C.R. Coleridge (continued 3)

“Good-night,” said Rupert, feeling somewhat baffled, and a little angry; for, after all, he had been perfectly right.

Chapter Thirteen.

Two Sides of a Question.

“Love me and leave me not.”

The hill that lay between Oakby and Elderthwaite was partly covered by a thick plantation of larches, through which passed a narrow footpath. In the summer, when the short turf under the trees was dry and sweet, when the blue sky peeped through the wide-spreading branches, and rare green ferns and blue harebells nestled in the low stone walls, the larch wood was a favourite resort; but in the winter, when the moorland winds were bleak and cold rather than fresh and free, when the fir-trees moaned and howled dismally instead of responding like harps to the breezes, before, in that northern region, one “rosy plumelet tufted the larch,” or one lamb was seen out on the fell side, it was a dreary spot enough.

All the more undisturbed had it been, and therefore all the more suitable for the secret meetings of Rupert and Ruth. Matters had not always run smooth between them. An unacknowledged tie needs faith and self-restraint if it is to sit easily; and at their very last parting Rupert expressed enough jealousy at the remembrance of Cheriton’s attentions to make Ruth furious at the implied doubt of her faith, forgetting that she was miserable if he played with Nettie, or talked for ten minutes to Virginia.

Rupert insisted that “Cherry meant mischief.” Ruth vehemently asserted “that it wasn’t in him to mean;” and after something that came perilously near a quarrel, she broke into a flood of tears, and they parted with renewed protestations of inviolable constancy, and amid hopes of chance meetings in the course of the spring.

Ruth fled away through the copses to Elderthwaite feeling as if life would be utterly blank and dark till their next meeting; and Rupert strolled homeward, thinking much of Ruth, and not best pleased to meet his uncle coming back from one of his farms, and evidently inclined to be sociable; for Rupert, as compared with Alvar, had an agreeable familiarity.

Mr Lester, though he had held as little personal intercourse with Alvar as the circumstances of the case permitted, had hardly ceased, since he came home, to think of his future, and that with a conscientious effort at justice and kindness. He still felt a personal distaste to Alvar, which ruffled his temper, and often made him less than civil to him; but none the less did he wish his eldest son’s career to be creditable and fortunate, nor desire to see him adapt himself to the pursuits likely to be required of him. He made a few attempts to instruct him and interest him in the county politics, the requirements of the estate, and the necessities of the parish; but Alvar, it must be confessed, was very provoking. He was always courteous, but he never exerted his mind to take in anything that was strange to him, and would say, with a shrug of his shoulders and a smile, “Ah, these are the things that I do not understand;” or, as he picked up the current expressions, “It is not in my line to interest myself for the people,” with a naïveté that refused to recognise any duty one way or the other. In short, he was quite as impervious as his brothers to anything “out of his line,” and, like Mr Lester himself, thought that what he did not understand was immaterial.

Mr Lester was in despair; but when he saw Alvar and Virginia together, and noticed their mutual attraction, it occurred to him that an English wife would be the one remedy for Alvar’s shortcomings; and he also reflected, with some pride in his knowledge of foreign customs, that Alvar would probably require parental sanction before presuming to pay his addresses to any lady.

As for Virginia, though she was of Seyton blood, all her training had been away from her family; her fortune was not inconsiderable, and she herself, enthusiastic, refined, and high-minded, was exactly the type of woman in which Mr Lester believed. Besides, since he could not make Alvar other than the heir of Oakby, his one wish was that his grandchildren at least should be English. He was very reluctant that Alvar should return to Spain, and at the same time hardly wished him to be a permanent inmate of Oakby. It had been arranged that Alvar should pay a short visit to the Cheritons before Easter, when he would see what London was like, go to see Cherry at Oxford, and having thus enlarged his experiences, would return to Oakby for Easter and the early part of the summer.

After Cheriton had taken his degree, he too would enjoy a taste of the season, and Alvar might go to town again if he liked; while in August Alvar must be introduced to the grouse, and might also see the fine scenery of the Scotch and English lakes. These were plans in which Alvar could find nothing to complain of; but they would be greatly improved in his father’s eyes if they could end in a suitable and happy marriage; for he saw that Alvar could not remain idle at Oakby for long, and had the firmest conviction that he would get into mischief, if he set up for himself in London. His mind, when he met Rupert, was full of the subject, and with a view to obtaining a side light or two if possible, he asked him casually what he thought of his cousin Alvar, and how they got on together.

“I don’t think he is half a bad fellow,” said Rupert, “a little stiff and foreign, of course, but a very good sort in my opinion.”

This was well meant on Rupert’s part, for he did not personally like Alvar, but he had tact enough to see the necessity of harmony, and family feeling enough to wish to produce it.

“Of course,” said Mr Lester, “you can understand that I have been anxious about his coming here among the boys.”

“I don’t think he’ll do them any harm, sir.”

“No; and except Cherry, they don’t take to him very warmly; but I hope we may see him settle into an Englishman in time. A good wife now—”

“Is a very good thing, uncle,” said Rupert, with a conscious laugh.

“Yes, Rupert, in a year or two’s time you’ll be looking out for yourself.”

Rupert liked his uncle, as he had always called him, and, for a moment, was half-inclined to confide in him; but he knew that Mr Lester’s good offices would be so exceedingly energetic, and would involve such thorough openness on his own part, that though his marriage to Ruth might possibly be expedited by them, he could not face the reproofs by which they would be accompanied.

So he laughed, and shook his head, saying, “Excellent advice for Alvar, sir; and see, there he comes.”

Alvar approached his father with a bow; but was about to join Rupert, as he turned off by another path, when Mr Lester detained him.

“I should like a word or two with you,” he said, as they walked on. “I think—it appears to me that you are beginning to feel more at home with us than at first.”

“Yes, sir, I know better how to suit myself to you.”

“I am uncommonly glad of it. But what I meant to say was—you don’t find yourself so dull as at first?” said Mr Lester rather awkwardly.

“It is a little dull,” said Alvar, “but I can well endure it.”

This was not precisely the answer which Mr Lester had expected; but after a pause, he went on,—

“It would be hard to blame you because you do not take kindly to interests and occupations that are so new to you. I do not feel, Alvar, that I have the same right to dictate your way of life as I should have, if I had earlier assumed the charge of you; but I would remind you that since one day you must be master here, it will be for your own happiness to—to accustom yourself to the life required of you.”

“My brother ought to be the squire,” said Alvar.

“That is impossible. It is not a matter of choice; but it would cause me great unhappiness if I thought my successor would either be constantly absent or—or indifferent to the welfare of the people about him.”

“You would wish me,” said Alvar, “to live in England, and to marry an English lady.”

“Why, yes—yes. Not of course that I would wish to put any restraint on your inclinations, or even to suggest any line of conduct; but it had occurred to me that—in short, that you find Elderthwaite attractive, and I wished to tell you that such a choice would have my entire approval.”

Mr Lester’s florid face coloured with a sense of embarrassment; he was never at his ease with his son, whereas Alvar only looked considerate, and said thoughtfully,—“Miss Seyton is a charming young lady.”

“Very much so, indeed,” said the squire; “and a very good girl.”

Alvar walked on in silence. Probably the idea was not strange to him; but his father could not trace the workings of his mind, and a sense of intense impatience possessed him with this strange creature whose interests he was bound to consult, but whose nature he could not fathom. Suddenly Alvar stopped.

“My father, I have chosen. This is my country, and Miss Seyton—if she will—shall be my wife.”

“Well, Alvar, I’m very glad to hear it,” said his father, “very glad indeed, and I’m sure Cheriton will be delighted. Don’t, however, act in a hurry; I’ll leave you to think it over. I see James Wilson, and I want to speak to him.”

And Mr Lester called to one of the keepers who was coming across the park, while Alvar went on towards the house.

Chapter Fourteen.

Virginia’s choice.

“Things that I know not of, belike to thee are dear.”

There was the shadow of such a thought on the blushing face of Virginia Seyton as she sat in a great chair in the old drawing-room at Elderthwaite and listened to the wooing of Alvar Lester. She held a bouquet on her lap, and he stood, bending forward, and addressing: her in language that was checked by no embarrassment, and with a simplicity of purpose which had sought no disguise. Alvar had reflected on his father’s hints over many a cigarette, he had thought to himself that he was resolved to be an Englishman, that Miss Seyton was charming and attractive beyond all other ladies, it was well that he should marry, and he would be faithful, courteous, and kind.

Assuredly he was prepared to love her, she made England pleasant to him, and he had no strong ties to the turbulent life of Spain, from which his peculiar circumstances and his natural indolence had alike held him aloof. He had no thought of giving less than was Virginia’s due, it was a simple matter to him enough, and he had come away that morning, with no false shame as to his intentions, with a flower in his coat and flowers in his hand, and had demanded Miss Seyton’s permission to see her niece, heedless how far both households might guess at the matter in hand.

With his dark, manly grace, and tender accents, he was the picture of a lover, as she, with her creamy skin rose-tinted, and her fervent eyes cast down, seemed the very type of a maiden wooed, and by a favoured suitor. But if the hearts of this graceful and well-matched pair beat to the same time, the notes for each had very different force, and the experiences and the requirements of each had been, and must be, utterly unlike those of the other.

