CURRENT REPENTANCE
% flobcl
By ALBERT BULMAN
Chief Justice. Pr'ythee, peace :—Pay her the debt you owe her,
and unpay the villainy you have done her: the one you may do
With sterling money, and the other with current repentance.
King Henry the Fourth, Act ii. sc. r.
LONDON
JOHN & ROBERT MAXWELL
MILTON HOUSE, ST. BRIDE STEET
AND
SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
[All rights reserved.]
CONTENTS.
i. Slagby ... . . . . . i
ii. Mary Lee makes a new Acquaintance, and
her Father breaks off with an old one 14
in. Mary has Two Strings to her Bow, but they
get twisted ...... 29
iv. The old Story ...... 42
v. The Commissioner of Beshuckabad . . 57
vi. Mr. Steel has his Eyes opened—a Painful
Operation ...... 68
vii. Mr. Steel goes off triumphantly with the
old Love, but his Wife comes on less
prosperously with the new ... 80
viii. Bella Steel plays Truant from Church,
which leads to some Unexpected Results 93
ix. To-morrow to fresh Fields and Pastures
new . . . . . . .Ill
x. Adventures by the Way . . . -132
xi. Grace Hawthorn finds a new Aristocratic
Admirer. . . . . . .156
xii. dlknugger and the dlknuggerites . 174
xiii. Mrs. Steel treads the thorny Path of Duty 193
xiv. Clouds and Sunshine . . . .' .211
xv. Dr. Brandling's Escapades .... 232
xvi. Two robust Courtships come to an untimely
Death, one having caught Cold at the
Funeral of the other .... 254
xvii, Cressida in the Grecian Camp , . , 270
CONTENTS. .
CHAP. • PAGE
xviii. Ravensmore proves that there are other
Sups than between the Cup and the
Lip. . . . . . . .290
xix. Father and Child ..... 301
. xx. Grace takes her Course, and meets with an
Adventure . . . . . 315
xxi. One of Grace's Lovers follows her . . 330
xxii. The other follows Duty .... 345
*
xxiii. The End ....... 358
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CHAPTER I.
slagby
Many years ago I was witness of a curious little drama,
played on an obscure country stage. And as, long after¬
wards, the fortunes of my dearest friend happened to become
involved with those of one of the persons who had acted a
principal part in these early scenes, the memory which I re¬
tained of them became invested for me with a deep interest.
I cannot expect that others should feel the same. Still, as
the story with its sequel seems to me to present some striking
views of character, I think it may not be found altogether
without an interest, independent of personal feelings for the
actors.
When I was somewhere about twelve years old, my
father—a widower—could not, I suppose, any longer endure
my presence at home, as I continued to wax in mischievous-
ness in exact proportion as my growth in strength and
stature gave me capacity for it. But being a poor man, the
packing me off to school was not for him the simple matter
which it might have been for some other parents. He had
to discover a schoolmaster able and willing at once to train
my tender mind in the ingenuous arts, and to satisfy my
youthful appetite—which was of a much more robust con¬
stitution—with beef and bread and butter, and all for a
maximum allowance of thirty pounds a year. Such a
b
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desideratum was, however, found in the person of the
Reverend Mr. Lee.
This clergyman was one of the most remarkable men I
have ever met, and certainly without exception the most
disagreeable. He was a man who must originally have
possessed very great powers of mind, and, at some period
of his life, have exerted them in a legitimate way, for he was
undoubtedly an excellent classical scholar; indeed, his pro¬
ficiency in this branch of learning had obtained him the post
of head-master in an old and well-reputed grammar-school
in the North. But he had such a diabolical temper—I use
the adjective advisedly, and as the only one which could
fully and accurately express my meaning, and not as it is
often loosely employed, to indicate mere violence or morose-
ness—he had, I say, such a truly diabolical temper, such a
malignant delight in cruelty, such a faculty for drawing out
all that was evil, and crushing all that was good, in those
whom ill-luck brought under his influence, as aroused horror
even in the not over-sensitive breasts of old-fashioned
Yorkshire patersfamilias. A dark whisper used to prevail,
in the days when I was subject to his tender discipline,
that his career at the grammar-school had culminated—and
terminated—in his flogging a boy to death. But whether
this may or may not be strictly true, certain it is that he
was turned out of his office in disgrace, after all but irretriev¬
ably ruining the school.
He had then disappeared from the ken of the world for
many years, and was supposed during that period to have
been put to some very equivocal shifts for his livelihood.
He reemerged at last, and, luckily for him, he did so within
reach of a buoy to which he was able to cling, and which
kept him afloat, though with lips just above the surface, for
the rest of his life. This buoy was a rotund, jolly parson,
named Crovesworth. He was the younger son of an Indian
"nabob," who, having left his native village to take up the
appointment of surgeon's mate on board an East Indiaman,
had come back to it a dozen years later to buy the manor
SLAGBY.
3
on which it stood, and two or three adjacent ones as well.
Thenceforth Crovesworth of Goldmore Hall was to be
among the chief magnates of shire ; and as a necessary
corollary to that proposition, successive Revs. Clive, Hast¬
ings, Vansittart, or Barlow Crovesworths were to be rectors
of Brahminster, the richest living in the same county.
I am not learned in matters ecclesiastical, and*I don't
know whether the particular Rev. Vansittart Crovesworth
of whom I have to speak just now was a pluralist or not,
nor whether Slagby was a separate fold which owned him as
pastor, or was merely an adjunct of Brahminster. Anyhow,
he was responsible for the provision of a certain number of
weekly services within the crumbling gray walls and under
the rickety old roof of Slagby Church. And as neither his
tastes, his figure, nor his habits, adapted him for a seven
or eight miles' ride across pathless moors and rugged hills
every Sunday, he was obliged to devolve this duty on a
deputy. The selection of a fit person for this office was
always a somewhat difficult task to the good rector of Brah¬
minster, because special qualifications were required for it,
the most essential of which was the possession in a high
degree of the Christian virtue of contentment. The other
of the two factors which, according to St. Paul, go to make
up great riches, was, perhaps, in Mr. Crovesworth's view, of
less consequence. So long as the curate of Slagby con¬
sidered himself " passing rich on forty pounds a year,"
which was the portion that the rector set aside out of his
twelve hundred or so for the spiritual sustenance of his
Slagby flock, no very close inquiry was made into matters
of,doctrine. But even on such terms it was not easy to
find a curate for the charge. Slagby was, m fact, about as
unattractive a place of residence as it would be easy to find
within the four seas of Britain. Its situation was solitary
and wild to a degree which the lovers of those qualities in
scenery find it hard to discover nowadays in the remotest
nooks of this over-peopled land. But it was hideously dreary,
ugly, and unromantic. It stood in the midst of a tumbled
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waste of low hills and " blasted heaths." There was not a
tree nearer than the avenue of Goldmore Hall, some six
miles off. The ordinary signs of pastoral life even were
absent from the barren moors. But man, nevertheless, pro¬
claimed his presence there, and that in the most offensive
manner he has of doing so, viz., by digging mines. And
the curate's parishioners consisted of lead-miners—a genera¬
tion as dull and heavy as the ore they dug for, about as low
a type of humanity as it would be easy to find outside Cen¬
tral Australia, scattered about in little settlements of wretched
hovels, hidden away in gloomy nooks of the bleak hills.
How a church and parsonage had come to be built in
the neighbourhood I cannot say ; but I think it unlikely
that any member of the Grovesworth family, the present
owners of the land and the mines, had erected them. How¬
ever, there they were, grim and ruinous, but unmistakably
modern—late eighteenth century in style; the church as
unvenerable, and the parsonage as theerless, as it is possible
for a church and parsonage to be.
The little graveyard, which surrounded the church and
adjoined the Parsonage garden, has always been my ideal of
the abomination of desolation. The thought of laying one's
bones beneath the tangled weeds and rank grass of that
melancholy spot must have added a new pang to the horror
of death in the minds of most mortals. But as the experi¬
ence which the rude forefathers of Slagby had had of "the
warm precincts of the cheerful day" had been chiefly
acquired in the bowels of a lead-mine, perhaps their imagi¬
nations were less susceptible to feelings of this kind than
those of persons who spend their lives in more sunny occu¬
pations. The place of recreation for the living was only a
degree less depressing than the place of rest for the dead
which it adjoined. It may be that the fact that some of
the dreariest hours of my life have been the "play-hours "
passed in that damp and weed-grown area, ironically called
the parsonage garden, has added a sombre shade to the
picture of it left on my mind's eye; but in itself, and without
SLAGBY.
any colouring from associations, it was surely a sadder spot
than any garden to be found off the shores of the Dead Sea.
It happened that Mr. Lee had been at college with the
rector of Brahminster, and in the extremity of his destitution,
when nearly starving, bethought himself of applying to his
old fellow-student for help. What the success of his appli¬
cation might have been under other circumstances we need
not inquire. Suffice it to say, that in the existing juncture
it met with such a generous response as Lee's wildest hopes
had not looked for. He had expected at the most a loan
of five pounds, and he got a'provision for life, which, to a
man who for years had been accustomed to regard a dish
of tripe as a rare feast, was munificent.
During the brief period in which Mr. Lee lived in the
world of respectability he had married, and his wife must
have been a very different being from himself; but the poor
lady never emerged from the deep waters which overwhelmed
them so soon after their marriage. When he reappeared
and took up his abode at Slagby Parsonage he was a
widower, with two children, whose widely separated ages
proved that they represented the principle of the survival
of the fittest from a much larger number. Their fitness for
survival, however, was by no means manifest in their appear¬
ance ; they both seemed fragile creatures. The elder—a
girl, when I first knew her, of sixteen—must have taken
after her mother, for she was extremely beautiful, with a
delicate, mild, spiritual beauty; and her disposition corre¬
sponded, being affectionate and winning in the extreme.
The younger, a boy of seven or eight, had in his features
much of his father's harsh and sinister expression, and in
his temper a morose sullenness which I have no doubt
needed only the change of position from that of the flogged
to that of the flogger to develop into his father's malignant
cruelty.
Ah ! those floggings were things to be remembered, and,
frequent as they were, they never staled; to-morrow's was
as fresh, vigorous, and thrilling as yesterday's. Mr. Lee's
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favourite instrument of chastisement was the stout leathern
thong of the post-bag in which the Parsonage letters used
to be brought from Brahminster. And I really believe that
the bag itself, and the form of sending it in twice a week
on the shoulder of a crippled old miner, was kept up solely
with a view to providing a convenient scourge for me and
Bob Lee; for I don't believe the parson boasted a corre¬
spondent—not even a dun, as duns presuppose credit, and
I suspect his credit had disappeared long ago.
His daughter Mary's petticoats of course protected her,
at any rate after she had reached the age at which I knew
her, from this particular form of discipline. But for her he
had a more refined, but not less exquisite, mode of torture.
I have read somewhere of a barbarous practice in vogue
amongst a class of hunters, who are in the habit of stalking
their game behind oxen, trained to be guided by a string
tied to the tip of the horn ; and in order to make the nerves
at the base of the beast's horns sufficiently sensitive to feel
and obey the jerks of the cord, the horns themselves are be¬
laboured with a stick for hours and days, until the forehead
becomes so tender as to shrink from the slightest touch.
Lee had, I am sure, treated his daughter's mind in much
the same way. It was one naturally susceptible to religious
impressions ; and he had so belaboured it, so to speak, from
the moment of its earliest development, with the harshest
doctrines of the gloomiest school of religious fanaticism, that
he was now able at will, by a few words, to cause her intense
mental anguish, and to check the slightest tendency to stray
from the way he willed her to go, or indulge in any exuber¬
ance of youthful spirits. I remember well the quaint but
forcible terms in which I once heard the old crippled letter-
carrier aforementioned express the general opinion of the
village about the parson's treatment of his children. The
maid-of-all-work—a very ancient maid, but tender of heart
withal—made some pitying remark regarding their fragile
and delicate appearance, to which old Joe took exception.
" They mun be toof (tough) uns," he said, " body and
SLAGBY.
7
soul, or t' parson'd had t' one in t' churchyard and t' other
int' hell afore this."
Were poor Mary Lee to reappear before me in this my
critical and cynical old age, perhaps she might seem to me
nothing more than mortal; but she lives in my memory as
the fairest and loveliest thing my eyes ever looked upon, a
vision quite different in kind from the mere earthly beauties
which have since attracted their languid admiration. She
was, however, undoubtedly a very beautiful girl; but, as
might have been expected from the unjoyous surroundings
of her young life, of a pensive and somewhat melancholy cast
of beauty. Nevertheless, on occasions when she was inter¬
ested or excited, a charmingly sunny light would " dawn in
the dark of her hazel eyes," and seem to dance and shine
over her mobile features. And whatever want of habitual
sprightliness there was in her countenance was made up for
by a remarkable lightness and grace which characterised
every movement of her exquisitely modelled figure. To see
her tripping across a bleak moor, knee-deep in " ling," and
bending forward to breast the unbroken force of a wild
north-easter, showing no more sign of fatigue than a fairy
dancing round a greensward ring; or to catch sight of her
bounding down a rugged hillside, springing from one gray
crag to another with the light and sure step of a mountain
goat—was a thing to drive the most cynical to raptures and
the most active to envy. It was engaged in some such
exercise that I first set eyes upon her. And young and
unobservant as I was, I was quite startled, when she came
near, at the contrast between the light-hearted enjoyment of
life, the overflow of animal spirits which had seemed to in¬
spire every step with which the firmly-planted little feet had
spurned the ground, and that sad, dreaming face, with its
almost transparently fair complexion, relieved by tints as
delicate as those in the veins of a blush-rose leaf.
The feelings with which Mary L?e regarded her father
soon became as great a matter of wonder to me as this
strange contradiction in her bodily characteristics. It is
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quite impossible that she can have loved him. None but a
wife could have loved such a man. But the tenderness and
watchful assiduity with which §he performed her filial cares
must have been inspired by a warmer feeling than a mere
sense of duty. They were, in fact, I verily believe, inspired
by love, though not by love of him. She sought a vent for
the passionate affection and regret which, as I learnt when
I came to know her well, from a hundred little circumstances,
she felt for her dead mother, in lavishing.on the harsh and
unlovely object, to whom that mother had been blindly
devoted, all those cares which she was no longer there
to bestow.
If ever a girl dwelt among untrodden ways since Words¬
worth's " violet by the mossy stone," it was Mary. Yet
even she was not quite " a maid whom there were none to
praise." Even the damp cheerlessness of the barely-fur¬
nished parlour at Slagby Parsonage was sometimes lighted
up—like a marsh by a will-o'-the-wisp—with a little flickering
flirtation. And there were some sequestered delis amongst
the " dreary, dreary moorlands" around, through which
Mary was not unfrequently in the habit of returning from
her visits to the scattered cottages of her father's parish,
which afforded a scene and an atmosphere where the spark
could burn more freely and brightly than within the mildewed
walls of the Parsonage.
Goldmore Hall, the spacious mansion built by the nabob,
which was about six miles distant from Slagby, used always
to be well filled, large as it was, by a numerous swarm of
its founder's progeny. The Crovesworths were a prolific
race; and the males had a habit of marrying two or three
wives—not all at once, but in succession—a practice which
did not tend to keep down the population of the Hall. At
the time when Mr. Lee set up his staff at Slagby there was
a certain young inmate domesticated at the Hall of whom
I shall have much to say in the course of this story. He
belonged to the Crovesworth family by descent, and was
by temper, character, and personal appearance, the very
SLA GB K
9
exemplar and quintessence of the Crovesworths. But he
did not bear their name. He was the son of the present
squire's eldest daughter, and his name was George Steel.
His father was dead; and his mother, on being left a widow,
had returned to live in her father's house.
George Steel—or Mr. George, the name he was so
exclusively known by amongst the neighbours and depend¬
ents of the family that many of them were probably actually
ignorant of his surname—was a boy in the fifth form at Eton
when Mary Lee came to Slagby. He had shown a brilliant
promise of scholarship, and it was his taste in this direction
which had first led him to the sequestered and uninviting
Parsonage, which probably nine-tenths of the residents at
Goldmore Hall had never so much as seen, even if they
knew of its existence. He had found a difficulty in some
classic writer whom he had taken up to amuse himself with
during the holidays, and with an impatience and eagerness
which were characteristic in him, he inquired right and left
for some one in the neighbourhood able to help him. But
classical erudition did not blossom very luxuriantly either
amongst the county rectors of shire, or the solicitors
and doctors of Puddleborough, the neighbouring market-
town. The former were wont to spend most of their learned
leisure in the science of ornithology, being especially diligent
in the collection of specimens of partridges and pheasants.
The latter were more prone to mathematical studies, and
were never tired of making calculations for themselves, and
setting problems for each other, in "the odds." So young
Steel at first found very little help amongst the members of
the three learned professions who were within his reach.
But while he was lamenting the scholastic darkness in which
his lines had fallen, his uncle, the rector, remembered Lee's
old classical repute, and suggested to George that if he
were not afraid to risk a rude rebuff from the curate, who
was as truculent in his behaviour towards his superiors as
he was cruel towards those whom Fate had placed in his
power, he would find Mr. Lee able enough to assist him in
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his difficulty. The young student was too eager to be
deterred by the risk of a harsh reception, and set off that
very afternoon to Slagby.
As George Steel descended the precipitous path leading
down a deep ravine that separated the wide upland over
which he had ridden from the lower plateau on which the
village stood, and looked upon that dreary landscape, and
when he rode through the broken gateway, which there was
no occasion to close for the purpose of keeping man or beast
out of the uninviting wilderness of weeds to which it gave
access, and when he caught sight of one little spot (just
before Mary's bedroom window), where with pitiably small
means an effort had been made to impart a touch of taste
and care in the midst of the surrounding ugliness and
neglect, it is not probable that his thoughts took a very'far
flight beyond the present and material inconveniences aris¬
ing from the roughness of the road, the cutting chilliness of
the wind, and the pungent odours of rotting vegetables
heaped up by the side of the garden-path. But could he
have looked into the future, that dreary scene, with its
environment of bleak and barren hills, and its centre a
garden of rank weeds, hard by the gloomy graveyard, flie
desolation of the spot rather made more dismal than bright¬
ened by the only little struggling sign of grace and order,
might have seemed no unfit symbol of the lifelong results
destined to follow for him from this casual visit.
By one of those unaccountable caprices, in which even
the most consistently disagreeable persons sometimes prove
that they are not wholly superior to the weakness of human
nature, Mr. Lee, who never met his patron, the rector, with¬
out sending that rotund and rubicund ecclesiastic to the
verge of apoplexy by some sarcastically insulting remark,
received the nephew's uninvited visit quite blandly. The
fact is, that if in the man's savage nature there was one taste
which did not derive its allurement from the suffering of
other people, it was the pleasure he took in the exercise of
his extraordinary skill and erudition in the ancient classic
SLAGBY.
ti
languages. And he gladly hailed the opportunity of gratify¬
ing it by discussion with a kindred spirit, which his present
place and mode of life but seldom afforded him. So he
contented himself at the beginning of his interview with
George Steel by a few bitter and somewhat coarse expletives
regarding the hypocrisy and meanness of his young visitor's
uncle, and a grating laugh or two at certain ridiculous
displays of the reverend gentleman's ignorance in the pulpit
and elsewhere, which he narrated as an appropriate topic
whereby to enliven the conversation. After that he became
most complacent in his willingness to expound the crabbed
Greek text. And George Steel, being much more concerned
about the curate's opinion regarding the writings and paean-
ing of the defunct Aristophanes- than respecting the sayings
and doings of the living rector of Brahminster, thought it
unnecessary to take any notice of the prefatory ebullitions
of spleen.
So the two took to each other surprisingly, and spent
a good couple of hours in learned discourse, during which
Master Bob Lee, in the schoolroom below (for I had not
then come under the discipline with which I was afterwards
to be so familiar), enjoyed a most unusual respite from the
strap of the post-bag.
Whether the pleasure of discussing Greek particles and
criticising the style of Cicero might have induced young
Steel to repeat his visit to the dingy Parsonage at the cost
of a winter ride across the moors, under other circumstances,
I cannot say. But'it so chanced that as he left the house
and mounted his nag, he caught sight of Mary Lee busy
fastening up the tendril of a creeper over a little rustic arch
which she had made in her own special corner of the garden.
Now Steel, though delighting in more serious studies, was
nevertheless by no means averse to the cultivation of those
lighter arts, which are to be acquired by the perusal of
"woman's looks." He therefore no sooner saw Mary than
he walked without hesitation towards the trellis porch. She
had just returned from a ramble in search of primroses, or
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CURRENT REPENTANCE.
from some errand in the village, and had a little basket on one
arm. The huge brim of her straw hat, and the coarse stuff
of her faded frock, could not obscure the delicate beauty of the
girl's face, the rich profusion of her soft and waving hair, and
the remarkable grace of a figure which, even at that usually
most awkward and ungainly epoch of the growth of the female
human animal—from fourteen to fifteen—was almost
perfect. The young man's attention was naturally arrested.
He made some complimentary remark with reference to the
employment she was engaged in, and the slight blush which
the unexpectedness of his appearance called up, and the
sudden brightening of her countenance produced by a
promise, with which he followed up his first address, to send
her some flowers and cuttings from the Hall, made the child
look lovelier than ever. As George Steel rode home, it is
a remarkable circumstance that, although his thoughts did
not once recur the whole way to the subject of his two hours'
classical discussion with the curate, he became so impatie.nt
to renew it that he finally resolved to call again at the
Parsonage the next day.
Before he returned to Eton, his visits to Dredgingham
had become a regular routine. He went there at least
twice a week; and poor Mary, to whom his five or ten
minutes' talk with her in the garden as he left became the
one pleasurable excitement in her dull days, was never out
of the way. These five or ten minutes began, as the latter
days of the holidays drew to a close, to expand till they
passed first one hour, and then two. The classical discus¬
sions at the same time languished and contracted pari passu.
Mr. Lee, however, did not take much notice either of the
expansion in the one case or the abridgment in the other.
The truth was, that Steel's intercourse with the Parsonage
had at an early stage begun to be attended with another
sort of gratification directly affecting the master of the house
in a manner more material than the feasts of classic lore
which had been its first chief concomitant. This assumed
the shape of frequent baskets of fruit and vegetables, and
SLAG BY.
I3
occasional supplies of game. And so long as these continued,
Mr. Lee was the less solicitous both as regards the curtail¬
ment of his own pleasure in the conversation of the young
scholar and the prolongation of his daughter's.
During each succeeding vacation that George Steel spent
at Goldmore Hall, his. visits to Slagby were renewed and
continued. And as he passed from a boy at Eton to a
young man at Haileybury, and she from a child into bud¬
ding* womanhood, a corresponding change naturally took,
place in the motives and feelings which inspired their
interviews. When I first came under the governance of
Mr. Lee's ferule, or rather thong, Mary was sixteen, and
would blush like a peony, and fly into the " rage of the
turtle," and finally often burst out crying under the perpetual
showers of not very delicately-veiled innuendoes, from her
brother Bob and myself, concerning her " sweetheart," Mr.
George.
What was the exact character of young Steel's feelings
and views towards her at that time was a problem with which
my youthful mind was not much exercised then, but which
I have often thought over since. There was certainly on
his part something much more serious than a mere flirtation.
In the first place, he was much too thoughtful and good-
natured to have trifled for mere amusement with the
affections of a girl so peculiarly entitled by her solitary
situation, without any one to advise or shield her, to the
utmost consideration. And secondly, I can still recall little
actions and overheard snatches of conversation, which, looked
at in the light of matured experience, convince me that
Steel's affections were really and deeply touched. But on
the other hand, his ruling passion from his earliest youth
was ambition ; and he was—by nature and early discipline
—cool, cautious, strong-willed, and self-denying. He must
have told himself, if ever the thought of asking Mary Lee
to be his wife arose in his mind, that such a marriage would
be sheer ruin to all the dearest hopes of his life. Even if it
were too late for his grandfather, the head of the powerful
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CURRENT REPENTANCE.
house of Crovesworth, to mark his displeasure by cancelling
his appointment to the Bengal Civil Service, still, hampered
with a beautiful but low-born wife, he would be received by
the numerous band of high official kith, kin, and allies of his
family in Calcutta very differently from what would be his
welcome if he came unencumbered. And his career, chilled
by the frost of official disapproval, might be expected to end
in the seclusion of his shame in the swamps of Boggley-
walla.
What, then, were his intentions towards this friendless
and simple child I have never been, able to decide to my
own satisfaction. He had a high sense of honour, a kind
and generous heart, and a firm will. But strong natures
may be subject to still stronger passions, and I do not know
how far the conflict and tumult of the rival passions of love
and ambition in George Steel's breast may in those days of
his hot youth have warped his disposition.
CHAPTER II.
mary lee makes a new acquaintance, and her father
breaks off with an old one.
One day in the spring, while George Steel was away at
Haileybury, Mary and I had a little adventure while we
were out on a ramble. In the direction of the market-town,
Puddleborough, the dreary character of the scenery about
Slagby gradually assumed more varied and bolder features.
The comparatively unbroken surface of the barren uplands
gave way to deep valleys rich with cultivation, rolling hills
clad with verdant meadow, and streams whose high banks
were shaded by forests of foliage. We were passing along
a footpath which skirted the edge of such a river-bank,
where it was more than usually precipitous, and Mary's eye
was caught by some wild-flowers a little way down. She
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
uttered an exclamation of admiration, and of regret that they
were- out of reach. My boyish chivalry was aroused ; and
having in those happy days the activity of a monkey, and
very little regard for the integrity of bones, which in fact
were little more than gristle, I incontinently began to scramble
down towards the coveted blossoms. In my efforts to reach
them, however, my foot slipped, and down I went, sliding
some thirty feet,—my vainly-clutching hands lacerated by
brambles, one trouser-leg ripped up from ankle to waistband,
and my straw hat left hanging on the branch of an ash-tree
just midway in my rapid descent.
When my heels came down with a most tremendous jar,
which nearly smashed all my teeth, and ought to have
fractured the base of my skull, on the rocky ledge or narrow
footpath which intervened between the bank and the stream
I suppose I must have been stunned for a moment or two.
I have a hazy idea of hearing Mary Lee's screams, which
seemed to sound far away, some miles beyond Slagby ; and
in the wonderful whirligig of rivers, trees, rocks, and fields
which valsed before my swimming eyes, there seemed to be
one figure rather less rotatory than the rest—that of a man
wading middle-deep in the water. As I came a little to
myself, I saw this figure close beside me. But notwith¬
standing my accident, he appeared to be paying very little
attention to me. He was looking straight up towards the top
of the bank, gesticulating violently, and shouting,
"For Heaven's sake, stop; go back! He's all right—
he's all right, I tell you ; no harm done that the tailor can't
cure. Go along to your right; there's a path a hundred
yards along that will bring you down safe; you'll break your
neck if you try to get down here—though, d it ! I never
saw such a sure foot, nor such a pretty pair of ankles either,
for that matter—that's right; and I'll pick up the pieces of
young jackanapes here meantime, and get them together for
you by the time you come round. So, youngster! you've
fallen on your feet like a cat. Lucky for you that small
boys' brains don't weigh much, isn't it ? or the thickness of
i6
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
your skull might have been tested by something harder
than the ruler which, I suppose, is what it is most used to
contact with."
From this address I gathered that Mary's first impulse
had been to follow me down, and I felt grateful to the
stranger for deterring her from the perilous attempt, though
I was inclined to resent the flippancy with which he treated
my catastrophe. With these conflicting predispositions
towards him, I began more closely to examine his appear¬
ance while waiting for my companion's arrival. He
certainly was not a gentleman, I thought, for his clothes
were patched, and he wore a most disreputable old wide¬
awake hat. But yet there was an easy air of superiority in
his bearing and manner which did not fit in with my notions of
a "cad "—a term which, in my vocabulary of those days,
comprised the whole world beyond the pale of gentility. He
was a young man of not more than two or three and twenty
—a tall, burly fellow, with a frank and pleasant but not
handsome face. Whether it was that my faculties were
muddled by my fall or not, I don't know, but certainly the
man's appearance puzzled me. His face had an expression
of gcr_; good-humour, but crossed by a vein of contemp¬
tuous haut„ui. His clear gray eye and healthy complexion
seemed to argue a vigorous outdoor habit of life, and yet
there was an.indefinable air of dissoluteness about him. And
though his words were jocular and his voice cheery, there
was wi.\. \ a decisiveness of utterance, a kind of harshness
in its ton wh'ch made one feel that it would be a very un¬
comfortable necessity to have to disobey any of its behests,
or to do or say anything calcu- Qd to cause.it to be raised
in anger.
Mary's light step brought her down the path which the
stranger had indicated in a very few minutes, and she stood
beside us, panting and flushed with the speed at which she
had run—her broad-leafed hat fallen back on her shoulders,
and her hair disarranged, sweeping in a rippling cataract over
it. I never saw her look more lovely. I watched her
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
17
curiously, to catch some indication of what she thought of
the stranger. The heightened colour—heightened above
even the flush of active exertion—with which she dropped
her eyelids before his glance .of unconcealed surprise and
admiration, convinced me in a moment that he had not been
set down in her category of " cad." But her embarrassment
did not overcome her eager anxiety for me. She stooped
over me, and began at once tenderly to faipe the dust and
blood from my scratched hands, and to adjust as much as
was possible my still more cruelly lacerated garments, with
no more thought of the ludicrous side of her labour than
if we had been quite alone. And while so engaged she
continued to soothe my shaken nerves with soft murmurs
of pity and gentle reproach.
" O Frank ! how can you be so rash and daring? My
poor child—O, how dreadfully this poor little hand is torn!
How I. wish I had never seen those horrid flowers ! I am
always so thoughtless, so selfish ; and, O, dear ! your trou—
we must try and get in without papa seeing us, and go
straight up to my room; I shall be able to mend them so
that it will never be seen."
I shook my head incredulously and disconsolately,
"Sha'n't I just catch the strap !"
Poor Mary shuddered at the grim suggestion, and her
eyes filled with tears. This was too much for the stranger's
feelings.
" What! Do you mean to say his father will thrash him
when he sees the state he's in?" he exclaimed. "Surely
the sight of the torn hands may be trusted to assuage
the righteous anger engendered by the sight of the torn
bags."
" Hands is nothing," answered I, with mysterious signifi¬
cation and a slight soupfon of contempt. " Mr. Lee thinks
nothing of hands when it comes to whacking. And besides,
he isn't my father."
"Well, whoever he is, if he whacks you to-day, just
tell him with mv comnliments he ought to be whacked him-
- c
CURRENT REPENTANCEt
self; and if he'll just look in at my place, I shall be happy
to do it for him."
Mary's eye flashed angrily at this ; and she replied, speak¬
ing to me, but pointedly at the irreverent utterer of the
insulting invitation.
" What has happened has been very wrong, and quite
deserves punishment. But it is my fault, and therefore,
Frank, you need not fear that papa will punish you ; or," she
added falteringly, for her conscience could not put up with
such a lie as she knew this assurance of hers to be—" or if
he does, I am sure it will be because he thinks it for your
good ; and I—I shall suffer far more than you, Frank."
" O, if the gentleman in question be your father," said
the stranger gallantly, "I feel no anxiety about young
scapegrace here."
" Come, Frank," said Mary, taking my hand. " Let us
hurry home, and I will try and set your clothes right; I have
no doubt I shall be able to."
"Yes, perhaps," said I. "But how about my hat?
There's no hope of getting it from where it has stuck up
there."
This quite nonplussed Mary. She might stitch up my
rent pantaloons, but could not make me a new hat. We
looked at each other in blank despair.
" O, well, I can help you here," said the stranger. And
without more ado, he climbed the nearly perpendicular
bank with the greatest apparent ease, and chucked the hat
down to me.
" Are those the flowers you wanted ?" he then called
out, pointing to those the desire to procure which for Mary
had tempted me to destruction.
"Yes," she answered. "But O, don't attempt to get
them. I don't want them a bit; I really don't. It was so
silly of me to say a.word about them. O, please don't go
any higher. After one such merciful escape from death, it
is wrong to tempt Providence."
But the stranger was deaf to the voice of the charmer,
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 19
though she unquestionably charmed wisely; for the climb
to the jutting point where the flowers grew was really a
difficult and dangerous one—much more so, owing to the
looseness of the earth, for the heavy man who was now
attempting it than for my light frame. But he only
laughed, and swinging himself from branch to rock, and
scrambling through brushwood with a cat-like activity not
to have been looked for in so burly a figure, he soon reached
and plucked the flowers.
When he presented the prize to Mary with some pretty
speech which I cannot remember, she repaid his exertions
with a blush and a smile much more gracious than her
previous demeanour. And encouraged, I suppose, by this,
he suddenly expressed for the first time much solicitude for
my condition, said I had had a terrible shaking, and might
very likely faint on the way, and finally insisted on accom¬
panying us homewards. Mary protested, and was, I think,
really alarmed at the proposal. Indeed, had tier father met
her walking with a strange young man, I can imagine that
his wrath would have been like a devouring flame of fire.
But this young fellow, who was evidently not largely gifted
with the grace of amenableness, would hear of no objection.
In a jiffy he was up to his knees again in the stream, which
he had crossed to come to my assistance, caught up the
fishing-rod and creel, which I now for the first time per¬
ceived he had left on the farther bank, and overtook us
before we had proceeded a hundred yards.
What the nature of the conversation was in the course
of our three or four miles' walk to the top of the hill above
Slagby, where he left us and turned back, I do not remem¬
ber. My thoughts, in fact, were much absorbed in devising
all sorts of utterly mendacious and extravagantly improbable
stories to account for my tattered condition, in the forlorn
hope of throwing dust into the glassy eyes of Mr. Lee, and
baulking him and the post-bag strap of their destined prey.
All I remember is that the dialogue was chiefly, almost
wholly, sustained by the stranger; that much of it was
20
current repentance.
spoken in such a low tone that I could have only caught a
word here and there, even had I tried to listen ; and that
Mary's meagre contributions to it consisted of little beyond
monosyllables and blushes, with now and then a little timid
smile.
Amongst the numerous successful lies, and still more
numerous thrashings, which crowd this period of my life,
memory does not serve me well enough to enable me to
state whether the lie shielded or the thrashing befell me on
this particular occasion. Anyhow, after a couple of days at
the outside, my thoughts never recurred again to our little
adventure by the river—not till long afterwards at least.
Indeed, if a hundred small occurrences had not hustled this
one out of my mind, one happened only a few weeks later
of such a startling character that it cleaned the tables pf
Bob's memory and mine, as with one broad sweep of a wet
sponge, and in a moment
" Wiped away all trivial, fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there."
About half a mile above the scene of my roll down the
bank, the road to the town crossed the river by a stone
bridge, by which in the old coaching days a main line of
road had passed «northwards, skirting the edge of our moor¬
land tract. At a short distance, perhaps two or three fur¬
longs, along this now little-frequented road stood a solitary
house. It must originally have been one of those combined
farm and public houses which one often finds by the side
of a turnpike-road. But agriculture had vanished from the
scene along with the mail-coaches, and now it had sunk into
a beer-shop pure and simple—or rather simple only, for an
odoriferous dust-heap, which flanked the front door-step on
one side and was balanced by a cesspool on the other,
interfered sadly with its claim to the qualification of purity.
The farm-buildings and enclosure had long fallen into a
mass of unsightly ruins; and broken windows and slateless
roofs showed that the greater part of the house itself also
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
21
was abandoned to the winds and rats. One room on the
ground floor, however, still offered a not particularly luxuri¬
ous and cheerful shelter to the weary traveller (usually of
the tramp species) who might happen to require it, and
served to make good the equivocal promise set forth on the
battered signboard over the door, which bore the quaint
title of The Good Intent.
This pot-house depended for a very meagre and precari¬
ous support, I imagine, on the custom of the miners, who
would emerge thus far from their dens among the hills in
the direction of the civilised world to boose away their
wages on Saturday nights. On other days of the week a
completer solitude than The Good Intent and its precincts
it would have been difficult to find outside Selkirk's island.
And it was this quality chiefly which led to my becoming
familiar with the place. In a word, Bob Lee and I used to
go> there on half-holiday afternoons to taste the clandestine
joys of smoking "screws" of exceedingly coarse tobacco,
and swilling three-halfpenny " gills " of sweet muddy beer.
The old hag, who was proprietress and sole inhabitant of
this" house of entertainment, had always been wont to receive
us with a grim sort of affability, and had more than once
been so considerate as to give us a hint when, on rare occa¬
sions, our visits to her house had happened to be made at
inauspicious times, when there chanced to be some one in
the sanded parlour who might have carried the news thereof
to Mr. Lee.
Much to my surprise, therefore, one afternoon, when
Bob and I, clay pipes in mouth, approached her door in
the trustful anticipation of enjoying our ease at our inn,
Mrs. Potts met us on the step with the aspect of a virago.
" Git 'long, you nasty, dirty beasts—makin' chimblies
o' your filthy little mouths !' was her elegant address of
welcome. " You shall not come with your stinking pipes
into my house. I'm just goin' to Slagby this very day,
and see if I don't tell t' parson of your coming here and
wanting me to give you beer, you drunken little varmints !
22
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
I'll warrant he'll give you what'll turn your stomachs at the
very name of beer for the next year to come. There ! git
along home with you, or I'll be there before you !"
We recoiled in confusion from this unexpected assault,
wondering greatly that the treachery of woman could attain
to such depths of baseness. We hastily plunged our still
lighted pipes into our trousers-pockets, and hurried precipi¬
tately down the road. But the spirits of boys, if not very
steadfast, are elastic; and ere we had gone many yards, we
had so far recovered from our perturbation as to take note
of a fine setter which lay basking in the sun a short way
from the house. Assuredly Mrs. Potts had never owned
such a dog, and was not by any means likely to have lately
purchased it, or received it as a present. She certainly
might have stolen it, could there have been any conceivable
means by which its acquisition could have profited her.
But as the fancy of the neighbouring miners, who were the
only persons to whom she could have hoped to dispose of
it, lay exclusively in the direction of bull-terriers, this sup¬
position was also quite out of the question. No; the dog's
presence outside The Good Intent forced Bob and me to
the irresistible inference that there must be some very
unwonted guest inside. Curiosity mastered fear. And no
sooner did we satisfy ourselves that Mrs. Potts had retired
from her place of observation on the doorstep, than we pro¬
ceeded to execute a flank movement, and, reapproaching
the house under cover of the ruined farm-buildings, began
cautiously to reconnoitre the premises. But Mrs. Potts
was more vigilant than we counted on, and presently sally¬
ing out from the back-door, armed with a broomstick,
finally put us to rout. As we retired, and, when once quite
safe beyond the radius of the broomstick, paused and
avenged ourselves with a few Parthian arrows selected with
care from our youthful vocabularies of what my Indian
friends would call " gali," she repeated more emphatically
and vindictively than before her threat of at once going off
to betray us to the parson. But we laughed at this, astutely
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
2 3
calculating that our coppers were too valuable in her eyes
to allow her to take a course which must necessarily cut her
off from the receipt of them for ever thereafter. In short,
we trusted, as older and wiser persons might have done, to
avarice to check the impulses of rage. But the result
proved the danger of reckoning without our hostess of The
Good Intent.
Baulked in our original plan for the enjoyment of our
half-holiday, we had nothing left to do but to enjoy the less
exciting pleasure of a ramble over a country where there
were no turnips to steal and eat raw, no farmhouses with
hens to stone, scarcely any cottages where we could call for
a drink of water, and, while the good woman went to fetch
it, chuck a pill-box full of gunpowder into the kitchen fire
and bolt—in a word, through a country singularly devoid of
objects of interest.
The course of our desultory wanderings led us home¬
wards by a way that we had very rarely, if ever, gone before.
As we entered an especially sequestered and sheltered little
glen, and were just congratulating ourselves on the unex¬
pected discovery, in convenient proximity to the Parsonage,
of a spot which seemed formed by kindly Nature as a retreat
for boys to smoke in, play with gunpowder, and enjoy un¬
disturbed other suchlike surreptitious delights, we suddenly
caught sight of the fluttering of a white petticoat.
" By gum !" exclaimed one.
" Crikey !" ejaculated the other. And both set off at
full speed in chase of the vision as it vanished round the
shoulder of the hill. As we, too, rounded the corner, we
distinctly saw a figure—not in a petticoat—spring over a
clump of brushwood which skirted the path, and disappear
down the hillside. The next moment we overtook Mary
Lee, looking very flushed and flurried.
" Aha ! we have caught you this time !" said I.
" O yes, Miss Prim !" chimed in Bob. " She's always
preaching at me for smoking and telling lies to the gover¬
nor ; and she goes out with a basket of medicine for a sick
24
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
old woman, and meets her sweetheart by the way. Won't
I just tell dad ! and see if he ever lets Mr. George into
the house again ! Didn't you see his arm round her waist,
Frank ?"
" O yes, and you know we heard a kiss —■ an awful
smack !"
And so we continued our pleasant banter, finding immense
fun in poor Mary's too evident distress. Having exhausted
our wit, we ran on homewards and left her to follow, with
the comfortable assurance that we should have told the
whole story to her father by the time she arrived. Standing
in the front doorway, on our arrival at the Parsonage, we
saw, somewhat to our surprise, Mr. George himself, looking
very glum.
" Where is your sister, Bob?" he inquired. " She never
used to go out at this time. What has happened now, that
I scarcely ever find her at home ? Where does she go ?"
" O, I like that!" we both replied derisively.
" What do you mean?"
" O, don't think we didn't see you; you weren't quite
sharp enough for us."
" We'd been watching them the last half-hour, hadn't
we, Bob?"
"Yes, I should think we had; and wasn't it fun?
weren't they cuddling up close to each other, just ?"
At this, Mr. George made a sudden dash and caught one
of us by the scruff of the neck; and presently a good shak¬
ing elicited a more truthful and connected account of what
we actually had witnessed. Mr. George looked as black as
thunder, and walking inside, sat down moodily in the par¬
lour, probably to await Mary's return.
We were just beginning to question each other in whis¬
pers as to what all this might mean, when our thoughts were
violently wrenched in quite another direction. The bell of
Mr. Lee's study was rung, the one servant of the establish¬
ment entered it, and presently reemerged, called out to Bob
that he was wanted by his " Pa," and then led the way
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
towards the kitchen, followed by—O, how my heart seemed
to sink like a lump of lead into the very nethermost regions
of my body at the sight!—by Mrs. Potts !
It turned out that that treacherous person had been as
good as her word on this occasion, or rather half as good.
For while telling Mr. Lee of Bob's smoking and going to
her house for beer, she had omitted to mention the fact of
my having accompanied him. The fact probably was that
Bob had a much richer vocabulary of abusive epithets than
I could command, and this had probably caused her vin¬
dictive wrath to be concentrated against him.
My playfellow had not been many minutes in the study,
ere the shrill vocal music of the parson's reprobatory elo¬
quence began to receive an instrumental accompaniment.
Whack, whack ! sounded the strap of the post-bag; and I—
painfully ignorant as yet of Mrs. Potts' unlooked-for reticence
—felt my shoulders tingle with anticipatory sympathy at
each reverberation. Then followed a silence of perhaps ten
minutes, only broken now and then by the faint sound of
a smothered sob. I well knew the meaning of this, for it
was one of the parson's usual tender mercies to commute a
portion of every sentence of corporal punishment for a
penal task, to be learnt and said on the spot. As he always
selected some utterly impracticable irregular Greek verb, or
hopeless bit of cramped construing, the substituted task,
undertaken with nerves quivering from the strap, eyes
blinded with tears, and mind agitated by terror, was of course
never learnt in the few minutes he allowed for it; and so in
the end he got an excuse not only for finishing the original
flogging, but for adding another as a punishment for obdu¬
rate impenitence. My only surprise on the present occasion
was, that I had not been called in to receive my first instal¬
ment of the strap while Bob was engaged in his imposition,
so that the spectacle of my execution might further distract
his attention.
In due time the shrill harsh voice of reproach was again
uplifted, arid I knew that Bob was attempting to say the
26
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
lesson, and blundering hopelessly in the second line; then
came another briefer pause; that, too, was terribly signifi¬
cant to me, and will be presently understood by the reader.
Then whack came the strap again ; but there was a distinct
difference in its music this time, and the first note was
followed by yells of agony and terror.
Just then Mr. George came out from the parlour and
passed me with great strides towards the study, looking
blacker than ever. He flung open the door and entered.
I followed him, curiosity overcoming fear. The picture
which met our sight is as clear to my mind's eye now, after
the lapse of some thirty years, as if I had seen it yesterday.
In the further corner of the squalidly-furnished room,
beneath a festoon of mildewed green and white wall-paper
which the damp had detached from the wall, and which
hung above his head like a canopy, standing on a rickety
chair—a feat requiring some address to avoid slipping down
through the hiatus which now occupied three-quarters of the
area of what had once been the rush-bottomed seat—was
Bob Lee. His jacket lay on the table, having been removed
for the purposes of the first instalment of his flogging. But
the second edition had called for more elaborate prepara¬
tions ; and another portion of his habiliments—that portion
which is commonly regarded as most especially propria quce
maribus—was fallen from its high estate, and hung grovelling
in ignoble folds around his ankles.
Opposite to him, with his back towards the door, so
that we only got a quarter-view of his face, stood the boy's
father. Mr. Lee was a tall, raw-boned man. The general
effect of his countenance—a most repellent and disagreeable
effect—I can recall to myself vividly, but my memory does
not enable me to describe the features. The only detail
that I do remember is that the nose—a very red one, not
rosy with the genial glow of Bacchus, but raw-red, as if it
had been flayed—had a protuberance which I can liken to
nothing but a bony knuckle in the middle of its outline.
One of his great sinewy hands grasped the dread post-bag
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
strap, with the buckle end hanging down, and trembling as
if with the intensity of bloodthirsty impatience. The other,
with the forefinger outstretched, was employed to add em¬
phasis to the shrill tones of the denunciation by which Mr.
Lee, quite unnecessarily, and indeed futilely, endeavoured
to add terror to the pangs of Bob's physical sufferings. At
the moment of our entrance he seemed to be imparting an
artistic touch all his own to the bald statement of Mrs.
Potts' accusation—which I cannot suppose had gone beyond
a charge of drunkenness and the profligacy of tobacco-
smoking—by quite a Pauline picture of imputed enormities
which poor Bob had never heard of, nor could comprehend,
finished off by a few pleasant details of the consequences
thereof, which the child must look forward to in the spirit
at no distant date, when his debaucheries should have
hurried his prematurely exhausted body into an early grave.
"But hopeless though the task may be," concluded the
good parson, as Mr. George paused for a moment in amaze¬
ment at the odd sight so suddenly presented to him, " hope¬
less as it is, I will not shrink from it. While there is the
barest chance that, by the severest pain which I can inflict
on my son's worthless fleshy tabernacle, I can purchase the
immunity of his immortal soul from the slightest of the pangs
of eternal torment, verily I will not lay up for myself against
that day the bitter reproach that I spared for his crying."
And so saying, he raised the strap above his shoulder,
and took a stride forward. Bob set up a yell of despair.
But before the thong could descend upon the child's person,
Mr. George stepped between.
" I have no doubt," he said, " that you are the best
judge of the kind of discipline your own flesh and blood
requires, Mr. Lee, but let me tell you that you forget your¬
self when you indulge in these disgusting proceedings while
I happen to be in your house."
The old parson's eye flashed fire, and his nose grew
livid with rage. But he answered with a sneer which resem¬
bled a snarl;
28
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
" You are stepping a little beyond the privileges of your
family, young man. Nobody, of course, expects one of the
Crovesworth kin to pay for an accommodation which, by
any means, he can obtain gratuitously; and you would
indeed have been a degenerate scion of that estimable
house, and a most unworthy nephew of your revered uncle,
my generous patron, if you had failed to take advantage of
my presence here to obtain instructiortTin the classical lan¬
guages without payment. But not even your uncle has ever
ventured—"
"You insolent vagabond!" interrupted young Steel,
whose habitually equable temper had evidently been un-
wontedly ruffled that day, send in your bill and it shall be
paid. I promise you shall never see me under this roof
again. My too condescending kindness, I find, has not
been appreciated by this family. But while I am here, I
will not be insulted by an exhibition of brutality. So lay
down that strap."
As Mr. Lee did not obey this last somewhat peremptory
command, with the promptitude which his young visitor
apparently thought proper on the occasion, the-latter
stretched forth his hand as if to assist in carrying out his own
behest. But the old savage's blood was up, and ere Steel's
fingers could touch the strap, it was raised with the rapidity
of lightning, and the next moment, before the other, sur¬
prised at the utterly unexpected suddenness of the action,
could make a motion to defend himself, it fell with a re¬
sounding smack, not upon Bob's shrinking person, but right
across the cheek? of George Steel.
The uproar whicjr ensued may be bettpr imagined than
described. Indeed, I was so startled and amazed by the
sight of a personal conflict between two individuals whom,
each according to his kind, I had been accustomed to re¬
gard with much awe, that I have a most confused idea of
what occurred. There was a struggle; and I remember
that when the battle was over, and I was able to contem¬
plate the scene with some composure, the study table was
TWO STRINGS TO HER BOW.
29
discovered in a sad condition, with a broken back. Mr.
Lee, though advanced in years, was still a powerful mus¬
cular man; and Mr. George, albeit wiry, athletic, and a
very neat hand with the glovesf wks small and slight of
build, and he must Jiave had pretty nearly as mudh as he
could manage-fd master his furious antagonist. had, I
think, "wrenched the strap away, and whether he had any
intention of avenging his own insult, along with many a
bitter wail that had gone up to the ceiling of that room from
my throat and Bob's, I don't know, when Mary Lee burst
into the room and flung herself between .them.
Her interposition necessarily put an end to the actual
breach of the peace. Mr. George could not well pommel
Mr. Lee over his daughter's■ shoulders; and the parson jvas
materially trammelled in his efforts to get at young Steel,
by having Mary clinging round his waist. But the war of
words uprose again on the lull of that of hands; and poor
Mary, far from mitigating, considerably aggravated this,
adding screams and prayers to the defiances and impreca¬
tions of the two men. At last the hubbub was brought to
an end by Steel striding out of the room, repulsing with
wiathful disdain a timid attempt which the poor girl made
to appease him. He roughly pushed away the little white
hhnd, which she tried to lay on his arm, with some not
complimentary remark about "fawning falsehood/' and so
took his leave of Slagby Parsonage, under the roof of which
so large a portion of his time had been passed, and his
fancy had doubtless .still oftener lingered, during the past
few ye^rs.
CHAPTER I if.
mar/v! has two strings to her bow, but they get
twisted.
Mr. George Steel's behaviour in this affair lowered
him very greatly in my estimation. The shaking and all
3o CURRENT REPENTANCE.
the hard words he had bestowed on the tyrant Lee of course
commanded my unqualified admiration, and I think that
filial feeling did not altogether suppress a sense of grateful
satisfaction with this part of his proceedings even in the
breast of Bob Lee. But his treatment of Mary aroused my
indignation. What right had he to call her false and behave
rudely to her, only because her father had annoyed him, and
that, too, just after we had caught him making love to her ?
So when Mary the same evening, after I had gone to
bed, came up to my room, and begged me to get up very
early next morning and take a message for her to Goldmore
Hall, I protested warmly.
" He is a nasty, ill-tempered sneak, Mary," I said, " and
I wouldn't have anything more to say to him. He doesn't
deserve it. You ought to have a better sweetheart than
him, Mary."
Mary blushed, and looked pained and troubled. But
she again earnestly pressed her request upon me.
"It is all nonsense about sweethearts, Frank. But
don't you know that if Mr. George's uncle hears of what has
happened to-day, he will turn papa away from here ? and—■
and"—she added, clasping her hands tightly together, as
her eyes filled with tears—" I know that if we had to return
to the terrible hard life we led before we came here, it would
kill papa; and O ! to see Bob, too, starving for want of
food ! In pity, Frank, if you love me, get Mr. George to
come to me."
" But where will you see him, if he comes ? He can't
come to the house now."
"No; say I will meet him somewhere, at whatever
hour he fixes. Let me see, where will be the best place ?"
" Why not the place where Bob and I saw him with
you yesterday, just before the row occurred?" I suggested.
" Nonsense, child ; you did not see him—at least, never
mind. No; that is too far off; papa might suspect. No;
say in the churchyard, if he can come after dusk."
I performed my errand, getting up noiselessly at four
TWO STRINGS TO HER BOW.
3?
o^clock in the morning for the purpose, as I had a twelve
miles' walk, As it was, I could not get back in time for
breakfast, and got a thrashing. But as it was incurred in
Mary's service, I did not mind that. I had some difficulty
in getting speech of Mr. George, and found him in what I
should have described in those days as a very grumpy
humour. In the end, he consented to keep the appointment
proposed by Mary ; but this was not until after he had
cross-questioned me over and over again as to whether any
of the young gentlemen in the neighbourhood had lately
taken to coming to Slagby, and also about Mary's habits of
late, and particularly her walks, her visits to the cottages at
a distance from the Parsonage, and so forth. He evidently
received my answers with great suspicion ; and especially
eyed me most distrustfully when I made some allusion to
his meeting with Mary in the dell, which Bob and I had
interrupted the previous day.
On my way homewards I puzzled my wits as to what all
this questioning might mean. And when I came to think
of it, I remembered, though I had not noticed it before,
that for a long time past Mary Lee had become very assi¬
duous in her visits of charity to certain outlying cottages, and
also that she used to select for these visits the morning
hours, when her father and we boys were always closely
engaged in our lessons. And this was quite contrary to her
former habits, as she had been used to spend that time in
her domestic duties indoors. It also dawned upon me now
as a remarkable circumstance, that during the present vaca¬
tion Mr. George had over and over again called at the Par¬
sonage and found Mary out, a coincidence which had some¬
how been of very rare occurrence during former periods of
his stay at Goldmore Hall.
The perspicacious reader, of course, anticipates the ex¬
planation of all this. But it was not until several weeks
later that my unsophisticated eyes were opened. Mean¬
while Mary had evidently been able to lull George Steel's
suspicions to rest; for I was now frequently employed to
32
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
convey messages and letters from one to the other, and they
had several secret meetings. Curiosity induced me to
attend at one of these, though, it may perhaps be needless
to remark, a natural feeling of delicacy prevented my
obtruding my presence very prominently on their notice.
In short, I hid behind a bush. And what I then saw and
heard assured me, as I now think the matter over, that
whatever want of depth of earnestness there may have been
in Mr. George's feelings towards Mary while the course of
his flirtation was unruffled by any obstacle, they had quite
changed their character under the combined influence of
jealousy and opposition. Every word, every tone, every
gesture of the passionate prayer which I heard him
breathe, showed that he was now swept away in a fierce
torrent of love, from the overwhelming waves of which he
was helpless to save her or himself, ambition, fortune, or
even honour. Mary listened with proper maidenly demure-
ness, gently rebuked his impetuous ardour, and reiterated
again and again the unpalatable recommendation to " pa¬
tience." But she certainly used no such decisive phrase
or manner in her reply as altogether to forbid hope. Yet
that night I lay awake and heard her sobbing in her room
next mine till long past midnight.
More than once after that I heard these sad vigils again ;
and indeed I think it likely that I might have heard them
every night had I been awake. In the daytime, too, Mary
seemed to have lost all the brightness which, as I have said,
was wont not unfrequently to irradiate the pensive expres¬
sion which her countenance always wore in repose—not
even a fitful ray of sunshine ever burst forth now. This
depression of spirits, whatever may have been its source, of
course, ere long, told upon her health,
" And chased the native beauty from her cheek,
And she did look as hollow as a ghost."
At last she fell seriously ill. Had George Steel been then at
Goldmore Hall, I think it probable that this illness might
TWO S.TRINGS TO HER BOW.
33
have brought his relations towards Mary herself and her
father to a decisive issue. In the frame of mind he was in
he would assuredly never have consented to be kept away
from his dgrling while her life was in danger, and the result
of an attempt on his part to see her must on her recovery
have been either her decisive rupture of all connection with
him, or her being cast off by her father, and flying to George's
arms as the only refuge open to her. But—happily or un¬
happily, who shall venture to say ?—George had by this time
returned to Haileybury. ,
I was rather surprised at the effect which Mary's illness
had on her father's conduct towards her. His grief and
anxiety during its crisis were unmistakably genuine, and
almost moved one to pity him ; and he watched over her
sick-bed with something which approached tenderness.
My grief, too, was acute and sincere, and many a bitter
tear I shed while her life was trembling in the balance.
But the grief of youth is seldom of a monopolising kind;
and mine, I must confess, did not prevent my taking
advantage of the confusion in the household, Mr. Lee's pre¬
occupation, and the consequent absence of risk of detection,
to seek a renewal of the delights, untasted since the fatal
day of Mr. George's last visit, of drinking muddy beer,
smoking rank tobacco, and spitting into a saucer filled with
sawdust, just like a grown-up miner. So I repaired once
more to The Good Intent.
At the same time that I reached the door a spring-cart
was driven up to it from the opposite direction. As soon as
it drew up, a tall man, who had been seated by the driver,
got down, preceded by a setter dog, which sprang from the
rug at his feet; the boy who had driven was proceeding to
get a portmanteau out from behind, when Mrs. Potts rushed
out from the door, and accosted the arrival in a manner
almost as little like the usual cordial welcome of a bland
hostess as had been her last greeting to Bob and me.
" What has brought you back here, Mr. Pearson ?" she
D
34
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
cried. '' Why couldna you stop cannily at home ? You're
a free and a punctual score settler, as I wish all was as
comes to The Good Intent; but poor lone widow as I am,
and hard as it is to earn the bite and sup to keep body and
soul together in this weary public-line, I wish I might never
see you nor the colour of your money again !"
The traveller answered in a low and " mumbled " voice,
probably in order that his words might not be overheard by
the driver of the vehicle behind him.
" It is useless talking, mother; I could not keep away.
Why did no answer come from her to m^ letter ? did you
deliver it?"
"And far better for ye both that there should be no
answers, nor letters neither," replied the landlady, evading
a direct reply to the final query. " Now be a good lad, put
your portmanty back in the trap, and trot your ways home
again. Let the poor lass be; no good can come to her
o'keeping company with you. And folks say she might
have one of the young Crovesworth lads—"
But here the traveller interrupted with a growled curse.
Anyhow," resumed Mrs. Potts tartly, apparently in¬
censed at his want of good manners, " you'll not see her
now, for I heard tell that she's bad of the fever, and is
just laid up in bed."
" 111! ill, is she ?" exclaimed the man, in agitation, " while
I, like a wretched fool, have been wasting time in—"
Here he caught sight of me standing at a little distance, and
at once springing towards me, said eagerly," Here, youngster,
tell me about Miss Lee ; is it true that she is ill ? what is
her illness? has she been— Is she in any danger?
D—n you, can't you speak !"
Even before he accosted me I had recognised the fisher¬
man who had come to my help when I fell over the bank.
But he was much changed. The careless, easy, supercilious
look and manner had quite disappeared; his brow was now
moody, troubled—darkened by the " winter of discontent."
I answered his questions, telling him that Mary Lee had
TWO STRINGS TO HER BOW.
been for some days most dangerously ill, but was now in a
fair way towards recovery. Our interview ended by his
going inside the house and writing a letter, which he charged
me to deliver with the utmost secrecy to her. And thus it
befell that I got myself into the interesting but equivocal
position of an emissary between a young lady and both her
rival lovers !
However hard your judgment on poor Mary's duplicity
may be, do not set her down as a mere coquette. I am
perfectly sure that she was not playing fast and loose with
either of the men from frivolity or wantonness, qualities
which were utterly foreign to her nature. But she had been
lured into a situation of terrible perplexity. What her
feelings at this particular juncture of her brief story may
have been towards each of the two—George Steel and the
so-called Pearson—I can only conjecture. She had been
really, though perhaps not very passionately, attached to
Steel, the dear and kind friend of her girlhood. But
" Even as one heat another heat expels,
Or as one nail by force drives out another,"
this first affection must have been temporarily swept away
by the violent love inspired in her romantic and inexperienced
breast by the man who had so accidentally crossed her path.
To this overmastering passion she had undoubtedly for a
time completely given herself up; and here was her fault.
That her love for Pearson afterwards flickered and grew
dim—perhaps went right out—almost as rapidly as it had
flared up, there is good reason to believe. And as it did so,
as disappointment and bitterness succeeded to wild hope
and fond trust, her wounded heart turned again with vain
regretfulness towards the slighted resting-place of its earlier
love. But what stage of this double progress and revulsion
of feeling had been reached at the time of her illness, and
of my second meeting with Pearson, I have no means of
knowing.
This is my own view, a merely conjectural one, as I have
36 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
stated. Another person, who long afterwards took the
deepest interest in her story, which* he learnt from me,
inclined to the conclusion that there was never anything
beyond the girlish partiality of a maiden fancy free towards
George Steel; that after the storm-wave of her real passion
for Pearson had passed over her, it would have been a sheer
impossibility for this partiality to be revivified, even into the
palest ghost of love, but that she simulated a continued
affection for Mr. George, as the only means of withholding
him from punishing the gross insult laid upon him by her
father, by effecting his ejection from the Slagby curacy,
which, as she herself had said to me, would have meant
starvation or the workhouse for them all.
Between these two theories the reader may make his
own choice when the whole of the little drama—now fast
approaching its denouement—of Mary Lee's life, her fancies,
her errors, her sufferings, and her sore perplexities, is before
him.
Mary's recovery from her illness was rapid, being much
helped by an act of kindness on the part of a good old lady
who lived some few miles from Slagby,—probably the only
disinterested and unharmful friend the poor girl ever knew,
—who somehow heard of her lonely lot, her beauty, and her
delicacy, and took compassion on her. This lady induced
the curate to allow his daughter to accompany her in a short
visit to the seaside. And Mary returned home wonderfully
improved in health, so that by the time that Christmas
brought young Steel back again to Goldmore Hall, she had
returned to her old habits of vigorous outdoor exercise,
though, alas ! she had not regained the old elasticity of step ;
and the brightness which had been wont to light up her face,
with a radiance all the more enchanting for the unfrequency
and passing duration of its gleams, had set for ever.
The merry Christmas-tide—some faint glimmer of the
festive influence of which, I suppose, lighted up even the
dismal wastes of snow which wrapt the moors of Slagby,
though I don't know from personal experience, as I returned
TWO STRINGS TO HER BOW\
37
to more genial climes for the holidays—the Christmas-tide,
however, had passed, and winter in all its rigour, unmitigated
by any sentimental associations, had settled down on the
dreary landscape. The snow had melted, except in obscure
crevices, where it lay, enhancing, by contrast, the blackness
of the heather all around. The brooks, which at other sea¬
sons rippled over their pebbly beds with a pleasant murmur,
now rolled down their swollen streams with a sullen moan
or an angry roar. I had come back to Slagby even sadder
than the change from the pleasant social life at home to that
grim abode of solitude, hard fare, and tyranny usually made
me. Perhaps, young as I was, instinct gave me a presenti¬
ment that the complications which had gathered round the
only person whose presence and whose kindness had bright¬
ened the dreary days of my life there, must soon end in
some dreadful catastrophe.
A few days before Mr. George had to return to Hailey-
bury, he met—not altogether accidentally, I take it—Mary
and me, while we were out walking together, and bade her
" good-bye." I kept a discreet distance behind, while they
walked on side by side, talking earnestly. But though I
could not hear, I could see that the conversation was
agitating, almost stormy. It was surely not occupied only
by the tender and sweetly sad farewells of two trustful,
hopeful lovers. Their motions, and the tones of the few
broken words which the fitful wind bore back to my ears,
told me that neither reproach nor recrimination was wanting
to the dialogue. They parted at last, however, with an
embrace. Steel, mounting his horse, rode away, and Mary
turned and came towards me. Her eyes seemed fixed on
vacancy, her lips were hard set, and her step was irregular,
almost tottering.
" May God have mercy upon me !" she said, as she
joined me; though of my presence she seemed from all ap¬
pearance to be hardly conscious.
We walked some way homewards in silence. But when
we got to where a path turned off, leading towards the little
38
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
dell where Bob and I had surprised Mary and (as we
supposed) George Steel on the eventful day of the latter's
quarrel with her father, she abruptly stopped and told me to
go home alone. I obeyed and walked on ; but I felt a
misgiving of something wrong, and after looking back and
seeing her disappear hurriedly down the path, I paused.
I did not dare to follow her, for there was something in her
strange demeanour which frightened me. But still I could
not make up my mind to go home and leave her, so I
remained in uncertainty where I was.
