George Manville Fenn (continued 3)

A good deal had taken place in the interval, and among other things, Richard Glaire, in opposition to the advice of his mother and Banks, had applied for a warrant against Tom Podmore, for destroying or stealing the bands; but as yet, from supineness or fear on the part of the local police, it had not been put in force.

For things did not look pleasant in Dumford; men were always standing about in knots or lounging at the doors of their houses, looking loweringly at people who passed. There had been no violence, and, in a prosperous little community, a week or two out of work had little effect upon a people of naturally saving habits and considerable industry; but those who were wise in such matters said that mischief was brewing, and it was reported that meetings were held nightly at the Bull and Cucumber—meetings of great mystery, where oaths were taken, and where the doors were closed and said to be guarded by men with drawn swords.

“Hallo, Sim Slee, off preaching somewhere?” said a very stout man, pulling up his horse as he overtook Sim on his way to the foreman’s house. He was indeed a very stout man, so stout that he completely filled the gig from side to side, making its springs collapse, and forming a heavy load for his well-fed horse.

“No, I ain’t going preaching nowheer, Mester Purley,” said Sim, sulkily, as he looked up sidewise in the speaker’s merry face.

“I thought you were off perhaps to a camp meeting, or something, Sim, and as I’m going out as far as Roby, I was going to offer you a lift along the road.”

There was a twinkle in the stout man’s eyes as he spoke, and he evidently enjoyed the joke.

“No, you warn’t going to offer me a ride, doctor,” said Sim. “Do you think I don’t know?”

“Right, Sim Slee, right,” said the doctor, chuckling. “I never gave a man a lift on the road in my life, did I, Sim? Puzzle any one to sit by my side here, wouldn’t it?”

“Strange tight fit for him if he did,” said Sim.

“So it would, Sim; so it would, Sim,” laughed the doctor. “I’ve asked a many though in my time; ha—ha—ha.”

“That you have, doctor,” said Sim, looking at the goodly proportions of the man by his side. For it was Mr—otherwise Dr—Purley’s one joke to ask everybody he overtook, or any of his convalescent patients, if they would have a lift in his gig. He had probably fired the joke as many times as he was days old; but it was always in use, and it never struck him that it might grow stale.

“What’s the matter with your hand, Sim?” said the doctor, touching the bound-up member with his whip.

“Bit hurt—fell off a wall,” said Sim, thrusting it in his breast.

“And you have been poisoning it with Rag Jack oil, eh? I’ll be bound you have, and when it’s down bad you’ll come to me to cure it. Say, Sim, some of your fellows knocked the young master about pretty well—he’s rare and bruised.”

“I wish ivery bit of gruzzle in his body was bruzz,” said Sim, fiercely.

“Do you now!” said the doctor, smiling. “Well, I suppose it’ll come to broken heads with some of you, and then you’ll be glad of me. Who stole the bands?”

Sim jumped and turned pale, so suddenly and sharply was the question asked.

“How should I know?” he cried, recovering himself.

“Some of you chaps at the Bull, eh, Sim? Artful trick, very. Say, Sim, if you want a doctor for your society, remember me. Ck!” This last was to the horse, which went off immediately at a sharp trot, with the springs of the gig dancing up and down, as the wheels went in and out of the ruts.

“Remember you, eh!” said Sim, as the doctor went out of hearing. “Have you for the medical man? Yes, when we want ivery word as is spoke blabbed all over the place. It’s my belief,” continued Sim, sententiously, “as that fat old blobkite tells the last bit o’ news, to every baby as soon as it’s born, and asks them as he’s killed whether they’d like a ride in his gig. Hallo! there’s owd Joe Banks leaning over his fence. What a fierce-looking old maulkin he is; he looks as sour as if he’d been yeating berry pie wi’out sugar. Day, Banks,” he said, stopping.

“Day,” said Joe, shortly, and staring very hard at the visitor.

“I think it’ll rean soon, mun.”

“Do yow?” said Joe, roughly.

“I weer over to Churley yesterday,” said Sim, “and it reant all day.”

“Did it?” said Joe.

“Ay, it did. ’Twas a straange wet day.”

“Where are you going?” said Joe.

“Oh, only just up to Brown’s to see if I could buy a bit o’ kindling for the Missus.”

“Go and buy it, then,” said Joe, turning his back, “and let me get shut o’ thee.”

“Say, Joe Banks,” said Sim, quite unabashed, “as I have met thee I should just like to say a word or two to thee.”

“Say away then.”

“Nay, nay. Not here. Say, mun, that’s a fine primp hedge o’ yourn,” he continued, pointing to the luxuriant privet hedge that divided the garden of the snug house from the road.

“You let my primp hedge bide,” said Joe, sharply; “and if you’ve got any mander o’ message from your lot, spit it out like a man.”

“Message! I a message!” said Sim, with a surprised air. “Not I. It was a word or two ’bout thy lass.”

Joe Banks’s face became crimson, and he turned sharply to see if any one was at door or window so as to have overheard Sim’s words.

As there was no one, he came out of the gate, took his caller’s arm firmly in his great fist, and walked with him down the lane out of sight of the houses, for the foreman’s pretty little place was just at the edge of the town, and looked right down the valley.

Sim’s heart beat a little more quickly, and he felt anything but comfortable; but, calling up such determination as he possessed, he walked on till Joe stopped short, faced him, and then held up a menacing finger.

“Now look here, Sim Slee,” said Joe; “I just warn thee to be keerful, for I’m in no humour to be played wi’.”

“Who wants to play wi’ you?” said Sim; “I just come in a neighbourly way to gi’e ye a bit o’ advice, and you fly at me like a lion.”

“Thou’rt no neighbour o’ mine,” said Joe, “and thou’rt come o’ no friendly errant. Yow say yow want to speak to me ’bout my lass. Say thee say.”

“Oh, if that’s the way you tak’ it,” said Sim, “I’m going.”

“Nay, lad, thee ain’t,” said Joe. “Say what thee’ve got to say now, for not a step do yow stir till yo’ have.”

Sim began to repent his visit; but seeing no way of escape, and his invention providing him with no inoffensive tale, he began at once, making at the same time a good deal of show of his bound-up hand, and wincing and nursing it as if in pain.

“Well, Joe Banks, as a man for whom, though we have differed in politics and matters connected with the wucks, I always felt a great respect—”

“Dal thee respect!” said Joe; “come to the point, man.”

“I say, Joe, that it grieves me to see thee stick so to a mester as is trying to do thee an injury.”

“An yow want to talk me over to join thy set o’ plotting, conspiring shackbags at the Bull, eh?”

“I should be straange and proud to feel as I’d browt a man o’ Joe Banks’s power and common sense into the ways o’ wisdom, and propose him as a member o’ our society,” said Sim.

“I dare say thee would, Sim; strange and glad. But that’s not what thee come to say. Out wi’ it, mun; out wi’ it.”

“That is what I come to say, Joe,” said Sim, turning white, as he saw the fierce look in Joe’s eyes.

“Nay; thee said something ’bout my lass.”

“I only were going to say as I didn’t like to see such a worthy man serving faithful a mester as was trying to do him an injury.”

“What do you mean?” said Joe, quite calmly.

Sim hesitated, but he felt obliged to speak, so calmly firm was the look fixed upon him, though at the same time the foreman’s fists were clenched most ominously.

“Well, Joe,” said Sim, with a burst, “Dicky Glaire’s allus after thy bairn, and I saw him the other night, at nearly midnight, trying to drag her into the counting-house.”

“Thee lies, thee chattering, false—hearted maulkin!” roared Joe, taking the trembling man by the throat and shaking him till his teeth clicked together.

“Don’t! don’t! murder!” cried Sim, holding up his injured hand with the rag before Joe’s face. “Don’t ill-use a helpless man.”

“Thou chattering magpie!” roared Joe, throwing him off, so that Sim staggered back against the prickly hedge, and quickly started upright. “I wish thee weer a man that I could thrash till all thee bones was sore. Look here, Sim Slee, if thee says a word again about my lass and the doings of thee betters it’ll be the worse for thee.”

“My poor hand! my poor hand!” moaned Sim, nursing it as if it were seriously injured.

“Then thee shouldn’t ha’ made me wroth,” said Joe, calming down, and blaming himself for attacking a cripple.

“I didn’t know that thou wast going to wink at thee lass being Dicky Glaire’s mis—”

Sim did not finish the word, for Joe Banks’s fist fell upon his mouth with a heavy thud, and he went down in the road, and lay there with his lips bleeding, and a couple of his front teeth loosened.

“Thou lying villin,” said Joe, hoarsely, “howd thee tongue, if thee wants to stay me from killing thee. I’d ha’ let thee off, but thou wouldst hev it. Don’t speak to me again, or I shall—”

He did not trust himself to finish, but strode off, leaving Slee lying in the dust.

“Poor Master Richard,” he muttered—“a scandal-hatching, lying scoundrel—as if the lad would think a wrong word about my lass. Well,” he added, with a forced laugh, “that has stopped his mouth, and a good many more, as I expect.”

As he disappeared, Sim Slee slowly sat up, took out his handkerchief and wiped his bleeding mouth. Then rising he walked on half a mile to where a stream, known as the Beck, crossed the road, and there he stooped down and bathed his cut lip till the bleeding ceased.

“All raight, Mester Joe Banks,” he said, with a malicious look in his eye. “All raight, I’ll put that down to you, my lad. I shan’t forget it. Some men fights wi’ their fists, and some don’t. I’m one as don’t; but I can fight other ways. I’ll be even wi’ you, Joe Banks; I’ll be even wi’ you. Thou blind owd bat. Think he’ll marry her, dosta! Ha! ha! ha! ha! All raight. Let it go on. Suppose I help it now, and then get thee on our side after—a blind old fool, I shan’t forget this.”

Sim Slee washed his handkerchief carefully in the brook, spread it in the sun to dry, and then lay down amongst the furze bushes to think, till, seeing a couple of figures in the distance on the hill-side, he caught up his handkerchief and, stooping down, ran along under the shelter of the hedge, and on and on till he reached a fir plantation, through which he made his way till he was within easy reach of the two figures, in utter ignorance of his proximity.

