"Girls, are you daft? I protest you make nigh as much racket as the gentlemen themselves!"

What Mr Keith did with himself I do not know. I think he went off for a walk somewhere. I know he tried to persuade Angus to go with him, but Angus said he wanted his share of the fun. I heard Mr Keith say, in a low voice,—

"What would your father say, Angus?"

"Oh, my father's a minister, and they are bound to be particular," said Angus, carelessly. "I can't pretend to make such a fash as he would."

I did not hear what Mr Keith answered, but I believe he went on talking about it. When I got up-stairs with the rest, however, I missed Flora; and going to our room to look for her, I found her crying. I never saw Flora weep before.

"Why, Flora!" said I, "what is the matter with you?"

"Nothing with me, Cary," she said, "but a great deal with Angus."

"You do not like his being at the supper?" I said. I hardly knew what to say, and I felt afraid of saying either too much or too little. It seems so difficult to talk without hurting people.

"Not only that," she said. "I do not like the way he is going on altogether. I know my father would be in a sad way if he knew it."

I told Flora what I had heard Angus say to Mr Keith.

"Ah!" she said, with another sob, "Angus would not have said that three months ago. I was sure it must have been going on for some time. He has been in bad company, I feel certain. And Angus always was one to take the colour of his company, just as a glass takes the colour of anything you pour in. What can I do? Oh, what can I do? If he will not listen to Duncan—"

"Ambrose Catterall says that young men must always sow their wild oats," I said, when she stopped thus.

"That is one of the Devil's maxims," exclaimed Flora, earnestly. "God calls it sowing to the flesh: and He says the harvest of it is corruption. Some flowers seed themselves: thistles do. Did you ever know roses grow from thistle seed? No: 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap.' Ah me, for Angus's harvest!"

"Well, I don't see what you can do," said I.

"There is the sting," she replied. "It would be silly to weep if I did. No, in such cases, I think there is only one thing a woman can do—and that is to cry mightily unto God to loose the bonds of the oppressor, and let the oppressed go free. I don't know—I may be mistaken—but I hardly think it is of much use for women to talk to such a man. It is not talking that he needs. He knows his own folly, very often, at least as well as you can tell him, and would be glad enough to be loosed from his bonds, if only somebody would come and tear them asunder. He cannot: and you cannot. Only God can. Some evil spirits can be cast out by nothing but prayer. Cary—" Flora broke off suddenly, and looked up earnestly in my face. "Don't mention this, will you, dear? I should not have said a word to you nor any one if you had not surprised me."

I promised her I would not, unless somebody first spoke to me. She would not come to Sophy's room.

"Tell the girls," she said, "that I want to write home; for I shall do it presently, when I feel a little calmer."

Something struck me as I was turning away. "Flora," I said, "why do you not tell my Aunt Kezia all about it? I am sure she would help you, if any one could."

"Yes, dear, I think she would," said Flora, gently; "but you see no one could. And remember, Cary!" she called me back as I was leaving the chamber, and came to me, and took both my hands; and her great sorrowful eyes, which looked just like brown velvet, gazed into mine like the eyes of a dog which is afraid of a scolding: "remember, Cary, that Angus is not wicked. He is only weak. But how weak he is!"

She broke down with another sob.

"But men should be stronger than women," said I, "not weaker."

"They are, in body and mind," replied Flora: "but sex, I suppose, does not extend to soul. There, some men are far weaker than some women. Look at Peter. I dare say the maid who kept the door would have been less frightened of the two, if he had taunted her with being one of 'this man's disciples.'"

"Well, I should feel ashamed!" I said.

"I am not sure if women do not feel moral weakness a greater shame than men do," replied Flora. "Men seem to think so much more of want of physical bravery. Many a soldier will not stand an ill-natured laugh, who would want to fight you in a minute if you hinted that he was afraid of being hurt. Things seem to look so different to men from what they do to women; and, I think, to the angels, and to God."

I did not like to leave her alone in her trouble: but she said she wanted nothing, and was going to write to her father; so I went back to Sophy's room, and gave Flora's message to the girls.

"Dear! I am sure we don't want her," said Hatty: and Charlotte added, "She is more of a spoil-sport than anything else."

So we played at "Hunt the slipper," and "Questions and commands," and "The parson has lost his cloak," and "Blind man's buff": and then when we got tired we sat down—on the beds or anywhere—Hatty took off the mirror and perched herself on the dressing-table, and Charlotte wanted to climb up and sit on the mantel-shelf, but Sophy would not let her— and then we had a round of "How do you like it?" and then we went to bed.

In the middle of the night I awoke with a start, and heard a great noise, and Sam's voice, and old Will's, and a lot of queer talking, as if something were being carried up-stairs that was hard to pull along; and there were a good many words that I am sure my Aunt Kezia would not let me write, and—well, if He do look at what I am writing, I should not like God to see them neither. I felt sure that the gentlemen were being carried up to bed—such of them as could not walk—and such as could were being helped along. I rather wonder that gentlemen like to drink so much, and get themselves into such a queer condition. I do not think they would like it if the ladies began to do such things. I could not help wondering if Angus were among them. Flora, who had lain awake for a long while, and had only dropped asleep, as she told me afterwards, about half an hour before, for she heard the clock strike one, slept on at first, and I hoped she would not awake. But as the last lot were being dragged past our door, Flora woke up with a start, and cried,—

"What is that? O Cary, what can be the matter?"

I wanted to make as light of it as I could.

"Oh, go to sleep," I said; "there is nothing wrong."

"But what is that dreadful noise?" she persisted.

"Well, it is only the gentlemen going to bed," said I.

Just then, sounds came through the door, which showed that they were close outside. Somebody—so far as I could guess from what we heard— was determined to sit down on the stairs, and Sam was trying to prevail upon him to go quietly to bed. All sorts of queer things were mixed up with it—hunting cries, bits of songs, invectives against Hanoverians and Dissenters, and I scarcely know what else.

"Who is that wretched creature?" whispered Flora to me.

I had recognised the voice, and was able to answer.

"It is Mr Bagnall," said I, "the vicar of Dornthwaite."

"A minister!" was Flora's answer, in an indescribable tone.

"Oh, that does not make any difference," I replied, "with the clergy about here. Mr Digby is too old for it now, but I have heard say that when he was a younger man, he used to be as uproarious as anybody."

At last Sam's patience seemed to be exhausted, and he and Will between them lifted the reverend gentleman off his feet, and carried him to bed despite his struggles. At least I supposed so from what I heard. About ten minutes later, Sam and Will passed our door on their way back.

"Yon's a bonnie loon to ca' a minister," I heard Sam say as he went past. "But what could ye look for in a Prelatist?"

"He gets up i' t' pu'pit, and tells us our dooty, of a Sunda', but who does hisn of a Monda, think ye?" was old Will's response.

The footsteps passed on, and I was just going to relieve my feelings by a good laugh, when I was stopped and astonished by Flora's voice.

"O Cary, how dreadful!"

"Dreadful!" said I, "what is dreadful?"

"That wretched man!" she said in a tone which matched her words.

"He does not think himself a wretched man, by any means," I said. "His living is worth quite two hundred a year, and he has a little private property beside. They say he does not stand at all a bad chance for a deanery. His wife is not a pleasant woman, I believe; she has a temper: but his son is carrying all before him at college, and his daughters are thought to be among the prettiest girls in the county."

"Has he children? Poor things!" sighed Flora.

"Why, Flora, I cannot make you out," said I. "I could understand your being uncomfortable about Angus; but what is Mr Bagnall to you?"

"Cary!" I cannot describe the tone.

"Well?" said I.

"Is the Lord nothing to me?" she said, almost passionately; "nor the poor misguided souls committed to that man's charge, for which he will have to give account at the last day?"

"My dear Flora, you do take things so seriously!" I said, trying to laugh; but her tone and words had startled me, for all that.

"It is well to take sin seriously," said she. "Men are serious enough in Hell; and sin is its antechamber."

"You don't suppose poor Mr Bagnall will be sent there, for a little too much champagne at a hunt-supper?" said I. I did not like it, for I thought of Father. I have heard him singing "Old King Cole" and half a dozen more songs, all mixed up in a heap, after a hunt-supper. "Men always do it there. And I can assure you Mr Bagnall is thought a first-class preacher. People go to hear him even from Cockermouth."

"That is worse than ever," said Flora, "A man who preaches the truth and serves the Devil—that must be awful!"

"Flora, you do say the queerest things!" said I. "Does your father never do so?"

"My father?" she answered in an astonished, indignant voice. "My father! Cary! but,"—with a change in the tone—"you do not know him, of course. Why, Cary, if he knew that Angus had been for once in the midst of such a scene as that, I think it would break my father's heart."

I wondered how Angus had fared, and if he were singing snatches of Scotch songs in some bed-chamber at the other end of the long gallery, but I had not the cruelty to say it to Flora.

When we came down the next morning, I was curious to peep into the dining-room, just to see what it was like. The wreck of a ship is the only thing I can think of, which might look like it. Half the chairs were flung over in all directions, and two broken to pieces; a quantity of broken glass was heaped both on the floor and the table; dark wine stains on the carpet, and pools upon the table, not yet dry, were sufficient signs of what the night had been. Bessy stood in the window, duster in hand, picking up the chairs, and setting them in their places.