Alvar recognised this, in its obvious outer fact, when he began,—

“I have a great disadvantage,” he said, “since I do not know how best to please an English lady when I pay her my addresses. Yet I am bold, for I come to-day to ask you to forget I am a stranger, and to help me to become truly an Englishman. Of all ladies, you are to me the most beautiful, the most beloved. Can you grant my wish—my prayer? Can I have the happiness to please you—Virginia?”

Virginia’s heart beat so fast that she could not speak, the large eyes flashed up for a moment into his, then dropped as the tears dimmed them.

“Ah! do I make you shed tears?” cried Alvar. “How shall I tell you how I will be your slave? Mi doña, mi reyna!—nay, I must find English words to say you are the queen of my life!” and he knelt on one knee beside her, and took her hand.

Perhaps it was all the more enchanting that it was unlike a modern English girl’s ideal of a likely lover.

“Please don’t do that,” said Virginia, controlling her emotion with a great effort. “I want to say something, if you would sit down.”

With ready tact Alvar rose at once, and drew a chair near her.

“It is my privilege to listen,” he said.

“It is that I am afraid I must be very different from the girls whom you have known. My ways, my thoughts, you might not like them; you might wish me to be different from myself—or I might not understand you,” she added very timidly.

“In asking a lady to be my wife, I think of no other woman,” said Alvar. “In my eyes you are all that is charming.”

“This would not have occurred to me,” said Virginia; “but since I came home I have not been very happy, because it is so hard to accommodate oneself to people who think of everything differently from oneself. If that was so with us—with you—”

“My thoughts shall be your thoughts,” said Alvar. “You shall teach me to be what you wish—what my brother is. I know well,” and he rose to his feet again and stood before her, “I am not clever, I do not know how to do those things the English admire; my face, my speech, is strange. Is that my fault; is it my fault that my father has hated and shunned his son? Miss Seyton, I can but offer you myself. If I displease you—”

Alvar paused. Virginia had been pleading against herself, and before his powerful attraction her misgivings melted away. She rose too, and came a step towards him.

“I will trust you,” she said; and Alvar, more moved than he could himself have anticipated, poured forth a torrent of loving words and vows to be, and to do all she could wish. But he did not know, he did not understand, what she asked of him, or what he promised.

“But we must be our true selves to each other,” she said afterwards, as they stood together, when he had won her to tell him that his foreign face and tones were not displeasing to her—not at all. No, she did not wish that he was more like his brothers.

“I will be always your true lover and your slave,” said Alvar, kissing the hand that she had laid on his. “And now must I not present myself to your father? He will not, I hope, think the foreigner too presuming.”

“There is papa,” said Virginia, glancing out of the window; “he is walking on the terrace. Look, you can go out by this glass door.” And leaving Alvar to encounter this far from formidable interview, she ran away up to the little oak room in search of her cousin.

There were tears in Ruth’s great velvety eyes as she turned to meet her, but she was smiling, too, and even while she held out her arms to Virginia, she thought—“What, jealous of the smooth course of her little childish love! I would not give up one atom of what I feel for all the easy consent and prosperity in the world.” But none the less was she interested and sympathetic as she listened to the outpourings of Virginia’s first excitement, and to the recital of feelings that were like, and yet unlike, her own.

“You see, Ruthie, I could not help caring about him, he was so gentle and kind, and he never seemed angry with the others for misunderstanding him. But then I thought that our lives had been so wide apart that he might be quite different from what he seemed; and one has always heard, too, that foreigners pay compliments, and don’t mean what they say.”

“I should have despised you, Queenie, if you had thrown over the man you love because he was half a foreigner.”

“Oh, no, not for that. But I didn’t—I hadn’t begun to—like him very much then, you see, Ruth. And if he had not been good—”

“And how have you satisfied yourself that he is what you call ‘good’ now?” said Ruth curiously.

“Of course,” replied Virginia, “it is not as if he had been brought up in England. He cannot have the same notions. But then he cannot talk enough of Cherry’s goodness, and seemed so grateful because he was kind to him. Cherry is a very good, kind sort of fellow of course; but don’t you think there is something beautiful in the humility that makes so much of a little kindness, and recognises good qualities so ungrudgingly?”

Ruth laughed a little. Perhaps she thought Alvar’s “bonny black eyes” had something to do with the force of these arguments.

“Since you love each other,” she said, “that is a proof that you are intended for each other. What does it matter ‘what he is like,’ as you say?”

“But ‘what he is like’ made all the difference in the first instance, I suppose?” said Virginia.

“Perhaps,” said Ruth, with a little shrug. “But now you have once chosen, Virginia, nothing ought to make you change, not if he were ever so wicked—not if he were a murderer!”

“Ruth,” exclaimed Virginia, “how can you be so absurd! A murderer!”

“A murderer, a gambler, or a—well, I’m not quite sure about a thief,” said Ruth, cooling down a little; and then the girls both laughed, and Virginia sank into a dreamy silence. She did not even yet know the story of her mother’s married life, or she could not have laughed at the thought of a gambler for her husband; but she did know enough of her family history to give definiteness to the natural desire of a high-principled girl to find perfection in her lover. Virginia’s nature inclined to hero-worship; reverence was a necessary part to her of a happy love. She had thought often to herself that she would never marry a man of whose good principles she was not satisfied. And since Alvar’s offer had not entirely taken her by surprise—his gallantry having been tenderer than he knew—she had considered the point with an effort at impartiality, and had justified the conclusion to which her heart pointed by Alvar’s admiration for the brother, whom, in Virginia’s opinion, he idealised considerably. Of course, if she had chosen wisely, it was instinct, and not knowledge, that led her aright. She knew absolutely nothing of Alvar; and just as from insufficient grounds she now gave him credit for many virtues, it might be that, when the differing natures jarred, a little failure, a little defectiveness, might make her judgment cruelly hard, at whatever cost to her own happiness.

It might come to a struggle between the girl’s ideal and the woman’s love—and in such a struggle compromises and forgivenesses and new knowledge on either side would lead to final comprehension and peace. But it comes sometimes to a fight between heart and soul, between the higher self and the love that seems stronger than self. To this extremity Alvar Lester was not likely to drive any woman; but impatience and inexperience sometimes mistake the one contest for the other. Virginia would have something to bear, he much to learn, before mutual criticism ceased, as they became indeed part of each other’s existence, before Virginia’s flutter of startled joy subsided into unquestioning content.

“You talk, Ruthie,” exclaimed Virginia, after a little more confidential chatter, “but you cannot make up your own mind. You cannot decide whether you will have poor Captain Lester.”

“Hark! hark!” cried Ruth, “they are calling you! Every one is not so lucky as you.” And as Virginia obeyed her father’s summons, and she was left alone, she pulled out the locket that contained Rupert’s portrait, kissed it passionately, and exclaimed, half-aloud,—

“Not make up my mind! Do I doubt and hesitate? What do I care ‘what you are like,’ my darling? I love you with all my heart and soul! I love you—I love you! What would life be without love?”

The congratulations of Virginia’s family on the occasion were characteristic. Her father had but a nominal consent to give. Virginia was of age, and besides, the trustees of her fortune could not of course take any exception to such an engagement; but he rejoiced exceedingly, as at the first good and happy thing that had happened in his family for long enough.

“And so you have got a husband, though you are a Seyton?” said her aunt. “Well, Roland’s a long way off, and I don’t suppose Dick and Harry can create scandal enough to put an end to it before next October.”

“But you’ll give me a kiss, auntie?” said Virginia; and in the warmth of her embrace she tried to show the sympathy for that long past wrong which she never would have dared to utter.

Miss Seyton was silent for a moment, and patted her soft hair; then suddenly, with an expression indescribably malin and elfish, she said, “And all those poor little neglected children, whose souls you were going to save, what will become of them when you are married? Do you think your uncle will teach them himself?”

“And I shouldn’t be surprised if he did, Aunt Julia,” interposed Ruth briskly, “now Virginia has shown him the way.” Parson Seyton’s remark was somewhat to the same effect, though made in a more genial spirit.

“Well, my lass, so you’ve caught the Frenchman? Why didn’t you set your cap at Cherry? He’s worth a dozen of him.”

“Cherry didn’t set his cap at me, uncle,” said Virginia, laughing.

“And all the little lads and lasses? Ha, ha, I must set about learning the catechism myself. What’s to be done, my queen?—what’s to be done? Send away Monsieur Alvar; we can’t do without you.” Virginia had not forgotten the children; but as her marriage was not to take place till the late autumn, there was no immediate question of her leaving them.

Mr Lester thought that it would be far better that Alvar should see something of England before his marriage, and Alvar acquiesced readily in his father’s wish; and he very shortly left Oakby for London, after receiving congratulations from his brothers, in which astonishment was the prevailing ingredient, though Cheriton softened his surprise with many expressions of satisfaction.

He was glad that Alvar had chosen an English wife; still more glad that he had no disposition to choose Ruth.

Chapter Fifteen.

A Bit of the Blarney.

“With him there rode his sone, a younge squire, A lovyere and a lusty bachelere.”

In that year Easter fell very late, and it was nearly the end of April before the Lesters gathered together once more at Oakby. Alvar and Virginia had hardly had time to grow accustomed to their new relations to each other before the former went to London, where he perhaps adapted himself more easily to his surroundings than he would have done in the presence of his father and brothers. He found that all English people did not regard life precisely from the Oakby point of view; that Lady Cheriton greatly regretted that Nettie was such a tomboy, and almost feared that Bob would never be fit for polite society.

