The air of the supper-table was one of reserve and offence. Only Sophia twittered and observed and wondered about all kinds of trivial things. "Mother has so many headaches now. Does she take proper care of herself, Charlotte? She ought to take exercise. Julius and I never neglect taking exercise. We think it a duty. No time do you say? Mother ought to take time. Poor, dear father was never unreasonable; he would wish mother to take time. What tasteless custards, Charlotte! I don't think Ann cares how she cooks now. When I was at home, and the eldest daughter, she always liked to have things nice. Julius, my dear one, can you find any thing fit to eat?" And so on, and so on, until Charlotte felt as if she must scream, or throw a plate down, or fly beyond the sight and sound of all things human.

The next evening Julius announced his intention of going abroad at once. "But I shall leave Sophia to be a little society for mother, and I shall not delay an hour beyond the time necessary for travel and business." He spoke with an air of conscious self-denial; and as Charlotte did not express any gratitude he continued, "Not that I expect any thanks, Sophia and I, but fortunately we find duty is its own reward."

"Are you going to see Harry?"

"I may do such a thing."

"Is he sick?"

"No."

"I hope he will not get sick while you are there." And then some passionate impulse took possession of her; her face glowed like a flame, and her eyes scintillated like sparks. "If any thing happens Harry while you are with him, I swear, by each separate Sandal that ever lived, that you shall account for it!"

"Oh, you know, Sophia dear, this is too much! Leave the table, my love. Your sister must be"—and he tapped his forehead; while Sophia, with a look of annihilating scorn, drew her drapery tight around her, and withdrew.

"What did I say? What do I think? What terror is in my heart? Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry!"

She buried her face in her hands, and sat lost in woeful thought,—sat so long that Phoebe the table-maid felt her delay to be unkind and aggravating; especially when one of the chamber-maids came down for her supper, and informed the rulers of the servants' hall that "Mrs. Julius was crying up-stairs about Miss Charlotte falling out with her husband."

"Mercy on us! What doings we have to bide with!" and Ann shook her check apron, and sat down with an air of nearly exhausted patience.

"You can't think what a taking Mr. Julius is in. He's going away to-morrow."

"For good and all?"

"Not he. He'll be back again. He has had a falling-out with Miss Charlotte."

"Poor lass! Say what you will, she has been hard set lately. I never knew nor heard tell of her being flighty and fratchy before the squire's trouble."

"Good hearts are plenty in good times, Ann Skelton. Miss Charlotte's temper is past all the last few weeks, she is that off-and-on and changeable like and spirity. Mrs. Julius says she does beat all."

"I don't pin my faith on what Mrs. Julius says. Not I."

In the east rooms the criticism was still more severe. Julius railed for an hour ere he finally decided that he never saw a more suspicious, unladylike, uncharitable, unchristianlike girl than Charlotte Sandal! "I am glad to get away from her a little while," he cried; "how can she be your sister, Sophia?"

So glad was he to get away, that he left before Charlotte came down in the morning. Ann made him a cup of coffee, and received a shilling and some suave words, and was quite sure after them that "Mr. Julius was the finest gentleman that ever trod in shoe-leather." And Julius was not above being gratified with the approbation and good wishes of servants; and it gave him pleasure to leave in the little hurrah of their bows and courtesies, their smiles and their good wishes.

He went without delay straight to the small Italian village in which Harry had made his home. Harry's letters had prepared him for trouble and poverty, but he had little idea of the real condition of the heir of Sandal-Side. A few bare rooms in some dilapidated palace, grim with faded magnificence, comfortless and dull, was the kind of place he expected. He found him in a small cottage surrounded by a barren, sandy patch of ground overgrown with neglected vines and vagabond weeds. The interior was hot and untidy. On a couch a woman in the firm grip of consumption was lying; an emaciated, feverish woman, fretful with acute suffering. A little child, wan and waxy-looking, and apparently as ill as its mother, wailed in a cot by her side. Signor Lanza was smoking under a fig-tree in the neglected acre, which had been a vineyard or a garden. Harry had gone into the village for some necessity; and when he returned Julius felt a shock and a pang of regret for the dashing young soldier squire that he had known as Harry Sandal.

He kissed his wife with passionate love and sorrow, and then turned to Julius with that mute look of inquiry which few find themselves able to resist.

"He is alive yet,—much better, he says; and Charlotte thinks he may be in the fields again next season."

"Thank God! My poor Beatrice and her baby! You see what is coming to them?"

"Yes."

"And I am so poor I cannot get her the change of air, the luxuries, the medicines, which would at least prolong life, and make death easy."

"Go back with me to Sandal-Side, and see the squire: he may listen to you now."

"Never more! It was cruel of father to take my marriage in such a way. He turned my life's joy into a crime, cursed every hour that was left me."

"People used to be so intense—'a few strong feelings,' as Mr. Wordsworth says—too strong for ordinary life. We really can't afford to love and hate and suffer in such a teetotal way now; but the squire came from the Middle Ages. This is a dreadfully hot place, Harry."

"Yes, it is. We were very much deceived in it. I bought it; and we dreamed of vineyards and milk and wine, and a long, happy, simple life together. Nothing has prospered with us. We were swindled in the house and land. The signor knows nothing about vines. He was born here, and wanted to come back and be a great man." And as he spoke he laughed hysterically, and took Julius into an inner room. "I don't want Beatrice to hear that I am out of money. She does not know I am destitute. That sorrow, at least, I have kept from her."

"Harry, I am going to make you a proposal. I want to be kind and just to you. I want to put you beyond the need of any one's help. Answer me one question truly. If your father dies, what will you do?"

"You said he was getting better. For God's sake, do not speak of his death."

"I am supposing a case. You would then be squire of Sandal-Side. Would you return there with Beatrice?"

"Ah, no! I know what those Dalesmen are. My father's feelings were only their feelings intensified by his relation to me. They would look upon me as my father's murderer, and Beatrice as an accessory to the deed."

"Still you would be squire of Sandal-Side."

"Mother would have to take my place, or Charlotte. I have thought of that. I could not bear to sit in father's chair, and go up and down the house. I should see him always. I should hear continually that awful cry with which he fell. It fills, even here, all the spaces of my memory and my dreams. I cannot go back to Sandal-Side. Nothing could take me back, not even my mother."

"Then listen, I am the heir failing you."

"No, no: there is my son Michael."

Julius was stunned for a moment. "Oh, yes! The child is a boy, then?"

"It is a boy. What were you going to say?"

"I was going to ask you to sell your rights to me for ten thousand pounds. It would be better for you to have a sum like that in your hand at once, than to trust to dribbling remittances sent now and then by women in charge. You could invest that sum to noble purpose in America, become a citizen of the country, and found an American line, as my father has founded an Indian one."

"The poor little chap makes no difference. He is only born to die. And I think your offer is a good one. I am so worn out, and things are really desperate with me. I never can go back to England. I am sick to death of Florence. There are places where Beatrice might even yet recover. Yes, for her sake, I will sell you my inheritance. Can I have the money soon?"

"This hour. I had the proper paper drawn up before I came here. Read it over carefully. See if you think it fair and honorable. If you do, sign your name; and I will give you a check you can cash here in Florence. Then it will be your own fault if Beatrice wants change of air, luxuries, and medicine."

He laid the paper on the table, and Harry sat down and pretended to read it. But he did not understand any thing of the jargon. The words danced up and down. He could only see "Beatrice," "freedom from care," "power to get away from Florence," and the final thought, the one which removed his last scruple, "Lanza can have the cottage, and I shall be clear of him forever."

Without a word he went for a pen and ink, and wrote his name boldly to the deed of relinquishment. Then Julius handed him a check for ten thousand pounds, and went with him to the bank in order to facilitate the transfer of the sum to Harry's credit. On the street, in the hot sunshine, they stood a few minutes.

"You are quite satisfied, Harry?"

"You have saved me from despair. Perhaps you have saved Beatrice. I am grateful to you."

"Have I done justly and honorably by you?"

"I believe you have."

