George Manville Fenn

"This Man's Wife"

Volume One—Chapter One.

The New Curate—Christie Bayle’s Mistake.

If that hat had occupied its proper place it would have been perched upon a stake to scare the sparrows away from the young peas, but the wretched weather-beaten structure was upon the old man’s head, matching well with his coat, as he busied himself that pleasant morning dibbling in broccoli-plants with the pointed handle of an old spade.

The soft genial rain had fallen heavily during the night, thoroughly soaking the ground, which sent forth a delicious steaming incense quivering like visible transparent air in the morning sun. There had been a month’s drought, and flower and fruit had languished; but on the previous evening dark clouds had gathered above the woods, swept over King’s Castor, and, as Gemp said, “For twelve mortal hours the rain had poured down.”

Old Gemp was wrong: it had not poured, but stolen softly from the kindly heavens, as if every fertilising drop had been wrapped in liquid silver velvet, and no flower was beaten flat, no thirsty vegetable soiled, but earth and plant had drunk and drunk during the long night to wake up refreshed; the soil was of a rich dark hue, in place of drab, and the birds were singing as if they meant to split their throats.

Dr Luttrell’s garden was just far enough out of the town for the birds to sing. They came so far, and no farther. Once in a way, perhaps, some reckless young blackbird went right into the elder clump behind the mill, close up to the streets, and hunted snails from out of the hollow roots, and from the ivy that hung over the stone wall by the great water-tank in Thickens’s garden; but that was an exception. Only one robin and the sparrows strayed so far in as that.

But with the doctor’s garden it was different. There was the thick hawthorn hedge that separated it from the north road, a hedge kept carefully clipped, and with one tall stem every twelve yards that was never touched, but allowed to grow as it pleased, and to blossom every May and June into almond-scented snow, as it was blooming now. Then there was the great laurel hedge, fifteen feet high, on the north; the thick shrubbery about the red-bricked gabled house, and the dense ivy that covered it from the porch upwards and over Millicent’s window, and then crawled right up the sides to the chimney stacks.

There were plenty of places for birds, and, as they were never disturbed, the doctor’s was a haven where nests were made, eggs laid, and young hatched, to the terrible detriment of the doctor’s fruit; but he only gave his handsome grey head a rub and laughed.

That delicious June morning as the line was stretched over the bed that had been so long prepared, and the plants that had been nursed in a frame were being planted, the foreshortening of the old man’s figure was rather strange, so strange that as he came along the road looking over the hedge, and taking in long breaths of delicious scents, the Reverend Christie Bayle, the newly-appointed curate of St. Anthony’s, paused to watch the planting.

He was tall, slight, and pale, looking extremely youthful in his black clerical attire; but it was the pallor of much hard study, not of ill-health, for as he had come down the road it was with a free elastic stride, and he carried his head as a man does who feels that he is young and full of hope, and thinks that this world is, after all, a very beautiful place.

But it was a delicious June morning.

True, but the Reverend Christie Bayle was just as light and elastic when he walked back to his lodgings, through the rain on the previous night, and without an umbrella. He had caught himself whistling, too, several times, and checked himself, thinking that, perhaps, he ought to cease; but somehow—it was very dark—he was thoroughly light-hearted, and he had the feeling that he had made a poor weak old woman more restful at heart during his chat with her by her bedside, and so he began whistling again.

He was not whistling now as he stopped short, looking over the hedge, watching the foreshortened figure coming down towards him, with a leg on either side of the line, the dibber in one hand, a bunch of broccoli-plants in the other. The earth was soft, and the old man’s arm strong, while long practice had made him clever. He had no rule, only his eye and the line for guidance; but, as he came slowly down the row, he left behind him, at exactly two feet apart, the bright green tightly-set plants.

Whig! went the dibber: in went a plant; there was a quick poke or two, the soft earth was round the stem, and the old man went on till he reached the path, straightened himself, and began to softly rub the small of his back with the hand that held the tool.

“Good-morning,” said the curate.

“Morning.”

“Ladies at home?”

“No, they’ve gone up to the town shopping. Won’t be long.”

“Do you think they’d mind if I were to wait?”

“Mind? No. Come and have a look round.”

“Peculiarity of the Lincolnshire folk, that they rarely say sir to their superiors,” mused the Reverend Christie Bayle, as he entered the garden. “Perhaps they think we are not their superiors, and perhaps they are right; for what am I better than that old gardener?”

“Nice rain.”

“Delicious! By Geo—I—ah, you have a beautiful garden here.”

The old man gave him a droll look, and the curate’s, face turned scarlet, for that old college expression had nearly slipped out.

“Yes, it’s a nice bit of garden, and pretty fruitful considering. You won’t mind my planting another row of these broccoli?”

“Not a bit. Pray go on, and I can talk to you. Seems too bad for me to be doing nothing, and you breaking your back.”

“Oh, it won’t break my back; I’m used to it. Well, how do you like King’s Castor?”

“Very much. The place is old and quaint, and I like the country. The people are a little distant at present. They are not all so sociable as you are.”

“Ah, they don’t know you yet. There: that’s done. Now I’m going to stick those peas.”

He thrust the dibber into the earth, kicked the soil off his heavy boots, and came out on to the path rubbing his hands and looking at them.

“Shake hands with you another time.”

“To be sure. Going to stick those peas, are you?”

“Yes. I’ve the sticks all ready.”

The old man went to the top of the path, and into a nook where, already sharpened, were about a dozen bundles of clean-looking ground-birch sticks full of twigs for the pea tendrils to hold on by as they climbed.

The old fellow smiled genially, and there was something very pleasant in his clear blue eyes, florid face, and thick grey beard, which—a peculiarity in those days—he wore cut rather short, but innocent of razor.

“Shall I carry a bundle or two down?” said the curate.

“If you like.”

The Reverend Christie Bayle did like, and he carried a couple of bundles down to where the peas were waiting their support. And then—they neither of them knew how it happened, only that a question arose as to whether it was better to put in pea-sticks perpendicular or diagonal, the old man being in favour of the upright, the curate of the slope—both began sticking a row, with the result that, before a quarter of a row was done, the curate had taken off his black coat, hung it upon the gnarled Ripston-pippin-tree, rolled up his shirt sleeves over a pair of white, muscular arms, and quite a race ensued.

Four rows had been stuck, and a barrow had been fetched and a couple of spades, for the digging and preparing of a patch for some turnips, when, spade in hand, the curate paused and wiped his forehead. “You seem to like gardening, parson.”

“I do,” was the reply. “I quite revel in the smell of the newly turned earth on a morning like this, only it makes me so terribly hungry.”

“Ah, yes, so it does me. Well, let’s dig this piece, and then you can have a mouthful of lunch with me.”

“Thank you, no; I’ll help you dig this piece, and then I must go. I’ll come in another time. I want to see more of the garden.”

There was about ten minutes’ steady digging, during which the curate showed that he was no mean hand with the spade, and then the old man paused for a moment to scrape the adherent soil from the broad blade.

“My master will be back soon,” he said; “and then there’ll be some lunch; and, oh! here they are.”

The Reverend Christie Bayle had been so intent upon lifting that great spadeful of black earth without crumbling, that he had not heard the approaching footsteps, and from behind the yew hedge that sheltered them from the flower-garden, two ladies and a tall, handsome-looking man suddenly appeared, awaking the curate to the fact that he was in his shirt sleeves, digging, with his hat on a gooseberry-bush, his coat in an apple-tree, and his well-blackened boots covered with soil.

He was already flushed with his exercise. He turned of a deeper red now, as he saw the pleasant-looking, elderly lady give her silvery-grey curls a shake, the younger lady gaze from one to the other as if astonished, and the tall, dark gentleman suppress a smile as he raised his eyebrows slightly, and seemed to be amused.

The curate thrust his spade into the ground, bowed hurriedly, took a long step and snatched his hat from the gooseberry-bush, and began to hastily roll down his sleeves.

“Oh, never mind them,” said his companion. “Adam was not ashamed of his arms. Here, my dears, this is our new curate, Mr Bayle, the first clergyman we’ve had who could use a spade. Mr Bayle—my wife, my daughter Millicent. Mr Hallam, from the bank.”

The Reverend Christie Bayle’s face was covered with dew, and he longed to beat a retreat from the presence of the pleasant-faced elderly lady; to make that retreat a rout, as he met the large, earnest grey eyes of “my daughter Millicent,” and saw as if through a mist that she was fair to see—how fair in his agitation he could not tell; and lastly, to rally and form a stubborn front, as he bowed to the handsome, supercilious man, well-dressed, perfectly at his ease, and evidently enjoying the parson’s confusion.

“We are very glad you have come to see us, Mr Bayle,” said the elderly lady, smiling, and shaking hands warmly. “Of course we knew you soon would. And so you’ve been helping Dr Luttrell.”

“The doctor!” thought the visitor with a mental groan; “and I took him for the gardener!”

Volume One—Chapter Two.

Some Introductions and a Little Music.

The reception had been so simple and homely, that, once having secured his coat and donned it, the doctor’s volunteer assistant felt more at his ease. His disposition to retreat passed off, and, in despite of all refusal, he was almost compelled to enter the house, Mrs Luttrell taking possession of him to chat rather volubly about King’s Castor and the old vicar, while from time to time a few words passed with Millicent, at whom the visitor gazed almost in wonder.

She was so different from the provincial young lady he had set up in his own mind as a type. Calm, almost grave in its aspect, her face was remarkable for its sweet, self-contained look of intelligence, and the new curate had not been many minutes in her society before he was aware that he was conversing with a woman as highly cultivated as she was beautiful.

Her sweet, rich voice absolutely thrilled, while her quiet self-possession sent a pang through him, as he felt how young, how awkward, and wanting in confidence he must seem in her eyes, which met his with a frank, friendly look that was endorsed during conversation, as she easily and pleasantly helped him out of two or three verbal bogs into which he had floundered.

