I 
 
 Mary J. L. Mc Donald 
 
 ^ 
 
THERE AND BACK 
 
 BY 
 GEORGE MACDONALD 
 
 Author of 
 
 Waiu.ock o' Glenwarlock," "Donal Grant,' 
 
 "Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood," 
 
 and others 
 
 BOSTON 
 D. LOTHROP COMPANY 
 
 WASHINGTON STREET OPPOSITE BKOMFiEID 
 
Copyright, i8gi, 
 
 nv 
 
 D LoTHROP Company. 
 
 This copyright protects the work of an American writer, who has 
 contributed material to various portions of the story, winch is 
 here incorporated. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 1 
 
pf 
 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Some of the readers of this tale will be glad- 
 to know that the passage with which it ends is 
 a real dream ; and that, with but three or four 
 changes almost too slight to require acknowl- 
 edging, I have given it word for word as the 
 friend to whom it came set it down for me. 
 
 984409 
 
In the sure hope of ever lasting brotherhood, I 
 offer this book to Ronald MacDonald, my son and 
 friend, my pupil, fellow-student, and fellow-vvork- 
 
 BORDIGHERA : 
 
 February^ j8gi. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap. Page. 
 
 1. Father, Child, and Nurse 9 
 
 2. Stepmother and Nurse 21 
 
 3. TheFUght 28 
 
 4. The Bookbinder and his Pupil 33 
 
 5 . The Mansons 47 
 
 6. Simon Armour 60 
 
 7. Comparisons 7° 
 
 8. A Lost Shoe 77 
 
 9. A Holiday 85 
 
 10. The Library 93 
 
 11. Alice 103 
 
 12. Mortgrange 114 
 
 13. The Beech-tree 120 
 
 14. The Library 129 
 
 15. Barbara Wylder 134 
 
 16. Barbara and Richard 142 
 
 17. Barbara and Others 157 
 
 18. Mrs. Wylder 162 
 
 19. Mrs. Wylder and Barbara 1 74 
 
 20. Barbara and her Critics 178 
 
 21. The Parson's Parable 184 
 
 22. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 195 
 
 23. A Human Gadfly 225 
 
 24. Richard and Wingfold 233 
 
 25. Wingfold and his Wife 241 
 
 26. Richard and Alice 246 
 
 27. A Sister 255 
 
 28. Barbara and Lady Ann 270 
 
 29. Alice and Barbara 283 
 
 30. Barbara Thinks 301 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap. Page. 
 
 3 1 . Wingfold and Barbara 310 
 
 32. The Shoeing of Miss Brown 326 
 
 33. Richard and Vixen 336 
 
 34. Barbara's Duty 343 
 
 35. The Parson's Counsel 360 
 
 36. Lady Ann Meditates 373 
 
 37. Lady Ann and Richard 3^ 
 
 38. Richard and Arthur 3^5 
 
 39. Mr., Mrs., and Miss Wylder 394 
 
 40. In London 4^7 
 
 41 . Nature and Supernature 416 
 
 42. Yet a Lower Deep 4^6 
 
 43. To be Redeemed, one must Redeem , 43^ 
 
 44. A Door Opened in Heaven 444 
 
 45. The Carriage 45 ' 
 
 46. Richard's Dilemma ■ ... 459 
 
 47. The Doors of Harmony and Death 4^5 
 
 48. Death the Deliverer 479 
 
 49. The Cave in the Fire .... 4S5 
 
 50. Duck-Fists , 495 
 
 5 1 . Baronet and Blacksmith 5 ' ^ 
 
 52. Uncle-Father and Aunt-Mother 519 
 
 53. Morning 5-9 
 
 Barbara at Home 53^ 
 
 Miss Brown 549 
 
 54- 
 
 55- 
 
 56. Wingfold and Barbara 559 
 
 57. The Baronet's Will • 562 
 
 58. The Heir 5^7 
 
 59. Wingfold and Arthur Manson 579 
 
 60. Ricliard and his Family 583 
 
 61. Heart to Heart 59° 
 
 62. The Quarrel 59^ 
 
 63. Baronet and Blacksmith 605 
 
 64. The Baronet's Funeral 610 
 
 65. The Packet 621 
 
 66. Barbara's Dream 62S 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 FATHER, CHILD, AND "nURSE. 
 
 It would be but stirring- a muddy pool to inquire — 
 not what motives induced, but what forces compelled 
 Sir Wilton Lestrange to marry a woman nobody knew. 
 It is enough to say that these forces were mainly 
 ignoble, as manifested by their intermittent character 
 and final cessation. The mesalliance occasioned not 
 a little surprise, and quite as much annoyance, 
 among the county families, — failing, however, to 
 remind any that certain of their own grandmothers 
 had been no better known to the small world than 
 Lady Lestrange. It caused yet more surprise, 
 though less annoyance, in the clubs to which Sir 
 Wilton had hitherto been indebted for help to forget 
 his duties : they set him down as a greater idiot than 
 his friends had hitherto imagined him. For had he 
 not been dragged to the altar by a woman whose 
 manners and breeding were hardly on the level of a 
 villa in St. John's Wood .? Did any one know whence 
 she sprang, or even the name which Sir Wilton had 
 displaced with his own .? But Sir Wilton himself was 
 not proud of his lady ; and if the thing had been any 
 business of theirs, it would have made no difference 
 to him ; he would none the less have let them pine 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 in their ignorance. Did not his mother, a lady less 
 dignified than eccentric, out of pure curiosity, beg 
 enlightenment concerning her origin, and receive for 
 answer from the high-minded baronet, " Madam, the 
 woman is my wife ! " — after which the prudent dowa- 
 ger asked no more questions, but treated her daugh- 
 ter-in-lavv with neither better nor worse than civil- 
 ity. Sir Wilton, in fact, soon came to owe. his wife 
 , a; grudge; that he had married her, and none the 
 'Icss^that at the tihife' he felt himself of a generosity 
 more than human in bestowing upon her his name. 
 Creation itself, had he ever thought of it, would have 
 seemed to him a small thing beside such a gift ! 
 The mesalliajice was the fruitage of but a moment- 
 ary passion. Springing up suddenly, it as suddenly 
 died away, dropping from a loveless attraction to 
 coldness and positive hatred. 
 
 And what of the woman who was at once the lure 
 and the victim of this union without heart.? That 
 Robina Armour, after experience of his first ad- 
 vances, should have at last consented to marry 
 Sir Wilton Lestrange, was in no sense in her favor, 
 although after a fashion she was in love with him — 
 in love, that is, with the gentleman of her own 
 imagining whom she saw in the baronet ; while the 
 baronet, on his part, was what he called i7i love with 
 what he called ihe ivoman. As he was overcome by 
 her beauty, so was she by his rank — an idol at whose 
 clay feet is cast many a spiritual birthright — and as 
 mean a deity as any of man's device. But the black- 
 smith's daughter was in many respects, notwith- 
 standing, a woman of good sense, with much real 
 refinement, and a genuine regard for rectitude. 
 Although Sir Wilton had never loved her with what 
 
FATHER, CHILD, AND NURSE. 
 
 was best in him, it was not in spite of what was best 
 in him that he fell in love with her. Had his better 
 nature been awake, it would have justified the bond, 
 and been strengthened by it. 
 
 Lady Lestrange's father was a good blacksmith, 
 occasionally drunk in his youth, but persistently 
 sober now in his middle age ; a long-headed fellow, 
 with reach and quality in the prudence which had 
 long ceased to appear to him the highest of virtues. 
 At one period he had accounted it the prime duty of 
 existence to take care of oneself; and so much of this 
 belief had he communicated to his younger daugh- 
 ter, that she deported herself so that Sir Wilton mar- 
 ried her — with the result that, when Death knocked 
 at her door, she welcomed him to her heart. The 
 first cry of her child, it is true, made her recall the 
 welcome, but she had to go with him, notwithstand- 
 ing, when the child was but an hour old. 
 
 Not one of her husband's family was in the house 
 when she died. Sir Wilton himself was in town, and 
 had been for the last six months, preferring London 
 and his club to Mortgrange and his wife. When a 
 telegram informed him that she was in danger, he did 
 go home, but when he arrived, she had been an hour 
 gone, and he congratulated himself that he had taken 
 the second train. 
 
 There had been betwixt them no approach to 
 union. When what Sir Wilton called love had evap- 
 orated, he returned to his mire, with a resentful feel- 
 ing that the handsome woman — his superior in every- 
 thing that belongs to humanity — had bewitched him 
 to his undoing. The truth was, she had ceased to 
 charm him. The fault was not in her; it lay in the 
 dulled eye of the swiftly deteriorating man, which 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 grew less and less capable of seeing things as they 
 were, and transmitted falser and falser impressions 
 of them. The light that was in him was darkness. 
 The woman that might have made a man of him, 
 had there been the stuff, passed from him an 
 unprized gift, a thing to which he made Hades 
 welcome. 
 
 It was decent, however, not to parade his relief. 
 He retired to the library, lit a cigar, and sat down to 
 wish the unpleasant fuss of the funeral over, and the 
 house rid of a disagreeable presence. Had the 
 woman died of a disease to which he might himself 
 one day have to succumb, her death might, as he sat 
 there, have chanced to raise for an instant the watery 
 ghost of an emotion ; but, coming as it did, he had 
 no sympathetic interest in her death any more than 
 in herself. Lolling in the easiest of chairs, he re- 
 volved the turns of last night's play, until it occurred 
 to him that he might soon by a second marriage take 
 amends of his neighbors for their disapprobation of 
 his first. So pleasant was the thought that, brooding 
 upon it, he fell asleep. 
 
 He woke, looked, rubbed his eyes, stared, rubbed 
 them again, and stared. A woman stood in front of 
 him — one he had surely seen ! — no, he had never 
 seen her anywhere ! What an odd, inquiring, search- 
 ing expression in her two hideous black eyes ! And 
 what was that in her arms — something wrapt in a 
 blanket.? 
 
 The message in the telegram recurred to him : 
 there must have been a child ! The bundle must be 
 the child ! Confound the creature ! What did it 
 want .'' 
 
 "Go away," he said ; "this is not the nursery ! " 
 
FATHER, CHILD, AND NURSE. 1 3 
 
 " I thought you might like to look at the baby, 
 sir ! " the woman replied. 
 
 Sir Wilton stared at the blanket. 
 " It might comfort you, I thought ! " she went on, 
 with a look he felt to be strange. Her eyes were 
 hard and dry, red with recent tears, and glowing 
 with suppressed fire. 
 
 Sir Wilton was courteous to most women, espe- 
 cially such as had no claim upon him, but cherished 
 respect for none. It was odd therefore that he 
 should now feel embarrassed. From some cause the 
 machinery of his self-content had possibly got out of 
 gear ; anyhow no answer came ready. He had not 
 the smallest wish to see the child, but was yet, per- 
 haps, unwilling to appear brutal. In the meantime, 
 the woman, with gentle, moth-like touch, was part- 
 ing and turning back the folds of the blanket, until 
 from behind it dawned a tiny human face, w^hose 
 angel was suppliant, it may be, for the baptism of 
 a father's first gaze. 
 
 The woman held out the child to Sir Wilton, as if 
 expecting him to take it. He started to his feet, 
 driving the chair a yard behind him, stuck his hands 
 in his pockets, and, with a face of disgust, cried — 
 
 " Take the creature away ! " 
 
 But he could not lift his eyes from the face nested 
 in the blanket. It seemed to fascinate him. The 
 woman's eyes flared, but she did not speak. 
 
 "Uglier than sin ! " he half hissed, half growled. 
 " — I suppose the animal is mine, but you needn't 
 bring it so close to me ! Take it away— and keep it 
 away. I will send for it when I want it— which 
 won't be in a hurry ! Pfaugh ! how hideous a thing 
 may be, and yet human ! " 
 
14 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " He is as God made him ! " remarked the nurse, 
 quietly for very wrath. 
 
 " Or the devil ! " suggested his father. 
 
 Then the woman looked like a tigress. She 
 opened her mouth, but closed it again with a snap. 
 
 "I may say what I like of my own !" said the 
 father. "Tell me the goblin is none of mine, and 
 I will be as respectful to him as you please. Prove 
 it, and I will give you fifty pounds. He's ugly I 
 He's hideous ! Deny it if you can." 
 
 The woman held her peace. She could not, even 
 to herself, call him a child pleasant to look at. She 
 gazed on him for a moment with pitiful, protective 
 eyes, then covered his face as if he were dead. But 
 she did not move. 
 
 "Why don't you go .? " said the baronet. 
 
 Instead of replying, she began, as by a suddenly 
 confirmed resolve, to remove the coverings at the 
 other end of the bundle, and presently disclosed the 
 baby's feet. The baronet gazed wondering. To 
 what might not assurance be about to subject him.^ 
 She took one of the little feet in a hard but gentle 
 hand, and spreading out "the pink, five-beaded 
 baby-toes," displayed what even the inexperience 
 of the baronet could not but recognize as remark- 
 able : between every pair of toes was stretched a 
 thin, delicate membrane. She laid the foot down, 
 took up the other, and showed the same peculiarity. 
 The child was web-footed, as distinctly as any prop- 
 erly constituted duckling ! Then she lifted, one 
 after the other, the tiny hands, beautiful to any eye 
 that understood, and showed between the middle 
 and third finger of each, the same sort of membrane 
 rising half-way to the points of them. 
 
FATHER, CHILD, AND NURSE. I 5 
 
 "I see ! " said the baronet, with a laugh that was 
 not nice, having in it no merriment, " the creature . 
 is a monster ! — Well, if you think I am to blame, I 
 can only protest you are mistaken. / am not web- 
 footed ! The duckness must come from the other 
 side." 
 
 " I hope you will remember, Sir Wilton ! " 
 
 "Remember.? What do you mean.? Take the 
 monster away." 
 
 The woman rearranged the coverings of the little 
 crooked legs. 
 
 "Won't you look at your lady before they put 
 her in her coffin ? " she said when she had done. 
 
 "What good would that do her.? She's past 
 caring ! — No, I won't : why should I ? Such sights 
 are not pleasant." 
 
 "' The coffin's a lonely chamber, Sir Wilton ; lonely 
 to lie all day and all night in ! " 
 
 "No lonelier for one than for another ! " he replied, 
 with an involuntary recoil from his own words. 
 For the one thing a man must believe— yet hardly 
 believes — is, that he shall one day die. "She'll be 
 better without me, anyhow ! " 
 
 " You are heartless, Sir Wilton ! " 
 
 "Mind your own business. If I choose to be 
 heartless, I may have my reasons. Take the child 
 away." 
 
 Still she did not move. The baby, young as he 
 was, had thrown the blanket from his face, and the 
 father's eyes were fixed on it ; while he gazed the 
 nurse would not stir. He seemed fascinated by its 
 ugliness. Without absolute deformity, the child 
 was indeed as unsightly as infant welh could be. 
 
 " My God ! " he said again — for he had a trick of 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 crying- out as if he had a God — " the little brute hates 
 me ! Take it away, woman. Take it away before 
 I strangle it ! I can't answer for myself if it keeps 
 on looking at me ! " 
 
 With a glance whose mingled anger and scorn 
 the father did not see, the nurse turned and went. 
 
 He kept staring after her till the door shut, then 
 fell back into his chair, exclaiming once more, "My 
 God ! " — What or whom he meant by the word, it 
 were hard to say. 
 
 "Is it possible," he said to himself, "that the fine 
 woman I married — for she was a fine woman, 
 a deuced fine woman 1 — should have died to present 
 the world with such a travesty ! It's like nothing 
 human ! It's an affront to the family ! Ah ! the 
 strain will show ! They say your sins will find you 
 out ! It was a sin to marry the woman ! What 
 a fool I was ! But she bewitched me ! I was be- 
 witched. — Curse the little monster ! I shan't breathe 
 again till I'm out of the house ! Where was the 
 doctor.? He ought to have seen to it! Hang it 
 all, I'll go abroad ! " 
 
 Ugly as the child was, however, to many an eye 
 the first thing evident in him would have been his 
 strong likeness to his father — whose features were 
 perfect, though at the moment, and at many a mo- 
 ment, their expression was other than attractive. 
 Sir Wilton disliked children, and the dislike was 
 mutual. Never did child run to him ; never was 
 child unwilling to leave him. Escaping from his 
 grasp, he would turn and look back, like Christian 
 emerging from the Valley of the Shadow, as if to 
 weigh the peril he had been in. 
 
 As tenderly as if he had been the loveliest of God's 
 
FATHER, CHILD, AND NURSE. 1 7 
 
 children, the woman bore her charge up staircases, 
 and through corridors and passages, to the remote 
 nursery, where, in a cradle whose gay furniture con- 
 trasted sadly with the countenance of the child and 
 the fierceness of her own eyes, she gently laid him 
 down. But long after he was asleep, she continued 
 to bend over him, as if with difficulty restraining her- 
 self from clasping him again to her bosom. 
 
 There was a dramatic fitness even in the selection 
 of this outspoken nurse who was now the baby's only 
 protector. For she was the child's aunt. 
 
 Jane Tuke had been married four or five years, but 
 had no children, and the lack seemed to have inten- 
 sified her maternity. Elder sister to Lady Lestrange, 
 she had gone gladly to receive her child in her arms, 
 and had watched and waited for it with an expecta- 
 tion far stronger than that of the mother; for so 
 thorough was Lady Lestrange's disappointment in her 
 husband, that she regarded the advent of his child 
 almost with indifference. Jane had. an absolute 
 passion for children. She had married a quarter for 
 faith, a quarter for love, and a whole half for hope. 
 This divinely inexplicable child-passion is as unintel- 
 ligible to those devoid of it, as its absence is marvel- 
 lous to those possessed by it. Its presence is its 
 justification, its being its sole explanation, itself its 
 highest reason. Surely on those who cherish it, the 
 shadow of the love-creative God must rest more than 
 on some other women ! Unpleasing as was the in- 
 fant, to know him her own would have made the 
 world a paradise to Jane. Her heart burned with 
 divine indignation at the wrongs already heaped upon 
 him. Hardly born, he was persecuted ! Ugly ! he 
 was not ugly ! Was he not come straight from the 
 
 2 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 fountain of life, from the Father of children ! That 
 such a father as she had left in the library should re- 
 pudiate him was well ! She loved to think of his 
 rejection. She brooded with delight, in the midst of 
 her wrath, on every word of disgust that had fallen 
 from his unfatherly lips. The more her baby was 
 rejected, the more he was hers ! He belonged to 
 her, and her only, for she only loved him ! She 
 could say with France in King Lear, "Be it lawful I 
 fake up what's cast away ! " To her the despised 
 one was the essence of all riches. The joy of a miser 
 is less than the joy of a mother, as gold is less than 
 a live soul, as greed is less than love. No vision of 
 jewels ever gave such a longing as this woman 
 longed with after the child of her dead sister. 
 
 The body that bore was laid in the earth, the thing 
 born was left upon it. The mother had but come, 
 exposed her infant on the rough shore of time, and 
 forsaken him in his nakedness. There he lay, not 
 knowing whejice he came, or whither he was going, 
 urged to live by a hunger and thirst he had not in- 
 vented, and did not understand. His mother had 
 helplessly forsaken him, but the God in another 
 woman had taken him up : there was a soul to love 
 him, two arms to carry him, and a strong heart to 
 shelter him. 
 
 Sir Wilton returned to London, and there enjoyed 
 himself — not much, but a little the more that no 
 woman sat at Mortgrange with a right to complain 
 that he took his pleasure without her. He lived the 
 life of the human animals frequenting the society of 
 their kind from a gregarious instinct, and for common 
 yet opposing self-ends. He had begun to assume 
 the staidness, if not dullness, of the animal whose 
 
FATHER, CHILD, AND NURSE. 1 9 
 
 first youth has departed, but he was only less frolic- 
 some, not more human. He was settling down to 
 what he had made himself; no virtue could claim a 
 share in the diminished rampancy of his vices. What 
 a society is that which will regard as reformed the 
 man whom assuaging fires have left an exhausted 
 slag — a thing for which as yet no use is known ! who 
 suggests no promise of change or growth, gives no 
 poorest hint of hope concerning his fate ! 
 
 With the first unrecognized sense of approaching 
 age, a certain habit of his race began to affect him, 
 and the idea of a quieter life, with a woman whose 
 possession would make him envied, grew mildly at- 
 tractive. A brilliant marriage in another county 
 would, besides, avenge him on the narrow-minded 
 of his own, vv^ho had despised his first choice ! With 
 judicial family-eye he surveyed the eligible women 
 of his acquaintance. It was, no doubt, to his dis- 
 advantage that already an heir lay "mewling and 
 puking in the nurse's arms ; " for a woman who 
 might willingly be mother to the inheritor of such a 
 property as his, might not find attractive the notion 
 of her first being her husband's second son. But 
 slips between cups and lips were not always on the 
 wrong side ! Such a moon-calf as Robina's son 
 could not with justice represent the handsomest man 
 and one of the handsomest women of their time. 
 The heir that fate had palmed upon him might very 
 well be doomed to go the way so many infants 
 went ! 
 
 He spread the report that the boy was sickly. A 
 notion that he was not likely to live "prevailed about 
 Mortgrange, which, however originated, was nour- 
 ished doubtless by the fac-t that he was so seldom 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 seen. In reality, however, there was not a healthier 
 child in all England th~an Richard Lestrange. 
 
 Sir Wilton's relations took as little interest in the heir 
 as himself, and there was no inducement for any of 
 them to visit Mortgrange ; the aunt-mother, therefore, 
 had her own way with him. She was not liked in 
 the house. The servants said she cared only for the 
 little toad of a baronet, and would do nothing for her 
 comfort. They had, however, just a shadow of 
 respect for her : if she encouraged no familiarity, she 
 did not meddle, and was independent of their aid. 
 Even the milking of the cow which had been, through 
 her persistence, set apart for the child, she did her- 
 self. She sought no influence in the house, and was 
 nothing loved and little heeded. 
 
 Sir Wilton had not again seen his heir, who was 
 now almost a year old, when the rumor reached 
 Mortgrange that the baronet was about to be married. 
 
 Naturally, the news was disquieting to Jane. The 
 hope, however, was left her, that the stepmother 
 might care as little for the child as did the father, and 
 that so, for some years at least, he might be left to 
 her. It was a terrible thought to the loving woman 
 that they might be parted ; a more terrible thought 
 that her baby might become a man like his father. 
 Of all horrors to a decent woman, a bad man must 
 be the worst ! If by her death she could have left 
 the child her hatred of evil, Jane would have will- 
 ingly died : she loved her husband, but her sister's 
 boy was in danger 1 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 STEPMOTHER AND NURSE. 
 
 The rumor of Sir Wilton's marriage was, as rumor 
 seldom is, correct. Before the year was out, Lady- 
 Ann Hardy, sister to the Earl of Torpavy, represent- 
 ing- an old family with a drop or two of very bad 
 blood in it, became Lady Ann Lestrange. How much 
 love there may have been in the affair, it is unneces- 
 sary to inquire, seeing the baronet was what he was, 
 and the lady understood the what pretty well. She 
 might have preferred a husband not so much what 
 Sir Wilton was, but she wasnine-and-twenty, and her 
 brother was poor. She said to herself, I suppose, 
 that she might as well as another undertake his reform : 
 some one must ! and married him. She had not 
 much of a trousseau, but was gorgeously attired for 
 the wedding. It is true she had to return to the Earl 
 three-fourths of the jewels she wore ; but they were 
 family jewels, and why should she not have some 
 good of them .? She started with fifty pounds of her 
 own in her pocket, and a demeanor in her person 
 equal to fifty millions. When they arrived at Mort- 
 grange, the moon was indeed still in the sky, but the 
 honey-pot, to judge by the appearance of the twain, 
 was empty : twain they were, and twain would be. 
 The man wore a look of careless all-rightness, tinged 
 with an expression of indifferent triumph : he had 
 
2 2 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 what he wanted ; what his lady might think of her 
 side of the bargain, he neither thought nor cared. As 
 to the woman, let her reflections be what they might, 
 not a soul would come to the knowledge of them. 
 Whatever it was to others, her pale, handsome face 
 was never false to herself, never betrayed what she 
 was thinking, never broke the shallow surface of its 
 frozen dignity. Will any man ever know how a 
 woman of ordinary decency feels after selling herself .-' 
 I find the thing hardly safe to ponder. No trace, no 
 shadow of disappointment clouded the countenance 
 of Lady Ann that sultry summer afternoon as she 
 drove up the treeless avenue. The education she had 
 received — and education in the worst sense it was ! 
 for it had brought out the worst in her — had rendered 
 her less than human. The form of her earthly pres- 
 ence had been trained to a fashionable perfection ; 
 her nature had not been left unaided in its reversion 
 toward the vague animal type from which it was 
 developed : in the curve of her thin lips as they pre- 
 pared to smile, one could discern the veiled snarl and 
 bite. Her eyes were gra)'-, her eyebrows dark ; her 
 complexion was a clear fair, her nose perfect, except 
 for a sharp pinch at the end of the bone ; her nostrils 
 were thin but motionless ; her chin was defective, 
 and her throat as slender as her horrible waist ; her 
 hands and feet were large even for '" her tall person- 
 age." 
 
 After his lady had had a cu]-) of tea, Sir Wilton, for 
 something to do, proposed taking her over the house, 
 which was old, and worthy of inspection. In their 
 progress they came to a door at the end of a long and 
 rather tortuous ])assage. Sir Wilton did not know how 
 the room was occupied, or he would doubtless have 
 
STEPMOTHER AND NURSE. 23 
 
 passed it by ; but as its windows g^ave a fine view of 
 the park, he opened the door, and Lady Ann entered. 
 Sudden displeasure shortened her first step ; pride or 
 something worse lengthened the next, as she bore 
 down on a woman too much occupied with a child 
 on her knee to look up at the sound of her entrance. 
 When, a moment after, she did look up, the dreaded 
 stepmother was looking straight down on her baby. 
 Their eyes encountered. Jane met an icy stare, and 
 Lady Ann a gaze of defiance — an expression by this 
 time almost fixed on the face of the nurse, for in her 
 spirit she heard every unspoken remark on her child. 
 Not a word did the lady utter, but to Jane, her eyes, 
 her very breath, seemed to say with scorn, " Is that 
 the heir ? " Sir Wilton did not venture a single look : 
 he was ashamed of his son, and already a little afraid 
 of his wife, whom he had once seen close her rather 
 large teeth in a notable way. As she turned toward 
 the window, however, he stole a glance at his off- 
 spring : the creature was not quite so ugly as before 
 — not quite so repulsive as he had pictured him ! 
 But, good heavens ! he was on the lap of the same 
 woman whose fierceness had upset him almost as 
 much as his child's ugliness ! He walked to the 
 window after his wife. She gazed for a moment, 
 turned with indifference, and left the room. Her hus- 
 band followed her. A glance of fear, dislike and 
 defiance went after them from Jane. 
 
 Stronger contrast than those two women it would 
 be hard to find. Jane's countenance was almost 
 coarse, but its rugged outline was almost grand. Her 
 hair grew low down on her forehead, and she had 
 deep-set eyes. Her complexion was rough, her nose 
 large and thick. Her mouth was large also, but, 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 when unaffected by her now almost habitual antag- 
 onism, the curve of her lip was sweet, and occasion- 
 ally humorous. Her chin was strong, and the total 
 of her face what we call masculine ; but when she 
 silently regarded her child, it grew beautiful with the 
 radiant tenderness of protection. 
 
 Her visitors left the door open behind them ; Jane 
 rose and shut it, sat down again, and gazed motion- 
 less at the infant. Perhaps he vaguely understood 
 the sorrow and dread of her countenance, for he 
 pulled a long face of his own, and was about to cry. 
 Jane clasped him to her bosom in an agony ; she 
 felt certain she would not long be permitted to hold 
 him there. In the silent speech of my lady's mouth, 
 her jealous love saw the doom of her darling. What 
 precise doom she dared not ask herself ; it was more 
 than enough that she, indubitably his guardian as if 
 sent from heaven to shield him, must abandon him 
 to his natural enemy, one who looked upon him as 
 the adversary of her own children. It was a thought 
 not to be thought, an idea for which there should be 
 no place in her bosom ! Unfathomable as the love 
 between man and woman is the love of woman to 
 child. 
 
 She spent a wakeful night. From the decree of 
 banishment sure to go forth against her, there was 
 no appeal ! Go she must ! Yet her heart cried out 
 that he was her own. In the same lap his mother 
 had lain before him ! She had carried her by day, 
 and at night folded her in the same arms, herself but 
 six years old — old enough to remember yet the rich- 
 ness unspeakable of her new possession. Never liad 
 come difference betwixt them until Robina began to 
 give ear to Sir Wilton, whom Jane could not endure. 
 
STEPMOTHER AND NURSE. 25 
 
 When she responded, as she did at once, to her sis- 
 ter's cry for her help, she made her promise that no 
 one should understand who she was, but that she 
 should in the house be taken for and treated as a 
 hired nurse. Why Jane stipulated thus, it were hard 
 to say, but so careful were they both, that no one at 
 Mortgrange suspected the nurse as personally inter- 
 ested in the ugly heir left in her charge ! No one 
 dreamed that the child's aunt had forsaken her hus- 
 band to nurse him, and was living for him day and 
 night. She, in her turn, had promised her sister 
 never to leave him, and this pledge strengthened the 
 bond of her passion. The only question was hoiv 
 she was to be faithful to her pledge, how to carry 
 matters when she was turned away. With those 
 thin, close-pressed lips in her mind's eye, she could 
 'not count on remaining where she was beyond a 
 few days. 
 
 She was not only a woman capable of making up 
 her mind, but a woman of resource, with the advan- 
 tage of having foreseen and often pondered the pos- 
 sibility of that which was now imminent. The same 
 night, silent above the sleep of her darling, she sat 
 at work with needle and scissors far into the morning, 
 remodelling an old print dress. For nights after, she 
 was similarly occupied, though not a scrap or sign 
 of the labor was visible in the morning. 
 
 The crisis anticipated came within a fortnight. 
 Lady Ann did not show herself a second time in the 
 nursery, but sending for Jane, informed her that an 
 experienced nurse was on her way from London to 
 take charge of the child, and her services would not 
 be required after the next morning. 
 
 "For, of course, "concluded her ladyship, "I could 
 
26 THERE AND HACK. 
 
 not expect a woman of your years to take an under- 
 nurse's place ! " 
 
 " Please, your ladyship, I will gladly," said Jane, 
 eager to avoid or at least postpone the necessity 
 forcing itself upon her. 
 
 " I intend you to go — and ato?ice," replied her lady- 
 ship : " — that is, the moment Mrs. Thornycroft 
 arrives. The housekeeper will take car-e that you 
 have your month's wages in lieu of warning." 
 
 "Very well, my lady! — Please, your ladyship, 
 when may I come and see the child .? " 
 
 "Not at all. There is no necessity." 
 
 " Never, my lady .? " 
 
 '• Decidedly." 
 
 " Then at least I may ask why you send me away 
 so suddenly ! " 
 
 "I told you that I want a properly qualified nurse < 
 to take your place. My wish is to have the child 
 more immediately under my own eye than would 
 be agreeable if you kept your place. I hope I speak 
 plainly ! " 
 
 " Quite, my lady." 
 
 "And let me, for your own sake, recommend you 
 to behave more respectiully when you find another 
 place." 
 
 What she was doing Lady Ann was incapable of 
 knowing. A woman love-brooding over a child is 
 at the gate of heaven ; to take her child from her is 
 to turn her away from more than paradise. 
 
 Jane went in silence, seeming to accept the inevi- 
 table, too proud to wipe away the tear whose rising 
 she could not help — o. tear not for herself, nor yet for 
 the child, but for the dead mother in whose place 
 she left such a woman. She walked slowly back to 
 
STEPMOTHER AND NURSE. 27 
 
 the nursery, where her charge was asleep, closed the 
 door, sat down by the cot, and sat for a while with- 
 out moving. Then her countenance began to change, 
 and slowly went on changing, until at last, as through 
 a mist of troubled emotion, out upon the strong, 
 rugged face broke, with strange suggestion of a sun- 
 set, the glow of resolve and justified desire. A maid 
 more friendly than the rest brought her some tea, 
 but Jane said nothing of what had occurred. When 
 the child awoke, she fed him, and played with him 
 a long time — till he was thoroughly tired, when she 
 undressed him, and laying him down, set about pre- 
 paring his evening meal. No one could have per- 
 ceived in her any difference, except indeed it were a 
 subdued excitement in her glowing eyes. When it 
 was ready, she went to her box, took from it a small 
 bottle, and poured a few dark-colored drops into the 
 food. 
 
 "God forgive me ! it's but this once ! " she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 The child seemed not quite to relish his supper, 
 but did not refuse it, and was presently asleep in her 
 arms. She laid him down, took a book, and began 
 to read. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FLIGHT. 
 
 She read until every sound had died in the house, 
 every sound from garret to cellar, except the ticking 
 of clock, and the tinkling cracks of sinking fires and 
 cooling grates. In the regnant silence she rose, laid 
 aside her book, softly opened the door, and stepped 
 as softly into the narrow passage. A moment or 
 two she listened, then stole on tiptoe to the main cor- 
 ridor, and again listened. She went next to the head 
 of the great stair, and once more stood and listened. 
 Then she crept down to the drawing-room, saw that 
 there was no light in the library, billiard-room or 
 smoking-room, and with stealthy feet returned to the 
 nursery. There she closed the door she had left 
 open, and took the child. He lay in her arms like 
 one dead. She removed everything he wore, and 
 dressed him in the garments which for the last fort- 
 night she had been making for him from clothes of 
 her own. When she had done, he looked like any 
 cottager's child ; there was nothing in his face to 
 contradict his attire. She regarded the result for a 
 moment with a triumph of satisfaction, laid him 
 down, and proceeded to put away the clothes he had 
 worn. 
 
 Over the top of the door was a small cupboard in 
 the wall, into which she had never looked until the 
 day before, when she opened it and found it empty. 
 
THE FLIGHT. 29 
 
 She placed a table under it, and a chair on the table, 
 climbed up, laid in it everything she had taken off 
 the child, locked the door of it, put the key in her 
 pocket, and got down. Then she took the cloak 
 and hood he had hitherto worn out of doors, laid 
 them down beside the wardrobe, and lifting the 
 end of it with a strength worthy of the blacksmith's 
 daughter, pushed them with her foot into the hollow 
 between the bottom of the wardrobe and the floor 
 of the room. This done, she looked at the time- 
 piece on the mantelshelf, saw it was one o'clock, 
 and sat down to recover her breath. But the next 
 moment she was on her knees^ sobbing. By and 
 by she rose, wiped the hot tears from her eyes, and 
 went carefully about the room, gathering up this and 
 that, and putting it into her box. Then having 
 locked it, she stuffed a number of small pieces of 
 paper into the lock, using a crochet-needle to get 
 them well among the wards. Lastly, she put on a 
 dress she had never worn at Mortgrange, took up 
 the child, who was still in a dead sleep, wrapped 
 him in an old shawl, and stole with him from the 
 room. 
 
 Like those of a thief — or murderess rather, her 
 scared eyes looked on this side and that, as she crept 
 to a narrow stair that led' to the kitchen. She knew 
 every turn and every opening in this part of the 
 house : for weeks she had been occupied, both in- 
 tellect and imagination, with the daring idea she 
 was now carrying into effect. 
 
 She reached the one door that might yield a safe 
 exit, unlocked it noiselessly, and stood in a little 
 paved yard with a pump, whence another door in 
 an ivy-covered wall opened into the kitchen-garden. 
 
30 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 The moon shone large and clear, but the shadow of 
 the house protected her. It was the month of 
 August, warm and still. If only it had been dark ! 
 Outside the door she was still in the shadow. For 
 the first time in her life she loved the darkness. 
 Along the wall she stole as if clinging to it. Yet 
 another door led into a shrubbery surrounding the 
 cottage of the head-gardener, whence a back-road 
 led to a gate, over which she could climb, so to 
 reach the highway, along whose honest, unshadowed 
 spaces she must walk miles and miles before she 
 could even hope herself safe. 
 
 She stood at length in the broad moonlight, on the 
 white, far-reaching road. Her heart beat so fast as 
 almost to stifle her. She dared not look down at 
 the child, lest some one should see her and look 
 also ! The moon herself had an aspect of suspicion ! 
 Why did she keep staring so ? For an instant she 
 wished herself back in the nursery. But she knew 
 it would only be to do it all over again : it had to be 
 done ! Leave the child of her sister where he was 
 counted in the way ! with those who hated him ! 
 where his helpless life was in danger ! She could 
 not! 
 
 But, while she thought, she did not stand. Softly, 
 with great strides she went stalking along the road. 
 She knew the country : she was not many miles 
 from her father's forge, whence at moments she 
 seemed to hear the ring of his hammer through the 
 still night. 
 
 She kept to the road for three or four miles, then 
 turned aside on a great moor stretching far to the 
 south : daybreak was coming fast ; she must find 
 some cottage or natural shelter, lest the light should 
 
THE FLIGHT. 3 I 
 
 betray her. When the sun had made his round, and 
 yielded his place to the friendly night, she would 
 start afresh ! In her bundle she had enough for the 
 baby ; for herself, she could hold out many hours 
 unfed. A few more miles from Mortgrange, and no 
 one would know her ! neither from any possible 
 description could they be suspected in the garments 
 they wore ! Her object in hiding their usual attire 
 had been that it might be taken for granted they had 
 gone away in it. 
 
 She did not slacken her pace till she had walked 
 five miles more. Then she stood a moment, and 
 gazed about her. The great heath was all around, 
 solitary as the heaven out of which the solitary moon, 
 with no child to comfort her, was enviously watch- 
 ing them. But she would not stop to rest, save for 
 the briefest breathing space ! On and on she went 
 until moorland miles five more, as near as she could 
 judge, were behind her. Then at length she sat 
 down upon a stone, and a timid flutter of safety 
 stirred in her bosom, followed by a gush of love vic- 
 torious. Her treasure ! her treasure ! Not once on 
 the long way had she looked at him. Now she 
 folded back the shawl, and gazed as not even a lover 
 could have gazed on the sleeping countenance of his 
 rescued bride. The passion of no other possession' 
 could have equalled the intensity of her conscious 
 having. Not one created being had a right to the 
 child but herself!— yet any moment he might be 
 taken from her by a cold-hearted, cruel stepmother, 
 and given to a hired woman ! She started to her 
 feet, and hurried on. The boy was no light weight, 
 and she had things to carry besides, which her love 
 said he could not do without ; yet before seven 
 
32 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 o'clock she had cleared some sixteen miles, in a line 
 from Mortgrange as straight as she could keep. 
 
 She thought she must now be near a village whose 
 name she knew ; but she dared not show herself lest 
 some advertisement might reach it after she was 
 gone, and lead to the discovery of the route she had 
 taken. She turned aside therefore into an old quarry, 
 there to spend the day, unvisited of human soul. 
 The child was now awake, but still drowsy. She 
 gave him a little food, and ate the crust she had 
 saved from her tea the night before. During the 
 long hours she slept a good deal by fits, and when 
 the evening came, was quite fit to resume her tramp. 
 To her joy it came cloudy, giving her courage to 
 enter a little shop she saw on the outskirts of the 
 village, and buy some milk and some bread. From 
 this point she kept the road : she might now avail 
 herself of help from cart or wagon. She was not 
 without money, but feared the railway. 
 
 It is needless to follow her wanderings, always 
 toward London, where was her husband, and her 
 home. A weary, but happy, and almost no longer 
 an anxious woman, she reached at length a certain 
 populous suburb, and was soon in the arms of her 
 husband. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BOOKBINDER AND HIS PUPIL. 
 
 It was the middle of the day before they were 
 missed. Their absence caused for a time no com- 
 motion ; the servants said nurse must have taken the 
 child for his usual walk. But when the nurse from 
 London came, and, after renewed search and inquiry, 
 nothing- was heard of them, their disappearance 
 could no longer be kept from Lady Ann. She sent 
 to inform her husband. 
 
 Sir Wilton asked a question or two of her mes- 
 senger, said the thing must be seen to, finished his 
 cigar, threw the stump in the fire, and went to his 
 wife ; when at once they began to discuss, not the 
 steps to be taken for the recovery of the child, but 
 the woman's motive for stealing him. The lady in- 
 sisted it was revenge for having been turned away, 
 and that she would, as soon as she reached a suit- 
 able place, put an end to his life : she had seen 
 murder in her eyes ! The father opined there was 
 no such danger : he remembered, though he did not 
 mention it, the peculiarity of the woman's behavior 
 when first he saw her. There was no limit, he said, 
 to the unnatural fancies of women ; some were dis- 
 gustingly fond of children, even of other women's 
 children. Plain as the infant was, he did not doubt 
 she had taken a fancy to him, and therefore de- 
 clined to part with him. The element of revenge 
 3 
 
34 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 might, he allowed, have a share in the deed ; 
 but that would be satisfied with leaving- them in 
 doubt of his fate. For his part, he made her wel- 
 come to him ! To this Lady Ann gave no answer : she 
 was not easily shocked, and could, without conster- 
 nation, have regarded his disappearance as final. 
 But something must at least appear to be done ! Un- 
 pleasant things might be said, and uncertainty was 
 full of annoyance ! 
 
 "You must be careful, Sir Wilton," she remarked. 
 " Nobody thinks you believe the child your own." 
 
 Sir Wilton laughed. 
 
 "I never had a doubt on the subject. I wish I 
 had : he's not to my credit. If we never hear of him 
 again, the better for the next ! " 
 
 " That is true ! " rejoined Lady Ann. " But what 
 if, after we have forgotten all about him, he were to 
 turn up again .-• " 
 
 "That would be unpleasant — and is indeed a 
 reason why we should look for him. Better find 
 him than live in doubt! Besides, the world would 
 be uncharitable enough to hint that you had made 
 away with him : it's what ought to have been done 
 when first he appeared. I glr^ you my word, Ann, 
 he was a positive monster ! The object was actually 
 web-footed ! — web-footed like any frog ! " 
 
 " You must let the police know," said the lady, 
 
 "That the child is wob-footed.' No, I think not," 
 yawned Sir Wilton. 
 
 He got up, went out,, and ordered a groom to ride 
 hard to the village — as hard as he could go — and let the 
 police understand what had occurred. Within the 
 hour a constable ai>peared, come to inquire when 
 last the fugitives were seen, and what they wore — 
 
THE BOOKBINDER AND HIS PUPIL. 35 
 
 the answer to which latter question set the police 
 looking for persons very different in appearance from 
 Jane and her nursling. Nothing was heard of them, 
 and the inquiry, never prosecuted with any vigor, 
 was by degrees dropped entirely. 
 
 John Tuke had grumbled greatly at his wife's de- 
 sertion of him for grandees who would never thank 
 her ; but he gave in to the prolongation of her ab- 
 sence with a better grace, when he learned how the 
 motherless baby was regarded by his own people. 
 The humanity of the man rose in defence of the 
 injured. He felt also that, in espousing the cause of 
 his wife's nephew, scorned by his baronet father, he 
 was taking the part of his own down-trodden class. 
 He was greatly perplexed, however, as to what end 
 the thing was to have. Must he live without his 
 wife until the boy was sent to school .-* 
 
 He was in bed and fast asleep, when suddenly 
 opening his eyes, he saw beside him the wife he had 
 not seen for twelve months, with the stolen child in 
 her arms. When he heard how the stepmother had 
 treated her, and how the babe was likely to fare 
 among its gentle kin, he was filled with fresh indig- 
 nation ; but, while thoroughly appreciating and ap- 
 proving his wife's decision and energy, he saw to 
 what the deed exposed them, and augured frightful 
 consequences to the discovery that seemed almost 
 certain. But when he understood the precautions 
 she had taken, and bethought himself how often the 
 police fail, he had better hopes of escape. One thing 
 he never dreamed of— and that was, restoring the 
 child. Often at night he would lie wondering how 
 far, in case of their being tried for kidnapping, the 
 defence would reach, that his wife was the child's 
 
36 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 aunt ; and whether the fact that she was none the 
 less a poor woman standings up against the rich, 
 would not render that or any plea unavailing. Jane 
 was, and long remained, serenely hopeful. 
 
 When she left for Mortgrange, they had agreed that 
 her husband should say she was gone to her father's ; 
 and as nobody where they lived knew who or where 
 her father was, nobody had the end of any clue. For 
 some time after her return she did not show herself, 
 leaving it to her husband to say she had come back 
 with her baby. Then she began to appear with the 
 child, and so managed her references to her absence, 
 that no one dreamed of his not being her own, or 
 imagined that she had left her husband for other reason 
 than to be tended at her old home in her confinement. 
 After a few years, even the fact of his not having 
 been born in that house was forgotten ; and Richard 
 Lestrange grew up as the son of John Tuke, the 
 bookbinder. Not in any mind was there a doubt as 
 to his parentage. 
 
 They lived on the very bank of the Thames, in a 
 poor part of a populous, busy, thriving suburb, far 
 from fashionable, yet not without inhabitants of re- 
 finement. Had not art and literature sent out a few 
 suckers into it, there would have been no place in it 
 for John Tuke. For, more than liking his trade, 
 being indeed fond of it, he would not work for the 
 booksellers, but used his talent to the satisfaction of 
 known customers, of whom he had now not a few, for 
 his reputation had spread beyond the near neigh- 
 borhood. But while he worked cheaper, quality 
 considered, than many binders, even carefully super- 
 intending that most important yet most neglected 
 part of the handicraft, the sewing, he never under- 
 
THE BOOKBINDER AND HIS PUPIL. 
 
 Zl 
 
 took cheap work. Never, indeed, without persuasion 
 on the part of his employer and expostulation on his 
 own, did he consent to half-bind a book. Hence it 
 comes to be confessed, that, when carte blanche was 
 given him, he would not infrequently expend upon a 
 book an amount of labor and a value of material 
 quite out of proportion to the importance of the book. 
 Still, being a thoroughly conscientious workman, 
 who never hurried the forwarding, never cut from a 
 margin a hair's breadth more than was necessary, 
 and hated finger-marks on the whiteness of a page, 
 he was well known as such, and had plenty of work 
 — had often, indeed, to refuse what was offered him, 
 hence was able to decline all such jobs as would 
 give him no pleasure, and grew more fastidious as 
 he grew older in regard to the quality of the work he 
 would undertake. He had never employed a journey- 
 man, and would never take more than two appren- 
 tices at a time. 
 
 As Richard Lestrange grew, his chief pleasure was 
 to be in the shop with his uncle, and watch him at 
 his varying work. I think his knowledge of books 
 as things led him the sooner to desire them as reali- 
 ties, for to read he learned with avidity. When he 
 was old enough to go to school, his adoptive father 
 spared nothing he could spend to make him fit for 
 his future ; wisely resolved, however, that he should 
 know nothing of his rights until he was of an age to 
 understand them — except, indeed. Sir Wilton should 
 die before that age arrived, when his cause would be 
 too much prejudiced by farther postponement of 
 claim. Heartily they hoped that their secret might 
 remain a secret until their nephew should be capable 
 
38 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 of protecting them from any untoward consequence 
 of their well intended crime. 
 
 Happily there was in the place, and near enough 
 for the boy to attend it easily, a good day-school 
 upon an old foundation, whose fees were within his 
 fathers means. Richard proved a fair student and 
 became a great reader. But he took such an in- 
 telligent and practical interest in the work he saw 
 going on at home, that he began, while yet a mere 
 child, to use paste and paper of his own accord. First 
 he made manuscript-books for his work at school, 
 and for the copying of such verses as he took a fancy 
 to in his reading. Then inside the covers of some of 
 these he would make pockets for papers ; and so ad- 
 vanced to small portfolios and pocket-books, of which 
 he would make presents to his companions and 
 sometimes, when more ambitiously successful, to 
 a master. In their construction he used bits of 
 colored paper and scraps of leather, chiefly mo- 
 rocco, which his father willingly made over to him, 
 watching his progress with an interest quite paternal, 
 and showing a workman's wisdom in this, that only 
 when he saw him in a real difficulty would he come 
 to his aid — as, for instance, when first he struggled 
 with a piece of leather too thick for the bonds of paste, 
 and must be taught how to pare it to the necessary 
 flexibility and compliance. 
 
 To become able to make something is, I think, 
 necessary to thorough development. I would rather 
 have son of mine a carpenter, a watchmaker, a wood- 
 carver, a shoemaker, a jeweller, a blacksmith, a 
 bookbinder, than I would have him earn his bread 
 as a clerk in a counting-house. Not merely is the 
 cultivation of operant faculty a better education in 
 
THE BOOKBINDER AND HIS PUPIL, 39 
 
 faculty, but it brings the man nearer to everything 
 operant ; humanity unfolds itself to him the readier ; 
 its ways and thoughts and modes of being grow the 
 clearer to both intellect and heart. The poetry of life, 
 the inner side of that nature which comes from Him 
 who, on the Sabbath-days even, "worketh hitherto," 
 rises nearer the surface to meet the eyes of the man, 
 who makes. What advantage the carpenter of Naza- 
 reth gathered from his bench, is the inheritance of 
 every workman, in proportion as he does divine, 
 that is, honest work. 
 
 Perceiving the faculty of the boy, his father — so 
 let us call John Tuke for the present — naturally 
 thought it well to make him a gift of his trade : it 
 would always be a possession ! "Whatever turn 
 things may take," he would remark to his wife, " the 
 boy will have his bread in his hands. And say what 
 they will, the man who can gather his food off his 
 own bench, or screw it out of his own press, must be 
 a freer man than he who but for his inheritance would 
 have to beg, steal, or die of hunger. And who knows 
 how long the world may permit idlers to fare of its 
 best ! " 
 
 ■ For, after a fashion of his own, Tuke was a philos- 
 opher and a politician. But his politics were those 
 of the philosopher, not of the politician. 
 
 Richard, with his great love of reading, and there- 
 fore of books, was delighted to learn the craft which 
 is their attendant and servitor. When too young yet 
 to wield the hammer without danger both to himself 
 and the book under it, he began to sew, and in a 
 few weeks was able to bring the sheets together en- 
 tirely to the satisfaction of his father. From the first 
 he set him to do that essential part of the work in 
 
40 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 the best way, that is, to sew every sheet round every 
 cord : it is only when one can perfectly work after 
 the perfect rule, that he may be trusted with variations 
 and exceptions. 
 
 He went on teaching him until the boy could, he 
 confessed, do almost everything better than himself — 
 went on until he had taught him every delicacy, 
 every secret of the craft Richard developed a posi- 
 tive genius for the work, seeming almost to learn it 
 by intuition. A pocket-book, with which he presented 
 his father on his fiftieth birthday, brought out his 
 unqualified praise. 
 
 In the process he gradually revealed a predilection 
 for a rarer use of his faculty — a use more nice, while 
 less distinguished, and not much favored by his 
 father. It had its prime source deeper than the art 
 of bookbinding — in the love of books themselves, 
 not as leaves to be bound, but as utterances to be 
 heard. Certain dealers in old books have loved some 
 of them so as to refuse to part with them on any 
 terms ; Richard, unable to possess more than a very 
 few, manifested his veneration for them in another 
 and nearer fashion, running, as was natural and 
 healthy, in the lines of his calling. 
 
 For many months in diligent attendance at certain 
 of the evening-classes at King's College, .he had 
 developed a true insight into and sympathy with 
 what is best in our literature — chiefly in that of 
 the sixteenth century : from this grew an almost 
 peculiar regard for old books. With three or four 
 shillings weekly at his disposal, he laid himself out 
 to discover and buy such volumes as, in themselves 
 of value, were in so bad a condition as to be of little 
 worth from the mere bookseller's point of view : with 
 
THE BOOKBINDER AND HIS PUPIL. 4 1 
 
 these for his first patients he opened a hospital, or 
 angel-asylum, for the lodging, restorative treatment, 
 and systematic invigoration of decayed volumes. 
 Love and power combined made him look on the 
 dilapidated, slow-wasting abodes of human thought 
 and delight with a healing compassion — almost with 
 a passion of healing. The worse gnawed of the 
 tooth of insect-time, the farther down any choice 
 book in the steep decline of years, the more intent 
 was Richard on having it. More and more skilful 
 he grew, not only in rebinding such whose clothing 
 was past repair, but in restoring^e tone of their very 
 constitution ; and in so mending the ancient and 
 beggarly garments of others that they reassumed a 
 venerable respectability. Through love he passed 
 from an artisan to an artist. His reverence for the 
 inner reality, the book itself, in itself beyond time 
 and decay, had roused in him a child-like regard for 
 its body, for its broken inclosure and default of 
 manifestation. He would espy the beauty of an old 
 binding through any amount of abrasion and lacera- 
 tion. To his eyes almost any old binding was better 
 for its book than any new one. 
 
 His father came to regard with wonder and admira- 
 tion the redeeming faculty of his son, whereby he 
 would reinstate in strength and ripe dignity a volume 
 which he would have taken to pieces, and re-dressed 
 like an age-worn woman in a fashionable gown. So 
 far did his son's superior taste work upon his, that at 
 length, if he opened a new binding, however sombre, 
 and saw a time-browned paper and old type within, 
 the sight would give him the shock of a discord. 
 
 But Tuke was in many things no other than a 
 man of this world, and sorely he doubted if such 
 
4 2 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 labor would ever have its counterpoise in money. 
 It paid better, because it was much easier, to reclothe 
 than to restore ! to destroy and replace than to 
 renew ! When he had watched many times for 
 minutes together his son's delicate manipulation — in 
 which he patched without pauperizing, and sub-aided 
 without humiliating — and at last contemplated the 
 finished result, he concluded him possessed of a quite 
 original faculty for book-healing. — "But alas," he 
 thought, "genius seldom gets beyond board-wages.'' 
 It did not occur to him that genius least requires 
 more than board wages. He encouraged him, never- 
 theless, though mildly, in the pursuit of this neglected 
 branch of the binding-art. 
 
 As the days went on, and their love for their 
 nephew grew with his deserts, the uncle and aunt 
 shrank more and more from the thought, which every 
 year compelled them to think the oftener, that the 
 day was drawing nigh when they must volunteer the 
 confession that he was not their child. 
 
 Wlien he was about seventeen, Richard settled 
 down to work with his father, occasionally assisting 
 him, but in general occupied with his own special 
 branch, in which Tuke, through his long connection 
 with book-lovers possessing small cherished libraries, 
 was able to bring him almost as many jobs as he 
 could undertake. The fact that a volume could be 
 so repaired, stimulated the purchase of shabby books; 
 and part of what was saved on the price of a good 
 copy was laid out on the amendment of the poor one. 
 But however much the youth delighted in it, he could 
 not but find the work fidgety and tiring ; whence 
 ensued the advantage that he left it the oftener for a 
 ramble, or a solitary hour on the river. He had but 
 
THE BOOKBINDER AND HIS PUPIL. 43 
 
 few companions, his guardians, wisely or not, being 
 more fastidious about his associates than if he had 
 been their very son. His uncle, of strong socialistic 
 opinions, and wont to dilate on human equality — as 
 if the thing that ought to be, and must one day come, 
 could be furthered by the assertion of its present 
 existence— was, like the holders of even higher theo- 
 ries, not a little apt to forget the practice necessarily 
 involved : this son of a baronet, seeing that he was 
 the son also of his wife's sister, was not to be brought 
 up like one of the many ! 
 
 Ugliness in infancy is a promise, though perhaps 
 a doubtful one, of beauty in manhood ; and in Rich- 
 ard's case the promise was fulfilled : hardly a hint 
 was left of the baby-face which had repelled his 
 father. He was now a handsome well-grown youth, 
 with dark-brown hair, dark-green eyes, broad shoul- 
 ders, and a little stoop which made his aunt uneasy : 
 she would have had him join a volunteer corps, but 
 he declared he had not the time. He accepted her 
 encouragement, however, to forsake his work as 
 often as he felt inclined. He had good health ; 
 what was better, a good temper ; and, what was 
 better still, a willing heart toward his neighbor. A 
 certain overhanging of his brows was — especially 
 when he contracted them, as, in perplexity or en- 
 deavor, he not infrequently did — called a scowl by 
 such as did not love him ; but it was of shallow sig- 
 nificance, and probably the trick of some ancestor. 
 
 Before long, his thinking began to take form in 
 verse-making.- It matters little to my narrative 
 whether he produced anything of original value or 
 not ; utterance aids growth, which is the prime neces- 
 sity of human as of all other life. Not seldom, bent 
 
44 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 over his work, he would be evolving some musical 
 fashion of words — with no relaxation, however, of 
 the sharp attention and delicate handling required by 
 the nature of that work. It is the privilege of some 
 kinds of labor, that they are compatible with thoughts 
 of higher things. At the book-keeper's desk, the clerk 
 must think of nothing but his work ; he is chained to 
 it as the galley-slave to his oar ; the shoemaker may 
 be poet or mystic, or both ; the ploughman may turn 
 a good furrow and a good verse together ; Richard 
 could at once use hands and thoughts. It troubled 
 his protectors that they could not send him to college, 
 but they comforted themselves that it would not be 
 too late when he returned to his natural position in 
 society. They had no plan in their minds, no date 
 settled at which to initiate his restoration. All they 
 had determined was, that he must at least be a grown 
 man, capable of looking after his own affairs, when 
 the first step for it was taken. 
 
 John Tuke was one of those who acknowledge in 
 some measure the claims of their neighbor, but assert 
 ignorance of any one who must be worshipped. 
 And in truth, the God presented to him by his teachers 
 was one with little claim on human devotion. The 
 religious system brought to bear on his youth had 
 operated but feebly on his conscience, and not at all 
 on his affections. It had, however, so wrought 
 upon his apprehensions, that, when afterward per- 
 suaded there was no ground for agonizing anticipa- 
 tion, he welcomed the conviction as in itself a re- 
 demption for all men; "for, surely," he argued, 
 "fear is the worst of evils ! " The very approach of 
 such a relief predisposed him to receive whatever 
 teaching might follow from the same source ; and 
 
THE BOOKBINDER AND HIS PUPIL. 45 
 
 soon he believed himself satisfied that the notion of 
 religion — of duty toward an unseen Maker — was but 
 an old-wives'-fable ; and that, as to the hereafter, a 
 mere cessation of consciousness was the only reason- 
 able expectation. The testimony of his senses, al- 
 though negative, he accepted as stronger on that side 
 than any amount of what could, he said, be but the 
 purest assertion on the other. Why should he heed 
 an old book.? why one more than another? The 
 world was around him : some things he must believe ; 
 other things no man could ! One thing was clear : 
 every man was bound to give his neighbor fair play ! 
 He would press nothing upon Richard as to God or 
 no God ! he would not be dogmatic ! he only wanted 
 to make a man of him ! And was he not so far suc- 
 cessful .'' argued John. Was not Richard growing up 
 a diligent, honest fellow, loving books, and leading 
 a good life ; whereas, had he been left to his father, 
 he could not have escaped being arrogant and unjust, 
 despising the poor of his own flesh, and caring only 
 to please himself! In the midst of such superior 
 causes of satisfaction, it also pleased Tuke to reflect 
 that the trade he had taught his nephew was a clean 
 one, which, while it rendered him superior to any 
 shrewd trick fortune might play him, would not 
 make his hands unlike those of a gentleman. 
 
 His aunt, however, kept wishing that Richard were 
 better "set up," and looked more like his grandfather 
 the blacksmith, whose trade she could not help re- 
 garding as manlier than that of her husband. Hence 
 she had long cherished the desire that he should 
 spend some time with her father. But John would 
 not hear of it. He would get working at the forge, 
 
46 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 he said, and ruin his hands for the delicate art in 
 which he was now unapproachable. 
 
 For in certain less socialistic moods, John would 
 insist on regarding bookbinding, in all and any of 
 its branches, not as a trade, but an art. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE M ANSON S. 
 
 At school, Richard had been friendly with a boy 
 of gentle, nature, not many years older than himself. 
 The boy had stood his friend in more than one dif- 
 ficulty, and Richard heartily loved him. But he had 
 suddently disappeared from the school, and so from 
 Richards ken : for years he had not seen him. One 
 evening-, as he vi^as carrying home a book, he met 
 this Arthur Manson, looking worn and sad. He 
 would have avoided Richard, but he stopped him, 
 and presently the old friendship was dominant. 
 Arthur told him his story. He had had to leave 
 school because of the sudden cessation, from what 
 cause he did not know, of a certain annuity his 
 mother had till then enjoyed — rendering it impera- 
 tive that he should earn his own living, and contri- 
 bute to her support, for although she still had a little 
 money, it was not nearly enough. His sister was 
 at work with a dressmaker, but as yet earning next 
 to nothing. His mother was a lady, he said, and 
 had never done any work. He was himself in a 
 counting-house in the city, with a salary of forty 
 pounds. He told him where they lived, and Richard 
 promised to go and see him, which he did the next 
 Sunday. 
 
 His friend's mother lived in a little house of two 
 
48 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 floors, one of a long row lately built. The furniture 
 was much too large, and it was ditficult to move in 
 the tiny drawing-room. It showed a feeble attempt 
 at decoration, which made it look the poorer. Ac- 
 customed to his mother's care of her things, Richard 
 perceived a difference : these were much finer but 
 neglected, and looked as if they felt it. At their 
 evening meal, however, the tea was good, and the 
 bread and butter were of the best. 
 
 The mother was a handsome middle-aged woman 
 — not so old, Richard somehow imagined, as she 
 looked. She was stout and florid, with plenty of 
 black, rather coarse hair, and seemed to Richard to 
 have the carriage of a lady, but not speech equal to 
 her manners. She was polite to him, but not ap- 
 parently interested in her son's friend. Yet several 
 times he found her gazing at him with an expression 
 that puzzled him. He had, however, too clear a 
 conscience to be troubled by any scrutiny. 
 
 All the evening Arthur's face wore the same look 
 of depression, and Richard wondered what could be 
 amiss. He learned afterward that the mother was so 
 self-indulgent, and took so little care to make the 
 money go as far as it could, that he had not merely 
 to toil from morning to night at uncongenial labor, 
 but could never have the least recreation, and was 
 always too tired when he came home to understand 
 any book he attempted to read. Richard learned 
 also that he had no greatcoat, and went to the city in 
 the winter with only a shabby comforter in addition 
 to the clothes he had worn all the summer. But it 
 was not Arthur who told him this. 
 
 The girl was a graceful little creature, with the 
 same sad look her brother had, but not the same 
 
THE HANSONS. 49 
 
 depression. She seemed more delicate and less 
 capable of labor ; yet her hours were longer than 
 his, and her confinement greater. Alice had to sit 
 the whole day plying her needle, while Arthur was 
 occasionally sent out to collect money. But her 
 mistress was a kind-hearted woman, and not having 
 a fashionable clieneek, had not yet become indifferent 
 to the well-being of her workwomen. She even paid 
 a crippled girl a trifle for reading to them, stipulat- 
 ing only that she should read fast, for she found the 
 rate of their working greatly influenced by the rate 
 of the reading. Life, if harder, was therefore not 
 quite so uninteresting to Alice as to Arthur, and that 
 might be why she seemed to have more vitality. 
 Like her mother she had a quantity of hair, as dark 
 as hers, but finer ; dark eyes, not without meaning ; 
 irregular but very pleasing and delicate features ; and 
 an unusually white rather than pale complexion, with 
 a sort of a sallow glow under the diaphanous skin. 
 There was not a little piquancy in the expression of 
 her countenance, and Richard felt it strangely attrac- 
 tive. 
 
 The youths found they had still tastes in common, 
 although Arthur had neither time nor strength to fol- 
 low them. Richard spoke of some book he had been 
 reading. Arthur was interested, but Alice so much 
 that Richard offered to lend it to her : it was the first 
 time she had heard a book spoken of in such a tone 
 — one of suppressed feeling, almost veneration. 
 
 The mother did not join in their talk, and left them 
 soon — her daughter said to go to church. 
 
 "She always goes by herself," Alice added. "She 
 sees we are too tired to go. " 
 
 They sat a long time with no light but that of the 
 
 A. 
 
50 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 fire. Arthur seemed to g-ather courage, and con- 
 fessed the hopeless monotony of his life. He com- 
 plained of no privation, only of want of interest in 
 his work. 
 
 " Dojyou like your work.' '" he asked Richard. 
 
 "Indeed I do!" Richard answered. " I would 
 sooner handle an old book than a bunch of bank- 
 notes ! " 
 
 "I don't doubt it," returned Arthur. "To me 
 your workshop seems a paradise." 
 
 "Why don't you take up the trade, then.? Come 
 to us and I will teach you. I do not think my father 
 would object." 
 
 " I learn nothing- where I am ! " continued Arthur. 
 
 "Our boat is not over-manned," resumed Rich- 
 ard. " Say you will come, and I will speak to my 
 father." 
 
 "I wish I could! But how are we to live while 
 lam learning-.? — No; I must grind away till " 
 
 He stopped short, and gave a sigh. 
 
 "Till when, Arty.?" asked his sister. 
 
 "Till death set me free," he answered. 
 
 "You wouldn't leave me behind, Arty!" said 
 Alice ; and rising, she put her arm round his neck. 
 
 " I wouldn't if I could help it," he replied. 
 
 "It's a cowardly thing to want to die," said 
 Richard. 
 
 "I think so sometimes." 
 
 " There's your mother ! " 
 
 "Yes," responded Arthur, but without emotion. 
 
 "And how should I get on without you, Arty .? " 
 said his sister. 
 
 "Not very well. Ally. But it wouldn't be for 
 long. We should soon meet." 
 
THE MANSONS. 51 
 
 "Who told you that ? " said Richard, almost rudely. 
 
 " Don't you think we shall know each other after- 
 wards? " asked Arthur, with an expression of weary 
 rather than sad surprise. 
 
 "I would be a little surer of it before I talked so 
 coolly of leaving a sister Hke that ! I only wish / 
 had one to care for ! " 
 
 A faint flush rose on the pale face of the girl, and 
 as swiftly faded. 
 
 "Do you think, then, that this life is only a 
 dream ? " she said, looking up at Richard with some- 
 thing in her great eyes that he did not understand. 
 
 "Anyhow," he answered, "I would bear a good 
 deal rather than run the risk of going so fast asleep 
 as to stop dreaming it. A man can die any time," 
 he continued, "but he can't dream when he pleases ! 
 I would wait ! One can't tell when things may take 
 a turn ! There are many chances on the cards ! " 
 
 "That's true," replied Arthur; but plainly the very 
 chances were a weariness to him. 
 
 " If Arthur had enough to eat, and time to read, 
 and a little amusement, he would be as brave as you 
 are, Mr. Tuke ! " said Alice. " — But you can't mean 
 to say there will be no more of anything for us after 
 this world ! To think I should never see Arty again, 
 would make me die before my time ! I should be 
 so miserable I would hardly care to keep him as long 
 as I might. We must die som.e day, and what odds 
 whether it be a few days sooner, or a few days later, 
 if we're never going to meet again .? " 
 
 "The best way is not to think about it," returned 
 Richard. " Why should you .? Look at the butter- 
 flics ! They take what comes, and don't grumble at 
 their sunshine because there's only one day of it." 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "But when there's no sunshine that day?" sug- 
 gested AUce. 
 
 "Well, when they lie crumpled in the rain, they're 
 none the worse that they didn't think about it before- 
 hand! We must make the best of what we have ! " 
 
 "It's not worth making the best of," cried Alice, 
 indignantly, ' ' if that's all ! " 
 
 My reader may well wonder at Richard : how could 
 he be a lover of- our best literature and talk as he 
 did? or rather, talking as he did, how could he 
 love it? But he had come to love it while yet under 
 the influence of what his aunt taught him, poor as 
 w^as her teaching. Then his heart and imagination 
 were more in the ascendency. Now he had begun 
 to admire the intellectual quahties of that literature 
 more, and its imaginative less ; for he had begun to 
 think truth attainable through the forces of the brain, 
 sole and supreme. 
 
 In matters of conduct, John Tuke and his wife 
 were well agreed; in matters of opinion, they dif- 
 fered greatly. Jane went to church regularly, lis- 
 tened without interest, and accepted without question; 
 had her husband gone, he would have listened with 
 the interest of utter dissent. When Jane learned that 
 her husband no longer " believed in the Bible," she 
 was seized with terror lest he should die without 
 repentance and be lost. Thereupon followed fear 
 for herself : was not an atheist a horribly wicked 
 man .?— and she could not feel that John was horribly 
 wicked ! She tried her hardest, but could not ; and 
 concluded therefore that his unbelief must be affect- 
 ing her. She prayed him to say nothing against the 
 Bible to Richard— at least before he arrived at years of 
 
THE MANSONS. 53 
 
 discretion. This John promised ; but subtle efflu- 
 ences are subtle influences. 
 
 John Tuke did right so far as he knew — at least he 
 thought he did — and refused to believe in any kind 
 of God ; Jane did right, she thought, as far as she 
 knew — and never imagined God cared about her: 
 let him who has a mind to it, show the value of the 
 difference ! 
 
 Tuke was a thinking man ; — that is, set a going in 
 any direction that interested him, he could take a few 
 steps forward without assistance. But he could start 
 in no direction of himself. At a small club to which 
 he belonged, he had been brought in contact with 
 certain ideas new to him, and finding himself able to 
 grasp them, felt at once as if they must be true. 
 Certain other ideas, new to him, coming self-sug- 
 gested in their train, he began immediately to imag- 
 ine himself a thinker, able to generate notions to 
 which the people around him were unequal. He 
 began to grow self-confident, and so to despise. 
 Taking courage then to deny things he had never 
 believed, had only not thought about, and finding 
 he thereby gave offence, he chose to imagine 
 himself a martyr for the truth. He did not see that 
 a denial involving no assertion, cannot witness to 
 any truth ; nor did he perceive that denial in his case 
 meant nothing more than non-acceptance of things 
 asserted. Had he put his position logically, it would 
 have been this : I never knew such things ; I do not 
 like the notion of them ; therefore I deny them : they 
 do not exist. But no man really denies a thing 
 which he knows only by the words that stand for 
 it. When John Tuke denied the God in his notion, 
 he denied only a God that could have no existence. 
 
54 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 A man will be judged, however, by his truth to- 
 ward what he professes to beheve ; and John was 
 far truer to his perception of the duty of man. to man 
 than are ninety-nine out of the hundred of so-called 
 Christians to the things they profess to believe. How 
 many men would be immeasurably better, if they 
 .would but truly believe, that is, act upon, the smalles.t 
 ,part of what they untruly profess to believe, even if 
 they cast aside all the rest. John cast aside an allegi- 
 ance to God which had never been more than a mock- 
 ery, and set about delivering his race from the fear of 
 a person who did not exist. For, true enough, there 
 was no God of the kind John denied ; only, what if, 
 in delivering his kind from the tyranny of a false 
 God, he aided in hiding from them the love of a true 
 God — of a God that did and ought to exist ? There 
 are other passions besides fear, and precious as fear 
 is hateful. If there be a God and one has never 
 sought him, it will be small consolation to remember 
 that he could not get proof of his existence. Is a 
 child not to seek his father, because he cannot prove 
 he is alive ? 
 
 The aunt continued to take the boy to church, and 
 expose him, for it was little more she did, to a teach- 
 ing she could not herself either supply or supplement. 
 It was the business of the church to teach Christi- 
 anity ! her part was to accept it, and bring the child 
 where he also might listen and accept ! But what 
 she accepted as Christianity, is another question ; 
 and whether the acceptance of anything makes a 
 Christian, is another still. 
 
 How much of Christianity a child may or may not 
 learn by going to church, it is impossible to say; 
 but certainly Richard did not learn anything that 
 
THE MANSONS. 55 
 
 drew his heart to Jesus of Nazareth, or caught him 
 in any heavenly breeze, or even the smallest of celes- 
 tial whirlwinds ! He learned nothing- even that made 
 unwelcome such remarks as his father would now 
 and then let fall concerning the clergy and the way 
 they followed their trade ; while the grin, full of con- 
 scious superiority, with which he unconsciously ac- 
 companied them, found its reflection in the honorable 
 but not yet humble mind, beginning to be aware of its 
 own faculty, and not aware that the religion presented 
 in his aunt's church, a religion neither honorable nor 
 elevating, was but the dullest travesty of the religion 
 of St. Paul. Richard had, besides, read several books 
 which, had his uncle been careful of the promise he 
 had given his wife, he would have intentionally 
 removed instead of unintentionally leaving about. 
 
 In the position Richard had just taken toward his 
 new friends, he was not a little influenced by the 
 desire to show himself untrammelled by prevailing 
 notions, and capable of thinking for himself; but this 
 was far from all that made him speak as he did. 
 Many young fellows are as ready to deny as Richard, 
 but not many feel as strongly that life rests upon 
 what we know, that knowledge must pass into action. 
 The denial of every falsehood under the sun would 
 not generate one throb of life. 
 
 Richard told his adoptive parents where he had 
 been, and asked if he might invite his new friends 
 for the next Sunday. They made no objection, and 
 when Arthur and Alice came, received them kindly. 
 Richard took Arthur to the shop, and showed him 
 the job he was engaged upon at the time, lauding his 
 department as affording more satisfaction than mere 
 binding. 
 
56 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "For," he said, "the thing that is not, may con- 
 tinue not to be ; but the thing that is, should be as it 
 was meant to be. Where it is not such, there is an 
 evil that wants remedy. It may be that the sole 
 remedy is binding, but that involves destruction, 
 therefore it is a poor thing beside renovation." 
 
 The argument came from a well of human pity in 
 himself, deeper than Richard knew. But both the 
 pity he felt and the truth in what he said came from a 
 source eternal of which he yet knew nothing. 
 
 "It would be much easier," continued Richard, 
 "to make that volume look new, but how much 
 more delightful to send it out with a revived assertion 
 of its ancient self ! " 
 
 Some natures have a better chance of disclosing the 
 original in them, that they have not been to college, 
 and set to think in other people's grooves, instead of 
 those grooves that were scored in themselves long 
 before the glacial era. 
 
 "For my part," said Arthur, "I feel like a book 
 that needs to be fresh printed, not to say fresh bound ! 
 I don't feel why 1 am what I am. I would part with 
 it all, except just being the same man ! " 
 
 While the youths were having their talk, Alice was 
 in Jane's bedroom, undergoing an examination, the 
 end and object of which it was impossible she should 
 suspect. Caught by a certain look in her sweet face, 
 reminding her of a look that was anything but sweet, 
 Jane had set herself to learn from her what she might 
 as to her people and history. 
 
 "Is your father alive, my dear.?" she asked, with 
 her keen black eyes on Alice's face. 
 
 That grew red, and for a moment the girl did not 
 answer. Jane pursued her catechising. 
 
THE MANSONS. 57 
 
 "What was his trade or profession?" she in- 
 quired. 
 
 The girl said nothing, and the merciless questioner 
 went on. 
 
 "Tell me something about him, dear. Do you 
 remember him? Or did he die when you were quite 
 a child? " 
 
 "I do not remember him,'' answered Alice. " I 
 do not know if I ever saw him." 
 
 "Did your mother never tell you what he was 
 like ? " 
 
 " She told me once he was very handsome— the 
 handsomest man she ever saw — but cruel — so cruel ! 
 she said. — I don't want to talk about him, please, 
 ma'am ! " concluded Alice, the tears running down 
 her cheeks. 
 
 "I'm sorry, my dear, to hurt you, but I'm not do- 
 ing it from curiosity. You have a look so like a man 
 I once knew, — and your brother had something of 
 the same ! — that in fact I am bound to learn what I 
 can about you." 
 
 " What sort was the man we put you in mind of? " 
 asked Alice, With a feeble attempt at a smile. " — Not 
 a very bad man, I hope ! " 
 
 "Well, not very good — as you ask me. — He was 
 what people call a gentleman ! " 
 
 "Was that all?" 
 
 "What do you mean ? " 
 
 "I thought he was a nobleman ! " 
 
 "Oh ! — well, he wasn't that ; he was a baronet." 
 
 Alice gave a little cry. 
 
 "Do tell me something about him," she said. 
 "What do you know about him? " 
 
58 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "]\Iore than I choose to tell. We will forget him 
 now, if you please ! " 
 
 There was in her voice a tone of displeasure, which 
 Alice took to be with herself. She was in conse- 
 quence both troubled and perplexed. Neither made 
 any more inquiries. Jane took her guest back to the 
 sitting-room. 
 
 The moment her brother came from the workshop, 
 Alice said to him — 
 
 "Are you ready, Arthur.? We had better be mov- 
 ing ! " 
 
 Arthur was a gentle creature, and seldom opposed 
 her ; he seemed only surprised a little, and asked if 
 she was ill. But Richard, who had all the week been 
 looking forward to a talk with Alice, and wanted to 
 show her his little library, was much disappointed, 
 and begged her to change her mind. She insisted, 
 however, and he put on his hat to walk with them. 
 But his aunt called him, and whispered that she would 
 be particularly obliged to him if he would go to 
 church with her that evening. He expostulated, 
 saying he did not care to go to church ; but as she 
 insisted, he yielded, though not with the best grace. 
 
 Before another Sunday, there came, doubtless by 
 his aunt's management, an invitation to spend a few 
 weeks with his grandfather, the blacksmith. 
 
 Richard was not altogether pleased, for he did not 
 like leaving his work ; but his aunt again prevailed 
 with him, and he agreed to go. In this, as in most 
 things, he showed her a deference such as few young 
 men show their mothers. Her influence came, I 
 presume, through the strong impression of purpose 
 she had made on him. 
 
 His uncle objected to his going, and grumbled a 
 
THE HANSONS. 
 
 59 
 
 good deal. As the brewer looks down on the baker, 
 so the bookbinder looked down on the blacksmith. 
 
 He said the people Richard would see about his 
 grandfather were not fit company for the heir of 
 Mortgrange ! But he knew the necessity of his going 
 somewhere for a while, and gave iu. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SIMON ARMOUR. 
 
 Simon Armour was past only the agility, not the 
 strength of his youth, and in his feats of might and 
 skill he cherished pride. Without being offensively 
 conceited, he regarded himself — and well might — as 
 the superior of any baronet such as his daughter's 
 husband, and desired of him no recognition of the 
 relationship. All he looked for from any man, 
 whether he stood above or beneath his own plane, 
 was proper pay for good work, and natural human 
 respect. Some of the surrounding gentry, possibly 
 not uninfluenced, in sentiment at least, by the grow- 
 ing radicalism of the age, enjoyed the free, jolly, but 
 unpresuming carriage of the stalwart old man, to 
 whom, if indeed on his head the almond-tree was 
 already in blossom, the grasshopper was certainly 
 not yet a burden : he could still ply a sledge-hammer 
 in each hand. " My lord," came from his lips in a 
 clear, ringing tone of good-fellowship, which the 
 nobleman who occasionally stopped at his forge to 
 give him some direction about the shoeing of this or 
 that horse, liked well to hear, and felt the friendlier 
 for — though I doubt if he would have welcomed it 
 from a younger man. 
 
 Besides his daughter Jane and her husband, he 
 alone was aware of the real parentage of the lad who 
 passed as their son ; and he knew that, if he lived 
 long enough, an hour would call him to stand up for 
 
SIMON ARMOUR. 6 1 
 
 the rights of his grandson. Perhaps it was partly in 
 view of this that he had for years been an abstainer 
 from strong drink ; but 1 am inclined to attribute the 
 fact chiefly to his having found the love of it gaining 
 upon him. " Damn the drink ! " he had been more 
 than once overheard to say, "it shall know which of 
 us is master ! " And when Simon had made up his 
 mind to a thing, the thing was — not indeed as good, 
 but almost as sure as done. The smallest of small 
 beer was now his strongest drink. 
 
 He was a hard-featured, good-looking, white- 
 haired man of sixty, with piercing eyes of quite 
 cerulean blue, and a rough voice with an undertone 
 of music in it. There was music, indeed, all through 
 him. In the roughest part of his history it was his 
 habit to go to church — mainly, I may say entirely, 
 for the organ, but his behavior was never other 
 than reverent. How much he understood, may be 
 left a question somewhat dependent on how much 
 there may have been to understand ; but he had a 
 few ideas in religion which were very much his own, 
 and which, especially some with regard to certain of 
 the lessons from the Old Testament, would have 
 considerably astonished some parsons, and consid- 
 erably pleased others. He was a big, broad- 
 shouldered man, with the brawniest arms, and eyes 
 so bright and scintillant that one might fancy they 
 caught and kept for their own use the sparks that 
 flew from his hammer. His face was red, with a 
 great but short white beard, suggesting the sun in a 
 clean morning-fog. 
 
 A rickety omnibus carried Richard from the rail- 
 way-station some five miles to the smithy. When 
 the old man heard it stop, he threw down his ham- 
 
62 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 mer, strode hastily to the door, met his grandson with 
 a gripe that left a black mark and an ache, and 
 catching up his portmanteau, set it down inside. 
 
 " 111 go with you in a moment, lad ! " he said, and 
 seizing with a long pair of pincers the horse-shoe that 
 lay in process on the anvil, he thrust it into the fire, 
 blew a great roaring blast from the bellows, plucked 
 out the shoe glowing white, and fell upon it as if it 
 were a devil. Having thus cowed it a bit, he grew 
 calm, and more deliberately shaped it to an invis- 
 ible idea. His grandson was delighted vi'ith the 
 mingling of determination, intent and power, with 
 certainty of result, manifest in every blow. In two 
 minutes he had the shoe on the end of a long hooked 
 rod, and was hanging it beside others on a row of 
 nails in a beam. Then he turned and said — 
 
 "There, lad! that's off the anvil — and off my 
 mind ! Now I'm for you ! " 
 
 " Grandfather," said Richard, " I shouldn't like to 
 have you for an enemy ! " 
 
 "Why not, you rascal ! Do you think I would 
 take unfair advantage of you .'* " 
 
 "No, that I don't ! But you've got awful arms 
 and hands ! " 
 
 "They've done a job or two in their day, lad ! " 
 he answered ; "but I'm getting old now ! I can"t do 
 what I thought nothing of once. Well, no man was 
 made to last forever — no more than a horse-shoe ! 
 There'd be no work for the Maker if he did ! " 
 
 " I'm glad to see we're of one mind, grandfather ! " 
 said Richard. 
 
 "Well, why shouldn't we — if so be we're in the 
 right mind ! — Yes ; we must be o' one mind if we're 
 o' the right mind ! The year or two I may be ahead 
 
SIMON ARMOUR. 63 
 
 o' you in gettin' at it, g-oes for nothing- : I started 
 sooner ! — But what may be the mind you speak of, 
 sonny? " 
 
 The look of keen question the old man threw on 
 him, woke a doubt in Richard whether he might not 
 have misunderstood his grandfather. 
 
 "I think," he answered, "if a man was made to 
 last forever, the world would get tired of him. 
 When a horse or a dog has done his work, he's con- 
 tent — and so is his master." 
 
 "Nay, but I bean't ! I bean't content to lose the 
 old horse as I've shod mayhap for twenty years — 
 no, not if I bean't his master ! " 
 
 "There's no help for it, though ! " 
 
 " None as I knows on, I'd be main glad to hear 
 any news on the subjec' as you can supply ? — No, I 
 ain't content ; I'm sorry ! " 
 
 "Why don't the parsons say the old horse '11 rise 
 again ? " 
 
 "'Cause the parsons know nought about it. How 
 should they ? " 
 
 "They say we're going to rise again." 
 
 " Why shouldn't they ? I guess I'll be up as soon 
 as I may ! I don't vv^ant no night to lie longer than 
 rest my bones ! " 
 
 "I mistook what you meant, grandfather. I 
 thought, when you said you weren't made to last 
 forever, that you meant there was an end of you ! " 
 
 "Well, so you might, and small blame to you! 
 It's a wrong way of speaking we all have. But 
 you've set me thinking — whether by mistake or not, 
 Where's the matter ! I never thought what come o' 
 the old horse, a'ter all his four shoes takes to shinin' 
 at oncet ! For the old smith when he drops his 
 
64 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 hammer — I have thought about him. Lord ! — to 
 think o' that anvil never ringin' no more to this here 
 fist o' mine ! " 
 
 While they talked, the blacksmith had put off his 
 thick apron of hide ; and now, catching up Richard's 
 portmanteau as if it had been a hand-basket, he led 
 the way to a cottage not far from the forge, in a lane 
 that here turned out of the high road. It was a 
 humble place enough — one story and a wide attic. 
 The front was almost covered with jasmine, rising 
 from a little garden filled with cottage flowers. Be- 
 hind was a larger garden, full of cabbages and goose- 
 berry-bushes. 
 
 A girl came to the door, with a kind, blushing 
 face, and hands as red as her cheeks — a great-niece 
 of the old smith. Repassed her and led the way 
 into a room half kitchen, half parlor. 
 
 "Here you are, lad — at home, I hope ! Sech as 
 it is, an' as much as it's mine, it's yours, an' I hope 
 you'll make it so." 
 
 He deposited the portmanteau, glanced quickly 
 round, saw that Jessie had not followed them, and 
 said — 
 
 "You'll keep your good news till I've turned it 
 over ! " 
 
 " What good news, grandfather } " 
 
 "The good news that them as is close pared has 
 110 call to look out for the hoof to grow. I'm not 
 saying you're wrong, lad — woi yet ; but everybody 
 mightn't think your news so good as to be worth 
 a special messenger ! So till you're quite sure of 
 it " 
 
 "I am quite sure of it, grandfather ! " 
 
 " I'm not; and having charge of the girl there, I'll 
 
SIMON ARMOUR. 65 
 
 ha' no dish served i' my house as I don't think whole- 
 some ! " 
 
 "You're right there, grandfather ! You may trust 
 me ! " answered Richard, respectfully. 
 
 The blacksmith had spoken with a decision that 
 was imperative. His red face shone out of his white 
 beard, and his eyes sparkled out of his red face ; his 
 head gave a nod, and his jaws a snap. 
 
 They had tea, with bread and butter and marma- 
 lade, and much talk about John and Jane Tuke, in 
 which the old man said oftener, "your aunt" and 
 "your uncle," than "your father" or "your 
 mother ; " but Richard put it down to the confusion 
 that often accompanies age. When the bookbinding 
 came up, Richard was surprised to discover that the 
 blacksmith was far from looking upon their trade as 
 superior to his own. It was plain indeed that he 
 regarded bookbinding as a quite inferior and scarce 
 manly employment. To the blacksmith, bookbind- 
 ing and tailoring were much the same — fit only for 
 women. Richard did not relish this. He endeav- 
 ored to make his grandfather see the dignity of the 
 work, insisting that its difficulty was the greater be- 
 cause of the less strength required in it : the strength 
 itself had, he said, in certain of its operations, to be 
 pared to the requisite fineness, to be modified with 
 extreme accuracy ; while in others, all the strength a 
 man had was necessary, and especially in a shop 
 like theirs, where everything was done by hand. But 
 the fine work, he said, tired one much the most. 
 
 "Fine work!" echoed the smith with contempt. 
 
 "There came a gentleman here to be shod t'other 
 
 day from the Hall, who was a great traveller ; and 
 
 he told me he seen in Japan a blacksmith with a 
 
 5 
 
66 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 sprig of may on the anvil before him, an' him 
 a-copyin' to the life them blossoms in hard iron with 
 his one hammer ! What say you to that, lad? " 
 
 " Wonderful ! But that same man couldn't do the 
 heavy work you think nothing of, grandfather ! " 
 
 "Nay, for that I don't know. I know I couldn't 
 do his ! "' 
 
 "Then we'll allow that fine work may be a manly 
 thing as well as hard work. But I do wish I could 
 shoe a horse ! " 
 
 " What's to hinder you ? " 
 
 "Will you let me learn, grandfather?" 
 
 " Learn ! I'll learn you myself. Fbu'll soon learn. 
 It's not as if you was a bumpkin to teach I The man 
 as can do anything, can do everything." 
 
 "Come along then, grandfather! I want to let 
 you see that though my hands may catch a blister or 
 two, they're not the less fit for hard work that they 
 can do fine. I'll be safe to shoe a horse before many 
 days are over. Only you must have a little patience 
 with me." 
 
 "Nay, lad, I'll have a great patience with you. 
 Before many days are over, make the shoe you may, 
 and make it well ; but to shoe a horse as the horse 
 ought to be shod, that comes by God's grace." 
 
 They went back to the smithy, and there, the very 
 day of his arrival, more to Simon's delight than he 
 cared to show, the soft-handed bookbinder began to 
 wield a hammer, and compel the stubborn iron. So 
 deft and persevering was he, that, ere they went from 
 the forge that same night, he could not only bend the 
 iron to a proper curve round the beak of the anvil, 
 but had punched the holes in half-a-dozcn shoes. At 
 last he confessed himself weary ; and when his grand- 
 
SIMON ARMOUR. 67 
 
 father saw the state of his hands, bhstered and swol- 
 len so that he could not close them, he was able no 
 longer to restrain his satisfaction. 
 
 " Come ! " he cried ; " you're a man after all, book- 
 binder ! In six months I should have you a thorough 
 blacksmith." 
 
 "I wouldn't undertake to make a bookbinder of 
 you, grandfather, in the time ! " returned Richard. 
 
 "Tit for tat, sonny, and it's fair!" said Simon. 
 "I should leave the devil his mark on your white 
 pages. Plow much of them do you read now, as 
 you stick them together ? " 
 
 "Not a word as I stick them together. But many 
 are brought me to be doctored and mended up, and 
 from some of them I take part of my pay in reading 
 them — books, I mean, that I wouldn't otherwise find 
 it easy to lay my hands upon — scarce books, you 
 know." 
 
 "You would like to go to Oxford, wouldn't ye, lad 
 — and lay in a stock to last your life out ? " 
 
 "You might as well think to lay victuals into you 
 for a lifetime, grandfather ! But I should like to lay 
 in a stock of the tools to be got at Oxford ! It would 
 be grand to be able to pick the lock of any door I 
 wanted to see the other side of." 
 
 "I'll put you up to pick any lock you ever saw, 
 or are likely to see," returned Armour. "I served 
 my time to a locksmith. We didn't hit it off always, 
 and so hit one another — as often almost as the anvil. 
 So when I was out of my time, and couldn't get lock- 
 smith's work except in a large forge, I knew better 
 than take it : for I couldn't help getting into rows, 
 and was afraid of doing somebody a mischief when 
 my blood was up. So I started for myself as a 
 
68 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 general blacksmith — in a small way, of course. But 
 my right hand ain't forgot its cunning in locks ! I'll 
 teach you to pick the cunningest lock in the world — 
 whether made in Italy or in China." 
 
 "The lock I was thinking of,'" said Richard, "was 
 that of the tree of knowledge." 
 
 "I'veheerd," returned Simon, with more humor 
 than accuracy, "as that was a raither pecooliar lock. 
 How it was kep' red hot all the time without coal 
 and bellows, I don't seem to see ! " 
 -: "Ah!" said Richard, "you mean the flaming 
 sword that turned every way .f" " 
 
 " I reckon I do ! " 
 
 "You don't say you believe that story, grand- 
 father ? " 
 
 "I don't say what I believe or what I don't be- 
 lieve. The flamin' iron as I've had to do with, has 
 both kep' me onto' knowledge, an' led me into knowl- 
 edge ! I'll turn the tale over again ! You see, lad, 
 when I was a boy, I thought everything my mother 
 said and my father did, old-fashioned, and a bit 
 ignorant-like ; but when I was a man, I saw that, if 
 I had started right off from where they set me down, 
 I would ha' been farther ahead. To honor your 
 father an' mother don't mean to stick by their chim- 
 bley-corner all your life, but to start from their front 
 door and go foret. I went by the back door, like the 
 fool I was, to get into the front road, and had a long 
 round to make." 
 
 " I sha'n't do so with my father. He don't read 
 much, but he thinks. He's got a head, my father ! " 
 
 " There was fathers afore yours, lad ! You needn't 
 scorn yer gran'thcr for your father ! " 
 
SIMON ARMOUR. 69 
 
 "Scorn you, grandfather! God forbid! — or, at 
 least, " 
 
 "You don't see what I'm drivin' at, sonny ! — 
 When an old tale comes to me from the far-away 
 time, I don't pitch it into the road, any more'n I 
 would an old key or an old shoe — a horse-shoe, I 
 mean : it was something once, and it may be some- 
 thing again ! I hang the one up, and turn the other 
 over. An' if you be strong set on throwin' either 
 away, lad, I misdoubt me you an' me won't blaze 
 together like one flamin' sword ! " 
 
 Richard held his peace. The old man had already 
 somehow impressed him. If he had not, like his 
 father, bid good-bye to superstition, there was in him 
 a power that was not in his father — a power like that 
 he found in his favorite books. 
 
 "Mind what he says, and do vi'hat he tells you, 
 and you'll get on splendid ! " his mother had said as 
 he came away. 
 
 "Don't be afraid of him, but speak up: he'll like 
 you the better for it," his father had counselled. " I 
 should never have married your mother if I'd been 
 afraid of him." 
 
 Richard, trying to follow both counsels, got on 
 with his grandfather better than fairly. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 COMPARISONS. 
 
 All things belong to every man who yields his 
 selfishness, which is his one impoverishment, and 
 draws near to his wealth, which is humanity — not 
 humanity in the abstract, but the humanity of friends 
 and neighbors and all men. Selfishness, I repeat, 
 whether in the form of vanity or greed, is our poverty. 
 John Tuke, being a clever man without a spark of 
 genius, worshipped faculty as he called it — wor- 
 shipped it where he was most familiar with it — that is, 
 in his own mind and its operations, in his own hands 
 and their handiwork. His natural atmosphere, how- 
 ever, was, happily, goodwill and kindliness ; else the 
 scorn of helplessness which sprang from his worship 
 would have supplied the other pole to his selfishness. 
 
 He even cherished unconsciously the feeling that 
 his faculty was a merit. He took the credit of his 
 individual humanity, as if the good working of his 
 brain, the thing he most admired, was attributable to 
 his own will and forethought. The idea had never 
 arisen in that brain, that he was in the world by no 
 creative intent of his own. Nothing had as yet sug- 
 gested to him that, after all, if he was clever, he could 
 not help it. It had not occurred to him that there 
 was a stage in his history antecedent to his conscious- 
 ness — a stage in which his pleasure with regard to 
 the next could not have been appealed to, or his con- 
 sent asked — a stage, for any satisfaction concerning 
 
COMPARISONS. 71 
 
 which, his resultant consciousness must repose on a 
 creative will, answerable to itself for his existence. 
 A man's patent of manhood is that he can call upon 
 God — not the God of any theology, right or wrong, 
 but the God out of whose heart he came, and in whose 
 heart he is. This is his highest power — that which 
 constitutes his original likeness to God. Had any 
 one tried to wake this idea in Tuke, he would have 
 mocked at the sound of it, never seeing it. The 
 words which represented it he would have thought 
 he understood, but he would never have laid hold of 
 the idea. He found himself what he found himself, 
 and was content with the find ; therefore asked no 
 questions as to whence he came — was to himself 
 consequently as if he had come from nowhere — which 
 made it easy for him to imagine that he was going 
 nowhither. He had never reflected that he had not 
 made himself, and that therefore there might be a 
 power somewhere that had called him into being, 
 and had a word to say to him on the matter. The 
 region where he began to be, had never, in speculation 
 or mirage any more than in direct vision, lifted itself 
 above the horizon-line of his consciousness. An 
 ordinarily well-behaved man, with a vague narrow 
 regard for his moral nature, and an admiration of 
 intellectual humanity in the abstract, he thought of 
 himself as exceptionally worthy, and as havingneigh- 
 bors mostly inferior. In relation to Richard, he was 
 especially pleased with himself: had he not, for the 
 sake of the youth, puthimself in the danger of the law ! 
 With not much more introspection than his uncle, 
 but with a keener conscience and quicker observation, 
 Richard had early remarked that, notwithstanding 
 her assiduity in church-going, his mother did not 
 
72 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 seem the happier for her rehg-ion : there was a cloud, 
 or seeming cloud, on her forehead — a something that 
 implied the lack of clear weather within. Had he 
 known more he might have attributed it to anxiety 
 about his own future, and the bearing her deed might 
 have upon it. He might have argued that she dreaded 
 the opposition she foresaw to the claim of her 
 nephew ; and felt that if her act should have despoiled 
 him of his inheritance, life would be worthless to her. 
 But in truth the cause of her habitual gloom was much 
 deeper. She had from her mother inherited a heavy 
 sense of responsibility, but not the confidence in 
 whose strength her mother had borne it. She had, that 
 is, an oppressive sense of the claims of a supernal 
 power, but no feeling of the relationship which gives 
 those claims, no knowledge of the loving help 
 offered with the presentation of the claims. Where 
 she might have rejoiced in the correlative claims 
 bestowed upon her, she nourished only complaint. 
 That God had made her, she could not sometimes 
 help feeling a liberty he had taken. How could she 
 help it, not knowing him, or the love that gave him 
 both the power and the right to create ! She had no 
 window to let in the perpendicular light of heaven ; 
 all the light she had was the horizontal light of duty — 
 invaluable, but, ever accompanied by its own shadow 
 of failure, giving neither joy nor hope nor strength. 
 Her husband's sense of duty was neither so strong 
 nor so uneasy. 
 
 She had not attempted to teach Richard more, in 
 the way of religion, than the saying of certain prayers, 
 a ceremony of questionable character; but the boy, 
 dearly loving his mother, and saddened by her lack of 
 spirits, had put things together — amongst the rest, that 
 
COMPARISONS. 73 
 
 she was always gloomiest on a Sunday — and concluded 
 that religion was the cause of her misery. This made 
 him ready to welcome the merest hint of its false- 
 hood. Well might the doctrine be false that made 
 such a good woman miserable ! He had no oppor- 
 tunity of learning what any vital, that is, obedient be- 
 liever in the lord of religion, might have to say. 
 Nothing he did hear would, without the reflex of his 
 mother's unhappiness, have waked in him interest 
 enough for hate : what was there about the heap of 
 ashes he heard called the means of grace, to set him 
 searching in it for seeds of truth ! If we consider, 
 then, the dullness of the prophecy, the evident suffer- 
 ing of his mother, and the equally evident though 
 silent contempt of his father, we need not wonder 
 that Richard grew up in what seemed to him a con- 
 viction that religion was worse than a thing of nought, 
 was an evil phantom, with a terrible power to blight ; 
 a miasm that had steamed up from the foul marshes 
 of the world, before man was at home in it, or yet 
 acquainted with the beneficent laws of Nature. It 
 was not merely a hopeless task to pray to a power 
 which could not be entreated, because it did not exist ; 
 to believe in what was not, must be ruinous to the 
 nature that so believed ! He would give the lie no 
 quarter ! The best thing to do for his fellow, the first 
 thing to be done before anything else could be done, 
 was to deliver him from this dragon called Faith — 
 the more fearful that it had no life, but owed its being 
 and strength to the falsehood of cowards ! Had he 
 known more of the working of what is falsely called 
 religion, he would have been yet more eager to de- 
 stroy it. But he knew something of the tares only ; 
 he knew nothing of the wheat among the tares ; knew 
 
74 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 nothing of the wintry gleams of comfort shed on thou- 
 sands of hearts by the most poverty-stricken belief 
 in the merest and faultiest silhouette of a God. What 
 a mission it would be, he thought, to deliver human 
 hearts from the vampyre that, sucking away the very 
 essence of life, kept fanning its unconscious victims 
 with the promise of a dreary existence beyond the 
 grave, secured by self-immolation on the desolate 
 altar of an unlovable God, who yet called himself 
 Love! Was it not a high emprise to rescue men from 
 the incubus of such a mis-imagined divinity.? 
 
 From the first dawn of consciousness, the young 
 Lestrange had loved his kind. He gathered the chief 
 joy of his life from a true relation to the life around 
 him. Perhaps the cause of the early manifestation 
 of this bent in him was the longing of his mother in 
 her loneliness after a love that grew the more pre- 
 cious as it seemed farther away. She had parted with 
 those who always loved her, for the love of a man 
 who never loved her! But left to think and think, 
 she had come at last to see that her loss was her best 
 gain. For, with the loss of their presence, she began 
 to know and prize the simplicities of human affection ; 
 from lack of love began to lift up her heart to Love 
 himself, the father of all our loves. 
 
 Richard's love was not such as makes of another 
 the mirror wherein to realize self; he loved his kind 
 objectively, and was ready to suffer for it. At school 
 he was the champion of the oppressed. Almost 
 always one or other of the little boys would be under 
 his protection ; and more than once, for the sake of 
 a weaker he had got severely beaten. But having 
 set himself to learn the art of self-defence, his favor 
 alone became shelter; and successful coverture 
 aroused in him yet more the natural passion of pro- 
 
COMPARISONS. 
 
 75 
 
 tection. It became his pride as well as delight to be 
 a saviour to his kind. His championship now sought 
 extension to his mother, and to all sufferers from 
 usurping creeds. 
 
 His grandfather found him, as he said, a chip of 
 the old block ; and rejoiced that Nature had granted 
 his humble blood so potent a part in this compound 
 of gentle and plebeian ; for Richard showed himself 
 a worthy workman ! Simon Armour declared there 
 was nothing the fellow could not do ; and said to 
 himself there never was such a baronet in the old 
 Hall as his boy Dick would make. If only, he said, 
 all the breeds worn out with breeding-in would revert 
 to the old blood of Tubal Cain, they might recover 
 his lease of life. The day was coming, he said to 
 himself, when there would be a sight to see at Mort- 
 grange — a baronet that could shoe a horse better than 
 any smith in the land ! If his people then would not 
 stand up for a landlord able to thrash every man-jack 
 of them, and win his bread with his own hands, they 
 deserved to become the tenants of a London grocer 
 or American money-dealer ! For his part, the French 
 might have another try ! He would not lift hammer 
 against them ! 
 
 By right of inheritance, Richard's muscles grew 
 sinewy and hard, and speedily was he capable of 
 handling a hammer and persuading iron to the full 
 satisfaction of his teacher. When it came to such 
 heavy work as required power and skill at once, the 
 difference between the two men was very evident : 
 where the whole strength is tasked, skill finds itself 
 in the lurch ; but Simon understood what could not 
 be at once, as well as what would be at length. 
 Neither was he disappointed, for, in far less than 
 half the time an ordinary apprentice would have 
 
76 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 taken, Richard could hold alternate swing with the 
 blacksmith or his man, as, blow for blow, they pierced 
 a block of metal to form the nave of a wheel. In 
 ringing a wheel, he soon excelled ; and his grand- 
 father's smithy being the place for all kinds of black- 
 smith-work, Richard had learned the trade before he 
 left. For, as his fortnight's holiday drew to an end, 
 he heard from his parents that, as he was doing so 
 well, they would like him to stay longer. 
 
 One reason for this their wish was, that he might 
 become thoroughly attached to his grandfather : they 
 desired to secure the prejudice of the future baronet 
 for his own people. At the same time, by develop- 
 ing in him the workman, they thought to give him a 
 better chance against further dishonoring and de- 
 grading his race, than his wretched father had ever 
 had : the breed of Lestranges must, they said, be 
 searched back for generations to find an honest man 
 in it. A landlord above the selfishness, and free from 
 the prejudices of his class, would be a new thing in the 
 county-histories ! 
 
 At the end of six weeks, Richard could shoe a sound 
 horse as well as his grandfather himself. The old 
 man had taken pains he would not have spent on an 
 ordinary apprentice : it was worth doing, he said ; 
 ^nd the return was great. Richard had made, not 
 merely wonderful, but wonderfully steady progress. 
 Not once had he touched the quick in driving those 
 perfect nails through the rind of the marvellous hoof. 
 From the first he disapproved of the mode of shoeing 
 in use, and was certain a better must one day be dis- 
 covered — one, namely, that would leave the natural 
 motions of hoof and leg unimpeded ; but in the mean- 
 time he shod as did other blacksmiths, and gave 
 th()rou<rh satisfriction. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A LOST SHOE. 
 
 It was now late in the autumn. Several houses in 
 the neig-hborhood were full of visitors, and parties 
 on horseback frequently passed the door of the 
 smithy — well known to not a few of the horses. 
 
 One evening, as the sun was going down red and 
 large, with a gorgeous attendance of clouds, for the 
 day had been wet but cleared in the afternoon, a -small 
 mounted company came pretty fast along the lane, 
 which was deep in mud. They were no sooner upon 
 the hard road by the smithy, than one of the ladies 
 discovered her mare had lost a hind shoe. 
 
 "She couldn't have pulled it off in a more con- 
 venient spot ! " said a handsome young fellow, as he 
 dismounted and gave his horse to a groom. " I'll 
 take you down, Bab ! Old Simon will have a shoe 
 on Miss Brown in no time ! " 
 
 Richard followed his grandfather to the door. A 
 little girl, as she seemed to him, was sliding, with 
 her hand on the young man's shoulder, from the 
 back of a huge mare. She was the daintiest little 
 thing, as lovely as she was tiny, with clear, pale, 
 regular features, under a quantity of dark-brown hair. 
 But that she was not a child, he saw the moment she 
 was down ; and he soon discovered that, not her 
 beauty, but her heavenly vivacity, was the more 
 captivating thing in her. At once her very soul 
 
78 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 seemed to go out to meet whatever object claimed 
 her attention. She must know all about everything-, 
 and come into relations with every live thing- ! As she 
 stood by the side of the great brown creature from 
 which she had dismounted — hug-e indeed, but carry- 
 ing its bulk with a grand grace — her head reaching 
 but half-way up the slope of its shoulder, she laid her 
 cheek against it caressingly. So small and so bright, 
 the little lady looked a very diamond of life. 
 
 A new shoe had to be forged ; those already half- 
 made were for work-horses. Partly from pride in 
 his skill, Simon left the task to his grandson, and 
 stood talking to the young man. Little thought 
 Richard, as he turned the shoe on the anvil's beak, 
 that he was his half-brother ! He was a handsome 
 youth, not so tall as Richard, and with more delicate 
 features. His face was pale, and wore a rather 
 serious, but self-satisfied look. He talked to the old 
 blacksmith, however, without the slightest assump- 
 tion : like others in the neighborhood, he regarded 
 him as odd and privileged. There were more ladies 
 and gentlemen, but Richard, absorbed in his shoe, 
 heeded none of the company. 
 
 He was not more absorbed, however, than the girl 
 who stood beside him : she watched every point in 
 the making of it. Heedless of the flying sparks, she 
 gazed as if she meant to make the next shoe herself. 
 Had Richard not been too busy even to glance at 
 her, he might have noticed, now and then, an invol- 
 untary sympathetic motion, imitatively responsive 
 to one of his, invariably recurrent when he changed 
 the position of the glowing iron. Her mind seemed 
 working in company with his hands ; she was all 
 the time doing the thing herself ; Richard's activity 
 
A LOST SHOE. 
 
 79 
 
 was not merely reflected, but lived in her. When 
 he carried the half-forg-ed iron, to apply it for one 
 tentative instant to the mare's hoof, Barbara followed 
 him. The mare fidgeted. But her little mistress, 
 who, noiseless and swift as a moth, was already at 
 her head, spoke to her, breathed in her nostril, and 
 in a moment made her forget what was happening 
 in such a far-off province of her being as a hind foot. 
 When Richard, back at the forge, was placing the 
 shoe again in the fire, to his surprise her little gloved 
 hand alighted beside his own on the lever of the 
 bellows, powerfully helping him to blow. When 
 once again the shoe was on the anvil, there again 
 she stood watching — and watched until he had 
 shaped the shoe to his intent. 
 
 Old Simon did not move to interfere : the hoof 
 required no special attention. Almost every horse- 
 hoof in a large circuit of miles was known to him — ■ 
 as well, he would remark, as the nail of his own 
 thumb. 
 
 When Richard took up the foot, in order to prepare 
 it for the reception of its new armor, again the mare' 
 was fidgety; and again the lady distracted her atten- 
 tion, comforting and soothing her while Richard 
 trimmed the hoof a little. 
 
 "I say, my man," cried Mr. Lestrange, "mind 
 what you're about there with your paring ! I don't 
 want that mare lamed. — She's much too good for 
 'prentice hands to learn upon, Simon ! " 
 
 " Keep your mind easy, sir," answered the black- 
 smith. "That lad's ain't 'prentice-hands. He knows 
 what he's about as well as I do myself ! " 
 
 " He's young ! " 
 
8o THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Younger, perhaps, than you think, sir! — but he 
 knows his work." 
 
 It was a pretty picture — the girl peeping round 
 under the neck of the great creature she was caress- 
 ing, to see how the smith was getting on, whose 
 back, alas ! hid his hands from her. Just as he 
 finished driving his second nail, the nervous animal 
 gave her foot a jerk, and the point of the nail, 
 through the hoof and projecting a little, tore his 
 hand, so that the blood ran to the ground in a 
 sudden rivulet. 
 
 "Hey ! that don't look much like proper shoeing ! " 
 cried the young man. "I hope to goodness that's 
 not the mare ! " 
 
 "She's all right," answered Richard, re-arranging 
 the animal's foot 
 
 But Simon saw the blood, and sprang to his side. 
 
 "What the devil are you about, making a fool of 
 me, Dick ? " he cried. " Get out of the way." 
 
 "It was my fault," said the sweetest voice from 
 under the neck of the mare, to the top of which a 
 tiny hand was trying to reach. "My feather must 
 have tickled her nose ! " 
 
 She caught a glimpse of the blood, and turned 
 white. 
 
 " I am so sorry ! " she said, almost tearfully. " I 
 hope you're not much hurt, Richard ! " 
 
 Nothing seemed to escape her : she had already 
 learned his name ! 
 
 "It's not worth being sorry about, miss!" re- 
 turned Richard, with a laugh. "The mare meant 
 no harm ! " 
 
 "That I'm sure she didn't — poor Miss Brown!" 
 
A LOST SHOE. 8 1 
 
 answered the girl, patting the mare's neck. "But I 
 wish it had been my hand instead ! " 
 
 "God forbid ! " cried Richard. "That would have 
 been a calamity ! " 
 
 "It wouldn't have been half so great a one. My 
 hand is — well, not of 7nuch use. Yours can shoe a 
 horse ! " 
 
 "Yours would have been spoiled; mine will shoe 
 as well as before ! " said Richard. 
 
 It did not occur to the lady that the youth spoke 
 better than might have been expected of a country 
 smith. She was one of the elect few that meet every 
 one on the common human ground, that never fear 
 and never hurt. Her childish size and look harmo- 
 nized with the childlike in her style, but she affected 
 nothing. She would have spoken in the same way 
 to prince or poet-laureate, and would have pleased 
 either as much as the blacksmith. At the same time 
 she did have pleasure in knowing that her frankness 
 pleased. She could not help being aware that she 
 was a favorite, and she wanted to be ; but she wanted 
 nothing more than to be a favorite. She desired it 
 with old Betty, Sir Wilton's dairymaid, just as much 
 as with Mr. Lestrange, Sir Wilton's heir ; and every- 
 body showed her favor, for she showed everybody 
 grace. 
 
 The old smith was finishing the shoeing, and the 
 mare, well used to him, and with more faith in him, 
 stood perfectly quiet. Richard, a little annoyed, 
 had withdrawn, and scarce thinking what he did, had 
 taken a rod of iron, thrust it into the fire, and begun 
 to blow. The little lady approached him sofdy. 
 
 " I'm so sorry ! " she said. 
 
 " I shall be sorry too, if you think of it any more. 
 
02 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 miss!" answered Richard. "Then there will be 
 two sorry where there needn't be one ! " 
 
 She looked up at him with a curious, interested, 
 puzzled look, which seemed to say, "What a nice 
 smith you are ! " 
 
 The youth's manners had a certain — what shall I 
 call it.? — not polish, but rhythm, which came of, or 
 at least was nourished by his love of the finer ele- 
 ments in literature. His friendly converse with 
 books, and through them with certain of the dead 
 who still speak, fell in with yet deeper influences, 
 helping to set him in right atomic position toward 
 other human atoms. His brqed also contributed 
 something. Happily for Richard, a man is not born 
 only of his father or his grandfather; mothers have 
 a share in the form of his being ; ancestors innumer- 
 able, men and women, leave their traces in him. 
 But what I have ventured to call the rhythm of his 
 manner came of his love of verse, and of the true 
 material of A'^erse. 
 
 His hand kept on bleeding, and for a moment he 
 was tempted, by bravado as well as kindness, to use 
 the cautery so nigh, and prove to the girl how little 
 he set by what troubled her ; but he saw at once it 
 would shock her, and took, instead, a handkerchief 
 from his pocket to bind it with. Instantly the little 
 lady was at his service, and he yielded to her mini- 
 stration with a pleasure hitherto unknown to him. 
 She took the handkerchief from his hand, but imme- 
 diately gave it him again, saying, " It is too black ! " 
 and drawing her own from her pocket, deftly bound 
 up his wound with it. Speech abandoned Richard. 
 All present looked on in silence. Certain of the com- 
 pany had seen her the day before tie up the leg of a 
 
A LOST SHOE. 8^ 
 
 wounded dog-, and had admired her for it ; but this 
 was different ! She was handling the hand of a 
 human being — a man — a worlcman ! — black and hard 
 with labor ! There was no necessity : the man was 
 not in the least danger ! It was nothing but a scratch ! 
 She was forgetting what was due to herself — and to 
 them ! Thus they thought, but thus they dared not 
 speak. They knew her, and feared what she might 
 say in reply. The mare was shod ere the handker- 
 chief was tied to the lady's mind, and Simon stood, 
 hammer in hand, looking on like the rest in silence, 
 but with a curious smile. 
 
