John C. Hutcheson (continued 2)

Pringle was glad to see him, and his sister was introduced to the “young squire,” who tried to make himself as agreeable as possible, but was painfully embarrassed during his entire visit; and yet, before he had gone away, Lizzie thought him “such a nice fellow,” and she was “oh, what a darling” to him.—The two young things were drinking deep draughts of love which were intoxicating them and drawing them nearer and nearer to each other in a sort of rose-coloured Paradise, which the mere presence of the one conjured up to the other. And then he had to go, and it was pleasant to go, merely to have those taper fingers in his, which pressure sent a thrill of sweet electricity through his frame, while even she trembled and blushed—and then came the pang of parting.

On the morrow, he had to come and see “Pringle’s new fishing rod,” and show him his own, for it would be so jolly to fish from the lawn at the back of the parsonage, that ran down to the little river which contained such capital perch! and of course he could not help meeting her again, and she wanted to see the “poor little fish that were caught!”

Bless you, my darling, there were other fish caught that morning besides perch! How hackneyed, and yet how novel are the windings and twistings in the fairy land of Love’s Young Dream!

It was all over with them.

Volume One—Chapter Seven.

“Sowing the Wind.”

The nominal week, which had been mentioned as the duration of Markworth’s stay at The Poplars, passed pleasantly enough for Tom at all events. So pleasantly indeed, that he did not keep count of the days as they glided by, for he was continually dropping in at the parsonage “to see Pringle,” and was, long before the following Friday arrived, over head and ears in the little pit of love which Lizzie’s bright eyes had excavated in his heart. The dowager was still trotting about grinding down her tenants, and laying up riches which she did not know who would gather. Miss Kingscott had made the best use of her opportunities in two short interviews which she had had with the somewhat amorous doctor, and had yet contrived to cast sheep’s eyes on the young squire, whom she had hopes of captivating; while Markworth was steadily trying to gain the confidence of the poor half-demented girl, around whom he had already set his snares. All, all the members in fact of our drama, were recklessly engaged in the vineyard of Aeolus, all were with lavish hand sowing to the wind, never dreaming of the crop they should reap.

Susan Hartshorne’s strong passion for music had early been taken advantage of by Markworth as a means towards the end he had in view.

Music was, strange to say, for such a character, one of his fortes, indeed it was a hobby with him; and he was not only a first-rate player in the mere sense of mechanical dexterity, but was also a thorough musician at heart.

The pathology of the human mind is a wonderful and intricate study, and it is a remarkable fact, with all our spread of knowledge and science, with the vast new fields of thought which are freshly opened every day in the educated world, what trifling advance we have made in the analysis of the mainspring and moving power that sets in motion the train of thought itself! Medical jurisprudence has only of late become a special study, and the psychology of the human mind, one of its most important branches—more than a mere ramification as it is often held—is at best only a dead letter as yet to those who affect any acquaintance with the subject. Mental insanity is one of those topics, like the physiology of dreams, which embraces a large area for research and investigation; and even the best and latest of the physicians who have made this division of medical knowledge their especial field for enquiry, confess to what a very short distance their knowledge carries them. Hence, until very lately, not only was there no remedial treatment pursued, but arbitrary incarceration, strait-waistcoats, and chains, comprised all medical procedure towards our lunatics. Thank goodness, however, the broad light of science, reason, and common sense, has tended to dispel the black ignorance displayed by our forefathers towards our mental as well as bodily ills. Formerly drastics and phlebotomy, adopted alternately, were supposed to cure every disease and ailment of the human body, but that day is past now; and, so as in surgery and physic, a new path has been opened for the treatment of insanity. It is yet in its infancy; but many species of mania now deemed hopeless will before long, probably, succumb before judicious and efficacious ministering.

One of the most hopeless forms of insanity, according to eminent authorities on the subject, is melancholia, but even this gives way under proper treatment. In cases of this kind, patients are but too often neglected, and the cure is left, ignorantly, to work out itself, which generally ends unsuccessfully; whereas, if the patient under treatment were led out of themselves as it were, their affliction ignored, and treated to just the company and influences which appear to affect them most, I believe in nine cases out of ten of so called settled melancholia, the unfortunate sufferer would be turned out cured after a time.

Susan Hartshorne was suffering from this species of mental infliction. Her case certainly was not a very extreme one; and if she had been removed from her home at the time she first lost her wits, and been under gentle treatment and care (as Doctor Jolly recommended) instead of being kept at the place where all her surroundings, and especially her mother’s presence, kept the great fright she had undergone continually before her, she would have been cured long since. Even as it was, she was every month gaining fresh mental stamina from the outside influences at work upon her: now that Markworth specially devoted himself to her, as he did, and gradually caused her budding intellect and intelligence to expand instead of warping them, she changed more and more for the better every day. Markworth told Tom that he was interested in the case—as indeed he was on more accounts than one—and if left to himself he would cure her completely. The mother, too, seemed interested, as she could not but perceive the change in Susan, and thanked Markworth in her way, by dropping some of her brusquerie, and also by avoiding her daughter so as not to frighten her, and make her shrink back within herself by her presence and appearance—Markworth had drawn her attention to the point. As for Miss Kingscott, of course in fulfilment of her compact, she did not interfere with him at all, and allowed him to mould her charge as he pleased, although she watched him narrowly, and bided her time.

Allynne Markworth had now become domesticated to a certain extent at The Poplars. The first week flew away rapidly, even with him, he had so much to plan, and to take such pains to get his plot en train; while with Tom the time had disappeared since he knew Lizzie as one day. Mrs Hartshorne, too, was so glad to have her son at home, although she seemed rather unsympathetic mother, that she tolerated Markworth at first for his sake; and he had played his cards so well, and studied her little weaknesses so fully, and kept himself so much out of the way, that she at length looked upon it as a matter of course that he should remain when Tom hinted at stopping. “It is such nice weather,” explained that young deceiver, “and so jolly down here, Markworth, and the Inskips are coming down this week, that I wish you would stay on—that is, if you are not fearfully bored with us all.” It was very strange, was it not, that Tom had not remembered the fact of the Inskips coming down before?

“Not at all, my dear fellow,” answered Markworth; “I like this place very much; and your mother and I get on very well now, although she did not certainly like me at first;” he could not help laughing over the recollection of his first meeting and introduction to the dowager, Tom sharing in his merriment.

“Well, I am glad you will stop. It is much better here than being in town, and I begin to like a country life,” observed Tom, thinking of violet eyes and pastoral rusticity.

“So do I, Tom; it is far better than all the racket we could have up in London. I am very glad I came down, but we’ll, no doubt, have lots of gaiety when the Inskips come—not that I care about it, for I am really interested in the case of your sister.”

“Thank you, old fellow; I am sure you are very kind to take all that trouble about Susan. Well, it’s agreed that we stay on now that we are here, at least for a week or two. My leave won’t be up until September, and even then I daresay I could get an extension, for the colonel’s an old trump.”

“Agreed,” responded Markworth; “when you are tired of me you can turn me out, you know, but I daresay the old lady would take that trouble off your hands.” And they both laughed again at such a possibility, which without joking the dowager was fully capable of doing by herself. And so their stay at The Poplars was decided upon, and Markworth had plenty of time in which to perfect his plans.

Susan’s love of music had done much, probably, to preserve her mind from altogether closing up within itself: and her fondness for gardening and flowers was also beneficial to her case.

The first, Markworth had perceived at once; and he quickly set to work upon that foundation to gain a hold upon her, and draw her out of herself.

He used to go up-stairs to the old room where the organ was, and play some of those wonderful fugues of Beethoven, and saddening chords from the “Lieder ohne Worte,” that would nearly make angels weep; and the affected girl used to follow him, and draw near, as if spell-bound, whilst he was playing, and try and imitate him after he had left his seat before the keys.

Then he began to speak gently to her, only, perhaps, a sentence now and then, for she was fearfully timid and frightened of strangers, but after a time she learned to know him, and would reply. No sort of conversation, of course, could be carried on with her, for her intellect was just like that of a young child’s, although she had learned things by wrote, like a parrot, and could imitate whatever she saw another do. After a time she would voluntarily seek Markworth, and ask him to play the organ in her pleading way; and she would sit quietly for hours to hear him. If he smiled on her she looked happy: if he frowned, or raised his voice, her face would wear a tearful and frightened aspect.

The garden used to be one of her favourite resorts. Here she would wander up and down before Markworth came, speaking to herself, as if she were carrying on a conversation with someone else. Here she had flowers of which she was passionately fond, treating them as if they were living things, and crying over them should a leaf be broken off, or a branch blown down. Old George used to take especial pains over “Missy’s” garden, and she always used to go out and watch him at work, and be continually inciting him to dig up the earth around her plants. When Markworth began his care, however, Susan changed a great deal in her habits. She at first gave up the garden, and only would go to the organ-room; but when he brought a flute out and used to play an air of which she was especially fond, in and about her favourite haunts in the shrubbery, she got to come out again, ceased her imaginary dialogues, and grew more expressive and brighter. Insane people always seem affected by wind instruments.

Markworth took care, however, never to play the flute when the dowager was about the premises, as she “hated that odious tooting thing even worse than the jackass that played it”—she said.