I had not stood there many minutes when whom should
I see coming towards me but Mr. George. He was on foot
again. What was he coming back for, and where had he
left his horse ? My curiosity was excited, and ere he caught
sight of me, I hid behind a bush. When he reached the
spot where the path which Mary had taken turned off the
road, he stopped, looked closely on the ground, and then,
with a start and with a quickened pace, took his way down
the path. Either his suspicions had been aroused during
his farewell interview with her, or—what I think is more pro¬
bable—he had, lover-like, been unable to tear himself away
from her, and had come back, either in hopes of catching
sight of her, or merely for the gratification of taking a last
look at the house where she was, when his attention was
casually attracted to her footprints on the miry road, turning
away from the direct way to her home, whither he supposed
her to have gone.
I felt sure Mary had gone to meet Pearson, and unless
she could be warned, a rencontre exceedingly painful to her
would take place between the rival lovers. Mary's double-
dealing with respect to them had long been a source of
distress to me. It jarred against the somewhat loose and
capricious, but none the less cogent, notions which were
comprised in my code of honour in those days. But I was
loyal to her, nevertheless, and, when I saw her danger, I
did not hesitate a moment. There was a short cut through
a ravine to the spot where I supposed Mary and Pearson to
TWO STRINGS TO HER ROW. 39
be. I scrambled down, climbed up the further side, looked
hastily back when I regained the footpath, and saw Mr.
George striding along it, still a couple of hundred yards off. I
dashed onwards at full speed, and presently came in sight
of those I sought.
■ The tall and powerful figure of Pearson was standing
with Mary's fragile form clinging closely to it. His head
was bent downwards, but rather, as it seemed, in moody
thought than to look with fond affection into her upturned
face. One hand held hers, and the other arm was round
her waist, but it seemed to rest there listlessly. Both were
fully absorbed by their own respective emotions, and paid
no heed to me, though I even called out to them as I
approached. They did not become aware of my presence
until I was quite close to them, and in the mean while I
caught the following fragment of their dialogue.
"— Your unreasonable impatience, ruin—sheer ruin,
I tell you, to me, and to you too. Have some patience.
Do not be so madly, so selfishly impetuous. What harm
can there be in a short delay ?" This was spoken in Pear¬
son's deep voice, in whose tones the peculiar hard ring
which I always noticed in it appeared, to me stronger than
ever.
" Ah, Jim ! you cannot have the heart to betray me !"
Ere he could reply to this appeal,' uttered in a voice
inexpressibly pathetic in its pleading reproach, every syllable
of which thrilled—ay, and even now, as I write them down,
seems to thrill again to my very soul—each one of which
must have pierced, like a poisoned arrow, to the heart of
the man to whom they were spoken, and rankled there with
the torments of hell for many a long year after—ere he
could reply, he caught sight of me. Three hurried words
were enough to explain the danger. Mary tore herself
from his arms and hastened to escape; while Pearson,
drawing himself together withalook of angry determination,
which should have warned any one less devoid of discretion
than a jealous lover to keep out of his way, advanced slowly
4°
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
in the direction from which George Steel now appeared in
sight.
The two men met, and Steel halted in the middle of
the narrow pathway.
" A word with you, sir, if you please," he said.
" I am in a hurry—a great hurry—and can't stay at
present," answered Pearson. " Out of the way and let me
pass. Do you hear?" he added angrily, as the other still
confronted him.
" I daresay you are in a very great hurry," said Steel
sarcastically. " People who play your game frequently are.
In such a very great hurry, indeed, that i(s is sometimes hard
to overtake them. Therefore, your very great hurry is only
an additional reason for my detaining you now that I have
been lucky enough to catch you ; so the extremely urgent
business which demands your presence elsewhere must, I
am sorry to say, suffer a postponement of ten minutes or so
at least."
"What the deuce do you mean?" said Pearson. " But
at all events, the delay need not, I trust, be quite so long as
the time you mention. Ten seconds, I take it, will amply,
suffice for chucking you, neck and crop, into the brook, if
you don't at once stand aside; and I know of nothing else
which is likely to detain me."
" Possibly; but all in due order, if you please," answered
Steel dryly. "And first I must have a word of explanation
with you. You have jest parted from a young lady whom,
by some means or other you have decoyed into meeting
you here. You need attempt no denial: I know it as a
fact."
"Well?"
"And I find thai ^ . naT:e been prowling about this
neighbourhood for some weeks past, lurking in a low public-
house or beer-shop—a fit lodging, doubtless, considering
the blackguard purpose—"
" Come, come ! Such big words don't suit such a little
man," said Pearson, who at the same moment caught Mr.
TWO STRINGS TO HER BOW.
4i
George by the shoulder with the purpose of pushing him
aside. But the latter stood firmer on his legs than his slight
figure had led his opponent to expect And Pearson, instead
of being able to jerk him out of the way, found the tables
suddenly turned on him, and Steel's small bony fist planted
with unlooked-for promptitude, vigour, and accuracy right
between his eyes. The next moment they were both at it
in good old English style.
George Steel was evidently a practised boxer, and even
against so tall and powerful an antagonist as Pearson not
only held his own, but at the first had the decided advan¬
tage. I remember in one of Marryat's novels how the
plucky captain of a little brig is described as bombarding a
first-rate fortress, one of the big guns of which could have
blown his cockle-shell out of the water with a single shot—-
if only it could have had a fair shot at it. But the captain
ran his tiny craft so close under the massive bastions that
the cannon could not be sufficiently depressed to reach it,
and all the shots flew harmlessly over the rigging.
Steel adopted much the same tactics as this captain.
He pressed close up to Pearson, and darted his well-aimed
blows into his face from under his guard. But Pearson had
one single advantage which the fortress in Marryat's story
lacked. The fortress was obliged to stand still where it was,
whereas Pearson could step back. He did so, but for some
time to no purpose, for his active opponent followed him up
quicker than he could retreat. But at last he did succeed
in getting one fair blow at Steel's chest, which checked the
latter's advance for a single moment. This was enough.
Once the giant had him at arm's length it was all over.
Pearson's ponderous fist fell thundering through Steel's
scientific, but, alas ! too feeble, guard. He stood up gal¬
lantly for about a minute longer, but staggering sadly; and
at last one tremendous facer sent him sprawling on his back,
with force enough to have fractured his skull. And then
he lay motionless.
What might have been Pearson's behaviour to his fallen
42
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
foe, as soon as the fray was over, had he been left to follow
his own impulse, I cannot say; But before he had time to
realise what had happened, we heard a hoarse voice close
behind us exclaiming,
" T' dommed coward, to hit a mon half his soize !
But we'll soon tackle un." And looking round, I saw two
stalwart miners running up.
Pearson apparently had no stomach for further fighting,
and against odds, that day, for he turned quickly, and ran
off at a pace which soon left his heavy-limbed pursuers
hopelessly behind. One soon desisted from the chase, and
turned to the easier task of assisting Steel. The other fol¬
lowed a little farther. But whether he wasted his breath in
bawling out a continuous volley of objurgations, or whether
he thought there might be more profit, as certainly there
would be less danger, in assisting his comrade to raise the
vanquished combatant than in chasing the victor by him¬
self, his pursuit was not very hot, and he too presently gave
it up.
Mr. George soon recovered consciousness, and picked
himself up, shaking off the officious assistance of the miners
and myself not over graciously. And then, throwing them
a shilling, he walked off in silence.
CHAPTER IV.
the old story.
" When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds, too late, that men betray."
Mary Lee questioned me closely on my return home
as to what had occurred at the unlucky meeting of her two
lovers, and I had to give her a full account of the fight.
She was terribly agitated ; indeed, she gave way to a wild
paroxysm of despair, which I must say my unsophisti-
THE OLD STORY.
43
cated intellect could by no means comprehend the"' mean¬
ing of.
" Which of the two do you like, Mary ?'' I asked, in
innocent perplexity. " Why don't you send the other about
his business, and save yourself all this distress ? Get rid of
that Pearson. I don't like him at all. I think he is a great
villain !"
" Hush, hush, Frank dear ! You cannot understand.
O, mercy, mercy 1 would—would that I were dead !'
I could get nothing from her but this, and so gave up
the attempt, and went away to distract my painful thoughts
by a game of marbles with Bob.
Nothing particular occurred for the next three or four
days, though, as I closely watched Mary's motions, I observed
that she continued to slip out of the house for a few minutes
every night shortly before bedtime. At last one morning, it
being our weekly half-holiday, she came to me, and said I must
again go over to Goldmore Hall and implore Mr. George to
meet her. It was a matter of life and death, she told me
to urge upon him—of more than life and death. I obeyed,
carrying to Steel a letter from her, and also charged with a
verbal message, asking him to be in the churchyard at eight
o'clock that night. Mr. George, whom I found with a rain¬
bow round his left eye and a lip still swollen, walked up and
down the stable-yard of the Hall (where I had found him)
for good ten minutes after he had read the letter, frowning,
muttering, clenching his fists, and exhibiting sundry other
outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual tumult.
At last he turned to me, and saying curtly, " I'll come,"
walked away.
I resolved to see the upshot of this tryst also. And as
it happened that the curate had been called away to a cot¬
tage at some distance, I was able to steal out, and take up
a position in a coign of vantage under the rough-hewn stones
of the churchyard wall without much fear of being missed.
In my impatient curiosity, I went much earlier than neces¬
sary, and, in spite of cold and churchyard goblins, sat
44
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
sturdily coiled up in my corner. And I was rewarded for
my perseverance, and the hardihood both of body and mind
above my years, by witnessing more than I expected.
First of all, Mr. George appeared upon the scene, well-
nigh an hour, I should think, before the appointed time.
On arrival he looked at his watch by a dark lantern which
he carried, and then went into the church porch, and, sitting
down on a bench, lighted a cigar. How I envied him his
shelter and his huge great-coat, for I was so frozen that I could
not feel my limbs ! But all my discomfiture was forgotten
in surprise and eager curiosity when I saw a female figure
climb over the churchyard stile—not that which led over the
wall separating it from the Parsonage garden, from which
direction I of course expected to see Mary appear, but on
the opposite side. The figure advanced, stumbling over the
graves and floundering through the high rank grass; for
though the night was not pitch dark, the light of the winter
crescent moon was not adapted to render locomotion in that
unkempt, tumbled wilderness of hillocks and weeds safe or
pleasant. She seemed to be looking about for some particular
spot, with the position of which she was evidently not fami¬
liarly acquainted. At last she appeared to recognise it in
an oddly-shaped tombstone, which stood in the corner of
the enclosure, near which I was crouching. After a pause,
apparently of uncertainty whether she was right, she stooped
suddenly down, put her hand to the foot of the gravestone,
rose again quickly, and made the best of her way back to
the stile by which she had entered. As she turned to go
her face was for a moment turned full towards me, and I
recognised with astonishment the uncomely features of—
Mrs. Potts of The Good Intent.
Her movements had not escaped the notice of the other
unseen watcher on the scene. No sooner had she disap¬
peared over the wall than I saw the dark-red spark of Mr.
George's cigar advance from the gloom of the church porch.
He came to the gravestone, groped about where the woman
had placed her hand, and presently, by the aid of his Ian-
THE OLD STORY.
4 S
tern, discovered what she had deposited there. It was a
letter.
Steel turned the light of his lantern on the address, and
scrutinised it keenly. I then heard him give a bitter laugh
and mutter aloud, " It was not to be the postman of this
precious missive that I was sent for, I suspect. But the
gravestone does not seem to be a very safe or convenient
letter-box, and it may save trouble and time in more ways
than one, if I deliver it."
And accordingly he put the letter in his pocket, and
burying his chin in the collar of his great-coat, walked back
to the shelter of the porch.
Mary Lee came soon afterwards. Steel advanced to¬
wards her, and they met about twenty yards from my hiding-
place. I could not hear what passed, but apparently Steel
at once handed her the letter with some cutting remark.
Mary snatched it from him and tore open the envelope with
hungry eagerness, regardless alike of his words or his pre¬
sence. She strove in vain to read it by the dim starlight;
and then I saw him lift the slide of his lantern and turn the
light on the paper. She glanced over the letter, which
seemed to be of the briefest; and then, convulsively crush¬
ing the paper in her hand, she threw her arms wildly above
her head, cast her eyes towards heaven, as if all hope for
her on earth were gone, and then, with a low wailing moan,
sank, as if crushed by some uijseen but tremendous weight,
to the ground at George Steel's feet.
He, apparently horror-stricken at the effect which the
letter had produced, threw his lantern down, and kneeling
beside her, raised the lifeless form, and laid the pallid cheek
upon his knee. In the first impulse of my own terror, I too
had rushed forward and come close to them. But when I
saw Mary's death-like face, I was overcome by an undefina-
ble horror, and, turning round, ran like a frightened hare
towards the house. At the stile I paused for a moment
and looked back—Steel was bending over the girl and
covering her face with passionate kisses—and as I looked,
46
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
I thought I could observe a slight movement of her limbs,
as though she were recovering consciousness. But I ran
to the house.
I waited in great anxiety at my bedroom window for
Mary's return. I saw her come back through the garden, I
should think, half an hour afterwards. Then I went to bed,
and, worn out by my long walk, my cold ambush, and the
agitation aroused by what I had witnessed, I soon fell asleep.
When I came down next morning, there was a strange
and mysterious commotion in the little household. I soon
learnt the cause. Mary Lee was gone—nor did she ever
return to that house, which now seemed to me doubly
gloomy, void of her presence, and haunted by the ominous
mystery of her flight.
I did not again see the other actor in the churchyard
scene either. The next day was that fixed for Steel's return
to Haileybury, and he did not, as usual, return for the next
summer vacation to Goldmore Hall.
Mr. Lee bore alike his daughter's flight and the disgrace
attaching to it with an appearance of more than his habitual
cynicism. He made no attempt to discover what had be¬
come of her, showed no sign of grief, and would mention
her name in conversation, when occasion required, with a
hard indifference, as though she had left her home in the
most ordinary manner possible. But he grew thin and
haggard ; and ere a year had passed from the time of Mary's
flight, the villagers shook their heads, and remarked that "t'
parson was not half t' mon he had been." The post-bag
strap, however, continued as busy as ever, and I do not
think that Bob and I detected any marked failure of strength
in the sinews of his arm.
In the following December it was decided, to my great
comfort, that I was to leave Slagby "for good." During
the last days of my purgatory I wandered about, paying fare¬
well visits to the old haunts which were associated with
many of the incidents in Mary's unhappy courtships. The
last day but one before the Christmas holidays the weather
THE OLD STORY.
47
was so stormy that I could not face the driving showers
and bleak blasts on the moors, and yet I was too restless
to stop at home. So I bethought me of repairing in the
afternoon for a last gill of beer in the sanded parlour of
The Good Intent. To my surprise, when I reached the
public-house, I found the setter dog, which I had twice
before seen there, lying in the doorway. Pearson must be
there again : what could he have come for now that Mary
was gone ? But however that might be, I at any rate did
not care to meet him again; so, foregoing the anticipated
beer, I turned back without entering the house.
It was a miserable afternoon ; and as, drenched to the
skin and chilled to the marrow, I plodded ankle-deep along
the miry road, I most heartily wished I had never come out.
I had nearly reached the bridge where the road to The
Good Intent met that which led from Slagby along the
high river-bank to Puddleborough, and I could already hear
the sullen roar of the stream as it rolled its swollen and
turbid flood with tremendous force through the channel,
which was here banked up into a narrow pass. Suddenly
a strange object appeared before me coming from the
Puddleborough road, and turning up that down which I was
walking. It consisted of four men carrying something white.
Two other men walked behind. I could not at first make
out what the burden was. But as the little procession passed
me, I recognised that dreadful profile which is presented by
a dead body with a sheet spread over it. In an awed whis¬
per I asked one of the men who followed, " What is it ?"
He answered gruffly, "A wench drownded hersel' in t'
Clink Pool yonder," and passed on.
With the morbid curiosity of a boy, I followed at a
distance, and saw the bearers lay down their burden at the
door of The Good Intent. Mrs. Potts came to the door,
and after apparently some little altercation, the hurdle on
which the body lay was lifted again and carried inside the
house. I went to the door and peeped in : there was a
bustle in the sanded parlour, two or three miners who had
48
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
been drinking hastily assisting Mrs. Potts to clear the
pewter mugs and clay pipes off the large deal table in the
centre of the room. Then the body was laid down on the
greasy boards, amongst puddles of spilt beer and ashes
shaken from pipe-bowls. .Then just as they were rearrang¬
ing the sheet, which had got shifted in the transfer of the
corpse from the stretcher to the table, a scuffle was caused
by the setter, which had followed the men in, giving a low
melancholy whine, and trying to jump on the table.
"Confound it !" cried the man who had been taking
the leading part in conducting the proceedings, giving the
animal a kick, which caused it to skulk in a corner of the
room, and then sit wistfully gazing at the still form on the
table.
Then I turned away with a shudder, and ran home.
But how much greater my horror would have been had I
known that the features, which seemed so sharply defined
under the thin veil of that damp sheet spread upon the
beer-stained table, were the same as those on which I had
so often gazed with admiration and love—those of the
beautiful Mary Lee !
Ill news travels fast, and, when I reached Slagby, the
terrible tidings had already reached the village and the
Parsonage. In the former, groups of excited women were
eagerly discussing the poor girl's awful fate. But in the
house which had so lately been her home the urgency of a
new disaster had already diverted the attention of its
inmates from the first. Mr. Lee had been seized with a
paralytic stroke on hearing the news, and was then lying
speechless, and, indeed, dying.
The next day the coroner arrived and held an inquest
at The Good Intent. I saw an account of it in the
Puddleborough newspaper, when I went home for the
holidays.
It appeared that Mary Lee^s body had been found by
some labourers, caught by the weeds on the river-bank
upwards of a mile below the bridge. The only evidence
THE OLD STORY.
49
forthcoming as to the manner in which she met with her
death was that of a lad who had been for some purpose on
the bank of the river on the Slagby side. On the opposite
or Puddleborough side, where the bank was very high and
precipitous, and the road passes along the.top close to the
edge—from the description given I concluded that the spot
must have been very near the scene of my tumble, and
Mary's first ill-fated meeting with Pearson—he had seen a
woman standing, seemingly waiting for some one. After a
time a man came up to her, and the witness saw her catch
hold of his arm as if to detain him ; they spoke together for
a few minutes only, and then the man seemed to shake her
off roughly and attempt to walk away, but she threw herself
on her knees before him and clung to him. Then there
was a kind of struggle; the man got away from her once,
but she rose from her knees and followed him, and caught
hold of the lappets of his coat; then he either struck or
pushed her violently away, and she fell on her face; the
man then rapidly made off and disappeared.
The witness said he would have gone to the woman's
help, but it was impossible to cross the flooded stream
except by the bridge. She lay on the ground for several
minutes, then she got on her feet, but seemed hardly able
to stand, and staggered about; she looked dazed, and did
not seem to know where she was going. Instead of going
along the path, she tottered close up to the edge of the
cliff; and, unfortunately, just at that point the heavy rains
had caused a landslip, which had carried away the railing
with it for several yards. The woman either fell or threw
herself over the cliff right into the river, and the rapid cur-"
rent swept her out of witness's sight almost in a moment.
What was the man to whom Mary Lee had spoken like?
Was he tall or short ? Well, the witness could not just tell
for certain; perhaps he might have been just a little above
the common size, or perhaps a little under. How was he
dressed ? Well, there was nothing particular about his dress
that witness took notice of it. He thought that likely he
E
5°
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
had on an overcoat, but could not be sure of it. And so on.
In short, no clue whatever could be obtained to identify the
man.
I, of course, might have enlightened the coroner to
some extent on this point, and so doubtless could Mrs.
Potts. But neither of us thought it necessary to do so.
Indeed, so far as I was concerned, although I knew from
the setter being at The Good Intent that its master,
Pearson, must also have come back to the neighbourhood,
and therefore could not but suspect that in all probability
he was the man to whom Mary had been seen pleading in
vain, I could not then, nor for many years after, understand
why, if he had cast her off, he should have come back to the
neighbourhood at all, for I knew, from hints I had gathered
from Mary, that he lived far away, in another county.
On the other hand, there was an alternative supposition,
an improbable one certainly, but one which, nevertheless, I
could not get out of my mind. Mr. George Steel had, as I
casually learnt before I left Slagby, arrived at Goldmore
Hall the very day before Mary's death.
To which of her two lovers had Mary Lee fled when she
left her father's house ? Had she gone after Pearson or with
Steel? Upon the answer to that chiefly depended the
answer to the other question, which of the two it was in
whose company she was last seen before her desperate leap
or fall ?
There is one more slight episode which must be briefly
related before I finish my account of my own personal share
in the events which I am narrating. After that I shall
appear no more upon the scene, but must tell the story asrL
have been able to collect it from the mouths of others, yjp
After completing my education under less vigorous
stimulants to exertion than the Slagby post-bag, I turned
my attention to the law, and in due course of time I was
lucky enough to become the junior partner in a well-estab¬
lished firm of country solicitors.
THE OLD STORY.
5i
In the course of our business a rather delicate negotia¬
tion was committed to us, regarding a considerable sum of
money which was vested in trustees under a marriage settle¬
ment; it was desired to somewhat relax certain terms of
the settlement. The proposed modification was really for the
benefit of everybody concerned. But one of the trustees, a
certain Colonel Campion, was obstinate. It was at last
decided that I should go and have a personal conference
with this gentleman, in the hope of inducing him to hear
reason and give way; and I accordingly took the train one
morning for , a little roadside station on a certain rail¬
way line which need not be specified, within a few miles
of which Colonel Campion's residence, Beechly Park, was
situated.
When I had arrived within half an hour of the end of
my journey, a gossiping little man got into the carriage, and
lost no time in entering into conversation with me. He
soon extracted from me the information that I was booked
to .
"Ah, then you must be going to visit the Rev. Mr.
Jinkins at Liverside Rectory," remarked my companion
dogmatically.
" How should you know that?" I asked.
" Because there is no other gentleman's house for which
is the nearest station. There are stations within two
miles of it on each side, one or the other of which is much
more convenient for any other house in the neighbourhood."
" Then how came they to put a station at ? Was
it solely for Mr. Jinkins' use and behoof? The reverend
gentleman nust be a man of consideration in these parts !"
" O no. It was old Campion of Beechly who insisted
$Jn having the station at his park-gates."
" And why might not I be bound for Beechly Park as
well as for Liverside Rectory ?" asked I. " Is it that my
appearance possesses a sanctimonious air, or that it lacks an
aristocratic one, which induces you to assign me quarters at
the Parsonage rather than at the Hall ?"
52
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
"No, no. Nothing to do with you in particular. In
the old man's time I should have taken it for granted that
anybody who got out at Station was going to the Park.
But it is very different with the present master of Beechly.
No one ever sees the inside of his house, except his lawyer;
and you are neither him nor any of his clerks, I know.'
I thought this an opportunity, not to be thrown away, of
learning something about the character and habits of Colonel
Campion, in order that I might know better how I could
approach him in the discharge of my delicate mission with
the best chance of success. So I invited my loquacious
friend to explain himself more fully, which he incontinently
proceeded to do, nothing loth.
" He is a queer fellow, this present Campion. I remem¬
ber him well when he was a young lad. Law! he was a
wild one! full of fun and devilment. He made the old
man jump in his gouty chair sometimes, I fancy, by the mad
things he did. But old Campion always used to say that he
had no fear of his not settling down all in good time to what
a Campion of Beechly should be, and always had been any
time these five hundred years. And sure enough, there
always was about the young fellow, in the midst of his wildest
excesses and freaks, a sort of pride and haughty superiority
to all the world outside the ring-fence of Beechly Park, which
was of the true Campion kidney. I don't know whether
you are conversant with Bell's Letters, sir;—I am. But if
you are, you will understand what I mean when I say that
this Campion, as he was in those mad days, reminds me very
much of the Prince Hal of our immortal bard."
I nodded appreciation of the comparison.
"Well,'sir, when he was about, I should say, three or
four and twenty, a sudden change came over him, which
astonished those who had not studied the secret springs of
human nature in the volumes of our poets as I have. But
I knew it was the most natural thing in the world ; couldn't
have been otherwise, in fact, without making the world
altogether different from what it is."
THE OLD STORY.
53
" And what, may I ask, was the nature of this change—
or rather, according to your view, this evolution ?''
" Yes, you may well call it revolution, though, mind you,
the Campions have always been red-hot Tories from the time
of Prince Hal himself, and dead against Democracy. Well,
the clarion of war resounded through the land, and young
Campion, who was in the 25th Hussars, went to the Crimea,
and they said there never was seen such a fellow for fighting.
Egad ! the grimmest of his ancestors that I have seen hung
up in armour in the Hall yonder, when I have gone over
it in the absence of the family, would have thought twice
before doing the desperate deeds that he did. They wanted
to give him the Victoria Cross a dozen times over. But,
bless your soul! the Campions think scorn of what other
men value most. They hold themselves so high, they think
the Queen herself can't confer honour on them; so he
wouldn't have it. Then no sooner was the Russian War
over than he'd got so fond of fighting he could not leave it
off; and so off he goes to China, or Persia, or the Cape, I
forget which, to find some more of it. He was all through
the Indian Mutiny too; and it was while he was in India
that the old man died, and he came into The property. I
saw him when he came back in '59, and I would not have
known the gaunt, stern-looking, silent man, with grizzled
hair and tanned-leather chops, for the same as the gay,
ruddy-faced lad we had been accustomed to see driving a
pair of half-broken horses, tandem, at full gallop through the
market-place half a dozen years before."
" But since he came into the property, I suppose," said
I, " he has ' grown sick of wounds and scars ' himself, and
equally eschewed the earlier practices you speak of, which
were calculated, I should think, to inflict them on ptlj!er
people, and has settled down as a respectable country
gentleman, J.P., and ' custolorum,' as the immortal bard
has it."
"He has given up soldiering certainly, and if he ever
drives tandem," replied my companion, " it is not at the risk
54
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
of life and limb to us good burgesses of Market Lupford.
But as to settling down, why, he has settled down about as
quietly as the Wandering J ew, or Cain after he had slain Abel-
In the seven years and over that have passed since his father
died, he has slept, I should say, at a liberal computation,
seventeen nights under the roof-tree of Beechly Hall."
" Where does he generally live, then ?"
" Central Africa, Thibet, Patagonia, the Mountains of
the Moon, the top of the South Pole, for aught I, or indeed
anybody else, knows. When he is at Beechly, he might
ust as well be at the Antipodes. Nobody ever sees him,
except, I believe, Mr. Jinkins, who is one of your High
Church, and a kind of father-confessor to him, I understand.
Indeed, I heard that the reception he gave our county mag¬
nates, when they visited him on his return from India, was not
of a kind to encourage any of thein to repeat the experiment."
"And what is supposed to be the cause of such
misanthropy as you describe—sunstroke or a cross in love ?"
I asked.
" Why, I have little doubt myself that there is a board
out of the floor in one of the upper stories ; and folks say,
too, there was a woman in the case—as they always do.
Some, that think they know more than their neighbours,
hint at worse things; and there certainly were whispers of
an ugly story -many years ago; it was a very ugly story, and.
if there was any truth in it, would be hard to reconcile
with the traditional honour and chivalry that are supposed
to be heirlooms in the house of Campion. But it's an ill-
natured world, and very likely the whole thing was a lie.
Nevertheless—my study of Bell's Letters has made me a bit
fanciful, I daresay—but I never see Colonel Campion (which
is seldom enough) without thinking of the ' Wild Darrell' of
the Scottish minstrel's ballad. Do you know the lines ?—
' Wild Darrell is an altered man,
The village crones can tell ;
He looks pale as clay, and strives to pray,
If he hears the convent bell.
THE OLD STORY.
55
If prince or peer cross Darrell's way,
He'll beard him in his pride ;
If he meet a friar of orders gray,
He droops and turns aside !' "
Here the train stopped at , and I bid my talkative
fellow-passenger good-morning. His account of the person
I was going to see was certainly not encouraging for the
success of my mission, but I shrewdly suspected that the
portion of the little gentleman's discourse which contained
the largest element of truth was that in which he admitted
the effects upon his own mind —and consequently, I pre¬
sumed, upon his conversation—of his assiduous devotion
to " Bell's Letters."
A carriage was waiting for me, and carried me through
a splendid park, beautifully wooded, to the house—a vener¬
able and stately pile of buildings of the Tudor period—
about two miles distant. Assuredly what I saw as I passed
along showed nothing of the neglect and wretchedness
which one might have expected to see on the estate of an
habitually absentee landlord, who had been described to me
as a compound of insanity, debauchery, and misanthropy.
The cottages seemed to be surrounded with every comfort
which a benevolent landlord's constant care could provide ;
and the labourers whom I met were contented-looking and
respectful, as well as " fat and well liking."
I found Colonel Campion himself, however, to the full
as proud and repelling in his manner and bearing as my
informant had described him. In this respect he had
certainly not over-coloured his picture. I entered on the
business with which I was intrusted, and placed our view
of the case before Colonel Campion in the most favourable
light I could. But I must confess the man's appearance and
manner disconcerted me, and I fear my eloquence was
somewhat halting. At any rate it had no effect upon him.
He received every successive argument with the same stern,
unbending, haughty disapproval. At last this unreasonable
obstructive attitude began to irritate me beyond control, and
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
I spoke with some impatience, and perhaps with a slight
deviation from periphrases, not quite in accordance with
perfect courtesy. Then the Colonel flashed forth. He did
not for a moment throw off his haughty composure, but his
words were as trenchant as a two-edged sword. He said
plainly that the proposal with which I was charged was
nothing but an attempt on the part of my client, the
husband, to " swindle " the wife and children, for whom he
(the Colonel) was trustee, out of their money.
I sprang from my chair as he uttered the opprobrious
word.
" How dare you, sir," cried T, trembling with anger,
" use such language with respect to a case in which I and
my partners, a firm of unimpeached and unimpeachable
character, are engaged ?"
"I shall take leave," replied the Colonel—who also
rose from his seat, but with deliberate composure, and
apparently only for the purpose of intimating his desire that
I should leave the house—" I shall take leave to say that a
firm of lawyers who allow themselves to be made the agents
for taking advantage of the fond affection of an inexperi¬
enced young lady, to rob her of her property, are no better
than a gang of burglars."
I was almost choked with indignation; but after two
or three ineffectual efforts to articulate, I did at last gasp
out,
" If such—if such persons are burglars, as you say, what
—what is the man who takes advantage, as you say, of the
fond affection of an inexperienced young girl to—to seduce
her to shame, ruin, desertion—dastardly, cruel desertion—
and death ? What is he ? A murderer! a murderer,
Colonel Campion, or —James Pearson /"
As I hissed out the latter name, stretching forward my
face close to his, a look of ghastly anguish and terror over¬
spread the features which had been so disdainfully com¬
posed but a moment before. He dropped, as if struck
down by an actual blow, on the chair behind him.
THE COMMISSIONER OF BESHUCKABAD. 57
I seized my hat and papers, and, without another glance
at him, hurried from the house.
Such was my meeting with one of Mary Lee's lovers
twelve years after the poor girl had been laid to rest by her
father's side in Slagby churchyard. My narrative will now
make another leap almost as long, and take up the history
of another of the actors in that tragedy, twenty years after
the date of its closing catastrophe, and in a land far away
from the scene of it.
CHAPTER V.
the commissioner of beshuckabad.
The Commissioner of Beshuckabad was by no means
one of the lesser lights in that constellation of the Eastern
official heaven which shed the mild beams of paternal
government on the happy plains of the Ma-Bap Provinces.
He ruled with autocratic sway, under the proudly unassum¬
ing designation of his " division," a kingdom half as large
again as Belgium, and over two millions of dusky people
regarded his person as the sole and inexhaustible deposi¬
tary of the mighty power of British Empire.
India is a land of contrasts and incongruities, and the
office of the Commissioner of Beshuckabad presented some
which were striking enough. There were the shelves full
of broad-shouldered volumes of Acts, Commentaries, and
Cases. There were the piles of Blue-books and Reports,
towering aloft like Pelion on Ossa, and oppressing the
mind with an unconquerable sense of weariness only to
look on their outsides. There were the swarms of letters
and dockets, single and in bundles, overspreading the wide
central plain of the baize-covered table, climbing towards
heaven by tier upon tier of pigeon-holes, and descending in
the other direction by a staircase of drawers too full to be
half shut. This was all quite according to onels precon-
58
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
ceived notions of what the office of a judge or of a commis¬
sioner of inland revenue should be. And the yards—nay,
furlongs—of red-tape, that magic clue, without which the
mind of man is no more capable on India's coral strand
than by the Strand of royal-towered Thame of tracing its
way through the labyrinth of public .business, was, as it were,
the touch of nature which seemed to bind the autocrat of
Beshuckabad in close kinship with the most humdrum clerk
in Somerset House. All this was as it should be. But
when one came to look for the surroundings which, accord¬
ing to one's innate idea of the eternal fitness of things,
should have accompanied the picture, one's mind was
rudely thrown out of all its bearings. Instead of the dingy,
rain-bespattered window, displaying a view of nothing else
but three or four other dingy, rain-bespattered windows on
the opposite side of the street, and in place of the ceaseless
rattle and rumble of cab or omnibus, the wide-opened
venetianed doors let in glimpses of Paradise—
" Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'cl with perfume,
Waned faint o'er the gardens of Gul in her bloom."
A foreground of luxuriant flowers and shrubs, a back¬
ground of leafy branches waving and rustling in the balmy
air, the varied songs of a score of sweet-voiced birds, and
the scent of the jasmine and the mango-blossom wafted
through the trellised verandah, were all fitter to environ a
fairy bower than a public office.
And even if one turned one's back to the open doors,
and looked only at the interior, one had not far to look for
contrast and incongruity notable enough. There sat the
Commissioner, the ideal of the serious, practical, hard-headed,
unimaginative Englishman of business ; dressed with the
utmost neatness, though in an easy-fitting costume, more
adapted to the climate than the black frock-coat which he
would without doubt have worn in his native land. He was
somewhat small of stature and slight; but his well-propor¬
tioned and firmly-knit figure fully redeemed his presence
THE COMMISSIONER OF BESHUCKABAD. 59
from the reproach of puniness. His face was decidedly,
indeed remarkably, handsome, though the Indian climate
and the constant wear of anxious and responsible office,
rather than age (for he was li^le past forty), had sallowed
his cheek, seamed his high forehead, and plentifully be¬
sprinkled his dark hair with silver. Countenance and
manner alike, the compressed lips, the measured, though
by no means slow, utterance, and the erect and even rigid
bearing, testified to long habits of reserve and self-control.
But a close observer might now and again see a momen¬
tary flash disturbing the usually steady beam of his dark-
brown eyes, and a slight quick movement of the foot which
gave hints of a temper naturally by no means of the most
placid order.
Before him sat a figure as uncouth and wild as he was
conventional and decent—a figure as little in accord with
the soft beauty of the scene outside as with the dull aspect
of routine within the room. This was a native, of large and
bulky dimensions, but bent with age. His dress was coarse,
and very far indeed from clean. A vast length of turban,
which may once have been white, twisted into a rope and
wound round and round his head in loose careless folds,
through which his long and shaggy gray locks escaped in a
most untidy manner, a waistcoat of greasy sheepskin, with
the wool inside, and over that a well-worn burnoose of
brown camel's hair, and drawers of voluminous folds of
cloth of the same dubious colour as his turban. His coun¬
tenance gave one somehow an inexpressible impression of
fallen and shattered savage nobility. In spite of the dim
and bleared eyes, and the faded and furrowed cheeks
(which the beard, dyed a glossy ^ purple black, only made
the more ghastly), and in spite of an obsequiousness of
demeanour in presence of the English official, only tem¬
pered by a certain dull apathy, there was still in his aspect,
one could not miss perceiving, though where or how it
manifested itself one could no more explain, a relic of long-
forgotten pride and ferocity. Altogether, as one saw him
6o
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
sitting there, with an air of awkwardness and discomfort,
partly due, no doubt, to insufficient practice in the occi¬
dental art of balancing his person on a hard-seated, straight-
backed chair, and partly ajpo to the severe and searching
regard with which the Commissioner continued to honour
him, one felt an instinctive longing, born of pity and re¬
spect, to whip him up from among surroundings where he
was so strangely out of place, and, carrying him back a few
centuries, drop him into the wild Tartar camp of Jhengis
Khan or Tamerlane.
"This disorder, this absence of all restraint amongst
your tribesmen, Kumbukt Khan," the Commissioner was
saying, " cannot be allowed to continue. I see by last
quarter's returns that cattle thefts have increased by no less
than two—no—less—than—two—over the number reported
in the corresponding term in the previous year."
"Through your Honour's auspicious favour they will
now cease," muttered the old man in reply, continuing the
while without intermission to pass through his palsied
fingers the beads of a rosary which he held. " But," he
added, " times are very hard. Three harvests have failed."
" Cease they certainly shall, though not through my
auspicious favour, but either through your more diligent
and more honest efforts to keep your people under control,
or by the efforts of somebody else whom I will appoint to do
your duty for you, if you can't or won't do it for yourself.
So now, Kumbukt Khan, listen, and I advise you do so
heedfully, for I have sent for you this morning to have a
long and full discussion of the affairs of your clan. I assure
you there are many things which require explanation, and
that explanation must be no longer delayed. I am deter¬
mined to have them all cleared up this very—"
Just then there entered, with noiseless, barefoot tread,
but not without a soft rustling murmur from the ample folds
of well-starched calico trousers of snowy whiteness, a
swarthy domestic. He was clothed with serenity as with
a garment. Beside him the most imposingly ducal of the
THE COMMISSIONER OF BESHUCKABAD. 61
butlers of Christendom would have seemed insignificant
and flurried, and the superbest Belgravian " Jeames" must
have hidden his diminished and powdered head. Slightly
bending his princely crest, and raising a dusky hand, em¬
bellished with costly turquoise rings, to the gold-braided
turban which encircled his majestic brows, he proclaimed,
in a voice befitting alike the gravity of the announcement,
the rank of the person to whom it was made, and the
dignity of him who made it, that—breakfast was on the
table.
The Commissioner replied with a curt and somewhat
impatient "Very well," and, making no sign of any intention
to move, resumed the momentarily interrupted thread of
his lecture to his visitor.
" Now, in the first place, scarcely a day passes but I
receive renewed complaints from the steward of the Nawab
of Zulmkote of trespasses which your people commit on his
lands and violence towards his servants. Now, you yourself
must be held personally and directly responsible for this."
"Your Majesty," answered Kumbukt Khan, counting
his beads more diligently than ever, " has taken the Nawab
under the shadow of your protection; how is it possible that
I or any of my people can annoy him ?"
At this point the serene servitor reappeared, and so-
lemly pronounced,
" The Mem Sahib says they have all sat down, and the
chops are getting cold. She-desires your Honour to come
at once."
" Say I can't come just now," answered his master
sharply. " I am engaged in very important business. Tell
them to breakfast without me."
And turning to Kumbukt Khan, he said sternly, " This
will not pass. The young Nawab is under my protection,
it is true; and, mark me well, I intend to protect him. But
I know your stubborn and audacious truculence of old,
Kumbukt Khan, and—"
" The Mem Sahib says it is already twenty minutes past
62
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
ten, and she and the missy Baba Sahibs are going to drive into
the cantonments after breakfast. She wishes your Honour
to come immediately."
Thus the stately domestic, once more reappearing.
" Tell the Mem Sahib that I really cannot come—for a
minute or two," answered his master, by no means so
peremptorily as before. " But I shall not be long. Ask
them just to begin without me. Well, Kumbukt Khan, to
be brief—as I have a great deal of work to-day, and cannot
spare much time to you. In one word, I insist upon your
at once taking the following steps. You must send your
second son, a young man of most shocking character, away
to—"
" The Mem Sahib says she cannot begin without your
Honour, and she begs you will not keep her waiting any
longer," interrupted, with untiring suavity, he of the braided
turban and turquoise rings, reentering for the fourth time.
" O, very well, say I am coming," said the Commissioner.
And rising, he hurriedly dismissed his visitor with, " I have
no time to attend to you this morning, Kumbukt Khan; I
have too much other work to do. But think of what I have
said, and—well, yes; come again to-morrow."
Kumbukt Khan, with a sigh which mayhave indicated
disappointment at the postponement of the promised lec¬
ture, retired into the verandah, while the Commissioner,
passing through the opposite door, hastily traversed a covered
passage, which connected his office with his dwelling-house,
and entered the breakfast-room.
Here, I must confess, there were not any incongruities
to upset one's sense of the fitness of things. The pleasant
outside scene, of which only a glimpse could be obtained
under the low-eaved verandah of the office, was here dis¬
played to full view through three wide and lofty French
windows, which opened on to a colonnaded, high-roofed
terrace. Beyond swept a broad and well-trimmed lawn,
whose emerald brightness, pleasant to the eye anywhere,
was peculiarly refreshing in a country where the normal
THE COMMISSIONER OF BESHUCKABAD. 63
colour of " verdure " much resembles that of the grass in
Hyde Park about the end of a very dry July. In the centre
were stretched three lawn-tennis nets, which, though not in
themselves objects of especial beauty, nevertheless added
something to the charm of the scene, to the judicious eye,
by the force of association. And all round the margin ran
a gorgeous fringe of flower-beds ; while further off, under
the spreading branches of the fine pipul and mango trees,
were curious labyrinths of shrubs and leafy grottoes, which
again suggested to the thoughtful mind more graces than
they actually impressed upon the gross material retina—
visions of garden-parties in the balmy twilight (which in
those climes melts with such convenient rapidity into dark¬
ness), flitting gleams of white muslin between the dark leafy
screens, soft breaths of tender whispers through the still
groves.
And, as I have said, the interior of the room was quite
in harmony with the view outside. Everything in it was a
combination of comfort and good taste; and the flower-beds
round the lawn had paid such a heavy tribute to the table,
mantelpiece, and pendent mural vase, that it seemed rather
that the repast was spread in a fairy bower than in an apart¬
ment bearing so prosaic a name as "the breakfast-room."
The Commissioner came in with an alert step, expanded
brow, and easy smile, showing no trace of annoyance at the
gfentle compulsion which had been used to lure him thither.
" I hope I have not kept you waiting long, my dear," he
said, " but I could not possibly come till I had finished what
I'had to say to old Kumbukt Khan. Well, Bella," he con¬
tinued, as two pretty girls rose and came forward to greet
him, the one throwing her arms round his neck and kissing
him with much effusion, the other more demurely offering
her hand, but with an affectionate smile of welcome—" well,
Bella, the wild roses, I see, have not suffered from the hot¬
house air of the ballroom last night, or rather this morning.
I found it stifling enough, I can assure you. Good-morn¬
ing, Miss Hawthorn, my dear."
64
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
The family of Mr. Steel—for the Commissioner of B£-
shuckabad was none other than the " Mr. George" of Gold-
more Hall — now gathered round the breakfast-table,
consisted of his wife, his only child Bella, and Miss Grace
Hawthorn, whose position in the household, and relations
with its several members, were of a very undefined character.
Mrs. Steel was a stately and portly—indeed, one may
say very stately and very portly—dame. Her stateliness
she could on occasion (as we shall see) throw off; her port¬
liness, unfortunately, she could not. And this provoking
circumstance alone prevented her being still a very hand¬
some woman.
Her daughter, who had attained the mature age of seven¬
teen and a half, was, as the child of such parents could
scarcely help being, remarkably pretty. Her companion,
Grace Hawthorn, was, in the eyes of not a few persons, even
prettier. But their rival claims to preeminence in this re¬
spect were a matter of considerable controversy amongst
the connoisseurs of the Beshuckabad cantonment, and one
upon which I regard it as in no sense incumbent upon me
dogmatically to pronounce.
While they were at table an attendant, clad in imperial
purple, brought in the " dawk," or post-bag, and shot out
its contents, a medley of envelopes of all sizes and sorts,
by Mrs. Steel's chair. The man then deliberately squatted
on the floor beside the heap, and, after disposing the long
lappets of his scarlet robe so as to make himself quite com¬
fortable, sleepily prepared to lay the documents in order.
But in the mean time the impatient Mrs. Steel's experienced
eye and deft fingers had eliminated from the confused heap
of eight-inch long official envelopes some nine or ten less
imposing but more interesting-looking letters, which she
proceeded to sort much as if they had been a hand at whist
just dealt to her.
"Here is a demi-official for you, George," she said,
"from the Foreign Secretary. I wonder what he can be
writing about? Perhaps to say that poor Mr. Cripplegate's
THE COMMISSIONER OF BESHUCKABAD. ' 65
gout has reached the stomach at last, and offering you the
chief commissionership of Bunglebund. Shall I just open
it while you go on with your breakfast ? It will save you
time."
But Mr. Steel did not avail himself of the considerate
proposal, and the letter was lingeringly and reluctantly
delivered into his outstretched hand, whence, with a heart¬
less, not to say brutal, insensibility to the precarious con¬
dition of the afflicted Cripplegate, he consigned it to the
silent oblivion of his coat-pocket.
Mrs. Steel then turned her attention to the remainder of
her hand. Picking out one envelope, she closely scrutinised
first the handwriting of the address, then the monogram on
the other side, then the post-marks, and lastly, as it seemed,
the texture and grain of the paper. How much further her
inspection might have been carried it is impossible to say,
had not her daughter, who had been watching her for some
time with evident impatience, called out—by no means
pianissimo—
" If that letter is for me, mamma, and does not feel as if
it had an explosive machine inside, I should like to open it,
please—that is, when you are quite tired of fingering it."
Thus admonished, Mrs. Steel threw the letter across the
table, but even then did not altogether abandon her efforts
to pry into its contents. Having failed to obtain a direct
insight through the uncompromisingly thick envelope, she
now sought to catch a glimpse of them by reflection in the
mirror of her daughter's countenance. But Miss Bella
Steel's face, unlike that of the simple Thane of Cawdor,
was by no means a book wherein men—nor yet women,
even though they were as lynx-eyed as her mamma—could
read any matters, however strange—or familiar either, for
that mattef—which it was-her cue to keep to herself.
So at last Mrs. Steel was reduced to the hard necessity
of reading only her own proper correspondence. And,
perhaps as a protest against the selfish incommunicativeness
of her husband and daughter, she not only favoured the
F
66
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
company with copious extracts from it as she proceeded
with her perusal, but threw in also a running commentary
of her own thereon.
" Dear me ! the Governor-General going home at the
end of this cold weather ! Matilda writes that she has it
on unquestionable authority. O, how sorry I am ! Dear
Lady Feathertop ! What shall we do without her at Simla
next season ! Such unaffected kindness, such charming
gaiety, such a high-bred tone ! What can be the reason, I
wonder? Let me see. Matilda goes on : ' It is Lady F.
who insists on his going. She said nothing on earth would
induce her to spend another hot weather at Simla'—ah,
the damp, no doubt : her chest, poor dear ! is very weak
■—'another hot weather at Simla, where the pompous inan¬
ity of Anglo-Indian dignitaries'—well, certainly, her lady¬
ship is a little severe and sweeping; some may be pompous
and inane, but riot all; and she might remember that Lord
Feathertop himself has never had the reputation of being a
wizard : h-m m—'of Anglo-Indian dignitaries, and the pre¬
tentious vulgarity of their wives '—gracious goodness me !"
shrieked the outraged dame. And then, after a pause of
several seconds, during which indignation half choked her,
and her fair neck and double chin flushed with the sanguine
hue of the insulted turkey, "fierce she broke forth
"Vulgarity, indeed! And who is Lady Feathertop, to
talk about vulgarity, I should like to know ? The grand¬
daughter of a brewer, if he was a brewer, though I have
heard that he kept a public-house, and most likely he did.
Her own manners and appearance are those of a barmaid.
Thank goodness, they are going ! How we have put up
with her insolence and his stupidity so long as we have is
a marvel to me. Why, anybody but an imbecile would have
insisted upon old Cripplegate retiring when he had that
attack last year. Sir Ruby Carr strongly pressed upon him
that he ought to do so; Lady Carr, another of the preten¬
tious vulgarians, I suppose '' (this with a withering sneer),
"told me so herself. Uut Lord Feathertop has no more
THE COMMISSIONER OF BESHUCKABAD. 67
will of his own than a camel, and is just led by the nose by
those pert young secretaries, instead of listening to the
advice of experienced councillors like Sir Ruby Carr."
<l Quite a Rehoboam, my dear,", remarked Mr. Steel,
with a quiet smile, as his wife paused in her torrent of indig¬
nant eloquence for sheer want of breath.
" Yes, indeed," she gasped.
"With a Jezebel for a wife," suggested Bella, her eyes
twinkling with amusement.
"So she is, my love," assented her mamma eagerly.
"I have seen the paint; others maybe deceived, but at
Lady Carr's ball last season there could be no doubt about
it: one eyebrow was twice as dark as the other."
With trembling fingers Mrs. Steel proceeded to tear
open the covers of her other letters; and it may be worthy
of remark that she read their contents in silence. Bella
soon after left the room, as well as her half-finished break¬
fast. Perhaps she was in a hurry to answer the billet which
had so exercised her mother's curiosity.
Miss Hawthorn was about to follow, and attend to the
various duties which fell to her share in the household
economy. And Mr. Steel, who was not in the habit of
wasting on toast and eggs time which could be more pro¬
fitably employed over dockets and nukshas, also rose from
the table. But Mrs. Steel detained them both.
" Please sit down a moment, George—I have something
important to say to you. Grace dear, tell the Khansamah
for the dinner-party to morrow not to get a saddle; there
is so much waste in a saddle, and as the General can't come,
there will be none but small fry coming, except Mr. and
Mrs. Podgers, and they are only uncovenanted ; so a leg will
do quite well. And I don't think there need be a turkey
—or stay—yes ; tell him to kill that one with the lame leg;
nothing, it seems, will fatten it, and there is no use keeping
it eating its head off. He can stuff the breast out with a
couple of fowls, you know. And, Grace—"
"Come, my dear,"' interposed Mr. Steel, "you know J
68
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
have a great deal of work. Could you not defer your in¬
structions to Miss Hawthorn for a few minutes?"
" Don't put me out, George. I must attend to these
things. If I did not, we should be eaten out of house and
home; not that you would care, I daresay. But, for the
sake of our dear child, some one must look after things ; and
she shall not be a beggar and outcast if her mother can
help it, though I have to work my fingers to the bone. Of
course I might have been saved some of this trouble, had
Grace chosen to learn to relieve me of it. Most girls in her
circumstances would have done so. Look at that dish of
mince on the table, Grace; no one has touched a morsel,
and now, I suppose, it will be thrown away and given to
the sweeper, when it might have been saved for tiffin; and
then the mutton-chops could have been kept till to-morrow,
and if any of them were left over from breakfast—as they
certainly would have been, for none of us would be likely
to eat more than one. each—they might have been made up
into," &c.
Mr. Steel did not further attempt to stem the tide of
housewifely eloquence, but waited with philosophic dignity
until his dame allowed her assistant in the home department
to retire, and was ready to attend to him.
CHAPTER VI.
mr. steel 1tas his eyes opened—a painful operation
" Love liim ! worse and worse. I thought the girl had been
better bred."
When Mr. Steel and his wife were left alone, the latter
began,
" How can you allow Bella to treat her mother as she
does?"
MR. STEEL HAS HIS EYES OPENED. 69
" Eh ?" ejaculated Mr. Steel inquiringly.
"Didyou not hear how rudely and insultingly she spoke
to me about her letter ? Any other father would have at
least uttered a word of reproof to a child who addressed her
mqther in such terms."
"Yes, yes; I did observe with pain, with much pain,"
replied Mr. Steel (suppressing, however, with admirable
self-command any outward manifestation of the agony he
professed), "a certain flippancy in her manner which ap¬
proached distressingly near to—vulgarity. I will speak to
her."
" If she is learning vulgarity, we need not look far for the
pattern she copies from," retorted Mrs. Steel significantly;
" 'evil communications corrupt good manners,' and Grace—"
"But," continued Mr. Steel, interrupting quietly, "I
must say it struck me, my dear, that your curiosity about
Bella's correspondence was just perhaps a little too pro¬
nounced. We must remember she is no longer a child."
" That is just what I do remember, and what you seem
entirely to forget, Mr. Steel. You may regard our child as
a mere toy and plaything to amuse you with her pretty ways,
but, thank Heaven, she has at least one parent who takes a
higher view of her duties."
" But surely, my dear, it is carrying parental control a
little too far to pry into every letter received by a girl of
nearly eighteen."
" Do you know who that letter was from ?" asked Mrs.
Steel, avoiding the profitless discussion of general principles,
and coming at once to practical particulars.
" No ; how should I ?" returned her husband.
" How should you, indeed ? Well, you should; that is
all I can say. But when I tell you, I daresay you will be
no wiser. I believe you are intimately acquainted with
every swindling native bunniah and ruffian between this and
Gurhi Moofsid—"
" Most of them, certainly," parenthetically assented the
Commissioner, with conscious pride.
7°
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
"And yet people of your own colour and language can
carry on their villanies right under your nose."
" Why, I know some scamps, I am sorry to say, amongst
our fellow-countrymen too."
"Well, do you know anything of Mr. Rattley Trapton?"
" I don't think I have ever seen the individual you men¬
tion ; but I do happen, I am sorry to say, to know a good
deal about him. It appears he is a nephew of Goodieshoes,
of the Madras Service, who wrote to me not long ago to
enlist my influence with the military people here to hush up,
or at least pass over, a certain transaction in which Mr.
-Trapton certainly did not appear to advantage. In fact,
not to put too fine a point on it, he richly deserved to be
cashiered, and many a better man, I have no doubt, has
been so for less."
" And this is the sort of person with whom you are willing
that your daughter should exchange love-letters before your
very eyes."
"Good Heavens! Harriet, what do you mean?" ejacu¬
lated the Commissioner, springing from his seat as if a pin
had been suddenly run into him. " What, Bella ! You
must be dreaming, my dear."
" That letter, Mr. Steel, which Bella received this
morning, was from Rattley Trapton. And if you go to her
room at this moment, you will find—well, you will find the
door locked inside, and By the time it is opened for you,
you won't find anything else. But, nevertheless, you may
take my word for it, that Bella is at this moment answering
that letter. It is not 1 who am dreaming."
" Harriet! is it possible that it is Bella that you are thus
speaking of? Our—daughter—Bella!"
" Not that they need take the trouble to correspond by
letter," continued Mrs. Steel. " They can contrive plenty
of opportunity, it seems, for private conversation by word of
mouth. Last Wednesday, when you remarked how late she
came back in the pony carriage, and she said she had been
sitting with old Mrs. Proser, and had not observed how the
MR. STEEL HAS HIS EYES OPENED. 71
time slipped by, she had been driving with Trapton; she
took him up outside the Hussar Mess Compound, and drove
him out of cantonments down the Jungleabad road."
Mr. Steel muttered an ejaculation which sounded
strangely incongruous with his usual precision of language.
"But who told you all this?'' he added.
" Mrs. Story—"
" Mrs. Story ! Bah ! Mrs. Story is a malignant gossip
and liar."
" £), very well. And I suppose your daughter is one too,
for she acknowledged it to me, and said she had only done
it for ' a lark.' "
"A lark!" echoed Mr. Steel, with a shudder. "Why
did ycu not tell me ?'
" The poor child implored me not: she said it would
pain you deeply. And she seemed so sorry and repentant,
poor child ; so I said I would not, if she promised to have
nothing more to say to Trapton."
It was evident that Miss Bella's good-natured solicitude
for her father's feelings had not been groundless. Mr. Steel
strode about the room for some minutes in evident agitation.
"But where was Grace Hawthorn ?" he suddenly asked.
" Why was Grace not with her ?"
" O, Grace Hawthorn !" answered his wife, with a sneer.
" Of course, had your paragon of discretion been there, there
could have been no possibility of impropriety. But I
suppose even you would not wish to have Bella tacked on
to Miss Hawthorn's apron-strings. Grace, after all, is not
quite a guardian angel."
" Perhaps not," replied Mr. Steel dryly; "but, what is
more to the purpose in the present case than angelic qualifi¬
cations, she has had the advantage of some three or four
more years' experience than Bella on this sublunary sphere
of ours ; and, moreover,- the school of adversity in which he
early years were passed may reasonably be presumed to
have exercised a sobering influence on her character."
" Adversity as often makes people sly as sober," retorted
72
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Mrs. Steel sententiously. " I shall always maintain, what¬
ever you may say, that it might have been none the worse for
poor dear Bella had Grace Hawthorn been provided for—
if provided for she had to be—anywhere else than in this
house."
" Remember, Harriet," replied Mr. Steel quickly, paus¬
ing suddenly in his walk up and down the room, " remember,
it was not I who brought her here, or suggested or desired
her being brought here."
" O, well, let us not dispute about her" said Mrs. Steel,
cleverly evacuating the untenable position after serving her
purpose of annoying the enemy ; " we have our own child
to think about at present."
So leaving Miss Hawthorn alone for the time, she and
her husband occupied themselves in a serious conference
regarding Bella and her perverse and shamelessly unreserved
partiality for the disreputable Lieutenant Trapton.
It will, however, perhaps be more convenient for us to
follow the red herring—if I may be permitted to change my
metaphor and adopt a somewhat unsavoury one in connec¬
tion with so refined a person as Mrs. Steel—which she had
drawn across the original scent of the conversation. So
instead of repeating in detail the abortive parental councils,
I will inform the reader how Grace Hawthorn did enter the
Commissioner's household.
She was an orphan ; but how related, if at all, to Mr. or
Mrs. Steel was not clearly known. Some people maintained
one thing, and some the other; and each had equally strong
grounds for their assertion, namely, none whatever. Mr.
Steel was not in the habit of being communicative about
any of his private affairs ; and his wife, though by no means
so reticent in general, practised an unwonted reserve in this
particular instance. But however that may have been, Mr.
Steel had shown a kindly interest in Grace from her early
childhood. She had been brought up by an aunt, a person
in poor circumstances, who was assisted from the first in her
charitable charge by a small allowance from Mr. Steel; then
MR. STEEL .HAS HIS EYES OPENED.
73
himself a young writer with no great fund of superfluous cash
at his disposal after defraying the cost of purchase and keep
of a couple of Arabs, famed in the meets of the Tent Club,
and a pair of big Waler mares, which were the glory of the
" Course " at Calcutta. When he took unto him a wife, a
reigning beauty, and (in those days) by no means disposed
to excessive thrift, he still contrived that the allowance to
Grace's guardian should be punctually kept up. But it was
not increased; and, as we have heard Mr. Steel himself
say, Grace's girlhood passed in circumstances not very far
removed from actual want.
But when she was fourteen a great change took place in
her condition. Mr. Steel then obtained furlough and visited
England. Affliction not unfrequently tends to impel a man of
naturally generous temperament to seek consolation vicari¬
ously by conferring upon some other a happiness which may
in some sort counterbalance his own sorrow. Now, Mr.
Steel had, under a somewhat cold exterior, a very generous
heart, and at that time it had been softened by the fires of
a series of great afflictions. For the first few years his
marriage had not been happy. His handsome bride early
developed a great talent for flirtation. A fine temper on his
part, assisted by that true old ally, Time, who considerately
buried some of Mrs. Steel's most dangerous snares under
successive layers of fat, brought him slowly, but safe and
sound in the end, through this trial. But then followed
others, which did not admit of the " all's well that ends well"
balsam, but left scars not to be cured on this side of time.
One after another two sons and two daughters died, leaving
the Steels only one child, Bella, whom they then had but
feeble hopes of ever seeing grow up to womanhood. It was
at this period that, while on furlough to England for the
purpose of seeking the best medical advice for Bella, Mr.
Steel paid a visit—Mrs. Steel did not accompany him—to
the cottage where his little pensioner dwelt. He was struck
by her beauty and loving ways, and resolved to make a
large increase in his bounty towards her. He found that
74
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
her aunt had been able to give her a much better education
than could have been expected in her circumstances, the
fact being that among many other hearts which the child
had won in her little neighbourhood was luckily that of a
lady who kept a good old-fashioned country school. So
Grace, though innocent enough of brilliant accomplishments,
was by no means ignorant for her age. He consulted this
lady, and, in accordance with her advice, determined that
the most effectual way of benefiting her pupil was to com¬
plete her education in such a fashion as to place her in a
position to earn a livelihood hereafter by herself becoming a
teacher. This was the more necessary, sfc he was told that
her aunt could not live long, and after her death Grace
would be utterly homeless. He therefore sent her to the
best school he could hear of. Indeed, so carefully had he
selected it, that when his own only daughter outgrew the
delicacy of her childhood, and reached an age when it was
necessary to choose a school for her, he could find none
better than that in which he had placed Grace.
So the two girls became schoolfellows. Grace, from
gratitude to Mr. Steel, naturally watched over Bella with
sedulous care; and Bella in return conceived so violent an
affection for Grace that at the end of three years, when Mrs.
Steel came home to take her back to India, the excessively
spoilt and imperious young lady flatly refused to go unless
she was allowed to take her " darling Gracy " (now become
a governess in the same school in which she had previously
been a pupil) along with her.
Now, Mrs. Steel had known nothing about her husband's
visit to Miss Hawthorn's humble early home. She had
simply heard of her as an object of the Commissioner's
lordly bounty, and had never considered her worth a second
thought. At present her maternal heart was so overflowing
with pride and love for the darling child whom she had not
seen for many years, and whom she had come home to find
so beautiful and bright, that she had neither time nor eyes
for observing closely the meek and demure governess whom
MR. STEEL HAS HIS EYES OPENED.
75
it was Bella's caprice to patronise. Had these things been
otherwise, it is probable that the wary matron would, not¬
withstanding the imperious sway which her self-willed
daughter had even already managed to establish over her
mind, have firmly resisted this freak of carrying off Miss
Hawthorn along with them to Beshuckabad. But as it was,
she yielded after a very faint protest.
In justice, however, to this prudent matron, I must add
that Bella's impetuous demands were not altogether unsup¬
ported by certain more practical suggestions supplied by her
own sagacious mind. She had for some time been on the
look-out for a sort of "companion," lady-'nousekeeper,
refined drudge, to assist her in countermining the wily devices
of that arch enemy to her peace, her Khdnsdmah, and she
had hitherto found the exact article she wanted extremely
difficult to come at. Now, here was the very thing, with all
the qualifications she had ever looked for, as well as one or
two important ones which she could never have dreamt of.
For example, she had always expected to have to pay a
pretty high salary; but Grace Hawthorn would want none
at all. Then a woman bound to her interests by a mere
mercenary contract would herself have to be looked after
with a sharp eye; but Grace's gratitude to and dependence
on her benefactor would be a guarantee for her honesty.
True that at first the calls of Bella's childish affection for
this girl might interfere with the steadiness of her applica¬
tion to household duties, but Mrs. Steel' was quite astute
enough to argue that this was likely to be a very temporary
drawback. She thought that her impulsive child's feelings
would doubtless be shortlived in exact proportion to their
violence, and that, though the two friends might be insepar¬
able so long as there was no counter-attraction, Bella would
probably grow reconciled to considerable breaks in the con¬
tinuity of her intercourse with her dear Gracy, when she
should find gay young Hussars or Lancers to occupy the
vacant hours.
Miss Hawthorn herself was strongly averse to the arrange-
76
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
ment. Fond as she was of Bella, she was not willing to
give up the independence and comfort of the position she
now held as a well-paid and trusted assistant in the school,
to be that capricious young princess's lady-in-waiting. Nor
had she been particularly fascinated by the grand condescen¬
sion of Bella's imperial mother. But when such a point was
made of her accompanying them, and especially when she
was led to believe that Mr. Steel himself was earnestly desir¬
ous to have her companionship for his daughter, she thought
that gratitude to him forbade her to resist. With many mis¬
givings, therefore, she consented to the arrangement.
As a matter of fact, not only was Mr. Steel not earnestly
desirous for Miss Hawthorn's domestication in his house,
but he was totally ignorant of his wife's and daughter's little
plan ; and when he heard of it, his annoyance was extreme.
He was a man who highly valued the complete privacy of
domestic life. And though he might have put up without
much grumbling with a purely mercenary "lady-help" to
his wife, as with a necessary evil, which might by constant
ciicumspection be kept at any rate outside the innermost
ling of home-life, he clearly foresaw that no such exclusion
would be possible in Miss Hawthorn's case. His previous
relations towards her rendered it necessary that, if she was
to enter his house at all, it must be as a second daughter.
But it was too late to veto the project. Ere he received
the first hint of it, all three ladies were already tossing on the
unquiet bosom of the Bay of Biscay, on their way out to
him.