“’Tis them,” he muttered, peering out from the screen of leaves formed by the undergrowth of the edge of the plantation. “’Tis them. Got his arm round her waist, eh! A kiss, eh! Ha—ha—ha! Joe Banks, I shall be upsides wi’ you yet.”

He glided back, and then, knowing every inch of the ground, he went to the end of the copse, out on to the open hill-side, and, running fast, made a circuit which brought him out on the track far beyond the figures, who were hidden from him by the inequalities of the waste land, close by where the vicar found Tom Podmore on his arrival.

Then, hastening on, he approached, stooping until he had well measured his distance, when, pausing for a few minutes to gain his breath, he walked on with his footsteps inaudible on the soft, velvety turf, till, coming suddenly upon the two figures, seated behind a huge block of stone, he stopped short, as if in surprise.

“Beg pardon, sir, didn’t see,” he said, with a smile and a leer.

“What the deuce do you want?” said Richard Glaire, starting to his feet, while, with a faint cry, Daisy Banks ran a few steps.

“Why you quite scar’d me, sir,” said Sim, “starting up like that. I’ve only been for a walk out Chorley way. It’s all raight, Miss Banks, don’t be scar’d; it’s only me. I know, Mr Glaire, sir, I know. Young folks and all that sort o’ thing. We ain’t friends about wuck matters, but you may trust me.”

He gave Richard a peculiar smile, shut one eye slowly, and walked on, smiling at Daisy, whose face was crimson as he passed.

“Oh, Richard! oh, Richard!” she sobbed, “why did you tempt me to come? Now he’ll go straight home and tell father.”

“Tempt you to come, eh, Daisy!” said Richard. “Why, because I love you so; I’m not happy out of your sight. No, he won’t tell—a scoundrel. There, you go home the other way. I’ll follow Master Sim Slee. I know the way to seal up his lips.”

He caught Daisy in his arms, and kissed her twice before she could evade his grasp, and then ran off after Slee, who was steadily walking on, smiling, as he caressed his tender, bruised lip with his damp handkerchief.

Once he pressed his thumb down on his palm in a meaning way, and gave an ugly wink. Then he chuckled, but checked his smiles, for they hurt his swollen face.

“Not bad for one day, eh! That’s ointment for Mester Joe Banks’s sore place, and a bit o’ revenge at the same time. This wean’t have nowt to do wi’ the strike; this is all private. Here he comes,” he muttered, twitching his ears. “I thowt he would. Well, I mean to hev five pun’ to howd my tongue, and more when I want it. And mebbe,” he continued, with an ugly leer, “I can be a bit useful to him now and then.”

A minute later Richard Glaire had overtaken Sim Slee, and a short conversation ensued, in the course of which something was thrust into the schemer’s hand. Then they parted, and that night, in spite of his swollen lip, Sim Slee delivered a wonderful oration on the rights of the British workman at the meeting at the Bull, at which were present several of the men after Sim’s own heart; but the shrewd, sensible workmen were conspicuous by their absence, as they were having a quiet meeting of their own.

Volume One—Chapter Fifteen.

Daisy is Obstinate.

“A lungeing villain,” muttered Joe Banks to himself, “he knows nowt but nastiness. Strange thing that a man can’t make up to a pretty girl wi’out people putting all sorts o’ bad constructions on it. Why they’re all alike—Missis Glaire, the wife and all. My Daisy, too. To say such a word of her.”

He hastened home, filled his pipe, lit it, and went out and sat down in the garden, in front of his bees, to smoke and watch them, while he calmed himself down and went over what had gone by, before thinking over the future.

This was a favourite place with Joe Banks on a Sunday, and he would sit in contemplative study here for hours. For he said it was like having a holiday and looking at somebody else work, especially when the bees were busy in the glass bells turned over the flat-topped hives.

“I’d no business to hit a crippled man like that,” mused Joe; “but he’d no business to anger me. Be a lesson to him.”

He filled a fresh pipe, lit it by holding the match sheltered in his hands, and then went on—

“Be a lesson to him—a hard one, for my hand ain’t light. Pity he hadn’t coot away, for he put me out.”

“Now, what’ll I do?” mused Joe. “Shall I speak to the maister?”

“No, I wean’t. He’ll speak to me when it’s all raight, and Daisy and him has made it up. I’ll troost him, that I will; for though he’s a bit wild, he’s a gentleman at heart, like his father before him. Why of course I’ll troost him. He’s a bit shamefaced about it o’ course; but he’ll speak, all in good time. Both of ’em will, and think they’re going to surprise me. Ha—ha—ha! I’ve gotten ’em though. Lord, what fools young people is—blind as bats—blind as bats. Here’s Daisy.”

“It’s so nice to see you sitting here, father,” said the girl, coming behind him, and resting her chin on his bald crown, while her plump arms went round his neck.

“Is it, my gal? That’s raight. Why, Daisy lass, what soft little arms thine are. Give us a kiss.”

Daisy leaned down and kissed him, and then stopped with her arms resting on his shoulders, keeping her face from confronting him; and so they remained for a few minutes, when a smile twinkled about the corners of the foreman’s lips and eyes as he said—

“Daisy, my gal, I’ve been watching the bees a bit.”

“Yes, father,” she said, smiling, though it was plain to see that the smile was forced. “Yes, father, you always like to watch the bees.”

“I do, my bairn, I do. They’re just like so many workmen in a factory; but they don’t strike, my gal, they don’t strike.”

“But they swarm, father,” said Daisy, making an effort to keep up the conversation.

“Yes,” chuckled Joe, taking hold of the hand that rested on his left shoulder. “Yes, my bairn, I was just coming to that. They swarm, don’t they?”

“Yes, father.”

“And do you know why they swarm, Daisy?”

“Yes, father; because the hive is not big enough for them.”

“Yes, yes,” chuckled Joe, patting the hand, and holding it to his rough cheek. “You’re raight, but it’s something more, Daisy: it’s the young ones going away from home and setting up for theirselves—all the young ones ’most do that some day.”

The tears rose to Daisy’s eyes, and she tried to withdraw her hand, for Joe had touched on a tenderer point than he imagined; but he held it tightly and gave it a kiss.

“There, there, my pet,” he said, tenderly, “I won’t tease you. I knew it would come some day all right enough, and I don’t mind. I only want my little lass to be happy.”

“Oh, father—father—father,” sobbed Daisy, letting her face droop till it rested on his head, while her tears fell fast.

“Come, come, come, little woman,” he said, laughing; “thou mustn’t cry. Why, it’s all raight.” There was a huskiness in his voice though, as he spoke, and he had to fight hard to make the dew disappear from his eyes. “Here, I say, Daisy, my lass, that wean’t do no good: you may rain watter for ever on my owd bald head, and the hair won’t come again. There—tut—tut—tut—you’ll have moother here directly, and she’ll be asking what’s wrong.”

Daisy made a strong effort over self, and succeeded at last in drying her eyes.

“Then, you are not cross with me, father?” faltered Daisy.

“Cross, my darling? not a bit,” said Joe, patting her hand again. “You shan’t disgrace the man as has you, my dear; that you shan’t. Why, you’re fit to be a little queen, you are.”

Daisy gave him a hasty kiss, and ran off, while Joe proceeded to refill his pipe.

“Cross indeed! I should just think I hadn’t,” he exclaimed—“only with the women. Well, they’ll come round.”

But if Joe Banks had stood on the hill-side a couple of hours earlier, just by the spot where Tom Podmore had sat on the day of the vicar’s arrival, he would perhaps have viewed the matter in a different light, for—of course by accident—Daisy had there encountered Richard Glaire, evidently not for the first time since the night when they were interrupted by Tom in the lane.

It was plain that any offence Richard had given on the night in question had long been condoned, and that at every meeting he was gaining a stronger mastery over the girl’s heart.

“Then you will, Daisy, won’t you?” he whispered to her.

“No, no, Dick dear. Don’t ask me. Let me tell father all about it.”

“What?” he cried.

“Let me tell father all about it, and I’m sure he’ll be pleased.”

“My dear little Daisy, how well you are named,” he cried, playfully; and as he looked lovingly down upon her, the foolish girl began to compare him with the lover of her mother’s choice—a man who was nearly always blackened with his labours, and heavy and rough spoken, while here was Richard Glaire professing that he worshipped her, and looking, in her eyes, so handsome in his fashionably-cut blue coat with the rosebud in the button-hole, and wearing patent leather boots as tight as the lemon gloves upon his well-formed hands.

“I can’t help my name,” she said, coquettishly.

“I wouldn’t have it changed for the world, my little pet,” he whispered, playing with her dimpled chin; “only you are as fresh as a daisy.”

“What do you mean, Dick?” she said, nestling to him.

“Why you are so young and innocent. Look here, my darling: don’t you see how I’m placed? My mother wants me to marry Eve.”

“But you don’t really, really, really, care the least little bit for her, do you, Mr Richard?”

“‘Mr Richard!’” reproachfully.

“Dear Dick, then,” she whispered, colouring up, and glancing fondly at him, half ashamed though the while at her boldness.

“Of course I don’t love her. Haven’t I sworn a hundred times that I love only you, and that I want you to be my darling little wife?”

“Yes, yes,” said the girl, softly.

“Well, then, my darling, if you go and tell your father, the first thing he’ll do will be to go and tell my mother, and then there’ll be no end of a row.”

“But she loves you very much, Dick.”

“Worships me,” said Dick, complacently.

“Of course,” said the girl, softly; and her foolish little eyes seemed to say, “She couldn’t help it,” while she continued, “and she’d let you do as you like, Dick.”

“Well, but you see the devil of it is, Daisy, that I promised her I wouldn’t see you any more.”

“Why did you do that?” said the girl, sharply.

“To save rows—I hate a bother.”

“Richard, you were ashamed of me, and wouldn’t own me,” said Daisy, bursting into tears.

“Oh, what a silly, hard-hearted, cruel little blossom it is,” said Richard, trying to console her, but only to be pushed away. “All I did and said was to save bother, and not upset the old girl. That’s why I want it all kept quiet. Here, as I tell you, I could be waiting for you over at Chorley, we could pop into the mail as it came through, off up to London, be married by licence, and then the old folks would be in a bit of a temper for a week, and as pleased as Punch afterwards.”

