Upon the other hand, John Trevethick and Solomon Coe were cast almost in the same mould. Notwithstanding the former's superstition he was intelligent and shrewd enough in practical matters, and had, indeed, quite a genius for mechanics. Deprived of his underground occupation by the catastrophe with which we are acquainted, he had set his wits to work at home on the matters with which he had hitherto but physically concerned himself; and the labor of his head had proved more lucrative than that of his hand. He had invented several improvements in the working machinery of the mine which had so nearly proved his tomb; these had been adopted, with considerable profit to himself, in other places; and the money thus acquired he had not frittered away (as is usual in such cases) in speculative investments. In the interim between his giving up his trade and his reaping the fruits of his inventions he had tasted the bitterness of poverty, and that had made him very cautious. But he had a small share in Dunloppel, which seemed likely to turn out very profitable; and he had built the inn, the returns from which were more than sufficient to support him—indeed, it was rumored that John Trevethick had been laying by a pretty penny, and could hold his head much higher if he pleased. His pleasures were certainly not expensive, for they consisted in fancy iron-working, the results of which brought him in a considerable sum; and in occasionally getting drunk, which, being a publican, he could accomplish at the most reasonable figure. He was a hard unlovable man, and interesting only as statistics may be said to be as compared with literature—in a hard, practical way. If superstitious, he was by no means religious; and, though honest, he was grasping. He took time to resolve upon a matter; but, when once his resolution was fixed, his will was iron, and his heart was stone. It was certainly curious that one of Trevethick's character should have entertained so long and freshly his sentiment of gratitude even to a man that had saved his life at the expense of his own; but even this may have had its roots in egotism. Had the person saved been his wife or his daughter the feeling would not perhaps have been so enduring; and in carrying it out, as he fully purposed to do, by bestowing Harry's hand upon Solomon, he was certainly not uninfluenced by the fact that the latter was, pecuniarily speaking, an excellent match.

Like himself, his intended son-in-law was the architect of his own fortunes; but he had built them up in a different way. His youth had been spent in the coal-mines of the north; and, though no lucky stroke of the pick can there make one rich, as it can in other underground localities, his strength and skill had met with their full reward. And what he had gained he had not wasted. Pound after pound he had laid by, until enough had been saved for investment; and it was Solomon's boast in after-years that he had never got less than ten per cent. for any of it. It was all ventured on underground speculations, some of them hazardous enough—but all had prospered; and here John Trevethick's judgment, though the old man himself had not the courage to follow it, had been of great advantage to him. Every thing he touched turned, if not to gold, at least to tin or copper; and before the lode ceased to yield Solomon had sold his shares at a good premium, and placed the proceeds in another pit. He had sown, as it were, his money in the earth, and reaped a golden harvest. And now Dunloppel, his last venture, seemed likely to prove his best: and it was another strand in the strong bond between himself and Trevethick that the latter had also a share in that undertaking. There are some men with whom a common pecuniary interest is the most binding tie of sympathy of which their nature is capable; and never had the landlord of the Gethin Castle been more closely attached to his guest and son-in-law elect than at this time, when Richard Yorke proposed to himself to part them; as though a gilded summer skiff should thrust itself between two laden coal-barges, and bid them budge.

It was at least a week before Solomon Coe could be induced to open his lips before Richard, beyond the utterance of a few pithy sentences; not that the smouldering embers of jealousy had been fanned in the mean time—for Richard had been prudence itself in his behavior to Harry—but because the miner could not comprehend the young fellow, and therefore distrusted him. The light and airy manners, which were as natural to Richard as was John Trevethick's ponderous cunning or his own self-satisfied reticence, seemed to Solomon mere affectation, and even his appearance effeminate and dandified; but when he saw that he wore no other air when conversing with the pitmen of Dunloppel—an expedition undertaken with himself at Richard's special invitation—and marked how actively he climbed the tall, steep ladders, and how fearlessly he trusted himself to the rope, he acquitted him of such artful fopperies. Of Richard's intelligence he had formed a good opinion from the time when the latter had enlisted himself upon his side in the argument concerning superstition; and it flattered his vanity to find so sensible and accomplished a young fellow deferring to his opinion upon all practical points, and apparently desirous of obtaining his views upon them.

There was one subject, the experience of his early years, upon which Solomon was never averse to descant, could he once be got to talk at all; and it was a certain token—as one, at least, of the company well knew—that his prejudice against Richard was quite surmounted when Solomon began to unfold to him, over their punch in the bar parlor, the annals of his underground career. Often had he done so to Harry—like another Othello (and almost as swarthy) narrating his adventures to his Desdemona—but never had she been so pleased to listen as now, when she needed but to seem to hear, and, without the penalty of reply, could feed her eyes upon young Richard's listening face. It is hard when, in the race for woman's favor, one has to waste one's breath in making the running for one's rival.

And yet the talk of Solomon Coe was well worth listening to. He told of the great war which is always being waged by man beneath the earth against the powers of Water, and Fire, and Foul Air, and of the daring deeds he had seen wrought against them. He told of coal-pits that had been on fire from time immemorial, above which no snow would lie, by reason of the heat beneath, and where the grass of the meadows was always green. He told of others which had been suddenly inundated by a neighboring river, or by the waters from old workings, let in by a single unlucky blow, whereby scores and scores of strong men were overwhelmed, whose corpses floated about for months in the dark drowned pit before their fellows above-ground could get at them.

His speech was somewhat sullen and hesitating, and what he said was interrupted by whiffs of smoke and sips of liquor; but the nature of the subject was so absorbing that it needed no gifts of eloquence. It interested Richard in spite of himself; and Solomon was not indifferent to the flattery which the young artist's attention conveyed, and scarcely needed the entreaties of Trevethick to persuade him to throw off his native reticence. What he forgot, and had mentioned in former narrations, the landlord supplemented; and when "Sol" became technical and obscure the other performed the part of chorus or explainer. If the former had been some gifted animal, and the latter its proprietor, he could not have taken a greater pride in the exhibition of its talent than did the landlord in these narrations. Now he would look at Richard, and nod and wink, as though to bespeak his special attention to what was coming; and now he would wave his pipe, like a dumb orchestra playing slow music, to express the tremendous nature of a situation. Perhaps he was genuinely impressed by these thrice-told tales—perhaps he was endeavoring, by a feigned admiration for Sol's experiences and exploits, to justify his choice of a son-in-law not altogether suited to his Harry. To do the raconteur justice, he was by no means so egotistic as his aider and abettor, and Trevethick would express his regrets to Richard that it was so hard to get Sol to dismiss generalities and talk about himself. "It's on account of Harry being here, you see," explained he behind his horny hand, but in a tone perfectly audible to the other tenants of the bar parlor; "or else he would tell you how the timbering of the pit once fell upon him, so as nothing was free but his head and his left hand; and yet he never lost his wits in all his agony, but told the men where to saw and what to do; but he don't like to boast before the 'gal.'"

Then Richard, taking the hint, inquired of Solomon whether any incident particularly striking had ever happened to himself during his underground experience; and Solomon replied, with affected carelessness; "No, not as I know on; nothing particular."

Then Trevethick broke in with, "What! not when you was shut up in the seam at Dunston?"

"Oh yes, to be sure," said Sol, as though the recollection of the circumstance had only just occurred to him; "there was that, certainly; but it was when I was quite a boy. I was not quite seventeen when Dunston Colliery was drowned. The Gatton poured right in upon it, and they have not got the water out of it in places to this day. It was always said that the pit was being worked too near the river; but that was little thought about by those as was most concerned, and it never disturbed the head of a lad like me, of course. It was in the afternoon of the 12th of December, a date as I am not likely to forget, when the thing happened. Two mates—one old man and a middle-aged one—and myself were at work in a heading together, when suddenly we heard a noise like thunder. 'That's never blasting,' says one. 'The Lord have mercy on us,' cries the other; 'it's the river come in at last!' For, as I say, the risk was quite well known, though it was considered small, and made a frequent jest of. Nothing that ever I heard was equal to that noise; the waves in Gethin caverns here, during storm, are a whisper to it; the whole pit seemed to be roaring in upon us. We all ran up the gallery, which, fortunately for us, had a great slope, and crouched down at the end of it. We heard the water pouring in and filling all the workings beneath us, and then pouring in and filling ours. It reached our feet, and left us but a very limited space, in which the air was compressed, when the noise of the inundation ceased. There was a singing in our ears, so that we could scarcely hear one another speak. We knew that the whole mine had become a lake by that time, and that it would take months to drain her, if she was ever drained. We knew that we were buried alive hundreds of feet beneath the earth; and yet we did not quite lose heart. There was this gleam of hope: supposing that the next gallery, which was on a higher level than our own, was not also flooded, we could be got at through the seam. We did not know the fact that it was more than sixty feet of solid coal, and would have taken under ordinary circumstances at least four weeks to dig through; we only knew that, if a door of escape was to open any where, it must open there. We kept tapping with the heels of our boots at equal intervals against this wall."