Mr. Steel, though naturally a man of quick emotions,
had as I have before hinted, schooled himself habitually to
suppress all outward signs of them. And having had several
weeks in which to think over the approaching arrival of
Grace Hawthorn, it might have been expected that, even
supposing there had existed any reasons, arising from old
memories or the like, for his not being able to meet her
without some degree of agitation, no visible signs thereof
would have been allowed to catch the jealous eye of his
MR. STEEL HAS HIS EYES OPENED.
wife. Bat then it must be remembered that at the same
time that he met Miss Hawthorn he also saw, after many
years of absence, his only child, of whom he was passion¬
ately fond. In the rush of joyous feeling in which he pressed
Bella to his heart, looking as she did in her radiant beauty
and perfect health all that the father's brightest dreams
could have anticipated, it is probable that for the moment
he altogether forgot the existence of her young companion,
who, with natural delicacy and timidity, kept in the back¬
ground until the greetings between husband and wife and
parent and child-were over. At all events, as a matter of
fact, when Bella did bring her friend forward, Mr. Steel did
not meet her without a manifestation of emotion which his
wife regarded as altogether beyond what the occasion called
for. The first sight of her face seemed to give him a sudden
shock. He fastened his eyes upon it—now bathed in
blushes, half of embarrassment, half of grateful excitement
—with a strangely wistful 'and troubled gaze. Then with
an effort, but half recovering himself, he muttered a few
words of commonplace, scarcely coherent, greeting, very
different from the well-chosen phrases and the courtly tone,
wherein it was hard to say whether stateliness or kindliness
predominated, iji which his wife had been wont to hear him
welcome guests to his house.
What deductions Mrs. Steel may have drawn from all
these phenomena it is not for me to determine. But there
can be no doubt that she pondered them in her heart, and
that they furnished her with many a month's supply of the
" cud of fancies," in which there was a remarkably small
admixture of sweet ingredients to counteract the bitter.
From that moment she saw what a terrible mistake had
been made in bringing Grace into her family; and in laud¬
able deference to her own self-love, she at once adopted and
thenceforth clung to, with all the tenacity of the female
mind, the reasonable and comfortable doctrine that the
whole blame rested with her husband, and not in the small¬
est degree whalevei with herself.
78
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
We-must now give our attention again to the conference
which the Commissioner and his wife have been carrying on
all the time we have been engaged in this digression.
"We must get her married," said Mrs. Steel, winding
up and clinching the long discussion with decision.
"Married!" echoed the poor father plaintively. "Why,
we have had her with us barely a twelvemonth, and before
that 1 had not seen her since she was a puny, fading child
of seven years old ; and now you speak of her leaving us
again ! Nonsense, my dear. She is not eighteen. It will
be time enough to talk of marrying five or six years hence."
" It is never too soon for a young woman to marry,"
replied Mrs. Steel. " Did not I marry before I was eighteen?"'
This fact the Commissioner could not deny, and though
certain recollections connected with the early years of his
married life might have suggested to his mind some qualifi¬
cations of the implied inference, these were scarcely of a
nature which he, being a man addicted to domestic peace
and quietness, could prudently advance for his wife's con¬
sideration. So he held his tongue.
" Besides," she continued, " there is no reason why
Bella should leave us—not for any great length of time, at
least. You must be made Lieutenant-Goyernor when Sir
Duncan MacTullub's time is up, and it will be a most con¬
venient arrangement to have your secretary living in Govern¬
ment House with you."
" O," said the Commissioner, smiling, " the reversion of
the secretaryship—contingent on my own reversionary
interest in the Lieutenant-Governorship—is to be offered as
the remuneration of any one who will take our daughter off
our hands. Is that your plan, Harriet—to put the two up
in one lot ?"
" If you choose to make coarse jokes about our child's
welfare and happiness, I can't prevent you ; but I confess
your sneer seems to be even more pointless than usual. I
don't see how you can offer a man as remuneration what he
has got already."
MR. STEEL HAS HIS EYES OPENED. 79
'■ Got already ! So you have fixed upon the husband too,
then ?"
" Well, a girl can't marry without a husband, I suppose."
"No; that is true. But Wiggins the secretary has a
wife already ; what do you propose to do with her ?"
" O, well, if you are determined to make a jest of the
matter, I will say no more. Pray enjoy your joke by your¬
self. But for my part—"
My dear Harriet, I was never less disposed to jest in
my life, I assure you. But you are talking in riddles.
Whom on earth do you allude to ?"
" To whom should I allude but Charles Ravensmore, the
under-secretary."
" Charles Ravensmore ! But he suffers under the same
objection as Bella herself: he is too young to think of
marrying yet. He is the most rising young man we have,
and with his connections and abilities he should have a
great future before him. But to burden himself with a wife
now would be to handicap his chances too heavily."
"Did marriage stand in the way of your advancement?"
demanded Mrs. Steel pertinently.
" Ahem ! that is not quite the point," replied the Com¬
missioner, somewhat feebly. " But in short, if Bella has the
good sense to fall in love with Charles Ravensmore some
four years hence, when she has outgrown the wayward
caprices natural to such a mere child as she is yet, and if
at the same time she h'ds the good luck to make Charles
Ravensmore fall in love with her—well, I shall think she
could scarcely do better. In the mean while—"
" In the mean while," interrupted Mrs. Steel, betrayed by
the intensity of her maternal excitement into an unwonted
flight of metaphor, " you would let the silly lamb amuse
itself by playing with the wolf? No," she added, in a tone
intended to put a final cloture on the debate, "no such risk
shall be run if I can help it. I have arranged the whole
thing in my mind.- I will write this very day to Sir Duncan
MacTullub to give Charles a week's leave before the Christ-
8o
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
mas holidays, and of course he can stay a week after with¬
out leave; that will make over three weeks with us. And
in that time, he is sure to fall in love with Bella, and she
can't ever think again about the odious Trapton, after seeing
such a superior young man as Ravensmore—the nephew of
an earl, and who may come into the title himself yet, if his
nine cousins should die, as I daresay they may."
And to lose no time, Mrs. Steel got up and went to the
drawing-room to write the necessary letters at once.
CHAPTER VII.
mr. steel goes off triumphantly wlfh the old love,
but his wife comes on less prosperously with the
new
The preliminary steps of Mrs. Steel's scheme were
accomplished with most encouraging success. Sir Duncan
MacTullub graciously accorded her permission to keep
young Ravensmore with her as long as she felt inclined;
and the brilliant under-secretary himself consented—though
more grudgingly, and not without broadly hinting his appre¬
hensions as to the possible, not to say probable, disastrous
consequences to the commonweal of so dangerous a step
—to absent himself from his office three days previous to
the commencement of the Christmas vacation, in order to
reach Beshuckabad in time for proposed festivities on Christ¬
mas Eve.
The day before Christmas Eve happened to be Mrs.
Steel's weekly " tennis afternoon." Shortly before the time
for the guests to arrive, the two girls issued forth on the
lawn, both most prettily dressed, and with their arms sweetly
entwined around one another's waists—on the off chance,
probably, of some of the young fellows from the canton¬
ments having come early, and being there to see and appre-
THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. 8l
date the simple, unaffected grace of the posture. As
nobody, however, happened to be there, they quietly un¬
linked their embrace, and walked up and down the lawn
side by side, talking.
" I wish this Mr. Ravensmore, who seems from all
accounts to be quite an Admirable Crichton, would arrive
in time for tennis," remarked Miss Hawthorn, " though,
after all, I suppose he would not play ; for, to judge by his
answer to your mother's invitation, he seems to consider
any form of recreation less solid than the drafting of a reso¬
lution on Municipal Reform a most reprehensible misappli¬
cation of his time and talents. I fear he would be horrified
at so frivolous a proposal as a game of tennis."
" He is being brought here to play quite a different
game," answered Miss Steel.
" What game do you mean ?"
"Can't you guess? You are either very innocent,
Grace, or (what is nearer the mark, I suspect) too much
occupied with your own little game to attend either to mine
or mamma's."
" Your game !" replied Grace; " if you choose so to call
your encouragement of that Mr. Trapton, whom I dislike
so, you know I am not indifferent to that. I am sure I
have warned you over and over again, Bella dearest—"
" Yes, yes, indeed you have," said Bella hastily. " For
goodness' sake don't let us "hear another homily on that
text before I have had time to swallow, much less digest,
your last. But don't you really see why mamma has invited
Ravensmore ? She looks upon him, you know, as quite a
compendium—a domestic medicine-chest, in fact—of all
the healing virtues ; and she wants to use him as an antidote
to somebody else, under whose lips the poison of adders is
supposed to lie. Or, if you prefer to have the parable in
another form—Ravensmore is the bright archangel who has
been summoned from the celestial regions of the Secretariat
to do battle with Lucifer Trapton for the heart of that very
simple Eve, Bella Steel."
G
82
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
And she ended with a ringing laugh. Grace liked neither
the jest nor the laugh. There was too much of bitterness
in the one and of mockery in the other.
" I believe you flirt with Mr. Trapton," she said, " merely
to tease your mother. But have you ever thought, Bella,
how it would pain Mr. Steel if he were to observe that you
permitted anything like familiarity from such a man? Were
it me, I know I would bite out my tongue, or never speak
to a man again, rather than do anything to cause Mr. Steel
annoyance."
" I should think so, indeed," answered Bella promptly.
" You would be horribly ungrateful if you did not, after all
you owe to him."
"And don't you owe him as much?" asked Grace.
" O, I am his daughter. It is altogether different with
me," said Bella, with a supercilious air.
Just then the earliest of the guests arrived and put an
end to their conversation, and soon afterwards the balls
were hopping gaily over the nets, and a lively chatter re¬
sounded through the mango grove, the pleasant shade of
which was soon occupied by a crowd as brightly plumaged
and as talkative as the flocks of parrots which its presence
scared away.
Grace observed with some uneasiness that Bella refused
to play, and looked round anxiously as each successive
sound of cantering hoofs up the avenue announced the
arrival of a new male guest. Trapton had never been at
Mrs. Steel's tennis-parties before, being doubtless conscious
that he might not be welcomed very warmly by the gentle¬
man whose intervention had been enlisted to save him from
being cashiered. But Grace felt sure that Bella expected
him this afternoon ; nor was she wrong. For presently she
observed Miss Steel's face brighten up, and, looking round,
saw the detrimental lieutenant dismounting from his horse.
He was certainly a handsome man, with a somewhat
effeminate face, but a fine manly figure. He looked scarcely
twenty, though as a fact he was some eight or nine years
THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW.
83
older. And this was a peculiarity which the ingenuous
young man did not fail to turn to many accounts; for
besides its constituting, no doubt, one of his attractions in
the eyes of Miss Steel, it had lulled into security many an
unsuspecting tyro of the card-table, who could never be
induced to believe that any very dangerous arts could lie
hidden under that shining schoolboy face.
His reputation in the society of Beshuckabad was as
ragged as a fakeer's cloak. But his dress was the acme of
elegance. He was equally conscious of both facts. But
the latter gave him confidence to a very much greater
degree than the former abashed him. It was a sight to see
the princely air with which he deigned to drop a remark
here and there to the prettiest of the women whom he passed
on his progress across the lawn, and the loftily good-natured
manner in which he spoke a word of encouragement to his
own colonel, a man of. aristocratic family and of high mili¬
tary reputation, but who had a bad habit of breaking into a
profuse perspiration whenever he found himself in a society
in which the female sex was represented. The colonel
perspired harder than ever at his subaltern's patronising
address, but could only reply with an inarticulate gurgle—
possibly intended to express gratification—and then suddenly
turning " threes about," charged the nearest refreshment-
table, and buried his head in a " peg " tumbler.
The face of Mrs. Steel, who was sitting by the General's
wife—the only lady amongst her guests whose position was
sufficiently exalted to make it seemly for the Commissioner's
wife to enter into general conversation with her—grew red
and lowering as Trapton advanced. And Grace Hawthorn
could hardly conceal her vexation at his arrival. But Bella
paid no heed to the displeasure of mother or friend, and
was actually on the point of rising from her chair, regardless
alike of maiden modesty and Mrs. Grundy, and running for¬
ward to greet him, when the unexpected interposition of
another person checked her, "just as she trembled on the
rise." This was her father, whom the exigencies of office
84
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
usually prevented from putting in an appearance at these
gatherings, at any rate until a much later hour than this.
On this afternoon, however, by a strange coincidence, he
happened to come out just in time to meet Trapton within
three yards of Bella's chair.
" O, Mr. Trapton," he said, in the blandest tone, hold¬
ing out his hand to the young man (whom he had never
spoken a word to in his life before), " you are the very man
I wanted to see. I am told there is no one who knows
more about a horse than you ; and there is something wrong
with the hock of my new Waler mare, which, I confess,
is quite beyond my skill. Do be kind enough to come
round to the stable and look at her. I will not detain you
long."
If anything could have taken Rattley Trapton aback,
this unlooked-for reception would have done it. As it was,
he actually stammered twice over the dozen words in which
he declared the extr6me pleasure which it would afford him
to place his modest stock of equine knowledge at Mr.
Steel's service. And as for the rest of the company (who,
of course, knew all about Bella's flirtation, and had formed
their own notions as to how the haughty Commissioner
would be likely to view it), they were so astonished, that
every one simultaneously paused in the middle of the sen¬
tence he or she was uttering, and sat open-mouthed. The
sudden lull in the buzz of conversation brought Grace to
her wits. She jumped up, and with much volubility and
bustle set about arranging the sides for a new " set."
When the Commissioner had placed the house as a sub¬
stantial screen between himself and his companion, and the
curious eyes and ears of the party on the lawn, he paused in
his progress towards the stables.
" I don't know whether you are aware, Mr. Trapton," he
said, " that you, some little time ago, laid me under an
obligation."
Trapton replied with perfect sincerity that he was not
aware of the fact. " What the devil is the old buffer driv--
THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW.
85
ing at ?" was his mental query, half of contempt and half of
suspicion.
"You gave me an opportunity of repaying some kind¬
ness and hospitality which I received many years ago at the
hands of your uncle, Mr. Goodieshoes."
" Ahem !" replied Trapton, growing very red, for he now
understood the allusion.
"I was very glad indeed," resumed the Commissioner,
" to employ what little interest I may possess in certain
quarters in bringing your affair to a conclusion satisfactory
to my old acquaintance. And what I wish now to say to
you, Mr. Trapton," and here he fixed those keen eyes of
his steadily 011 the young man's (which, despite his consti¬
tutional audacity, drooped, after a brief effort to return the
gaze), "what I wish to say to you is, that you may rest
assured that I will not hesitate again to use my influence
at head-quarters, should I see occasion for it, and I shall do
so, I doubt not, with the same success as before. Do I
make myself understood ?"
" Why, sir, I am no.t quite sure about that," answered
the Hussar. "If you mean to say that you will be ready
to pull me through another scrape, all I can say is, that I
am much obliged to you for past favours and present good
intentions, but I don't intend to give you the chance. I am
not going to put my foot into it again—not if I know it."
" No, that was not exactly my meaning," said Mr. Steel
very dryly. " But are you sure that your foot, as you ex¬
press it, is quite out of the old quagmire when you speak of
avoiding new ones? Unless I take an erroneous view of
the matter, what I was able to do was to induce the military
authorities to refrain from taking action in a certain matter;
there is nothing, so far as I know, to prevent their taking
that action now or at any future time, should the considera¬
tions which have hitherto withheld them cease, for any rea¬
son, to operate."
" Then, sir, am I to take your hint at a further inter¬
ference in my affairs as a threat?"
86
CURRENT REPENTANCE,
" I should not say a ' threat,' but rather a suggestion for
your consideration."
" A sort of a ' put that in your pipe and smoke it,' eh ?
Well, sir, I must say I don't understand the drift of your
threat, or suggestion, or whatever you like to call it."
"I think you do," replied Mr. Steel very quietly. "At
any rate, I am not disposed to specify it more distinctly.
And now, as I am aware that, under the peculiar circum¬
stances which have brought about our acquaintance, it can¬
not but be embarrassing to you to visit my house, and that
you can only have been induced to call with the object
of personally expressing your thanks for the slight service
I was fortunate enough to be in a position to render you,
I will now wish you good-afternoon. I have had your
horse brought round, and you can get on to the road this
way, which will avoid the awkwardness of your returning to
the tennis-lawn before taking your leave."
And so the Commissioner politely dismissed his intrusive
guest by the back way.
Mr. Steel had an imposing manner, which, somehow,
few people could help giving way before; though some of
them would feel some surprise, and not a little anger, after
they were relieved from the immediate oppression of his
presence, at their own weakness. Trapton was much
vexed by such feelings as he rode away, and growled to
himself,
" What a d—d idiot, to let the old fogey put me off in
this way ! Confound his insolence ! D—n it, I'll go back to
the partyand he half checked his horse. "But no; I
should look a bigger fool than ever going back now. Yes,
yes; I understand the old brute perfectly. Curse him ! he
will tip his friend the C. in C. a wink, and I shall be kicked
out of the service, unless I give up his daughter. But I'll
be even with him yet. You don't know whom you have to
deal with, Mr. Steel; I can tell you that. If I don't suc¬
ceed in getting that silly girl, before she is many weeks
older, to commit herself in such a way that her stuck-up
THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. 87
father shall come and beg me to marry her just to save
scandal—ay, and bribe me, too, with a rattling big dowry
—my name is not Rattley Trapton."
On parting from Trapton the Commissioner did not at
once return to the party on the lawn, but went into his
office, and finished his day's work. He came out again
about an hour later.
A lady of perhaps five-and-thirty, still good-looking, but
yet more remarkable for keenness and vivacity of expression,
addressed him, eyeing him the while with an inquiring
glance,
"What does Mr. Trapton say about the mare's hock,
Mr. Steel ? What an unconscionable time you have been
about your inspection!"
"O dear, no; I have been in office till this moment,
Mrs. Archer. I left Mr. Trapton in the stables half an hour
ago. I must ask him what he made out about the swell¬
ing. Where is Mr. Trapton, Grace ? Do you see him ?"
And Mr. Steel looked innocently around the gay throng
in search of his young veterinary adviser.
" He is not here," answered Mrs. Archer, taking the
reply out of the mouth of Miss Hawthorn, who was seated
beside her. "We have seen nothing of your handsome
young friend since you carried him off so abruptly ; and I
assure you, judging from looks," she added, with a momen¬
tary but very perceptible glance at Bella, who was seated
at some distance, with a brow, in truth, as black as thunder,
" some of us are not particularly obliged to you for having
done so."
" What! Not come back ? Dear me, I never intended
to trespass on his good-nature to such an extent. I must
see that he does not stay any longer at the stables."
And so Mr. Steel passed on to speak to other guests.
"What is the matter with Miss Steel, Grace?" asked
Mrs. Archer; " she seems quite out of sorts."
" Do you think so ?" replied Grace, with an innocent
attempt to feign surprise and alarm, just as though Mrs.
88
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Archer's sharp eye had not been observing her watching
Bella's sulky face with the utmost uneasiness the last half-
hour. " Dear me, I hope she is not feeling ill; I must go
and see."
Grace tripped round the edge of the lawn to where
Bella sat, and, slipping into a chair close by her side, whis¬
pered in her ear. Mrs. Archer, contemplating the proceed¬
ing with quiet amusement, could scarcely refrain from
laughing outright at the sudden savageness with which Miss
Steel turned upon her friend, with a few words evidently as
sharp as new-set razors, and at the startled dismay with
which Grace recoiled, all the blood mantling to her fore¬
head.
" Do you know, my dear," said Mrs. Archer, when Miss
Hawthorn had returned to her place, and had sat some
minutes with a very absent and subdued air, " do you know,
I had quite a shock to-day. You know that dear little pug
of mine—real Chinese pug, and such a sweet creature;
poor thing, she was lying on the sofa this morning, looking
so miserable and ill—indigestion, I suppose—and so I
went up to her in the greatest concern, and stroked her
head, and, putting my face quite close to her, I whispered,
in a tone of deep sympathy, ' Poor Flo, what is the matter ?'
and in reply the gentle creature just turned her head towards
me, and, seeming to gaze into my very soul with her lustrous
eyes, gave—a snarl and such a snap ! I assure you, her
teeth closed with a report like a saloon pistol not a quarter
of an inch from my nose."
" How fortunate it did not bite you !" remarked Grace.
" Yes, was it not ?"
"For the dog, you know, I mean," explained Grace.
" She would certainly have had her teeth set on edge."
"O Grace, how severe for you J" answered Mrs. Archer,
laughing good-temperedly. " But I told you it was the tip
of my nose she so nearly bit off, and all the acid of my com¬
position lies, you know, in my tongue. The veins in every
other part of my body are filled, I do assure you, with no-
THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW.
89
thing but the sweetest milk of human kindness. But have
'you found out what is the matter with your friend Miss
Bella ?"
" O, she is tired, I think."
"What a pleasant sight it is," Mrs. Archer went on, " to
see a mother and daughter together, the one so exactly
reproducing in fresh blossoms all the most lovely flowers
which adorn in their matured beauty the character of the
other—the full-blown rose and the bud on one stalk ! Now,
look at Mrs. Steel; observe the matronly dignity which
permits her to drop solemn remarks into the favoured ears
of the General's wife, at intervals like a passing bell, but
restrains her from the impropriety of bestowing so much as
a look upon us inferior people. And then remark the sweet
maidenly reserve with which her daughter snubs the com¬
mon herd of majors, captains, and assistant-commissioners.
I suppose, now, she would be quite shocked if a mere sub¬
altern—my handsome friend Trapton, for instance—were
to lift his bold eyes above the strings of her tennis-shoes.
Eb, Grace, what do you think ?"
" I think—well, I think, Mrs. Archer, you are as witty
as you are good-natured. But I see they want to make up
a set on the tar court."
And off Grace went, with an offended air, leaving the
placid Mrs. Archer laughing quite good-temperedly at her
parting rebuke.
A tennis-party, except for the players, is a dull affair;
and quite a pleasurable excitement was presently caused
among the lookers-on by the sound of a horse galloping at
full speed up the avenue. Some suggested it might be a
messenger coming with the news that the Sepoys had
mutinied in cantonments. Others thbught that it was only
Mr. Steel's Waler mare got loose after kiching Rattley
Trapton's brains out while examining its hocks. And then
there arose quite a fuss and flutter amongst the ladies of
the party, when a young man, mounted on a splendid Arab,
drew up by the side of the lawn. The " still vexed " tennis-
9°
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
balls had a moment's rest; and in their stead the name of
" Mr. Ravensmore " flew backwards and forwards over the
nets from mouth to mouth. A stranger seeing the commo¬
tion could have had no doubt that Mr. Ravensmore was a
young man of "light and leading " in those parts.
Mrs. Steel's unbending dignity relaxed instantaneously.
She jumped up from her chair, and waddled across the lawn
towards the new arrival with the eager haste of a duck sur¬
prised at feeding-time in a distant corner of the farmyard.
" Why, Charles, we thought you were never coming!"
she exclaimed, holding out both her hands to him while yet
a dozen yards off. "How have you come? Ridden!
What, ride all the way from Kantanugger ?" (the nearest
railway-station to Beshuckabad.) " How tired you must be !
Come and have some claret-cup. Bella dearest, bring
Charles a glass of claret-cup, or would you rather have
a brandy-and-soda? we shall not be shocked if you do.
This is my daughter Bella, Charles. I expect you two to be
great friends. You are almost like cousins, you know, for
your dear mother and I were more than sisters."
Mr. Ravensmore received this exuberance of welcome
with much composure. His response to the introduction of
his " more than kin," Bella, was, one might hhve thought, a
little "less than kind," it was so very cold and grave.
But Mrs. Steel persevered with admirable pertinacity in
spite of his discouraging apathy, and not less in spite of
Bella's sullen ungraciousness. For that young lady scarcely
even deigned to bend her head in acknowledgment of the
introduction.
After many more notes of admiration at young Ravens-
more's hardihood in having scorned the luxurious ease of
a dawk-carriage, and actually ridden some forty miles, and
after tender motherly suggestions that he should at once go
to bed and rest from his herculean fatigues, she at last pro¬
posed that he should have a game at tennis—he and Bella
playing against two other crack performers among the guests.
Even Bella brightened up a little at this; tennis was, next to
THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. 91
flirtation, her passion. Ravensmore's skill was celebrated
throughout the Mabap Provinces. So she actually backed
up her mother's invitation with some show of interest. But
Ravensmore's refusal was decided ; how could he possibly
play, he said, in boots? Now, Mrs Steel had that very
afternoon been exceedingly plain-spoken—of course, she
was incapable of being rude—to a lady who had been per¬
suaded to try her hand at the game for the first time, and
who, not intending to play, had come to the party in high-
heeled boots. Mrs. Steel had then put a very peremptory
and speedy stop to an experiment so likely to mar the
smooth face of her well-leeped courts. But Charles Ravens-
more was welcome to play in spiked cricketing-shoes if
he liked. Mr. Ravensmore, however, observed that there
were other things to be cared for besides Mrs. Steel's courts,
and amongst the most important of these was his reputation,
the slightest damage to which he could not for a moment
think of risking. And Mr. Steel coming up just then, and
giving Charles as hearty, though not quite so gushing, a
welcome as her own, Mrs. Steel was chagrined to see the
veteran Commissioner and young secretary at once plunge
into an engrossing discussion of " shop," taking thence¬
forth no more notice of either her or her daughter than if
they had been a dozen miles off.
The amiable Mrs. Archer, we may be sure, had observed
and enjoyed this little scene; and, with a true workman's
—or rather workwoman's—dislike to seeing a job left half
done, she resolved to put a " finish" to it. Accordingly,
scarcely had Mrs. Steel returned to her seat by the General's
wife, and answered a mild remark or two hazarded by that
lady with a brevity and decision which, in another person,
might have been called " snappish," when she had the
satisfaction of seeing " that bold vulgar woman " (the phrase
by which she usually indicated Mrs. Archer) walk up
behind Ravensmore, and, undeterred either by decency: or
the august presence of the Commissioner, tap him on the
shoulder with her parasol.
92
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
" Familiar was the touch, and told
Marmion and she were friends of old."
The " shop " was at once closed, Mr. Steel (metaphorically
speaking) hastily putting up the shutters, and walking away;
while Ravensmore and the shameless Mrs. Archer were
left standing alone, interchanging ideas much (if one might
judge by their complacent expression of countenance) to
their mutual satisfaction. But worse was to follow. Mrs.
Steel, when introducing her daughter to the newly-arrived
visitor, had not deemed it necessary to extend that formal¬
ity to the other young female member of her family. She
thought—that is, if she thought about Grace at all, which is
unlikely—that Ravensmore would gather the very slight
information which it was necessary for him to possess as
to who and what Miss Hawthorn was, by seeing her per¬
mitted to take her place with the rest of the family at the
dinner-table. But Mrs. Archer's ideas on this subject, as
on so many others, did not exactly coincide with those of
the Commissioner's lady. And presently the latter saw
this audacious creature lead Ravensmore right across the
lawn, and, in full view of everybody, present him in due
form to Miss Hawthorn.
To the careless observer Mr. Ravensmore's demeanour
under this second presentation might not have seemed very
different from that which he had displayed towards Bella.
There was the same polite but rather stiff bow. But the
spirit of matchmaking had sharpened Mrs. Steel's eyes, so
that she could see below the surface ; and with a pang of
rage she detected—or at all events fancied that she could
detect—a look of admiration for Grace's lustrous brown
eyes and speaking features, which had certainly not been
present while he contemplated the statuesque beauty of the
fair Bella.
The climax, however, was not reached until, after a few
minutes' lively conversation, Grace got up, and, followed by
Ravensmore, approached another young lady who was
talking to another young gentleman hard by. Two words
BELLA STEEL PLAYS TRUANT.
93
were exchanged. Ravensmore was supplied with a racquet;
and in another moment he and Grace on one side of the
net were gaily serving tennis-balls to the other couple on
the other side, regardless alike of riding-boots, plastic courts,
and reputation!
The laces of Mrs. Steel's corset must indeed have been
of tough material to hold out against the indignant swelling
of her bosom when her eyes encountered this scandalous
spectacle.
CHAPTER VIII.
bella steel plays truant from church, which leads
to some unexpected results
The untoward behaviour of the young people at the
tennis-party was ony a sample of the perversity which was
to vex Mrs. Steel's righteous soul during many subsequent
days. Bella remained sullen, and repelled even the acts
of ordinary civility which Ravensmore did not, it must be
acknowledged, press upon his host's daughter with any
undue assiduity, while his attentions to Miss Hawthorn
were marked.
Grace received them with simple frankness, never dream¬
ing that she owed them to any other cause than Bella's
persistent refusal to allow them to be bestowed upon herself.
But assuredly Mrs. Steel did not regard Miss Hawthorn's
behaviour in this innocent light.
So things went on over Christmas week, and the peace
and goodwill proper to that season were, I am afraid, very
far away from Mrs. Steel's bosom throughout the time. On
the Sunday following, an occurrence took place which
becamea some what important turning-point in the history
of the mutual relations of the several members of the Com¬
missioner's household.
Bella had sullenly intimated at tiffin-time that she had a
bad headache, and was not going to the evening service.
94
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Ravensmore having been to church in the morning, the idea
of going there a second time on the same day did not appear
to strike him as within the range of practical human possi¬
bilities, and he repaired to his bedroom, to doggedly set to
work to pick out the slender and oft-broken thread of sense
or purpose connecting a rambling file of official corre¬
spondence dating back to somewhere about the time of
Macaulay and Lord William Bentinck. Mr. Steel always
employed the Sunday afternoon in reading the Quarterly
and Edinburgh. But Mrs. Steel and the girls were regular
attendants at both services ; and therefore, half an hour
before church-time, Grace Hawthorn entered the drawing-
room ready dressed to go to the church, which was in
cantonments, between two and three miles from their house.
But for some reason (which the present chronicler has failed
to ascertain) Mrs. Steel had taken it into her head to break
through her rule on this particular Sunday, and accordingly
appeared in the drawing-room soon after Grace, with the
said head unbonneted.
" Are not you ready for church, mamma ?" asked Miss
Bella, with more alertness than she had of late been in the
habit of displaying; "it is quite time. Grace has been
dressed the last ten minutes."
" I am not going; so Grace may undress again," was
the reply.
" But may not I go, if you are not ?" asked Grace.
"Go by yourself!" replied Mrs. Steel. "Why, what
next, I wonder ? Wanting to take the horses all that way ?
Certainly not!"
Grace looked disappointed, but turned away to leave
the room and take off her hat and jacket without another
word. But Bella was good-natured when she could be so
without much trouble to herself, and said,
"How unkind of you, mamma ! You know what a dis¬
appointment it is to Grace not to go to church. If you won't
let her take the carriage by herself, I will go with her."
And in her usual headstrong way she refused to listen
BELLA STEEL PLAYS TRUANT.
95
either to Grace's protestations that she did not care about
going, or to her mother's warnings that she would certainly
make her headache worse, but ran out of the room, ordered
the carriage to be brought round within three minutes, at
the peril of the coachman's ears or place, or both, and then
rushed off to her room to get herself ready in the same
limited space.
But from the moment that she took her seat in the car¬
riage by Grace's side, her languor and lassitude returned,
and before they had reached the gate of the compound she
seemed to be suffering such pain in her head that Grace
insisted upon their turning back. Bella said, No; she
knew how anxious Grace was to go on, and she did not
suppose her headache would get much worse ; and she con¬
cluded with a dismal groan. After a few minutes' argument,
a compromise was arrived at. It was decided that Grace
should go on in the carriage to church, but that Bella should
get out and walk back, for they had not yet got more than
a couple of hundred yards beyond the gates of their
compound.
So Bella alighted, and Grace drove on. But the latter
had not gone far when she bethought her that Miss Steel, ill
as she was, ought not to be left to return even that short
distance quite alone. So she turned to one of the syces
(grooms) who stood behind the carriage (after the fashion of
the footmen on our grandfathers' coaches), and told him to
get down and follow the Miss Sahib. But he was merely,
she said, to keep her in sight, and see that she got home
safe ; not on any account to follow her closely. For Grace
felt by no means certain that Bella might not be annoyed
at this excessive solicitude for her safety.
Service over, Miss Hawthorn drove back, and as she
neared the house began to prepare herself for the scolding
which she felt sure was in store for her for allowing Bella to
return, and herself taking the carriage on to church. But
to her surprise, as they turned the last corner of the road,
she saw Bella standing there waiting for her.
96
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
" I wanted to save you from having anything disagree¬
able said by mamma," remarked Miss Steel as she got into
the carriage. " So, instead of going back, I sat under those
trees yonder. It was so cool and nice for my poor head,
and now mamma need never know that we have not both
been to church."
Now, though Grace viewed the character of her bene¬
factor's child through very roseate spectacles, even she was
conscious that all this prolonged and disinterested trouble
to save another person from a slight disappointment and a
trifling censure was not altogether germane to it. A suspi¬
cion, or rather a conviction, of the truth flashed across her
mind in a moment.
"O Bella," she exclaimed, "you have not met him
again, have you ? O, say you have not."
But Bella, though she attempted a little half-serious, half-
bantering prevarication, would by no means say she had not.
" Mind, Grace," she said, as the carriage drew up under
the portico, and now there was no touch of levity in her
voice—mind, Grace, if you let them get the slightest hint
that I have not been close beside you ever since we started,'
if I see you pulling a long puritanical face at anything I
say to papa or mamma, as if the world was coming to an
end—mind, you make me your enemy for life. I will never
forgive you, and never rest till I have paid you off. And
besides, remember, I have been very kind to you : you
would be only a governess now, if it had not been for me ,*
and my meeting Trapton just now would never have
occurred but only for my good-nature in saving your being
disappointed of going to church."
" Don't be afraid," answered Grace indignantly; " I will
neither speak nor look any hints. You and your mother
may settle the lie between you; you may tell, and she
believe, whatever you both like, without interference from
me. After all, it hardly needed your very plain intimation
to tell me of the light in which you have come to regard me;
your whole behaviour for weeks past might have shown me.
BELLA STEEL PLAYS TRUANT.
97
But as dislike to being a governess has not been the motive
which has kept me here, I assure you I will remain no longer
to be the mere butt of your mother's ill-temper, or a screen
for your assignations with Mr. Trapton."
The angry dispute between the two girls was checked by
the appearance of Mr. Steel on the top of the steps of the
hall-door, just as they descended from the carriage, both
with flushed faces and flashing eyes. Having swallowed the
political article of the Quarterly, he was just going out to
walk off the effects in the cool of the evening.
" Hullo ! what is this ?" said he, catching each by an
arm as they tried to hurry past him, one on each side : "you
two quarrelling, and just after hearing an excellent sermon
too, I have no doubt! Fie, fie ! Come for a stroll on the
lawn and cool those flushed cheeks. I will walk between
you ; I am a capital non-conductor of heat."
So saying, he gave each an arm and led them out. He
made no awkward inquiries as to who were at church, or
what not, but began to amuse them by talking of a variety
of things altogether unconnected with present circumstances.
So all would doubtless have gone off well but for that unlucky
mistake of Grace's in sending the syce after Bella as a body¬
guard. Indian native servants are about the most perversely
stupid blockheads between China and Peru, and, among
all native Indian servants, syces hold an undisputed pre¬
eminence in fatuity. They always do something diametri¬
cally opposite to what they have been told, except on those
occasions when the intervention of unforeseen circumstances
renders what they have been told to do the most obviously
wrong thing possible to be actually done. Now, in the
present case, one of these latter rare opportunities had pre¬
sented itself, and the syce had taken full advantage of it by
minutely following Grace's instructions to the letter. She
had told him to keep Miss Steel in sight until he saw her
safe home, but not to annoy her by close attendance. And
so effectually had he obeyed this injunction, that he had
watched the whole of Bella's long interview with Trapton
H
98
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
(who had been waiting for her according to a preconcerted
plan, she having intended to steal out while her mother was
absent at church). The man now came forward to meet
Mr. Steel and the two girls as they turned in their walk up
and down the lawn, his squat black face, glittering eyes,
and shining teeth beaming all over with the broad grin of
conscious merit, and holding out in his clumsy fist a dainty
lemon-coloured kid glove, six and a quarter.
"You dropped this under the trees yonder, Miss Sahib,
while you were talking to the Sahib, just as you ran back to
the road to get into the carriage again."
And as he spoke, he pointed the stumpy forefinger of the
other hand in the direction of a grove of mango-trees, which
grew at the distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile beyond
the compound-wall, and whose tops could just be seen from
where they stood.
The incident was embarrassing, and both girls changed
colour, but Miss Steel's presence of mind did not desert her.
" It is not my glove ; it must be yours, Grace," she said,
handing it to the latter. And in confirmation of her state¬
ment, she put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a
pair of lavender kid gloves, folded together. Bella was not
a particularly tidy young lady, and frequently left handker¬
chiefs, gloves, and suchlike in the pockets of her dresses
when she took them off, and I grieve to say that she mentally
congratulated herself upon that reprehensible habit in the
present instance.
Grace took the glove passed to her without a word, and
quietly put it in her pocket. Then Bella curtly told the
syce to get away, and immediately afterwards said,
" O papa dear, I have almost forgotten to tell you some¬
thing so important. Do you know, Mr. Ravensmore told
me to-day that—"
" What! was it Ravensmore you were speaking to in the
mango grove ?" Mr. Steel interrupted.
" In the mango grove ? How do you mean ?" asked
Bella, with a look of admirably-assumed perplexity.
BELLA STEEL PLAYS TRUANT.
" Why, where Grace dropped her glove," explained her
father.
" O, that must have been in the churchyard," said Bella.
" I thought he pointed to these trees just outside. O, it
was in the churchyard you stopped to talk, was it ? By the
way, how did the grays go this evening ? I thought the near
one seemed to go a little dull yesterday."
" O no, they rattled us along famously. I don't think it
can have taken us much over a quarter of an hour, between
the church and this, either coming or going."
This last unnecessary statement Bella added (forgetful
of the sage maxim propounded by Captain Absolute for the
instruction, in the first instance, of his servant Fag, and
secondarily for that of mendacious mankind generally) with
a view to impressing upon her father the utter impossibility
of her having stopped to talk to any gentleman by the way
to or from church.
" Then, Miss Hawthorn," said Mr. Steel, " can you tell
me where you did drop your glove ? For it is certain the
syce cannot have brought it all the way from the church¬
yard on foot in a little over a quarter of an hour. I remarked
that there was only one syce with the carriage when you
drove up. Eh, where do you now think you dropped
it?"
" I don't know; I did not know that I had dropped it at
all," murmured Grace, with her eyes fixed on the ground.
Bella made no attempt to supply Grace's want of readi¬
ness in reply. She saw clearly now that her father's suspicion
was aroused, and she knew it would be hopeless to parry
that practised lawyer's cross-examination. But this young
person's judgment was not less remarkable than her in¬
genuity ; and no sooner did the latter fail her than the
former came to her aid. When she perceived that the vessel
of concealment was hopelessly leaky, she did not cling to it,
as a more timid nature would have done, until she was sucked
down and overwhelmed in its vortex when it finally sank, but,
while there was yet time, boldly threw herself clear of the
IOO
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
wreck, and struck out on the stormy sea of confession and
contrition.
"Grace!" she exclaimed reproachfully, ".why—why
don't you tell the truth?" And then, without allowing much
time for the adoption of her suggestion, she burst into tears,
and laying her head on her father's breast, sobbed out, " Indeed
—indeed, papa, I knew nothing about it. I had not a sus¬
picion that he was there when we started. I was not going
out at all. I had a bad headache, and intended to stay at
home. It was only in order that Grace might go to church
■—she was so put out and disappointed at not going—that I
consented to go with her. And after we started, it was she
who persuaded me not to go on, but to get out of the
carriage and take a walk. You can't deny that every word
of what I say is true, Grace," she said, suddenly lifting her
face, and looking at Miss Hawthorn with the indignant
glance of injured innocence.
Not that Grace showed the slightest sign of intention to
offer any denial. She had withdrawn her arm from Mr.
Steel's, and was standing with her slight figure drawn up to
its full height, her lips firmly compressed, and a glance of
scorn—Mrs. Steel, who had been tending her flowers in the
verandah hard by, and who, seeing something was wrong,
came up just then, called it defiance—flashing from her dark
eyes.
" You know that it is true, mamma," resumed Bella.
" You know that I would not have gone out but for Grace.
If any one knew of his being there, I did not. My meet¬
ing him was quite accidental, and had I been allowed to
follow my own wishes, I could not have met him."
" Certainly, Bella," assented Mrs. Steel, with a vindictive
look at Grace. " It was Grace Hawthorn who took you out
this afternoon, not only against your own will, but against
my expressed wish. I had said distinctly that I did not
wish the horses taken out again; but, notwithstanding this,
Miss Hawthorn thought fit to go to church and take Bella
with her. But what has happened ?"
BELLA STEEL PLA YS TRUANT.
"I need not stay, I suppose," said Grace. " Bella and
Mrs. Steel are so fully acquainted with my share in what
has occurred, that they require no assistance from me."
And saying this, she stalked away with a very haughty
air.
We need not listen to the further progress of Miss Steel's
shrift, nor to her father's censure. Indeed, to say the truth,
the latter by no means rose to the level of the occasion.
The Commissioner had, as many a peccant official had
learned to his cost, a terrible power of scourging back¬
sliders ; but on the present occasion he was so crushed and
humiliated by his daughter's incorrigible disobedience, her
obstinate perseverance in her unworthy affection for Trapton,
and above all, by her ready, resort to falsehood, without
apparently feeling a qualm of shame in telling a lie, that he
scarcely had the heart to utter a few conventional common¬
places.
Bella, much relieved at having been let off so easily,
retired with her mother to the latter's bedroom, to do the
proper amount of weeping which the occasion required, and
Mr. Steel, with his chin resting on his breast, walked moodily
towards his business room, at the other side of the house.
" The one spared out of so many," he murmured to him¬
self, " to claim the affections, the interests, the hopes of my
evening of life, and she to be thus ! So enslaved by a
degrading passion as to cast aside truth and honour without
a tremor of compunction, without a blush of shame. It is
bitter, very bitter. O, the cruel irony of life ! Or—or is this
my punishment—punishment in kind, under the relentless
law of Heaven—tooth for tooth and eye for eye—for one
sin, for one error, committed so long ago, and under the
stress of fierce temptation and bewildering perplexity?
Surely the madness of a few months in mere boyhood might
have been atoned for by an after life of unblemished recti¬
tude. Truly the punishment is greater than the offence !"
He entered his room, and seating himself at the table,
littered with dockets and blue-books, leant his head upon
102
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
his hand. He sat thus motionless, deep in thought, for
nearly an hour. But strange as it may seem, it was not
Bella's delinquency which now filled his thoughts and
clouded his brow with a shadow of -the deepest gloom.
No; the particular direction which his daughter's faults had
taken had rudely struck a chord in his conscience which
it had been the determined, though perhaps unconscious,
effort of his strong will for twenty years to protect from
impact; but the magic string once touched, his mind rushed
back upon the past with irresistible force. The 'present
scene faded like an " unsubstantial pageant." Present cares,
affections, disappointments, shrivelled into nothing. And
the image of the softly, spiritually lovely face and form
imprinted on his mind's eye as he sat there bore no more
resemblance to the fair features of Bella, than the back¬
ground of wild moorland, from which he stood out, re¬
sembled the richly-wooded level plain of Beshuckabad.
" But why should I condemn myself?" he said at length,
the vehemence of his mental struggle unconsciously finding
an outlet in half-audible words. " Why should I condemn
myself? It was not my act, my wish, my passion which led
me to her on that fatal night. Did I not merely respond
to her own passionate, frantic summons ? My design—the
design which had its origin in my will and my passions, and
for the consequences of which alone I can be held respon¬
sible—had been shattered, overthrown; ay, toppled over,"
he continued—and as he muttered the words, his clenched
teeth showed how the wound ached even after the lapse of
so many long years—" toppled over on my own head, leav¬
ing me crushed under a load of humiliation that I shall carry
with me to the grave. My purpose, with whatever it had
of madness—and of that there assuredly was enough—or
whatever of guilt—and at this day, not more than at that,
can I in my own heart analyse or gauge the antagonistic
elements of that wild passion—my purpose had proved
abortive. What ensued was no consequence of it. The
terrible train of events which followed that night, so far as
BELLA STEEL PLAYS TRUANT.
my share in them is concerned, had a fresh starting-point
then ; they were separated by a gulf of total and complete
revulsion of feeling from all I had felt, or contrived, or
dreamed before. But for her letter, I had never seen her
face again, and O, would to God that I had not! But it
was impossible for me to disregard such an appeal. Heaven
knows at that moment I was little in the mood to respond
to it with alacrity. But she implored me, conjured me by
the memory of our old love, to help her in her sore strait.
And what means of help had I but that which I used ?
what refuge, in the desperate position in which she stood,
could I offer but that which I did ? ' Despair, in which
human aid was well-nigh altogether hopeless '—those were
her words ; and had I, mere boy as I was, more than a
human judgment, a stronger than human heart to bring to
her aid ? But those were her very words."
And as he repeated this phrase, he rose, and opening a
desk, took out an envelope, on which the ink of the address
was faded with age. He was about to take out the letter
which it contained, as he resumed his seat at the table,
apparently with the unnecessary purpose of confirming the
accuracy of his recollection of the words upon whose literal
sense he placed such great importance. But his hand paused
in the middle of its movement. He hesitated, and seemed
to contend with a feeling of dread or repugnance to look
upon the contents of the envelope. And at last he laid it
unopened on the table before him, and, leaning back in his
chair, resumed his troubled meditations.
He was aroused from his reverie by the voice of Grace
Hawthorn just outside the curtain which hung before the
door, asking if she might come in. He started violently at
the sound. And his preoccupation must have been intense,
judging from the unusual disturbance which seemed to
agitate him for several moments after she had entered the
room. Grace's own agitation, however, left her in no case
to observe that of anybody else. She was very pale, her
lips trembled, and she made several ineffectual efforts to
i©4 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
speak before she succeeded in articulating a word. At last
she managed to get out,
" Don't think me ungrateful, Mr. Steel. But I want to
go—I must go—my staying can lead to nothing but—but
—but wretchedness."
Mr. Steel had now quite recovered his self-possession.
He rose, took Grace's hand in one of his own, while he
laid the other on her shoulder, and with exceeding kindness
placed the gasping, palpitating girl in a chair. Then, still
holding her hand, he said, with a tender softness quite
strange to the usual quick, decisive tones of his voice,
"You are distressed and hurt by that unhappy scene
this evening. I understand the motives which have pre¬
vented your explaining circumstances which seemed, or
were made to seem, to cast suspicion upon you. And I
thank you for your generous intention in keeping silence,
Grace. Nevertheless, your silence is as unavailing to
deceive me as that poor child's pitiable prevarications. I
know well that the glove which the syce brought is Bella's,
not yours. And I am perfectly sure that her meeting
with this man, whether prearranged, or (as I would feign
believe it to have been) accidental—on all parts, that
is, but his—was at any rate without your knowledge or
connivance. Therefore, Grace, let not any feeling that you
have incurred my displeasure or distrust disturb you. And
now, my poor child, go to your own room and compose
yourself; for in half an hour it will be dinner-time, and we
must not let our visitor guess that there has been all this
turmoil amongst us."
Grace thanked her guardian warmly for his generous
belief in her innocence, but she continued to press her
entreaty to be allowed to leave a family in which she was an
object of distrust and dislike to at least one principal mem¬
ber of it. She was now able to express herself on this sub¬
ject more coherently than her agitation had allowed her to
do when she believed that she had to make her appeal to a
benefactor who might reasonably consider himself treated
BELLA STEEL PLAYS TRUANT. 105
by her with outrageous ingratitude. She referred with deli¬
cacy to Mrs. Steel's uniform behaviour towards her, pal¬
liating it as much as possible, and ascribing it to an excus¬
able sense of the irksomeness which any woman would be
apt to feel in having a person who was a perfect stranger in
blood or affinity, and a very recent acquaintance in person,
permanently admitted into the innermost circle of her family
life. And deeply grateful as she was for Mr. Steel's past
benefits, she felt that to continue to be dependent upon the
bounty of one on whom she had no kind of claim was
inconsistent with self-respect. She begged, therefore, that
Mr. Steel would let her return to England. She had the
assurance—earnestly and heartily given, on the eve of her
voyage to India—that her old schoolmistress would be glad
to receive her back as governess. This was, in brief, the
purport of her appeal, though the reader must suppose that
she expanded it with the exuberant eloquence natural to her
age and sex.
As I have said, Mr. Steel had been most adverse to
Grace Hawthorn entering his family. He had foreseen
much of the inconvenience, jealousy, and ill-feeling which
had resulted from it. And certainly experience had more
than confirmed the justice of his original fears. He would
gladly have hailed the opportunity to put any fitting end to
the arrangement. For instance, had the chance of a suitable
marriage for Grace presented itself, he would have encour¬
aged it by every means in his power. To have given her
away in marriage to a worthy husband would have afforded
him a twofold satisfaction of the highest kind. It would
put the fitting coping-stone to the generous task which he
had undertaken and so faithfully persevered in for many
years. And it would relieve him of an embarrassment of a
most galling kind which he had little foreseen that the
performance of this task was to involve.
But that the friendless girl whom he had undertaken to
protect should be driven from his roof by unkindness and
unmerited suspicion was a very different matter. There
io6 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
was something in the suggestion of such an idea which
deeply stung his self-love.
" You must not speak of leaving this house, Miss Haw¬
thorn," he said with decision, and indeed with some sharp¬
ness, " until you leave it for a home of your own. Till then
you must look upon my house as in every sense your home,
and on me as your guardian. And if you find here some
things difficult to bear, remember that few persons are so
fortunate as to find even in the homes in which they have
been born a total absence of such trials. Those difficulties
and vexations which you find here have been set before you
by Providence, you may be sure, to be overcome or borne,
and not to be run away from."
" But it is not that," persisted Grace.' " I am ready to
face difficulties and vexations. And I have not complained
of any—as indeed I have no right to—that may have fallen
to my lot here; no, not even in my own heart have I
allowed myself to complain—so long as I felt I was of
some use, and could make some return, however small, for
all your unmerited kindness to me. But now I feel sure
that I can no longer do this. My presence here is a
cause of strife; I know it. Mrs. Steel distrusts me, and
Bella—Bella—"
But she could not quite hit off the right word for Bella's
feeling towards her, so left the sentence unfinished.
"You do more services than you think," answered the
Commissioner kindly. " But that is nothing to the purpose.
Your claim, your duty, to regard this house as your home
rests on no service of any kind required of you. Think
that you have the same rights here as Bella."
"But that is impossible, Mr. Steel. I know that I am
not related to.you even distantly. Nor can I even be the
child of a dear friend."
" Why not ?" asked Mr. Steel sharply.
" Because," answered Grace, " I know this much of my
parentage, that my mother, though her parents were gentle¬
folk by birth, was brought up in a rank in society very far
BELLA STEEL PLAYS TRUANT. 107
inferior to yours. And," she added, in a very low voice,
"my father could never have been your friend because—
you are good."
Mr. Steel got up and walked about the room, as he
always did when he was agitated. After a silence of some
minutes he said,
" Your last inference is true, though the premiss would
scarce pass scrutiny. Your father, my child, was indeed
such an one as could have been no good man's friend. To
me, however little pretension I may have had to that title,
he was assuredly none; but rather, I may truly say, my
bitterest enemy. But as to your mother, you are wrong.
A great difference in social position may be, as you say, a
gulf impassable to mere friendship ; but there is a feeling,
Grace, to which the widest chasm which the whole social
scale can interpose between two human beings is as a
scratch in the sand. Your mother was once dear, very dear,
to me."
" What! did you know her ?" exclaimed Grace eagerly.
" My mother, whom I never saw, but none can know how
dearly I have loved ! you knew her, then ? O, Heaven has
been kind to me, and, orphan as I have been from my
birth, surely goodness and loving-kindness have followed
me all my life. I have never been without the affection of
loving friends, from good Mrs. Hawthorn's, who watched
over my infancy, to yours, my latest and best friend. But
—ungrateful though it may be to say it, it is the bare truth
—I would exchange it all, every word of love and sympathy
that my memory can recall, to have once known my mother,
to have the power to bring back to mind one feature of her
face, to hear in fancy the faintest echo of her voice."
" Nature, my child, has already given you that power,"
answered Mr. Steel, " without demanding any such sacrifice
as its price. Glance in the looking-glass, speak in that sweet
soft ^oice in which'you spoke even now, and the old Mary
Lee of two-and-twenty years ago will stand before you. You
are the living likeness of your mother, Grace. May Heaven
io8 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
in its mercy grant that life may have in store for you a future
far different indeed from her most unhappy fate."
" Mary Lee ? Was that her name ? I did not even
know it. Mrs. Hawthorn told me some of her sad story, but
would never reveal her name, nor that of my father. What
—what was—his? But why should I ask?" she added,
interrupting herself.
" Why, indeed ?" he said ; " much better that it should for
ever be buried in oblivion. But, now you know the claim
which you have on my protection, speak no more of leaving
me. And, Grace, never again let us recur to the subject of
which we have just spoken. To look upon that dark past
is fruitless—fruitless—and I cannot recall it without emotions
which—which—well, enough ; let us speak no more of it."
But Grace yearned to hear more of that ill-starred mother
who had been so mysterious, so sad, but yet^ so beloved a
shadow in her dreams. Yet even at such a moment, when
one might have expected that the new light which had so
suddenly burst upon her would have blinded her to all con¬
siderations but her own impatient curiosity, her habitual un¬
selfish delicacy of regard for the feelings of others asserted
itself. After the confession into which Mr. Steel had been
surprised, and the evident emotion with which he had made
it, she could not but feel that to pursue her inquiries about
her mother must still more seriously affect his peace of mind,
already, it was plain to see, painfully disturbed. With a
sigh, therefore, she choked back the stream of questions
which welled up from her full heart.
But a thought came to her relief. As Mr. Steel had known
and loved her mother so well, was it not possible that he
might have some scrap of her handwriting, some token—any¬
thing tangible which she might cherish as having once be¬
longed to or once been touched by the beloved hand ? She
asked him, and as she did so his eyes instinctively turned
towards the letter which he had laid on the table shortly
before she entered. Her eager eye instantly interpreted the
glance. She sprang forward, and clutched the faded envelope.
BELLA STEEL PLAYS TP BANE tog
" 0, is this her writing? May I see—ah ! may I keep it
— only the envelope ?" she cried imploringly.
"It is hers," he replied; "the only letter I have kept.
Take it, my dear, and keep it, but do not read it here; read
it alone. It will affect you deeply. It is a sad—more
than sad—letter, and was written at a terrible crisis in your
mother's life. But ask me no questions—no explanations—
I could not bear to speak, and it were bootless for you to
know; one thing, however, it will prove to you—the trust
which your mother once had in me. It will be, as it were,
an injunction laid upon you by your mother herself, from
her grave, to regard me in the light of your true father."
Grace had no wish now to prolong the conversation.
She hurried with her treasure to her own room and locked
herself in. It is needless to say she did not appear at the
dinner-table that day. As Bella's feelings had also been too
much lacerated by the occurrences of the evening to permit
of taking sustenance except in perfect seclusion, Ravensmore
might have been left to attribute the absence of the two girls
to the headache of the one and the tender sympathy of the
other. But Mrs. Steel's conscience was too scrupulous to
connive, even by silence, at such a deception, or to allow
Grace to get credit for good-nature which she did not deserve;
so she was careful to inform him, with a significant pursing
up of the lips, that Miss Hawthorn had been favouring them
with a display of temper, and was now, she presumed,
depriving them of the pleasure of her society as a punish¬
ment for not letting her turn the house upside down, and
enjoying the amiable pastime of riding rough-shod over the
meek and patient lady who presided over it. Had the con¬
ventionalities of civilised society not restrained Ravensmore
from uttering aloud the comment which he inwardly passed
upon this piece of information, Mrs. Steel would probably
have come to the conclusion that she would have done
more wisely, after all, to leave him to draw his own inference
from the girls' absence, even at the risk of his imputing
undeserved merit to Miss Hawthorn. No harm would have
no CURRENT REPENTANCE.
been done by this but what had already become past praying
against. Ravensmore required no fresh instance to confirm
his conviction of Grace's perfect amiability; of that he had
quite made up his mind. But her own cheerfulness and
good-humour had hitherto prevented his fully realising the
fact that she was the object of Mrs. Steel's vulgar and domi¬
neering ill-temper. But the malignant tone in which the
latter, now spoke of her opened his eyes. And thus a new
faggot was thrown into the flame which already was burning
pretty briskly in his heart. Mrs. Steel should have remem¬
bered the time-worn adage about pity's relationship to love.
Grief and shame—not to speak of headache—did not
deprive Miss Steel of her appetite, as was proved, if we may
trust to circumstantial evidence, by two large helps of roast
beef, with entrees, pudding, and dessert, which were carried
to her penitential cell. But Grace Hawthorn was too
much engaged with other food to think of that which came
from the dinner-table. She was reading her mother's letter
over and over again, pondering, conjecturing, perplexing
herself upon every word. It was indeed a wild, incoherent,
unintelligible production; truly a sad and ominous thing to
be the sole relic left to a child of the parent whom she had
never known. It ran thus :
" Dear George,—Kindest and most ill-requited of
friends, as you would find mercy yourself at the last day, be
forgiving to one who is even now encompassed by the
shadow of death. O, would that the darkness of the grave
already covered me ! Do not refuse to come to me ; my
last, my only hope is in you in my despair, in which human
aid is well-nigh altogether hopeless. Think of old times;
forget the madness, the horrible delirium of the last few
months, and come to me. Meet me in the side path of the
churchyard at eight o'clock; it is the only time when I can
be sure of a few minutes unwatched by my father.—Your
wretched but once loved Mary Lee.
(> For pity's sake, George, forgive and come."
CHAPTER IX.
to-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new.
After the proof which this Sunday afternoon had
afforded of Mr. Rattley Trapton's audacity, and alike of
Bella's obstinate resolution and unscrupulous cunning in the
pursuit of her infatuation, Mrs. Steel prudently determined Jo
get her away for a time from Beshuckabad. All that was
needed for the success of her scheme, she felt convinced,
was " a fair field and no favourbut obviously these
indispensable conditions could not be .obtained in the
immediate neighbourhood of the quarters of the —th
Hussars. Accordingly, when they had retired that night,
she said to her husband,
" Are not you going into camp, George, now that Christ¬
mas is over ?"
" Not for a week or two, my dear," answered the Com¬
missioner.
" Why not? I am sure you ought to be looking after
your districts, or you will have that lazy fellow Easington
getting things into a muddle again ; and of course all the
blame falls on you, and quite right too, for not having him
turned out when you had a chance last year."
" I think," answered Mr. Steel mildly, " Easington had
a lesson then which he will not so soon have forgotten.
Besides, I visited his district the other day; I was there
just before you returned from the Hills. At any rate, I
could not leave Beshuckabad for the next fortnight; I have
most important work to attend to here."
" I tell you, you have much more important work to
attend to away from here," replied his wife.
" How do you mean ?"
"To get Bella away from that scamp, of course."
" O, I will take good care that there shall be no repe¬
tition of to-day's proceedings. If Bella is so foolish and so
—well, in short, if she cannot employ the liberty ordinarily
112
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
accorded to a girl of her age without indulging in escapades
which may compromise her, she must be content to have
that liberty restricted."
" That is not enough," answered Mrs. Steel impatiently,
"/shall take good care that she has not another chance of
meeting Trapton. But unless you lock her up in the go-
down, neither you nor I can prevent her seeing the fellow.
Out of sight is the only way of getting him out of her mind,
take my word for it."
" But, my dear, I heard you this very evening," urged
the perplexed father, " ask Ravensmore to prolong his
visit till the 15 th, and I understood him to accept your
invitation, provided he can get his leave extended, of which
I have no doubt. We can't possibly go away and leave
him."
" Of course not. He will go with us."
" Go with us ! I am afraid, Harriet, you might find
you were reversing the old proverb, and reckoning without
your guest. Charles Ravensmore may be willing enough—
though certainly I am surprised even at that in a young man
of such sedate character—to waste another fortnight in balls,
and tennis-parties, and picnics at Beshuckabad; but as to
spending the same period with us camping out in the jungles
—I suspect he would regard your invitation from a very
different point of view."
" How ever you came to get the reputation of being
clear-sighted, George, is indeed a mystery to me ! Charles
Ravensmore cares as little for balls and picnics as you do
—a great deal less, indeed. To ride a march," went on Mrs.
Steel—and spitefulness seemed to grate in the tones of her
voice as she spoke—" to ride a march along a dusty kutcha
road by the side of Grace Hawthorn would be a greater
attraction to him than all the picnics that ever have come
off since Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden !"
" But," said Mr. Steel, more puzzled than ever, " I was
certainly under the impression that that particular pleasure
—if you are really right in supposing that he would regard
FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW. 113
it so highly—is about the last you would desire to gratify
him in, and rightly so; for scarcely anything more calculated
to produce unhappiness for both could occur than the growth
of any feeling of regard between two persons so ill suited by
their circumstances to each other as Ravensmore and Miss
Hawthorn."
"Though you never lose an opportunity," replied Mrs.
Steel, " of showing your contempt for my understanding, yet
I am not quite such a fool as you take me for. No," she
continued grimly ; " once we get Charles into camp with
us, he shall see very little more of Miss Grace Hawthorn.
The Easingtons will be glad, on a hint from me, to give her
an invitation to stay with them for as long as we remain
out. And then, when Charles and Bella have neither of
them absolutely anybody else to fall back upon, why, they
must come together."
Mr. Steel could not forbear a slight laugh at this trium¬
phant conclusion, which of course elicited the usual gentle
reproach from his meek spouse regarding the levity with
which he chose to treat the dearest interests of his daughter's
happiness.
" However, my dear," he said, recalled to becoming
gravity, " your plans, as I have said, are impossible, as my
duties necessarily detain me here for the present; or, if it
were possible for me to get away at all, I must go first of all
to Diknugger, and you would scarcely care either to accom¬
pany me yourself, or, much less, ask any guest to come
with you, to that dullest and dreariest of little stations."
" O, what was I thinking of!" exclaimed Mrs. Steel.
" Of course, Diknugger is the very place to go to; and we
can leave Grace there with the Baytrees, while we take
Charles on, and give him some shooting."
" Ravensmore is such a keen sportsman, my love, that
he would regard as a compliment your carrying him off to
finish his visit in the Diknugger jungles, so say no more
about it, and—good-night."
"Yes, yes, that is the plan. You know Shafto, the
1
ii4
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
assistant police-officer at Diknugger, was very much smitten
with Grace last summer, at the Hills. Perhaps I never
mentioned it to you, but he was on leave at the Hills while
we were there, and paid her great attention. And she—
(Miss Grace," remarked Mrs. Steel,'with a parenthetic sneer,
"was modest in her views in those days, before she had
flown at under-secretaries and earls' nephews, and did not
think a Staff Corps lieutenant and assistant in the police on
three hundred rupees a month, altogether below her notice)
•—she seemed nothing loth to receive and repay all the
attention he was willing to bestow on her. O," she con¬
cluded, with an energy which quite woke up her hushand,
who had been on the point of falling off asleep—" 0, if he
would only propose to her, and rid us of her presence ! I'd
gladly give him a thousand pounds along with her !"
"Are you sure of this, Harriet?" asked the Commis¬
sioner, with animation. " Do you really think Mr. Shafto
had any idea of proposing for Grace, and that she liked him,
or is this one of your matrimonial chimeras?"
Mrs. Steel assured him that there could not be a shadow
of a doubt about it. Last summer young Shafto had made
such love to Miss Hawthorn that it was the talk of the
whole station, and the young lady had most certainly at that
time exhibited no outward manifestations of repugnance,
whatever she might do now that her head had been filled
with the silly hopes raised by Ravensmore's thoughtless
behaviour.
" Indeed," said Mr. Steel, when the matter had been so
fully and particularly expounded to him that he could no
longer suspect it to be the mere fabric of his imaginative
wife's fancy—"indeed, I am heartily glad of this. Grace
could not make a more suitable choice. I like young Shafto
much—a trifle too "outspoken and independent, perhaps,
for his age and position, but a gentlemanly, sensible young
fellow, nevertheless. I have had thoughts before this of
getting him appointed to the Commission; he is too good
for the police. And if there were any idea of his marrying
FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW. 115
Grace, of course this could easily be managed. He comes
of a good north-country family, too, so there would be no
objection on the score of birth."
" Of birth /" echoed Mrs. Steel, with withering empha¬
sis ; " I should think not, indeed ! Miss Hawthorn " (another
marked accentuation on the name) " runs little risk of marry¬
ing beneath her in that respect, if she finds the son of any
honest woman to take her."
l£I hope, at any rate," replied Mr. Steel, apparently
repressing with some difficulty a warmer answer, which rose
to his lips, and caused them to twitch, "that the man she
finds may himself be an honest man, for an honester and
truer-hearted girl than Grace Hawthorn does not exist.
Well, if I have any skill in judging character, she has chosen
well in young Shafto, as, indeed, we might have expected
from her good sense and good feeling."
"Good fiddlesticks!" retorted Mrs. Steel, "or good
fiddle-strings ! Miss Grace tries to have as many of them
to her bow as she can get hold of, and she will just choose
the richest of the simpletons who are taken in by her demure
coquetry."
