UCSB LIBRARY
 
 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 a Cant. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "MIRIAM MAY," AND "CRISPEN KEN. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RICHARD EENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 1864.
 
 TO 
 
 SIB STAFFOBD H, NOKTHCOTE, BART,, M.P., 
 
 ant 
 
 TO OFFER THIS STORY. 
 
 2206904
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. UNDINE 1 
 
 II. GIDEON CUTP 15 
 
 III. IN WHICH THE UNDERTAKER OP BLACK MOSS 
 HAS SOME CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES, BUT 
 OVERCOMES THEM 42 
 
 IV. IN WHICH GIDEON CUYP PERSUADES HIMSELF 
 
 THAT HE IS "A GREAT CREATURE" ... 61 
 
 V. GUY MELCHIOR 89 
 
 VI. THE FEVER COAT 127 
 
 VII. IN WHICH THE VICAR OF BLACK MOSS FINDS 
 
 HIMSELF ON AWKWARD GROUND 151 
 
 VIII. THE CRUSH-ROOM MORNING 182 
 
 IX. THE CRUSH-ROOM EVENING 219 
 
 X. FABIAN MASSAREENE 247 
 
 XI. HOW THE PRIVY COUNCILLOR TUT PHE 
 
 QUESTION 287
 
 LACK MOSS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 UNDINE. " 
 
 "!T'S evven as a betliowt ma ; it's t'abbey 
 bell likely that's ringin' away an' away oop 
 yander. Th' loovin' an' th' bonny lass then 
 is geean<jl; puir, puir, yoong thing; weel, 
 weel, bet it's a gae sad set, hawivver, an' 
 a sorry it is sooa." 
 
 And Sawrey Knotts, the old sexton of 
 Black Moss, came up out of the grave that 
 he was digging, and rubbing his eyes 
 which said something more than did his 
 words and scraping off the heavy clay 
 lumps that clung to his spade, the while, he 
 muttered sadly to himself, 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 "It'll be her graave I's happen gittan 
 ta deeg noo. There'll nin* be left wickf 
 amoong es ; there'll nin be left wick." 
 
 It was late on an evening in the early 
 spring, nearing towards April, that the great 
 bell was so tolling in the old tower of Black 
 Moss Abbey. 
 
 The wild valley of Black Moss is pro- 
 bably, to the general traveller, about as little 
 known as any in all Cumberland. Its streams 
 have, however, it is well believed, a very 
 tolerable name in the judicious regards of 
 those who follow the angle in difficult places ; 
 but, although the steep Raise that winds up 
 through the gap into Red Moss, affords some 
 of the finest and grandest scenery in the 
 country, it is seldom visited, whilst the very 
 considerable mountains that are grouped 
 round the valley, are rarely climbed by 
 others than the statesmen who live near the 
 fells, and are dismissed with about one con- 
 temptuous sentence even in most of the 
 more pretentious guide-books. 
 
 * Noue. t Alive.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 3 
 
 But although its waters have a sure place 
 in the affections of fishermen, those who are 
 given to " do" the mountains and the lakes 
 of Cumberland and Westmoreland, as they 
 are sometimes " done" in kid gloves and 
 shirt collars, are, by their own choosing, 
 nearly strangers to the passes and the bridle- 
 paths of Black and Eed Moss. 
 
 Black Moss Tarn, a deep dark sheet of 
 water covering most of the valley, and com- 
 ing up close to the churchyard of the old 
 church of S. Wilfrid, had that season over- 
 flowed, after the melting of the snow that 
 had been gathering in great drifts through- 
 out the winter, and after the long and heavy 
 ^floods of the early spring. The rise of the 
 waters, it was suppos'ed by some, had gene- 
 rated a malignant typhoid fever, although 
 other, and as likely causes, had been sug- 
 gested. Many, even on the slopes above the 
 damps, hatl fallen very sick, and on the com- 
 ing of the warmer weather, many had died. 
 Some homes were almost desolate. Whole 
 families had been swept away ; and there 
 were none of them even left to shut up the 
 
 B2
 
 4 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 houses cottages, untouched by the in- 
 fection, were abandoned, the scared and 
 terrified families hurrying away for awhile 
 to such of their kindly neighbours in the 
 fells as did not insist upon a too inexorable 
 quarantine. Those even who had escaped, 
 whilst so many were falling down about 
 them, had seen with horror the progress of 
 the awful scourge. It had got worse and 
 worse; none got over it, until, as Sawrey 
 Knotts the sexton said, it seemed only 
 likely that no one would be left that had 
 ever been seized. 
 
 But Gideon Cuyp, the undertaker of 
 Black Moss, in the midst of the very brisk 
 trade that he was driving, observed how he 
 had long thought the place had become 
 greatly over-populated, and that this visita- 
 tion which to his thinking was not be- 
 cause of the tarn or the drains showed 
 " haw lile* a mercifool Providence likes 
 his fooak ta coom tagidther in oer girt 
 croods." Gideon Cuyp was always minded 
 
 * Little.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 to cast about like this for such like 
 causes, as it served the reputation that 
 he had builded up for being well affected 
 towards sacred things. And just then, too, 
 his religious exhortations to the bereaved, 
 led many to believe that from his being 
 spared, his consolations were not without 
 some special significance. 
 
 A physician, however, of some parts, who 
 had been summoned with others to the 
 abbey, had given it as his opinion that the 
 fever had been generated by the waters of 
 an old drain, that ran through the church- 
 yard, having broken into a running stream, 
 from which the people drank. But, although 
 this was at once stayed under the directions 
 of Gideon Cuyp himself, the fever only the 
 rather went on spreading; and the under- 
 taker, as he passed into the homes of those 
 who were stricken, pointed upwards, and 
 reverently murmured, " It's nowt ta dae 
 we' th' draan ; it's a joodgment, a telt ye, 
 it's a joodgment." 
 
 The scourge at last had reached the abbey, 
 and Undine, the only child of Sydney Lady
 
 6 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 D'Aeth, had sickened. The worst symptoms 
 very early began to show themselves. Many 
 physicians came together, though their 
 counsel availed nothing. The fire burned 
 hotter and hotter. They did all that they 
 knew, and once for a very little she rallied ; 
 but, whilst they were yet mocked with this 
 hope, it was dashed away, and Undine's 
 young life had gone out of her. 
 
 On the night that Sawrey Knotts had 
 heard the bell, the corpse of Undine D'Aeth 
 was lying on a bed in one of the upper 
 rooms of the Abbey. The agony of the 
 mother who that morning had been ad- 
 mitted to the physician's hope that her 
 child would live was almost frenzied ; and 
 as the night went on the first night that 
 she had been all alone her reason went 
 wandering up and down amongst the bright 
 belongings of the past. In the end, so was 
 she moved, that she took the body which 
 was none the less beautiful in deatli than 
 it had been in life in her own arms, to her 
 own bed, crying out in her torment as 
 those who are so left alone will that she
 
 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 and the dead should never be parted ; and 
 that that fair clay which so soon would 
 be no longer fair at all should never be 
 taken out of the clutch of her embraces. 
 
 Undine D'Aeth had been struck down 
 only a little while before her intended pre- 
 sentation at Court. Many rumours of what 
 she was had spread far beyond the genial 
 critics in the valley of Black Moss, who 
 were never wearied of pledging her in their 
 g beer." and even quite the 
 
 highest life in London itself was talking of 
 the new beauty who was coming from Cum- 
 berland to reign alone that year. 
 
 Wailing a low wail, which showed that 
 some chords in her heart were sprung, and 
 crouching over the marble loveliness that 
 was so soon to be shut out of her sight for 
 ever, the childless woman's tearing thoughts 
 fought their way back to S. James's, and 
 to the scene in which her child this 
 snatched-away child was to have shone so 
 soon, and so steadily, a star of stars. And 
 then, as though she could see it all all 
 there before her as it would have been
 
 8 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 and as though she could hear in the 
 whispering of a thousand voices her darling 
 set over all pretenders as the peerless one, 
 she could bear no more, and in almost a 
 paroxysm of wild delirium she rang the bell 
 that called her maid. 
 
 " Bring in her dresses, Wauchope ; when 
 she wakes she is going to the Queen. Why 
 do you look so? Why why do you stare ? 
 she will be waking presently." 
 
 " Yes, my lady," said the maid, who saw 
 how it was with her mistress, and so set 
 about that awful toilet without a word. 
 
 And after this sort the corpse was dressed, 
 as it was meant the living girl should pre- 
 sently have been, with pearls in her waving 
 golden hair. 
 
 " See to put a shawl about Miss Undine," 
 said Lady D'Aec.. with a startled look. 
 "Keep her warm till the carriage comes 
 round ; we must be getting away early, or 
 we shall be shut out of the line. Don't you 
 feel how cold shr-'.'s? My love must have 
 got a chill. Ah," she burst out wildly, " I 
 remember all about it now she will never
 
 BLACK MOSS. 9 
 
 be warm again my sweet one is dead 
 dead. I shall be better, Wauchope, soon ; 
 better now that these have come." 
 
 And she pointed to the great drops that 
 streamed down her cheeks on to the face of 
 her child. 
 
 Whilst Lady D'Aeth and her handmaid 
 were yet looking on, the memories of the 
 childless woman, struggling to take her 
 back over those eighteen years, catching at 
 nothing that was not a new and a worse 
 agony, and wondering how the grave mightf 
 be cheated of its hardest prerogative, Minna 
 Norman, known throughout the district as 
 the niece and adopted child of Gideon Cuyp 
 the undertaker, came in timidly and gently 
 to try to offer some comforting words. 
 
 But the coming of Minna at that time, 
 for many reasons that it we're not difficult to 
 set forth, only intensified the sorrows of 
 Lady D'Aeth, opening up a fresh vein of 
 anguish, unfolding before her eyes- the 
 terrible reality of her des .'"tion. 
 
 The coffinmaker's child had been one of 
 the very few girl-friends of Undine ; and,
 
 10 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 although their positions from the first had 
 been so little alike, and would probably have 
 got to be less so, they had grown up, ramblers 
 together on the hills and fells that stood 
 round the valley of Black Moss, in the 
 companionship of one another, without a 
 confidence that was not maidenly, or a sym- 
 pathy that was not pure. 
 
 It is true enough that most young girls 
 of about eighteen have a great many confi- 
 dences and sympathies among themselves 
 other than those that are either maidenly 
 or pure. But nothing of that immodest 
 knowledge so generally wrapped up in the 
 extras at " finishing" schools had throttled 
 their innocence, or thrust itself in their way to 
 say to them that the world they thought so 
 passing fair was very foul. Nothing of this 
 approved indelicacy had come near to them, 
 to stagger and strangle their young hopes. 
 
 When the fever in the end had settled on 
 the Abbey, and the parting came, they were 
 in their freshness almost as sisters to each 
 other. But, beyond this, which sufficiently 
 called back so many charged memories of a
 
 BLACK MOSS. 11 
 
 ir and a dark child, that used to seem 
 sometimes like specks as they sat together 
 on a far-off cairn, scarcely ever separated, 
 for another and a stronger reason, Minna 
 Norman's coming on that evening to offer 
 sympathy herself, where none could comfort 
 her, and where all thought of consolation 
 seemed very nearly a mockery, was above 
 all, and before all, a bitterness to bear. 
 
 " I know what you are here for to-night, 
 Minna," said Lady D'Aeth, wildly, as she 
 turned and faced the girl ; " your uncle has 
 sent you. He thinks my darling will want 
 a coffin soon yes, very soon for they 
 mustn't be kept who've died of this fever. 
 A coffin, then oh ! Grod, must she, this 
 pretty thing, poison the air, and turn to 
 earth and dust ? If I might " sighed out 
 the wretched woman, as she threw herself 
 upon the corpse, " if I might only think of 
 her as she is here now no no horrid worms. 
 Oh ! why do these thoughts of what must be, 
 come like this to tear me ? And you you, 
 Minna you, whose hands have made wreaths 
 for this golden hair," and she whispered
 
 12 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 this in the girl's ear " you, Minna, perhaps, 
 will do the pinking in her shell." 
 
 Minna Norman, in the presence of these 
 bursts of agony, said nothing. She believed 
 the calm would come, but that it might not 
 be hurried; and she knew, too, that what- 
 ever she at such a time could say, would not 
 in any way avail, whilst it would very pro- 
 bably only make the present misery, of an 
 utter abandonment to unchecked sorrowing, 
 the worse. 
 
 For a few moments Lady D'Aeth stooped 
 over the body vacantly, as though there was 
 something dim and shadowy before her ; 
 and then, as if under an impulse, which 
 seemed suddenly to have moved her, and to 
 have settled into a fixed purpose, and an 
 unalterable resolve, with her face for the 
 instant bearing a fearful and unnatural 
 smile, she left Minna Norman alone with 
 the corpse in the room. 
 
 Lady D'Aeth then went to her desk, and 
 with hysterical eagerness wrote off and sealed 
 a letter; and, having sought with success, 
 the direction of a firm of London under-
 
 BLACK MOSS. 13 
 
 takers, the sombre magnificence of whose 
 appointments gave them a name above 
 any other of such furnishers in the trade, 
 she returned to Minna, who was still sitting 
 by the side of the dead, with Undine's chilled 
 lips to her own. 
 
 The letter was delivered to Minna with 
 the very strong expression of a wish that it 
 might be posted that night. 
 
 "Yes, Minna," she said, quietly and 
 softly, for the calm had come, as she wished 
 her good night ; " you and I, dear girl, 
 will yet be able to think of our lost one as 
 she was, and as she is here, lying un- 
 changed, even to the great awakening, in 
 her grave. I am not dreaming now. You 
 think that she must crumble. You think 
 that the sentence dust to dust will follow 
 lier but I tell you, Minna mad though 
 you may think me now that it need not, 
 if you are only careful of that letter. Kiss 
 me, Minna. You were very dear to her. 
 I shall love you better even than I ever did 
 before. Tell your uncle that I shall be glad 
 to see him to-morrow. Look, Minna, look,
 
 14 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 at me ; I am not what I was. I can speak 
 of this parting now, almost without so bad 
 a shudder, but still it's very, very hard," 
 and she flung herself, moaning, on the 
 marble bosom of her child. 
 
 Minna Norman, who could not compass 
 the meaning of much that she had seen, 
 crept noiselessly away, and went out to 
 post the letter. She saw that it was ad- 
 dressed to a firm of London undertakers 
 somewhere at the West- end of the town ; and 
 as she was hurrying on, and close to the 
 cottage where she lived, she was stopped by 
 Gideon Cuyp, who was coming out, he said, 
 to seek her.
 
 BLACK MOSS. "15 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 GIDEON CUYP. 
 
 IT is not, after any sort, a small thing to 
 present the undertaker of Black Moss in 
 any way to meet his merits. It was about 
 the one thing that he liked best to take 
 thought that he never was quite able 
 to be understood. Indeed, Gideon Cuyp, 
 anticipating with much judgment the pro- 
 bability that his qualities and parts might 
 at some time or other become prominent 
 and curious objects of investigation and 
 speculation, had been from his youth up at 
 pains to appear to others such as he was not ; 
 and as he congratulated himself upon the 
 success of his devices, it is at any rate due 
 to him to put it on record at once, that his 
 congratulations were entirely legitimate 
 that is, he had been all along successful
 
 16 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 without ever being suspected of having 
 saved, and had let no one into the knowledge 
 of what he had either laid out or laid up. 
 There might be those, he knew, who .were 
 concerned about his profits; but he was 
 satisfied that they were not in the secret of 
 his resources. Such as he had got he had 
 gotten, darkly ; and as it had been ac- 
 quired, so was it kept out of the sight of 
 all men. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp had come to settle in Black 
 Moss, it might be about forty years before 
 he takes any part in this history. He had 
 worked out his pleasant and assuring calcu- 
 lations and observations at a distance, and 
 w r as persuaded that the rate of mortality in 
 Black and lied Moss, and the valleys around 
 them, was high enough to make it worth 
 his while to set up the centre of his trade 
 there. But, beyond that, he had to this 
 trade thrown out some branches ; and for 
 so little did he very decently put away the 
 dead, that no competitor in tke county could 
 ever live near him. Up to the time of his 
 coming to Black Moss he had been chiefly
 
 BLACK MOSS. 17 
 
 found at Kendal, and only made opportune 
 excursions with his latest tariff to the scene 
 of any very sweeping epidemic. He always 
 did these last offices for so much less than 
 could any one else, that it was amazing to 
 most how he could do them at all. Some, 
 for whom he had buried a friend, concluded 
 that there must somewhere be a loss ; and 
 this was a conclusion that brought much 
 comforting assurance to Gideon Cuyp. 
 
 His presence at no period had been very 
 inviting. His face was yellow and wizen, 
 and was capable of diversified and unlimited 
 contortion. But his character and instincts 
 were not in any way reflected in his parch- 
 ment skin. He was said to be only plea- 
 santly ugly. And though he limped about 
 perpetually, it seemed to have been forgotten 
 that his gait was irregular. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp, however, looked chiefly to 
 his manner, which was garnished with all 
 the varieties and forms of sympathy neces- 
 sary to one who had to do, " on the lowest 
 terms for cash," a deal of mourning at short 
 notice, as the best approach to his percen- 
 
 VOL. i. c
 
 18 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 tages ; and in the conception and execution 
 of this a considerable experience had advised 
 him that he had chanced upon a vastly pro 
 fitable staple of trade-grief. He readily made 
 those about him believe that he cared a great 
 deal for many things good, and commendable, 
 and pure in themselves. It had been his 
 chief business ever since he became a funeral 
 furnisher a business, too, that he pushed 
 even more perhaps than he did the making 
 of coffins, or the circulating of typhus, to 
 divert suspicion from the one thing that he 
 had set himself to do and that one thing 
 was the getting of money. It is not, how- 
 ever, true that he thought of nothing at all 
 but hoarding his gains. He had thought 
 of this, it might be, only about three-fourths 
 of the time that he had lived he had set 
 aside the other fourth, with excellent dis- 
 cretion, to lead away any speculation in his 
 affairs up to the impossibility of his ever 
 having saved anything. 
 
 And he had done this, it should be said, 
 without once making a slip. He had never 
 had two stories as to what he made or did not
 
 BLACK MOSS. 19 
 
 make. People believed that he worked very 
 hard for very small returns ; and he had 
 brought them to believe this without having 
 once hesitated, and with a calm consciousness 
 that he could at least outwatch all watchers. 
 He had read in the lighter columns of the 
 country papers of the ways and observances 
 of those remarkable misers who were not 
 given to burn candles ; who lived and died 
 in dirt, and said they liked it ; and who did 
 not even set about disguising that there must 
 be a stocking full of guineas put away some- 
 where. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp had altogether given himself 
 up todespisingthese miserable instances of in- 
 effective sensitiveness. Indeed, the measure 
 of his contempt for them and their hollow- 
 ness was about proportioned to his devotion 
 to his own masterly sagacity. Most of the 
 money he had made was buried away in a 
 hole with the seal of the grave upon it ; but 
 there was nothing anywhere to lead to the 
 suspicion that there had been, or would be, 
 anything to bury. He had been at some 
 pains that in his own home there might be
 
 20 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 not even one accidental symptom of his hav- 
 ing saved. He would at times slink away 
 and shake himself with great good feeling 
 by the hand, when it, by chance, reached him 
 that this or that neighbour had happened to 
 say "that Mr.Cuyp, who distributed so much 
 in his benefactions, was probably living up 
 to his income." 
 
 Now, to the thinking of Gideon Cuyp, 
 this was strategy. The whole parish was 
 astray. He had been sounded, and it was 
 conceived that the bottom had been found. 
 He only made a little, and gave away most 
 of that to clothe the naked and feed the 
 hungry. This was how his situation was 
 interpreted by those around him. Cuyp 
 thought public opinion in those parts to be 
 an excellent thing. It was delicious to 
 have taken them all in, whilst none of them 
 knew that they had been taken in at all. 
 
 " A spend happen aboot a foorth ov what 
 a meeaks," he would chuckle to himself, 
 " an nin ov them bethinks thessels ov oother 
 three. Weel, bet they is serious saft they 
 is hawivver."
 
 BLACK MOSS. 21 
 
 It should be said that, within his own 
 doors, the fiction of his own resources was 
 wonderfully sustained. There was always 
 a guinea for the asking, if there were either 
 sickness or want at the end of the appli- 
 cation. His name appeared amongst all 
 the charities of the place. Bible annota- 
 tors and commentators of great local cele- 
 brity, but not of corresponding means, could 
 generally reckon upon his taking a copy or 
 more of the heaviest of their offerings. The 
 little ones in Black Moss were much affec- 
 tioned towards the old man, and looked 
 upon him as nearly always good for bulls'- 
 eyes ; but even the sweet things that he 
 gave to them were wrapped up in tracts, 
 or in leaves out of Bible stories ; and at 
 Christmas he would often set a great Noah's 
 ark before the longing eyes of that one who 
 was the best reported of. 
 
 Yet to Gideon Cuyp the sight of his 
 neighbours was mostly distasteful, if not 
 always hateful. He never gave away a coin 
 if the gift was not very sure of early recog- 
 nition. His right hand and his left were
 
 22 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 always in earnest consultation before either 
 went, at any time, into his pocket after a 
 grudged guinea. He had so many doubts 
 about the authority of the Bible, that he 
 refrained himself, except in public, when the 
 eyes of his fellows were set on him, from 
 The Book altogether; so that he might 
 not, as he used to put it, under any temp- 
 tation, add to his scepticism. Gideon Cuyp 
 was in all things a living lie a living lie 
 who could look you full and fairly in the 
 face, always hovering about where there 
 were any dead, or any likely to die. 
 
 To trace his motives. He had indeed 
 adopted Minna Norman, when a little child, 
 for his own purposes, so that when she 
 grew up she could minister to the outward 
 show, in the midst of which she unsus- 
 pectingly lived. And then it had not 
 escaped the calculations of the old man, if 
 she were, after a while, as well-looking as 
 she promised, there should be something 
 down that need not, of any sort of neces- 
 sity, all belong to her when she married. 
 This, at least, was the way that he looked
 
 at it tliis was the use to which he was 
 minded he would put her. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp always had made it a 
 serious and a particular matter to talk about 
 his bankers when he could. He would give 
 out, when the occasion served him, that 
 the little that he had put away anywhere 
 was in the Cockermouth Bank ; so that if 
 there were those who wanted to steal the 
 little that was his, they would have to get 
 into the Cockermouth Bank to steal it. 
 No one, he used to fancy, would at all care 
 to come to rob a man who did not keep 
 about him or near him his own money. 
 He was not going to let it be thought that 
 there was a big bag hidden away up his 
 chimney. So, whilst the effects that he 
 kept in his banker's hands were something 
 nominal, the great hoard that had so long 
 been grovang and gathering, was about ten 
 feet down in S. Wilfrid's churchyard. 
 
 Years before the beginning of this his- 
 tory, a family grave had been opened, as it 
 was then said, before being for ever shut 
 up, to receive the remains of the last member
 
 24 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 of a race. After he had been so put to rest 
 at the top of his long line, the grave was 
 to be closed. There was no one living, it 
 was believed, with the right to follow him 
 into that pit ; and there would never be any 
 more knocking against that sod till the 
 crack of doom awoke the valley. 
 
 Now Gideon Cuyp, amongst other things, 
 did not believe in the crack of doom. He 
 did not believe that the last summons to 
 the dead might come at any moment. He 
 could mutter over the service for the burial 
 of the dead to serve a purpose, but he did 
 not believe in any Resurrection. He gave 
 Noah's arks to the likeliest of the village 
 lads ; but he did not the less believe to 
 himself that Noah was a myth, and the 
 flood a fable. He did not believe in the 
 possibility of the precious metals ever getting 
 destroyed. In his own mind he made a 
 little calculation, and backed the gold to 
 outlast the " fervent heat." He was also of 
 opinion that nothing could disturb a grave, 
 other than a faculty; and as there were very 
 clear instructions to put away in a coffin
 
 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 the last of a line, the chances of there ever 
 being a faculty asked for in this case were 
 not worth considering. 
 
 o 
 
 This, at least, was the view that Gideon 
 Cuyp took of it. So on the night of that 
 day when the family grave had been filled 
 in, he took a spade, and went out to the 
 churchyard. In the darkness he worked 
 on till he presently came to within a foot of 
 the coffin lid, about ten feet it might be 
 from the top, and there, with many emo- 
 tions and much assurance, he buried away 
 his darling gold. 
 
 As he was filling up the hole he took 
 himself into his own confidence, and the 
 communion was something on this wise : 
 
 " A is sick a terble free sort ov a mon," 
 he chuckled. " I likely live oop ta ma in- 
 coome, ha ! ha ! I clean cap 'em, for wyah 
 I don't geea oop an doon wi a song ov th' 
 brass a meeaks. A hev saaved nowt 
 nae happen nit th' lile there is, hawivver, 
 weel be varra coomfortable here it weel 
 sooa." 
 
 And the little man, as he thought these
 
 26 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 things, threw in the clay, and shuffled home, 
 with a creed at last that he might give him- 
 self up to. And the creed was this that 
 there is nothing so easy, and that may be 
 made so profitable, as to make fools. 
 
 For forty years, or thereabouts, once a 
 week had Gideon Cuyp's advertisement in 
 one or other of the county papers been, 
 with very little variety, in these words : 
 
 " Gideon Cuyp, of Black Moss, still con- 
 tinues to supply the best coffins at the lowest 
 possible prices. In all cases he positively 
 guarantees the comfort of the deceased, and 
 economy to the survivors. Coffins not ap- 
 proved will be exchanged. By availing 
 themselves of the services of G. C., the 
 bereaved can see the features of the deceased 
 up to the last moment."* 
 
 Gideon Cuyp, after a good deal of casting 
 about, had concluded that this could not be 
 bettered. It might be affecting to many in 
 some moods ; whilst cheapness remained the 
 chief feature in this procession of words. 
 
 He, at any rate, had found the advertise- 
 
 * The original of this advertisement has appeared in 
 a Cumberland paper within the last few months.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 27 
 
 ment not a little effective. His experience 
 satisfied him that every touch went home 
 somewhere. There were those mourners 
 who, scarcely knowing in the first coming of 
 their sorrow what they did ^readily believed 
 the speciality of so much comfort with so much 
 economy to be wholly unparalleled ; and 
 those whose hearts, it might be, were very 
 near breaking by the closing scene of some 
 fair and well-loved thing, rose at the assur- 
 ance that a dear face would not be shut out 
 till the last moment. 
 
 However he came by it, no one did nearly 
 such a trade in Cumberland as did Gideon 
 Cuyp. His f ' best elm," it is true, was not 
 over seasoned ; but then, as he would reason 
 to himself, "wo in t'graave wes ta telt 
 alood that ?" His " heart of oak " was green 
 outsides ; but then who was to accuse him 
 when his warped and shrinking bargains were 
 buried away ? He, at any rate, greatly satis- 
 fied the survivors with everything that he 
 did, from his very decent demeanour when 
 measuring, up to the little discount that he 
 threw off his bill. 
 
 It is true that his custom did not always
 
 28 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 come to him legitimately. He was not 
 always satisfied to wait till it came to him, 
 without a struggle or without contriving. 
 If it so chanced that the sanitary state of 
 the country was anything remarkable, and 
 so affected his trade as to make it perhaps 
 a trifle dull, he was not without his remedy 
 for this flatness in the mortality. A little 
 travelling typhus was put into circulation ; 
 or he would call out some scarlet fever to 
 bring about a better average. 
 
 And he made the call after, this sort. 
 
 The clothes of a fever patient, generally 
 condemned by the doctor to be burnt, were 
 generally saved to do a further work by the 
 care of Gideon Cuyp. He would get into 
 the house and he was much sought in 
 most houses and having got there, with 
 excellently well counterfeited concern, he 
 would plead that something might very 
 easily be left, even from the burning, that 
 would yet carry infection. He was ready 
 to get rid of this risk. He would provide 
 for their burning up. He would urge that 
 he never caught anything himself, and if he
 
 BLACK MOSS. 29 
 
 did, it were better that he should be sa- 
 crificed rather than, that the county should 
 suffer. And, taking this tone, he always 
 prevailed. Once secure of the suit of death, 
 he would dispose of it in some remote dis- 
 trict, on very reasonable and easy terms for 
 Gideon Cuyp never incontinently gave away 
 anything. So would his trade be braced, 
 and look up again. 
 
 But, beyond all this, his character for 
 active benevolence had been to him in 
 another point of view a remunerative thing. 
 He had consented to be churchwarden ; and 
 this was a great stroke, for it brought him 
 about the church, which thing he found in 
 many ways to be desirable. Then he had 
 consented to nominate the sexton; and 
 with a happy assumption of indifference, 
 without appearing to want the distinction, 
 he had been unanimously elected one of 
 the Inspectors of Nuisances. Now an In- 
 spector of Xuisances, who is not above his 
 work, has to deal with many things that are 
 not nice, to touch many things that are not 
 savoury, and to smell many things that are
 
 30 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 not sweet. But Gideon Cuyp did not 
 trouble himself to think about what he 
 might have to see, or smell, or handle ; he 
 was only concerned with the knowledge that 
 the health of the place was in a measure in 
 his hands ; and in his hands he was minded 
 that it should remain. He had soon found it 
 easy to get the other members of the Board 
 to leave unclean matters pretty much to 
 him ; for he found it to be very necessary 
 indeed that, with his engagements, he should 
 not be interfered with. Yet it could not 
 be said that he asked for the authority with 
 which he was covered. It was thrust upon 
 him ; and he took it with a diffidence and 
 hesitation that showed to what greatness he 
 might have reached as an actor, had he 
 not been so great as an undertaker. 
 
 On one occasion when Sawrey Knotts the 
 sexton was at his w r ork, he discovered that 
 an old conduit which, many years before, 
 had drained the land 'waters, which often 
 settled in the churchyard, had, after a heavy 
 flood, become so filled that a way had been 
 forced into a stream which ran close by,
 
 BLACK MOSS. 31 
 
 and which, stream supplied Black Moss 
 with water. The sexton, although by no 
 means a total abstainer, had been straight way 
 so appalled, that he cast down his spade, 
 and, thick with the clay that hung about 
 him, he went to report what had occurred, 
 and what a grievous peril the place was in, 
 to Gideon Cuyp, the Acting Inspector of 
 Nuisances. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp would not have been the 
 very considerable person that he was, had he 
 not seen in an instant how this might be 
 worked. And he was quite up to the occa- 
 sion, and to the demands that were made 
 upon his caution, and he betrayed nothing 
 of that which was in circulation within 
 him. 
 
 "Weel, weel, Sawrey, it mud sartanly 
 be stooped at yance ; ya've doon reet* enoo 
 ta com ta ma ya niudn't be gittan 
 meeakin a serious din aboot it, er there'll 
 be likely a saad set; it'll fritten away a 
 conny few ov th' fooak, an there'll be 
 happen a gae mash oop." 
 * Rieht.
 
 32 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 So Sawrey Knotts, seeing no more than 
 it was meant he should see, did as he was 
 bidden of Cuyp, and held his peace ; and 
 afterwards, acting under the undertaker's 
 directions, diverted the course of the drain 
 where it had made the breach, and then 
 went back to his work at the hole he was 
 digging for mortality. 
 
 "When the evening of that day had come, 
 Gideon Cuyp went out, and was till mid- 
 night busied 011 a great business between 
 the churchyard drain and the stream. 
 
 " A tak it that'll dae," he said to himself 
 at last, as he flung down his spade. 
 
 He had this joy so full upon him because 
 he had been undoing, with some success, the 
 work that Sawrey Knotts had done in the 
 day. He had made the foul waters of the 
 drain to mingle again in the mountain 
 stream ; and there was a neatness about the 
 way in which he had finished the job that 
 pleased him mightily. 
 
 " A sail dae a girt traad* joost noo. I's 
 
 * Trade.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 33 
 
 inspector these girt fools clae ma jobs 
 bettre an weel, an' I'll see they com ta ex 
 ui questions." 
 
 As he so comforted* himself he wiped 
 away the sweat from his brow ; and, having 
 taken heart about his prospects when he 
 thought of the scourge he had contrived, 
 and making in his own mind his arrange- 
 ments to meet it, he went home. 
 
 It should be conspicuously set out here 
 that amongst the many benevolences which 
 were contributed by Ofideon Cuyp to society, 
 and w.ere always freely enough at the ser- 
 vice of suffering at Black Moss, was his 
 aptitude for healing. It served his purpose 
 to have this sort of reputation. Even if his 
 remedies did not save lives, there was yet 
 this way of looking at them, they might fill 
 Lis coffins. 
 
 So, as the value of his specifics became 
 known, his sovereign salves were much 
 sought after ; and many came to him for 
 his plasters, and liniments, his cordials, 
 herbs, eye waters, elixirs, and balsams. Crip- 
 ples, with convenient and with continual faith, 
 
 VOL. i. D
 
 34 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 rubbed their joints with the oils that he got 
 out of the mosses, and with his decoction of 
 goose grass. The doctor, who was very 
 needy, could not at all afford even to save 
 for nothing ; he must have Ids consideration; 
 the most astounding or miraculous gra- 
 tuitous cures would not have found him in 
 victuals; and seeing what came to Gideon 
 Cuyp by the use and abuse of his drugs, he 
 calculated that lie could afford to give them 
 away. 
 
 Not that he ever wastefully threw away 
 even his physic. If he happened to have 
 seen and in the seeing of such things he 
 was not behind others that a case was 
 hopeless, he came to the bedside to pray a 
 little, and to speak words of assurance ; 
 said he saw improvement in his patient ; pre- 
 scribed nothing ; and went his way to calcu- 
 late what he could bury that " party " for ; 
 and whether the very low figure, with a 
 margin of profit, could defy the competition 
 that he well knew would swallow him up if 
 he made any mistake. 
 
 He had a way with him of taking the
 
 BLACK MOSS. 35 
 
 measure of his patients at once, in a glance 
 that is, the measure of their disease, and the 
 measure of their bodies. After that very pro- 
 fitable night's work between the drain and 
 the stream, he suddenly found out a great 
 many full habits amongst those who came 
 to him for his medicine and advice. 
 
 " Ah, a can discern haw it is wi' ya. Ya 
 meeaks o'er mooch bloode ; an' ya soop o'er 
 mooch d strang ale. I knaa varra weel yar'd 
 be a site th' bettre if yar soopedwattre."* 
 
 So the mass of them put themselves on 
 water, the water of the stream, for his pes- 
 tilential words were not thrown away. 
 
 Then after they had many of them given 
 over drinking the strong ale, there came the 
 first beginning of that fever which emptied 
 the place and filled his pockets. 
 
 One of the physicians, who had been 
 called into Black Moss Abbey when Undine 
 D'Aeth had been nearing her end, was a 
 shrewd man, not only of much skill, but 
 much common sense. He always at once 
 
 * Drank water. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 attacked such smells as there might be, 
 when he was professionally invited to deal 
 with or account for an epidemic when he 
 was assured about the smells, he always 
 went straight to the water. 
 
 " Lady D'Aeth," he said, the first morn- 
 ing that he came, after that he had taken a 
 survey of the situation, " I should be glad if 
 I can have a glass of the water that is 
 generally drunk hereabouts." 
 
 The water was brought to him ; he poured 
 it into a bottle and carried it away with him. 
 
 " It is quite as I thought," he muttered 
 to himself when he had made his analysis. 
 " Nothing' could account for this combina- 
 tion but a churchyard." 
 
 He next sought out the Inspector of 
 Nuisances, and was at once introduced to 
 Gideon Cuyp. Now it was soon suffici- 
 ently clear to Cuyp that the physician had 
 already made up his mind, and that he was 
 persuaded he knew how this fever had 
 come about. It never entered into the 
 undertaker's plans to do anything to disturb 
 such conclusions ; it was, he had always
 
 BLACK MOSS. 37 
 
 found in his experience, the surest way of 
 getting people to cleave to them ; and he did 
 not at all care that the physician should 
 cleave to this one. 
 
 So when the doctor had said that an in- 
 spection of the drain should be made at 
 once, even before that noon, Gideon Cuyp 
 only bowed himself, and went out at once 
 to find some hands. 
 
 Presently the work was begun, the phy- 
 sician the while looking on. The breach 
 was found, and very small it was. 
 
 " Hey, mon, bet it's ewen them rats agin," 
 dropped in Gideon Cuyp, with great presence 
 of mind, as they came upon the hole that 
 he had made. 
 
 "No doubt, Mr. Cuyp," said the phy- 
 sician, who altogether believed it was the 
 rats. 
 
 And then after the rats had been, at the 
 instance of Gideon Cuyp, sufficiently held 
 to account for the mischief they had done, 
 the physician expressed his confidence in 
 the worst being over. But, almost as he 
 spoke, the worst had reached the Abbey;
 
 38 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 and when as the night came on, the bell in 
 the old tower tolling out, announced to 
 Gideon Cuyp the brisk progress of his hellish 
 work, the thought came into him that he 
 could not afford to stop short now in that 
 which he had set himself to do. 
 
 " This sput hes bin for a conny bit a 
 serious deal o'er healthy ; an' ma traad is 
 ivver sooa mooch oer girt a yan for owt ta 
 mell* on't." 
 
 A week later, after the physician had gone 
 away, and Undine D'Aeth was dead, Gideon 
 Cuyp one night, when it had been some time 
 dark, went out into a little yard that there 
 was behind his house, and cautiously and 
 noiselessly began to grope about for some- 
 thing. 
 
 " They sud be behint this girt steean ;f 
 they canna weel be skifted.J Neea, neea. 
 I've fint 'em six aald rats, gae welkers an' 
 awe. Sooa coonnin' || they'll be tied ta knaa 
 whaar th' are when a let them oot joost noo, 
 I'll warrn^T ma. Soom choorch folk canna 
 
 * Meddle. t Stone. J Shifted. 
 
 Found. || Cunning. IT Warrant.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 39 
 
 iwer kip their hands off what they be 
 olas* callin' varmin ; an' ses as they caniia 
 see what rats wer meeak'd for ; an' this wi' 
 soommut aboot God meeakin' owt for a 
 weese contrivin'." 
 
 As Gideon Cuyp was muttering this, he 
 took up a cage full of old rats. He had caught 
 a great many in the churchyard drain, but 
 had discharged the young ones, as in their 
 youth they might very well not know their 
 way about, if they were fetched from their 
 homes. Gideon Cuyp's experience had always 
 been that a clever and a thoughtful rat will, 
 of a certainty, find his way back to the place 
 he came out of, if he has given to him at all 
 a fair chance. So he went down towards 
 the church when it was getting late, and 
 turned them into the stream just out- 
 side the churchyard wall, where there was 
 only a little earth between it and the drain. 
 The next morning showed him that the 
 rats had not been dull, or unworthy of the 
 work that he had set them to do. They 
 had demonstrated their domesticity ; and 
 * Always.
 
 40 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 once again the foul water of the drain 
 was emptying its poison in the mountain 
 stream . 
 
 "It's varra straange that Guy Melchior 
 isn't gittan a toorn* at th' fever varra 
 straange it fairly caps ma ; its gittan 1 
 ameeast ta be teem, too ; he is late enoo ta 
 be in ma way." 
 
 So thought Gideon Cuyp as he limped 
 back to his house. 
 
 Now Guy Melchior was the Vicar of 
 Black Moss. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp, when he had so met Minna 
 Norman with the letter that Lady D'Aetli 
 had said was urgent, bade her trust it to 
 him, as it was too late and too damp for her 
 to be abroad. When she had left him, he 
 was minded to see to whom it was going; 
 and he took it into his very own room, where 
 all the ghastly signs of his horrible trade 
 hung round about the walls, from a pageant 
 with feathers at a fancy price, to a child's 
 funeral by contract. 
 