After a walk through the garden, they had entered the house, where Mrs Luttrell had turned suddenly upon her visitor, to confuse him again by her sudden appeal.

“Did you ever see such a straw hat as that, Mr Bayle?”

“Oh, it’s an old favourite of papa’s, Mr Bayle,” interrupted Millicent, turning to smile at the elderly gentleman taking the dilapidated straw from his head to hang it upon one particular peg. “He would not enjoy the gardening so much without that.”

The tall handsome man left at the end of a few minutes. Business was his excuse. He had met the ladies, and just walked down with them, he told the doctor.

“But you’ll come in to-night, Mr Hallam? We shall expect you,” said Mrs Luttrell warmly.

“Oh, of course!” said Millicent, as Mr Hallam, from the bank, involuntarily turned to her; and her manner was warm but not conscious.

“I shall be here,” he said quietly; and after a quiet friendly leave-taking, Christie Bayle felt relieved, and as if he could be a little more at his ease.

It was not a success though, and when he in turn rose to go, thinking dolefully about his dirty boots as compared with the speckless Wellingtons of the other visitor, and after feeling something like a throb of pleasure at being warmly pressed to step in without ceremony that evening, he walked to his apartments in the main street, irritated and wroth with himself, and more dissatisfied than he had ever before felt in his life.

“I wish I had not come,” he said to himself. “I’m too young, and what’s worse, I feel so horribly young. That supercilious Mr Hallam was laughing at me; the old lady treated me as if I were a boy; and Miss Luttrell—”

He stopped thinking, for her tall graceful presence seemed before him, and he felt again the touch of her cool, soft, white hand.

“Yes; she talked to me as if I were a boy, whom she wanted to cure of being shy. I am a boy, and it’s my own fault for not mixing more with men.”

“Bah! What an idiot I was! I might have known it was not the gardener. He did not talk like a servant, but I blundered into the idea, and went on blindfold in my belief. What a ridiculous débût I made there, to be sure, where I wanted to make a good impression! How can I profess to teach people like that when they treat me as if I were a boy? I can never show my face there again.”

He felt in despair, and his self-abasement grew more bitter as the day went on. It would be folly, he thought, to go to the doctor’s that evening; but, as the time drew near, he altered his mind, and at last, taking a small case from where it rested upon a bookshelf, he thrust it into his pocket and started, his teeth set, his nerves strung, and his whole being bent upon the determination to show these people that he was not the mere bashful boy they thought him.

It was a deliciously soft, warm evening, and as he left the town behind with its few dim oil lamps, the lights that twinkled through the trees from the doctor’s drawing-room were like so many invitations to him to hurry his feet, and so full was his mind of one of the dwellers beneath the roof that, as he neared the gate, he was not surprised to hear Millicent’s voice, sweet, clear, and ringing. It hastened his steps. He did not know why, but it was as if attracting—positively magnetic. The next moment there was the low, deep-toned rich utterance of a man’s voice—a voice that he recognised at once as that of Mr Hallam, from the bank; and if this was magnetic, it was from the negative pole, for Christie Bayle stopped.

He went on again, angry, he knew not why, and the next minute was being introduced on the lawn to a thin, careworn, middle-aged man, and a tall, bony, aquiline lady, as Mr and Mrs Trampleasure, Mrs Luttrell’s pleasant, sociable voice being drowned almost the next moment by that of the bony dame, who in tones resembling those emitted by a brazen instrument, said very slowly:

“How do you do? I saw you last Sunday. Don’t you think it is getting too late to stop out on the grass?”

“Yes, yes,” said Mrs Luttrell hastily, “the grass is growing damp. Milly, dear, take Mr Hallam into the drawing-room.”

The pleasant flower-decked room, with its candles and old-fashioned oil lamp, seemed truly delightful to Christie Bayle, for the next hour. He was very young, and he was the new arrival in King’s Castor, and consequently felt flattered by the many attentions he received. The doctor was friendly, and disposed to be jocose with allusions to gardening. Mr Trampleasure, thin and languid, made his advances, but his questions were puzzling, as they related to rates of exchange and other monetary matters, regarding which the curate’s mind was a blank.

“Not a well-informed young man, my dear,” said Mr Trampleasure to his wife; whereupon that lady looked at him, and Mr Trampleasure seemed to wither away, or rather to shrink into a corner, where Millicent, who looked slightly flushed, but very quiet and self-possessed, was turning over some music, every piece of which had a strip of ribbon sewn with many stitches all up its back.

“Not a well-informed young man, this new curate, Millicent,” said Mr Trampleasure, trying to sow his discordant seed on more genial soil.

“Not well-informed, uncle?” said the daughter of the house, looking up wide-eyed and amused, “why, I thought him most interesting.”

“Oh! dear me, no, my dear. Quite ignorant of the most everyday matters. I just asked him—”

“Are you going to give us some music, Miss Luttrell?” said a deep, rich voice behind them, and Millicent turned round smiling.

“I was looking out two of your songs, Mr Hallam. You will sing something?”

“If you wish it,” he said quietly, and there was nothing impressive in his manner.

“Oh, we should all be glad. Mamma is so fond of your songs.”

“I must make the regular stipulation,” said Mr Hallam smiling. “Banking people are very exacting: they do nothing without being paid.”

“You mean that I must sing as well,” said Millicent.

“Oh, certainly. And,” she added eagerly, “Mr Bayle is musical. I will ask him to sing.”

“Yes, do,” said Hallam, with a shade of eagerness in his voice. “He cannot refuse you.”

She did not know why, but as Millicent Luttrell heard these words, something like regret at her proposal crossed her mind, and she glanced at where Bayle was seated, listening to Mrs Trampleasure, who was talking to him loudly—so loudly that her voice reached their ears.

“I should be very glad indeed, Mr Bayle, if, when you call upon us, you would look through Edgar and Edmund’s Latin exercises. I’m quite sure that the head master at the grammar school does not pay the attention to the boys that he should.”

To wait until Mrs Trampleasure came to the end of a conversational chapter, would have been to give up the singing, so Millicent sat down to the little old-fashioned square piano, running her hands skilfully over the keys, and bringing forth harmonious sounds. But they were the aigue wiry tones of the modern zither, and Christie Bayle bent forward as if attracted by the sweet face thrown up by the candles, and turned slightly towards Hallam, dark, handsome, and self-possessed, standing with one hand resting on the instrument.

“I don’t like music!” said Mrs Trampleasure, in a very slightly subdued voice.

“Indeed!” said Bayle starting, for his thoughts were wandering, and an unpleasant, indefinable feeling was stealing over him.

“I think it a great waste of time,” continued Mrs Trampleasure. “Do you like it, Mr Bayle?”

“Well, I must confess I am very fond of it,” he replied.

“But you don’t play anything,” said the lady with quite a look of horror.

“I—I play the flute—a little,” faltered the curate.

“Well,” said Mrs Trampleasure austerely, “we learn a great many habits when we are young, Mr Bayle, that we leave off when we grow older. You are youngs Mr Bayle.”

He looked up in her face as if she had wounded him, her words went so deeply home, and he replied softly:

“Yes, I’m afraid I am very young.”

Just then the doctor came and laid his hand upon Mrs Trampleasure’s lips.

“Silence! One tablespoonful to be taken directly. Hush, softly, not a word;” and he stood over his sister—with a warning index finger held up, while in a deep, thrilling baritone voice Mr Hallam from the bank sang “Treasures of the Deep.”

A dead silence was preserved, and the sweet rich notes seemed to fill the room and float out where the dewy flowers were exhaling their odours on the soft night air. The words were poetical, the pianoforte accompaniment was skilfully played, and, though perhaps but slightly cultivated, the voice of the singer was modulated by that dramatic feeling which is given but to few, so that the expression was natural, and, without troubling the composer’s marks, the song appealed to the feelings of the listeners, though in different ways.

“Bravo! bravo!” cried Mr Trampleasure, crossing to the singer.

“He has a very fine voice,” said Dr Luttrell in a quiet, subdued way; and his handsome face wrinkled a little as he glanced towards the piano.

“Yes, yes, it’s very beautiful,” said Mrs Luttrell, fingering a bracelet round and round, “but I wish he wouldn’t, dear; I declare it always makes me feel as if I wanted to cry. Ah! here’s Sir Gordon.”

Pleasant, sweet-faced Mrs Luttrell crossed the room to welcome a new arrival in the person of a remarkably well-preserved elderly gentleman, dressed with a care that told of his personal appearance being one of the important questions of his life. There was a suspicion of the curling tongs about his hair, which was of a glossy black that was not more natural in hue than that of his carefully-arranged full whiskers. There was a little black patch, too, beneath the nether lip that matched his eyebrows, which seemed more regular and dark than those of gentlemen as a rule at his time of life. The lines in his face were not deep, but they were many, and, in short, he looked, from the curl on the top of his head, down past his high black satin stock, well-padded coat, pinched waist, and carefully strapped down trousers over his painfully small patent leather boots, like one who had taken up the challenge of Time, and meant to fight him to the death.

“Good evening, Mrs Luttrell. Ah! how do, doctor? My dear Miss Luttrell, I’ve been seeing your fingers in the dark as I waited outside.”

“Seeing my fingers, Sir Gordon?”

“Yes; an idea—a fancy of mine,” said the newcomer, bending over the hand he took with courtly old-fashioned grace. “I heard the music, and the sounds brought the producers before my eyes. Hallam, my dear sir, you have a remarkably fine voice. I’ve known men, sir, at the London Concerts, draw large incomes on worse voices than that!”

“You flatter me, Sir Gordon.”

“Not at all, sir,” said the newcomer shortly. “I never stoop to flatter any one, not even a lady. Miss Luttrell, do I?”

“You never flattered me,” said Millicent, smiling.

“Never. It is a form of insincerity I detest. My dear Mrs Luttrell, you should make your unworthy husband take that to heart.”

“Why, I never flatter,” said the doctor warmly.