Miss Kingscott used to accompany Susan, and consequently the three were very much together, for Tom was nearly always out now by himself, as he could not get Markworth to accompany him to the Pringles; and when he was at home he used to flirt with the governess under his mother’s very nose, and leave Susan even more in Markworth’s hands.

The devil, they say, is never so black as he is painted, and, perhaps, Markworth was not altogether so selfish or so wicked in his motives as one might suppose. He was really interested, deeply so, in the peculiar case of Susan Hartshorne; and having read a great deal on insanity and its cure, he had certain theories of his own on the subject which made him glad of the opportunity for reducing them to practice. If he had not known that the poor girl was the heiress to twenty thousand pounds, and had not circumstances so strangely placed Clara Joyce—he could not think of her even by her new name—in the house to assist him, he would never have dreamt of his plot, nor have attempted to carry it out after he saw the subject, or rather object, of it; and yet, perhaps, he would still have tried to put her in the way of recovering her reason without a thought of recompense. As it was, he was now working with a double object, and the success which he met with startled him, while it emboldened him to persevere in his design.

In a short time there was such a perceptible change in Susan that anyone not in the habit of seeing her frequently would have noticed it at once; and soon she was altogether different from what she had been. Her eyes began to have some expression in them; how different they looked from their former dull appearance; and she would now look anyone in the face instead of hanging down her head as she formerly did. Dr Jolly was one of the first to perceive the alteration, and complimented Miss Kingscott on the change one day.

“Bless my soul, ma’am! why, nobody would recognise her again. It’s positively wonderful. By Gad! madam, you deserve a medal for it. I would not have believed such a change could have taken place unless I had seen it myself.”

Whereupon Miss Kingscott half declined the credit of the cure, but in such a way as to make the doctor repeat his compliments.

“Bless my soul, ma’am! it’s no use telling me that, I know better. It’s wonderful, and you deserve every credit—yes, ma’am, by Gad! ma’am, you do. Good-bye, Miss Kingscott; I shall call soon again to see your patient, for she is yours now, you know, ma’am. Go-o-od-morning.”

And the doctor took himself off, with an elaborate farewell adieu. He would have kissed his hand, it is believed, only that the old dowager was standing looking out at the window, and might have called him an old fool as likely as not.

Volume One—Chapter Eight.

Damon and Pythias.

He is not a very romantic Damon is Doctor Jolly, nor is he at the present time to be seen under favourable circumstances, or in the most picturesque of situations.

The fact is, Dr Jolly has got an attack of the gout, “his old friend,” as he calls that hereditary and choleric disease; and here he is, seated in his snug parlour—he knew how to live well and be comfortable did the doctor—with his feet in a pail of cold water, like Patience on a monument smiling at grief; (one can’t help quoting the “noble bard.”) He was pursuing a rather violent method for reducing the inflammation in his pedal extremities in order that he might be able to go out and pay his usual pharmaceutical round of visits, and he was writhing and swearing inwardly, most probably, and often aloud, from the pain of the gout and remedy combined.

“Bless my soul! Deb!” he exclaimed, as irascibly as his natural good temper would allow, to his sister Deborah, our Pythias, who was in the room along with him. “Bless my soul! Whew I what a twinge. Confound the gout, Deborah!”

“Confound it with all my heart, Richard, if it will do you any good,” she replied, calmly, drawing the thread through the heel of a stocking which she was darning; “but you know, Richard, it’s your own fault. You will drink that port wine, and you must take the consequences.”

“Bosh, Deb; don’t preach. Why, I only drank two glasses yesterday at lunch, and—”

“How about the bottle after dinner?”

“Well, you know, Pringle was here, and hospitality you know, Deb, hospitality you know—”

“Hospitality won’t preserve your health, Richard.”

“True Deb, quite true; but I couldn’t help it, and the gout’s getting better now, the pain’s nearly gone. Whew! there’s another twinge. Confound the gout, I say!”

Damon was a stout, florid, jolly-looking—there is no other word so expressive—man of forty-five or thereabouts; Pythias—some apology is due for her sex in carrying out the classical metaphor, although when you know her better you will acknowledge the propriety of the allusion—was some five years the elder, as she could look back with complacency or otherwise on her fiftieth birthday. She was tall and ungainly, and her face was so set and deficient of mobility that it looked as if it were carved out of mahogany, to which wood indeed its colour bore some resemblance. She evidently took after her male parent more than her mother, and her brother was right when he called her a “chip of the old block.”

Damon was genial and hearty; Pythias cold and formal, as befitted an austere virgin of her years; but both possessed the same kind heart, and you would rarely find such a good-natured pair, who were so fond of each other, and so considerate and charitable in every sense of the word, to those around them.

Doctor Jolly was emphatically one of the jolliest country-practitioners in the country, and had one of the best practices, and was better liked than any other disciple of Aesculapius in the county. For miles round the farmers and well-to-do, as well as poorer people, knew his pleasant weather-beaten face and hearty voice. He “was so sociable and pleasant-like,” as the country folk would say; and his well-known portly form—he rode about sixteen stone—and cheery “How de-do!” used to be eagerly welcomed when he came riding round on his thorough-bred heavy-weight hunter, with his two favourite little black and tan terriers, “Huz, and Buz his brother,” scudding at its heels.

He and his sister had lived together at Bigton for many years past. The doctor had succeeded his father, and he his father, as far back as lay within the memory of “the oldest inhabitant”—the practice with its connection having been kept in the family for nearly a century.

Bigton is a very quiet rising little watering place, situated some five or six miles from The Poplars and Hartwood village, at the mouth of the river, wherein Tom Hartshorne was catching his perch under the eyes of Miss Lizzie. Bigton is by no means an ostentatious sort of place: it lacks self-assertion, and is content to occupy a back seat, as it were, in the assembly of “Fashionable Resorts,” when, if it would but only put itself forward it might be bidden to “come up higher.”

It is really a pleasant little place, and has all the requirements to make it an agreeable retreat for the hot summer months, when one longs for the seaside with that intense ardour which only a Londoner knows. Bigton has a pier—a shabby little pier it must be confessed—a sort of esplanade, which is as long as that of its Brobdignagian rival, where George’s Pavilion, that hideous monstrosity, used once to attract admirers—an excellent beach of fine grey sand, and a splendid common, all covered with gorse and furze, whereon juveniles can play “the criquette,” as Monsieur Jeune France calls our national game. Beyond that, it has a splendid country around for jaunts and pic-nics; and, as for antiquities, why, is it not within a decent drive of one of the most historic old castles in the kingdom, a castle which has its ancient old keep still in preservation, and which was one of the few Royalist strongholds that held out successfully against the Puritan general and his myrmidon Roundheads?

Yet, with all these advantages, Bigton has not yet become a favourite with the multitude who annually adjourn to the seaside, and this neglect is not by any means complained of by the quiet few who wish to avoid the racket of a fashionable watering place, and come down here in order to have a quiet enjoyable holiday. The fact is, Bigton reckons for its standing more upon the support of its residents than on stray birds of passage; and, of these, it has a larger proportion perhaps than some of its better known and more highly cracked-up rivals. It has nice trim rows of terraces facing the sea, and plenty of comfortable detached houses which are generally let to people who stay for mouths, and even a year or two, instead of hiring for merely a six week’s occupation. Bigton is therefore busy all the year round, instead of having a season of three months, and being a necropolis for the rest of the year: indeed, the annual visitors who come down in summer do not alter the look of the place much: it is too respectable a town to bother itself about casual tourists or London holiday-makers. In the summer the landholders and great people of the surrounding country come from their inland homes, and take lodgings for the bathing: so Bigton is very exclusive and keeps entirely to its own set.

Among not only the residents—returning to our story—but also the regular visitors, Doctor Jolly was a general favourite, and the doctor supreme of the locality; and he was as good a surgeon and physician as he was a favourite. He was not the man to nurse a hypochondriacal patient by giving him various bottles of medicine containing coloured water, or pills “as before,” consisting of harmless dough. No, he would tell them to get out and take plenty of exercise and mayhap dip in the sea, and above all to get good food and plenty of it. No gruel and arrowroot from him. “All damned slops and dishwater,” he would say; but a mutton chop three times a day, and a glass or two of really good port wine. “Stop, I’ll send you over some of my own, and you may bet your boots that that’s prime stuff,” he would offer with a knowing wink of his eye, riding off to escape a denial.

He was a jolly, good-natured man, and such a really good minister to the ills of human nature, that he had it all his own way at Bigton, and almost throughout the entire county. His practice was so large, that he had to ride miles every day to do justice to his patients; and yet he would hire no assistant, except a mild, gentlemanly pupil, whom he kept to do the home business in his surgery.

“Catch me!” he would say, “having a fellow to cut me out with all the pretty girls and old ladies! No, sir, as long as I can cross a horse, no other sawbones shall rule here but myself. I’m hanged if they shall, sir?”

One or two other medical men had tried rashly to set up to him in opposition at Bigton; but never getting anyone who was ill to patronise them, they had to give up at length in disgust. One, indeed, still hung on, as he had bought a house and could not sell it; but he had to take to the coal trade to support his family. Not that Doctor Jolly grudged him a living, for no matter what he said, he would cheerfully have lent his brother practitioner a helping hand; but then no one would let anyone else visit them in Bigton but our Damon, so the poor—Othello’s-occupation’s-gone-M.D. had to buy and sell chaldrons of the best Wallsend and Seaborne, and fed his family in that way.