He was introduced to people who thought his music enchanting and his foreign manners charming; he was allowed to be on cousinly terms with the Miss Cheritons, and was an object of exciting interest to every young lady who met him. Under these circumstances he was very well content, and despatched graceful and tender letters to Virginia, which often had an amusing naïveté in their details of his impressions of English life. He also sent her various offerings, ornaments, sweetmeats, and flowers, always prettily chosen, and commended to her notice by some pleasant bit of tender flattery. His engagement was of course generally known, but his soft words and softer looks, though too universal to be delusive, were doubtless none the less attractive from the fact that his foreign breeding offered a constant cause and excuse for them.

Virginia, on her side, it need hardly be said, wrote him many letters, full of thoughts, feelings, and hopes, and sometimes requests for his opinion on any subject that interested her. Alvar’s replies were so charming, so flattering, and so tender, that she hardly found out that they were in no sense answers to her own.

He made a very great point of going to Oxford, and was full of excitement at the prospect of meeting “my brother” again. Cheriton, however, had lost some time by his idle Christmas vacation, and was forced to work very hard to make up for it. He had always too many interests in life to make it easy to concentrate all his efforts in one direction; but now the ambition and love of distinction that were a constant stimulus to the idle Lester nature in himself and Jack were fairly alight.

Cheriton cared for success in itself; he was too sweet-natural to resent failure, and conscientious enough to know that his love of triumph might be a snare to him, but each object in its turn seemed to him intensely desirable. He could not feel, and even prevailing fashion made it difficult for him to affect, indifference. Besides, he wanted to appear in the light of a young man likely to succeed in life before Ruth’s relations. So he wrote that he hoped Alvar would not think it unkind if he asked him to pay him only a short visit; and Alvar was half consoled by hearing the Judge speak in high terms of his nephew as a brilliant young man and likely to do them all credit.

“Ah,” said Alvar, “I fear I should have done my name no credit if I, like my brother, had gone to Oxford.”

“You are an eldest son, my dear fellow, and I don’t doubt that you would have kept up the family traditions,” said Judge Cheriton drily.

So Alvar went for one day to Oxford, where he showed an overpowering delight at seeing Cherry again, and a reprehensible preference for pouring out to him his various experiences, to inspecting chapels and halls. He greeted Buffer respectfully, and taxed Cheriton with overworking himself. He looked pale, he said, and thin—not as he did at Oakby.

Cherry only laughed at him, but insisted emphatically that he should say no word at home of any such impression, as perhaps he should stay up and read during the Easter vacation.

“But what shall I do,” said Alvar, “when the boys, who do not like me, come home, and you are not there?”

“You—why, you will be all day at Elderthwaite.”

“I shall never forget my brother who was kind to me first,” said Alvar earnestly.

Alvar finished up his London career by going to see the Boat Race, where he was exceedingly particular to appear in Oxford colours, and felt as if the triumph of the dark blue was Cherry’s own.

Easter week brought unwontedly soft airs and blue skies to Oakby, and, after all, Cheriton himself for a few days’ holiday. Every one rejoiced at the sight of him, though Jack promptly told him that he was very foolish to waste time by coming, and when Cherry owned that he wanted a little rest, grudgingly admitted that he might be wise to take it; then seized upon him, first to discuss with him the work he himself was doing with a view to a scholarship for which he meant to compete at Midsummer; then demanded an immediate settlement, from Cherry’s point of view, of several important and obscure philosophical questions; and finally confided to him a long history of Bob’s scrapes and deficiencies during the past term.

He was so low in the school—he got in with such a bad lot—he ought to leave school and go to a tutor’s. He, Jack, had told him he was going straight to the bad, but had done no good. Would Cherry give him a good blowing-up? Then Mr Lester, having had a letter from the headmaster, wanted to consult him on this very point, as well as to tell him all the story of Alvar’s courtship and his own diplomatic behaviour. Also to regret that Alvar would not take the trouble to understand the details of English law as applied to local matters; could not see why Mr Lester, as a magistrate, was prevented from transporting a poacher for life, or why, as an owner of land, he thought it necessary to be so particular as to the character of his tenants. Then an attempt at peacemaking with and for Bob, which resulted in little more than a persistent growl “that Jack was an awful duffer.”

Altogether the family did not seem in a restful state. Mrs Lester was very indignant because Mrs Ellesmere had observed that Nettie was growing too tall a girl to go about so much by herself. “Who was there that did not know Nettie in all the country-side?” While Bob and Nettie themselves, who usually hung together in everything, especially when either was in trouble, had an inexplicable quarrel, which made neither of them pleasant company for their elders.

Then Mr Lester’s affairs came forward again in the shape of a dispute with one of his chief farmers about a certain gate which had been planted in the wrong place, involving a question of boundaries and rights of way, and engaging Mr Lester in a difference of opinion with a new neighbour, “a Radical fellow from Sheffield,” whom Mr Lester would neither have injured nor been intimate with for the world. Alvar had the misfortune to observe that “he thought it was not worth while to be so distressed about the post of a gate,” an indifference even more provoking than the misplaced ardour of Jack, who had taken upon himself to examine the matter, and believing his father mistaken, thought it necessary to say so, which might have been passed over as a piece of youthful folly, if there had not been a frightful suspicion that Mr Ellesmere was of the same opinion.

Cherry had heard enough of the “post of a gate” by the time he had read half-a-dozen letters of polite indignation, and listened to an hour’s explanation from his father of the grounds of the dispute, after which he was requested to form an independent opinion on the subject.

“Well, father,” he said, looking askance at a plan of the scene of action which Mr Lester had drawn for his benefit, “it seems that the removal of this gate has mixed up Ashrigg, Oakby, and Elderthwaite to such a degree that we sha’n’t know who is living in which. Of course Alvar can’t see any boundaries between Oakby and Elderthwaite just now. How should he? His imagination leaps over them at once. But I don’t think it will ‘precipitate the downfall of the landed gentry,’ Jack, whichever way it is settled.” And having thus succeeded in making his father and Alvar laugh, and Jack remark “that he never could see the use of making a joke of everything,” he asked Mr Lester to come and show him the fatal spot. Couldn’t they ride over and look at it?

“And I have never seen you yet,” said Alvar reproachfully, when Mr Lester had acceded to this arrangement.

“But you are going to Elderthwaite? I will come and meet you there. And, look here, the weather is so fine I am sure we might all join forces and make an excursion somewhere. Wouldn’t that be blissful?”

“Ah, you make sport of me!” said Alvar; but he promised to propose the plan at Elderthwaite.

So Cheriton and his father rode through the bright spring lanes together, like Chaucer’s knight and squire, with the larks singing in the furrows, and the blue sky overhead, the sunshine full of promise and joy, even in the wild, bleak country, whose time of perfection never came till the purple heather clothed the bare moorlands and the summer months had had time to chase away all thought of the long, dreary winter. Every breath of the air of the hill-side was like new life to Cherry.

“It is so delightful to be at home,” he said; “it’s impossible to be very angry about ‘the post of a gate.’”

Perhaps this happy humour contributed no small share towards the harmonious ending of the scene which Cherry described quaintly enough when he presented himself at Elderthwaite in the afternoon. How on arriving at the scene of action they had found Farmer Fleming and the fellow from Sheffield both engaged in discussing the point; how Mr Wilson had expressed his readiness to put up two gates if that would settle the matter, but he could not be dictated to on his own land; how Mr Fleming’s view of the matter seemed to consist in a constant statement of the fact that he had been the squire’s tenant all his life, and his father before him; how the squire had remarked that Mr Fleming’s father, he was sure, would have known well that those four feet of land were common land, and half in Oakby and half in Ashrigg parish, Elderthwaite bordering them on the south, and that he, as Lord of the Manor, could not allow them to be enclosed; Mr Wilson had purchased certain manorial rights in Ashrigg parish; they certainly extended over the two feet on his own side of the lane.

Then Cherry had remembered Mr Wilson’s son at Oxford, and knew that last year he had taken a first. He had met him at breakfast; was he coming down soon? This had created a diversion; and while the squire and his tenant were at it hammer and tongs, Cherry had received several invitations, had warmly applauded Mr Wilson’s remark that he did not wish to be unpleasant to old inhabitants on first coming into the county, and the squire, having got his own way with the farmer, an amicable arrangement was arrived at; while Cherry went to see Mrs Fleming’s dairy, “because he remembered how she used to give him such beautiful new milk.”

“Oh, Cherry, you have more than a bit of the blarney,” said Ruth. “Haven’t you a drop of Irish blood somewhere?”

“No more than Jack,” said Cherry, who was perhaps a little pleased at his diplomacy. “I like to smooth things down, unless, to be sure, one is angry oneself.”

“You are always the peacemaker,” said Alvar.

“Ah, not always, I am afraid! But now I want all the blarney I can muster to persuade you that it is warm enough to go and spend the day at Black Tarn. We might go by train from Hazelby to Blackrigg; have lunch at the inn there, and go up to Black Tarn by the Otter’s Glen. I asked Mr and Mrs Ellesmere, and they will come with us”—to Virginia—“I assure you Alvar agrees.”