"Didn't the gentlemen enjoy theirselves, Miss Cary?" said she. "My word, but they made a night on't! I'd like to ha' been wi' 'em, just for to see!"

I made no answer beyond nodding my head. Flora's words came back to me,—"It is well to take sin seriously." I could not laugh and jest, as I dare say I should have done but for them.

When I came into the parlour, I only found three of all the gentlemen in the house,—Father, Mr Keith, and Ambrose Catterall. I thought Father seemed rather cross, and he was finding fault with everybody for something. Sophy's hair was rough, and Hatty had put on a gown he did not like, and Fanny's ruffle had a hole in it; and then he turned round and scolded my Aunt Kezia for not having us in better order. My Aunt Kezia said never a word, but I felt sure from her drawn brow and set lips, as she stood making tea, that she could have said a great many. Mr Keith was silent and grave. Ambrose Catterall seemed to think it his duty to make fun for everybody, and he laughed and joked and chattered away finely. I asked where old Mr Catterall was.

"Oh, in bed with a headache," laughed Ambrose, "like everybody else this morning."

"Speak for yourself," said Mr Keith. "I have not one."

"Well, mine's going," returned Ambrose, gaily. "A cup of Mrs Kezia's capital tea will finish it off."

"Finish what off?" asked my Aunt Kezia.

"My last night's headache," said he.

"That tea must have come from Heaven, then, instead of China," replied she. "Nay, Ambrose Catterall; it will take blood to finish off the consequence of your doings last night."

"Why, Mrs Kezia, are you going to fight me?" asked he, laughing.

"Young man, why don't you fight the Devil?" answered my Aunt Kezia, looking him full in the face. "He does not pay good wages, Ambrose."

"Never saw the colour of his money yet," said Ambrose, who seemed extremely amused.

"I wish you never may," quoth my aunt. "But I sadly fear you are going the way to do it."

The more Ambrose laughed, the graver my Aunt Kezia seemed to grow. Before we had finished breakfast, Angus came languidly into the room.

"What ails you, old comrade?" said Ambrose; and Flora's eyes looked up with the same question, but I think there were tears on the brown velvet.

"Oh, my head aches conf—I mean—abominably," said Angus, flushing.

"Take a hair of the dog that bit you," suggested Ambrose; "unless you think humble pie will agree with you better. I fancy Miss Drummond would rather help you to that last."

I saw a flash in Mr Keith's eyes, which gave me the idea that he might not be a pleasant person to meet alone in a glen at midnight, if he had no scruples as to what he did.

"You hold your tongue!" growled Angus.

"By all means, if you prefer it," said Ambrose, lightly.

One after another, the gentlemen strolled in,—all but two who stayed in bed till afternoon, and of these Mr Catterall was one. Among the last to appear was Mr Bagnall; but he looked quite fresh and gay when he came, like Ambrose.

"We had to say grace for ourselves, Mr Bagnall," said Father. "Sit down, and let me help you to some of this turkey pie."

"Thanks—if you please. What a lovely morning!" was Mr Bagnall's answer. "The young ladies look like fresh rosebuds with the dew on them."

"We have not you gentlemen to thank for it, if we do," broke in Hatty. "Our slumbers were all the less profound for your kind assistance. Oh yes, you can look, Mr Bagnall! I mean you. I heard 'Sally in our Alley' about one o'clock this morning."

"No, was I singing that, now?" said Mr Bagnall, laughing. "I did not know I got quite so far. But at a hunt-supper, you know, everything is excusable."

"Would you give me a reference to the passage which says so, Mr Bagnall?" came from behind the tea-pot. "I should like to note it in my Bible."

Mr Bagnall laughed again, but rather uncomfortably.

"My dear Mrs Kezia, you do not imagine the Bible has anything to do with a hunt-supper?"

"It is to be hoped I don't, or I should be woefully disappointed," she answered. "But I always thought, Mr Bagnall, that the Word of God and the ministers of God should have something to do with one another."

"Kezia, keep your Puritan notions to yourself!" roared Father from the other end of the table; and he put some words before it which I would rather not write. "I can't think," he went on, looking round, "wherever Kezia can have picked up such mad whims as she has. For a sister of mine to say such a thing to a clergyman—I declare it makes my hair stand on end!"

"Your hair may lie down again, Brother. I've done," said my Aunt Kezia, coolly. "As to where I got it, I should think you might know. It runs in the blood. And I suppose Deborah Hunter was your grandmother as well as mine."

Father's reply was full of the words I do not want to write, but it was not a compliment to his grandmother.

"Come, Mrs Kezia," said Mr Bagnall, "let us make it up by glasses all round, and a toast to the sweet Puritan memory of Mrs Deborah Hunter."

"No, thank you," said my Aunt Kezia. "As to Deborah Hunter, she has been a saint in Heaven these thirty years, and finely she'd like it (if she knew it) to have you drinking yourselves drunk in her honour. But let me tell you—and you can say what you like after it—she taught me that 'the chief end of man was to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.' Your notion seems to be that the chief end of man is to glorify himself, and to enjoy him for ever. I think mine's the better of the two: and as to yours, the worst thing I wish any of you is that you may get mine instead of it. Now then, Brother, I've had my say, and you can have yours."

And not another word did my Aunt Kezia say, though Father stormed, and the other gentlemen laughed and joked, and paid her sarcastic compliments, all the while breakfast lasted. There were two who were silent, and those were Angus and Mr Keith. Angus seemed too poorly and unhappy to take any interest in the matter; and as to Mr Keith, I believe in his heart (if I read it right in his eyes) that he was perfectly delighted with my Aunt Kezia.

"The young ladies did not honour us by riding to the meet," said Mr Bagnall at last, looking at that one of us who sat nearest him—which, by ill luck, happened to be Flora.

"No, Sir. I do not think my aunt would have allowed it; but—" Flora stopped, and cast her eyes on her plate.

"But if she had, you would have been pleased to come?" suggested Mr Bagnall, rubbing his hands.

He spoke in that disagreeable way in which some men do speak to girls—I do not know what to call it. It is a condescending, patronising kind of manner, as if—yes, that is it!—as if they wanted to amuse themselves by hearing the opinion of something so totally incapable of forming one. I wish they knew how the girls long to shake the nonsense out of them.

But Flora did not lose her temper, as I should have done: she held her own with a quiet dignity which I envied, but could never have imitated.

"Pardon me, Sir. I was about to say the direct contrary—that if my aunt had allowed it, I for one would rather not have gone."

"Afraid of a fall, eh?" laughed Mr Bagnall. "Well, ladies are not expected to be as venturesome as men."

Now, why do men always fancy that it is a woman's duty to do what men expect her? I cannot see it one bit.

"I was not afraid of that, Sir," said Flora.

Father, with whom Flora is a favourite, was listening with a smile. I believe Aunt Drummond was his pet sister.

"No? Why, what then?" said Mr Bagnall, shaking the pepper over his turkey pie until I wondered what sort of a throat he would have when he had finished it.

"I am afraid of hardening my heart, Sir," said Flora, in her calm decisive way.

"Hardening your heart, girl! What do you mean?" said Father. "Hardening your heart by riding to hounds!"

"A little puzzling, certainly," said Sir Robert Dacre, who sat opposite. "We must ask Miss Drummond to explain."

He did not speak in that disagreeable way that Mr Bagnall did; but Flora flushed up when she found three gentlemen looking at her, and asking her for an explanation.

"I mean," she answered, "that one hardens one's heart by taking pleasure in anything which gives another creature pain. But I beg your pardon; indeed I did not mean to put myself forward."

"No, no, child; we drew you forward," said Father, kindly. He gets over his tempers in a moment, and he seemed to have quite forgotten the passage at arms with my Aunt Kezia.

"Still, I do not quite understand," said Sir Robert, not at all unkindly. "Who is the injured creature in this case, Miss Drummond?"

Flora's colour rose again. "The hare, Sir," she said.

"The hare!" cried Mr Bagnall, leaning back in his chair to laugh. "Well, Miss Flora, you are quixotic."

"May I quote my father, Sir?" was her reply. "He says that Don Quixote (supposing him a real person, which I take it he was not) was one of the noblest men the world ever saw, only the world was not ready for him."

"The world not ready for him? No, I should think not!" laughed Father. "Not just yet, my little lady-errant."

Flora smiled quietly. "Perhaps it will be, some day. Uncle Courtenay," she said.

"When the larks fall from the sky—eh, Miss Flora?" said Mr Bagnall, rubbing his hands again in that odious way he has.

"When 'they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,'" was Flora's soft answer.

"Surely you don't suppose that literal?" replied Mr Bagnall, laughing. "Why, you must be as bad—I had nearly said as mad—as my next neighbour, Everard Murthwaite (of Holme Cultram, you know," he explained aside to Father). "Why, he has actually got a notion that the Jews are to be restored to Palestine! Whoever heard of such a mad idea? Only think—the Jews!"

"Ridiculous nonsense!" said Father.

