Mr. Jellicorse had been most skillful and wary in sounding these deep and silent people; for he wanted to find out how much they knew, without letting them suspect that there was anything to know. And he proved an old woman's will gratis, or at least put it down to those who could afford it—because nobody meant to have it proved—simply for the sake of getting golden contact with Messrs. Akeborum, Micklegate, and Brigant. Right craftily then did he fetch a young member of the firm, who delighted in angling, to take his holiday at Middleton, and fish the goodly Tees; and by gentle and casual discourse of gossip, in hours of hospitality, out of him he hooked and landed all that his firm knew of the Yordas race. Young Brigant thought it natural enough that his host, as the lawyer of that family, and their trusted adviser for five-and-twenty years, should like to talk over things of an elder date, which now could be little more than trifles of genealogical history. He got some fine fishing and good dinners, and found himself pleased with the river and the town, and his very kind host and hostess; and it came into his head that if Miss Emily grew up as pretty and lively as she promised to be, he might do worse than marry her, and open a connection with such a fishing station. At any rate he left her as a "chose in action," which might be reduced into possession some fine day.

Such was the state of affairs when Jordas, after a long and muddy ride, sent word that he would like to see the master, for a minute or two, if convenient. The days were grown short, and the candles lit, and Mr. Jellicorse was fast asleep, having had a good deal to get through that day, including an excellent supper. The lawyer's wife said: "Let him call in the morning. Business is over, and the office is closed. Susanna, your master must not be disturbed." But the master awoke, and declared that he would see him.

Candles were set in the study, while Jordas was having a trifle of refreshment; and when he came in, Mr. Jellicorse was there, with his spectacles on, and full of business.

"Asking of your pardon. Sir, for disturbing of you now," said the dogman, with the rain upon his tarred coat shining, in a little course of drainage from his great brown beard, "my orders wur to lay this in your own hand, and seek answer to-morrow by dinner-time, if may be."

"Master Jordas, you shall have it, if it can be. Do you know anybody who can promise more than that?"

"Plenty, Sir, to promise it, as you must know by this time; but never a body to perform so much as half. But craving of your pardon again, and separate, I wud foin spake a word or two of myself."

"Certainly, Jordas, I shall listen with great pleasure. A fine-looking fellow like you must have affairs. And the lady ought to make some settlement. It shall all be done for you at half price."

"No, Sir, it is none o' that kind of thing," the dogman answered, with a smile, as if he might have had such opportunities, but would trouble no lawyer about them; "and I get too much of half price at home. It is about my ladies I desire to make speech. They keep their business too tight, master."

"Jordas, you have been well taught and trained; and you are a man of sagacity. Tell me faithfully what you mean. It shall go no further. And it may be of great service to your ladies."

"It is not much, Master Jellicoose; and you may make less than that of it. But a lie shud be met and knocked doon, Sir, according to my opinion."

"Certainly, Jordas, when an action will not lie; and sometimes even where it does, it is wise to commit a defensible assault, and so to become the defendant. Jordas, you are big enough to do that."

"Master Jellicoose, you are a pleasant man; but you twist my maning, as a lawyer must. They all does it, to keep their hand in. I am speaking of the stories, Sir, that is so much about. And I think that my ladies should be told of them right out, and come forward, and lay their hands on them. The Yordases always did wrong, of old time; but they never was afraid to jump on it."

"My friend, you speak in parables. What stories have arisen to be jumped upon?"

"Well, Sir, for one thing, they do tell that the proper owner of the property is Sir Duncan, now away in India. A man hath come home who knows him well, and sayeth that he is like a prince out there, with command of a country twice as big as Great Britain, and they up and made 'Sir Duncan' of him, by his duty to the king. And if he cometh home, all must fall before him."

"Even the law of the land, I suppose, and the will of his own father. Pretty well, so far, Jordas. And what next?"

"Nought, Sir, nought. But I thought I wur duty-bound to tell you that. What is women before a man Yordas?"

"My good friend, we will not despair. But you are keeping back something; I know it by your feet. You are duty-bound to tell me every word now, Jordas."

"The lawyers is the devil," said the dogman to himself; and being quite used to this reflection, Mr. Jellicorse smiled and nodded; "but if you must have it all, Sir, it is no more than this. Jack o' the Smithies, as is to marry Sally o' Will o' the Wallhead, is to have the lease of Shipboro' farm, and he is the man as hath told it all."

"Very well. We will wish him good luck with his farm," Mr. Jellicorse answered, cheerfully; "and what is even rarer nowadays, I fear, good luck of his wife, Master Jordas."

But as soon as the sturdy retainer was gone, and the sound of his heavy boots had died away, Mr. Jellicorse shook his head very gravely, and said, as he opened and looked through his packet, which confirmed the words of Jordas, "Sad indiscretion—want of legal knowledge—headstrong women—the very way to spoil it all! My troubles are beginning, and I had better go to bed."

His good wife seconded this wise resolve; and without further parley it was put into effect, and proclaimed to be successful by a symphony of snores. For this is the excellence of having other people's cares to carry (with the carriage well paid), that they sit very lightly on the springs of sleep. That well-balanced vehicle rolls on smoothly, without jerk, or jar, or kick, so long as it travels over alien land.

In the morning Mr. Jellicorse was up to anything, legitimate, legal, and likely to be paid for. Not that he would stir half the breadth of one wheat corn, even for the sake of his daily bread, from the straight and strict line of integrity. He had made up his mind about that long ago, not only from natural virtue, strong and dominant as that was, but also by dwelling on his high repute, and the solid foundations of character. He scarcely knew anybody, when he came to think of it, capable of taking such a lofty course; but that simply confirmed him in his stern resolve to do what was right and expedient.

It was quite one o'clock before Jack o' the Smithies rang the bell to see about his lease. He ought to have done it two hours sooner, if he meant to become a humble tenant; and the lawyer, although he had plenty to do of other people's business, looked upon this as a very bad sign. Then he read his letter of instructions once more, and could not but admire the nice brevity of these, and the skillful style of hinting much and declaring very little.

For after giving full particulars about the farm, and the rent, and the covenants required, Mistress Yordas proceeded thus:

"The new tenant is the son of a former occupant, who proved to be a remarkably honest man, in a case of strong temptation. As happens too often with men of probity, he was misled and made bankrupt, and died about twelve years ago, I think. Please to verify this by reference. The late tenant was his nephew, and has never perceived the necessity of paying rent. We have been obliged to distrain, as you know; and I wish John Smithies to buy in what he pleases. He has saved some capital in India, where I am told that he fought most gallantly. Singular to say, he has met with, and perhaps served under, our lamented and lost brother Duncan, of whom and his family he may give us interesting particulars. You know how this neighborhood excels in idle talk, and if John Smithies becomes our tenant, his discourse must be confined to his own business. But he must not hesitate to impart to you any facts you may think it right to ask about. Jordas will bring us your answer, under seal."

"Skillfully put, up to that last word, which savors too much of teaching me my own business. Aberthaw, are you quite ready with that lease? It is wanted rather in a hurry."

As Mr. Jellicorse thought the former, and uttered the latter part of these words, it was plain to see that he was fidgety. He had put on superior clothes to get up with; and the clerks had whispered to one another that it must be his wedding day, and ought to end in a half-holiday all round, and be chalked thenceforth on the calendar; but instead of being joyful and jocular, like a man who feels a saving Providence over him, the lawyer was as dismal, and unsettled and splenetic, as a prophet on the brink of wedlock. But the very last thing that he ever dreamed of doubting was his power to turn this old soldier inside out.

Jack o' the Smithies was announced at last; and the lawyer, being vexed with him for taking such a time, resolved to let him take a little longer, and kept him waiting, without any bread and cheese, for nearly half an hour. The wisdom of doing this depended on the character of the man, and the state of his finances. And both of these being strong enough to stand, to keep him so long on his legs was unwise. At last he came in, a very sturdy sort of fellow, thinking no atom the less of himself because some of his anatomy was honorably gone.

"Servant, Sir," he said, making a salute; "I had orders to come to you about a little lease."

"Right, my man, I remember now. You are thinking of taking to your father's farm, after knocking about for some years in foreign parts. Ah, nothing like old England after all. And to tread the ancestral soil, and cherish the old associations, and to nurture a virtuous family in the fear of the Lord, and to be ready with the rent—"

"Rent is too high, Sir; I must have five pounds off. It ought to be ten, by right. Cousin Joe has taken all out, and put nought in."

"John o' the Smithies, you astonish me. I have strong reason for believing that the rent is far too low. I have no instructions to reduce it."

"Then I must try for another farm, Sir. I can have one of better land, under Sir Walter; only I seemed to hold on to the old place; and my Sally likes to be under the old ladies."

"Old ladies! Jack, what are you come to? Beautiful ladies in the prime of life—but perhaps they would be old in India. I fear that you have not learned much behavior. But at any rate you ought to know your own mind. Is it your intention to refuse so kind an offer (which was only made for your father's sake, and to please your faithful Sally) simply because another of your family has not been honest in his farming?"

"I never have took it in that way before," the steady old soldier answered, showing that rare phenomenon, the dawn of a new opinion upon a stubborn face. "Give me a bit to turn it over in my mind, Sir. Lawyers be so quick, and so nimble, and all-cornered."

