A week passed, and the public had almost forgotten the incidents of the trial, when the following paragraph appeared in a weekly journal:

"I have heard that the man who was sentenced to three years' penal servitude for robbery at the scene of the Hendon accident was seized with an attack of brain fever immediately upon his arrival at Millbank. The facts that transpire within that place of retirement are whispered with as much reserve as guards the secrets of another kind of confessional, but I do hear that since the admission of the man who was known on his trial as Paul Drayton, and who is now indicated by a numerical cognomen, certain facts have come to light which favor the defense he set up of mistaken identity."



CHAPTER XXII.

The chapter room of St. Margaret's Convent was a chill, bare chamber containing an oak table and four or five plain oak chairs. On the painted walls, which were of dun gray, there was an etching by a Florentine master of the flight into Egypt, and a symbolic print of the Sacred Heart. Besides these pictures there was but a single text to relieve the blindness of the empty walls, and it ran: "Where the tree falls, there it must lie."

Four days after Greta's departure from the house wherein she had been received as a temporary boarder, the superior sat in the chapter room, and a sister knelt at her feet. The sister's habit was gray and her linen cape was plain. She wore no scapular, and no hood above the close cap that hid her hair and crossed her forehead. She was, therefore, a lay sister; she was Sister Grace.

"Mother, hear my sin," she said in a trembling whisper.

"Speak on, daughter."

"We were both at Athlone in the year of the great famine. He was an officer in a regiment quartered there. I was a novice of the choir in the Order of Charity. We met in scenes sanctified by religion. Oh, mother, the famine was sore, and he was kind to the famished people! 'The hunger is on us,' they would cry, as if it had been a plague of locusts. It was thus, with their shrill voices and wan faces, that the ragged multitudes followed us. Yes, mother, he was very, very kind to the people."

"Well?"

The penitent bowed her head yet lower. "My mother, I renounced the vows, and—we were married."

The lips of the superior moved in silent prayer.

"What was his name, my daughter?"

"Robert Lowther. We came from Ireland to London. A child was born, and we called him Paul. Then my husband's love grew chill and died. I grieved over him. Perhaps I was but a moody companion. At last he told me—"

The voice faltered; the whole body quivered.

"Well, my child?"

"Oh, mother, he told me I was not his wife; that I was a Catholic, but that he was a Protestant; that a Catholic priest had married us in Ireland without question or inquiry. That was not a valid marriage by English law."

"Shame on the English law! But what do we know of the law at the foot of the Cross? Well?"

"He left me. Mother, I flung God's good gift away. I tried to drown myself, and my little child with me; but they prevented me. I was placed in an asylum for the insane, and my baby—my Paul—was given into the care of a woman with whom I had lodged. Have I not sinned deeply?"

"Your sins are great, my daughter, but your sufferings have also been great. What happened then?"

"I escaped from the asylum and returned for my child. It was gone. The woman had removed to some other part of London, none knew where, and my Paul, my darling, was lost to me forever. My mother, it was then that I sinned deepest of all."

Her head was bowed to her trembling knees, and her voice was all but suspended in an agony of shame.

"Mother, I flung away God's better gift than life! Oh, how shall I tell you? Your foot trembles, reverend mother. You are a holy woman, and know nothing of the world's temptations."

"Hush, my daughter; I am as great a sinner as yourself."

"I cannot tell you. Mother, mother, you see I cannot."

"It is for your soul's weal, my daughter."

"I had tried to serve God, and He had seen my shame. What was left to me but the world, the world, the world! Perhaps the world itself would have more mercy. My kind mother, have I not told you yet?"

The superior made the sign of the cross.

"Ah, my daughter! the enemy of your soul was with you then. You should not have ceased to lift your hands to Heaven in supplication and prayer. You should have prostrated yourself three days and nights in the tribune before the Holy Sacrament."

The penitent raised her pale face.

"In less time I was a lost and abandoned woman."

The superior told a few beads with trembling fingers. Then she lifted the cross that hung from her girdle, and held it out to the sister.

"I thought of my child, and prayed that he might be dead. I thought of him who was not my husband, and my heart grew cold and hard. Mother, my redemption came. Yes, but with it came the meaning of the fearful words, too late. Amid the reeling madness of the life that is mocked with the name of gay, I met a good man. Yes, holy mother, a good man. Mother, he now sleeps there!"

Her pale face, serene and solemn, was lifted again, and the hand that held the crucifix was raised above her head.

"I loathed my life. He took me away from it—to the mountains—to Scotland, and a child was born. Mother, it was only then that I awoke as from a trance. It seemed as if a ring of sin begirt me. Tears—ah, me! what tears were shed. But rest and content came at last, and then we were married."

"My daughter, my daughter, little did I think when I received your vows that the enemy of your soul had so mastered you."

"Listen a little longer, holy mother. The child grew to be the image of my darling, my Paul—every feature, every glance the same. And partly to remind me of my lost one, and partly to make me forget him forever, I called the second child Paul. Mother, the years went by in peace. The past was gone from me. Only its memory lay like a waste in my silent heart. I had another son, and called him Hugh. After many years my husband died." The penitent paused.

"Mother, another thing comes back to me; but I have confessed it already. Shall I repeat it?"

"No, my daughter, not if it touches the oath that lay heavy on your heart."

"I thought my first child was dead. For thirty years I had not seen him. But the pathways of our lives crossed at last, and the woman who nursed him came to this house four days ago."

"Here?"

"Mother, my son, the child of that first false union, my darling, for whom I wept scalding tears long, long years ago; my Paul, whose loss was all but the loss of his mother's soul, my son is a thief and an outcast."

The lips of the superior moved again in prayer.

"He is the man known to the world as Paul Drayton—to me as Paul Lowther."

"My dear daughter, humble yourself in the midst of so awful a judgment. Do you say Drayton?—Drayton, who, as I hear, was to-day tried and sentenced?"

"No—yes—how shall I tell you?—the same and not the same. Mother, the crime was committed by my son Paul Lowther, the sentence was pronounced on my son Paul Ritson."

"My dear daughter—"

"I was in the court and heard all; and I alone knew all—I alone, alone! Bear with me that I transgressed the law of this holy order. Think, oh! my kind mother, think that the nun was yet the woman, and, above all, the mother. Yes, I heard all. I heard the charge that convicted my son Paul Lowther. He was guilty before God and man. But the prisoner in the dock was my son Paul Ritson. I knew him, and believed him when he denied the name they gave him. Ah, me, my heart bled!"

"What did you do, my daughter?"

"Mother, I was weak, very weak. I could not see my duty clearly. An awful conflict was rife within me. I could not justify the one man without condemning the other. And both were the children of my bosom."

"Fearful, fearful! But, my daughter, the one was guilty and the other innocent."

"Yes, yes; a thousand times yes; but then there was myself. How could I punish the guilty without revealing the secret sin that had been thirty years hidden in my heart? And my poor, weak spirit shrunk within me, and I sat silent amid all."

"My daughter, we must crucify our spiritual pride."

"Yes, yes; but there was the love of my son, Paul Ritson—he thought me a good woman even yet. How could I confess to that sinful past and not loose the love of the only human soul that held me pure and true? Mother, it is very sweet to be loved."

"Oh, my daughter, my daughter, a terrible situation, terrible, terrible!"

"Mother, I have told you everything. Tell me now what hope is left. Give me your direction."

"My daughter, let us humble ourselves before God, and pray that He may reveal the path of duty. Come."

The superior rose, took her crozier in her hand, and walked out of the room. The sister followed her. They passed through the sacristy into the empty church.

It was evening. The glow of a wintery sunset came through the windows to the west, and fell in warm gules on the altar. There was the hush of the world's awe here as day swooned into night. Without these walls were turmoil and strife. Within was the balm of rest—the rest that lies in the heart of the cyclone.

And the good mother and the sister went down on their knees together, and prayed for light and guidance. The mother rose, but the sister knelt on; darkness fell, and she was still kneeling, and when the east was dabbled with the dawn, the gray light fell on her bowed head and uplifted hands.



BOOK IV.

THE WATERS OF MARAH ARE BITTER.



CHAPTER I.

IN THE YEAR 1877.

The dale lay green in the morning sunlight; the river that ran through its lowest bed sparkled with purple and amber; the leaves prattled low in the light breeze that souched through the rushes and the long grass; the hills rose sheer and white to the smooth blue lake of the sky, where only one fleecy cloud floated languidly across from peak to peak. Out of unseen places came the bleating of sheep and the rumble of distant cataracts, and above the dull thud of tumbling waters far away was the thin caroling of birds overhead.

But the air was alive with yet sweeter sounds. On the breast of the fell that lies over against Cat Bells a procession of children walked, and sung, and chattered, and laughed. It was St. Peter's Day, and they were rush-bearing: little ones of all ages, from the comely girl of fourteen, just ripening into maidenhood, who walked last, to the sweet boy of four in the pinafore braided with epaulets, who strode along gallantly in front. Most of the little hands carried rushes, but some were filled with ferns, and mosses, and flowers. They had assembled at the school-house, and now, on their way to the church, they were making the circuit of the dale.