Dr Jolly’s house was one of the best and nicest kept mansions in Bigton, for the doctor loved to live well, as he could afford it; and his sister Deborah was one of the most valuable housewives that could be cited. It was a long, low, old-fashioned house, with a splendid garden and paddock adjoining, for the doctor’s horses, of which he kept three—he used to follow the harriers in the time of the old squire, Roger Hartshorne—but he was getting too heavy for that now, besides having too much to do. Now he was devoted to poultry and pet deer, pet hares, pet dogs, pet animals of all kinds, even cats, and had all his out-houses, yards, and paddocks filled with his various adopted nurslings.

It was a wonder, considering his disposition, that he had remained a bachelor so long; but then he had his sister Deborah to take care of him, and as he would say, “Bless my soul, man, what more do I want?” His old friends who had known him for years would hint at a disappointment in early life; but I don’t think care sat heavily on the doctor’s brow, as it does on some of us, for he lived well, and enjoyed life as he found it, and did not seem inclined to give up his present life for all the unknown sea of troubles into which matrimony might plunge him. Perhaps he saw too much and too many of the gentler sex to hazard a selection, but the probable reason was that he was too comfortable as he was. He and his sister pulled along capitally as Damon and Pythias, as they had in fact done all their lives; both were freely outspoken to each other; and if Deborah had the pre-eminence within, the doctor was master out of doors.

The doctor relished good cheer, and gave capital dinner parties, as he was the most hospitable man in the county. He had had one the evening before, and hence his slight attack of the gout; its invariable consequence this morning. He said he had inherited the aristocratic infliction from his sire, along with a good digestion and his practice; but perhaps Pythias, or Deborah, was not far wrong in ascribing it to his love of good living and partiality for port. The gout made him swear a little, but he did not really mean anything by it: if all our oaths were as harmless as his, the recording angel who watches over that special failing of human nature would have a sinecure.

“Confound the gout, Deb!” he exclaimed, as that sharp twinge caught him in his left foot, and made him writhe with ill-concealed agony. “Confound the gout! I’ll drink no more of that infernal port! that is,” he added, shortly afterwards, as the pain subsided, “not beyond a glass or two at lunch; and perhaps a bottle after dinner, eh, Deb? Ho! ho! ho!” And he laughed his jolly cheery laugh, as he took his feet out of the tub of water, in which they had been hitherto reposing; and, drawing on his boots with difficulty, prepared himself for setting out on his morning round of visits.

“Better now, Richard?” enquired Pythias, as he stood up fully caparisoned in the matter of his lower extremities.

“Yes, Deb, all right now; the plaguey thing has gone away for the present, and won’t trouble me again till next time. My ‘off stepper’ is somewhat sore still, but it’ll be as sound as sixpence by the time I get back.”

“Are you going far, Richard?”

“Well, I think I’ll pay a call at the dowager’s, and all about Hartwood; and as I shan’t be back in time for lunch, I’ll drop in and feed at Pringle’s—uncommon pretty little girl his sister is. Bless my soul! Deb, she’s enough to make one think of marrying, although I suspect that sly dog Tom Hartshorne’s after her—we old fellows have got no chance.”

“Take care, Richard. She would probably jump to have you. I know what girls are! But how is that poor girl Susan Hartshorne getting on?”

“Really, Deb, do you know I think she has been looking much brighter lately. I have observed this within the last week or so—there is a decided change for the better. She has lost nearly all that frightened look she used to have; and I would not be surprised if she eventually recovered her mind. It’s a sad pity, Deb, bless my soul! a sad pity! She was a nice child—confound that old woman! and she’s now such an interesting-looking girl—a sad pity that old hag frightened her senses away.”

“What do you think is the reason of this change in her?” asked Deborah.

“Well, I can hardly tell, Deb; you see, Tom has been down, and there’s that friend of his, too—don’t like him—and she has seen more company than usual—all these things may have something to do with it; but I think that the improvement is all due to that new governess, Miss Kingscott—by Jove! she is a fine girl if you like, a—”

“Take care, Richard, take care!” she said, as Doctor Jolly went out of the room, after poking about vainly in every direction for his gloves.

He mounted his horse which the groom held at the door, and as he rode away, he murmured to himself, “Dooced fine girl! I wouldn’t be surprised if the artful jade caught me after all!” And off he cantered down the street, bowing affably, and waving his hand with a cordial “How-de-do!” to everyone he met, for he knew everybody, on his way to Hartwood.

Volume One—Chapter Nine.

An Old Campaigner.

The London season had ended: so Lady Inskip, having packed up her baggage waggons, gathered her impedimenta around her, and mustered her forces, consisting of her two grown-up daughters, her only son, a young imp of twelve summers; her maid, a knowing abigail; and lastly, though by no means least, herself—put her regiment in marching order; and sallied down with metaphorical bands playing and colours flying to the quiet little watering place of Bigton, to prosecute a sort of son-in-law-hunting war during the summer solstice.

For be it known, Lady Inskip was a campaigner—one, too, who had fought many a fray on many a field, from the era of her first battle when she had, with an equally adept old mother for an ally, striven for a husband and a title, and an establishment in life, and had won the three combined in the person of her departed spouse, the late Sir John O’Gaunt Inskip, Bart.—down to her last little skirmish in Mayfair, where she had attempted to float off her two remaining daughters—her eldest she had gotten rid of handsomely some time before. She had then and there been routed disastrously, before she could draw up her forces for a regular pitched battle; but it was not her fault, or from lack of perseverance or want of judgment on her part, as she had been unable to fix upon any special young or old gentleman—it did not matter which—whom she deemed or doomed as eligible for her matrimonial projects.

She was not daunted, however: not she! She was too old and experienced a campaigner for that, and had regularly changed her front mapped out her carte du pays, and planned out an entirely new disposition of her forces before coming down to Bigton. She contemplated a bold stroke, somewhat like Napoleon’s procedure at Austerlitz, or, better still, his invasion of Egypt; and had determined to follow the tactics of other experienced commanders, and “carry the war into Africa.”

It was not a very colossal adversary against whom she schemed and plotted, and collected such munitions of war—it was only Tom Hartshorne—poor Tom, whom she had met in London, and who seemed inclined for a mild flirtation with her pensive Laura, and lively, not to say “larky,” Carry—especially at the last Woolwich Artillery ball, when his attentions had been “really quite marked!” That unfortunate young officer having sauntered through a quadrille with Laura, and told the exuberant Carry, after a waltz, that she was “a stunner to go.” He certainly, however, criminated himself to some extent, by calling the next day at their house in town, and playing pretty to, and chaffing both girls.

Mr Thomas Hartshorne she had found out—strange what wonderful perspicacity and knowledge of the means, standing, and expectations of wooers and would-be sons-in-law, mothers with marriageable daughters have!—was in a very good position, and was the presumptive heir to the present proprietress of The Poplars.

She had made up her mind, therefore, to secure him at all hazards for one of her “dear, darling, girls.” He was, consequently, the object of her present visit to Bigton. Tom was the game marked down in esse, although goodness knows, with the hopeful ground of a watering place to work upon, and its heterogeneous crowds of visitors, and its romantic opportunities, who and how many, without agitating Mormonism, might not be the victims in posse!

Lady Inskip was the widow of a Scotch baronet, who had married her for her good looks rather than her fortune—unlike the generality of his countrymen—for a very limited trousseau was all she brought him; and even now, some twenty years after her marriage, she was still what Doctor Jolly would, and did, call “a fine figure of a woman, sir, by Gad!”

Her two daughters were very nice, presentable girls; Laura a sort of languid beauty, and Carry “gushing,” and a trifle inclined to be fast. The boy, Mortimer, was an obstinate, headstrong, young cub, just of that age when boys are peculiarly obnoxious and always in the way and disagreeable. He was, naturally enough, the spoilt pet of his mother, and for a young baronet had all the graces and follies of the position which he would be required to fill. But we need not go on to particularise all the points of Lady Inskip’s ménage.

Suffice it to say, that she came down to Bigton very shortly after Tom had left town. You may wager a trifle, if you are inclined to woo Fortune in that way, that she was previously acquainted with his destination before she moved her Lares and Penates; and now that she was here, you may depend that she would leave no stone unturned to secure her object.

She took a pleasant little cottage on the Esplanade, about half a mile or so from the town, for a year, and had it fitted up elegantly and decorated so as to make it a perfect bijou of a place. If you watch a spider, you will always observe what a magnificent web he spins before he hunts about or lays in wait for his prey; see what a gorgeous centre-piece he has to his prismatic castle! Depend upon it that the spider is certain that his parlour is well-furnished before he invites the fly to “walk in,” as is detailed in the lines of the harrowing ballad sacred to childhood.

Well, Lady Inskip had a nice little house, nicely furnished, with a nice little garden all mignionette and passion flowers, and a nice little croquet lawn, where nice little games of flirtation could be played by suitable nice young gentlemen with her nice dear darling girls. In fact it was all “nice”—that adjective so dear to the heart of the gentler sex, and so lavishly used by them—and so the old campaigner having entrenched herself within these fortifications, continuing our military descriptive, prepared to battle for and on behalf her of two daughters Laura and Caroline, as aforesaid.