"Turn it over fifty times, Master Smithies. We have no wish to force the farm upon you. Take a pinch of snuff, to help your sense of justice. Or if you would like a pipe, go and have it in my kitchen. And if you are hungry, cook will give you eggs and bacon."

"No, Sir; I am very much obliged to you. I never make much o' my thinking. I go by what the Lord sends right inside o' me, whenever I have decent folk to deal with. And spite of your cloth, Sir, you have a honest look."

"You deserve another pinch of snuff for that. Master Smithies, you have a gift of putting hard things softly. But this is not business. Is your mind made up?"

"Yes, Sir. I will take the farm, at full rent, if the covenants are to my liking. They must be on both sides—both sides, mind you."

Mr. Jellicorse smiled as he began to read the draft prepared from a very ancient form which was firmly established on the Scargate Hall estates. The covenants, as usual, were all upon one side, the lessee being bound to a multitude of things, and the lessor to little more than acceptance of the rent. But such a result is in the nature of the case. Yet Jack o' the Smithies was not well content. In him true Yorkshire stubbornness was multiplied by the dogged tenacity of a British soldier, and the aggregate raised to an unknown power by the efforts of shrewd ignorance; and at last the lawyer took occasion to say,

"Master John Smithies, you are worthy to serve under the colors of a Yordas."

"That I have, Sir, that I have," cried the veteran, taken unawares, and shaking the stump of his arm in proof; "I have served under Sir Duncan Yordas, who will come home some day and claim his own; and he won't want no covenants of me."

"You can not have served under Duncan Yordas," Mr. Jellicorse answered, with a smile of disbelief, craftily rousing the pugnacity of the man; "because he was not even in the army of the Company, or any other army. I mean, of course, unless there was some other Duncan Yordas."

"Tell me!" Jack o' Smithies almost shouted—"tell me about Duncan Yordas, indeed! Who he was, and what he wasn't! And what do lawyers know of such things? Why, you might have to command a regiment, and read covenants to them out there! Sir Duncan was not our colonel, nor our captain; but we was under his orders all the more; and well he knew how to give them. Not one in fifty of us was white; but he made us all as good as white men; and the enemy never saw the color of our backs. I wish I was out there again, I do, and would have staid, but for being hoarse of combat; though the fault was never in my throat, but in my arm."

"There is no fault in your throat, John Smithies, except that it is a great deal too loud. I am sorry for Sally, with a temper such as yours."

"That shows how much you know about it. I never lose my temper, without I hearken lies. And for you to go and say that I never saw Sir Duncan—"

"I said nothing of the kind, my friend. But you did not come here to talk about Duncan, or Captain, or Colonel, or Nabob, or Rajah, or whatever potentate he may be—of him we desire to know nothing more—a man who ran away, and disgraced his family, and killed his poor father, knows better than ever to set his foot on Scargate land again. You talk about having a lease from him, a man with fifty wives, I dare say, and a hundred children! We all know what they are out there."

There are very few tricks of the human face divine more forcibly expressive of contempt than the lowering of the eyelids so that only a narrow streak of eye is exposed to the fellow-mortal, and that streak fixed upon him steadfastly; and the contumely is intensified when (as in the present instance) the man who does it is gifted with yellow lashes on the under lid. Jack o' the Smithies treated Mr. Jellicorse to a gaze of this sort; and the lawyer, whose wrath had been feigned, to rouse the other's, and so extract full information, began to feel his own temper rise. And if Jack had known when to hold his tongue, he must have had the best of it. But the lawyer knew this, and the soldier did not.

"Master Jellicorse," said the latter, with his forehead deeply wrinkled, and his eyes now opened to their widest, "in saying of that you make a liar of yourself. Lease or no lease—that you do. Leasing stands for lying in the Bible, and a' seemeth to do the same thing in Yorkshire. Fifty wives, and a hundred children! Sir Duncan hath had one wife, and lost her, through the Neljan fever and her worry; and a Yorkshire lady, as you might know—and never hath he cared to look at any woman since. There now, what you make of that—you lawyers that make out every man a rake, and every woman a light o' love? Get along! I hate the lot o' you."

"What a strange character you are! You must have had jungle fever, I should think. No, Diana, there is no danger"—for Jack o' the Smithies had made such a noise that Mrs. Jellicorse got frightened and ran in: "this poor man has only one arm; and if he had two, he could not hurt me, even if he wished it. Be pleased to withdraw, Diana. John Smithies, you have simply made a fool of yourself. I have not said a word against Sir Duncan Yordas, or his wife, or his son—"

"He hath no son, I tell you; and that was partly how he lost his wife."

"Well, then, his daughters, I have said no harm of them."

"And very good reason—because he hath none. You lawyers think you are so clever; and you never know anything rightly. Sir Duncan hath himself alone to see to, and hundreds of thousands of darkies to manage, with a score of British bayonets. But he never heedeth of the bayonets, not he."

"I have read of such men, but I never saw them," Mr. Jellicorse said, as if thinking to himself; "I always feel doubt about the possibility of them."

"He hath ten elephants," continued Soldier Smithies, resolved to crown the pillar of his wonders while about it—"ten great elephants that come and kneel before him, and a thousand men ready to run to his thumb; and his word is law—better law than is in England—for scores and scores of miles on the top of hundreds."

"Why did you come away, John Smithies? Why did you leave such a great prince, and come home?"

"Because it was home, Sir. And for sake of Sally."

"There is some sense in that, my friend. And now if you wish to make a happy life for Sally, you will do as I advise you. Will you take my advice? My time is of value; and I am not accustomed to waste my words."

"Well, Sir, I will hearken to you. No man that meaneth it can say more than that."

"Jack o' the Smithies, you are acute. You have not been all over the world for nothing. But if you have made up your mind to settle, and be happy in your native parts, one thing must be attended to. It is a maxim of law, time-honored and of the highest authority, that the tenant must never call in question the title of his landlord. Before attorning, you may do so; after that you are estopped. Now is it or is it not your wish to become the tenant of the Smithies farm, which your father held so honorably? Farm produce is fetching great prices now; and if you refuse this offer, we can have a man, the day after to-morrow, who will give my ladies 10 pounds more, and who has not been a soldier, but a farmer all his life."

"Lawyer Jellicorse, I will take it; for Sally hath set her heart on it; and I know every crumple of the ground better than the wisest farmer doth. Sir, I will sign the articles."

"The lease will be engrossed by next market day; and the sale will be stopped until you have taken whatever you wish at a valuation. But remember what I said—you are not to go prating about this wonderful Sir Duncan, who is never likely to come home, if he lives in such grand state out there, and who is forbidden by his father's will from taking an acre of the property. And as he has no heirs, and is so wealthy, it can not matter much to him."

"That is true," said the soldier; "but he might love to come home, as all our folk in India do; and if he doth, I will not deny him. I tell you fairly, Master Jellicorse."

"I like you for being an outspoken man, and true to those who have used you well. You could do him no good, and you might do harm to others, and unsettle simple minds, by going on about him among the tenants."

"His name hath never crossed my lips till now, and shall not again without good cause. Here is my hand upon it, Master Lawyer."

The lawyer shook hands with him heartily, for he could not but respect the man for his sturdiness and sincerity. And when Jack was gone, Mr. Jellicorse played with his spectacles and his snuff-box for several minutes before he could make up his mind how to deal with the matter. Then hearing the solid knock of Jordas, who was bound to take horse for Scargate House pretty early at this time of year (with the weakening of the day among the mountains), he lost a few moments in confusion. The dogman could not go without any answer; and how was any good answer to be given in half an hour, at the utmost? A time had been when the lawyer studied curtness and precision under minds of abridgment in London. But the more he had labored to introduce rash brevity into Yorkshire, and to cut away nine words out of ten, when all the ten meant one thing only, the more of contempt for his ignorance he won, and the less money he made out of it. And no sooner did he marry than he was forced to give up that, and, like a respectable butcher, put in every pennyweight of fat that could be charged for. Thus had he thriven and grown like a goodly deed of fine amplification; and if he had made Squire Philip's will now, it would scarcely have gone into any breast pocket. Unluckily it is an easier thing to make a man's will than to carry it out, even though fortune be favorable.

In the present case obstacles seemed to be arising which might at any moment require great skill and tact to surmount them; and the lawyer, hearing Jordas striding to and fro impatiently in the waiting-room, was fain to win time for consideration by writing a short note to say that he proposed to wait upon the ladies the very next day. For he had important news which seemed expedient to discuss with them. In the mean time he begged them not to be at all uneasy, for his news upon the whole was propitious.



CHAPTER XXI

JACK AND JILL GO DOWN THE GILL

Upon a little beck that runs away into the Lune, which is a tributary of the Tees, there stood at this time a small square house of gray stone, partly greened with moss, or patched with drip, and opening to the sun with small dark windows. It looked as if it never could be warm inside, by sunshine or by fire-glow, and cared not, although it was the only house for miles, whether it were peopled or stood empty. But this cold, hard-looking place just now was the home of some hot and passionate hearts.