“Oh, no, Richard, I couldn’t, couldn’t do that,” said the girl, panting with excitement.

“Yes, you could,” he said, “and come back after a trip to Paris, eh, Daisy? where you should have the run of the fashions. What would they all say when you came back a regular lady, and I took you to the house?”

“Oh, Dick, dear Dick, don’t ask me,” moaned the poor girl, whose young head was in a whirl. “I couldn’t—indeed I couldn’t be so wicked.”

“So wicked! no, of course not,” said Richard, derisively—“a wicked little creature. Oh, dear, what would become of you if you married Richard Glaire!”

“You’re teasing me,” she said, “and it’s very cruel of you.”

“Horribly,” said Richard. “But you will come, Daisy?”

“I couldn’t, I couldn’t,” faltered the girl.

“Yes, you could, you little goose.”

“Dick, my own handsome, brave Dick,” she whispered, “let me tell father.”

He drew back from her coldly.

“You want to be very obedient, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, dear Richard,” she said, looking at him appealingly.

“You set such a good example, Daisy, that I must be very good too.”

“Yes, dear,” she said, innocently.

“Yes,” he said, with a sneer; “so you go and tell your father like a good little child, and I’ll be a good boy, too, and go and tell my mother, and she’ll scold me and say I’ve been very naughty, and make me marry Eve.”

“Oh, Richard, Richard, how can you be so cruel?” cried the poor girl, reproachfully.

“It isn’t I; it’s you,” he said, smiling with satisfaction as he saw what a plaything the girl’s heart was in his hands. “Are you going to tell your father?”

“Oh, no, Dick, not if you say I mustn’t.”

“Well, that’s what I do say,” he exclaimed sharply.

“Very well, Dick,” she said, sadly.

“And look here, Daisy, my own little one,” he whispered, kissing her tear-wet face, “some day, when I ask you, it shall be as I say, eh?”

“Oh, Dick, darling, I’ll do anything you wish but that. Don’t ask me to run away.”

“Do you want to break off our match?” he said, bitterly.

“Oh, no—no:—no—no.”

“Do you want to make my home miserable?”

“You know I don’t, Richard.”

“Because, I tell you I know my mother will never consent to it unless she is forced.”

“But you are your own master now, Richard,” she pleaded.

“Not so much as you think for, my little woman. So come, promise me. I know you won’t break your word if you do promise.”

“No, Dick, never,” she said, earnestly; and if there had been any true love in the young fellow’s breast he would have been touched by the trusting, earnest reliance upon him that shone from her eyes as she looked up affectionately in his face.

“Then promise me, Daisy, dear,” he whispered; “it is for the good of both of us, and—Hang it all, there’s Slee.”

Daisy was sent off as we know, and the tears fell fast as she hastened home, feeling that love was very sweet, but that its roses had thorns that rankled and stung.

“Oh, Dick, Dick,” she sobbed as she went on, “I wish sometimes that I’d never seen you, for it is so hard not to do whatever you wish.”

She dried her eyes hastily as she neared home, and drew her breath a little more hardly as about a hundred yards from the gate she saw Tom Podmore, who looked at her firmly and steadily as they passed, and hardly responded to her nod.

“He knows where I’ve been. He knows where I’ve been,” whispered Daisy to herself as she hurried on; and she was quite right, for her conscious cheeks hoisted a couple of signal flags of the ruddiest hue—signals that poor Tom could read as well as if they had been written down in a code, and he ground his teeth as he turned and watched her.

“She’s such a good girl that any one might troost her,” he muttered, as he saw her go in at the gate, “or else I’d go and tell Joe all as I knows. But no, I couldn’t do that, for it would hurt her, just as it would if I was to half kill Dick Glaire. She’ll find him out some day perhaps—not as it matters to me though, for it’s all over now.”

He walked back, looking over the green fence as he passed, and Mrs Banks waved her hand to him from the window; but his eyes were too much occupied by the sight of Daisy leaning over her father, and he walked on so hurriedly that he nearly blundered up against a great stalwart figure coming the other way.

Volume One—Chapter Sixteen.

The Vicar’s Friends.

“What cheer, owd Tommy?” cried the stalwart figure, pulling a short black pipe out of his mouth.

“Hallo, Harry,” said Tom, quietly, at least as quietly as he could, for the words were jerked out of his mouth by the tremendous clap on the shoulder administered by the big hammerman.

“What’s going to be done, Tommy?” growled the great fellow. “I’m ’bout tired o’ this. I wants to hit something.”

He stretched out his great sinewy arm, and then drawing it back, let it fly again with such force that a man would have gone down before it like a cork.

“Come along,” said Tom, who wished to get away from the neighbourhood of Banks’s cottage for fear Mrs Banks should call to him.

Harry was a man whose brain detested originality. He was a machine who liked to be set in motion, so he followed Tom like a huge dog, and without a word.

As they came abreast of the vicarage they saw the vicar at work gardening, and Jacky Budd making believe to dig very hard in the wilderness still unreclaimed.

Even at their distance, Jacky’s pasty face and red ripe nose, suggestive of inward tillage, were plainly to be seen, and just then a thought seemed to strike Tom, who turned to his companion, staring with open mouth over the hedge.

“Like a job, Harry?”

“Hey, lad, I should.”

“Come in here then,” said Tom, laying his hand on the gate.

“That I will, lad,” said Harry. “I want to scrarp some un, and I should ’mazin like a fall wi’ that theer parson.”

Tom smiled grimly, and entered, followed by Harry.

They were seen directly by the vicar, who came up and shook hands with Tom.

“Ah, Podmore, glad to see you. Well, Harry, my man,” he continued, holding out his hand to the other, “is the lump on your forehead gone?”

Harry took the vicar’s hand and held it in a mighty grip, while with his left he removed his cap and looked in the lining, as if to see if the bruise was there.

“Never thowt no more ’bout it, parson.” Then gazing down at the soft hand he held, he muttered, “It’s amaazin’!”

“What’s amazing?” said the vicar, smiling.

“Why that you could hit a man such a crack wi’ a hand like this ’ere.”

“Don’t mind him, sir; it’s his way,” said Tom, apologetically. “Fact is, parson, we’re tired o’ doing nowt.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so, Podmore,” said the vicar, earnestly. “I wish from my heart this unhappy strife were at an end. I’m trying my best.”

“Of course you are, sir,” said Tom; “but I thowt mebbe you’d give Harry here and me a bit o’ work.”

“Work! what work?” said the vicar, wonderingly.

“Well, you said I’d best get to work, and I’ve got nowt to do. That Jacky Budd there’s picking about as if he was scarred o’ hurting the ground: let me and Harry dig it up.”

The vicar looked from one to the other for a moment, and as his eyes rested on Harry, that giant gave Tom a clap on the shoulder hard enough to make a bruise, as he exclaimed—

“Hark at that now, for a good’n, parson. Here, gie’s hold of a shovel.”

The vicar led the way to the tool-house, furnished his visitors with tools, and then stood close at hand to supply the science, while the way in which the two men began to dig had such an effect on Jacky Budd that he stood still and perspired.

A dozen great shovelfuls of earth were turned over by Harry, who then stopped short, threw off his coat and vest, tightened the belt round his waist, and loosening the collar of his shirt, proceeded to roll up the sleeves before moistening his hands and seizing the spade once more, laughing heartily as he turned over the soft earth like a steam plough.

“Slip int’ it, Tommy. Well, this is a game. It’s straange and fine though, after doin’ nowt for a week.”

Tom was digging steadily and well, for he was a bit of a gardener in his way, having often helped Joe Banks to dig his piece in the early days of his love.

“Better borry some more garden, parson; we shall ha’ done this ’ere in ’bout an hour and a half,” said Harry, grinning; and then—crack!

“Look at that for a tool!” he cried, holding up the broken shovel, snapped in two at the handle.

“Try this one, Harry,” said Jacky Budd, handing his own spade eagerly; “I’ve got some hoeing to do.”

Harry took the tool and worked away a little more steadily, with the result that poor Jacky Budd was deprived of a good deal of the work that would have fallen to his lot; a deprivation, however, that he suffered without a sigh.

“Now, I ain’t agoing to beg, parson,” said Harry, after a couple of hours’ work, “but my forge wants coal, and a bite o’ bread and a bit o’ slip-coat cheese would be to raights.”

“Slip-coat cheese?” said the vicar.

“He means cream cheese,” said Tom, who had been working away without a word, keeping Jacky busy clearing away the weeds.

“No, I don’t,” growled Harry. “I mean slip-coat, and a moog o’ ale.”

“Shall I go and fetch some, sir?” said Jacky Budd, eagerly.

“Thank you, no, Budd,” said the vicar, quietly. “I won’t take you from your work;” and, to Jacky’s great disgust, he went and fetched a jug of ale from his little cellar himself.

“He ain’t a bad un,” cried Harry, tearing away at the earth. “Keeps a drink o’ ale i’ the plaace. I thowt parsons allus drunk port wine.”

“Not always, my man,” said the vicar, handing the great fellow the jug, and while he was drinking, up came Jacky with his lips parted, and a general look on his visage as if he would like to hang his tongue out like a thirsty hound and pant.

“Shall I get the leather, sir, and just nail up that there bit o’ vine over the window?”

“Get the what, Budd?” said the vicar, who looked puzzled.

“The leather, sir, the leather.”

“He means the lather, sir,” said Tom, quietly, “the lather to climb up.”

“Oh, the ladder,” said the vicar. “Yes, by all means,” he continued, smiling as he saw the clerk’s thirsty look. “I won’t ask you to drink, Budd,” he went on as he handed the mug to Tom, who took a hearty draught. “You told me you did not drink beer on principle; and I never like to interfere with a man’s principles, though I hold that beer in moderation is good for out-door workers.”

“Thanky, sir, quite right, sir,” said Jacky, with a blank look on his face. “I’ll get the leather and a few nails, and do that vine now.”