" Well, well, there is no occasion for us to discuss her
character. But let us give every facility we can for bringing
about a match with Shafto ; about the suitability of that, at
least, we are both agreed."
But whether it was that Mrs. Steel's matrimonial projects
could not live if deprived of the aliment of contradiction
with which her husband was wont to feed them, or whether
her spite against Grace was so overpowering that it would
not allow her to continue her aid in securing the girl a
husband whose qualifications had been described in such
flattering colours by the Commissioner, and her selection of
whom had elicited such a warm encomium, ceitain it is
that Mr. Steel's last proposition was promptly repudiated
by his wife.
" We are not agreed at all. Yon may think it right to
scheme and manoeuvre to entrap a deserving young man
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
into a marriage with your protegee—I know well that you
hold the vile, heartless maiis maxim, that all is fair in love
—but / have a conscience, and I will not be dragged into
participation in any such conspiracy."
" There is no occasion for your being so, my dear,"
answered Mr. Steel dryly. " Your leaving things quite
alone will probably be the most effectual assistance you can
render Grace. Your active interference in your own fanci¬
ful plan for capturing Charles Ravensmore has not been so
successful as to encourage further experiments of the kind
on Shafto. However, we will, as you suggest, at once pay
a visit to Diknugger."
" No, we will not," answered Mrs. Steel impetuously.
" I beg your pardon, my dear," replied the Commis¬
sioner quietly, " we will; so be good enough to arrange for
going into camp on Tuesday."
The dominions of the Commissioner of Beshuckabad
were divided into four districts, over the government of
each of which was placed a Deputy. Besides the metro¬
politan district of Beshuckabad—the Deputy Commissioner
of which, Mr. Small, shone with rather a dim light under
the immediate effulgence of the Commissioner himself—
there were the districts of Kooch Purwarneepore, presided
over by the Mr. Easington of whom mention has been made
by Mrs. Steel in the course of the just-recorded dialogue ;
the district of Johookumgunj, whose satrap was Colonel
Fitz Bang, a fierce and a fiery " military-civilian," with a St.
Vitus' dance, which, I very believe, was the secret of half
the terror with which his wrath was regarded by his trem¬
bling subjects; and lastly, the district of Diknugger, the
administration of which was committed to the care of a very
astute officer of considerably junior standing in the service
to those above-named : also a military-civilian, Captain
Greene Baytree.
Most people would doubtless have thought this last-
named district, Diknugger, the least attractive part of the
FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW. 117
Commissioner's territories, for much the greater portion of
it consisted of avast desert, partly bare, and partly over¬
grown with low trees and scrub jungle, over which ranged
huge herds of cattle and camels, tended by a semi-nomad
and wholly predatory race of graziers. Here and there
were scattered villages of a permanent sort—some, indeed,
very ancient, and many of them large and prosperous, in a
rugged, barbarous way. Around these were more or less
extensive patches of cultivated fields. But the general as¬
pect of the country was, to an extraordinary degree, what
Hamlet found the usage of the world, " weary, stale, flat,
and unprofitable." But as a mother most surely lavishes
the tenderest of her love upon the deformed and ugly child,
which strangers can only regard with pity not unmixed with
disgust, so Mr. Steel cherished the grim flat of Diknugger
more than all the smiling cornfields, the wooded uplands,
and verdant valleys of the more richly endowed districts of
his division.
Probably one great reason for his preference was that
the other parts of his charge were easily managed, while
the political as well as the physical conditions of Diknugger
contained chronic elements of difficulty, which afforded
continual exercise for those administrative faculties upon
which he prided himself. There was a large though scat¬
tered population, always liable to be suddenly plunged by a
failure of rainfall, or other calamity of season, into the abyss
of actual famine. And this state of things could only be
remedied by the systematic and persevering opening out of
the remote recesses of the vast and almost pathless waste
by roads, and by encouraging the simple, improvident
inhabitants to abandon their lazy pastoral—and stilDmore-
immoral plundering—habit?, the inveterate growth of cen¬
turies, for the distasteful labours of (comparatively) scientific
agriculture. This was the great physical and social problem "
which interested Mr. Steel in Diknugger. But there was
also a political one which still more fascinated him. And
as it happened that the personages and feelings involved in
i iS
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
this latter question came to be entangled to some extent in
the thread of the humble domestic history which I have
undertaken to narrate, I must ask the reader's patience
while I give a very brief sketch of the political " situation "
in Diknugger.
It is possible, then, my dear reader, that you may not
have forgotten a picturesque, but not especially cleanly, old
gentleman, with whom the Commissioner of Beshuckabad
was closeted when I took the liberty of admitting you into
his private business-room at the beginning of my fifth
chapter. This person, old Kumbukt Khan, was the de¬
scendant, and present very much diminished head, of a
family which had held, virtually, sovereign sway over a tract
of country which had varied considerably in extent at differ¬
ent periods. For some hundred years and more, however,
immediately preceding that happy revolution out of which
arose, like a phoenix from red ashes of war and devastation,
and brooded over the happy land, the maternal wings of the
government of the Ma Bap Provinces, this principality had
never comprised a less extensive territory than that which
now constituted Mr. Steel's division. Kumbukt Khan's
remote ancestors had been merely the chiefs of a clan, or
the leaders of a band of robbers, called the Moofsids, who
occupied the wildest part of the jungle of Diknugger, where
the vast tract of level wilderness merged into a broken
country of low bare hills and dark ravines. Just where
these two different but equally unlovely aspects of the land¬
scape we're " at odds, which was which," stood a grim tower
of dull old brick, not unlike a Northumbrian "peel." This
was Gurhi Moofsid, the " Moofsids' Fort," and had been
the earliest stronghold, or robbers' den, of the tribe. Thence
for many ages they had been in the habit of sallying forth,
their march and its direction effectually masked by the
blank screen of the pathless jungle, and swooping down on
the unprepared and unprotected towns and villages of the
rich country beyond. Then, laden with plunder, they were
off, and lost in the vast labyrinth of scrub long before an
FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW. lie)
armed force could be got together to capture them. It was
seldom that the police or military of the state ventured to
follow them through so dangerous a country. But when
they did so, and in such force as to put an attempt at am¬
buscade out of the question, they found at the end of their
toilsome march nothing to crack their teeth upon but the
empty and very hard shell of the nut they had come to look
for, to wit, the four-feet-thick brick wall of the keep, and
the impracticable mud rampart of the courtyard, of Gurhi
Moofsid. For the bandits themselves, with their wives and
their little ones, and—what was more to the purpose—their
flocks and their herds of stolen cattle, and their jewels of
silver and jewels of gold, purchased at the cheap cost of a
knock on the head paid to some worthy goldsmith of Be-
shuckabad or Kooch Purwarneepore, were " over the hills
and far away," or—which is more probable—quite as hope¬
lessly beyond the reach of pursuit among the windings of
some dark ravine close at hand.
But during the general anarchy which accompanied the
decay of the Moghul Empire, the chief of the Moofsids
developed the ancient predatory system of his forefathers
into one of conquest. And in the course of a few years he
left—"for good," as he doubtless fondly supposed—the
rough security of his jungle fastness, to establish himself in
state and luxury in the castle of Zoolumkote, a splendid
pile, originally built as a shooting-box by one of the royal
family of Delhi, but more recently occupied, and greatly
enlarged and embellished, by the successive governors of
the province under the Imperial rule.
When the steady progress of British conquest approached
that part of India, the grandson of this chief, Kumbukt
Khan, still held the principality which his ancestor had
founded. When the inevitable crisis came, Kumbukt Khan,
then in the prime of life, and preeminent even in a line
of headstrong, proud, and violent warriors for turbulence,
arrogance, and savage cruelty, threw himself heartily into
the confederacy of chieftains who, resenting or dreading the
120
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
propinquity of the British bayonets to their borders, rashly
threw themselves upon them, and got pitchforked off their
thrones and out of their estates for their pains.
Now, there was also another member of the ruling Moof-
sid family, a cousiff some degrees removed from Kumbukt
Khan, who took a prominent part in the war against the
English. He, too, was distinguished by many commanding
qualities, but not such qualities as those which had been
wont to embellish his race. Indeed, the character of this
scion of a family was so diametrically opposite to the
common genius of the Moofsid blood, that it might have
been difficult to account for it but for the following circum¬
stances. His father, a bluff old Moofsid noble, had mar¬
ried decidedly late in life a beautiful maid of low degree.
She in due time presented him with a fine boy, who—as
there is no saying what boys will not do—" took after " his
mamma's family very much more than his papa's. Lomri
Khan (for so the promising fruit of this auspicious union
was named) grew up to be the " 'cutest" young man who
had ever been known in those parts. He outwitted the
wily bunniah who had been in the habit of managing Kum¬
bukt Khan's fiscal affairs, and allowing that prince and
his predecessors for the last fifty years or so about one-
fourth of the amount of the taxes and cesses which he
wrung out of their subjects. The bunniah retired in
righteous disgust, after being made to disgorge untold lakhs
of rupees, and the grateful prince established the virtuous
and ingenious Lomri in his place. But whether Kumbukt
Khan had much reason to congratulate himself on the
change may be doubted ; for, though the peasants and shop¬
keepers were not long in discovering that Lomri's little
finger was thicker than the bunniah's loins, his cousin found
no corresponding swelling in the volume of the stream of
revenue which was allowed to filter into the state coffers.
However, before whatever dissatisfaction he might have felt
shaped itself into any practical form—such as the cutting of
Lomri's throat, or the putting out of his eyes, and torturing
FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW. 121
his wives and children with a view to discovering the hiding-
place of his strong box, or any similar outward manifestation
of annoyance—the English war broke out, and gave Kum-
bukt Khan something else to think about.
Lomri was too clever a man, in a camp where heavy
fists were more plentiful than quick wits, not to be intrusted
with an important command, and he soon justified his pro¬
motion by obtaining a decisive success. Leading his brigade
out, under cover of a dark and stormy night, he conducted
it in silence and secrecy into the very heart of the British
camp. When morning dawned, the surprise was complete,
and was quickly followed by a crowning victory. I should,
however, perhaps explain that it was Kumbukt Khan who
felt the surprise; the victory fell to the share of the English
commander.
After the confederacy was hopelessly shattered, Kumbukt
Khan, with that truculent obstinacy with which we have
heard Mr. Steel reproach him, retired to his native wilds,
and thence for several months continued to prolong the war
in a guerrilla fashion. When he was at length brought to
bay, the conqueror's patience had been worn pretty nearly
threadbare; and it was generally thought the troublesome
chief was lucky in being left with a whole skin, as much of
the tough old walls of Gurhi Moofsid as had been proof
against our engineers' powder-bags to shelter it behind, and
a few hundred acres of jungle and ravine for the production
of milk, ghee, beef, and chupatties wherewithal to fill it.
The discreet Lomri Khan's fate was quite different. He
received as the just reward of his loyalty and valour—that
best part of valour which is proverbially distinguished from
mere brutal insensibility to danger—the splendid castle of
Zoolumkote, from which his cousin had been ejected, and
large estates—one lying near the castle, and another, less rich
but more extensive, sliced off Kumbukt Khan's ancient
patrimony in the neighbourhood of Gurhi Moofsid. For
many years after the annexation of the country he continued
to be the honoured friend and trusted adviser both of the
122
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Governor-General of India and of the Lieutenant-Governor
of the Ma Bap Provinces; and when he died, full of years
and honours, some six or seven years before the date which
we have now reached in our story, he bequeathed to his son,
a boy of ten, an immense fortune, and the titular dignity of
" Nawab."
It will easily be understood that the course of events
which I have sketched had sown in the political and social
field of the Diknugger district the seeds of difficulties as
prolific as convolvuluses, as well as those of more serious
dangers, which, though germinating slowly underground and
out of sight, might at any moment spring up with startling
suddenness. The hatred between the fallen Kumbukt Khan
and his pampered cousin was of course implacable. And
while- the Nawab and his hangers-on were perpetually en¬
deavouring by secret intrigue to complete the ruin of the
decayed chief, and the total erasure of his name and race
from the face of Diknuggerian affairs, there was always, on
the other hand, a possibility that even in his ashes might
yet glow some spark of the wonted fires which had once
blazed so ardently in the breast of the old Moofsid warrior.
Or even if his own turbulent courage was quite burnt out in
the socket, he had two sons, as dangerous young fellows as
could be found anywhere. They had inherited full portions
of the patrimonial truculence ; they had been too young at
the time of the English war to learn the wholesome lessons
which that course of lectures had imparted to their elders ;
and having been brought up in the wild seclusion of Gurhi
Moofsid, they were entirely ignorant of the real world, and
indeed had derived their sole notions of politics from the
legends which they heard of their ancestors as robbers and
conquerors, and from the doctrine—religiously cherished and
constantly repeated by their father's old followers—that his
defeat had been effected, not by the superior power of his
enemy, but by the unheard-of treachery of his relative and
ally; so that there always.existed a by no means visionary
danger that the wild tribesmen might some fine night be
FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW. 123
again seen, as in the olden time, burs-ting through the jungle,
and carrying fire and havoc amongst the wealthy towns and
prosperous villages of the alluvial plain.
Mr. Steel was a just man, but he was also a very earnest
one; and he could not long deal with the relations of any
two opposing factions under his charge without having his
feelings deeply interested. When he had first come as
Commissioner to Beshuckabad he had been predisposed in
favour of Kumbukt Khan. He sympathised with his reso¬
lute obstinacy under defeat, pitied his fallen condition, and
lastly (but probably by no means least), he assumed that
the men of inferior perspicacity and force of character, who
had preceded him in the office, had been influenced by the
subtle flatteries and plausible pretensions of the veteran
humbug, Lomri Khan, and he was resolved to show that he
was far above the reach of such seductions. But the apathe¬
tic obstructiveness of Kumbukt Khan—the stately politeness
with which he listened to and promised to abide by the
excellent advice which the Commissioner so generously
bestowed upon him, coupled with the calm way in which he
practically ignored it—and the audacious lawlessness of his
tribesmen, which the chief rather eticouraged than attempted
to check, all utterly disgusted Mr. Steel's active, earnest, well-
regulated mind.
But Mr. Steel did not like reversing an opinion which he
had once formed, and he might have stuck to Kumbukt
Khan (as, indeed, he had been known to stick to other
proteges no whit more worthy) through evil report as well as
good. But an event occurred—an event which Kumbukt
Khan, blind mortal! no doubt hailed with joy as the best
service which Fate could do for him, but which, in fact, was
to lead to the consummation of his ruin. His arch enemy,
Lomri Khan, was gathered to his fathers, whoever they may
have been. This at once gave Mr. Steel a motive and an
opportunity of changing his aspect towards the Zoolum-
kote versus Gurhi Moofsid feud. He could now throw over
the pig-headed and impracticable Kumbukt Khan, without
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
giving the irreverent occasion to mock and chuckle to each
other that even the unbending Mr. Steel was not proof
against the insidious arts of Lomri Khan. Besides, what a
matchless opportunity was here for fashioning an excellent
instrument for the future regeneration of society in Diknug-
ger! The defunct Navvab's heir was of tender age. The
son of such a man could not but be endowed with natural
abilities, which only needed careful training. And on the
other hand, the same diligence in conducting his education
might reasonably be trusted to eliminate from the boy's
moral nature those qualities which had distinguished his
father, and the transmission of which was not so desirable
a heritage. He was a ward of the Government; and the
Commissioner would have absolute control not only of his
estate, but also over his person during his long minority.
Mr. Steel was not the man to let such an opportunity
slip. He threw all his great abilities and energy into the
tasks of nurs'ng the young Nawab's property, and bringing
up the boy himself in the way he should go. He very soon
came to identify himself with the interests of his ward, and,
as a necessary consequence, was not long in taking up
the Zoolumkote point of view of Kumbukt Khan and his
works.
Of the youthful Nawab personally the Commissioner
set himself diligently to fashion an Oriental Crichton—to
make him a walking and talking epitome of Lord Chester¬
field's Letters. For this purpose he spared neither trouble
nor expense. An Oxford graduate of high character and
attainments was especially selected to be the boy's private
tutor, and it was impressed upon this gentleman that he
must consider it his duty not only to instruct his pupil in
all the wisdom of the ancients and moderns, but also to
train him in every kind of manly exercise and sport. On
closing the school-books for the day, this grave and learned
person was by no means to consider himself at liberty to
retire to the indolent luxuries of a cigar and a novel in his
own private apartments in the castle. Certainly not. He
FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW. 125
was to hie him to the great courtyard, there to play at foot¬
ball and hockey with his charge, and half a dozen other
young gentlemen whom the Commissioner's thoughtful
prudence had appointed to reside at Zoolumkote for the
express purpose of affording the Nawab the stimulus of
emulation both in his studies and his games. And in the
latter, it was a particular charge laid upon the tutor that
he should take care that no undue tenderness should be
shown by the other boys to the young Nawab's shins. The
tutor was also expected to make his pupil a good shot, to
teach him to " ride straight" across country, to handle a
billiard-cue with skill, to speak the truth, to be courteous to
his inferiors and respectful to his elders, to be chivalrous
and honourable, and to take a caning from his master when
he deserved it, or a pummelling from his companions at all
times, as a plucky boy should.
The Nawab was now of age—eighteen years. The
tutor, with a very comfortable pocketful of rupees, had left
the glaring sands and hot winds of Zoolumkote, and returned
to the academic shades of his Alma Mater, or gone on to
settle in Van Diemen's Land, or otherwise disposed of him¬
self. And the Commissioner was now to enjoy the fruition
of his labours in seeing his quondam ward display in the
eyes of an admiring world the excellent virtues and accom¬
plishments in which, so to speak, he had been saturated for
the past eight years.
It was essential to the accomplishment of Mr. Steel's
various designs for the healing of the diseases and the
development of the latent energies of the body politic of
Diknugger, that he should have as his deputy in that district
a man upon whom he could completely rely. And some
years ago he had discovered such a person in Captain
Greene Baytree. This officer was not generally popular ;
and an envious and slander-loving world had many ill-
natured stories about him. One was that he was the son
of a cigar shopkeeper, and had been presented with his
cadetship in the Honourable East India Company's Service
126
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
in exchange for a receipt in full of an unpaid bill for cavitas
and regalias. As a regimental officer his talents had for
many years been quite thrown away. Discipline, pipeclay,
and the unwritten code of the mess-room were all equally
obnoxious to his vigorous and original mind. He was
abhorred and bullied by his colonel, abhorred and teased
by his brother officers. In order to put an end to such an
unsatisfactory state of things, and with the laudable desire
of giving the public the benefit of his services in a sphere
more adapted to his abilities, he took leave to Simla, and
applied, with a certain modest assurance which was one of
his most prominent characteristics, to a certain exalted
dignitary for either a staff or a civil appointment. Courtesy
is not a flower which invariably flourishes on very high
altitudes; and the exalted dignitary, I am sorry to say,
replied to Lieutenant Baytree's reasonable request with a
vigour and emphasis of utterance to which the resources of
the printer would be quite unequal to doing justice, and in
phraseology which any decent-minded compositor would
assuredly refuse to put into type. Baytree retired discom¬
fited, but not dismayed; and being one of those conscien¬
tious persons who never willingly leave an injury unrequited,
he sought an opportunity to discharge his debt to the
exalted dignitary.
In the views of the dignitary, old age, while it had
whitened his beard and rendered his nether limbs extremely
rickety, had not dried up the impetuous currents of youth¬
ful ardour. And he was wont to seek in the society of
lovely woman that relaxation and refreshment from the
oppression of public cares for which we know, on the unex¬
ceptionable authority of Captain Macheath, it is a more
effectual specific than even the notes of a fiddle. One
night he gave a ball, and as all Simla was invited, Lieu¬
tenant Baytree was not excluded from his saloons. The
host, with the exquisite politeness which distinguished him,
left his guests in general to amuse themselves unrestrained
by the awe of his presence, and retired to a snug private
FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW. 127
apartment, where a modest little supper was laid out. In
the public rooms the revel was fast and furious, the music
excellent, the champagne more than excellent, and few of
the guests either missed the presence of the provider of
these good things, or had observed his unobtrusive re¬
tirement. But the keen eye of vengeance marked all his
movements.
The small hours were waxing less small, when Baytree
went up to a great, strapping, sullen-browed young man,
dressed in a cavalry uniform, who had just risen from one
of the whist-tables in the card-room.
" Your wife wants you," he said, touching this person on
the shoulder.
" My wife ? ' replied the young officer. " What on earth
do you mean ?''
" She asked me to send you to her," said Baytree. " She
is in that room, where you can just see the light shining
through the crimson curtains at the end of that verandah."
" Why, my wife went home an hour ago !" was the sur¬
prised rejoinder.
" O, then I suppose I have made a mistake. A lady
came to the door as I was standing in the verandah getting
a breath of fresh air, and asked me to send her husband to
her. I thought she was your wife, but I suppose I was
wrong. She was dressed in black lace, and had a wreath of
blue and white flowers,"
The tall young officer waited to hear no more, but
strode towards the door indicated. Baytree quietly followed.
As they passed along the verandah, a youth, an aide-de-camp
or private secretary, or something of that sort, was smoking
a cigarette just outside. He attempted to interpose between
them and the door, saying that the room was private; but
the officer pushed roughly past him, and drawing the curtain
aside, unceremoniously entered. Baytree and the aide-de¬
camp rushed in after him, the one in a transport of alarm,
the other of gratification. There sat the exalted dignitary,
and there, sure enough, also sat the lady with the blue and
128 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
white flowers in her hair, who was indeed none other than
the wife whom the sullen-browed hussar fondly supposed to
be sound asleep in her bed at home.
The action of the piece from this point was rapid. A
shriek, a curse, a blow, the crash of splitting wood and shat¬
tered glass, and the venerable dignitary, no longer by any
means " exalted," lay sprawling on his back, his head and
shoulders through a glass door which had happened to be
just behind him, and blood streaming from his cut forehead
and hands, and dimming the splendour of the gold lace
which covered his too susceptible breast.
What was to be done ? There stood the big hussar
with clenched fists, glowering over his fallen foe, with his
kneeling wife clasping trim tightly round the waist, and
emitting shriek after shriek with embarrassing volubility.
Already the sudden cessation of the music, succeeded by
a confused hubbub of voices, told that the alarm had
reached the ballroom. In another half-minute some two
hundred people of both sexes would be crowding round
the crimson-curtained door, peering over each other's heads
at the interesting scene. Assuredly never was an aide-de¬
camp, private secretary, or other functionary of the sort in
so dreadful a dilemma. The twinkling eyes of the artist
who had composed this tableau drank deep of the cup of
revenge.
But Baytree's nature was not malignant, and he now
showed both generosity and presence of mind.
" Here," he said to the stupefied aide-de-camp, " put the
guv'nor out of sight somewhere. Drag him right through
the door—he's half-way already. The room beyond is dark :
let him lie quiet there. Then when the people come, say it
was me—drunken young sub. was rude to lady—husband
knocked him down."
So saying, he seized a claret-jug which stood on the
little supper-table, and pouring out a glassful of the wine,
dashed it over his face and shirt-front; and then laid him¬
self cautiously down in the uncomfortable position just
FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW. 129
vacated by the dignitary, whom the aide-de-camp, acting
promptly on the inspired suggestion, had dragged with more
haste than gentleness into the room beyond, and thrown
down like a sack of rubbish in a dark corner. The jealous
husband had just sufficient glimmering of reason to be
conscious that Baytree's proposed explanation of the fracas
would redound more to his domestic credit than the true
version. So when the rush of curious guests arrived, and
they were glibly informed, in answer to their eager inquiries,
by the unblushing aide-de-camp, that the " little beast
Bay tree, who was more than half fuddled, had found Mrs.
in this room waiting for her jampan, and had made
himself offensive, as usual; that her husband, happening
to come in at the moment to tell her that the jampan was
ready, had lost his temper and knocked the beggar down
—and served him deuced well right too •" when, I say,
this plausible narrative was repeated, the injured husband
had sense enough to hold his tongue, and lead his wife off
through the crowd without vouchsafing a word of explan¬
ation or denial.
Within three months after this occurrence, Lieutenant
Baytree received an offer of the civil appointment which he
had before solicited in vain. Such at least was the account
which was current in Ma Bap circles of the way in which
he joined the ranks of the Commission of those provinces.
I must confess that I have myself serious doubts regarding
the strict accuracy of some of the details of this story. But
as most people I have met who knew Green Baytree well
appear to regard it as, at any rate, " well invented," I have
set it down here, as throwing at least some reflected light on
that worthy person's character.
The device by which he forced himself through the sub¬
ordinate grade of assistant-commissioner was very simple.
It was nothing more than exerting his innate powers of
offensiveness and exasperation, always being at the same
time careful not to commit himself to any particular act or
word which his outraged superior officer could lay hold of
K
i3°
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
to hang a specific complaint on. The result was, that every
deputy-commissioner whom he was placed under in turn
gave himself and the Government no rest or peace until the
obnoxious assistant was passed on to some other. But this
could not last for ever; and the time at length came when
every district officer in the province had had a trial of him.
Then the Lieutenant-Governor placed him under a certain
deputy-commissioner for whom he (Sir Duncan MacTullub*
to wit) had no great affection, and refused resolutely to move
him again. That deputy-commissioner, in despair, took
furlough, and went to England. Then Sir Duncan put
him under another, who was of a meek and gentle dispo¬
sition, and again turned an obdurately deaf ear to the most
heartrending prayers for his transfer. The meek official
then thought to try his predecessor's plan, and applied for
leave. But it was refused. Then there remained only one
escape ; and that gentle deputy-commissioner died !
Then indeed were Sir Duncan MacTullub and Wiggins,
his secretary, at their wits' end.
" i doubt Mountfidget is the only man we can send him
to," said Sir Duncan.
" He would drive Mountfidget mad in a month," ob¬
jected Wiggins. "His head has been rather queer, you
know, ever since he had sunstroke."
" Eh, now ; if you are cairtainly advised of that, Wiggins,
it might be the best solution of our deeficulty. Eh, d'ye
understand ? If Mountfidget goes mad, he may murder
Baytree, the poor lad, in a fit of insanity. Think of that!"
" Hum—m, no," answered the secretary, after considera¬
tion. " Mountfidget's tendency, when he is off his head, is
unfortunately rather in the direction of suicide. And that
would leave us just where we are, exactly as poor Mildmay's
death has done."
" Then, Wiggins, I know of only one man we can put
him under."
" Who is that ?"
"Why, just himself. Ay," continued Sir Duncan medi-
FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW. 131
tatively, " Mildmay's death has left a vacancy among the
deputy-commissioners. We must put Baytree into it. As
he has slain, e'en let him take possession."
And so Baytree was promoted over the heads of some
dozen seniors, and placed in charge of a district.
Mr. Steel happened to come across him in the course of
some special duty in which he was employed, and was much
struck by the quickness of his apprehension, and the firm
grasp he was able to take of all the details of a complicated
business. This was the sort of man he wanted as his deputy
in Diknugger. He had hitherto had a difficulty in finding
one to his satisfaction. The clever .men, who could under¬
stand what he wanted to be done, were apt to have opinions
of their own, which did not always coincide on all points
with Mr. Steel's, and so they would not carry out his views
heartily. The dull men were liable to run even more di¬
rectly counter to his course, through stupidity. But here
was one quick-witted enough to understand the slightest
hint, cool and ready of resource in case of emergency, and
yet who would;:(as the experienced Commissioner's know¬
ledge of human- nature assured him) be quite willing to
sacrifice all independent views and opinions of his own, if
only he was assured of obtaining in the long-run his quid
pro quo.
" He knows," thought the Commissioner, " that I am
pretty sure to succeed MacTullub in the lieutenant-governor¬
ship, and that a draft on my good opinion is safe to be paid
in good current coin when it comes to maturity. He has
the reputation of being a slippery fellow, but he will hardly
attempt any pranks with me."
Some may think that it was inconsistent with the charac¬
ter of Mr. Steel, whom I have described as a high-minded,
scrupulous gentleman, to voluntarily have placed in a position
of great responsibility under him a man who was singularly
wanting in those characteristics. All I can say is that Mr.
Steel was universally allowed to be all that I have said, but
nevertheless it is no part of my business to vindicate every
132
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
act of^his which I have to chronicle. He was certainly not
without foibles, which were capable of sometimes leading
him very far astray, and not the least dangerous of these
was a somewhat overweeningly high opinion of his own
abilities. As for this particular case, no one would regard
it as inconsistent with the character of a man reputed to be
highly virtuous, who might entertain a complacent opinion
of his own skill in horsemanship, to like riding a beast that
was notoriously vicious. And a, good deal of the same
feeling which would lie at the bottom of the supposed case
was present, I take it, in Mr. Steel's mind, when he induced
the Government to appoint Captain Baytree under him to
the deputy-commissionership of Diknugger.
CHAPTER X.
adventures by the way.
Early on Tuesday morning the Steels, accompanied by
Ravensniore, started on their first march towards Diknugger.
Not only were Mr. Small's two assistants, and the Superin¬
tendent of Police and his two assistants, and the Civil
Surgeon, and the Executive Engineer—in fact, the whole
male population of " Civil Lines "—at the door to see them
off, but half the young fellows in cantonments had expressed
their intention to one or other of the girls to ride out to the
first halting-place, and so see the last of them. Grace
Hawthorn and Mrs. Steel, I have no doubt, both specu¬
lated, each in her own mind, as to whether Rattley Trapton
would have the audacity to form one amongst this escort,
and if so, how far Bella's hardihood of disobedience might
induce her to go. If Bella's father was troubled by any
similar doubts, he did not let them take the form of idle
speculation. He evidently thought the safest plan was,
without saying a word to anybody, to place his daughter
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.
133
right away above temptation. So when the whole caval¬
cade was assembled in front of the portico, and the girls
came out dressed in their riding-habits ready to start,
instead of their riding-horses being brought round, the
Commissioner's four-in-hand drag was led up to the door.
The Commissioner at the same moment made his
appearance, smiling blandly, and taking no notice whatever
of the disappointment depicted on the countenances of the
baffled band of horsemen. He climbed dapperly to the high
box-seat, and picking up the reins in his right hand, held
the left out to his daughter, whom he called to sit beside
him. Mrs. Steel, dutifully attended by the other two
young members of the party, took a less dizzy seat in the
well of the carriage, which was of the wagon sort. The
syces let go the leaders' heads, and the four grays stepped
gaily out, tossing their heads, and snorting in the keen
morning air. Mr. Steel waved a general farewell; Grace
beamed on the assembled crowd a catholic smile; Mrs.
Steel vouchsafed a stately bow; Bella looked straight
between the near leader's ears, as if supremely unconscious
of the fact that half a dozen hats were being taken off to
her on each side 3 Ravensmore, with his hand instinctively
seeking his coat-pocket, asked Mrs. Steel if he might smoke 3
and then the cortege swung round a bend in the avenue,
and left the assembled horsemen looking a little blank into
each other's faces.
The travellers reached their encamping ground after a
pleasant drive .of eight or nine miles—pleasant in spite of
an envelope of dust which made them as invisible to the
passers-by as H3neas in the cloud in which Venus wrapped
him 3 in spite also of trenches and pitfalls—it were an
abuse of respectable terms to call them ruts and holes—in
the road, which every now and then gave the occupants of
the carriage a sensation as of being played at cup and ball
with. They all had splendid appetites when they met
again in the breakfast-tent after their " tubs," and the
whole party seemed to feel the exhilaration which the first
134
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
day of the fresh air and freedom of camp life always tends
to produce—the whole party, without even one exception ;
for though the change had not cured Bella's now chronic
ill-temper, it at any rate converted it from sulky moroseness
to the less irritating form of lively snappishness. Mrs.
Steel, though not adapted by nature or habit to take delight
in mere roughing, was quite rollickingly good-humoured,
and actually made light and joked about the feathers of her
Paris bonnet, which the dust had utterly spoiled. As for
Grace Hawthorn, all the pensive preoccupation which the
varied events of Sunday afternoon had, it is scarcely neces¬
sary to say, produced in her behaviour the following day,
was completely dissipated, and she was almost excitedly
joyous. But whether in her case this was solely to be
attributed to change of scene, and whether an equally
magic effect would have been observable had they been
marching, let us say, in the direction of Kooch Purwarnee-
pore, of which district the assistant police-officer was
flabby-cheeked and blear-eyed, I leave the reader who has
heard Mrs. Steel's hints about Mr. Shafto, and who thus
knows as much about the matter as I do, to decide for himself.
Ravensmore, too, seemed—so at least Mrs. Steel fondly
thought—to be more complacent in the quarter in which
complacency had been looked for at his hand, but had
hitherto been baulked. And this perhaps helped to recon¬
cile the worthy matron to her soiled feather, as well as
to the company of certain entomological visitors who kept
dropping from the top of the tent, and taking their places
unbidden at the breakfast-table.
It may perhaps seem strange that the wife of an official
of such high standing as Mr. Steel should display so much
anxiety to win a particular junior member of the Civil
Service for her only daughter. But the fact is that Charles
Ravensmore, though in the service, was not of it. He was
a gorgeous butterfly, accidentally passing his grub stage of
existence in a wasp's nest, a fairy prince doomed for a
space to toil in the unworthy disguise of a common drudge.
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.
T35
. He was the nephew of a peer of great political influence,
and I think (though of this I am not certain) was expected
to inherit some property. At all events, his connections
were such as to afford him an opening to a promising
career in the arena of political life at home; and as he early
showed in many respects a marked aptitude for success in
this field, as he seemed to derive absolute enjoyment from
severe and steady application to the driest of subjects, and
had made a distinguished figure at Cambridge, it would
obviously have been a wanton waste of opportunities to
have banished himself to the obscurity of Indian officialdom.
It was well known—at least to those who knew anything at
all about him, and Mrs. Steel was one of these—that in
entering for the Indian Civil Service competition, he had
no such intention. He was induced in the first instance,
perhaps, to go up for the examination by a mere desire to
show what he could do ; and as he headed the list of
successful competitors, he had showed that he could do a
good deal. His resolve to carry the experiment further,
and actually take up the appointment he had won, was
very likely an afterthought. He was gifted with a sobriety
of judgment—in all matters, that is, saving his most inju¬
dicious and intemperate partiality for that maid of low
degree, Grace Hawthorn, which, I suppose, was the excep¬
tion that proved the rule—and he wished to acquire, while
yet he could spare time for the purpose, a practical
acquaintance with the working of the machinery of adminis¬
tration which he aspired hereafter to direct, and he not
unreasonably thought that he could obtain this, with other
knowledge which was likely to be of service to him in a
higher sphere, as well, if not better, in India as in England.
He had therefore come to India, and for some three years
had toiled and drudged at the dull routine of an assistant
revenue collector's and an under-secretary's work, harder
than any ninth son of a country clergyman, or ambitious
shoemaker's heir, who had no other fame or fortune to look
136 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
for but what he could acquire in the service he had gained
admission into.
But of course Ravensmore did not intend to pursue
this self-imposed disciplinary task much longer. In an¬
other year or so he would throw up his appointment, enter
Parliament, and doubtless be a Cabinet Minister before
the luckiest of his Indian contemporaries had won his way
to a district magistracy. And how much better—and more
in accordance with the established precedents of all known
fairy princes—that ere he threw aside his lowly weeds, and
blazed forth in all the resplendence of his true character, he
should be provided with the destined beauty, without which
the magnificence of his transformation scene would be
imperfect, instead of having to waste time so precious to
the commonweal in looking for her afterwards !
On the third morning of their tour they had a short but
trying march to make, as there was the river to cross. This
was the driest season of the year, and the mere stream of
water which intervened between them and the Diknugger
shore was a brooklet—compared, at least, with the vast
flood, nearly two miles wide, which during the summer
months used to sweep down from the distant Himalayas.
But while the waters of the river shrank, its bed remained
a constant quantity, and two miles of fetlock-dedj? sand,
which had to be traversed on horseback or carriage, was a
less awe-inspiring, certainly, but even more patience-trying,
obstacle than the same breadth of rushing water which
one could cross at ease in a flat-bottomed ferry-boat. The
whole party rode, except Mrs. Steel, whose figure had
ceased to be one adapted to set off a riding-habit to advan¬
tage, and who therefore preferred vehicular transport,
however slow and laborious. As her carriage-wheels some¬
times sank nearly up to the nave in the fine sand, it took
her about two hours to reach the margin of the little stream
which still meandered in a devious, uncertain, lost-its-way
sort of manner under the Diknugger bank.
Then getting the horses over this was a long, though
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.
137
more exciting, operation. Grace's, a fidgety little Arab, had
a most Horatian distrust of the shipbuilder's art, and neither
threats nor coaxings could prevail upon him to step on the
hollow-sounding planks of the ferry-boat. At length Grace,
tired of stroking his slender nose, and whispering soft words
of gentle encouragement into his sharp, forward-pointed
little ears, asked Ravensmore, who was standing by, vainly
tugging at the reins, to put her up. He obeyed mechani¬
cally, having no idea of what she intended to do. She
turned the Arab round, who, glad to lose sight of the
" perfidious bark," bounded joyously away; but, before he
knew what he was about, she had swept him round again,
and instinctively obeying the touch of her heel, and the
quick encouraging " Come, Daisy!" spoken in the familiar
voice, he sprang forward, and to his own utter astonishment
found himself safe in the boat. The feat was accomplished
amidst a simultaneous cry of horror and expostulation from
all the bystanders; and as soon as it was seen that the
horse had dropped safely on his legs instead of rolling over
her on the slippery planks, or going headlong into the river
on the other side of the boat, as had seemed to be much
the more provable conclusion of the reckless proceeding,
Mr. Steel administered a solemn rebuke, while his wife
requested the girl to remember that she was at present occu¬
pying the position of a lady, and should not indulge in the
tricks of a circus-rider. Grace, laughing lightly, but through
blushes which showed that she was rather ashamed of what
she had done, patted Daisy's neck, and then slipped hastily
down from the saddle. But the boldness and grace with
which the whole thing had been done were very bewitching,
and from that moment may probably be dated the decisive
surrender of Charles Ravensmore's heart.
This was not destined to be the only feat of horseman¬
ship performed on that eventful morning. When they landed
on the Diknugger side, Daisy's exuberance of delight at
having got over his perilous voyage seemed to excite him as
much as his previous terror had done. And while Grace
i38
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
was dutifully employed in arranging the rugs around Mrs.
Steel's knees, in Captain Baytree's barouche (which had
been sent to meet her, for her own carriage could not easily
be got across the ferry), the syce could hardly hold the
animal. At last, when Mr. Steel and Bella cantered off,
Daisy fairly broke away, and started off to expend the super¬
fluity of his high spirits in a free scamper across the plain.
Presently, however, bethinking himself that liberty afforded
scope for other indulgences besides the unrestrained exer¬
cise of the limbs, he stopped in the middle of a field of
young wheat, and commenced a vigorous attack on the
unwonted dainty. Mr. Steel, and Ravensmore, and the
mounted orderly who was in attendance, with the aid of a
couple of the boatmen, seized the opportunity to make a
combined movement and surround the runaway. But as
they cautiously advanced from different sides towards him,
he suddenly cocked up his head, then pricked up his ears,
then set up a whinny, then whisked up his tail, and then—
very nearly upsetting one of the boatmen—dashed through
the narrowing circle and was off again, "over bank, bush,
and scaur," at full gallop.
The Commissioner, not thinking that it consorted with
his gravity to be caracoling about and hopping over bushes
after a stray horse, now left the pursuit to Ravensmore and
the sowar. The Arab evidently enjoyed the game, and
instead of galloping right away, only took short bursts, and
then stood still for the double purpose of eating a few mouth-
fuls .of wheat and of luring his pursuers on.. But just as
they cautiously approached, and were on the point of mak¬
ing a sudden dash at the loose bridle, up again went his
heels and tail, and in a moment Daisy was a hundred yards
off. These manoeuvres kept the chase within full sight of
the girls, who were left standing on the road; and, indeed,
it sometimes approached so near, that Ravensmore could
hear the laughter and the ironical cries of encouragement
with which they hailed his futile efforts.
After five or ten minutes of this kind of thing Ravens-
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.
139
more's patience, not unnaturally, began to wax faint, and
giving up the idea of approaching the runaway by stealth,
he set off after it at full speed for a fair stern chase, reckless
at last whether the result should be his overtaking it some
four or five miles off, or losing it altogether in the adjacent
wilderness. But just at the moment when he resolved on
this change of tactics another horseman appeared, approach¬
ing from the direction of Diknugger. When Ravensmore
started for his final charge, this person happened to be about
the same distance from the runaway horse as he was, and at
once joined him in the chase. The Arab, which at that
time had wandered to a considerable distance from the
place where Mr. Steel and the girls were standing, headed
back towards them ; and a most exciting race ensued, in
full view of them all.
The three competitors could not have been more fairly
handicapped had the services of the late Admiral Rous
been called in for the purpose. Daisy carried no weight at
all except his saddle; but then he was a mere pony com¬
pared with the other two. Ravensmore rode considerably
under twelve stone, and his horse was an excellent one ; but
active as it was, it had nothing like the stride of the huge
Waler mare which the stranger bestrode. And then again,
to compensate for this advantage, the stranger's own body
was big and his legs long, fully in proportion to those of his
steed.
But Ravensmore's horse had one great advantage over
the other two : it was splendidly ridden, whereas one of its
competitors was not ridden at all, and the other by no means
scientifically. Still, the race was a very close one. The
runaway, now mad with excitement, dashed straight ahead,
swerving at nothing ; and the two pursuers, evidently stimu¬
lated by rivalry, and the consciousness of the bright eyes
which were watching them, strained every nerve to outstrip
each other.
The ground was very broken, there being numerous deep
clefts running in zigzags for some distance from the edge
140
CURRENT REPENTANCE,
of the river-bed. This could not be seen from the road,
and the two girls therefore enjoyed the sight of the race
without being disturbed by any apprehensions of danger.
But the Commissioner muttered uneasily, " I wish those
wild boys would ride with a little more care ; they will be
into a nullah if they don't look out." And scarcely had he
spoken, when the runaway horse suddenly vanished out of
sight, as if the earth had opened its jaws and swallowed him
—which, in fact, was exactly what it had done. A nullah
or ravine—simply a huge crack in the level surface of the
ground—screened from view at this particular point by a
thicket of low bushes, happened to be in the way, and Daisy,
dashing through these, had gone head over heels eight feet
almost sheer down into the chasm before he even saw that
there was one in front of him. Ravensmore and his rival
were close behind, the former a few strides in advance.
Bella and Grace were too much amazed at the unexpected
disappearance of the Arab to have time for alarm, but Mr.
Steel, with a hasty exclamation, " I thought so! Good
Heavens ! they must go down," at once sprang forward—
not to the rescue, for that was hopeless, but to " pick up
the pieces."
Ravensmore's peril was the more imminent. It was im¬
possible to check his headlong career. His own horse was
already dashing through the bushes on the verge of the nullah,
when he saw the Arab plunge into it; but the rider's cool¬
ness and skill, and the horse's perfect mouth and extra¬
ordinary activity, stood them in good stead, and they just
managed to swerve aside on the very edge of the rotten
bank, the horse's feet sending huge clods of earth clattering
down its side, before they were quite sure they had got
clear.
The stranger being a length or two behind, it might have
been hoped that he would have been able to pull up in time,
but he evidently had not Ravensmore's readiness, and his
horse was far less in hand. He first gave one vigorous tug
at the reins, and that failing, seemed to urge his horse to
ADVENTURES BV THE WAY. 141
increased speed in the utterly impossible attempt to leap the
nullah. But the animal did not even attempt to leap; and
plunging through the bushes, dived head foremost into the
chasm, and rolled over on his rider at the bottom.
Grace, by this time comprehending what had happened,
uttered a scream, and catching up the skirts of her habit,
rushed after Mr. Steel, who was already half-way to the
spot. Bella, who did not like the idea of seeing mangled
bodies, cried out after her in terrified accents, " Grace, don't
go. Stay with me. Gracey dear, O ! don't leave me !"
But as Miss Hawthorn paid no attention to her prayer—
probably, indeed, in her excitement, did not hear it—she
put her horse in motion and followed, having a vague
horror of being left alone while such terrible things were
occurring.
But before Mr. Steel could reach the edge of the nullah,
or Ravensmore bring the headlong career of his horse to a
standstill, three heads were seen to emerge from the bowels
of the earth. The one in the middle was of light-brown
colour, that to the right a ruddy chestnut, and that to the
left of hoary gray. As the bodies appertaining to each
gradually rose to view, they proved to be those of the stranger
horseman, leading the Arab in one hand and his own Waler
in the other, and all three exhibiting in their demeanour a
most remarkable subsidence from the fiery excitement they
had displayed sixty seconds before. Luckily the bottom of
the ravine consisted of soft sand; and the stranger, after
scrambling from under the inverted body of his steed, had
discovered to his no small joy not only that both he and it
were safe and sound in wind and limb, but also that in the
very moment of their apparent catastrophe they had won
the prize in the eager pursuit of which they had encountered
it. In other words, the little Arab stood close by, too dazed
by its tumble to make any further effort to escape; so,
catching a horse's bridle in each hand, the successful jockey
lost no time in reascending to the upper wbrld.
Now, Ravensmore would undoubtedly have deeply de-
142
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
plored it, had he returned to the edge of the ravine, to see,
as he had expected, his late rival's crushed and lifeless body
lying a't the bottom. Nevertheless, truth compels me to say
that he did not see with unalloyed satisfaction the said
rival reappear, as dusty as a miller and crowned with a very
battered sola iopee, but wearing in his sand-powdered coun¬
tenance a beam of much complacency and satisfaction, and
leading Miss Hawthorn's runaway horse. And there was a
very perceptible ring of pique in the half-bantering, half-
sneering tone in which, turning to meet Grace, he said,
" How shall I ever show my dishonoured face again,
Miss Hawthorn, after my craven refusal to break my neck
in catching your horse ?"
" O, I am sure, Mr. Ravensmore, you do yourself an in¬
justice," said Bella, answering for her friend. "If peril to
life and limb were in question, I am sure you would freely
risk both to do Grace the most trifling service. But in the
present case, you see, the danger was getting a dusty coat
and a broken hat, which, of course, you could not be
expected to undergo merely to save her the trouble of
walking the rest of the march."
Ravensmore did not deign to reply to this consolatory
remark, but rode slowly back before the others towards the
road, pouting like a spoilt child.
Meanwhile the successful competitor presented the re¬
covered and crestfallen Daisy to his mistress.
" Here is your horse, Miss Hawthorn. But you will
hardly thank me when you look at the saddle ; the crutch is
bent like a button-hook."
" O, never mind that. But are you sure that you are
not hurt?"
" Not a bit. I am always very careful, on occasions of
this sort, to drop on my head and pull my horse over me
upside down, so that he can kick at large without my
getting in his way."
"You are very considerate for the horse, I must say."
" Yes ; a just man is merciful to his beast. How do
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.
you do, sir ? I am afraid I cut rather a disreputable figure
for doing escort duty. Perhaps the best thing I and my
nag could do would be to take another header—into the
water, this time. What do you think, Miss Steel ?"
" You certainly do look as if you wanted the dust laid a
little," replied Bella.
" Why, if you think of trying that plan," said Mr. Steel,
laughing, " Miss Hawthorn is the person to give you a lead ;
she made a very pretty attempt at it herself not five minutes
ago. But, for my own part, I should recommend the less
heroic remedy of a clothes-brush. So, come along, Shafto ;
put Miss Hawthorn up, mount your own nag, and let us
push on after Mrs. Steel and Ravensmore, who, I see, have
gone on."
Grace managed, with Shafto's assistance, to settle herself
somehow on the saddle, notwithstanding the contortion
which the crutch had undergone. And as the volatile Daisy
was now reduced to the most exemplary sedateness of de¬
meanour, she had no great difficulty in sitting him, as they
quietly cantered on to their encampment.
Their halting-place on this day was a pretty spot on the
bank of the river, up the course of which they had marched
for a few miles after crossing. There was a comfortable and
picturesquely-situated cottage which Captain Baytree had
built for the use of the European officials of the District—
and especially of the No. i amongst them, whose interests
he never neglected—when they had occasion to travel that
way. The Steels did not make use of this rest-house, which,
indeed, was far too small to accommodate so large a party,
but their tents had been pitched in a fine mango grove hard
by, and the girls enjoyed the'rare pleasure in camp life of
wandering about a prettily laid-out and trimly-kept flower-
garden ; for it might be said of Baytree, as of Goldsmith,
that he touched nothing which he did not adorn. While
the officers of other districts, when going about in the hot
season, had nothing to shelter their throbbing heads from
the fierce sun's "perpendicular rays'' but little square brick
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
boxes set up on glaring sandy plains, having an interior
cubic measurement about equal to that of a cell in an English
gaol, and an interior thermometric register about equal to
that of an oven in an English kitchen, those of Diknugger
everywhere luxuriated in cool and lofty apartments, protected
by deep-bayed verandahs shaded by mighty trees, and look¬
ing out on refreshing greensward.
Mr. Steel used to shake his head whenever he came to
one of these miniature paradises. And, indeed, as Dik¬
nugger was certainly far from being a rich district, the ques¬
tion necessarily obtruded itself, " wherever did the money
come from?" Houses cannot be built without bricks, nor
bricks laid without bricklayers. And green lawns cannot
be maintained in soil of which the normal condition might
vie with bricks themselves in colour and hardness, without
water, nor water be drawn without drawers of water. But
bricklayers and drawers of water must be paid, or at least
ought to be so, and it was just that little distinction between
the " must" and " ought" which disturbed the Commis¬
sioner's mind.
During the first years of his official acquaintance with
Bay tree, he had very grave suspicions on this subject.
Numerous complaints had reached him in indirect ways, by
anonymous petitions and otherwise, and he determined to
go to the spot and investigate some of them. He not un¬
naturally selected as the scene of his inquiry the immediate
neighbourhood of a great and costly work—^a splendid
ornamental tank—which the deputy-commissioner had just
completed out of what would have seemed to a man of only
ordinary resources absurdly inadequate public funds. He
presumed that if there had been oppression, it would have
been most severely felt by those living nearest to the site of
the work, and who were most readily get-atable by the myr¬
midons of the Tahsildar. But this just proved that Mr.
Steel, in spite of the knowledge of character on which he so
complacently prided himself, had fallen far short of taking
the measure of his subordinate's capacity. It was always
ADVENTURES BY ThE WAY. 145
Baytree's strictest injunction to his Tahsildars never, under
any consideration, to force labour within a radius of at least
fifteen miles from the work on which the labourer was to
be employed ; so, when Mr. Steel rode about amongst the
adjacent villages, asking everybody what they thought of
the new tank, he heard not a single complaint. On the
contrary, all were loud in praise of the beneficence of the
good Hakim, who was their father and mother, the cherisher
of the poor, a very Nowshirwan for justice, and so on.
It is true that one or two wretches came straggling up
to his camp from villages at a distance, with long-winded,
maundering complaints of oppression, which it was difficult
to make head or tail of. But just while Mr. Steel was hesi¬
tating whether it would be worth while to go to these villages,
a very distinct and definite charge of forcing unpaid labour
was brought him from another village lying in the opposite
direction. Here, at all events, seemed something tangible,
and off he started at once. When he was yet several miles
from the village he was met by a throng of women, making
a tremendous hullabaloo, shrieking, tearing their hair, and
beating their breats. After in vain trying to distinguish a
single word in the shrill and deafening babel of tongues, he
tried to push his way past and ride on to the village. The
women then took off their upper garments—long scarves or
sheets—and stretched them across the road, to constrain him
to stand and listen to their cries. When these barriers had
with difficulty been removed by his attendants, and a lane
was formed for him through the midst of the yelling crowd,
he was about to press his horse forward, when his progress
was again checked by seeing a three-weeks-old baby de¬
liberately laid by its mother within two feet of the animal's
hoofs.
To make a long story short, however, he did somehow
get to the village at last, and calling up the headmen, and
the noisiest of the complainants, questioned them closely.
He soon found that, notwithstanding all the noise, and
weeping, and wailing, and passionate prayers that he would
146 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
hang every man, woman, and child in the village rather
than leave them any longer subject to the cruel yoke of their
oppressors, there was a notable lack of definiteness of detail
and of consistency of statement in the answers he received
to his direct questions. And ere the deponents had been
very long exposed to his astute cross-examination, finding
themselves driven hopelessly into a corner, they were fain
to confess that the whole proceeding was a sham. They
had been bribed, they said, by a rich banker, who had for¬
merly been the district treasurer, but whom Baytree some
short time previously had turned out of his office on a charge
of peculation. The said banker of course denied this with
the most vehement protestations; but one of his servants
confirmed the story by coming forward, and confessing,
with much contrition, that he himself had been the agent
employed to pay the bribes to the village headmen. This
proof was irresistible. The Commissioner returned to Be-
shuckabad convinced that the numerous complaints against
his Deputy at Diknugger were malicious slanders emanating
from or instigated by persons whose dishonesty Baytree had
exposed and punished, and marvelling more than ever at
that officer's extraordinary skill in the administration of his
finances. Summary and well-deserved punishment overtook
the mendacious village headmen—punishment so exemplary
that other village headmen and others throughout the dis¬
trict, hearing of it, probably communed with each other,
that, if such was to be counted as one of the possible results
of making complaints against Captain Baytree, it behoved
them for the future to "rather bear the ills they had than
fly to others which they knew not of."
The banker's contrite agent was also dismissed by his
master. But moved, perhaps, by his genuine repentance,
Captain Baytree some time afterwards gave him an appoint¬
ment in the public service; not a prominent one, in which
he might have fallen under the eye of the Commissioner,
which would scarcely have been seemly, but a snug berth in
an out-of-the-way part of the district, where he might have
Adventures by the way.
147
leisure to pursue his edifying course of penitence for his
former misdoing.
Now, should any astute and cynical reader suppose it
possible that Captain Baytree may have employed this agent
to give a bribe, purporting to come from his master the
banker, to induce the villagers to make the false complaints,
with a view to throwing the Commissioner off the scent of
other complaints which might, perhaps, on investigation,
prove to be more genuine, I must emphatically tell that
reader that he is wrong. I am perfectly sure that Baytree
would never have done such a thing. But I think it possible
that he may have said to his Tahsildar, " Here is the Com¬
missioner coming to inquire into complaints he ha3 heard
about forced labour. I never authorised you to force labour.
You know best whether you have done so. But mind, if
the Commissioner should find that the complaints are true,
don't look for any protection from me. I shall most certainly
leave you to your fate and the most scrupulous officer
who ever adorned the public service might have said as
much to a subordinate.
Nevertheless, as I have said, Mr. Steel never visited one
of Baytree's charming little rest-houses without an uncom¬
fortable sense of that distinction between the words must and
ought, used with reference to the hire of the labourer, rising
unbidden to his mind. The girls, however, on the present
occasion were troubled by no such misgivings, but sat in
the cool verandah, looking out on the greensward and the
flowers, and the shining river beyond, talking to the two
young men with much satisfaction. Witches are supposed
not to be able to cross a running stream, and it may have
been that Bella had been able to shake off on the Beshuck-
abad bank of the river that morning the spell by which the
wicked enchanter Trapton had bound her. Certainly she
had got rid of a good deal of her sulkiness, and seemed dis.
posed for a mild flirtation with Shafto. This was probably
not quite the arrangement which Shafto himself would most
have desired. And his eye and his attention kept wander-
i4§
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
ing away to the other end of the verandah, where he could
catch sight of a bit of Grace's skirt as she sat with Ravens-
more just round the corner of the house. Why, after the
service so gallantly rendered by him that morning, Grace
preferred to the old lover, whom she had not seen for
months, the company of the new one, whose persistent
attentions she had never been able to get away from for
half an hour together for the last week, I really do not
know. It may have been only her good-nature. She saw,
perhaps, that Ravensmore was much more hurt by his failure
to tumble into the nullah than Shafto had been by tumbling
in; and perhaps pity induced her to soothe the former.
But Shafto assigned quite a different motive.
"That confounded young prig of a secretary," he said to
himself bitterly, " who seems to be afraid of relaxing his
smug features into the ghost of a smile, lest the Czar of
Russia should hear of it from his spies, and take advantage
of the momentary weakness to set Central Asia in a blaze,
is not after all, I see, such an utterly unredeemable ass as I
took him for. He has sense enough to distinguish between
the real staple and shoddy, and dimly to perceive that Grace
Hawthorn is better worth his cursedly conceited attentions,
and quite as ready to accept them, as this girl who insists
upon worrying me with her idiotic chatter. If the embryo
Prime Minister has entered the field, I suppose it's time for
a poor devil of a Bobby like me to hook it. Miss Hawthorn
clearly thinks so."
" There is not the least use your thinking any more of
Grace, Mr. Shafto," said Bella, stopping short in a story
which she saw he was not listening to, and reading his
thoughts with an accuracy which assuredly did not justify
the charge of idiotcy which he so disparagingly laid against
her. " Not the least bit in the world. If you had any idea
of picking up the thread of last hot weather's pleasant days,
get rid of it out of your mind at once. A seraph has come
down among the daughters of men since then; and seeing
Grace that she is fair, has taken her up into the seventh
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.
149
heaven. You might just as well now love some bright par¬
ticular star, she is so completely beyond your reach."
"She was always that," said Shafto, who had no idea of
allowing his jealousy to be the butt of Miss Steel's ridicule.
" It would at any time have been sheer madness in me to
think of Miss Hawthorn. Now, I might reasonably have
aspired to you."
" Indeed ! how very gratifying to me ! But may I ask
upon what particular difference between Grace and myself
such a flattering distinction rests ?'
" Simply," replied Shafto carelessly, " that I presume you
will have lots of money, and your friend, I take it, will not.
And as the wages which a niggardly Government allows
me are barely enough to keep one body and soul together,
they certainly would not suffice to do the like for two sets
of the same, besides keeping a couple of hearts in a united
condition into the bargain."
" A most prudent argument," said Bella. " Well, I am
very glad for your own sake that you neither have fallen in
love with Grace (though it was the cleverest make-believe
I ever saw), nor propose doing so. But in that case, there
can be no possible necessity for keeping your eyes glued to
the frill of her dress all the time you are talking to me.
Grace dear," she called out, " do pull in your skirt; there
is a little bit sticking out round the corner, and it fidgets
Mr. Shafto."
Miss Hawthorn obeyed, but not before she had fidgeted
Mr. Shafto a great deal more by substituting for a single
moment for the offending flounces a lovely and radiantly
smiling face, while she begged his forgiveness for the annoy¬
ance she had been unwittingly causing him. However, it
was clear that, unless he wished to open a window in his
breast for Bella's sharp eyes to peer into, he had better pull
himself together, and bestow some of his attention upon
that young person, who by no means approved of being
ignored.
"Are there anv vcnna ladies at Diknugger ?" asked Bella.
T5°
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
" Two," was the reply. " Twins—daughters of my chief,
Colonel Catcheside."
" It is a taking name. Is either of them pretty ?"
"Both; Nellie particularly so."
"Then I am afraid your 'aspirations' may be more
likely to extend towards her than even to me."
" Much; she is of a more suitable age."
"Is she? how old, pray?"
" She will just be marriageable about the same time that
I am likely to be. Her present age is four."
" And how many married ladies are there in the station ?"
" Two also, Mrs. Baytree and Mrs. Catcheside. 01 the
lower sex we are eight; to wit, my aforementioned chief,
Colonel Catcheside, the district superintendent of police, a
man of whom it is no disparagement to say that he is more
cunning in horseflesh and the odds than in tracking burglars.
Item, there is our head boss of all, Captain Baytree, the
deputy-commissioner, of whom it is also no disparagement
to say that he is cunning in most things. Item, Dr. Brand¬
ling, the civil surgeon, who may be cunning in surgery,
whereof I am glad not to be in a position to declare, having
so far kept off his operation-table, but is certainly cunning
in nothing else, being the simplest-minded of men. Item,
Mr. Bumpas, the assistant-commissioner, who is a master
of all philosophy. And lastly, the three Masters Catcheside,
who have all graduated with high honours in every branch
of the arts of mischief, and are besides junior wranglers.
There now, you have the whole Post Office Directory of
Diknugger."
" What a delightful little social circle ! What do you do
with yourselves ?"
" O, with ourselves we find various forms of amusement,
smoking being thflfe commonest, I think. And with each
other we sometimes fight. A quarrel is the only thing that
.ever brings any two of us together. But luckily we are
never short of the raw material for a row. Our supplies of .
beer and soda-water sometimes run out. and. our ice never
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY. 151
lasts over the first month of the hot weather. But we bottle
yp our half-used differences and put them away. And they
are just like the widow's cruse of oil—when we pull the
cork out again for another ' go,' we find the bottle as full,
and the flavour as fresh, as ever."
" What a pleasant den of wild beasts we seem to be
going to !" remarked Miss Steel.
"O, you will see us behaving with the most amiable
sociability^ The visitor to the happy family show is always
charmed with the good fellowship displayed by the mouse
and the cat and the pigeon in their combined performance
of loading and firing off the cannon for his amusement.
But, of course, they don't go on firing off cannons amongst
themselves after the show is closed. Each coils himself up
in his own corner, and only comes out for an occasional worry."
" I don't believe your description of your unsociableness
a bit. I daresay you play tennis every evening, and whisper
a good many soft nothings into the attentive ears of Mrs.
Baytree and Mrs. Catcheside too."
" I won't take the trouble to contradict you. I will
trust to the evidence of your own eyes when you see the
ladies. But I do occasionally exchange a word which is
not one of defiance or denunciation with the doctor. We
live together in the saraiT
" In the sarai !"
" Yes. Diknugger very closely resembles Mayfair—in
one particular. Nowhere else will you find the magnificence
of the prince's palace so jumbled up with the squalor of the
beggar's hovel. I'll be bound to say you might travel over
the length and breadth of India, from Thibet to Cape Como-
rin, and from Jamrood to Rangoon, and not find a more
charming and luxurious house than Baytree's. You will see
the drawing-room and dining-room, at all events, for yourself
to-morrow, when Mrs. B. gives us all a saddly-peeroo Khdna'-
* Being interpreted, a state banquet, at which, according to imme¬
morial Anglo-Indian Mofussil custom, the pikes de resistci7ice are a
saddle of mutton and a turkey (peervo),
x52
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
in honour of you. The splendid columns of his lofty veran¬
dah "bestride the narrow station like a Colossus. But we
petty men, the rest of us, have had to peep about and find
ourselves very inferior places of shelter. The Catchesides
inhabit a ramshackle old thatched house so utterly out of
repair that the whole family would be in daily jeopardy of
their lives from the roof falling, but for1 the circumstances
that the thatch has worn so thin, and the rafters are so honey¬
combed by dry rot and white ants, that they are too light to
fall, and if they did, would not hurt the people underneath.
Bumpas, as becomes a philosopher, kennels in a box about
the size of a hogshead. There used once to be a companion
structure intended for the other dog, the assistant policeman j
but for some years that honourable office was left without
an incumbent, and when I came to the station I found that
the barrel which ought to have been mine had had the end
knocked out; in other words, the roof had fallen in. So
dear old Brandling, who occupied the two little closets
built at the corner of the sarai, which were originally in¬
tended for the accommodation of European vagrants (had
any such been so exceedingly ill-advised as to visit a land
so naked as Diknugger), gave up one of them to me. If
Brandling ever happened to possess the only available pair
of shoes, or stockings, or—well, let us say coat—he would
unhesitatingly give up one side of it to anybody who hap¬
pened to be unprovided."
" And do you and he both live in the two rooms ?
How snug ! What do you call the rooms respectively ? I
should think the hall and the dormitory, or dormitory and
refectory, would be at once terse and comprehensive."
" You mistake ; we are not chums, only next-door neigh¬
bours. Each has his own room, and the door between is
locked, and a chest of drawers placed against it on each
side, to provide against accidents."
"Well, you certainly do seem to be a most consistently
misanthropical set of wretches at Diknugger ! But in spite
of all you have said, I warn you I shall keep my eye upon
AD VENTURES BY THE WAY.
*53
you and Mrs. Catcheside to-morrow evening; I have heard
a very different account of her from yours, I can tell you. I
suppose, if the Baytrees are going to give a dinner-party,
she will be there."
" Yes, we shall all be there—except the doctor. Brand¬
ling never shows on such occasions."
" Why not ?"
"Well, in the first place, I very much doubt whether Mrs.
Baytree ever invites him. He is not a regular army surgeon,
you know; not a commissioned officer. In substantive rank,
I take it, he is only an apothecary,—a warrant officer. And
Captain Baytree is not the man to tolerate the intrusion of
so dubious a character within the aristocratic and refined
circle of which he himself is so lustrous an ornament. But
in the second place, if they did ask him, he certainly would
not go. The flutter of a petticoat scares him, as the flap of
a hawk's wing do^s a young partridge. He will cower close
in his cover at the sarai as long as you ladies are ranging
about the station, and only steal out at dead of night for a
hurried trembling flight to his dispensary and his gaol."