 As she took her hands from his, the young black- 
 smith looked thankfulness into her eyes — which 
 sparkled and shone with the pleasure of human fel- 
 lowship, and without the least shyness returned his 
 gaze. 
 
 "There! Good-bye! I am so sorry! I hope 
 your hand will be well soon ! " she said, and at once 
 followed her mare, which the smith's man was lead- 
 ing with caution through the door of the smithy, 
 rather too low for Miss Brown. 
 
 Lestrange helped her to the saddle in silence, and 
 before Richard realized that she was gone, he heard 
 the merriment of the party mingling with the clang 
 of their horses' hoofs, as they went swinging down 
 the road. The fairy had set them all laughing 
 already ! 
 
 The instant they were gone, Simon showed a 
 strange concern over the insignificant wound : he had 
 been hasty with Richard, and unfair to him ! Had 
 he driven his nail one hair's-breadth too near the 
 quick, Miss Brown would have made the smithy 
 tight for them ! He seemed anxious to show, with- 
 
84 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 out actual confession, that he knew he had spoken 
 angrily, and was sorry for it. He could not have 
 shod the mare better himself, he said — but why the 
 deuce did he let her tear his hand ! It was not likely 
 to gather, though, seeing Richard drank water ! He 
 must do nothing for a day or two ! To-morrow being 
 Saturday, they would have a holiday together, and 
 leave the work to George ! 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A HOLIDAY. 
 
 Richard was willing enough, and it only remained 
 to settle what they would do with their holiday. Sup- 
 pressing a chuckle, Simon proposed that they should 
 have a walk, and a look at Mortgrange : it was a 
 place well worth seeing! "And then," he added, 
 giving his grandson a poke, " we can ask after the 
 mare, and learn how her new shoe fits." They had 
 known him there, he said, the last thirty years, and 
 would let them have the run of the place, for Sir Wilton 
 and his lady were from home. Richard had never — to 
 his knowledge — heard of Mortgrange, for Simon had 
 hitherto avoided even mentioning the place ; but he 
 was ready to go wherever his grandfather pleased. 
 Jessie would have company of her own, Simon said, 
 with a nod and a wink : they need not trouble them- 
 selves about her ! 
 
 So the next day, as soon as they had had their 
 breakfast, they set out to walk the four or five miles 
 that, by the road, lay between them and Mortgrange. 
 It was a fine frosty morning. Not a few yellow 
 leaves were still hanging, and the sun was warm and 
 bright. It was one of those days near the death of the 
 year, that make us wonder why the heart of man 
 should revive and feel strong, while Nature is falling 
 into her dreary trance. Richard was dressed in a 
 tradesman's Sunday clothes, but tradesman as he was, 
 
86 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 and was proud to be, he did not altog-ether look one. 
 He was in high spirits— for no reason but that his 
 spirits were high. He was happy because he was 
 happy — " Hke any other body ! " he would have said : 
 where was the wonder such a fine day, with a pleas- 
 ant walk before him, and his jolly grandfather for 
 company ! That he could not make one hair white or 
 black, one hour blessed or miserable, did not occur 
 to him. Yet he believed that joy or sorrow deter- 
 mined whether life was or was not worth living ! He 
 had never said to himself, "Here I am, and cannot 
 help being, and yet can order nothing ! Even to-day 
 I am happy only because I cannot help it ! " He 
 had indeed begun to learn that a man has his duty 
 to mind before his happiness, and that was much ; 
 but he had not yet been tried in the matter of doing 
 his duty when unhappy. How would he feel then ? 
 Would he think duty without happiness worth living 
 for.? He was happy now, and that was enough ! 
 The putting forth of their strength and skill doubtless 
 makes many men feel happy — so long as they are in 
 health ; but how when they come to feel that that health 
 is nowise in their power ? While they have it, it seems 
 a part of their being inalienable ; when they have 
 lost it, a thing irrecoverable. Richard took the thing 
 that came, asked no questions, returned no thanks. 
 He found himself here : — whence he came he did 
 not care ; whither he went he did not inquire. The 
 present was enough, for the present was good ; when 
 
 the present was no longer good, why, then ! 
 
 There are those to whom the present cannot be 
 good save as a mode of the infinite. In such their 
 divine origin asserts itself. Once known for what it 
 
A HOLIDAY. 87 
 
 is, the poorest present is a phial holding- the elixir of 
 life. 
 
 On their way Simon talked about the place they 
 were going to see, and said its present owner was 
 an elderly man, not very robust, with a second wife, 
 who looked as if she had not a drop of warm blood, 
 and yet as if she might live forever. 
 
 "That was their son that came with the little 
 lady," he said. 
 
 "And the little lady was their daughter, I sup- 
 pose ! " rejoined Richard, with an odd quiver some- 
 where near his heart. 
 
 "She's an Australian, they say," answered his 
 grandfather; " — no relation, I fancy." 
 
 "Is Mortgrange a grand place .? " asked Richard. 
 
 " It's a fine house and a great estate," answered 
 Simon. " More might be made of it, no doubt ; and 
 I hope one day more will be made of it. " 
 
 " What do you mean by that, grandfather.? " 
 
 "That I hope the son will make a better landlord 
 than the father." 
 
 They came to a great iron gate, standing open, 
 without any lodge, 
 
 "We're in luck !" said the blacksmith. "This 
 will save us a long round ! Somebody must have 
 rode out, and been too lazy to shut it ! We'd bet- 
 ter leave it as we find it, though ! Or say we 
 bring the two halves together without snapping the 
 locks ! I know the locks ; I put 'em both on my- 
 self. — See now what a piece of work that gate is!. 
 All done with the hand ! None o' your beastly cast- 
 ing there ! Up to your work, that, I'm thinking, 
 lad .? " • 
 
 "Indeed it is! Those gates are worth reducing, 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 for plates to stamp the covers of a right precious 
 volume with ! " 
 
 Simon misunderstood, and was on the point of 
 flaring up, but what Richard followed with quieted 
 him. 
 
 " I could almost give up bookbinding to work a 
 pair of gates like those ! " he said. 
 
 "I believe you, my boy!" returned his grand- 
 father. " Come and live with me, and you shall ! " 
 
 "But who would buy them when I had worked 
 them ? " 
 
 " If nobody had the sense, we'd put 'em up before 
 the cottage ! " 
 
 "Like a door-lock on a prayer-book ! " 
 
 "No matter ! They would be worth the worth of 
 themselves ! " 
 
 ** You would have to make the wall so high, there 
 would be no light in the house ! " persisted Richard. 
 
 " Tut, man ! did you never hear of a joke .-' All 
 I say is, that if you'll come and work with me — I 
 don't need to slave more than I like ; Tve got a few 
 pounds in the bank ! — if you'll work, I'll teach you. 
 Leave me to find a fit place for what comes of it ! 
 They do most things at the foundries now, but there's 
 a market yet for hammer-work — if it be good enough, 
 and not too dear ; for them as knows a good thing 
 when they sees it, ain't generally got much money 
 to buy things. It's my opinion the only way to learn 
 the worth of a thing is to have to go without it." 
 
 "Few people fancy iron gates, I fear." 
 
 "More might fancy them if they were to be had 
 good," returned the old man. 
 
 The gate had admitted them to a long winding 
 road, with clumps of trees here and there on the bor- 
 
A HOLIDAY. 
 
 ders of it. The road was apparently not much used, 
 for it was more than sprinkled with grass all over. 
 A ploughed field was on one side, and a wild heathy- 
 expanse, dotted with fir-trees, on the other. Sudden- 
 ly on the side of the field, gradually on that of the 
 heath, the ground changed to the green sward of a 
 park. 
 
 "A grand place for thinking !" said Richard to 
 himself. 
 
 But in truth Richard had hardly yet begun to think. 
 He only followed the things that came to him ; he 
 never said to things, Come; neither, when they came, 
 did he keep them, and make them walk up and down 
 before him till he saw what they were; he did not 
 search out their pedigree, get them to give an account 
 of themselves, show what they could do, or, in short, 
 be themselves to him. He had written a few verses 
 — not bad verses, but with feeling only, not thought 
 in them. For instance, he had addressed an ode to 
 the allegorical personage called Liberty, in which he 
 bepraised her until, had she been indeed a woman, 
 she must have been ashamed : she was the one essen- 
 tial of life ! the one glory of existence ! he was no 
 man who would not die for her ! But what was the 
 thing he thus glorified.? Liberty to go where you 
 pleased, do v/hat you liked, say what you chose ! — 
 that was all. Of inward liberty, of freedom from 
 mental or spiritual oppression, from passion, from 
 prejudice, from envy, from jealousy, from selfish- 
 ness, from unfairness, from ambition, from false 
 admiration, from the power of public opinion, from 
 any motive energy save that of love and truth — 
 a freedom of which outward freedom is scarce 
 worth the shadow — of such liberty, for all the good 
 
90 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 books he had read, for all the good poems he had 
 admired, Richard had not yet begun to dream, not 
 to say ihiiik. Then again, he would write about 
 love, and he had never been in love in his life ! All 
 he knew of love was the pleasure of imagining him- 
 self the object of a tall, dark-eyed, long-haired, devoted 
 woman's admiration. He had never even thought 
 whether he was worthy of being loved. He was 
 indeed more worthy of love than many to whom it is 
 freely given ; but he knew no more about it, I say, 
 than a chicken in the shell knows of the blue sky. 
 The shabby spinster, living with her cousin the baker 
 in the house opposite, knew a hundred times better 
 than he what the word love meant : she had a history, 
 he had none. 
 
 I will not describe the house of Mortgrange. It 
 seemed to Richard the oldest house he had ever seen, 
 and it moved him strangely. He said to himself the 
 man must be happy who called such a house his own, 
 lived in it, and did what he liked with it. 
 
 The road they had taken brought them to the back 
 of the Hall, as the people on the estate called the 
 house. The blacksmith went to a side-door, and 
 asked if he and his grandson might have a look at 
 the place : he had heard the baronet was from home ! 
 The man said he would see ; and returning presently, 
 invited them to walk in. 
 
 Knowing his grandson's passion, Simon's main 
 thought in taking him was'to see him in the library, with 
 its ten thousand volumes : it would be such a joke 
 to watch him pondering, admiring, coveting his own ! 
 As soon, therefore, as they were in the great hall, he 
 asked the servant whether they might not see the 
 
A HOLIDAY. 91 
 
 library. The man left them again, once more to 
 make inquiry. 
 
 It was a grand old hall where they stood, fitter for 
 the house of a great noble than a mere baronet ; but 
 then the family was older than any noble family in 
 the county, and the poor baronetcy, granted to a 
 foolish ancestor, on carpet considerations, by the 
 needy hand of the dominie-king, was no great feather 
 in the cap of the Lestranges. The house itself was 
 older than any baronetcy, for no part of it was later 
 than the time of Elizabeth. It was of fine 'stone, and 
 of great size. The hall was nearly sixty feet in 
 height, with three windows on one side, and a great 
 one at the end. They were thirty feet from the 
 floor, had round heads, and looked like church- 
 windows. The other side was blank. Mid-height 
 along the end opposite the great window ran a gallery. 
 
 To the sudden terror of Richard, who stood ab- 
 sorbed in the stateliness of the place, an organ in the 
 gallery burst out playing. He looked up trembling, 
 but could see only the tops of the pipes. As the 
 sounds rolled along the roof, reverberated from the 
 solid walls, and crept about the corners, it seemed to 
 him that the soul of the place was throbbing in his 
 ears the words of a poem centuries old, which he 
 had read a day or two before leaving London :— 
 
 " Erthe owte of erthe es wondirly wroghte, 
 Erthe base getyn one erthe a dignyte of noghte, 
 Erthe appone erthe hase sett alle his thoghte, 
 How that erthe appone erthe may be heghe broghte." 
 
 As he listened, his eyes settled upon a suit of armor 
 in position ; it became to him a man benighted, lost, 
 forgotten in the cold : the bones were all dusted out 
 
THERE AND 
 
 of him by the wintry winds ; only the shell of him 
 was left. 
 
 "Mr. Lestrange is in the library, and will see Mr. 
 Armour," said the voice of the servant. 
 
 An election was at hand, and at such a time certain 
 persons are more courteous than usual. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE LIBRARY. 
 
 Simon and Richard followed the man through a 
 narrow door in the thick wall, across a wide passage, 
 and then along a narrow one. A door was thrown 
 open, and they stepped into a sombre room. The 
 floor of the hall was of great echoing slabs of stone, 
 but now their feet sank in the deep silence of a soft 
 carpet. 
 
 Here a new awe, dwelling, however, in an air of 
 homeliness, awoke in Richard. Around him, from 
 floor to ceiling, was ranged a whole army of books, 
 mostly in fine old bindings ; in spite of open window 
 and great fire and huge chimney, the large lofty room 
 was redolent of them. Their odor, however, was not 
 altogether pleasing to Richard, whose practiced organ 
 detected in it the signs of a blamable degree of de- 
 cay. The faint effluvia of decomposing paper, leather, 
 paste, and glue, were to Richard as the air of an ill- 
 ventilated ward in the nostrils of a physician. He 
 sniffed and made an involuntary grimace ; he had 
 not seen Mr. Lestrange, who was close to him, half 
 hidden by a book-case that stood out from the wall. 
 
 " Good-morning, Armour ! " said Lestrange. 
 " Your young man does not seem to relish books ! " 
 
 " In a grand place like this, sir," remarked Richard, 
 taking answer upon himself, "such a library as I 
 never saw, except, of course, at the British Museum, 
 it makes a man sorry to discover indications of neg- 
 lect " 
 
94 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "What do you mean ? " returned Lestrange iu dis- 
 pleasure. 
 
 Richard's remark was the more offensive that his 
 superior style issued in a comparatively common 
 tone. Neither was there anything in the appearance 
 of the place to justify ]t. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir," he said, fearing he had 
 been rude, " but I am a bookbinder ! " 
 
 " Well .?" rejoined Lestrange, taking him now for 
 a sneaking tradesman on the track of a big job. 
 
 " I know at once the condition of an old book by 
 the smell of it," pursued Richard. "The moment 
 I came in, I knew there must be some here in 
 a bad way — not in their clothes merely, but in 
 their bodies as well — the paper of them, I mean. 
 Whether a man has what they call a soul or not, a 
 book certainly has : the paper and print are the body, 
 and the binding is the clothes. A gentleman I know 
 — but he's a mystic — goes farther, and says the paper 
 is the body, the print the soul, and the meaning the 
 spirit." 
 
 A pretty fellow to be an atheist ! my reader may 
 well think. 
 
 Mr. Lestrange stared. He must be a local preacher, 
 this blacksmith, this bookbinder, or whatever he was !• 
 
 "I am sorry you think the books hypocrites," he 
 said. "They look all right ! " he added, casting his 
 eyes over the shelves before him. 
 
 "Would you mind me taking down one or two .'' " 
 asked Richard. "My hands are rather black, but the 
 color is ingrain, as Spenser might say." 
 
 " Do so, by all means," answered Lestrange, curious 
 to see how far the fellow could support with proof the 
 accuracy of his scent. 
 
THE LIBRARY. 
 
 95 
 
 Richard moved three paces, and took down a vol- 
 ume — one of a set, the original edition in quarto of 
 "The Decline and Fall," bound in russia-leather. 
 
 "I thought so!" he said; "going! — going! — 
 Look at the joints of this Gibbon, sir. That's always 
 the way with russia — now-a-days, at least ! — Smell 
 that, grandfather ! Isn't it sweet ? But there's no stay 
 in it ! Smell that joint ! The leather's stone-dead ! — 
 It's the rarest thing to see a volume bound in russia, 
 of which the joints are not broken, or at least crack- 
 ing. These joints, you see, are gone to powder ! All 
 russia does — sooner or later, whatever be the cause. 
 — Just put that joint to your nose, sir ! That's part 
 of what you smell so strong in the room." 
 
 He held out the book to him, but Lestrange drew 
 back : it was not fit his nose should stoop to the 
 request of a tradesman ! 
 
 Richard replaced the book, and took down one 
 after another of the same set. 
 
 "Every one, you see, sir," he said, "going the 
 same way I Dust to dust ! " 
 
 " If they're o// going that way, "remarked the young 
 man, " it would cost every stick on the estate to re- 
 bind them ! " 
 
 " I should be sorry to rebind any of them. An old 
 binding is like an old picture ! Just look at this 
 French binding ! It's very dingy, and a good deal 
 broken, but you never see anything like that now-a- 
 days — as mellow as modest, and as rich, as roses ! 
 Here's one says the same thing as your grand hall 
 out there, only in a piping voice." 
 
 Lestrange was not exactly stuck-up ; he had feared 
 the fellow was bumptious, and felt there was no know- 
 ing what he might say next, but by this time had 
 
96 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 ceased to imagine his dignity in danger. The young 
 blacksmith's admiration of the books and of the hall 
 pleased him, and he became more cordial. 
 
 " Do you say a//russia-leather behaves in the same 
 fashion ? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes, now. I fancy it did not some years ago. 
 There may be some change in the preparation of the 
 leather. I don't know. It is a great pity ! Russia 
 is lovely to the eye — and to the nostrils. — May I take 
 a look at some of the old books, sir ? " 
 
 " What do you call an old book .? " 
 
 "One not later, say, than the time of James the 
 First. — Have you a first folio, sir.? " 
 
 Lestrange was thinking of his coming baronetcy. 
 
 "First folio.'* "he answered, absently. "I dare 
 say you will find a good many first folios on the 
 shelves ! " 
 
 "I mean the folio Shakspere of 1623. There are, 
 of course, many folios much scarcer ! I saw one 
 the other day that the booksellers themselves gave 
 eight hundred guineas for ! " 
 
 "What was it?" asked Lestrange carelessly. 
 
 "It was a wonderful copy — unique as to con- 
 dition — of Gower's Confessio Amaniis ; — not a very 
 interesting book, though I do not doubt Shakspere 
 was fond of it. You see Shakspere could hear the 
 stones preaching ! " 
 
 " By Jove, a man may hear the sticks do that any 
 Sunday ! " 
 
 "True enough, sir, ha-ha 1 " 
 
 " Have you read Gower, then?" 
 
 ' ' A good deal of him." 
 
 "Was it that same precious copy you read him 
 in ? " 
 
THE LIBRARY. 97 
 
 "It was; but I hadn't time for more than about 
 the half. I must finish on another edition, I fear." 
 
 "How did you get hold of a book of such 
 value ? " 
 
 "The booksellers who bought it asked me to 
 take it into my hospital. It wanted just a little, a 
 very little patching. The copy in the museum is 
 not to compare to it." 
 
 "You say it was not interesting.?" 
 
 "Not vefy interesting, I said, sir." 
 
 "Why did you read so much of it, then.?" 
 
 "When a book is hard to come at, you are the 
 more ready to read it when you have the chance." 
 
 "I suppose that's why one borrows his neighbor's 
 books and don't read his own ! I seldom take one 
 down from those shelves." 
 
 Richard felt as if a wall was broken down between 
 them. 
 
 All the time they talked, old Simon stood beside, 
 pleased to note how well his grandson could hold 
 up the ball with the young squire, but saying 
 nothing. If the matter had been hoof of horse, 
 cow or ass, he would not have been silent : he 
 knew hoofs better than Richard knew books. 
 
 Richard took down a small folio, the back of 
 which looked much too soft and loose. Opening 
 it, he found what he expected — a wreck. It was 
 hardly fit to be called any more a book. The 
 clothes had forsaken the body, or rather the body 
 had decayed away from the clothes. 
 
 "Now, look here ! " he said. " Here is Cowley's 
 
 Poems — in such a state that I doubt if anything 
 
 would ever make a book of it again. I thought by 
 
 the back all was wrong inside ! Sec how the leaves 
 
 7 
 
95 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 have come away singly : the paper itself is rotten ! 
 I doubt if there is any way to make paper so far 
 gone as this hold together. I know a good deal can 
 be done, and I must learn what is known. I sha'n't 
 be master of my trade till I know all that can be 
 done now to stop such a book from crumbling into 
 dust ! Then I may find out something more ! " 
 
 "Well, for that one, I don't think it matters : 
 Cowley ain't much ! " said Lestrange, throwing the 
 volume on a table. "I remember once taking 
 down the book, and trying to read some of it : I 
 could not; it's the dullest rubbish ever written." 
 
 "It's not so bad as that, sir ! " answered Richard, 
 and taking up the book he turned the leaves with 
 light, practiced hand. "He was counted the 
 greatest poet of his day, and no age loves dullness ! 
 Listen a moment, sir; I will read only one stanza." 
 
 He had found the "Hymn to the Light," and 
 read : — 
 
 ' ' First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come 
 From the old Negro's darksome womb ! 
 Which when it saw the lovely Child, 
 The melancholy Mass put on kind looks and smil'd." 
 
 "I don't see much in that!" said Lestrange, as 
 Richard closed the book, and glanced up expectant. 
 
 Richard was silent for an instant. 
 
 "At any rate," he returned, "it is necessary to 
 the understanding of our history, that we should 
 know the kind of thing admired and called good at 
 any given time of it : so our lecturer at King's used 
 to tell us." 
 
 "At King's ! " cried Lestrange. 
 
 "King's College, London, I mean," said Richard. 
 
THE LIBRARY. 99 
 
 "They have evening classes there, to which a man 
 can go after Iiis day's work. My father always 
 took care I should have time for anything I wanted 
 to do. I go still when I am at home — not always, 
 but when the lecturer takes up any special subject 
 I want to know more about."' 
 
 "You'll be an author yourself some day, I sup- 
 pose ! " 
 
 "There's little hope or fear of that, sir! But I 
 can't bear not to know what's in my very hands. I 
 can't be content with the outsides of the books I bind. 
 It seems a shame to come so near light and never 
 see it shine. If I were a tailor, I should learn anat- 
 omy. I know one tailor who is as familiar with the 
 human form as any sculptor in London — more, 
 perhaps 1 " 
 
 Lestrange began to feel uncomfortable. If he let 
 this prodigy go on talking and asking questions, he 
 would find out how little he knew about anything ! 
 But Richard was no prodig3^ He was only a youth 
 capable of interest in everything, with the stimulus 
 of not finding the fountains of knowledge at his very 
 door, and the aid of having to work all day at some 
 pleasant task, nearly associated with higher things 
 that he loved better. He did know a good deal for 
 his age, but not so very much for his opportunity, his 
 advantages being great. Most men who learn would 
 learn more, I suspect, if they had work to do, and 
 difficulty in the way of learning. Those counted 
 high among Richard's advantages. He was, besides, 
 considerably attracted by the mechanics of literature — 
 a department little cultivated by those who have most 
 need of what grows In it. 
 
 Further talk followed. Lestrange grew interested 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 in the phenomenon of a blacksmith that bound books 
 and read them. He began to dream of patronage 
 and responsive devotion. What a thing it would be 
 for him, in diter years, with the cares of property and 
 parliament combining to curtail his leisure, to have 
 such a man at his beck, able to gather the informa- 
 tion he desired, and to reduce, tabulate and embody 
 it so as to render his chief the best-informed man in 
 the House ! while at other times he would manage 
 for him his troublesome tenants, and upon occasion 
 shoe his wife's favorite horse ! He could also de- 
 pend upon him to provide, from the rich stores of 
 his memory, suitable quotations when he wished to 
 make a speech ! Lestrange had never thought 
 whether the wish to appear might not indicate the 
 duty to he ; had never seen that, until he was, to de- 
 sire to appear was to cherish the soul of a sneak. He 
 had no notion of anything but the look; no notion 
 that, having made a good speech, he would deserve 
 an atom the less praise for it that he could not have 
 made it without his secretary. Did any one think 
 the less of clearing a five-barred gate, he would have 
 answered, that it could not be done without a horse ! 
 Where M'^as the difference.'' A man you paid to be 
 your secretary, still more a man whose education to 
 be your secretary you had paid for — was he not yours 
 in a way at least analogous to that in which a horse 
 was yours.? He could break away from you more 
 easily, no doubt, but a man knew better than a horse 
 on which side his bread was buttered ! 
 
 "I think, squire, I'll go and have a pipe with the 
 coachman ! " said the blacksmith at length. 
 
 "As you please, Armour," answered Lestrange. 
 "I will take care of your — nephew, is he.' " 
 
THE LIBRARY. lOT 
 
 " IMy grandson, sir — from London." 
 
 "All right! There's good sk.iT i'^ :he breed, Ar- 
 mour ! — I will bring him to you." 
 
 Richard went on taking down book after book, and 
 showing his hosfhow much they required attention. 
 
 ''And you could set all right for — ? — for how 
 much ? " asked Lestrange. 
 
 ' ' That no one could say. It would, however, cost 
 little more than time and skill. The material would 
 not come to much. Only, where the paper itself is 
 in decay, I do not know about that. I have learned 
 nothing in that department yet." 
 
 "For generations none of us have cared about 
 books — that must be why they have gone so to the 
 bad! — the books, I mean," he added with a laugh, 
 " There was a bishop, and I think there was a poet, 
 somewhere in the family ; but my father — hm ! — I 
 doubt if he would care to lay out money on the 
 library ! " 
 
 "Tell him," suggested Richard, "that it is a very 
 valuable library — at least so it appears to me from 
 the little I have seen of it ; but I am sure of this, 
 that it is rapidly sinking in value. After another 
 twenty years of neglect it would not fetch half the 
 price it might easily be brought up to now." 
 
 "I don't know that that would weigh much with 
 him. So long as he sees the shelves full and the 
 book-backs all right, he won't want anything better. 
 He cares only how things look." 
 
 "But the whole look of the library is growing 
 worse — gradually, it is true, and in a measure it can't 
 be helped — but faster than you would think, and 
 faster than it ought. The backs, which, from a 
 library point of view, are the faces of the books. 
 
^02 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 iiiay, UD to 3 certain moment, look well, and after 
 t'hnt'g'o-n^uc'l'" "more lapidly. I fear damp is getting 
 at these from somewhere ! " 
 
 "Would you undertake to set all right, if my 
 father made you a reasonable offer? " 
 
 " I would — provided I found no injury beyond the 
 scope of my experience." 
 
 Richard spoke in book-fashion : he was speaking 
 about books, and to a social superior ! he was not 
 really pompous. 
 
 "Well, if my father should come to see the thing 
 as I do, I will let you know. Then will be the time 
 for a definite understanding ! " 
 
 "The best way would be that I should come and 
 work for a set time : by the progress I made, and 
 what I cost, you could judge." 
 
 Lestrange rang the bell, and ordered the attendant 
 to take the young man to his grandfather. 
 
 The two wandered together over the grounds, and 
 Richard saw much to admire and wonder at, but 
 nothing to approach the hall or the library. 
 
 On their way home, Simon, to his grandson's sur- 
 prise, declared himself in favor of his working at 
 the Mortgrange library. But the idea tickled his 
 fancy so much, that Richard wondered at the oddity 
 of his grandfather's behavior. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Soon after his visit to Mortgrange, the young book- 
 binder went home, recalled at last by his parents. 
 John Tuke was shocked with the hardness and black- 
 ness of his hands, and called his wife's attention to 
 them. She, however, perh<ips from nearer alliance 
 with the smithy, professed to regard their condition 
 as by no means a serious matter. She could not, 
 nevertheless, quite conceal her regret, for she was 
 proud of her boy's hands. 
 
 Richard supposed of course that his father's annoy- 
 ance came only from the fear that his touch would 
 be no logger sufficiently delicate for certain parts of 
 his work ; and certainly, when he looked at them, 
 he thought the points of his fingers were broader 
 than before, and was a little anxious lest they should 
 have lost something of their cunning. He did not 
 know that mechanical faculty, for fine work as well 
 as rough, goes in general with square-pointed fingers. 
 Delicately tapered fingers, whatever they may indi- 
 cate in the way of artistic invention, are not the 
 fingers of the painter or ' the sculptor. The finest 
 fingers of the tapering kind I have ever seen were 
 those of a distinguished chemist of the last genera- 
 tion. Eager to satisfy both his father and himself, 
 that the hands of the bookmender had not degen- 
 erated more than his skill could counteract, Richard 
 
[04 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 selected, from a few that were waiting his return, 
 the book worthiest of his labor, set tp work, and 
 by a thorough success quickly effected his purpose. 
 
 He was now, however, anxious, before doing any- 
 thing else, to learn all that was known for the 
 restoration and repair of the insides of books. In 
 this an old-bookseller, a friend of his father, was 
 able to give him no little help, putting him up to 
 wrinkles not a few. Richard was surprised to see 
 how, M'ith a penknife, on a bit of glass, he would 
 pare the edge of a scrap of paper to half the thick- 
 ness, in order to place two such edges together, and 
 join them without a scar. He taught him how to 
 clean letterpress and engravings from ferruginous, 
 fungous and other kinds of spots. He made him 
 acquainted with a process which considerably 
 strengthened paper that had become weak in its 
 cohesion ; and when Richard would make further 
 experiment, he supplied him with valueless letter- 
 press to work upon. His time was thus more than 
 ever occupied. For many weeks he scarcely even 
 read. 
 
 It was not long, however, before he bethought him 
 that he must .see Arthur. He went the same evening 
 to call on him, but found other people in the house, 
 who could tell him nothing about the family that had 
 left. His aunt said she had seen Alice once, and 
 knew they were going, but did not know where they 
 were gone. Richard would have inquired at the 
 house in the City where Arthur was employed, but 
 he did not know even the name of the firm. Once, 
 from the top of an omnibus, he saw him — in the 
 same sliabby old comforter, looking feebler and paler 
 and more depressed than ever ; but when he got 
 
I05 
 
 down, he had lost sight of him, and though he ran 
 hither and thither, looking up this street and that, 
 he recovered no glimpse of him. The selfish 
 mother and the wasting children came back to him 
 vividly as he walked sadly home. 
 
 He had counted Alice the nicest girl he had ever 
 seen, but since going to the country had not thought 
 much about her ; and now, since seeing the fairy-like 
 lady with the big brown mare, he had a higher idea 
 of the feminine. But although therefore he would 
 not have thought the pale, sweet-faced dressmaker 
 quite so pleasing as before, he would, because of the 
 sad look into which her countenance always settled, 
 have felt her quite as interesting. 
 
 Richard had not yet arrived at any readiness to 
 fall in love. It is well when this readiness is delayed 
 until the individuality is sufficiently developed to have 
 its own demands. I venture to think one cause of 
 imhappiness in marriages is, that each person's 
 peculiar self was not^ at the time of engagement, 
 sufficiently grown for a natural selection of the suit- 
 able, that is, i\\Q corresponde?!/ ; and that the develop- 
 ment which follows is in most cases the development 
 of what is reciprocally non-correspondent, and 
 works for. separation and not approximation. The 
 only thing to overcome this or any other disjunctive 
 power is development in the highest sense, that is, 
 development of the highest and deepest in us — which 
 can come only by doing right. The man who is 
 growing to be one with his own nature, that is, one 
 with God who is the naturing nature, is coming 
 nearer and nearer to every one of his fellow-beings. 
 This may seem a long way round to love, but it is 
 the only road by which we can arrive at true love of 
 
io6 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 any kind ; and he who does not walk in it will one 
 day find himself on the verge of a g-ulf of hate. 
 
 Individuality, forestalled by indifference, had no 
 chance of keeping Sir Wilton and Lady Ann apart, 
 but certainly had done nothing to bring them 
 together. Where all is selfishness on both sides, 
 what other correspondences may exist will hardly 
 come into play. The loss of the unloved heir had 
 perhaps done a little to approximate them ; but they 
 speedily ceased to hold any communication of ideas 
 on the matter. As they did nothing to recover him, 
 so they seemed to take almost no thought as to 
 his existence or non-existence. If he were alive, 
 neither father nor stepmother had the least desire to 
 discover him. Answering honestly, each would 
 have chosen that he should remain unheard of. As 
 to the possibility of his dying in want, or being 
 brought up in wickedness, that did not trouble either 
 of them. His stepmother did not think the more 
 tenderly of another woman's child that she cared for 
 her own children only because they were hers. If 
 you could have got the idea into the pinched soul of 
 Lady Ann, that the human race is one family, it 
 would but have enhanced her general dislike, her 
 feeble enmity to humanity. When she did or said 
 anything to displease him, Sir Wilton would some- 
 times hint at a new advertisement, but she did not 
 much heed the threat. On the whole, however, they 
 had got on better than might have been expected, 
 partly in virtue oflicr sharp tongue and her thick 
 skin, which combination of the offensive and defen- 
 sive put Sir Wilton at a disadvantage : however 
 sharp his retort might be, she never felt it, but went 
 on ; and harping does not always mean such 
 
107 
 
 pleasant music, that you want to keep the harper 
 awake. She had brought him four children — Arthur, 
 the one whose acquaintance Richard had made, a 
 younger brother who promised foully, and two girls 
 — the elder common in feature and slow in wits, but 
 with eyes and a heart ; the younger clever and 
 malicious. 
 
 One stormy winter night, as Richard was returning 
 from a house in Park Crescent, to which he had 
 carried home a valuable book restored to strength 
 and some degree of aged beauty, from one of the 
 narrow openings on the east side of Regent Street, 
 came a girl, fighting with the wind and a weak- 
 ribbed umbrella, and ran buffeted against him, not- 
 withstanding his endeavor to leave her room. The 
 collision was very slight, but she looked up and 
 begged his pardon. It was Alice. Before he could 
 speak, she gave a cry, and went from him in blind 
 haste as fast as she could go ; but with, the fierce 
 wind, her fjerturbation, and the unruliness of the 
 umbrella, which she was vainly trying to close that 
 she might run the better, she struck full against a 
 lamp-post, and stood like one stunned and on the 
 point of falling. Richard, however, was close 
 behind her, and put an arm round her. She did not 
 resist ; she was indeed but half-conscious. The 
 same moment he saw a cab and hailed it. The man 
 heard and came. Richard lifted her into it, and got 
 in after her. But Alice came to herself, got up, and 
 leaning out of the cab on the street side, tried to open 
 the door. Richard caught her, drew her back, and 
 made her sit down again. 
 
 " Richard ! Richard ! " she cried, as she yielded to 
 his superior strength, and burst into tears, "where 
 are you taking me ? " 
 
lo8 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Wherever you like, Alice. You shall tell the 
 cabman yourself. What is the matter with you.? 
 Don't be angry with me. It is not my fault that I 
 have not been to see you and Arthur. You went 
 away, and nobody could tell me where to find you ! 
 Give the cabman your address, Alice." 
 
 "I'm not going home," sobbed Alice. 
 
 "Where are you going, then ? I will go with you. 
 You're not fit to go anywhere alone ! I'm afraid 
 you're badly hurt ! " 
 
 "No, no! Do let me out. Indeed, indeed, you 
 .must ! " 
 
 " Well, then, I won't ! You'll drop down and be 
 left to the police ! It's horrible to think of you out 
 in such a night ! Come home with me. If you are 
 in any trouble, my mother will help you." 
 
 Here Alice, who had yielded to the pressure with 
 which Richard held her, broke from him, and pushed 
 him away. Richard put his other arm across, and 
 laid hold of the door of the cab, telling the man to 
 get up on his box, and have a little patience. He 
 obeyed, and Richard turned again to Alice. 
 
 "Richard," she said, "your mother would kill 
 me ! " 
 
 "Nonsense I " he rejoined ; " what a fancy ! IMy 
 mother ! " 
 
 "I've seen her since you went. She made me 
 
 promise " 
 
 But there Alice stopped, and Richard could get 
 from her nothing but entreaties to be let out. 
 
 " If you don't," she said at last, growing desperate, 
 " I will scream." 
 
 "Let me take you at least, then, a little nearer 
 where you want to go," pleaded Richard. 
 
109 
 
 "No! no! set me down." 
 
 " Tell me where you live." 
 
 " I daren't." 
 
 "I must see my old friend, Arthur! and why 
 shouldn't I see his sister ? My father and mother 
 ain't tyrants ! They know what that would make 
 of me ! They let me go where I please, or give a 
 good reason why 1 should not." 
 
 " Oh, they'll do that fast enough ! " returned Alice, 
 in a tone of mingled despair and scorn. " But," she 
 added immediately, "the worst of it is, they'll be in 
 the right. Let me out, Richard, or I shall hate you ! " 
 
 But with the word she dropped her head on his 
 shoulder, and sobbed as if her heart would sob its last. 
 
 He made repeated attempts to soothe her, but, as 
 he made them, he felt them foolish, for he saw that 
 nothing would alter her determination to be set down. 
 
 "Must I leave you, then, on this very spot.^" he 
 said. 
 
 "Yes, yes ! here — here ! " she answered, and rose 
 with apparent eagerness to get away from him. 
 
 He got out, and turned to her, but she did not accept 
 his offered help. 
 
 "Won't you shake hands with me ? " he said. ' ' I 
 did not mean to offend you ! " 
 
 She answered nothing, but hurried away a step or 
 two, then turned and lifted her arms as if to embrace 
 him, but turned again instantly, and fled away among 
 the shadows of the wildly flickering lamps. By the 
 time he had paid the cabman, he saw it would be 
 useless to follow, for she was out of sight. 
 
 The wide street was almost deserted ; its lamps 
 shuddered flaring and streaming and darkening in the 
 fierce gusts of the wind. A vague army of evil things 
 
no THERE AND BACK. 
 
 seemed to start up and come crowding between him 
 and Alice. He turned homeward, with a sense of 
 loss and a great sadness at his heart, unable even to 
 speculate as to the cause of Alice's behavior. All he 
 knew was, that his mother had something to do with 
 it. For the first time since childhood, he felt angry 
 with his mother. 
 
 "She fancies,"' he said to himself, "that I am in 
 love with the girl, and she thinks her not good enough 
 for me ! I'm not in love with her ; but any good 
 girl I cared for, I should count good enough ! When 
 my mother's turn comes, off she goes to the rest of 
 the social tyrants that look down on a brother because 
 he can do twenty things they can't ! If the world 
 went out of gear, would ihey make it go .? I'll be fair 
 whatever I be ! It'll be my mother's own fault if I 
 fall in love with Alice ! She has made me pity her 
 with all my heart — the poor, white thing ! — so thin 
 and pinched, and such big eyes! It would be just 
 bliss to have a creature like that to trust you, so that 
 you could comfort her ! What can my mother have 
 said to her.? She has made her awfully miserable, 
 anyhow ! Perhaps her mother drinks ! — What if she 
 do ! Alice don't ! " 
 
 He was determined to have some explanation from 
 his mother. But she foiled him. The moment she 
 saw what he meant, she turned away, listened in 
 silence, and spoke with a decision that savored of 
 anger. 
 
 "They're not people your father and I will have 
 you know," she said, without looking at him. 
 
 "But why, mother.? " asked Richard. 
 
 "We're not bound to explain everything to you, 
 Richard. It ought to be enough that wc have a good 
 reason." 
 
"If it be a good reason, why shouldn't I know it, 
 mother? " he persisted. "Good things don't require 
 to be hidden." 
 
 "That's very true ; they do not." 
 
 "Then why hide this one.?" 
 
 "Because it is not good." 
 
 " You said it was a good reason ! " 
 
 "So it is." 
 
 "Good and not good ! How can that be.?" said 
 Richard, with a great lack of logic. By this time he 
 ought to have been able to see that the worst of facts 
 may be the best of reasons. 
 
 His mother held her peace, knowing she was right, 
 but not knowing how to answer what she thought 
 his cleverness. 
 
 " I mean to go and see them, mother," he said. 
 
 "You'll repent it, Richard. The woman is not 
 respectable ! " 
 
 " She won't bite me ! " 
 
 "There's worse than biting ! " 
 
 "I allow," pursued Richard, "she may take a drop 
 too much ; her nose does look a little suspicious ! 
 But if she ain't what she should be, it's hard lines 
 Arthur and Alice should suffer for the sins of their 
 mother." 
 
 "The Bible says the sins of the fathers are visited 
 on the children." 
 
 "The Bible! If the Bible says what ain't right, 
 are we to do it? " 
 
 "Richard, I'll have no such word spoken again in 
 my house ! " exclaimed his mother. 
 
 "Are you going to turn me out, mother, because 
 I say we should not do what is wrong, whoever tells 
 us to ? " 
 
I 12 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " No, Richard ! You said the Bible said what was 
 wrong ; and that's blasphemy ! "' 
 
 "Didn't you say, mother, that the Bible said we 
 ought to visit the sins of the fathers on the children ? " 
 
 "God forbid ! " cried the })Oor woman, driven almost 
 to distraction ; "I said nothing of the kind! That 
 would be awful ! What the Bible says is, that God 
 does so." 
 
 "Well, if God chooses, we must leave him to do 
 as he chooses — not do likewise ! " 
 
 "Surely, surely, Richard ! If he does it, he knows 
 what he's about, and we don't." 
 
 "All right, mother! Then tell me where Arthur 
 and Alice are gone. I want to go and see them." 
 
 " I don't know. In fact, I took care not to know, 
 that I mightn't be able to tell you." 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " Never mind why. I don't know where they are, 
 and couldn't tell you if I would." 
 
 Richard turned angrily away, and went to his 
 room, weary and annoyed. 
 
 In the morning his mother said to him — 
 
 "Richard, I can't bear there should be any mis- 
 understanding between you and me 1 The moment 
 you are one-and-twenty, ask me and I will tell you 
 why I would not have you knowing those people. 
 Believe me, I was right to stop it, for fear of what 
 might follow." 
 
 " If you are afraid of my falling in love with a girl 
 you don't think good enough for me, you have taken 
 the wrong way to keep me from thinking about her, 
 mother. You remember the costermonger whose 
 family quarrelled with him for marrying beneath 
 him.? If a girl be a good girl, she is good for me, 
 
113 
 
 whether she be the daughter of a cats'-meat-man or 
 of a royal duke ! I know that's not the way people 
 who call themselves Christians think ! They want, 
 of course, to keep up the selfishness of the breed ! " 
 
 It was horribly rude, and Jane burst into tears. 
 Richard's heart softened. It is well our hearts are 
 sometimes in advance of our consciences — we are so 
 slow to recognize injustice in defence of the right! 
 Richard's wrong to his mother was a lack of faith in 
 her. Where he did not understand and she would 
 not explain, he did not even give her the benefit of 
 the doubt. He treated her just as many of us, call- 
 ing ourselves Christians, treat the Father — not in 
 M'ords, perhaps, or even in definite thoughts, but in 
 feelings and actions. 
 
 "You will be sorry for this one day, Richard! " 
 she sobbed, "Whatever I do is from care over 
 you ! " 
 
 "To wrong another for my sake, never can be 
 any good to me. If money wrong-got be a curse, 
 so is any good wrong-got." 
 
 "You won't trust me, Richard ! My own father 
 is a blacksmith : why should I look down upon a 
 dressm.aker.? " 
 
 "That's just what I think, mother ! — Why ? " 
 
 "I don't!" returned Mrs. Tuke — and there she 
 paused : another step might bring her to the edge of 
 the gulf ! 
 
 Richard looked at her moodily for a moment, then 
 turned away to the workshop ; where, after his ill 
 success with his mother, he was hardly less disin- 
 clined to challenge his father than before, for he 
 knew him inexpugnable. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MORTGRANGE. 
 
 In the spring came a letter from young Lestrange, 
 through Simon Armour, asking Richard upon what 
 terms he would undertake the work wanted in the 
 library. 
 
 He handed the letter to his father, and they held a 
 consultation. 
 
 "There's this to be considered," said the book- 
 binder, "that, if you go there, you lose your con- 
 nection here — in a measure, at least. Therefore you 
 cannot do the work at the same rate as in your own 
 shop." 
 
 " On the other hand, I should have my keep." 
 
 "That is true, and of course is something ; but I 
 think it may fairly be held to do no more than make 
 up for the advantages of living in London — your 
 classes, for instance. " 
 
 "Anyhow I must be paid so much a month, and 
 do what I can in the time. I couldn't charge by the 
 individual job in a man's own house ! — The thing I 
 am afraid of is, that, not knowing the niceties of the 
 work, they may fancy I don't do enough." 
 
 " In the other way they would fancy you charged 
 too much, and that would come to the same thing ! — 
 But they will at least discover that you keep to your 
 hours and stick to your work ! — We must calculate 
 by what the best hands in the trade get a week I " 
 
MORTGRANGE. II5 
 
 The terms they concluded to ask appeared to Les- 
 trang-e reasonable. He proposed then that Richard 
 should bind himself for not less than a year, while 
 Lestrange reserved the right of giving him a month's 
 notice; and these points being willingly assented to 
 by Richard, an agreement was drawn up and signed 
 — much to the satisfaction of Simon Armour, whose 
 first thought was that the work would not be too 
 hard for Richard to want a little exercise at the forge 
 after hours. Richard, however, well as he liked the 
 anvil, was not so sure about this : there might be 
 books to read after he had done his day's duty by 
 their garments ! He had half laid out for himself a 
 plan of study in his leisure time, he said. 
 
 It was a lovely evening when he arrived at Mort- 
 grange from his grandfather's. He was shown to 
 his new quarters in the old mansion by the house- 
 keeper, an elderly, worthy creature, with the air of 
 a hostess. She liked the young man ; the honest 
 friendliness of his carriage pleased her. He was 
 handsome too, though not strikingly so, and his ex- 
 pression was better than any handsomeness, inspir- 
 ing the honest with confidence, and giving little hope 
 to the designing. His brave outlook, not bold so 
 much as fearless, and his ready smile, seemed those 
 of a man more prepared than eager to do his part in 
 the world. He was well set up, and of good figure, 
 for the slight roundness of his shoulders had almost 
 disappeared. The poise of his head, and the pro- 
 portions of his limbs, left nothing to be desired. His 
 foster-parents had encouraged him in every manly 
 exercise, for they were wise enough to have regard 
 to the impression he must make at first sight : they 
 would have it easy to believe that he might be what 
 
Il6 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 they were about to swear he was. Nor had his 
 sojourn with his grandfather been the least factor in 
 the result that he sat down to his work as lightly as 
 a gentleman to his dinner, turned from it as if he 
 had been playing a game instead of earning his 
 bread, and altogether gave the impression of being a 
 painter or sculptor rather than a tradesman. There 
 w^as that in his bearing which suggested a will rather 
 than necessity to labor. 
 
 "Here is your room, young man," said ]\Irs. 
 Locke. 
 
 It was a large, rather neglected chamber, at the 
 end of a long passage on the second floor — the very 
 room out of which one midnight he had been borne 
 in terror, twenty years before, by the woman he 
 called his mother. 
 
 "And I hope you will find yourself comfortable," 
 continued the old lady, in a tone that implied — "You 
 ought to be ! " — " If you want anything, or have any- 
 thing to complain of, let me know," she added. 
 " — I thought it better not to put you in the servants' 
 quarters ! " 
 
 "Thank you, ma'am," said Richard. "This is a 
 beautiful room for me ! Do you know, ma'am, 
 where I'm to work ? " 
 
 "I have not been informed, "she answered, as she 
 left the room. "Mr. Lestrange will see to that." 
 
 Richard went to the window. Before him spread 
 an extensive but somewhat bare park, for the trees 
 in it were rather few. Some of them, however, 
 were grand ones : many had been cut down, but a 
 few of the finest left. A sea of grass lay in every 
 direction, with islands of clumps and thickets, and 
 vague shores of hedge and wood and ploughed field. 
 
MORTGRANGE. II7 
 
 On the grass- were cattle and sheep and fallow deer. 
 On this side, nothing came between the park and the 
 house. 
 
 The day was late in the spring ; summer was close 
 at hand. There had been rain all the morning and 
 afternoon, but the clouds were clearing away as now 
 the sun went down. Everything was wet, but the 
 undried tears of the day flashed in the sunset. Na- 
 ture looked a child whose gladness had come, but 
 who could not stop crying : so heartily had she gone 
 in for sorrow, that her mind was shaped to weeping. 
 Most of the clouds, late so dark and sullen, were put- 
 ting on garments of light, as if resolved to forgive 
 and forget, and leave no doubt of it. But the sun 
 did not look satisfied with his day's work. Slant 
 across the world to Richard's window came the last 
 of his vanishing rays, blinding him as he brooded, 
 and obliterating all between them in a throbbing 
 splendor ; yet somehow the sun seemed sad, as if 
 atonement had come too late. The edge extreme of 
 the glory vanished ; a moment's cloud followed ; and 
 then, when the radiance of him who was gone grew 
 rosy and golden above his grave, Richard began to 
 see much that his presence had been hiding. But 
 the revelation did not linger long. The clouds closed 
 on the twilight, the world grew almost dismal, and 
 the sadness crept into Richard ; or was it not rather 
 that his own hidden sadness rose up to m^eet the sad- 
 ness of the world.? Yet, even as he became aware 
 of it, something in him recognized it as a thing for- 
 eign to the human heart : "We were" not made for 
 this!" he said. " — We are not here, I mean," he 
 corrected himself, " — we have aiot sprung into being 
 in order to be sad ! There is no reason in sadness ! 
 
Il8 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 There is cause enough, man at least knows, but essen- 
 tial reason at the heart of its existence there is none ! 
 Whence, then, comes this mistake, this sadness?" 
 he went on with himself. "Why should there be so 
 much of it in the world.? Is it that, as for all other 
 good things, a man must put forth his will for joy.' 
 It is plain a man must assert what is highest in him, 
 else he cannot lay hold (jf the best : must a man will 
 to be glad, else deserve to be sorrowful ? " He began 
 to whistle. "I will be glad! "he said, "even in the 
 midst of a world of rain ! — Yet again, why should 
 the mere look of a rainy night make it needful for me 
 to assert joy and resist sadness.? — After all, what is 
 there to be merry about, in this best of possible 
 worlds.? I like going to the theater; but if I don't 
 like the play, am I to be pleased all the same, sit it 
 out with smiles, and applaud at the end.? I don't 
 see what there is to make me miserable, and I don't 
 see what there is to make me glad ! " 
 
 Would it have cast any light either on Richard's 
 gloom or his perplexity, had he been told that, in the 
 place where he stood staring out on the gray, form- 
 less twilight, his mother had often sought refuge, 
 and tasted the comfort of an assuagement of splendor. 
 She had not appropriated the room, and it was some 
 time before the household knew that she was in the 
 way of going there : it was awkwardly situated in a 
 remote part of the house and rarely used — which 
 made its attraction for Lady Lestrange. But the faith- 
 ful sister did not forget where she had once found 
 her on her knees weeping, and chose it for herself 
 and her charge when she was gone. 
 
 In a few minutes Richard arrived at the conclu- 
 sion that he would be all right as soon as he got 
 
MORTGRANGE. 
 
 119 
 
 among' the wine-bins of the library. He did not re- 
 flect how little of a man is he whose sense of well- 
 being is at the mercy of a Scotch mist or a cloudy 
 twilight. Neither did he put to himself the question 
 whether the mending of the old leather bottles in 
 which lie stored the varied wines of the human spirit, 
 ought to be labor and gladness enough for the soul 
 of a man. It is a poor substitute for food that helps 
 us to forget the want of it. But how can we wonder 
 when he would have no father, and claimed the 
 black Negation, the grandmother of Chaos, as his 
 mother! Yet was it the presence all the time of that 
 father he refused that made it possible for him to 
 drink the water of any poorest little well of salvation 
 that sprang in the field of his life ; and such a well 
 was his work among books. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE BEECH-TREE. 
 
 He went to bed, and after a dreamless night, rose 
 to find the world overflowed with bliss. The sun 
 was at his best, and every water-drop on the grass 
 was shining all the colors of the rainbow. Surely 
 the gems that are dug from the earth have their pro- 
 totype in the dew-drops that lie on its surface. One 
 might in a moment of sweet maundering imagine 
 Nature hiding those sunless dew-drops of the mines 
 in the darkness of a sweet sorrow that the youth of 
 the morning must be so evanescent. 
 
 The whole world lay before Richard his inher- 
 itance. The sunlight gave it him, a gift from the 
 height of his heaven. What was it to Richard that 
 the park, its trees, its grass, its dew-drops, its cattle, 
 its shadows, belonged to Sir Wilton ! He never even 
 thought of the fact ! He felt them his own ! Was 
 the soft, clear, fresh, damp air, with all the unreach- 
 able soul of it, not his, because it was Sir Wilton's ? 
 
 The highest property, as Dante tells us, increases 
 to each by the sharing of it with others. But the 
 common mind does not care for such property. 
 Was not the blue, uplifted, hoping sky, that spoke 
 to the sky inside Richard — was not that Sir Wilton's ? 
 Yes, indeed ; for were it not Sir Wilton's, it could 
 not be Richard's. But Sir Wilton did not claim it, 
 because he did not care for it, heard no sound of the 
 
THE BEECH-TREE. 121 
 
 speech it uttered, Happy would it have been for 
 Sir Wilton, that anything he called his, was his as 
 it was Richard's ! He could not prevent Richard 
 from possessing Mortgrange in a way he himself 
 did not and would not possess it. But neither yet 
 were they Richard's in the full eternal way. Na- 
 ture was a noble lady whose long visit made him 
 glad; she was not yet at her own home in his house. 
 There were things in the world that might come in 
 and drive her out. Say rather, there was yet no 
 chamber in that house in which she could take up 
 her dwelling all night. 
 
 The setting sun had made Richard sad ; his resur- 
 rection made him blessed ! He dressed in haste, and 
 went to find his way from the house. 
 
 Arrived in the park, and walking in cool delight 
 on the wet grass, he began to think about the men 
 and the races whom the greed of other men and races 
 had pinched and shouldered and squeezed from the 
 world. He thought of the men who, by prevent- 
 ing others and refusing to let them share, imagine to 
 increase the length and breadth and depth of their 
 own possessing ; and thus by degrees he fell into a 
 retributive mood. What should, what could, what 
 would be done with such men ? 
 
 "As they refuse their neighbors ground to stand 
 upon," he said to himself, "as the very cubic space 
 they cannot disrobe them of they begrudge them be- 
 cause it measures from what they count their land. 
 I should like to know how high their possession 
 goes 1 Is there any law that lays that down ? To 
 what point above him can the landowner complain 
 . of trespass in the gliding or hovering balloon ? 
 When hawking comes in again, as it will one day, 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 by the law of revival, at what height will another 
 man's falcon be an intruder on him who stands gaz- 
 ing up from his corn ? Were I a power in the uni- 
 verse, I would cram the air over the heads of such 
 incarnate greeds with clouds of souls ! The sun 
 should reach them only through the vapors of other 
 life than theirs, inimical to them because of their sel- 
 fishness, I would set the dead burrowing beneath 
 them, so that the land they boast should heave under 
 their feet with the writhing of the bodies they drove 
 from the surface into the deeps. They should have 
 but a carpet, wallowing in the waves of a continuous 
 live earthquake. I know I am thinking like a fool ; 
 but surely at least there ought to be some set season 
 for Truth and Justice to return to the forsaken earth ! 
 Are we forever to bear without hope the presence 
 of the cruel, the vulgar self-souled, the neighbor- 
 crushing rich ? Are the wicked the favorites of Na- 
 ture, that they flourish like a green bay-tree ? Doubt- 
 less it is right to forgive — but how to be able ? No- 
 body has ever done me any harm yet ; I have noth- 
 ing to complain of; it cannot be revenge in me that 
 longs for something, call it God, or Nature, or Jus- 
 tice, that will repay ! — God it cannot be; but some- 
 thing sure there must be to which vengeance be- 
 longs ! " 
 
 He might have gone further in his thinking, and 
 perhaps come to ask what satisfaction there could 
 be in any vengeance, so long as the evil-doer re- 
 mained unhumbled by the perception and the shame 
 of his doing, was neither sorry for it nor turned away 
 from it — in a'word, did not repent ; but there came 
 an interruption. 
 
 He was walking slowly along, unheeding where he 
 
THE BEECH-TREE. I 23 
 
 went, when he heard a sound that made him look 
 up. Then he saw that he was under a great beech, 
 and the sound seemed to come from somewhere in 
 the top of it — a sound like the pleased cooing of a 
 dove. He looked hard into the branches and their 
 wilderness of fresh leaves, but could descry nothing. 
 Then came a little laugh, and with a preparatory 
 rustling and rustling in its passage, a book — a small 
 folio — fell plump at his feet. 
 
 "Will you please put it in the library!" said a 
 voice he had heard before — long before, it seemed — ■ 
 but had not forgotten. 
 
 "I will bring it to you — at least I would, if I could 
 see where you are ! " answered Richard, gazing with 
 yet keener search into the thick mass of leaf-cloud 
 over his head. 
 
 "No, no; I don't want more of it. I can't see 
 you, and don't know who you are ; but please take 
 the book, and lay it on the middle table in the 
 library. It may be hurt, and I don't want to come 
 down just yet." 
 
 "Very well, miss!" answered Richard; "I will. 
 — The fall from such a height, and through all those 
 branches, must have done it quite enough harm 
 already ! " 
 
 " Oh ! — I never thought of that ! " said the voice. 
 
 Richard took up the book, and walked away with 
 it, pondering. 
 
 "Is it possible," he said to himself, " that the little 
 lady, whose big mare I shod last year, is up there in 
 that tree.? It must be her voice ! — I cannot, surely, 
 be mistaken ! — But how on earth, or rather how in 
 heaven, did she get up? Yet why shouldn't she 
 climb as well as any other.? It must be as easy as 
 
24 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 riding that huge mare. And then she's not like other 
 ladies ! She snot of the ordinary breed of this planet ! 
 Which of them would have spoken to a blacksmith- 
 lad as she spoke to me ! Who but herself would have 
 tied up a scratch in a working man's hand ! " 
 
 He was right so far : she could climb as no other 
 in that county, no other, perhaps, in England, man 
 or boy or girl, could climb. She was like a squirrel 
 at climbing ; and for the last few mornings, the 
 weather having grown decidedly summery, had 
 gone before breakfast to say her prayers in that 
 tree. 
 
 Richard carried the book to the house — it was 
 Pope's Letters — found his way to the library, and laid 
 it where she said, hoping she would come to seek 
 it, and that he might then be present. Would she 
 recognize the fellow that shod her mare ? he won- 
 dered. 
 
 He could do nothing till he knew where he was to 
 work, and therefore, after breakfast in the servants' 
 hall, he asked one of the men to let him know when 
 Mr. Lestrange would see him, and went to his 
 room. 
 
 Richard had not yet become aware of any moral 
 pressure. The duty of aspiration or self-conquest 
 had never in any shape been forced upon him, and 
 his conscience had not made him acquainted with it. 
 What is called a good conscience is often but a dull 
 one that gives no trouble when it ought to bark 
 loudest ; but Richard's was not of that sort, and yet 
 was very much at ease. I may say for him that he 
 had done nothing he knew to be bad at the moment ; 
 and very little that he had to be ashamed of after- 
 w^ards, either at school or since he left it. Partly 
 
THE BEECH-TREE. I 25 
 
 through the care of his parents, he had never got 
 into what is called bad company, had formed no un- 
 desirable intimacies. He had a natural cleanliness, 
 a natural sense of the becoming, which did much to 
 keep him from evil : he could not consent to regard 
 himself with disgust, and he would have been easily 
 disgusted with himself. If he did not, as I have 
 indicated, set himself with any conscious effort to rise 
 above himself, he did do something against sinking 
 below himself. The books he chose were almost all 
 of the better sort. He had instinctively laid aside 
 some in which he recognized a degrading influence. 
 
 But here let me remark that it depends partly on 
 the degree of a man's moral development, whether 
 this or that book will be to him degrading or other- 
 wise. A book which one man ought to scorn may 
 be of elevating tendency to another, because it is a 
 little above his present moral condition. A book 
 which to enjoy would harm a more delicate mind, 
 ma.Y perhaps benefit the nature that would have chosen 
 a coarser book still. We cannot determine the opera- 
 tion of energies, when we do not know on what 
 moral level they are at work. The dead may be left 
 to bury their dead ; it would be sad to see an angel 
 haunting a charnel-house. 
 
 I have been led into this digression through the 
 desire to give an approximate idea of the good, rather 
 vacant, unselfish, and yet self-contented, if not self- 
 satisfied condition of Richard's being. 
 
 He got out a manuscript-book in which he was in 
 the habit of setting down whatever came to him, 
 and wrote for some time, happily making more than 
 one spot of ink on the toilet-cover, which served to 
 open the eyes of Mrs. Locke to her mistake in think- 
 
126 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 ing- a workman would not want a writing-table ; so 
 that before the next evening he found in his chamber 
 everything comfortable for writing, as \vell as for 
 sleeping and dressing. 
 
 He was interrupted by the entrance of a servant 
 with the message that Mr. Lestrange was in the morn- 
 ing-room, and wished to see him. 
 
 He followed the man and found Lestrange at the 
 breakfast-table, with a tall young woman, very ordi- 
 nary-looking, except for her large soft, dark eyes, and 
 the little lady whose mare he had shod, and whose 
 voice he had heard that morning heard from the 
 tree-top. 
 
 He advanced half-way to the table, and stood. 
 
 "Ah, there you are! " said Lestrange, glancing up, 
 and immediately reverting to his plate. " We've got 
 to set to work, haven't we ? " 
 
 He had, I presume, found the ladies not unin- 
 terested in the restoration that was about to be 
 initiated, and had therefore sent for Richard while 
 breakfast was going on. 
 
 The fledgling baronet, except for his too favorable 
 opinion of himself, in which he was unlike only a 
 very few, and an amount of assumption not small 
 toward his supposed inferiors, was not a disagreeable 
 human, and now spoke pleasantly. 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered Richard. "Shall I wait out- 
 side until you have done breakfast ? " 
 
 He feared the servant might have make a mistake. 
 
 " I sent for you," replied Lestrange, curtly. 
 
 "Very well, sir. I have not yet learned whether 
 the tools I sent on have been delivered, but there 
 will be plenty to do in the way of preparation. — May 
 I ask if you have settled where I am to work, sir? " 
 
THE BEECH-TREE. I 2/ 
 
 "Ah, I had not thought of that ! " 
 
 " It seems to ijie, sir, that the Hbrary itself would 
 suit best ; that is, if I might have a good-sized kitchen- 
 table in it, and roll up half the carpet. When I had 
 to beat a book I could take it into the passage, or 
 just outside the window. Nothing else would make 
 any dust." 
 
 Lestrange had been thinking how to have the binder 
 under his eye, and yet not seem to watch a fellow so 
 much above hiS notion of a working man ; the family 
 made very little use of the library, and Richard's pro- 
 posal seemed just the thing. He would be sure to 
 stick to his work where some one might any moment 
 be coming in ! 
 
 "I don't see any difficulty," he answered. 
 
 "I should want a little fire for my glue-pot and 
 polishing-iron. There will be gilding and lettering 
 too, thdugh I hope not much — title-pieces to replace, 
 and a touch here and there to give to the tooling ! 
 No man with any reverence in him would meddle 
 much with such delicate, lovely old things as many 
 of these gildings! He would not dare more than 
 just touch them ! " 
 
 The little lady sat eating her toast, but losing no 
 word that was said. She knew from his voice the 
 young man was the same to whom she had called 
 out of the beech-tree ; but now she seemed to recog- 
 nize him as the blacksmith whose hand she had 
 bound up : what could a blacksmith do in a library ? 
 She was puzzled. 
 
 Richard noted that she was dressed in some green 
 stuff, which perhaps was the cause of his having 
 been unable to discover her in the tree ! Her great 
 eyes — they were bigger than those of the tall lady — 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 every now and then looked up at him with a renewed 
 question, to which they seemed to find no answer. 
 They were big- blue eyes — very dark for blue, and 
 rather too round for perfection ; but their roundness 
 was at one Mnth the prevailing expression of her face, 
 which was innocent daring, inquiry, and confidence. 
 The paleness of it was a healthy paleness, with just an 
 inclination to freckle. Her dark, half-scorched-look- 
 ing hair was so abundant and rebellious, that it had 
 to be all over compelled with gold pins. Its manip- 
 ulation had neither beginning, middle nor end. 
 She ate daintily enough, but as if she meant to have 
 a breakfast that should last her till luncheon — when 
 plainly the active little furnace of her life would want 
 fresh fuel. But it was of another kind of fuel she was 
 thinking now. In the man who stood there, so in- 
 dependent, yet so free from self-assertion, she saw a 
 prospect of learning something. She was. hungry 
 after knowing, but, though fond of reading, was very 
 ignorant of books. She thought like a poet, but had 
 never read a real poem. She was full of imagination, 
 but very imperfectly knew what the word meant. 
 She had never in her life read a work of genuine 
 imagination — not even Undine, not even The Ugly 
 Duckling, 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE LIBRARY. 
 
 After some talk, it was settled that Richard should 
 work in the large oriel of the library. Mrs. Locke 
 was called, and the necessary orders were given. 
 Employer and workman were both anxious, the one 
 to see, the other to make a commencement. In a 
 few minutes Richard had looked out as many of the 
 books in most need of attention as would keep him, 
 turning from the one to the other, as each required 
 time in the press or to dry, thoroughly employed. 
 
 "There is a volume here I should like to know 
 your mind about, sir," he said, after looking at one 
 of them a moment or two, " — the first collected edi- 
 tion of Spenser's works, actually bound up with Sir 
 John Harrington's translation of Ariosto ! Kit were 
 a good, or even an old binding, I should have said 
 nothing." 
 
 "It don't seem in a bad way." 
 
 "No, but the one book is so unworthy of the 
 other ! " 
 
 "What would you propose.? " 
 
 "I would separate them ; put the Spenser in plain 
 calf, and make the present cover, with a new back, 
 do for Sir John ; it is a good enough coat for him." 
 
 "Very well. Do as you think best." 
 
 "I should like to send them both to my father." 
 
 "But you have undertaken everything ! " 
 9 
 
130 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " I am quite ready, sir ; but in that case these niust 
 wait. My faculty is best laid out on mending, and 
 I must do some good work in that first. 1 don't 
 know that I'm quite up to my father in binding. I 
 mentioned him because if he were to help me with 
 those that must be bound, I should have the more 
 time for what often takes longer. You may trust my 
 father, sir; he does not want to make a fortune." 
 
 " I will try him then," answered the cautious heir. 
 "At least I will send him the books, and learn what 
 he would charge." 
 
 He had more of the ordinary tradesman in him 
 than Richard and his uncle put together. 
 
 "I will put the prices on them, and engage that 
 my father will charge no more," said Richard. 
 
 Lestrange was content on hearing them, and Rich- 
 ard set to work with the other volumes. 
 
 The bookbinder, always busy, soon began to be 
 respected in the house, and before long had gained 
 several indulgences — among the rest, to have a table 
 for himself in the library, at which, when work-hours 
 were over, he might read or write when he pleased. 
 As his labors went on, the bookscape began to revive, 
 and continued slowly putting on an autumnal radi- 
 ance of light and color. Dingy and broken backs 
 gradually disappeared. Pamphlets and magazines, 
 such as, from knowledge or inquiry, Richard thought 
 worth the expense, were sent off to his father to be 
 bound. But I must continue my narrative from a 
 point long before his work began to make much of 
 a show. 
 
 A few valuable books, much injured by time and 
 rough usage, — among the rest a quarto of The Merry 
 Wives — he had pulled apart, and was treating with 
 
THE LIBRARY. 
 
 131 
 
 certain solutions, in preparation for binding them, 
 when Lestrange came in one morning, accompanied 
 by the curate of the parish. His eyes fell on a loose 
 title-page which he happened to know. 
 
 "What on earth are you doing ? " he cried. " You 
 will destroy that book ! By Jove ! — You little know 
 what you're about ! " 
 
 "I do know what I am about, sir. I shall do the 
 book nothing but good," answered Richard. "It 
 could not have lasted many years without what I "am 
 doing." 
 
 "Leave it alone," said Lestrange. "I must ask 
 some one. The treatment is too dangerous." 
 
 "Excuse me, sir; the treatment is by no means 
 dangerous. After this bath, I shall take it through 
 one of thin size, to help the paper to hold together. 
 The book has suffered much, both from damp and 
 insects." 
 
 "No matter! '' answered Lestrange, imperiously. 
 " I will not have you meddle further with that 
 volume. — Would you believe it. Hardy," he went on 
 turning to the curate, "it is that translation of Ovid 
 he is experimenting upon ! " 
 
 ,"l beg your pardon, I am not experimenting," 
 said Richard. 
 
 " I hardly think it is such a very rare book !"' replied 
 the curate. " I believe it could be replaced ! " 
 
 "Ah, you don't know, I see ! I thought I had 
 shown you ! " returned Lestrange excitedly. " Look 
 there 1 " 
 
 He pointed to the title-page, which was lying on 
 the table. 
 
 " I see ! " said Hardy. " It is a first edition — in 
 black letter — of Arthur Goldinsr's Ovid 1 " 
 
132 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "But you don't look! Why don't you look? 
 Have you no eyes for that faded ink just under the 
 title?" 
 
 "Why! What's this? GuL Shaksper J—ls it 
 possible ! " 
 
 "You find it hard to believe your eyes, and well 
 you may ! — There, Tuke ! I told you you didn't 
 know what you were doing ! " 
 
 "I always examine the title-page of a book," 
 answered Richard. " You must allow me to do as I 
 see fit, Mr. Lestrange, or I give up the job." 
 
 " You undertook to work for a year, if required ! " 
 
 "Idid not undertake to receive orders as to my 
 mode of working. I care for books far too much for 
 that. Besides, I have my character to see to ! I 
 warn you that if I do not go on with that volume, it 
 will be ruined. " 
 
 "You don't consider the money you risk ! — That 
 name makes the book worth hundreds at least." 
 
 " It is the greatest of names ! Only that name was 
 not written by him who owned it ! " 
 
 "What do you know about it!" said Lestrange, 
 rudely. 
 
 "Are you an expert ? " asked the curate. 
 
 "By no means," answered Richard ; "but I have 
 been a good deal with old books, and my impression 
 is you have got there one of the Ireland forgeries ! " 
 
 "I believe it to be quite genuine!" said Les- 
 trange. 
 
 "If it be, there is the more reason in what I am 
 doing, sir." 
 
 Lestrange turned abruptly to the curate, saying — 
 
 "Come along, Hardy! I can't bear to see the 
 butchery ! " 
 
THE LIBRARY. 1 33 
 
 "Depend on it," returned the curate laughing, 
 "the surgeon knows his knife! — You know what 
 you're about, don't you, Mr. Tuke ? " 
 
 "If I did not, sir, I wouldn't meddle with a book 
 like that, forgery or no forgery ! You should see the 
 quantities of old print I've destroyed in learning how 
 to save such books ! — This is no vile body to exper- 
 iment upon ! " 
 
 "Mr. Lestrange, you may trust that man!" said 
 the curate. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BARBARA W\'LDER. 
 
 It was the height of the season, and Sir Wilton and 
 Lady Ann were in London — I cannot say enjoying 
 themselves, for I doubt if either of them ever enjoyed 
 self, or anything else. Their daughters were at home, 
 in the care of the governess. Theodora had been 
 out a year or two, but preferred Mortgrange to 
 London. She was one of the few girls — perhaps not 
 very few — who imagine themselves uglier than they 
 are. Miss Malliver, the governess, was a lady of 
 uncertain age, for whom Lady Ann had an uncertain 
 liking. The younger girl her pupil, was named 
 Victoria, but commonly called Vic, and not uncom- 
 monly Vixen. The younger boy was at school, 
 where they were constantly threatening to send him 
 home. He had been already dismissed from Eton. 
 
 In their elder son, Arthur, his parents h-ad as per- 
 fect a confidence as such parents could have in any 
 son. 
 
 The little lady that rode the great mare, and s»it in 
 the beech-tree, was at present their guest — as she 
 often was, in a fluctuating or intermittent fashion. 
 She lived in the neighborhood, but was more at 
 INIortgrange than at home ; one consequence of which 
 was, that, as would-be-clever Miss Malliver phrased 
 it, the house was very much B. Wyldered. Nor was 
 that the first house the little lady had bewildered, for 
 she was indeed an importation from a new colony 
 
BARBARA WYLDER. 
 
 ^35 
 
 rather startling to sedate old Eng-land. Her father, a 
 younger son, had unexpectedly succeeded to the 
 family-property, a few miles from Mortgrange. He 
 was supposed to have made a fortiuie in New Zealand, 
 where Barbara was born and brought up. They had 
 been home nearly two years, and she was almost 
 eighteen. Absurd rumors were abroad concerning 
 their wealth, but there were no great signs of wealth 
 about the place. Wylder Hall was kept up, and its 
 life went on in good style, it is true, but mainly 
 because the old servants perpetuated the customs of 
 the house. 
 
 The squire was said to have shared in some of the 
 roughest phases of colonial life. Whether he was 
 better or worse for falhng in love with the money of 
 an older colonist, and marrying his daughter, it is 
 certain that, for a time at least, he grew a shade or 
 two more respectable. Far from being a woman of 
 refinement, she had more character and morestrength 
 than he, and brought him, not indeed into the high- 
 ways of wisdom, but into certain by-paths of prudence. 
 
 Upon his return to his native country they were 
 everywhere received ; but had it not been for their 
 reported wealth, I doubt if the ladies of the county, 
 after some experience of her manners and speech, 
 which were at times very rough, would have con- 
 tinued to call on Mrs. Wylder. 
 
 But everybody liked Barbara ; and nobody could 
 think how such a flower should have come of two 
 such plants. She seemed to regard every one as of her 
 own family. People were her property — hers to love ! 
 And her brain was as active as her heart, and con- 
 stantly with it. She wanted to know what people 
 thought and felt and imagined ; what everything was ; 
 
136 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 how a thing was done, and how it ought to be done. 
 She seemed to understand what the animals were 
 thinking, and what the flowers were feeling. She 
 had from infancy spent the greater part of her life, 
 both night and day, in the open air ; and, having no 
 companion, had sought the acquaintance of every live 
 thing she saw — often to the disgust of her mother, 
 and occasionally to the annoyance of her father. She 
 was a child of the whole world, as the naiad is the 
 child of the river, and the oread of the mountain. 
 She could sit a horse's bare back even better than a 
 saddle, could guide him almost as well with a halter 
 as with a bridle, and in general control him without 
 either, though she had ridden more than one horse 
 with terrible bit and spurs. She did not remember 
 the time when she could not swim, and she tried her 
 own running against every new horse, to find what 
 he could do. Some highland girl might perhaps have 
 beaten her, up hill, but I doubt it. She was so small 
 that she looked fragile, but she had nerves such as 
 few men can boast, and muscles like steel. It never 
 occurred to her not to say what she thought, believed, 
 or felt ; she would show favor or dislike with equal 
 readiness ; and give the reason for anything she did 
 as willingly as do the thing. She was a special 
 favorite at Mortgrange, Not only did she bewitch 
 the hlase man of the world. Sir Wilton, but the cold 
 eye of his lady would gleam a faint gleam at the 
 thought of her dowry. Her father "prospected" a 
 little for something higher than a mere baronetcy, but 
 he had in no way interfered. Of herself, divine little 
 savage, she would never have thought of love until 
 she fell in love : a flower cannot know its own blos- 
 som until it comes. It did not yet interest her, and 
 
VRA WYLDER. I 37 
 
 until it did, certainly marriage never would. Thus 
 was she healthier-minded than any one born of 
 society-parents, and brought up under the influences 
 of nurse-morality, can well be. When she came to 
 England it was hard to teach her the ways of the so- 
 called civilized. Servants would sometimes be out 
 searching for her after midnight, perhaps to find her 
 strayed beyond the park, out upon the solitary heath. 
 She knew most of the stars, not by their astronomical 
 names indeed, but by names she had herself given 
 them. She had tales of her own, fashioned in part 
 from the wild myths of the aborigines, to account for 
 the special relations of such as made a group. She 
 would weave the travels of the planets into the steady 
 history of the motionless stars. Waning and waxing 
 moons had a special and strange influence upon her. 
 She would dart out of doors the moment she saw the 
 new moon, and give a wild cry of joy if the old moon 
 was in her arms. Any moon in a gusty night, with a 
 scud of torn clouds, would wake in her an ecstasy. 
 Her old nurse, who had come with her — a strange 
 creature, of what mingled blood no one knew — told 
 of her that she was sometimes seized with such a 
 longing for the ocean, that she would lie for hours 
 ere she went to sleep, moaning with the very moan 
 of its pebble-margined waves. When " in the bush," 
 she would upon occasion wander about from morn- 
 ing to night. No trouble able to keep her still had 
 ever yet laid hold of her. But she had grown neither 
 coarse nor unfeeling through lack of human inter- 
 course. Nature was to her what she was to Words- 
 worth's Lucy, and made her a lady of her own. 
 
 As to what is commonly called education, she had 
 not had the best. Since goming to England, she had 
 
138 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 had governesses, but none fit for the office. Not merely- 
 had no one of them that rare gift, the teaching-genius 
 — the faculty of waking hunger and thirst ; that would 
 have mattered little, for Barbara needed no such 
 rousing; she was eager to know, and yet more eager 
 to understand ; but not one of those teachers knew 
 enough to answer a quarter of Barbara's questions, or 
 was even capable of perceiving that those she could 
 not answer, pointed to anything wt>rth knowing. 
 
 Among fashionable girls,, affecting a free and easy, 
 or even rough style, Barbara was notable for a sweet, 
 unconscious, graceful daring, never for even a play- 
 ful rudeness. Nothing she ever did or said or at- 
 tempted could be called rough, while yet she would 
 say things to make a vulgar duchess stare. Had she 
 been affected, she would have drawn fools and re- 
 pelled men ; real, she charmed alike men and fools. 
 
 She had read few books worth reading — had read a 
 few which one would not have chosen she should read, 
 for she grasped at anything a passer-by might have 
 left. Of books properly so called, she knew nothing, 
 therefore had not a notion which to read now she 
 might choose. She imagined them all attractive — 
 but at the first assay turned from the burlesque with 
 a kind of loathing. This made some of her new 
 acquaintance, not refined enough to understand the 
 peculiarity, as it seemed to them, set her down as 
 stupid. 
 
 As to religion, she had never been taught any. 
 But from before her earliest recollection she had had 
 the feeling of a Presence. For this feeling she never 
 thought of attempting to account, neither would have 
 recognized it as what I have called it. The sky over 
 her head brought it ; a sweep of the earth away from 
 
BARBARA WYLDER. 
 
 139 
 
 her feet would bring it ; any horizon far or near 
 called it up, perhaps most keenly of all. In England 
 she often sorely missed her horizon, and in cities 
 was even unhappy for lack of one. If she could 
 have crystallized, and then formulated her feeling-, 
 she would have said she felt lonely, that something 
 or somebody had gone away. Had she been a pagan, 
 it would have been her gods that had forsaken her. 
 Without a horizon she felt as if the wind had forgot- 
 ten her, the sky did not know her. Often indeed 
 even the farthest horizon could not prevent her from 
 feeling that she had come to a dead country ; that 
 things here did not mean anything ; that the life was 
 out of them. Was the world so crowded with men 
 and their works as to shutout from her the Presence .? 
 When she went to church, nothing received her, 
 nothing came near her, nothing brought her any 
 message. Something was done, she supposed, that 
 ought to be done— something she had no inclination 
 to dispute, no interest in questioning : a certain good 
 power called God, required from people, in return 
 for the gift of existence, the attention of going to 
 church ; therefore she went sometimes. She had no 
 idea of ever having done wrong, no feeling that God 
 was pleased or displeased with her, or had any oc- 
 casion to be either. She did not know that it was 
 God that came near her in her horse, in her dog, in 
 the people about her who so often disappointed her. 
 He came nearer in a thunderstorm, a moonlit night, 
 a sweet wind — anything that woke the sense of the 
 old freedom of her childhood. She felt the presence 
 then, but never knew it a presence. 
 
 Neither did she know that there was a place where 
 the very essence of that whose loss made her sad 
 
140 THERE AND BACK, 
 
 was always waiting her — a place called in a certain 
 old book "thy closet." She did not know that there 
 opened the one horizon — infinitely far, yet near as 
 her own heart. But he is there for them that seek 
 him, not for those who do not look for him. Till 
 they do, all he can do is to make them feel the want 
 of him. Barbara had not begun to seek him. She 
 did not know there was anybody to seek : she only 
 missed him without knowing what she missed. The 
 blind, almost meaningless reverence for the name of 
 God, which somehow she learned at church, had not 
 led her in any way to associate him with her sense 
 of loss and need. 
 
 Her father's desire was to see her so married as to 
 raise his influence in the county. He was proud of 
 her — selfishly proud. Was she not his ? Was he 
 not " the author of her being.? " If he did not quite 
 imagine he had created her, he certainly never 
 thought of any one but himself as having to do with 
 her existence. All the credit in it was his ! He 
 forgot even what share her mother might claim ; not 
 to mention what in her might belong to the Sum of 
 Things, the insensate Pan. A self-glorious man is 
 the biggest fool in the world. 
 
 Her mother, too, was proud of her — loved her in- 
 deed after a careless fashion — was even in a sort 
 obliged to her for having come to her. But she did 
 not care for her enough to interfere Avith her. Not- 
 withstanding the mother's coarseness, her outbursts 
 of temper, her intolerance of opposition, she and her 
 daughter had never yet come into collision. The 
 reason did not entirely lie in the sweetness of the 
 daughter, but partly in the fact that the mother had 
 
BARBARA WYI.DER. I4I 
 
 two children besides, one of whom she loved far 
 more, and the other far less. 
 
 Barbara had no pride. She spoke in the same tone 
 to lord and tradesman. She had been the champion 
 of the blacks in her own country, and in England 
 looked lovingly on the gypsies in their little tents on 
 the windy downs. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 BARBARA AND RICHARD. 
 
 Hardly had Lestrange left the room, when Barbara 
 entered, noiseless as a moth, which creature she 
 somehow resembled at times : one observant friend 
 came to see that she resembled all swift, gay, and 
 gentle creatures in turn. She was in the same green 
 dress which had favored her concealment in the 
 beech, and in which Richard had seen her afterward 
 at the breakfast-table, but of which he had not since 
 caught a glimmer. Her blue eyes — at times they 
 seemed black, but they were blue — settled upon 
 Richard the moment she entered, and resting on him 
 seemed to lead her up to the table where he was at 
 work. 
 
 " What have you done to make Arthur so angry ? " 
 she said, her manner as if they had known each 
 other all their lives. 
 
 " What I am doing now, miss — making this book 
 last a hundred years longer." 
 
 " Why should you, if he doesn't want you to do it? 
 The book is his ! " 
 
 " He will be pleased enough by and by. It's only 
 that he thinks I can't, and is afraid I shall ruin it. " 
 
 " Hadn't you better leave it then ? " 
 
 "That would be to ruin it. I have gone too far 
 for that. " 
 
 "Why should you want to make it last so long.? 
 
ARBARA AND RICHARD. 
 
 143 
 
 They are always printing boolcs over again, and a 
 new book is much nicer than an old one." 
 
 " So some people think ; but others would much 
 rather read a book in its first shape. And then books 
 get so changed by printers and editors, that it is ab- 
 solutely necessary to have copies of them as they 
 were at first. You see this little book, miss ? It don't 
 look much, does it ? " 
 
 " It looks miserable — and so dirty ! " 
 
 " By the time I have done with it, it will be worth 
 fifty, perhaps a hundred pounds — I don't know 
 exactly. It is a play of Shakspere's as published in 
 his lifetime." 
 
 "But they print better and more correctly now, 
 don't they ? " 
 
 "Yes ; but as I said, they often change things." 
 
 " How is that ? " 
 
 "Sometimes they will change a word, thinking it 
 ought to be another ; sometimes they will alter a 
 passage because they do not understand it, putting it 
 all wrong, and throwing aside a great meaning for a 
 small one : the change of a letter may alter the whole 
 idea. But they often do it just by blundering. Shall 
 I tell you an instance that came to my knowledge 
 yesterday.? It is but a trifle, yet is worth telling. — 
 Of course you know the Idylls of the King />" 
 
 "No, I don't. Why do you say 'of course'.?" 
 
 "Because I thought every English lady read 
 Tennyson." 
 
 " Ah, but I was born in New Zealand ! — Tell me 
 the blunder, though." 
 
 "There was one thing in The Passi?7g of Arthur — 
 that's the name of one of the Idylls — which I never 
 could understand : — how Sir Bedivere could throw a 
 
144 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 sword with both hands, and make it go in the way 
 Tennyson says it went." 
 
 "But who was Sir Bedivere?" 
 
 "You must read the poem to know that, miss. 
 He was one of the knights of King Arthur's Round 
 Table." 
 
 " I don't know anything about King Arthur." 
 
 " I will repeat as much of the poem as is necessary 
 to make you understand about the misprint." 
 
 " Do — please." 
 
 " Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
 And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
 Among the bulrush beds, and clutch'd the sword, 
 And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great brand 
 Made lightning in the splendor of the moon. 
 And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, 
 Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
 Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
 By night, with noises of the northern sea. 
 So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur. ' ' 
 
 "What does thehrand Excalibur — is that it? — what 
 does it mean } They put a brand on the cattle in 
 the bush." 
 
 " ^/-(2«(/ means a sword, and Excalibur was the 
 name of this sword. They seem to have baptized 
 their swords in those days .? " 
 
 "There's nothing about bolh ha7ids!" 
 
 "True ; that comes a little lower down, where Sir 
 Bedivere tells King Arthur what he has done. He 
 says — 
 
 Then with both hands I (lung him, wheeling him. 
 
 — Now do you tliink anybody could do that, and 
 make it go flashing round and round in an arch } " 
 Barbara thought for a moment, then said — 
 
BARBARA AND RICHARD. I45 
 
 "No, certainly not. To make it go like that, you 
 would have to take it in one hand, and swing it round 
 your head — and then you couldn't without a string 
 tied to it. Or perhaps it was a sabre, and he was so 
 strong he could send it like a boomerang ! " 
 
 "No ; it was a straight, big, heavy sword. — How 
 then do you think Tennyson came to describe the 
 thing so ? " 
 
 "Because he didn't know better— or didn't think 
 enough about it," 
 
 "There is more than that in it, I fancy : he was 
 misled by a printer's blunder, I suspect. Some 
 months ago I found the passage which Tennyson 
 seems to follow, in a cheap reprint of Sir Thomas 
 Malory's History of King Arthur — then just out, and 
 could not make sense of it. Yesterday I found here 
 this long little book, evidently the edition from which 
 the other was printed — and printed correctly too. In 
 both issues, this is what the knight is made to say : 
 
 Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and Hghtly 
 took it up and went to the water's side, and there he bound the 
 girdle about the belts. And then he threw the sword into the 
 water as far as he might. ' ' 
 
 "Well," said Barbara, "you have not made me 
 any wiser! You said the new one was printed cor- 
 rectly from that old one ! " 
 
 " But I did not say the old one, as you call it, was 
 itself printed correctly from the much older one ! 
 Look here now," continued Richard — and mounting 
 the library-steps, he took down another small volume, 
 very like the former, " — here is another edition, of 
 nearly the same date : let me read what is printed 
 there : — 
 
 10 
 
146 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly 
 took it up, and went to the water's side, and there he bound the 
 girdle about the hilt. And then he threw the sword into the 
 water as far as he might. 
 
 "Now, most likely the copy from which both of 
 these editions were printed had the word hills, for 
 then they always spoke of the hills, not hill of a sword; 
 and the one printer modernized it into hill, and the 
 other, perhaps mistaking the dim print, for hills 
 printed bells. To tie the girdle about the hells must 
 simply be nonsense. But to tie the girdle to the 
 hilts of the sword would just give the knight what 
 you said he would want — something long to swing 
 it round his head with, and throw it like a stone, and 
 the sling with it." 
 
 " I understand. 
 
 " You see then how the printer's blunder, which 
 might not appear to matter much, has come to mat- 
 ter a great deal, for it has, it seems to me, caused a 
 fault-spot in the loveliest poem ! " 
 
 During this conversation Richard's work had 
 scarcely relaxed ; but now that a pause came it 
 seemed to gather diligence. 
 
 "Why do you spend your time patching up 
 books .'' " said Barbara. 
 
 " Because they are worth patching up ; and because 
 I earn my bread by patching them." 
 
 "But you seem to care most for what is inside 
 them ! " 
 
 "If I did not, I should never have taken to mend- 
 ing, I should have been content with binding them. 
 New covers make more show, and are much easier 
 put on than patches." 
 
 Another pause followed. _^ 
 
BARBARA AND RICHARD. 1 47 
 
 " What a lot you know ! " said Barbara. 
 
 "Very little," answered Richard. 
 
 "Then where am I ?" she returned. 
 
 "Perhaps ladies don't need books ! I don't know 
 about ladies. " 
 
 "I think they don't care about them. I never 
 hear them talk as you do — as if books were their 
 friends. But why should they.? Books are only 
 books ! " 
 
 "You would not say that if once you knew 
 them ! " 
 
 "I wish you would make me know them, then ! " 
 
 "There are books, and you can read, miss ! " 
 
 "Ah, but I cant read as you read ! I understand 
 that much ! I was born where there ain't any books. 
 I can shoot and fish and run and ride and swim, and 
 all that kind of thing. I never had .to fight. I think 
 I could shoe a horse, if any one would give me a 
 lesson or two." 
 
 "I will with pleasure, miss." 
 
 "Oh, thank you. That will be jolly! But how 
 is it you can do everything .? " 
 
 " I can only do one or two things. I can shoe a 
 horse, but I never had the chance of riding one." 
 
 "Teach me to shoe Miss Brown, and I will teach 
 you to ride her. How is your hand .? " 
 
 "Quite well, thank you." 
 
 "I would rather learn to read, though — the right 
 way, I mean — the way that makes one book talk to 
 another." 
 
 "That would be better than shoeing Miss Brown ; 
 but I will teach you both, if you care to learn." 
 
 "Thank you indeed ! When shall we begin .? " 
 
 "When you please." 
 
I40 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Now?" 
 
 " I cannot before six o'clock. I must do first what 
 I am paid to do ! — What kind of reading do you like 
 best ? " 
 
 " I don't know any best. I used to read the papers 
 to papa, but now 1 don't even do that. 1 hope I 
 never may." 
 
 "Where do you live, miss, when you're at 
 home ? " asked Richard, all the time busy with the 
 quarto. 
 
 "Don't you know ? " 
 
 " I don't even know who you are, miss ! " 
 
 " I am Barbara Wylder. I live at Wylder Hall, a 
 few miles from here. — I don't know the distance 
 exactly, because 1 always g-o across country : that 
 way reminds me a little of home. My father was 
 the third son, and never expected to have the Hall. 
 He went out to New Zealand, and married my mother, 
 and made a fortune — at least people say so : he never 
 tells me anything-. They don't care much for me : 
 I'm not a boy ! " 
 
 " Have you any brothers ? " 
 
 " I have one," she answered sadly. " I had two, 
 but my mother's favorite is gone, and my father's is 
 left, and mamma can't get over it. They were twins, 
 but they did not love each other. How could they ? 
 My father and mother don't love each other, so each 
 loved one of the twins and hated the other." 
 
 She mentioned the dismal fact with a strange non- 
 chalance — as if the thing could no more be helped, 
 and needed no more be wondered at, than a rainy 
 day. Yet the sigh she gave indicated trouble because 
 of it. 
 
 Richard held his peace, rather astonished, both 
 
BARBARA AND RICHARD. I49 
 
 that a lady should talk to him in such an easy way, 
 and that she should tell him the saddest family 
 secrets. But she seemed quite unaware of doinj^ 
 anything strange, and after a brief pause resumed. 
 
 "Yes, they had long been tired of each other," she 
 said, as if she had been reflecting anew on the matter, 
 "but the quarrelling came all of taking sides about 
 the twins ! At least I do not remember any of it 
 before that. They were both fine children, and they 
 could not agree which was the finer, but, as the boys 
 grew, quarrelled more and more about them. They 
 would be at it whole evenings, each asserting the 
 merits of one of the twins, and neither listening to a 
 word about the other. Each was determined not to 
 be convinced, and each called the other obstinate." 
 
 " Were the twins older or younger than you, 
 miss ? " asked Richard. 
 
 "They were three years younger than me. But 
 when I look back it seems as if I had been born into 
 the bickering. It always looked as natural as the 
 grassy slopes outside the door. I thought it was a 
 consequence of twins, that all parents with twins 
 went on so. When my father's next older brother 
 fell ill, and there seemed a possibility of his suc- 
 ceeding to the property, the thing grew worse ; now 
 it was which of them should be heir to it. Waking 
 in the middle of the night, I would hear them going 
 on at it. Then which was the elder, no one could 
 tell. My mother had again and again, before they 
 began to quarrel, confessed she did not know. I 
 don't think I ever saw either of my parents do a 
 kindness to the other, or to the child favored by the 
 other. So from the first the boys understood that 
 they were enemies, and acted accordingly. Each 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 always wanted everything- for himself. They scowled 
 at each other long before they could talk. Their 
 games, always games of rivalry and strife, would 
 for a minute or two, make them a little less hostile, 
 but the moment the game ceased, they began to 
 scowl again. They were both kind to me, and I 
 loved them both, and naturally tried to make them 
 love each other ; but it was of no use. It seemed 
 their calling- to rival and obstruct one another. When 
 they came to blows, as they frequently did, my 
 father and mother would almost come to blows too, 
 each at once taking the usual side. I would run 
 away then, put a piece of bread in my pocket, and 
 get on a horse. Nobody ever missed me." 
 
 " Did you never lose your way .'' " asked Richard : 
 he must say something, he felt so embarrassed. 
 
 " My horse always knew the way home. I have 
 often been out all night, though ; and how peaceful 
 it was to be alone with Widow Wind, as I used to 
 call the night ! — I don't know why now ; I suppose 
 I once knew." 
 
 Something in this way she ran on with her story, 
 but I fail to approach the charm of her telling. Her 
 narrative '\vas almost childish in its utterance, but 
 childlike in its insight. What could have moved her 
 so to confide in a stranger and a workman ? In 
 truth, she needed little moving ; her nature was 
 to trust everybody ; but there were not many to 
 whom she could talk. Miss Brown helped her with 
 no response ; to her parents she had no impulse to 
 speak ; the young people she met stared at the least 
 allusion to the wild ways of her past life, making 
 her feel she was not one of them. Even Arthur 
 Lestrange had more than once looked awkward at a 
 
3ARBARA AND RICHARD, 
 
 151 
 
 remark she happened to make! So, instead of con- 
 fiding in any of tliem, that is, letting her heart go in 
 search of theirs, she had taken to amusing them, and 
 in this succeeded so thoroughly as to be an immense 
 favorite — which, however, did not make her happy, 
 did not light up the world within her. Hence it was 
 no great wonder that, being such as she was, she 
 should feel drawn to Richard. He was the first man 
 she had even begun to respect. In her humility she 
 found him every way her superior. It was wonder- 
 ful to her that he should know so much about books, 
 the way people made them, what they meant, and 
 how mistakes got into them, and went from one 
 generation to another : they were his very friends ! 
 She thought it was his love for books that had made 
 him a bookbinder, as indeed it was his love for them 
 that had made him a book-mender. Her heart and 
 mind were free from many social prejudices. She 
 knew that people looked down upon men who did 
 things with their hands ; but she had done so many 
 things herself with her hands, and been so much 
 obliged to others who could do things with their 
 hands better than she, that she felt the superiority of 
 such whose hands were their own perfect servants, 
 and ready to help others as well. 
 
 One of the things by which she wounded the sense 
 of propriety in those about her was, that she would 
 talk of some things that, in their judgment, ought to 
 be kept secret. Now Barbara could understand keep- 
 ing a great joy secret, but a misery was not a nice 
 thing to cuddle up and hide ; of a misery she must 
 get rid, and if talking about it was any relief, why 
 not talk ? She soon found, however, that it was no 
 relief- to talk to Arthur or his sister : and from the 
 
152 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 common-place governess, she recoiled. The book- 
 binder was different ; he was a man ; he was not 
 what people called a gentleman ; he was a man like 
 the men in the Bible, who spoke out what they 
 meant ! The others were empty ; Richard was full 
 of man ! As regarded her father and mother, she 
 could betray no secret of theirs ; everybody about 
 them knew the things she talked of; and had they 
 been secrets, neither would have cared a pin what a 
 working man might know or think of them ! Did 
 they not quarrel in the presence of the very cat ! 
 Then Richard was such a gentlemanly workman ! 
 Of course he could not be a gentleman in England, 
 but there must be, certainly there ought to be some- 
 where the place in which Richard, just as he was, 
 would be a gentleman ! She w^as sure he would not 
 laugh at her behind her back, and she was not sure 
 that Arthur, or Theodora, even, would not. More 
 than all, he was ready to open for her the door into 
 the rich chamber of his own knowledge ! Must a 
 man be a workman to know about books ? What 
 then if a workman was a better and greater kind of 
 man than a gentleman ? In her own country, it did 
 not matter so much about books, for there one had 
 so many friends ! Why read about the beauties of 
 Nature, where she was at home with her always ! 
 What did any one want with poetry who could be 
 out as long as she pleased with the old night, and 
 the stars gray with glory, and the wind wandering 
 everywhere and knowing all things ! Here it was 
 different ! Here she could not do without books ! 
 Where the things themselves were not, she wanted 
 help to think about them ! And that help was in 
 books, and Richard could teach her how to get at it ! 
 
BARBARA AND RICHARD. 1 53 
 
 It was indeed amazing that one who had read so 
 little should have so good, although so imperfect a 
 notion of what books could do. Just so much a few- 
 cheap novelshad sufficed to reveai'to her ! But then 
 Barbara was herself a world of uncrystallized poetry. 
 What is feeling but poetry in a gaseous condition ? 
 What is fine thought but poetry in a fluid condition .'* 
 What is thought solidified, but fine prose; thought 
 crystallized, but verse ? 
 
 " Here," she would say, but later than the period 
 of which I am now writing, "where the weather is 
 often so stupid that it won't do anything, won't be 
 weather at all ; will neither blow, nor rain, nor freeze, 
 nor shine, you need books to make a world inside 
 you — to take you away, as by the spell of a magician 
 or on the wings of an eagle, from the walls and the 
 nothingness, into a world -where one either finds 
 everything or wants nothing." She had yet to learn 
 that books themselves are but weak ministers, that 
 the spirit dwelling in them must lead back to him 
 who gave it or die ; that they are but windows, which 
 if they look not out on the eternal spaces, will them- 
 selves be blotted out by the darkness. 
 
 To end her story, she told Richard that, since their 
 coming to this country, her mother's favorite had 
 died. She nearly went mad, she said, and had never 
 been like herself again. For not only had her opposi- 
 tion to her husband deepened into hate, but — here, 
 to Richard's amusement when he found on what the 
 reverential change was attendant, Barbara lowered 
 her voice — she really and actually hated God also. 
 "Isn't it awful .? " Barbara said; but meeting no re- 
 sponse in the honest eyes of Richard, she dropped 
 hers, and went on. 
 
154 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "I have heard her say the wildest and wickedest 
 things, careless whether any one was near. I think 
 she must at times be out of her mind ! One day not 
 long ago I saw her shake her fist as high as slie could 
 reach above her head, looking up with an expression 
 of rage and reproach and defiance that was terrible. 
 Had we been in New Zealand, I should not have 
 wondered so much : there are devils going about 
 there. Nobody knows of any here, but it was here 
 they got into my mother, and made her defy God. 
 She does it straight out in church. That is why I 
 always sit in the poor seats, and not in the little gal- 
 lery that belongs to my father. — Have you ever been 
 to our church, Mr. Tuke ? " 
 
 Richard told her he never went to church except 
 when his mother wanted him to go with her. 
 
 "My mother goes twice every Sunday ; but what 
 do you think she is doing all the time.-* The gallery 
 has curtains about it, but she never allows those in 
 front to be drawn, and anybody in the opposite gal- 
 lery can see into it quite well, and the clergyman 
 when he is in the pulpit : she lies there on a couch, 
 in a nest of pillows, reading a novel, a yellow French 
 one generally, just as if she were in her own room ! 
 She knows the clergyman sees her, and that is why 
 she does it." 
 
 "She disapproves of the whole thing?" said 
 Richard. 
 
 "She used to like church well enough." 
 
 "She must mean. to protest, else why should she 
 go ? Has she had any quarrel with the clergy- 
 man ? " 
 
 " None that I know of." 
 
 " What then do you tliink she means by going and 
 
BARBARA AND RICHARD. 
 
 155 
 
 not joiningf in? Why is she present and not taking- 
 part ? " 
 
 "I believe she does it just to let God know she is 
 not pleased with him. She thinks he has treated her 
 cruelly and tyrannically, and she will not pretend to 
 worship him. She wants to show him how bitterly 
 she feels the way he has turned against her. She 
 used to say prayers to him ; she will do so no 
 more ! and she goes to church that he may see she 
 won't." 
 
 The absurdity of the thing struck Richard sharply, 
 but he feared to hurt the girl and lose her confidence. 
 
 "Her behavior is only a kind of insolent prayer ! " 
 he said. " — Has the clergyman ever spoken to her 
 about it ? " 
 
 " I don't think he has. He spoke to me, but when 
 I said he ought to speak to her, he did not seem to 
 see it. /should speak to her fast enough if it were 
 }?iy church ! " 
 
 " I dare say he thinks her mind affected, and fears 
 to make her worse," said Richard. " But he might, 
 I think, persuade her that, as she is not on good terms 
 with the person who lives in the church, she ought 
 to stay away." 
 
 Barbara looked at him with doubtful inquiry, but 
 Richard went on. 
 
 ' ' What sort of a man is the clergyman .? " he asked. 
 
 "I don't know. He seems always thinking about 
 things, and never finding out. I suppose he is stupid ! " 
 
 "That does not necessarily follow," said Richard 
 with a smile, reflecting how hard it would be for the 
 man to answer one of a thousand questions he might 
 put to him in connection with his trade. "Your 
 poor mother must be very unhappy 1 " he added. 
 
156 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " She may well be ! I am no comfort to her. 
 She never heeds me ; or she tells me to go and amuse 
 myself — she is busy. My father has his twin, and 
 poor mamma has nobody ! " 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 BARBARA AND OTHERS. 
 
 At this point, Barbara's friend came into the room, 
 and they went away together. 
 
 Theodora, so named by her mother because she 
 was born on a Sunday, was a very different girl from 
 Barbara. Nominally friends, neither understood the 
 other. Theodora was the best of the family, but that 
 did not suffice to make her interesting. She was short, 
 stout, rather clumsy, with an honest, thick-featured 
 face, and entirely without guile. Even when she saw 
 it, she could not believe it there. She had not much 
 sympathy, but was very kind. She never hesitated 
 to do what she was sure was right ; but then except 
 for rules, many of them far from right them- 
 selves, she would have been almost always in doubt. 
 Anything in the shape of a rule, she received as an 
 angel from heaven. If all the rules she obeyed had 
 been right, and she had seen the right in them, she 
 would have been making rapid progress ; as it was, 
 her progress was very slow. How Barbara and she 
 managed to entertain each other, I find it hard to 
 think ; but all forms of innocent humanity must 
 have much in common. A contrast, nevertheless, 
 the two must have presented to any power able 
 to read them. Barbara was like a heath of thyme 
 and wild roses and sudden winds ; Theodora like a 
 Dutch garden without its flowers. They never quar- 
 
158 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 relied. I suspect they did not come near enough to 
 quarrel. 
 
 Barbara left Richard almost bewitched, and con- 
 siderably perplexed. He had never seen anything 
 like her. No more had most people that met her. 
 She seemed of another nature from his, a sort of sylph 
 or salamander, yet, in simplest human fashion, she 
 had come quite close to him. She had indeed brought 
 to bear upon him, without knowing it, that humbling 
 and elevating power which ideal womankind has 
 always had, and will eternally have upon genuine 
 manhood. There was an airiness about her, yet a 
 reality, a lightness, yet a force, a readiness, a life, 
 such as he could never have imagined. She was a 
 revelation unrevealed — a presence lovely but incred- 
 ible, suggesting facts and relations which the c(Mn- 
 monplace in him said could not exist. The vision 
 was, to use a favorite but pagan phrase, "too good 
 to be true." Richard's knowledge of girls was small 
 indeed, but he had now enough to make his first 
 comparison : Alice was like China, Barbara like Ve- 
 netian glass. He thought there was something in 
 Alice if he could only get at it : he feared there was 
 nothing in Barbara to get at. For one thing, how 
 could she have such parents and take it so lightly ! - 
 
 There were certainly few things yet in flower in 
 Barbara's garden, but there was a multituMe of pre- 
 cious things on the way to unfold themselves to any 
 one that might love her enough to give them a true 
 welcome. She was nearly as far out of Richard's 
 understanding as beyond that of the good Theodora. 
 The consequence was that he felt himself full beside 
 her emptiness. He was no coxcomb, neither dreamed 
 of presenting himself for her admiration ; but he 
 
BARBARA AND OTHERS. 1 59 
 
 pictured the delight of opening the eyes of this child- 
 woman to the many doors of treasure-houses that 
 stood in her own wall. 
 
 Only those who haunt the slopes of literature 
 know that marvels lie in the grass for the hand that 
 will gather them in. Multitudes who count them- 
 selves readers know no more of the books they read 
 than the crowds that visit the Academy exhibitions 
 know of the pictures they gaze upon. Yet are the 
 realms of literature free as air, freer even than those 
 of music. The man whose literary judgment and 
 sympathy I prized beyond that of the world beside, 
 was a clerk in the Bank of England. The man who 
 by the spell of his words can set me in the heart of 
 soft-stealing twilight — nay, rather, can set the very 
 heart of the dying day in me — was a Lancashire 
 weaver. A dainty, bird-moth-like Barbara had be- 
 gun to suspect the existence ot something hers y^t 
 beyond her in books, of an unknown world which lay 
 at her very door. In that same world the bookbinder 
 passed much of his time, and it was neither in pride 
 nor in presumption that he desired to share it with 
 Barbara. It is the home-born impulse of every true 
 heart to give of its best, to infect with its own joy ; 
 and the thought of giving grandly to a woman, to a 
 lady, might well fill the soul of a working man with 
 a hitherto unnamed ecstasy. Another might have 
 compared it to the housing of a strayed angel with 
 frozen feathers, lost on the wintry wilds of this far- 
 out, border world ; but Richard did not believe in 
 those celestial birds ; and had he believed, a woman 
 would yet have been to him, and rightly, more than 
 any angel. What he did think of was the huntsman 
 and the little lady in The Flight of the Duchess. 
 
i6o 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 He began to ponder how to treat her — how to be- 
 gin to open doors for her — what door to open first. 
 Should it be of prose or of verse ? He must have 
 more talk with her ere he could tell ! He must try 
 her with something ! 
 
 He had time to ponder, for she did not anew swim 
 into his ken for three days. He wondered whether 
 he had displeased her, but could think of nothing he 
 had said or done amiss. He must be very careful 
 not to offend her with the least roughness in word or 
 manner, lest he should so lose the chance of helping 
 her ! It was the main part of his creed, as gathered 
 from his adoptive father, that a man must do some- 
 thing for his neighbor : Miss Wylder was his neigh- 
 bor ; what better thing could he do for her than make 
 her free of the greatest joy he knew ? 
 
 Barbara had quite as much liberty as was good. 
 Her mother sat in a darkened room, and took mor- 
 phia ; her father, to occupy his leisure, had begun to 
 repair an old house on the estate with his own hands. 
 Nobody heeded Barbara ; she did as she pleased, 
 going and coming as in the colony. A favorite with 
 all about the place, she had never to use authority. 
 Every one, for very love, was at her service. What- 
 ever preposterous thing, at whatever unearthly 
 moment, she might have wanted, it would have 
 been ready — her mare at midnight, her breakfast at 
 noon, a cow in the library to draw from. There was 
 little regularity in the house ; everyone wanted to do 
 what was right in his own eyes ; but every one was 
 ready to see right with the eyes of Barbara. 
 
 Home was nevertheless, as one may well believe, 
 a terribly dull place to her ; and as, for some occult 
 reason, Theodora Lestrange had taken a fancy to 
 her, as Sir Wilton was charmed with her, and Lady 
 
BARBARA AND OTHERS. l6l 
 
 Ann — for reasons — had little to say against her, she 
 was at Mortgrange as much as she pleased — never 
 too much even for Arthur, whose propriety, rather 
 insular, a little provincial, and sometimes pedantic, 
 she would shock twenty times a day ; for he was 
 fascinated by her grace and playfulness, though he 
 declared he would as soon think of marrying a hum- 
 ming-bird as Barbara. He tried for a while to throw 
 his net over her, for he would fain have tamed her to 
 come at his call ; but he soon arrived at the conclu- 
 sion that nothing but the troubles of life would tame 
 her, and then it would be a pity. She was a fine 
 creature, he said, but hardly human ; and for his 
 part he preferred a woman to a fay ! 
 
 But such was the report of her riches, that Sir Wil- 
 ton and Lady Ann were both ready to welcome her 
 as a daughter-in-law. Sir Wilton was delighted with 
 her gayety and the sharp readiness of her clever 
 retort. All he regretted in her lack of an English 
 education was that her speech was not quite that of 
 a lady — on which point Sir Wilton had not always 
 been so fastidious. For the rest, intellectual develop- 
 ment was of so little interest to him that he never 
 suspected Barbara of having more than a usual share 
 of intellect to develop. She was just the wife for the 
 future baronet, he was once heard to say — though 
 how he came once to say it I cannot think, for never 
 before had he betrayed a consciousness that he would 
 not be the present baronet forever and ever. So 
 long as he did not feel the approach of death, he 
 would never think of dying, and then he would do 
 his best to forget it. He seemed sometimes to 
 grudge .his son the dainty little wife Barbara would 
 make him: "The rascal will be the envy of the 
 clubs ! " he said. ii 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MRS. WYLDER. 
 
 Mr. Wylder was lord of the manor, and chief land- 
 owner, though his family had never been the most 
 influential, in the parish next that in which lay Mort- 
 grange. He was not much fitted for an English 
 squire. He wished to stand well with his neighbors, 
 but lacked the geniality which is the very body, the 
 outside expression of humanity. Proud of his family, 
 he had the peculiar fault of the Goth — that of arro- 
 gance, with its accompanying incapacity for putting 
 oneself in the place of another. Mr. Wylder pos- 
 sessed a huge inability of conceiving the manner in 
 which what he did or said must affect the person to 
 whom he did or said it. So entirely was he thus 
 disqualified for social interchange, that he remained 
 supremely satisfied in his consequent isolation, hardly 
 recognized it, and never doubted himself a perfect 
 gentleman. Had any diffidence enabled him to per- 
 ceive the reflection of himself in the mirroring minds 
 of those around him, his self-opinion might have been 
 troubled ; but when he did begin to discover that the 
 neighbors did not desire his company, he set itdown 
 to stupid prejudice against him because he had been 
 so long absent from the country. He did not hunt, 
 and when he went out shooting, which was seldom, 
 he went alone, or with a gamekeeper only. In fact 
 he was so careless, that most men who had once 
 
MRS. WYLDER. 163 
 
 shot with him, ever after gave him a wide berth when 
 they saw him with a gun in his hand. On one oc- 
 casion he shot his wife's twin in the calf of the leg ; 
 which, however, made her think no worse of his 
 shooting, for she could never be persuaded he had 
 not done it intentionally. 
 
 For a short time before leaving Australasia, the 
 family had spent money in one of its larger cities, 
 and had been a good deal followed ; but neither there 
 nor in England did they find that wealth could do 
 everything. A few other qualities, not by any means 
 of the highest order, are required by nearly all social 
 agglomerations, and with some of these Mrs. Wylder 
 was as scantily equipped as her husband with others. 
 
 Resenting the indifference of his neighbors, and 
 not caring to remove it, Mr. Wylder betook himself 
 to the exercise of certain constructive faculties, not 
 unfrequently developed in circumstances in which a 
 man has to be his own Jack-of-all-trades : finding a 
 certain old manor-house which he had haunted as a 
 boy, chiefly for the sake of its attendant gooseberries 
 and apples, unoccupied and fallen into decay, he set 
 about restoring it with his own hands. But it had not 
 occurred to him that, although even in England it is 
 not necessary, as they did at Lagado, in building to 
 begin with the roof, in England especially is it neces- 
 sary in repairing to begin with the roof. While the 
 floors were rotting away, he would be busy panelling 
 the walls, regardless of a drop falling steadily in the 
 middle of the bench at which he was working. 
 
 The clergyman of the parish, one Thomas Wing- 
 fold, a man who loved his fellow, and would fain 
 give him of the best he had, a man who was a 
 Christian first, which means a man, and then a church- 
 
1 64 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 man, liad now, for almost three years, often puzzled 
 brain and heart together to find what could be done 
 for these his new parishioners — from the world's 
 point of view the first, yet in reality as insignificant 
 as any he had ; and not yet did he know how to get 
 near them. He had not yet seen a glimmer of re- 
 ligion in the man, and had seen more than a glimmer 
 of something else in the woman. Between him and 
 either of them their common humanity had not yet 
 shown a spark. What he had seen of the girl he liked, 
 but he had not seen much. 
 