"The miner's signal," explained the landlord, with a wave of his pipe.

"We felt that if we were once heard, and if hard work could do it, that our mates would save us yet; and we encouraged one another as well as we could. But presently the oil in our lamps gave out, and we were left in darkness; and then our hope grew faint indeed. We had knocked for four-and-twenty hours unintermittingly without any reply. We did not cease, however, to discuss the possibilities of escape. We knew that all was being done for us above-ground that could be done; that the surveys of the mine were well executed; and that it was known exactly where we were, if we were alive at all. There were more than a hundred men employed in the lower workings, and it was a certainty that not one of them could have escaped death; the attention, therefore, of the engineers would be concentrated upon those parts of the mine that might possibly be left above water."

"On the second night of our imprisonment we heard a distinct reply to our signal; the old man who was of our company began to weep for joy, though he was doomed, as it turned out, poor soul! never to see the light. 'We shall be saved,' he said; 'do not fear.' We knocked again, and again the reply was heard—they had found us out, and would never relax their efforts to save us. 'God bless them!' said we all. We laid our ears close to the rock, and presently heard the strokes of the pick, but not very distinctly. When the other said he was afraid the rock was thick, the old man cried out: 'No, it was not that; it was because we were dull of hearing.' The fact was, that the seam was not only thick, but very hard. It was strange, indeed, though sounds are easily transmitted through rocks of considerable thickness, how our feeble taps had been heard at all. Day after day, and each day a black night, went on; every hour was to be the last of our captivity, according to the old man; as for me, I was almost worn out, and heavy with sleep, but he was in constant motion, knocking and listening. Then suddenly we heard a splash in the water beneath us—he had lost his balance, slid down the inclined plane, and been drowned. He never stirred a limb nor uttered a cry. His fate discouraged and alarmed us two survivors exceedingly. If help was coming, we now felt it would never come in time. We dug into the shale with the handles of our lamps and with our fingers, to make our position more secure. We did not venture to speak of our late companion's fate to one another. Horror overwhelmed us, so enfeebled had we become through famine and fatigue. We had devoured our leather belts, and even crumbled the rotten wood of the timber-props in water, and eaten that; but we were now consumed by thirst, which we dared no longer quench. We were afraid to venture down as before for the water in which the old man had sunk to death; and it was that which had kept us alive."

"Don't forget about how you made a bucket of your boots, Sol," suggested Trevethick, gravely.

"Yes, at last we tied a string to a boot, and got the water up that way," continued Solomon; "but our stomachs turned against it."

"It was not so good as my punch," observed the landlord, parenthetically, and emptying his steaming glass.

"More dark days came and went, though, of course, we could not tell how many; then, all of a sudden, we heard a human voice, inquiring: 'How many are you?' 'We are three,' was our reply. We had not the courage even then to own that one of us had already been taken; death seemed still so near to us. The aperture which had thus let in the world upon us was also very small."

"And what was it you asked for first?" interrupted the landlord, with a nod at Richard, as much as to say: "Listen now; this is curious."

"What we wanted was light. 'Light above all things!' was our cry. But our deliverers could give us but little of that, for they had scarcely any themselves. They had been working in a narrow gallery, by means of five inclined driftways, at each of which only one man could ply his pick at a time, and where light and air could only be procured artificially. The coal was carried out in baskets as fast as it was hewn out: the atmosphere in which they thus toiled like giants, naked to the waist, was almost suffocating; yet, under these conditions, they had literally effected in four days, to save our lives, what it would have taken them four weeks to do, had they been working by the piece for wages. They had even been compelled to put up ventilators, and their lamps would only burn when close to these. They gave us broth through a tin pipe; but almost another day elapsed before the hole was large enough for them to carry us through it in their arms."

"And there was nobody else saved, was there?" inquired the landlord, with a triumphant look.

"There was not," said Solomon, expressing his tobacco smoke very slowly. "Out of a hundred and thirteen men who had been caught by the flood in Dunston, we two were the sole survivors."

Many other stories of the like sort had Solomon to tell, and for not one of them, was he indebted to his imagination. His experience of life had been remarkable, and it had impressed itself upon his character. His will was as strong as that of Trevethick, but he had less of caution; and he was at the same time both plodding and audacious.

It would not be well, thought Richard occasionally, to have either of these men for an enemy; and he was right. Unhappily, it was impossible to win Harry without a quarrel with, at least, one of them, and rather than lose her he was prepared to defy them both. If he could but have lifted a corner of the curtain that veils the future—well, even then, so mad was he by this time with the love of her, that he would almost have defied them still.



CHAPTER XVI.

SPRING-TIDE.

There is a beauty in woman that takes the stranger, and another the changeful charm of which wins its way deeper and deeper daily into the heart of man; but in the person of Harry Trevethick these two beauties were combined. Richard thought he had never seen any face half so fair as that which shone upon him through the mist on the first day when he came to Gethin; and when he had dwelt there for weeks he was of the same opinion still. Harry was innocent, tender-hearted, and gay, and so far the expression of her features told you truth; but it also told you more than that, which you must needs believe, though it was not the fact. Her face was not the index of her mind in all respects; it was rather like the exquisite and costly dial-plate of a time-piece the works of which are indifferent. Her air was spiritual; her voice thrilled your being with its sweet tone; her eyes were full of earnest tenderness; but she was weak of purpose, vacillating rather than impulsive, credulous, and given (not from choice, but fear) to dissimulation. That last fault Richard willingly forgave her, since it worked to his advantage; and to the others he would have been more than human had he not been blind. For Harry loved him. She had never said so; he had never asked her to say so; but it was taken for granted on both sides. They were thrown much together, for Dunloppel—a treasure-house, which proved richer and richer the more it yielded—monopolized the attention of both Trevethick and Solomon; they were in high good-humor, and not at all disposed for quarrel or suspicion. Harry had always been the mistress of her own movements, and she went, as usual, whither she liked, and Richard went with her.

The spring was advancing, and brought its soft hues even to the barren moors of Gethin, and bathed its gray rocks in sunshine. There was much to see that was worth seeing, and who so fit as Harry to point out these objects of attraction with which she had been familiar from her childhood? They strolled along the beach to Polwheel, and she snowed him how the harbor there had been silted up through the wrath of the mermaids, or "merry maids," as she called them, still (under favorable circumstances) sometimes seen sitting on the slate cliff ledges beneath the clear blue sea. Far from ridiculing her superstitions, he led her on to talk of them; he did not much mind what she talked about so long as he could look at her and listen.

"But why were the Polwheel mermaids so cruel, Harry? I always imagine them bright and beautiful beings, with golden hair almost as long as yours, and with nothing to do but to comb it."

"That is so, when they are let alone," said Harry, simply; "but even the weakest creatures love revenge, and will get it if they can."

"And quite right too," interrupted Richard; "but for fear of that the strong would be more uncivil even than they are."

"Well, a mermaid was once cruelly treated by a Polwheel man—he fell in love with her, and deserted her—and then her sisters choked up the harbor bar."

"But how did he come to court the mermaid? That must have been difficult; though, if I saw you sitting under water yonder, I should certainly dive, and try."

"You would have no breath to make me pretty speeches then," said Harry, demurely. "This mermaid was, however, a changed child. A Polwheel woman was bathing her infant in the pool yonder beneath that arched rock, when it suddenly gave a cry of joy, and leaped from her arms into the sea. She thought it was drowned, but it came up the next instant more beautiful and bright than ever. She did not herself know but that it was her own child, but there were old folks in the town who knew that it was in reality a mermaid's changeling. She grew up to be a lovely woman, and the Squire of Polwheel at that time—for his race has died out since—fell in love with her; he treated her very ill, and she died broken-hearted, at Gethin, and was buried in our church-yard, where I can show you the tomb."

"And did no punishment overtake the scoundrel Squire?"

"Yes. After a great revel one night, he was returning home by the sands, and in the moonlight beheld a beautiful lady sitting by this same pool. She was so like his dead love to look at that he was frightened at first, but she smiled and beckoned to him, and then, clasping him in her arms, leaped into the sea, and drowned him; and in the storm that arose that night the merry maids filled up the harbor."

"That was hard upon Polwheel," observed Richard, "though the Squire only got what he deserved. He must have been a bad lot."

"But the mermaid was very foolish to believe him," added Harry—"very."