" What fun. to swoop down on him in his bush !" sug¬
gested Bella. " Do ask us to tiffin in your rooms,—your
room, I mean,—and don't let him know we are coming."
" It would be no use," replied Shafto. " Nature has
endowed him with an infallible instinct, which warns him
of the approach of danger, although there may be no visible
signs. But for that he never could have survived in the
struggle for existence. Some bird of prey would have
clutched so defenceless a creature long ago, and married
him. He was here with me last night. He had ridden out
with me, having come to see a poor wretch in a village near
here who had a dreadful accident, and whom he is treating.
As we were smoking after dinner I discovered to my surprise,
by some chance remark he let fall, that he had never heard
a word about your coming to Diknugger, though everybody
there has been talking of nothing else the last week, and
Baytree has been laying on eye-wash all over the place with
i54
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
a vigour that might, one would have supposed, have attracted
the attention of a slug. But dear old Brandling is so wrapt
up in his own work and his own thoughts, that he had ob¬
served and heard nothing. Here was a grand opportunity,
I thought, of stealing a march upon him, so I was careful to
give him no hint, and took care that nobody else should, till
I saw him safe off to bed. But lo ! when I got up, I found
that the old boy had sniffed the tainted—or rather (I beg
pardon) scented—gale, had taken the wings of the morning,
and flown away.''
"And this creature is the only thing you ever talk to,
you say. What delightful intellectual exercise, to discuss
gallipots with an apothecary !"
" O, our apothecary has some things in his gallipots that
are worth rummaging—
' Musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses,'
like the one in Romeo and Juliet. He has knocked about
the world, led a roving, and, I should say, a ne'er-do-well
sort of life, and has seen many things worth talking about.
There is still some scent in his roses ; his packthread can be
spun on occasion into very tolerable yarns ; and his seeds
sometimes germinate into moral reflections on life, quite as
full in the ear, I daresay, as your Beshuckabad padre threshes
out in his pulpit of a Sunday morning. He really is a rare
good fellow, with more good sense and honesty than all the
rest of us put together. Unsparing in his work amongst
the sick, but with a deuce of a hot temper, and always at
hammer and tongs with Baytree, who prefers spending the
local funds in erecting Gothic clock towers and Greek
faqades to frittering them away on drugs ahd blankets for a
lot of unsavoury paupers in the hospital."
"Ugh!" said Bella, in a tone which seemed to show
that Captain Baytree would not be altogether without her
sympathy in his controversy with the medical officer. "I
must say I don't feel very much 'drawn out' towards your
ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.
155
friend, notwithstanding the poetic fervour of your description.
I shall not be desolated at missing his presence from the
dinner-table to-morrow, and I must say I do pity Mrs. Bay-
tree and Mrs. Catcheside in having to trust to a mountebank
of this sort, if they or their children fall ill."
" As to that, I should say that his professional know¬
ledge is not quite up to Sir William Jenner's, though, in zeal
in his profession, I am sure he is equal, if not superior.
But he is, I believe, a real pukka doctor, passed the College
of Surgeons and all that. I take it that he was originally
educated as a doctor, but either owing to want of success,
or a ' truant disposition,' cut it and took to roving. He
seems to have tried all sorts of things, and has been in every
quarter of the globe. Amongst others, of course, he has
enlisted in his time, and has seen some sharp service. I
can never get out of him how he dropped into his present
line of life, which, in his dull routine, must be a great con¬
trast to his early habits. He is very close on that subject.
But it is not unlikely that they may have discovered in some
emergency, while he was in the ranks, that he had been
brought up as a doctor, and promoted him to an
apothecary. How he got into civil employ and came here
I have no idea."
'• Well, tell me about somebody a little more interesting
now—the dulness and vulgarity of your hero has evidently
been too much for you ; for I must say that you have fallen
from the first poetic enthusiasm for your oddly-chosen friend
into most unequivocal prose, not to say prosing. What is
Mr. Bumpas like ? He, at any rate, I suppose, is not an old
fogey. But, O 'dear, tvhat a name ! For a small collection,
you certainly have the choicest specimens in that way at
Diknugger."
But here Grace appeared, looking, as the keenly observ¬
ant Bella thought, slightly flurried, followed by Ravens-
more, who wore in his countenance a curious mixture of
meek woe and offended self-love, under a veil of somewhat
™,Wardlv-assumed nonchalance. Shafto, with usual male
156 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
obtuseness, failed to see through the veil, thin as it was ;
and only observed enough to torment himself withal, viz.
a slight appearance of excitement in Grace, which proved
that her long conversation with the young secretary had
been occupied by something more interesting to her than
mere every-day small-talk. But Bella read what had hap¬
pened in a moment, and lifted her eyebrows with a slight
but most intelligent expression of surprise, which set Miss
Hawthorn blushing freely.
" Don't you think it is time for us to be" going back to
the tents ?" said Grace. " Mrs. Steel will wonder what we
are about."
" And with good reason too," answered Bella significantly.
" Yes, let us go."
CHAPTER XI.
grace hawthorn finds a new aristocratic admirer.
The Kila or castle of Zoolumkote, the residence of Mr.
Steel's favourite ward, the young Nawab, was near this day's
halting-place. The Nawab had of course been to pay his
respects to his late guardian in the morning, and at tiffin
Mr. Steel mentioned his intention to ride over to the Kila
in the afternoon, and see how things were going on there.
Bella, who was beginning to find camp life very dull, who
saw no prospect of getting up a flirtation with Shafto, and
was determined not to gratify her mother by attempting one
with Ravensmore, proposed that the ladies should accom¬
pany him for something to do.
Zoolumkote stood out well on the level plain, and was
both a conspicuous and picturesque object in the view, for
seven or eight miles round. It had been built piecemeal and
for varying purposes. The oldest parts still standing were
not very ancient, probably not over two hundred and fifty
years old, but the site had been occupied by a fortified struc-
GRACE HA WTHORN'S NE W ADMIRER. i 5 7
ture of some kind from time immemorial. No doubt Alexan¬
der the Great (if he ever got as far as Diknugger, regarding
which I acknowlebge my acquaintance with Arrian and Poly-
bius is somewhat too slender to enable me to pronounce
authoritatively) may have driven up to the door, with lovely
Thais sitting beside him in a chariot, just as Mr. and Mrs.
Steel were now doing in a barouche. But the archways
which had admitted them, and the halls in which they may
have caroused, had long ago become, like themselves, dust.
On their ruins Other walls had risen, and in their turn
crumbled away, and been surmounted by others and others,
so that the debris of successive buildings had gradually
formed a huge tumulus, rising abruptly from the flat plain to
a height of some forty or fifty feet. And upon and around
this commanding position the present edifice stood.
The oldest parts were the remains of a hunting-lodge
built by a member of the imperial house in comparatively
peaceful times, during the palmy days of the Moghul sove¬
reignty. This had been enlarged and fortified to serve as a
residence for the governer of the soubah, at a later and less
quiet period. Then the ancestors of Kumbukt Khan had
occupied and still further extended and fortified it, having dug
a deep ditch and thrown a massive earthen rampart all round
the high battlemented and loopholed brick wall, which had
previously formed its external defence. And finally, Lomri
Khan, while providently maintaining the fortified character
of the place, had added buildings better adapted both in
space and form to modern and civilised notions of comfort,
and the era of law and peace, which he himself had so
materially assisted to bring in.
Seen at " airy distance," and lighted up by the rays of
the rising or setting sun, the irregular outline of turreted
roofs and gratefully fretted balconies, the varied hues of the
walls, from sombre, weather-stained old brick to dazzling
cement, covered with quaint and gaudy frescoes, the whole
reared up on high, above the dark-green foliage of a belt of
mango and peepul trees which surrounded it, made a very
158 CURRENT' REPENTANCE.
striking and pleasing picture. But it by no means improved on
a nearer view. After skirting a vast pool of stagnant water—■
of which it is hard to say whether the slimy surface,, smooth
and green as a new billiard-table, or the cattle-trodden
muddy margin was the more offensive to eye and nose—the
visitors crossed the dry ditch by a causeway, passed over a
rough breach in the earth rampart, and checked their carriage
under the shadow of a huge beetle-browed gateway, flanked
by great bulging bastions. Here they had to alight, as their
further way towards the interior led up a steep and tortuous
passage, roughly paved with small bricks stuck up on end,
and vaulted over in some places. The Nawab's coachman was
in the habit of driving up this at full speed; but Mr. Steel
did not care to subject his own horses to the difficulty, or
Mrs. Bay tree's carriage to the danger, of such an ascent.
The whole party, therefore, commenced it on foot, ushered
with the most courtly politeness by the Nawab's Diwan or
High Steward, clad in the snowy garments of spotless in¬
nocence, and wearing about the most villanous expression
of cunning and hardness that ever adorned the counte¬
nance of mortal man. Behind them marched a guard of
honour of six soldiers, armed with musket and bayonet, and
dressed in the cast-off tunics and trousers of some British
infantry regiment, commanded by a fierce warrior, carrying
a drawn sword, whose head was surmounted by a dragoon's
brass helmet, his breast all ablaze with the gold lace of a
horse artilleryman's jacket, but his legs rather incongruously
swathed in an old patched pair of drab drawers.
During their progress along^this winding alley more than
one of the visitors' senses were assailed in a way which, ac¬
cording to our squeamish Western notions, seemed rather
out of keeping with the approach to the front door of the
mansion of a gentleman of rank and wealth. And while
they were in one particularly narrow pass, between a heap
of deliciously fresh stable litter on one side, and an open
draw-well flush with the floor of the passage on the other,
they were attacked by something more formidable than even
GRA CE HA WTHORN'S HE W ADMIRER. 15 9
strong smells or unlovely sights. This was the buffalo,
which, when first they beheld it, a little urchin, innocent of
clothing as ever his forefather Adam had been, was vigor¬
ously striving to tug through the doorway of a most odori¬
ferous cow-byre a few paces in front of them. This purpose
the little imp might possibly have effected in due time, had
not the Diwan and the escort united to raise one common
howl of objurgation, which not only frightened the buffalo
out of its bovine wits, but stimulated the child to more
strenuous modes of compulsion. He took to belabouring it,
about the eyes and nose, with a pole three times as long and
twice as heavy as himself, and this procedure in turn quickly
led to a sudden rupture of the tie which had hitherto united
the big quadruped to the little biped. The latter thereupon
fled blubbering into the cow-byre, and the former, with nose
in air and eyes looking nowhere in particular, dashed lum¬
bering and capering full tilt down the passage. There was
no means of getting out of the way; and our friends keenly
experienced at that moment the feelings with which a set
of skittles may be supposed to view the approach of the
ball thundering down the skittle-alley. The Commissioner,
a just man and tenacious of purpose, whom neither a yelling
mob of riotous ryots, nor the frown of an offended governer-
general, could have shaken in his solid mind, was not going
to get out of the way.for a buffalo; and as he was in the
front of the party, and in the very centre of the passage,
there was every probability that the monster would pursue
its mad career over his prostrate but exalted person. His
daughter, who was next him, with noble devotion seemed
resolved to share his fate, for she threw her arms round his
waist, and held him so firmly, that even had it been possible
for that mens cequa in archils to admit a thought of flight, he
would have found it impossible to put it into action. Mrs.
Steel promptly backed against the wall, and appeared to make
an attempt to flatten herself against it. The peculiar contour
of her figure, however, not lending itself readily to this plan,
she caught Grace Hawthorn firmly by both shoulders, and held
i6o CURRENT REPENTANCE.
her in front of herself, at the same time gasping out—for
what with the steepness of the ascent and the agitation of
the moment, she was somewhat short of breath—" I'm
ashamed—of you, Grace—being frightened—-of a cow !"
Grace meekly submitted.
"Now is your time," she exclaimed to Ravensmore, " to
redeem the reproach of having shirked the nullah this morn¬
ing. Here is an adventure worthy of Guy of Warwick !"
Ravensmore sprang forward to obey. But Shafto was
not going to let him monopolise all the glory of the en¬
counter, and did likewise at the same moment. Owing to
excess of eagerness and scantiness of space, they cannoned
violently against each other; and though both ordinarily
good-humoured young fellows enough, who had taken many
a shrewd push at football in excellent part, they must now,
of all inappropriate occasions, turn to interchange a passing
growl of " deuced awkward," " confoundedly clumsy." And
before they could recover their proper front, the buffalo was
between them. She gave Ravensmore the benefit of her
right shoulder, and sent him stumbling ankle-deep into the
stable litter, while with her left she spun Shafto round, and
deposited him in the arms of the old Diwan, whom over¬
throwing, the pair rolled on the rough pavement locked in
a fond embrace.
The buffalo then, whether checked by the Commissioner's
calm and steady eye, or considering that she had done
enough to assert her supremacy, turned aside, and, taking a
clean leap over the draw-well, left the rest of the party
unharmed. All laughed loudly at the adventure, now the
danger was past; but the merriment of the two young men
—one of whom was having his once glossy boots assidu¬
ously wiped by the captain of the escort, who had taken off
one of his soldiers' turbans for the purpose, and the other
slowly disentangling himself like a modern Laocoon from
the sinuous limbs of the Diwan—was by no means uncon¬
strained. As there is a prevalent opinion that the circum¬
stance of having shared any great danger together has a
GRACE HAWTHORN'S NEW ADMIRER. 161
tendency to establish something of good feeling even
between foes, it is necessary for me to state explicitly that
their common mishap on the present occasion aroused no
such sentiment in the bosom of Charles Ravensmore and
John Shafto. On the contrary, a vague, instinctive, Dr.
Fellian sort of antipathy for the other, with which each had
been inspired from the very moment that they first cast eyes
on one another, now took from this little incident a fixed,
definite, conscious form of hearty detestation.
Their further progress no longer obstructed, the visitors
made their way to the inner court. The entrance to this
was through a doorway so low that even BelFa had to stoop,
and so narrow that her mother had to turn sideways to pass
through. This led into a dark, windowless room. There
had apparently been an inchoate attempt to light it by
means of a lamp consisting of an earthen saucer of oil with
a bit of string dropped into it for a wick. But this, after
burning just long enough to develop a fine black head and
lay in an inexhaustible reserve of smoke, had gone out, and
now, instead of shedding light, made up by emitting a most
potent smell. Then, conducted by the voice of the Diwan,
—for they could no longer discern his figure through the
gloom,—they turned to the right into a second chamber
darker than the first, and thence to the left into a third;
each individual member of the party floundering in turn over
a bar of wood considerately laid for the purpose across the
last doorway, and so emerged again into the light of day
within the interior courtyard.
Here they were received in state, first by a flock of geese,
which seemed disposed, like those of the Roman Capitol,
to dispute their entrance. But these having been caused to
stand aside, not without much expostulatory hissing and
gobbling, by the bayonets of two of the attendant retainers,
the Commissioner and his party were next met by the lord
of the castle himself, surrounded by a brilliant retinue.
To those who knew what years of anxious care had been
devoted by our Commissioner and his able coadjutors to the
■ M
162
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
task of fitting the young Nawab for his high and important
position in society—of throwing him out worthy to figure
as
"The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,"
his personal appearance was, on the first superficial view, a
little disappointing. Not that it was insignificant; far from
it. He was barely an inch short of six feet—round the cir¬
cumference ; for to speak- of a waist in his case would be a
misapplication of terms. Why, Shafto's coat, though he
was by no means a small man, would not have buttoned
round one of the Nawab's thighs. This physical formation
must have caused the gentleman who had been intrusted
with the youth's education considerable difficulty in carry¬
ing out that portion of it which consisted in field sports and
athletic exercises. For instance, the Nawab could .not
possibly have a seat on a horse of any other kind than that
which Cleopatra's Needle has on its pedestal, which depends
for its security solely on the immobility of sheer weight.
And as for playing at football—well, there certainly was one
part in the game which his pupil was well formed to take,
viz. that of the ball.
I have not said anything yet about the features of the
Nawab's face. In fact, the head formed such a very minute
portion of the whole figure, that people were at first apt to
overlook it. But though on a very reduced scale, it was as
round and plump as the sphere to which it was attached so
closely, that nature, in the Nawab's case, seemed to have
dispensed with the common, but useless, interposition of a
neck. The forehead was small and retiring, but the lips
made up for this mauvaise honte on the part of that modest
feature by being large and forward. He had a set of teeth
which would have done credit to a hyena; and his eyes,
too, would have been quite as much in place above a wild
boar's snout as on either side of a human nose; they were
small, sharp, greedy, ogrish.
But, as Barrow says, the fairest jewel may be locked
GRACE HAWTHORN'S NEW ADMIRER. 163
away in a homely box. And according to Mr. Steel's
account, recorded in the eloquent reports which he periodi¬
cally submitted to Government, no pearl ever lay under
Oman's blue water more bright in its shell than the young
Nawab's spirit in him. However, I need not say anything
about that just now. The young gentleman will have an
opportunity of letting us see some flashes of that same
spirit before we are done with him. In the mean time let
us follow him, as, taking Mr. Steel's hand in his own flabby
fin, he leads the way to his reception-hall.
In crossing the inner courtyard they had only to make
two slight divergences from the straight line—one to av.oid
a rich green cesspool, the other to make way for the broken
body of a superannuated palankeen. They then ascended
a narrow, dark, winding staircase, which led them into a
spacious room, divided down the centre by a row of fluted,
pillars supporting arabesque arches. In one part of this room
a long array of chairs were placed ready,'ranged in a mathe¬
matically accurate straight line. The two in the centre had
shawls thrown over them, the rest were cushionless. On
the former the Commissioner and the Nawab deposited
themselves, while the remainder of the visitors took the
others. For place aux dames was not the maxim of etiquette
in this court; and even Mrs. Steel had to be content with
a position inferior to her host. The old Diw&n stood behind
his master's chair, and behind that of the Commissioner a ser¬
vant in splendid livery solemnly swung backwards and forwards
a large fan covered with red and yellow silk, and attached to a
long silver pole. If this last appendage to the ceremony was
de rigueur in point of etiquette, it was also rigorous in another
sense. For the weather was cool, and, now that the sun had
gone down, the air rather chilly. And as quite a complicated
system of draughts found entrance into the room through a
dozen unglazed windows, the artificial jet of air-thrown by
the punkah, just on the bald spot on the crown of Mr.-
Steel's head, might conveniently have been dispensed with.
But not the air alone took advantage of the open windows ;
164
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
they were also the chosen rendezvous of some lively families
of the fowls thereof, starlings and long-tailed green parrots,
which kept up an incessant chatter from their ledges,
occasionally diversifying their conversational amusement
with incursions into the interior of the room, up and down
which they chased each other with ear-piercing screams.
Here th,e party sat in solemn state, feeling—as Shafto in
a whisper to Miss Steel graphically described the situation
—like the Christy Minstrels during a solo. The performer
was Mr. Steel, who, acting up to his high opinion of the
Nawab's tastes and culture, did not waste the precious
minutes in complimentary or merely ceremonial speeches,
but regaled him and the rest of the company with an in¬
structive discourse on the chemical properties and eco¬
nomic value of household and street sweepings, with special
application to the singular advantages of the castle of Zoo-
lumkote as a field for the production of this inestimable
commercial commodity. The Nawab, who apparently
rather resembled that parrot famed in our proverbial lore
than those which frequented his own residence, did not say
much in reply. His Diwan, however, at due intervals, ex¬
pressed on his behalf the proper acknowledgments of the
wisdom of the Commissioner's words in such phrases as
" without doubt," " under your Honour's favour," and so on.
To a superficial observer the Nawab himself might have
seemed to be engrossed in two occupations quite distinct
from listening to Mr. Steel's edifying discourse. The first
of these was that of scratching himself, an amusement for
which most parts of his body appeared to afford him a suit¬
able field, from the toes which terminated one fat leg which
he had curled up under him on the seat of the chair, to the
crown of his head, to gain access to which he from time to
time tilted his bejewelled turban forward over one eye.
His second occupation, which he contrived to carry on
without a moment's intermission of the first—even when the
spot to be reached by his fingers was that situated exactly
hal-fway between his shoulder-blades, to circumvent which
GRACE HAWTHORN'S NEW ADMIRER. 165
involved quite appalling contortions of so spherical a figure
as the Nawab's—this second occupation consisted in staring
with his unblinking little ogrish eyes right into Grace Haw¬
thorn's face, leaning well forward in his chair for that pur¬
pose. This, after a time, put the object of his flattering
attention a little out of countenance. Grace successively
blushed, frowned, turned her face towards the furthest
corner of the room, and finally pushed her chair impatiently
back from the line. The Nawab was just preparing to
defeat this ungracious movement by a corresponding one of
his own chair, which would have enabled him to command
a view of the object of his admiration behind the backs of
the others, and with this intent had, with no little labour,
and not without the assistance of both his hands, uncurled
the leg which he had tucked up under him. But just then the
Commissioner, whether observing what had occurred, or acci¬
dentally remembering that the twilight of an Indian winter
evening is limited in duration, rose, and said he should like to
walk round and see the progress of the Nawab's improvements..
In the course of their tour of inspection, Grace, who was
inclined to be fanciful occasionally, called attention to the
grimly sad aspect of one large pile of buildings. It was
lofty, probably four or five stories high ; but the d£ad,
blank walls of dull brick were unrelieved by the smallest
window or even loophole, except far away up, close under
the roof, two or three apertures—ventilators rather than
casements—by which light and air could hardly penetrate
through close screens of fretwork.
" Whatever can be kept in that gloomy-looking ware¬
house ?" asked Grace.
" Those are ladies' apartments, Miss Hawthorn," replied
the young secretary, who was always full of ready informa¬
tion. "You are perhaps aware that, according to the
etiquette of Oriental society, a degree of seclusion is insisted
on in the families of persons of rank, which is unknown,
and indeed would scarcely be tolerated, in the freer atmo¬
sphere of our more enlightened civilisation."
166 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Bellq, made what schoolgirls call a "■ face " and gover¬
nesses a " grimace," and Miss Hawthorn answered, with
something like a shiver,
"You don't mean to say that any human creatures are
so unfortunate as to be immured in such a place ? Talk of
'freer atmosphere !' Why, not a breath of air, much less of
freedom, can reach the poor wretches, I should think.
This is a sort of lady's bower one might have expected to
come across in Bluebeard's Castle, but I should scarcely
have looked for it in that of Mr. Steel's protege. Can't you
imagine that dreadful little window, Bella, right away up in
the sky, to be the very one sister Anne looked out of?"
" The system of seclusion," replied Ravensmore, " is
unquestionably prejudicial to the enlargement of the minds
of Indian ladies, and therefore reacts detrimentally on the
intellectual development of the native races generally,
especially those which a natural and justifiable pride in their
long descent and honourable history, and a regard for vener¬
able tradition, with'which it is impossible not to sympa¬
thise, are most rigid in exacting a strict privacy on the part
of their females. So far the system is most certainly to be
deprecated. But," he added, with a smile of grave and
gentle ridicule, " the horrors which your imagination sug¬
gests can find no place, I assure you, in connection with a
mode of life and a place of abode which are, as a matter of
fact, just about as prosaic and happy as those of any English
lady in India."
" Not a bit of it, Miss Hawthorn," interposed Shafto.
"Your own instinct has pointed you much nearer to the
truth than Mr. Ravensmore's essay, which, perhaps, he will
allow one whose daily work has given him glimpses under
the surfaceof Indian life, such as could scarcely be obtained
by peeping through the pigeon-holes of a secretarial office,
to say, goes very wide of the mark. Behind the impene¬
trable screen of the blank walls of Indian zenanas deeds of
unutterable darkness have been done that would make even
Bluebeard's own azure bristles stand on end. Such deeds
GRACE HAWTHORNE NEW ADMIRER. 167
are being done at this day. Ugly whispers do still now
and then ooze out, from which Sven an official dignitary,
with an imagination fed on quarterly returns, may guess the
contents of the seething cesspool of cruelty and iniquity
which is pent up within."
" Well, whatever may be their relative truth," said
Ravensmore, with a laugh, l'I certainly cannot hope that
my essay was half so entertaining as Mr. Shafto's romance."
" There is no romance about it at all. Why, how can
you tell that some diabolical piece of cruelty and villany is
not being enacted inside that building at this very moment,
while we are staring at it? The walls would tell no tales;
and as they are probably four feet thick at least, it would
have to be a very piercing shriek to get through them,"
" You are too modest, Mr. Shafto," answered Ravens-
more. " I have a higher opinion of the efficiency of the
force, of which you yourself are an ornament, than to credit,
even on such unexceptionable authority as yours, that over-
uxorious gentlemen can with impunity kill their wives and
hang them up in cupboards under the very noses of our
police. I speak generally. Of course I have no special
knowledge of the particular circumstances of the Diknugger
district, where a superiority to quarterly returns, and a
genius for melodrama, may possibly be associated with other
qualities distinguishing the police-officers of this district
from the common herd."
" The police have nothing to do with it. If I were to
force my way into the zenana of a cobbler, I should very
promptly receive a polite letter, signed probably by Mr.
Ravensmore, suggesting the propriety of my adopting a
line of life in which zeal is required to be less freely diluted
with discretion than in the Ma Bap Provinces police. A
zenana, like this in. front of us, is under our law an Alsatia,
an inviolable sanctuary of crime, across whose threshold no
profane policeman or magistrate may venture to step. It
is a holy of holies, and its altar is consecrated to—well, to
Moloch and Chemos !"
i68
CURRENT REREA TANCE.
" To the gods who preside over sweetmeats and small-
talk rather, if there be any such," said Ravensmore scorn¬
fully. " I really don't think there .is any necessity, Miss
Steel, for your harbouring the uncomfortable thought that
your father's late ward keeps a private inferno on his
premises, over the door of which Mr. Shafto would like to
post up the famous recommendation, ' All hope abandon,
ye who enter here !'''
" Hum," replied Bella, shrugging her shoulders. " It
seems at any rate that the Nawab's wives have to abandon
the hope of ever-getting out again. And for my part, if I
were one of them, I had rather be allowed to retain that
particular hope and give up all others whatsoever—leave
them at the door as you do your parasol at the door of the
Academy Exhibition."
"Yes," chimed in Grace, "if Mr. Shafto's bloodcurd¬
ling picture is too highly coloured, as Mr. Ravensmore says,
I must say that his own comforting assurances have to my
ear very much the same ring as the Abbot of Holy Isle's
encouragement to Constance de Beverly—' Sinful sister, go
in peace !'—when she was going to be built up in a niche
in the wall. But at any rate, let us get away from the
dismal building, for, to say the least, the contemplation of it
is not exhilarating."
And so they passed on, Bella manifestly enjoying—and
even the more demure Grace perhaps viewing with an
internal smile—the mutual scorn depicted on the faces of
the two young men, and the evident readiness of each to
expose the absurdity of the first harmless remark which the
other might be rash or careless enough to let fall.
The short twilight was not quite over when they got
back to the camp ; and Grace, slipping away from the rest,
went to a prettily-situated little summer-house which she
had observed during the day, half concealed in a cluster of
foliage at the end of the rest house garden, and overlooking
the river. The day had been an eventful one to her, and
she wanted a few minutes' quiet to collect her thoughts.
GRACE HA 11 TTH( )RN'S NE W ADMIRER. 169
She bad indeed, as Sella had guessed* refused Ravensmore's
offer of marriage that morning, and she had done so with¬
out hesitation. Nevertheless, the event had aroused con¬
siderations—misgivings—which had long been .present in
her mind, though, she had hitherto unconsciously contrived
to keep them dormant. She was by no means fancy free.
She exceedingly liked—she would not in the present con¬
dition of things acknowledge that she loved—Shafto. But
Shafto's pay was very small; his prospects were far from
brilliant, and not altogether secure; and he was in debt.
So during the last summer at the Hills, when they had,
almost without suspecting it, drifted to the very edge—if
indeed they were not fairly thrown on the reef—of a mutual
declaration of love, he had to tell her, with much bitterness
and shame and contrition, that marriage was for the present
d?" blessing beyond his reach, and that he had deprived him¬
self by his foolish extravagance of the right to make love to
any girl. He had at the same time announced a doughty
resolution to amend his ways, so that he might at some
indefinite future period place himself in a happier position.
But when that time might come, who could tell ?
Meanwhile every day, almost every hour, as it passed,
forced upon Grace more and more strongly the conviction
(which Mr. Steel's assurances on the Sunday evening had
done very little to shake) that it was impossible for her to
remain much longer an inmate of her present home. Mrs.
Steel's malignant feeling towards her seemed to deepen day
by day. Bella, she thought, was evidently tired of her
company. And even in Mr. Steel's behaviour towards her,
in transient, quickly-suppressed looks, and in scarcely per¬
ceptible intonations of voice, the delicate sensitiveness which
her peculiar situation necessarily endowed her with detected
sure indications that he also felt her presence irksome, and
that notwithstanding his never-failing kindness and occa¬
sional tenderness towards her, there was, in the feelings in
which he regarded her, some chord, so to speak, out of tune;
some jarring memory, or trick of fancy, or association of
170
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
thoughts—she could not tell what, but something which
strangely mingled a sense of repugnance with his feeling of
affection. But if she left the Steels, what was to become of
her? The only course she could think of was to return to
her old duties at the school. But human nature—the nature
of a girl of twenty-two, endowed with high animal spirits—
could not contemplate the idea of leaving the glad precincts
of the pleasant social life she had grown accustomed to, for
the dull drudgery of agoverness's duties, without casting "one
longing, lingering look behind." And this she had the
power to keep ; nay, she might pluck a still richer cluster of
the pleasant things of life, by merely closing her fingers on
it. Nor was there anything in Ravensmore personally to
deter her. She liked him, respected him, and was by no
means insensible to the flattery involved in his openly-shown
preference for her. Moreover, she could not doubt-his
being thoroughly in earnest. He was not a man either to
amuse himself by a flirtation, or to be led away by vagrant
fancies. He had fallen in love at first sight, but he had
fallen over head and ears, and was not in the least likely
to emerge.
All these thoughts were crowding and jostling one
another in Grace's mind, and she felt she must have ten
minutes' perfect solitude and quiet—not to think them out,
but, if possible, to let them in some degree settle down.
And somehow in her perturbation she instinctively had re¬
course to her treasured talisman, her mother's letter. She
took it from her bosom, read it over again, and then sat in
the little arbour, with it open, in her hands resting on her
lap, while she gazed pensively across the river to the horizon,
which was quickly growing dim under the gathering shades
of evening.
She was aroused from her abstraction by a footstep close
by. Her letter was far too sacred a relic to be seen by any
other eye than her own, and she hurriedly replaced it in the
envelope, and the envelope in her bosom. Shafto—for it
was he who had approached—could not fail to see that she
GRACE HAWTHORN'S NEW ADMIRER. 171
was flurried and taken by surprise, and this in turn gave an
air of awkwardness to his intrusion which was embarrassing
to both.
" I must apologise for following you here, Miss Haw¬
thorn," he said. " Of course, I had no right to."
"Not at all," answered Grace, meaning just the reverse
of the*literal sense of her words. " I was—I was looking
at the view, and I believe I was dreaming. I did not
know any one was near till I heard your step quite close."
There was an awkward pause, neither seeming to know
very clearly how to go on. Sbafto, to cover his embarrass¬
ment, catching sight of a scrap of paper, folded like a letter,
lying on the floor of the summer-house, stooped and picked
it up.
" You have dropped this," he said, handing it to Grace.
" No ; it is not mine," she answered. " I have got my
letter here."
"Ah," said he, glancing at the writing on the paper, "it
is the doctor's fist, I see. I suppose it is some memoran¬
dum of his that he must have dropped. I saw him sitting
here last evening. Well, I will stick it there for the present,
and if I remerqber, I'll take it back to him."
So saying, he placed the paper in a crevice, between the
timbers behind the door-post of the summer-house.
This little incident had given him time to collect his
thoughts, and he now plucked up heart to say the say which
he -had come to deliver. But it had most unluckily hap¬
pened that when Grace, shortly before his appearance, tired
with the resultless task of thinking out the perplexities of
her situation, had turned to her mother's, letter for relief,
certain expressions in it had suddenly struck her in a new
and startling light. There was something indeed running
through the whole of that incoherent appeal which, on re¬
flection, she found hard to reconcile with the account,
meagre and unsatisfactory as it was, which Mr. Steel had
given her of his relations with the writer. A vague and
undefined, but not the less disturbing, suspicion rose.in
172
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Grace's mind, and so entirely preoccupied it at the moment
of Shafto's inopportune visit, that, to say the truth, she
scarcely heard a word he said to her, interesting as she
must have found the subject, had she only listened.
" Am I to understand," said he, " from your manner
towards me to day, that all that passed at Simla is to be
treated as an idle dream; to be forgotten—bah ! to«talk of
forgetting is absurd—but to be put down at the bottom of
my memory as a thing not to be unpacked again ?"
He paused for a reply. But Grace, recalled by the
cessation of his voice to the consciousness that he had been
speaking to her, and possibly asking her a question, could
only answer with a half-apologetic, half-interrogative, and
altogether lame, " I beg your pardon."
" All I have to ask of you," resumed Shafto, nettled at
what seemed an inclination to trifle with a subject which he,
at least, thought serious, " is to speak plainly. Let me know
what your wish is. You shall be implicitly obeyed."
" I—I have no wish," stammered Grace.
" Miss Hawthorn, this may be good fun to you," said
Shafto, in high indignation, " but I will not be treated in
this way. Or if you think it necessary to affect this flippancy
to cover your change of mind, let me assure you there is no
such necessity. Say but the word ; say ' I have thought
better of it;' say that things have altered, and chances have
turned up that you could not dream of before, and I pro¬
mise you I will leave you without a word of reproach. But
I claim a right to a plain and a serious answer."
"Mr. Shafto," said Grace, in dire distress, "I did not quite
hear. I—I really don't know what you are talking about."
" Enough !" cried Shafto. " I see I have been a dolt and
a drivelling idiot to take as sterling coin words that, I have
no doubt, were never intended to pass for other than what
they really were—the gilt counters of a Simla love-making.
But fool as I am, I am not such a fool as to stay to be
laughed at for my folly, though I daresay that is thought the
best part of the game. Good-night, Miss Hawthorn."
GRACE HAWTHORN'S NEW ADMIRER. 173
.-"Stay, Mr. Shafto," said Grace, rising and laying her
hand on his arm as he was rushing indignantly from the
summer-house. " Indeed, you wrong me very much. But
something has just—that is, something, which I cannot ex¬
plain, has happened to-day, and at present my mind is so
upset that I can give my attention to nothing else. I
scarcely seem to comprehend even now what you have been
saying to me, or what I am answering. Do forgive me if I
seem unkind ; I really do not wish to be."
" I presume," replied Shafto, " that I can, without being
a conjurer, guess what the occurrence you refer to is. Well,
far be it from me to disturb your meditations under such
circumstances. But what I had to say to you is very short
and simple, and it is not likely that I shall have another
opportunity to tell it. Last summer at Simla you were good-
natured enough to show some interest in my very unsatis¬
factory and not over-creditable money affairs. So I thought
you would be glad to hear that since then I have succeeded
in clearing off all my debts, and that an uncle, who lately
died, has left me a legacy amounting to about a couple ot
hundred a year. Something further there was also to say;
but let that pass. It is no great fortune—would not warrant
my chucking up the police and going into Parliament. Still,
to a poor devil like me it is a windfall not to be despised."
" Indeed," said Grace, with animation, " I am heartily
glad of your good fortune, but still more rejoiced to hear
that you had cleared off your debts by your own exertions
and self-denial, before it befell you."
. " Well, well. In return for your kindness, Miss Haw¬
thorn, let me frankly congratulate you on all the good for¬
tune which has befallen you too."
" Mr. Shafto, you are speaking in riddles. But again I
say, do not think it unkind or rude in me that I have been
so inattentive. And, O dear ! how late it seems to have
got, and I have not dressed for dinner yet, and Mr. Steel is
always so vexed if we are late !"
And so the second person who had made up his mind to
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
propose to Miss Hawthorn on that day got no more satis¬
factory answer than the first. It was certainly not one to
be marked in the calendar with white by that young lady's
devotees.
Shafto, in high disgust, made a not over-courteous ex¬
cuse for declining Mrs. Steel's invitation to join them at
dinner, and galloped back through the dark to his solitary
den in the Diknugger sarai.
CHAPTER XII.
diknugger and the diknuggerites.
Next morning they reached the little station of Dik¬
nugger. Grace, anxious to avoid a ride side by side with
Ravensmore, gladly concurred in a rather peremptory
suggestion of Mrs. Steel that she should make the march
in the carriage with her. Bella, resolved not to play into
her mother's hand, thereupon said that she would go in
carriage also. So the two gentlemen set off to ride alone.
A couple of miles or so from the station they were met
in due form by Captain Baytree, attended by his assistant,
Mr.' Bumpas, and the superintendent of police, Colonel
Catcheside, riding at the head of about a dozen of the
principal native gentlemen of the town and neighbourhood.
Baytree was very angry that Shafto was not also present to
swell the triumph of his train, and told Colonel Catcheside
that he was not fit for his post, as he had no control over
his subordinates.
" The fact is," he added, regardless of the long ears of
several English-speaking natives, who rode close behind
them, " the fact is, you are afraid to order Shafto to do any¬
thing he does not like, lest he should refuse to do your
work for you, and your own incompetence should be exposed."
"You are always talking about my incompetence,
DIKNUGGER AND THE DIKNUGGERITES. 17 5
Baytree," was the Colonel's plaintive reply. "And I think
it is not right—it is not right—it is not right. I am one of
the oldest officers in the police, and I have received the
thanks of the Inspector-General for the careful manner in
which I laid the Governor-General's dawk on the occasion
of his visit to—"
" O, d—n the Governor-General's dawk I* I don't
believe there has been a single day, during the eighteen
years that have passed since the Inspector-General wrote
that most incautious letter, that you have not trotted out
those confounded horses. I wish to goodness you would
lay that dawk again, once for all—lay it aside."
" Well, but now, about Shafto—what could I do? When
I told him he ought to come with us, he— I say, do
you see that little mare Banker Singh is riding? What a
shoulder, and what quarters ! She should be able to gallop.
Gad! she would walk away from everything in the ' Gal¬
loway Stakes' at the Beshuckabad Spring meeting. A little
cheeseparing would bring her down to Galloway height—
at least, near enough; old Tapes has known me these many
years, and would wink at half an inch. I must get Banker
Singh to lend me the mare."
And so the. philippian Colonel drew back alongside of
the owner of the coveted horse—which was to be made a
Galloway "by courtesy"—and began to exercise his bland¬
ishments upon him, neither thinking nor caring again for
the Deputy-Commissioner's opprobrious treatment.
Captain Baytree expected all the European officers of
his district to accompany him on such occasions as the
present, but he did not recognise the " uncovenanted"
apothecary Brandling as coming under that category, but
was in the habit of classing him rather with the half-caste
clerks in his office. The civil surgeon was therefore not of
the party.
Captain Baytree was a thickset man of perhaps a year
* When Anglo-Indians speak of "laying a dqwk," they mean
placing out relays of horses for a journey.
176
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
or two short of forty. He had a bullet head, with light
sandy hair, fat chops, and little sharp gray eyes, set far
apart, and furnished with eyelids that seemed a size or two
too large for them. These he had a habit of letting partially
fall, like window-blinds pulled half-way down when the sun
is too bright, whenever he was in the presence of persons
of superior rank, from whom he hoped to derive any
benefit. His mouth, thick-lipped but firm, with the corners
habitually drawn in, and the chin slightly elevated, was
expressive at once of self-conceit, sensuality, and ruthless
determination—in other words, as Shafto once expressed it,
" of the world, the flesh, and the devil."
Colonel Catcheside was light and spare, as became a
gentleman jockey. It was generally supposed that each
particular bone in his body had in one steeplechase or
another been broken at least once, and one arm had been
so frequently out of joint that it had got quite used to it,
and the Colonel would sometimes slip it out and in again
while sitting at table, for the entertainment of his friends.
The lines of his countenance were ?iot of the determined
character which marked Captain Baytree's; nor was there
a very great amount of intelligence in it—just about enough,
one would have judged, to qualify for the feat of inducing
a yearling " griff" to give instead of take the odds about a
racehorse.
The third member of the triumvirate who headed the
procession which advanced to meet the Commissioner,
Mr. Bumpas, was a young man of diminutive stature but
inordinately large head, which latter was crowned with a
shock of curly and unkempt brown hair. His figure stand¬
ing would be best described as resembling one's own when
seen reflected on the bulging surface of a shining silver
tea-pot, when the face seems to loom preternaturally broad
and large, and the body and limbs dwindle away into
nothing, like the roots of a radish. But at present he was
seated on a wall-eyed, string-halting old pony, and, with his
legs encased in most "knowing" gaiters, looked the ideal
DIKNUGGER AND THE DIKNUGGERITES. 177
of a stable-boy ; at least, so Colonel Catcheside, who must
have been an authority on such a point, assured him.
Mr. Steel greeted them all — both black and white
faces — with his usual stately urbanity, and introduced
Mr. Ravensmore. Baytree dropped the window-blinds as
he bowed before the dazzling young secretary, and wreathed
his thick lips into their blandest smile as he addressed
some flattering observation to him. Colonel Catcheside,
after taking a rapid measure of the young man and his
horse, confided to him in a confidential undertone that he
had in his stable the very nag to suit him. He had no
intention, he added, of parting with it, and in fact would
not under ordinary circumstances do so for two thousand
rupees. But to oblige a friend of Mr. Steel's, he would
willingly let Ravensmore have an animal that was so
evidently designed by nature especially to carry him. And
they would not quarrel about the price—say six or eight
hundred, as a matter of form.
The Diknuggerites had ridden out at a foot's pace; but
Mr. Steel, a light weight, well mounted, and always eager to
get to his reports and dockets, was accustomed "in going
to devour the way " at a speed which by no means suited
the appetite of Mr. Bumpas' destrier, nor indeed the equita-
tional skill of its rider, who (as they say in India) had an
excellent seat—in a buggy. So Captain Baytree's erudite
and accomplished assistant very soon found himself left
behind in sole enjoyment of a dense cloud of dust, on
which, ere it cleared off and disappeared like a smoke
wreath on the distant horizon, he had involuntarily made
a very hearty breakfast.
He was still some way from the station when the carriage,
with Mrs. Baytree and the girls in it, overtook him.
"Have you been left behind, Mr. Bumpas?" said Mrs.
Steel, checking the carriage.
" I have stayed behind," answered the small man, in a
voice so preternaturally deep, that it seemed to the hearers
that it could only have come through him, and must have
N
178
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
had its source in some far profounder depth than his lungs
—perhaps in the chest of the wall-eyed-pony.
" Mr. Bumpas has waited to escort us," gently suggested
Grace.
" O, that was very polite," remarked Mrs. "Steel graci¬
ously.
"But had we not better be going on, mamma?" said
Bella, with a mischievous glance at the horseman's uneasy
seat. " It is getting dreadfully late; and Mr. Bumpas will
gallop by the side of the carriage."
" No," said Bumpas, "you are mistaken. I did not wait
for you. Pray go on and don't mind me. I don't see the
use of a district officer, who is endowed with intelligence
and power of observation, tearing along the road like a de¬
mented post-boy. How can he either see the state of the
country, or think of the best means of improving it ? He
might just as well stop at home."
" O, you see how it is, mamma. Mr. Bumpas kindly
lagged behind for the purpose of teaching papa the proper
way to do his work."
<l I think you had better get into the carriage with us,"
said Mrs. Steel good-naturedly.
" O no, mamma. How will he be able to observe the
condition of the country, whirling along in a cloud of dust
at ten miles an hour ?" said Bella.
" O, but if he comes along at his present rate," put in
Grace, "he won't reach Diknugger till to-morrow morning;
and how can he exercise his powers of observation in the
dark ?"
" Never mind the girls' quizzing, Mr. Bumpas, but get
in," said Mrs. Steel. " I see you have your syce with j ou ;
let him bring on your pony."
And Mr. Bumpas, like a philosopher as he was, tobk
the advice.. But though the ladies were kept waiting for
him, he would not descend from his " bad eminence " until
the groom had securely buckled a leading rope on to the
head-stall of the meek pony. Then, with a last solemn and
DIKNUGGER AND THE DIKNUGGERITES, 179
minatory injunction to "mind and not let-go/'he cautiously
dismounted.
" Riding is a relic of a barbarous age," he remarked
sententiously, as he took his place by Grace's side on the
front seat of the barouche.
They soon reached the station, which, it is needless to
say, was a picture of neat beauty. The warm red colour of
the roads, paved with broken bricks, contrasted with the
green of the well-watered turf and the trim hedges on each
side. The public buildings which they passed, the court¬
house, the dispensary, the police barracks, were not only in
apple-pie order, and gleaming in the sunshine with all the
dazzling glory of fresh whitewash, but their somewhat crude
architectural character was softened by judiciously-trained
creepers. Captain Baytree's own residence, a palatial man¬
sion, as described by Shafto, stood in a miniature park, kept
up to the very acme of order, through the glades and over
the tops of the fine trees of which glimpses of the house
could be seen. The other places of abode, which Shafto
had sketched in less glowing language, were kept in the
background, out of sight.
As they drove through the station to their encampment,
which was in a grove of trees on the further side, a horse¬
man—a European—passed them trotting briskly in the oppo¬
site direction. He was a striking, not to say a quaint, figure;
and indeed, except for his horse, which was no Rosinante,
but a good serviceable country-bred, he might have stood
for a portrait of Don Quixote. He was a very tall, spare man
—lean in the cheeks, thin in the flanks, but with wiry, muscu¬
lar limbs—evidently to the most cursory and inexperienced
glance " hard as nails." He sat his nag as erect as a Life
Guardsman, and with the " grip " of a rough-rider. Though
probably not originally a dark-complexioned man, his skin
was tanned and weather-beaten to such a degree that it very
much resembled the well-worn brown leather gaiters which
he wore; so that, looking at his face, his large bony hands,
and the portion of his leg below the1 knee, one might easily
180 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
have thought at first sight that all those parts of his body
were equally uncovered by clothing. His age was probably
not much over five-and-forty, though the deep furrows which
seamed his face, and the almost quite gray colour of his
short clipped hair and long thin beard, might at the first
glance have prompted one to set it down as more. His
features were even more Quixote-like than his figure; too
pronouncedly and harshly aquiline to be called handsome,
but imbued with a nobility of expression which impelled you
to say, as you looked at them, that if not actually handsome,
they ought to have been so.
In grave courtesy of manner and reverent treatment of
the fair sex he seemed in no whit to fall short of his chival¬
rous prototype. Although he was not acquainted with any
of the three ladies, he drew up his horse to a walk as the
carriage passed, and made a most polite bow.
" Gracious ! What a scarecrow !" ejaculated (quite loud
enough for the subject of the epithet to hear) Miss Steel,
who, being seated by her mother on the back seat of the
carriage, was the first to catch sight of him. " You don't
happen to have a lunatic asylum amongst your public insti¬
tutions here, do you, Mr. Bumpas ? If so, I should say
there has been an escape this morning."
" Scarecrow !" rejoined Grace, who, seated with her back
to^ the horses, caught a later and less full view of the
cavalier. " A most charmingly romantic figure, / think—an
ideal Crusader!"
" His manners, at any rate, are most high bred," re¬
marked Mrs. Steel, palpably gratified by the stranger's
deferential salute. " Who is he, Mr. Bumpas ?"
" He ?" replied the guttural Bumpas loftily. " 0} his
name is Brandling. By a sort of legal, or rather adminis¬
trative, fiction he is supposed to be our doctor. In know¬
ledge of the progress and development of physiological,
biological, pathological, and hygienic science, he is, I sup¬
pose, about abreast of Hippocrates ; but, I daresay, his skill
is quite sufficient for the treatment of the dura ilia of Cap-
DIKNUGGER AND THE DIKNUGGELITES. 181 "
tain Baytree, or that Orson, Shafto, or of the little Catche-
sides, whom I myself have seen devouring whole pumpkins
raw, without the smallest apparent derangement of their
digestive organs."
I am inclined to think that the next two days during
which the party halted at Diknugger did not impress the
two girls with a very favourable idea of life in a small civil
station. There seemed to be nothing whatever, to see or
do until four in the afternoon, when a few deadly-lively sets
of tennis were gone through in Captain Bay tree's garden.
But as neither Ravensmore nor Shafto thought fit to be
present, the play may be said to have languished sadly.
The truth was, that each of these two young Achilleses
sulked in his tent through pique at the fancied preference
shown by their common Briseis to the other. The conse¬
quence was, that there was no one to play with the girls but
the two ladies of the station, Mrs. Baytree and Mrs. Catche-
side; for various impediments prevented any of the other
gentlemen from being performers. The obstacle in Bumpas'
case was, of course, his intellectual superiority ; in Catche-
side's it was one of his numberless falls on the steeplechase
"Course, which had resulted in making one leg shorter by a
couple of inches or so than the other, and in imparting to
his mode of locomotion, when on foot, a peculiar dot-and-
go one action, unfavourable to display in the tennis-court.
Baytree, indeed, was a good player, and so fond of the
game that he used to make his wife, who hated it, stand
opposite to him for an hour regularly every evening, to serve
him with balls, and be volleyed at in return—the volleys
being of a twofold description, and coming at the same
time from the player's bat and his tongue, both equally
hard hitters. But on the present occasion the Deputy-
Commissioner was constrained to sit out and talk shop with
Mr. Steel.
The two ladies of Diknugger were the reverse of success¬
ful either in tennis or conversation. Mrs. Baytree had some
eight or ten years before, as Miss Kittlethorpe, been a pretty
182 current repentance.
girl, and so frolicsome that prudish matrons were wont to
turn up the whites of their eyes at her doings and sayings.
But since then
" Had canker Bay tree ate her bud,
And chased the native beauty from her cheek;
And she did look as hollow as a ghost,
And dim and meagre as an ague fit."
She moved about and spoke (when obliged to) with an air
of weary apathy, quickened occasionally into a sort of dull
life by an evident dread of her husband, at whom she kept
for ever peeping out of the corners of her eyes in a furtive,
terrified way.
Mrs. Catcheside was lively enough, but in a jerky and
flighty way. She rushed and bounded and strode about
the court with very much more activity than elegance, sel¬
dom failing to try and take her partner's balls, and generally
getting back to her own court some five seconds later than
the ball when it happened to light on it. She kept up an
unremitting peal of laughter, which might have been heard
at B£shuckabad, laughing at everything that was said, grave
or gay; and when nothing was said, laughing at the silence.
And yet a child could have seen that she was painfully ill at
ease all the time, and her thoughts far from the game, and
further still from her hilarity. What probably did engage
her attention were such questions as whether Mrs. Steel
thought her dress very old-fashioned j whether the stewards
of the Beshuckabad races would fulfil their threat not to
allow her husband's horses to run unless he paid up the
bets he had lost at the last Sonepore meeting; whether
young Butterton, to whom the Colonel had written a most'
melting appeal, referring with heartrending eloquence to
the impending fate of their children turned out naked and
roofless to perish in the bitter blast of a cruel world, would
be induced to back another bill to enable him to comply
with the stewards' condition; whether the said children
were at that moment only tearing each other's hair out in
handfuls, or struggling at the edge of the well for the pos¬
session of their father's full-dress tunic, which she remem-
DIKNUGGER AND THE D1KNUGGERWES. 183
bered that she had incautiously left lying about, and which
she felt certain they would seize the opportunity to wash;
and lastly, whether baby was crying, and the ayah soothing
him with a pill of opium.
" How thankful I am that is over!" ejaculated Grace,
in an aside to Bella, when the deepening shades of even¬
ing put an end to the last set. " I don't know whether Mrs.
Baytree's lackadaisicalness or the other's clatter is most
irritating."
"They are a delightful pair," answered Bella. " Charming
subjects of study; II Penseroso and L'Allegro—'loathed
melancholy ' and ' vain deluding joys.' "
Time never hung heavily on Mr. Steel's hands. He
spent some three or four hours walking through the nar¬
rowest and closest lanes and slums of the native town, and
scenting out ill odours with a relish of genuine enjoyment.
Then he inspected the courts, the record^rooms, the
treasury, the dispensary, the gaol. In connection with this
last there was a little incident which I may mention as
illustrative of the characters of two of the Diknugger offi¬
cials.
A few days before the Commissioner's visit, three
prisoners, who had been engaged in work outside, and at
a distance from the gaol, had escaped. Now, their having
been allowed to go beyond the immediate precincts of the
gaol was contrary to express rules laid down by the Govern¬
ment. Mr. Steel, on his arrival at Diknugger, expressed to
Captain Baytree his high displeasure at this breach of the
regulations, and demanded to know how the superinten¬
dent of the gaol, who was Dr. Brandling, had ventured to
commit it.
" Well, sir," replied Baytree, " there is no use attempt¬
ing to conceal that Mr. Brandling has an unfortunate, I
may say perverse, tendency to impatience of authority. He
is not easy to manage."
"Then," said the Commissioner, "let him quit Govern¬
ment service, and go his own course at leisure."
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Baytree smiled sadly. "Poor fellow!'' he said. "I
believe he has an aged mother and several sisters dependent
on him in Calcutta or somewhere."
" That is no justification of insubordination," said Mr.
Steel. " A man is bound to obey the orders of the em¬
ployer whose wages he takes, whether he expends those
wages for his own gratification or for the support of others."
"But I think," urged Baytree, "that Brandling has now
already hadv such a lesson as he will not forget. I have
given him a sound rating, I assure you; and there can be
no doubt he is greatly shocked and alarmed at the result
of his defiance of orders. I don't think he will be guilty of
similar misconduct again. His evident distress was really
painful. And indeed I would venture to ask, as a personal
favour to myself, Mr. Steel, that you would—unless you
think the interests of the public service peremptorily require
otherwise—that you would pass over this matter with him
somewhat lightly."
" Well, if you put it in that way," said Mr. Steel, " I will
not push the matter further."
But of course he could not be altogether silent on so
grave a dereliction of duty, and when he inspected the gaol
he spoke of it with severe displeasure.
" Mr. Brandling was wrong, inexcusably wrong," put in
Baytree before the culprit had time to answer; " but it is
right that I should mention that in this case there are some
circumstances to be considered in extenuation, and I myself
was perhaps in some degree—"
" There were no extenuating circumstances at all," in¬
terrupted the doctor quietly. " I was solely responsible for
the breach of regulation which I permitted, and I am solely
and wholly to blame."
" Well, as you see your fault in its proper light, and
make no pretence at justifying it," said the Commissioner,
" I will say no more about it. But take care such a thing
never occurs again."
He spoke curtly, indeed harshly; for, to tell the truth,
D IK MUGGER AND THE DIKNUG GE RITES. 185
he was unable to discern in the calm reply of this uncove-
nanted apothecary any of that dire distress, of those penitent
compunctions, arising from the thought of the venerated
mother and beloved sisters reduced to starvation, or the
cruel necessity of begging their bread in the streets of
Calcutta or elsewhere, through his misconduct, which Bay-
tree had hinted at. And this annoyed him. He thought
he had been entrapped into undue leniency by false pre¬
tences, and (somewhat illogically and unjustly, it must be
confessed) felt a dislike for the man for whose benefit the
trick had been played.
But that the moral of this episode may be fully under¬
stood, it is necessary to state how the prisoners actually
had come to be employed in a situation which afforded
them the means which they took advantage of to escape.
The fact was, that they were digging a trench in Captain
Baytree's private garden, and for Captain Baytree's private
advantage. Brandling had protested strongly against the
practice, and at first had flatly refused to comply with ihe
Deputy-Commissioner's requisition. But at last the latter
had, partly by insistence, and partly by cajoling, induced him
to yield to his superior authority. And the characteristic
touch in the story is that neither Baytree nor Brandling
thought it necessary to mention these circumstances to the
Commissioner. From which the judicious reader may perhaps
be inclined to infer that the resemblance of the uncove-
nanted apothecary to the Knight of La Mancha did not
end with his appearance or even with his manners.
The ladies saw nothing more of Dr. Brandling during
their stay in the station, after the passing glimpse they had
had in the course of their drive in. He was not a ladies'
man; and as Shafto had prophesied, he lay close in his
room at the sarai, except at unearthly hours before the
dawn, and during the meridian heat, when he thought he
was not likely to meet them abroad, when he stole forth
for needful exercise and work.
On the morning of the second day, Sunday, Baytree read
i86
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
the service in the iittle church with great unction. The
building, though simple to severity, was not unpicturesque,
nestling as it did in a nook of the station gardens, half sur¬
rounded by a thick screen of acacias, and with a stretch
of greensward in front, across which a path, paved with
brick and bordered by cypress-trees, led from the rustic
gate to the porch, covered with creepers. Such at least
was the normal appearance of the little edifice, in which
condition its doors were never opened for a six-month
together, except for an occasional sweeping out. But now
that it was to be used, and used too under the distinguished
patronage of the Commissioner of Beshuckabad and Mrs.
Steel, Captain Baytree entertained much too great a rever¬
ence for its sacred character to leave it in its ordinary
dingy state. So he had had the gate painted a bright green,
and the walls of the church itself coloured outside a warm
pink, and inside a delicate whitewash picked out with blue.
The congregation was large even to overflowing, so that
considerable ingenuity had to be resorted to in the way of
packing in the back seats, which were occupied by the
Eurasian clerks of the Deputy-Commissioner's office and
their families. And such families ! None of your beggarly
allowances of six or eight shafts to a quiver, but a good
round average of twenty offshoots, children, grandchildren,
and great-grandchildren all told, to each parent stem.
Now it is a melancholy truth, I fear, that there are some
even amongst professional and duly-ordained clergymen
who have so imperfectly scotched, instead of killed, the
old Adam in themselves, as to feel a puff of vainglorious
satisfaction at seeing before them a congregation over¬
flowing from the seats to the aisles. But our amateur
priest of Diknugger was very far from giving place to any
such unprofitable feeling. After the service was concluded,
while the rest of the congregation walked in groups slowly
down the pathway, Captain Baytree beckoned to his head
clerk, Mr. De Sylva, and his treasury clerk, Mr. De
Rozario, and taking them out of sight and hearing behind
DIKNUGGER AND THE DIKNUGGERITES. "187
a buttress, gave them, the following private exhortation in
addition to that which he had just been reading out of an
excellent sermon-book for the common edification of the
whole congregation :
" What the devil do you mean by intruding your greasy
squaws and infernal black imps into the church, making the
place smell like the dormitory of a workhouse? I saw
that Mrs. Steel was almost suffocated, and Miss Steel kept
her scent-bottle to her nose the whole time. Do you sup¬
pose Government built this church for Christians or for
officers ? Now, mark me, I don?t mind you coming to
church yourselves; in fact, you ought to come; it is only
showing proper respect to me. But if ever you bring your
d—d women and brats here again, I'll sack you both, as
sure as my name is Greene Baytree."
Mr. De Sylva and Mr. De Rozario slunk away sadder,
but it is to be hoped better, Christians. And the Deputy-
Commissioner, tricking his beaming countenance anew
with the benign expression befitting the holy day, walked
quickly down the path and overtook the Commissioner.
" I am glad to see that you keep up the Sunday services,
Captain Baytree," said Mr. Steel, " and that you have such
a good congregation. It seems to me so important, par¬
ticularly in small secluded stations like this, to afford the
Eurasian clerks, and more especially their families, all the
religious advantages in our power. Do what we will—or
rather what we can—for them, it is appalling to think of
the ignorance and religious destitution in which those un¬
fortunate children too often grow up."
"Yes," replied Baytree, "I have always felt that very
strongly myself; so strongly indeed, that I may say, if I
may venture without irreverence to use the words of Scrip¬
ture, I 4 compel them to come in.' In other words, I let
my clerks clearly understand that I will not view with
favour any one among them whose wife and children are
not punctual attendants at church."
While this subject was being thus gravely discussed by
188
CURRENT REP EN '1A NCE,
the seniors, the younger members of the party, walking a
little behind, were also engaged in interchanging the senti¬
ments which the scene and the occasion naturally aroused
in their minds.
" Does this not remind oiTe of home ?" asked Miss
Hawthorn. " Is not it just like walking home from a
country village church in England ? The quiet and still¬
ness, only broken by the songs of the birds; the sight of
the children climbing so sedately over the churchyard
stile, and then scampering down the road the moment
they are fairly outside. O ! I could think myself 'back
at dear old Sedgemere, where I spent my childhood. So
different from the hubbub of conversation, and the rattle of
carriages, and shouting of words of command and playing
of bands, which seem to din all holy thoughts .out of one's
head the moment we get out of church at Beshuckabad."
" For my part," said Bella, in whom the dulness of the
last two days had brought on a relapse into the ill temper
with which she had been afflicted on her separation from
Trapton, " for my part, my religion being of the prosaic and
unsentimental sort, I prefer Beshuckabad, where at any rate
the service is decently performed and the singing tolerable.
As for this reminding one of a village church in England,
the only thing I strongly noticed that they have in common
is a peculiar odour of sanctity—a pervading smell 'of cor¬
duroy."
" Miss Hawthorn's is the more true and philosophical
view to take of the matter, however," observed Bumpas.
"John Stuart Mill advises the deliberate cultivation of the
religious sentiment even for men of enlightened and logical
minds, whose intelligence of course is far superior to the
weakness of religious belief. That is why," he condescend¬
ingly went on to explain, " I come to church sometimes."
"If that is why you go," said Bella, " I think you had
better stay away."
" Partly for that reason," said Bumpas, " and partly also
because it is essential to a full understanding of the; phe-
DIKNUGGER AND THE DIKNUGGERITES. 189
nomena of the human mind, to study and examine for one¬
self every error of the human intellect, however absurd or
contemptible."
" Thank you, Mr. Bumpas," said Grace quietly, " I
believe, however, the most effectual way of expressing con¬
tempt is by silence. Permit me to suggest your signifying
your opinion of us, who come to church to pray, in that
manner."
Bumpas almost felt snubbed. He began to reply with
an unwonted stutter, but Shafto took the halting words out
of his mouth.
" Don't be hard upon Bumpas," he said. " There is not
a more useful member of the congregation, nor one^who
does more to help the cause of religion. He performs at
church the service done by the drunken Helot at a Spartan
banquet. If young Mr. De Sylva, who is just budding into
adolescence, white waistcoats, and free-thought, should have
imbibed any dangerous agnostic notions from the enlight¬
ened Baboos with whom he associates in his office, he has
only to look at Bumpas. It may seem .a fine thing to him
to be an agnostic or an atheist in the abstract, but when he
sees the thing in the concrete form of Bumpas, ho?/ much
less alluring it appears !"
" I think we have had enough of this subject," said
Grace, and added gently—she had that most excellent thing
in a woman, a sweetly-toned voice—" I am sure the time
-will come when Mr. Bumpas will go to church with a better
motive than he now avows. Whose are all those children ?"
" Whose ever they are, I wish they had been kept at
home," said Bella. " O dear, those corduroys ! Why does
not Major Baytree, instead of having the church crammed
to suffocation in the morning, give a special children's ser¬
vice in the afternoon ?"
Shafto burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, in
which even the philosophic Bumpas was compelled to join.
The picture of Baytree catechising the juvenile De Sylvas
and De Rozarios was too supremely ridiculous !
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
"What is there to laugh at?" asked Grace, in demure
displeasure at the ill-placed levity.
" 0, by Jove, it is too good ! Just suggest the idea to
Captain Baytree, Miss Steel; but whatever you do, mind
that I am there to see. I would not miss Baytree's face for
a thousand rupees. Ha, ha, ha !"
" I don't see anything ludicrous about the matter at all,"
said Grace. " Captain Baytree, I thought, read the service
exceedingly well. Perhaps there was just a little too much—
what shall I call it ?—I don't exactly mean theatricalness—"
" Well, whether he is theatrical or not, I never hear him
' producing holy writ' (which he does about once in three
months, and for the Commissioner's special edification)
without being reminded of a famous passage in a certain
stage-play, in which an unsavoury illustration is drawn from
a ' goodly apple, rotten at the core !'"
"You appear to be particularly bitter this morning, Mr.
Shafto. You must surely have got out of bed on the wrong
side."
" Why was not Don Quixote at church ?" asked Bella.
" Is he too logical to cultivate the religious sentiment even
by way of a kind of philosophic joke, like Mr. Bumpas ?"
" O dear, no. It needs no cultivation in him. It grows
wild and luxuriantly enough, in all conscience. You would
be delighted with Dr. Brandling, Miss Hawthorn. His
fervour is greater even than your own. But I alway's
feel myself a miserable Laodicean when our conversation
over our pipes of an evening happens to fall upon a religious
topic."
" Then why was he not at church ?"
