MEHALAH (continued 6)

Mrs. De Witt was a moralist, and when nearly drunk religious. She was not a church-goer, but she was fond of convivial piety. Over her cups she had a great deal to say of her neighbours' moral shortcomings and of her own religious emotions. When in a state of liquor she was always satisfied that she was in a state of grace. In her sober hours she thought of nothing save how to make both ends meet. She mused on her future, and hovered in her choice, she feared that sooner or later she must make her election, to take a man or to do without one. The eagle can gaze on the sun without blinking, but Mrs. De Witt could not fix her eye on matrimony without the water coming into it. That was a step she would not take till driven to it by desperation. The Pandora's bottom was not all that could be wished, it was rotten. Mrs. De Witt saw that the repair of the Pandora was a matter she could not compass. When she let in water, Mrs. De Witt would admit a husband. Whilst a plank remained impervious to the tide, so would her breast to matrimonial dreams.

The spring tides came, and with them seawater oozing in at the rotted joints of the vessel. Mrs. De Witt was well aware of the presence of bilgewater in the bottom. Bilgewater has the faculty of insisting on cognisance being taken of its presence. Whenever she returned to the Pandora, the odour affected her with horror, for it assured her that her days of independence were numbered. But all at once a new light sprang up in the old lady's mind, she saw a middle course open to her; a way of maintaining a partial independence, on a certainty of subsistence.

She had not returned the call made her by her nephew Elijah Rebow. Half a year had elapsed, but that was no matter. Etiquette of high life does not rule the grades to which the Rebows and De Witts belonged. Why should not she keep house for her nephew? He was well off, and he was little at home; his house was large, she would have free scope in it for carrying on her own independent mode of life, and her keep would cost her nothing. That house had been her home. In it she had been born and nurtured. She had only left it to be incumbered with a husband and a son. Now she was free from these burdens, what more reasonable than that she should return? It was the natural asylum to which she must flee in her necessity.

It was true indeed that Rebow had taken in Mrs. Sharland and Glory, but what ties attached them to him equal to hers of flesh and blood. Was she not his aunt?

Now that Mrs. De Witt saw that it was clearly in her interest to disestablish the Sharlands and install herself in their place, she saw also, with equal clearness, that morality and religion impelled her to take this course. What was Elijah's connection with Glory? Was it not a public scandal, the talk of the neighbourhood? As aunt of Rebow was she not in duty bound to interfere, to act a John the Baptist in that Herod's court, and condemn the intimacy as improper?

Mrs. De Witt pulled herself up, morally as well as physically, and in habit also. That is, she was sitting on her military coat tails, and with a gathering sense of her apostleship of purity she shook them out, she drew in at the same time the strings of her apron and of her cap, tightened and lifted her bustle, so that the red military tails cocked in an audacious and defiant—if not in an apostolic and missionary manner. She ran her fingers through the flutings of her frills, to make them stand out and form a halo round her face, like the corolla of white round the golden centre of the daisy. Then she drank off a noggin of gin to give herself courage, and away she started, up the companion, over the deck, and down the ladder, to row to Red Hall with her purpose hot in her heart.

After the disappearance of the madman, Mehalah had returned to the house and to her room. She said nothing next day of what she had seen. Elijah and his men had searched the marshes and found no trace of the man save the broken chain. That Rebow took back, and hung over his chimney-piece. He enquired in Salcott and Virley, but no one there had seen anything of the unfortunate creature. It was obvious that he had not gone inland. He had run outward, and when it was found that the punt was gone, the conclusion arrived at was that the madman had left the marshes in it.

Elijah rowed to Mersea, and made enquiries without eliciting any information. He went next to Bradwell on the south coast of the great Black water estuary, there his punt had been found, washed ashore; but no traces of the man were to be discovered. That he was drowned admitted of no doubt. Rebow satisfied himself that this was the case, and was content to be thus rid of an encumbrance. Mehalah's knowledge of the matter was unsuspected, and she was therefore not questioned. She did not feel any necessity for her to mention what she had seen. It could be of no possible advantage to anybody.

Her life became monotonous, but the monotone was one of gloom. She had lost every interest; she attended to her mother without heart; and omitted those little acts of tenderness which had been customary with her, or performed them, when her mother fretted at the omission, in a cold, perfunctory manner. Mrs. Sharland had been accustomed to be overruled by her daughter, but now Mehalah neither listened to nor combated her recommendations. She rarely spoke, but went through the routine of her work in a mechanical manner. Sometimes she spoke to her mother in a hard, sharp tone the old woman was unused to, and resented; but Mehalah ignored her resentment. She cared neither for her mother's love nor for her displeasure.

When she met the men about the farm, if they addressed her, she repelled them with rudeness, and if obliged to be present with them for some time, did not speak.

Neither had she a word for Rebow. She answered his questions with monosyllables, or not at all, and he had often to repeat them before she condescended to answer. He spoke at meal times, and attempted to draw her into conversation, but she either did not listen to him, was occupied with her own thoughts, or she would not appear to hear and be interested in what he said.

A morose expression clouded and disfigured her countenance, once so frank and genial. Joe remarked to Jim that she was growing like the master. Jim replied that folks who lived together mostly did resemble one another. He knew a collier who had a favourite bull-dog, and they were as alike in face as if they were twins.

Mehalah avoided Abraham, she rarely spoke to him, and when he attempted to open a conversation with her she withdrew abruptly. When all her work was done, she walked along the sea-wall to the spit of land, and, seating herself there, remained silent, brooding, with dull, heavy eyes looking out to sea at the passing sails, or the foaming waves.

She did not think, she sat sunk in a dull torpor. She neither hoped anything nor recalled anything. As she had said to Elijah, she neither loved nor hated; she did not fear him or desire him. She disliked to be in his presence, but she would not fix her mind on him, and concern herself about him. Her self-respect was sick, and till that was recovered nothing could interest and revive her.

Mehalah was seated under the windmill when Mrs. De Witt drew to land. That lady was on her war-path, and on seeing the person whom she designed to attack and rout out of her shelter, she turned the beak of her boat directly upon her, and thrust ashore at Mehalah's feet.

The sight of Mrs. De Witt in her red coat roused the girl from her dream, and she rose wearily to her feet and turned to walk away.

'Glory!' shouted the fishwife after her. 'Sackalive! I want to speak to you. Stop at once.'

Mehalah paid no attention to the call, but walked on. Mrs. De Witt was incensed, and, after anchoring her boat, rushed after and overtook her.

'By Cock!' exclaimed the lady, 'here's manners! Didn't you hear me hollering to you to hold hard and heave to?' She laid her hand on Mehalah's shoulder. The girl shook it off.

'Sackalive!' cried Mrs. De Witt. 'We are out of temper to-day. We have the meagrims. What is all this about? But I suppose you can't fare to look an honest woman in the face. The wicious eye will drop before the stare of wirtue!'

'What have you to say to me?' asked Mehalah moodily.

'Why, I want to speak along of you about what concerns you most of all. Now his father and his mother are dead, who's to look after Elijah's morals but me, his aunt? Now I can't stand these goings on, Glory! Here are you living in this out-of-the way house with my nephew, who is not a married man, and folks talk. My family was always respectable, we kept ourselves up in the world. My husband's family I know nothing about. He was a low chap, and rose out of the mud, like the winkles. I took him up, and then I dropped him again; I was large and generous of heart when I was young—younger than I am now. I wouldn't do it again, it don't pay. The man will raise the woman, but the woman can't lift the man. He grovels in the mud he came out of. She may pick him out and wipe him clean a score of times, but when she ain't looking, in he flops again. I have had my experience. Moses was a good-looking man, but he looked better raw than cooked, he ate tougher than he cut. He wasn't the husband that he seemed to promise as a bachelor. George was another; but he was an advance on Moses, he had a little of me in him. There was Rebow mixed with De Witt; he was a glass of half and half, rum and water. But this is neither here nor there. We are not talking of my family, but of you. I'm here for my nephew's welfare and for yours. Glory! you ain't in Red Hall for any good. Do you think my nephew can take in an old woman that is not worth sixpence to bait lines with, and feed her and find her in liquor for nothing! Everybody knows he's after you. He's been after you ever so long. Everybody knows that. He had a hankering after you when George was a galliwanting on the Ray. That's known to all the world. Well, you can't live in the house with him and folks not talk.'

'Do you dare to believe——'

'Glory! I always make a point to believe the worst. I'm a religious person, and them as sets up to be religious always does that. It is part of their profession. When I buy fish of the men, I say at once, it stinks, I know it ain't fresh! when I take shrimps I say, they're a week out of the water, and they won't peel nicely. So I look upon you and everyone else, and then it's a wery pleasing surprise when I find that the stale fish turns out fresh. But it ain't often that happens. It may happen now and then, just as now and then a whale is washed up on Mersea Island. Now look you here, Glory! don't you believe that Elijah will marry you and make an honest woman of you. He won't do it. He don't think to do it. He never did intend it. He belongs to a better family than yours. You have gipsy blood in your veins, and he knows it; that's as bad as having king's evil or cancer. I made a mistake and looked below me. He won't do it. He knows that I made a mistake, he won't do the same. There's as much difference in human flesh as there is in that of flat-fish, some is that of soles, other is that of dabs; some is fresh and firm as that of small eels, other is coarse and greasy as that of conger. The Rebows belong to another lot from you altogether. Elijah knows it. He never thought to marry you. He couldn't do it.'