 It was a fine frosty day in February, about twelve 
 o'clock, when Mr. Wingfold walked up the avenue of 
 Scotch firs to call on Mrs. Wylder. He was dressed 
 like any country gentleman in a tweed suit, carried 
 a rather strong stick, and wore a soft felt hat, looking 
 altogether more of a squire than a clergyman — for 
 which his parishioners mostly liked him the better. 
 Pious people in general seem to regard religion as a 
 necessary accompaniment of life ; to Wingfold it was 
 life itself; with him religion must be all, or could be 
 nothing. He did not accept the good news of God; 
 he strained it to his heart, and was jubilant over it. 
 He was a rather square-looking man, with projecting 
 brows, and a grizzled beard. The upper part of his 
 face would look dark while a smile was hovering 
 about his mouth ; at another time his mouth would 
 look solemn, almost severe, while aradiance, as from 
 some white cloud nobody could see, illuminated his 
 forehead. He generally walked with his eyes on the 
 ■ground, but would every now and then straighten 
 his back, and gaze away to the horizon, as if looking 
 for the far-off sails of help. He was noted among his 
 farmers for his common sense, as they called it. and 
 
MRS. WYLDER. 1 65 
 
 among the gentry for a certain frankness of speech, 
 which most of them hked. 
 
 He rang the door-bell of the Hall, and asked if 
 Mrs. Wylder was at home. The man hesitated, 
 looked in the clergyman's face, and smiling oddly, 
 answered, "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Only you don't think she will care to see me? " 
 
 "Well, you know, sir, " 
 
 "I do. Go up, and announce me." 
 
 The man led the way, and Mr. Wingfold followed. 
 He opened the door of a room on the first floor, and 
 announced him. Mr. Wingfold entered immediately, 
 that there might be no time for words with the man 
 and a message of refusal. 
 
 Discouragement encountered him on the threshold. 
 The lady sat by a blazing fire, with her back to a 
 window through which the frosty sun of February was 
 sending lovely prophecies of the summer. She was 
 in a gorgeous dressing-gown, her plentiful black hair 
 twisted carelessly, but with a show of defiance, round 
 her head. She was almost a young woman still, with 
 a hardness of expression that belonged neither to 
 youth nor age. She sat sideways to the door, so that 
 without turning her head she must have seen the 
 parson enter, but she did not move a visible hair's- 
 breadth. Her feet, in silk stockings and shabby slip- 
 pers, continued perched on the fender. She made 
 no sign of greeting when the parson came in front 
 of her, but a scowl dark as night settled on her low 
 forehead and black eyebrows, and her face shortened 
 and spread out. Wingfold approached her with the 
 air of a man who knew himself unwelcome but did 
 not much mind— for he had not to care about him- 
 self. 
 
I 66 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mrs. Wylder ! " he said. " What 
 a lovely morning- it is ! " 
 
 "Is it.-* I know nothing about it. You have a 
 brutal climate ! " 
 
 He knew she regarded him as the objectionable 
 agent of a more objectionable Heaven. 
 
 "You would not dislike it so much if you met it 
 out of doors. A walk on a day like this now, " 
 
 " Pray who authorized you to come and offer me 
 advice.? Have I concealed from you, Mr.-Wingfold, 
 that your presence gives me no pleasure ? " 
 
 "You certainly have not ! You have been quite 
 honest with me. I did not come in the hope of 
 pleasing you — though I wish I could." 
 
 "Then perhaps you will explain why you are 
 here ! " 
 
 "There are visits that must be made, even with the 
 certainty of giving annoyance !" answered Wingfold, 
 rather cheerfully. 
 
 "That means you consider yourself justified in 
 forcing your way into my room, before I am 
 dressed, with the simple intention of making your- 
 self disagreeable ! " 
 
 "If I were here on my' own business, you might 
 well blame me ! But what would you say to one of 
 your men who told you he dared not go your message 
 for fear of the lightning ? " 
 
 " I would tell him he was a coward, and to go 
 about his business." 
 
 "That, then, is what I don't want to be told ! " 
 
 " And for fear of being told it, you dare me ? " 
 
 " Well — you may put it so ; — yes." 
 
 "I don't like you the worse for your courage. 
 
MRS. WYLDER. l6j 
 
 There's more than one man would face half a dozen 
 bush-rangers rather than a woman I know ! " 
 
 " I believe it. But it makes no extravagant de- 
 mand on my courag-e. I am not afraid o{ you. I 
 owe you nothing- — except any service worth doing- 
 for you ! " 
 
 "Let that blind down : the sun's putting- the fire 
 out." 
 
 "It's a pity to put the sun out in such a brutal 
 climate. He does the fire no harm. " 
 
 " Don't tell me!" 
 
 "Science says he does not." 
 
 " He puts the fire out, I tell you ! " 
 
 " I do not think so." 
 
 "I've seen it with my own eyes. God knows 
 •which is the greater humbug — Science or Religion ! 
 — Are you going to pull that blind down .? " 
 
 Wingfold lowered the blind. 
 
 "Now, look here!" said Mrs. Wylder. "You're 
 not afraid of me, and I'm not afraid of you ! — It's a 
 low trade, is yours." 
 
 ' ' What is my trade ? " 
 
 "What is your trade.? — Why, to talk goody ! and 
 read goody ! and pray goody ! and be goody, goody ! 
 —Ugh ! " 
 
 "I'm not doing much of that sort at this moment, 
 any way ! " rejoined Wingfold, with a laugh. 
 
 "You know this is not the place for it ! " 
 
 "Would you mind telling me which is tlie place 
 to read a French novel in .? " 
 
 "Church : there ! " 
 
 "What would you do if I were to nisiston reading 
 a chapter of the Bible here.? " 
 
 "Look!" she ans\vered, and rising, snatched a 
 
1 68 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 saloon-pistol from the chimney-piece, and took 
 deliberate aim at him. 
 
 Wingfold looked straight down the throat of the 
 thick barrel, and did not budge. 
 
 " — I would shoot you with that," she went on, 
 holding the weapon as I have said. " It would kill 
 you, for I can shoot, and should hit you in the eye, 
 not on the head. I shouldn't mind being hanged for 
 it. Nothing matters now ! " 
 
 She flung the heavy weapon from her, gave a great 
 cry, not like an hysterical woman, but an enraged 
 animal, stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, 
 pulled it out again, and began tearing at it with her 
 teeth. The pistol fell in the middle of the room. 
 Wingfold went and picked it up. 
 
 ' ' I should deserve it if I did, " he said, quietly, as he 
 laid the pistol on the table. " — But you don't fight 
 fair, Mrs. Wylder ; for you know I can't take a pis- 
 tol with me into the pulpit and shoot you. It is 
 cowardly of you to take advantage of that." 
 
 " Well ! I like the assurance of you ! Do I read so 
 as to annoy any one ? " 
 
 "Yes, you do. You daren't read aloud, because 
 you would be put out of the church if you did ; but 
 you annoy as many of the congregation as can see 
 you, and you annoy me. Why should you behave 
 in that house as if it were your own, and yet shoot 
 me if I behaved so in yours ? Is it fair.? Is it polite .'' 
 Is it acting like a lady ? " 
 
 . "It IS my house — at least it is my pew, and I will 
 do in it what I please. — Look here, Mr. Wingfold : I 
 don't want to lose my temper with you, but I tell 
 you that pew is mine, as much as the chair you're 
 not ashamed to sit upon at this moment ! And let 
 
MRS. WYLDER. I 69 
 
 me tell you, after the way /'ve been treated, my be- 
 havior don't splash much. When he's brought a 
 woman to my pass, I don't see God Almighty can 
 complain of her manners ! " 
 
 "Well, thinking of him as you do, I don't wonder 
 you are rude ! " 
 
 "What ! You won't curry favor with him.? — You 
 hold by fair play .? Come, now ! I call that down- 
 right pluck ! " 
 
 "I fear you mistake me a little." 
 
 "Of course 1 do ! I might have known that! 
 When you think a parson begins to speak like a man, 
 you may be sure you mistake him ! " 
 
 "You wouldn't behave to a friend of your own 
 according to what another person thought of him, 
 would you ? " 
 
 "No, by Jove, I wouldn't ! " 
 
 "Then you won't expect me to do so ! " 
 
 "I should think not ! Of course you stick by the 
 church ! " 
 
 "Never mind the church. She's not my mistress, 
 though I am her servant. God is my master, and I 
 tell you he is as good and fair as goodness and fair- 
 ness can be goodness and fairness ! " 
 
 "What! Will you drive me mad! I wish he 
 would serve you as he's done me — then we should 
 hear another tune — rather! You call it good — you 
 call it fair, to take from a poor creature he made him- 
 self, the one only thing she cared for.?" 
 
 "Which was the cause of a strife that made of a 
 family in which he wanted to live, a very hell upon 
 earth ! " 
 
 " You dare ! " she cried, starting to her feet. 
 
 Wingfold did not move. 
 
170 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Mrs. Wylder," he said, "dare is a word that 
 needn't be used again between you and me. If you 
 dare tell God that he is a devil, I may well dare tell 
 you that you know nothing about him, and that I 
 do ! " 
 
 "Say on your honor, then, if he had treated you 
 as he has done me — taken from you the light of your 
 eyes, would you count it fair. -^ Speak like the man 
 you are." 
 
 " I know T should." 
 
 " I don't believe you. And I won't worship him." 
 
 "Why, who wants you to worship him.? You 
 must be a very different person before he w^ill care 
 much for your worship ! You can't worship him 
 w^hile you think him what you do. He is something 
 quite different. You don't know him to love, and 
 you don't know him to worship." 
 
 "Why, bless my soul ! ain't it your business — 
 ain't you always making people say their prayers.? " 
 
 "It is my business to help my brothers and sisters 
 to know God, and worship him in spirit and in truth 
 — because he is altogether and perfectly true and lov- 
 ing and fair. Do you think he would have you 
 worship a being such as you take him to be. If your 
 son is in good company in the other world, he must 
 be greatly troubled at the way you treat God — at 
 your unfairness to him. But your bad example may, 
 for anything I know, have sent him where he has not 
 yet begun to learn anything ! " 
 
 "God have mercy! — will the man tell me to my 
 face that my boy is in hell.? " 
 
 "What would you have.? Would you have him 
 with the being you think so unjust that you hate him 
 all the week, and openly insult him on Sunday.?" 
 
MRS. WYLDER. I7I 
 
 " You are a bad man, a hard-hearted brute, a devil, 
 to say such things about my blessed boy ! Oh my 
 God ! to think that the very day he was taken ill, I 
 struck him ! Why did he let me do it? To think 
 that that very day he killed him, when he ought to 
 have killed me ! — killed him that I might never be 
 able to tell him I was sorry 1 " 
 
 "If he had not taken him then, would you ever 
 have been sorry you struck him ? " 
 
 She burst into outcry and weeping, mingled with 
 such imprecation, that Wingfold thought it one of 
 those cases of possession in which nothing but prayer 
 is of use. But the soul and the demon were so 
 united, so entirely of one mind, that there was no 
 room for prayer to get between them. He sat quiet, 
 lifted up his heart, and waited. By and by there 
 came a lull, and the redeemable woman appeared, 
 emerging from the smoke of the fury. 
 
 "Oh, my Harry! my Harry!"' she cried. "To 
 take him from my very bosom ! He will never love 
 me again 1 God sha// know what I think of it ! No 
 mother could but hate him if he served her so ! " 
 
 "Apparently you don't want the boy back in your 
 bosom again ! " 
 
 "None of your fooling of me now ! " she answered, 
 drawing herself up, and drying her eyes. "I can stand 
 a good deal, but I won't stand that! What's gone is 
 gone ! He's dead, and the dead lie in no bosom 
 but that of the grave ! They go, and return never 
 more ! " 
 
 " But you will die too ! " 
 
 "What do you mean by that.? You zvi7l be talk- 
 ing ! As if I didn't know I'd got to die, one day or 
 another ! What's that to me and Harry ! " 
 
172 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Then you think we're all going to cease and go 
 out, like the clouds that are carried away and broken 
 up by the wind ? " 
 
 "I know nothing about it, and I don't care. 
 Nothing's anything to me but Harry, and I shall 
 never see my Harry again ! — Heaven ! Bah ! What's 
 heaven without Harry ! " 
 
 "Nothing, of course ! But don't you ever think of 
 seeing him again ? '' 
 
 "What's the use! It's all a mockery! Where's 
 the good of meeting when we sha'n't be human beings 
 any more ? If we're nothing but ghosts — if he's 
 never to know me — if I'm never to feel him in my 
 arms — ugh I it's all humbug ! If he ever meant to 
 give me back my Harry, why did he take him from 
 me? If he didn't mean me to rage at losing him, 
 why did he give him to me.? " 
 
 " He gave you his brother at the same time, and 
 you refused to love him : what if he took the one 
 away until you should have learned to love the 
 other ? " 
 
 "I can't love him ; I won't love him ! He has his 
 father to love him ! He don't want my love I I 
 haven't got it to give him ! Harry took it with him ! 
 I hate Peter ! — What are you doing there — laughing 
 in your sleeve .-^ Did you never see a woman cry .'' " 
 
 " I've seen many a woman cry, but never without 
 my heart crying with her. You come to my church, 
 and behave so badly I can scarce keep from crying 
 for you. It half choked me last Sunday, to see you 
 lying there with that horrid book in your haid, and 
 the words of Christ in your ears ! " 
 
 "' I didn't heed them. It wasn't a horrid book ! " 
 
 " It z^(?s a horrid book. You left it behind you, 
 
MRS. WYLDER. 
 
 i73 
 
 and I took it with me. I laid it on my study-table, 
 and went out again. When I came home to dinner, 
 my wife brought it to me, and said, * Oh, Tom, how 
 can you read such books ? ' ' My dear,' I answered, 
 ' 1 don't know what is in the book ; I haven't read a 
 word of it.'" 
 
 "And then you told her where you found it? " 
 
 "I did not." 
 
 " What did you do with it.? " 
 
 " I said to her, ' If it's a bad book, here goes ! ' and 
 threw it in the fire." 
 
 "Then I'm not to know the end of the story ! But 
 I can send to London for another copy ! I'm much 
 obliged to you, Mr. Wingfold, for destroying my 
 property !— But you didn't tell her where you found 
 it .? " 
 
 " I did not. She never asked me." 
 
 Mrs. Wylder was silent. She seemed a little 
 ashamed, perhaps a little softened. Wingfold bade 
 her Pfood-morning. She did not answer him. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MRS. WYLDER AND BARBARA. 
 
 To make all this quite credible to a doubting reader, 
 it would be necessary to tell Mrs. Wylder's history 
 from girlhood. She had had a very defective educa- 
 tion, and what there was of it w^as all for show. , 
 Then she was married far too young, and to a man 
 unworthy of any good woman. She indeed was not 
 a good woman, but she was capable of being made 
 worse ; and in the bush, where she passed years not 
 a few, and in cities afterward, she met women and 
 men more lawless yet than herself or her husband. 
 Overbearing where her likings were concerned, and 
 full of a certain generosity where but her interests 
 were in question, the slackness of the social bonds 
 in the colonies had favored her abnormal develop- 
 ment. It is difficult to say how much man or woman 
 is the worse for doing, when freed from restraint, 
 what he or she would have been glad to do before, 
 but for the restraint. Many who go to the colonies, 
 and there to the dogs, only show themselves such 
 as they dared not appear at home : they step on a 
 steeper slope, and arrive, not at the pit, for they were 
 in that already, but at the bottom of it, so much the 
 faster. There were, however, in Mrs. Wylder, lovely 
 rudimentary remnants of a good breed. She inherited 
 feelings which gave her a certain intermittent and 
 fugitive dignity, of some service to others in her 
 
MRS. WYLDER AND BARBARA. I 75 
 
 wilder times, and to herself when she came into con- 
 tact with an older civilization. She would occasion- 
 ally do a right generous thing — not seldom give with 
 a freedom and judge with a liberality which were 
 mainly rooted in carelessness. 
 
 She had much confidence in her daughter ; and it 
 is said well for the mother that, with all her ex- 
 perience, she yet had this confidence — and none the 
 less that she had never taken pains to instruct her in 
 what was becoming. The most she had done in this 
 way was once to snatch from her hand and throw in 
 the fire a novel she had herself, a moment before, 
 finished with unquestioning acceptance. If she had 
 found her behaving like some of her acquaintance to 
 whose conduct she did not give a second thought, 
 for her friends might do as they pleased so long as 
 they did not offend her, she would certainly, in some 
 of her moods at least, have killed her. 
 
 While compelled, from lack of service, to employ 
 herself in house affairs, she neither ate nor drank more 
 than seemed good for her ; but as soon as she had 
 but to live and be served, she began to counter- 
 balance ennui \N\\h. self-indulgence, and continued to 
 do so until the death of her boy, ever after which she 
 had sought refuge from grief in narcotics. Possibly 
 she would not have behaved as she did in church, 
 but that her nervous being was a very sponge for 
 morphia. Born to be a strong woman, she was a 
 slave to her impulses, and, one of the weakest of her 
 kind, went into a rage at the least show of opposition. 
 
 Scarcely had Mr. Wingfold left the room, when in 
 came Barbara in her riding-habit, with the glow of 
 joyous motion upon her face, for she had just ridden 
 from Morteranee. 
 
176 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "How do you do, mamma?" she said, but did 
 not come within a couple of yards of her. "I've 
 had such a ride — as straight as any crow could fly, 
 between the two stations ! I never could hit the 
 line before. But I got a country-fellow to point me 
 out a landmark or two, and here I am in just half 
 the time I should have taken by the road ! Such 
 jumps ! " 
 
 "You're a madcap!" said her mother. "You'll 
 be brought home on a shutter some day ! Mark my 
 words, Bab ! You'll see ! — or at least I shall ; you'll 
 be past seeing ! But it don't matter ; it"s what we're 
 made for ! Die or be killed, it's all one ! I don't 
 care ! " 
 
 " I do though, mamma ! I don't want to be killed 
 just yet — and I don't mean to be ! But I must have 
 a second horse ! 1 begin to suspect Miss Brown of 
 treating me like a child, She takes care of me ! I 
 mean to let her see what / can do if she's up to it ! " 
 
 "You'll do nothing of the kind! Til have her shot 
 if you go after any of your old pranks ! And, while 
 I think of it, Bab — your father has set his heart on 
 your marrying Mr. Lestrange : I can see it perfectly, 
 and I won't have it ! If I hear of anything of that 
 sort between you, I'll set a heavy foot on it. — How 
 long have you been there this time ? " 
 
 "A week. — But why shouldn't I marry Mr. 
 Lestrange if I like .? " 
 
 " Because your father has set his heart on it, I tell 
 you ! Isn"t that enough, you tiresome little wretch } 
 I will not have it — not if you break your heart over 
 it ! — There ! " 
 
 Barbara burst out in a laugh that rang like a bronze 
 bell. 
 
MRS. WILDER AND BARBARA. 
 
 177 
 
 " Break my heart for Mr. Lestrange ! There's not 
 a man in the world I would break my little finger 
 for ! But my heart ! that is too funny ! You needn't 
 be uneasy, mamma ; I don't like Arthur Lestrange 
 one bit, and I wouldn't marry him if you and papa 
 too wanted me. Oh, such a proper young man ! 
 He doesn't think me fit company for his sister I " 
 
 " He said so ! and you didn't give him a cut over 
 the eyes with your whip ? My God ! " 
 
 "Gracious, no! He never says anything half so 
 amusing ! He's scorchingly polite ! I would sooner 
 fall in love with the bookbinder ! " 
 
 "The bookbinder.? Who's that.? You mean the 
 tutor, I suppose ! I'm not up to the slang of this old 
 brute of a country ! " 
 
 " No, mamma ; there is a man binding — or mend- 
 ing rather, the books in the library. He's going to 
 teach me to shoe Miss Brown ! Papa wouldn't like 
 me to marry a blacksmith — I mean a bookbinder — 
 would he ? " 
 
 "Certainly not." 
 
 "Then you would, mamma ? " said Bab, demurely, 
 with two catherine-wheels of fun in her downcast 
 eyes. 
 
 "If you go to do anything mad now, I'll " 
 
 " Don't strain your innocent invention, mammy ! 
 I think I'll take Mr. Lestrange ! Better anger one 
 than both of you ! " 
 
 "Tease me any more with your nonsense, and 
 I'll set your father on you ! Be off with you ! " 
 12 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 BARBARA AND HER CRITICS. 
 
 While the two talked in the same pulverous fashion, 
 the words came very differently from the two mouths. 
 In the speech of the mother was more than a tone of 
 the vulgarity of a conscious right to lay down the 
 law, of the rudeness born of feeling above obedience 
 and incapable of error — a rudeness identical with that 
 of the typical vulgar duchess ; the daughter's tone 
 was playful, but dainty in its playfulness, and not 
 without a certain unconscious dignity ; her lawless- 
 ness was the freedom of the bird that cannot trespass, 
 not that of the quadruped forcing its way. Her almost 
 baby-like cheeks, her musical voice clear of any strain 
 of sorrow, her quick relations with the whole world 
 of things, her grace, more child-like than womanly, 
 whether she stood or sat or moved about, all indicated 
 a simple, fearless, true and trusting nature. Every- 
 body at Mortgrange liked her ; nearly everybody at 
 Mortgrange had some different fault to find with her; 
 all agreed that she wanted taming — except Sir Wilton, 
 who allowed the wildness, but would not hear of the 
 taming. The hour of the morning or the night at 
 which she would not go wandering alone about the 
 park, or even outside it, had not yet been discovered. 
 
 "Why don't you look better after your friend 
 Thco.? " said her father one day when Barbara's chair 
 was empty at dinner-^with his cold incisive voice, a 
 
SARBARA AND HER CRITICS. 
 
 179 
 
 little rasping now that the clutch of age's hand was 
 beginning to close on his throat. 
 
 "She doesn't mind me, papa," Theodora answered. 
 " Do say something to her, mamma ! " 
 
 " 'Tis not my business to reform other people's 
 children," Lady Ann returned. 
 
 "I find her exceedingly original!" remarked the 
 baronet. 
 
 " In her manners, certainly," responded his lady. 
 
 ' ' I find them perfect. Their very audacity renders 
 them faultless. And the charm is that she does not 
 even suspect herself audacious." 
 
 "That is her charm, I confess," responded Arthur ; 
 " but it is a dangerous one, and may one day cause 
 her to be sadly misunderstood." 
 
 "A London drawing-room is your high court of 
 parliament, Arthur ! " said his father. 
 
 " Miss Wylder, with all her sweetness," remarked 
 Miss Malliver, "has not an idea of social distinction. 
 She cannot understand why she should not talk to any 
 farmer's man or dairymaid she happens to meet ! It 
 is not her talking to them I mind so much as the 
 familiar way she does it. If they take liberties, it 
 will be her own fault. Any groom might be pardoned 
 for fancying she thought him as good as herself! " 
 
 "But she does," answered Theodora. "Yester- 
 day, I found her talking to the bookbinder as familiarl y 
 as if he had been Arthur ! " 
 
 This was hardly correct, for Barbara talked to the 
 bookbinder with a deference she never showed Les- 
 trange. 
 
 "She lacks self-respect ! " said Lady Ann. "But 
 we must deal with her gently, and try to do her good. 
 I think myself there is not much amiss with her 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 beyond love of her own way. Her dislike of restraint 
 certainly does not befit a communicant ! " 
 
 Lady Ann was an unfaltering- church-goer, rigidly 
 decorous in rendering what she imagined God, and 
 knew the clergyman expected, and as rank a mam- 
 mon-worshipper as any in the land. 
 
 " But I so far agree with Sir Wilton," she went on, 
 " as to grant that her manners have in them the germ 
 of possible distinction ; and I think they will come to 
 be all, or nearly all, that could be desired. We ought 
 at least to give her the advantage of any doubt, and 
 do what we can to lead' her in the right direction." 
 
 "It's a fine thing to go to church and have your 
 wits sharpened ! " said the baronet, with an ungenial 
 laugh. 
 
 Sir Wilton regarded Lady Ann as the coldest-blooded 
 and most selfish woman in creation, and certainly she 
 was not less selfish and was colder-blooded than he. 
 Full of his own importance as any Pharisee — as full 
 as he could be without making himself ridiculous, he 
 resented the slight regard she showed to that import- 
 ance. He believed himself wise in human nature, 
 when in truth he was only quick to read in another 
 what lay within the limited range of his own conscious- 
 ness. Of the noble in humanity he knew next to noth- 
 ing. To him all men were only selfish. The cause, 
 though by no means the logical ground of this his belief, 
 was his own ingrained selfishness. With his hazy yet 
 keen cold eye he was quick to see in another, and 
 prompt to lay to his charge, the faults he pardoned in 
 himself. He had some power over himself, for he 
 very seldom went into a rage ; but he kept his temper 
 like a devil, andwas coldly cruel. His wife had tamed 
 him a good deal, without in the least reforming him. 
 
5ARBARA AND HER CRITICS. 
 
 He would have hated her quite, but for the sort of 
 respect she roused in him by surpassing him in his 
 own kind. He cringed to her with a sneer. It was 
 long since he had learned from her society to remem- 
 ber, with the nearest approach to compunction of 
 which his moth-eaten heart was capable, the woman 
 who had forsaken her own rank to brave the perils 
 of his, and had sunk frozen to death by the cold of 
 his contact. For some years he felt far more friendly 
 to the offspring of the high-born lady than to that of 
 the blacksmith's daughter ; but as time went on, and 
 the memory of the more plebeian infant's ugliness 
 faded, he began to think how jolly it would be — how 
 it would serve out her ladyship and her brood of 
 icicles, if after all the blacksmith's grandson turned 
 up to oust the earl's. He grinned as he lay awake 
 in the night, picturing to himself how the woman in 
 the next room woul^ take it. Him and his son to- 
 gether her ladyship might find almost too much for 
 her ! But for many years he had indulged in no 
 allusion to the possible improbable, allowing her lady- 
 ship to refer to Arthur as the heir without hinting at 
 the uncertainty of his position. 
 
 Lady Ann, from dwelling on what she counted 
 the shame of his origin, had got so far toward per- 
 suading herself that the vanished child was base- 
 born, that she scarcely doubted the possibility, were 
 he to appear, of proving his claim false, and origi- 
 nated by conspiracy. Unable to learn from her hus- 
 band when and where the baby was baptized, she 
 concluded that he had never been baptized, and that 
 there was no record of his birth. As the years went 
 by, and nothing was heard of him, she grew more 
 and more confident. Now and then a fear would 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 cross her, but she always succeeded in stifling it — 
 without, however, arriving at such a degree of cer- 
 tainty, that the thought of the child had no share in 
 her regard for the wealthy Barbara, her encourage- 
 ment of her general relations with the family, and 
 her connivance at her frequent and prolonged visits 
 during the absence of herself and Sir Wilton. 
 
 She was now returned, and had found everything 
 as she left it, with the insignificant difference that 
 the bay window of the library was occupied by a 
 man at work repairing the books. She had resumed 
 the reins of the family-coach, and now went on to 
 play the part of a good providence, and drive the 
 said coach to the top of the hill. 
 
 Sir Wilton, I have said, liked Barbara. She amused 
 him, and amusement was the nearest to sunshine 
 his soul was capable of reaching. All his weather 
 else was gray, with a touch of lurid on the western 
 horizon — of which he was not weather-wise enough 
 to take heed. He had been at school with Barbara's 
 father, but did not like her any better for that. In 
 youth they had not been friends, except in a way 
 that brought their interesls too much in collision for 
 their friendship to last. It had ended in a quiet hate, 
 each knowing too well how much the other knew to 
 dare an open quarrel. But all that was many years 
 away, and Tom Wylder had been long abroad and 
 almost forgotten. Sir Wilton, notwithstanding, ad- 
 mired the forgivingness of his own disposition when 
 he found himself wondering how Tom Wylder would 
 regard an alliance with his old rival. Doubtless he 
 would like his daughter to be my lady, but he might 
 be looking for a loftier title than his son could give 
 her I 
 
BARBARA AND HER CRITICS. 1 83 
 
 Sir Wilton was incapable, however, of taking any- 
 active interest in the matter. The well-being of his 
 family, when he himself should be out of the way, 
 did not much affect him. Nothing- but his lower 
 nature had ever roused him to action of any kind. 
 How far the idea of betterment had ever shown itself 
 to him, God only knows. Apparently, he was a 
 child of the evil one, whom nothing but the furnace 
 could cleanse. Almost the only thing he could now 
 imagine giving him vivid pleasure was to see his 
 wife thoroughly annoyed. 
 
 All he had ever had of the manners of a gentle- 
 man, remained with him. He was courteous to 
 ladies, never swore in their presence — except some- 
 times in a mutter at his wife, and could upon occasion 
 show a kindness that cost him nothing. Humanity 
 was not all dead out of him ; neither was there a 
 purely human thought in him. On Barbara he 
 smiled his sweetest smile : it owed most of its sweet- 
 ness to the dentist. 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 
 THE PARSON S PARABLE. 
 
 Mr. Wingfold went as he had come, thoughtful 
 even to trouble. What was to be done for the 
 woman ? What was his part, as parson of the par- 
 ish, with regard to her behavior in church ? Was it 
 or was it not his part to take public notice of what 
 she intended, if not as a defiance to God, at least as 
 an open expression of her bitter resentment of his 
 dealing with her.? The Creator's discipline did not 
 suit his creature's^ taste, and she would let him know 
 it : whether it suited her necessities, she did not ask or 
 care ; she knew nothing of her necessities — only of 
 her desires. Had she had a suspicion that she was 
 an eternal creature, poor as well as miserable, blind 
 and naked as well as bereaved and angry, she might 
 have allowed some room for God to show himself 
 right. But she was ignorant of herself as any sav- 
 age. Was Wingfold to take her insolence in church 
 as a thing done to himself, which he must endure 
 with patience.? or, putting himself out of the question, 
 and regarding her conduct only as a protest against 
 the ways of God with her, must he leave reproof as 
 well as vengeance to the Lord ? Was it his business, 
 or was it not, to rebuke her, and make his rebuke as 
 open as her offence ? It troubled him almost beyond 
 bearing to think that some of his flock might imagine 
 that the great lady of the parish was allowed to 
 
THE parson's parable. 1 85 
 
 behave herself unseemly, where another would be 
 exposed to shame. But how abhorrent to him was 
 a public contention in the church, and on the Lord's 
 day ! Mrs. Wylder was just the woman to challenge 
 forcible expulsion, and make the circumstances of it 
 as flagrant as possible ! She might even use both 
 pistol and whip ! What better opportunity could she 
 find for giving point to her appeal against God ! A 
 man might, in the rage of disappointment, cry out 
 that there could be no God where baffle met the 
 holiest instinct — that blundering chance must rule ; 
 he might, illogical with grief, declare that as God 
 could treat him so, he would believe in him no longer ; 
 or he might assert that an evil being, not a good, 
 was at the heart of life — a devil and not a God, for 
 he was one who created and forgot, or who remem- 
 bered and did not care — who quickened exposure but 
 gave no shield ! called from the void a being filled 
 with doorless avenues to pain, and abandoned him 
 to incarnate cruelty, that he might make him sport 
 with the wildness of his dismay ! but here w^as a 
 woman who did not say that God was not, or that 
 he was not good, but with passionate self-party- 
 spirit cried out, " He is against me ! he sides with 
 my husband ! He is not my friend, but his : I will 
 let him know how I resent his unfairness ! " 
 Whether God was good or bad she did not care — 
 that was not a point she was concerned in ; all she 
 heeded was how he behaved to her — whether he 
 took part with her husband or herself. He had torn 
 from her the desire of her heart and left her desolate : 
 she would worship him no longer ! She had been 
 brought up to believe there was a God, and had 
 never doubted his existence : with her whole will 
 
I 86 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 and passion she opposed that which she called God. 
 She had never learned to yield when wrong, and now 
 she was sure she was right. Though hopeless she 
 resisted. She cried out against God, but believed 
 Him by his own act helpless to deliver her, for 
 what could He do against the grave ? Powerless for 
 her as unfriendly toward her, why should she wor- 
 ship him.'* Why should she pay court to one who 
 neither would nor could give her what she wanted ? 
 What was he God for .-* Was she to go to his house, 
 and carry herself courteously, as if he were her 
 friend ! She would not ! And that there might be 
 no mistake as to how she regarded him, she would 
 sit in her pew and read her novel, while the friends 
 of God said their prayers to him ! If she annoyed 
 them, so much the better, for the surer she might 
 hope that he was annoyed. 
 
 It may seem to some incredibly terrible that one 
 should believe in God and defy him ! But do none 
 of us, who say also we believe in God, and who are 
 far from defying him, ever behave like Mrs. Wylder.? 
 It is one thing to believe in a God; it is quite another 
 to believe in God ! Every time we grumble at our 
 fate, every time we are displeased, hurt, resentful at 
 this or that which comes to us, every time we do not 
 receive the suffering sent us "with both hands," as 
 William Law says, we are of the same spirit with 
 this half-crazy woman. In some fashion, and that 
 a real one, she must have believed in the God against 
 whom she urged her complaint ; and it is rather to 
 her praise that, like Job, she did it openly, and not 
 with mere base grumblings in her heart at her fire- 
 side. It is mean to believe half-way, to believe in 
 words, and in action deny. One of four gates stands 
 
THE parson's parable. 1 87 
 
 open to us : to deny the existence of God, and say 
 we can do without him ; to acknowledge his exist- 
 ence, but say he is not good, and act as true men 
 resisting a tyrant; to say, "I would there were a 
 God," and be miserable because there is none ; or to 
 say there must be a God, and he must be perfect in 
 goodness or he could not be, and give ourselves up 
 to him heart and soul and hands and history. 
 
 But what was parson Wingfold to do in the matter? 
 Was he to allow the simple sheep of his flock to 
 think him afraid of the squire's lady .'' or was he to 
 venture an uproar in the church on a Sunday morn- 
 ing.? His wife and he had often talked the thing 
 over, but had arrived at no conclusion. He went to 
 her now, and told her all that had passed. 
 
 " Isn't it time to do something.?" she said. 
 
 "Indeed I think so — but what.?" he answered. 
 "I wish you would show me what I ought to do ! 
 Let me see it, and I will do it." 
 
 She was silent for a moment. 
 
 "Couldn't you preach at her.?" she said, with a 
 laugh in which was an odd mingling of doubt and 
 merriment. 
 
 "I have always thought that a mean thing, and 
 have never done it — except by dwelling on broadest 
 principles. That an evil principle has an advocate 
 present, is no reason for sparing it : what am I there 
 for? But to preach that the many may turn on the 
 one — that I never could do! " 
 
 " This case is different from any other. The 
 wrong is done continuously, in the very eyes of the 
 congregation, and for the sake of its being seen," 
 Mrs. Wingfold answered. " Neither would you be 
 the assailant ; you would but accept, not give the 
 
laa THERE AND BACK. 
 
 challenge. For I don't know how many Sundays, 
 she has been pitting her position in the pew against 
 yours in the pulpit ! Believing it out of your power 
 to do anything, she flaunts her French novel in your 
 face ; and those that can't see her, see her yellow 
 novel in your eyes, and think about her and you, 
 instead of the things you are saying to them ! For 
 the sake of the work given you, for the sake of 
 your influence with the people, you must do some- 
 thing ! " 
 
 "It is God she defies, not me." 
 
 " I think she defies you to say an honest word on 
 his behalf. Your silence must seem to her an ac- 
 knowledgment that she is right." 
 
 "That cannot be, after what I have said to her 
 more than once in her own house." 
 
 " Then at least she must think that either you 
 have no authority to drive from the little temple one 
 of the cows of Bashan, or are afraid of her horns." 
 
 " Quite right, Nelly ! " cried the rector ; " you are 
 quite right. Only you don't give me a hint what to 
 do!" 
 
 " Am I not saying as plain as I can that you must 
 preach at her .? " 
 
 " H"m ! I didn't expect that of you ! " 
 
 "No ; for if you could have expected it of me, 
 you would have thought of it yourself! But just 
 think ! A public scandal requires public treatment. 
 You will not be dragging her before the people; she 
 has put herself there I She is brazen, and must be 
 treated as brazen — set in the full glare of opinion. 
 And I think, if I were a clergyman, I should know 
 how to do it ! " 
 
 Wingfold was silent. She must be right ! Some- 
 
THE parson's parable. 1 89 
 
 thing glimmered before him — something possible — 
 he could not see plainly what. 
 
 " It is all very well to make such a clamor about 
 her boy," continued his wife, " but every one knows 
 that she quarrelled with him dreadfully — that for 
 days at a time they would be cat and dog with each 
 other. Her animal instinct lasted it out, and she did 
 not come to hate him ; but I can't help thinking it 
 must have been in a great measure because her hus- 
 band favored the other that she took up this one with 
 such passion. I have been told she would abuse 
 him in language not fit to repeat, the little wretch 
 answering her back, and choking with rage that he 
 could not tear her." 
 
 "Who told you ? " asked the parson. 
 
 " I would rather not say." 
 
 " Are you sure it is not mere gossip .-* " 
 
 "Quite sure. To be gossip, a thing must go 
 through two mouths at least, and I had it first- 
 mouth. I tell it you because I think it worth your 
 knowing." 
 
 The next Sunday morning, there lay the lady as 
 usual, only her novel was a red one. When the 
 parson went into the pulpit, he cast one glance on 
 the gallery to his right, then spoke thus : — 
 
 "My friends, I will follow the example of our 
 Lord, and speak to you to-day in a parable. The 
 Lord said there are things better spoken in parables, 
 because of the eyes that will not see, and the ears 
 that will not hear. 
 
 "There was once a mother left alone with her 
 little boy — the only creature in the world or out of it 
 that she cared for. She was a good mother to him, as 
 good a mother as you can think, never overbearing 
 
190 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 or unkind. She never thought of herself, but always 
 of the desire of her heart, the apple of her eye, her 
 son born of her own body. It was not because of 
 any return he could make her that she loved him. 
 It was not to make him feel how good she was, that 
 she did everything- for him. It was not to give him 
 reasons for loving her, but because she loved him, 
 and because he needed her. He was a delicate 
 child, requiring every care she could lavish upon 
 him, and she did lavish it. Oh, how she loved him ! 
 She would sit with the child in her lap from morning 
 till night, gazing on him ; she always went to sleep 
 with him in her bosom — as close to her as ever he 
 could lie. When she woke in the dark night, her 
 first movement was to strain him closer, her next to 
 listen if he was breathing — for he might have died 
 and been lost ! When he looked up at her with eyes 
 of satisfaction, she felt all her care repaid. 
 
 "The years went on, and the child grew, and the 
 mother loved him more and more. But he did not 
 love her as she loved him. He soon began to care 
 for the things she gave him, but he did not learn to 
 love the mother who gave them. Now the whole 
 good of things is to be the messengers of love — to 
 carry love from the one heart to the other heart ; and 
 when these messengers are fetched instead of sent, 
 grasped at, that is, by a greedy, ungiving hand, they 
 never reach the heart, but block up the path of love, 
 and divide heart from heart ; so that the greedy 
 heart forgets the love of the giving heart more and 
 more, and all by the things it gives. That is the 
 way generosity fares with the ungenerous. The boy 
 would be very pleasant to his mother so long as he 
 thought to get something from her ; but when he 
 
THE PARSONS PARABLE. I9I 
 
 had got what he wanted, he would forget her until 
 he wanted something more. 
 
 "There came at last a day when she said to him, 
 ' Dear boy, I want you to go and fetch me some 
 medicine, for I feel very poorly, and am afraid I am 
 going to be ill ! ' He mounted his pony, and rode 
 away to get the medicine. Now his mother had 
 told him to be very careful, because the medicine 
 was dangerous, and he must not open the bottle that 
 held it. But when he had it, he said to himself, ' I 
 dare say it is something very nice, and mother does 
 not want me to have any of it ! ' So he opened the 
 bottle and tasted what was in it, and it burned him 
 terribly. Then he was furious with his mother, and 
 said she had told him not to open the bottle just to 
 make him do it, and vowed he would not go back 
 to her ! He threw the bottle from him, and turned, 
 and rode another way, until he found himself alone 
 in a wild forest, where was nothing to eat, and 
 nothing to shelter him from the cold night, and the 
 wind blew through the trees, and made strange 
 noises. He dismounted, afraid to ride in the dark, 
 and before he knew, his pony was gone. Then he 
 began to be miserably frightened, and to wish he 
 had not run away. But still he blamed his mother, 
 who might have known, he said, that he would open 
 the bottle. 
 
 "The mother got very uneasy about her boy, and 
 went out to look for him. The neighbors too, though 
 he was not a nice boy, and none but his mother liked 
 him, went out also, for they would gladly find him 
 and take him home to her ; and they came at last to 
 the wood, with their torches and lanterns. 
 
 "The boy was lying under a tree, and saw the 
 
192 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 lights, and heard the voices, and knew it was his 
 mother come. Then the old wickedness rose up 
 fresh in his heart, and he said to himself: 'She shall 
 have trouble yet before she finds me ! Am I to come 
 and go as she pleases ? ' He lay very still ; and 
 when he saw them coming near, crept farther, and 
 again lay still. Thus he went on doing, and so 
 avoided his saviours. He heard one say there were 
 wolves in the wood, for that was the sound of them ; 
 but he was just the kind of boy that will not believe, 
 but thinks every one has a purpose of his own in 
 saying this or that. So he slipped and slipped away 
 until at length all despaired of finding him, and left 
 the wood. 
 
 " Suddenly he knew that he was again alone. He 
 gave a great shriek, but no one heard it. He stood 
 quaking and listening. Presently his pony came 
 rushing past him, with two or three wolves behind 
 him. He started to his feet and began to run, wild 
 to get out of the wood. But he could not find the 
 way, and ran about this way and that until utter 
 despair came down upon him, and all he could do 
 was to lie still as a mouse lest the wolves should 
 hear him. 
 
 " And as he lay he began at last to think that he 
 was a wicked child ; that his mother had done every- 
 thing to make him good, and he would not be good ; 
 and now he was lost, and the wolves alone would 
 find him ! He sank at last into a stupor, and lay 
 motionless, with death and the wolves after him. 
 
 " He came to himself in the arms of a strange 
 woman, who had taken him up, and was carrying 
 him home. 
 
 ' ' The name of the woman was Sorrow — a wander- 
 
THE PARSONS PARABLE. 1 93 
 
 ing woman, a kind of gypsy, always going about 
 the world, and picking up lost things. Nobody likes 
 her, hardly anybody is civil to her ; but when she 
 has set anybody down and is gone, there is often a 
 look of affection and wonder and gratitude sent after 
 her. For all that, however, very few are glad to be 
 found by her again. 
 
 " Sorrow carried him weeping home to his mother. 
 His mother came out, and took him in her arms. 
 Sorrow made her courtesy, and went away. The 
 boy clung to his mother's neck, and said he was 
 sorry. In the midst of her joy his mother wept 
 bitterly, for he had nearly broken her heart. She 
 could not get the wolves out of her mind. 
 
 "But, alas! the boy forgot all, and was worse 
 than ever. He grew more and more cruel to his 
 mother, and mocked at every word she said to him ; 
 so that " 
 
 There came a cry from the gallery. The congre- 
 gation started in sudden terror to their feet. The 
 rector stopped, and turning to the right, stood 
 gazing. In the front of the squire's pew stood Mrs. 
 Wylder, white, and speechless with rage. For a 
 moment she stood shaking her fist at the preacher. 
 Then, in a hoarse broken voice, came the words — 
 
 "It's a lie. My boy was never cruel to me. It's 
 a wicked lie." 
 
 She could say no more, but stood and glared, hate 
 in her fierce eyes, and torture in her colorless face. 
 
 "Madam, you have betrayed yourself," said the 
 rector, solemnly. " If your son behaved well to you, 
 it makes it the worse in you to behave ill to your 
 Father. From Sunday to Sunday you insult him 
 with rude behavior. I tell you so in the face of this 
 13 
 
194 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 congregation, which knows it as well as I. Hither- 
 to I have held my tongue — from no fear of the rich, 
 from no desire to spare them deserved disgrace in the 
 eyes of the poor, but because I shrank from making 
 the house of God a place of contention. Madam, 
 you have behaved shamefully, and I do my duty in 
 rebuking you." 
 
 The whole congregation were on their feet, staring 
 at her. A moment she stood, and would have braz- 
 ened out the stare. But she felt the eyes of the 
 motionless hundreds blazing upon her, and the cul- 
 prit soul grew nakedinthe presence of judging souls. 
 Her nerve gave way ; she turned her back, left the 
 pew, and fled from the church by the squire's door, 
 into the grounds of Wylder Hall. 
 
 Happily Barbara was not in the church that 
 morning. 
 
 The next Sunday the squire's pew was empty. The 
 red volume lay open on its face upon the floor of it. 
 
 Wingfold's dear plot had palled. He had rough- 
 hewed his end, but the divinity had shaped it. 
 
 When the squire came to know what had taken 
 place, he made his first call on the rector. He said 
 nothing about his wife, but plainly wished it under- 
 stood that he bore him no ill will for what he had 
 done. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 The rector had often wished his wife could in some 
 natural way get hold of Miss Wylder ; he suspected 
 something exceptionally fine in her : how else could 
 she, with such a father and such a mother, have such 
 a countenance ? There must be a third factor in the * 
 affair, and one worth knowing — namely, herself ! 
 That she seemed to avoid being reckoned among 
 church-goers might be a point in her favor ! What 
 reports reached him of her wild ways, mingled with 
 exaggerated stories of her lawlessness, did not shock 
 him : what was true in them might spring from mere 
 exuberance of life, whose joy was her only law — 
 and yet a real law to her ! 
 
 He had had no opportunity of learning either how 
 peculiar the girl was, or how capable. She was not 
 yet up to his teaching ; she had to have other water 
 to drink first, and was now approaching a source that 
 might have caused him anxiety for her, had he ever 
 so little believed in chance. But a shepherd is none \/ 
 
 the less a true shepherd that he leaves plenty of 
 liberty to the lamb to pick its own food. That its 
 best instincts may not be to the taste either of its 
 natural guardians or the public, is nothing against 
 those instincts. Without appearing to their guardians 
 both strange and headstrong, some sheep would 
 never get near the food necessary to keep them alive. 
 
196 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Confined to the provender even their shepherds would 
 have them contented withal, many would die. Some- 
 times, to escape from the arid wastes of "society," 
 haunted with the cries of its spiritual greengrocers, 
 and find the pasture on which their souls can live, 
 they have to die, and climb the grassy slopes of the 
 heavenly hills. 
 
 Barbara had as yet had no experience of pain — or 
 of more at least than came from sympathy with 
 suffering — a sympathy which though ready, could 
 hardly be deep in one who had never had a headache 
 herself. To all dumb suffering things she was very 
 gentle and pitiful; but her pity was like that of a child 
 over her doll. 
 
 She was always glad to get away from home. 
 While her father was paying his long-delayed visit to 
 the rector, she was flying over hedge and ditch and 
 rail, in a line for that gate of Mortgrange which 
 Simon Armour and his grandson found open when 
 first the former took the latter to see the place ; Bar- 
 bara had a key to it. 
 
 She went with swift, gliding step, like that of a red 
 Indian, into the library. Richard was piecing the 
 broken cords of a great old folio — the more easily 
 that they were double — in order to re-attach the loos- 
 ened sheets and the hanging board, and so get the 
 book ready for a new cover. She carried in her hand 
 something yet more sorely in need of mending — a 
 pigeon with a broken wing, which she had seen ly- 
 ing in the park, and had dismounted to take. It kept 
 opening and shutting its eyes, and she knew that 
 nothing could be done for it ; but the mute appeal of 
 the dying thing had gone to her heart, and she 
 wanted sympathy, whether for it or for herself she 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 1 97 
 
 could hardly have distinguished. How she came to 
 wake a little more just then, I cannot tell, but the fact 
 is a joint in her history. The jar to the pigeon's life 
 affected her as a catastrophe. She felt that there a 
 crisis had come : a living conscious thing could do 
 nothing for its own life, and lay helpless. Say rather 
 — seemed so to lie. Oh, surely it is in reason that 
 not a sparrow should fall to the ground without the 
 Father ! To whom but the father of the children that 
 bemoan its fate, should the children carry his sparrow ? 
 But Barbara was carrying her pigeon where was no 
 help for the heart of either. 
 
 "Ah, poor thing," said Richard, "I fear we can 
 do nothing for it ! But it will be at rest soon ! It is 
 fast going." 
 
 "Ah! but where.?" said Barbara, to whom that 
 moment came the question for the first time. 
 
 "Nowhere," answered Richard. 
 
 " How can that he? If I were going, I should be 
 going somewhere ! I couldn't go nowhere if I tried 
 ever so. I don't like you to say it is going nowhere ! 
 Poor little thing ! I won't let you go nowhere ! " 
 
 "Weill" returned Richard, a little bewildered, 
 "what would you have me say.? You know what 
 I mean ! It is going not to be, that is all." 
 
 "That is all \ How would you like to be told you 
 were going nowhere — going not to be — that was 
 all .? " 
 
 Richard saw that to declare abruptly his belief that 
 he was himselfas much going nowhere as any pigeon 
 that ever died, would probably be to close the door 
 between them. At the same time, if he left her to 
 imagine that he expected life for himself, but not for 
 the animals, she must think him selfish ! Unwilling 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 therefore to answer, he took refuge in his genuine 
 sympathy with suffering. 
 
 " Is it not strange," he said, and would have taken 
 from her hands the wounded bird, but she would not 
 part with it, "that men should take pleasure in kill- 
 ing — especially a creature like that, so full of inno- 
 cent content ? It seems to me the greatest pity to stop 
 such a life ! " 
 
 As he spoke there came upon him the dim sense of 
 a foaming reef or argument ahead — such as this : 
 "Then there ought to be no death ! And what ought 
 not to be, cannot be ! But there is death : what then 
 is death.? If it be a stopping of life, then that is which 
 cannot be. But it may be only a change in the form 
 of life that looks like a stopping, and is not ! If 
 Death be stronger than Life, so that he stops life, 
 how then was Life able so to flout him, that he, the 
 thing "that was not, arose from the antenatal sepul- 
 chre on which Death sat throned in impotent nega- 
 tion of entity, unable to preclude existence, and yet 
 able to annihilate it ? Life alone is ; nothingness is 
 not ; Death cannot destroy ; he is not the antagonist, 
 not the opposite of life." Some such argument Rich- 
 ard, I say, saw vaguely through the gloom ahead, 
 and began to beat to windward. 
 
 " Did you ever notice," he said, " in The Rime of 
 the Ancient Mariner, the point at which the dead bird 
 falls from the neck of the man .? " 
 
 It was a point, however, at which neither he nor 
 Barbara was capable of seeing the depth of the poem. 
 Richard thought it was the new-born love of beauty 
 that freed the mariner ; he did not see that it was the 
 love of life, the new-born sympathy with life. 
 
 "I don't even know what you are talking of," 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 1 99 
 
 answered Barbara. "Do tell me. It sounds like 
 something- wonderful ! Is it a story .'' " 
 
 "Yes — a wonderful story." 
 
 Richard had not attempted to understand Cole- 
 ridge's philosophy, taking- it for quite obsolete ; and 
 it was but doubtfully that he had made trial of his 
 poems. Happily choosing- Chrisiabel, however, for a 
 tasting-piece, he was immediately enchanted and ab- 
 sorbed ; and never again had he been so keenly aware 
 of disappointment as when he came to the end, and 
 found, as an Irishman might say, that it was not 
 there : a lump gathered in his throat ; he flung the 
 book from him, and it was a week before he could 
 open it again. 
 
 The next poem he tried was The Rime of the Ancient 
 Mariner, which he read with almost equal delight, be- 
 witched with many an individual phrase, with the 
 melody unique of many a stanza, with the strange- 
 ness of its speech, with the loveliness of its real, and 
 the wildness of its invented pictures. But he had not 
 yet discovered, or even begun to foresee the marvel 
 of its whole. A man must know something of repent- 
 ance before he can understand The Rime of the Ancient 
 Mariner, 
 
 The volume containing it had come into his hands 
 as one of a set his father had to bind. It belonged 
 to a worshipper of Coleridge, who had possessed 
 himself of every edition of every book he had written, 
 or had had a share in writing. There he read first 
 the final form oi The Rime as it appeared in the Sibyl- 
 line Leaves of 1817 : when he came to look at that in 
 i\\e Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798, he found dif- 
 ferences many and great between the two. He found 
 also in the set an edition with a form of the poem 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 differing considerably from the last as well as the 
 first. He had brought together and compared all 
 these forms of the poem, noting every minutest varia- 
 tion — a mode of study which, in the case of a master- 
 piece, richly repays the student. It was no wonder, 
 therefore, that Richard had almost every word of it 
 on the very tip of his tongue. 
 
 He began to repeat the ballad, and went on, never 
 for a moment intermitting his work. Without the 
 least attempt at what is called recitation, of which 
 happily he knew nothing, he made both sense and 
 music tell, saying it as if he were for the hundredth 
 time reading it aloud for his own delight. If his 
 pronunciation was cockneyish, it was but a little so. 
 
 The very first stanza took hold of Barbara. She 
 sat down by Richard's table, softly laid the dying 
 bird in her lap, and listened with round eyes and 
 parted lips, her rapt soul sitting in her ears. 
 
 But Richard had not gone far before he hesitated, 
 his memory perplexed between the differing editions. 
 
 "Have you forgotten it.-* I am so sorry!'' said 
 Barbara. " It ts wonderful — not like anything I ever 
 heard, or saw, or tasted before. It smells like a 
 
 New Zealand flower called " Here she said a 
 
 word Richard had never heard, and could never re- 
 member. "I don't wonder at your liking books if 
 you find things in them of that sort ! " 
 
 "I've not exactly forgotten it," answered Richard; 
 " but I've copied out different editions for compari- 
 son, and they've got a little mixed in my head." 
 
 "But surely the printers, with all their blunders 
 and changes, can't keep you from seeing what the 
 author wrote ! '' 
 
 "The editions I mean are those of the author him- 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 20I 
 
 self. He kept making changes, some of them very- 
 great changes. Not many people know the poem as 
 Coleridge first published it." 
 
 "Coleridge Who was he?" 
 
 "The man that wrote the poem." 
 
 "Oh! He altered it afterwards .? " 
 
 " Yes, very much." 
 
 " Did he make it better ? " 
 
 " Much better." 
 
 "Then why should you care any more for the first 
 way of it ? " 
 
 "Just because it is different. A thing not so good 
 may have a different goodness. A man may not 
 be so good as another man, and yet have some 
 good things in him the other has not. That im- 
 plies that not every change he made was for the 
 better. And where he has put a better phrase, or 
 passage, the former may yet be good. So you see a 
 new form may be much better, and yet the old form 
 remain much too good to be partted with. In any 
 case it is intensely interesting to see how and why 
 he changed a thing or its shape, and to ponder 
 wherein it is for the better or the worse. That is to 
 take it like a study in natural history. In that we 
 learn how an animal grows different to meet a 
 difference in the supply of its needs ; in the varying 
 editions of a poem we see how it alters to meet a 
 new requirement of the poet's mind. I don't mean 
 the cases are parallel, but they correspond somehow. 
 If I were a schoolmaster, I should make my p^ipils 
 compare different forms of the same poem, and find 
 out why the poet made the changes. That would do 
 far more for them, I think, than comparing poets 
 with each other. The better poets are — that is, the 
 
202 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 more original they are — the less there is in them to 
 compare." 
 
 "But I want to hear the rest of the story. Never 
 mind the differences in the telling of it." 
 
 "I'm afraid I can't get into the current of it 
 now." 
 
 "You can look at the book ! It must be some- 
 where among all these ! " 
 
 "No doubt. But I haven't time to look for it 
 now." 
 
 "It won't take you a minute to find it." 
 
 " I must not leave my work." 
 
 " It wouldn't cost you more than one tiny minute ! " 
 pleaded Barbara like a child. 
 
 "Let me explain to you, miss: — I find the only 
 way to be sure I don't cheat, is to know I haven't 
 stopped an instant to do anything for myself. Some- 
 times I have stopped for a while ; and then when 
 I wanted to make up the time, I couldn't be quite 
 sure how mucl' I owed, and that made me give 
 more than I needed — which I didn't like when I would 
 gladly have been doing something else. When the 
 time is my own, it is of far more value to me for the 
 insides than to my employer for the outsides of the 
 books. So you see, for my own sake as well as his, 
 I cannot stop till my time is up." 
 
 "That is being honest ! " 
 
 "Who can consent to be dishonest! It is the 
 meanest thing to undertake work and then imagine 
 you show spirit by shirking what you can of it. 
 There's a lot of fellows like that ! I would as soon 
 pick a pocket as undertake and not do ! " 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 2O3 
 
 "But I can talk while I work, miss," Richard went 
 on ; "and I will try again to remember." 
 
 "Please, please do." 
 
 Richard thought a little, and presently resuming 
 the poem, went on to the end of the first part. As 
 he finished the last stanza — 
 
 *' God save thee, ancient Mariner, 
 
 Froiti the fiends that plague thee thus — 
 Why look'st thou so ? — ^With my cross-bow 
 I shot the Albatross ! " 
 
 "Ah ! " cried Barbara, " I see now what made you 
 think of the poem ! " — and she looked down at the 
 throbbing bird in her lap. 
 
 It opened its dark eyes once more — with a reel- 
 ing, pitiful look at her, Barbara thought — quivered a 
 little, and lay still. She burst into tears, 
 
 Richard dropped his work, and made a step toward 
 her. 
 
 " Never mind," she said. ' ' One has got to cry so 
 much, and I may as well cry for the bird ! I'm all 
 right now, thank you ! Please go on. The bird is 
 dead, and I'm glad. I will let it lie a little, and 
 then bury it. If it be anywhere, perhaps it will one 
 day know me, and then it will love me. Please go 
 on with the poem. It will make mg forget. I'm not 
 bound to remember, am I — where I'm not to blame, 
 I mean, and cannot help .? " 
 
 "Certainly not ! " acquiesced Richard, and began 
 the second part. 
 
 " I see ! I see ! " cried Barbara, wiping her eyes. 
 "They were cross with him for killing the bird, not 
 because they loved the beautiful creature, but because 
 it was unlucky to kill him ! And then when nothing 
 
204 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 but good came, they said it was quite right to kill 
 him, and told lies of him, and said he was a bad 
 bird, and brought the fog and mist ! — I wonder what's 
 coming to them ! — That's not the end, is it? It can't 
 be!" 
 
 "No; it's not nearly done yet. It's only begin- 
 ning." 
 
 "I'm so glad ! Do go on." 
 
 She was eager as any child. Coleridge could not 
 have desired a better listener. 
 
 " I know ! / know ! " she said, presently. " We 
 were caught in a calm as we came home ! My 
 father is fond of the sea, and brought us round the 
 Cape in a sailing-vessel It was horrid. It lasted 
 only three days, but I felt as if I should die. It wasn't 
 long enough, I suppose, to draw out the creeping 
 things ! " 
 
 "Perhaps it wasn't near enough to the equator for 
 them," answered Richard, and went on : — 
 
 " Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks 
 Had I from old and young ; 
 Instead of the cross, the Albatross 
 About my neck was hung." 
 
 " Poor man ! And in such weather!" exclaimed 
 Barbara. "And such a huge creature! I see! 
 They thought now the killing of the bird had brought 
 the calm, and they would have their revenge ! A 
 bad set, those sailors ! People that deserve punish- 
 ment always want to punish. Do go on.' 
 
 When the skeleton-ship came, her eyes grew with 
 listening like those of one in a trance. 
 
 "What a horrid, live dead woman!" she said. 
 " Her whiteness is worse than any blackness. But 
 I wish he had told us what Death was like ! " 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 205 
 
 "In the first edition," returned Richard, much 
 delighted that she missed what constructive sym- 
 metry required, "there is a description of Death. I 
 doubt if you would like it, though. You don't like 
 horrid thing-s .'' " 
 
 "I do — if they should be horrid, and are horrid 
 enough." 
 
 "Coleridge thought afterwards it was better to 
 leave it out ! " 
 
 "Tell it me, anyhow." 
 
 " //is bones were black with many a crack, 
 All black and bare, I ween ; 
 Jet-black and bare, save where with rust, 
 Of mouldy damps and charnel crust, 
 
 They were patched with purple and green. 
 
 —There ! What do you think of that ? " 
 " ffe is nothing like so horrid as the woman 1" 
 "She is more horrid in the first edition." 
 " How ?" 
 
 " //er lips are red, /ler looks are free, 
 
 //er locks are yellow as gold ; 
 Her skin is as white as leprosy. 
 And she is far liker Death than he; 
 
 Her flesh makes the still air cold." 
 
 "I do think that is worse. Tell me again how 
 the other goes." 
 
 " The Night-Mare Life-in-death was she, 
 Who thicks man's blood with cold." 
 
 "Yes, the other is worse ! I can hardly tell why, 
 except it be that you get at the sense of it easier. 
 What does the Nightmare Life-in-Death mean ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I can't quite get at it." 
 
206 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 How should he ? Richard was too close to the 
 awful phantom to know that this was her portrait. 
 
 "There's another dreadful stanza in the first 
 edition," he went on. " It is repeated in the second, 
 but left out in the last. I fancy the poet let hin:iself 
 be overpersuaded to omit it. The poem was not 
 actually printed without it until after his death : he 
 had only put it in the errata, to be omitted. — When 
 the woman whistles with joy at having won the 
 ancient Mariner, 
 
 " A gust of wind sterte up behind, 
 
 — as if, like the sailors, she had whistled for it : — 
 
 " A gust of wind sterte up behind, 
 And whistled through his bones ; 
 
 Through the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth, 
 Half whistles and half groans ; 
 
 and the spectre-bark is blown along by this breath 
 coming out of the bosom of the skeleton." 
 
 " I think it was a great mistake to leave that 
 verse out!" said Barbara. "There is no nasty 
 horror in it ! There is a little in the description of 
 Death ! " 
 
 "I think with you," returned Richard, more and 
 more astonished at the insight of a girl who had 
 read next to nothing. "Our lecturer at King's," he 
 went on, "pointed out to us, in this part, what 
 some call a blunder." 
 
 "What is it.?" 
 
 "I will give you the verses again; and you see 
 if you can pick it out." 
 
 "Do, please." 
 
 " — Till clombe above the eastern bar 
 The horned Moon, with one bright star 
 Within the nether tip." 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 20/ 
 
 "I never saw a star there! But I see nothings 
 wrong." 
 
 "Which is the nearest to us of the heavenly- 
 bodies ? " 
 
 "The moon, I suppose." 
 
 "Certainly : — how, then, could a star come 
 between us audit? For if the star were within the 
 tip of the moon, it must be between us and the dark 
 part of the moon ! " 
 
 " I see ! How stupid of me ! But let me think ! — 
 If the star were just on the edge of the moon, 
 between the horns, it would almost look as if it 
 were within the tips — might it not ? " 
 
 " That's the best that can be said for it anyhow, — 
 except indeed that the poor ignorant sailor might, 
 in the midst of such horrors, well make the 
 blunder. — By the way, in the first edition it stood 
 as you have just said : the line was, 
 
 Almost within the tips." 
 
 "What did he change it to ? " 
 " He made it — 
 
 Within the nether tip.'* 
 
 "Why did he change it.?" 
 
 "You would see that at the first glance, if you 
 were used to riming." 
 
 " Are you a poet, then, as well as a blacksmith 
 and a bookbinder ? " 
 
 "Too much of a poet, I hope, to imagine my- 
 self more than a whittler of reeds ! " answered 
 Richard. 
 
 He was not sorry, however, to let Barbara know 
 him for a poor relation of the high family of poets. 
 
208 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 In truth, what best enabled him to understand their 
 work, was the humble work of the same sort he did 
 himself. 
 
 She did not understand what he meant hj awhiUler 
 of reeds, but she rightly took what he said for a 
 humble affirmative. 
 
 " I begin to be frightened at you ! " she rejoined, 
 half meaning it. "Who knows what else you may 
 not be ! " 
 
 "I am little enough of anything," answered 
 Richard, "but nothing that I do not wish to be 
 more of." 
 
 A short silence followed. 
 
 "You have not told me yet why he changed that 
 line ! " resumed Barbara. 
 
 "Better wait until I can show it you in the book : 
 then you will see at once. " 
 
 "Please, go on then. I don't know anything 
 about the poem yet ! I don't know why it was 
 written ! " 
 
 "You like some dreams, though they have no 
 reason in them, don't you .' " 
 
 "Yes; but then I suppose there is reason in the 
 poem ! " 
 
 "There is, indeed !" said Richard, and went on. 
 
 But presently she stopped him. 
 
 "One thing I should like to know before we go 
 further," she said ; " — why they all fell down except 
 the ancient Mariner." 
 
 " You remember that Death and the woman were 
 casting dice } " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "It is not very clear, but this is how I understand 
 the thing : — They diced for the crew, one by one ; 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 209 
 
 Death won every one till they came to the last, the 
 ancient Mariner himself, and the woman, a sort of 
 live Death, wins him. That is why she cries, ' I've 
 won, won ! ' and whistles thrice — though she has won 
 only one out of two hundred. I should think she 
 was used to Death having more than she, else she 
 wouldn't have been so pleased. Perhaps she seldom 
 got one ! " 
 
 "Yes, I see all that. But things oughtn't to go by 
 the casting of dice. Money may, for that does not 
 signify, but not the souls and bodies of men. It 
 should not be the way in a poem any more than in 
 the open world. — Let m.e think ! — I have it ! — They 
 were not good men, those sailors ! They first blamed, 
 and then justified, and then again blamed and cruelly 
 punished the poor mariner, who had done wrong 
 certainly, but was doubtless even then sorry for it. 
 He was cruel to a bird he did not know, and they 
 were cruel to a man they did know ! So they are 
 taken and he is left — to come well out of it at last, I 
 hope. — Yes, it's all right ! Now you can go on." 
 
 She said nothing as he showed her the deck strewn 
 so thick with the dead bodies, whose cursing eyes 
 all looked one way ; but when the heavenly contrast 
 came : — 
 
 " The moving Moon went up the sky, 
 And nowhere did abide ; 
 Softly she was going up, 
 
 And a star or two beside ;" — 
 
 she gave a deep sigh of delight, and said — 
 
 "Ah, don't I know her, the beauty ! Isn't it just 
 
 many a time she has made me sick with the love of 
 
 her, and her peace, and her ways of looking, and 
 
 walking, and talking — for talk she does to those that 
 
 14 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 can listen hard ! I dare say, in this old country 
 where she's been about so long, you will think it 
 silly to make so much of her ; but you don't know 
 here what it is to have her night after night for your 
 one companion ! She never grows a downright 
 friend, though — a friend you've got at the heart of ! 
 She always looks at you as if she were saying — 
 ' Yes, yes ; I know what you are thinking ! but I 
 have that in me you can never know, and I can 
 never tell ! It will go down with me to the grave of 
 the great universe, and no one will ever know it ! It 
 is so lovely ! — and oh, so sad ! ' " 
 
 She was silent. Richard could not answer. He 
 saw her far away like the moon she spoke of She 
 was growing to him a marvel and a mystery. Some- 
 thing strange seemed befalling him. Was she 
 weaving a spell about his soul?. Was she fettering 
 him for her slave ? Was she one of the wild, bewilder- 
 ing creatures of ancient lonely belief, that are the 
 souls of the loveliest things, but can detach them- 
 selves from them, and wander out in garments more 
 immediately their own .? Was she salamander or 
 sylph, naiad or undine, oread or dryad ? — But then 
 she had such a head, and they were all rather silly ! 
 
 When the ballad told how silvery were the sea- 
 snakes in the moonlight, and how gorgeously varied 
 in the red shadow, Richard looked for her to show 
 delight in the play of their colors ; but, though the 
 sweet strong little mouth smiled, her brows looked 
 more puzzled than pleased — which was a thing note- 
 worthy. 
 
 Any marvel in Nature, however new, Barbara 
 would have welcomed with bare delight ; she would 
 have asked neither the why, nor the how, nor the 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 211 
 
 final cause of the phenomenon — as if, being natural, 
 it must be right, and she needed not trouble herself; 
 but here, in this poem, a world born of the imagina- 
 tion of a man, she wanted to know about everything, 
 whether it was, or would be, or ought to be just so 
 — whether, in a word, every fact was souled with 
 a reason, as it ought to be. Perhaps she demanded 
 such satisfaction too soon ; perhaps she ought to have 
 waited for the whole, and, having found that a har- 
 monious thing, then first have inquired into the truth 
 of its parts ; but so it was : she must know as she 
 went, that she might know when she arrived ! But 
 in this she revealed a genuine artistic faculty — that 
 she gave herself up to the poet, and allowed him to 
 inspire her, yet would have reason from him. 
 Richard went on : — 
 
 "O happy living things ! No tongue 
 Their beauty might declare ; 
 A spring of love gushed from my heart. 
 And I blessed them unaware ! 
 Sure my kind saint took pity on me, 
 And I blessed them unaware. 
 
 The self-same moment I could pray ; 
 And from my neck so free 
 The Albatross fell oiT, and sank 
 Like lead into the sea." 
 
 Barbara jumped up, clapping her hands with 
 delight. 
 
 ' ' I knew something was going to happen ! " she 
 cried. " I knew it was coming all right ! " 
 
 " You have not heard the end yet ! You don't know 
 what may be coming ! " protested Richard. 
 
 " Nothing ca7i go wrong now ! The man's love is 
 awake, and he will be sorrier and sorrier for what he 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 did! Instead of saying, ' The wrigglesome, slimy- 
 things ! ' he blesses them ; and because he is going to 
 be a friend to the other creatures in the house, and 
 live on good terms with them, the body he had killed 
 tumbles from his neck ; the bad deed is gone down 
 into the depth of the great sea, and he is able to say 
 his prayers again ; — no, not that exactly ; it must be 
 something better than saying prayers now ! " — She 
 paused a moment, then added, " It must be some- 
 thing I think I don't know yet ! " and sat down. 
 
 Richard heard and admired : he thought that as she 
 had perceived there was something better than say- 
 ing prayers, she would pray no more ! 
 
 "Goon; goon," she said. "But if you like to 
 stop, I shan't mind. I have no fear now. It's all 
 going right, and must soon come all right ! " 
 
 " O sleep ! It is a gentle thing," 
 
 said Richard, going on. 
 
 "There it is ! " she interrupted. " I knew it was 
 all coming right ! He can sleep now ! " 
 
 " O sleep ! It is a gentle thing, 
 Beloved from pole to pole ! 
 To Mary queen the praise be given ! 
 She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, 
 That slid into my soul." 
 
 Some one was in the room, the door of which had 
 been open all the time. The sky was so cloudy, and 
 the twilight so far advanced, that neither of them, 
 Barbara absorbed in the poem and Richard in the last 
 of his day's work, had heard any one enter. 
 
 " Why don't you ring for a lamp ? " said Lestrange. 
 
 "There is no occasion; I have just done," an- 
 swered Richard. 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 21 3 
 
 "You cannot surely see in this light ! " said Arthur, 
 who was short-sig-hted. " You certainly were not at 
 your work when I came into the room ! " 
 
 He thought Richard had caught up the piece of 
 leather he was paring, in order to deceive him. 
 
 "Indeed, sir, I was." 
 
 "You were not. You were reading ! " 
 
 "I was not reading, sir. I was busy with the last 
 of my day's work." 
 
 "Do not tell me you were not reading: I heard 
 you ! " 
 
 "You did hear me, sir; but you did not hear 
 me reading," rejoined Richard, growing angry with 
 the tone of the young man, and with his unreadiness 
 to believe him. 
 
 Many workmen, having told a lie, would have been 
 more indignant at not being believed, than was 
 Richard speaking the truth ; still, he was growing 
 angry. 
 
 "You must have a wonderful memory, then!" 
 said Lestrange. "But, excuse me, we don't care to 
 hear your voice in the house." 
 
 The same moment, he either discovered, or pre- 
 tended to discover, Barbara's presence. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Miss Wylder ! " he said. " I 
 did not know he was amusing you ! I did not see 
 you were in the room ! " 
 
 " I suppose," returned Barbara — and it savored of 
 the savage Lestrange sometimes called her — "you 
 will be ordering the nightingales not to sing injyour 
 apple-trees next I " 
 
 " I don't understand you ! " 
 
 "Neither do you understand Mr. Tuke, or you 
 would not speak to him that way ! " 
 
214 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 She rose and walked to the door, but turned as she 
 went and added — 
 
 " He was repeating the loveliest poem I ever heard 
 — The Rime of the Ancieiit Mariner. — I didn't know 
 there could be such a poem ! " she added, simply. 
 
 "It is not one I care about. But you need not take 
 it second-hand from Tuke : I will lend it you." 
 
 "Thank you 1 " said Barbara, in a tone which was 
 not of gratitude, and left the room. 
 
 Lestrange stood for a moment, but finding noth- 
 ing suitable to say, turned and followed her, while 
 Richard bit his lip to keep himself silent. He knew, 
 if he spoke, there would be an end ; and he did not 
 want this to be his last sight of the wonderful creature ! 
 
 Barbara went to the door with the intention of 
 going to the stables for Miss Brown and galloping 
 straight home. But she bethought herself that so she 
 might seem to be ashamed. She was not Arthur's 
 guest ! He had been insolent to her friend, who had 
 done more for her already than ever Arthur was likely 
 to do, but that was no reason why she should run 
 away from him — ^just the contrary ! She wouhi like 
 to punish him for it somehow ! — not shoot him, for 
 she would not kill a pigeon, and to kill a man would 
 be worse, though he wasn't so nice as a pigeon ! — • 
 but she would like — yes, she would like to give him 
 just three good cuts across the shoulders with her 
 new riding-whip ! What right had he to speak so to 
 his superior } By being a true workman, Mr. Tuke 
 was a gentleman ! Could Arthur • Lestrange have 
 talked like that } Could he have spoken the poetry 
 like that } The bookbinder was worth a hundred of 
 him ! Could Arthur shoe a horse ? What if the work- 
 ing man were to turn out the real lord of the creation. 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 215 
 
 and the gentleman have to black his boots ! There 
 was something- like it in the gospel ! 
 
 She did not know that in general the working man 
 is as foolish and unfit as the rich man ; that he only- 
 wants to be rich, and trample on his own past. The 
 working man may perish like the two hundred of the 
 crew, and the rich man may ho. saved like the Ancient 
 Mariner ! 
 
 It is the poor man that gives the rich man all the 
 pull on him, by cherishing the same feelings as the 
 rich man concerning riches, by fancying the rich man 
 because of his riches the greater man, and longing to 
 be rich like him. A man that can do things is greater 
 than any man who only has things. True, a rich 
 man can get mighty things done, but he does not do 
 them. He may be much the greater for willing them 
 to be done, but he is not the greater for the actual 
 doing of them. 
 
 "At any rate," said Barbara to herself, " I like this 
 working man better than that gentleman ! " 
 
 Richard stood for a while boiling with indignation. 
 He would have cared less if he had been sure he had 
 answered him properly, but he could not remember 
 what he had said. 
 
 The clock struck the hour that ended his workday. 
 Instead of sitting down to read, he set out for the 
 smithy. It was not a week since he had seen his 
 grandfather, but he wanted motion, and desired a 
 human face that belonged to him. It was rather dark 
 when he reached it, but the old man had not yet 
 dropped work. The sparks were flying wild about 
 his gray head as Richard drew near. 
 
 "Can I help you, grandfather? " he said. 
 
 "No, no, lad ; your hands are too soft by this time 
 
2l6 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 — with your bits of brass wheels, and scraps of leather, 
 and needles, and paste ! No, no, lad ; — thou cannot 
 help the old man to-night. — But you're not in earnest, 
 are you.?" he added, looking up suddenly. "You 
 ain't left your place ? " 
 
 "No, but my day's work being over, why shouldn't 
 I help you to get yours over ! When first I came 
 you expected me to do so ! " 
 
 "Look here, lad ! — as a man gets older he comes 
 to think more of fair play, and less of his rights : 
 it seems to me that not your time only, but your 
 strength as well belongs to the man who hires you ; 
 and if you weary yourself helping me, who have no 
 claim, you cannot do so much or so good work for 
 your master ! — Do you see sense in that.? " 
 
 " Indeed I do ! I think you are quite right." 
 
 "It is strange," Simon went on, "how age makes 
 you more particular ! The thing I would have done 
 without thinking when I was young, I think twice 
 of now. Is that what we were sent here for — to 
 grow honest, I wonder? — Depend upon it," he re- 
 sumed after a moment's silence, "there's a some- 
 where where the thing's taken notice of! There's 
 a somebody as thinks about it ! " 
 
 After more talk, and a cup of tea at the cottage, 
 Richard set out for the lodgeless gate, already men- 
 tioned more than once, to which the housekeeper 
 had lent him a key. 
 
 He had not got far into the park, when to his sur- 
 prise he perceived, a little way off on the grass, a 
 small figure gliding swiftly toward him through the 
 dusk rather than the light of the moon, which, but 
 just above the horizon, sent little of her radiance to 
 the spot. It was Barbara. 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 2I7 
 
 " I have been watching for you ever so long!" 
 she said. "They told me you had gone out, and I 
 thought you might come home this way." 
 
 " I wish I had known ! I wouldn't have kept you 
 waiting,'' returned Richard. 
 
 " I want the rest of the poem, " she said. "It was 
 horrid to have Arthur interrupt us 1 He was abom- 
 inably rude too." 
 
 "He certainly had no right to speak to me as he 
 did. And if he had confessed himself wrong, or 
 merely said he had made a mistake, I should have 
 thought no more about it. I hope it is not true you 
 are going to marry him, miss ! — because " 
 
 " If I thought one of the family said so, I would 
 sleep in the park to-night. I would not enter the 
 house again. When I marry, it will be a gentleman ; 
 and Mr. Lestrange is not a gentleman — at least he did 
 not behave like one to day. Come, tell me the rest 
 of the poem. We have plenty of time here." 
 
 The young bookbinder was perplexed. He had 
 not much knowledge of the world, but he could not 
 bear the thought of the servants learning that they 
 were in the park together. At the same time he saw 
 that he must not even hint at imprudence. Her will 
 was not by him to be scanned ! She must be allowed 
 to know best I A single tone of hesitation would be 
 an insult ! He must take care of her without seem- 
 ing to do so ! If they walked gently, they would 
 finish the poem as they came near the house : there 
 he would leave her, and return by the lodge-gate. 
 
 "Where did we leave off?" he said. 
 
 His brief silence had seemed to Barbara but a 
 moment spent in recalling. 
 
 "We left off at the place where the bird fell from 
 
2l8 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 his neck — no, just after that, where he falls asleep, 
 as well he might, after it was gone." 
 
 The moon was now peeping, in little spots of light, 
 through the higher foliage, and casting a doubtful, 
 ghostly sediment of shine around them. The night 
 was warm. Glow-worms lay here and there, brood- 
 ing out green light in the bosom of the thick soft 
 grass. There was no wind save what the swift wing 
 of a bat, sweeping close to their heads, would now 
 and then awake. The creature came and vanished 
 like an undefined sense of evil at hand. But it was 
 only Richard who thought that ; nothing such 
 crossed the starry clearness of Barbara's soul. Her 
 skirt made a buttony noise with the heads of the 
 rib-grass. Her red cloak was dark in the moonlight. 
 She threw back the hood, and coming out of its 
 shadow like another moon from a cloud, walked the 
 earth with bare head. Her hands too were bare, 
 and glimmering in the night-gleam. He saw the 
 rings on the small fingers shimmer and shine : she 
 was as fond of color and flash as Lord. St. Albans! 
 Higher and higher rose the moon. Her light on the 
 grass-blades wove them into a carpet with its weft 
 of faint moonbeams. The small dull mirrors of the 
 evergreen leaves glinted in the thickets, as the two 
 went by, like the bits of ill-polished glass in an Indian 
 tapestry. The moon was everywhere, filling all the 
 hollow over-world, and forever alighting on their 
 heads. Far away they saw the house, a remote 
 something, scarce existent in the dreaming night, the 
 gracious-ghastly poem, and the mingling, harmoniz- 
 ing moon. It was much too far away to give them 
 an anxious thought, and for long it seemed, like 
 death, to be coming no nearer ; but they were mov- 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 219 
 
 ing toward it all the time, and it was even growing' 
 a more insistent fact. Thus they walked at once in 
 tlie two blended worlds of the moonlight and the 
 tale, while Richard half-chanted the music-speech of 
 the most musical of poets, telling of the roaring wind 
 that the mariner did not feel, of the flags of electric 
 light, of the dances of the wan stars, of the sighing- 
 of the sails, of the star-dog-ged moon, and the torrent- 
 like falls of the lightning down the mountainous 
 cloud — for so Barbara, who had seen two or three 
 tropical thunderstorms, explained to Richard the 
 lightning which 
 
 fell with never a jag, 
 A river steep and wide; — 
 
 until that groan arose from the dead men, and the 
 bodies heaved themselves up on their feet, and began 
 to work the ropes, and worked on till sunrise, and 
 the mariner knew that not the old souls but angels 
 had entered into them, by their gathering about the 
 mast, and sending- such a strange lovely hymn 
 through their dead throats up to the sun. 
 When Richard repeated the stanza — 
 
 ' ' It ceased ; yet still the sails made on 
 A pleasant noise till noon, 
 A noise like of a hidden brook 
 In the leafy month of June, 
 That to the sleeping woods all night 
 Singeth a quiet tune ; " 
 
 Barbara uttered a prolonged " Oh ! " and again was 
 silent, listening to the talk of the elemental spirits, 
 feeling the very wind of home that blew on the 
 mariner, seeing the lighthouse, and the hill, and the 
 weather-cock on the church-spire, and the white bay, 
 
2 20 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 and the shining seraphs with the crimson shadows, 
 and the sinking- ship, and the hermit that made the 
 mariner tell his story as he was telling it now. 
 But when Richard came to the words — 
 
 " He prayeth well, who loveth well 
 Both man and bird and beast. 
 
 He prayeth best, who loveth best 
 All things both great and small, 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all," — 
 
 she clapped her hands together; and when he ended 
 them, she cried out — 
 
 " I was sure of it 1 I knew something would come 
 to tie it all up together into one bundle ! That's it ! 
 That's it. The love of everything is the garden-bed 
 out of which grow the roses of prayer ! — But what am 
 I saying!" she added, checking herself; "I love 
 everything, at least everything that comes near me, 
 and I never pray ! " 
 
 "Of course not ! Why should you .? " said Richard. 
 
 "Why should I not.?" 
 
 " You would if it were reasonable ! " 
 
 "I will, then! To love all the creatures and not 
 have a word to say to the God that made them for 
 loving them beforehand — is that reasonable ? " 
 
 " No, if a God did make them. " 
 
 " They could not make themselves ! " 
 
 " No ; nothing could make itself." 
 
 " Then somebody must have made them ! " 
 
 "Who.?" 
 
 "Why, the one that could and did — who else.?" 
 
 "We know nothing about such a somebody. All 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 22 1 
 
 we know is, that there they are, and we have got to 
 love them ! " 
 
 "Ah!" she said, and looked up into the wide 
 sky, where now the "wandering moon" was 
 
 alone, 
 
 Like one that had been led astray 
 Through the heaven's wide pathless way, 
 
 and gazed as if she searched for the Somebody. " I 
 should like to see the one that made that ! " she said 
 at last. "Think of knowing the very person that 
 made that poor pigeon, and has got it now ! — and 
 made Miss Brown — and the wind ! I must find him ! 
 He can't have made me and not care when I ask 
 him to speak to me ! You say he is nowhere ! I 
 don't believe there is any nowhere, so he can't be 
 there ! Some people may be content with things ; 
 I shall get tired of them, I know, if I don't get be- 
 hind them ! A thing is nothing without what things 
 it ! A gift is nothing without what gives it ! Oh, 
 dear ! I know what I mean, but I can't say it ! " 
 
 " You don't know what you mean, but you do say 
 it ! " thought Richard. 
 
 He was nowise repelled by her enthusiasm, for 
 there was in it nothing assailant, nothing too ab- 
 surdly superstitious. He did not care to answer her. 
 
 They went walking toward the house and were 
 silent. The moon went on with her silentness : she 
 never stops being silent. When they felt near the 
 house, they fell to walking slower, but neither knew 
 it. Barbara spoke again : 
 
 "Just fancy!" she said, "—if God were all the 
 time at our backs, giving us one lovely thing after 
 another, trying to make us look round and see who 
 it was that was so good to us ! Imagine him stand- 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 ing there, and wondering when his little one would 
 look round, and see him, and burst out laughing — 
 no, not laughing — yes, laughing — laughing with 
 delight — or crying, I don't know which ! If I had 
 him to love as I should love one like that, I think I 
 should break my heart with loving him — I should 
 love him to the kiUing of me ! What ! all the col- 
 ors and all the shapes, and all the lights, and all the 
 shadows, and the moon, and the wind, and the 
 water ! — and all the creatures — and the people that 
 one would love so if they would let you ! — and 
 all " 
 
 "And all the pain, and the dying, and the disease, 
 and the wrongs, and the cruelty ! " interposed Rich- 
 ard. 
 
 She was silent. After a moment or two she said — 
 
 "I think I will go in now. I feel rather cold. I 
 think there must be a fog, though I can't see it." 
 
 She>gave a little shiver. He looked in her face. 
 Was it the moon, or was it something in her thoughts 
 that made the sweet countenance look so gray .'* 
 Could his mere suggestion of the reverse, the wrong 
 side of the web of creation, have done it? Surely 
 not ! 
 
 " I think I want some one to say must to me ! " 
 she said, after another pause. " I feel as if " 
 
 There she stopped. Richard said nothing. Some 
 instinct told him he might blunder. 
 
 He stood still. Barbara went on a few steps, then 
 turned and said — 
 
 " Are you not going in } '' 
 
 "Not just yet," he answered. "Please to remem- 
 ber that if I can do anything for you " 
 
 "You are very kind. I am much obliged to you. 
 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 223 
 
 If you know another rime, But 1 think I shall 
 
 have to give up poetry," 
 
 " It will be hard to find another so good," returned 
 Richard. 
 
 "Good-night," she said. 
 
 "Good-night, miss!" answered Richard, and 
 walked away, with a loss at his heart. The poem 
 has already ceased to please her ! He had made tlie 
 lovely lady more thoughtful, and less happy than 
 before 1 
 
 "She has been taught to believe in a God," he 
 said to himself. "She is afraid he will be angry 
 with her, because, in her company, I dared question 
 his existence ! A generous God — isn't he ! If he 
 be anywhere, why don't he let us see him? How 
 can he expect us to believe in him, if he never shows 
 himself.? But if he did, why should I worship him 
 for being, or for making me? If I didn't want him, 
 and I don't, I certainly shouldn't worship him be- 
 cause I saw him. I couldn't. If Nature is cruel, as 
 she certainly is, and he made her, then he is cruel 
 too ! There cannot be such a God, or, if there be, it 
 cannot be right to worship him ! " 
 
 He did not reflect that if he had wanted him, he 
 would not have waited to see him before he wor- 
 shipped him. 
 
 But Barbara was saying to herself — 
 
 "What if he has shown himself to me some time 
 — one of those nights, perhaps, when I was out till 
 the sun rose — and I didn't know him ! — How fright- 
 ful if there should be nobody at all up there — nobody 
 anywhere all round ! " 
 
 She stared into the milky, star-sapphire-Uke blue, 
 
2 24 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 as if, out of the sweetly veiled terror-gulf, she would, 
 by very gazing, draw the living face of God. 
 
 Verily the God that knows how not to reveal him- 
 self, must also know how 6es/ to reveal himself ! If 
 there be a calling child, there must be an answering 
 father ! 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A HUMAN GADFLY. 
 
 From so early an age had Richard been accustomed 
 to despise a certain form he called God, which stood 
 in the gallery of his imagination, carved at by the 
 hands of successive generations of sculptors, some 
 hard, some feeble, some clever, some stupid, all con- 
 ventional and devoid of prophetic imagination, that 
 his antagonism had long taken the shape of an angry 
 hostility to the notion of any God whatever. Richard 
 could see a thing to be false, that is, he could deny, 
 but he was not yet capable either of discovering or 
 receiving what was true, because he had not yet set 
 himself to know the truth. To oppose, to refuse, to 
 deny, is not to know the truth, is not to he true any 
 more than it is to be false. Whatever good may lie 
 in the destroying of the false, the best hammer of 
 the iconoclast will not serve withal to carve the 
 celestial form of the Real ; and when the iconoclast 
 becomes the bigot of negation, and declares the 
 non-existence of any form worthy of worship, be- 
 cause he has destroyed so many unworthy, he 
 passes into a fool. That he has never conceived a deity 
 such as he could worship, is a poor ground to any 
 but the man himself for saying such cannot exist ; 
 and to him it is but a ground lightly vaulted over the 
 vacuity self-importance. Such a divine form may 
 yet stand in the adytum of this or that man whom 
 he and the world count an idiot. 
 15 
 
2 26 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Into the workshop of Richard's mind was now 
 introduced, by this one disclosure of the mind of 
 Barbara, a new idea of divinity, vague indeed as 
 new, but one with which he found himself compelled 
 to have some dealing. One of the best services true 
 man can do a neighbor, is to persuade him — I speak 
 in a parable — to house his children for a while, that he 
 may know what they are : the children of another may 
 be the saving of his children and his whole house. 
 Alas for the man the children of whose brain are the 
 curse of the household into which they are received ! 
 But from Barbara's house Richard had taken into his 
 a vital protoplasmic idea that must work, and would 
 never cease to work until the house itself was all 
 divine — the idea, namely, of a being to call God, who 
 was a delight to think of, a being concerning whom 
 the great negation was that of everything Richard 
 had hitherto associated with the word God. The one 
 door to admit this formal notion was hard to open : 
 and when admitted, the figure was not easy to set up 
 so that it could be looked at. The human niche 
 where the idea of a God must stand, was in Richard's 
 house occupied by the most hideous falsity. On the 
 pedestal crouched the goblin of a Japanese teapot. 
 
 It was not pleasant to Richard to imagine any one 
 with rights over him. It may be that some persist 
 in calling up the false idea of such a one hitherto 
 presented to them, in order to avoid feeling obliga- 
 tion to believe in him. For the notion of a God is 
 one from which naturally a thoughtful man must feel 
 more or less recoil while as yet he knows nothing of 
 the being himself, or of the nature of his creative 
 rights, the rights of perfect, self- refusing, devoted 
 fatherhood. It is one thing to seem to know with 
 
A HUMAN GADFLY. 2 27 
 
 the brain, quite another to know with the heart. 
 But even in the hope-lighted countenance of Barbara, 
 even in the tones in which she suggested the pres- 
 ence of a soul that meant and was all that the beautiful 
 world hinted and seemed, Richard could not fail to 
 meet something of the true idea of a God. 
 
 Naturally also, his notion of the God in whom he 
 felt that Barbara was at least ready to believe, as- 
 sumed something of the look of Barbara who was 
 being drawn toward him ; so that now the graces of 
 the world, all its lovely impacts upon his senses, 
 began to be mixed up in his mind with Barbara 
 and her God, Barbara was beginning to infect him 
 with — shall I call it the superstition of a God ? 
 Whatever it may be called, it was very far from being 
 religion yet. The fact was only this — that the idea 
 of a God worth believing in was coming a little 
 nearer to him, was becoming to him a little more 
 thinkable. 
 
 He began to feel his heart drawn at times, in some 
 strange, tenderer fashion, hitherto unknown to him, 
 to the blue of the sky, especially in the first sweet- 
 ness of a summer morning. His soul would now 
 and then seem to go out of him, in a passion of em- 
 brace, to the simplest flower: the flower would be, 
 for a moment, just its self to him. He would spread 
 out his arms to the wind, now when it met him in 
 its strength, now when it but kissed his face. He 
 never consented with himself that it was one force in 
 all the forms that drew him — that perhaps it was the 
 very God, the All in all about him. Neither did he 
 question much with himself as to how the develop- 
 ment, rather than change, had begun. Whether 
 God did this, or was this, or it was only the possess- 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 ing Barbara that cast her light out of his eyes on the 
 things he saw and felt, he scarcely asked ; but fully 
 he recognized the fact that Nature was more alive 
 than she ever had been to him who had always loved 
 her. 
 
 The thought of Barbara went on growing dear to 
 him. He never pondered anything but the girl her- 
 self, cherished no dreams of her becoming more to 
 him, of her ever being nearer than away there; just 
 to know her was now, and henceforward ever would 
 be the gladness of his life. If that life was but for 
 a season ; if the very core of life was decay ; if life 
 was because nobody could help its being ; if it died 
 because no one could keep it from dying ; yet were 
 there two facts fit almost to embalm the body of 
 this living death : Barbara, and the world which was 
 the body of Barbara ! So life carried the day, if 
 but the day, and the heart of Richard rejoiced in the 
 midst of perishings. Only, the night was coming in 
 which no man can rejoice. 
 
 Was he then presuming to be in love with Bar- 
 bara .? I do Jiot care to meet the question. If I knew 
 what the mysterious M'ord, love, meant, I might be 
 able to answer it, but what should I thus gain or 
 give.? I know he loved her. I know that a divine 
 power of truth and beauty had laid hold upon him, 
 and was working in him as the powers of God alone 
 can work in man, for they are the same by which he 
 lives and moves and has his being, and to life are 
 more than meat and drink, than sun and air. 
 
 Instead of blaming as a matter of course the ]icr- 
 son who does not believe in a God, we should think 
 first whether his notional God is a God that ought, 
 or a God that ought not to be believed in. Perhaps 
 
A HUMAN GADFLY. 229 
 
 he only is to be blamed who, by inattention to duty, 
 has become less able to believe in a God than he 
 was once : because he did not obey the true voice, 
 whencesoever it came, God may have to let him 
 taste what it would be to have no God. For aught 
 I know, a man may have been born of so many 
 generations of unbelief, that now, at this moment, he 
 cannot believe ; that now, at this moment, he has 
 no notion of a God at all, and cannot care whether 
 there be a God or not ; but he can mind what he 
 knows he ought to mind. That will, that alone can 
 clear the moral atmosphere, and make it possible for 
 the true idea of a God to be born into it. 
 
 For some time Richard saw little of Barbara. 
 
 The heads of the house did not interfere with him. 
 Lady Ann would now and then sail through the room 
 like an iceberg ; Sir Wilton would come in, give a 
 glance at the shelves and a grin, and walk out again 
 with a more or less gouty gait ; so much was about 
 all their contact. Arthur was a little ashamed of 
 having spoken to him as he did, and had again be- 
 come in a manner friendly. He had seen several 
 decaying masses, among the rest thcGolding of their 
 difference, become books in his hands, and again he 
 had grown sufficiently interested in the workman to 
 feel in him something more than the workman. He 
 was on the way to perceive that, in certain insig- 
 nificant things, such as imagination, reading, insight, 
 and general faculty, not to mention conscience, gen- 
 erosity, and goodness of heart, Richard was out of 
 sight before the ruck of gentlemen. He saw already 
 that in some things, thought a good deal of at his 
 college, Richard was more capable than himself. He 
 found in him too what seemed to him a rare notion 
 
230 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 of art. In truth Richard's advance in this region 
 was as yet but small, for he was guided only by his 
 limited efforts in verse; none the less, however, was 
 he far ahead of Arthur, who saw only what was 
 shown him. In literature Arthur had already learned 
 something from Richard, and knew it. He had in- 
 deed, without knowing it begun to look up to him. 
 
 Richard also had discovered good in Arthur — 
 among other things a careful regard to his word, and 
 to his father's tenantry. There was of course, in a 
 scanty nature Hke his, a good deal of the lord bounti- 
 ful mingled with his behavior to his social inferiors 
 on the property : he posed to himself as a condescend- 
 ing landlord. 
 
 The only one in the house who gave Richard 
 trouble, was the child Victoria. The way she always 
 took to show her liking, was to annoy its object. 
 Never was name less fitting than hers : there was no 
 victory in her. She could but fly about like the 
 veriest mosquito. Richard let her come and go un- 
 heeded, except when her proximity to his work made 
 him anxious. But the little vixen would not consent 
 to be naught any smallest while. She would rather 
 be abused than remain unnoticed. When she found 
 that her standing and staring procured no attention 
 from the bookbinder, she would begin to handle his 
 tools, and ask what this and that was for, giving, like 
 a woman of fashion, no heed to any answer he ac- 
 corded her. Learning thus, that is, by experiment, 
 how to annoy him, she did not let opportunity lack. 
 When school was over In the morning, and she could 
 go where she pleased, she went often to the library ; 
 and as no one willingly asked where she was, the 
 chief pleasure of her acquaintance lying in the assur- 
 
A HUMAN GADFLY. 
 
 231 
 
 ance that she was nowhere at hand, Richard had to 
 endure many things from her; and things that do not 
 seem worth enduring, are not unfrequently the hard- 
 est to endure. 
 
 The behavior of the child grew worse and worse. 
 She would more than touch everything, and that 
 thing the most persistently which Richard was most 
 anxious to have let alone, causing him no little trouble 
 at times to set right what she had injured. Worst of 
 all was her persecution when she found him using 
 gold-leaf. She would come behind him and blow the 
 film away just as he had got it flat on his cushion, or 
 laid on the spot where his tool was about to fix a por- 
 tion of it. Her mischief was not even irradiated by 
 childish laughter ; there was never any sign of frolic 
 on her monkey face, except the steely glitter of her 
 sharp, black-bead-eyes might be supposed to contain 
 some sprinkle of fun in its malice. Expostulation was 
 not of the slightest use, and sometimes it was all 
 Richard could do to keep his hands off her. Now 
 she would look as stolid as if she did not understand 
 a word he said ; now pucker up her face into a 
 most unpleasant grin of derision and contemptuous 
 defiance. 
 
 One day when he happened to be using thepolish- 
 ing-iron. Vixen, as her brothers called her, came in 
 and began to play with the paste. Richard, turned 
 with the iron in his hand, which he had just taken 
 from the brasier. He was rubbing it bright and clear, 
 and she noted this, but had not seen him take it from 
 the fire : she caught at it, to spoil it with her pasty 
 fingers. As quickly she let it go, but did not cry, 
 though her eyes filled. Richard saw, and his heart 
 gave away. He caught the little hand so swift to do 
 
232 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 evil, and would have soothed its pain. She pulled it 
 from him, crying, " You nasty man ! How dare 
 you ? " and ran to the door, where she turned and 
 made a hideous face at him. The same moment, by 
 a neighboring door that opened from another pas- 
 sage, in came Barbara, and before Vixen was well 
 aware of her presence, had dealt her such a box on the 
 ear that she burst into a storm of wrathful weeping. 
 "You're a brute, Bab," she cried. "I'll tell 
 mamma ! " 
 
 " Do, you little wretch ! " returned Barbara, whose 
 flushed face looked lovelily childlike in its indignation 
 beside the furious phiz of the tormenting imp. 
 
 The monkey-creature left the room, sobbing ; and 
 Barbara turned and was gone before Richard could 
 thank her. 
 
 He heard no more of the matter, and for some time 
 had no farther trouble with Victoria. 
 
 Barbara had the kindest of hearts, but there was 
 nothing soft about her. She held it a sin to spoil any 
 animal, not to say a child. For she had a strong 
 feeling, initiated possibly l^y her black nurse, that 
 the animals went on living after death, whence she 
 counted it a shame not to teach them ; and held that, 
 if a sharp cut would make child or dog behave prop- 
 erly, the woman was no lover of either who would 
 spare it. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 RICHARD AND WINGFOLD. 
 
 Barbara had more than once or twice heard Mr. 
 Wingfold preach, but had not once listened, or even 
 waked to the fact that she had not listened. Unac- 
 customed in childhood to any special regard of the 
 Sunday, she had neither pleasant nor unpleasant as- 
 sociations with church-going ; but she liked a good 
 many things better, and as she always did as she 
 liked except she saw reason to the contrary, she had 
 hitherto gone to church rather seldom. She might 
 perhaps have sooner learned to go regularly but for 
 her mother's extraordinary behavior there : certainly 
 she could not sit in the same pew with her reading 
 her novel. Since Mr. Wingfold had taken the part of 
 the prophet Nathan, and rebuked her, she had indeed 
 ceased to go to church, but Barbara, as I have said, 
 was as yet onlj'- now and then drawn thitherward. 
 
 Mr. Wingfold was almost as different from the 
 clergyman of Richard's idea, as was Richard's im- 
 agined God from any believable idea of God. The 
 two men had never yet met, for what should bring 
 a workimg-man and the clergyman of the next 
 parish together.? But one morning — he ofien went 
 for a walk in the early morning — Richard saw before 
 him, in the middle of a field-path, seated on a stile 
 and stopping his way, the back of a man in a gray 
 suit, evidently enjoying, like himself, the hour before 
 sunrise. He knew §omehow that he was not a 
 
234 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 workiiig-man, but he did not suspect him one of the 
 obnoxious class which lives by fooling itself and 
 others. Wingfold heard Richard's step, looked round, 
 knew him at once as an artisan of some sort, and saw 
 in him signs of purpose and character strong for his 
 years. 
 
 "Jolly morning ! " he said. 
 
 "It is indeed, sir ! " answered Richard. 
 
 " I like a walk in the morning better than at any 
 other time of the day ! "said Wingfold. 
 
 "Well, sir, 1 do so too, though I can't tell why. 
 I've often tried, but I haven't yet found out what 
 makes the morning so different." 
 
 " Come ! " thought the clergyman ; "here's some- 
 thing I haven't met with too much of ! " 
 
 Richard remarked to him'self that, whoever the 
 gentleman was, he was certainly not stuck-up. They 
 might have parted late the night before, instead of 
 meeting now for the first time. 
 
 "Are you a married man ? " asked Wingfold. 
 
 "No, sir," answered Richard, surprised that a 
 stranger should put the question. 
 
 " If you had been," Wingfold went on, "I should 
 have been surer of your seeing what I mean when I 
 say, that to be out before sunrise is like looking at 
 your best friend asleep — that is, before her sun, her 
 thought, namely, is up. Watching her face then, 
 you see it come to life, grow radiant with sunrise." 
 
 " But," rejoined Richard, "I have seen a person 
 asleep whose face made it quite evident that thought 
 was awake ! It was shining through !" 
 
 "Shining through, certainly," said Wingfold, ''not 
 up. I doubt indeed if, during any sleep, thought is 
 quite in abeyance." 
 
RICHARD AND WINGFOLD. 235 
 
 "Not when we are dead asleep, sir? — so dead 
 that when we wake we don't remember anything ? " 
 
 " If thought in such a case must be proved, it will 
 have to go for non-existent. Yet, when you reflect 
 that sometimes you discover that you must, a few 
 minutes before, wide awake, have done something 
 which you have no recollection of having done, and 
 which, but for the fact remaining evident to your 
 sight, you would nof believe you had done, you must 
 feel doubtful as to the loss of consciousness in sleep." 
 
 " Yes ; that must give us pause ! " 
 
 "Hamlet!" said the clergyman to himself. 
 "That's good! — You may have read from top to 
 bottom of a page, perhaps," he went on, "without 
 being able to recall a word : would you say no 
 thought had passed through your mind in the pro- 
 cess ? — that the words had suggested nothing as you 
 read them } " 
 
 " No, sir, I should be inclined to say that I forgot 
 as fast as I read ; that, as I read, I seemed to know 
 the thing I read, but the process of forgetting kept 
 pace for pace alongside the process of reading. " 
 
 " I quite agree with you. — Now I wonder whether 
 you will agree wuth me in what I am going to sug- 
 gest next ! ' 
 
 "I can't tell that, sir,'' said Richard — somewhat 
 unnecessarily ; but Wingfold was pleased to find him 
 cautious. 
 
 "I think," the parson continued, "that what I 
 want in order to be able afterward to recollect a thing, 
 is to be not merely conscious of the thnig when it 
 comes, but at the same moment conscious of myself. 
 To remember, I must be self-conscious as well as 
 thinsr-conscious." 
 
236 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "There I cannot quite follow you." 
 
 " When I learn the meaning of a word, I know the 
 word ; but when I say to myself, ' I know the word,' 
 there comes a reflection of the word back from the 
 mirror of my mind, making a second impression, 
 and after that I am at least not so likely to forget it. '" 
 
 " I think I can follow you so far," said Richard. 
 
 "When, then," pursued the parson. "I think 
 about the impression that the word makes upon me, 
 how it is affecting me with the knowledge of itself, 
 then I am what I should call self-conscious of the 
 -word — conscious not only that I know the word, but 
 that I know the phenomena of knowing the word- 
 conscious of what I am as regards my knowing of 
 the word." 
 
 "I understand so far, sir — at least I think I do." 
 
 " Then you will allow that a word with its reflec- 
 tion and mental impact thus operated upon by the 
 mind is not so likely to be forgotten as one under- 
 stood only in the first immediate way? " 
 
 "Certainly, sir." 
 
 "Well, then — mind I am only suggesting ; I am 
 not proclaiming a fact, still less laying down a law ; 
 I am not half sure enough about it for that — so it is 
 with our dreams. We see, or hear, and are con- 
 scious that we do, in our dreams ; our consciousness 
 shines through our sleeping features to the eyes that 
 love us ; but when we wake we have forgotten 
 everything. There was thought there, but not 
 thought that could be remembered. When, how- 
 ever, you have once said to yourself in a dream, ' I 
 think I am dreaming ; ' you always, I venture to 
 suspect, remember that experience when you wake 
 from it ! " 
 
RICHARD AND WINGFOLD. 
 
 237 
 
 "I daresay you do, sir. But there are many 
 dreams we never suspect to be dreams while we are 
 dreaming them, which yet we remember all the same 
 when we come awake ! " 
 
 "Yes, surely; and many people havesuch memo- 
 ries as hold every word and every fact presented to 
 them. But I was not meaning to discuss the phe- 
 nomena of sleep ; I only meant to support my 
 simile that to see the world before the sun is up, is 
 like looking on the sleeping face of a friend. There 
 is thought in the sleeping face of your friend, and 
 thought in the twilight face of nature ; but the face 
 awake- with thought is the world awake with sun- 
 light." 
 
 "There I cannot go with you, sir," said Richard, 
 who, for all the impression Barbara had made upon 
 him, had not yet thought of the world as in any 
 sense alive ; it was to him but an aggregate of laws 
 and results, the great dissecting-room of creation, 
 the happy hunting ground of the goddess who calls 
 herself Science, though she can claim to understand 
 as yet no single fact. 
 
 "Why ? " asked Wingfold. 
 
 "Because I cannot receive the simile at all. I 
 cannot allow expression of thought where no thought 
 is." 
 
 Here a certain look on the face of the young work- 
 man helped the parson toward understanding the 
 position he meant to take. 
 
 " Ah !" he answered, "I see I mistook you! I 
 understand now ! Sleep she or wake she, you will 
 not allow thought on the face of Nature ! Am I 
 right ? " 
 
238 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "That is what I would say, sir," answered 
 Richard. 
 
 "We must look at that!" returned Wingfold. 
 "That would be scanned ! — You would conceive the 
 world as a sort of machine that goes for certain pur- 
 poses — like a clock, for instance, whose duty it is to 
 tell the time of the day .? — Do I represent you truly.? " 
 
 "So far, sir. Only one machine may have many 
 uses ! " 
 
 "True ! A clock may do more for us than tell the 
 time ! It may tell how fast it is going, and wake 
 solemn thought. But if you came upon a machine 
 that constantly waked in you — not thoughts only, 
 but the most delicate and indescribable feelings — 
 what would you say then .? Would you allow thought, 
 there } " 
 
 " Surely not that the machine was thinking ! " 
 
 "Certainly not. But would you allow thought 
 concerned in it.-* Would you allow that thought 
 must have preceded and occasioned its existence ? 
 Would you allow that thought therefore must yet 
 be interested in its power to produce thought, and 
 might, if it chose, minister to the continuance or 
 enlargement of the power it had originated ? " 
 
 "Perhaps I should be compelled to allow that 
 much in regard to a clock even !— Are we coming to 
 the Paley-argument, sir.?" said Richard. 
 
 "I think not," answered Wingfold. " My argu- 
 ment seems to me one of my own. It is not drawn 
 from design but from operation : where a thing 
 wakes thought and feeling, I say, must not thought 
 and feeling be somewhere concerned in its origin ? " 
 
 "Might not the thought and feeling come by 
 
RICHARD AND WINGFOLD. 
 
 239 
 
 association, as in the case of the clock suggesting- 
 the flight of time ? " 
 
 "I think our associations can hardly be so multi- 
 form, or so delicate, as to have a share in bringing 
 to us half of the thoughts and feelings that nature 
 wakes in us. If they have such a share, they must 
 have reference either to a fore-existence, or to rela- 
 tions hidden in our being, over which we have no 
 control ; and equally in such case are the thoughts 
 and feelings waked in us, not by us. I do not want 
 to argue ; I am only suggesting that, if the world 
 moves thought and feeling in those that regard it, 
 thought and feeling are somehow concerned in the 
 world. Even to wake old feelings, there must be a 
 likeness to them in what wakes them, else how could 
 it wake them ? In a word, feeling must have put 
 itself into the shape that awakes feeling. Then there 
 is feeling in the thing that bears that shape, although 
 itself it does not feel. Therefore I think it may be 
 said that there is more thought, or, rather, more ex- 
 pression of thought, in the face of the world when 
 the sun is up, than when he is not — as there is more 
 thought in a face awake than in a face asleep. — Ah, 
 there is the sun ! and there are things that ought 
 never to be talked about in their presence ! To talk 
 of some things even behind their backs will keep 
 them away ! " 
 
 Richard neither understood his last words, nor 
 knew that he did not understand them. But he did 
 understand that it was better to watch the sunrise 
 than to talk of it. 
 
 Up came the child of heaven, conquering in the 
 truth, in the might of essential being. It was no 
 argument, but the presence of God that silenced the 
 
240 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 racked heart of Job. The men stood lost in the 
 swift changes of his attendant colors — from red to 
 gold, from the human to the divine — as he ran to the 
 horizon from beneath, and came" up with a rush, 
 eternally silent. With a moan of delight Richard 
 turned to his gazing companion, when he beheld that 
 on his face which made him turn from him again : 
 he had seen what was not there for human eyes ! 
 The radiance of Wingfold's countenance, the human 
 radiance that met the solar shine, surpassed even 
 that which the moon and the sky and the sleeping 
 earth brought out that night upon the face of Barbara ! 
 The one was the waking, the other but the sweetly 
 dreaming world. 
 
 Richard refused to let any emotion, primary or 
 reflex, influence his opinions ; they must be de- 
 termined by fact and severe logical outline. What- 
 ever was not to him definite — that is, was not by him 
 formally conceivable, must not be put in the cate- 
 gory of things to be believed ; but he had not a notion 
 how many things he accepted unquestioning, which 
 were yet of this order ; and not being only a thing 
 that thought, but a thin^ as well that was thought, 
 he could not help being more influenced by such a 
 sight than he would have chosen to be, and the fact 
 that he was so influenced remained. Happily, the 
 choice whether we shall be influenced is not given 
 us ; happily, too, the choice whether we shall obey 
 an influence zs given us. 
 
 Without a word, Richard lifted his hat to the 
 stranger, and walked on, leaving him where he stood, 
 but taking with him a germ of new feeling, which 
 would enlarge and divide and so multiply. When he 
 got to the next stile, he looked back, and saw him 
 seated as at first, but now reading. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 WINGFOLD AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 Thomas Wingfold closed his book, replaced it in his 
 pocket, got down from the stile, turned his face 
 toward home, crossed field after field, and arrived 
 just in time to meet his wife as she came down the 
 stairs to breakfast. 
 
 "■ Have you had a nice walk, Thomas ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 "Indeed I have ! " he answered. "Almost from 
 the first I was right out in the open." — His wife 
 knew what he meant. — "Before the sun came up," 
 he went on, ' ' I had to go in, and come out at another 
 door ; but I was soon very glad of it. I had met a 
 fellow who, I think, will pluck his feet out of the 
 mud before long." 
 
 " Have you asked him to the rectory? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Shall I write and ask him.? " 
 
 "No, my wife. For one thing, you can't : I don't 
 know his name, and I don't know what he is, or 
 where he lives. But we shall meet again soon." 
 
 "Then you have made an appointment with 
 him ! " 
 
 "No, I haven't. But there's an undertow bring- 
 ing us on to each other. It would spoil all if he 
 thought I threw a net for him. I do mean to catch 
 him if I can, but I will not move till the tide brings 
 him into my arms. At least, that is how the thing 
 
242 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 looks to me at present. I believe enough not to 
 make haste. I don't want to throw salt on any bird's 
 tail, but I do want the birds to come hopping about 
 me, that I may teli them what I know ! " 
 
 As near as he could, Wingfold recounted the 
 conversation he had had with Richard. 
 
 " He was a fine looking fellow," he said, " — not 
 exactly a gentleman, but not far off it ; little would 
 make him one. He looked a man that could do 
 things, but I did not satisfy myself as to what might 
 be his trade. He showed no sign of it, or made any 
 allusion to it. But he was more at home in the work- 
 shop of his own mind than is at all usual with fellows 
 of his age." 
 
 " It must," said Helen, "be old Simon Armour's 
 grandson ! I have heard of him from several quarters; 
 and your description would just fit him. I know 
 somebody that could tell you about him, but I wish 
 I knew anybody that could tell us about her — I mean 
 Miss Wylder. " 
 
 "I like the look of that girl ! " said the parson, 
 warmly. " What makes you think she could tell us 
 about my new acquaintance .' " 
 
 " Only an impertinent speech of that little simian. 
 Vixen Lestrange. I forget what she said, but it left 
 the impression of an acquaintance between Bab, as 
 she called her, and some working fellow the child 
 could not bear." 
 