They passed over the road that crosses the river at the head of Newlands, and turned down into the path that follows the bed of the valley. At that angle there stands a little group of cottages deliciously cool in their white-wash, nestling together under the heavy purple crag from which the waters of a ghyll fall into a deep basin that reaches to their walls. The last of the group is a cottage with its end to the road, and its open porch facing a garden shaped like a wedge. As the children passed this house an old man, gray and thin and much bent, stood by the gate, leaning on a staff. A colly, with the sheep-dog's wooden bar suspended from its shaggy neck, lay at his feet. The hum of voices brought a young woman into the porch. She was bareheaded and wore a light print gown. Her face was pale and marked with lines. She walked cautiously, stretching one hand before her with an uncertain motion, and grasping a trailing tendril of honeysuckle that swept downward from the roof. Her eyes, which were partly inclined upward and partly turned toward the procession, had a vague light in their bleached pupils. She was blind. At her side, and tugging at her other hand, was a child of a year and a half—a chubby, sunny little fellow with ruddy cheeks, blue eyes, and fair curly hair.

Prattling, laughing, singing snatches, and waving their rushes and ferns above their happy, thoughtless heads, the children rattled past. When they were gone the air was empty, as it is when the lark stops in its song.

The church of Newlands stands in the heart of the valley, half hidden by a clump of trees. By the lych-gate Parson Christian stood that morning, aged a little, the snow a thought thicker on his bushy hair, the face mellower, the liquid eyes full of the sunlight behind which lies the shower. Greta stood beside him; quieter of manner than in the old days, a deeper thoughtfulness in her face, her blue eyes more grave and less restless, her fair hair no longer falling in waves behind her, but gathered up into a demure knot under her hat.

"Here they come, bless their innocent hearts!" said Parson Christian, and at that moment the children turned an angle of the road.

The pink and white of their frocks and pinafores were all but hidden by the little forest of green that they carried before and above them.

"'Till Birnam wood do come to Dunsinane," muttered Greta, smiling.

When the rush-bearers came up to the front of the church, the lych-gate was thrown open and they filed through.

"How tired he looks, the brave little boy!" said Greta, picking up the foremost of the company, the tiny man in the epaulets, now covered with the dust of the roads.

"The little ones first, and you great girls afterward," said the parson. "Those with flowers go up to the communion and lay them on the form, and those with mosses put them on the font, and those with rushes and ferns begin under the pulpit and come down the aisle to the porch."

The stalwart little tramp in Greta's arms wriggled his way to the ground. He had mosses in his hands and must go first. Then the children trooped into the church, and in an instant the rude old place was alive with the buzz of prattling tongues.

The floor covered many a tomb. Graven on the plain slabs that formed the pathway down the middle of the church were the names of the men and women who had lived and died in the dale generations gone by. In their own day they were children themselves; and now other children—their own children's children's children—with never a thought about what lay beneath, with only love in their eyes, and laughter on their lips, and life in their limbs—were strewing rushes down the path above them.

In ten minutes there was not an inch of the flagged aisle visible. All was green from the communion to the porch. Here and there an adventurous lad, turning to account the skill at climbing acquired at birds'-nesting, had clambered over the pews to the rude cross-trees, and hung great bunches of rushes from the roof.

"Now, children, let us sing," said the parson, and taking up the accordion, he started a hymn.

The leaded windows of the old church stood open, and the sweet young voices floated away, and far away, over the uplands and the dale. And the birds still sung in the blue sky, and the ghylls still rumbled in the distance, and the light wind still souched through the long grass, and the morning sunlight shone over all.

There was a cloud of dust on the road, and presently there came trooping down from the village a company of men, surrounded by a whole circuit of dogs. Snarls, and yaps, and yelps, and squawks, and guffaws, and sometimes the cachinnation and crow of cocks, broke upon the clear air. The roystering set would be as many as a dozen, and all were more or less drunk. First came John Proudfoot, the blacksmith, in his shirt-sleeves, with his leathern apron wrapped in a knot about his waist, and a silver and black game-cock imprisoned under his arm. Lang Geordie Moore, his young helper, carried another fowl. Dick o' the Syke, the miller, in a brown coat whitened with flour, walked abreast of Geordie and tickled the gills of the fowl with a straw. Job Sheepshanks, the letter-cutter, carried a pot of pitch and a brush, and little Tom o' Dint hobbled along with a handful of iron files. Behind these came the landlord of the Flying Horse, with a basket over one arm, from which peeped the corks of many bottles, and Natt, the stableman at the Ghyll, carried a wicker cage, in which sat a red bantam-cock with spurs that glittered in the light.

There was one other man who walked with the company, and he was the soul of the noisy crew; his voice was the loudest, his laugh the longest, and half of all that was said was addressed to him. He was a lusty man with a florid face; he wore a suit of tweeds plaided in wide stripes of buff and black.

It was Paul Drayton.

"Burn my body, and what's on now?" he said, as the gang reached the church.

"Rush-bearing, I reckon," answered Tom o' Dint.

"And what's rush-bearing?"

"You know, Mister Paul," said the postman, "rush-bearing—the barns rush-bearing—St. Peter's Day, you know."

"Oh, ay, I know—rush-bearing. Let me see, ain't it once a year?"

"What, man, but you mind the days when you were a bit boy and went a-rushing yersel'?" said the blacksmith.

"Coorse, coorse, oh, ay, I ain't forgotten them days. Let me see, it's a kind of a harvest-home, ain't it?"

"Nowt o' the sort," said Dick, the miller, testily. "Your memory's failing fast, Mister Ritson."

"And that's true, old fence. I'll never be the same man again after that brain fever I had up in London—not in the head-piece, you know."

The group of men and dogs had drawn up in front of the church just as Brother Peter crossed the church-yard to the porch, carrying a red paper in his hand.

"Who's that—the Methodee man?"

"It's the Methodee, for sure," said the blacksmith.

"Ey, it's the parson's Peter," added the postman, "and yon paper is a telegraph—it's like he's takin' it to somebody."

"Hold hard, my boys," said Drayton; and, leaving his cronies he strode through the lych-gate and down the path, the dogs yapping around him.

Brother Peter had drawn up at the door of the porch; the children were still singing.

"If that telegram is for my wife, you may hand it over to me," said Drayton, and reached out his hand to take it.

Brother Peter drew back.

"It'll be all right, old fellow—I'll see she gets it."

"Ey, thoo'll manish that, I's warn," said Peter, in a caustic voice.

"Come, don't you know that what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband?"

"Don't know as I do. I'se never been larn't sec daftness," said Peter.

"Hand it over. Come, be quick!"

"Get ower me 'at can," said Peter, with a decisive twinkle.

"Gi'e him a slab ower the lug," shouted the miller from the road.

"You hear what they say? Come, out with it."

"Eh, you've rowth o' friends, you're a teeran crew, but I cares laal for any on you."

Drayton turned away with a contemptuous snort.

"Damme, what a clatter!" he shouted, and leaped on to the raised mound of a grave to look in at an open window. As he did so he kicked a glass for flowers that lay upon it, and the broken frame tumbled in many pieces. "I've done for somebody's money," he said with a loud guffaw.

"What, man, but it were thy awn brass as bought it," said the blacksmith.

"Ey, it's thy fadder's grave," said Job Sheepshanks.

Drayton glanced down at the headstone.

"Why, so it is!" he said; "d'ye see, I hain't been here since the day I buried him."

"Nay, that's all stuff and nonsense," said Job. "I mind the morning I found ye lying wet and frostit on the top of that grave."

"D'ye say so? Well, I ain't for denying it; and now I think of it, I was—yes, I was here that morning."

"Nay, you warn't nowt o' the sort," said the blacksmith. "That were the varra morning as Giles Raisley saw you at the Pack Horse sleeping. I mind the fratch Job had with laal Gubblum about it long ago."

"It's all stuff and nonsense," replied Job. "He were here."

"The Pack Horse? Well, now, I remember, I was there, too."

The singing had ceased, and Greta came out into the porch on tiptoe, carrying in her arms a tiny mite, who was crying. Peter handed her the telegram, and turned up the path.

Drayton had rejoined his companions, and was in the act of knocking the neck off a bottle by striking it against the wall, when Peter walked through the lych-gate.

"Tee a pint o' yal down the Methodee's back," shouted Dick, the miller, and in another moment Brother Peter was covered with the contents of the broken bottle.

A loud, roystering laugh filled the air, and echoed from the hills.

"What a breck!" tittered the postman.

"What a breck!" shouted the blacksmith.

"What a breck!" roared the miller.

"Get ower me 'at can!" mimicked Natt.

"He's got a lad's heart, has Mister Paul," said the landlord of the Flying Horse.

"Ey, he's a fair fatch," echoed little Tom o' Dint.

Leaving Peter to shake himself dry of the liquor that dripped from him in froth, the noisy gang reeled down the road, the yelping dogs careering about them, and the cocks squawking with the hugs they received from the twitching arms of the men convulsed with laughter.