Mehalah, stung even through the hard panoply of callousness in which she had encased herself, turned surlily on the woman.

'You lie! It is I who will not marry him.'

'There's an Adam and Eve in every brown shrimp,'[1] said Mrs. De Witt sententiously; 'and there's wigour and weakness in every human creature. It is possible that at a time when Eve is up in Elijah he may have proposed such a foolish thing as to marry you, and it is possible that, at a time when Adam was the master in you, you may have refused him. I don't deny it. But I do say that Elijah will never marry you in cold blood. And I'll tell you what—you won't stand out against him for long. He has too much of the Adam, and you too little for that. You may set up your pride and self-will against him, but you will give way in the end—your weakness will yield to his strongheadedness. What he purposes he will carry out; you cannot oppose Elijah; the Adam in his heart is too old and wigorous and heady.'

[1] Children find in the front paddles of the brown shrimp, when pulled out, two quaint little figures which they call Adam and Eve.

Mehalah made no answer. Sunk in her dark thoughts she strode on, her arms folded over her heart, to still and crush it; her head bowed.

'Now Glory!' pursued Mrs. De Witt; 'I've a bit of a liking for you, after all, and I'm sorry for what I was forced to do about that five and twenty pounds. I tell you, I am sorry, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't starve, you know—I was a lone widow without a son to help me. As I said, I've a sort of a liking for you, for you was the girl my George——' Mehalah's breast heaved, she uttered an ill-suppressed cry, and then covered her face.

'My poor George,' went on the old woman, aware that she had gained an advantage. 'He was wery fond of you. Sackalive! how he would love to talk of you to me his doting old mother, and scheme how you was to live in love together! That boy's heart was full of you, full as——' she cast about for a simile, 'as a March sprat is full of oil. Now I know, my George—he was a good lad! and more like me in features than his father, but he hadn't the soul of a Rebow!—My George, I feel sure, couldn't rest in his grave, if he'd got one, knowing as how tongues were going about you, and hearing what wicked things was said of your character. A woman's good name is like new milk. If it once gets turned there's no sweetening it after, and I can tell you what, Glory! your name is not as fresh as it was; look to it before it is quite curdled and sour.'

'I can do nothing! I can do nothing!' moaned the despairing girl.

'Look you here, Glory!' said Mrs. De Witt. 'I'm the aunt of the party, and I must attend to his morals. I'll go in and see him and I'll manage matters. He's my nephew. I can do anything with him. Trust me with men, girl. I know 'em. They are like nettles. Grasp 'em and they are harmless; touch 'em trembling, and they sting you. They are like eels, try to hold them where you will and they wriggle away, but run a skewer through their gills and you have them.'

'What are you here for, talking to my girl?' asked Rebow, suddenly coming from behind the house, which Mrs. De Witt had now reached.

'Sackalive!' exclaimed his aunt, 'how you flustered me. We was just talking of you when you appeared. It is wonderful how true proverbs are; they are the Bible of those that don't read, a sort of scripture written in the air. But I want a talk along of you, Elijah, that is what I'm come after, I your precious aunt, who loves you as the oyster loves his shell, and the crab its young that it cuddles.'

'What do you want with me?'

'Come, Elijah, let us go indoors. To tell you Gospel truth, I'm dry after my row and want a wet. As I wet I will talk. I've that to say to you that concerns you greatly.'

'Follow me,' he said surlily, and led the way up the steps. Mehalah turned back, but walked not to the point where she had been sitting before, lest she should be again disturbed on the return of Mrs. De Witt to her boat. She went instead to the gate at the bridge over the dyke, that led towards Salcott. There was no real road, only a track through the pasture land. She leaned her hands on the bar of the gate and laid her weary head on her hands. Outside the gate was a tillage field with green wheat in it glancing in the early summer air. Aloft the larks were spiring and caroling. In the ploughed soil of Mehalah's heart nothing had sprung up,—above it no glad thought soared and sang. Her head was paralysed and her heart was numb. The frost lay there, and the clods were as iron.

In the meantime Mrs. De Witt was in the hall with her nephew, endeavouring to melt him into geniality, but he remained morose and unimpressionable.

By slow approaches she drew towards the object of her visit.

'I have been very troubled, nephew, by the gossip that goes about.'

'Have you?' asked he, 'I thought you were impervious to trouble short of loss of grog.'

'You know, Elijah, that your character is precious to me. I wally it, for the honour of the family.'

'What are you driving at?' he asked with an oath. 'Speak out, and then take your slimy tongue off my premises.'

'This is my old home, Elijah, the dear old place where I spent so many happy and innocent days.'

'Well, you are not likely to spend any more of either sort here now. Say what you have to say, and begone.'

'You fluster me, Elijah. When I have a glass of rare good stuff such as this, I like to sit over it, and talk, and sip, and relax.'

'I don't,' he said; 'I gulp it down and am off. Come, say your say, and be quick about it. I have my affairs to attend to and can't sit here palavering with an old woman.'

'Oh!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt, in rising wrath, 'if I were young it would be different, if I were not a moral and religious character it would be different, if I were not a Rebow, but half gipsy, half boor, it would be different!'

'If you allude to Glory, with that sneer,' said he, 'I tell you, it would be different.'

'I dare say!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt tossing her head. 'Blood and kinship are all forgot.'

'You forgot them fast enough when you ran after Moses De Witt.'

'I did demean myself, I admit,' said she; 'but I have repented it since in dabs and sprats, and I don't intend to do it again. Listen to me, Elijah. Once for all, I want to know what you mean by keeping this girl Glory here?'

'You do, do you?—So do I. I wonder; she defies and hates me, yet I keep her. I keep her here, I can do no other. I would to God I could shake free of her and forget her, forget that I had ever seen her, but I can't do it. She and I are ordained for one another.'

'Parcel of stuff!' exclaimed his aunt. 'You send her packing, her and her old fool of a mother, and I will come and keep house for you.'

'Pack Glory off!' echoed Elijah.

'Yes, break this wretched, degrading tie.'

'I couldn't do it!' he said. 'I tell you again, I would if I could. I know as well as if it were written in flames on the sky that no good can come of her being here, but for better for worse, for well or for woe, here we two are, and here we remain.'

'You love her??

'I love her and I hate her. I love her with every fibre and vein, and bone and nerve, but I hate her too, with my soul, because she does not love me, but hates me. I could take her to my heart and keep her there,' his breast heaved and his dark eyes flared, 'and kiss her on her mouth and squeeze the breath out of her, and cast her dead at my feet. Then perhaps I might be happy. I am now in hell; but were she not here, were I alone, and she elsewhere, it would be hell unendurable in its agonies, I should go mad like my brother. She must be mine, or my fate is the same as his.'

'Are you going to marry her?'

'She will not marry me. Believe what I say. That girl, Glory, is the curse and ruin of me and of this house. I know it, and yet I cannot help it. She might have made me happy and built up my prosperity and family. Then I should have been a good and a glad man, a man altogether other from what I am now. But your son came in the way. He marred everything. Glory still thinks of him, it does not matter that he be gone. She will cling to him and keep from me. Yet she is destined for me. She never was for George. If he were to turn up—I don't say that it is possible or even probable, but suppose he were—she would fly to him. I might chain her up, but she'd break away. There is nothing for it,' he pursued, drooping into a sullen mood. 'We must battle it out between us. None can or must intervene; whoever attempts it shall be trampled under our feet. We must work out our own fate together; there is no help for it. I tell you, if I were born again, and I knew that this were before me, I'd fly to the Indies, to Africa, anywhere to be from her, so as never to see her, never to know of her, and then I might jog on through life in quiet, and some sort of happiness. But that is not possible. I have seen her. I have her here under my roof, but we are still apart as the poles. Go away, aunt, it is of no good your interfering. No one comes here, she and I must work the sum out between us. There's a fate over all and we cannot fight against it, but it falls on us and crushes us.'

Mrs. De Witt was awed. She rose. She knew that her mission was fruitless, that there was no possibility of her gaining her point.

She opened the door, and started back before an apparition in carnation and white.

'Whom have we here?'

'Mrs. Charles Pettican, madam,' said the apparition with a stately curtsey.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE LAST STRAW.

Mehalah was lost to consciousness, leaning on the gate, her aching brow and leaden eyes in her hand. She did not hear the larks that sang above her, nor saw the buttercups and daisies that smiled to her from below. By the gate was a willow covered with furry flower now ripe and shedding its golden pollen. The soft air scattered the delicate yellow dust over the girl's hair and neck and shoulders, a minute golden powder, but she noticed it not. The warm air played caressingly with some of her dark hair, and the sun brought out its copper glow—she was unaware of all.

A little blue butterfly flickered above her and lighted on her head, it lay so still that the insect had no fear.