The people were poor; and how they made their living would have been a mystery to their neighbors, if there had been any. They rented no land, and they followed no trade, and they took no alms by land or post; for the begging-letter system was not yet invented. For the house itself they paid a small rent, which Jordas received on behalf of his ladies, and always found it ready; and that being so, he had nothing more to ask, and never meddled with them. They had been there before he came into office, and it was not his place to seek into their history; and if it had been, he would not have done it. For his sympathies were (as was natural and native to a man so placed) with all outsiders, and the people who compress into one or two generations that ignorance of lineage which some few families strive to defer for centuries, showing thereby unwise insistence, if latter-day theories are correct.

But if Master Jordas knew little of these people, somebody else knew more about them, and perhaps too much about one of them. Lancelot Carnaby, still called "Pet," in one of those rushes after random change which the wildness of his nature drove upon him, had ridden his pony to a stand-still on the moor one sultry day of that August. No pity or care for the pony had he, but plenty of both for his own dear self. The pony might be left for the crows to pick his bones, so far as mattered to Pet Carnaby; but it mattered very greatly to a boy like him to have to go home upon his own legs. Long exertion was hateful to him, though he loved quick difficulty; for he was one of the many who combine activity with laziness. And while he was wondering what he should do, and worrying the fine little animal, a wave of the wind carried into his ear the brawling of a beck, like the humming of a hive. The boy had forgotten that the moor just here was broken by a narrow glen, engrooved with sliding water.

Now with all his strength, which was not much, he tugged the panting and limping little horse to the flat breach, and then down the steep of the gill, and let him walk into the water and begin to slake off a little of the crust of thirst. But no sooner did he see him preparing to rejoice in large crystal draughts (which his sobs had first forbidden) than he jerked him with the bit, and made a bad kick at him, because he could bear to see nothing happy. The pony had sense enough to reply, weary as he was, with a stronger kick, which took Master Lancelot in the knee, and discouraged him for any further contest. Bully as he was, the boy had too much of ancient Yordas pith in him to howl, or cry, or even whimper, but sat down on a little ridge to nurse his poor knee, and meditate revenge against the animal with hoofs. Presently pain and wrath combined became too much for the weakness of his frame, and he fell back and lay upon the hard ground in a fainting fit.

At such times, as everybody said (especially those whom he knocked about in his lively moments), this boy looked wonderfully lovely. His features were almost perfect; and he had long eyelashes like an Andalusian girl, and cheeks more exquisite than almost any doll's, a mouth of fine curve, and a chin of pert roundness, a neck of the mould that once was called "Byronic," and curly dark hair flying all around, as fine as the very best peruke. In a word, he was just what a boy ought not to be, who means to become an Englishman.

Such, however, was not the opinion of a creature even more beautiful than he, in the truer points of beauty. Coming with a pitcher for some water from the beck, Insie of the Gill (the daughter of Bat and Zilpie of the Gill) was quite amazed as she chanced round a niche of the bank upon this image. An image fallen from the sun, she thought it, or at any rate from some part of heaven, until she saw the pony, who was testing the geology of the district by the flavor of its herbage. Then Insie knew that here was a mortal boy, not dead, but sadly wounded; and she drew her short striped kirtle down, because her shapely legs were bare.

Lancelot Carnaby, coming to himself (which was a poor return for him), opened his large brown eyes, and saw a beautiful girl looking at him. As their eyes met, his insolent languor fell—for he generally awoke from these weak lapses into a slow persistent rage—and wonder and unknown admiration moved something in his nature that had never moved before. His words, however, were scarcely up to the high mark of the moment. "Who are you?" was all he said.

"I am called 'Insie of the Gill.' My father is Bat of the Gill, and my mother Zilpie of the Gill. You must be a stranger, not to know us."

"I never heard of you in all my life; although you seem to be living on my land. All the land about here belongs to me; though my mother has it for a little time."

"I did not know," she answered, softly, and scarcely thinking what she said, "that the land belonged to anybody, besides the birds and animals. And is the water yours as well?"

"Yes; every drop of it, of course. But you are quite welcome to a pitcherful." This was the rarest affability of Pet; and he expected extraordinary thanks.

But Insie looked at him with surprise. "I am very much obliged to you," she said; "but I never asked any one to give it me, unless it is the beck itself; and the beck never seems to grudge it."

"You are not like anybody I ever saw. You speak very different from the people about here; and you look very different ten times over."

Insie reddened at his steadfast gaze, and turned her sweet soft face away. And yet she wanted to know more. "Different means a great many things. Do you mean that I look better, or worse?"

"Better, of course; fifty thousand times better! Why, you look like a beautiful lady. I tell you, I have seen hundreds of ladies; perhaps you haven't, but I have. And you look better than all of them."

"You say a great deal that you do not think," Insie answered, quietly, yet turning round to show her face again. "I have heard that gentlemen always do; and I suppose that you are a young gentleman."

"I should hope so indeed. Don't you know who I am? I am Lancelot Yordas Carnaby."

"Why, you look quite as if you could stop the river," she answered, with a laugh, though she felt his grandeur. "I suppose you consider me nobody at all. But I must get my water."

"You shall not carry water. You are much too pretty. I will carry it for you."

Pet was not "introspective;" otherwise he must have been astonished at himself. His mother and aunt would have doubted their own eyes if they had beheld this most dainty of the dainty, and mischievous of the mischievous (with pain and passion for the moment vanquished), carefully carrying an old brown pitcher. Yet this he did, and wonderfully well, as he believed; though Insie only laughed to see him. For he had on the loveliest gaiters in the world, of thin white buckskin with agate buttons, and breeches of silk, and a long brocaded waistcoat, and a short coat of rich purple velvet, also a riding hat with a gray ostrich plume. And though he had very little calf inside his gaiters, and not much chest to fill out his waistcoat, and narrower shoulders than a velvet coat deserved, it would have been manifest, even to a tailor, that the boy had lineal, if not lateral, right to his rich habiliments.

Insie of the Gill (who seemed not to be of peasant birth, though so plainly dressed), came gently down the steep brook-side to see what was going to be done for her.

She admired Lancelot, both for bravery of apparel and of action; and she longed to know how he would get a good pitcher of water without any splash upon his clothes. So she stood behind a little bush, pretending not to be at all concerned, but amused at having her work done for her. But Pet was too sharp to play cat's-paw for nothing.

"Smile, and say 'thank you,'" he cried, "or I won't do it. I am not going up to my middle for nothing; I know that you want to laugh at me."

"You must have a very low middle," said Insie; "why, it never comes half way to my knees."

"You have got no stockings, and no new gaiters," Lancelot answered, reasonably; and then, like two children, they set to and laughed, till the gill almost echoed with them.

"Why, you're holding the mouth of the pitcher down stream!" Insie could hardly speak for laughing. "Is that how you go to fill a pitcher?"

"Yes, and the right way too," he answered; "the best water always comes up the eddies. You ought to be old enough to know that."

"I don't know anything at all—except that you are ruining your best clothes."

"I don't care twopence for such rubbish. You ought to see me on a Sunday, Insie, if you want to know what is good. There, you never drew such a pitcher as that. And I believe there is a fish in the bottom of it."

"Oh, if there is a fish, let me have him in my hands. I can nurse a fish on dry land, until he gets quite used to it. Are you sure that there is a little fish?"

"No, there is no fish; and I am soaking wet. But I never care what anybody thinks of me. If they say what I don't like, I kick them."

"Ah, you are accustomed to have your own way. That any one might know by looking at you. But I have got a quantity of work to do. You can see that by my fingers."

The girl made a courtesy, and took the pitcher from him, because he was knocking it against his legs; but he could not be angry when he looked into her eyes, though the habit of his temper made him try to fume.

"Do you know what I think?" she said, fixing bright hazel eyes upon him; "I think that you are very passionate sometimes."

"Well, if I am, it is my own business. Who told you anything about it? Whoever it was shall pay out for it."

"Nobody told me, Sir. You must remember that I never even heard of your name before."

"Oh, come, I can't quite take down that. Everybody knows me for fifty miles or more; and I don't care what they think of me."

"You may please yourself about believing me," she answered, without concern about it. "No one who knows me doubts my word, though I am not known for even five miles away."

"What an extraordinary girl you are! You say things on purpose to provoke me. Nobody ever does that; they are only too glad to keep me in a good temper."

"If you are like that, Sir, I had better run away. My father will be home in about an hour, and he might think that you had no business here."

"I! No business upon my own land! This place must be bewitched, I think. There is a witch upon the moors, I know, who can take almost any shape; but—but they say she is three hundred years of age, or more."

"Perhaps, then, I am bewitched," said Insie; "or why should I stop to talk with you, who are only a rude boy, after all, even according to your own account?"

"Well, you can go if you like. I suppose you live in that queer little place down there?"

"The house is quite good enough for me and my father and mother and brother Maunder. Good-by; and please never to come here again."

"You don't understand me. I have made you cry. Oh, Insie, let me have hold of your hand. I would rather make anybody cry than you. I never liked anybody so before."

"Cry, indeed! Who ever heard me cry? It is the way you splashed the water up. I am not in the habit of crying for a stranger. Good-by, now; and go to your great people. You say that you are bad; and I fear it is too true."

"I am not bad at all. It is only what everybody says, because I never want to please them. But I want to please you. I would give anything to do it; if you would only tell me how."

The girl having cleverly dried her eyes, poured all their bright beauty upon him, and the heart of the youth was enlarged with a new, very sweet, and most timorous feeling. Then his dark eyes dropped, and he touched her gently, and only said, "Don't go away."