At the head of the Vale of Newlands there is a clearing that was made by the lead miners of two centuries ago. It lies at the feet of an ampitheater of hills that rise peak above peak, and die off depth beyond depth. Of the old mines nothing remains but the level cuttings in the sides of the fells, and here and there the washing-pits cut out of the rock at your feet. Fragments of stone lie about, glistening with veins of lead, but no sound of pick or hammer breaks the stillness, and no cart or truck trundles over the rough path. It is a solitude in which one might forget that the world is full of noise.

To this spot Drayton and his cronies made their way. At one of the old washing troughs they drew up, and sat in a circle on its rocky sides. They had come for a cock fight. It was to be the bantam (carried by Natt and owned by his master) against all comers. Drayton and the blacksmith were the setters-on. The first bout was between the bantam and Lang Geordie's ponderous black Spanish. Geordie's bird soon squawked dolorously, and made off over the heads of the derisive spectators, whereupon Geordie captured it by one of its outstretched wings, and forthwith screwed its neck. Then came John Proudfoot's silver and black, and straightway steel gaffs were affixed to the spurs. When the cocks felt their feet they crowed, and then pecked the ground from side to side. An exciting struggle ensued. Up and down, over and under, now beating the breast, now trailing the comb, now pecking at the gills. And the two men at opposite sides of the pit—the one in his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbows, the other in his sporting plaid—stooped with every lunge and craned their necks at every fall, and bobbed their heads with every peck, their eyes flashing, their teeth set.

At one moment they drew off their birds, called for the files, and sharpened up the spurs. Later on they seized the cocks by the necks, shouted for the pitch-pot and patched up the bleeding combs. The birds were equally matched, and fought long. At last their strength ebbed away. They followed each other feebly, stretching their long, lagging throats languidly, opening their beaks and hanging out their dry, white tongues, turning tail, then twisting about and fighting again, until both lay stretched out on the pit bottom.

As the energy of the cocks subsided, the ardor of the men waxed sensibly. They yelled excitedly, protested, reviled, swore, laughed, jeered, and crowed.

At length, when the bantam fell and gave no signs of speedy resurrection, the anger of Drayton could not be supported. He leaped across the pit, his face red as his cock's comb, and shouting, "Damme, what for did ye pick up my bird?" he planted a blow full on the blacksmith's chest.

A fight of yet fiercer kind followed. Amid shouts, and in the thick of a general scuffle, the blacksmith closed with his powerful adversary, gripped him about the waist, twisted him on his loins, and brought him to the ground with a crash. Then he stood over him with fierce eyes.

"I mak' no doubt you're not hankerin' for another of that sort!" he puffed.

"John's given him the cross-buttock," said the miller.

"The master's lost all his wrustling," said Natt, blinking out of his sleepy eyes.

"I mind the day when he could have put John down same as a bit boy," said the little postman.

Natt helped Drayton to his feet. He was quiet enough, now, but as black in the face as a thunder-cloud.

"This comes of a gentleman mixing with them as is beneath him," he muttered, and he mopped his perspiring forehead with a bandanna handkerchief.

The miller snorted, the mason grunted, the little postman laughed in his thin pipe.

Drayton's eyes flashed.

"I'm a gentleman, I am, if you want to know," he said, defiantly.

The blacksmith stood by, leisurely rolling down his shirt-sleeves.

"Ey, for fault of wise folk we call you so," he said, and laughed. "But when I leet of a man, I's rather have him nor a hundred sec gentlemen as you!"

"Thoo's reet for once, John!" shouted Dick o' the Syke, and there was some general laughter.

"Gentleman! Ax the women-folk what they mak' of sec a gentleman," continued the blacksmith with contemptuous emphasis. "Him as larn't folks to fill the public and empty the cupboard."

There was a murmur among the men as they twisted about.

"Ax them what they mak' of him 'at spent four days in Lunnon and came back another man—ax the women-folk; they're maistly reet, I reckon."

Another uneasy movement among the men.

"Burn my body! and what's the women to me?" said Drayton.

"Nay, nowt," answered the blacksmith. "Your awn wife seems nowdays powerful keen for your company."

Drayton's eyes were red, but the fire died out of them in an instant. He stepped up to the blacksmith and held out his hand.

"You've licked me," he said, in another tone, "but I ain't the man to keep spite, I ain't; so come along, old fence, and let's wet it."

"That's weel said," put in Tommy Lowthwaite, the landlord.

"It's no'but fair," said Dick, the miller.

"He's a reet sort, after all," said Job, the mason.

"He's his awn fadder's son, is Paul Ritson," said Tom o' Dint.

In two minutes more the soiled company were trampling knee-deep through rank beds of rushes on their way to the other side of the dale. They stopped a few yards from a pit shaft with its headgear and wheel.

"Let's take my brother's ken for it," said Drayton, and they turned into a one-story house that stood near.

It was a single capacious chamber, furnished more like a library than an office; carpets, rugs, a cabinet, easychairs, and a solid table in the middle of the floor. The cock-fighters filed in and sat down on every available chair, on the table, and at last on the floor.

"Squat and whiff," said Drayton, "and, Tommy, you out with the corks, quick."

"It must be a bonny money-making consarn to keep up the likes of this," said the miller, settling himself uneasily in an easy-chair.

Dick was telling himself what a fool he had been not to ask more than the fifty pounds he received for the damage once done by fire to his mill.

"Have you never heard as it ain't all gold as glitters?" said Drayton; and he struck a lucifer match on the top of the mahogany table.

"What, man, dusta mean as the pit's not paying?" said the blacksmith.

Drayton gave his head a sidelong shake of combined astuteness and reserve.

"I mak' no doubt now as you have to lend Master Hugh many a gay penny," said Tom o' Dint in an insinuating tone.

"Least said, soonest mended," said Drayton, sententiously, and smiled a mighty knowing smile.

Then the men laughed, and the landlord handed the bottles round, and all drank out of the necks, and puffed dense volumes of smoke from their pipes, and spat on the carpet.

And still the birds sung in the clear air without, and still the ghylls rumbled, and still the light wind souched through the grass, and still the morning sunlight shone over all.

The door opened, and Hugh Ritson entered, followed by the lawyer, Mr. Bonnithorne. There was a steely glimmer in his eyes as he stood just inside the threshold and looked round.

"Come, get out of this!" he said.

The men shuffled to their feet and were elbowing their way out. Drayton, who sat on the table, removed his pipe from between his teeth and called on them to remain.

Hugh Ritson stepped up to Drayton and touched him on the shoulder.

"I want to speak with you," he said.

"What is it?" demanded Drayton.

"I want to speak with you," repeated Hugh.

"What is it? Out with it. You've got the gift of the gab, hain't ye? Don't mind my friends."

Hugh Ritson's face whitened, and a cold smile passed over it.

"Your time is near," he muttered, and he turned on his heel.

As he stepped out of the noisesome chamber, a loud, hoarse laugh followed him. He drew a long breath.

"Thank God it will soon be over!" he said.

Bonnithorne was at his side.

"Is it to be to-morrow?" asked the lawyer.

"To-morrow," said Hugh Ritson.

"Have you told him?"

"Tell him yourself, Bonnithorne. I can bear with the man no longer. I shall be doing something that I may repent."

"Have you apprised Parson Christian?"

Hugh Ritson bent his head.

"And Greta?"

"She won't come," said Hugh. "The girl could never breathe the same air as that scoundrel for five minutes together."

"And yet he's her half-brother," said the lawyer, softly; and then he added, with the conventional smile: "Odd, isn't it?"



CHAPTER II.

When the procession of children had passed the little cottage at the angle of the roads, the old man who leaned on his staff at the gate turned about and stepped to the porch.

"Did the boy see them?—did he see the children?" said the young woman who held the child by the hand.

"I mak' na doot," said the old man.

He stooped to the little one and held out one long, withered finger. The soft baby hand closed on it instantly.

"Did he laugh? I thought he laughed," said the young woman.

A bright smile played on her lips.

"Maybe so, lass."

"Ralphie has never seen the children before, father. Didn't he look frightened—just a little frightened—at first, you know? I thought he crept behind my gown."

"Maybe, maybe."

The little one had dropped the hand of his young mother, and, still holding the bony finger of his grandfather, he toddled beside him into the house.

Very cool and sweet was the kitchen, with white-washed walls and hard earthen floor. A table and a settle stood by the window, and a dresser that was an armory of bright pewter dishes, trenchers, and piggins crossed the opposite wall.

"Nay, but sista here, laal man," said the old charcoal-burner, and he dived into a great pocket at his side.

"Have you brought it? Is it the kitten? Oh, dear, let the boy see it!"

A kitten came out of the old man's pocket, and was set down on the rug at the hearth. The timid creature sat dazed, then raised itself on its hind legs and mewed.

"Where's Ralphie? Is he watching it, father? What is he doing?"

The little one had dropped on hands and knees before the kitten, and was gazing up into its face.

The mother leaned over him with a face that would have beamed with sunshine if the sun of sight had not been missing.

"Is he looking? Doesn't he want to coddle it?"

The little chap had pushed his nose close to the nose of the kitten, and was prattling to it in various inarticulate noises.

"Boo—loo—lal-la—mamma."

"Isn't he a darling, father?"

"It's a winsome wee thing," said the old man, still standing with drooping head over the group on the hearth.

