but 
 steal stealthy glances at a pleasure in which he had no share; 
 thrust his huge hands into the yeUow Spanish sash which he 
 now wore, and mutter, " Carajo — Satanos !" The first day 
 of mutually expressed love past, the poetry of their existence 
 became seasoned by a little prose, and Lennard began to 
 speak of her family, of the step they previously had taken, 
 
342 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 and of her father's concurrence ; that of his own friends none 
 were living now. He told her too of his position in life, and 
 that he was going to Mexico as the administrador, agent, and 
 l^artner of a Liverpool mercantile house. 
 
 " Bueno !" said she, gaily ; " I told you that my dear papa 
 is a merchant too. How fortunate !" 
 
 " We are happy — very happy now, Dora ; but a day will 
 come — is coming too surely and too fast— when our Golden 
 Dream will be in port again." 
 
 " I hope so — Avell ]'" 
 
 "You do not see my meaning," said he, with a sigh; 
 " what then shall you do, and what shall 1 1'' 
 
 " Do ; I must rush ashore and embrace papa — if he is not, 
 as I am sure he will be, on board to anticipate me." 
 
 " And then you must learn to forget that you ever met 
 such a person as Lennard Blair % our dear dream of love will 
 then be over, Dora 1" 
 
 " Do not speak thus. It is impossible. I am sure that 
 papa will love you quite as much as — as I do — he must, he 
 shall do so !" she added, vehemently, her eyes flashing 
 through their tears. 
 
 Lennard smiled sadly and shook his head incredulously 
 while toying with her little hands on. a finger of whicl> 
 he slipped a ring and begged her acceptance of it for his sake. 
 It was an antique signet, which had belonged to his father, 
 and was indeed a world too large even for Dora's thumb ; 
 but she had another ring as a guard to protect it. 
 
 " It is a bloodstone, so I must treasure it very much. It 
 is something almost sacred !'' 
 
 "How so r 
 
 " I can remember my aunt, who is a nun of our Lady of 
 Guadaloupe, telling me the story of its origin. When the 
 holy blood from that wicked spear which pierced our Sa- 
 viour's side fell from the cross, it dropped on some gi-een 
 jaspers at the foot thereof, so the stone has been spotted with 
 red ever since," 
 
 Lennard did not tell her that Scotland's volcanic rocks were 
 full of just such jaspers ; but he kissed her hand in token 
 that she had accepted the last and only gift of which Travice 
 Cheatwood had failed to despoil him. 
 
 " If I have had but a delightful dream, I must strive ta 
 content me with its memory," he would sigh in his heart. 
 
 " Do you know, Lennard, that I felt a strange liking for 
 you on that night when I first recognized you again in the 
 cabin,— an emotion which— which— made me long to hav« 
 you as a friend. What could it be T 
 
f HE HiiJG. 343 
 
 "I cannot say— I do not flatter myself that— that it 
 was " 
 
 " That it was what T 
 
 " Love at first sight." 
 
 " Pho ! you might have felt that for me ; not I for you" 
 
 " What emotion was it then, Dora T 
 
 "I cannot tell, mi querida — but something seemed to 
 speak in my heart." 
 
 "Such a little fairy it is!'* exclaimed Lennard, as he 
 caressed her soft bright hair. 
 
 " What right," he w^ould often ask himself, _" have I to offer 
 her a heart already seared and callous with disappointment]" 
 But male hearts can stand a deal of searing and cauterizing 
 at five-and- twenty, though Lennard had not yet learned to 
 think so. 
 
 Dora, even in the flush of her love for him, w\is not 
 without secret fears of just opposition to their passion at 
 home ; there was the proverbial flintiness of a father's heart, 
 and a Spanish father's in particular ; there w^ere the antagonism 
 of race, of religion, and, it might be, too surely, of means 
 and position, and perhaps a pre-arranged alliance. Then 
 her loving heart would grow troubled, her soft voice tremu- 
 lous, her eyes would fill and their lids become heaw ; her 
 little hands would play nervously with that huge signet 
 ring, which, though she could not foresee it, was yet to 
 play another important part in her historj^, and she would 
 for periods be sunk in thought. 
 
 At these times, as he sat watching her, Lennard, had he 
 dared, would have clasped her to his breast ; but there was 
 a strange pride in Dora, with all her abandon, and the very 
 purity and confidence of the girl's manner repelled the 
 passionate impulse. Could he have looked _ into Donna 
 Dora's heart, he might have discovered that his chances of 
 ofi"ending w^ere not deeply seated, for there was more of love 
 for him growing up and maturing there than the girl knew — 
 nor would know^ till an hour of separation came — untutored 
 as she was in the ways of the w^orld, and in the secret 
 springs of thought. In the tenour of his intercourse with 
 Dora, there were none of the poutings, the occasional fits of 
 vague coldness, the angry and jealous outbursts, the chilling 
 and concealed suspicions that characterized the term of his 
 affair with Hesbia Yere, the calculating flirt, whose object in 
 Jlife had really but one end and aim, — to retain all the luxu- 
 ries of life, and secure a good position by marriage. 
 
 With Donna Dora it was a clinging affection— the full 
 spring tide of a first love, for her whole heart had gone forth 
 
344 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 to Lennard Blair, "the kind, thoughtful, and soft-eyed 
 young man, who had saved them from some dreadful affronts 
 in England — who had come with them over the sea, and 
 with whom she had so many topics and interests in common," 
 as she afterwards wrote to her horrified aunt, at the convent 
 of our Lady of Guadaloupe. 
 
 Lennard longed with a species of vague terror— if such a 
 word can be used — for the issue of all this. 
 
 " To what end do I love again V he would think, in his 
 times of self-examination ; " and if the warnings of Saave- 
 dra be tnie, why love her, of all women, embittering, de- 
 stroying perhaps my career in South America, before I have 
 placed a foot upon its soil 1 Riches on one hand (mammon 
 —always mammon !), doubt and, it may be, poverty on the 
 other*? A foreign lineage— strange sympathies— every ob- 
 stacle that one can think of, for her father, this senor, or 
 Don Dominga, or whatever he is called, though English by 
 birth, may prove a vast deal too Spanish for my taste, or 
 quite to relish me." 
 
 Such were Lennard's misgivings, which became more con- 
 firmed when the Golden Dream, after being under repair day 
 and night, had once more put to sea, and after he had seen 
 the long wavy chain of the Blue Mountains, with their vales 
 and savannahs between, their fields of bright green cane and 
 clusters of snow-white houses, fade amid amber and gold 
 far away astern, and turn from red to violet in the fiery set- 
 ting sun, and from thence to a cold neutral tint, when mid- 
 night saw the ship upon the star-lit waves that wash the 
 lonely Caymans. 
 
 CHAPTER LXL 
 
 TROCADERO MEETS A SHIPMATE. 
 
 Misfortune was still in store for that good ship the 
 Golden Dixam. A serious leak, caused probably by the 
 concussion she had undergone in the pampero, had been 
 discovered, beyond the reach of her carpenters, and some of 
 her lower compartments were full of water. The cargo was 
 a valuable one ; so some days after their departure froir 
 Kingston saw her standing with full steam on and every 
 foot of canvas stretched to the yard-heads, not across the 
 Gulf of Mexico, but — after traversing the channel of Yuca- 
 tan and rounding the Point of Pedro— making direct for the 
 town and bay of Campeach6, where, as Captain jMaynard 
 knew, there was a good dock in which he could have hia 
 
TROCADERO MEETS A SHIPMATE. ^45 
 
 great vessel completely overhauled, ere her lading were de« 
 stroyed ; and this necessity was the more provoking, that 
 they w^ere novv^ only one hundred and seventy miles distant 
 from Tampico, and of course, less from La Vera Cruz ; but 
 the reports of the carpenters were so urgent and alarming, 
 that Maynard was glad when he found himself at anchor in 
 the shallow bay, and surrounded by tugs, lighters, and other 
 craft, for getting out the cargo and lightening the ship. 
 
 To two other persons on board, Dora and Lennard Blair, 
 this unexpected delay was alone a source of satisfaction, as 
 it would enable them to be a few days longer in each other's 
 society undisturbed by the fear of separation ; but this hope 
 was speedily dissipated, for on the morning after their arrival 
 in the bay, and just when Lennard was pencilling in Dora's 
 album a sketch of the old town of San Francisco de Cam- 
 peache, with its w^alls of stone, the fort with the Republican 
 flag flying, the groves of cocoa-trees, and the huts of the 
 Indian saltmakers roofed with palmetto leaves, and far be- 
 yond the distant Siena that overlooks New Merida and Val- 
 ladolid — Seiior Saavedra came to announce to her that Cap- 
 tain Trocadero had discovered a ship about to sail for Vera 
 Cruz — a swift vessel, commanded by an old shipmate of his, 
 in which Captain Maynard would, he had no doubt, secure a 
 I)assage for them both— if not he would do so himself. 
 
 " And I shall secure one for you too, if you wish it, Mr. 
 Blair," added the captain, who overheard the senor's hasty 
 and exulting announcement, and saw how painfully Len- 
 nard changed colour ; " I should be loth to part friends," 
 he added with a wink, while Saavedra struck J lis heel on 
 the deck wdth ill-concealed passion, " The ship won't be 
 habitable while she is being careened, and the posadas 
 ashore are not the most comfortable hotels in the world. 
 My boatswain Kit Kentledge— though I can ill spare him — 
 shall go with you at the same time, as I have to forward 
 some of the ship's papers by a sure hand to Tampico, so he 
 shall sail as far as Vera Cruz, which lies on his way." 
 
 " The captain, Manuel Moreno, who commands the cutter 
 Gaviota, declines to take any other passengers on board than 
 the Sefior Saavedra^ the young lady who is his ward, and 
 myself," said Captain Trocadero, gruffly. 
 
 " Indeed f said Captain Maynard, surveying that person- 
 age coolly. 
 
 " Positivimiente !" added Saavedra, with covert anger 
 gleaming in his eyes. 
 
 " I have no intention of being intrusive,** Lennard was 
 beginning, when ^Maynard interrupted him : 
 
34^ 1?HE Glut HE MARHIED. 
 
 " There is some trickery here ; is this Captain Moreno 
 coming on board soon V 
 
 " He is on board now," replied Saavedra, twisting up Ins 
 huge black moustaches. 
 
 " Where f 
 
 " In the saloon awaiting us." 
 
 " I shall get the principal aduanero, who is now in the 
 hold, to arrange this matter for me," said Captain Maynard ; 
 " Mr. Blair wishes to get on without delay, and my boat- 
 swain must also go, that he may anticipate our arrival at 
 Tampico." 
 
 On the mention of the aduanero (or custom-house officer), 
 who was then on board in his Mexican uniform, a very 
 marked change came over the face and bearing of Troca- 
 dero ; and there was an angry if not disturbed expression 
 in the face of Captain Moreno, on hearing that the interest 
 of that official might be used in the affair. 
 
 This old shipmate of Trebucio Trocadero seemed to be 
 every way his counterpart. His hair and beard were of 
 raven blackness ; he wore gold rings in his ears; his figure, 
 which denoted only clumsy strength, was taller perhaps and 
 more bulky than that of Trocadero, but he had the same 
 swarthy visage, the same keen, stealthy, and fierce-looking 
 eyes, and the same cruel mouth. He wore his hair in a net 
 under a broad-leaved hat of coarse plaited straw, secured to 
 his bull-like neck by a ropeyarn lanyard. A sash of several 
 colours girt his wrist, and the bone haft of a dagger-looking 
 knife appeared stuck in the side of his right boot, just as a 
 Scottish Highlander wears his skene dhu. The shrunken 
 sleeves of his scarlet flannel shirt showed that a crucifix 
 was marked by gunpowder on one arm, while a mermaid 
 with a curling tail adorned the other. He spoke little, 
 but seemed to watch others well and to listen intently. He 
 now warmly agreed— without having the intervention of the 
 Aduanero, of whom he evidently had a professional hori-or 
 — to take the four passengers to Vera Cruz for twenty-five 
 dollars, including a girl of colour named Jacinta, who woulc! 
 attend upon Donna Dora. 
 
 " When do you sail T asked Maynard, as he paid over the 
 money and docketed a receipt for it. 
 
 *' We cleared out yesterday, senor," replied Moreno in a 
 thick low voice, as he placed the dollars m his sash ; " and 
 though the wind is a head one, we shall start this evening. 
 You may see our gaff topsail loose, from where we are sit- 
 ting now." he added, pointing to a cutter at anchor about 
 a mile off and nearer m shore than the Golden Dream, foi 
 
TEOCADERO MEETS A SHIPMATI!. 347 
 
 the port of Campeach^ is shallow, with a rise of only three 
 feet in the tide. 
 
 "A smart-looking craft yours," said Maynard, approvingly; 
 '•' she sits in the water like a Cowes yacht ! Not a usual style 
 of rig in these seas, I should say f 
 
 " On a wind there are not many cr^ft that could overtake 
 her. She was built on the Pacific side, and I actually 
 brought her once round the Horn laden with salted hides." 
 
 " What is your cargo composed of now ]" 
 
 " Oh, the usual kind of things, senor." 
 
 "That is no answer. Captain Moreno," said Maynard, 
 who seemed to have some undefined suspicion of this 
 personage. 
 
 " Well^— logwood, turtle, cotton, and ropes of twisted 
 grass." 
 
 " For A^era Cruz r 
 
 " Yes, for the British traders there." 
 
 " Crew complete T' 
 
 " All, senor, and ready for sea ; the cutter is hove short 
 on her cable even now, and might have been outside the 
 horns of the bay by this time, had I not met my old ship- 
 mate Trocadero, at La Caza de los Noches, a wine-house near 
 the fort." 
 
 " I know the place. Captain Moreno— la Muchacha 
 Amarilla*— and a bad reputation the place has. I should 
 not venture there with many dollars or yellow boys in my 
 pocket." 
 
 " Kor I, senor," replied Moreno, with a peculiar laugh. 
 " "VMien may my passengers be on board ]" 
 
 "Whenever they choose — in an hour, if that will suit 
 Donna Dora V replied Maynard. 
 
 "She will be ready to go in less than that, nou\ I suppose," 
 said Saavedra, with a furtive glance at Lennard, Avho felt 
 quite as an intruder on him, on Trocadero, and too probably 
 on the captain of La Gaviota, but he cared not a rush so 
 long as the arrangement secured for him a few hours more 
 of Dora's society, even under circumstances so adverse as 
 the space of a small vessel aflforded. 
 
 " Keep a bright look-out on that ere customer— he's an old 
 Franciscvi pirate, if ever there was one !" was the parting 
 injunction of Jaleel Nutmeg, whispered in Lennard's ear ; 
 " as we say of the Kentuck rowdys, he's half alligator and 
 half horse, with a cross of the earthquake, so look out for 
 squalls in crossing the gulf. Keep your bowie-knife loose in 
 
 ♦ ». «, the Yellow Girl. 
 
348 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 your necktie, and cliuck it into him like a flash of lightning 
 if he begins to rile you !" 
 
 And these ominous words were lingering in Lennard's ear 
 as the boat was shoved oif from the Golden Dream, after 
 Captain Maynard, politely with cap in hand, had assisted 
 Donna Dora down the side ladder from the starboard paddle- 
 box. 
 
 "No more games of chess, I fear, Lennard mio," she 
 whispered, while Blair wrapped her mantle about her in the 
 stern sheets, and Kit Kentledge grasped the yoke-lines to 
 steer. 
 
 " And no more music ; I fear there will be little harmony 
 on board the Gaviota" 
 
 But Lennard little knew how prophetically he spoke. 
 
 " Give way, lads— stretch out !" cried Kentledge, and the 
 boat with its freight shot out upon the glassy bay, from the 
 towering side of the Golden Dream. 
 
 CHAPTEH LXII. 
 
 LA GAVIOTA. 
 
 Amid a sky of fiery haze, by whicli it was shorn of its beams, 
 the sun, like a vast globe of flaming crimson, sank with 
 tropical rapidity into a sea of the same sanguine hue — the 
 western waters of the mighty Gulf of Mexico. The Bay of 
 Campeach6 seemed as if turned to ruddy wine ; the ramparts 
 of the fort and town, the long low polaccas at anchor out- 
 side, even the groves of cocoa-trees and the cane brakes 
 that spread almost to the bases of the hills of Yucatan, were 
 all bathed for a time in the same fiery tints, which were 
 deepening fast to violet and to blue, when one of the large 
 metallic quarter-boats of the Golden Dream, Avith the five 
 passengers and the lightest portions of their baggage came 
 sheering alongside the Gamoia, whose vast boom -mainsail 
 and gaff hung loose in the Ijrails, \vhile her jib and staysail 
 were half-roused out of the nettings and ready for hoisting. 
 They were speedily on deck; a hasty "good-bye" was cried in 
 English by the coxswain of the boat ; she shot off on her way 
 bacK to the ship, and they found themselves left to their own 
 fortunes on board La Gaviota, or the Seagull. The order 
 was given by Captain Moreno to weigh ; the cable was 
 idready hove short, so the anchor was atrip after a heave or 
 two, and being only eight hundredweight or so, it soon hung 
 dripping at the bows, \nider which the water began to curl 
 
LA GAVIOTA. 349 
 
 when the orders to " hoist away — let fall— and sheet-home," 
 spread the great boom-mainsail, gaff-topsail, jib and jib-stay^ 
 sail, while the cross-jack-yard, which was only used when 
 she went free before the wind, was braced sharp up ; and 
 then bending beneath the western breeze, the sloop, which 
 was only of a hundred and fifty tons, careened well over to 
 leeward, as she flew through the water on a long northern 
 tack, heading towards the gulf. 
 
 The Bay of Campeach^ seemed to close rapidly ; the town 
 and fort vanished ; and, seated on a camp-stool with Senor 
 Jose and Lennard Blair smoking silently near her, each 
 muffled in his poncho, Dora, to whom so small a vessel 
 seemed, as it truly was, novel and comfortless in the extreme 
 —gazed somewhat wistfully at the mountain-ranges, whose 
 scalps and peaks were yet tinted by a fiery red, while their 
 bases were lost in hazy blue obscurity below. 
 
 The decorations of the Gaviota appeared to be unfinished, 
 or of a somewhat varied order ; for the sharp nautical eye 
 of Kit Kentledge soon detected, when looking over the 
 gimnel, that she had a narrow red streak on her portside, 
 with a broad white one to starboard. The entire hull was 
 
 {tainted of a bright light green colour, outside and inside ; 
 ler decks were perfectly clean ; she had two brass guns, 
 nine-pounders, aft, and all her crew wore knives of an un- 
 pleasant length and aspect in their sashes. These fellows 
 were all tatterdemallions, and as picturesque and ruffianly 
 in appearance as shock heads of black hair, unkempt beards 
 and swarthy complexions could make them; and they varied in 
 colour, from dark copper to yellowandred. Old sombreros, nets 
 and nightcaps, were their head-dresses, and their attire con- 
 sisted only of well-worn red or blue flannel shirts and 
 tattered canvas breeches or slops, girt at the waist by belts 
 or sashes. To Lennard's eye they looked like the pirates of 
 a melodrama ; but Dora and her padrino saw in them only 
 coasting Mexican seamen. 
 
 " A sweet little craft this is, sir," said Mr. Kentledge in 
 Lennard's ear, " and I would enjoy the voyage uncommonly 
 but for the looks o' these gallows-birds, her skipper and 
 crew." 
 
 " More picturesque than pleasant, certainly.'' 
 " A rum lot they are, I think ; but see how trim and smart 
 she is in her bows, and what a rake aft in everything ; with 
 her sheets trimmed as they are now, how lightly she doe^ 
 bend over, lift to windward and then over again, smacking 
 through the breeze and gliding over the wave-tops like a 
 flying fish ; and then look aloft— every spar is as taper and 
 
350 THE GIEL HE MAREIED. 
 
 clean as a fishing-rod I Them's the Mexican colours at the 
 gaff-peak ; but I don't think as the skipper Moreno cares 
 much what bunting he sails under." 
 
 " The skull and crossbones would be more to his taste, 
 3'ou mean V' 
 
 " Exactly, sir — only steamers have put such things out o' 
 fashion — 'cept in Borneo or the China seas." 
 
 Out upon the waters of the gulf now, the increasing size 
 of the waves, the freshening of the breeze, and the occasional 
 showers of spray, compelled Donna Dora to summon from 
 among the crew in the forecastle — where, sooth to say, the 
 damsel seemed very much at home — her new attendant, 
 Jacinta, as she meant to retire below for the night. Lennard 
 having hastened to bring Jacinta (a laughing, rosy, and 
 somewhat pretty girl, with much, of tawdry Mexican finery 
 about her, in the form of beads and rings, a truly Mexican 
 scantiness of skirt, a skin like a new doubloon, and eyes as 
 black as sloes) — now proffered his arm to Dora ; but he was 
 bluntly anticipated and repelled by Saavedra, who half-led, 
 half- pulled her towards the companion hatch, which she 
 passed through and then descended with difficulty, giving, 
 ere she disappeared, a farewell smile to Lennard. To the 
 latter Saavedra then turned, and endeavouring to steady him- 
 self, for now the sloop was pitching heavily, while puffing 
 out his little figure and smootning his enormous moustaches, 
 lie said : 
 
 " Now, sefior, that we are on board of a Mexican ship, 
 and under the colours of the Republic, permit me to impress 
 upon you that those passing flirtations which the levity of 
 English society, and still more that of the French, allow or 
 sanction, will no longer be tolerated !" 
 
 " I do not understand your tone— still less your interfer- 
 ence," replied Lennard, haughtily. 
 
 " Not I yours," responded Saavedra, all the more coura- 
 geously that both Moreno and Trocadero, each with a male- 
 volent smile in his deep eyes and a cigarito in his hairy 
 mouth, were ominously hovering near. " You will bear in 
 mind, senor, that when Donna Dora is below, I have to re- 
 quest your presence on deck — when she is on deck, your 
 presence below !" 
 
 " By which arrangement I shall have the pleasure of being 
 on deck all night V 
 
 " Unless you prefer the water — " 
 
 " One word more of this, sefior," said Lennard, in a fever 
 heat with rage, " and by Heaven I'll fling you overboard !" 
 
 The diminutive senor shrunk back on hearing this menace, 
 
LA. GAVIOTA. 351 
 
 which was made with a resolute step towards him, Troca- 
 dero, who enjoyed the quarrel, laughed aloud, biit Moreno 
 said gruffly : 
 
 " Carajo, senores ! I'll have no quarrelling on board my 
 ship." 
 
 " My passage to Vera Cruz is paid for, Captain Moreno," 
 urged Lennard, who felt himself somewhat helpless and 
 friendless ; " I have no desire to intrude on any one— the 
 lady least of all ; but I shall claim my right to the use of 
 the cabin, in spite of this little mountebank and his threats." 
 
 " That may or may not be," was the sulky and dubious 
 response of Moreno, as he turned away in conference with 
 Saavedra, whom the epithet of saltimhanco filled with rage; 
 and resolving that at all hazards he would seek the cabin 
 when the time suited him, Lennard walked forward to the 
 bows of the sloop, which was still flying along the coast. 
 The latter was receding, however, as she sped on her lengthy 
 tack northwards and west. 
 
 Lennard now recalled the threats of Trocadero and 
 Saavedra, and felt that policy required him to dissemble, for 
 he was completely at the mercy of these men and their crew 
 of ferocious-looking half-bloods, who, unaware that he knew 
 Spanish, or more probably not caring a jot whether he did 
 so, uttered oaths, jests, and phrases in his hearing that made 
 him shudder. 
 
 " Patience !" thought he ; " time cures all, and twenty- 
 tour hours, if the wind changes, will see us in sight of Vera 
 Cruz." 
 
 He felt lonely and inclined to indulge in reverie, for when 
 the lovely moon arose, the great spread of canvas that 
 towered like a cloud from the sraall hull of La Gaviota^ in 
 its whiteness and peculiarity of form, made her indeed re- 
 semble some vast sea-bird skimming over the deep. Beneath 
 her sharp prow the cleft water bubbled and flashed in dia- 
 mond showers, while all around the waves seemed full of 
 silvery or phosphorescent light emitted by the enormous 
 quantity of decaying organic and unorganic matter which is 
 for ever sweeping through the GuK of Mexico from its chief 
 tributaiy the Mississippi — the " ancient father of rivers." 
 
 While leaning over the vessel's side, and gazing dreamily 
 at the bright water, which seemed full of shining monsters 
 as it flew past, Lennard was roughly startled from his reverie 
 by a loud crash close beside him. 
 
 " Look out aloft there, you coloured labber !" cried Kent- 
 ledge, with an adjective that needs not to be recorded. 
 
 " What is the matter T asked Lennard. 
 
352 THE GIRL HE MARRIEO 
 
 " Matter enough, sir — ^just look at that ere marlin-spike !' 
 
 Above his head he now perceived a man astride the 
 cross-jack-j'-ard at work upon the furled foresail, whistling 
 leisurely, and insolently careless of the catastrophe that 
 might have happened ; for he had permitted a sharp-pointed 
 marlin-spike of iron, some pounds in weight, to fall within 
 an inch or two of where Lennard was standing. It pene- 
 trated nearly three inches into the solid deck. 
 
 "Done o' purpose, sir— done o' purpose ; I saw how the 
 beggar let slip the lanyard from his neck," said Kentledge. 
 
 "Designedly — do you think so V 
 
 "I do— he acted 'cording to orders, I've no doubt. My 
 advice to you, sir, is to keep alwajrs aft and clear o' the 
 rigging ; things often fall from aloft in a craft like this, and 
 no warning given." 
 
 " The scoundrel ! could I be but sure " 
 
 " Hush, sir — have you a pair of pistols in your box ]" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " A bowie-knife, then V 
 
 " Never thought of having such a thing ; but why V 
 
 " We may need such tools afore long, for we ain't so safe 
 here as if aboard a Gravesend steamer. They're a bad lot 
 as mans this cutter, sir— a precious bad lot ! I don't know 
 much o' their Spanish lingo, but I can gather, Mr. Blair, 
 that you and I are two passengers more than are wanted in 
 the cabin." 
 
 Lennard had few fears save for Dora ; yet it might be 
 that he and the boatswain were in peril ; if so, it would 
 be through the instrumentality of Saavedra and Trocadero, 
 men " accustomed to the lawless licence of a band, where 
 each, with his own right hand, makes the law." Then how 
 much more lawless were such likely to prove upon the open 
 sea ! He began to fear then a design upon his life ; and 
 if so, the life of the poor boatswain might go too, as the 
 best means of ensuring his silence. What so easy as to say 
 that both were washed overboard in the night *? and who 
 abroad cares now for British consuls or for British cniisers 1 
 So they might pass away for ever, and the Spanish girl, 
 Dora, alone be left to weep for one whose fate she could 
 never unravel. Lennard's dream occurred to him— that 
 painful and exciting vision of himself knocked headlong 
 into the sea —the lights streaming upon him from the cabin 
 windows— the pale, ferocious face of Trocadero, and the 
 paler one of the shrieking Dora, as he drifted away to drown, 
 unheeded and unaided, astern ! Was that dream but a fore- 
 eliadowing of events now dos« at hand 1 To Trocadero^ 
 
^ WHAT KENTLEDGE HEARD. 353 
 
 we have said, it was evident that Lennard knew something 
 more of his past and recent history than he cared any man 
 should know— and live. 
 
 "For to-night, at least, we must watch and sleep by 
 turns, Kentledge," said Lennard. 
 
 " Agreed, sir ; but I ^vishes I had sommat else to watch 
 with than this old jack-knife." 
 
 " Life is a strange game of hazard, after all ; and, like 
 every other game, owes too often less to skill and fore- 
 thought than to chance or fortune." 
 
 " In other words, sir, you mean '* 
 
 " Destiny !" said Lennard, gloomily. 
 
 " I doesn't know much about what that may be, sir ; but 
 this I knows, that the best years o' my life have been spent 
 aloft— between heaven and ocean — between God's blessed 
 sea and God's blessed sky ; and, hap what may, I ain't afear'd 
 o' this coloured lot, d— n me if I am !" 
 
 " Well, Kit, don't let them see us too much together, or 
 that we suspect them." 
 
 " I am not such a poor player as to show them my hand, 
 till the time comes to clench it, believe me." 
 
 Without undressing. Kit Kentledge and Lennard slept by 
 turns, " spell and spell about," as the former phrased it, on 
 the lockers in the cabin, where for some hours the Captains 
 Moreno and Trocadero sat drinking Leeward Island rum 
 and toying with Jacinta, the camarera of Donna Dora. 
 The night passed without adventure or interruption, and 
 when day broke, La Gaviota was still careering northward 
 and west, braced sharp up against the west wind. "Whether 
 she had made a southward tack in the night, they knew 
 not, for the surly skipper and crew were averse to afford any 
 information on the subject. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 WHAT KENTLEDGE HEARD. 
 
 This day was to reveal more of prospective danger to the 
 occupants of the cabin than they could have deemed pro- 
 bable. The weather was rongh and lowering, so Dora spent 
 most of the time in the comfortless little cabin, while Len- 
 nard, to avoid any annoyance on the part of Saavedra, re- 
 mained chiefly on deck, conversing with Kentledge and so- 
 lacing himself with a cigar. 
 
 To Dora, the close, ill-savoured and dingy little cabin of the 
 Gaviota seemed squalid and miserable, after the spacioua 
 " 33 
 
354 THE GIRL ME MARRIED. \ 
 
 and gorgeous saloon of the Golden Dream. The buccaneer 
 aspect of Moreno appalled her, while the forward and clum- 
 sily flippant bearing of Trocadero and of Jacinta excited her 
 anger. She felt exasperated against Senor Jos^, whose too 
 jealous care of her had placed her under circumstances of 
 such discomfort, when a few days' delay at a posada in 
 Campeach6 would have enabled them all to proceed by the 
 English steamer ; so she reckoned every hour she spent on 
 board as one passed in a species of corporeal purgatory. 
 
 Lennard, on his part, of course did not regret that for her 
 sake he had left the splendid steam liner ; but he secretly 
 reprobated the incautious policy of Saavedra in placing him- 
 self and Dora in a situation which already proved one of 
 peril to both, and might ere long end in disgrace and death 
 to her ! In the morning, when assisted by Jacinta to dress, 
 Donna Dora found that gay quadroon careless even to inso- 
 lence, and by no means disposed to submit, even in the least 
 degree, to the angry petulance of a proud young lady. The 
 camarera's person, too, proved unpleasantly redolent of ne- 
 
 fro-head tobacco and of aguardiente de Azucar — or Leeward 
 sland rum. Thrice during the day Dora came on deck to 
 entreat Saavedra to remain beside her in the cabin, and on 
 these occasions Lennard Blair could perceive that her eyes 
 were full of tears and her cheek inflamed bjr anger, which 
 she was at no pains to conceal. In truth, Jacinta had been 
 seating herself %n the knee of Manuel Moreno, who kissed 
 and toyed with her before the very eyes of Donna Dora, to 
 whom Trocadero made more than one flattering speech, the 
 import of which she could not mistake, so she became filled 
 with anger and fear. When Lennard, who was somewhat 
 deficient in the essential virtue of Job, haughtily and firmly 
 ventured ta remonstrate, Moreno threw aside all disguise, if 
 indeed he ever assumed any. 
 