 When he saw the lines outside that letter, 
 * Turn.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 41 
 
 a smile spread from his nearly livid lips, and 
 seemed to light up his contorted features ; 
 but then those were emotions that it was 
 not meant the world should see. 
 
 "Varra tidy fooak, mebbie," he almost 
 hissed out, as he took in all the situation ; 
 " bet th' opposition meet nit be sooa weel. 
 A bethink ma this bit ov meeschief is likely 
 ta be stickin' in th' properest hends."
 
 42 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 IN WHICH THE UNDERTAKER OF BLACK MOSS 
 HAS SOME CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES, BUT 
 OVERCOMES THEM. 
 
 IT only wanted about twenty minutes to 
 the closing of the mail for the coach came 
 through the valley for the letters at night 
 when Gideon Cuyp, with the enclosure that 
 was marked "urgent" in his hands, was be- 
 ginning to get lost in the full breadth of the 
 situation. His fingers did not cease to itch, 
 or his whole body to get hot, as he read those 
 lines which might so lead to his undoing. 
 
 If it should seem that the instincts of 
 this man are nothing pleasing, and if it is 
 not to be concealed that the objects and 
 desires of his life are chiefly, and on many 
 grounds, to be abhorred, yet, as he sits there,
 
 BLACK MOSS. 43 
 
 his lips are moving, and it may be heard 
 that he is asking for a measure of justice to 
 honour the motives of his hesitation for 
 up to this present he has refrained from 
 laying hands upon that seal. It is justice 
 that he wants, and he should surely have it. 
 Let it be said that he did waver and fidget 
 in his chair, and balance it on its back legs, 
 whilst the second hand might perhaps have 
 been going round five times not one 
 journey more; and then the perspiration on 
 him was dried up; he fidgeted no longer 
 in the place where he was sitting ; his chair 
 stood firmly on all its four legs ; the thing 
 that he had for a little season hesitated to 
 do, was done now it was all done ; that short 
 sharp struggle against such odds. He had 
 quieted the restless doubts that had been 
 holding him back ; and in an instant it had 
 come into his mind how he would deal with 
 such scruples as these. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp had indeed never tampered 
 with a seal before that night not at all be- 
 cause the temptation to do it had presented 
 itself and been rejected, but simply because
 
 44 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 up to that time he had never faced the 
 temptation. 
 
 But he conceived it to be very necessary 
 to face it now, for in his hands he held the 
 proof that his privileges were going to be 
 invaded. He looked at it in this way 
 that it was intended to pull him down, to 
 ruin him, to let strangers pluck him away, 
 to crush out his trade ; and it even might 
 come to be seen that he was not nearly so 
 cheap as he had been accounted. He reasoned 
 that it was one thing to break into sealed 
 confidence, only because a man was curious ; 
 but he took it to be another thing to get to 
 see a mischief when a mischief was threat- 
 ened. And Gideon Cuyp did not doubt but 
 that he was badly threatened by this thing 
 before him ; or that he would be grievously 
 standing in his own way if he ever let it 
 get into those hands that it was meant for. 
 
 So he concluded that he would stop this peril 
 to himself at once for was it not to go to 
 others high up in his own trade? If this went 
 through the post, he could see his business, 
 his monopoly, slipping clean away from him.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 45 
 
 Perhaps, as lie thought, if these gentlemen 
 were to find out, which was more th in likely, 
 that mortality in Black Moss and in the dis- 
 tricts round was so far above the corrected 
 average, they would be doing something 
 that might root him out they would, it 
 was only probable, be striking out a branch 
 and such of his inventions as he had been 
 passing off as new would then the rather 
 seem to be stale and old. 
 
 Then, what should he do with his 
 great stock of green elm and rotten oak? 
 A revised tariff might be set up along with 
 seasoned wood; and all these thoughts of 
 how the future might serve him were quite 
 over much for him. His crooked body 
 rolled up as the picture mocked him. His 
 breath was fetched shorter and shorter, and 
 he gulped down his emotions. He had 
 justice when that second hand was going 
 round those five times. But he has flung 
 away his title to it now. A new and a 
 fresh crime is on his hands, for the violated 
 letter is trembling close by the side of the 
 candle's light.
 
 46 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 " A A wes a lile while, though, meeakin' 
 oop ma'fi meend I wes tried a sorry bit ; 
 bet it wes reet ta messel ta dae th' job." 
 
 This at least was how Gideon Cuyp 
 excused to himself the felony ; and he was 
 very sure that the way in which he walked 
 was clean. Nor did he think indifferently 
 well of his resolution when he had read the 
 letter. If outside there had been that at 
 all to move him, he glared at the lines inside. 
 He hitched himself up, as though some of 
 that intelligence, which was generally 
 handy, had at this crisis failed him. He 
 curvetted in a circle, and wrung his hands, 
 and limped in a frenzy about his little room. 
 He read it again and again, but there were 
 the terrible words which told him that there 
 were better men than himself in his own 
 trade. He felt that he could in a measure 
 have borne to know this, if their pretensions 
 were not to be builded up with their feet 
 upon his neck. He was no longer to be in 
 Black Moss chief amongst the undertakers. 
 Some one had learnt that even as a funeral 
 furnisher he was not nearly first. Where
 
 BLACK MOSS. 47 
 
 was it to end, if those who were so much 
 greater than he were to be fetched up to 
 Black Moss? He could scarcely bear to 
 think how very nearly they were coming ; 
 and they knew a secret, too, that must be 
 good for coining gold. They must have 
 been getting it in heaps, whilst he had been 
 only sweating it out of wet wood. He had 
 been then there many years a palterer, a 
 beaten man, a pettifogger, a touter ; and as 
 he saw it all now, he did not cease to take 
 into his mouth abominable oaths. 
 
 " It mudn't be doon, an' what's meear, it 
 canna be doon ! It canna that ! It's a girt 
 plot ; an' it's nowt else ta fash* oos awe !" 
 he snivelled out. " An it's sumrnut worse, 
 or I's meestak-in, ta rob th' graave ; an' 
 th' God that's away and away oop yonder," 
 he went on blaspheming, "wont abide 
 that !" 
 
 If Gideon Cuyp by any chance could 
 
 then have remembered any prayer that he 
 
 had ever heard, it is not wholly unlikely 
 
 that he might have prayed it. But in 
 
 * Do, or ruin.
 
 48 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 any case, in whatever form the cry might 
 have gone up, it would have been something 
 very like a cry for a considerable grant of 
 vengeance on the inconveniently inventive 
 West-end firm. 
 
 But anything wholly impromptu in this 
 way was not in his line. As he could not 
 so tax his memory at all, he cursed. The 
 words that his mother sixty years before had 
 taught him to pray had long since been 
 choked off. He thumped great thumps 
 upon himself. He threw out his thin arms 
 as though some strong fancy was helping 
 him to the belief that he was pounding to 
 little bits the London undertakers. 
 
 " Wyah didn't a bethink me ov this ? 
 "VVyah hev a bin sick a marpie? an' then 
 it's them I sud hev happen crooshed." 
 
 And over the bitter recollection of such a 
 lost opportunity something very like to tears 
 welled out of his sunken eyes. 
 
 Now this was one of Gideon Cuyp's weaker 
 moments. These intervals had occurred to 
 him, it is true, before; but it will not be 
 needed to record many here. It was rare,
 
 BLACK MOSS. 49 
 
 indeed, when anything moved him as this 
 had ; that must be very bad that could take 
 of him such a hold as had this. He very 
 frequently managed to see, that in the 
 darkest or unlikeliest place there was at 
 least a snug and a warm spot where his own 
 interests could stretch themselves and bask ; 
 and out of the ills and calamities of other 
 people he usually contrived, after some sort, 
 to advantage himself. In this matter his 
 affected sagacity was soon over the shock 
 and out of its troubles. 
 
 " Hey, mon ! bet what a gae fool I's 
 bin !" he said, getting himself together. 
 " Sartanly, I's nit geean ta send these leens 
 ta dae a ineeschief. Nooa, nooa, didn't 
 they coom ta ma for soom weese end; an 
 dang ma, bet I's nit sick a sad silly as nit 
 ta claaim* 'em. It's likely trew f enoo 
 that nowt's doon that's nit a weesdom ; 
 bet this pooder is a terble girt thing ta 
 hev fin-ded oot, it is hawiwer ; an if a is 
 happen gittan a lile bit aald, I's nit feeble, 
 
 * Stop. t True. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 or daft, or seekly a canna bethink ma it 
 hes coom'd o'er late I canna that." 
 
 And Gideon Cuyp, when he thought of this, 
 and that he might not be altogether what 
 he was, threw himself into his best form ; 
 nor could he be persuaded that death had 
 any hold of him then. He was, he believed, 
 much as he had been when he came into 
 the world ; that which should some day kill 
 him was showing none of its signs. So he 
 passed himself up and down before his glass, 
 and in his skin and in his mind he was not 
 a little comforted. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp was now sure that he could 
 even read those lines aloud ; for would not 
 every word, as he came upon it, tell him of 
 the great future that was so surely spreading 
 out before him ? He put up the letter very 
 near to the light, so near that it was almost 
 scorched; but he was himself a good deal 
 the hotter of the two when he had seen what 
 was in it : 
 
 " Lady D'Aeth presents her compliments 
 to Messrs. Hattban and Hurse, and having 
 heard of their ' Powder for the Preservation
 
 BLACK MOSS. 51 
 
 of the Dead' now writes to beg that Messrs. 
 Hattban and Hurse will, on the receipt of 
 this, send some trustworthy and competent 
 person, skilled in the use of this powder, to 
 Black Moss Abbey immediately." 
 
 This was what had so disturbed the peace 
 of mind of Gideon Cuyp that there should 
 be a powder with any such properties, and 
 that he, so high up in his trade, sweeping 
 away as he did the dead in that county, in 
 his hearses, should have never yet offered it 
 for sale. 
 
 " There'll be joost teeme ta nap th' maail, 
 a tak' it, an' altre th' shaap er this a lile," 
 said Gideon Cuyp, as he sat him down to 
 write another letter of a different tone to 
 Messrs. Hattban and Hurse. 
 
 Now, from all that had come out, Hattban 
 and Hurse were a cut above him, and he 
 knew it; but he did not know that their 
 chief engagements were generally in West- 
 minster Abbey or S. George's Chapel. He 
 was not going to write humbly, or as a 
 craven. If he did not put away the same 
 quality in mahogany or velvet, their name 
 
 E 2
 
 52 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 did not ring, as did his, through a whole 
 county. 
 
 And the other letter that he wrote was 
 this : 
 
 " GENTLEMEN, 
 
 " I will thank you to send me here, 
 at your earliest convenience, the necessary 
 quantity of your esteemed powder for the 
 preservation of a young female, who has 
 just died of a fever, with full directions as 
 to use, &c. &c. You will, of course, invoice 
 it to me, with the usual trade allowance. 
 It would be all the safer if I got it by 
 return. To prevent delay, I beg to refer 
 you to two w r ell -known London houses, who 
 are the agents there for my improved air- 
 tight shell, and who can satisfy you that I 
 have been established here forty years. 
 " I remain, Gentlemen, 
 
 " Your faithful Servant, 
 
 " GIDEON CUYP. 
 
 " Messrs. Hattban and Hurse. 
 
 " P.S. Be pleased to advise me if there is 
 any extra discount to the trade by taking a 
 large quantity. G. C."
 
 BLACK MOSS. 53 
 
 And after this was written out, away 
 went the little man to put it into the post. 
 He was satisfied that now such as were 
 Hattban and Hurse would be no longer 
 greater than was he. But he was cautious 
 even over the return of his confidence. He 
 could not remember that before the greatest 
 strokes which he had made he had been ever 
 carried away. 
 
 " I weel hev ni troostworthy person frae 
 ih' like er sick fooak ta be coomin' here. 
 Nooa, nooa, I won't that." 
 
 And so did he quiet himself as he went 
 back to his home, and sat him down to think 
 over that which had been, and that which 
 might be. 
 
 " Isn't ma puir aald neb fairly raank !"* 
 he whispered, with a little whisper, as he 
 pressed his hands with all his strength about 
 Ids temples. " If this toorns oot a lile 
 kindly, though I's nowt er a glootton for 
 th* brass, I sail be like to be o'er joyful, 
 I sail that ; an' noo," he said, " ta kindle 
 a bit er fire wi' this." And as he spoke 
 * Full.
 
 54 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 he held the rifled letter in the candle's 
 flame. 
 
 When he was satisfied that nothing of it 
 remained, with his old head full fuller 
 even than he had allowed to himself he 
 shuffled away to act out the scene to the 
 end with his child. 
 
 "la deal ov teems telt Minna that a 
 hoped a sudn't for a while be deein ; bet noo 
 a canna affoord ta be in any hoorry a can't 
 sooa." And he stopped on his way to the par- 
 lour to make a little calculation. " Hey, what 
 a serious site er teem I'se bin at this lile 
 tinny geeam ! Why, I'se clean capped if a 
 canna meeak' ma a deal er hoondreds noo 
 where it once o'er tak'd ma ta meeak' as 
 many tens. An a can ex owt, an fooak too, 
 weel gimma* owt ; for th' like er sick pooder 
 geeans clean th' heart. There's now't ta 
 tooch yon in a gae lockf er fooak." 
 
 And Gideon Cuyp, smothering down 
 
 emotions which for a second time that night 
 
 had been almost too much for him, went to 
 
 sit for awhile with Minna Norman. He 
 
 * Give me. t Lot.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 55 
 
 had been ruffled and overset; but now he 
 was going for a little season to say and to 
 do smooth things. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp had never varied to her 
 whom he had made his own. Before Minna 
 Norman he had refrained himself from 
 breaking out, or breaking down, as he 
 had that night. Before her he never ap- 
 peared other than as he was not. He had 
 left nothing undone, from the first day she 
 came into his hands, that it was right and 
 fit he should do for her. She, at least, 
 knew all that even any town girl could have 
 needed to know. In far-away Black Moss 
 she had learnt more than a little of most 
 things ; but only of such things as do not 
 soil in the learning. She could sing and 
 she could sew. She could do the pinking 
 for the undertaker's coffins, and at tapestry 
 work she was nothing behind. Never, too, 
 did any broad "Westmoreland or Cumberland 
 slip from her tongue. 
 
 " She's a reeal bonny lass, an' a trew, 
 raank in awe manner er booke larnin', an* 
 sooch-like ; bet she canna bide a wrong
 
 56 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 thowt, nor owt that isn't cleean. She'd tak' 
 ni harm if she heard th' worst, for she 
 doesn't knaa a feelthy thing. Fit enoo' is 
 th' gae lass ta be wed ta th' best and th' 
 girtest she is sooa." 
 
 This was how Gideon Cuyp, after some 
 experience, had appraised her. Nor did 
 she look to carry a lesser value than he put 
 upon her. 
 
 Minna Norman always read to him. before 
 she left him for the night ; and so had they 
 knelt down perfect innocence side by side 
 with the well-tutored lie and she had asked 
 of God to bless them both. To her seeming 
 there never was a better listener about 
 prayer-time than was Gideon Cuyp. On 
 that night he was not to be hindered from 
 falling early on his knees. 
 
 " Minna, lass, isn't it gettin' a lile late ? 
 Canna we preea noo ?" 
 
 " Why, what's the matter, uncle ? It's 
 only quite early. You didn't forget to post 
 the letter?" 
 
 " Th' letter's reet enoo ; bet ma puir aald 
 neb sims a bit stoopid ta-neet, lass; an
 
 BLACK MOSS. 57 
 
 I bethowt ma I'd be geean ma ways ta 
 bed ; let's ta th' goode words ; for I tak' it 
 we've a site ta be full er thanks for, a site ; 
 an' it's often ma neb doesn't seem ta 
 be si beeg, that it cud be gittan beeger 
 
 for owt that meet be wantin' ta crappen* 
 
 i>i " 
 int t. 
 
 "You're not ill, uncle?" asked Minna, 
 anxiously, as she nestled close to him and 
 put her hand upon his head. 
 
 " Nooa, nooa; nowt at awe er kind. What's 
 ta da wi' ya tae be thinkin' I'se geean ta 
 be sorry?" And this was almost roughly 
 spoken, for he was not at his ease. Had 
 he not a great work to do before it could be 
 afforded that he should be ill ? 
 
 " I wes likely o'er vexed," he said, softly, 
 as he returned her caress, his hand the while 
 straying into her brown-black hair "a 
 wes likely o'er vexed when a bethowt ma of 
 th' sad ooman oop yonder, an' an' puir 
 Undine." 
 
 He was at least quite himself when he 
 told her this lie. 
 
 * Creep.
 
 58 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 They neither for a little spoke; and 
 then she looked up into his face and 
 said 
 
 " I believe it will kill her, uncle." 
 
 He answered her nothing, and she went 
 on to tell him that, if he went to bed, she 
 should not stay up. 
 
 Now that was of all things just what he 
 wanted. The long night's rest that he told 
 her he meant to have was just a whole night 
 all to himself to calculate, when there was 
 nothing stirring, what might be to him 
 about the money value of this wonderful 
 powder. 
 
 And so Minna Norman took up The Book 
 and read to the old man, and prayed a 
 pretty child's prayer for him, and for her 
 it had almost been written with him. 
 
 " It's varra fine," he said, piously, as he 
 got on to his feet again ; " serious fine ; bet 
 I don't knaa when that aboot nit drifting 
 oos inta temptation iwer capped ma sooa 
 afoore. I's cleean capped wi' it I is that." 
 
 " Yes, uncle, and yet all this, which is so
 
 BLACK MOSS. 59 
 
 beautiful, is so often taken so coldly, only 
 as a matter of course ; but it isn't a matter 
 of course at all. You don't take it coldly, 
 unky, do you ? There, that will do." And 
 she put her hand upon his mouth, for he 
 was going to pet her. And perhaps, too, 
 he might have seen that her eyes were full 
 full about him. She was yet outside the 
 great suspecting circle. She believed that 
 in what he was she had her answer to her 
 prayers. Her simplicity had none of it yet 
 been "finished" by experience or school. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp opened his arms to her, and 
 got for himself an extra kiss for this little 
 bit, as he knew he would. There they 
 stood; and they had both taken on to their 
 lips the same sublime and awful words. The 
 one, who from her life seemed ripe to be an 
 angel ; the other, who from his, seemed only 
 possible to pass into a devil. 
 
 He had left her, and he was alone in his 
 little room. Presently the house was still. 
 He knew that there were none to watch him 
 now.
 
 60 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 "Aye, it's what a telt ta messel'. A wes 
 iwer curious-like a wes keen tempted." 
 
 And he sat him down, and began with a 
 great greed his schemes and his calcula- 
 tions.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 61 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IN WHICH GIDEON CUYP PERSUADES HIMSELF 
 THAT HE IS "A GREAT CREATURE." 
 
 GIDEON CUYP so sat on there for hours, till 
 the small hours had come and gone; and 
 even until the sheets were filled, and Jooked 
 heavy with the many gold-bearing figures 
 that had started out of his fevered brain. 
 
 His trade, when he looked back upon that 
 which was gone, and upon that which he had 
 garnered, had, beyond any sort of doubt, 
 afforded to him for a goodly number of 
 years, on the whole, some very even, and not 
 inconsiderable successes. But whenever he 
 had counted up his gains, it had neverthe- 
 less always been a great and a grievous 
 trouble to him that his hoard had not got 
 into a lump at once. Gideon Cuyp, indeed,
 
 62 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 nothing objected to " quick returns ;" but 
 " small profits" were an abomination to him. 
 When he thought of these things, some- 
 thing, he concluded, in his system, must be 
 very wrong somewhere. He had gone on 
 gathering, but he had not with a spring 
 waxed well to do. Perhaps he had been 
 tied and bound with scruples ; he could not, 
 however, remember being either so tied or so 
 bound. Perhaps, too, he had loosely forgiven 
 some their debts ; but then, whilst he re- 
 proached the weakness that could have for- 
 given any one anything, he came upon the 
 posted- up consideration that was at the 
 bottom of their release. Look at it as he 
 might, he was only able to see that he had 
 never made a great, a towering coup. He had 
 beggared some few ; but then they had been 
 nearly broken before he touched them. And 
 as he now reflected and chafed, he could 
 not tell why he had missed so much ; for he 
 was only just to himself when he allowed 
 that there was nothing hard that he had ever 
 stopped short at. And even now, with all the 
 consolation that he could get out of this
 
 BLACK MOSS. 63 
 
 great, sweeping total of selfishness with, all 
 the past spread out before him he was very 
 sure that he had lived for nothing. He was 
 well over sixty when he so persuaded him- 
 self that all his life through he had been 
 doing nothing. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp would not come to think 
 that he was old ; nevertheless he knew he 
 was no longer young. He could keep 
 stirring about as well as he had ever stirred ; 
 and he had from his youth up refrained 
 himself from any of those things which get 
 into the blood and are not to be got out of it. 
 He had never coveted any man's wife, or any 
 man's port. Those fleshly sins were not his 
 sins. Never had he been full of illicit love 
 or strong drink. In all that he was whole ; 
 and when he thought upon his soundness, 
 he believed that he easily might reach a 
 hundred years. And now he had so vast a 
 matter upon his hands that he could not at 
 all afford to die. That which had opened up 
 to him under that broken seal would take a 
 young man's life to be quite worked out ; 
 and that he had not this young life was what
 
 64 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 haunted him now haunted him, too, 
 whether he would or no. 
 
 " I canna be skifted yet. I's fairly doon 
 nowt nowt; only I saall talc' this girt secret 
 wimma ; I saall, hawiwer, an' I's nit sooa 
 aald neither. I's only beginnin' ta deea owt 
 ta-day ; the're's nin that knaa aboot this par- 
 ticlar bonny pooder. I's capped if there be 
 nit Sawrey Knotts yonder, a terble deal 
 aalder than a is messel' a terble deal ; an' 
 he started ta deeg afoore ivver I coom'd. If 
 a cud only kip wick, wick till there wesn't 
 a blessed body left for ma pooder. I bethink 
 ma it meet* happen dae th' job if I wes joost 
 ta start preeain, ta be wick till I've putten 
 away a serious site meear er th' brass. I be- 
 think ma a deal meet be doon I dae sooa 
 a gae lock in twenty year, if I cud live 
 anudther twenty year ; happen Minna wud 
 ex aboot it for ma I cudn't offer messel'. 
 I knaa th' lass wud likely putten it in her 
 preears a chaance teem." 
 
 Gideon Cuyp, when he had so bethought 
 him that he would very surely do this, got 
 * Might.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 65 
 
 up with a start that told how much he was 
 relieved, and set open the shutters of his 
 room. When he had so done, the full, bright 
 light of another day fell warmly and plea- 
 santly upon him. 
 
 "Wo, if it isn't seven by th' clock, it 
 is, hawivver," he said, looking at the time- 
 piece ; " an' a haven't bin ta ma bed at awe.* 
 Bet then a likely nivver deed sooch a neet's 
 job as this afoore nivver. It's this 
 farncyf^ payin' job that soots ma. I'll 
 olas be able ta ex a deeal meear a serious 
 site meear than it'll pay ma ta tak'. * Mr. 
 Cuyp' that's messel' it'll be, ' hev a 
 bit a peety, an' let ma hev th' pooder 
 cheeap ;' an' a lile, for th' matter a' that, 
 they'll be gettin', sartanly ; bet it wont be 
 varra cheeap, a reckon it wont that. Bet 
 then, a caan weel enoo cbom doon a lile, for 
 them as feels th' meeast, olas cooms doon 
 we th' brass th' best." 
 
 So had he been busied all that night 
 through, with the great business of finding 
 out what he should ask for the preparation 
 * All. t Fancy. 
 
 VOL. 1. F
 
 66 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 that he presently was minded he would sell, 
 and what lie might take. He would get all 
 that he could ; and he proposed that those 
 who were well-to-do should make it up to 
 him for those who were not. With those 
 thoughts upon him, the old man was occu- 
 pied in setting himself and the room in 
 order, before that Minna Norman should be 
 calling him to breakfast. He had scarcely 
 got himself straight before he heard her 
 about, and she came running in looking as 
 
 * O o 
 
 fresh as did that morning. 
 
 O 
 
 "And has uncle's night's rest done him 
 good, and cured his poor, dear old head?" 
 she asked, storming his knee the while, and 
 patting his parchment face with her little 
 hands ; " for do you know I once thought I 
 heard you walking about in the night, and 
 that you said, ' faverite childers* moost be 
 on th' seeam scaal as th' fadthers an' mud- 
 thers ; they'll evven tak' a deeal ov pooder, 
 bet then there'll nivver be a seexpence oot 
 ov harpy releeases.' ' 
 
 Minna Norman had been ordered not to 
 * Children.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 67 
 
 talk as those about her did ; but at any 
 other time Gideon Cuyp would not have 
 been angered had he been so mocked, for 
 the manner and the matter of Minna's 
 words altogether fitted him. Now, however, 
 he did not nearly like it. He began to see 
 that some time in the night he had for- 
 gotten himself, and that over his figures he 
 must almost have shouted. But if he had 
 after such a sort so greatly slipped when it 
 was night, he could well be set right now 
 that it was day. Therefore he caused him- 
 self to smile, and running at her playfully 
 made answer 
 
 " An' then it's varra sure that a wesn't 
 messel' in ma sleeap, wesn't it ? an' I've gittan 
 neea pooder nin bet ma's doctor's stooffs." 
 
 So did Cuyp put into the girl's mouth 
 just the words that he wanted to be there ; 
 and so did he lead her mind away from 
 thinking that he had been shouting about 
 any powder, other than in his sleep. 
 
 " Why, of course I know that, uncle ; for 
 it wouldn't be a bit like my old unky here 
 to talk like that "
 
 68 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 " Trew trew, lass," and he kissed 
 her. 
 
 "For you know," she went on, very 
 gently and fondly, " you never charge half 
 so much, do you, when little children are 
 taken away from fathers and mothers who 
 love them very badly ?" 
 
 And to this, in pantomime, Cuyp an- 
 swered as she would have him answer. If 
 ever he was a thought maudlin it was over 
 such scenes as these ; and now he could not 
 give over smoothing her hair: nor did he 
 cease to chuckle out a low chuckle that 
 sounded very tender and real. 
 
 " And then," she broke in again, " you 
 often tell me that my pinking must not be 
 any the worse because you mean to charge 
 a little less ; and I was quite sure that this 
 old unky here must be dreaming. Yes, I'm 
 certain of it," and her bright, soft, soul-lit 
 eyes sparkled with unalterable love and trust ; 
 " for you are a very great deal too good and 
 kind, ever to think such hard things when 
 you are awake. Everybody everywhere 
 says of you that you care too little about
 
 BLACK MOSS. 69 
 
 yourself. But then, you know don't 
 you that you'll get your reward?" 
 
 '" Whaar whaar, lass, is a ta be 
 gettin' it ?" put in the old man, impatiently, 
 for it had just struck him that some of his 
 neighbours might be going to give him a 
 purse. " Oh, a sooppose it's oop yander ya 
 be meaning" and, with a sneer that he 
 scarcely was at any pains to hide away out 
 of sight, he pointed heavenward ; " bet if 
 mappen that's weel enoo ta end wi', a don't 
 want ta be geean mas ways amoongst th' 
 spurrits yander joost noo." 
 
 "No, uncle, it isn't that; I know what 
 you want, you want to be ready " 
 
 " An' it's akin ta th' trewth that a isn't 
 nooa, isn't at awe ," burst in Cuyp, who 
 was forgetting the discipline that he should 
 always be under ; for he was not thinking of 
 that long journey that he must presently 
 take. " An' it's nooa goode for ma ta be- 
 think messel' a is." 
 
 Then, after this, he got his arms about 
 her, and made her believe that it was be- 
 cause of her he was so little ready to start.
 
 70 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 And then, too, his voice shook, and he 
 lurched so much, that she thought he would 
 have fallen upon his head. At last, as he 
 moved up and down before her, he was just 
 able to say, " A moost leeve,* Minna, for th' 
 saak ov ya, ma bonny yan, for th' saak 
 ov ya. Do'st iwer ex that that a mayn't 
 be takken joost noo ?" 
 
 " Every morning and every night I pray 
 that, uncle." 
 
 " Haw lang, Minna, dae ya ex that I 
 may be stoppin' ?" 
 
 " I leave that to G-od. He knows best 
 what is time enough ; and whether He shall 
 call us away to Him to-morrow, or to-day, 
 or in ten years, or in twenty " 
 
 " Aye, aye, Minna, a bethink ma twenty 
 meear year might happen dae ; bet an' odd 
 yan or sooa, for th 5 matter ov that, wuddn't 
 be amiss. It's neet for messel', ma bonny 
 yan, it's ewen " 
 
 " Oh, I know it's for me," and she came 
 round softly to the front of him under his 
 arm "it's so like you, uncle; but there, 
 * Live.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 71 
 
 now, you mustn't do that; don't cry, or 
 you'll make me cry too." And she wiped 
 away the counterfeit tears that were coming 
 apace, and so fondly coaxed Cuyp away from 
 his thoughts to his breakfast. 
 
 " A sail be doin' a meeschief, a sail that ; a 
 sail be lettin'it awe oot, if sooa be I's geean on 
 like this, mootterin' ta messel'," soliloquized 
 the undertaker, with some fear of trouble 
 that might be near upon him, as he limped 
 down to the Abbey that morning to keep his 
 appointment .with Lady D'Aeth. " Bet I's 
 seeaf enoo, noo ; th' wench bethinks her it's 
 a dreeam a wes a shoutin' in." 
 
 And as he so comforted himself, he drew 
 out of the head-quarters of his mourning 
 apparel the black gloves which he always 
 carried about him, and showed in his hands 
 whenever he paid a visit of trade grief ; and 
 beating with the kid upon his thighs he 
 entered the grounds of Black Moss Abbey. 
 
 His name was taken up. He was not 
 kept waiting ; he had hardly put his left 
 hand into black before Lady D'Aeth came 
 down to see him. When he had followed
 
 72 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 her into the octagon library, which was the 
 room of business, she motioned that he 
 should sit him down ; and then, after a little 
 seeking for those words that would not 
 kindly come, she said, as calrhly as sh.6 
 could, " It is very good of you to he here. 
 Perhaps you know that I gave our Minna 
 a letter to post last night ; and it was about 
 that letter, Mr. Cuyp, that I wish to speak 
 to you this morning." 
 
 The undertaker at this beginning bowed 
 himself very low, and shuffling, with some 
 danger to his seat upon his chair, was in 
 this way delivered of his answer. 
 
 " A tak' it that yo, ma lady, weel dae 
 ma th' joostice ta be belie vin' that a sud 
 evven hev coom'd here hadn't ya sent for 
 ma. A cudn't hev kipt away A cudn't 
 hev offered. I's fairly coot* ta bits. A 
 canna bethink ma ov puir Miss Undine an' 
 hodf messel' frae greetin'j I's evven coot 
 ta ribbins." 
 
 And then the tears with much conve- 
 nient consideration waited on his words. 
 
 * Cut. f Hold. J Crying.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 73 
 
 Gideon Cnyp had been busied getting up 
 the best bits of this little speech ; that is, 
 the bits that were the nearest being alto- 
 gether false, as he came along ; and even up 
 to the right inflection of tone it would be 
 hard to say that there w.as anything miss- 
 ing. And when he had said this, he sat 
 on and looked only fit to cry. 
 
 Lady D'Aeth, with her own agony press- 
 ing her down, had yet a place in her sym- 
 pathies for the great grief of that man in 
 black. What mother would not have yielded 
 up her heart when she saw that her darling's 
 going was such a sore cause of grieving even 
 to this undertaker ? And she came up to 
 the mute figure, and would have pressed 
 the hand that was wagging the kid glove, 
 but that her own strength was utterly gone 
 out of her. 
 
 Grideon Cuyp had given much of his skill 
 to soothing ; and he now put away his glove 
 and dipped up to the sorrowing woman. 
 By many a coffin's side, when the time had 
 come for the shutting out of sight of a dear 
 face for ever, Cuyp's firmness was all that
 
 74 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 prevented a scene : but then even he had 
 scarcely ever seen a sorrow such as was this. 
 It did not escape the undertaker that the 
 handkerchief Lady D'Aeth was holding to 
 her eyes was by that torrent wetted through ; 
 and as he always was careful to carry 
 about with him a good deal of clean cam- 
 bric, he very humbly offered the loan of some. 
 
 " Nae, nae, bet don't tak' on sooa ; tak' 
 coomfort, tak' coomfort. She's geean'd aisy ; 
 she's wi' th' angels oop yander. She is, ma 
 lady, I's sure on't." 
 
 Gideon Cuyp seldom went into such 
 things as the whereabouts of angels. He 
 could remember to have been embraced by 
 those who had been so affectingly reminded 
 by him that their little ones were angels; and 
 although this mother cried aloud .when she 
 heard it, it was a cry of gladness when the 
 thought came of what a company her child 
 was one. 
 
 " Yes, yes, she's there, and I must try 
 and not sorrow to give her up." And she 
 did try even then, squeezing the hard hand 
 of the man of that dark trade. " I know
 
 BLACK MOSS. 75 
 
 how my good, kind friends everywhere feel 
 for me, Mr. Cuyp. They all loved her. 
 They would none of them have harmed my 
 poor, dead darling." 
 
 If Gideon Cuyp started at all at this, that 
 he had done so was unobserved ; and Lady 
 D'Aeth, gathering strength for what was to 
 come, went on 
 
 " I had something I wished very parti- 
 cularly to say to you, hut I think perhaps 
 it can be better said up there. "Will you 
 follow me, Mr. Cuyp ?" 
 
 And he got himself together and followed 
 her. 
 
 " A hev'n't gittan ma measure," thought 
 Cuyp to himself as he mounted the stairs, 
 for he began to think that this was looking 
 like business. " A didn't bethink ma a wes 
 ta be gettin' this job ; bet happen feeve foot 
 seex* weel meeak' her coomfortable." 
 
 If the undertaker of Black Moss was not 
 
 constantly so situated that he might find 
 
 himself easily moved by surprises, the more 
 
 chiefly surprises . that came of such scenes, 
 
 * Six.
 
 76 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 yet he was not able to bear up against that 
 which he then was bidden to look upon. 
 
 The bright spring sun was shut out, there 
 was .only, near to the corpse, a dim light 
 burning ; and the awful shadows so cast by 
 the drapery of the curtains seemed like 
 many and great spectres standing round 
 about the dead. On the bed, in the chaste 
 white vesture, and in the tiara of pearls 
 over the marble brow, in all of which she 
 was so soon, at the Queen's High Court, to 
 have kissed the Queen's hand, lay that 
 young, that choice, that blighted loveliness, 
 that even the world of London, which had 
 heard of the new beauty in some fashionable 
 print, was waiting to be called together to 
 see at the first May meeting at S. James's 
 waiting, whilst she whom they were 
 looking for had passed to the Court of the 
 jing of kings. 
 
 The smile of the grave had stolen down ; 
 every sign that had settled on that face 
 seemed charged with peace. "There had 
 been no struggle on that soul's delivery, or 
 in the going out of that fever's fire ; no un-
 
 BLACK MOSS. 77 
 
 rest when the end was coming on. It was 
 that soft presentment of the last sleep, that 
 looks so like to the form of the gentlest 
 slumbering 1 . It was as though comfortable 
 words were being whispered by those harp 
 bearers on the crystal floor above far above 
 the balmy air even of that spring's awaken- 
 ing. It was as if the rest of that, which 
 had leaped into its eternal lines and shapes, 
 was lighting up, with a pale and a holy 
 calm, that which was only this exquisite 
 form of clay. There lay that rare, that 
 pretty flower, scarcely blo\vu, when plucked 
 like this away. Her short spring here had 
 gone by. But those who had known her 
 here could reverently, and with "sure and 
 certain hope," let themselves believe that she 
 had passed into summer time out of these 
 frosts into enduring dews into a summer 
 time something the brighter, it might be, 
 even to the angels, for this one other added 
 flower to the horticulture of heaven. 
 
 " This this canna be deeath ; it's nit ov 
 this sort ov shaap' !" * said Cuyp, fearfully, as 
 * Shape.
 
 78 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 he turned him about, scared by that which 
 he had seen. " Oh, ma lady, tooch her, 
 tooch her ! waak'* her ! Happen a lile bloode 
 lettin' '11 saav her !" 
 
 And as he spoke he sought for his lancet, 
 that lancet which h.e was generally bidden 
 to use before he began the work of screwing 
 down. But now he cowered there, bewil- 
 dered he knew not what he did ; for even 
 in all of his experience there was nothing 
 that reminded him of this which was before 
 him. 
 
 " It is nothing else but death it is no- 
 thing, nothing else ! Touch her hand, but 
 do not cut her with that cruel thing !" 
 
 What a world of agony there was in those 
 words ! 
 
 And Gideon Cuyp, putting away the bit 
 of steel, neared the bed to do as he was told. 
 
 He did touch the hands that lay crossed 
 upon that breast ; and he drooped his head, 
 and bowed himself as if in recognition of 
 the awful presence, when he felt that chill, 
 which is above every chill. 
 * Wake.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 79 
 
 Now it must be said that Gideon Cuyp 
 did, on the whole, really make a very decent 
 and effective mourner. He had, indeed, so 
 succeeded, that he had caused it to be for- 
 gotten he was an undertaker. He who had 
 seen so much of these things, had he not 
 mistaken death for life ? At any rate, that 
 poor woman there was well persuaded he 
 was an excellent and soft-hearted creature. 
 And so she took him by the hand, for he 
 was dipping about and across the room as 
 though he were beside himself. 
 
 " I know what you would say to me, Mr. 
 Cuyp, but that you think I cannot 'bear to 
 hear it. You believe I do not dare to think 
 that she this pretty thing is within five 
 days of of being shut out of my sight for 
 ever. That all this form which hangs above 
 and around her here is a horrid mockery ; 
 that my sweet one is dust, and that to dust 
 and worse " 
 
 It was all she could say, that wretched, 
 childless woman, and she covered her face 
 with her hands and groaned ; for the 
 greatness of her exceeding desolation
 
 80 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 was fast getting to be more than she could 
 bear. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp, however, began to show 
 that he was coming to ; for seeing from 
 behind his pocket-handkerchief that the 
 ground had become professional, he straight- 
 way stepped on to it ; and the grief-struck 
 image, in its conventional trade sables, held 
 up its head, and so made answer 
 
 " That, ma lady, varra mooch depeds upod* 
 th' quality ov th' lead. A can olas kip oot 
 th' air, an' then they lasts for ivver an' 
 ivver ! They dae sooa !" 
 
 "No, Mr. Cuyp, you are wrong; it is not 
 that I mean. Minna posted a letter for 
 me last evening" (Cuyp bowed) ; " that letter 
 was to a firm of undertakers at the West- 
 end of London, who have " (and here she 
 drew nearer to the country furnisher), " who 
 have discovered the wonderful secret of of 
 preserving the dead!" And she said the last 
 words, that to her meant so much, in a 
 whisper. " It was due to you, Mr. Cuyp, 
 to let you know at once how it is that on 
 * Depends upon.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 81 
 
 this occasion I could not avail myself of 
 your services." 
 
 Gideon Cuyp hereupon went on bowing ; 
 he began to bethink himself that he was 
 wasting a deal of time. 
 