The mother's face saddened, and she turned away. Then from the opposite side of the kitchen, where she was making pretense to take plates from a plate-rack, there came the sound of suppressed sobs. The old man's eyes followed her.

"Nay, lass; let's have a sup of broth," he said in a tone that carried another message.

The young woman put plates and a bowl of broth on the table.

"To think that I can never see my own child, and everybody else can see him!" she said, and then there was another bout of tears.

The charcoal-burner supped at his broth in silence. A glistening bead rolled slowly down his wizened cheek, and the interview on the hearth went on without interruption:

"Mew—mew—mew." "Boo—loo—lal-la—mamma."

There was a foot on the gravel in front.

"How fend ye, Mattha?" said a voice from without.

"Come thy ways, Gubblum," answered the old man.

Gubblum Oglethorpe entered, dressed differently than of old. He wore a suit of canvas stained deeply with iron ore.

"I's thinking maybe Mercy will let me warm up my poddish," said Gubblum.

"And welcome," said Mercy, and took down from the dresser a saucepan and porridge thivel. "I'll make it for you while father sups his broth."

"Nay, lass, you're as thrang as an auld peat wife, I's warn. I'll mak' it myself. I's rather partic'lar about my poddish, forby. Dusta know how many faults poddish may have? They may be sour, sooty, sodden, and savorless, soat, welsh, brocken, and lumpy—and that's mair nor enough, thoo knows."

Gubblum had gone down on the hearth-rug.

"Why, and here's the son and heir," he said. "Nay, laddie, mind my claes—they'll dirty thy brand-new brat for thee."

"Is he growing, Gubblum?"

"Growing?—amain."

"And his eyes—are they changing color?—going brown?"

"Maybe—I'll not be for saying nay."

"Is he—is he very like me?"

"Nay—weel—nay—I's fancying I see summat of the stranger in the laal chap at whiles."

The young mother turned her head. Gubblum twisted to where Matthew sat.

"That man and all his raggabrash are raking about this morning. It caps all, it does, for sure."

The old charcoal-burner did not answer. He paused with the spoon half raised, glanced at Mercy, and then went on with his broth.

"Hasta heard of the lang yammer in the papers about yon matter?" said Gubblum.

"Nay," said Matthew, "I hears nowt of the papers."

"He's like to hang a lang crag when he hears about it."

"I mak' na doubt," said Matthew, showing no curiosity.

"It's my belief 'at the auld woman at Hendon is turning tail. You mind she was down last back end, and he wadn't have nowt to say to her."

"Ey, I mind her," said Matthew.

"Every dog has his day, and I reckon yon dog's day is nigh amaist done. And it wad have been a vast shorter on'y Mercy hadn't her eyes."

"Ey, ey," said Matthew, quietly.

"If the lass had no'but been able to say, 'Yon man is Drayton, and yon as you've got in prison is Ritson, and I saw the bad wark done,' that would have settled it."

"Na doot," said Matthew, his head in the bowl.

"They warn't for hearing me. When the parson took me up to Lunnon mair nor a twelvemonth agone, they sent us baith home with our tails atween our legs. 'Bring us the young woman,' they said; 'your evidence will stand aside hers, but not alone. Bring the young woman to 'dentify,' they says. 'She's gone blind,' we says. 'We can't help that,' they says. And that's what they call justice up in Lunnon."

"Ey, ey," said Matthew.

"But then thoo has to mak' 'lowances for them gentry folk—they've never been larn't no better, thoo sees."

Gubblum's porridge was bubbling, and the thivel worked vigorously. Matthew had picked up the child from the hearth. The little fellow was tugging at his white beard.

"It were bad luck that me and Mercy didn't stay a day or so langer in Hendon yon time. She had her eyes then. But the lass was badly, and" (dropping his voice) "that way, thoo knows, and I warn't to prophesy what was to happen to poor Paul Ritson. So I brought her straight away home."

"So thoo did, Gubblum," said Matthew, stroking the child's head.

"It's that Hugh as is at the bottom of it all, I reckon. I'm not afraid to say it, if he is my master. I allus liked Paul Ritson—the reet one, thoo knows, not this taistrel that calls hisself Paul Ritson—but I cared so laal for Hugh that I could have taken him and wrowk't the fire with him."

The porridge was ready, and Mercy set a wooden bowl on the table. "I's fullen thy bicker, my lass," said Gubblum. "I's only a laal man, but I's got a girt appetite, thoo sees." Then turning to Matthew he continued: "But he's like to pay for it. He brought his raggabash here, and now the rascal has the upper hand—that's plain to see."

"So it be," said Matthew.

"Deemoralizin' all the country-side, what with his drinkin' and cock-fightin' and terriers, an' I don't know what. Theer's Dick o' the Syke, he's a ruined man this day, and John, the blacksmith, he's never had a heat on the anvil for a week, and as for Job, the mason, he's shaping to be mair nor ever like his Bible namesake, for he won't have nowt but his dunghill to sit on soon."

"Dusta think they dunnot ken he's the wrong man?" asked Matthew.

"Nay, Mattha, but a laal bit of money's a wonderful thing, mind ye."

"It is for sure."

"One day he went to clogger Kit to be measur't for new shoes. 'What, Master Ritson,' says Kit, 'your foot's langer by three lines nor when I put the tape on it afore.'"

"Ah!"

"Next day Kit had an order for two pairs, forby a pair of leggins and clogs for Natt. That's the way it's manish'd."

Mercy had taken her child from her father's knee, and was sitting on the sconce bench with it, holding a broken piece of a mirror before its face, and listening for its laugh when it saw itself in the glass.

"But he's none Cummerland—hearken to his tongue," said Matthew.

Gubblum put down his spoon on his plate, now empty.

"That minds me," he said, laughing, "that I met him out one day all dressed in his brave claes—them as might do for a nigger that plays the banjo. 'Off for a spogue?' I says. 'What's a spogue?' he says, looking thunder. 'Nay,' I says, 'you're no'but a dalesman—ax folks up Hendon way,' I says. I was peddling then, but Master Hugh 'counters me another day, and he says, 'Gubblum,' he says, 'I's wanting a smart laal man, same as you, to weigh the ore on the bank-top—pund a week,' he says."

"Ey, I mak' no doot they thowt to buy thee ower," said Matthew.

"They've made a gay canny blunder if they think they've put a swine ring on Gubblum's snout. Buy or beat—that's the word. They've bought most of the folk and made them as lazy as libbed bitches. But they warn't able to buy the Ritson's bitch itself."

"What dusta mean, Gubblum?"

"What, man! thoo's heard how the taistrel killed poor auld Fan? No? Weel, thoo knows she was Paul Ritson's dog, Fan was; and when she saw this man coming up the lonnin, she frisk't and wag't her tail. But when she got close to him she found her mistake, and went slenken off. He made shift to coax her, but Fan wad none be coaxed; and folks were takin' stock. So what dusta think the taistrel does, but ups with a stone and brains her."

"That's like him, for sure," said Matthew. "But don't the folk see that his wife as it might be, Miss Greta as was, won't have nowt to say to him?"

"Nay, they say that's no'but a rue-bargain, and she found out her mind after she wedded—that's all the clot-heads think about it."

"Hark!" said Mercy, half rising from the sconce. "It's Mrs. Ritson's foot."

The men listened. "Nay, lass, there's no foot," said Gubblum.

"Yes, she's on the road," said Mercy. Her face showed that pathetic tension of the other senses which is peculiar to the blind. A moment later Greta stepped into the cottage. The telegram which Brother Peter gave her at the church was still in her hand.

"Good-morning, Matthew; good-morning, Gubblum; I have news for you, Mercy. The doctors are coming to-day."

Mercy's face fell perceptibly. The old man's head drooped lower.

"There, don't be afraid," said Greta, touching her hand caressingly. "It will soon be over. The doctors didn't hurt you before, did they?"

"No; but this time it will be the operation," said Mercy. There was a tremor in her voice.

Greta had lifted the child from the sconce. The little fellow cooed close to her ear, and babbled his inarticulate nothings.

"Only think, when it's all over you will be able to see your darling Ralphie for the first time!"

Mercy's sightless face brightened. "Oh, yes," she said, "and watch him play, and see him spin his tops and chase the butterflies. Oh, that will be very good!"

"Dusta say to-day, Mistress Ritson?" asked Matthew, the big drops standing in his eyes.

"Yes, Matthew; I will stay to see it over, and mind baby, and help a little."

Mercy took the little one from Greta's arms and cried over it, and laughed over it, and then cried and laughed again. "Mamma and Ralphie shall play together in the garden, darling, and Ralphie shall see the horses—and the flowers—and the birdies—and mamma—yes, mamma shall see Ralphie. Oh, Mrs. Ritson, how selfish I am!—how can I ever repay you?"

The tears were trickling down Greta's cheeks. "It is I who am selfish, Mercy," she said, and kissed the sightless orbs. "Your dear eyes shall give me back my poor husband."



CHAPTER III.