They visited the Fairy Bower, did these young people—the only spot about Gethin where trees grew; a beautiful ravine, with a fall of water, and a caverned cell beside it, where a solitary hermit was said to have dwelt. Notwithstanding which celibate association, it had a wishing-well besides, into which a maiden had but to drop a pin, and wish her wish, and straightway the face of her future husband was mirrored in the water. Through its clear depths you might see the bottom of the pool quite paved with pins.

"And does the charm always work?" asked Richard, laughing. "Try it to-day."

"No, no," answered Harry, gravely; "one must be quite alone for that, and beneath the moonlight."

On Morven Point, a grand old promontory, which pushed out many a yard to meet the encroaching waves, and battled with long before they reached the main land, they sat and watched the sunsets; looked down upon the busy hive of men that worked upon the slate quarry beneath, or gazed upon the ships that tacked and wore to make Turlock Haven. There was a tower on this place, half ruined and with broken steps, up which they climbed together on one occasion, and stood supporting one another upon its dizzy top. There lay around them a splendid prospect of sea and land, but they were looking into one another's eyes, and yet they did not speak of that which was nearest to their hearts. It was a topic to be avoided as long as possible. They only enjoyed these blissful opportunities—they had only been permitted to thus stroll out together alone and unsuspected—upon the tacit understanding that no such thing as love could exist between them. If Harry had not plighted faith to Solomon, her engagement to him tacitly existed nevertheless, and it was under its aegis alone that they had been protected and indulged. It was a part of the character of the young girl to persuade herself that she was doing no harm so long as it was possible to entertain that delusion; and it was all one to Richard what their love was called so long as it was love. Else, as they stood alone together in the noonday stillness, his arm around her waist, as it had not been since that first afternoon upon the castled rock, he must needs have told her why the heart that pressed so close against her side was beating high. Just then, however, he dared not. Suppose that, by any possibility, he had mistaken her sentiments; suppose, that is, an extorted promise, or fear of her father's anger, or what not, should compel her to deny his suit, and cleave to Solomon; suppose even that her simplicity was such—and it was in some things marvelously great—that she had accepted his affection as that of a brother—a friend of her father's and of "Sol's"—but no; he felt certain that she loved him; suppose, at all events, for whatever reason, she was once again to reprove him for yielding to the temptation of her lips, he felt that such a rebuke must of necessity finish all. She could not forgive him twice, unless she gave him license to offend forever. He dared not, therefore, speak directly of that which both were thinking of; and yet he could not altogether ignore so sweet a subject.

"That is the moor yonder, Harry, over which I first came to Gethin—how long ago!"

"Has the time, then, hung so very heavy on your hands?" asked she, seriously.

"No, Harry, no; on the contrary, I have never been so happy; but when one has a new experience, however charming it may be, it seems to dwindle down one's past to nothing. I have had two lifetimes, as it seems to me—one elsewhere, and one here; and yet it is but six weeks since I met you first, Harry, out yonder, gleaming like a sunbeam through the fog."

"I remember it well," said Harry, with a slight shiver.

"But not to sigh about it, dear, I trust? You are not afraid of me now, as you were then? Do you recollect how scared you were when I called you back that day?"

"Yes, well," answered the young girl, earnestly. "I had a reason for being scared, though you would laugh at me if I told you what it was."

"Do I ever laugh at you, Harry, when you would have me serious?" asked Richard, reproachfully. "Come, tell me why you shrank from me—as you can not to-day, dear, for, see, I have got you close—and why your large eyes looked so wild and strange that I half thought you mad? Did you take me for a ghost?"

"No; but I had just seen what is far worse than any ghost. Did you not mark how pale I got that same night? I thought I should have fainted when I was asked" (it was Solomon who had put the question, but Solomon's name was never mentioned between these two young people) "if I had ever seen a spectre ship. I had seen one that very day—only a few minutes before I met you—and on this very cliff."

"Well, and what then?" said Richard, smiling. "Neither your father, nor any one in whom you have an interest, goes to sea. The Flying Dutchman did not concern you, I reckon, even if he did pay you a call."

"You do not understand," said Harry, seriously; "it was not that at all. But when the mists rise over Turlock sands, as they did that day, a black, square-rigged vessel glides across them, which bodes ill to those who see her; and I saw her as plain as I see you."

"But not so near," said Richard, fondly.

"She was coming from Turlock to the quarry yonder—"

"To fetch slates," interrupted the other—"nothing more likely."

"Nay, not she; no craft would have attempted that in such weather; and, besides, there was not a soul on board of her. She was sailing against what little wind there was, and against the tide."

"But even if this was so, Harry, what of it? What harm has come of it?"

"Nothing as yet; nor was I greatly frightened at the time. That omen bodes unhappiness to him or her who sees it, and I was already unhappy."

"Because I was not here to comfort you, Harry. Well, that is remedied."

She shook her head, and did not return the reassuring pressure of his hand. "Listen!" she said. "This misery comes through the person whom he who has seen the vision shall next meet; and I thought I knew who I should meet on my way home—one from whom"—she sank her voice to a whisper—"I already expected misery."

"You mean—" began Richard, eagerly.

"No matter whom I mean. It was not he who met me; that was you."

The hand which he held in his was cold as ice; her face was pale; and her limbs trembled under her.

"This is folly, Harry dear. Am I likely to do you harm, to make you miserable?"

"I do not know," said she. "I sometimes think you are."

He put the long hair back from her forehead, and gazed into her eyes, which were now fast filling with tears. "I love you, Harry, with all my heart," sighed he—"you know I do. And, though you are sometimes cold, and at others seem as though you purposely avoided me, I think you love me—just a little—too. Better, at all events, than the man with whom you yourself have just confessed you expect nothing but misery."

"Hush, hush!" moaned she. "If I said that, it was very wrong."

"It was the truth, Harry. How could it be otherwise? He is not a lover meet for such as you; he is twice your age, and rough and rude of speech even as a suitor. Do you think he will be more tender when he is a husband? He is no mate for you, Harry, nor you for him."

Again she shook her head, with a slow mournful movement, as though less in dissent from his statement than in despair of remedy.

"What!" cried he, "because his father was your father's friend, does that give him the right to be your husband?"

The young girl answered only with her sobs.

"Now tell me, darling—did you ever promise to be this man's wife in words?"

"Yes—no—I am not sure. Oh yes, I must be his; my father has set his mind upon it. Nay, do not smile at that; you don't know what my father is. He is not one to cross;" and, as if at the very thought of her stern parent's wrath, she lifted up her head from Richard's breast, and looked around in fear.

"But suppose I win him to my side, sweet Harry?"

"That you could never do," sighed she. "I tell you you don't know him."

"Nay; but I think I do, dear; and, if I could show him that it was to his own advantage to have me for his son-in-law, in place of—"

"You would not persuade him," interrupted the young girl, firmly—"not even if you were Carew of Crompton's heir."

The words she had used were meant to express exhaustless wealth—for with such was the owner of Gethin still credited in that far-away corner of his possession—but they startled and offended Richard. "I may not be Carew's heir," said he, haughtily; "but I have some power at Crompton, and I can exert it in your father's favor."

Harry shook her head. "He wants for nothing," she said, "that you can give him. He is wealthier than you imagine. He has two thousand pounds in notes, for which he has no use; they lie in the strong-box in my room. But there, I promised not to speak of that."

"I am not a burglar in disguise," said Richard, smiling, "and would make your father richer rather than rob him. But why should he keep so large a sum by him?"

"I do not know; but there it is, locked with a letter padlock which he made himself. No human being can open it, he says, who does not know the secret."

Richard was silent. Something else than love was occupying his thoughts, though his fingers were making marriage rings for themselves of Harry's golden hair. It is like entertaining angels unawares to find after one has fallen in love that it is with an heiress.

"Dear Harry," said he at last, "I think I shall take you from your father's willing hands; I have good hope of it, and better since I have heard you so despairing; but, at all events, you will be mine. Let me hear those sweet lips say so. Promise me, promise me, my darling, that you will be my wife."

He caught and clasped her close, and she did not repulse him.

"I dare not, Richard—I dare not promise you," she murmured.

"But if your father gives me leave?" whispered he, his lips to her warm cheek.

She uttered a soft cry of passionate joy that told him more than a hundred phrases of assent how dear he was to her, and hid her face upon his breast.

Oh happy hour, so bright, and yet so brief! Oh golden noon, already on the verge of eve and blackest night!

How often in the after-time did that fair and sunny scene recur to them, a bitter memory; how often was that first kiss of love renewed by cruel fancy and in mocking dreams, its sweetness changed to gall!

Better for one—better, perhaps, for both—if, clasped in one another's arms, they had fallen from that tall tower's top, and then and there had ended life and love together!



CHAPTER XVII.