"Then good-by. I must hasten home. Sophia will be anxious, and one never knows what may happen."

"Julius, one moment. Tell my mother to pray for me. And the same word to Charlotte. Poor Charley! Sophia"—

"Sophia pities you very much, Harry. Sophia feels as I do. We don't expect people to cut their lives on a fifteenth-century pattern."

Then Harry lifted his hat, and walked away, with a shadow still of his old military, up-head manner. And Julius looked after him with contempt, and thought, "What a poor fellow he is! Not a word for himself, or a plea for that wretched little heir in his cradle. There are some miserable kinds of men in this world. I thank God I am not one of them!"

And the wretched Esau, with the ten thousand pounds in his pocket? Ah, God only knew his agony, his shame, his longing, and despair! He felt like an outcast. Yes, even when he clasped Beatrice in his arms, with promises of unstinted comforts; when she kissed him, with tender words and tears of joy,—he felt like an outcast.



CHAPTER X.

THE NEW SQUIRE.

"A word was brought, Unto him,—the King himself desired his presence."

"The mystery of life He probes; and in the battling din of things That frets the feeble ear, he seeks and finds A harmony that tunes the dissonant strife To sweetest music."

This year the effort to keep Christmas in Seat-Sandal was a failure. Julius did not return in time for the festival, and the squire was unable to take any part in it. There had been one of those sudden, mysterious changes in his condition, marking a point in life from which every step is on the down-hill road to the grave. One day he had seemed even better than usual; the next morning he looked many years older. Lassitude of body and mind had seized the once eager, sympathetic man; he was weary of the struggle for life, and had given up. This change occurred just before Christmas; and Charlotte could not help feeling that the evergreens for the feast might, after all, be the evergreens for the funeral.

One snowy day between Christmas and New Year, Julius came home. Before he said a word to Sophia, she divined that he had succeeded in his object. He entered the house with the air of a master; and, when he heard how rapidly the squire was failing, he congratulated himself on his prudent alacrity in the matter. The next morning he was permitted an interview. "You have been a long time away, Julius," said the squire languidly, and without apparent interest in the subject.

"I have been a long journey."

"Ah! Where have you been? Eh?"

"To Italy."

The sick man flushed crimson, and his large, thin hands quivered slightly. Julius noted the change in him with some alarm; for, though it was not perhaps actually necessary to have the squire's signature to Harry's relinquishment, it would be more satisfactory to obtain it. He knew that neither Mrs. Sandal nor Charlotte would dispute Harry's deed; but he wished not only to possess Seat-Sandal, but also the good-will of the neighborhood, and for this purpose he must show a clear, clean right to the succession. He had explained the matter to Sophia, and been annoyed at her want of enthusiasm. She feared that any discussion relating to Harry might seriously excite and injure her father, and she could not bring herself to advise it. But the disapproval only made Julius more determined to carry out his own views; and therefore, when the squire asked, "Where have you been?" he told him the truth; and oh, how cruel the truth can sometimes be!

"I have been to Italy."

"To see"—

"Harry? Yes."

Then, without waiting to inform himself as to whether the squire wished the conversation dropped or continued, he added, "He was in a miserable condition,—destitute, with a dying wife and child."

"Child! Eh? What?"

"Yes, a son; a little chap, nothing but skin and bone and black eyes,—an Italian Sandal."

The squire was silent a few minutes; then he asked in a slow, constrained voice, "What did you do?"

"Harry sent for me in order that we might discuss a certain proposal he wished to make me. I have accepted it—reluctantly accepted it; but really it appeared the only way to help him to any purpose."

"What did Harry want? Eh? What?"

"He wanted to go to America, and begin a new life, and found a new house there; and, as he had determined never under any circumstances to visit Sandal-Side again, he asked me to give him the money necessary for emigration."

"Did you?"

"Yes, I did."

"For what? What equivalent could he give you?"

"He had nothing to give me but his right of succession. I bought it for ten thousand pounds. A sum of money like that ought to give him a good start in America. I think, upon the whole, he was very wise."

"Harry Sandal sold my home and estate over my head, while I was still alive, without a word to me! God have mercy!"

"Uncle, he never thought of it in that light, I am sure."

"That is what he did; sold it without a thought as to what his mother's or sister's wishes might be. Sold it away from his own child. My God! The man is an immeasurable scoundrel; and, Julius Sandal, you are another."

"Sir?"

"Leave me. I am still master of Sandal. Leave me. Leave my house. Do not enter it again until my dead body has passed the gates."

"It will be right for you first to sign this paper."

"What paper? Eh? What?"

"The deed of Harry's relinquishment. He has my money. I look to your honor to secure me."

"You look the wrong road. I will sign no such paper,—no, not for twenty years of life."

He spoke sternly, but almost in a whisper. The strain upon him was terrible; he was using up the last remnants of his life to maintain it.

"That you should sign the deed is only bare honesty. I gave the money trusting to your honesty."

"I will not sign it. It would be a queer thing for me to be a partner in such a dirty job. The right of succession to Sandal, barring Harry Sandal, is not vested in you. It is in Harry's son. Whoever his mother may be, the little lad is heir of Sandal-Side; and I'll not be made a thief in my last hours by you. That's a trick beyond your power. Now, then, I'll waste no more words on you, good, bad, or indifferent."

He had, in fact, reached the limit of his powers, and Julius saw it; yet he did not hesitate to press his right to Sandal's signature by every argument he thought likely to avail. Sandal was as one that heard not, and fortunately Mrs. Sandal's entrance put an end to the painful interview.

This was a sorrow the squire had never contemplated, and it filled his heart with anxious misery. He strove to keep calm, to husband his strength, to devise some means of protecting his wife's rights. "I must send for Lawyer Moser: if there is any way out of this wrong, he will know the right way," he thought. But he had to rest a little ere he could give the necessary prompt instructions. Towards noon he revived, and asked eagerly for Stephen Latrigg. A messenger was at once sent to Up-Hill. He found Stephen in the barn, where the men were making the flails beat with a rhythm and regularity as exhilarating as music. Stephen left them at once; but, when he told Ducie what word had been brought him, he was startled at her look and manner.

"I have been looking for this news all day: I fear me, Steve, that the squire has come to 'the passing.' Last night I saw your grandfather."

"Dreamed of him?"

"Well, then, call it a dream. I saw your grandfather. He was in this room; he was sorting the papers he left; and, as I watched his hands, he lifted his head and looked at me. I have got my orders, I feel that. But wait not now, I will follow you anon."

In the "Seat" there was a distinct feeling of consummating calamity. The servants had come to a state of mind in which the expectation was rather a relief. They were only afraid the squire might rally again. In Mrs. Sandal's heart there was that resentful resignation which says to sorrow, "Do thy worst. I am no longer able to resist, or even to plead." Charlotte only clung to her dream of hope, and refused to be wakened from it. She was sure her father had been worse many a time. She was almost cross at Ducie's unusual visit.

About four o'clock Steve had a long interview with the squire. Charlotte walked restlessly to and fro in the corridor; she heard Steve's voice, strong and kind and solemn, and she divined what promises he was making to the dying man for herself and for her mother. But even her love did not anticipate their parting words,—

"Farewell, Stephen. Yet one word more. If Harry should come back—what of Harry? Eh? What?"

"I will stand by him. I will put my hand in his hand, and my foot with his foot. They that wrong Harry will wrong me, they that shame Harry will shame me. I will never call him less than a brother, as God hears me speak."

A light "that never was on sea or sky" shone in Sandal's fast dimming eyes, and irradiated his set gray countenance. "Stephen, tell him at death's door I turned back to forgive him—to bless him. I stretch—out—my hand—to—him."

At this moment Charlotte opened the door softly, and waved Stephen towards her. "Your mother is come, and she says she must see the squire." And then, before Stephen could answer, Ducie gently put them both aside. "Wait in the corridor, my children," she said: "none but God and Sandal must hear my farewell." With the words, she closed the door, and went to the dying man. He appeared to be unconscious; but she took his hand, stroked it kindly, and bending down whispered, "William, William Sandal! Do you know me?"