Two hours later the doctors arrived. They had called at the vicarage in driving up the valley, and Parson Christian was with them. They looked at Mercy's eyes, and were satisfied that the time was ripe for the operation. At the sound of their voices, Mercy trembled and turned livid. By a maternal instinct she picked up the child, who was toddling about the floor, and clasped it to her bosom. The little one opened wide his blue eyes at sight of the strangers, and the prattling tongue became quiet.

"Take her to her room, and let her lie on the bed," said one of the doctors to Greta.

A sudden terror seized the young mother. "No, no, no!" she said, in an indescribable accent, and the child cried a little from the pressure to her breast.

"Come, Mercy, dear, be brave for your darling's sake," said Greta.

"Listen to me," said the doctor, quietly but firmly. "You are now quite blind, and you have been in total darkness for a year and a half. We may be able to restore your sight by giving you a few minutes' pain. Will you not bear it?"

Mercy sobbed, and kissed the child passionately.

"Just think, it is quite certain that without an operation you will never regain your sight," continued the doctor. "You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Are you satisfied? Come, go away to your room quietly."

"Oh, oh, oh!" sobbed Mercy.

"Just imagine, only a few minutes' pain, and even of that you will scarcely be conscious. Before you know what is doing, it will be done."

Mercy clung closer to her child, and kissed it again and yet more fervently.

The doctors turned to each other. "Strange vanity!" muttered the one who had not spoken before. "Her eyes are useless, and yet she is afraid she may lose them."

Mercy's quick ears caught the whispered words. "It is not that," she said passionately.

"No, gentlemen," said Greta, "you have mistaken her thought. Tell her she runs no danger of her life."

The doctors smiled and laughed a little. "Oh, that's it, eh? Well, we can tell her that with certainty."

Then there was another interchange of half-amused glances.

"Ah, we that be men, sirs, don't know the depth and tenderness of a mother's heart," said Parson Christian. And Mercy turned toward him a face that was full of gratitude. Greta took the child out of her arms and hushed it to sleep in another room. Then she brought it back and put it in its cradle that stood in the ingle.

"Come, Mercy," she said, "for the sake of your boy." And Mercy permitted herself to be led from the kitchen.

"So there will be no danger," she said. "I shall not leave my boy. Who said that? The doctor? Oh, good gracious, it's nothing. Only think, I shall live to see him grow to be a great lad!"

Her whole face was now radiant.

"It will be nothing. Oh, no, it will be nothing. How silly it was to think that he would live on, and grow up, and be a man, and I lie cold in the church-yard, and me his mother! That was very childish, wasn't it? But, then, I have been so childish since Ralphie came."

"There, lie and be quiet, and it will soon be over," said Greta.

"Let me kiss him first. Do let me kiss him! Only once. You know it's a great risk, after all. And if he grew up—and I wasn't here, if—if—"

"There, dear Mercy, you must not cry again. It inflames your eyes, and that can't be good for the doctors."

"No, no, I won't cry. You are very good; everybody is very good. Only let me kiss my little Ralphie—just for the last."

Greta led her back to the side of the cot, and she spread herself over it with outstretched arms, as the mother-bird poises with outstretched wings over her brood. Then she rose, and her face was peaceful and resigned.

The Laird Fisher sat down before the kitchen fire, with one arm on the cradle-head. Parson Christian stood beside him. The old charcoal-burner wept in silence, and the good parson's voice was too thick for the words of comfort that rose to his lips.

The doctors followed into the bedroom. Mercy was lying tranquilly on her bed. Her countenance was without expression. She was busy with her own thoughts. Greta stood by the bedside; anxiety was written in every line of her beautiful, brave face.

"We must give her the gas," said one of the doctors, addressing the other.

Mercy's features twitched.

"Who said that?" she asked, nervously.

"My child, you must be quiet," said the doctor in a tone of authority.

"Yes, I will be quiet, very quiet; only don't make me unconscious," she said. "Never mind me; I will not cry. No; if you hurt me I will not cry out. I will not stir. I will do everything you ask. And you shall say how quiet I have been. Only don't let me be insensible."

The doctors consulted aside, and in whispers.

"Who spoke about the gas? It wasn't you, Mrs. Ritson, was it?"

"You must do as the doctors wish, dear," said Greta in a caressing voice.

"Oh, I will be very good. I will do every little thing. Yes, and I will be so brave. I am a little childish sometimes, but I can be brave, can't I?"

The doctors returned to the bedside.

"Very well, we will not use the gas," said one. "You are a brave little woman, after all. There, be still—very still."

One of the doctors was tearing linen into strips for bandages, while the other fixed Mercy's head to suit the light.

There was a faint sound from the kitchen. "Wait," said Mercy. "That is father—he's crying. Tell him not to cry. Say it's nothing."

She laughed a weak little laugh.

"There, he will hear that; go and say it was I who laughed."

Greta left the room on tiptoe. Old Matthew was still sitting over a dying fire, gently rocking the sleeping child. Parson Christian's eyes were raised in prayer.

When Greta returned to the bedroom, Mercy called her, and said very softly—"Let me hold your hand, Greta—may I say Greta?—there," and her fingers closed on Greta's with a convulsive grasp.

The operation began. Mercy held her breath. She had the stubborn north-country blood in her. Once only a sigh escaped. There was a dead silence.

In two or three minutes the doctor said: "Just another minute, and all will be over."

At the next instant Greta felt her hand held with a grasp of iron.

"Doctor, doctor, I can see you!" cried Mercy, and her words came in gusts.

"Be quiet," said the doctor in a stern voice. In half a minute more the linen bandages were being wrapped tightly over Mercy's eyes.

"Doctor, dear doctor, let me see my boy," cried Mercy.

"Be quiet, I say," said the doctor again.

"Dear doctor, my dear doctor, only one peep—one little peep—I saw your face—let me see my Ralphie's!"

"Not yet, it is not safe."

"But only for a moment. Don't put the bandage on for one moment. Just think, doctor, I have never seen my boy; I've seen other people's children, but never once my own, own darling. Oh, dear doctor—"

"You are exciting yourself. Listen to me; if you don't behave yourself now you may never see your child."

"Yes, yes, I will behave myself; I will be very good. Only don't shut me up in darkness again until I see my boy. Greta, bring him to me. Listen: I hear his breathing. Go for my darling. The kind doctor won't be angry with you. Tell him that if I see my child it will cure me. I know it will."

Greta's eyes were swimming in tears.

"Rest quiet, Mercy. Everything may be lost if you disturb yourself now, my dear."

The doctors were wrapping bandage over bandage, and fixing them firmly at the back of their patient's head.

"Now listen again," said one of them. "This bandage must be kept over your eyes for a week."

"A week—a whole week? Oh, doctor, you might as well say forever!"

"I say a week. And if you should ever remove it—"

"Not for an instant? Not raise it a little?"

"If you ever remove it for an instant, or raise it ever so little, you will assuredly lose your sight forever. Remember that."

"Oh, doctor, it is terrible! Why did you not tell me so before? Oh, this is worse than blindness! Think of the temptation, and I have never seen my boy!"

The doctor had fixed the bandage, and his voice was less stern, but no less resolute.

"You must obey me," he said; "I will come again this day week, and then you shall see your child, and your father, and this young lady, and everybody. But, mind, if you don't obey me you will never see anything. You will have one glance of your little boy, and then be blind forever, or perhaps—yes, perhaps die."

Mercy lay quiet for a moment. Then she said in a low voice:

"Dear doctor, you must forgive me. I am very willful, and I promised to be so good. I will not touch the bandage. No, for the sake of my little boy, I will never, never touch it. You shall come yourself and take it off, and then I shall see him."

The doctors went away. Greta remained all night in the cottage.

"You are happy now, Mercy?" said Greta.

"Oh, yes," said Mercy. "Just think, only a week! And he must be so beautiful by this time."

When Greta took the child to her at sunset, there was an ineffable joy in her pale face, and next morning, when Greta awoke, Mercy was singing softly to herself in the sunrise.



CHAPTER IV.

There was a gathering of miners near the pit-head that morning. It was pay day. The rule was that the miners on the morning shift should pass through the pay-office before going down the shaft at eight o'clock; and that those on the night shift should pass through on their way home a few minutes afterward. When the morning men passed through the office they had found the pay-door shut, and a notice posted over it, saying, "All wages due at eight o'clock to-day will be paid at the same hour to-morrow."

Presently the men on the night shift came up in the cages, and after a brief explanation both gangs, with the banksmen and all top-ground hands, except the engine-man, trooped away to a place suitable for a conference. There was a worked-out open cutting a hundred yards away. It was a vast cleft dug into the side of the mountain, square on its base, vertical in its three gray walls, and sweeping up to a dizzy height, over which the brant sides of the green fell rose sheer into the sky. It was to this natural theatre that the two hundred miners made their way in groups of threes and fours, their lamps and cans in their hands, their red-stained clothes glistening in the morning sun.

It was decided to send a deputation to the master, asking that the order might be revoked and payment made as usual. The body of the men remained in the clearing, conversing in knots, while two miners, buirdly fellows, rather gruffer of tongue than the rest, went to the office to act as spokesmen.

The deputation were approaching the pit-head when the engine-man shouted that he had just heard the master's knock from below, and in another moment Hugh Ritson, in flannels and fustian, stepped out of the cage.