WORKING ON A PIVOT.

Never had Richard been in such high spirits as on the evening of that day on which Harry had made confession to him of her love, and had promised to be his wife should her father's consent be gained. It was true that she had been far from sanguine upon the latter point; but Richard had his reasons for being of a different opinion. It would be better, every way, if he could obtain Trevethick's good-will; not that he at all shared in the girl's dread of his anger, but because it really seemed that if he married her from her father's roof he should be fulfilling his mother's injunctions in making alliance with an heiress. What with his two thousand pounds in gold, and his inn, and his lucky mine, it was plain that the old man would have no despicable sum to leave behind him; and yet, to do Richard justice, this only formed an additional incentive to a project upon which, at all events, he had long set his heart. He had resolved at all hazards to make the girl his wife. His love for her was as deep as it was passionate; and now that he was assured from her own lips of its being returned, his heart was filled with joy, and spoke out of its abundance. It had been hitherto his habit in that family circle round the bar-parlor fire to play the part of listener rather than of talker. He had mainly confined himself to the exhibition of an attentive interest in Solomon's stories, or in his host's sagacious observations with respect to the investment of capital, such as: "One couldn't be too cautious where one put one's money;" and, "Where the interest was high the risk was great, and where it was low it was not worth while to let it leave one's hand." Next to the subject of local superstition, "investment" was the favorite subject of debate between Trevethick and "Sol;" and Richard, whose ignorance insured his impartiality, had been the judicious scale-holder between them. But upon the present occasion it was the young artist who led the talk and chose the matter. He told them of the splendors of Crompton and of the marvelous prodigality of its owner, and they listened with greedy ears. To vulgar natures, the topic of mere wealth is ever an attractive one, and in the present instance there was an additional whet to appetite in the connection of Carew with Gethin. He was naturally an object of curiosity to his tenant Trevethick, and never before had the old man had the opportunity of hearing at first hand of the eccentricities of the Squire. In relating them Richard took good care to show by implication on what intimate terms he stood with him, and hinted at the obligation under which he had put him by throwing his park gate open so opportunely. The impression which he left upon his audience, and desired to leave, was, that Carew was indebted to him for having saved his life.

"Then it is likely the Squire would do any thing for you that you chose to ask him?" observed Trevethick, with the thought of his own debt to Solomon's father doubtless in his mind.

"Well, he certainly ought to do so," answered Richard, carelessly; "but, on the other hand, it is not very probable that I shall put him to the test."

"Just so," returned Trevethick, sucking at his pipe; "you're independent of the likes of him."

"Altogether," was Richard's reply.

The old man spoke no more, but sat in a cloud of smoke and thought for the rest of the evening. Even when "Sol" rose up to go—Harry having retired long since, for they kept very early hours at the Gethin Castle—the landlord did not, as usual, accompany him, but mixed himself another glass of his favorite liquor. As for Richard, it was not his custom to seek his bed until after midnight; so Trevethick and he were left to one another's company. It was an opportunity to which the latter had been looking forward for many a day, but which he had never desired so keenly as at that moment.

"Are you likely to be at Crompton soon again?" inquired the landlord, pursuing the subject of the evening's talk.

"I have no intention of going there at present," returned Richard. "The fact is, Mr. Trevethick, between ourselves, I am but a poor man in comparison with many of those I meet there, and their ways and habits are too expensive for me."

"Ay! gambling and such like, I suppose?" observed the landlord, cunningly. "It is 'Light come light go' with the money of that sort of folk, I reckon."

"Just so; and though my money comes light enough—that is, I have not to earn it, since my mother makes me an allowance—I don't choose to risk it at the card-table."

"Quite right, quite right, young gentleman," answered the other, approvingly. "But there are some prudent gentry even at Crompton, I suppose. Parson Whymper, for instance, he don't gamble, do he?"

"Certainly not; he is much too sagacious a man, even if he were rich enough, to play; but for him, indeed, some say the Squire would have come to the end of his tether before this. He manages every thing at Crompton, as you know."

"And yet Carew don't want money?" said the landlord, musing.

"Well, I have been his guest," returned Richard, smiling; "and it is scarcely fair of me to speak of his embarrassments. He does not certainly want it so much but that he can still afford to indulge his whims, Mr. Trevethick, if that's what you mean."

"That's just what I did mean," said the old man, frankly. "Six months ago or so I made a certain proposition to the Squire, which would have been exceedingly to his advantage to accept—"

"And not to yours?" interrupted Richard, slyly.

"Nay, I don't say that, Sir," answered the other. "But it was one that he ought to have been glad to accept in any case, and which it was downright madness in him to refuse, if he wanted cash. It was a chance, too, I will venture to say, that will never offer itself from any other quarter. Mr. Whymper acknowledged that himself."

"I know all about the matter, Mr. Trevethick: the Squire behaved like the dog in the manger to you. He won't work the mine himself, nor yet let you work it."

"For mercy's sake, be quiet!" cried the landlord, earnestly, and looking cautiously about him. "If you know all about it, you need not let others know. What mine are you talking about? Give it a name—but speak it under your breath, man." The old man leaned forward with a white moist face, and peered into Richard's eyes as though he would read his soul.

"Wheal Danes was the name of the place, if I remember right," said Richard. "Carew has a notion that the Romans did not use it up, and that it only wants capital to make it a paying concern. It is one of his mad ideas, doubtless."

Mr. John Trevethick was not by nature a quick appreciator of sarcasm, but he could not misunderstand the irony expressed in Richard's words.

"And is that what you came down to Gethin about?" inquired he, with a sort of grim despair, which had nevertheless a comical effect.

Richard could only trust himself to nod his head assentingly.

"Well," cried the other, striking the table with his fist, "if I didn't think you was as deep as the devil the very first day that I set eyes on you! So you are Parson Whymper's man, are you?" And here, in default of language to express his sense of the deception that, as he supposed, had been practiced on him, Mr. Trevethick uttered an execration terrible enough for a Cornish giant.

"I am not Mr. Whymper's man at all," observed Richard, coolly. "Mr. Whymper is my man—or at least he will be one day or another."

"How so?" inquired the landlord, his eyes at their full stretch, his mouth agape, and his neglected pipe in his right hand. "Who, in the Fiend's name, are you?"

"I am the only son and heir of Carew of Crompton," answered the young man, deliberately.

"You? Why, Carew never had a son," exclaimed Trevethick, incredulously; "leastways, not a lawful one. He was married once to a wench of the name of Hardcastle, 'tis true; but that was put aside."

"I tell you I am Carew's lawful son, nevertheless," persisted Richard. "My mother was privately married to him. Ask Parson Whymper, and he will tell you the same. It is true that my father has not acknowledged me, but I shall have my rights some day—and Wheal Danes along with the rest."

The news of the young man's paternity must have been sufficiently startling to him who thus received it for the first time, and would, under any other circumstances, have doubtless excited his phlegmatic nature to the utmost; but what concerns ourselves in even a slight degree is, with some of us, more absorbing than the most vital interests of another; and thus it was with Trevethick. The ambitious pretensions of his lodger sank into insignificance—notwithstanding that, for the moment, he believed in them; for how, unless he was what he professed to be, could he know so much?—before the disappointment which had befallen himself in the overthrow of a long-cherished scheme.

"Why, Mr. Whymper wrote me with his own hand," growled he, "that in his judgment the mine was worthless, and that he had done all he could to persuade the Squire to sell. And yet you come down here to gauge and spy."

"All stratagems are fair in war and business," answered the young man, smiling. "Come, Mr. Trevethick; whatever reasons may have brought me here, I assure you, upon my honor, that they do not weigh with me now, in comparison with the great regard I feel for you and yours. If you will be frank with me, I will also be so with you; and let me say this at the outset, that nothing which may drop from your lips shall be made use of to prejudice your interests. I have gathered this much for myself, that Wheal—"

"Hush, Sir! for any sake, hush!" implored the landlord, earnestly, and holding up his huge hand for silence. "Do not give it a name again; there is some one moving above stairs."

"It is only Solomon," observed Richard, quietly.

"I don't want Sol nor any other man alive to hear what we are talking about, Mr. Yorke," answered Trevethick, hoarsely. "You have gathered for yourself, you were about to say, that the mine is rich, and well worth what I have offered for it."

"And a good deal more," interrupted Richard. "Perhaps a hundred times, perhaps a thousand times as much. We don't make so close a secret of a matter without our reasons. We don't see Dead Hands, with flames of fire at the finger-tips, going up and down ladders that don't exist, without the most excellent reasons, Mr. Trevethick. What we wish no eye to see, nay, no ear to hear spoken of, is probably a subject of considerable private importance to ourselves. Come, we are friends here together; I say again, let us be frank."