 " But you do not seem to be surprised at 
 what I say about this powder ? I thought 
 the wonderful invention of Messrs. Hattban 
 and Hurse would not have been known in 
 these parts." 
 
 The undertaker of Black Moss, and the 
 head of several flourishing agencies, at this 
 drew himself up with a jerk to his full height ; 
 everv cubit had a chance, and even such of 
 
 J 
 
 his inches as were crooked looked straighter ; 
 he played with the black glove that had 
 never yet been fitted on, and having found 
 an opening, was not minded to resign the 
 advantage of fitting into it. There was 
 nothing in his line that he did not know ; 
 and to break away- from him was to set 
 others over his head, and was also to say 
 to him that he was only moderate. And 
 moderate, Gideon Cuyp was not. He was 
 not going to be sat upon by Hattban and 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 Hurse ; but lie was not going to show that 
 he cared at all where they sat ; therefore did 
 he stand upon his dignity rather with his 
 feet than with his words. 
 
 " Then a tak' it, ma lady, ye canna knaa 
 that this pooder is nooa meear theirs than 
 ma ain. A isn't varra sure bet that this girt 
 idea belongs ta messel' ; I " 
 
 " Stop, Mr. Cuyp ; do I then understand 
 you to say that you have ever used this 
 powder ?" 
 
 Gideon Cuyp smiled, and worked up a 
 little nearer, that is, a little nearer to Lady 
 D'Aeth ; he was already a great deal nearer 
 to his end. Cuyp smiled, because he wanted 
 to let it seem that, even under such a doubt 
 as this, about his being quite first-class, he 
 could be serene. 
 
 "Awe as a dae, ma lady, in this line is 
 serious girt. I dae nit stay joost only here 
 nor there; bet a kips stirrin' aboot, oop an' 
 doon; for if at this spot there be happen 
 teem upod teem a site er raain th' mortality 
 isn't sooa lofty ; an' a buries away a terble 
 deal er fooak in pooder."
 
 BLACK MOSS. 83 
 
 " Then I begin to fear I have written to 
 Hattban and Hurse to do that which you 
 could have done quite as well yourself, 
 Mr. Cuyp?" 
 
 Cuyp bowed very low. It was true that 
 he was mixed up with others, according to 
 the way in which Lady D'Aeth put it ; 
 other than this, however, he was going clean 
 to what he wanted. 
 
 " But then, cannot I recall the order ? I 
 would, indeed, so much rather that you, Mr. 
 Cuyp" 
 
 Hereupon Cuyp, seeing that Lady D'Aeth 
 hesitated to say more, intervened. It was not, 
 nevertheless, the man's delicacy, although it 
 looked to be so decently intended. But, 
 such as it was, it put her for whom it was 
 meant at instant ease. 
 
 " I knaa Hattban an' Hurse sooa weel that 
 a can, if it be agraable, ma lady, telt them it 
 is evven yer weesh that " 
 
 " That everything, Mr. Cuyp, should be 
 left in your hands. It has taken such a 
 weight away from me to be able to feel that 
 I shall not have to call in strangers. My 
 
 G2
 
 84 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 only fear is, that I shall, perhaps, never be 
 able to repay you, I shall owe to you so 
 very much." 
 
 Yes, it would be a good deal that she 
 would presently owe. But Gideon Cuyp 
 did not, however, look literally at this fear 
 which had slipped from a full heart, or he 
 would have backed out of the business 
 before he left the room. 
 
 " It is not the cost ; no, it is not that. I 
 do not care how much it costs " (Gideon 
 Cuyp made a mental note of this rash 
 avowal), " but there are obligations and 
 this is one of them that can carry with 
 them no sufficient money value." 
 
 Gideon Cuyp made within his own mind 
 another note to investigate this phenomenon 
 at his earliest leisure ; and after having done 
 this, the undertaker showed that he was 
 about withdrawing. 
 
 " One moment more, if you please, Mr. 
 Cuyp," said Lady D'Aeth, as they were 
 passing out of the room. " Our Minna was 
 always very dear to my poor dead darling ; 
 very dear, indeed. And I want you to let
 
 BLACK MOSS. 85 
 
 me have her ; to let her live with me ; to be 
 to me even all, perhaps, that Undine was, 
 and might have been. I am alone in the 
 world now, Mr. Cuyp, and it is not good to 
 be alone ; I could not dare it. I know that 
 it would kill me only to try. And when I 
 die, recollect that Minna will have all that 
 may be mine to leave her." 
 
 Gideon Cuyp did not care to hear more, 
 but he did not seem to close at once. He 
 looked to be a great way off closing, though 
 everything was now going so smoothly ; he 
 would presently be floating in a golden 
 stream, if his life was only long enough. 
 There is always something that makes the 
 fashion and the form, even of the smoothest 
 things, a little rough : and that which was 
 rough to Gideon Cuyp was the fear that he 
 might, at any time, die before that he had 
 done all he had set himself to do. 
 
 " Nae, nae, it's nit th' brass, it isn't, haw- 
 ivver ;" put in Cuyp, the while lifting up 
 some of his fingers to meet the stretched- 
 out hand of Lady D'Aeth. 
 
 " And I believe, Mr. Cuyp, that I can
 
 86 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 give to Minna, position ; she shall go before 
 the Queen next year. And if a husband " 
 
 " I ex yer pardon, ma lady, boot that's 
 joost what I wes a coomin' ta ; I wes that. 
 I haven't ni brass putten by. I've nowt 
 ta gie th' lass messel'. If she be gettin' a 
 hoosband, a only ex ta be telt o' it when 
 it cooms ta th' papers aboot th' mooney 
 part er 'th' job, for th' saak er th' lass 
 herssel'." 
 
 " It is very well known hereabouts, Mr. 
 Cuyp, that you are a great deal too liberal 
 to every one to have saved anything." 
 
 Now what could Cuyp do when so re- 
 minded of his deficiencies in putting away ? 
 He did all that it became him to do that 
 is, he bowed himself before the speaker 
 gracefully. 
 
 " It has not escaped observation," con- 
 tinued Lady D'Aeth, " that you must con- 
 tinually have been losing sight of your own 
 interests. It has not been thrown away 
 on any of us, the great good that you have 
 done." 
 
 Gideon Cuyp could not answer at all to
 
 BLACK MOSS. 87 
 
 these things, and he did not even set about 
 attempting so to do. But it was, neverthe- 
 less, much more than he could compass, that 
 those who had been so near to him should 
 have seen such a very little. Therefore he, 
 on the whole, thought it best that he should 
 say nothing, lest by some inadvertence the 
 whole fraud should be breaking down ; and 
 getting himself under subjection, he would 
 keep only to the business of the disposal 
 of Minna Norman at the best price. 
 
 " Minna sail knaa it, ma lady, joost noo ; 
 she's a varra neece sort er a wench she is 
 that varra handy, an' caps owt at pinkin' ; 
 an' she'll be a bit er a loss ta ma," said 
 Gideon Cuyp, who, by this, meant that it 
 should be seen that he ought to have some 
 very considerable consideration for giving 
 her up. And then he dipped him down for 
 his hat, and went his way, just as there was 
 some seeming that his feelings were again 
 getting to be over strong for him. 
 
 " He is a good, soft, susceptible creature, 
 that's what he is," said Lady D'Aeth, after 
 that he had gone out at the door. And she
 
 88 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 never felt to be surer of anything than she 
 was of this. 
 
 But Gideon Cuyp, who could hang about 
 at doors when he thought it needful to hang 
 about them, had heard these words ; and as 
 he limped down the stairs, the hereafter that 
 there should be to himself, in this shadowed- 
 forth future of Minna's, whirled backwards 
 and forwards in his brain. 
 
 " It's better than owt that's ivver coom'd 
 ta me afoore it is sooa." 
 
 And as the little man took his way through 
 the trees, and put up in their bit of paper 
 his trade-gloves, he stopped to get his breath 
 and think. 
 
 " Nae," he chuckled to himself, as he was 
 once more shuffling at a great speed ; " nae, 
 saft, an' soosceptible, ye happen, isn't ; bet, 
 Gideon Cuyp, ye is a girt creatur'."
 
 BLACK MOSS. 89 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 GUY MELCHIOR. 
 
 As Gideon Cuyp was at that great speed 
 getting over the ground, he nearly, at one 
 corner, chanced to overset Guy Melchior, 
 the vicar of Black Moss, who, too, was on 
 his way to offer sympathy at the house of 
 mourning. 
 
 The undertaker, however, brought him- 
 self up in time ; and when he could fetch 
 his breath, and had offered some excuses for 
 the manner of his going, it was at once 
 seen the pleasant mood that he was in. 
 
 "I'se glaad that ye manages ta kip yer 
 heealth sooaweel, Mr. Melchior," said Gideon 
 Cuyp, with a kindliness in his way of putting 
 it, and a warmness in his tone, that he could 
 be, at some seasons, very great at assuming. 
 He had got rid of a good many in that
 
 90 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 place, but though the scourge grew worse, 
 the vicar still went his way untouched in 
 the midst of it. Cuyp was set on having 
 the life of this priest ; therefore, as he meant 
 to take it darkly, it was a part of the game 
 that he was playing to say to the man 
 how glad he was that he was taking no 
 harm. 
 
 " Let a-le-an* yer coomfortable consola- 
 tions which awe th' puir seek fooaks here- 
 ahoots moost be wantin' noo, pretty mooch 
 at yan teem, there's th' funerals which ha' 
 bin gettin' terble rank a laate. If there 
 isn't anudther agin at three ta-day, aald 
 le-amf Luke's geeand his waays at last ; it 
 seemed once o'er likely enoo that he'd be 
 stoppin' for ivver, it did that; an' a gae 
 hankie | he's left hissel' in, he'll be forced 
 ta be burried a sittin', for a canna get him 
 straighted oop ; an' then there's a lile, tinny 
 bairn at a bit past foor. It's varra sad, 
 Mr.Melchior, sooch a serious sight ovdeeaths 
 varra sad it is sooa." 
 
 " And what's worse, Mr. Cuyp, it is 
 
 * Alone. f Lame. + Mess.
 
 BLACK 5I|)SS. 91 
 
 4 
 
 spreading, and unaccountably spreading. It 
 lias not taken hold as does this sort of fever 
 ordinarily. There seems to be that about 
 it which even the drain can scarcely cause. 
 The way the infection is carried from house 
 to house is not the general way of this 
 visitation. I have seen something of these 
 malignant fevers before now, yet I never did 
 see anything work about, passing over some, 
 and seizing others, as this one does. It has, 
 for instance, not reached your house, Mr. 
 Cuyp, but you are, nevertheless, surrounded 
 by those who are sick with it, and neither 
 have you nor Miss Norman had it before. 
 It is a fearful and mysterious scourge." 
 
 "Bet happen awe for oor goode that 
 these sad sets coom on es, eh ! Mr. Mel- 
 chior?" meekly and mildly, and altogether 
 in his best manner, suggested Mr. Cuyp. 
 
 "God only knows. God only knows. 
 Good morning." 
 
 And the vicar of Black Moss went his way. 
 
 "Nae, I'se thinkin' varra sendry.* I 
 doesn't believe that any sort ov body knaas 
 * Different.
 
 92 I5L.VCK MOSS. 
 
 
 owt aboot it. It isn't likely. It's as weel, 
 hawiwer, that th' parson should be scoorin'* 
 it agin th' Lord." 
 
 And Cuyp turned him. about, following 
 the vicar with his eyes, till he was lost 
 amongst the trees. 
 
 "I'se woondering when it's to be his 
 toorn." And when he had so wondered, 
 he set off again at a high speed for his 
 home. 
 
 Guy Melchior was the only son, and the 
 only surviving child of one Arthur Melchior. 
 His mother had died when he was very 
 young; but, through all those days that 
 had since gone by, a memory often came 
 back to him of a sad and a gentle face ; sad, 
 that is, when it had not been bending over 
 him, and then it had seemed to have borne 
 nothing about it but that sacred, searching 
 gentleness which, saved from the wreck of 
 Paradise, to float as it does float, in pro- 
 tecting freshness over the pollutions that 
 cross and that surround us, must be the 
 belonging of a mother. That smile had 
 * Scoring.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 93 
 
 never ceased to follow him, in memory, ever 
 since that afternoon when it had gone from 
 her lips for ever. 
 
 Marion Melchior inherited a withering 
 disease that killed her before she was 
 twenty-five. And it seemed to Gruy that he 
 had missed a little bright thing from his 
 side, it might be, about the same time, that 
 must have been a sister. And in all this 
 did Gruy remember rightly what had been. 
 
 After the death of his wife, Arthur Mel- 
 chior came to find out what many another 
 one so desolated has also found -that there 
 was now to him, and that there would be 
 to him so long as he lived, nothing but 
 uttermost darkness, where before there had 
 only been light. And he who has lost this 
 light from his life's path, if it were such as 
 his heart loved, is he not for ever afterwards 
 coldly careless about all else which may 
 afflict him ? He who is so alone does not 
 ask to tarry in that loneliness, for has he 
 not already passed out of life into existence ? 
 
 And after that Arthur Melchior had been 
 parted from his wife, he wholly ceased to
 
 94 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 care about what he should do. He even 
 did such things as were not quite con- 
 venient. He sacrificed his share in a con- 
 siderable business when he could not well 
 be spared. It is true that he had always 
 been ever since the day that he came into 
 the concern the working partner, the con- 
 venience without capital ; and when he went 
 out, merely because he was troubled about 
 the blank that there was in his home, it 
 followed that his share should be represented 
 only in good wishes and good words. And 
 of these he had the best, and was thankful. 
 Upon them, and upon an incoming that 
 was very small, and that might get to be 
 less, did Arthur Melchior go with his little 
 son the little son who was so like to her 
 to finish his days on the banks of Win- 
 dermere. 
 
 By the " river lake" Gruy grew apace out 
 of the child. 
 
 And as he went on growing, it was soon 
 seen that as he had been bent, so would he 
 be. He was early set upon manly things ; 
 and he knew, as well as those who had been
 
 BLACK MOSS. 95 
 
 born there, every mountain, every tarn, 
 every stream, and every cairn on the tops of 
 the mountains. He stuck his little stick 
 into Helvellyn "man" before he was well ten; 
 and no one had a better knowledge of the 
 mountain passes than had he. As time went 
 on with him, his manliness, his personal 
 strength, and his unparaded kindliness, at- 
 tracted the notice of that king of men, John 
 Wilson, who even in those later days lived at 
 times at Elleray. Together they swam the 
 lake from shore to shore, where, too, those 
 shores are better than a mile asunder. To- 
 gether they hunted bulls at midnight, calling 
 out De Quincey at cock-crowing to give 
 them to eat. Guy, at fifteen years, was fast 
 growing into a man ; into a man, too, with 
 only generous and noble impulses; and 
 these were qualities that were at no time lost 
 upon Christopher North. 
 
 " What do you mean to be, Melchior, 
 when you are a man ?" asked the Professor 
 of Guy, one morning after they had been 
 reading Greek play together. 
 
 " I should like, I. think, to be a clergy-
 
 96 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 man," answered Guy, rather as though he 
 had set his affections upon that which could 
 not be. 
 
 " And why not ? It is a good thing to he 
 if the work is done heartily." 
 
 And whilst he answered this he was 
 busied taking some account of that which 
 was a power in his pupil's arm. 
 
 " Your heart, Melchior," he went on to 
 say, " is always in that which you are set 
 upon doing; you can fight, and will not 
 early cry, enough ; you threw little Tommy 
 Longmire* clean two out of three, this 
 morning ; you can do all such things as it 
 is well for a man to do. Your young life 
 has been pure. It is of such stuff that the 
 Church is asking for her labourers to be ; with 
 hearts to fight the hardest fight, and always 
 wanting to be set on against odds ; to 
 back-heel the devil, Melchior, as you back- 
 heeled little Tommy Longmire the last fall, 
 just when he was minded he would ' hipe' 
 you badly. But he didn't, because, quick 
 
 * Longmire, who then was a mere boy, lias since 
 become champion wrestler of England.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 97 
 
 as he is, you were before liim. Now the 
 Church has not too many who are fit to 
 wrestle for her, though many of them strip 
 and get into the ring, and get hold, and lie 
 down. These are the wrestlers, Melchior, 
 that the Church is too well found in. It 
 should show you what she is, that she 
 takes no harm by their miserable and guilty 
 fears. I do not think that yours would be 
 an allegiance such as is theirs. If you 
 have purposed to be one of the few that will 
 not lose a fall, do not, my boy, be lightly 
 otherwise persuaded." 
 
 " I'd like to be able to try, Mr. "Wilson ; 
 I'd do everything I knew to put him 
 down," said the boy, bravely, as he looked 
 straight into the face of that grand old 
 man. And when he so spoke of the great 
 wrestle that he burned to have, he meant 
 that he and the evil one should come 
 together for a bout, " If he'll only take a 
 i'air hold " 
 
 " But he won't, Melchior ; he never does." 
 
 every ring. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 Wilson smiled, for lie could not help it, 
 at the very literal lad before him ; and Guy 
 went on. 
 
 " But I'm afraid I shall have to be some- 
 thing else though," he said, mournfully; 
 " sit on a stool, with a salary on a rising 
 scale after a bit, and with nothing at first. 
 My father's too poor, ever so much too 
 poor, to send me to college. I know he is, 
 for he has told me so." 
 
 "And if he is, my boy; and if he is?'' 
 said Wilson, warmly, "you shall go to Oxford, 
 if you care to go, for all that your father 
 is poor." 
 
 " Yes, I'd care very much to go, Mr. 
 Wilson." 
 
 " Then, Melchior, I'll show you how to 
 earn your way there ; for if you are what I 
 take you to be, you'll be earning your way 
 to most places and things that you will want 
 to reach to or to have." 
 
 And whatever John Wilson ever set his 
 mind on he never went from. He had a 
 terrible strength of heart and arm. 
 
 " Why, I've known what it was to be poor;
 
 BLACK MOSS. 99 
 
 although my sweet dead darling Jane did 
 keep most of that which was hard or grim 
 out of the sight of my eyes." 
 
 And he turned away from speaking about 
 her to rally himself under that tree which 
 was called "Jane's Tree" she had been 
 some time gone from him, too, yet was there 
 no sign of healing where he had been torn 
 at that parting. When he had presently 
 mastered the memories which came crowding 
 back, he said 
 
 " Look here, Melchior, this is how you 
 shall go there ; you and I will read together 
 
 / O 
 
 every day ; for if I am to have anything to 
 do v.'ith this business it shall be a first-class 
 or a ploughing. Say nothing to your father 
 about it at present. There shall be no 
 counting-house for you if you don't want 
 it. As sure as I'm Kit North, and Billy 
 Balmer's my coxswain, we'll kick over this 
 stool that they are setting up for you." 
 
 And that which they had there agreed to do 
 they did ; but years the while had gone on. 
 "Wilson, who had put down Guy's name at 
 University College, was fast passing into an 
 
 ii 2
 
 100 
 
 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 old man a breaking heart had made him 
 to stoop, and he lived now chiefly at his 
 home in Edinburgh. There, however, Guy 
 went to him until the time for his going up 
 to Oxford drew very near. 
 
 "Now then, you may tell your father 
 Melchior what we have been hatching, and 
 say to him from me that there's going to be 
 a first-class at the end of it. And don't 
 forget to let me know, if there seems to be 
 any hitch about the money ; and I'll see to 
 the getting rid of it/' 
 
 He would always lend his hand to the 
 getting rid of anything that bore hardly 
 upon any one who was right minded. He 
 purposed to be this young man's friend in 
 that business ; and he who leaned on John 
 Wilson was never cast away. 
 
 The next morning Guy was early on his 
 way to his home amongst the hills ; and the 
 day after he was once more under his father's 
 roof. 
 
 " I don't know how it is, but I have not 
 been seeing much of you lately, Guy," said 
 Arthur Melchior as they sat together at
 
 BLACK MOSS. 101 
 
 breakfast ; " and now that I have got you 
 here again, the sight of you does me good, 
 my boy. You must be stopping here a 
 while." 
 
 And so did the father plead to have a 
 little of the company of his only son, that 
 there was a manly tear at the back of his 
 words. Then he was ill at ease over his 
 toast, and threw about his tea ; for he was 
 coming to the great matter of what this 
 only son of his should do ; and he did not 
 well know how to begin. 
 
 " Now now, just tell me frankly, Guy 
 never mind whether I shall like to hear what 
 you may have to say or no but tell me, for 
 it is time to talk of this thing what what 
 would you like to be ?" 
 
 This was not at all asked as these 
 questions mostly are asked of the young, 
 when it is intended to .find an answer for 
 them to get their confidence, and then 
 betray it; to lead them on to say what 
 they would like to be, and then to say that 
 it has all been some time chosen for them. 
 What to do with lads who are too big for
 
 102 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 school, and are not meant for college, is 
 nearly always determined by straightway 
 putting them to do that for which they 
 have neither sympathy nor fitness. No 
 questions are asked them if they are only 
 early and late to he found upon their stools. 
 Whilst they from those heights of steadiness, 
 those pinnacles in the which " business 
 habits" are only to be found, maybe merely 
 longing for something a little more con- 
 genial, they are receiving the congratula- 
 tions of their friends upon their prospects, if 
 they don't turn back from their soulless 
 slavery. Turn back ! why the boy is mourned 
 over, who would the rather be great than 
 middling ; who would the rather be working 
 his own way, at a pure ambition, than be 
 learning the tricks of a well-to-do cipher. 
 For sordid dulness, there is, be it known, 
 for the youth of this nation an immense 
 field. The grasping boy may always be 
 freely accommodated. Indeed, the field is 
 only bounded by space ; and some investi- 
 gators there are who believe that beyond 
 this world it has established branches. The
 
 BLACK MOSS. 103 
 
 boy is judged for the boy, who, as a great 
 writer has well put it, " is set down as dull, 
 because perhaps he is pensive ;" and who is 
 a little later a man with a business, that 
 must either repudiate all principles, or give 
 up all its projects and the giving up after 
 this sort is not a common thing to do ; or it 
 may be with a trade, the working of which 
 he can only despise. Was he not taught 
 his duty to his neighbour in the evenings of 
 those now far-off Sundays before he went to 
 bed, just after he could talk ?. And here he 
 will not love his neighbour as himself. His 
 whole life will be set out, if he means to be 
 great in city circles in the taking in of all 
 men. But the boy who may see all this 
 before him, dares not, very often, turn away, 
 unless he would turn him from his home, 
 certainly from home regards. That which 
 the father has filled, the son must follow. 
 It cannot be that the heir shall be above his 
 inheritance, even of " business habits," the 
 which are not always clean. Now are there 
 many bitternesses andmany agonies; but, when 
 it is thought how, almost without exception,
 
 104 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 the great matter of choosing for the young 
 for the young, too, of all temperaments, is 
 carried out amongst us, who is there to say, 
 that where these bitternesses and agonies 
 the harder by a great deal perhaps because 
 they must be borne, or battled with silently 
 are many, they might not and should not 
 be few ? And you, at whose bidding this 
 is done; you fathers, who have set upon 
 those ones of your own begetting this burden, 
 can you answer at all to these things ? 
 
 Now Arthur Melchior from the first day 
 that he had a son, had well thought over 
 this thought over it with all his heart 
 helping him to do such as was right to his 
 boy. He felt, as it was meant a father 
 should feel, about this great matter of putting 
 his son out into the world. He wanted 
 Guy to come to him and to keep nothing back; 
 to say all, -to leave nothing behind unsaid. 
 This father was fearing lest his son should 
 commit himself to that which went against 
 him, so that the relation between them 
 might continue to be smooth. He did not 
 seek for anything smooth at such a price.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 105 
 
 Arthur Melchior, indeed, was dreading, with 
 a great and a feverish dread, that any wish of 
 his might, with a fixed and a serious pur- 
 pose, be taken up and in the heart of Guy 
 come to mean a law. So he was minded, as 
 far as in him lay, when this business should 
 be spoken about between them, as spoken 
 about it must be, to say nothing ; to hear 
 his son on to the end however impossible 
 it might be to follow ; therefore did he seem 
 scarcely surprised at the answer that he got 
 from Guy. 
 
 " I have a good deal to say to you, father, 
 about what I would like to be, and I would 
 want to tell you everything; there had 
 better be no concealment between us, even 
 of our thoughts. So let's wait till after 
 breakfast, and we'll go and see some of the 
 old places, and talk this matter over there." 
 
 Arthur Melchior had tried very hard, 
 ever since that son was born to him, to be a 
 good father. This is a broad thing to be, and 
 may need, even in these days, to be defined. 
 Now he, in his time, had seen so many 
 sons boys not utterly bad from the be-
 
 106 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 ginning foundering outside all communion 
 with their fathers. He had known those 
 who had been overwhelmed with the sacrifice 
 of bribing a constable or a watchman, before 
 they would tell to their father that they had 
 in a weak moment fallen. Nor could Arthur 
 Melchior, from all which had entered into his 
 experience, persuade himself that the cause of 
 all this should always be carried to the credit 
 of the child; forhe remembered to have known 
 it otherwise. He had, indeed, seen the parent 
 to knock, and go on knocking ; and he had 
 also seen where the child nevertheless had 
 opened up nothing. And after the father 
 had been so kept out, Arthur Melchior could 
 also remember to have seen the butler, or 
 the groom, taken into confidence when the 
 father's terrible knocking had not brought 
 out anything. And yet it had not seemed 
 that the heart of the boy was wrong, or that 
 it was beating heavily with a load of guilt. 
 He was not yet poisoned by the poisons 
 near and about him. The right stuff was 
 in him in some plenty ; he was pure. But 
 there was this at the back of all the reserve;
 
 BLACK MOSS. 107 
 
 he did not know when he might be taking* 
 any harm to himself by speaking out. He 
 shrank from the big man's scorn, and winced 
 before his sneer. He had been ridiculed 
 once for some child's confession he had 
 made ; and he would rather be buffeted than 
 bear that again. After that day the boy 
 had locked himself up, and it was a hopeless 
 thing to do to knock, for he would not be 
 opened. Still Arthur Melchior felt that he 
 could have plumbed all that boy's per- 
 plexities in a moment ; and yet it was not 
 open to doubt that the father on the whole 
 meant well. It was only, that he had, by 
 his own act, lost the '"way to the heart of the 
 child of his own loins. That was all. 
 
 It was a lovely morning in early May 
 when Arthur Melchior and his son went out 
 with this excellent understanding, to say 
 one to the other such things about the 
 future as they felt it was in their hearts to 
 say. They had crossed the head of Winder- 
 mere, and had taken the road that would 
 lead them to Troutbeck Bridge. They had 
 only spoken yet of the scene that was around
 
 108 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 them, for years had gone by since they had 
 walked thus together. They were passing 
 the Dove's Nest, with one of the grandest 
 reaches of the "Queen of Lakes" stretching 
 out before them, when the elder of the two 
 settled down to the work that he had come 
 out to do. 
 
 " And so you have a great deal to tell 
 to me? Nothing I know but what it is 
 well for me to hear. What is it now, 
 Guy?" 
 
 " Yes, I have a great deal to say ; but 
 I'm almost afraid you wont like to hear it 
 all. There is nothing though, beyond this, 
 which I am going to speak about now, that 
 I have done, that you don't know. It is 
 the only thought of my heart you have 
 not been told of, almost as soon as it came 
 into it. And it has cost me something to 
 keep this back." 
 
 So spoke the boy-man, with that big 
 frame and that terrible arm with that hug 
 in the wrestling ring. He looked as though 
 he could have very well shifted for himself 
 wherever he might be ; that he could fight
 
 BLACK MOSS. 109 
 
 his own battles and not take any harm. 
 But Guy Melchior had always found that 
 a father's sympathy was a ready help in the 
 roughest places. He had never asked of 
 that father bread and been served to a 
 stone. He had never come to him in his 
 troubles and been flung away. And as had 
 been the sowing, so would be the reaping. 
 
 " Out with it all, Guy. I dare say it 
 isn't very bad ; it is not very likely if John 
 Wilson has been your adviser. Try to be 
 sure of this. I only want you to be what- 
 ever you would like best ; it shall somehow 
 be afforded. I have put by enough, I think, 
 to give you this start." 
 
 JSTow it is protested here that Guy 
 Melchior was not after any sort " better 
 disposed" than are a great many others of 
 his age. He was not a castaway, nor was 
 he a hero. You, parents, who stand, as you 
 may be seen to stand, amazed, outside your 
 son's confidence, and, as you cannot hide 
 from yourself, almost outside his love, don't 
 catch at this idea, for it wont avail you : 
 and even if Guy Melchior be not the wrong-
 
 110 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 doer that your boy is, don't you believe 
 that you can so be rid of your obligations, 
 simply because you hear from the city that 
 your belonging, on that stool, is getting to 
 be a thief; because you know he has long 
 been an adulterer ; because he is very nearly 
 a cheat ; and because Gruy Melchior has not 
 given up himself to any of these things. 
 Is your conscience at all clear of offence 
 when you see society turning itself away 
 from your son as though he were infectious, 
 for has he not been found out? Some of 
 the issues, it may be, shall rest on his own 
 soul ; but shall not also some of his excuses 
 lie heavy upon yours ? 
 
 ".What I should like best, then, father, 
 is to be a clergyman." 
 
 " Then a clergyman you shall be, Guy. 
 How it would have pleased her, this choice 
 of yours, if she had lived !" 
 
 Only in the flesh were those two parted. 
 For in memory was not the dead one always 
 walking by his side ? 
 
 " You asked me to say to you what I 
 would rather be ; but for all that you have
 
 BLACK MOSS. Ill 
 
 said in answer, I am here to tell you now 
 I will be anything you wish, and, at any 
 rate, will try to like it." 
 
 " No, Guy, no. Grod helping me, you 
 shall never be so tried. In my time I have 
 been obliged to see some of these sacrifices, 
 much of this torture, many of these mistakes. 
 I won't add another, if I know it, to the 
 heap. Why should I be standing in your 
 way for have you not chosen much better 
 than well?" 
 
 And then Gruy told him all ; how that 
 with Wilson he had worked early and 
 late ; how, too, his name had been entered 
 at Oxford, and how truly his heart was set 
 on becoming a clergyman. In all that he 
 said there was no reserve; nothing, the 
 telling of which he put off to a more con- 
 venient season for the season had come to 
 speak out concerning everything. There 
 was nothing to conceal between those two. 
 They would not have known how they should 
 set about the contriving of any concealment 
 between one another. Theirs was a commu- 
 nion that it is very good to see. The father
 
 112 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 at fifty, and the son at eighteen, could look 
 one another in the face. So had they always 
 lived together almost from Guy's first com- 
 ing until now. 
 
 " This is just what I was wanting to find 
 out ; and as I have found it, I don't mind 
 telling you, Guy, that I had other views <for 
 you. I know what you are making ready 
 to say, that you will fall in with them ; but 
 you wont. I am very glad you have upset 
 them. Your Uncle Michael had offered me 
 to take you into his house and his is a 
 very great house with the possibility of your 
 being perhaps other than a clerk some day. 
 He is very rich, and we, Guy, are not so 
 very well to do ; but he says, and he never 
 goes from such sayings, that to do this is 
 all that he can ever do for you. I do not 
 tell you but that this start would have been 
 something; still I was not without hope that 
 you would have determined in this matter 
 exactly as you have chosen. And having 
 this hope seeing, too, how much you and 
 Wilson, have been together I have put 
 away enough, it may be, to allow to you two
 
 BLACK MOSS. 113 
 
 hundred a year, so long as you remain at 
 Oxford. Now, two hundred pounds a year, 
 Guy, would not be nearly enough for most ; 
 but I believe that with you it will be suffi- 
 cient. Men are not judged by their means 
 at Oxford. Those who consort only with 
 the holders of long purses have their set, 
 but it is a small one. It will be your best 
 privilege that they will pass you by. Xo 
 thanks, my boy no thanks. It is I who 
 thank God that I have such a son." 
 
 And then they walked back to their home, 
 that glorious noon time, by the still lake's 
 side. "When they were there and had sat 
 down, after that they had dined, Arthur 
 Melchior began to speak about the future 
 again. 
 
 " It will be a hard struggle, Guy ; you 
 have not forgotten how hard it will be, but 
 then it was so intended. The cure of souls 
 was never meant to be a sinecure ; a thins: 
 
 o 
 
 to be followed as lightly and indifferently as 
 it often is. I have no interest to get you 
 anything. Your uncle cannot help you if 
 he would you have no one here but your 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 poor father to come to only these nearly 
 weary arms. You must not look beyond a 
 curacy a hundred pounds a year many 
 privations, much self-denial; having to fast, 
 perhaps, on days other than those set apart 
 by the Church for the abstaining from all 
 meats. But then, mayhap, it is nearer to 
 heaven than is the highest stool eh, Guy ? 
 I do not tell you of these things that must 
 come upon you because I wish that you 
 should be cast down. If you cannot face 
 the thought it were better that you went 
 into your uncle's great concern whilst yet 
 there is time." 
 
 Guy looked up and squeezed his father's 
 hand. 
 
 " I will try hard that I may never be cast 
 down." 
 
 For he was fearful whether his strength 
 would stand fearful because he knew his 
 weakness. And then Arthur Melchior went 
 on. 
 
 " You mustn't have any great hope of 
 preferment if so be that you do not waver. 
 I think that I can even now see some of the
 
 BLACK MOSS. 115 
 
 early signs of that rationalism which is 
 coming upon the Church of this land. The 
 Puritan clergy without learning, and with 
 much assurance, are at this present filling 
 the country; but there are not wanting 
 symptoms that another form of faithlessness 
 will, after awhile, be even better received, 
 and better preferred. I have lately had that 
 put into my hands which shows me I do 
 not mistake the signs of those things which 
 are surely coming on us. There are at 
 this moment in circulation these two evi- 
 dences of the truth of what I say thrown 
 out as feelers these two titles have been 
 privately sent forth in the University 
 of Cambridge c ls the Story of Creation 
 to be taken literally ?' and this is followed 
 by c the Discrepancies of Deuteronomy.' Al- 
 ready is the prayer-book repudiated ; now 
 we are so getting on that we shall have the 
 Bible dishonoured. If you join these men, 
 Guy, you may presently rise very high. Do 
 you bethink you you can resist all the 
 subtle temptations of such elevation? Do 
 not answer to this now, but think : think, 
 
 i2
 
 116 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 too, when you will come to see these men, 
 with their sensuous imagery of style and 
 surface learning, thrust into every see. That 
 you will have to meet some of it at Oxford, 
 I believe. It is nearly ready to break out 
 in more than one of our public schools. Has 
 it not already got its patrons in the highest 
 places ? But they will shake no man sud- 
 denly. It will yet be craftily recommended 
 before that it is openly avowed. It will, 
 however, come upon us after many years, 
 for are there not already the signs of 
 its coming? even as a recognised blas- 
 phemy will it be upon us, with its own 
 bishops, and other smaller helpers. Now 
 this trial to the Church is only smouldering, 
 but it will take hold, Guy ; and when it does 
 there will be many stumblers, and in those 
 days may God confirm and strengthen you, 
 my boy." 
 
 Later in that afternoon Guy Melchior sat 
 down to write to Wilson and tell him all that 
 had been spoken in the morning. 
 
 Wilson's answer was this :
 
 BLACK MOSS. 117 
 
 " MY DEAR GUY, 
 
 " You must go on as you have begun, and 
 this is how you shall go. You must get a 
 scholarship ; there is, I find, an open one at 
 University in six weeks. It will not, mind, 
 be anything like to a walk over. Many 
 good men will, it is probable, be against you ; 
 so that you will be able to beat something 
 that is worth a beating, for this scholarship 
 must be yours. It cannot be allowed that 
 your good father should have to touch that 
 which he has put by. As to the rest, you 
 can earn a hundred a year by writing I will 
 show you the way. You had better come on 
 here at once if you mean to get this scholar- 
 ship, and if you do not mean you will have 
 done with, 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " JOHN WILSON." 
 
 The next morning Guy left for Edin- 
 burgh, once more to read with Wilson. 
 
 In the end he prevailed over all that 
 came against him, and he got the scholar- 
 ship easily.
 
 118 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 After that he had been a little while at 
 Oxford, he set himself to do that other 
 thing to write for some of the bread which 
 he would have to eat. At this he did not so 
 well succeed. His first MS. was declined, 
 sent back on to his hands. Then he went 
 at it again, and although this was likely 
 to have followed the other, he did not know 
 how nearly he had failed a second time; 
 for Wilson it was who found the many 
 pounds that paid for it, and who had it 
 published on his own account. But then 
 the charities of John Wilson were not meant 
 of all men to be seen. 
 
 The career of Gruy Melchior at Oxford 
 was a very brilliant one indeed brilliant in 
 the schools and out of them it was made 
 to be felt throughout the University, and 
 also out of it, even on the bodies of bargees, 
 and such others as might, in the flesh, set 
 themselves against him. Then, too, as 
 Wilson all along had said, there was a first 
 class in classics at the end of it. As his 
 father had told him it would be, so did 
 he find that it was for never was he
 
 BLACK MOSS. 119 
 
 reminded that he was only a poor gentle- 
 man. 
 
 From the University he presently passed 
 into a curacy. He might, indeed, have been 
 made travelling tutor to a lord, but he 
 decided to let the honour alone. He saw 
 where the assault was -to be made in the 
 Church's lines, for even then were there the 
 signs of that which was coming ; and weak 
 as he felt himself to be, he was minded to 
 be up and in the front to meet it. 
 
 Therefore, when the offer of the vicarage 
 of Black Moss was made to him, he did not 
 stand hesitating whether he should accept 
 it, as some others would have stood, for the 
 incoming to the Vicar of Black Moss, be it 
 known, was almost contemptible. It was 
 because of the kind offices of a hidden 
 friend that he got this gift, such as it was, 
 and he never could persuade himself but 
 that this hidden friend was Wilson. 
 
 Now Black Moss, ecclesiastically, was not 
 a stepping stone. It led to nothing. It 
 had not been always possible to find a man 
 to fill it. No one could recollect that it
 
 120 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 had ever supplied an archdeacon, or a dean, 
 or a bishop. It was to commit ecclesiastical 
 suicide to come there. Clergymen, with 
 whatever zeal with families remem- 
 bered this, if the living were laid at their 
 feet. And their wives would have none of 
 it, not only because it was not a living at 
 all, but because " there must come up damps 
 out of that horrible tarn." So, after this, 
 there was nothing more to be said. 
 
 The house, too, such as it was, lay very 
 low, close to the churchyard, almost, indeed, 
 amongst the tombs; and it was truly told 
 that when the waters were out, after a heavy 
 flood, it was sometimes surrounded. But 
 then none of these things came into the 
 mind of Guy Melchior when he heard that 
 he might pass into a vicar. If he measured 
 his means with others about him he would 
 be " passing rich," for some of them had so 
 to pass upon less ; and he settled down a 
 little while after that his father had died, 
 feeling no emptiness of purse, for his hopes 
 were young and full, and as yet they had 
 not been rudely overset.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 121 
 
 Gruy Melcliior succeeded an " evangelical 
 minister" in this place, a mild and an amiable 
 Protestant who hated all disputings, and 
 only quietly, and to himself, had " conscien- 
 tious scruples" about certain of the Articles. 
 These scruples had, however, none of them 
 overtaken him before that day when he said 
 he would have them to be neither more nor 
 less than thirty-nine. After that the bishop 
 had laid his hands upon him did these 
 scruples come. 
 