“Poof!” ejaculated Harry, with a tremendous burst of laughter, as he went on digging furiously. “Well, that’s alarming.”

“What’s the matter, old mate?” said Tom.

“Nowt at all. Poof!” he roared again, turning over the earth. “Jacky Budd don’t drink beer on principle. Poof!”

The vicar paid no heed to him, only smiled to himself, and the gardening progressed at such a rate that by five o’clock what had been a wilderness began to wear a very pleasant aspect of freedom from weeds and overgrowth, and with the understanding that the two workers were to come and finish in the morning, they resumed their jackets and went off.

Their visit to the vicarage had not passed unnoticed, however; for Sim Slee had been hanging about, seeking for an opportunity to have a word with his wife, and not seeing her, he had carried the news to the Bull and Cucumber.

“Things is coming to a pretty pass,” he said to the landlord. “That parson’s got a way of getting ower iverybody. What do you think now?”

“Can’t say,” said the landlord.

“He’s gotten big Harry and Tom Podmore working in his garden like two big beasts at plough.”

“He’ll be gettin’ o’ you next, Sim,” said the landlord, laughing.

“Gettin’ o’ me!” echoed Sim. “Not he. He tried it on wi’ me as soon as we met; but I wrastled with him by word o’ mouth, and he went down like a stone.”

“Did he though, Sim?”

“Ay, lad. Yon parson’s all very well, but he’s fra London, and he’ll hev to get up pretty early to get over a Lincoln man, eh?”

“Ay,” said the landlord; “but he ain’t so bad nayther. A came here and sat down just like a christian, and talked to the missus and played wi’ the bairns for long enough.”

“Did he though,” said Sim. “Hey, lad, but that’s his artfulness. He wants to get the whip hand o’ thee.”

“I dunno ’bout that,” said the landlord, who eked out his income from the publican business with a little farming. “I thowt so at first, and expected he’d want to read a chapter and give me some tracks.”

“Well, didn’t he?” said Sim.

“Nay, not he. We only talked once ’bout ’ligious matters, and ’bout the chapel—ay, and we talked ’bout you an’ all.”

“’Bout me?” said Sim, getting interested, and pausing with his mug half way to his lips.

“Yes,” said the landlord. “It come about throof me saying I see he’d gotten your missus to keep house for him.”

“Give me another gill o’ ale,” said Sim, now deeply interested.

The landlord filled his mug for him, and went on—

“I said she were ’bout the cleanest woman in these parts, and the way she’d fettle up a place and side things was wonderful.”

“Yow needn’t ha’ been so nation fast talking ’bout my wife,” said Sim.

“I niver said nowt agen her,” said the landlord, chuckling to himself. “And then we got talking ’bout you and the chapel.”

“What did he know ’bout me and the chapel?” cried Sim, angrily.

“On’y what I towd him. I said part people went theer o’ Sabbath, and that it was a straange niste woshup.”

“Nice woshup, indeed! why you niver went theer i’ your life,” said Sim.

“I said so I’d heerd,” said the landlord, stolidly, “and then I towd him how you used to preach theer till they turned thee out.”

“What call had you to got to do that?” said Sim, viciously.

“Turned thee out, and took thy name off the plan for comin’ to see me.”

“Well, of all the unneighbourly things as iver I heerd!” exclaimed Sim. “To go and talk that clat to a straanger.”

“Outer kindness to him,” said the landlord. “It was a kind o’ hint, and he took it, for I was thinking of his bishop, and he took it direckly, for he says, says he, ‘Well, I hope I shan’t hev my name took off my plan for coming to see you, Mr Robinson,’ he says. ‘I hope not, sir,’ I says. ‘Perhaps you’ll take a glass o’ wine, sir,’ I says. ‘No, Mr Robinson,’ he says, ‘I’ll take a glass—gill you call it—o’ your ale.’ And if he didn’t sit wi’ me for a good hour, and drink three gills o’ ale and smoke three pipes wi’ me, same as you might, ony he talked more sensible.”

“Well, he’s a pretty parson, he is,” sneered Sim.

“You let him be; he ain’t a bad sort at all,” said the landlord, quietly.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Sim. “He’s got howlt o’ you too, Robinson.”

“Mebbe he hev; mebbe he hevn’t,” said the landlord.

“Did he ask you to go to church?”

“Well, not azackly,” said the landlord; “but he said he should be very happy to see me theer, just like astin’ me to his house.”

“Ho, ho!” laughed Sim; “and some day we shall have the Bull and Cowcumber at church.”

“What are yow laughin’ at, yo’ maulkin?” cried the landlord. “Why, I’d go ony wheer to sit and listen to a sensible man talk.”

“Aw raight, aw raight, Robinson; don’t be put out,” said Sim; “but I didn’t think as yow’d be got over so easy.”

“Who’s got over?” said the landlord. “Not I indeed.”

“Well,” said Sim, “did he say anything more?”

“Say? yes, he’s full o’ say, and it’s good sorter say. I ast him if he’d like to see the farm, and he said he would, and I took him out wheer the missus was busy wi’ her pancheons, making bread and syling the milk, and he stopped and talked to her.”

“But yow didn’t take him out into your moocky owd crewyard, did yo’?”

“Moocky crewyard indeed! but I just did, and I tell you what, Sim Slee, he’s as good a judge of a beast as iver I see.”

“And then yow showed him the new mare,” said Sim, with a grin.

“I did,” said the landlord. “‘Horncastle?’ he says, going up to her and opening her mouth. ‘Raight,’ I says. ‘Six year owd,’ he says; and then he felt her legs and said he should like to see her paces, and I had Jemmy to give her a run in the field. ‘She’s Irish,’ he says. ‘How do you know?’ I says—trying him like to trap him. ‘By that turn-up nose,’ he says, ‘and that wild saucy look about the eye and head.’ ‘You’re raight, parson,’ I says. And then he says, ‘she was worth sixty pun, every pun of it;’ and I told him as I got her for nine and thirty, and ten shillings back. I tell you what, Sim Slee,—Parson’s a man, every inch on him. As for the missus, she’s that pleased, she sent him ower a pun o’ boother this morning from our best Alderney.”

“O’ course,” sneered Sim. “That’s the way. That’s your cunning priest coming into your house to lead silly women captive, and sew pillows to their armholes.”

“Go on wi’ yer blather,” cried the landlord.

“Go on, indeed,” continued Sim. “That’s their way. He’s a regular Jesooit, he is, and your home wean’t soon be your own. He’s gettin’ ivery woman in the place under his thumb. He begins wi’ Miss Eve theer at the house, and Daisy Banks. Then he’s gotten howd o’ my missus. Here’s Mrs Glaire allus coming and fetching him out wi’ her in the pony shay, and now he’s gotten howd o’ your owd woman, and she’s sendin’ him pounds o’ boother. It was allus the way wi’ them cunning priests: they allus get over the women, and then they do what they like wi’ the men. No matter how strong they are, down they come just like Samson did wi’ Delilah. It was allus so, and as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end.”

“Amen,” said Jacky Budd, coming in at the back door. “Gie’s a gill o’ ale, Robinson. I’m ’bout bunt up wi’ thirst. Hallo, Slee, what! are yow preaching agen?”

“Never mind,” said Sim, sulkily. “I should ha’ thowt parson would ha’ fun you in ale, now.”

“Not he,” said Jacky. “Drinks it all his sen. He’s got a little barrel o’ Robinson’s best i’ the house, too.”

“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed Sim, holding his sides and stooping. “I say, Jacky, put some new basses in one o’ the pews for Mester Robinson, Esquire, as is going to come reg’lar to church now. That’s the way they do it: ‘Send me in a small barrel o’ your best ale, Mr Robinson,’ he says, ‘and I shall be happy to see you at church.’”

“If yow use up all yer wind, Sim Slee,” said the landlord, sturdily, “yow wean’t hev none left to lay down the law wi’ at the meeting to-night.”

Volume One—Chapter Seventeen.

Mrs Glaire Makes Plans.

Poor Mrs Glaire was in trouble about her fowls, who seemed possessed of a great deal of nature strongly resembling the human. She had a fine collection of noble-looking young Brahma cockerels, great massive fellows, youthful, innocent, sheepish, and stupid. They were intended for exhibition, and their mistress expected a prize for the birds, which had dwelt together in unity, increasing in bulk and brilliancy of plumage, and had never looked a hen in the face since the day they forsook their mamma in the coop.

And now, by mishap, a wanton young pullet had flown up on to the wall that divided them from the poultry yard, and just cried, “Took—took—took!” before flying down. That was sufficient: a battle royal began amongst the brothers directly, and when Mrs Glaire went down to feed them she found two birds nearly dead, the rest all ragged as to their feathers, bleeding as to their combs and wattles, and still fighting in a heavy lumbering way, but so weary that they could only take hold of one another with their beaks and give feeble pecks at their dripping feathers.

Mrs Glaire sighed and made comparisons between Daisy Banks and the wicked little pullet who had caused all this strife, telling herself that she was to be congratulated on having but one son, and wishing that he were married, settled, and happy.

She had decided that she would have the vicar up to dinner that night, and intended to make him her confidant and ally; and accordingly in the evening, while the conversation narrated in the last chapter was going on, the object of it was making his way to the house, getting a friendly nod here and there, and stopping for a minute’s chat with the people whose acquaintance he had made.

As a rule they were moody faces he met with amongst the women, for they were more than usually soured at the present time on account of the strike, and the sight of the black coat and white tie was not a pleasant one to them, and the replies to his salute were generally sulky and constrained.

He fared better with the men, in spite of Mr Simeon Slee’s utterances, for the report had gone round and round again that Parson could fight, and the church militant, from this point of view, was one that seemed to them worthy of respect.

So he went slowly along the main street, past Mr Purley, the doctor’s, as that gentleman, just returned from a round, was unwedging himself from his gig.

“How do, parson, how do?” he said. “Like a ride with me to-morrow?”

“Well, yes, if you’ll get out your four-wheeler,” said the vicar, laughing.

“Going up to the house to dinner, parson?”

“Yes.”

“Tell Mrs Glaire I’ll be on in ten minutes,” said the doctor. “But I say, parson, don’t sit on the rubber of whist.”