Trevethick was silent for a little; he felt a lump rise in his throat, as though nature itself forbade him to disclose the secret he had kept so long and so jealously guarded. "I have known it for these fifty years," he began, in a half-choking voice. "I found it out as a mere lad, when I went down into the old mine one day for sport, with some schoolmates. The vein lies in the lowest part of the old workings, at a depth that we think nothing of nowadays, though it was too deep for the old masters of the pit. I remember, as though it was yesterday, how my heart leaped within me when my torch shone upon it, and how I fled away, lest my school-fellows should see it also. I came back the next day alone, to certify my great discovery. It is a good vein, if ever there was one. The copper there may be worth tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions!" Never had the numeration table been invested with such significance. Trevethick's giant frame shook with emotion; his eyes literally glared with greed.

"You have been there since?" observed Richard, interrogatively.

"Often, often," answered the other, hoarsely; "I could not keep away. But nobody else has been there. The place is dark and perilous; there are rats, and bats, and eerie creatures all about it. And folks are afraid, because of the Dead Hand and the Flame."

"Your hand and torch?"

"Yes. I did my best to keep the place my own; my thoughts were never absent from it for a day. And when I had earned a little money I put it by, and more to that, and more to that again, till I had got enough to make a bid for the lease of the old mine. But Carew was under age; so that fell through. I bided my time, and bid again; not much—not enough, as I fondly thought, to excite suspicion—but still what would seem a good price for a disused pit. Then I bid more and more; but Carew will neither sell nor let; and my money grows and grows in vain. I tell you I have laid by a fortune only to pour into his hand. It is ready for him to-night; there would be no haggling, no asking for time—it would be paid him in hard cash. How long, thought I, will this madman balk me with his whim? He will die some day in his cups, or break his neck in hunting, and I shall surely come in with my offer to his heir, and have my way at last, and win my prize. But now, after all my patience and my pains, I am overmatched by a Parson and a Boy." He spoke with uncommon heat and passion—not complainingly. His face was dark, and his tone violent, and even menacing. There was no mistake about his having accepted his companion's invitation to be frank.

"Mr. Trevethick," said Richard, gravely, "your disappointment would be natural enough, if your long-cherished plan had really failed; but you have misunderstood me altogether. I am grateful to you for confiding to me the whole of what I had already guessed in part; and you shall have no reason to repent your confidence. Your secret is safer now than it has ever been; for from my lips Mr. Whymper shall never have his suspicions with respect to Wheal Danes confirmed. I have been too long your guest, I feel myself too much the friend of you and yours, to act in any way to your disadvantage."

Trevethick looked at him inquiringly, suspicion and disfavor glowing in his dusky face. "But if your story is true, young gentleman, this mine will be your own some day?"

"It may, or it may not be, Mr. Trevethick. My father's intentions are not to be counted upon, as you must be well aware, for twenty-four hours. But if ever Wheal Danes is mine—" Richard hesitated a moment, while the landlord devoured him with his eyes.

"Well," cried he, impatiently, "what then?"

"I am willing to make over to you, as soon as I come of age, by deed, all interest that I may have in it—on one condition."

"Make over Wheal Danes to me by deed! What! at my own price?"

"For nothing; you shall have it for a free gift."

"But the condition? What is it that you want of me that is not money?"

"I want permission from you, Mr. Trevethick, to wed, that is—for I would not speak of love without your leave—to woo your daughter."

"To wed my daughter!" cried Trevethick, starting from his seat; "my Harry!"

"I say provided that my suit is not displeasing to her," answered Richard, not without a tremor in his voice, for the old man's face was terrible to look upon. Hatred and Wrath were struggling there with Avarice, and had the upper hand.

He rocked himself to and fro, then answered, in a stifled voice, "My daughter's hand is already promised, young man."

"It may be so, Mr. Trevethick, but not by her, I think; and that her heart has not been given to the man you have designed for her is certain. You may see that for yourself."

"I tell you I have passed my word to Solomon Coe that she shall be his wife," returned the other, gloomily, "and I am not one to go back from a bargain."

"One can only promise what is in one's power," urged Richard; "your daughter's heart is not yours to give. In backing this man's suit you have already redeemed your word to him. If he has failed to win her affections—and I think he has—let me try my chance. I am a fitter match for her in years; I am a gentleman, and therefore fitter for her, for she is a true lady. I love her a thousand times as much as he. As for Wheal Danes, I would give you twenty such, if I had them, for the leave I ask for, and the end I hope for."

It was curious to mark how the mere mention of the mine by name affected the old man; his wrath, which seemed on the very point of explosion, was checked and smoothed at once, like raging waves by oil; his brow, indeed, was still dark and frowning, but he resumed his seat, and listened, or seemed to listen, to Richard's impassioned pleading. His genuine feeling made the young fellow eloquent, and gave a tender charm to his always handsome face and winning tones.

Perhaps even the unsympathetic Trevethick was really somewhat touched; at all events, he did not interrupt him, but when he had quite finished took out his watch, and said, in a softened tone: "The hour is late, Mr. Yorke, and you have given me much to think about, to which I can not reply just now. Your communication has taken me altogether by surprise. I will answer neither 'Yes' nor 'No' at present. Good-night, Sir." He nodded, which was his usual salute at parting; but upon the young man's eagerly stretching out his hand, he took it readily enough, and gave it such a squeeze with his giant fingers as made Richard wince. Then, smiling grimly, he retired.

As his heavy step toiled up stairs Richard perceived a slip of paper on the floor, which had apparently fluttered out of the old man's watch-case. Upon it were written the three letters, B, N, Z. As he held it in his hand he heard the landlord's tread returning with unusual haste, and had only just time to replace the paper, face downward, on the sanded floor, before the other reappeared.

"I have dropped a memorandum, somewhere," said he. "It is of no great consequence, but—Oh, here it is!" He picked it up, and replaced it in the hollow of his great silver watch.

Richard, who was sitting where he had left him, looked up with a glance of careless inquiry. "Good-night again, Mr. Trevethick."

"Good-night, Sir." And again the landlord smiled in his grim fashion.



CHAPTER XVIII.

BY MOONLIGHT.

Richard sat over the fire, revolving his late conversation with Trevethick in his mind, and picturing to himself what would probably come of it. Although the declaration of his love for Harry had been thus suddenly made, it had not been made unadvisedly. Though he had not expected the opportunity for stating it would have offered itself so soon, he had planned his whole argument out beforehand, with Wheal Danes for its pivot. And, upon the whole, he felt satisfied with its effect upon his host. The latter had not surprised him (except by his frankness) in his disclosure respecting the rich promise of the mine. Richard's own observation, aided by the clew which Parson Whymper's few chance sentences had given him, had convinced him that Wheal Danes was a most coveted object in the landlord's eyes; and had it happened to have fallen into his own hands, he did really suspect enough to have had it searched for ore from top to bottom. Trevethick had therefore lost nothing by his revelation (as his sagacity had doubtless foreseen), while he had made a very favorable impression upon Richard by his candor. Cornish giants, thought the latter, might be rude and brutal, but duplicity was foreign to their character; it was not Blunderbore, but Jack the Giant-killer, who dug pitfalls, and pretended to swallow what he only put in a bag.

Trevethick had certainly shown strong disfavor to the young man's suit, backed though it was by such great pretensions; and it was evident that but for his hold upon him with respect to the mine, Richard would not have been listened to so patiently. However, his mouth had not been peremptorily closed at once (as he had expected it would have been), which was a great point gained, and the longer the old man took to think about the matter the more likely was self-interest to gain the day with him. Supposing Richard's representations to have been correct, he was certainly "a better match" for Harry than Solomon was; and he had no apprehension of their being refuted. Trevethick would in all probability write to Mr. Whymper to inquire into the truth of them—but what then? He would certainly make no reference to the mine; and as to Richard being Carew's lawful son, had not the chaplain himself (whom he could count on as a friend to say all that was to his advantage besides) admitted that, in his eyes, he was born in honest wedlock? At all events, there would be ample excuse for his having taken such a view of the case; while, as to his prospects, he had frankly confessed that he was, for the present, unacknowledged by the Squire. So long, in fact, as he could keep up the pretense of influence, either present or contingent, at Crompton, he felt his position with Trevethick tolerably secure. In all this scheme of dark deceit his love for Harry was interwoven like a golden thread, and amidst all his plots and plans her glorious face would suddenly rise unbidden, and charm him from them. He had long since resolved to win her, but the late avowal of her love for him, and now his partial success to gain her father's favor, seemed to have made her his own already. How beautiful she had looked that day upon the tower, with the sunlight on her hair! How fresh and guileless were her ways! Her very weaknesses were lovable, and the cause of love. How touching was her simple faith in omens, and how pleasant to combat it, his arm about her dainty waist, as though to protect her from the shadow of harm! How pitiful her fear of her gruff father, and of this Cornish Solomon; and how sweet to calm it, kissing her tears away! Once more his loving arms embraced her—once more his lips touched her warm cheeks—when a sudden noise awakened him from his dream of bliss.