 Guy Melchior found that in following 
 this man he would chiefly have to show that 
 England had any such a belonging as a 
 Church ; for during the time of the late 
 vicar this had never been made plain to the 
 dwellers in Black Moss. He found on the 
 noon of that day on which he read himself 
 in, that many of his people were Dissenters, 
 only, it seemed, because they had never been 
 told why they should be church men and 
 women. 
 
 On his way to the early dinner at the 
 Abbey he was able to see some of the work 
 that he would have to do. The various
 
 122 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 schisms that abounded were abroad out in 
 the air. There were, in little knots, Metho- 
 dists and Wesleyans, Baptists, Independents, 
 and yet a little further higher up r a fran- 
 tic and a loud " New Light," burning with 
 a great and an exceeding glare, howling and 
 grimacing horribly on the top of a boat- 
 man's box. Some of these violent mission- 
 aries were miners ; others were fishers ; 
 and the rest were chiefly swillers,* moved 
 to become preachers. One thing, however, 
 amidst these varieties was done in common. 
 The irreverence of all was about equal and 
 awful. Names the most sacred were shouted 
 out by these gesticulators with ribald famili- 
 arity, as though they were calling upon one 
 another. Each one was mounted on a box, 
 or a three-legged stool ; and though there 
 were gaping listeners gathered round about 
 all, it was nevertheless very clear that the 
 Independent performer who was the most 
 hoarse as well as the least decent was for 
 this reason the favourite, because that he 
 would soon have to give the business up, for 
 * Basket-makers.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 123 
 
 he would presently be voiceless. This man, 
 too, in his language dealt in figures. He 
 seized upon such people or things as might 
 be passing to illustrate his text that text 
 running over all in the two Testaments that 
 he could remember. A woman bearing a 
 jug for beer, had crossed his point of view, 
 therefore did he leave the rich man abruptly 
 in hell, and after this fashion keep himself 
 to the woman with the jug : 
 
 " Ye sees that wooman wi' th' joog away 
 yander. Ye happen bethink yerssels likely 
 enoo that she's a wooman er Black Moss." 
 (" Ay, ay ! sure," put in one of the congre- 
 .gation, "that's her es wes wed a bit 
 sen,* it's evven Sawrey's dowter.f Bet I's 
 tellin' yer, she's nowt at awe ov kind she's 
 for ivver th' wooman er Semmarry." 
 
 Then he raved on concerning that, as he 
 had raved before, until, in the end, he only 
 appeared to those about him to speak, for 
 he was voiceless. 
 
 Now, this man verily and really did so 
 rave, and give up his voice on that box, 
 * Since. t Daughter.
 
 124 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 after this sort, only last summer. Such 
 things as these cannot be, cannot last, even 
 for a day, when the Church is at its work. 
 Many places in the north of England, at 
 this present, are hideous with dissent. You 
 cannot be sure but that your butcher will 
 leave his meats to seek your " conversion ;" 
 and he of whom you may chance to hire a 
 boat is a select preacher, every evening, 
 about the time of the going down of the 
 sun. 
 
 On the shores even of Geneva nothing 
 could be colder than on the shores of Black 
 Moss when Guy Melchior went into that 
 valley. Many men coming there as did. 
 Guy would have hastened to do all that 
 they meant to do at once ; and out of their 
 zeal without discretion, would have come 
 heartburnings, strifes, hatreds, and confu- 
 sion. But whilst he never gave up any 
 principle, where he could, he let his people 
 stir themselves. In two years the Dissenters 
 had utterly gone out of their midst; the 
 "new light" too was clean put out, 
 nothing remained that had been left by Guy's
 
 BLACK MOSS. 125 
 
 mild Protestant predecessor not a trace of 
 his faithlessness, no, not even his memory. 
 The once leading Dissenters were coming to 
 church. They, some of them, even sank 
 their moneys in the building of church 
 schools. A little later there were daily 
 services ; but in the doing of this Gruy 
 Melchior's personal influence, blessed as it 
 was, was immense. He seemed to the young 
 to be like an elder brother. He taught 
 them how to resist, and how to struggle 
 with their souls' enemies ; and he taught 
 them this not only from the pulpit, but by 
 his life. He taught them, too, how to 
 swim, and on the flat by the tarn how to 
 wrestle, and generally how to take care of 
 their bodies. He knew that with them all 
 he had unlimited influence ; and he never 
 had cause to feel that he had only narrow 
 means. Sawrey Knotts, who had been 
 great as a "New Light," was the last to 
 give in. He had been some time a Dis- 
 senting preacher, and his free style was dear 
 to the ten " new lights" that followed him. 
 But when he gave up his conceits and his
 
 126 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 flock, and became sexton, church-feeling at 
 Black Moss never afterwards got a check. 
 
 This was the beginning of the excellency 
 of the life of Guy Melchior as a parish 
 priest. He had one hundred pounds a year, 
 without a money hope beyond, and he was 
 content. As a deacon he could not be re- 
 proached with being " given to much wine ;" 
 and as a priest he could point to the cata- 
 strophe of dissent, a full church, and an 
 empty cellar.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 127 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE FEVER COAT. 
 
 [T was about two days later that the mail 
 brought to Gideon Cuyp a letter from. Hatt- 
 ban and Hurse. It came too, free, for a 
 penny only; and it was to look at and 
 handle just like to any other letter. He had 
 expected he would receive from the West- 
 end firm something very different in size 
 and weight to this. It might be, however, 
 that this had come to him first to advise 
 him of that which was on its way. Any- 
 how the getting of it had not put him. at 
 his ease ; and he turned it restlessly about 
 in his hands, after the manner of many of 
 us, when something comes to us through the 
 post which we do not very well like to 
 face. 
 
 "It's a bit straange I's thinkin; bet hap-
 
 128 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 pen it's terble leet,* this gae pooder, an' 
 likely a lile geeans a girt way. It canna 
 weel be liere. It canna that." 
 
 And so saying, to put an end to con- 
 jectures that were fast making him uncom- 
 fortable, he dashed at the letter and broke 
 the seal. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp in all that he had surmised 
 was very wrong: there was no powder; there 
 was no advice of any coming, nothing at 
 all nothing but that which angered him to 
 get, only a very sufficient trade reason for 
 refusing to supply it. 
 
 Now Cuyp after seeing the strait that he 
 was in, was for a little season at his wit's 
 end. Had not Undine now been dead three 
 days, and where was this powder that he 
 had gone and boastfully undertaken to find ? 
 He was as far off finding it as he had ever 
 been ; nor could he see his way to lay his 
 hands on any. He began to think he had 
 something over-reached himself. Why had 
 lie meddled with that seal ? It was going 
 to turn out a very profitless felony. So at 
 * Light.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 129 
 
 least, Cuyp bethought him when he was first 
 staggered. When he was afterwards cooler, 
 he no longer repented him of that which he 
 had done. 
 
 He kept stopping by the way, to read the 
 words over and over again ; but he had 
 rightly read them on the first reading. No 
 one could well have written plainer things 
 than had Hattban and Hurse. Cuyp, for a 
 little, as he limped back to his home, 
 thought that it was all over with him. The 
 end then of this powder would be a gaol. 
 He would be getting shut up. And he 
 plunged along the road as though the officers 
 were already out to seek him. 
 
 Now Gideon Cuyp was very far from being 
 quite himself, when he was chased about 
 like that by any such fears. But, was not 
 this the second time that Hattban and 
 Hurse had seemed likely to be standing be- 
 tween him and his gains ? The knowing of 
 them had been to him throughout a sore 
 and a grievous trial. He had been a fool, 
 and he was minded, if he was yet left to be 
 at large, that he would mend. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 So did the letter run : 
 
 " SIR, 
 
 " We beg to acknowledge the receipt of 
 yours of the 2nd instant, ordering some of 
 our powder for a young female, and in reply 
 we have to say that it is a rule of ours never 
 to supply it to the trade. We only use this 
 preparation ourselves. 
 
 "We are, 
 
 " Your obedient Servants, 
 " HATTBAN & HURSE." 
 
 Gideon Cuyp, before he got back to his 
 home, had well made up his mind what he 
 would do. And it now seemed to him that 
 he was not nearly at the end of his resources. 
 During the three days last past his fancy 
 had been travelling over a deal of ground 
 even to some place where there were nothing 
 but groups of the richest mourners coming 
 out to meet him coming to his feet for a 
 little of his saving powder, on his own 
 terms. And in this picture had they not 
 been getting it in the order in which they
 
 BLACK MOSS. 131 
 
 could pay for it the soonest and the best ? 
 Was he to say to all or to any of them, I 
 have none of it ? Must he pass them on 
 offering as they were to pay in cash to Hatt- 
 ban and Hurse ? No, he would not pass 
 one of them on. He would accommodate 
 them all. They who had come to him 
 for comfort should lean upon him still. 
 And when he came to think of these things, 
 he could almost see the mourners and feel 
 their money. 
 
 It has been said that Gideon Cuyp was 
 not, after coming to, nearly at the end of 
 his resources. It were better said, indeed, 
 that he was only quite at their beginning. 
 It was not now clear to him why he had 
 been so suddenly cast down. 
 
 " Wyah, I's a gae fool an' a silly," he 
 said with some fervour, for he felt he had 
 earned it, and tearing the letter into little 
 pieces. " I's bin o'er vexed an' afeard for 
 nowt. They isn't sa saft as tae let this 
 pooder stoof be gitten inta ma's hands. 
 Nae, nae, sure it wesn't serious likely. 
 Maybe thea's nowt in't, that it's only 
 
 K 2
 
 132 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 a ploomp* fraud. I's bin a marpie, that's 
 what I's bin. If a wesn't geean ta pay 
 Hattban an' Hurse forya thing that's gittan 
 nowt in't ! I's capped if a wes'n serious 
 daft ; a wes, hawivver. An' noo thu'll 
 likely be joost this lile difference, that 
 udther fooak weel be payin' ma for th' seeam 
 sort ov a conseederation. Any pooder, I 
 tak' it, weel dae ; one's like enoo ta' nudther. 
 Wyah, if it won't be aweprofit ; it's evven a 
 gae goode job it is sooa." 
 
 So did Gideon Cuyp pass out of his fears 
 of a gaol out of those pangs that had lately 
 taken such hold of him, into a future 
 peopled with mourners pressing on for his 
 powder, and getting that which he would 
 give them, caring not even to ask for dis- 
 count, as they carried it away. 
 
 By noon that day his work of fraud at 
 the Abbey was fully done. 
 
 The Friday that came after this had been 
 
 fixed on for the funeral of Undine D'Aeth ; 
 
 and when Gideon Cuyp had so finished his 
 
 work at the Abbey, he w r ent up to do another 
 
 * Plump.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 133 
 
 at the Vicar's, and he did this, whilst it 
 seemed that he had only come to tell the 
 hour that they would have to be at the 
 grave. 
 
 Guy Melchior, it so happened, had just 
 got hack to the vicarage when the under- 
 taker reached the door. Gruy was glad to 
 see Cuyp, for, like as did all men in those 
 parts, he thought nothing but well of the 
 little furnisher. 
 
 " It is very good of you to give yourself 
 all this trouble, Mr. Cuyp very good. May 
 
 I offer " he was going on to ask if he 
 
 might offer his heated visitor a glass of red 
 wine. He had had a dozen, which survived 
 from his cellar in that Oxford locker, and 
 he was now always forgetting they had 
 been some time gone. 
 
 " I was going to have asked you if you 
 would take a little wine after your hard 
 walking, Mr. Cuyp ; but I just now re- 
 member I am quite out of it." 
 
 " Nae, nae, Mr. Melchior, it's varra goode 
 er ye sa ta bethink yerssel; bet a nivver 
 tooches it nivver ; it crappens oop inta ma
 
 134 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 neb,* serious it does sooa. I nivver soops 
 owt bet wattre; a lile wattre at beck when 
 I's dry is awe a ivver soops. I bethink nia 
 there's o'er mooch fire droonk in way er 
 spurrits." 
 
 " No doubt, Mr. Cuyp, there is a great 
 deal in what you say. If we all were to 
 drink a little water sometimes, instead of 
 always taking wine or malt, we should very 
 likely be the better for it. But I do not 
 think it would be well to do so now. I 
 cannot think we ought to let our system be 
 getting too low with such a fever about. I 
 believe that the water has a great deal to do 
 with this scourge." 
 
 Hereupon Cuyp smiled and edged himself 
 out of the light a little bit. It was the 
 smile that his face always did wear when 
 he was not persuaded to think with other 
 people. It was not his business to differ 
 from that which they might say, more 
 roughly or openly. He was set on the Vicar 
 becoming a drinker of water; but he was 
 not going to show upon what he was set ; 
 * Head.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 135 
 
 therefore did he answer nothing beyond 
 that smile. 
 
 " But you are not a water-drinker at 
 these times, Mr. Cuyp ?" 
 
 " Olas,* Mr. Melchior, olas ; I soops nowt 
 bet a lile wattre/' replied Cuyp, meekly. 
 " Soorfeet th' bloode, an' then there isn't 
 nowt that can saave ye." 
 
 He had never given alcohol with doubtful 
 success where he wanted a cure. 
 
 " I know that most of our physicians will 
 reduce the system in these cases/' said Guy ; 
 " but nevertheless I think they are wrong. 
 I believe the day will come when they will 
 even order brandy. Were I seized, so at 
 least would I be treated." 
 
 A few years later, and the first physician 
 of his time had come to think with Guy 
 Melchior. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp knew sufficiently well when 
 he had pushed a point far enough ; and he 
 was now well persuaded that he had better 
 leave this one alone. He had not, indeed, 
 done all that he came there to do. But 
 * Always.
 
 130 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 then, had not the vicar said, " If I am seized, 
 I will have brandy." If the vicar did get 
 to be seized, this thing that he had said 
 would not be forgotten by Cuyp. Therefore 
 he refrained himself, and said nothing more 
 about the water diet, and got him up to 
 leave. 
 
 " I think you said two o'clock for the 
 funeral, Mr. Cuyp. By the way, I had pro- 
 mised to go over on Friday morning to Red 
 Moss, to see poor Job Eedcar, who I fear, 
 from what I hear, is but little likely to get 
 over his sickness this time. He is very 
 sadly. They tell me he has scarcely a coat 
 to his back." 
 
 Cuyp let go the handle of the door. He 
 had found an opening now, and turning 
 him about, showing nothing of that which 
 stirred him, he went into it. 
 
 " Ay, ay ; sa I've bin telt by a goode few ; 
 he's for ivver full er dreenk, an' teem upod 
 teem is fairly mad. Puir Job, puir Job ! Weel, 
 bet he wes a fine lad when a first knaad him 
 a while sen' ; there wes nin that'd offer ta 
 say wrong ta him ; an' ta bethink ma that
 
 BLACK MOSS. 137 
 
 he's coorad ta this. It's a sad set that fooaks 
 meeak' er thersels when they's for ivver 
 beered oop." 
 
 And after he had spoken this, he came a 
 little nearer to the vicar, and then said, with 
 just enough hesitation fitly to introduce the 
 Samaritan appeal that was to follow 
 
 " Aboot that co-at, Mr. Melchior it 
 canna be that Job's ta be starved for a co-at ; 
 nowt at awe er kind. Yerd happen think 
 that a wes exing o'er mooch, if a exed ye ta 
 tak' a new warrm* co-at ta puir Job. I 
 cud send it roond ta ye varra weel ta 
 neet." 
 
 " I shall be only too glad to carry the 
 coat. We are all of us bidden to clothe the 
 naked ; and they do say that Job cannot go 
 abroad for his nakedness. Bring it when 
 you please, Mr. Cuyp." 
 
 And after this the undertaker went his 
 way. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp had been very badly down 
 when he got that letter from Hattban and 
 Hurse ; but now he was up. He did not 
 * Warm.
 
 138 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 see how the priest could escape him this 
 time. No one had lately put on this coat, 
 and had afterwards lived. It did not need, 
 however, to be put on to do its work. 
 Therefore was he justified in thinking that 
 this inconvenient clergyman would die. 
 
 When Gideon Cuyp was well out of sight 
 of the Vicar, he stopped a little bit to get 
 rid of some of his joy. 
 
 " Th' co-at evven reeks wi fever he'll 
 sartanly be th' next. He sha'n't wed her ; 
 he'll be th' next that's carpital. He'll 
 only be too glaad, I's thinkin' varra sendry. 
 Wait a lile bit an' see if ye's glaad. I've 
 hed a goode few er these mercies er late, a 
 re-al goode few there's no disputin' ; bet 
 this is away an' away th' girtest it is that." 
 
 And as he so spoke comfortable words to 
 himself he plunged along towards his home, 
 chuckling and rubbing his hands to let out 
 his gladness in the quiet places, but getting 
 very grave and silent as he neared the open, 
 where there were children at play, and 
 fathers at their work. 
 
 Now it was very seldom that Cuyp got
 
 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 cauglit in those traps that he set for others. 
 This coat, which he had himself helped to 
 pull from off five corpses, and bought at a 
 small price, he did not keep near to his own 
 house. Nor did he journey about with it 
 himself. He put these charities upon the 
 one hired woman that he kept, and who, 
 .fifty years before, had had the fever. Cuyp 
 was careful that he should not be stricken ; 
 and, although he used what he believed was 
 an infallible preventive, he only touched 
 such things as were trade risks. 
 
 " Deb, yell fint a co-at harped* oop in 
 paaper at aald Betty's ; tak' it ta th' parson's, 
 an' there'll be nowt ta say when ye leaves it." 
 
 So the coat was left that evening at the 
 vicarage ; and Guy Melchior carried it up 
 to his own room, and it was there until the 
 Friday morning. 
 
 Then after two days was Undine's funeral. 
 
 No one could remember anything at all 
 
 like to it before at Black Moss. From the 
 
 abbey-gates to the churchyard a long mile 
 
 the road was lined by those, old and 
 
 * Wrapped.
 
 140 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 young, who had come from many places 
 round, even in the midst of the fever, to see 
 the last of that valley's queen. There were 
 the halt and the blind carried and led, and 
 there were their children's children. Nearly 
 all had contrived to find a hit of black ; but 
 the mourning they had put on for her was 
 in their hearts. 
 
 The corpse was earned by eight big states- 
 men, who had offered their services to bear 
 the body, from eight parishes amongst those 
 hills ; and behind the coffin, before the noise- 
 less, swelling crowd, tearless and ghastly 
 pale, went the childless woman. Behind 
 that silent, that scorching agony behind 
 that awful anguish, there were no tears 
 that night had fallen upon her in the which 
 there was no dew. She walked on by Minna 
 Norman, who crept beside her. She was 
 in the shadowy past, where a lovely image 
 floated. Her thoughts were not going on 
 to that open pit : she was living snatches of 
 those eighteen years of love and hope again ; 
 and there was nothing but a wild look, and 
 . sometimes a sigh, to show where she was
 
 BLACK MOSS. 141 
 
 straying, as though the dream she dreamed 
 was nearly past, and she knew that her 
 darling had gone from her indeed. 
 
 " It weel keel her ; it weel keel her," 
 under their breath, whispered one to the 
 other those who had come together ; and 
 they murmured a hushed murmur, " Grod 
 hod* ye, ma lady," and then little ones, lifted 
 up by their elders and their foreelders, flung 
 tiny wreaths of the flowers of spring on to 
 the coffin as it passed. Behind, covering 
 the road behind, came her whole people. It 
 was their queen who was going to be shut 
 out for ever from the sight of their eyes. 
 And then, before it all, with his staff topped 
 with brass, with his great white tie, and his 
 trade gloves, the one on, the other yet un- 
 stretched, with his best gait, went Gideon 
 Cuyp. Surely in the front of that it was 
 his place to be, for was not this his work ? 
 Had he not fetched this crowd from the fells ? 
 Had he not done this devilish thing? It 
 was good for him good for his body that 
 he was so well respected. 
 * Hold.
 
 142 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 Then he was safe and whole ; but, it was 
 quite a little likely, he might get to be pro- 
 claimed the author of this tragedy. He 
 could not think of this and carry himself 
 in the van as it beseemed him he should. 
 
 "They wud rend ma; they wud tear 
 ma inta bits if they knaad owt aboot it," 
 he once thought, as he heard the heavy tread 
 of the eight big men behind him. "Bet 
 they'll niwer knaa ; it isn't likely. Th' 
 fooak is sayin' that it weel keel ma lady ; 
 happen it weel happen they are reet." 
 
 And then they had reached the walls 
 around the tombs, and Guy Melchior had 
 met the body, and was reading the sen- 
 tences. 
 
 A little while after, and the ropes had 
 rattled through the handles of the coffin, they 
 had been drawn up, and Undine lay there in 
 her cold, clay bed. 
 
 " Dust to dust " and there went up from 
 the grave's mouth a wild and an awful 
 scream. 
 
 " No V shrieked the childless woman, 
 pointing down to the oak on. which the sun
 
 BLACK MOSS. 143 
 
 was shining. " No ! my darling will never 
 be that never ! never !" 
 
 And this was all she said. Gently did 
 Minna lead her away to her home, and then 
 the service went on to the end. 
 
 " It's saafe ta be es goode es a 'vartise- 
 ment, it is that," thought Cuyp to him- 
 self. " A gae lock er fooak weel be thinkin' 
 it's awe me lead th' lady wes meanin'." 
 
 After this, they began to throw in the 
 great clay lumps, until the pit was filled. 
 
 " It's a dry job ; it is, hawivver," said the 
 sexton, as he disposed the earth and beat it 
 into shape with his shovel. 
 
 And then, when the stone was set up over 
 her head, all would be done, and Undine 
 would be left sleeping her sweet sleep under 
 the daisies till the trumpet call should wake 
 her. 
 
 Gruy Melchior lingered at the churchyard 
 gate long after the many people had streamed 
 away. The terrible scene of that afternoon 
 was haunting him as he had never been 
 haunted before. He could not shut it out. 
 Wherever he looked he saw that sorrowing
 
 144 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 woman when she had cried out that cry, and 
 had afterwards been dumb; and whilst he 
 yet asked God to have her in His keeping, 
 the undertaker, with the pall put up under 
 his arm, stopped, and got himself together 
 for a little speech. 
 
 " It hes bin a lile o'er mooch for oos awe, 
 Mr.Melchior; I's fairly no wt left imma.* I's 
 feet ta greet f messel'." 
 
 And Cuyp's little voice did shake, to 
 show how fit he was to bring off the threaten- 
 ing tears. 
 
 " God keep that lonely woman, Mr. Cuyp. 
 It is after her that my heart has gone." 
 
 " There's ni desputin' it ; there's ni des- 
 putin' it, Mr. Melchior. It's a sad set for 
 ma lady, an' likely ta croosh her ; bet a be- 
 think ma ye's nit lookin sooa varra weel 
 yerssel' ; ye moosn't tak' on in sick a way, ye 
 moosn't sooa." 
 
 And the undertaker caused it to be seen 
 that he was greatly troubled about the vicar ; 
 but he did not cause it to be seen that he 
 was only looking for the signs of that fire 
 which he knew were in him. 
 
 * In me. t Cry.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 145 
 
 " I am not well ; I am very far from well 
 this afternoon, Mr. Cuyp," said the vicar, as 
 he went out at the gate. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp now hitched himself up to 
 look over the wall after him. 
 
 " Aye, soore th' fire's in him ; he's gittaii 
 it et last. I've hed ma share oot er this job, 
 a bethink ma." 
 
 Then he got down from the wall, and fol- 
 lowed the vicar along the road. 
 
 When it was told about the next morning 
 that Guy Melchior had got the fever, it 
 seemed as though the great and thick gloom 
 which was hanging over Black Moss was never 
 again to be lifted up. And when it was 
 presently passed from one to another that 
 the worst symptoms were crowding on, his 
 people, who now knew that they could not 
 bear the place without him, shrank from be- 
 lieving in it. Was he too to be taken away 
 from them ? And so it was that that day 
 through they never ceased to hang about the 
 house in the which he was lying. 
 
 But it was very true that he had got the 
 fever, and it was very true that he had been 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 stricken down with typhus in its very dead- 
 liest form. 
 
 When Cuyp came to hear that the vicar was 
 sick, he did not think that there was any need 
 to doubt it ; but in the face of all the people 
 he did, nevertheless, doubt it exceedingly. 
 
 " Why, yon co-at evven gi'ed it ta a 
 goode few afoore it ivver gi'ed it ta him ; it 
 nivver playud* treeks wimma, didn't that 
 co-at ; it nivver offered." 
 
 On the third day after this, it was said 
 through Black Moss that Gruy Melchior was 
 given up ; but on the fourth, he was a little 
 better. He had told the old woman, his 
 servant, when he was taken sick that, what- 
 ever might come to him, he would have 
 brandy. The doctor, who heard of it, only 
 shook his head, and said, " Nothing can save 
 him he is dying. Only his friends might 
 like to hear that the brandy was tried, so let 
 him have it." 
 
 And he did, but not because of his friends, 
 for when they were counted up there was 
 only one. 
 
 * Played.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 147 
 
 All this had got to the ears of Gideon 
 Cuyp, who also had not forgotten the vicar's 
 words that morning, and how that he said 
 he would be put on brandy if he took the 
 fever. So as soon as the undertaker had 
 heard of that which was done, he went up 
 to where the vicar was lying. 
 
 When he knocked at the door, there was 
 no answer ; and after he had knocked on 
 and nothing came of it, he went round to 
 the back and raised the latch, and so took 
 his way into the vicar's room. Before him 
 was Guy Melchior, in a calm and saving 
 sleep, for the fever had almost gone out of 
 him, and the old woman whilst he slept had 
 left to lay down for a little while upstairs. 
 
 "He's gettin' o'er it fest enoo," mut- 
 tered Gideon Cuyp, as he stood beside the 
 bed, and felt the moistening skin, and 
 watched the soft and the steady breathing. 
 
 There was a bottle standing within the 
 vicar's reach, the which Cuyp now turned to 
 taste, and finding it was, as he suspected, 
 brandy, put it in his pocket. Then he left 
 upon the table a counterfeit one filled with 
 
 L2
 
 148 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 coloured water that lie had brought with 
 him. 
 
 " He isn't hissel yet, an' when he is it 
 weel be a bit o'er late ; bet a may happen es 
 weel be checkin' this sweatin'." 
 
 So did he leave the clothes that Guy 
 might get a chill ; and then he slipped 
 noiselessly out at the door whence he had 
 come in. 
 
 But scarcely had he gone when the old 
 woman came down, and the vicar slept on 
 and took no chill. When he presently 
 awoke, though very weak, he yet was con- 
 scious. He called to the woman to give 
 him brandy, and when he had tasted that 
 which was brought him, he spat it out, and 
 set the bottle down, for he knew that some- 
 thing must be wrong. 
 
 " Throw this away, and let me have an- 
 other bottle, for this does not seem to be 
 right, Biddy." 
 
 "It's evven th' saam es ye hev' bin 
 soopin' awe aleang, Mr. Melchior." 
 
 Guy Melchior could not answer her, for 
 the thought that was then upon him.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 149 
 
 The next day he had mended greatly. 
 The news that he was well out of danger 
 soon began to spread, and in the end Gideon 
 Cuyp, who now was thinking this hateful 
 priest would not die but live, went up to 
 the vicarage to see if it was true. 
 
 Before he set out, he chanced to meet 
 with Minna Norman, who thought many ex- 
 cellent things of the Vicar of Black Moss, 
 because of his office. She was very sure it 
 was only because of that. And when she 
 met with Cuyp, there were tears in her eyes 
 as she tried to speak. 
 
 "Oh, uncle, shan't you be glad if he's 
 better?" 
 
 " An' is't sick a girt thing ta ye, lass, 
 whether he mends ?" asked Cuyp, with un- 
 easy kindness in the manner of his ques- 
 tioning. 
 
 " Isn't it very much to us all ? He is so 
 good, so noble. If Grod were not in this 
 great trouble, I am sure we none of us 
 could bear it." 
 
 Through Cuyp's caress she did not see the 
 sneer with which he answered her.
 
 150 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 " He's bettre," he said, when he had 
 afterwards returned ; " he's inendin' fest ; 
 I bethink ma that he'll live ; a dae sooa." 
 
 "Thank Grod for all his mercies!" broke 
 then and there from Minna Norman's lips. 
 
 " Amen !" said Grideon Cuyp, as he bowed 
 his head upon his breast.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 151 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 IN WHICH THE VICAR OF BLACK MOSS FINDS 
 HIMSELF ON AWKWARD GROUND. 
 
 GrUT MELCHIOR only very slowly got back 
 his strength. He had been laid very low ; 
 and now he knew he had been so low, that 
 once there had hardly been any uprising. 
 And when he began to mend a little, there 
 yet was that which kept him back ; and 
 this, for a season, clung close about him, 
 almost to his undoing, for he was only 
 weakly. 
 
 A suspicion he could not bring himself to 
 look at was nearly always in his waking 
 thoughts, a great weight that would be 
 suffered ; and then, because he would have 
 cast it out, when he should have rested it
 
 152 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 came into his dreams. Some one in that 
 place, some one amongst his own people, 
 did not wish him well. Had Guy Melchior 
 been so minded, he would have told to him- 
 self that some one the rather wished him 
 very ill. Now it will presently be seen that 
 the Vicar of Black Moss was not always 
 strong, any more than are other men ; but 
 yet had he that charity which belongs 
 only to the few even "the charity which 
 thinketh no evil" that is not always to be 
 found in excellently well-appointed Chris- 
 tian places. 
 
 Guy Melchior oould not bring himself to 
 think it was the hired hand of the woman 
 who served his meals that had filled that 
 bottle with the spiritless stuff. She had 
 been a very faithful watcher through it all. 
 He did not indeed want to believe that it 
 had come into the mind of any one, of a set 
 purpose, to contrive or do it. He wanted 
 to think that he had been so nearly lost by 
 a mishap. But for all that he could wish 
 to sit in judgment upon no one ; he could 
 see that there was a purpose in it. He
 
 BLACK MOSS. 153 
 
 fought against coming to think this : yet 
 little by little did it get more clear; and 
 then it was the hope that he was wrong was 
 clean put out. He felt his skin get clammy 
 when he remembered, however much he 
 strove to forget it, that even sick Job Red- 
 car had started at the sight of the brown 
 coat. He thought nothing of it then ; he 
 had set it down to the state in the which Job 
 then was, and he believed that there might 
 be some confusion of coats before the eyes 
 of a man who had only a little life left in 
 him. But now there was a meaning in it 
 all ; a meaning, too, that took to itself dark 
 and horrible shapes, when he bethought him 
 of the words which Job had used. 
 
 " Nae, nae, Mr. Melchior, it's evven raank 
 wi' fever ; an' a tak' it Mr. Cuyp sud 
 knaa, es well es messel', happen bettre, that 
 this co-at hes coom'd away frae th' fooak 
 that hed died er th' fever. I'll hev nowt 
 ta dae wi' it." 
 
 Did Gideon Cuyp know this? Did he 
 know how terrible a coat this one was ? 
 Guy Melchior was very sure when Job had
 
 154 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 said that thing, that the undertaker did not. 
 But now, when this questioning of his own 
 heart would not be still ; when, whether he 
 slept or was abroad, it stood ever before 
 him grimacing for an answer, he could only 
 at nights bury his face in the clothes, and 
 by day bury it in his hands, to try and shut 
 it out. Once it had so dogged him that he 
 found himself pressed with the awful 
 thought, which shouted in his ears, " If 
 Gideon Cuyp has done this he has gotten 
 blood upon his hands ; if he has done this 
 thing, then is he a murderer !" 
 
 Now it is not demanded of a priest that 
 he should at no time become another man's 
 accuser ; yet, it is, indeed, well that he should 
 not hurry his indictment, and that he should 
 be slow to interpret harshly that which has 
 even a dark seeming about it. And so Guy 
 Melchior asked of himself, did a suspicion, 
 such as was this, seem to fit the life of one 
 who walked so straight as Gideon Cuyp? 
 And he answered, no. But for all that he 
 so answered, the struggle that was within 
 him kept him back, and therefore it came to
 
 BLACK MOSS. 155 
 
 be that he was long a little ailing. For 
 whilst the vicar was fully purposed to make 
 public no suspicion that he had gotten from 
 that indifferent liver and cunning swiller, 
 Job Redcar, yet was he minded that if 
 Gideon Cuyp, like this, should seem to slip 
 again, then, even because of his office, would 
 he be the first to accuse him. 
 
 As the spring wore on the fever began to 
 abate. It might have been because there 
 were scarcely any more in that place of 
 whom it could take hold. In the end, 
 there was, indeed, hardly a man, woman, or 
 child that had not had it. More than 
 twenty-five per cent, of the whole popula- 
 tion in and about the valley and gap of 
 Black Moss it was said were swept away by 
 this fever. Such as were not dead had 
 been so near to dying, that they looked 
 almost as though they had come up out of 
 their graves; and it seemed it might be 
 long enough before ever the places of those 
 who were gone would be filled again. 
 
 Therefore did Gideon Cuyp begin at 
 times to think that, on the whole, he had
 
 156 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 something overdone it. The ready-money 
 trade he had been doing was a great one, 
 and none of the mourners had come to him 
 to ask for time to complete the payments. 
 Yet had he gone about his work with too 
 great a greed, and he knew that he had 
 done so now. If it chanced to be true, as 
 he often heard in the churchwardens' pew 
 in the church it was, that people might, and 
 should be, born again, no preacher he ever 
 heard, at any rate, had said that it was, 
 after any sort, possible to be buried more 
 than once. 
 
 There had been no competition ; nothing 
 snatched away by any other furnisher of 
 funerals that Cuyp would have cared to 
 have ; so that on this score he could not 
 grieve. He had buried them all all that 
 could pay ; and such as could not, or were 
 doubtful, he left to those sharks in his own 
 trade as would take the risks he would not 
 touch. 
 
 If some of the people in Black Moss had 
 gone on living too long, it might so have 
 chanced that some one of their number
 
 BLACK MOSS. 157 
 
 would have buried him. Gideon Cuyp had 
 never had nearly such a time as this before ; 
 but there was just this on the other side, if 
 it went on too long after this beginning, he 
 would, it might be, have to shut out of his 
 calculation and his reckoning, all the chances 
 of ever, at any time, getting a stranger or a 
 visitor to bury, and he would have to look 
 alone to the resident population, and to 
 county mortality ; and the signs that he 
 had done too much were already such as he 
 could see. 
 
 There had, indeed, been awkward letters 
 about it in the London Times. Some of the 
 Medical prints had published articles upon 
 " The Scourge at Black Moss." These dark 
 and warning writings had been printed in 
 most of the daily journals : and now that 
 the early season for the fishers at Black 
 Moss had already set in, no one came near 
 to it who could pass by. None would 
 follow the angle now, as they had for so 
 many springs in the past, by the side of 
 that stream which was commonly reported 
 to be flowing with typhus. For miles
 
 158 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 round the inns were empty ; and presently 
 it was too late to say that the place was 
 clean again. As it began to be summer 
 thosewho had scarcely ever missed the fishing 
 in Black Moss were now found to have fears 
 about the heat. And those other ones who 
 had wives, and who would yet have gone of 
 their own choice, were not allowed to go. 
 Some, too, there were who feared the rain 
 more than they feared the sun. But yet 
 was the worst to be. Drawers upon wood 
 alone came near the valley; and for the 
 well-being of Black Moss, it had been better 
 they had stopped away ; for after they had 
 sketched and were gone, a picture paper 
 gave an awful illustration of the dark-look- 
 ing tarn. 
 
 Now these things were beginning to leave 
 their mark, and Black Moss could no longer 
 bear up against all this which was spoken, 
 and written, and engraven against it. 
 Hitherto had Gideon Cuyp done excellently 
 well for himself; but this taint which was 
 on the place would also be the undoing of 
 him ; and probably only a few will not go
 
 BLACK MOSS. 159 
 
 along with Mm in thinking he was altoge- 
 ther right, when in looking at the situation, 
 which clay by day did not get better, but the 
 rather worse, he said one morning, " Weel ; 
 happen I've bin a lile o'er keen." 
 
 And then he went out, and was sad be- 
 cause of the foolish thing which he had 
 done. 
 
 Whilst all this evil was coming upon 
 Black Moss, and not long after Ghiy Mel- 
 chior had got back nearly all his strength, it 
 became known that Lady D'Aeth purposed 
 for a time to leave the Abbey ; and rumour, 
 moreover, had it, for more than a little 
 season. Then later to this it was added 
 that the niece of the undertaker was going 
 with her. 
 
 Minna Norman, at the first, had found it 
 hard to make up her mind to leave the man 
 who had charged himself with her bringing 
 up. She could never remember a harsh 
 word, or a cross look, in the only home she 
 could recollect. Indeed, it must be said, 
 that Gideon Cuyp did excellently well con- 
 tinue this show of affection to the child
 
 160 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 lie had taken as liis own. From the first 
 moment it was wanted it had come out as a 
 masterpiece. He did not love her, for she 
 was not gold ; yet were there many outward 
 signs that he was loving her continually. 
 He had set out always before him the 
 business of getting her heart all to himself, 
 and if he could do this she might get to be 
 as good as money. He knew that if all her 
 heart were to be his, that he could trade 
 with her affections by-and-bye. She would 
 be seeking him to ask what she should do 
 before she answered yes or no to the prayer 
 of any man. Then if she came to give her 
 love hereafter to any one who was not of 
 Cuyp's choosing, he believed that when he 
 should say no, it would be enough. And 
 with no uncertain faith did Cuyp believe in 
 this, for faithfully fond was she of him. 
 
 It is, indeed, not unlikely to be urged, 
 that, in a worldly point of view, for fifteen 
 years and Minna Norman was not fully 
 three when she came into Cuyp's hands a 
 slip, or a chink, that might let in the light 
 into this foul old man, could scarcely be
 
 BLACK MOSS. 161 
 
 avoided. That Gideon Cuyp had the while 
 neither slipped nor forgotten anything what- 
 ever of his part, it is only his due to put on 
 record. But had he so slipped, is it for the 
 young, the pure, the innocent, reared at our 
 feet, to climb up on our knee and turn the 
 bull's-eye of suspicion on the heart that at 
 least seemed always warm to them? Are 
 our little ones to pull off our masks, and 
 tell aloud in the washing-tub of the ugly 
 thing they saw behind ? And Minna Nor- 
 rnan was very young, and rarely pure, and 
 very innocent indeed. The old man's foul- 
 ness did not show itself in his benevolent 
 hideousness. Had evil things been laid to 
 his charge before her, she would have only 
 thought how little this man's love had 
 wavered, and with the story of the past 
 she would have made answer to those who 
 might assail him. She had heard and read 
 of fond friends springing up, sent by God, 
 to love and to cherish those who were cast 
 as orphans upon the world. And had not 
 Gideon Cuyp been very true those many 
 years to her ? Was she, who had so many 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 years been called his darling, to lay wait 
 for him to stumble, and to say amongst the 
 people, " I thought these many years that he 
 was pure, and behold he is vile ?" Are our 
 children to stand as detectives up and down 
 the paths of our homes ? Are we to be 
 pointed at in our nurseries before we are 
 accused in the streets ? What of the earth's 
 sacred loveliness lifts itself so near to heaven 
 as the simplicity of those who play in their 
 fresh noontime outside the border of sus- 
 picion ? 
 