“How dare you say so, sir, when you are always flattering your patients, and preaching peace when there is no peace? Ah, yes, I’ve heard of him,” he said in an undertone. “Introduce me.”

The formal introduction took place, and the last comer seated himself beside the new curate.

“I’m very glad to meet you, Mr Bayle. Glad to see you here, too, sir. Charming family this; doctor and his wife people to make friends. Eh! singing again? Hah! Miss Luttrell. Have you heard her sing?”

“No, she has not sung since I have been here.”

“Then prepare yourself for a treat, sir. I flatter myself I know what singing is. It is the singing of one of our prima donnas without the artificiality.”

“I think I heard Sir Gordon say he did not flatter,” said Bayle quietly.

“Thank you,” said the old beau, looking round sharply; “but I shall not take the rebuke. You have not heard her sing. Oh, I see,” he continued, raising his gold-rimmed eye-glass, “a duet.”

There was again silence, as after the prelude Millicent’s voice rose clear and thrilling in the opening of one of the simple old duets of the day; and as she sang with the effortless ease of one to whom song was a gift, Sir Gordon bent forward, swaying himself slightly to the music, but only to stop short and watch with gathering uneasiness in his expression, the rapt earnestness of Christie Bayle as he seemed to drink in like some intoxicating draught the notes that vibrated through the room. He drew a deep breath, and sat up rather stiffly as she ended, and Mr Hallam from the bank took up the second verse. If anything, his voice sounded richer and more full; and again the harmony was perfect when the two voices, soprano and baritone, blended, and rose and fell in impassioned strains, and then gradually died off in a soft, sweet, final chord, that the subdued notes of the piano, wiry though they were, failed to spoil.

“You are not fond of music?” said Sir Gordon, making Bayle, who had been still sitting back rather stiffly, and with his eyes closed, start, as he replied:

“Who? I? Oh, yes, I love it!” he replied hastily.

“Young! young!” said Sir Gordon to himself as he rose and crossed the room to congratulate Millicent on her performance—Hallam giving way as he approached—saying to himself: “I’m beginning to wish we had not engaged him, good a man as he is.”

“Yes, I’m very fond of that duet,” said Millicent. “Excuse me, Sir Gordon, here’s Miss Heathery.”

She crossed to the door to welcome a lady in a very tight evening dress of cream satin—tight, that is, in the body—and pinched in by a broad sash at the waist, but the sleeves were like two cream-coloured spheres, whose open mouths hung down as if trying to swallow the long crinkly gloves that the wearer kept drawing above her pointed elbows, and which then slipped down.

It is a disrespectful comparison, but it was impossible to look at Miss Heathery’s face without thinking of a white rabbit. One of Nature’s paradoxical mysteries, no doubt, for it was not very white, nor were her eyes pink, and the sausage-shaped, brown curls on either side of her forehead, backed by a great shovel-like, tortoise-shell comb, in no wise resembled ears; but still the fact remained, and even Christie Bayle, on being introduced to the elderly bashful lady, thought of the rabbit, and actually blushed.

“You are just in time to sing, Miss Heathery,” said Millicent.

Miss Heathery could not; but there was a good deal of pressing, during which the lady’s eyes rolled round pleadingly from speaker to speaker, as if saying, “Press me a little more, and I will.”

“You must sing, my dear,” said Mrs Luttrell in a whisper. “Make haste, and then Millicent’s going to ask Mr Bayle, and you must play the accompaniment.” Miss Heathery said, “Oh, really!” and Sir Gordon completed the form by offering his arm, and leading the little lady to the piano, taking from her hands her reticule, made in pale blue satin to resemble a butterfly; after that her gloves.

Then, after a good deal of arrangement of large medical folios upon a chair to make Miss Heathery the proper height, she raised her shoulders, the left becoming a support to her head as she lifted her chin and gazed into one corner of the room.

Christie Bayle was a lover of natural history, and he said to himself, “How could I be so rude as to think she looked like a white rabbit? She is exactly like a bird.”

It was only that a change that had come over the lady, who was now wonderfully bird-like, and, what was quite to the point, like a bird about to sing.

She sang.

It was a tippity-tippity little tinkling song, quite in accordance with the wiry, zither-like piano, all about “dewy twilight lingers,” and harps “touched by fairy fingers,” and appeals to some one to “meet me there, love,” and so on.

The French say we are not a polite nation. We may not be as to some little bits of outer polish, but at heart we are, and never more so than at a social gathering, when some terrible execution has taken place under the name of music. It was so here, for, moved by the feeling that the poor little woman had done her best, and would have been deeply wounded had she not been asked to sing, all warmly thanked Miss Heathery; and directly after, Christie Bayle, with his ears still burning from the effects of the performance, found himself beside the fair singer, trying to talk of King’s Castor and its surroundings.

“I would rather not ask him, mamma dear,” said Millicent at the other side of the room.

“But you had better, my dear. I know he is musical, and he might feel slighted.”

“Oh, yes, he’s a good fellow, my dear; I like him,” said the doctor bluffly. “Ask him.”

With a curious shrinking sensation that seemed somehow vaguely connected with Mr Hallam from the bank, and his eagerness earlier in the evening, Millicent crossed to where Bayle was seated, and asked him if he would sing.

“Oh, no,” he said hastily, “I have no voice!”

“But we hear that you are musical, Mr Bayle,” said Millicent in her sweet, calm way.

“Oh, yes, I am. Yes, I am a little musical.”

“Pray sing then,” she said, now that she had taken the step, forgetting the diffident feeling; “we are very simple people here, and so glad to have a fresh recruit in our narrow ranks.”

“Yes, pray sing, Mr Bayle; we should be so charmed.”

“I—er—I really—”

“Oh, but do, Mr Bayle,” said Miss Heathery again sweetly.

“I think you will oblige us, Mr Bayle,” said Millicent smiling; and as their eyes met, if the request had been to perform the act of Marcus Curtius on foot, and with a reasonable chance of finding water at the bottom to break the fall, Christie Bayle would have taken the plunge.

“Have you anything I know?” he said despairingly.

“I know,” cried Miss Heathery, with a sort of peck made in bird-like playfulness. “Mr Bayle can sing ‘They bid me forget thee.’”

“Full many a shaft at random sent, hits,” et cetera. This was a chance shot, and it struck home.

“I think—er—perhaps, I could sing that,” stammered Bayle, and then in a fit of desperation—“I’ll try.”

“I have it among my music, Millicent dear. May I play the accompaniment?”

Miss Heathery meant to look winning, but she made Bayle shiver.

“If you will be so good, Miss Heathery;” and the piece being found and spread out, Christie Bayle, perspiring far more profusely than when he was using the doctor’s spade, stood listening to the prelude, and then began to sing, wishing that the dead silence around had been broken up by a hurricane, or the loudest thunder that ever roared.

Truth to tell, it was a depressing performance of a melancholy song. Bayle’s voice was not bad, but his extreme nervousness paralysed him, and the accompaniment would have driven the best vocalist frantic.

It was a dismal failure, and when, in the midst of a pleasant little chorus of “Thank you’s” Christie Bayle left the piano, he felt as if he had disgraced himself for ever in the eyes of King’s Castor, above all in those of this sweetly calm and beautiful woman who seemed like some Muse of classic days come back to life.

Every one smiled kindly, and Mrs Luttrell came over, called him “my dear” in her motherly way, and thanked him again.

“Only want practice and confidence, sir,” said the doctor.

“Exactly,” said Sir Gordon; “practise, sir, and you’ll soon beat Hallam there.”

Bayle felt as if he would give anything to be able to retreat; and just then he caught Mrs Trampleasure’s eyes as she signalled him to come to her side.

“She told me she did not like music,” he said to himself; and he was yielding to his fate, and going to have the cup of his misery filled to the brim when he caught Hallam’s eye.

Hallam was by the chimney-piece, talking to Mr Trampleasure about bank matters; but that look seemed so full of triumphant contempt, that Bayle drew his breath as if in pain, and turned to reach the door.

“It was very kind of you to sing when I asked you, Mr Bayle,” said that sweet low voice that thrilled him; and he turned hastily, seeing again Hallam’s sneering look, or the glance that he so read.

“I cannot sing,” he replied with boyish petulance. “It was absurd to attempt it. I have only made myself ridiculous.”

“Pray do not say that,” said Millicent kindly. “You give me pain. I feel as if it is my fault, and that I have spoiled your evening.”

“I—I have had no practice,” he faltered.

“But you love music. You have a good voice. You must come and try over a few songs and duets with me.”

He looked at her half-wonderingly, and then moved by perhaps a youthful but natural desire to redeem himself, he said hastily:

“I can—play a little—the flute.”

“But you have not brought it?”

“Yes,” he said hastily. “Will you play an accompaniment? Anything, say one of Henry Bishop’s songs or duets.”

Millicent sighed, for she felt regret, but she concealed her chagrin, and said quietly, “Certainly, Mr Bayle;” and they walked together to the piano.

“Bravo!” cried Sir Gordon. “No one need be told that Mr Bayle is an Englishman.”

There was a rather uncomfortable silence as, more and more feeling pity and sympathy for their visitor, Millicent began to turn over a volume of bound up music, while, with trembling hands, Bayle drew his quaint boxwood flute with its brass keys and ivory mounts from its case.

It was a wonderfully different instrument from one of those cocoa-wood or metal flutes of the present day, every hole of which is stopped not with the fingers but with keys. This was an old-fashioned affair, in four pieces, which had to be moistened at the joints when they were stuck together, and all this business the Reverend Christie Bayle went through mechanically, for his eyes were fixed upon the music Millicent was turning over.

“Let’s try that,” he said suddenly, in a voice tremulous with eagerness, as she turned over leaf after leaf, hesitating at two or three songs—“Robin Adair,” “Ye Banks and Braes,” and another—easy melodies, such as a flute player could be expected to get through. But though she had given him plenty of time to choose either of these, he let her turn over, and went on wetting the flute joints, and screwing them up till she arrived at “I Know a Bank.”