"But I must go away," Insie answered, with a blush, and a look as of more tears lurking in her eyes. "I have stopped too long; I must go away at once."

"But when may I come again? I will hold you, and fight for you with everybody in the world, unless you tell me when to come again."

"Hush! I am quite ashamed to hear you talk so. I am a poor girl, and you a great young gentleman."

"Never mind that. That has nothing to do with it. Would you like to make me miserable, and a great deal more wicked than I ever was before? Do you hate me so much as all that, Insie?"

"No. You have been very kind to me. Only my father would be angry, I am sure; and my brother Maunder is dreadful. They all go away every other Friday, and that is the only free time I have."

"Every other Friday! What a long time, to be sure! Won't you come again for water this day fortnight?"

"Yes; I come for water three or four times every day. But if they were to see you, they would kill you first, and then lock me up forever. The only wise plan is for you to come no more."

"You can not be thinking for a moment what you say. I will tell you what; if you don't come, I will march up to the house, and beat the door in. The landlord can do that, according to law."

"If you care at all for me," said Insie, looking as if she had known him for ten years, "you will do exactly what I tell you. You will think no more about me for a fortnight; and then if you fancy that I can do you good by advice about your bad temper, or by teaching you how to plait reeds for a bat, and how to fill a pitcher—perhaps I might be able to come down the gill again."

"I wish it was to-morrow. I shall count the days. But be sure to come early, if they go away all day. I shall bring my dinner with me; and you shall have the first help, and I will carve. But I should like one thing before I go; and it is the first time I ever asked anybody, though they ask me often enough, I can tell you."

"What would you like? You seem to me to be always wanting something."

"I should like very much—very much indeed—just to give you one kiss, Insie."

"It can not be thought of for a moment," she replied; "and the first time of my ever seeing you, Sir!"

Before he could reason in favor of a privilege which goes proverbially by favor, the young maid was gone upon the winding path, with the pitcher truly balanced on her well-tressed head. Then Pet sat down and watched her; and she turned round in the distance, and waved him a kiss at decorous interval.

Not more than three days after this, Mrs. Carnaby came into the drawing-room with a hasty step, and a web of wrinkles upon her generally smooth, white forehead.

"Eliza," asked her sister, "what has put you out so? That chair is not very strong, and you are rather heavy. Do you call that gracefully sinking on a seat, as we used to learn the way to do at school?"

"No, I do not call it anything of the kind. And if I am heavy, I only keep my heart in countenance, Philippa. You know not the anxieties of a mother."

"I am thankful to say that I do not. I have plenty of larger cares to attend to, as well as the anxieties of an aunt and sister. But what is this new maternal care?"

"Poor Pet's illness—his serious illness. I am surprised that you have not noticed it, Philippa; it seems so unkind of you."

"There can not be anything much amiss with him. I never saw any one eat a better breakfast. What makes you fancy that the boy must be unwell?"

"It is no fancy. He must be very ill. Poor dear! I can not bear to think of it. He has done no mischief for quite three days."

"Then he must indeed be at the point of death. Oh, if we could only keep him always so, Eliza!"

"My dear sister, you will never understand him. He must have his little playful ways. Would you like him to be a milksop?"

"Certainly not. But I should like him first to be a manly boy, and then a boyish man. The Yordases always have been manly boys; instead of puling, and puking, and picking this, that, and the other."

"The poor child can not help his health, Philippa. He never had the Yordas constitution. He inherits his delicate system from his poor dear gallant father."

Mrs. Carnaby wiped away a tear; and her sister (who never was hard to her) spoke gently, and said there were many worse boys than he, and she liked him for many good and brave points of character, and especially for hating medicine.

"Philippa, you are right; he does hate medicine," the good mother answered, with a soft, sad sigh; "and he kicked the last apothecary in the stomach, when he made certain of its going down. But such things are trifles, dear, in comparison with now. If he would only kick Jordas, or Welldrum, or almost any one who would take it nicely, I should have some hope that he was coming to himself. But to see him sit quiet is so truly sad. He gets up a tree with his vast activity, and there he sits moping by the hour, and gazing in one fixed direction. I am almost sure that he has knocked his leg; but he flew into a fury when I wanted to examine it; and when I made a poultice, there was Saracen devouring it; and the nasty dog swallowed one of my lace handkerchiefs."

"Then surely you are unjust, Eliza, in lamenting all lack of mischief. But I have noticed things as well as you. And yesterday I saw something more portentous than anything you have told me. I came upon Lancelot suddenly, in the last place where I should have looked for him. He was positively in the library, and reading—reading a real book."

"A book, Phillppa! Oh, that settles everything. He must have gone altogether out of his sane mind."

"Not only was it a book, but even a book of what people call poetry. You have heard of that bold young man over the mountains, who is trying to turn poetry upside down, by making it out of every single thing he sees; and who despises all the pieces that we used to learn at school. I can not remember his name; but never mind. I thought that we ought to encourage him, because he might know some people in this neighborhood; and so I ordered a book of his. Perhaps I told you; and that is the very book your learned boy was reading."

"Philippa, it seems to me impossible almost. He must have been looking at the pictures. I do hope he was only looking at the pictures."

"There is not a picture in the hook of any sort. He was reading it, and saying it quite softly to himself; and I felt that if you saw him, you would send for Dr. Spraggs."

"Ring the bell at once, dear, if you will be kind enough. I hope there is a fresh horse in the stable. Or the best way would be to send the jumping-car; then he would be certain to come back at once."

"Do as you like. I begin to think that we ought to take proper precautions. But when that is done, I will tell you what I think he may be up the tree for."

A man with the jumping-car was soon dispatched, by urgency of Jordas, for Dr. Spraggs, who lived several miles away, in a hamlet to the westward, inaccessible to anything that could not jump right nimbly. But the ladies made a slight mistake: they caught the doctor, but no patient.

For Pet being well up in his favorite tree—poring with great wonder over Lyrical Ballads, which took his fancy somehow—thence descried the hateful form of Dr. Spraggs, too surely approaching in the seat of honor of the jumping-car. Was ever any poesy of such power as to elevate the soul above the smell of physic? The lofty poet of the lakes and fells fell into Pet's pocket anyhow, and down the off side of the tree came he, with even his bad leg ready to be foremost in giving leg-bail to the medical man. The driver of the jumping-car espied this action; but knowing that he would have done the like, grinned softly, and said nothing. And long after Dr. Spraggs was gone, leaving behind him sage advice, and a vast benevolence of bottles, Pet returned, very dirty and hungry, and cross, and most unpoetical.



CHAPTER XXII

YOUNG GILLY FLOWERS

"Drum," said Pet, in his free and easy style, about ten days after that escape, to a highly respected individual, Mr. Welldrum, the butler—"Drum, you have heard perhaps about my being poorly."

"Ay, that I have, and too much of it," replied the portly butler, busy in his office with inferior work, which he never should have had to do, if rightly estimated. "What you wants, Master Lancelot, is a little more of this here sort of thing—sleeves up—elbow grease—scrub away at hold ancient plate, and be blowed up if you puts a scratch on it; and the more you sweats, the less thanks you gets."

"Drum, when you come to be my butler, you shall have all the keys allowed you, and walk about with them on a great gold ring, with a gold chain down to your breeches pocket. You shall dine when you like, and have it cooked on purpose, and order it directly after breakfast; and you shall have the very best hot-water plates; because you hate grease, don't you, Drum?"

"That I do; especial from young chaps as wants to get something out of me."

"I am always as good as my word; come, now."

"That you are, Sir; and nothing very grand to say, considering the hepithets you applies to me sometimes. But you han't insulted me for three days now; and that proves to my mind that you can't be quite right."

"But you would like to see me better. I am sure you would. There is nobody so good to you as I am, Drum; and you are very crusty at times, you know. Your daughter shall be the head cook; and then everything must be to your liking."

"Master Lancelot, you speaks fair. What can I have the honor of doing for you, Sir, to set you up again in your poor dear 'ealth?"

"Well, you hate physic, don't you, Drum? And you make a strict point of never taking it."

"I never knew no good to come out of no bottle, without it were a bottle of old crusted port-wine. Ah! you likes that, Master Lancelot."

"I'll tell you what it is, Drum; I am obliged to be very careful. The reason why I don't get on is from taking my meals too much in-doors. There is no fresh air in these old rooms. I have got a man who says—I could read it to you; but perhaps you don't care to hear poetry, Drum?" The butler made a face, and put the leather to his ears. "Very well, then; I am only just beginning; and it's like claret, you must learn to come to it. But from what he says, and from my own stomach, I intend to go and dine out-of-doors to-day."

"Lord! Master Lancelot, you must be gone clean daft. How ever could you have hot gravy, Sir? And all the Yordases hales cold meat. Your poor dear grandfather—ah! he was a man."

"So am I. And I have got half a guinea. Now, Drum, you do just what I tell you; and mind, not a word to any one. It will be the last coin you ever see of mine, either now or in all my life, remember, if you let my mamma ever hear of it. You slip down to the larder and get me a cold grouse, and a cold partridge, and two of the hearth-stone cakes, and a pat of butter, and a pinch of salt, and put them in my army knapsack Aunt Philippa gave me; also a knife and fork and plate; and—let me see—what had I better have to drink?"