 "The enmity of that child is praise. I wonder 
 how the Master would have treated her ! He could 
 not have taken her between his knees, and said who- 
 soever received her received him ! A child-mask 
 witli a monkey inside it will only serve a sentimental 
 mother to talk platitudes about ! " 
 
WINGFOLD AND HIS WIFE. 243 
 
 "Don't be too hard on the monkeys, Tom ! " said 
 his wife, "You don't know what they may turn 
 out to be, after all ! " 
 
 "Surely it is not too hard on the monkeys to call 
 them monkeys ! " 
 
 " No; but when the monkey has already begun to 
 be a child ! " 
 
 "There is the whole point! Has the monkey 
 always begun to be a child when he gets the shape 
 of a child ? — Miss Wylder is not quite so seldom in 
 church now, I think ! " 
 
 "I saw her there last Sunday. But I'm afraid she 
 wasn't thinking much about what you were saying 
 — she sat with such a stony look in her eyes ! She 
 did seem to come awake for one moment, though ! '' 
 
 "Tell me." 
 
 "I could hardly take my eyes off her, my heart 
 was so drawn to her. There was a mingling of love 
 and daring, almost defiance, in her look, that seemed 
 to say, * If you are worth it — if you are worth it — 
 then through fire and water ! ' All at once a flash 
 lighted up her lovely child-face — and what do you 
 think you were at the moment saying.? — that the 
 flower of a plant was deeper than the root of it : that 
 was what roused her ! " 
 
 "And I when I found what I had said, thought, 
 with myself what a fool 1 was to let out things my 
 congregation could not possibly understand ! — But to 
 reach one is, in the end, to reach all ! " 
 
 "I must in honesty tell you, however," pursued 
 Mrs. Wingfold, "that the next minute she looked as 
 far off as before ; nor did she shine up once again 
 that I saw." 
 
 ' ' I will be glad, though, " said Wingfold, ' ' because 
 
244 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 of what you tell me ! It shows there is a window 
 in her house that looks in my direction : some signa;! 
 may one day catch her eye ! That she has a char- 
 acter of her own, a real one, I strongly suspect Her 
 mother more than interests me. She certainly has a 
 tine nature. How much better is a fury than a fish ! 
 You cannot be downright angry save in virtue of the 
 love possible to you. The proper person, who always 
 does and says the correct thing — well, I think that 
 person is almost sure to be a liar. At the same time, 
 the contradictions in the human individual are be- 
 wildering, even appalling ! — Now I must go to my 
 study, and think out a thing that's bothering me ! — 
 By the way," — he always said that when he was go- 
 ing to make her a certain kind of present ; she knew 
 what was coming — "here's something for you — if 
 you can read it ! I had just scribbled it this morning 
 when the young man came up. I made it last night. 
 1 was hours awake after we went to bed ! " 
 This is what he gave her : — 
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT. 
 
 A brown bird sang on a blossomy tree, 
 vSang in the moonshine, merrily, 
 Three Httle songs, one, two, and three, 
 A song for his wife, for himself, and me. 
 
 He sang for his wife, sang low, sang high, 
 Filling the moonlight that filled the sky, 
 " Thee, thee, I love thee, heart alive ! 
 Thee, thee, thee, and thy round eggs five ! " 
 
 He sang to himself, " What shall I do 
 
 With this life that thrills me through and through ! 
 
 Glad is so glad that it turns to ache ! 
 
 Out with it, song, or my heart will break ! " 
 
WINGFOLD AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 He sang to me, " Man, do not fear 
 
 Though the moon goes down, and the dark is near ; 
 
 Listen my song, and rest thine eyes ; 
 
 Let the moon go down that the sun may rise ! " 
 
 I folded me up in the heart of his tune, 
 And fell asleep in the sinking moon ; 
 I woke with the day's first golden gleam, 
 And lo, I had dreamed a precious dream ! 
 
 245 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 RICHARD AND ALICE. 
 
 One evening Richard went to see his grandfather, 
 and asked if he would allow him to give Miss Wylder 
 a lesson in horse-shoeing : she wanted, he said, to be 
 able to shoe Miss Brown — or indeed any horse. 
 Simon laughed heartily at the proposal : it was tgo 
 great an absurdity to admit of serious objection ! 
 
 "Ah, you don't know Miss Wylder, grandfather ! " 
 said Richard. 
 
 "Of course not! Never an old man knew any- 
 thing about a girl ! It's only the young fellows can 
 fathom a woman ! Having girls of his own blinds a 
 man to the nature of them ! There's going to be a 
 law passed against growing old ! It's an unfortunate 
 habit the world's got into somehow, and the young 
 fellows are going to put a stop to it for fear of losing 
 their wisdom ! "■ 
 
 As the blacksmith spoke, he went on rasping and 
 filing at a housedoor-key, fast in a vice on his bench ; 
 and his words seemed to Richard to fall from his 
 mouth like the raspings from his rasp. 
 
 "Well, grandfather, " said Richard, "if INIiss Wyl- 
 der don't astonish you, she'll astonish me ! '" 
 
 " Have you ever seen her drive a nail, boy ? " 
 
 "Not once ; but I am just as sure she will do it — 
 and better than any beginner you've seen yet ! " 
 
 "Well, well, lad ! we'll see ! we'll see ! She's wel- 
 
RICHARD AND ALICE. 247 
 
 come anyhow to come and have her try ! What day 
 shall it be ? " 
 
 " That I can't tell yet." 
 
 "It makes me grin to think o' them doll's hands 
 with a great hoof in them ! " 
 
 * ' They are little hands — she's little herself — but they 
 ain't doll's hands, grandfather. You should have seen 
 her box Miss Vixen's ears for making a face at me ! 
 Her ears didn't take them for doll's hands, I'll be 
 bound ! The room rang again ! " 
 
 "Bring her when you like, lad," said Simon. 
 
 It was moonlight, and when Richard arrived at 
 the lodgeless gate, he saw inside it, a few yards 
 away, seated on a stone, the form of a woman. He 
 thought the first moment, as was natural, of Barbara, 
 but the next, he knew that this was something 
 strange. She sat in helpless, hopeless attitude, with 
 her head in her hands. A strange dismay came upon 
 him at the sight of her ; his heart fluttered in a cage 
 of fear. He did not believe in ghosts. If he saw 
 one, it would but show that sometimes when a 
 person died there was a shadow left that was like 
 him ! There might be millions of ghosts, and no God 
 the more ! What are we all but spectres of the un- 
 known ? What was death but a vanishing of the un- 
 known .? What are the dead but vanishments ! Yet 
 he shuddered at the thought that he had actually 
 come upon one of the dead that are still alive, of 
 whom, once or twice in a long century, one is met 
 wandering vaguely about the world, unable to find 
 what used to make it home. He peered through the 
 iron bars as into a charnel-house : one such wan- 
 derer was enough to make the whole vault of night a 
 gaping tomb. 
 
248 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Puttiaig his key in the lock made a sharp little 
 noise. The figure started up, her face gleaming 
 white in the moon, but dropped again on her stone, 
 unable to stand. Richard could not take his eyes 
 off her. While closing the gate he dared not turn 
 his back to her. She sat motionless as before, her 
 head in her hands, her elbows on her knees. He 
 stood for a moment staring and trembling, then, with 
 an effort of the will that approached agony, went to- 
 ward her. As he drew nearer, he began to feel as if 
 he had once known her. He must have seen her in 
 London somewhere, he thought. But why was her 
 shadow sitting there, the lonely hostless guest of the 
 night's caravansary ? 
 
 He went nearer. The form remained motionless. 
 Something reminded him of Alice Manson. 
 
 He laid his hand on the .figure. It was a woman 
 to the touch as well as to the eye. But not yet did 
 she move an inch. He would have raised her face. 
 Then she resisted. All at once he was sure she was 
 Alice. 
 
 "Alice ! " he cried. " Good God ! — sitting in the 
 cold night ! " 
 • She made him no answer, sat stone-still. 
 
 " What shall I do for you ? " he said. 
 
 "Nothing," she answered, in a voice that might 
 well have been that of a spectre. "Leave me," she 
 added, as if with the last entreaty of despair. 
 
 " You are in trouble, Alice ! " he persisted. "Why 
 are you so far from home } Where's Arthur .? " 
 
 "What right have you to question me.? "she re- 
 turned, almost fiercely. 
 
 "None but that I am your brother's friend." 
 
RICHARD AND ALICE. 
 
 249 
 
 "Friend!" she echoed, in a faint, far-away 
 voice. 
 
 "You forget, Ahce, that I did all I could to be 
 your friend, and you would not let me ! " 
 
 She neither spoke nor moved. Her stillness 
 seemed to say, "Neither will I now." 
 
 " Where are you going-.? " he asked, after a hope- 
 less pause. 
 
 "Nowhere." 
 
 " Why did you leave London ? " 
 
 "Why should I tell you ? " 
 
 " I think you will tell me ! " 
 
 " I will not." 
 
 "You know I would do anything for you ! * 
 
 "I daresay ! " 
 
 "You know I would ! " 
 
 "I don't." 
 
 " Try me." 
 
 " I will not." 
 
 Her voice grew more and more faint and forced. 
 Her words and it were very unlike. 
 
 "Don't go on like that, Alice. You're not being 
 reasonable," pleaded Richard. 
 
 "Oh, do leave me alone ! " 
 
 "I won't leave you." 
 
 " As you please ! It's nothing to me." 
 
 "Alice, why do you speak to me like that.? Tell 
 me what's wrong." 
 
 "Everything is wrong. Everybody is wrong. 
 The whole world is wrong." 
 
 Her voice was a little stronger. She raised herself, 
 and looked him in the face. 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 "I hope it is! " 
 
250 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " Why should you ? " 
 
 "To think things were right would be too terrible ! 
 I say everything's wrong." 
 
 "What's to be done, then.?" sighed Richard. 
 
 "I must get out of it all," 
 
 " But how ? " 
 
 "There is only one way." 
 
 "What is that.?" 
 
 " Everybody knows." 
 
 "Alice," cried Richard, nearly in despair like 
 herself, "are you out of your mind.? " 
 
 "Pretty nearly. — Why shouldn't I be ? There are 
 plenty of us ! " 
 
 "Alice, if you won't tell me what is the matter with 
 you, if you won't let me help you, I will sit down by 
 you till the morning." 
 
 " What if I drop .? " 
 
 "Then I will carry you away. The sooner you 
 drop the better." 
 
 Her resolution seemed to break. 
 
 " I ain't eaten a mouthful to-day," she said. 
 
 "My poor girl ! Promise me to wait till I come 
 back. Here, put on my coat." 
 
 She was past resisting more, and allowed him to 
 button his coat about her. 
 
 But he was in great perplexity : where was he to 
 get anything for her? And how was she to live till 
 he brought it.? It was terrible to think of! Alice 
 with nothing to eat, and no refuge but a stone in the 
 moonlight ! This was what her religion had done 
 for Alice ! 
 
 "Miss Wylder's God!" he said to himself with 
 contempt. " He's well enough for the wind and the 
 stars and the moonlight ! but for human beings — for 
 
RICHARD AND ALICE. 25 1 
 
 Alice — for creatures dying of hunger, what a mock- 
 ery ! If he were there, it would be a sickness to talk 
 of him ! Beauty is beauty, but for anything behind 
 it — pooh ! " 
 
 He stood a moment hesitating. Alice swayed on 
 her seat, and would have fallen. He caught her— 
 and in the act remembered a little cottage, a hut 
 rather, down a lane a short way off. He took her 
 in his arms and started for it. 
 
 She was dreadfully thin, but a strong man cannot 
 walk very fast carrying a woman, however light she 
 be, and she had half come to herself before he reached 
 the cottage. 
 
 "Richard, dear Richard!" she murmured at his 
 ear, *' where are you carrying me .? Are you going 
 to kill me, or are you taking me home with you ? 
 Do set me down. Where's Arthur? I will let you 
 be good to me ! I will ! I can't hold out forever ! " 
 
 She seemed to be dreaming — apparently about their 
 meeting in Regent-Street ; or perhaps she was delir- 
 ious from want of food. He walked on without at- 
 tempting to answer her. Some great wrong had been 
 done her, and his heart sank within him ; for he be- 
 lieved in no judgment, no final setting right of wrongs. 
 He knew of nothing belter than that the wronged 
 and the wronger would cease together. Certainly, if 
 his creed represented fact, the best thing in existence 
 is that it has no essential life in it, that it cannot con- 
 tinue, that it must cease : the good of living is that 
 we must die. The hope of death is the inspiration 
 of Buddhism ! His heart ached with pity for the girl. 
 His help, his tenderness expanded, and folded her in 
 the wings of a shelter that was not empty because 
 his creed was false. 
 
252 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " She belongs to me ! " he said to himself. "The 
 world has thrown her off : ' be it lawful I take up 
 what's cast away ! ' Here is the one treasure, a 
 human being ! the best thing in the world ! I will 
 cherish it. Poor girl ! she shall at least know one 
 man a refuge ! " 
 
 The cottage was a wretched place, but a laborer 
 and his family lived in it. He knocked many times. 
 A sleepy voice answered at last, and presently a 
 sleepy-eyed man half opened the door. 
 
 " What's the deuce of a row ? " he grunted. 
 
 "Here's a young woman half dead with hunger 
 and cold ! " said Richard. "You must take her in or 
 she'll die ! " 
 
 "Can't you take her somewhere else.?" 
 
 "There's nowhere else near enough. — Come, come, 
 let us in ! You wouldn't have her die on your door- 
 step ! " 
 
 " I don'ow as I see the sense o' bringin' her here ! " 
 answered the man sleepily. "We ain't out o' the 
 hunger-wood ourselves yet ! — Wife ! here's a chap as 
 says he's picked up a young *oman a dyin' o' 'unger ! 
 — 'tain't likely, be it, i' this land o' liberty.? " 
 
 "Likely enough, Giles, where the liberty's mainly 
 to starve ! " replied a feminine voice. " Let un bring 
 the poor thing in. There ain't nowhere to put her, 
 an' there ain't nothin' to give her, but she can't lie 
 out in the wide world ! " 
 
 "Ain't you got a drop o' milk.?" asked Richard. 
 
 "Milk!" echoed the woman* "it's weeks an' 
 weeks the childer ain't tasted of it! The wonder to 
 me is that the cows let a poor man milk 'em ! " 
 
 Rich^ird set Alice on her feet, but she could not 
 stand alone; had he taken his arm from round her, 
 
RICHARD AND ALICE. 253 
 
 she would have fallen in a heap. But the woman 
 while she spoke had been getting a light, and now 
 came to the door with a candle-end. Her husband 
 kept prudently in her shadow. 
 
 "Poor thing! poor thing! she be far gone!" 
 she said, when she saw her. "Bring her in, sir. 
 There's a chair she can sit upon. I'll get her a drop 
 o' tea — that'll be better'n milk ! There's next to no 
 work, and the squire he be mad wi' Giles acause o' 
 some rabbit or other they says he snared — which they 
 did say it was a hare — I don'ow : take the skin off, 
 an' who's to tell t'one from t'other ! I do know I 
 was right glad on't for the childer ! An' if the parson 
 tell me my man 'ill be damned for hare or rabbit, an' 
 the childer starvin', I'll give him a bit o' my mind. 
 — ' No, sir ! " says I ; ' God ain't none o' your sort ! ' 
 says I, ' An' p'r'aps the day may be at hand when 
 the rich an' the poor '11 have a turn o' a change to- 
 gether ! Leastways there's sbmethin' like it some- 
 wheres i' the Bible,' says I, 'An if it be i' the Bible,' 
 says I, ' it's likely to be true, for the Bible do take the 
 part o' the rich — mostly ! ' " 
 
 She was a woman who liked to hear herself talk, 
 and so spoke as one listening to herself. Like most 
 people, whether they talk or not, she got her ideas 
 second-hand ; but Richard was nowise inclined to 
 differ with what she said about the Bible, for he 
 knew little more and no better about it than she. 
 Had parson Wingfold, who did know the Bible as 
 few parsons know it, heard her, he would have told 
 her that, by search express and minute, he had satis- 
 fied himself that there was not a word in the Bible 
 against the poor, although a multitude of words 
 against the rich. The sins of the poor are not once 
 
2 54 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 mentioned in the Bible, the sins of the rich very 
 often. The rich may think this hard, but I state the 
 fact, and do not much care what they think. When 
 they come to judge themselves and others fairly they 
 will understand that God is no respecter of persons, 
 not favoring even the poor in his cause. 
 
 Richard set Alice on the one chair, by the poor 
 little fire the woman was coaxing to heat the water 
 she had put on it in a saucepan. Alice stared at the 
 fire, but hardly seemed to see it. The woman tried 
 to comfort her. Richard looked round the place : 
 the man was in the bed that filled one corner ; a 
 mattress in another was crowded with children ; 
 there was no spot where she could lie down. 
 
 "I shall be back as soon's ever I can," he said, 
 and left the cottage. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 He hurried back over the bare, moon-white road. 
 He had seen Miss Wylder come that morning, and 
 hoped to reach the house, which was not very far 
 off, before she should have gone to bed. Of her 
 alone in that house did he feel he could ask the help he 
 needed. If she had gone home, he would try the 
 gardener's wife ! But he wanted a woman with wit 
 as well as will. He would help himself from the 
 larder if he could not do better — but there would be 
 no brandy there ! 
 
 Many were the thoughts that, as now he walked, 
 now ran, passed swiftly through his mind. It was 
 strange, he said to himself, that this girl, of whom 
 he had seen so little, yet in whom he felt so great an 
 interest, should reappear in such dire necessity ! 
 When last he saw her, she hurt herself in frantic 
 escape from him ; now she could not escape ! 
 
 Whence she had come or how it had happened that 
 she should appear thus at Mortgrange Richard could 
 not imagine. But with him, as with all truly un- 
 selfish natures, thought was action. Alice needed aid 
 and attention and these he would procure for her be 
 the risk what it might. It was not in him to question 
 when suffering appealed for relief or sorrow for sym- 
 pathy. Time might clear the mystery of her coming 
 or it might not ; enough for him that the girl was now 
 
256 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 in his care. He would help her unquestioning^ and 
 trust to the future for explanations. 
 
 " And this is the world," he went on, "that the 
 priests would have you believe ruled by the provid- 
 ence of an all powerful and all good being ! Jlfy 
 heart is sore for the girl — a good girl, if ever there 
 was one, so that I would give — yes, I think I would 
 give my life for her ! I certainly would, rather than 
 see her in misery! Of course I would! Any man 
 would, worth calling a man ! When it came to the 
 point, I should not think twice about it ! And there 
 is he, sitting up there in his glory, and looking down 
 unmoved upon her wretchedness ! I will wo/believe 
 in any such God ! " 
 
 Of course he was more than right in refusing to 
 believe in such a God ! Were such a being possi- 
 ble, he would not be God. If there were such a 
 being and all powerful, he would be /he one nof to be 
 worshipped. But was Richard, therefore, to believe 
 in no God altogether different ? May a God only be 
 such as is not to be believed in ? Is it not rather 
 that, to be God, the being must be so good that a 
 man is hardly to be found able — must I say also, or 
 willing — to believe in him ? Perhaps, if he had been as 
 anxious to do his duty all over, out and out, as he was 
 where his feelings pointed to it, Richard might have 
 had a " What if" or two to propose to himself. Might 
 he not for instance have said, "What if a certain 
 being should even now be putting in my way the 
 honor and gladness of helping this woman — making 
 me his messenger to her ? " What if his soul was too 
 impatient to listen for the next tick of the clock of 
 eternity, and was left therefore to declare there was 
 no such clock going ! Ought he not even now to 
 
257 
 
 have been capable of thinking that there might be a 
 being with a design for his creatures yet better than 
 merely to make them happy? What if, that gained, 
 the other must follow ! Here was a man judging the 
 eternal, who did not even know his own name ! 
 
 As he drew near the house, the question arose in 
 his mind : if Miss Wylder was gone to her room, 
 what was he to do to find her ? He did not know 
 where her room was ! He knew that, when she 
 went up the stair, at the top of it she turned to the 
 right — and he knew no more. 
 
 The side-gate at the lodge was yet open ; so was 
 the great door of the house. He entered softly, and 
 going along a wide passage, arrived at the foot of 
 the great staircase, which ascended with the wide 
 sweep of half an oval, just in time to see at the top 
 the reflection of a candle disappearing to the right. 
 There were many chances against its being Barbara's, 
 but with an almost despairing recklessness he darted 
 up, and turning, saw again the reflection of the candle 
 from the wall of a passage that crossed the corridor. 
 He followed as swiftly and lightly as he could, and 
 at the corner all but overturned an elderly maid, 
 whose fright gave place to wrath when she saw who 
 had endangered her. 
 
 " I want to see Miss Wylder ! " said Richard 
 hurriedly. 
 
 "You have no call to be in this part of the house," 
 returned the woman. 
 
 " I can't stop to explain," answered Richard. 
 " Please tell me which is her room." 
 
 " Indeed I will not." 
 
 "When she knows my business, she will be glad 
 I came to her." 
 
258 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "You may find it for yourself." 
 
 " Will you take a message for me then ? " 
 
 "I am not Miss Wylder's maid!" she replied. 
 " Neither is it my place to wait on my fellow-ser- 
 vants." 
 
 She turned away, tossing- her head, and rounded 
 the corner into the corridor. 
 
 Richard looked down the passage. A light was 
 burning at the other end of it, and he saw there were 
 not many doors in it. With a sudden resolve to go 
 straight ahead, he called out clear and plain : — 
 
 " Miss Wylder ! " and again, "Miss Wylder ! " 
 
 A door opened and, to his delight, out peeped 
 Barbara's dainty little head. She saw Richard, gave 
 one glance in the opposite direction, and made him 
 a sign to come to her. He did so. She was in her 
 dressing-gown : it was not her candle he had fol- 
 lowed, but its light had led him to her 1 
 
 " What is it ? " she said hurriedly. " Don't speak 
 loud : Lady Ann might hear you 1 " 
 
 "There's a girl all but dying "' began Richard. 
 
 "Go to the library," she said. " I will come to 
 you there. I sha'n't be a minute ! " 
 
 She went in, and her door closed with scarce a 
 sound. Then first a kind of scare fell upon Richard : 
 one of those doors might open, and the pale, cold 
 face of the formidable lady look out Gorgoi>like ! If 
 it was her candle he had followed, she could hardly 
 have put it down when he called Miss Wylder ! He 
 ran gliding through passage and corridor, and down 
 the stair, noiseless and swift as a bat. Arrived in 
 the library, he lighted a candle, and, lest any one 
 should enter, pretended to be looking out books. 
 Within five minutes Barbara was at his side. 
 
A SISTER. 259 
 
 " Now ! " she said, and stood silent, waiting. 
 Tliere was a solemn look on her face, and none 
 of the smile with which she usually greeted him. 
 Their last interview had made her miserable for a 
 while, and more solemn forever. For hours the 
 world was black about her, and she felt as if Richard 
 had struck her. To say there was no God behind 
 the loveliness of things, was to say there was no 
 loveliness— nothing but a pretence of loveliness ! 
 The world was a painted thing ! a toy for a doll ! a 
 phantasrfi ! 
 
 He told her where and in what state he had found 
 the girl, and to what a poor place he had been com- 
 pelled to carry her, saying he feared she would die 
 before he could get anything for her, except Miss 
 Wylder would help him. 
 
 " Brandy ! " she said, thinking. " Lady Ann has 
 some in her room. The rest I can manage !— Wait 
 here ; I will be with you in three minutes." 
 
 She went, and Richard waited— without anxiety, 
 for whatever Barbara undertook seemed to those 
 who knew her as good as done. 
 
 She reappeared in her red cloak, with a basket 
 beneath it. Richard, wondering, would have taken 
 the basket from her. 
 
 "Wait till we are out of the house," she said. 
 " Open that bay window, and mind you don't make 
 a noise. They mustn't find it undone : we have to 
 get in that way again." 
 
 Richard obeyed scrupulously. It was a French 
 window, and issue was easy. 
 
 "What if they close the shutters.?" he ventured 
 to say. 
 
26o THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "They don't always. We must take our chance," 
 she replied. 
 
 He thought she must mean to go as far as the 
 lodge only. 
 
 " You won't forget, miss, to fasten the window 
 again ? " he whispered, as he closed it softly behind 
 them. 
 
 "We must always risk something ! " she answered. 
 " Come along ! " 
 
 " Please give me the basket," said Richard. 
 
 She gave it him ; and the next moment he found 
 her leading to the way through the park toward the 
 lodgeless gate. 
 
 They had walked a good many minutes, and Bar- 
 bara had not said a word. 
 
 " How good of you, miss, to come ! " ventured 
 Richard. 
 
 "To come ! " she returned. " What else did you 
 expect.? Did you not want me to come ? " 
 
 " I never thought of your coming ! I only 
 thought you would get the right things for me — if 
 you could ! " 
 
 "You don't think I would leave the poor girl to 
 the mercy of a man who would tell her there was 
 nobody anywhere to help her out of her troubles ! " 
 
 "I don't think I should have told her that; I 
 might have told her there was nobody to bring worse 
 trouble upon her ! " 
 
 "What comfort would that be, when the trouble 
 was come — and as strong as she could bear ! " 
 
 Richard was silent a moment, then in pure self- 
 defence answered : — 
 
 "A man must neither take nor give the comfort of 
 a lie ! " 
 
26l 
 
 "Tell me honestly, then," said Barbara, " — fori 
 do believe you are an honest man — tell me, are you 
 sure there is no God ? Have you gone all through 
 the universe looking for him, and failed to find him ? 
 Is there no possible chance that there may be a God ! " 
 
 " I do not believe there is." 
 
 "But are you sure there is not? Do you know it, 
 so that you have a right to say it ? " 
 
 Richard hesitated. 
 
 " I cannot say," he answered, "that I know it as 
 I know a proposition in Euclid, or as I know that I 
 must not do what is wrong." 
 
 " Then what right have you to go and make people 
 miserable by saying there is no God — as if you, being 
 an honest man, knew it, and would not say it if you 
 did not knoAV it .? You take away the only comfort 
 left the unhappy ! Of course you have a right to say 
 you don't believe it — but only that ! and I would 
 think twice before I said even that, where all the 
 certainty was that it would make people miserable ! " 
 
 " I don't know anybody it would make miserable," 
 said Richard. 
 
 "It would make me dead miserable," returned 
 Barbara. 
 
 "I know many it \vould redeem from misery," 
 rejoined Richard. ' ' To believe in a cruel being ready 
 to pounce upon them is enough to make the strongest 
 miserable." 
 
 ' ' The cruel being that made the world, you mean ? " 
 
 "Yes — if the world was made." 
 
 "If one believes in any God, it must be the same 
 God that made this lovely night — and the gladness it 
 would give me, if you did not take it from me ! " 
 
 Richard was silent for a moment. 
 
262 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " How can I take it from you ? " he said, " if you 
 think what I say is not true ? " 
 
 ' ' You make me fear lest it should be true ; and then 
 farewell to all joy in life — not only for want of some 
 one to love right heartily, but because there is no 
 refuge from the evils that are all about us. I have no 
 quarrel with you if you say these evils are brought 
 upon us by an evil being, who lives to make men 
 miserable ; there you leave room to believe also in 
 one fighting against him, to whom we can go for 
 help ! The God our parson believes in he calls 
 ' God, our saviour.' To take away the notion of any 
 kind of God, is to make life too dreary to live ! " 
 
 "Yours is the old doctrine of the Magians," 
 remarked Richard. 
 
 "Well.?" 
 
 ' ' I could accept it easily beside what people believe 
 now." 
 
 ' ' What do they believe ? " 
 
 "They believe in the God of the Bible, who makes 
 pets of a few of his creatures, and sends all the rest 
 into eternal torment. Would you comfort people 
 with the good news of a God like that ? " 
 
 "Such a God is not to be believed in ! Deny him 
 all you can. But because there cannot be an evil 
 God, what right have you to say there cannot be a 
 good one.? That is to reason backward ! The very 
 notion of a night like this having no meaning in it — 
 no God in it who intends it to look just so, is enough 
 to make me miserable. But I will not believe it ! I 
 shall hate you if you make me believe it ! " 
 
 ' ' The Bible says there is an evil being behind it ! " 
 
 " I don't know much about the Bible, but I don't 
 believe it says that." 
 
A SISTER. 263 
 
 "Of course it calls him good, but it says he does 
 certain thing-s which we know to be bad. ' 
 
 "You malce too much of the Bible, if it says such 
 things. Throw it out of the window and have done 
 with it. But how dare you tell me there is nobody 
 greater than me to account for me ! You make of me 
 a creature that was not worth being made ; a mere 
 ooze from nothing, like the scum on the pond there, 
 because it cannot help it. If I have no God to be my 
 justification, my being becomes loathsome to me. 1 
 don't know howl came to be, where I came from, or 
 where I am going to ; and you say there can be 
 nobody that knows ; you tell me there is no help ; 
 that I must die in the dark I came out of; that there 
 is no love about me knowing what it loves. Even if 
 I found myself alive and awake and happy after I 
 was dead, what comfort would there be if there was 
 no God.? How should I ever grow better.? — how get 
 rid of the wrong things in myself.? — If Hfe has no 
 better thing for this poor woman, be kind and let her 
 die and have done with it. Why keep her in such a 
 hopeless existence as you believe in .? You can have 
 but little regard for her surely ! I beg of you don't 
 say that thitig to her, for you don't know it." 
 
 Richard was again silent for a while ; then he said — 
 
 " 1 had no intention of saying anything of the sort, 
 but I promise because you wish it." 
 
 "Thank you ! thank you ! " 
 
 "I promise too," added Richard, "that I will not 
 say anything more of that kind until I have thought 
 a good deal more about it." 
 
 "Thank you again heartily!" said Barbara. "I 
 am sure of one thing— that you cannot have ground 
 for not hoping ! Is not hope all we have got ? He 
 
264 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 is the very butcher of humanity who kills its hope ! 
 It is hope we live by ! " 
 
 " But if it be a false hope ? " 
 
 '• A false hope cannot do so much harm as a false 
 fear ! " 
 
 " The false fear is just what I oppose. The Bible 
 tells people " 
 
 "There you are back to the book you don't believe 
 in ! And because you don't believe in the book that 
 makes people afraid, you insist there can be no such 
 thing as the gladness my heart cries out for ! If you 
 want to make people happy, why don't you preach a 
 good God instead of no God ? " 
 
 " I will think about what you say," replied Richard. 
 
 "Mind," said Barbara, "I don't pretend to know 
 anything ! I only say I have a right to hope. And 
 for the Bible, I must have a better look at it ! A man 
 who, being, a good man, wants to comfort us poor 
 women, whom men knock about so, by taking from 
 us the idea of a living God that cares for us, cannot be 
 so wise but that he may be wrong about a book ! 
 Have you read it all through now, Mr. Tuke — so that 
 you are sure it says what you say it says ? " 
 
 ' ' I have not, " answered Richard ; "but everybody 
 knows what it says ! " 
 
 " Well, I don't ! Nobody has taken the trouble to 
 tell me, and I haven't read it. — But I'll just give you 
 a little bit of my life to look at. I was with my 
 father and mother for a while in Sydney, and there 
 a terrible lie was told about me, and everybody 
 believed it, and nobody would speak to me. Some- 
 how people are always ready to believe lies — even 
 people who would not tell lies ! We had to leave 
 Sydney in consequence, and to this day everybody 
 
26s 
 
 in Sydney believes me a wicked, ugly girl ! — Now I 
 know I am not I See — I can hold my face to the 
 stars ! It was trying to help a poor creature that 
 nobody would do anything for that got the lie said 
 of me. I thought my first business was to take care 
 of my neighbor, and I did it, and that's what came 
 ofit!" 
 
 "And you believe in a God that would let that 
 come to you for doing what was good ? " said Richard, 
 with an indignation that exploded in all directions. 
 
 "Stop ! stop ! the thing's not over yet ! The world 
 is not done with yet ! What if there be a God who 
 loves me, and cares as little what people say about 
 me, because he knows the truth, as I care about it 
 because /know the truth! — But that is not what I 
 wanted to say ; this is it : if such lies were told, and 
 believed, about an innocent girl trying to do her duty, 
 why may not people have told lies about God, and 
 other people believed them ? The same thing may 
 hold with the book. Perhaps it does not speak such 
 lies about God, but stupid or lying people have said 
 that it speaks them, and other people have believed 
 those, and said it again. I hope with all my heart 
 you are saying what is false when you say there is no 
 God ; but that is not nearly so bad as saying there is 
 a God who is not good. I can't think anybody 
 believing in a God like that, would have been able 
 to write a book about him that so many good people 
 care to read." 
 
 Richard was thoroughly silenced now. I do not 
 mean that he was at all convinced, but how could 
 he find much to say with that appeal of Barbara to 
 her own sore experience echoing in his heart ! And 
 they were just at the door of the cottage. He 
 
j66 there and back. 
 
 knocked, and receiving- no answer, opened the door, 
 and they went in. 
 
 There was light enough from the glow of a mere 
 remnant of fire in a corner, to sec, on a stool by its 
 side, the good woman of the house fast asleep, with 
 her head against the wall. Her husband was 
 snoring- in bed. The children lay still as death on 
 their mattress upon the floor. Alice sat on the one 
 chair, her head fallen back, and her face as white as 
 human face could be ; but when they listened, 
 they could hear her breathing. Beside the pale, 
 worn, vanishing girl, Earbara looked the incarnation 
 of concentrated life and energy. Her cheeks were 
 flushed with the rapid walk, and her eyes were still 
 flashing with the thoughts that had been rising 
 in her, and the words that had been going from 
 her. For a moment she stood radiant with the tender 
 glow of an infinite pity, as she looked down on the 
 death-like girl ; then, with a sigh in which trembled 
 the very luxury of service, she put her arm under 
 the poor back-fallen head, and lifted it gently up. 
 With the motion, Alice's eyes opened, like those of 
 certain wonderful dolls, but they did not seem to 
 have so much life in them. 
 
 "Quick ! " said Barbara; "give me a little brandy 
 in the cup." 
 
 Richard made haste, and Barbara put the cup to 
 Alice's lips. 
 
 "Dear, take a little -brandy ; it will revive you," 
 she said. 
 
 Alice came to her windows and looked, and saw 
 the face of an angel bending over her. She obeyed 
 the heavenly vision, and drank what it offered. It 
 made her cough, and their hostess started to her feet 
 
267 
 
 as if dreading- censure ; but a smile and a greeting 
 from Barbara reassured her. She thanked her for her 
 hospitality as if Alice had been her sister, and slip- 
 ping money into her hand, coaxingly begged her to 
 make up the fire a little, that she might warm some 
 soup. 
 
 Almost at once upon her tasting the soup, a little 
 color began to come in Alice's cheek. Barbara was 
 feeding her, and a feeble smile flickered over the thin 
 face every time it looked up in Barbara's. Richard 
 stood gazing, and saw that hope in God could not 
 much have lessened one woman's tenderness. He 
 had scarcely seen tenderness in his mother ; and cer- 
 tainly he had seen little hope. She was thoroughly 
 kind to him, and he knew she would have died for 
 her husband ; but he had seen no sweetness in their 
 intercourse, neither could remember any sweetness 
 to himself. The hot spring of his aunt's love to him 
 was no geyser, and he never knew in this world how 
 hot it was. Hence was it to Richard more than a 
 gracious sight, it was a revelation to him, as he 
 watched the electric play of the love that passed from 
 the strong, tender, child-likegirl to the delicate, weary, 
 starved creature to whom she was ministering. 
 
 At length Barbara thought it better she should have 
 no more food for the present, when naturally the ques- 
 tion arose, what was to be done next. The saviours 
 went out into the night to have a free talk, and a 
 little fresh air — sorely wanted in the cottage. 
 
 Richard then told Barbara that, if she did not dis- 
 approve, he would take Alice to his grandfather; he 
 was certain he would receive her cordially, and both 
 he and Jessie would do what they could for her. But 
 he did not know of any vehicle he could get to carry 
 
268 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 her, except his grandfather's pony-cart, and that was 
 four miles away ! 
 
 "All right ! " said Barbara -'I will stay with her, 
 in and out, till you come." 
 
 " But how will you get home after.? " 
 
 "As I came, of course. Don't trouble yourself 
 about me ; I can look after myself." 
 
 "But if the" should have fastened the library 
 window ? " 
 
 "Then I will do the next simplest thing. I will 
 pull the bell and go in through the door." 
 
 "And then they will know of your coming out," 
 said Richard, greatly disturbed at the thought of the 
 possible unpleasantness his hasty action had brought. 
 
 "That is my affair," Barbara replied, "and gives 
 me no concern. Yours is to be off to your grand- 
 father's as speedily as you can. Don't you think 
 about me. I shall come to no harm. Go at once 
 and fetch the pony-cart." 
 
 Richard set off running, and came to his grand- 
 father's while it was yet unreviving night ; but he 
 had little difficulty in rousing the old man. He told 
 him all he knew about Alice, as well as the plight in 
 which he had found her. Simon looked grave when 
 he heard how his daughter had come between Richard 
 and his friends. He hurried on his clothes, put the 
 pony to, and go into the cart : he would himself 
 fetch the girl ! In another moment they were spin- 
 ning along the gray road. 
 
 When they reached the hut, there was Barbara 
 standing sentry near the door. She went and talked 
 to Simon. Richard got down and went in. He 
 found Alice wide awake, staring into the fire, with a 
 look that brought a great rush of pity into his heart 
 
269 
 
 afresh. Remembering how the girl had shrunk from 
 him before, he feared himself unfit to help, and knew 
 himself unable to comfort her. For the first time he 
 vaguely felt that there might be troubles needing a 
 hand which neither man nor woman could hold out. 
 Their kind hostess had crept into bed beside her 
 husband, and was snoring as loud as he. Without a 
 word he wrapped Alice in the blanket he had brought, 
 and taking her once more in his arms, carried her to 
 the cart. Leaning down from his perch, the sturdy- 
 old man received her in his, placed her comfortably 
 beside him, put his arm round her, and with a nod 
 to Barbara, and never a word to his grandson, drove 
 away. Richard knew his rugged goodness too well 
 to mind how he treated him, and was confident in 
 him for Alice, as one to do not less but more than he 
 promised. He was thus free to walk home with 
 Barbara, glad at heart to know Alice in harbor, but a 
 little anxious until Miss Wylder should be safe shut 
 in her chamber. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 BARBARA AND LADY ANN, 
 
 As they went, neither said much. Both seemed to 
 avoid the subject of their conversation as they came. 
 They talked of poetry and fiction, and did not differ. 
 Though Barbara there also had precious insights, 
 happily she had no opinions. 
 
 When they reached a certain point, Richard drew 
 back, and, from a coign of vantage, saw Barbara try 
 the study-window and fail. He then followed her as 
 she went round to the door, and, still covertly, saw 
 her ring the bell. The door was opened with what 
 seemed to him a portentous celerity, and she disap- 
 peared. He turned away into the park, and wan- 
 dered about, revolving many things, till by slow 
 gradations the sky's gray idea unfolded to a brilliant 
 conviction, and, lo, there was the morning, not to be 
 controverted ! But he took care to let the house not 
 only come awake, but come to its senses, before he 
 sought admission. When it seemed well astir, he 
 rang the bell ; and when the door, after some delay, 
 was opened, he went straight to the library, and was 
 fairly at work by five o'clock. 
 
 He saw nothing of Barbara all day, or indeed of 
 any of the family except Vixen, who looked in, made 
 a face at him, and went away, leaving the door open. 
 At eight o'clock he had his breakfast, and at nine he 
 was again in the library ; so that by lunch-time he 
 
BARBARA AND LADY ANN. 27 1 
 
 had been seven of his eight hours at work, and by 
 half-past two found himself free to go to his grand- 
 father's and inquire after Alice. 
 
 On his way to the road through the park, he met 
 Arthur Lestrange, Richard touched his hat as was 
 his wont, and would have passed, but, with no 
 friendly expression on his countenance, Arthur 
 stopped. 
 
 " Where are you going, Tuke ? " he said. 
 
 "I am going to my grandfather's, sir," answered 
 Richard. 
 
 "Excuse me, but your day's work is not over by 
 many hours yet." 
 
 Richard found his temper growing troublesome, 
 but tried hard to keep it in hand. 
 
 " If you remember, sir," he said, "our agreement 
 mentioned no hour for beginning or leaving off 
 work." 
 
 "That is true, but you undertook to give me eight 
 hours of your day ! " 
 
 "Yes, sir. I was at work by five o'clock this 
 morning, and have given you more than eight hours." 
 
 " Hm ! " said Arthur. 
 
 "I am quite as anxious," pursued Richard, "to 
 fulfil my engagement, as you can be to have it 
 fulfilled." 
 
 Arthur said nothing. 
 
 "Ask Thomas, who let me in this morning," re- 
 sumed Richard, " whether I was not at work in the 
 library by five o'clock." 
 
 It went a good deal against the grain with Richard 
 to appeal to any witness for corroboration : he was 
 proud of being a man of his word ; but although not 
 greatly anxious to keep his temporary position, he 
 
272 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 was anxious the compact should not be broken 
 through anything he did or said. 
 
 " Let you in ?" exclaimed Arthur; " — let you in 
 before five o'clock in the morning ? Then you were 
 out all night ! " 
 
 " I was." 
 
 "That cannot be permitted." 
 
 "I am surely right in believing that, when my 
 work is over, I am my own master! I had some- 
 thing to do that must be done. My grandfather 
 knows all I was about ! " 
 
 "Oh, yes, I remember! old Simon Armour, the 
 blacksmith ! " returned Arthur. "But," he went on, 
 plainly softening a little, "you ought not to work 
 for him while you are in my employment." 
 
 "I know that, sir; and if I wanted, my grand- 
 father would not let me. While my work is yours, 
 it is all yours, sir." 
 
 With that he turned, and left Arthur where he 
 stood a little relieved, though now annoyed as well 
 that a man in his employment should not have 
 waited to be dismissed. Hastening to the smithy, 
 he found his grandfather putting off his apron to go 
 home for a cup of tea. 
 
 "Oh, there you are ! " he said. "I thought we 
 should be catching sight of you before long ! " 
 
 " How's Alice, grandfather? You might be sure 
 I should want to know ! " 
 
 "She's been asleep all day, the best thing for 
 her ! " 
 
 " I hope, grandfather," said Richard, for Simon's 
 tone troubled him a Httle, "you are not vexed with 
 me ! I assure you I had nothing to do with her 
 coming down here — that I know of. You would 
 
BARBARA AND LADY ANN. 
 
 2/3 
 
 not have had me leave her sitting- there, out on that 
 stone in the moonUght, all night long, a ghost before 
 Jier time w^ithout a grave to go to ? She would have 
 been dead before the morning ! She must have 
 been ! I am certain you would not have left her 
 there ! " 
 
 "God forbid, lad! If you thought me out of 
 temper with you, it was a mistake. I confess the 
 thing does bother me, but I'm not blamingj/ow. You 
 acted like a Christian." 
 
 Richard hardly relished the mode of his grand- 
 father's approbation, A man ought to do the right 
 thing because he was a man, not because he 
 was something else than a man ! He had yet 
 to leam that a man and a Christian are pre- 
 cisely and entirely the same thing ; that a being 
 who is not a Christian is not a man. I perfectly 
 know how absurd this must seem to many, but such 
 do not see what I see. No one, however strong he 
 may feel his obligations, will ever be man enough 
 to fulfil them except he be a Christian — that is, one 
 w^ho, like Christ, cares first for the will of the Father. 
 One who thinks he can meet his obligations now, 
 can have no idea what is required of him in virtue 
 of his being what he is — no idea of what his own 
 nature requires of him. So much is required that 
 nothing more could be required. Let him ask him- 
 self whether he is doing what he requires of himself. 
 If he answer, "I can do it without Christianity any- 
 way," I reply, "Do it; try to do it, and I know 
 where the honest endeavor will bring you. Don't 
 try to do it, and you are not man enough to be worth 
 reasoning with." 
 
 Simon and his grandson had not yet turned the 
 
 18 
 
2 74 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 corner, when Richard heard a snort he knew : there, 
 sure enoug-h, stood Miss Brown, hitched to the 
 garden-paling, peaceable but impatient. 
 
 " Miss Wylder here ! " said Richard. 
 
 "Yes, lad! She's been here an hour and more. 
 Jessie came and told me, but 1 knew it : I heard the 
 mare, and knew the sound of my own shoes on 
 her ! — I doubt if she'll stand it much longer though ! " 
 he added, as she pawed the road. "Well, she's a 
 fine creature ! " 
 
 "Yes, she's a good mare ! " 
 
 "I don't mean the mare ! I mean the mistress ! " 
 
 "Miss Wylder is just noble ! " said Richard. " But 
 I'm afraid she got into trouble last night ! " 
 
 "It don't sound much like it !" returned the old 
 man, as Barbara's musical, bird-like laugh came 
 from the cottage. " She ain't breaking her heart ! — 
 Alice, as you call her, must be doing well, or missie 
 wouldn't be laughing like that ! " 
 
 As they entered, Barbara came gliding down the 
 perpendicular stair in front of them, her face yet 
 radiant with the shadow of the laugh they had 
 heard. 
 
 "Good-morning, Mr. Armour!" she said. " — I 
 did not expect to see you so soon again, INIr. Tuke. 
 Will you put me up.?" 
 
 Richard released Miss Brown, got her into position, 
 and gave his hand to Barbara's foot, as he had seen 
 Mr. Lestrangc do. But lifting, he nearly threw her 
 over Miss Brown's back. She burst into her lovely 
 laugh, clutched at a pommel, and held fast. 
 
 " I'm not quite ready to go to heaven all at once ! " 
 she said. 
 
 "I thought you were ! " answered Richard. "But 
 
BARBARA AND LADY ANN. 275 
 
 indeed I beg your pardon ! I might have known 
 how light you must be ! " 
 
 "I am very heavy for my size ! " 
 
 "May I walk a little way alongside of you, 
 miss ? " 
 
 "You have a right ; I have offered you my com- 
 pany more than once," answered Barbara. 
 
 They walked a little way in silence. Then the 
 very accident of association impelled their thoughts 
 into the old channel, and Richard broke out almost 
 impetuously. 
 
 "Why is there no way to the heaven yoi: believe 
 in, but the terrible gate of death ? "' he demanded, 
 " If a God of love, as you say your God is, made 
 the world, and could not — for want of room, I 
 suppose — let his creatures live on in it, he would 
 surely have thought of some better way out of it 
 than such a ghastly one ! " 
 
 Perhaps the most surprising thing about Barbara 
 was her readiness. Very seldom had one to wait 
 for her answer. 
 
 "This morning," she said, "for the first time with 
 me on her back at least. Miss Brown refused a 
 jump — and I grant the place looked ugly ! But T 
 gave her a little sharp persuasion, and she took it 
 beautifully, coming away as proud of herself as 
 possible. — If there be a God, he must know as much 
 better than you and I, as I know better than Miss 
 Brown. One who never did anything we couldn't 
 understand, couldn't be God. How else could he 
 make things ? " 
 
 "Yes, if they are made ! " 
 
 " If I were you, I would be quite sure first, before 
 I said they were not. You won't assert anything 
 
276 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 you are not sure of; don't deny anything either. 
 Good-bye. — Go on, Miss Brown ! " 
 
 She was more peremptory than usual, but he liked 
 it — rather. He felt she had some right to speak to 
 him so : positive as he had hitherto been, he was not 
 really sure of anything ! 
 
 The fact was, Barbara had been irritated that 
 morning, and had .got over the irritation, but not 
 quite over the excitement of it. She thought Miss 
 Brown should never again set hoof within the gates 
 of Mortgrange. 
 
 After breakfast, Lady Ann had sent for her to her 
 dressing-room, and Barbara had gone, prepared to 
 hear of something to her disadvantage. 
 
 The same woman who had been so uncivil to 
 Richard, had watched and seen them go out together. 
 She fastened the library vi^indow behind them, and 
 went and told Lady Ann, who requested her to mind 
 her own business. 
 
 When Barbara rang the bell, not caring much— for 
 a night in the park was of little consequence to her 
 — the door was immediately opened, but only a little 
 w^ay, by some one without a light, whose face or 
 even person she could not distinguish, for the door 
 was quite in shadow. It closed again, and she was 
 left darkling, to find her way to her room as best she 
 might. She stood for a moment. 
 " Who is it.? " she said. 
 
 No one answered. She heard neither footstep nor 
 sound of garments. Carefully feeling her way, she 
 got to the foot of the great stair, and in another 
 minute was in her room. 
 
 When Barbara entered Lady Ann's dressing-room, 
 she greeted her with less than her usual frigidity. 
 
BARBARA AND LADY ANN. 277 
 
 " Good-morning, my love ! You were late last 
 night ! " she said. 
 
 "I thought I was rather early," answered Barbara, 
 laughing. 
 
 "May I ask where you were.?" said her ladyship, 
 with her habitual composure. 
 
 "About a mile and a half from here, at that little 
 cottage in Burrow-lane." 
 
 " How did you come to be there — and for so long.? 
 You were hours away ! " 
 
 Even Lady Ann could not prevent a little surprise 
 in her tone as she said the words. 
 
 " Mr. Tuke came and told me " 
 
 "I beg your pardon, but do I know Mr. Tuke.?" 
 
 "The bookbinder, at work in the library." 
 
 "Wouldn't your mother be rather astonished at 
 your having secrets with a working-man ? " 
 
 "Secrets, Lady Ann ! " exclaimed Barbara. "Your 
 ladyship forgets herself ! " 
 
 Lady Ann looked up with a languid stare in the 
 fresh young face, rosy with anger. 
 
 "Was I not in the act," pursued the girl, "of tell- 
 ing you all about it ? You dare accuse me of such a 
 thing ! I only wish you would carry that tale of me 
 to my mother ! " 
 
 " I am not accustomed to be addressed in this style, 
 Barbara ! " drawled Lady Ann, without either raising 
 or quickening her voice. 
 
 "Then it is time you began, if you are accustomed 
 to speak to girls as you have just spoken to me ! I 
 am not accustomed to be told that I have a secret 
 with any man — or woman either ! I don't know 
 which I should like worse ! I have no secrets. I 
 hate them." 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Compose yourself, my child. You need not be 
 afraid of me!" said Lady Ann. "I am not your 
 enemy." 
 
 She thought Barbara's anger came from fear, for 
 she regarded herself as a formidable person. But 
 for victory she rested mainly on her imperturb- 
 ability. 
 
 "Look me in the face, Lady Ann, and tell your- 
 self whether I am afraid of you ! " answered Bar- 
 bara, the very soul of indignation flashing in her 
 eyes. "I fear no enemy." 
 
 Lady Ann found she had a new sort of creature to 
 deal with. 
 
 "That I am your friend, you will not doubt when 
 I tell you that it was I who let you in last night ! I 
 did not wish your absence or the hour of your return 
 to be known. My visitors must not be remarked 
 upon by my servants ! ". 
 
 " Then why did you not speak to me.? " 
 
 "I wished to give you a lesson." 
 
 "You thought to frighten me, as if I were a doughy, 
 half-baked English girl ! Allow me to ask how you 
 were aware I was out." 
 
 Lady Ann was not ready with her answer. She 
 wanted to establish a protective claim on the girl — 
 to have a secret with, and so a hold upon her. 
 
 " If the servants do not know," Barbara went on, 
 " would you mind saying how your ladyship came 
 to know .? Have the servants up, and I will tell the 
 whole thing before them all — and prove what I say 
 too." 
 
 "Calm yourself, Miss Wylder. You will scarcely 
 do yourself justice in English society, if you give 
 way to such temper. As you wish the whole house 
 
BARBARA AND LADY ANN. 279 
 
 to know what you were about, pray begin with me, 
 and explain the thing to me." 
 
 "Mr. Tuke told me he had found a young woman 
 almost dead with hunger and cold by the wayside, 
 and carried her to a cottage. I came to you, as you 
 well remember, and begged a little brandy. Then I 
 went to the larder, and got some soup. She would 
 certainly have been dead before the morning, if we 
 had not taken them to her." 
 
 " Why did you not tell me what you wanted the 
 brand)'' for ? " 
 
 "Because you would have tried to prevent me 
 from going." 
 
 " Of course I should have had the poor creature 
 attended to !— I confess I should have sent a more 
 suitable person." 
 
 "I thought myself the most suitable person in the 
 house." 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because the thing came to me to get done, and 
 I had to go ; and because I knew I should be kinder 
 to her than any one you could send. I know too 
 well what servants are, to trust them with the 
 poor ! " 
 
 "You may be far too kind to such people ! " 
 "Yes, if one hasn't common sense. But this girl 
 you couldn't be too kind to." 
 
 " It is just as I feared : she has taken you in quite ! 
 Those tramps are all the same ! " 
 
 "The same as other people — yes; that is, as 
 different from each other as your Ladyship and I." 
 
 Lady Ann found Barbara too much for her, and 
 changed her attack. 
 
 " But how came you to be so long? As you have 
 
28o THERE AND BACK. 
 
 just said, Burrow-lane can't be more than a mile and 
 a half from here ! " 
 
 "We could not leave her at the cottage ; it was not 
 a fit place for her. Mr. Tuke had to go to his grand- 
 father's — four miles — and I had to stay with her till 
 he came back. Old Simon came himself in his 
 spring-cart, and took her away." 
 
 "Was there no woman at the cottage.' " 
 
 "Yes, but worn out with work and children. Her 
 night's rest was of more consequence to her than ten 
 nights' waking would be to me." 
 
 "Thank you, Barbara ! I was certain I should not 
 prove mistaken in you ! But I hope such a necessity 
 will not often occur." 
 
 "I hope not; but when it does, I hope I may be 
 at hand." 
 
 "I was certain it was some mission of mercy that 
 had led you into the danger. A girl in your position 
 must beware of being peculiar, even in goodness. 
 There are more important things in the world than a 
 little suffering ! " 
 
 "Yes; your duty to your neighbor is more im- 
 portant." 
 
 " Not than your duty to yourself, Barbara!" said 
 Lady Ann, in such a gentle severe tone of righteous 
 reproof, that Barbara's furnace of a heart made the 
 little pot that held her temper nearly boil over. 
 
 "Lady Ann," she said, unconsciously drawing 
 herself up to her full little height, "I am sorry I gave 
 you the trouble of sitting up to open the door for me. 
 That at least shall not happen again. Good-morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "There is nothing to be annoyed at, Barbara. I 
 
BARBARA AND LADY ANN. 
 
 am quite pleased with what you have told me, I say 
 only it was unwise of you not to let me know." 
 
 " It may not have been wise for my own sake, but 
 it was for the woman's." 
 
 "There is no occasion to say more about the 
 woman ; 1 am quite satisfied with you, Barbara ! " 
 said Lady Ann, looking up with an icy smile, her 
 last Parthian arrow. 
 
 "But I am not satisfied with you, Lady Ann," re- 
 joined Barbara. ~ "I have submitted to be catechised 
 because the thing took place while I was your guest ; 
 but if such a thing were to happen again, I should do 
 just the same ; therefore I have no right, understand- 
 ing perfectly how much it would displease you, to 
 remain your guest. I ought, perhaps, to have gone 
 home instead of returning to you, but I thought that 
 would be uncivil, and look as if I were ashamed. 
 My mother would never have treated me as you have 
 done ! You may think her a strange woman, but 
 her heart is as big as her head — much bigger when 
 it is full ! " 
 
 It was not right of Barbara to get so angry, and 
 answer Lady Ann so petulantly, for she knew her 
 pretty well by this time, and yet was often her guest. 
 That it was impossible for such a girl to feel respect 
 for such a woman, if it accounts for her bearing to 
 her, condemns the familiarity that gave occasion to 
 that bearing. At the same time, but for Lady Ann's 
 superiority in age, Barbara would have spoken her 
 mind with yet greater freedom. Her rank made no 
 halo about her in Barbara's eyes. 
 
 Lady Ann took no more trouble to appease her : 
 the foolish girl would, she judged, be ashamed of her- 
 self soon, and accept the favor she knew to be un- 
 
282 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 deserved ! Lady Ann understood Barbara no more 
 than Lady Ann understood the real woman under- 
 lying Lady Ann. She was not afraid of losing- Bar- 
 bara, for she believed her parents could not but be 
 strongly in favor of an alliance with her family. She 
 knew nothing of the personal opposition between Mr. 
 and Mrs. Wylder ; she never opposed Sir Wilton ex- 
 cept it was worth her while to do so ; and Sir Wilton 
 never opposed her at all — openly. It gave Lady Ann 
 no more pleasure to go against her husband, than to 
 comply with his wishes ; and she had anything but 
 an adequate notion of the pleasure it gave Sir Wilton 
 to see any desire of hers frustrated. 
 
 Barbara went to the stable, where man and boy 
 had always his service in his right hand ready for 
 her — got Miss Brown saddled, and was away from 
 Mortgrange before Richard, early as he had begun, 
 was half-way through his morning's work. 
 
 She went to see Alice almost every day from that 
 afternoon ; and as no one could resist Barbara, Alice's 
 reserve, buttressed and bastioned as it was with pain, 
 soon began to yield before the live sympathy that 
 assailed it. They became fast friends. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 AND BARBARA. 
 
 It was weeks before Alice was able to leave her 
 bed : she had been utterly exhausted. 
 
 On a lovely summer morning she woke to a sense 
 of returninof health. She had been lying like a waste 
 shore, at low springtide, covered with dry seaweeds, 
 withered jelly-fishes, and a multitudinous life that 
 gasped for the ocean : at last, at last, the cool washing 
 throb of the great sea of bliss, whose fountain is the 
 heart of God, had stolen upon her consciousness, and 
 she knew that she lived. She lay in a neat little cur- 
 tained bed, in a room with aslopingroof on both sides, 
 covered, not with tiles or slates, but with warm thatch, 
 thick and sound. Ivy was creeping through the 
 chinks of the ill-fitting window-frame ; but through 
 the little dormer window itself the sun shone freely, 
 and made shadows of shivering ivy-leaves upon the 
 deal floor. It was a very humble room, and Alice 
 had been used to much better furniture — but neither 
 to room nor furniture so clean. There was a whole- 
 someness and purity everywhere about her very wel- 
 come to the lady-eyes with which Alice was born ; 
 for it is God that makes ladies, not stupid society and 
 its mawkish distinctions. One brief moment she felt 
 as if she had gained the haven of her rest, for she lay 
 at peace, and nothing gnawed. But suddenly a 
 pang shot through her heart, and she knew that some 
 
284 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 harassing thought was at hand : pain was her por- 
 tion, and had but to define itself to grow sharp. She 
 rose on her elbow to receive the enemy. He came ; 
 she fell back with a fainting heart and a writhing will. 
 She had left love and misery behind her to seek help, 
 and she had not found it ! she had but lost sight of 
 those for whom she sought the help ! She could not 
 tell how long it was since she had seen her mother 
 and Arthur : she lay covered with kindness by people 
 she had never before seen ; and how they were faring, 
 she could but conjecture, and conjecture had in it no 
 comfort ! 
 
 Alice had little education beyond what life had 
 given her ; but life is the truest of all teachers, how- 
 ever little the results of her teaching may be valued 
 by school-enthusiasts. She did not put the letter H 
 in its place except occasionally, but she knew how 
 to send a selfish thought back to its place. She did 
 not know one creed from another, but she loved what 
 she saw to be good. She knew nothing of the Nor- 
 man conquest, but she knew much of self-conquest. 
 She could make her breakfast off dry bread, that her 
 mother might have hot coffee and the best of butter. 
 She wore very shabby frocks, but she would not put 
 bad work into the seams of a rich lady's dress. She 
 stooped as she walked, and there was a lack of accord 
 between her big beautiful eyes and the way she put 
 her feet down ; but it was the same thing that made 
 her eyes so large, and her feet so heavy ; and if she 
 could not trip lightly along the street, she could lay 
 very tender hands on her mother's head when it ached 
 with drinking. She had suffered much at the hands 
 of great ladies, yet she had but to see Barbara to love 
 her. 
 
ALICE AND BARBARA. 285 
 
 • 
 
 As she lay with her heart warming- in that sunshine 
 in which every heart must one day flash hke the 
 truest of diamonds, she heard the sound of a horse's 
 hoofs on the road. Her angel came to Alice with 
 no flapping of great wings, or lighting of soft-poised 
 heavenly feet on wooden floor, but with the sounds 
 of ringing iron shoes and snorting breath, to be fol- 
 lowed by a girl's feet on the stair, whose herald was 
 the smell, now of rosiest roses, now of whitest lilies, 
 in the chamber of her sad sister. Well might Alice 
 have sung, "How beautiful are the feet!" At the 
 music of those mounting feet, death and fear slunk 
 from the room, and Alice knew there was salvation 
 in the world. What evil ca7i there be for which there 
 is no help in another honest human soul ! What 
 sorrow is there from which a man may not be some 
 covert, some shadow ! Alas for the true soul which 
 cannot itself save, when it has no notion where help 
 is to be found ! 
 
 "Well, how are you to-day, little one.?" said Bar- 
 bara, sitting down on the edge of the bed. 
 
 Alice was older and taller than Barbara, but Barbara 
 never thought about height or age : strong herself, 
 she took the maternal relation to all weakness. 
 
 " Ever so much better, miss ! " answered Alice. 
 
 " Now, none of that ! " returned the little lady, "or 
 I walk out of the room ! My name is Barbara, and 
 we are friends — except you think it cheeky of me to 
 call you Alice ! " 
 
 Alice stretched out her thin arms, folded them 
 gently around Barbara, and burstinto weeping, which 
 was not all bitter. 
 
 "Will you let me tell you everything.?" she cried. 
 
 "What am I here for.? " returned Barbara, deep in 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 her embrace. " Only don't think I'm asking you to 
 tell me anything. Tell me whatever you like — what- 
 ever will help me to know you — not a thing more." 
 
 Alice lay silent for an instant, then said — 
 
 "I wish you would ask me some question! I 
 don't know how to begin ! " 
 
 Without a moments hesitation, Barbara said in 
 response — 
 
 " What do you do all day in London ? " 
 
 "Sew, sew, sit and sew, from morning to night," 
 answered Alice. " No sooner one thing out of your 
 hands, than another in them, so that you never feel, 
 for all you do, that you've done anything ! The 
 world is just as greedy of your work as before. I 
 sometimes wish," she went on, with a laugh that 
 had a touch of real merriment in it, " that ladies were 
 made with hair like a cat, I am so tired of the ever- 
 lasting bodice and skirt ! — Only what would become 
 of us then ! It would only be more hunger for less 
 weariness ! — Its a downright dreary life, miss ! " 
 
 " Have a care ! " said Barbara solemnly, and Alice 
 laughed. 
 
 " You see," she said, and paused a moment as if 
 trying to say Barbara, "I'm used to think of ladies 
 as if they were a different creation from us, and it 
 seems rude to call you — Barbara ! " 
 
 She spoke the name with such a lingering sweet- 
 ness as made its owner thrill with a new pleasure. 
 
 "It seems," she went on, "like presuming to — to 
 — to stroke an angel's feathers ! " 
 
 "And much I'd give for the angel," cried Barbara, 
 " that wouldn't like having his feathers stroked by a 
 girl like you ! He might fly for me, and go — where 
 he'd have them sintred ! " 
 
ALICE AND BARBARA. 287 
 
 " Then I will call you Barbara ; and I will answer 
 any question you like to put to me ! " 
 
 "And your mother, I daresay, is rather trying when 
 you come home? " said Barbara, resuming her exam- 
 ination, and speaking from experience. "Mothers 
 are — a good deal ! " 
 
 "Well, you see, m.iss— Barbara, my mother wasn't 
 used to a hard life like us, and Artie— that's my brother 
 —and I have to do our best to keep her from feeling 
 it ; but we don't succeed very well — not as we should 
 like to, that is. Neither of us gets much for our day's 
 work, and we can't do for her as we would. Poor 
 mamma likes to have things nice ; and now that the 
 money she used to have is gone — I don't know how 
 it went : she had it in some bank, and somebody 
 speculated with it, I suppose ! — anyhow, it's gone, 
 and the thing can't be done. Artie grows thinner 
 and thinner, and it's no use ! Oh, miss, I know I 
 shall lose him! and when I think of it, the whole 
 world seems to die and leave me in a brick-field ! " 
 
 She wept a moment, very quietly, but very bitterly. 
 
 "I know he does his very best," she resumed, 
 "but she won't see it ! She thinks he might do more 
 for her ! and I'm sure he's dying 1 " 
 
 "Send him to me," said Barbara; "I'll make him 
 well for you." 
 
 "I wish I could, miss — I mean Barbara! Oh, ain't 
 there a lot of nice things that can't ever be done ! " 
 
 " Does your mother do nothing to help.? " 
 
 "She don't know how; she ain't learned anything 
 like us. She was brought up a lady. I remember 
 her saying once she ought to 'a' been a real lady, a 
 lady they say my lady to ! " 
 
 "Indeed ! How was it then that she is not .? " 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " I don't know. There are things we don't dare ask 
 mamma about. If she had been proud of them, she 
 would have told us without asking." 
 
 " What was your father, Alice? " 
 
 The girl hesitated. 
 
 "He was a baronet, Barbara. — But perhaps you 
 would rather I said miss again ! " 
 
 "Don't be foolish, child ! " Barbara returned per- 
 emptorily. 
 
 "I suppose my mother meant that he promised to 
 marry her, but never did. They say gentlemen think 
 no harm of making such promises — without even 
 meaning to keep them ! — I don't know ! — I've got no 
 time to think about such things, — only " 
 
 "Only you're forced!" supplemented Barbara. 
 "I've been forced to think about them too — ^just 
 once. They're not nice to think about ! but so long 
 as there's snakes, it's better to know the sort of grass 
 they lie in ! — Did he take your mother's money and 
 spend it ? " 
 
 "Oh, no, not that! He was a gentleman, a bar- 
 onet, you know, and they don't do such things ! " 
 
 " Don't they ! " said Barbara. " I don't know what 
 things gentlemeji don't do ! — But what happened to 
 the money .? There may be some way of getting it 
 back ! " 
 
 " There's no hope of that ! I'll tell you how I think 
 it was : my father didn't care to marry my mother, 
 for Jie wanted a great lady ; so he said good-bye to 
 her, and she didn't mind, for he was a selfish man, 
 she said. So she took the money, for of course she 
 had to bring us up, and couldn't do it without — and 
 what they call invested it. Tliat means, you know, 
 that somebody took charge of it. So it's all gone, 
 
ALICE AND BARBARA. 289 
 
 cind she gets no interest on it, and the shops won"t 
 trust us a ha'penny more. We can't always pay 
 down for the kind of thing she likes, and must take 
 what we can pay for, or go without; and she thinks 
 we might do better for her if we would, and we don't 
 know how. The other day — I don' like to tell it of 
 her, even to you, Barbara, but I'm afraid she had 
 been taking too much, for she went to Mrs. Harman 
 and took me away, and said I could get much better 
 wages, and she didn't give me half what my work 
 was worth. I cried, for I couldn't help it, I was that 
 weak and broken-like, for I had had no breakfast that 
 morning — at least not to speak of, and I got up to go, 
 for I couldn't say a word, and wanted my mother 
 out of the place. But Mrs. Harman — she is a kind 
 woman ! — she interfered, and said my mother had no 
 right to take me away, and I must finish my month. 
 So I sat down again, and my mother was forced to 
 go. But when she was gone, Mrs. Harman said to 
 me, 'The best thing after all,' says she, 'that you 
 can do, Ally, is to let your mother have her way. 
 You just stop at home till she gets you a place where 
 they'll pay you better than I do ! She'll find out tlic 
 sooner that there isn't a better place to be had, for 
 it's a slack time now, and everybody has too many 
 hands ! When her pride comes down a bit, you come 
 and see whether I'm able to take you on again.' 
 Now wasn't that good of her? " 
 
 " M-m-m ! " said Barbara. " It was a slack time ! 
 — So you went home to your mother.? " 
 
 "Yes — and it was just as Mrs. Harman said : there 
 wasn't a stitch wanted ! I went from place to place, 
 asking — I nfearly killed myself walking about : walk- 
 ing's harder for one not used to it than sitting ever so 
 19 
 
290 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 long ! So I went back to Mrs. Harman, and told 
 her. She said she couldn't have me just then, but 
 she'd keep her eye on me. I went home nearly out 
 of my mind. Artie was growing worse and worse, 
 and I had nothing to do. It's a mercy it was warm 
 weather ; for when you haven't much to eat, the cold 
 is worse than the heat. Then in summer you can 
 walk on the shady side, but in winter there ain't no 
 sunny side. At last, one night as I lay awake, I 
 made up my mind I would go and see whether my 
 father was as hard-hearted as people said. Perhaps 
 he would help us over a week or two ; and if I hadn't 
 got work by that time, we should at least be able to 
 bear the hunger ! So the next day, without a word 
 to mother or Artie, I vset out and came down here." 
 
 "And you didn't see Sir Wilton ? " 
 
 "La, miss! who told you.? Did I let out the 
 name ? " 
 
 "No, you didn't; but, though there are a good 
 many baronets, they don't exactly crowd a neighbor- 
 hood ! What did he say to you ? " 
 
 "I ain't seen him yet, miss, — Barbara, I mean! 
 I went up to the lodge, and the woman looked me 
 all over, curious like, from head to foot ; and then 
 she said Sir Wilton wasn't at home, nor likely to be." 
 
 " What a lie ! " exclaimed Barbara, 
 
 "You know him then, Barbara.?" 
 
 " Yes ; but never mind. I must ask all my ques- 
 tions first, and then it will be your turn. What did 
 you do next.? " 
 
 "I went away, but I don't know what I did. How 
 I came to be sitting on that stone inside that gate, I 
 can't tell, I thiuk I must have gone searching for a 
 
ALICE AND BARBARA. 29 1 
 
 place to die in. Then Richard came. I tried hard to 
 keep him from knowing me, but I couldn't." 
 
 " You knew that Richard was there.'*" 
 
 "Where, miss.!" " 
 
 "At the baronet's place — Mortgrange." 
 
 "Lord, miss ! Then they've acknowledged him !" 
 
 "I don't know what you mean by that. He's 
 there mending their books." 
 
 "Then I oughtn't to have spoken. But it don't 
 matter — to you, Barbara ! No ; I knew nothing about 
 him being there, or anywhere else, for I'd lost sight 
 of him. It was a mere chance he found me. I didn't 
 know him till he spoke to me. I heard his step, but 
 I didn't look up. When I saw who it was I tried to 
 make him leave me — indeed I did, but he would take 
 me ! He carried me all the way to the cottage where 
 you found me." 
 
 " Why didn't you want him to know you ? What 
 have you against him .? " 
 
 " Not a thing, miss ! He would be a brother to 
 me if I would let him. It's a strange story, and I'm 
 not quite sure if I ought to tell it." 
 
 "Are you bound in any way not to tell it ? " 
 
 "No. She didn't tell me about it." 
 
 "You mean your mother ? " 
 
 "No; I mean his mother." 
 
 " I am getting bewildered ! " said Barbara. 
 
 "No wonder, miss! You'll be more bewildered 
 yet when I tell you all ! " 
 
 She was silent. Barbara saw she was feeling faint. 
 
 "What a brute I am to make you talk ! " she cried, 
 and ran to fetch her a cup of milk, which she made 
 her drink slowly. 
 
292 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "I must tell you everything \" said Alice, after 
 lying a moment or two silent. 
 
 " You shall, to-morrow," said Barbara. 
 
 " No ; I must now, please ! I must tell you about 
 Richard ! " 
 
 " Have you known him a long time ? " 
 
 "I call him Richard," said Alice, "because my 
 brother does. They were at school together. But 
 it is only of late — not a year ago, that I began to know 
 him. He came to see Arthur once, and then I went 
 with Arthur to see him and his people. But his 
 mother behaved very strangely to me and asked me 
 a great many questions that I thought she had no 
 business to ask me. Before that, I had noticed that 
 she kept looking from Arthur to Richard, and from 
 Richard to Arthur, in the oddest way ; I couldn't 
 make it out. Then she asked me to go to her bed- 
 room with her, and there she told me. She was very 
 rough to me, I thought, but I must say the tears were 
 in her own eyes ! She said she could not have Rich- 
 ard keeping company with us, for she knew what my 
 mother was, and who my father was, and we were 
 not respectable people, and it would never do. If 
 she heard of Richard going to our house once again, 
 she would have to do something we shouldn't like. 
 Then she cried quite, and said she was sorry to hurt 
 me, for I seemed a good girl, and it wasn't my fault, 
 but she couldn't help it ; the thing would be a mis- 
 chief. And there she stopped as if she had said too 
 much already. You may be sure \ thought myself 
 ill-used, and Arthur worse ; for we both liked Richard, 
 though my mother didn't think him at all our equal, 
 or fit to be a companion to Arthur ; for Arthur was 
 a clerk, while Richard worked with his hands. Arthur 
 
ALICE AND BARBARA. 293 
 
 said he worked with his hands too, and turned out 
 far poorer work than Richard — stupid figures instead 
 of beautiful books : and I said I worked with my 
 needle quite as hard as Richard with his tools ; but 
 it had no effect on my mother : her ways of looking- 
 at things are not the same as ours, because she was 
 born a lady. Why don't a lady have ladies, Barbara ? " 
 
 "Never you mind, Alice! Every good woman 
 will be a lady one day — I am sure of that ! It was 
 cruel to treat you so ! How anybody belonging to 
 Richard could do it, I can't think : he's so gentle and 
 good himself ! " 
 
 " He's the kindest and best of — of men, and I love 
 him," said Alice, earnestly. But I must tell you, Bar- 
 bara — I must make you understand that I have a 
 right to love him. When I told poor Arthur, as we 
 went home that night, that he wasn't to see anymore 
 of Richard, he could not help crying. I saw it, 
 though he tried to hide it. Of course I didn't let him 
 know I saw him cry. Men are ashamed of crying. 
 I ain't a bit. For Richard was the only school-fellow 
 ever was a friend to Artie. He once fought a big 
 fellow that used to torment him ! By the time we 
 got home, I was boiling over with rage, and told 
 mamma all about it. Angry as I was, her anger 
 frightened mine out of me. ' The insolent woman ! ' 
 she cried. ' But I'll soon have a rod in pickle for 
 her ! I'll have my revenge of her — that you shall 
 soon see ! My children weren't good enough for her 
 tradesman-fellow, weren't they ! She said that, did 
 she .? She ain't the only one has got eyes in her head ! 
 Didn't you see me look at him as sharp as she did at 
 you.'' If ever face told tale without meaning to tell 
 it, that's the face of the young man you call Richard ! 
 
194 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 He's a Lcstrange, as sure's there's a God in heaven ! 
 lie's got the mark as plain as Sir WiUon himself! 
 — r.ot a feature the same, I grant, but Lestrange is 
 writ in every one of them ! I'll take my oath who 
 was h/'s father ! — And there she goes as mim and as 
 pnm — — !' 'No, mamma, I said, 'that she does 
 not. She looks as fierce as a lioness ! ' I said. 
 'What's her name?' asked my mother. 'Take,' 
 J answered. ' Was there ever such a name ! ' she 
 cried. 'It's fitter for a dog than a human being! 
 But it's good enough for her anyway. What washer 
 m iden name ? Who was she ? There's the point I ' 
 'But if what you suspect be true, mamma,' I said, 
 ' then she had good reason for wishing us parted ! ' 
 ' She ought to have come to me about it ! ' said my 
 mother. ' She ought to have left it to me to say 
 what should be done ! I'm not married to a dirty 
 tradesman ! ' I'm not telling you exactly what she 
 said, miss, because when she loses her temper, 
 poor mamma don't always speak quite like a lady, 
 though of course she is one, all the same ! I 
 said no more, but I thought how kindly Richard al- 
 ways looked at me, and my heart grew big inside 
 me to think that Artie and I had him for our own 
 brother. Nobody could touch that ! He had notions 
 I didn't like — for, do you know, Barbara, he believes 
 we just go out like a candle that can never again be 
 lighted any more. He thinks there's no life after this 
 one ! He can't have loved anybody much, I fear, to 
 be able to think that ! You don't agree with him, 
 I'm certain, miss ! But I thought, if he was my 
 brother, I might be able to help change his mind 
 about it. I thought I would be so good to him that 
 he wouldn't like me to die forever and ever, and 
 
ALICE AND BARBARA. 295 
 
 would come to see things differently. I had nc) 
 friend, not one, you see, miss — Barbara, I mean — 
 except Arthur, and he never has much to say about 
 anything, though he's as true as steel ; and I thought 
 it would be bliss to have a man-friend — I mean 
 a good man for a real friend, and I knew Richard 
 would be that, though he was a brother ! Most 
 brothers are not friends to poor girls. I know three 
 whose brothers get all they can out of them, and 
 don't care how they have to slave for it, and then 
 spend it on treats to other girls ! But I was sure 
 Richard was good, though he wasn't religious ! So 
 I said to mamma that, now we knew all about it, 
 there could be no reason why we shouldn't see as 
 much of each other as ever we liked, seeing Richard 
 was our brother. But she paid no heed to me ; she 
 sat thinking and thinking; and I read in her face 
 that she was not in a brown study, but trying to get 
 at something. It was many minutes before she 
 spoke, but she did at last, and what she told us is 
 my secret, Barbara ! But I'm not bound to keep it 
 from you, for I know you would not hurt Richard, 
 and you have a right to know whatever I know, for 
 you found my life and wrapped it up in love and 
 gave it back to me, dear Barbara ! — It was not a 
 pretty story for a mother to tell her children — and 
 it's a sore grief not to be able to think every\ki\\\^ 
 that's good of your mother ; but it's all past now ; — 
 and it isn't our fault — is it, Barbara.?" 
 
 "Your fault!" cried Barbara, "What do you 
 mean .? " 
 
 "People treat us as if it were." 
 
 "Never you mind. You've got a Father in 
 heaven to see to that ! " 
 
296 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Thank you, Barbara ! You make me so happy ! 
 Now I can tell you all! — 'I've got it ! ' cried my 
 mother. ' Bless my soul, what an ass I was not to 
 see through it at once ! Now you just listen to me : 
 Sir Wilton was married before he married his present 
 wife. He never thought of getting rid of me for the 
 first one, you understand, for she wasn't a lady — 
 though they do say she was a handsome creature ! 
 She was that low, you wouldn't believe ! — ^just no- 
 body at all ! Her father was — what do you think.? 
 — a country blacksmith ! And though he had me, 
 he -ivoiild marry her ! Oh the men ! the men ! they 
 are incomprehensible ! It made me mad ! To tliink 
 he wouldn't marry me, and he would marry her, and 
 I might have had him myself "if I'd only been as hard- 
 hearted and stood out as long ! But the fact was, I 
 was in love M'ith your father ! No one could help it, 
 when he laid himself out to make you ! I couldn't 
 anyhow, though I tried hard. But she could ! For all 
 her beauty, she was that cold ! ice was nothing to her ! 
 He told me so himself ! — Well, when her time came, 
 she died — never more than just saw the child, and 
 died. I believe myself she died of fright ; for Sir 
 Wilton told me he was the ugliest child ever came 
 into this world ! He must, said his father, have 
 come straight from the devil, for no one else could 
 have made him so ugly! Well, what must your 
 father go and do next, but marry an earl's daughter ! 
 — nobody too good for him after the blacksmith's } 
 — and within a month or so, what should his nurse 
 do but walk off with the child! From that day to 
 this, so far as ever I've heard, there's been no news 
 of him. It's years and years that all the world has 
 given him up for lost. Now mark what I say : I feel 
 
ALICE AND BARBARA. 297 
 
 morally certain that this Richard, as you call him, is 
 that same child, and heir to all the Lestrange prop- 
 erty ! That woman Tuke — what a name ! — she's 
 the nurse that carried him off; and who knows but 
 the man married her for the chance of what the 
 child's succession might bring them ! They mean 
 to tell the fellow, when the proper time comes, how 
 they saved him from being murdered by his step- 
 mother, and carried him off at the risk of their lives ! 
 Well they knew him for a pot of money ! You may 
 be certain they've got all the proofs safe ! I liate the 
 ugly devil ! What right has he to come to an estate, 
 and have my children looked dowir upon by Mrs. 
 Bookbinder ! I'll put a spoke in her wheel, though ! 
 I'll have one little finger in their pie ! They sha'n't 
 burn their mouths with it — no, not they ! ' I treasured 
 every word my mother said — I was so glad all the 
 while to think of Richard as the head of the family. 
 I could not help the feeling that I belonged to the 
 family, for was not the same blood in Richard and in 
 us? 'Alice,' my mother said, 'mark my words! 
 That Richard, as you call him, is heir to the title 
 and estate ! But if you speak one word on the 
 subject until I give you leave, to your Richard or to 
 any live soul, I'll tear your tongue out — I will ! — And 
 you know well that what I say, I do ! ' I knew well 
 that poor mamma very seldom did what she said, 
 and I was not afraid of her ; but I grew more and 
 more afraid of doing anything to interfere with 
 Richard's prospects. I met him one night in Regent 
 street, a terrible, stormy night, and was so fluttered 
 at seeing him, and so frightened lest I should let 
 something out that might injure him, that I nearly 
 killed myself by running against a lamp-post in my 
 
290 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 hurry to get away from him. But to be quite honest 
 with you, Barbara, what I was most afraid of was, 
 that he would go on faUing' in love with me ; and that, 
 when he found out what we were to each other, it 
 would break his heart : I have heard of such a thing ! 
 For you see I durst not tell him ! And besides, it 
 mightn't be so, after all ! So I had to be cruel to him ! 
 He must have thought me a brute ! And now for 
 him to appear, far away from everywhere, just in 
 time to save me from dying of cold and hunger — ain't 
 it wonderful ? " 
 
 But Barbara sat silent. It was her turn to sit think- 
 ing and thinking. Why had the strange story come 
 to her ears ? There must be something for her to do 
 in the next chapter of it ! 
 
 "How much do you think Richard may know 
 about the thing. i* " she asked. 
 
 " I don't believe he has a suspicion that he is any- 
 thing but the son of the book-binder," Alice answered. 
 " If Mrs. Tuke did take him, I wonder why it really 
 was. What do you think, Barbara.? To me she 
 does not look at all a designing woman. She may be a 
 daring one : I could fancy her sticking at nothing she 
 saw reason for ! If she did it, she f?ius/ have done it 
 for the sake of the child ! " 
 
 ' ' It was much too great a risk to run for any advan- 
 tage to herself, " assented Barbara. "Then they have 
 had to provide for him all the time ! Have they any 
 children of their own .? '"' 
 
 " I don't think any." 
 
 "Then it is possible she took such a fancy to the 
 child she was nursing, that she could not bear to part 
 with him. I have heard of women like that, out with 
 us. — But what arc we to do, Alice.? Is it right to 
 
ALICE AND BARBARA. 299 
 
 leave the thing so ? Ought we not to do anything? " 
 
 "I don't know; I can't tell a bit I " answered 
 Alice. " I have thought and thought, lying alone in 
 the night, but never could make up my mind. Sup- 
 posing you were sure it was so, there is yet the 
 danger of interfering witli those who know all about 
 him, and can do the best for him ; and there's the 
 danger of what my mother might be tempted to do the 
 moment any one moved in the matter. To hasten the 
 thing might spoil all ! — Isn't it strange, Barbara, how 
 much your love for your mother seems independent 
 of her — her character ? " 
 
 " I don't know ; — yes, I think you are right. There 
 is my mother, who has no guile in her, but is ready 
 to burn you to ashes before you know what she is 
 angry about ! When you trust her, and go to her for 
 help, she is ready to die for you. I love her with all 
 my heart, but I can't say she's an exemplary woman. 
 I don't think Mr. Wingfold — that's our clergyman — 
 would say so either, though he professes quite an 
 admiration of her." 
 
 Thereupon Barbara told Alice the story of her 
 mother's behavior in church, and how the parson had 
 caught her. 
 
 " But nobody knows to this day," she concluded, 
 " whether he intended so to catch her, or was only 
 teaching his people by a parable, and she caught her- 
 self in its meshes. Caught she was, anyhow, and 
 has never entered the church since ! But she speaks 
 very differently of the clergyman now." 
 
 "I feel greatly tempted sometimes," resumed Alice, 
 "to let Richard knovi' ; for, surely, whatever be the 
 projects of other people concerning him, a man has 
 the right to know where he came from ! " 
 
300 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " Yes," answered Bcirbara, " a man must have the 
 right to know what other people know about him ! 
 And yet it would be a pity to ruin the plans of good 
 people who had all the time been working and caring 
 for him. I wonder if he was in danger from Lady 
 Ann ? I have heard out there of terrible things done 
 to get ones way I She is a death-like woman ! His 
 nurse might well be afraid of what his stepmother 
 might do ! I can quite fancy her making off with 
 him in an agony of terror lest he should be poisoned, 
 or smothered, or buried alive ! But what if they sent 
 him away, with a hint to the nurse that his absence 
 might as well be permanent.? What if any search 
 they made for him was nothing but a farce .'' T wish 
 \xe knew what ground there is for inquiring whether 
 he may not be the child that was lost — if indeed there 
 was a child lost ! I have not heard at the house any 
 allusion to such an occurrence." 
 
 Much more talk ensued. The girls came to the 
 conclusion that, for the present, they must do nothing 
 that might let the secret out of their keeping. They 
 must wait and watch : when the right thing grew 
 plain, they would do it ! 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 BARBARA THINKS. 
 
 Barbara rode home with strange things in her mind. 
 Here was a romance brought to her very door ! She 
 M'^as nowise hungry after romance, being of the es- 
 sence of romance her own lovely self, in the simplic- 
 ity which carried her direct to the heart of things. 
 She M'-as life in such relation to life, that her very ex- 
 istence was natural romance. How should there be 
 any romance to equal that of pure being, of existence 
 regarded and encountered face to face, of the voyage 
 forth from the heart of life, and the toilsome journey, 
 peril-beset, back to the home of that same heart of 
 hearts ! Here was one wrapt in a strange cloud : 
 Why should she not pass through the cloud, and join 
 her fellow-traveller within ? 
 
 Naturally then, from this time, the thoughts of 
 Barbara rested not a little upon the person and un- 
 devloped history of the man with whose being she 
 was before linked by a greater indebtedness than any 
 but herself could understand. Any enlargement of 
 relation to the unseen world — the world, I mean, of 
 thought and reality, region of recognizable relation, 
 or force — is an immeasurably more precious gift than 
 any costliest thing that a mortal may call his own 
 until death, but must then pass on to another ; and 
 Richard had thrown open to Barbara the wealthiest 
 regions of the literature of her race ! She, on her part, 
 had so much influenced him, that he had at least 
 
302 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 become far less overbearing in the presentment of his 
 unbelief. For Barbara's idea, call it, if you will, her 
 imagination of a God, was one with which none of 
 those things for the hate's sake of which he had be- 
 come the champion of a negation, held fellowship ; 
 and he carried himself toward it with so much cour- 
 tesy that she had begun to hope he was slowly follow- 
 ing her out of the desert places, where, little as she 
 yet knew about God, she felt life impossible. The 
 strongest bonds were thus in process of binding them ; 
 and Barbara's feeling toward Richard might very 
 naturally develop into one or other of the million 
 forms to which we give the common name of love. 
 As for Richard, he was already aware that his 
 feeling toward Barbara could be no other than love ; 
 but he knew love as only the few know it who give 
 themselves, who cherish no hope, look for no re- 
 sponse, dream of no claim. To e.xpect any return 
 of his devotion would have seemed to Richard the 
 simplest absurdity. He did not even say to himself 
 that the thing could not be. Not therefore, however, 
 was he to escape suffering ; the seeds of it were 
 already sown in him plentifully, though its first leaves 
 are not to be distinguished from those of other j^lar.ts, 
 and it sometimes takes long for the flower to ap- 
 jiear. Barbara was lovely to Richard as the Luna 
 of a heavenly sky, descending and talking with him, 
 the Diana of a lower world, bound by her destiny, 
 and without a choice, to return to her heaven, and 
 be once more the far, unapproachable Luna. She 
 shone in his eyes like a lovely mysterious gem which 
 he might wear for an hour, but which must present- 
 ly, with its hundredfold shadow and shine, pass from 
 his keeping. He knew that love was his, but he did 
 
BARBARA THINKS. 303 
 
 not know that he was Love's. He knew he loved 
 Barbara, but he did not know that her exquisiteness 
 was permeating his whole being with an endless 
 possession. In truth no man good and free could 
 have kept her soul out of his. She was so delicate, 
 yet so strong ; so steady, yet so ready ; so original, 
 yet so infinitely responsive — what could he do but 
 throw his doors wide to her ! what could he do but 
 love her ! 
 
 And now that Barbara believed she knew more 
 about him than he did himself ; now that the road 
 appeared to lie open between them, would she es- 
 cape falling in love with such a man whose hands 
 of labor were mastered with a head full of under- 
 standing, and whose head was quickened by a heart 
 in which dwelt an imagination at once receptive and 
 productive ? Could any true woman despise the love 
 of such a workman ? 
 
 From this time, for some weeks, they saw less of 
 each other. Without knowing it, Barbara had, since 
 the revelation of Alice, grown a little shy of Richard. 
 It came of her truthfulness, mainly. As Dante felt 
 ashamed of the discourteous advantage of alone pos- 
 sessing eyesight in the presence of the poor souls 
 upon the second cornice of the purgatorial mountain, 
 just so Barbara, without altogether defining to her- 
 self her feeling, regarded it as unfair to Richard, as 
 indeed taking an advantage of him, to seek his com- 
 pany knowing about him more than she seemed to 
 know. She felt even deceitful in appearing to know 
 of him only what he chose to tell her, while in truth 
 she more than suspected she knew of him what he 
 did not know himself. She not only knew more 
 than she seemed to know, but she knew more than 
 
304 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Richard himself knew ! At the same time she felt 
 that she had no right to tell him what she almost 
 believed ; she ought first to be certain of it ! If the 
 conjecture were untrue, what harm might it not, 
 believed by him, occasion both to him and his 
 parents ! Supposing it true, if those who had cherished 
 him all his life did not tell him the fact, could it 
 be right in her, coming by accident upon it, to ac- 
 quaint him with it? Whether true or not, it must, if 
 believed by him, change the whole tenor of his way 
 — might perhaps, seeing he had no faith in God, de- 
 stroy the very tone of his life; certainly, if untrue, it 
 would cause endless grief to the parents whom to Ue- 
 lieve it would be to repudiate ! Richard was indeed, 
 she allowed, in less danger of being injured by the 
 suggestion than any other young man she had 
 known ; but the risk, a great one, was there. 
 
 She did not now, therefore, go so often to Mort- 
 grange. Every day she went out for her gallop — 
 unattended, for, accustomed to the freedom of hun- 
 dreds of leagues of wild country, the very notion of 
 a groom behind her was hateful — and would often 
 find herself making for some point whence she could 
 see the chimneys of the house when the resolve of 
 the day was one of abstinence, but that resolve 
 she never broke. If it was not the drawing-room 
 and Theodora, but the library and Richard; not the 
 hideous flowers that happily never came alive from 
 Lady Ann's needle, but the old books reviving to au- 
 tumnal beauty under the patient, healing touch of 
 the craftsman, that ever drew her all the way, who 
 can wonder ? Or who will blame her but such as 
 Lady Ann, whose kind, though slowly, yet surely 
 vanishes — melting, like the grimy snow of our streets, 
 
BARBARA THINKS. 305 
 
 before the sun of righteousness, and the coming- 
 kingdom. 
 
 Lady Ann and she were now on the same footing 
 as before their misunderstanding, if indeed their 
 whole relation was anything better than a misunder- 
 standing ; for what Lady Ann knew of Barbara she 
 misunderstood, and what she did not know of Bar- 
 bara was the best of her ; while what Barbara knew 
 of Lady Ann, she also misunderstood, and what she 
 did not know of Lady Ann was the worse of her. 
 But Barbara had told Lady Ann that she was sorry 
 she had spoken to her as she had, and Lady Ann had 
 received the statement as an expected apology. 
 Their quarrel had indeed given Lady Ann no uneasi- 
 ness. Daughter of one ancient house, and mother 
 in another, a pillar of society, a live dignity with 
 matronly back flat as any coffin-lid, she was of course 
 in the right, and could afford to await the acknowl- 
 edgment of wrong due and certain from an ill bred 
 and ill educated chit of the colonies ! For how 
 could any one continue indifferent to the favor of 
 Lady Ann ! She was incapable of perceiving the 
 merit of Barbara's apology, or appreciating the sweet- 
 ness from which it came. For the genial Barbara 
 could not bear dissension. She had seen enough 
 of it to hate it. In just defense of a friend she 
 would fight to the last, but in any matter of her own, 
 she was ready to see, or even imagine herself in the 
 wrong. Anger in its reaction always made her feel 
 ill, which feeling she was apt to take for a reminder 
 from conscience, when she would make haste to 
 apologize. 
 
 Lady Ann's relations with Barbara were therefore 
 not so much restored as unchanged. The elder lady 
 
3o6 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 neither sought nor avoided the younger, gave her 
 always the same cold welcome and farewell, yet 
 was as much pleased to see her as ever to see any- 
 body. She regarded her as the merest of butterflies, 
 with pretty flutter and no stay — a creature of wings 
 and nonsense, carried hither and thither by slightest 
 puff of inclination : it was the judgment of a cater- 
 pillar upon a humming-bird. There was more stuff 
 in Barbara, with all her seeming volatility, than in a 
 wilderness of Lady Anns. The friendship between 
 such a twain could hardly consist in more than the 
 absence of active disapproval. 
 
 When Barbara went into the library, she would 
 always greet Richard as if she had seen him but the 
 day before, asking what piece of work he was at 
 now, and showing an interest in it as genuine as her 
 interest in himself. If there was anything in it she 
 did not quite understand, he must there and then ex- 
 plain it. So eager was she to know, that he had not 
 seldom to remind her that his minutes were not his 
 own. But now and then he would lay aside his 
 work for a time, never forgetting to make up for the 
 interval afterward, and show her some process from 
 beginning to end. For Barbara, finding now more 
 time on her hands, had begun to try her repairing 
 faculty on some of the old books in the house, hoping 
 one day to surprise Richard with what she had done, 
 and this led to her asking many and far-reaching 
 questions in the art. 
 
 But Richard continued to give her his more im- 
 portant aid: he was still her master in literature, 
 directing her what to read and what to meditate, and 
 instructing her how to get her mind to rest on things. 
 He was the most capable of teachers, for he followed 
 
BARBARA THINKS. 307 
 
 simply the results of his own experience. Havin<^ 
 prepared for her, with his father's help, a manuscript 
 book of hand-made paper, bouiKl in levant morocco, 
 the edges gilded in the rough, he made her copy 
 certain poems into it, attending carefully to every 
 point and each minutest formality. He would not 
 have her copy whatever she might choose ; she could 
 not yet, he said, choose to advantage ; for she was 
 of such a ' ' keen clear joyance, " that, happy over what 
 was not the best, she would waste her love. But 
 neither would he altogether choose for her : from 
 among the poems he had already brought before her 
 she must take those she liked best ! This, he said, 
 would make her choice a real one, for it would take 
 place between poems already known to her, with 
 regard to which therefore she was in a position to de- 
 termine her own preference. Then the unavoidable 
 brooding over it caused in the copying of the one 
 chosen, would make it grow in her mind, and assume 
 something of the shape it had in the author's. 
 
 To Arthur Lestrange, who, notwithstanding the 
 unlikeness between him and Barbara, and notwith- 
 standing the frequent shocks his conventional pro- 
 priety received from her divine liberty, had been for 
 some time falling in love with her, these interviews, 
 which he never hesitated to interrupt the moment he 
 pleased, could hardly be agreeable. He never sup- 
 posed that in them anything passed of which he could 
 have complained had he been the girl's affanced 
 lover ; but he did not relish the thought that she looked 
 to the workman and not his employer for help in her 
 studies. Nor was it consolation to him to be aware 
 that he could no more give her what the workman 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 gave her, than he could teach her his bookbinding — 
 and which also the eager Barbara grasped. 
 
 At Wylder Hall no questions were ever asked as to 
 how she had spent the day. Her mother, although 
 now that her twin was gone, she loved her best in 
 the world, never troubled her head about what she 
 did with herself. Although Barbara was now a little 
 more at home than formerly, she and her mother 
 were scarcely together an hour in a week except 
 at meals. She thought Arthur Lestrange would make 
 a good enough husband for Bab, and, having chanced 
 on some sign that her husband cherished hopes of a 
 loftier alliance, grew rather favorable to a match 
 between them. 
 
 There was, however, a little betterment in Mrs. 
 Wylder, and ceasing to go to church was only one 
 of the indications of it. She had in her a foundation 
 of genuine simplicity, and was in essence a generous 
 soul. Any one who wondered at the combination 
 of strange wild charm and honest strength in the 
 daughter, would have wondered much less had he 
 gained the least insight into what, beneath the ruin 
 of earthquake and tornado, lay buried in the soul of 
 her mother. The best of changes is slow in most 
 natures, and the main question is, perhaps, whether 
 it goes slowly because of feebleness and instability, 
 and consequent frequency of relapse, or because of 
 the root-nature, the thoroughness, and the magni- 
 tude of what has been initiated. But Mrs, Wylder 
 was tropical : any real change in her would soon 
 reach a point where it must become swift as well as 
 comprehensive. 
 
 Since returning to the trammels of a more civilized 
 life, Mr. Wylder had grown self-absorbed, and from 
 
BARBARA THINKS. 309 
 
 a loud, lawless man had become a sombre, some- 
 times morose person. One great cause of the change, 
 however, was, that the remaining twin, his favorite, 
 had for some time shown signs of a failing constitu- 
 tion. His increasing feebleness weighed heavily on 
 his father. He had had a tutor ever since they came 
 to England, but now they did little or no work to- 
 together, spending their hours mostly in wandering 
 about the grounds, and in fitful reading of books of 
 any sort in which the boy could be led to take a pass- 
 ing interest. Barbara's heart yearned after him, but 
 he was greatly attached to his nurse, and did not 
 care for Barbara. 
 
 The dissension between husband and wife about 
 the twins, had its origin mainly with the mother, but 
 sprung from the generosity of her nature : the twin 
 she favored was sickly from infancy. A woman such 
 as Mrs. Wylder might have been expected to shrink 
 from the puny, suffering creature, and give her affec- 
 tion and approbation to the other, as did her hus- 
 band ; but it was just here that the true in her, the 
 the pure womanly, came to the surface and then to 
 the front : the child had an appealing look, which, 
 when first she saw him, v^^ent straight to the heart of 
 the strong mother, and afterward roused, if not enough 
 of the protective, yet all the defensive in her. From 
 herself she did not, and from death she could not 
 save him. He died rather suddenly, and now the 
 strong one seemed slowly sinking. The mother did 
 not heed him, and the father, for very misery, could 
 scarcely look at him : he was to him like one dead 
 already, only not dead enough to be buried. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 
 
 The bickerings between her father and mother had 
 had not a httle to do with the pecuh'ar features of 
 Barbara's life in the colony. As soon as she saw a 
 cloud rising, having learned by frequent experience 
 what it was sure to result in, she would creep away, 
 mount one of the many horses at her choice, and 
 race from the house like a dog in terror, till she was 
 miles from the spot where her father and mother 
 would by that time be writhing in fiercest wordy 
 warfare. What the object of their wrangling might 
 be, she never inquired. It was plain to her almost 
 from the first that nothing was gained by it beyond 
 the silence of fatigue ; and as that silence was always 
 fruitful of new strife, it brought a comfort known to 
 be but temporary. Had she not been accustomed to 
 it from earliest childhood, it would have been terrible 
 to her to see human lives going off in such a foul 
 smoke of hell ! Not a sentence was uttered by the 
 one but was furiously felt as a wrong by the other — 
 to be remorselessly met by wrong as flagrant, rous- 
 ing in its turn the indignation of injury to a pain 
 unendurable. It is strange that the man v.-lio most 
 keenly feels the wrong done him, should so often be 
 the most insensible to the wrong he does. So 
 dominant is the unreason of the moment, that the 
 injury he inflicts appears absolute justice, and the 
 injury he suffers absolute injustice. Yet such dis- 
 
WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 3II 
 
 ]-)utes turn seldom upon the main point a issue be- 
 tween the parties ; it may not even once be men- 
 tioned, while some new trifle is fought over with all 
 the bitterness of the aHenation that lies gnawing and 
 biting and burning beneath. War is raging between 
 kingdoms for the possession of a hovel, which pos- 
 sessed, the quarrel were no nearer settlement than 
 before ! 
 
 Hence it came that Barbara paid so little regard to 
 her mother's challenge of the clergyman. Single 
 combat of the sort she seemed to seek was an ex- 
 perience of Barbara's life too often recurrent to be 
 interesting ; the thunders of its artillery, near or afar, 
 passed over her almost unheeded. She had indeed 
 sufficient respect for the forms of religion to regret 
 that her mother should make her behavior in church 
 the talk of the parish, and to be rather pleased that 
 the clergyman should have had the best of it in his 
 joust of arms with her, but further interest in the 
 matter she scarcely took. 
 
 On a certain day. Miss Brown wanting at least one 
 pair of new shoes, and her mistress cherishing the 
 idea of a lesson in shoeing her, for which lesson 
 arrangement had not even yet been made, Barbara, 
 having been all the afternoon in the house, went out 
 toward sunset, to have a walk with a book. 
 
 She was sauntering along a grassy road which, 
 though within their own park, belonged to the pub- 
 lic, when she almost ran against a man similarly 
 occupied with herself, for he also was absorbed in 
 the book he carried. I should like to know what two 
 books brought them thus together ! Each started 
 back with an apology, then both burst into a modest 
 laugh, which renewed itself with merrier ring, when 
 
312 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 the first and then the second attempt to pass, with 
 all space for elbow-room, failed, and they stood 
 opposite each other in a hopeless mental paralysis. 
 
 " Fate is opposed to our unneighborliness ! " said 
 Mr. Wingfold. "She will not allow us to pass, and 
 depart in peace ! What do you say, Miss Wylder ? 
 — shall we yield or shall we resist ? " 
 
 As he spoke, he held out his hand. 
 
 Now Barbara was the last person in the world to 
 refuse, without a painfully good reason, any offered 
 hand. She had never seen cause to desire the ac- 
 quaintance of a man because he was a clergyman ; 
 but neither had she any unwillingness, because he 
 was a clergyman, to make his acquaintance ; while 
 to Thomas Wingfold she already felt some attrac- 
 tion : the strong little hand was in his immediately, 
 and felt comfortable in the great honest clasp, which 
 it returned heartily. 
 
 "I never saw you on your own feet before, Miss 
 Wylder ! " said the clergyman. 
 
 "Nor on anybody else's, I hope ! " she returned. 
 
 "Oh, yes, indeed! — on Miss Brown's many a 
 time ! " 
 
 "You know Miss Brown then.? She is my most 
 intimate friend ! " 
 
 "I am well aware of that! Everything worth 
 knowing in the parish, and a good deal that is not, 
 comes to my ears." 
 
 " May I hope you count Miss Brown's affairs worth 
 hearing about, then ? " 
 
 " Of course I do ! Does not a lady call her friend, 
 whose acquaintance I have long wished to make ! 
 and do I not knoM'' that Miss Brown loves her in 
 return ! I cannot help sometimes regretting for a 
 
WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 313 
 
 moment that four-footed friends in g-eneral are so 
 shortlived." 
 
 " Why only for a moment ? " said Barbara. 
 
 " Because I remind myself that it must be best for 
 them and us — best for the friendship between us, best 
 for us every way. But indeed I have more to be 
 thankful for in the relation than most people of my 
 acquaintance, for I sometimes drive a pony yet that 
 is over forty 1 " 
 
 ' * Forty years of age ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I should like to see that pony ! ' 
 
 " You shall see her, any day you will come to the 
 parsonag-e. I will gladly introduce her to you, but 
 it is getting rather late to desire her acquaintance : 
 she does not see very well, and is not so good-tem- 
 pered as she once was. But she will soon be better." 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 " She has a process to go through out of which she 
 will come ever so much the better." 
 
 "Good gracious! you're not going to have an 
 operation performed on her — at her age ? " 
 
 ' ' She is going to have her body stript off her ! " 
 
 " Good gracious ! " cried Barbara again, but with 
 yet greater energy — then seeing what he meant, 
 laughed at her mistake. 
 
 "But then," she said, with eager resumption, " you 
 must believe there is something to strip her body 
 off.? /do ! I have always thought so ! " 
 
 " So have I, and so I do indeed ! " answered Wing- 
 ford. " I can't prove it. I can't prove anything — 
 to my own satisfaction, that is, though I dare say I 
 might to the satisfaction of one who did not love 
 the creatures enough to be anxious about them. I 
 
314 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 don't think you can prove anything that is worth 
 being- anxious about." 
 
 "Then why do you believe it.? " asked Barbara, 
 influenced by the talk of the century. 
 
 " Because I can" answ^ered Wingfold. "To be- 
 lieve and to be able to prove, have little or nothing 
 to do with each other. To believe and to convince 
 have much to do with each other." 
 
 " But," persisted Barbara, with Richard in her mind, 
 " how are you to be sure of a thing you can't prove .-• " 
 
 " That's a good question, and this is my answer," 
 said Wingfold: — "What you love, you already 
 believe enough to put it to the proof of trial. My life 
 is such a proving ; and the proof is so promising 
 that it fills me with the happiest hope. To prove 
 with your brains the thing you love, would be to 
 deck the garments of salvation with a useless fringe. 
 Shall I search heaven and earth for proof that my 
 wife is a good and lovely woman ? The signs of it 
 are everywhere ; the proofs of it nowhere." 
 
 They walked along for a while, side by side, in 
 silence. Which had turned and gone with the other 
 neither knew. Barbara was beginning already to 
 feel that safety which almost everybody sooner or 
 later came to feel in Wingfold's company — a safety 
 born of the sense that, in the closest talk, he never 
 lay in .wait for a victory, but took his companion, as 
 one of his own people, into the end after which he 
 was striving. 
 
 "Then," said Barbara at length, still thinking of 
 Richard, " if you believe that even the beasts are 
 saved, you must think it very bad of a man not to 
 believe in a God ! " 
 
 "I should think anyhow that he didn't care much 
 
WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 3 I 5 
 
 about the beasts — that he hadn't a heart big- enough 
 to take the beasts in ! " 
 
 "But he couldn't, you know, if he didn't believe 
 in God ! " 
 
 "I understand; only, if he loved the poor beasts 
 very much, and thought what a bad time they have 
 of it in the world, 1 don't know how he could help 
 hoping, at least, that there was a God somewhere 
 who would somehow make up to them for it all ! For 
 my own part I don't know how to be content except 
 the beasts themselves, when it is all over and the 
 good time come, are able to say, 'After all, it is well 
 worth it, bad as it was ! ' " 
 
 "But what if it was just that suffering that made 
 the man think there could not be a God, or he would 
 put a stop to it ? " 
 
 "That looks to me very close to believing in God." 
 
 " How do you make that out .? " 
 
 "If a man believed in a God that did not heed the 
 suffering of the creation, one who made men and 
 women and beasts knowing that they must suffer, 
 and suffer only — and went on believing so however 
 you set him thinking about it, I should say to him, 
 ' You believe in a devil, and so are in the way to be- 
 come a devil yourself.' A thousand times rather 
 would I believe that there was no God, and that the 
 misery came by chance from which there was no 
 escape. What I do believe is that there is a God who 
 is even now doing his best to take all men and all 
 beasts out of the misery in which they find them- 
 selves." 
 
 "But why did he let them come into it .? " 
 
 "That the God will tell them, to their satisfaction, 
 so soon as ever they shall have become capable of 
 
31 6 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 understanding it. There must be things so entirely 
 beyond our capacity, that we cannot now see enough 
 of them to be able even to say that they are incom- 
 prehensible. There must be millions of truths that 
 have not yet risen above the horizon of what we call 
 the finite." 
 
 '•' Then you would not think a person so very, very 
 wicked for not believing in a God ? " 
 
 " That depends on the sort of God he fancied him- 
 self asked to believe in. Would you call a Greek 
 philosopher wicked for not believing in Mercury or 
 Venus? If a man had the same notion of God that 
 I have, or anything like it, and did not at least desire 
 that there might be such a God, then I confess I 
 should have difficulty in understanding how he could 
 be good. But the God offered him might not be 
 worth believing in, might even be such that it was a 
 virtuous act to refuse to believe in him." 
 
 "One thing more, Mr. Wingfold — and you must 
 not think I am arguing against you or against God, 
 for if I thought there was no God, I should just take 
 poison : — tell me, mightn't a man think the idea of 
 such a God as you believe in too good to be true? " 
 
 "I should need to know something of his history 
 rightly to understand that. Why should he be able 
 to think anything too good to be true.?- Why should 
 a thing not be true because it was good ? It seems 
 to me, if a thing be bad, it cannot possibly be true. 
 If you say the thing is, I answer it exists because of 
 something under the badness. Badness by itself can 
 have no life in it. But if the man really thought as you 
 suggest, I would say to him, 'You cannot A;«oz£^ such 
 a being does not exist : is it possible you should be 
 content that such a being should not exist? If such 
 
WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 317 
 
 a being did exist, would you be content never to find 
 him, but to go on forever and ever saying. He ca?ii 
 be! He can' I be ! He's so good he can I be! Suppos- 
 ing you find one day that there he is, will your de- 
 fence before him be satisfactory to yourself: "There 
 he is after all, but he was too good to believe in, there- 
 fore I did not try to find him"? Will you say to 
 him — " I/you had not been so good, i/you had been 
 a little less good, a little worse, Just a trifle bad, I could 
 and would have believed in you p" ' " 
 
 " But if the man could not believe there was any 
 such being, how could he have heart to look for 
 him ? " 
 
 " If he believed the idea of him so good, yet did 
 not desire such a being enough to wish that he 
 might be, enough to feel it worth his while to cry 
 out, in some fashion or other, after him, then I 
 could not help suspecting something wrong in his 
 M'ill, or his moral nature somewhere ; or, perhaps, 
 that the words he spoke were but words, and that 
 he did not really and truly feel that the idea of such 
 a God was too good to be true. In any such case 
 his maker would not have cause to be satisfied with 
 him. And if his maker was not satisfied with what 
 he had made, do you think the man made would 
 have cause to be satisfied with himself.?" 
 
 ' ' But if he was made so ? " 
 
 "Then no good being, not to say a faithful 
 creator, would blame him for what he could not 
 help. If the God had made his creature incapable 
 of knowing him, then of course the creature would 
 not feel that he needed to know him. He would be 
 where we generally imagine the lower animals — 
 
31 8 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 unable, therefore not caring to know who made 
 him." 
 
 " But is not that just the point ? A man may say 
 truly, 'I don't feel 1 want to know anything about 
 God ; I do not believe I am made to understand him; 
 I take no interest in the thought of a God ' ! " 
 
 "Before I could answer you concerning such a 
 man, I should want to know whether he had not 
 been doing as he knew he ought not to do, living as 
 he knew he ought not to live, and spoiling himself, 
 so spoiling the thing that God had made that, 
 although naturally he would like to know about 
 God, yet now, through having by wrong-doing in- 
 jured his deepest faculty of understanding, he did 
 not care to know anything concerning him." 
 
 " What could be done for such a man ? " 
 
 "God knows — God does know. I think he will 
 make his very life a terrible burden, so that for pure 
 misery he will cry to him." 
 
 "But suppose he was a man who tried to do 
 right, who tried to help his neighbor, who was at 
 least so far a good man as to deny the God that most 
 people seem to believe in — what would you say 
 then .? " 
 
 " I would say, ' Have patience. If there be a good 
 God, he cannot be altogether dissatistied with such a 
 man. Of course it is something wanting that makes 
 him like that, and it may be he is to blame, or it 
 may be he can't help it : I do not know when any 
 man has arrived at the point of development at 
 which he is capable of believing in God : the child 
 of a savage may be capable, and a gray-haired man 
 of science incapable. If such a man says, ' The 
 question of a God is not interesting to me,' I believe 
 
WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 
 
 319 
 
 him ; but, if he be such a man as you have last 
 described, I believe also that, as God is taking care 
 of him who is the God of patience, the time must 
 come vi^hen something will make him \Vant to know 
 whether there be a God, and whether he cannot get 
 near him, so as to be near him.' I would say, ' He 
 is in God's school ; don't be too much troubled 
 about him, as if God might overlook and forget 
 him. He will see to all that concerns him. He has 
 made him, and he loves him, and he is doing and 
 will do his very best for him.' " 
 
 "Oh, I am so glad to hear you speak like that ! " 
 -cried Barbara. "I didn't know clergymen were 
 like that ! I'm sure they don't talk like that in the 
 pulpit ! " 
 
 "Weil, you know a man can't just chat with his 
 people in the pulpit as he may when he has one 
 alone to himself ! For, you see, there are hundreds 
 there, and they are all very different, and that must 
 make a difference in the way he can talk to them. 
 There are multitudes who could not understand a 
 word of what we have been saying to each other ! 
 But if a clergyman says anything in the pulpit that 
 differs in essence from what he says out of it, he is a 
 false prophet, and has no business anywhere but in 
 the realm of falsehood." 
 