"Is it not usually the case," asked Mr Keith, who till then had hardly spoken, "that the world counts as mad the wisest men in it?"

"Why, Mr Keith, you must be one of them!" cried Mr Bagnall.

"Of the wise men? Thank you!" said Mr Keith, drily.

There was a laugh at this.

"But I can tell you of something queerer still," Mr Bagnall went on. "Old Cis Crosthwaite, in my parish, says she knows her sins are forgiven."

Such exclamations came from most of the gentlemen at that! "Preposterous!" said one. "Ridiculous!" said another. "Insufferable presumption!" cried a third.

"Cis Crosthwaite!" said Sir Robert Dacre, more quietly.

"Yes, Cis Crosthwaite," repeated Mr Bagnall; "an old wretch of a woman who has never been any better than she should be, and whom I met sticking hedges only last winter. Her son Joe is the worst poacher in the parish."

All the gentlemen seemed to think that most dreadful. I do not know why it is they always appear to reckon snaring wild game which belongs nobody a more wicked thing than breaking all the Ten Commandments. Would it not have been in them if it were?

Only Sir Robert Dacre said, "Poor old creature! don't let us saddle her with Joe's sins. I dare say she has plenty of her own."

"Plenty? I should think so. She is a horrid old wretch," answered Mr Bagnall. "And do but think, if this miserable creature has not the arrogance and presumption to say that her sins are forgiven!"

"I suppose Christ died that somebody's sins might be forgiven?" said Mr Keith, in his quiet way.

"Of course, but those are respectable people," Mr Bagnall said, rather indignantly.

"Before or after the forgiveness?" asked Mr Keith.

"Sir," said Mr Bagnall, rather stiffly, "I am not accustomed to discuss such matters as these at table."

"Are you not? I am," said Mr Keith, quite simply.

"But," continued Mr Bagnall, "I thought every one understood the orthodox view—namely, that a man must do his best, and practise virtue, and lead a proper sort of life, and then, when God Almighty sees you a decent and fit person, and endeavouring to be good He helps you with His grace." [Note 2.]

"Of course!" said the Vicar of Sebergham—I suppose by way of Amen.

"Men are to do their best, then, and practise these virtues, in the first instance, without any assistance from God's grace? That Gospel sounds rather ill tidings," was Mr Keith's answer.

Everybody was listening by this time. Sir Robert Dacre, I thought, seemed secretly diverted; and Hatty's eyes were gleaming with fun. Father looked uncomfortable, and as if he did not know what Mr Keith would be at. From my Aunt Kezia little nods of satisfaction kept coming to what he said.

"Sir," demanded Mr Bagnall, looking his adversary straight in the face, "are you not orthodox?"

He spoke rather in the tone in which he might have asked, "Are you not honest?"

"May I ask you to explain the word, before I answer?" was Mr Keith's response.

"I mean, are you one of these Methodists?"

"Certainly not. I belong to the Kirk of Scotland."

Mr Bagnall's "Oh!" seemed to say that some at any rate of Mr Keith's queer notions might be accounted for, if he were so unfortunate as to have been born in a different Church.

"But," pursued Mr Keith, "seeing that the Church of England, and the Kirk of Scotland, and the Methodists, all accept the Word of God as the rule of faith, they should all, methinks, be sound in the faith, if that be what you mean by 'orthodox.'"

"By 'orthodox,'" said the Vicar of Sebergham, after a sonorous clearing of his throat, "I understand a man who keeps to the Articles of the Church, and does not run into any extravagances and enthusiasm."

"Hear him!" cried Mr Bagnall, as if he were at a Tory meeting. Hatty burst out laughing, but immediately smothered it in her handkerchief.

"I do hear him, and with pleasure," said Mr Keith. "I am no friend to extravagance, I assure you. Let a Churchman keep to the Bible and the Articles, and I ask no more of him. But excuse me if I say that we are departing from the question before us, which was the propriety, or impropriety, of one saying that his sins were forgiven. May I ask why you object to that?—and is the objection to the forgiveness, or to the proclamation of it?"

"Sir," said Mr Bagnall, warmly, "I think it presumption—arrogance— horrible self-conceit."

"To have forgiveness?—or to say so?"

"I cannot answer such a question, Sir!" said Mr Bagnall, getting red in the face, and seizing the pepper-box once more, with which he dusted his pie recklessly. "When a man sets himself up to be better than his neighbours in that way, it is scandalous—perfectly scandalous, Sir!"

"'Better than his neighbours!'" repeated Mr Keith, as if he were considering the question. "If a pardoned criminal be better than his neighbours, I suppose the neighbours are worse criminals?"

"Sir, you misunderstand me. They fancy themselves better than others." Mr Bagnall was getting angry.

"But seeing all are criminals alike, and they own it every Sunday," was Mr Keith's answer, "does it not look rather odd that an objection should be made to one of them stating that he has been pardoned? Is it because the rest are unpardoned, and are conscious of it?"

"Come, friends!" said Sir Robert, before Mr Bagnall could reply. "Let us not lose our tempers, I beg. Mr Keith is a Scotsman, and such are commonly good reasoners and love a tilt; and 'tis but well in a young man to keep his wits in practice. But we must not get too far, you know."

"Just so! just so!" saith Father, who I think was glad to have a stop put to this sort of converse. "Mr Bagnall, I am sure, bears no malice. Sir Robert, when do the Holme Cultram hounds meet next?"

Mr Bagnall growled something, I know not what, and gave himself up to his pie for the rest of the time, Mr Keith smiled, and said no more. But I know in whose hands I thought the victory rested.

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. The word "ticket" was still spelt "etiquette."

Note 2. These exact expressions are quoted in Whitefield's sermons.



CHAPTER FOUR.

THINGS BEGIN TO HAPPEN.

"The untrue liveth only in the heart Of vain humanity, which fain would be Its own poor centre and circumference."

REV HORATIUS BONAR, D.D.

This afternoon I went up the Scar by myself. First I climbed right to the top, and after looking round a little, as I always like to do on the top of a mountain, I went down a few yards to the flat bit where the old Roman wall runs, and sat down on the grass just above. It was a lovely day. I had not an idea that any one was near the place but myself, and I was just going to sing, when to my surprise I heard a voice on the other side of the Roman wall. It was Angus Drummond's.

"Duncan Keith, why don't you say something?" He broke out suddenly, in a petulant tone—rather the tone of a child who knows it has been naughty, and wants to get the scolding over which it feels sure is coming some time.

"What do you wish me to say?"

Mr Keith's tone was cold and constrained, I thought.

"Why don't you tell me I am an unhanged reprobate, and that you are ashamed to be seen walking with me? You know you are thinking it."

"No, Angus. I was thinking something very different."

"What, then?" asked Angus, sulkily.

"'Doth He not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until He find it?'"

There was no coldness in Mr Keith's tone now.

"What has that got to do with it?" growled Angus in his throat.

"Angus," was the soft answer, "the sheep sometimes makes it a very hard journey for Him."

I know I ought to have risen and crept away long before this: but I did not. It was not right of me, but I sat on. I knew they could not see me through the wall, nor could they get across it at any place so near that I could not be gone far enough before they could catch sight of me.

"I suppose," said Angus, in the same sort of sulky murmur, "that is your way of telling me, Mr Keith, that I am a miserable sinner."

"Are you not?"

"Miserable enough, Heaven knows! But, Duncan, I don't see why you, and Flora, and Mrs Kezia, and all the good folks, or the folks who think themselves extra good, which comes to the same thing—"

"Does it? I was not aware of that," said Mr Keith.

"I can't see," Angus went on, "why you must all turn up the whites of your eyes like a duck in thunder, and hold up your hands in pious horror at me, because I have done just once what every gentleman in the land does every week, and thinks nothing of it. If you had not been brought up in a hen-coop, and ruled like a copy-book, you would not be so con— so hideously strict and particular! Just ask Ambrose Catterall whether there is any weight on his conscience; or ask that jolly parson, who tackled you and Flora at breakfast, what he has to say to it. I'll be bound he will read prayers next Sabbath with as much grace and unction as if he had never been drunk in his life. And because I get let in just once, why—"

Angus paused as if to consider how to finish his sentence, and Mr Keith answered one point of his long speech, letting all the rest, go.

"Is it just this once, Angus?"

"I suppose you mean that night at York, when I got let in with those fellows of Greensmith's," growled Angus, more grumpily than ever. "Now, Duncan, that's not generous of you. I did the humble and penitent for that, and you should not cast it up to me. Just that time and this!"

"And no more, Angus?"

Angus muttered something which did not reach me.

"Angus, you know why I came with you?"

"Yes, I know well enough why you came with me," said Angus, bitterly. "Just because that stupid old meddler, Helen Raeburn, took it into her wooden head that I could not take care of myself, and talked my father into sending me with you now, instead of letting me go the other way round by myself! Could not take care of myself, forsooth!"

"Have you done it?"

"I hadn't it to do. Mr Duncan Keith was to take care of me, just as if I had been a baby—stuff! There is no end to the folly of old women!"

"I think young men might sometimes match them. Well, Angus, I have taken as much care as you let me. But you deceived me, boy. I know more about it than you think. It was not one or two transgressions that let you down to this pitch. I know you had a private key from Rob Greensmith, and let yourself in and out when I believed you asleep."