"Well, Sir, if I might offer an opinion, a pint bottle of dry port, or your grandfather's Madeira."

"Young ladies—young gentlemen I mean, of course—never take strong wines in the middle of the day. Bucellas, Drum—Bucellas is the proper thing. And when you have got it all together, turn the old cat into the larder, and get away cleverly by your little door, and put my knapsack in the old oak-tree, the one that was struck by lightning. Now do you understand all about it? It must all be ready in half an hour. And if I make a good dinner out on the moor, why, you might get another half guinea before long." And with these words away strode Pet.

"Well, well," the butler began muttering to himself; "what wickedness are you up to next? A lassie in his head, and his dear mammy thought he was sickening over his wisdom-teeth! He is beginning airly, and no mistake. But the gals are a coarse ugly lot about here"—Master Welldrum was not a Yorkshireman—"and the lad hath good taste in the matter of wine; although he is that contrairy, Solomon's self could not be upsides with him. Fall fair, fall foul, I must humor the boy, or out of this place I go, neck and crop."

Accordingly, Pet found all that he had ordered, and several little things which he had not thought of, especially a corkscrew and a glass; and forgetting half his laziness, he set off briskly, keeping through the trees where no window could espy him, and down a little side glen, all afoot; for it seemed to him safer to forego his pony.

The gill (or "ghyll," as the poet writes it), from which the lonely family that dwelt there took their name, was not upon the bridle-road from Scargate Hall toward Middleton, nor even within eye or reach of any road at all; but overlooked by kites alone, and tracked with thoroughfare of nothing but the mountain streamlet. The four who lived there—"Bat and Zilpic, Maunder and Insie, of the Gill"—had nothing to do with, and little to say to, any of the scatterling folk about them, across the blue distance of the moor. They ploughed no land, they kept no cattle, they scarcely put spade in the ground, except for about a fortnight in April, when they broke up a strip of alluvial soil new every season, and abutting on the brook; and there sowed or planted their vegetable crop, and left it to the clemency of heaven. Yet twice every year they were ready with their rent when it suited Master Jordas to come for it, since audits at the hall, and tenants' dinners, were not to their liking. The rent was a trifle; but Jordas respected them highly for handing it done up in white paper, without even making him leave the saddle. How many paid less, or paid nothing at all, yet came to the dinners under rent reservation of perhaps one mark, then strictly reserved their rent, but failed not to make the most punctual and liberal marks upon roast beef and plum-pudding!

But while the worthy dogman got his little bit of money, sealed up and so correct that (careful as he was) he never stopped now to count it, even his keen eyes could make nothing of these people, except that they stood upon their dignity. To him they appeared to be of gypsy race; or partly of wild and partly perhaps of Lancastrian origin; for they rather "featured" the Lancashire than the Yorkshire type of countenance, yet without any rustic coarseness, whether of aspect, voice, or manners. The story of their settlement in this glen had flagged out of memory of gossip by reason of their calm obscurity, and all that survived was the belief that they were queer, and the certainty that they would not be meddled with.

Lancelot Yordas Carnaby was brave, both in the outward and the inward boy, when he struck into the gill from a trackless spread of moor, not far from the source of the beck that had shaped or been shaped by this fissure. He had made up his mind to learn all about the water that filled sweet Insie's pitcher; and although the great poet of nature as yet was only in early utterance, some of his words had already touched Pet as he had never been touched before; but perhaps that fine effect was due to the sapping power of first love.

Yet first love, however it may soften and enlarge a petulant and wayward nature, instead of increasing, cuts short and crisp the patience of the patient. When Lancelot was as near as manners and prudence allowed to that lonesome house, he sat down quietly for a little while in a little niche of scrubby bush whence he could spy the door. For a short time this was very well; also it was well to be furnishing his mind with a form for the beautiful expressions in it, and prepare it for the order of their coming out. And when he was sure that these were well arranged, and could not fail at any crisis, he found a further pastime in considering his boots, then his gaiters and small-clothes (which were of lofty type), and his waistcoat, elegant for anybody's bosom. But after a bit even this began to pall; and when one of his feet went fast asleep, in spite of its beautiful surroundings, he jumped up and stamped, and was not so very far from hot words as he should have been. For his habit was not so much to want a thing as to get it before he wanted it, which is very poor training for the trials of the love-time.

But just as he was beginning to resolve to be wise, and eat his victuals, now or never, and be sorry for any one who came too late—there came somebody by another track, whose step made the heart rise, and the stomach fall. Lancelot's mind began to fail him all at once; and the spirit that was ready with a host of words fluttered away into a quaking depth of silence. Yet Insie tripped along as if the world held no one to cast a pretty shadow from the sun beside her own.

Even the youngest girls are full of little tricks far beyond the oldest boy's comprehension. But the wonder of all wonders is, they have so pure a conscience as never to be thinking of themselves at all, far less of any one who thinks too much of them. "I declare, she has forgotten that she ever saw me!" Lancelot muttered to the bush in which he trembled. "It would serve her right, if I walked straight away." But he looked again, and could not help looking more than many times again, so piercing (as an ancient poet puts it) is the shaft from the eyes of the female women. And Insie was especially a female girl—which has now ceased to be tautology—so feminine were her walk, and way, and sudden variety of unreasonable charm.

"Dear me! I never thought to see you any more, Sir;" said she, with a bright blush, perhaps at such a story, as Pet jumped out eagerly, with hands stretched forth. "It is the most surprising thing. And we might have done very well with rain-water."

"Oh, Insie! don't be so cold-hearted. Who can drink rain-water? I have got something very good for you indeed. I have carried it all the way myself; and only a strong man could have done it. Why, you have got stockings on, I declare; but I like you much better without them."

"Then, Master Lancelot Yordas Carnaby, you had better go home with all your good things."

"You are totally mistaken about that. I could never get these things into the house again, without being caught out to a certainty. It shows how little girls know of anything."

"A girl can not be expected," she answered, looking most innocently at him, "to understand anything sly or cunning. Why should anything of that sort be?"

"Well, if it comes to that," cried Pet, who (like all unreasonable people) had large rudiments of reasoning, "why should not I come up to your door, and knock, and say, 'I want to see Miss Insie; I am fond of Miss Insie, and have got something good for her'? That is what I shall do next time."

"If you do, my brother Maunder will beat you dreadfully—so dreadfully that you will never walk home. But don't let us talk of such terrible things. You must never come here, if you think of such things. I would not have you hurt for all the world; for sometimes I think that I like you very much."

The lovely girl looked at the handsome boy, as if they were at school together, learning something difficult, which must be repeated to the other's eyes, with a nod, or a shake of the head, as may be. A kind, and pure, and soft gaze she gave him, as if she would love his thoughts, if he could explain them. And Pet turned away, because he could not do so.

"I'll tell you what it is," he said, bravely, while his heart was thrilling with desire to speak well; "we will set to at once, and have a jolly good spread. I told my man to put up something very good, because I was certain that you would be very hungry."

"Surely you were not so foolish as to speak of me?"

"No, no, no; I know a trick worth two of that. I was not such a fool as to speak of you, of course. But—"

"But I would never condescend to touch one bit. You were ashamed to say a word about me, then, were you?"

"Insie, now, Insie, too bad of you it is. You can have no idea what those butlers and footmen are, if ever you tell them anything. They are worse than the maids; they go down stairs, and they get all the tidbits out of the cook, and sit by the girl they like best, on the strength of having a secret about their master."

"Well, you are cunning!" cried the maiden, with a sigh. "I thought that your nature was loftier than that. No, I do not know anything of butlers and footmen; and I think that the less I know of you the better."

"Oh, Insie, darling Insie, if you run away like that—I have got both your hands, and you shall not run away. Do you want to kill me, Insie? They have had the doctor for me."

"Oh, how very dreadful! that does sound dreadful. I am not at all crying, and you need not look. But what did he say? Please to tell me what he said."

"He said, 'Salts and senna.' But I got up a high tree. Let us think of nicer things. It is enough to spoil one's dinner. Oh, Insie, what is anything to eat or drink, compared with looking at you, when you are good? If I could only tell you the things that I have felt, all day and all night, since this day fortnight, how sorry you would be for having evil thoughts of me!"

"I have no evil thoughts; I have no thoughts at all. But it puzzles me to think what on earth you have been thinking. There, I will sit down, and listen for a moment."

"And I may hold one of your hands? I must, or you would never understand me. Why, your hands are much smaller than mine, I declare! And mine are very small; because of thinking about you. Now you need not laugh—it does spoil everything to laugh so. It is more than a fortnight since I laughed at all. You make me feel so miserable. But would you like to know how I felt? Mind, I would rather cut my head off than tell it to any one in the world but you."

"Now I call that very kind of you. If you please, I should like to know how you have been feeling." With these words Insie came quite close up to his side, and looked at him so that he could hardly speak. "You may say it in a whisper, if you like," she said; "there is nobody coming for at least three hours, and so you may say it in a whisper."

"Then I will tell you; it was just like this. You know that I began to think how beautiful you were at the very first time I looked at you. But you could not expect me so to love you all at once as I love you now, dear Insie."

"I can not understand any meaning in such things." But she took a little distance, quite as if she did.