 "Why is he in the church, then ? " 
 
 "If there be any such man in the church of Eng- 
 land, we have to ask first how he got into it. I 
 used to think the bishop who ordained him must be 
 to blame for letting such a man in. But I am told 
 the bishops haven't the power to keep out any one 
 who passes their examination, provided he is morally 
 decent ; and if that be true, I don't know what is to 
 
320 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 be done. What I know is, that I have enough to do 
 with my parish, and that to mind my work is the 
 best I can do to set the church right." 
 
 "I suppose the bishops — some of them at least — 
 would say, ' If we do not take the men we can get, 
 how is the work of the church to go on?'" 
 
 " I presume that even such bishops would allow 
 that the business of the church is to teach men about 
 God : that they cannot get men who know God, is 
 a bad argument for employing men who do not 
 know him to teach others about him. It is founded 
 on utter distrust of God. I believe the only way to 
 set the thing right is to refuse the bad that there may 
 be room for God to send the good. By admitting 
 the false they block the way for the true. But the 
 poor bishops have great difficulties. I am glad I am 
 not a bishop ! My parish is nearly too much for me 
 sometimes ! " 
 
 Barbara could not help thinking how her mother 
 alone had been almost too much for him. 
 
 Their talk the rest of the way was lighter and 
 more general ; and to her great joy Barbara dis- 
 covered that the clergyman loved books the same 
 way the bookbinder loved them. But she did not 
 mention Richard. 
 
 The parson took leave of her at a convenient issue 
 from the park. But before she had gone many steps 
 he came running after her and said — 
 
 "By the way, Miss Wylder, here are some verses 
 that may please you ! We were talking about our 
 hopes for the animals ! I heard the story they are 
 founded on the other day from my friend the dissent- 
 ing minister of the village. The little daugliter of 
 Dr. Doddridge, the celebrated theologian, was over- 
 
WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 32 I 
 
 heard asking the dog if he knew who made hun. 
 Receiving no reply, she said what you will find 
 written there as the text of the poem." 
 
 He put a paper in her hand, and left her. She 
 opened it, and found what follows : — 
 
 DR. DODDRIDGE'S DOG. 
 " What ! you Dr. Doddridge's dog, and not know who made 
 
 you! 
 
 My little dog, who blessed you 
 
 With such white toothy-pegs ? 
 And who was it that dressed you 
 
 In such a lot of legs ? 
 
 I'm sure he never told you 
 
 Not to speak when spoken to ! 
 But it's not for me to scold you : — 
 
 Dogs bark, and pussies mew ! 
 
 I'll tell you, little brother, 
 
 In case you do not know : — 
 One only, not another. 
 
 Could make us two just so. 
 
 You love me? — Quiet ! — I'm proving ! — ■ 
 
 It must be God above 
 That filled those eyes with loving ! 
 
 He was the first to love ! 
 
 One day he'll stop all sadness — 
 
 Hark to the nightingale ! 
 Oh, blessed God of gladness ! — 
 
 Come, doggie, wag your tail ! 
 
 That's " Thank you, God ! " — He gave you 
 
 Of life this little taste ; 
 And with more life he'll save you. 
 
 Not let you go to waste ! 
 21 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 So we'll live on together, 
 
 And share our bite and sup ; 
 Until he says, " Come hither," — 
 
 And lifts us both high up ! 
 
 Barbara was so much pleased with the verses that 
 she thought them a great deal better than they were. 
 
 Wingfold walked home thinking how, in his dull 
 parish, where so few seemed to care whether they 
 were going back to be monkeys or on to be men, he 
 had yet found two such interesting young people as 
 Richard and Barbara. 
 
 He had come upon Richard again at his grand- 
 father's, had had a little more talk with him, and had 
 found him not so far from the kingdom of heaven 
 but that he cared to deny a false god ; and he had 
 •just discovered in Barbara, whoso seldom went to 
 church and who came of such strange parents, one 
 in whom the love of God was not merely innate, but 
 keenly alive. The heart of the one recoiled from a 
 God that was not ; the heart of the other was drawn 
 to a God of whom she knew little : were not the two 
 upon converging tracks.? What to most clergymen 
 would have seemed the depth of a winter of unbelief, 
 seemed to Wingfold a springtime full of the sounds 
 of the rising sap. 
 
 "What man," he said to himself, "knowing the 
 care that some men have of their fellow-men, even 
 to the spending of themselves for them, can doubt 
 that, loving the children, they must one day love the 
 father ! Who more welcome to the heart of the 
 eternal Father than the man who loves his brother, 
 whom also the unchanging Father loves ! " 
 
 Personally, I find the whole matter- of religious 
 teaching and observance in general a very dull busi- 
 
WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 323 
 
 ness — as dull as most secular teaching. If salvation 
 is anything like what are commonly considered its 
 meafts, it is to me a consummation devoutly to be 
 deprecated. But no one ever found Wingfold dull. 
 For one thing he scarcely thought about the church, 
 and never mistook it for the kingdom of God. Its 
 worldly affairs gave him no concern, and party- 
 spirit was loathsome to him as the very antichrist. 
 He was a servant of the church universal, of all that 
 believed or ever would believe in the Lord Christ, 
 therefore of all men, of the whole universe — and first, 
 of every man, woman, and child in his own parish. 
 But though he was the servant of the boundless 
 church, no church was his master. He had no 
 master but the one Lord of life. Therefore the so- 
 called prosperity of the church did not interest him. 
 He knew that the Master works from within outward, 
 and believed no danger possible to the church, ex- 
 cept from such of its nominal pastors as know nothing 
 of the life that works leavening from within. The 
 will of God was all Wingfold cared about, and if the 
 church was not content with that, the church was 
 nothing to him, and might do to him as it would. 
 He did not spend his life for the people because he 
 was a parson, but he was a parson because the church 
 of England gave him facilities for spending his life 
 for the people. He gave himself altogether to the 
 Lord, and therefore to his people. He believed in 
 Jesus Christ as the everyday life of the world, whose 
 presence is just as needful in bank, or shop, or house 
 of lords, as at what so many of the clergy call the altar. 
 When the Lord is known as the heart of every joy, 
 as well as the refuge from every sorrow, then the 
 altar will be known for what it is — an ecclesiastical 
 
324 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 antique. The Father permitted but never ordained 
 sacrifice ; in tenderness to his children he ordered 
 the ways of their unbelieving belief. So at least 
 thought and said Wingfold, and if he did not say so 
 in the pulpit, it was not lest his fellows should regard 
 him as a traitor, but because so few of his people 
 would understand. He would spend no strength in 
 trying to shore up the church ; he sent his life-blood 
 through its veins, and his appeal to the Living One, 
 for whose judgment he waited. 
 
 The world would not perish if what is called the 
 church did go to pieces ; a truer church, for there 
 might well be a truer, would arise out of her ruins. 
 But let no one seek to destroy ; let him that builds 
 only take heed that he build with gold and silver and 
 precious stones, not with wood and hay and stubble ! 
 If the church were so built, who could harm it ! if it 
 were not in part so built, it would be as little worth 
 pulling down as letting stand. There is in it a far 
 deeper and better vitality than its blatant supporters 
 will be able to ruin by their advocacy, or the enviers 
 of its valueless social position by their assaults upon 
 that position. 
 
 Wingfold never thought of associating the anxiety 
 of the heiress with the unbelief of the bookbinder. 
 He laughed a laugh of delight when afterward he 
 learned their relation to each other. 
 
 The next Sunday, Barbara was at church, and 
 never afterward willingly missed going. She sought 
 the friendship of Mrg. Wingfold, and found at last a 
 woman to whom she could heartily look up. She 
 found in her also a clergyman's wife who understood 
 her husband — not because he was small-minded, but 
 because she was large-hearted — and fell in thoroughly 
 
WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 
 
 325 
 
 with his modes of teaching- his people, as well as his 
 objects in regard to them. She never sought to 
 make one in the parish a churchman, but tried to 
 make every one she had to do with a scholar of 
 Christ, a child to his Father in heaven. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE SHOEING OF MISS BROWN. 
 
 Two days after, on a lovely autumn evening^, 
 Barbara rode Miss Brown across the fields, avoiding 
 the hard road even more carefully than usual. For 
 Miss Brown, as I have said, was in want of shoes, 
 and Barbara herself was to have a hand in putting 
 them on. 
 
 The red-faced, white-whiskered, jolly old Simon 
 stood at the smithy door to receive her : he had been 
 watching for her, and had heard the gentle trot over 
 the few yards of road that brought her in sight. With 
 a merry greeting he helped her down from the great 
 mare. It was but the sense that his blackness was 
 not ingrain that kept him from taking her in his 
 arms like a child, and lifting her down — ^^so small 
 was she, and so friendly and childlike. .She would 
 have shaken hands with him, but he would not with 
 her : it would make her glove, he said, as black as 
 his apron. Barbara pulled off her glove, and gave 
 him her dainty little hand, which the blacksmith took 
 at once, being too much of a gentleman not to know 
 where respect becomes rudeness. He clasped the 
 lovely loan with the sturdy reverence of his true old 
 heart, saying her hand should pay her footing in the 
 trade. 
 
 "Lord, miss, ain't I proud to make a smith of 
 you ! " he said. " Only you must do nothing but 
 
THE SHOEING OF MISS BROWN. 327 
 
 shoe ! I can't let you spoil your hands ! You 
 can keep Miss Brown shod without doing that ! — 
 Here comes Dick for his part ! He might have left 
 it to who taught him ! Did he think the old man 
 would be rough with missie ? — I dare say, now, he's 
 been teaching you that woman's work of his this 
 long time ! " 
 
 "Stop, stop, Mr. Armour ! "cried Barbara. "When 
 you see me shoe Miss Brown, perhaps you won't 
 care to talk about woman's work again ! " 
 
 Richard came up, took Miss Brown in, and put 
 her in her place. The smith knew exactly what sort 
 and size of shoes she wanted, and had them already 
 so far finished that but a touch or so was necessary 
 to make them an absolute fit. Barbara tucked up 
 her skirt, and secured it with her belt. But this 
 would not satisfy Simon. He had a little leather 
 apron ready for her, and nothing would serve but 
 she must put it on to protect her habit. Till this was 
 done he would not allow her to touch hammer or 
 nail. 
 
 "Come, come, missie," he said, " I'm king in my 
 own shop, and you must do as I tell you ! " 
 
 Thereupon Barbara, who had stood out only for 
 the fun of the thing, put on the leather apron with 
 its large bib, and set about her work. 
 
 Richard did not offer to put on the first shoe : he 
 believed she had so often watched the operation, 
 that she must know perfectly what to do. Nor was 
 he disappointed. She proceeded like an adept. 
 Happily Miss Brown was very good. She was 
 neither hungry nor thirsty ; she had had just enough 
 exercise to make her willing to breathe a little ; 
 nothing had gone wrong on the way to upset her 
 
320 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 delicate nerves — for gentle and loving as she always 
 was, she was apt to be both apprehensive and touchy ; 
 her digestion was all right, for she had had neither 
 too much corn nor too much grass ; therefore she 
 stood quite still, and if not exactly full of faith, was 
 yet troubled by no doubt as to the ability of her mis- 
 tress to put on her shoes for her — iron though they 
 were, and to be fastened with long sharp nails. 
 
 Richard was nowise astonished at Barbara's cool- 
 ness, or her courage, or the business-like way in 
 which she tucked the great hoof under her arm, or 
 even at the accurate aim which brought the right 
 sort of blow down on the head of nail after nail in 
 true line with its length ; but he was astonished at 
 the strength of her little hand, the hardness of her 
 muscles, covered with just fat enough to make form 
 and movement alike beautiful, and the knowing skill 
 with which she twisted off the ends of the nails : the 
 quick turn necessary, she seemed to have by nature. 
 In her keen watching, she had so identified herself 
 with the operator, that perfect insight had supplied 
 the place of active experience, and seemed almost to 
 have waked some ancient instinct that operated inde- 
 pendent of consciousness. The mare was shod, and 
 well shod, without any accident ; and Richard felt no 
 anxiety as he lifted the little lady to her back, and 
 saw her canter away as if she had been presented 
 with fresh feathery wings instead of only fresh iron 
 shoes. 
 
 He experienced, however, not a little disappoint- 
 ment : he had hoped to walk a part of her way along- 
 side of Miss Brown. Barbara had in truth expected 
 he would, but a sudden shyness came upon her, and 
 made her sfart at speed the moment she was in the 
 
THE SHOEING OF MISS BROWN. 329 
 
 saddle. Simon and Richard stood looking after her. 
 
 With a sharp scramble she turned. Richard darted 
 forward. But nothing was wrong with the mare. 
 She came at a quick trot, and they were side by side 
 in a moment. Barbara had bethought herself that it 
 was a pity to get no more pleasure or profit out of 
 the afternoon than just a horse-shoeing ! 
 
 " She's all right ! " she cried. 
 
 Richard imagined she had but started to put her 
 handiwork to the test. They walked back to the old 
 man, and once more she thanked him — in such pretty 
 fashion as made him feel a lord of the world. Then 
 Richard and she moved away together in the direc- 
 tion of Mortgrange, and left Simon praying God to 
 give them to each other before he died. 
 
 They had not gone far when it became Richard's 
 turn to stop. 
 
 "Oh, miss," he said, "I must go back! Neither 
 of us has been to see Alice, and I haven't for more 
 than a week ! Think of her lying there, expecting 
 and expecting, and no one coming ! It's just the 
 history of the world ! I must go back ! " 
 
 He would not have said so much but that Barbara 
 sat regarding him without response of word or look, 
 appearing not to heed him. He began to wonder. 
 
 "Alice can't be dead ! " he thought with himself. 
 " She was pretty well when I saw her last ! " 
 
 "She is gone, "said Barbara quietly, and the thought 
 just discarded returned on Richard with a sickening 
 clearness. 
 
 He stood and stared. Barbara saw him turn white, 
 and understood his mistake — so terrible to one who 
 had no hope of ever again seeing a departed friend. 
 
330 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "She went home to her mother yesterday," she 
 said. 
 
 Richard gave a great sigh of relief. 
 
 "I thought she was dead ! " he answered, " — and 
 I had not been so good to her as I might have been ! " 
 
 " Richard," said Barbara — it was the first time she 
 called him by his name — " did anybody in the world 
 ever do all he might to make his best friends happy.' " 
 
 "No, miss, I don't think it. There must always 
 be something more he might have done." 
 
 "Then the better people become, the more lamen- 
 tations, mourning, and woe" — the words had taken 
 hold of her at church the Sunday before — "there 
 must always be, because of those they shall never 
 look upon again, those to whom they shall never say, 
 lam sorry/ How comes it that men are born into 
 a world where there is nothing of what they most 
 need — consolation for the one inevitable thing, sor- 
 row and self-reproach ? " 
 
 "There is consolation — that it will soon be over, 
 that we go to them ! " 
 
 "Go to them !" cried Barbara. " — We do not 
 even go to look for them ! We shall not even know 
 that we would find them if we could ! We shall not 
 have even the consolation of suffering, of loving on 
 in vain ! The whole thing is the most wrongful scorn, 
 the most insulting mockery ! — the laughter of a devil 
 at all that is noble and tender ! — only there is not even 
 a devil to be angry with and defy ! " 
 
 Barbara spoke with an indignation that made her 
 eloquent. Richard gave her no answer : there was 
 no logic in what Barbara said — nothing to reply to ! 
 Why should life not be misery ? Why should there 
 be anyone who cared? There was no ground for 
 
THE SHOEING OF MISS BROWN. 33 1 
 
 thinking there might be one ! The proof was all the 
 other way ! The idea was too good to be true ! 
 Richard had said so to himself a thousand times. 
 But was the world indeed on such a grand scale that 
 to believe in anything better or other than it seemed, 
 was to believe too much — was to believe more than, 
 without proof which was not to be had, Richard 
 would care to believe.? The nature of the case grew 
 clearer to him. As a man does not fear death while 
 yet it seems far away, so a man may not shrink from 
 annihilation while yet he does not realize what it 
 means. To cease may well seem nothing to a man 
 who neither loves much, nor feels the bitterness of 
 regret for wrong done, the gnawing of that remorse 
 whose mother is tenderness ! He was beginning to 
 understand this. 
 
 The silence grew oppressive. It was as if each 
 was dreaming of the other dead. To break the pain 
 of presence without communion, Richard spoke. 
 
 "Can you tell me, miss," he said, "why Alice 
 went away without letting me know .'' She might 
 have done that ! " 
 
 "She had a good reason," answered Barbara. 
 
 "I can't think what it could be ! " he returned. 
 " I never was so long without seeing^ her before, but 
 surely she could not be so much offended at that ! 
 You see, miss, I knew you went every day ! and I 
 knew I should like that better than having any one 
 else to come and see me ! so I gave myself no trouble. 
 I never thought of her going for a long time yet! 
 Did her mother send her money ? " 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 "Perhaps my grandfather lent her some! She 
 
332 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 couldn't have any herself! I wonder why she dis- 
 likes me so much 1 " 
 
 He was doubting whether she would have taken 
 money from him, if he had been in time to offer it. 
 He did not like to ask Barbara if she had helped her. 
 — And then what was she to do when she got home ? 
 
 Barbara had let him talk, delighted to look in at 
 the windows his words went on opening. In par- 
 ticular it pleased and attracted her, that he was so 
 unconscious of the goodness he had shown Alice. 
 Barbara and he made a rare conjunction of likeness. 
 So many will do a kindness who are not yet capable 
 of forgetting it 1 
 
 Barbara could not tell him that Alice was afraid to 
 bid him good-bye lest in her weakness she should 
 render an explanation necessary. She did not in the 
 least doubt Richard was her brother, and her heart 
 was full of him. How often, as she lay alone, build- 
 ing her innocent and not very wonderful castles, 
 had she not imagined herself throwing her arms 
 about him, and kissing him at her will !— what if she 
 should actually do so when he came to bid her good- 
 bye 1 Then she would have to tell him he was her 
 brother, and so perhaps might ruin everything. She 
 must go without a word ! 
 
 " She is far from disliking you," said Barbara. 
 
 "Why then did she not tell mc, that I might have 
 given her money for her journey ? " 
 
 "There was no need of that," returned Barbara. 
 "She is my sister now, and a sovereign or two is 
 nothing between us." 
 
 "Oh, thank you! thank you, miss! Then she 
 will have a little over when she gets home ! But I 
 am afraid it will be long before she is able to work 
 
THE SHOEING OF MISS BROWN. 333 
 
 again ! It would be of no use to tell my mother, for 
 somehow she seems to have taken a great dislike to 
 poor Alice. I am positive she does not deserve it. 
 My mother is the best woman I know, but she is 
 very stiff when she takes a dislike. Have you got 
 her address, miss.? Arthur would take money from 
 me, I think, but I don't know where he is. I was 
 always meaning to ask her, and always forgot." 
 
 "I will see she has everything she wants," an- 
 swered Barbara. 
 
 " Bless your lovely heart, miss ! " exclaimed Rich- 
 ard. "But I fear nothing much will reach them so 
 long as their mother is alive. She eats and drinks 
 the flesh and blood of her children. Nobody could 
 help seeing it. There's Arthur, cold and thin, and 
 miserable, without a greatcoat in the bitterest 
 weather ! and Alice with hardly flesh enough for 
 setting to her great eyes ! and Mrs. Manson w^ell 
 dressed, and eating the best butter, and drinking the 
 best bottled stout that money can buy ! If only their 
 mother was like mine ! If one of her family had to 
 starve, she would claim it as her right. Such women 
 as Mrs. Manson have no business to be mothers ! 
 Why were ihey made — if people are made .? " 
 
 "Perhaps they will be made something of yet ! " 
 suggested Barbara. 
 
 " If you're right, miss, and there be a God, either 
 he's not so good as you would be if you were God, 
 or else somebody iiiterferes, and won't let him do 
 his best." 
 
 "Shall I tell you what our clergyman said to me 
 the other day } " returned Barbara. 
 
 "Yes, if you please, miss. I don't mind wliat_yo« 
 say, because the God you would have me believe in 
 
334 thp:re and back. 
 
 is like yourself; and if he be, and be like you, he 
 will set everything right as soon as ever he can." 
 
 "What Mr. Wingfold said was this — that it was 
 not fair, when a man had made something for a 
 purpose, to say it was not good before we knew 
 what his purpose with it was. ' I don't like,' he 
 said, ' even my wife to look at my verses before 
 they're finished ! God can't hide away his work till 
 it is finished, as I do my verses, and we ought to take 
 care what we say about it. God wants to do some- 
 thing better with people than people think.' " 
 
 " Is he a poet .f* " said Richard. "But when I think 
 how he looked at the sunrise — of course he is ! That 
 man don't talk a bit like a clergyman, miss ; he talks 
 just like any other man — only better than I ever 
 heard man talk before. I couldn't help liking him 
 from the first, and wishing I might meet him again ! 
 But I think I could put him a question or two yet 
 that would puzzle him ! " 
 
 "I don't know," answered Barbara; "but one 
 thing I am sure of, that, if you did puzzle him, he 
 would say he was puzzled, and must have time to 
 think it over ! " 
 
 ' ' That is to behave like a man ! — and after all, 
 clergymen are men, and there must be good men 
 among them ! — But do you think, miss, you could 
 get Arthur's address from Alice.? The office is not 
 where it used to be." 
 
 " I dare say I could." 
 
 "You see, miss, I shall have to go back to London." 
 
 There was a tone and tremble in his words, to 
 which, not to the words themselves, Barbara made 
 reply. 
 
THE SHOEING OF MISS BROWN. 
 
 335 
 
 "Will anyone dare to say," she rejoined, "that 
 we shall not meet again ? " 
 
 "The sort of God you believe in, miss, would 
 not say it," he answered ; " but the sort of God my 
 mother believes in would.'' 
 
 " I know nothing about other people's Gods," 
 rejoined Barbara. "Indeed, "she added, "I know 
 very little about my own ; but I mean to know 
 more : Mr. Wingfold will teach me ! " 
 
 " Take care he don't overpersuade you, miss. You 
 have been very good to me, and I couldn't bear you 
 to be made a fool of. Only he can't be just like the 
 rest ! " 
 
 " He will persuade me of nothing that doesn't 
 seem to me true — be certain of that, Richard. And 
 if it please God to part us, I will pray and keep on 
 praying to him to let us meet again. If I have been 
 good to you, you have been much better to me ! " 
 
 Richard was not elated. He only thought, "How 
 kind of her ! " 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 RICHARD AND VIXEN. 
 
 Barbara turned her mare across the road, and sent 
 her at the hedge. Miss Brown cleared it like a stag, 
 and took a bee-line along the grass for Wylder Hall. 
 Richard stood astonished. A moment before she 
 was close beside him, and now she was nearly out 
 of his sight ! The angel that ascended from the pres- 
 ence of Manoah could scarcely have more amazed 
 the Danite. Though Richard could shoe a horse, he 
 could no more have stuck to Miss Brown over that 
 hedge than he could have ascended with the angel. 
 He watched till she vanished, and then watched for 
 her reappearance at a point of hope beyond. Only 
 when he knew that distance and intervention rendered 
 it impossible he should see her more, did he turn and 
 take his way to Mortgrange. 
 
 He was as much in love with Barbara as a man 
 could be who indulged no hope whatever of marrying 
 her — who was not even tempted to build the hum- 
 blest castle for her in the air of possibility. But so far 
 was his love from causing in him any kind of selfish 
 absorption, that his heart was much troubled at Alice's 
 leaving him without a farewell. Her behavior woke 
 in him his first sense of the inexplicable : he little 
 thought of its being but the first visible vapor of a 
 mystery that involved both his past and his future. 
 All he knew was, that the sister of his friend had, in 
 a stormy night in London, fled from him as irom a 
 
RICHARD AND VIXEN. ^^ 
 
 wild beast ; and that now, on a quiet morning in the 
 country, she was gone from his grandfather's house 
 without a word of farewell to him who had called him 
 to her aid. 
 
 "There must be a reason for everything," he said 
 to himself, " but some reasons are hard to find ! " 
 
 The next day in the forenoon, Richard was busy as 
 usual in the library. Doors and windows were shut 
 against draughts, for he was working with gold-leaf 
 on the tooling of an ancient binding. A door opened, 
 and in came the goblin of the house. Perceiving 
 what Richard was about, she came bounding, lithe 
 as a cat, and making a wilful wind with her pinafore, 
 blew away the leaf he was dividing on the cushion, 
 and knocked a book of gold-leaf to the floor. The 
 book-mender felt very angry, but put an extra guard 
 on himself, caught her in a firm grasp, and proceeded 
 to expel her. She threw herself on the floor, and 
 began to scream. Richard took her up, laid her down 
 in the hall, and closed and locked the door by which 
 she had entered. Vixen lay where he laid her, and 
 went on screaming. By and by her screaming 
 ceased, and a iew moments after, the handle of the 
 door was tried. Richard took no notice. Then came 
 a peremptory knock. Richard called out, " Who's 
 there .? " but no answer came except a repetition of 
 the knock, to which he paid no heed. The knock 
 was twice repeated, but Richard went on with his 
 work, and gave no sign. Suddenly another door, 
 which he had not thought of securing, burst open, and 
 in sailed Miss Malliver, the governess, tall and slight, 
 with the dignity she put on for her inferiors, to whom 
 she was as insolent as to those above her she was 
 cringing. True superiority she was incapable of 
 
338 THERE AND BACK, 
 
 perceiving ; real inferiority would have been hard to 
 find. 
 
 " Man ! " she exclaimed, the moment her wrath 
 would allow her to speak, "what do you mean by 
 your insolence ? " 
 
 " If you allude to my putting the child out of the 
 room," answered Richard, " I mean that she is rude, 
 and that I will not be annoyed with her ! " 
 
 " You shall be turned out of the house !" 
 
 "In the meantime," rejoined Richard, who had 
 a not unnatural repugnance to Miss Malliver, and 
 was now thoroughly angry, " I will turn you too out 
 of the room, and for the same reason." 
 
 Richard felt, with every true gentleman, that the 
 workman has a claim to politeness as real as that of 
 any gentleman. The man who cannot see it is a 
 cad. 
 
 "I dare you ! " cried Miss Malliver, giving therein 
 to her innate coarseness. 
 
 Before he blames Richard, my reader must think 
 how he might himself have behaved, had he been 
 brought up among the people. I would have him 
 reflect also that the woman who presumes on her sex, 
 undermines its claim. Richard laid the tool he was 
 using quietly aside, and approached her deliberately. 
 Trusting, like King Claudius, in the divinity that 
 hedged her, and not believing he would presume to 
 touch her, the woman kept her ground defiantly until 
 his hands were on the point of seizing her. Then 
 she uttered a shriek, and fled. Richard closed the 
 door behind her, made it also fast, and returned to 
 his work. 
 
 But he was not to be left in peace. Another hand 
 came to the door, and a voice demanding entrance 
 
RICHARD AND VIXEN. 339 
 
 followed the foiled attempt to open it. He recog- 
 nized the voice as Lady Ann's, and made haste to 
 admit her. But her ladyship stood motionless on the 
 door-mat, erect and cool. Anger itself could not 
 M^arm her, for that she viras angry was plain only 
 from the steely sparkle in her gray eyes. 
 
 "You forget yourself! You must leave the 
 house ! " she said. 
 
 " I have done nothing, my lady," answered Rich- 
 ard, "but what it was necess.ary to do. I did not 
 hurt the child in the least." 
 
 "That is not the point. You must leave the 
 house." 
 
 "I should at once obey you, my lady," rejoined 
 Richard, "but I am not at liberty to do so. Sir 
 Wilton has the command of my time till the month 
 of ]\Iay. I am bound to be at his orders, whether I 
 choose or not, except he tell me to go." 
 
 Lady Ann stood speechless, and stared at him 
 with her icicle-eyes. Richard turned away to his 
 work. Lady Ann entered, and shut the door behind 
 her. Richard would have had to search long to dis- 
 cover the cause of her peculiar behavior. It was 
 this : in his anger, he had flashed on her a look 
 which she knew but could not identify, and which 
 somehow frightened her. She must shape and iden- 
 tify the reminiscence ! Familiar enough with the 
 expression of her husband's face when he was out of 
 temper, she had yet failed to identify with it that look 
 on the face of his son. Had she known Richard's 
 mother, she would probably have recognized him at 
 once ; for there was more of her as well as of his 
 father in his expression when he was angry : there 
 must have been a good many wrathful passages 
 
340 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 between the two ! In the face of their child the ex- 
 pression of the mother so modified that of the father, 
 that Lady Ann could not isolate and verify it. She 
 must therefore goon talking to him, keeping to the 
 point, but not pushing it so as to bring the interview 
 to an end too speedily for her purpose ! 
 
 "Mr. , — I don't know your name," she re- 
 sumed, " — no respectable house could harbor such 
 behavior. I grant Sir Wilton is partly to blame, for 
 he ought not to have allowed the library to be turned 
 into a workshop. That however makes no differ- 
 ence. This kiiid of thing cannot continue ! " 
 
 Richard went on with his work, and made no reply. 
 Lady Ann looked in vain for a revival of the expres- 
 sion that had struck her. For a moment she thought 
 of summoning Miss Malliver to do what she would 
 not condescend to do herself, namely, enrage him, 
 that she might have another chance with the sug- 
 gested likeness ; but something warned her not to 
 risk — she did not know what. At the same time the 
 resemblance might be to no person at all, but to some 
 animal, or even, perhaps, some piece of furniture or 
 china ! 
 
 "You must not imagine yourself of importance 
 in the house," she resumed, " because a friend of 
 the family happens to be interested in the kind of 
 thing you do — very neatly, I allow, but " 
 
 She stopped short. At this allusion to Barbara. 
 Richard's rage boiled up with the swelling heave in 
 a full caldron on a great furnace. Lady Ann turned 
 pale, pale even for her, murmured something inaudi- 
 ble, put her hand to her forehead, and left the 
 room. 
 
 Richard's wrath fell. He thought with himself, 
 
RICHARD AND VIXEN. 34 1 
 
 "I have frightened her! Perhaps they will leave 
 me alone now ! " He closed the door she had left 
 open behind her, unlocked the other, and fell once 
 more to his work. 
 
 For the time the disturbance was over. When 
 Miss Malliver and Vixen, lingering near, saw Lady- 
 Ann walk past, holding her hand to her forehead, 
 they also turned pale with fear : what a terrible man 
 he must be who had silenced my lady in her own 
 house, and had his own way with her ! Vixen dared 
 not go near him again for a long time. 
 
 But Lady Ann's perturbation did not last. She 
 said to herself that she was a fool to imagine such 
 an absurdity. She remembered to have heard, 
 though at the time it had no interest for her, that the 
 bookbinder had relatives in the neighborhood. Such 
 a likeness might meet her at any turn : the kind of 
 thing was of constant occurrence about estates ! It 
 improved the breed of the lower orders, and was no 
 business of hers ! A child had certainly been lost, 
 with a claim to the succession ; but was she there- 
 fore to be appalled at every resemblance to her 
 husband that happened to turn up ! As to that par- 
 ticular child, she would not believe that he was alive ! 
 He could not be ! That, after so many years, she, 
 an earl's daughter, would have to give way to a 
 woman lower than a peasant, was preposterous ! 
 
 It must be remembered that she knew nothing of 
 the relation of the nurse to the child she had stolen, 
 knew of no source whence light could fall upon their 
 disappearance. Old Simon himself knew nothing of 
 the affair till years after the feeble search for the child 
 had ceased. Lady Ann had a strong hope that his 
 birth had not been registered : she had searched for 
 
34 2 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 it — with what object I will not speculate, buthaduot 
 found it. She was capable of a good deal in some 
 directions, for she came of as low a breed as her hus- 
 band, with moref cunning, and less open defiance in 
 it; there was not much she would have blenched at, 
 with society on her side, and a good chance of foil- 
 ing in safety the low-born woman whose child had 
 stood between her heritage and her hopes. It might 
 be wrong, but it would be for the sake of right ! 
 Ought not imposture to be frustrated, however legal- 
 ized? Would it not be both intrusion and imposture 
 for a man of low origin to possess the ancient lands 
 of Mortgrange, ousting a child of her family, born of 
 her person, and bred in the brightest beams of the 
 sun social ? 
 
 I can well imagine her coming to reason thus. It 
 may not seem natural that an angry look on the face 
 of a man of whom she knew nothing should have 
 thus set in action so important a train of thought, but 
 to those who live in fear of an explosion, even the 
 faintest rumbling is a sign of danger. Lady Ann 
 had lived so long in dread lest the missing heir 
 appear to claim his own that even the look of anger 
 on the young bookbinder's face became for her the 
 Lestrange look and troubled her accordingly. It 
 might be a false conjecture but for the present, un- 
 necessary as she was determined to think it, she yet 
 resolved to do all that was left her to do ; she would 
 watch ; and while she watched, would take care that 
 the young man was subjected to no annoyance, lest 
 in his wrath his countenance should suggest to 
 another, as to herself, the question of his origin ! 
 
 Thus it came that Richard heard nothing more of 
 his threatened expulsion from Mortgrange, 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 Barbara's duty. 
 
 The same afternoon appeared Barbara — as none 
 knew when she mijjht not appear — before the front 
 windows of the house, perched upon her huge yet 
 gracious Miss Brown. Arthur was in general upon 
 the outlook for her, but to-day he was not, being more 
 vexed with her than usual for withholding the en- 
 couragement he desired, and indeed imagined he 
 deserved — not exactly from vanity, yet no less from 
 an overweening sense of his own worth. 
 
 It is an odd delusion to which young men are sub- 
 ject, that, because they admire, perhaps even love a 
 woman, they have a claim on her love. Arthur was 
 confident that he loved Barbara as never man had 
 loved, as never woman had desired to be loved, and 
 counted it not merely unjust but cruel of her to show 
 him no kindness that savored of like attraction. He 
 did not know or suspect that a fortnight of the Lon- 
 don season would go far to make him forget her. 
 He was not a bad sort of a fellow, had no vice, was 
 neither snob nor cad; his worse fault was pride in 
 himself because of his family — pride in everything 
 he had been born to, and in a good deal he fancied 
 he had been born to, in which his having was small 
 enough. He was not jealous of Barbara's pleasure 
 in Richard's company. The slightest probe of such 
 a feeling toward a man so infinitely beneath him, he 
 would have felt degrading. To think of the two 
 
344 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 together would have been to insult both Barbara and 
 himself; to think of himself and the bookbinder for 
 one briefest moment of comparison, would have been 
 to insult all the Lestranges that ever lived. Take 
 had no raison d'etre but work for the library that would 
 one day be Arthur's, and by its excellence add to the 
 honor of Mortgrange ! He forgot that Richard had 
 opened his eyes to its merit, and imagined himself 
 the discoverer of its value : did he not pay the man 
 for his work.? and is not what a man pays for his 
 own ? Does not the purchaser of a patent purchase 
 also the credit of the invention .? That the workman 
 in the Hbrary knew as much more than he about the 
 insides as about the the outsides of the books, gave 
 him no dignity in his eyes : none but a university- 
 man at least must gain honor by knowledge ! The 
 fact, however, did make him more friendly ; and after 
 he got used to Richard he seldom stiffened his jelly 
 to remind him that their intercourse was by the suf- 
 ferance of a humane spirit. Barbara's behavior to him 
 had done nothing to humble him ; for humiliation is 
 at best but a poisoned and poisonous humility. 
 
 Little Vixen ran out to Barbara, and made herself 
 less unpleasant than usual : the monkey was prepar- 
 ing her, by what blandishment she was mistress of, 
 to receive a complaint against the man in the library 
 which would injure him in her favor. Might Vixen 
 but see motion and commotion, turmoil and passion 
 around her, she did not care how it arose, or which 
 of the persons involved got the worse of it. She ac- 
 companied Barbara to the stable, and as they walked 
 back together, gave her such an account of what had 
 taken place, that Barbara, distrusting the child, yet 
 felt anxious. She knew the spirit of Richard, knew 
 
BARBARAS DUTY. 345 
 
 that he would never show her ladyship the false re- 
 spect a tradesman too often shows, and feared lest he 
 should have to leave the house. She must give Lady- 
 Ann the opportunity of saying what she might please 
 on the matter ! 
 
 * It must be remembered that Barbara was under no 
 pledge of secrecy to Alice or any one ; she was free 
 to do what might seem for the best — that is, for the 
 good of Richard. It was the part of every neighbor 
 to take care of a blind man, particularly when there 
 was special ground for caution unknown to him. 
 
 "I am sorry to find you so poorly, dear Lady 
 Ann," she said, with her quick sympathy for suffering. 
 
 Vixen had told her that the horrid man had made 
 her mamma quite ill ; and Barbara found her with 
 her boudoir darkened, and a cup of green tea on a 
 Japanese table by the side of the couch on which she 
 lay. 
 
 "It is only one of my headaches, child ! " returned 
 Lady Ann. "Do not let it disturb you." 
 
 "I am afraid, from what Victoria tells me, that 
 something must have occurred to annoy you 
 seriously ! " 
 
 "Nothing at all worth mentioning. ■ He is an odd 
 person, that workman of yours ! " 
 
 "He is peculiar," granted Barbara, doubtful of her 
 own honesty because of the different sense in which 
 she used the word from that in which it would be 
 taken ; " but I am certain he would not willingly 
 vex any one." 
 
 "Children will be troublesome!" drawled her 
 ladyship. 
 
 "Particularly Victoria," returned Barbara. "Mr. 
 Take cannot bear to have his work put in jeopardy ! " 
 
346 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " V^ery excusable in him." 
 
 Barbara was surprised at her consideration, and 
 thought she must somehow be pleased with Richard. 
 
 "It would astonish you to hear him talk some- 
 times,'' she said. "There is something remarkable 
 about the young man. He must have a histor>' 
 somewhere ! "' 
 
 She had been thinking whether it was fair to Sir 
 Wilton and his family to conceal the momentous fact 
 she alone of their friends knew : were they not those, 
 next to Richard himself, most concerned in it? 
 Should Lady Ann be allowed to go on regarding the 
 property as the inheritance of her son, when at any 
 instant it might be swept from his hold ? Had they 
 not a right to some preparation for the change.? If 
 there was another son, and he the heir, ought she not 
 at least to know that there was such a person .? She 
 had resolved, that very morning, to give Lady Ann 
 a hint of the danger to which she was exposed. 
 
 But there was another reflection, more potent yet, 
 that urged Barbara to speak. Since learning Alice's 
 secret, she had found herself more swiftly drawn 
 toward Richard, nor could she escape the thought 
 that he might one day ask her to be his wife : it 
 would be painful then to know that she had made 
 progress in his regard by being imagined his superior, 
 when she knew she was not ! Incapable of laying a 
 snare, was she not submitting to the advantage of an 
 ignorance ? The misconception she was thus risking 
 in the future, had already often prevented her from 
 going to Mortgrange. Richard, she was certain, 
 knew her better than ever to misjudge her, but she 
 shrank from the suspicion of any one that she had 
 hidden what she knew for the sake of securing 
 
BARBARAS DUTY. 347 
 
 Richard's preference before their relations were 
 altered — when, on a level with the choice of society, 
 he might well think differently of her. 
 
 Barbara was one of those to whom concealment is 
 a positive pain. She had a natural hatred, most 
 healthy and Christian, to all secrets as such ; and to 
 take any advantage of one would have seemed to her 
 a loathsome thing. She constantly wanted to say all 
 that was in her, and when she must not, she suffered. 
 
 " He may have good blood in him on one side," 
 suggested Lady Ann. " He was rude to me, but I 
 dare say it was the child's fault. He seems intelli- 
 gent ! " 
 
 " He is more than intelligent. I suspect him of 
 being a genius." 
 
 "I should have thought him a tradesman all 
 over ! '" 
 
 "But wouldn't genius by and by make a gentle- 
 man of him.? " 
 
 " Not in the least. It might make him grow to 
 look like one." 
 
 " Isn't that the same ? Isn't it all in the look ? " 
 
 "By no means. A man must be a gentleman or 
 he is nothing ! A gentleman would rather not have 
 been born than not be a gentleman ! " said Lady 
 Ann. 
 
 She spoke to an ignorant person from the colonies, 
 where they could not be supposed to understand such 
 things, and never suspected the danger she and her 
 false importance were in with the little colonial girl. 
 
 " But if his parents were gentlefolk.''" suggested 
 Barbara. 
 
 " Birth predetermines style, both in body and 
 mind, I grant," said Lady Ann; "education and 
 
348 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 society must do their parts to make any man a 
 gentleman ; and where all has been done, I must 
 confess to having seen remarkable failures. Bad 
 blood must of course have got in somehow." 
 
 " I wish I knew what makes a gentleman ! "sighed 
 Barbara. "I have all my life been trying to under- 
 stand the thing. — Tell me, Lady Ann — to be a gentle- 
 man, must a man be a good man ? " 
 
 "I am sorry to say," she answered, "it is not in 
 the least necessary." 
 
 "Then a gentleman may do bad things and be a 
 gentleman still } " 
 
 "Yes — that is, some bad things." 
 
 "Do you mean — not many bad things ? " 
 
 " No ; I mean certain kinds of bad things." 
 
 "Such as cheating at cards.?" 
 
 " No. If he were found doing that, he would be 
 expelled from any club in London." 
 
 "May he tell lies, then .'* " 
 
 "Certainly not ! It is a very ungentlemanly thing 
 to tell lies." 
 
 " Then, if a man tells a lie, he is not a gentleman. " 
 
 "I do not say that ; I say that to tell lies is un- 
 gentlemanly." 
 
 "Does that mean that he may tell some lies, and 
 yet be a gentleman ? " 
 
 Lady Ann was afraid to go on. She saw that to 
 go on answering the girl from the colonies, with her 
 troublesome freedom of thought and question, might 
 land her in a bog of contradictions. 
 
 " How many lies may a gentleman tell in a day?" 
 pursued the straight-going Barbara. 
 
 " Not any," answered Lady Ann. 
 
 " Does the same rule hold for ladies ? " 
 
BARBARAS DUTY. 349 
 
 "Y — e — s 1 should say so, " replied her lady- 
 ship — with hesitation, for she suspected being slowly 
 driven into some snare. She knew she was not care- 
 ful enough tospeak the truth — so much she confessed 
 to herself, the fact being that, to serve any purpose 
 she thought worth gaining, she would lie without a 
 scruple — taking care, however, to keep the lie as 
 like the truth as consisted with success, in order 
 that, if she were found out, it might seem she had 
 mistaken. 
 
 Barbara noted the uncertainty of the sound her lady- 
 ship's trumpet gave, and began to be assured that 
 the laws of society were no firm stepping-stones, and 
 that society itself was a morass, where one must 
 spend her life in jumping from hump to hump, or be 
 swallowed up. 
 
 She had been wondering how far, if Richard 
 proved heir to a baronetcy, his education and man- 
 ners would decree him no gentleman ; but it was 
 useless to seek light from Lady Ann. As they talked, 
 however, the feeling came and grew upon her, that 
 she was not herself acting like a lady, in going so 
 much to her house, and being received by her as a 
 friend, when all the time she knew something she 
 did not know, something it was important for her 
 to know, something she had a right and a claim to 
 know. She would herself hate to live on what 
 was not her own, as Lady Ann would be left to 
 do when Sir Wilton died, if the truth about Richard 
 remained undisclosed ! It was very unfair to leave 
 them unwarned for this reason besides, that so the 
 fact might at last find them, for lack of preparation, 
 without resource ! 
 
 " I want to talk to you about something. Lady 
 
350 THERE AXD BACK. 
 
 Ann," she said. "You can't but know that a son 
 of Sir Wilton's was stolen when he was a baby, and 
 never found ! " 
 
 It was the first time for many years that Lady Ann 
 had heard the thing alluded to except once or twice 
 by her husband. Her heart seemed to make a somer- 
 sault, but not a visible muscle moved. What could 
 the g-irl be hmting at .' Were there reports about? 
 She must let her talk ! — the more freely the better ! 
 
 " Every one knows that ! " she answered. " It is 
 but too true. It happened after my marriage. I 
 was in the house at the time. — What of it, child! 
 There can be little hope of his turning up now — after 
 twenty years ! " 
 
 "I believe he has turned up. I believe I know 
 him." 
 
 Lady Ann jumped to the most natural, most mis- 
 taken conclusion. 
 
 " It's the bookbinder ! " she said to herself. " He 
 has been telling her a pack of lies ! His being in the 
 house is part of the plot. It must be nipped in the 
 bud ! If it be no lie, if he be the very man, it must 
 be nipped all the same ! Good heavens ! if Arthur 
 should not marry her — or some one — before it is 
 known ! " 
 
 "It may be so," she answered, quietly, "but it 
 hardly interests me. I don't like talking of such 
 things to a girl, but innocence cannot always be 
 spared in this wicked world. The child you speak 
 of was born in this house, and stolen out of it ; but 
 his mother was a low woman ; she was not the wife 
 of Sir Wilton." 
 
 " Everybody believed her his wife ! " faltered Bar- 
 bara. 
 
Barbara's duty. 351 
 
 "Very possibly! Very likely! She may even 
 have thought so herself I Such people are so igno- 
 rant ! " said Lady Ann with the utmost coolness. ' " He 
 may even have married her after the child was born 
 for anything I know." 
 
 "Sir Wilton must have made her believe she was 
 his wife ! " cried Barbara, her blood rising at the 
 thought of such a wrong done to Richard's mother. 
 
 " Possibly," admitted Lady Ann with a smile. 
 
 "Then a baronet may tell lies, though a gentle- 
 man may not ! " said Barbara, as if speaking to her- 
 self. 
 
 Lady Ann was not indignant. She had hesitated 
 to say a lady might lie, but did not hesitate to lie 
 the moment the temptation came, nor for that would 
 doubt herself a lady ! She knew perfectly that the 
 woman was the wife of her husband as much as she 
 herself was, and that she died giving birth to the 
 heir. She had no hope that any He she could tell 
 would keep that child out of the property if he were 
 alive and her husband wished him to have it ; but a 
 lie well told to Barbara might help to keep her for 
 Arthur. 
 
 "Gentlemen think they may tell lies to women ! " 
 she returned with calmness, and just a tinge of 
 regret. 
 
 " How are they gentlemen then.? " cried Barbara ; 
 "or where is the good of being a gentleman .? Is 
 it that he knows better how to lie to a woman .? A 
 knight used to be every woman's castle of refuge ; 
 a gentleman now, it seems, is a pitfall in the bush ! " 
 " It is a matter they settled among themselves," 
 answered Lady Ann, confused between her desire to 
 appear moral, and to gain her lie credit. 
 
352 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "I think I shall not call myself a lady!" said 
 Barbara, after a moment's silence. " I prefer being 
 a woman ! I wonder whether in heaven they say a 
 woman or a lady / " 
 
 " I suppose they are all sorts there as well as here," 
 answered Lady Ann. 
 
 " How will the ladies do without gentlemen.?" 
 suggested Barbara. 
 
 " Why without gentlemen } There will be as many 
 surely of the one sex as of the other ! " 
 
 " No," said Barbara, " that cannot be ! Gentlemen 
 tell lies, and I am sure no lie is told in heaven ! " 
 
 "All gentlemen do not tell lies!" returned Lady 
 Ann, herself at the moment full of lying. 
 
 "But all gentlemen may lie !" persisted Barbara, 
 "so there can be no gentlemen in heaven." 
 
 "I am sorry I had to mention the thing," returned 
 Lady Ann, " but I was afraid your sweet romantic 
 nature might cherish an interest where was nothing 
 on which to ground it. Of course I know whence 
 the report you allude to comes ! A7iy man, book- 
 binder or blacksmith, may put in a claim. He will 
 find plenty to back him. They will very likely get 
 up a bubble-company, for speculation on his chance ! 
 His own class will be sure to take his part ! Now 
 that those that ought to know better have taught them 
 to combine, the lower orders stick at nothing to annoy 
 their superiors ! But, thank heaven, the estate is 7ioi 
 entailed ! " 
 
 " If you imagine Mr. Tuke told me he was heir to 
 Mortgrange, Lady Ann, you are mistaken. He does 
 not know himself that he is even supposed to be." 
 
 " Are you sure of that .? Who then told you.' Is 
 it likely his friends have got him in to the house, 
 
BARBARAS DUTY. 353 
 
 under the eye of his pretended father, and he himself 
 know nothing of the manoeuvre? " 
 
 " How do you know it was he I meant, Lady Ann ? " 
 
 " You told me so yourself." 
 
 " No ; that I did not ! I know I didn't, Lady Ann ! 
 What made you fix on him .-' " 
 
 Lady Ann saw she had committed herself. 
 
 "If you did not tell me," she rejoined, "your 
 peculiar behavior to the man must have led me to 
 the conclusion ! " 
 
 " I have never concealed my interest in Mr. Tuke, 
 but " 
 
 "You certainly have not !" interrupted her lady- 
 ship, who both suffered in temper and lost in pru- 
 dence from annoyance at her own blunder. 
 
 "Pray, hear me out, Lady Ann. What I want to 
 say is, that my friendship for Mr. Tuke had begun 
 long before I learned the fact concerning which I 
 thought I ought to warn you." 
 
 "Friendship ! — ah, well! — scarcely decorous ! — 
 but as to what you c^W/act, I would counsel a little 
 caution. I repeat that, if the man be the son of that 
 woman, which may be difficult to prove, it is of no 
 consequence to any one : Sir Wilton was never mar- 
 ried to his mother — properly married, I mean. I am 
 sorry he should have been born out of wedlock — it is 
 anything but proper ; at the same time I cannot be 
 sorry that he will never come between my Arthur and 
 the succession," 
 
 Here Lady Ann saw a sudden radiance light up the 
 face of Barbara, and change its expression, from that 
 of a lady rightfully angry and a little scornful, to that 
 of a child-angel. Entirely concerned hitherto with 
 Richard's loss and pain, if what Lady Ann said should 
 
354 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 be true, it now first occurred to her what she herself 
 would g-ain if indeed he was not the heir: no one 
 could think she had been his friend because he was 
 going to be a rich man ! If he was the wronged man 
 her ladyship represented him — and her ladyship ought 
 to know — she might behave to him as she pleased 
 without suspicion of low motive ! Little she knew 
 what motives such persons as Lady Ann were capable 
 of attributing — as little how incapable they were of 
 understanding any generous motive ! 
 
 Barbara had an insuperable, a divine love of jus- 
 tice. She would have scorned the thought of forsak- 
 ing a friend because the very mode of his earthly 
 being was an antenatal wrong to him. The right- 
 eousness that makes a man visit the sins of a father 
 upon his children, is the righteousness of a devil, not 
 the righteousness of God. When God visits the sins 
 of a father on his children, it is to deliver the child 
 from his own sins through yielding to inherited temp- 
 tation. Barbara rejoiced that she was free to ap- 
 proach Richard, and make some amends to him for 
 the ass-judgment of the world. I do not know that 
 she said to herself, "Now I may love him as I 
 please ! " but her thought went in that direction. 
 
 It did not take Lady Ann long to interpret the glow 
 on Barbara's face to her own satisfaction. The 
 report she had heard and believed, had kept Barbara 
 back from encouraging Arthur, and made her pursue 
 her unpleasant intimacy with the bookbinder ! the 
 sudden change on her countenance indicated the 
 relief of finding that Arthur, and not this man, was 
 indeed the heir ! How could she but prefer her 
 Arthur to a man smelling of leather and glue, a man 
 without the manners or education of a gentleman ! 
 
BARBARA S DUTY. 
 
 355 
 
 He might know a few things that gentlemen did not 
 care to know, but even those he got only out of books ! 
 He could not do one of the many things her Arthur 
 did! He could neither ride, nor shoot, nor dress, 
 nor dance ! He was tall, but he was clumsy ! No 
 doubt he was a sort of vulgar-handsome, but when 
 out of temper, was ugly enough ! 
 
 That Lady Ann condescended to such comparison, 
 was enough to show that she believed the story at 
 least half. The girl remaining silent. 
 
 "You will oblige me, dear Barbara, "she said, " by 
 not alluding to this report. It might raise doubt 
 where it could not do serious harm ! " 
 
 " There are others who not only know but believe 
 it," answered Barbara. 
 
 "Who are they.? " 
 
 "I do not feel at liberty to tell their names. I 
 thought you had a right to know what was said, but 
 I have no right to mention where I heard it." 
 
 Lady Ann grew thoughtful again, and as she 
 thought grew convinced that Barbara had not spoken 
 the truth, and that it was Richard who had told her : 
 it is so easy for those who lie to believe that another 
 is lying 1 It is impossible indeed for such to imagine 
 that another, with what they would count strong 
 reason for lying, would not lie. Gain is the crucial 
 question for vile souls of any rank. She believed 
 also, for they that lie doom themselves to believe 
 lies as well as disbelieve truths, that Richard had got 
 into the house in order to learn things that might serve 
 in the establishing of his claim. 
 
 " It will be much better you should keep silent con- 
 cerning the report," she said. " I do not want the 
 question stirred. If the young man, any young 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 man, I mean, should claim ihe heirship, we must 
 meet the thing as it ought to be met ; till then, prom- 
 ise me you will be silent." 
 
 She would fain have time to think, for she feared in 
 some way compromising herself. And in any case, 
 the longer the crisis could be postponed, the better 
 for her prospects in the issue ! 
 
 "I will not promise anything," answered Barbara. 
 "I dread promising." 
 
 "Why?" asked Lady Ann, raising her eyebrows. 
 
 "Because promises have to be kept, and that is 
 sometimes very difficult, and because sometimes you 
 find you ought not to have made them, and yet you 
 must keep them. It is a horrid thing to have to keep 
 a promise you don't like keeping, especially if it hurts 
 anybody." 
 
 "But if you ought to make the promise !" sug- 
 gested Lady Ann. 
 
 "Then you must make it. But where there is no 
 ought, I think it wTong to bind yourself. What right 
 have you, when you don't know what may be wanted 
 of you, to tie your own hands and feet .? There 
 may come an earthquake or a fire ! " 
 
 " Does friendship demand nothing.? You are our 
 guest ! " 
 
 It was not in lying only that Lady Ann was not a 
 lady. 
 
 "One's friends may have conflicting interests!" 
 said Barbara. 
 
 Lady Ann was convinced that Richard was at the 
 root of the affair, and she hated him. What if he 
 were the heir, and it could be proved ! The thought 
 was sickening. It was with the utmost strain that 
 she kept up her apparent indifference before the 
 
BARBARAS DUTY. 357 
 
 mocking imp honest Barbara seemed to her. For 
 heaven is the devil's hell, and the true are the devils 
 of it. How was she to assure herself concerning the 
 fellow ? How discover what he was, what he knew, 
 and how much he could prove ? She could not even 
 think, with that little savage sitting there, staring out 
 of her wide eyes ! 
 
 "My sweet Barbara," she said, "I am so much 
 obliged to you for letting me know ! I will not ask 
 any promise from you. Only you must not heed- 
 lessly bring trouble upon us. If the thing were talked 
 about, some unprincipled lavvyer would be sure to 
 take it up, and there would be another claimant-case, 
 with the people in a hubbub, and thousands of igno- 
 rant honest folk duped of their money to enrich the 
 rascality. I heard a distinguished judge once say, 
 that, even if the claimant zvere the real Sir Roger, he 
 had no right to the property, having so long neglected 
 the duties of it as to make it impossible to be certain 
 of his identity. Such people put the country to enor- 
 mous expense, and are never of any service to it. 
 It is a wrong to all classes when a man without edu- 
 cation succeeds to property. For one thing he will 
 always side with the tenants against the land. And 
 what service can any such man render his country in 
 parliament.'* Without a suitable training there can 
 be no genuine right." 
 
 She was on the point of adding — "And then are 
 the hopes and services and just expectations of a life- 
 time to go for nothing.? "but checked herself and was 
 silent. 
 
 To all this Barbara nad been paying little heed. 
 She was revolving whether she ought to tell Richard 
 what she had just heard. Neither then nor as she 
 
35^ THERE AND BACK. 
 
 rode home, however, could she come to a con- 
 cUision. If Richard was not the heir, why should 
 she trouble him ? But he might be the heir, and what 
 then ? She must seek counsel ! But of whom ? Not 
 of her mother! As certainly not of her father! She 
 had no ground for trusting the judgment of either. 
 
 Having got rid of Miss Brown, she walked to the 
 parsonage. 
 
 But she did not find there such a readiness to give 
 advice as she had expected. 
 
 "The thing is not my business," said Wingfold. 
 "Not!" returned the impetuous Barbara. "I 
 thought you were so much interested in the young 
 man ! He told me the other day that he had seen 
 you again, and had a long talk with you, and that 
 you thought the popular idea of the inspiration of the 
 Scriptures the greatest nonsense ! " 
 
 "Did he tell you that I said it was much nearer the 
 truth after all than the fancy that the Bible had no 
 claim beyond any other book.? " 
 " Yes, he did." 
 
 "That's all right! — Tell me then. Miss Wylder : 
 are you interested in the young man because he is 
 possibly heir to a baronetcy.? " 
 
 " Certainly not ! " answered Barbara, with indigna- 
 tion. 
 
 "Then why should 1 be.? "pursued the parson. 
 "What is it to me.? I am not a county-magistrate 
 even .? " 
 
 "I cannot understand you, ]\Ir. Wingfold !" pro- 
 tested Barbara. "You say you are there not for 
 yourself but for the people, yet you will not move 
 to see right done ! " 
 
 "I would move a long way to see that Mr. Tuke 
 
BARBARAS DUTY. 359 
 
 cared to do right : that is my business. It is not 
 much to me, and nothing to my business, whether 
 Mr. Tuke be rich or poor, a baronet or a bookbinder ; 
 it is everything to me whether Mr. Tuke will be an 
 honest fellow or not." 
 
 "But if he should prove to have a right to the 
 property ? " 
 
 "Then he ought to have the property. But it is 
 not my business to discover or to enforce the right. 
 My business is to help the young man to make little 
 of the matter, whether he find himself the lawful 
 heir, or a much injured man through his deceived 
 mother. — Tell me whose servant I am." 
 
 " You are the servant of Jesus Christ." 
 
 " — Who said the servant must be as his master. — 
 Do you remember how he did when a man came 
 asking him to see justice done between him and his 
 brother.? — He said, 'Man, who made me a judge and 
 a divider over you ? Take heed and beware of 
 covetousness. ' — It may hejyour business to see about 
 it ; I don't know ; I scarcely think it is. My advice 
 would be to keep quiet yet awhile, and see what will 
 come. There appears no occasion for hurry. The 
 universe does not hang on the question of Richard's 
 rights. Will it be much whether your friend go into 
 the other world as late heir, or even late owner of 
 Mortgrange, or as the son of Tuke, the bookbinder .' 
 Will the dead be moved from beneath to meet the 
 young baronet at his coming.? Will the bookbinder 
 go out into dry places, seeking rest and finding 
 none? " 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE parson's counsel. 
 
 It was a happy thing for both Richard and Barbara 
 that Barbara was now under another influence besides 
 Richard's. The more she saw of Mr. and Mrs. Wing- 
 fold, the more she felt that she had come into a region ' 
 of reality and life. Both of them understood what a 
 rare creature she was, and spoke as freely before her 
 as if she had been a sister of their own age and 
 standing. Barbara on her side knew no restraint 
 with them, but spoke in like freedom, both of her 
 past life, and the present state of things at home — 
 which was indeed no secret, being manifest to tlie 
 servants, and therefore known to all the county, in 
 forms more or less correct, as it had been to all the 
 colony before they left it. She talked almost as freely 
 of Richard, and of the great desire she had to get 
 him to believe in God. 
 
 "It was a dangerous relation between two such 
 young people ! " some of my readers will remark. — 
 Yes, I answer — dangerous, as every true thing is 
 dangerous to him or her who is not true ; as every 
 good thing is dangerous to him or her who is not 
 good. Nothing is so dangerous as religious senti- 
 ment without truth in the inward parts. Certain 
 attempts at what is called conversion, are but writh- 
 ings of the passion of self-recommendation ; gapings 
 of the greed of power over others ; swellings of the 
 ambition to propagate one's own creed, and prosely- 
 
THK parson's counsel. 36 1 
 
 tize victoriously ; hungerings to see self reflected in 
 another convinced. In such efforts lie dangers as 
 vulgar as the minds that make them, and love the 
 excitement of them. But genuine love is far beyond 
 such grovelling delights ; and the peril of such a re- 
 lation is in inverse proportion to the reality of those 
 concerned. 
 
 Barbara was one who, so far as human eyes could 
 see, had never required conversion. She had but to 
 go on, recognize, and do. She turned to the light 
 by a holy will as well as holy instinct. She needed 
 much instruction, and might yet have fierce battles to 
 fight, but to convert such as Barbara must be to turn 
 them the wrong way; for the whole energy of her 
 being was in the direction of what is right — that is, 
 righteousness. She needed but to be told a good thing 
 — I do not say told that a thing was good — and at once 
 she received it — that is, obeyed it, the only way of 
 receiving a truth. She did the thing immediately 
 demanded upon every reception of light, every ex- 
 pansion of true knowledge. She was essentially of 
 the truth ; and therefore, when she came into relation 
 with a soul such as Wingfold, a soul so much more 
 developed than herself, so much farther advanced in 
 the knowledge of realities as having come through 
 difficulties unknown and indeed at present unknow- 
 able to Barbara, she met one of her own house, and 
 her life was fed from his, and began to grow faster. 
 For he taught her to know the eternal man who bore 
 witness to his father in the face of his perverse chil- 
 dren to know that his heart was the heart of a child in 
 truth and love, and the heart of a God in courage and 
 patience ; and Barbara became his slave for very 
 love, his blessed child, the inheritor of his universe. 
 
362 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Happily her life had not been loaded to the ground 
 with the degrading- doctrines of those that cower before 
 a God whose justice may well be satisfied with the 
 blood of the innocent, seeing it consists but in the 
 punishing of the guilty. She had indeed heard noth- 
 ing of that brood of lies until the unbelieving Richard 
 — ah, not far from believing he who but rejected such 
 a God ! — gave her to know that such things were be- 
 lieved. From the whole swarm she was protected — 
 shame that it should have to be said ! — by pure lack of 
 what is generally regarded as a religious education, 
 such being the mother of more tears and madness in 
 humble souls, and more presumption in the proud 
 and selfish, than perhaps any other influence out of 
 whose darkness God brings light. Neither ascetic 
 nor mystic nor doctrinist of any sort, caring nothing 
 for church or chapel, or observance of any kind as 
 observance, she believed in God, and was now ready 
 to die for Jesus Christ, in the eternal gladness that 
 there was such a person as God and such a person as 
 Jesus Christ. There being was to her the full and only 
 pledge of every bliss, every childlike delight. She be- 
 lieved in the God of the whole earth, not in a puritan- 
 ical God. She never imagined it could be wrong to 
 dance ; merry almost in her very nature, she now held 
 it a duty to be glad. Fond of sweets, she would have 
 thought it wrong to refuse what God meant her to 
 like ; but she had far more pleasure in giving than in 
 receiving them. Shegotintoa little habit of thanking 
 God for Miss Brown every time she felt herself on her 
 back. She saw, the moment she heard it, that what- 
 ever was not of faith was sin : " The idea," she said, 
 " of taking a thing from God without thinking love 
 back to him for it ! " She shuddered at the thought 
 
THE parson's counsel. 363 
 
 of unnecessarily hurting-, yet would punish sharply. 
 She would whip her dog when he deserved it, but sat 
 up all night with him once when he was ill. She 
 understood something of the ways of God with men. 
 
 Wingfold never sought to moderate her ardor for 
 the good of her workman-friend ; he only sought to 
 strengthen her in the truth. 
 
 One day, when they were all three sitting to- 
 gether in the twilight before the lamp was lit — for 
 Helen Wingfold was one of those happy women 
 able to let their hands lie in their laps — he said to his 
 pupil : 
 
 " Now, pray, Miss Wylder, don't try by argument 
 to convince the young- man of anything. That 
 were no good, even if you succeeded. Opinion is 
 all that can result from argument, and his opinion 
 concerning God, even if you got it set right, would 
 not be knowledge of God, and would be worth 
 nothing ; while, if a man knows God, his opinion is 
 either right, or on the nearest way to be right. The 
 notion in Richard's brain of the God he denies is 
 but another form of the Moloch of the Ammonites. 
 There never was, and never could be such a God. 
 He in whom I believe is the God that says, ' This 
 is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.' It 
 is as if he said — ' Look at that man : I am just such ! 
 No other likeness of me is a true likeness. Heed 
 my son ; heed nobody else. Know him and you 
 know me, and then we are one forever.' Talk to 
 Richard of the God you love, the beautiful, the 
 strong, the true, the patient, the forgiving, the 
 loving ; the one childlike, eternal power and God- 
 head, who would die himself and kill you rather 
 than have you false and mean and selfish. Let 
 
3^4 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 him feel God through your enthusiasm for him. 
 You can't prove to him that there is any God. A 
 God that could be proved would not be worth prov- 
 ing. Make his thoughts dwell on such a God as 
 he must feel would be worth having. Wake the 
 notion of a God such as will draw him to wish 
 there were such a God. There are many religious 
 people who will tell you there is no such God as I 
 mean ; but God will love you for believing that he 
 is as good and true as you can think. Throw the 
 notions of any who tell you otherwise to the winds 
 of hell. 'God is just !' said a carping theologian 
 to me the other day. 'Yes,' I answered, 'and he 
 cannot be pleased that you should call that justice 
 which is injustice, and attribute it to him!' There 
 are many who must die in ignorance of their Father 
 in heaven, because they will not of their own selves 
 judge what is right. Such never get beyond the 
 weak and beggarly elements. Set in Richard's eye 
 a God worth believing in, a God like the son of God, 
 and he will go and look if haply such a God may 
 be found ; he will call upon him, and the God who 
 is will hear and answer him. What good would it 
 be, what could it bring but the more condemnation, 
 that a man should be sure there was a God, if he 
 did not cry to him ? But although a man may never 
 d ubt and never cry, I cannot imagine any man 
 sure there is a God without his first having cried to 
 him. God is God to us not that we may say he is, 
 but that we may know him ; and when we know him, 
 then we are with him, at home, at the heart of the 
 universe, the heirs of all things. All this is foolish- 
 ness, I know, to the dull soul that cares only for 
 the things that admit of being proved. The un- 
 
THE parson's counsel. 365 
 
 provable mystery out of which come the things 
 provable has for them no interest, they say, because 
 it is unprovable : they take for granted that there- 
 fore it is unknowable. Would they be content it 
 should be unknowable if things were all as they 
 should be within them ? When the eyes of those 
 who have made themselves at home in the world 
 of the senses and care for no other, are opened I 
 imagine them saying — 'Yes, He was after all ; but 
 none the less were you fools to believe in him, for 
 you had no proof ! ' Then I seem to hear the children 
 laugh and say, 'We had himself, and did not want 
 it.' That the' unprovable is necessarily the unknow- 
 V, able, a thousand beliefs deny. ' You cannot prove 
 to me that you have a father ! ' says the blind sage, 
 reasoning with the little child. ' Why should I prove 
 it.?' answers the child. ' I am sitting on his knee ! 
 If I could prove it, that would not make you see 
 him ; that would not make you happy like me ! You 
 do not care about my father, or you would not stand 
 there disputing ; you would feel about until you 
 found him ! ' If a thing be true in itself, it is not 
 capable of proof; and that man is in the higher 
 condition who is able to believe it. In proportion 
 as a man is a fool he is unable to believe what in 
 itself is true. If intellect be the highest power, 
 then the men of proof are the wisest ; if there be 
 something deeper than intellect, causing and in- 
 cluding it, if there be a creative power of which our 
 intellect is but a faint reflex, then the child of that 
 power, the one who acknowledges and loves and 
 obeys that power, will be the one to understand it. 
 If a man say, ' I cannot believe ; I was not made to 
 believe what I could not prove ; ' I reply. Do you 
 
^()6 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 really say, 'It is not true,' because you have no 
 proof? Ask yourself whether you do not turn from 
 the idea because you prefer it should not be true. 
 You accept a thousand things without proof, and a 
 thousand things may be perfectly true, and have no 
 proof. But if you cannot be sure, why therefore do 
 you turn away ? Is the thing assuredly false ? Then 
 you ought of course to turn away. Can you prove 
 it false.? You cannot. Again, why do you turn 
 away ? That a thing is not assuredly true cannot 
 be reason for turning from it, else farewell to all 
 theory and all scientific research ! Is the thing less 
 good, less desirable, less worth believing, in itself, 
 that you cannot thus satisfy yourself concerning it.? 
 The very chance that such a thing may be true, the 
 very fact that it cannot be disproved, is large reason 
 for an honest, and continuous, and unending search. 
 Do you hold any door in your nature open for the 
 possibility of a God having a claim on you.? The 
 truth is, as I hinted before, that you are not drawn 
 to the idea, do not like it ; and it is therefore you 
 turn away, and not because you have no proof. — 
 If the man then shifted his ground and said, ' lie 
 scemetl to me not a good being, and I said there- 
 fore, he cannot exist ; ' I should reply, There you 
 were right. But a thing that cannot be, cannot 
 render impossible a thing that can be — a thing 
 against whose existence there are no such arguments 
 as have rightly shown that the other cannot be. In 
 right logical balance you must admit that a creative 
 being who is good ?//(/y exist. But the final question 
 is always this : Have you acted, or rather, arc you 
 acting according to the conscience which is the one 
 guide to truth, to all that is?" 
 
THE parson's counsel. 367 
 
 ** But," said Barbara, " perhaps the man would say- 
 that we see such suffering- in the world, that the being- 
 who made it, if there be one, cannot possibly be both 
 strong and g-ood, otherwise he would not allow it." 
 
 "Say then, that he might be both strong and good, 
 •and have some reason for allowing, or even causing 
 it, which those who suffer will themselves one day 
 justify, ready for the sake of it to go through all the 
 suffering again. Less than that would not satisfy 
 me. If he say, 'What reason could justify the inflic- 
 tion of such suffering ! ' then tell him what I am now 
 going to tell you. 
 
 "A year ago," continued Wingfold, "my little boy 
 displeased me horribly. I will not tell you what he 
 did : when the boy grows up, he will find it as im- 
 possible to understand how he could have done the 
 thing, as I find it now. People say, ♦Children will 
 be children ! ' but I see little consolation in that. 
 Children must be children, and ought to be good 
 children. They are made to be good children, just 
 as much as men are made to be good men. All I 
 will say is, that he did a mean thing. You see his 
 mother can hardly keep from crying now at the 
 thought of it. Thank God, she was of one mind with 
 me. I took him, and, bent on making him feel, if 
 not how horrid the thing was in itself — for what im- 
 perfect being can ever know the full horror of evil ! 
 ■ — at least how horrid I thought it, broke out in strong 
 language. I told him I must whip him ; that I could 
 not bear doing it, but rather than he should be a 
 damned, mean, contemptible little rascal, I would 
 kill him and be hanged for it. I dare say it sounds 
 very improper, but " 
 
 " Not in the least ! " cried Barbara. " I like a man 
 
368 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 to curse what is bad, and go down on his knees to 
 what is good." 
 
 " Well, what do you think the little fellow said ? — 
 'Don't kill me, papa,' he cried. * I will be good. 
 Don't, please, be hanged for my naughtiness ! Whip 
 me, and that will make me good.' " • 
 
 "And then you couldn't do it.?" asked Barbara, 
 anxiously. 
 
 "I cried," said Wingfold, and almost cried again 
 as he said it. " I'm not much in the habit of crying 
 — I don't look like it, do I ? — but I couldn't help it. 
 The child took out his little pocket-handkerchief and 
 dried my eyes, and then prepared himself for the 
 whipping. And I whipped him as I never did be- 
 fore, and I hope in God shall never have to do again. 
 The moment it was over, while my heart was like 
 to burst, he flmng his arms around my neck and be- 
 gan kissing me. ' I will never make you cry again, 
 papa !' he said. — He has kept his word, and since 
 then I have never wondered at the suffering in the 
 world. I have puzzled my metaphysical brains to 
 the last gasp about the origin of evil — I don't do that 
 now, for I seem to understand it — but, since then, I 
 have never troubled myself about the origin of suf- 
 fering. I don't like pain a whit better than another, 
 and I don't bear it nearly so well as Helen, but I vex 
 neither my brain nor my heart as to God's sending 
 it. I knew after whipping my boy, that the tears the 
 Lord wept over Jerusalem were not wept by him 
 only, but by the Father as well. Whoever says God 
 cannot suffer, I say he does not understand. God 
 ca?i weep, and weeps more painful tears than ours ; 
 for he is God, and we are his little ones. That boy's 
 
THE parson's counsel. 369 
 
 trouble was over with the punishment, but my heart 
 is sore yet. 
 
 " It comes to this, that the suffering you see around 
 you, hurts God more than it hurts you, or the man 
 upon whom it falls ; but he hates things that most 
 men think little of, and will send any suffering upon 
 them rather than have them continue indifferent to 
 them. Men may say, ' We don't want suffering ! we 
 don't want to be good ! ' but God says, 'I know my 
 own obligations ! and you shall not be contemptible 
 wretches, if there be any resource in the Godhead.' 
 I know well that almost all the mothers in my con- 
 gregation would, hearing what I have just told you, 
 call me a cruel father. They would rather have me 
 a weak one, loving my childless. They would rather 
 their child should be foul in the soul than be made 
 clean through suffering ! I know they would ! But 
 I know also that they do not see how ugly is evil. 
 And that again is because they are not clean enough 
 themselves to value Tightness above rubies ! Tell 
 the tale your own way to your workman-friend, and 
 may God help him to understand it ! The God who 
 strikes, is the God whose son wept over Jerusalem." 
 
 " I am so glad you whipt the darling ! " said Bar- 
 bara, scarcely able to speak. " I shall love him more 
 than ever." 
 
 "You should see how he loves his father ! " said 
 Helen. " His father is all his talk when we are alone 
 together. He sees more of me than of him now, but 
 by and by his father will take him about with him." 
 
 "And then," said Barbara, " all his talk will be of 
 you ! " 
 
 " Yes ; it is the way of the child ! " 
 24 
 
370 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "And of the whole family in heaven and earth," 
 rejoined the parson. 
 
 Barbara rose. 
 
 "You'll be on the watch,'' said Wingfold, "for 
 any chance for me of serving your mother.?" 
 
 " I will," replied Barbara. 
 
 The next morning she got on Miss Brown, and rode 
 to the forge, where Simon made her always welcome. 
 It was sunshine to his heart to see her, he said. She 
 knew that Richard was to be there. They left Miss 
 Brown in the smithy, and went for a walk together, 
 during which Barbara was careful to follow the par- 
 son's advice. Their talk was mostly about her life 
 in New Zealand. Now that she knew God more, and 
 believed more in him, she was more able to set forth 
 her history. Feelings long vague had begun to put 
 on shapes definite and communicable. She under- 
 stood herself better, and was better able to make 
 Richard understand her. And in Richard, by degrees, 
 through the sympathy of affection, was growing the 
 notion of a God in whom it would not be hard to 
 believe. He ought not to believe, and he had not 
 believed in the supposed being hitherto presented to 
 him as God ; now he saw the shape of a God in 
 whom, if he existed, he ought to believe. But he had 
 not yet come to long that he should exist, to desire 
 him, or to cry out in the hope that he would hear 
 him. His hour was not yet come. But when the 
 day of darkness arrived, when he knew himself help- 
 Jess, there would be in his mind a picture of the God 
 to whom he must cry in his trouble — a God whose 
 existence would then be his only need, the one 
 desire of his soul. To wake the seiise of this eternal 
 need, present though unrecognized under every joy, 
 
THE PARSONS COUNSEL. 37I 
 
 was the final cause of every sorrow and pain against 
 which Richard rebelled — most naturally rebelled, 
 knowing neither the plague of a heart that would 
 but could not be lord over itself, nor of a nature hate- 
 fully imperfect and spotted, yea, capable of what 
 itself could not but detest 
 
 Naturally, his manners were growing more refined 
 from his intercourse with the gracious, brave, sym- 
 pathetic, unconventional creature, so strong yet so 
 gentle, so capable of indignation, so full of love. He 
 was gradually developing the pure humanity that lay 
 beneath the rough artisan. He was, in a word, be- 
 coming what in the kingdom of heaven every man 
 must be — a gentleman, because more than a gentle- 
 man. 
 
 All this time Barbara was pulled two ways : for 
 Richard's sake she would have him heir to the 
 baronetcy; for her own she would be rid of the 
 shadow of having sought the baronet in the book- 
 binder. But more and more the asseveration of Lady 
 Ann gained force with her — that Richard was not the 
 heir. She had greatly doubted her, but now she said 
 to herself: "She could hardly be mistaken, and she 
 cannot have lied." The consequence was that she 
 grew yet more free, more at home with Richard. 
 She listened to all he had to tell her, learning of him 
 with an abandon of willingness that put him upon his 
 honor to learn of her again. And he did learn, as I 
 have said, a good deal — went farther than he knew 
 in the way of true learning. 
 
 They strolled together in the field behind the 
 smithy, within sight of the cottage, for an hour or 
 so ; then hearing from the smithy the impatient 
 stamping of Miss Brown, and fearing she might give 
 
11^ 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 the old man trouble, hastened back. Richard brought 
 out the mare. Barbara sprang on a big stone by the 
 door, and mounted without his help. She went 
 straight for Wylder Hall. 
 
 As they were walking up and down the field 
 Arthur Lestrange passed on foot, saw them, and 
 went home indignant. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 LADY ANN MEDITATES, 
 
 It would have been difficult for Arthur himself to 
 say whether in his heart rage or contempt was the 
 stronger, when he saw the lady he loved walking in 
 a field, turning and returning, in close talk with the 
 bookbinder-fellow. Never had she so walked and 
 talked with him! She preferred the bookbinder's 
 society to his — and made it no secret that she did, 
 for, although evidently desirous of having their inter- 
 view uninterrupted, they walked in full view of the 
 high road ! 
 
 What did Barbara mean by it ? He could not treat 
 her as a child and lay the matter before Richard ! If 
 a lady showed favor to a man, the less worthy he 
 was, the less could he be expected to see the unfit- 
 ness of the thing. Besides, to acknowledge thus any 
 human relation between Richard and either of them 
 would be degrading. It was scorn alone that kept 
 Arthur from hating Richard. For Barbara, he at- 
 tributed her disregard of propriety, and the very pos- 
 sibility of her being interested in such a person, to the 
 modes of life in the half savage country where she 
 had been born and reared — educated, he remarked to 
 himself, he could not say. But what did she mean 
 by it } The worst of his torment was that the 
 thought, unreasonable as it was, would yet come — 
 that Richard was a good-looking fellow, and admira- 
 tion, which in any English girl would have been 
 
374 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 rendered impossible by his vulgarity, might have a 
 share in her enjoyment of his shop-talk about books. 
 The idea was simply disgusting ! 
 
 What was he to do.? What could anyone do.? 
 The girl was absolutely uncontrolled : was it likely 
 she would prove controllable ? Would she mind him, 
 when she cared no more for his stately mother than 
 for the dairy-woman ! How could such a bewitch- 
 ing creature so lack refinement ? The more he 
 thought, the more inexplicable and self-contradictory 
 her conduct appeared. Such a jewelled-humming- 
 bird to make friends with a grubbing rook ! The 
 smell of the leather, not to mention the paste and 
 glue, would be enough for any properly sensitive 
 girl ! Universally fascinating, why did she not cor- 
 respond all through ? Brought out in London, she 
 would be the belle of the season 1 If he did not 
 secure her, some poor duke would pounce on her ! 
 
 But again what was he to do ? Must he bring 
 scorn on himself by appearing jealous of a tradesman,' 
 or must he let the fellow go on casting his greasy 
 shadow about the place ? As to her being in love 
 with him, that was preposterous ! The notion was 
 an insult ! Yet half the attention she gave the book- 
 binder would be paradise to htm ! He yniist put a 
 stop to it ! he must send the man away I It would 
 be a pity for the library ! It was beginning to look 
 beautiful, and would soon have been the most dis- 
 tinguished in the county : Lord Chough's was noth- 
 ing to it ! But there were other bookbinders as good 
 as he ! And what did the library matter ! What did 
 anything matter in such a difficulty I 
 
 She might take offence ! She would be sure to 
 suspect why the fellow was sent packing I She 
 
LADY ANN MEDITATES. 
 
 375 
 
 would know she had the blame of ruining the libra- 
 ry, and the bookbinder as well, and would never 
 enter the house again ! He must leave the thing 
 alone — for the present ! But he would be on his 
 guard ! Against, what, he did not plainly tell him- 
 self. 
 
 While the son was thus desiring a good riddance 
 of the man he had brought into the house, and to 
 whom Barbara was so much indebted, the mother 
 was pondering the same thing. Should the man re- 
 main in the house or leave it.'' was the question with 
 her also; — and if leave it, on what pretext.? She 
 was growing more and more uncomfortable at the 
 possibilities. The possession of the estate by one 
 born of another woman, and she of low origin ; the 
 subjection in which they would all be placed to him 
 as the head of the family— a man used to the low 
 ways of a trade, a man dirty and greasy, hardly in 
 his right place at work in the library, the grandson 
 of a blacksmith with brawny arms and smutty face 
 — the ideas might well be painful to her ! 
 
 Then first the thought struck her, that it must be 
 his grandfather's doing that he was in the house ! 
 and there he was, at their very door, eager to bear 
 testimony to the bookbinder as his grandson and 
 heir to Mortgrange ! Alas, the thing must be a fact, 
 a horrible fact ! All was over ! — But she would do 
 battle for her rights ! She would not allow that the 
 child was found! The thing was a conspiracy to 
 supplant the true heir ! How ruinous were the low 
 tastes of gentlemen ! If Sir Wilton had but kept to 
 his own rank, and made a suitable match, nothing 
 of all tliis misery would have befallen them ! If her 
 predecessor had been a lady, her son would have 
 
^']6 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 been a gentleman, and. there would have been noth- 
 ing to complain of I To Lady Ann, her feeling had 
 the force of a conviction, that the son of Robina 
 Armour could not, in the nature of things divinely 
 ordained, have the same rights as her sen. Lady 
 Ann's God was the head of the English anistocracy. 
 There was nothing selfish that Lady Ann was not 
 capable of wishing ; there was nothing selfish she 
 might not by degrees become capable of doing. She 
 could not at that moment commit murder ; neither 
 could Lady Macbeth have done so when she was a 
 girl. The absurd falsity of her notions as to her 
 rights, came from lack of love to her neighbor, and 
 consequent insensibility to his claims. At the same 
 time she had not keen, she had only absorbing feel- 
 ings of her rights ; there was nothing kecti in Lady 
 Ann ; neither sense not desire, neither hope nor fear, 
 neither joy nor sorrow, neither love nor hate. Be- 
 yond her own order, beyond indeed her own circle 
 in that order, the universe hardly existed. An age- 
 long process of degeneration had been going on in 
 her race, and she was the result ; she was well born 
 and well bred for feeling nothing. There is some- 
 thing fearful in the thought that through the genera- 
 tion the body may go on perfecting, while the heart 
 goes on degenerating ; that, while the animal beauty 
 is growing complete in the magic of proportion, the 
 indescribable marvel that can even give charm to 
 ugliness, is as steadily vanishing. Such a woman, 
 like Branca d'Oria in the Inferno, is already damned, 
 and only seems to live. Lady Ann was indeed born 
 capable of less than most; but had she attempted to 
 do the little she could, she would not have been 
 where she was ; she would have been toiling up the 
 
LADY ANN MEDITATES. 377 
 
 hill of truth, with a success to be measured, hke the 
 widow's mite, by what she had not. 
 
 All her thoughts were now occupied with the n'g-hfs 
 of her son, and through him of the family. Sir Wil- 
 ton had been for some time ailing, and when he 
 went, they would be at the mercy of any other heir 
 than Arthur, just as miserably whether he were the 
 true heir or an impostor : the one was as bad as the 
 other from her point of view ! For the right, Lady 
 Ann cared nothing, except to have it or to avoid it. 
 The law of the land was to be respected no doubt, 
 but your own family — most of all when land was 
 concerned — was worthier still ! 
 
 It were better to rid the place of the bookbinder — 
 but how ? As to whether he was the legal heir or 
 not, she would rather remain ignorant, only that, 
 assured on the point, she would better understand 
 how to deal with his pretension ! But she. could not 
 consult Sir Wilton, because she suspected him of a 
 lingering regard for the dead wife which would nat- 
 urally influence his feeling for the live son — if live 
 he were : no doubt he had enjoyed the company of 
 the low-born woman more than hers, for she, a 
 woman of society, knew what was right ! She had 
 reason therefore to fear him prejudiced for any pre- 
 tender ! Arthur and he got on quite as well as could 
 be expected of father and son — their differences never 
 came to much ; but on the other hand Sir Wilton had 
 a demoniacal pleasure in frustrating ! To make a 
 man he disliked furious was honey and nuts to Sir 
 Wilton ; and she knew a woman whose disappoint- 
 ment would be dearer to him than that of all his 
 enemies together ! It was better therefore that he 
 
^yS THERE AND BACK. 
 
 should have no hint, and especially from her, of 
 what was in the air ! 
 
 Lady Ann thought herself a good woman because 
 she never felt interest enough to be spiteful like Sir 
 Wilton ; yet, very strangely, not knowing in herself 
 what repentance meant, she judged him capable of 
 doing her the wrong of atoning to his first wife for 
 his neglect of her, by being good to her child ! 
 
 Thinking over her talk with Barbara, she could 
 not, after all, feel certain that Richard knew, or that 
 he had incited Barbara to take his part. But in any 
 case it was better to get rid of him ! It was dangerous 
 to have him in the house ! He might be spending 
 his nights in trumping up evidence ! At any moment 
 he might appeal to Sir Wilton as his father ! But at 
 the worst, he would be unable to prove the thing 
 right off, and if her husband would but act like a 
 man, they might impede the attempt beyond the 
 possibility of its success ! 
 
 One comfort was, that, she was all but confident, 
 the child was not already baptized when stolen from 
 Mortgrange ; neither were such as would steal chil- 
 dren likely to have them baptized ; therefore the God 
 who would not allow the unbaptized to lie in his 
 part of the cemetery, would never favor his succes- 
 sion to the title and estate of Mortgrange ! The fact 
 must have its weight with Providence ! — whom Lady 
 Ann always regarded as a good churchman : he 
 would never take the part of one that had not been 
 baptized ! Besides, the fellow was sure to turn out 
 a socialist, or anarchist, or positivist, or radical, or 
 something worse ! She would dispute his identity to 
 the last, and assert his imposture beyond it ! Her 
 
LADY ANN MEDITATES. 379 
 
 duty to society demanded that she should not give 
 in ! 
 
 Suddenly she remembered the description her hus- 
 band had given her of the ugliness of the infant : 
 this man was decidedly handsome ! Then she re- 
 membered that Sir Wilton had told her of a membrane 
 between certain of his fingers — horrible creature : 
 she must examine the impostor ! 
 
 Arthur was very moody at dinner ; his mother 
 feared some echo of the same report as caused her 
 own anxiety had reached him, and took the first 
 opportunity of questioning him. But neither of Lady 
 Ann's sons had learned such faith in their mother as 
 to tell her their troubles. Arthur would confess to 
 none. She in her turn was far too prudent to disclose 
 what was in her mind : the folly of his youth might 
 take the turn of an unthinking generosity ! the notion 
 of an elder brother might even be welcome to him ! 
 
 In another generation no questions would be 
 asked ! Many estates were in illegal possession ! 
 There was a claim superior to the legal ! Theirs was 
 a moral claim ! 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 LADY ANN AND RICHARD. 
 
 The same afternoon, Richard was mending the 
 torn title of a black-letter copy of Fox's Book of 
 Martyrs. Vixen had forgotten her former fright, and 
 her evil courage had returned. Opening the door of 
 the library so softly that Richard heard nothing, she 
 stole up behind him, and gave his elbow a great 
 push just as, with the sharpest of penknives, he was 
 paring the edge of a piece of old paper, to patch the 
 title. The penknife slid along the bit of glass he 
 was paring upon, and cut his other hand. The blood 
 spouted, and some of it fell upon the title, which made 
 Richard angry : it was an irremediable catastrophe, 
 for the paper was too weak to bear any washing. 
 He laid hold of the child, meaning once more to carry 
 her from the room, and secure the door. Then first 
 Vixen saw what she had done, and was seized with 
 horror — not because she had hurt "the bear," but 
 because of the blood, the sight of which she could 
 not endure. It was a hereditary weakness on Sir 
 Wilton's side. One of the strongest men of his family 
 used to faint at the least glimpse of blood. There 
 was a tradition to account for it, not old or thin 
 enough to cast no shadow, therefore seldom alluded 
 to. It was not, therefore, an ordinary childish dis- 
 may, but a deep-seated congenital terror, that made 
 Vixen give one wavering scream, and drop on the 
 
LADY ANN AND RICHARD. 38 1 
 
 floor. Richard thought she was pretending- a faint 
 in moclcery of what she had done, but when he took 
 her up, he saw that she was insensible. He laid her 
 on a couch, rang the bell, and asked the man to take 
 the child to her governess. The man saw blood on 
 the child's dress, and when he reached the school- 
 room with her, informed the governess that she had 
 had an accident in the library. Miss Malliver, with 
 one of her accomplished shrieks, dispatched him to 
 tell Lady Ann. Coming to herself in a few minutes, 
 Vixen told a confused story of how the bear had 
 frightened her. Lady Ann, learning that the blood 
 was not that of her child, came to the conclusion 
 that Richard had played upon her pecuharity to get 
 rid of her, for Vixen, incapable of truth, did not tell 
 that she was herself the cause of the wound whence 
 the blood had made its appearance. IMiss Malliver, 
 who would hardly have been sorry had Vixen's 
 throat been cut, rose in wrath, and would have 
 swooped down the stair upon Richard. 
 
 "Leave him to me, Malliver," said Lady Ann, and 
 rising, went downi the stair. But the moment she 
 entered the library, and saw Richard's hand tied up 
 in his handkerchief, she bethought herself of the 
 happy chance of satisfaction as to whether or not he 
 was web-fingered : the absence of the peculiarity 
 would indeed prove nothing, but the presence of it 
 would be a warning of the worst danger : he might 
 have had it removed, but could not have contrived 
 to put it there ! 
 
 "What have you done to yourself, Mr. Tuke .^ " 
 she said, making a motion to take the wounded hand, 
 from which at the same time she shrank with inward 
 disgust. 
 
382 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Nothing of any consequence, my lady," answered 
 Richard, who had risen, and stood before her. " I 
 was using a very sharp knife, and it went into my 
 hand. I hope Miss Victoria is better.? " 
 
 "There is nothing much the matter with her," 
 answered her ladyship. "The sight of blood always 
 makes her faint." 
 
 "It is a horrid sight, my lady ! " rejoined Richard, 
 wondering at her ladyship's affability, and ready to 
 meet any kindness. "When I was at school, I was 
 terribly affected by it. One boy used to provoke me 
 to fight him, and contrive that I should make his 
 nose bleed — after which he could do what he liked 
 with me. But I set myself to overcome the weak- 
 ness, and succeeded." 
 
 Lady Ann listened in silence, too intent on his hands 
 to remark at the moment how the fact he mentioned 
 bore on the question that absorbed her. 
 
 " Would you mind showing me the wound ? " she 
 said. "I am something of a surgeon." 
 
 To her disappointment, he persisted that it was 
 nothing. Because of the peculiarity she would gladly 
 have missed in them, he did not like showing his 
 hands. His mother had begged him not to meddle 
 with the oddity until she gave her consent, promis- 
 ing a good reason for the request when the right 
 time should arrive ; but he was sensitive about it — 
 probably from having been teased because of it. 
 His comfort was, that a few slits of a sharp knife 
 would make him like other people. 
 
 Lady Ann was foiled, therefore the more eager : 
 why should the man be so unwilling to show his 
 hands.' 
 
 "Your work must be very interesting ! " she said. 
 
LADY ANN AND RICHARD. 383 
 
 " I am fond of it, my lady," he answered. " If I 
 had a fortune left me, I should find it hard to drop it. 
 There is nothing like work — and books — for enjoying- 
 life ! " 
 
 "I daresay you are right. — But go on with your 
 work. I have heard so much about it from Miss 
 Wylder that I should like to sec you at it." 
 
 "I am sorry, my lady, but 1 shall be fit for next 
 to nothing for a day 'or two because of this hand. I 
 dare not attempt going on with what I am now 
 doing." 
 
 "Is it so very painful ? You ought to have it seen 
 to. I will send for Mr. Hurst." 
 
 As she spoke, she turned to go to the bell. 
 Richard had tried to interrupt her, but she would not 
 listen. He now assured her that it was his work not 
 his hand that he was thinking of; and said that, if 
 Mr. Lestrange had no objection, he would take a 
 short holiday. 
 
 "Then you would like to go home !" said her 
 ladyship, thinking it would be so easy then to write 
 and tell him not to come back — if only Arthur could 
 be got to do it. 
 
 " I should like to go to my grandfather's for a few 
 day.s," answered Richard. 
 
 This was by no means what Lady Ann desired, but 
 she did not see how to oppose it. 
 
 " Well, perhaps you had better go," she said. 
 
 "If you please, my lady," rejoined Richard, "I 
 must see Mr. Lestrange first. I cannot go without 
 his permission." 
 
 " I will speak to my son about it," answered Lady 
 Ann, and went away, feeling that Richard would be 
 a dangerous enemy. She did not hate him ; she 
 
384 THERE AND BACK 
 
 only regarded him as what might possibly prove an 
 adverse force to be encountered and frustrated be- 
 cause of her family, and because of the right way of 
 things — that those, namely, who had nothing should 
 be kept from getting anything. In the meantime the 
 only thing clear was, that he had better be got out 
 of the neighborhood ! It was well Sir Wilton had 
 hardly seen the young man ; if there was anything 
 about him capable of rousing old memories, it vi'ere 
 well it should not have the chance ! Sir Wilton was 
 not fond of books, and it could be no great pleasure 
 to him to have the library set to rights ; he was 
 annoyed at being kept out of it, for he liked to smoke 
 his cigar there, and shuddered at the presence of a 
 working man except in the open air : she was certain 
 he would feel nowise aggrieved if the design were 
 abandoned midway ! The only person she feared 
 would oppose Tuke's departure was Arthur. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 AND ARTHUR. 
 
 She went to find him, told him what had happened 
 to the young man, and, feeling her way, proposed 
 that he should go to his grandfather's for a few days. 
 Arthur started. Send him where he and Barbara 
 would be constantly meeting ! Must he forever im- 
 agine them walking up and down that field, among 
 the dandelions and daisies ! He had discovered, he 
 believed, all that was between them, but was not 
 therewith satisfied : she had found out, he said to him- 
 self, that the fellow was an infidel, did not believe in 
 God, or a resurrection — was so low that he did not care 
 to live forever, and she was trying to convert him. 
 Arthur would rather he remained unconverted than 
 that she should be the means of converting him. Nor 
 indeed would he be much injured by having the 
 growth of such a faith as Arthur's prevented in him : 
 Arthur prided himself in showing due respect to the 
 Deity by allowing that he existed. But the fellow was 
 too clever by half, he said, and would be much too 
 much for her. Any theory wild enough would be 
 attractive to her, who never cared a pinhead what 
 the rest of the world believed ! She had indeed a 
 strong tendency to pantheism, for she expected the 
 animals to rise again — a most unpleasant notion ! 
 Doubtless it was she that sought his company; a 
 fellow like that could not presume to seek hers ! He 
 25 
 
386 THKRE AND BACK. 
 
 was only laughing at her all the time ! What could 
 an animal like him care about the animals : he had 
 not even a dog to love ! He would 710/ have him go 
 to his grandfather's ! he would a thousand times 
 rather give up the library ! There should be no 
 more bookbinding at Mortgrangc ! He would send 
 the books to London to him ! It would he de- 
 grading to allow personal feeling to affect his be- 
 havior to such a fellow ; he should have the work 
 all the same, but not at Mortgrange ! 
 
 So he answered his mother that he was rather tired 
 of him, and thought they had had enough of him ; 
 the work seemed likely to be spun out ad infmiiiim, 
 and this was a good opportunity for getting rid of 
 him. He was sorry, for it was the best way for the 
 books, but he could send them to him in London, 
 and have them done there ! The man, he understood, 
 had been making himself disagreeable too, and he 
 did not want to quarrel with him ! He was a 
 radical, and thought himself as good as anybody : it 
 was much best to let him go. Ue had at first liked 
 him, and had perhaps shown it more than was 
 good for the fellow, so that he had come to presume 
 upon it, setting it down to some merit in himself. 
 Happily he had retained the right of putting an end 
 to the engagement when he pleased ! 
 
 This was far better than Lady Ann had expeoted. 
 Arthur went at once to Richard, and speaking, as he 
 thought, unconcernedly, told him they found it in- 
 convenient to have the library used as a workshop 
 any longer, and must make a change. 
 
 Richard was glad to hear it, thinking he meant to 
 give him another room, and said he could work just 
 as well anywhere else : he wanted only a dry room 
 
RICHARD AND ARTHUR. 3S7 
 
 with a fireplace ! Arthur told him he had arrang-cd 
 for what would be more agreeable to both parties, 
 namely, that he should do the work at home. It 
 would cost more, but he was prepared for that. He 
 might go as soon as he pleased, and they would 
 arrange by letter how the books should be sent — so 
 many at a time ! 
 
 Richard spied something more under his dismissal 
 than the affair with iNIiss Vixen ; but he was too proud 
 to ask for an explanation : Mr. Lestrange was in the 
 right of their compact. He felt aggrieved notwith- 
 standing, and was sorry to go away from the library. 
 He would never again have the chance of restoring 
 such a library ! He did not once think of it from the 
 point of gain : he could always make his living ! It 
 was to him a genuine pleasure to cause any worthy 
 volume to look as it ought to look ; and to make a 
 whole straggling library of books, wasted and worn, 
 put on the complexion, uniform, and discipline of a 
 well-conditioned company of the host of heaven, was 
 at least an honorable task ! For what are books, I 
 venture to say, but an army-corps of the Lord of hosts, 
 at whose command are troops of all natures, after the 
 various regions of his indwelling ! Even the letter is 
 something, for the dry bones of books are every 
 hour coming alive to the reader in whose spirit is 
 blowing the better spirit. Richard himself was one 
 of such, though he did not yet know there was a better 
 spirit. Then again, there were not a few of the books 
 with which individually he was sorry to part. He 
 had also had fine opportunity for study, of which he 
 was making good use, and the loss of it troubled him. 
 He had read some books he would hardly otherwise 
 
388 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 have been able to read, and had largely extended his 
 acquaintance with titles. 
 
 He was sorry too not to see more of Mr. Wingfold. 
 He was a clergyman, it was true, but not the least 
 like any other clergyman he had seen ! Richard had 
 indeed known nothing of any other clergyman out 
 of the pulpit ; and I fear most clergymen are less 
 human, therefore less divine, in the pulpit than out 
 of it ! Many who out of the pulpit appear men, are 
 in it little better than hawkers of old garments, the 
 worse for their new patches. Of the forces in action 
 for the renovation of the world, the sale of such old 
 clothes is one of the least potent. They do, however, 
 serve a little, I think, even as the rags of a Neapolitan 
 for the olives of Italy, as a sort of manure for the 
 young olives of the garden of God. 
 
 But his far vv'orst sorrow was leaving Miss Wylder. 
 That was a pain, a keen pain in his heart. For, that 
 a woman is miles above him, as a star is above a 
 marsh-light, is no reason why a man should not love 
 her. Nay, is it not the best of reasons for loving her ? 
 The higher in soul, and the lowlier in position he is, 
 the more imperative and unavoidable is it that he 
 should love her; and the absence of any thought in 
 the direction of marriage leaves but the wider room 
 for the love infinite. In a man capable of loving in 
 such fashion, there are no bounds to the possibilities, 
 no limit to the growth of love. Richard thought his 
 soul was full, but a live soul can never be full ; it is 
 always growing larger, and is always being filled. 
 
 "Like one that hath been stunned," he went about 
 his preparations for departure. 
 
 "You will go by the first train in the morning," 
 said Arthur, happening to meet him in the stable- 
 
RICHARD AND ARTHUR. 389 
 
 yard, whither Richard had gone to look if Miss Brown 
 was in her usual stall. " 1 have told Robert to take 
 you and your tools to the station in the spring-cart." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," returned Richard ; "I shall not 
 require the cart. I leave the house to-night, and 
 shall send for my things to-morrow morning. 1 have 
 them almost ready now." 
 
 " You cannot go to London to-night ! " 
 
 "I am aware of that, sir." 
 
 "Then where are you going.? I wish to know." 
 
 "That is my business, sir." 
 
 "You have no cause to show temper," said Arthur, 
 coldly. 
 
 " I should not have shown it, sir, had you not pre- 
 sumed to give me orders after dismissing me," an- 
 swered Richard. 
 
 "I have not dismissed you ; I mean to employ you 
 still, only in London instead of here," said Arthur. 
 
 "That is a matter for fresh arrangement with my 
 father," rejoined Richard, and left him. 
 
 Arthur felt a shadow cross him— almost like fear : 
 he had but driven Richard to his grandfather's and 
 had made an enemy of him ! Nor could he feel satis- 
 fied with himself; he could not get rid of the thought 
 that what he had done was not quite the thing for a 
 gentleman to do. His trouble was not that he had 
 wronged Richard, but that he had wronged himself, 
 had not acted like his ideal of himself. He did not 
 think of what was right, but of what befitted a gentle- 
 man. Such a man is in danger of doing many things 
 unbefitting a gentleman. For the measure of a gentle- 
 man is not a man's ideal of himself. 
 
 His uneasiness grew as day after day went by, and 
 Barbara did not appear at Mortgrange. He was not 
 
39^ THERE AND BACK. 
 
 aware that Richard saw no more of her than himself. 
 He knew that he was at his g-randfather's ; he had him- 
 self seen him at work at the anvil ; but he did not 
 know that the hope in which he lingered there was 
 vain. 
 
 Richard waited a week, but no Barbara came to the 
 smithy. He could not endure the thought of g-oing 
 away without seeing her once more. He must once 
 thank her for what she had done for him ! He must 
 let her know why he had left Mortgrange. 
 
 He would go and say good-bye to the clergyman : 
 from him he might hear something of her ! 
 
 Wingfold caught sight of him approaching the 
 house, and himself opened the door to him. Taking 
 him to his study, he made him sit down, and offered 
 him a pipe. 
 
 "Thank you, sir ; I don't smoke," said Richard. 
 
 "Then don't learn. You are better without it," 
 answered Wingfold, and put down his own pipe, 
 
 " I came," said Richard, " to thank you for your 
 kindness to me, and to ask about Miss Wylder. Not 
 having seen her for a long time, I was afraid she 
 might be ill. I am going away." 
 
 There was a tremor in Richard's voice, of which 
 he was not himself aware. Wingfold noted it, pitied 
 the youth because of the fuel he liad stored for suffer- 
 ing, and admired him for his straightforwardness. 
 
 " I am sorry to say you are not likely to see Miss 
 Wylder," he answered. " Her mother is ill." 
 
 " I hardly thought to see her, sir. Is her mother 
 very ill ? " 
 
 " Yes, very ill," answered Wingfold. 
 
 "With anything infectious.? " 
 
 "No. Her complaint is as little infectious as com- 
 
RICHARD AND ARTHUR. 39 1 
 
 plaint could be ; it is just exhaustion — absolute pros- 
 tration, mental and nervous. She is too weak to 
 think, and can't even feed herself. I fear her daughter 
 will be worn out waiting on her. She devotes her- 
 self to her mother with a spirit and energy I never 
 but once knew equalled. She never seems tired, 
 never out of spirits. I heard a lady say she couldn't 
 have much feeling to look cheerful when her mother 
 was in such a state ; but the lady was stupid. She 
 would wait on her own mother almost as devotedly 
 as Miss Wylder, but with such a lugubrious coun- 
 tenance that her patient might well seek refuge from 
 it in the grave. But it is no wonder she should be in 
 good spirits : it is the first time in her life, she says, 
 that she has been allowed to be of any use to her 
 mother ! Then she is not suffering pain, and that 
 makes a great difference. But more than all, her 
 mother has grown so tender to her, and so grateful, 
 foUovv'ing her constantly about the room with her eyes, 
 that the girl says she feels in a paradise of which her 
 mother is the tutelar divinity, raying out bliss as she 
 lies in bed ! Also her father is kinder to her mother. 
 Little signs of tenderness pass between them — a thing 
 she has never known before ! How could she be 
 other than happy 1 — But what is this you tell me 
 about going away ? The library cannot be finished ? " 
 
 Wingfoldhad dilated on the worth of Miss Wylder, 
 and let Richard know of her happiness, out of genu- 
 ine sympathy. He knew that, next to the worship of 
 God, the true worship of a fellow-creature, in the old 
 meaning of the word, is the most potent thing for 
 deliverance. 
 
 "No, sir," answered Richard ; "the library is left 
 in mid-ocean of decay. I don't know why they have 
 
392 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 dismissed me. The only thing- clear is, that they 
 want to be rid of me. What I have done I can't 
 think. There is a little g-irl of the family " 
 
 Here he told how Vixen had from the first behaved 
 to him, and what things had happened in consequence, 
 the last more particularly. 
 
 "But," he concluded, "I do not think it can be 
 that. I should like to know what it is." 
 
 "Then wait," said Wingfold. " If we only wait 
 long- enough, every reason'will come out. You know 
 I believe we are not going- to stop, but are meant to 
 go on and on forever ; and I believe the business of 
 eternity is to bring grand hidden things out into the 
 light ; and with them will come of necessity many 
 other things as well, even some, I daresay, that Ave 
 count trifles, — But I am sorry you're going." 
 
 "I don't see why you should be, sir! " answered 
 Richard, his look taking from the words their seem- 
 ing rudeness. 
 
 "Because I like you, and feel sure we should un- 
 derstand each other if only we had time," replied the 
 parson. " It's a grand thing to come upon one who 
 knows what you mean. It's so much of heaven be- 
 fore you get there. — If you think I'm talking shop, I 
 can't help it — and I don't care, so long as you believe 
 I mean it. I would not have you think it the Rev- 
 erend Thomas and not Thomas himself that was say- 
 ing it." 
 
 "I should never say you talked shop, sir; and I 
 don't think you would say I was talking shop if I 
 expatiated on the beauties of a Grolier binding ! 
 You would see I was not talking from love of gain, 
 but love of beauty ! " 
 
 "Thank you. You are a fair man, and that is 
 
RICHARD AND ARTHUR. 393 
 
 even more than nn honest man ! I don't speak 
 from love of religion ; I don't know that I do love 
 religion. " 
 
 •■'I don't understand you now, sir." 
 
 "Look here: I am very fond of a well-bound 
 book ; I should like all my new books bound in 
 levant morocco ; but I don't care about it ; I could 
 do well enough without any binding at all." 
 
 " Of course you could, sir ! and so could I, or any 
 man that cared for the books themselves." 
 
 "Very well ! I don't care about religion much, 
 but I could not live without my Father in heaven. 
 I don't believe anybody can live without Him." 
 
 "I see," said Richard. 
 
 He thought he saw, but he did not see, and could 
 not help smiling in his heart as he said to him- 
 self, "/have lived a good many years without 
 Him ! " 
 
 Wingfold saw the shadow of the smile, and blamed 
 himself for having spoken too soon. 
 
 "When do you go.?" he asked. 
 
 "I think I shall go to-morrow. I am at my grand- 
 father's." 
 
 " If I can be of use to you, let me know." 
 
 "I will, sir; and I thank you heartily. There's 
 nothing a man is so grateful for as friendliness." 
 
 "The obligation is mutual," said Wingfold. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 MR., MRS., AND MISS WYLDER, 
 
 A NEW experience had come to Mrs. Wylder. Her 
 passion over the death of her son ; her constant and 
 prolonged contention with her husband ; her protest 
 against him whom she called the Almighty ; the 
 public consequence of the same ; these, and the re- 
 action from all these, had resulted, in a sudden sink- 
 ing of the vital forces, so that she who had been like 
 a burning taery furnace, was now like a heap of cool- 
 ing ashes on a hearth, with the daylight coming in. 
 She had not only never known what illness was, she 
 did not even know what it was to feel unfit. Her 
 consciousness of health was so clear, so unmixed, so 
 unencountered, that she had never had a conception, 
 a thought, a notion of what even that health was. 
 Power and strength had so constantly seemed part 
 of her known self, that she never thought of them ; 
 they were never far enough from her to be seen 
 by her ; she did not suspect them as other than 
 herself, or dream that they could be disjoined from 
 her. She could think only in the person of a strong 
 woman ; she was aware only of the being of a strong 
 woman. Even after she had been some time help- 
 less in bed, as often as she thought of anything she 
 would like to do, it was the act of trying to get up 
 and do it, that made her aware afresh that she was 
 no more the woman corresponding to her conscious- 
 ness of herself. For her consciousness had never 
 
MR., MRS., AND MISS WVLDER. 395 
 
 yet presented her as she really was, but always 
 through the conditional and non-essential, so that by 
 accidents only was she characterized to herself. Now 
 she was too feeble even to care for the loss of her 
 strength ; her weakness went too deep to be felt as 
 an oppression, for it met with no antagonism. Her 
 inability to move was now no prison, and her attend- 
 ant was no slave with tardy feet, but an angel of 
 God. 
 
 For her Bab was npw the mother's one delight. 
 Her love for her lost twin had been in great part 
 favoritism, partisanship, defence, opposition ; her 
 love for Barbara was all tenderness and no pride. 
 In her self-lack she clung to her — as lordly dame, 
 who had taken her castle for part of herself, and im- 
 pregnable, but, its walls crumbling under the shot of 
 the enemy, found herself defenceless before her 
 captors, might turn and clasp her little maid, sup- 
 pliant for protection. Good is it that we are not 
 what we seem to ourselves "in our hours of ease," 
 for then we should never seek the Father ! The loss 
 of all that the world connis first things is a thousand- 
 fold repaid in the mere waking to higher need. It 
 proves the presence of the divine in the lower good, 
 that its loss is so potent A man may send his gaze 
 over the clear heaven, and suspect no God ; when 
 the stifling cloud comes down, folds itself about him, 
 shuts from him the expanse of the universe, he be- 
 gins to long for a hand, a sign, some shadow of pres- 
 ence. Mrs. Wylder had not got so far as this yet, 
 but she had sought refuge in love ; and what is the 
 love of child, or mother, or dog, but the love of 
 God, shining through another being — which is a 
 being just because he shines through it. This was 
 
396 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 the one important result of her ilhiess, that, finding' 
 refuge in the love of her daughter, she loved her 
 daughter. The next point in her eternal growth 
 would be to love the God vi^ho made the child she 
 loved, and whose love shone upon her through the 
 child. By nature she was a strong woman whom 
 passion made weak. It sucked at her will till first it 
 hardened it to a more selfish determination, then 
 pulped it to a helpless obstinacy. The persistence 
 that goes with inclination has its force only from the 
 weakness of pride and the mean worship of self; it 
 is the opposite of that free will which is the reflex of 
 the divine will, and the ministering servant-power to 
 all freedom, which resists and subdues the self of 
 inclination, and is obedient only to the self of duty. 
 Where the temple of God has no windows, earth- 
 quake must rend the roof, that the sunlight may 
 enter. Barbara's mother lay broken on her couch 
 that the spirit of the daughter might enter the soul 
 of her mother — and with it the spirit of him who, 
 in the heart of her daughter, made her that which 
 she was. 
 
 Her illness had lasted a month, when one day her 
 husband, at Barbara's prayer, coming to see her, she 
 feebly put out her hand asking for his, and for a 
 moment the divine child in the man opened its 
 heavenly eyes. He took the offered hand kindly, 
 faltered a gentle-sounding commonplace or two, and 
 left her happier, with a strange little bird fluttering 
 in his own bosom. There are eggs of all the heavenly 
 birds in our bosoms, and the history of man is the 
 incubation and hatching of these eggs. 
 
 She began to recover, but the recovery was a long 
 one. As soon as she thought her well enougli, Bar- 
 
MR., MRS., AND MISS WYLDER. 397 
 
 bara told her that Mr. VVingfold had been to inquire 
 after her almost every day, and asked whether she 
 would not like to see him. Mrs. Wylder was in a 
 quiescent condition, non-combatant, involving no 
 real betterment, occasioned only by the absence of 
 impulse. But such a condition gives opportunity 
 for the good, the gentle, the loving, to be felt, and 
 so recognized. The sufferer resembles a child that 
 has not been tempted, whose trial is yet to come. 
 With recovery, fresh claim will be put in by the 
 powers of good. This claim will be resisted by old 
 habit, resuming its force in the return of physical and 
 psychical health, — and then comes the tug of war. 
 For no one can be saved, as he who knows his mas- 
 ter would be saved, without the will being supreme 
 in the matter, without the choosing to fulfil all right- 
 eousness, to resist the wrong, to do the right. Wing- 
 fold never built much on bed-repentance. The aphor- 
 ism of the devil sick and the devil well is only too 
 true. But he welcomed the fresh opportunity for a 
 beginning. He knew that pain and sickness do rub 
 some dirt from the windows toward the infinite, 
 and that things of the old unknown world whence 
 we came, do sometimes look in at them, a moment 
 now, and a moment then, waking new old things 
 that lie in every child born into the world. I seem 
 to see the great marshes where the souls go wander- 
 ing about after the bog-fires ; a kiss blown from the 
 walls of the city comes wavering down among them ; 
 it flits hither and thither with the dead-lights ; it finds 
 a soul with a spot on which it can alight ; it settles 
 there, and kisses it alive. God is the God of patience, 
 and waits and waits for the child who keeps him 
 waiting and will not open the door. 
 