The parlor fire had long gone out. It was warm for the time of year; but had it been otherwise he would not have replenished it. The candles, too, had burned out, and the moon-beams were streaming through the window; but had it been dark he would scarce have been aware of it. The house had long ago been hushed in repose, and yet Richard felt certain that he had heard a movement in the passage.

A stealthy step, yet not that of thief or burglar; a fairy footfall, rather, which was music to his ear. His heart leaped up to tell him that on the other side of the door was Harry Trevethick. He held his breath, and trembled—not for fear. Was it possible that, knowing he was sitting there alone, she had come down of her own choice to bear him company? Had her father told her something—some glad tidings which she could not keep from her lover even for a night? Or, filled with sweet dreams of him, as he of her, had she risen in her sleep, and been drawn involuntarily toward him by the loadstone of love? But—hark! The bolt that fastened the house-door was softly drawn, and the latch gently lifted. What could that mean? Why was she thus going forth alone, and clandestinely, at midnight? His heart beat faster than ever. For an instant all that he had read or heard from his wild companions, and what he had himself believed until he came to Gethin, of the wiles and inconstancy of woman, flashed upon his mind. Had he, bred in the town, and familiar with all the ways of vice, been flattered and hoodwinked by a country wanton? Impossible. For, though there were no virtue in the world, he felt assured that Harry loved him, and him alone. She must be walking in her sleep. Softly, but very swiftly, he left the parlor, and hurried to the front-door. It was closed, but unfastened. He opened it, and looked out. All was as light as day, and yet so different. Every object in the street, every stone in the cottage opposite, stood out distinct and clear, but bathed in a pale and ghostly atmosphere. The distant murmur of the sea came to him like the sigh of one just freed from pain. Nothing else was to be heard; no human tread disturbed the midnight stillness; but along the winding road that led to Turlock he caught the far-off flutter of a woman's dress. She was going at rapid speed, and the next moment had turned the corner, but not before he had recognized his Harry; and, closing the inn door softly behind him, he started after her like an arrow from the bow.

The scene of this pursuit was strange and weird enough, had Richard possessed eyes for any thing but the object of it. The sky was without a cloud, and the sea—which showed on its cold blue surface a broad and shining path where the moon-beams lay—without a ripple. On shore there was even less of motion. The bramble that threw its slender shadow on the road moved not a twig. Nature, green and pale, seemed to be cast in an enchanted sleep, and even to suspend her breathing. From the point Richard had reached he could see the road stretching for a full mile, like a white ribbon, save in the middle, where it dipped between high banks. It led to Turlock only, but at this place a foot-path struck across the fields to the Fairies' Bower. To his astonishment, though indeed he had scarcely capacity enough for further wonder, Harry took this path; he saw her climb the stile, and then for the first time look round; he sank under the hedge, to hide himself; and when he cautiously looked forth again the girl had vanished. But he knew whither she was going now. He had assisted her across that very stile but a few days ago; he had walked with her through the hazel copse, and skirted the clear trout-stream by her side; and he could follow her now at utmost speed, and with less caution, for the path was green and noiseless. He could hear his heart beat—not from want of breath—as though in accord with the silver treble of the stream, as he sped along. Through the scanty foliage of the dell he saw her light dress gleam across the wooden bridge, but he himself stopped beside it, peering through the lattice of the branches upon her as she stood on the green bank of the Wishing-Well.

Never had moon-beams shone upon a sight more fair. Harry was attired as she had been on the previous evening, except that she wore a shawl, which also served her as head-gear, like a hood. This she now unfastened, and taking out the pin that had joined it together, held it above the well, which showed, as in a mirror, her leaning face and curving form, her wealth of hair, her frightened yet hopeful eyes, and the rise and fall of her bosom, filled with anxiety and superstitious awe. She had come to test her future—to foresee her fate—at Gethin Wishing-Well. For an instant she poised the pin, her lips at the same time murmuring some simple charm—then dropped it into the well's clear depths, and watched it fall. As she did so, another figure seemed to glide upon the liquid mirror, at the sight of which she clasped her hands and trembled. Superstitious as she was, Harry had only half expected that her foolish curiosity would be actually gratified. Moved by the avowal of Richard's love that morning, the obstacles to which seemed to her so formidable, she had wished to see her future husband, to know how fate would decide between him she loved and him whom her father had chosen for her, and yet she was terrified now that that which she had desired was vouchsafed her. She scarcely dared to look upon yonder shadowy form, although its presence seemed to assure her of the fulfillment of her dearest wish. It was the counterfeit presentment of Richard Yorke himself; bareheaded, just as she had seen him last in the bar parlor, but with heightened color, an eager smile, and a loving gratitude in his eyes, which seemed to thank her for having thus summoned him before her. The figure was at right angles from her own, but the face was turned toward her. She gazed upon it intently, looking for it to faint and fade, since its mission had been accomplished. She even drew back a little, as though to express content, yet there was the vision still, a glorious picture in its fair round frame of moss and greenery. Supposing it should remain there (her pale face flushed at the thought) indelibly and forever, to tell the secret of her heart to all the world! Then a whisper, that seemed to tremble beneath its freight of love, whispered, "Harry! Harry!" and she looked up, and saw the substance of the shadow, her lover, standing upon the little wooden bridge!

Though Folly be near kin to Vice, she does not acknowledge the relationship, and, to do Harry Trevethick justice, she would never have made a midnight assignation with Richard in the Fairies' Bower. She was more alarmed and shocked at the too literal fulfillment of her wish than pleased to see him there. She shed tears for very shame. Whatever reserve she had hitherto maintained, with respect to her affection for him, had now, she perceived, been swept away by her own act. The scene to which he had just been an unsuspected witness was more than equivalent to a mere declaration of love: it was a leap-year offer of her hand and heart. She had no strong-hold of Duty left to which to betake herself, nor even a halting-place, such as coy maidens love to linger at a little before they murmur, "I am yours."

There was nothing left her but revilings. She poured upon him a torrent of contumely, reproaching him for his baseness, his cowardice, his treachery in tracking her hither, like a spy, to overhear a confession that should have been sacred with him of all men. Whatever that confession might have been—and, to say truth, so utterly possessed had she been by her passionate hopes, her loving yearnings, that she knew not what she had merely felt, what uttered aloud—she now retracted it; she had no tenderness for eaves-droppers, for deceivers, for—she did not know what she was saying—for wicked young men. Above all things it seemed necessary to be in a passion; to be as irritated and bitter against him as possible. The copiousness of her vocabulary of abuse surprised herself, and she did not shrink from tautology. She only stopped at last for want of breath, and even then, as though she knew how dangerous was silence, she bemoaned herself with sobs and sighs.

Then Richard, all tenderness and submission, explained his presence there; showed how little he was to blame in the matter, and, indeed, how there was neither blame nor shame to be attached to either of them; spoke of his late interview with her father, gilding it with brightest hopes, and cited the marvelous attributes of the Wishing-Well itself in support of his position. He felt himself already her affianced husband; the question of their union had become only one of time. She was listening to him now, and had suffered him to kiss her tears away, when suddenly she started from his embrace with a muffled cry of terror. Some movement of beast or bird in the copse had made a rustling in the underwood, but her fears gave it a human shape. What if Sol should have followed them thither, as Richard had followed her! What if her father should have heard her leave his roof, as Richard had, or should miss her from it—and—oh shame!—miss him! "Home! home!" she cried. "Let me go home." And she looked so wild with fright that he durst not hinder her. Hardly could he keep pace with her along the winding path, with such frantic speed she ran. At the stile she forbade him to accompany her farther.

"What! leave you to walk alone, and at such an hour, my darling?" It was nearly two o'clock.

"Why not?" she cried, turning upon him fiercely. "I am afraid of none but you, and of those whom I should love, but of whom you make me afraid." Then up the white road she glided like a ghost.