“Doctor,” said the vicar, patting him on the shoulder, “I shall not; but bring an extra sovereign or two with you, for I want to win a little money to-night for some of my poor.”

“He’s a rum one,” muttered the doctor, as he went in. “He’s a rum one, that he is; but I don’t think he’s bad at bottom.”

Meanwhile the vicar went on, past Ramson and Tomson’s the grocers and drapers, where silks and sugars, taffetas and tea were displayed in close proximity; and although Ramson and Tomson were deacons at the Independent Chapel, and the old vicar had passed them always without a look, a friendly nod was exchanged now, to the great disgust of Miss Primgeon, the lawyer’s maiden sister, a lady who passed her time at her window, and who, not being asked to the little dinner she knew was to be held at the house, was in anything but the best of tempers that evening.

Richard Glaire was not aware of his mother’s arrangement, and his face wore anything but a pleasant expression as he confronted the vicar in the hall, having himself only just come in.

“How do, Mr Selwood, how do?” he said haughtily, as he took out his watch and paid no heed to the extended hand. “Just going to dinner; would you mind calling again?”

“Not in the least,” said the vicar, smiling, “often. Look here, Richard Glaire,” he continued, laying his hand upon the young man’s shoulder, “you don’t understand me.”

“Will you—er—have the goodness—”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said the vicar, “I’ll explain all in good time; but look here, my good young friend, I’m here in a particular position, and I mean to be a sort of shadow or fate to you.”

“I really am at a loss to understand,” began Richard, whose anger was vainly struggling against the strong will opposed to him.

“I see,” said the vicar, “you’ve been out and didn’t know I was coming to dinner. Don’t apologise. Ah, Miss Pelly!”

This to Eve, who had heard the voices; and Richard’s face grew white with passion as he saw the girl’s bright animated countenance and glad reception of their visitor. She tripped down the stairs, and placed both her hands in his, exclaiming—

“I’m so glad, Mr Selwood. Aunt didn’t tell me you were coming to dinner till just now.”

“And so am I glad,” he said, with a smile touched with sadness overspreading his face, as he saw the eager pleasant look that greeted him, one that he was well enough read in the human countenance to see had nothing in it but the hearty friendly welcome of an ingenuous maiden, who knew and liked him for his depth and conversation. “We shall have a long chat to-night, I hope, and some music.”

They were entering the drawing-room together as he spoke.

“Oh yes, yes,” cried she, eagerly. “I can never get Dick to sing now. Do you sing, Mr Selwood?”

“Well, yes, a little,” he said, smiling down at her.

“And play?”

“Yes, a little.”

“What? Not the piano?”

“Just a little,” he said. “I am better on the organ.”

“Oh, I am so glad,” cried Eve. “Aunt will be here directly; I’m so glad you’ve come to Dumford. The old vicar was so stiff, and would sit here when he did come, and play backgammon all the evening without speaking.”

“Backgammon, eh?” said the visitor; “not a very lively game for the lookers on.”

“Yes, and it was so funny,” laughed Eve, “he never would allow cards in his presence, though he played with the dice; and it used to make dear Dick so cross because aunt used to hide the cards. But, oh dear,” she exclaimed, colouring slightly, “I hope you don’t object to whist.”

“My dear Miss Pelly,” he said, laughing, “I like every innocent game. I think they all are as medicine to correct the acidity and bitterness of some of the hard work of life.”

“Then you’ll play croquet with us?”

“That I will.”

“Oh, I am glad,” cried Eve, with almost childish pleasure. “I can beat Dick easily now, Mr Selwood, for he neglects his croquet horribly. Mind I don’t beat you.”

“I won’t murmur,” he said, laughing.

“But where’s aunt?” cried Eve. “She came down before me.”

“Aunt” had gone straight into the dining-room to see that all things were in a proper state of preparation, and had stopped short in the doorway on seeing Eve’s reception of their guest.

She was about to step forward, when, unseen by him, she caught a glimpse of her son’s countenance, as he watched the vicar. His teeth were set, his lips drawn slightly back, and a fierce look of anger puckered his forehead, as with fists clenched he made an involuntary movement after the couple who had entered the drawing-room.

Mrs Glaire drew back softly, and laying her hand on her beating heart, she walked to the other end of the dining-room, seating herself in one of the windows, half concealed by the curtain.

There was a smile upon her face, for, quick as lightning, a thought had flashed across her mind.

Here was the means at hand to bring her son to his senses. She had meant to take the vicar into her confidence, and ask his aid, stranger though he was, for she felt that his position warranted it; but now things had shaped themselves so that he was thoroughly playing into her hands.

She knew Eve, that she was ingenuous and truthful, and looked upon her marriage with her cousin as a matter of course. She was a girl who would consider a flirtation to be a crime towards the man who loved her; but the vicar would evidently be very attentive even as he had begun to be, and already Richard’s ire was aroused. Richard jealous, she meditated, and he would be roused from his apathetic behaviour to Eve, and all would come right.

“And the vicar?” she asked herself.

Oh, he meant nothing, would mean nothing. He knew the relations of Richard and his cousin, and the plan would—must succeed.

But was she wrong? Was Richard annoyed at the vicar’s demeanour towards Eve, or was it her imagination?

The answer came directly, for Richard flung into the room, took up a sherry decanter, and filling a glass, tossed it off.

“Curse him! I won’t have him here,” he said aloud. “What does he mean by talking to me like that? by hanging after Eve? I won’t have it. You there, mother?”

“Yes, my son,” she replied, rising and looking him calmly in the face.

“Look here, mother, I won’t have that clerical cad here. What do you mean by asking him to dinner?”

“I asked him as a guest who has behaved very kindly to us, Richard. He is my guest. I asked him because I wished to have him; and you must recollect that he is a clergyman and a gentleman.”

“If he wasn’t a parson,” cried Richard, writhing beneath his mother’s clear cold glance, for it seemed to his guilty conscience that she could read in his face that he had broken his word about Daisy—“if he wasn’t a parson I’d break his neck.”

“Richard, I insist,” cried his mother, in a tone that he had not heard since he had grown to manhood, and which reminded him of the days when he was sternly forced to obey, “if you insult Mr Selwood, you insult your mother.”

“But the cad’s making play after Eve—he’s smiling and squeezing her hand, and the little jilt likes it.”

“No wonder,” said Mrs Glaire, calmly. “Women like attentions. You have neglected the poor girl disgracefully.”

“What! are you going to allow it?” cried Richard. “I tell you he’s making play for her.”

“I shall not interfere,” said Mrs Glaire, coldly. “I think Eve ought to have a good husband.”

“But she’s engaged to me!” half-shrieked Richard.

“Well,” said his mother, coldly, though her heart was beating fast, “you are a man, and should counteract it. This is England, and in English society, little as I have seen of it, I know that engaged girls are not prisoners. They are, to a certain extent, free.”

“I’ll soon stop it,” cried Richard, fiercely. “Stop it then, my son, but mind this: I insist upon proper respect being paid to Mr Selwood.”

“I will,” cried Richard, speaking in a deep-pitched voice. “I’ll do something.”

“Then I should take care that my pretensions to her hand were well known,” said Mrs Glaire, with a peculiar look.

“Pretensions—her hand!” said Richard, with a sneer. “Are you mad, mother, that you take this tone? I will soon let them see. I’m not going to be played with.”

He was about leaving the room, when his mother laid her hand upon his arm.

“Stop, Richard,” she said, firmly. “Recollect this—”

“Well, what?”

“That it was the clear wish of your father and myself to make you a gentleman.”

“Well, I am a gentleman,” cried Richard, angrily.

“Bear it in mind then, my son; and remember that rude, rough ways disgust Eve, and injure your cause. Mr Selwood is a gentleman, and you must meet him as a gentleman.”

“I don’t know what you mean, mother,” cried the young man, angrily.

“I mean this, that my son occupies the position of the first man in Dumford; and though his father was a poor workman, and his mother a workman’s daughter—”

“There, don’t always get flinging my birth in my teeth, mother—do, pray, sink the shop.”

“I have no wish to remind you of your origin, Richard,” said Mrs Glaire, with a sigh; “only I wish to make you remember that we educated you to be a gentleman, and that we have given you the means. Act like one.”

“I shall do that; don’t you be afraid,” said Richard.

“And mind, Richard, a true gentleman keeps his word,” said Mrs Glaire, meaningly.

“Well, so do I,” exclaimed the young man, flushing up. “What are you hinting at now?”

“I hope you do, my son; I hope you do,” said Mrs Glaire, looking at him fixedly; and then, as a sharp knock came at the front door, she glided out of the room, and her voice was heard directly after in conversation with the bluff doctor.

“Oh, he’s here, too, is he?” muttered Dick, biting his nails. “Hang it all! Curse it, how crookedly things go. I—there, hang it all!”

He stood, thinking, with knitted brows, and then hastily pouring out and tossing off another glass of sherry, and smiling in a way that looked very much like the twitch of the lip when a cur means to bite, he said, in a mock melodramatic voice—

“Ha—ha! we must dissemble!” and strode out of the room.

Volume One—Chapter Eighteen.

The Plan Begins to Work.

The vicar was standing by the flower-stand talking to Eve, and opening out the calyx of a new orchid, a half faded blossom of which he had picked from the pot to explain some peculiarities of its nature, while Eve, looking bright and interested, drank in his every word.

Mr Purley was filling out an easy-chair, having picked out one without arms for obvious reasons, and he was gossiping away to Mrs Glaire.

“How do, Purley?” said Richard, with a face as smooth as if nothing had occurred to fret him. “Glad to see you.”

“Glad to see you too, Glaire; but you don’t say, ‘How are you?’”

“Who does to a doctor,” laughed Richard. “Why you couldn’t be ill if you tried.”

“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr Purley. “Well, if I’m not ill, I’m hungry.”

“Always are,” said Richard, with a sneer; and then seeing that his retort was a little too pointed, he blunted it by pandering to the stout medico’s favourite joke, and adding, “Taken any one for a ride lately?”