 " Senor, be wary," said he, " or a loop and a leap from the 
 arm of the cross-jack-yard are all I'll give you." 
 
 " Dare you to threaten m.e T' was the resolute rejoinder. 
 
 " Small daring there is in that," said Moreno, with a scorn- 
 ful laugh ; "but hark you, Senor Administrador — for such 
 I understand you are, — the world consists of two classes, — 
 scoundrels and fools. I am content to be a scoundrel ; but 
 don't you seek to be a fool and throw your life away before 
 your time— and for a chit-faced girl too. As for your life, 
 we mean to give you a chance for it ashore ; but if you 
 meddle with me aboard my own ship— morte de Dios !" 
 
 He ground his teeth and touched the handle of his knife, 
 with ferocious significanco, The rum-bottle stood perpetn- 
 
r- WHAT KENTLEDGE HEAED. 355 
 
 ally on tlie cabin table, and it was frequently applied to, 
 though neither quadrant nor chart were thought ot. Len- 
 nard saw all this. He looked forward to the coming night 
 with intense anxiety, and was constantly sweeping the hori- 
 zon with his glass for a passing sail ; but even the slender 
 hope of such protection slipped away, for not even a sea- 
 bird was to be seen, breaking the monotony of the world of 
 water around the flying Gaviota. 
 
 Kit Kentledge, who marvelled at the duration of the tacks 
 northward as compared with the cutter's southing, often 
 consulted her course by a passing glance at the compass ; 
 but was always warned giiiffly to " stand clear of the bin- 
 nacle^ and mind his own business." 
 
 In the course of this inauspicious day Moreno quarrelled 
 with one of his crew, a tall, dark and swarthy fellow named 
 Miguel Galvez, from Barquismeta, in the Spanish Main, 
 whom he had detected whispering with Jacinta in the fore- 
 castle. Arming his right hand Avith an implement known 
 among seamen as the "brass-knuckles," with his left he 
 seized the throat of Miguel, and cruelly and savagely beat 
 him about the face and head, till his features were obscured 
 by blood, and the unfortunate fellow was well-nigh blinded. 
 Lennard attempted to interfere by seizing the uplifted hand 
 of Moreno, who instantly drew a pistol from his sash, ex- 
 claiming, — " Par el santo de los Santos ! but I'll serve you the 
 same way or worse, if you aid a vile mutineer (amotinador)." 
 
 Panting with rage, Moreno descended to his rum-bottle in 
 the cabin, and the mutilated Miguel Galvez crawled away 
 to the forecastle to scheme out vengeance, while his ship- 
 mates soused his head ^dth salt-water and bound up Ins 
 wounds. This outrageous conduct, and the general bearing 
 of all on board, rendered Lennard doubly anxious for the 
 issue of the voyage ; and a climax was put to his fears, 
 when, sometime after the recent uproar, he was joined by 
 Kentledge, who whispered, — " Sir, I have reason to fear that 
 this here Gaviota is not bound for Vera Cruz at aU." 
 
 " For where then, in Heaven's name T 
 
 "T'other place would become her style o' crew better; 
 but I think she's bound for some port on the northern side 
 of the Gulf.'' 
 
 " I cannot understand this. Her size is so small — ^her rig 
 so peculiar for these seas ; but her consignment and papers 
 must have borne that she was cleared out for Vera Cruz." 
 
 " True ; but they'll doctor their log, if they keep one at 
 all ; and they may have two sets of papers aboard. Did 
 you never hear of a merchant keeping two sets o' books % 
 '--.- 23—2 
 
356 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 There's some scheme a-foot for keeping the yomig lady till 
 she is ransomed by her father — if then he'll think her worth 
 ransoming. Old Saavedra is worth a pot o' money, and 
 they say his signature will make their fortunes. Meantime, 
 they are for ha^dng a spree on some island in the Gulf, with 
 a grab at the girls and the passengers' luggage." 
 
 " How have you learned all this, Kentledge T asked Len- 
 nard in a breathless whisper, and with intense anxiety. 
 
 " From the chap that was knuckledusted ; he told me as 
 much in his rage. Moreno and Trocadero are, as you may 
 see, half-savages by naturCj and have both been Coolie 
 crimps ; and as for their entire crew, only that the barra- 
 coons are empty and this craft ain't the rig for the coast, I 
 would think she was a West African pleasure boat, outward 
 bound, with black passengers under hatches." 
 
 ** Slaver and pirate seem indeed written in the faces of all 
 these men." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; but then all furriners have a rum look to an 
 Englishman's eye." 
 
 Trocadero and Saavedra had been close'companions dur- 
 ing the first evening, and had held many conferences toge- 
 ther ; but Lennard now perceived an estrangement between 
 them ; a constraint on the part of the former, and a haughty 
 diversion on that of the latter, who was a retired merchant 
 of Tampico, and one of the richest men in the province. He 
 had seen or detected something in the two skippers which 
 served to excite his alarm, pride, and anger. Anxious only 
 for Dora's safety, and stung to the heart by the surmises and 
 grave communications of Kentledge, Lennard, dissembling 
 his dislike to Saavedra, took an opportunity of drawing near 
 him when he was alone. 
 
 " Senor," said he in a low voice, " may I crave a word 
 with you V 
 
 Saavedra bowed coldly, and without the faintest vestige 
 of a smile. 
 
 " I have a question to ask *' 
 
 "Ask it." 
 
 " About what time this evening, think you, may we be in 
 sight of land ?" 
 
 " The captain alone knows— how should 1 ?" 
 
 "The captain knows more than he is likely to impart 
 either to you or to me," said Lennard, and a deep glance was 
 exchanged between him and Saavedra. 
 
 " You share my suspicions of falsity and of intended foul 
 plav " said the latter. 
 
 "I do most fully. I have been warned that there is a 
 
Ii; THE GULF OF MEXICO. 357 
 
 scheme on board to touch at some other port or island in the 
 Gulf " 
 
 "Tliis but confirms my fears!" said Saavedra, whose 
 voice sunk into a husky whisper as he made a violent effort 
 to control his emotion, for Moreno was at that moment on 
 deck, but looking keenly to windward, where the evening 
 star could be seen twinkling above the wave-tops. "In 
 seeking to save Dora Dominga, my dear old friend's daughter, 
 from your intrusive advances — I am plain with you, seiior, 
 but pardon me, for I am your superior, at least in years — I 
 have placed her life, yea, more than her life, and all our 
 lives, it may be, in deadly peril. Better had we waited a 
 month — even a year— at Campeach6 till the Golden Dream 
 was refitted and ready to proceed, than have ventured forth 
 in such a vessel as this !" 
 
 " Then what is to be done now V 
 
 " Madre de Dios ! what can be done ; biit watch, and 
 wait, and pray f' 
 
 "And endure and suffer when the time comes," added 
 Lennard. bitterly ; " we are but three men, and unarmed, to 
 thirteen. ' 
 
 "Then," said Saavedra, inquiringly, "can yonder boat- 
 swain be trusted f 
 
 Lennard looked to where Kentledge, with his hands in his 
 pockets, his outspread feet planted on the deck, his round 
 glazed hat stuck on the nape of his neck, and his bluff, 
 weatherbeaten, honest English face turned inquiringly to 
 windward, seemed the beau-ideal of a British tar. 
 
 " Trusted !" echoed Lennard, with a bitter laugh ; "would 
 to Heaven we had but three more like him ! " 
 
 Unarmed and upon the open sea, Lennard felt himself 
 alone the protector — if such he could be called — of that fair 
 and delicate young girl ; for Senor Jose was a feeble fool, 
 Kentledge had himself to protect, Trocadero was a design- 
 ing ruffian, and the girl Jacinta a worthless creature. 
 
 " Oh,'^ thought Lenna d, as he struck his foot on the deck 
 in vexation of spirit, an as a somewhat unwonted gust of 
 ferocity swelled liis heart ; " oh, for a brace of pistols, that I 
 might make the lives of two of those wretches pay the 
 penalty of Dora's and mj own !" 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 IN THE GULF OF MEXICO. 
 
 The weather was getting more and more rough, and by the 
 time that evening drew o it had freshened to half a gale" 
 
35 B THE GIRii fiE MAimiED. 
 
 as the sailors phrase it. The cutter was still making long 
 tacks against a head wind, and Lennard hoped that ere night 
 fell the land would be in sight ; but he bent his gaze west- 
 ward in vain. Ere this, according to what Senor Saavedra 
 had told him, the mighty volcanic summit of Orizaba — the 
 most elevated mountain in New Spain— should have been 
 visible. 
 
 Frequent conferences took place between Moreno, Troca- 
 dero, and some of the crew ; and Lennard could gather that 
 these worthies had become somewhat bewildered as to their 
 whereabouts ; so evening deepened fast into night, and still 
 the light sloop flew on. The moon was nearly full ; but 
 masses of cloud intervened at times, throwing swift shadows 
 and uncertain obscurities upon the ocean. _ The wind was 
 becoming unsteady, and blew occasionally in strong gusts. 
 At one time the Gaviota would be shooting on smoothly and 
 silently through the rolling sea ; at another the waves would 
 whiten, become frothy, and burst in foam and fury over her 
 bows, sending the hissing spray aft to the taffVail. 
 
 At last the grand silver disc of the Mexican moon was 
 completely hidden in masses of dusky vapour, and there 
 was no light upon the sea save the faint rays that flickered 
 from the binnacle lamp of the Gaviota. An intuitive motion 
 of doubt kept Kentledge the boatswain on deck ; Saavedra, 
 weary of pacing to and fro there during the entire day, had 
 dozed off to sleep in his berth without undressing, and Donna 
 Dora reclined on the stern-locker asleep, with her head on 
 Lennard's shoulder, and her eyes closed placidly, for she 
 knew nothing of the multitude of perils that surrounded 
 her. Her breathing was long and regular ; her dark lashes 
 rested on her rounded cheeks, and there was a calm beauty 
 in her face, on which some passing thought in her half 
 slumber had left a gentle smile. Lennard's cheek propped 
 her head, and the silken masses of her golden hair fell over his 
 breast. He held his poncho round her, and there they were 
 seated, hand in hand, she sleeping and he acutely awake, 
 when suddenly he heard sounds on deck — sounds that were 
 louder than usual. 
 
 The hoarse voice of Moreno was heard to shout, " Hard 
 a-port, timonero — hard a-port with the helm instantly." 
 
 The order was at once obeyed, for Lennard felt the posi- 
 tion and motion of the cutter changed, and the flapping and 
 jibbing of the great boom mainsail overhead as she came 
 sharply up on the starboard tack. But now the bustle in- 
 creased, and several voices exclaimed in terror — " Rocas — 
 escoUas y rocas ! (Rocks and breakers.) Cuidado, capitano 
 mio— cuidado, por amor de Dios !" 
 
IN THE GULF OF MEXICO. 359 
 
 At tliese alarming cries Lennard softly quitted the side of 
 Dora, and rushed on deck to behold a very appalling sight. 
 Through a shapeless mass of torn and ragged-looking cloud, 
 the pale moon was peeping forth, half hidden and half seen,, 
 and by the cold and partial gleams she cast along the deso- 
 late sea, he could behold a reef of black rocks, over the 
 ridgy back of which the water w^as boiling in white and 
 sullen fury ; and these rocks were close under the lee-bow of 
 the Gaviota, while beyond them rose an obscure mass, which 
 seemed at first to be a dark fog-bank, but which rapidly as- 
 sumed the aspect of .an island. 
 
 " Up all hands ; clear away the anchors !" cried Moreno, 
 who certainly exerted himself manfully to save his little 
 vessel, and Trocadero seconded his efforts, and did a vast 
 amount of blustering and swearing in deep and sonorous 
 Spanish. " Presto, hombres ! haul aft the lee jib-sheet." 
 
 Both orders were rapidly obeyed ; the anchors were 
 cleared, and the sheet hauled aft, amid the stamping of feet, 
 the crashing of blocks, the whistling of the wind and the 
 gear together. 
 
 " La vela mayor — peak the mainsail," was his next order, 
 
 " Maledicion !" cried the seamen, for, while they were 
 obeying this command, the lee jib-sheet parted. 
 
 With a dreadful oath Trocadero now rushed to the bows, 
 and cried — " Haul in the weather jib-sheet and the staysail 
 halyards, or it is all over with us, Manuel Moreno !" 
 
 A shriek of " Ave Maria purissima !" rose from all, for at 
 that moment there was a crash, as the cutter's keel struck a 
 sunken rock ; the tall mast shivered like a fishing-rod ; its 
 stays fiew out in bights and bends, and the bewilderment of 
 the crew increased. 
 
 " Let go the best bower anchor to hold her on." 
 
 " Stop ! no, no, 'tis useless," cried Trocadero ; " the next 
 sea will break her back. A los infernos ! quick, men, taut 
 a-peak the mainsail, and clear away the boats." 
 
 By this time the doomed cutter was crashing full upon the 
 rocks, her timbers started, her outer and inner sheathing 
 bulged, gaping, and the water pouring into her fast. Len- 
 nard rushed below and brought up Dora, who had heard 
 with terror and bewilderment the uproar on deck. At that 
 moment, as she clung to him in her wild alarm, she seemed 
 far more beautiful than he had ever thought her before ; yet 
 her cheek was blanched now, and looked deadly pale in the 
 cold moonlight ; her dark eyes were dilated, and her bright 
 hair was all ruffled out. 
 
 " Be calm, I beseech you," he whispered ; "there is danger, 
 great danger, my beloved, but " 
 
360 THE GIRL HE MAERTED. 
 
 " I don't fear it while you are with me, and while your arm 
 protects me, dear, dear Lennard : mi vida— amor mio !" 
 
 He whispered other words in incoherent haste, to comfort 
 and encourage, but they failed to assure the trembling girl, 
 though, in the fulness of her great love, she felt that death 
 would lose haK its bitterness if they shared it together, and 
 in each other's arms. 
 
 " A precioua mess these here Spanish lubbers have got us 
 into," grumbled Kit Kentledge to Lennard ; " as for them- 
 selves, I don't care a dump if every man-jack 0' them go to 
 old Harry." 
 
 " Moreno has been wrong in his steering all day, senor,'* 
 said a Spaniard in Lennard's ear, and with an exulting, but 
 fiendish smile glittering in his black eyes. " The compass 
 worked wild— ha ! ha ! — that was my doing — mine /" 
 
 "Yours— how, fellow r' 
 
 " T put an iron marlin-spike into the binnacle, so the power 
 of the needle was vitiated," replied the man in whom Len- 
 nard now recognized Miguel Galvez, the seaman who had 
 been so lately beaten with brass-knuckles. " Senor Inglese, 
 I heard him propose to land on an islet in the Gulf, to have 
 some frolics with the Spanish lady and her maid, and to 
 leave you there marooned — ashore, but to starve and die — 
 that was the Senor Saavedra's suggestion yesterday. Demo- 
 nio ! but to be wrecked thus is more than any of thejn bar- 
 gained for," added the fellow, with a horrible laugh, whili6 
 they could actually feel the vessel going to pieces under their 
 feet. 
 
 The hull lifted a little at first, and then heeled over to 
 starboard, as the rocks pierced her like mighty teeth, and the 
 sea began to break over the deck. 
 
 " Stand by me. Kentledge, till we can get the lady ashore," 
 cried Lennard, embracing Dora with one arm, and half lifting 
 her as the water flowed over her ankles. 
 
 " The island is close beyond the reef, sir — one might 
 chuck a biscuit on it ; but the water between is deep, and 
 still, apparently : let us try for the long-boat." 
 
 But a fierce exclamation of anger and contempt escaped 
 Kentledge, as the Spanish seamen, in getting the boat oft" its 
 chocks over the main-hatch, let it slip through their hands, 
 just as a sea struck the wreck amidships, and away it went, 
 crashing through the bulwarks to leeward, where it was 
 swamped under the cutter's counter, and three or four of the 
 crew were washed away with it. Lennard kept Dora's face 
 turned away, lest she might see these poor drowning crea- 
 tures disappear in succession, after futile struggles, amid thd 
 
IK THE GULF OF MEXICO. 361 
 
 tmniiltuous breakers that boiled and roared oxev the black 
 ridge of the roof. 
 
 " Lower away the quarter boat — standby the fall-tackles !" 
 cried Moreno, and with the sailor-like assistance and the 
 strong hands of Kit Kentledge it was lowered and brought 
 safely under the lee quarter with one seaman and the Senor 
 Saavedra in her— for fear endued that little personage ^vith 
 a wonderful amount of tact and activity. 
 
 " Now," cried Trocadero, " the Sefiora first." 
 
 And with a sob in his throat and a prayer in his heart, 
 Lennard assisted her over the side, and sav/ her safe in the 
 tossing boat below. 
 
 " Now, sir," cried Kentledge, " follow — drop in quick !" 
 
 But Trocadero thrust him back furiously with the muzzle 
 of a cocked pistol, crying — " Maldita ! back I say, and let 
 your bettei-s into the boat first — back or I'll put a brace of 
 bullets into your skull ; such ballast has sent many a better 
 man to his last bed in these waters. Hand over the girl, 
 Jacinta— presto, hombres 1" 
 
 Moreno handed her over the side and she lightly dropped 
 into the boat, where now some five or six of the crew were 
 seated. The captain was about to follow, when a blow from 
 behind — a dreadful stroke from a handspike, and dealt 
 doubtless by Miguel Galvez, tumbled him into the sea, to 
 rise no more. 
 
 " Lennard — Lennard !" cried Dora in imploring accents as 
 she started up in the boat, but was instantly dragged down 
 by a man whose arm was round her. 
 
 Lennard was about to get over the gunnel, when he was 
 again thrust back bj'- the pistol of Trocadero, who said with 
 a grin of intense malignity, and a hiss in his voice — " Yon 
 took some interest once about wTecks in the Bahama Channel 
 — par dios ! How do you like one in the Gulf of Mexico T 
 
 The thrust was so violent that Lennard fell on the wet 
 deck, and when again he reached the gunnel, he found with 
 rage and despair that the boat with the mocking Trocadero, 
 the screaming Dora, the girl Jacinta, and some six or seven 
 others, had shoved off. He saw nothing of Kentledge, and 
 found himself alone on the wreck, which was going fast to 
 pieces ! 
 
 " A la rocas ! to the rocks— the shore !" he heard the voice 
 of Trocadero crying as the men bent to their oars, and the 
 boat vanished from his sight, in wreck, mist, and obscurity, 
 as clouds veiled the moon ; and with a wild shout, in which 
 grief, and hope, and terror minded, Lennard cast off his cap 
 and cloak, dropped from the bowsprit of the cutter — the 
 
362 THE aiRL HE MARUIEB. 
 
 point of her that lay farthest beyond the reef, and where the 
 water was smooth — and then he struck out for the island. 
 
 Fortunately he could swim well and the distance was 
 short, but he felt the long, wavy, and slimy reeds or trailers 
 that grow among the sea rocks in tropical regions — at times 
 a hundred feet in length— twining round his limbs and im- 
 peding his exertions, while the fear of ground sharks chilled 
 the marrow in his bones. But he prayed to heaven that he 
 might be spared to reach the shore, the island to which Dora 
 had been taken, and by the unscrupulous Trocadero. 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 DOEA ON THE ISLAND. 
 
 Steered by Trocadero, the boat, which seemed to vanish 
 from Lennard's sight, rounded a little promontory, and 
 entered a patch of deep and smooth water, on each side of 
 which rose dark rocks, some ten or fifteen feet in height. 
 A gleam of moonshine revealed a kind of sandy creek, into 
 which he carefully ran the boat, and beached her. Leaping 
 ashore, he desired the. others to follow him. Dora was the 
 last who quitted the boat, which the wary Trocadero ordered 
 at once to be pulled up high and dry on the sand, to prevent 
 its being floated off ; for this boat might yet be their only 
 means of succour or escape. 
 
 Like all impulsive women, Dora soon expended her 
 strength in cries and tears for Lennard, and in reproaching 
 with scorn and bitterness Trocadero, Saavedra, and every 
 man in succession for abandoning him to his fate ; and now, 
 wlien lifted from the boat, she was so overcome by the whole 
 events of the night, that sobs of anguish were all she could 
 utter, as she was half led and half supported by Saavedra 
 and Jacinta a little way inland from the beach, for now the 
 Bound of the sea, as it chafed on the rocks, distressed her 
 keenly by the association of ideas. 
 
 "Lennard drowned — Lennard lost — lost for ever!" she 
 continued to moan, for now iil her deep sorrow she made no 
 secret of her love for him and kissed again and again the 
 ring he had placed on her finger. This emotion won lier 
 some sympathy from Jacinta, till the damsel grew weary of 
 it ; but none whatever from Seilor Saavedra. In one way 
 lie did not regret the loss of Lennard as a lover— indeed, in 
 this instance he felt grateful to the evil genius who brought 
 about the accident ; but in another, he certainly missed alike 
 the presence of Lennard and of Kentledge, aviio as civilized 
 
DORA ON THfi ISLAND. 363 
 
 and resolute men, might liave defended Dora and himself 
 from any insults to which Trocadero and the survivors of the 
 crew might subject them ; for he knew these men to be 
 Utterly lawless, and that the islet on which they had landed, 
 like others in the Gulf of Mexico, was doubtless totally un- 
 inhabited. 
 
 The six survivors of the crew were now in vehement dis- 
 pute as to whether the scene of their misadventure were the 
 isle of Vermeja, or the Arenas ; perhaps it might prove the 
 shoals and rocks known as the Triangles ; and Trocadero, 
 though he knew pretty well every key and reef in the Gulf, 
 was unable to solve the difficulty. One fact he was assured 
 of, they had not been vsn'ecked among the Alicranes (which 
 are three islets, Perez, Chica, and Pajaroz, connected by a 
 dangerous shoal), as they lay too near the coast of Yucatan. 
 
 Break of day enabled them to perceive that the locality 
 consisted of two islands, with a strip of deep water between 
 them. One was high and rocky, and that on which they 
 found themselves was about two miles in circumference, fiat, 
 and covered by rich herbage and trees. The sweet pea and 
 the myrtle-leaved vine grcAv in sheltered spots, and the 
 nightly-blooming cereus sprung from clefts and fissures on 
 the rocks. A few palms and plantains afforded shelter for 
 the birds, and the whole isle was matted by a jungle of ver- 
 dure, creepers, wild tobacco, the jenequen plant (of which 
 coarse thread is made in Yucatan), pepper, and gourds, from 
 amid which came the hum of insect life as the dawn drew on 
 and the sun rose above the sea ; and then many a huge tortoise 
 was seen craw^ling on the white sand in the little creeks and 
 inlets. 
 
 Senor Saavedra repeatedly wrung his hands, as he thought 
 of the lost luxuries and ease to which he was accustomed, 
 but might never more enjoy, and of the wealth he had 
 amassed by long years of industry and successful speculation, 
 but which would now, perhaps, go to the enrichment of 
 others. He heard with terror the proposals of the crew, who 
 were by no means satisfied with the extent of the island 
 prison on which they had been cast. Miguel Galvez urged 
 that they should victual the boat with gourds, pumpkins, and 
 tortoises, and anything they might recover from the wreck, 
 and then put to sea, if no sail appeared within twenty-four 
 hours. They were without a compass ; but a seaman, who 
 was a Yucataco, declared that he could steer them towards 
 his native peninsula by the stars ; " but then our boat is so 
 small," he added, " and we are nine.'' 
 
 " The seiior and the two girls can be left behind till we 
 could send them succour," replied Galvez. 
 
364 TfiE GIRL HE MARRIEb. 
 
 To put to sea or remain alike filled tlie soul of Saavedra 
 with horror, and while deploring his evil fortune, he en- 
 treated the Yucataco, who seemed less rough than his 
 fellows, to form a kind of bower of palm-leaves for Dora, 
 under the shelter of a rock, and there, with Jacinta, she lay 
 down exhausted, heedless and oblivious apparently of those 
 about her, keeping her eyes closed while she moaned and 
 muttered, mingling little ejaculations of love and sorrow 
 with her prayers. 
 
 " Oh ! Jacinta,'' said she, in a low voice, " I learned too 
 soon to idolize him ; and by the loss of him heaven is now 
 punishing me for my idolatry." 
 
 " Caramba !" said the uninterested Jacinta, " what then, 
 sefiora 1 There are more men in the world, and you may 
 be happy yet — that is, if we were once out of this horrible 
 island.' 
 
 " Happy !" resumed Dora, with a torrent of tears ; " I have 
 been happy, oh, so happy with him ; and, though past, too 
 surely, for ever, the remembrance of that joy is dear." 
 
 Jacinta shrugged her shoulders. She did not understand 
 .ill this. She had seen too many lovers in her time to set 
 much store on one in particular. Meanwhile the day wore 
 on, and the hot sun of the Tropic of Cancer mounted high 
 overhead. The seamen, after exploring the island — a task 
 soon accomplished — were desired by Trocadero, whose autho- 
 rity over them was tacitly accepted, to seek the vicinity of 
 the wreck and search for food and fuel. The debris that 
 ^was strewn on the beach afforded both, for the mast, with 
 much of its gear, the shattered longboat, and much of the 
 timber and sheatliing, had come ashore, with portions of the 
 cargo, logwood, coils of grass-rope, and so forth ; and with 
 these a keg or two of biscuits, beef, and flour, all more or 
 less damaged by immersion. A spring was found on the 
 island, but its water was brackish almost to bitterness. 
 
 Trocadero knew that all these islands in the Gulf of 
 Mexico lay chiefly near tlie coast of Yucatan, and were so 
 environed by reefs and shoals, that navigators sedulously 
 avoided them ; and by stating this, he crushed the hope 
 that lingered in Saavedra's heart of a speedy release. Incited 
 by the expectation of finding a case of wine or spirits, the 
 survivors of the crew continued to hover near the broken 
 wreck. The body of Manuel Moreno was washed upon tlio 
 beach, sorely mutilated by a shark's teeth, and interred in 
 the sand without much ceremony, save the investigatipn of 
 liis pockets. Meanwhile Trocadero remained near the bower 
 formed for Dora, and liaving ordered Saavedra to ascend a 
 
CAPTAIN TROCADEEO AS A LOVER. 3^5 
 
 rock at a distance, "and keep a bright look-out tiU he.waa 
 wanted" (an order which the senor felt himself constramecl 
 to obey, as the captain indicated the said rock by pointing 
 to it with his pistol), and despatching Jacmta to prepare 
 some cakes of the flour and toast them m a fire which Uaivez 
 had Ughted, he betook himself to the pleasing, but not very 
 progressive, task of attempting to soothe the grief ot the 
 young lady, concerning whom he had ahready formed some 
 veiy daring schemes. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVL 
 
 CAPTAIN TROCADEEO AS A LOVER. 
 
 A BANASTA, or small keg of Leeward Island rum, had come 
 ashore from the wreck, and this had been speedily pierced 
 and its contents distributed among the crew, each of whom 
 had a copious draught of the fiery and potent liquid from the 
 shell of a cleft cocoa-nut. Trocadero had more than enough 
 to make him unusually brutal and reckless, and in this mood 
 he drew near the place where Dora yet reclined, alone and 
 faint, under the shelter of the palm-leaves, abandoned to 
 suffering, fear, and sorrow, and the weakness endured by 
 lack of nourishment. 
 
 Jose Saavedra, in terror of his life being taken, was still 
 hovering aloof, and Jacinta, who had grown weary of her 
 mistress's complaints and sorrow, and who had come in for 
 a fair share of the ruddy contents of the banasta, was now 
 dancing the manolo for the amusement of Miguel Galvez 
 and others on the sandy beach where the boat lay, and not 
 far from Moreno's new-made grave. 
 
 There was much of insolent triumph in the heart and in 
 the eyes of Trocadero as he crept on — for his stealthy and 
 crouching pace seemed to be literally creeping — for he 
 recalled the cool and cutting bearing of the beautiful and 
 high-bred girl during the voyage of the Golden Dream, 
 and a strange emotion of fierce and revengeful satisfaction 
 mingled with the bold hardihood of purpose which the 
 desperation of their circumstances inspired. He found her to- 
 tally in his power, totally and without aid, unless Heavensent 
 it, for with the idea of the puny little Saavedra the captain 
 did not trouble himself. He drew near where she had passed 
 the day under the shelter of a rock, over the brow of which 
 many a brilliant trailer and the flowers of the cereus, now 
 opening their petals to the moon, were hanging, and where 
 fine broad ana fan-like leaves of the date palm, skilfully 
 
36^ THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 adjusted by the Yucataco, drooped over lier, forming a 
 graceful and fairy-like little bower, wliich had parried the 
 liot beams of the tropical sun by day, and now received the 
 falling dew of night. 
 
 Dora had dropped asleep, after passing a wretched day, 
 during which she had felt at times calm — but it was the 
 calmness of stupor ; at others, the wildest grief and terror, 
 when with each pulsation of her poor little heart, there 
 seemed to shoot through it the bitterness of years upon years ! 
 
 The vile hubbub of the tipsy crew, and their voices as they 
 sang round the dancer of the manolo, mingled at times with 
 the murmur of the moonlithvea ; but Dora heard them not, 
 and Trocadero, while stooping he gazed upon her, grew 
 suddenly fearful that the facts of her existence and helpless- 
 ness might be remembered by their shipmates, and that a 
 scene of outrage would then ensue. At the thought of this 
 he ground his strong white teeth, and felt for the butts and 
 locks of the pistols in his sash. The moon was now shining 
 on the sea, which rippled in silver sheen around that ionelv 
 isle. The little clumps of plantains and cocoa-trees, with 
 their great clusters of nuts and tufted foliage, stood up in 
 dark outline between the moonlight and the lurker, who, 
 after casting a stealthy glance around him, again turned his 
 dark, glittering eyes on the sleeping girl, who lay so com- 
 pletely at his mercy. He could admire the delicately- 
 moulded arm, on which the soft, round check reposed, with 
 its long lashes wet with oozing tears ; the swelling bust, 
 half- woman and half -girl in its development ; and all her air 
 of helplessness and sweet perfection ; and yet they stirred 
 no kind, or tender, or holy thought in the arid heart of this 
 truculent sea-wolf. A sound startled him, and the great, 
 coarse hand which he held over her, like a tiger's paw, 
 was withdrawn. What was it 1 
 
 " Porquerias ! it was but the voices of those borachios on 
 the beach ; yet if they should come 1" he muttered, and felt 
 in his heart that he would rather pistol her in her sleep than 
 see her become the prey of others. 
 
 There was somewhat of method and a lucrative view to a 
 future time in the present proceedings and evil promptings 
 in the heart of Trenucio Trocadero. 
 