Richard watched her with anxious eyes as long as he could, then sat upon the stile, a prey to apprehensions. To what dangers might he not have already exposed her by his inconsiderate pursuit! Suppose some eye had seen them on their way, or should meet her now on her return! Suppose her own fears should prove true, and her father had already discovered their absence! His thoughts were loyally occupied with Harry alone; but the peril to himself was considerable. It was impossible that he could satisfactorily explain his companionship with the inn-keeper's daughter at such a place and hour. The truth would never be believed, even if it could be related. She had got home by this time; but had she done so unobserved? Otherwise, it was more than probable that he should find two Cornish giants waiting, if not "to grind his bones to make their bread," at least to break them with their cudgels. In their eyes he would seem to have been guilty of a deliberate seduction, the one of his daughter, the other of his destined bride. Yet, not to return to Gethin in such a case would be worse than cowardice, since his absence would be sure to be associated with Harry's midnight expedition. He had hitherto only despised this Trevethick and his friend, but now, since he feared them, he began to hate them. Bodily discomfort combined with his mental disquietude. For the first time he felt the keenness of the moonlit air, and shivered in it, notwithstanding the hasty strides which he now was taking homeward. Upon the hill-top he paused, and glanced about him. All was as it had been when he set out; there was no sign of change nor movement. The inn, with its drawn-down blinds, seemed itself asleep. The front-door had been left ajar, doubtless by Harry; he pushed his way in, and silently shut it to, and shot the bolt; then he took off his boots, and walked softly up stairs in his stockinged feet. He knew that there was at least one person in that house who was listening with beating heart for every noise.

The ways of clandestine love have been justly described as "full of cares and troubles, of fears and jealousies, of impatient waiting, tediousness of delay, and sufferance of affronts, and amazements of discovery;" and though Richard Yorke had never read those words of our great English divine, he had already begun to exemplify them, and was doomed to prove them to the uttermost.



CHAPTER XIX.

RICHARD BURNS HIS BOATS.

It was strange enough that day after day and week after week went by without John Trevethick making any reference to the application his guest had made for his daughter's hand. His silence certainly seemed to favor it; and the more so since, notwithstanding what he knew, he put no obstacles in the way of the young people's meeting and enjoying each other's society as heretofore. Perhaps he had too strong a confidence in Harry's sense of duty, or in the somewhat more than filial fear in which she stood of him. Perhaps Richard's prudent and undemonstrative behavior toward the girl in the presence of others deceived him. But, at all events, the summer came and still found Richard under the same roof with Harry, and more like one of the family than ever. Tourists of the young man's own position in life, and even of the same profession, began to visit Gethin, and of course "put up" at the Castle, but he found nothing so attractive in their company as to withdraw him from that homely coterie in the bar parlor for a single evening. He was always made welcome there by both his host and Solomon; and without doubt, so far as the former was concerned, a less sanguine man than the young landscape-painter might have considered that his suit was tacitly acceded to.

Even Harry herself—to whom her father's conduct was surprising enough—had come at last to this conclusion. Only one thing militated against this pleasant view of affairs—it was certain that the old man had not yet opened his lips to "Sol" upon the matter. It was clear that the miner still considered himself in the light of Harry's accepted suitor. As a lover, he was fortunately phlegmatic, and did not demand those little tributes of affection in the shape of smiles and whispers, secret glances, silent pressures, which his position might have exacted; but he would now and then pay her a blundering compliment in a manner that could not be misinterpreted, or even make some direct allusion to their future settlement in life, which embarrassed her still more. The young girl, as we have hinted, was by no means incapable of dissimulation, but she naturally revolted against having to support such a role as this, and would have even run the risk of precipitating what might have been a catastrophe by undeceiving him. But Richard bade her have patience. He had strong reasons, if they were not good ones, for being well satisfied with the present state of affairs. In love, notwithstanding much savage writing to the contrary, it is the woman who suffers; it is she who is the small trader, who can least afford to wait, while man is the capitalist. Richard saw no immediate necessity for pressing the matter of his marriage, upon which his heart was, nevertheless, as deeply set as ever. He would not (to do him justice) have been parted from his Harry now for all the wealth of Carew. But he was not parted from her, and he did not wish to risk even a temporary separation by any act of impetuosity. Living was cheap as well as pleasant at the Gethin Castle, and it was of importance to husband his funds—to reserve as much of his resources as he could for the expenses of his honey-moon. So far, and no farther, went his plans for the future. He knew that his mother would not refuse to offer them a home, even if his wife should come to him empty-handed; and the more he humored the old man, and abstained from demanding a decision, when it was clear the other preferred to procrastinate, the better favor he would have with him, and consequently the better chance of gaining a dowry with his daughter. Even if he should press matters, it was probable, he reasoned, that Trevethick had no decisive reply to give him. He had doubtless written to Mr. Whymper, and learned all that Richard had already divulged to him—and no more; that is to say, that he was, though an unacknowledged offspring of the Squire, in a very different position, at all events, toward him than that of a mere natural son. Trevethick could not have heard less—that is, less to his advantage—or he certainly would not have kept silence for so long.

Such was the state of affairs at Gethin. Harry with her two suitors; her father with his two expectant sons-in-law, each of whom had more or less of reason for his expectation. Though Richard might be satisfied with it, it was clear it could not last forever—nor for long. The day on which the change took place, though it was in no wise remarkable in other respects, he never forgot: every incident connected with it, though disregarded at the time, impressed itself upon his mind, to be subsequently dwelt upon a thousand times. It might have been marked in the hitherto sunny calendar of his life as the "Last day of Thoughtless Gayety. Here Love and Pleasure end."

It was fine weather, and there were more tourists at the inn than could be accommodated, so Richard had given up his private sitting-room to their temporary use. This, however, did not throw him more in Harry's society than usual, since their presence naturally much occupied her time. He had not, indeed, seen her since the mid-day meal which he had taken in the bar parlor; but she had promised, if she could get away, to call for him at a certain spot where he had gone to sketch—the church-yard on the hill. The attraction of the castled rock was such that few visitors sought the former spot, notwithstanding its picturesque and wild position. How the church maintained itself on that elevated and unsheltered hill, despite such winds as swept it in the winter, was almost a miracle: but there it stood—as it had done for centuries—gray, solitary, sublime. It was of considerable size, but small in comparison with its God's-acre, which was of vast extent, and only sparsely occupied by graves. The bare and rocky moor was almost valueless; it is as easy for one duly qualified to consecrate a square mile as an acre; and the materials of the low stone wall that marked its limits had been close at hand. In one or two spots only did the dead lie thickly; where shipwrecked mariners—the very names of whom were unknown to those who buried them—were interred; and where the victims of the Plague reposed by scores. Even Gethin had not escaped the ravages of that fell scourge; and, what was very singular, had suffered from it twice over; for, on the occasion of an ordinary burial having taken place many generations after the first calamity, in the same spot, the disease had broken forth afresh, and scattered broadcast in the little hamlet ancient death. The particulars of the catastrophe, so characteristic of this home of antique legend and hoary ruin, were engraven on a stone above the spot, which had never since been disturbed.

In a lone corner, as though seeking in its humility to be as distant from the sacred edifice as possible, was a quaint old cross. It was probably not so old by half a dozen centuries as the grave-mounds on the rock where the ruined castle stood, but it seemed even older, because there were words cut in its stone in a tongue that was no longer known to man. Seated on the low wall beside it, Richard was transferring to his sketch-book this relic of the past in his usual intermittent manner—now gazing out upon the far-stretching sea, here blue and bright, there shadowed by a passing cloud; now down into the village, which stood on a lower hill, with a ravine between. He had seen the post-cart come and go—for it came in and went out simultaneously at that out-of-the-way hamlet, where there was no one to write complainingly to the papers concerning the inefficiency of the mail service—and it was almost time for Harry to come and fetch him, as she had appointed. But presently the reason for her absence made itself apparent in the person of her father. It was not unusual for old Trevethick, at the close of the day, to call at the cottage in the ravine, which the guide to the ruin inhabited in the summer months, and see how business was doing in that quarter. If he had no eye for the picturesque, he had a very sharp one for the shillings which were made out of it; and Richard was not surprised to see the landlord descending the opposite hill. "This will keep Harry at home; confound him!" muttered the young man to himself, and then resumed his occupation. As there was now no one to watch for, he worked with more assiduity, and with such engrossment in his subject that he was first made conscious that he was not alone by the sudden presence of a shadow on his sketch-book. He looked up, not a little startled, and there was John Trevethick standing beside him, his huge form black against the sun.

"You may well be frightened, young gentleman," were his first ominous words; "it is only a guilty conscience that starts at a shadow."

Richard had a guilty conscience; and yet the remark that was thus addressed to him, unconciliatory, if not directly hostile, as it was, rather reassured him than otherwise.

Trevethick's presence there, for he had never made pretense of seeking Richard's society for its own sake—was of evil augury; his tone and manner were morose and threatening; his swarthy face was full of pent-up wrath; and yet it was obvious to the other that the secret was yet safe, the divulging of which he had most cause to fear. Had it been otherwise there would have been no mere thunder-cloud, but a tornado. "The post has brought some ill news from Crompton," was what flashed across the young man's brain; and the thought, though sufficiently uncomfortable, was a relief compared with that he had first entertained, and which had driven the color from his cheeks.