“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed the doctor. “That’s good! He’s getting a regular Joe Miller in kid gloves, Mrs Glaire: that he is. Ha-ha-ha!”

Richard gave a short side nod, for he was already crossing the room to the flower-stand.

“Talking about flowers?” he said, quietly. “That’s pretty. I didn’t know they’d asked you to dinner, Mr Selwood, and you must have thought me very gruff.”

“Don’t name it,” said the vicar, frankly; but he was looking into the younger man’s eyes in a way that made him turn them aside in a shifty manner, and begin picking nervously at the leaves of a plant as he went on—

“Fact is, don’t you know, I’m cross and irritable. When a man’s got all his fellows on strike or lock out, it upsets him.”

“Yes, Mr Selwood,” interposed Eve, “the poor fellow has been dreadfully worried lately. But it’s all going to be right soon, I hope.”

“I don’t know,” said Richard, cavalierly; “they’re horribly obstinate.”

Mrs Glaire, who had been watching all this eagerly, while she made an appearance of listening to Mr Purley’s prattle, gave her son a grateful look, to which he replied with a smile and a nod, when a servant entered and announced the dinner.

Richard Glaire’s smile and nod turned into a scowl and a twitch on hearing his mother’s next words, which were—

“Mr Selwood, will you take in my niece? Mr Purley, your arm.”

The vicar passed out with Eve, followed by the doctor and their hostess, leaving Richard to bring up the rear, which he did after snatching up a book and hurling it across the room crash into the flower-stand.

“She’s mad,” he muttered,—“she’s mad;” and then grinding his teeth with rage he followed into the dining-room.

Richard contrived to conceal his annoyance tolerably during the dinner, but his mother saw with secret satisfaction that he was thoroughly piqued by the way in which Eve behaved towards their visitor; and even with the effort he made over himself, he was not quite successful in hiding his vexation; while when they went out afterwards on to the croquet lawn, and the vicar and Eve were partners against him, he gave vent to his feelings by vicious blows at the balls, to the no slight damage of Mrs Glaire’s flowers.

This lady, however, bore the infliction with the greatest equanimity, sitting on a garden seat, knitting, with a calm satisfied smile upon her face even though Eve looked aghast at the mischief that had been done.

Matters did not improve, for Richard, after being, to his great disgust, thoroughly beaten, and having his ball driven into all kinds of out-of-the-way places by his adversaries, found on re-entering the drawing-room that he was to play a very secondary part.

Eve recollected that Mr Selwood could sing a little, and he sang in a good manly voice several songs, to which she played the accompaniment.

Then Eve had to sing as well, a couple of pretty ballads, in a sweet unaffected voice, and all this time the whist-table was waiting and Richard pretending to keep up a conversation with the doctor, who enjoyed the music and did not miss his whist.

At length the last ballad was finished, tea over, and Richard had made his plans to exclude Eve from the whist-table, when he gnashed his teeth with fury, for his mother said—

“Eve, my dear, why don’t you ask Mr Selwood to try that duet with you?”

“What, the one Richard was practising, aunt?”

“Yes, my dear, that one.”

“Oh, no,” exclaimed the vicar. “If Mr Glaire sings I will not take his place. Perhaps he will oblige us by taking his part with you.”

“But Dick doesn’t know it, Mr Selwood,” said Eve, laughing merrily, “and he’s sure to break down. He always does in a song. Do try it.”

Dick turned livid with rage, for this was more than he could bear, and, seeing his annoyance, Mr Selwood pleasantly declined, saying—

“But I have an engagement on; I am to win some money of the doctor here, for my poor people.”

“Didn’t know it was the correct thing to gamble to win money for charity.”

“Oh, I often do,” said the vicar, pleasantly. “Now I’ll be bound, Mr Glaire, if I’d asked you for a couple of guineas to distribute, you’d think me a great bore.”

“You may depend upon that,” said Richard. “I never give in charity.”

“But at the same time, you would not much mind if I won that sum from you at whist.”

“You’d have to win it first,” said Richard, with a sneer.

“Exactly,” said the vicar; “and I might lose.”

“There, don’t talk,” said Richard; “let’s play. Come along, mamma.”

Mrs Glaire was about to excuse herself, but seeing her son’s looks, she thought better of her decision, and to keep peace went up to the table; Eve saying she would look on.

It fell about then that the vicar and Mrs Glaire were partners, and as sometimes happens, Richard and his partner, the doctor, had the most atrocious of hands almost without exception. This joined to the fact that Mrs Glaire played with shrewdness, and the vicar admirably, so disgusted Richard that at last he threw down the cards in a pet, vowing he would play no more.

“Well, it is time to leave off, really,” said the vicar, glancing at his watch. “Half-past ten.”

“Don’t forget to give your winnings away in charity, parson,” said Richard, in a sneering tone.

“Dick!” whispered Eve, imploringly.

“Hold your tongue,” was the reply. “I know what I’m saying.”

“No fear,” said the vicar, good-temperedly, as he was bidding Mrs Glaire good night; “shall I send you an account? Good night, Miss Pelly. Thanks for a delightful evening. Good night, Mr Glaire.”

He held out his hand, and gave Richard’s a grip that made him wince, and then, after a few words in the hall, he was gone, with the doctor for companion.

“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Richard, savagely.

“Why, Dick, dear, how cross you have been,” said Eve, while Mrs Glaire watched the game.

“Cross! Enough to make one,” he cried, angrily; and then, mimicking the vicar’s manner, “Good night, Miss Pelly. Thanks for a delightful evening.”

“Well, I’m sure it was, Dick,” said Eve; “only you would be so cross.”

“And well I might, when you were flirting in that disgraceful way all the evening.”

“Oh, Dick!” exclaimed Eve, reproachfully; and the tears stood in her eyes.

“Well, so you were,” he cried, “abominably. If anybody else had been here, they would have said that you were engaged to be married to that cad of a parson, instead of to me.”

The tears were falling now as Eve laid her hand upon her cousin’s shoulder.

“Dick, dear,” she whispered; “don’t talk to me like that; it hurts me.”

“Serve you right,” he growled.

“If I have done anything to annoy you to-night, dear, it was done in all innocence. But you don’t—you can’t mean it.”

“Indeed, but I do,” he growled, half turning his back.

Mrs Glaire was sitting with her back to them, and still kept busy over her work.

“I am so sorry, Dick—dear Dick,” Eve said, resting her head on the young man’s shoulder. “Don’t be angry with me, Dick.”

“Then promise me you’ll never speak to that fellow any more,” he said, quickly.

“Dick! Oh, how can I? But there, you don’t mean it. You are only a little cross with me.”

“Cross!” he retorted; “you’ve hurt me so to-night that I’ve been wishing I’d never seen you.”

“Oh, Dick!” she exclaimed, as she caught his hand, and raised it to her lips. “Please forgive me, and believe me, dear Dick, that I have not a single thought that is not yours. Please forgive me.”

“There, hold your tongue,” he said, shortly; “she’s looking.”

Poor little Eve turned away to hide and dry her tears, and then Mrs Glaire, looking quite calm and satisfied with the prospect of events, said—

“Eve, my child, it is past eleven.”

“Yes, aunt, I’m going to bed. Good night.”

“Good night, Richard.”

“Good night,” he said, sulkily; and he bent down his head and brushed the candid white forehead offered to him with his lips, while, his hands being in his pockets, he at the same time crackled between his fingers a little note that he had written to Daisy, appointing their next interview, this arrangement having been forgotten in the hurry of the day’s parting. And as he spoke he was turning over in his mind how he could manage to get the note delivered unseen by Banks or his wife, for so far as he could tell at the moment, he had not a messenger he could trust.

End of Volume One.

Volume Two—Chapter One.

To Bultitude’s and Back.

Matters did not improve at Dumford as the days went on, and Murray Selwood found that he could not have arrived at a worse time, so far as his own comfort was concerned, though he was bound to own that the occasion was opportune for his parish, inasmuch as he was able to be of no little service to many of the people who, in a surly kind of way, acknowledged his help, and took it in a condescending manner, while, with a smile, he could not help realising the fact that the sturdy independent folks looked down upon him as a kind of paid official whom they were obliged to suffer in their midst.

He had secured a servant with great difficulty, for the girls of the place, as a rule, objected to domestic service, preferring the freedom and independence of working for the line-growing farmers of the neighbourhood, and spending the money earned with the big draper of the place. Not our independent friends, but Barmby the parish churchwarden, who coolly told the vicar that he could produce more effect upon the female population with a consignment of new hats or bonnets from town, than a parson could with a month’s preaching; and it must be conceded to Mr Barmby that his influence was far more visible than that of his clerical superior.

All efforts to patch up a peace between the locked-out men and their employer were without avail, even though the vicar had seen both parties again and again.

“Let them pay for my machine-bands,” said Richard Glaire—“Two hundred pounds, and come humbly and confess their faults, and I’ll then take their application into consideration.”

“But don’t you think you had better make a greater concession?” said the vicar. “You are punishing innocent and guilty alike.”

“Serve ’em right,” said Richard, turning on his heel, and leaving the counting-house, where Mr Selwood had sought him.

“What do you say, Mr Banks?” said the vicar.

“Well, sir, what I say is this,” said Joe, pulling out and examining a keen knife that he took from his pocket, “what I say is this—that he ought to find out whom this knife belongs to, and punish him.”

“That knife?”

“Yes,” said Joe, grimly. “I’ve been well over the place, and I found this knife lying on a bench. It is the one used for cootting the bands; there’s the greasy marks on it. Now, the man as that knife belongs to,” he said, closing the blade with a snap, “is him as coot the bands.”

“By the way, did you ever find the bands?” said the vicar.

“Find ’em, parson, oh yes, I fun ’em; chucked into one of the furnaces they weer.”

“And burnt?”

“Well, not exactly bunt, but so cockered up and scorched, as to be no more good. I only wish I knew who did it.”

“It was a cowardly trick,” said the vicar, “and I wish it were known, so that this unhappy strife might be stayed.”

“Oh, that’ll come raight soon,” said Banks, drily. “Just wait till Master Dick has been over to the bank and seen how his book stands once or twice, and we’ll soon bring this game to an end.”