398 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Wingfold went to see her, but took good care to 
 press nothing upon her. He let her give him the 
 lead. She spoke of her weakness, and the parson 
 drew out her moan. She praised her Barbara, and the 
 parson praised her again in words that opened the 
 mother's eyes to new beauties in her daughter. She 
 mentioned her weariness, and the parson spoke of 
 the fields and the soft wind and the yellow shine of 
 the buttercups in the grass. Her heart was gently 
 drawn to the man whose eyes were so keen, whose 
 voice was so mellow and strong, and whose words 
 were so lovely sweet, saying the things that were 
 in her own heart, but would not come out. 
 
 One day he proposed to read something, and she 
 consented. I will not say what he read, for I would 
 avoid waking controversy as to fitness. He thought 
 he knew what he was about. The good in a true book, 
 he would say, is the best protection against what 
 may not be so good in it ; its wrong as well as its 
 right may wake the conscience : the thoughts of a book 
 accuse and excuse one another. In saying so, he 
 took the true reader for granted; to an untrue reader 
 the truth itself is untrue. The general sense of honor, 
 he would say, has been stimulated not a little by the 
 story of the treachery of Jael. Nor- w^as it any won- 
 der he should succeed in interesting Mrs. Wylder, for 
 she had a strong brain as well as a big heart. More 
 than half her faults came of an indignant sense of 
 wrong. She had passionately loved her husband 
 once, but he had soon ceased even tlie show of 
 returning her affection, 
 
 And to be wroth with one we love 
 Doth work like madness in the brain. 
 
MR., MRS., AXD MISS WYLDKR. 399 
 
 would have her taug:ht, a struggle continued to her 
 fortieth year, she was now at length a pupil in an- 
 other school, where the schoolroom was her bed, 
 the book of Quiet her first study, her two attendants 
 a clergyman and her own daughter, and her one 
 teacher God himself. In that schoolroom, the world 
 began to open to her a little. Among men who 
 could, without seeming to aim at it, make another 
 think, I have not met the equal of Wingfold. His 
 mode was that of the open-hearted apostle, who took 
 men by guile. He called out the thoughts lurking in 
 their souls, and set them dealing with those thoughts, 
 not with him : they were slow to discover that he was 
 a divine musician, playing upon the holy strings of 
 their hearts ; they thought the tunes came alive in their 
 own air — -as indeed they did, only another hand 
 woke them. To work thus, he had to lay bare not 
 a little of his own feeling, but where it was brotherly 
 to show feeling, he counted it unchristian to hide it. 
 Feeling by itself, however, that came and went with- 
 out correspondent action, he counted not only weak 
 and mawkish, but tending to the devilish. 
 
 Barbara was happy all day long. Life seemed 
 about to blossom into great flowers of scarlet and 
 gold. She had learned from the parson that the 
 bookbinder was gone, but was at the time too busy 
 and too anxious to question him as to thecause of his 
 going. Till her mother was well, it was enough to 
 know that Richard had wanted to see her, doubtless 
 to tell her all about it. She often thought of him, 
 what he had done for her, and what she had tried to 
 do for him, and was certain he would one day be- 
 lieve in God. She did not suspect any quarrel with 
 the people at Morlgrange. She thought perhaps the 
 
400 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 secret concerning- him had come out, and he did not 
 choose to remain in a house the head of which, if Lady- 
 Ann's tale was true, had so bitterly wronged his 
 mother. As soon as she was able she would go and 
 hear of him from his grandfather ! There was no 
 hurry ! She would certainly see him again before 
 long ! And he would be sure to write ! It did not 
 occur to her that a man in his position would hardly 
 venture to approach her again, without some re- 
 newed approach on her part ; and for a long time 
 she was nowise uneasy. 
 
 The hope alive in Wingfold made him a true con- 
 soler ; and the very sight of him was a strength to 
 Barbara. She regarded him with profound rever- 
 ence, and his wife as most enviable of women : could 
 she not learn from his mouth the rights of a thing, 
 the instant she opened hers to ask them? Barbara 
 did not know how much the sympathy, directness, 
 and clear common sense of Helen had helped to 
 keep awake, support, and nourish the insight of her 
 husband. She did not know, good and powerful as 
 Wingfold must have been had he never married, how 
 much wiser, more useful, and more aspiring he had 
 grown because Helen was Helen, and his wife, sent 
 as certainly as ever angel in the old time. The one 
 fault she had in the eyes of her husband was, that 
 she was so indignant with affectation or humbug of 
 any sort, as hardly to give the better thing that might 
 coexist with it, the needful chance. 
 
 So long as evil comes to the front, it appears an 
 interminable, unconquerable thing. But all the time 
 there may be a change, positive as inexplicable, at 
 the very door. How is it that a child begins to be 
 good? Upon what fulcrum rests the knife-edge of 
 
MR., MRS., AND MISS WYLDER. 
 
 alteration ? As undistinguishable is the moment in 
 which the turn takes place ; equally perplexing to 
 keenest investigation the part of the being in which 
 the renovation commences. Who shall analyze 
 repentance, as a force, or as a phenomenon ! You 
 cannot see it coming ! Before you know, there it is, 
 and the man is no more what he was ; his life is 
 upon other lines ! The wind hath blown. We saw 
 not whence it came, or whither it went, but the new 
 birth is there. It began in the spiritual infinitesimal, 
 where all beginnings are. The change was begun in 
 Mrs. Wylder. But the tug of her war was to come. 
 
 Lady Ann had not once been to see her since first 
 calling when she arrived. Naturally she did not 
 take to her. In the eyes of Lady Ann, Mrs. Wylder 
 was insufferable — a vulgar, arrogant, fierce woman, 
 purse-proud and ignorant. But a keen moral eye 
 would have perceived Lady Ann vastly inferior to Mrs. 
 Wylder in everything right-womanly. Lady Ann 
 was the superior by the changeless dignity of her 
 carriage, but her self-assured pre-eminence was offen- 
 sive, and her drawling deliberation far more objec- 
 'tionable than Mrs. Wylder's abrupt movements, or 
 the rough and ready speech that accompanied her 
 eager dart at the gist of a matter. Even the look 
 that would kill a man if it could, never roused such 
 hate as sprang to meet the icy stare of her passionless 
 ladyship. Many a man with no admiration of the 
 florid, would have sought refuge in Mrs. Wylder's 
 plump face, vivid with an irritable humanity, from 
 the moveless pallor of Lady Ann's delicately formed 
 cheek, and the pinched thinness of her fine, poverty- 
 stricken nose. Oh, those pinched nostrils, the very 
 outcry of inward meanness ! will they ever open to 
 
 26 
 
402 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 the full tide of a surging breath ? What vital inter- 
 weaving of gladness and grief will at length make 
 strong and brave and unselfish the heart that sent 
 out those nostrils ! Less than a divine shame will 
 never make it the heart of a fearless, bountiful, redeem- 
 ing woman. 
 
 Mrs. Wylder was nowise annoyed that Lady Ann 
 did not call a second time. She did not care enough 
 to mind, and preferred not seeing her. They had in 
 common as near nothing as humanity permitted. 
 "Stuckup kangaroo.?" she called her. 
 
 "I'll lay you my best sapphire," she said to her 
 daughter, in the hearing of Wingfold, whose presence 
 she had forgotten, "that for the last three hundred 
 years not a woman of her family has suckled her own 
 young ! " 
 
 Neither mother nor daughter had shown the least 
 deference to Lady Ann's exalted position. The first 
 movement of her dislike to Mrs. Wylder was caused 
 by her laughing and talking as unrestrainedly in her 
 presence as in that of the doctor's wife, who happened 
 to be in the room when Lady Ann entered. But now 
 that danger, not to say ruin, appeared in the distance, 
 she must, for the sake of her son, wronged by his 
 father's having married another woman before his 
 mother, neglect no chance ! Arthur had been to 
 Wylder Hall repeatedly, but Barbara had not seen 
 him ! She must go herself and pay some court to 
 the young heiress I She was anxious also to learn 
 whether any chagrin was concerned in her con- 
 tinuous absence from Mortgrange. 
 
 Barbara received her heartily, and they talked a 
 little. Lady Ann imagining herself very pleasing : she 
 rarely condescended to make herself agreeable, 
 
MR., MRS., AND MISS WYLDER. 403 
 
 and measured her success by her exertion. She 
 found Barbara in such good spirits that she pro- 
 nounced her heartless— not to her son, or to any but 
 herself, who would not have come near her but foi 
 the money to be got with her. She begged her, 
 notwithstanding, for the sake of her complexion, to 
 leave her mother an hour or two now and then, 
 and ride over to Mortgrange. Incessant watching 
 would injure her health, and health was essential 
 to beauty! Barbara protested that nothing ever 
 hurt her ; that she was the only person she knew fit to 
 be a nurse, because she was never ill. When her 
 Ladyship, for once oblivious of her manners, grew 
 importunate, Barbara flatly refused, 
 
 "You must pardon me. Lady Ann," she said; "I 
 cannot, and I will not leave my mother." 
 
 Then Lady Ann thought it might be wise to make 
 a little more of the mother to whom she seemed so 
 devoted. She had imagined the daughter of the 
 coarse woman must feel toward her as she did, and 
 suspected a coarser grain in the daughter than she 
 had supposed, because she was not disgusted with 
 her mother. She did not know that eyes of love see 
 the true being where other eyes see only its shadow; 
 and shadows differ a good deal from their bodies. 
 
 But meeting Mr. Wylder in the avenue as she re- 
 turned, and stopping her carriage to speak to him, 
 Lady Ann changed her mind, and resolved to curry 
 favor with the husband instead of the wife. For 
 hitherto she had scarcely seen Mr. Wylder, and knew 
 about him only by unfavorable hearsay ; but she M'as 
 charmed with him now, and drew from him a prom- 
 ise to go and dine at Mortgrange. 
 
 Bab went singing back to her mother, who was 
 
404 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 never so ill that she did not like to hear her voice. 
 She could not always bear it in the room, but outside 
 she was never tired of it. So Bab went about the 
 house singing like a mavis. But she never passed a 
 servant, male or female, without ceasing her song to 
 say a kind word ; and her mother, who, now that 
 she had got on a little, lay listening with her keenest 
 of ears, knew by the checks and changes of Bab's 
 song, something of what was going on in the house. 
 If one asked Bab what made her so happy, she 
 would answer that she had nothing to make her un- 
 happy ; and there was more philosophy in the 
 answer than may at first appear. For certainly the 
 normal condition of humanity is happiness, and the 
 thing that should be enough to make us happy is 
 simply the absence of anything to make us unhappy. 
 
 "Everything," she would answer another time, 
 " is making me happy." 
 
 "I think I am happiness," she said once. 
 
 How could she naturally be other than happy, see- 
 ing she came of happiness ! "II lieto fattore," says 
 Dante; "whose happy-making sight," says Milton. 
 
 Mr. Wylder went and dined with Sir Wilton and 
 Lady Ann. The latter did her poor best to please 
 him, and was successful. It had always been an 
 annoyance to Mr. Wylder that his wife was not a 
 lady. In the bush he did not feel it ; but now he 
 saw, as well as knew, wherein she was inferior, and 
 did not see wherein she excelled. It was the more 
 consolation to him that Lady Ann praised his 
 daughter, her beauty, her manners, her wit — praised 
 her for everything, in short, that she thought hers, 
 and for some things she thought were not hers. But 
 she hinted that it would be of the greatest benefit to 
 
MR., MRS., AND MISS WYLDER. 
 
 405 
 
 Barbara to have the next season in London. The 
 girl had met nobod}'-, and might, in her ignorance 
 and innocence, being such an eager, impetuous, 
 warm-hearted creature, with her powers of discrimina- 
 tion of course but little cultivated, make unsuitable 
 friendships that would lead to entanglement ; while, 
 well chaperoned, she might become one of the first 
 ladies in the county. She took care to let her father 
 know at the same time, or think he knew, that, 
 although her son would be only a baronet, he would 
 be rich, for the estates were in excellent condition 
 and free of encumbrance ; and hinted that there was 
 now a fine chance of enlarging the property, neigh- 
 boring land being in the market at a low price. 
 
 Mr. Wylder had indeed hoped for a higher match, 
 but Lady Ann, being an earl's daughter, had influence 
 with him. The remaining twin was so delicate that 
 it was very doubtful if he would succeed : if he did 
 not, and land could be had between to connect the 
 two properties of Mortgrange and Wylder, the estate 
 would be far the finest in the county ; when, as Lady 
 Ann hinted, means might be used to draw down 
 the favor of Providence in the form of a patent of 
 nobility. 
 
 To Lady Ann, London was the centre of love-mak- 
 ing, and Arthur, she said to herself, would show to 
 better advantage there than in the country. The 
 place where she had herself been nearest to falling in 
 love, was a ball-room : the heat apparently had half 
 thawed her. 
 
 Mr. Wylder thought Lady Ann was right, and the 
 best thing for Barbara would be to go to London : 
 Lady Ann would present her at court, and she would 
 doubtless be the belle of the season. Her chance 
 
4o6 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 would be none the worse of making a better match 
 than with Arthur Lestrange. 
 
 It may seem odd that a Hke reflection did not occur 
 to Lady Ann : far more eligible men than her son 
 might well be drawn to such a bit of sunshine as 
 Barbara; but just what in Barbara was most attrac- 
 tive, Lady Ann was least capable of appreciating. 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 IN LONDON. 
 
 It was into the first of the London fogs of the sea- 
 son that Richard, after a slow parhamentary journey, 
 got out of his third class carriage, at the great dim 
 station. He took his portmanteau in one hand and. 
 his bag of tools in the other, and went to look for an 
 omnibus. How terribly dull the streets were ! and 
 how terribly dull and commonplace all inside him ! 
 Into the far dark, the splendor of life, Barbara, 
 had vanished ! Various memories of her, now this 
 look, now that, now this attire, now that— a certain 
 button half torn from her riding habit— the feeling of 
 her foot in his hand as he lifted her to Miss Brown's 
 back— would enter his heart like the proclamation of 
 a queen on a progress through her dominions. The 
 way she drove the nails into her mare's hoof; the 
 way she would put her hand on his shoulder as she 
 slid from the saddle; the commanding love with 
 which she spoke to the great animal, and the way 
 Miss Brown received it ; the sweet coaxing respect 
 she showed his blacksmith-grandfather ; the tone of 
 her voice when she said God ;—-a. thousand attend- 
 ant shadows glided in her queen procession, one 
 after the other in single file, through his brain, and 
 his heart, and his every power. He forgot the omni- 
 bus, and went tramping through the dreary streets 
 with his portmanteau and a small bag of tools— he 
 
408 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 had sent home his heavier things before — thinking 
 ever of Barbara, and not scorning himself for think- 
 ing of her, for he thought of her as true lady herself 
 would never scorn to be thought of by honest man. 
 No genuine unselfish feeling is to be despised either 
 by its subject or its object. That Barbara was lovely 
 was no reason why Richard should not love her ! 
 that she was rich was no reason why he should for- 
 get her ! She came into his life as a star ascends 
 above the horizon of the world : the world cannot 
 say to it, "Go down, star." Yea, Richard's star 
 raised him as she rose. In her presence he was at 
 once rebuked and uplifted. She was a power within 
 him. He could not believe in God, but neither could 
 he think belief in such a God as she believed in 
 degrading. He said to himself that everything de- 
 pended on the kind of God believed in ; and that the 
 kind of God depended on the kind of woman. He 
 wondered how many ideas of God there might be, 
 for every one who believed in him must have a dif- 
 ferent idea. "Some of them must be nearer right 
 than others ! " he said to himself — nor perceived that 
 he was beginning to entertain the notion of a real 
 God. For he saw that the notions of the best men 
 and women must be convergent, and was not fir 
 from thinking that such lines must point to some 
 object, rather than an empty centre : the idea of the 
 best men and women must be a believable idea, 
 might be a true idea, might therefore be a real exist- 
 ence. He had not yet come to consider the fact, 
 that the best of men said he knew God ; that God 
 was like himself, only greater ; that whoever would 
 do what he told him should know that God, and 
 know that he spoke the trutli concerning him ; that 
 
IN LONDON. 409 
 
 he had come from him to witness of him that he was 
 truth and love. Richard had indeed started on a 
 path pointing thitherward, but as yet all concerning 
 the one necessary entity was vaguest speculation 
 with him. He did feel, however, that to give in to 
 Barbara altogether would not make him a believer 
 such as Barbara. On the other hand, he was yet far 
 from perceiving that no man is a believer, let him 
 give his body to be burned, except he give his will, 
 his life to the Master. No man is a behever with 
 whom he and his Father are not first ; no man, in a 
 word, who does not obey him, that is, who does not 
 do what he said, and says. It seems preposterous 
 that such definition should be necessary; but thou- 
 sands talk about him for one that believes in him ; 
 thousands will do what the priests and scribes say 
 he commands, for one who will search to find what 
 he says that he may do it — who will take his orders 
 from the Lord himself, and not from other men claim- 
 ing either knowledge or authority. A man must 
 come up to the Master, hearken to his word, and do 
 as he says. Then he will come to know God, and 
 to know that he knows him. 
 
 When he stopped thinking of Barbara, all was 
 dreary about Richard. But he did not once say to 
 himself, "She does not love me ! " did not once ask, 
 " Does she love me ? " He said, " She cares for me ; 
 she is good to me ! I wish I believed as she does, 
 that I might hope to meet her again in the house of 
 the one Father ! " 
 
 It was Saturday night, and he had to go through a 
 weekly market, a hurrying, pushing, loitering, jos- 
 tling crowd, gathered thick about the butchers' and 
 fishmongers' shops, the greengrocers' barrows, and 
 
4IO THERE AXD BACK. 
 
 the tra)'S upon wheels with things laid out for sale. 
 Suddenly a face flashed upon him, and disappeared. 
 He was not sure that it was Alice's, but it suggested 
 Alice so strongly that he turned and tried to overtake 
 it. Impeded by his luggage, however, which caught 
 upon hundreds of legs, he soon saw the attempt 
 hopeless. Then with pain he remembered that he 
 had not her address, and did not know how to com- 
 municate with her. He longed to learn why she 
 had left him without a word, what her repeated avoid- 
 dance of him meant; far more he desired to know 
 where she was that he might help her, and how she 
 fared. But Barbara was her friend ! Barbara knew 
 her address ! He would ask her to send it him ! 
 He hardly thought she would, for she was in the 
 secret of Alice's behavior, but joy to think, it would 
 be a reason for writing to her ! His heart gave a 
 bound in his bosom. Who could tell but she might 
 please to send him the fan-wind of a letter now and 
 then, keeping the door, just a chink of it, open be- 
 tween them, that the voice of her slave might reach 
 her on the throne of her loveliness. He walked the 
 rest of the way with a gladder heart ; he was no 
 longer without a future ; there was something to do, 
 and something to wait for ! Days are dreary unto 
 death which wrap no hope in their misty folds. 
 
 His uncle and aunt received him with more 
 warmth than he had ever known them show. They 
 were in good spirits about him, for they had all the 
 time been receiving news of him and Barbara, with 
 not a word of Alice, from old Simon. Jane's heart 
 swelled with the ambition that her boy should as a 
 working-man gain the love of a well-born girl, and 
 reward her by making her my lady. 
 
IN LONDON. 411 
 
 I do not think Mrs. Tuke could have loved a son 
 of her own body more than this son of her sister ; 
 but she was constantly haunted with a vague uneasi- 
 ness about the possible consequences to herself and 
 her husband of what she had done, and the obstacles 
 that might rise to prevent his restoration ; and this 
 uneasiness had its share both in repressing the show 
 of her love, and in making her go to church so reg- 
 ularly. Her pleasure in going was not great, but 
 she was not the less troubled that Richard did not 
 care about going. She was still in the land of bul- 
 locks and goats ; she went to church with the idea 
 that she was doing something for God in going. It 
 is always the way. Until a man knows God, he 
 seeks to obey him by doing things he neither com- 
 mands nor cares about ; while the things for the sake 
 of which he sent his son, the man regards as of 
 little or no consequence. What the son says about 
 them he takes as a matter of course for him to say, 
 and for himself to neglect. 
 
 Mrs. Tuke noted, the next day, that, as often almost 
 as he was still, a shadow settled on Richard's face, 
 and he Jooked lost and sad ; but it only occurred to 
 her that of course he must miss Barbara, never that 
 he cherished no hope such as she would have counted 
 hope. She took it almost as an omen of final success 
 when in the evening he asked her if she would not 
 like him to go to church with her. He felt as if in 
 church he would be nearer Barbara, for he knew 
 that now she went often. But alas, while there he 
 sat, he felt himself drifting farther and farther from 
 her ! The foolish utterances of the parson made him 
 deeply regret that he had gone. While he believed, 
 or at least was willing to believe, that they misrep- 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 resented Christianity, they awoke all his old feelings 
 of instinctive repulsion, and overclouded his dis- 
 crimination. Almost as little could he endure the 
 unnature as the untruth of w^hat he heard. It had 
 no ring of reality, no spark of divine fire, no appeal- 
 ing radiance of common sense, little of any verity at 
 all. There w^as in it, as nearly as possible, nothing 
 at all to mediate between mind and mind, between 
 truth and belief, between God and his children. The 
 clergyman was not a hypocrite — far from it ! He 
 was in some measure even a devout man. But in 
 his whole presentation of God and our relation to him, 
 there was neither thought nor phrase germane to sun- 
 rise or sunset, to the firmament or the wind or the 
 grass or the trees ; nothing that came to the human 
 soul as having a reality true as that of the world but 
 higher ; as holding with the life lived in it, with the 
 hopes and necessities of the heart and mind. If " the 
 hope of the glory of God" must be fashioned in like 
 sort, then were the whole affair of creation and re- 
 demption both dull and desperate. There was no 
 glow, no enthusiasm in the man — neither could there 
 be, with the notions he held. His God suggested a 
 police magistrate — and not a just one. 
 
 Richard would gladly have left the place, and 
 wandered up anddovi'n in the drizzle until, the service 
 over, his mother should appear ; but for her sake he 
 sat out the misery. 
 
 "The man," he said to himself, "does not give 
 us one peg on which to hang the love of God that 
 he tells us we ought to feel ! Love a God like that ! 
 If he were as good as my mother, I would love him ! 
 But we have all to look out to protect ourselves from 
 him ! Mr. Parson, there's no such being as you 
 
IN LONDON, 413 
 
 jabber about ! It puzzles me to think what my 
 mother gets from you ! " 
 
 He had written his letter to Barbara, and when 
 they came out he posted it. A long-, long time of 
 waiting followed; but no waiting brought any an- 
 swer. Lady Ann had dropped a hint, and Mr. Wylder 
 had picked it up, a hint delicate, but forcible enough 
 to make him do what he had never done before — 
 keep an outlook on the letters that came for his 
 daughter. When Richard's arrived, it did not look 
 to him that of a gentleman. The writing was good, 
 but precise; it was sealed with red wax, but the im- 
 pression w^assunk : a proper seal had not been used ! 
 Especially where his own family was concerned, Mr. 
 Wylder was not the most delicate of men : he opened 
 the letter, and in it found what he called a rigmarole 
 of poetry and theology ! "Confound the fellow ! " 
 he said to himself. Lady Ann did well to warn 
 him ! There should be no more of this ! The scatter- 
 brain took after her mother ! He would give it her 
 hot! 
 
 But he neither gave it her hot, nor gave her the 
 letter; he did not say a word. He feared the little 
 girl he pretended to protect, and knew that if he en- 
 tered the lists with her, she would be too much for 
 him. But he did not understand that the mean in 
 him dared not confront the noble in his child. So 
 Richard's letter only had it hot ; it went into the fire, 
 and Bab never read the petition of her poor friend. 
 
 The next morning Richard went to the shop, and 
 fell to the first job that came to his hand. He ac- 
 quainted his father with Lestrange's proposal in regard 
 to the library : Mr. Tuke would have him accept it. 
 
 "You shall have all it brings," he said. 
 
414 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " I don't want the money ! " returned Richard. 
 
 "But I want the honor of the thing," replied 
 his uncle. "You answered the young gentleman 
 sharply : you had better let me write ! " 
 
 Richard made no objection. He would gladly keep 
 the door open to any place where the shadow of 
 Barbara might fall, and was willing therefore to pocket 
 the offence of his causeless dismissal. But no notice 
 was taken of Tuke's letter, and a gulf of negation 
 seemed to yawn between the houses. 
 
 Thus was initiated a dreary time for Richard. 
 Now first he began to know what unhappiness was. 
 The seeming loveless weather that hung over the 
 earth and filled the air, was in joyless harmony with 
 his feelings. But had his trouble fallen in a more 
 genial season, it would have been worse. He had 
 never been with Barbara in the winter, and it did not 
 seem so unnatural to be without her now. Had it 
 been summer, all the forms of earth and air would 
 have brought to him the face and voice and motion 
 of Barbara ; and yet the soul would have been gone 
 from them. The world would have been worse dead 
 then than now in the winter. Barbara had been the 
 soul of it — more than a sun to it. 
 
 He could not, however, dead as the world seemed, 
 remain a moment indoors after his work was done. 
 Whatever sort the weather, out he must go, often on 
 the Thames, heedless of cold or wind or rain. His 
 mother grew anxious about him, attributed his unrest 
 to despair, and feared she might have to tell him her 
 secret. She recoiled from setting free what she had 
 kept in prison for so many years. In her own mind 
 she had settled his coming of age as the term of his 
 humiliation, and she would gladly keep to it. She 
 
IN LONDON. 4 I 5 
 
 shrunk from losing him, from breaking up the happi- 
 ness that lay in seeing him about the house. But 
 that her husband had insisted on accustoming them- 
 selves to live without him, she would hardly have 
 consented to his late absence. She shrunk also from 
 the measures necessary to reinstate him, and from the 
 commotion those measures must occasion. It was 
 so much easier to go on as they were doing ! and 
 delay could not prejudice his right ! In fact, most of 
 the things that made her take the baby, were present 
 still, making her desire to keep the youth. A day 
 would come when she must part with him, but that 
 day was not yet ! She dreaded uncaging her secret, 
 because of the change it must work, whether im- 
 mediate action were taken or not. She never sus- 
 pected that anyone knew or surmised it but herself, 
 or that she had to beware of any tongue but her own. 
 Her husband left the matter entirely to her. It was 
 her business, he said, from the first, and he would 
 let it be hers to the last. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 NATURE AND SUPERNATURE. 
 
 But Richard soon began to recover both from the 
 separation and from his disappointment in regard to 
 his letter. He was satisfied that whatever might be 
 the cause of her silence, it came from no fault in 
 Barbara. Nothing ever shook his faith in her. 
 
 And soon he found that he looked now upon the 
 vi^orld with eyes from which a veil had been with- 
 drawn. Barbara gone, mother Earth came nigh to 
 comfort her child. He had always delighted in the 
 beauty of the world — in what shows of earth and air 
 were to be seen in London. The sunset that filled as 
 with a glowing curtain the end of some street where 
 he walked, would go on glowing in his heart when it 
 left the street. Even in winter he would now and 
 then go out to see the sunrise, and see it ; and from 
 the street might now and then, at rare times, be be- 
 held a dappling and streaking, a mottling and mass- 
 ing of clouds on the blue. The fog of the London 
 valley, and the smoke of the London chimneys, did 
 not always, any more than the cares and sorrows and 
 sins of its souls, blot out its heaven as if it had never 
 looked on the earth. But he had learned much since 
 he went to the country ; he had gone nearer to 
 Nature, and seen that in her lap she carried many 
 more things than he knew of; and now that Barbara 
 was gone, the memories of Nature came nearer to 
 
NATURE AND SUPERNATURE. 417 
 
 him : he remembered her and was glad. Soon he 
 began to find that, both as regards Nature and those 
 whom we love, absence is, for very nearness, often 
 better than presence itself. He had been used to 
 think and talk of Nature either as an abstraction, or 
 as the personification of a force that knew nothing, 
 and cared for nothing, was nobody, was nothing ; 
 now it gradually came to him, and gained upon him 
 ere he knew, first that the things about him wore 
 meanings, and held them up to him, then that some- 
 thing was thinking, something was meaning the 
 things themselves, and so moving thoughts in him, 
 that came and went unforeseen, unbidden. Thoughts 
 clothed in things were everywhere about him, over 
 his head, under his feet, and in his heart ; and as 
 often as anything brought him pleasure, either through 
 memory or in present vision, it brought Barbara too ; 
 and she seemed their maker, when she was but one of 
 the fair company, the lady of the land. Everything 
 beautiful turned his face to the more beautiful, more 
 precious, diviner Barbara. With each new sense 
 of loveliness, she floated up from where she lay, 
 ever ready to rise, in the ocean of his heart. She 
 was the dweller of his everywhere ! 
 
 He knew that Barbara did not make these things ; 
 it only seemed as if she made them because she was 
 the better joy of them : did not the fact show how 
 the fiction of a God might have sprung up in the minds 
 that had no Barbara to look like the maker of the 
 loveliness ? But Barbara was there already, known 
 and loved. The mind did not invent Barbara. And 
 again, why should the mind want any one to look 
 like a maker, an indweller, an ingeniuer — to use a 
 word of Shakspere's invention.'' Yet again, why 
 27 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 should the thought of Barbara suggest a soul, that is, 
 a causing, informing presence, to these things ? Was 
 there a meaning in them ? How did they come to 
 have thiit meaning? Could it be that, having come 
 out of nothing — the mind of man, and all the things, 
 out of the same nothing, they responded enough to 
 each other for the man to find his own reflex where- 
 ever he pleased to look for it? Only, if man and 
 Nature came both out of nothing, why should they 
 not be nothing to each other? why should not man 
 be nothing to himself? As it was, one nothing, 
 having no thought, meant the same the other nothing 
 meant, having thought ! — and hence came all the 
 beauty of the world ! And once again, if these things 
 meant nothing but what the mind put into them — its 
 own thought, namely, of them— they did not really 
 mean anything, they were only imagined to mean it ; 
 and why should he, if but for a moment, imagine 
 Barbara at the root of nothing? And why should he 
 not, seeing she was herself nothing? Or was he to 
 consent to be fooled, and act as if there was some- 
 thing where he knew there was nothing ? 
 
 The truth of Richard's love appeared in this, that he 
 was more able now to see the other side of a thing, to 
 start objection to his own idea from the side of one 
 who thought differently. 
 
 "If I feel," he would say to himself, " as if these 
 things meant something, and conclude that they only 
 mean me, being the body to me, who am the soul of 
 them ; and still more if I conclude that the sum of 
 them is the blind cause of me ; then, when I grow 
 sick of myself, finding no comfort, no stay in myself 
 for myself, and know that I need another, say, 
 another self, then the seeming sympathy that Nature 
 
NATURE AND SUPERNATURE. 419 
 
 offers me is the merest mockery ! It is only my 
 own self — my self gone behind and peeping round a 
 corner, grinning back sympathy at me from its sick- 
 ening death-mask ! Why should man need another 
 if he came from nothing ? But he came from a 
 father and mother: man needed the woman: will 
 not that explain the thing? No; for even the rela- 
 tion itself needs to be comforted and sustained and 
 defended ! " 
 
 Why was there so much, and most of all in himself, 
 for which, as Richard was beginning to understand, 
 even a Barbara could not suffice ? Why also did her 
 sufficiency depend so much on her faith in an all- 
 sufficient ? And why was there so often such a gulf 
 betwixt the two that seemed made for each other ? 
 Ah ! they were made for each other only in the 
 general! For the individual, Nature did not care; 
 she had no time ! Then how was it that he cared for 
 Nature? If Nature meant anything, was an intelli- 
 gence, a sort of God, why should he, the individual, 
 who loved as an individual, was a blessing or curse 
 to himself as an individual — why should he care 
 anything for one who loved only in the general ? 
 Could a man love in general ? Yes ; he himself loved 
 his kind and sought to deliver them from superstition. 
 But that was because he could think of them as a 
 multitude of individuals. If he had never loved 
 father, mother, or friend, would he have loved in 
 the general ? Would crowds of men and women 
 have awaked love in him ? If so, then the bigger 
 crowd must always move the greater love ! No ; 
 it is from the individual we go to the many. 
 Love that was only in the general, that cared for the 
 nation, the race, and let the individual perish, could 
 
420 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 not be love. He would be no God who cared only 
 for a world or a race. The live conscious individual 
 man could not love or worship him ! And if no in- 
 dividual worshipped, where would be the worship of 
 the crowd. Still less could a vague creator of masses, 
 that knew nothing of individuals, being himself not 
 individual, be worthy to be called God ! Demon he 
 might be — never God I But if God were a person, 
 an individual, and so loved the individual ! — ah, then 
 indeed ! — Barbara believed that such a God lived all 
 about and in us ! Mr. Wingfold said he was too great 
 to prove, too near to see, but the greater and the 
 nearer, the more fit to be loved ! There were things 
 against it ! Nature herself seemed against it, for, 
 lovely as she was, she did awful things ! Could 
 Nature have come from one source, and God be 
 another source from which came man ? He was too 
 near Nature, too much at home with her, to believe 
 it. Could it be one Nature that made all the lovely 
 things, and another Nature that decreed their fate ? 
 That also he could not believe : they and their fate 
 must be from one hand, or heart, or will ! He could 
 but hope there might be someway of reconciling the 
 terrible dissonnance between Nature and Barbara's 
 God ! If there was such a way, if their contradiction 
 was only in seeming, then the very depth of their 
 unity might be the cause of their seeming discord ! 
 
 Something in this way the mind of Richard felt 
 and thought and saw and doubted and speculated. 
 Then he would turn to the ancient story — still 
 because " Barbara said." 
 
 The God Barbara believed in was like Jesus Christ ! 
 — not at all like the God his mother believed in ! 
 Jesus was one that could be loved: he could not 
 
NATURE AND SUPERNATURK. 421 
 
 have come to reveal such a God as his mother's, for 
 he was no revelation of that kind of a God ! He vi^as 
 gentle, and cared for the individual ! And he said he 
 loved the Father ! But he was his son, and a good 
 son might love a bad father. Yes, but could a bad 
 God have a good son ? No ; the son of God must be 
 the revelation of his father ; such as the Son is, just 
 such and no other must the Father be; there cannot 
 but be harmony between the beings of the two ! 
 
 In very truth there must appear schism in Nature, 
 yea, schism in God himself, until we see that the 
 ruling Father and the suffering Son are of one mind, 
 one love, one purpose ; that in the Father the 
 Son rules, in the Son the Father suffers ; that 
 with the Son the other children must suffer and 
 rise to i--;ie. To Richard's eyes there was schism 
 every\. .ere, no harmony, no right, no concord, no 
 peac-i ! And yet all science pointed to harmony, all 
 imagination thirsted for it, all conscience commanded 
 it ! all music asserted and prophesied it ! all progress 
 was built on the notion of it ! all love, the only 
 thing yielding worth to existence, was a partial real- 
 ization of it ! So that the schism came even to this, 
 that harmony itself was divided against itself, assert- 
 ing that the thing that was not, and could not be, 
 yet ought to be-! Nothing but harmony has a real, a 
 .true, an essential being ; yet here were thousands of 
 undeniable things which seemed to exist in very 
 virtue of their lack of harmony ! There were shocks 
 and recoils in every part of every thinking soul, in 
 every part of the object-world ! And yet in certain 
 blissful pauses, unlooked for, uncaused by man, 
 certain sudden silences of the world, an eternal har- 
 mony would for one moment manifest itself behind 
 
4 22 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 the seething^ conflicting discords that fill the atmos- 
 phere of the soul — straightway to vanish again, it is 
 true, but into the heart of Hope that saves men. If 
 harmony was not at one with itself in its harmony, 
 neither was discord at one with itself in its discord- 
 ancy ! Now and then all Nature seemed on the point 
 of breaking into a smile, and saying. " Ah, children ! 
 if you but knew what I know ! " Why did she not 
 say what she knew ? Why should she hide the thing 
 that would make her children blessed ? 
 
 The thought, half way to an answer, did not come 
 to Richard then : What if we are not yet able to 
 understand her secret — therefore not able to see it 
 although it lies open before us ! What if the dififi- 
 culty lies in us ! What if Nature is doing her best to 
 reveal ! What if God is working to make us knov/ — 
 if we would but let Him — as fast as ever He can 1 
 There is one thing that will not be pictured, cannot 
 be made notionally present to the mind by any effort 
 of the imagination — one thing that requires the purest 
 faith : a man's own ignorance and incapacity. It is 
 impossible to think of the object of our ignorance, 
 how then realize the ignorance whose very centre is 
 a blank, a negation ! When a man knows, then first 
 he gets a glimpse of his ignorance as it vanishes. 
 Ignorance, I say, cannot be the object of knowledge. 
 We must believe ourselves ignorant. And for that we 
 must be humble of heart When our world seems 
 clear to the horizon, when the constellations beyond 
 look plainest, when we seem to be understanding all 
 within our scope, then have we yet to believe that, 
 unseen, formerly unsuspected, beyond, lies that which 
 may wither up many forms of our belief, and must 
 modify every true form in which we hold the truth. 
 
NATURE AND SUPERNATURE. 423 
 
 For God is infinite, and we are his little ones, and 
 his truth is eternally better than the best shape in 
 which we see it. Jesus is perfect, but is our idea of 
 him perfect? One thing only is changeless truth in 
 us, .and that is — obedient faith in him and his 
 Father. Even that has to grow — but with a growth 
 which is not change. That there is a greater life 
 than that we feel — yea, a life that causes us, and is 
 absolutely and primarily essential to us — of this truth 
 we have a glimpse; but no man will arrive at the 
 peace of it by struggling with the roots of his nature 
 to understand them, for those roots go down and out, 
 out and down infinitely into the infinite. It is by 
 acting upon what he sees and knows, hearkening to 
 every whisper, obeying every hint of the good, fol- 
 lowing whatever seems light, that the man will at 
 length arrive. Thus obedient, instead of burying 
 himself in the darkness about its roots, he climbs to 
 the tree-top of his being ; and looking out thence on 
 the eternal world in which its roots vanish and from 
 which it draws its nourishment, he will behold and 
 understand at least enough to give him rest — and 
 how much more, let his Hope of the glory of God 
 stand at its window and tell him. For in his climb- 
 ing, the man will, somewhere in his progress upward, 
 the progress of obedience, of accordance to the law 
 of things, awake to know that the same spirit is in 
 him that is in the things he beholds; and that his 
 will, his individuality, his consciousness, as it in- 
 folds, so it must find the spirit, that root of himself, 
 wdiich is infinitely more than himself, that " one God 
 and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, 
 and in you all." When He is known, then all is well. 
 Then is being, and in it the growth of being, laid 
 
THERE AXD BACK. 
 
 open to him. God is the world, the atmosphere, the 
 element, the substance, the essence of his life. In 
 him he lives and moves and has his being. Now he 
 lives indeed ; for his Orig-in is his, and this rounds 
 his being to eternity. God himself is his, as nothing 
 else could be his. The serpent of doubt is gagged 
 with his own tail, and becomes the symbol of the 
 eternal. 
 
 Dissatisfaction is but the reverse of the medal of 
 life. So long as a man is satisfied, he seeks noth- 
 ing ; when a fresh gulf is opened in his being, he 
 must rise and find wherewithal to fill it. Our history 
 is the opening of such gulfs, and the search for what 
 will fill them. 
 
 But Richard was far yet from having his head 
 above the cloudy region of moods and in the blue 
 air of the unchangeable. As the days went by and 
 brought him no word from Barbara, the darkness 
 again began to gather around him. There are as 
 many changes in a lover's weather as in that of 
 England. The sad consolations of nature by degrees 
 forsook him ; they grew all sadness and no consola- 
 tion. The winter of his soul crept steadily upon 
 him, laden with frost and death. He went back to 
 his stern denial of a God. He thought he had no 
 need of any God, because he had no hope in any. 
 
 Strangely, but in accordance with his nature, while 
 he denied God, he denied him resentfully. " If 
 there were a God," he said, "why should I pray to 
 him .? He has taken from me the one good his 
 world held for me ! " Not an hour would he post- 
 pone judgment of Him ; not one century would 
 he give the God of patience to justify himself to his 
 impatient child ! He lost his love of reading. A 
 
NATURE AND SUPERNATURE. 425 
 
 book was to him like a grinning death's-head. He 
 ministered to it no longer with his mind, but only 
 his hands. He hated the very look of poetry. The 
 straggling lines of it were loathsome to his eyes. 
 Where, in such a world as he now lived in, could 
 live a God worth being ? Where indeed .? Richard 
 made his own weather, and it was bad enough. 
 Happily, there is no law compelling a man to keep 
 up the weather or the world he has made. Never 
 will any man devise or develop mood or world fit to 
 dwell in. He must inhabit a world that inhabits 
 him, a world that envelops and informs every 
 thought and imagination of his heart. 
 
 In Richard's world, the one true, the one divine 
 thing was its misery, for its misery was its need of 
 God. 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 YET A LOWER DEEP. 
 
 But while thus Richard suffered, scarce knew, and 
 cared nothing, how the days went and came, he did 
 his best to conceal his suffering from his father and 
 mother, and succeeded wonderfully. As if in reward 
 for this unselfishness, it flashed into his mind what 
 a selfish fellow he was : his trouble had made him 
 forget Alice and Arthur ! he must find them ! 
 
 He knew the street where the firm employing 
 Arthur used to have its offices ; but it had removed 
 to other quarters. He went to the old address, and 
 learned the new one. The next day he told his father 
 he would like to have a holiday. His father making 
 no objection, he walked into the city. There he 
 found the place, but not Arthur. He had not been 
 there for a week, they said. No one seemed to know 
 where he lived ; but Richard, regardless of rebuffs, 
 went on inquiring, until at length he found a carman 
 who lived in the same street. He set out for it at 
 once. 
 
 After a long walk he came to it, a wretched street 
 enough, in Pentonville, with its numbers here obliter- 
 ated, there repeated, and altogether so confused, that 
 for some time he could not discover the house. Com- 
 ing at length to one of the dingiest, whose number 
 was illegible, but whose door stood open, he walked 
 in, and up to the second floor, where he knocked at 
 the first door on the landing. The feeble sound of 
 
YET A LOWER DEEP. \2'] 
 
 what was hardly a voice answered. He went in. 
 There sat Arthur, muffled in an old rug, before a 
 wretched fire, in the dirtiest, rustiest grate he had ever 
 seen. He held out a pallid hand, and greeted him 
 with a sunless smile, but did not speak. 
 
 " My poor, dear fellow ! " said Richard ; •' what is 
 the matter with you ? Why didn't you let me know .? " 
 
 The tears came in Arthur's eyes, and he struggled 
 to answer him, but his voice was gone. To Richard 
 he seemed horribly ill — probably dying. He took a 
 piece of paper from his pocket, and a pencil-con- 
 versation followed. 
 
 "What is the matter with you ? " 
 
 "Only a bad cold." 
 
 "Where is Alice } " 
 
 "At the shop. She will be back at eight o'clock." 
 
 " Where is your mother.? " 
 
 " I do not know ; she is out." 
 
 "Tell me anything I can do for you." 
 
 " What does it matter ! I do not know anything. 
 It will soon be over." 
 
 " And this," reflected Richard, " is the fate of one 
 who believes in a God ! " But the thought followed 
 close, "I wish I were going too ! " And then came 
 the suggestion, "What if some one cares for him, 
 and is taking him away because he cares for him ! 
 What if there be a good time waiting him 1 What 
 if death be the way to something better ! What if 
 God be going to surprise us with something splendid ! 
 What if there come a glorious evening after the sad 
 morning and fog-sodden night ! What if Arthur's 
 dying be in reality a waking up to a better sunshine 
 than ours ! We see only one side of the thing ; he 
 may see the other ! What if God could not manage to 
 
420 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 ripen our life without suffering- ! If only there were 
 a God that tried to do his best for us, finding great 
 difficulties, but encountering them for the sake of his 
 children!" — "How dearly I should love such a 
 God I " thought Richard. He would hold by him to 
 the last ! He would do his best to help him ! He 
 would fight for him ! He would die for him ! 
 
 His hour was not yet come to know that there is 
 indeed such a God, doing his best for us in great dif- 
 ficulties, with enemies almost too much for him — the 
 falsehood, namely, the unfilialness of his children, so 
 many of whom will not be true, priding themselves 
 on the good he has created in them, while they refuse 
 to make it their own by obeying it when they are 
 disinclined. 
 
 If even he might but hope that with his last sigh 
 Arthur would awake to a consciousness justifying his 
 existence, let him be the creation of a living power 
 or the helpless product of a senseless, formless Ens- 
 non-ens, he would be content ! For then they might 
 one day meet again — somewhere, somewhen, some- 
 how ; together encounter afresh the troubles and 
 dissatisfactions of life, and perhaps work out for 
 themselves a world more endurable ! 
 
 But with that came the thought of Barbara. 
 
 "No!" he said to himself, "let us all die — die 
 utterly ! Why should we grumble at our poor life 
 when it means nothing, is so short, and gives such a 
 sure and certain hope of nothing more ! Who would 
 prolong it in such a world, with which every soul 
 confesses itself disappointed, of which every heart 
 cries that it cannot have been made for us ! When 
 they grow old, men always say they have found life 
 a delusion, and would not live it again. From the 
 
YET A LOWER DEEP. 429 
 
 first, things have been moving toward the worse ; 
 life has been growing more dreary ; men are more 
 miserable now than when they were savage : how 
 can we tell that the world was not started at its best, 
 to go down hill forever and ever, with a God to urge 
 its evil pace, for surely there is none to stop it ! What 
 if the world be the hate-contrivance of a being whose 
 delight it is to watch its shuddering descent into the 
 gulf of extinction, its agonized slide into the red foam 
 of the lake of fire ! " 
 
 But he must do something for the friend by whose 
 side he had sat speechless for minutes ! 
 
 "I will come and see you again soon, Arthur," he 
 said; "I must go now. Would you mind the loan 
 of a few shillings ? It is all I happen to have about 
 me ! " 
 
 Arthur shook his head, and wrote, 
 
 " Money is of no use — not the least." 
 
 "Don't you fancy anything that might do you 
 good ? " 
 
 " I can't get out to get anything." 
 
 "Your mother would get it for you 1 " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " But there's Alice ! " 
 
 Arthur gave a great sigh, and said nothing. Rich- 
 ard laid the shillings on the chimney-piece, and pro- 
 ceeded to make up the fire before he went. He could 
 see no sort of coal-scuttle, no fuel of any kind. 
 With a heavy heart he left him, and went down into 
 the street wondering what he could do. 
 
 As he drew near the public-house that chiefly 
 poisoned the neighborhood, it opened its hell-jaws, 
 and cast out a woman in frowzy black, wiping her 
 mouth under her veil with a dirty pocket-handker- 
 
430 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 chief. She had a swollen red face, betokening the 
 presence of much drink, walked erect, and went per- 
 fectly straight, but looked as if, were she to relax the 
 least of her state, she would stagger. As she passed 
 Richard, he recognized her : it was Mrs. Manson. 
 Without a thought he stopped to speak to her. The 
 same moment he saw that, although not dead-drunk, 
 she could by no tropical contortion be said to be 
 sober. 
 
 She started, and gave a snort of indignation. 
 
 " You here !" she cried. "What do you want — 
 coming here to insult your betters ! You Tuke the 
 younger ! You the son of the bookbinder ! You're 
 no more John Tuke's son than I am. You're the 
 son of that precious rascal, my husband ! Go to Sir 
 Wilton Lestrange ; don't come to me ! You're a 
 base-born wretch. — Oh, yes, run to your mother. 
 Tell her what I say ! Tell her she was lucky to get 
 hold of her tradesman." 
 
 She had told her son and daughter that Richard 
 •was the missing heir ; and in what she now said she 
 may have meant only to reflect on the humble birth 
 of his mother and abuse his aunt, but it does not 
 matter much what a drunkard means. At the same 
 time the poison of asps may come from the lips of a 
 drunkard as from those of a sober liar. As the 
 woman staggered away, Richard gave a stagger too, 
 and seemed to himself, to go reeling along the street. 
 He sat down on a doorstep to recover himself, but 
 for a long way after resuming his walk went like one 
 half stunned. His brain, nevertheless, seemed to go 
 on working of itself The v^^retched woman's state- 
 ment glowed in him with a lurid light. It seemed to 
 explain so much ! He had often felt that his father, 
 
YET A LOWER DEEP. 43 I 
 
 though always just, did not greatly care for him. 
 Then there was his mother's strangeness — the hard- 
 ness of her religion, the gloom that at times took 
 possession of her whole being, her bursts of tender- 
 ness, and her occasional irritability ! His mother ! 
 That his mother should — should have made him an 
 outcast ! The thought was sickening ! it was horri- 
 ble ! Perhaps the woman lied ! But no ; something 
 questionable in the background of his life had been 
 unrecognizably showing from the first of his memory ! 
 All was clear now ! His mother's cruel breach with 
 Alice, and her determination that there should be no 
 intercourse between the families, was explained : had 
 Alice and he fallen in love with each other, she 
 would have had to tell the truth to part them ! He 
 must know the truth ! He would ask his mother 
 straight out, the moment he got home ! But how 
 could he ask her ! How could any son go to his 
 mother with such a question ! Whatever the answer 
 to it, he dared not ! There was but one alternative 
 left him — either to kill himself, or to smother his 
 suffering, and let the miserable world go on ! Why 
 should he add to its misery by making his own 
 mother more miserable ! Such a question from her 
 son would go through her heart like the claws of a 
 lynx ! How could she answer it ! How could he 
 look upon her shame ! Had she not had trouble 
 enough already, poor mother ! It would be hard if 
 her God assailed her on all sides — beset her behind 
 and before ! Poor mother indeed, if her son was no 
 better than her God ! He must be a better son to her 
 than he had been ! The child of her hurt must heal 
 her ! Must he as well as his father be cruel to her ! 
 But alas, what help was in him ! What comfort 
 
432 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 could a heart of pain yield ! what soothing stream 
 flow from a well of sorrow ! Truly his mother 
 needed a new God ! 
 
 But even this horror held its germ of comfort : he 
 had his brother Arthur, his sister Alice, to care and 
 provide for ! They should not die ! He had now 
 the right to compel them to accept his aid ! 
 
 He thought and thought, and saw that, in order to 
 help them, to do his duty by them, he must make a 
 change in his business relations with Mr. Tuke : he 
 must have the command of his earnings ! He could 
 do nothing for his brother and sister as things were ! 
 To ask for money would wake inquiry, and he dared 
 not let his mother know that he went to see them ! 
 If he did, she would be compelled to speak out, and 
 that was a torture he would rather see her die than 
 suffer. He must have money concerning which no 
 questions would be asked ! Poor, poor creatures ! 
 Oh, that terrible mother ! It was good to know that 
 his mother was not like her ! 
 
 The first thing then was, to ask his father to take 
 him as a journeyman, and give him journeyman's 
 wages. His work, he knew, was worth much more, 
 but that would be enough ; his father was welcome 
 to the rest. Out of his wages he would pay his share 
 of the housekeeping, and do as he pleased with what 
 was left. Buying no more books, he would have a 
 nice little weekly sum free for Alice and Arthur. To 
 see his brother and sister half starved was unendur- 
 able ! he would himself starve first ! But how was 
 his money to reach them in the shape of food? That 
 greedy, drunken mother of them swallowed every- 
 thing ! Like old Saturn she devoured her children ; 
 she ate and drank them to death ! Sport of a low, 
 
YET A LOWER DEEP. 433 
 
 consuming passion, thougfht Richard, what matter 
 whether she came of God or devil or nothing at all ! 
 Redemption, salvation from an evil self, had as yet 
 no greater part in Richard's theories than in Mrs. 
 Manson's thoughts. The sole good, the sole satis- 
 faction in life the woman knew, was to eat and drink, 
 if not what she pleased, at least what she liked. If 
 there were an eternity in front, thought Richard, and 
 she had her way in it, she would go on forever 
 eating and drinking, craving and filling, to all the 
 ages unsatisfied : he would not have his hard-earned 
 money go to fill her insatiable maw ! It was not his 
 part in life to make her drunk and comfortable ! 
 Wherever he came from, he could not be in the vv^orld 
 for that ! So what was he to do ? 
 
 He seemed now to understand why Barbara had 
 not written. She had known him as the son of honest 
 tradespeople, and had no pride to make her despise 
 him ; but learning from Alice that he was base-born, 
 she might well wish to drop him ! It might not be 
 altogether fair of Barbara — for how was he to blame .'* 
 Almost as little was she to blame, brought up to 
 count such as he disgraced from their birth ! Doubt- 
 less her religion should have raised her above the 
 cruel and false prejudice, for she said it taught her to 
 be fair, insisted that she should be just! But with 
 all the world against him, how could one girl stand 
 up for him .? True, he needed fair play just so much 
 the more ; but that was the way things went in this 
 best of possible worlds! No two things in it, meant 
 to go together, fitted ! He fought hard for Barbara, 
 strained his strength with himself to be content be- 
 forehand with whatever she might do, or think, or 
 say. One thing only he could not bear — to think 
 28 
 
434 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 less of Barbara ! That would kill him, paralyze his 
 very soul ! — of a man make him a machine, a beast 
 outright at best ! In all the world, Barbara was 
 likest the God she believed in : if she — the idea of 
 her, that was — were taken from him, he must de- 
 spair ! He could stand losing herself, he said, but not 
 the thought of her ! Let him keep that ! Let him 
 keep that ! He would revel in that, and defy all the 
 evil gods in the great universe ! 
 
 With his heart like a stone in his bosom, he reached 
 the house, a home to him no more ! and by effort 
 supreme — in which, to be honest, for Richard was 
 not yet a hero, he was aided by the consciousness of 
 doing a thing of praise — managed to demean himself 
 rather better than of late. The surges of the sea of 
 troubles rose to overwhelm him ; his courage rose to 
 brave them : let them do their worst ! he would be a 
 man still ! True, his courage had a cry at the heart 
 of it ; but there was not a little of the stoic in Richard, 
 and if it was not the stoicism of Epictetus or of Marcus 
 Aurelius, there was yet some timely, transient help 
 in it. He was doing the best he could without God ; 
 and sure the Father was pleased to see the effort of 
 his child ! To suffer in patience was a step toward 
 himself. No doubt self was potent in the patience, 
 and not the best self, for that forgets itself — yet the 
 better self, the self that chooses what good it knows. 
 
 The same night he laid his request for fixed wages 
 before his father, who agreed to it at once. He be- 
 lieved it no small matter in education that a youth 
 should have money at his disposal ; and his wife 
 agreed, with a pang, to what he counted a reasonable 
 sum for Richard's board. But she would not hear of 
 his paying for his lodging ; that was more than the 
 
YET A LOWER DEEP. 
 
 435 
 
 mother heart could bear : it would be like yielding 
 that he was not her very own child ! 
 
 The trouble remained, that a long week must elapse 
 before he could touch any wages, and he dared not 
 borrow for fear of questions : there was no help ! 
 
 At night, the moment his head was on the pillow, 
 the strain of his stoicism gave way. Then first he 
 felt alone, utterly alone ; and the loneliness went 
 into his soul, and settled there, a fearful entity. The 
 strong stoic, the righteous unbeliever burst into a pas- 
 sion of tears. Sure they were the gift of the God 
 he did not know ! — say rather, of the God he knew a 
 little, without knowing that he knew him — and they 
 somewhat cooled his burning heart. But the fog of 
 a fresh despair steamed up from the rain, and its 
 clouds closed down upon him. What was left him 
 to live for ! what to keep his heart beating ! what to 
 make life a living thing ! Sunned and showered too 
 much, it was faded and colorless ! Why must he live 
 on, as in a poor dream, without even the interest of 
 danger !■ — for where life is worth nothing, danger 
 is gone, and danger is the last interest of life ! All 
 was gray ! Nothing was, but the damp and chill of 
 the grave ! No cloak of insanest belief, of dullest 
 mistake, would henceforth hide any more the dreary 
 nakedness of the skeleton, life ! The world lay in 
 clearest, barest, coldest light, its hopeless deceit and 
 its misery all revealed ! It was well that a grumous 
 fog pervaded the air, each atom a spike in a vesicle 
 of darkness ! it was well that no summer noon was 
 blazing about the world 1 At least there was no mock- 
 ery now ! the world was not pretending to be happy ! 
 was not helping the demon of laughter to jeer at the 
 misery of men ! Oh, the hellish thing, life ! Oh, this 
 
,36 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 devilish thing, existence I — a mask with no face be- 
 liind it ! a look with no soul that looked ! — a bubble 
 blown out of lies with the breath of a liar ! Words ! 
 words ! words ! Lies ! lies ! lies ! 
 
 All of a sudden he was crying, as if with a loud 
 voice from the bottom of his heart, though never a 
 sound rose through his throat, " Oh thou who didst 
 make me, if thou art anywhere, if there be such a one 
 as I cry to, unmake me again ; undo that which thou 
 hast done ; tear asunder and scatter that which thou 
 hast put together ! Be merciful for once, and kill 
 me. Let me cease to exist — rather, let me cease to 
 die. Will not plenty of my kind remain to satisfy 
 thy soiil with torment ! " 
 
 Up towered a surge of shame at his poltroonery ; 
 he prayed for his own solitary release, and abandoned 
 his fellows to the maker of their misery ! 
 
 "No!" he cried aloud, "I -will not! I will not 
 pray for that ! I will not fare better than my fellows ! 
 — O, God, pity — if thou hast any pity, or if pity can 
 be born of any prayer — pity thy creatures ! If thou 
 art anywhere, speak to me, and let me hear thee. If 
 thou art God, if thou livest, and carest that I suffer, 
 and wouldst help me if thou couldst, then I will live, 
 and bear, and wait ; only let me know that thou art, 
 and art good, and not cruel. If I had but a friend 
 that would stand by me, and talk to me a little, and 
 help me ! I have no one, no one, God, to speak to ! 
 and if thou wilt not hear, then there is nothing ! Oh, 
 be ! be ! God, I pray thee, exist ! Thou knowest 
 my desolation — for surely thou art desolate, with no 
 honest heart to love thee ! " 
 
 He thought of Barbara, and ceased : she loved 
 God! 
 
YET A LOWER DEEP. 437 
 
 A silence came down upon his soul. Ere it passed 
 he was asleep, and knew no more till the morning 
 waked him — to sorrow indeed, but from a dream of 
 hope. 
 
 On a few-keyed finger-board, yet with multitud- 
 inous change, life struck every interval betwixt keen 
 sorrow, lethargic gloom, and grayest hope, and the 
 days passed and passed. 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 TO BE REDEEMED, ONE MUST REDEEM. 
 
 The moment he received his wages from his father 
 at the end of the week, Richard set out for Everilda 
 Street, Clerkenwell, a little anxious at the thought of 
 encountering the dreadful mother, but hoping she 
 would be out of the way. 
 
 When he reached the place, he found no one at 
 home. He could not go back with his mission 
 unaccomplished, and hung about, keeping a sharp 
 watch on each end of the street, and on the ap- 
 proaches to it that he passed in walking to and fro. 
 
 He had not waited long before Arthur appeared, 
 stooping like an aged man, and moving slowly. He 
 was in the same shabby muffler as of old. His face 
 brightened when he saw his friend, but a tit of cough- 
 ing prevented him for some time from returning his 
 salutation. 
 
 " When did you have your dinner.? " asked Richard. 
 
 " I had something to eat in the middle of the day," 
 he answered feebly ; "and when Alice comes, she 
 will perhaps bring something with her ; but we don't 
 care much about eating. — We've got out of the way 
 of it somehow ! " he added with an unreal laugh. 
 
 " It's no wonder you can't get rid of your cold ! " 
 returned Richard. "Come along, and have some- 
 thing to eat." 
 
 " I can't have Ally come home and not tind me ! " 
 objected Arthur. 
 
TO BE REDEEMED, ONE MUST REDEEM. 439 
 
 "You shall put something in your pocket for her!" 
 sugg:ested Richard. 
 
 He seemed to yield ; but his every motion was full 
 of indecision. Richard took his arm. 
 
 " Do you know any place near," he asked, " where 
 we could get some supper.? " 
 
 "No, I'm afraid I don't," answered Arthur. 
 
 "Then you go in and rest, while I go and see," 
 returned Richard. 
 
 He searched for some time, but came upon no 
 place where a man could even sit down. At last he 
 found a coffee-shop, and went to fetch Arthur. 
 
 He found him stretched on his bed, but he rose at 
 once to accompany him — with the more difficulty 
 that he had yielded to his weariness and lain down. 
 They managed however to reach their goal, and the 
 sight of food waking a little hunger, the poor fellow 
 did pretty well for one who looked so ill. As he ate 
 he revived, and by and by began to talk a little : he 
 had never been much of a talker — had never had food 
 enough for talking. 
 
 "It's very good of you, Richard !" he said. "I 
 suppose you know all about it ! " 
 
 " I don't. What is it .? Anything new ? " 
 
 "No, nothing ! It's all so miserable ! " 
 
 "It's not all miserable," answered Richard, "so 
 long as we are brothers 1 " 
 
 The tears came in Arthur's eyes. Their mother 
 had repented telling them the truth about Richard, 
 and pretended to have discovered that, while Sir 
 Wilton was indeed Richard's father, Mrs. Tuke was 
 after all his mother. 
 
 "Yes, that is good," he said, " though it be only in 
 misfortune ! But I am a wretched creature, and no 
 
440 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 good to anybody ; you are a strong- man, Richard ; I 
 shall never be worth calling your brother! " 
 
 "You can do one great thing for me." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " Live and grow well." 
 
 "I wish I could; but that is just what I can't do. 
 I'm on my way home." 
 
 "I would gladly go with you ! " 
 
 "Why.?" 
 
 Richard made no answer, and silence followed. 
 Arthur got up. 
 
 "Ally will be home," he said, "and thinking me 
 too ill to get along ! " 
 
 " Let's go then ! " said Richard. 
 
 When they entered Everilda street, they saw Alice 
 on the doorstep, looking anxiously up and down. 
 The moment she caught sight of them, she ran away 
 along the street. Richard would have followed her, 
 but Arthur held him, and said : 
 
 "Never mind her to-night, Richard! She don't 
 know that you know. I will tell her ; and when you 
 come again, you will find her different. Go, now, 
 and come as soon as you can — at least, I mean, as 
 soon as you like." 
 
 "I will come to-morrow," answered Richard. 
 " Do you want me to go now ? " 
 
 "It would be better for Alice. I will go to the 
 end of the street, and she will see me from where 
 she is hiding, and come. She always does." 
 
 " Is she in the way of hiding then ? " 
 
 "Yes, when my mother is " 
 
 "Well, good-bye !" said Richard. "But where 
 shall I find you to-morrow .' " 
 
 They arranged their meeting, and parted. 
 
TO BE REDEEMED, ONE MUST REDEEM. 44 1 
 
 The next day, they found a better phice for their 
 meal. Richard thought it better not to go quite 
 home with Arthur, but, having learned from him 
 where Alice worked, and at what hour she left, went 
 the following night to wait for her not far from the 
 shop. 
 
 At last she came along, looking very thin and pale, 
 but she shone up when she saw him, and joined him 
 without the least hesitation. 
 
 " How do you think Arthur is ? " he asked. 
 
 "I've not seen him so well for ever so long," she 
 answered. "But that is not saying much!" she 
 added with a sigh. 
 
 They walked along together. With a taste of hap- 
 piness, say, once a week, Alice would have been a 
 merry girl. She was so content to be with Richard 
 that she never heeded where he was taking her. But 
 when she found him going into a shop with a ham 
 in the window, she drew back. 
 
 "No, Richard," she said; "I can't let you feed 
 me and Arthur too ! Indeed I can't ! It would be 
 downright robbery ! " 
 
 "Nonsense!" returned Richard; "I want some 
 supper, and you must keep me company ! " 
 
 "You must excuse me 1 " she insisted. " It's all 
 right for Arthur ; he's ill ; but for me, I couldn't look 
 myself in the face in the glass if I let you feed fne~~ 
 a strong girl, fit for anything ! " 
 
 "Now look here ! " said Richard ; "I must come 
 to the point, and you must be reasonble ! Ain't you 
 my sister.? — and don't I know you haven't enough 
 to eat ? " 
 
 "Who told you that.?" 
 
 "No one. Any fool could see it with half an eye !" 
 
442 IHERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Artie has been telling tales ! " 
 
 "Not one ! Just listen to me. I earn so much a 
 week now, and after paying for everything, have 
 something over to spend as I please. If you refuse 
 me for a brother, say so, and I will leave you alone : 
 why should a man tear his heart out looking on 
 where he can't help ! " 
 
 She stood motionless, and made him no answer. 
 
 " Look here ! " he said ; " there is the money for 
 our supper : if you will not go with me and eat it, I 
 will throw it in the street." 
 
 With her ingrained feeling of the preciousness of 
 money, Alice did not believe him. 
 
 "Oh, no, Richard! you would never do that!" 
 she said. 
 
 The same instant the coins rang faintly from the 
 middle of the street, and a cab passed over them. 
 Alice gave a cry as of bodily pain, and started to pick 
 them up. Richard held her fast. 
 
 " It's your supper, Richard ! " she almost shrieked, 
 and struggled to get away after the money. 
 
 "Yes," he answered; "and yours goes after it, 
 except you come in and share it with me ! " 
 
 As he spoke he showed her his hand with shil- 
 lings in it. 
 
 She turned and entered the shop. Richard ordered 
 a good meal. 
 
 Alice stopped in the middle of her supper, laid 
 down her knife and fork, and burst out crying. 
 
 " What /s the matter.?" said Richard, alarmed. 
 
 "I can't bear to think of that money! I must go 
 and look for it ! " sobbed Alice. 
 
 Richard laughed, the first time for days. 
 
TO BE REDEEMED, ONE MUST REDEEM. 443 
 
 "Alice," he said, "the money was well spent: 
 I got my own way with it ! " 
 
 As she ate and drank, a little color rose in her face, 
 and on Richard fell a shadow of the joy of his creator, 
 beholding his work, and seeing it good. 
 
CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 A DOOR OPENED IN HEAVEN. 
 
 Some men hunt their fellows to prey upon them, 
 and fill their own greedy maws ; Richard hunted and 
 caught his brother and sister that he might feed them 
 with the labor of his hands. I fear there was there- 
 fore a little more for the mother to guzzle, but it is of 
 small consequence whether those that go down the 
 hill arrived at the foot a week sooner or later. To 
 Arthur and Alice, their new-found brother, strong and 
 loving, was as an angel from high heaven. It was no 
 fault in Richard that he did not find a correspondent 
 comfort in them. It did in truth comfort him to see 
 them improve in looks and in strength ; but they had 
 not many thoughts to share with him — had little coin 
 for spiritual commerce. Even their religion, like that 
 of most who claim any, had little shape or color. 
 What there was of it was genuine, which made it 
 infinitely precious, but it was much too weak to pass 
 over to the help of another. Divine aid, however, 
 of a different sort, was waiting for him. 
 
 Hitherto he had heard little or no music. The little 
 was from the church-organ, and his not unjustifiable 
 prejudice against its surroundings, had disinclined him 
 to listen when it spoke. The intellect of the youth 
 had come to the front, and the higher powers to 
 which art is ministrant, had remained much unde- 
 veloped, shut in darkened palace-rooms, where a ray 
 of genial impulse not often entered. For the highest 
 
A DOOR OPENED IN HEAVEN. 445 
 
 of those powers, the imagination, without which no 
 discovery of any grandeur is made even in the realms 
 of science, dwells in the halls of aspiration, outlook, 
 desire, and hope, and round the windows and filling 
 the air of these, hung the dry dust-cloud of Richard's 
 negation. But when Love, with her attendant Sorrow, 
 came, they opened wide all the doors and windows 
 of them to what might enter. Hitherto all his poetry, 
 even what he produced, had come to Richard at 
 second hand, that is, from the inspiration of books ; 
 its flowers were of the moon, not of the sun ; they 
 sprang under the pale reflex light of other souls : for 
 genuine life of any and every sort, the immediate in- 
 spiration of the Almighty is the one essential, and for 
 that. Sorrow and Love now made a way. 
 
 First of all, the lower winds and sidelong rays, of 
 art, all from the father of lights, crept in, able now to 
 work for his perfect will. For when a man has once 
 begun to live, then have the thoughts and feelings of 
 other men, and every art in which those thoughts or 
 feelings are embodied by them, a sevenfold power 
 for the strengthening and rousing of the divine nature 
 in him. And as the divine nature is roused, the 
 diviner nature, the immediate God, enters to pos- 
 sess it. 
 
 A gentleman who employed Richard, happened 
 one day, in conversation with him as he pursued his 
 work, to start the subject of music, and made a re- 
 mark which, notwithstanding Richard's ignorance, 
 found sufficient way into his mind to make him think 
 over what little experience he had had of sweet 
 sounds, ere he made his reply. When made, it re- 
 vealed in truth his ignorance, but his modesty as well, 
 and his capacity for understanding — with the result 
 
446 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 that the gentleman, who was not only a lover of 
 music but a believer in it, said to him in return things 
 which roused in him such a desire to put them to the 
 test for verification or disproval, that he went the next 
 Monday night to the popular concert at St. James's 
 Hall. In the crowd that waited more than an hour at 
 the door of the orchestra to secure a shilling-place, 
 there was not one that knew so little of music as he; 
 but there never had been in it one whose ignorance 
 was more worthy of destruction. The first throbbing 
 flash of the violins cleft his soul as lightning cleaves 
 a dark cloud, and set his body shivering as with its 
 thunder — and lo, a door was opened in heaven ! and, 
 like the writhings of a cloud in the grasp of a heavenly 
 wind, all the discords of spirit-pain were breaking up, 
 changing, and solving themselves into the song of 
 the violins ! After that, he went every Monday night 
 to the same, concert-room. It was his church, the 
 mount of his ascension, the place whence he soared 
 — no, but was lifted up to what was as yet his highest 
 consciousness of being. All that was best and sim- 
 plest in him came wide awake as he sat and listened. 
 What fact did the music prove } None whatever. 
 Yet would not the logic of all science have persuaded 
 Richard that the sea of mood and mystic response, 
 tossing his soul hither and thither on its radiant 
 waters, as, deep unto deep, it answered the march- 
 ing array of live waves, fashioned one by one out of 
 the still air, marshalled and ranked and driven on in 
 symmetric relation and order by those strange crea- 
 tive powers with their curious symbols, throned at 
 their godlike labor — that the answer of his soul, I 
 say, was but an illusion, the babble of a sleeping 
 child in reply to a question never put. If it was an 
 
A DOOR OPENED IN HEAVEN. 
 
 447 
 
 illusion, how came it that such illusion was possible? 
 If an illusion, whence its peculiar bliss — a bliss 
 aroused by law imperative that ruled its factors, yet 
 bore scant resemblance to the bliss ? What he felt, 
 he knew that he felt, and knew that he had never 
 caused it, never commanded its presence, never fore- 
 seen its arrival, never known of its possible existence. 
 The feeling was ijt him, but had been waked by some 
 power beyond him, for he was not himself even pres- 
 ent at its origin ! The voice of that power was a 
 voice all sweetness and persuading, yet a voice of 
 creation, calling up a world of splendor and delight, 
 the beams of whose chambers were indeed laid upon 
 the waters, but had there a foundation the less lively 
 earth could not afford. For the very essence of the 
 creative voice, working wildest delirium of content, 
 was law that could not be broken, the very law of 
 the thought of God himself. Law is life, for God is 
 law, and God is life. Law is the root and the stalk 
 of life, beauty is the flower of life, and joy is its odor ; 
 but life itself is love. The flower and its odor are 
 given unto men ; the root and stalk they may search 
 into if they will ; the giver of life they must know, 
 or they cannot live with his life, they cannot share 
 in the life eternal. 
 
 One night, after many another such, he sat en- 
 tranced, listening to the song of a violin, alone and 
 perfect, soaring and sailing the empyrean uncon- 
 voyed, — and Barbara in his heart was listening with 
 him. He had given up hope of seeing her again in 
 this world, but not all hope of seeing her again some- 
 where ; and her image had not grown less dear, I 
 should rather say less precious to him. The song, 
 like a heavenly lark, folded its wings while yet high 
 
448 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 ill the air, and ceased : its nest was somewhere up in 
 the blue. Should I say rather that one after one the 
 singing birds flitted from the strings, those telegraph- 
 wires betwixt the seen and the unseen, and now the 
 last lingerer was gone ? All was over, and the world 
 was still. But the face of Barbara kept shining from 
 the depths of Richard's soul, as if she stood behind 
 him, and her face looked up reflected from its ethe- 
 real ocean. 
 
 All at once he was aware that his bodily eyes were 
 resting on the bodily face of Barbara. It was as if 
 his strong imagining of her had made her be. His 
 heart gave a great bound — and stood still, as if for 
 eternity. But the blood surged back to his brain, 
 and he knew that together they had been listening to 
 the same enchanting spell, had been aloft together 
 in the same aether of delight : heaven is high and 
 deep, and its lower air is music ; in the upper regions 
 the music may pass, who knows, merging unlost, 
 into something endlessly better ! He had felt, with- 
 out knowing it, the power of her presence ; it had 
 been ruling his thoughts ! He gazed and gazed, 
 never taking his eyes from her but for the joy of 
 seeing her afresh, for the comfort of their return to 
 their home. She was so far off that he could gaze at 
 will, and thus was distance a blessing. Not seldom 
 does removal bring the parted nearer. It is not 
 death alone that makes "far-distant images draw 
 nigh," but distance itself is an angel of God, mediat- 
 ing the propinquity of souls. As he gazed he became 
 aware that she saw him, and that she knew that he 
 saw her. How he knew it he could not have told. 
 There was no change on her face, no sign of recogni- 
 tion, but he knew that she saw and knew. In his 
 
A DOOR OPENED IN HEAVEN. 449 
 
 modesty he neither perceived nor imagined more. 
 His heart received no thrill from the pleasure that 
 throbbed in the heart of the lovely lady at sight of 
 the poor sorrowful workman ; neither did she in her 
 modesty perceive on what a throne of gems she sat 
 in his heart. She saw that his cheek was pale and 
 thin, and that his eyes were larger and brighter ; she 
 little thought how the fierce sun of agony had ripened 
 his soul since they parted. 
 
 For the rest of the concert, the music had sunk to 
 a soft delight, and took the second place ; the delight 
 of seeing dulled his delight in hearing. All the rain- 
 bow claspings and weavings of strange accords, all 
 the wing-wafts of out-dreaming melody, seemed to 
 him to come flickering and floating from one creative 
 centre — the face, and specially the eyes of Barbara ; 
 yet the music and Barbara seemed one. The form 
 of it that entered by his eyes met that which entered 
 by his ears, and they were one ere he noted a differ- 
 ence. Barbara was the music, and the music was 
 Barbara. He saw her with his ears ; he heard her 
 with his eyes. But as the last sonata sank to its 
 death, suddenly the face and the tones parted com- 
 pany, and he knew that his eyes and her face must 
 part next, and the same moment her face was already 
 far away. She had left him ; she was looking for 
 her fan, and preparing to go. 
 
 He was not far from the door. He hurried softly 
 out, plunged into the open air as into a great cool 
 river, went round the house, and took his stand at 
 one of the doors, where he waited like one watching 
 the flow of a river of gravel for the shine of a dia- 
 mond. But the flow sank to threads and drops, and 
 the diamond never shone. 
 29 
 
450 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 He walked home, nevertheless, as if he had seen 
 an end of sorrow : how much had been given him 
 that night, for ever to have and to hold ! Such an 
 hour went far to redeem the hateful thing, life ! A 
 much worse world would be more than endurable, 
 with its black and gray once or twice in a century 
 crossed by such a band of gold ! Who would not 
 plunge through ages of vapor for one flash of such 
 a star ! Who would not dig to the centre for one 
 glimpse of a gem of such exhaustless fire ! "But, 
 alas, how many for whom no golden threads are 
 woven into the web of life ! " he said to himself as he 
 thought of Alice and Arthur — but straightway an- 
 swered himself, saying, " Who dares assert it ? The 
 secret of a man's life is with himself ; who can speak 
 for another ! " He had himself been miserable, and 
 was now content— oh, how much more than content 
 — that he had been miserable ! He was even strong 
 to be miserable again ! What might not fall to the 
 lot of the rest, every one of them, ere God, if there 
 were a God, had done with them ! Who invented 
 music ? Some one must have made the delight of it 
 possible 1 With his own share in its joy he had 
 had nothing to do ! Was Chance its grand inventor, 
 its great ingeniuer? Why or how should Chance 
 love loveliness that was not, and make it be, that 
 others might love it ? Could it be a deaf God, or a 
 being that did not care and would not listen, that 
 invented music ? No ; music did not come of itself, 
 neither could the source of it be devoid of music ! 
 
CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 THE CARRIAGE. 
 
 Before the next Monday, he had learned the out- 
 lets of the hall, and the relations of its divisions to 
 its doors. But he fared no better, for whether again 
 he mistook the door or not, he did not see Barbara 
 come out. He had been with her, however, through 
 all the concert ; there was reason to hope she would 
 be often present, and every time there would be 
 a chance of his getting near her .? The following 
 Monday, nevertheless, she was not in the house : 
 had she been, he said to himself, his eyes would of 
 themselves have found her. 
 
 A fortnight passed, and Richard had not again seen 
 Barbara. He began to think she must have gone 
 home. A gentleman was with her the first night, 
 whom he took for her father ; the second, Arthur 
 Lestrange was by her side : neither of them had he 
 seen since. 
 
 Then the thought suggested itself that she might 
 have come to London to prepare for her marriage 
 with Mr. Lestrange. She must of course be married 
 some day ! He had always taken that for granted, 
 but now, for the first time somehow, the thought 
 came near enough to burn. He did not attempt to 
 analyze his feelings ; he was too miserable to care 
 for his feelings. The thought was as terrible as if it 
 had been quite new. It was not a live thought 
 
4 52 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 before ; now it was alive, and until now he had not 
 known misery. That Barbara should die seemed 
 nothing beside it ! Death was no evil ! Whether 
 there was a world beyond it or not, it was the one 
 friend of the race ! In death at last, outworn, tor- 
 tured humanity would find repose ! — or if not, what 
 followed could not, at worst, be worse than what went 
 before ! It must be better, for the one misery of 
 ■miseries would be to live in the same world with 
 Barbara married ! She was out of sight of him, far 
 as princess or queen — or angel, if there were such a 
 being ; but the thought that she should marry a com- 
 mon, outside man, who knew no more what things 
 were precious than the lowest fellow in the slums, 
 was a pain he could neither stifle nor endure. Could 
 a woman like Barbara for an instant entertain the 
 notion ? If she loved a man worthy of her, then — 
 he thought, as so many have for a moment thought 
 — he could bear the torture of it ! But for such 
 patience in prospect men are generally indebted to 
 the fact that the man is not likely to appear, or, at 
 least, has not yet come in sight In vain he per- 
 suaded himself that Barbara would no more listen to 
 such a suitor, than a man could ever show himself 
 on the level of her love. That Barbara would marry 
 Lestrange grew more and more likely as he regarded 
 the idea. Mortgrange and Wylder Hall were con- 
 veniently near, and he hadheard his grandfather sup- 
 pose that Barbara must one day inherit the latter ! 
 The thought was a growing torment. His heart sank 
 into a draw-well of misery, out of which the rope of 
 thinking could draw up nothing but suicide. But as 
 often as the bucket rose thus laden, Richard cast its 
 contents from him. It was cowardlv to hide one's 
 
THE CARRIAGE. 453 
 
 head in the sand of death ! So long as he was able 
 to stand, why should he lie down ? If a morrow w^as 
 on the way, why not see what the morrow would 
 bring? why not look the apparition in the face, 
 though for him it brought no dawn ? 
 
 Once more the loud complaint against life awoke 
 and raged. What an evil, what a wrong was life ! 
 Who had dared force the thing upon him ? What 
 being, potent in ill, had presumed to call him from 
 the blessed regions of negation, the solemn quiet of 
 being and knowing nothing, and compel him to live 
 without, nay, against his will, in misery such as only 
 an imagination keen to look upon suffering could 
 have embodied or even invented.? Alas, there was 
 no help ! If he lifted his hand against the life he 
 hated, he might but rush into a region of torture 
 more exquisite ! For might not the life-compelling 
 tyrant, offended that he should desire to cease, fix 
 him in eternal beholding of his love and his hate 
 folded in one — to sicken, yet never faint, in aeonian 
 pain, such as life essential only could feel ? He re- 
 belled against the highest as if the highest were the 
 lowest — as if the power that cou/d create a heart for 
 bliss, might gloat on its sufferings. 
 
 Again and again he would take the side of God 
 against himself; but always there was the undeni- 
 able, the inexplicable misery ! Whence came it? It 
 could not come from himself, for he hated it ! and if 
 God did not cause, yet he could prevent it ! Then he 
 remembered how blessed he had been but a few days 
 before; how ready to justify God; how willing to 
 believe he had reason in all he did : alas for his 
 nature, for his humanity ! clothed in his own joy, he 
 was generous to trust God with the bliss of others ;. 
 
454 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 the cold blast of the world once again swept over 
 him, and he stood complaining against him more 
 bitterly than ever ! 
 
 It is a notable argument, surely, against the exist- 
 ence of God, that they who believe in him, believe 
 in him so wretchedly ! So many carry themselves 
 to him like peevish children ! Richard half believed 
 in God, only to complain of him altogether ! Were it 
 not better to deny him altogether, saying that such 
 things being, he cannot be, than to murmur and 
 rebel as against one high and hard? 
 
 But I bethink me : is it not better to complain if one 
 but complain to God himself? Does he not then 
 draw nigh to God with what truth is in him ? And 
 will he not then fare as Job, to whom God drew nigh 
 in return, and set his heart at rest ? 
 
 For him who complains and comes not near, who 
 shall plead ? — The Son of the Father, saying, " They 
 know not what they do." 
 
 He began to wonder whether even an all-mighty 
 and all-good God would be able to contrive such a 
 world as no somebody in it would ever complain of. 
 What if he had plans too large for the vision of men 
 to take in, and they were uncomfortable to their own 
 blame, because, not seeing them, they would trust 
 him for nothing? He knew unworthy men full of 
 complaint against an economy that would not let 
 them live like demons, and be blessed as seraphs ! 
 Why should not a man at least wait and see what the 
 possible being was about to do with him, perhaps 
 for him, before he accused or denied him ? At worst 
 he would be no worse for the waiting ! 
 
 His thinking was stopped by a sudden flood of 
 self-contempt. Was Barbara to live alone that he 
 
THE CARRIAGE. 455 
 
 mig-ht think of her in peace ! He was a selfish, dis- 
 graceful, degraded animal, deserving all he suffered, 
 and ten times more ! What did it matter whether he 
 was happy or not, if it was well with her ! Was he 
 a man, and could he not endure ! Here was a 
 possible nobility ! here a whole world wherein to be 
 divine ! A man was free to sacrifice his happiness : 
 for him, he had nothing but his crowned sorrow ; he 
 would sacrifice that ! Had any one ever sacrificed 
 his sorrow to his love? Would it not be a new and 
 strange sacrifice ? To know that he suffered would 
 make her a little unhappy : for her sake he would noi 
 be unhappy ! He would at least for her sake fight 
 with his grief; he would live to love her still, if never 
 more to look on her face. In after eternal years, if 
 ever once more they met, he would tell her how for 
 her sake he had lived in peace, and neither died nor 
 gone mad ! Yea, forher sake, he would still seek her 
 God, if haply he might find him ! Was there not a 
 possible hope that he would justify to him, even in 
 his heart, his ways with men, and his ways with him- 
 self among his fellows ? What if there was a way 
 so much higher than ours, as to include all the seem- 
 ing right and seeming wrong in one radiance of 
 righteousness ! The idea was scarce conceivable ; 
 it was not one he could illustrate to himself; but as 
 a thought transcending flesh and blood, better and 
 truer than what we are able to think of as truth, he 
 would try to hold by it ! Things that we are right 
 in thinking bad, must be bad to God as well as to 
 us ; but may there not be things so far above us, that 
 we cannot take them in, and they seem bad because 
 they are so far above us in goodness that we see them 
 partially and untruly ? There must be room in his 
 
456 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 wisdom for us to mistake ! He would try to trust ! 
 He would say, "If thou art my father, be my father, 
 and comfort thy child. Perhaps thou hast some way ! 
 Perhaps things are not as thou wouldst have them, 
 and thou art doing what can be done to set them 
 right ! If thou art indeed true to thy own, it were 
 hard not to be believed — hard that one of thine own 
 should not trust thee, should not give thee time to 
 make things clear, should behave to thee as if thou 
 wouldst not explain, when it is that we are unable to 
 understand ! " 
 
 He was thinking with himself thus, as he walked 
 home, late one Monday night, from the concert, to 
 which had come none of the singing birds of his own 
 forests to meet and make merry with the song-birds of 
 the violins. Like a chaos of music without form and 
 void, the sweet sounds had stormed and billowed 
 against him, and he had left the door of his late 
 paradise hardly in better mood than if it had been 
 the church of the Rev. Theodore Gosport, who for 
 the traditions of men made the word of God of small 
 effect ! 
 
 He was walking westward, with his eyes on the 
 ground, along the broad pavement on the house-side 
 of Piccadilly, lost half in misery, half in thought, 
 when he was stopped by a little crowd about an 
 awning that stretched across the footway. The same 
 instant rose a murmur of admiration, and down the 
 steps from the door came tripping, the very Allegra 
 of motion, the same Barbara to whose mould his 
 being seemed to have shaped itself. He stood silent 
 as death, but something made her cast a look on 
 him, and she saw the large eyes of his suffering 
 fixed on her. She gave a short, musical cry, and 
 
THE CARRIAGE. 457 
 
 turning darted through the crowd, leaving her escort 
 at the foot of the steps. 
 
 "Richard ! " she cried, and catching hold of his 
 hand, laid her other hand on his shoulder — then 
 suddenly became aware of the gazing faces, not all 
 pleasant to look upon, that came crowding closer 
 about them. 
 
 She pulled him toward a brougham that stood at 
 the curbstone. 
 
 "Jump in," she whispered. Then turning to the 
 gentleman, who in a bewildered way fancied she 
 had caught a prodigal brother in the crowd, "Good- 
 night, Mr. Cleveland," she said : "thank you !" 
 
 One moment Richard hesitated ; but he saw that 
 neither place nor time allowed anything but obedi- 
 ence, and when she turned again, he was already 
 seated. 
 
 "Home ! " she said to the coachman as she got in, 
 for she had no attendant. 
 
 "I must talk fast, " she began, "and so must you ; 
 we have not far to go together. — Why did you not 
 write to me ? " 
 
 " I did write." 
 
 "Did you.?" exclaimed Barbara. 
 
 " I did indeed." 
 
 " Then what could you think of me ? " 
 
 " I thought nothing you would not like me to 
 think. I was sure there was an explanation ! " 
 
 "That of course ! You knew that ! — But how ill 
 you look ! " 
 
 "It is from not seeing you any more at the con- 
 certs," answered Richard. 
 
 "Tell me your address, and I will write to you. 
 
458 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 But do not write to me. When shall you be at the 
 hall again ? " 
 
 ''Next Monday. I am there every Monday," 
 
 "I shall be there, and will take your answer from 
 your hand in the crush as I come out by the Regent 
 Street door." 
 
 She pulled the coachman's string. 
 
 "Now you must go," she said. "Thank God I 
 have seen you ! Tell me when you write if you 
 know anything of Alice." 
 
 She gave him her hand. He got out, closed the 
 door, took off his hat, and stood for minutes un- 
 covered in the cold clear night, hardly sure whether 
 he had indeed been side by side with Barbara, or in 
 a heavenly trance. 
 
CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 RICHARDS DILEMMA. 
 
 He turned and walked home — but with a heart 
 how different ! The world was folded in winter and 
 night, but in his heart the sun was shining, and it 
 made a wonder and a warmth at the heart of every 
 crystal of the frost that spangled and feathered and 
 jewel-crusted rail and tree ! The misty moon was 
 dreaming of spring, and almond blossoms, and night- 
 ingales. — But did Barbara know about him ? Had 
 Alice told the terrible secret? If she knew, and did 
 not withdraw her friendship, he could bear anything 
 — almost anything 1 But he would be happy now, 
 would keep happy as long as he could, and try to be 
 happy when he could not ! She was with him all 
 the way home. Every step was a delight. Foot 
 lingered behind foot as he came ; now each was 
 eager to pass the other. 
 
 He slept a happy sleep, and in the morning was 
 better than for many a day — so much better that his 
 mother, who had been watching him with uneasiness, 
 and wondering whether she ought not to bring 
 matters to a crisis, began to feel at rest about him. 
 She had not a suspicion of what now troubled him 
 the most ! A little knowledge is not, but the largest 
 half-knowledge is a dangerous thing ! He knew 
 who was his father, but he did not know who was 
 not his mother ; and from this half-knowledge rose 
 the thickest of the cloud that yet overshadowed him. 
 
460 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 He had been proud that he came of such good 
 people as his father and mother, but it was not the 
 notion of shame to himself that greatly troubled 
 him ; it was the new feeling about his mother. He 
 did not think of her as one to be blamed, but as one 
 too trusting, and so deceived ; he never felt unready 
 to stand up for her. What troubled him was that she 
 must always know that unspoken-of something be- 
 tween her and her son, that his mother must feel 
 shame before him. He could not bear to think of it. 
 If only .she would say something to him, that he 
 might tell her she was his own precious mother, what- 
 ever had befallen her ! that for her sake he could spurn 
 the father that begot him ! Already had come this 
 good of Mrs. INIanson's lie that Richard felt far more 
 the goodness of his mother to him, and loved her 
 the better that he believed himself her shame. It is 
 true that his love increased upon a false idea, but 
 the growth gained by his character could not be lost, 
 and so his love would not grow less — for no love, 
 that is loved, save God's, can clothe warm enough 
 the being around whom it gathers. And when he 
 learned the facts of the story, he would not find that 
 he had given his aunt more love than she deserved 
 at his heart 
 
 As soon as the next day's work was over, Richard 
 sat down to write to Barbara. But he had no sooner 
 taken the pen in his fingers, than he became doubt- 
 ful : what was he to say ? He could not open his 
 heart about any of the things that troubled him 
 most ! Putting aside the recurrent dread of her own 
 marriage, how could he mention his mother's wrong 
 and his own shame to a girl so young.? She must 
 be aware that such things were, but how was he, a 
 
Richard's dilemma. 461 
 
 huge common fellow, to draw near her loveliness 
 with such a tale in his mouth ! It would be a 
 wrong to his own class, to his own education ! for 
 would it not show the tradesman, or the artisan, 
 whichever they called him, as coarse, and unfit for 
 the company of his social superiors ? It would go 
 to prove that in no sense could one of his nurture 
 be regarded as a gentleman ! And were there no 
 such reason against it, how could he, "even to 
 Barbara, speak of his mother's hidden pain, of his 
 mother's humiliation ! It would be treachery ! He 
 would be as a spy that had hid himself in a holy 
 place ! The thing she could not tell him, how could 
 he tell any one ! On the other hand, if he did not 
 let her know the sad fact, would he not be receiving 
 and cherishing Barbara's friendship on false pre- 
 tences? He was not what he now seemed to her — 
 and to be other to Barbara than he seemed, was too 
 terrible ! Still and again, he was bound to do her 
 the justice of believing that she would not regard him 
 differently because of what he could not help, and 
 would justify his silence for his mother's sake. She 
 would, in her great righteousness, be the first to cry 
 out upon the social rule that visited the sins of the 
 fathers on the mothers and children, and not on the 
 fathers themselves ! If then disclosure would make 
 no difference to Barbara, he might, he concluded, 
 let the thing rest — for the time at least — assured of 
 her sisterly sympathy. And with that he bethought 
 him that she had asked news of Alice, and it seemed 
 to him strange. For Alice had not told him that, 
 unable to keep the money she sent from falling into 
 the hands of her mother and going in drink, un- 
 willing to expose her mother, and incapable of letting 
 
462 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Barbara spend her money so, she had contrived to 
 have her remittances returned, as if they had changed 
 their dwelling, and their new address was unknown. 
 
 He wrote therefore what he thought would set her 
 at ease about them ; and then, after thinking and 
 thinking, yielded to the dread lest his heart should 
 make him say things he ought not, and ended with 
 a little poem that had come to him a night or two 
 before. 
 
 This was the poem : 
 
 If there lie a still, pure sorrow 
 At the heart of everything, 
 If never shall dawn a morrow 
 With healing upon its wing, 
 Then down I kneel to my sorrow, 
 And say, Thou art my king ! 
 
 From old pale joy I borrow 
 
 A withered song to sing ! 
 
 And with heart entire and thorough, 
 
 To a calm despair I cling, 
 
 And, freed man of old king Sorrow, 
 
 Away Hope's fetters fling ! 
 
 That was all — and not much, either as poetry, or 
 as consolation to one that loved him ; but sometimes, 
 like that ghastly shroud of Icelandic fable, the poem 
 will rise and wrap itself around the poet. 
 
 As Richard closed his envelope, he remembered, 
 with a pang of self-reproach, that the hour of his usual 
 meeting with Alice was past, and that Arthur too was 
 in danger of going to bed hungry, for his custom was 
 to put her brother's supper in Alice's handbag. He 
 set out at once for Clerken well — on foot notwithstand- 
 ing his haste, for he was hoarding every penny to 
 get new clothes for Arthur, who was not only much 
 
Richard's dilemma. 463 
 
 in want of them for warmth, but in risk of loosingf 
 his situation because of his shabby appearance. 
 
 His anxiety to reach the house before the mother 
 came in, spurred him to his best speed. He halted 
 two minutes on the way to buy some sHces of ham 
 and some rolls, and ran on ag-ain. It was a frosty 
 night, but by the time he reached Everilda Street, he 
 was far from cold. He was rewarded by finding his 
 brother and sister at home, alone, and not too hungry. 
 
 He had just time to empty his pockets, and receive 
 a kiss from Alice in return, when they heard the 
 uncertain step of their mother coming up the stair, 
 stopping now and then, and again resuming the 
 ascent. Alice went to watch which door she would 
 turn to when she reached the top, that Richard might 
 go out by the other, for the two rooms communicated. 
 But just as she was entering Arthur's room, Mrs. 
 Manson changed her mind, and turned to the other 
 door, so that Richard was caught in the very act of 
 making his exit. She flew at him, seized him by the 
 hair, and began to pull and cuff him, abusing him as 
 the true son of his father, who did everything on the 
 sly, and never looked an honest woman in the face. 
 Richard said never a word, but let her tug and revile 
 till there was no more strength in her, when she let 
 him go, and dropped into a chair. 
 
 The three went half-way down the stair together. 
 
 "Don't mind her," said Alice with a great sob. 
 " I hope she didn't hurt you much, Richard ! " 
 
 " Not a bit," answered Richard. 
 
 " Poor mother ! " sighed Arthur ; " she's not in her 
 right mind ! We're in constant terror lest she drop 
 down dead ! " 
 
464 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "She's not a very good mother to you!" said 
 Richard. 
 
 "No, but that has nothing to do with loving her,'' 
 answered Alice; "and to think of her dying like 
 that, and going straight to the bad place ! Oh, Rich- 
 ard, what shall I do ! It turns me crazy to think 
 of it ! " 
 
 The door above them opened, and the fierce voice 
 of the mother fell upon them ; but it was broken by 
 a fit of hiccupping, and she went in again, slamming 
 the door behind her. 
 
CHAPTER XLVIL 
 
 THE DOORS OF HARMONY AND DEATH. 
 
 That night Richard could not rest. His brain 
 wrought unceasingly. 
 
 He had caught cold and was feverish. After his 
 hot haste to reach his brother and sister, he had stood 
 on the stair till his temperature sank low. When at 
 length he slept, he kept starting awake from troublous 
 dreams, and this went on through the night. In the 
 morning he felt better, and rose and set to his work, 
 shivering occasionally. All the week he was unwell, 
 and coughed, but thought the attack an ordinary cold. 
 When Sunday came, he kept his bed, in the hope 
 of getting rid of it ; but the next day he was worse. 
 He insisted on getting up, however : he must not seem 
 to be ill, for he was determined, if he could stand, to 
 go to the concert ! What with weariness and short- 
 ness of breath and sleepiness, however, it was all he 
 could do to stick to his work. But he held on till the 
 evening, when, watching his opportunity, he slipped 
 from the house and made his way, with the help of 
 an omnibus, to the hall. 
 
 It was dire work waiting till the door to the orches- 
 tra was opened. The air was cold, his lungs heavily 
 oppressed, and his languor almost overpowering. 
 But paradise was within that closed door, and he 
 was passing through the pains of death to enter into 
 bliss ! When at length it seemed to yield to his 
 prayers, he almost fell in the rush, but the good- 
 30 
 
4.66 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 humored crowd itself succored the pale youth, and 
 helped him in : to look at him was to see that he 
 was ill ! 
 
 The moment the music began, he forgot every 
 discomfort. For, with the first chord of the violins, 
 as if ushered in and accompanied by the angels them- 
 selves of the sweet sounds, Barbara came flitting 
 down the centre of the wide space toward her usual 
 seat. The rows of faces that filled the area were but 
 the waves on which floated the presence of Barbara ; 
 the music was the natural element of her being ; it 
 flowed from her as from its fountain, radiated from 
 her like odor. It fashioned around her a nimbus of 
 sound, like that made by the light issuing from 
 the blessed ones, as beheld by Dante, which revealed 
 their presence but hid them in its radiance, as the 
 moth is hid in the silk of its cocoon. Richard felt 
 entirely well. The warmth entered into him, and 
 met the warmth generated in him. All was peace 
 and hope and bliss, quaintest mingling of expectation 
 and fruition. Even Arthur Lestrange beside Barbara 
 could not blast his joy. He saw him occasionally 
 offer some small attention ; he saw her carelessly 
 accept or refuse it. Barbara gazed at him anxiously, 
 he thought ; but he did not know he looked ill ; he 
 had forgotten himself. 
 
 When the concert was over, he hastened from the 
 orchestra. The moment he issued, the cold wind 
 seized and threatened to strangle him, but he con- 
 quered in the struggle, and reached the human tor- 
 rent debouching in Regent Street. Against it he 
 made gradual way, until he stood near the inner door 
 of the hall. In a minute or two he saw her come, 
 slowly with the crowd, her hand on Arthur's arm, her 
 
THE DOORS OF HARMONY AND DEATH. 467 
 
 eyes anxiously searching for Richard. The moment 
 they found him, her course took a drift toward him, 
 and her face grew white as his, for she saw more 
 plainly that he was ill. They edged nearer and 
 nearer ; their hands met through the crowd ; their 
 letters were exchanged, and without a word they 
 parted. As Barbara reached the door, she turned one 
 moment to look for him, and he saw a depth of care 
 angelic in her eyes. Arthur turned too and saw him, 
 but Richard was so changed he did not recognize 
 him, and thought the suffering look of a stranger had 
 roused the sympathy of his companion. 
 
 How he got home, Richard could not have told. 
 Ere he reached the house, he was too ill to know 
 anything except that he had something precious in 
 his possession. He managed to get to bed — not to 
 leave it for weeks. A severe attack of pneumonia 
 had prostrated him, and he knew nothing of his con- 
 dition or surroundings. He had not even opened his 
 letter. He remembered at intervals that he had a 
 precious thing somewhere, but could not recall what 
 it was. 
 
 When he came to himself after many days, it was 
 with a wonderful delight of possession, though 
 whether the object possessed was a thing, or a 
 thought, or a feeling, or a person, he could not dis- 
 tinguish. 
 
 "Where is it.?" he said, nor knew that he spoke 
 till he heard his own voice. 
 
 " Under your pillow," answered his mother. 
 
 He turned his eyes, and saw her face as he had 
 
 never seen it before — pale, and full of yearning love 
 
 and anxious joy. There was a gentleness and depth 
 
 in its expression that was new to him. The divine 
 
468 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 motherhood had come nearer the surface in her boy's 
 ilhiess. 
 
 Partly from her anxiety about what she had done 
 and what she had yet to do, the show of her love 
 had, as the boy grew up, gradually retired ; her love 
 burned more, and shone less. If Jane Tuke had been 
 able to let her love appear in such forms as suited its 
 strength, I doubt whether the teaching of his father 
 would have had much power upon Richard ; cer- 
 tainly he would have been otherwise impressed by 
 the faith of his mother. He would have been prej- 
 udiced in favor of the God she believed in, and 
 would have sought hard to account for the ways 
 attributed to him. None the less would it have been 
 through much denial and much suffering that he 
 arrived at anything worth calling faith ; while the 
 danger would have been great of his drifting about 
 in such indifference as does not care that God should 
 be righteous, and is ready to call anything just which 
 men in office declare God does, without concern 
 whether it be right or wrong, or whether he really 
 does it or not — without concern indeed about any- 
 thing at all that is God's. He would have had 
 phantoms innumerable against him. He would have 
 supposed the Bible said things about God which it 
 does not say, things which, if it did say them, ought 
 to be enough to make any honest man reject the 
 notion of its authority as an indivisible whole. He 
 would have had to encounter all the wrong notions 
 of God, dropped on the highway of the universe, by 
 the nations that went before in the march of humanity. 
 He would have found it much harder to work out his 
 salvation, to force his freedom from the false forms 
 given to truth by interpreters of little faith, for they 
 
THE DOORS OF HARMONY AND DEATH. 469 
 
 would have seemed bora in him because loved into 
 him. 
 
 " What did you say, mother dear? " he returned, 
 all astray, seeming to have once known several things, 
 but now to know nothing at all. 
 
 "It is under your pillow, Richard," she said again, 
 very tenderly. 
 
 " What is it, mother.? Something seems strange. 
 I don't know what to ask you. Tell me what it 
 means," 
 
 "You have been very ill, my boy ; that is what it 
 means." 
 
 " Have I been out of my mind ? " 
 
 " You have been wandering with the fever, nothing 
 more." 
 
 "I have been thinking so many things, and they 
 all seemed real ! — And you have been nursing me all 
 the long time ! " . 
 
 "Who should have been nursing you, Richard? 
 Do you think I would let any one else nurse my 
 own child ? Didn't 1 nurse the " 
 
 She stopped; she had been on the point of saying 
 — "the mother that bore you?" Her love of her 
 dead sister was one with her love of that sister's 
 living child. 
 
 He lay silent for a time, thinking, or rather trying 
 to think, for he felt like one vainly endeavoring to 
 get the focus of a stereoscopic picture. His mind 
 kept going away from him. He knew himself able 
 to think, yet he could not think. It was a revelation 
 to him of our helplessness with our own being, of 
 our absolute ignorance of the modes in which our 
 nature works — of what it is, and what we can and 
 cannot do with it. 
 
4 7° THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " Shall I get it for you, clear?" said his mother. 
 
 The morning after the concert, he had taken 
 Barbara's letter from under his pillow, and would 
 not let it out of his hand. His mother, fearing he 
 would wear it to pieces, once and again tried to re- 
 move it ; but the moment she touched it, he would 
 cry out and strike ; and when in his restless turning 
 he dropped it, he showed himself so miserable that 
 she could not but put it in his hand again, when he 
 would lie perfectly quiet for a while. Dreaming of 
 Barbara however, I fancy, he at length^ forgot her 
 letter, and his mother again put it under his pillow. 
 With the Lord, we shall forget even the gospel of 
 John. 
 
 She drew out the crumpled, frayed envelope, and 
 gave it him. The moment he touched it, everything 
 came back to him. 
 
 "Now I remember, mother !" he cried. "Thank 
 you, mother ! I will try to be a better boy to you. 
 I am sorry I ever vexed you." 
 
 " You never vexed me, Richard ! " said the mother- 
 heart ; " — or if ever you did, I've forgotten it. And 
 now that God has given you back to us, we must 
 see whether we can't do something better for you ! " 
 
 Richard was so weary that he did not care to ask 
 what she meant, and in a moment was asleep, with 
 the letter in his hand. 
 
 When at length he was able to read it, it caused 
 him not a little pleasure, and some dismay. He read 
 that her father was determined she should marry Mr. 
 Lestrange ; but her mother was against it ; and there 
 was as much dissension at home as ever. She be- 
 lieved Lady Ann had talked her father into it, for he 
 had not always favored the idea. There was indeed 
 
THE DOORS OF HARMONY AND DEATH. 47 1 
 
 greater reason now why both Lady Ann and her 
 father should desire it, for there was every Hkelihood 
 of her being left sole heir to the property, as her 
 brother could not, the doctors said, live many months. 
 She was sure her mother was trying to do right, and 
 she herself did all she could to please her father, but 
 nothing less than her consent to his plans for what 
 he called her settlement in life, would satisfy him, 
 and that she could not give. 
 
 She hoped Richard was not forgetting the things 
 they had such talks about in the old days. If it were 
 not for those things, she could not now bear life, or 
 rightly take her part in it. She was almost never 
 alone, and now in constant danger of interruption, 
 so that he must not wonder if her letter broke off 
 abruptly, for she might be wanted any moment. 
 She was leading, or rather being led, a busy life of 
 nothing at all — a life not worth living. Her father, 
 set on, she had no doubt, by Lady Ann, had brought 
 her up to town while yet her mother was unable to 
 accompany them, so that she had had to go where, 
 and do what Lady Ann pleased. But her mother 
 had at last, exerting herself even beyond her strength, 
 come up to stand by her girl, as she said : she would 
 have no Lady Ann interfering with her ! She had her- 
 self married a man she had not learned to respect, and 
 she was determined her girl should make her own 
 choice — or keep as she was, if she pleased ! She 
 vi^as not going to hold her child down for them to bury 
 in money ! — And with this the letter broke off. 
 
 Barbara's openness about her parents was in har- 
 mony with her simplicity and straight-forwardness. 
 She was proud of her mother and the way she put 
 things, therefore told all to Richard. 
 
472 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 He had a bad night, with deUrious dreams, and 
 for some days made little progress. His anxiety to 
 be well, that he might see Barbara, and learn how 
 things were going with her, also that he might again 
 see Alice and Arthur, for whom he feared much, 
 retarded his recovery. 
 
 "If the woman is drinking herself to death," he 
 said to himself, "I wish she would be quick about 
 it ! In this world she is doing no good to herself, 
 and much harm to others ! " 
 
 But it would be the ruin, he said to himself, of all 
 hope in the care and love of God, to believe that she 
 could be allowed to live a moment longer than it 
 was well she should live. Then he thought how 
 wise must be a God who, to work out his intent, 
 would take all the conduct, good and bad, all the 
 endeavors of all his children, in all their contrarieties, 
 and out of them bring the right thing. If he knew 
 such a God, one to trust in absolutely, he would lie 
 still without one movement of fear, he would go to 
 sleep without one throb of anxiety about any he loved ! 
 The perfect Love would not fail because one of his 
 children was sick ! He would try to be quiet, if only 
 in the hope that there was a perfect heart of hearts, 
 thinking love to and into and about all its creatures. 
 If there was such a splendor, he would either make 
 him well, and send him out again to do for Alice and 
 Arthur what he could, or he would let him die and 
 go where all he loved would come after him — where 
 he might perhaps help to prepare a place for them ! 
 
 If matter be all, then must all illness be blinding ; 
 if spirit be the deeper and be the causer, then some 
 sicknesses may well be openers of windows into the 
 unseen. It is true that in one mood we are ready to 
 
THE DOORS OF HARMONY AND DEATH. 473 
 
 doubt the conclusions of another nnood ; but there 
 is a power of judging- between the moods themselves, 
 with a perception of their character and nature, and 
 the comparative clarity of insight in each ; and he 
 who is able to judge the moods may well judge the 
 judgments of the moods. 
 
 One of the benefits of illness is, that, either from 
 general weakness or from the brain's being cast into 
 quiescence, habits are broken for a time, and more 
 simple, childlike and natural modes of thought and 
 feeling, modes more approximate to primary and 
 original modes, come into action, whereby the right 
 thing has a better chance. A man's self-stereotyped 
 thinkingis unfavorable to revelation, whether through 
 his fellows or direct from the divine. If there be a 
 divine quarter, those must be opener to its influences 
 who are not frozen in their own dullness, cased in 
 their own habits, bound by their own pride to fore- 
 gone conclusions, or shut up in the completeness of 
 human error, theorizing beyond their knowledge and 
 power. 
 
 Having thus in a measure given himself up, Rich- 
 ard began to grow better. It is a joy to think that a 
 man may, while anything but sure about God, yet 
 come into correlation with him ! How else should 
 we be saved at all ? For God alone is our salvation ; 
 to know him is salvation. He is in us all the time, 
 else we could never move to seek him. It is true 
 that only by perfect faith in him can we be saved, 
 for nothing but perfect faith in him is salvation : there 
 is no good but him, and not to be one with that good 
 by perfect obedience is to be unsaved ; but one bet- 
 ter thought concerning him, the poorest desire to 
 draw near him, is an approach to him. Very unsure 
 
474 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 of him we may be : how should we be sure of what 
 we do not yet know? but the unsureness does not 
 nulHfy the approach. A man may not be sure that 
 the sun is risen, may not be sure that the sun will 
 ever rise, yet has he the good of what light there is. 
 Richard was fed from the heart of God without know- 
 ing that he was indeed partaking of the spirit of God. 
 He had been partaking of the body of God all his life. 
 The world had been feeding him with its beauty and 
 essential truth, with the sweetness of its air, and the 
 vastness of its vault of freedom. But now he had 
 begun, in the words of St. Peter, to be a partaker of 
 the divine nature. 
 
 It was a long time before he was strong again — in 
 fact, he never would be so strong again in this world. 
 His mother took him to the seaside, where, in a 
 warm secluded bay on the south coast, he was wrapt 
 closer, shall I not say, in the garments of the creat- 
 ing and reviving God. He was again a child, and 
 drew nearer to the heart of his mother than he had 
 ever drawn before. Believing he knew her sad se- 
 cret, he set himself to meet her every wish — which 
 was always some form of anxiety about himself. He 
 spoke so gently to her, that she felt she had never 
 until now had him her very child. How little men 
 think, alas, of the duty that lies in tone! But Richard 
 was started on a voyage of self-discovery. He had 
 begun to learn that regions he had thought whole- 
 some, productive portions of his world, were a terra 
 incognita of swamps and sandy hills, haunted with 
 creeping and stinging things. When a man finds he 
 is not what he thought, that he has been talking fine 
 things, and but imagining he belonged to their world, 
 he is on the way to discover that he is not up to his 
 
THE DOORS OF HARMONY AND DEATH. 475 
 
 duty in the smallest thing. When, for very despair, 
 it seems impossible to go on, then he begins to know 
 that he needs more than himself; that there is none 
 good but God ; that, if he can gain no help from the 
 perfect source of his being, that being ought not to 
 have been given him ; and that, if he does not cry 
 for help to the father of his spirit, the more pleasant 
 existence is the less he deserves it should continue. 
 Richard was beginning to feel, in his deepest nature, 
 where alone it can be felt, his need of God, not 
 merely to comfort him in his sorrows, and so render 
 life possible and worth living, but to make him such 
 that he could bear to regard himself ; to make him 
 such that he could righteously consent to be. The 
 only thing that can reassure a man in respect of the 
 mere fact of his existence, is to know himself started 
 on the way to grow better, with the hope of help 
 from the source of his being : how should he by 
 himself better that which he was powerless to create ? 
 All betterment must be radical : of the roots of his 
 being he knows nothing. His existence is God's ; 
 his betterment must be God's too ! — God's through 
 honest exercise by man of that which is highest in 
 man — his own will, God's best handiwork. By 
 actively willing the will of God, and doing what of it 
 lies to his doing, the man takes the share offered him 
 in his own making, in his own becoming. In will- 
 ing actively and operatively to be that which he was 
 made in order to be, he becomes creative — so far as 
 a man may. In this kind also he becomes like his 
 Father in heaven. 
 
 If a reader say Richard was too young to think 
 thus, it only proves that he could not think so at Rich- 
 ard's age, and goes for little. I may be interpreting, 
 
476 THERE AND BACK, 
 
 and rendering more definite the thoughts and feelings 
 that passed through him : it does not follow that I 
 misrepresent. Many thoughts must be made more 
 definite in expression, else they could not be expressed 
 at all ; many feelings are as hazy as real, and some 
 of them must be left to music. 
 
 He grew in graciousness and in favor with God and 
 his mother. Often did she meditate whether the 
 hour was not come for the telling of her secret, but 
 now one thing, now another deterred her. One time 
 she feared the excitement in the present state of his 
 health ; another, she judged it unfair to the husband 
 who had behaved with such generosity, to yield him 
 no part in the pleasure of the communication. 
 
 Once, to comfort him when he seemed depressed, 
 she ventured to say — 
 
 "Would you like better to go to Oxford or to Cam- 
 bridge, Richard .? " 
 
 He looked up with a smile. 
 