"He started last night for a forty-mile ride to Gurhi
Moofsid. Some bad reports came in from there. There
has long been sickness in that part of the district, arising
chiefly from insufficiency of food. They have had a suc¬
cession of bad harvests, though Baytree strenuously denies
the fact, lest he should have to divert funds from the new
canal he is making here, to be the monument of his fame
DIKNUGGER AND THE DIKNUGGERITES. 191
and the stepping-stone to his promotion, to fritter them
away in famine relief at Gurhi Moofsid. And I am afraid,
Miss Steel, that—being, as he is, more subtle than any
other district officer that liveth in the Ma Bap Provinces—■
he has persuaded your father to believe him."
" With all due deference," remarked Ravensmore, open¬
ing his lips for the first time, " I don't think Miss Steel need
allow herself to be alarmed at the unscrupulous deception
of which Mr. Steel is in danger of becoming a victim. It
seems to me, perhaps not probable, but at all events barely
possible, that the Deputy-Commissioner may take a sounder
view of the condition of his district than that evolved from
the joint lucubrations of the subordinate police-officer and
the doctor of the charitable dispensary."
"0, it is nothing to me," replied Shafto, "which is
wrong and which is right. But, howsoever that maybe,
reports were brought in last night which led Brandling to
judge, or imagine, that there is danger of a regular epidemic
of typhus setting in ; and—as he positively revels in an
infectious disease, sniffs a fever from afar as the war-horse
in Job does the strife, and 'drinks delight of battle' with
typhoid or cholera—the one fact I can assert as being cer¬
tainly no delusion is, that he has borrowed my Waler mare
and gone off to Gurhi Moofsid instead of coming decently
to church, as any man with a well-regulated mind would
have done."
They were by this time opposite the Commissioner's
encampment, and parted company, Bella seemed to be
partial to Sunday as a day for a flare-.up. She had scarcely
entered her tent when her mother, whose temper had also,
perhaps, suffered from the odour of corduroy during Bay-
tree's sermon, came, and began not very discreetly to up¬
braid her with the marked and almost rude aversion she
showed for Ravensmore. She answered in a manner not
such as to turn away wrath, and words began to run high—
so high that Mr. Steel came in. He was just in time to
hear Bella apply some epithets the reverse of respectful
192
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
to her mother, and defiantly avow her unalterable affection
for Rattley Trapton. It is not likely that even in her pas¬
sion she would have been so rash as to do either of these
things, had she been aware that her father was at hand;
but her blood was up, and as he had heard, she would not
recant her shameless avowal before him.
Then did Mr. Steel fully redeem the lack of vigour
which, as I remarked, he had been guilty of in the rebuke
he administered to his child on the preceding Sunday. To
use a colloquialism, perhaps not quite up to the dignity of
the occasion, he did " give it to her hot and strong." Bella
was overwhelmed by the torrent of his denunciatory elo¬
quence, and cowered beneath it. But though to appearance
she shrank in sheer terror, the very excess of this terror
aroused a demon of sullen anger and savage Vengeance at
her heart. Mr. Steel left her at last, with some words of
relenting wrath and more tender reproach. But he little
suspected the dangerous mood that he had lashed her
into.
She made no reply to him, shed no tear, and received
his parting kiss with sullen apathy. But as he left the tent,
her eyes followed him with a gleam that was not pleasant to
see. Her mother, who had been more terrified and stupe¬
fied by her husband's " quick wrath" than Bella herself,
tried to soothe the girl after;he had gone—threw her arms
round her neck, wept on her shoulder, and vainly attempted
to sob out words of blandishment; but Bella, to her dismay,
roughly threw her off, sprang up, and (only metaphorically
speaking, of course) spit at her with the fury of a wild
cat.
Mrs. Steel turned, and followed her husband out of the
tent with great perturbation. Between father and daughter
this esteemed lady certainly had a hard time!
CHAPTER XIII.
mrs. steel treads the thorny path of duty.
The reports of sickness at Gurhi Moofsid, which had
occasioned Dr. Brandling's sudden exodus, also caused a
modification of the plans of Mr. Steel and his party. Al¬
though Baytree openly pooh-poohed the doctor's alarm, and
Mr. Steel himself felt little doubt that these reports were
greatly exaggerated, still he did not think fit to carry his
family and guest in the alleged infected neighbourhood. So,
instead of Grace being consigned to the Baytrees, while
Mrs. Steel carried off Bella and Ravensmore to enact an
idyll amongst the pastoral scenes in the interior, it was de¬
cided that the Commissioner, accompanied by Baytree,
should pay a flying visit to Gurhi Moofsid, while the ladies
and Ravensmore awaited his return at Diknugger.
Before he started, however, there was one engagement
which it was necessary for them to fulfil. The young Nawab
had invited them to a shooting-party, a grand drive of game
in a well-preserved jungle belonging to him some distance
from Diknugger. On the Monday evening accordingly they
made a short march from the station (the Baytrees and
Shafto being added to the party) to a place where their
camp was pitched for the night. And next morning, rising
before the lark would have been*out of bed, had he hap¬
pened to be numbered amongst the fauna of Diknugger,
they started for the scene of the proposed sport, which was
still several miles further on.
This was destined to be a day of tribulation and woe to
good Mrs. Steel; a waking nightmare of accumulated hor¬
rors, never to be forgotten while memory held a seat in the
distracted globe which was encircled by the elegant pink
bonnet she had donned as an appropriate and becoming
headgear for the occasion—
" Never, though her mortal summers to such length of years should come
As the many-wintered crow that leads the clanging rookery home."
o
194
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Not that it is right to compare her to a crow, to which she
bore no resemblance whatever, as she pushed aside the
curtain of her tent-door, and issued forth decked out in
garments which rivalled the gorgeous hues and trailing
plumage of the bird of paradise.
" My dear," mildly expostulated her husband, who had
been outside for some time, when she burst on their view
like Aurora from a canvas cloud, " would not a plainer
dress, with a briefer train, be better suited for the jungle ?"
" If you are going anywhere," was the conclusive reply,
" where I cannot go in my ordinary costume, it is quite evi¬
dent that it cannot be a proper place for the girls to go to
either, and they had better stay at home with me."'
" No, no," answered Mr. Steel. "They—Bella, at least,
finds camp life dull enough at best, poor girl. And indeed
that is some extenuation, though it can be no excuse, for
her outburst of temper on Sunday, and the sullenness which
I am grieved to see that she has maintained ever since I
corrected her violence and perversity. She finds no occu¬
pation, and has nothing to do but to sit brooding over her
childish fancies. For Heaven's sake, don't deprive her of
what little opportunity of amusement there is. But there is
really no occasion for you to come, and I don't think it is
the kind of thing you would enjoy."
" I have long ago ceased to think of myself and my own
enjoyment in what I do. But I do not know that it is
necessary for me to go ; if you like, you can take Bella, and
Grace and I will stop behind."
"Nay; she, poor girl, has been looking forward to the
expedition more eagerly than the keenest sportsman among
us, I think. It would be hard to disappoint her. But Mrs.
Bay tree, I suspect , will be only too happy to remain with
you."
"No, thank you," said Mrs. Steel, with decision. "If
Grace goes, I go too."
The fact was that, though she had the most vague idea
as to what sort of place they were going to, and what they
THE THORNY PATH OF DUTY.
*95
were to do, she had gathered this much from a discussion of
the arrangements which had been held amongst the gentle¬
men of the party at dinner the night before—viz. that some
kind of ambuscade had been constructed for each one of
the sportsmen separately, and that the ladies were to pair
off with one or other of the gentlemen in these hiding-
places, while the beaters were to drive the game through
the jungle towards them. Now, her husband was quite
careless and inept enough, if left to himself, to allow the
cunning and audacious Miss Hawthorn so to pair off with
the infatuated Ravensmore, and therefore Mrs. Steel was
very firmly resolved that wherever Grace should go that
day, there she would go too.
There was no road of any kind leading to the Nawab's
preserve. The way to it lay right through the virgin jungle ;
and the original arrangement was that all the sportsmen and
sportswomen should ride to the place. But when Mrs.
Steel had, only on the previous morning, signified her in¬
tention of joining the party, it was obviously necessary to
make an exception in her case. But the Nawab's Diwan
was a man of energy and resource. And when Captain
Baytree rather dubiously broached the difficulty to him, he
magnanimously replied, "Aid viam inveniam autfaciam"—
or words to that effect, though possibly expressed in more
vernacular language. In short,^.he promised that by the
next morning a road should be hewn through the wilder¬
ness, practicable1—not indeed for Mrs. Baytree's barouche,
but for a mule carriage, which the Nawab would be only
too much honoured in placing at Mrs. SteeFs disposal.
It happened that there was some little delay in bringing
this vehicle round to the front of the camp, and not till the
horsemen, with Grace and Bella mounted on their hand¬
some Arabs along with them, had started and were already
cantering away beyond recall, did the carriage make its
"appearance. Mrs. Steel's heart failed her at the first glance.
It looked like^othing but a fortuitous combination of
atoms of rotten wood and scraps of greasy leather. The
196
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
breadth of its only seat (with the exception of a sort of perch
for the driver, which seemed to have been added as an
after-thought) was several inches short of the diameter of
that circle which Mrs. Steel's person and petticoats were
accustomed to cover when she sat down. It was true that
by a merciful provision of nature and of Captain Baytree,
who between them had reduced Mrs. Baytree's figure to
something like the dimensions of a willow wand, she would
not take up much room. But still—well, it was too late
to think of difficulties now. So, " standing not upon the
order of their going," Mrs. Baytree got in first, and contrived
to shrink so closely into one corner that she very nearly
vanished out of sight altogether; and the Commissioner's
lady followed, and plumped down, not beside, but on the
top of her, her furbelowed silks swelling up and overspread¬
ing the sides and back of the little carriage, like—if so
vulgar a simile may be used without irreverence—the head
on a pot of porter.
But the vehicle itself was the least unpromising part of
the turn-out. It was drawn by a pair of the most vicious-,
looking brutes of mules one would wish to set eyes on, much
less sit behind. And the harness which attached these
beasts to it seemed to have been constructed put of all the
odds and ends of old rope, discarded buckles, and shreds of
cast-off puggries which could be picked up in the castle
ditch, the recognised repository of all suchlike articles at
Zoolumkote. And lastly, they were driven by a wild, ragged,
devil-may-care looking fellow, as little like one's idea of
what an elderly lady's coachman should, in the eternal fit¬
ness of things, be, as could well be conceived.
But let me do Mrs. Steel full justice. Though she
noted all this with lively terror, not for one moment did she
falter in her constant mind between fear and duty. The
thought of Grace and Ravensmore seated together behind a
bush nerved her. Death, torture, limbs scattered broad¬
cast among broken axle-trees and wheel-spokes, were all as
naught in comparison with this. As for Mrs. Baytree, her
THE THORNY PATH OF DUYY.
husband had ordered her to drive with the Commissioner's
wife ; and in comparison with the fear of his displeasure she
would have thought nothing of mounting a high dog-cart
drawn by a wild elephant, or jumping on an alligator bare¬
backed.
Their wild charioteer shook the loose reins, uttered a
hideous yell, and brought down the heavy thong of his
whip on the quarters of the off mule. The brute, though
taken by surprise, had enough presence of mind to heave
the injured part high in air and fling its heels within half an
inch of the driver's nose, dropping them again outside the
trace. But this latter accident was regarded by the coach¬
man as a trifle which it would have been ridiculous to waste
time in setting right. The other mule, of a more timid and
submissive disposition, albeit of greater bodily strength,
dashed off at full speed on hearing the crack of the whip,
and dragged its recalcitrant companion along with it.
Another heavy smack over the eyes effectually turned the
more spirited beast's energies also in the right direction,
and in another moment both of them were galloping at full
stretch, the frail carriage, in spite of its substantial ballast,
bumping and bounding and clattering behind them like a
tin kettle tied to a dog's tail. Mrs. Steel shrieked to the
coachman ; but unhappily in the rattle of the wheels, every
spoke of which was loose, he mistook her alternate com¬
mands and entreaties to stop for objurgations at the slow¬
ness of his pace, and only flogged and shouted with
redoubled vigour.
Things were bad enough while they kept to the regular
road, along which their course lay for a mile or so, instead
of at once striking straight across country, as the riders had.
done. But suddenly, without a moment's warning, or
slackening speed in the least, the carriage turned off the
road at an acute angle, over a ditch, and then away across
the fields, zigzagging like a rocket, along village footpaths,
intersected at every fifty yards by aqueducts banked up two
feet high. Mrs. Steel felt like the mariner described by the
198 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Psalmist—carried up to heaven and down again to the
deep—and her soul melted because of her trouble.
But a worse stage yet was to follow in that dreadful
ride. They now left the open fields behind, and entered
the dense jungle through which the Diwan's hastily-impro¬
vised avenue had been cut during the night. Considering
the short time allowed for his pioneering operations and
the darkness in which they had to be performed, that
worthy steward is scarcely to be blamed if the surface of
the road was a good deal chequered with clefts and fissures,
and the space cut through the thicket, in no place more
than barely- wide enough for the carriage to pass, was here
and there so narrow that only the wheels on one side could
keep the path, while those on the other were whirled over,
the roots of trees and the branches of bushes. But little he
recked of this, that fiendish charioteer—
'' And forward ! forward ! on they go ;
High snort the straining steeds ;
Thick pants the driver's labouring breath,
As headlong on he speeds.
' O villain ! why this savage haste ?' "
the breathless Mrs. Steel continued to gasp, in accents of
mingled terror, indignation, and despair. But in vain !
" Fled past on right and left, how fast,
Each forest, grove, and bower !"
till at last one terrific jolt shot the unhappy lady into the
air, so high that for one awful, quivering moment she
verily thought that she had passed beyond the influence of
the earth's gravity and been whisked off" into space. But
she did, at length, come down again—and with a vengeance.
Instead of bumping back, as she had hitherto done, much
to the alleviation of her own lot, though perhaps not to that
of Mrs. Baytree, into the latter's lap, this time, unluckily,
her feet came down first on the floor of the carriage. With
a crack and a scrunch that sounded even above the clatter
of the wheels and the yells of the coachman, and seemed-to'
Mrs. Steel as awful as the very crack of doom, the frail
THE THORNY PATH OF DUTY.
boards gave way. In another moment the Commissioner's
wife would have been "footing it" for dear life between the
whirling wheels, at the tail of the fiendish driver and his
demon mules. But even at this awful moment help was at
hand. A tall form stood right before them in the path and
barred their onward way. Suddenly, as if yielding to some
potent spell, the coachman ceased his horrid din, and
dropped his tired whip-hand listless by his side, and though
the " furious barbs," snorting fire and foam, did not
" With a fearful bound
Dissolve at once in empty air,
And leave her on the ground,"
they took an equally satisfactory course, and one less start¬
ling to the nerves—that is, they stood stock-still.
Mrs. Steel, not knowing how brief this respite from
destruction might be, wisely lost no time in precipitating
herself from the fatal vehicle, not greatly heeding how much
she trampled upon Mrs. Baytree's toes in doing so. So
eager was her haste, that she would probably have fallen on
her nose, had she not been caught in a close embrace by—
Mr. Rattley Trapton!
"By Jove ! they are good uns to go, and no mistake !''
remarked that gentleman, as he placed her upright on her
feet again. " I must apologise for stopping you, but—"
" O ! thank Heaven you did !" exclaimed Mrs. Steel, the
bare idea of what would have happened, had he allowed them
to pass by, making her very blood run cold. " I will not
get into that thing again; I would rather perish by the way¬
side. I will walk the rest of the way, if it is fifty miles!"
" You will find walking through this jungle anything but
pleasant, I fear," said Trapton; " and a lace mantle, a long
train, and a French bonnet are not exactly the articles of
attire best adapted for scrambling through bramble-bushes,
Mrs. Steel."
" I don't care. Nothing shall induce me to seat myself
behind that murderer again. Ah, you black^u ird," she
added in Hindustani, addressing the coachman, who sat
200
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
grinning on his perch, as if he expected commendation
for the splendid pace at which he had brought them along,
" I will have you put in the lock-up the moment we get to
the Sahib. You base-born person ! you shall be soundly
flogged for this day's work, you shall see."
"Really, it is impossible for you to walk; the road
further on is far worse than what you have come—full of
ravines," expostulated Trapton. " Do get in, Mrs. Steel.
I will tell the man not to drive quite so fast."
" I tell you I will not. The man would certainly break
my neck now, in order that I might not tell my husband to
have him flogged."
" Well, then, will you trust me to drive you ?"
" Ahem !" replied Mrs. Steel, suddenly checking the
impetuous, hurried utterance with which she had hitherto
spoken. She had been so completetly taken up by her own
rage and terror, that she had not taken thought of who it
was to whom she owed her rescue. But this proposal of
Trapton's brought her to her senses, and " gave her pause."
" Ahem ! I must say, Mr. Trapton," she said, £!I must
say you are the last person I expected to meet here."
" Or wished to meet either, your tone seems to imply,"
answered he. " But my presence is soon accounted for. I
heard casually that the Nawab was to have a big drive
to-day, though I had no idea there would be ladies in the
party ; and our fellows, having a general invitation from
him to shoot in his preserves, I thought I would ride over '>
so laid out a couple of horses and started last night after
mess. An additional gun, I thought, is never unwelcome
on such occasions."
(Here we may parenthetically indulge our wonder as to
who might have been Mr. Trapton's " casual " informant.)
11 Well," replied Mrs. Steel, in a tone in which hauteur
contended with gratitude for the inestimable seivice which
Trapton had so recently rendered her—I mean, of couise,
that kind of gratitude which consisted in the sense of the
possibility of a similar service being needed again, before
THE THORNY PATH OF DUTY. 201
she got out of her present predicament—" well, I am afraid
Mr. Steel would be rather surprised at your joining us."
"O, I don't think so. Fellows often turn up in this
promiscuous sort of way at these kind of affairs."
" But in the present instance, you see," resumed Mrs.
Steel, " we are in a somewhat different position from what
might ordinarily be the case. We are not ourselves the
entertainers on this occasion. And in short, though I am
exceedingly sorry for your disappointment after your long
journey, I feel sure that Mr. Steel would not like to add
to the number of the Nawab's guests without first con¬
sulting him.''
" O, very well! I am the last man to intrude my
company where it is not welcome. I have only reckoned
without my host, that is all, and must trot back. Shall I
assist you into the carriage before I go, Mrs. Steel, and tell
the man to—drive on f
The last words, spoken with portentous emphasis, were
too much for Mrs. Steel. And I ask, can she fairly be
blamed for her weakness? It was indeed an agonising
dilemma : either to trudge two miles through the wilderness
on foot, or to submit to martyrdom by the most horrible
form of death ever invented by human cruelty, breaking on
the wheel; or herself to reintroduce the banished and
obnoxious Trapton into her family circle. The last alterna¬
tive was indeed a bitter one; but poor human nature
recoiled from the others. So in the end Trapton's horse,
which he had left tied to a bush hard by, was consigned to
the deposed charioteer ; and the young officer, mounting on
the vacant perch, took the greasy reins and drove the two
ladies with the most tender care and circumspection to the
spot, on the outskirts of the preserve, where the rest of the
party were awaiting them.
Lest the reader should share in Mrs. Steel's surprise
in meeting Trapton in a place where he had so little busi¬
ness—of any legitimate sort, at least—it may be as well to
consider the probable motives for his coming there. He
202
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
had felt by no means easy at the possible results of the
enemy's strategical movement to Diknugger. He could
not contemplate without alarm the idea of Ravensmore and
Bella being thrown together in all the dulness of camp life.
He had not great faith in the lady's constancy, and he had
very lively faith in the proverb, " Out of sight out of mind."
He therefore resolved at all risks that he must deprive Bella
of the chance of forgetting him. " Yepishtolary corre-
spondensh," as Edie Ochiltree calls it, was at present im¬
practicable. He had made more than one attempt to get
a letter to her hand, but had found that Mr. Steel had
established a blockade which there was no running. There
remained nothing for it but to follow the Steels in their
retreat, and make a bold attempt to obtain another clandes¬
tine interview with Bella. So, hearing of the proposed
drive in the Nawab's preserve, he determined to go thither,
in the hope that while the party were scattered in their
several places of concealment, he might find an opportunity
of at least handing a note to his lady-love unobserved.
Fortune, as we have seen, favoured his bold enterprise
to an extent which his wildest hopes could not have antici¬
pated. Making his way towards the preserve, with a
view to reconnoitre the enemy, by a somewhat cir¬
cuitous route, in order to avoid coming unexpectedly in
collision with them, he had fallen right across Mrs. Steel's
path.
The surprise of the Commissioner, of Grace Hawthorn,
and of Bella herself at seeing him drive up on such evidently
amicable terms with Mrs. Steel, may be more easily imagined
than described. But explanations were impossible, and the
ejection of the intruder more so, with Baytree, Ravensmore,
and the others standing by. Mrs. Steel merely said, " O, we
have had such a drive ! It is a mercy you see us here in¬
stead of our mangled corpses. We should certainly have
been dashed to pieces, if it had not been for Mr. Trapton."
In acknowledgment of the inestimable service thus brought
to his notice, Mr. Steel cautiously responded, " O
THE THORNY PATH OF DUTY.
203
But though Trap ton had won one move, Mrs. Steel had
no notion of giving him up the game. She resolved to take
good care that he should have no chance of saying a word
to Bella, unheard by her, until such time as he could be
decently shaken off again. Her first idea was to make
Bella sit by her during the "drive/' but that involved los¬
ing the unique chance of forcing her and Ravensmore into
each other's company which the opportunity afforded, and
she could not make up her mind to that sacrifice. So
instead of sheltering her endangered chick under her wing,
she determined to hold the endangering kite there.
" Mrs. Baytree," she said, " you of course will sit with
Mr. Steel. Charles Ravensmore, I trust my dear child to
you •, mind you take great care of her. Mr. Shafto, Miss
Hawthorn, I know, may be safely committed to your pro¬
tection. And—"
" And I," said Baytree, taking the word out of her mouth,
with a most gallant bow, and his hand on his heart, " am to
have the distinguished honour of escorting Mrs. Steel."
" No, you are not," said she, more decidedly than
politely. " Ahem ! that is," she explained, seeing that the
energetic curtness of her refusal had pierced even the triple
brass of Captain Baytree's panoply of self-satisfaction, "I
need not say I should only be too charmed to have your
company, but Mr. Trapton has already come once to our
rescue so gallantly to-day, that I think I shall feel myself
especially safe under his care. So," she added, resuming
her tone of decision, " I must retain you as my squire, Mr.
Trapton."
It was a clever counter-move. But Trapton was a cool
gamester; and Fortune had already so strikingly favoured
him, that he felt sure she would not so soon leave him in
the lurch again. He therefore expressed his satisfaction
at this arrangement with such a show of genuine heartiness,
that for a moment Mrs. Steel was almost taken in, and
Bella's eyes flashed with anger at his meek quiescence.
A few minutes' walk along a broad belt of sand, the
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
dry bed of a stream which, during the rainy season, poured
down from the neighbouring hills, brought them to the place
where they were to take up their positions for the first
" drive." This belt of sand was fringed on both sides with
dense jungle growing right down to its margin. And along
one bank six or eight little platforms, or crows'-nests, raised
about five feet from the ground, had been constructed by
propping so many of the small cots used by the country-
people—a mere light frame of wood, with a matting of
plaited string stretched across it—amongst the tough
branches of some of the larger bushes. These were placed
at intervals of about a hundred yards apart, and were cun¬
ningly concealed towards the river-bed by screens of loose
boughs, from behind which the sportsmen were to fire as
the game—beast and bird—driven by beaters from the fur¬
ther side of the jungle, rushed or flew across the open space.
When they reached the first of the machams (such is the
native name for these crows'-nests), Mr. Steel, observing that
the trudge through the heavy sand was telling upon his
wife's lungs, suggested that she should take possession of it.
When Mrs. Steel, after some difficulty, at last discovered the
perch to which she was expected to ascend, her heart once
more sank within her, and she protested that nothing should
induce her to commit her person to such a frail support.
" O, it is quite firm," said Trapton encouragingly, seizing
the stoutest branch of the bush and giving it a vigorous
shake, which seemed to threaten to bring the whole thing
down about his ears.
" Well, I certainly do think," said Bella, with touching
solicitude for her mother's safety, " that you had better not
take anybody else up there with you, mamma."
" I tell you I will not get up at all," answered her
mamma sharply. " I think it would be extremely indelicate
for me to climb up into a thing like that. There, Mr.
Trapton, you get up, if you please, and I will sit on the
bank here."
" All right," said Trapton cheerfully, preparing to obey.
THE THORNY PA TH OF DUTY.
u There will be very little real danger in your sitting on
the ground, for if a boar should happen to charge you, I
shall be up here, you know, to shoot him. I am not an Ai
hand with a rifle, but I daresay—"
" Captain Baytree, is it a fact that there are wild boars
in this jungle?" exclaimed Mrs. Steel, interrupting.
Baytree, seeing how eager she was for a reply in the
negative to this inquiry, was just preparing his face to
express the extreme derision with which he intended to
scout the bare idea of Trapton's suggestion having the
smallest foundation in fact, while he rapidly resolved to sur¬
reptitiously station men in the jungle on the other side of
the river-bed to drive back any of the obnoxious beasts
which might attempt to cross it and so belie his denial, when
Mr. Steel replied instead of him,
" Why, my dear, it is full of them."
" Then what am I to do ?"
" Get into the macham ; I assure you there is not the
least fear of its falling. Or, if you will not, you had better
return and sit in the carriage."
Once more there was a hard tussle in her bosom between
duty and terror. But again the former remained victorious.
She could not take Trapton back with her to the carriage,
and thus deprive him of all share in the sport, without
attracting remark. So at last, with a despairing groan, she
allowed herself to be helped up a rough sort of ladder at
the back of the machcim. And certainly the rdcking and
crackling and creaking, as she seated herself in the " cradle
on the tree top," afforded an apparent justification of
her alarm. Trapton, adopting Bella's prudent warning,
to which Mrs. Steel gave a silent approval, did not attempt
to take his place beside her; indeed, her ample petticoats
so completely submerged the whole surface of the cot, that
he could only have done so by seating himself in her lap,
a proceeding which would have considerably enhanced the
indelicacy which Mrs. Steel had already attributed to her
position.
206 current repentance.
The rest passed on to distribute themselves among the
other machAms along the line. Presently the sound of
voices was hushed. Natives ceased to run backwards and
forwards to fetch rugs to soften the hardships of the matted
seats, or to replace a case of No. 16-bore cartridges which
had been put on a mcicham with a 12-bore gun. And now
no sign of life or motion'was seen in the river-bed, and the
stillness of the surrounding waste was only broken by the
call of partridges and the cooing of doves. Trapton saw
the necessity of some decisive step, unless the whole pur¬
pose of his long night's ride and the advantage the lucky
accident, which had so unexpectedly favoured him, were to
be lost. Time was slipping by. Even already his quick
ear could just catch the first faint sound of the tom-toms
and shouts of the beaters in the far distance. Once the
drive was over, he knew that Mr. and Mrs. Steel would
soon find an opportunity for explanations, and if he were
not summarily bundled off, Bella would certainly be re¬
moved under her father's custody. He must make an
opportunity of speaking to her alone, now or never. Ten
minutes—five—would be sufficient for his purpose. But
Mrs. Steel watched him like a cat, and would not let him
leave her side for an instant. Of course he might have dis¬
regarded her prohibitions and left her. She was as secure
on the macham as in a trap, for she could not have de¬
scended from it without either his help or a broken neck.
But it was* essential to his present purpose that no fresh
suspicion of his designs upon Bella should be aroused.
Something, however, must be done. So, declaring that
something was wrong with the lock of his gun, he insisted,
notwithstanding Mrs. Steel's protests, in leaving her to go
and borrow a knife from the occupant of the next machdm.
He would not be absent one minute, he assured her. When
he disappeared among the bushes Mrs. Steel felt sure that
this promise would not be kept, but that Trapton had actu¬
ally gone off to Bella. She hesitated what to do, whether
to adopt the desperate resource of attempting to get down
THE THORNY PATH OF DUTY.
from the macham, or to take the almost equally desperate
one of shrieking for assistance. Eut while she thus wavered
in doubt, to her intense surprise Trapton returned. He cer¬
tainly had not had time to go beyond the nearest macham,
scarcely even, it seemed, to have gone so far. And Mrs.
Steel had heard it settled that Ravensmore and Bella were
to occupy the one at the end of the line farthest from hers,
at least six hundred yards off. The nearest one to her own
she had also heard assigned to Shafto and Grace.
"Did not get the knife after all," remarked Trapton, as
he returned to his station at the foot of her bush. "He
had not got one. Rum thing, a secretary not having a pen¬
knife, isn't it ?"
"Secretary? whom do you mean?" asked Mrs. Steel
quickly. " Mr. Shafto is in the~next place, is he not?"
" Don't know his name," replied Trapton. " The young
fellow who is staying with you, I mean. Somebody told
me he was a secretary."
" You must mean Mr. Ravensmore. Is he in the next
thing ? I thought i^was arranged that he and my daughter
were to go into the furthest one."
" I don't know his name," repeated Trapton. " But Miss
Steel is not with him ; it is Miss Hawthorn."
"Miss Hawthorn!" screamed Mrs. Steel. "Take me
down. Let me down. I insist upon getting down." And
with a precipitancy which nearly brought her to the ground
head foremost, with the macham on the top of her, she de¬
scended.
" Take me to them. Take me to them this moment, I
insist," she continued, "rushing off towards the river-bed.
" Stop, stop ! you can't go that way," cried Trapton;
" you will frighten all the game if you show yourself in the
open. Follow me, and I will bring you to their machdm in
five seconds. It is close by."
And so saying he led the way into the jungle. Mr.
Trapton's five seconds must be regarded as a figure of
speech. At all events, he led Mrs. Steel through the wil-
208
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
derness for at least five minutes, which seemed to her nearer
five hours. And yet he walked fast enough, so fast that she
could barely keep him in sight amongst the tangled under¬
growth. She would have called to him to go slower, but
while she continued to hurry after him she had not breath
to do so, and she dared not pause a moment for fear of los¬
ing sight of him, and being left behind—deserted, lost, like
a well-grown Babe-in-the-Woods. He zigzagged about too
in a most eccentric manner; not, as it seemed to her, in
order to avoid the most dense and impenetrable brakes, but
rather to seek them out. Now he would lead her through a
forest of grass growing higher than herself, through which
she could only trace his course by the waving of the feathery
tops as he pushed them aside. And presently emerging
from this, he would plunge, like another wise man of Isling¬
ton, into the very midst of a tangled mass of thorns, to avoid
the lacerating branches of which, that "low overarched em¬
bowered," she had to stoop nearly double. Three several
times did an "envious sliver" snatch Mrs. Steel's French
bonnet from her head. The torn shrgds of her gloves (so
it seemed at least to her tortured mind and body) were only
kept on her hands by the thorns which had run through
them into the flesh, and there broken off short. Her sweep¬
ing train was wofully curtailed. And she might have traced
her way back by the scraps of her lace mantle which she
had left fluttering on successive bushes.
At last, when she was on the point of dropping from
sheer exhaustion, her guide paused.
"Where—where have you—brought me to?" she gasped.
"Dash it! why, that is just what I can't tell you," said
Trapton. " I am afraid I have missed the way."
" Missed the way ! How dare you !" began Mrs. Steel,
in a towering rage. But he interrupted with an alarmed
"Hush! what is that?'' and pointed to a dark cluster of
undergrowth a few yards off.
Mrs. Steel's anger melted away in a moment, and she
clung convulsively to his arm. " What is it ?" she whispered.
THE THORNY PATH OF DUTY.
" It is like," replied he, in a voice of suppressed agita¬
tion, "it is like a wild boar stealing down upon us."
" O, what shall we do ? we shall be torn in pieces!"
cried Mrs. Steel, in an agony of terror.
" No, no. There need be no fear," said Trapton, with,
palpably forced composure. " If you only keep your pre¬
sence of mind. The great thing is, when he charges, stand
perfectly still until his tusks are within about half a foot
of your knees, and then suddenly spring straight up in the
air and at the same moment throw your feet wide apart.
He will pass under you without your receiving a scratch.
Coolness is all that is necessary, and—some degree of
activity, of course. But I don't think it is a boar after all.
Let us try in this direction; we must be near some of the
machdmsP
They set off again. But luckily Mrs. Steel's endurance
was not tried much longer. A faint but most welcome
fragrance of tobacco reached their panting nostrils, and
guided by it they soon came in sight of a machdm, on which
reclined Captain Baytree very much at his ease, smoking a
cigar, with his eyes shut, his hands clasped as a pillow under
his head, and his feet supported at a high level by a stout
branch. It may be remarked in passing, though the cir¬
cumstance has no direct bearing on the course of this his¬
tory, or the fate of the several persons whose doings are the
subject thereof, that the cot which formed the seat of this
particular machdm was half as large again as any of the
others, and matted with soft cotton string instead of the
hard, prickly, hempen twine which served for the rest.
" Hullo ! what has brought you here,. Mrs. Steel ?" ex¬
claimed the Captain, waking up.
" Ahem ! I wanted to speak to Mr. Steel," was the un¬
scrupulous reply; it was not expedient to take Captain
Baytree into her confidence on the subject of Grace and
Ravensmore. " But we missed his machdm P
"Ah, his is the next. Just beyond that highest tree
there."
p
2IO
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
" O, I will not take another step through this frightful
jungle !" replied Mrs. Steel. " I am nearly dead as it is.''
" Ah," said Trapton, in a voice of respectful compassion,
"I was afraid Mrs. Steel would find it very fatiguing walking
through the long grass, but shq insisted on my bringing her."
" Where is my daughter ?" asked Mrs. Steel of Baytree.
" She is in that one at the end, with young Ravensmore.
I have this moment been talking to them. I got tired of
sitting up here; the position is rather cramped. Besides, I
was anxious to see that all was right, so I descended and
took a turn up and down the line. I had just got back and
lighted my cigar when you came."
" Then why did you tell me," said Mrs. Steel, turning
on Trapton, with fury in her eyes, " that Mr. Ravensmore
was with Miss— that is, in the next thing to ours?"
" I told you I did not know his name," replied Trapton.
" I said the young fellow you have out with you—Captain
Bay tree's secretary, I believe he is. Tall man with broad
shoulders."
" O, you mean Shafto !" said Baytree. "He is down
the other way, with Miss Hawthorn. I have just taken a
peep at them too, but they looked so exceedingly well satis¬
fied with each other—billing and cooing like a couple of
turtle-doves on a twig, in fact—that I thought it a pity to go
near. But had you not better go on to Mr. Steel's machdm,
or back to your own? The beaters are getting near."
" Not another step will I go," replied Mrs. Steel, with
an energy which there was no gainsaying.
So the conclusion of the matter was that Mrs. Steel had
to swallow her ill-humour as best she could and take pos¬
session of Captain Baytree's machdm, which that gallant
officer yielded to her with " only too delighted " on his lips,
and " confound the fidgety old woman " at his heart. Trap-
ton went back for the rug which Mrs. Steel had left in her
own machdm, but dutifully returned to his attendance on her
within a quarter of an hour, which, judging from her late
experience, Mrs. Steel could not regard as an unreasonable
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE. 211
length of time for the purpose. The truthful historian is,
however, constrained to state that Mr. Trapton was much
more fortunate in finding his way through the jungle this
time than he had previously been ; that he was also lucky
enough not to encounter any patches of high grass or a
single troublesome thicket; that, after taking Mrs. Steel's
rug from the machdm at one extremity of the line, he pro¬
ceeded with astonishing rapidity to that occupied by Mr.
Ravensmore and Bella at the other extremity; that, on his
arrival, Mr. Ravensmore, who had not found his tete-a-tete
with Miss Steel particularly animating or agreeable, said he
would get down and stretch his legs by a turn up and down;
that, in order to avoid startling any game which might be
approaching, he retired a little way into the jungle behind ;
and that Trapton had thus attained the object which he had
used so much pains and ingenuity to secure, and had full
five minutes' private conversation with Bella. He was more
than reassured by the frame of mind he found her in, and
he returned to Captain Baytree's machdm with a look of
triumph on his handsome face, which it was almost more
than he could do to suppress in the presence of Bella's
injured mother, whom he had treated with such atrocious
cruelty and falsehood.
CHAPTER XIV.
clouds and sunshine.
" O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away !"
Meanwhile Grace Hawthorn, innocently unconscious
of all the immeasurable troubles which her (assumed) de¬
linquencies were bringing down upon her patroness's head,
and which were sure to be carefully cherished in the said
patroness's heart and added to the already large account of
212
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
her malignant feelings towards the girl, had taken her place
in the machdm assigned her, very demurely, as was her
wont, but with a heart beating so fast that she was afraid
that its agitation must be optically and aurally apparent to
the whole party. The arrangement which gave her Shafto
as her partner was one she felt truly grateful to Mrs. Steel
for, whatever may have been the motive which prompted it.
Whether Shafto on his part, in his innermost heart, may
or may not have shared in this gratitude, I will not under¬
take to say. He has himself assured me that the case was
quite the reverse; that he bitterly resented Miss Hawthorn's
acquiescence in Mrs. Steel's proposal that they should sit
together. Knowing his unchanged love for her, knowing
how she had. encouraged it the summer before, the smallest
delicacy or kindliness of feeling should have opposed her
consenting to a long tete-a-tete which, in the altered state of
her own heart and views—views that he conceived she had,
since their meeting again, taken unnecessarily palpable pains
that he should learn beyond all possibility of mistake—
must be a mockery and insult to him. His appearance, at
any rate, denoted anything but exuberant satisfaction. He
followed Trapton's example in not mounting the machdm
along with his fair partner, though she laughingly sat down
at the extreme verge of the little platform, and gathered in
the skirts of her riding-habit to make room for him in the
most bewitching way. But he took no notice of the action,
and remained moodily leaning against the back of the
machdm, one foot resting on a rung of the rough ladder,
and his hands listlessly laid one upon the other on the
muzzle of his gun.
And yet if the man had eyes in his head, how could he
have resisted that mute invitation ? It might have charmed
the demon of jealousy out of a score of fancifully despond¬
ent lovers. Nay, had matters been even worse with him,
had her cruelty already driven him to despair and suicide,
the sunshine of her returning kindness, should have been
enough to " create a soul under the ribs of death," and
CLOUDS 'AND SUNSHINE.
213
animate his corpse, and make it spring nimbly to her side.
But Shafto was " compact of thankless earth," and stood
unmoved and stolid as a stock or stone.
I can picture Grace Hawthorn as she sat on her sylvan
throne, and few more delightful paintings hang, in the
gallery of my imagination. I see the dark wealth of lustre¬
less brown, almost black, hair coiled in loose soft folds
beneath the broad brim of her gray wide-awake hat. It
has not been so carefully secured in her hasty early morning
toilet but that the gallop through the jungle has shaken
down a vagrant lock, which falls with a sweeping wave over
her shoulder. The ride and the crisp morning air have
also lent an additional tint to the bright and healthy crim¬
son, which warms the dark but exquisitely clear complexion
of her delicately-rounded cheeks. Grace, it is true, fell far
short of possessing Mary Lee's almost perfect beauty of face,
though, as Mr. Steel had told her, her likeness to her mother
was nevertheless very striking. Her features were less regu¬
lar, less exquisitely chiselled ; but in expression she had the
advantage in the comparison. In her, the sunny brightness,
which, as I have described in earlier chapters, used only to
flit across Mary Lee's pensive countenance at rare and
passing intervals, was habitual. But besides this, in the
sunlight of Grace's eyes there were rays—and those amongst
the loveliest in the prism—which had been wanting in that
of Mary's. It was doubtless less the fault of nature than
of the untoward circumstances of her early training, which
had rendered it impossible that Mary Lee's face should
reflect the bold, frank, pure truthfulness and trustfulness
which beamed in that of her child.
Such were the points of resemblance and diversity
•between the mother and daughter in face. In all other
respects the one was the exact reprint of the other. Grace's
figure, of the middle height, firm and compact, but won-
drously soft in contour and lithe of movement—the proud
sweep of the neck and shoulders, the broad chest, and the
waist, not too slender, but seeming slimmer than it really
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
was from the magic effect of its exquisitely-traced curves
this was the very same form which, standing on the edge of
the cliff above the Clink Pool, had enraptured the sight of
Campion more than twenty years before. The little foot,
with its high-arched instep and bewitching ankle, which
had just peeped out beneath the gray skirt of Grace
Hawthorn's habit, as it was lightly but firmly planted on the
rough ladder of the machdm, was the very counterpart of
that which had once been wont to trip so boldly over the
rough crags, and so vigorously brush aside the thick heather
of the Slagby moors. And it might have been an echo of
the deliciously musical voice that in the far-away past had
exchanged fervent vows with James Pearson—and, alas!
murmured consenting words also in the ear of George
Steel—which now gently broke upon the hushed silence
of the jungle, and aroused Shafto from his sullen reverie.
" You don't seem disposed to flatter my vanity with
a very demonstrative show of gratification at the way
Mrs. Steel has ' sorted ' us."
"O, I am delighted, I am sure," replied Shafto, without
lifting the beard which rested on his woful breast.
" How kind of you to say so ! But are you not going to
talk ?" inquired Grace.
"We must not talk," replied Shafto; "it would frighten
the game."
"Yes, of course, if you have to call out to me up here,
and I have to answer you down there. But if you will con¬
descend to sit beside me, we sha'n't. Don't you remember
how the monkeys on the hillside at Simla used to play and
chatter all round us, and peer at us over the edge of the
big stone we used to sit under? Our voices used not to
be so clamorous as to scare away the birds and beasts
t/ien."
And then followed just a little sigh, to wind up the
period.
" Why do you talk of Simla ?" answered Shafto roughly;
but he so far yielded to the force of that gentle suspiration
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE.
215
that he changed his listless attitude, and turning round
towards the machdm, rested both arms on it while he looked
up into Grace's face. "Are even you not without the
heartless vanity of your sex, but must play with the wounds
you have made ? Or is it possible that you can believe that
I was no more in earnest than yourself last summer, and
that we can while away the hour or so that Fate and
Mrs. Steel have willed that we are to pass together in
renewing the old amusement with equal gratification on
both sides ?"
" I was quite in earnest too," murmured Grace.
"Then if you were, it is all the greater madness and
folly in me to stand talking to you here. I will go and sit
behind that bush, and smoke a pipe."
" No ; don't leave me here alone. I shall be terrified.
You heard what Mr. Steel said about the wild boars."
" Wild boars don't climb up into mach&ms," replied
Shafto curtly.
" Then in that respect they are like a certain other
savage animal that I know," said Grace.
" Yes, I am savage, Miss Hawthorn," answered Shafto,
" and I have right good cause to be so."
"Yo'u speak as if / had given you some cause. How
have I done so?"
" Flow have you done so !" echoed Shafto; but though
an echo, his words sounded very unlike the original ques¬
tion—the one murmured as softly as the cooing of a sucking
dove, the rother enunciated in quite Bully Bottom's other
style, with an energy that might have moved Duke Theseus
to cry "Let him roar again." "How have you done so !
Pray do you remember anything at all of last summer, or of
Simla? Or has all that you did, all that you said, all that
you looked, faded and dropped from your thoughts like
summer blossoms — melted and clean gone from your
memory, like the snow from the top of the Chorp ?"
" Of course I have not forgotten. Did I not make a
conquest of a member of Council, and should have had an
2l6
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
offer, so everybody said, if that horrid deficit (whatever a
deficit be) had not come in the way and put me out of his
head? That is not a triumph that a poor girl like me is
likely to forget."
"Then as your memory is so very tenacious, possibly
you may retain a faint recollection of a very much humbler
individual who ventured to place himself in rivalry with the
august victim of the seductions of the deficit. By a great
effort, perhaps, you may call to mind certain rides around
Jacko, a certain walk up the hill one evening from Anandale,
a certain mossy seat under the shade of the cedars below
Fairoaks. Do you remember, Miss Hawthorn, the words
you said to me as we sat on that seat the evening before I
left Simla, and the voice in which you said them? The
words, I assure you, were tender, and the voice was soft
and tremulous—ah ! sweet, low, and thrilling as an angel's
whisper."
" But why should that make you savage ?" inquired the
same voice, which, even now, had by no means lost all the
qualities attributed to it. " Do you mean that my company
and conversation bored you so much as to have perma¬
nently soured your temper, and made you a mis—mis—I
forget the word; only I know it means a hater of Misses ?"
Shafto treated this ill-timed levity with the scornful
disregard which it deserved.
" But now," he continued, " I meet you again, when
only six months have passed, and you will scarcely speak
to me—barely condescend to notice my presence. O no !
you have neither eyes nor ears now for any one but young
Apollo. With the greatest difficulty I do manage to
snatch—much against your will—an opportunity to speak
half a dozen words to you, alone, to tell you of a subject in
which you professed to be by no means uninterested when
we last met, and what am I told for my pains? 'You are
really very sorry, but you don't know what on earth I am
talking about.' Women, of course we all know, are privi¬
leged to be fair and false, and make a pastime of trifling
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE.
217
with a man's serious feelings. But let me tell you, Miss
Hawthorn, that there is a point, even in feminine manners,
when flippancy becomes impertinence, and that you attained
to that point the other evening."
"You will mistake the meaning of my observations,"
said Grace, who seemed bent on framing her answers by
the precepts of the Wise King. " My mind at the moment
was greatly distracted by something which had just occurred
to—by something that had happened that day, at least. I
really did not hear what you said—not from any want of
interest in what concerns you; for I was— I always
shall be truly glad to hear of your good fortune, and still
more of the success of your own efforts."
" O, of course, of course," said Shafto. " Why don't
you add that you will always look upon me as a brother?
That is quite the regulation formula for casting off the
discarded lover; just like the Mohammedan's solemn de¬
claration that he regards his old wife in the light of his
mother when he wants to divorce her in order to take a
young and pretty one—only the parts played by the re¬
spective sexes differ under our Christian usage. But—
though perhaps it is rude to say so—I don't want sympathy
or the congratulations of Mrs. Ravensmore."
"You have rightly described your speech," replied
Grace, flashing out. "It is' indeed a rudeness that I
never expected to hear from your lips. Be satisfied now,
Mr. Shafto; my unintentional ' impertinence' to you the
other evening has been amply repaid."
"I don't want to say things to hurt you, Miss Haw¬
thorn—God knows. But that is just it. Do you suppose
that after what passed last summer, and what has passed,
what is happening now, I can b§- with you like this alone,
and exchange small-talk and pay you pretty compliments ?
Bah ! a beast that wants discourse of reason—a superseded
lap-dog—would snarl and snap under the circumstances;
and do you expect me to be tamer than a poodle ?"
" Well, whether you are a poodle or a wild boar, and
2l8
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
whether you claim the privilege of behaving like one or both,
remember that calling names is not part of it; neither of
them can do that, andjw/ shall not."
" What is the good of going on like this ? The long and
short of it is, that a few months ago you let me speak to
you as a lover. Now you choose to let somebody else do
so. And you can't expect me to go back contentedly to
commonplace tittle-tattle. I'll go and smoke over there."
" You shall do nothing of the sort. Mrs. Steel com¬
mitted me to your care, and I will not be deserted like the
Babes in the Wood in this howling wilderness. And an¬
other thing, Mr. Shafto : you will please talk of things
you know something about. Pray, sir, have you ever
heard 1 somebody else' speak to me as—in the way you
mention ?"
" Has not that fellow Ravensmore done so ?" asked
Shafto. And this was a counter-question to which, it must
be confessed, Grace had most unskilfully laid herself open,
and which she would have found it difficult to parry. But
her blundering opponent, instead of dropping his foil after
this " palpable hit," followed it up by a succession of wild
thrusts which were much more easily put aside. " Of course
you know he has. If you are not at this moment actually
engaged to him, you know that you have practically won
your game—I don't blame you for playing it, mind—and
that the prize is as surely within your reach as if your hand
had actually closed on it."
" Well, I have heard that lookers-on see more of a game
than those who play it; but I never knew before they
could see a game being played when the players themselves
were quite unconscious of being engaged in anything of the
sort."
" You can scarcely intend that to pass. When a young
lady allows a gentleman, whom all the other young ladies
and their mammas unite in regarding as one of the biggest
fishes in Indian waters, to be constantly dangling at her side;
when she ostentatiously favours him with nods, and becks,
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE.
and wreathed smiles, and will scarcely deign to notice any¬
body else while he is by; when she walks about secluded
alleys in the garden with him for an hour together by moon¬
light—as you did on the evening of the Baytrees' dinner¬
party ; and when the triumph of her success is so palpable
that her guardian (who would like to hook the fish for her
own daughter) can't conceal her rage and disappointment,
but exhibits them in the face of everybody with ridiculous
candour—"
" What do you mean by that ?" interrupted Grace, in
surprise and disquietude; for it is a fact, though ill-natured
• readers may perhaps not be very ready to believe it, that
she had never observed the annoyance which Ravens-
more's attentions to her had caused Mrs. Steel. " Do
you mean to say that you have noticed anything to make
you think that Mrs. Steel does not like—that is, that she
thinks—"
" Noticed ! Everybody has noticed it. And if you
have really not done so yourself, I can only say-that you
have deprived yourself of the only valid excuse for your
behaviour to me and Ravensmore. To pay off the slights
and ill-usage you have received from that woman would
have been an end that might have gone far to justify means
which, of themselves, are open to being described by some
very harsh adjectives."
" I had no idea of that," said Grace thoughtfully. "And
you must not speak of Mrs. Steel in that way, Mr. Shafto.
I owe such a boundless debt of gratitude to Mr. Steel that
I should indeed be unworthy—not of all the kindness he
has shown to the orphan girl who had no claims whatever
on him, of that I can never be worthy—but of the good
opinion of any one—of you yourself—if I suffered 'those who
are dearest to him to be spoken ill of in my presence. But
really, Mr. Shafto, you have got a most perverse notion into
your head, and I ought to be very angry with you for daring
to tell me of it to my face. Even if Mr. Ravensmore were
such a foolish, thoughtless boy as to let his fancy beguile him
220
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
into any serious thoughts in connection with me—instead
of being, as he is, a young man of prudence and sobriety
of judgment quite beyond his years—I, at any rate, hope I
have too much good sense to allow my vanity to blind me
to the certainty of ultimate unhappiness. How do you
suppose Mr. Ravensmore's lordly relations would receive
into their family a girl whose birth—whose birth is a subject
that must not be spoken of? And though you are quite
wrong and mistaken in speaking of Mrs. Steel's behaviour
as you did just now, still I will not deny that my experience,
even as an inmate in Mr. Steel's family, is a warning against
ever being tempted even by the most brilliant offers to
again wittingly place myself in a false position in life. There¬
fore I repeat that even if Mr. Ravensmore were to give me
the chance—which I tell you with perfect truth I do not
think he is in the least likely to do " ("again" she perhaps
mentally added, for the satisfaction of her own conscience),
" I should not dream of accepting him, even though I
cared for him. And what is more—though you have no
vestige of a shadow of a right to be told so—I dorit care for
him."
" Is that true?" asked Shafto, still incredulous, but with
a bounding heart, and a face all on a sudden marvellously
brightened up. "But you have been flirting .with him
desperately, Miss Hawthorn—Grace."
"Pooh! "answered Grace. "Mr. Ravensmore is a young
gentleman who must have amusement of that kind provided
for him, or he would not think he was hospitably entertained.
Bella, of course, ought to have provided it for him, but she
would not. So I suppose it fell to my lot to support the
credit of the house."
"Dutiful, certainly," growled Shafto, the light of his
countenance being considerably "turned down " as suddenly
as it had flared up. "You didn't think the duty a dangerous
one, of course ?"
" No, why should I ?"
" O, only that when hearts and suchlike articles of valu.e
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE.
221
are made playthings of to amuse one's guests, they sometimes
—get lost."
"Ah, but you see mine was safely locked up. I put it
away a long, long time ago, and gave somebody else the key
to keep."
" How long ago ?"
" I am such a bad hand at counting," said Grace, com¬
mencing the task of numeration in due form on a hand
which no mortal man could have seen held up for the pur¬
pose without feeling an irresistible impulse to seize and kiss
it. " Let me see—one, two—well, it was last June—O !
I see the savage boar can climb, after all! Mr. Shafto ! for
mercy's sake ! You'll have the whole thing d(?Wn. Don't—
don't! Let me go, Mr. Shafto, or I will throw myself down !"
" Say ' let me go, Jack] and I will."
"Do let me go, I say —Jack! There! for goodness'
sake ! There's somebody peeping from behind that bush;
it's that odious Captain Baytree."
In describing Miss Hawthorn sitting on the machcim at
the beginning of this chapter, I was careful to state that I
sketched from fancy. Having seen the young lady in other
situations, I was able to picture to myself how she must
have looked in that particular one; that was all. For when
the above recorded conversation was related to me, nothing
was told me but the bare dialogue, without any descriptive
comment. I am therefore quite unable to explain what
particular occurrence may have given occasion for the dis¬
jointed and apparently inconsecutive ejaculations of which
the last three speeches are made up. The only light I can
throw on the matter is suggested by Grace's allusion to
Captain Baytree. We know, from what that officer told
Mrs. Steel, that at the time when' he approached Miss
Hawthorn's and Shafto's viachdm, Shafto was no longer
standing below, but the pair were, in the Deputy-Com¬
missioner's own touching phrase, " billing and cooing like
a couple of turtle-doves on a twig." Something then—
Plough zo'idl thue L nothing to show—had evidently in-
222
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
duced Mr. Shafto to at last accept the invitation, which he
had at first so rudely rejected, to take his place by Miss
Hawthorn's side.
Meanwhile the drive had been going on. The solemn
stillness of the jungle, which had hitherto been rather
deepened than broken by the constant cooing of wood-
pigeons (real ones, not the human imitation) and the oc¬
casional cheery pipe of the gray partridge, now began to
be disturbed by the unwonted hubbub of tom-toms. Then,
as the line of beaters slowly advanced through the dense
cover, distant sounds of shouting were borne along on the
light breeze. Presently a black partridge, which had been
persistently repeating his quaint, croaking call for the last
half-hour, close to the further edge of the river-bed, suddenly
rose with a startling whir-r-r, and flew back towards the
beaters, just skimming the tops of the bushes. Shortly
afterwards a pair of gleaming little eyes peered out through
a brake just opposite Grace's macham, and after a time,
shocked perhaps with what they saw going on there, with¬
drew again as the wild cat which owned them turned about
and followed the partridge which it had disturbed. Then
with stealthy pace, sharp noses stretched out before and
bushy tails trailing behind, a couple of jackals slipped down
the bank and trotted across the sand. But of all these
sights and sounds my belief is that Shafto and Grace took
no heed whatever; though the former, as a good and keen
sportsman, should have known that they were distinct
signals to " make ready." The consequence was that when
at length they were aroused to a sense of where they were,
and what they had come there for, by the bang-bang of
both barrels of a gun at the other end of the line, they were
so unprepared that when a gazelle buck (which, by the way,
had been loitering about close to the verge of the jungle
opposite to their macham, and might have been shot half a
dozen times over within the last five minutes) bounded
across the open space right before them, they were quite
taken aback. And while Shafto fumbled with his ride to
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE.
get a caitridge in, the graceful creature gaily vanished again
amongst the bushes, wagging his little tail as if in derision.
" O, how beautiful!" exclaimed Grace in rapture.
"Confound the brute!" ejaculated Shafto in disgust.
" Well, I only hope no more are coming to bother us," con¬
tinued that eager sportsman, lowering the weapon which
he had raised to his shoulder all too late.
The gods heard his prayer; for nothing more came their
way except an old sow, with a family of piglings, who
trotted away right under their macham, grunting scornful
disapproval either of the unsportsmanlike carelessness with
which he left his rifle resting across the corner of the seat,
or perhaps of the very close proximity of his Tam-o'-
Shanter bonnet to the little gray wide-awake hat of his com¬
panion.
After the drive was over, the whole party gathered
together in the river-bed, and the usual comparison of
notes was gone through, with something less, however, than
the usual eager, breathless chatter. Indeed it is remark¬
able, that although several of them had made capital hits,
and some others woful misses, these hits and misses were
just the subjects on which all remained equally silent.
Thus Rattley Trapton said nothing about a promise he had
exacted from Bella, which filled his mind with scarcely
repressible exultation. Nor did Shafto proclaim that Grace
Hawthorn had consented to be his wife. On the other
hand, Mrs, Steel did not mention her futile attempt to
surprise Grace in her treacherous intercourse with Ravens-
more, and Captain Baytree and Trapton also discreetly
refrained from any allusion to the same episode. The Com¬
missioner, who had had an opportunity for a few words cf
explanation with his wife, was just about to commence the
disagreeable but necessary duty of giving Trapton a hint
that his further company was not desired, when, much to
his relief, the "gallant hussar himself look leave with such
a modest but manly apology for his intrusion (again care¬
fully laying stress on the circumstance that he had. had no
224
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
idea that the ladies were to be of the party), that Mr. Steel
was for the moment staggered. It is even possible that
through his natural impulse of courtesy and hospitality he
might have been tricked into giving an invitation to the
unwelcome guest to remain, had not Mrs. Steel prevented
any such exhibition of weakness by promptly accepting the
gallant Rattley's adieux, and hurrying him off. Her femi¬
nine instinct somehow told her that the cavalier's unlooked-
for readiness to depart, without (so far as she knew) having
been able so much as to exchange a word with her daughter,
was not the least of the many unsatisfactory circumstances
connected with his visit.
So Trapton was allowed to start on his long ride back
to Beshuckabad without being invited to break his fast, a
function which the remainder of the party presently returned
to their camp to discharge, Mrs. Steel putting an emphatic
veto on the proposal of a second " drive," for which arrange¬
ments had been made a mile or so further on.
Mrs. Steel drove back in the " felonious " mule carriage
without mishap; but the place of the bodily terror under
v. ' .ich she had suffered in the morning was taken by scarcely
less painful mental disquietude. The more she thought of
it, the more convinced she felt that there had been some¬
thing that had not met even her keen eye between the
obnoxious and wily Trapton's unlooked-for appearance and
equally unlooked-for departure. Then this disarrangement
of their plans, owing to the sickness at Gurhi Moofsid, was
most disastrous. Unless Grace could be got out of the
way, all her scheming must end in defeat and disappoint¬
ment. So when she took her place at the breakfast-table,
it was with a moody brow.
But the breakfast had been provided by the Nawab,
and a chief feature in a Nawab's breakfast to English guests
is champagne. After her untold exertions and ineffable
harassments, both of mind and body, a matron of Mrs.
Steel's mature years was unquestionably justified in taking
a glass or two of that exhilarating beverage, notwithstanding
'CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE. 225
the still somewhat early hour of the day. She did so, and
not without a sufficiently perceptible effect upon her spirits
and humour. Towards the end of the meal she grew quite
lively, and overflowed with good-natured banter, which she
distributed freely amongst the whole party, but bestowed
with especial abundance on Shafto and Grace Hawthorn.
These two young persons had not yet divulged their
little secret to any one but themselves. And though Bay-
tree may possibly have drawn inferences in his own mind
from what he had happened to see, he was not as yet
sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Steel's views in regard to
his ward, to be able to conjecture whether an account of
what he had witnessed would be likely to be agreeable or
otherwise to that gentleman. He had therefore wisely re¬
solved to hold his peace. Grace wished herself to be the
first to announce her engagement to her benefactor, and
ask his sanction to it; and she did not wish to do this until
the turmoil of the day was over, and she could secure a quiet
half-hour in which to make the momentous communication.
But though Grace and Shafto seemed to have little to
say to each other in presence of the rest, Mrs. Steel thought
she observed something in their demeanour which encour¬
aged her hopes that the young police-officer might prove
the deus ex machind to relieve her from her present embar¬
rassments. She caught Grace signalling deprecating and
reassuring messages to Shafto, while Ravensmore (who
apparently had got over his rebuff of a few days before)
continued to press his attentions on her. And this idea
helped on the work of the champagne, and rendered her
still more benignly disposed towu:ds all in general, and
Shafto and Miss Hawthorn in particular.
But surely this devoted lady must have been delivered
over, " for that day only," to the very arch-fiend of ill-luck,
with license to work his malevolent will with her without
let or hindrance. If he had triumphed in her suspicion and
ill-humour, he was destined to extract even more pernicious
results from her unwonted good temper and openness of heart.
Q
226
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
In the course of the afternoon she contrived to have a
conversation, with Shafto apart, while the others were all
occupied in some way elsewhere. That the Commissioner's
haughty dame should condescend to speak in private to a
person so low in the official scale as an assistant-superin¬
tendent of police would have created the greatest wonder
in Bdshuckabad, where subalterns and captains and such¬
like might think themselves favoured if they occasionally
had the sweeping semicircles of homage, which they caused
their hats to describe when they met Mrs. Steel in public,
acknowledged by a declension of about an eighth of a
degree of her stately neck. But at Diknugger the case was
quite different. There all the residents were the Commis¬
sioner's subordinates, and consequently, in her view, her
own private serfs; whereas at Beshuckabad, the majority,'
being regimental officers, owed no official allegiance to the
civil power, and it was therefore necessary for Mrs. Steel to
maintain her dignity very rigidly, lest haply she might other¬
wise sink in social estimation below some ambitious and
presuming general's wife. In the same way, one sometimes
hears of ladies even of the most august rank, who would
consider that they derogated from their high place by con¬
descending further than to walk through a quadrille with a
prince of the blood at a state ceremony, entering into all
the gaiety of the evening, and dancing reels with the foot¬
men at their own servants' ball. So Mrs. Steel was accus¬
tomed to unbend affably when she visited the little purely
civil stations within her husband's division, and Shafto was
therefore not particularly surprised at finding himself ad¬
mitted to the honour of a tete-a-tete with her.
She talked to him most kindly; inquired about his
prospects of promotion; gave him good advice, urged him
to be steady and work hard, above all things warned him
against being led away by the evil example of his chief,
Colonel Catcheside, op that most disastrous of courses, the
racecourse; and finally assured him that if he did, and did
not, respectively, do all these things, he would find a warm
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE. 227
friend in the Commissioner, who never failed to use his
best exertions to forward the prospects of deserving young
men who served under him. From maternal exhortations
to steadiness the transition was easy and natural to the
desirability of early and suitable marriage. This subject she
approached with an outward air of semi-jocularity, underlaid,
however, by an evident seriousness and kindliness of inten¬
tion, which she judged would be peculiarly calculated to win
the confidence of a young man, whose fancy had perchance
already " lightly turned " towards the same direction in which
she wished to lead him further. And then, on the principle
enforced by that most pertinent question which concludes
the immortal ballad of Jack Horner, talking of marriage
in the abstract necessarily suggested some hints regarding
marriageable girls in the concrete.
" There are few better or more lovable girls to be met
with than Grace Hawthorn," she continued. " You can
judge of her looks (as, no' doubt, you are a connoisseur),
which, though having no pretensions to regular beauty, are
far from plain. But of course you have no such oppor¬
tunities as I have of recognising the sterling worth and
sweetness of her character. Let me tell you, Mr. Shafto,
that the man will be by no means an unlucky one who gets
Miss Hawthorn for a wife, and "—she added, in a sly, con¬
fidential way, and with such a wonderful contortion, designed
to make her pompous face look knowing, as nearly set
Shafto off into a fit of laughter—" Mr. Steel, mind you, is
not a person to do a generous action by halves. Having
chosen to undertake the charge of Miss Hawthorn, he will
not leave his work of benevolence incomplete, you may
be sure. In a word, the young man who wins Grace
Hawthorn's hand will not find it empty. She will have
a few thousand rupees, which, I have no doubt, will not
be an unwelcome addition to the resources of a steady
and prudent young fellow, who has his <^wn way to make in
life."
Mrs. Steel, keenly watching her auditor's face as she
■228
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
spoke, may perhaps have thought that the deep blush
which overspread it was a signal of the success of her
delicately-conveyed suggestion. If so, she was never more
mistaken in her life.
"Indeed!" remarked Shafto dryly. "That will be a
very comfortable little addition to Mr. Ravensmore's pay,
which is not bad as it is."
" Mr. Ravensmore ! What are you talking about ?"
exclaimed Mrs. Steel angrily. " How dare you connect
Mr. Ravensmore's name with—" And then interrupting
herself and smothering her indignation, she went on, with
forced good-humour, " O Mr. Shafto ! of course I have
seen what you mean. But brilliant young men like Mr.
Ravensmore will have their little flirtations, just out of
vanity. Bless you ! they mean nothing by it, and Grace
is far too sensible a girl not to know that. But young
ladies, Mr. Shafto, are not always such guileless creatures
as you young men think them; and they may sometimes
give encouragement to such attentions as Mr. Ravens¬
more's, knowing full well how little they mean, with quite
a different purpose from any vain hope of captivating the
person who pays them."