"Surely it is Ducie. It is growing dark. We must go home, Ducie. Eh? What?"

"William, try and understand what I say. You will go the happier to heaven for my words." And, as they grew slowly into the squire's apprehension, a look of amazement, of gratitude, of intense satisfaction, transfigured the clay for the last time. It seemed as if the departing soul stood still to listen. He was perfectly quiet until she ceased speaking; then, in a strange, unearthly tone, he uttered one word, "Happy." It was the last word that ever parted his lips. Between shores he lingered until the next daybreak, and then the loving watchers saw that the pallid wintry light fell on the dead. How peaceful was the large, worn face! How tranquil! How distant from them! How grandly, how terribly indifferent! To Squire William Sandal, all the noisy, sorrowful controversies of earth had grown suddenly silent.

The reading of the squire's will made public the real condition of affairs. Julius had spoken with the lawyer previously, and made clear to him his right in equity to stand in the heir's place. But the squires and statesmen of the Dales heard the substitution with muttered dissents, or in a silence still more emphatic of disapproval. Ducie and Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte were shocked and astounded at the revelation, and there was not a family in Sandal-Side who had that night a good word for Julius Sandal. He thought it very hard, and said so. He had not forced Harry in any way. He had taken no advantage of him. Harry was quite satisfied with the exchange, and what had other people to do with his affairs? He did not care for their opinion. "That for it!" and he snapped his fingers defiantly to every point of the compass. But, all the same, he walked the floor of the east rooms nearly all night, and kept Sophia awake to listen to his complaints.

Sophia was fretful and sleepy, and not as sympathetic with "the soul that halved her own," as centuries of fellow-feeling might have claimed; but she had her special worries. She perceived, even thus early, that as long as the late squire's widow was in the Seat, her own authority would be imperfect. "Of course, she did not wish to hurry her mother; but she would feel, in her place, how much more comfortable for all a change would be. And mother had her dower-house in the village; a very comfortable home, quite large enough for Charlotte and herself and a couple of maids, which was certainly all they needed."

Where did such thoughts and feelings spring from? Were they lying dormant in her heart that summer when the squire drove home his harvest, and her mother went joyfully up and down the sunny old rooms, always devising something for her girls' comfort or pleasures? In those days how proud Sophia had been of her father and mother! What indignation she would have felt had one suggested that the time was coming when she would be glad to see a stranger in her father's place, and feel impatient to say to her mother, "Step down lower; I would be mistress in your room"! Alas! there are depths in the human heart we fear to look into; for we know that often all that is necessary to assuage a great grief, or obliterate a great loss, is the inheritance of a fine mansion, or a little money, or a few jewels, or even a rich garment. And as soon as the squire was in his grave, Julius and Sophia began to discuss the plans which only a very shallow shame had made them reticent about before.

Indeed, it soon became necessary for others, also, to discuss the future. People soon grow unwelcome in a house that is not their own; and the new squire of Sandal-Side was eager to so renovate and change the place that it would cease to remind him of his immediate predecessors. The Sandals of past centuries were welcome, they gave dignity to his claims; but the last squire, and his son Harry Sandal, only reminded him of circumstances he felt it more comfortable to forget. So, during the long, dreary days of midwinter, he and Sophia occupied themselves very pleasantly in selecting styles of furniture, and colors of draperies, and in arranging for a full suite of Oriental rooms, which were to perpetuate in pottery and lacquerware, Indian bronzes and mattings, Chinese screens and cabinets, the Anglo-Indian possessor of the old Cumberland estate.

Even pending these alterations, others were in progress. Every family arrangement was changed in some respect. The hour for breakfast had been fixed at what Julius called a civilized time. This, of course, delayed every other meal; yet the servants, who had grumbled at over-work under the old authority, had not a complaint to make under the new. For the present master and mistress of Sandal were not people who cared for complaints. "If you can do the work, Ann, you may stay," said Sophia to the dissatisfied cook; "if not, the squire will pay you your due wages. He has a friend in London whose cook would like a situation in the country." After which explanation Ann behaved herself admirably, and never found her work hard, though dinner was two hours later, and the supper dishes were not sent in until eleven o'clock.

But, though Julius had succeeded in bringing his table so far within his own ideas of comfort, in other respects he felt his impotence to order events. Every meal-time brought him in contact with the widow Sandal and with Charlotte; and neither Sophia, nor yet himself, had felt able to request the late mistress to resign her seat at the foot of the table. And Sophia soon began to think it unkind of her mother not to see the position, and voluntarily amend it. "I do really think mother might have some consideration for me, Julius," she complained. "It puts me in such a very peculiar position not to take my place at my own table; and it is so trying and perplexing for the servants,—making them feel as if there were two mistresses."

"And always the calm, scornful face of your sister Charlotte at her side. Do you notice with what ostentatious obedience and attention she devotes herself to your mother?"

"She thinks that she is showing me my duty, Julius. But people have some duties toward themselves."

"And towards their husbands."

"Certainly. I thank Heaven I have always put my husband first." And she really glanced upwards with the complacent air of one who expected Heaven to imitate men, and "praise her for doing well unto herself."

"This state of things cannot go on much longer, Sophia."

"Certainly it cannot. Mother must look after her own house soon."

"I would speak to her to-day, Sophia. She has had six weeks now to arrange her plans, and next month I want to begin and put the house into decent condition. I think I will write to London this afternoon, and tell Jeffcott to send the polishers and painters on the 15th of March."

"Mother is so slow about things, I don't think she will be ready to move so early."

"Oh, I really can't stand them any longer! I can't indeed, Sophia, and I won't. I did not marry your mother and sister, nor yet buy them with the place. Your mother has her recognized rights in the estate, and she has a dower-house to which to retire; and the sooner she goes there now, the better. You may tell her I say so."

"You may as well tell her yourself, Julius."

"Do you wish me to be insulted by your sister Charlotte again? It is too bad to put me in such a position. I cannot punish two women, even for such shameful innuendos as I had to take when she sat at the head of the table. You ought to reflect, too, that the rooms they occupy are the best rooms in the house,—the master's rooms. I am going to have the oak walls polished, in order to bring out the carvings; and I think we will choose green and white for the carpets and curtains. The present furniture is dreadfully old-fashioned, and horribly full of old memories."

"Well, then, I shall give mother to understand that we expect to make these changes very soon."

"Depend upon it, the sooner your mother and Charlotte go to their own house, the better for all parties. For, if we do not insist upon it, they will stay and stay, until that Latrigg young man has his house finished. Then Charlotte will expect to be married from here, and we shall have all the trouble and expense of the affair. Oh, I tell you, Sophia, I see through the whole plan! But reckoning without me, and reckoning with me, are different things."

This conversation took place after a most unpleasant lunch. Julius had come to it in a fretful, hypercritical mood. He had been calculating what his proposed changes would cost, and the sum total had given him a slight shock. He was like many extravagant people, subject to passing spells of almost contemptible economy; and at that hour the proposed future outlay of thousands did not trouble him so much as the actual penny-half-penny value of his mother-in-law's lunch.

He did not say so, but in some way the feeling permeated the table. The widow pushed her plate aside, and sipped her glass of wine in silence. Charlotte took a pettish pleasure in refusing what she felt she was unwelcome to. Both left the table before Julius and Sophia had finished their meal; and both, as soon as they reached their rooms, turned to each other with faces hot with indignation, and hearts angry with a sense of shameful unkindness.

Charlotte spoke first. "What is to be done, mother? I cannot see you insulted, meal after meal, in this way. Let us go at once. I have told you it would come to this. We ought to have moved immediately,—just as soon as Julius came here as master."

"My house in the village has been empty for three years. It is cold and damp. It needs attention of every kind. If we could only stay here until Stephen's house was finished: then you could be married."

"O mother dear, that is not possible! You know Steve and I cannot marry until father has been dead at least a year. It would be an insult to father to have a wedding in his mourning year."

"If your father knows any thing, Charlotte, he knows the trouble we are in. He would count it no insult."