He heard the request, and at once offered to go to the men and give his answer. The miners made way for him respectfully, and then closed about him when he spoke.

"Men," he said, with a touch of his old resolution, "let me tell you frankly, as between man and man, that I can not pay you this morning, because I haven't got the money. I tried to get it, and failed. This afternoon I shall receive much more than is due to you, and to-morrow you shall be promptly paid."

The miners twisted about and compared notes in subdued voices.

"That's no'but fair," said one.

"He cannut say na fairer," said another.

But there were some who were not so easily appeased; and one of these crushed his way through the crowd, and said:

"Mr. Ritson, we're not same as the bettermer folk, as can get credit for owt 'at they want. We ax six days' pay because we have to do six days' payin' wi' it. And if we're back a day in our pay we're a day back in our payin'; and that means clemmin' a laal bit—and the wife and barns forby."

There were murmurs of approval from the crowd, and then another malcontent added:

"Times has changed to a gay tune sin' we could put by for a rainy day. It's hand to mouth now, on'y the mouth's allus ready and the hand's not."

"It's na much as we ha' gotten to put away these times," said the first speaker. "Not same as the days when a pitman's wife, 'at I ken on, flung a five-pound note in his face and axed him what he thowt she were to mak' o' that."

"Nay, nay," responded the others in a chorus.

"Men, I'm not charging you with past extravagance," said Hugh Ritson; "and it's not my fault if the pit hasn't done as well for all of us as I had hoped."

He was moving away, when the crowd closed about him again.

"Mates," shouted one of the miners, "there's another word as some on us wad like to say to the master, and that's about the timber."

"What is it?" asked Hugh Ritson, facing about.

"There be some on us 'at think the pit's none ower safe down the bottom working, where the seam of sand runs cross-ways. We're auld miners, maistly, and we thowt maybe ye wadna tak' it wrang if we telt ye 'at it wants a vast mair forks and upreets."

"Thank you, my lads, I'll see what I can do," said Hugh Ritson; and then added in a lower tone: "But I've put a forest of timber underground already, and where this burying of money is to end God alone knows."

He turned away this time and moved off, halting more noticeably than usual on his infirm foot.

He returned to his office near the pit-bank, and found Mr. Bonnithorne awaiting him.

"The day is young, but I'm no sluggard, you know," said the lawyer. "I thought we might want a word or two before the meeting at the Ghyll."

Hugh Ritson did not notice the explanation. He looked anxious and disturbed. While stripping off his pit flannels, and putting on his ordinary clothes, he told Mr. Bonnithorne what had just occurred, and then added:

"If anything had been necessary to prove that this morning's bad business is inevitable, I should have found it in this encounter with the men."

"It comes as a fillip to your already blunted purpose," said the lawyer with a curious smile. "Odd, isn't it?"

"Blunted!" said Hugh Ritson, and there was a perceptible elevation of the eyebrows.

Presently he drew a long breath, and said with an air of relief:

"Ah, well, if she suffers who has suffered enough already, he, at least, will be out of the way forever."

Bonnithorne shifted slightly on his seat.

"You think so?" he asked.

Something cynical in the tone caught Hugh Ritson's ear.

"It was a bad change, wasn't it?" added the lawyer; "this one is likely to be a deal more troublesome."

Hugh Ritson went on with his dressing in silence.

"You see, by the interchange your positions were reversed," continued the lawyer.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, not to put too fine a point on it, the other was in your hands, while you are in the hands of this one."

Hugh Ritson's foot fell heavily at that instant, but he merely said, with suppressed quietness:

"There was this one's crime."

"Was—precisely," said Mr. Bonnithorne.

Hugh Ritson looked up with a look of inquiry.

"When you gave the crime to the other, this one became a free man," the lawyer explained.

There was a silence.

"What does it all come to?" said Hugh Ritson, sullenly.

"That your hold of Paul Drayton is gone forever."

"How so?"

"Because you can never incriminate him without first incriminating yourself," said the lawyer.

"Who talks of incrimination?" said Hugh Ritson, testily. "To-day, this man is to take upon himself the name of Paul Lowther—his true name, though he doesn't know it, blockhead as he is. Therefore, I ask again: What does it all come to?"

Mr. Bonnithorne shifted uneasily.

"Nothing," he said, meekly, but the curious smile still played about his downcast face.

Then there was silence again.

"Do you know that Mercy Fisher is likely to regain her sight?" said Hugh.

"You don't say so? Dear me, dear me!" said the lawyer, sincere at last. "In all the annals of jurisprudence there is no such extraordinary case of identity being conclusively provable by one witness only, and of that witness becoming blind. Odd, isn't it?"

Hugh Ritson smiled coldly.

"Odd? Say providential," he answered. "I believe that's what you church folk call it when the Almighty averts a disaster that is made imminent by your own short-sightedness."

"A disaster, indeed, if her sight ceases to be so providentially short," said the lawyer.

"Get the man out of the way, and the woman is all right," said Hugh. He picked a letter out of a drawer, and handed it to Mr. Bonnithorne. "You will remember that the other was to have shipped to Australia."

Mr. Bonnithorne bowed his head.

"This letter is from the man for whom he intended to go out—an old friend of my father. Answer it, Bonnithorne."

"In what terms?" asked the lawyer.

"Say that a long illness prevented, but that Paul Ritson is now prepared to fulfill his engagement."

"And what then?"

"What then?" Hugh Ritson echoed. "Why, what do you think?"

"Send him?" with a motion of the thumb over the shoulder.

"Of course," said Hugh.

Again the cynical tone caught Hugh Ritson's ear, and he glanced up quickly, but made no remark. He was now dressed.

"I am ready," and on reaching the door and taking a last look round the room, he added: "I'll have the best of this furniture removed to the Ghyll to-morrow. The house has been unbearable of late, and I've been forced to spend most of my time down here."

"Then you don't intend to give him much grace?" asked Bonnithorne.

"Not an hour."

The lawyer bent his forehead very low at that moment.



CHAPTER V.

The sun was high over the head of Hindscarth, but a fresh breeze was blowing from the north, and the walk to the Ghyll was bracing. Mr. Bonnithorne talked little on the way, but Hugh Ritson's spirits rose sensibly, and he chatted cheerfully on indifferent subjects. It was still some minutes short of nine o'clock when they reached the house. The servants were bustling about in clean aprons and caps.

"Have the gentlemen arrived?" asked Hugh.

"Not yet, sir," answered one of the servants—it was old Dinah Wilson.

The two men stepped up to Hugh Ritson's room. There the table was spread for breakfast. The lawyer glanced at the chairs, and said:

"Then you have invited other friends?"

Hugh nodded his head, and sat down at the organ.

"Three or four neighbors of substance," he said, opening the case. "In a matter like this it is well to have witnesses."

Bonnithorne replied with phlegm:

"But what about the feelings of the man who is so soon to be turned out of the house?"

Hugh Ritson's fingers were on the keys. He paused and faced about.

"I had no conception that you had such a delicate sense of humor, Bonnithorne," he said, with only the shadow of a smile. "Feelings! His feelings!"

There was a swift glide up the notes, and other sounds were lost. The window was half open; the lawyer walked to it and looked out. At that moment the two men were back to back. Hugh Ritson's head was bent over the keyboard. Mr. Bonnithorne's eyes were on the tranquil landscape lying in the sun outside. The faces of both wore curious smiles.

Hugh Ritson leaped from his seat.

"Ah, I feel like another man already," he said, and took a step or two up and down the room, his infirm foot betraying no infirmity. There was the noise of fresh arrivals in the hall. A minute later a servant entered, followed by three gentlemen, who shook hands effusively with Hugh Ritson.

"Delighted to be of service, I'm sure," said one.

"Glad the unhappy connection is to be concluded—it was a scandal," said the other.

"You could not go on living on such terms—life wasn't worth it, you know," said the first.

The third gentleman was more restrained, but Hugh paid him marked deference. They had a short, muttered conference apart.

"Get the other mortgages wiped off the deeds and I have no objection to lend you the money on the security of the house and land," said the gentleman. At that remark Hugh Ritson bowed his head and appeared satisfied.

He rang for breakfast.

"Ask Mr. Paul if he is ready," he said, when Dinah brought the tray.

"Master Paul is abed, sir," said Dinah; and then she added for herself: "It caps all—sec feckless wark. It dudn't use to be so, for sure. I'll not say but a man may be that changed in a twelvemonth—"

"Ah, I'll go to him myself," said Hugh; and begging to be excused, he left the room.

Mr. Bonnithorne followed him to the other side of the door.

"Have you counted the cost?" he asked. "It will be a public scandal."

Hugh smiled, and answered with composure:

"Whose will be the loss?"

"God knows!" said the lawyer, with sudden energy.

Hugh glanced up quickly. There was the murmur of voices from within the room they had just left.

"Is it that you are too jealous of your good name to allow it to be bruited abroad in a scandal, as you say?"

Mr. Bonnithorne's face wore a curious expression at that moment.

"It's not my good name that is in question," he said, quietly, and turned back to the door.

"Whose then? His?"

But the lawyer already held the door ajar, and was passing into the room.