“You are wasting your blarney,” said Virginia smiling, “for we had agreed to go before you came. It will be very cold up at Black Tarn, but that will not signify if we take plenty of wraps.”

Such a genuine piece of natural and innocent amusement was quite a novelty at Elderthwaite, and the boys were delighted. The party agreed to meet at Hazelby station, and go by train some ten or twelve miles towards the mountains on the outskirts of which Black Tarn lay. There was a train in the evening by which they could return, and no one left at home was to be anxious about them until they saw them coming back.

Chapter Sixteen.

The Otter’s Glen.

“An empty sky, a world of heather, Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom, We two among them, wading together, Stepping out honey, treading perfume.”

There was hardly a lonelier spot in all the country round than the little Black Tarn. The hill in which it lay possessed neither the rocky grandeur nor the fertile beauty of the neighbouring mountains; it was covered with grass and bog, not a tree relieved its desolateness, no grey rocks pushed their picturesque heads through the soil and gave variety to its shape. The approach to the little lake was defended by great beds of reeds and rushes, its waters were shallow, and later in the year full of weeds and water-lilies. But there was a fine view of the heathery backs of some of the more important mountains, and the stream that rushed down the Otter’s Glen was broad and clear, and had been the scene of many an exciting chase in grey misty mornings.

To-day the sun was bright and strong, the fresh mountain wind intensely exhilarating, and the whole party were in the highest spirits and ready to enjoy every incident of their excursion. They had had their lunch, as proposed, at the little wayside inn, where the Lesters were well known and always welcome, and had then set off on their three-miles walk to the tarn in scattered groups, all at their own pace and with different views of the distances they meant to effect.

A large division, headed by Mr Ellesmere, had started off at a brisk pace, intending to get to the top of the hill and see half over the country, but stragglers began to drop behind.

Mrs Ellesmere thought the tarn would be enough for herself and her younger children; every one dropped off from Alvar and Virginia, and left them to their own devices, while Cherry set himself to persuade Ruth that the best thing to do was to follow the stream, step by step, along its winding course, heedless of the end.

He could hardly believe in his own good luck as the voices of the others died away in the distance, and Ruth put her hand into his to be helped along the slippery stepping-stones planted here and there on the marshy path-way.

Whatever was missing for Ruth in the perfection of the day’s pleasure, her great dark eyes were bright and soft, and a little flush on her brown cheeks gave her an additional beauty. She wore a small closely-fitting hat with a red plume in it, and a tight dark dress; and thus, with her hand in his, and her bewitching eyes raised to his face, her image recurred to him in after days.

He had been laughing, and talking, and managing the expedition, but now alone with her he fell silent, and there was that in his face as he looked down at her that frightened Ruth a little.

During these past months he had grown less “boyish,” and it crossed Ruth’s mind to wonder if he had had any special purpose in getting her to himself.

“And have you been working very hard?” she said, smiling at him.

“Pretty well,” answered Cherry. “I shall be glad when it’s all over.”

“Won’t they ring all the bells at Oakby?”

Cherry laughed.

“I hope they won’t have occasion to toll them,” he said; “it seems sometimes much more likely.”

“Ah! that is because you get out of spirits. And after all, who cares except a lot of stupid old tutors?”

“I don’t suppose you—any one, would care much.”

“Why,” said Ruth dexterously; “who judges a man by the result of an examination? that would be very unfair.”

“Then,” said Cherry shyly, “if I come to grief I shall go to you for—for consolation. You won’t despise me?”

“Oh, Cherry! I am sure when one knows life one sees that after all those tests are rather childish. I should not think less of you if you made a mistake.” Perhaps it was characteristic of Cheriton that he felt more than ever resolved to attain success, and he answered,—

“You ought to think less of me if I did not do my best to avoid mistakes.”

“Now that is worthy of Jack, of whom I am becoming quite afraid. I care for my friends because—well, because I care for them, and what they do makes no difference.”

“That,” said Cherry, “is the sort of backing up that would make a man able to endure failure till success came. But still one must wish to bring home the spoils!”

There was a dangerous intensity in Cheriton’s accent, and Ruth laughed gaily.

“Of course, men are always so ambitious. Well, I believe in your spoils, Cherry, but don’t work too hard for them. Don Alvar told Virginia you would knock yourself up.”

“Oh, Alvar! Hard work is a great puzzle to him. No fear of my working too hard, I get stupefied too quickly, otherwise I should not be here now; but I can’t grudge what is so—so delightful. Take care, that is a very slippery stone. Won’t you give me your hand? There, that’s a safe one.”

Ruth was not a great adept at scrambling independently, but she knew how to be helped with wonderful grace and gratitude. Nor was a solitary ramble with Cheriton at all an unnatural thing. He had helped her up in many a difficult place in their boy-and-girl days, and teased her by pretending that he would not help her down; but now she felt that in more senses than one she was treading on slippery ground, and guided the conversation on to the safer topic of Alvar and Virginia.

“Weren’t you very much surprised,” said Cheriton, “when that came about?”

“Well, you know,” said Ruth, “Virginia is rather transparent. I couldn’t help guessing that she was interested in your brother. She is so romantic, too, and he is such a cavalier.”

“I suppose you always study common sense,” said Cherry, who preferred greatly to talk about Ruth herself than to discuss Virginia.

“I have my own ideas of romance,” said Ruth; “but I think I have outgrown the notion that every one ought to look like a hero.”

“And what is your idea of romance?” asked Cherry, gratified by this remark.

“Self-devotion,” said Ruth briefly, giving up everything for the one object. “That’s true romance.”

“Self-sacrifice?” said Cherry. “That is too hard work to be romantic about.”

“Not for any one—anything one loved,” said Ruth very low, but with flushing cheeks.

“Then,” said Cheriton, “there would be no other self left to sacrifice.”

Ruth was startled. Rupert had never so answered her thoughts, had never given her quite such a look.

Cherry paused and turned round towards her with a desperate impulse urging him to speak, her face shining with enthusiasm giving him sudden courage.

“Ah!” exclaimed Ruth, springing across on to a very unsteady stone, “you are getting too serious! I declare, there’s a white butterfly, the first for the year. And look—oh, look, Cherry, isn’t that bit of gorse pretty against the sky? It’s too bad to discuss abstract questions at a picnic on a spring day.”

Cheriton stood still for a moment. He heard the rush of the water, he saw the shine of the sun, his eyes followed the butterfly as it fluttered up to the bit of yellow gorse, he could see Ruth smiling and graceful, beckoning to him to follow her; the glamour and dazzle had passed, and the day was like any other fine day now.

“I did not mean to discuss abstract questions,” he said, with a touch of offence.

“Ah! but you were getting very deep! Come, don’t be cross, Cherry; you look exactly like Jack at this minute, and you can’t make your eyebrows meet, so don’t try.”

“Poor Jack, you are very hard on him,” said Cherry, recovering himself. “Will you have a bit of the gorse for your hat, if I cut all the prickles off?”

“If you cut all the prickles off, what will you leave?” said Ruth.

They had a very charming walk after this, and were much more merry and talkative than at first. There was a sense of being baffled deep down in Cherry’s heart, but if the rest was surface work it was very enchanting, and they dawdled and chattered till the time slipped away, and they saw their party in the distance coming back from the tarn.

“Oh, let us run,” said Ruth, “and get into the road before them.”

“Come,” said Cherry, holding out his hand, and they ran across the short turf, the sweet, keen air blowing in their faces, a sort of excitement urging Ruth, who was a lazy little thing usually, to this childish proceeding.

They came running down into the road just as the whole party came back from the tarn, crying out on them for their laziness.

“We have been looking for you,” said Virginia, whose hat was daintily wreathed with stag moss. “Alvar and I tried to find you.”

“Oh, yes, you were miserable without us of course,” said Cherry. “Hallo, Rupert! where on earth did you spring from?”

“I came over for a ball at the Molyneuxes; they have taken Blackrigg Hall, you know. I must get back by the first thing to-morrow. I heard of your picnic from some of the people about, and came to see if I could fall in with you.”

“You are just in time to come back with us to the inn,” said Mr Ellesmere; “we shall have no more than time to get a cup of tea and be off for the train.”

“I thought you would not come,” whispered Ruth to Rupert as they all walked back together.

“So it seemed; what were you doing with Cherry?” said Rupert sharply.

Ruth looked at him with reproach in her eyes, but they had no chance then of obtaining private words. Rupert looked savage, but directed his efforts to sitting next her in the omnibus which was to convey most of the party to the station.

“Don’t spoil these few minutes,” whispered Ruth imploringly as she looked up in his displeased face. “Could I let people guess how I was longing for you? I thought you would have been here sooner.”

“Cherry is always to the fore,” said Rupert with an amount of ill-temper for which Ruth could not quite account. She felt profoundly miserable, so wretched that she could hardly keep the tears out of her eyes. She had looked forward for the last day or two to this poor little meeting as such a light in the darkness, and now some one spoke to Rupert and some one else to herself. There was no chance of making it up—if they were to part so! Oh, it was hard! Virginia could say as much as she liked to her lover. Then Ruth saw that Alvar was not in the omnibus, nor Cheriton either, and hoped that the latter fact might assuage Rupert’s jealousy. Perhaps he felt ashamed of it, for as they neared Blackrigg she felt his hand clasp hers, and he whispered, “Forgive me.”