Angus sputtered out some angry words, which I did not catch.

"No. You are mistaken. Leigh did not tell of you or his brother. Your friend Robert told me himself. He wanted to get out of the scrape, and he did not care about leaving you in it. The friendship of the wicked is not worth much, Angus. But if I had not known it, I should still have felt perfectly sure that there had been more going on than you ever confessed to me. Three months since, Angus, you would not have used words which you have used this day. You would not have spoken so lightly of being 'let in'—let into what? Just stop and think. And twice to-day—once in Flora's presence—you have only just stopped your tongue from a worse word than that. Would you have said such a thing to your father before we left Abbotscliff?"

"Uncle Courtenay was as drunk as any of them last night," Angus blurted out.

I did not like to hear that of Father. Till now I never thought much about such things, except that they were imperfections which men had and women had not, and the women must put up with them. Sins?—well, yes, I suppose getting drunk is a sin, if you come to think about it; but so is getting into a passion, and telling falsehoods, and plenty more things which one thinks little or nothing about, because one sees everybody do them every day. It is only the extra good people, like my Aunt Kezia, and Flora, and Mr Keith, that put on grave faces about things of that kind.

But stay! God must be better than the extra good people. Then will He not think even worse of such things than they do?

It was just because those three seemed to think it so awful, and to be inclined to make a fuss over it, that I did not like to hear what Angus said about Father. Grandmamma never thought anything about it; she always said drinking and gaming were gentlemanly vices, which the King himself—(I mean, of course, the Elector, but Grandmamma said the King)—need not be ashamed of practising.

I listened rather uneasily for Mr Keith's answer. I am beginning to feel a good deal of respect for his opinion and himself, and I did not want to hear him say anything about Father that was not agreeable. But he put it quietly aside.

"If you please, Angus, we will let other people alone. Both you and I shall find our own sins quite enough to repent of, I expect. You have not answered my question, Angus."

"What question?" grumbled Angus. I fancy he did not want to answer it.

"Would you, three months since, have let your father see and hear what you have let me do within even the last week?"

Angus growled something in the bottom of his throat which I could not make out.

Mr Keith's tone changed suddenly.

"Angus, dear old fellow, are you happier now than you were then?"

"Duncan, I am the most miserable wretch that ever lived! I want no preaching to, I can tell you. That last text my father preached from keeps tolling in my ear like a funeral bell—and it is all the worse because it comes in his voice: 'Remember from whence thou art fallen!' Don't I remember it? Do I want telling whence I have fallen? Haven't I made a thousand resolves never, never to fail again, and the next time I get into company, all my resolves melt away and my hard knots come undone, and I feel as strong as a spoonful of water, and any of them can lead me that tries, like an animal with a ring through his nose?"

"Water is not a bad comparison, Angus, if you look at both sides of it. What is stronger than water, when the wind blows it with power? And you know who is compared to the wind. 'Awake, O North Wind, and come, Thou South; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.' It is the wind of God's Spirit that we want, to blow the water—powerless of itself—in the right direction. It will carry all before it then."

"Oh, yes, all that sounds very well," said Angus, but in a pleasanter tone than before—not so much like a big growling dog. "But you don't know, Duncan—you don't know! You have no temptations. What can you know about it? I tell you I can't keep out of it. It is no good talking."

"'No temptations!' I wish that were true. But you are quite right as to yourself; you cannot keep out of it. Do you mean to add that God cannot keep you?"

I did not hear Angus's reply, and I fancy it came in a gesture, and not in words. But Mr Keith said, very softly,—

"Angus, will you let Him keep you?"

Instead of the answer for which I was eagerly listening, another sound came to my ear, which made me jump up in a hurry, almost without caring whether I was heard or not. That was the clock of Brocklebank Church striking twelve. I should be ever so much too late for dinner; and what would my Aunt Kezia say? I got away as quietly as I could for a few yards, and then ran down the Scar as fast as I dared for fear of falling, and came into the dining-room, feeling hot and breathless, just as Cecilia, looking fresh and bright as a white lily, was entering it from the other end. The rest were seated at the table. Of course Mr Keith and Angus were not there.

"Caroline, where have you been?" saith my Aunt Kezia.

I trembled, for I knew what I had to expect when my Aunt Kezia said Caroline in full.

"I am very sorry, Aunt," said I. "I went up the Scar, and—well, I am afraid I forgot all about the time."

My Aunt Kezia nodded, as if my frank confession satisfied her, and Father said, "Good maid!" as I slipped into the chair where I always sit, on his left hand. But Cecilia, who was arranging her skirts just opposite, said in that way which men seem to call charming, and women always see through and despise (at least my Aunt Kezia says so),—

"Am I a little late?"

"Don't name it!" said Father.

"Dear, no, my charmer!" cried Hatty. "Cary's shockingly late, of course: but you are not—quite impossible."

Cecilia gave one of her soft smiles, and said no more.

I really am beginning to wish the Bracewells gone. Yet it is not so much on their own account, Amelia is vain and silly, and Charlotte rude and romping; but I do not think either of them is a hypocrite. Charlotte is not, I am sure; she lets you see the very worst side of her: and Amelia's affectation is so plain and unmistakable, that it cannot be called insincerity. It is on account of that horrid Cecilia that I want them to go, because I suppose she will go with them. Yes, truth is truth, and Cecilia is horrid. I am getting quite frightened of her. I do not know what she means to do next: but she seems to me to be always laying traps of some sort, and for somebody.

————————————————————————————————————

I wonder if people ever do what you expect of them? If somebody had asked me to make a list of things that could not happen, I expect that I should have put on it one thing that has just happened.

Sophy and I went up this morning to Goody Branscombe's cot, to take her some wine and eggs from my Aunt Kezia. Anne Branscombe thinks she is failing, poor old woman, and my Aunt Kezia told her to beat up an egg with a little wine and sugar, and give it to her fasting of a morning: she thinks it a fine thing for keeping up strength. We came round by the Vicarage on our way back, and stepped in to see old Elspie. We found her ironing the Vicar's shirts and ruffles, and she put us in rocking-chairs while we sat and talked.

Old Elspie wanted to know all we could tell her about Flora and Angus, and I promised I would bring Flora to see her some day. She says Mr Keith—Mr Duncan Keith's father, that is—is the squire of Abbotscliff, a very rich man, and a tremendous Tory.

"You're vara nigh strangers, young leddies," said Elspie, as she ironed away. "Miss Fanny, she came to see me a twa-three days back, and Miss Bracewell wi' her; and there was anither young leddy, but I disremember her name."

"Was it Charlotte Bracewell?" said Sophy.

"Na, na, I ken Miss Charlotte ower weel to forget her, though she has grown a deal sin' I saw her afore. This was a lassie wi' black hair, and e'en like the new wood the minister has his dinner-table, wi' the fine name—what ca' ye that, now?"

"Mahogany?" said I.

"Ay, it has some sic fremit soun'," said old Elspie, rather scornfully. "I ken it was no sae far frae muggins [mugwort]. Mrs Sophy, my dear, ha'e ye e'er suppit muggins in May? 'Tis the finest thing going for keeping a lassie in gude health, and it suld be drinkit in the spring. Atweel, what's her name wi' the copper-colourit e'en?"

"Cecilia Osborne," said I. "What did you think of her, Elspie?"

The iron went up and down the Vicar's shirt-front, and I saw a curious gathering together of old Elspie's lips—still she did not speak. At last Sophy said,—

"Couldn't you make up your mind about her, Elspie?"

"I had nae mickle fash about that, Mrs Sophy," said Elspeth, setting down her iron on the stand with something like a bang. "And gin I can see through a millstane a wee bittie, she'll gi'e ye the chance to make up yourn afore lang."

"Nay, mine's made up long since," answered Sophy. "I shall see the back of her with a deal more pleasure than I did her face a month ago. Won't you, Cary?"

"I don't like her the least bit," said I.

"Ye'll be wiser lassies, young leddies, gin ye're no ower ready to say it," said Elspie, coolly. "It was no ane o' your white days when she came to Brocklebank Fells. Ay, weel, weel! The Lord's ower a'."

As we went down the road, I said to Sophy, "What did old Elspie mean, do you suppose?"

"I am afraid I can guess what she meant, Cary."

Sophy's tone was so strange that I looked up at her; and I saw her eyes flashing and her lips set and white.

"Sophy! what is the matter?" I cried.

"Don't trouble your little head, Cary," she said, kindly enough. "It will be trouble in plenty when it comes."

I could not get her to say more. As we reached the door, Hatty came dancing out to meet us.

"'The rose is white, the rose is red,'— The sun gives light, Queen Anne is dead: Ladies with white and rosy hues, What will you give me for my news?"

"Hatty, you must have made that yourself!" said Sophy.

"I have, just this minute," laughed Hatty. "Now then, who'll bid for my news?"

"I dare say it isn't worth a farthing," said Sophy.