“But it is a duet,” she said, smiling at him as an elder sister might have smiled at a brother she wished to encourage, and who had just made another mistake.

“Yes,” he said hastily; “but I can take up first one voice and then the other, and when it comes to the duet part the piano will hide the want of the second voice.”

“Or I can play it where necessary,” said Millicent, who began to brighten up. Perhaps this was not going to be such a dismal failure after all.

“To be sure,” he said: “if you will. There, I think that will do. Pray excuse me if I seem terribly nervous,” he whispered.

“Oh! don’t apologise, Mr Bayle. We are all friends here. I do not mind. I was thinking of you.”

“Thank you,” he said hastily. “You are very kind. Shall we begin?”

“Yes, I am ready,” said Millicent, glancing involuntarily at Hallam, who was still conversing with Trampleasure, his face perfectly calm, but his eyes wearing a singular look of triumph.

“One moment. Would you mind sounding D?” Millicent obeyed, and Bayle blew a tremulous note upon the flute nearly a quarter of a tone too sharp.

This necessitated a certain amount of unscrewing and lengthening which made the drops glisten upon Bayle’s forehead.

“Poor fellow!” thought Millicent, “how nervous he is! I wish he were not going to play.”

“I think that will do,” he said at last, after blowing one or two more tremulous notes. “Shall we begin?” Millicent nodded, giving him a smile of encouragement, and after whispering, “Don’t mind me, I’ll try and keep to your time,” she ran over the prelude, and shivered as the flute took up the melody and began.

It has been said that the flute, of all instruments, most resembles the human voice, and to Millicent Luttrell it seemed to wail here piteously how it knew a bank whereon the wild thyme grew. Her hands were moist from sympathy for the flautist, and she was striving to play her best with the fullest chords so as to hide his weakness, when, as he went on, it seemed to her that Bayle was forgetting the presence of listeners and growing interested in the beautiful melody he played. The notes of the flute became, moment by moment, more rich and round; they were no longer spasmodic, beginning and ending clumsily, but were breathed forth softly, with a crescendo and diminuendo where necessary, and so full of feeling that the pianiste was encouraged. She, too, forgot the listeners, and yielding to her love of her art, played on. The slow, measured strains were succeeded by the florid runs; but she never wondered whether the flautist would succeed, for they were amongst them before she knew they were so near, with the flute seeming to trip deftly over the most difficult passages without the slightest hesitation, the audience thoroughly enjoying the novel performance, till the final chord was struck, and followed by a hearty round of applause.

“Oh! Mr Bayle,” cried Millicent, looking up in his flushed face, “I am so glad.”

Her brightened eyes told him the same tale, for he had thoroughly won her sympathy as well as the praise of all present; Mr Hallam from the bank being as ready as the rest to thank him for so “delicious a rendering of that charming duet.”

The rest of that evening was strange and dreamlike to Christie Bayle. He played some more florid pieces of music by one Henry Bishop, and he took Millicent in to supper. Then, soon after, he walked home, Sir Gordon Bourne being his companion.

After that he sat for some hours thinking and wondering how it was that while some men of his years were manly and able to maintain their own, he was so boyish and easily upset.

“I’m afraid my old tutor’s right,” he said; “I want ballast.”

Perhaps that was why, when he dropped to sleep and went sailing away into the sea of dreams, his voyage was so wild and strange. Every minute some gust of passion threatened to capsize his barque, but he sailed on with his dreams growing more wild, the sky around still more strange.

It was a restless night for Christie Bayle, B.A. But the scholar of Oriel College, Oxford, was thinking as he had never thought before.

Volume One—Chapter Three.

A Little Business of the Bank.

“Would you be kind enough to cash this little cheque for me, Mr Thickens?”

The speaker was Miss Heathery, in the morning costume of a plum-coloured silk dress, with wide-spreading bonnet of the same material, ornamented with several large bows of broad satin ribbon, and an extremely dilapidated bird of paradise plume. She placed her reticule bag, also of plum-colour, but of satin—upon the broad mahogany counter of Dixons’ Bank, Market Place, King’s Castor, and tried to draw the bag open.

This, however, was not so easy. When it was open all you had to do was to pull the thick silk cord strings, and it closed up tightly, but there was no similar plan for opening a lady’s reticule in the year 1818. It was then necessary to insert the forefingers of each hand, knuckle to knuckle, force them well down, and then draw, the result being an opening, out of which you could extract pocket-handkerchief, Preston salts, or purse. Thin fingers were very useful at such a time, and Miss Heathery’s fingers were thin; but she wore gloves, and the gloves of that period, especially those sold in provincial towns, were not of the delicate second-skin nature worn by ladies now. The consequence was that hard-featured, iron-grey haired, closely-shaven Mr James Thickens, in his buff waistcoat and stiff white cravat, had to stand for some time, with a very large quill pen behind his right ear, waiting till Miss Heathery, who was growing very hot and red, exclaimed:

“That’s it!” and drew open the bag.

But even then the cheque was not immediately forthcoming, for it had to be fished for. First there was Miss Heathery’s pocket-handkerchief, delicately scented with otto of roses; then there was the pattern she was going to match at Crumple’s, the draper’s; then her large piece of orris root got in the way, and had to be shaken on one side with the knitting, and the ball of Berlin wool, when the purse was found in the far corner.

Purses, too, in those days were not of the “open sesame” kind popular now. The porte-monnaie was not born, and ladies knitted long silken hose, with a slit in the middle, placed ornamental slide-rings and tassels thereon, and even went so far sometimes as to make these old-fashioned purses of beads.

Miss Heathery’s was of netted silk, however, orange and blue, and through the reticulations could be seen at one end the metallic twinkle of coins, at the other the subdued tint and cornerish distensions of folded paper.

“I’m afraid I’m keeping you, Mr Thickens,” said the lady in a sweet, bird-like chirp, as she drew one slide, and tried to coax the folded cheque along the hose, though it refused to be coaxed, and obstinately stuck its elbows out at every opening of the net.

Mr Thickens said, “Not at all,” and passed his tongue over his dry lips, and moved his long fingers as if he were a kind of human actinia, and these were his tentacles, involuntarily trying to get at the cheque.

“That’s it!” said Miss Heathery again with a satisfied sigh, and she handed the paper across the counter.

James Thickens drew down a pair of very strongly-framed, round-eyed, silver-mounted spectacles from where they had been resting close to his brushed up “Brutus,” and unfolded and smoothed out the slip of paper, spreading it on the counter, and bending over it so much that his glasses would have fallen off but for the fact that a piece of black silk shoe-string formed a band behind.

“Two thirteen six,” said Mr Thickens, looking up at the lady.

“Yes; two pounds thirteen shillings and sixpence,” she replied, in token of assent. And while she was speaking, Mr Thickens took the big quill pen from behind his ear, and stood with his head on one side in an attitude of attention till the word “sixpence” was uttered, when the pen was darted into a great shining leaden inkstand and out again, like a peck from a heron’s bill, and without damaging the finely-cut point. A peculiar cancelling mark was made upon the cheque, which was carried to a railed-in desk. A great book was opened with a bang, and an entry made, the cheque dropped into a drawer, and then, in sharp, business-like tones, Mr Thickens asked the question he had been asking for the last twenty years.

“How will you have it?”

Miss Heathery chirped out her wishes, and Mr Thickens counted out two sovereigns twice over, rattled them into a bright copper shovel, and cleverly threw them before the customer’s hand. A half-sovereign was treated similarly, but retained with the left hand till half-a-crown and a shilling were ready, then all these coins were thrust over together, without the copper shovel, and the transaction would have been ended, only that Miss Heathery said sweetly: “Would you mind, Mr Thickens, giving me some smaller change?”

Mr Thickens bowed, and, taking back the half-crown, changed it for two shillings and sixpence, all bearing the round, bucolic countenance of King George the Third, upon which Miss Heathery beamed as she slipped the coins in the blue and orange purse.

“I hope Mr Hallam is quite well, Mr Thickens.”

“Quite well, ma’am.”

“And the gold and silver fish?”

“Quite well, ma’am,” said Mr Thickens, a little more austerely.

“I always think it so curiously droll, Mr Thickens, your keeping gold and silver fish,” simpered Miss Heathery. “It always seems as if the pretty things had something to do with the bank, and that their scales—”

“Would some day turn into sixpences and half-sovereigns, eh, ma’am?” said the bank clerk sharply. “Yes—exactly, Mr Thickens.”

“Ah, well, ma’am, it’s a very pretty idea, but that’s all. It isn’t solid.”

“Exactly, Mr Thickens. My compliments to Mr Hallam. Good-day.”

“If that woman goes on making that joke about my fish many more times, I shall kill her!” said James Thickens, giving his head a vicious rub. “An old idiot! I wish she’d keep her money at home. I believe she passes her time in writing cheques, getting ’em changed, and paying the money in again, as an excuse for something to do, and for the sake of calling here. I’m not such an ass as to think it’s to see me; and as to Hallam—well, who knows? Perhaps she means Sir Gordon. There’s no telling where a woman may hang up her heart.”

James Thickens returned to his desk after a glance down the main street, which looked as solemn and quiet as if there were no inhabitants in the place; so still was it, that no explanation was needed for the presence of a good deal of fine grass cropping up between the paving-stones. The houses looked clean and bright in the clear sunshine, which made the wonderfully twisted and floral-looking iron support of the “George” sign sparkle where the green paint was touched up with gold. The shadows were clearly cut and dark, and the flowers in the “George” window almost glittered, so bright were their colours. An elderly lady came across the market place, in a red shawl and carrying a pair of pattens in one hand, a dead-leaf tinted gingham umbrella in the other, though it had not rained for a month and the sky was without a cloud.