 Now Gideon Cuyp had not come to all 
 his serviceable experience for nothing. He 
 knew for had he not been long feeling his 
 way? how he should best approach the 
 freshness and the gentleness that would be 
 ready, even with a hundred fond and suffi- 
 cient reasons, for staying about him. But 
 he reasoned whether or no the pear might 
 yet be plucked, and he concluded that it 
 might. The time, he calculated, had now 
 fully come when it would best suit his 
 purpose to put Minna Norman before the 
 world. It could matter nothing, however,
 
 BLACK MOSS. 163 
 
 how much she might shine, if her shining 
 was at no time to be seen other than in 
 Black Moss. He knew what that world, 
 which lay far heyond the valley, would 
 think of her that simple, queenly girl. 
 He could see its polluting schemes drawing 
 nearer and nearer her. He could see its 
 unrebuked voluptuaries slipping in hot haste 
 from the pretty toys of passion to gather 
 about her most of them sordid, none of 
 them pure. It was nothing to him, if, in 
 the struggle to possess her, masked dis- 
 honour lisped out its pledges even to her 
 innocence. This would be nothing but 
 well, if it led to the gold after which he 
 lusted. 
 
 " She's ewen a sweet thing, an' a bonny 
 she is that;" mused Cuyp to himself. 
 " I'd be a bit vexed, if owt coomd ta her 
 that wesn't weel ; she's a serious fine lass 
 she is, hawiwer." 
 
 And in that moment of his musing, in 
 that one moment, the soul of Gideon Cuyp 
 was a little way lifted up. A moment in a 
 lifetime, of nearly threescore years and ten, 
 
 M 2
 
 164 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 is not much ; and yet, perhaps, this man 
 had once knelt at his mother's knee, when 
 she taught him how he must struggle to 
 be strong. It is not much, but sucli as 
 it was, he may want it to plead for him 
 by-and-bye. 
 
 In his own mind, Gideon Cuyp had 
 already chosen for her. A rich man's 
 mistress, with the settlements regular ; but 
 not the lawful countess of a poor earl. He 
 would the rather that she married. He 
 would, it might be, take a little less for her 
 to be bargained away in marriage, but any- 
 how she must be bargained away. 
 
 And he could let this bright, this un- 
 suspecting, peerless girl, come at morning 
 and at night to his lips for a kiss to his 
 knee for a caress. He could, and he would, 
 think of her trust, her gentleness, her faith 
 in all that was pure, withered, struck down, 
 but flanked with the gold that was to come 
 into his money-bags. He could take her in 
 his arms, and call her his very own ; and then 
 he could even think that he would sell her. 
 And he could think that he would do this
 
 BLACK MOSS. 165 
 
 thing with her heart beating against his 
 breast ; with her pure lips, that did not know 
 how to dissemble, telling to him, as she 
 almost in her coaxing prayed to stay, before 
 she left him, that she loved this old unky 
 so much better than she loved any one else 
 in the whole world. And Cuyp was very 
 glad to hear the words that told him so, 
 not because of the love it spoke of, but 
 because of the power it would give him 
 presently to dispose of her. 
 
 " Don't send me away !" and she patted 
 his chin, and tried to twist his mouth to 
 speak the words she wanted. " I don't want 
 to see the world, I'm so happy here with 
 you." 
 
 But the mouth which had been twisted 
 and turned by that pretty hand, did not 
 speak at all as Minna hoped it would have 
 spoken. 
 
 " It isn't sa mooch that, lass ; ye canna 
 stay wimma for ivver. Bet looke et Lady 
 D'Aeth, puir, sad, coot oop thing. Isn't 
 she awe a-le-an ? an' a knaa ye wud be sooch 
 a girt coomfort ta her. Niwer be cryin', lass,
 
 166 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 niwer be cry in* ; I's varra sorry ta loss ye ; 
 varra sorry I is, hawiwer." 
 
 This was Cuyp's last toucli, put in just 
 when and where it should ; and it told. 
 
 Whilst there was sorrow in another bowed 
 down heart, and Minna Norman could soften, 
 or soothe it, Minna Norman was -ready to 
 come to the attempt. 
 
 "I will go, uncle. Yes, yes, I will go; 
 please to tell Lady D'Aeth that I am ready 
 to come." 
 
 " That's weel sed, lassie mine," said Cuyp, 
 full of his sudden joy, kissing the lips 
 which spoke the words that had so gladdened 
 him. 
 
 " No, no ! not mine ; don't say mine, 
 uncle, or you'll make me stay," was Minna's 
 choking answer. And she clung to him and 
 was not to be comforted. 
 
 Gideon Cuyp was proud of Minna Nor- 
 man proud of her, that is, in his way ; 
 proud that anything so artless, and so good, 
 should so greatly care to make her home be- 
 neath his roof. He did not believe that she 
 .would get spoiled even in the world. He
 
 BLACK MOSS. 167 
 
 did not think it would be hard to bind her 
 when the time should come ; and when he 
 thought on this, so much the more was he 
 minded that he would ask a great deal for 
 her. Therefore, Gideon Cuyp was proud of 
 Minna Norman ; for did she not the rather 
 care to tarry in Black Mass, even when there 
 must be so many golden homes opening wide 
 the doors before her in the great world be- 
 yond? He had coiled himself with a close 
 coil round her fresh, unspotted, young heart, 
 for his own purpose only. And now the 
 "lile puss" of fifteen years ago was ready 
 altogether to go and fulfil it. 
 
 That afternoon Minna Norman went early 
 over to the Abbey herself, to tell Lady 
 D' Aeth that her mind was made up ; and 
 never, it might be, did her rare and queenly 
 beauty seem quite so lovely as it seemed that 
 day. Now are there many beauties, as there 
 is also much variety in that which is well to 
 look upon ; but the beauty of Minna Norman, 
 then and always, had this in it beyond every- 
 thing it seemed to be so full of soul. It 
 was not only because her features were
 
 1G8 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 faultless for that winch is faultless in the 
 face of woman is not always fair it was not 
 because of her features that so many rivalries 
 would likely come about her. It was not 
 entirely because of them that she would so 
 soon blush under the mixed and cruel stare 
 of a London season ; nor yet was it because 
 of her full, rounded form; all these, in a 
 way, would set her very high all these might, 
 much too likely, bring her beneath the 
 poisoned admiration of the butterflies, who 
 come out in S. James's about May, settling 
 upon every flower, memorializing their many 
 loves in heated, halting stanzas, that might 
 fill a post-octavo. But in Minna Norman 
 all that was pure and maidenly spoke in her 
 face ; in her soft, warm smile ; in her soul-lit 
 eyes ; in those eyes that were deep and full 
 as are a fawn's. This might not be that 
 which would commend her chiefly to 
 sculptors, for it would have been hard to 
 chisel that smile upon marble. But it must 
 be that ignorance of the evil that is in the 
 world, which will presently have to face the 
 honied frauds of the feted debauchee, when
 
 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 he shall hope to set his net about her. And 
 she, who has never thought that which would 
 have sullied the being of a little child, she 
 dreams not of this that afternoon. 
 
 Cuyp watched her as she went on her way ; 
 at the first, gladly ; but at the last, not gladly 
 at all. 
 
 Presently Minna Norman came in sight 
 of the young vicar, and the feeling which 
 was at her heart mounted up in a moment 
 to her cheeks : but only because of his office 
 was this crimson sign upon her face. 
 
 Minna had not before now seen Guy 
 Melchior alone since he got about again ; and 
 so did it come in her mind, whether he too 
 would counsel her to persist in going. It 
 would make many things smooth that were 
 at that time rough, to be advised by him. 
 She highly regarded his office the pastor, 
 the priest ; and she was glad that he was so 
 blameless in his life, that it could only do 
 her good to like him, just as she did like 
 him. 
 
 Minna Norman and Guy Melchior had 
 seen a great deal of one another. She had
 
 170 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 helped him, with a ready help, at the schools 
 for the work's sake that was done there, 
 and for the vicar's sake a little too. 
 
 Now, in this thing that was done at the 
 schools, Guy Melchior was not wise ; he was 
 only weakly, very much like to other men. 
 He knew from the first day on the which he 
 saw her, when his heart leaped within him, 
 that it would end in his getting to love 
 her ; and it did. He said, " I am strong 
 enough to live down this ;" so he kept the 
 danger about him. And then he knew 
 that all his strength was only weakness in- 
 deed. 
 
 And Minna Norman knew that something 
 had come over her ; but she did not think 
 to call it love. She believed, with a very 
 full belief, that it might come to her not 
 being indifferent about the vicar, and to this 
 she had some time come. And did not every- 
 body like him ? So she was only one out of 
 many. 
 
 Therefore it was that they had never told 
 their love. They were occupied with other 
 business at the schools ; but their hearts,
 
 BLACK MOSS. 171 
 
 not their lips, had spoken, and there the ex- 
 change of words was a communion. 
 
 To Guy Melchior, who now knew the 
 mischief that by his own weakness had been 
 wrought at the schools ; and who, after 
 yielding to that one temptation, had struggled 
 as vainly and helplessly as it was only pos- 
 sible he should in such a situation, the know- 
 ledge that she, this trusting girl, was not 
 indifferent to him, was that which chiefly 
 gave him pain. He might have wrestled 
 once ; but now he could not look upon her 
 coldly even if he would. It was not meant, 
 he knew, that such as he should love. Gruy 
 Melchior had one hundred pounds a-year. 
 This was the limit of his probable annual 
 incomings so long as he might live. He 
 knew that priests and deacons do sometimes 
 marry for divers causes even for other 
 reasons than because of the love that is 
 urging them on. But whether it should 
 put him above or below them, in this 
 matter he was careful not to be like to 
 them. 
 
 Therefore did he put it to himself very
 
 17:2 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 often every day, " How can I ask of her to 
 leave a home where she has everything, to 
 live with me so very near to want ; whilst 
 she has only to be seen beyond these hills 
 to have every prize at her feet ?" And he 
 shuddered when he thought that one of 
 these prizes might take that which he had 
 not done well even to look at. So he 
 reasoned and so he wrestled, but so he did 
 not overcome. 
 
 Now they had met again; and in the 
 mood in which they were, that which was 
 inconvenient might be coming of their 
 meeting. 
 
 " And is it true that you are going to 
 leave us, Miss Norman? What is to be- 
 come of my poor schools ?" were his words, 
 seeking to show that he was concerned only 
 for the schools. Why did he not say this 
 civil thing, and then pass on? Why? 
 Only because in this great matter the shep- 
 herd was very much like to his sheep. 
 
 Minna blushed, as before him she never 
 yet had blushed ; for in her heart of hearts
 
 BLACK MOSS. 173 
 
 she seemed to gather what was passing 
 through his own. 
 
 " Yes ; it is quite true that I am going, 
 Mr. Melchior. I would a great deal rather 
 stay at Black Moss, although I dare say 
 the schools will do very well without me. 
 But uncle thinks that Lady D'Aeth will be 
 so lonely without Undine ; so I think I 
 ought to go ; and I was so very happy 
 here." 
 
 " We shall all miss you, Miss Norman. 
 We cannot afford to lose a friend here now." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Melchior ; there is a great 
 change in the valley and in the gap ; but 
 the fever at last is almost gone." 
 
 " Yes ; it seems that it is gone. And I 
 hope it will be suffered to remain away," 
 said the vicar, who, tracked by that fearful 
 suspicion which was getting so strong in 
 him at times, the while forgot what might 
 come of his letting that which he felt, but 
 which was yet perhaps so baseless, be seen 
 by others. 
 
 And there was something more of a hid-
 
 174 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 den meaning even in his face than in his 
 words. That walk which those two were 
 taking there that afternoon was fast getting 
 to be dangerous. 
 
 " You don't you cannot think that any 
 one but Grod has kept the fever here, Mr. 
 Melchior?" she asked of him timidly and 
 searchingly. 
 
 " I would rather not say what I think, 
 Miss Norman. It cannot matter anything 
 at all. I have been ill. I am weak. It is 
 nothing more than some fancy of the brain, 
 that I am not strong enough to crush, and 
 I have been ordered tonics." 
 
 " No, Mr. Melchior ; there is something 
 terribly real behind those words. You sus- 
 pect some one in this place of having kept 
 and spread this fearful fever in Black 
 Moss. I have no right to ask you to tell 
 me anything; but do not think me bold 
 if " 
 
 " I should never .think you that, Miss 
 Norman ; but.do not ask of me to tell this 
 thing to you do not ask me." And then 
 he said, almost in a whisper " You are
 
 BLACK MOSS. 175 
 
 leaving us ; do not ask to take this sorrow 
 with you." 
 
 And then, why did he not leave her ? or, 
 why did she not leave him ? But they did 
 not part, or seem to think of parting. And 
 she said, as she came along by his side 
 
 " I will ask nothing that you do not care 
 to tell me, Mr. Melchior." 
 
 " I am not master of myself when I am 
 tempted by this beckoning thing. No, no ; 
 to you I could not tell it." 
 
 She turned and faced him, with her calm 
 and bloodless face. " I see it now I see 
 it all. You will not tell it me because " 
 
 " Softly, Miss Norman, something moved 
 there behind that wall." And they both 
 stopped and listened ; but there was nothing, 
 nothing but the sound of the mountain 
 streams. So they went on again, and she 
 said, quietly and gently 
 
 "It is my uncle that you mean. Oh ! 
 say it is not him do not bring this thing 
 between our love. You cannot know how 
 noble and how good he is ; if you can think 
 that he is such as this he "
 
 176 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 And here she broke down utterly. She 
 had not been moved till now ; but this, 
 which haunted that man, was more than she 
 could bear. 
 
 Now Gideon Cuyp had so contrived, that 
 he was then a listener to those lips, and a 
 witness of those tears that there were pleading 
 for him. He had from his window, to his 
 great unrest, seen her join the vicar. He 
 had seen them walking on together; and 
 striking away across a field, which he knew 
 would put a high stone wall such as is 
 common in Westmoreland and Cumberland 
 between himself and them, he limped 
 along noiselessly, and so heard all. 
 
 The vicar was troubled about these tears, 
 and he said 
 
 " It has come into my mind, Miss Nor- 
 man, and I do not believe it has cause to 
 come there ; yet can I not resist its coming. 
 It was a fancy left by the fever ; but some- 
 times it will stay. And it is then I feel 
 that I am scarcely master of myself." 
 
 " It's evven es weel a wcs here," said 
 Cuyp, between his teeth, " or it happen
 
 BLACK MOSS. 177 
 
 meet hev bin oogly. I sail joost git quit 
 ov what may dae ma a meeschief, an' then 
 nin can offer ta tooch ma." 
 
 The vicar's assurance that he did not 
 himself believe in the reality of that which 
 was haunting him, that it was only a spectre, 
 or a phantom the two things in possession 
 left behind by typhus sufficed to set Minna 
 Norman at rest; and then, when she had 
 dried her eyes, and could smile again, Gruy 
 Melchior led her on to speak of other things ; 
 for had he not clean forgotten himself, even 
 from the first beginning of that afternoon ? 
 
 " I do not think when you leave us, Miss 
 Norman, that it will be for ever. You will 
 be coming back to see your uncle very 
 often?" 
 
 " Very often, indeed. And I shall work 
 again at the schools, and play the organ 
 you will always let me take the organ when 
 I come back here, Mr. Melchior ?" 
 
 " But perhaps," said the vicar, smiling 
 a smile that he did not mean should be 
 grim, "when you come amongst us here 
 again, it may be with a husband." 
 
 VOL. T. N
 
 178 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 Minna Norman shuddered as the vicar 
 rallied her on what might be, and turned 
 pale. 
 
 " Mr. Melchior, I am sure you will be 
 wrong ; I do not think I shall ever marry. 
 No, if I ever come to Black Moss again, 
 it will be still as Minna Norman always 
 Minna Norman." 
 
 She meant that she would never marry, 
 
 v 
 
 because she did not think she would be ever 
 asked to be the wife of him. who was her 
 first, and would be, she was very sure, her 
 only love. 
 
 Where were the vicar's gravest resolutions 
 journeying then? Why was he coming 
 nearer and nearer to the ground that he had 
 always, until this hour, in his own heart for- 
 bidden to himself? He who had fought so 
 good a fight from his youth up so often 
 too against such odds was he going to lay 
 down now? And we, who are sitting as 
 his judges hard upon the weakness he has 
 shown this day have we ever trod near, or 
 about, where he was treading, ever re- 
 solved, ever girded up our loins, ever drifted
 
 BLACK MOSS. 179 
 
 as this man was drifting, ever surrendered, 
 as presently did he ? 
 
 The Vicar of Black Moss found himself 
 on awkward ground ; and then he spoke out, 
 if not with the discretion that becomes a 
 priest, yet as a true man. 
 - " Minna," he said, passionately, it would 
 never be Miss Norman again ; " I have strug- 
 gled this long time not to love you ; but I 
 cannot help it. If I had not met you now, 
 these words might never have been spoken ; 
 
 I could never have loved another" 
 
 i 
 
 (" tion," cursed Cuyp, almost strangling 
 
 himself to keep his feelings down, as he 
 dipped along behind thatwall "he loove her, 
 he withoot a farden ; it sartainly caps owt"). 
 " I had meant you should go away from the 
 midst of us, and never hear all that my heart 
 was bursting to tell to you, Minna. I have 
 nothing no friends but the dear ones that 
 are gathered round me here. It was not 
 for me, Minna, it was not for me to say to 
 such as are you, Be my wife : come home to 
 nothing nothing but this full heart, and 
 its changeless love and only emptiness be- 
 
 N 2
 
 ISO BLACK MOSS. 
 
 sides. No, Minna, no. Yet can I see in 
 your face that I might have hoped. I had 
 always dared to think it was so. But from 
 this moment you shall never hear such words 
 as these from me again. Go into the world, 
 my darling, and may that love which might 
 have gladdened me be the light and the life 
 of him who shall be the least unworthy to 
 hold it. I will not, for I cannot say, 
 Minna, shut me out for ever from your 
 thoughts wherever you may go, and wherever 
 you may be ; but think of me only as a 
 friend only as a friend." 
 
 He held out his arms as they went up 
 through the trees that led to the hall. In 
 a moment she was there there on his 
 manly breast. 
 
 " G-od bless and keep you, darling !" he 
 murmured, as he bent over her. 
 
 By ? if he isn't geean ewen ta 
 
 hoog her !" muttered the undertaker, in a 
 frenzy, as he looked after them, biting his 
 lips till he brought the blood, and almost 
 stumbling over a big stone behind the 
 wall.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 181 
 
 " Some one is coming, Guy. There ! did 
 you not hear that ?" 
 
 'There is no one; it was nothing, 
 Minna." 
 
 And he stooped, and kissed her. 
 
 " I knaa'd he wud hoog her," groaned 
 Gideon Cuyp.
 
 182 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE CRUSH-ROOM MORNING. 
 
 GTUY MELCHIOR and Minna Norman, during 
 the little time that, in the course of things, 
 yet remained, had no such other opportunity 
 of meeting again under the beeches. The 
 end was drawing on, as it was well perhaps 
 for them that it should for had they not 
 gone something too far already ? 
 
 Lady D'Aeth had concluded to pass the 
 autumn and the winter, and that which was 
 yet left to them of the summer, at some 
 watering-place ; and their first move it was 
 resolved should be to one of the Spas, and 
 then to Harrowgate : so the final hospi- 
 talities at the Abbey were being ordered. 
 The vicar had eaten and drunken there for
 
 BLACK MOSS. 183 
 
 the last time, for it might be a great while 
 to come ; and even Gideon Cuyp, who was 
 there too, much busied in seeing how it was 
 with Guy and Minna over these closing 
 proceedings, was persuaded he saw nothing 
 that evening in the glances, or the confi- 
 dences, or whisperings of either, to add to 
 the uneasiness he had acquired behind the 
 wall. He would, indeed, have been better 
 pleased and assured could he have got him- 
 self between their palms when the " good 
 nights" were passed ; but he took heart, and 
 was at rest when he reflected how few of 
 these impossible attachments outlived a 
 long separation at least where the links of 
 the tie were other than golden ones and 
 nothing but brass could this hungry preacher 
 bring. Cuyp, too, was farther much com- 
 forted in holding on to the belief that some 
 one with means would be found at Minna's 
 feet at the proper time, and that her affection, 
 or at any rate her hand, would of a surety 
 follow the money. Therefore he sat back in 
 the same suit in which he showed himself 
 at first-class funerals where no estimate
 
 184 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 was given and no discount asked and stirred 
 up his tea, whilst Lady D'Aeth and he took 
 counsel how Minna's interests might best 
 be served. Then he looked on benignly, but 
 not carelessly, and went home with a sure 
 hope that the mischief had not farther 
 spread that evening. 
 
 The next morning, when Minna Norman, 
 full of thoughts and resolves that surely but 
 strangely accorded with the comfortable con- 
 clusion to which Gideon Cuyp had come 
 the night before, was standing at the win- 
 dow of the Abbey from which point of view 
 could the vicar's schools be seen, as also 
 could the vicar in the flesh when he took 
 his way towards them looking silently and 
 just a little sadly over the still scene (in the 
 which her young life had nearly all been 
 passed), she saw a woman, with some hesi- 
 tation of manner, come slowly and timidly 
 up to the house and ring the servants' bell. 
 After this had been done, Rooke the butler* 
 just settling into his coat, after the manner 
 of butlers who are taken out of their pan-
 
 BLACK MOSS. 185 
 
 tries at mid-day, appeared full of his displea- 
 sure at the door. 
 
 " If you please, my lady, here's a young 
 person who wants to know if Miss Norman 
 will require a maid. She's come a long way, 
 she says, my lady ; but these persons always 
 do say some such thing, but they don't come 
 over me, my lady. I told her as how "Wau- 
 chope gave every satisfaction, and that there 
 wasn't no vacancy ; but it aint no good ; I 
 can't get her to leave, my lady." 
 
 " This is very strange, coming about a 
 place that is not vacant. I hope you have 
 not left the plate about, Rooke ?" 
 
 "No, indeed, my lady; there's only the 
 mustard-pot and four spoons that isn't 
 packed ; and the plate's always in my head 
 whenever the back-door bell goes, and she's 
 a-standing outside. She aint one of your 
 sort at all, my lady." 
 
 " Poor thing ! standing, and it's so hot, 
 and she's come a long way. Mayn't I see 
 her, aunt, and if she's very tired tell her she 
 may stay and rest ?"
 
 186 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 Now Lady D'Aeth, it should be said, 
 was, by virtue of her new trust, hereafter to 
 be known to the world as Minna Norman's 
 aunt. It was better for both that it should 
 be so. 
 
 " If you wish, my love, you shall j only 
 be careful, for I cannot understand her 
 coming here under the circumstances. Show 
 this young person into the housekeeper's 
 room, Rooke." 
 
 " Yes, my lady ; but I suppose I'd better 
 be handy, if Miss Norman should want me." 
 
 It is probable that some suspicion might 
 have been justified ; but then Lady D'Aeth 
 would the rather have lost a spoon than 
 have seemed merely to suspect even such a 
 one as was that woman. She was being 
 taken in perpetually, but yet would she 
 neither call in the police nor a little cau- 
 tion. She who was standing at her door 
 might be a true and an honest woman, 
 therefore should she not be watched. 
 
 And this was the answer that the butler 
 got "You will not be wanted, Rooke; I 
 will see this person with Miss Norman."
 
 BLACK MOSS. 187 
 
 So they both went down together. 
 
 " And bring in something, please, Eooke, 
 from the kitchen dinner, and don't watch 
 her when you bring it in as though 
 you thought she meant to steal," put in 
 Minna Norman, as she came behind her 
 aunt. 
 
 " Very well, miss," answered the butler, 
 sulkily, for he did not like the work that 
 was set him, and did not, therefore, make 
 any inconvenient haste to go about the 
 ordering of this woman's meal. 
 
 "Poor thing!" said Minna to her aunt, 
 " I'm sure she looked tired. What a time 
 Eooke is letting her in !" And she ran 
 down the back-stairs to the back-door her- 
 self. 
 
 " Will you please to come in here, my 
 good woman ? Here's a chair, and you shall 
 have something to eat presently, for Eooke 
 says you have walked a long way." 
 
 And then when the woman was sat down, 
 Minna said to her 
 
 "We are very sorry you should have 
 come so far about the place, because
 
 188 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 Wauchope is going to stay, and I am sure 
 we should have liked you shouldn't we, 
 aunt ?" 
 
 Lady D'Aeth acquiesced, and the sad 
 woman sighed; and then Lady B-Aeth 
 asked her why she came about a place that 
 was not vacant ? 
 
 " Joost this, ma lady. Awe th' fooak bop 
 an' doon ses as haw miss wor sooch a nice 
 kind lady, sa a bethowt ma a wud try ; an' 
 a ex yer pardon, ma lady, for coomin'." 
 
 " That is not needed. We are only sorry 
 you should have had so long a walk for 
 nothing." 
 
 " If we should hear of anything," put in 
 Minna, blushing at what the people "up and 
 down" said about her, " we wont forget you. 
 Best as long as you like ; don't be in a hurry 
 to go. And here comes Kooke with some 
 dinner." 
 
 And Booke it was, who towered in, and 
 sniffed the air, as though it were no longer 
 fit for so great a butler to breathe. But, 
 notwithstanding it was Booke, it was on 
 other business that he came ; for he looked
 
 BLACK MOSS. 189 
 
 round the room, and then swooped down 
 upon a silver inkstand, glancing the while, 
 with the coarse suspicion of his kind, at the 
 poor woman as he got to the door. It was 
 a splendid service this of Rooke's, and went 
 home as it was meant it should. 
 
 " He bethowt him a meet likely steel it, 
 ma lady," said the suspected, with some 
 sadness in her words, as the menial dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 " But we don't, and never mind him," 
 answered Lady D'Aeth with warmth, rising 
 to go. " If Wauchope should be leaving us, 
 at any time, where could we find you ?" 
 
 The woman gave her address, and then 
 Lady D'Aeth went out of the room. 
 
 " Good morning," said Minna. " I wish 
 I could have served you ; but you will, 
 perhaps, be able to come to me some day, 
 and I wont forget you." 
 
 And when she had so said, she saw that 
 there was dew in the sad eyes in those 
 eyes that had so strangely searched her. 
 The woman grasped the hand which Minna 
 had held out, and then the tears welled
 
 190 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 over, 'and fell fast and hot upon it. The 
 poor creature could only say "Aye, eye, 
 soom day a happen may." 
 
 " If ever I saw the like of this ! What 
 a fancy!" said Rooke, with high pantry 
 scorn, for he had seen everything and heard 
 all. " It's had enough having her in to sit 
 about where we have our teas, she's quite 
 nasty and mean to look at, and smells so ; 
 and then touching her hand, .too ! Coming, 
 miss, coming." 
 
 And he. sauntered languidly up to the 
 cook to tell to her to what uttermost de- 
 gradation the service had come. 
 
 All this had happened on a Saturday ; and 
 on the Monday morning next ensuing, Lady 
 D'Aeth, with Minna Norman, and Wau- 
 chope their maid, set out for one or more of 
 the Spas. 
 
 Lady D'Aeth] had some time found that 
 for herself it was necessary to have change. 
 Her thoughts were only dark companions. 
 She could not bear to linger long on any- 
 thing. She must have something to lead 
 her away from the past ; she must, for the
 
 BLACK MOSS. 191 
 
 time that should be left her here, stray into 
 fresh paths, where there were no footsteps 
 that were known to her, no footfalls like to 
 the ever sad music of a harp swept by the 
 wind. And Minna Norman did this per- 
 haps better, on the whole, than did even 
 the changing scenes through which they 
 went. 
 
 At Harrowgate they presently passed six 
 weeks ; they then came on to Brighton, and 
 were a little later at Torquay for the winter. 
 
 Lady D'Aeth, who began to mend as 
 time went over her, was set on doing for 
 Minna that which she had purposed to do 
 for her own child ; and she was now looking 
 forward to Minna's presentation at the first 
 May drawing-room. 
 
 If the " little white angel of Black Moss," 
 as Black Moss had always called the lost 
 Undine had seemed like a picture of sleep, 
 or a melting vision, and was gone on its 
 trackless way, yet was the valley not the 
 less persuaded that it could show a com- 
 panion picture which would not miss the 
 prize. Minna Norman was nothing less a
 
 192 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 girl of girls than had been Undine D' Aeth ; 
 and as now every day her beauty of face and 
 form bloomed and mellowed in the soft 
 south, it was not possible to doubt, that 
 before her loveliness, all other loveliness, 
 from wherever it might come, would have to 
 pale. Guy Melchior had said that many 
 prizes, many men of substance and abundant 
 comeliness, would compass her about and 
 he had rightly said. But Lady D'Aeth 
 was sufficient for them all. She did not 
 mean that Minna Norman should be picked 
 up at Torquay ; and when she looked upon 
 this fresh, and sunny, unspoiled thing, who 
 did not even see how she had conquered ; 
 when she saw what Minna was, and thought 
 of the world to which she was going, there 
 was something at the heart of the motherly 
 woman of unrest ; something, too, that 
 went on knocking there. And it was well 
 that this was so. This " coming out " is 
 not all a brightness or a joy. There are 
 many sides even to the great glory of being 
 set forth by the Court newsman. ' It builds 
 up a good deal, does this getting up so
 
 BLACK MOSS. 193 
 
 high ; but what does it also not pull down ? 
 If there is anything that causes one to 
 blush, then is there a peril to our child, at 
 the which we may well start, and ask our- 
 selves, shall this thing be ? 
 
 Nor, indeed, did Lady D'Aeth, with any 
 sort of specious reasoning such as the world 
 pronounces good, try to shut this warning 
 out. Her experience of that which would 
 come about Minna was an experience of 
 years. She had been near to some of the 
 worst pitfalls that society covers up. But 
 she had marked them these many years ; 
 and so anxiously, if trustfully, and yet not 
 with too much faith in her own strength, 
 she set to herself, without flinching, the life 
 labour of standing between these pitfalls 
 and this child, who was now to her even as 
 her own. 
 
 In many ways was Lady D'Aeth a very 
 woman. And so was she minded that she 
 would show Minna Noraian to the world, 
 with no abatement of a woman's pride ; 
 this Minna for whom she often feared so 
 mch whom she, perhaps, believed would 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 194 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 not be much profited by the introduction. 
 Sometimes she said, " I will snatch her away 
 whilst yet I can ;" but then came the walk, or 
 the drive on the parade, and the many eyes 
 ^vhich followed her charge, and then she went 
 home and was otherwise intentioned. But 
 at other moments she held back the longer, 
 and shuddered when she saw how wholly 
 Minna Norman's sympathies and hopes lay 
 in the country, and to how much higher 
 advantage she seemed in the fields and on 
 the sea-beach, than on the Torquay drive 
 about the time of the show hours- But 
 then neither would Lady D'Aeth persuade 
 herself to shut out the knowledge which 
 was asking to have its sway, that though 
 the true companions of her new child's 
 heart ranged through the whole order of 
 our singinsr-birds and everv sort of meadow 
 
 v 
 
 music, rather than through the spheres of 
 fashion, yet that when in those balmy days 
 Minna did come out upon the drive, others, 
 perhaps, were looked at in their turn and 
 canvassed, whilst she alone was of them all
 
 BLACK MOSS. 195 
 
 remembered; and that so had she become 
 the centre of a real sensation. 
 
 Minna went bravely, as it best beseemed 
 her, through it all. Every day she liked it 
 the less, and dreaded more and more the 
 hour of inspection ; and had not Lady 
 D'Aeth been set, with womanly earnestness, 
 upon distancing the field at S. James's, she 
 could scarcely have gone on. 
 
 Before such as this, scarcely was ever 
 any woman yet, but at the strongest and 
 the best exceptionally, quite inflexible. And 
 it was in these sympathetic overpowering 
 moments, when Torquay in full toilet turned 
 itself about to look at Minna, that Lady 
 D'Aeth's mind -was the more nearly made 
 up to launch her on the stream at the first 
 May drawing-room. She was not going to 
 be harmed this peerless girl. Of course, 
 a sacrifice did not of any necessity follow 
 upon the conventional recognition of her 
 superiority at the pure Court of S. James's. 
 This was the manner, at least, in the which 
 Lady D'Aeth used to put it to her own 
 
 o 2
 
 196 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 judgment, till the more she tried to find 
 herself at ease, so much the more did 
 her responsibilities seem to look a little 
 threatening. 
 
 But the time to hesitate was gone. 
 Torquay was beginning to get thin ; there 
 was no one on the drive during the crush 
 hours. So Minna was asked if she still was 
 set upon the journey to the Queen, and then 
 they too went their way. 
 
 Indeed, the end of this was much us 
 it always will be. Notwithstanding that 
 Minna could have stayed away from London 
 had she been so minded, she nevertheless 
 could see that her aunt had this matter 
 much at heart. And in these days of 
 sorrowing for Undine, it was only well that 
 she should have her way, therefore did it 
 come to be determined they should go. 
 
 When it was nearly getting to be May 
 they left Torquay, and went into a housse, 
 which was very elegantly appointed, in 
 S. James's Place. 
 
 It was not, however, hard to see, that to 
 Minna Norman, now that she was in the
 
 BLACK MOSS. 197 
 
 stream, this newly acquired position, from 
 the first, was not after her own heart. For 
 the sake of Lady D'Aeth, who was putting 
 away some of her sorrows with this change, 
 she did not indeed let it be seen how much 
 it went against her, and how much more she 
 dreaded that which was yet to come. There 
 was nothing on the surface to show what 
 was going on beneath. It is very hard so 
 to have to bear, to have to smile, when for 
 very heaviness you want to weep ; but 
 Minna had gone with a purpose to her 
 work, and she did not mean to tire. 
 
 There must be, for all this, a limit to our 
 manner of enduring ; over the bitter cup 
 there will be sometimes a wry face. We 
 cannot always suffer and continually seem to 
 like it ; and a general acquiescence in Lady 
 D'Aeth's plans for going out into the world, 
 for seeing and for being seen, wasthemostthat 
 Minna could do was about all she accorded 
 even to the most brilliant and dazzling offers 
 that the season opened up. She, indeed, 
 at times seemed pleased ; but much oftener 
 a great deal did she look to be wearied.
 
 198 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 And now was the crisis drawing on. 
 Minna was within a week of her presentation 
 at Court. Everything had been done which 
 could be done that she might rightly appear 
 there. Never had she heard so much before 
 of the capacities of tulle in all her life; 
 neither in breadths nor in cost was there to 
 be any stint or limit. But Minna was not 
 nearly so powerfully moved as the occasion 
 demanded she should be. Indeed, even the 
 coming home of the dress did not act upon 
 her as it does on most ; it did not eventuate 
 in that enthusiasm which is not often dis- 
 persed without the accompaniment of certain 
 strong h} r sterical phenomena more or less 
 disturbing. 
 
 Now, in this true history it must be said 
 that when Minna Norman heard one after- 
 noon from her maid's lips that the dress 
 had come, she only answered "Oh," and 
 then went on with the book that she was 
 reading. 
 
 " But, miss, madame is waiting to try it 
 on." 
 
 Yes, there in solemn form the dress was
 
 BLACK MOSS. 199 
 
 lying on her bed, awaiting the equally solemn 
 ordeal of being tried on. 
 
 Minna heard of the spectacle that there 
 was upstairs with no other or more reverent 
 feeling than that it was an inconvenience 
 that she should have to shut her book, which 
 book too had been many times read over, 
 but which had been given her at parting by 
 
 one Gr M ; and she felt that this 
 
 being fitted was a serious infliction. But 
 then it was not possible that such a one 
 as was Madame Plonplon could be kept in 
 waiting. 
 
 No solution of Minna's indifference is 
 offered or attempted here. It is believed, on 
 the best grounds, to be wholly without 
 parallel ; for as it was, in the end, not to be 
 understood by that costumier of costumiers, 
 the history of such marvellous apathy be- 
 comes exhausted. 
 
 When madame and "Wauchope got to 
 their work, the tightnesses and loosenesses 
 were reduced ; and when it was getting to 
 be evening all was done. Madame stepped 
 back, and Wauchope was bidden to keep off
 
 200 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 her hands, for was not judgment about 
 to be pronounced? 
 
 " Vraiment, noting could fit you bettere, 
 mademoiselle ; vraiment noting," said the 
 dressmaker whose deed this was, a French 
 woman of considerable personal attractions 
 at an early period of decay. She had by this 
 time discharged every pin from between her 
 lips, and then gazing on her finished act, or 
 running in to give to some mystery a last 
 touch, was abundantly satisfied that if her 
 reputation that is, her trade reputation 
 was only to hang upon this dress, nothing 
 known to Le Follet would ever overset it. 
 Then there was nothing more to do but ring 
 for Lady D' Aeth. 
 
 Now Minna Norman did not understand 
 the nature of this work of art she had about 
 her. It must be that there was something- 
 more to follow. She, throughout the whole 
 of the proceeding, seriously believed herself 
 to be only half dressed. There were many 
 things that she would know presently which 
 would rid her of some of the ignorances that 
 were in her. But whatever she might get
 
 BLACK MOSS. 201 
 
 to learn, it is quite true she did not know 
 then that those very low dresses, with nearly 
 no tops set on to them, were insisted on by 
 the highest people by the people whom she 
 was to be put out into the world to mix with. 
 So she met this doubt that was in her with 
 a very simple and modest inquiry after the 
 body. 
 
 The Frenchwoman clasped her hands, as 
 Frenchwomen do over little and great things. 
 The girl before her had more about her neck 
 than madame's other ladies would have suf- 
 fered upon theirs. What could it mean, this 
 asking for a body when such a one as this was 
 fitted on? 
 
 " Mais, mademoiselle, c'est une plaisan- 
 terie ; it fits you, does this body. Vraiment 
 a ravir vraiment a ravir !" 
 
 " Yes, what there is of it may fit ; but," 
 said Minna Norman, indignantly, as her 
 bosom heaved beneath the shawl which in 
 very shame she had thrown over her, " I 
 am not going like this anywhere beyond my 
 room !" 
 
 " Et pourquoi non, mademoiselle ?" said
 
 202 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 the woman, with a further clasping of the 
 hands, for she had generally to argue on 
 the other side, for " a leetle less of de 
 figure." 
 
 " Wauchope, who and what is this per- 
 son?" and as Minna's eyes for a moment 
 fell upon her neck in the glass before which 
 she was sitting, she, to whom this clumsily- 
 masked indelicacy was something new, sank 
 back in her chair, and covering her face with 
 her hands, sobbed like a child. 
 
 Truly this was a very bad and unpromising 
 beginning. Was it not insubordination even 
 on the very threshold of that life where there 
 is so much of prudery, and so little of 
 modesty? Wauchope herself that chaste 
 handmaid, who was never known to have 
 suffered anything near to freedom in the 
 servants'-hall Wauchope, who was so very 
 proper, could not understand this business of 
 the body. 
 
 Lady D'Aeth and salvolatile, with all 
 speed, were brought upon the scene, and the 
 motherly woman saw at a glance what was 
 the offending wrong. She would have a
 
 BLACK MOSS. 203 
 
 great price to pay for this dress, which, fell 
 so short of stuff upwards ; yet would she 
 have given the price of many dresses that 
 this distress should not have come on Minna. 
 And she sat down and took the sobbing girl 
 upon her knee. 
 
 " I am very very miserable, aunt," broke 
 out Minna, almost convulsively. 
 
 "But there, she shall not be miserable. 
 My poor darling shall wear nothing she does 
 not like. But there's a pet, now, she mustn't 
 cry. Madame Plonplon, you will have seen 
 that this dress will not do." 
 
 So soothed, Minna Norman at last stayed 
 her tears ; and the great modiste was told 
 that while certain concessions to the fashion 
 might be permitted, considerable modifica- 
 tions of the prevailing style would be inex- 
 orably insisted on. The Frenchwoman had 
 already set up her throne in that room to 
 such little purpose, that she yielded on the 
 spot. 
 