Hugh Ritson made his way to the bedroom occupied by Paul Drayton. He opened the door without knocking. It was dark within. Thin streaks of dusty sunlight shot from between a pair of heavy curtains. The air was noisome with dead tobacco smoke and the fumes of stale beer. Hugh's gorge rose, but he conquered his disgust.

"Who's there?" said a husky voice from behind the dark hangings of a four-post bed that was all but hidden in the gloom.

"The friends are here," said Hugh Ritson, cheerily. "How long will you be?"

There was a suppressed chuckle.

"All right."

"We will begin breakfast," said Hugh. He was turning to go.

"Is that lawyer man back from Scotland?" asked Drayton.

"Bonnithorne? He's here—he didn't say that he'd been away," said Hugh.

"All right."

Hugh Ritson returned to the bed-head. "Have you heard," he said in a subdued voice, "that the doctors have operated on the girl Mercy, and that she is likely to regain her sight?"

"Eh? What?" Drayton had started up in bed. Then rolling down his sleeves and buttoning them leisurely, he added: "But that ain't nothing to me."

Hugh Ritson left the room. He was in spirits indeed, for he had borne even this encounter with equanimity. As he passed through the house, Brother Peter entered at the porch with a letter in his hand.

"Is Parson Christian coming?" said Hugh.

"Don't know 'at I've heard," said Peter. "He's boddered me to fetch ye a scribe of a line. Here 'tis."

Hugh Ritson opened the envelope. The note ran:

"I cannot reconcile it to my conscience to break bread with one who has broken the peace of my household; nor is it agreeable to my duty as a minister of Christ to give the countenance of my presence to proceedings which must be a sham, inasmuch as the person concerned is an imposter—with the which name I yet hope to brand him when the proper time and circumstances arrive."

Hugh smiled as he read the letter; then he thrust a shilling into Peter's unyielding hand, and shot away.

"The parson will not come," said Hugh, drawing Bonnithorne aside; "but that can not matter. If he is Greta's guardian, you are her father's executor." Then, raising his voice, "Gentlemen," he said, "my brother wishes us to begin breakfast; he will join us presently."

The company was soon seated; the talk was brisk and cheerful.

"Glorious prospect," said a gentleman sitting opposite the open window. "Often wonder you don't throw out a bay, Mr. Ritson."

"I've thought of it," said Hugh, "but it's not worth while to spend such money until one is master of one's own house."

"Ah, true, true!" said several voices in chorus.

Drayton entered, his eyes red, his face sallow. "Morning, gents," he said in his thick guttural.

Two of the gentlemen rose, and bowed with frigid politeness. "Good morning, Mr. Ritson," said the third.

The servant had followed Drayton into the room with a beefsteak underdone. "Post not come?" he asked, shifting his plates.

"It can't be long now," said Bonnithorne, consulting his watch.

"Sooner the better," Drayton muttered. He took some papers from a breast-pocket and counted them; then fixed them in his waistcoat, where his watch would have been if he had worn one.

When breakfast was done, Hugh Ritson took certain documents from a cabinet. "Be seated, gentlemen," he said. All sat except Drayton, who lighted a pipe, and rang to ask if the postman had come. He had not. "Then go and sharpen up his heels."

"My duty would be less pleasant," said Hugh Ritson, "if some of the facts were not already known."

"Then we'll take 'em as read, so we will," put in Drayton, perambulating behind a cloud of smoke.

"Paul, I will ask you to be seated," said Hugh, in an altered tone.

Drayton sat down with a snort.

"I have to tell you," continued Hugh Ritson, "that my brother known to you as Paul Ritson, is now satisfied that he was not the heir of my father, who died intestate."

There were sundry nods of the grave noddles assembled about the table.

"Fearful shock to any man," said one. "No wonder he has lost heart and grown reckless," said another.

"On becoming aware of this fact, he was anxious to relinquish the estate to the true heir."

There were further nods, and some muttered comments on the requirements of honor.

"I show you here a copy of the register of my father's marriage, and a copy of the register of my own birth, occurring less than a year afterward. From these, in the absence of extraordinary testimony, it must be the presumption that I am myself my father's rightful heir."

The papers were handed about and returned with evident satisfaction.

"So far, all is plain," continued Hugh Ritson. "But my brother has learned that he is not even my father's son."

Three astonished faces were lifted from the table. Bonnithorne sat with head bent. Drayton leaned an elbow on one knee and smoked sullenly.

"It turns out that he is the son of my mother by another man," said Hugh Ritson.

The guests twisted about. "Ah, that explains all," they whispered.

"You will be surprised to learn that my mother's husband by a former invalid marriage was no other than Robert Lowther, and that he who sits with us now as Paul Ritson is really Paul Lowther."

At this, Hugh placed two further documents on the table.

Drayton cleared his throat noisily.

"Dear me, dear me! yet it's plain enough!" said one of the visitors.

"Then what about Mrs. Ritson—Miss Greta, I mean?" asked another.

"She is Paul Lowther's half-sister, and therefore his marriage with her must be annulled."

The three gentlemen turned in their seats and looked amazed, Drayton still smoked in silence. Bonnithorne did not raise his head.

"He will relinquish to me my father's estates, but he is not left penniless," continued Hugh Ritson. "By his own father's will he inherits five thousand pounds."

Drayton snorted contemptuously, then spat on the floor.

"Friends," said Hugh Ritson again, "there is only one further point, and I am loath to touch on it. My brother—I speak of Paul Lowther—on taking possession of the estates, exercised what he believed to be his legal right to mortgage them. I am sorry to say he mortgaged them deeply."

There was an interchange of astute glances.

"If I were a rich man, I should be content to be the loser, but I am a poor man, and am compelled to ask that those mortgages stand forfeit."

"Is it the law?"

"It is—and, as you will say, only a fair one," Hugh answered.

"Who are the mortgagees?"

"That is where the pity arises—the chief of them is no other than the daughter of Robert Lowther—Greta."

Sundry further twists and turns. "Pity for her." "Well, she should have seen to his title. Who was her lawyer?"

"Her father's executor, our friend Mr. Bonnithorne."

"How much does she lose?"

"I'm afraid a great deal—perhaps half her fortune," said Hugh.

"No matter; it's but fair, Mr. Ritson is not to inherit an estate impoverished by the excesses of the wrong man."

Drayton's head was still bent, but he scraped his feet restlessly.

"I have only another word to say," said Hugh. "In affairs of this solemn nature, it is best to have witnesses, or perhaps I should have preferred to confer with Paul and Mr. Bonnithorne in private." He dropped his voice and added: "You see, there is my poor mother; and though, in a sense, she is no longer of this world, her good name must ever be sacred with me."

The astute glances again, and two pairs of upraised hands. The lawyer had twisted toward the window.

"But our friend Bonnithorne will tell you that the law in effect compelled me to evict my brother. You may not know that there is a condition of English law in which a bastard becomes a permanent heir; that is when he is called, in the language of the law, the bastard eigne." There was a tremor in his voice as he added softly: "Believe me, I had no choice."

Drayton stamped his heavy foot, threw down his pipe, and jumped to his feet. "It's a lie, the lot of it!" he blurted. Then he fumbled at his watch-pocket, and pulled out a paper. "That's my register, straight and plain."

He stammered it aloud:

"Ritson, Paul; father, Allan Ritson; mother, Grace Ritson. Date of birth, April 6, 1847; place, Crieff, Scotland."

Hugh Ritson, a little pale, smiled. The others turned to him in their amazement. In an instant he had regained an appearance of indifference.

"Where does it come from?" he asked.

"The registrar's at Edinburgh. D'ye say it ain't right?"

"No; but I say, what is it worth? Gentlemen," said Hugh, turning to the visitors, "compare it with the register of my father's marriage. Observe, the one date is April 6, 1847; the other is June 12, 1847. Even if genuine, does it prove legitimacy?"

Drayton laid his hand on the lawyer's arm. "Here you, speak up, will ye?" he said.

Mr. Bonnithorne rose, and then Hugh Ritson's pale face became ghastly.

"This birth occurred in Scotland," he said. "Now, if the father happened to hold a Scotch domicile, and the mother lived with him as his wife, the child would be legitimate."

"Without a marriage?"

"Without a ceremony."

Natt pushed into the room, his cap in one hand, a letter in the other. He had knocked twice, and none had heard. "The post, sir; one letter for Master Paul."

"Good lad!" Drayton clutched it with a cry of delight.

"But my father had no Scotch domicile," said Hugh, with apparent composure.

"Oh, but he had," said Drayton, tearing open his envelope.

"He was a Scotsman born," said Bonnithorne, taking another document from Drayton's hand. "See, this is his register. Odd, isn't it?"

Hugh Ritson's eyes flashed. He looked steadily into the face of the lawyer, then he took the paper.

The next moment he crushed it in his palm and flung it out of the window. "I shall want proof both of your facts and your law," he said.

"Eh, and welcome," said Drayton, shouting in his agitation. "Listen to this," and he proceeded to read.

"Wait! From whom?" asked Hugh Ritson. "Some pettifogger?"

"The solicitor-general," said Bonnithorne.

"Is that good enough?" asked Drayton, tauntingly.