"I have no cause to be frightened, that I know of, either of you or any other man, Mr. Trevethick," observed Richard, haughtily.

"I hear you say so," was the other's grim reply; "but I shall be better pleased to hear you prove it."

"Prove what?"

"Two things—that you are not a bastard, nor a pauper."

Richard leaped down from the wall with a fierce oath; and for a moment it really seemed that he would have flung himself against his gigantic opponent, like a fretful wave against a rock of granite.

Trevethick uttered an exclamation of contempt. "Pick up your sketch-book, young man, or one of those pretty pictures will be spoiled by which you gain your bread. You've acted the fine gentleman at Gethin very well, but the play is over now."

"I don't understand you, Mr. Trevethick. If you must needs be insolent, at all events, be explicit. You have miscalled me by two names—Bastard and Pauper. Who has put those lies into your mouth, the taste of which you seem to relish so?"

Trevethick reached forth his huge hand, and seized the other's shoulder with a gripe of steel. It seemed to compress bone and sinew as in a vice; the arm between them was as a bar of iron. Richard felt powerless as a child, and could have cried like a child—not from pain, though he was in great pain, but from vexation and rage. It was maddening to find himself thus physically subjugated by one whom he so utterly despised.

"Keep a civil tongue in your head, cock-sparrow," growled the giant, "lest I wring your neck. You're a nice one to talk of lying; you, with your tales of son and heirship to the Squire, and your offers of copper-mines for the asking! Who told me how I had been fooled? Why, Carew himself! You thought I should write to the parson, eh?"

Richard certainly had thought that he would have written to the parson, but he strove to look as calm and free from disappointment as he could, as he replied: "It was quite indifferent to me to whom you wrote, Mr. Trevethick. There was only one account to give of my affairs; and it was the same I had already given to you. I told you that my father did not choose to acknowledge me for the present, and I have no doubt that your questioning him upon the matter has made him very bitter against me; the more so because he is well aware that he is fighting against the truth; he knows that he was married to my mother in a lawful way, and that I am the issue of that marriage. It is true that technical objections have been raised against it, but his own conscience warns him that they are worthless. Mr. Whymper will tell you the same."

"Never you mind Mr. Whymper," said the landlord, gruffly, but at the same time relaxing his grasp upon the young man's shoulder; "the parson needs all his cleverness to take care of himself in this matter, and will have no helping hand to spare for you. The Squire is in a pretty temper with you both, I promise you. Here's his letter, if you'd like to see what he says of you in black and white; not that there's much white in it, egad!"

It was a custom of the Squire of Crompton, unconsciously plagiarized from the Great Napoleon, to let all letters addressed to him in an unfamiliar hand answer themselves. They were not destroyed, but lay for weeks or months unopened, until the fancy seized him to examine their contents. He made, it was true, a gallant exception in the case of those whose superscription seemed to promise a lady correspondent; but that had not been the case with the communication from Trevethick, and hence the long interval that had elapsed before it was attended to. Trevethick's business letters had hitherto, as was the case with all tenants of Crompton estate, been addressed to the chaplain only, so that he was unaware of this peculiarity of Carew, and had naturally construed his silence into a tacit admission of the truth of Richard's statement.

If force of language and bitterness of tone could have made up for his previous neglect, the Squire's letter was an apology in itself. It was short, but sharp and decisive. "The grain of truth," he wrote, "among the bushel of lies that this young gentleman has told you is, that he was once a guest under my roof—I forget whether for two nights or three. He will never be there again—neither now nor after I am in my box" (this was the Squire's playful way of alluding to the rites of sepulture). "He has no more claim upon me than any other of my bastards—of whom I have more than I know of—and in fact less, for I may have deceived their mothers, whereas his played a trick on me. As to his expectations from me, I can only tell you this much, that I expect he will come to be hanged; as for interest, whatever he may have with my son of a she-dog of a chaplain, he has none with me; and as for money, so far as I know, he is a pauper, and likely to remain so as long as he lives." There were other sentences spurted from the volcano of the Squire's wrath, but to the same effect.

"A nice letter of recommendation, truly, and from his own father, of the young gentleman who asked me for my daughter's hand!" growled Trevethick. "You ought to be thankful to get out of Gethin with whole bones. If 'Sol' was to come to know of what you asked of me, I would not answer for even so much as that, I promise you."

"'Sol' might have known of it had you not chosen to keep it from him, for reasons best known to yourself," said Richard, quietly. "You have taken some time to make up your mind between us."

Trevethick winced; for the promise of the young man's interest with respect to Wheal Danes had, in fact, been the bait which had tempted him to temporize so long. He had never meant to give his daughter to Richard; but he had hoped to reap an advantage, present or future, out of the implied intention; nor did he know even yet in what relation Richard stood with Parson Whymper.

"At all events, it's made up now," answered the landlord, curtly.

"This letter has caused you to decide against me, then?"

"That letter? Well, of course it has. Not that there ain't a heap of other reasons; but that one's enough, I should think, even for you."

"It is just such a letter as I should have expected Carew to pen," observed Richard, coolly, "and does not alter the facts of the case as I stated them to you one whit. That my father is furious with me is clear enough; that is, because he is in the wrong, and feels it. He is angry, you see, even with Mr. Whymper, because he knows that his view of my case is such as I described to you. I confessed from the first that my interest at Crompton was a contingent one. You are treating me with great injustice, Mr. Trevethick."

"What! Have you so much brass left as to say that? You, that have asked my permission to pay court to my daughter, under the pretense that you were a fine gentleman, independent at present, and the heir-presumptive to one of the richest commoners in the kingdom! How durst you do it? You vagabond! you scoundrel!"

"You will be sorry for having said those words some day," said Richard, hoarsely; he was choking with rage, and yet it was necessary to restrain himself. He felt that this man would presently forbid him his house—would separate him from his Harry forever; and that would be like tearing out his heart-strings. Always audacious, there was nothing that he was not now prepared to say or do to avert this. "I tell you, Mr. Trevethick, this letter is full of lies, or rather it is written by a madman. I am not a bastard; I am not a pauper. I have an independence of my own, though, indeed, it is small compared with my expectations. My mother makes me a good allowance. I am a gentleman, and I have a right to be listened to by any man, when I ask leave to be his daughter's lover."

"Let us leave alone your gentility, Sir, and your mother's allowances," sneered the landlord, "since there is no means of gauging either the one or the other. As for your independent property—I don't believe you have a hundred pounds in the world; but it is easy enough to prove that I am mistaken there. Let me see the money down. Show me your three or four thousand pounds in gold, or notes that I know, for I must needs be particular with so clever a young gentleman; notes of the Bank of England, or of the Miners' Bank at Plymouth. Let me hold them in my hand, and then I shall feel that you are speaking the truth. At present, I tell you fairly, that if I saw a check of yours, I should look upon it as so much waste paper until I also saw it honored."

"Three thousand pounds is a large sum, Mr. Trevethick," said Richard, thoughtfully.

"Let us say two, then," returned the landlord, mockingly. "Sell out two thousand pounds of this independent fortune of yours, that has been invested in the Deep Sea Cockle Mine, or in debentures of the Railway in the Air. Let me see but two thousand pounds, Mr. Richard Yorke, and then—and not before—may you open your lips to me again respecting my daughter Harry." He turned upon his heel with a bitter laugh; while Richard, as white as the sketch-book he still held in his hand, remained speechless. A perilous thought had taken possession of his mind—a thought that it would have been better for him to have dropped down there dead than to have entertained, but it grew and grew apace within him like a foul weed. Had his life of selfish pleasure angered the long-suffering gods, and, having resolved upon his ruin, were they already making him mad? He ran after the old man, who did not so much as turn to look behind him, though he could not but have heard his rapid steps. "Mr. Trevethick, I will do it," he gasped out.

"Do what?" said the other, contemptuously, striding on. "Go hang yourself, or jump off Gethin rock into the sea?"

"I will get you the money that you speak of—the two thousand pounds. You shall have it in your hand, and keep it for that matter, if you please."

"What?" Unutterable astonishment stared out from the landlord's face. For the first time since the receipt of Carew's letter he began to discredit its contents. If this young fellow had really the immediate command of so large a sum, there was probably much more "behind him." He must either have a fortune in his own right, or if Carew had settled such a sum of money on him, he must have had a reason for it—the very reason Richard had assigned. And if so, Wheal Danes might be his to dispose of even yet. But Trevethick was not the man to hint a doubt of his foregone conclusions. "You have not got this money in your pocket, have you?" said he, with a short dry laugh.