"But all through the Dales it would be a shame to us. Steve and I would not like to begin life with the ill words or ill thoughts of our neighbors."

"What shall I do? Charlotte, dear, what shall I do?"

"Let us go to our own home. Better to brave a little damp and discomfort than constant humiliation."

"This is my home, my own dear home! It is full of memories of your father and Harry."

"O mother, I should think you would want to forget Harry!"

"No, no, no! I want to remember him every hour of the day and night. How could I pray for him, if I forgot him? Little you know how a mother loves, Charlotte. His father forgave him: shall I be less pitiful?—I, who nursed him at my breast, and carried him in my arms."

Charlotte did not answer. She was touched by her mother's fidelity, and she found in her own heart a feeling much akin to it. Their conversation reverted to their unhappy position, and to the difficulty of making an immediate change. For not only was the dower-house in an untenantable state, but the weather was very much against them. The gray weather, the gloomy sky, the monotonous rains, the melting snow, the spiteful east wind,—by all this enmity of the elements, as well as by the enmity in the household, the poor bereaved lady was saddened and controlled.

The wretched conversation was followed by a most unhappy silence. Both hearts were brooding over their slights and wrongs. Day by day Charlotte's life had grown harder to bear. Sophia's little flaunts and dissents, her astonishments and corrections, were almost as cruel as the open hatred of Julius, his silence, his lowering brows, and insolence of proprietorship. To these things she had to add the intangible contempt of servants, and the feeling of constraint in the house where she had been the beloved child and the one in authority. Also she found the insolence which Stephen had to brave every time he called upon her just as difficult to bear as were her own peculiar slights. Julius had ceased to recognize him, had ceased to speak of him except as "that person." Every visit he made Charlotte was the occasion of some petty impertinence, some unmistakable assurance that his presence was offensive to the master of Seat-Sandal.

All these things troubled the mother also, but her bitterest pang was the cruelty of Sophia. A slow, silent process of alienation had been going on in the girl ever since her engagement to Julius: it had first touched her thoughts, then her feelings; now its blighting influence had deteriorated her whole nature. And in her mother's heart there were sad echoes of that bitter cry that comes down from age to age, "Oh, my son Absalom, Absalom! My son, my son!"

"O Sophia! oh, my child, my child! How can you treat me so? What have I done?" She was murmuring such words to herself when the door was opened, and Sophia entered. It was characteristic of the woman that she did not knock ere entering. She had always jealously guarded her rights to the solitude of her own room; and, even when she was a school-girl, it had been an understood household regulation that no one was to enter it without knocking. But now that she was mistress of all the rooms in Seat-Sandal, she ignored the simple courtesy towards others. Consequently, when she entered, she saw the tears in her mother's eyes. They only angered her. "Why should the sorrows of others darken her happy home?" Sophia was one of those women whom long regrets fatigue. As for her father, she reflected, "that he had been well nursed, decorously buried, and that every propriety had been attended to. It was, in her opinion, high time that the living—Julius and herself—should be thought of." The stated events of life—its regular meals, its trivial pleasures—had quite filled any void in her existence made by her father's death. If he had come back to earth, if some one had said to her, "He is here," she would have been far more embarrassed than delighted. The worldly advantages built upon the extinction of a great love! Sophia could contemplate them without a blush.

She came forward, shivering slightly, and stirred the fire. "How cold and dreary you are! Mother, why don't you cheer up and do something? It would be better for you than moping on the sofa."

"Suppose Julius had died six weeks ago, would you think of 'cheering up,' Sophia?"

"Charlotte, what a shameful thing to say!"

"Precisely what you have just said to mother."

"Supposing Julius dead! I never heard such a cruel thing. I dare say it would delight you."

"No, it would not; for Julius is not fit to die."

"Mother, I will not be insulted in my own house in such a way. Speak to Charlotte, or I must tell Julius."

"What have you come to say, Sophia?"

"I came to talk pleasantly, to see you, and"—

"You saw me an hour or two since, and were very rude and unkind. But if you regret it, my dear, it is forgiven."

"I do not know what there is to forgive. But really, Charlotte and you seem so completely unhappy and dissatisfied here, that I should think you would make a change."

"Do you mean that you wish me to go?"

"If you put words into my mouth."

"It is not worth while affecting either regret or offence, Sophia. How soon do you wish us to leave?"

The dowager mistress of Sandal-Side had stood up as she asked the question. She was quite calm, and her manner even cold and indifferent. "If you wish us to go to-day, it is still possible. I can walk as far as the rectory. For your father's sake, the rector will make us welcome.—Charlotte, my bonnet and cloak!"

"Mother! I think such threats very uncalled for. What will people say? And how can poor Julius defend himself against two ladies? I call it taking advantage of us."

"'Taking advantage?' Oh, no! Oh, no!—Charlotte, my dear, give me my cloak."

The little lady was not to be either frightened or entreated; and she deigned Julius—who had been hastily summoned by Sophia—no answer, either to his arguments or his apologies.

"It is enough," she cried, with a slight quiver in her voice, "it is enough! You turn me out of the home he gave me. Do you think that the dead see not? know not? You will find out, you will find out." And so, leaning upon Charlotte's arm, she walked slowly down the stairway, and into the dripping, soaking, gloomy afternoon. It was indeed wretched weather. A thick curtain of mist filled all the atmosphere, and made of daylight only a diluted darkness, in which it was hard to distinguish the skeletons of the trees which winter had stripped. The mountains had disappeared; there was no sky; a veil of chilling moisture and depressing gloom was over every thing. But neither Charlotte nor her mother was at that hour conscious of such inoffensive disagreeables. They were trembling with anger and sorrow. In a moment such a great event had happened, one utterly unconceived of, and unprepared for. Half an hour previous, the unhappy mother had dreaded the breaking away from her old life, and had declined to discuss with Charlotte any plan tending to such a consummation. Then, suddenly, she had taken a step more decided and unusual than had ever entered Charlotte's mind.

The footpath through the park was very wet and muddy. Every branch dropped water. They were a little frightened at what they were doing, and their hearts were troubled by many complex emotions. But fortunately the walk was a short one, and the shortest way to the rectory lay directly through the churchyard. Without a word Mrs. Sandal took it; and without a word she turned aside at a certain point, and through the long, rank, withered grasses walked straight to the squire's grave. It was yet quite bare; the snow had melted away, and it had a look as desolate as her own heart. She stood a few minutes speechless by its side; but the painfully tight clasp in which she held Charlotte's hand expressed better than any words could have done the tension of feeling, the passion of emotion, which dominated her. And Charlotte felt that silence was her mother's safety. If she spoke, she would weep, perhaps break down completely, and be unable to reach the shelter of the rectory.

The rector was walking about his study. He saw the two female forms passing through the misty graveyard, and up to his own front door; but that they were Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte Sandal, was a supposition beyond the range of his life's probabilities. So, when they entered his room, he was for the moment astounded; but how much more so, when Charlotte, seeing her mother unable to frame a word, said, "We have come to you for shelter and protection!"

Then Mrs. Sandal began to sob hysterically; and the rector called his housekeeper, and the best rooms were quickly opened and warmed, and the sorrowful, weary lady lay down to rest in their comfort and seclusion. Charlotte did not find their friend as unprepared for the event as she supposed likely. Private matters sift through the public mind in a way beyond all explanation, and "There had been a general impression," he said, "that the late squire's widow was very ill done to by the new squire."

Charlotte did not spare the new squire. All his petty ways of annoying her mother and herself and Stephen; all his small economies about their fire and food and comforts; all his scornful contempt for their household ways and traditions; all that she knew regarding his purchase of Harry's rights, and its ruthless revelation to her dying father,—all that she knew wrong of Julius, she told. It was a relief to do it. While he had been their guest, and afterwards while they had been his guests, her mouth had been closed. Week after week she had suffered in silence. The long-restrained tide of wrong flowed from her lips with a strange, pathetic eloquence; and, as the rector held her hands, his own were wet with her fast-falling tears. At last she laid her head against his shoulder, and wept as if her heart would break. "He has been our ruin," she cried, "our evil angel. He has used Harry's folly and father's goodness and Sophia's love—all of them—for his own selfish ends."