"Well, to you, perhaps not. It may be rather mortifying. My sweet Sophia, you are the eldest of us, but your younger sister has stolen a march on you. You have played your cards ill, Miss Courtenay. Fanny is going to be the first of us married, unless I contrive to run away with somebody in the interval. I don't know whom—there's the difficulty."

"Well, I always thought she would be," said Sophy, quite good-humouredly. "She is the prettiest of us, is Fanny."

"So much obliged for the compliment!" gleefully cried Hatty. "Cary, don't you feel delighted?"

"Is Ephraim here now?" I said, for of course I never thought of anybody else.

"Ephraim!" Hatty whirled round, laughing heartily. "Ephraim, my dear, will have to break his heart at leisure. Ambrose Catterall has stolen a march on him."

"You don't mean that Fanny and Ambrose are to be married!" cried Sophy, with wide-open eyes.

"I do, Madam; and my Aunt Kezia is as mad as a hatter about it. She would have liked Ephraim for her nephew ever so much better than Ambrose."

"Well, I do think!" exclaimed Sophy. "If Ephraim did really care for Fanny, she has used him shamefully."

"So I think!" said Hatty. "I mean to present him on his next birthday with a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs, embroidered in the corner with an urn and a willow-tree."

"An urn, you ridiculous child!" returned Sophy. "That means that somebody is dead."

"Don't throw cold water on my charming conceits!" pleaded Hatty. "Now go in and face my Aunt Kezia—if you dare."

We found her cutting out flannel petticoats in the parlour. My Aunt Kezia's brows were drawn together, and my Aunt Kezia's lips were thin; and I trembled. However, she took no note of us, but went on tearing up flannel, and making little piles of it upon the table end.

Sophy, with heroic bravery, attacked the citadel at once.

"Well, Aunt, this is pretty news!"

"What is?" said my Aunt Kezia, standing up straight and stiff.

"Why, this about Fanny and Ambrose Catterall."

"Oh, that! I wish there were nothing worse than that in this world." My Aunt Kezia spoke as if she would have preferred some other world, where things went straighter than they do in this.

"Hatty said you were put out about it, Aunt."

"That's all Hatty knows. I think 'tis a blunder, and Fanny will find it out, likely enough. But if that were all—Girls, 'tis nigh dinner-time. You had better take your bonnets off."

"What is the matter with my Aunt Kezia?" said I to Sophy, as we went up-stairs.

"Don't ask me!" said that young lady.

Half-way up-stairs we met Charlotte.

"Oh, what fun you have missed, you two!" cried she. "Why didn't you come home a little sooner? I would not have lost it for a hundred pounds."

"Lost what, Charlotte?"

"Lost what? Ask my Aunt Kezia—now just you do!"

"My Aunt Kezia seems unapproachable," said Sophy.

Charlotte went off into a fit of laughter, and then slid down the banister to the hall—a feat which my Aunt Kezia has forbidden her to perform a dozen times at least. We went forward, made ourselves ready for dinner, and came down to the dining-parlour.

In the dining-room we found a curious group. My Aunt Kezia looked as stiff as whalebone; Father, pleased and radiant; Flora and Mr Keith both seemed rather puzzled. Angus was in a better temper than usual. Charlotte was evidently full of something very funny, which she did not want to let out; Cecilia, soft, serene, and velvety; Fanny looked nervous and uncomfortable; Hatty, scornful; while Amelia was her usual self.

When dinner was over, we went back to the parlour. My Aunt Kezia gathered up her heaps of flannel, gave one to Flora and another to me, and began to stitch away at a third herself. Amelia threw herself on the sofa, saying she was tired to death; and I was surprised to see that my Aunt Kezia took no notice. Fanny sat down to draw; Hatty went on with her knitting; Charlotte strolled out into the garden; and Cecilia disappeared, I know not whither.

For an hour or more we worked away in solemn silence. Hatty tried to whisper once or twice to Fanny, making her blush and look uncomfortable; but Fanny did not speak, and I fancy Hatty got tired. Amelia went to sleep.

At last, and all at once, Flora—honest, straightforward Flora—laid her work on her knee, and looked up at my Aunt Kezia's grim set face.

"Aunt Kezia, will you tell me, is something the matter?"

"Yes, my dear," my Aunt Kezia seemed to snap out. "Satan's the matter."

"I don't know what you mean, Aunt," said Flora.

"'Tis a mercy if you don't. No, child, there is not much the matter for you. The matter's for me and these girls here. Well, to be sure! there's no fool like an old f—Caroline! (I fairly jumped) can't you look what you are doing? You are herring-boning that seam on the wrong side!"

Alas! the charge was true. I cannot tell how or why it is, but if there are two seams to anything, I am sure to do one of them on the wrong side. It is very queer. I suppose there is something wanting in my brains. Hatty says—at least she did once when I said that—the brains are wanting.

However, we sat on and sewed away, till at last Amelia woke up and went up-stairs; Flora finished her petticoat, and my Aunt Kezia told her to go into the garden. Only we four sisters were left. Then my Aunt Kezia put down her flannel, wiped her spectacles, and looked round at us.

I knew something was coming, and I felt quite sure that it was something disagreeable; but I could not form an idea what it was.

"Girls," said my Aunt Kezia, "I think you may as well hear at once that I am going to leave Brocklebank."

I fairly gasped in astonishment. Brocklebank without my Aunt Kezia! It sounded like hearing that the sun was going out of the sky. I could not imagine such a state of things.

"Is Sophy to be mistress, then?" said Fanny, blankly.

"Aunt Kezia, are you going to be married?" our impertinent Hatty wanted to know.

"No, Hester," said my Aunt Kezia, shortly. "At my time of life a woman has a little sense left; or if she have not, she is only fit for Bedlam. I do not think Sophy will be mistress, Fanny. Somebody else is going to take that place. Otherwise, I should have stayed in it."

"What do you mean, Aunt Kezia?" said Fanny, speaking very slowly, and in a bewildered sort of way.

Sophy said nothing. I think she knew. And all at once it seemed to come over me—as if somebody had shut me up inside a lump of ice—what it was that was going to happen.

"I mean, my dear," my Aunt Kezia replied quietly, "that your father intends to marry again."

Sophy's face and tongue gave no sign that she had heard anything which was news to her. Fanny cried, "Never, surely!" Hatty said, "How jolly!" and then in a whisper to me, "Won't I lead her a life!" I believe I said nothing. I felt shut up in that lump of ice.

"But, Aunt Kezia, what is to become of us all? Are we to stay here, or go with you?" asked Fanny.

"Your father desires me to tell you, my dears," said my Aunt Kezia, "that he wishes to leave you quite free to please yourselves. If you choose to remain here, he will be glad to have you; and if any of you like to come with me to Fir Vale, you will be welcome, and you know what to expect."

"What are we to expect if we stop here?" asked Sophy, in a hard, dry voice.

"That is more than I can say," was my Aunt Kezia's answer.

"But who is it?" said Fanny, in the same bewildered way.

"O Fanny, what a bat you are!" cried Hatty.

"I wonder you ask," answered Sophy. "I have seen her fishing-rod for ever so long. Cecilia, of course."

"Cecilia!" screamed Fanny. "I thought it was some middle-aged, respectable gentlewoman."

Hatty burst out laughing. I never felt less inclined to laugh. My Aunt Kezia had taken off her spectacles, and was going on with her tucks as if nothing had happened.

"Well, I will think about it," said Sophy. "I am not sure I shall stay."

"I shall stay," announced Hatty. "I expect it will be grand fun. She will fill the house with company—that will suit me; and I shall just look sharp after her and keep her in order."

"Hatty!" cried Fanny, in a shocked tone.

"I hope you will keep yourself in order," said my Aunt Kezia, drily. "Little Cary, you have not spoken yet. What do you want to do?"

Her voice softened as I had never heard it do before when she spoke to me. It touched me very much; yet I think I should have said the same without it.

"O Aunt Kezia, please let me go with you!"

"Thank you, Cary," said my Aunt Kezia in the same tone. "The old woman is not to be left quite alone, then? But it will be dull, child, for a young thing like you."

"I would rather have it dull than lively the wrong way about," said I; and Hatty broke out again.

"Would you!" said she, when she had done laughing. "I wouldn't, I promise you. Sophy, don't you know a curate you could marry? You had better, if you can find one."

"Not one that has asked me," was Sophy's dry answer. "You don't want me, then, Miss Hatty?"

"You would be rather meddlesome, I am afraid," said Hatty, with charming frankness. "You would always be doing conscience."

"Don't you intend to keep one?" returned Sophy.

"I mean to lay it up in lavender," said Hatty, "and take it out on Sundays."

"Hatty, if you haven't a care—"

"Please go on, Aunt Kezia. Unfinished sentences are always awful things, because you don't know how they are going to end."

"You'll end in the lock-up, if you don't mind," said my Aunt Kezia; "and if I were you, I wouldn't."

"I'll try to keep on this side the door," said Hatty, as lightly as ever. "And when is it to be, Aunt Kezia?"

"The month after next, I believe."

"Isn't Cecilia going home first, to see what her friends say about it?"

"She has none belonging to her, except an uncle and his family, and she says they will be delighted to hear it. Hatty, you had better get out of the way of calling her Cecilia. It won't do now, you know."