Then a hand shook the gate.

'Gone to sleep, girl?' asked a female voice.

Mehalah looked up dreamily.

A young, handsome, and dashing lady before her, in white and carnation, a crimson feather in her hat, and carmine in her cheeks. Mehalah slowly recognised Admonition.

Mrs. Pettican looked curiously at her.

'Who are you?—Oh! I know, the girl Sharland!' and she laughed.

Mehalah put her hand to the latch to open the gate.

'You need not trouble,' said Admonition: 'I want nothing from you. I have heard of you. You are the young person,' with an affected cough, 'whom Master Rebow has taken to live with him I think. You had the assurance once to come to my dear husband, and to pester him.'

'He was kind to me,' said Mehalah to herself.

'Oh yes, he was very kind indeed. He did not know much of you then. Report had not made him familiar with your name.'

Mehalah looked moodily at her. It was of no use pretending to misunderstand her. It was of no use resenting the insinuation. She sullenly bore the blow and suffered.

'I have come here on your behalf,' said Admonition, speaking to her across the gate. She had the gate half open, and kept it between them.

'You have nothing to do with me, or I with you,' said Mehalah.

'Oh! nothing, I am respectable. I keep myself up, I look after my character!' sneered Mrs. Pettican. 'Nevertheless I am here with an offer from my husband. He is ready to receive your mother into his house; I do not approve of this, but he is perverse and will have his way. He will take her in and provide for her.'

'Mehalah looked up. A load was being lifted from her heart. Were her mother taken in by Mr. Pettican, then she could leave, and leave for ever, Red Hall.

'Yes. He admits his relationship,' said Admonition. 'I would not, were I he, now that the name is—well—not so savoury as it was. But he is not particular. Men are not. I have been brought up, I am thankful to say, with very strict ideas, and have been formed in a school quite other from that of Mr. Pettican. However, as I was observing—you need not come near me—keep the gate between us, please.'

'You were saying,' anxiously repeated Mehalah, who had stepped forward in her eagerness.

'I was saying that Mr. Pettican will overlook a great deal, and will receive your mother into his house, and provide her with all that is necessary. But you——'

'I,' repeated Mehalah, breathlessly.

'You must never, never set foot within my doors. I could not allow it. I am a person of respectability, I value proprieties. I could not allow my house to be spoken of as one which admitted—' with a contemptuous shrug.

Mehalah took no notice of the insult. She looked hard at Admonition, and said gravely, 'You will shelter and care for my mother, on condition that I never go near her.'

'Yes.'

'I may never see her, never speak to her, never kiss her again.'

'No, I could not suffer you to enter my respectable house.'

'Not even if she were dying?'

'My character would not allow of it. The respectability of my house must be maintained.'

Mehalah thought for awhile.

'I cannot make up my mind at once,' she said.

'It will be a great relief to you to get rid of your mother.'

'Yes, immeasurable.'

'I thought as much!' with a toss of the head, and curl of the lip.

Mehalah did not give attention to these marks of contempt. Presently she asked, 'And who will attend to my mother?'

'I will.'

'You!' exclaimed Glory, with a flash of her old indignation. 'You, who neglect and illtreat the husband who lifted you out of the gutter. You who have not gratitude and generosity to the man to whom you owe your position and comforts! How would you treat a poor, helpless, aged woman trusting to your mercy unconditioned, when the man who bound you to him by most solemn and sacred promises is insulted, and neglected, and degraded by you? No, never. My mother shall never, never be left to you of all women in the world. Never, never, never!' she beat her hand on the gate. 'Let me bear my burden, let it crush me, but she shall not be taken from me and die of neglect and cruel treatment. I can bear!' she raised herself with a poor effort of her old energy, 'I will bear all for her. She once bore with me.'

'Drab!' hissed Admonition, and she flung past her, shaking the gate furiously as she went by.

It was with carnation in her cheek as well as in her dress and hat that she appeared before Mrs. De Witt and Elijah Rebow.

Mrs. De Witt drew back to let Mrs. Pettican in.

'I think you was passing out,' said the latter; 'madam, your servant.'

'Your servant, madam,' from Mrs. De Witt, still lingering.

'Now then, one at a time. Aunt, go out and shut the door,' said Rebow peremptorily, and the old woman was obliged to obey.

'What has brought you here?' asked Elijah surlily.

Mrs. Pettican looked round, then drew nearer. 'I think,' she said, 'you once advised me something, but I don't know how far your interest is the same as it was.'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't know whether you would be satisfied to get Mehalah Sharland off your hands now, or keep her here.'

'She remains here, she never shall leave it.'

'It is just this,' said Admonition. 'My husband has of late been plucking up a little courage, or showing obstinacy. My cousin Timothy—I don't know what to make of him—he is not what he was. He is always making some excuse or other to get away, and I find he goes to Mersea. He hasn't been as dutiful and amiable to me of late, as I have a right to expect, considering how I have found him in food and drink and tobacco, the best of all, and no stint. There's some game up between him and my husband, and I believe it is this, I know it is this. Charles is bent on getting Mrs. Sharland and her daughter, the latter especially, to come and live with him and take care of him. He dares to say I neglect him. He reckons on pitting that girl against me, he thinks that she would be more than a match for me.'

'He thinks right,' burst in Rebow with a laugh.

'I won't have her in the house. I don't mind taking in the old woman, but the daughter I will not admit.'

'You are right. She'd master you and make you docile or drive you out,' jeered Rebow.

'She shall not come. I have told her so. I will not be opposed and brow-beaten in my own house. I will not have the care of my husband wrested from me.'

'Have you come here to tell me this?'

'I know that Charles and Timothy have put their heads together. They are both up in rebellion against me, and Timothy has walked over to Mersea to get a boat and row here to invite that girl to come with her mother to Wyvenhoe, and take up their abode with my husband. Charles promises if they will do so to provide for them and leave them everything in his will, so as to make them independent at my cost. When I got wind of this—I overheard the scheme by the merest accident—I got a gig and was driven over to Salcott, and the boy has put up the horse at the inn, and I walked on. I will stop this little game. The girl shall not come inside the house. If she puts in her little finger, her fist will follow, and I will be driven out, though I am the lawful wife of Charles Pettican. I don't know what Timothy means by aiding and abetting him in this. I will have it out with him, and that very soon. I want to know what are your views. I have been pretty plain with mine. You may help me or hinder me, but I hope I shall be able to keep my door locked against such as that girl, and if Timothy thinks to flirt along with her under my roof, and before my face, he is vastly mistaken. That husband of mine is deeper than I suspected, or he would not have come over Timothy and got him to aid him in this. But I see it all. Timothy thinks if the girl gets there, and is to have Charles' money, he will make up to her, marry her, and share the plunder. If that be his game he has left me out of his calculations. Timothy is a fool, or he would not have gone over from me to Charles. I'll have the matter out here——'

'Not in this room,' said Elijah. 'There's rows enough go on in here without your making another. Set your mind at rest: Glory does not leave this house. But I advise you to see your cousin, and, if possible, prevent him from making the proposal. If she hears it, she will be off to-morrow, and carry her mother with her; and then there may be trouble to you and me to get her back.'

'She shall not come across my doorstep.'

'I tell you if once she hears that the chance is given her, she will go, and not you nor a legion of such as you could keep her out. Go upstairs and go straight on till you come to a door. Go in there; it is the bedroom of Glory and her mother. Never mind the old fool—she is sick and in bed. You will find a small room or closet beyond, with a three-cornered window in it. Look out of that. It commands the whole bay, and you will see a boat, if it approaches the Hall. There's Sunken island and Cobb marsh between you and Mersea City. You will see a boat creep through one of the creeks of Cobb marsh into Virley flat, and that will be the boat with your cousin in it. If you come down then you will meet him as he lands.'

As soon as Admonition had rushed past Mehalah the girl walked away from the gate and ascended the sea-wall. She could obtain peace nowhere. She could hide nowhere, be nowhere without interruption. She saw Mrs. De Witt depart, and thought that now she could sit on the wall and remain unmolested. But again was she disturbed, this time by old Abraham. He was at the near landing-stage, just come from the Ray—the landing-place employed when tides were full. 'Hark ye, mistress,' said the shepherd. 'I've had much on my tongue this many a day, but you haven't given me the chance to spit it out. I won't be put off any longer.'

She did not answer or move away. The reaction after the momentary kindling of hope and burst of passion had set in, and she had relapsed into her now wonted mood.

'It is of no use, mistress, your going on as you are,' continued the old man. 'Wherever he is, the master speaks of you as no man ought to speak save of his wife; and all the world knows you are not that. What are you, then? You are in a false position, and that is one of your own making.'

'You know it is not, Abraham.'

'I know it is one you could step out of to-morrow if you chose,' he said. 'The master has offered you your right place. As long as you refuse to take it so long everybody will be turned against you, and you against everybody. You keep away from everybody because you shame to see them and be seen by them. I know you don't like the master, but that's no reason why you shouldn't take him. Beggars mustn't be choosers. He is not as young and handsome as George De Witt, but he is not such a fool, and he has his pockets well lined, which the other had not.'