"He is a bad one. He should be hanged, and cheap at it! Hear him, talking of having lived so often! God have mercy! He is not worthy of one life, let alone of two."

At this juncture, Julius himself entered the room. Neither of its occupants had heard his arrival, and he saw Charlotte in the abandon of her grief and anger. She would have risen, but the rector would not let her. "Sit still, Charlotte," he said. "He has done his do, and you need not fear him any more. And dry your tears, my dearie; learn while you are young to squander nothing, not even grief." Then he turned to Julius, and gave him one of those looks which go through all disguises into the shoals and quicksands of the heart; such a look as that with which the tamer of wild beasts controls his captive.

"Well, squire, what want you?"

"I want justice, sir. I am come here to defend myself."

"Very well, I am here to listen."

Self-justification is a vigorous quality: Julius spoke with eloquence, and with a superficial show of right. The rector heard him patiently, offering no comment, and permitting no disputation. But, when Julius was finished, he answered with a certain stern warmth, "Say what you will, squire, you and I are of two ways of thinking. You are in the wrong, and you will be hard set to prove yourself in the right; and that is as true as gospel."

"I am, at least, a gentleman, rector; and I know how to treat gentlewomen."

"Gentle-man! Gentle-sinner, let me say! Will Satan care whether you be a peasant, or a star-and-garter gentleman? Tut, tut! in my office I know nothing about gentlemen. There are plenty of gentlemen with Beelzebub; and they will ring all eternity for a drop of water, and never find a servant to answer them."

"Sir, though you are a clergyman, you have no right to speak to me in such a manner."

"Because I am a clergyman, I have the right. If I see a man sleeping while the Devil rocks his cradle, have I not the right to say to him, 'Wake up, you are in danger'? Let me tell you, squire, you have committed more than one sin. Go home, and confess them to God and man. Above all, turn down a leaf in your Bible where a fool once asked, 'Who is my neighbor?' Keep it turned down, until you have answered the question better than you have been doing it lately."

"None of my neighbors can say wrong of me. I have always done my duty to them. I have paid every one what I owe"—

"Not enough, squire; not enough. Follow on, as Hosea says, to love them. Don't always give them the white, and keep the yolk for yourself. You know your duty. Haste you back home, then, and do it."

"I will not be put off in such a way, sir. You must interfere in this matter: make these silly women behave themselves. I cannot have the whole country-side talking of my affairs."

"Me interfere! No, no! I am not in your livery, squire; and I won't fight your quarrels. Sir, my time is engaged."

"I have a right"—

"My time is engaged. It is my hour for reading the Evening Service. Stay and hear it, if you desire. But it is a bad neighborhood, where a man can't say his prayers quietly." And he stood up, walked slowly to his reading-desk, and began to turn the leaves of the Book of Common Prayer.

Then Julius went out in a passion, and the rector muttered, "The Devil may quote Scripture, but he does not like to hear it read. Come, Charlotte, let us thank God, thank him twice, nay, thrice, not alone for the faith of Christ Jesus, but also for the legacy of Christ Jesus. Oh, child, amid earth's weary restlessness and noisy quarrels, how rich a legacy,"—

"'Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you.'"



CHAPTER XI.

SANDAL AND SANDAL.

"Time will discover every thing; it is a babbler, and speaks even when no question is put."

"Run, spindles! Run, and weave the threads of doom."

Next morning very early, Stephen had a letter from Charlotte. He was sitting at breakfast with Ducie when the rector's boy brought it; and it came, as great events generally come, without any premonition or heralding circumstance. Ducie was pouring out coffee; and she went on with her employment, thinking, not of the letter Stephen was opening, but of the malt, and of the condition of the brewing-boiler. An angry exclamation from Stephen made her lift her eyes to his face. "My word, Stephen, you are put out! What's to do?"

"Julius has turned Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte from house and home, yesterday afternoon. They are at the rectory. I am going, mother."

"Stop a moment, Steve. This is now my affair."

Stephen looked at his mother with amazement. Her countenance, her voice, her whole manner, had suddenly changed. An expression of angry purpose was in her wide-open eyes and firm mouth, as she asked, "Can you or Jamie, or any of the men, drive me to Kendal?"

"To-day?"

"I want to leave within an hour."

"The rain down-pours; and it is like to be worse yet, if the wind does not change."

"If it were ten times worse, I must to Kendal. I am much to blame that I have let weather stop me so far and so long. While Dame Nature was busy about her affairs, I should have been minding mine. Deary me, deary me!"

"If you are for Kendal, then I will drive. The cart-road down the fell is too bad to trust you with any one but myself. Can we stop a moment at the rectory on our road?"

"We can stop a goodish bit. I have a deal to say to the parson. Have the tax-cart ready in half an hour; for there will be no betterness in the weather until the moon—God bless her!—is full round; and things are past waiting for now."

In twenty minutes Ducie was ready. The large cloak and hood of the Daleswoman wrapped her close. She was almost indistinguishable in its folds. The rector met her with a little irritation. It was very early to be disturbed, and he thought her visit would refer, doubtless, to some trivial right between her son and Charlotte Sandal; besides which, he had made up his mind to discuss the Sandal affairs with no one.

But Ducie had spoken but a few moments before a remarkable change took place in his manner. He was bending eagerly forward, listening to her half-whispered words with the greatest interest and amazement. As she proceeded, he could scarcely control his emotion; and very soon all other expressions were lost in one of a satisfaction that was almost triumph.

"I will keep them here until you return," he answered; "but let me tell you, Ducie, you have been less quick to do right than I thought of you."

"The fell has been a hard walk for an old woman, the cart-road nearly impassable until this rain washed away the drifts; but I did not neglect my duty altogether, neither, parson. Moser was written to six weeks since, and he has been at work. Maybe, after all, no time has been lost. I'll away now, if you will call Stephen. Don't let Mrs. Sandal 'take on' more than you can help;" and, as Stephen lifted the reins, "You think it best to bring all here?"

"Far away best. God speed you!" He watched them out of sight,—his snowy hair and strong face and black garments making a vivid picture in the misty, drippy doorway,—and then, returning to his study, he began his daily walk up and down its carpeted length, with a singularly solemn elation. Ere long, the thoughtful stride was accompanied by low, musical mutterings, dropping from his lips in such majestic cadences that his steps involuntarily fell to their music in a march-like rhythm.

"Daughter of Justice, wronged Nemesis, Thou of the awful eyes, Whose silent sentence judgeth mortal life,— Thou with the curb of steel, Which proudest jaws must feel, Stayest the snort and champ of human strife.

Under thy wheel unresting, trackless, all Our joys and griefs befall; In thy full sight our secret things go on; Step after step, thy wrath Follows the caitiff's path, And in his triumph breaks his vile neck bone. To all alike, thou meetest out their due, Cubit for cubit, inch for inch,—stern, true."

At the word "true" he paused a moment, and touched with his finger an old black volume on one of the book-shelves. "'Stern, true,' whether Euripides says 'cubit for cubit,' or Moses 'an eye for an eye,' or Solomon that 'he that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.' Stern, true; for surely that which a man sows he shall also reap."

After a while he went up-stairs and talked with Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte. They were much depressed and very anxious, and had what Charlotte defined "a homeless feeling." "But you must be biddable, Charlotte," said the rector; "you must remain here until Stephen returns. Ducie had business that could not wait, and who but Stephen should drive her? When he comes back, we will all look to it. You shall not be very long out of your own home; and, in the mean time, how welcome you are here!"

"It seems such a weary time, sir; so many months that we have been in trouble."

"It was all night long, once, with some tired, fearful ones 'toiling in rowing;' but in the fourth watch came Christ and help to them. It is nigh hand—the 'fourth watch'—with you; so be cheerful."

Yet it was the evening of the sixth day before Ducie and Stephen returned. It was still raining heavily, and Ducie only waited a moment or two at the rectory gate. Charlotte was amazed to see the old clergyman hasten through the plashing shower to speak to her. "Surely Ducie's business must have a great deal of interest to the rector, mother: he has gone out to speak to her, and such weather too."