"But you don't mean, Aunt Kezia, that we are to call her Mother!" cried Fanny, in a most beseeching tone.

"My dear, that must be as your father wishes. He may allow you to call her Mrs Courtenay. That is what I shall call her."

"Isn't it dreadful!" said poor Fanny.

"One thing more I have to say," continued my Aunt Kezia, laying down her flannel again and putting on her spectacles. "Your father does not wish you to be present at his marriage."

"Aunt Kezia!" came, I think, from us all—indignantly from Sophy, sorrowfully from Fanny, petulantly from Hatty, and from me in sheer astonishment.

"I suppose he has his reasons," said my Aunt Kezia; "but that being so, I think Sophy had better go home for a while with the Bracewells, and Hatty, too. You, Cary, may go with Flora instead, if you like. Fanny, of course, is arranged for already, as she will be married by then, and will only have to stop at home."

I thought I would very much rather go with Flora.

"I have had a letter from your Aunt Dorothea lately," my Aunt Kezia went on, "in which she asks for Cary to pay her a visit next June. But now we are only in March. So, as Cary must be somewhere between times, and I think she would be better out of the way, she will go to Abbotscliff with Flora—unless, my dear," she added, turning to me, "you would rather be at Bracewell Hall? You may, if you like."

"I would rather be at Abbotscliff, very much, Aunt Kezia," said I; and I think Aunt Kezia was pleased.

"Aunt Kezia, don't send me away!" pleaded Sophy. "Do let me stay and help you to settle at Fir Vale. I should hate to stay at Bracewell, and I should just like bustling about and helping you in that way. Won't you let me?"

"Well, my dear, we will see," said my Aunt Kezia; and I think she was pleased with Sophy too. Hatty declared that Bracewell would just suit her, and she would not stay at any price, if she had leave to choose. So it seems to be settled in that way. Fanny will be married on the 30th,—that is three weeks hence; and the week after, Hatty goes with the Bracewells, and I with Flora, to their own homes; and my Aunt Kezia and Sophy will remain here, and only leave the house on the evening before the marriage.

It seems very odd that Father should have wished not to have us at his wedding. Was it Cecilia who did not wish it? But I am not to call her Cecilia any more.

When my cousins came in for tea, they were told too. Charlotte cried, "Well, I never!" for which piece of vulgarity she was sharply pulled up by my Aunt Kezia. Amelia fanned herself—she always does, whatever time of year it may be—and languidly remarked, "Dear!" Angus said, "Castor and Pollux!" for which he also got rebuked. And after a sort of "Oh!" Flora said nothing, but looked very sorrowfully at us. Cec—I mean Miss Osborne—did not appear at all until tea was nearly over, and then she came in from the garden, and Mr Parmenter with her, that everlasting eyeglass stuck in his eye. I do so dislike the man.

Father never comes to tea. He says it is only women's rubbish, and laughs at Ephraim Hebblethwaite because he says he likes it. I fancy few men drink tea. My Uncle Charles never does, I know; but my Aunt Dorothea says she could not exist a day without tea and cards.

I wonder if it will be pleasant to stay with my Aunt Dorothea. I believe she and my Uncle Charles are living in London now. I should like dearly to see London, and the fine shops, and the lions in the Tower, and Ranelagh, and all the grand people. And yet, somehow, I feel just a little bit uneasy about it, as if I were going into some place where I did not know what I should find, and it might be something that would hurt me. I do not feel that about Abbotscliff. I expect it will be pleasant there, only perhaps rather dull. And I want to see my Uncle Drummond, and Flora's friend, Annas Keith. I wonder if she is like her brother. And I never saw a Presbyterian minister, nor indeed a minister of any sort. I do hope my Uncle Drummond will not be like Mr Bagnall, and I hope all the gentlemen in the South are not like that odious Mr Parmenter.

Flora seems very much pleased about my going back with her. I do not know why, but I fancied Angus did not quite like it. Can he be afraid of my telling his father the story of the hunt-supper? He knows nothing of what I heard up on the Scar.

I do hope Ephraim Hebblethwaite is not very unhappy about Fanny. I should think it must be dreadful, when you love any one very much, to see her go and give herself quite away to somebody else. And Ambrose thinks of going to live in Cheshire, where his uncle has a large farm, and he has no children, so the farm will come to Ambrose some day; and his uncle, Mr Minshull, would like him to come and live there now. Of course, if that be settled so, we shall lose Fanny altogether.

Must there always be changes and break-ups in this world? I do not mean the change of death: that, we know, must come. But why must there be all these other changes? Why could we not go on quietly as we were? It seems now as if we should never be the same any more.

If that uncle of Cecilia's would only have tied her to the leg of a table, or locked her up in her bed-chamber, or done something to keep her down there in the South, so that she had never come to torment us!

I suppose I ought not to wish that, if she makes Father happier. Ay, but will she make him happy? That is just what I am uncomfortable about! I don't believe she cares a pin for him, though I dare say she likes well enough to be the Squire's lady, and queen it at Brocklebank. Somehow, I cannot trust those tawny eyes, with their sidelong glances. Am I very wicked, or is she?

————————————————————————————————————

Will things never give over happening?

This morning, just after I came down—there were only my Aunt Kezia, Mr Keith, Flora, and me in the dining-parlour—we suddenly heard the great bell of Brocklebank Church begin to toll. My Aunt Kezia set down the chocolate-pot.

"It must be somebody who has died suddenly, poor soul!" cried she. "Maybe, Ellen Armathwaite's baby: it looked very bad when I saw it last, on Thursday. Hark!"

The bell stopped tolling, and we listened for the sound which would tell us the sex and age of the departed.

"One!" Then silence.

That meant a man. Ellen Armathwaite's baby girl it could not be. Then the bell began again, and we counted. It tolled on up to twenty— thirty—forty: we could not think who it could be.

"Surely not Farmer Catterall!" said my Aunt Kezia, "I have often felt afraid of an apoplexy for him."

But the bell went on past sixty, and we knew it was not Farmer Catterall.

"Is it never going to stop?" said Flora, when it had passed eighty.

My Aunt Kezia went to the door, and calling Sam, bade him go out and inquire. Still the bell tolled on. It stopped just as Sam came in, at ninety-six.

"Who is it, Sam?—one of the old bedesmen?"

"Nay, Mrs Kezia; puir soul, 'tis just the auld Vicar!"

"Mr Digby!" we all cried together.

"Ay; my mither found him deid i' his bed early this morrow. She's come up to tell ye, an' to ask gin' ye can spare me to go and gi'e a haun', for that puir witless body, Mr Anthony Parmenter, seems all but daft."

Miss Osborne and Amelia came in together, and I saw Cecilia turn very white. (Oh dear! how shall I give over calling her Cecilia?) My Aunt Kezia told them what had happened, and I thought she looked relieved.

"What ails Mr Parmenter?" asked my Aunt Kezia.

"'Deed, and what ails a fule onie day?" said Sam, always more honest than soft-spoken. "He's just as ill as a bit lassie—fair frichtened o' his auld uncle, now he is deid, that ne'er did him a bawbee's worth o' harm while he was alive. My mither says she's vara sure he'll be here the morn, begging and praying ye to tak' him in and keep him safe frae his puir auld uncle's ghaist. Hech, sirs! I'll ghaist him, gin' he comes my way."

"Now, Sam, keep a civil tongue in your head," quoth my Aunt Kezia, "and don't let me hear of your playing tricks on Mr Parmenter or any one else. You should be old enough to have some sense by this time. I will come out and speak to your mother in a moment. Yes, I suppose we must let you go. What cuckoos there are in this world, to be sure!"

But Mr Parmenter did not wait till to-morrow—he came up this afternoon, just as Sam said he would. Father was not at home, and to my surprise my Aunt Kezia would not take him in, but sent him on to Farmer Catterall's. I do not think the tawny eyes liked it, for though they were mostly bent on the ground, I saw them give one sidelong flash at my Aunt Kezia which did not look to me like loving-kindness.

I feel to-night what I think Angus means when he says that he is flat. Everything feels flat. Fanny is gone—she was married on Saturday. Amelia, Charlotte, and Hatty set forth on Tuesday, and they are gone. I thought that Ce—Miss Osborne would have gone with them, and have returned by-and-by; but she stays on, and will do so, I hear, almost till my Aunt Kezia goes, when Mrs Hebblethwaite has asked her to stay at the Fells Farm for the last few days before the wedding. It is settled now that my Aunt Kezia and Sophy stay here till the day before it. It does seem so queer for Sophy to be here till then, and not be at the wedding! I don't believe it is Father's doing. It is not like him. Flora, Angus, Mr Keith, and I are to start to-morrow; but Mr Keith only goes with us as far as Carlisle—that is, the first day's journey; then he leaves us for Newcastle, where he has some sort of business (that horrid word!), and I go on with my cousins to Abbotscliff. We shall be met at Carlisle by a Scots gentleman who is travelling thence to Selkirk, and is a friend of my Uncle Drummond. He goes in his own chaise, with two mounted servants, and both he and they are armed, so I hope we shall get clear of freebooters on the Border. He has nobody with him, and says he shall have plenty of room in the chaise. It is very lucky that this Mr Cameron should just be going at the same time as we are. I don't think Angus would be much protection, though I should not wish him to know I said so.