That red shawl seemed, as it moved, to give light and animation for a few minutes to the place; but as it disappeared round the corner by the “George,” the place was all sunshine and shadow once more. The uninhabited look came back, and James Thickens pushed up his spectacles and began to write, his pen scratching and wheezing over the thick hand-made paper till a tremendous nose-blowing and a quick step were heard, and the clerk said “Gemp.”

The next minute there was, the sharp tap of a stick on the step, continued on the floor, and the owner of that name entered with his coat tightly buttoned across his chest.

He was a keen-looking man of sixty, with rather obstinate features, and above all, an obstinate beard, which seemed as if it refused to be shaved, remaining in stiff, grey, wiry patches in corners and on prominences, as well as down in little ravines cut deeply in his face. His eyes, which were dark and sharp, twinkled and looked inquisitive, while, in addition, there was a restless wandering irregularity in their movements as if in turn each was trying to make out what its fellow was doing on the other side of that big bony nose.

“Morning, Mr Thickens, sir, morning,” in a coffee-grinding tone of voice; “I want to see the chief.”

“Mr Hallam? Yes; I’ll see if he’s at liberty, Mr Gemp.”

“Do, Mr Thickens, sir, do; but one moment,” he continued, leaning over and taking the clerk by the coat. “Don’t you think I slight you, Mr Thickens; not a bit, sir, not a bit. But when a man has a valuable deposit to make, eh?—you see?—it isn’t a matter of trusting this man or that; he sees the chief.”

Mr Gemp drew himself up, slapped the bulgy left breast of his buttoned-up coat, nodded sagely, and blew his nose with a snort like a blast on a cow-horn, using a great blue cotton handkerchief with white spots.

Mr James Thickens passed through a glass door, covered on the inner side with dark green muslin, and returned directly to usher the visitor into the presence of Robert Hallam, the business manager of Dixons’ Bank.

The room was neatly furnished, half office half parlour, and, but for a pair of crossed cutlasses over the chimney-piece, a bell-mouthed brass blunderbuss, and a pair of rusty flint-lock pistols, the place might have been the ordinary sitting-room of a man of quiet habits. There was another object though in one corner, which took from the latter aspect, this being the door of the cupboard which, instead of being ordinary painted panel, was of strong iron, a couple of inches thick.

“Morning, Mr Hallam, sir.”

“Good-morning, Mr Gemp.”

The manager rose from his seat at the baize-covered table to shake hands and point to a chair, and then, resuming his own, he crossed his legs and smiled blandly as he waited to hear his visitor’s business.

Mr Gemp’s first act was to spread his blue handkerchief over his knees, and then begin to stare about the room, after carefully hooking himself with his thick oak stick which he passed over his neck and held with both hands as if he felt himself to be rather an errant kind of sheep who needed the restraint of the crook.

“Loaded?” he said suddenly, after letting his eyes rest upon the fire-arms.

“Oh, yes, Mr Gemp, they are all loaded,” replied the manager smiling. “But I suppose I need not get them down; you are not going to make an attack?”

“Me? attack? eh? Oh, you’re joking. That’s a good one. Ha! ha! ha!”

Mr Gemp’s laugh was not pleasant on account of dental defects. It was rather boisterous too, and his neck shook itself free of the crook; but he hooked himself again, grew composed, and nodded once more in the direction of the chimney.

“Them swords sharp?”

“As razors, Mr Gemp.”

“Are they now? Well, that’s a blessing. Fire-proof, I suppose?” he added, nodding towards the safe.

“Fire-proof, burglar-proof, bank-proof, Mr Gemp,” said the manager smiling. “Dixons’ neglect nothing for the safety of their customers.”

“No, they don’t, do they?” said Mr Gemp, holding on very tightly to the stick, keeping himself down as it were and safe as well.

“No, sir, they neglect nothing.”

“I say,” said Mr Gemp, leaning forward, after a glance over his shoulder towards the bank counter, and Mr Thickens’s back, dimly seen through the muslin, “does the new parson bank here?”

The manager smiled, and looked very hard at the bulge in his visitor’s breast pocket, a look which involuntarily made the old man change the position of his hooked stick by bringing it down across his breast as if to protect the contents.

“Now, my dear Mr Gemp, you do not expect an answer to that question. Do you suppose I have ever told anybody that you have been here three times to ask me whether Dixons’ would advance you a hundred pounds at five per cent?”

“On good security, eh?” interposed the old man sharply; “only on good security.”

“Exactly, my dear sir. Why, you don’t suppose we make advances without?”

“No, of course not, eh? Not to anybody, eh, Mr Hallam?” said the old man eagerly. “You could not oblige me now with a hundred, say at seven and a half? I’m a safe man, you know. Say at seven and a half per cent, on my note of hand. You wouldn’t, would you?”

“No, Mr Gemp, nor yet at ten per cent. Dixons’ are not usurers, sir. I can let you have a hundred, sir, any time you like, upon good security, deeds or the like, but not without.”

“Ha! you are particular. Good way of doing business, sir. Hey, but I like you to be strict.”

“It is the only safe way of conducting business, Mr Gemp.”

“I say, though—oh, you are close!—close as a cash-box, Mr Hallam, sir; but what do you think of the new parson?”

“Quiet, pleasant, gentlemanly young man, Mr Gemp.”

“Yes, yes,” cried the visitor, hurting himself by using his crook quite violently, and getting it back round his neck; “but a mere boy, sir, a mere boy. He’s driven me away. I’m not going to church to hear him while there’s a chapel. I want to know what the bishop was a thinking about.”

“Ah? but he’s a scholar and a gentleman, Mr Gemp,” said the manager, blandly.

“Tchuck! so was the young doctor who set up and only lasted a year. If you were ill, sir, you wouldn’t have gone to he; you’d have gone to Dr Luttrell. If I’ve got vallerable deeds to deposit, I don’t go to some young clever-shakes who sets up in business, and calls himself a banker: I come to Dixons’.”

“And so you have some valuable deeds you want us to take care of for you, Mr Gemp,” said the manager sharply.

“Eh! I didn’t say so, did I?”

“Yes; and you want a hundred pounds. Shall I look at the deeds?”

Mr Gemp brought his oaken crook down over his breast, and his quick, shifty eyes turned from the manager to the lethal weapons over the chimney, then to the safe, then to the bank, and Mr Thickens’s back.

“I say,” he said at last, “arn’t you scared about being robbed?”

“Robbed! oh, dear no. Come, Mr Gemp. I must bring you to the point. Let me look at the deeds you have in your pocket; perhaps there will be no need to send them to our solicitor. A hundred pounds, didn’t you say?”

The old man hesitated, and looked about suspiciously for a few moments before meeting the manager’s eyes. Then he succumbed before the firm, keen, searching look.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “I said a hundred pounds, but I don’t want no hundred pounds. I want you—”

He paused for a few moments with his hands at his breast, as if to take a long breath, and then, as if by a tremendous wrench, he mastered his fear and suspicion.

“I want you to take care of these for me.”

He tore open his breast and brought out quickly a couple of dirty yellow parchments and some slips of paper, roughly bound in a little leather folio.

The manager stretched his hand across the table and took hold of the parchments; but the old man held on by one corner for a few moments till Hallam raised his eyebrows and smiled, when the visitor uttered a deep sigh, and thrust parchments and little folio hastily from him.

“Lock ’em up in yonder iron safe,” he said hoarsely, taking up his blue handkerchief to wipe his brow. “It’s open now, but you’ll keep it locked, won’t you?”

“The deeds will be safe, Mr Gemp,” said the manager coolly throwing open the parchment. “Ah! I see, the conveyances to a row of certain messuages.”

“Yes, sir; row of houses, Gemp’s Terrace, all my own, sir; not a penny on ’em.”

“And these? Ah, I see, bank-warrants. Quite right, my dear sir, they will be safe. And you do not need an advance?”

“Tchuck! what should I want with an advance? There’s a good fifteen hundred pound there—all my own. Now you give me a writing, saying you’ve got ’em to hold for me, and that will do.”

The manager smiled as he wrote out the document, while Mr Gemp, who seemed as much relieved as if he had been eased of an aching tooth, rose to make a closer inspection of the loaded pistols and the bell-mouthed brass blunderbuss, all of which he tapped gently in turn with the hook of his stick.

“There you are, Mr Gemp,” said the manager smiling. “Now you can go home and feel at rest, for your deeds and warrants will be secure.”

“Yes, sir, to be sure; that’s the way,” said the old man, hastily reading the memorandum, and then placing it in a very old leather pocket-book; “but if you wouldn’t mind, sir, Mr Hallam, sir, I should like to see you lock them all in yonder.”

“Well, then, you shall,” said the manager good-humouredly and taking up the packets he tied them together with some green ferret, swung open the heavy door, which creaked upon its pivots, stepped inside, turned a key with a rattle, and opened a large iron chest, into which he threw the deeds, shut the lid with a clang, locked it ostentatiously, took out the key, backed out, and then closed and locked the great door of the safe.

“There, Mr Gemp; I think you’ll find they are secure now.”

“Safe! safe as the bank!” said the old man with an admiring smile as, with a sigh of relief, he picked up his old rough beaver hat from the floor, stuck it on rather sidewise, and with a short “good-morning,” stamped out, tapping the floor as he went.

“Good-morning, Mr Thickens, sir,” he said, pausing at the outer door to look back over his shoulder at the clerk. “I’ve done my bit o’ business with the manager. It’s all right.”

“Good-morning, Mr Gemp,” said Thickens quietly; and then to himself, as the tap of the stick was heard going down the street, “An important old idiot!”

Several little pieces of business were transacted, and then, according to routine, the manager came behind the counter to relieve his lieutenant, who put on his hat and went to his dinner.

During his absence the manager took his place at his subordinate’s desk, and was very busy making a few calculations, after divers references to a copy of yesterday’s Times, which came regularly by coach.

These calculations made him thoughtful, and he was in the middle of one when his face changed, and turned of a strange waxen hue, but he recovered himself directly.

“Might have expected it,” he said softly; and he went on writing as some one entered the bank.