She had not been in the place two days, before she knew “all about everybody.” How Captain Curry Cucumber, who lived at the big red brick house, “just as you passed the common, you know,” was an old returned East India officer (and who was seventy years old if he was a day), was immensely rich, and had come home with a lakh of rupees to marry and settle down. He had an “awful temper in course,” as his landlady said, and swore dreadful at his “pore black man,” but then he had a sweet yellow face, and his widow would be left very comfortably off. Then she learnt too of our old friend the doctor, how he was a gay young bachelor; and of course she found out all about Mrs Hartshorne, and her place and her ways and her oddities. She learnt also of the Revd. Herbert Pringle, and his little church at Hartwood: and as he was a relative of the great Sir Boanerges Todhunter, and was a young man with a good living, and probably had property of his own, she made up her mind to patronise him, especially as he was the protégé of the dowager.

Accordingly she and her tender daughters and the young Sir Mortimer attended divine service at Hartwood the first Sunday of her stay at Bigton, and she was so wonderfully pleased with the performances of the ritualistic rector—he was “so like that dear Aminadab, at St. Barnabas’,” that she made up her mind to go there always in future, and not to patronise the Reverend Jabez, of Bigton.

She met Tom after church. She was “delighted to see him,” and made him promise to call next day and bring the Reverend Herbert Pringle, on his mentioning that he was a great friend and a nice fellow. The dowager having bundled out of church immediately the service was over, Lady Inskip had then had no opportunity to make her acquaintance, although she assured Tom she was “longing to know her,” but as she was an old lady, she, Lady Inskip, said she would do herself the honour of paying a visit at The Poplars very shortly.

She was so glad to see Mr Markworth, too, “quite an unexpected pleasure to see him down here,” when she was really mortally afraid of that worthy, who she could readily perceive, with a woman’s mental keenness of vision, had taken her measure and thoroughly understood her plans and tactics. Altogether Lady Inskip was delighted with everything, as, fortunately for her peace of mind, she had not seen the pretty Lizzie Pringle, and was unaware of Tom’s present infatuation about that young lady, which anyone “with half an eye,” except those personally concerned, would have at once recognised.

She drove back to Bigton, in a very pleasant frame of mind, at peace with her daughters, herself and everything around her; and her smart little equipage—a park phaeton and pair of ponies—caused much excitement amongst the rustics along the road.

Master Tom, not being averse to renewing his flirtation with Miss Carry and her sister, notwithstanding his being enthralled by Lizzie, determined to pay a call at the Inskip’s little cottage, on the Bigton esplanade, a morning or two after, and proposed to Markworth that he should accompany himself and Pringle.

“No, thanks,” replied that gentleman, “none of my lady schemer for me! Look out for her, Tom! She’s an awful old pythoness, and would wheedle the devil himself into marrying one of her plain daughters. Why, she nearly caught Harrowby ‘of yours’ the other day, and I believe she came down here after you.”

“Never fear, Markworth,” answered Tom, as he went off to call on Pringle, in order to get him to go, and also perhaps to have a glimpse of Lizzie, to act as a sort of charm against witchery from the Inskip girls. “Never fear, my boy! I saw her game in London, and shan’t be caught. But they are jolly girls, that little Carry is up to chaff no end; and they will make this place gayer by coming down. There’ll be nothing but pic-nics and croquet presently, if I know them aright,” and he walked off to get his horse, which George was grooming to make it look respectable.

Pringle was a very dapper little man. A perfect little exquisite, and no one was so particular as to the parting of his hair, the curl of his whiskers, and the general “nattiness” of his turn out, as himself. He had seen the fair Laura and Caroline in church, and their presence had lent a perceptible tone to the pronunciation of his “awe-men,” and the delivery of his sermon. He saw they were well dressed, but when he learnt that Tom knew them, and beyond that, that they were the daughters of a baronet, and their mother a “lady in her own right,” he was most anxious to make their acquaintance. Lizzie told him laughingly not to lose his heart over the belles, and suggested that he would be quite irresistible when she saw him so particular about the various points of his toilet this morning; but he thought it no laughing matter, I can assure you. He had all the elaborate priggishness of a young man fresh from college, and was more bent on making an impression than on pleasing. To tell the truth he had mixed very little in the world, and the feeling of being a man and occupying a responsible position was quite a novel one to him.

He was ready long before the hour Tom had fixed for calling for him on his way to Bigton, and was walking up and down the verandah in front of the parsonage, waiting impatiently, and flicking the flies off his pony, which stood ready saddled for the start.

“By Jove!” he said (he had not been able to break himself of that expression, more suited to the laity, which he had picked up at Oxford), “I wish he would come: we shall be too late!” and at that moment Tom rode in at the gate. After passing a little time speaking to Lizzie, who told him, too, not to “lose his heart,” to which little shot Tom replied in a low voice—they had become intimate now, you see—that he had lost his already, which caused Miss Violet Eyes to blush, of course from sorrow; they at length rode off, and the promised visit was made to Lady Inskip, at Laburnum Cottage.

Poor Pringle was dreadfully embarrassed during the time he was under the eyes of the three ladies, and the “young imp” Mortimer caused him to lose what little self-possession he had, by making some observation on the parting of his back hair, asking him what was the perfume on his “rag,” alluding to his pocket-handkerchief, and finally by playfully pulling away his chair as he was going to sit down. He blushed all the time of his stay, although Lady Inskip was very affable to him, and the girls expressed the most intense admiration for his little church and all its belongings. The only easy moment he had when he could speak clearly was when “the darling girls,” as their mother called them, came out on the lawn to admire his dapple pony, and called it “a little duck:” then Pringle had longed in his inmost heart to be that pony, for he was enraptured with the langour and beauty of Laura. Carry frightened him with her chaffy tongue, and by the way she went on with Tom, who seemed quite “at home,” as he generally made himself at most places.

The young men left after a lengthy stay, and the ladies very naturally, canvassed them on their departure.

“What a nice fellow—regularly jolly fellow Tom Hartshorne is!” said Miss Caroline, “but the parson’s a spoon!”

“My dear Carry!” interposed Lady Inskip, “I do really wish you would not talk in those horrid slang terms! It is quite shocking! Mr Hartshorne is a very nice gentleman, of course, and I think Mr Pringle the same thing. He’s very quiet naturally; you cannot expect a clergyman, Caroline, to be as gay and ‘jolly,’ as you call it, as a young officer. I’m surprised at you, miss.”

“He preaches delightfully!” observed the beauty languidly, “and I think him very nice; he was only bashful!”

“I suppose at the sight of you, Laura?” said the pert Miss Carry. “But he has one good point about him, and that is his pony. I wonder if it is up to my weight?” a very natural enquiry, as she probably weighed considerably heavier than the owner of the animal, and was what an outspoken individual would have termed “a bouncer.”

“I’m glad he’s coming again; we shall have some croquet,” continued the elder sister. “Yes, my dears,” said the mother. “We must make him at home; he’s a very nice young man.” She had already looked upon the Oxonian as “eligible,” and was bent on making him a captive of her bow and spear.

“Well, for my part, I think him a donkey, and do not care whether he comes or not.”

“Caroline! Caroline! Is this the return you make me for all I have done for you, and planned and schemed on my bended knees! ungrateful girl!” said Lady Inskip plaintively, as if she was going to cry.

“Oh, don’t go on, ma, any more. We know all that! Laura can have the white-choker if she likes: I will cultivate Tom.”

“Bless you my child!” said the mother, “you are rash and impetuous, but you have a good heart.”

Volume One—Chapter Ten.

A Call and its Consequences.

Doctor Jolly trotted along the road from Bigton to Hartwood, with Huz and Buz his brother, cantering at his horse’s heels, and making short predatory excursions every now and then into neighbouring gardens and farmyards on the way, to the apoplectic scaring and bewilderment of sundry unhappy fowls and ducks. In about half an hour, as he always rode at a sharp pace, he had reached The Poplars to make his weekly visit.

“How-de-do!” he shouted to Tom, when he was half a mile off, seeing him at the gate; and presently the stout doctor was dismounting from his quadruped with extreme difficulty, owing to the still painful gout, and limping up the steps of the dowager’s mansion.

“So you are here again, are you?” observed that lady with her customary acrimony, from the open window of the dining-room, which faced the entrance gate. “Why, you’re always running here, now; you’d better come and live here at once; it would, at all events, save your gouty legs some exertion.”

“Bless my soul! Mrs Hartshorne, why you are looking as blooming as a daisy. I wish I could wear like you, madam; why you must be sixty, if you are a day!”

“I’ll outlast you at all events, Mister Jolly,” said the old lady, as our friend the doctor, who hated being called “Mister” instead of by his medical title, walked into the house.

“And how’s Susan?” he asked, as he entered the room.

“There she is with her governess, and you can see for yourself,” snappishly returned the dowager, walking out, and leaving the doctor with Miss Kingscott and her charge.

Susan looked greatly improved, and timidly offered her hand as he went up to her in his hearty way.

“And how are we to-day?” he said kindly.

She, to his great astonishment, not only looked him in the face, but answered him, which she had seldom or ever done before.

“Very well, I thank you,” she said, quietly.

It was not much, certainly; not more, perhaps, than a well-trained parrot might have said, but, then, it was a decided improvement to her former apathy. She immediately afterwards, however, left the room, as she heard Markworth playing on the organ up-stairs; and Miss Kingscott and the doctor were alone.