If Ephraim Hebblethwaite have broken his heart, he behaves very funnily. He was not only at Fanny's wedding, but was best man; and he looks quite well and happy. I begin to think that we must have been mistaken in guessing that he cared for Fanny. Perhaps it only amused him to talk to her.

Fanny's wedding was very smart and gay, and everybody came to it. The bridesmaids were we three, Esther Langridge, and two cousins of Ambrose's, whose names are Annabel Catterall and Priscilla Minshull. I rather liked Annabel, but Priscilla was horrid. (Sophy says I say "horrid" too often, and about all sorts of things. But if people and things are horrid, how am I to help saying it?) I am sure Priscilla Minshull was horrid. She reminded me of Angus's saying about turning up one's eyes like a duck in thunder. I never watched a duck in thunder, and I don't know whether it turns up its eyes or it does not: only Priscilla did. She seemed to think us all (my Aunt Kezia said) no better than the dirt she walked on. And I am sure she need not be so stuck-up, for Mr James Minshull, her father, is only a parson, and not only that, but a chaplain too: so Priscilla is not anybody of any consequence. I said so to Flora, and she replied that Priscilla would be much less likely to be proud if she were.

I was dreadfully tired on Sunday. We had been so hard at work all the fortnight before, first making the wedding dress, and then dressing the wedding-dinner; and when I went to bed on Saturday night, I thought I never wanted to see another. Another wedding, of course, I mean. However, everything went off very well; and Fanny looked charming in her pink silk brocaded with flowers, with white stripes down it here and there, and a pink quilted slip beneath. She had pink rosettes, too, in her shoes, and a white hood lined with pink and trimmed with pink bows. Her hoop came from Carlisle, and was the biggest I have seen yet. The mantua-maker from Carlisle, who was five days in the house, said that hoops were getting very much larger this year, and she thought they would soon be as big as they were in Queen Anne's time. We had much smaller hoops—of course it would not have been seemly to have the bridesmaids as smart as the bride—and we were dressed alike, in white French cambric, with light green trimmings. Of course we all wore white ribbons. I think Father would have stormed at us if we had put on any other colour. I should not like to be the one to wear a red ribbon when he was by! [Note 1.] We wore straw milk-maid hats, with green ribbon mixed with the white; and just a sprinkle of grey powder in our hair. Cecilia would not be a bridesmaid, though she was asked. I don't think she liked the dress chosen; and indeed it would not have suited her. But wasn't she dressed up! She wore—I really must set it down—a purple lutestring, [Note 2.] over such a hoop that she had to lift it on one side when she went in at the church door; this was guarded with gold lace and yellow feathers. She had a white laced apron, purple velvet slippers with red heels, and her lace ruffles were something to look at! And wasn't she patched! and hadn't she powdered her hair, and made it as stiff with pomatum as if it had been starched! Then on the top of this head went a lace cap—it was not a hood—just a little, light, fly-away cap, with purple ribbons and gold embroidery, and in the middle of the front a big gold pompoon.

What a contrast there was between her and my Aunt Kezia! She wore a silk dress too, only it was a dark stone-colour, as quiet as a Quakeress, just trimmed with two rows of braid, the same colour, round the bottom, and a white silk scarf, with a dark blue hood, and just a little rosette of white lace at the top of it. Aunt Kezia's hood was a hood, too, and was tied under her chin as if she meant it to be some good. And her elbow-ruffles were plain nett, with long dark doe-skin gloves drawn up to meet them. Cecilia wore white silk mittens. I hate mittens; they are horrid things. If you want to make your hands look as ugly as you can, you have only to put on a pair of mittens.

The wedding-dinner, which was at noon, was a very grand one. It should have been, for didn't my arms ache with beating eggs and keeping pans stirred! Hatty said we were martyrs in a good cause. But I do think Fanny might have taken a little more trouble herself, seeing it was her wedding. Now, let us see, what had we? There was a turkey pie, and a boar's head, chickens in different ways, and a great baron of roast beef; cream beaten to snow (Sophy did that, I am glad to say), candied fruits, and ices, and several sorts of pudding, for dessert. Then for drink, there were wine, and mead, purl, and Burton ale.

Well! it is all over now, and Fanny is gone. There will never be four of us any more. There seems to me something very sad about it. Poor dear Fanny, I hope she will be happy!

"I dare guess she will, in her way," says my Aunt Kezia. "She does not keep a large cup for her happiness. 'Tis all the easier to fill when you don't; but a deal more will go in when you do. There are advantages and disadvantages on each side of most things in this world."

"Is there any advantage, Aunt Kezia, in my having just pricked my finger shockingly?"

"Yes, Cary. Learn to be more careful in future."

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Note 1. The white ribbon, like the white cockade, distinguished a Jacobite; the red ribbon and the black cockade were Hanoverian.

Note 2. A variety of silk then fashionable.



CHAPTER FIVE.

LEAVING THE NEST.

"I've kept old ways, and loved old friends, Till, one by one, they've slipped away; Stand where we will, cling as we like, There's none but God can be our stay. 'Tis only by our hold on Him We keep a hold on those who pass Out of our sight across the seas, Or underneath the churchyard grass."

ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.

Carlisle, April the 5th, 1744 or 5. I really feel that I must put a date to my writing now, when this is the first time of my going out into the great world. I have never been beyond Carlisle before, and now I am going, first into a new country, and then to London itself, if all go well.

News came last night, just before we started, that my Lord Orford is dead—he that was Sir Robert Walpole, and the Elector's Prime Minister. Father says his death is a good thing for the country, for it gives more hope that the King may come by his own. I don't know what would happen if he did. I suppose it would not make much difference to us. Indeed, I rather wish things would not happen, for the things that happen are so often disagreeable ones. I said so this evening, and Mr Keith smiled, and answered, "You are young to have reached that conviction, Miss Caroline."

"Oh, rubbish!" said Angus. "Only old women talk so!"

"Angus, will you please tell me," said I, "whether young men have generally more sense than old women?"

"Of course they have!" replied he.

"The young men are apt to think so," added Flora.

"But have young women more sense than old ones?" said I. "Because I see, whenever people mean to speak of anything as particularly silly, they always say it is worthy of an old woman. Now why an old woman? Have I more commonsense now than I shall have fifty years hence? And if so, at what age may I expect it to take leave of me?"

"You are not talking sense now, at any rate," replied Angus—who might be my brother, instead of my cousin, for the way in which he takes me up, whatever I say.

"Pardon me," said Mr Keith. "I think Miss Caroline is talking very good sense."

"Then you may answer her," said Angus.

"Nay," returned Mr Keith. "The question was addressed to you."

"Oh, all women are sillies!" was Angus's flattering answer. "They're just a pack of ninnies, the whole lot of them."

"It seems to me, Angus," observed Mr Keith, quite gravely, "that you must have paid twopence extra for manners."

Flora and I laughed.

"I was not rich enough to go in for any," growled Angus. "I'm not a laird's son, Mr Duncan Keith, so you don't need to throw stones at me."

"Did I, Angus? I beg your pardon."

Angus muttered something which I did not hear, and was silent. I thought I had better let the subject drop.

But before we went to bed, something happened which I never saw before. Mr Keith took a book from his pocket, and sat down at the table. Flora rose and went to the sofa, motioning to me to come beside her. Even Angus twisted himself round, and sat in a more decorous way.

"What are we going to do?" I asked of Flora.

"The exercise, dear," said she.

"Exercise!" cried I. "What are we to exercise?"

A curious sort of gurgle came from Angus's part of the room, as if a laugh had made its way into his throat, and he had smothered it in its cradle.

"The word is strange to Miss Caroline," said Mr Keith, looking round with a smile. "We Scots people, Madam, speak of exercising our souls in prayer. We are about to read in God's Word, and pray, if you please. It is our custom, morning and evening."

"But how can we pray?" said I. "There is no clergyman."

"Though I am not a minister," replied Mr Keith, "yet I trust I have learned to pray."

It seemed to me so strange that anybody not a clergyman should think of praying before other people! However, I sat down, of course, on the sofa by Flora, and listened while Mr Keith read something out of the Gospel of Saint John, about the woman of Samaria, and what our Lord said to her. But I never heard such reading in my life! I thought I could have gone on listening to him all night. The only clergymen that I ever heard read were Mr Bagnall and poor old Mr Digby, and the one always read in a high singsong tone, which gave me the idea that it was nothing I need listen to; and the other mumbled indistinctly, so that I never heard what he said. But Mr Keith read as if the converse were really going on, and you actually heard our Lord and the woman talking to one another at the well. He made it seem so real that I almost fancied I could hear the water trickling, and see the cool wet green mosses round the old well. Oh, if clergymen would always read and preach as if the things were real, how different going to church would be!