 " Mais, oui, everyting shall be as me lady 
 and mademoiselle do desire. I have made, 
 let me see, twenty, tirty dresses tirty for
 
 204 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 next week and they are what you call it, 
 tout bien decolletee.'' 
 
 Minna Norman shuddered when she 
 heard from such an authority of the naked- 
 ness that was only nakedness to her. And 
 she looked up and said, "Why, if they 
 wear less than this, aunt, they can wear 
 nothing." 
 
 Minna had stated the case against the 
 dresses exactly. The barrenness was very 
 great, and the Frenchwoman and Wauchope 
 got together the things that were to be 
 amended, knowing that nothing could re- 
 verse the judgment of those ladies which 
 had there gone forth. 
 
 But Madame Plonplon gathered up the 
 pieces without showing her discomfiture; 
 she would have her say in the bill. 
 
 " I wish all my very thin ladies were like 
 mademoiselle; but dey do always tell me, 
 ' Madame Plonplon, a leetle lower, a leetle 
 lower ; more of de neck to show.' A leetle 
 more of de bones, I tink." And when, after 
 this lively sort, she had detailed many more 
 of her experiences in the same direction, all
 
 BLACK MOSS. 205 
 
 alike horrible to Minna Norman, she was at 
 last fairly expelled the room. 
 
 Then, all having been accomplished in 
 relation to that body, the day of days to 
 many came. Minna had been under the 
 hands of Wauchope ever since the early 
 morning ; but at last there was nothing 
 more to do, and the chariot and the horses, 
 that had been lent by a friend, were standing 
 at the door, and had been so standing, the 
 lent coachman thought, a good deal too 
 long. 
 
 People who always know about these 
 things were saying that there were to be a 
 great many presentations, and these same 
 people were also causing it to be known, with 
 a grave seeming of authority, that the Lady 
 Feodore Mounttrevor, only child of the Earl 
 and Countess of Langdale, would be pro- 
 nounced to-day the beauty of the season. 
 Now Lady D'Aeth was well persuaded it 
 would be otherwise pronounced. 
 
 " They don't any one of them know the card 
 I am going to play to-day," thought that 
 lady to herself, not in any way spitefully, but
 
 206 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 only proudly, only after the manner of wo- 
 men, as Minna sat beside her in the chariot. 
 " I shall trump above that dear good Lady 
 Langdale." 
 
 There was clearly nothing akin to malice 
 in this expectation of getting away the trick 
 from her friend. It was dear to her to know 
 she held the winning hand ; but was not her 
 friend dear to her also ? She did not set 
 her heart upon angering Lady Langdale ; 
 but, because she had this card, she was not 
 to hold herself from playing it because the 
 countess might not like to lose. After this 
 sort, such women as even Sydney Lady 
 D'Aeth do not generally care to lose. 
 
 So, after she had thought this to herself, 
 she turned to Minna and said, rapturously, 
 " I think I know who will be the queen to- 
 day." 
 
 " Oh, do show her to me, aunt, if you 
 should see her." 
 
 It must be pleaded for Minna, when she 
 spoke like this, that her bringing up, how- 
 ever liberal, had been in Black Moss ; and 
 she did not know the language of courts, or
 
 BLACK MOSS. 207 
 
 even that which is spoken on the way to 
 them. Such simplicity as was hers is not 
 often very natural ; but in Minna Norman 
 it was nature. 
 
 And her aunt only squeezed the little 
 gloved hand, and said, " I will point her 
 out presently, my love." 
 
 The chariot and the horses and the coach- 
 man were all of the best, so they were soon 
 in the midst of the tide that was sweeping up 
 to S. James's. The windows, as they passed, 
 were full of the faces of those who had been 
 bidden by friends to come to take luncheon, 
 and afterwards to stare; and now that 
 they had lunched, the staring had set in. 
 Then the pavements were covered with 
 crowds of rather a baser sort ; there were 
 upper and lower nurses, and there were all 
 sorts of unprotected females who trusted to 
 their own pushing, and afterwards to the 
 police if this pushing should be by any one 
 taken amiss. All these were swarming west- 
 south-west ; and so they would swarm, till 
 the great miscellaneous block would be pre- 
 sently complete.
 
 208 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 When some of the carriages dashed by 
 for the chariot in the which rode Lady 
 D'Aeth and Minna was not yet in the line 
 it was easy, and not well, for Minna to 
 have to see, as many of those duchesses and 
 countesses, and every other variety of almost 
 undressed peeress unblushing votaries of a 
 voluptuous mode were bending forward, 
 that the great Madame Plonplon, when she 
 made that very open body, had not at all 
 gone beyond the fashion. The rather, in- 
 deed, had she rebuked it. To Minna it 
 seemed that some of those who were ffoinsr 
 
 O O 
 
 to the Queen would presently escape from 
 the very little that contained them ; and, 
 even as it was, without any such very im- 
 minent catastrophe, she could not help ex- 
 claiming, " Couldn't the Queen let it be 
 known that she does not think this to be 
 very nice, aunt ?" 
 
 Now Minna Norman had spoken this 
 without any knowledge of % ' the being of the 
 Lord High Chamberlain ; and therefore she 
 did not know it could not be suffered to tell 
 ladies how they should appear by any order 
 in the Gazette.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 209 
 
 Lady D'Aeth the while almost began to 
 wish she had not brought this pretty inno- 
 cence where such things are ; but she did 
 not think to stop the way of the chariot, and 
 tell the coachman to drive home. No woman 
 who ever lived would have done this then. 
 
 So to get rid of some of these reflections, 
 which were not pleasant to her, she began 
 to point out the various great personages to 
 Minna as they passed to fall into the line 
 behind. And she also showed to her some 
 of the little ones some who were there only 
 because they had married money. But there 
 were not so many middlemen's wives there 
 then as get there now. 
 
 " There goes the Bishop of S. Chad's. I 
 see he recollects me ; he used to play long 
 whist every evening when he was rector of 
 S. Faith's. There will be a great many 
 bishops here to-day, Minna." 
 
 " Because it's so fine, aunt ?" 
 
 " No, my love, not because it's so fine 
 they would have come here in the wet to- 
 day but because the Archbishop of York 
 is likely to be dying soon." 
 
 VOL. i. p
 
 210 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 Minna Norman was in the midst of many 
 mysteries; but this one was thicker than 
 them all. She could not see how the pro- 
 bable early dissolution of an archbishop 
 should be taken up by the bishops in 
 this sort of way. Were it not better they 
 should have been in their closets praying 
 that he might be spared? So she looked 
 up as though she could not compass it at 
 all. And then her aunt added 
 
 " They don't mean any of them to hide 
 away, or be forgotten just now, Minna." 
 
 " But then, they are not glad that he's 
 dying, aunt?" 
 
 " I dare say they will grieve in the proper 
 way when he is gone my love ; but they 
 are not to be hindered from making ready to 
 take his place." 
 
 The more that Minna heard, so much the 
 more did her bewilderment greatly grow. 
 And it almost came into her mind whether 
 it could be that the leaven of the world had 
 got amongst these godly men. But then 
 she was so very lately from Black Moss. 
 
 " Look, there is Lady Langdale's car-
 
 BLACK MOSS. 211 
 
 riage/' said Lady D'Aeth, as a turning in 
 the street showed to them a chariot in the 
 front, with the earl's coronet on the panel. 
 " She's a sweet woman, is Lady Langdale, 
 though a little proud, and quick tempered if 
 things don't go quite straight with her. 
 Ah, she hasn't been shown my hand yet, 
 but she shall be presently when it's time to 
 play it !" 
 
 And so as the stream rolled on did Lady 
 D'Aeth point out to Minna those who were 
 of any consequence, and those who believed 
 themselves to be ; till, after struggling, and 
 pulling up, and then going on a little bit, 
 for some time in the line, they at last had 
 come to the crisis of setting down. 
 
 A gentleman had just got out of the car- 
 riage which was next in front of theirs, some 
 
 o 7 
 
 of the crowd cheering him, as with a noble 
 presence, he went in. 
 
 " There, Minna, that is Mr. Massareene, 
 the famous statesman!" whispered Lady 
 D'Aeth, as they neared by inches the 
 great scene. Once, indeed, the eyes of the 
 popular minister and those of Lady D'Aeth 
 
 p 2
 
 212 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 did meet. The recognition was instantane- 
 ous, and lie struggled up, losing none of his 
 grace even in that press, till he got up to 
 her side. 
 
 This, on the whole, was a good omen; 
 Lady Langdale would have given a great 
 deal if the favourite would so have struggled 
 up to her. 
 
 " Let me present to you my niece, Miss 
 Norman/' 
 
 And the minister and Minna bowed to 
 each other, and then there was no time or 
 space for more, only except for a glance 
 which shot across from the statesman ; and 
 after this was done they floated and fought 
 on till they were lifted through the crush- 
 room. 
 
 Some of those who were principals in that 
 scene, and some of those, too, who were only 
 lookers-on, had seen Minna as she stepped 
 out of the chariot, and others there had been 
 who saw her as she moved up to the Presence 
 Chamber ; and, as though every tongue had 
 spoken of her, and of no other, in an instant 
 every eye was fixed upon her. And they
 
 BLACK MOSS. 213 
 
 well might look, and look again, for any- 
 thing so lovely, even there, was never before 
 seen. Black Moss had not feared in that 
 day's competition to be anywhere but first ; 
 nor had Black Moss any cause. 
 
 "Lady Feodore is not nearly so beau- 
 tiful," said one, who but a little while before 
 had pronounced Feodore to be very fair 
 indeed. 
 
 " She is very lovely ! Quite the loveliest 
 girl I ever saw !" was the verdict of an- 
 other. 
 
 And so did Minna iSTorman, criticized and 
 crushed, pass, blushing, into the presence of 
 her Queen. 
 
 On presently getting back to their car- 
 riage they met Mr. Massareene, who by one 
 of those movements that always seem like 
 accidents, was coming out when they were. 
 This meeting was quite enough to set it 
 going that the popular minister, the man 
 who up to that time no mother had been 
 able to catch, was greatly taken with the 
 new beauty. But those who better knew 
 the minister could well remember that he
 
 214 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 was always given to looking after the carriages 
 of ladies ; therefore was it that there were 
 many contrary opinions as to what these 
 things should mean. 
 
 " Shall I see you at the opera to-night, 
 Lady D'Aeth ?" he asked through the 
 chariot window. He had bethought him to 
 ask this when he had touched the little hand 
 of Minna Norman as she stepped up into 
 the carriage. 
 
 " Indeed yes, we shall be there to-night, 
 Mr. Massareene." 
 
 And then the executive bade the coach- 
 man to drive on, and the minister went his 
 way to Downing Street. 
 
 Now Lady D'Aeth had had great hopes, 
 but never had she thought the day would 
 bring forth anything like to this. The sur- 
 passing beauty of her lovely charge, acknow- 
 ledged even in that scene where there were 
 so many very fair, and acknowledged without 
 any dissentient except indeed, perhaps it 
 might be, by the interested and the partial 
 Lady Langdale. And then had not the 
 popular, the fdted, the accomplished Massa-
 
 BLACK MOSS. 215 
 
 reene, already shown some signs of an 
 admiration that, with proper caution, could 
 be got to grow ? And doubtless, this pro- 
 per caution there would be. So Lady 
 D'Aeth, either when she looked back or 
 looked forward, was very happy. She had 
 played her card, and where was Lady 
 Langdale's trick ? She was glad there had 
 been no going back all had gone so well. 
 But she was sure that that day was the be- 
 ginning of even greater things than these. 
 Yet now would she have snatched that dar- 
 ling girl away if she had but thought there 
 could come harm to a single thought in that 
 fresh heart. 
 
 " Shall you ever forget this day, Minna ? 
 Has it not been the happiest day in your 
 life ? And it won't spoil you, darling, as it 
 would so many." 
 
 Now Minna Norman, had not been happy, 
 but she was very glad to see that, through 
 her, Lady D'Aeth was beginning to forget 
 some of the sorrows of the past. If her 
 aunt could so put away the bitter memory 
 of Undine's going, then did Minna feel that
 
 216 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 she would bear more than she had borne 
 that day. 
 
 " I hope it will not spoil me, aunt, 
 
 but " And then she thought of the 
 
 splendid crowd that had murmured pleasant 
 things of her of the many eyes that had 
 all seemed focussed upon her and of the 
 marked recognition of the Queen. And 
 she looked up into her aunt's face, full 
 of confusion, when she said "I would 
 a great deal rather be back at dear Black 
 Moss." 
 
 " What ! doing the pinking for some of 
 Mr. Cuyp's coffins, I suppose ? You are a 
 very strange girl, Minna!" said Lady 
 D'Aeth, smiling. " The best admired, and 
 perhaps the worst contented here to-day ! 
 But there is Lady Langdale and her 
 pretty Feodore. She is cross, that excellent 
 woman, and wont see me because I have 
 played a card above her; so old a whist 
 player should not lose her temper either 
 over that. There ! Feodore is looking this 
 way now." 
 
 " She is very, very pretty, aunt."
 
 BLACK MOSS. 217 
 
 " Yes, she is very pretty ; and looks very 
 angry with you, my love." 
 
 " Angry with me, and what for, aunt ?" 
 
 " Because, Minna, she expected to be the 
 most beautiful girl here to-day, and because 
 she is not." 
 
 " Then, aunt, I should like very much to 
 see the one who is more beautiful ?" 
 
 I have said that Minna Norman was a 
 girl of girls, and now was her artlessness 
 going to be tried more than it had been ever 
 tried before. 
 
 Lady D'Aeth had not believed there could 
 be simplicity at all like this, yet did she verily 
 believe it now ; and thinking nothing of the 
 grievous damage she was doing to the costly 
 dress of that incomparable modiste, she, there 
 in that chariot, threw her arms round 
 Minna's neck, and looking with searching 
 fondness in her face, she said, " Darling one, 
 she who is more beautiful is you." 
 
 Poor Minna ! how she fluttered, and trem- 
 bled, and started ; how she felt the shame of 
 having so questioned her aunt that she could 
 be answered by these overwhelming words ;
 
 218 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 how scarlet she first turned, and then how 
 pale ! 
 
 " But will it make Feodore Mounttrevor 
 very miserable indeed, aunt ? Oh, how I 
 wish she could know how little I care about 
 all this ! Must I make any one else angry 
 and unhappy about me, the very first day ?" 
 
 " You cannot help it, Minna. If you are 
 chosen queen, those who have so chosen 
 you will have you to reign ; you cannot 
 abdicate in favour of Feodore, dear girl." 
 
 When Minna remembered the face so 
 flushed, and so sad, and flashing so much 
 anger at her at that carriage window, she 
 felt how hard it was that her unsought-for 
 crown should be another's misery. She took 
 the hand of Lady D'Aeth, looking the while 
 beseechingly into her face, and kissed her 
 with a tearful kiss. 
 
 " But, aunt, I'd like to abdicate," said 
 Minna Norman.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 219 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE CRUSH ROOM. EVENING. 
 
 IN the midst of her conquest, she who had 
 so conquered sat down and was sad. In the 
 midst of the great glory which had come 
 about her she did not feel that she was 
 warmed. She yearned, with an exceeding 
 yearning, after the still scene of her moun- 
 tain home. Even as her aunt had said 
 when they were together in the chariot, she 
 would have joyed to go back to her pinking, 
 to the making of those little pillows for her 
 uncle's coffins. But she who that day had 
 been set above all, she would never be let to 
 go back to such a work as was that. She 
 would have to reign all that season through, 
 for no pretender could get away her crown ; 
 therefore was it that she who had so con- 
 quered sat down and was sad.
 
 2:20 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 Minna Norman had that day been made 
 to feel that there well might be a bitterness 
 very hard indeed to bear, close too in the 
 wake of a triumph the least coveted and the 
 most complete. It is not very often that 
 those who are so beautiful are quite the last 
 to be conscious that they are so well-looking ; 
 or that the verdict of the world anticipates 
 by much the judgment come to by the 
 self-approved. But the knowledge of what 
 she was had only that morning fully come 
 on Minna Norman. That which she had 
 learnt in the glass did not in her own mind 
 set her very high ; it might be because there 
 she had studied very little; and now that 
 she did know it she would the rather a 
 great deal that the knowing had been kept 
 back from her. The life she was now bidden 
 to live was not such as she cared for; it 
 was not after her own heart at all. To 
 have gone in a stuff gown to the vicar's 
 schools, would have been more to her wild 
 liking than was that journey in that chariot 
 in acres of Madame Plonplon's tulle. 
 
 It is not here pretended but that Minna
 
 BLACK MOSS. 221 
 
 had indeed some time known how far unani- 
 mous Black Moss was that she was not 
 ill-looking. But then it had never been her 
 way to linger where there had heen any 
 chance of hearing more after this sort. Not 
 that it vexed her to he set down as fair; 
 she was not disaffected with her comeliness. 
 In her heart she did not ask to be disfigured. 
 
 O 
 
 But such gifts of beauty as it was told to 
 her she had, she did not mean to be tempted 
 into valuing exceedingly. Therefore, this 
 which had come upon her, had come sud- 
 denly; and now she shrank, startled and 
 scared, before the one voice which that 
 afternoon had, even in her ears, to her 
 discomfiting, pronounced her the unap- 
 proached queen of that year's loveliness. 
 Now that she was in her room, and the 
 glory of her dress had departed from her 
 for its hanging up in state had been accom- 
 plished by the judicious hands of Wauchope 
 she bethought her, sorrowing, of all that 
 she had heard. She anxiously remembered, 
 too, as she sat on alone in her room, resting 
 her aching head, " All this will presently
 
 222 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 have to be endured again." And then the 
 things which had been so dear to her at 
 Black Moss, even some of the spiritual 
 things which she had learnt from the vicar's 
 words and works, came, as she sat there, 
 crowding on her. Prayer-time at the under- 
 taker's cottage, she reckoned, was about the 
 setting-down time at Her Majesty's Theatre. 
 And then she remembered that her uncle 
 would now have to say these prayers to the 
 old woman only. It was well she did not 
 know that the old woman had to say them 
 to herself or not at all. 
 
 Now it was at that time understood, by 
 those whose understanding in such matters 
 is worth having, that an immense house 
 would come together that evening, gathered 
 round the Queen in that brilliant horse-shoe. 
 It was to be a great night both for the 
 hearing and seeing for exquisite music and 
 for ravishing toilets. Donizetti's tuneful 
 opera of La Favorita had been commanded. 
 And then, too, all the beauty of the Court 
 was to come about the Queen. Since the 
 great fight to get to the royal presence in
 
 BLACK MOSS. 223 
 
 the morning, there had been time for all the 
 forces of beauty to set themselves in order. 
 On all sides had there been frightful rents 
 and losses, but such of the toilets as had 
 survived the crush room at S. James's, were, 
 it was said, again to dazzle and intoxicate, 
 that evening, such as could get to look upon 
 them from those maize-draped tiers. 
 
 Lady D'Aeth, who meant that that should 
 be finished there which had been begun at 
 noon, had brought before Minna, almost 
 with pictorial effect, the strength of the caste, 
 the prestige and exclusiveness of the house, 
 the number of its directors who at one time 
 or other had had testimonials, and later, had 
 been unable to meet their engagements, or 
 call these testimonials their own ; and she 
 told her, too, of the bewildering fascina- 
 tion and splendour of the scene ; and also 
 that the consideration demanded at the 
 music-shops for seeing this, or any part of 
 it, was a very fancy one indeed. 
 
 Now all this, glowingly as it had been 
 stated by her aunt, seemed greatly like to a 
 whirlwind of words to Minna Norman. And
 
 224 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 yet, much as the prospect of that which was 
 coming upon her weighed her down, still she 
 could not bring herself, by any outward sign, 
 to evidence how much she would rather 
 avoid than take any part in these things. 
 She had burdened herself for another's sake, 
 for was not her life henceforth to be devoted 
 to the memory of Undine ? There was a 
 void to be closed up in the heart of the 
 childless woman ; and that which was in any 
 way a happiness or a joy to Lady D'Aeth, 
 Minna well and fixedly purposed should not, 
 however hard this burden might be to bear, 
 seem indifferent or wearisome to her. And 
 in that she so purposed to do this, she pur- 
 posed rightly. If her aunt had her weak- 
 nesses, they were such as are common to the 
 strongest and the best; to such as order 
 themselves the most soberly and with the 
 most charity. That which was a weakness 
 in her was none of it an offence against any 
 moral obligation. It was none of it vicious, 
 or in the likeness, even, of protected vice. 
 If all her wishes were not wise, yet did they 
 none of them lead where there were any of
 
 BLACK MOSS. 225 
 
 the lessons of evil. Some women there are 
 of high repute who, nevertheless, tell to 
 such of the young as they may be charged 
 with, that they may look on such vice as is 
 not called hard names ; only that they must 
 not themselves think to go near to it. Now, 
 Lady D'Aeth would not so have dealt with 
 Minna Norman. She would hold her away 
 even from the sight of those things which 
 society covers up, to the end that they may 
 not be called by their own names. And 
 Minna, who knew how well and faithfully 
 she was loved, would have been satisfied to 
 suffer silently throughout this season, or 
 through many seasons, and, the while, to 
 murmur nothing, so that the life of another 
 should not be embittered. 
 
 Minna Norman, as has been seen, had un- 
 willingly been carried up to a height such 
 as Eeodore Mounttrevor had been persuaded 
 by many and great judges she must reach 
 alone. So are the high places often occupied 
 by those whose will is to be lower down. 
 This was the misery and the weariness 
 which pressed so sorely upon Minna now. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 She was sad because she had been exalted. 
 ToFeodoreMounttrevor this exaltation would 
 the rather have been ecstacy. She would 
 have had nothing to do with any height if 
 another had chanced to stand beside her. 
 To get there alone, after shaking off the rest 
 and leaving them in their confusion beaten 
 off behind, this would have been a delicious 
 and a delirious triumph ; because it would 
 have been a triumph so very well capacitated 
 to give to another pain. But Feodore 
 Mounttrevor was on no such height that 
 afternoon, she had been beaten off by one 
 who did not even care to climb. In the 
 going up she had been left quite out of sight. 
 And so she who had not conquered sat down 
 and was sad. 
 
 Therefore was it that on that bright May 
 afternoon, there were tears in the eyes of 
 those two young girls, who were so nearly like 
 to one another in their queenly loveliness. 
 Companion pictures, too, their forms and 
 features became in the next year's Exhibition ; 
 as also they became companion prints in that 
 shop-window in Pall Mall; and yet how
 
 BLACK MOSS. 227 
 
 great a gulf was stretching out between the 
 sources of those tears ! It has been seen 
 Minna Norman wept because of the glory 
 which had come upon her. But in the heart 
 of Feodore Mounttrevor a passion and a hate 
 of exceeding bitterness and darkness rose up 
 and comforted her, not a little, on the over- 
 setting of her hopes that day; and in the 
 luxury of these scalding tears and fearful 
 thoughts she found her compensation. There 
 is nothing, when so frenzied, that a woman 
 will not do ; and there was nothing which 
 was not done by Feodore Mounttrevor, even 
 to many outward signs of spoliation and 
 wrath, which cannot, for her sake, be set 
 down here. Yet must it be told that when 
 she could bear herself no longer, she tore off 
 her dress, and stamped into powder, with her 
 little feet, many of the family pearls even 
 of the Langdale pearls. It was not well to 
 see her pretty fingers tear that dress, casting 
 the little bits of stuff about that dress 
 which had come into so many of her dreams. 
 Then, when the pearls and the dress had so 
 been offered up to her feelings when the 
 
 Q2
 
 228 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 pearls were dust and the dress a rag then, 
 because she was not sufficiently appeased, 
 she sprang at the bell which called her maid ; 
 and yet she did not look as though she could 
 have worked this violence, as though she could 
 have done these desperate things. It was 
 grievous that one with such a gentle seeming 
 should so lay about her ; and now that her 
 maid had answered to her summons, it was 
 only to get asked why she dared to enter 
 there at all. But then, did this get to be 
 even a worse frenzy when she bethought her 
 again of Minna Norman then, indeed, she 
 held her peace, for she was speechless ; she 
 could only hiss, and stamp that little foot of 
 perfect mould; nor was it until presently 
 she seemed to fancy she could see the face 
 of Minna Norman, loathsome with some 
 cutaneous malady, that she felt there was 
 any possible reprisal that Heaven could 
 order which would meet her case. Before 
 this horrible apparition of her ungoverned 
 hate she was something relieved. It was 
 not, how r ever, at all in this mood that later 
 in the season she sat to an E.A. In the
 
 BLACK MOSS. 229 
 
 calmest and the gentlest pose did she accord 
 that sitting. 
 
 Of a kindlier flow were those tears which 
 were then welling over in S. James's 
 Street. Minna would have given a great 
 deal, almost all that she had to give, and have 
 thought it to be no sacrifice, to have been 
 able to go straight, with the form of her ab- 
 dication written out, into the presence of the 
 girl who was even then tearing her clothes, 
 and casting her pearls under her feet, and 
 so nursing her much and grievous malice, 
 and then have told her that the crown was 
 hers if she would only take it. 
 
 It is not easy to believe that in her going 
 with that crown she would have been well 
 or quietly received ; for as Feodore Mount- 
 trevor had dealt with the dress and with the 
 pearls, so is it likely she might have further 
 proceeded to deal with Minna Norman. 
 
 A year later and there were prints of 
 both in all the great shops in and about the 
 West End. They were sold, were those 
 prints, in pairs ; and long afterwards, when 
 the memory of that May Drawing Eoom,
 
 230 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 and all that came of it, had clean gone out 
 then did these companion prints reappear. 
 And in their coming again, Minna was 
 offered for a guinea as " the Haughty 
 Beauty," whilst Feodore was sold as " Resig- 
 nation." This was the history of the prints 
 of the prints that in their telling of 
 history had surely lied. 
 
 Those were the great days of Her Majesty's 
 Theatre. Nothing in the lyric world stood 
 near it then. Everything was great that 
 came of its direction, or went in at its doors. 
 Then it did not need to be puffed up. It 
 were better it should have gone out in its 
 meridian, before that that need should be 
 announced on its own doors. But when 
 that year was in May, there were great stars, 
 and the glories of the pas de quatre had 
 fallen upon the town ; then, too, were there 
 the great hushed-up insolvencies of the great 
 managers, or of those who only pulled the 
 strings. But that evening was to see some- 
 thing greater than, even there, had ever 
 gone before. And in truth the greater 
 marvel was that everything behind the cur-
 
 BLACK MOSS. 231 
 
 tain did go smoothly. Madame Grrisi had 
 not a grievance ; and Signor Mario had not 
 a cold. The manager, who was ever found 
 in words to make a thing pretentious, an- 
 nounced it as "an unrivalled representation ;" 
 and whether, as concerning those things 
 which had been, this was a true saying, yet 
 of a surety has no such "combination of 
 circumstances" ever since been presented in 
 the same demonstrative direction. And 
 then the prices, too, made it very select 
 indeed. All was to be cream that flowed 
 in there that night ; and even in the pit it 
 all was cream. 
 
 Lady D'Aeth had paid just what was 
 extorted from her in Bond Street, and if the 
 purveyor of the tickets had even asked more 
 of her, he would have got it, for the liberty 
 of seeing the queen or, as it afterwards 
 turned out, the queen's outline behind the 
 curtain. But then these payments were 
 also made that the ladies might come to- 
 gether to be seen of one another to dis- 
 parage one the other's reputations, faces, 
 forms, and toilets. And if they did not see
 
 232 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 the queen, yet was the feast of malice and 
 all uncharitableness very great indeed. 
 
 At about nine o'clock, nothing quite like 
 to it could have been found in Europe then, 
 or at any other time. The now eclipsing 
 glories of Covent Garden had not begun to 
 make themselves felt. Every box reflected 
 a patrician name. And every tier was a 
 page out of the creme de la ere me of the 
 peerage. It was no place for the mushrooms ; 
 and they seemed to know it, for scarcely 
 one was to be seen. 
 
 It soon came to be whispered, as the 
 theatre was filling fast, that the new beauty 
 was in the house ; so that every glass was 
 levelled at Minna from the first moment of 
 her getting seated till she got away. 
 
 Now neither Lodge, nor Burke, nor any 
 one like to them, went beyond Lady D'Aeth 
 in the knowledge of the mysteries apper- 
 taining to blood. She knew and quickly 
 pointed out to Minna all the wits, or beau- 
 ties, or statesmen, or dowagers who had 
 the seeming of a last year's pippin as they 
 entered. But then she was chiefly searching
 
 BLACK MOSS. 233 
 
 amongst the boxes for one who was not 
 there ; for the places of the Earl and Countess 
 of Langdale and the Lady Feodore Mount - 
 trevor were filled by a much lesser noble and 
 his lady. 
 
 " That dear Lady Langdale cannot be 
 here and cannot intend coming, I think, 
 Minna; and yet I know that before this 
 morning she quite intended to come; but 
 perhaps Feodore is to be withdrawn. It is 
 very foolish to be so moved by little dis- 
 appointments very foolish indeed." 
 
 It certainly was not wise to be so moved ; 
 but then, when Lady D'Aeth pronounced 
 judgment on the lady who had lost, she did 
 not bethink her whether she might not have 
 been a little foolish too, had Minna chanced 
 to have come out anything but first ; there- 
 fore it was well she added nothing further 
 about Lady Langdale. 
 
 " There, Minna ; he who has just entered 
 is the Bishop of S. Bees." 
 
 Now the Bishop of S. Bees, who had no 
 prejudices, and came in the outward seeming 
 of a bishop even with his apron was the
 
 234 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 only one of the whole bench who ever went 
 amongst such scenes. But then he never 
 came to " Don Giovanni." He perhaps 
 sorrowed more than all his brethren that 
 the Archbishop of York was lying at the 
 point of death, for he had liked him well ; 
 and then he knew that, come what might, 
 he would not be asked to be the dying man's 
 successor no, not even because of his big 
 brother, would he be asked to go up higher. 
 And the Lady D'Aeth went on to add these 
 further particulars about the Bishop of S. 
 Bees. 
 
 " But then they do say such as see a 
 scandal in his coming here that he does 
 not understand a word of the libretto ; that 
 it is indeed like so much Greek to him." 
 
 "Is he a very great man, aunt ?" 
 
 " He is very far from being a great man, 
 my love." 
 
 " But then perhaps he is a very good 
 one, which is so much better for a bishop to 
 be?" 
 
 " I don't know that, Minna. That which 
 he lets us see of his life, he chiefly lets us
 
 BLACK MOSS. 235 
 
 see here. Other than this we may not 
 judge him." 
 
 " Then why is he a bishop, aunt?" 
 This was a hard thing for Lady D'Aeth 
 to tell ; for in her heart she did not like to 
 say hard things. But she could not hold 
 herself from saying just this one. 
 
 " Because, my love, he has got a brother." 
 At this saying Minna was amazed, so 
 that her amazement, at this line through a 
 brother to a bishopric, was beyond conceal- 
 ment. And then, too, did it not come into 
 her mind that one Gruy Melchior, vicar of 
 Black Moss, had got no brother ; and that, 
 because of this, he could never get to be a 
 bishop ? 
 
 Lady D'Aeth had seen how Minna was 
 amazed, and she therefore now proceeded to 
 clear up that which had seemed obscure. 
 
 "This is ho wit is done, Minna. His brother, 
 who might have very powerfully opposed the 
 present Grovernment, had to be made power- 
 less to do any mischief. You see he was 
 likely to be at some time dangerous, which 
 was not to be desired, as the Grovernment
 
 236 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 was only weakly ; therefore they made the 
 very restless man you see a bishop, and the 
 day that they did this, his brother became 
 tame." 
 
 " But, aunt, is this how bishops are always 
 made ?" 
 
 " No, my love, not always. They are not 
 all like the Bishop of S. Bees ; but they are 
 very often made as he was. You do not 
 understand these worldly ways ; but the 
 object is to secure a safe vote. The bishop 
 opposite always does as he is bidden to do. 
 
 It is very grievous for the Church, but so 
 
 i 
 it is. 
 
 The perplexing experiences of Minna 
 Norman were gathering fast. None of the 
 investigations she had made that day or 
 night seemed to do her good, or gave her 
 any sort of satisfaction. So she sought to 
 know nothing more about the bishops or 
 their objects, and glanced round the house 
 to see if she could, by any chance, on some 
 less worldly head be better suited. 
 
 " Who is that beautiful woman down 
 there, aunt there, with those three gentle-
 
 BLACK MOSS. 237 
 
 men behind her chair ?" asked Minna Nor- 
 man, pointing as she spoke in the direction 
 of the box of a notorious marquis on the pit 
 tier. 
 
 " Do not ask me, my love ; she's a bold, 
 wicked woman. It cannot be avoided, I am 
 sorry to say, that they should sit amongst us 
 in these places. You may meet with many 
 such, many such ; but no one notices them. 
 Do not say anything more about her, darling." 
 
 Minna Norm an but little comprehended 
 this saying, that such as was the beautiful 
 unknown were not noticed at all for there 
 were those in that box who were leaning 
 over her, while their talking and their 
 toying seemed to be of pleasant things ; for 
 presently she tapped one with her fan, and 
 afterwards proceeded in a like manner 
 prettily to chide the others also. Therefore 
 again did Minna's eyes travel round the 
 tiers for something that it was not wrong 
 for her to dwell upon. 
 
 "May I ask who that is, aunt?" said 
 Minna, with some hesitation. 
 
 This time the beauty who was pointed
 
 238 BLACK MOSS, 
 
 out to Lady D'Aeth was not branded with 
 hard names. Now it was only a countess 
 who kept some of her devotion for others 
 than the earl her husband generally sus- 
 pected, but openly received. This one had 
 receptions, and constantly " threw open her 
 rooms" to a goodly company. Before the 
 world was she very little like to the other 
 one who was toying there in the box of the 
 bad marquis ; but other than this they were 
 very much the same. 
 
 Lady D'Aeth did not at all know how to 
 answer to this which had been asked her. 
 She did not mean that Minna should get 
 any of this sort of knowledge she did not 
 mean to choke out this innocence before it 
 had been twelve hours fairly in the world. 
 She was not going to tell to Minna Norman 
 that the demi-monde was very popular, or 
 that there was any demi-monde at all. And, 
 therefore, while she was in this strait, she 
 was very glad to find a way out of the em- 
 barrassment by the falling of the curtain 
 when the second act was ended. But while 
 she was so glad, she also resolved that
 
 BLACK MOSS. 239" 
 
 Minna should not soon be put again where 
 there was any need for her to ask these 
 awkward and perplexing questions. 
 
 Then, after the second act was ended, 
 came an exquisitely soft patrician summons 
 for the favourites to bring themselves before 
 the curtain so soft, the only wonder was 
 that those who were so summoned should 
 have heard it ; and then for a little season 
 the venue was the crush-room for some 
 scandal, and a little air. 
 
 There, too, presently proceeded Minna 
 and her aunt ; and after it was known that 
 they were there, the house soon followed to 
 criticize and pass judgment on the new 
 beauty as she ate an ice. It was very early 
 seen by Lady D'Aeth, that there was at this 
 coming together of the judges, no reversal 
 of that which had gone forth at noon ; for 
 by the one voice of that high-bred crowd 
 was it concluded, that so lovely a girl as 
 was her Minna had not been sent up for 
 judgment for many seasons. The crush was 
 very great ; but then it was not such as to 
 prevent Mr. Massareene getting up to the
 
 240 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 two ladies. He drew about after him no 
 less a personage than the First Minister, an 
 elderly and very gracious Whig, of small 
 parts, but of an astonishingly great family. 
 It has been said, that he was drawn up to 
 the ladies by Mr. Massareene, for his courtesy 
 was too considerable to let him push ; there- 
 fore it was necessary to do the pushing for 
 him. In all other respects, and in other 
 places, were his threatenings and his order- 
 ings very terrible to the smaller Whigs, who 
 did his behests at a great distance below 
 him. Seeing that this was so, it was now 
 soon passed from mouth to mouth that the 
 popular Minister was for the second time 
 that day with the new beauty. And it was 
 so. Now the first Minister was nominally 
 the chief of his own Cabinet, and it was 
 only nominally that he was chief there. 
 But Massareene was the favourite amongst 
 the people. 
 
 Then, after they had bowed to one an- 
 other, Lady D'Aeth was led away leaning 
 'm the arm of the affable chief, who was
 
 BLACK BIOSS. 241 
 
 without authority ; and Minna Norman 
 followed, leaning upon Massareene. 
 
 " And you have been pleased, then, with 
 the opera, Miss Norman ?" asked the Mi- 
 nister, throwing even into this the most rich 
 and mellow tone that ever fell upon the ear 
 of womankind. 
 
 " Oh, yes, it is very beautiful ; but then 
 all is beautiful to me, for you know I have 
 never heard anything like this before." 
 
 " It was unequally fine, Miss Norman," 
 said Massareene, who was quite one of the 
 first musical amateurs in Europe. " Grisi 
 only sang out of tune three times, for which 
 we must be thankful ; whilst Mario, up to 
 ten o'clock, has been without any sudden 
 indisposition, which is even more astounding 
 still. But, if the wind should chance to go 
 round to the east, he may even yet send on 
 the director to claim your indulgence ; and 
 it may very well be east to him whilst it is 
 west to us ; with the unhappy manager the 
 wind is generally east to some one of his 
 company. Now, this house does what i' 
 
 VOL. i. R
 
 242 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 pleases ; but I do not think it will keep its 
 place, for the best voices are not nearly always 
 here. I was only last autumn in Italy, 
 where there is at this present a young singer, 
 such as this country never heard before. Du- 
 prez, Donzelli, Nourrit, what are they ? what 
 are their voices to the voice of Tamberlik ? It 
 is not possible that even such a management 
 as this can long keep him from this country. 
 And when he comes he will be, on the whole, 
 well received. But then he will not be fol- 
 lowed as was Bubini ; nor is it probable he 
 will please as does Mario; yet Tamberlik 
 has such a voice, and style, even now, whilst 
 he is young, as no singer ever had before. 
 Still, he must not set his hopes too high 
 when he comes amongst us, for there is only 
 a safe furore in this country, Miss Norman, 
 for such as are not genuine/' 
 
 After this sort was Massareene always 
 carried on when he got a listener who would 
 hear him upon any of the things of music. 
 And to him did Minna seem to have been 
 listening well. 
 
 Of this loyalty to that which is genuine,
 
 BLACK MOSS. 243 
 
 concerning which, the minister had spoken 
 bitterly, it perhaps was not so strange that 
 he should speak. For had he not been 
 very long accounted very genuine indeed 
 genuine over and above his best pretensions ? 
 It was scarcely well that he should seem to 
 scorn the loyalty that had so long stood 
 truly round him. He who was never out of 
 n glass house had surely slipped to throw that 
 stone. But then, had he so slipped only to 
 that girl? 
 
 After this the two ministers went back 
 with Lady D' Aeth and Minna to their box ; 
 and although it might be rightly judged 
 that Massareene would well have liked to 
 stay, yet was he not the man to court the 
 observation of that house, or to bring his 
 objects under such an order of criticism ; so 
 they saw the ladies into their chairs, and 
 then went their way to their own stalls 
 below. . 
 
 But after the opera was ended, and after 
 the whole house had stood up to the National 
 Anthem after, too, that the Queen had 
 come from behind the maize curtain for at
 
 244 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 least a minute, so that many were sent home 
 with the belief that for their outlay there had 
 been in that one minute value received, then 
 did Lady D' Aeth and Minna meet those two 
 great Ministers of State again upon the 
 stairs. 
 