The visitor was a thin, dejected-looking youth of about two-and-twenty, shabbily dressed in clothes that did not fit him. His face was of a sickly pallor, as if he had just risen from an invalid couch, an idea strengthened by the extremely shortly-cut hair, whose deficiency was made the more manifest by his wearing a hat a full size too large. This was drawn down closely over his forehead, his pressed-out ears acting as brackets to keep it from going lower still.

He was a tamed-down, feeble-looking being, but the spirit was not all gone, for as he came down the street, with the genial friendliness of all dogs towards one who seems to be a stranger and down in the world, Miss Heathery’s fat, ill-conditioned terrier, that she pampered under the belief that it was a dog of good breed, being in an evil temper consequent upon not having been taken for a walk by its mistress, rushed out baying, barking, and snapping at the stranger’s heels.

“Get out, will you?” he shouted; but the dog barked the more, and the stranger looked as if about to run. In fact he did run a few yards, but, as the dog followed, he caught up a flower-pot from a handy window-sill—every one had flower-pots at King’s Castor—and hurled it at the dog.

There was a yell, a crash, and explosion as if of a shell; Miss Heathery’s dog fled, and, without waiting to encounter the owner of the flower-pot, the stranger hurried round the corner, and after an inquiry or two, made for the bank.

“Vicious little beast! Wish I’d killed it,” he grumbled, giving the hat a hoist behind which necessitated another in front, and then the equilibrium adjusting at the sides. “Wonder people keep dogs,” he continued. “A nuisance. Wish I was a dog—somebody’s dog, and well fed. Lead a regular dog’s life, and get none of the bones. Perhaps I shall, though, now.”

The young man looked anything but a bank customer, but he did not hesitate. Merely stopping to give his coat a drag down, and then, tilting his hat slightly, he entered with a swagger, and walked up to the broad counter. Upon this he rested a gloveless hand, an act which seemed to give a little more steadiness to his weak frame.

“Rob,” he said.

The manager raised his head with an affected start.

“Oh, you don’t know me, eh?” said the visitor. “Well, I s’pose I am a bit changed.”

“Know you? You wish to see me?” said Hallam coolly.

“Yes, Mr Robert Hallam; I’ve come down from London on purpose. I couldn’t come before,” he added meaningly, “but now I want to have a talk with you.”

“Stephen Crellock! Why, you are changed.”

“Yes, as aforesaid.”

“Well, sir. What is it you want with me?” said the manager coldly.

“What do I want with you, eh? Oh, come, that’s rich! You’re a lucky one, you are. I go to prison, and you get made manager down here. Ah! you see I know all about it.”

“I do not understand you, sir.”

“Then I’ll tell you, my fine fellow. Some men never get found out, some do; that’s the difference between us two. I’ve gone to the wall—inside it,” he added, with a sickly grin. “You’ve got to be quite the gentleman. But they’ll find you out some day.”

“Well, sir, what is this to lead up to?” said Hallam.

“Oh, I say though, Rob Hallam, this is too rich. Manager here, and going, they say, to marry the prettiest girl in the place.” Hallam started in spite of his self-command. “And I suppose I shall be asked to the wedding, shan’t I?”

“Will you be so good as to explain what is the object of this visit?” said Hallam coldly.

“Why, can’t you see? I’ve come to the bank because I want some money. There, you need not look like that, my lad. It’s my turn now, and you’ve got to put things a bit straight for me after what I suffered sooner than speak.”

“Do you mean you have come here to insult me and make me send for a constable?” cried Hallam.

“Yes, if you like,” said the young man, leaning forward, and gazing full in the manager’s face; “send for one if you like. But you don’t like, Robert Hallam. There, I’m a man of few words. I’ve suffered a deal just through being true to my mate, and now you’ve got to make it up to me.”

“You scoun—”

“Sh! That’ll do. Just please yourself, my fine fellow; only, if you don’t play fair towards the man who let things go against him without a word, I shall just go round the town and say—”

“Silence, you scoundrel!” cried Hallam fiercely; and he caught his unpleasant visitor by the arm.

Just then James Thickens entered, as quietly as a shadow, taking everything in at a glance, but without evincing any surprise.

“Think yourself lucky, sir,” continued Hallam aloud, “that I do not have you locked up. Mr Thickens, see this man off the premises.”

Then, in a whisper that his visitor alone could hear, and with a meaning look:

“Be quiet and go. Come to my rooms to-night.”

Volume One—Chapter Four.

Drawing a Dog’s Teeth.

“I think that’s all, Mr Hallam, sir,” said Mrs Pinet, looking plump, smiling, and contented, as she ran her eyes over the tea-table in the bank manager’s comfortably-furnished room—“tea-pot, cream, salt, pepper, butter, bread,”—she ran on below her breath in rapid enumeration, “why, bless my heart, I didn’t bring the sauce!”

“Yes, that’s all, Mrs Pinet,” said the manager in his gravely-polite manner.

“But, begging your pardon, it is not, sir; I forgot the sauce.”

“Oh! never mind that to-night.”

“If you’ll excuse me, sir, I would rather,” said plump, pleasant-faced Mrs Pinet, who supplemented a small income by letting apartments; and before she could be checked she hurried out, to return at the end of a few minutes, bearing a small round bottle.

“And King of Oude,” said the little woman. “Shall I take the cover, sir?”

“If you please, Mrs Pinet?”

“Which it’s a pleasure to wait upon such a thorough gentleman,” said Mrs Pinet to herself as she trotted back to her own region, leaving Hallam gazing down at the homely, pleasant meal.

He threw himself into a chair, poured out a cup of the tea, cooled it by the addition of some water from a bottle on a stand, and drank it hastily. Then, sitting back, he seemed to be thinking deeply, and finally drew up to the table, but turned from the food in disgust.

“Pah!” he ejaculated; but returned to his chair, pulled the loaf in half, and then cut off two thick slices, hacked the meat from the bones of two hot steaming chops and took a pat of the butter to lay upon one of the slices of bread. This done, his eye wandered round the room for a moment or two, and he rose and hastily caught up a newspaper, rolled the bread and meat therein, and placed the packet on a shelf before pouring out a portion of the tea through the window and then giving the slop-basin and cup the appearance of having been used. This done, he sat back in his chair to think, and remained so for quite half-an-hour, when Mrs Pinet came with an announcement for which he was quite prepared.

“A strange man, sir,” said the landlady, looking troubled and smoothing down her apron, “a strange young man, sir. I’m afraid, sir—”

“Afraid, Mrs Pinet?”

“I mean, sir, I’m afraid he’s a tramp, sir; but he said you told him to come.”

“I’m afraid, too, that he is a tramp, Mrs Pinet, poor fellow! But it’s quite right, I did tell him to come. You can show him in.”

“In—in here, sir?”

“Yes, Mrs Pinet. He has been unfortunate, poor fellow! and has come to ask for help.”

Mrs Pinet sighed, mentally declared that Mr Hallam was a true gentleman, and introduced shabby, broken-down and dejected Stephen Crellock.

Hallam did not move nor raise his eyes, while the visitor gave a quick, furtive look round at all in the room, and Mrs Pinet’s departing footsteps sounded quite loud. Then a door was heard to close, and Hallam turned fiercely upon his visitor.

“Now, you scoundrel—you miserable gaol-bird, what do you mean by coming to me?”

“Mean by coming? I mean you to do things right. If you’d had your dues you’d have been where I was; only you played monkey and made me cat.”

“What?”

“And I had my paws burned while you got the chestnuts.”

“You scoundrel!” cried Hallam, rushing to the fireplace and ringing sharply, “I’ll have the constable and put a stop to this.”

“No, no, no, don’t, don’t, Rob. I’ll do anything you like; I won’t say anything,” gasped the visitor piteously, “only: don’t send for the constable.”

“Indeed but I will,” cried Hallam fiercely, as he walked to the door: but his visitor made quite a leap, fell at his feet, and clung to his legs.

“No, no, don’t, don’t,” he cried hoarsely, and Hallam shook him off, opened the door, and called out:

“Never mind, now; I’ll ring in a few minutes.”

He closed the door and stood scowling at his visitor.

“I did not think you’d be so hard on a poor fellow when he was down, Hallam,” he whimpered, “I didn’t, ’pon my honour.”

“Your honour, you dog, you gaol-bird,” cried Hallam in a low, angry voice. “How dare you come down and insult me!”

“I—thought you’d help me, that you’d lend your old friend a hand now you’re so well off, while I am in a state like this.”

“And did you come in the right way, you dog, bullying and threatening me, thinking to frighten me, just as if you could find a soul to take any notice of a word such a blackguard as you would say? But there, I’ve no time to waste; I’ve done wrong in bringing you here. Go and tell everybody in the town what you please, how I was in the same bank with you in London and you were given into custody for embezzlement, and at your trial received for sentence two years’ imprisonment.”

“Yes, when if I had been a coward and spoken out—”

Hallam made a move towards him, when the poor, weak, broken-down wretch cowered lower.

“Don’t, Rob; don’t, old man,” he cried piteously. “I’ll never say a word. I’ll never open my lips. You know I wouldn’t be such a coward, bad as I am. But you will help a fellow, won’t you?”

“Help you? What, have you come to me for blackmail? Why should I help you?”

“Because we were old friends, Hallam. Because I always looked up to you, and did what you told me; and you don’t know what it has been, Rob, you don’t indeed! I used to be a strong fellow, but this two years have brought me down till I’m as thin and weak as you see me. I’m like a great girl; least thing makes me cry and sob, so that I feel ashamed of myself!”

“Ashamed? You?” cried Hallam scornfully.

“Yes, I do, ’pon my word, Rob. But you will help me, won’t you?”

“No. Go to the constable’s place, and they’ll give you an order for the workhouse. Be off, and if you ever dare to come asking for me again, I’ll send for the officer at once.”

“But—but you will give me a shilling or two, Hallam,” said the miserable wretch. “I’m half-starved.”