 " If I can make this girl mine— mine bv force or fraud, by 
 fair means or foul means — her father wlio is so rich might 
 think it the most reputable alternative to leave her with ma 
 altogether. What it she should marry me to mend an ugly 
 stoiy ] There are worse dry docks wherein to repair damages 
 Uiaa the church of San Juan at Vera Cruz ! Trocadero 
 
■^ CAPTAIN TEOCADERO AS A LOVER. 367 
 
 courage— courage, amigo mio ; tliere are doubloons in sacks- 
 ful awaiting you in yonder villa near Orizaba, if, demonic, 
 you ever get tliere." 
 
 In another moment Dora was rudely awakened from her 
 slumber, and a lialf-stifled cry of terror escaped her, half- 
 stilled by the rough, coarse, and impure kiss of Trocadero, in 
 whose strong grasp she found herself. Then the extremity 
 of terror endued her with unnatural strength, for she con- 
 trived nimbly to elude his grasp and spring to her feet ; but, 
 intercepting flight, he still kept her between himself and the 
 face of the rock, at the base of v/hich the palm-leaves were 
 now trod flat, and the girl appeared in all her defiant beauty, 
 her cheek flushing, her eyes sparkling, and her hair, like 
 masses of golden thread, dishevelled in the full blaze of the 
 moonlight. 
 
 " Stand back, insolent wretch !' she exclaimed, her figure 
 seeming to dilate, while every fibre trembled with rage. 
 
 " How dare you, seiior V 
 
 " Dare, did you say, senora V 
 
 " Have you mistaken me for the girl Jacinta ]" 
 
 "Par dios, I have not," replied Trocadero, rubbing bis 
 coarse hands with tipsy glee. 
 
 " Have you forgotten that I am a lady — " 
 
 " Whom I have in my power to make or to mar — to pre- 
 serve next my heart, or smash like a clay galKpot. A lady ] 
 Demonio, I wouldn't give the value of a burnt castagno for 
 the price of your ladyship, here as I have you now, in this 
 isle of the devil knows what, in the Gulf of Mexico ! Come, 
 sefiora, don't be a fool ; make a friend, a lover of the only 
 man that can protect you," he continued, trying again to 
 grasp her ; but she skilfully eluded him. " Don't quarrel," 
 he added, assuming the persuasive ; " pray don't, nina de mi 
 alma — angel mio, let us kiss and be friends." 
 
 " Oh that I had a pistol !" moaned Dora, in a husky 
 voice, while her little white hands were clenched tightly and 
 spasmodically. 
 
 " Such a little spitfire it is ! A pistol, indeed ! I shouldn't 
 like you to cover me with such an implement in your 
 present mood, my pretty one." 
 
 .They stood for a moment surveying each other. The eyes 
 of the ruffian were expressive only of tipsy ardour and a 
 hideous spirit of love-making — a pitiless joy that a girl of 
 great beauty was completely in his power, where neither 
 pride nor position could avail her. She, on the other hand, 
 inspired by an utter horror — a terrible sense of the truth that 
 filie was at this man's mercy ; that Jacinta had niockingly left 
 
368 THE OIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 lier ; tliat she was to become the victim of him, and, it.might 
 be, of his fellows ; so her trembling heart forgot to beat, and 
 a mortal paleness overspread her features. She knew that 
 the insolence of a gentleman, inflamed by wine, might be 
 quelled by a glance ; but here, nor words, nor prayers, nor 
 strength might avail her ! and yet, with a painful sob in her 
 throat, she gave up an unuttered petition for succour to God 
 and our Lady of Guadaloupe ! 
 
 To a man like Trocadero, who considered purity a sham, 
 virtue a chimera, and proper pride but the insolence of for- 
 tuitoU'a position. Donna Dora's intense fear and abhorrence, 
 which replaced her first emotion of fiery indignation, served 
 but to provoke and inflame him, and with a muttered im- 
 precation, he resolutely grasped her again. She cast a 
 glance of wild despair at the sea, glittering like silver in the 
 moonlight beyond the clump of palms. Could she but 
 reach it — Lennard was there ! Then her thoughts flashed 
 home ; her father on whom she doted, and who doted on her 
 as the last of his family — who was looking lovingly forward 
 to a reunion with her, after a separation that had seemed so 
 long — was she never indeed to see his face again 1 
 
 " Compose yourself, mi vida," said Trocadero in a coaxing 
 voice, as she writhed in his powerful hands, while he spoke 
 through his teeth, for his ferocious temper was rising fast ; 
 "compose yourself, and don't bring those drunken devils 
 upon us from yonder beach. Remember only this — and 
 think over it, if you can think at all — that you are in my 
 power absolutely and wholly, and that none other can save 
 you." 
 
 " Madre de Dios !— blessed Heavens above me ! — for 
 what am I reserved V implored the shuddering girl. " Mercy 
 —mercy, Senor Trocadero — as you hope for mercy !'* 
 
 " Mercy where and when 1, rho !" 
 
 " At the hour of death — at the last day !" 
 
 "To struggle thus is childish. What, you will bite me, 
 will you^ wasp ? If you do, par cielo y fuego infernal, I'll 
 give you a knock on the head with my clenched haad that 
 shall keep you quiet enough for a time !" 
 
 A wailing cry of despair escaped Dora, who was sinking 
 on her knees, for the great and muscular hand of Trocadero 
 was clenched for his atrocious purpose ; but ere he could 
 uplift it, he was struck to the earth by a terrible blow— felled 
 literally like a bullock,— and the now half fainting Donna 
 Dora found herself in the grasp of— another 1 
 
The arenas. 369 
 
 CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 THE AEENAS. 
 
 As Leuuard had swum on beyoud the reef, he heard a tre- 
 mendous crash behind, and knew that it was the fall of the 
 mast and the total breaking up of the Gaviota ; when he 
 was able to look round, every vestige of her had disappeared, 
 or was floating about as splintered driftwood, tossed in the 
 eddies near the reef. He swam doggedly and sturdily on for 
 some fifty yards, and found himself under an impending 
 rock, up the slippery face of which he sought in vain to 
 chmb, but after every effort, fell back panting and breathless 
 into deep water. Then for the first time did a horror of 
 being drowned chill his heart, for he knew all that Dora 
 might suffer on the island ; thirst and hunger, heat and cold, 
 exposure to the elements, and more than all these, to insult, 
 for she was in the power of lawless men. For himself he 
 might land only to perish by the hands of Trocadero or 
 others, being alone and totally unarmed ; but existence was 
 dear, and struggling to save it, he swam a little to the left 
 and found himself washed by the surf upon a shelf of flat 
 rock. He had scarcely attained this place of temporary 
 safety, when a pale and phosphorescent light shot past under 
 the surface of the w-ater he had just quitted, and his blood 
 curdled, for he knew that it was emitted by the shining 
 scales of a white shark, the largest and most voracious of all 
 its species, the dread of sailors in all warm climates, for 
 they dart at a man in the water " as a gudgeon darts at a 
 worm." 
 
 Above Lennard the rock rose perpendicularly ; he had no 
 means of climbing it, and for more than an hour made futile 
 attempts to do so ere he desisted, and still wet and dripping 
 after his immersion, with an emotion very much akin to de- 
 spair in his heart, he sat down on the shelf of rock to think 
 over his situation. The tide was ebbing, for the water had 
 ceased to overflow it ; but when it turned, how high might 
 the w^ater rise '? High enough to wash him off ; high enough 
 to place him within reach of some devom-ing shark perhaps, 
 and certainly he had no desire to perish like Bryan in tne 
 ballad of Perene. Then he had a natural horror of being 
 drowned, for ere he reached that shelf of rock he had twice, 
 as he sunk, heard the roar of water rushing in his ears, with 
 that strange sound w.hich the half-drowned describe as being 
 like the ringing of church bells, and he shuddered as he re- 
 ciilled the soothing but terrible sensation of the ocean closing 
 
 24 
 
370 THE GIRL HE MAEUIE©. 
 
 over liim ! Again lie 'made a frantic effort to climb, and 
 ■'^ain lie sank down exhausted. Then he thought of 
 swimming off to some other point of the isle, but those 
 white lines of wavering light that shot to and fro under 
 the water were more than sufficient to appal and deter him. 
 " Was there ever a poor devil so unfortunate, so ill-fated 
 as 1 1 And but for that scoundrel Trocadero,'' he thought, 
 " I should now have been safe in the boat 1" 
 _ And there was Dora ! How was he to rejoin, to reach and 
 aid her ? How to acquaint her that he still lived, and so 
 save her from those pangs which he knew she must suffer. 
 Lived ! But what a death might he die, if those who sur- 
 vived of the crew sailed away in the boat, or boats — he 
 knew not the number of either — and left him on that shelf 
 of rock, exposed to hunger and thirst, to the chill dews of 
 night and the fierce tropical sun by day, till in madness and 
 despair he should plunge into the sea and anticipate his 
 doom ! These and many more such wild and terrible 
 thoughts — anticipations such as tormented him when lost 
 in the coal-mine— coursed through his mind now, for he 
 possessed an acute and powerful imagination, and so pos- 
 sessed t^e ample means of tormenting himself. He could 
 but hope that daylight might reveal some prospect of relief, 
 some means by which to ascend from his present place ; thus 
 he had no resource but to wait and watch the return of the 
 tide, which fortunately w^as not a high one, and when full 
 barely rippled against the ede.'. of the rock on which he sat. 
 So, with his mind tormented by anxiety for Dora's safety and 
 his own escai)e, he had to endure the long, long hours of the 
 silent night till they passed away, and then watch the beams 
 of the sun, as, with tropical swiftness, they shot upward in 
 fiery lines upon the sky, radiating from the horizon, and 
 after a time, from thenct a broad and wondrous pathway of 
 brilliance shone along the water to the rocks of the island. 
 The waves lifted their blue tops in golden light, and the 
 surf that curled over the reef sparkled like showers of 
 diamonds and prisms of every rainoow hue. 
 
 But not a sail was visible on the vast expanse of sea ; 
 and, from the point where Lennard sat, the rocks of the isle 
 seemed to recede, so it became evident that he was perched, 
 most tantalizingly, on a kind of promontory. From the 
 brow of the cliff above his head, some long green tendrils or 
 trailers grew downward ; but, even could he^ have reached 
 them, they were too feeble to have borne his weight in any 
 attempt to climb. lie now resorted to shouting again and 
 again. Some wild birds flew out of their nests m the rocks 
 
THE ABEKAS. 37 1 
 
 and wheeled in circles about him ; but his cries met with no 
 other reponse. The morning sun w^as hot— oppressively so ; 
 after the night he had passed, Lennard's throat was parched 
 with thirst, which he was totally without the means of allay- 
 ing, so he now began to endure the first instalment of the 
 horrors he had pictured or anticipated last night. Again he 
 shouted wildly and hoarsely ; and this time his heart gave 
 a bound, for he heard an undoubted reply ! 
 
 " Holloa, below there !" cried a familiar voice above him ; 
 " is it you, Mr. Blair, who sings out T 
 
 " Kentledge, Kentledge, assist me, for Heaven's sake, if 
 you can 1" exclaimed Lennard, who with joy recognized the 
 voice of the boatswain ; and immediately the brown, sun- 
 burned face and curly hair of that personage were visible at 
 the edge of the cliff above, as he peered cautiously over, and 
 evidently lay fla.t on his breast, to save himself from failing 
 into the sea. 
 
 " I thought, sir, you had gone off in the boat with them 
 Spanish warmint, and had left me; now I finds as we're 
 both marooned together." 
 
 " How did you escape, Kit f 
 
 " I swam off when the cutter began to go to pieces, for I 
 saw they were squabbling, knife in hand, about getting into 
 the dingy." 
 
 " And I was knocked down and left on board by Troca- 
 dero to drown, while they shoved off. Where are the crew, 
 and where is the young lady T 
 
 " All that is more than I can tell you, sir. I got a knock 
 on the head as the waves cast me on the shore, and, feeling 
 worn and sleepy, not having closed an eye for nearly thirty- 
 six hours, I took a snooze up here on some soft grass, till the 
 sunshine and your shouts aAvoke me ; and here I am !" 
 
 " Help me if you can. Kit, like a good fellow." 
 
 " That would I do readily if I had a few fathoms of line 
 and a purchase-block ; but '' 
 
 " Have you a knife "?" 
 
 " Of course, sir, here is my jack-knife.*' 
 
 '* Cut some of these trailers, and make a rope ; twist them 
 up somehow ; and if you'll lend me a hand I'll risk the at- 
 tempt to climb. I can but faU into the sea." 
 
 " Don't think o' that, sir ; it is swarming with white 
 sharks ; and some nibbles the/ve had o' them Spaniards 
 that went to leeward with the long boat, have whetted their 
 appetites uncommon !" 
 
 Kentledge, like every seaman, was fertile in expedients. 
 Near the brow oi the rock grew a wild vine, wnich wa^ 
 
 24—3 
 
372 THE <;illL HE MIIIRIRO. 
 
 firmly rooted in the soil, and two of the long, tough green 
 tendrils of this he spliced together, using his black silk 
 necktie and the sleeves of his shirt as lashings, and this im- 
 provised rope he lowered over to Lennard, assuring him that 
 the branches would never part, and that he nnist hold on 
 fearlessly. The preparation of this means for relieving 
 Lennard proved somewhat protracted, so noon was almost 
 nigh ere it was finished. Then by clinging to it with his 
 hands and pressing his knees against the face of the rock, 
 which was some twenty feet in height, panting, yet fearing 
 almost to breathe, lest the vine shoulcl part and precipitate 
 liim into the sea below, Lennard slowly and laboriously 
 reached the grassy plateau, where the strong hands of Kit 
 Kentledge grasped his, and he found himself in safety. He 
 looked pale and haggard, and his eyes were wild and blood- 
 shot. His lips were baked and cracked, and he presented a 
 remarkable contrast to the more hardy Kit Kentledge, who 
 after his past peril had slept soundly during the night, and 
 now that day had come, was prepared to look about him, 
 and to take with equal equanimity the best or the worst that 
 fate had in store for him. Again Lennard repeated a ques- 
 tion he had asked often and with irrepressible anxiety dur- 
 ing the preparations for his release, whether Kentledge was 
 certain that he had not seen or heard of Donna Dora or the 
 boat's crew, but only to receive the same answer, — that he 
 was in total ignorance of their movements, and had never 
 left that part of the isle on which he landed, but now they 
 should explore it together. 
 
 We have said that the scene of the Gavioids wreck con- 
 sisted of two islands ; one was flat and fertile, the other 
 high and rocky. Lennard and Kentledge were together on 
 the latter, and a stripe of deep water lay between them and 
 the former. The rocky island was almost circular, more than 
 two miles in diameter • and Kentledge, who knew those seas 
 well, averred them botli to be called the Arenas. 
 " See, Mr. Blair — look there away to the nor'ard." 
 The smoke of a steamer was visibly rising above the 
 horizon ; but she was more than " hull down," for the long 
 and vapoury streak from her funnel alone indicated her 
 locality, and the two lonely men looked long and wistfully, 
 till the thinnest traces of it melted away. Wild verdure 
 covered the island, forming a thick and matted jungle that 
 grew close even to the shore, along which they proceeded 
 slowly and leisurely, being seriously impeded at every pace, 
 fcinking now raid-leg deep, and anon almost to the waist, 
 among twisted trailers, decaying gourds, and giant leaves, 
 
THE ARENAS. 373 
 
 from under wliicli tlie mosquitos and others insects rose in 
 black and humming clouds, while the sun's rays became so 
 overpowering, especially as they were both minus hats, that 
 they had frequently to make long and breathless pauses in 
 their progress. They found a spring gurgling deep under 
 this luxuriant jungle, and the draughts it afforded were so 
 cool and delicious that they returned to it again and again. 
 
 Slowly thus they made their way round a portion of the 
 isle without seeing a trace of the wreck, or of their com- 
 panions, and no sail was visible on the sea. They holloed 
 singly and together, but no voice responded. The utmost 
 silence reigned around them, and there was no sound in the 
 air but the murmur of the surf, blending with the dreamy 
 hum of insect life. Lennard began to fear that Trocadero 
 had put off in the boat and left the spot for ever. In his 
 impatience of this slow mode of literally tearing a passage 
 for themselves round the shore of the isle, Lennard sug- 
 gested that they should ascend its highest point, and take 
 a more extended view around them ; so, making their way, 
 but with still greater difficulty, for in some places they had 
 to climb masses of jungle-covered rock, in others the branches 
 of falling trees, yet growing in the earth and forming a kind 
 of natural abatis, impeded them, they reached the apex of 
 the highest cliff, and then saw below, the vast expanse of 
 open sea, the whole of the isle, and the other, which we 
 have just described as being so flat and green, "with its 
 clumps of cocoa and plantain trees. They also saw the 
 deep blue water that lay between them and the figures of 
 men moving about in the creek, where the boat had been 
 beached by order of Trocadero. 
 
 " There they are, thank God !" cried Lennard. 
 
 "Yes, with the dingy high and dry on the sand ; a sign of 
 their being in no hurry for sea," said Kentledge. 
 
 "But where may Dora beY' thought Lennard, as they 
 proceeded at once to make their way down and towards the 
 nearest point, that they might hail the crew to launch the 
 boat and bring ther^ off. But, as before, so impeded was 
 their progress— their feet being entangled like those of one 
 oppressed by a nightmare— so weary and faint had Lennard 
 become that night had well-nigh closed in ere they found 
 themselves at the verge of the stripe of water separating the 
 islands. 
 
 Their approach seemed to have been quite unperceived 
 by the Spaniards, to whom the discovery of the banasta had 
 proved a source of extreme gratification, and thus amid the 
 Bon^ fVnd uproar of Miguel Galvez and his shipmat;es, th^ 
 
374 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 shouts of Lennard, in Spanish, and the anathemas of Kent- 
 ledge, in English, were unheeded and unnoticed, though 
 they were only about a quarter of a mile distant. So even- 
 ing deepened fast into a night of tropical splendour. The 
 murmur of the sea came in soft and measured cadence to 
 the ear, and the tints of its waters were varied in the moon- 
 light. In one place the wavelets rose and fell like liquid 
 gold, but when they broke over the reef, their white foam 
 shone like silver, and where the ocean stretched away into 
 the vastness of the Gulf, it was all of the deepest blue, 
 reflecting the depth and brilliance of the starry sky. 
 
 Yonder— half a musket-shot distant — Lennard could see 
 the red glare of a fire, which burned brightly, being fed by 
 pieces of the wreck. Around it rang the choruses of the 
 now drunken seamen in their orgie, and close by them, from 
 time to time, a girl in the shortest of sldrts danced the 
 Mexican manolo. That she was Jacinta, the girl from Cam- 
 ]3each6, neither Lennard nor Kentledge could doubt, but 
 where was Donna Dora ] 
 
 " These drunken madmen have evidently procured spirits 
 from the wreck, and do not heed us, Kentledge," said 
 Lennard. 
 
 "They're having a jolly spree, sir ; but I have great fears 
 for the young lady among that 'ere coloured lot. I never 
 liked sailors with rings in their ears." 
 
 On hearing his own anxieties so palpably expressed, Len- 
 nard could no longer contain himself. 
 
 " You speak my very thoughts. Kentledge," said Lennard, 
 impetuously ; " I shall swim over, whatever the risk may be." 
 So shall I, sir ; we may bawl here all night till we're 
 hoarse without being attended to, and if heard, perhaps 
 they might only laugh at us, or swamp the boat if they tried 
 to launch her." 
 
 "The water is full of sharks. Kentledge ; let us not both 
 cast away life. If I can get over I'll come back with the 
 boat for you." 
 
 " The sharks will be all about the reef and the back-bone 
 of the wreck ; they'll find some attractions there, such as 
 beef-tubs, bread-bags, and turtles, and perhaps the lubberly 
 Jack-Spaniards as were washed over Avith the long-boat. 
 Let us cross higher up — and here goes !" 
 
 Kentledge tightened by a hole or two the strap or belt 
 which girt his loose and now somewhat tattered inexpressi- 
 bles, prior to plunging in. The attempt was full of deadly 
 peril ; but what mattered that to Lennard, if Dora's safety 
 required him to face it ? Besides, to some natures, especially 
 
i NEUSTRA SENORA DEL GUADALOUPB. 375 
 
 to such a spirit as his, danger, action and fierce activity, at 
 such a time were an escape — a welcome relief — from mad- 
 dening thought. Poor Kit Kentledge, now that ho had lost 
 the papers which Captain Maynard was despalohing to 
 Tampico, had nothing in particular to save, but felt hi mself 
 bound to follow Lennard, and rejoin the Spaniardu, though 
 he knew them to be a graceless set. 
 
 " If I fail in crossing. Kit,— if aught happens to mo, and 
 you escape, you'll stand by that Spanish girl while life 
 lasts V cried Lennard. 
 
 " With God's help I shall, sir !" replied Kentledge, as 
 they selected a point distant from the scene of the wreck, 
 and plunged in. 
 
 Though neither were quite fearless of the chances against 
 them— of the sharks around, the surf between, and the 
 slippery rocks opposite— they swam boldly and sturdily 
 over, and landed without a scratch or bruise on the opposite 
 island, where they grasped each other's hands in hearty con- 
 gratulation, as they stood dripping on the shore. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVIII. 
 
 "NEUSTRA SENORA DEL GUADALOUPE." 
 
 Inflamed by the potent aguardiente, after hours of long 
 fasting, the tipsy crew were now making such a noise- 
 seeming to be engaged in an angry brawl or general Qiielee — 
 that Lennard and his companion found the necessity, 
 unarmed as they were, of approaching with circumspection. 
 They could perceive Miguel Galvez, the Yucataco, and four 
 others quarrelling, and all having their knives drawn, as the 
 blades glittered alternately in the red rays of the fire and the 
 silver light of the moon, which cast the shadows of the group 
 far along the white sand. Jacinta was regarding them with 
 terror, shrinking in the background, with a pale face, and a 
 hand upon her lips, as if to repress a rising shriek. Three 
 of the party were absent ; Donna Dora, Trocadero, and 
 Saavedra ! Where were they, and how situated, was the 
 first thought of Lennard's heart. As he turned away, a 
 nervous clutch was laid upon his arm. 
 
 " Senor Saavedra !" he exclaimed, on seeing the poor little 
 man, whom he would scarcely have recognised but for his 
 immense curled moustaches, so woebegone, so utterly miser- 
 able did he now seem, and so tattered in costume, — " where 
 is she 1 — where is Donna Dora "?" 
 
 " Yonder, senor— yonder ; we may yet be in time to save 
 
3r6 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 " Save her from what— the sea T 
 
 " From one as pitiless — but, oh ! sefiores " 
 
 " Speak quickly !" cried Leiinard furiously. 
 
 Agonized by thirst, and ashamed of his own weakness and 
 terror, Saavedra could barely gasp — 
 
 " Trocadero, pistol in hand, warned me off to a distancei, 
 on pain of death "_ 
 
 " And she is now with him — alone T exclaimed Lennard, 
 with a spasm of terror in his heart. 
 
 " Alone, sefiores, alone ! I have neither strength nor wea- 
 pon — lie has both,'' replied Saavedra, wringing his hands. 
 " Save her, if you can ; she is the only daughter of a dear, 
 dear friend — my li-ttle Dora Dominga 1" 
 
 The voice of the Spaniard was very mournful, and Len- 
 nard felt at that moment that his care of and regard for his 
 god-daughter covered a multitude of the annoyances to 
 which he had subjected her lover. 
 
 " The scoundrel," said Lennard, in a low voice of concen- 
 trated passion. " I'll kill him, as I would a viper !" 
 
 " Now to have a shy at old Pumpbolt," added Kentledge, 
 clenching his hands ; while Lennard, arming himself with a 
 billet of wood — some fragment of the wreck which lay near 
 — hurried at once in the direction indicated by Saavedra— 
 the trees near the rock ; and the fact of his arrival at a crit- 
 ical time was put beyond all doubt by the pitiful supplications 
 of the sinking girl for mercy ; as for aid, she expected none. 
 Just as she was about to kneel before the pitiless Trocadero, 
 that personage was struck to the earth as if by a cannon 
 ball, and Dora, with a strange cry, in which joy and terror 
 mingled, fell into the arms of Lennard Blair. Then, after a 
 time, as he raised her head and pressed her to his breast, as- 
 suring her that she was safe, and that he too was safe, thrill- 
 ing indeed was the glance of her sweet dark eyes, and divine 
 was the smile which spread over her minutely cut little face 
 and sensitive mouth, when she became fully conscious of 
 who was her protector. For a time their mutual expressions 
 were all mere incoherence, while the practical Kit Kentledge, 
 ignoring them, turned his attention to Trocadero, who lay 
 snorting at their feet, with his dark and coarse face deluged 
 in blood. 
 
 " He's a blowing like a sparmicitty, he is !" said the boat- 
 swain, as he quietly turned him over vAXh. his foot. " The 
 old Spanish warmint, he should have gone from the yardarm 
 to the devil long ere this time." 
 
 " He ought to be shot outright, like a wild beast,* said 
 Lennard, with a glow of returning anger. 
 
377 
 
 " Not by you, sir, anyways," said Kentledge. " He ain't 
 very moral, I've no doubt ; but remember how much one's 
 constitootion has to do with that commodity as the parsons 
 calls morality," added this sea philosopher, as he kicked Tro- 
 cadero over again on his back, and took from his sash a pair 
 of pistols and a small bag of caps and ball-cartridges. " Xow, 
 old Mosquito, the sting is out of you, and here's to make 
 you all fast and comfortable." 
 
 Then, trundling Trocadero out of the long worsted sash 
 which girt his waist, Kentledge therewith made fast his 
 arms behind, and left him thus to come to his senses at 
 leisure. The dew found in the hollows of some large leaves, 
 proved the means of assuaging the thirst of Dora and her 
 two friends ; a tortoise roasted by Kentledge in its shell, 
 and one of Jacinta's ill-flavoured and indifferently toasted 
 cakes formed a repast, over which they related all that had 
 passed during the twenty-four hours' separation ; and then 
 they spoke of the chances of ultimate release. Amid this 
 Jacinta came, in tears and terror, to announce that, in a fit 
 of jealousy concerning her, the crew were slaughtering each 
 other at the creek ; and now she crouched down at Dora's 
 feet, hiding her face in her skirts. 
 
 Leaving Dora with Saavedra and her attendant, Lennard 
 and the boatswain hurried away, anxious to save human life 
 if they could do so. But when tbey reached the ereek, the 
 bright light of the moon revealed a very startling spectacle. 
 Two gachupins, or Mexican Spaniards, tall, sombre, and 
 muscular men, with rings in their ears — one having his head 
 girt by a gaudy handkerchief, while the other had his coal- 
 black hair gathered in a red silk net — lay there dead, their 
 broad, bare breasts gashed with several wounds, and their 
 hands yet gi'asping those odious knives, which few seamen 
 of any country are now "without. One man lay partly in the 
 water, which came rippling in silver wavelets on the white 
 sand of the creek. Near the boat, the embers of the now 
 neglected fire reddened and faded out, to redden again un- 
 der the breath of the passing breeze ; the empty banasta, 
 the evil contents of which had brought these crimes about, 
 the bones and shells of some roasted tortoises and other 
 debris lay near, and snorting in their tipsy slumber, with 
 visages pale, and lips parted and black, lay the four survi- 
 vors of the crew of the Gaviota, on a bank which was covered 
 by the blossoms of the sweet-pea growing wild. 
 
 " Take their knives away, Kit — from the dead as well as 
 the living, — and cast thera into the sea," said Lennard. 
 
 Kentledge speedily did so, and, leaving the four men to 
 
378 THE GIRL HE MARRIED, 
 
 sleep off the fumes of their orgie under the baleful tropical 
 dew, Lennard and he returned to where Jacinta was once 
 more making a species of bower for her mistress and herself 
 of the great palm-leaves. On consciousness returning to 
 Trocadero, he alternately uttered dreadful threats and piti- 
 ful entreaties to be released from his bonds ; urging that, if 
 they ever reached Vera Cruz, he would complain of his mal- 
 treatment to the Corregidor, and the Alcaldes Ordinarios ; 
 but Lennard bade the ruffian to remember how he had left 
 him to perish on the wreck — how he had struck him twice 
 with his pistol, and of his more recent insolence to Donna 
 Dora, adding that he should be thankful that life was spared 
 him. Then the baffled Trocadero howled like a wild animal, 
 and gnashed his teeth in the impotence of his fury, but after 
 a time he became silent and sullen, and betook him to brood- 
 ing, no doubt, on some terrible vengeance. 
 
 While Dora and her attendant slept, Lennard and Kent- 
 ledge, with Saavedra, sought a temporary shelter from the 
 dew under the branches of a stunted plantain-tree, and 
 conned wearily over their plans for the future — the proba- 
 bility of a vessel coming in sight, and the means for hailing 
 or signalling her ; how, if the boat were stocked with fruit, 
 tortoises, and the banasta filled with pure water from the 
 spring on the other isle, they might put to sea, and by con- 
 stant rowing reach the coast of Yucatan. But they were 
 without a compass, without sails or covering, and when 
 Lennard thought of the delicate and gently nurtured Dora 
 in an open boat upon the sea, with four of the crew such 
 Spaniards as those of the Gaviota, he shuddered. And then 
 there was Trebucio Trocadero ; he could neither be taken 
 on such a desperate expedition, nor left to perish alone on 
 the island. 
 