"Ducie was always a favorite with him. I hope, now that her affairs have been attended to, ours may receive some care."

Charlotte answered only by a look of sympathy. It had seemed to her a little hard that their urgent need must wait upon Ducie's business; that Stephen should altogether leave them in their extremity; that her anxious inquiries and suggestions, her plans and efforts about their new home, should have been so coldly received, and so positively put aside until Ducie and Stephen came back. And she had a pang of jealousy when she saw the rector, usually so careful of his health, hasten with slippered feet and uncovered head, through the wet, chilling atmosphere, to speak to them.

He came back with a radiant face, however, and Charlotte could hear him moving about his study; now rolling out a grand march of musical Greek syllables from Homer or Euripides, anon breaking into some familiar verse of Christian song. And, when tea was served, he went up-stairs for the ladies, and escorted them to the table with a manner so beaming and so happily predictive that Charlotte could not but catch some of its hopeful spirit.

Just as they sat down to the tea-table, the wet, weary travellers reached Up-Hill. With a sigh of pleasure and content, Ducie once more passed into its comfortable shelter; and never had it seemed to her such a haven of earthly peace. Her usually placid face bore marks of strong emotion; she was physically tired; and Stephen was glad to see her among the white fleeces of his grandfather's big chair, with her feet outstretched to the blazing warmth of the fire, and their cosey tea-service by her side. Always reticent with him, she had been very tryingly so on their journey. No explanation of it had been given; and he had been permitted to pass his time among the looms in Ireland's mill, while she and the lawyer were occupied about affairs to which even his signature was not asked.

As they sat together in the evening, she caught his glance searching her face tenderly; and she bent forward, and said, "Kiss me, Stephen, my dear lad. I have seen this week how kind and patient, how honorable and trustful, thou art. Well, then, the hour has come that will try thy love to the uttermost. But wise or unwise, all that has been done has been done with good intent, and I look for no word to pain me from thy mouth. Stephen, what is thy name?"

"Stephen Latrigg."

"Nay, but it isn't."

Stephen blushed vividly; his mother's face was white and calm. "I would rather be called Latrigg than—the other name, than by my father's name."

"Has any one named thy father to thee?"

"Charlotte told me what you and she said on the matter. She understood his name to be Pattison. We were wondering if our marriage could be under my adopted name, that was all, and things like it."

Ducie was watching his handsome face as he spoke, and feeling keenly the eager deprecation of pain to herself, mingling with the natural curiosity about his own identity, which the cloud upon his early years warranted. She looked at him steadily, with eyes shining brightly through tears.

"Your name is not Pattison, neither is it Latrigg. When you marry Charlotte Sandal, it must be by your own true name; and that is Stephen Sandal."

"Stephen Sandal, mother?"

"Yes. You are the son of Launcelot Sandal, the late squire's eldest brother."

"Then, mother, then I am—What am I, mother?"

"You are squire of Sandal-Side and Torver. No living man but you has a right to the name, or the land, or to Seat-Sandal."

"I should have known this before, mother."

"I think not. We had, father and I, what we believed good reasons, and kind reasons, for holding our peace. But times and circumstances have changed; and, where silence was once true friendship and kindness, it is now wrong and cruelty. Many years ago, Stephen, when I was young and beautiful, Launcelot Sandal loved me. And my father and Launcelot's father loved each other as David and Jonathan loved. They were scarcely happy apart; and not even to please the proud mistress Charlotte, would the squire loosen the grip of heart and hand between them. But your father was more under his mother's influence: proud lad as he was, he feared her; and when she discovered his love for me, there was such a scene between them as no man will go through twice in his lifetime. I have no excuse to make for marrying him secretly except the old, old one, Stephen. I loved him, loved him as women have loved, and will love, from the beginning to the end of time."

"Dear mother, there was no wrong in that. But why did you let the world think you loved a man beneath you? an uneducated shepherd like my reputed father? That wronged not only you, but those behind and those after you."

"We were afraid of many things, and we wished to spare the friendship between our fathers. There were many other reasons, scarcely worth repeating now."

"And what became of the shepherd?"

"He was not Cumberland born. He came from the Cheviot Hills, and was always fretting for the border life: so he gladly fell in with the proposal your father made him. One summer morning he said he was going to herd the lambs on Latrigg Fell, but he went to Egremont. Your father had gone there a week before; but he came back that night, and met me at Ravenglass. We were married in Egremont church, by Parson Sellafield, and went to Whitehaven, where we lived quietly and happily for many a week. Pattison witnessed our marriage, and then, with gold in his pocket, took the border road. He went to Moffat and wed the girl he loved, and has been shepherding on Loch Fell ever since."

"He is alive, then?"

"He is at the Salutation Inn at Ambleside to-night. So, also, is Parson Sellafield, and the man and woman with whom we staid in Whitehaven, and in whose house you were born and lived until your fourth year. They are called Chisholm, and have been at Up-Hill many times."

"I remember them."

"And I did not intend that they should forget you."

"I have always heard that Launcelot Sandal was drowned."

"You have always heard that your father was drowned? That was near by the truth. While in Whitehaven, he wrote to his brother Tom, who was living and doing well in India. When his answer came, we determined to go to Calcutta; but I was not in a state of health fit for such a journey as that then was. So it was decided that your father should go first, and get a home ready for me. He left in the 'Lady Liddel,' and she was lost at sea. Your father was in an open boat for many days, and died of exhaustion."

"Who told you so, mother?"

"The captain lived to reach his home again, and he brought me his watch and ring and last message. He never saw your face, my lad, he never saw your face."

A silence of some minutes ensued. Ducie had long ceased to weep for her dead love, but he was unforgotten. Her silence was not oblivion: it was a sanctuary where lights were burning round the shrine, over which the wings of affection were folded.

"When my father was gone, then you came back to Up-Hill?"

"No: I did not come back until you were in your fourth year. Then my mother died, and I brought you home. At the first moment you went straight to your grandfather's heart; and that night, as you lay asleep upon his knee, I told him the truth, as I tell it to you this night. And he said to me, 'Ducie, things have settled a bit lately. The squire has got over his trouble about Launcie; and young William is the acknowledged heir, and the welcome heir. He is going to marry Alice Morecombe at the long last, but it will make a big difference if Launcelot's son steps in where nobody wants him. Now, then,' he said, 'I will tell thee a far better way. We will give this dear lad my own name, none better in old Cumbria; and we will save gold, and we will make gold, to put it to the very front in the new times that are coming. And he will keep my name on the face of the earth, and so please the great company of his kin behind him. And it will be far better for him to be the top-sheaf of the Latriggs, than to force his way into Seat-Sandal, where there is neither love nor welcome for him.'

"And I thought the same thing, Stephen; and after that, our one care was to make you happy, and to do well to you. That you were a born Sandal, was a great joy to him, for he loved your father and your grandfather; and, when Harry came, he loved him also, and he liked well to see you two on the fells together. Often he called me to come and look at you going off with your rods or guns; and often he said, 'Both fine lads, Ducie, but our Steve is the finer.'"

"Oh, mother, I cannot take Harry's place! I love Harry, and I did not know how much until this hour"—

"Stop a bit, Stephen. When Harry grew up, and went into the army, your grandfather wasn't so satisfied with what he had done. 'Here's a fine property going to sharpers and tailors and Italian singing-women,' he used to say; and he felt baddish about it. And yet he loved Squire William, as he had loved his father, and Mistress Alice and Harry and Sophia and Charlotte; why, he thought of them like his own flesh and blood. And he could not bear to undo his kindness. And he could not bear to tell Squire William the truth, for he knew well that he would undo it. So one day he sent for Lawyer Moser; and the two of them together found out a plan that seemed fair, for both Sandal and Latrigg.