“By Gad, madam!” exclaimed the doctor, as soon as she had gone—he did not mean to give Miss Kingscott “brevet rank,” but he always addressed every woman, young or old, as “Madam.”

“By Gad, madam! it’s positively wonderful. What an improvement; couldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it! But where has she gone to now—who’s that thrumming the old organ?”

“That must be Mr Markworth, I believe,” she answered, “and you must compliment him on Susan’s improvement: she’s always with him, and he seems quite devoted to her. It is really quite charming to see them together.”

Who would have dreamt of their joint conspiracy from the way she spoke?

“Really?” enquired our Aesculapius. “To tell you the truth, madam, I don’t like that fellow at all. I’m never deceived in a face; and, if I do not make a mistake, madam, that man is a scoundrel as certain as God made little apples.”

I do not know why it was, but the doctor always seemed desirous of connecting the name of the deity with miniature specimens of the forbidden fruit whenever he wanted to qualify a strong assertion.

“Dear me, doctor!” interposed the lady, “your language is very strong.”

“Not a bit of it, madam; not a bit more than he deserves. By Gad, madam! he must have some object to gain; he would not take all that trouble for nothing. I know human nature, madam, and he is either going to marry the old lady, or something else. Ho! ho! ho! what a fine pair they would make!”

And the doctor sniggered over his own joke, and laughed so contagiously that Miss Kingscott could not but follow suit.

The doctor presently, however, returned to business. He had been thinking of this young lady all the way over from Bigton. He had asserted to himself over and over again that she was “a dooced fine girl,” as if some one else had been disputing the point with him; and now that he was in her presence she not only looked finer and more beautiful than ever, but he had one of the best opportunities for speaking to her alone he had ever had before, or could have wished for.

She looked very refined and ladylike as she stood there in the shaded dining-room, clad in a light morning dress. Her regular features and pale complexion gave an air of dignified beauty to her face which her height and figure well carried out. Altogether she was very charming, and looked so loveable on the present occasion, in appearance, that she would have captivated a man even less in love than the doctor, and led him on to the inevitable “pop!”

Aesculapius was a long time beating about the bush. Although he was generally free and easy in his speech, the doctor was now tongue-tied when he most wanted to speak, and his already ruddy face was more “peonified” than ever—if I may be allowed to coin that word—while his heart thumped against his ribs “like a pestle against the sides of a pill mortar,” as he expressed it professionally.

“Ha! hum! a fine morning, madam—a fine morning! Don’t you think so?”

Miss Kingscott assented, of course. She saw his embarrassment, and wished to lead him on to an éclaircissement; but she could scarcely refrain herself from smiling at the ludicrous endeavours of the doctor to hide his nervousness, which was unmistakeably increasing.

“Yes, madam, it’s a fine day; but hot, madam. Don’t you think so?”

“Certainly, doctor, I think it is warm,” answered the lady, confirmatively.

And, indeed, any one looking into his face could not but agree with the remark.

“Warm, madam, is no term for it, it is confoundedly hot! But I beg your pardon, madam, were you ever in love?” he blurted out abruptly, after a great effort, bolting into his subject, as it were.

“Good gracious me, doctor?” said Miss Kingscott, with a charmingly acted surprise, and blushing embarrassment. “What a strange question for you to ask!”

“Not at all, madam—not at all. I said the weather was hot. Don’t you see, madam? and it is hot. I asked you about love—and love is hot. There’s my proposition, you see the connection between the two?”

And the doctor’s face glowed with perspiration.

“I do not follow your argument,” said the governess, calmly. “You seem to arrive very rapidly at your deductions; but what has the result to do with me?” she asked, with ingenuous innocence.

“A good deal, madam—a good deal. How fearfully warm it is! You see, madam, before you an old man.”

“Not so very old, doctor, I’m sure,” she interrupted, looking bewitchingly into his perspiring countenance.

“Well, well,” he continued, in a gratified tone, “perhaps not exactly an old man; but I’m not a young one. Still, if it wasn’t for the confounded gout, I daresay I should be as young and skittish as the best of them.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry for that horrid gout—and I do pity you so when I see you in pain,” condoled Miss Kingscott, thinking of the doctor being “skittish,” as if she had heard of an elephant dancing a hornpipe.

“Are you really—do you really?” he asked eagerly, a flush of joy overspreading his already flushed and perspiring face. “Well, I tell you what, madam, I’m in love.”

And the doctor heaved a portentous and languishing sigh, which quivered through his colossal frame which shook like a mould of jelly.

“Are you really, doctor? I am sure I hope the young lady is nice, for your sake; and I hope she will make you a good wife,” she replied, ignoring the doctor’s nervousness until she got him to the point.

“You are very kind, madam, very kind; but you are always kind—you can’t help it, for it is in your nature. Infernally hot, is it not, madam?”

“Very warm,” said the lady, encouragingly.

“Bless my soul! madam, so it is. But, madam, Miss Kingscott that is—”

“Well?” she encouraged him, her eyes sparkling with ill-concealed fun at the doctor’s predicament.

“You sly little creature! Why, you are laughing at me all the time!”

“Oh! dear no; but who’s the young lady, doctor? You have not told me her name yet, and I’m dying to know.”

“You wicked little baggage! you know all the time.”

“How can I? when you have not yet told me.”

“By Gad! women are the most provoking creatures under the sun.”

“Not all, doctor,” she pleaded, demurely, tapping the carpet impatiently with her foot.

“Well, perhaps not all; but dooced near it. I am an old fool! Here am I bungling about and can’t say what I mean!”

“Can I help you, doctor?”

“I wish you would, and tell me what to say to you, young baggage!”

“Do be calm, doctor. Suppose I’m the old lady now, and that you were talking to me—I am not so very young you know, either.”

And she looked so demurely grave and elderly, that Aesculapius was charmed anew.

“Well, I must say it. It’s better to have it out, like a bad tooth; there’s no good in keeping it in my head. I’m an old fool I know, madam; but I am really in earnest now, and I want you to listen seriously to me for a moment. The fact is, madam, Miss Kingscott that is—how fearfully warm it is!”

At that moment, just when he was trembling on the verge of his disclosure, the shrill tones of Mrs Hartshorne’s voice was heard without.

“George! George!” she cried to the faithful servitor (she pronounced his name indeed Jodge! Jodge! speaking in her usual rapid manner, with quick utterance). “Who’s that at the gate? Don’t you let anybody in, man!”

And our friends inside could hear her feet scrunching the gravel as she walked towards the gate in order to see who it was; so they went to the window also to look on, and the interesting conversation I have just detailed, was abruptly broken off at the indefinite point it had reached.

“Plaise, marm,” replied the rustic voice of George, “it’s a leddy, marm, and she says as how she’s coomed to say un.”

“I don’t know any ladies, and don’t want to know any, either; I wonder who is the flaunting creature? Get back to your work, you grinning baboon! I’ll speak to the woman myself.”

At the gate, seated in her pony carriage, and accompanied by her two daughters, all dressed out and equipped in their state-costume for the payment of calls, was Lady Inskip. She looked astounded—for she had heard every word of the dialogue between the dowager and her henchman; and not only she had heard it, but her daughters also; and the grinning page, covered with sugar-loaf buttons, who sat perched on a mushroom sort of seat that sprang out as a sort of excrescence from behind the equipage. The old campaigner was surprised and astounded: but she tried to appear cool and collected as befitted her dignity: the languid Laura was as apathetic as ever; and the fast Carry seemed inclined to follow the Buttons example and laugh aloud.

The dowager, in another moment, was on the scene of operations, and addressed the campaigner who sat in her pony carriage, with her forces drawn up in echelon behind the gate.

“Who are you, woman; and what do you want?”

“My name is Lady Inskip,” answered the veteran, with bridling dignity. “I presume I have the honour of addressing Mistress Hartshorne?”

“I don’t know you—that’s my name; what do you want, woman? My time is valuable, and I can’t stop cackling with you all day.”

“You might be a little more polite, madam,” said Lady Inskip, with freezing politeness and sarcasm. “I came with my daughters just to pay a customary call of civility, and I expected, at all events, to be treated like a lady, by a lady, whom I expected to meet here; but I now find out I am mistaken.”

“Is that all? Then you and your daughters can just take yourselves off, with all your flauntings and finery! I don’t want any grand people coming about me! I never go to see anybody, and I don’t want anybody to come and see me. Quite a pity, isn’t it, after you had bedizened yourself so finely too?”

“Laura!” exclaimed Lady Inskip, ignoring the presence of the dowager, “I think we had better drive home, and leave this vulgar woman to herself. Perhaps,” she said, turning to the dowager as she whirled the ponies round, “you will have the civility to give that letter to your son, it contains an invitation to a pic-nic. I suppose we need not hope for the pleasure of your sweet company?”

“I don’t want any of your pic-nics, or jakanapes, or your impudence!” said the downright old woman, raising her shrill voice even more piercingly. “I will give the letter to my son. If he cares about running after you, I don’t. Go! You said you were going home, and the sooner you go the better, for you don’t come in here, my lady!” Then, considering the engagement terminated, she slammed-to the gate menacingly, and turned on her way back to the house, leaving the discomfitted campaigner to retreat at her leisure.