“You deserve to be quite starved! Now go.”

“But, Hallam, won’t you believe me, old fellow? I want to be honest now—to do the right thing.”

“Go and do it, then,” said Hallam contemptuously. “Be off.”

“But give me a chance, old fellow; just one.”

“I tell you I’ll do nothing for you,” cried Hallam fiercely. “On the strength of your having been once respectable, if you had come to me humbly I’d have helped you, but you came down here to try and frighten me with your noise and bullying. You thought that if you came to the bank you would be able to dictate all your own terms; but you have failed, Stephen Crellock: so now go.”

“But, Rob, old fellow, I was so—so hard up. You don’t know.”

“Are you going before I send for the constable?”

“Yes, yes, I’m going,” said the miserable wretch, gathering himself up. “I’m sorry I came to you, Hallam. I thought you would have helped a poor wretch, down as I am.”

“And you found out your mistake. A man in my position does not know a gaol-bird.”

There was a flash from the sunken eyes, and a quick gesture, but the flash died out, and the gesture seemed to be cut in half. Two years’ hard labour in one of His Majesty’s gaols had pretty well broken the weak fellow’s spirit. He stepped to the door, glanced round the comfortable room, uttered a low moan, and was half out, when Hallam uttered sharply the one word “Stop!”

His visitor paused, and looked eagerly round upon him.

“Look here, Stephen Crellock,” he said, “I don’t like to see a man like you go to the dogs without giving him a chance. There, come back and close the door!”

The poor wretch came back hurriedly, and made a snatch at Hallam’s hand, which was withdrawn.

“No, no, wait till you’ve proved yourself an honest man,” he said.

Crellock’s eyes flashed again, but, as before, the flash died out at once, and he stood humbly before his old fellow clerk.

Hallam remained silent for a few moments, and then as if he had made up his mind, he said: “I ought to hand you over to the constable, that is, if I did my duty as manager of Dixons’ Bank, and a good member of society; but I can’t forget that you were once a smart, gentlemanly-looking young fellow, who slipped and fell.”

Crellock stood bent and humbled, staring at him in silence.

“I’m going to let heart get the better of discipline,” continued Hallam, “and to-night I’m going to give you five guineas to get back to London and make a fresh start; and till that fresh start is made, and you can do without it, I’m going to give you a pound a week, if asked for by letter humbly, and in a proper spirit.”

“Rob!”

“There, there; no words. I don’t want thanks. I know I’m doing wrong, and I hope my weakness will not prove my punishment.”

“It shan’t, Rob; it shan’t,” faltered the poor shivering wretch, who had hard work to keep back his tears.

“There are four guineas, there’s a half, and there are ten shillings in silver. Now go to some decent inn—here is some food for present use—get a bed, and to-morrow morning catch the coach, and get back to London to seek work.”

Hallam handed him the parcel he had made.

“I will, Rob; I will, Mr Hallam, sir, and may—”

“There, that will do,” said Hallam, interrupting him. “Prove all your gratitude by making yourself independent as soon as you can. There, you see you have not frightened me into bribing you to be silent.”

“No, no, sir. Oh, no, I see that!” said the poor wretch dolefully. “I’m very grateful, I am, indeed, and I will try.”

“Go, then, and try,” said Hallam shortly. “Stop a moment.”

He rang his bell, and Mrs Pinet entered promptly, glancing curiously at the visitor, and then back at her lodger, who paused to give her ample time to take in the scene.

“Mrs Pinet,” he said at last, and in the coolest and most matter-of-fact way, “this poor fellow wants a lodging for the night at some respectable place, where they will not be hard upon his pocket.”

“Well, sir, then he couldn’t do better than go to Mrs Deene’s, sir. A very respectable woman, whose husband—”

“Yes, to be sure, Mrs Pinet,” said Hallam abruptly; “then you’ll show him where it is. Good-night, Stephen; don’t waste your money, and I hope you will succeed.”

“Good-night, sir, good-night,” and the dejected-looking object, thoroughly cowed by the treatment he had received, followed Hallam’s landlady to the outer door, where a short colloquy could be heard, and then there was a shuffling step passing the window, and the door closed.

“I always expected it,” said Hallam to himself, as he stood gazing straight before him; “but I’ve drawn his teeth; he won’t bite—he dare not. I think I can manage Master Stephen—I always could.” He stood thinking for a few minutes, and then said softly: “Well, what are ten or twenty pounds, or forty, if it comes to that! Yes,” he added deliberately, “I have done quite rightly, I am sure.”

Undoubtedly, as far as his worldly wisdom lay, for it did not take long for the news to run round the town that a very shabby-looking fellow had been to the bank, evidently with burglarious intentions, but that the new manager had seized and held him, while James Thickens placed the big brass blunderbuss to his head, and then turned it round and knocked him down. This was Mr Gemp’s version; but it was rather spoiled by Mrs Pinet when she was questioned, and told her story of Mr Hallam’s generous behaviour to this poor young man:

“One whom he had known in better days, my dear; and now he has quite set him up.”

Volume One—Chapter Five.

A Little Bit of News.

Time glided very rapidly by at King’s Castor, for there were few things to check his progress. People came to the market and did their business, and went away. Most of them had something to do at Dixons’ Bank, for it was the pivot upon which the affairs of King’s Castor and the neighbourhood turned. It was the centre from which radiated the commerce of the place. Pivot or axle, there it was, with a patent box full of the oil that makes matters run easily, and so trade and finance round King’s Castor seemed like some large wheel, that turned gently and easily on.

Dixons’ had a great deal to do with everybody, but Dixons’ was safe, and Dixons’ was sure. On every side you heard how that Dixons’ had taken this or that man by the hand, with the best of results. Stammers borrowed money at five per cent, when he put out that new front. Morris bought his house with Dixons’ money, and they held the deeds, so that Morris was a man of importance—one of the privileged who paid no rent. He paid interest on so many hundred pounds to Dixons’ half-yearly, but that was interest, not rent.

Old Thomas Dixon seldom came to the bank now, though he was supposed to hold the reins of government, which he declined to hand over to his junior partners, Sir Gordon Bourne and Mr Andrew Trampleasure. It was his wish that a practised manager should be engaged from London, and hence the arrival of Mr Robert Hallam, who wore a much talked-of watch, that was by accident shown to Gemp, who learned what a repeater was, and read on the inside how that it was a testimonial from Barrow, Fladgate, and Range for faithful services performed.

Barrow, Fladgate, and Range were the Lombard Street bankers, who acted as Dixons’ agents; and the news of that watch spread, and its possession was as a talisman to Robert Hallam.

Sir Gordon did not exactly take offence, for he rarely took offence at anything; but he felt slighted about the engagement of Hallam, and visited the place very little, handing over his duties to Trampleasure, who dwelt at the bank, had his private room, did all the talking to the farmers who came in, and did nothing more; but everything went smoothly and well. The new manager was the pattern of gentlemanly consideration—even to defaulters; and the main thing discussed after two years’ residence in King’s Castor was, whom would he marry?

There were plenty of wealthy farmers’ daughters in the neighbourhood; several of the tradespeople were rich in money and had marriageable girls; but to all and several Mr Hallam of the bank displayed the same politeness, and at the end of two years there was quite a feeling of satisfaction among the younger ladies of King’s Castor at the general impression, and that was, that the much-talked-of settler in their midst was not a marrying man.

The reason is simple—he could only have married one, and not all. Many were vain enough to think that the good fortune would have come to them. But now, so to speak, Mr Hallam of the bank had grown rather stale, and the interest was centred upon the new curate.

The gossips were not long in settling his fate.

“I know,” said Gemp to a great many people; “gardening, eh? He! he! he! hi! hi! hi! You wouldn’t have thought it in a parson? But, there, he’s very young!”

“Yes, he is very young, Mr Gemp,” said Mrs Pinet one morning to that worthy, who quite occupied the ground that would have been covered by a local journal. For, having retired years back from business, he had—not being a reading man—nothing whatever to do but stand at his door and see what went on. “Yes, he is very young, Mr Gemp,” said Mrs Pinet. “But poor young man, I suppose he can’t help it.”

“Help it, no! Just the age, too, when a fellow’s always thinking about love. We know better at our time of life, eh?”

Mrs Pinet, who was one of those plump and rosy ladies with nice elastic flesh, which springs up again wherever time has made a crease, so that it does not show, bridled a little, and became very much interested in her row of geraniums in the parlour window, every one of which had lately been made more ornamental by a coat of red lead over its pot. For Mrs Pinet did not yet know better. She had known better five years before, when Gemp had asked her to wed; but at the time present she was wondering whether, if Mr Thickens at the bank, where her little store of money lay, should fail, after all, to make her an offer, it was possible that Mr Robert Hallam might think it very nice to have some one to go on always taking so much care of his linen as she did, and seeing that his breakfast bacon was always nicely broiled, his coffee clear, and his dinners exactly as he liked to have them. Certainly he was a good deal younger than she was; but she did not see why the wife should not be the elder sometimes, as well as the husband.

Hence it was that Gemp’s words jarred.

“Seems rum, don’t it?” continued Gemp. “I went by the other day, and there he was with his coat off, helping Luttrell, wheeling barrows, and I’ve seen him weeding before now.”

“Well, I’m sure it’s very kind of him,” said Mrs Pinet quickly. She could not speak tartly; her physique and constitution forbade.

“Oh, yes, it’s very kind of him indeed; but he’d better be attending to his work.”

“I’m sure he works very hard in the place.”

“Oh, yes. Of course he does; but, don’t you see?”

“See? No! See what?”

“He—he—he! And you women pretend to be so sharp about these things. What does he go there gardening for?”

“Why, goodness gracious me, Mr Gemp, you don’t think—”

“Think? Why, I’m sure of it. I see a deal of what’s going on, Mrs Pinet. I never look for it, but it comes. Why, he’s always there. He helps Luttrell when he’s at home; and old mother Luttrell talks to him about her jam. That’s his artfulness; he isn’t too young for that. Gets the old girl on his side.”