 Lennard grew weary of sad conjectures, and, overcome 
 by all he had undergone, dropped into slumber. How long 
 it lasted he knew not ; but he had many painful and uneasy 
 dreams, with shadowy memories of the horrors he had en-> 
 dured in the coal-mine, blended with episodes of the wreck 
 in chaotic confusion ; and again he seemed to hear the voice 
 of Hesbia Vere as in their last interview, and he felt his 
 heart stirred painfully, though Hesbia was nothing to him 
 now. A ship had come, he thought, and Dora was being 
 borne off to her in the arms of Trocadero, whose dark face 
 wore an expression of ferocious triumph. Imploring help, 
 Dora's eyes, and face, and hands were all turned to Lennard, 
 who sought in vain to follow her, for his limbs had become 
 powerless, his feet seemed to adhere to the earth, to sink 
 
" NEUSTRA SENORA DEL aUADALOUPE." 379 
 
 deep in the sand or tlie masses of jungle tliat rose around 
 him. It was hideous nightmare— he strove to cry out, but 
 the sound died unuttered on his lips. The whole situation 
 and scene seemed to be horribly and palpably before him — 
 the vesse], a large steamer like the Golden Dream, lay with 
 her broadside to the island ; the blue waves were rolling in 
 the sunlight around her ; the smoke was pouring in black 
 volume from her red funnel, and there was in his ear the 
 fierce angry sound of the snow-white steam blowing oflf. He 
 started up as the cheerful voice of Kit Kentledge broke the 
 spell ; but the sound was still in his drowsy ears, and there, 
 beyond all doubt, within a quarter of a mile from the island, 
 was a large screw-steamer — the vessel of his dream — lying 
 to, with her mainsail thrown in the wind's eye, w^hile one of 
 her boats was being pulled fast inshore ; for Kentledge, who 
 had been on the look-out since early dawn, had, as she drew 
 near, made such signals from an eminence as could not fail 
 to attract the watch on deck — so they were all to be saved 
 ere the more serious portion of their sufferings had begun. 
 The vessel proved to be the Neustra Senora del Guadaloupe, 
 from Cuba, bound to Tampico, via Vera Cruz ; so in one 
 hour from the time of his dream, Lennard had the joy of 
 seeing Dora safe amid the comforts of the ladies' cabin, and 
 Trocadero tied with a rope in the cable-tier below, there to 
 remain until he was handed over to the Spanish authorities. 
 Kit Kentledge w^ould have liked a pot of beer after all his 
 troubles, but was compelled to take rum-grog dashed with 
 Angostura bitters, the rich pink colour of which he greatly 
 admired. Saavedra solacing himself with a cigar on the 
 poop, was again pulling his long moustaches, making the 
 most of his little figure, and treating Lennard as before, 
 with coolness and hauteur ; but our hero cared little for 
 either. He had been in time last night, after a great peril, 
 to save her he loved, and wholoved him dearly ; and though 
 another twenty-four hours might — as his heart foreboded — 
 see them parted, perhaps for ever, the memory of all that 
 had passed and of all they had endured together since the 
 sailing of the Golden Dream would never be forgotten ; and 
 thus fuU of his own thoughts he watched the rocks of the 
 Arenas fading into the yellow morning haze astern, while 
 the large and stately Spanish vessel steamed on her western 
 course — 
 
 " O'er the deep, o'er the deep, 
 "Where the whale, and the shark, and the sword-fish sleep ; 
 Where outflying: the mist and the driving rain, 
 The petrel telleth her tale in vain." 
 
380 THE GIRL HE MAKrjET>. "^ 
 
 . i 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 8EPAEAT10N. 
 
 Next morning beheld tlie miglity outline of Orizaba, a snow- 
 capped volcano which is more than a thousand feet higher 
 than the Peak of Teneriffe, rising from the sea, and ere long 
 the lesser cone of Tuxtla, which is four miles from Vera 
 Cruz, was seen to send its puffs of steam-like vapour into 
 the cloudless sky. These and other peaks were visible long 
 before the rest of the coast rose above the pale horizon. 
 
 "Ah, Orizaba once more, and the little Tuxtla, too 1" ex- 
 claimed Donna Dora, with that joyous and hearty ring in 
 her voice which was so attractive, and might make any man 
 swear she was a tme, brave, and loving girl ; " I greet you 
 again, my own dear hills !" 
 
 And playfully she kissed her pretty fingers to the distant 
 mountain peaks. 
 
 •' I know the very place where our villa looks down on the 
 green savannah, but we are too far off yet to see even its 
 woods and plantations." 
 
 "The outline of the land alone is visible, senora," said 
 Saavedra, with a frown ; " but with a powerful telescope 
 one might perhaps make out the gi'eat mass of the castle of 
 San Juan." 
 
 " In sight of home already, and at this time yesterday we 
 were on that desert isle," said Dora, pursuing her own 
 thoughts, as her eyes met those of Lennard in a mutual 
 glance that conveyed a volume, for though she spoke much 
 and in her quick and rapid little way was pointing out and 
 describing the various features of her native coast as they 
 increased in size and distinctness, he was somewhat silent 
 and sad, in the fear that he was hearing her voice, so be- 
 loved, for the last time perhaps. 
 
 He had heard so much of the wealth of Donna Dora's 
 father— a merchant prince in the land of gold and silver — 
 that he could never hope, as the mere agent and junior 
 partner of the house of Vere & Co., to be acceptable as a 
 suitor ; and then there were Spanish pride of race, difference 
 of religion, and jealousy of strangers to be overcome. These 
 prospects filled him with nervous fears and keen anxiety for 
 the future. Plans he had none, beyond visions of hard work 
 and energetic attempts to acquire the wealth he coveted, not 
 for his own sake, but that he might feel more near and 
 worthy of her he loved ; yet this acquisition, if ever won, 
 WOul(i re(^uire time— it might be years. So he was full of 
 
BEPAEATION. S^I 
 
 tliouglit, while tlie great steamer drew nearer and nearer the 
 land of his destinj-. Already its violet tints were changing 
 to the gi-eenery of verdure, and its features became more sharp 
 and distinct against the deep and intense blue of the Soutn 
 American sky. 
 
 " We shairiand this evening, I presume," said Dora, after 
 a long pause. 
 
 " To-night," was the curt response of Saavedra. 
 
 ^ You must come immediately and see papa and me at our 
 own home — perhaps he may take you there to-night," said 
 she, with a sweet smile, " when he hears of all our adven- 
 tures together, for I have no doubt he will come for me \vith 
 the carriage personally." 
 
 " You forget, sefiora, that he expects you by the Golden 
 Dream from England, not by the mail-steamer from Cuba," 
 said Saavedra, coldly. 
 
 " Oh, true, amigo mio !— of what am I thinking 1" said 
 the girl, as her bright face clouded for a moment. 
 
 Lennard was regarding her tenderly, and was so full of 
 her presence and of their approaching separation, that he 
 scarcely ever looked at the land they were nearing. His love 
 for Dora was not based on mere external attractions, though 
 she possessed many ; it was an emotion that had grow^n up 
 rapidly in his heart — an instinct the result of tenderness on 
 his part, of sense and sensibilit.y on hers. 
 
 " It must have been passion I felt for the large and full- 
 formed Hesbia ; but it is love — pure and gentle love — I 
 feel for Dora," thought he ; for the fair-skinned and golden- 
 haired Spanish girl, with her charming and quaint espieglerie 
 of manner, realized all that he had ever dreamed of beauty 
 in his moments of enthusiasm ; and, though neither poet 
 nor painter, he had not been without his day-dreams of a 
 face to love : yet such a face, when found, exists too often 
 in the fancy of the lover only. Had he never thought thus 
 of another face] Perhaps. Yet Lennard Blair was 
 blameless. 
 
 The sandy shore of Vera Cniz, the gi-eat castle of San 
 Juan de Ulloa, the spires and domes of the churches, were 
 all distinctly %-isible as the sun set in flame beyond the 
 mighty mountain ranges that rise inland. But when the 
 Cuban steamer, with slackened speed, in charge of a pilet 
 and preceded by multitudes of silvery flying fish scared to 
 leap high by the noise of the screw propeller, came into 
 soundings, and slowly passing midway oetween the reefs of 
 Blanquilla and Panjaros, was opposite the lighthouse and 
 Fort Conception, darkness lay upon the scenery. The city, 
 
3^2 d:HE GIRL HE MAREIEli. 
 
 its walls and redoubts, with the shipping in the bay of Yef- 
 gara, were lost in obscurity, though a red flush to the west- 
 ward still threw forward in dark and strong outline the 
 peaks and ridges of the remoter sierras. The sky was with- 
 out a cloud, and was becoming rapidly studded with silver 
 stars that sparkled amid the blue and crimson. The land 
 breeze was soft and pleasant, and below Point Hornos it 
 came over the water laden as if with the odour of violets. 
 Lights here and there shone from casements, and that 
 of the pharos gleamed steadily across the waters of the bay. 
 A confused crowd of many persons could be seen upon the 
 pier or wharf as the steamer drew nearer. There were 
 torches and lanterns, but no gas-lamps. The deep and sono- 
 rous shouts in Spanish came clearly over the Avater, as 
 officials and porters hastened hither and thither jostling 
 each other ; and strange uniforms were seen at times, with 
 the glint of a bayonet, as a sentinel trod to and fro at his post. 
 
 Aware that their time for parting had come, when Donna 
 Dora would inevitably be conveyed away by the jealous 
 Saavedra, and when Lennard should have to seek for 
 quarters at some vinta or hotel - friendless, alone, and a 
 stranger in a land of strangers— they remained together 
 hand in hand under the awning on deck, unheeded among the 
 crowd of Cuban passengers, who with all their cloaks and 
 mufflings, bag and baggage, were preparing to seize the first 
 moment for escape from their watery prison. The lovers 
 were totally unencumbered by luggage, as all they possessed 
 was lying with the wreck of the Gaviota, and Lennard was 
 so occupied with Dora that he never reflected how little he 
 had m his purse, or on the difficulties he might experience 
 in his dilapidated costume of proving his identity to his 
 cautious business correspondents in Vera Cruz. A boat 
 came off from the shore, and now the steamer was boarded 
 by several officials, some of whom were in uniform. The 
 lists of passengers in cabin and steerage were given, and of 
 course mention was duly made, as recorded in the log, of the 
 persons rescued from the island of the wreck ; and on the 
 name of Trebucio Trocadero being given, he was ordered up 
 from the cable-tier to be sent to prison ashore ; but, lo ! the 
 place of that distinguished mariner was vacant, tne cords 
 which had bound him were found lying in fragments on the 
 ]ower deck ; for he, assisted by some friend or confederate 
 — by one of the crew of the Gaviota, most probably— had 
 escaped by swimming ashore. 
 
 During the hubbub caused by this discoverj% Lennard and 
 Dora had retired to the now deserted cabin where they were 
 
SEPARATION. 383 
 
 sitting in silence, and almost in the dark, tlie thrifty steward 
 having lit but one or two of the lamps. Her right han/i and 
 cheek rested on Lennard's shoulder ; his left arm was round 
 her caressingly, and her eyes w^ere full of tears, when they 
 were startled by the somewhat brusque entrance of a young 
 man in the picturesque costume peculiar to Mexico ; his 
 jacket and breeches, theatrically termed slops, were of rich 
 maroon-coloured velvet, slashed with white silk and braided 
 with silver. He wore a large sombrero decorated with a 
 broad scarlet ribbon, having a deep fringe, also of silver, 
 resting on the left shoulder. In his silk sash of many colours 
 were a knife with a carved ivory hilt, and a silver-mounted 
 Colt's revolver pistol. After a hasty and imperious glance 
 round the partially darkened cabin, he came at once forward 
 to Dora, who, starting, held forth her hand, with a blush in 
 which more of surprise than pleasure mingled. 
 
 "What is this I see, and what is this I hear !'' he exclaimed; 
 " my uncle Saavedra and Donna Isidora arriving by the mail 
 steamer from Cuba f 
 
 " Not from Cuba, Don Ignacio," replied Dora, as he lifted 
 his velvet sombrero and kissed her hand; "but thereby 
 hangs a long story." 
 
 Though not jealous by nature, Lennard felt a chill come 
 over now, as if some evil influence was impending here. 
 
 " A story of a wreck, my uncle tells me," continued the 
 young man, whose keen eyes were fixed with no pleasant 
 expression on Lennard. for they were flashing as redly as the 
 point of his cigar. 
 
 " A story nearly of three wrecks,'^ said Saavedra, who had 
 now joined them ; "for the Golden Dream broken her star- 
 board wheel in a pampero ; then she sprung a leak ofi' the 
 coast of Yucatan, forcing her into Campeach6 ; and finally 
 we were cast away among the Arenas." 
 
 " Why, seiiora," said the young Mexican, laughing, " your 
 voyage home has been like that of tHe Orinoco, in which all 
 who did not die became crazy.* And you liked England T 
 
 " I adored it !" 
 
 " And surviving all, thank our Lady of Guadaloupe, we 
 are now home again," said Saavedra. 
 
 " I give you welcome, Donna Dora. You left us but a 
 child ; now you are a woman, I dare not say how beautiful ; 
 but, after to-morrow, the sun wdll shine brighter in Vera 
 Cruz." 
 
 " You do not speak of my father, amigo mio Ignacio ; hoTV 
 is he T said Dora, uneasily. 
 
 * Este es el viage del Orinoco. Que el que no ae murio, se volyio 
 loco. — Spanish Proverb. 
 
384 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 " Well and strong." 
 
 " He lias, then, recovered from the illness which made him 
 hasten my return from Europe V^ 
 
 " Perfectly, sefiora ; but he is now absent with his Excel- 
 lency the Governor, at the river of Xampa, and little antici- 
 pates the pleasure and surprise that await his return homa" 
 
 " My beloved papa !" 
 
 "But pardon me, sefiora; this gentleman — you do not 
 introduce us." 
 
 " Senor Lennard Blair, who saved my life at the Arenas, 
 and to whom I, and your uncle Saavedra, ov/e a debt of gra- 
 titude," said Dora, with a blush and a glance at Lennard, in 
 which the emotion she named was blended with one more 
 tender. 
 
 " Yes ; par Dios, we have truly been inseparable," was the 
 dubious response of the elder Saavedra, curling up his 
 moustaches, and bestowing a furtive glance upon his nephew, 
 who, instead of bowing to Lennard, started on hearing his 
 narae, and gav-e him a very unmistakable stare, saying — 
 
 " Santos ; what ! you here again 1" 
 
 " Senor]" queried Lennard. 
 
 " One might have thought the atmosphere of Vera Cruz 
 too hot to suit you." 
 
 " I do not understand." 
 
 " We heard that you had gone to Cuba ; but my meaning 
 Avill shortly be explained." 
 
 " I shall tell you of all our adventures elsewhere," re- 
 sumed Dora, hurriedly, and feeling alike perplexed and un- 
 ^ comfortable by this reception of Lennard by ariother of her 
 father's friends, this nephew of Saavedra, a pale, unhealthy- 
 looking, and green-skinned lithe and supple little gachupin 
 or Mexican Spaniard, with deep bead-like black eyes, and 
 slender moustaches which seemed, like those described by the 
 late Albert Smith, to be merely eyebrows on the upper lip. 
 Lennard was about to speak again, but after a whispered 
 word or two apart with his uncle, the young man smiled to 
 Dora, and went abruptly on deck. 
 
 " Senora," said Saavedra, " the steamer is now close along- 
 side the pier ; my nephew Ignacio will procure a carriage for 
 us. Are you prepared to go "i" 
 
 " Instantly, replied Dora, adjusting a bonnet and cloak 
 with which a lady passenger had supplied her, and the 
 jarring sounds alongside, the escape of the steam overhead, 
 with tlie increased noise of feet on deck, all served to an- 
 nounce that Neustra SeUora del Guadaloupe was moored 
 hard and fast by the quay at Vera Cruz. 
 
SEPAEATiUN. 535 
 
 " Follow US, sefior,'* said Saavedra to Lennard, ** and we 
 sliall see yon to a hotel." 
 
 Lennard bowed, and muttered his thanks. Dora took the 
 arm of her padrino, while Lennard followed, and by the 
 light of torches and lanterns on the deck and quay, found 
 himself gradually approaching the gang-way by which he 
 was to reach terra firina — to tread the soil of the ISTew 
 World — amid a crowd of motley-looking ^[exicans, exhibit- 
 ing every colour in costume and every hue of complexion, 
 from the darkest type of Africa to the purest European. All 
 had large hats, many of them being ornamented by gaudy 
 ribbons and bead-rolls. Some Vv^ere minus pantaloons, while 
 others had on two pairs — the outer, of one colour, being 
 slashed up the side, to show the inner, of another and a 
 gayer tint. Some were splendidly dressed, like Don Igna- 
 cio, but many more were in rags ; some wore gay striped 
 mantles, others the ^lexican serape, a woollen blanket, having 
 a hole for the head to pass through. Some Avild-like figures 
 wore the tilma, or Indian cloak, and many, particularly the 
 stout negro porters, were naked to the waist ; but the air 
 around them all was redolent with tobacco. 
 
 After shaking hands with Kit Kentledge, and exchanging 
 mutual assurances of meeting again, Lennard became con- 
 scious of having his progress from the ship impeded by two 
 or three persons with whom Don Ignacio paused to con- 
 verse, and who so systematically intruded themselves between 
 him and those he wished to follow closely, that Dora and 
 Saavedra had already crossed the gang^vay, and she was an- 
 xiously looking back, before Lennard had reached it. He 
 had just done so by a rough effort in pushing one of those 
 persons aside, and Avas about to say a few parting words of 
 thanks, and farewell to the captain of the Cuban steamer, 
 when a hand was laid heavily on his own, and turning, he 
 found himself confronted, and his passage barred by a tall 
 and sombre-looking man in military uniform, who said — 
 " Sefior, I have business with you." 
 
 " Pardon me," replied Lennard ; "I am in haste. '* 
 
 " Probably — but I am in none, and can share my leisure 
 with j^ou. Eemove that gang-^vay, Seiior Capitano, and have 
 this person conducted into the cabin. He is my prisoner." 
 
 " Prisoner !" echoed Lennard, confounded by this sudden 
 and new position, and still more so, when he saw a Mexican 
 soldier on each side of him, with shouldered musket and 
 bayonet fixed. He heard the voice of Dora calling to him 
 faintly amid all the hubbub this affair caused among th<? 
 crowd upon the quay. 
 
 25 
 
386 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 " Arrested— Lennard arrested— for what, and by whom 1" 
 ehe demanded, impetuously. 
 
 " Par Dios, I don't know ; but I always thought him a 
 rascal," replied old Saavedra, with glee, as he hurried her 
 out of the gathering mob. 
 
 " Dear, dear Lennard — amigo mio— mi querido, this is all 
 some cruel mistake, which papa— would that he were here 
 — shall rectify to-morrow. Adieu for a little time." She 
 wrung her hands, and wept, as she was almost thrust into a 
 carriage by the two Saavedras and driven off ; but not before 
 she had heard the crowd uttering fierce execrations against 
 the English prisoner. 
 
 "Lennard arrested !" she continued to repeat, for she was 
 plunged in sorrow and perplexity. Not knowing what to 
 think, she was stunned on hearing the charges which Ignacio 
 Saavedra assured her were made truthfully against the cul- 
 prit. He had committed various robberies on the highway, 
 forgeries on the bank of Vera Cruz, and had assassinated a 
 wealthy planter. His knife was in possession of the Corre- 
 gidor, and had his name graven in full upon the handle. 
 
 " Dios no quiero that a false accusation should be made,'* 
 said Seiior Jos6 ; " but he must have been in Mexico before. 
 I suspected that he knew Spanish too well when we met oil 
 board the Golden Breams 
 
 Dora was still inclined to have the carriage stopped, and 
 some inquiries made, but a horrible lepero, with leering eyes 
 and long lean fingers, ran to the window, crying — " Caridad, 
 senorita ! caridad, por el amor de la Santissima Virgen !" 
 
 So they were compelled to drive on. 
 
 "Happen what may, any way they are separated nowl* 
 thought Jose Saavedra with a grin of satisfaction. 
 
 Meanwhile, how fared it with Lennard. 
 
 "This is some unaccountable mistake, seiior," said he, 
 smiling, but nevertheless excessively annoyed ; " and it can, 
 no doubt, he satisfactorily explained by j^ou." 
 
 " By you, rather ; par el Demonio, but we shall see !" re- 
 plied the officer, who announced himself as Captain Salvador 
 Gonzalez y Llano, of the National Guard, or militia of the 
 
 Erovince, and before whom Lennard found himself pushed 
 ack into the cabin, amid a crowd of wondering seamen and 
 engineers, negro porters, cargadores, and idlers. " Listen— 
 you speak Spanish I find*}" 
 
 " Yes ; but I am an Englishman." 
 
 " This document, which I have carried about me for a 
 month, says otherwise," exclaimed the officer. 
 **How?" 
 
SEPARATION. 3^7 
 
 " That you are a Scotsman." 
 
 " So I am, senor." 
 
 " Demonio, how can you be both t Come, sefior, this is 
 no place or time for trifling, and we have means of curing 
 such insolence, both sharp and sure," said the Spaniard, 
 angrily, as he glanced at a document which Lennard was 
 surprised to see looked remarkably like a warrant— being a 
 printed form, the blanks of which were filled in by writing, 
 while an official seal was at the bottom. _ " Eogues have as 
 many countries as names, and this duplicity but proves your 
 character," added the captain, who was in a decidedly bad 
 humour, his dinner of gaspachos — a mess of bread, vinegar, 
 oil, sliced onions, and garlic — having seriously disagreed 
 with him. 
 
 " I demand by what right you take me into custody, and 
 detain me from my friends V asked Lennard, now becoming 
 
 *' I arrest you, Lennard Blair, as a British subject 
 
 " On what charges ]" 
 
 " Complicity in robbery, forgery, and murder— these are 
 quite enough, I think." 
 
 " This is too absurd !" 
 
 " I hope you may find it so. These crimes were committed 
 in the province of Vera Cruz, before your flight, and my 
 present warrant is from Don Juan, the principal Alcalde 
 Ordinario." 
 
 Matters were now looking decidedly serious ! 
 
 " You dare not put this indignity upon me ; I shall appeal 
 for protection to the British Consul." 
 
 " He fully concurs in our desire that you should be ar- 
 rested and punished for your crimes." 
 
 " I swear to you, senor, by all that's sacred, that I have 
 not yet had my foot on South American soil ! I have read 
 and heard a good deal about Spanish injustice, corruption, 
 and pig-headedness ; but certainly never expected to expe- 
 rience any of them. However, seiior, I shall not resist " 
 
 " To do so would be worse than useless." 
 
 " I can only assure you that you are mistaken ; that this 
 h the most absurd accusation in the world, and that to-mor- 
 i ow, at latest, shall show you who I really am, when my 
 papers " 
 
 He paused with some confusion, remembering that all his 
 business credentials and letters of credit was lost in the 
 iuckless Gaviota ; and in this momentary bewilderment he 
 was handcuffed— yea, literally and most securely handcuffed 
 to a soldier — as an additional security. 
 
 2S-2 
 
3§8 I'iJE GIliL HE MAtlRIED. 
 
 " Cartuclio en el canon, hombres " (load your arms), said 
 Captain Salvador Gonzalez, on wliich tne escort loaded and 
 capped tlieir rifles, and very dirty looking fellows they were, 
 tlieir garish and braided uniforms being like some of the 
 " properties " of an itinerant theatre. 
 
 Lennard was then conducted on shore, and marched from 
 the quay, through narrow, irregular, and ill-lighted streets, 
 amid a motley and copper-coloured crowd of Mexicans, who 
 heaped their most bitter reproaches on him as " matador y 
 assassino ;" and among them he thought he heard the voice 
 of Trocadero. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, senor, let us proceed quickly," said 
 he to the officer, " that we may avoid this detestable rabble." 
 
 " You are in a hurry, hombre— the place we are bound for 
 is not so pleasant after all." 
 
 " May I ask where you have orders to convey me "?" 
 
 " Si, amigo mio," replied the officer, who thought little of 
 a case of homicide more or less, " to the castle of San Juan 
 de UUoa." 
 
 CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 THE CASTLE OP SAN JUAN DE ULLOA. 
 
 With intense chagrin and annoyance, which afterwards 
 grew to wild and vague uncertainty of purpose, he had walked 
 between his escort to the point where a boat took them to 
 the prison, and there he heard himself formally given oyer 
 by the Captain Salvador Gonzalez, who received a receipt 
 for him, and then bluntly withdrew, without a glance or a 
 bow. Lennard's first thought was that the whole affair, if 
 not a mistake which would be easily explained, was a trap, a 
 device, or scheme resulting from the trickery of Jos6 Saave- 
 dra, of Trocadero, of Vere perhaps, or of all together ; in 
 short, he knew not what to think. His mind was a chaos, 
 and he passed a night of sleepless misery, tormented by re- 
 flection and the mosquitos. He had been searched, and Tro- 
 cadero's loaded pistols were found upon his person. In a 
 country where all men go well armed this discovery excited 
 no comment ; they were quietly confiscated, and so were the 
 contents of his purse, among the officials of the great govern- 
 ment prison. He fulljr and fondly believed tliat the next 
 morning would afford him some solution of the mystery ; he 
 did not undress, but lay on a couch, the appearance of which 
 was very repugnant to him, and in a cell, the walls of which 
 were built of that peculiar soft white stone of which the 
 castle is composed— so soft, indeed, that cannon shot do not 
 
THE CASTLE OF SAN JUAH DE ULLOA.. 3oCj 
 
 splinter, but imbed themselves in it. A can of cofiee and a 
 slice of indifferent bread were given to him by a taciturn 
 warder, from whom he could not extract a single word. 
 
 The first day in the castle of San Juan lag:jed slowly on j- 
 his simple dinner of plantains, beans, and garlic, with a 
 jug of cold water was followed by another cup of coffee for 
 supper ; the night came on, and still he was a prisoner, un- 
 questioned and unfettered, and the reason for the latter cir- 
 cumstance he discovered to be the vast strength and seclusion 
 of the fortress, when, after enduring three days of mental 
 torture and exasperation in his cell, he was permitted to 
 take the air for two hours under sure guard on the rampart^ 
 with the warning that if he attempted to leap over he should 
 be shot ; so that he was sure of death any way, as the walls 
 are of enormous height. 
 
 The castle of San Juan de Ulloa is 'separated by several 
 hundred yards of sea from the city, and occupies the rocky 
 islet near which the gilded and high-pooped caravels of 
 Hernan Cortez were moored, when on the Good Friday of 
 15 19, he first discovered the great harbour that lay beyond, 
 and in the pious spirit of his people and of the age, named 
 the land La Vera Cruz ; and on that rock the fortress was 
 built, when, about sixty years after. Sir John Hawkins, 
 Admiral of England, surprised in the haven twenty -five gi'eat 
 ships of Spain, with a new viceroy and sixty tons of gold on 
 board ; but succeeded in carrying off only two galleons. 
 Three hundred pieces of cannon, many of them being of 
 polished brass, bristle round its walls, which vary in thick- 
 ness from twelve to eighteen feet, and have their bases on 
 the rock or in the sea. The entrances to this castle are 
 labyrinths of high stone walls, cunningly devised passages, 
 having ponderous gates and drawbridges, flights of steps 
 and vault-like ascents, guarded at every turn by sentinels, 
 and swept by brass cannon and mortars ; and as the Mexi- 
 cans are always smoking, these alleys are strewn with cigar- 
 ends, sawdust, and sand. 
 
 Every way Lennard turned his eyes the round muzzles of 
 cannon gaped at him, so that whole regiments might be 
 swept, away ere a passage was fought into the heart of tho 
 place ; yet all its battlements seem to have been sorely 
 battered and defaced by the bombarding of the French in 
 1829 and the Americans twenty years after. Blackened and 
 reddened by age, it towers above the sea on one side and tha 
 fiat of Gallega on the other— a marshy swamp, the very 
 abode of the vomito and the grim fever-king, and which in 
 the rainy season is hranted by alligators, some of them 
 
390 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 seven or eight feet long, and strong enough to drag a hvM 
 under water. Though a necessity for escape or the idea of 
 it never crossed the mind of Lennard Blair, who confidingly 
 expected^ a very ample apology for his unseemly detention, 
 he felt his heart sink, as he surveyed this strange and sea- 
 girt castle, which, like a mighty loch, barred him in from 
 the outer world ; and lower sunk his spirit when he looked 
 at the city of Vera Cruz opposite. Deathlike and gloomy it 
 Avas in aspect, and surrounded in its immediate vicinity by 
 shifting hillocks of red sand. Built like the castle, chiefly 
 of coral dragged from the bed of the sea, its houses were all 
 of the most sombre old Spanish or rather Moorish fashion, 
 with deep shady balconies in front, dark arcades below, and 
 flat roofs, over which rose the spires and domes of sixteen 
 churches. High above all, in mid air, hovered dark clouds 
 of sopilotes, or black vultures, wheeling in circles, till they 
 settled on some carrion in the streets, or on a dead horse 
 lying amid the mangles and brushwood of the ArroyaGavilan. 
 Could fortune or wealth be made in such a place, where 
 silence seemed to reign, and grass grew in the streets'] 
 Gloomy though the city, the vessels in the Bay of Vergarg 
 were all decked with colours, and the bells were ringing joy- 
 ously in all the churches the summons to morning mass, for 
 this was Christmas-day, and he was spending it, a prisoner 
 without a crime, in the castle of San Juan de UUoa. After 
 two hours on the parapets he was again locked up, his 
 warders maintaining an inexorable silence worthy of those 
 of the Bastille de St. Antoine ; but at the prospect of three 
 days more solitary confinement in a white cell, the walls of 
 which were spotted by mosquitos and cockroaches, and by 
 the hideous scratchings, names, dates, prayers, and impreca- 
 tions of former occupants, with bad coffee for breakfast, 
 boiled plantains, and pimentos for dinner, he became so 
 exasperated that the bastonero threatened to put him in a 
 dark place on a level with the sea, where there would be no 
 light. So several days passed away ; the time actually grew 
 to be weeks, in which he lost all count of it, for as the bells 
 chimed every morning for mass he knew not the seventh 
 day from any other. He grew thin, pale, haggard, and hope- 
 less ; and perpetual exasperation at his lawless detention 
 ijnparted a fierce and restless expression to his eyes ; but 
 one portion of the twenty-four hours alone soothed him. 
 This was the short vesper-time, when the chimes of the bells 
 in church and convent came floating over the water and 
 upward to his little grated window, from whence he could 
 see Vera Cruz sinking into obscurity. From its uncertain 
 
THE CASTLE OP SAN JUAN DE ULLOA. 39I 
 
 shadows and broken masses of building a few lights would 
 twinkle out, after the sun, with a fiery crimson glow, had 
 set beyond those mountains which are but the declivity of 
 the Cordilleras of Anahuac ; then black clouds would come 
 slowly sailing over the crimson flush, and the monstrous 
 sopilotes, gorged with carrion in the streets and marshes, 
 would sit drowsily flapping their sable pinions on the prison 
 wall above his head. 
 
 The few street cries that came upon the wind — those of 
 the sellers of mats, of curd and honey-cakes, of tortillas, of 
 the carbonero, or coalmen, and so forth — would gradually 
 die away, and then all became still in Vera Cruz ; and when 
 " the world was left to darkness " and to him, the breast of 
 Lennard Blair swelled with many sad and bitter emotions, 
 known alone to God and to himself. With a yearning heart 
 and wistful eye he watched ships and steamers come and go 
 in the Bay of Vergara, and once he saw a British ship of 
 war, and then he almost shouted for succour, with tears that 
 he could not repress. Long and eagerly his eyes followed 
 her, as she steamed out of sight beyond Point Hornos, and 
 he thought Avith pride of the limits assigned, by Tallyrand, 
 to our empire, " wherever there was water for a British fri- 
 gate ;" but what availed it him 1 And when she disappeared, 
 he vented his impotent wrath on the Queen's Consul and the 
 Mexican authorities. He writhed in spirit, and deemed it 
 hard indeed that he, a poor young fellow who had done no 
 wrong and had harmed no one, should be thus the sport of 
 an evil destiny. Nightly out of the darkness, as he lay 
 sleepless on his pallet, he could see the face of Dora with all 
 its purity of complexion and brilliance of eye, so sweet, so 
 fond and frank, bordered by its wealth of golden hair, and 
 his glowing fancy drew her smiles and all her varieties of 
 expression with wonderful distinctness. Would he ever 
 look upon that fair young face again ; or had she forgotten 
 him, even as another had done 1 
 
 " Has she believed in this absurd — outrageous accusation 
 against me — oh, surely not !" he would say fondly and trust- 
 ingly ; " but I have been deceived once— why not again V 
 he added, bitterly. 
 