In the meanwhile Cheriton, having lingered a moment to make payments and final arrangements, was left for the “trap,” a very nondescript vehicle, which had brought Bob and Jack from the station. To his surprise he found that Alvar instead of one of the younger ones was his companion.

“Why, how’s this?” he said.

“I thought that I would wait for you. Is it not my turn?” said Alvar, who sometimes liked to claim an equality with the others.

“I’m afraid you’ll get wet,” said Cherry; “they’ve all the plaids, and it is going to rain. These mountain showers come up so quickly.”

“I do not mind the rain,” said Alvar. Cheriton, however, mindful of Alvar’s short experience of the cold, driving rain of the country, made him put a dilapidated rug that was in the carriage over his shoulders, and drove on as fast as he could, through mist and wind, till about half-way to Blackrigg there was a great jolt,—off came the wheel of the trap, which turned over, and they were both thrown out on to the high bank beside the road.

Cherry felt Alvar’s arm round him before he had time to get up, and heard him speaking fast in Spanish, and then, “You are not hurt, my brother?”

“Oh, no—no. Nor you? That’s all right; but we’re in a nice fix. No getting to Blackrigg to-night. Here’s the wheel off.”

The bank was soft and muddy; and they were quite unhurt, and after a minute, Cherry hailed a man passing by, and asked him to take the horse back to the inn, proposing to Alvar to try to catch the train at Stonybeach, an intermediate station, to which he knew a short cut.

“Can you make a ran for it?” he said.

“Yes—oh, yes, I can run,” said Alvar. “This is an adventure.”

It was such a run across country as reminded Cheriton of his days of paper-chases, and was probably a new experience to Alvar, who remarked breathlessly, as they neared the station,—

“I can run—when it is necessary; but I do not understand your races for amusement.”

Cheriton made no answer, as they entered the station and found that after all a neighbouring market had delayed the train, and that they had still some minutes to wait.

“That’s too bad,” said Cherry, as strength and breath fairly failed him, and he sat hastily down on a bench, to his own surprise and annoyance, completely exhausted.

“All! you are too tired!” exclaimed Alvar, coming to him; and with a kindness and presence of mind for which few had given him credit, he made Cherry rest, and got the porter to fetch some water for him (the little roadside station afforded nothing else), till after a few minutes of dizzy faintness and breathlessness, Cherry began to revive into a state of indignation with himself, and gratitude to his brother, the expression of which sentiments Alvar silenced.

“Hush! I will not have you talk yet! You must rest till the train comes. Lean back against me. No—you have not made a confounded fool of yourself, when you could not help it.”

“I suppose the fall shook me,” said Cherry, presently. “Hark! there is the train. Now, Alvar, don’t you say a word of this. I am all right now.”

He stood up as the train came creeping and groaning into the station, and Jack made signs to them out of the window. The train was crowded, and the rest of the party were farther back. Jack exclaimed at their appearance, and while they were explaining their adventure, Alvar got some wine for Cheriton out of a hamper that had been brought for the luncheon.

“Why, Alvar, you are more than half a doctor,” said Cherry, as he took it. “I’m all right again now.”

Jack scanned him a little anxiously. “You had no business to be knocked up,” he said briefly. “You should not have tried to run when you were so out of condition.”

“If I am a doctor, Jack,” said Alvar, “I will not have my patient scolded. He is better now, are you not, Cherito mio? And we are not fit to see the ladies. See, I am covered with mud,” and Alvar endeavoured to brush the mud off his hat, and to make his wet clothes look a little less disreputable.

Cherry put a great coat on, as a measure both of prudence and respectability. He had been desperately desirous of catching the train for the sake of a few more words with Ruth; for on the next day he was obliged to return to Oxford. They were all to part at Hazelby, where their respective carriages awaited them.

Ruth had forgotten his very existence as he hurried up to her in the crowded station; for Rupert had been forced to go on by the train. She remembered now that her walk with him had made Rupert angry, and hardly able to control her voice to speak at all, she wished him a cold, hasty good-night, and sprang into the carriage without giving him time for a word.

Cheriton was both angry and miserable; he stood back silently, while Alvar put Virginia into the carriage, and excused himself gaily for his muddy coat. Dick Seyton ran up at the last minute, and the Lesters set out on their six-miles drive in an open break, under waterproofs and umbrellas, through the pouring rain. The twins disputed under their breath, and Jack lectured Cheriton on the amount of exercise necessary during a period of hard reading.

Cherry, for once, answered him sharply, and Alvar, as was usually the case when his Geschwistern quarrelled, wondered silently, both how they could be so un-courteous to each other, and how they could excite themselves so much about nothing. But there had been something in the manner of his kindness and attention that dwelt pleasantly in Cheriton’s memory of a day which for many reasons he had afterwards cause to look back upon with pain.

Chapter Seventeen.

Rifts.

“It is the little rift within the lover’s lute.”

In the June following the expedition to Black Tarn, some great festivities were held in honour of the coming of age of a young nobleman, who possessed a large property about fifteen miles from Oakby.

His father, the late Lord Milford, had been a friend of Mr Lester, and the young man himself was at school for a time with his sons. The event being also of importance in the county, old Mrs Lester broke through her usual home-staying habits, and took Ruth and Virginia Seyton for a three days’ visit to Milford Hall.

It was right for Virginia to be seen in her own county before her marriage; it was years since her father and aunt had been present at such a gathering, and Alvar and his father were of course among the guests. Cheriton was passing, or had passed, his examination; but he had decided not to come home until he knew his fate; and in studying the papers every morning, in the hope of seeing the Class Lists long before they could possibly be printed, Mr Lester and Alvar found at last a subject on which they could thoroughly sympathise, though Mr Lester frequently remarked that there was never any knowing how those matters would be managed; he did not expect much, while Alvar suffered from no misgivings at all.

Rupert and some of his brother officers were among the guests; the entertainments were of the most brilliant description, and the weather perfect.

Ruth was well known and popular. True, she distinguished herself neither in archery nor any other outdoor sport; she was not even a very great dancer; but she could talk, and look, and smile as if her companion’s words were the one thing interesting to her; hence her success. And Rupert was there, and in the dark alleys and lonely shrubberies of the great gardens at Milford, opportunities for tête-à-têtes were not wanting. Ruth, conscious of her becoming dress of the soft, warm maize that suited her brown skin, with amusement and admiration to froth her cup of pleasure, and Rupert’s exciting presence to spice it and make it worth the drinking, might seem to be enjoying the most brilliant outcome of young-lady life. Sparkle and colour, feeling and passion, she would have chosen as her greatest good. Theoretically she would have willingly embraced the pains and penalties which they might bring in their train. Yet Ruth on the sunny lawns and stately paths of Milford was profoundly and violently miserable, full of anger and despair.

The terms on which she stood with Rupert were such as could only be endurable with the most perfect trust on both sides. Where it was necessary to feign neglect, it was sometimes a strain to believe in the real devotion. Neither Ruth nor Rupert were people whose manners precluded the possibility of a mistake, and, as has been seen, Rupert was not proof against jealousy. The strength of Ruth’s own passion made her more trustful of his, but at the same time she demanded more from him, and he failed to fulfil her ideal of an ardent lover. He appeared to her to be too cautious, to miss opportunities, and be his necessity for secrecy what it might, she could not bear to see him attentive to others—to another, rather.

There was a young Lady Alice, in her first season, a charming childish beauty, after whom it was the fashion to run, and who found it agreeable enough to torment her many admirers, and provoke the aunt who chaperoned her, by flirting with the handsome Captain Lester, who, on his side, knew well enough that she meant nothing serious; and, while he was true in his heart to Ruth, was vain enough to be flattered by the preference of a beauty, and of a lady, moreover, of rank and distinction. It showed every one that he was a man of the world, and a very agreeable fellow.

Perhaps matters might have mended if Mrs Lester, who thought modern manners much too free, and drew a sharp distinction between the simplicity of her own straightforward, unwatched girlhood and the coquetries of a ball-room, and who, moreover, disapproved of Ruth, had not looked so very sharply after her, that private interviews were rendered difficult, and Ruth was growing too angry to seek one.

She had not sat by him at dinner; they were separated at the great concert that had been given on the day of their arrival; and on the next, which was one long fête, ending in a ball, they only caught a few hasty words with each other; and it appeared to her excited fancy that he was for ever at Lady Alice’s side. In the evening she would not dance with him, crowding her card with names, laughed, talked, flirted, and was wretched. It was not till after supper that he pursued her into the last of a long vista of conservatories, where a very youthful partner had conducted her to smell the stephanotis, and claim the next dance as his own.

The warm, scented air, the distant music, the soft, dim mingling of lamp and moonlight, through which strange, rare flowers gleamed out from their dark foliage, formed such a background as Ruth’s vivid fancy, fed by many a tale and poem, had often painted, to scenes that should satisfy her in their tenderness and intensity. Among the wild fir-woods of Oakby, here and there, at odd times and by unexpected chances, she had known blissful moments, every one of which was before her now as she set her mouth hard, and looked at Rupert with eyes full both of love and anger.

Rupert was excited and eager, conscious of having given cause of offence, and a little off his head with the flattery he had received. He failed to read the meaning of her face, and turned to her eagerly.