“And meanwhile the poor people are starving.”

“Not they, sir,” said Joe, with a chuckle. “People here are too saving. They’ll hold out a bit longer yet.”

Joe remained to smoke a pipe amongst the extinct forges, while the vicar paid a morning call at the big house, to find Mrs Glaire and Eve gone for a walk, and Jacky Budd visible in the garden, fast asleep on a rustic chair, with the flies haunting his nose.

Turning from there he went down the street, and had to bow to Miss Purley, who was at the doctor’s window, and to Miss Primgeon, who was at the lawyer’s window, both ladies having been there ever since he passed. Then reaching the vicarage, it was to find that he had had a visitor in his turn in the shape of his churchwarden, Mr Bultitude, “Owd Billy Bultitude,” as he was generally called in the town, just outside which he had a large farm and was reported to be very wealthy.

“Parish matters, I suppose,” said the vicar; and he stood debating with himself for a few minutes as to whether he should go across the fields, ending by making a start, and coming across Richard Glaire deep in converse with Sim Slee, just by the cross-roads.

Something white was passed by Richard to the gentleman of the plaid waistcoat, as the vicar approached, and then they moved on together for a few yards, unaware of the coming footsteps.

“That looks like coming to terms,” said the vicar to himself, joyfully. “Well, I’m glad of it,” and he was about to speak on the subject, when Richard started round with a scowl upon his countenance, and Slee thrust his hands into his pockets and went off whistling.

“As you will, master Dick,” said the vicar to himself; “but I mean to try hard yet to get the whip hand of you, my boy.” Then, aloud, “What a delightful morning.”

“Look here, Mr Selwood,” said Richard, roughly, “are you playing the spy upon my actions?”

“Not I,” said the vicar, laughing, “I am going over to Bultitude’s farm; I cannot help your being in the way. Good morning.”

“He was watching me,” muttered Dick, biting his nails. “I wonder whether he saw that note.”

As he stood looking after the vicar, Sim Slee came softly back to wink in a mysterious way, and point with his thumb over his shoulder.

“They’re all alike,” he said—“all alike, parsons and all.”

“What do you mean?” said Dick, roughly. “I thought you’d gone with that note.”

“Thowt I wouldn’t go yet,” said Sim, with another confidential jerk of the thumb over his shoulder. “Joe Banks is sure to be at home now.”

“I tell you he’s down at the foundry, and will stay there all day,” cried Dick, angrily.

“All raight: I’ll go then,” said Sim; “but I say, sir, they’re all alike.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why that parson—that dreadfully good man.”

“Well, what about him?”

“Don’t you know where he’s gone?”

“Yes, he said: old Bultitude’s.”

“Did he say what for?” said Sim, grinning. “No, of course not.”

“Ho—ho—ho! Ho—ho—ho!” laughed Sim, stamping on the ground with delight. “Don’t you see his game?”

“Curse you, speak out,” cried Dick, furiously. “What do you mean?”

“Only that he’s getting all the women under his thumb. He’ll be having crosses and candles in the chutch direckly, like the Ranby man.”

“Curse you for a fool, Slee,” cried Richard, impatiently; and he was turning away when Sim exclaimed—

“Don’t you know as Miss Eve walked over there half-an-hour ago?”

“What?” roared Dick.

“Oh! she’s only gone over to see Miss Jessie, of course; but if you’ll light a cigar, sir, and sit down on yon gate, you’ll see if he don’t walk home with her. Now I’m off.”

“Stop a moment, Sim,” cried Dick in a husky voice. “Have—have you ever seen anything?”

“Who? I? Oh, no! Nowt,” said Sim; “leastwise I only saw ’em come out of Ranby wood with a basket of flowers yesterday, that’s all.”

He went off then, chuckling to himself and rubbing his hands, leaving the poison to work, as, with his face distorted with rage, Dick started off at a sharp walk for Bultitude’s farm; but, altering his mind, he leaped a stile, lit a cigar, and stood leaning against a tree smoking, unseen by any one who should pass along the lane, but able to command the path on both sides for some distance, up and down.

Meanwhile the vicar, enjoying the pleasant walk, had been telling himself that he could always leave the grimy town and its work behind in a few minutes to enjoy the sweets of the country, which were here in all their beauty; and after thinking of Eve Pelly for about five minutes, he made a vigorous effort, uttered the word taboo, and began humming a tune.

Unfortunately for his peace of mind, the tune he inadvertently began to hum was one of those which Eve sang the other night, so he left off with a hasty “Pish!” and stooping down, began to botanise, picking a flower here and there, and then climbing up the rough side of the lane to cull a pretty little fern, whose graceful fronds drooped from a shadowy niche.

He threw the fern impatiently down, as he reached the path once more, and his brow furrowed, for memory told him directly that it was the pretty little asplenium, the peculiarities of whose growth he had explained to Eve when he met her with Mrs Glaire the day before, and had passed with them through Ranby wood, the latter lady probably being too insignificant to be taken in by Mr Sim Slee’s comprehensive vision.

Walking rapidly on, to calm his thoughts, he came across the object of his search, busily dragging a sheep out of a little narrow grip or drain that had been cut in the field, and into which the unfortunate animal had rolled feet uppermost, its heavy wet fleece, and the size of the drain, making it impossible for the timid beast to extricate itself.

“Fahrweltered, parson,” said the bluff-looking farmer, as he came up.

“I beg your pardon,” said the vicar.

“Fahrweltered—fahrweltered,” said the farmer, laughing; “we say in these parts a sheep’s fahrweltered when he gets on his back like that. I expect,” he continued, with a roguish twinkle of his eye, “you’ve found some of your flock fahrweltered by this time.”

“Indeed, I have,” said the vicar, laughing; “and so far the shepherd has not been able to drag them out.”

“No, I s’pose not,” said the farmer, carefully wiping his hands upon a big yellow silk handkerchief before offering one to be shaken. “You’ve got your work coot out, my lad, and no mistake. But come on up to the house, and have a bit of something. I come over to you about the meeting, and the books, and the rest of it.”

The vicar followed him up to the farm-house, where the heavy stack-yard, abundant display of cattle, and noises of the yard told of prosperity; and then leading the way through the red-brick passage into the long, low, plainly-furnished sitting-room, the first words Murray Selwood heard were—

“Jess, Miss Pelly, I’ve brought you a visitor.”

The vicar’s cheek burned, as he could not help a start, but he recovered himself directly as he saw Eve Pelly’s sweet face, with its calm unruffled look, and replied to the frank pressure of her hand, as she said she was delighted to see him.

“This is my niece, Jessie,” said the farmer in his bluff way. “She says, parson—”

“Oh, uncle!” cried the pleasant, bright-faced girl.

“Howd your tongue, lass; I shall tell him. She says, parson, she’s glad our old fogy has gone, for it’s some pleasure to come and hear you.”

“Oh, Mr Selwood, please,” said the girl, blushing, “I didn’t quite say that. Uncle does—”

“’Zaggerate,” said the old man, laughing. “Well, perhaps he does. But come, girl, get in a bit of lunch. There, what now, Miss Pelly; are we frightening you away?”

“Oh, no,” said Eve, smiling, “only I must go now.”

“Sit thee down, lass, sit thee down. Parson’s going back directly, and he’ll walk wi’ thee and see thee safe home.”

And so it came about that innocently enough an hour afterwards the vicar and Eve Pelly were walking back together with, as they came in sight of Richard Glaire, Eve eagerly speaking to her companion, and becoming so earnest in her pleading words for her cousin, that she laid one little hand on the vicar’s arm.

“You will like him when you come to know him, Mr Selwood,” she was saying, in her earnest endeavour that Richard should be well thought of by everybody. “Poor boy, he has been so annoyed and worried over the strike, that he is not like the same. It is enough to make him cross and low-spirited, is it not?”

“Indeed it is,” said the vicar, quietly; “and you may be quite at rest with respect to your cousin, for he will, for he will always find a friend in me.”

He had been about to say, “for your sake,” but a glance at the sweet, candid face arrested his words, and he told himself that anything that would in the slightest degree tend to disturb her pure faith and belief in the man who was to be her husband would be cruelty, for there was the hope that her gentle winning ways and innocent heart would be the means of influencing Richard Glaire, and making him a better man.

“Hallo, you two!” made them start, as Richard leaped over the stile, and seemed surprised to find that neither of them looked startled or troubled at his sudden apparition. “Here, Eve, take my arm. I’m going home.”

“Thank you, Dick,” she said, quietly. “I have something to carry.”

He scowled and relapsed into a moody silence, which no efforts on the vicar’s part could break. Fortunately, the distance back to the town was very short, and so he parted from them at the foot of the High street, the rest of the distance being occupied by Richard in a torrent of abuse of Eve, and invectives against the vicar, whom he characterised as a beggarly meddling upstart, and ended by sending the girl up to her room in tears.

Volume Two—Chapter Two.

An Eventful Walk.

Richard Glaire made the most of his short time for scolding, and sulked to a great extent with his cousin for the next few days, and then the tables were turned, for it came to pass one evening that all being bright and as beautiful without, as it was dull and cheerless within, Eve proposed to her aunt that they should take a walk as far as Ranby Wood.

“Do you expect to meet Mr Selwood, Eve?” said Mrs Glaire, rather bitterly.

The bitterness, was, however, unnoticed by Eve, who replied quietly—

“Oh no, aunt dear. I don’t think there is the slightest chance of that; for don’t you remember he said he was going to dine with Doctor Purley?”

“To be sure, yes; I had forgotten,” said Mrs Glaire, somewhat relieved; though had she been asked she would have been puzzled to say why.

The result was that they started, leaving the town, crossing the little hill, and reaching the pleasant paths of the wood where the lichened trunks of the old oak trees were turned to russet gold in the setting sunshine, and all above seemed so peaceful and beautiful that the tears rose to Mrs Glaire’s eyes, and she sat down upon a fallen trunk, thinking of how beautiful the world was, and how it was marred by man, through whom came the major part of the troubles that annoyed them.

“What’s that?” she exclaimed, hastily, as voices in angry contention approached.