 "What makes you ask that, mammy ? " he rejoined. 
 
 "Perhaps it could be managed ! " she answered — 
 leaving him to suppose his father might send him. 
 
 "Is it because you think I shall never be able to 
 work again .? — Look at that ! " he returned, extending 
 an arm on which the muscle had begun to put in an 
 appearance. 
 
 "It's not for your strength," she answered. "For 
 that, you could do well enough ! But think of the 
 dust ! It's so irritating to the lungs ! And then there's 
 the stooping all day long ! " 
 
 "Never mind, mother; I'm quite able for it, dust 
 and all — or at least shall soon be. We mustn't be 
 anxious about others any more than about ourselves. 
 Doesn't the God you believe in tell you so ? " 
 
THE DOORS OF HARMONY AND DEATH. 477 
 
 " Don't you believe in him then, Richard ? " said his 
 mother sadly. 
 
 " I think I do — a little — in a sort of a way — believe 
 in God — but I hope to believe in him ten thousand 
 times more ! " 
 
 His mother gave a sigh. 
 
 "What more would you have, mother dear .''"said 
 Richard. " A man cannot be a saint all at once ! " 
 
 ' ' No, indeed, nor a woman either ! " she answered. 
 "I've been a believer all these years, and I'm no 
 nearer a saint than ever." 
 
 "But you're trying to be one, ain't you, mammy?" 
 
 She made him no reply, and presently reverted to 
 their former topic — perhaps took refuge in it. 
 
 "I think it might be managed — some day ! " she 
 said. " You could go on with your trade after, if 
 you liked. Why shouldn't a college-man be a trades- 
 man .? Why shouldn't a tradesman know as much as 
 a gentleman ? " 
 
 "Why, indeed, mother! If I thought it wouldn't 
 be too much for father and you, there are not many 
 things I should like better than going to Oxford. — 
 You are good to me like God himself! " 
 
 " Richard I " said bis mother, shocked. She thought 
 she served God by going to church, not by being 
 like him in every word and look of love she gave 
 her boy. 
 
 The mere idea of going to college, and thus taking 
 a step nearer to Barbara, began immediately to 
 better his health. It gave him many a happy 
 thought, many a cottage and castle in the air, with 
 more of a foundation than he knew. But his mother 
 did not revert to it ; and one day suddenly the 
 thought came to Richard that perhaps she meant to 
 
.78 THERE AND RACK. 
 
 apply to Sir Wilton for the means of sending him. 
 Castle and cottage fell in silent ruin. His soul re- 
 coiled from the idea with loathing— as much for his 
 mother's sake as his own. Having married his 
 reputed father, she must have no more relation, for 
 good any more than for bad, with Sir Wilton — least 
 of all for his sake ! To her he was dead ; and ought 
 to be as dead as disregard could make him ! So, at 
 least, thought Richard. He was sorry he had con- 
 fessed he should like to go to Oxford. If his mother 
 again alluded to the thing, he would tell her he had 
 changed his mind, and would not interrupt the exer- 
 cise of his profession as surgeon to old books. 
 
CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 DEATH THE DELIVERER. 
 
 The spring advanced ; the days grew a little 
 warmer ; and at length, partly from economic con- 
 siderations, it was determined they should go home. 
 When they reached London, they found a great dif- 
 ference in the weather : it cannot be said she owes 
 her salubrity to her climate. Fog and drizzle, frost 
 and fog, were the embodiment of its unvarying 
 mutability. At once Richard was worse, and dared 
 not think, for his mother's sake, and the labor she 
 had spent upon him, of going to the next popular 
 concert, if indeed those delights had not ceased for 
 the season. But he ought to try, for he could do 
 that in the middle of the day, at least to get news of 
 Arthur Manson. He dreaded hearing that he was no 
 more in this world. The cold wintry weather, and 
 the return to poor and spare nourishment caused by 
 Richard's illness, must have been hard upon him ! 
 It was a continual sorrow to Richard that he had not 
 been able to get him his new clothes before he was 
 taken ill. So the first morning he felt it possible, he 
 took his way to the city. There he learned that the 
 company had dispensed with Arthur's services, be- 
 cause his attendance had become so irregular. 
 
 "You see, sir," said the porter, " the gov'nors they 
 don't think no more of a man than they do of a 
 horse : so long as he can hold the shafts up an' lean 
 
480 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 agiii the collar, he's money ; when he can't no 
 longer, he's dirt ! " 
 
 Sad at heart, Richard set out for Clerkenwell. He 
 was ill able for the journey, but Arthur was dying- ! 
 He would brave the mother for the sake of the son ! 
 He got into an omnibus which took him a good part 
 of the way, and walked the rest. When at length he 
 looked up at the dreary house, he saw the blinds of 
 the windows drawn down. A pang of fear went 
 through his heart, and an infilial murmur awoke in 
 his brain : — why was he, on whom those poor lives 
 almost depended, made feeble as themselves, and 
 incapable of helping them ? After all his hoping and 
 trusting, cou/d there be a God in the earth and things 
 go like that ? The look of things seemed the truth 
 of things ; the seen denied the unseen. Cold and 
 hunger and desertion ; ugly, mocking failure ; heart- 
 less comfort, and hopeless misery, made up the law 
 of life ! Moody and wretched he went up the stair 
 to the darkened floor. 
 
 When he knocked at the front room, that in which 
 Alice slept with her mother, it was opened by Alice, 
 looking more small and forlorn than he had yet seen 
 her, with hollower cheeks and larger eyes, and a smile 
 to make an angel weep. 
 
 "Richard!" she cried, with a voice in which the 
 very gladness sounded like pain. A pink flush rose 
 i» her poor wasted cheeks, and she lay still in his 
 arms as if she had gone to live there. 
 
 He could not, for pity, speak one word. 
 
 " How ill you look ! " she murmured. " I knew 
 you must be ill ! I thought you might be dead ! Oh, 
 God IS good to leave you to us ! " Then bursting 
 into tears. " How wicked of me," she sobbed, " to 
 
DEATH THE DELIVERER. 48 1 
 
 feel anything like gladness, with my mother lying 
 there, and me not able to do anything for her, and not 
 knowing what "s to become of her, or how things are 
 going with her ! — We shall never see her again ! " 
 
 "Don't say that, Alice! Never say never about 
 anything except it be bad. You can't be sure you 
 know. You can't be sure of anything that's not in 
 your very mouth — and then sometimes you can't 
 swallow it ! — But how's Arthur .? " 
 
 "He'll know all about it soon!" she answered, 
 with a touch of bitterness. " If he had been left me, 
 we should have got along somehow. He would 
 have lain in bed, and I would have worked beside 
 him ! How I could have worked ioxhim! But he's 
 past hope now ! He'll never get up again." 
 
 "O God," cried Richard in his heart, where an 
 agony of will wrestled with doubt, "if thou art, thou 
 wilt hear me, and take pity on her, and on us all !— 
 I dare not pray, Alice," he went on aloud, "that he 
 may live, but I will pray God to be with him. It 
 would be poor kindness to want him left with us, if 
 he is taking him where he will be well. May I go 
 and see him t " 
 
 "Surely, Richard.— But mayn't I let him know first.? 
 The surprise might be too much for him." 
 
 Their talk had waked him, however, and he knew 
 his brother's voice. " Richard ! Richard ! " he cried, 
 so loud that it startled Alice : he had not spoken above 
 a whisper for days. Richard opened his door, and 
 went in. But when he saw Arthur, he could scarcely 
 recognize him, he was so wasted. His eyes stood out 
 like balls from his sunken cheeks, and the smile with 
 which he greeted him was all teeth, like the helpless 
 smile of a skull. Overcome with tenderness, the 
 
482 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 stronger that he would have passed him in the street 
 as one unknown, Richard stooped and kissed his fore- 
 head, then stood speechless, holding the thin leaf of 
 a hand that strained his. Arthur tried to speak, but 
 his cough came on, and his brother begged him to be 
 silent. 
 
 " I will go into the next room with Alice," he said, 
 " and come to you again. I shall see you often now, 
 I hope. I've been ill or I should have been here 
 fifty times." 
 
 In the next room lay the motionless form of the 
 unmotherly inother. A certain something of human 
 grace had returned to her countenance. Richard did 
 not like looking at her; he felt that not loving her, 
 he had no right to let his eyes rest on her. But she 
 had been sinned against like his own mother : he must 
 not fail her with what sympathy she might claim ! 
 
 "Don't think hard things of her," said Alice, as if 
 she knew what he was thinking, "She had not the 
 strength of some people. I believe myself she could 
 not help it. She had been used to everything she 
 wanted 1 " 
 
 "I pity her heartily," answered Richard. 
 
 She threw her arms round his neck, and clung to 
 him as if she would never more let him go. 
 
 " But what am I to do.?" she said, releasing him. 
 " If I stay at home to nurse Arthur, we must both die 
 of hunger. If I go away, there is nobody to do any- 
 thing for him ! " 
 
 " I wish I could stay with him ! " returned Richard. 
 "But I've been so long ill that I have no money, and 
 I don't know when I shall have any. I have just 
 one shilling in my possession. Take it, dear." 
 
 "I can't take your last shilling, Richard ! " 
 
DEATH THE DELIVERER. 483 
 
 "There's no fear of me," he said; "I shall have 
 everything I vv^ant. It makes me ashamed to think 
 of it. You must just creep on for a while as best you 
 can, while I think what to do. Only there's the 
 funeral ! " 
 
 Alice gave a cry choked by a sob. 
 
 "There is no help!" she said in a voice of de- 
 spair. "The parish is all that is left us ! " 
 
 " It don't matter much," rejoined Richard. "For 
 my part I don't care a paring what becomes of my 
 old clothes when I've done with them ! You needn't 
 think, whether she be anywhere or nowhere, that she 
 cares how her body gets put under the earth ! Don't 
 trouble about it, AIic§ ; it really is nothing. I would 
 come to the funeral, but I don't see how I can. I 
 don't know now what I shall say to my mother ! — 
 Tell Arthur I hope to see him again soon ; I must not 
 stop now, I won't forget you, Alice — not for an hour, 
 I think. Beg some one in the house to go in to him 
 now and then while you are away. I shall soon do 
 something to cheer him up a bit. Good-night, dear ! " 
 With a heavy heart Richard went. It. was all he 
 could do to get home before dark, having to walk all 
 the way. His mother was much distressed to see him 
 so exhausted ; but he managed not to tell her what 
 he had been about. He had some tea and went to 
 bed, and there remained all the next day. And while 
 he was in bed, it came to him clear and plain what 
 he must do. It was certain that for a long time he 
 could do nothing for Arthur and Alice out of his own 
 pocket. Even if he got to work at once, he could not 
 take his wages as before, seeing his parents had spent 
 upon him almost all they had saved ! 
 
 But thece was one who ou<^hi to help them ! 
 
484 THERE AND BACK 
 
 Specially in such sore need had they a right to the 
 saving help of their own father ! He would go to 
 his father and their father — and as the words rose in 
 his mind, he wondered where he had heard some- 
 thing like them before. 
 
 The next day he begged his father and mother to 
 let him spend a week or two with his grandfather. 
 
CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 THE CAVE IN THE FIRE, 
 
 The day after, well wrapt from the cold, he took 
 his place in a slow train, and at the station was 
 heartily welcomed by his grandfather, who had come 
 with his pony-cart to take him home. Settled in the 
 room once occupied by Alice, he felt like a usurper, 
 a robber of the helpless ; he had left her in misery 
 and wretchedness, and was in the heart of the com- 
 fort that had once been hers. He had to tell himself 
 that it was foolish ; that he was there for her sake. 
 
 He took his grandfather at once into his confidence, 
 begging him not to let his mother know ; and Simon, 
 who had in former days experienced something of 
 the hardness of his true-hearted daughter, entered 
 into the thing with a brooding kind of smile. He 
 saw no reason why Richard should not make the 
 attempt, but shook his head at the prospect of suc- 
 cess. Doubtless the baronet thought he had done 
 ♦all that could be required of him ! H^e would have 
 Richard rest a day before encountering him, but 
 when he heard in what condition he had left Alice 
 and her brother, he said no more, but the next morn- 
 ing had his trap ready to drive him to INIortgrange. 
 
 With feelings akin to none that he had ever before 
 experienced, Richard drdw near to the familiar place 
 and looked again upon the familiar sights. The 
 house that he had entered so often as a workman he 
 now entered as a son. But what manner of son was 
 
486 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 he, and how would he be received should he take it 
 upon himself to disclose his identity? He had re- 
 solved, however, to say nothing, to do nothing, that 
 should lead toward such a disclosure. He was there 
 for another purpose, and, in the justice of the demand 
 he was to make, he sunk all personal claims or 
 desires. 
 
 Richard's heart beat fast as he passed through the 
 lodge-gate, and walked up to the front door. After a 
 moment's bewilderment, the servant who answered 
 his ring recognized him, and expressed concern that 
 he looked so ill. When he asked to see Sir Wilton, 
 the man, thinking he came to resume the work so 
 suddenly abandoned, said he was in the library, 
 having his morning cigar. 
 
 "Then I'll just step in !" said Richard ; and the 
 footman gave way as to a member of the household. 
 
 Sir Wilton, now an elderly and broken man, sat in 
 the same chair, and in the same attitude, as when 
 Richard, a new-born and ugly child, had, in the arms 
 of his aunt, his first interview with him, nearly one- 
 and-twenty years before. The relation between 
 them had not developed a hair's-breadth since that 
 moment, and Richard, partly from the state of his 
 health, could not, with all the courage he could 
 gather, help quailing a little before the expected en-* 
 counter ; but he remained outwardly quiet and seem- 
 ingly cool. The sun was not shining into the room, 
 and it was rather dark. Sir Wilton sat with his back 
 to the one large bay-window, and Richard received 
 its light on his face as he entered. He stood an in- 
 stant, hesitating. His father did not speak, but sat 
 looking straight at him, staring indeed as at some- 
 thing portentous — much as when first he saw the 
 
THE CAVE IN THE FIRE. 487 
 
 Ugly apparition of his infant heir. Richard's illness 
 had brought out, in the pallor and emaciation of his 
 countenance, what likeness there was in him to his 
 mother ; and, strange to say, at the moment when 
 the door opened to admit him. Sir Wilton was think- 
 of the monstrous baby his wife had left him, and 
 wondering if the creature were still alive, and as 
 hideous as twenty years before. 
 
 It was not very strange, however. Sir Wilton had 
 been annoyed with his wife that morning, and it was 
 yet a bitterer thing not to be able to hurt her in 
 return, which, because of her cold imperturbability, 
 was impossible, say what he might. As often, there- 
 fore, as he sat in silent irritation with her, the thought 
 of his lost child never failed to present itself. What 
 a power over her ladyship would he not possess, 
 what a plough and harrow for her frozen equanim- 
 ity, if only he knew where the heir to Mortgrange 
 was ! He was infernally ugly, but the uglier the 
 better ! If he but had him, he swore he would have 
 a merry time, with his lady's pride on its marrow- 
 bones ! After so many years the poor lad might, 
 ugly as he was, turn out presentable, and if so, then, 
 by heaven, that smooth-faced gentleman, Arthur, 
 should shift for himself! 
 
 Suddenly appeared Richard, with his mother in 
 his face ; and before his father had time to settle 
 what it could all mean, the apparition spoke. 
 
 " I am very sorry to intrude upon you, Sir Wilton," 
 he said, "but " 
 
 Here he paused. 
 
 " — But you've got something to tell me — eh.?" 
 suggested Sir Wilton. He was on the point of add- 
 ing. "If it be where you got those eyes, I may 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 have to ask you to sit down ! " but he checked him- 
 self, and said only, "You'd better make haste, then ; 
 for the devil is at the door in the shape of my cursed 
 gout ! " 
 
 "I came to tell you, Sir Wilton," replied Richard, 
 plunging at once into the middle of things, which 
 was indeed the best way with Sir Wilton, "about a 
 
 son of yours " 
 
 "What!" cried Sir Wilton, putting his hands on 
 the arms of his chair and leaning forward as if on 
 the point of rising to his feet. "Where is he ? What 
 do you know about him ? " 
 
 "He is lying at the point of death— dying of hun- 
 ger I may say." 
 
 "Rubbish!" cried the baronet, contemptuously. 
 "You want to get money out of me! But you 
 shan't !— not a shilling, not a penny ! " 
 
 "I do want to get money from you, sir," said 
 Richard. " I kept the poor fellow alive— kept him in 
 dinners at least, him and his sister, till I fell ill and 
 couldn't work." 
 
 At the word sisler the baronet grew calmer. It 
 was nothing about the lost heir ! The other sort did 
 not matter : they were no use against the enemy ! 
 Richard paused. The baronet stared. 
 "I haven't a penny to call my own, or I should 
 not have come to you," resumed Richard. 
 
 "I thought so ! That's your orthodox style ! But 
 you've come to the wrong man ! " returned Sir Wil- 
 ton. "I never give anything to beggars." 
 
 He did not in the least doubt what he heard, 
 but he scarcely knew what he answered — wondering 
 where he had seen the fellow, and how he came to 
 be so like his wife. The remembered ugliness of her 
 
THE CAVE IN THE FIRE. 489 
 
 infant prevented all suggestion that this handsome 
 fellow might be the same. 
 
 "You are the last man, Sir Wilton, from whom I 
 would ask anything for myself," said Richard. 
 
 "Why so? " 
 
 Richard hesitated. To let him suspect the same 
 claim in himself, would be fatal. 
 
 "I swear to you. Sir Wilton," he said, "by all 
 that men count sacred, I come only to tell you that 
 Arthur and Alice Manson, your son and daughter, 
 are in dire want. Your son may be dead ; he looked 
 like it three days ago, and had no one to attend to 
 him ; his sister had to leave him to earn their next 
 day's food. Their mother lay a corpse in the other 
 of their two rooms." 
 
 "Oh! she's gone, is she? That alters the case. 
 But what became of all the money I gave her ? It 
 was more than her body was worth ; soul she never 
 had ! " 
 
 "She lost the money somehow, and her son and 
 daughter starved themselves to keep her in plenty, 
 so that by the time she died, they were all but dead 
 themselves." 
 
 " A pair of fools.". 
 
 "A good son and daughter, sir ! " 
 
 "Attached to the young woman, eh?" asked the 
 baronet, looking hard at him. 
 
 "Very much ; but hardly more than to her brother," 
 answered Richard. " God knows if I had but my 
 strength," he cried, almost in despair, and suddenly 
 shooting out his long thin arms, with his two hands, 
 wasted white, at the ends of them, " I would work 
 myself to the bone for theni, and not ask you for a 
 penny ! " 
 
490 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " I provided for their mother ! — why didn't they 
 look after the money ? I'm not accountable for 
 them ! " 
 
 "Ain't you accountable for giving the poor things 
 a mother like that, sir ? " 
 
 "By Jove, you have me there! She was a bad 
 lot — a most infernal liar ! — Young fellow, I don't 
 know who you are, but I like your pluck ! There 
 aren't many I'd let stand talking at me like that ! I'll 
 give you something for the poor creatures — that is, 
 mind you, if you've told me the truth about their 
 mother ! You're sure she's dead ? Not a penny 
 shall they have if she's alive ! " 
 
 " I saw her dead, sir, with my own eyes." 
 
 "You're sure she wasn't shamming .? " 
 
 " She couldn't have shammed anything so peace- 
 ful." 
 
 The baronet laughed. 
 
 "Believe me, sir," said Richard, "she's dead — 
 and by this time buried by the parish." 
 
 " God bless my soul ! Well, it's none of my 
 fault ! " 
 
 " She ate and drank her own children ! " said 
 Richard with a groan, for his strength was failing 
 him. He sank into a chair. 
 
 "I will give you a check," said Sir Wilton, rising, 
 and going to a writing-table in the window. "I will 
 give you twenty pounds for them in the meantime — 
 and then we'll see — we'll see ! — that is," he added, 
 turning to Richard, " if you swear by God that you 
 have told me nothing but the truth ! " 
 
 "I swear,' said Richard, solemnly, "by all my 
 hopes in God the saviour of men, that I have not 
 wittingly uttered a word that is untrue or incorrect" 
 
THE CAVE IN THE FIRE. 49 1 
 
 "That's enough. I'll give you the check." 
 
 He turned again to the table, sat down, searched 
 for his keys, unlocked and drew out a drawer, took 
 from it a check-book, and settled himself to write 
 vi'ith deliberation, thinking all the time. When he 
 had done : — 
 
 " Have the goodness to come and fetch your 
 money," he said, tartly. 
 
 "With pleasure!" answered Richard, and went 
 up to the table. 
 
 Sir Wilton turned on his seat, and looked him in 
 the face, full in the eyes. Richard steadily encoun- 
 tered his gaze. 
 
 " What is your name.? " said Sir Wilton at length. 
 " I must make the check payable to you ! " 
 
 " Richard Tuke, sir," answered Richard. 
 
 " What are you ? " 
 
 "A bookbinder. I was here all the summer, sir, 
 repairing your library." 
 
 "Oh! bless my soul !— Yes ! that's what it was I 
 I thought I had seen you somewhere ! Why didn't 
 you tell me so at first.?" 
 
 " It had nothing to do with my coming now, and 
 I did not imagine it of any interest to you, sir." 
 
 " It would have saved me the trouble of trying to 
 remember where I had seen you ! " 
 
 Then suddenly a light flashed across his face. 
 
 "By heaven," he muttered, "I understand it now ! 
 — They saw it — that look on his face ! — By Jove ! — 
 But no; she never saw her! — She must have heard 
 something about him then ! — They didn't treat you 
 well, I believe ! " he said ; " — turned you away at 
 a moment's notice ! — I hope they took that into con- 
 sideration when they paid you ? " 
 
492 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " I made no complaint, sir. I never asked why I 
 was dismissed ! " 
 
 " But they made it up to you — didn't they ? " 
 
 "1 don't submit to ill-usage, sir." 
 
 " That's right ! I'm glad you made them pay for 
 it! " 
 
 "To take money for ill-usage is to submit to it, it 
 seems to me ! " said Richard. 
 
 "By Jove, there are not many would call money 
 ill-usage ! — Well, it wasn't right, and I'll have 
 nothing to do with it ! — Here," he went on, wheeling 
 round to the table, and drawing his check-book 
 toward him, "I will give you another check for 
 yourself." 
 
 ' ' I beg your pardon, sir, " said Richard, ' ' but I can 
 take nothing for myself! Don't you see, sir.? — As 
 soon as I was gone, you would think I had after all 
 come for my own sake ! ' 
 
 "I won't, I promise you. I think you a very 
 honest fellow ! " 
 
 "Then, sir, please continue to think me so, and 
 don't offer me money ! " 
 
 " Lest you should be tempted to take it.?" 
 
 " No ; lest I should annoy you by the use I made 
 of it ! " 
 
 "Tut, tut! I don't care what you do with it! 
 You can't annoy me ! " 
 
 He wrote a second check, blotted it, then finished 
 the other, and held out both to Richard. 
 
 " I can't give you so much as the other poor beg- 
 gars ; you haven't the same claim upon me ! " he 
 said. 
 
 Richard took the checks, looked at them, put the 
 
THE CAVE IN THE FIRE. 493 
 
 larger in his pocket, walked to the fire, and placed 
 the other in the hottest cavern of it. 
 
 " By Jove !" cried the baronet, and again stared 
 at him : he had seen his mother do precisely the 
 same thiiig — w^ith the same action, to the very turn 
 of her hand, and with the same choice of the central 
 gulf of fire ! 
 
 Richard turned to Sir Wilton, and would have 
 thanked him again on behalf of Alice and Arthur, 
 but something got up in his throat, and, with a grate- 
 ful look and a bend of the head, he made for the 
 door speechless. 
 
 "I say, I say, my lad!" cried Sir Wilton, and 
 Richard stopped. 
 
 "There's something in this," the baronet went on, 
 "more than I understand! I would give a big 
 check to know what is in your mind ! What does 
 it all mean ? " 
 
 Richard looked at him, but said nothing : he was 
 in some sort fascinated by the old man's gaze. 
 
 "Suppose now," said Sir Wilton, " I were to tell 
 you I would do whatever you asked me so far as it 
 was in my power — what would you say.''" 
 
 "That I would ask you for nothing, " answered 
 Richard. 
 
 "I make the promise; I say solemnly that I will 
 give you whatever you ask of me — provided I can 
 do it honestly," said the baronet. And then the 
 thought came to him, "What an infernal fool I am ! 
 The devil is in me to let the fellow walk over me 
 like this ! But I must know what it all means ! I 
 shall find some way out of it ! " 
 
 For one moment the books around him seemed to 
 
494 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Richard to rush upon his brain Hke troops to the 
 assault of a citadel ; but the next he said : 
 
 "I can ask you for nothing whatever, sir; but I 
 thank you from my heart for my poor friends, your 
 children. Believe me, I am grateful." • 
 
 With a lingering look at his father, he left the 
 room. 
 
CHAPTER L. 
 
 DUCK-FISTS. 
 
 The godless old man was strangely moved. He 
 rose, but instead of ringing the bell, hobbled after 
 Richard to the door. As he opened it, however, he 
 heard the hall-door close. He went to it, but by the 
 time he reached it, the bookbinder had turned a 
 corner of the house, to go by a back-way to the spot 
 where his grandfather was waiting for him. 
 
 He found him in his cart, immovably expectant, 
 his pony eating the grass at the edge of the road. 
 Before he got his head pulled up, Richard was in the 
 cart beside him. 
 
 "Drive on, grandfather," he panted in triumph. 
 "I've got it ! " 
 
 " Got what, lad .?" returned the old man, with a 
 flash in his eyes and a forward strain of his neck. 
 
 "What I wanted. Money. Twenty pounds." 
 
 "Bah ! twenty pounds ! " returned Simon with con- 
 tempt, and a jerk of his head the other way. 
 
 He had himself noted Richard's likeness to his 
 daughter, and imagined it impossible Sir Wilton 
 should not also see it. 
 
 "But of course," he went on, "twenty pounds 
 will be a large sum to them, and give them time to 
 look about, and see what can be done. And now 
 I'll tell you what, lad : if the young man is fit to be 
 moved when you go back, you just bring him down 
 
496 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 here — to the cottage, I mean — and it sha'n't cost him 
 a ha'penny. I've a bit of a nest-egg as ain't chalk 
 nor yet china ; and Jessie is going to be well married ; 
 and who knows but the place may suit him as it did 
 his sister ! You look to it when you get home."' 
 
 "I will indeed, grandfather ! — You're a good man, 
 grandfather : the poor things are no blood of yours ! " 
 
 "Where's the odds o' that ! " grunted Simon, " I 
 reckon it was your God and mine as made 'em ! " 
 
 Richard felt in his soul that, little reason as he had 
 to be proud of his descent, he had at least one noble 
 grandfather. 
 
 "You're a good man, grandfather !" he repeated 
 meditatively. 
 
 " Middlin'," returned the old man, laughing. "I'm 
 not so good by a long chalk as my maker meant me, 
 and I'm not so bad as the devil would have me. But 
 if I Were the powers that be, I wouldn't leave things 
 as they are ! I'd have 'em a bit straightened out 
 afore I died ! " 
 
 "That shows where you come from, Mr. Wingfold 
 would say ; for that is just what God is always 
 doing. '' 
 
 "I know the man; I know your Mr. Wingfold! 
 Since you went, he's been more than once or twice 
 to the smithy to ask after you. He's one o' the right 
 sort, he is ! He's a man, he is ! — not an old woman 
 in breeches ! My soul ! why don't they walk and 
 talk and look like men ? Most on 'em as I've seen 
 are no more like men than if they was drawn on the 
 wall with a coal ! If they was all like your INIr. 
 Wingfold now ! Why, the devil wouldn't have a 
 chance! I've a soft heart for the clergy — always had, 
 though every now and then they do turn me sick ! " 
 
DUCK-FISTS. 497 
 
 They were spinning along the road, half-way home, 
 behind the little four-legged business in the shafts, 
 when they became aware of a quick sharp trot behind 
 them. Neither looked round ; the blacksmith was 
 minding his pony and the clergy, and the twenty 
 pounds in Richard's heart were making it sing a new 
 song. What a thing is money even, with God in it ! 
 The horseman came alongside the cart, and slackened 
 his pace. 
 
 "Sir Wilton wants to see Mr. Tuke again," he said. 
 "He made a mistake in the check he gave him." 
 
 An arrow of fear shot through Richard's heart. 
 What did it mean ! Was the precious thing going 
 to be taken from him ? Was his hope to be 
 destroyed and his heart left desolate? He took 
 the check from his pocket and examined it. Simon 
 had pulled up his pony, and they were standing in 
 the middle of the highway, the old man waiting his 
 grandson's decision. Richard was not unaccustomed 
 to checks in payment of his work, and he could see 
 nothing amiss with the baronet's : it was made payable 
 to bearer, and not crossed : Alice could take it to 
 tlie bank and get the money for it ! The next 
 moment, however, he noted that it was payable at a 
 branch-bank in the town of Barset, near Mortgrange. 
 The baronet, he concluded, had, with more care than 
 he would have expected of him, thought of this, and 
 that it would cause trouble, so had sent his man to 
 bring him back, that he might replace the check 
 with one payable in London. His heart warmed 
 toward his father. 
 
 "I see ! " he said. "I'm sorry to give you the 
 trouble, grandfather, but I'm afraid we must go ! " 
 
 Simon turned the pony's head without a word, and 
 
THERE AND BACK. 
 
 they went trotting briskly back to Mortgrange. 
 Richard explained the matter as it seemed to him. 
 
 " I'm glad to find him so considerate ! " said the 
 old man. "It's a bad cheese that don't improve 
 with age ! Only men ain't cheeses ! — If I'd brought 
 
 up my girls better, " he went on reflectively, but 
 
 Richard interrupted him. 
 
 "You ain't going to hit my mother, grandfather ! " 
 said Richard. 
 
 "No, no, lad; I learned my manners better than 
 that ! Whatever I was going to say, I was think- 
 ing of my own faults and no one else's. But it's not 
 possible we should be wise at the outset, and I trust 
 the Maker will remember it. He'll be considerate, 
 lad ! — The Bible would call it mera/u/, but I don't 
 care for parson-words ! I like things that are true to 
 sound true, just as any common honest man would 
 say them ! " 
 
 The moment he saw that Richard was indeed gone, 
 the baronet swore to himself that the fellow was his 
 own son. He was his mother all over ! — anything 
 but ugly, and far fitter to represent the family than 
 the smooth-faced ape Lady Ann had presented him 
 with ! But a doubt came : his late wife had a sister 
 somewhere, and a son of hers might have stolen a 
 likeness to his lady-aunt ! The tradesman fellow 
 knew of the connection, and pretended to himself 
 not to think much of it ! 
 
 "What are we coming to, by Jove ! " muttered the 
 baronet. "The pride of the lower classes is grow- 
 ing portentous! — No, the fellow is none of mine," 
 he concluded with a sigh. 
 
 Alas for his grip on Lady Ann ! The pincers had 
 melted in his grasp, and she was gone ! It was a 
 
DUCK-FISTS. 
 
 499 
 
 pity ! If he had been a better husband to poor Ruby, 
 he would have taken better care of her child, ugly 
 as he was, and would have had him now to plague 
 Lady Ann ! But stop ! there was something odd 
 about the child — something more than mere ugliness 
 — something his nurse had shown him in that very 
 room ! By Jove ! what was it? It had something 
 to do with ducks, or geese, or swans, or pelicans ! 
 He had mentioned the thing to his wife, he knew, 
 and she was sure to have remembered it ! But he 
 was not going to ask her ! Very likely she had 
 known the fellow by it, and therefore sent him out of 
 the house !— Yes ! Yes ! by Jove ! that was it ! He 
 had webs between his fingers and toes ! — He might 
 have got rid of them, no doubt, but he must see his 
 hands ! 
 
 All this passed swiftly through Sir Wilton's mind. 
 He rang the library bell furiously, and sent a groom 
 after the bookbinder. 
 
 They drove in at the gate, but stopped a little way 
 from the house. Richard ran to the great door, 
 found it open, and went straight to the library. 
 There sat the baronet as at first. 
 
 "I bethought me," said Sir Wilton the moment he 
 entered, "that I had given you a check on the 
 branch at Barset, when it would probably suit you 
 better to have one on headquarters in London ! " 
 
 "It was very kind of you to think of it, sir," an- 
 swered Richard. 
 
 "Kind ! I don't know about that ! I'm not often 
 accused of that weakness ! " returned Sir Wilton, 
 rising with a grin — in which, however, there was 
 more of humor than ill nature. 
 
 He went to the table in the window, sat down, un- 
 
500 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 locked a drawer, took out a check-book, and began 
 to write a check. 
 
 " What did you say was your name ? " he asked ; 
 "these checks are all made to order, and I should 
 prefer your drawing the money." 
 
 Richard gave him again the name he had always 
 been known by. 
 
 " Tuke ! Whiit a beast of a name ! " said the bar- 
 onet. "How do you spell it.? " 
 
 Richard's face flushed, but he would not willingly 
 show anger with one who had granted the prayer of 
 his sorest need. He spelled the name to him as 
 unconcernedly as he could. But the baronet had 
 a keen ear. 
 
 "Oh, you needn't be crusty ! " he said, "I meant 
 no harm. One has fancies about names, you know ! 
 What did they call your mother before she was mar- 
 ried ? " 
 
 Richard hesitated. He did not want Sir Wilton to 
 know who he was. He felt that, the relation be- 
 tween them known by both, he must behave to his 
 father in a way he would not like. But he must, 
 nevertheless, speak the truth ! Wherever he had not 
 spoken the truth, he had repented, and been ashamed, 
 and had now; come to see that to tell a lie was to 
 step out of the march of the ages led by the great 
 will. 
 
 "Her name, sir, was Armour," he said. 
 
 "Hey!" cried the baronet with a start. Yet he 
 had all but expected it. 
 
 "Yes, sir, — Jane Armour." 
 
 "Jane! " said his father with an accent of scorn. 
 " — Not a bit of it \—/a?ie / " he repeated, and mut- 
 tered to himself — " What motive could there be for 
 
DUCK-FISTS. 501 
 
 niisinforrmng the boy as to the Christian name of his 
 mother ? " 
 
 For, the moment he saw the youth again, the spell 
 was upon him afresh, and he felt all but certain he 
 was his own. 
 
 Richard stood perplexed. Sir Wilton had taken 
 his mother's name oddly for any supposition. He 
 had said Mrs. Manson was a liar : might not her 
 assertion of a relation between them be as groundless 
 as it was spiteful .? He had at once acknowledged 
 the Mansons, but showed no recognition of himself 
 on hearing his mother's name! There might be 
 nothing in Mrs. Manson's story ; he might after all 
 be the son of John as well as of Jane Tuke ! Only, 
 alas, then, Alice and Arthur would not be his sister 
 and brother ! They would be God's children all the 
 same, though, and he God's child ! they would still 
 be his brother and sister, to love and to keep ! 
 
 "Here, put your name on the back there," said 
 the baronet, having blotted the check. " 1 have 
 made it payable to your order, and without your 
 name it is worth nothing." 
 
 "It will be safer to indorse it at the bank, sir," 
 returned Richard. 
 
 "I see you know what you're about!" grinned 
 Sir Wilton — saying to himself, however^ "The rascal 
 will be too many for me ! — But," he continued, "I 
 see, too, you don't know how to sign your own name ! 
 I had better alter it to hearer, with my initials ! Curse 
 it all ! your paltry check has given me more trouble 
 than if it had been for ten thousand ! Sit down there, 
 will you, and write your name on thatsheet of paper." 
 Richard knew the story of Talleyrand — how, giv- 
 ing his autograph to a lady, he wrote it at the top 
 
502 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 left-hand corner of the sheet, so that she «ould write 
 above or before it neither an order for money nor a 
 promise of marriage : yielding to an absurd impulse, 
 he did the same. The baronet burst into loud laugh- 
 ter, which, however, ceased abruptly : he had not 
 gained his en " ! 
 
 "What comical duck-fists you've got !" he cried, 
 risking the throw. "I once knew a man whose 
 fingers and toes too were tied together that way ! 
 He swam like a duck ! " 
 
 " My feet are more that way than my hands," re- 
 plied Richard. " Only some of my fingers have got 
 the web between them. My mother made me promise 
 to put up with the monstrosity till I came of age. 
 She seems to think some luck lay in it." 
 
 "Your mother ! ' murmured the baronet, and kept 
 eying him. "By Jove," he said aloud, "your 
 mother ! Who is your mother,? " 
 
 "As I told you, sir, my mother's name is Jane 
 Tuke ! " 
 
 " Born Armour? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " By heaven ! " said the baronet to himself, " I see 
 it all now ! That terrible nurse was one of the family 
 — and carried him away because she didn't like the 
 look of my lady ! Don't I wish I had had half her 
 insight ! Perhaps she was cousin to Robina — per- 
 haps her own sister ! Simon, the villain, will know 
 all about it ! " 
 
 He sat silent for a moment. 
 
 " Hm ! — Now tell me, you young rascal," he said, 
 "why didn't you put in a claim for yourself instead 
 of those confounded Mansons?" 
 
 "Why should I, sir.? I didn't want anything. I 
 
DUCK-FISTS. 503 
 
 have all I desire — except a little more strength to work, 
 and that is corning." 
 
 The baronet kept gazing at him with the strangest 
 look on his wicked, handsome old face. 
 
 " There is something you shou/d have asked me 
 for ! " he said at length, in a gentler t'Mie. 
 
 "What is that, sir.?" 
 
 "Your rights. You have a claim upon me before 
 anyone else in the whole world ! — I like you, too," 
 he went on in yet gentler tone, with a touch of mock- 
 ery in it. Apparently he still hesitated to commit 
 himself. " I must do something for you ! " 
 
 His son could contain himself no longer. 
 
 "I would ask nothing, I would take nothing," he 
 said, as calmly as he could, though his voice trem- 
 bled, and his heart throbbed with the beginnings of 
 love, ' ' from the man who had wronged my mother ! " 
 
 "What do you mean, rascal .!* " the baronet burst 
 out. " I never wronged your mother ! — Who said I 
 wronged your mother, you scoundrel ? I'll take my 
 oath she never did ! Answer me directly who told 
 you so ! " 
 
 His voice had risen to a roar of anger. 
 
 His son could do the dead no wrong by speaking 
 the truth. 
 
 " Mrs. Manson told me " he began, but was not 
 
 allowed to finish the sentence. 
 
 " Like the liar she always was ! " cried the baronet 
 — with such a fierceness in his growl as made Richard 
 call to mind a certain bear in the Zoological Gardens. 
 "Then it was she that had you stolen ! The beast 
 ought to have died on the gallows, not in her bed ! 
 Ah, she was the one to plot, the snake ! In this 
 whole curse of a world, she was the meanest devil I 
 
504 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 ever came across, and I've known more than a few ! " 
 
 "I know nothing about her, sir, except as the 
 mother of Arthur, my schoolfellow. She seemed to 
 hate me ! She said I belonged to you, and had no 
 right to be better off than her children 1 " 
 
 " How did she know you? " 
 
 " I can't tell, sir." 
 
 "You are like your mother, but that snake never 
 can have set eyes on her ! — Give me that check. 
 Her fry sha'n't have a farthing ! Let them rot alive 
 with their dead dam ! " 
 
 He held out his hand : the second check lay on 
 the table, and Richard had the former still in his pos- 
 session. He did not move, nor did Sir Wilton urge 
 his demand. 
 
 "Did I not tell you?" he resumed. "Did I not 
 say she was a liar? I never did your mother a 
 wrong— nor you neither, though I did swear at you 
 a bit, you were so infernally ugly. 1 don't blame 
 you. You couldn't help it ! Lord, what a display 
 the woman made of your fingers and toes, as if the 
 webs were something to be proud of, and atoned for 
 the face ! — Can you swim ? " 
 
 "Fairly well, sir," answered Richard, carelessly. 
 
 "Your mother swam like a— Naiad, was it— or 
 Nereid } — I forget — confound it ! " 
 
 " I don't know the difference in their swimming." 
 
 "Nor any other difference, I dare say ! " 
 
 "I know the one was a nymph of the sea, the 
 other of a river." 
 
 " Oh ! you know Greek, then ? " 
 
 "I wish I did, sir; I was not long enough at 
 school. I had to learn a trade and be independent." 
 
 " By Jove, I wish I knew a trade and was inde- 
 
DUCK-FISTS, 505 
 
 pendent ! But you shall learn Greek, my boy ! 
 There will be some good in teaching _yo«/ / never 
 learned anything ! — But how the deuce do you know 
 about Naiads and Nereids and all that bosh, if you 
 don't know Greek ? " 
 
 " I know my Keats, sir. I had to plough with his 
 heifer, though — use my Lempriere, I mean ! " 
 
 " Good heavens ! " said the baronet, who knew as 
 little of Keats as any Lap. — " 1 wish I had been 
 content to take you with all your ugliness, and bring 
 you up myself, instead of marrying Lot's widow ! " 
 
 Richard fancied he preferred the bringing up he 
 had, but he said nothing. Lideed he could make 
 nothing of the whole business. How jvas it that, if 
 Sir Wilton had done his mother no wrong, his mother 
 was the wife of John Tuke .? He was bewildered. 
 
 " You wouldn't like to learn Greek, then.?" said 
 his father. 
 
 "Yes, sir ; indeed I should ! " 
 
 "Why don't you say so then ? I never saw such 
 a block I I say you shall learn Greek ! — Why do you 
 stand there looking like a dead oyster.?" 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir! May I have the other 
 check } " 
 
 ''• What other check ? " 
 
 "The check there for my brother and sister, sir," 
 answered Richard, pointing to it where the baronet 
 had laid it, on the other side of him. 
 
 " Brother and sister." 
 
 "The Mansons, sir," persisted Richard. 
 
 "Oh, give them the check and be hanged to 
 them ! But remember they're no brother and sister 
 of yours, and must never be alluded to as such, eras 
 persons you have any knowledge of. When you've 
 
506 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 given them that," — he pointed to the check which 
 still lay beside him — " you drop their acquaintance." 
 
 "That I cannot do, sir." 
 
 "There's a good beginning now! But I might 
 have expected it ! — You tell me to my face you won't 
 do what I order you ? " 
 
 "I can't, sir; it wouldn't be right." 
 
 " Fiddlesticks !— Wouldn't be right! What's that 
 to you.? It's my business. You've got to do what 
 I tell you." 
 
 " I must go by my conscience, sir." 
 
 "Oh, hang your conscience! Will you promise, 
 or will you not.? You're to have nothing to say to 
 those young persons." 
 
 " I will not promise." 
 
 " Not if I promise to look after them ? " 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 His father was silent for a moment, regarding him 
 — not all in anger. 
 
 "Well, you're a good-plucked one, I allow! But 
 you're the greatest fool, the dullest young ass out, 
 notwithstanding. You won't suit me — though you 
 are web-footed ! — Why, hang it, boy ! don't you 
 understand yet that I'm your father.? " 
 
 " Mrs. Manson told me so, sir." 
 
 "Oh, rot Mrs. Manson ! she told you a lie ! She 
 told you I wronged your mother ! I tell you I mar- 
 ried her ! What a blockhead you are ! Look there, 
 with your miserable tradesman's eyes : all those 
 books will be yours one day ! — to put in the fire if 
 you like, or mend at from morning to night, just as 
 you choose ! You fool ! Ain't you my son, heir to 
 Mortgrange, and whatever I may choose to give you 
 besides I " 
 
DUCK-FISTS. 
 
 507 
 
 Richard's heart gave a bound as if it would leap to 
 heaven. It was not the land ; it was not the money ; 
 it was not the books ; it was not even Barbara ; it 
 M'as Arthur and Alice that made it bound. But the 
 voice of his father went on. 
 
 " You know now, you idiot," it said, "why you 
 can have nothing more to do with that cursed litter 
 of Mansons ! " 
 
 Richard's heart rose to meet the heartlessness of 
 his father. 
 
 "They are my brother and sister, sir ! '" he said. 
 
 "And what does it matter to you if they are! 
 That's my business, not yours ! You had nothing 
 to do with it ! You didn't make the Mansons ! " 
 
 "No, sir; but God made us all, and says we're 
 to love our brethren." 
 
 "Now don't you come the pious over me! It 
 won't pay here ! Mind you, nobody heard me 
 acknowledge you ! By the mighty heavens, I will 
 deny knowing anything about you ! You'll have to 
 prove to the court of chancery that you're my son, 
 born in wedlock, and kidnapped in infancy : by 
 Jove, you'll find it stiff! Who'll advance you the 
 money to carry it there — you can't do it without 
 money ? Nobody ; the property's not entailed, and 
 who cares whether it be Sir Richard or Sir Arthur.? 
 What's the title without the property ! But don't 
 imagine I should mind telling a lie to keep the two 
 together. I'm not a nice man ; I don't mind lying ! 
 I'm a bad man ! — that I know better than you or 
 any one else, and you'll find it uncomfortable to 
 differ and deal with me both at once ! " 
 
 "I will not deny my own flesh and blood," said 
 Richard. 
 
5o8 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Then I will deny mine, and you may go rot 
 with them." 
 
 "I will work for them and myself," said Richard. 
 
 Sir Wilton glared at him. Richard made a stride 
 to the table. The baronet caught up the check. 
 Richard darted forward to seize it. Was his truth to 
 his friends to be the death of them.? He would 
 have the money ! It was his ! He had told him to 
 take it ! 
 
 What might have followed I dare not think. Rich- 
 ard's hands were out to lay hold on his father, 
 when happily he remembered that he had not given 
 him back the former check, and Barset was quite 
 within reach of his grandfather's pony ! He turned 
 and made for the door. Sir Wilton read his 
 thought. 
 
 "Give me that check," he cried, and hobbled to 
 the bell. 
 
 Richard glanced at the lock of the door : there 
 was no key in it ! Besides, there were two more 
 doors to the room ! He darted out : there was the 
 man, far off down the passage, coming to answer 
 the bell ! He hastened to meet him. 
 
 "Jacob," he said, "Sir Wilton rang for you : just 
 run down with me to the gate, and give the woman 
 there a message for me." 
 
 He hurried to the door, and the man, nothing 
 doubting, followed him. 
 
 "Tell her," said Richard as they went, "if she 
 should see Mr. Wingfold pass, to ask him to call at 
 old Armour's smithy. She does not seem to 
 remember me ! Good-day ! I'm in a hurry ! " 
 
 He leaped into the pony-cart. 
 
 " Barset !" he cried, and the same moment they 
 
DUCK-FISTS. 
 
 509 
 
 were off at speed, for Simon saw something fresh 
 was up. 
 
 "Drive like Jehu," panted Richard. "Let's see 
 what the blessed pony can do ! Every instant is 
 precious." 
 
 Never asking the cause of his haste, old Simon did 
 drive like Jehu, and never had the pony gone with a 
 better will : evidently he believed speed was wanted, 
 and knew he had it to give. 
 
 No hoofs came clamping on the road behind 
 them. They reached the town in safety, and 
 Richard cashed his check — the more easily that 
 Simon, a well-known man in Barset, was seen wait- 
 ing for him in his trap outside. The eager, anxious 
 look of Richard, and the way he clutched at the 
 notes, might otherwise have waked suspicion. As 
 it was, it only waked curiosity. 
 
 When the man whom Richard had decoyed, 
 appeared at length before his master, whose repeated 
 ringing had brought the butler first ; and when Sir 
 Wilton, after much swearing on his, and bewilder- 
 ment on the man's part, made out the trick played 
 on him, his wrath began to evaporate in amusement : 
 he was outwitted and outmanoeuvred — but by his 
 own son ! and even in the face of such an early out- 
 break of hostilities, he could not help being proud 
 of him. He burst into a half cynical laugh, and 
 dismissed the men — to vain speculation on the mean- 
 ing of the affair. 
 
 Simon would have had Richard send the bank- 
 notes by post, and stay with him a week or two ; but 
 Richard must take them himself; no other way 
 seemed safe. Nor could he possibly rest until he 
 had seen his mother, and told her all. He said noth- 
 ing to his grandfather of his recognition by Sir Wil- 
 
5IO THERE AND BACK. 
 
 ton, and what followed : he feared he might take the 
 thing in his own hands, and go to Sir Wilton. 
 
 Questioning his grandfather, he learned that Bar- 
 bara was at home, but that he had seen her only 
 once. She had one day appeared suddenly at the 
 smithy door, with Miss Brown all in a foam. She 
 asked about Richard, wheeled her mare, and w- as off 
 homeward, straight as an arrow — for he went to the 
 corner, and looked after her. 
 
 They were near a station at Barset, and a train was 
 almost due, Simon drove him there straight from 
 the bank, and before he was home, Richard was half- 
 way to London. 
 
 Short as was his visit, he had got from it not merely 
 all he had hoped, but almost all he needed. His 
 weakness had left him ; he had twenty pounds for his 
 brother and sister ; and his mother was cleared, 
 though he could not yet tell how : was he not also 
 a little step nearer to Barbara.? True, he was dis- 
 owned, but he had lived without his father hitherto, 
 and could very well go on to live without such a 
 father ! As long as he did what was right, the right 
 was on his side ! As long as he gave others their 
 rights, he could waive his own ! A fellow was not 
 bound, he said, to insist on his rights — at least he 
 had not met with any he was bound to insist upon. 
 Borne swiftly back to London, his heart seemed 
 rushing in the might of its gladness to console the 
 heavy-laden hearts of Alice and Arthur. Twenty 
 pounds was a great sum to carry them ! He could 
 indeed himself earn such a sum in a little while, but 
 how long would it not take him to save as much ! 
 Here it was, whole and free, present and potent, 
 ready to be turned at once into food and warmth and 
 hope ! 
 
CHAPTER LI. 
 
 BARONET AND BLACKSMITH. 
 
 The more Sir Wiltons anger subsided, the more 
 his heart turned to Richard, and the more he re- 
 gretted that he had begun by quarrelling with him. 
 Sir Wilton loved his ease, and was not a quarrelsome 
 man. He could dislike intensely, he could hate 
 heartily, but he seldom quarrelled ; and if he could 
 have foreseen how his son would take the demand 
 he made upon him, he would not at the outset have 
 risked it. He liked Richard's looks and carriage. 
 He liked also his spirit and determination, though 
 his first experience of them he could have wished 
 different. He felt also that very little would make of 
 him a man fit to show to the world and be proud of 
 as his son. To his satisfaction on these grounds was 
 added besides a peculiar pleasure in the discovery of 
 him which he could ask no one to share — that it was 
 to him as a lump of dynamite under his wife's lounge, 
 of which no one knew but himself, and which he 
 could at any instant explode. It was sweet to know 
 what he could do ! to be aware, and alone aware, of 
 the fool's paradise in which my lady and her brood 
 lived ! And already, through his own precipitation, 
 his precious secret was in peril ! 
 
 The fact gave him not a little uneasiness. His 
 thought was, at the ripest moment of her frosty in- 
 difference, to make her palace of ice fly in flinders 
 about her. Then the delight of her perturbation ! 
 And he had opened his hand and let his bird fly ! 
 
512 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 His father did not know Richard's prudence. Like 
 the fool every man of the world is, he judged from 
 Richard's greatness of heart, and his refusal to for- 
 sake his friends, that he was a careless, happy-go- 
 lucky sort of fellow, who would bluster and protest. 
 As to the march he had stolen upon him on behalf 
 of the Mansons, he nowise resented that. When 
 pressed by no selfish necessity, he did not care much 
 about money ; and his son's promptitude greatly 
 pleased him. 
 
 "The fellow shall go to college," he said to him- 
 self; "and I won't give my lady even a hint before 
 I have him the finest gentleman and the best scholar 
 in the county ! He shall be both ! I will teach him 
 billiards myself! By Jove ! it is more of a pleasure 
 than at my years I had a right to expect ! To think 
 of an old sinner like me being blessed with such a 
 victory over his worst enemy ! It is more than I 
 could deserve if I lived to the age of Mephistopheles 
 — or Methuselah — or whatever his name was ! I 
 shouldn't like to live so long— there's so little worth 
 remembering ! I wish forgetting things wiped them 
 out ! There are things I hardly know whether I did 
 or only wanted to do ! — Hang it, it may be all over 
 Barset by this time, that the heir to Sir Wilton's prop- 
 erty has turned up ! " 
 
 He rang the bell, and ordered his carriage. 
 
 "I must see the old fellow, the rascal's grand- 
 father!" he kept on to himself. "I haven't ex- 
 changed a word with him for years ! And now I 
 think of it, I take poor Robina's father for a very 
 decent sort of fellow ! If he had but once hinted 
 what he was, every soul in the parish would have 
 known it ! I must find out whether he's in my 
 
BARONET AND BLACKSMITH. 513 
 
 secret ! I can't prove it yet, but perhaps he can ! " 
 
 Simon Armour was not astonished to see tlie 
 Lestrange carriage stop at the smithy : he thought 
 Sir Wilton had come about the check. He went 
 out, and stood in hairy arms and leather apron at 
 the carriage door. 
 
 "Well, Armour, how are you?" said the baronet. 
 
 "Well and hearty, sir, I thank you," answered 
 Simon. 
 
 "I want a word with you," said Sir Wilton. 
 
 " Shall I tell the coachman to drive round to the 
 cottage, sir } " 
 
 "No ; I'll get out and walk there with you." 
 
 Simon opened the carriage-door, and the baronet 
 got out. 
 
 "That grandson of yours " he began, the mo- 
 ment they were in Simon's little parlor. 
 
 Simon started. "The old wretch knows!" he 
 said to himself. 
 
 " — has been too much for me ! " continued Sir 
 Wilton. "He got a check out of me whether I 
 would or not ! " 
 
 "And got the money for it, sir! "' answered the 
 smith. " He seemed to think the money better than 
 the check ! " 
 
 " I don't blame him, by Jove! There's decision 
 in the fellow ! — They say his father's a bookbinder 
 in London I " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 ' ' You know better ! I don't want humbug. Armour ! 
 I'm not fond of it ! " 
 
 "You told me people said his father was a book- 
 binder, and I said ' Yes, sir ' ! " 
 
 " You know as well as I do it's all a lie ! The boy 
 33 
 
514 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 is mine. He belongs neither to bookbinder nor blacks 
 smith ! " 
 
 " You'll allow me a small share in him, I hope ! 
 I've done more for him than you, sir. " 
 
 "That's not my fault ! " 
 
 "Perhaps not; but I've done more for him than 
 you ever will, sir ! " 
 
 "How do you make that out?" 
 
 " I've made him as good a shoesmith as ever drove 
 nail ! I don't say he's up to his grandfather at the 
 anvil yet, but " 
 
 "An accomplishment no doubt, but not exactly 
 necessary to a gentleman ! " 
 
 " It's better than dicing or card-playing ! " said the 
 blacksmith. 
 
 " You're right there ! I hope he has learned neither. 
 I want to teach him those things myself. — He's not 
 an ill-looking fellow ! " 
 
 " There's not a better lad in England, sir ! If you 
 had brought him up as he is, you might ha' been 
 proud o' your work ! " 
 
 "ZTe seems proud of somebody's work! — prouder 
 of himself than his prospects, by Jove ! " said Sir 
 Wilton, feeling his way. "You should have taught 
 him not to quarrel with his bread and butter ! " 
 
 ' ' I never saw any call to teach him that. He never 
 quarrelled with anything at my table, sir. A man 
 who has earned his own bread and butter ever since 
 he left school, is not likely to quarrel with it." 
 
 " You don't say he has done so } " 
 
 "I do — and can prove it! — Did you tell him, sir, 
 you were his father ? " 
 
 " Of course I did ! — and before I said another word, 
 
BARONET AND BLACKSMITH. 515 
 
 there we were quarrelling — ^just as it was with me and 
 my father ! " 
 
 " He never told me ! " said Simon, half to himself, 
 and ready to feel hurt. 
 
 " He didn't tell you?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 " Where is he ? " 
 
 "Gone to London with your bounty." 
 
 "Now, Simon Armour," began the baronet with 
 some truculence. 
 
 " Now, Sir Wilton Lestrange ! " interrupted Simon. 
 "What's the matter.?" 
 
 " Please to remember you are in my house ! " 
 
 " Tut, tut ! All I want to say is that you will spoil 
 everything if you encourage the rascal to keep low 
 company ! " 
 
 " You mean ? " 
 
 " Those Mansons." 
 
 "Are your children low company, sir?" 
 
 "Yes; I am sorry, but I must admit it. Their 
 mother was low company." 
 
 "She was in it at least, when she was in yours ! " 
 had all but escaped Simon's lips, but he caught the 
 bird by the tail. — " The children are not the mother ! " 
 he said. " I know the girl, and she is anything but 
 low company. She lay ill in my house here for six 
 weeks or more. Ask Miss Wylder. — If you want to 
 be on good terms with your son, don't say a word, 
 sir, against your daughter or her brother." 
 
 " I like that ! On good terms with my son ! Ha, 
 ha!" 
 
 "Remember, sir, he is independent of his father." 
 
 " Independent ! A beggarly bookbinder ! " 
 
 "Excuse me, sir, but an honest trade is the only 
 
5l6 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 independence ! You are dependent on your money 
 and your land. Where would you be without them ? 
 And you made neither ! They're yours only in a 
 way ! We, my grandson and I, have means of our 
 own," said the blacksmith, and held out his two 
 brawny hands. " — The thing that is beggarly," he 
 resumed, "is to take all and give nothing. If your 
 ancestors got the land by any good they did, you did 
 not get it by any good you did ; and having got it, 
 what have you done in return ? " 
 
 " By Jove ! I didn't know you were such a radi- 
 cal ! " returned the baronet, laughing. 
 
 " It is such as you, sir, that make what you call 
 radicals. If the landlords had used what was given 
 them to good ends, there would be no radicals — or 
 not many — in the country ! The landlords that look 
 to their land and those that are on it, earn their bread 
 as hardly as the man that ploughs it. But when you 
 call it yours, and do nothing for it, I am radical 
 enough to think no wrong would be done if you were 
 deprived of it ! " 
 
 "What! are you taking to the highway at your 
 age .'' " 
 
 " No, sir ; I have a trade I like better, and have no 
 call to lighten you of anything, however ill you may 
 use it. But there are those that think they have a 
 right afid a call to take the land from landlords like 
 you, and I would no more leave my work to prevent 
 them than I would to help them." 
 
 "Well, well! I didn't come to talk politics: I 
 came to ask a favor of you." 
 
 " What I can do for you, sir, I shall be glad to do." 
 
 " It is merely this— that you will, for tlie present, 
 say nothing about the heir having turned up." 
 
BARONET AND BLACKSMITH. 517 
 
 "I could have laid my hand on him any moment 
 this twenty years ; and I can tell you where to find 
 the parish book with his baptism in it ! That I've 
 not spoken proves I can hold my tongue ; but I will 
 give no pledge ; when the time comes I will speak." 
 
 "Are you aware I could have you severely pun- 
 ished for concealing the thing ? " 
 
 " Fire away. I'll take my chance. But I would 
 advise you not to allow the thing come into court. 
 Words might be spoken that would hurt ! I k?iow 
 nothing myself, but there is one that could and would 
 speak. Better let sleeping dogs lie." 
 
 "Oh, hang it ! I don't want to wake 'em ! Most 
 old stories are best forgotten. But what do you think : 
 will the boy — What's his name ? " 
 
 "My father's, sir, — Richard." 
 
 "Will Richard, then, as you have taken upon you 
 to call him, " 
 
 " His mother gave him the name." 
 
 "What I want to know is, whether you think he 
 will go and spread the thing, or leave it to me to 
 publish when I please." 
 
 "Did you tell him to hold his tongue ? " 
 
 " No ; he didn't give me time. " 
 
 "That's a pity! He would have done whatever 
 you asked him." 
 
 "Oh ! would he ? " 
 
 " He would —so long as it was a right thing." 
 
 " And who was to judge of that.? " 
 
 "Why, the man who had to do it or leave it, of 
 course ! — But if he didn't tell me, he's not likely to go 
 blazing it abroad ! " 
 
 "You said he would go to his mother first: his 
 mother is nowhere." 
 
5 I 8 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " So say some, so say not I ! " 
 
 "Nevermind that. Who is it he calls his mother.? " 
 
 "The woman that brought him up — and a good 
 mother she's been to him ! " 
 
 " But who is she.? You haven't told me who she 
 is ! " cried the baronet, beginning to grow impatient, 
 and impatience and anger were never far apart with 
 him. 
 
 " No, sir, I haven't told you ; and I don't mean to 
 tell you till I see fit." 
 
 "And when, pray, will that be ?" 
 
 "When I have your promise in writing that you 
 will give herno trouble about what is past and gone." 
 
 "I will give you that promise — always provided 
 she can prove that what was past and gone is come 
 again. I shall insist upon that ! " 
 
 " Most properly, sir ! You shall not have to wait 
 for it. — And now, if you will take me to the post- 
 office, I will send a telegram to Richard, warning 
 him to hold his tongue." 
 
 "Good! Come." 
 
 They walked to the carriage, and Simon, displac- 
 ing the footman, got up beside the coachman. He 
 was careful, however, to be set down before they 
 got within sight of the post-office. 
 
 The message he sent was : 
 
 "I know all, and will write. Say nothing but to 
 your mother." 
 
CHAPTER LII. 
 
 UNCLE-FATHER AND AUNT-MOTHER. 
 
 When Richard reached London, he went straight 
 to Clerkenwell. There he found Arthur, in bed and 
 unattended, but covered up warm. Except one num- 
 ber of The Family Herald, he had nothing to read. 
 The room was tidy, but very dreary. Richard asked 
 him why he did not move into the front room. 
 Arthur did not explain, but Richard understood that 
 the mother had left so many phantasms behind her 
 that he preferred his own dark chamber. When 
 Richard told him what he had done and the success 
 he had had, he thanked him with such a shining face 
 that Richard saw in it the birth of saving hope. 
 
 "And now, Arthur," he said, "you must get better 
 as fast as you can ; and the first minute you are able 
 to be moved, we'll ship you off to my grandfather's, 
 where Alice was." 
 
 " Away from Alice.? " 
 
 "Yes; but you must remember there will be so 
 much more for her to eat, and so much more money 
 to get things comfortable with by the time you come 
 back. Besides, you will grow well faster, and then 
 perhaps we shall find some fitter work for you than 
 that hideous clerking ! " 
 
 The flush of joy on Arthur's cheek was a divine 
 reward to Richard for what he had done and suffered 
 and sacrificed for the sake of his brother. He made 
 
520 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 a fire, and having set on the kettle, went to buy some 
 things, that he might have a nice supper ready for 
 Alice when she came home. Next he found two 
 clean towels, and covered the little table, forgetthig 
 all his troubles in the gladness of ministration, and 
 the new life that hope gives. If only we believed 
 in God, how we should hope ! And what would not 
 hope do to reveal the new heavens and the new earth 
 — that is, to show us the real, true and gracious 
 aspect of those heavens and that earth in which we 
 now live so sadly, and are not at home, because we 
 do not see them as they are, do not recognize in them 
 the beginning of the inheritance we long for ! 
 
 When Alice came in, she heard Arthur cough, and 
 hurried up ; but before she reached the top of the 
 second stair, she heard a laugh which, though feeble, 
 was of such merry enjoyment, that it filled her with 
 wonder and gladness. Had the fairy godmother 
 appeared at last ? What could have come to make 
 Arthur laugh like that .J* She opened the door, and 
 all was explained : there sat the one joy of their life, 
 their brother Richard, looking much like himself 
 again ! What a healer, what a strength-giver is joy ! 
 Will not holy joy at last drive out every disease in 
 the world? Will it not be the elixir of life, and drive 
 out death ? She sprang upon him, and burst out 
 weeping. 
 
 "Come and have supper," he said. "I've been 
 out to buy it, and haven't much time to help you eat 
 it. My father and mother don't know where I am." 
 
 Then he told her what he had been about. 
 
 It was with a happy heart he made his way home, 
 for he left happy hearts behind him. 
 
 He wondered that his mother was not surprised to 
 
UNXLE-FATHER AND AUNT-MOTHER. 52 I 
 
 see him — wondered too why she looked so troubled. 
 
 " What does this telegram mean ? " she asked. 
 
 " I don't know, mother," he replied. " Won't you 
 give me a kiss first .'' " 
 
 She threw her arms about him. 
 
 "You won't give up saying mother to me, will 
 you.' " she pleaded, fighting with her emotion. 
 
 "It will be a bad day for me when I do!" he 
 answered. " My mother you are and shall be. But 
 I don't understand it ! " 
 
 The >elegram let him know that Sir Wilton and his 
 gr^Vidfather had been in communication, and gave 
 him hope that things might be accommodated be- 
 tween him and his father. 
 
 " You've got your real father now, Richard ! " said 
 his mother. 
 
 But she saw an expression on his face that made 
 her add, — 
 
 " You must respect your father, Richard — now you 
 know him for your father." 
 
 " I can't respect him, mother. He is not a good 
 man. I can only love him." 
 
 "You have no right to find fault with him. He 
 was not to blame that I carried you away when your 
 mother died ! 1 was terrified at your stepmother ! " 
 
 " I don't wonder at that, mother ! — Ah, now I begin 
 to understand it all ! — But, mother, if my father had 
 been a good man, I don't believe you would have 
 carried me away from him ! " 
 
 "Very likely not, my boy — though he did make me 
 that angry by calling you ugly ! And I don't believe 
 I should have taken you at all, if that woman hadn't 
 sent me away for no reason but to have a nurse of 
 her choosing. How could I leave my sister's child 
 
52 2 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 in the power of such a woman ! Day and night, 
 Richard, was I haunted with the sight of her cold 
 face hanging over you. I was certain the devil 
 might have his way with her when he chose : there 
 was no love in her to prevent him. In my dreams 
 I saw her giving you poison, or with a penknife in 
 her hand, and her eyes shining like ice. I could not 
 bear it. I should have gone mad to leave you there. 
 I knew I was committing a crime in the eyes of the 
 law ; but I felt a stronger law compelling me ; and I 
 said to myself, ' I will be hanged for my child, 
 rather than my child should be murdered ! I will 
 not leave him with that woman ! ' So I took you, 
 Richard ! " 
 
 "Thank you, mother, a thousand times! I am 
 sure it was right, and every way best for me ! Oh, 
 how much I owe you and my — uncle ! I must call 
 you mother still, but I'm afraid I shall have to call 
 my father ?^wc/e.^" 
 
 "' It won't hurt him, Richard ; he has been a good 
 uncle to you, but I don't think he would have taught 
 you the things he did, if you had been his very own 
 child ! " 
 
 " He has done me no harm, mother, — nothing but 
 good," said Richard. " — And so you are my own 
 mother's sister.?" 
 
 " Yes, and a good mother she would have been to 
 you ! You must not think of her as a grim old woman 
 like me ! She was but six-and-twenty when you 
 were born and she died ! She was the most beauti- 
 ful woman / ever saw, Richard !— Never another 
 woman's hand has touched your body but hers and 
 mine, Richard ! " 
 
 He took her hand and kissed it. Jane Tuke had 
 
UNCLE-FATHER AND AUNT-MOTHER. 523 
 
 never had her hand kissed before, and would have 
 drawn it away. The lady within was ashamed of 
 her rough gloves, not knowing they had won her her 
 ladyhood. In the real world, there are no ladies 
 but true women. Also they only are beautiful. All 
 there show what they are, and the others are all more 
 or less deformed. Oh, what lovely ladies will walk 
 into the next world out of the rough cocoon of their 
 hard-wrought bodies — not because they have been 
 working women, but because they have been true 
 women. Among working women as among count- 
 esses, there are last that shall be first, and first that 
 shall be last. Wha/ kind of woman will be the ques- 
 tion. Alas for those, whether high or low or in the 
 middle, whose business in life has been to be ladies ! 
 What poor, mean, draggled, unangelic things will 
 come crawling out of the husk they are leaving behind 
 them, which yet, perhaps, will show a glimmer, in 
 the whiteness of death, of what they were meant to 
 be, if only they had lived, had bee/i, had put forth 
 the power that was in them as their birthright ! Not 
 a few I know will crawl out such, except they awake 
 from the dead and cry for life. Perhaps one and 
 another in the next world will say to me, "You 
 meant me ! I know now why you were always say- 
 ing such things ! " For I suspect the next world will 
 more plainly be a going on with this than most peo- 
 ple think — only it will be much better for some, and 
 much worse for others, as the Lord has taught us in 
 the parable of the rich man and the beggar. 
 
 "No, Richard," resumed his aunt, "your father 
 was not a good man, but he may be better now, and 
 perhaps you will help him to be better still." 
 
 "It's doubtful if ever I have the chance," returned 
 
524 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Richard. "We've had a pretty fair quarrel al- 
 ready ! " 
 
 "He can't take your birthright from you!" she 
 cried. 
 
 " That may be — but what is my birthright.? He 
 told me the land was not entailed ; he can leave it 
 to anybody he likes. But I'm not going to do what 
 he would have me do — that is, if it be wrong," added 
 Richard, not willing to start the question about the 
 Mansons. "To be a sneak would be a fine begin- 
 ning ! If that's to be a gentleman, I will be no gentle- 
 man ! " 
 
 " Right you are, my son ! " said Tuke, who that 
 moment came in. 
 
 "Oh, uncle ! " cried Richard, starting to his feet. 
 
 " Uncle! — Ho 1 ho ! What's up now } " 
 
 "Nothing's up, but all's out, father!" answered 
 Richard, putting his hand in that of the bookbinder. 
 "You knew, and now I know! How shall I ever 
 thank you for what you have done for me, and been 
 to me, and given me ! " 
 
 " Precious little anyway, my boy ! I wish it had 
 been a great deal more." 
 
 " Shall I tell you what you have done for me .' — 
 You made a man of me first of all, by giving me a 
 trade, and making me independent. Then again, by 
 that trade you taught me to love the very shape of a 
 book. Baronet or no baronet " 
 
 "What do you mean .? " 
 
 "My father threatens to disown me." 
 
 " He can't take your rank from you. We'll have 
 you Sir Richard anyhow !— An' I'd let 'em see that a 
 true baronet " 
 
 " — is just a true man, uncle ! " interposed Richard ; 
 
UNCLE-FATHER AND AUNT-MOTHER. 525 
 
 "and that you've helped to make me. It's being 
 independent and helping others, not being a baronet, 
 that will make a gentleman of me ! That's how it 
 goes in the true world anyhow ! " 
 
 " The true world ! Where's that .? " rejoined Tuke, 
 with what would have been a sneer had there been 
 ill-nature in it. 
 
 " And that reminds me of another precious thing 
 you've given me," Richard went on : " you've taught 
 me to think for myself! " 
 
 "Think for yourself indeed, and talk of any world 
 but the world we've got ! " 
 
 " If you hadn't taught me," returned Richard, "to 
 think for myself, I should have thought just as you 
 did. But I've been thinking for myself a great deal, 
 and I say now, that, if there be no more of it after we 
 die, then the whole thing is such a sell as even the 
 dumb, deaf, blind, heartless, headless God you seem 
 to believe in could not have been guilty of ! " 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! — that's the good my teaching has done 
 you ? Well, we'll have it out by and by 1 In the 
 meantime, tell us how it all came about — how you 
 came to know, I mean. You're a good sort, what- 
 ever you believe or don't believe, and I wish you 
 were ours in reality ! " 
 
 "It's just in reality that I am yours!" protested 
 Richard ; but his mother broke in : 
 
 "Would you dare, John," she cried, " to wish him 
 ours to his loss ? " 
 
 "No, no, Jane! You know me! It was but a 
 touch of what you call the old Adam — and I the old 
 John ! We've got to take care of each other ! We're 
 all agreed about that ! " 
 
526 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " And you do it, father, and that's before any agree- 
 ing- about it ! " 
 
 "Come and let's have our tea ! " said the mother; 
 "and Richard shall tell us how it worked round that 
 the old gentleman knew him. I remember him young 
 enough to be no bad match for your mother, and 
 that's enough to say for any man — as to looks, I 
 mean only. There wasn't a more beautiful woman 
 than my sister Robina in all England — and I'm bold 
 to say it — not that it wants much boldness to say the 
 truth ! " 
 
 " It wants nearly as much at this moment as I have 
 got," returned Richard ; for his narrative required, as 
 an essential part of it, that he should tell what had 
 made him go to his father. 
 
 He had but begun when a black cloud rose on his 
 mother's face, and she almost started from her 
 seat. 
 
 " I told you Richard, you were to have nothing to 
 do with those creatures ! " she cried. 
 
 " Mother," answered Richard, " was it God or the 
 devil told me I must be neighbor to my own brother 
 and sister ? Hasn't my father done them wrong 
 enough that you should side with him and want me to 
 carry on the wrong.? I heard the same voice that 
 made you run away with me. You were ready to 
 be hanged for me ; I was ready to lose my father for 
 them. He too said I must have done with them, and 
 I told him I wouldn't. That was why I got you to 
 put me on journeyman's wages, uncle. They were 
 starving, and I had nothing to give them. What am 
 I in the world for, if not to set right, so far as I may, 
 what my father has set wrong.? You see I have 
 learned sometliing of you, uncle ! " 
 
UNCLE-FATHER AND AUNT-MOTHER. 527 
 
 " I don't see what," returned Tuke. 
 
 He had been listening with a grave face, for he 
 had his pride, and did not relish his nephew's being 
 hand and glove with his base-born brother and 
 sister. 
 
 "Don't you, father? Where's your socialism? I'm 
 only trying to carry it out." 
 
 "Out and away, my boy, as Samson did the gates 
 in my mother's old Bible ! " answered John. 
 
 " If a man's socialism don't apply to his own flesh 
 and blood," resumed Richard, " where on earth is it 
 to begin ? Must you hate your own flesh, and go to 
 Russia or China for somebody to be fair to ? Ain't 
 your own got as good a right to fair play as any, and 
 ain't they the readiest to begin with ? Is it selfish to 
 help your own ? It ain't the way you've done by me, 
 uncle ! " 
 
 "You mustn't forget," said John, "that a grave 
 wrong is done the nation when marriage is treated 
 with disrespect." 
 
 " It was my father did that! Was it Alice and 
 Arthur that broke the marriage-law by being born out 
 of wedlock ? " 
 
 "If you treat them like other people, you slight 
 that law." 
 
 "If Sir Wilton Lestrange were to come into 
 the room this minute, you would offer him a chair ; 
 his children you would order out of the house ! " 
 
 " I wouldn't do that," said Mrs. Tuke. 
 
 "Mother, you turned them out of the house! — I 
 beg your pardon, mother, but you know it was the 
 same thing ! You visited the sins of the father on the 
 children! " 
 
528 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 ' ' Bravo ! " cried his uncle ; "I thought you couldn't 
 mean the rot ! " 
 
 "What rot, father?" 
 
 " That rot about God you flung at me first thing." 
 
 " Father, it would take the life out of me to believe 
 there w^as no God ; but the God I hope in is a differ- 
 ent person from the God my mother's clergy have 
 taught her to believe in. Father, do you know Jesus 
 Christ.?" 
 
 "I know the person you mean, my boy." 
 
 "I know w\\Sii kind of person he is, and he said 
 God was just like him, and in the God like him, if I 
 can find him, I will believe with all my heart and 
 soul — and so would you, father, if you knew him. 
 You will say, perhaps, he ain't nowhere io know ! 
 but you haven't a right to say that until you've been 
 everywhere to look ; for such a God is no absurdity ; 
 it's nothing ridiculous to look for him. I beg your 
 pardon, both of you, but Fm bound to speak. Jesus 
 Christ said we must leave father andmother for him, 
 because he is true ; and I must speak for him what is 
 true, even if my own father and mother should think 
 me rude." 
 
 He had spoken eagerly ; and man or woman who 
 does not put truth first, may think he ought to have 
 held his tongue. But neither father nor mother took 
 offence. The mother, unspeakably relieved by what 
 had taken place, was even ready to allow that her 
 favorite preacher might "perhaps dwell too much 
 upon the terrors of the law." 
 
CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 The next post brought a letter from Simon Armour, 
 saying, after his own peculiar fashion, that it was 
 time the thing were properly understood between the 
 parties concerned ; but, that done, they must attend 
 to the baronet's wish, and disclose nothing yet ; he 
 believed Sir Wilton had his reasons. They must 
 therefore, as soon as possible, make it clear to him 
 that there was no break in the chain of their proof 
 of Richard's identity. He proposed, therefore, that 
 his daughter should pay her father a visit, and bring 
 Richard. 
 
 The suggestion seemed good to all concerned. 
 Criminal as she knew herself, Jane Tuke did not 
 shrink from again facing Sir Wilton, with the nephew 
 by her side whom one and twenty years before she 
 had carried in her arms to meet his unfatherly gaze ! 
 To her surprise she found that she almost enjoyed 
 the idea. 
 
 Richard cashed the post-office-order the old man 
 sent them, and they set out for his cottage. 
 
 The same day Simon went to Mortgrange and saw 
 the baronet, who agreed at once to go to the cottage 
 to meet his sister-in-law. 
 
 The moment he entered the little parlor where 
 they waited to receive him, he made Mrs. Tuke a 
 polite bow, and held out his hand. 
 34 
 
530 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "You are the sister of my late wife, I am told," 
 he said. 
 
 Jane made him a dignified courtesy, her resent- 
 ment, after the lapse of twenty years, rising fresh at 
 at sight of the man who had behaved so badly to 
 her sister. 
 
 "It was you that carried off the child.?" said the 
 baronet. 
 
 "Yes, sir," answered Jane. 
 
 " I am glad I did not know where to look for him. 
 You did me the greatest possible favor. What these 
 twenty years would have been hke, with him in the 
 house, I dare not think." 
 
 " It was for the child's sake I did it ! " said Jane. 
 
 "I am perfectly aware it was not for mine ! " re- 
 turned Sir Wilton. " Ha ! ha ! you looked as if you 
 had come to stab me that day you brought the little 
 object to the library, and gave me such a scare! 
 You presented his fingers and toes to me as if, by 
 Jove, I was the devil, and had made them so on 
 purpose ! — I tell you, Richard, if that's your name, 
 you rascal, you have as little idea what a preposter- 
 ously ugly creature you were, as I had that you 
 would ever grow to be — well, half-fit to look at ! I 
 was appalled at the sight of you ! And a good 
 thing it was ! If I had taken to you, and brought 
 ycfu up at home, it would scarcely have been to your 
 advantage. You would have been worth less than 
 you are, however little that may be ! But it doesn't 
 follow you're the least fit to be owned to ! You're a 
 tradesman, every inch of you — no more like a gentle- 
 man than -well, not half so like a gentleman as your 
 grandfather there! By heaven, the anvil must be 
 some sort of education ! Why wasn't / bound 
 
MORNING. 531 
 
 apprentice to my old friend Simon there ! But, 
 Richard, you don't look a gentleman, though your 
 aunt looks as if she would eat me for saying it. — 
 Now listen to me — all of you. It's no use your say- 
 ing I've acknowledged him. If I choose to say I 
 know nothing about him, then, as I told the rascal 
 himself the other day, you'll have to prove your 
 case, and that will take money ! and when you've 
 proved it, you get nothing but the title, and much 
 good that will do you ! So you had better make up 
 all your minds to do as I tell you — that is, not to say 
 one word about the affair, but just hold your tongues. 
 — Now none of that looking at one another, as if I 
 meant to do you ! I'm not going to have people say 
 my son shows the tradesman in him ! I'm not going 
 to have the Lestranges knock under to the Armours ! 
 I'm going to have the rascal the gentleman I can make 
 him ! — You're to go to college directly, sir ; and I don't 
 want to hear of or from you till you've taken your 
 degree ! You shall have two hundred a year and 
 pay your own fees — not a penny more if you go on 
 your marrow-bones for it ! — You understand ? You're 
 not to attempt communicating with me. If there's 
 anything I ought to know, let your grandfather come 
 to me. I will see him when he pleases — or go to 
 him, if he prefers it, and I'm not too gouty. Only, 
 mind, I make no promises ! If I should leave all I 
 have to the other lot, you will have no right to com- 
 plain. With the education I will give you, and the 
 independence your uncle has given you, and the 
 good sense you have on your own hook, you're pro- 
 vided for. You can be a doctor or a parson, you 
 know. There's more than one living in my gift. 
 The Reverend Sir Richard Lestrange ! — it don't sound 
 
53^ 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 amiss. I'm sorry I shan't hear it. I shall be gone 
 where they crop one of everything — even of his 
 good works, the parsons say, but I shan't be much 
 the barer for that ! It's hard— confounded hard, 
 though, when they're all a fellow has got ! — Now 
 don't say a word ! I don't like being contradicted ! — 
 not at all ! It sends one round on the other tack, I 
 tell you — and there's my gout coming ! Only mind 
 this : if once you say who you are as long as you're 
 at college, or before I give you leave, I have done 
 with you. I won't have any little plan of mine fore- 
 stalled for your vanity ! Don't any of you say who 
 he is. It will be better for him — much. If it be 
 but hinted who he is, he'll be courted and flattered, 
 and then he'll be stuck up, and take to spending 
 money ! But, remember this, if he goes beyond his 
 allowance — well, I'll pay it, but it shall be his last 
 day at Oxford. He shall go at once into the navy — 
 or the excise, by George ! " 
 
 This expression of the baronet's will, if not quite 
 to the satisfaction of every one concerned, was alto- 
 gether delightful to Richard. 
 
 "May I say one word, sir.?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes, if it's not arguing." 
 
 "I've not read a page of Latin since I left school, 
 and I never knew any Greek." 
 
 " Oh ! ah ! I forgot that predicament ! You must 
 have a tutor to prepare you ! — but you shall go to 
 Oxford with him. I will not have you loafing about 
 here ! You may remain with your grandfather till I 
 find one, but you're not to come near Mortgrange." 
 
 "I may go to London with my mother, may I 
 not .? " said Richard. 
 
MORNING. 533 
 
 "I see nothing against that. It will be the better 
 way." 
 
 "If you please, Sir Wilton," said Mrs. Tuke, "I 
 left evidence at Mortgrange of what I should have to 
 say." 
 
 " What sort of evidence ? " 
 
 "Things that belonged to the child and myself." 
 
 " Where.-* " 
 
 " Hid in the nursery." 
 
 " My lady had everything moved, and the room 
 fresh-papered after you left. I remember that dis- 
 tinctly." 
 
 "Did she say nothing about finding anything .? " 
 
 "Nothing. — Of course she wouldn't ! " 
 
 " I left a box of my own, with " 
 
 " You'll never see it again." 
 
 "The things the child always wore wdien he went 
 out, were under the wardrobe." 
 
 " Oblige me by saying nothing about them. I am 
 perfectly satisfied, and believe every word you say. 
 I believe Richard there the child of your sister 
 Robina and myself; and it shall not be my fault if 
 he don't have his rights ! At the same time I promise 
 nothing, and will manage things as I see best." 
 
 "At your pleasure, sir ! " answered Mrs. Tuke. 
 
 "Should you mind, sir, if I went to see Mr. Wing- 
 fold before I go .? " asked Richard. 
 
 " Who's he? " 
 
 "The clergyman of the next parish, sir." 
 
 ' ' I don't know- him — don't want to know him ; — 
 What have you got to do with him P" 
 
 "He was kind to me when I was down here 
 before. " 
 
534 THKRE AND BACK. 
 
 "I don't care you should have much to do with 
 the clergy." 
 
 "You said, sir, I might go into the church ! " 
 
 ^'That's another thing quite! You would have 
 the thing in your own hands then ! "' 
 
 Richard was silent. There was no point to argue. 
 
 The moment Sir Wilton was gone, Simon turned 
 to his grandson. 
 
 " It was a pity you asked him about Mr. Wingfold. 
 The only thing is, you mustn't let out his secret. As 
 to seeing ]\Ir. Wingfold, or Miss Wylder either, just 
 do as you please." 
 
 "No, grandfather. If I had not asked him, per- 
 haps I might ; but to ask him, and then not do what 
 he told me, would be a sneaking shame ! " 
 
 "You're right, my boy ! Hold on that way, and 
 you'll never be ashamed — or make your people 
 ashamed either." 
 
 For the meantime, then, Richard went to London 
 with his mother ; and so anxious was old Simon, 
 stimulated in part by the faithfulness of his grandson, 
 to do nothing that might thwart the pleasure of the 
 tyrant, that when first Wingfold asked after Richard, 
 he told him he was at home, and the next time that 
 he was at work in the country. 
 
 . Richard went on helping his uncle, and going 
 often to see his brother and sister. When Arthur was 
 able for the journey, both he and Alice went with 
 him. At the station they were met by Simon, with 
 an old post-chaise he had to mend up. Having seen 
 Arthur comfortably settled, his brother and sister 
 went back to London together— Alice to go into a 
 single room, and betake herself once more to her 
 work, but with new courage and hope ; Richard to 
 
535 
 
 the book-binding- till his father should have found a 
 tutor for him. 
 
 The Tukes were slowly becoming used, if not re- 
 conciled to his care of the Mansons. His mother, 
 indignant for her deceased sister, stood out the stiff- 
 est ; the bookbinder could not fail to see that the 
 youth was but putting in practice the socialistic theo- 
 ries he had himself sought to teach him. True, the 
 thing came straight from the heart of Richard, and 
 went much farther than his uncle's theories ; but his 
 uncle counted it the result of his own training, and 
 woke at last to the fact that his theories were better 
 than he had himself known. 
 
 With the help of the head of the college to which 
 Sir Wilton had resolved to send his son, a tutor was 
 at length found — happily for Richard, one of the 
 right sort. They went together to Oxford, and set to 
 work at once. It would be hard to say which of the 
 two reaped the more pleasure from the relation, or 
 which, in the duplex process of teaching and learning, 
 gained the most. For the tutor had in Richard a 
 pupil of practiced brain yet fresh, a live soul ready, 
 for its own need and nourishment, to use every truth 
 it came near. His penetrative habit made not a few 
 •regard him as a bore : their feeble vitality was troub- 
 led by the energy of his ; he could not let a thing go 
 in which he descried a principle : he must see it 
 close ! To the more experienced he was one who 
 had not yet learned, wisely fearful of the trampling 
 hoof, to carry aside his oyster with its possible pearl 
 before he opened it. In earnest about everything, he 
 must work out his liberty before he could gambol. 
 A slave vi^ill amuse himself in his dungeon ; a free 
 man must file through his chains and dig through his 
 
536 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 prison-walls before he can frolic. Sunlight and air 
 came through his open windows enough to keep 
 Richard alive and strong, but not enough yet to make 
 him merry. He was too solemn, thus, for most of 
 those he met, but, happily, not for his tutor. Find- 
 ing Richard knew ten times as much of English 
 literature as himself, he became in this department 
 his pupil's pupil ; and listening to his occasional 
 utterance of a religious difficulty, had new regions of 
 thought opened in him, to the deepening and verifying 
 of his nature. The result for the tutor was that he 
 sought ordination, in the hope of giving to others 
 what had at length become real to himself. 
 
 Richard gained little distinction at his examinations. 
 He did well enough, but was too eager after real 
 knowledge to care about appearing to know. 
 
 He made friends, but not many familiar friends. 
 He sorely missed ministration : it had grown a neces- 
 sity of his nature. It was well that the habit should 
 be broken for a time. For, laden with consciousness, 
 and not full of God, the soul will delight in itself as 
 a benefactor, a regnant giver, the centre of thanks and 
 obligation : and will thus, with a rampart-mound of 
 self-satisfaction, dam out the original creative life of 
 its being, the recognition of which is life eternal. 
 But it grew upon Richard that, if there be a God, it 
 is the one business of a man to find him, and that, if 
 he vi'ould find him, he must obey the voice of his 
 conscience. 
 
 As to the outward show of the man, Richard's 
 carriage was improving. Level intercourse with 
 men of his own age, but more at home in what is 
 called society, influenced his manners both with and 
 without his will, while, all the time, he was gather- 
 
537 
 
 ing the confidence of experience. His rowing, and 
 the daily run to and from the boats, with other exer- 
 cises prescribed by his tutor, strengthened the shoul- 
 ders whose early stoop had threatened to return with 
 much reading. He was fast growing more than pre- 
 sentable. 
 
 With the men of his year, his character more than 
 his faculty had influence. 
 
 Old Simon was doing his best for Arthur. He 
 would not hear of his going back to London, or at- 
 tempting anything in the way of work beyond a little 
 in the garden. He was indeed nowise fit for more. 
 
 The blacksmith himself was making progress — the 
 best parts of him were growing fast. Age was turning 
 the strength into channels and mill-streams, which 
 before, wild-foaming, had flooded the meadows. 
 
CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 BARBARA AT HOM 
 
 Barbara's brother, her father's twin, was fast fol- 
 lowing- her mother's to that somewhere each of us 
 must learn for himself, no one can learn from an- 
 other. While they were in London, he was in the Isle 
 of Wight with his tutor. His mother and sister had 
 several times gone to see him, but he did not show 
 much pleasure in their attentions, and was certainly- 
 happier with his tutor than with any one else. Dis- 
 ease, however, was making straight the path of 
 Love. Now they were all at home at W^ylder Hall, 
 and Death was on his way to join them. Love, 
 however, was watching, ready to wrest from him his 
 sting — without which he is no more Death, but Sleep. 
 As the poor fellow grew weaker, his tutor became 
 less able to console him ; and he could not look to 
 his mother for the tenderness he had seen her lavish 
 on his brother. But the love of his sister had always 
 leaned toward him, ready, on the least opening of the 
 door of his heart, to show itself in the chink ; and at 
 last the opportunity of being to him and doing for him 
 what she could, arrived. One day, on the lawn, he 
 tripped and fell. The strong little Barbara took him 
 in her arms, and carried him to his room. When 
 two drops of water touch, the mere contact is not of 
 long duration ; the hearts of the sister and the dying 
 brother rushed into each other. After this, they were 
 
BARBARA AT HOME. 539 
 
 seldom apart. A new life had waked in the very- 
 heart of death, and grew and spread through the 
 being of the boy. His eye became brighter, not 
 with fever only, but with love and content and 
 hope ; for Barbara made him feel that nothing could 
 part them ; that they had been born into the world 
 for the hour when they should find one another — 
 — as now they had found one another, to have one 
 another to all eternity : it was an end of their be- 
 ing ! He would come creeping up to her as she 
 worked or read, and sit on a stool at her feet, 
 asking for nothing, wishing for nothing, content to 
 be near her. But then Barbara's book or work was 
 soon banished. He was bigger than she, but the 
 muscles of the little maiden were as springs of steel, 
 informed with the tenderest, strongest heart in all the 
 county, and presently he would find himself lifted 
 to her lap, his head on her shoulder, the sweetest 
 voice in all the world whispering loveliest secrets in 
 his willing ear, and her face bent over him with the 
 stoop of heaven over the patient, weary earth. In 
 her arms his poor wasting body forgot its restless- 
 ness ; the fever that irritated every nerve, burning 
 away the dust of the world, seemed to pause and let 
 him grow a little cool ; and the sleep that sometimes 
 came to him there was sweet as death. The face 
 that had so long looked peevish wore now a wait- 
 ing look ; in heaven, every one sheltered the other, 
 and the arms of God were round them all ! 
 
 One day the mother peeped in, and saw them 
 seated thus. Motherhood, strong in her, though 
 hitherto, as regarded the boy, poisoned by her strife 
 with her husband, moved and woke at the sight of 
 her natural place occupied by her daughter. 
 
540 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " Let me take him, poor fellow ! " she said. 
 
 Delighted that her mother should do something- for 
 him, Barbara rose with him in her arms. The mother 
 sat down, and Barbara laid him in her lap. But the 
 mother felt him lie listless and dead ; no arm came 
 creeping feebly up to encircle her neck. One of her 
 babies died unborn, and she knew the moment : the 
 strange sad feeling of the time came back to her now ; 
 she felt through all her sensitive maternal body that 
 her child did not care for her. Grown, through her 
 late illness, at once weaker and tenderer, she burst 
 into silent weeping. He looked up; the convulsion 
 of her pain had roused him from a half-sleep. A tear 
 dropped on his face. 
 
 " Don't rain, mamma ! I will be good ! " he said, 
 and held his mouth to be kissed. 
 
 He was much too old for such baby-speech, but as 
 he grew weaker, he had grown younger ; and it 
 seemed now as if, in his utter helplessness, he would 
 go back to the bosom of his mother. She clasped 
 him to her, and from that moment she and Barbara 
 shared him between them. 
 
 So for a while Barbara had not the same room to 
 think about Richard ; but when she did think of 
 him, it was always in the same loving, trusting, 
 hoping way. 
 
 When in London, she went to all the parties to 
 which she was expected to go, and enjoyed them — 
 after her own fashion. She loved her kind, and liked 
 their company up to a point. But often would the 
 crowd and the glitter, the motion and iridescence, 
 vanish from her, and she sit there a live soul dream- 
 ing within closed doors. She would be pacing her 
 weary pony through a pale land, under a globose 
 
BARBARA AT HOME. 54 1 
 
 moon, homeward ; or, on the back of one of her 
 father's fleet horses, sweeping eastward over the 
 grassy land, in the level light of the setting sun, watch- 
 ing the strange herald-shadow of herself and her horse 
 rushing away before them, ever more distort as it 
 fled : — like some ghastly monster, in horror at itself, 
 it hurried to the infinite seeking blessed annihilation, 
 and ever gathering speed as the sun of its being sank, 
 till at last it gained the goal of its nirvana, not by its 
 well run race, but in the darkness of its vanished 
 creator. Then with a sigh would Barbara come to 
 herself, the centre of many regards. 
 
 Arthur Lestrange found himself no nearer to her 
 than before — farther off indeed ; for here he was but 
 one among many that sought her. But her be- 
 havior to him was the same in a crowded room in 
 London as in the garden at Mortgrange. She spoke 
 to him kindly, turned friendlily to him when he 
 addressed her, and behaved so that the lying hint of 
 Lady Ann, that they had been for some time engaged, 
 was easily believed. A certain self-satisfied, well- 
 dressed idiot said it was a pity a girl like that, a little 
 Amazon, who, for as innocent as she looked, could 
 ride backward and steer her steed straight, should 
 marry a half-baked brick like Lestrange : Arthur, 
 though he was not one of the worthiest, was worth 
 ten of him, faultless as were his coats and neckties ! 
 
 Her father had several times said to her that it 
 M'as time she should marry, but had never got nearer 
 anything definite ; for there her eyes would flash, 
 and her mouth close tight — compelling the reflection 
 that her mother had been more than enough for him, 
 and he had better not throw his daughter into the 
 opposition as well. He could not, he saw clearly. 
 
542 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 prevail with her against her liking ; but it would be 
 an infernal pity, he thought, seeing poor Marcus 
 must go, if she would not liave Lestrange ; for the 
 properties would marry splendidly, and then who 
 could tell what better title might not stand on the top 
 of the baronetcy ! 
 
 Lady Ann would not let her hope go. She grew 
 daily more fearful of the cloud that hung in the 
 future : out of it might at any moment step the child 
 of her enemy, the low born woman who had dared 
 to be Lady Lestrange before her ! Then where would 
 she and her children be.' That her Arthur would not 
 succeed him, would be a morsel to sweeten her hus- 
 band's death for him ! It would be life in death to 
 him to spite the woman he had married ! At one 
 crisis in their history, he had placed in her hands a 
 will that left everything to her son ; but he might 
 have made ten wills after that one ! She knew she 
 had done nothing to please him : she had in fact 
 never spent a thought on making life a good thing 
 to the man she had married. She wished she had 
 endeavored or might now endeavor to make herself 
 agreeable to him. But it was too late ! Sir Wilton 
 would instantly imagine a rumor of the lost heir, and 
 be on the alert for her discomfiture ! If only he had 
 not yet made a later will ! He must die one day : 
 why not in time to make his death of use when his 
 life was of none ! No one would wonder he had 
 preferred the offspring of her noble person to the lost 
 brat of the peasant woman ! 
 
 How far over the line that separates guilt from 
 greed. Lady Ann might not have gone had she been 
 sure of not being found out, she herself could not 
 have told. The look of things is very different at 
 
BARBARA AT HOME. 
 
 543 
 
 night and in the morning ; the bed-chamber can 
 shelter what would be a horror in a court of justice ; 
 a conscience at peace in its own darkness will shud- 
 der in the gaslight of public opinion. It is marvel- 
 lous that what we call the public, a mere imbecile as 
 to judgment, should yet possess the Godlike power 
 of awakening the individual conscience — and that 
 with its own large dullness of conscience ! Truly 
 the relation of the world to its maker cannot primarily 
 be an intellectual one ; it must be a relation tremen- 
 dously deeper ! We do not, I mean, to speak after 
 the manner of men, come of God's intellect, but 
 of his imagination. He did not make us with his 
 hands, but loved us out of his heart. 
 
 The same week in which Sir Wilton gave that will 
 into his lady's keeping, he executed a second, in 
 which he made the virtue of the former depend on 
 the non-appearance of the lost heir. Of this will he 
 said nothing to his wife. Even from the grave he 
 would hold a shadowy yet not impotent rod over 
 her and her family ! Lady Ann suspected something 
 of the sort, and spent every moment safe from his 
 possible appearance, in searching for some such 
 hidden torpedo. But there was one thing of which 
 Sir Wilton took better care than of his honor — and 
 that was his bunch of keys. 
 
 After the return of the Lestranges and the Wylders 
 to their country-homes, Lady Ann, having prevailed 
 on Mrs. Wylder to pay her a visit, initiated an attempt 
 to gain her connivance in her project for the alliance 
 of the houses. For this purpose she opened upon 
 her with the same artillery she had employed against 
 her husband. Mrs. Wylder sat for some time quietly 
 listening, but looking so like her daughter, that Lady 
 
544 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Ann saw the mother's and not the father's was the 
 alliance to seek. Thereupon she plucked the tom- 
 pion out of the best gun in her battery, as she thought, 
 and began to hint a fear that Miss Wylder had taken 
 a fancy to a person unworthy of her. 
 
 "Girls who have not been much in society," she 
 said, "are not unfrequently the sport of strange in- 
 fatuations ! I have myself known an earl's daughter 
 marry a baker ! I do not, of course, imagine your 
 daughter guilty of the slightest impropriety, " 
 
 Scarcely had the vi^ord left her lips, when a fury 
 stood before her— towered above her, eyes flashing 
 and mouth set, as if on the point of tearing her to 
 pieces. 
 
 " Say the word and my Bab in the same breath 
 again, and I'll throttle you, you vile woman ! " cried 
 Mrs. Wylder, and hung there like a thunder-cloud, 
 lightening continuously. 
 
 Lady Ann was not of a breed familiar with fear, but, 
 for the first time in her life, except in the presence of 
 her mother, a far more formidable person than her- 
 self, she did feel afraid — of what, she would have 
 found it hard to say, for to acknowledge the possi- 
 bility of personal violence would be almost as undig- 
 nified as to threaten it ! 
 
 " I did not mean to offend you," she said, grow- 
 ing a little paler, but at the same time more rigid. 
 
 "What sort of mother do you take me for.? Of- 
 fended, indeed ! Would you be all honey, I should 
 like to know, if I had the assurance to say such a 
 thing of one of your girls.? " 
 
 " I spoke as to a mother who knew what girls are 
 like ! " 
 
 "You don't know what my girl Bab is like ! " cried 
 
BARBARA AT HOME. 
 
 545 
 
 Mrs. Wylder, with something- that much resembled 
 an imprecation : the word she used would shock 
 thousands of mothers not comparable to her in 
 motherhood. If propriety were righteousness, the 
 kingdom of heaven would be already populous. 
 
 Lady Ann was offended, and seriously : was alli- 
 ance with such a woman permissible or sufferable.? 
 But she was silent. For once in her life she did not 
 know the proper thing to say. Was the woman mad, 
 or only a savage ? 
 
 Mrs. Wylder's eloquence required opposition. She 
 turned away, and with a backward glance of blazing 
 wrath, left the room and the house. 
 
 "Home ; and be quick about it ! " she said to the 
 footman as he closed the door of the carriage — and 
 she disappeared in a whirlwind. 
 
 From the library Sir Wilton saw her stormy exit 
 and departure. "By Jove!" he said to himself, 
 " that woman must be one of the right sort ! She's 
 what my Ruby might have been by this time if she'd 
 been spared ! A hundred to one, my lady was inso- 
 lent to her !— said something cool about her madcap 
 girl, probably ! She's the right sort, by Jove, that 
 Httle Bab I If only my Richard now, leathery fellow, 
 would glue on to her ! There's nothing left in this 
 cursed world of the devil and all his angels that I 
 should like half so well ! I'll put him up to it, I will ! 
 Arthur and she indeed ! As if a plate of porridge like 
 Arthur would draw a fireflash like Bab ! I'd give the 
 whole litter of 'em, and throw in the dam, to call 
 that plucky little robin my girl ! I'd give my soul to 
 have such a girl ! " 
 
 It did not occur to him that his soul for Barbara 
 would scarcely be fair barter. 
 35 
 
546 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Dick's well enough," he went on, "but he's a 
 man, and you've got to quarrel with him ! I'm tired 
 of quarrelling ! " 
 
 The instant she reached home, Mrs. Wylder sent 
 for her daughter, and demanded, fury still blazing in 
 her eyes, what she had been doing to give that beast 
 of a Lady Ann a right to talk. 
 
 "Tell me first how she talked, mamma," returned 
 Barbara, used to her mother's ways, and nowise an- 
 noyed at being so addressed. "I can't have been 
 doing anything very bad, for she's been doing what 
 she can to get me and keep me." 
 
 " She has ? — And you never told me ! " 
 
 " I didn't think it worth telling you. — She's been 
 setting papa on to me too ! " 
 
 " Oh ! I see ! And you wouldn't set him and me 
 on each other ! Dutiful child ! You reckoned you'd 
 had enough of that ! But I'll have no buying and 
 selling of my goods behind my back ! If you speak 
 one more civil word to that young jackanapes Les- 
 trange, you shall hear it again on both your ears ! " 
 
 " I will not speak an uncivil word to him, mamma ; 
 he has never given me occasion ; but I shan't break 
 my heart if I never see him again. If you like, I 
 won't once go near the place. Theodora's the only 
 one I care about — and she's as dull as she is good ! " 
 
 "What did the kangaroo mean by saying you were 
 sweet on somebody not worthy of you? " 
 
 "I know what she meant, mother; but the man is 
 worthy of a far better woman than me — and I hope 
 he'll get her some day ! " 
 
 Thereupon little Bab burst into tears, half of rage, 
 half of dread lest her good wish for Richard should 
 be granted otherwise than she meant it. For she did 
 
BARBARA AT HOME. 547 
 
 not at the moment desire very keenly that he should 
 get all he deserved, but thought she might herself 
 just do, while she did hope to be a better woman 
 before the day arrived. 
 
 "Come, come, child ! None of that ! I don't like 
 it. I don't want to cry on the top of my rage. What 
 is the man? Who is he? What does the woman 
 know about him ? " 
 
 At once Barbara began, and told her mother the 
 whole story of Richard and herself. The mother 
 listened. Old days and the memory of a lover, not 
 high in the social scale, whom she had to give up to 
 marry Mr. Wylder, came back upon her, and her 
 heart went with her daughter's before she knew what 
 it was about ; her daughter's love and her own seemed 
 to mingle in one dusky shine, as if the daughter had 
 inherited the mother's experience. The heart of the 
 mother would not have her child like herself gather 
 but weed-flowers of sorrow among the roses in the 
 garden of love. She had learned this much, that the 
 things the world prizes are of little good to still the 
 hearts of women. But when Barbara told her how 
 Lady Ann would have it that this same Richard, the 
 bookbinder, was a natural son of Sir Wilton, she 
 started to her feet, crying : 
 
 "Then the natural bookbinder shall have her, and 
 my lady's fool may go to the dogs ! You shall have 
 nty money, Bab, anyhow." 
 
 "But, mammy dear," said Barbara, "what will 
 papa say ? " 
 
 "Poof!" returned her mother. "I've known him 
 too long to care what he says ! " 
 
 "I don't like offending him," returned Barbara. 
 
 "Don't mention him again, child, or I'll turn him 
 
545 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 loose on your bookbinder. Am I to put my own 
 ewe-lamb to the same torture I had to suffer by marry- 
 ing him ! God forbid ! When you're happy with 
 your husband, perhaps you'll think of me sometimes 
 and say, 'My mother did it! She wasn't a good 
 woman, but she loved her Bab ! ' " 
 
 A passionate embrace followed. Barbara left the 
 room with a happy heart, and went — not to her own 
 to brood on her love, but to her brother's, whose feeble 
 voice she heard calling her. Upon him her gladness 
 overflowed. 
 
CHAPTER LV. 
 
 MISS BROWN. 
 
 The same evening Barbara rode to the smithy, in 
 the hope of hearing some news of Richard from his 
 grandfather. The old man was busy at the anvil 
 when he heard Miss Brown's hoofs on the road. He 
 dropped his hammer, flung the tongs on the forge, 
 and leaving the iron to cool on the anvil, went to 
 meet her. 
 
 "How do you do, grandfather.?" said Barbara, 
 with unconscious use of the appellation. 
 
 Simon was well pleased to be called grandfather, 
 but too politic and too well bred to show his pleasure. 
 
 "As well as hard work can help me to. How are 
 you yourself, my pretty.''" returned Simon. 
 
 "As well as nothing to do — except nursing poor 
 Mark — will let me," she answered. "Please can 
 you tell me anything about Richard yet ? " 
 
 " Can you keep a secret, honey ? " rejoined Simon. 
 " I ain't sure as I'm keeping strict within the law, 
 but if I didn't think you fit, I shouldn't say a word." 
 
 "Don't tell me, if it be anything I ought to tell if I 
 knew it. " 
 
 " If you can show me you ought to tell any one, 
 I will release you from your promise. But perhaps 
 you feel you ought to tell everything to your 
 mother ? " 
 
 "No, not other people's secrets. But I think I 
 
550 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 won't have it. I don't like secrets. I'm frightened 
 at them." 
 
 "Then I'll tell you at my own risk, for you're the 
 rig-ht sort to trust, promise or no promise. I only 
 hope you will not tell without letting me know first ; 
 because then I might have to do something else by 
 way of — what do they call it when you take poison, 
 and then take something to keep it from hurting you.'' 
 — Richard's gone to college ! " 
 
 Bab slid from Miss Brown's back, flung her arms, 
 with the bridle on one of them, round the black- 
 smith's neck, and, heedless of Miss Brown's fright, 
 jumped up, and kissed the old man for the good news. 
 
 "Miss ! miss ! your clean face ! " cried the black- 
 smith. 
 
 " Oh, Richard ! Richard ! you will he happy now ! " 
 she said, her voice trembling with buried tears. 
 " — But will he ever shoe Miss Brown again, grand- 
 father ? " 
 
 " Many's the time, I trust!" answered Simon. 
 " He'll be proud to doit. If not, he never was worth 
 a smile from your sweet mouth." 
 
 " He'll be a great man some day ! " she laughed, 
 with a little quiver of the sweet mouth. 
 
 "He's a good man now, and I don't care," 
 answered the smith. "As long as son of mine can 
 look every man in the face, I don't care whether it 
 be great or small he is." 
 
 "But, please, Mr. Armour," said Bab, timidly, 
 " wouldn't it be better still if he could look God in 
 the face ? " 
 
 "You're right there, my pretty dove ! " replied the 
 old man ; "only a body can't say everything out in 
 a breath !— But you're right, you are right ! " he went 
 
MISS BROWN. 551 
 
 on. "I remember well the time when I thought I 
 had nothing- to be ashamed of ; but the time came 
 when I was ashamed of many things, and I'd done 
 nothing worse in the meantime either ! When a man 
 first gets a peep inside himself, he sees things he 
 didn't look to see — and they stagger him a bit ! 
 Some horses have their hoofs so shrunk and cockled 
 they take the queerest shoes to set them straight ; an' 
 them shoes is the troubles o' this life, I take it. — 
 Now mind, I ain't told you what college he's gone 
 to — nor whether it be at Oxford or at Cambridge, or 
 away in Scotland or Germany — and you don't know ! 
 And if you don't feel bound to mention the name of 
 the place, I'd be obliged to you not to. But 1 will 
 let him know that I've told you what sort of a place 
 he's at, because he couldn't tell you himself, being 
 he's bound to hold his tongue." 
 
 Barbara went home happy : his grandfather recog- 
 nized the bond between them ! As to Richard, she 
 had no fear of his forgetting her. 
 
 With more energy still, she went about her duties ; 
 and they seemed to grow as she did them. As the 
 end of Mark's sickness approached, he became more 
 and more dependent upon her, and only his mother 
 could take her place with him. He loved his father 
 dearly, but his father never staid m.ore than a moment 
 or two in the sick-chamber. Mark at length went 
 away to find his twin ; and his mother and Barbara 
 wept, but not all in sorrow. 
 
 One morning, the week after Mark's death, Mr. 
 Wylder desired Barbara to go with him to his study 
 — where indeed about as much study went on as in 
 a squirrel's nest — and there, after solemn prologue 
 as to its having been right and natural while she was 
 
552 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 but a girl with a brother that she should be allowed 
 a great deal of freedom, stated that now, circum- 
 stances being changed, such freedom could no longer 
 be given her : she was now sole heiress, and must 
 do as an heir would have had to do, namely, consult 
 the interests of the family. In those interests, he 
 continued, it was necessary he should strengthen as 
 much as possible his influence in the county ; it was 
 time also that, for her own sake, she should marry ; 
 and better husband or fitter son-in-law than Mr. Les- 
 trange could not be desired : he was both well- 
 behaved and good-looking, and when Mortgrange 
 was one with Wylder, would have by far the finest 
 estate in the county ! 
 
 Filial obligation is a point upon which those par- 
 ents lay the heaviest stress who have done the least 
 to develop the relation between them and their chil- 
 dren. The first duty is from the parent to the child : 
 this unfulfilled, the duty of the child remains un- 
 taught. 
 
 "I am sorry to go against you, papa," said Barbara, 
 " but I cannot marry Mr. Lestrange ! " 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! Why not? " 
 
 " Because I do not love him." 
 
 " Fiddlesticks ! I did not love your mother when 
 I married her ! — You don't dislike him, I know ! — 
 Now don't tell me you do, for I shall not believe 
 you ! " 
 
 "He is always very kind to me, and I am sorry 
 he should want what is not mine to give him." 
 
 "Not yours to give him ! What do you mean by 
 that.!* If it is not yours, it is mine! Have you not 
 learned yet, that when I. make up my mind to a 
 
MISS BROWN. 553 
 
 thing, that thing is done ? And where I have a right, 
 I am not one to waive it 1 " 
 
 Where husband and wife are not one, it is impos- 
 sible for the daughter to be one with both, or perhaps 
 with either ; and the constant and foolish bickering 
 to which Barbara had been a witness throughout her 
 childhood had tended rather to poison than nourish 
 respect. Whether Barbara failed to yield as much 
 as Mr. Wylder had a right to claim, I leave to the 
 judgment of my reader, reserving my own, and re- 
 marking only that, if his judgment be founded on 
 principles differing from mine, our judgments cannot 
 agree. The idea of parent must be venerated, and 
 may cast a glow upon the actual parent, himself 
 nowise venerable, so that the heart of a daughter 
 may ache with the longing to see her father such that 
 she could love and worship him as she would ; but 
 when it comes to life and action, the will of such a 
 parent, if it diverge from what seems to the child 
 true and right, ought to weigh nothing. A parent is 
 not a maker, is not God. We must leave father and 
 mother and all for God, that is, for what is right, 
 which is his very will — only let us be sure it is for 
 God, and not for self. If the parent has been the 
 parent of good thoughts and right judgments in the 
 child, those good thoughts and right judgments will 
 be on the parent's side ; if he has been the parent of 
 evil thoughts and false judgments, they may be for 
 him or against him, but in the end they will work 
 solely for division. Any general decay of filial man- 
 ners must originate with the parents. 
 
 " I am not a child, I am a woman," said Barbara ; 
 " and I owe it to him who made me a woman to take 
 care of her." 
 
554 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 " Mind what you say. I have rights, and will en- 
 force them." 
 
 "Over my person? " returned Barbara, her eyes 
 sending out a flash that reminded him of her mother, 
 and made him the angrier. 
 
 "If you do not consent here and now," he said, 
 sternly, ' ' to marry Mr. Lestrange — that is, if, after 
 your mother's insolence to Lady Ann, " 
 
 " My mother's insolence to Lady Ann ! " exclaimed 
 Barbara, drawing herself, in her indignation, to the 
 height of her small person ; but her father would rush 
 to his own discomfiture. 
 
 <' — if^ as I say," he went on, "he should now con- 
 descend to ask you — I swear -" 
 
 "You had better not swear, papa ! " 
 
 " — I swear you shall not have a foot of my land." 
 
 " Oh ! that is all ? There you are in your right, and 
 I have nothing to say." 
 
 "You insolent hussy! You won't like it when 
 you find it done ! " 
 
 " It will be the same as if Mark had lived." 
 
 "It's that cursed money of your mother's makes 
 you impudent ! " 
 
 "If you could leave me moneyless, papa, it would 
 make no difference. A woman that can shoe her 
 own horse, " 
 
 "Shoe her own horse ! " cried her father. 
 