"You were to remain Stephen Latrigg, unless it was to ward off wrong or ruin in Sandal-Side. But if ever the day came when Sandal needed Latrigg, you were to claim your right, and stand up for Sandal. Such a state of things as Harry brought about, my father never dreamed of. He would not have been able to think of a man selling away his right to a place like Seat-Sandal; and among all the villains he ever knew, or heard tell of, he couldn't have picked out one to lead him to such a villain as Julius Sandal. So, you see, he left no special directions for such a case, and I was a bit feared to move in too big a hurry; and, maybe, I was a bit of a coward about setting every tongue in Sandal-Side talking about me and my bygone days.

"But, when the squire died, I thought from what Charlotte told me of the Julius Sandals, that there would have to be a change; and when I saw your grandfather sorting the papers for me, and heard that Mistress Alice and Charlotte had been forced to leave their home, I knew that the hour for the change had struck, and that I must be about the business. Moser was written to soon after the funeral of Squire William. He has now all the necessary witnesses and papers ready. He is at Ambleside with them, and to-morrow morning they will have a talk with Mr. Julius at Seat-Sandal."

"I wonder where Harry Sandal is."

"After you, comes Harry. Your grandfather did not forget him. There is a provision in the will, which directs, that if, for any cause not conceivable by the testator, Harry Sandal must resign in favor of Stephen Sandal, then the land and money devised to you, as his heir, shall become the property of Harry Sandal. In a great measure you would only change places, and that is not a very hard punishment for a man who cared so little for his family home as Harry did. So you see, Stephen, you must claim your rights in order to give Harry his."

The facts of this conversation opened up endlessly to the mother and son, and hour after hour it was continued without any loss of interest. But the keenest pleasure his new prospects gave Stephen referred itself to Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte. He could now reinstate them in their old home and in their old authority in it. For the bright visions underneath his eyelids, he could not sleep,—visions of satisfied affection, and of grief and humiliation crowned with joy and happiness and honor.

It had been decided that Stephen should drive his mother to the rectory in the morning, and there they were to wait the result of Moser's interview with Julius. The dawning came up with sunshine; the storm was over, the earth lay smiling in that "clear shining after rain," which is so exhilarating and full of promise. The sky was as blue, the air as fresh, fell and wood, meadow and mountain, as clean and bright as if they had just come new from the fingers of the Almighty. Ducie was handsomely dressed in dark violet-colored satin, and Stephen noticed with pride how well her rich clothing and quiet, dignified manner became her; while Ducie felt even a greater pride in the stately, handsome young man who drove her with such loving care down Latrigg fell that eventful morning.

Julius was at breakfast when the company from Ambleside were shown into the master's room in Seat-Sandal. The lawyer sent in his card; and Julius, who knew him well, was a trifle annoyed by the visit. "It will be about your mother's income, Sophia," he said, as he viciously broke the egg he was holding; "now mind, I am not going to yield one inch."

"Why should you, Julius? I am sure we have been blamed and talked over enough. We never can be popular here."

"We don't want to be popular here. When we have refurnished the house, we will bring our company from Oxford and London and elsewhere. We will have fine dinners and balls, hunting-parties and fishing-parties; and, depend upon it, we shall very soon have these shepherd lords and gentlemen begging for our favor."

"Oh, you don't know them, Julius! They would not break bread with us if they were starving."

"Very well. What do I care?"

But he did care. When the wagoners driving their long teams pretended not to hear his greeting, for the jingling of their bells, he knew it was pretence, and the wagoners' aversion hurt him. When the herdsmen sauntered away from his path, and preferred not to talk to him, he felt the bitterness of their dislike, though they were only shepherds. When the gentlemen of the neighborhood looked straight before them, and did not see him in their path, he burned with an indignation he would have liked well to express. But no one took the trouble to offend him by word or deed, and a man cannot pick a quarrel with people for simply letting him alone.

Sophia's opinion recalled one or two of these events that were particularly galling; and he finished his breakfast in a sulky, leisurely fashion, to such reflections as they evoked. Then, with a cigar in his mouth, he went to the master's room to see Moser. He had been told that other parties were there also, but he did not surmise that their business was identical. Yet he noticed the clergyman on entering, and appeared inclined to attend to his request first; but as he courteously waved his claim away, and retired to the other end of the room, Julius said curtly,—

"Well, Mr. Moser, good-morning, sir."

The lawyer was pretending to be absorbed in the captions of the papers in his hand, for he was offended at being kept waiting so long: "As if a bite of victuals was of more ado than business that could bring Matthew Moser all the road from Kendal."

"Good-morning, Mr. Sandal."

The omission of "Squire," and the substitution of "Mr.," annoyed Julius very much, though he had not a suspicion of the lawyer's errand; and he corrected the mistake with a bland smile on his lips, and an angry light in his eyes. Moser, in reply, selected one particular paper, and put it into the hand of Julius.

"Acting for Squire Sandal, I would be a middling bad sort of a lawyer to give you his name. Eh?"

"You are talking in riddles, sir."

"Eh! But I always read my riddles, Mr. Sandal. I am here to take possession of house and land, for the real heir of Sandal-Side."

"I bought his right, as you know very well. You have Harry Sandal's own acknowledgment."

"Eh? But you see, Harry Sandal never had a penny-worth of right to sell. Launcelot Sandal left a son, and for him I am acting. Eh?"

"Launcelot Sandal was drowned. He never married."

"Eh, but he did!—Parson Sellafield, what do you say about that?"

"I married him on July 11, 18—, at Egremont church. There," pointing to Matt Pattison, "is the witness. Here is a copy of the license and the 'lines.' They are signed, 'Launcelot Sandal' and 'Ducie Latrigg.'"

"Confusion!"

"Eh? No, no! There's not a bit of confusion, Mr. Sandal. It is all as clear as the multiplication table, and there is nothing clearer than that. Launcelot Sandal married Ducie Latrigg; they had one son, Stephen Sandal, otherwise known as Stephen Latrigg: proofs all ready, sir, not a link missing, Mr. Sandal. When will you vacate? The squire is inclined to be easy with you, and not to back-reckon, unless you force him to do so."

"This is a conspiracy, Moser."

"Conspiracy! Eh? Ugly word, Mr. Sandal. An actionable word, I may say."

"It is a conspiracy. You shall hear from me through some respectable lawyer."

"In the mean time, Mr. Sandal, I have taken, as you will see, the proper legal steps to prevent you wasting any more of the Sandal revenues. Every shilling you touch now, you will be held responsible for. Also," and he laid another paper down, "you are hereby restrained from removing, injuring, or in any way changing, or disposing of, the present furniture of the Seat. The squire insists specially on this direction, and he kindly allows you seven days to remove your private effects. A very reasonable gentleman is Squire Sandal."

Without further courtesies they parted; and the deposed squire locked the room-door, lifted the various documents, and read them with every sense he had. Then he went to Sophia; and at that hour he was almost angry with her, although he could not have told how, or why, such a feeling existed. When he opened the door of the parlor, her first words were a worry over the non-arrival, by mail, of some floss-silks, needful in the bird's-nest she was working for a fire-screen.

"They have not come, Julius," she cried, with a face full of inquiry and annoyance.

"They? Who?"

"The flosses for my bird's-nest. The eggs must be in white floss."

"The bird's nest can go to Jericho, or Calcutta, or into the fire. We are ordered to leave Seat-Sandal in seven days."

"I would not be so absurd, Julius, so unfeeling, so ungentlemanly."

"Well, then, my soul," and he bowed with elaborate grace, "Stephen Latrigg, squire of Sandal-Side, orders us to leave in seven days. Can you be ready?"

She looked into the suave, mocking, inscrutable face, shrugged her shoulders, and began to count her stitches. Julius had many varieties of ill-humor. She regarded this statement only as a new phase of his temper; but he soon undeceived her. With a pitiless exactness he went over his position, and, in doing so, made the hopelessness of his case as clear to himself as it was to others. And yet he was determined not to yield without a struggle; though, apart from the income of Sandal, which he could not reach, he had little money and no credit.