Then we knelt down, and Mr Keith prayed. It was not out of the Prayer-Book. And I dare say, if I were to hear nothing but such prayers, I might miss the dear old prayers that have been like sweet sounds floating around me ever since I knew anything. But this evening, when it was all new, it came to me as so solemn and so real! This was not saying one's prayers; it was talking to one's Friend. And it seemed as if God really were Mr Keith's Friend—as if they knew each other, and were not strangers at all, but each understood what the other would like or dislike, and they wanted to please one another. I hope I am not irreverent in writing so, but really it did seem like that. And I never saw anything like it before.

I suppose, to the others, it was an old worn-out story—all this which came so new and fresh to me. When we rose up, Angus said, without any pause,—

"Well! I am off to bed. Good-night, all of you."

Flora went up to him and offered him a kiss, which he took as if it were a condescension to an inferior creature; and then, without saying anything more to Mr Keith or me, lighted his candle and went away. Flora sighed as she looked after him, and Mr Keith looked at her as if he felt for her.

"I shall be glad to get him home," said Flora, answering Mr Keith's look, I think. "If he can only get back to Father, then, perhaps—"

"Aye," said Mr Keith, meaningly, "it is all well, when we do get back to the Father."

Flora shook her head sorrowfully. "Not that!" she answered. "O Duncan, I am afraid, not that, yet! I feel such terrible fear sometimes lest he should never come back at all, or if he do, should have to come over sharp stones and through thorny paths."

"'So He bringeth them unto their desired haven,'" was Mr Keith's gentle answer.

"I know!" she said, with a sigh. "I suppose I ought to pray and wait. Father does, I am sure. But it is hard work!"

Mr Keith did not answer for a moment; and when he did, it was by another bit of the Bible. At least I think it was the Bible, for it sounded like it, but I should not know where to find it.

"'Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.'"

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Castleton, April the sixth. Mr Keith left us so early this morning that there was not time for anything except breakfast and good-bye. I feel quite sorry to lose him, and wish I had a brother like him. (Not like Angus—dear me, no!) Why could we four girls not have had one brother?

About half an hour after Mr Keith was gone, the Scots gentleman with whom we were to travel—Mr Cameron—came in. He is a man of about fifty, bald-headed and rosy-faced, pleasant and chatty enough, only I do not quite always understand him. By six o'clock we were all packed into his chaise, and a few minutes later we set forth from the inn door. The streets of Carlisle felt like home; but as we left them behind, and came gradually out into the open country, it dawned upon me that now, indeed, I was going out into the great world.

We sleep here to-night, where Flora and I have a little bit of a bed-chamber next door to a larger one where Mr Cameron and Angus are. On Monday we expect to reach Abbotscliff. I am too tired to write more.

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Abbotscliff Manse, April the ninth. I really could not go on any sooner. We reached the manse—what an odd name for a vicarage!—about four o'clock yesterday afternoon. The church (which Flora calls the kirk) and the manse, with a few other houses, stand on a little rising ground, and the rest of the village lies below.

But before I begin to talk about the manse, I want to write down a conversation which took place on Monday morning as we journeyed, in which Mr Cameron told us some curious things that I do not wish to forget. We were driving through such a pretty little village, and in one of the doorways an old woman sat with her knitting.

"Oh, look at that dear old woman!" cries Flora. "How pleasant she looks, with her clean white apron and mutch!"

"Much, Flora?" said I. "What do you mean?" I thought it such an odd word to use. What was she much?

Flora looked puzzled, and Mr Cameron answered for her, with amusement in his eyes.

"A mutch, young lady," said he, "is what you in the South call a cap."

"The South!" cried I. "Why, Mr Cameron, you do not think we live in the South?"

I felt almost vexed that he should fancy such a thing. For all that Grandmamma and my Aunt Dorothea used to say, I always look down upon the South. All the people I have seen who came from the South seemed to me to have a great deal of wiliness and foolishness, and no commonsense. I suppose the truth is that there are agreeable people, and good people, in the South, only they have not come my way.

When I cried out like that, Mr Cameron laughed.

"Well," said he, "north and south are comparative terms. We in Scotland think all England 'the South,'—and so it is, if you will think a moment. You in Cumberland, I suppose, draw the line at the Trent or the Humber; lower down, they employ the Thames; and a Surrey man thinks Sussex is the South. 'Tis all a matter of comparison."

"What does a Sussex man call the South?" said Angus.

"Spain and Portugal, I should think," said Mr Cameron.

"But, Mr Cameron," said I, "asking your pardon, is there not some difference of character or disposition between those in the North and in the South—I mean, of England?"

"Quite right, young lady," said he. "They are different tribes; and the Lowland Scots, among whom you are now coming, have the same original as yourself. There were two tribes amongst those whom we call Anglo-Saxons, that peopled England after the Britons were driven into Wales—namely, as you might guess, the Angles and the Saxons. The Angles ran from the Frith of Forth to the Trent; the Saxons from the Thames southward. The midland counties were in all likelihood a mixture of the two. There are, moreover, several foreign elements beyond this, in various counties. For instance, there is a large influx of Danish blood on the eastern coast, in parts of Lancashire, in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and in the Weald of Sussex; there was a Flemish settlement in Lancashire and Norfolk, of considerable extent; the Britons were left in great numbers in Cumberland and Cornwall; the Jutes—a variety of Dane—peopled Kent entirely. Nor must we forget the Romans, who left a deep impress upon us, especially amongst Welsh families. 'Tis not easy for any of our mixed race to say, I am this, or that. Why, if most of us spoke the truth (supposing we might know it), we should say, 'I am one-quarter Saxon, one-eighth British, one-sixteenth Iberian, one-eighth Danish, one-sixteenth Flemish, one-thirty-secondth part Roman,'—and so forth. Now, Miss Caroline, how much of that can you remember?"

"All of it, I hope, Sir," said I; "I shall try to do so. I like to hear of those old times. But would you please to tell me, what is an Iberian?"

"My dear," said Mr Cameron, smiling, "I would gladly give you fifty pounds in gold, if you could tell me."

"Sir!" cried I, in great surprise.

He went on, more as if he were talking to himself, or to some very learned man, than to me.

"What is an Iberian? Ah, for the man who could tell us! What is a Basque?—what is an Etruscan?—what is a Magyar?—above all, what is a Cagot? Miss Caroline, my dear, there are deep questions in all arts and sciences; and, without knowing it, you have lighted on one of the deepest and most interesting. The most learned man that breathes can only answer you, as I do now (though I am far from being a learned man)—I do not know. I will, nevertheless, willingly tell you what little I do know; and the rather if you take an interest in such matters. All that we really know of the Iberii is that they came from Spain, and that they had reached that country from the East; that they were a narrow-headed people (the Celts or later Britons were round-headed); that they dwelt in rude houses in the interior of the country, first digging a pit in the ground, and building over it a kind of hut, sometimes of turf and sometimes of stone; that they wore very rude clothing, and were generally much less civilised than the Celts, who lived mainly on the coast; that they loved to dwell, and especially to worship, on a mountain top; that they followed certain Eastern observances, such as running or leaping through the fire to Bel,—which savours of a Phoenician or Assyrian origin; and that it is more than likely that we owe to them those stupendous monuments yet standing— Stonehenge, Avebury, the White Horse of Berkshire, and the White Man of Wilmington."

"But what sort of a religion had they, if you please, Sir?" said I; for I wanted to get to know all I could about these strange fathers of ours.

"Idolatry, my dear, as you might suppose," answered Mr Cameron. "They worshipped the sun, which they identified with the serpent; and they had, moreover, a sacred tree—all, doubtless, relics of Eden. They would appear also to have had some sort of woman-worship, for they held women in high honour, loved female sovereignty, and practised polyandry—that is, each woman had several husbands."

"I never heard of such queer folks!" said I. "And what became of them, Sir?"

"The Iberians and Celts together," he answered, "made up the people we call Britons. When the Saxons invaded the country, they were driven into the remote fastnesses of Wales, Cumberland, and Cornwall. Some antiquaries think the Picts had the same original, but this is one of the unsettled points of history."

"I wish it were possible to settle all such questions!" said Flora.

"So do the antiquaries, I can assure you," returned Mr Cameron, with a smile. "But it is scarce possible to come to a conclusion with any certainty as to the origin of a people of whom we cannot recover the language."

"If you please, Sir," said I, "what has the language to do with it?"

"It has everything to do with it, Miss Caroline. You did not know that languages grew, like plants, and could be classified in groups after the same manner?"

"Please explain to us, Mr Cameron," said Flora. "It all sounds so strange."

"But it is very interesting," I said. "I want to know all about it."

"If you want to know all about it," answered our friend, "you must consult some one else than me, for I do not know nearly all about it. In truth, no one does. For myself, I have only arrived at the stage of knowing that I know next to nothing."

"That's easy enough to know, surely," said Angus.

"Not at all, Angus. It is one of the most difficult things to ascertain in this world. No man is so ready to give an off-hand opinion on any and every subject, as the man who knows absolutely nothing. But we must not start another hare while the young ladies' question remains unanswered. Languages, my dears, are not made; they grow. The first language—that spoken in Eden—may have been given to man ready-made, by God; but I rather imagine, from the expressions of Holy Writ, that what was granted to Adam was the inward power of forming a tongue which should be rational and consistent with itself; and, if so, no doubt it was granted to Eve that she should understand him—perhaps that she should possess a similar power."