 "Yes, papa ! — You couldn't ! — And I made two of 
 her shoes the last time I Wouldn't any woman that 
 can do that, wouldn't she — to save herself from shame 
 and disgust — to be queen over herself — wouldn't she 
 take a place as house-maid or shop-girl rather than 
 marry the man she didn't love ? " 
 
 Mr. Wylder saw he had gone too far. 
 
MISS BROWN. 555 
 
 " You know more than is good ! " he said. "But 
 don't you mistake : your mother's money is settled 
 on you, but your father is your trustee ! " 
 
 "My father is a gentleman ! " rejoined Barbara — not 
 so near the truth as she believed. 
 
 " Take you care how yo«i push a gentleman," 
 rejoined her father. 
 
 "Not to love is not to marry — not if the man was 
 a prince ! " persisted Barbara. 
 
 She went to her mother's room, but said nothing 
 of what had passed. She would not heat those ovens 
 of wrath, the bosoms of her parents. 
 
 The next morning she ran to saddle Miss Brown. 
 To her astonishment, her friend was not in her box, 
 nor in any stall in the stable; neither was any one 
 visible of whom to ask what had become of her : for 
 the first time in her life, everybody had got out of 
 Barbara's way. In the harness-room, however, she 
 came upon one of the stable-boys. He was in tears. 
 When he saw her, he started and turned to run, look- 
 ing as if he had had a piece of Miss Brown for break- 
 fast, but she stopped him. 
 
 "Where is Miss Brown.?" she said. 
 
 "Don' know, miss." 
 
 " Who knows then ? " 
 
 " P'r'aps master, miss." 
 
 " What are you crying for.? " 
 
 "Don' know, miss." 
 
 ' ' That's not true. Boys don't cry without knowing 
 why ! " 
 
 "Well, miss, I ain't sure what I'm cryin' for." 
 
 "Speak out, man I Don't be foolish." 
 
 " Master give me a terrible cut, miss ! " 
 
 " Did you deserve it.' " 
 
556 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Don' know, miss." 
 
 " You don't seem to know anything this morning ! " 
 
 " No, miss ! " 
 
 "What did your master give you the cut for?" 
 
 "'Cause I was cry in'." 
 
 Here he burst into a restrained howl. 
 
 "What were you crying for.?" 
 
 "Because Miss Brown was gone." 
 
 "And you cried without knowing where she was 
 gone .? " said Barbara, turning almost sick with appre- 
 hension. 
 
 "Yes, miss," affirmed the miserable boy. 
 
 " Is she dead ? " 
 
 " No, miss, she ain't dead ; she's sold ! " 
 
 The words were not yet out of his mouth when he 
 turned and bolted. 
 
 "That's my gentleman-papa!" said Barbara to 
 herself before she could help it. Had she been any 
 girl but Barbara, she would have cried like the boy. 
 
 Not once from that moment did she allude to Miss 
 Brown in the hearing of father or servant. 
 
 One day her mother asked her why she never rode, 
 and she told her. The wrath of the mother was like 
 that of a tigress. She sprang to her feet, and bounded 
 to the door. But when she reached it, Barbara was 
 between her and the handle. 
 
 " Mother ! mother dear ! " she pleaded. 
 
 The mother took her by the shoulders, and thought 
 to fling her across the room. But she was not so 
 strong as she had been, and she found the little one 
 hard as nails : she could not move her an inch. 
 
 "Get out of my way I" she cried. "I want to 
 kill him ! " 
 
MISS BROWN. 557 
 
 " Mammy dear, listen ! It's a month ag-o ! I said 
 nothing — for love-sake ! " 
 
 " Love-sake ! I think I hear you 1 Dare to tell 
 me you love that wretch of a father of yours ! I will 
 kiWjyou if you say you love him ! " 
 
 Barbara threw her arms round her mother's neck, 
 and said : 
 
 "Listen, mammy: I do love him a little bit; but 
 it wasn't for love of him I held my tongue." 
 
 "Bah! Your bookbinder-fellow ! 'What has he 
 to do with it ? " 
 
 "Nothing at all. It wasn't for him either. It was 
 for God's sake I held my peace, mammy. If a// his 
 children quarrelled like you and dad, what a house 
 he would have ! It was for God's sake I said nothing ; 
 and you know, mammy, you've made it up with 
 God, and you mustn't go and be naughty again ! " 
 
 The mother stood silent and still. It seemed for 
 an instant as if the old fever had come back, for she 
 shivered. She turned and went to her chair, sat 
 down, and again was still. A minute after, her fore- 
 head flushed like a flame, turned white, then flushed 
 and paled again several times. Then she gave a 
 great sigh, and the conflict was over. She smiled, 
 and from that moment she also never said a word 
 about Miss Brown. 
 
 But in the silence of her thought, Barbara suffered, 
 for what might not be the fate of Miss Brown ! No 
 one but a genuine lover of animals could believe how 
 she suffered. In her mind's eye she kept seeing her 
 turn her head with sharp-curved neck in her stall, or 
 shoot it over the door of her box, looking and long- 
 ing for her mistress, and wondering why she did not 
 come to pat her, or feed her, or saddle her for the 
 
558 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 joyous gallop across grass and green hedge ; and the 
 heart of her mistress was sore for her. But at length 
 one day in church, they read the psalm in which 
 come the words, "Thou, Lord, shalt save both man 
 and beast!" and they went to her soul. She reflected 
 that if Miss Brown was in trouble, it might be for the 
 saving of Miss Brown : she had herself got enough 
 good from trouble to hope for that ! For she heartily 
 believed the animals partakers in the redemption of 
 Jesus Christ ; and she fancied perhaps they knew 
 more about it than we think, — the poor things are so 
 silent! Anyhow she saw that the reasonable thing 
 was to let God look after his own ; and if Miss Brown 
 w^as not his, how could she be P 
 
 But the mother was sending all over the country to 
 find who had Miss Brown ; and she had not inquired 
 long, before she learned that she was in the stables 
 at Mortgrange. There she knew she would be well 
 treated, and therefore told Barbara the result of her 
 inquiries. 
 
CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 
 
 Barbara went yet oftener to Mr. and Mrs. Wing- 
 fold. By this time, through Simon Armour, they 
 knew something about Richard, but none of them 
 all felt at liberty to talk about him. 
 
 Barbara had now a better guide in her reading 
 than Richard. True reader as he had been, Wing- 
 fold's acquaintance both with literature and its 
 history, that is, its relation to the development of 
 the people, was as much beyond the younger man's 
 as it ought to be. What in Barbara Richard had 
 begun well, Wingfold was carrying on better. 
 
 With his help she was now studying,, to no little 
 advantage, more than one subject connected with 
 the main interest common to her and Richard ; and 
 she thought constantly of what Richard would say, 
 and how she would answer him. Hence, naturally, 
 she had the more questions to put to her tutor. 
 Now Wingfold had passed through all Richard's 
 phases, and through some that were only now 
 beginning to show in him ; therefore he was well 
 prepared to help her — although there was this 
 difference between the early moral conditions of the 
 two men, that Wingfold had been prejudiced in favor 
 of much that he found it impossible to hold, whereas 
 Richard had been prejudiced against much that 
 ought to be cast away. 
 
 Richard suffered not a little at times from his 
 
560 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 enforced silence : what might not happen because 
 he must not speak ? But hearing nothing discour- 
 aging from his grandfather, he comforted himself in 
 hope. He knew that in him he had a strong ally, 
 and that Barbara loved the hot-hearted blacksmith, 
 recognizing in him a more genuine breeding, as well 
 as a far greater capacity, than in either Sir Wilton or 
 her father. He toiled on, doing his duty, and receiv- 
 ing in himself the reward of the same, with further 
 reward ever at the door. For there is no juster law 
 than the word, "To him that hath shall be given." 
 
 "Why do I never see you on Miss Brown?" 
 asked Wingfold one day of Barbara. 
 
 "For a reason I think I ought not to tell you." 
 
 " Then don't tell me," returned the parson. 
 
 But by a mixture of instinctive induction and 
 involuntary intuition, he saw into the piece of 
 domestic tyranny, and did what he could to make 
 up for it, by taking her every now and then a long 
 walk or drive with his wife and their little boy. He 
 gave her strong, hopeful things to read — and in the 
 search after such was driven to remark how little 
 of the hopeful there is in the English, or in any other 
 language. The song of hope is indeed written in 
 men's hearts, but few sing it. Yet it is of all songs 
 the sorest-needed of struggling men. 
 
 Heart and brain, Wingfold was full of both humor 
 and pathos. In their walks and drives, many a 
 serious subject would give occasion to the former, 
 and many a merry one to the latter. Sometimes he 
 would take a nursery-rhyme for his theme, and ex- 
 patiate upon it so, that at one instant Barbara would 
 burst into the gayest laughter, and the next have to 
 restrain her tears. Rarely would Wingfold enter a 
 
WINGFOLD AND BARBARA. 56 1 
 
 sick chamber, especially that of a cottage, with a 
 long face and a sermon in his soul ; almost always 
 he walked lightly in, with a cheerful look, and not 
 seldom an odd story on his tongue, well pleased 
 when he could make the sufferer laugh — better 
 pleased sometimes when he had made him sorry. 
 He did not find those that laughed the readiest the 
 hardest to make sorry. He moved his people by 
 infecting their hearts with the feeling in his own. 
 
 Having now for many years cared only for the 
 will of God, he was full of joy. For the will of the 
 Father is the root of all his children's gladness, of all 
 their laughter and merriment. The child that loves 
 the will of the Father is at the heart of things ; his 
 will is with the motion of the eternal wheels ; the 
 eyes of all those wheels are opened upon him, and 
 he knows whence he came. Happy and fearless and 
 hopeful, he knows himself the child of him from 
 whom he came, and his peace and joy break out in 
 light. He rises and shines. Bliss creative and 
 energic there is none other, on earth or in heaven, 
 than the will of the Father. 
 36 
 
CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 THE baronet's WILL. 
 
 Arthur Lestrange was sharply troubled when he 
 found he was to see no more of Barbara. He went 
 again and again to Wylder Hall, but neither mother 
 nor daughter would receive him. When he learned 
 that Miss Brown was for sale, he bought her for love 
 of her mistress. All the explanation he could get 
 from Lady Ann was, that the young woman's mother 
 was impossible ; she was more than half a savage. 
 
 Time's wheels went slow thereafter at Mortgrange. 
 Sir Wilton missed his first-born. Whatever annoyed 
 him in his wife or any of her children fed the desire 
 for Richard. Arthur did not please him. He had no 
 way distinguished himself — and some men are an- 
 noyed when their sons prove only a little better than 
 themselves. Percy was a poisoned thorn in his 
 side : he was even worse than his father. All his 
 thoughts took refuge in Richard. 
 
 He had become dissatisfied with his agent, and 
 although he had never taken an interest in business, 
 distrust made him now look into things a little. He 
 called his lawyer from London, and had him make 
 a thorough investigation. Dismissing thereupon his 
 agent, he would have Arthur take charge of the 
 estate ; but the young man, with an inborn dislike 
 to figures, flatly refused, saying he preferred the 
 army. Sir Wilton did not like the army : he had 
 been in it himself, and had left it in a hurry — no one 
 ever knew why. 
 
THE BARONETS WILL 563 
 
 The only comfort in the house occupied the soul 
 of Lady Ann : it was that she heard nothing of the 
 bookbinder fellow ! She had grown so torpid, that 
 while Danger was not flattening his nose against the 
 window-pane, she was at peace. For the rest, a 
 lawyer of her own had the will in his keeping, and 
 she had come upon no trace of another. 
 
 But when Sir Wilton sent for his lawyer to look 
 into his factor's accounts, he had a further use for 
 him, of which his wife heard nothing : he made him 
 draw up another will, in which he left everything to 
 Richard, only son of his first wife, Robina Armour. 
 With every precaution for secrecy, the will was 
 signed and witnessed, but when the lawyer would 
 have carried it with him, the baronet declined to give 
 it up. He laid it aside for a week, then had the 
 horses put to, and drove to find Mr. Wingfold, of 
 whom he had heard from Richard. When he saw 
 him, man of the world as he was, he was impressed 
 by the simplicity of a clergyman without a touch of 
 the clerical, without any look of what he called 
 sanctity — the look that comes upon a man cherishing 
 the notion that he is intrusted with things more sacred 
 than God will put in the hands of his other children. 
 Such men, and they are many, one would like to lay 
 for a time in the sheet of Peter's vision, among the 
 four-footed animals and creeping things, to learn 
 that, as there is nothing common or unclean, so is 
 there no class more sacred than another. Never will . 
 it be right with men, until every commonest meal is 
 a glad recognition of the living Saviour who gives 
 himself, always and perfectly, to his brothers and 
 sisters. 
 
 The baronet begged a private interview, and told 
 
564 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 the parson he wanted to place in his keeping a certain 
 paper, with the understanding that he would not 
 open it for a year after his death, and would then act 
 upon the directions contained in it. 
 
 "Provided always," Wingfold stipulated, "that 
 they require of me nothing unfit, impossible or 
 wrong." 
 
 " I pledge myself they require nothing unworthy 
 of the cloth," said Sir Wilton. 
 
 "The cloth be hanged!" said Wingfold. " Do 
 they require anything unworthy of a man — or if you 
 think the word means more — of a gentleman ? " 
 
 "They do not," answered the baronet. 
 
 "Then you must write another paper, stating that 
 you have asked me to undertake this, but that you 
 have given me no hint of the contents of the accom- 
 panying document. This second you must enclose 
 with the first, sealing the envelope with your own 
 seal." 
 
 Sir Wilton at once consented, and there and then 
 did as Wingfold desired. 
 
 " I've checkmated my lady at last 1 " he chuckled, 
 as he drove home. " She would have me the villain 
 to disinherit my first-born for her miserable brood I 
 She shall find my other will, and think she's safe ! 
 Then the thunderbolt — and Dick master ! My lady's 
 dower won't be much for Percy the cad and Arthur 
 the proper, not to mention Dorothy the cow and 
 Vixen the rat ! " 
 
 He always spoke as if Lady Ann's children were 
 none of his. Her ladyship had taught him to do so, 
 for she always said, " Aly children ! " 
 
 That night he slept with an easier mind. He had 
 put the deed off and off, regarding it as his abdica- 
 
THE baronet's WILL 565 
 
 tion ; but now it was done he felt more comfortable. 
 
 Wingfold suspected in the paper some provision 
 for Richard, but could imagine no reason for letting 
 it lie unopened until a year should have passed from 
 the baronet's death. Troubling himself nothing, how- 
 ever, about what was not his business, he put the 
 paper carefully aside — but where he must see it now 
 and then, lest it should pass from his mind, and, with 
 Sir Wilton's permission, told his wife what he had 
 undertaken concerning it, that she might carry it out 
 if he were prevented from doing so. 
 
 Time went on. Communication grew yet less be- 
 tween Mr. Wylder and his family. He had returned 
 to certain old habits, and was spending money pretty 
 fast in London. Failing to make himself a god in 
 the house, he forsook it, and was rapidly losing this 
 world's chance of appreciating a woman whose 
 faults were to his as new wine to dirty water. 
 
 In the fourth year, Richard wrote to his father, 
 through his grandfather of course, informing him he 
 had got his B. A. degree, and was waiting further 
 orders. The baronet was heartily pleased with the 
 style of his letter, and in the privacy of his own room 
 gave way to his delight at the thought of his wife's 
 apprbaching consternation and chagrin. At the 
 same time, however, he was not a little uneasy in 
 prospect of the denouement. For the eyes of his 
 wife had become almost a terror to him. Their gray 
 ice, which had not grown clearer as it grew older, 
 made him shiver. Why should the stronger so often 
 be afraid of the weaker .? Sometimes, I suppose, 
 because conscience happens to side with the weaker ; 
 sometimes only because the weaker is yet able to 
 make the stronger, especially if he be lazy and a 
 
566 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 lover of what he calls peace, worse than uncomfort- 
 able. The baronet dared not present his son to his 
 wife except in the presence of at least one stranger. 
 
 He wrote to Richard, appointing a day for his 
 appearance at Mortgrange. 
 
CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 It was a lovely morning- when Richard, his heart 
 beating with a hope whose intensity of bliss he had 
 never imagined, stopped at the station nearest to 
 Mortgrange, and set out to walk there in the after- 
 noon sun. June folded him in her loveliness of 
 warmth and color. The grass was washed with 
 transparent gold : he saw both the gold and the green 
 together, but unmingled. Often had he walked the 
 same road, a contented tradesman ; a gentleman 
 now, with a baronet to his father, beloved, and knew 
 he must always love the tradesman-uncle more than 
 the baronet-father. He was much more than grate- 
 ful to his father for his ready reception of him, and 
 his care of his education ; but he could not be proud 
 of him as of his mother and his aunt and uncle and 
 his grandfather. He held it one of God's greatest 
 gifts to come of decent people ; and if in his case the 
 decency was on one side only, it was the more his 
 part to stop the current of transmitted evil, and in 
 his own person do what he might to annihilate it ! 
 
 His only anxiety was lest his father should again 
 lay upon him the command to cease communication 
 with his brother and sister. He lifted up his heart to 
 God, and vowed that not for anything the earth 
 could give would he obey. The socialism he had 
 learned from his uncle had undergone a baptism to 
 something infinitely higher. He prayed God to keep 
 
568 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 him clean of heart, and able to hold by his duty. 
 He promised God — it was a way he had when he 
 would bind himself to do right — that he would not 
 forsake his own, would not break the ties of blood 
 for any law, custom, prejudice, or pride of man. 
 The vow made his heart strong and light. But he 
 felt there was little merit in the act, seeing he could 
 live without his father's favor. He saw how much 
 harder it would be for a poor tradeless man like 
 Arthur Lestrange to make such a resolve. In the 
 face of such a threat from his father what could he 
 do ? — where find courage to resist ? Resist he must 
 or be a slave, but hard indeed it would be ! Every 
 father, thought Richard, who loved his children, ought 
 to make them independent of himself, that neither 
 clog, nor net, nor hindrance of any kind might ham- 
 per the true working of their consciences : then would 
 the service they rendered their parents be precious 
 indeed ! then indeed would love be lord, and neither 
 self, nor the fear of man, nor the fear of fate be a law 
 in their life ! 
 
 He had not sent word to his grandfather that he 
 was coming, and had told his father that he would 
 walk from the station — which suited Sir Wilton, for 
 he felt nervous, and was anxious there should be no 
 stir. So Richard came to Mortgrangeas quietly as a 
 star to its place. 
 
 When he reached the gate and walked in as of old, 
 he was challenged by the woman who kept it : of all 
 the servants she and Lady Ann's maid had alone 
 treated him with rudeness, and now she was not polite 
 although she did not know him. Neither was he 
 recognized by the man who opened the door. 
 
 Sir Wilton sat in the library expecting him. A 
 
569 
 
 gentleman was with him, but he kept in the back- 
 ground, seemingly absorbed in the titles of a row of 
 books. 
 
 "There you are, you rascal ! " his father was on 
 the point of saying as Richard came into the light of 
 the one big bow-window, but, instead, he gazed at 
 him for an instant in silence. Before him was one 
 of the handsomest fellows his eyes had ever rested 
 upon — broad-shouldered and tall and straight, with a 
 thoughtful yet keen face, of which every feature was 
 both fine and solid, and dark brown hair with night 
 and firelight ni it, and a touch of the sun here and 
 there at moments. The situation might have been 
 embarrassing to a more experienced man than Rich- 
 ard as he waited for his father to speak ; but he stood 
 quite at his ease, slightly bent, and motionless, neither 
 hands nor feet giving him any of the trouble so often 
 caused by those outlying provinces. The slight color 
 that rose in his rather thin cheeks, only softened the 
 beauty of a face whose outline was severe. He stood 
 like a soldier waiting the word of his officer. 
 
 "By Jove ! " said his father ; and there was another 
 pause. 
 
 The baronet was momently growing prouder of 
 his son. He had never had a feeling like it before. 
 He saw his mother in him. 
 
 "She's looking at me straight out of his eyes ! " he 
 said to himself. 
 
 "Ain't you going to sit down ? " he said to him at 
 last, forgetting that he had neither shaken hands with 
 him, nor spoken a word of welcome. 
 
 Richard moved a chair a little nearer and sat down, 
 wondering what would come next. 
 
 "Well, what are you going to do ? " asked his father. 
 
570 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "I must first know your wish, sir," he answered. 
 
 " Church won't do ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Glad to hear it ! You're much too good for the 
 church ! — No offence, Mr. Wingfold ! The same 
 appUes to yourself." 
 
 "So my uncle on the stock-exchange used to say ! " 
 answered Wingfold, laughing, as he turned to the 
 baronet. " He thought me good enough, I suppose, 
 for a priest of Mammon ! " 
 
 ' ' I'm glad you're not offended. What do you think 
 of that son of mine ? " 
 
 "I have long thought well of him." 
 
 At the first sound of his voice, Richard had risen, 
 and now approached him, his hand outstretched. 
 
 "Mr. Wingfold ! " he said, joyfully. 
 
 "I remember now ! " returned Sir Wilton ; " it was 
 from him I heard of you ; and that was what made 
 me seek your acquaintance. — He promises fairly, 
 don't you think ? — Shoulders good ; head well set 
 on I " 
 
 " He looks a powerful man ! " said Wingfold. 
 " — We shall be happy to see you, Mr. Lestrange, as 
 soon as you care to come to us." 
 
 "That will be to-morrow, I hope, sir," answered 
 Richard. 
 
 ' ' Stop, stop ! " cried Sir Wilton. ' ' We know noth- 
 ing for certain yet ! — By-the-bye, if your stepmother 
 don't make you particularly welcome, you needn't 
 be surprised, my boy ! " 
 
 "Certainly not. I could hardly expect her to be 
 pleased, sir ! " 
 
 " Not pleased ? Not pleased at what .'' Now, now, 
 don't you presume ! Don't you take things for granted .' 
 
THE HEIR. 571 
 
 How do you know she will have reason to be dis- 
 pleased ? I never promised you anything ! I never 
 told you what I intended ! — Did I ever now ? " 
 
 "No, sir. You have already done far more than 
 ever you promised. You have given me all any man 
 has a right to from his father. I am ready to go to 
 London at once, and make my own living." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "I don't know yet ; I should have to choose— 
 thanks to you and my uncle ! " 
 
 " In the meantime, you must be introduced to your 
 stepmother." 
 
 "Then — excuse me. Sir Wilton — " interposed the 
 parson, "do you wish me to regard my old friend 
 Richard as your son and heir.?" 
 
 "As my son, yes; as my heir — that will de- 
 pend •" 
 
 "On his behavior, I presume ! " Wingfold ventured. 
 
 " I say nothing of the sort ! " replied the baronet, 
 testily. ' ' Would you have me doubt whether he will 
 carry himself like a gentleman .? The thing depends 
 on my pleasure. There are others besides him." 
 
 He rose to ring the bell. Richard started up to 
 forestall his intent. 
 
 "Now, Richard," said his father, turning sharp 
 upon him, " don't be officious. Nothing shows want 
 of breeding more than to do a thing for a man in his 
 own house. It is a cursed liberty ! " 
 
 "I will try to remember, sir," answered Richard. 
 
 " Do ; we shall get on the better." 
 
 He was seized, as by the claw of a crab, with a 
 sharp twinge of the gout. He caught at the back of 
 a chair, hobbled with its help to the table, and so to 
 his scat. Richard restrained himself and stood ri<rid. 
 
572 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 The baronet turned a half humorous, half reproachful 
 look on him. 
 
 "That's right!" he said. "Never be officious. 
 I wish my father had taught me as I am teaching 
 you !— Ever had the gout, Mr. Wingfold ? " 
 
 "Never, Sir Wilton." 
 
 "Then you ought every Sunday to say, 'Thank 
 God that I have no gout ! ' " 
 
 "But if we thanked God for all tlie ills we don't 
 have, there would be no time to thank him for any 
 of the blessings we do have ! " 
 
 "What blessings.? " 
 
 "So many, I don't know where to begin to answer 
 you. " 
 
 "Ah, yes! you're a clergyman! I forgot. It's 
 your business to thank God. For my part, being a 
 layman, I don't know anything in particular I've got 
 to thank him for." 
 
 "If I thought a layman had less to thank God for 
 than a clergyman, I should begin to doubt whether 
 either had anything to thank him for. Why, Sir Wil- 
 ton, I find everything a blessing ! I thank God I am 
 a poor man. I thank him for every good book I fall 
 in with. I thank him when a child smiles to me. I 
 thank him when the sun rises or the wind blows on 
 me. Every day I am so happy, or at least so peace- 
 ful, or at the worst so hopeful, that my very con- 
 sciousness is a thanksgiving." 
 
 " Do you thank him for your wife, Mr. Wingfold ? " 
 
 "Every day of my existence." 
 
 The baronet stared at him a moment, then turned 
 to his son. 
 
 "Richard," he said, "you had better make up 
 your mind to go into the church ! You hear Mr. 
 
THE HEIR. 573 
 
 Wing-fold ! I shouldn't like it myself; I should have 
 to be at my prayers all day ! " 
 
 " Ah, Sir Wilton, it doesn't take time to thank God ! 
 It only takes eternity." 
 
 Sir Wilton stared. He did not understand. 
 
 " Ring the bell, will you ? " he said. " The fellow- 
 seems to have gone to sleep." 
 
 Richard obeyed, and not a word was spoken until 
 the man appeared. 
 
 ** Wilkins," said his master, "goto my lady, and 
 say I beg the favor of her presence in the library for 
 a moment." 
 
 The man went. 
 
 " No antipathy to cats, I hope ! " he added, turning 
 to Richard. 
 
 "None, sir," answered Richard, gravely. 
 
 " That's good ! Then you won't be taken aback ! " 
 
 In a few minutes — she seldom made her husband 
 ■wait — Lady Ann sailed into the room, the servant 
 closing the door so deftly behind her, that it seemed 
 without moving to have given passage to an angelic 
 presence. 
 
 The two younger men rose. 
 
 "Mr. Wingfold you know, my lady!" said her 
 husband. 
 
 "I have not the pleasure," answered Lady Ann, 
 with a slight motion of the hard bud at the top other 
 loiig stalk. 
 
 "Ah, I thought you did !— The Reverend Mr. 
 Wingfold, Lady Ann ! — My wife, Mr. Wingfold ! — 
 The other gentleman. Lady Ann, " 
 
 He paused. Lady Ann turned her eyes slowly on 
 Richard. Wingfold saw a slight just perceptible 
 start, and a settling of the jaws 
 
574 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "The other gentleman," resumed the baronet, 
 "you do not know, but you will soon be the best of 
 friends. " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Sir Wilton, I do know him ! — 
 I hope," she went on, turning to Richard, "you will 
 keep steadily to your work. The sooner the books 
 are finished the better ! " 
 
 Richard smiled, but what he was on the point of 
 saying, his father prevented. 
 
 " You mistake, my lady ! I thought you did not 
 know him ! " said the baronet. " That gentleman is 
 my son, and will one day be Sir Richard." 
 
 " Oh ! " returned her ladyship — without a shadow 
 of change in her impassivity, except Wingfold was 
 right in fancying the slightest movement of squint in 
 the eye next him. She held out her hand. 
 
 "This is an unexpected — " 
 
 For once in her life her lips were truer than her 
 heart ; they did not say pleasure. 
 
 Richard took her hand respectfully, sad for the 
 woman whose winter had no fuel, and who looked 
 as if she would be cold to all eternity. Lady Ann 
 stared him in the eyes and said, — 
 
 "My favorite prayer-book has come to pieces at 
 last : perhaps you would bind it for me ? ' 
 
 " I shall be delighted," answered Richard. 
 
 "Thank you," she said, bowed to Wingfold, and 
 left the room. 
 
 Sir Wilton sat like an offended turkey-cock, staring 
 after her. " By Jove ! " he seemed to say to himself. 
 
 "There ! that's over ! " he cried, coming to himself. 
 "Ring the bell, Richard, and let us have lunch. — 
 Richard, no gentleman could have behaved better ! 
 
575 
 
 I am proud of you ! — It's blood that does it ! " he 
 murmured to himself. 
 
 As if he had himself compounded both his own 
 blood and his boy's in the still-room of creation, he 
 took all the credit of Richard's savoir /aire, as he 
 counted it. He did not know that the same thing- 
 made Wing-fold happy and Richard a gentleman ! 
 Richard had had a higher breeding than was known 
 to Sir Wilton. At the court of courts, whence the 
 manners of some other courts would be swept as 
 dust from the floors, the baronet would hardly gain 
 admittance ! 
 
 Lady Ann went up the stair slowly and perpendicu- 
 larly, a dull pain at her heart The cause was not 
 so much that her son was the second son, as that the 
 son of the blacksmith's daughter was — she took care 
 to say at first sight — a ^v\ex gentleman than her Arthur. 
 Rank and position, she vaguely reflected, must not 
 look for justice from the jealous heavens! They 
 always sided with the poor ! Just see the party-spirit 
 of the Psalms ! The rich and noble were hardly 
 dealt with ! Nowadays even the church was with 
 the radicals ! 
 
 The baronet was merry over his luncheon. The 
 servants wondered at first, but before the soup was 
 removed they wondered no more : the young man 
 at the table, in whom not one of them had recognized 
 the bookbinder, was the lost heir to Mortgrange ! 
 He was worth finding, they agreed — one who would 
 hold his own ! The house would be merrier now — 
 thank heaven ! They liked Mr. Arthur well enough, 
 but here was his master ! 
 
 The meal was over, and the baronet always slept 
 after lunch. 
 
576 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "You'll stay to dinner, won't you, Mr. Wingfold ?" 
 he said, rising-. " — Richard, ring the bell. Better 
 send for Mrs. Locke at once, and arrange with her 
 where you will sleep." 
 
 " Then I may choose my own room, sir ? " rejoined 
 Richard. 
 
 "Of course — but better not too near my lady's," 
 answered his father with a grim smile as he hobbled 
 from the room. 
 
 When the housekeeper came — 
 
 "Mrs. Locke," said Richard, "I want to see the 
 room that used to be the nursery — in the older time, 
 I mean." 
 
 "Yes, sir," answered Mrs. Locke, pleasantly, and 
 led them up two flights of stairs and along corridor 
 and passage to the room Richard had before occupied. 
 He glanced round it, and said, 
 
 " This shall be my room. Will you kindly get it 
 ready for me?" 
 
 She hesitated. It had certainly not been repapered, 
 as Sir Wilton thought, and had said to Mrs. Tuke ! 
 To Mrs. Locke it seemed uninhabitable by a gentle- 
 man. 
 
 "I will send for the painter and paper-hanger at 
 once," she replied, "but it will take more than a 
 week to get ready." 
 
 "Pray leave it as it is," he answered. " — You can 
 have the floor swept of course," he added with a 
 smile, seeing her look of dismay. " I will sleep here 
 to-night, and we can settle afterward what is to be 
 done to it. — There used to be a portrait," he went on, 
 " — over the chimney-piece, the portrait of a lady — 
 not well painted, I fancy, but I liked it : what has 
 become of it ? " 
 
577 
 
 Then first it began to dawn on Mrs. Locke tliat 
 the young man who mended the books, and the heir 
 to Mortgrange were the same person. 
 
 "It fell down one day, and has not been put up 
 again," she answered. 
 
 " Do you know where it is ? " 
 
 "I will find it, sir." 
 
 " Do, if you please. Whose portrait is it ? " 
 
 "The last Lady Lestrange's, sir. — But bless my 
 stupid old head ! it's his own mother's picture he's 
 asking for! You'll pardon me, sir! The thing's 
 more bewildermg than you'd think ! — I'll go and get 
 it at once." 
 
 "Thank you. Mr. Wingfold audi will wait till 
 you bring it." 
 
 "There ain't anywhere for you to sit, sir!" 
 lamented the old lady. "If Ld only known ! Lm 
 sure, sir, I wish you joy ! " 
 
 "Thank you, Mrs. Locke. We'll sit here on the 
 mattress." 
 
 Richard had not forgotten how the eyes of the 
 picture used to draw his, and he had often since 
 wondered whether it could be the portrait of his 
 mother. 
 
 In a few minutes Mrs. Locke reappeared, carrying 
 the portrait, which had never been put in a frame, 
 and knotting the cord, Richard hung it again on the 
 old nail. It showed a well-formed face, but was 
 very flat and wooden. The eyes, however, were 
 comparatively well painted; and it seemed to Rich- 
 ard that he could read both sorrow and disappoint- 
 ment in them, with a yearning after something she 
 could not have. 
 
 They went out for a ramble in the park, and there 
 37 
 
578 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Richard told his friend as much as he knew of his 
 story, describing as well as he understood them the 
 changes that had passed upon him in the matter of 
 religion, and making no secret of what he owed to the 
 expostulations and spiritual resistances of Barbara. 
 Wingfold, after listening with profound attention, told 
 him he had passed through an experience in many 
 points like, and at the root the same as his own ; add- 
 ing that, long before he was sure of anything, it 
 had become more than possible for him to keep go- 
 ing on : and that still he was but looking and hoping 
 and waiting for a fuller dawn of what had made his 
 being already blessed. 
 
 They consulted whether Wingfold should act on 
 the baronet's careless invitation, and concluded it 
 better he should not stay to dinner. Then, as there 
 was yet time, and it was partly on Wingfold's way, 
 they set out for the smithy. 
 
CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 WINGFOLD AND ARTHUR MANSON. 
 
 When the first delight of their meeting was abated, 
 Simon sent to let Arthur Manson know that his 
 brother was there. For Arthur had all this time been 
 with Simon, to whom Richard, saving enough from 
 his allowance, had prevented him from being a 
 burden. 
 
 He looked much better, and was enchanted to see 
 his brother again, and learn the good news of his 
 recognition by his father. 
 
 "I'm so glad it's you and not me, Richard ! " he 
 said. "It makes me feel quite safe and happy. 
 We shall have nothing now but fair play all round, 
 the rest of our lives ! How happy Alice will be ! " 
 
 "Is Alice still in the old place .? I haven't heard 
 of her for some time," said Richard. 
 
 "Don't you know.?" exclaimed Arthur. "She's 
 been at the parsonage for months and months ! Mrs. 
 Wingfold went and fetched her away, to work for 
 her, and be near me. She's as happy now as the day 
 is long. She says if everybody was as good as her 
 master and mistress, there would be no misery left in 
 the world." 
 
 "I don't doubt it," answered Richard. " — But 
 I've just parted with Mr. Wingfold, and he didn't say 
 a word about her ! " 
 
 "When anything has to be done, Mr. Wingfold 
 
5«o 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 never forgets it, " said Arthur ; "but I should just 
 like to hear all the things Mr. Wingfold did and forgot 
 in a month ! " 
 
 "Arthur's getting on ! " thought Richard. 
 
 But he had to learn how much Wingfold had done 
 for him. First of all he had set himself, by talking 
 to him and lending him books, to find out his bent, 
 or at least something he was capable of. But for 
 months he could not wake him enough to know 
 anything of what was in him : the poor fellow was 
 weary almost to death. At last, however, he got 
 him to observe a little. Then he began to set him 
 certain tasks ; and as he was an invalid, the first 
 was what he called " The task of twelve o'clock ; " 
 — which was, for a quarter of an hour from every 
 noon during a month, to write down what he then 
 saw going on in the world. 
 
 The first day he had nothing to show : he had seen 
 nothing ! 
 
 "What were the clouds doing.?" Mr. Wingfold 
 asked. "What were the horses in the fields doing.? 
 — What were the birds you saw doing.? — What were 
 the ducks and hens doing.? — Put down whatever you 
 see any creature about." 
 
 The next evening, he went to him again, and 
 asked him for his paper. Arthur handed him a folded' 
 sheet. 
 
 "Now," said Mr. Wingfold, "I am not going to 
 look at this for the present. I am going to lay it in 
 one of my drawers, and you must write another for 
 me to-morrow. If you are able, bring it over to me ; 
 if not, lay it by, and do not look at it, but write 
 another, and another — one everyday, and give them 
 all to me the next time I come, which will be soon. 
 
WINGFOLD AND ARTHUR MANSON. 58 1 
 
 We shall go on that way for a month, and then we 
 shall see something ! " 
 
 At the end of the month Mr. Wingfold took all the 
 papers and fastened them together in their proper 
 order. Then they read them together, and did indeed 
 see something 1 The growth of Arthurs observation, 
 both in extent and quality, also the growth of his 
 faculty for narrating what he saw, were remarkable 
 both to himself and his instructor. The number of 
 things and circumstances he was able to see by the 
 end of the month, compared with the number he had 
 seen in the beginning of it, was wonderful ; while 
 the mode of his record-had changed from that of a 
 child to that almost of a man. 
 
 Mr. Wingfold next, as by that time the weather was 
 quite warm, set him "The task of six o'clock in the 
 evening," when the things that presented themselves 
 to his notice would be very different. After a fort- 
 night, he changed again the hour of his observation, 
 and went on changing it. So that at length the youth 
 who had, twice every day, walked along Cheapside 
 almost without seeing that one face differed from 
 another, knew most of the birds and many of the 
 insects, and could in general tell what they were 
 about, while the domestic animals were his familiar 
 friends. He delighted in the grass and the wild 
 flowers, the sky and the clouds and the stars, and 
 knew, after a real, vital fashion, the world in which 
 he lived. He entered into the life that was going on 
 about him, and so in the house of God became one of 
 the family. He had ten times his former conscious- 
 ness ; his life was ten times the size it was before. 
 As was natural, his health had improved marvellous- 
 ly. There is nothing like interest in life to quicken 
 
582 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 the vital forces — the secret of which is, that they are 
 left freer to work. 
 
 Richard was rejoiced with the change in him, and 
 reckoned of what he might learn from Arthur in the 
 long days before them ; while he in turn would tell 
 him many things he would now be prepared to hear. 
 The soul that had seemed rapidly sinking into the 
 joyless dark was now burning clear as a torch of 
 heaven. 
 
CHAPTER LX. 
 
 kiCHARD AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 As the dinner hour drew nigh, Richard went to the 
 drawing-room, scrupulously dressed. Lady Ann 
 gave him the coldest of polite recognitions ; Theodora 
 was full of a gladness hard to keep within the bounds 
 which fear of her mother counselled ; Victoria was 
 scornful, and as impudent as she dared be in the 
 presence of her father ; Miss Malliver was utterly 
 wooden, and behaved as if she had never seen him 
 before ; Arthur was poHte and superior. Things 
 went pretty well, however, Percy, happily, was at 
 Woolwich, pretending to study engineering : of him 
 Richard had learned too much at Oxford. 
 
 Theodora and Richard were at once drawn to each 
 other — he prejudiced in her favor by Barbara, she 
 proud of her new, handsome brother. She was a 
 plain, good-natured, good-tempered girl — with red 
 hair, which only her father and mother disliked, and 
 a modest, freckled face, whose smile was genuine 
 and faith-inspiring. Her mother counted her stupid, 
 accepting the judgment of the varnished governess, 
 who saw wonder or beauty or value in nothing her 
 eyes or hands could not reach. Theodora was indeed 
 one of those who, for lack of true teaching, or from 
 the deliberateness of nature, continue children longer 
 than most, but she was not therefore stupid. The aloe 
 takes seven years to blossom, but when it does, its 
 flower may be thirtv feet long. Where there is love 
 
584 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 there is intellect: at what period it may show itself, mat- 
 ters little. Richard felt he had in her another sister — 
 one for whom he might do something. He talked freely 
 as became him at his father's table, and the conver- 
 sation did not quite flag. If Lady Ann said next to 
 nothing, she said nearly as much as usual, and was 
 perfectly civil ; Arthur was sullen but not rude ; Theo- 
 dora's joy made her talk as she had never talked 
 before. A morn of romance had dawned upon her 
 commonplace life ! Vixen gave herself to her din- 
 ner, and but the shadow of a grimace now and 
 then reminded Richard of the old monkey-phiz. 
 
 Having the heart of a poet, the brain of a scientist, 
 and the hands of a workman — hands, that is, made 
 for making, Richard talked so vitally that in most 
 families not one but all would have been interested ; 
 and indeed Arthur too would have enjoyed listening, 
 but that he was otherwise occupied. That he had to 
 look unconcerned at his own deposition, while re- 
 garding as an intruder the man whose place he had 
 so long in a sense usurped, was not his sorest trial : 
 regarding as a prig the man who talked about things 
 worth talking about, he could not help feeling him- 
 self a poor creature, an empty sack, beside the son 
 of the low-born woman. But indeed Richard, brought 
 face to face with life, and taught to meet necessity 
 with labor, had had immeasurable advantages over 
 Arthur. 
 
 The younger insisted to himself that his brother 
 could not have the feelings of a gentleman ; that he 
 must have poverty-stricken ways of looking at things. 
 He could, it was true, find nothing in his manners, 
 carriage, or speech, unlike a gentleman, but the vul- 
 
V 
 
 RICHARD AND HIS FAMILY. 585 
 
 garity must be there, and he watched to find it. For 
 he was not himself a gentleman yet 
 
 When they went to the drawing-room, and Rich- 
 ard had sung a ballad so as almost to make Lady Ann 
 drop a scale or two from her fish-eyes, Arthur went 
 out of the room stung with envy, and not ashamed 
 of it. The thing most alien to the true idea of 
 humanity is the notion that our well-being lies in 
 surpassing our fellows. We have to rise above our- 
 selves, not above our neighbors; to take all the good 
 q/them woi from them, and give them all our good in 
 return. That which cannot be freely shared can 
 never be possessed. Arthur went to his room with 
 .a gnawing at his heart. Not merely must he knock 
 under to the foundling, but confess that the foundling 
 could do most things better than he — was out of sight 
 his superior in accomplishment as well as education. 
 — "But let us see how he rides and shoots!" he 
 thought. 
 
 Even Vixen, who had been saying to herself all 
 the time of dinner, " Mean fellow ! to come like a 
 fox and steal poor Arthur's property ! " — even she 
 was cowed a little by his singing, and felt for the 
 moment in the presence of her superior. 
 
 Sir Wilton was delighted. Here was a son to rep- 
 resent him ! — the son of the woman the county had 
 declined to acknowledge ! What was Lady Ann's 
 plebeian litter beside this high-bred, modest, self- 
 possessed fellow ! He was worthy of his father, by 
 Jove 1 
 
 He went early to bed, and Richard was not sorry. 
 He too retired early, leaving the rest to talk him 
 over. 
 
 How they did it, I do not care to put on record. 
 
586 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Theodora said little, for her heart had come awake 
 with a new and lovely sense of gladness and 
 hope. 
 
 "If he would but fall in love with Barbara Wylder ! " 
 she thought ; " — or rather if Barbara would but fall 
 in love with him, for nobody can help falling in love 
 with her, how happy I should be ! they are the two 
 I love best in the world ! — next to papa and mamma, 
 of course ! " she added, being a loyal girl. 
 
 The next morning, Richard came upon Arthur 
 shooting at a mark, and both with pistols and rifle 
 beat him thoroughly. But when Arthur began to talk 
 about shooting pheasants, he found in Richard a 
 rooted dislike to killing. This moved Arthur's con- 
 tempt. 
 
 " Keep it dark," he said ; " you'll be laughed at if 
 you don't. My father won't like it." 
 
 '"Why must a man enjoy himself at the expense of 
 joy.?" answered Richard. "I pass no judgment 
 upon your sport. I merely say I don't choose to 
 kill birds. What men may think of me for it is a 
 matter of indifference to me. I think of them much ■ 
 as they think of a Frenchman or an Italian, who 
 shoots larks and blackbirds and thrushes and nightin- 
 gales : I don't see the great difference ! " 
 
 They strolled into the stable. There stood Miss 
 Brown, looking over the door of her box. She re- 
 ceived Richard with glad recognition. 
 
 "How comes Miss Brown here.?" he asked. 
 "Where can her mistress be } " 
 
 "The mare's at home," answered Arthur. "I 
 bought her. " 
 
 "Oh!" said Richard, and going into the box, 
 lifted her foot, aud looked at the shoe. Ala_s. Miss 
 
RICHARD AND HIS FAMILY. 587 
 
 Brown had worn out many shoes since Barbara drove 
 a nail in her hoof ! Had there been one of hers there, 
 he would have known it — by a pretty peculiarity in 
 the turn of the point back into the hoof, which she 
 called her mark. The mare sniffed about his head 
 in friendly fashion. 
 
 "She smells the smithy ! " said Arthur to himself. — 
 "Yes ; your grandfather's work ! " he remarked. " I 
 should be sorry to see any other man shoe horse of 
 mine ! " 
 
 "So should I ! "answered Richard. " — I wonder 
 why Miss Wylder sold Miss Brown ! " he said, after 
 a pause. 
 
 "I am not so curious!" rejoined Arthur. "She 
 sold her, and I bought her." 
 
 Neither divined that the animal stood there a 
 sacrifice to Barbara's love of Richard. 
 
 Arthur had given up hope of winning Barbara, but 
 the thought that the bookbinder fellow might now, as 
 he vulgarly phrased it to himself, go in and win, 
 swelled his heart with a yet fiercer jealousy. "I 
 hate him," he said in his heart. Yet Arthur was not 
 a bad fellow as fellows go. He was only a man for 
 himself, believing every man must be for himself, and 
 count the man in his way his enemy. He was just 
 a man who had not begun to stop being a devil. 
 
 At breakfast, Lady Ann was almost attentive to her 
 stepson. As it happened they were left alone at the 
 table. Suddenly she addressed him. 
 
 " Richard, I have one request to make of you," she 
 said ; " I hope you will grant it me ! " 
 
 "I will if lean," he answered ; "but I must not 
 promise without knowing what it is." 
 
588 THERE AND BACK, 
 
 " You do not feel bound to please me, I know ! I 
 have the misfortune not to be your mother ! " 
 
 "I feel bound to please you where I can, and shall 
 be more than glad to do so." * 
 
 "It is a small thing I am going to ask. I should 
 not have thought of mentioning it, but for the terms 
 you seem upon with Mr. Wingfold. " 
 
 "I hope to see him within an hour or so." 
 
 " I thought as much ! — Do you happen to remem- 
 ber a small person who came a good deal about the 
 house when you were at work here.?" 
 
 " If your ladyship means Miss Wylder, I remember 
 her perfectly." 
 
 "It is necessary to let you know, and then I shall 
 leave the matter to your good sense, that Mrs. 
 Wylder, and indeed the girl herself at various times, 
 has behaved to me with such rudeness, that you can- 
 not in ordinary decency have acquaintance with them, 
 I mention it in case Mr. Wingfold should want to 
 take you to see them. They are parishioners of his." 
 
 "I am sorry I must disappoint you," said Richard. 
 
 Lady Ann rose with a gray glitter in her eyes. 
 
 "Am I to understand you intend calling on the 
 Wylders ? " she said. 
 
 " I have imperative reasons for calling upon them 
 this very morning," answered Richard. 
 
 " I am sorry you should so immediately show your 
 antagonism ! " said Lady Ann. 
 
 " My obligations to Miss Wylder are such that I 
 miist see her the first possible moment." 
 
 " Have you asked your father's permission ? " 
 
 "I have not," answered Richard, and left the room 
 hurriedly. 
 
 The next moment he was out of the house : Lady 
 
RICHARD AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 Ann might go to his father, and he would gladly avoid 
 the necessity of disobeying him the first morning 
 after his return ! He did not know how small was 
 her influence with her husband. He took the path 
 across the fields, and ran until he was out of sight of 
 Mortgrange. 
 
CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 HEART TO HEART. 
 
 When he came to the parsonage, which he had to 
 pass on his way to the Hall, he saw Mr. Wingfold 
 through the open window of the drawing-room, and 
 turned to the door. The parson met him on the 
 threshold, 
 
 ' ' Welcome ! " he said. "How did you get through 
 your dinner.? " 
 
 "Better than I expected," replied Richard. "But 
 this morning my stepmother began feeling my mouth : 
 she would have me promise not to call on the Wyl- 
 ders. They had been rude to her, she said. " 
 
 " Come into the drawing-room. A friend of mine 
 is there who will be glad to see you." 
 
 The drawing-room of the parsonage was low and 
 dark, with its two windows close together on the 
 same side. At the farther end stood a lady, seem- 
 ingly occupied with an engraving on the wall. She 
 did not move when they entered. Wingfold led 
 Richard up to her, then turned without a word, and 
 left the room. Before either knew, they were each 
 in the other's arms. 
 
 Barbara was sobbing. Richard thought he had 
 dared too much and had frightened her. 
 
 "I couldn't help it ! " Barbara said, pleadingly. 
 
 "My life has been a longing for you!" said 
 Richard. 
 
HEART TO HEART. 
 
 591 
 
 "I have wanted you every day !" said Barbara, 
 and began again to sob, but recovered herself with 
 an effort. 
 
 "This will never do," she cried, laughing through 
 her tears. " I shall go crazy with having you ! And 
 I've not seen you yet ! Let me go, please. I want 
 to look at you ! " 
 
 Richard released her. She lifted a blushing, tear- 
 ful face to his. But there was only joy, no pain 
 in her tears ; only delight, no shame in her blushes. 
 One glance at the simple, manly face before her, 
 so full of the trust that induces trust, would have 
 satisfied any true woman that she was as safe in his 
 thoughts as in those of her mother. She gazed at 
 him one long silent moment 
 
 " How splendid you are!" she cried, like a wild 
 schoolgirl. "How good of you to grow like that ! 
 1 wish I could see you on Miss Brown I — What are 
 you going to do, Richard ? " 
 
 While she spoke, Richard was pasturing his eyes, 
 the two mouths of his soul, on the heavenly meadow 
 of her face ; and she for very necessity went on talk- 
 ing, that she might not cry again. 
 
 "Are you going back to the bookbinding.'" she 
 said. 
 
 "I do not know. Sir Wilton — my father hasn't 
 told me yet what he wants me to do. — Wasn't it good 
 of him to send me to Oxford ? " 
 
 "You've been at Oxford then all this time.? — I 
 suppose he will make an officer of you now ! — Not 
 that I care ! I am content with whatever contents 
 you ! " 
 
 " I dare say he will hardly like me to live by my 
 hands !" answered Richard, laughing. "He would 
 
592 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 count it a degradation ! There I shall never be able 
 to think like a gentleman ! " 
 
 Barbara looked perplexed. 
 
 "You don't mean to say he's going to treat you 
 just like one of the rest?" she exclaimed. 
 
 " I really do not know," answered Richard ; " but 
 I think he would hardly enjoy the thought of Sir 
 Richard Lesirange over a bookbinder's shop in Ham- 
 mersmith or Brentford ! " 
 
 ''Sir Richard ! You do not mean } " 
 
 Her face grew white ; her eyes fell ; her hand 
 trembled on Richard's arm. 
 
 "What is troubling you, dearest.?" he asked, in 
 his turn perplexed. 
 
 " I can't understand it ! " she answered. 
 
 "Is it possible you do not know, Barbara.?" he 
 returned. " I thought Mr. Wingfold must have told 
 you ! — Sir Wilton says I am his son that was lost. 
 Indeed there is no doubt of it ! " 
 
 "Richard! Richard! believe me I didn't know. 
 Lady Ann told me you were not ! " 
 
 "How then should I have dared put my arms 
 round you, Barbara ? " 
 
 " Richard, I care nothing for what the world 
 thinks ! I care only for what God thinks." 
 
 "Then, Barbara, you would have married me, 
 believing me base-born } " 
 
 " Oh, Richard ! you thought it was knowing who 
 
 you were that made me ! Richard ! Richard ! I 
 
 did not think you could have wronged me so ! My 
 father sold Miss Brown because I would not marry 
 your brother and be Lady Lestrange. If you had 
 not asked me, and I had been sure it was only 
 because of your birth you wouldn't, I should have 
 
HEART TO HEART. 593 
 
 found some way of letting you know I cared no 
 more for that than God himself does. The god of 
 the world is the devil. He has many names, but 
 he's all the same devil, as Mr. Wingfold says. — I 
 wonder why he never told me ! — I'm glad he didn't. 
 If he had, I shouldn't be here now ! " 
 
 " I am very glad too, Barbara ; but it wouldn't 
 have made so much difference : I was only here on 
 my way to you ! But suppose it had been as you 
 thought, it was one thing what you would do, and 
 another what I would ask you to do ! " 
 
 "What I would have done was what you should 
 have believed I would do ! " 
 
 " You must just pardon me, Barbara : well as I 
 thought I knew you, I did not know you enough ! " 
 
 " You do now ? " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 There came a silence. 
 
 " How long have you known this about yourself, 
 Richard .? " said Barbara. 
 
 " More than four years." 
 
 " And you never told me ! " 
 
 " My father wished it kept a secret for a time." 
 
 " Did Mr. Wingfold know ? " 
 
 " Not till yesterday." 
 
 " Why didn't he tell me yesterday, then ? " 
 
 " I think he wouldn't have told you if he had 
 known all the time." 
 
 "Why.?" 
 
 " For the same reason that made him leave us 
 together so suddenly — that you might not be ham- 
 pered by knowing it — that we might understand each 
 other before you knew. I see it all now ! It was 
 just like him ! " 
 
 38 
 
594 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Oh, he is a friend!" cried Barbara. "He knows 
 what one is, and so knows what one is thinking !" 
 
 A silent embrace followed, and then Barbara said : 
 
 " You must come and see my mother ! " 
 
 " Hadn't you better tell her first ? " suggested 
 Richard. 
 
 " She knows — knows what you didn't know — what 
 I've been thinking all the time," rejoined Barbara, 
 with a rosy look of confidence into his eyes. 
 . "She can never have been willing you should 
 marry a tradesman — and one, besides, who — ~! " 
 
 "She knew I would — and that I should have 
 money, else she might not have been willing. I 
 don't say she likes the idea, but she is determined I 
 shall have the man I love — if he will have me," she 
 added, shyly. 
 
 " Did you tell her you — cared for me .? " 
 
 He could not say /oved yet ; he felt an earthy pebble 
 beside a celestial sapphire ! 
 
 "Of course I did, when papa wanted me to have 
 Arthur ! — not till then ; there was no occasion ! I 
 could not tell what your thoughts were, but my own 
 were enough for that." 
 
 Mrs. Wylder was taken with Richard the moment 
 she saw him ; and when she heard his story, she 
 was overjoyed, and would scarcely listen to a word 
 about the uncertainty of his prospects. That her 
 Bab should marry the man she loved, and that the 
 alliance should be what the world counted respect- 
 able, was enough for her. 
 
 When Richard told his father what he had done, 
 saying they had fallen in love with each other while 
 yet ignorant of his parentage, a glow of more than 
 satisfaction warmed Sir Wilton's consciousness. It 
 
HEART TO HEART. 
 
 595 
 
 was lovely ! Lady Ann was being fooled on all 
 sides ! 
 
 " Richard has been making good use of his morn- 
 ing ! " he said at .dinner. " He has already proposed 
 to Miss Wylder and been accepted ! Richard is a 
 man of action— a practical fellow ! " 
 
 Lady Ann did perhaps turn a shade paler, but she 
 smiled. It was not such a blow as it might have 
 been, for she too had given up hope of securing her 
 for Arthur. But it was not pleasant to her that the 
 grandchild of the blacksmith should have Barbara's 
 money, 
 
 Theodora was puzzled. 
 
CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 THE QUARREL. 
 
 For a few weeks, things went smoothly enough. 
 Not a jar occurred in the feeble harmony, not a ques- 
 tionable cloud appeared above the horizon. The 
 home-weather seemed to have grown settled. Lady 
 Ann was not unfriendly. Richard, having provided 
 himself with tools for the purpose, bound her prayer- 
 book in violet velvet, with her arms cut out in gold 
 on the cover ; and she had not seemed altogether 
 ungrateful. Arthur showed no active hostility, made 
 indeed some little fight with himself to behave as a 
 brother ought to a brother he would rather not have 
 found. Far from inseparable, they were yet to be 
 seen together about the place. Vixen had not once 
 made a face to his face ; I will not say she had 
 made none at his back. Theodora and he were fast 
 friends. Miss Malliver, now a sort of upper slave 
 to Lady Ann, cringed to him. 
 
 Arthur readily sold him Miss Brown, and every 
 day she carried him to Barbara. But he took the 
 advice of Wingfold, and was not long from home 
 any day, but much at hand to his father's call, who 
 had many things for him to do, and was rejoiced to 
 find him, unlike Arthur, both able and ready. He 
 would even send him where a domestic might have 
 done as well ; but Richard went with hearty good 
 will. It gladdened him to be of service to the old 
 man. 
 
THE QUARREL. 597 
 
 Then a rumor reached his father's ears, carried to 
 Lady Ann by her elderly maid, that Richard had 
 been seen in low company; and he was not long in 
 suepecting the truth of the matter. 
 
 Not once before since Richard's return, had Sir 
 Wilton given the Mansons a thought, never doubt- 
 ing his son's residence at Oxford must have cured 
 him of a merely accidental inclination to such low 
 company, and made evident to him that recognition 
 of such relationship as his to them was an unheard- 
 of impropriety, a sin against social order, a class- 
 treachery. 
 
 Almost every day Richard went to Wylder Hall, 
 he had a few minutes with Alice at the parsonage. 
 Neither Barbara nor her lawless, great-hearted 
 mother, would have been pleased to have it other- 
 wise. Barbara treated Alice as a sister, and so did 
 Helen Wingfold, who held that such service as hers 
 must be recompensed with love, and the money 
 thrown in. There kindness, with her new peace of 
 heart, and plenty of food and fresh air, had made 
 her strong and almost beautiful. 
 
 It was Richard's custom to ride over in the morn- 
 ing, but one day it was more convenient for him to 
 go in the evening, and that same evening it happened 
 that Arthur Manson had gone to see his sister. When 
 Richard, on his way back from the Hall, found him 
 at the parsonage, he proposed to see him home : 
 INIiss Brown was a good walker, and if Arthur did 
 not choose to ride all the way, they would ride and 
 walk alternately. Arthur was delighted, and they 
 set out in the dusk on foot, Alice going a little way 
 with them. Richard led Miss Brown, and Alice 
 clung joyously to his arm : but for Richard, she 
 
598 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 would not have known that human being ever was 
 or could be so happy ! The western sky was a 
 smoky red; the stars were coming out; the wind 
 was mild, and seemed to fill her soul with life from 
 the fountain of life, from God himself. 
 
 For Alice had been learning from Barbara — not to 
 think things, but to feel realities, the reality of reed 
 things — to see truths themselves. Often, when Mrs. 
 Wingfold could spare her, Barbara would take her 
 out for a \valk. Then sometimes as they walked 
 she would quite forget her presence, and through 
 that very forgetting Alice learned much. When first 
 she saw Barbara lost in silent joy, and could see 
 nothing to make her look glad, she wondered a 
 moment, then swiftly concluded she must be think- 
 ing of God. When she saw her spread out her arms 
 as if to embrace the wind that flowed to meet them, 
 then too she wondered, but presently began to feel 
 what a thing the wind was — how full of something 
 strange and sweet. She began to learn that nothing 
 js dead, that there cannot be a physical abstraction, 
 that nothing exists for the sake of the laws of its 
 phenomena. She did not put it so to herself, I need 
 hardly say ; but she was, in a word, learning to 
 feel that the world was alive. Of the three she 
 was the merriest that night as they went together 
 along the quiet road. A little way out of the vil- 
 lage, Richard set her on the mare, and walked by 
 her side, leading Miss Brown. Such was the tolerably 
 sufficient foundation for the report that he was seen 
 rollicking with a common-looking lad and a servant 
 girl on the high road, in the immediate vicinity 
 of Wylder Hall. 
 
 " He is his father's son ! " reflected Lady Ann. 
 
THE QUARRF.L. 599 
 
 " He's a chip of the old block ! " said Sir Wilton to 
 himself. But he did not approve of the openness of 
 the thing. To let such doings be seen was low ! 
 
 Presently fell an ugly light on the affair. 
 
 "By Jove ! " he said to himself, "it's that infernal 
 Manson girl ! I'll lay my life on it ! The fellow is 
 too much of a puritan to flaunt his own foibles in the 
 public eye ; but, hang him, he don't love his father 
 enough not to flaunt his! Dead and buried, the 
 rascal hauls them out of their graves for men to see ! 
 It's all the cursed socialism of his mother's relations ! 
 Otherwise the fellow would be all a father could 
 wish ! I might have known it \ The Armour blood 
 was sure to break out ! What business has he with 
 what his father did before he was born ! He was 
 nowhere then, the insolent dog ! He shall do as I 
 tell him or go about his business — go and herd with 
 the Mansons and all the rest of them if he likes, and 
 be hanged to them ! " 
 
 He sat in smouldering rage for a while, and then 
 again his thoughts took shape in words, though not in 
 speech. 
 
 " How those fools of Wylders will squirm when I 
 cut the rascal off with a shilling, and settle the prop- 
 erty on the man the little lady refused 1 But Dick 
 will never be such a fool ! He cannot reconcile his 
 Puritanism with such brazen-faced conduct ! I shall 
 never make a gentleman of him ! He will revert to 
 the original type ! It had disappeared in his mother ! 
 What's bred in the bone will never out of the flesh ! " 
 
 Richard was at the moment walking with Mr. 
 Wingfold in the rector}'- garden. They were speaking 
 of what the Lord meant when he said a inan must 
 leave all for him. 
 
600 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 As soon as he entered his father's room, he saw 
 that something had gone wrong with him. 
 
 "What is it, father.?" he said. 
 
 "Richard, sit down," said Sir Wilton. "I must 
 have a word with you : — What young man and 
 woman were you walking with two nights ago, not 
 far from Wylder Hall?" 
 
 "My brother and sister, sir — the Mansons." 
 
 " My God, I thought as much ! " cried the baronet, 
 and started to his feet — but sat down again : the fetter 
 of his gout pulled him back. "Hold up your right 
 hand," he went on — Sir Wilton was a magistrate, 
 " and swear, so help you, God, that you will never 
 more in your life speak one word to either of those — 
 persons, or leave my house at once." 
 
 "Father," said Richard, his voice trembling a 
 little, " I cannot obey you. To deny my friends and 
 relations, even at your command, would be to for- 
 sake my Master. It would be to break the bonds 
 that bind men, God's children, together. " 
 
 "Hold your cursed jargon! Bonds indeed ! Is 
 there no bond between you and your father.' " 
 
 "Believe me, father, I am very sorry, but I cannot 
 help it. I dare not obey you. You have been very 
 kind to me, and I thank you from my heart, " 
 
 " Shut up, you young hypocrite! you have tongue 
 enough for three ! — Come, I will give you one chance 
 more ! Drop those persons you call your brother 
 and sister, or I drop you. " 
 
 "You must drop me, then, father ! " said Richard 
 with a sigh. 
 
 " Will you do as I tell you ? " 
 
 " No, sir. I dare not." 
 
 "Then leave the house." 
 
THE QUARREL. 6oi 
 
 Richard rose. 
 
 " Good-bye, sir," he said. 
 
 "Get out of the house." 
 
 •' May I not take my tools, sir ? " 
 
 "What tools, curse you.?" 
 
 " I got some to bind Lady Ann's prayer-book." 
 
 "She's taken him in! By Jove, she's done him, 
 the fool ! She's been keeping him up to it, to enrage 
 me and get rid of him ! " said the baronet to him- 
 self. 
 
 "What do you want them for.?"' he asked, a little 
 calmer. 
 
 " To work at my trade. If you turn me out, I 
 must go back to that." 
 
 "Damn your soul ! it never was, and never will be 
 anything but a tradesman's ! Damn my soul, if I 
 wouldn't rather make young Manson my heir than 
 you ! — No, by Jove, you shall not have your cursed 
 tools ! Leave the house. You cannot claim a chair- 
 leg in it ! " 
 
 Richard bowed, and went ; got his hat and stick ; 
 and walked from the house with about thirty shillings 
 in his pocket. 
 
 His heart was like a lump of lead, but he was 
 nowise dismayed. He was in no perplexity how to 
 live, Happy the man who knows his hands the gift 
 of God, the providers for his body 1 I would in 
 especial that teachers of righteousness were able, 
 with St. Paul, to live by their hands ! 
 
 Outside the lodge-gate he paused, and stood in the 
 middle of the road thinking. Thus far he had seen 
 his way, but no farther. To which hand must he 
 turn ? Should he go to his grandfather, or to Bar- 
 bara? 
 
6o2 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 He set out, plodding across the fields, for Wylder 
 Hall. There was no Miss Brown for him now. 
 
 Miss Wylder, they told him, was in the garden. 
 
 She sat in a summer-house, reading a story. When 
 she heard his step, she knew, from the very sound 
 of it, that he was discomposed. Never was such a 
 creature for interpreting the signs of the unseen ! 
 Her senses were as discriminating as those of wild 
 animals that have not only to find life but to avoid 
 death by the keenness of their wits. She came out, 
 and met him in the dim green air under a wide- 
 spreading yew. 
 
 "What is the matter, Richard.?" she said, looking 
 in his face with anxiety. " What has gone wrong .? " 
 
 "My father has turned me out" 
 
 " Turned you out.'' " 
 
 "Yes. I must swear never to speak another 
 word to Alice or Arthur, or go about my business. 
 1 went." 
 
 "Of course you did!" cried Barbara, lifting her 
 dainty chin an inch higher. 
 
 Then, after a little pause, in which she looked with 
 loving pride straight in-to his eyes — for was he not a 
 man after her own brave big heart ! — she resumed : 
 
 "Well, it is no worse for you than before, and ever 
 so much better for me ! — What are you going to do, 
 Richard.' — There are so many things you could turn 
 to now ! " 
 
 "Yes, but only one I can do well. I might get 
 fellows to coach, but I should have to wait too long 
 — and then I should have to teach what I thought 
 worth neither the time nor the pay. I prefer to live 
 by my hands, and earn leisure for something else." 
 
 "I like that," said Barbara. "Will it take you 
 long to get into the way of your old work.? "' 
 
THE QUARREL. 603 
 
 " I don't think it will, " answered Richard; "and 
 I believe I shall do better at it now. I was looking- 
 at some of it yesterday morning-, and was surprised 
 I should have been pleased with it. In myself grow- 
 ing-, I have grown to demand better work — better 
 both in idea and execution." 
 
 "It is horrid to have you go," said Barbara ; "but 
 I will think you up to God every day, and dream 
 about you every night, and read about you every 
 book. I wnll write to you, and you will write to me 
 — and— and" — she was on the point of crying, but 
 would not — "and then the old smell of the leather 
 and the paste will be so nice ! " 
 
 She broke into a merry laugh, and the crisis was 
 over. 
 
 They walked together to the smithy. 
 
 Fierce was the wrath of the blacksmith. But for 
 the presence of Barbara, he would have called his 
 son-in-law ugly names. His anger soon subsided, 
 however, and he laughed at himself for spending 
 indignation on such a man. 
 
 " I might have known him by this time ! " he said. 
 " — But just let him come near the smithy ! " he re- 
 sumed, and his eyes began to flame again. "He 
 shall know, if he does, what a blacksmith thinks of 
 a baronet ! — What are you going to do, my son ? " 
 
 " Go back to my work." 
 
 "Never to that old-wife trade.?" cried the black- 
 smith. "Look here, Richard !" he said, and bared 
 his upper arm, "there's what the anvil does ! " Then 
 he bent his shoulders, and began to wheeze. "And 
 there's what the bookbinding does 1" he continued. 
 " No, no ; you turn in with me, and we'll show them 
 a sight ! — a gentleman that can make his living with 
 
6o4 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 his own hands ! The country shall see Sir Wilton 
 Lestrange's heir a blacksmith because he wouldn't 
 be a snob and deny his own flesh and blood ! — ' I saw 
 your son to-day, Sir Wilton— at the anvil with his 
 grandfather! What a fine fellow he do be ! Lord, 
 how he do fnake the sparks fly I ' — If I had liim, the 
 old sinner, he should see sparks that came from 
 somewhere else than the anvil I — You turn in with 
 me, Richard, and do work fit for a man ! " 
 
 "Grandfather," answered Richard, " I couldn't do 
 your work so well as my own." 
 
 " Yes, you could. In six weeks you'll be a better 
 smith than ever you'd be a bookbinder. There's no 
 good or bad in that sort of soft thing ! I'll make you 
 a better blacksmith than myself There! I can't 
 say fairer ! " 
 
 "But don't you think it better not to irritate my 
 father more than I must.? I oughtn't to, torment 
 him. As long as I was here he would fancy me 
 braving him. When I am out of sight, he may think 
 of me again and want to see me — as Job said his 
 maker would." 
 
 "I don't remember," said Barbara. "Tell me." 
 
 " He says to God— I was reading it the other day 
 — 'I wish you would hide me in the grave till you've 
 done being angry with me ! Then you would want 
 to see again the creature you had made ; you would 
 call me, and I would answer ! ' God's not like that, 
 of course, but my father might be. There is more 
 chance of his getting over it, if I don't trouble him 
 with sight or sound of me." 
 
 "Well, perhaps you're right ! " said Simon. "Oft" 
 with you to your woman's work ! and God bless 
 you ! " 
 
CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 BARONET AND BLACKSMITH. 
 
 Richard took Barbara home, and the same night 
 started for London. Barbara prayed him to take 
 what money she had, but he said that by going- in 
 the third class he would have something over, and, 
 once there, would begin to earn money immediately. 
 
 His aunt was almost beside herself for lack of 
 outlet to her surprise and delight at seeing him. 
 When she heard his story, however, it was plain she 
 took part with his father, though she was too glad to 
 have her boy again to say so. His uncle too was 
 sincerely glad. His work had not been the same 
 thing to him since Richard went ; and to have him 
 again was what he had never hoped. He could not 
 help a grudge that Richard should lose his position 
 for the sake of such as the Mansons, but he saw now 
 the principle involved. He saw too that, in virtue 
 of his belief in God as the father of all, his nephew 
 had much the stronger sense' of the claim of man 
 upon man. 
 
 Richard never disputed with his uncle ; he but 
 suggested, and kept suggesting — in the firm belief 
 that an honest mind must, sooner or later, open its 
 doors to every truth. 
 
 He settled to his work as if he had never been 
 away from it, and in a fortnight or so could work 
 faster and better than before. Soon he had as much 
 
6o6 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 in his peculiar department as he was able to do, for 
 almost all his old employers again sought him His 
 story being now no secret, they wondered he should 
 return to his trade, but no one thought he had chosen 
 to be a workman because he was not a gentleman. 
 
 But how changed was the world to him since the 
 time that looked so far away ! With how much 
 larger a life in his heart would he now sit in the 
 orchestra while the gracious forms of music filled the 
 hall, and he seemed to see them soaring on the 
 pinions of the birds of God, as Dante calls the angels, 
 or sweeping level in dance divine, like the six- 
 winged serpents of Isaiah's vision high and lifted up 
 — all the interspaces filled with glow-worms and little 
 spangled snakes of coruscating sound ! He was more 
 blessed now than even when but to lift his eyes was 
 to see the face of Barbara : she was in his faith and 
 hope now as well as in his love. 
 
 He had the loveliest of letters from her. She in- 
 sisted he should not write oftener than once for her 
 twice : his time was worth more, she said, than 
 twice hers. Mr. Wingfold wrote occasionally, and 
 Richard always answered within a week. 
 
 As soon as his son was gone. Sir Wilton began to 
 miss him. He wished, first, that the obstinacy of 
 the rascal had not made it necessary to give him 
 quite so sharp a lesson ; he wished, next, that he had 
 given him time to see the reasonableness of his de- 
 mand ; and at length, as the days and weeks passed, 
 and not a whisper of prayer entered the ears of the 
 family-Baal, he began to wish that .he had not sent 
 him away. The desire to see him grew a longing : 
 bis need of him became imperative. Arthur, who 
 now tried a little to do the work he had before 
 
BARONET AND BLACKSMITH, 607 
 
 declined, was the poorest substitute for Richard; and 
 his father kept thinking how differently Richard had 
 served him. He repented at last as much as was 
 possible to him, and wished he had left the rascal to 
 take his own way. He tried to understand how it 
 was that, anxious always to please him, he yet 
 would not in such a trifle, and that with nothing to 
 gain and everything to lose by his obstinacy. There 
 might be conscience in it ! his mother certainly had 
 a conscience ! But how could the fool make the 
 Mansons a matter of his conscience ? They were no 
 business of his ! 
 
 He pretended to himself that he had been born 
 without a conscience. At the same time he knew 
 very well there were pigeon-holes in his memory he 
 preferred not searching in; knew very well he had 
 done things which were wrong, things he knew to be 
 wrong when he did them. If he had ever done a 
 thing because he ought to do it ; if he had ever ab- 
 stained from doing a thing because he ought not to 
 do it, he would have known he had a conscience. 
 Because he did not obey his conscience, he would 
 rather believe himself without one. I doubt if con- 
 sciousness ever exists without conscience, however 
 poorly either may be developed. 
 
 For the first time in his life he was possessed with 
 a good longing — namely, for his son ; a fulcrum was 
 at length established which might support leverage 
 for his uplifting. He grew visibly grayer, stooped 
 more, and became very irritable. Twenty times a 
 day he would be on the point of sending for Richard, 
 but twenty times a day his pride checked him. 
 
 "If the rascal would make but apology enough to 
 satisfy a Frenchman, I would take him back ! " he 
 
6o8 
 
 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 would say to himself over and over ; "but he's such a 
 chip of the old block ! — so infernally independent ! — 
 Well, I don't call it a great fault ! If I had had a trade, 
 I should have been just as independent of my father ! 
 No, I want no apology from him ! Let him just say, 
 ' Mayn't I come back, father? ' and the gold ring and 
 the wedding garment shall be out for him directly ! " 
 
 A month after Richard's expulsion, the baronet 
 drove to the smithy, and accused Simon of causing 
 all the mischief. He must send the boy Manson away, 
 he said : he would settle an annuity on the beggar. 
 That done, Richard must make a suitable apology, 
 and he would take him back. 
 
 Simon listened without a word. He wanted to see 
 how far he would go. 
 
 " If you will not oblige me," he ended, " you shall 
 not have another stroke of work from Mortgrange, 
 and I will use my influence to drive you from the 
 county." 
 
 Without waiting for an answer, he turned to walk 
 from the shop. But he did not walk. The moment 
 he turned, Simon took him by the shoulders and ran 
 him right out of the smithy up to his carriage, into 
 which, for the footman had made haste to open the 
 door, he would have tumbled him neck and heels, 
 but that, gout and all, Sir Wilton managed to spring 
 on the step, and get in without falling. In a rage 
 by no means unnatural, he called to the coachman 
 to send his lash about the ruffian's ears. Simon burst 
 into a guffaw, which so startled the horses that the 
 footman had to run to their heads. In his haste to 
 do so, he failed to shut the door properly ; it opened 
 and banged, swinging this way and that, as the horses 
 now reared, now backed, now pulled, and the bar- 
 
BARONET AND BLACKSMITH. 609 
 
 onet, cursing and swearing, was tossed about in his 
 carriage like a dried-up kernel in a nut. Simon at 
 length, with tears of merriment running down his 
 red cheeks, managed, in a succession of gymnastics, 
 to close the door. 
 
 "Home, Peterkin ! "he shouted, and turning away, 
 strode back to his forge, whence immediately sprang 
 upon the air the merriest tune ever played by anvil 
 and hammer with a horse-shoe between them — the 
 sparks flying about the musician like a nimbus of 
 embodied notes. It seemed to soothe the horses, 
 for they started immediately without further racket. 
 
 Before the next month was over, the baronet was 
 again in the smithy — in a better mood this time. He 
 made no reference to his former ignominious dis- 
 missal — wanted only to know if Simon had heard 
 from his grandson. The old man answered that he 
 had : he was well, happy, and busy. Sir Wilton 
 gave a grunt. 
 
 "Why didn't he stay and help you.?" 
 
 " I begged him to do so," answered Simon, "for 
 he is almost as good at the anvil, and quite as good 
 at the shoeing as myself ; but he said it would annoy 
 his father to have him so near, and he wouldn't do it." 
 
 His boy's good will made the baronet fidget and 
 swear to hide his compunction. But his evil angel 
 got the upper hand. 
 
 "The rascal knew," he cried, " that nothing would 
 annoy me so much as have him go back to his mire 
 like the washed sow ! " 
 
 Perceiving Simon look dangerous, he turned with 
 
 a hasty good-morning, and made for his carriage, 
 
 casting more than one uneasy glance over his 
 
 shoulder. But the blacksmith let him depart in peace. 
 
 39 
 
CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 THE BARONET S FUNERAL. 
 
 It was about a year after Richard's return to his 
 trade, when one morning the doctor at Barset was 
 roused by a groom, his horse all speckled with foam, 
 who, as soon as he had given his message* galloped 
 to the post-office, and telegraphed for a well-known 
 London physician. A little later, Richard received 
 a telegram : " Father paralyzed. Will meet first train. 
 Wingfold. " 
 
 With sad heart he obeyed the summons, and found 
 ■Wingfold at the station. 
 
 " I have just come from the house," he said. " He 
 is still insensible. They tell me he came to himself 
 once, just a little, and murmured Richard^ but has 
 not spoken since." 
 
 "Let us go to him ! " said Richard. 
 
 "I fear they will try to prevent you from seeing 
 him." 
 
 " They shall not find it easy." 
 
 " I have a trap outside." 
 
 "Come along." 
 
 They reached Mortgrange, and stopped at the lodge. 
 Richard walked up to the door. 
 
 " How is my father.? " he asked. 
 
 "Much the same, sir, I believe." 
 
 " Is it true that he wanted to see me? " 
 
 " I don't know, sir." 
 
 " Is he in his own room ? " 
 
THE baronet's FUNERAL. 6ll 
 
 "Yes, sir; but, I beg your pardon, sir," said the 
 man, " I have my lady's orders to admit no one ! " 
 
 While he spoke, Richard passed him, and went 
 straight to his father's room, which was on the 
 ground-floor. He opened the door softly, and entered. 
 His father lay on the bed, with the Barset surgeon 
 and the London doctor standing over him. The latter 
 looked round, saw him, and came to him. 
 
 " I gave orders that no one should be admitted," 
 he said, in a low stern tone. 
 
 " I understand my father wished to see me ! " 
 answered Richard. 
 
 " He cannot see you." 
 
 " He may come to himself any moment ! " 
 
 " He will never come to himself," returned the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Then why keep me out ? " said Richard. 
 
 The eyes of the dying man opened, and Richard 
 received his last look. Sir Wilton gave one sigh, and 
 death was past. Whether life was come, God only, 
 and those who watched on the other side, knew. 
 
 Lady Ann came in. 
 
 " The good baronet is gone ! " said the physician. 
 
 She turned away. Her eyes glided over Richard 
 as if she had never before seen him. He went up to 
 the bed, and she walked from the room. 
 
 When Richard came out, he found Wingfold where 
 he had left him, and got into the pony-carriage beside 
 him. The parson drove off. 
 
 " His tale is told," said Richard, in a choking 
 voice. " He did not speak, and I cannot tell whether 
 he knew me, but I had his last look, and that is 
 something. I would have been a good son to him if 
 he had let me — at least I would have tried to be. " 
 
6l2 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 He sat silent, thinking what he might have done 
 for him. Perhaps he would not have died if he had 
 been with him, he thought. 
 
 "It is best," said Wingfold. "We cannot say 
 anything would he best, but we must say everything 
 is best." 
 
 "I think I understand you," said Richard. "But 
 oh how I would have loved him if he would have 
 let me ! " 
 
 "And how you will love him!" said Wingfold, 
 " for he will love you. They are getting him ready 
 to let you now. I think he is loving you in the dark- 
 ness. He had begun to love you long before he 
 went. But he was the slave of the nature he had 
 enfeebled and corrupted. I hope endlessly for him 
 — though God only knows how long it may take, 
 even after the change is begun, to bring men like him 
 back to their true selves. — But surely, Richard," he 
 crieti, bethinking himself, and pulling up his ponies, 
 ' ' your right place is at Mortgrange — at least so long 
 as what is left of your father is lying in the house ! " 
 
 "Yes, no doubt ! and I did think whether I ought 
 not to assert myself, and remain until my father's 
 will was read ; but I concluded it better to avoid the 
 possibility of anything unpleasant. I cannot of 
 course yield my right to be chief mourner. I think 
 my father'would not wish me to do so." 
 
 "I am sure he would not. — Then, till the funeral, 
 you \vill stay with us ! " concluded the parson, as he 
 drove on. 
 
 "No, I thank you," answered Richard; "I must 
 be at my grandfather's. I will go there when I have 
 seen Barbara." 
 
 On the day of the funeral no one disputed Richard's 
 
THE baronet's FUNERAL. 613 
 
 right to the place he took, and when it was over, he 
 joined the company assembled to hear the late baro- 
 net's will. It was dated ten years before, and gave 
 the two estates of Mortgrange and Cinqmer to his 
 son, Arthur Lestrange. There vi^as in it no allusion 
 to the possible existence of a son by his first wife. 
 
 Richard rose. The lawyer rose also. 
 
 '• I am sorry, Sir Richard," he said, " that we can 
 find no later will. There ought to have been some 
 provision for the support of the title." 
 
 " My father died suddenly," answered Richard, 
 "and did not know of my existence until about five 
 years ago. " 
 
 "All I can say is, I am very sorry." 
 
 "Do not let it trouble you," returned Richard. 
 " It matters little to me ; I am independent." 
 
 "I am very glad to hear it. I had imagined it 
 otherwise." 
 
 "A man with a good trade and a good education 
 must be independent ! " 
 
 "Ah, I understand! — But your brother will, as a 
 matter of course — . I shall talk to him about it. 
 The estate is quite equal to it." 
 
 "The estate shall not be burdened with me," said 
 Richard with a smile. "I am the only one of the 
 family able to do as he pleases." 
 
 " But the title, Sir Richard ! " 
 
 "The title must look after itself. If I thought it 
 in the smallest degree dependent on money for its 
 dignity, I would throw it in the dirt. If it means 
 anything, it means more than money, and can stand 
 without it. If it be an honor, please God, I shall 
 keep it honorable. Whether I shall set it over my 
 shop, remains to be considered. — Good-morning!" 
 
6 14 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 As he left the room a servant met him with the 
 message that Lady Ann wished to see him in the 
 library. 
 
 Cold as ever, but not colder than always, she poked 
 her long- white hand at him. 
 
 "This is awkward for you, Richard," she said, 
 "but more awkward still for Arthur. Mortgrange is at 
 your service until you find some employment befit- 
 ting your position. You must not forget what is due 
 to the family. It is a great pity you offended your 
 father. " 
 
 Richard was silent. 
 
 ' ' He left it therefore in my hands to do as I thought 
 fit. Sir Wilton did not die the rich man people 
 imagined him, but I am ready to place a thousand 
 pounds at your disposal." 
 
 "I should be sorry to make the little he has left 
 you so much less," answered Richard. 
 
 "As you please," returned her ladyship. 
 
 " I should like to have just a word with my sister 
 Theodora," said Richard. 
 
 "I doubt if she will see you. — Miss Malliver, will 
 you take Mr. Tuke to the schoolroom, and then 
 inquire whether Miss Lestrange is able to leave her 
 room. You will stay with her : she is far from well. 
 — Perhaps you had better go and inquire first. Mr. 
 *! Tuke will wait you here." 
 
 I\Iiss Malliver came from somewhere, and left the 
 room. 
 
 Richard felt very angry : was he not to see his 
 father's daughter except in the presence of that 
 woman ? But he said nothing. 
 
 "There is just one thing, " resumed her ladyship, 
 "upon which, if only out of respect to the feelings of 
 
THE baronet's FUNERAL. 615 
 
 my late husband, I feel bo^md to insist ; — it is, that, 
 while in this neighborhood, you will be careful as to 
 what company you show yourself in. You will not, 
 I trust, pretend ignorance of my meaning, and cause 
 me the pain of having to be more explicit ! " 
 
 Richard was struck dumb with indignation — and 
 remained dumb from the feeling that he could not 
 condescend to answer her as she deserved. Ere he 
 had half recovered himself, she had again resumed. 
 
 "If the title were receded to the property," she 
 said, as if talking to herself, "it might be a matter 
 for more material consideration." 
 
 " Did your ladyship address me?" said Richard. 
 
 " If you choose to understand what I mean. — But 
 I speak with too much delicacy, I fear. Competisa- 
 iion it could be only by courtesy. — Suppose I referred 
 to the court of chancery my grave doubts of your 
 story .? " 
 
 " My father has acknowledged me 1 " 
 
 "And repudiated; — sent you from the house — left 
 you to pursue your trade — bequeathed you nothing ! 
 Everybody knows your father — my late husband, I 
 mean— would risk anything for my annoyance, 
 though, thank God, he dared not attempt to push 
 injury beyond the grave ! — he well knew the danger 
 of that ! Had he really believed you his son, do you 
 imagine he would have left you penniless .? Would 
 he not have been rejoiced to put you over Mr. 
 Lestrange 's head, if only to wring the heart of his 
 mother.?" 
 
 "The proofs that satisfied him remain." 
 "The testimony, that is, of those most interested 
 in the result — whose very case is a confession of 
 felony ! " 
 
6l6 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "A confession, if you will, that my own aunt was 
 the nurse that carried me away — of which there are 
 proofs. " 
 
 " Has any one seen those proofs ? " 
 
 " My father has seen them, Lady Ann." 
 
 *' You mean Sir Wilton .'' " 
 
 "I do. He accepted them." 
 
 " Has he left any document to that effect.? " 
 
 " Not that I know of." 
 
 "Who presented those proofs, as you call them.? " 
 
 "I told Sir Wilton where they had been hidden, 
 and tog-ether we found them." 
 
 ' ' Where ? " 
 
 "In the room that was the nursery." 
 
 "Which you occupied for months while working 
 at your trade in the house, and for weeks again 
 before Sir Wilton dismissed you ! " 
 
 "Yes," answered Richard, who saw very well 
 what she was driving at, but would not seem to under- 
 stand before she had fully disclosed her intent. 
 
 "And where you had opportunity to place what 
 you chose at your leisure ! — Excuse me ; I am only 
 laying before you what counsel would lay before the 
 court." 
 
 "You wish me to understand, I suppose, that you 
 regard me as an impostor, and believe I put the things, 
 for support of my aunt's evidence, where my father 
 and I found them ! " 
 
 " I do not say so. I merely endeavor to make you 
 see how the court would regard the affair — how much 
 appearances would be against you. At the same 
 time, I confess I have all along had grave doubts of 
 the story. You, of course, may have been deceived as 
 well as your father — I mean the late baronet, my hus- 
 
THE baronet's FUNERAL. 617 
 
 band ; but in any case, I will not admit you to be 
 what you call yourself, until you are declared such 
 by the law of the land. I will, however, make a pro- 
 posal to you — and no ungenerous one : — Pledge your- 
 self to make no defence, if, for form's sake, legal 
 proceedings should be judged desirable, and in lieu 
 of the possible baronetcy — for I admit the bare possi- 
 bility of the case, if tried, being given against us —I 
 will pay you five thousand pounds. It would cost 
 us less to try the case, no doubt, but the thing would 
 at best be disagreeable.— Understand I do not speak 
 without advice ! " 
 
 " Plainly you do not ! " assented Richard. " But," 
 he continued, " let me placq one thing before your 
 ladyship : To do as you ask me, would be to in- 
 dorse your charge against my father, that he acknowl- 
 edged me, that is, he lied, to give you annoyance ! 
 That is enough. But I have the same objection in 
 respect of my uncle and aunt, of whom you propose 
 to make liars and conspirators ! " 
 
 He turned to the door. 
 
 "You will consider it.?" said her ladyship in her 
 stateliest yet softest tone. 
 
 "I will. I shall continue to consider it the worst 
 insult you could have offered my father, your late 
 husband. Thank God he was my mother's husband 
 first ! " 
 
 " What am I to understand by that ? " 
 
 " Whatever your ladyship chooses, except that I 
 will not hold any farther communication with you 
 on the matter." 
 
 " Then you mean to dispute the title ? " 
 
 "I decline to say what I mean or do not mean to 
 do." 
 
6l8 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 Lady Ann rose to ring the bell. 
 Miss Malliver met Richard in the doorway. He 
 turned. 
 
 "I am going to bid Theodora good-bye," he said, 
 "You shall do no such thing ! " cried her ladyship. 
 Richard flew up the stair, and, believing Miss Mal- 
 liver had not gone to his sister, went straight to her 
 room. 
 
 The moment Theodora saw him, .she sprang from 
 the bed where she had lain weeping, and threw her- 
 self into his arms. He was the only one who had 
 ever made her feel what a man might be to a woman ! 
 He told her he had come to bid her good-bye. She 
 looked wild. 
 
 '.'But you're not going really — for altogether.?" 
 she said. 
 
 "My dear sister, what else can I do.? Nobody 
 here wants me ! " 
 
 " Indeed, Richard, I do ! " 
 
 "I know you do — and the time will come when 
 you shall have me ; but you would not have me live 
 where I. am not loved ! " 
 
 " Richard ! " she cried, with a burst of indignation, 
 the first, I fancy, she had ever felt, or at least given 
 way to, " you are the only gentleman in the family ! " 
 Richard laughed, and Theodora dried her eyes. 
 Miss Malliver was near enough to be able to report, 
 and the poor girl had a bad time of it in conse- 
 quence. 
 
 "I will not trouble Arthur," said Richard. "Say 
 good-bye to him for me, and give him my love. 
 Please tell him that, although all I had was my 
 father's, yet, as between him and me. Miss Brown is 
 mine, and I expect him to send her to Wylder Hall. 
 Good-bye again to my dear sister ! I leave a bit of 
 
THE BARONETS FUNERAL. 619 
 
 my heart in the house, where I know it will not be 
 trampled on ! " 
 
 Theodora could not speak. Her only answer was 
 another embrace, and they parted. 
 
 Richard went to see Barbara, and found her at the 
 parsonage. 
 
 "What an opportunity you have," said Wingfold, 
 '"of maintaining- before the world the honor of 
 work ! The man who makes a thing exist that did not 
 exist, or who sets anything right that had gone wrong, 
 must be more worthy than he who only consumes 
 what exists, or helps things to remain wrong ! " 
 
 "But," suggested Barbara, with her usual keen- 
 ness, " are you not now encouraging him to seek the 
 praise of men ? To seek it for a good thing, is the 
 more contemptible." 
 
 " There is little praise to begotfrom men for that," 
 said Wingfold ; "and I am sure Richard does not 
 seek any. He would help men to see that the man 
 who serves his neighbor, is the man whom the Lord 
 of the universe honors. An idle man, or one busy 
 only for himself, is hke a lump of refuse floating this 
 way and that in the flux and reflux of the sewer-tide 
 of the world. Were Richard lord of lands it would 
 be absurd of him to give his life to bookbinding ; that 
 would be to desert his neighbor on those lands ; but 
 what better can he do now than follow the trade by 
 which he may at once earn his living .? To omit the 
 question of possibility, — suppose he read for the bar, 
 would that bring him closer to humanity.? Would it 
 be a diviner mode of life.? Is it a more honorable 
 thing to win a cause — perhaps for the wrong man — 
 than to preserve an old and valuable book.? Will a 
 man rank higher in the kingdom that shall not end, 
 
620 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 because he has again and again rendered unrighteous- 
 ness triumphant? Would Richard's mind be as free 
 in chambers as in the workshop to search into truth, 
 or as keen to suspect its covert? Would he sit closer 
 to the well-springs of thought and aspiration in a bar- 
 rister's library, than among the books by which he 
 wins his bread ? " 
 
 With eternity before them, and God at the head and 
 the heart of the universe, Richard and Barbara did 
 not believe in separation any more than in death. He 
 in London and she at Wylder Hall, they w^ere far more 
 together than most unparted pairs. 
 
 Wingfold set himself to keep Barbara busy, giving 
 her plenty to read and plenty of work : her waiting 
 should be no loss of time to her if he could help it ! 
 Among other things, he set her to teach his boy where 
 she thought herself much too ignorant : he held, not 
 only that to teach is the best way to learn, but that the 
 imperfect are the best teachers of the imperfect. He 
 thought this must be why the Lord seems to regard 
 with so much indifference the many falsehoods uttered 
 of and for him. When a man, he said, agonized to ^.^ 
 get into other hearts the thing dear to his own, the 
 false intellectual or even rrioral forms in which his 
 ignorance and the crudity of his understanding com- 
 pelled him to embody it, would not render its truth 
 of none effect, but might, on the contrary, make its 
 reception possible where a truer presentation would 
 stick fast in the doorway. 
 
 He made Richard promise to take no important 
 step for a year without first letting him know. He was 
 anxious he should have nothing to undo because of 
 what the packet committed to his care might con- 
 tain. 
 
CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 THE PACKET. 
 
 The day so often in Wingfold's thought arrived at 
 last — the anniversary of the death of Sir Wilton. He 
 rose early, his mind anxious, and his heart troubled 
 that his mind should be anxious, and set out for 
 London by the first train. Arrived, he sought at 
 once the office of Sir Wilton's lawyer, and when at 
 last Mr. Bell appeared, begged him to witness the 
 opening of the packet. Mr. Bell broke the seal him- 
 self, read the baronet's statement of the request he 
 had made to Wingfold, 'and then opened the inclosed 
 packet. 
 
 " A most irregular proceeding ! " he exclaimed — as 
 well he might : his late client had committed to the 
 keeping of the clergyman of another parish the will, 
 signed and properly witnessed, which Mr. JBell had 
 last drawn up for him, and of which, as it was no- 
 where discoverable, he had not doubted the destruc- 
 tion ! Here it was, devising and bequeathing his 
 whole property, real and personal, exclusive only of 
 certain legacies of small account, to Richard Les- 
 trange, formerly known as Richard Tuke, reputed 
 son of John and Jane Tuke, born Armour, but in 
 reality sole son of Wilton Arthur Lestrange, of Mort- 
 grange and Cinqmer, Baronet, and Robina Armour 
 his wife, daughter of Simon Armour, Blacksmith, 
 born in lawful wedlock in the house of Mortgrange, 
 
622 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 in the year i8 — ! — and so worded, at the request of 
 Sir Wilton, that even should the law declare him sup- 
 posititious, the property must yet be his ! 
 
 "This will be a terrible blow to that proud 
 woman!" said Mr. Bell. "You must prepare her 
 for the shock ! " 
 
 " Prepare Lady Ann 1 " exclaimed Wingfold. " Be- 
 lieve me, she is in no danger ! An earthquake would 
 not move her." 
 
 "I must see her lawyer at once ! " said I\Ir. Bell, 
 rising. 
 
 " Let me have the papers, please," said Wingfold. 
 " Sir Wilton did not tell me to bring them to you. I 
 must take them to Sir Richard." 
 
 " Then you do not wish me to move in the matter.? " 
 
 "I shall advise Sir Richard to put the affair in your 
 hands ; but he must do it ; I have not the power." 
 
 "You are very right. L shall be here till five 
 o'clock." 
 
 " I hope to be with you long before that ! " 
 
 It took Wingfold an hour to find Richard. He heard 
 the news without a word, but his eyes flashed, and 
 Wingfold knew he thought of Barbara and his mother 
 and the Mansons. Then his face clouded. 
 
 "It will bring trouble on the rest of my father's 
 family ! " he said. 
 
 " Not upon all of them," returned Wingfold ; " and 
 you have it in your power to temper the trouble. 
 But I beg you will not be hastily generous, and do 
 what you may regret, finding it for the good of none. " 
 
 "I will think well before I do anything," 
 answered Richard. "But there may be another 
 will yet 1 " 
 
 "Of course there may ! No one can tell. In the 
 
THE PACKET. 623 
 
 meantime we must be guided by appearances. 
 Come with me to Mr. Bell." 
 
 " I must see my mother first." 
 
 He found her ironing- a shirt for him, and told her 
 the news. She received them quietly. So many 
 changes had got both her and Richard into a sober 
 way of expecting. And yet here was accomplished 
 the very thing for which Jane Tuke had lived and 
 hoped all these years. Her sister — despised and un- 
 loved by the man who had given her his name but 
 not his heart — was avenged. The pride of Lady 
 Ann, whom from that first icy interview Jane had 
 hated as she had feared, would have its downfall 
 and the reward of virtue, so often delayed in the 
 world, at last would come. Jane would have been 
 more than mortal had she not secretly rejoiced at 
 this new development of affairs, and yet she was 
 quiet. 
 
 They went to Mr. Bell, and Richard begged him 
 to do what he judged necessary. Mr. Bell at once 
 communicated with Lady Ann's lawyer, and requested 
 him to inform her ladyship that Sir Richard would 
 call upon her the next day. 
 
 Mr. Wingfold accompanied him to Mortgrange. 
 Lady Ann received them with perfect coolness. 
 
 "You are, I trust, aware of the cause of my visit, 
 Lady Ann ? " said Richard. 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " May I ask what you propose to do ? " 
 
 "That, excuse me, is my affair. It lies with me 
 to ask you what provision you intend making for 
 Sir Wilton's family." 
 
 "Allow me. Lady Ann, to take the lesson you 
 have given me, and answer, that is my affair." 
 
624 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 She saw she had made a mistake. 
 
 " For my part," she returned, " I should not object 
 to remaining in the house, were I but assured that 
 my daughters should be in no danger of meeting 
 improper persons." 
 
 " It would be no pleasure, Lady Ann, to either of 
 us to be so near the other. Our ways of thinking 
 are too much opposed. I venture to suggest that 
 you should occupy your jointure-house." 
 
 " I will do as I see fit." 
 
 "You must find another home." 
 
 Lady Ann left the room, and the next week the 
 house, betaking herself to her own, which was not 
 far off, in the park at Cinqmer, the smaller of the 
 two estates. 
 
 The week following, Richard went to see Arthur. 
 
 "Now, Arthur," he said, "let us be frank with 
 each other ! I am not your enemy. I am bound to 
 do the best I can for you all, 
 
 "When you thought the land was yours, I had a 
 trade to fall back upon. Now that the land proves 
 mine, you have no trade, or other means of making 
 a livelihood. If you will be a brother, you will 
 accept what I offer : I will make over to youfor your 
 life-time, but without power to devise it, this estate 
 of Cinqmer, burdened with the payment of five 
 hundred a year to your sister Theodora till her 
 marriage." 
 
 Arthur was glad of the gift, yet did not accept it 
 graciously. The disposition is no rare one that not 
 only gives grudgingly, but receives grudgingly. The 
 man imagines he shields his independence by not 
 seeming pleased. To show yourself pleased is to 
 confess obligation ! Do not manifest pleasure, do 
 
THE PACKET. 625 
 
 not acknowledge favor, and you keep your freedom 
 like a man ! 
 
 "I cannot see," said Arthur, " — of course it is 
 very kind of you, and all that ! you wouldn't have 
 compliments bandied between brothers ! — but I 
 should like to know why the land should not be 
 mine to leave. I might have children, you know ! " 
 
 "And I might have more children!" laughed 
 Richard. "But that has nothing to do with it. 
 The thing is this : . the land itself I could give out 
 and out, but the land has the people. God did not 
 give us the land for our own sakes only, but for 
 theirs too. The men and women upon it are my 
 brothers and sisters, and I have to see to them. 
 Now I know that you are liked by our people, and 
 that you have claims to be liked by them, and there- 
 fore believe you will consider them as well as your- 
 self or the land — though at the same time I shall 
 protect them with the terms of the deed. But 
 suppose at your death it should go to Percy ! Should 
 I not then feel that I had betrayed my people, a 
 very Judas of landlords .'' Never fellow-creature of 
 mine will I put in the danger of a scoundrel like 
 him ! " 
 
 "He is my brother ! " 
 
 "And mine. I know him ; I was at Oxford with 
 him ! Not one foothold shall he ever have on land 
 of mine ! When he wants to work, let him come to 
 me — not till then ! " 
 
 "You will not say that to my mother ? " 
 
 "I will say nothing to your mother. — Do you 
 accept my offer ? " 
 
 "I will think over it." 
 
 "Do," said Richard, and turned to go. 
 40 
 
626 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 "Will you not settle something- on Victoria?" said 
 Arthur. 
 
 "We shall see what she turns out by the time she 
 is of age 1 I don't want to waste money ! " 
 
 "What do you mean by wasting money?" 
 
 "Giving it where it will do no good." 
 
 " God gives to the bad as well as the good ! " 
 ^ "It is one thing to give to the bad, and another to 
 give where it will do no good. God knows the end- 
 less result ; I should know by. the first link of its 
 chain. I must act by the knowledge granted me. 
 God may give money in punishment : should I dare 
 do that ? " 
 
 "Well, you're quite beyond me ! " 
 
 "Never mind, then. What you and I have to do 
 is to be friends, and work together. You will find I 
 mean well ! " 
 
 * ' I believe you do, Richard ; but we don't somehow 
 seem to be in the same world." 
 
 "If we are true, that will not keep us apart. If we 
 both work for the good of the people, we must come 
 together." 
 
 "To tell you the truth, Richard, knowing you had 
 given me the land, I could not put up with interfe- 
 rence. I am afraid we should quarrel, and then I 
 should seem ungrateful." 
 
 "What would you say to our managing the estates 
 together for a year or two? Would not that be the 
 way to understand each other ? " 
 
 " Perhaps. I must think about it." 
 
 "That is right. Only don't let us begin with sus- 
 picion. You did me more than one kindness not 
 knowing I was your brother 1 And you sent back 
 Miss Brown ! " 
 
THE PACKET. 627 
 
 " That was mere honesty." 
 
 "Strictly considered, it was more. My father had 
 a right to take the mare from me, and at his death 
 she came into your possession. I thank you for 
 sending her to Barbara." 
 
 Arthur turned away. 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Richard, " Barbara loved 
 me when I was a bookbinder, and promised to marry 
 me thinking me base-born. I am sorry, but there is 
 no blame to either of us. I had my bad time then, 
 and your good time is, I trust, coming. I did noth- 
 ing to bring about the change. I did think once 
 whether I had not better leave all to you, and keep 
 to my trade ; but I saw that I had no right to do so, 
 because duties attended the property which I was 
 better able for than you. " 
 
 "I believe every word you say, Richard! You 
 are nobler than I. " 
 
CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 BARBARA S DREAM. 
 
 Mr. Wylder could not well object to Sir Richard 
 Lestrange on the g-round that his daughter had loved 
 him before she or her father knew his position the 
 same he was coveting for her; and within two 
 months they were married. Lady Ann was invited 
 but did not go to the wedding ; Arthur, Theodora, 
 and Victoria did ; Percy was not invited. 
 
 Neither bride nor bridegroom seeing any sense in 
 setting out on ajourney the moment they were free 
 to be at home together, they went straight from the 
 church to Mortgrange. 
 
 When they entered the hall which had so moved 
 Richard's admiration the first time he saw it, he stood 
 for a moment lost in thought. When he came to 
 himself, Barbara had left him ; but ere he had time 
 to wonder, such a burst of organ music filled the 
 place as might have welcomed one that had over- 
 come the world. He stood entranced for a minute, 
 then hastened to the gallery, where he found Barbara 
 at the instrument. 
 
 " What ! " he cried in astonishment; "you, Bar- 
 bara ! you play like that ! " 
 
 "I wanted to be worth something to you, Rich- 
 ard. " 
 
 " Oh, Barbara, you are a queen at giving ! I was 
 well named, for you were coming ! I am Richard 
 indeed ! — oh, so rich ! " 
 
Barbara's dream. 629 
 
 In the evening they went out into the park. I'lie 
 moon was rising. The sunlight was not quite gone. 
 Her Hght mingled with the light that gave it her. 
 
 "Do you know that lovely passage in the Book of 
 Baruch } " asked Richard. 
 
 " What book is that ? " returned Barbara. " It can't 
 be in the Bible, surely ? " 
 
 " It is in the Apocrypha — which is to me very 
 much in the Bible ! I think I can repeat it. I 
 haven't a good memory, but some things stick fast." 
 
 But in the process of recalling it, Richard's thoughts 
 wandered, and Baruch was forgotten. 
 
 "This dying of Apollo in the arms of Luna," he 
 said, " this melting of the radiant god into his own 
 pale shadow, always reminds me of the poverty- 
 stricken, wasted and sad, yet lovely Elysium of the 
 pagans : so little consolation did they gather from 
 the thought of it, that they longed to lay their bodies, 
 not in the deep, cool, far-off shadow of grove or 
 cave, but by the ringing roadside, where live feet, in 
 two meeting, mingling, parting tides, ever came and 
 went ; where chariots rushed past in hot haste, or 
 moved stately by in jubilant procession ; where at 
 night lonely forms would steal through the city of 
 the silent, with but the moon to see them go, bent 
 on ghastly conference with witch or enchanter ; 
 and " 
 
 "Where are you going, Richard ? Please take me 
 with you. I feel as if I were lost in a wood ! " 
 
 "What I meant to say," replied Richard, with a 
 little laugh, " was — how different the moonlit shadow 
 land of those people from the sunny realm of the 
 radiant Christ ! Jesus rose again because he was 
 true, and death had no part in him. This worlds 
 
630 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 day is but the moonlight of his world. The shadow- 
 man, who knows neither whence he came nor whither 
 he is going, calls the upper world the house of the 
 dead, being himself a ghost that wanders in its caves, 
 and knows neither the blowing of its wind, the dash- 
 ing of its waters, the shining of its sun, nor the glad 
 laughter of its inhabitants." 
 
 They wandered along, now talking, now silent, 
 their two hearts lying together in a great peace. 
 
 The moon kept rising and brightening, slowly 
 victorious over the pallid light of the dead sun ; till at 
 last she lifted herself out of the vaporous horizon-sea, 
 ascended over the tree-tops, and went walking 
 through the unobstructed sky, mistress of the air, 
 queen of the heavens, lady of the eyes of men. Yet 
 was she lady only because she beheld her lord. She 
 saw the light of her light, and told what she saw 
 of him. 
 
 ♦' When the soul of man sees God, it shines ! "said 
 Richard. 
 
 They reached at length the spot where first they 
 ■met in the moonlight. With one heart they stopped 
 and turned, and looked each in the other's moonlit 
 eyes. 
 
 Barbara spoke first. 
 
 "Now," she said, " tell me what Baruch says," 
 
 "Ah, yes, Baruch I He was the prophet Jere- 
 miah's friend and amanuensis. It was the moon 
 made me think of him. I believe I can give you the 
 passage word for word as it stands in the English 
 Bible. 
 
 " ' But he that knoweth all things knoweth her,' — 
 that is, Wisdom—' and hath found her out with his 
 understanding : he that prepared the earth forever- 
 
Barbara's dream. 631 
 
 more hath filled it with four-footed beasts : he that 
 sendeth forth light, and it goeth, calleth it again, and 
 it obeyeth him with fear. The stars shined in their 
 watches, and rejoiced: when he calleth them, they 
 say. Here we be ; and so with cheerfulness they 
 showed light unto him that made them. This is our 
 God, and there shall none other be accounted of in 
 comparison of him.'" 
 
 "That is beautiful!" cried Barbara. "'They 
 said. Here we be 1 And so — ' — What is it .? " 
 
 " ' And so with cheerfulness they showed light 
 unto him that made them.' " 
 
 " I will read every word of Baruch ! " said Barbara. 
 " Is there much of him ? " 
 
 "No ; very little." 
 
 A silence followed. Then again Barbara spoke, and 
 she clung a little closer to her husband. 
 
 " I want to tell you something that came to me 
 one night when we were in London," she said. 
 "It was a miserable time that — before I found you 
 up in the orchestra there ! and then hell became purga- 
 tory, for there was hope in it. I saw so many mis- 
 erable things ! I seemed always to come upon the 
 miserable things. It was as if my eyes were made 
 only to see miserable things — bad things and suffer- 
 ing everywhere. The terrible city was full of them. 
 I longed to help, but had to wait for you to set me 
 free. You had gone from my knowledge, and I was 
 very sad, seeing nothing around me but a waste of 
 dreariness. I keep asking God to give me patience, 
 and not let me fancy myself alone. But the days were 
 dismal, and the balls and dinners frightful. I seemed 
 in a world without air. The girls were so silly, the 
 men so inane, and the things they said so mawkish 
 
632 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 and colorless ! Their compliments sickened me so, 
 that I was just hungry to hide myself. But at last 
 came what I want to tell you. 
 
 "One morning-, after what seemed a long- night's 
 dreamless sleep, I awoke ; but it was much too early 
 to rise ; so I lay thinking — or more truly, I hope, 
 being thought into, as Mr. Wingfold says. INIany of 
 the most beautiful things I had read, scenes of our 
 Lord's life on earth, and thoughts of the Father, came 
 and went. I had no desire to sleep again, or any 
 feeling of drowsiness ; but in the midst of fully con- 
 scious thought, found myself in some other place, of 
 which I only knew that there was firm ground under 
 my feet, and a soft white radiance of light about me. 
 The remembrance came to me afterwards, of branches 
 of trees spreading high overhead, through which I 
 saw the sky; but at the time I seemed not to take 
 notice of what was around me. I was leaning against 
 a form tall and grand, clothed from the shoulders to 
 the ground in a black robe, full, and soft and fine. It 
 lay in thickly gathered folds, touched to whiteness in 
 the radiant fight, all along the arms encircling, with- 
 out at first touching me. 
 
 "With sweet content my eyes went in and out of 
 those manifold radiant lines, feeling, though they 
 were but parts of his dress, yet they were of himself; 
 for I knew the form to be that of the heavenly Father, 
 but felt no trembling fear, no sense of painful awe — 
 only a deep, deep worshipping, an unutterable love 
 and confidence. ' Oh Father ! ' I said, not aloud, but 
 low into the folds of his garment. Scarcely had I 
 breathed the words, when ' My child ! ' came whis- 
 pered, and I knew his head was bent toward me, and 
 I felt his arms close round my shoulders, and the folds 
 
Barbara's dream. 633 
 
 of his garment enwrap me, and with a soft sweep, fall 
 behind me to the ground. Delight held me still for 
 a while, and then I looked up to seek his face ; but I 
 could not see past his breast. His shoulders rose far 
 above my upreaching hands. I clasped them to- 
 gether, and face and hands rested near his heart, for 
 my head came not much above his waist. 
 
 "And now came the most wonderful part of my 
 dream. As I thus rested against his heart, I seemed 
 to see into it ; and mine was filled with loving wonder, 
 and an utterly blessed feeling of home, to the very 
 core. I vi'as at home — with my Father ! I looked, 
 as it seemed, into a space illimitable and fathomless, 
 and yet a warm light as from a hearth-fire shone and 
 played in ruddy glow, as upon confining walls. And 
 I saw, there gathered, all human hearts. I saw them 
 — yet I saw no forms ; they were there — and yet they 
 zvould be there. To my waking reason, the words 
 sound like nonsense, and perplex me ; but the thing 
 did not perplex me at all. With light beyond that of 
 faith, for it was of absolute certainty, clear as bodily 
 vision, but of a different nature, I saw them. But 
 this part of my dream, the most lovely of all, I can 
 find no words to describe ; nor can I even recall to 
 my own mind the half of what I felt. I only know 
 that something was given me then, some spiritual 
 apprehension, to be again withdrawn, but to be given 
 to us all, I believe, some day, out of his infinite love, 
 and withdrawn no more. Every heart that had ever 
 ached, or longed, or wandered, I knew Vas there, 
 folded warm and soft, safe and glad. And it seemed 
 in my dream that to know this was the crown of all 
 my bliss — yes, even more than to be myself in my 
 Father's arms. Awake, the thouijht of multitude had 
 
634 THERE AND BACK. 
 
 always oppressed my mind ; it did not then. From 
 the comfort and joy it gave me to see them there, I 
 seemed then first to know how my own heart had 
 ached for them. 
 
 "Then tears began to run from my eyes — but 
 easily, with no pain of the world in them. They 
 flowed like a gentle stream — into the heart 0/ God, 
 whose depths were open to my gaze. The blessed- 
 ness of those tears was beyond words. It was all 
 true then ! That heart was our home ! 
 
 "Then I felt that I was being gently, oh, so gently! 
 put away. The folds of his robe which I held in my 
 hands were being slowly drawn from them : and the 
 gladness of my weeping changed to longing entreaty. 
 ' Oh, Father ! Father ! ' I cried ; but I saw only his 
 grand gracious form, all blurred and indistinct through 
 the veil of my blinding tears, slowly receding, 
 slowly fading — and 1 awoke. 
 
 " My tears were flowing now with the old earth- 
 pain in them, with keenest disappointment and long- 
 ing. To have been there and to have come hack, was 
 the misery. But it did not last long. The glad thought 
 awoke that I had the dream — a precious thing never 
 to be lost while memory lasted ; a thing which noth- 
 ing but its realization could ever equal in precious- 
 ness. I rose glad and strong, to serve with newer 
 love, with quicker hand and readier foot, the hearts 
 around me." 
 
3'f/.tt/;,^^^.^'i"^,'^^.o 
 
 
RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT.. ^ ^ . 
 
 TO— i^' 202 Main Library lb74D 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 Renewals ano rcGhargj; n^^ h. -^^'^-- S -'^-- '' ' 
 
 ion Desk 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 Ju^^ 2 3 1866 
 
 RECEIVED BV 
 
 MAY 1 4 ]m 
 
 QRCULATION DEFT 
 
 OCTl 
 
 «i99J 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELF 
 FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 1/83 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
 Berkeley 
 
p 
 
 GENERAL UBBm.U.C. BERKELEY 
 
 S00Q7Sa5Sl 
 
 984409 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 
 I