Our friends, the doctor and the governess, had heard the whole of the interview, and much amused they were over it, too, I promise you; but it stopped the coming proposal. Miss Kingscott was rather pleased at this, for she thought there was still some hope of gaining over Master Tom, the young squire, and she did not wish either to finally accept or reject the doctor until she knew which was the best card to play.

He, on his way home, was also pleased that he had not fully committed himself.

“It would never have done for Deb,” he considered; “she would never have liked it. At all events, I was just stopped in time, though, and a miss is as good as a mile. But I am a damned old fool! That’s a fact.”

He kept to his promise with Pythias, did Damon, and drank a bottle of port to himself that day after dinner, shaking his head as he muttered to himself every now and then, while, with half-cocked eye, he held up his glass to the light—

“It’s a lucky escape; but I’m a confounded old fool!”

Twice he bethought him of telling Deborah all about it; but she looked so comfortable and composed, as she sat there darning his socks, that he thought it would be a pity to disturb and agitate her. So his dreams, when he retired to rest, were very wild indeed, and he passed altogether a sleepless night.—So much for the doctor’s love-making.

Volume One—Chapter Eleven.

Des Beaux Yeux.

No words can paint the mingled rage and mortification that filled the heart of Lady Inskip as she drove away from The Poplars, after her interview with the dowager.

“The Jezabel!” she said, in a voice of anger, “I’ve never been so scandalously treated in my life. You need not laugh, miss!” she fired out on Carry, who was exploding in fits of laughter at the humorous nature of the rencontre. “You need not laugh, miss; it is no laughing matter to see your mother insulted! But what can you expect from a vulgar boor but abuse? I ought to have known that before I laid myself open to such treatment. I don’t think I can ask that young Hartshorne to my house again after this.”

“Good gracious! ma,” said Carry; “why what has he got to do with it? I’m sure he’s a very nice fellow, and he is not accountable for his mother’s actions.”

“Well,” said the old campaigner, mollifying somewhat, as she got further from the scene of her defeat, and allowed her better judgment to prevail; “perhaps he’s not to blame, and I am sure I never said so. He can come of course to the pic-nic, now he is invited; but I am sorry I left the note with that old cat, after all. Never mind, it’s done now, and there’s no use in regretting it. He is a good match; and if you listen to my words, Carry,” she leaned over and said confidentially to her daughter, so that Buttons might not overhear, “instead of giggling so foolishly, and play you cards well, you will secure him in spite of that Jezabel, his mother. Not that I am afraid of her, or twenty like her,” Lady Inskip said to herself consolingly, now that a distance of road lay between them.

But where was Master Tom all this while?

Well, you must understand that Mr Thomas Hartshorne, of Her Majesty’s Plungers, was, and had been all the morning, learning the craft of fly-fishing on the banks of the little stream that ran by the bottom of the parsonage, under the apt tuition of the incumbent’s sister. The young reverend himself had long since gone out for his parochial duties, such as enquiring after farmer Giles’ rheumatism, and the widow Blake’s asthma, intending also to do himself the honour of calling on Lady Inskip on his way home, for Pringle had been much struck by the charming Laura the more he saw of her, and wanted to see more still.

It was most surprising what a violent and indefatigable interest that previously indolent young man Tom had taken in the piscatorial art.

He who had before declared Isaac Walton an old humbug, and who had professed his agreement with the dogmatic old doctor Johnson’s assertion, that fishing consisted of “a worm at one end of a rod and a fool at the other,” now used to sally out every morning nearly from The Poplars, with his fishing-tackle on his shoulder down to the parsonage, telling Markworth, whom he used to faintly persuade to accompany him, that it was “the best sport in the world, old fellow.”

He went to the incumbent’s grounds because it was the “finest spot in the county for perch,” and Pringle was “a brother angler, and such a jolly good fellow, you know.” Those were his only reasons, of course!

Hartwood parsonage was the beau ideal of a snug little country lodge; a long, straggling, one-storied cottage form of house, all ingles and corners and slanting roofs, and covered with roses, jessamine, and clematis.

It had low, diamond-paned French windows, opening down to the ground; so that one could walk out into the trim-inclined but wild planted flower garden—Lizzie’s especial pride—and on to the smooth velvetty lawn beyond, that sloped down to the water’s edge, bordered with hanging branches of weeping willows, and sappy, luscious, green osiers, that sprang like ostrich plumes from the quiet pools and crinks into which the stream widened here and there.

The parsonage had a “fine walled-in kitchen garden,” as house agents advertise, devoted to spruce rows of cabbages and arrogant cauliflowers, each of which weighed more than a good-sized Christmas turkey; and fruit-clustered pear and apple and peach trees, all nailed up and trained along the walls, like a giant’s palms spread out with the fingers extended. Beyond the kitchen garden the walls were overhung with rich green ivy, which took off the stuck-up appearance it might have had like most enclosures, and gave the place a much, more picturesque aspect. But it was in the flowery plaisance, marked out on each side by a thick laurel shrubbery, that Lizzie’s handiwork shone out.

This commenced just under the windows of the house, round which it extended, and spread out to where it joined the lawn, from which it was separated by a sort of strawberry island, and a hedge-row of box, tall, up-grown, and cut in queer, fantastic shapes.

In Lizzie’s flower garden, which she had specially looked after since she came to keep house for her brother, there was the most lavish display. Tiger lilies and jonquills, sunflowers and pale-faced narcissi, vied with each other for effect; and the great charm of the whole lay in the utter absence of any set form or arrangement—roses and lilies all grew together in the most charming confusion, with sundry creepers twining around them; it was only on account of there being no weeds visible, that you did not set down this wilderness of flowers to be totally neglected.

Other effects were not wanting to complete the picture. Here on a summer afternoon you would hear a pet robin punctually begin his sweet song, at “four of the clock precisely,” from his favourite perch on a spreading fir tree that overhung the eaves of the house—a little robin that used to hop down every morning to the adjacent window of the parlour, to receive his matutinal crumbs from Lizzie’s hand. The “chuck! chuck! chuck!” of the black bird too, would be also heard from the laurel shrubbery; and the rival strains of the yellow-hammer from the neighbouring medlar tree. The latter gentleman would commence his lay with a “whirr,” like an alarm clock running down, and end with a sort of chorus like the concluding bars of “Green grow the Rushes O!” The Beccaficoes, too, or English ortolan, very like the thrush, would assemble here in the hot months of the year, and did not fail to leave evidences of their partiality for the fruit tree which received the Saviour’s curse.

Tom Hartshorne had explored all this paradise long before, in the company of Miss Lizzie; and he was now, as I said, under her tuition, looking at her tying on some artificial May-fly or other ichneumon to his line.

It was a beautiful morning—not yet twelve—and the air was balmy, and scented with new-mown hay and flowers; while bees were buzzing around, and birds singing in the air, the lark, chief songster, above them all; altogether, Master Tom was situated under very romantic circumstances, and his handsome Saxon face and honest blue eyes looked and shone out happy in the extreme.

Lizzie was dressed in a dainty little muslin dress, picked out with some lilac tinge, and her little hat was thrown on coquettishly, half off and half on; while her bright pretty little face was unclouded, and there was a depth of tenderness in the deep violet eyes that glanced up every now and then to Tom.

She had just succeeded in tying on the fly, and looked up suddenly in a triumphant, saucy little way, in Tom’s face. He was very close to her, for he had to watch very narrowly to see how the work was done, and he stooped at the time she looked up; and she said, “There, sir!”

They were very close together, and their eyes met, and Tom was stooping, and, naturally, as those sweet little tempting rosebud lips were so near, he—

Well, what would you do if a very pretty girl was very close to you, male reader, under the same circumstances? What reply would you make?

Very well, Tom did it!

Just at that moment, Lady Inskip was driving round the road which skirted by the parsonage garden, to pay a visit, and leave an invitation, at the house of our friend, the young incumbent. It was not long after her encounter with the dowager, and Lady Inskip was still wrath: her observation being keen, and the pony carriage high, she could therefore see the little meeting between Tom and Lizzie over the wall.

She saw it all, my dear sir; and her sense of propriety was so shocked, that, instead of calling, as she intended, on the Pringles, she only left the invitation and drove on homewards.

Here she had been twice defeated this morning! The dowager had routed her at The Poplars, and “that artful little minx” had presumed to poach upon her manor—was actually making love to Master Tom, whom she had designed for her own Carry. It was absolutely startling! She did not know what to do. Fortunately, she thought, no one had observed the pleasant little episode in the garden—so indelicate!—but herself, as her daughters, riding on the front seat, had had their backs turned at the time, so she would keep it to herself, and determine what was to be done.

One thing, at all events, she resolved to do, and that was to speak to the Reverend Herbert Pringle privately, and in confidence, about his sister. He was a most gentlemanly young man, and could not be offended at her mentioning the subject, especially as she would put it to him, since she was old enough to be his mother—at least, his mother-in-law!

Fortune favoured the old campaigner in her object. Our friend, the incumbent, having visited and cheered his poor people, by asking affably as to their healths, returned homewards by way of Laburnum Cottage, to see the Inskips, determining to himself that that was the shortest way round, although it was at least five miles out of his way.

Lady Inskip only arrived a few moments before him, and so he caught her when she was red hot on the subject just then rampant in her heart.