“At last, my child! Mrs Lester is a perfect dragon!”

“I don’t think it has been Mrs Lester’s fault.”

“It has been none of mine,” said Rupert. “Your fine, yellow dress escaped me at every turn, and I could not get away from the people. I have had to work hard for my fun, and arrange dozens of things.”

“I daresay it is very pleasant to be so popular,” said Ruth, detecting the little boast, which in a cooler moment would have passed unnoticed. There was a sort of airiness in Rupert’s manner, inexpressibly irritating when she wanted every assurance of the passion which she was so often obliged to take upon trust.

“Come, Ruthie, that’s not fair. What is a poor fellow to do? I have been horribly down in the mouth since we parted; it takes so long to get one’s affairs to rights. Your guardians would bow me out of the house pretty quickly if I applied to them now. Can you trust me a little longer, my darling? I’m living on twopence a day to bring things round.”

“And did the gloves Lady Alice won from you, come out of the twopence?” said Ruth, unable to control her anger, sarcastic because such a storm of tears was pending.

Rupert’s quick temper took fire in a moment.

“If you have so little confidence in me, Ruth, as to be angry at such a trifle,” he said hotly, “it is impossible—You make me feel that I ask more of you than you can give.”

“Yes,” said Ruth, “I cannot give such confidence. When it is months since I have seen you—weeks since I heard from you. I cannot see you devoted to—to another, when you cannot find a moment for me. If you can bear it—”

“You are very unreasonable, Ruth. I thought that you were generous before all other women, and patient. You speak as if you doubted my honour.”

“If it comes to talking of honour,” cried Ruth, “if you need that to bind you, you are free. I will not hold you one hour by your honour!”

“Nor I you to a trial of generosity, which it seems you cannot bear.”

If Rupert had not been first tête montée, and then very angry, he would not have made this remark.

“Generosity!” cried Ruth. “No. If honour and generosity are required between us, I’ll make no claim on them. Let it all be over—we’ll part. Yes, we’ll part, and then you need deny yourself nothing—nothing for my sake.”

“It might be best—if you look on it in this way.”

There was a silence. Rupert pulled his moustaches sharply; his face was pale; in that hot moment he felt he might be well quit of Ruth’s unreasonable jealousy and suspicion. Ruth sat quite still; she would have yielded at a word, perhaps—in a minute more she might even have made the first advance to a reconciliation. But as the dance ended the conservatory filled with people. They were joined by two or three couples, and a young lady, an old acquaintance of Rupert’s, exclaimed, with sufficient forwardness,—

“Oh, Captain Lester, what do you think we were discussing? People say that you are engaged to be married. Is it true—do tell me?”

“No,” said Rupert shortly. “I am not engaged to be married, nor likely to be.”

He laughed bitterly as he spoke, and perhaps under the circumstances could hardly have avoided some sort of denial; but the directness of this one, and the tone in which it was spoken, seemed to seal Ruth’s fate. She said afterwards that she went mad at that moment, and certainly she lost the soft self-possession that was one of her chief charms, grew daring and defiant, and said and did things that others remembered long after she had recovered from the wild excitement that prompted them. The sacredness of ungovernable feeling was an article of her faith, and she was quite as miserable as she ever thought true love would demand of any one. But the poor child, as she sat on the floor in her own room that night, with her face hidden on a chair, did not think at all that she was “having an experience,” nor going through the second volume of the story, in the beginning of which she had so gloried; she only felt that she was utterly and inconceivably wretched, and angry beyond expression. Rupert did not care for her, or only cared in a commonplace fashion. There was nothing left in life for her. Evidently he had been glad to find in the quarrel an excuse for an escape.

Ruth’s hot displeasure culminated when she came down to breakfast the next morning, and found that every one was regretting the departure of the officers from York, who had been obliged to take leave early that morning. They would be a great loss at the tenants’ ball that night.

“Father, my father,” suddenly exclaimed Alvar Lester, coming into the room with a newspaper in his hand. “See, it is here, ‘Gerald Cheriton Lester.’ And he is first. I said so. Ah! I rejoice!”

Alvar’s eager voice and excited face attracted general attention, as he put the paper into his father’s hand, and pointed over his shoulder. There was a chorus of congratulation, while Mr Lester’s blue eyes looked as bright as his son’s black ones, as he hummed and ha’d, coughed two or three times, and said, with as little exultation as he could manage to show, “That he was glad Cheriton had worked hard and done his best. He was a good lad, and had never given any trouble. Now, they could have him at home for a bit.”

“Ah! that will be jolly,” said Alvar. “But he will have come home, through last night, and we shall not be there.”

“Send a telegram to meet him, and ask him to come over,” said young Lord Milford. “He always was a capital fellow, and I shall be delighted to see him.”

“And I hope, Milford,” said the young lord’s mother, “that you will take example by your friend.”

“Don’t you build on any such hopes, mother, but I’ll go and see about getting him over here at once.”

Mrs Lester was moved to encomiums on Cherry’s studies and steadiness; and more than one of those present remarked with admiration the unselfish pleasure taken by the elder brother in the success of his universally popular junior.

Virginia Seyton watched her betrothed a little wistfully. Ruth’s was not the only love story that was running its course through these early summer months, and Virginia’s heart was not quite at ease. If “what Rupert was like,” had come upon Ruth with a sudden blow, “what Alvar was like,” was still something of a problem to Virginia. He was attractive to her beyond measure, he occupied every corner of her heart; it was joy to her to be near him; his gentle, chivalrous courtship gave her unimaginable delight. She could remember every glance of his eyes, every touch of his hand; but—But what? Alvar was at once too obtuse and too proud ever to assume a character that did not belong to him. He did not think it worth while to acquire or profess new sentiments; perhaps he never even perceived that they were desired. He was, spite of his courteous tongue, as absolutely candid a person as his brother Jack. He was not a bit worse than he seemed, neither was he much better. He behaved very well in his difficult life, and regulated his conduct by certain maxims of honour and courtesy; but, in the sense in which Virginia understood the word, he had no principles at all. It was with a curious mixture of sensations that, when, à propos of some scrape of Dick’s, she had timidly alluded to the gambling that had brought such distress on her family, Virginia heard him answer,—

“Ah, they have had much ill-fortune,” without a spark apparently of righteous indignation.

Nor could she help perceiving that he scarcely ever occupied himself with anything more useful than a cigar. “My father is always busy,” he would say complacently, as he sat idle; but he did not point any popular moral; for idleness made him neither ill-humoured nor mischievous.

Virginia loved him well enough to set all her will on the side of making allowances. When he saw her scrupulous and earnest in fulfilling her religious duties, he would kiss her hand and say, “My queen is as holy as a saint,” and he conformed sufficiently to the Oakby standard to satisfy her conscience, if not his own, never uttering a word that could offend her. But, as he had told Cheriton, “he did not interest himself in these matters,” and she knew it.

Perhaps Virginia, diffident as to her knowledge of masculine standards and modes of expression, might never have realised even thus much to herself, but for the instinctive sense of another shortcoming in her lover, which she would not admit, and which she hated herself for even imagining. It came, by a strange turn of fate, both to her and to Ruth, to feel that the love they gave was not returned in its fulness. With what a passion of despair and jealousy Ruth had resented the discovery has been seen.

To Virginia it brought a disheartening sense of her own demerit, a doubt of the truth of her own impressions, vexation at her own want of trustfulness, shame and self-blame, because she could not help knowing that Alvar missed sometimes the chance of a word or an interview when she would have secured it, because she felt that he did not care as she cared. But then, temperaments differ; some people were reserved; perhaps she was exacting, and her cheek had flushed and her eyes sparkled with joy when Alvar praised the dresses she had taken such pains to choose for the Milford fêtes, and when he paid her all the attention due from an affianced lover.

She had no cause to feel neglected, while Ruth was chafing at the sight of Rupert’s flirtations. And when the news came of Cheriton’s success, was she not proud of Alvar’s generous delight? Yes, but she had never stirred his passive content to such pleasure; he had never been in such high spirits for her! Ah! how hatefully selfish she was to think of it!

The two girls exchanged no confidences. Ruth’s heart was too sore, and Virginia’s too loyal for a word; but as they consulted over their dresses, and speculated whether Cheriton would arrive in time for the tenants’ dance that night, each wondered what the other would say to the secret thoughts of her heart.

Chapter Eighteen.

Red Sunrise.

“O happy world!” thought Pelleas, “all me seems Are happy—I the happiest of them all.”

On that same hot summer night, when Ruth and Rupert were first making each other miserable, and then finding out separately that they were very miserable themselves, Cheriton, with hope and joy in his heart, was speeding home to Oakby. With hope and joy, for Ruth had made up for her cold farewell, by making some little excuse for writing to him, and asking him to get her a picture of the Arms of the Colleges, a commission which, it is needless to say, he found time to execute.

This pleasure had helped him through his hard work, for he was excitable enough to have felt the last few weeks of effort and suspense a severe strain, and had not brought quite his usual health and strength to bear on them; for he had caught a bad cold with the race in the rain at Black Tarn, and had never given himself a chance of getting rid of it. However, it was all over now, he thought, his mind was relieved, and the prospect of home with its leisure and its occupations had never seemed so delightful to him. For his love for Ruth did not shut out the thought of all other affections, it rather cast a radiance over them, and made him more conscious of their sweetness.