'It is of no use your saying this to me, Abraham,' said Mehalah sadly.

'No, it is not,' pursued the dogged old man. 'Here you must stick as long as your mother lives, and she may live yet a score of years. Creaky gates last longest. Why, she ain't as old as I, and there's a score of years' work in me yet. How can you spend twenty years here along of the master, with all the world talking? It will shame you to your grave, or brazen you past respect. This state of things can't do good to anybody. You must take him, and set yourself right with the world, or go from here.'

'I cannot get away. Would to heaven I could!'

'Then you must marry him. There is no escape from it, for your own sake. Why, girl,' the shepherd went on, 'if you was his wife you would have a lawful right and place here—this house, these marshes, these cattle would be yours. You would not be dependent on him for anything; you would hold them as a right. Now he can have you and your mother in prison at any time, for you are still his tenants and owe him rent for the Ray. But if you marry him, you cut away his power: he can't proceed against you and your mother for one penny. You would cancel the debt, do away with the obligation. If you was to marry him, and saw your way clear, I fancy you might go away at any time, and he would have no hold on you. Now he has you fast by this claim. And now your character is being ruined by association with him. There,' continued the old man, 'I doubt I never said so much afore; but I have known you since you was a girl, and I no more like to see you going to the bad than I like to see a field that has been well tilled allowed to be overrun with thistles, or a sheep lie down in the fen and die of rot that might have been saved with a little ointment stuck on in proper time.'

Mehalah made no response.

'I dare say it stings.' said Dowsing. 'I've seen sheep jump with pain when the copperas comes against a raw; but that's better than to lie down and rot away without an effort, and without a word, as you are doing now.' He gave her a nod, and went on his way.

Mehalah stepped into his boat and seated herself in her usual manner, with her head in her arms, and sank into her wonted torpor.

'Now, then, young woman!'

Again interrupted, again aroused. There was no rest for her that day.

'Jump on land, will you, young woman, and let this lass step into your boat and get ashore without having to go into the mud.'

'Timothy! that is Mehalah!' exclaimed Phoebe Musset. She was in the boat with Admonition's cousin. 'I'd rather you carried me. I do not want to be obliged to her for anything.'

Mehalah stepped from her boat upon the turf, and held out her hand mechanically to assist the girl.

'Don't hold out your hand to me!' screamed Phoebe. 'I wouldn't touch it. Keep to yourself, if you please, and let me pass.'

'Why, Phoebe!' exclaimed Timothy, 'what is the matter? I have come here to see this girl.'

'What!—to see Mehalah—or Glory, as you sailor and fisher fellows like to call her?'

'Yes.'

'Then I'm ashamed to have come with you,' said Phoebe, pouting. 'You offered me a nice little row on the water, and the sun was so bright, and the air so warm, and you were so agreeable, that I ventured; but I would not have stepped into the boat had I known you were coming to visit another young woman, and she one of so smirched a character.'

'Phoebe! For shame!'

'For shame!' repeated the girl turning on Timothy. 'For shame to you, to bring me here with you when you are visiting this——' She eyed Mehalah from head to foot with studied insolence, and sniffed. 'I know her. A bad, spiteful cat! always running after fellows. She tried to wheedle poor George De Witt into marrying her. When he was lost, she burnt her house and flung herself on the mercy, into the arms, of Rebow. Now, I suppose, she is setting her red cap at you. Oh! where is the cap gone, eh?' turning to Mehalah as she skipped ashore.

Timothy was fastening the boat to that of Dowsing.

Mehalah's wrath was rising. She had endured much that day—more than she could well bear. The impertinence of this malicious girl was intolerable altogether. She turned away to leave her.

'Stop! stop!' shouted Timothy. 'I have come here with a message to you. I have come here expressly to see you. I picked up Miss Musset on the way——'

'You picked me up just to amuse me till you found Glory!' screamed Phoebe. 'Now you pitch me overboard, as that savage treated me once. I will not stand this. Timothy, come back this instant! Row me back to Mersea. I have not come here to be insulted. I will not speak another word with you unless you——'

'For heaven's sake,' cried Timothy, tearing down the sea-wall and jumping into the boat, 'come in, Phoebe, at once, or I shall be off and leave you!'

'What is the matter now?'

He had his knife out, and was hacking through the cord that attached his boat to Dowsing's. In another moment he was rowing as hard as he could down the creek.

Admonition appeared on the wall. Timothy had detected her crossing the marsh, and fled.

She turned in fury on Phoebe.

Mehalah withdrew to the windmill, away from their angry voices, and remained sitting by the sea till the shadows of evening fell.

Then she returned, a fixed determination in her face, which was harder and more moody than before.

She walked deliberately to the hall, opened the door, and stepped in. Elijah was there, crouched over the empty hearth, as though there was a fire on it. He looked up.

'Well, Glory?'

Her bosom heaved. She could not speak.

'You have something to say,' he proceeded. 'Won't the words come out? Do they stick?' His wild dark eye was on her.

'Elijah,' she said, with burning brow and cheek, 'I give up. I will marry you.'

He gave a great shout and sprang up.

'Listen patiently to me,' she said, with difficulty controlling her agitation. 'I will marry you, and take your name, but only to save mine. That is all. I will neither love you, nor live with you, save as I do now. These are my terms. If you will take them, so be it. If not, we shall go on as before.'

He laughed loudly, savagely.

'I told you, Glory, my own, own Glory, what must be. You would not come under my roof, but you came. You would not marry me—now you submit. You will not love me—you must and shall. Nothing can keep us apart. The poles are drawing together. Perhaps there may be a heaven for us both here. But I do not know. Anyhow the sum is nearer the end than it was. Glory, this day week you shall be my wife.

CHAPTER XXIII.

BEFORE THE ALTAR.

Virley Church has been already described, as far as its external appearance goes. The interior was even less decent.

It possessed but one bell, which was tolled alike for weddings and for funerals; there was a difference in the pace at which it went for these distinct solemnities, but that was all. The bell produced neither a cheerful nor a lugubrious effect on either occasion, as it was cracked. The dedication of Virley Church is unknown—no doubt because it never had a patron; or if it had, the patron disowned it. No saint in the calendar could be associated with such a church and keep his character. St. Nicholas is the patron of fishers, St. Giles of beggars, but who among the holy ones would spread his mantle over worshippers who were smugglers or wreckers? When we speak of worshippers we use an euphemism; for though the church sometimes contained a congregation, it never held one of worshippers. Salcott and Virley, the Siamese-twin parishes, connected by a wooden bridge, embraced together five hundred souls. There were two churches, but few churchgoers.

On the day of which we write, however, Virley Church was full to overflowing. This is not saying much, for Virley Church is not bigger than a stable that consists of two stalls and a loose box, whereof the loose box represents the chancel. When the curate in charge preached from the pulpit—the rectors of the two parishes were always non-resident—they kept a curate between them—he was able to cuff the boys in the west gallery who whispered, cracked nuts, or snored.

The bellringer stood in the gallery, and had much ado to guard his knuckles from abrasion against the ceiling at each upcast of the rope. He managed to save them when tolling for a burial, but when the movement was double-quick for a wedding his knuckles came continually in contact with the plaster; and when they did an oath, audible throughout the sacred building, boomed between the clangours of the bell.

Virley Church possessed one respectable feature, a massive chancel-arch, but that gaped; and the pillars slouched back against the wall in the attitude of the Virley men in the village street waiting to insult the women as they went by.

On either side of the east window hung one table of the Commandments, but a village humourist had erased all the 'nots' in the Decalogue; and it cannot be denied that the parishioners conscientiously did their utmost to fulfil the letter of the law thus altered.

The congregation on Sundays consisted chiefly of young people. The youths who attended divine worship occupied the hour of worship by wafting kisses to the girls, making faces at the children, and scratching ships on the paint of the pews. Indeed, the religious services performed alternately at the two churches might have been discontinued, without discomposure to any, had not traditional usage consecrated them to the meeting of young couples. The 'dearly beloveds' met in the Lord's house every Lord's day to acknowledge their 'erring and straying like lost sheep' and make appointments for erring and straying again.

The altar was a deal table, much wormeaten, with a box beneath it. The altar possessed no cover save the red cotton pocket-handkerchief of the curate cast occasionally across it. The box contained the battered Communion plate, an ironmoulded surplice with high collar, a register-book, the pages glued together with damp, and a brush and pan.

The Communion rails had rotted at the bottom; and when there was a Communion the clerk had to caution the kneelers not to lean against the balustrade, lest they should be precipitated upon the sanctuary floor. No such controversy as that which has of late years agitated the Church of England relative to the position of the celebrant could have affected Virley, for the floor in the midst, before the altar, had been eaten through by rats, emerging from an old grave, and exposed below gnawed and mouldy bones a foot beneath the boards.

A marriage without three 'askings' was a novelty in Salcott and Virley sufficient to excite interest in the place; and when that marriage was to take place between one so well known and dreaded as Elijah Rebow and a girl hardly ever seen, but of whom much was spoken, it may well be supposed that Virley Church was crowded with sightseers. The gallery was full to bursting. Sailor-boys in the front amused themselves with dropping broken bits of tobacco-pipe on the heads below, and giggling at the impotent rage of those they hit.