When she had flattered him sufficiently, and after he had basked in the sunshine of Laura’s smiles, he rose to leave, and Lady Inskip accompanied him herself to the door, and on to the grass plot beyond, and the gate, where stood his dapple-grey pony with his reins flung over the post to keep him from straying. When the girls saw their mother follow Clericus without, they made up their minds that she was going to “ask his intentions,” and much did the lively Carry chaff her sister therenent. The campaigner’s motive was, however, a very different one.

“You will excuse me, Mr Pringle, I’m sure, but I am an old woman, you know, and I take such a motherly interest in you—(very motherly!)—that you will forgive me for asking you a question?”

Poor Clericus, himself, trembled at this introduction, as I believe his idea of what was coming was very similar to those of the girls inside.

“Oh, certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly!” he said, with a sort of dead-alive alacrity.

“Is your sister engaged to Mr Tom Hartshorne?” said the old campaigner; and Pringle was immensely relieved.

“Oh dear, no!” he responded, this time cheerfully enough. “Oh dear, no, Lady Inskip, what made you suppose so?”

And, thereupon, my lady spoke, and told what she had seen; and, although Pringle was not very angry at first, nor did he look upon the affair as anything serious, the campaigner presently persuaded him that it was his duty to speak to his sister. He, of course,—so she explained—could not be aware how a young girl would be talked about if she were allowed carte blanche to flirt with every young man she came across. Poor Lizzie! as if she would have done so—and that it was very unfortunate the poor girl had no mother to warn her, and so on. But it was his duty as her brother, and not only on that account, but as a clergyman also—so the campaigner put it—to speak earnestly at once, and have the thing broken off.

Herbert Pringle promised to do so, and rode home very sadly, for he loved his little sister very much in his way, and hated the business of talking so seriously to her, besides not knowing how to set about it.

Let us return to our lovers; our poor tender sheep, into whose fold such a great gaunt wolf had now penetrated.

They did not hear the wheels of the old campaigner’s chaise as it passed round by the garden wall, nor did they see her grim eyes surveying them above it, and taking notes of their propinquity—not they!

When Master Tom committed himself in the way I have hinted at, little Lizzie blushed crimson, and hung down her head so that he could not see her face.

“Oh, how could you? How could you?” she stammered out, nearly crying.

“Forgive me! I beg your pardon: I could not help it”—and Tom was going to tell his love, and disclose all the feelings that filled his heart, when, at that moment, my Lady Inskip rang the bell to leave her note, as already detailed.

Before Tom could catch her so as to hold her, Lizzie darted off, like a startled fawn, towards the house, and the opportunity was lost.

The next day she was not in when he called round, and Pringle visited him the day after that, instead of his visiting him; and so, although he was not spoken to, no opportunities were put in the way of their meeting alone.

Both Tom and Lizzie were looking forward to the pic-nic with heartfelt longing, for the former, at least, determined to speak then.

Oh, Love! Love! When will thy course run smooth?

Volume One—Chapter Twelve.

“The Beginning of the End.”

Markworth’s plot was now nearly ripe for execution.

When he had been down at The Poplars some weeks now, he said one morning at the breakfast table that he must run up to town for a day or two, as he had some important business to transact; so excusing himself to the Hartshornes, mother and son, the former of whom did not look as if she would break her heart if he never returned, he said he supposed he had better start at once and come down on the next day, Saturday, so as to be in time for the contemplated pic-nic on the following Tuesday, which Tom would not hear of his missing.

“You’ll be sure to be back in time, old fellow,” said the latter, as he wished Markworth good-bye; and the train glided off from the little station to which they had walked in company across the fields. “There’ll be heaps of fun, for Harrowby and a lot of the fellows will be down, and I want you to draw out the campaigner, or she’ll be making a dead set at me, and—”

“You’ll have other fish to fry, and will want to attend to someone else, eh? I quite understand it all, my boy; I’m not so blind as some people think, Master Tom. However, I’ll spare your blushes and your explanations: don’t be alarmed, my boy, I’ll be back in plenty of time for the pic-nic, and will take care to occupy my lady’s attention so as to leave you to your own devices. Good-bye, old chap.”

“Good-bye, old fellow,” said Tom; and Markworth was soon whizzing on his way to London.

Arrived in town, he first directed his steps to the private billiard-room where he and his friend first made the acquaintance of the reader.

His object was to enlist the services of the little old-fashioned marker, who we had previously seen watching the game.

This man, Joe Begg by name, although only known to the sporting world who frequented the room by his Christian name alone, was an accomplice and ally of Markworth. When our friend would manage to get hold of a nice pigeon for plucking, Joe Begg used to be of the greatest service. He had a peculiarly dexterous way of running up the score, and also a pleasant and most unaccountable manner of sneezing just when Markworth’s opponent would be making some important stroke. It was most unfortunate of course, and the victim would meet with so much sympathy, and the marker would apologise so earnestly with tears in his eyes for the unfortunate cold in the head, “which takes me most unexpected, sir,” as he would explain, that poor pigeon could not but allow that it was an accident, and accept the amende honorable by continuing his play. When neophyte went away, after his vanity had been flattered by his being allowed nearly to win and his losing “rather hot, you know, by Jove?” he did not know that Markworth and the marker generally came to an understanding, which always resulted in the former offering and the latter accepting sundry substantial tokens of esteem and regard.

It was not to make use of his aid in the matter of billiards and by-play that Markworth now sought the company of Joe Begg. It was for something much more important and vastly different, although of a similar nature.

He wanted a witness for the contemplated marriage, and he could not think of anyone better qualified to assist him than Joe. He was just the man, for he had been always faithful to Markworth’s interests, and could be as “close as wax,” although he would naturally require a “consideration.”

“Well, Joe, how’s business,” he said, as he walked into the billiard-room, when, as was usual at such an early hour of the day, the marker was all alone.

“Very dull, Mister Markworth, very dull! Why, sir, I haven’t made a bob at pool for the last three weeks. Everybody’s out of town, and those City fellows as comes in are afeared to bet a tizzy on a dead certainty. Can I do anything for you to-day, Mister Markworth?”

“Not to-day, Joe; but I will want you shortly.”

“All right, sir, whenever you want me you’ve only got to speak, and I’m there.”

“I thought I could rely on you, Joe. The fact is, I shall want you to be a witness to a marriage between a lady and myself.”

“How much will you stand?”

“I’ll do the thing handsomely. I tell you what, I will give you a fiver after it’s all over, because I shall want you to swear to it perhaps in evidence afterwards.”

“I’m your man, sir,” replied the marker, with alacrity; “swear to anything for that sum. When is the little affair coming off?”

“I can’t say yet, Joe. Maybe in a week, maybe not for a month; but when I want you I shall write here and let you know. Mind! You must be ready at once to accompany me when I write for you.”

“I’m fly, sir,” responded Joe, with a cunning movement of his left eyelid, more expressive than an ordinary wink. “I’ll be ready any time; and perhaps, sir, as the business is partickler, it’ll be worth more than a fiver, who knows?”

“I shan’t forget you, Joe; we won’t quarrel about terms,” answered Markworth, meaningly, and he then went away, for he had even more important arrangements to make.

He paid a second visit to the dingy purlieus of Doctors Commons.

This time not to the deed depository of the dead, but to the legal portals of Hymen, where Cupid sits enthroned on the bench, in all the majesty of the law, with a horsehair wig and a pair of clerical bands, to issue licenses to marry and for giving in marriage.

It was now Friday, and the pic-nic was to come off at Bigton on the ensuing Tuesday, so Markworth determined that he would manage to get Susan Hartshorne away from The Poplars on that day, as he would be less liable to observation and detection; and taking her up to London, could have the marriage solemnised on the succeeding day. Tuesday, strange to say, was the very day, the 27th of August, according to the information of Miss Kingscott, retailed from the Family Bible, when the girl would be of legal age, one and twenty, and entitled to the free disposal of her money.

He accordingly got a license made out without much trouble, by means of a little stretch of the imagination—called perjury in courts of law—and the initiatory step for his design was taken. If everything went well, he would before that day week be the husband of Susan Hartshorne, and master of her twenty thousand pounds. He had well weighed every step in his programme; he had studied every possible consequence to himself; and he saw no reason to anticipate failure when everything pointed to success.

After leaving Doctors Commons he went to some old lodgings of his in a retired street in Bloomsbury, where he was well-known, and a set of rooms always kept vacant for him, for his comings and goings were so irregular that no one knew when to expect him. None of his West End friends knew of his ever living here, for he always gave an hotel as an address; and to tell the truth, he had often been comfortably installed in these same Bloomsbury lodgings when the world thought him travelling on the Continent, or shooting grouse on the moors.

His appearance was therefore looked upon as a usual thing, and no surprise was manifested; for his ways had always been inscrutable, and as he checked curiosity and was a good and regular paying lodger, he could do as he liked. He had always done so from the first, and his landlady never bothered herself about him or his business, “it was no concern of hers, he always paid his rent, and that was all she cared about,” she said.