It was a lovely summer morning, as the train came in to Ashrigg station, the wide landscape showed clear and fresh against the cloudless sky, the peculiar northern sharpness was in the air. It was sweet to Cherry’s senses, and finding no conveyance so early at Ashrigg, he set off to walk home across the dewy fields, Buffer, enchanted at his release from durance vile, trotting and barking at his heels.

By various short cuts the walk was under three miles, and Cheriton soon found himself at the house, where he had time to get some breakfast, and to feel somewhat disappointed that no one was at home to hear his good news, for he felt too tired to go and seek for congratulations at the Vicarage, where Nettie was staying, or where he would have been at least equally certain of them, to the Lodge to which the old family nurse had migrated.

So he contented himself with greeting all the dogs, and with the delightful consciousness that he had no need to exert himself, till Lord Milford’s telegram arrived, and the thought of so quickly greeting Ruth, and of finding her belonging as it were to his own party, and thus making a thousand opportunities for paying her attention, roused him from his fit of languor and fatigue, and he eagerly made his preparations, and started off in the middle of the bright June day, on his further travels.

The midsummer weather in that northern country had still much of the freshness and the delicacy of the spring. The trees were in their first bright green, the bluebells lingered in the woods, the birds sang songs of hopefulness to him. Milford was in a softer, more richly-wooded landscape than Oakby, and the gardens were splendid with early roses and flowering shrubs, the park still here and there white with hawthorn.

This was the children’s day, a great school feast for all the parishes round, to be followed by a children’s dance in the evening. Cheriton arrived in the midst of a grand tea in the park, and pausing to detect his relations, perceived Alvar looking even unusually tall, stately, and graceful, as he walked along a row of the very tiniest children, and filled their mugs with milk and water from a huge can. He looked up as he came to the end, and saw Cheriton’s laughing eyes fixed full upon him.

“Ah! Cheriton!” he exclaimed, “you are here, and with all your honours! Welcome.”

“Thanks; I knew you would be pleased. So you are making yourself useful. Where’s my father?”

“In the tent with Lady Milford. I will show you.”

Cheriton was inclined to think it a great bore to find his own people surrounded by strangers, and was ashamed of the congratulations which the circumstances of his arrival and the warm-heartedness of his hosts called forth. So he and his father hardly said a word to each other, though they experienced a great content in being together; perhaps a more uncommon ending to a university career than Cherry’s honours, even had they been doubled.

“Come, Lester,” said Lord Milford, “and make yourself useful. I know you are great at sack-races, and three-legged races, and such diversions.”

“After being up all night? Well, as long as I am not expected to jump in a sack myself—” said Cheriton. “Come, Alvar, don’t you want another can of milk and water?”

“All! you laugh at me,” said Alvar contentedly. “I am too glad to see you to care. This fête is very pleasant. I am glad you came back in time for it.”

“Yes; but I wish we were all at home,” said Cheriton absently, and looking anxiously round him. He soon discovered Virginia, much in her element among a crowd of school-girls; and at length his eyes found the object of their search. A little apart on a bench sat Ruth in the most delicate of white muslins, gloves, fan, and ribbons, all in first-rate order, looking, with the fantastic fashion, and brilliant dashes of colour in her dress, like a figure on a fan. She gave a little start as she saw Cheriton’s figure in the distance, and her flush of disappointment as he came nearer was at once noted by him, and—misinterpreted.

“So you have got your laurels?” she said softly, as she held out her hand, and looked up in his face. “I am glad.”

“Then they are worth having?” said Cheriton.

It might have been a mere jesting answer, but Ruth did not so take it, nor did he intend that she should do so. He would have altered nothing in her greeting to him, it was a better meeting than he could have imagined. Afterwards, if Ruth had wished to discourage him, she would not have found it easy; he had but one purpose, and he set himself to fulfil it; hopeful through the charm of present bliss. It was not often that Cheriton’s native skies were so cloudless, nor were these hot, full summer days at all typical of the home that he loved so well. But it was in such “blue unclouded weather,” in such smiling midsummer beauty, that he pictured afterwards the wind-swept moors and hardy fir-woods of his north-country home. Nor did the memory of hot, glaring sunshine, of dust, and noise, and fatigue, cease to haunt Ruth for many a day to come.

She was one of those to whom excitement gives another and an intenser self. Of this she was dimly conscious, and when she had said that she could die for Rupert, she had perhaps not been far wrong. That extreme anger would urge her to a course almost equally desperate she had never guessed, but to give Rupert pain, to cause him chagrin and remorse, in short, to make him jealous and miserable as he had made her, she would have endured tortures.

When people are thus minded, in other words, when they are in a passion, life always helps them on. Whether by accident or by malice, she had heard plenty of gossip about Rupert; he had written no word of repentance; she knew that Lady Alice would shortly meet him again. Well, if her conduct was discussed between them, he should hear enough, both to hurt his provoking self-love, and to show that he did not suffer. And Cheriton offered the sort of strange counter-attraction often felt on such occasions to any one else than the object of anger.

She had always liked to “talk to Cherry,” his love was flattering, and she instinctively knew that it was true. He was also a singularly attractive and lovable person, and in Ruth’s sore-hearted rage she felt his charm. “It was nice to be with him—he did her good;” and if she could wound Rupert and please herself, the possible disappointment to Cheriton was not worth considering. But Ruth reckoned without her host. She neither allowed for Cheriton’s ardour, nor for the effect that it would have on her; she did not know how definite her choice must be.

Cherry was not nearly so useful as his friend had expected; he was too tired to play games, and dancing, he said, gave him a pain in his side and made him cough, which was true, and would have been an equally good reason against wandering about in the shrubberies and distant paths with Ruth, where he incurred other dangers than night air and dewy grass. He was too happy to heed any of them. She listened, as Ruth knew how to listen, to his account of his Oxford life—his hopes and fears—his future prospects—and she was carried away, spite of herself, by the single-minded earnestness with which he spoke. He interested her, and she forgot herself for the moment as they strolled along; the yellow sunset dying in the distance, the first star shining over the great house behind them. Suddenly Cheriton turned and took her hand.

“Ruth,” he said, “I have told you all this because it is so sweet to see you listen. I have something more to tell you now. I have a great many aims and ambitions—there’s one dearer than the rest. I love my own people—my home—very much. I love you best, infinitely best. I always have loved you. Can you love me?”

“Oh, Cherry!” cried Ruth, in desperate self-defence, “don’t say so! That sort of love is all a mistake. Keep to the other sort—it is a great deal better for you.”

“Better!” exclaimed Cheriton. “One thing is best for me—to have you for my wife. Oh, Ruth, my darling! ever since I was a boy I have loved you. Can’t you care a little for me? I think you can—I hope you can. You have always listened to me and understood me. I think you know me better than any one does!”

“I know—you do care,” said Ruth, half to herself.

“It is my very life,” he said, and as she, trembling, hardly able to stand, made a half movement towards—not away from him—he threw his arms round her and drew her close. “My darling!—oh, my darling! am I so happy?—ah! thank God! Thank God!”

Ruth burst into a passion of tears. Retreat was growing impossible; she hardly knew what she wished; anger, a sort of wild triumph, the difficulty of resisting this passionate pleading, the inconceivable joy of Cheriton’s face and voice, added to the overstrained excitement of her previous feelings, completely overpowered her, till her sobs were uncontrollable, and with them came the strangest impulse to tell him all, the most incongruous confidence in the justice and sympathy of this passionate lover for the love and sorrows that would have wrecked his hopes. Ah! if she had but done so!

“Oh, what a fool I have been!” cried Cheriton, exceedingly distressed. “Oh, Ruth, my darling! I have frightened you. I’ll be patient; I’ll not say another word. See, here’s a seat—sit down. I deserve that you should never speak to me again.”

Ruth let him lead her to the bench, and endeavoured to collect her senses.

“I am not half good enough for you. You don’t know what you want,” she faltered.

“Oh, yes, I do. I know just what I want,” said Cheriton softly and gently; but venturing to sit down beside her, and trying to reassure her by a little playfulness; “but I don’t know how to ask for it. Alvar might have shown me the way.”

“Oh, you know well enough,” said Ruth, in a more natural tone, and in the few moments, while he sat watching her, her excitement cooled down, or rather hardened itself into shape. Her tears dried up, and she said,—

“What would your father say?”

“He will think me too happy! Will you forgive me for startling you, and give me my answer now?”

He was half smiling, as he timidly put out his hand again. She had given reason enough to hope for the answer he wanted, and suddenly there darted into her mind as an excuse, a reason, an explanation of all this conflict of impulses, of the wish to pique Rupert to avenge herself on the one side—to snatch something from life if she could not have all on the other—a thought—“When Rupert knows he has such a rival, if he loves me, he will not give me up.” She yielded her hand to Cheriton’s, and said quickly,—

“Only promise me one thing. I did not think of this—it is so sudden. I am going away to-morrow, to Mrs Grey’s, for a fortnight. Promise not to tell any one—your father, your brothers, till I come back. Give me time to—to get used to it first.”

“Of course,” said Cheriton reluctantly, “that must be as you please. But I long to tell them of my great happiness. And my father will care so much about it. But of course I promise. But I may write to you?”