There was a sweep in Salcott, who tenanted a tottering cottage, devoid of furniture. The one room was heaped with straw, and into this the sweep crept at night for his slumbers. This man now appeared at the sacred door.

'Look out, blackie!' shouted those near; 'we are not going to be smutted by you.'

'Then make way for your superiors.'

'Superiors!' sneered a matron near.

'Well, I am your superior,' said the sweep, 'for my proper place is poking out at the top of a chimney, and yours is poking into the fire at the bottom. Make way. I have a right to see as well as the best of you.'

The crowd contracted on either side in anxiety for their clothes, and the sweep worked his way to the fore.

'I'll have the best place of you all,' he said, as the gods in the gallery received him with ironical cries of 'Sweep! sweep!'

He charged into the chancel, and sent his black legs over the Communion rails.

At some remote period the chancel of Virley had fallen, and had been rebuilt, with timber and bricks on the old walls left to the height of two feet above the floor. As the old walls were four feet thick, and the new walls only the thickness of one brick, the chancel was provided with a low seat all round it, like the cancellæ of an ancient basilica. The sweep, with a keen eye peering through his soot, had detected this seat and seen that it was unappropriated. He was over the altar with a second jump, and had seated himself behind it, facing west, in the post of dignity occupied in the Primitive Church by the bishop, with his legs under the table, and his elbows on it, commanding the best view attainable of everything that went on, or that would go on, in the church.

His example was followed at once. A rush of boys and men was made for the chancel; the railings fell before them, and they seized and appropriated the whole of the low seat that surrounded the sanctuary.

'I've the best place now, you lubbers,' said the sweep. 'I shall have them full in face, and see the blushes of the bride.'

'They are a-coming! they are a-coming!' was repeated through the church. A boy peering out of the window that lighted the gallery had seen the approach of the procession from Red Hall over the wooden bridge.

In came the Reverend Mr. Rabbit, very hot and sneezy—he laboured under hay fever all the blooming time of the year. He got to the altar. The clerk dived into the box and rose to the surface with the register-book and the surplice.

'Where is the ink?'

'Here is a pen,' said the clerk, producing one with nibs parted like the legs of the Colossus of Rhodes.

'But we shall want ink.'

'There is a bottle somewhere in the box,' said the clerk.

'Never mind if there ain't,' observed one of the elders seated by the table; 'there is the sweep here handy, and you have only to mix a bit of his smut with the tears of the bride.'

'Shut that ugly trap of yours,' said the chimney-cleaner.

'It may be ugly,' retorted the humourist, 'but it is clean.'

'Here they are!' from the gallery.

'Make way!' shouted Mrs. De Witt, battering about her with her umbrella. 'How are people to get married if you stuff up the door, as though caulking a leak?'

She drove her way in.

'Now, then,' said she, 'come on, Mistress Sharland. Dear soul alive! how unmannerly these Virley people are! They want some of us from Mersea to come and teach them manners. Now, then, young Spat!' she shouted to a great boy in a fishing guernsey, 'do you want your head combing? Do you see what you have done to my best silk gown? What do you mean coming to a house of worship in mud-splashers?[1] Are you come here after winkles?'

[1] Wooden paddles, worn by those who go out 'winkling' in the mud, to prevent their sinking.

'I ain't got my splashers on,' said the boy.

'Then you have feet as big and as dirty as paddles. You have trodden on my best silk and took it out at the gathers.' Then, turning and looking through the door behind her, she waved her umbrella with a proud flourish. 'Come on, hearties! I've cleared the way.'

She put her shoulder to the crowd and wedged her way further ahead. 'Ah!' she said, 'here are a lot of sniggering girls. If all was known what ought to be known some of you ought to be getting married to-day. Leave off your laughing up there!' gesticulating towards the boys in the loft. 'Don't you know yet how to behave in a place of worship? I have a great mind to draw my Pandora up at Virley hard and settle here and teach you.'

Mehalah came in, pale, with sunken eyes, that burned with feverish brightness. A hectic flush dyed her cheeks. Her lips were set and did not tremble.

After having given her promise, under conditions, to Rebow she had neither slept nor eaten. She had abandoned her habit of retiring to the shore to sit and brood, and maintained instead incessant activity. When she had done what was necessary for others she made work for herself.

Mrs. Sharland had forgotten her ague and left her bed in the excitement and pleasure of her daughter's submission. She had attempted several times to speak to Mehalah of her approaching marriage, but had not been able to wring a word out of her. From the moment Glory gave her consent to Rebow she said not another syllable on the subject to him or to anyone. She became more taciturn and retiring, if possible, than before. Abraham Dowsing had saluted her and attempted a rough congratulation. She had turned her back and walked away.

Elijah's conduct was the reverse of Glory's. His gloom was gone, and had made way for boisterous and demonstrative joy. His pride was roused, and he insisted on the marriage preparations being made on a liberal scale. He threw a purse into Mrs. Sharland's lap, and bade her spend it how she liked on Mehalah's outfit and her own. The old woman had been supremely happy in arranging everything, her happiness only dashed by the unsympathetic conduct of one chief performer in the ceremony, her daughter, whom she could not interest in any point connected with it.

There had been a little struggle that morning. Mehalah had drawn on her blue 'Gloriana' jersey as usual, and Mrs. Sharland had insisted on its coming off. The girl had submitted after a slight resistance, and had allowed herself passively to be arrayed as her mother chose.

Elijah was dressed in a blue coat, with brass buttons, and knee-breeches. No one had seen him so spruce before.

'I say, dame,' whispered Farmer Goppin to his wife, 'the master of Red Hall is turning over a new leaf to-day.'

'Maybe,' she answered, 'but I doubt it will be a blank one. Look at the girl. It won't be a gay[2] for him.'

[2] Essex for 'Picture.'

'Move on!' said Mrs. De Witt. 'I'll keep the road.'

Mrs. De Witt had come at Rebow's special request. She had put on for the occasion her silk dress, in which she had gone from home and been married. Her figure had altered considerably through age and maternity, and the dress was now not a little too tight for her. Her hooking together had been a labour of difficulty, performed by Mrs. Sharland at Red Hall; it had been beyond her own unassisted powers, in the Pandora, when she drew on the ancient dress.

'Dear Sackalive!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt when she extracted the garment from the lavender in which it had lain, like a corpse in balm, for some five-and-twenty years, 'I was a fool when I last put you on; and I won't fit myself out in you again for the same purpose, unless I am driven to it by desperate circumstances.'

Unable to make the body meet, she had thrown a smart red coat over it; and having engaged a boy to row her to Red Hall, sat in the stern, with her skirt pinned over her head, as though the upper part of her person were enveloped in a camera lucida; in which she was viewing in miniature the movements of the outer world. On reaching Red Hall she had thrown off the scarlet, and presented her back pleadingly to Mrs. Sharland.

'I ought not to have done it, but I did,' said she in a tone of confidence. 'I mean I oughtn't to have put this gown on, last time I wore it,' she explained when Mrs. Sharland inquired her meaning. 'It was thus it came about: I was intimate with the sister of Moses De Witt, and one Mersea fair I went over to the merrymakings, and she inwited me to take a mouthful with her and her brother on board the Pandora. I went, and I liked the looks of the wessel, and of Moses, so I said to him, "You seem wery comfortable here, and I think I could make myself comfortable here too. So, if you are noways unobjectionable, I think I will stay." And I did. I put on my silk gown, and was married to Moses, in spite of all my parents said, and I turned the sister of De Witt out and took her place.'

Mrs. De Witt felt great restraint in the silk gown. Her arms were like wings growing out of her shoulderblades. She was not altogether satisfied that the hooks would hold, and therefore carried to church with her the military coat, over her arm. She wore her hair elaborately frizzled. She had done it with the stove poker, and had worn it for some days in curl-papers. Over this was a broad white chip hat, tied under her chin with skyblue ribands, and she had inserted a sprig of forget-me-nots inside the frizzle of hair over her forehead. 'Bless my soul,' she said to herself, 'the boys will go stark staring mad of love at the sight of me. I look like a pretty miss of fifteen—I do, by Cock!'

Mrs. De Witt succeeded in bringing her party before the altar, at which still sat the sweep, deaf to the feeble expostulations of the curate, which he had listened to with one eye closed and his red tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

Mr. Rabbit was obliged to content himself with a protest, and vest himself hastily for the function.

'Look here,' said Mrs. De Witt, who took on herself the office of master of the ceremonies: 'I am not going to be trodden on and crumpled. Stand back, good people; stand back, you parcel of unmannerly cubs! Let me get where I can keep the boys in order and see that everything gives satisfaction. I have been married; I ought to know all the ways and workings of it, and I do.'

She thrust her way to the pulpit, ascended the stair, and installed herself therein.

'Oh, my eye!' whispered the boys in the gallery. 'The old lady is busted all down her back!'