"And pray, what may that occult purpose be?"-inquired
Shafto.
"Why, of course," explained Mrs. Steel, with inex¬
pressible slyness, " to stimulate the lagging addresses of
somebody else."
" Ah ! and so you really think, Mrs. Steel," said Shafto,
pointing through the door of the tent in which they sat to
some of the rest of the party, who had just appeared in
sight round the corner of a sugar-cane field, on returning
from their afternoon stroll, " you think that Miss Hawthorn
has come just far enough for us to catch sight of her side
by side with Mr. Ravensmore, and is now with pretty pru-
dishness waiting for Mr. Steel and the others, whom they
seem to have left some way behind, to come up, all on
purpose—to stimulate my lagging addresses. Well, Mrs.
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE. 229
Steel, I accept your frank hints in the spirit in which they
are offered, and am really very much obliged to you."
He then left the tent, and walked across to his own,
without waiting for Grace and Ravensmore, who had now
been overtaken by Mr. Steel, his daughter, and the Baytrees.
Now, many a young fellow in Shafto's situation would
have thought Mrs. Steel's lecture, the laborious cunning
with which she strove to prepare the ground for the seed of
that crop which (had she only known it) had already been
sown and reaped, and especially the gentle censure passed
on his laggardliness, all a capital joke; would have laughed
consumedly in his sleeve in the first instance, and then
hastened to impart the jest to the other person for whom
it was likely to have so peculiarly delicious a flavour. But
such, I am sorry to say, was not the way of my dear friend
John Shafto. He was a right good fellow, as my readers, I
hope, will adjudge him to be, when they close this book.
But he was possessed of certain troublesome little devils,
and one of these was the demon of distrust, and this mis
chievous imp now kept whispering in his ear, and would
not be silenced by all the angry expostulations of his better
feelings. "How strange that Mrs. Steel's virtual offer of
Grace's hand and dower should be simultaneous with
Grace's own sudden change of behaviour towards him 1
A cynic might suspect that there had been un understand¬
ing between the two ladies; and that Mrs. Steel's proffered
' few thousand rupees ' had, before being made to serve as
an inducement to him to propose for Grace, been employed
as a bribe to buy Grace herself off Ravensmore.'' "No,
no !"' he answered to the injurious suggestion. " Perish
the disloyal, the unworthy thought! But O! that low-
minded beast of an old woman—that she-devil, with her
insolent offers and her disgusting attempts at vulgar cajolery
—I should like to wring her fat neck round. And that con¬
founded puppy Ravensmore, too. But there must be no
more nonsense with regard to him. Grace knows perfectly
well how to put a stop to assiduities that are not wanted.
230
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Faith ! I have had a pretty good proof of her ability in that
way in my own experience. Why should she have walked
alone with the fellow again this afternoon? I strongly
suspect she did not think she was in sight of the drawing-
room tent when she stopped for the others to come up.
Bah! what a suspi— Hullo! what the deuce do you want?"
The not over-polite inquiry which thus brought our
Falkland's self-tormenting cogitations to an abrupt end
was addressed to no less a person than Captain Baytree,
who had followed him and touched him on the shoulder.
" This boisterous, disrespectful manner of addressing
your official superiors," remarked the Deputy-Commissioner
severely, " is most unbecoming, Mr. Shafto."
" If you choose to make your official communications,"
answered Shafto impatiently, "by coming behind a man
and clapping him on the back, you must not quarrel with
the words you knock out by so doing, which are pretty
sure to be those that happen to be uppermost."
" Well, I warn you that I shall have to take notice of
this insubordinate habit, if you persist in it. But I have no
time for that now. You are to get on your horse at onGgj
and ride, as hard as you can, to Gurhi Moofsid. That
meddling, mischief-making fellow Brandling has been ipfer-'
fering with the police—assaulting them, for aught I Kppw,
in the discharge of their duty, and rescuing & prisoner—
that unhanged scamp of a nephew of Kumbukt Khan—v
after he had been caught red-handed committing burglary:
and dacoity. Come, get ready, and be off sharp, for Heaven
knows what other confounded pranks he may be playing."
" That is old Brandling all over !" remarked Shafto.
" But there would be no use my starting to-night. If Bud-
mash Khan has been rescued, you may be sure he is over
the hills and far away by this time."
" I tell you, you are to start now," said Baytree.
"That is absurd," replied the insubordinate Shafto.
"The road from here to Gurhi Moofsid is bad enough to
ride by day; it would be impossible to go beyond a foot-
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE.
231
pace in the dark. I shall be there quite as soon if I start
to-morrow."
"Shall I go and inform the Commissioner, then, that
you refuse to go—refuse to obey niy positive orders ?" asked
Baytree, very irate.
" How do you know about this ?" counter-questioned
Shafto.
" Colonel Catcheside got the news by a messenger from
the Thanadar of Gurhi an hour ago, and has just ridden out
here with it. He is now speaking with the Commissioner."
" Then why can't Catcheside go ? In an important
matter like this, surely the superintendent himself ought to
go. Why don't you send him ?"
" Never mind. It is sufficient that it is my order that
you are to go."
Whether love or duty would finally have prevailed, and
whether Shafto would have persisted in his mutinous oppo¬
sition to Baytree's order, had those two been left to carry
out the dispute by themselves, it would perhaps be rash to
conjecture. But just then Mr. Steel, followed by Catche¬
side, came up to them; and it then appeared that though
Baytree, in conformity with his undeviating rule of seizing
every means of self-assertion, had made out that it was only
his caprice which he insisted on Shafto obeying, he was
really only obeying an order which he himself had received
from Mr. Steel. In fact, the Commissioner, whose bound¬
less reverence for law and authority was terribly scandalised
at the reported proceedings of this uncovenanted apothe¬
cary, had not much faith either in Colonel Catcheside's
judgment or his strength of will He had therefore expressly
desired that the Colonel's assistant should go and take the
matter up, instead of the Colonel himself.
Shafto had now therefore no choice but to obey the
order to depart, though his free spirit chafed at Baytree's
peremptory tone, and he was particularly loth to leave a
clear field for Ravensmore. But it was hardly on the
afternoon of the very morning on which he had invited an
232 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
interesting young woman to share his future fortunes that
he could afford to quarrel with his bread and butter. So
with a very bad grace he ordered his horse to be saddled,
and prepared for a moonlight ride.
He was not even able to wish his lady-love good-bye.
She, along with the other female members of the party, had
retired to dress for dinner. And as Mr. Steel now joined
Baytree in pressing him to make haste and start, even a
half-hour's delay was impossible. So, scribbling a line of
explanation and adieu to Grace, he mounted and rode
sulkily away, uncheered even by a glance of her eye or a
squeeze of her hand.
CHAPTER XV.
dr. brandling's escapades.
Notwithstanding the darkness of the night and the bad¬
ness of the road, Shafto managed to get along at something
better than a foot-pace. Half-way he got a change of
horses, mounting that belonging to the Thanadar, or deputy-
inspector of a police-station which he had to pass. Never¬
theless, by the time he reached his journey's end, the first
light of dawn was just breaking, and dimly revealing above
the dark mass of jungle, through which his path lay, the
bare and rugged outline of what could scarcely be dignified
by the name of a range of hills, but rather of a stretch of broken
ground, which rose before him. Standing out from this,
dark and grim against the gray sky, was a massive brick
round tower, flanking which he could just trace, and partly
distinguish in the twilight from the natural inequalities of
the horizon, the jagged line of a weather-breached earthen
rampart. This was the old fort, or robber's den, of Gurhi
Moofsid.
As Shafto rode up to the tower, early as the hour was,
he found many people moving about. The cattle and
DR. BRANDLING'S ESCAPADES.
233
goats, of which patriarchal commodities the wealth (such as
remained) of Kumbukt Khan and his tribesmen consisted,
were being brought out from the ramshackle ranges of out¬
houses which surrounded the tower, and from the still more
squalid hovels of the wretched hamlet hard by. The men
whom he met were ill-clad and dirty in the extreme, and
had generally a lean and hungry look. But they were strik¬
ing figures. Nearly all tall, well made, upright, and stately,
with a bold, almost defiant, but withal melancholy, expres¬
sion in the dark eyes which flashed out from behind the
parted curtains of their long and tangled locks, they seemed
to have, like the Crimean Tartars described by Kinglake,
"something of the forlorn majesty of peasants descended
from warriors."
On Shafto's unexpected arrival becoming known, there
was great bustle. A bed was brought out for him, upon
which he promptly threw his long and brawny limbs with a
force that made its poor timbers groan audibly. A frothing
bowl of fresh milk was next presented, which simple refresh¬
ment also he did by no means reject. Then a couple of
sturdy fellows set to work to shampoo him, an operation,
however ridiculous to witness, by no means unpleasant to
suffer after fifty miles of jogging in the dark over villanous
roads. And lastly, the owner of the tower, old Kumbukt
Khan, came hobbling down the slope from its gateway to
greet him, tying the waistband of his pyjamas as he came,
his polite eagerness to pay his respects to the "Sahib " not
yet having suffered him to complete his hurried toilet inside.
From him Shafto learnt the particulars of Dr. Brandling's
audacious interference with the course of justice—as viewed
from the Moofsid standpoint. He had already heard from
the officer in charge of the police-station, at which he had
changed horses, the account of the affair as it appeared to
the police—or (not to make a rash statement), at any rate,
as the police desired that it should appear to their superior
officers. Putting the two statements together, Shafto, who
was a shrewd fellow, capable of seeing into a millstone as
234
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
far as most men of his years, came to the conclusion that
the truth of the story was this :
There was great scarcity, something not far short of
famine, in this remote and isolated part of the district. He,
as well as everybody else in Diknugger, was fully aware of
this. But it did not suit Captain Baytree to be bothered by
a famine which would necessarily divert into this unattrac¬
tive region—where inspections of lieutenant-governors, and
even of commissioners, were more rare than angels' visits—
all the available funds of the district, which were now being
so usefully employed to the amelioration of the public, the
benefit of the State, and thegloryof Captain Baytree, on showy
works in and about the Civil Station. So, nothing being
done by their rulers to help the hungry Moofsids and their
starving cattle, the Moofsids had nothing for it but to do
as it must be confessed they were at all times ready enough
to do—that is, to help themselves to their neighbours'
stores. Burglaries, committed by gangs of these denizens
of the jungle in the towns and villages of the more fertile
portions of the district, had been growing of late more and
more frequent, but they had hitherto been of a petty kind.
Now, however, a depredation on a larger and more
organised scale had been committed. #
The Nawab possessed a considerable property in the
immediate neighbourhood of Gurhi Moofsid. It had been
the most cherished object of his father, the far-seeing Lomri
Khan's policy to oust Kumbukt Khan and his family alto¬
gether off the face of the earth. As long as they had a local
habitation and a name, however shrunken and diminished,
at Gurhi Moofsid, he believed that there would always be
danger of their rising again on the wave of one "of those
revolutions which have been so frequent in Indian history,
and swamping him and his new-built prosperity. He had
therefore by insidious loans, mortgages, and distraints
striven for years, and with no little success, to acquire all
the land he possibly could in the country which stilHowned
his rival's influence.
DR. BRANDLING'S ESCAPADES. 235
The Nawab's factor on his Gurhi Moofsid estate was a
bunniah—a Hindu money-lender—named Cheetun Shah.
This man, perceiving that the scarcity was likely to grow
more and more severe, and that the price of food would
accordingly get higher and higher, did what a certain other
factor of a great estate had done many thousand years be¬
fore—he laid up a great store of wheat in his barns, which
he did not propose to produce until all the other supplies
of the neighbourhood should be exhausted. But this
benevolent design of his, got wind, and his short-sighted
and ungrateful neighbours perversely thought more of the
present pinch, which their stomachs felt, than of the future
comfort of having them filled from the provident factor's
garners when the time should arrive for these to be un¬
locked—provided, of course, that they were able to fulfil
the trifling condition of paying him at some eight times the
normal rate. So a party of them—estimated by Cheetun
Shah himself at from five to ten thousand, by the Thanadar
at a hundred, and by Kumbukt Khan at half a dozen—
broke into his house by night, carried off as much grain as
they and the factor's. own cattle, which they stole for the
purpose, could carry, burnt the rest, gave the Shah himself
by way of payment a skinful of sore bones, and departed to
hide themselves in the ravines. While this was going on,
the police, weighted by the consciousness of the importance
of their services to the safety of the commonwealth, and
unwilling to impair their power of performing these by hav¬
ing their heads or arms broken, maintained an attitude of
vigilant observation. But as soon as the crowd dispersed,
and left them free to take more active steps, they scoured
the country in every direction (excepting only that in which
the thieves had gone), and meeting young Budmash Khan,
a nephew of the Gurhi Moofsid chief, who enjoyed a dread¬
ful reputation for all manner of wickedness and vice,
riding homewards during the small hours of the morning,
when all well-behaved young gentlemen should have been
in bed, they, in a most spirited manner, arrested him, and
236
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
without difficulty had him identified as the ringleader of the
raiders.
But while this process of identification was going on by
the smoking ruins of the factor's barns, Dr. Brandling, who,
as the reader knows, had gone to Gurhi Moofsid three days
before, on hearing of the outbreak of fever in the neigh¬
bourhood, when he learnt what had taken place, suddenly
put in an appearance, told Cheetun Shah that the destruction
of his barns was no more than he deserved, and that it
would have served him right had he been basted in the
flames—roasting, though not an easy death, being no more
painful, and very much less lingering, than that by starva¬
tion, which he had done his best to inflict upon his neigh¬
bours. Then addressing himself to the scandalised Thanadar,
a portly and oleaginous bunniah of the Bumble description,
he told him that the evidence he was trumping up against
Budmash Khan was not worth a Snap of his fingers. And
finally, grasping his stout walking-stick with significant
energy, and turning towards the two stalwart constables
who, with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, guarded the
handcuffed criminal, he ordered them, in a voice which was
not to be gainsaid, to set their captive free. The hand-
.cuff's were unlocked; and Budmash Khan, dashing through
the crowd, made for the jungle with the swiftness of a hare.
Dr. Brandling then set off to return to Gurhi Moofsid, evi¬
dently highly satisfied with his night's work. But first he
strongly warned both Cheetun Shah and the Thanadar to
amend their ways, otherwise he would not rest until he had
the one sent to the treadmill for robbing the poor, and
the other cashiered for pervei.ing judgment.
Shafto had been greatly amused at the plaintive whine
with which Cheetun Shah told his story of the doctor's pro¬
ceedings, and the horrified indignation expressed in every
tone, look, and gesture of the outraged Thanadar's voice,
face, and limbs.
"The doctor is certainly a most arbitrary gentleman,"
he remarked in Hindustani. And then, as he pictured the
DR. BRANDLING'S ESCAPADES. 237
scene, with Brandling's gaunt figure in the foreground, so
like an illustration cut from a volume of Don Quixote, he
burst into a roar of laughter, which all his auditors, the
Thanadar, Cheetun Shah, and Kumbukt Khan, seemed
equally (and I must add most properly) to regard as exces¬
sively indecent.
He did not find the lawless man of medicine himself at
Gurhi Moofsid. He had gone to a large village five or six
miles further on, where Shafto was told that the fever was
now raging terribly. So after an hour's rest and a simple
breakfast of chupatties, milk, and eggs, Shafto mounted
again and pushed on thither. As he rode onwards, winding
along the dry bottoms of dark ravines, or clambering over
precipitous crags of treacherous earth, he began to see
ghastly signs of the truth both of the famine and of the con¬
sequent epidemic, which Captain Baytree was so anxious to
pooh-pooh. Numerous skeletons of cows and buffaloes lay
at the bottoms of the ravines, the animals having apparently
fallen from the scorched hillsides, on which they had in
vain been searching for a few scanty blades of grass, from the
sheer weakness of starvation. Then, as he turned round
some projecting angle, he would come upon a huge flock of
loathsome carrion birds, so heavily gorged on a half-de-*
voured carcass that they could not fly away at his approach,
but could only run a few paces aside, by the help of the
flapping of their huge wings. But a still more horrid sight
presently met his view—the corpse of a wretched woman,
half naked, the skull partially stripped of flesh, and two lean
parya dogs tugging and tearing at the limbs. With a sicken¬
ing sensation, and no trace left of his late disposition to
merriment, he pushed on at the best speed he could make,
continuing to see and hear, in the few scattered hamlets of
herdsmen's huts which he passed through, stronger and
stronger confirmatory evidence of the virulence of the epi¬
demic with which the unhappy district had been visited.
It is in no way essential to the story I have to tell to draw
a painful picture of the scene of squalor, despair, suffering,
238
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
and death in which Shafto found his friend Brandling hard
at work. The latter was far too earnestly occupied to listen
to inquiries about his rescue of Budmash Khan for some
time. So leaving that subject to a more convenient season,
Shafto set to work with hearty goodwill to help the doctor
in his work. By their joint exertions, a makeshift hospital
was run up at a little distance from the village. It consisted
of nothing more than an awning of rough thatch and mat¬
ting, supported on poles; but it was, at all events, well
ventilated. Hither, by dint of their own bodily exertions
and authority, the two Englishmen succeeded in the course
of the day in removing the sick, who had hitherto lain in
their own houses, spreading the infection through the village
with frightful rapidity. Their efforts were energetically
aided by the son of Kumbukt Khan, who had accompanied
the doctor to the place. Dilawar Khan, such was his name,
was a handsome young man of about thirty, of a superb
figure. The expression of his countenance was sad and
stern, according with the fallen fortunes of his house. There
was, too, a fierce light in his eyes, and a wild energy often
observable in his gestures and in his speech, which might have
seemed only the signs of a high and untamed spirit contend¬
ing with restraint and humiliation. But in fact they indicated
more than this : poor Dilawar Khan was in truth more than
half a maniac.
At length, late in the afternoon, fairly spent with their
labours, Shafto and Brandling retired to a little tent, which
the latter had had pitched for himself, to get necessary rest
and food. Then Shafto took the opportunity of eliciting
from the doctor his version of Budmash Khan's liberation.
It differed scarcely at all from that given by the Thanadar.
The impulsive doctor's proceedings had in fact been so
high-handed and unwarrantable that it was scarcely possible
for the fertile imagination of even a bunniah and a police¬
man to exaggerate them.
"By Jove, doctor," said Shafto, "this may turn out an
awkward scrape for you ! I wish you had not been so hasty."
DR. BRANDLINGS ESCAPADES. 239
" Hasty !" exclaimed Brandling, in a transport of excite-
' ment, the nostrils of his eagle beak distended, and his
flashing gray eyes, deep in the sombre vaults of their shaggy
brows, " in a fine frenzy rolling "—" hasty ! Do you think,
if it were to do again, and I had a week in which to balance
the pros and cons, I would hesitate a moment, or depart a
hair's breadth from what I have done ? Why, Shafto, you
at least have eyes to see and a heart to feel! Can you look
upon the sights you have witnessed to day—the helpless
dead and dying in that shed yonder, the carcass of man and
beast cast on the roadside to be meat for the fowls of heaven
and the beasts of the earth ? Can you see these unhappy
people, overwhelmed at once by two of the sore judgments
of God, the famine and the pestilence, and do you mean to
say that, while you could lift a finger to prevent it, you
would let them fall under a third, the rod of the oppressor,
too ? that you would leave them in the hands of a set of
rascals that lay wait, that set snares, that set a trap to catch
men, that overpass the deeds of' the wicked, while they
grind the faces of the poor?"
"Heaven knows," replied Shafto, "I sympathise with
the poor devils too. And far be it from me to deny that
the Thanadar may very probably have waxed fat and shone
through substituting oppression for judgment. Neverthe¬
less, I cannot but think you would have done well to be a
little less precipitate. In the long-run you would probably
have been able to do more real service for Budmash Khan,
whom I certainly believe to have been unjustly accused in
this case."
" Of course. And knowing that, would you have had
me allow him to suffer the disgrace of being manacled by
these tyrants a moment longer than necessary ?'
Shafto shook his head. "Besides," he resumed, "this
action of yours after the crime was perpetrated will give
some colour to a hint that Cheetun Shah threw out that
you had said something to instigate or encourage the attack
on his house. Of course I, and all who know you, see the
240
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
gross absurdity of such a charge. But unluckily Steel does
not know you, or very little, and Baytree, who does, may
notwithstanding be not unwilling to pretend some belief in
the calumny."
Dr. Brandling looked as sheepish as it was possible for
a man so thoroughly in earnest as he was to look.
" Of course I never instigated or encouraged the violence
of these poor deluded and starving men," he said. But
there was certainly less of vehemence in his denial than
Shafto had expected. " It is true that when I heard a
whisper of Cheetun Shah having all this store of grain accu¬
mulated, I upbraided him openly, and before a considerable
number of people at Gurhi Moofsid, with his selfishness.
And I believe that my so speaking was the first intimation
that the villagers in general had that there was such a store
in his granaries. At least he asserts this."
"Whe-e-ew!" was Shafto's inarticulate but emphatic
comment.
" But if I was indiscreet," continued Brandling hastily,
"in this particular—as I acknowledge that I may have been
—I have done what in me lay to repair my wrong. I have
given Cheetun Shah a bond for five thousand rupees in
compensation for the loss he has suffered."
" Five thousand rupees !" ejaculated Shafto in astonish¬
ment. " The whole damage the fellow has suffered would
not amount to fifteen hundred at the most liberal computa¬
tion. Really, doctor, this must be seen to. You must not
be allowed to be looted in this manner."
" Well, well," replied Brandling, with some signs of im¬
patience, "if he has been injured through my indiscretion,
it is only fair that I should repay, and we must not look too
closely to the precise value of the property destroyed. You
must remember that the man has been beaten too—not but
what he richly deserved it."
" Repay ! That is all very well. But not to the tune
of five thousand rupees. Forgive me, doctor, but neither
you nor I draw the pay of lieutenant-governors, nor even
DR. BRANDLINGS ESCAPADES. 241
of our friend Mr. Steel. 'Twill take a long time to make
up five thousand rupees and interest at twelve per cent
from the superabundance of a salary of three fifty a month."
Chivalrous persons with a sublime disregard of the
sordid considerations connected with pounds, shillings, and
pence are by no means the least sensitive to any allusion to
the narrowness of their incomes. Dr. Brandling evidently
resented Shafto's last observation as an impertinence.
" I can manage my own money matters without assist¬
ance, sir," he said very haughtily.
" O, certainly !" replied Shafto. " I apologise. But now
I must be off, or it will be dark before I get back to Gurhi
Moofsid."
He rose, and the doctor did so too, and laid his brown
bony hand on the young man's shoulder.
" It is I who should apologise, Shafto," he said frankly.
" But never talk to a poor man about prudence ; it is only
the rich to whom it is safe to recommend that virtue. Yes,
you had better start; it is a bad road for moonlight. And
I too must get back to my patients; we have wasted too
much time as it is in talk."
On the following day Shafto set out on the wild-goose
chase, which his friend's eccentric proceedings had procured
him, after the fugitive Budmash Khan. And two days
later, as had been arranged even before the burglary had
occurred, the Commissioner, attended by Captain Baytree,
arrived, and encamped at Gurhi Moofsid.
Dr. Brandling, who was still hard at work in his fever
hospital at the village where Shafto had left him, was sum¬
moned to give an account of his misdemeanours to these
two magisterial dignitaries.
He vindicated his action before them by much the same
argument, and as much impassioned fervour, as he had used
to Shafto. Baytree exhibited unmitigated disgust, and was
especially severe on certain passages in the doctor's defence
in which his phraseology seemed to be borrowed from the
Hebrew prophets. This Captain Baytree emphatically de-
R
242
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
clared to be not only blasphemous, but almost disrespectful.
Mr. Steel liked neither the defendant nor his style of de¬
fence any better than his deputy did. He was somewhat
of a formalist, and a great stickler for subordination and
rigid legality; and this presumptuous, meddling, blustering
apothecary was a person who seemed expressly fashioned
by nature for the purpose of jarring against his strongest
prejudices. Yet, with all this, the man's pluck extorted his
unwilling admiration. Mr. Steel was accustomed to the
utmost deference from officials of the highest standing.
There was not a single deputy-commissioner in the Ma Bap
Provinces who, if he had the misfortune to incur a reproof
from him, would dream of such reckless audacity as to offer
a reply. Even Sir Duncan MacTullub, on some occasions
in which Mr. Steel had deemed it his duty to point out
certain errors in the procedure of his government, had never
ventured to defend himself further than by saying that the
act criticised was Wiggins', his secretary's, doing, not his.
But here was an uncovenanted apothecary on three hundred
and fifty a month, who had been taken through the charity
of some benevolent official, when already an elderly man,
from the rank and file of the army, or#from before the mast
of a merchant ship (the Commissioner did not exactly re¬
member which), and given this appointment as a provision
for his old age—whom Baytree, by merely taking the trouble
to write an unfavourable report, and Steel himself, by a
scratch of his pen or a word from his lips, could have dis¬
missed and cast penniless on the world—here was this man
pertinaciously declaring that in rescuing a burglar and
assaulting the police, he had only done what it would have
been mean and dastardly in any one not to do, and de¬
nouncing directly the myrmidons of the law whom he had
ill-treated, and by strong implication those more exalted
officials who had taken up their cause, as op'pressors whose
houses are filled with the spoils of the poor.
" Come, Mr. Brandling," said the Commissioner at last,
" I think we have had quite enough of this. If you really
DR. BRANDLINGS ESCAPADES.
cannot see how reprehensible your conduct has been, I only
regret it on your own account; as I fear that if such is your
mode of regulating your actions, and such your overweening
confidence in your own opinion of what is right and wrong,
your retention in the public service must sooner or later be¬
come impossible. But as to the present case, there is no
occasion for further argument. I will pass over what has
been done, but I will take care that you do no more mis¬
chief. You will therefore be good enough to return at once
to your proper duties at Diknugger."
" Return ? Impossible, sir," replied Brandling.
Mr. Steel's eyes flashed, and a drawing in of the lips
might have warned any one, who was acquainted with the
system of storm-signals in use_ in the Commissioner's coun¬
tenance, that there was danger brewing in the air. Perhaps
Brandling observed this, for he went on to say, " Don't
misunderstand me. I have no desire to dispute your autho¬
rity, and if you insist on my going, I must obey. What I
mean is, that it is impossible to leave this place, with a
frightful epidemic of typhus raging, without any medical
aid. I have only a native hospital assistant, who has already
quite lost his head* and would be simply useless if left
alone."
"You forget, Brandling," said Baytree, in a jeering tone,
" that though Mr. Steel may not have your profound mas¬
tery of medical science, he has got eyes and ears. I think,
sir, we saw no more outward and visible signs of Mr. Brand¬
ling's (I suppose, inward and spiritual) epidemic, than we
did of his doubtless equally real but assuredly equally occult
famine."
"There were certainly," assented Mr. Steel, "few or
none of either."
" Then the local officials," blurted out Brandling, "must
have taken great pains to keep them out of sight. Why, as
you passed through the vast grazing grounds, did you not
see that they were bare of grass ?"
" Because the cattle had eaten it," said Baytree.
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
"What cattle? How many herds of cattle did you
meet by the way ?"
" I did remark," put in Mr. Steel, " that we saw hardly
any cattle as we came along."
" O," replied Baytree, with a laugh, " our honest graziers
in these parts have so much practice in concealing cattle
which doift belong to them, that they have little difficulty,
when it serves their turn, in hiding those which do. The
jungle is wide. They knew we were coming; and I have
no doubt we shall have a deputation from my old friends
the Moofsids, before long, begging to be let off their taxes
on the ground that all their stock has perished, and appeal¬
ing to the evidence of our own senses just as Mr. Brandling
has done, in proof of the latter assertion. The wily Moofsid
is not the man I take him for if he fails to grasp the other
broad hints which our medical friend here has been dropping
for his edification, as readily as he did that particular one
about the contents of poor Cheetun Shah's barns."
" You are not practised," said the Commissioner, address¬
ing Brandling, " in judging the appearances of scarcity.
But in the other matter you should speak with the authority
of an expert. Tell me, without rhetoric or exaggeration,
what is the extent of the disease? It is certainly remarkable
that the headmen and village constables, whom we ques¬
tioned as we came along, appeared to be very unconcerned
about it."
" They may have been tutored by the Tahsildar," said
Brandling sturdily; " for even in some of the villages which
you passed the mortality has been frightful. But it is
beyond Gurhi Moofsid that it is worst. There are villages
there which are being literally decimated, to which the appal¬
ling expression of Scripture, that the carcasses of men are
cast as dung upon the fields, may be applied literally and
not as a mere figure of speech."
" Ha, ha ! there is some comfort at any rate in that,"
laughed Baytree. " One of your evils will go a great way to
cure the other, then. There should be a fine crop next har-
DR. BRANDLING'S ESCAPADES.
vest on fields that have been so well manured." And then,
seeing that Mr. Steel frowned at this levity, he continued
seriously, " Believe me, sir, that my information about the
condition of this part of my district is, to say the least, as
good as Mr. Brandling's. And to you, Brandling, all I have
to say is this—I know you find the drudgery of your daily
work at the station irksome. You have led an unsettled
life, and have not acquired habits of steady application; so
that is only natural. I know, too, that you are fond of a
little outing, and also of earning a little travelling allowance.
I am always ready to give you considerable liberty. But
let Mr. Steel's words be a warning to you not to try my
good-nature too far. And, to cut this matter short, you
will, as Mr. Steel has already ordered, return at once to
Diknugger. You can go back to your camp now; but
mind, you must not be later than to-morrow afternoon in
setting off on your way home."
Brandling made no reply, excepting by a look of in¬
effable scorn which he hurled at the speaker during that
part of his address which referred to desire of outings and
of travelling allowances. And longing to be back again
amongst the poor wretches whom he had left in his mat-
roofed hospital, he eagerly availed himself of the permission
to depart.
" A dangerous man," remarked the Commissioner, when
he had left the tent. " I feel by no means sure that his
eccentricity of manner, and that air of bluntness and enthu¬
siasm which he assumes, is not a mere cloak to cover a
very shrewd and practical faculty for looking after his own
interests. He has far too sharp a face to be really the ass
which his words and actions would imply. I should like to
know whether old Kumbukt Khan induced him to rescue
his nephew by merely working on his benevolent feelings
or by a more substantial appeal. I must say I have seldom
come across a man whom I felt disposed from the first time
I saw him more profoundly to mistrust."
Captain Bay tree slept the sleep of the just that night,
246
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
and continued to do so somewhat further than usual into
the morning hours of the following day. He had nothing
to cause him disquietude. The Tahsildar and his assistants
had done their duty well, and no disagreeable sights or
sounds had been permitted to offend the Commissioner's
senses. And he had found a most unexpected and power¬
ful aid, in his laudable endeavours to make things seem
prosperous, in the violent prejudice which Mr. Steel had
conceived against the insolent, blustering bearing of Dr.
Brandling. So Captain Baytree slept sound and long, and
after he awoke, dawdled leisurely over his morning coffee
and toast, and then over his toilet. But when he came out
of his tent and asked whether the Commissioner was up,
he was startled to learn that Mr. Steel had started three
hours before to visit the village where the doctor had estab¬
lished his fever hospital.
Dilawar Khan, the old Moofsid chief's son, guided the
Commissioner along the winding and broken road. The
worst sights which Shafto had encountered by the wayside
a few days before had disappeared, Shafto himself having
had them removed for reasons both of decency and sanita¬
tion. But Dilawar Khan took $r. Steel into several of the
hamlets near which they passed—wretched clusters of
hovels, more like an encampment of Indian wigwams than
a village in a settled and civilised land—and easily showed
him convincing evidences of the existence and virulence of
the sickness. He was greatly shocked. His wrath against
Baytree was kindled not a little; but with less justice he
also vented his anger on his guide. Why had not he and
his father put the real state of matters before him in plain
terms ? Dilawar Khan's answer was rather clinching than
satisfactory.
" What was the good, Sahib ? It is God's will. Allah
is merciful, and has sent us this sickness to relieve us from
our misery. Our cattle have all died of hunger, and we
must soon perish by starvation too, for we have no food.
Our enemies have got possession of our lands; usurers have
DR. BRANDLING'S ESCAPADES. 247
devoured our substance; the Government is flaying the skin
off our flesh for its dues, and is casting us into prison for
the offences of our despair. What other hope of escape
from all this have we but in the fever and death ?"
The sight which met Mr. Steel's eye as he dismounted
and entered the little booth which constituted the doctor's
extempore hospital was a terrible one. But there is no
need to describe it. Suffice it to say, that it was so over¬
crowded that there was scarcely room to move about among
the patients—several of whom were indeed patients no
longer for any practitioner but the grave-digger—and num¬
bers of sick, who had been brought in from neighbouring
villages, lay on beds, or on the bare ground around, without
shelter. In the midst of this stricken and helpless crowd,
the tall, gaunt figure of Brandling seemed almost alone en¬
dowed with life and energy. In fact, the terror of the
plague had now become so great, and the despair of the
survivors so stunning, that scarce a man could be found to
lend the Englishman any help. A native hospital assistant,
half-stupefied with fatigue and horror, moved about in an
objectless manner, and seemgd to be rather in the way than
of any service, and one or two villagers sat in a corner apa¬
thetically watching the doctor's proceedings.
Brandling himself presented a ghastly appearance. He
was stripped to his riding-breeches and shirt, and the sleeves
of the latter were rolled up to his shoulders. Though the
morning air was cold and biting, and the ragged matting of
the tent afforded little or no shelter from the wind, the
perspiration had soaked his shirt through and through, was
streaming from his forehead, and falling in heavy drops
from his straggling beard on to the thin covering of the
wretched creatures over whom he stooped. He had been
called away by the summons of the Commissioner at noon
the day before, and 011 his return from Gurhi Moofsid had
found matters so bad as to put all thought of wasting time
in taking food or rest quite out of the question, so he had
not tasted a morsel for some twenty-four hours. As for
248
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
sleep, he had certainly not had a wink for two nights. And
all this time the strain of mind and body had been intense
and incessant. It was not surprising, therefore, that his
face should look shockingly haggard, or that a gleam of
unnatural excitement should flash from his gray eyes.
Mr. Steel paused for a moment on the threshold of the
shed, aghast at the spectacle before him. Just then some
sudden emergency occurred in the case which the doctor
was attending to at the time.
"Here! you, Jalab Singh! come quick," he called out
to the hospital assistant. But Jalab Singh was quite dazed,-
and did not respond to the call. So Brandling, turning
from the patient, dashed towards the box where his medi¬
cines were. He had a cup or a basin, or some such im¬
plement of his trade, in his hand, and seeing Mr. Steel
standing there, he thrust it into his hands, saying, " Here!
catch hold — sharp!" The Commissioner mechanically
obeyed, and stood with the vessel in his hand, not looking
very dignified, while Brandling, taking no further notice of
him, being in fact probably unconscious of his presence,
continued to busy himself with his work.
•For nearly three hours Mr. Steel watched the inde¬
fatigable doctor, without venturing to interrupt him. IJe
gave what help he could with his own hands, but was of
more use still by exerting his influence to arouse the people
from their apathy. Then a native doctor whom Baytree,
by the Commissioner's desire, had ordered up from the
nearest Government Dispensary, for the purpose of being
sent about amongst the villages to report whether there
really was any truth in Dr. Brandling's alarming reports,
turned up. His arrival gave Brandling a little much-
needed respite, and drawing his brawny bare arm across
his dripping forehead (leaving a great smear of dust on it
as he did so), he walked out into the open air. The Com¬
missioner followed him.
"Mr. Brandling," he said; and it is probable that he
intended to speak some word of encomium of the devoted
DR. BRANDLINGS ESCAPADES.
249
labours which he had been witnessing ; but as the doctor
turned abruptly round, there was (so it seemed to Mr. Steel)
such a defiant, insolent expression in his face, that for the
life of him he could not bring himself to utter the intended
words of praise. And indeed, after what had passed in
their interview the preceding day, I think it very likely
that Brandling's countenance really did not exhibit any
extraordinary signs of joy at the Commissioner's arrival.
Then his temper, it must be remembered, had been ren¬
dered irritable by long toil, anxiety, and want of food and
sleep. And it is very likely that he felt much as Hotspur did,
*' When he was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon his sword
and
" Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed,"
as Mr. Steel always was, never mind at what early hour of
the morning he had risen, or what rough work he might
have done.
" You assuredly did not exaggerate the state of things,"
said Mr. Steel. " But had you, instead of indulging in
rhetorical flourishes, made a simple statement of facts,
supported by proofs, which you .could easily have put
forward—"
"I told you the truth," replied Brandling; "and I am
not accustomed to consider it necessary to bring evidence
in support of my assertions."
Come, come, Mr. Brandling! This lofty tone is a
little out of place. I tell you that, through the absence of
sobriety and moderation in your statements, and through
your failure to point to easily-attested facts, which it was
your duty to refer to, you have seriously misled me, and in
doing so you have been guilty of a grave dereliction of duty."
" If you have been misled, it has not been by me. And
let me hear no more, sir, about ' proofs' and ' attesting of
facts,' in connection with my assertions. I regard such
allusions as an insult, which I will not permit. There may
be persons whom you know in the position of gentlemen
250 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
whose allegations require to be supported by proofs; but
you will be good enough not to venture again to class me
in that category. And it would be as well to bear in mind
too, that a man who is capable of making a false statement
may be capable also of trumping up false evidence to
support it. That is the kind of person who has misled you,
if any one has,"
Mr. Steel was purple with anger at this presumptuous
address.
"Whom—whom do you dare to allude to, sir?" he
demanded. " Who do you—"
"Who do I say has misled you?" interrupted Brandling,
who had also whipped his own anger beyond control.
"Yourself, sir, yourself; your own self-conceit and greed of
flattery."
" Enough, sir," cried the incensed Commissioner. " You
will leave this at once. Order your horse, and begone
within this half-hour, or I will have you put in charge of a
guard of police. Return to your station, and there await
the orders of Government, to whom I will refer your
conduct and your language without delay."
At this moment Shafto, returning towards Gurhi Moofsid
from his pursuit after the despoilers of Cheetun Shah's barns,
rode up to the spot where they were standing, not a little
amazed to see the usually calm Commissioner in a transport
of anger, and his gaunt, lantern-jawed, and half-naked
opponent, with flashing eyes and quivering nostrils, glaring
at him, more like an incensed Paladin than a humble
apothecary.
"Shafto," said Mr. Steel, "you will be good enough
to accompany Mr. Brandling to Diknugger. You will see,
if you please, that he leaves the Moofsid country without
delay. Never mind Cheetun Shah's case; Captain Baytree
will take up that inquiry himself."
Brandling turned scornfully away.
" Don't be afraid, sir," he said; " I will hasten to leave
not only this place, but this service too, in which a man fails
DR. BRANDLINGS ESCAPADES.
in his duty if he refuses to connive at villany and oppression
or resents wanton aspersions on his honour."
The two combatants then parted, and each went his
own way. And it was hard to say which was the more
disagreeable companion to the two innocent persons whose
ill-luck condemned them to their company for the rest of
that day. The Commissioner, it is true, speedily brought
his habitual self-control to bear, and was calm and com¬
posed as usual long before he rejoined Captain Baytree at
Gurhi Moofsid. But what his ill-humour lost in violence it
seemed to gain in intensity. Baytree endured such a casti-
gation that day as even penetrated through his thick skin.
Shafto also found Brandling anything but an amiable
companion during their long day's ride. He spoke scarcely
at all, but rode along in moody silence, the workings of his
face, every now and again, showing that the tempest of
wrath was still raging beneath the surface. Once, when
Shafto was more than usually pertinacious in endeavouring
to engage him in conversation, he broke out with an angry
and, as Shafto thought, somewhat overbearing reply. He
had always been eccentric; and the truth probably was
that his long vigil and fast, and tension of nerves, had a
little unhinged his mind. Shafto, however, saw no reason
why he should continue to be the butt of his spleen. So he
made an excuse of wishing to inspect a certain police post,
and leaving Brandling to follow the direct road to Diknugger,
turned off and took a more circuitous route.
The distance between Gurhi Moofsid and Diknugger
was over forty miles, a long day's journey for a single horse
ridden, however carefully, by a heavy man. So Brandling
halted for the night at a rest-house which stood about
fifteen miles from the latter place. But Shafto, eager to
reach the station, where Grace Hawthorn was, borrowed
fresh nags from the police-officers at the stations which he
passed on his way, and pushed on, intending to reach
Diknugger that night.
Meantime-Brandling had turned in to bed in the little
z$2 ' CURRENT REPENTANCE.
roadside bungalow even before daylight had faded, and,
utterly tired out, slept heavily till about two o'clock in the
morning. When he awoke, and recalled to mind the
occurrences of the preceding day, his perturbation of mind
returned and prevented his sleeping again. He arose and
walked up and down the little room, which was faintly
lighted by the half-moon. It was evident that morning
reflection had, as it is wont to do, brought some misgiving
as to the perfect propriety of all that he had said and done
the day before; for he now and again muttered half aloud
such reassuring sentences as, " It was impossible for me to
remain after what had been said. God knows, I held my
post of duty as long as I could without dishonour."
He had been striding about for nearly an hour, and had
just repeated this, or some similar phrase, for the third or
fourth time, pausing in his walk at the end of the room
furthest from the window as he did so, and pressing his
hand to his brow, as though the formula was by no means
all-potent to dispel the doubts of his conscience. " Yes, I
am sure I was right," he added defiantly. And as though
to prove to himself how completely satisfied his mind then
was, he turned sharply round and resumed his walk with
quite a brisk step. .But ere he had advanced more than
half across the little room, he came again to a dead stop.
An ashy pallor overspread his face, and an unspeakable
horror seemed to take hold of him. What was the cause?
There, just outside the window facing him, in the moon¬
light which streamed down on the pillars of the verandah,
there leant—or at least to his vision there seemed to lean—
against one of those pillars the form of a woman, drooping
and pale—pale as the cold moonlight in which it was
bathed.
"Great Heaven I" he ejaculated, and fell upon his
knees and hid his face in his hands. For a few moments
he remained so. Then slowly rising, and seeming to over¬
come his horror by a great effort, he turned his face again
towards the window. The figure was gone.
DR. BRANDLING'S ESCAPADES.
253
He hurriedly put on his clothes and went outside.
There was no sign of any woman or of any other human
being except his own servant rolled up in a blanket in
the corner of the verandah, and snoring sonorously. He
walked over to the police-station, and inquired whether
any mem-sahib had passed. For this bungalow was situ¬
ated at the point where the road to Gurhi Moofsid branched
off from the great military road that, passing through Dik-
nugger, connected the large cantonment of Beshuckabad
with the hardly less important garrison station of Rungroot-
pore, and European travellers between the two occasionally
passed along by dooly dawk. But none such had been
seen by the sentry at the police-station gate that night.
" Assuredly," said Brandling to himself, in an awestruck
whisper, " it was a vision. She came to warn me, when I
was in the act of withdrawing my hand from the plough.
O, my God! how pale, how ghastly pale ! But let me
be up and doing. Here, sentry, tell them to saddle my
mare at once. Yes; I will go back to my work, back
amongst my fever patients. Would that it were in Heaven's
merciful will that my labours in that hospital and my anguish
in this world might be ended together by— But no ! No
vain, unmanly repinings ! The Commissioner shall let me
go back to the work. I will grovel in the mire before him;
ay, and before Bay tree too. No form of apology, no ex¬
treme of self-abasement shall be too humiliating to be left
utitried to gain my point. Soh, my poor old lady," he
added, speaking to the mare which was led out from the
stable-yard ready saddled, " it is hard on you, who never
lost your temper nor shirked your work, to have all that
weary trudge back again."
Then mounting, he set his face again towards Gurhi
Moofsid. It certainly did seem as if the strain on his
bodily and mental powers had somewhat disturbed his wits.
CHAPTER XVI.
two robust courtships come to an untimely death, one
having caught cold at the funeral of the other,
Other persons in whom we are interested were more or
less wakeful on this busy night. Ravensmore, huffed at
Grace's persistent coldness towards him ever since the day
of the shooting-party, left Mrs. Steel's drawing-room tent
at Diknugger early after dinner. The ladies themselves
retired to their respective sleeping-apartments not long after
—long enough, however, for Mrs. Steel and Grace Haw¬
thorn to have had a battle-royal in the mean time. Mrs.
Steel had said things which cut the poor girl's feelings
deeply. But Grace could console herself now with the
glorious thought that this would not be for long; that
soon she would have a strong and loving arm around her
to shield her from Mrs. Steel's insults, and from all other
harm whatever. She had not yet told any one of her en¬
gagement. Shafto's sudden departure, and Mr. Steel's own
so soon afterwards, had prevented her. But she hoped to
obtain her guardian's consent the moment he returned; and
once that was done, she would feel secure under her future
husband's protection.
Nevertheless she felt Mrs. Steel's cruel words and coarse
insinuations keenly, and she cried bitterly as soon as she
got safe within her own tent, and could do so without
affording her tormentor cause for triumph. Bitter tears,
and perhaps angry thoughts, kept her long awake after she
had laid her head upon the pillow. And when at last
she fell asleep, it was to dream troubled dreams, in which
Mrs. Steel seemed somehow mixed up, as a malignant fiend,
with the tragic story of her mother's fate. She was suddenly
aroused by a shake, and, opening her eyes, saw Mrs. Steel
bending over her. Only half awake, and scarcely knowing
whether she was even yet dreaming, or whether her previous
dreams were not in fact reality, she was quite scared by
TWO ROBUST COURTSHIPS. 255
Mrs. Steel's appearance. The fat and usually peony-hued
face and neck were ghastly pale, and she gasped and
shivered as if in an ague fit.
" Get up, Grace," she said, in a hoarse, unnatural
whisper.
"What is the matter? Are you ill, Mrs. Steel?" ex¬
claimed Grace, springing out of bed.
" Bella—Bella!" was the reply. Mrs. Steel seemed not
to be able to gasp out more.
"Is Bella ill?" asked Grace, in great agitation.
" She is gone—gone," replied the hoarse whisper.
" Gone ? What do you mean ?"
" She has run away—fled from her father's house with
that villain."
" Impossible. I can't believe it. How do you know ?
why do you think so ?"
Mrs. Steel handed her a letter, the envelope of which
had been torn open. Grace read it in utter dismay. It
was in Bella's writing, and addressed to her mother. It
was in the approved style of such letters left behind them
by eloping young ladies in novels, with the kindly and
dutiful intention of reassuring their parents. After a deal
of balderdash about love, and constancy, and cruelty, and
what not, it conveyed the practical information that the
thoughtful and delicate Rattley had made all arrangements
—including, as it was to be presumed, the license, the
parson, and the clerk to give her away—for their being
married at eight o'clock the next morning.
"It will kill her father," said Mrs. Steel, wringing her
hands in agony. " His only child ! The only one whom
Heaven left to us ! Ah, the others were taken from me for
my sin; but I—both of us—believed that this one was
spared in mercy. Little, little did we think, when we
thanked God for her life, that it was preserved only to
make our punishment ten thousand times more bitter. O
George ! O my husband ! He will die beneath this
blow. Grace Hawthorn, if you have a heart capable of
256
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
common gratitude, save your benefactor's child—save his
gray hairs from being brought with dishonour to the grave!"
Grace, we may be sure, needed no such exhortation.
But at first she was as distracted and helpless as Mrs. Steel
herself. But after a time she collected her wits and began
to think what could be done. It would probably have been
easy enough to overtake the fugitives long before they could
reach any place where they could possibly be married—that
is, either Beshuckabad or Rungrootpore. They had proba¬
bly counted upon getting full seven or eight hours' start,
not supposing that Bella's absence would be discovered till
the morning. It was mere chance which had taken Mrs.
Steel into her daughter's tent about one o'clock. And as it
was most unlikely that Bella would have ventured to leave
the camp until the servants had all retired to rest, it was
probable that she had not been gone more than an hour,
or an hour and a half at most, when her mother discovered
her flight. So to merely intercept and bring her back
seemed to both ladies a small matter. But the great pro¬
blem "was to do so in such a manner that her elopement
should not be known to all the world—above all, that her
father should never hear a whisper of it.
After a few moments' anxious thought, Grace said,
"There is only one person whom we can trust to—Mr.
Ravensmore. Let him take Captain Bay tree's dog-cart and
follow them."
" But by which road ? who knows which way they have
gone ? And if we make inquiries, her flight will become
known at once."
"I think there can be no doubt," replied Grace, " that
they have gone to Rungrootpore. It is quite impossible
that this man can have arranged for the marriage at our own
station."
" But she will not return for Charles Ravensmore," again
objected Mrs. Steel.
" No ; you must go with him," answered Grace.
But even in the extremity of her distress Mrs. Steel
TWO ROBUST COURTSHIPS.
could not be induced to do this. She pleaded, and not
without much truth, that she was so upset and prostrated by
her discovery that she was physically unfit for the exertion
whick Grace proposed. Grace tried to overcome her ob¬
jections, but in vain. Then she remained silent for a little,
and, from the intense look of thought which her face wore,
she seemed to be engaged in a hard struggle in her own
mind. It was soon over.
" Then I will go with him," she said.
The preparations for the pursuit were quickly made.
Grace scribbled a note to Ravensmore, which Mrs. Steel
gave to the police sentry who was on guard at the camp, to
carry to the young man's tent. Then when Grace was
dressed, Mrs. Steel called the sentry away on some pretence
to enable Grace to pass out unseen, and she walked along
the Rungrootpore road until overtaken by Ravensmore in
the-dog-cart. It is unnecessary to follow her further. They
drove many miles, and Ravensmore made cautious inquiries
in sundry villages; but without success, and they returned
to Diknugger just as morning dawned. As Grace walked
into the camp, and took leave of the young gentleman, who
accompanied her to the door of her tent, no doubt the
servants, who were just beginning to be astir, wondered what
had made the Miss Sahib suddenly take to such very early
hours.
Now, the fact was, that Grace's reasoning regarding the
road which the fugitives would take was only sound up to
a certain point. Supposing their object to be to get mar¬
ried without Bella's parents' consent, there would certainly
be. fewer difficulties in their way at Rungrootpore, where
they were not known, than at Btfshuckabad, of which the
chaplain was Mr. Steel's intimate friend. But only one of
the couple had any such vain hope or intention. Mr. Rat-
tley Trapton was much too practical a man of the world to
really attempt so mad an enterprise as inducing the chaplain
of an up-country station to marry him out of hand to a girl
of eighteen. Besides which, even had he thought this
s
258
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
feasible, it would not have suited his purpose. If he suc¬
ceeded in marrying Bella, and thus put the affair beyond all
further hope or fear of being made better or worse, the
probability was that her father would cut her off mth a
pice; and the possession of the hand of a bonny but tocher-
less lass was by no manner of means the object of the
prudent Rattley's devices. No, he had a much more sen¬
sible plan. It was to completely compromise Bella, but to
do this so cautiously that it should rest entirely in his own
hands whether the matter should be proclaimed or hushed
up. With this alternative he would go boldly to Mr. Steel
and demand what price he was willing to pay. Whether the
person of the fair and deluded Bella should form a part of—
perhaps it would be more correct to say a drawback on—the
said price, he was indifferent.
Soon after midnight Bella—disguised in a suit of her
papa's clothes, shooting-coat, riding-breeches, and gaiters,
which she had managed to secretly abstract-from his port¬
manteau the day before, and had " taken in" here and
there to reduce them to such dimensions as might pass by
moonlight as a tolerable fit for her, and carrying in her hand
a bundle containing habiliments better adapted for her pro¬
posed appearance in Rungrootpore Church that morning—
stole like a modern Jessica from her tent. The sentry was
mildly surprised to see the Commissioner Sahib, whom he
had supposed to be at Gurhi Moofsid, walking about the
camp; but of course never dreamed of challenging him.
So she got safely away without exciting alarm or suspicion,
and soon reached the appointed trysting-place outside the
station, where Trapton was waiting with the horses. Here
the first unpleasant reality protruded itself through the
golden haze of romance, in which the whole adventure had
been enveloped in her anticipations. The horse prepared
for her had a man's saddle; to have put a side-saddle on,
Trapton said, would have been sure to excite attention.
Now, Bella was not a first-rate, nor by any means a bold,
rider at best, and she soon found the unaccustomed seat
TWO ROBUST COURTSHIPS. 259
f
very trying. Indeed, so little real hardihood had Bella to
carry her through the enterprise which she had so lightly
undertaken, that before they had gone far Trapton saw with
alarm that this trivial inconvenience was very likely to in¬
duce her to turn back. That, at least, he thought, must be
put out of her power. So, suddenly declaring that he heard
the sound of horses galloping after them, he seized her
bridle-rein, and calling out to her to sit close, turned from
the road and dashed at full speed across country. After
galloping a couple of miles or so, he at last yielded to Bella's
entreaties and drew rein. Indeed, his object was gained ;
he knew now that it would be impossible for her to find her
way back to Diknugger in the dark, so he was content to
make the whole of the remainder of the journey, if she so.
wished it, at a walk.
Trapton knew the country well, being a great sportsman,
and having frequently shot over most parts of the Dik¬
nugger district. And whilst he told Bella that they were
going along parallel with the Rungrootpore road, but only
keeping some distance from it to avoid pursuit, he was, as
a matter of fact, leading her straight across towards Gurhi
Moofsid.
They had been several hours on their journey, and Bella,
thoroughly tired, had plaintively moaned for the tenth time,
''Are we not near Rungrootpore yet T' when Trapton thought
the time had come when he might put an end to uncertainty
and reveal his real plans.
"Rungrootpore, you foolish girl !" he answered, with a
laugh. " Do you know how far Rungrootpore is off? Some¬
where between seventy and eighty miles. But don't be
discouraged, ma belle; we are within ten minutes' ride of
our journey's end."
" What do you mean ? Where are you taking me to,
then ?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I forget the name of the
place; but I know it well. It is a very snug little rest-
house—like all those in Baytree's district, blessings on his
260
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
head !—where I have spent many a jolly night and day
when out here shooting, but none so pleasant as those I
look forward to now. It is the half-way house between
Diknugger and Gurhi Moofsid. There is another bungalow
nearer to the former place, where we might have halted, and
so saved you some fatigue ; but it is unfortunately on the
Rungrootpore road, along which the pursuers were likely to
go, so it would hardly have suited our purpose."
" I will not go to any house—I will go nowhere but to
the church at Rungrootpore," cried "Bella, checking her horse.
Trapton shrugged his shoulders, and a smile of intense
amusement beamed over his handsome countenance.
"Wretch! perjured villain! heartless fiend! you have
betrayed me!" broke out Bella, now thoroughly compre¬
hending the trap into which she had fallen. And then
followed a torrent of impassioned, scarce coherent denun¬
ciation of his treachery, mingled with bitterly penitential
curses on her own folly and wickedness.
Trapton listened to both equally placidly.
" Well," he said good-naturedly, when her outburst had
spent its first force, and she paused to sob, "as you don't
seem anxious for my company at the bungalow, I will not
force it upon you. You shall have the house to yourself.
I will leave you there in charge of my old bearer, Botul—a
most respectable old cove, who is even now waiting our
arrival—and I will push on at once to Gurhi Moofsid, and
announce to your venerated papa that you have arrived so
far on the journey of life, which we propose to travel hence¬
forth together."
The image of her father's wrath, so closely imminent,
thus called up in Bella's mind, was all that was needed to
complete her utter desperation. Of course she had known
that this would have to be encountered sooner or later; but
she had always looked for it " later," and she was (morally)
near-sighted. Events close at hand her imagination pic¬
tured very distinctly, but those only a little way off in the
future made but a blurred and hazy impression on her
TWO ROBUST COURTSHIPS.
261
mind's eye. The idea of her father being actually within a
few miles, and about to hear of her escapade within an hour
or two, gave her a terrible shock. Escape might be utterly
hopeless, but flight was now none the less an irresistible
impulse. Without a word of warning she turned her horse,
and, careless now alike of the uneasiness and precarious-
ness of her unaccustomed seat, gave it the rein and struck
it with her whip with all l^e force which terror and despair
could lend to her arm. With a tremendous bound, which
would assuredly have left her behind had she not grasped
the streaming mane just in time, the animal answered the
unexpected call, and flew wildly into the night. Before
Trapton could recover from his surprise, horse and rider
were almost out of sight, for the moon was nearly set, and
the night growing quickly dark. He was soon, however, in
full gallop behind her. It was an exciting race to him as
well as to her. That she could save herself he knew was
impossible, as she could not find her way home. But she
might, nevertheless, ruin his carefully-devised scheme. Un¬
less he could overtake her, all hope of keeping the night's
adventure hushed up would soon be gone, and with it his
only means of driving a bargain with Mr. Steel. Nay,
unless she could be stopped before the whole country-side
was aroused, the wisest course for Rattley Trapton to take,
in the very critical condition in which his affairs—financial,
professional, and domestic—then happened to be, would be
to make the best of his way to Bombay, or other convenient
seaport, and thence to Polynesia. So he strained every
nerve to catch her up before she should go clattering
through the next village, which he knew could not be more
than a mile or two distant. But Bella was as well mounted
as he was, her weight was much lighter, and she continued
to urge her horse forward with reckless fury, still gallantly
grasping the mane the while, though Trapton was not near
enough to observe that detail.
But suddenly he saw Bella stop. There was a clump of
trees, which cast a dense shadow across the road, and she
262
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
had pulled up just short of it. Perhaps the horse had shied
at the shadow, or there might be some obstacle which the
shadow prevented his being able to distinguish. In either
case the opportunity was not to be lost, and before she
could get her full speed up again he might be upon her.
He was only a hundred yards behind. She had paused in
the moonlight, where he could see her clearly, only for a
moment or two, and had then ]»assed on within the gloom
under the trees. Whether she was still standing there, or
had galloped onward again, he could not make out. But
when he got within forty or fifty yards of the spot, to his
intense joy and triumph he saw her emerge again, and ride
slowly back towards him.
"A pretty race you have given me, you little vixen !"
he called out laughingly, as he slackened his speed within a
short distance from her. " But I'll take deuced good care
you sha'n't lead me such another till I have you safely
stowed in old Botul's keeping."
" You ruffian ! /will take good care of that. You shall
presently receive at my hands a prize for winning the race
you speak of that shall make you never wish to ride such
another to the longest day you live !"
Such was the reply that Trapton received, and that cer¬
tainly took him very considerably aback. But it was not
spoken in Miss Steel's soprano tones, but in a very decided
broad-chested baritone. And Trapton, on looking more
closely at the speaker, observed, indeed, that he bore a very
small resemblance to his late companion, whom he had too
carelessly taken it for granted that it must be, never dream¬
ing of the likelihood of another person appearing on the
scene. He could now, however, see Bella and her steed
standing, both panting for breath and trembling with excite¬
ment, under the trees; and the person who was advancing
towards him, with a sufficiently threatening air, soon joined
in the rencontre, being no other than Dr. Brandling,
who, as we know, was at this time also journeying towards
Gurhi Moofsid.
TIVO ROBUST COURTSHIPS.
263
Bella, on meeting Brandling, had implored his protec¬
tion. The doctor, in the dim moonlight and the hurry of
the moment, might have had some.difficulty in understand¬
ing either her sex or her situation, but that the first point
was made clear by the accident of her long fair hair having
fallen loose during her wild gallop, and streaming far behind
her like the tail of a comet as she dashed up to him. As
to what had brought a beautiful girl to such a place, at such
a time, and in such a disguise, that was a more complicated
question, but one, the chivalrous doctor thought, which
might wait for elucidation at more leisure. It was enough
that she cried out, " If you are a man, protect me.from this
villain. He has lured me here by lies and the basest trea¬
chery, and now he seeks my ruin."
Brandling, sufficiently pugnacious, as we know, and only
too ready to lay proud oppressors low, never hesitated 21
moment, but advanced to oppose Trapton, as above de¬
scribed. The baffled Rattley's rage knew no bounds when
he discovered his mistake.
" By !" he shouted, "I will not be baulked. That
little idiot has ruined the plan that would have left her
honour safe, and now she may rue the consequences. As
for you, whoever you are, pass on in the devil's name, if you
value a whole skull. I am not in a mood to be trifled with.
And," he added, scanning the stranger from head to foot,
"I am twice as heavy as you, half your age, and have"—
shaking a heavily-loaded hunting-crop—" this little ally to
help me, and I promise you I will use all three advantages
to the full without compunction."
Brandling's reply to this menace consisted in pushing
his horse violently against Trapton, who aimed a down¬
right blow at his head with the whip, but it fell only on
his shoulder. The next moment the doctor was grap¬
pling with the hussar, who, before many seconds passed,
proved himself the worse cavalry soldier of the two by roll¬
ing ignominiously from his saddle. The victorious Brand¬
ling, like the heroic knights in Scott's novels, was off his
264
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
own steed in a twinkling, and prepared to renew the combat
on foot. But Trapton was at heart a cur; and finding that,
contrary to appearances, he was not greatly superior to his
opponent in strength, he' declined the challenge. The
doctor then, seizing him by the collar, dragged him to
where Bella stood, an admiring witness of the affray, and
called upon both for an explanation of the remarkable cir¬
cumstances in which he found them. He listened to as
much as they respectively thought fit to give; and warning
Trapton, as he loved his life, never to dare to breathe a
word of that night's doings to a living soul, he then mounted
his nag, and set out to escort Miss Steel on her long and
weary ride back to Diknugger.
They got back before daylight, and the doctor con¬
trived to smugggle Bella into her mother's tent unseen.
And then, having consigned his interesting young charge to
the maternal arms, retired to his own modest lodging, to
seek what repose he might after the varied fatigues and
agitations of the past day and night.
And now we must return to Shafto, whom we left making
his way towards Diknugger many hours ago. He should
have reached home before even Bella set out on her unlucky
expedition. But accidents will happen, and some accident
had delayed Shafto. I must doubtless have been told at
some time or other what it was ; but if so, I quite forget. Nor
can it be of the smallest consequence to the reader to know.
It is sufficient that, from one cause or another, the gong at the
gaol guard was just beating seven o'clock in the morning when
Shafto, very sleepy after his night ride, and indeed occa¬
sionally nodding in his saddle, passed it on his way home¬
wards. The road by which he had entered the station led
him through the " Government" garden, beyond the further
hedge of which ran that road which led to Rungrootpore.
As he passed out through the garden gate on to this latter
road, the Commissioner's tents stood on an open piece of
ground about a hundred yards to his left; Captain Baytree's
house was about half that distance on his right; the path
TWO ROBUST COURTSHIPS. 265
lo his own humble quarters lay right before him. As he
crossed the road he looked first to the right, and saw with
some surprise Captain Baytree's dog-cart and horse being
led towards the stable. The man who was leading the horse
was on the far side of the animal, and Shafto did not there¬
fore perceive, what doubtless would not have lessened his
surprise, that it was not a syce, but the conceited Under-
Secretary to the Government of the Mfi Bap Provinces who
performed this menial office. However, he was too sleepy
to speculate as to what or who had taken the Deputy-Com¬
missioner's trap out at that early hour. Then he looked
down the road the other way, and all at once became very
wide awake, for there was Grace Hawthorn, wrapped in a
great fur cloak, tripping along towards the camp. He was
beside her in a moment, and off his horse. She welcomed
him with an exclamation of surprise and delight. The blush
and the smile which sprang spontaneously to her face in
the first moment of their unexpected meeting, when she
was taken quite unawares, bore the stamp of genuineness in
every tint and every dimple, and should have convinced
anybody, who had eyes to see, of the girl's transparent
honesty, whatever suspicious circumstances might afterwards
turn up to muddy the waters. But unfortunately that fami¬
liar demon of Shafto's, of which I have before made mention,
sometimes blindfolded him so that he could not see the
plainest truths just before his nose,
They had not exchanged many words before Miss Haw¬
thorn's manner underwent a palpable change. She became
embarrassed, distraite, and evidently anxious to escape into
her tent. When it is remembered that she did not yet
know of Bella's return, this may easily be accounted for.
"What has brought you out so early?" asked Shafto.
"To meet you, of course," she answered, laughing.
"Why, how did you know I was coming?"
" O, is there not," replied Grace, " a magic wire of sym¬
pathy which telegraphs to the heart the news that somebody
very dear is approaching ?"
266
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
" The electric fluid seems only good at a distance, then,''
said Shafto ; " for you had apparently given me up and
turned back when I was within a few yards of you. But,
without chaff, tell me where you have been."
" I can't just now. I must get in. There ! make haste
home, and come over again a little before nine. I may
have some distressing news to tell you, I fear."
" What is it ? Tell me now."
" I can't. You must have patience. It will be a whole¬
some exercise."
And she vanished within Mrs. Steel's tent. Shafto turned
homewards, and as he walked back along the Rungrootpore
road, whom should he meet but Ravensmore. " Ah !" he
muttered to himself, after he had passed the young secretary
with a scowl that was much more perceptible than the nod
which accompanied it, "there is another early riser in the
camp, I see, besides Grace."