“I don’t know, aunt,” said Eve, half rising in alarm. “Let’s go.”

“No one will interfere with us, child,” said Mrs Glaire, restraining her. “It’s Squire Gray’s keeper and young Maine,” she continued. “Why are they quarrelling?”

“I think I know, aunt,” said Eve, in an agitated voice. “Oh, surely they don’t mean to fight. It is about Jessie Bultitude: for Brough, the keeper, is always going to the farm with excuses, and it annoys John Maine.”

It was very evident, though, that they were going to fight, for just then the keeper, a great black-whiskered fellow in velveteens and gaiters, exclaimed—

“Well, look here, I’ll show you whether you’ve a raight to come across here. I ’ain’t forgot about the rabbits.”

As he spoke he began to strip off his coat, and his companion, a rather good-looking young fellow, whose face was flushed with passion, seemed disposed to imitate his example, when he caught sight of the ladies, and turned of a deeper red.

The keeper too resumed his coat, and whistling to his black retriever, who had been showing his teeth, and seemed disposed to join in the fray, he turned off into a side path and disappeared.

“Oh, John Maine!” exclaimed Eve, reproachfully, “what would Jessie think if she saw you quarrelling with that man?”

“Beg pardon, Miss, I’m sure,” said the young man, pulling off his felt hat. “It was no seeking of mine. He’s always trying to pick a quarrel with me. He is, indeed, Mrs Glaire; and he won’t be happy till he’s been well thrashed. But hadn’t you ladies—I mean—I beg your pardon, Miss Eve—hadn’t you better go back out of the wood?”

“No, thank you, John,” said Eve, smiling at the young man’s confusion. “We have only just come.”

“But it is getting damp, Miss,” said the young fellow, who was foreman at Bultitude’s farm.

“You didn’t think it was damp the other night, John, when you were up here in the wood with Jessie.”

“No, Miss, very true,” said the young man; “but perhaps Thomas Brough will come back.”

“Then,” said Mrs Glaire, quietly, “I should advise you to go back home at once, John.”

“Well, if you will have it, you will,” muttered the young man. “I did my best to stop it;” and with a rough salutation he went on his way.

“Eve, my dear, I should not go too often to Bultitude’s,” said Mrs Glaire. “Jessie is very well, but she is rather below the station you are to take, and—quick—here, come away—this way.”

She started up, and tried to drag Eve away, but she was too late; and her efforts to prevent the scene down the glade before them being seen by her young companion were in vain. For there, plainly visible in the golden glow, and framed as it were in the bower-like hazels, stood, with their backs to them, Richard Glaire and Daisy Banks.

The young couple were as motionless as those who gazed, for in an impetuous angry way, Eve had snatched herself free, and stood looking down the glade, while Mrs Glaire seemed petrified.

The next moment though, just as she was about to whisper hastily to Eve something about an accidental meeting, they saw Richard pass his arm round Daisy, who, nothing loth, allowed the embrace, and then as his lips sought hers, she threw her arms round his neck and responded to his caress.

It was a long cooing kiss, and it might have been longer, but as Richard Glaire drew Daisy closer to him, he slightly changed his position, and raising his eyes from the pretty flushed face he saw that they were observed, and started back with an oath.

Daisy turned wonderingly, and then, seeing who was watching them, she uttered a faint cry, and ran off swiftly down the mossy pathway, while, after hesitating whether he should follow her or not, and with a red spot of shame burning in each cheek, Dick took out his case, chose a cigar, nibbled off the end with an affectation of nonchalance, and striking a light, began to smoke.

“I shan’t turn tail,” he muttered. “I’m my own master, and I shall face it out.”

“Oh aunt, aunt, aunt!” moaned Eve; “is that true?”

“True! yes,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, in a low, angry voice.

“But Dick cannot—Oh aunt, aunt, take me home—take me home.”

Poor Eve turned aside, sobbing bitterly, and covered her face with her hands to hide the hateful sight; but in vain, for there, as it were, standing out clear and bright before her, was Daisy Banks, with her soft, round little face and pouting lips, turned up to receive Richard Glaire’s kisses; and to her it seemed so horrible, so impossible, that she could not believe it true. It came upon her like a sudden shock, and she was stunned; for with all Richard’s ill-humour and extravagance, she could never believe him anything but true and honourable, and in her simple, trusting way, she asked herself if it was possible that there was a mistake.

“Give me your hand, child,” said Mrs Glaire, in a low, constrained voice; and catching that of Eve, with almost angry force; she led her on to where her son leaned nonchalantly against a tree, watching their coming.

The wood was now flooded with the rich golden sunset light, and every leaf and twig seemed turned to ruddy gold, while Dick, her young hero, the man she loved, and who was to be her husband, seemed to Eve, seen through a veil of tears, more handsome than ever she had seen him before.

And he did not love her! His love was given to Daisy Banks! Oh, no, she told herself; it was not true—it was some mistake; and with her breath coming in sobs, and her heart beating rapidly, she clung to her aunt’s hand as they approached.

Mrs Glaire stopped short when they reached the tree, and speaking in a very cold, contemptuous way, she raised her one hand at liberty, and pointing in the direction in which one of the two actors in the little comedy had fled, she said—

“Is this my son Richard?”

“No,” said Dick, with a forced laugh, and with a display of effrontery far from in keeping with his abject looks, “No—that was Daisy Banks.”

“I say, is this my son?” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, speaking in the same cold measured way.

“I suppose so,” said Dick, contemptuously. “There, don’t make a bother out here in the wood;” and he half-turned away to gaze up towards where a thrush was loudly singing its farewell to the day.

“I say is this my son?” reiterated Mrs Glaire, “who promised me upon his word of honour as a gentleman that he would see Daisy Banks no more.”

“Oh aunt,” cried Eve, with almost a shriek of pain, as these words were to her like the lifting of a veil, “did you know of this?”

“Yes,” said Mrs Glaire, sternly, “I knew, my child, that he was playing false to you, and that he was often seeing this miserable girl.”

“There, let her alone,” said Richard, defiantly.

“I knew it, Eve,” continued Mrs Glaire, speaking with suppressed anger; “but on my remonstrating, he promised me that it should all be at an end, and for the time, like a weak, foolish mother, I believed in his honour as a gentleman, and that he would keep his word to me and be faithful to you. You see how he keeps his word.”

“There, that’ll do,” cried Richard, defiantly. “I’m not going to be bullied. I like the girl, and shall marry her if I choose.”

“Liar! Coward!” exclaimed Mrs Glaire. “You would not marry her: but break the miserable girl’s heart, as you would break that of your cousin, if I would stand by and see you do the wrong.”

“Oh no, no, no, aunt—aunt—pray don’t,” sobbed Eve, interposing. “You are hard upon dear Dick, aunt. He does not care for her: it is some mistake. He cannot care for her. It is Daisy’s doing; the wicked girl has led him away. Dick, dear Dick, tell me, tell me, you don’t love her, that—that—Oh, Dick, it can’t—it can’t be true.”

She threw herself sobbing on his breast, but with a degree of force, hardly to be expected from her, Mrs Glaire drew Eve away and stood between them.

“No,” she exclaimed, “he shall not touch you; he shall never touch you again till this disgrace is wiped away, and he has shown himself in some way worthy of your love; for I will not stand by and see your future blasted by the action of a son who has proved himself a scoundrel.”

“Look here, mother,” cried Richard, hotly, “I’m not going to stand all this. You want me to marry Eve, and I shall marry her some day; but if I choose to be a bit gay first I shall. I’m my own master and shall do as I like.”

“Worse and worse!” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, whose voice was now an angry whisper. “Not one blush of shame—not one word of sorrow or humility before the pure, sweet, forgiving girl, whose feelings you have outraged. I ask myself again—as I could almost say, thank God your father is not alive to know it!—is this my son?”

“There, confound your heroics!” exclaimed Richard, impatiently.

“You say I want you to marry Eve, and that some day you will,” continued Mrs Glaire. “Disabuse your mind, Richard, for I do not wish you to many Eve, and marry her you shall not.”

“There, that’ll do,” cried Richard; “I’ve had enough of this. Here, come along with me, Evey. I’ll walk home with you and explain all.”

He tried to take Eve’s hand, to draw through his arm, but she drew back from him, looking cold and pale, while her eyes dilated, and she shuddered slightly.

“Here, walk home with me, you little silly,” he continued.

“No—no—no,” said Eve, slowly, as she turned from him, and clinging to Mrs Glaire’s arm, she hid her face upon her aunt’s shoulder, as in those few moments her girlhood’s innocent belief and trust in her cousin passed away, and with the eyes of a woman she for the first time saw him in his true character.

“As you like,” said Richard, flippantly, and assuming an injured tone. “You’ll be sorry for this.”

No one answered him, for Mrs Glaire drew Eve’s arm through hers, and without a word they walked hastily home.

“Damn it all!” exclaimed Richard, taking the cigar from his mouth, and throwing it impatiently down. “How cursedly unlucky. Well, I don’t care: they must have known it some day. Evey will soon forget it all, and I shall easily get round the old woman with a bit of coaxing. Now where’s little Daisy?”

He walked hastily down the path by which she had fled, knowing only too well that it led farther into the wood, and feeling sure that he should find her waiting for him to join her.

He was quite right, for before long he came upon her, sitting down and crying as though her heart would break.

“Hallo! little pet,” he cried; and she started up in a frightened way at his words, “what have you got to cry about? I’m the one that ought to bellow. See what a wigging I’ve had.”

“Oh, Mr Richard!” sobbed Daisy.

“There, Mister Richard again,” he cried, catching her in his arms.

“Then Dick, dear Dick, there must be no more of this, I shall never be able to hold my face up in the place again.”

“Stuff!” he cried, “come along.”

“No, no,” she sobbed. “I’m going straight home now.”

“Just as you like,” he said, cavalierly, and he took out his cigar-case.

“Don’t be angry with me, Dick, please; for I’m so unhappy,” sobbed the girl.

“You’ve got nothing to be unhappy about, I’m sure,” he said. “It’s only what, I told you. The old woman won’t stand it, and we shall have to make a bolt. You see it now yourself.”