"Well, I went away without thinking very much, because I had a bad place in my knee—a blue place bigger than the new half crown, where you saw that the pony kicked me. I had him up, and thrashed him, when I got home; but that has got nothing to do with it—only that I made him know who was his master. And then I tried to go on with a lot of things as usual; but somehow I did not care at all. There was a great rat hunt that I had been thinking of more than three weeks, when they got the straddles down, to be ready for the new ricks to come instead. But I could not go near it; and it made them think that the whole of my inside was out of order. And it must have been. I can see by looking back; it must have been so, without my knowing it. I hit several people with my holly on their shins, because they knew more than I did. But that was no good; nor was anything else. I only got more and more out of sorts, and could not stay quiet anywhere; and yet it was no good to me to try to make a noise. All day I went about as if I did not care whether people contradicted me or not, or where I was, or what time I should get back, or whether there would be any dinner. And I tucked up my feet in my nightgown every night; but instead of stopping there, as they always used to do, they were down in cold places immediately; and instead of any sleep, I bit holes by the hundred in the sheets, with thinking. I hated to be spoken to, and I hated everybody; and so I do now, whenever I come to think about them!"

"Including even poor me, I suppose?" Insie had wonderfully pretty eyebrows, and a pretty way of raising them, and letting more light into her bright hazel eyes.

"No, I never seemed to hate you; though I often was put out, because I could never make your face come well. I was thinking of you always, but I could not see you. Now tell me whether you have been like that."

"Not at all; but I have thought of you once or twice, and wondered what could make you want to come and see me. If I were a boy, perhaps I could understand it."

"I hate boys; I am a man all over now. I am old enough to have a wife; and I mean to have you. How much do you suppose my waistcoat cost? Well, never mind, because you are not rich. But I have got money enough for both of us to live well, and nobody can keep me out of it. You know what a road is, I suppose—a good road leading to a town? Have you ever seen one? A brown place, with hedges on each side, made hard and smooth for horses to go upon, and wheels that make a rumble. Well, if you will have me, and behave well to me, you shall sit up by yourself in a velvet dress, with a man before you and a man behind, and believe that you are flying."

"But what would become of my father, and my mother, and my brother Maunder?"

"Oh, they must stop here, of course. We shouldn't want them. But I would give them all their house rent-free, and a fat pig every Christmas. Now you sit there and spread your lap, that I may help you properly. I want to see you eat; you must learn to eat like a lady of the highest quality; for that you are going to be, I can tell you."

The beautiful maid of the gill smiled sweetly, sitting on the low bank with the grace of simple nature and the playfulness of girlhood. She looked up at Lancelot, the self-appointed man, with a bright glance of curious contemplation; and contemplation (of any other subject than self) is dangerously near contempt. She thought very little of his large, free brag, of his patronizing manner, and fine self-content, reference of everything to his own standard, beauty too feminine, and instead of female gentleness, highly cultivated waywardness. But in spite of all that, she could not help liking, and sometimes admiring him, when he looked away. And now he was very busy with the high feast he had brought.

"To begin with," he said, when his good things were displayed, "you must remember that nothing is more vulgar than to be hungry. A gentleman may have a tremendous appetite, but a lady never."

"But why? but why? That does seem foolish. I have read that the ladies are always helped first. That must be because of their appetites."

"Insie, I tell you things, not the reasons of them. Things are learned by seeing other people, and not by arguing about them."

"Then you had better eat your dinner first, and let me sit and watch you. And then I can eat mine by imitation; that is to say, if there is any left."

"You are one of the oddest people I have ever seen. You go round the corner of all that I say, instead of following properly. When we are married, you will always make me laugh. At one time they kept a boy to make me laugh; but I got tired of him. Now I help you first, although I am myself so hungry. I do it from a lofty feeling, which my aunt Philippa calls 'chivalry.' Ladies talk about it when they want to get the best of us. I have given you all the best part, you see; and I only keep the worst of it for myself."

If Pet had any hope that his self-denial would promptly be denied to him, he made a great mistake; for the damsel of the gill had a healthy moorland appetite, and did justice to all that was put before her; and presently he began, for the first time in his life, to find pleasure in seeing another person pleased. But the wine she would not even taste, in spite of persuasion and example; the water from the brook was all she drank, and she drank as prettily as a pigeon. Whatever she did was done gracefully and well.

"I am very particular," he said at last; "but you are fit to dine with anybody. How have you managed to learn it all? You take the best of everything, without a word about it, as gently as great ladies do. I thought that you would want me to eat the nicest pieces; but instead of that, you have left me bones and drumsticks."

He gave such a melancholy look at these that Insie laughed quite merrily. "I wanted to see you practice chivalry," she said.

"Well, never mind; I shall know another time. Instead of two birds, I shall order four, and other things in proportion. But now I want to know about your father and your mother. They must be respectable people, to judge by you. What is their proper name, and how much have they got to live upon?"

"More than you—a great deal more than you," she answered, with such a roguish smile that he forgot his grievances, or began to lose them in the mist of beauty.

"More than me! And they live in such a hole, where only the crows come near them?"

"Yes, more than you, Sir. They have their wits to live upon, and industry, and honesty."

Pet was not old enough yet in the world to say, "What is the use of all those? All their income is starvation." He was young enough to think that those who owned them had advantage of him, for he knew that he was very lazy. Moreover, he had heard of such people getting on—through the striking power of exception, so much more brilliant than the rule—when all the blind virtues found luck to lead them. Industry, honesty, and ability always get on in story-books, and nothing is nicer than to hear a pretty story. But in some ways Pet was sharp enough.

"Then they never will want that house rent-free, nor the fat pig, nor any other presents. Oh, Insie, how very much better that will be! I find it so much nicer always to get thing's than to give them. And people are so good-natured, when they have done it, and can talk of it. Insie, they shall give me something when I marry you, and as often as they like afterward."

"They will give you something you will not like," she answered, with a laugh, and a look along the moor, "if you stay here too long chattering with me. Do you know what o'clock it is? I know always, whether the sun is out or in. You need show no gold watch to me."

"Oh, that comes of living in a draught all day. The out-door people grow too wise. What do you see about ten miles off? It must be ten miles to that hill."

"That hill is scarcely five miles off, and what I see is not half of that. I brought you up here to be quite safe. Maunder's eyes are better than mine. But he will not see us, for another mile, if you cover your grand waistcoat, because we are in the shadows. Slip down into the gill again, and keep below the edge of it, and go home as fast as possible."

Lancelot felt inclined to do as he was told, and keep to safe obscurity. The long uncomfortable loneliness of prospect, and dim airy distance of the sinking sun, and deeply silent emptiness of hollows, where great shadows began to crawl—in the waning of the day, and so far away from home—all these united to impress upon the boy a spiritual influence, whose bodily expression would be the appearance of a clean pair of heels. But, to meet this sensible impulse, there arose the stubborn nature of his race, which hated to be told to do anything, and the dignity of his new-born love—such as it was—and the thought of looking small.

"Why should I go?" he said. "I will meet them, and tell them that I am their landlord, and have a right to know all about them. My grandfather never ran away from anybody. And they have got a donkey with them."

"They will have two, if you stop," cried Insie, although she admired his spirit. "My father is a very quiet man. But Maunder would take you by the throat and cast you down into the beck."

"I should like to see him try to do it. I am not so very strong, but I am active as a cat. I have no idea of being threatened."

"Then will you be coaxed? I do implore you, for my sake, to go, or it will be too late. Never, never, will you see me again, unless you do what I beseech of you."

"I will not stir one peg, unless you put your arms round my neck and kiss me, and say that you will never have anybody else."

Insie blushed deeply, and her bright eyes flashed with passion not of loving kind. But it went to her heart that he was brave, and that he loved her truly. She flung her comely arms round his neck, and touched her rosy lips with his; and before he could clasp her she was gone, with no more comfort than these words:

"Now if you are a gentleman, you must go, and never come near this place again."

Not a moment too soon he plunged into the gill, and hurried up its winding course; but turning back at the corner, saw a sweet smile in the distance, and a wave of the hand, that warmed his heart.



CHAPTER XXIII

LOVE MILITANT

So far so good. But that noble and exalted condition of the youthful mind which is to itself pure wisdom's zenith, but to folk of coarse maturity and tough experience "calf-love," superior as it is to words and reason, must be left to its own course. The settled resolve of a middle-aged man, with seven large-appetited children, and an eighth approaching the shores of light, while baby-linen too often transmitted betrays a transient texture, and hose has ripened into holes, and breeches verify their name, and a knock at the door knocks at the heart—the fixed resolution of such a man to strike a bold stroke, for the sake of his home, is worthier of attention than the flitting fancy of boy and girl, who pop upon one another, and skip through zigzag vernal ecstasy, like the weathery dalliance of gnats.

Lieutenant Carroway had dealt and done with amorous grace and attitude, soaring rapture, and profundity of sigh, suspense (more agonizing than suspension), despair, prostration, grinding of the teeth, the hollow and spectral laugh of a heart forever broken, and all the other symptoms of an annual bill of vitality; and every new pledge of his affections sped him toward the pledge-shop. But never had he crossed that fatal threshold; the thought of his uniform and dignity prevailed; and he was not so mean as to send a child to do what the father was ashamed of.