“But do you really think—Why, she’s never had a sweetheart yet.”

“That we know of, Mrs P.,” said Gemp, with a meaning look.

“She never has had,” said Mrs Pinet emphatically, “or we should have known. Well, she’s very handsome, and very nice, and I hope they’ll be very happy. But do you really think it’s true?”

“True? Why, he’s always there of an evening, tootling on the flute and singing.”

“Oh, but that’s nothing; Mr Hallam goes there too, and has some music.”

“Ay, but Hallam don’t go out with her picking flowers, and botalising. I’ve often seen ’em come home together with arms full o’ rubbish; and one day, what do you think?”

“Really, Mr Gemp!”

“I dropped upon ’em down in a ditch, and when they saw me coming, they pretended that they were finding little snail-shells.”

“Snail-shells?”

“Yes, ma’am, and he pulls out a little magnifying-glass for her to look through. It may be a religious way of courting, but I say it’s disgusting.”

“Really, Mr Gemp!” said Mrs Pinet, bridling.

“Ay, it is, ma’am. I like things open and above board—a young man giving a young woman his arm, and taking her out for a walk reg’lar, and not going out in the lanes, and keeping about a yard apart.”

“But do they, Mr Gemp?”

“Yes, just to make people think there’s nothing going on. But there, ma’am, I must be off. You mustn’t keep me. I can’t stop talking here.”

“Well, really, Mr Gemp!” said his hearer, bridling again, and resenting the idea that she had detained him.

“Yes, I must go indeed. I say, though, seen any more of that chap?”

“Chap?—what chap, Mr Gemp?”

“Come now, you know what I mean. That shack: that ragged, shabby fellow—him as come to see Mr Hallam the other day?”

“Oh, the poor fellow that Mr Hallam helped?”

“To be sure—him. Been here again?” said Gemp, making a rasping noise with a rough finger on his beard.

“No, Mr Gemp.”

“No! Well, I suppose not. I haven’t seen him myself. Mornin’; can’t stop talking here.”

Mr Gemp concluded his gossips invariably in this mode, as if he resented being kept from business, which consisted in going to tell his tale again.

Mrs Pinet was left to pick a few withering leaves from her geraniums, a floricultural act which she performed rather mechanically, for her mind was a good deal occupied by Gemp’s disclosure.

“They’d make a very nice pair, that they would,” she said thoughtfully; “and how would it be managed, I wonder? He couldn’t marry himself, of course, and—oh, Mr Thickens, how you did make me jump!”

“Jump! Didn’t see you jump, Mrs Pinet,” said the clerk, smiling sadly, as if he thought Mrs Pinet’s banking account was lower than it should be.

“Well, bless the man, you know what I mean. Stealing up so quietly, like a robber or thief in the night.”

“Oh! Not come to steal, but to beg.”

“Beg, Mr Thickens? What, a subscription for something?”

“No. I was coming by. Mr Hallam wants the book on his shelf, ‘Brown’s Investor.’”

“Oh, I see. Come in, Mr Thickens!” she exclaimed warmly. “I’ll get the book.”

“Won’t come in, thank you.”

“Now do, Mr Thickens, and have a glass of wine and a bit of cake.”

The quiet, dry-looking clerk shook his head and smiled.

“Plenty of gossips in the town, Mrs Pinet, without my joining the ranks.”

“Now that’s unkind, Mr Thickens. I only wanted to ask you if you thought it true that Mr Bayle is going to marry Miss Millicent Luttrell; Mr Gemp says he is.”

“Divide what Gemp says by five, subtract half, and the remainder may be correct, ma’am.”

“Then it isn’t true?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“Oh, what a tiresome, close old bank-safe of a man you are, Mr Thickens! Just like your cupboard in the bank.”

“Where I want to be, Mrs Pinet, if you will get me the book.”

“Oh, well, come inside, and I’ll get it for you directly. But it isn’t neighbourly when I wanted to ask you about fifty pounds I wish to put away.”

He followed her quickly into the parlour occupied by the manager, and then glanced sharply round.

“Have you consulted him—Mr Hallam?” he said sharply.

“No, of course not. I have always taken your advice so far, Mr Thickens. I don’t talk about my bit of money to all my friends.”

“Quite right,” he said—“quite right. Fifty pounds, did you say?”

“Yes; and I’d better bring it to Dixons’, hadn’t I?” James Thickens began to work at his smoothly-shaven face, pinching his cheeks with his long white fingers and thumb, and drawing them down to his chin, as if he wished to pare that off to a point—an unnecessary procedure, as it was already very sharp.

“I can’t do better, can I?”

The bank clerk looked sharply round the room again, his eyes lighting on the desk, books, and various ornaments, with which the manager had surrounded himself.

“I don’t know,” he said at last.

“But I don’t like keeping the money in the house, Mr Thickens. I always wake up about three, and fancy that thieves are breaking in.”

“Give it to me, then, and I’ll put it safely for you somewhere.”

“In the bank, Mr Thickens?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “Give me the book. Thank you. I’ll talk to you about the money another time;” and, placing the volume under his arm, he glanced once more sharply round the room, and then went off very thoughtful and strange of aspect—veritably looking, as Mrs Pinet said, as close as the safe up at Dixons’ Bank.

Volume One—Chapter Six.

Sir Gordon is Troubled with Doubts.

First love is like furze; it is very beautiful and golden, but about and under that rich yellow there are thorns many and sharp. It catches fire, too, quickly, and burns up with a tremendous deal of crackling, and the heat is great but not always lasting.

Christie Bayle did not take this simile to heart, but a looker-on might have done so, especially such a looker-on as Robert Hallam, who visited at the doctor’s just as of old—before the arrival of the new curate, whose many calls did not seem to trouble him in the least.

All the same, though, he was man of the world enough to see the bent of Christie Bayle’s thoughts, and how quickly and strongly his love had caught and burned. For treating Gemp’s statements as James Thickens suggested, and dividing them by five, the half-quotient was quite sufficiently heavy to show that if the curate did not marry Millicent Luttrell, it would be no fault of his.

He was, as his critics said, very young. Twenty-four numbered his years, and his educational capabilities were on a par therewith; but in matters worldly and of the heart twenty would better have represented his age.

He had come down here fresh from his studious life, to find the place full of difficulties, till that evening when he found in Millicent a coadjutor, and one who seemed to take delight in helping and advising him. Then the old Midland town had suddenly become to him a paradise, and a strange eagerness seemed to pervade him.

How was he to attack such and such an evil in one of the low quarters?

He would call in at the doctor’s, and mention the matter to Miss Luttrell.

It was to find her enthusiastic, but at the same time full of shrewd common-sense, and clever suggestions which he followed out, and the way became smooth.

His means were good, for just before leaving college the death of an aunt had placed him in possession of a competency; hence he wished to be charitable, and Millicent advised him as to the best channels into which he could direct his molten gold.

Then there were the Sundays when, after getting easily and well through the service, he ascended the pulpit to commence his carefully elaborated sermon, the first sentences of which were hard, faltering, and dry, till his eyes fell upon one sweet, grave face in the middle of the aisle, watching him intently, and its effect was strange. For as their eyes met, Christie Bayle’s spirit seemed to awaken: he ceased to read the sermon. Words, sentences, and whole paragraphs were crowding in his brain eager to be spoken, and as they were spoken it was with a fire and eloquence that deeply stirred his hearers; while when, perhaps, at the very last, his eyes fell once more upon Millicent’s calm, sweet face, he would see that it was slightly flushed and her eyes were suffused.

He did not know it; but her influence stirred him in everything he did, and when he called, there was no mistaking the bright, eager look of pleasure, the friendly warmth, and the words that were almost reproachful if he had allowed three or four days to pass.

Work? No man could have worked harder or with a greater display of zeal. She would be pleased, he felt, to see how he had made changes in several matters that were foul with neglect. And it was no outer whitewashing of that which was unclean within. Christie Bayle was very young, and he had suddenly grown enthusiastic; so that when he commenced some work he never paused until it was either well in train or was done.

“You’re just the man we wanted here,” said Doctor Luttrell. “Why, Bayle, you have wakened me up. I tried all sorts of reformations years ago, but I had not your enthusiasm, and I soon wearied and jogged on in the old way. I shall have to begin now, old as I am, and see what I can do.”

“But it is shameful, papa, what opposition Mr Bayle meets with in the town,” cried Millicent warmly.

“Yes, my dear, it is. There’s a great deal of opposition to everything that is for people’s good.”

Millicent was willing enough to help, for there was something delightfully fresh and pleasant in her association with Christie Bayle.

“He’s working too hard, my dear,” the doctor said. “He wants change. He’s a good fellow. You and your mother must coax him here more, and get him out.” Bayle wanted no coaxing, for he came willingly enough to work hard with the doctor in the garden; to inspect Mrs Luttrell’s jams, and see how she soaked the paper in brandy before she tied them down; to go for walks with Millicent, or, on wet days, read German with her, or practise some instrumental or vocal duet.

How pleasantly, how happily those days glided by! Mr Hallam from the bank came just as often as of old, and once or twice seemed disposed to speak slightingly of the curate, but he saw so grave and appealing a look in Millicent’s eyes that he hastened, in his quiet, gentlemanly way, to efface the slight.

Sir Gordon Bourne, as was his custom, when not at the Hall or away with his yacht, came frequently to the doctor’s evenings, heavy with the smartest of sayings and the newest of stories from town. Gravely civil to the bank manager, a little distant to the new curate, and then, by degrees, as the months rolled by, talking to him, inviting him to dinner, placing his purse at his disposal for deserving cases of poverty, and at last becoming his fast friend.

“An uncommonly good fellow, doctor, uncommonly. Very young—yes, very young. Egad, Sir, I envy him sometimes, that I do.”

“I’m glad you like him, Sir Gordon,” cried Millicent, one day.