The story, with all its romance of attachment and its long trial of faithful secrecy, touched the prejudices and the sympathies of every squire and shepherd between Duddon and Esk and Windermere. Stephen came to his own, and they received him with open arms. But for Julius, there was not a "seat" in the Dales, nor a cottage on the fells, no, nor a chair in any of the local inns, where he was welcome. He stood his social excommunication longer than could have been expected; and, even at the end, his surrender was forced from him by the want of money, and the never-ceasing laments of Sophia. She was clever enough to understand from the first, that fighting the case was simply "indulging Julius in his temper;" and she did not see the wisdom of spending what little money they had in such a gratification.

"You have been caught in your own trap, Julius," she said aggravatingly. "Very clever people often are. It is folly to struggle. You had better ask Stephen to pay you back the ten thousand pounds. I think he ought to do that. It is only common honesty."

But Stephen had not the same idea of common honesty as Sophia had. He referred Julius to Harry.

"Harry, indeed! Harry who is in New York making ducks and drakes of your money, Julius,—trying to buy shares and things that he knows no more of than he knows of Greek. It's a shame!" and Sophia burst into some genuine tears over the reflection.

Still the idea, on a less extravagant basis, seemed possible to Steve. He began to think that it would be better to compromise matters with the Julius Sandals; better to lose a thousand pounds, or even two thousand pounds, if, by doing so, he could at once restore Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte to their home. And he was on the point of making a proposition of this kind, when it was discovered that Julius and his wife had silently taken their departure.

"It is a hopeless fight against destiny," said Julius. "When the purse is empty, any cause is weak. I have barely money to take us to Calcutta, Sophia. It is very disagreeable to go there, of course; but my father advised this step, and I shall remind him of it. He ought, therefore, to re-arrange my future. It is hard enough for me to have lost so much time carrying out his plans. And I should write a letter to your mother before you go, if I were you, Sophia. It is your duty. She ought to have her cruel behavior to you pointed out to her."

Sophia did her duty. She wrote a very clever letter, which really did make both her mother and sister wretchedly uncomfortable. Charlotte held it in her hand with a heartache, wondering whether she had indeed been as envious and unjust and unkind as Sophia felt her to have been; and Mrs. Sandal buried her face in her sofa pillow, and had a cry over her supposed partiality and want of true motherly feeling. "They had been so misunderstood, Julius and she,—wilfully misunderstood, she feared; and they were being driven to a foreign land, a deadly foreign land, because Charlotte and Stephen had raised against them a social hatred they had not the heart to conquer. If they defended themselves, they must accuse those of their own blood and house, and they were not mean enough to do such a thing as that. Oh, no! Sophia Sandal had always done her duty, and always would do it forever." And broad statements are such confusing, confounding things, that for one miserable hour the mother and sister felt as mean and remorseful as Sophia and Julius could desire. Then the rector read the letter aloud, and dived down into its depths as if it was a knotty text, and showed the two simple women on what false conditions all of its accusations rested.

At the same time Julius wrote a letter also. It was to Harry Sandal,—a very short letter, but destined to cause nearly six years of lonely, wretched wandering and anxious sorrow.

DEAR HARRY,—There is great trouble about that ten thousand pounds. It seems you had no right to sell. "Money on false pretences," I think they call it. I should go West, far West, if I were you.

Your friend,

JULIUS SANDAL.

He read it to Sophia, and she said, "What folly! Let Harry return home. You have heard that he comes into the Latrigg money. Very well, let him come home, and then you can make him pay you back. Harry is very honorable."

"There is not the slightest chance of Harry paying me back. If he had a million, he wouldn't pay me back. Harry spoke me fair, but I caught one look which let me see into his soul. He hated me for buying his right. With my money in his hand, he hated me. He would toss his hat to the stars if he heard how far I have been over-reached. Next to Charlotte Sandal, I hate Harry Sandal; and I am going to send him a road that he is not likely to return. I don't intend Stephen and Harry to sit together, and chuckle over me. Besides, your mother and Charlotte are surely calculating upon having 'dear Harry' and 'poor Harry' at home again very soon. I have no doubt Charlotte is planning about that Emily Beverley already. For Harry is to have Latrigg Hall when it is finished, I hear."

"Really? Is that so? Are you sure?"

"Harry is to have the new hall, and all of old Latrigg's gold and property."

"Julius, would it not be better to try and get around Harry? We could stay with him. I cannot endure Calcutta, and I always did like Harry."

"And I always detested him. And he always detested me. No, my sweet Sophia, there is really nothing for us but a decent lodging-house on the shady side of the Chowringhee Road. My father can give me a post in 'The Company,' and I must get as many of its rupees as I can manage. Go through the old rooms, and bid them farewell, my soul. We shall not come back to Seat-Sandal again in this chapter of our eternity." And with a mocking laugh he turned away to make his own preparations.

"But why go in the night, Julius? You said to-night at eleven o'clock. Why not wait until morning?"

"Because, beloved, I owe a great deal of money in the neighborhood. Stephen can pay it for me. I have sent him word to do so. Why should we waste our money? We have done with these boors. What they think of us, what they say of us, shall we mind it, my soul, when we drive under the peopuls and tamarinds at Barrackpore, or jostle the crowds upon the Moydana, or sit under the great stars and listen to the tread of the chokedars? All fate, Sophia! All fate, soul of my soul! What is Sandal-Side? Nothing. What is Calcutta? Nothing. What is life itself, my own one? Only a little piece out of something that was before, and will be after."

* * * * *

Who that has seen the Cumberland moors and fells in July can ever forget them?—the yellow broom and purple heather, the pink and white waxen balls of the rare vacciniums, the red-leaved sundew, the asphodels, the cranberries and blueberries and bilberries, and the wonderful green mosses in all the wetter places; and, above and around all, the great mountain chains veiled in pale, ethereal atmosphere, and rising in it as airy and unsubstantial as if they could tremble in unison with every thrill of the ether above them.

It was thus they looked, and thus the fells and the moors looked, one day in July, eighteen months after the death of Squire William Sandal,—his daughter Charlotte's wedding-day. From far and near, the shepherd boys and lasses were travelling down the craggy ways, making all the valleys ring to their wild and simple songs, and ever and anon the bells rung out in joyful peals; and from Up-Hill to Seat-Sandal, and around the valley to Latrigg Hall, there were happy companies telling each other, "Oh, how beautiful was the bride with her golden hair flowing down over her dress of shining white satin!" "And how proud and handsome the bridegroom!" "And how lovely in their autumn days the two mothers! Mistress Alice Sandal leaning so confidently upon the arm of the stately Mrs. Ducie Sandal." "And how glad was the good rector!" Little work, either in field or house or fellside, was done that day; for, when all has been said about human selfishness, this truth abides,—in the main, we do rejoice with those who rejoice, and we do weep with those who weep.

The old Seat was almost gay in the sunshine, all its windows open for the wandering breezes, and its great hall doors set wide for the feet of the new squire and his bride. For they were too wise to begin their married life by going away from their home; they felt that it was better to come to it with the bridal benediction in their ears, and the sunshine of the wedding-day upon their faces.

The ceremony had been delayed some months, for Stephen had been in America seeking Harry; seeking him in the great cities and in the lonely mining-camps, but never coming upon his foot steps until they had been worn away into forgetfulness. At last the rector wrote to him, "Return home, Stephen. We are both wrong. It is not human love, but God love, that must seek the lost ones. If you found Harry now, and brought him back, it would be too soon. When his lesson is learned, the heart of God will be touched, and he will say, 'That will do, my son. Arise, and go home.'"

And when Mrs. Sandal smiled through her tears, for the hope's sake, he took her hand, and added solemnly, "Be confident and glad, you shall see Harry come joyfully to his own home. Oh, if you could only listen, angels still talk with men! Raphael, the affable angel, loves to bring them confidences. God also speaks to his children in dreams, and by the oracles that wait in darkness. If we know not, it is because we ask not. But I know, and am sure, that Harry will return in joy and in peace. And if the dead look over the golden bar of heaven upon their earthly homes, Barf Latrigg, seeing the prosperity of the two houses, which stand upon his love and his self-denial, will say once more to his friend, 'William, I did well to Sandal.'"

THE END