So it was scarcely to be expected that even as a man he should sympathize deeply with the tender passion, and far less, as a coast-guardsman, with the wooing of a smuggler. Master Robin Lyth, by this time, was in the contraband condition known to the authorities as love; Carroway had found out this fact; but instead of indulging in generous emotion, he made up his mind to nab him through it. For he reasoned as follows; and granting that reason has any business on such premises, the process does not seem amiss.

A man in love has only got one-eighth part of his wits at home to govern the doings of his arms, legs, and tongue. A large half is occupied with his fancy, in all the wanderings of that creature, dreamy, flimsy, anchoring with gossamer, climbing the sky with steps of fog, cast into abysms (as great writers call it) by imaginary demons, and even at its best in a queer condition, pitiful, yet exceeding proud. A quarter of the mental power is employed in wanting to know what the other people think; an eighth part ought to be dwelling upon the fair distracting object; and only a small eighth can remain to attend to the business of the solid day. But in spite of all this, such lads get on about as well as usual. If Bacchus has a protective power, Venus has no less of it, and possibly is more active, as behooves a female.

And surely it was a cold-blooded scheme, which even the Revenue should have excised from an honest scale of duties, to catch a poor fellow in the meshes of love, because he was too sharp otherwise. This, however, was the large idea ripening in the breast of Carroway.

"To-night I shall have him," he said to his wife, who was inditing of softer things, her eighth confinement, and the shilling she had laid that it would be a boy this time. "The weather is stormy, yet the fellow makes love between the showers in a barefaced way. That old fool of a tanner knows it, and has no more right feeling than if he were a boy. Aha, my Robin, fine robin as you are, I shall catch you piping with your Jenny Wren tonight!" The lieutenant shared the popular ignorance of simplest natural history.

"Charles, you never should have told me of it. Where is your feeling for the days gone by? And as for his coming between the showers, what should I have thought of you if you had made a point of bringing your umbrella? My dear, it is wrong. And I beg you, for my sake, not to catch him with his true love, but only with his tubs."

"Matilda, your mind is weakened by the coming trial of your nerves. I would rather have him with his tubs, of course; they would set us up for several years, and his silks would come in for your churching. But everything can not be as we desire. And he carries large pistols when he is not courting. Do you wish me to be shot, Matilda?"

"Captain Carroway, how little thought you have, to speak to me in that way! And I felt before dinner that I never should get over it. Oh, who would have the smugglers on her mind, at such a time?"

"My dear, I beg your pardon. Pray exert your strength of mind, and cast such thoughts away from you—or perhaps it will be a smuggler. And yet if it were, how much better it would pay!"

"Then I hope it will, Charles; I heartily hope it will be. It would serve you quite right to be snaring your own son, after snaring a poor youth through his sweetheart."

"Well, well, time will show. Put me up the flat bottle, Tilly, and the knuckle of pork that was left last night. Goodness knows when I shall be back; and I never like to rack my mind upon an empty stomach."

The revenue officer had far to go, and was wise in providing provender. And the weather being on the fall toward the equinox, and the tides running strong and uncertain, he had made up his mind to fare inland, instead of attempting the watery ways. He felt that he could ride, as every sailor always feels; and he had a fine horse upon hire from his butcher, which the king himself would pay for. The inferior men had been sent ahead on foot, with orders to march along and hold their tongues. And one of these men was John Cadman, the self-same man who had descended the cliff without any footpath. They were all to be ready, with hanger and pistol, in a hole toward Byrsa Cottage.

Lieutenant Carroway enjoyed his ride. There are men to whom excitement is an elevation of the sad and slow mind, which otherwise seems to have nothing to do. And what finer excitement can a good mind have than in balancing the chances of its body tumbling out of the saddle, and evicting its poor self?

The mind of Charles Carroway was wide awake to this, and tenderly anxious about the bad foot in which its owner ended—because of the importance of the stirrups—and all the sanguine vigor of the heart (which seemed to like some thumping) conveyed to the seat of reason little more than a wish to be well out of it. The brave lieutenant holding place, and sticking to it through a sense of duty, and of the difficulty of getting off, remembered to have heard, when quite a little boy, that a man who gazes steadily between his horse's ears can not possibly tumble off the back. The saying in its wisdom is akin to that which describes the potency of salt upon a sparrow's tail.

While Carroway gloomily pounded the road, with reflection a dangerous luxury, things of even deeper interest took their course at the goal of his endeavors. Mary Anerley, still an exile in the house of the tanner, by reason of her mother's strict coast-guard, had long been thinking that more injustice is done in the world than ought to be; and especially in the matter of free trade she had imbibed lax opinions, which may not be abhorrent to a tanner's nature, but were most unbecoming to the daughter of a farmer orthodox upon his own land, and an officer of King's Fencibles. But how did Mary make this change, and upon questions of public policy chop sides, as quickly as a clever journal does? She did it in the way in which all women think, whose thoughts are of any value, by allowing the heart to go to work, being the more active organ, and create large scenery, into which the tempted mind must follow. To anybody whose life has been saved by anybody else, there should arise not only a fine image of the preserver, but a high sense of the service done to the universe, which must have gone into deepest mourning if deprived of No. One. And then, almost of necessity, succeeds the investment of this benefactor to the world at large with all the great qualities needed for an exploit so stupendous. He has done a great deed, he has proved himself to be gallant, generous, magnanimous; shall I, who exist through his grand nobility, listen to his very low enemies? Therefore Robin was an angel now, and his persecutors must be demons.

Captain Lyth had not been slow to enter into his good luck. He knew that Master Popplewell had a cultivated taste for rare old schnapps, while the partner of his life, and labor, and repose, possessed a desire for the finer kinds of lace. Attending to these points, he was always welcome; and the excellent couple encouraged his affection and liberal goodwill toward them. But Mary would accept no presents from him, and behaved for a long time very strangely, and as if she would rather keep out of his way. Yet he managed to keep on running after her, as much as she managed to run away; for he had been down now into the hold of his heart, searching it with a dark lantern, and there he had discovered "Mary," "Mary," not only branded on the hullage of all things, but the pith and pack of everything; and without any fraud upon charter-party, the cargo entire was "Mary."

Who can tell what a young maid feels, when she herself is doubtful? Somehow she has very large ideas, which only come up when she begins to think; and too often, after some very little thing, she exclaims that all is rubbish. The key-note of her heart is high, and a lot of things fall below harmony, and notably (if she is not a stupe), some of her own dear love's expressions before she has made up her soul to love him. This is a hard time for almost any man, who feels his random mind dipped into with a spirit-gauge and a saccharometer. But in spite of all these indications, Robin Lyth stuck to himself, which is the right way to get credit for sticking.

"Johnny, my dear," said Deborah Popplewell to her valued husband, just about the time when bold Carroway was getting hot and sore upon the Filey Road, yet steadily enlarging all the penance of return, "things ought to be coming to a point, I think. We ought not to let them so be going on forever. Young people like to be married in the spring; the birds are singing, and the price of coal goes down. And they ought to be engaged six months at least. We were married in the spring, my dear, the Tuesday but one that comes next from Easter-day. There was no lilac out, but there ought to have been, because it was not sunny. And we have never repented it, you know."

"Never as long as I live shall I forget that day," said Popplewell; "they sent me home a suit of clothes as were made for kidney-bean sticks. I did want to look nice at church, and crack, crack, crack they went, and out came all the lining. Debby, I had good legs in those days, and could crunch down bark like brewers' grains."

"And so you could now, my dear, every bit as well. Scarcely any of the young men have your legs. How thankful we ought to be for them—and teeth! But everything seems to be different now, and nobody has any dignity of mind. We sowed broad beans, like a pigeon's foot-tread, out and in, all the way to church."

"The folk can never do such things now; we must not expect it of such times, my dear. Five-and-forty years ago was ninety times better than these days, Debby, except that you and I was steadfast, and mean to be so to the end, God willing. Lord! what are the lasses that He makes now?"

"Johnny, they try to look their best; and we must not be hard upon them. Our Mary looks well enow, when she hath a color, though my eyes might 'a been a brighter blue if I never hadn't took to spectacles. Johnny, I am sure a'most that she is in her love-time. She crieth at night, which is nobody's business; the strings of her night-cap run out of their starch; and there looks like a channel on the pillow, though the sharp young hussy turns it upside down. I shall be upsides with her, if you won't."

"Certainly it shall be left to you; you are the one to do it best. You push her on, and I will stir him up. I will smuggle some schnapps into his tea to-night, to make him look up bolder; as mild as any milk it is. When I was taken with your cheeks, Debby, and your bit of money, I was never that long in telling you."

"That's true enow, Johnny; you was sarcy. But I'm thinking of the trouble we may get into over at Anerley about it."

"I'll carry that, lass. My back's as broad as Stephen's. What more can they want for her than a fine young fellow, a credit to his business and the country? Lord! how I hate them rough coast-riders! it wouldn't be good for them to come here."

"Then they are here, I tell you, and much they care. You seem to me to have shut your eyes since ever you left off tanning. How many times have I told you, John, that a sneaking fellow hath got in with Sue? I saw him with my own eyes last night skulking past the wicket-gate; and the girl's addle-pate is completely turned. You think her such a wonder, that you won't hearken. But I know the women best, I do."