 Very stifling became the press ; and it 
 the rather grew worse, until the Queen 
 had been driven away, and the people in the 
 street had done their shouting. When this 
 was presently past, the carriages began the 
 work of taking up and going on in almost 
 unbroken order. But still there were many 
 who held back, and who let their carriages 
 move on without them ; for although the 
 Queen was gone, there yet was some one else, 
 for whom that splendid, jewelled, surging 
 crowd were waiting, and, if need be, would 
 wait until the dawning of the day. 
 
 " Lady D'Aeth's carriage stops the way," 
 was the proclamation made by the linkman, 
 as the chariot came up. 
 
 Then, when this was heard, was there a, 
 rush of many skirts and bodies, that were 
 not afterwards the better for the rushing.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 245 
 
 The true business of that night was drawing 
 on. Many had come there having despe- 
 rately secured some point of view, without 
 any sign of shrinking from the cost, to get 
 to see the new beauty with their own eyes. 
 And now, at this crisis of the suffocation, 
 she, whom they were there to look at, was 
 coming, leaning on the arm of the most 
 popular public man in England ; and as 
 Massareene led her on, a lovely line of the 
 best blood, on either side, crushed back. 
 Before them the Premier walked, with Lady 
 D' Aeth ; and then when they had gone, and 
 the linkman had shouted out another name, 
 there was nothing more that those who had 
 so waited would get for their money. 
 
 But in that press there had been only one 
 thought, one creed, in one whisper ; and this 
 one whisper it was Minna's hardest trial 
 that she should have to hear. Yet had 
 she gone through that day and that night 
 bravely, and she was near to her rest at last. 
 .She is in the chariot now ; and very glad she 
 is that all is over very glad that the curtain 
 is down ; very glad that those glasses, and
 
 246 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 the crnel stares, even of the well-bred folk, 
 are lifted off her. And very glad she also 
 was that Massareene, whose touch she yet 
 could feel upon her glove, was gone. For 
 all and any of these causes was she glad. 
 
 But when that night, in utter weariness, 
 she laid her head upon her pillow, Minna 
 Norman scarcely took thought that the great 
 sorrow which was hanging over her had be- 
 gun in that theatre, or that a dark shadow 
 would frown on her young life from that 
 crush-room.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 247 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 FABIAN MASSAREENE. 
 
 IT was nearly on this wise that the rise of 
 the favourite minister came to be accom- 
 plished. Fabian Massareene had been an 
 only son, as also he had been an only child, 
 and the heir to great funded accumulations 
 and a long rent-roll. His father before him 
 had lived well and freely, but neither so 
 well nor so freely that nothing of that 
 which yearly went through his hands had 
 come to be saved. Long was it before this 
 only son came to them ; therefore it was only 
 fitting and right that he should be received 
 with joy and savings, when after such long 
 waiting he did at last appear. 
 
 The family estates of the Massareenes 
 were almost a principality, covering some of 
 the richest land of the IS^fe Eiding. And
 
 248 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 then was there this, which it was said could 
 never be bought a very handy, manageable 
 pocket borough, which could be seen on clear 
 days from the second floor front windows. 
 It has been said that it could not be bought ; 
 and truly no buyer of such things could 
 have got his money to be taken ; for the 
 payment would have had to be made to the 
 owner which owner, since its first enfran- 
 chisement, had been a Massareene. So it 
 was a pleasant place to look upon from that 
 window front, for not even could much 
 money get its confidence away. 
 
 It will be seen that the history of the 
 Massareenes has also been sometimes the 
 history of England. It is not told when or 
 how they first came here ; although it was 
 probably very early indeed. But as there is 
 a picture of a very stately Massareene 
 coming behind William the Norman, carry- 
 ing his cloak, it is certain that from the first 
 they were only given to perform the highest 
 services. After this beginning with the 
 cloak, there is nothing more about the house 
 on canvas until many centuries later. Then
 
 BLACK MOSS. 249 
 
 it is clear the State could not well have done 
 without them. 
 
 A Massareene had followed Charles Stuart, 
 until it became expedient that he should 
 intrigue with " the Man of Destiny." The 
 fanatical exercises of the Puritans he how- 
 ever practised with ill success. But, then, 
 he otherwise served the cause, for did 
 he not discount the acceptances of certain of 
 the Eump? Then a Massareene, a severely 
 Protestant Massareene, had been Vice Cham- 
 berlain at the Court of William and Mary, 
 because that he had bestirred himself greatly 
 at Brixham on William's landing. Then in 
 books of their own making did they also 
 live. A Massareene had written a ponder- 
 ous libel, in quarto, upon Marlborough, the 
 which, after some inquiry, was not held to be 
 defamatory, because no one was found who 
 could understand it. So this very veiled 
 satire was not the greatest work of all the 
 Massareenes. But then another, who came 
 after, did write such things as were quite 
 easy to be understood. A Massareene had 
 lent money to Charles James Fox, at three
 
 250 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 months, making no advance on the renewal, 
 which was a State service of the highest sort ; 
 whilst, afterwards, the dishonoured paper 
 was pasted in a chronicle of the Massareenes, 
 by the side of some other like evidences of out- 
 standing loans. Then a Massareene had been 
 also, for a season, the domestic poet at Hol- 
 land House ; but the pretty rhyming of that 
 bard was not afterwards given to the town, 
 for which, of course, there might be many 
 reasons. 
 
 Such, then, are some of the more egregious 
 services of the House of Massareene of a 
 House that had given to England that cloak 
 bearer at Pevensey, that Samaritan to the 
 Rump, that Sycophant at Brixham, that 
 Libeller of Marlborough, that Loan Monger 
 in ordinary to Charles James Fox, that 
 Poetaster of Holland House. And for these 
 varied and these splendid gifts, have they not 
 their reward in the North Riding ? Do not 
 their possessions represent their virtues ? Do 
 not these things speak truly for themselves 
 so truly that it need not be added here how 
 the race were further remarkable, in other 
 s uch situations of accommodation and trust ?
 
 BLACK MOSS. 251 
 
 So it was, perhaps, rightfully judged that 
 enough dirt had now been eaten. Therefore 
 it was meant that Fabian Massareene should 
 be neither an abject, nor a money lender, as 
 those who had gone before him had been. 
 Indeed the father of Fabian was set on 
 getting a better name than, hitherto, his 
 house had builded up. He was not well 
 satisfied that he should belong only to 
 history as a convenience to some of the 
 more necessitous Whigs. It was true that 
 the accommodation must be had, must 
 somewhere be gotten. It was true that 
 by these little loans, but great services, he, 
 too, was helping to keep out the Tories. But 
 he had sufficient of such glory ; and he was 
 beginning to be tired of being merely asked 
 about to stop a scandal, or to back a bill. 
 And he knew that because of his money he 
 could do in this matter as it pleased him. To 
 have affronted such an one would not have 
 been a safe thing for them to do. So they 
 let him in amongst themselves a little way, 
 and he was thankful. 
 
 Now as it did seem to him, as has been
 
 252 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 seen, that the Massareenes, in all that they 
 had done, had not been the highest sort of 
 public benefactors, he laid violent hands on 
 many of the foolish things they had aforetime 
 written, and resolved that Fabian, his only 
 son, should bear before the world a better 
 part. And so it was that the boy was sent 
 to Harrow. The Massareenes had been to 
 either Westminster or Harrow, for it was 
 concluded that there might be more temp- 
 tations, perhaps, at Eton, to stray away from 
 the family politics. The father of Fabian 
 went for Westminster, because that its tra- 
 ditions had been always Whig traditions ; 
 but then Fabian was only sickly when a 
 little boy, and his mother thought more of 
 the air than she did of the traditions ; and 
 the mother prevailed, and Fabian proceeded 
 presently to Harrow. 
 
 At Harrow the success of Fabian Massar- 
 eene was very great indeed. He soon began 
 to rise, and lie never stopped going up 
 higher and higher. Now, it is grievous to 
 say that he did not rise as it beseemed him 
 to have risen. He, indeed, was excellently
 
 BLACK MOSS. 253 
 
 reported of by the head master ; but then 
 so long as he was at Harrow he seemed to 
 be what he was not. Generally secretive, and 
 always mean, Fabian Massareene, hated 
 and despised by his fellows, reached the top 
 of the school. Now, it is not pretended 
 here that he was either pure or noble, brave 
 or true, for these he never was so long as 
 he lived ; but then his abilities were even as 
 great as were his vices. In reaching the top 
 he had never been flogged, neither had he 
 been warned that he was near to a flogging. 
 So he got for himself all the confidence of 
 all the masters ; and when he left to go to 
 Cambridge he was told, as a morocco- 
 covered book was put into his hands, that he 
 left nothing but honour behind him. But the 
 boys, who had been his fellows, added 
 nothing to this book. They did not even give , 
 him a cheer when he took his way out of the 
 midst of them. He had lied, in his life, to 
 the master, but he had not so lied to them. 
 
 This, then, was the sort of prestige that 
 he took with him to Cambridge, and this 
 was how he came by it.
 
 254 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 He had very early, even on the Yorkshire 
 wolds, mastered the secret of never being 
 found out. Therefore, whilst he never 
 walked straight, he never slipped. It is, 
 indeed, scarcely probable that any other 
 boy had ever stood perpetually so near to 
 expulsion, and so close to confidence. Had 
 he openly stumbled once, then would many 
 things have become clear ; but then he never 
 stumbled openly so that whilst the con- 
 fidence that followed him was public, his 
 constant nearness to expulsion was known 
 only to himself. His career at Harrow was 
 altogether achieved by the way he ordered 
 and contrived the disgraces which came 
 upon others. If he was ever suspected, 
 there was always an apology to wipe out 
 the suspicion ; and generally ended in the 
 head master taking him by the hand, and 
 by the birch descending on some innocent 
 that Fabian had abjectly compromised. So 
 he was early fitting himself for the work in 
 the which he was afterwards engaged. 
 
 Nor was there that in his manner, or his 
 bearing, which at any time went near to
 
 BLACK MOSS. 255 
 
 betray him. " Now, Massareene," the master 
 would sometimes warmly say, when some- 
 thing looked a little black against so excel- 
 lent and exemplary a boy, " I need only tell 
 you that I know you can explain this." And 
 then, as though Fabian could the better bear 
 to be himself convicted and disgraced than 
 that another should be exposed or ordered 
 up for punishment, slowly and surely, with 
 the highest order of by-play, without the 
 while forgetting one of the links that he 
 had forged, inch by inch, the charge, without 
 any straining, would be coiling round, and 
 covering with guilt some wretched boy. 
 And there was no escape. There was nothing 
 clumsy in the way of his work. His victim 
 he had clean closed in. This which he had 
 planned had not been planned to fail. Not 
 a voice in the school could have shouted an 
 acquittal of the guiltless, after that Mas- 
 sareene had had his say. And then it was 
 all brought home, so at least, it was con- 
 cluded to have been, as though he did not 
 like the work there was upon his hands ; 
 and after this he would skilfully let drop
 
 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 some word about the master having mercy 
 at the end ; all of which, it must be con- 
 fessed, well befitted such a masterpiece. 
 
 Then, in the course of things, Fabian 
 Massareene got to be captain of the school, 
 and nothing that he did when he had reached 
 to this, ever shook him in the master's high 
 esteem. There was a little speech made to 
 him, and about him, when he left the school, 
 after which the boys, knowing better than 
 their master, walked silently from the cere- 
 monial of the giving of the book in the 
 morocco binding, and Fabian took his way 
 to Cambridge. It was as well, perhaps, he 
 did not hear the shout that went up from 
 those many throats when he was gone. 
 
 Now that he had passed to Trinity the 
 same sort of success was with him. At 
 Cambridge he was as well liked and trusted 
 by the authorities, and as much avoided by 
 * the men, after he had been up a term, as he 
 had been at Harrow. But then he did not 
 care that this was so. He had as much in 
 his head as those who held away from him ; 
 perhaps more. He had come there to get
 
 BLACK MOSS. 257 
 
 honours, not to be honoured ; and as he was 
 getting near to these, he felt he could afford 
 that many hearts should turn against him. 
 
 After a while there came a sound through 
 the University of a speaker of great parts 
 who had been heard at the Union. And 
 when this sound had reached to Fabian 
 Massareene, he was minded he would go 
 also to the Union, and show to those as- 
 sembled there, how much better he was 
 than the man of whom such excellent gifts 
 of speech were now reported. And he went. 
 And when he came back it was as the first 
 orator that had spoken in the University 
 debating house for years. 
 
 Now that he had gone there once, he 
 often spoke, and seldom without some effect. 
 He seemed to be conscious that his powers 
 were greatly in advance of his cotempora- 
 ries ; and always, almost offensively, impa- 
 tient of interruption, he .did not even affect 
 to conceal his contempt for those who some- 
 times very badly cut his facts to pieces. 
 And only in his eloquence, and in the 
 elegance of his diction, was he at all above 
 
 VOL. i. s
 
 258 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 his fellows. Other than this, in the know- 
 ledge of the things about which they de- 
 bated, there were but a very few who were 
 not his masters. He brought no heart to 
 those well-rounded rolling periods. With 
 him it all took the form and shape of 
 speaking to order ; it was like one speaking 
 from a book. There was not even the 
 faintest seeming of anything that was real 
 in those finely studied bursts of indignation 
 with which, whenever the occasion served 
 him, he denounced the popular wrongs and 
 perils to liberty that he so affectingly 
 paraded. Everything was in manner and in 
 matter well and skilfully arranged. His 
 language, it might be, was undisguisedly 
 selected, but yet with not too evident care. 
 Then, too, the rhythm of each sentence was 
 like the flow of water ; nothing ever came 
 from his lips the sound of which was not 
 pleasant to the ear ; and his perorations, 
 often after the most elegant rhetorical 
 models, were clothed in the choicest Saxon. 
 But then, after he had once been heard, he 
 never a^ain awoke enthusiasm : that which 
 
 O *
 
 BLACK MOSS. 259 
 
 he had afterwards spoken, had none of it 
 convinced. It settled no convictions ; it 
 determined no doubts ; it made no converts 
 to the side of " Liberalism " in the Univer- 
 sity. It rebuked no waverers. It did not 
 tell on a division; not as did even the 
 inelegant appeals of other men of men 
 who had great sweeping arms and large 
 hearts, but who were, nevertheless, very 
 uncouth and clumsy with their tongues. 
 He did not like to know that stammerers, 
 such as were these, could get more votes 
 than the most majestic of his sentences. 
 But then he was obliged to know it. And, 
 altogether, the end of that which he did at 
 the Union was not at all like to the be- 
 ginning. 
 
 Then came that which had to be done in 
 the schools ; and Fabian Massareene, only 
 because he thought so highly of himself, 
 just missed running into the first place. 
 The man who was quite first had not nearly 
 the gifts that were so full in Massareene, 
 but then he had also none of his self-esteem. 
 So Fabian Massareene was only second 
 
 s 2
 
 260 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 wrangler after one of the nearest 
 
 o oo 
 
 ever recorded in Cambridge. And then the 
 Master of Trinity spoke comforting words 
 to Fabian, and took him by the hand and 
 wished him well, as had the master at 
 Harrow. But the men were glad when he 
 went out of the gates, and felt that they 
 were the freer and the easier after he was 
 gone. Now Fabian knew that he might 
 have been first ; therefore on his going out 
 he cursed himself continually. 
 
 From the University he returned to his- 
 home, that his mother might look upon the 
 son of whom she was so proud; and then he 
 was persuaded that he must want a little 
 rest, and that it would serve him well to- 
 travel. So he set out with the big cheque 
 that his father had given him. 
 
 First he went through a part of the con- 
 tinent of Europe; then he fished for a 
 season in Norway ; and then he travelled 
 for a while through some of the finest and 
 loveliest scenery of his own country. 
 
 When he got to be twenty -five, it was 
 concluded by those who thought he could do
 
 BLACK MOSS. 261 
 
 all things well, that the time was come when 
 he might profitably enter Parliament. And 
 then was not the entering ready to his 
 hands? So after scarcely more than a 
 gentle waving of the arm from the balcony 
 outside the second floor front, a deputation 
 came in three coaches to wait on the young 
 heir, and invite him to stand at that general 
 appeal to the constituencies which was then 
 so near. And he bowed and assured them that 
 he would do anything in this way that they 
 might please. This solemn form of asking 
 the 150 voters for the seat that it was 
 intended to take, had always, from time 
 immemorial, been decently preserved. So, 
 when the general appeal did come, Fabian 
 Massareene took possession of that which 
 was his own, with all that infinite grace 
 which was meant to show that if there had 
 been a farce, there was no need to declare it. 
 From his position, from the brilliancy of 
 his career at Cambridge, as also from his 
 conspicuous hereditary claims upon the 
 Whigs, Fabian Massareene, from that night 
 when it was thought he might belong to
 
 2 02 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 Brooks's, and was introduced in Parliament 
 by a Secretary of State and a county baronet, 
 could get the ear of the House whenever he 
 cared to ask for it. Of course, it was said 
 his talents had a great deal to do with this. 
 His aptitude for holding many men to 
 listen to him was chiefly because he was so 
 clever. But then his father's money-bags 
 and acres had also something to do with it, 
 although the great Whig party only cared 
 a very little for these things. So it was 
 early said that such a promising beginning 
 must lead this astonishingly self-possessed 
 young man into high places. And then it 
 was also said by some that that which he 
 spoke so well did rhyme and rattle, but that 
 the beginning and the end of it was sound. 
 But, on the whole, the sound was very 
 pleasant, and the rhyming and the rattling 
 in excellent taste, and therefore Fabian 
 Massareene was well received in the House 
 of Commons. And having got to be well 
 liked, for he did not lecture or scold, 
 talk for a place, as is the fashion of many 
 to do, he did nothing, in any other way, to
 
 BLACK MOSS. 263 
 
 set aside a very favourable first impression 
 by any of those rhetorical experiments or 
 accessories which he conld see would not be 
 suffered even by the son of such a father. 
 Nor did he seek a reputation by any 
 appeals to those Whig traditions which sup- 
 plied then, and which have supplied ever 
 since, the conventional invocations of his 
 party, but which he was very well able to 
 see only operated to the emptying of the 
 House. 
 
 Now, the father of Fabian Massareene, 
 and the Prime Minister were on very excel- 
 lent terms ; and so the father was able to 
 ask of the minister not to lose sight of, but 
 to watch his son; and although there is 
 some reason to believe that ministers are 
 not always faithful in these things, yet 
 assuredly did this come of that watching. 
 
 The expectations and desires of Fabian 
 Massareene did not for many sessions re- 
 main unsatisfied. The premier had said to 
 the old gentleman in Yorkshire that his 
 son should rise, and during the fourth year 
 of his being in Parliament it so chanced
 
 264 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 that an under-secretaryship fell vacant; a 
 few family divisions were there amongst the 
 Whigs as to which of their young men 
 should get it; but the first minister was 
 true to Fabian, and so he prevailed. 
 
 At this time Fabian Massareene was only 
 twenty-nine ; and there was something 
 about him which persuaded people that he 
 would rise a great deal higher than he yet 
 had risen. He was neither flippant nor 
 insolent in the way of his answering, and 
 he did not take too much upon himself; 
 so that after a little season he was quite the 
 most popular member of the Government 
 on the treasury bench. And because his 
 prospects were so very fair, many of those 
 above him were only indifferently well affected 
 towards him, and sought to disparage him 
 in the eyes of the first minister. But then 
 the first minister did not of his own heart 
 see fit to listen, for the influence of Fabian 
 was beginning to have weight, and he 
 would presently have more weight when he 
 came into all those Yorkshire acres. So the 
 premier decided to remain Fabian's friend.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 265 
 
 Fabian was now put up to answer some 
 of the great men of the Opposition in all 
 party struggles. And successes came thickly 
 one upon another. He bore himself very 
 soberly and with temper, whether he got 
 the best of it or whether he got the worst. 
 Therefore it was that many on both sides 
 spoke well of him. But it must be said, 
 that, after having followed in debate most 
 of the leaders of the Opposition, much of his 
 modesty went out of him ; and he even 
 fancied that of his own strength he was able 
 to be a leader. He now scarcely offered 
 any concealment of his belief that the chief 
 of his department had been some time 
 effete, and that a younger than he should 
 take the seals. But then the House of 
 Commons, it was clear, thought so too ; so 
 that the vanity of Fabian was ministered to 
 exceedingly. Yet was not his vanity seen of 
 men; to those who looked upon, or those 
 who heard him, his manner, so playful, 
 easy, decorous, and dignified, seemed to be 
 almost perfect. Still the Secretary of State, 
 who was so effete, could yet demonstrate
 
 266 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 that lie was capable of holding on. So he 
 held on accordingly; for in the edifice of 
 the Whig families there is, of course, a 
 keystone ; and the effete minister was the 
 keystone of the Whig edifice; therefore 
 the premier in a friendly way explained this 
 matter to Fabian Massareene ; and nothing 
 more was publicly said about the effete 
 secretary. 
 
 In the midst of this beginning the Tory 
 party came back with irresistible power. 
 They had a majority in both Houses. 
 They were popular out of doors ; and there 
 were signs that the people would have them 
 to remain ; for there were many seats which 
 would presently be theirs. So for a season 
 the Whigs were without hope. 
 
 Fabian Massareene felt that this which 
 was come upon him was very hard to 
 bear ; worse to bear than being under that 
 effete secretary ; for had he not been almost 
 within reach even of Cabinet fruits, and 
 was he not now told that he might be never 
 able to pluck them? But when he had 
 been so well hated at Harrow and at Tri-
 
 BLACK MOSS. 267 
 
 nity, he had not been cast down. He had 
 not cared for the cold shade of the sus- 
 picion of his fellows then, and he was not 
 going to be cast down now. So he went to 
 the other side of the Speaker's chair, minded 
 that even in that cold shade he would make 
 himself felt. He soon found that he could 
 do this thing with great satisfaction to him- 
 self, and that he had probably never been 
 before so entirely at his ease as he was now 
 in opposition. The mind of Fabian Massa- 
 reene was not after any sort administrative. 
 There is even some reason to fear that those 
 who conceived his speeches to rhyme and 
 to rattle well, and to carry nothing else, did 
 not desire to be in a minority such as they 
 were in. It was not in originating a pro- 
 gramme, or in consummating a policy, but 
 by the imputation of motives, in brilliant 
 periods, and in pleasant cadences, that Fa- 
 bian Massareene the best succeeded. But 
 then was there nothing of the seeming of 
 bitterness ; no one thought to tell him that 
 he was set on stinging. It was even as 
 though his philanthropy was so catholic,
 
 268 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 that he saw how every one was being 
 wronged, and that he could not rest until 
 they were easy. He caused others to cower 
 down ; he made others to writhe ; but then 
 it was not seen that of any set purpose 
 he so made them to cower down and writhe. 
 As it had been with the Master at Harrow, 
 and the Master of Trinity, so was it now 
 with the public men of England. They all 
 thought well of him, and some talked of 
 his mind, some of his gifts of speech ; but 
 they all said the same things about the 
 purity of his motives and his objects ; they 
 all agreed what sort of heart that was which 
 beat beneath that coat. And this agree- 
 ment amongst these men was very nice to 
 Fabian Massareene ; for it was not likely 
 they would ever get to see what there might 
 be beneath that coat. Therefore he knew 
 that he was safe, so long as he did not slip. 
 Now the manner of the speech of Fabian 
 Massareene was not at all after the manner 
 of the speech of those of his friends who 
 sat near and about him. The things that 
 he imputed to others he did not impute in
 
 BLACK MOSS. 269 
 
 the confused and palsied periods so dear to 
 his leaders, and which have been so dear to 
 other Whigs who have heen very forward 
 since. But then, too, it was all done as if 
 it gushed up his throat, even from his heart 
 of hearts, and was in nowise to be stopped. 
 It was all breathed forth with a seeming 
 sincerity that was very affecting, and which 
 touched- many Avitnesses. And he did it 
 with extraordinary and fluent power ; and 
 there was great grace in all that he did, and 
 his voice was mellow and soft, and could do 
 everything with much skill that it was set 
 to do. It could fill the Parliament House 
 with its rich ringing tones, and it could fall 
 to a pleasant whispering that would not 
 have seemed harsh in a chamber. And 
 then the presence of Fabian Massareene was 
 such as is only the belonging of a very few. 
 There was that, too, in his form and fea- 
 tures that even men could not lightly regard, 
 and which was very perilous for women to 
 look on. But then they did too often look, 
 and were lost. 
 
 His arrangement of the counts against
 
 270 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 any one of his opponents in the House of 
 Commons was not susceptible 30 any acci- 
 dent that parliamentary debate was capable 
 of offering. His impromptus did not seem 
 to be studied, although there were only 1i 
 very few that were not prepared. It always 
 seemed to be grievous to him when he was 
 not commending ; but then he always so 
 contrived that his blandness should cover 
 up his bitterness. He would come down to 
 Parliament charged with the most solemn 
 warnings, of which it was a necessity that 
 he should be instantly delivered ; and then, 
 with trembling voice and nervous eagerness, 
 he would throw out with excellently as- 
 sumed uneasiness, unaffected apprehensions 
 of the country's degradation in Tory hands. 
 His points, if always vulnerable, were yet 
 never wholly exaggerations. But, as in the 
 debating house at Cambridge, the sympa- 
 thies of certain of those who listened were 
 at no time cordially with him. From his 
 first beginning he knew there had been some 
 who had got to see what was under his out- 
 ward seeming. He bethought him there
 
 BLACK MOSS. 271 
 
 must somewhere be a chink which was 
 letting in the light. But in all those years 
 he had not found it. Therefore, on the 
 whole, he was not satisfied to be only as 
 greatly popular as he even was. 
 
 Now those who did not think so well of 
 Fabian Massareene were given to say that 
 the hollowness of all that he did was very 
 easy to be seen, and that all men ought to 
 see it. To them, all that he did was as the 
 lifeless mimicry of the grandest instincts. 
 They did not at all seek to contend that the 
 rhythm and the flow were not faultless, or 
 that the action with which he acted was 
 not always imposing, and sometimes very 
 fine ; but then it did not persuade them to 
 think or to vote with him ; they were sure 
 it was very beautiful, and after many of 
 the first masters they only did not believe 
 in him ; that was all. 
 
 It, however, came to pass that the Tories, 
 in the face of all this declamation, kept 
 their places, and were not even discoloured 
 by his worst denunciations ; for when the 
 Whigs did for a short season return it was
 
 272 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 only to be again expelled. So Fabian 
 Massareene for a little held his hand from 
 the throwing of dirt which did not stick, that 
 he might the better go about some other 
 business. 
 
 And that other business that he meant to 
 go about was this. It has been told here 
 that Fabian Massareene was such an one as 
 it is perilous for womankind to look upon ; 
 but that they came, and looked, and so were 
 lost. It will presently be seen that in this 
 matter he did not order himself or his con- 
 versation right. But so much the more 
 was the peril, so much the more did women 
 come about him ; therefore, now that he 
 could do no ill to the Tories he cast himself 
 into other scenes, and instead of manipula- 
 ting the intrigues of a political connexion, 
 he was presently busied with the frivolous 
 things of a character quadrille of the " sea- 
 sons" at Almack's. > Mothers and step- 
 mothers, and others in charge, who for a 
 great while had given him up, now saw that 
 their time was fully come ; and such as 
 they had to dispose of were set in his way ;
 
 BLACK MOSS. 273 
 
 "but then it is grievous to say they were 
 none of them disposed of. So it often was 
 that he was in one evening led about to 
 almost more partners than there were 
 dances put down to be danced. Was he 
 not heir to great possessions that were not 
 encumbered? And other than this, was it 
 not that there were no mortgages ? Now 
 these are things from which it is not pos- 
 sible for mothers to turn themselves away ; 
 and they presently came about him very 
 thickly ; but then they were not cool, and it 
 was easy for him to see why that multitude 
 of motherly women was so very hot. There 
 were, nevertheless, some who went to the 
 work in better order; and these, in their 
 own hearts, dissembled a little, and sought 
 to persuade themselves that it was not so 
 much because of his possessions, and his 
 money bags, that they so greatly desired 
 this young man would ask a question of 
 their daughters. They desired him because 
 of the life he was leading ; because of his 
 virtues ; because he had none of the vices of 
 other men. The possessions and the money 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 bags should not be left out of the transac- 
 tion if any business should happen to be 
 done ; but they were quite sure it was not 
 because of them that they had at first de- 
 sired him. So, at least, they persuaded 
 themselves, and compassed him about ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 In the course of things, it was only likely 
 that Fabian Massareene should come to be 
 spoken of at the clubs as the probable 
 future leader of the Whigs ; therefore, of 
 course, he would rise very high if ever he 
 got to be at the head of the select commu- 
 nion of the Whig families; and so, what with 
 the known state of his possessions and his 
 money bags, certain fathers did not think 
 it was needed that they should interfere 
 with any of the contrivings of their wives. 
 If they moved in this matter at all, they 
 would move with their spouses. 
 
 But then those bright and well- trained 
 ones, to whom the orderings of these 
 mothers came, they were well persuaded that 
 they were not harshly entreated, and that the 
 behests of those who urged them on were
 
 BLACK MOSS. 275 
 
 not a trouble to them. For did he not move 
 well ? Did he not talk well ? Did he not 
 dance well ? Did he not do all things well? 
 Was he not well looking ? So the mothers and 
 their daughters went to their work together. 
 Yet, must it be told that, somehow, even 
 that combination had not prevailed. For, 
 though many seasons had now come and 
 gone, no one was asked of Fabian Massa- 
 reene to be a partner of his, other than in 
 a quadrille, or a cotillon. Nevertheless, it 
 was sometimes, for awhile, believed that he 
 had asked of them another question. 
 
 Now, one evening, it so chanced that 
 Fabian Massareene had, for a second time, 
 engaged himself to dance with a beautiful 
 girl which thing was pleasant to her, as also 
 it was pleasing to her mother. She believed, 
 from many signs, that because he had so 
 twice asked her hand in dancing, he would 
 now ask of her something more. Therefore, 
 having been previously instructed of her 
 mother, who, too, thought the crisis might 
 be near, she was led away by another, 
 repeating the very pretty little answer that 
 
 T2
 
 276 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 her mother had found for her. And now 
 she was standing up to a mazurka with 
 one who would have asked something of 
 her had she not been so very cold ; but then 
 she was thinking of that which Fabian 
 would doubtless presently say to her ; so 
 she chilled this other one, who could have 
 set her very high, and was a truer man than 
 Fabian Massareene. In the next cotillon, 
 Fabian was, for that second time, to have 
 had her hand. But before it came to be 
 danced he was sought out in the crowd, and 
 a very urgent note was put into his hands. 
 A party struggle, that had been unexpect- 
 edly precipitated, it seemed, from this note, 
 was not likely to be adjourned over that 
 night as had been expected. There would 
 probably be, it went on to say, a division 
 that evening ; and the whip who had writ- 
 ten this was very urgent in asking Massa- 
 reene to come down to the House at once. 
 
 Fabian, as he read this summons, thought 
 no more of the cotillon or of her with 
 whom he should have danced that second 
 time ; and he was even hurrying away, when
 
 BLACK MOSS. 277 
 
 lie saw the fair girl's mother watching him. 
 So he crossed over behind the dancers, and 
 presented himself to her, and told her why 
 he should not be able to claim the hand of 
 her daughter in the coming dance. He 
 did not speak of any other claim, for any 
 such other one he had never been minded 
 to make. 
 
 " I am compelled to ask you so to favour 
 me, as to make my excuses to your daughter, 
 to whom I had the honour of being engaged 
 for the next cotillon. I have been sent for 
 by our leader, and were I to wait until this 
 mazurka is ended, to excuse myself, I 
 should, probably, be too late." And then 
 he bowed and went his way. 
 
 Now this was almost more than that 
 mother could bear. She and her Cecilia 
 the Lady Cecilia Carfax together had pre- 
 pared a very pretty little speech, which was 
 to be spoken to Massareene after that he 
 had asked that question ; and there was to 
 be no speech, for there was to be nothing to 
 provoke it. Then it was too late for her 
 Cecilia to make that little speech to the man
 
 278 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 who was leading her about in that mazur- 
 ka. She could not be got to melt 
 before the dance was ended. There was 
 no doubt but that she had chilled him 
 very badly. Altogether she was sorely 
 troubled, that excellent Lady Cecilia's 
 mother. 
 
 Every eye of every woman, who had a 
 daughter, or daughters, had followed Massa- 
 reene ; and, as is usual in these matters, all 
 interpretations, other than the right, con- 
 cerning his movements, were put upon the 
 audience he had had of that mother. Was 
 he seeking some further opportunity ? The 
 face of the mother of the Lady Cecilia did 
 not seem to show that he had sought this 
 of her. And then it was inquired by 
 others, who also had had their little dis- 
 appointments, and who were therefore not 
 always calm, but sometimes bitter, when 
 they pondered on it, " Was he going through 
 the form of asking for that consent which 
 had, this long time, taken the form of an 
 invitation?" So it will be seen that the 
 going out of Fabian Massareene was not
 
 BLACK MOSS. 279 
 
 for the peace of all the ladies that had 
 assembled there. 
 
 And then Fabian Massareene did not 
 come back. Neither did he come back 
 into any such scenes, to the side of the 
 Lady Cecilia, all that night through, 
 nor the next, nor the next. So the Lady 
 Cecilia, having again been instructed by 
 her mother, did melt when she danced the 
 next mazurka with that other one whom 
 she had chilled before. But then he had 
 not forgotten how, if this was her warm 
 side, that she had also a cold one ; therefore, 
 as her mother had so greatly feared, the 
 melting had not been done in time. 
 
 The division had gone against the Govern - 
 ment. By the following noon the resignation 
 of the Ministers was in the Queen's hands. 
 But there was no dead lock. There were exem- 
 plary men ready to come forward, and ready 
 to take a beating when their turn should 
 be. By the end of the week, the chief of 
 the Whig families had concluded to divide 
 the more considerable appointments ; and 
 Fabian Massareene, as one of the elect,
 
 280 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 entered the Cabinet. It was caused to be 
 said that the Administration had come in 
 "upon the shoulders of the working-classes ;" 
 and for a time the country even believed in 
 some of these professions. Massareene had 
 now reached a position that gave to him 
 many and great advantages. As a privy 
 councillor, he was a new performer; and 
 judged as he was by those other ones about 
 him, the contrast was certainly sufficiently 
 complete. So the venue of his power was 
 changed from the scene of mazurkas and 
 cotillons, and managerial mothers began to 
 comprehend that he had altogether escaped 
 them. It is only, indeed, probable that 
 they did not suspect that their mortification 
 might the rather have taken the form of 
 congratulation. They only knew how that 
 they had set their net, and had not caught 
 the bird that they were set on catching. 
 And then they called him a cruel deceiver, 
 and a wicked man both of which things 
 assuredly he was; but his wickedness had 
 not been done to their children, and he had 
 not cruelly deceived any of their daughters^
 
 BLACK MOSS. 281 
 
 He had sometimes come, it might be, rather 
 near ; but then he had seen the net spread out 
 before him, for, in truth, the meshes were 
 very good to see. And then those mothers 
 who thought to themselves that they looked 
 deeper even they were sorely troubled that 
 the purity of such a life was not to be be- 
 stowed upon their girls. He walked so straight 
 and so truly ; he would have made to them so- 
 good a son. They could not tell why they 
 had missed him. At the last they thought it 
 was because he had been too openly and too 
 little decently sought by certain other 
 mothers. Therefore they abused those other 
 mothers who had not well hidden their nets, 
 and were in a measure comforted. 
 
 They did not know how much the rather 
 they should have joyed than sorrowed. 
 They were, as were many others, far enough 
 from knowing that Fabian Massareene could 
 not well sully his life beyond its present 
 foulness. They did not know how well it 
 was no child of theirs should lie in that 
 man's arms. It was not told of him that 
 mothers should catch up their daughters as
 
 282 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 lie passed, lest Iris evil eye should rest upon 
 them. Fabian Massareene was verypurebefore 
 the world. He was not minded to air his 
 liaisons in Pall Mall, or the Champs Elysees. 
 He did not show to the world the arithmetic 
 of his adulteries. It was not reported of him 
 that he had ruined women before he was 
 eighteen, and would afterwards consort with 
 no mistresses who were not the wives of 
 other men. The scandal of this had not got 
 into the world there his conversation was 
 of bishops and the indigent blind, and of all 
 things good and virtuous, and great and 
 noble. So it is not to be marvelled at that 
 he was sought by these mothers for their 
 girls, as it has been seen he was continually. 
 And then years went on, and Fabian was 
 nearing to middle age. Sometimes he was 
 of the " ins," and sometimes of the " outs ;" 
 but, on the whole, things political had pros- 
 pered with him. The coming, however, of 
 Minna Norman across his path set to him an 
 earnest question that he was for the first 
 time not slow to answer. He had never 
 seen any one like to her at all. In the matter 
 of taking to himself a wife, he bethought
 
 BLACK MOSS. 283 
 
 him that the best would not be too good 
 for him; and he believed that Minna Norman 
 might be even worthy of him, if he should 
 proceed to tell her how high he meant to 
 set her. Then it would be pleasing to his 
 mother, who was now of a great age, and was 
 getting to be troubled as to who should 
 have her diamonds. He had been lately 
 pressed by his mother to settle, because of 
 these diamonds ; and by his father he had 
 been urged to think about an heir. There- 
 fore, after he had seen Minna at S. James's, 
 and after he had seen her into her chariot 
 on that great night outside Her Majesty's 
 Theatre, he had said to himself, " I will 
 make of this girl my wife. The diamonds 
 shall descend and I will have an heir." He 
 did not say to himself that loving her, and 
 forsaking all others, he would cleave to her 
 only so long as he lived. But yet would he take 
 on his lips vows that he would do this thing. 
 He did not believe it would be needed that 
 he should altogether ask her. He well 
 remembered the many mothers' darlings in 
 those years that had gone by, who had been 
 flung in his way ; and in their hearts there
 
 284 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 was not one of them who had not asked of 
 him. So he did not doubt but that it would 
 be as he ordered; and then he bethought 
 him that after Parliament was up he would 
 be married. 
 
 When, therefore, he had concluded what 
 he would do, he was nearly every day at 
 S. James's Place. He could not as the 
 weeks went on, however, persuade himself 
 that after any sort would Minna Norman 
 be asking him. She would take a little 
 winning, but of this he was very sure, that 
 she would wear the diamonds at last. 
 
 Then came the end of June, and Fabian 
 Massareene had not yet asked anything of 
 Minna Norman. It was then that one 
 morning the minister had before him certain 
 questions that would be put to him and his 
 colleagues that evening in the House of 
 Commons. The Chief of the Cabinet, as 
 has been said, was very terrible to certain 
 smaller Whigs below him, to whom the 
 thunderings which proceeded out of his 
 mouth were very wonderful and awful ; but 
 they were neither wonderful nor awful to 
 Fabian Massareene. So he did not take
 
 BLACK MOSS. 285 
 
 counsel of his chief how they should be 
 answered, but resolved himself what he 
 should say. 
 
 Then he took up the papers on which the 
 notices were set down and saw that this was 
 written there 
 
 "Lord Seaham Toask if it isthe intention 
 of her Majesty's Government to introduce a 
 measure for the further amendment of the 
 representation of the people in Parliament." 
 