 Hesbia Vere had shaken the foundations of faith in his 
 heart, and the stab of her bestowing had left a scar there, 
 which time would heal — had healed it, indeed — but years 
 must needs pass ere it faded for ever away. Then rage 
 against certain persons, some of whom were unknown, but 
 chiefly against the two Saavedras, would swell up into his 
 breast ; for he fa^ed not to recall every instance of Senoi 
 
392 THE GIEL HE MAREIED. 
 
 Josd's oiTensive bearing from tlie first time tliey had met so 
 casually at the Preston Station — now it seemed as if years 
 had passed since then — and the supercilious manner of his 
 gaily-attired nephew, during that last eventful hour on board 
 Neustra SeTiora del Guadaloupe. — Lennard's pale face looked 
 j)aler than ever now, for dark and unhealthy circles sur- 
 rounded his eyes, and his features had become pinched and 
 drawn from sleeplessness and over-thought. 
 
 He sought advice of the chaplain of the fortress — a Fran- 
 ciscan friar, a mild and pleasing old gentleman, who though 
 he gave Lennard from time to tim.e a few cigars as a little 
 bit of human charity, evidently regarded him v*dth more 
 disgust than commiseration, and could only shrug his shoul- 
 ders, clasp his hands, and turn up his eyes in reply to 
 the prisoner's assertions of his total innocence of any crimes, 
 and the impossibility of his having committed them, being, 
 at the time stated, far away upon the sea. 
 
 " Hijo mio, a writer has said that ' even the quietest life 
 reeks with the devil's whispering ;' if so, why not yours — 
 thus it ma.y be all very true what you say," the friar would 
 
 "%i 
 
 'ill you, Seiior Padre, kindly convey for me a letter to 
 a gentleman of Vera Cruz V^ asked Lennard. 
 
 "Most willingly I shall, with the permission of the 
 governor," replied the Franciscan blandly. 
 
 " Oh, how can I sufficiently thank you !" 
 
 " I require no thanks ; but to whom do you wish your 
 letter given %" 
 
 " To the father of a lady whom I befriended— whom I 
 saved indeed from great peril after our shipwreck." 
 
 " His name, hijo mio V 
 
 " Seiior Dominga." 
 
 The friar thought for a time, playing the while with the 
 knotted cord that girt his flowing robe, and then he said,— 
 " There is no such name in all Vera Cruz — of that I am 
 assured." 
 
 " All, do not say so," urged Lennard. 
 
 " I do— it is impossible." 
 
 "Why, padre r 
 
 " Because Dominga is a woman's name ; if spelt with an 
 o, it is a man's. There is some confusion here, my son." 
 
 '' Dora Dominga," thought Lennard in his own heart, with 
 a sinking there ; " can it be that I have never learned her 
 correct surname. But the list of the steamer's passengers 
 must be procurable somehow, though not by me. Do you 
 know Seiior Jose Saavedra %" he asked. 
 
THE CASTLE OF SAN JUAN DE ULLOA. 393 
 
 " By name and siglit I do ; one of our ricliest merchants 
 and a kind patron of our convent — a sliarx)-visaged little 
 man, with large moustaches." 
 
 " The same ! To him then Avili I appeal. He cannot be 
 so heartless as to leave me here untried and forgotten ; and 
 there also is Don Juan Leonardo, with whom I have so 
 often corresponded concerning Yere and Co.'' 
 
 "Write then, hijo mio, and if the Senor Gobernador 
 permits me, I shall be happy to undertake the safe delivery 
 of your letter." 
 
 Lennard did so, on the kind friar giving him materials. 
 He wrote to Senor Saavedra, imploring him by the memory 
 of their past adventures together, by his own knowledge 
 that it was utterly and physically impossible that he, 
 Lennard Blair, could have broken the laws of Mexico, to 
 procure his release. He wrote in the same spirit to their 
 mercantile correspondents, Leonardo and Co., announcing 
 the business reasons for his visit to Vera Cruz, and the 
 dangerous predicament, to save him from which he craved 
 their influence ; and these missives he gave to the friar, with 
 something of hope glowing in his heart again. But many 
 weary days passed on. The padre asserted that he had 
 delivered the letters personally to the gentlemen to whom 
 they were addressed ; but no answer ever came to either, 
 and the soul of the captive, who was now haggard and 
 almost in rags, began to sicken within him, till he hoped 
 that the yellow fever, which is the scourge of Vera Cruz, 
 and invariably attacks all Europeans, would some day carry 
 him off, and find him a grave, even where the bones of many 
 a poor " heretic" lie, in the unconsecrated swamp of Gallega. 
 
 " I have been deceived and abandoned by those in whom 
 I trusted," he exclaimed with intense bitterness ; " Well — I 
 suppose such things have always been since ships have 
 sailed and winds have blown, and since men and women 
 have loved and parted !" 
 
 Then would a gasping sob escape him — a sob to the 
 memory of all that seemed gone for ever, and the desire to 
 be at rest. ^Vhy live if trust were dead and love lost 1 Of 
 his imprisonment and danger, and the temporary — he could 
 scarcely deem it permanent— destruction of all the prospects 
 and intentions Avhicli had brought him to Vera Cruz, he 
 thought infinitely less than the suspense concerning his 
 abandonment by Dora. Doubts of her were so many stings 
 of mental agony, and perhaps the certainty that she had 
 ceased to love, or had learned to blush for him, would have 
 been preferable to the horrible uncertainty he endured. 
 
394 THE GIRL HE MABHIED. 
 
 The villainous prisoners with whom he was periodically 
 brought into contact— half-castes of all colours— steeped to 
 the lips in every variety of crime and atrocity, caused him 
 to shudder, and his too evident repugnance excited their 
 hatred and amusement. 
 
 " Poor fellow," said one in mock commiseration ; " so you 
 are weary of our pretty castle of San Juan de Ulloa V 
 
 " More than tongue could tell you !" 
 
 " Then, if you would escape, get a rope with a light loop, 
 and take a long leap over the wall." 
 
 " I have no desire to die by my own hand." 
 
 " Diabolo," said the convict with a grin, which made his 
 white teeth glisten under his coal-black moustache ; " 'tis 
 better than dying slowly by the iron collar and screw." 
 
 " The garotte, hombre, which we all know awaits you, if 
 you escape dragging a chain in the mines of San Luiz de 
 Potosi," added another. 
 
 Lennard could only respond by an angry sigh to the 
 mocking laugh of the gachupin, whose crime had merely 
 been the burning of a rancho, or farm-house, with all its 
 inmates, to conceal a prior robbery. The last months Len- 
 nard had spent at Blairavon and Oakwoodlee ; memories of 
 the varied tints of the glorious Scottish hills and woods in 
 autumn ; the fields of AVest Lothian, which had beei? 
 covered with golden grain, that bent like billows before the 
 gentle wind, studded with the blue cornJElowers and scarlet 
 poppies ; of the grey old church, whose solemn shadow fell 
 on the graves of his father and mother ; the quaint ancestral 
 chateau of the Stuart days, with its slated turrets and 
 gilded vanes ; the faces of Steinie Hislop and of Elsie, who 
 would have died for him ; of kind Frank Feverley, the 
 hard-worked village doctor ; of his own luckless love affair 
 with Hesbia, and all the troubles in which it had involved 
 him ; his sweeter and serener time with Donna Dora on the 
 long voyage out ; the terrors of their adventure on the isle • 
 their brief separation and re-union there,— all seemed 
 shadowy phantoms now, or fragments of an existence, long, 
 long past. Three months glided drearily away. 
 
 The rain had fallen in torrents, covering the swamp of 
 Gallega with water, amid the mud and ooze of which the 
 huge alligators squatted and waddled to and fro. The 
 miasma around the castle of San Juan was frightful, and 
 the terrible vomito (or yellow fever) began to make its 
 appearance among the prisoners and creole soldiers of the 
 garrison, while the blacK sopilotes, like the harbingers of 
 death, gathered thick as mosquitoes about the lofty walls 
 
THE VILLA LEONAEDO. 395 
 
 and gun-batteries. Reckless of the future, Lennard felt 
 fearless of the grim disease. 
 
 " Destiny ! who can change, avoid, or avert it V he ex- 
 claimed, in his solitude, as the gloomy horror of fatalism 
 settled over him. " I was weak enough, and superstitious 
 enough, to believe in the virtue of the old Charter Stone, 
 and that its retention as my own would bring back fortune 
 to the old house — now — iioiv f" 
 
 He ended in a peal of bitter laughter, the strange sound 
 of which appalled himseK, and made him grow grave and 
 ead. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 THE VILLA LEONAEDO. 
 
 The same evening in which our hero abandoned himself to 
 this mood of despondency, or despair, was that appointed 
 for a fete at the villa of Don Juan Leonardo, the wealthy 
 planter and merchant — the same Alcalde -Ordinario by 
 whose warrant Lennard Blair had been committed a pri- 
 soner to the great carcel. 
 
 Situated a few miles westward of Vera Cruz, it stood — 
 we should rather say it stands— in a beautiful and fertile 
 district, where forests of banana, the pine, and oak mingle 
 their foliage, branch over branch, in the most intricate of 
 weaving and twisting, and where, through an occasional 
 patch of blue, the light reaches the rank vegetation of 
 months about their roots below. There, too, grow the trees 
 whose odoriferous root is used for perfuming chocolate ; and 
 there, in the rocky and humid ravines which lead towards 
 the Cordilleras, are the myrtle, the tobacco plant, and sarsa- 
 parilla growing wild. 
 
 The villa was so loftily situated that the temperature was 
 delicious ; Vera Cruz, the ship-studded bay, and gigantic 
 castle were visible, but at a distance and seemingly far down 
 below, while about two miles to the southward rose the vol- 
 cano of Tuxtli. 
 
 Don Juan's residence was built in the form of a square, 
 after the fashion of such houses in Mexicc. Entering the 
 court, around which opened the bath-rooms, kitchens^ and 
 apartments of the white and coloured servants, a magnifi- 
 cent staircase led to the sala, a Ic^t}- hall floored with marble, 
 ceiled with snow-white stucco, elaborately gilded, and draped 
 with white muslin and blue silk fringed with silver, though 
 the walls were papered \^dth blue and gold. The chairs, 
 
396 THE GIRL HE MARRIED^ 
 
 cane sofas, divans, and chaises-longues all being cushioned 
 with blue satin, tasselled and corded with silver. The 
 blossoms and perfume of a thousand orchards, orange- 
 groves, and flower-gardens were loading the soft night air 
 with voluptuous fragrance, that stole through the tall and 
 open windows of this magnificent sala, to mingle with the 
 sweet odours emitted by bouquets, pastilles, and the 
 scented waters of a white marble fountain, that spouted 
 from shells upheld by Tritons of Venetian bronze, and 
 sparkled and plashed in the vestibule, where the dancers 
 or promenaders from time to time dipped their handker- 
 chiefs in it. 
 
 This night was the fete of Donna Dora— the daughter of 
 Don Juan Leonardo, for — no longer to keep the reader in the 
 dark — such she was : a fete long postponed by an illness she 
 had endured, but now given in honour of her recovery and 
 return home ; and, strange as it may appear, aiiiid all their 
 love-making, Lennard had learned only her Christian names, 
 Isidora Dominga, and hence a great mistake and mystery on 
 his part. 
 
 The joy of a reunion with her father had been sorely em- 
 bittered bythe cloud which hung over Lennard's arrest 
 and detention, she could not precisely learn where, save 
 that it was certainly in some secure prison — neither could 
 she learn precisely for what, though her waiting- maid, 
 Mencia, was one of the greatest gossips in Vera Cruz. She 
 feared to express too much interest in his fate, even to her 
 father, whom Saavedra had bitterly prejudiced against Len- 
 nard, whom he believed — for, in reality, Don Juan inquired 
 little into the affair— to have come, not from England by the 
 steamer, but from Cuba, or to have been one of the crew of 
 the suspicious Gaviota. In short, the Mexican merchant, 
 for reasons in connection with Vere and Co., and shortly to 
 be explained, cared very little on the subject. 
 
 Loving Lennard in her heart most dearly, Dora fancied 
 that every one she met must read the secret in her face ; 
 and so they might, had they observed narrowly how her 
 colour came and went when his name was mentioned, which 
 was but seldom, and only when the Saavedras were present, 
 the real cause of his long detention being the want of cer- 
 tain witnesses who were necessary for his conviction of the 
 crimes imputed to him. 
 
 Poor little Dora did not understand it all very clearly ; 
 Bhe only knew that, unless Lennard had been in Mexico 
 before they met in England and on board the Golden Dream 
 (dk circumstance to which he never alluded), he must of ne- 
 
THE VILLA LEONARDO. 397 
 
 cessity be perfectly innocent of all alleged against Mm. Tho 
 Iielpless prisoner was her pliglited love ; honour required 
 that she should seek him out and defend him so far as lay 
 in her power ; but she was kept in total ignorance of much 
 relating to his situation, and maidenly modesty — more than 
 all, the strict and jealous reserve imparted by old Spanish 
 manners, and the helpless and negative position of an un- 
 married girl — made her very silent on the subject, as she 
 trembled for the influence of Jose Saavedra on her father, 
 and for all that he might reveal. This struggle within her- 
 self — tliis mental torture and anxiety — together with what 
 she had undergone on board the Gaviota, the wreck and the 
 subsequent exposure on the island, induced a serious illness 
 under which she had laboured long, and thus her fete had 
 been delayed for nearly three months. 
 
 Countless lights of perfumed wax made the villa brilliant, 
 and as the rooms began to fill with company, Dora resolving 
 to be almost the last to appear, lingered long in her dressing- 
 closet, seated before her tall cheval glass, dreamingly sub- 
 mitting to the manipulation and dressing of her masses of 
 golden hair by a Spanish Creole girl — hair so long that it 
 reached in silky ripples to her knee. 
 
 To her father she was gentle, tender, and dutiful as ever ; 
 but to others Donna Dora was changed in mood and temper, 
 and when he detected this he simply conceived it to be the 
 result of hei- three years' residence in England under the 
 control ot governesses. Her sweet and tender tone, her 
 coaxing ways were gone, and her graceful impetuosity of 
 manner liad degenerated into mere girlish petulance. There 
 were times when she was careless and heedless of all and of 
 everything, and such was her mood to-night. From a casual 
 remark dropped jestingly by Ignacio Saavedra she had 
 learned that Lennard Blair was a prisoner in the castle of 
 San Juan, between yonder horrid swamps and the sea. She 
 had no longer his ring on her finger : in the present terrible 
 state of afi"airs — doubt she had" none of Lennard, and if she 
 had, Dora would have loved him still — she dreaded her 
 father's questioning and the sharp eyes of the Saavedras, 
 elder and younger ; so for &> time the quaint old signet of 
 Richard Blair — almost his son's only heritage now — was 
 consigned to the secret drawer of her jewel-case. 
 
 Dora knevv" well that if it were seen now by Senor Jose or 
 Don Ignacio (he was so styled in right of his mother, who 
 was a lady of noble birth) they would take her to task for 
 wearing the ring of the assassin and ladrone who was await- 
 ing his trial in San Juan, and she hated both in her ??«art. 
 
398 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Jose Saavedra was well aware tliat she had worn such a 
 ring since that eventful time in the Golden Bream; he 
 chose now to coirimit the knowledge to silence, supposing 
 that she had cast it away in shame of the donor. But how 
 little he knew of his god-daughter Isidora Leonardo ! Her 
 piano — one of Broadwood's best — she had never opened, 
 save once in an attempt to accompany herself to a verse or 
 two of that song which first lured Lennard to her side, and 
 the despairing lines of Pedro Padilla seemed so suited to 
 her own case that the young girl burst into tears and closed 
 the instrument. She was pale as marble now, for all the 
 richness of her colour had fled. Her eyes looked unusually 
 large and dark, and her minute and finely-cut little mouth 
 unnaturally crimson. But these were the results of her re- 
 cent fever and her present agitation of mind. 
 
 " Mencia," she asked impatiently, " are you nearly done 
 with my hair V 
 
 " Yes, seiiora, in another minute." 
 
 " I would rather have it cut off than be worried thus.'* 
 _ " I am making all haste, for the Cv^snpany are already be- 
 ginning to arrive. Seiior Saavedra and his nephew are al- 
 ready below." 
 
 "Of course," said Dora, shrugging her white shoulders 
 and angrily opening and shutting a magnificent fan, the 
 mother-of-pearl sticks of which were studded with tur- 
 quoises ; " it is ever so — the stupid and the least wanted 
 £ilways arrive first, and are the last to depart." 
 
 " The music is not yet begun, senora ; but remember that 
 you are engaged for the first waltz to Don Ignacio— and the 
 first manolo too." 
 
 " He told you so ]" said Dora sharply. 
 
 " Si, Senora, when he gave me that lovely bouquet for you." 
 
 "Where is it r 
 
 " On yonder console." 
 
 " Throw it out into the balcony " 
 
 " But bouquetier, seiiora "?" urged the abigail. 
 ^ " Throw it out too," said the petulant little beauty. "The 
 first waltz ! The moon must have been waning when he said 
 this.'\ 
 
 " Likely enough, senora — but when is kls moon ever on 
 the waneT said the girl, catching something of her mis- 
 tress's humour. 
 
 "You forget, Mencia, that Don Ignacio is my father's 
 friend." 
 
 "And the sefiora's devoted but unacceptable servant*" 
 •Aid Mencia, laughing. 
 
THE VILLA LEONAHDO. 39^ 
 
 " I have other things to think of than his attentions, 
 Mencia," said Dora dreamily, and then she added, with a 
 burst of emotion, " Oh, God help those anxious folks -vvho 
 are perpetually living in the past rather than the present, and, 
 worst of all, the future, and who, like me, anticipate sorrow 
 and evil ere they come !" 
 
 " Such should be the fate of the poor, the old, the bereaved, 
 and unhappy ; not of the rich, the beautiful, and envied, 
 like one who owns all this golden hair and those magnificent 
 diamonds," said Mencia, who was a dark type of the Spanish 
 girl, and by contrast made her mistress seem more brilliantly 
 white and fair. " With a few of those braids and brilliants 
 I should have a dozen lovers at my feet, I have been weary- 
 ing for a flirtation ever since Captain Gonzalez y Llano's 
 company marched against the brigands in the Baranca^s, and 
 pretty girls, like sweet grapes, will not keep for ever." 
 
 " Mencia, how your tongue runs on !" 
 
 " Pardon, seriora," said the girl, who was everyway pretty, 
 piquante, and smart, as she clasped a magnificent necklace 
 of turquoises and brilliants round the slender neck of Donna 
 Dora. 
 
 * Well, Mencia, I have heard that the brigands have been 
 overcome, and Salvador Gonzalez's company are returning to 
 Vera Cruz — indeed, we expect him here to-night." 
 
 " Senora, your toilette is now complete." 
 
 " Thank you, Mencia ; then I must go. But, oh," added 
 Dora mentally, " pining as I do for one whom I dare not 
 openly love, and on whose frank, honest face I may never 
 look again, how can I face all that glare and glitter — that 
 crowd of stupid people down stairs V 
 
 She said the last words half aloud, for Mencia observed, — 
 
 " We have not a moment to lose in meeting them. Don 
 Juan has thrice sent his valet to ask when you will be ready 
 to receive the guests, who are pouring hither in honour of 
 your fete." 
 
 " Would that I had gone to my aunt at the convent !" said 
 Dora wearily, as she rose and shook out her dress, which was 
 in the most fashionable Mexican mode, being of white satin, 
 with robe and mantilla over it, both of white blonde, with 
 short sleeves and a low-cut bosom. Her entire suite of 
 jewels consisted of diamonds and turquoises, and very lovely 
 the pale girl looked, exciting a buzz of admiration as she 
 entered the already crowded sala, and, concealing the canker 
 in her heart, passed through the brilliant throng (where the 
 display of bright-coloured satins and velvets, of blondes and 
 brilliants, was wonderfully lavish) with a word and a smilo 
 
 #?» 
 
 # 
 
40O THE GtRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 for all, and using her fan the while as only a Spanish giri 
 can handle it. 
 
 Her father, Don Juan, whom we shall describe more par- 
 ticularly in a subsequent chapter— a grave and somewhat 
 sombre man — surveyed her with a smile of pride and affec- 
 tion, glad alike of her recovery and the admiration she 
 excited ; for she was — as he was fond of calling her — his 
 " one ewe lamb," being the last survivor of his little flock, 
 all of whom had perished of the yellow^ fever, which is the 
 peculiar scourge and terror of Vera Cruz. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXII. 
 
 Dora's fete. 
 
 The band of a militia regiment was performing a species of 
 overture while the company assembled, and the increasing 
 glitter of gems, the display of gold lace on uniforms, and on 
 the picturesque but somewhat fantastic attire of the gentle- 
 men, the gorgeous liveries of the servants, who in baskets 
 and on trays of silver bore about bouquets and ices, made 
 the whole sala a scene of wonderful brilliance. 
 
 The dresses of the ladies were beautiful in colour and 
 mode, and many were the superb Spanish eyes, the beautiful 
 hands, and snowy arms and busts which were there — models 
 perfect for a sculptor's eye ; but none were equal to Dora — 
 at least, so thought Don Ignacio, who, considering himself as 
 somewhat of a privileged person — assuming, in fact, all 
 the bearing of an accepted suitor — offered her his hand for 
 the first waltz. 
 
 On this night Don Ignacio wore a costume which would 
 have put to shame the funereal full dress^of a European. In 
 fasliion it was not unlike that of Figaro in II Barbiere^ and 
 quite eclipsed even the uniforms of the Mexican Lancers, 
 who were arriving fast, and doffing their yellow scrapes and 
 high-plumed helmets in the vestibule. His jacket and pan- 
 taloons were of rose-coloured velvet, slashed with white silk, 
 and elaborately braided and fringed with silver, particularly 
 at the sleeves and shoulders ; his vest was of white satin, 
 and every button was a cluster of brilliants. He wore rings 
 above his white kid gloves ; and so careful had been his 
 toilette that he almost looked well, though his complexion 
 was somewhat green, his moustaches the most meagre, and 
 his eyes small, beady, and in expression wicked. 
 
 " 1 ou have not my bouquet, senora/' said he with an air 
 
r>OEA.S FETE. 40I 
 
 of undisguised pique ; " yet I gave it to your maid Mencia 
 — whom, when I look on you, I may well term your camarista 
 mayor," he added, with his most insinuating smile. 
 
 " I forgot it — left it in my room, in fact, senor," said Dora, 
 pouting, and in no way mollified by Don Ignacio's compli- 
 ment in royally styling Mencia her mistress of the robes. 
 
 " An error easily repaired ; a servant, if you will permit 
 me—" 
 
 " Oh, pray, no ! — bouquets always give me a headache, and 
 there is quite perfume enough around us." 
 
 Don Ignacio bit his lips, and would have eyed her malevo- 
 lently had he dared ; but a crash of music from the gallery 
 announced the first bars of the Avaltz. His arm stole round 
 her waist, and in another moment they were mingling in the 
 glittering maze of couples that swept almost noiselessly over 
 the polished marble floor. 
 
 Dora's card had been instantly filled, so another and an- 
 other came to claim her hand ; especially after the arrival of 
 the Governor and his aides-de-camp, whose showy uniforms 
 were literally covered with gold lace, and whose bullion 
 epaulettes were of the most colossal dimensions. 
 
 Amid all the gaiety of her fete and the attentions of 
 which she was the centre, as the beautiful heiress of one of 
 the wealthiest men in Vera Cruz — amid all the compliments 
 so softly paid her in her sonorous native language, often by 
 handsome and picturesque fellows— amid all the strange 
 questions asked her concerning Europe and the Inglesos, her 
 voyage and adventures — her thoughts were ever wandering 
 to the prison of San Juan, and one who was lingering 
 there, till the force of contrast between their relative posi- 
 tions made her feel wretched indeed. Yet, to please her 
 father, to do honour to those who sought to do honour unto 
 her— she made a great effort to appear gay amid the gayest, 
 and to converse on the current topics — the last new fashion 
 of everything ; of music and pictures ; of the coming bull- 
 fight ; of the promenades in the Alameda, where her Eng- 
 lish training made her wish to go afoot, to the astonishment 
 of the Mexican donnas, who through " a mixture of aristo- 
 cracy and indolence," are never seen there save in carriages ; 
 of the new company of comicos at the theatre ; of tlie bene- 
 fit-night of the great prima donna from ]Madricl ; of her ex- 
 celling in "Segunda Donna Duenda;" and how the beautiful 
 corps-de-ballet shone in "Jota Arragonesa," to the gi-eat 
 delight of Jos6 Saavedra and other gentlemen from old 
 Spain. 
 Yet to Dora, who had been three years in Europe, it had 
 
 26 
 
402 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 seemed odd that in the great theatre of Vera Cruz, wiien the 
 silk-draperied grand tier was full of splendidly-dressed 
 women, the male occupants of boxes, pit, and gallery were 
 all smoking assiduously, and that even the prompter at the 
 wing regaled himself with a huge diabolo marino, the smoke 
 of wliich curled forth between the mimic rocks and trees of 
 the side scenes. 
 
 Captured once more by Don Ignacio, flushed with repeated 
 dancing, wearied — worried is perhaps the more proper word 
 — by the systematic attentions of that young gentleman, 
 Dora begged to be excused dancing again, and was led by 
 him into the cool vestibule, where the bronze and marble 
 fountain was plashing its perfumed water, and where the 
 servants were distributing ices — a rare luxury in a climate so 
 warm. 
 
 Seating herself on an ottoman near other ladies, that she 
 might avoid any private remarks specially addressed to her, 
 Dora, while fanning her flushed face, half turned a charming 
 white shoulder to her admirer, as she knew but too well that it 
 was for this very nephew that Jos6 Saavedra wished to secure 
 her hand — views which Don Ignacio was quite disposed to 
 forward so far as himself was concerned • and to which her 
 own father was not averse, though he had frequently waived 
 the subject by saying that he did not think his daughter old 
 enough to marry yet. 
 
 Some of her admirer's vapid and commonplace remarks 
 were now interrupted by the jingling of a pair of spurs — 
 enormous Mexican spurs, having rowels like those worn by 
 the knights of Bannockburn or Cressi ; and, throwing aside 
 a scarlet serape, the tall and sombre officer, Don Salvador 
 Gonzalez y Llano approached and kissed her hand with 
 great grace and courtesy. He was a gentleman of the first 
 position in the province, and was lineally descended from 
 that Pedro de Alvarado who, on the memorable retreat of the 
 Noche Triste — the ist of July, 1520— covered the rear of the 
 fugitive Spaniards, and using his lance as a vaulting-pole, 
 made that wonderful leap over the ditch which still bears 
 his name. 
 
 " I rejoice, senora, to see you restored to health, and looking 
 so well," said the captain. 
 
 " I thank you, Don Salvador ; you have, I believe, just 
 arrived from the mountains T 
 
 " We marched in this afternoon ; but I still leave my 
 lieutenant with twenty men in pursuit of some outlaws on 
 the old Indian road, towards Cordilleras— undoubtedly a 
 portion of the band with which this pitiful picaro, Lennard 
 Blair, connected liimself." 
 
DORA'S FETE. 403 
 
 Dora changed colour painfully at this name. The flush 
 caused by the dancing soon passed away ; no marble could 
 be paler than her cheek, and Ignacio, who had all the sudden 
 and serpent-like jealousy of the Spanish nature, saw the 
 alteration with secret rage. Her whitened lips had not the 
 power of questioning further, so he took up the thread of 
 the conversation, to which all who were present listened 
 with interest. 
 
 " Ah — then if your lieutenant is successful, we may suc- 
 ceed in obtaining the required proofs against this EngUsh 
 criminal?" 
 
 " Exactly ; the band have scattered and separated among 
 the '^ar^ncas for s^f'^ty, but ":11 shall be p^it- off in detail, 
 r rom the measures we"^ave taken, it is impossible lOr one to 
 escape," replied the officer, confidently, as he smoothed his 
 long black moustache, and looking like what he was— every 
 inch a soldier. 
 
 "I congratulate you, Salvador, amigo mio," said Don JuaUj 
 now coming forward, his tall and handsome, though thin, 
 figure, appearing to great advantage in a dress of plain black 
 cloth, but cut in the Mexican fashion, and only relieved by 
 its bright steel buttons, and the whiteness of his cambric 
 shirt and frills. 
 
 " I surrounded the main body of this gang of ladrones in a 
 cane-brake, which we set on fire to windward, and from the lee- 
 ward — if a soldier may use sea terms — we opened a fusilade 
 at one hundred and fifty paces, hoping to destroy them all ; 
 but some broke through us and fled, half scorched, and wholly 
 despairing. Among others was Trebucio Trocadero, the 
 notorious wrecker and coolie crimp, who escaped from the 
 Cuban steamer ; but he has two bullets from my revolver in 
 his body. These fugitives must soon be overtaken, and 
 they are certainly the last of those men who leagued with 
 this Lennard Blair in robbing the mails on the roads to 
 Xalappa and Tampico." 
 
 " Lennard Blair again !" thought Dora ; " what madness 
 — what mystery can lie under all this !" 
 
 And she began to deem herself veritably a little coward 
 for fearing to speak in defence of her lover, as Jose Saavedra 
 had led Don Juan and many others to believe, what all in 
 Vera Cruz had been given to understand, that the culprit 
 taken on board the Neustra SeUora del Guadaloupe, had 
 returned from Cuba, and was not what he asserted himself 
 to be— a passenger from England by the Golden Bream. 
 
 " A few days ago I had a letter from the rascal," said Don 
 Juan ; " it was written in very tolerable Spanish, and boldly 
 
404 THE GIRL HE MARMED. 
 
 urged alike liis innocence, and an immediate trial. He 
 even threatened me, as Alcalde Ordinario, with the British 
 Government." 
 
 " Daring rogue !" said Jos^ Saavedra. 
 
 " Keeping him in San Juan is simply feeding up a wretch 
 who ought to be garotted in the Plaza," added his nephew. 
 
 " Proofs once found, no time shall be lost," said Leonardo, 
 who in consequence of the very slight inquiries he had made 
 personally into the history of the stranger arrested, on his 
 own warrant, too— owing also to the studious misrepresen- 
 tations of the two Saavedras — and perhaps more than all 
 owing to certain circumstances connected with Vere & Co. 
 (to be explained in due time) Don Juan Leonardo was ex- 
 asperated against Lennard, and could not hear his name 
 mentioned without emotion or rage. "You know, gentlemen," 
 he resumed, " to what an amount he forged bills upon me, 
 after having drawn out every peseta that was due to Vere &; 
 Co. of Liverpool ; how he forged on the bank of Vera Cruz, 
 and after gambling like a madman, joined some of those 
 reckless spirits who had been ruined at the faro tables, 
 and then began those outrages on the highway, which ended 
 in the last mail robbery so fatally, and after which it was 
 said he had fled to Cuba." 
 