'What is that?' asked Mrs. De Witt in dismay. She put her hands behind her. The observation of the boys was just. Her efforts to clear a way had been attended with ruin to the fastenings of her dress, and had brought back her arms to their normal position at the expense of hooks-and-eyes.

'It can't be helped,' said Mrs. De Witt, 'so here goes!' And she drew on her military coat to hide the wreck.

'Now, then, parson, cast off! Elijah, you stand on the right, and Glory on the left.'

The curate sneezed violently and rubbed his nose, and then his inflamed eyes. The dust of the flowering grass got even into that mouldy church, rank with grave odours and rotting timber. He began with the Exhortation. Mrs. De Witt followed each sentence with attention and appropriate gesture.

'"Is not to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly,"' she repeated, with solemn face and in an awestruck whisper; then, poking the boys in the gallery with her umbrella, 'Just you listen to that, you cubs!' Then she nodded and gesticulated at the firstly, secondly, and thirdly of the address to those whom she thought needed impressing with the solemn words. Elijah answered loudly to the questions asked him whether he would have the girl at his side to be his wedded wife. Her answer was faint and reluctantly given.

'"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"'

There was a pause.

'Speak up, Mistress Sharland, speak up!' said Mrs. De Witt in a tone of authority. 'Or, if you don't speak, curtsey.'

The curate was affected with a violent sneezing fit. When he recovered he went on.

Rebow clasped Mehalah's hand firmly, and firmly repeated the sentences after the priest.

'"I, Elijah, take thee——"' began the curate; then asked, in a whisper, 'What is the bride's name?'

'Mehalah,' answered the mother.

'"I, Elijah, take thee, Mehalah, to my wedded wife,"' began the curate.

'"I, Elijah, take thee, Glory, to my wedded wife,"' repeated Rebow.

'That is not the name,' protested Mr. Rabbit.

'I marry Glory, and no one else; I take her by that name and by none other,' said Rebow. 'Go on.'

'Say the words after me,' the curate whispered to Mehalah, who began to tremble. She obeyed, but stopped at the promise 'to love, cherish, and to obey.' The curate repeated it again.

"To obey,"' said Mehalah.

Mr. Rabbit looked uncertain how to act.

'"To love, cherish, and obey,"' he suggested faintly.

'Go on,' ordered Rebow. 'Let her obey now; the rest will come in due season.'

The priest nervously submitted.

'Now for the ring,' said the clerk. 'Put it on the book.'

Rebow was taken by surprise. 'By heaven!' he said, 'I forgot all about that.'

'You must have something to use for the purpose,' said the curate. 'Have you no ring of your own?'

'No. Am I like to have?'

'Then let her mother lend her her own marriage-ring.'

'She shall not,' said Rebow angrily. 'No, no! Glory's marriage with me is not a second-hand affair, and like that of such fools as she,' pointing to Mrs. Sharland. 'No, we shall use a ring such as has never been used before, because our union is unlike all other unions. Will this do?' He drew the link of an iron chain from his pocket.

'This is a link broke off my brother's fetters. I picked it up on the sea-wall this morning. Will it do?'

'It must do for want of a better,' said the curate.

Elijah threw it on the book; then placed it on Mehalah's finger, with a subdued laugh. 'Our bond, Glory,' he said, in a low tone, 'is not of gold, but of iron.'

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE VIAL OF WRATH.

Elijah Rebow, in the pride and ostentation of his heart, had invited the curate, the clerk, Mrs. De Witt, Farmer Goppin, Reuben Grout, innkeeper of the 'Rising Sun,' and several others to eat and drink with him and his bride at Red Hall after the ceremony. The marriage had taken place in the afternoon. The law in Marshland was flexible as osier—it must bend to man's convenience, not man submit to law.

Mrs. De Witt took the management of everything out of the hands of the feeble Mrs. Sharland. 'You're not up to the job,' she said. 'It wants some one with eyes in her elbows and as many legs as a crab.'

Mrs. De Witt was everywhere, in the kitchen, the hall, the oak parlour. She had pinned up her silk dress about her, so that it might take no harm.

'There,' said she to the assembled guests, as she brought in a pail full of shrimps and set it on the table. 'Stay your appetites on them, and imitate the manners of high society, which always begins with fish and works up to solids. I brought them myself as my contribution to the feast. Do you, Elijah, hand a wet round: if the others be like me they are dry. Marriage, as I always found it, is a dry job.'

'Where is Glory?' asked Elijah.

'Oh, yes!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt. 'That is like you, Elijah, shouting, "Where is Glory?" Do you think she is to come here toozling about among the wittles in her best gown? She is upstairs getting her dress changed.'

He was pacified.

Mrs. Sharland passed here and there, eager to be supposed useful, actually getting across Mrs. De Witt's path and interfering with her proceedings.

'I can't stand this,' said the fishwife. 'You go upstairs and see after Mehalah. I am going to dish up the pudding.'

'I will take the gravy in the sauceboat,' said Mrs. Sharland.

'Don't get your shivers on at the time, then, and send the grease over everyone,' advised Mrs. De Witt.

'There now, Elijah!' exclaimed she, full of pride, when the table was spread. 'Do look at them dumplings. They are round, plump, and beautiful as cherubs' heads on monuments.'

'Where is Glory?' asked Rebow.

'Run up,' said Mrs. De Witt to the mother, 'tell the girl we are waiting for her. Bid her come at once before the gravy clots.'

An Essex dinner begins with dumplings soused in gravy. When these have been demolished the flesh follows.

The guests sat, with black-handled knives and forks in hand, mouths and noses projected, and eyes riveted on the steaming puddings, ready to cut into them the moment the signal was given.

Mrs. Sharland was slow of foot. Every step was taken leisurely up the stairs and along the passage.

'I'm afeared,' said Farmer Goppin, 'the outer edge of the pudding, about an inch deep all round, is getting the chill.'

'And there is a scum of fat forming on the gravy, said Reuben Grout, 'just like cat-ice on my duck-pond, or like mardlins[1] in spring on a ditch. Had not I better set the gravy against the fire till the good lady comes down?'

[1] 'Mardlins' are duckweed.

'She is coming,' said Rebow; and then he drummed on the table with his knife. Mrs. Sharland leisurely returned. She was alone.

'Well?' from Rebow.

'Mehalah is not in her room.'

'Curse it!' said Elijah. 'Where is she, then? Go and fetch her.'

'I do not know where she is.'

'She will be here directly,' said Rebow, controlling himself. 'You may fall to, neighbours.'

At the word every fork was plunged into the puddings, and every knife driven into their hearts. Each sought who could appropriate to himself the largest block of pudding. Then there ensued a struggle for the gravy, and great impatience was manifested by those who had to wait till others had well drenched their hunches of dough in the greasy liquor.

Rebow leaned back in his chair, holding knife and fork erect on the table. 'Why is she not here? She ought to be here.'

'Take some dumpling, Elijah?'

'I won't eat till my Glory comes.'

'Lord preserve you!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt, slapping his back. 'Go on and eat. You don't understand girls, as you do calves, that is a fact. Why, a girl on her marriage-day is shamefaced, and does not like to be seen. In high society they hide their heads in their wails all day. That is what the wails are for. I was like that. You may look at me, but it is true as that every oyster wears a beard. When I was married to Moses I was that kittle, coy young bird I would have dived and hid among the barnacles on the keel of the wessel, had I been able to keep under water like a duck.'

'Where is she?'

'How do I know? Never fear; she is somewhere—gone out to get a little fresh air. It was hot and stank in that hold of an old church. What with the live corpses above in the pews and the dead ones below deck, it gave me a headache, and you may be sure Mehalah was overcome. I saw she did not look well. The pleasure, I suppose, has been too much for her. A wery little tipple of that topples some folks over.'

'You think so?'

'I am sure of it. Have I not been a bride myself? I know about those sort of things by actual experience. I've gone through the operation myself. It is wery like being had up before the magistrate and convicted for life.'

Elijah was partly satisfied, and he began to eat; but his eyes turned restlessly at intervals to the door.

'Don't you put yourself out,' murmured Mrs. De Witt as she leaned over his shoulder and emptied his glass of spirits. 'Girls are much like scallops. If you want to have them tender and melting in your month, you must treat them with caution and patience. You take the scallops and put them first in lukewarm water, working up into a gentle simmer, and at last, but not under two hours, you toast them, and pepper and butter them, and then they are scalding and delicious. But if you go too fast to work with them, they turn to leather, and will draw the teeth out of your gums if you bite into them. Girls must be treated just similarly, or you spoil them. You wouldn't think it, looking at me, but my Moses, with all his faults, knew how to deal with me, and he got me that soft and yielding that he could squeeze me through his fingers like Mersea mud. True as gospel. Fill your glass, Elijah; it don't look hospitable to allow it to stand empty.'

When the lady in her red coat entered, holding triumphantly above her head a leg of boiled mutton, there was a general burst of delight.

'A hunter's dinner!' said Goppin.

'But where is the bride?' asked Grout. 'I want to drink health and a long family to her.'

'Glory ought to be here. Go up, Mistress Sharland, and bring her down. She has returned by this time,' said Rebow.