"Out of this house she goes, neck and crop, if what you say is true, Deb. Don't say it again, that's a kind, good soul; it spoils my pipe to think of it."

Toward sundown Robin Lyth appeared, according to invitation. Dandy as he generally was, he looked unusually smart this time, with snow-white ducks and a velvet waistcoat, pumps like a dressing-glass, lace to his shirt, and a blue coat with gold buttons. His keen eyes glanced about for Mary, and sparkled as soon as she came down; and when he took her hand she blushed, and was half afraid to look at him; for she felt in her heart that he meant to say something, if he could find occasion; but her heart did not tell her what answer she would make, because of her father's grief and wrath; so she tried to hope that nothing would be said, and she kept very near her good aunt's apron-string. Such tactics, however, were doomed to defeat. The host and hostess of Byrsa Cottage were very proud of the tea they gave to any distinguished visitor. Tea was a luxury, being very dear, and although large quantities were smuggled, the quality was not, like that of other goods so imported, equal or superior to the fair legitimate staple. And Robin, who never was shy of his profession, confessed that he could not supply a cup so good.

"You shall come and have another out-of-doors, my friend," said his entertainer, graciously. "Mary, take the captain's cup to the bower; the rain has cleared off, and the evening will be fine. I will smoke my pipe, and we will talk adventures. Things have happened to me that would make you stare, if I could bring myself to tell them. Ah yes, I have lived in stirring times. Fifty years ago men and women knew their minds; and a dog could eat his dinner without a damask napkin."

Master Popplewell, who was of a good round form, and tucked his heels over one another as he walked (which indicates a pleasant self-esteem), now lit his long pipe and marched ahead, carefully gazing to the front and far away; so that the young folk might have free boot and free hand behind him. That they should have flutters of loving-kindness, and crafty little breaths of whispering, and extraordinary gifts of just looking at each other in time not to be looked at again, as well as a strange sort of in and out of feeling, as if they were patterned with the same zigzag—as the famous Herefordshire graft is made—and above all the rest, that they should desire to have no one in the world to look at them, was to be expected by a clever old codger, a tanner who had realized a competence, and eaten many "tanner's pies." The which is a good thing; and so much the better because it costs nothing save the crust and the coal. But instead of any pretty little goings on such as this worthy man made room for, to tell the stupid truth, this lad and lass came down the long walk as far apart and as independent of one another as two stakes of an espalier. There had not been a word gone amiss between them, nor even a thought the wrong way of the grain; but the pressure of fear and of prickly expectation was upon them both, and kept them mute. The lad was afraid that he would get "nay," and the lass was afraid that she could not give it.

The bower was quite at the end of the garden, through and beyond the pot-herb part, and upon a little bank which overhung a little lane. Here in this corner a good woman had contrived what women nearly always understand the best, a little nook of pleasure and of perfume, after the rank ranks of the kitchen-stuff. Not that these are to be disdained; far otherwise; they indeed are the real business; and herein lies true test of skill. But still the flowers may declare that they do smell better. And not only were there flowers here, and little shrubs planted sprucely, but also good grass, which is always softness, and soothes the impatient eyes of men. And on this grass there stood, or hung, or flowered, or did whatever it was meant to do, a beautiful weeping-ash, the only one anywhere in that neighborhood.

"I can't look at skies, and that—have seen too many of them. You young folk, go and chirp under the tree. What I want is a little rum and water."

With these words the tanner went into his bower, where he kept a good store of materials in moss; and the plaited ivy of the narrow entrance shook with his voice, and steps, and the decision of his thoughts. For he wanted to see things come to a point, and his only way to do it was to get quite out of sight. Such fools the young people of the age were now!

While his thoughts were such, or scarcely any better, his partner in life came down the walk, with a heap of little things which she thought needful for the preservation of the tanner, and she waddled a little and turned her toes out, for she as well was roundish.

"Ah, you ought to have Sue. Where is Sue?" said Master Popplewell. "Now come you in out of the way of the wind, Debby; you know how your back-sinew ached with the darning before last wash."

Mrs. Popplewell grumbled, but obeyed; for she saw that her lord had his reasons. So Mary and Robin were left outside, quite as if they were nothing to any but themselves. Mary was aware of all this manoeuvring, and it brought a little frown upon her pretty forehead, as if she were cast before the feet of Robin Lyth; but her gentleness prevailed, because they meant her well. Under the weeping-ash there was a little seat, and the beauty of it was that it would not hold two people. She sat down upon it, and became absorbed in the clouds that were busy with the sunset.

These were very beautiful, as they so often are in the broken weather of the autumn; but sailors would rather see fair sky, and Robin's fair heaven was in Mary's eyes. At these he gazed with a natural desire to learn what the symptoms of the weather were; but it seemed as if little could be made out there, because everything seemed so lofty: perhaps Mary had forgotten his existence.

Could any lad of wax put up with this, least of all a daring mariner? He resolved to run the cargo of his heart right in, at the risk of all breakers and drawn cutlasses; and to make a good beginning he came up and took her hand. The tanner in the bower gave approval with a cough, like Cupid with a sneeze; then he turned it to a snore.

"Mary, why do you carry on like this?" the smuggler inquired, in a very gentle voice. "I have done nothing to offend you, have I? That would be the last thing I would ever do."

"Captain Lyth, you are always very good; you never should think such things of me. I am just looking at a particular cloud. And who ever said that you might call me 'Mary'?"

"Perhaps the particular cloud said so; but you must have been the cloud yourself, for you told me only yesterday."

"Then I will never say another word about it; but people should not take advantage."

"Who are people? How you talk! quite as if I were somebody you never saw before. I should like you just to look round now, and let me see why you are so different from yourself."

Mary Anerley looked round; for she always did what people liked, without good reason otherwise; and if her mind was full of clouds, her eyes had little sign of them.

"You look as lovely as you always do," said the smuggler, growing bolder as she looked at something else. "You know long ago what my opinion of you is, and yet you seem to take no notice. Now I must be off, as you know, to-night; not for any reason of my own, as I told you yesterday, but to carry out a contract. I may not see you for many months again; and you may fall in love with a Preventive man."

"I never fall in love with anybody. Why should I go from one extreme to the other? Captain Carroway has seven children, as well as a very active wife."

"I am not afraid of Carroway, in love or in war. He is an honest fellow, with no more brains than this ash-tree over us. I mean the dashing captains who come in with their cutters, and would carry you off as soon as look."

"Captain Lyth, you are not at all considering what you say: those officers do not want me—they want you."

"Then they shall get neither; they may trust me for that. But, Mary, do tell me how your heart is; you know well how mine has been for ever such a time. I tell you downright that I have thought of girls before—"

"Oh, I was not at all aware of that; surely you had better go on with thinking of them."

"You have not heard me out. I have only thought of them; nothing more than thinking, in a foolish sort of way. But of you I do not think; I seem to feel you all through me."

"What sort of a sensation do I seem to be? A foolish one, I suppose, like all those many others."

"No, not at all. A very wise one; a regular knowledge that I can not live without you; a certainty that I could only mope about a little—"

"And not run any more cargoes on the coast?"

"Not a single tub, nor a quarter bale of silk; except, of course, what is under contract now; and, if you should tell me that you can not care about me—"

"Hush! I am almost sure that I hear footsteps. Listen, just a moment."

"No, I will not listen to any one in the world but you. I beg you not to try to put me off. Think of the winter, and the long time coming; say if you will think of me. I must allow that I am not, like you, of a respectable old family. The Lord alone knows where I came from, or where I may go to. My business is a random and up-and-down one, but no one can call it disreputable; and if you went against it, I would throw it up. There are plenty of trades that I can turn my hand to; and I will turn it to anything you please, if you will only put yours inside it. Mary, only let me have your hand; and you need not say anything unless you like."

"But I always do like to say something, when things are brought before me so. I have to consider my father, and my mother, and others belonging to me. It is not as if I were all alone, and could do exactly as I pleased. My father bears an ill-will toward free trade; and my mother has made bad bargains, when she felt sure of very good ones."

"I know that there are rogues about," Robin answered, with a judicial frown; "but foul play never should hurt fair play; and we haul them through the water when we catch them. Your father is terribly particular, I know, and that is the worst thing there can be; but I do not care a groat for all objections, Mary, unless the objection begins with you. I am sure by your eyes, and your pretty lips and forehead, that you are not the one to change. If once any lucky fellow wins your heart, he will have it—unless he is a fool—forever. I can do most things, but not that, or you never would be thinking about the other people. What would anybody be to me in comparison with you, if I only had the chance? I would kick them all to Jericho. Can you see it in that way? can you get hot every time you think of me?"

"Really," said Mary, looking very gently at him, because of his serious excitement, "you are very good, and very brave, and have done wonders for me; but why should I get hot?"

"No, I suppose it is not to be expected. When I am in great peril I grow hot, and tingle, and am alive all over. Men of a loftier courage grow cold; it depends upon the constitution; but I enjoy it more than they do, and I can see things ten times quicker. Oh, how I wish I was Nelson! how he must enjoy himself!"

"But if you have love of continual danger, and eagerness to be always at it," said Mary, with wide Yorkshire sense, much as she admired this heroic type, "the proper thing for you to do is to lead a single life. You might be enjoying all the danger very much; but what would your wife at home be doing? Only to knit, and sigh, and lie awake."