 " Madre de Dios — Donna Dora has fainted !" exclaimed 
 the officer, as a gasping cry escaped her, and she fell back 
 insensible on the blue satin ottoman, over which her golden 
 hair fell in a shower, and then all became confusion and dis- 
 may around her. 
 
 "My dear child — the heat and the over-exertion of to- 
 night have proved too much for her !" exclaimed Leonardo, 
 in great excitement, as he raised her in his arms, and bore 
 her into the cooler atmosphere of the broad verandah which 
 encircled the villa ; and then Ignacio and Mencia, with 
 handkerchiefs freshly dipped in the fountain, freely laathed 
 her face, neck, and hands. The use of fans, and the pleasant 
 breeze that came from the woods and from the sea, wliich 
 glittered like silver in the moonlight, soon combined to re- 
 vive her. 
 
 " God be thanked, she is recovering !" said Don Juan, in 
 a low and earnest voice, as she opened her eyes, respired, 
 and as consciousness returned made a painful etfort to re- 
 cover herself and stand erect ; but had to recline in a droop- 
 ing posture against the rail of the verandah. 
 
 " i have done wrong in having this fete so early," said 
 Don Juan j "she has not sufficiently recovered her strength. 
 Dora, darling, I have had letters from your aunt at tho 
 
EL CASA DEL AYUNTAMIENTO. 405 
 
 Guadaloupe convent, wishing much to see j'ou ; and to her, 
 if well enough, you shall go to-morrow for a time. Change 
 of scene, of air, and more than all, the quiet of the convent, 
 will alike conduce to your recovery.'^ 
 
 " Thank you, dear papa. I shall be most happy to go." 
 
 "The carriage and an escort furnished by Salvador Gon- 
 zalez, shall set out with you after breakfast ; and Ignacio 
 Saavedra will ride by the window." 
 
 " Very well, papa — anything to please you, I shall do will- 
 ingly, and I do so long to see my aunt, and ask her advice 
 on certain matters," she replied, meeldy, as she added, 
 " make my excuses with a kind good night to all," and re- 
 tired, leaning on the arm of Mencia, while many of the 
 Mexican cavaliers and officers bowed their heads and drained 
 their glasses of champagne, while shouting as she passed 
 from amid them,— 
 
 " Viva ! a la salud de neustra patrona Donna Isidora !" 
 
 " Of what the deuce were we talking T' said the officer 
 from the mountains. "I hope I said nothing to frighten 
 or excite her, in detailing the slaughter of a few picaroons 
 and ragamuffins !" 
 
 " It is to that very subject, and to the English prisoner in 
 San Juan, we must attribute the whole affair," said Don 
 Ignacio. 
 
 " How so, sefior T asked Leonardo, sharply. 
 
 " Sooth to say, sehor, whenever the fellow's name is men- 
 tioned she betrays the most painful emotion — the result, 
 probably, of their short voyage together," added Ignacio, 
 whose jealous exasperation was at fever-heat. 
 
 " Indeed !" said Don Juan, with deeply knitted brows and 
 a threatening aspect, particularly grateful to the Saavedras ; 
 " then, proofs or no proofs, I shall have this Englishman 
 rigidly questioned on the morrow I" 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIII. 
 
 EL CASA DEL AYUNTAMIENTO. 
 
 About the same time when Don Juan's handsome and well- 
 hung London-made carriage, drawn by two white horses 
 with driver and servants in crimson and gold livery in true 
 Mexican taste — and with Don Ignacio in a dress_ covered 
 with embroidery, a diamond-handled switch in his hand, 
 and his huge stirrups of silver, caracoling by the window 
 through which he sought in vain to catch a glimpse of Dora 
 —left Vera Cruz, escorted by a corporal's guard of lancers 
 
4o6 THE OI&L HE MARRIUD. 
 
 in their yellow serapes and glittering helmets, a boat with 
 soldiers and a prisoner in it, was rowed across the little strait 
 which separates the castle of San Juan from the city. 
 
 The soldiers in the boat were four in number, and had 
 their bayonets fixed, for the prisoner was Lennard Blair on 
 his way to a first examination before the alcalde, by whose 
 warrant he had been arrested. 
 
 Dora saw not the boat, nor even the Bay of Vergara, as 
 her route lay in an opposite direction ; Ignacio Saavedra 
 failed to obtain the least sign of her presence within the re- 
 cesses of the handsome carriage, as she studiously kept the 
 glasses up and had but one feeling— a longing to cast herself 
 upon the bosom of her aunt, her mother's only sister, to tell 
 the story of her love for one she dared not name and to ob- 
 tain advice, for she had less fear of imparting the secret to 
 the recluse than to her father who doted on her. Poor Len- 
 nard inhaled the free sea-breeze of the open bay with intense 
 satisfaction. He had now been for three months in the 
 great fortress, the looming mass of which lessened and 
 dwindled as the distance increased between it and the boat ; 
 and in loathing he turned his back upon it. 
 
 He looked forward confidently to release, and even to 
 apologies for his illegal detention on charges so outrageous, 
 as the immediate result of his trial, examination, or what- 
 ever tribunal he was now about to face, forgetting that he 
 was in a land where all the forms of law and order are crude, 
 strange, and undefined. 
 
 Having gTown heedless of everythi-ng, almost of life itself, 
 during his weary captivity, Lennard had permitted his hair 
 beard and moustache, to grow uncut and untrimmed ; so his 
 appearance, especially in his extremely dilapidated costume, 
 was certainly wild and odd enough. 
 
 Odd, too, were the sights that awaited him in Vera Cruz, 
 such as the costume of the alguazils (or constables) to whom 
 the soldiers consigned him, and who wore broad sombreros, 
 Vandyke collars, and the short cloaks and breeches of a long 
 past age ; the crowds about the landing-place and in the 
 streets ; bronze-looking men with only a poncho or blanket 
 about them ; women also of colour, barelegged, with short 
 I^etticoats of diff'ercnt hues and with rebozos, or head-scarfs 
 of yellow and red stripes, under which the little brown baby 
 some carried on their oack peeped forth with black and flit- 
 tering eyes. There, too, were j)ure Indian girls with light 
 dresses of a stuflF as dark as their own skins, their long black 
 tangled locks plaited with scarlet ribbon ; priests with 
 shovel liats, and friars of various orders in loose robes with 
 
EL CASA DEL AYXTNTAMIENTO. 407 
 
 bare and sandaled feet ; aguadores and cargadores, and 
 leperos in plenty, hideous with sores and rags ; noisy ven- 
 dors of dulces, diarios and garbonzas, i.e., sweet nuts, news- 
 papers, and chick-peas, itinerant guitar-players, and Spanish 
 gentlemen mounted on handsome horses with high demi- 
 pique saddles and silver stirrups, gold-embroidered angueros. 
 or saddle-cloths, edged with dark fringe and rows of little 
 bells, their sombreros and velvet jackets ornamented with 
 gold, their slit pantaloons with lace and rows of silver but- 
 tons down the seams, their boots of stamped leather, and 
 their scrapes or gi-acef ul mangas having capes of bright-hued 
 velvet. In costume, bearing and aspect, every group and 
 every individual figure might have formed worthily an art- 
 ist's study. 
 
 English and Spanish sailors were numerous amid the 
 crowd which surveyed Lennardas he was conducted throagh 
 the wide and principal street of Vera Cruz, the flat-roofed 
 houses of Avhich are so baked by the sun, that they all seem 
 as if scorched or blackened by fire; but pictiu:esque-like 
 men and women were seen in the broad covered balconies, 
 and overhead dozing on the cornices, were the black sopi- 
 lotes gorged with garbage. The glare and heat of the sun 
 were great, but the footways lay chiefly under the piazzas of 
 the houses, which thus afford coolness at such times and a 
 shelter in those of rain. 
 
 As a whole, the town seemed dull and lifeless ; for the 
 grass grew, and the drifted sand-heaps rose high in the 
 quaint old Spanish- looking thoroughfares. 
 
 The aspect of the place depressed Lennard's spirit, and 
 his ideas of the majesty of Mexican laws were not enhanced 
 when he saw in the very centre of the principal street a man 
 lying dead on his back pierced by three revolver bullets — a 
 gaily dressed arriero, or muleteer, shot in some quarrel, and 
 left there till his friends or the alguazils found time to take 
 him away ere the sopilotes came with their ravenous beaks 
 at nightfall. Half pausing, Lennard regarded this sight 
 with astonishment. 
 
 "How now," said an alguazil ; "is no one ever killed in 
 your country, that you look so white and strange '?" 
 
 " Move on, hombre mio," said another, giving him a push 
 with his baton, or staft". 
 
 " Why hurry the poor picaro f cried a lame lepro ; "don't 
 you see how he drags his right leg after the left T 
 
 " True," said another of the crowd ; " he has certainly 
 had his dancing marred by a chain and cannon ball in tha 
 mines of Potosi," 
 
4o8 THE aiRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 These remarks were unlieeded by Lennard, wlio at that 
 time really felt a little lameness consequent to the wound 
 he had received from the air-gun and the marshy atmosphere 
 of the swamp of Gallega. 
 
 After a little time he was freed from the annoyance of the 
 crowd, when the officers of justice conducted him through 
 the vestibule, and into the spacious hall of the Casa del 
 Ayuntamiento, or Town-house ; and he speedily found him- 
 self at the bar, and before one of the magistrates, who, 
 though he knew it not, was Don Juan Leonardo, who was 
 about to examine him, chiefly from motives of curiosity, 
 prior to a more formal trial in a criminal court ; so the pro- 
 ceedings that ensued were somewhat like those which little 
 Mr. Dabchick, in his legal jargon, would have termed " a 
 precognition ;" yet such as they were, Lennard Blair's life 
 or liberty seemed to hang on the issue. 
 
 He looked earnestly at the alcalde, who occupied a high 
 chair at a desk which was covered with papers. Don Juan 
 was past fifty years of age, and though thin and spare in 
 figure, was still strikingly handsome. His forehead was high 
 and thoughtful ; the temples were somewhat indented ; his 
 nose was a fine aquiline, and he had thick black mousta- 
 ches well curled up at each end in the old Sj^anish fashion. 
 His eyes were a rich dark hazel, and had in them a kind 
 and earnest — some thought, a sad— expression, while his 
 manner was pleasing and his voice mellow and winning. 
 
 Lennard thought that his face dreamily reminded him of 
 some of the antique portraits at Blairavon, and he felt that 
 he had everything to hope for from such an examiner, for 
 Don Juan possessed a gentleness and suavity, a well-bred 
 air that seemed a remnant of other times, of an older day, 
 when deportment and grace were the study of a gentleman, 
 and when the free and easy hrusquerie of the present age 
 was unknown. 
 
 " I am willing to hear all you have to say, prisoner," said 
 Don Juan, with a slight bow ; " but beware how you say 
 aught that may criminate yourself— this being but a preli- 
 minary examination." 
 
 When a young man, who seemed to officiate as a clerk to 
 the court, read the charges, which we give, as follows, omit- 
 ting the reiterated dates and legal prolixity of the paper, 
 Lennard obtained a speedy clue to the entire mystery. 
 
 "Seiior Alcalde, the prisoner Lennard Blair, a ]>ritish 
 subject, but nevertheless amenable to the laws of Mexico, 
 landed here exactly this day five months ago, from the Eng- 
 lish steamer Valparaiso" 
 
EL CASA DEL AYUNTAMIENTO. 409 
 
 (Tlie start of surprise whicli Lennardgave on hearing tliis 
 strange announcement, did not escape the notice of thff 
 alcalde.) 
 
 " There are before you the documentary proofs of no less 
 than three forgeries committed by him in this city — two on 
 the Bank of Vera Cruz, and one on the firm of Leonardo 
 and Co. ; of his subsequent leaguing with banditti, and b. iiig 
 present with them at two robberies of the mail— one on the 
 road to Xalappa, and the other on the road to Tampico. In 
 the last affair, a planter named Sebastian el Eanchero was 
 stabbed to death by a knife, which weapon is now before 
 you, and bears the name of ' Lennard Blair' on the han He. 
 It was found near the dead body, as can be proved by c( m- 
 petent witnesses, who are in the ante-room, and ready iov 
 examination. Of the actual crime of assassination some 
 proofs are yet required ; but Don Salvador Gonzalez assures 
 me they shall speedily be forthcoming. To evade punish- 
 ment for these misdemeanours the prisoner would seem to 
 have fled, but w^as detected by Don Ignacio Saavedra, on 
 board the steamer from Cuba, Neiistra Senora del Giiada- 
 loiipe^ having had the hardihood to return, within three 
 weeks after committing the outrage on the road to Tampico." 
 ^ The Valparaiso ! It w^as by that identical steamer Tra- 
 yice Cheatwood had sailed from Liverpool to South America 
 in Lennard's name, and with so much of his property. 
 "So — so,'' thought he, "my evil genius is here — even here." 
 "Senor Alcalde," he began impetuously, "there is an ab- 
 surd mistake in all this ; I did not land here or anywhere 
 
 else from the Fa/pa?mso " 
 
 " His name — Lennard Blair — was on all his baggage, 
 which was conveyed from that ship to a venta in the city," 
 continued the clerk ; " and even on his linen, the same name 
 which appears on this blood-stained weapon." 
 
 Here the clerk held up a clasp-knife, which Lennard im- 
 mediately recognised as ha\dng been his own. 
 
 " Here also is a letter of credit, given by the Senores 
 Vere and Company, of Liverpool, which supplied him with 
 funds till he betook him to forgery. It ends, ' quedo rogando 
 d Dios me garde su vida muchos anos, John Vere and Co., 
 Liverpool! " 
 
 As Lennard listened, he knew that the letter in question 
 — one written by himself, and signed by Mr. Vere — must 
 also have been found among the baggage with which Cheat- 
 wood had absconded ; and perceiving that the magistrate 
 was regarding him with a lowering eye, he naturally became 
 both anxious and exasperated. 
 
410 tHE aiRL HE MAIlRtEl>. 
 
 *' Senor Alcalde," said lie, " I am a British subject, 
 ignorant of your laws here in Mexico, nor caring to learn 
 ■ihem, but most earnest in my desire not to break tliem. I 
 have not done so, nor could I by any human possibility have 
 done so, being arrested the instant the steamer came along- 
 side yonder pier — even before I had placed my foot on South 
 American soil. It is my misfortune to be arraigned before 
 you under a misconception, which can easily be explained ; 
 but, first, I demand the presence and protection of Her 
 Britannic Majesty's Consul." 
 
 "He has neither the power nor the will to protect forjadors 
 or assassins ; moreover, your case has already been before 
 him." 
 
 "I deny that I am the person who committed these 
 crimes !" 
 
 " Do you deny that you gave your name to the captain of 
 the Cuban steamer, whose list of passengers was verified by 
 the Custom-House officers ere he sailed for Tampico V 
 
 " My name is Lennard Blair, I admit; but, it has been 
 assumed by another ; for at the time the Valparaiso arrived 
 here, and when that very letter of credit was presented, I 
 was in Liverpool waiting my passage by the next steamer, 
 The Golden Dream^ having to visit Vera Cruz on the busi- 
 ness of our house ; and I demand that Luke Maynard, 
 captain of that vessel, the survivors of the Gaviota, a gen- 
 tleman named Jos6 Saavedra and a lady named Dora 
 Dominga, be examined in my behalf to prove my identity, 
 otherwise these proceedings and my detention are an outrage 
 upon everything judicial — a farce and a cruelty.'' 
 
 " You ask rather too much — at least, more than we can 
 aflford you," rb^Hed Don Juan, who was not displeased by 
 Lennard's boldness, till his daughter's name was mentioned, 
 when he coloured visibly and angiily, all the more so that 
 there was a tender inflection detectable in the young man':^ 
 voice as he uttered it. " The survivors of the crew of the 
 Gaviota have the best personal reasons for avoiding the 
 hands of (mr alguazils, and are we know not where, llie 
 Golden Dream has not returned to these seas ; the agents 
 here inform us that, after her voyage back from Vera Cruz, 
 she was taken into dock at Liverpool, and, of course, hei 
 crew are scattered beyond our reach." 
 
 " Then, seiior," said Lennard, who was left to act as his 
 own counsel, " the captain and crew of the Cuban steamer 
 cdn prove that they took me off an island in the gulf." 
 
 J' True — yet that would not disprove your being the com- 
 mitter of the outrages alleged ; but she has gone from Tarn- 
 
Eii CASA DEL AYUNTAMIENTO. 4U 
 
 pico back to Cuba thrice since your arrest, so her crew may 
 be changed, and anyway she will not be here for a month." 
 
 " Senor," urged Lennard, who found to his surprise that 
 his examination had taken the form of a mere colloquy be- 
 tween himself and the alcalde ; " can i j be, that you will 
 hear witnesses against me without having one summoned in 
 my favour 1 Here in Vera Cruz must be two persons at 
 least who can prove my innocence and identity — the senbr 
 Saavedra and his god-daughter Donna Dora. But, ere the 
 day of the trial comes, I shall deman(3 the assistance of an 
 abogado — to counsel me for my defence." 
 
 "Senor Jose Saavedra has gone by the steamer to Tampico 
 this morning." 
 
 " Every one seems to have gone somewhere, or to be miss- 
 ing," said Lennard, bitterly. 
 
 '^ And the lady you have named must not appear here, if 
 we can avoid it," added Don Juan, haughtily. 
 
 " Yet I saved her life in the Arenas — her hfe for which I 
 would freely have risked my own !" exclaimed Lennard with 
 a burst of emotion, of which the magistrate studiously took 
 no notice, but said — 
 
 " You speak Spanish somewhat fluently for an English- 
 man f 
 
 "I am a Scotsman, Senor Alcalde, and to any Scotsman 
 who knows Latin as taught in his native schools, the Spanish 
 language proves an easy one." 
 
 The magistrate looked at Lennard with a keener interest, 
 and said — " I was in Scotland once, but that was long, long 
 ago ; thus I would befriend you, if possible, for the mere 
 memory of that time. However, the ends of justice must 
 be answered. Bring in the bank clerks to whom the forged 
 bills were presented, that they may be interrogated." 
 
 Three young men, all of colour, were now summoned in 
 succession by name, and each after the other was solemnly 
 sworn over two crossed sword-blades in the old Castilian 
 fashion, and requested to identify the prisoner • but they 
 completely failed to do so. They differed as to his height, 
 but agreed that the presenter of the bills was fair-haired, 
 with a yellow moustache and square goatee-beard. 
 
 " The prisoner's hair may have been dyed," suggested the 
 escribano. 
 
 " Scarcely, in the castle of San Juan," said the alcalde, 
 smiling. 
 
 " But the other man's eyes were of a light colour, almost 
 green ; he could not dye i/iem,'' said one clerk. 
 
 "Moreover, Senor Alcalde," added another, with that 
 
412 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 suavity of manner peculiar to all half-bloods, "tlie presenter 
 of the bills was totally ignorant of Spanish, which we hear 
 the prisoner speaks fluently." 
 
 Lennard felt intensely grateful to these young men. 
 
 An arriero, or muleteer, swore to finding the dead body of 
 Sebastian el Ranchero (the farmer) and the knife now pro- 
 duced ; but further proofs of who actually committed the 
 crime were now required. 
 
 " If I dare not demand, at least permit me to entreat, Se- 
 nor Alcalde, that the Seiior Jos6 Saavedra be examined on 
 oath, if not the— the— young lady. He must prove that I 
 am the Lennard Blair who came with him from Liverpool, 
 and had the honour to befriend him more than once. He 
 must be ignorant of the dreadful condition to which I have 
 been reduced, and she — she, too, must also be ignorant— at 
 least — I hope so," he added in a broken voice, "otherwise 
 they had not abandoned me as they would seem to have 
 done. I repeat to you, that I am the only and true Lennard 
 Blair who came to Vera Cruz as administrator for Yere & 
 Co., of Liverpool, from whence I sailed on the 24th of No- 
 vember last year ; and that the other is an impostor named 
 Travice Cheatwood, who robbed me and sailed by the Val- 
 paraiso in my name, all of which can be proved by commu- 
 nicating with Mr. Vere, or the authorities in England." 
 
 As Lennard spoke, Don Juan had been regarding him 
 with a strange interest. His moustache, though untrimmed, 
 did not conceal the perfect shape of a cleanly cut mouth, 
 which was of a form remarkably handsome— even delicate 
 for a man — and its short upper lip quivered occasionally 
 with suppressed emotion and just indignation. 
 
 " I sincerely hope that all you assert may be proved," said 
 the alcalde ; " and that the ends of justice may be quite ful- 
 filled ; on the day of trial I shall have the Senor Saavedra, 
 and even the young lady you have named, produced in 
 court " 
 
 " For that promise I thank you !" exclaimed Lennard, as 
 he thought in his heart, " I shall see her once again — even 
 though for the last time !" 
 
 " 1 repeat that this is but a preliminary examination. Tlie 
 proofs that we have waited for cannot now be long in ar- 
 riving ; till then I have no resource but to remand you again 
 to the castle of San Juan de UUoa." 
 
 Lennard started forward ; he was about to make some 
 earnest and forcible appeal against being sent back to tliat 
 horrible place of detention ; but this was quickly frustrated 
 or rnticipated by the quaintly-ottired alguazils, who were 
 
TEAVICE CKEATWOOD REDIVIVUS. 413 
 
 evidently accustomed to such, outbreaks and attempts, for 
 tliey roughly and at once pulled him away, and another hour 
 saw him in his former cell. Well-nigh hopeless now, care- 
 less and reckless of the future, and feeling no impatience 
 even for the day of trial which might change his miserable 
 career, either by death or liberty — death by the iron collar 
 of the garotte — for the sullen obduracy of martyrdom was 
 beginning to possess him, and his once light and buoyant 
 spirit had vanished. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIV. 
 
 TEAVICE CHEATWOOD EEDIVIVU3. 
 
 Though Lennard knew it not, at the very moment when his 
 taciturn warder was securing by a ponderous bolt the door 
 of his white vaulted chamber, the stars were becoming favour- 
 able to him. 
 
 Don Juan who had been propitiously impressed by the 
 earnestness of the young man s bearing, and the bold energy 
 with which he maintained his innocence, was perplexed, 
 however, to hear him assert that he had known and be- 
 friended Saavedra, and that he had saved the life of Dora, 
 circumstances to which, for reasons already given, neither 
 had ever referred. 
 
 Resolving to discover what these assertions on one hand, 
 and the concealment of such facts on the other meant, he was 
 just leaving the town-house and about to mount his horse, 
 when Captain Salvador Gonzalez galloped up and dismount- 
 ing in haste said — " I must crave a word with you, Seiior Don 
 Juan. My lieutenant and his detachment have just come in 
 from the mountains, and he has brought me some remarkable 
 evidence concerning this ubiquitous and double Lennard 
 Blair, who seems to have been in England and Mexico, on 
 sea and land at one and the same time." 
 
 " Indeed," replied the surprised alcalde ; " the person 
 whom I have just remanded to the castle opposite, asserts 
 most stoutly that he came from Liverpool in the same 
 steamer with my daughter, whom he only knows as Donna 
 Dora, and with Jose Saavedra, to both of whom he rendered 
 services of importance, yet neither have ever mentioned such 
 circumstances to me. Donna Dora may have forgotten all 
 al)0ut them during her long illness ; but Saavedra was 
 actually this young man's most bitter enemy." 
 
 Don Juan spoke angiily, for he knew not as yet their 
 reasons for this singular reticence. 
 
414 THE GIRL HE MAEEIED. 
 
 " The young fellow is perfectly innocent ; we heave taken 
 him for himself, and yet mistaken him for another." 
 
 " A paradox, Gonzalez." 
 
 " These papers will explain all.'* 
 
 " I am glad of it !" exclaimed Don Juan ; " I thought 
 •^here was something fine about the lad— strange it is — a 
 namesake, too," he added, ponderingly. 
 
 " In one of the barrancas on the eastern slope of the Cofi're 
 de Perote," began the officer, " my men surrounded the last 
 remains of the quadrilla de picaros who have frequented the 
 highways, eight in number, and knocked them all over by a 
 volley from their rifles. When retiring, in a species of wig- 
 wam formed of palm-leaves and sugar-canes, they found two 
 moi'e of the party dying of [mortal wounds, which the/ htiu 
 rc\ >ved in a very singular manner. Having met a woman 
 of the Puebla de Perote, who was returning from market 
 afttr selling four arrobas of coffee, and knowing that she 
 must have the proceeds about her person, they demanded 
 her money. One of them, an Englishman, doing so with a 
 knife in his hand, and apparently resolved to use it too ; for 
 he was starving of hunger, and infuriated by chinguirito, or 
 sugar-cane spirits. 
 
 " The poblana was a woman of half Indian blood, and 
 having the subtlety to dissemble, she said, — 
 
 " ' Senores, I have sold but four arrobas of coffee * 
 
 " ' We saw you taking it to market on a mule, One 
 hundredweight of fine coffee must have produced something," 
 gaid the other robber, who proved to be Trebucio Trocadero, 
 a man of bad repute round all the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 "'All the poor arrobas produced are in my bodice, 
 seiiores,' whined the woman ; ' and if you will lend me a 
 knife wherewith to cut the seams, you shall have it, even to 
 the last quartil.' 
 
 " The unwary Englishman gave her his knife ; but, instead 
 of turning its point towards her own boddice, she stabbed 
 him in the region of the heart ; then, quick as lightning, 
 she dashed the weapon into the throat of Trocadero, and 
 leaving it there, fled, shrieking towards the puebla. 
 
 " These were the men my soldiers found in the barranca, 
 lying under the shelter of a few palm-leaves for coolness, and 
 they were dying. The Englishman, who was a timid fellow, 
 declared, with tears in his eyes, that he had no intention of 
 using his knife against the poblana, but merely desired to 
 frighten her into the surrender of her purse, an avowal which 
 drew upon him the bitter execrations of the revengeful Tro- 
 cadero, till the violence of the tatter's emotion half choked 
 Jum with blood. 
 
LENNARD A LA MEXICAINE. 415 
 
 " The dying Englishman now announced in very broken 
 Spanish (and my lieutenant took his words in writing) that 
 his real designation was Travice Cheatwood, a native of 
 Liverpool in Britain ; that he had come hither under the 
 assumed name of the Lennard Blair who is now a prisoner 
 in the castle of San Juan ; that he had robbed the said Blair, 
 and assumed his place in the steamer Valparaiso— m every 
 point corroborating the story and asserting the innocence of 
 the person you have just remanded. He declared himself, 
 however, to be guiltless of the assassination of Sebastian the 
 Ranchero, who had fallen by the hand of a Yucataco. This 
 and other parts of his confession, which he has signed, and 
 which also bears the signature of Trebucio Trocadero, in 
 articulo mortis, show that he felt the greatest contrition for 
 his misspent life. Both men died that night, and mv soldiers 
 buried them in a hole by the wayside, piling up Atones to 
 save their remains from the jaguars, and setting up a wooden 
 cross to mark the place. This is the document," concluded 
 the officer, placing a paper in the hands of Don Juan, over 
 whose pale face a flush of eagerness and satisfaction spread, 
 as he said hurriedly — " This must at once be laid before the 
 Corregidor, and his order obtained for the young gentleman's 
 release !" 
 
 " My lieutenant says that the man Travice Cheatwood was 
 fair-haired, with a square-cut beard, exactly answering the 
 description given of him by the bank clerks and others who 
 saw him after landing from the Valparaiso, while he whom 
 I arrested on board the Cuban steamer is tall and dark, with 
 a brown moustache." 
 
 " And, now, senor, to repair the wrong we have done him." 
 
 "If possible." 
 
 "HowT 
 
 " By the shame of arrest we may have ruined him for life 
 — blasted his prospects in trade !" said the officer, regretfully. 
 
 " Dios no quiero — I hope not !" exclaimed Don Juan, as 
 they rode otf together in search of the Corregidor ; " I shall 
 get a warrant for his release, and have him brought to my 
 office in the city till we consider what can be done with him. 
 The authorities — ourselves included— have committed a most 
 unfortunate mistake !" 
 
 CHAPTER LXXV. 
 
 LENNARD A LA MEXICAINE. 
 
 Lennard, seated once more in his white-walled and low 
 wchecl chamber, gazing listlessly through the grated win- 
 
41 6 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 dow on the fiat marshes of Gallega, knew notliing of tha 
 turn liis fortune was taking, or of the dark tragedy which 
 had closed the life of him whom he aptly termed his evil 
 genius, now lying uncoffined in unconsecrated earth— buried 
 like a dog— and sharing the same grave with the horrible 
 Trocadero in that lonely ravine on the slope of the stupen- 
 dous Coffre de Perote. 
 
 " Remanded again to prison," he was whispering to him- 
 self ; " remanded, and for how long V 
 
 So full was he of bitter thoughts, so oppressed by the 
 gloomy prospects of his position, so disappointed that after 
 his long detention and all the interrogations he had under- 
 gone, he should find himself consigned to the same place for 
 an unknown period, that he did not hear the massive door 
 unclosed, or the horrid clatter of its external iron bar ; he 
 took heed of nothing till a hand was laid on his shoulder. 
 He started as if from sleep, and looked up to see one of the 
 alguazils in his quaint costume, which, save that it was all 
 black, somewhat resembled in fashion that which Ancient 
 Pistol wears upon the stage. 
 
 This person briefly informed him, to his utter bewilder- 
 ment, that he was — free ! 
 
 That the full confession of the real culprit was in the 
 hands of the Corregidor, and that he had come to conduct 
 him to the presence of the alcalde, who again desired to see 
 him. 
 
 Lennard did not comprehend all this ; but he could un- 
 derstand, with a gasp of joy, that he was now a free man, 
 
 " Free ! let follow what may, I am free — God be 
 thanked 1" he exclaimed, and was in such haste to leave, 
 that he forgot even to bid adieu to his taciturn warder. 
 
 Again he left San Juan by its principal gate, crossed the 
 canal, or wet fosse, and again found himself in the same 
 boat, being rowed towards the city, while the alguazil once 
 more endeavoured to explain how all this came to pass, and 
 politely enough congratulated him on his restoration to 
 liberty and honour. 
 
 A great revulsion of feeling was caused by all this. The 
 mental gloom vanished ; the sunshine danced more brightly 
 on the water now than it had ever seemed to do, when 
 viewed from yonder frowning mass of towers and batteries. 
 The ships with their flags looked more gay; even sombre 
 Vera Cruz seemed to grow livelier in aspect ; and with 
 something akin to curiosity, interest, wonder, or pity, he 
 could now survey the motley crowds which he had seen 
 before at the landing-place, and iu the principal street, 
 through which he was conducted to the Calle de San Se- 
 
LENNARD A LA. MEXICAINE. 417 
 
 bastian, and there ushered into the office of Don Juan, who 
 was seated at a desk, in a luxuriantly furnished chamber, 
 which, with all its elegance, still evinced that it was unmis- 
 takably a place for business, by the shelves of day-books 
 and ledgers, the japanned tin boxes, dockets of letters on 
 the tables, the files of the Diario, maps of Cuba, Honduras, 
 Spanish calendars, and so forth, which hung on the gaily 
 papered walls. 
 