'I don't think she has,' said the old woman.

'I am sure of it; go and look.'

The widow revisited the bedroom.

When she returned she said, 'No, Elijah; Mehalah has not come back. She has taken off her bridal dress and laid it on the bed, and has put on her blue jersey, and I see she has taken with her a red cap.'

'She tore that to pieces.'

'She has been knitting a new cap this week,' said Mrs. Sharland.

'I like that! She has done it to please me,' said Elijah, his eye twinkling. 'I loved her in that; and I hate to see her as she was tricked out to-day.'

'We are waiting for you to carve,' said Goppin.

'Don't forget we like fat,' said Grout.

'I say,' murmured Jabez Bunting, a storekeeper, 'look at the gravy, how it oozes out; I'm fit to jump at the sight. Don't think we eat like ladies of quality, Rebow. Give us good large helpings, and the redder and rawer the better.'

'Some one,' said Elijah, 'tell Abraham Dowsing to go on the sea-wall and look out for Glory, and bring her home.'

'There's the boy what rowed me here,' said Mrs. De Witt. 'He is sitting outside on the step, and I'm throwing him the bits of skin and fat and gristle. I'll send him.'

'Really,' observed the Rev. Mr. Rabbit, after a fit of sneezing, 'the circumstance reminds the student of Holy Writ somewhat of Queen Vashti.'

'What do you mean?' asked Elijah abruptly.

'No offence, no offence meant,' gasped the curate, waxing very red; 'I only thought your good lady was to-day like Queen Vashti.'

'Glory is like nobody,' said Rebow, with some pride. 'There never was, there never can be, another Glory. I don't care who or what your Vashti was—Was she beautiful?' shortly interrupting himself.

'Did she bring property into the family!' asked Mrs. De Witt, leaning over Elijah's shoulder and emptying his tumbler. 'Elijah! you must replenish. Look hospitable, and keep the liquor flowing.'

'I really don't know,' said Mr. Rabbit.

'Then what do you mean by saying she was like my Glory?' asked Rebow angrily.

'I—I only suggested that there was a faint similarity in the circumstances, you know. King Ahasuerus made a great feast—as you have done.'

'Was there boiled mutton at it?' asked Grout.

'I really cannot say. It is not recorded.'

'Give me boiled mutton, a little underdone, and I ask for nothing more,' said Goppin.

'And,' went on the curate, 'he naturally wished his wife to be present. He wanted her to come down to be seen of his lords and princes.'

'Go on! Damn your sneezing. Put it off till you're preaching, and then no one will care,' said Rebow.

'But,' pursued the parson, when he had wiped his nose and eyes, and recovered breath after the fit, 'Queen Vashti refused to come down.'

'Well, what did the husband say to that?' asked Elijah.

'If he was a sensible man,' said Goppin, 'he cut into the mutton, and didn't bother about she.'

'You don't know, neighbour, that it was a leg of mutton,' said Grout. 'It might have been sirloin.'

'Sirloin!' exclaimed Bunting; 'I wouldn't go ten yards to taste sirloin. There's not enough on the bone, except fat.'

'Go on,' said Elijah to the curate. 'How did the man—king, was he—take it?'

'He dismissed Vashti, and took Esther to be his queen. But then,' put in the frightened curate, thinking he had suggested a startling precedent, 'Ahasuerus was not a Christian, and knew no better.'

'Do you think,' laughed Rebow, 'that I would cast off my Glory for any other woman that ever was born? No, I would not. Let her do what she likes. She don't care to associate with such as you. She holds herself above you. And she's right. She is one the like of whom does not exist. She has a soul stronger and more man-like than anyone of you. If she don't choose to come and guzzle here along of you, she's right. I like her for it.'

He flung himself back in his chair and drained his full glass.

'I ask you, Goppin! Did you ever see the equal of my Glory?'

'I can't say as ever I did, Rebow,' answered the farmer.

'I took the liberty to chuck her under the chin, and she up with the pitchfork out of my hand, and had like to have sent me to kingdom come, had not my good woman been nigh to hand, and run to the rescue. I hope you'll find her more placable when you come to ask a kiss.'

Elijah rubbed his hands, and laughed boisterously.

'Ha!' shouted he, 'that is my Glory! I tell you, Goppin, she'd have drove the prongs of the fork into your flesh as I dig this into the meat,' and he stabbed at the joint fiercely with his carving fork.

'I dare say,' grumbled the farmer, wincing and rubbing his leg. 'I'd for my part rather have a more peacable mate; but there's no choosing fat beasts for others, as the saying goes.'

'What do you think of her?' asked Rebow, turning round with exultation on Bunting and Grout.

'She came to my old woman,' said the latter, 'and asked her to take her in and give her work. She wanted to leave you.'

'She did,' exclaimed Rebow. 'And what did your old woman say to that?'

'She said she durstn't do it. She durstn't do it.'

'She durstn't do it!' echoed Elijah with a great laugh. 'That was fine. She durstn't do it!'

'No,' pursued Grout, 'without your leave.'

'And you wouldn't have dared to do it neither,' turning to Bunting, who shook his head.

'No, you would not dare. I'd like to see the man or woman in Salcott or Virley as would dare. I reckon there is none that knows me would make the venture. By God!' he burst forth. 'Where is the girl? I will have her here; and I'm cursed if you shall not all stand on your legs, and drink to her health and happiness as the most splendid woman as ever was or shall be.'

'Abraham Dowsing is at the door,' said Mrs. Sharland.

'Come in, and say what you have to say before us all,' called Elijah. 'If it be anything about my Glory, say it out.'

'She is gone off in her boat,' said the old man; 'I saw her.'

'Why did you not stop her then?' asked Mrs. De Witt.

'I stop her!' repeated Abraham. 'She is my mistress, and I a servant.'

'That is right,' said Elijah, 'if she had taken a whip and lashed your back till it was raw, you couldn't stop her. Where is she gone to?'

Abraham drew up his shoulders. 'That's her concern. It's no odds to me. But I tell ye what, Master. Here are you feasting here, and we han't had nothing extra with our wittles. I ask that we may eat and drink prosperity to you both, to her and you.'

'You shall,' said Elijah.

'Stay,' put in Mrs. De Witt. 'What do you mean, you old barnacle, you? Let your superiors eat their fill first, and then you and the other men shall have what's over. That's fair. I shall manage for you. Go, Abraham.'

The supper drew to a close. Elijah drank a great deal. He was fretted, though he tried not to show it, by the absence of Glory. As more spirits were drunk and pipes were lighted in the hall, whilst the men of the farm fed in the kitchen, several of those present repeated their regret that she in whose honour they were assembled, the new mistress of the house in which they had met, had not deigned to show herself, and receive their good wishes and congratulations.

Rebow gulped down the contents of glass after glass.

Mrs. De Witt had seated herself with the rest, and was doing her best to make up for lost time, with the bottle.

'Elijah!' said she, 'one or other must establish the mastery, either you or Glory. I did think she were a bit shy at first to come among us; but now the night is coming on and still she is away. I don't deny that this ain't civil. But then, she has lived all her life on the Ray, and can't know the fashions of high society; and again, poor thing, it's her first experience of matrimony. She will do better next time. Let us drink!' said she, holding up her brimming glass, 'to her profiting speedily by her experience, and next time we have all of us the honour of attending at her wedding, may she do us the favour to respond.'

'Amen!' said the clerk, who was present.

'Go out some one, and see if she is coming,' said Rebow, his dark face burning with anger and drink. He could not, however, wait till the messenger returned, but left his guests, and went forth himself. He mounted the sea-wall, and turned his eyes down the creek; nothing was visible. He stood there, bareheaded, cursing, for a quarter of an hour, and then went back with knitted brows.

He found his guests preparing to depart.

'Go along!' he said; 'I want no congratulations; say nothing. Glory and I have a marriage different from other folks, as she and I are not like other folks, We must fight it out between us.'

He waved his guests away, with a rude impatient gesture.

Mrs. De Witt roused her boat-boy by kicking him off the steps—he had gone to sleep there—and then tumbling on top of him. She staggered up, tucked the lad under her arm, and marched off.

'If I meet Glory by the way, I'll send her home, I'll be sure and mind it,' said she to Rebow as she departed.

He went in. He ordered Mrs. Sharland to go to her bed. The charwoman, had in for the day, cleared the table of all the glasses, save that of Elijah, and retired. He was left alone. He went to the back door and fastened it. Glory should not slink home that way without facing him. He seated himself in his armchair, and refilled his tumbler with spirits and water. He was very angry. She had deliberately insulted him before his guests, defied him in the face of the principal people of the parish. It would be spoken of, and he would be laughed at throughout the neighbourhood.

The black veins in his brow puffed out. A half-drunken, half-revengeful fire smouldered in his deep-set eyes. There was no lamp or candle burning in the room, but the twilight of midsummer filled it with a grey illumination.

He walked to the door, opened it, and looked out. The gulls were crying over the marsh, and the cattle were browsing in it. No Mehalah was to be seen.