"Go on," said Hugh, rapping the table with his finger-tips.

Drayton handed the letter to the lawyer. "Do you read it," he said; "I ain't flowery. I'm a gentleman, and—" He stopped suddenly and tramped the floor, while Bonnithorne read:

"If there is no reason to suppose the father lost his Scotch domicile, the son is legitimate. If the husband recognized his wife in registering his son's birth, the law of Scotland would presume that there was a marriage, but whether of ceremony or consent would be quite indifferent."

There was a pause, Drayton took the letter from the lawyer's hands, folded it carefully, and put it in his fob-pocket. Then he peered into Hugh Ritson's face with a leer of triumph. Bonnithorne had slunk aside. The guests were silent.

"D'ye hear?" said Drayton, "the son is legitimate." He gloated over the words, and tapped his pocket as he repeated them. "What d'ye say to it, eh?"

At first Hugh Ritson struggled visibly for composure, and in an instant his face was like marble. Drayton came close to him.

"You were going to give me the go-by, eh? Turn me out-o'-doors, eh? Damme, it's my turn now, so it is!"

So saying, Drayton stepped to the door and flung it open.

"This house is mine," he said; "go, and be damned to you!"

At this unexpected blow, Hugh Ritson beat the ground with his foot. He looked round at the strangers, and felt like a wretch who was gagged and might say nothing. Then he halted to where Drayton stood with outstretched arm.

"Let me have a word with you in private," he said in a voice that was scarcely audible.

Drayton lifted his hand, and his fist was clinched.

"Not a syllable!" he said. His accent was brutal and frenzied.

Hugh Ritson's nostrils quivered, and his eyes flashed. Drayton quailed an instant, and burst into a laugh.

There was a great silence. Bonnithorne was still before the window, his face down, his hands clasped behind him, his foot pawing the ground. Hugh Ritson walked to his side. He contemplated him a moment, and then touched him on the shoulder. When he spoke, his face was dilated with passion, and his voice was low and deep.

"There is a Book," he said, "that a Churchman may know, which tells of an unjust steward. The master thought to dismiss him from his stewardship. Then the steward said within himself, 'What shall I do?'"

There was a pause.

"What did he do?" continued Hugh Ritson, and every word fell on the silence like the stroke of a bell. "He called his master's debtors together, and said to the first, 'How much do you owe?' 'One hundred measures.' Then he said, 'Write a bill for fifty.'"

There was another pause.

"What did that steward mean? He meant that when the master should dismiss him from his stewardship, the debtor should take him into his house."

Hugh Ritson's manner was the white heat of calm. He turned half round to where Drayton stood, and raised his voice.

"That debtor was henceforth bound hand and foot. Let him but parley with the steward, and the steward cried, 'Thief,' 'Forger,' 'Perjurer.'"

Bonnithorne shuffled uneasily. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but the words would not come. At last he gulped down something that had seemed to choke him, smiled between his teeth a weak, bankrupt smile, and said:

"How are we to read your parable? Are you the debtor bound hand and foot, and is your brother the astute steward?"

Hugh Ritson's foot fell heavily.

"Is it so?" he said, catching at the word. "Then be it so;" and his voice rose to a shrill cry. "That steward shall come to the ground, and his master with him!"

At that he stepped back to where Drayton stood with eyes as full of bewilderment as frenzy.

"Paul Lowther—" he said.

"Call me Paul Ritson," interrupted Drayton.

"Paul Lowther—"

"Ritson!" Drayton shouted, and then, dropping his voice, he said, rapidly: "You gave it me, and by God I'll keep it!"

Hugh Ritson leaned across the table and tapped a paper that lay on it.

"That is your name," he said, "and I'll prove it."

Drayton burst into another laugh.

"You daren't try," he chuckled.

Hugh turned upon him with eyes of fire.

"So you measure my spirit by your own. Man, man!" he said, "do you know what you are doing?"

There was another brutal laugh from Drayton, but it died suddenly on his lips.

Then Hugh Ritson stepped to the door. He took a last look round. It was as if he knew that he had reached the beginning of the end—as if he realized that he was never again to stand in the familiar room. The future, that seemed so near an hour ago, was gone from him forever; the cup that he had lifted to his lips lay in fragments at his feet. He saw it all in that swift instant. On his face there were the lines of agony, but over them there played the smile of resolve. He put one hand to his forehead, and then said in a voice so low as to be no more than a whisper:

"Wait and see."

When the guests, who stood huddled together like sheep in a storm, had recovered their stunned senses, Hugh Ritson was gone from the room. Drayton had sunk into a chair near where Bonnithorne stood, and was whining like a whipped hound.

"Go after him! What will he do? You know I was always against it!"

But presently he stood up and laughed, and bantered and crowed, and observed that it was a pity if a gentleman could not be master in his own house, and that what couldn't be cured must be endured.

"Precisely," interposed one of the guests, "and you have my entire sympathy, Mr. Ritson. A more cruel deception was never more manfully exposed."

"I fully agree with you, neighbor," said another, "and such moral tyranny is fearful to contemplate. Paul Lowther, indeed! Now, that is a joke."

"Well, it is rather, ain't it?" said Drayton. And then he laughed, and they all laughed and shook hands, and were excellent good friends.



CHAPTER VI.

Greta stayed with Mercy until noon that day, begging, entreating, and finally commanding her to lie quiet in bed, while she herself dressed and fed the child, and cooked and cleaned, in spite of the Laird Fisher's protestations. When all was done, and the old charcoal-burner had gone out on the hills, Greta picked up the little fellow in her arms and went to Mercy's room. Mercy was alert to every sound, and in an instant was sitting up in bed. Her face beamed, her parted lips smiled, her delicate fingers plucked nervously at the counterpane.

"How brightsome it is to-day, Greta," she said. "I'm sure the sun must be shining."

The window was open, and a soft breeze floated through the sun's rays into the room. Mercy inclined her head aside, and added, "Ah, you young rogue you; you are there, are you? Give him to me, the rascal!" The rogue was set down in his mother's arms, and she proceeded to punish his rascality with a shower of kisses. "How bonny his cheeks must be; they will be just like two ripe apples," and forthwith there fell another shower of kisses. Then she babbled over the little one, and lisped, and stammered, and nodded her head in his face, and blew little puffs of breath into his hair, and tickled him until he laughed and crowed and rolled and threw up his legs; and then she kissed his limbs and extremities in a way that mothers have, and finally imprisoned one of his feet by putting it ankle deep into her mouth. "Would you ever think a foot could be so tiny, Greta?" she said. And the little one plunged about and clambered laboriously up its mother's breast, and more than once plucked at the white bandage about her head. "No, no; Ralphie must not touch," said Mercy with sudden gravity. "Only think, Ralphie pet, one week—only one—ay, less—only six days now, and then—oh, then—" A long hug, and the little fellow's boisterous protest against the convulsive pressure abridged the mother's prophecy.

All at once Mercy's manner changed. She turned toward Greta, and said: "I will not touch the bandage, no, never; but if Ralphie tugged at it, and it fell—would that be breaking my promise?"

Greta saw what was in her heart.

"I'm afraid it would, dear," she said; but there was a tremor in her voice.

Mercy sighed audibly.

"Just think, it would be only Ralphie. The kind doctors could not be angry with my little child. I would say, 'It was the boy,' and they would smile and say, 'Ah, that is different.'"

"Give me the little one," said Greta with emotion.

Mercy drew the child closer, and there was a pause.

"I was very wrong, Greta," she said in a low tone. "Oh! you would not think what a fearful thing came into my mind a minute ago. Take my Ralphie. Just imagine, my own innocent baby tempted me."

As Greta reached across the bed to lift the child out of his mother's lap, the little fellow was struggling to communicate, by help of a limited vocabulary, some wondrous intelligence of recent events that somewhat overshadowed his little existence. "Puss—dat," many times repeated, was further explained by one chubby forefinger with its diminutive finger-nail pointed to the fat back of the other hand.

"He means that the little cat has scratched him," said Greta, "but bless the mite, he is pointing to the wrong hand."

"Puss—dat," continued the child, and peered up into his mother's sightless face. Mercy was all tears in an instant. She had borne yesterday's operation without a groan, but now the scratch on her child's hand went to her heart like a stab.

"Lie quiet, Mercy," said Greta; "it will be gone to-morrow."

"Go-on," echoed the little chap, and pointed out at the window.

"The darling, how he picks up every word!" said Greta.

"He means the horse," explained Mercy.

"Go-on—man—go-on," prattled the little one, with a child's indifference to all conversation except his own.

"Bless the love, he must remember the doctor and his horse," said Greta.

Mercy was putting her lips to the scratch on the little hand.

"Oh, Greta, I am very childish; but a mother's heart melts like butter."

"Batter," echoed the child, and wriggled out of Greta's arms to the ground, where he forthwith clambered on to the stool, and possessed himself of a slice of bread which lay on the table at the bedside. Then the fair curly head disappeared like a glint of sunlight through the door to the kitchen.

"What shall I care if other mothers see my child? I shall see him, too," said Mercy, and she sighed. "Yes," she added softly, "his hands and his eyes and his feet and his soft hair."