He stopped here that night, and went away the next morning, telling Mrs Martin, the landlady, that he was going to bring “his sister” to town on the following Tuesday, and would require the rooms to be ready for her reception. This was the first time she had ever heard of his having a sister; but he might have brought twenty so long as he paid his rent. I believe a regular London lodging-house keeper is more of a cosmopolitan than any other person in the world. She will take in anybody with a decent supply of luggage, and who is tolerably regular in the payment of his or her weekly bills—the wandering Jew, Calcraft, or Eugene Aram. It is all the same to the proprietors of the “apartments” whether her tenant be Jew or Gentile, gentleman or “snob,” criminal or honest man; she has but one standard for social position, morality or nationality, and that is a pecuniary one. A lodger may be forgiven everything, even seventy times seven, if he only pays his rent regularly; that is the ultima ratio to which appeal is made—it is practical and works well!

These preliminary arrangements being seen to, Markworth walked down through Lincoln’s Inn Fields, across into Chancery Lane, and paid a visit to some dingy, tumble-down looking chambers close to the projected site for the new Law Courts, which are to be built at some era dim in futurity. A brass plate was on the door, with the names “Solomonson and Isaacs, solicitors,” engraved thereon.

His business was with the senior partner, who greeted him as an old client or customer, which indeed he was. Solomonson was not at all averse to transact business, even on the Jewish Sabbath.

“Vell, Mishter M,” said the Jew, who was part money lender, part lawyer, and all rogue. “Doesh de leetel affairsh go on? Have you got de mad girlsh yet. I vants to see her Mishtressh M’sh—”

“Not yet, Shylock; but everything’s in train, and I shall do it before the week is out. But you told me right, I hope, about the law; I would not like to commit a felony?”

“You are all rightsh, Mishter M’sh. Leave de cashe in dese hands and ve vill see you trough!”

“I rely upon you then, and will let you conduct the whole affair,—but I must have some money to carry the thing through, Solomonson. How much can you let me have on my own security?”

“I vill letsh you ave two hundredsh pound. S’help me Gadsh, Mishter M’sh! itsh all I’ve got!”

“Nonsense, Shylock! you can’t fool me like that,” replied Markworth, and he tried unsuccessfully to get more out of the Jew. He had to be contented for the present with a couple of hundreds. Solomonson knew, however, the stake for which he was playing, and told him that as soon as he was really married to Susan Hartshorne he would advance him more. Until then he would not let him have another penny. So Markworth was forced to content himself with what he had got, and he was not pleased when he recollected that he would have to give the governess half.

He was, however, provided with the sinews of war, so he wished Solomonson good day, cheerfully as he went out, and told him he would soon see him back again.

“Good daysh!” replied the Jew. “Don’t forget to send me the weddingsh cakesh, my dearsh! I likesh weddingsh cakesh!”

The last visit Markworth paid before leaving London was to the curate of a small church in the city, with whom he was acquainted—how he had made his acquaintance I cannot say; and to this gentleman he made some explanation about a forthcoming marriage which appeared to be highly satisfactory to both parties.

Everything was now settled but the great event itself, and so Markworth returned to Hartwood by the afternoon train. To shew that he did not forget even trifles in considering everything for his plot, he bought an odd volume of the recently revived “Essays and Reviews,” at the railway book stall, for the personal edification of the Dowager Mrs Hartshorne, who had been speaking of the book in connection with her now favourite topic of ritualism. This he presented to her the same evening, much to her surprise, and peculiarly snappishly-expressed pleasure and thanks. The old lady had recently been over head and ears in pre-adamite geology, and nothing interested her so much as a secular essay on theological truths.

Tom was delighted to see him back in such good time, and planned out all sorts of pleasant things for the pic-nic, which was in everybody’s thoughts—little knowing how Markworth intended to dispose of his day. All the Sussex world was going to be there. A pair of violet eyes comprised “all the world” to Tom now.

Some time that evening Markworth had a long conversation with Miss Kingscott, preparing for “the end.” Both—strange anomaly!—had worked together for once, and not for good. He gave her a hundred pounds, the first instalment of the “hush money,” and their compact was nearly completed.

To one who had not marked out every phase in Susan Hartshorne’s treatment, the change that had been worked in her since Markworth had devoted his energies to her care, was nothing less than marvellous.

From dull, irksome melancholia the patient had been transported to the fields of reason. A constantly unchanged vacuity of expression on her face had given place to mobility of feature. Instead of void animal eyes, the windows of the soul now looked out of her face. From an idiot she had been changed nearly if not quite into a reasoning being. Markworth had done all this, aided by Miss Kingscott acting under him and by his directions. It is true the girl had only got back the germ of reason, the reason of a child in nature, and measured by the experience of years. But it was a germ which, although now of delicate growth, and requiring every fostering and care, might yet expand into the fullness of moral culture.

No one had any idea how poor Susan had improved, for she saw no one to speak to as yet; and although Tom and Mrs Hartshorne noticed some change in her, yet the former was too much engaged with observing another to notice much in his sister, and as for the mother she really, I believe, did not care either way. She had so long looked upon Susan as insane, that the possibility of her ever recovering her reason now after the lapse of so many years, was put beyond the pale of consideration altogether.

And so only Markworth and Miss Kingscott knew of her dawning reason; with them both she spoke now as sensibly as themselves, and as to Markworth she was his abject slave.

The first reasoning thought that filled the poor girl’s vacuous brain was one of heartfelt devotion to him who had led her out of darkness to light. She looked upon him as her saviour, ignorant as she was of a higher and more powerful God than he; and he was so uniformly kind and considerate to her, seemingly anticipating her every wish, that one cannot wonder at her slavish idolatry. He was her god—her all; she loved him as a dog would love its master, and everything he did was right: his word, law.

Markworth’s material was now plastic enough.

Volume One—Chapter Thirteen.

Brother and Sister.

“Now, Lizzie, I want to know what all this means?” said the Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., putting on quite a fatherly dignity of manner to his sister, an evening or two after Lady Inskip had spoken to him. “I want to know what all this means.”

Lizzie was at the time engaged lifting pots up and down, and poking about in her little conservatory, which jutted out of the drawing room, with a trowel and watering-pot, in the manner peculiar to young ladies of a horticultural tendency. Her back was turned to her brother, so that he could not see her face, but a brilliant tinge of pink carnation coloured her little white neck, and suffused her dainty-cheeks, and ascended even to the pure white forehead; still she steadfastly kept her head down, bent apparently on investigating the wonderful mysteries of some flower with a horribly long Greek name, which she was inspecting.

She must have guessed intuitively what her brother was going to speak about, but with a woman’s noble gift of dissimulation, she asked, with an air of candour and conscious rectitude—little hypocrite!

“Why, Bertie, dear, what on earth do you mean?”

They are all deceivers, every one; bless you! that’s the way with them. They are tricksters at heart, and conceal their feelings with a sort of savage deceit, which only a Red Indian besides possesses. See how calmly and placidly Miss Dissembler smiles with elegant ease, whilst Madame Verjuice pierces her little writhing heart through and through with a malicious sarcasm that wounds her to the core. She looks as if she never felt it whilst she is bleeding to death inwardly. Look at the poor fainting wife and mother, who with a smile on her lips and death at heart, cheerfully gives her husband and starving children the last morsel of bread in the hovel, and says with a martyr-like dissimulation that she does not want it, she is not hungry. Bless you they are all deceivers, every one, from little miss in her teens, who flirts with her boy lovers, to old Joan of threescore, who still wheedles her venerable Darby!

“Why, Bertie, what on earth do you mean?” as innocently as you please.

The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., had for the last two days been puzzling his small amount of brains how to broach the subject to his sister. He did not wish to vex her, or hurt her feelings; in fact, he did not know what to do, it was “such a delicate matter, you know, such a very delicate matter,” that he wished it were settled and done for, and off his hands. But still, all the same, he did not know how to begin.

“Well, humph!” clearing his throat portentously, “the fact is, Lizzie, you know all about it.”

“Really, Bertie,” said Lizzie, laughing—oh! such a faint little laugh, “you are very enigmatical to-day.”

“I’m not joking, Lizzie; it’s a serious business, a very serious business. What is all this going on between you and Tom Hartshorne?”

Poor Lizzie’s little defences of affected ignorance and nonchalance at once broke down, although she bravely struggled on to preserve her equanimity.

“I’m sure I’ve nothing to do with Mr Hartshorne. What do you mean, Herbert? Pray explain yourself.”

And the young lady drew herself up with a tremendous accession of dignity to the full height of her little figure.

Herbert Pringle was so disgusted with the dissimulation of the sex as evinced in the instance of his sister that he felt himself nerved up and able to go on with the talk before him, so he plunged at once in medias res.

“Here’s Lady Inskip been telling me—”

“Oh! I’ve got to thank her for interesting herself about me! I am sure I am very much obliged to Lady Inskip!”

“You need not interrupt me, Lizzie, and you need not get angry about Lady Inskip. She’s a most motherly woman, and she spoke very kindly to me about you. You see, Lizzie, it’s a very hard thing for a fellow to speak of. Of course I think girls ought to be allowed to mind their own affairs of this kind, and it seems rough on my part to interfere; but, you see, as Lady Inskip very kindly observed, you’ve no mother to advise you, and consequently I must take her place.”

As he said this, the Reverend Herbert Pringle looked certainly as unlike a mother as possible.

“Go on, Herbert; let me know all that Lady Inskip has been kind enough to say of me,” said Violet Eyes, now facing her brother, with a full sense of her dignity, and tapping her foot on the floor with angry impatience.