'On my wedding day!' he muttered, and he resumed his seat. 'On that for which I have worked, to which I have looked, for which I have thought and schemed, she flies in my face, she scorns me, she shows everyone that she hates me!'

His pipe was out, he threw it impatiently away.

'She does not know me, or she would not dare to do it. There is no one in all the neighbourhood dare defy me but she. Everyone fears me but she, for everyone knows me but she. Know me she must, know me she shall. There will be no wringing love out of her till she bends under me and fears me. She will never fear me till she knows all. She shall know that; by God!' he cried aloud, 'I will tell her that which shall make her shrink and fall, and whine at my feet; and then I shall take her up, and drag her to my heart, and say, "Ah, ha! Glory! think what a man you have gotten to-day, a man whom none can withstand. There is none like me, there is none will dare what I will dare. You and I, I and you, are alone in the world. One must submit or there is no peace. You must learn to cower beneath me, or we shall fight for ever."'

He went out again upon the sea-wall, but saw nothing, and came back more angry. As he stood on his steps he heard from the path to Salcott a burst of merriment. He swore an ugly oath. Those men, rolling home, were ridiculing him, keeping his marriage feast without the presence of his bride!

He flung himself again into his chair, and rocked himself in it. He could not sit there, tortured with anger and love, in the gloaming, doing nothing. He emptied the bottle, there was not a drop more in it, and he cast it in the hearth. Then he fetched down his old musket mounted in brass, and getting the vitriol bottle from the window, began to rub and polish the metal.

He wearied of that in the end. His mind could not be drawn off Glory, and wondering where she was, and why she had thus gone away.

'I love her,' he muttered, as he replaced his gun on the nails above the chimney-piece, 'but yet I hate her. My very heart is like Grimshoe with love and hate warring together, and neither gets the mastery. I could clasp her to my breast, but I could tear out her heart with my nails, because it will not love me.' He rocked himself in his seat savagely, and his breath came fast: 'We must work the riddle out between us. We can get no help, no light from any others; she and I, and I and she, are each other's best friends and worst foes.'

A firm hand was on the door, it was thrown open, and in the grey light stood Mehalah.

'Where have you been?' asked Elijah, hardly able to speak, so agitated with fury and disappointed love was he.

'I have been,' she said composedly, 'on the Ray, sitting there and dreaming of the past.'

'Of the past!' shouted Rebow. 'You have been dreaming of George?'

'Yes, I have.'

'I thought it, I knew you were,' he yelled. 'Come here, my wife.'

'I am not your wife. I never will be your wife, except in name. I told you so. I can not, and I will not love you. I can not, and I will not, be aught to you but a housekeeper, a servant. I have taken your name to save mine, that is all.'

'That is all because you love George De Witt.'

'George De Witt is dead.'

'I don't care whether he be dead or not, you think that he is your double. I tell you, as I have told you before, he is not. I am.'

'I will not listen to more of this,' she said in a hard tone. 'Let me pass, let me go to my room.'

'I will not let you pass,' he swore; the breath came through his nostrils like the snorting of a frightened horse; 'I will not. Hear me, Glory, my own Glory! hear me you shall.' He grasped her arms between the elbow and shoulder with his iron hands, and shook her savagely.

'Listen to me, Glory, you must and shall. You do not love me, Glory, because you do not fear me. The dog whom I beat till it howls with torture creeps up to me and licks my hand. A woman will never love her equal, but she will worship her superior. You have shown me to-day that you think yourself on a level with me. You have donned again your cap of liberty,' he raised one hand to her head, plucked off the cap and cast it on the floor, 'thinking that now you have taken me before the world, you have broken my power over you. You do not know me, Glory! you do not know me. Listen to me!' Through the twilight she could see his fierce eyes flaring at her, her hair was disturbed by the hot blasts of his labouring lungs. His fingers that held her twitched convulsively as he spoke.

'Listen to me, Glory! and know me and respect me. I am no more to be escaped from than fate. I am mighty over you as a Providence. You may writhe and circumvent, but I meet you at every turn, and tread you down whenever you think to elude me. Listen to me, Glory!' He paused, and drew a long breath; 'Listen, I say, to me. Glory! how did you lose your money that night that Abraham Dowsing sold your sheep? I feel you stirring and starting in my hands. Yes, I took it. You went out with George De Witt, and left the purse on the table. When your mother left the room, I took the money. You may have it back now when you like, now that I have you. I took it—you see why. To have you in my power.'

'Coward and thief!' gasped Mehalah.

'Ah! call me names if you like; you do not know me yet, and how impossible it is to resist me. You thought when you had got the money again, from George, that you had escaped me.'

'Stay!' exclaimed Mehalah. 'It was you,' with compressed scorn, 'that fired on George and me in the marsh.'

'I fired at him, not at you; and had you not changed the place of the lanthorn in the boat, I should have shot him.'

The girl shuddered in his hands.

'I feel you,' he said with savage exultation. 'You are beginning to know me now, and to tremble. When you know all, you will kneel to me as to your God, as almighty over your destiny, irresistible, able to crush and kill whom I will, and to conquer where I will. George De Witt stood in my way to you.'

Mehalah's heart leaped and then stood still. Her pulse ceased to beat. She seemed to be hanging in space, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, hearing only, and only the words of the man before her.

'He left Mersea City one night. He left it in my boat with me.'

'He paused, rejoicing in her horror at this revelation of himself to her.

'Have you not a question to ask me, "Where he now is? What I know of him?"'

No—she could not speak, she could not even breathe.

'Do you remember when you came on Michaelmas Day to pay me my rent, how you heard and saw my mad brother in the cell there below?'

He paused again, and then chuckled. 'The poor wretch died and I buried him there. I brought George here, I made him drunk, and chained him in my brother's place, and he went mad with his captivity in darkness and cold and nakedness.'

The blood spouted from her heart through every artery. She tried to cry but could not, she strove to escape his hands, she was unable. She panted, and her eyes stood open, fixed as those of a corpse, staring before her.

'You lost your sheep,' he went on, with exultation. 'I took them. I took them to rob you of every chance of paying me, and keeping clear of me.'

She did not hear him. She cared nothing about sheep. She was thinking of George, of his imprisonment and madness.

'At last, when I feared that after all you might slip from me by means of that cripple at Wyvenhoe, I did more. I watched you on New Year's Eve; I waited for you to go to sleep, that I might fire your house. You did better than I had thought, you went out; and then I set the Ray Farm in flames. What cared I for the loss? It was nothing. By it I gained you, I secured you under my roof, by burning you out of the shelter of your own.' He swelled with pride. 'You know me now, Glory! Now think you that escape from me is possible? No, you do not, you cannot. I hedge you in, I undermine the ground you tread. I saw away the posts that hold up the roof above your head. You know now what I am, irresistible, almighty, as far as you are concerned, your fate incarnate. And I know you. I know that you are one who will never yield till you have found a man who is mightier in will and in power than you; those who have fought are best friends after the struggle, when each knows his own strength and the full measure of the resistance of the other. We have had one wrestle, and I have flung you at every round; you in your pride have stood up again, and wiped the blood from your heart, and the tears from your eyes, and tried another fall with me; but now, Glory, you have tried your last. Hitherto you fought not knowing the extent of my power, thinking that I put forth my full might when I spoke, but that I had no strength to act. Now you see what I can do, and what I have done, and you will abandon the fruitless battle. Glory! Glory! Come to my heart. You fear me now, and fear is the first step leading to love. Glory! my own Glory!' his voice faltered, and his fingers worked, 'I love you madly. I will do and dare all for you. I will live for you and for nothing in the world but you. Never till this day in the church have I so much as held your hand. Never till this moment, Glory! have I held you to my heart, never till this moment have I felt it bounding against mine, never till this moment have I kissed those dear, dear lips, as I shall now.'

He drew her to him. He unloosed his hands to throw his arms round her. She felt them closing on her like a hoop of iron, she felt his heart beating like the strokes of a blacksmith with his hammer; his burning breath was on her cheek. He! He kiss her! She lie on that heart which had schemed and carried out the destruction of her George!

She cried out. She found her tongue. 'Let go! I hate you as I never hated you before! I hate you as a mad dog, as a poisonous adder! Let go!' She writhed and slipped partly away.

'Never till I have held you to my breast and kissed you,' he said.

'That never, never!' she gasped. She got her hands on his breast and forced his arms asunder behind her.

'Ha, ha! strong,' he laughed, 'but not strong as I.' He gripped her wrists and bent her arms back. She threw herself on the ground, he drew her up. She flung herself against the chair, crushing his hand against the chimney-piece, so that he let go with it for an instant. She groped about with her free hand, in the dark, for some weapon, she grasped something. He cursed her for the pain she had given him, and attempted again to seize her hand. In a moment she had struck him—him the coward assailant, him the thief, him the murderer—between the brows with the weapon her hand had taken. It was a blow with her whole force. There followed a crash of glass, then a sense as of her hand being plunged into fire. Then a shriek loud, tearing through roof and wall, loud, agonised, as only a man or a horse can utter in supreme moments of torture; and Rebow fell on the floor, writhing like a worm, with his hands over his face and eyes.