“No—no—then every one will find it out!” said Ruth, with recurring agitation. “You—you don’t know how I feel about it.”

“Well, I have gained too much to complain,” said Cheriton, too loyal-hearted, and too inexperienced, for a single doubt. “But Ruth, my Ruth, one thing—give me one kiss to remember!”

“Go then—go! some one will find us!” cried Ruth, and startled by approaching footsteps, she rushed away from him; but the treacherous kiss was given, though she felt in a moment that she would almost have died to recall it. She had revenged herself; she hated herself; she already began to try to excuse herself.

A little later, while troops of gaily-dressed children were dancing in the lighted hall, and the outdoor guests were rapidly departing, Alvar was standing on the terrace, wondering what could have become of his brother. More than one person had remarked that he looked delicate and overworked; and Alvar felt anxious as he saw him come slowly up from the grounds towards him.

“Where have you been, Cherry?” he said. “Are you not well?”

Cheriton smiled rather dreamily.

“Oh, yes, quite well,” he said. There was a far-away look of blissful, peaceful content in his eyes, as if it were indeed well with him; an expression of perfect, thankful happiness, as far removed from the ordinary state of this tolerably comfortable work-a-day world as one of great wretchedness and misery; and as remarkable. As Alvar looked at him, they heard the cry of a little child. Cheriton turned and saw trotting along the terrace in the dusk a very little boy, left behind by some of the schools now trooping out of the park. Cherry lifted him up in his arms and smiled kindly at him, trying to make out whom he belonged to, and the child clung to him, quite at ease with him. “Milford School; ah! I see their flag. Come, my lad, we’ll go and find them. There, don’t cry, nobody must cry to-night, of all nights in the year.”

“When Lady Milford has been so kind,” said Alvar, for the child’s benefit.

“Ah! every one is kind!” said Cherry, with a little laugh, as he carried away the child, “and we must—say thank you.”

End of Volume One.

Brothers.

“There are none so dependent on the kindness of others as those that are exuberantly kind themselves.”

Chapter Nineteen.

Life and Death.

“As we descended, following hope, There sat the shadow feared of man.”

Perhaps it was well for the permanence of Cheriton’s new-born happiness that he had but a very short glimpse of Ruth. The next morning, the Oakby party started early, that Mr Lester might arrive in time to attend a magistrate’s meeting at Hazelby, while Ruth remained for the later train that was to take her on her separate visit. She would not give him a chance of seeing her alone, and one look, one clasp of the hand, and—“Remember your promise” was all the satisfaction he obtained from her. Yet he could hardly collect his thoughts to answer his father’s many questions on their journey home, and trying to shout through the noise of the train made him cough so much that his grandmother scolded him for catching such a bad cold.

“Young men are so foolish,” she said, but she did not look at all uneasy. Her grandchildren’s illnesses were never serious; and all the Lesters thought any amount of discomfort preferable to “having a fuss made.” Cherry hardly knew himself how ill he was feeling, as they reached home and the day went on; but he was so weary with bad nights and fatigue that it was a perpetual effort to remember that all his suspense of every sort was over, that the examination was passed, and that Ruth was his. He lay on the sofa trying to rest; but the cough disturbed him, and by dinner-time he was obliged to own himself beaten and to go to bed, saying that a night’s rest would quite set him up again.

“Boys have no moderation,” said Mr Lester, in a tone of annoyance. “It is well it is all over now. Cheriton might have taken quite as good a place without overworking himself in this way.”

Alvar, not understanding that peculiarly English form of anxiety that shows itself in shortness of temper, thought this remark very unfeeling. Mrs Lester suggested some simple remedy for the cough; Cherry promised to try it, and was left to his “night’s rest.”

He woke in the early morning from a short, feverish sleep, to such pain and breathlessness and such a sense of serious illness as he had never experienced in his life, and, thoroughly frightened and bewildered, was trying to think how he could call any one, when his door was softly opened, and Alvar came in.

“I heard you cough so much,” he said. “You cannot sleep. I am afraid you are ill.”

“Very ill,” said Cherry. “You must send some one for the doctor.”

He was but just able to tell Alvar where to find the young groom who could ride into Hazelby to fetch him; and soon there was terrible alarm through all the prosperous household, as, roused one after another, they came to see what was amiss. Nettie fled, with her hands up to her ears, right out into the dewy garden, away from the house, afraid to hear what the doctor said of Cherry. Mr Lester gave vent to one outburst of rage with examiners, examination, and Oxford generally, then braced himself to wait in silence for tidings; as he had waited once before when his wife lay in mortal danger—would the verdict be the same now? Mrs Lester preserved her self-possession, sent for the keeper’s wife, who was the best nurse at hand, and though sadly at a loss what remedies to suggest, sat down to watch her grandson, because it was her place to do so.

They were all too thankful for any help in the crisis to wonder that it was Alvar who held Cherry in an easier position, and soothed him with quiet tenderness.

When the doctor at length arrived, he pronounced that Cheriton was suffering from a violent attack of inflammation of the lungs. He was very ill; but his youth and previous good health were in his favour. Overwork and the neglected cold would doubtless account for it.

“Will it be over—in a fortnight?” said Cherry, suddenly.

“We’ll hope so—we’ll hope so,” said the doctor. “You have only to do as you are told, you know. Now, have you a good nurse?” turning to Mrs Lester.

“Yes, we think Mrs Thornton very trustworthy—she was nursery-maid here before she married.”

“There must be as few people about him as possible. No talking and no excitement.”

“But—Alvar will stay?” said Cherry, wistfully. “Father, he came in the night—I want him.”

“Hush, hush, my boy—yes, of course he will stay with you if you like,” said Mr Lester, hastily.

“Of course,” said Alvar, with a curious accent, half-proud, half-tender, as he laid his hand on Cheriton’s.

The foreign brother was the last person whom Mr Adamson expected to see in such a capacity; but if he was inefficient, both he and his patient would probably soon discover it; he looked the most self-possessed of the party, and his manner soothed Cheriton. Mrs Thornton had plenty of practical experience to supply his inevitable ignorance. Cheriton was exceedingly ill; his strength did not hold out against the remedies as well as had been hoped, and he suffered so much as to be hardly ever clearly conscious.

“I was so happy!” he said several times with a sort of wonder, and his father felt that the words gave him another pang.

Mr Lester was threatened with the most terrible sorrow that could befall him, and no mitigation of the agony was possible to him. He thought that his best-loved son would die, and made up his mind to the worst, feeling hope impossible; but he made a conscientious effort at endurance, an effort sadly unsuccessful.

“Eh! my son,” said his old mother, “he is a good lad, take that comfort.”

And this reserved hint at the one real consolation was almost the only attempt at comforting each other that any of them made. No one tried to “make the best of it,” to look at the hopeful side, or to find in any mutual tenderness a little lightening of the burden. They held apart from each other with a curious shyness, and as far as possible pursued their several businesses. Nettie went to her lessons, and refused to hear a word of sympathy from her friends, and when at last she could endure the agony no longer, ran away by herself into the woods and hid herself all day. Why should they kiss her and give her flowers—it did not cure Cherry, or make it less dreadful that another doctor was coming from Edinburgh, because Mr Adamson thought him so ill. But she did not want to see him, and had no instinct whatever to do anything for him. Speech was no relief to any of them; it was easier to conceal than to indulge their feelings; and Mr Lester went about silent and stern; Nettie attempted to comfort no one but the dogs; and her grandmother found no relief but in talking of Cherry’s “folly in overworking himself” to Virginia, who came hurriedly at the first report that reached Elderthwaite. She was a rare visitor; it was characteristic of her relations with Alvar that a sort of shyness kept her away. She forgot to be shy, however, when Alvar came to speak to her for a moment, and sprang towards him.

“Oh! dear Alvar, this is terrible. I am so sorry for you. But you think he will be better.”

“Yes, surely,” said Alvar, as if no other view had occurred to him. “Mi dona, this is wrong that I should let you seek me; but I cannot leave him—he suffers so much—that cough is frightful.”

“But he likes to have you with him?”

“Yes, I can lift him best, and I do not ask him how he is when he cannot speak,” said Alvar, with the simplicity that was so like sarcasm. “Ah! it is not right to let you go back alone, mi Reyna—but I dare not stay.”

“That does not matter; only take care of yourself,” said Virginia, as Alvar kissed her hand and opened the door for her, and promised to let her have news every day.

But she went away tearful for more than Cheriton’s danger. Alvar had never told her that it comforted him to see her; he did not care whether she came or not.

“Eh! my lass, what news have you?” said an anxious voice, and looking up, Virginia saw her uncle, looking unusually clerical for a week day, hanging about the path in front of her.

“Alvar thinks he will be better, he is very ill now,” said Virginia; “they have sent for another doctor.”

“Ah! that’s bad! There’s never been such another in all the country. Queenie, did I ever tell you how he kept up our credit with the bishop?”

And Parson Seyton, whose nature was very different from his neighbour’s, spent a long hour in telling tales of Cherry’s boyhood to his willing listener. “Eh!” he concluded, “and I meant to fetch him over to hear our fine singing, and see how spick and span we are now-a-days—new surplice and all! Eh! he wrote me a sermon once—when he was a little lad not twelve years old—and I’ll swear it might have been preached with the best.”