 On ushering him in, the alguazil, as if his duty was over, 
 bowed politely and retired. 
 
 " I meet you under happier and better auspices than we 
 did some two hours since, Seiior Lennard," said the alcalde 
 
 Eleasantly, while presenting his hand, with a broad smile or 
 is handsome and usually gra^ve face • and then he drew for 
 ward a chair for his somewhat bewildered visitor. 
 
 " The alguazil has explained much to me, seiior," said the 
 latter ; " but I should like a farther detail of all this rather 
 fatal mistake from yourself." 
 
 " That you shall have, and speedily ; but first you must 
 have some refreshment — you look pale and fatigued." 
 
 "I thank you, seiior — I have indeed undergone much 
 mental suffering," said Lennard, with a sigh. 
 
 " Wine — and quickly," said Don Juan to a black servant, 
 who answered his hand-bell. 
 
 " You came here to found a branch of the house of Yere 
 & Co., of Liverpool V\ 
 
 " Yes— and to inquire into the misdeeds of a certain mer- 
 chant captain named Trocadero." 
 
 The alcalde regarded the young man for a few moments 
 with grave interest, and said— 
 
 " Another time we shall talk over these things ; you have 
 suffered too much to be annoyed by business matters at 
 present ; so,_ meantime, take your wine. I am that Juan 
 Leonardo with whom you so often corresponded. You always 
 wrote me in Spanish, in lieu of Mr. Envoyse, signing, as I 
 remember, ' L. B. por Yere and Co.' " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " How little could we then foresee that we should meet as 
 we have done ! so Seiior Lennard. as we are almost name- 
 sakes, I am interested in you, ancl as I once knew a family 
 of your name — but that was long, long ago — I shall do my 
 best to befriend you." 
 
 " I thank you gratefully," replied Lennard, with a swelling 
 sensation in his heart. 
 
 " We owe you many apologies for oup rough treatment, 
 which is not calculated to impress you favourably with our 
 
 27 
 
41 8 THE GIRL 3E MARRIED. 
 
 people in Vera Cruz ; and as tlie signer of the \varran% '>o^ 
 which Gonzalez arrested you, none OAve you a greater amende 
 ])erhaps than I ; but grave suspicions were abroad, and the 
 similarity in name coupled you with the person who had as- 
 sumed yours. Hence all these mistakes, which are fully ex- 
 plained now. You are free, and I shall be happy — honoured, 
 indeed, by a \dsit from you at my villa (which is some miles 
 from town), in token that you forgive the past. Though I 
 have almost forgotten my own language amid the perpetual 
 use of Spanish, I am, like yourself, by birth a Briton, and 
 should like to have a long, long talk about the old country." 
 
 " Don Juan, tlianks indeed for all this kindness. I shall 
 visit you with pleasure ; but will not the disgrace of my 
 arrest seriously affect the interests of Vere & Co. in the 
 business community here %" 
 
 " Scarcely — but of that anon," said Don Juan, with an 
 inexplicable and — as Lennard thought— rather unpleasant 
 smile ; " after dinner this evening we shall talk over all that, 
 and see what can be done for you. As you lost everything 
 when the Gaviota was wrecked among the Arenas, a few 
 doubloons cannot be unacceptable now," he added, writing 
 for Lennard a cheque for a handsome sum on the Bank of 
 Vera Cruz> " The barber and tailor must do the rest," he 
 continued laughing ; " for at present you are rather wild in 
 aspect and dilapidated in costume. One of my clerks shall 
 accompany you through the city. Keturn at five, when the 
 carriage will be here to take us into the country ; till then, 
 adios, senor." 
 
 Invigorated by a glass or two of excellent wine— a 
 beverage which he had never tasted while incarcerated in 
 San Juan— feeling happy in the confidence of perfect freedom, 
 and that once again he would be enabled, under admirable 
 auspices, to turn his attention resolutely to work as of old — 
 he resolved to lose no time in having his attire replaced by 
 one more suitable, his visage shorn of its hirsute appendages, 
 and his tangled locks reduced to their usual length ; but the 
 clerk evinced great disgust of the duty assigned to him, in 
 guiding one he deemed a scarecrow through the principal 
 streets of the city. 
 
 During Blair's absence Don Juan sat for some time at his 
 desk, full of reflection. 
 
 He thought he could now see the motive of the elder 
 Baavedra for concealing all knowledge of the real Lennard 
 Blair, and even for blackening his character so industriously 
 in public and in private. It was to further his nephew's 
 suit and was thoroughly Spanish in some of its features. 
 
LENNARD A LA MEXICAINE. 419 
 
 But then there was Dora — wliy was she silent] Had they 
 ever met or been intimate in England ] 
 
 He resolved to question Lennard ; but meant to do so 
 with some address and circumspection, lest he might com- 
 promise the name of his daughter. 
 
 " If," thought he, " there has been, as I strongly suspect, 
 any tenderness between Dora and this young man during 
 their long sea voyage — and what could be more likely, when 
 she is so charming 1— I shall certainly keep her at her aunt's 
 convent till he quits Vera Cruz for England, or to join a firm 
 in Cuba, to which I shall give him a letter of introduction. 
 Saavedra has perhaps seen more than he dare tell me, and 
 Dora feels more than she cares to admit ; and hence her 
 silence — perhaps her illness. Poor girl ! she may have 
 suffered deeply ! This must all be seen to, and our young 
 waif sent out of Vera Cruz at any price. I should like to 
 study his character, though. He is unfortunate — more than 
 he actually knows ; and — I — I was poor myself once." 
 
 So thought Don Juan, with knitted brows ; forgetting 
 that "the best-laid^ schemes of mice and^^men" are often 
 baffled in the sequel. 
 
 Dora, too, was the subject of Lennard's deepest thoughts, 
 and he longed to learn from Don Juan who and where slie 
 was. However, he was not without an emotion of decided 
 pique at her for having neglected him, or for having, to all 
 appearance, committed his wrongs — perhaps his memory — 
 to oblivion. He should certainly question this merchant, 
 Leonardo — an assumed name, by the way, if the latter was 
 an Englishman— on the first suitable occasion ; but som(^ 
 tidings which he received from that gentleman concerning 
 affairs at home almost eclipsed for a time his pique at Dora, 
 by giving him cause for serious considerations of another 
 kind. 
 
 Punctually at five in the evening, he presented himself at 
 the office of Don Juan, where stood the magnificent carriage 
 in which, though he knew it not, his own Dora had been so 
 recently driven to the Guadaloupe convent, and the cushions 
 and silken lining of which were still redolent of the perfume 
 of her dress ; and as they drove off the merchant was much 
 amused and greatly pleased by the change effected in Len- 
 nard's appearance. He wore a very handsome dress : a 
 black velvet jacket, trimmed with silver on the breast and 
 sleeves ; bullion wings on the shoulders ; a gay scarlet sash 
 and double pantaloons, the outer being slashed up the side 
 with rows of tiny bell buttons ; a sombrero, with a broad scar- 
 let satin ribbon floating from it over his right arm. His dark 
 
 27 — 2 
 
420 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 hair was cut short, and his face entirely shaven of all save 
 his thick and well-pointed moustache. Thus no one could 
 have recognised in him the seedy and tattered fellow whom 
 the angry and blushing clerk had guided through the streets 
 of the city. 
 
 " Bravo— you are quite a la Mexicaine !" exclaimed Don 
 Juan, laughing at the metamorphosis. 
 
 Ere two days were past Dora had read the whole affair in 
 the Diario, which had a column on the subject, and con- 
 cluded by stating " that Mr. Lennard Blair was at present 
 the guest of Don Juan Leonardo, whose eccentric, but per- 
 liapis pardonable sympathy for the English, particularly 
 shipwrecked sailors, had frequently been remarked in Vera 
 Cruz. All the statements made by the ill-used young 
 gentleman — for whose sufferings H.B.M. Consul was incon- 
 solable — are, we understand, fully corroborated by his par- 
 ticular friend, Seiior Jos6 Saavedra, with whom he travelled 
 from England." 
 
 _ " Oh, why did my coward heart shrink from defending 
 him — why commit his name and love to silence 1 Lennard 
 — Lennard — mi vida ! mi alma !" she exclaimed, amid a gust 
 of tears and grief, as she replaced his ring on her engaged 
 finger, and kissed it again and again, regardless of all that 
 her kind, but somewhat austere aunt could urge on the im- 
 propriety of such proceedings, over which she thoughtfully 
 smoked more than one cigarito, after the manner of all mar- 
 ried and elderly dames in the land of Montezuma. 
 
 Dora's heart began to dance again with delight. Lennard 
 was free, and innocent — she was certain he would prove so 
 in the end — but to be the guest of "her own papa," was be- 
 yond her expectations ! Could such happiness last for ever ? 
 But she blushed for herself when reflecting that much of 
 the frankness and candour which a three years' residence in 
 Europe had developed in her really impulsive and generous 
 nature, had become chilled under the local influences of her 
 Mexican home, and those prudish ideas of etiquette and 
 punctilio which the Moors have engrafted on the Spaniards, 
 and thus cause a Spanish girl to tremble in her heart lest 
 her friends should learn that she loves, or is beloved. Thus 
 the piquante little Dora— of the Preston Station — of the 
 saucy hat, Balmoral boots and reefing jacket, with anchor 
 buttons, had become a veritable Mexican donna again ! 
 
 That diminutive gentleman, Jos6 Saavedra, 'also saw the 
 Diario, when over his coffee one morning in a venta at Tam- 
 pico ; and he twisted his long moustaches up to his ears, 
 while treading the paper under his heel. Aware how trea- 
 
A SHOCK AND A PEOPOSAL. 4^1 
 
 clierously he liad acted, he resolved to protract his absence 
 for some weeks, till the affair might perhaps be forgotten, 
 or Lennard Blair should have left Vera Cruz. Great was 
 the surprise, and greater still the disg'ist of his nephew, 
 Don Ignacio, on learning that one whom he fully knew to 
 be a favoured rival, was actually located in the Villa Leo- 
 nardo, if that lying print, the Diario, was to be trusted ! 
 
 But he consoled himseK by saying in the caf^s, on the 
 Alameda, and other places of public resort, 
 
 "Rich as Don Juan is — I must cut his acquaintance. 
 Par todos los demonios ! One can't know people who pick 
 up their friends in the castle of San Juan. The little girl 
 is all very well ; but would be nothing without the doubloons 
 of her papa." 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVI. 
 
 A SHOCK AND A PEOPOSAL. 
 
 To Lennard the change from the monotony of his seclusion 
 in San Juan, the drive through the open countiy from Vera 
 Cruz, after the somewhat gloomy streets and drifted red 
 sand-heaps of the latter were left behind, proved very de- 
 lightful. 
 
 The barren district around the city once passed, pretty 
 Indian villages came in view, nestling amid trees and 
 /?<Dwers— the huts of slender yellow bamboo canes being 
 roofed by broad leaves now withered and brown. Around 
 towered green groves of the palm, the plantain and banana, 
 under the cool and dewy shade of which, flocks of goats 
 with silky hair, white as the driven snow, were browsing. 
 The whole country was covered with verdure, trees, and 
 flowers, the latter in every variety of blos&om, filling the 
 earth below, and the air above with fragrance ; for magnifi- 
 cent and wondrous parasitical creepers had been garlanded 
 by nature's hand from branch to branch in the most fantastic 
 forms. 
 
 As the carriage swept past, the Indian women with their 
 long, black, and ghttering eyes, their parti-coloured skirts, and 
 dingy little ones slung on their backs, came rushing out of 
 theiT wigv/ams to clap their hands ; others who sat at the 
 doors, weaving green garlands and bright bouquets for the 
 shrine of our Lady of Guadaloupe, or some local saint, 
 would look quietly up and smile, showing a roAV of dazzling 
 teeth. 
 
 Flowers— flowers were everywhere, and amid a district 
 
41^2 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 whete the fields of maize, sugar, and coffee were bordered by 
 hedges of great scarlet blossoms — by bell-shaped lilies of 
 exquisite fragrance, with petals that were pnrple or white, 
 where trees of double pink roses lined the highway, and a 
 stupendous mountain scenery with blue and distant peaks, 
 the Cordilleras of Anahuac, formed the background — the 
 carriage soon brought them to the villa Leonardo, which has 
 beed described in a preceding chapter j but the vastness, 
 the palatial aspect and luxury of which, impressed Lennard 
 with a high idea of the great wealth of his new friend. 
 
 Its magnificent sala ; its chambers, the walls of which 
 were charmingly painted with religious subjects ; the cabi- 
 nets of ebony and other fine wood elaborately inlaid with 
 silver and gold ; the marble floors, the variety of rich and 
 elegant objects— more than all, the bedroom which was as- 
 signed him, with its draperies of white muslin and rose- 
 coloured silk ; its cedarwood floor, and roof painted light- 
 blue and starred with silver ; the lofty open windows, through 
 which the breeze of evening came from the Cordilleras laden 
 with the perfumes of a thousand floAvers ; the bed itself, with 
 its blue silk coverlet, richly laced pillows, and closely fitting 
 mosquito curtains, all struck Lennard forcibly, especially 
 after the squalor of his white little cell in the castle of San 
 Juan de Ulloa ; and he was excessively impressed, too, by 
 his own figure as reflected in the tall cheval mirror, where 
 he could contemplate his full length in that striking costume 
 ct la Mexicaine. 
 
 Had Lennard looked much about the drawing-room, he 
 would have found many a trace of her he longed for : music 
 and books on which her name was written at full length ; her 
 album of photographs ; a portrait of herself painted in 
 England and sent out to Don Juan a year ago. It hung in 
 a conspicuous place ; but was now covered with muslin to 
 protect it from insects. 
 
 Dinner over— and it was a sumptuous one : the display of 
 silver plate, crysta], and flowers seemed a glimpse oi fairy- 
 land ; the soup was wonderful, the fish delicious, the entries 
 and pat(5s hot with red chile and recherche ; the champagne 
 and pine-apple ice cold as if they had come direct from 
 Baflins Bay. Don Juan and Lennard betook them to cigars 
 and claret, and then gradually the former began to talk of 
 business ; for he had much to impart to his visitor — much 
 that might pain him, and should be done gently. 
 
 " So we are, as I said this morning, namesakes, senor," 
 said Don Juan, while pondering how he might introduce 
 what he had to imnart. 
 
A SHOCfe AKD A PEOPOSAL. 4^3 
 
 " Nearly," said Lennard bowing. 
 
 " More nearly than you think ; for Leonardo is but an- 
 other version of Lennard ; they are identically the same 
 name." 
 
 "True, senor — of course," said Lennard, smiling, and 
 •wondering if such was the name borne by his host in his 
 own country, and before he became so thoroughly ct, I'Us^oaq- 
 nole. 
 
 " Hence I feel bound to befriend you if I can. In Mexico, 
 the ties of blood are strong in families, and thus the simili- 
 tude of name should have some weight." 
 
 "I thank you, Don Juan. With regard to one of my 
 express commissions here, now as Trebucio Trocadero is 
 dead " 
 
 " Pardon an interruption, I did not wish to spoil the first 
 good dinner you have had for many a day — (I pay my 
 French cook fifty dollars per month ; and after the garban- 
 zos, plantains, and garlic messes of San Juan, I trust you 
 found his efforts pleasing) ; but now, over our wine and 
 cigars, you must, I regret to say, prepare yourself to hear 
 something very unpleasant, and of which you seem to be in 
 perfect ignorance." 
 
 " Dora is married— married or dead !" thought Lennard, 
 and his heart died within him, while he gazed breathlessly 
 into the long, grave face of the speaker. 
 
 " So far as concerns Trocadero, there can be no doubt that 
 the ships being old and worthless, Isiv. Vere bribed him to 
 scuttle them when in ballast or with sham cargoes, to save 
 the insurances." 
 
 "Bribed him!" exclaimed Lennard, astonished to find 
 some of his suspicions corroborated here. " Was he capable 
 of such an actl" 
 
 " Yes ; and of worse than that," was the curt rejoinder. 
 
 " That they were in secret correspondence, I had ocular 
 proof bv the fragment of a letter when on board the Golden 
 Dream. 
 
 " All these details are valueless, senor ; and it matters 
 little whether Vere & Co. were cognisant of these nefarious 
 acts in the Bahama Channel and elsewhere, as they are 
 bankrupt now." 
 
 "What, Don Juan, has our house stopped payment?" ex- 
 claimed Lennard aghast. 
 
 " Stopped payment, amigo mio ! I should think so and 
 worse," replied his host, lighting a fresh cigar. 
 
 " ^^^lat could be worse than that X' 
 
 " A rotten bankniptcy- rotten to the very core ; no assets 
 
4-24 TKE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 or anything. The claret-jug stands with you. Take anothei 
 cigar," said Don Juan kindly, as he pushed towards Lennard 
 a case on wheels — a miniature temple of silver, full of cigars, 
 and labelled in blue enamel, " Lugerdita — El Diabolo Ma- 
 rino — Flor perla Cubano," and so forth. 
 
 " When did this happen 1" asked Lennard in a low voice. 
 
 " More than two months ago." 
 
 " But what brought such a catastrophe to pass f 
 
 " Oh, the old, old story !" replied Don Juan, while Len- 
 nard felt his heart grow very sick indeed. " Many were the 
 reasons alleged : sums drawn out of their hands suddenly by 
 cautious individuals, tightness of the money-market, diffi- 
 culty in the negotiations of loans to meet emergencies ; 
 losses by sea — particularly in the Bahama Channel ; bad 
 debts in Costa Eica ; every mercantile excuse under the 
 sun." 
 
 " When I left Liverpool for Scotland in the early part of 
 last year, all seemed sound enough." 
 
 " The truth is, Mr. Vere is an admirable example of those 
 mushroom financiers, w^ho of late years have disgraced the 
 English mercantile world, and w^lio, while wallowing in 
 gold, somehow suddenly smash, and have no dividend to 
 pay." 
 
 " Oh, what is all this you tell me V exclaimed Lennard, 
 with growing excitement. "Every shilling I had in the 
 world, amounting to some thousand pounds, I invested in 
 Vere's hands." 
 
 " Sorry to hear it, amigo mio— sorry to hear it," replied 
 Don Juan, gravely. " I am old enough to be your father, 
 and know that I tell you but the often told tale, for I can 
 see it all — the game that is without a chance of success for 
 such as you, where treachery and guile on one side, are op- 
 posed to manly integrity on the other. The devil, unseen, 
 always puts his ugly paw into the wrong scale." 
 
 Failed — ruined — was it indeed so ^ He shrunk from the 
 conviction that such should be the case, for there are events 
 which seem too fearful to be possible, and, to Lennard 
 Blair, who had embarked his little all in the firm of Vere & 
 Co., this was one of these. 
 
 !Miss Hesbia Vere was married, he understood Don Juan 
 to say. Well, he could hear that with tolerable indifFerenca 
 now, and he could remember her last words wJien they 
 parted never to meet again. To be rejected for Crowdy — ■ 
 the jjale and cadaverous Crowdy — was a wound for which 
 he had found a balm ; but to be so completely duped by tho 
 emooth-tongucd and smiling Vere, was exasperating. These, 
 
A SHOCK AND A PEOPOSAL. 425 
 
 then, were the impending calamities which Mr. Envoyse 
 had hinted he " was pretty well in the dark about." All 
 his delusions were at an end. He had been jilted by a 
 flirt, jewed by a swindler, and was now in a foreign land, 
 penniless, and worse, perhaps, if considered as the represen- 
 tative of Vere & Co. ! 
 
 "My last investment in the firm — " Lennard was be- 
 ginning, in a cracked voice, for his throat was parched 
 and dry. 
 
 " You do not seem to have ranked as a partner, which, 
 under the circumstances, is perhaps, fortunate now — nor 
 even as a creditor. Not a trace of your name appeared in 
 the books or proceedings, save as one of the clerks. I read 
 the whole affair in the Times" 
 
 Lennard drained a bumper of claret, and thought he must 
 be dreaming. 
 
 "And the baronet's bubble company — the great steam- 
 packet line, in which I was to have had shares " 
 
 " Never existed ; or, if intended at all, was never deve- 
 loped, for Vere's insolvency and Crowdy's character as a 
 swindler speedily became so. The total destruction by fire 
 and water of some coal-mines in Scotland— a speculation on 
 which Vere spent vast sums and much energy — was the cul- 
 minating point of his growing misfortunes. Perhaps he did 
 not mean ultimate fraud ; but his connection with a person 
 like Sir Cullender finished all. The estate which he made 
 over to his daughter, Lady Crowdy, has also come into the 
 market." 
 
 " In the general wreck he might have had the humanity 
 to spare the little remnant of my patrimony," said Lennard, 
 whose thoughts went home to Oakwoodiee. 
 " What was its rental T' 
 . " About two hundred per annum." 
 Don Juan smiled. 
 
 "That sum," said he, "is a joke— a mere hollow gourd to 
 a gold-mine, when compared with the involvements of others 
 who have been similarly deluded. You are young, and have 
 yet life and the Avide world before you, and should thank 
 your stars that, like old Mr. Abel Envoyse, who served the 
 firm so long and faithfully, you have not a wife and little 
 ones depending on your work for food, shelter, and raiment. 
 The truth would seem to be that the firm had sustained 
 many, many losses before you left England, and had engaged 
 in some of Sir Cullender's many London bubbles. As trustee 
 for several persons, Yere had the power of using sums be- 
 
426 tHE GiRt flE MAHRIEO. 
 
 longing to others — sums to which he had no right, but which 
 he intended (let us hope) to replace if his speculations proved 
 successful ; but each in its turn failed — the old story— so the 
 crash came ! As I have said, no fraud might have been in- 
 tended in the sequel, but in the Bankruptcy Court all 
 sounded very like it." 
 " No fraud, Don Juan ?" queried Lennard, impatiently. 
 " God forgive that I should say so, but it rmist have been 
 intended, for double sets of books had been kept — books 
 that were cooked up to the occasion, cut down, interleaved, 
 and re-bound, to the utter confusion of all examination. 
 But do you know that I hold nearly two thousand pounds' 
 worth of your acceptances "?" 
 
 " For Heaven's sake ! do not say of mine, Don Juan." 
 " Dios no quiero ! Well, of the firm of Vere, Cheatwood, 
 and Co." 
 
 " A humble junior partner, as I deemed myself— a share- 
 holder for a moderate sum — I have been cruelly deluded 
 and kept in the dark." 
 " Mr. Vere has disappeared from Liverpool." 
 "And the baronet f 
 
 "Was convicted as a fraudulent bankrupt, and he now 
 employs his hours of seclusion in picking oakum. It was a 
 case of mutual mistake ; each looked to the other's exche- 
 quer for release from pressing difficulties, and looked in vain." 
 "And-Sir CuUender's-wife r 
 
 " On the very night when the baronet was sent to prison 
 she eloped with a tenor singer ; I read it all in the Times 
 two months ago." 
 
 Lennard sighed over the dark future of the brown -eyed, 
 the bright-looking, and once joyous Hesbia ; and remained 
 for some time crusned, perplexed, and lost in thought, until 
 he became aware that Don Juan was speaking again. 
 
 " I said that I would befriend you, if I could ; and, luck- 
 ily, I have it in my power to do so, well," he was saying. 
 " I thank you gTatefully," sighed Lennard. 
 "I am going home to Britain ; indeed, I have already trans- 
 ferred the most of what I possess to that country, where I 
 have also bought an estate, m the possession of which I am 
 deeply interested, for it belonged of old to my ancestors, 
 and I was bom upon it. Yet I shall leave behind unsold 
 this plantation of Leonardo, that I may still retain some in- 
 terest in South America, the land where I have made m> 
 fortune, and lived so long and happily. The villa I shall 
 Bell or let ; but there is an excellent house on the brow of 
 
A SHOCK AND A PHOPOSAL. 427 
 
 yonder barranca, and that shall be j^oiirs, if you choose to 
 ^remain here as overseer of my property." 
 
 Lennard Blair sighed. It would be perpetual banishment 
 too surely, a mere competence perhaps, and in a dangerous 
 climate, for the yellow fever is yearly the deadly scourge of 
 Vera Cruz — the most brief stay there being often sufficient 
 to give the conta^on ; but he knew that to remain was his 
 only chance of discovering, perhaps of winning, his lost 
 Donna Dora. 
 
 "In addition to a natural longing and desire to return 
 home as years come upon me, I have cogent political rea- 
 sons," said Don Juan. " It is confidently rumoured that we 
 are on the eve of a new insurrection, and that a portion of 
 the Mexican Government, oddly enough, require the expul- 
 sion from this country of aU Spaniards by birth, Eiu^opeans 
 who have intermarried vsrith Spaniards, and, in some in- 
 stances, their children. So I mean to quit betimes." 
 
 As if in a dream, Lennard retired that night to the lux- 
 urious bed-chamber pro^dded for him. Reflection was a 
 bitter resoiu-ce, indeed ; but he had no other left him. 
 
 Totally impoverished now, he was sinking into the charac- 
 ter of a mere dependent on the patronage and bounty of 
 Don Juan, and as such he "was further removed by position 
 from Donna Dora than he had been from the daughter of 
 the wealthy Vere ! 
 
 The proud sense of old family, of station, and unmerited 
 degradation, which such inevitable ruin would have called 
 up at home in the old country, under the irritating presence 
 of successful turpitude or wealthy snobbery, could not be 
 felt on the western side of the Atlantic — in the vast arena 
 of the New AVorld, He would begin his career again, and 
 at once, with a resolute heart, even in the most humble 
 phase, without a blush, and work hard and diligently — but 
 by such work would he ever win Dora 1 
 
 He had lost all — all but that grim joke, the Charter Stone ; 
 and again, as when in the castle of San Jiian, he laughed 
 bitterly, in mockery of his own weak superstition and his 
 lather's too, in retaining the proprietary of it, instead of 
 having it, as the wretched Travice Cheatwood had once sug- 
 gested, broken up for road-metal. 
 
 Swindled, penniless, abandoned in a far and foreign coun- 
 try ; in danger of arrest, perhaps, for his complicity with 
 the disastrous affairs of Yere and Co. ! 
 
 It was anything but a pleasant situation. He drew the 
 
428 i:he girl he maePvIEd. 
 
 mosquito-curtains close, tossed feverishly on liis ricUy' 
 laced pillows, and strove to find oblivion in sleep. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVII. 
 
 A DAY OF SURPEISES. 
 
 By next morning Lennard had made up his mind to talre 
 the friendly offer of Don Juan, in assuming the charge of 
 his plantation, until something else " turned up," as the saj?-- 
 ing is. He meant also to prosecute his search for Donna 
 Dora ; but, on descending to the breakfast-room— where he 
 found a morning meal spread quite in the English rather 
 than_ the Mexican fashion, to wit, with a white table-cloth, 
 a shining coffee-urn, fresh eggs, tea, toast and rolls, and, 
 lying ready for his perusal, that morning's Diario and the 
 Mexican daily paper, La Gazeta del Gohierno, — a black valet 
 presented him with a note from Don Juan, apologizing for 
 a two-days' absence at Tlacotalpan, a town sixty miles distant 
 from Vera Cruz, on the river of Alvarado, whither he had 
 been summoned by daybreak on pressing political business. 
 
 Left thus to his own resources, Lennard spent the whole 
 day in riding over the gTounds of the hacienda, of which he 
 fully believed he should ere long have the entire charge : 
 but he wandered among fields of sugar-cane, maize, and 
 coffee ; among orange-groves covered with fragrant blossoms 
 and golden fruit, bending lemon-trees, and where the rose, 
 the jasmine, and the lily were ever blooming ; listlessly, and 
 with his mind full of all he had heard last night— the ruin 
 that had come on others as well as himself ; and he was not 
 without great and genuine sorrow for Hesbia Vere, whose 
 too probable future he shrank from contemplating. 
 
 But beyond this honest sorrow he felt nothing more ; and 
 he agreed with the writer who says, — " I hold it as a rule 
 that nine men out of ten are unfortunate in their first at- 
 tachments ; and I hold it as another rule, that it is a very 
 good thing for them that they are so." 
 
 The evening drew on, and he spent it in the libraiy, which 
 he found well stocked with many Spanish and many more 
 English works of the highest class ; but next morning he 
 began to long for the return of his host, that he might speak 
 of the subject nearest his heart, and that some definite ar- 
 rangement might be made and duties assigned him. 
 
 In the course of the second day he wandered into the 
 
A DAY OF SURPEISES. 429 
 
 drawing-room, where he found the usual unmistakable evi- 
 dences of the residence of a lady in the mansion. The pretty 
 Creole Mencia, who flitted about from time to time, in no 
 way averse to a conversation with this handsome young 
 European, could soon have satisfied his curiosity on this 
 point ; but Lennard had grown somewhat taciturn, and re- 
 gardless of her glances and black glittering eyes, never ad- 
 dressed her. 
 
 The windows were open nearly from the lofty ceiling to 
 the floor, which was of polished marble. The draperies, like 
 those of the sala, were all of fine blue silk, edged with lace 
 and silver. The f auteuils and couches were also of blue silk, 
 of elegant designs, and of the most luxurious construction, 
 while mirrors, crystal girandoles, glass shades and statuettes 
 were there in profusion, on consoles of veined marble, on 
 satin-wood tables and ebony cabinets inlaid with silver and 
 mother-of-pearl. 
 
 The gxand piano was locked ; piles of music filled the 
 stand near it, and from these Lennard instinctively wan- 
 dered to a picture— a veiled one — that hung close by. 
 
 A veiled portrait always excites curiosity, and seems sug- 
 gestive of some mystery — a story of sorrow, or love, or 
 death ; Lennard was alone ; his host was still absent, and 
 would probably be so for the rest of the day. There could 
 be no impropriety in looking at the picture ; so he with- 
 drew the screen of gauze and beheld the portrait — a full- 
 length cabinet size— of a beautiful, dark-eyed and golden- 
 haired girl. She had the bright, smiling face of Dora— and 
 Dora she was, beyond a doubt, in the very dress in which 
 he had first seen her, on that hurried occasion at the Preston 
 station ; but without her piquante little hat and feather, for 
 her wealth of silky tresses flowed over the shoulders of her 
 yachting jacket, in the pockets of which her hands were 
 inserted. 
 
 'It was the veritable Dora of the torn glove— and her 
 portrait hung here — here in Don Juan's drawing room ! 
 
 Absorbed in the contemplation of this picture, wondering 
 much, that amid all their confidences, Don Juan had never 
 referred to the circumstance of her existence, and curious to 
 learn from the first domestic he met the exact relationship 
 which the original of this portrait bore to him, Lennard was 
 for a time lost in a maze of conjecture. Eejoicing that he 
 had so suddenly found a clue to her discovery, he continued 
 to gaze on the portrait till a light step roused him, a girlish 
 figure in a white muslin dress sprang through the open 
 
450 THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 window from the garden, and Dora— his own Dura— living 
 and breathing, flushed with excitement and joy, threw her- 
 self into his arms, with passionate eagerness and hoydenish 
 abandon ! 
 