 Now it would be the business of his chief 
 to answer to this ; and so to make answer in 
 the then temper of Parliament would not be 
 a pleasant or an easy thing. But it would 
 have come very easy to Massareene, if it had 
 been his work to do it. 
 
 Then there was this inconvenient thing 
 that a terrible Irishman was going to ask 
 
 " Mr. O'Horrigan To ask if the Govern- 
 ment is prepared to advise her Majesty to 
 visit her Irish subjects this autumn." 
 
 Fabian Massareene was still the favourite, 
 the followed minister, and of him it was 
 intended this should be asked. Now he 
 knew, of a certain knowledge, that to answer 
 to this, as it could be only answered to them,
 
 286 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 would provoke a very grave catastrophe; 
 would be to lose the Irish Radical faction ; 
 and then that Irish faction was keeping in 
 the Cabinet whenever it was threatened. 
 Therefore he must keep the faction if he did 
 not tell the truth. But he a little later 
 bethought him that, if the Whigs were ad- 
 vised of the difficulty, Mr. O'Horrigan might 
 be put off. So he sat him down and wrote 
 this to the First Minister 
 
 " O'Horrigan' s question is really very 
 awkward. Will it not be well if there is no 
 House to-night?" 
 
 He knew that the timid chief would look 
 upon this as an instruction, and that the 
 order would go forth that there should be 
 no House. An amiable nobleman was at 
 the head of the Treasury ; but Fabian 
 Massareene was in command. 
 
 When this was presently sent off, he ran 
 his eye over his tablet until he came to this 
 which was entered there "Lady Winder- 
 mere's ball at 11." "Yes," he said, "I 
 Mfxf be there. I have a question to put to 
 Minna Norman."
 
 BLACK MOSS. 287 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HOW THE PRIVY COUNCILLOR PUT THE 
 QUESTION. 
 
 IT was to the minds of many and great 
 judges inconceivable that, up to the present, 
 that up to the end of June, the affections, or 
 the hand of Minna Norman had not been 
 given away at Chiswick, or surrendered at 
 Ascot. Of course, there was in this an 
 opening for certain of them to say that per- 
 haps, after all, she would not go off. Some 
 girls, who were as well sought as she had 
 been, carried themselves a little too high, 
 and would look at strawberry leaves, but 
 nothing else. It was very well, and showed 
 excellent breeding to like strawberry leaves, 
 but then it was not every girl who could 
 get them. Notwithstanding this, some did
 
 288 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 know that Minna Norman could have 
 even gotten strawberry leaves. Therefore, 
 as has been said, it was to many incon- 
 ceivable why she had not taken them. 
 Those, however, who professed that they 
 understood the bearings of these things, 
 were heard to observe that, whilst 
 Minna Norman was a very sweet-looking 
 girl, yet was she a little supercilious. And 
 they were grieved because of this, for they 
 feared aloud that it might stand in her way. 
 The mother of the Lady Cecilia Carfax in 
 this matter went further than all the rest, 
 and she even said to her child in a hot-house 
 at Chiswick that " the girl was very forward, 
 and artful, and quite pushed herself into 
 the notice of gentlemen." And the mother 
 of the Lady Cecilia also said, before the 
 day was over, and after that no one had 
 come to lead her child about, that Miss Nor- 
 man was " flaunting everywhere," and that 
 she was a " horrid little minx." So it will 
 be seen that the divisions of the ladies in 
 respect to Minna ran a little high about the 
 end of June.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 289 
 
 Now, the true history of all that had so 
 far befallen her is this. Minna Norman 
 had indeed been sought of many, of many 
 who came to her at Chiswick, and at Ascot, 
 and at other places, bearing with them a 
 great variety of professions. But then, 
 their wooing, as might be learnt in some of 
 their countenances, had in no way prospered. 
 It is here protested that the mother of the 
 Lady Cecilia was not a witness who wit- 
 nessed without prejudice or passion, when 
 she said very hardly indeed, at Chiswick, 
 that " the girl was forward, and artful, and 
 pushed herself into the notice of gentlemen." 
 It was only this that caused Minna to say 
 " No" to all of her pursuers she had not 
 put out of sight the memory of Gruy 
 Melchior's love. She had bethought her of 
 the Vicar of Black Moss when it had even 
 been told to her she might lie on strawberry 
 leaves. Therefore, when that duke had 
 asked of her to become his duchess, to take 
 the place of some other duchesses that he 
 had lost, it only set her thinking whether 
 one hundred pounds a-year would not suffice 
 VOL. i. u
 
 290 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 for two to live on. And this is the true 
 story of her rejection of those strawberry 
 leaves. 
 
 Then, too, it is not to be doubted but 
 that an elderly earl of some substance, with 
 languid digestion and of less character, had 
 been thrice refused within a month ; his 
 astonishment at that which he heard becom- 
 ing the greater over each refusal. Now had 
 he drawn himself off; but this which had 
 happened to him was not known of men or 
 women. He would not have trusted any 
 man with the knowledge of how this girl 
 had answered to his questioning ; and least 
 of all would he have trusted any woman. So 
 when he heard that it was said by some that 
 the girl was perhaps a. little bold and for- 
 ward, he told how she had seemed to him 
 not always altogether maidenly. And then 
 after he had so cleared himself of this great 
 lie, he went back to his mistresses, and to lay 
 against his mare for the St. Leger. 
 
 After him, at grievous risk to his person, 
 there came across to Minna from Boulogne 
 the natural son of a marquis, to be only, ho\v-
 
 BLACK MOSS. 291 
 
 ever, as many times as unsuccessful as had 
 been the earl before him. Nevertheless, the 
 marquis's natural son did all his asking in a 
 week, which, of course, might have shown 
 his ardour to bear away her love, or he 
 might also have understood the necessity 
 there was for getting back where the awful 
 mysteries of ca-sa could not move him. 
 We shall see no more of this marquis's 
 natural son ; therefore, that which he said 
 when he got back as it did him so much 
 honour may be repeated here. He said it 
 on the little pier which was the nearest he 
 could safely be to England. 
 
 " What's the use of wanting to be steady ? 
 
 Don't I want to get out of this mess ? 
 
 Wouldn't I have paid everybody if I could 
 have got her money, although it mightn't 
 have left us a shilling?" 
 
 " It's deuced hard on a fellow," said his 
 friend, who was also at Boulogne for other 
 than his health's sake, and who also desired 
 to be reformed. And so they both meant 
 to do thus nobly by any girl who could 
 afford to work their reformation. But not- 
 
 u 2
 
 292 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 withstanding the resolution come to by this 
 aggrieved young man to pay everybody, it 
 was perhaps, on the whole, as well that 
 Minna Norman did not otherwise make 
 answer to the marquis's natural son. 
 
 Therefore, after this sort, by the end of 
 June, her suitors had so multiplied, and 
 so threatened to go on multiplying, and 
 were, the more eager and passionate of them, 
 so little discouraged, that, at the last, Minna 
 went in fear of every little note that she got, 
 and of every thoughtful hint that she had 
 better walk about outlying passages to get 
 cool after she had danced ; for after the 
 reading of such little notes, and after being 
 taken into such outlying passages, it had 
 generally so happened that she had to say 
 "No." But for all this did not Minna 
 Norman exult over the conquests she had 
 made, or set herself to cast up the great 
 total of those she had sent away. Not but 
 that there were those who said that she did 
 exult, and did cast up ; but then they never 
 had little notes pressed into their hands to 
 read ; they were never invited into outlying
 
 BLACK MOSS. 293 
 
 passages after they had danced, and were 
 very hot. So they set themselves with one 
 accord against Minna, because that they were 
 not also led about to be asked momentous 
 questions in a thorough draught. 
 
 Now Minna Norman could not herself at all 
 understand how it could be, that in so short 
 a time, she had become, as it so seemed, in 
 such a high degree essential to the happiness 
 of so many people. She could have wished 
 to have known how many more of the like 
 there were to come, that she might have 
 offered to them all her thoughts, and 
 have said to them assembled together, 
 that whilst she was touched with every 
 variety of their devotion, she had otherwise 
 made choice. But then it was not possible 
 that they could so be driven up to hear why 
 she could not choose from amongst them. 
 So it was not to be helped that they should 
 make their speeches ; and at the last came 
 the richest commoner in England to make 
 his ; but he also got his answer, and seemed 
 likely to be affected with a chronic astonish- 
 ment at that which he heard. He had
 
 294 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 indeed seen how it had fared with others, 
 but then those others with whom it had 
 fared so ill, were not one of them to be com- 
 pared with him in the abundance of the 
 things that they had got therefore, when 
 he too, had to fall back, he asked of himself 
 whether she purposed going into something 
 ecclesiastical and so making of herself a 
 nun. If he was not fit to be taken, then 
 was no man fit. 
 
 Now of course there were those to whom 
 all this was quite intelligible ; and these, by 
 much experience in the signs of such caprice, 
 by the end of June were ready to interpret 
 them. . . . Minna Norman was loved 
 by, and returned the love of Fabian Massa- 
 reene. This was how they read the reason 
 of the dismissal of the duke, the marquis's 
 natural son, the elderly earl, and the richest 
 commoner. But the mother of the commoner, 
 who had herself set on her son to ask so 
 sweet a girl to share with him his love, and 
 his thousand a day, with less of charity, 
 and with proportionately more vexation, was 
 now ready to solve the mystery of her son's
 
 BLACK MOSS. 295 
 
 discomfiture by calling Minna names. 
 And then she came up from Bath, that so 
 unparalleled a thing might be investigated. 
 So the investigation began : for the first 
 night she went out with this work upon 
 her hands, she sat by the side of the Lady 
 Cecilia's mother. Now the Lady Cecilia's 
 mother was undoubtedly a wallflower. 
 
 " I cannot understand why every man 
 should be running after the girl," said the 
 rich commoner's mother. 
 
 " I thought your son might have explained 
 that," said the mother of the Lady Cecilia, 
 smiling not a pleasant smile. She could 
 not have anyhow refrained herself from this 
 little speech. " I think she is quite plain, 
 and she gives herself such airs ; but then, 
 my Cecilia is so different to all other girls." 
 
 "But you see the Lady Cecilia has not 
 been so tempted as has been Miss Norman ; 
 and the girl is so much younger than your 
 daughter." 
 
 The mother of the Lady Cecilia had 
 fought a fight of her own provoking, and 
 had got the worst of it : but then, although
 
 296 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 sharp things had passed, they had been passed 
 with smiles ; and after this, between those 
 two ladies there was peace. 
 
 " The girl has probably wagered," said 
 the mother of the Lady Cecilia, " that the 
 number of declarations in her first season 
 would reach this or that unprecedented 
 number : she brings men to her feet only to 
 dismiss them with affected innocence. It is 
 really quite shocking ; she would do any- 
 thing to add another conquest to the heap. I 
 have heard of girls betting gloves about 
 these things, but I never believed it could 
 be so before." 
 
 " But who is she, or what is she ? for 
 nobody seems to know." 
 
 " Who is she indeed ? There are all sorts- 
 of stories about her ; but this seems pretty 
 certain, that she is not what she pretends 
 to be that she is not the niece of Lady 
 D'Aeth. It is said that her uncle is an 
 undertaker. But I really know nothing 
 about her." 
 
 So if she knew nothing, the mother of 
 the richest commoner, who had come into
 
 BLACK MOSS. 297 
 
 that place as an investigator, could gather 
 nothing from sitting next to her ; therefore 
 she got up, and said behind her fan, " I 
 think Lady D'Aeth exceedingly to blame. 
 By-the-bye, was there not once something 
 against this Lady D'Aeth ?" And then she 
 went her way. 
 
 When, however, the attentions of Massa* 
 reene had come to be no longer masked; 
 when the favourite minister was nearly 
 always by her side ; when the manner of his 
 attentions at Ascot was recollected, and 
 when he was very generally at the head of all 
 her dance engagements, then did there cease 
 to be any hesitation, amongst any of those 
 who had been lookers on, in believing, with 
 a fixed belief, that she had sent so many 
 back for him. Nor was it even scrupled 
 to be said that Minna Norman had made 
 much open love to Fabian Massareene, to the 
 great scandal of many, in divers public 
 places, without any maidenly reserve. And 
 these things, and more, were said of her by 
 high Christian ladies, by those who knew 
 how very falsely they had witnessed; but
 
 298 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 who, nevertheless, would not have given up 
 so witnessing, any more than they would 
 have missed the assembling of themselves 
 at church. But then such as were chiefly 
 concerned in the circulation of these un- 
 worthy calumnies were yet very well able to 
 know how much their own inventions had 
 to do with their exceeding baseness. For 
 neither by word, nor look, nor yet by any- 
 thing that was not modest and maidenly, 
 had Minna Norman given encouragement 
 
 O O 
 
 to the advances of Fabian Massareene. He 
 did not think it was in any woman to say 
 *' no" to him ; therefore he did not see that 
 it was in Minna at any moment to say it. 
 She was not demonstrative ; but then demon- 
 strative women had been always an affliction 
 to him. He might have fancied that she 
 held him, perhaps, a little off at such times 
 as he was getting ready to tell her of 
 the diamonds that he meant to put about 
 her ; but then that was only the more be- 
 coming in so sweet a girl. And so he reflected 
 on what he was, and on where he could lead 
 her ; and then, as has been said, he
 
 BLACK MOSS. 299 
 
 did not doubt but that she would wear the 
 Massareene gems. Now if the minister, who 
 had much wisdom of a different sort, could at 
 all have persuaded himself that he might not 
 be acceptable to every woman, he would 
 have now been so persuaded. For it was 
 very easy to be seen that Minna Norman 
 went greatly, and constantly, in dread of 
 being forced to hear those words which she 
 felt would yet be spoken. Hitherto he had 
 asked her nothing ; but then she could not 
 say, for so it is not allowed amongst girls, 
 " I know what you are meaning presently 
 to ask of me ; do not drive me to tell you ; 
 it is hopeless." The orderings of propriety 
 forbade her to say this. And neither could 
 she turn and tell him, " I have been asked 
 of another to give to him this love that you 
 are seeking ; to be to him all that you would 
 have me be to you." No, she could not say 
 that to him, or anything like to it, because he 
 had not yet asked more of her than to be 
 his partner in a ball-room ; because it would 
 have been a capital offence against all the 
 proprieties ; and because it would have been
 
 300 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 but the beginning of a social resolution that 
 might never have been stayed. Nor had 
 Guy Melchior that afternoon under the 
 beeches asked of her to be his wife. 
 
 Now there had been much weariness laid 
 up for Minna Norman, in that unwise re- 
 vealing by Gruy Melchior of his love. Never 
 had he been so weak before so little sober 
 and there is some reason to believe that 
 they yet did correspond about parish mat- 
 ters. Massareene would not have felt so 
 certain of his answer had he known about 
 those letters. Minna Norman had, by the 
 confession of the Vicar of Black Moss, been 
 throughout the season in this strait. Her heart 
 was occupied, and her hand was not engaged; 
 but then, she did not think to charge Gruy 
 Melchior with that weariness which had 
 come upon her, when she wrote those let- 
 ters that she sent him every Wednesday. 
 So those writings upon parish matters were 
 sent out, and were answered, and it almost 
 seemed as if the Vicar of Black Moss had, 
 in this matter, clean forgotten what he was. 
 
 Whilst, therefore, in many high places,
 
 BLACK MOSS. 301 
 
 scandal and scandalous surmisings were to 
 the full engaged, Feodore Mounttrevor and 
 Minna Norman never yet had met ; distant 
 and formal bows had, indeed, on some occa- 
 sions, been exchanged between the Lady 
 Langdale and the Lady D' Aeth ; which bows 
 on the part of the Countess had almost 
 seemed to threaten something ; but neither 
 side had proceeded further than to freezing 
 outside courtesies. War might come from 
 the Langdale side, but hitherto there had 
 been peace. 
 
 Minna had scarcely set eyes on Feodore 
 since that great morning in May ; for, truly, 
 Lady Langdale' s excellence of management 
 was, in the ordering of all these considerable 
 matters of jealousy and vindictiveness, not 
 indifferently esteemed. It had risen to be 
 a controlling power. She was the great 
 oracle around whom all good haters came, 
 and she had been that season continuously 
 surrounded. From her youth up, her enter- 
 ing into a room had been a thing to be seen, 
 had been a marvel of grace and dignity. 
 But then, could she not by a look get out
 
 302 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 of any room such as she was not well 
 pleased should stop there ? And, of the 
 two, this was the grace that had brought 
 to her the chiefest fame. Now she did not 
 mean that her daughter should play second 
 to any one ; and instincts, which so dexterous 
 a woman possesses in the highest degree, 
 told to her that Feodore would, of a cer- 
 tainty, have so to play such second in any 
 company to Minna Norman. Therefore, 
 even as a prudent tradesman, before the 
 prospect of an uncertain judgment retires 
 his bill, did Lady Langdale retire her only 
 child. More than once it had very nearly 
 eventuated that they should pass the even- 
 ing in the same society ; but then at such 
 an awkward crisis the experiences of Lady 
 Langdale had been of infinite value ; and 
 by her superior maneuvering the hazardous 
 meeting had been hitherto avoided. And 
 then, too, as it was generally known of most 
 where Minna and her aunt would pass the 
 evening, Lady Langdale did not find it hard 
 to take Feodore elsewhere. 
 
 Now all this was getting to be talked
 
 BLACK MOSS. 303 
 
 about ; and one day, Lady D'Aeth, who had 
 seen what was being done, could no longer 
 hold her peace. 
 
 " My dear Minna," she said, " this is really 
 very weak of that excellent Lady Langdale : 
 a tactician of such experience surely ought 
 to know and see it is not wise to do as she 
 is doing; and that it may become conspicuous. 
 Everybody is asking where is the Lady 
 Feodore Mounttrevor ; is she suppressed ? 
 and why is she suppressed ? And that 
 gives to ill-natured people, of which there 
 are a great many, the opportunity of saying 
 that which is, perhaps, a little true that it 
 would not be to the advantage of the Lady 
 Feodore Mounttrevor to supply a contrast to 
 Minna Norman." 
 
 It was not judicious 011 the part of Lady 
 D'Aeth to have so spoken ; but it came up 
 from her heart, and it had been a long time 
 asking to come, and it was scarcely a war 
 speech, for she and Lady Langdale, as yet, 
 were not at war. But then, to Minna Nor- 
 man were all these sayings very grievous. 
 
 " Oh ! aunt, do not tell me what they say.
 
 304 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 How wicked it is of people to talk about 
 such things !" And Minna Norman looked 
 as if she could have cried. 
 
 Now is there reason to believe that Minna 
 was being, after this sort schooled, in all the 
 knowledge of a London season, to vastly 
 little purpose, and with very mild success ? 
 The bitterness, and the anger, and the 
 malice of the Lady Feodore Mounttrevor 
 and her mother were to Minna Norman 
 nothing at all like to a triumph, and very 
 much like a trouble. She would a great 
 deal the rather have been withheld herself 
 than that this sorrow should have come upon 
 another. It would have been to her a great 
 joy could she have taken Feodore aside and 
 gently have asked of her to do to her that 
 which she might wish. Tt is greatly to be 
 feared that Minna might even have got 
 scratched ; but this, of course, is in paren- 
 thesis. 
 
 So Minna seemed as if she could have 
 cried, and then looked up sadly and plain- 
 tively at her aunt, and said, " I I Oh, 
 mightn't I tell her, aunt, I was very sorry
 
 BLACK MOSS. 305 
 
 she was so unhappy about me, and that I 
 would like to go back to Black Moss, and 
 never come here, or near to her again. I 
 cannot bear that she should hate me." 
 
 And Minna Norman when she so spoke 
 at her aunt's knee, was in no way acting 
 the hate of the beaten girl was not a pleasant 
 thing to her. She was quite in earnest in 
 wishing to be out of the midst of these 
 things. But to Lady D'Aeth even to the 
 mother of Undine such rare simplicity as 
 this was very new, yet did it not seem the less 
 priceless, and fresh, and beautiful. She had 
 been a long time proud of that sweet, and 
 lovely, and guileless girl ; but never had she 
 been so proud so moved to a just pride as 
 now. " Minna," she answered, passionately 
 kissing her, " I begin to think I did not do 
 the best for you in bringing you to this place, 
 into the midst of these heartburnings and 
 this evil-speaking you were better in Black 
 Moss than here. Whatever you, my dar- 
 ling, may say to Feodore Mounttrevor shall 
 govern me. We will go away next week at 
 once, my sweet one, if it pleases you." 
 
 VOL. i. x
 
 306 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 Minna knew it would have pleased her to 
 go out of the stern life she was now in at 
 once ; but she did not start at the authority 
 which her aunt had given her. She only 
 came nearer and kissed the lips which spoke 
 to her of liberty, and looked the gladness 
 that she felt, but other than this she 
 answered nothing. 
 
 " Then we will go to Lady Windermere's 
 to-night, Minna, and after to-night that 
 excellent Lady Langdale shall have it all 
 her own way, and reproduce her pretty 
 Feodore, if so it pleases her. I thought 
 better of her judgment than to make 
 herself so foolish." And then the 
 chariot came round and they went out into 
 Hyde Park, up and down the drive three 
 times. 
 
 " Mamma, shall we go to Lady Winder- 
 mere's to-night ? I have been scarcely any- 
 where at all this season." 
 
 " I cannot help that, Feodore. If people 
 will ask that painted girl about, I do not 
 choose that you should meet her. But I 
 intend that you shall go to Lady Winder-
 
 BLACK MOSS. 307 
 
 mere's, for, as you heard, Miss Norman is ill, 
 and will not be there." 
 
 This was a hard saying from such lips, 
 that Minna Norman was " that painted 
 girl," but thereby did Lady Langdale feel 
 much comforted, and relieved, and steadied. 
 And then they, too, went out into the Park, 
 up and down the drive, but for one turn 
 only ; for they had there seen the " painted 
 girl," and therefore did the countess order 
 the coachman to get into some other 
 part. 
 
 Now, Lady Windermere's ball was to be 
 a very great ball indeed. It had even, so 
 soon as the cards were out, secured for itself 
 a distinct and peculiar glory amongst the 
 most brilliant assemblies of that season. 
 And the assemblies of that season had gone 
 beyond the assemblies of all other seasons. 
 The earl's house in Piccadilly was then the 
 Tory centre the Whigs as they drove by 
 it saw the many lights at the windows, but 
 that was all they saw of the glories of the 
 Windermere assemblies. Now, however, the 
 countess's cards had been issued without 
 
 x 2
 
 80S BLACK MOSS. 
 
 any political significance, very nearly to 
 every member of the haut ton then in town. 
 Lady Winderrnere had got to hear of Lady 
 Langdale's palpitations, and sensations, and 
 implacable resolves, at the first May draw- 
 ing-room, and she had entirely entered into 
 every circumstance of these very highly -bred 
 rivalries ; for such had they seemed to be to 
 her. Now, Lady Windermejre was not set 
 on making mischief; that is, it did not come 
 kindly to her to set people, even Whig 
 people, by the ears. But, nevertheless, it 
 did well please her to bring down a very 
 little some very high lady. In this was she 
 a very woman ; and it had long been on her 
 mind to work out this passion on the Lady 
 Langdale ; and now, she thought, the time 
 had come when she could work it. 
 
 From the first beginning it had not been 
 unobserved by her that Minna Norman and 
 the Lady Feodore Mounttrevor were not 
 given to the meeting of each other. The 
 Countess of Winderrnere also had had 
 daughters, therefore she knew something of 
 the manner of these things ; and the manner
 
 BLACK MOSS. 309 
 
 of this thing told to her why Feodore and 
 Minna had not met. Such condolences, 
 aggravating condolences, too, they almost 
 seemed, as occurred to certain malevolents, 
 had been offered in solemn form, and with 
 irritating iteration, to Lady Langdale, so 
 that after awhile she had almost shut her- 
 self up to be out of the way of them. And 
 thus it was, in the end, that that which was 
 administered, on the pretence of healing, 
 had, as it worked, eaten in, and made wider 
 the gaping and the festering wound. Now 
 the Lady Wiridermere did have nothing to 
 do with that festering wound. She had pur- 
 posed in her heart, or it were perhaps better 
 said, she had laid out all her consummate 
 conciliatory art, upon achieving the meeting 
 of the Lady Feodore Mounttrevor and Minna 
 Norman some time on the floor of her draw- 
 ing-room. She neither hoped nor intended 
 to give pain ; but she bethought her that 
 the Countess of Langdale was acting foolishly 
 and weakly ; and Lady Windermere also was 
 not sure but that her friend was acting sin- 
 fully and not as a high Christian lady
 
 310 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 should be acting so she was minded to 
 put an end to a very foolish and a very 
 wicked business ; that was all. 
 
 Now this issue had been before attempted, 
 impotently attempted, and had egregiously 
 failed. But then, the wife of the Earl of 
 Windermere at the front of the fashion- 
 able world was determined, come what 
 might, to carry it through. And circum- 
 stances, as it so chanced, from the first were 
 favourable. 
 
 Lady Langdale had been making a morn- 
 ing call on the earl's wife in Piccadilly. 
 She had, indeed, come to see how the land 
 lay for Feodore ; and she fell at once into 
 the trap which was set for her, for Lady 
 Windermere could see why her friend was 
 there that morning. But then, the Lady 
 Langdale did not know that she was going 
 to be trapped. 
 
 " The new beauty, of course, will be here 
 on Wednesday?" And if she asked this, 
 perhaps, a little awkwardly, yet, withal, was 
 it asked pleasantly. 
 
 " I do not know that you need be afraid 
 about that, Lady Langdale ; but it is a very
 
 BLACK MOSS. 311 
 
 great disappointment to me that Lady 
 D'Aeth only accepts for Miss Norman con- 
 ditionally." Then, after this, which was 
 strictly true, had been spoken, there was a 
 little pause, so that the mother of the Lady 
 Feodore might be moving to the trap. 
 " Miss Norman will only be here if she 
 should be sufficiently recovered from her 
 present indisposition : oh, it is nothing 
 serious ; there is nothing disfiguring about 
 it ; it will not hurt her looks but then the 
 chicken-pox is so very much about just now." 
 
 Now, doubtless, this was said to punish 
 her friend the Lady Langdale ; and her 
 friend was punished; and showed she did 
 not like what she had got. 
 
 " I should be so sorry if it was anything to 
 spoil her looks shouldn't you, Feodore ?" 
 
 " Yes, that I should, mamma." 
 
 Now as they are set down here, these two 
 little speeches do not seem to have a true 
 seeming about them. But when these two 
 women had so spoken, they took courage 
 and said more that cannot the better be ex- 
 plained. Between God and their consciences 
 it must be left.
 
 312 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 " The chicken-pox so seldom kills, and 
 rarely even seams ; let us trust it may pass 
 off by Wednesday, Lady Windermere," said 
 Lady Langdale, greatly concerned that the two 
 convenient prerogatives of killing and pitting 
 did not belong to the lighter epidemic. 
 And so the Lady Langdale walked into the 
 trap, and after that she and her child were 
 driven away. 
 
 The footman had stood at the carriage 
 door and touched his hat for his orders, and 
 Lady Langdale had said, " Once round the 
 Park, and then home." And then a little 
 later she said to Feodore, quite shaking 
 her little parasol, "The horrid pushing thing. 
 I hope it will mark her for life. I 
 see nothing about her but pertness and 
 paint." 
 
 " And I am sure she pads, mamma." 
 
 " Oh, I dare say her figure is made up 
 like the rest of her." 
 
 And of such was their talking till they 
 got back to Belgrave Square. 
 
 That afternoon Lady Windermere drove 
 to Lady D'Aeth's, to see for herself what 
 was the nature and the severity of Minna
 
 BLACK MOSS. 313 
 
 Norman's attack ; for now was she not 
 lightly resolved that the meeting of the two 
 young girls should be at her own ball. And 
 when she had got there she heard from Lady 
 P'Aeth's own lips that Minna's very slight in- 
 disposition had come only Tom fatigue, and 
 that with a little rest there would be no 
 cause for her to stay away from the great 
 gathering at Windermere House. 
 
 " Then I shall quite expect to see you, 
 Miss Norman, and you must not disappoint 
 me;" and she kissed Minna it was a 
 pleasant, motherly kiss after which she 
 rose to go, and the bell was rung. 
 
 " Don't be late, for I want to introduce 
 Miss Norman to my son before his hands 
 are full ;" and then she pressed Minna by 
 the hand, and got into her carriage and was 
 driven back. 
 
 Now Lord E-othay was her eldest son, and 
 in the driving back she put to herself some 
 questions concerning Minna and her son. 
 The earl was set on a political alliance ; but 
 then the countess did not mean that there 
 should be one. 
 
 " The two girls will meet on my floor,
 
 314 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 and I shall see it. I hope Feodore won't 
 scratch. I think I have contrived it excel- 
 lently." And after that she thought of 
 Minna Norman and her son dancing together, 
 till she got to Piccadilly. 
 
 The police regulations in regard to the 
 great festivities at Windermere House were 
 made special, to avoid confusion ; for it was 
 known even to them how grand a thing this 
 meeting of the Tories and the Whigs, on 
 Tory ground, would be. Carriages con- 
 tinued the work of setting down till some 
 time past midnight, for the going very late 
 was just then coming in. It was presently 
 an immense assembly. It almost seemed 
 like a manifesto put out by the opposition, 
 through the wife of their chief, to show how 
 little they were out of heart. Nothing of 
 the sort, as a success, had ever towered above 
 this. But then, in her great tact, was not 
 Lady Windermere supreme ? 
 
 When Minna Norman, shortly after 
 eleven, came into the room, the brilliancy of 
 the season had, in the bewildering scene 
 before her, reached its climax. Even the 
 Whigs were heard to say that their
 
 BLACK MOSS. 315 
 
 managing lady could not have done it 
 better. And presently this was also said 
 by the managing lady of the Whigs herself. 
 And Lady Winderinere, who was greatly 
 given to the doing of such things, would 
 have her kiss of Minna as though it had 
 been only a gathering of people come to- 
 gether in a friendly way ; for her heart went 
 with her even to the best reunions. Then, 
 too, she fetched Lord Roth ay, her son, and 
 desired him to dance with Minna Norman. 
 
 " You have heard of the beautiful Miss 
 Norman, and- she is as nice as she is 
 beautiful. She would make you a very 
 dear little wife, that's what I think, Arthur." 
 And so did she dismiss Lord Eothay to his 
 work. 
 
 A little later, and Minna Norman found 
 herself engaged for every dance that was set 
 down to be danced. So that unless she 
 broke faith with some, she would have to 
 stay there till it should be far in the morn- 
 ing. Lord Eothay, too, had done his best, 
 not only because the girl with whom he 
 danced was beautiful, but because he knew 
 the eye of his mother was upon him. And
 
 316 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 when he had led her to her seat he asked to 
 <lance with her again, and was answered 
 favourably all of which did Lady Winder- 
 mere think seemed to promise well. 
 
 As Minna presently moved up the room on 
 the arm of an ex-Tory secretary, she chanced 
 to overhear that her own name was the subject 
 of some very earnest conversation. And then 
 she also heard the name of Lady Feodore 
 Mounttrevor, and then in a whisper, 
 too, the words, " They have met, then, at 
 last," 
 
 Now these whispered words, " They have 
 met, then, at last," were the words of a peeress 
 who had done her duty in the marrying of 
 eight daughters, and all of them to eldest 
 sons. Therefore she now conceived she had 
 ti right to be heard upon every social 
 thing. 
 
 Then one who sat next to her, who had 
 two girls, and had not married either, an- 
 swered, " It was very foolish of Lady 
 Feodore to risk the contrast. I always 
 thought her mother was a better manager ;" 
 which was a hard and an unwise 
 thing to be said by one who had herself
 
 BLACK MOSS. 317 
 
 not better managed for her own two 
 daughters. 
 
 This, and more like to it, was what Minna 
 Norman was forced unwillingly to hear as 
 she passed up the room ; and therefore she 
 was glad when she could get out of the 
 hearing of it all, and was led to a seat by the 
 side of her aunt. 
 
 Now Lady D'Aeth also knew what had 
 happened, and she said, " Feodore is here, 
 my love ; every one is talking of it ; but of 
 course you have seen her, though Lady 
 Langdale, it would seem, does not wish to 
 see me." 
 
 " Then why don't you go and say some- 
 thing to her, aunt ? Show her that you do 
 not mind." 
 
 Lady D'Aeth was not given to be stiff, 
 or to be grave over the proprieties. But had 
 not Lady Langdale's conduct all along been 
 foolish and rude; and had not this discourtesy 
 now proceeded to a cut ? No ; if she said 
 something, it would be something of the 
 hardest, and then there might be railing 
 for railing ; and moreover, Lady D'Aeth did 
 greatly mind this which was put upon her.
 
 318 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 " No, my love, that cannot be ; I know 
 what is due to myself, and it would make 
 her worse were she to think I sought her. 
 Yet would I shake her by the hand this 
 minute if she offered hers." And then 
 nothing more was said about it. 
 
 Feodore Mounttrevor had been led up to 
 her seat, and after a little while she was 
 glad that sultry night to get into the cooler 
 air of the covered balcony, out of the suffo- 
 cating heat of the ball-room. There she had 
 sat alone for some time, busied as it seemed 
 with the choice flowers of the bouquet in her 
 hand. As she so sat on, she saw that some 
 one had also entered and was coming near 
 her. And then when she glanced up, Minna 
 Norman stood before her. 
 
 She started with an angry exclamation, 
 and a withering look of utter scorn from her 
 beautiful and flashing eyes, and would likely 
 have swept Minna away bodily away, even 
 to her oversetting in that balcony had not 
 Minna timidly and calmly murmured this 
 beginning 
 
 " I am come," she said, " to ask you not 
 to be any more unhappy about me. I want
 
 BLACK MOSS. 319 
 
 to tell you how sorry I am that anything 
 which I have done has given you pain 
 
 "You have said enough. I desire that 
 you will no further dare address me. 
 Do you hear? Let me pass." 
 
 " Oh, Lady Feodore ! I think you cannot 
 know me ;" and she almost knelt at the feet 
 of the embittered girl, and she still stayed 
 there beseechingly before her. 
 
 The look which flashed from the face of 
 Feodore Mounttrevor was, as she heard 
 these words, like to some gesture borrowed 
 from a fiend. 
 
 " I know you, as all the world now knows 
 you, as the drab of an undertaker ; and I 
 wish to know no more of such a line. Let me 
 pass, I say. You shall not hold me here." 
 But even before an insult such as was this, 
 did Minna Norman's sweet and unruffled 
 gentleness keep the ground ; and though the 
 threatening girl stood almost over her, 
 she did not shrink from what she meant 
 to do. 
 
 "Lady Feodore, it is because I do not 
 wish to be standing in your way, either
 
 320 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 here or elsewhere, that I have thought to 
 come and say what I am. saying now, for 
 I cannot any longer bear to feel that my 
 presence is so unbearable to Lady Lang- 
 dale and yourself. Indeed, I do not think 
 that any one ever hated me before. I 
 
 never meant to make you so unhappy about 
 
 
 me. 
 
 " Do not persist in this impertinent mis- 
 take. Your presence anywhere is not 
 recognised by wy mamma, and is not 
 noticed by me. You must surely forget 
 
 yourself, and that your uncle is . Let 
 
 me pass, or others shall remove you." 
 
 So as she hissed these threats and insults 
 out, was she pushing Minna Norman 
 back ; but so was she not pushing back 
 Minna's resolution. 
 
 " Oh, don't make me more wretched 
 than I am, for you will never see me 
 anywhere again. I am going away next 
 week for ever. Aunt says I may, for I 
 cannot any longer bear these things. Do, 
 
 do speak something kind to me before I 
 
 
 so.
 
 BLACK MOSS. 321 
 
 Now it is not intended that anything- 
 should be overstated here ; therefore it must 
 be said that Feodore Mounttrevor had, after 
 all, been only educated up to speaking and 
 thinking so very bitterly. She would not 
 have so spoken or so thought but for her 
 mother. Her mother would not let her be 
 as God had made her ; for which thing she 
 will have presently to answer; but then that 
 is her business and not ours. So the chiefest 
 part of her deformity was acquired. In her 
 heart of hearts all was not dark ; and what 
 there was of light Minna had reached to 
 now. 
 
 There are some things too sacred to be 
 written down. And so was the sacred fight 
 that Feodore Mounttrevor fought with her 
 better self in that balcony that night. Too 
 sacred ! for was not that Father other than 
 the earl covering her with strength, and 
 showing her the way to stand ? But the 
 issue of that fighting, to her honour, must 
 not be hidden here. It is told then in these 
 words. She did not call on any one to sweep 
 Minna Norinan from her path. She gave 
 
 VOL. i. Y
 
 322 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 her hand as a true girl for Minna had con- 
 quered. 
 
 The leaders of hoth parties, by this hour 
 of the night, had come upon the ground. 
 As it was nearing towards twelve the name 
 of Fabian Massareene was brought up, and 
 delivered by the chief proclaimer at the 
 doors. 
 
 When the favourite minister found him- 
 self, at length, by Minna's side, he, to him- 
 self, cursed his folly for being so late. For 
 every dance set down he found she was 
 engaged. She would not be free if she 
 stayed on till the fourth or fifth small hour. 
 Therefore, as has been said, to himself he 
 cursed. Nor did his face, even with all the 
 practised indifference that hitherto it had 
 assumed at pleasure, conceal the extent of 
 his discomfiture; and many mothers there 
 were, stately matrons of the highest sort, 
 who saw what his discomfited faca reflected, 
 and were glad. He had never asked their 
 girls to dance : their girls who knew the 
 latest steps. Therefore were they glad. 
 
 But then Fabian Massareene had come to
 
 BLACK MOSS. 323 
 
 put a question that night which he did not 
 mean should go unasked merely because of 
 trifles ; and so he seized upon a trifle which 
 seemed to be his opportunity. 
 
 A few minutes after midnight he was 
 leading Minna Norman to the ice room. 
 They were alone on those splendid stairs. 
 And there was no one in the long corridor 
 beyond the stairs. 
 
 " I am so glad that aunt says this may 
 be my last ball, Mr. Massareene. We are 
 going back to Black Moss next Monday." 
 
 Now he was not at all prepared for this ; 
 and there was that in his manner when he 
 heard it, which confessed that he was taken 
 by surprise. Therefore when they had 
 reached the middle of the corridor he 
 stopped, and he took her hand, and said pas- 
 sionately, for he was in earnest now, " Miss 
 Norman Minna, I am here to-night to ask 
 you to consent to be my wife. 1 am here 
 to ask you, can you love me ?" 
 
 It was well and neatly done, and he 
 thought that she would have the diamonds. 
 She had always feared that it would some
 
 324 BLACK MOSS. 
 
 time come to this ; and yet now that it had 
 come, the words she wished to speak would 
 scarcely leave her tongue. She struggled 
 to withdraw the hand which he had taken. 
 She was only concerned so to order her 
 answer as to tell him the whole truth ; and 
 she would have well liked to have done this 
 and yet not have pained him. But, before 
 all, she did not mean to tell him there was 
 any hope when there was none. And she 
 said, " No, I can never love you, Mr. Mas- 
 sareene." There was nothing more spoken 
 between them in that corridor. She took 
 his arm, and they went on where the rest 
 had gone before them to get cool. The 
 privy councillor had put his question, and 
 had got his- answer ; and the next moment he 
 was bringing to her wafers and a water ice. 
 Gruy Melchior ! priest of Black Moss upon 
 one hundred pounds a year ; she said that 
 she could never love that man for memory 
 of you. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 Anvaan ason
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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