 Often in his dreams— in that white cell of yonder castle 
 by the sea — had " their spirits rushed together at the meet- 
 ing of the lips," and now — now the emotion was realized. 
 
 " I knew I should find you here," she exclaimed breath- 
 lessly ; " I read all about you in the Diario at the Guada- 
 loupe convent, and then I could stay no longer there. I 
 broke away from my aunt, obtained a hackney coach, and, 
 accompanied by the gardener, a Dominican brother, drove 
 home. And so we have you here — here in the Villa Leo- 
 nardo ;'' she continued before Lennard could speak, twining 
 her girlish arms round him, while her eyes were full of tears ; 
 " how much you have suffered — undergone — oh mi vida — 
 mi vida— mi alma — you are all the world to me !" 
 
 " And I believed she had forgotten me f thought Lennard 
 with self-reproach. 
 
 Entwined in his and pressed against his heart, the fingers 
 of her hand felt its beating ; and the perfume of her mar- 
 vellous golden hair was about him, as her head dropped on 
 his breast and for some minutes they were mutually and 
 literally wrapt in a species of trance, " a love-cloud." 
 
 She had not forgotten him ; she was true and all could be 
 easily explained. With loving glances her earnest eyes were 
 upturned to his from time to time, her voice so full and rich 
 met his ear in broken accents with half coherent expressions, 
 and her lips trembled nervously when his touched them. 
 
 But their first burst and outpouring of joy and tenderness 
 past, the time for questioning came, and for thinking of their 
 relative positions, for while Lennard saw the signs of wealth 
 —yea enormous wealth— on every side,— there fell on his 
 heart something of the old paralyzing chill, that he had felt 
 elsewhere and at another time. 
 
 " Did any two persons ever love each other so much as we 
 do, Lennard T asked Dora softly. 
 
 " No, darling— no," he whispered in the blindness of his 
 faith and flush of his passion ; " but how and where will it 
 end, love— Dora f 
 
 " Here and on this spot !" said a stern voice that made 
 them start, while a low cry escaped Dora, and with his grave 
 face inflamed by anger, Don Juan, wlio had entered unper- 
 ceived, whip in hand, with his riding-boots and the velvet 
 cape of Ms seraph powdered with the dust of a long ride, 
 
A DAY OP SURPRISES. 43I 
 
 stood before them. " How comes it, senor," he demanded, 
 " that I find you on these terms with my daughter V 
 
 " Your daughter, Don Juan —yours ?" exclaimed Lennard, 
 in a breathless voice, while the colour _ fled from his cheek, 
 for there rushed upon his heart the icy conviction that he 
 had met Dora but to lose her by a separation now and for 
 ever, as she must go home to Britain, while he should remain 
 in Vera Cruz, and perhaps without even the subsistence 
 Don Juan had promised him. " Your daughter,-" he repeated, 
 
 in a faltering voice ; " I thought she was named 
 
 "Dominga; Saavedra told me of your misconception; 
 but she is Isidora Dominga Leonardo," replied the angry 
 Don Juan ; then Lennard recalled the words of the Francis- 
 can chaplain of the prison-fortress, and found that by a 
 series of odd chances he had never learned her entire name 
 till now. 
 
 "And how came it, Donna Dora, that you have dared to 
 leave the Guadaloupe Convent until I sent for you 1 have 
 you forgotten that you are in Mexico, and not in England V 
 asked Leonardo. 
 
 " Oh, papa, I read in the Diario — that — that — but pray, 
 dear papa, forgive me ; I shall never love any one else, and 
 so shall never offend you again," said Dora, who had shrunk 
 down on a sofa, covered with shame and confusion, while 
 her hair fell forward in masses over her downcast face. 
 
 " From what Saavedra said, I suspected much," resumed 
 Don Juan, still stern and lofty ; " but J confess that this 
 scene has gone quite beyond my expectance, and my patience, 
 too. Dora, follow me into another room. And you, senor, 
 wait for me here, and I shall speak with you again." 
 
 " A duel !" thought Lennard, as the father and daughter 
 withdrew. " Oh, he cannot mean that ; even in this lawless 
 country the idea would be absurd, considering the difference 
 of our years, and the obligations under which he has placed 
 me. Besides he is Dora's father, and no insult — no provoca' 
 tion should tempt me to meet him as an enemy." 
 
 In that moment of supreme joy, when they had met again, 
 and in the fulness of his love for her, jealous pride and a 
 conviction of their inequality of circumstances had been for- 
 gotten ; but now came the reflection that he had humbled 
 Aiimself before her, suing to ask her love that he might be a 
 dependant on her bounty and her father's wealth ! 
 
 The idea was intolerable, and stung him to the soul ! 
 Alike humiliating and repugnant was the prospective chancf 
 that he should bluntly be required to quit the villa, with the 
 
432 THE GIRL HE MAHRIED. 
 
 insulting injunctions that lie was never to enter it again, and 
 never to see lier more. 
 
 Even while these galling thoughts were passing through 
 his mind, it was impossible for him not to overhear much 
 that'- passed between Dora and her father in the adjoining 
 apartment, the inner drawing-room, which was separated 
 from the outer, merely by hangings of blue silk ; and, indeed, 
 Don Juan seemed to care little whose ears his voice reached. 
 
 A Mexican by birth, educated as she had been, even with 
 the better influences consequent to her three years' residence 
 in Europe, Dora thought she had reason to feel great terror 
 and shame on being discovered with a lover, for, until she is 
 married, the young Mexican lady can converse privately 
 Avith her brothers, uncles, her confessor, and her female 
 friends only. " In fact," says the Seiiora Calderon de la 
 Barca, in her charming travels, " young people have so few 
 opportunities given them of being together, that Mexican 
 marriages must be made in heaven, for I see no opportunities 
 given them of bringing them about on earth. The young 
 men when they meet with young ladies in society, appear 
 devoted to and very much afraid of them. I know but one 
 lady in Mexico who has the reputation of having ma- 
 noeuvred all her daughters into great marriages ; but they 
 were such beauties that it can have cost her no trouble. As 
 for flirtation, the name is unknown, and the thing also." 
 
 Certainly Dora had been permitted more freedom ; but to 
 have a lover thus— it all came, as old Saavedra said, "of 
 having lived among the heretical Inglesos." 
 
 Lennard could hear that Dora was weeping, while a 
 lengthened and animated conversation, but in a low tone, 
 ensued between her and her father. 
 
 After a time the latter suddenly raised his voice and 
 said, — 
 
 "With all you tell me of the gratitude that wo owe him, 
 this state of matters must not be, and you shall remain in 
 the Guadaloupe Convent until we leave this country, which 
 must be soon now, as we are on the eve of a dangerous pro- 
 nonciamiento (i.e.., revolution)." 
 
 " Oh, papa, lorgive us— but he was so kind to me during 
 the long voyage in the steamer j— no brother " 
 
 " Could be more attentive. Very likely ; I do not doubt 
 it." 
 
 " We became such friends," she urged, with sobs. 
 
 " I don't approve of chance friendships ; understand me, 
 Dora.'* 
 
A DAY OF SUEPETSES. 
 
 433 
 
 *• 1 -will, if I can, dear i)apa." 
 
 "You must and shall!" he rejoined impetuously; "You 
 cannot love this mere stranger, whose introduction here has 
 been so inauspicious. He has simply gained an influence 
 over you, which in time you will forget, and perhaps blush 
 for." 
 
 " We are betrothed— plighted, papa ; and then think of 
 all that happened on that horrible island— how, as I have 
 just told you, he saved my life at the risk of his own, for he 
 was weak, weary, and unarmed, while Trocadero was strong, 
 maddened with wine, and had pistols." 
 
 " True, Dora ; I shall thank and reward him— yea, love 
 him for all that ; but more I cannot do. What ring is that 
 upon your finger f 
 "A present, papa." 
 "From him— this Lennard Blair T 
 "Yes, j)apa." 
 
 " Give it to me, instantly !" 
 
 Dora obeyed, evidently in tears and with reluctance ; and 
 Lennard felt his heart moved on one hand, and his fiery 
 pride galled to madness on the other. 
 
 " A strange old-fashioned ring this," said Don Juan, as a 
 flush mounted to his temples ; " how, in heaven's name, came 
 he to be possessed of it V 
 
 " It was an heir-loom in his family, dear papa, and was all 
 he had to give me at the time." 
 
 " An heir-loom !" said Don Juan, in a voice that was broken 
 and most strangely unlike his own, as he drew back the 
 hangings, and stood before Lennard with the trinket in his 
 hand — a roughly-chased and well-worn old signet-ring, which 
 had been worn by Eichard Blair for many a year, and been 
 with him in many a race and hunting-field. It had been his 
 father's before him, and bore, on a blood-stone, a stag's-head 
 caboshed, with the motto of the Blairs. 
 
 " Young gentleman, answer me truly," said Don Juan, in 
 a n€i*vous and anxious manner ; " to whom did this ring 
 which you bestowed upon my daughter belong ]" 
 
 "To my father," replied Lennard, with much of angiy 
 pride, at his present humiliated position, swelling in his 
 
 heart and throat ; " to my poor old father, Richard Blair '* 
 
 " Of Blairavon and Oakwoodlee, in Lothian ]" 
 " Yes," replied Lennard, amazed to hear the names of the 
 old places mentioned thus, by a total stranger, in Vera Cruz. 
 " Blairavon is the name of the estate I have just purchased 
 
 in Scotland " 
 
 28 
 
434 THE GIRL HE MARHlfiD. 
 
 " You, Don Juan '?" exclaimed Lennard. 
 
 " Yes- -the estate of which I spoke to you the other evening. 
 Your mother " 
 
 " Has been dead for many a year." 
 
 " And your father, Richard Blair 1" 
 
 " Died on the iirst of May last year." 
 
 "At Beltane — el dia primero de Mayo —the unlucky day 
 of the family!" 
 
 " The day on which many things are said to have happened 
 among us, and on which I had an uncle drowned— my 
 iather^s younger brother, from whom I am named." 
 
 " Drowned ? " said the other, with a start of surprise ; 
 " why boy, your uncle Lennard stands before you ! I am 
 he\ John Lennard Blair* but, Santos de los Santos !" he 
 added, for they still spoke Spanish, as he took Lennard's 
 hands kindly between his own, "this is an abrupt and 
 heartstirring discovery — and it has come most singularly 
 about ! A Scotsman and a Blair too," he added, while his 
 voice trembled and his eyes filled ; " of what was I thinking, 
 when I omitted to question you before this 1 But then I 
 never heard of your birth— knew not of your existence, or that 
 my poor brother Dick ever had a family; and our surname of 
 Blair is far from being an uncommon one in the old northern 
 kingdom. But, for reasons that are forgotten now, the name 
 became hateful to me, and in a gust of anger and eccentri- 
 city I relinquished it, as I thought for ever." 
 
 Lennard gazed at Don Juan in a state of utter bewilder- 
 ment ; and save for the veritable names and certain facts to 
 which he referred so fitly, would have deemed him light- 
 headed. But the explanation of all this must he reserved 
 for another chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVIII; 
 
 UTOPIA. 
 
 **And you were not drowned in the little loch at Craigellonl'* 
 exclaimed Lennard, Avhen the surprise of all three at these 
 rapid discoveries had somewhat subsided. 
 
 " Drowned— no, not at all ; I never thought of being so," 
 replied Don Juan. 
 
 "Who, then, was discovered by Steinie Hislop's terrier 
 among the reeds, twelve months after your disappearance, 
 in the lochlet by the Craig, and was buried by my father in 
 
UTOPIA, 43$ 
 
 the old family tomb, and to wliom was the mural slab 
 erected by him on the wall of the village church T 
 
 " That is more than I can tell you, nephew " (how odd this 
 sounded !) ; " some benighted waif ot tipsy wanderer most 
 probably. However, by altering the date, the slab may serve 
 my turn yet." 
 
 " From Steinie Hislop and old Elsie Graham I partially 
 learned, uncle Lennard, of your unfortunate attachment and 
 its sequel." 
 
 Don Juan smiled sadly. 
 
 " Old Elsie and Steinie Hislop — she was scarcely old Elsie 
 then— are they still alive] My poor brother Dick, he mourned 
 for me, I suppose~sAe, too, perhaps." 
 
 " They named me after you," said Lennard, in a low voice. 
 
 " God bless and rest them !" said Don Juan, while, en- 
 couraged by the unexpected turn matters had taken, Dora's 
 little hand stole furtively into Lennard's. 
 
 " A writer has it that ' in the history of every man who 
 has reasons for being out of his own country there must be 
 something — some debt, misfortune, imbecility, or crime ;' 
 well," continued Don Juan, whom we should now rather 
 designate as the elder Blair, " my cause for exile and wan- 
 dering was an unfortunate early attachment to one who 
 never returned my love." 
 
 " Oh, papa," said Dora, with earnest and dilated eyes, and 
 greatly shocked to learn that her mamma had ever a prede- 
 cessor ; " tell us of this— I at least hear it all now for the 
 first time." 
 
 " From the beginning to the end, in tliat unhappy love for 
 the same girl, we were rivals, my brother Dick and I — but 
 never, God be thanked, were we enemies. To go into all 
 the details of those days — my bitter pain, my silent anguish, 
 my torture and despair when I found that she preferred my 
 brother to me, and when their marriage-day came, would 
 now, when all passions are dead within me, be but a useless 
 and a wicked task, indeed." 
 
 " Poor papa !" said Dora, parenthetically. 
 
 " Kichard was extravagant, and yearly lost vast sums on 
 the turf ; he loved me well, but I would not be dependent 
 on him, after he — as I deemed it — robbed me of my bride. 
 They were to be married on Beltane morning ; but for me 
 to be present as my brother's groomsman was beyond my 
 power of endurance ; so, on the evening before, I took the 
 rail for Glasgow in a mood of mind little to be envied, with 
 a few poundS in my pock t, and bidding farewell to home, 
 
 ?8— 3 
 
436 THE GIEL HE MARRIED. 
 
 iTiinoticed and unknown, nnder tlie name of .Tohn Lennard. 
 sailed from the Clyde in a clipper sliip for the United States'. 
 Tn the North Atlantic our vessel sprang a leak, after being 
 struck by lightning and otherwise dam^aged in a storm. As 
 she was sinldng fast we had to abandon her, and betake us 
 to the boats. For days and nights after this we were tossed 
 about by the waves and wind, enduring the extremities of 
 hunger, thirst, and despair, till the Montezuma, a Spanish 
 barque from Cadiz, picked us up. She v/as bound for Vera 
 Cruz, but landed us at Tampico. There I obtained employ- 
 ment from a Scottish planter — a veteran of the Venezuelan 
 Legion — whose life I had saved when the diligencia was 
 attacked by robbers, as the overseer of his estates ; and being 
 careful and thrifty, I soon began, in this land of gold and 
 silver, of lire and sunshine, verdure and fertility, where the 
 season is but one eternal spring, to amass money almost 
 without its being the result of an effort, for it seemed to 
 pour in upon me. 
 
 "Amid the strange scenes of this vast new world, I 
 thought, nephew, to forget the disappointments and sorrows 
 of the old ; I was young, and in time I did so. 
 
 " You know the old proverb of what one should do when 
 in Rome ; so, in Mexico I did as the Mexicans do, and be- 
 came thoroughly one of themselves, outwardly and com- 
 pletely a VEspagnole. Here lieaven prospered me, beyond 
 my deserts perhaps, and during a residence of nearly thirty 
 years nothing save the loss of my dear wife and two sisters 
 of Dora, for I married a wealthy Spanish lady of Tampico, 
 has marred my tranquillity. Increasing years, the habits of 
 business, experience, and the acquisition of wealth alter and 
 modify the characters of most men ; so have they changed 
 and toned down mine ; but I have remained in Mexico as 
 your Englishmen usually remain in India, only to make 
 money that I may return home and enjoy it in the winter of 
 my days ; and now the time for doing so has come — home to 
 Scotland— to the home of my childhood and youth ; to the 
 place before which every other has paled in my memory ! 
 
 " I begin to have the longing that comes on every wan- 
 derer at some time of his career, to die at home, and, as I 
 have said, we are on the eve of a revolution here, which 
 might imperil all I possess, I have transferred it home before 
 me, and have sunk a princely fortune in the British funds 
 and elsewhere. Such is the brief story of my life, nephew 
 Lennard, minus, of course, a thousand details." 
 
 **Qh, uncle," said the younger Blair, with a pathos in his 
 
UTOPIA. 437 
 
 tone, " and all this while— those long thirty years— during 
 which you were realizing this enormous wealth, and while 
 my poor father, your only brother, was sinking lower and 
 lower, parting with acre after acre, and farm after farm, amid 
 debts and difficulties— imprudences, I admit— you never 
 wrote — never thought of him !" 
 
 " There you wrong me." 
 
 " He never knew of your existence." 
 
 " I both thought of him and wrote to him again and again, 
 till I grew weary, and then indignant ; for, if not dead, I 
 believed he had committed my memory to oblivion." 
 
 " Those letters never reached him, otherwise I should have 
 known of them. By some singular mischance all must have 
 miscarried." 
 
 " And you were my Brito-Spanish correspondent in the 
 office of Vere & Co, 1 How passing strange ! I remember 
 on that day when the alguazils brought you before me in the 
 town-house, on your speaking, a chord of memory was struck 
 in my heart., and I felt disturbed and restless in my efforts 
 to recall the past ; confused and dreamy ideas which I strove 
 in vain to account for and unravel, crowded thick and fast 
 upon me. It must have been your likeness to^ mj^ poor 
 brother Richard — yea, to myself, as a lad in earlier years ; 
 for again and again I asked of myself, where have I seen 
 this face, and where heard that voice 1 When jestingly I 
 said we were namesakes, how little could I imagine that we 
 were related to each other— and so nearly too !" 
 
 Dora's hand was still clasped in that of Lennard, who, 
 after a pause, during which his newly-discovered uncle had 
 been regarding him attentively, said in a soft voice — 
 
 " Uncle, remember the love that sent you into exile, and 
 Xjity ours — mine and Dora's !" 
 
 " We shall see in time what we shall see," the other re- 
 plied, smiling. 
 
 " Then may she wear my father's ring ?" asked Lennard. 
 
 " She may," replied John Blair, as we shall name him for 
 the sake of distinction, and smilingly he placed it on her 
 tiny finger ; then thoughtfully he added, " alas on what 
 mere casualties every event of life turns — what straws may 
 decide the destiny of a man !" 
 
 " Ti-ue, uncle," said Lennard (who rather liked to term him 
 thus) ; "had a wretched fellow not picked away the pocket- 
 book of Jose Saavedra at Preston I had not made your 
 daughter's acquaintance, or Ns'on her confidence, perhaps. 
 Had another luckless wretch not debided and robbed me in 
 
+3S THE GIRL HE MARRIED. 
 
 Liverpool I should have sailed by the Valparaiso, and nob 
 by the ship which has proved indeed a Golden Dream to 
 me ; and Dora, too, probably, would never have had on her 
 finger that dear old ring which, as if it had been a magic 
 one, has led to all this discovery ; more than all, she might 
 have perished at the Arenas !" 
 
 " It is well ; no distance should ever break the ties of 
 family ; 
 
 For kindred blood, old proverbs deem, 
 Is warmer than the mountain stream. ' 
 
 So says Scott; and I feel much of this forgotten spirit 
 welling up in my heart now." 
 
 " And so old Blairavon has come into the market after all, 
 under 
 
 " Vere was not solvent when he executed his trust deed, 
 so the creditors seized all. I saw the estate advertised in an 
 English paper, and wrote at once for its purchase. The 
 vulgar are ever prone to weave up mysteries and horrors 
 with the history of any old house and family, and nowhere 
 so much as at home in old romantic Scotland. Thus it is a 
 local tradition that the fortune of him who possesses the 
 lands of Blairavon depends upon the further proprietary, 
 as of course you have heard, of a block, known as the 
 Charter Stone " 
 
 "Which is mine !" exclaimed Lennard laughing, and with 
 radiant eyes — " mine, uncle !" 
 
 "Yours-howr 
 
 " By a registered deed,'* he replied, and then proceeded to 
 relate how the retention of this relic of the Druid days had 
 been solemnly enjoined him by his father's dying request. 
 " Do you remember, Uncle Lennard, that just before your 
 disappearance, you carved your name upon it, where it can 
 be distinctly seen to this day ?' 
 
 " I do — I do remember— of a verity, truth is stranger than 
 fiction !" 
 
 " By that act, fate would seem to have infeft you in th 
 old estate," said Lennard, laughing. 
 
 The story of Dora's voyage with him, and their past inti- 
 macy was now more thoroughly gone into and explained ; 
 and when the elder Blair learned how Lennard had pro< 
 tected her on the island from the outrageous Trocadero, and 
 much more than she, with all her confidence in her parent's 
 love, dared to tell, but all of which Jos6 Saavedra, natheless 
 his duplicity and grasping spirit, was afterwards compelled 
 
UTOPIA. 439 
 
 to corroborate, he was filled with gratitude to this young 
 kinsman, and with pity for his unmerited misfortunes. 
 
 The more he saw of his nephew, the more he loved him, 
 and the same sentiment which inspired him, after so many 
 years of absence and estrangement, to purchase back the old 
 chateau and lands beside the Avon, led him to view with 
 growing favour Lennard's regard for his cousin Dora • and 
 he was never weary of hearing from him, as from a voice of 
 the past, or from far away beyond the sea, accounts of the 
 old place at home, of those who were still siu-viving there, 
 and might still remember him. 
 
 When he looked at Lennard, the memory of his parents' 
 faces and home and hearth — of Blairavon with all its asso- 
 ciations, Oakwoodlee with its white gables and belt of 
 Scottish pines, Craigellon with its loch, the Tor Hill and the 
 Mains of Kaims, the church built by John of Strathbroc, 
 and the older fane of Inchmachan, all came back like a 
 flood upon his heart ; the present fled — the past returned ; 
 and he would say, laughing, — 
 
 " By Jove, I'll Don-me no more ; but, thank God, shall 
 be once again John Lennard Elair in the dear old country." 
 
 He had not seen his elder brother Richard for thirty 
 years, yet he could note, in Lennard's bearing, voice, and 
 eyes, and in his use of many a familiar home-word, much 
 that recalled this brother ; for Lennard inherited many 
 traits of his father in a remarkable degree, without his 
 worst and weakest, his silly feudal pride and spendthrift 
 extravagance. 
 
 Dora was Qiot sent back to the Guadaloupe convent, 
 somewhat to the indignation of her aunt, the Hermana 
 Santa Teresa ; and one day she and Lennard were left in 
 perfect happiness by Uncle Lennard, saying with a kind 
 and soft smile, when he surprised them together in a garden 
 seat, — 
 
 "So, so, I see that you are fonder of each other than 
 cousins need quite to be ; but my one ewe lamb, as I call 
 her — the last survivor of my little flock of three— cannot be 
 taken from me, Lennard, either by you or any one else." 
 
 " !N"o, dear papa," said Dora, " I shall stay with you ever 
 and always— ever and always ; but," she adaed, with naivete^ 
 " may not Lennard stay with us, too V* 
 
 " Blairavon is mine, and Oakwoodlee also, and they shall 
 be yours and Lennard's after I am gone. Till then, you 
 shall live with me, and so, my darling girl shall be by my 
 side till life ends, and that is aU I care for now." 
 
440 THE GIRL HE MAHETED. ' 
 
 " Papa, papa !" cried Dora, as slie sprang into Ms open 
 arms and kissed him on both cheeks in a transport of tears. 
 
 " Dora, there is nothing in the world that I could do and 
 would leave undone for your happiness," exclaimed John 
 Blair in a flush of affection. 
 
 "Truly," thought Lennard in his heart, "but this is 
 Utopia at last/' 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIX. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The reader may now foresee how our drama should end. 
 
 Knowing the lawlessness and the temperament of the 
 half-Spanish, half-Indian people among whom he found 
 himself— their fiery and impulsive, jealous and treacherous 
 nature, Lennard Blair was not v/ithout occasional fears that 
 Ignacio Saavedra or his uncle Jos6 might seek to get rid of 
 him quietly ; but time passed on, and he heard nothing of 
 them. 
 
 The pronunciamento was daily expected to break forth in 
 the city of Mexico, and in his Jieart Lennard blessed it, as 
 the preparations for his marripige with Dora and for their 
 departure were thus made without delay: and now they 
 knew that, unless something most unforeseen intervened, 
 they were to sail within a month by the first steam-liner for 
 Liverpool vid Kingston and Port-au-Prince. 
 
 Engaged people are usually so absorbed in themselves, as 
 to be a bore to others and to be bored by them ; so we have 
 no intention of intruding on the drives, rides, and rambles 
 of our lovers during the last month of their happy sojourn, 
 in which day after day rolled fleetly past, and saw them 
 losing their way, and forgetful of the world amid the 
 orange-groves and wonderful gardens of the hacienda, in 
 p^ths that were literally tunnels of purple, white, and crim- 
 soa flowers — or in solitary places where a passing muleteer, 
 or a half-clad Indian alone might pass to break the soli- 
 tude ; and from whence on one hand they might see the 
 city of Vera Cruz with its spires and sixteen domes, the bay 
 of Vergara opening into the Galf of Mexico — that sea they 
 were ^so soon again to travel together ; and on the other, 
 upheaved the eternal mountains crowned with snows — tho 
 granite summits of the Cordilleras of Anahuac that look 
 down ou the wetstern plains and the city of Montezuma ; 
 
CONCLUSION. 4.I.I 
 
 and tlien there were the evenings and the nights, when 
 side by side, telling of their love, of their coming marriage 
 and of their departure, of their long and glorious future— 
 or when lost in happy reverie, hand in hand and half- 
 embraced they sat on the terraces of the villa, while the 
 air was laden with the perfume of that lovely region of 
 flowers (where in the days of Cortez a bouquet was deemed 
 the most valuable gift that could be given to an ambassador), 
 and while the fire-fiies flashed around them, the distant sea 
 slept in the light of the silver moon, the blue vault above 
 was gemmed with stars, and ever and anon the red volcanic 
 gleams shot upward from the snow-clad summit of the 
 Tuxtli. 
 
 They were left much to themselves, for the elder Blair— 
 X)on Juan, we had almost named him— spent most of his 
 time in the city " winding up " his monetary afi"airs. 
 
 In romances we meet, and in real life we frequently hear, 
 of couples that were made for each other — of matches that 
 are made in heaven, and so forth — but Dora and Lennard 
 lilair seemed as if their characters, tastes, tone and percep- 
 tions were identically formed together ; as if each were the 
 other's /ia//"/ and then all the bars, hindrances, and annoy- 
 ances which make up the usual "prologue to a love-match" 
 had certainly not been wanting in their instance. 
 
 During their time of happy dreams, a European letter 
 came to Lennard. 
 
 It was from his old friend, Frank Feverley, announcing 
 that he had been married for some weeks to his early and 
 only flame, Milly Montgomerie, the widowed Lady Wharton 
 Foster (the pale little beauty with the quiet dark eyes) — mar- 
 ried too, by old Dr. Magnus Kirkford ; that he had relin- 
 quished practice, and, as her father was dead, had taken up 
 his residence at jSIonkwood Moat, intending to devote him- 
 self to the education of her little son and to the life of a 
 country gentleman. 
 
 "Kanald Cheyiie, of the Haughs— that hearty old fox- 
 hunter — has just heard of all that has come to pass with 
 you,'' continued the Doctor ; " and he looks forward with 
 delight to the time when he shall plant his boot-tops under 
 your mahogany and be again the guest of a Blair of Blair- 
 avon — Avherein, by the way, your uncle's agents here have 
 duly installed Elsie and Hteinie to set all things right for 
 your home-coming, Cheyne's eldest daughter Flora has be- 
 come Mrs. D. P. Dabchick {yon remember the bumptious 
 little barrister !) who has succeeded his friend Shoddy in a 
 
442 THE OIRL HE MAERIED. 
 
 slieriffsMp. He had a destiny as well as OSdipus, but it was 
 a briefless one ; however his long career of (perhaps) un- 
 scrupulous presswork in defence of his party has been re- 
 warded at last, and he has got both a wife and a post far 
 above his talents and origin/' 
 
 All this sounded very like small gossip on that side of the 
 Atlantic Ocean ; but still it was a voice from home, and 
 Lennard read over the letter more than once to his uncle. 
 
 In the little chapel of the hacienda, a fane situated in a 
 spot where the pink and white hawthorn bushes and s 
 grassy bank covered with yellow buttercups and white 
 daisies reminded Lennard of his home, they were married by 
 the chaplain of the Governor. The union of cousins is not 
 permitted in Mexico without a license ; but a certain number 
 of doubloons had obtained that, and moreover, they were to 
 reside far from the Tierra Caliente. 
 
 We need not expatiate on the beauty of the girlish bride, 
 her diamonds, or on her wonderful lace dress which cost 
 fifty dollars a vara (the Mexican yard), or how freely Lennard 
 and Ms uncle scattered handfuls of gold as they came forth 
 to the carriage, v/hen the brown leperos ran hobbling after 
 them in hideous crowds, shouting — 
 
 " Caridad senora y sefiores ; Caridad, by the souls of your 
 mothers — by the soul of her you love !" and the uptossed 
 pistoles fell in sparkling showers through the sunny air. 
 
 The little padrino and his sullen nephew were not present, 
 but no hearts were broken by their absence ; the captain, 
 Salvador Gonzalez y Llano, and a few select friends attended 
 them, and Mencia waited on her mistress. There was no 
 display, no marriage-feast, for they were soon to depart ; 
 and the red funnel of the very ship by which they were to 
 sail was visible in the bright blue bay from the pointed win- 
 dows of the chapel. 
 
 The previous order of destiny was now inverted, and it 
 was on the Jirst of May — on the very day when the dreaded 
 Revolution broke forth, when the roses are over in the 
 land of Montezuma and the waysides are bordered by giant 
 dahlias and marigolds— that their vessel, a splendid Liver- 
 pool liner, steamed past the great facade and towering bat- 
 teries of San Juan de Ulloa ; and when Dora, once more in 
 her little hat and veil, stood by Lennard's side, her hands 
 clasped on his arm while taking a farewell look of picturesque 
 Vera Cruz and the summit of Tuxtli. 
 ^ The spirit of the elder Blair was a little depressed for 9 
 time, on seeing the land of his thirty years prosperous 
 
CONCLUSION. 443 
 
 labour, and where the graves of his wife and children lay, 
 fading astern ; but he said — 
 
 "All is ever for the best — though at times we do not 
 think so. In all your mischances and misfortunes, Lennard, 
 and in those of my earlier years, we must now recognize the 
 great Guiding Hand that dispenses or brings to pass many a 
 blessing we should never have knoAvn had our own selfish 
 wills and narrow wishes had their way in the Battle of 
 Life.'' 
 
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