At nine, o'clock, according to appointment, Shafto was
again at the camp, and found Grace seated under a tree
some little distance from the tents, reading.
" And now," he said, " I want to know in plain terms
what you were doing out so early this morning."
" In plain terms, then, I was taking a walk," Grace
answered, telling, I am afraid, not exactly a fib, but an
infinitesimal portion of the truth.
"Alone?" Shafto inquired.
" You can answer that question, I think, for yourself,
Mr. Grand Inquisitor."
"Yes," said Shafto very gravely, "I am afraid I can.
Nevertheless, I must ask you to answer it too, Miss Haw¬
thorn."
" Miss Hawthorn !" exclaimed Grace, first flushing and
then growing pale. Poor girl ! She saw plainly now that all
hope of evasion was gone, and that the great sacrifice was
to be required of her—the sacrifice of her life's happiness
on the altar of gratitude. " Mis§ Hawthorn ! Why do you
speak like this ?"
TWO ROBUST COURTSHIPS.
267
" Was your companion this morning Mr. Ravensmore?"
demanded Shafto sternly. " Why don't you answer ? But
your silence and your shamefaced look are a sufficient
confession."
" I have no confession to make, Mr. Shafto," replied
Grace, lifting her head proudly. " But why should I call
you so, when I have a right, which I have done nothing to
forfeit, to use another name ? I repeat, I have nothing to
confess—fackT
" Then if it is not to be a confession, perhaps you will
favour me at any rate with an explanation
" I cannot do that either," answered Grace sadly. " I
was out with Mr. Ravensmore this morning. We were en¬
gaged together in a matter of deep concern to other persons,
of none to ourselves. I cannot tell even you what it was.
It is a secret so deeply affecting another. And indeed I
have made a solemn promise never to breathe it to any
living soul. After our marriage, Jack, it might be my duty
to tell you, but I dare not before, even—even if—whatever
my silence may cost me."
" Do you expect me to believe this ?"
" I swear before Heaven that it is true, and that I have
been faithful to my promise to you, as I ever will be, in
thought, word, and deed."
" Dare you tell me, upon your oath, that no word of
love passed between you and Ravensmore this morning?"
Grace blushed deeply. She dared not; for indeed
Ravensmore had taken advantage of the situation to make
desperate love to her during their drive back, and had not
desisted even when she had, in self-defence, told him of
her engagement to Shafto.
" I can only tell the truth," she said. " I was compelled
by the necessity of the emergency, which was the cause
of your meeting me out so early this morning, to be in Mr.
Ravensmore's company for some time. I could not prevent
him saying what he chose. But I swear, by all that I hold
most holy, that not a word passed my lips which I should
268
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
" Protestations are easily made, Miss Hawthorn. A
woman who breaks troth with a man will not hesitate to
deceive him with false oaths. Breach of troth is what I charge
—what manifest appearances have given me every right to
charge—you with. And something more substantial than
oaths and protestations are required to disprove the charge."
"The charge I reject with scorn," exclaimed Grace,
with flashing eyes; " and I retort it upon you. It is you
who have broken troth. You professed to love me, and
now you assail me with foul suspicions, which are utterly
incompatible with love."
" If the suspicions are groundless, they are easily refuted,
by simply speaking out the truth," answered Shafto. "As
for any promise of secrecy you may have made, it is simply
absurd to pretend to urge it. When my happiness is at
stake,—nay, that is comparatively a trifle; when my faith
in woman, in truth itself, is in jeopardy,—you have no
right to plead paltry promises of secrecy."
But Grace remained firm in her resolve to be silent. It
would be a nice problem in casuistry to decide whether she
was right or wrong. Probably the first impulse of every¬
body will be to say, "Wrong;" she had no right to wreck
her lover's happiness, to say nothing of her own, for such a
mere scruple as keeping, to the very letter, her promise
made to Mrs. Steel and Bella. But there is something to
be said on the other side. If the issue for herself and
Shafto involved happiness, the issue for Bella involved
what was more important still, her honour and fair name.
Was Grace justified in voluntarily giving these over to the
keeping of any man, however much she herself might rely
on his discretion and trustworthiness ? When Shafto
should become her husband, it would doubtless be right
that she should keep no secret from him, whether her own
or those of others. But this very dispute in which they
were engaged might remind her of the possibility that he
might never marry her. And in that case what would be
Bella's position, with the dearest secret of her life intrusted
TWO ROBUST COURTSHIPS. 269
to one who had become altogether estranged from them ?
It was true that three persons outside the family already
knew it-—more was the pity !—but that had been unavoid¬
able, and made it still more imperatively necessary that the
circle should on no consideration be widened. For myself,
I am inclined to think that Grace did right. At all events,
she acted on a good broad principle, which, if steadily
followed, may indeed lead one into error, but it will
assuredly be an error, as the phrase is, " on the right side."
If in doubt between two courses, each of which must
involve injury—one to yourself amongst others, the other
to somebody else only—choose the former.
I will not pursue the dialogue between Shafto and
Grace further; it would not tend to edification. One
reproach led to another, and bitterness arose from the
very torture of the wounds which each cutting remark made
in the soul of the one who uttered it.
" Each spoke words of high disdain
And insult."
Shafto was, I must acknowledge, so unmanly as to give
expression to the suspicion which had crossed his mind
when Mrs. Steel had made that proposal regarding the "few
thousand rupees." This insult was too much for Grace.
" Thank you, thank you for saying this at last," she said.
"But O, how I wish you had done so before ! It would
have saved me the pain and humiliation of this long con¬
versation. And so, sir, you proposed to take to yourself
a wife of whom you thought so meanly, that at the mere
suggestion of your own fancy you concluded that she might
have been an accomplice in a base and sordid conspiracy.
I may indeed congratulate myself on the fortunate accident
which has enlightened me regarding Mr. Shafto's notions
of th$ sort of woman who is fit to become his wife. I am
certainly not such a one !"
She stalked away very disdainfully, and left poor Shafto
(truth to say) not knowing exacdy what to think. He too
presently turned away and walked home, far from satisfied
2 7 o CURRENT REPENT A NCE.
with himself. Of course the assertion which he kept repeat¬
ing over and over again to his own heart, that after what he
had seen he could not have done otherwise than he had
done, admitted of no denial. But none the less was he
fully conscious that he should never find another to keep
the said " hollow heart from paining."
As'to Grace, she disappeared inside her tent, where,
whether she incontinently threw herself on her bed and
gave way to a passionate storm of sobs and tears (which,
I believe, is the proper procedure for a young lady under
such circumstances), I cannot say, not having myself re¬
ceived any authentic information on that point. But what¬
ever may have been her behaviour — whether pride or
grief may have got the upper hand in her bosom, where no
doubt they had a hard tussle for it—one thing I feel pretty
sure she did, and that was to take out her mother's letter—
that sacred and talismanic relic—and read it over and kiss
it again for the hundredth time.
CHAPTER XVII.
cressida in the grecian camp.
"She was beloved, she loved ; she is, and doth ;
But, still, sweet love is food for fortune's tooth."
Early in May, Mrs. Steel, with the two young ladies of
her household, took wing for their usual flight to. the hills.
This year she did not go to Simla. Perhaps that incautious
remark about "pretentious vulgarity," which, as reported in
an early chapter, had been conveyed to her from the lips of
Lady Feathertop, who still reigned as queen of the gods on
that Olympus, may have had something to do in deter¬
mining the Commissioner's lady to establish her summer
quarters elsewhere. And the concatenation of circum¬
stances which compelled the Under-Secretary to the Go-
CRESSIDA IN THE GRECIAN CAMP.
vernment of the Ma Bap Provinces to abide with the chief
of his office, and the Secretary in his turn to remain in
attendance on the Lieutenant-Governor, and induced the
Lieutenant-Governor himself to set up his staff at a modest
little mountain retreat situated within his domains, and
rejoicing in the picturesque name of Guppy Tibby, may
possibly have guided the provident matron to her selection
of that particular spot.
There is, as the merest smatterer in physical science
knows, in the air of the Himalayas and the other great
mountain ranges of India, a particular form of ozone, which
is extraordinarily stimulative of the faculties of flirtation.
This marvellous element has the property of transmuting—
perhaps I had better say of electro-plating—everything which
comes within its influence with a gloss of pleasant senti¬
mentality. The very villas and cottages sprinkled about
amongst the pine-trees and ferns on the slopes of an Indian
hill-station always rejoice in poetically suggestive names.
Going along the Mall at Guppy Tibby, for instance, you
would pass a succession of neatly-painted little signboards,
emblazoned with such titles as "Fairy Dell" and "The
Naiads' Well," "Dove Cot" and "Sabrina Grot." Such
designations might excite derision elsewhere, but the soul
of the visitor to the hills becomes gradually attuned to the
feelings in which they have their birth. In the course of
his journey upwards fro A the parched and arid plains, the
soft wooing of the wild-flower carpeted banks, the amorous
languor of the balmy air, the gentle murmurs of the whis¬
pering pines, the warble of the shy, half-hidden waterfall,
which stirs the sweet song-birds to tuneful emulation, all
entrance and enwrap his being. So that the rosy-cheeked
Adonis of the Hussars, although in the cantonment of
Beshuckabad " hunting he loved, and love he laughed to
scorn," and regarded pig-sticking and polo as the only
pursuits worthy of a man, no sooner finds himself at Guppy
Tibby on two months' leave than, instead of mounting hog-
maned steeds to fright the souls of fearful adversaries, he
272
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
capers nimbly in a lady's chamber to the lascivious pleasing
of a lute, or more probably a piano. Even the Orson of the
Settlement Department, wont in the cold season to oam
about the fields in a garb compounded of those of Robinson
Crusoe and the ancient British navvy, when he betakes
himself to the Hills "to write his report," will court an
amorous looking-glass, and strut before an ambling wanton
nymph, like a Record of Rights gone wrong. And not
only the young men are thus infected. The old boys, too,
as they plod their way up the hill on their fat Yarkundi
ponies, are roused to emulation by the fuller crimson of the
robin's breast, and the lively iris changing on the burnished
wing of the jungle cock, or the tail of the painted monal,
which flit across their path by the way, and, smartening
themselves up, they let their vagrant fancies lightly turn to
thoughts of love.
Our two young ladies, notwithstanding the severe blow
which the feelings of each had sustained at the beginning
of the year, were not proof against the subtle influence of
this atmosphere during the long months of summer which
they passed at Guppy Tibby. Bella flirted at large: the
copious fountains -of coquetry within her, which had lately
been pent within a single grim and narrow channel by her
perverse romance with Trapton, now meandered through a
hundred sunny streams.
Grace exercised more self-restraint. But she was by no
means unfeeling in her treatment of the numerous love¬
sick patients who appealed to her for relief. Ravensmore
was not nearly so assiduous in his attentions to her as he
had been at Beshuckabad and Diknugger • the reason of his
comparative neglect being that he was now back at his
work. And a more conscientious workman than the young
Under-Secretary never plodded through a file. Love might
rule the court, the camp, the grove; but in the secretarial
office of the Ma Bap Provinces duty reigned supreme. So
at the rides, the walks, the picnics, the sauntering at the
band-stand, those markets overt of love, where admirers
Cress/da in the Grecian camp. 273
most did congregate, and the briskest traffic of sighs and
whispers and languishing looks was carried on, Charley
Ravensmore was never seen. It was only on Sundays, or
occasionally of a weekday after dinner, that the ladies ever
saw him. Mrs. Steel was rejoiced at this. But she was
wrong. She did not sufficiently consider that there are
things
" Whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much."
Had Ravensmore continued at Guppy Tibby to pester
Grace with his unremitting assiduities, so that she could
scarce get a chance of a word with anybody else, he would
have been "but as the cuckoo is in June"—a nuisance.
But now his attentions " won by rareness much solemnity,''
and he decidedly gained in Grace's opinion by contrast
with the
" Shallow jesters, and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled and soon burned,"
who constantly ambled up and down in her train and
Bella's.
It must be mentioned, however, that Mrs. Steel had
another ground for hoping that Ravensmore's infatuation
for Miss Hawthorn was over. For since Bella had had her
eyes opened by Trapton's villainy, she had shown a decided
disposition to look with favour on Charles Ravensmore.
And on the occasions of his visits to their house she made
a point of monopolising him, and would hardly allow him
to go near Grace. Nor did Charles appear to struggle
against this manner of being disposed of. But there was a
circumstance which Mrs. Steel did not know of, which, had
she done so, would doubtless have made her view the
matter in a very much less roseate light.
It will be remembered that a certain Mrs. Archer, whom
we saw at the tennis-party where Ravensmore made his
first appearance in these pages, was an old friend of his,
and had also a liking for Grace. Indeed, it was she who
had introduced the two young people to each other. Now,
Mrs. Archer was also at Guppy Tibby this year, and was in
T
274 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
the habit of enticing Grace into the pretty drawing-room of
her snug little cottage as often as she could. Mrs. Steel
and her daughter never entered that apartment. As noted
on an earlier page, the former lady did not love Mrs.
Archer. Such being the case, it would have been difficult
for Grace to be much there either, under any other circum¬
stances than those which actually did subsist between Mrs.
Steel and her young guest. But Mrs. Steel's hatred towards
Grace was more virulent than ever. She could seldom
bring herself to speak to her in the privacy of the domestic
circle without actual rudeness, and even in public she was
far from civil. Mr. Steel's absence, while it probably had
much to do with his wife's unrestrained insolence, had at
the same time removed the most potent check on Grace's
temper, which, though good and sweet, was not. quite im¬
perturbable. So, during their stay in the Hills, violent
altercations between these two ladies were far from infre¬
quent, wherein the younger, albeit she had not her senior's
large grasp of the vocabulary of vituperation, and wanted
the advantage of a tongue dipped in venom, nevertheless
dealt back some very downright blows, and thrust occa¬
sionally with point unbated.
It thus fell out that, after a time, Mrs. Steel 2nd Grace
were equally willing to have a short respite from each
other's society as often as they could, and with this excel¬
lent object in view, it became tacitly agreed between them
that the latter was to be allowed to visit Mrs. Archer as
often as she felt inclined, without any objection being made
by the former. But then Mrs. Steel never dreamed for a
moment that Charles Ravensmore contrived, notwithstand¬
ing the exigencies of his official labours, to make occasional
calls at Mrs. Archer's cottage. Indeed, as a matter of fact,
he was much oftener there than at Mrs. Steel's grander
mansion. He would even now and then steal (in the most
dishonest manner) an hour from the very heart and centre
of the working day, to run over for lunch with Mrs. Archer.
When he thus embezzled, as it were, and dissipated on his
CRESSIDA IN THE GRECIAN CAMP.
275
own private pleasures, the time of his employer, the State,
it was generally in obedience to a little three-cornered pink
note, which would be delivered to him not ten minutes
before the hour fixed for lunch to be oti the table. And
when, laying hold of a Famine Commission Report, or
other weighty tome, he laid it down on the scattered papers
over which he had been poring, to keep them in their
places, seized his hat, and ran down the steep short cut to
Mrs. Archer's cottage, it generally so happened that, when
he arrived, he found, by a strange coincidence, Miss Haw¬
thorn had also accepted an invitation from this lady to
stay to tiffin.
" Brownie's Ring," which was the elegant name by which
Mrs. Archer's residence was known, was a pretty many-
gabled house, built of rough-faced stone, and roofed with
shingle. It was delightfully pitched on the gentle slope of
a wooded hillside. From the trellised verandah, about
which the roses clambered, and hung in great clusters and
fantastic festoons, or from the little circle of the brightest
and softest of grass just below, there was a lovely view.
Through a vista of dark cedars one got the most delicious
peep possible of the beautiful profile of the everlasting
snows, traced aerially across the surface of the clear blue
sky—on the left, a sharp sugar-loaf peak, deserving the
epithet both by its shape and colour; then a jagged line,
with countless points protruding from a mass of fathomless
snow-drifts, that have never degenerated into slush since
the days of Noah; and on the right, an undulating sweep of
shining white, hazily merging into the pale-blue ether, as it
stretches far, far away, and is lost in the distance. Between
these mighty frozen mountains, and the more genial range
on which the little pine-girt ring of emerald turf formed a
sunny spot, a huge amphitheatre intervened, along the
bottom of which, two thousand feet down, a glittering river
wound its course between verdant rice-fields and terraces
covered with mellowing barley.
On the other side of the house the primeval foliage had
276
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
never known the axe ; and the profane vulgar, who passed
to and fro along the public road thirty or forty yards
higher up the hill, could only, even by standing on the
wooden rails and peering over the tree-tops with curious
gaze, catch sight at most of a gable-end or the rim of a
chimney-pot. Never was there a bower more sequestered
than the drawing-room of that little cottage and its roseate-
framed verandah. And if the fingers of a young man care¬
lessly laid on the little round table, as he stooped over to
examine the flowers in the Venetian vase, happened to
touch the fingers of a maid which equally carelessly rested
thereon, neither the soul of young man nor maid need have
been disquieted within them by the fear that any malicious
or prudish eye could have witnessed the embarrassing little
accident—unless indeed it might be that of some scandal¬
ised dowager dame ibex browsing on the pastures at the
foot of the snows some eighty miles or so away.
The silent influence of the scene of his meetings with
Grace was a potent ally to Ravensmore. And he also had
another, who, far from being silent, made good use on his
behalf of her tongue, a weapon of admirable point and
temper. Mrs. Archer lost no opportunity of discoursing to
Grace on the varied excellences of Ravensmore's character,
and also of insidiously undermining whatever regretful
memories of her former luckless love might still linger in
the girl's heart.
And Grace listened to her complacently enough. She
would sometimes comment with light ridicule on her
friend's eulogiums when they waxed very enthusiastic; but
Mrs. Archer observed with satisfaction that there was no
drop of the venom of scorn in her playful gibes.
" Dear me !" said Grace one day, when Mrs. Archer had
been dilating on her usual theme, as they sat snug in the
little drawing-room over five-o'clock tea, " if I could
remember half the things you say about Mr. Ravensmore
when I get home, and write them in a letter to Major
Archer, we should have him riding up post-haste from
CRESSIDA IN THE GRECIAN CAMP.
Btishuckabad to look after his domestic peace. Upon my
word, I am not sure it is not my duty to warn him."
" Ah, if I were ten years younger," replied Mrs. Archer,
" I would not answer for myself. But in that case, my dear,
you may be quite sure that you would not have been
admitted within the magic circle of Brownie's Ring, so you
would not have been able to report to my husband."
"Well, you are a zealous advocate," said Grace. "No
one can accuse you of lukewarmness in speaking up for
your friends. I wonder if you find a quarter as many good
things to say about me behind my back ? I fear not."
"To Charles Ravensmore, do you mean?" said Mrs.
Archer. " Certainly not; I abuse you and make fun of you
in every possible way to him, poor fellow ! But —with a
sigh—" it is no good !"
" Come, that is unkind. The abuse I don't so much
mind. But I must say the idea of being made fun of by
you is not one calculated to promote one's peace of mind.
Besides," added Grace, with a merry twinkle in her eye,
" Mr. Ravensmore has such a terribly keen sense of
humour."
" Don't you be so silly as to despise him for that, Grace.
Men with a fine sense of humour are very pleasant to talk
to; but when one comes to have any closer sort of relations
with them, their humours are sometimes apt to break out in
directions that are not at all pleasant. Par cxemple, a little
bird has whispered to me that a certain very humorous
and witty gentleman of Miss Hawthorn's acquaintance not
very long ago exhibited his humorous talents in a manner
far from amiable."
" Excuse me, Mrs. Archer," said Grace, blushing; " as
I believe you never eyen saw the person you allude to, you
can't know much about his humorousness or otherwise.
And as to—"
" O, I need make no secret of my informant," inter¬
rupted Mrs. Archer, seeing the slip she had made in chal¬
lenging Grace to stand up in defence of her old lover, and
278
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
eager to recover it before any harm should be done. " It
was Mr. Ravensmore who told me all about him, and it was
from him I learnt how witty Mr. Shafto is. Poor Charley,
I think, rather fretted at what he thought his own inferiority
in that way—in not having the knack of a light and spark¬
ling way of talking about trifles. But he is perfectly free
from any petty feelings of envy, and instead of sneering at
or trying to detract from his rival's talent in this respect, as
lots of men I know would have done, he allowed it its full
measure of praise—rather more, I daresay, than it quite
deserved—and only seemed to regret that he had not the
same faculty. But he has a thousand others, Grace, which
are worth that ten million times told."
"Yes, I know he has," said Grace, "and I don't like
him a bit the less for being rather staid and serious. There
is so much silly and utterly senseless flippancy in the talk
that most of the young men treat one to, that it is quite a
relief to find one who plainly speaks out what he thinks of
things, without disguising his meaning in slang, or twisting
it about in order to circumvent a laborious joke."'
You are a sensible girl, Grace," said Mrs. Archer
approvingly. " I am afraid I waste a great deal more of my
time than I should with the frivolous. But when I was
your age I was different. Do you know, the object of the
grande passion of my girlhood was not unlike Charley
Ravensmore in that way—and indeed in many other ways,
too. He was a good deal older, though."
" Major Archer, I am sure, is full of fun," observed
Grace, smiling.
" Major Archer !" replied that gallant officer's dutiful
spouse. " Do you suppose that no woman has ever been
in love more than once, or with anybody but her husband ?
All girls with any heart or spirit that I have ever known
form first a most romantic and utterly impracticable attach¬
ment. And when kindly Fate puts the inevitable end to
that, they form another with a not quite so fresh bloom of
romance on it, but infinitely pleasanter, and end—no, they
don't end, they begin—that by marriage. No; my first love,
CRESSIDA IN THE GRECIAN CAMP. 279
Grace, was really a wonderful man. I have certainly never
met any one like him—except, as I say, in some respects,
Charles Ravensmore."
" And did he return your affection ?" asked Grace.
" Return it!" exclaimed Mrs. Archer. " I don't think
he ever so much as guessed I was in love with him, though
I promise you I was lackadaisical enough about it. But his
heart was dead, cold as the grave; Indeed, I feel almost
sure it was actually buried in somebody's grave, though he
never dropped a hint from which one might gather that
such was the case. He was very proud and reserved."
" Is he still living ?"' asked Grace.
" Yes, I believe so, though I have not heard of him for
ages. He got the command of the regiment—our regiment
—when my father retired ; he had joined it as a captain
when the Mutiny broke out, because it was ordered to
India, and he used to go wherever there was fighting going
on. But he did not keep the command more than a month
or two. He suddenly sold out, and went home, I heard, to
live like an anchorite in his ancestral hall. He was a great
man in his own part of the world, of very old family, and
with a tremendous estate. I daresay you may have heard
the name—Campion of Beechly, in shire."
" No, I never heard it," answered Grace carelessly.
" I don't know what there was so fascinating in him,"
Mrs. Archer went on. " He was certainly not handsome,
at least not of the conventional type of handsomeness,
though there was something very striking in his air and
expression that one could not help half admiring, half fear¬
ing. His conversation was not particularly charming.
Indeed, he seldom spoke, and was always grave and
haughty, though excessively polite. And he certainly was
not young; he can't have been less than five-and-thirty
when I first knew him. But I think the peculiar attraction
that he had for me was, that he seemed the personification
of one of my favourite heroes, Lara. He was
' A man of loneliness and mystery,
Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh—'
280
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
though I did hear him once sighing like a furnace, and
raving, and muttering, and striking his forehead with his fist
like a man gone mad ; but then he never dreamt there was
any one who could see or hear him. It was at the Hills—
at Doonga Gully ; our regiment was stationed there at
Rawal Pindi, and we were spending the summer at the
Gullies. Papa used to let me go about in a way which, I
have since thought, was not safe, even in such a quiet
place; and I often used to spend the evening with some
friends, whose house was about a quarter of a mile off, and
walk home by myself quite late at night. One night we
had sat talking and laughing, and I had not remarked how
the time was passing, till to my horror I found it was close
on midnight. I hurried off in a terrible fright. My friends
—they were all women—wanted to send a servant with me.
But that would have been no good. What I was afraid of
was, not of meeting anybody by the way—I never thought
of that—but of the scolding I should get from papa ; and
a servant coming with me could not protect me from that.
So I started off alone. To make matters worse, it was a
wild, stormy night. The wind was moaning and sighing
through the dark pine forest with a most weird and unearthly
sound, and the mists were sweeping up the hillsides in
ghostly shapes, and enveloping me every now and then
in a sort of chilly winding-sheet. It was just the sort of
night to meet something uncanny, and I hurried along the
rough footpath, stumbling over the roots of trees, and
sliding about on the slippery spines of the firs which lay
strewn on the pathway. It was a wonder I did not tumble
over the khud. Well, when I was about half-way, in a
dreadfully wild and lonely bit, where a black mass of
mountain and pine forest overhung the path above, and a
sheer precipice descended I don't know how many hundred
feet below, who should I see within a dozen paces of me
but Major Campion—he was then only a major. I had
heard that he was somewhere in the Gullies. He had had
a bad illness, and the doctors had sent him up after his
CRESSIDA IN THE GRECIAN CAMP.
281
recovery. But I certainly did not count upon meeting him
in such a place and on such a night. Then the attitude he
was in increased my astonishment, and my terror too, for I
can tell you I was in a pretty fright. He was kneeling on
the path, close to the edge, overlooking the precipice, with
his face and his arms both turned up towards heaven. He
seemed to be in a passion of grief and despair. It struck
me at once that he was going'to commit suicide—perhaps
praying against the temptation to do so. Well, my dear, I
never professed to be a heroine ; and on that occasion,
when no doubt I ought to have done something heroic, I
did nothing of the sort, but turned and ran away as hard as
I could, and went home another way. I could not sleep a
bit all night, wondering whether Major Campion's mangled
remains were lying at the foot of the precipice. However,
I need not have disturbed myself, for he had not committed
suicide after all. Well, after that I made up my mind that
he must be haunted by remorse for some dreadful crime,
most likely murder; and, if so, no doubt it was some
woman he had murdered. And I fell ten times deeper in
love with him than I had ever been before."
Grace Hawthorn tried to laugh at this final confession.
But there was something in Mrs. Archer's conjecture which
called to mind the tragic fate of her own mother, and her
laugh was a forced one.
"And Mr. Ravensmore resembles this Lara of yours,
you say," she remarked. "Do you think he too has
killed anybody ? Because I am even less heroically in¬
clined than you are; and, in that case, should decidedly
prefer his directing his attentions to anybody rather than
me."
" I only said they were alike in one respect," answered
Mrs. Archer. " I merely mentioned Major Campion to
illustrate my argument that a man may be silent and grave
in his manner, and not have an at«n of humour in his com¬
position, and yet be very fascinating. Dear me, how I
should like to see Campion again ! When we go home in
282
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
March, I will most certainly unearth him in his lair at
Beechly."
"Are you going home in March next?" asked Grace.
" Yes, my dear, I hope so, if nothing comes in the way.
If my poor dear husband does not in the mean time get
into a horrible muddle with his Commissariat accounts, and
have to stay and be tried by court-martial. He has about
as much knowledge of arithmetic as the learned pig ; and I
have always felt sure that sooner or later his gomashtas and
people will pocket a few laks of rupees under his dear old
nose. And, of course, they will never give poor Nat
credit for his stupidity, but will think him a preternatur-
ally sharp scoundrel, try him for embezzlement, and send
him off to the Andamans, and I shall be left a poor lone
widow."
" Will you take me to England with you?' asked Grace.
" You N said Mrs. Archer, surveying her guest with a
queer look. "So you want to leave India, do you, Grace?"
"Yes; the truth is—I may t&W you, dear Mrs. Archer—
my position in Mrs, Steel's house has become almost un¬
bearable. She says such things to me that, for my life, I
can't help retorting, and using such words as should never
be spoken by me to Mr. Steel's wife. It is very strange;
though my coming out to India was chiefly Mrs. Steel's
doing, she seems to have hated me from the moment we
arrived, and her hatred has gone on increasing ever since.
I am sure I don't know why."
" Dorit you ?" asked Mrs. Archer, who was apt to blurt
out her first thoughts, without much consideration of the
fitness of giving them utterance.
"Don't I?" echoed Grace, in surprise. "Why do you
ask in such a tone ? Do you mean to say you know of any
reason for her dislike to me ?"
" O no, no !" replied Mrs. Archer, reflection coming up
a little behindhand, but i#time to remind her that it would
be scarcely fitting to mention to Grace the charitable infer¬
ences which some of the gossips of Beshuckabad had drawn
CRESSIDA IN THE GRECIAN CAMP.
283
from the negative result of genealogical researches made by
them with a view of tracing a connection, either by con¬
sanguinity or marriage, between Mr. Steel and any family
bearing the patronymic of Hawthorn. " O dear, no! I
am sure I don't understand anybody hating you, Grace, for
you are the dearest and most lovable girl I know. But as
to taking you home with us, I shall be only too delighted,
and so will Nat; that is," she added slyly, "if no other
arrangements are made for you in the mean time."
From the foregoing, the reader will understand that the
barometer of Ravensmore's wooing was going up in the
bracing air of Guppy Tibby, and gave good promise of soon
standing at " set fair." On the other hand, away below at
sultry Diknugger, Shafto's weather-glass was hopelessly
down at zero,
Shafto had not met Grace again after their angry parting
on the morning following Bella's elopement. He had been
again summoned to Gurhi Moofsid on the following day,
and long ere he returned Mr. Steel and his whole party had
left the district. Shafto had bitterly regretted his behaviour
to Grace almost before he got home that morning—nay,
before Grace had vanished from his view behind the curtain
of the tent. Of course all the circumstances of the case
were most suspicious, and fully justified him in all that he
had said and done. Nevertheless he would willingly now
have given his right hand to be able to unsay and undo
them, and would accept Grace's slightest word as a full
assurance of her constancy and truth, even were the evi¬
dences of her falsehood " strong as Holy Writ." But it was
too late now. Grace had cast him off with burning wrath
and withering contempt for his unworthy opinion of her.
He knew, he felt, that that was an offence which she would
never pardon.
He bemoaned his hard lot to Dr. Brandling, between
whom and himself a wondrous confidence had sprung up
since their adventures at Gurhi Moofsid. From the fact
that the doctor was still hi statu quo at Diknugger, it may
284
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
be inferred that he had, though interrupted in his first
endeavour, ultimately carried out his heroic resolution of
eating humble pie before the Commissioner whom he had
outraged. He had done so, and thereby earned an addi¬
tional degree of intensity of dislike on the part of Mr. Steel,
whose repugnance to his insolence was thenceforth mingled
with contempt for his mean spirit. But the Commissioner
was a just man and merciful; and though he felt more than
ever csgerto get rid of Brandling, his conscience would not
allow him to send in to Government the report which must
assuredly ruin the man, after he had cried peccavi and begged
forgiveness. So he delivered a scathing censure from his
own lips, which Brandling listened to with the colour going
and coming in quite an alarming way beneath the tanned
skin of his lean cheeks and furrowed forehead, but with
meek and submissive silence ; and then allowed the whole
matter to pass.
Brandling and Shafto were seated one evening under
the stars, in front of the humble tenement in which each
enjoyed the accommodation of a room. The scorching hot
winds were over, for the rains had set in nearly a month
ago. But they had been insufficient, and the first showers
had been followed by a long " break'' of fine weather. The
consequence was that all the old heat had returned, bringing
with it another devil worse than itself—to wit, steaminess.
Not a breath stirred the sultry air, except such as was made
by the lazy swinging of a large round punkah attached to
the end of a long pole, which a cooly, almost naked and
quite asleep, swayed backwards and forwards behind the
two men. Altogether it was an atmosphere not exhilarat¬
ing, nor calculated to induce a man to make light of past
errors or take a sanguine view of future prospects.
The younger gentleman lay stretched at length on a long
Chinese cane-couch. The elder (such is the way of the
world) sat bolt upright on a stiff-backed chair. Both were
smoking short pipes. Shafto had a glass of whisky and
soda-water poised on one of the arms of his couch. Brand-
CRESSIDA IN THE GRECIAN CAMP. 285
ling had a less inspiriting beverage of lime-juice and water
on a little round table by his side.
The unhappy lover had just ended a full confession of
the tale of his woes, of which he had on several previous
occasions regaled his friend's sympathetic ear with mysteri-
our hints and enigmatic allusions.
" I have tried over and over again to convince myself,"
he concluded, " that I did perfectly right; and, indeed,
when I mentally set forth my own case in plain words, it
seems a strong one—unanswerable, in fact. But not a whit
less do I know in my inmost heart, and acknowledge in the
bitterness of my spirit a thousand times a day, that I have
been a jealous ass—a miserable, suspicious fool,
' One whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.' "
And to drown, as it were, his self-contempt, the remorse¬
ful youth clutched the tumbler, and drank a mighty draught
of the whisky and soda-water.
"You are right, at least, as to the principal circumstance
which aroused your suspicion," was the cold comfort he
received from the doctor. " Chance happens to have made
me acquainted with the cause of Miss Hawthorn and Mr.
Ravensmore being together that night. I am unable to tell
you what it was, for the same reason which kept her silent;
it involves a most delicate secret, in which another person
is concerned. But I can tell you this much, that it was
quite consistent with Miss Hawthorn's perfect honesty and
loyalty of faith to you. From what you tell me of that
which passed between you so shortly before, it would seem
that the girl nobly imperilled her own happiness and cha¬
racter to save those of her—in short, for the sake of others."
" I know it," said Shafto. " What exact combination of
circumstances can have necessitated a meeting by night
with Ravensmore, I own, is a complete puzzle to me, though
I take for granted it was some infernal freak of that mis¬
chievous little devil, the Commissioner's daughter. But I
286
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
do not need your assurance to convince me of Grace's
truth. One might see truth itself in the clear depths of
those glorious eyes as plainly as the pebbles at the bottom
of a mountain brook. But I was a mole, a blind idiot!"
" Self-reproach is profitless," answered Brandling, with
some impatience. " Though the words of your mouth were
like a strong wind, they cannot uproot your past actions.
Why should you storm merely because you have* brought
your loss upon yourself? If man is born to trouble, as the
sparks fly upwards, equally sure it is that trouble springs
not out of the ground. Yours is but the common lot; why
rave about it?"
" And I must grin and bear your rebuke for the same
reason," replied Shafto, not over-pleased with this Shuhite
strain of comfort; " namely, that I have brought it on
myself also, by choosing such an unsympathetic, weather-
beaten old bosom to unburden my sentimental griefs into."
" No, Shafto," answered Brandling gently, and without
resenting the uncomplimentary reference to his pectoral
characteristics. " Believe me, I am not unsympathetic.
And if I spoke harshly, it was because I was thinking less
of your trouble than of— But let that pass. To be practical
—why not take leave, go to Miss Hawthorn, and make up
your quarrel ?"
" O, impossible, Brandling," replied Shafto, in accents
of such profound dejection as might have melted the offended
Grace herself, had she only been able to hear all the way
from Guppy Tibby. " If you had seen the scorn with which
she left me after I had the incredible meanness to utter that
insinuation of her having been bought off from Ravensmore
by Mrs. Steel, you would not suggest such a thing. No, no.
I have lost her for ever."
" Well, you know best," said Brandling. " I have never
even seen the young lady. I suppose she is not much like
her friend Miss Steel, whose wrath, I should think, would
not be of a very implacable kind?"
" Pooh ! as different as an angel from a witch."
CRESS/DA IN THE GRECIAN CAMP.
287
" Then, Shafto, my boy," said the doctor, slapping the
young fellow on the shoulder, " you must take your pun¬
ishment like a man. There are other things ih life than
love and jealousy, thank God ! Let the thought that you
have done ill through selfish distrust, in one crisis of life,
nerve you to self-sacrifice, and warn you against presumptu¬
ous distrust of others, in those that still lie before you. Come,
it is bedtime. We shall not have many more starlight con¬
ferences, Shafto. I sent in my resignation of my appointment
this morning."
" Sent in your resignation !" cried Shafto, in utter amaze¬
ment. "Why, has somebody left you a fortune?"
" No," replied the doctor. " When I give up my
present ' half seer of otta,' as the natives say, I shall have
to shift for my living as I did before I got this appoint¬
ment."
" Then what on earth has induced you to resign ?"
" Why, I daresay you will say I am quixotic. But the
truth is, I can't stand the way the Commissioner and Bay-
tree ill-treat those unhappy Moofsids. And as long as I
remain an officer of the administration I feel myself not
only particeps criminis, but rather the pons et origo of the
oppression."
" How do you mean ?"
" Why, Mr. Steel saw the state of things with his own
eyes, yet he has tried to shut them as much as he could ;
he has minimised both the epidemic and the famine in all
his reports to Government, and has sanctioned aid most
grudgingly."
" I think you are wrong there, doctor," said Shafto.
" Mr. Steel is methodical and cautious. But since his visit
to Gurhi in January, I think he insisted on Bay tree taking
all the measures of relief that Government could be expected
to undertake."
" Shafto, this miserable service is ruining you, too," ex¬
claimed Brandling passionately. " You are becoming as
cold-hearted and callous as Steel himself. For my part, I
288
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
consider that the relief given has been most inadequate.
And I attribute this, in a great measure at least, to pique
on the Commissioner's part against me. It was I who so
obstinately pressed the condition of these people on his
attention, in spite of tf)£ determined opposition of Baytree.
Mr. Steel took deep offence at my demeanour towards him
—justly so, I quite acknowledge; I did not show him the
respect which was his due; my nerves and my temper had
been sorely tried, that is my only excuse. However,
deeply offended he was and is. And that feeling to¬
wards the person whom he unfortunately looks upon as
the champion of the Moofsids has infected his goodwill
towards the Moofsids themselves. So it is my duty to
put an end to this cruel prejudice in the only way I can."
"Pardon me, doctor," said Shafto, "but this really is
sheer phantasy. And are you ready to give up your live¬
lihood on such fanciful grounds ? Think of the bond you
gave to that worthy scoundrel Cheetun Shah. He'll fore¬
close the moment he hears you are out of the service."
" O, I have satisfied Cheetun Shah some time ago; he
was not unreasonable. Then it is not only the general ill-
treatment of these poor Moofsids only. There is now the
particular and most atrocious sentence of transportation
which the Commissioner has passed on the unfortunate
Budmash Khan, after keeping the case hanging off and on
for six or eight months, while Baytree and that sharp scoun¬
drel of an inspector, who was sent to supersede you and
Catcheside in the investigation, were manufacturing the
necessary evidence, I suppose."
"I agree with you about Budmash Khan's conviction,"
said Shafto. " I feel pretty certain the evidence against him
has been trumped up, as you say. And I even venture to
think that, had the accused been any one else than Kum-
bukt Khan's nephew, Mr. Steel, who is clear-sighted enough
when not prejudiced, would have seen through it. But,
after all, to tell you the truth, there is no great harm done.
If Budmash Khan is innocent of sacking old Cheetun
CRESSIDA IN THE GRECIAN CAME.
289
Shah's granaries (which I should look upon as a service to
the commonwealth), he has slipped his neck out of the
noose in a score of cases for which he richly deserved hang¬
ing. But anyhow, your resigning your civil surgeonship is
not likely to help him."
" Perhaps not; but it may," said Brandling. " I intend,
at all events, to leave no stone unturned that I have
strength to lift, in order to have that gross and disgraceful
perversion of justice remedied. And I cannot set about
that task until I am freed from the trammels of service."
All the reply Shafto was capable of making to this last
doughty resolution was to open his eyes to their widest pos¬
sible extent.
"And lastly, and perhaps not least," Brandling resumed
after a pause, " I have been a restless fellow all my life. I
have never been able to settle down at one place or to one
thing for many months at a time. And I have been
chafing at this stagnant, routine, useless life ever since we
broke the back of the typhus at Gurhi Moofsid, and there
was no more excitement to be found in the field hospitals.
Good-night."
" Poor old boy !" said Shafto to himself when Brandling
had retired within his room. " There is assuredly a slate
loose on his roof. But I shall miss him. He is a sterling
fellow and a thorough gentleman—present apothecary and
umquhile Jack Tar and Tommy Atkins though he may be.
Ah, dear me ! I wonder if Grace has accepted that ass
Ravensmore yet? Well, if she has, the beggar deserves it:
he has been true to her, at any rate, and he can't make her
a worse husband than I—weak, poor-souled creature—should
have done."
And with this consolatory reflection he shook the ashes
out of his pipe, gulped down the remainder of his " peg,"
and turned in too.
u
CHAPTER XVIII.
ravensmore proves that there are other slips than
between the cup and the lip.
The relations between Mrs. Steel and Grace Hawthorn
had, as the latter hinted to Mrs. Archer, been rapidly be¬
coming more and more tightly strained ; and Grace's ex¬
perienced ally felt sure that they must soon snap. She was
therefore only mildly surprised one evening, when she had
happened by a rare chance to dine at home and alone, and
was yawning over a novel, at seeing Grace burst into the
room, trembling from head to foot, and with her lips, ordi¬
narily so rosy, as white as paper.
In a voice half choked with agitation, Grace begged her
friend to allow her to remain that night in her house, for
she never again would or could sleep under the same roof
with Mrs. Steel.
"Certainly, my dear," answered Mrs. Archer placidly;
"your bed is all ready. There, sit down and compose your¬
self, my poor child. Drink that," and she poured Grace
out a glass of sherry.
Grace did not drink the wine, but she sat down, and
after a time did compose herself sufficiently to give Mrs.
Archer an incoherent and spasmodic explanation of her
sudden appearance. Mrs. Archer good-naturedly suppressed
whatever curiosity she might have felt on the subject, and
rather urged Grace to be silent. It would be plenty of time,
she said, to tell her all about it in the morning. What
Grace wanted now was to get to bed and have a good sleep.
But Grace was much too upset to profit by, or indeed to
hear, this sound advice. For some time her broken sen¬
tences did not enlighten her hearer very much as to the
particular occasion which had brought matters between
Grace and Mrs. Steel to a climax. All she could gather
was that there had been a grand quarrel, at the root of
which lay, as had not unfrequently happened before, some
words or deeds of that inveterate mischief-maker, Bella;
RAVENSMORES EXPERIENCES. 291
that Mrs. Steel seemed to have lost control over her temper,
and cast off the restraints of decency more completely than
usual; and that Grace herself on her part had entirely for¬
gotten—what had indeed been growing fainter and fainter
in her memory ever since they had been at the Hills—that
excellent precept of Solomon which she had been wont to
observe in her intercourse with Mrs. Steel. But at last the
teterrima causa of the final break came out.
" O ! you don't know what that woman said—-what she
dared to call—" gasped Grace. " I can't tell you."
" Don't try, darling," said Mrs. Archer soothingly, as
she leant over the palpitating girl, with one arm round her
waist, and the other hand caressingly smoothing her dark
locks. " I can imagine the language which Mrs. Steel
would use, quite accurately enough for all practical pur¬
poses."
"Do you remember,'' Grace went on, " one day, when
I said I could not understand why she hated me so, you
said, ' Can't you ?' in such a significant way that I was quite
surprised—I could not even guess what you meant ? But—
I know now—she has told meP
" Good Heavens !" exclaimed Mrs. Archer, quite taken
off her guard. "You don't mean to say that she said that
to you—and her own daughter standing by !"
"Yes, she did," replied Grace. And then burst into a
paroxysm of tears, which was a great relief.
Mrs. Steel repented of the incautious revelation which
she had let drop in the violence of her passion, almost the
moment she had uttered it. And Grace was very quickly
followed to the Brownie's Ring by a letter written in the
most affectionate terms, imploring her to return home and
prevent a scandal. Whether Mrs. Steel really believed—
either wholly or only half—in the truth of what she had told
Grace, it would be impossible to say. But whether she did
so or not, one thing she had felt perfectly certain of from
the very moment she observed her husband's strange recep¬
tion of Grace on their landing in India, namely, that his
interest in Grace had its origin in a deep and unforgotten
292
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
attachment to Grace's mother. And jealousy was therefore
the source of the vehement and ever-growing hatred which
she felt towards the girl.
If Mr. Steel should hear of the allegation which had
driven Grace from his house—as hear he assuredly must
unless Grace would consent to return—Mrs. Steel well
knew that his wrath would be very terrible. She was wont
constantly, as the reader has had plenty of opportunity to
observe, to annoy her husband with irritating complaints
and insinuations. Her experience had taught her that she
might go to great lengths in the security of Mr. Steel's firm
command over his temper. But experience had also taught
her a lesson long years ago—in those early days of their
married life, when Mrs. Steel had been as much lighter in
character as in corporeal bulk—that if the degree of pres¬
sure were once passed, beyond which her husband's self-
restraint was not strong enough to bear the strain, the giving
way was like the bursting of the dam of some vast reservoir,
or the cutting of a Dutch dike. That his temper would not
bear the strain of hearing that his wife had informed his
ward—whether truly or falsely it was of little matter—that
he was bound to her by a stronger tie than that of benevo¬
lence, there could be no doubt whatever. Therefore Mrs.
Steel would have given a great deal to have left those rash
words unsaid; and having said them, was ready to eat very
humble pie, if haply that diet might prove an antidote to
the mischief she had caused.
But her overtures were quite in vain. Grace peremp¬
torily refused to entertain them. And when they were
renewed more earnestly the following day, all hope of
escaping the consequence of her indiscretion was abruptly
cut off by an intimation from Miss Hawthorn that she had
already written and posted a letter to Mr. Steel, telling him
how and why she had left his house, and vowing never to
return to it.
Mrs. Archer did not at all regret the eclaircissement which
had brought Grace under her wing. Mrs. Steel's desperate
efforts to get the girl back added zest to the pleasure with
RAVENSMORE S EXPERIENCES. 293
which the amiable hostess extended the shelter of her pretty
roof to her young friend. Besides, was not this the crown¬
ing opportunity for accomplishing a far grander triumph,
and inflicting a yet bitterer defeat on her enemy ? She lost
no time, we may be sure, in telling Ravensmore that now
or never was his time to make Grace his own.
Not to mak®- a long story of it, the occasion for the
young secretary vjp,s made on the second day after Miss
Hawthorn's arrival at the Brownie's Ring, which was Sun¬
day. The weather being lovely, Mrs. Archer proposed that
instead of returning straight home from church, they should
walk round by a certain very pretty path, which crossed,
amongst other picturesque obstacles, a pellucid mountain
stream, over which there was no bridge, but only stepping-
stones. Mrs. Archer went on in front in her jompon—she
was not much inclined to walking and suchlike athletic
exercises—with a gentleman of the congregation whom she
had selected to be her escort, and who was doubly glad,
no doubt, to accept the honour,—first, for the pleasure to
be derived from Mrs. Archer's society, which few men
thought lightly of; but secondly, and more particularly on
this present occasion, in the hope of extracting from her
some account of the reasons which had led to Miss Haw¬
thorn's very sudden visit to her—an event that in all pro¬
bability formed the sole topic of conversation amongst the
sundry groups of gossips gathered round the church-door
that morning. Ravensmore and Grace, stopping now and
then to look at the glorious view, insensibly lingered some
distance behind. The path was very unfrequented at that
time, it being indeed the general lunch-hour, and they met
not a soul except two old women carrying panniers of pears
on their backs from " the interior."
Ravensmore seized the opportunity, and renewed his
declaration of love with the deep, sober earnestness which
was characteristic of him.
"Mr. Ravensmore," said Grace, after she had made one
or two previous vain efforts to interrupt him, " if even I were
ready to return the affection—the noble and generous affec*
294 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
tion for me which you profess, and for which, believe me, I
am truly and deeply grateful—I could not accept your offer.
You belong to a family—you have near relations in a rank
in life where birth is much considered. My birth was—
was very humble, and very unfortunate. I cannot tell you
more than that, but it is due to you thatjpu should know
so much. Ask Mrs. Archer ; tell her that I desired her to
tell you what I cannot tell you myself, ^ut it is sufficient
that this puts an obstacle between us, were there no other,
which is quite impassable."
"I know all about — I know, at any rate, all I wish
to know about your birth," said Ravensmore impetuously.
" I am nephew of a peer, as you say, but I am independent
both of him and my whole family. But believe me, you
will be received by them as my wife, and in your own in¬
comparable character, with all the respect and affection you
could wish. Don't, I implore you, let considerations of that
sort come in the way of my happiness. I promise you, if
you like, a letter of welcome from my uncle himself, which
shall be as warm as you could desire, before we are married.
Were I the heir to the title, birth and family might have to
be thought of; but, thank Heaven ! there are a round
dozen of healthy cousins between me and that thraldom.
No; I have an independent and, I will venture to boast,
no mean career before me. Will you, Miss Hawthorn, will
you, Grace, consent to share—to adorn—to cheer, and to
sanctify it ?"
Just at this critical moment they reached the margin of
the brook. Ravensmore, with the ready faculty which had
been quickened in the diplomatic atmosphere of the Ma
Bap Secretariat office, saw and seized the advantage of the
situation. He stepped lightly down on to the slippery and
wobbly stepping-stones, and held out his hand, as if to
assist Grace to cross. She took his hand; but he, instead
of moving so as to allow her to pass over, stood right
before her, completely blocking the way, and looking up
in her face as she stood on the ledge prepared to descend.
" I swear I will not leave this stone," he said, " till you
RA VENSMORES EXPERIENCES.
consent! 0 Grace, I know I am utterly unworthy of the
gift I beg; but that seems nothing to me. In the case of
any other woman I might feel that I want advantages which
others possess: but with you there is no room for any such
diffidence. The best of us is so infinitely unworthy of you
that a few petty degrees of inferiority can be of no account
whatever. But in honest true love and devotion I swear
you will find none to match me, not if you searched the
wide world through; and is that to go for nothing ?"
Grace stood perfectly still, and left her hand in his. She
stood, not looking at him, but with her face turned aside
towards a dip in the encircling hills, through which a vista
of the distant view was seen. With a dreamy gaze, her
eyes sedfned to sweep over the intervening space, until they
rested on a pleasant leafy knoll just opposite, which was
warm and bright in the genial beams of the noonday sun;
but thence again straining onward, it passed and fixed upon
the still and ghostly face of the snow-capped mountain,
which reared its head in dismal majesty in the far distance.
She scarcely listened to Ravensmore's eager words. Her
thoughts were ranging like her glance—sweeping the past,
striving wildly and vainly to scan the future. The humilia¬
tions, the barren yearnings for warm living love and sym¬
pathy, which had clouded her life—the stain on her birth,
the worse than dependence of her lot—clamoured at the
door of memory. On the other side appeared the radiant
vision of love, honour, perfect trust, which Ravensmore's
earnest words presented. But—but there was something
beyond, an unsubstantial but a chilling phantom—the vague
dread lest the ghost of a smothered love might not be laid,
but might come back to haunt her hereafter "in the dread
unhappy night," should she give her hand to this man now
before her, worthy and true as he was, while she knew that
her heart was another's.
She sighed—a scarcely audible, but a long sigh. Could
the faint breath of that suspiration have been wafted through
the clear air as far as Diknugger, and mingled with the
warm current from the punkah which swung creaking above
296 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Shafto's head, as he sat perspiring in his shirt-sleeves, it
might doubtless have caused him to shiver, as one is popu¬
larly supposed to do when a goose walks over one's grave.
For that sigh was heaved to lift his image for ever from
Grace Hawthorn's heart. She slowly, lingeringly withdrew
her eyes from their wistful gaze at the snowy hill, to bend
them half tenderly, half regretfully on Ravensmore's up¬
turned face. But just as their orbit had almost come round
to the point at which their glance would have met his, it
was suddenly arrested. All that was sentimental in their
expression fled in an instant, and they became fixed in a
stare of alarm right over Ravensmore's head. She snatched
her hand from his and stepped back, while at the same
moment a deep voice just behind him uttered in an agitated
tone the ejaculation, "Good God !"
Ravensmore, startled by the sound, turned hastily round.
There stood a tall man, who had evidently approached the
brook by the winding and overgrown path which led down
to it on the other side, unperceived and unperceiving until
he had reached its margin. His attitude, no less than his
exclamation, betokened unaccountable agitation. With one
hand he was clutching, as if to save himself from falling, a
projection of the rock from behind which the path emerged,
while the other was stretched out before him.
"Confound the fellow !" was the thought which flashed
through Ravensmore's mind. " His sense of propriety must
be deuced acute, if the mere sight of a man holding a girl's
hand sends him into an epileptic fit."
This thought, I say advisedly, must have flashed through
Ravensmore's mind; for had it not been extremely rapid
in its passage, it must have been cut off half-way. Within
half a second of his catching sight of the intruder, the youth
had something still more urgent to think about. Loose
conical-topped stepping-stones are not the things to perform
pirouettes upon. Ravensmore, in turning so hastily round,
lost his balance. There was a struggle, a flounder, a splash;
and the rash youth, who had so airily sworn not to move
from his standing-place until his mistress should consent
RAVEN SHORE'S EXPERIENCES. 297
to his suit, was sprawling on his back in the brook—un¬
answered !
The stranger, recovering himself, hastened to repair as
far as possible the damage which his abrupt and inoppor¬
tune appearance had caused, by dashing into the water and
helping Ravensmore to rise. That smart young official,
naturally incensed at the ridiculous figure he had been made
to cut at what should have been the supreme moment of
his life, at first rudely pushed aside the proffered assistance,
and attempted to spring lightly to his feet; but he failed,
and had in the end to be beholden to the intruder's sup¬
port, for he found that he had severely sprained his ankle,
and could not put his right foot to the ground.
Grace had now leisure to take more note of the stranger's
appearance than she had been able to do in the first moment
of horror at being caught by any one in such a very delicate
situation. She recognised him as a person whom she had
once before had a passing glance at, but whose striking
appearance had then made a considerable impression upon
her. In short, it was Dr. Brandling, whom it may be remem¬
bered the ladies had met when they drove into the station
of Diknugger. Ravensmore the doctor had seen there once
or twice.
Brandling at once set about doing what he could to
relieve Ravensmore's pain, and at the same time apologised
for the awkwardness of his startling exclamation.
"The truth is," he said, " I was extremely startled my¬
self by a very striking resemblance which the young lady
bears to a person—to a dear friend who has long been
dead. Coming so abruptly upon you, and unexpectedly
finding myself face to face with this remarkable likeness, I
was completely thrown off my guard. I cannot sufficiently
express my regret at the accident which my foolish want of
self-control has occasioned you."
Grace had ere this, with ready presence of mind, not
unstimulated perhaps by eagerness to escape from a situa¬
tion which had been most embarrassing to her in the uncer¬
tain state of her mind, or rather of her heart, from first to
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
last, fled with the speed of Atalanta up the path towards
the Brownie's Ring to procure Mrs. Archer's jompon for
her disabled lover. As she tripped lightly and safely across
the slippery stepping-stones, without any need of assistance,
treading as firmly and carelessly as if she had been on a
high road, there was something in her movements which
appeared to reexcite still more strongly in Dr. Brandling's
memory or imagination the effect produced by her first
motionless appearance. He looked up from his work on
Ravensmore's foot, and followed her till she vanished from
view with a strangely wistful gaze.
"May I ask," he said to Ravensmore, as the latter sat
on a ledge of rock awaiting the arrival of the jompon—
" may I ask what is that young lady's name ?"
(It may be necessary to remind the reader that when he
had met the ladies at Diknugger, Grace had been seated on
the front seat of the carriage, and he had therefore not seen
her face on that occasion.)
" Miss Hawthorn," replied Ravensmore.
" Miss Hawthorn ? Indeed ! Mr. Steel's ward ?" said
the doctor; and his thoughts at once reverted to the young
friend whom he had left at Diknugger, and to whose pre¬
viously not hopeful case the attitude in which he had found
his rival and the lady boded indeed utter despair.
Either the bearers of Mrs. Archer's jompon had been
unwontedly active that day, or (what is a less improbable
supposition) Grace and Ravensmore had lingered on their
way more often and longer than they had thought. At any
rate, Grace, to her surprise, did not overtake her hostess
till she arrived panting in the verandah of the Brownie's
Ring. She briefly told what had happened—that is, it must
be understood, as much of what had happened as she deemed
it necessary for Mrs. Archer to know—and hurried back with
the jompon.
Mrs. Archer expressed the most lively sympathy with
Ravensmore's misfortune, but did not propose to accom¬
pany Grace to the scene of the disaster, at the cost of having
to walk back up the steep hill. Perhaps, too, she thought
RAVENSMORES EXPERIENCES.
that the young man might be very well Content to spare her
tender care and gentle sympathy on his way homewards, so
long as he enjoyed those of so efficient a substitute as Grace
Hawthorn.
Ravensmore was safely conveyed to his house, where he
remained laid up for the next week. Dr. Brandling saw
him safely home, but Grace accompanied the jompon a very
small portion of the way.
Dr. Brandling's presence in Guppy Tibby may be briefly
accounted for. He had resigned his post in the public ser¬
vice for the reasons which he explained to Shafto, and had
come to the summer head-quarters of the Ma Bap Provinces
Government to lay the hard case of his protege, Budmash
Khan, before Sir Duncan MacTullub, the Lieutenant-Go¬
vernor. He had arrived the day before, and was taking a
walk along the most unfrequented road he could find, when
he so unluckily encountered our pair of lovers.
He happened to meet Miss Hawthorn the next day also
—altogether accidentally on his part, I will not take it upon
me to say. He inquired after her young friend's injured
ankle, and then asked if he might accompany Grace in her
walk. This latter request rather astonished her. But she did
not exactly know how to refuse; and besides, she had taken
a great fancy to the doctor's fine quixotic countenance and
bearing, from the time she first saw him at Diknugger. So
she murmured something, which he at any rate did not take
as a denial; and the tall, quaint, stiff, and solemn-looking
elderly gentleman', and the lithe and graceful girl, set off
side by side.
It was a pleasant bracing morning, and they had a long
walk, right round the big hill which towers over the pictur¬
esque sanatorium of Guppy Tibby in a good-natured pro¬
tecting sort of way. They were good friends before they
had walked a mile; and by the time they were half-way
round the hill, had made considerable progress in an inter¬
change of confidences. Grace had often heard of the doc¬
tor, and always in favourable terms, from Shafto. And he
was drawn towards her by some subtle influence, which
300 CURRENT REPENTANCE,
hardly allowed him to take his eyes from her face. He told
her all about his respectable client, Budmash Khan, and
how he was resolved never to rest until he should " un¬
thread the rude eye " of the injustice perpetrated on that
injured innocent. She warmly admired his self-sacrifice in
giving up his appointment in order to be free to devote his
efforts to the disinterested task he had undertaken. But
here he promptly checked her, and disclaimed all credit of
that kind.
" To tell you the truth," he said, in a penitential tone of
voice, " my conscience has very plainly told me that it is
quite otherwise. In throwing up my appointment at Dik-
nugger, I have actually deserted a post, where I was doing
useful work in a humble way; but it was—ever since the
epidemic was got under—work of a routine, unexciting
kind, which my restless spirit chafed at. I shall now return
to the wandering, unsettled, good-for-nothing life that I
have always been most prone to. And there is even an un¬
comfortable consciousness, which I cannot get rid of from
my mind, that what I have persuaded myself to be pure
zeal on behalf of one cruelly wronged is, as a matter of fact,
a welcome excuse to me for escaping an irksome duty."
In return for these confidences about himself, he learnt
from Grace—though probably she would have been im¬
mensely surprised had she been told so—much regarding
her feeling towards Shafto. This he did not by questioning
her, but by exactly the reverse process, namely, by giving
her the fullest replies to sundry little ingeniously roundabout
queries which she threw out, in the hope of catching some
stray allusion to her discarded lover. But when Brandling,
as they neared the end of their walk, encouraged by the
manifest interest which his companion showed in whatever
he told her in which Shafto's name occurred, was about to
tread on delicate ground, and began to preface what he had
to say by telling her that the young man had confided his
secret to him, she stopped him at once, and in such a per¬
emptory manner as there was no gainsaying. Nor did their
FATHER AND CHILD.
301
Conversation resume its former unembarrassed tone again
until they parted.
The doctor held her hand for a moment ere he left her
at the rustic gate of the Brownie's Ring.
" Thank you," he said, with the strange wistful gaze into
her face before noticed, which brought the ever-ready blush
into Grace's cheeks ; " thank you for a pleasure such as it is
many, many long years since I have enjoyed. I shall not
stay here more than two days, but I should like to see you
again before I leave—if I shall not be troublesome. May
I call and pay my respects to Mrs. Archer?"
Grace replied that she was sure Mrs. Archer would be
glad to see him. And so they parted.
CHAPTER XIX.
father and child.
The moment Mr. Steel got Grace's letter, telling him of
her departure from his wife's house, and the cause, and
many other things which it is not essential to set down here,
he hurried up to Guppy Tibby. Of his interview with his
wife, to whom he of course first went, it is also unnecessary
to give any account. From his wife's house he came over
to Mrs. Archer's, and fortunately found the mistress thereof
out, and Grace at home.
He upbraided his ward for the ingratitude involved in
her belief in a charge so foully injurious to him. She knew
that her father had been a treacherous, cold-hearted villain;
and yet, after a lifelong experience of her benefactor's gene¬
rosity towards her, she was ready to attribute that character
to him. The reproach was telling and unanswerable; but
it undoubtedly lost some of its force, from the circum¬
stance that Grace had only believed the accusation on the
evidence of the wife of the accused's own bosom. Mr.
Steel perhaps felt this, and was less trenchant in his eloquence
than he might otherwise have been.
302 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
"But after this miserable occurrence," he concluded,
" two things are now absolutely unavoidable. One is, that you
can no longer be Mrs. Steel's guest. You must comeback
with me to Beshuckabad, and before her return thither you
must sail for England. The other is, that I must tell, and
you must hear, the particulars of the dark story of your
mother's desertion and death, which I had vainly hoped
might have been for ever buried in oblivion. This last I
will do now and here. The narrative must harrow your
feelings; the recalling of it will destroy my peace of mind
for many a day to come. But your own act has made it
necessary. You must listen to the story now with what com¬
posure you can muster; and the sooner it is over the better.
" I told you that I loved your mother, and that she
returned my affection. That she did so really, that she
was only drawn aside from an honest and pure attach¬
ment to me—the friend of her childhood, and the early
object of her ripening affections—by what I can only sup¬
pose to have been a temporary madness, there can be no
shadow of doubt. She was, however, for a time drawn
aside by a passion for your father, who wandered as an
idle stroller into the secluded neighbourhood in which she
lived. What brought him there I know not. But it is not
unlikely that the heartless ruffian was in the habit, like his
master, Satan, of going to and fro on the earth, seeking
whom he might devour, to feed his greedy passions.
" Mary—that is, your mother—long held clandestine in¬
tercourse with this man before I discovered it. Unfortunately
I had had a quarrel with her father, a man of harsh manners
and violent temper, which compelled me also to meet her
in secret. I was besides only at home for brief intervals
during my vacations. And altogether at the time of her in¬
fatuation for this Pearson—that was the false name he went
by—I saw her but seldom. Most unhappily, during that
time she drank the poisoned cup of her insane folly and sin
to the dregs. When I discovered her intrigue with Pear¬
son, it was too late. His villainous end was accomplished.
He was only eager to shake her off.
FATHER AND CHILD.
3°3
" I had received a hint which aroused my suspicion, and
I surprised them at one of their clandestine meetings. I
attacked the scoundrel, and—and—well, we fought until he
ran away.
" I was, as you may suppose, as highly incensed against
your poor mother at the time as against her betrayer. I re¬
turned home, vowing never to see her again. But I think
it was two or three days after my encounter with Pearson, I
received that letter from her, which I gave to you some
months ago, appealing piteously for my help, and conjuring
me, by the memory of our old love, to see her once more.
At first, in my just anger, I resolved to refuse ; but after a
severe mental struggle, I changed my mind, and decided
that I should not be justified, ill as I had been used by her,
in rejecting an appeal made in such solemn, such despairing
terms. I promised to meet her; would to God that I—
But enough ! I must tell this story in curt, matter-of-fact
language, or I shall never be able to tell it at all.
" I went to the place and at the hour appointed by her.
It was a fitting scene for an interview that was to be con¬
cerned with the burial of dead hopes and the birth of
ghastly phantoms of despair. It was in the graveyard, and
at night.
" While I waited for her I saw a creature, whom I re¬
cognised, stealthily approach the place. It was an old hag,
who kept a sort of beer-shop in the neighbourhood, at which
I had discovered that Pearson used to take up his quarters.
The woman entered the churchyard, appeared to hide some¬
thing in the grass near a gravestone, and hurried away. I
naturally went to the spot to see what she had deposited,
and found a letter, which, by the light of a dark lantern I
had with me, I saw was addressed to Mary Lee. I had no
doubt it was from Pearson; and I must confess that the
discovery that she still corresponded with him inflamed my
anger against her.
" As soon as she arrived I delivered her the note. She
read it eagerly, and the effect was terrible. With a low
wail of anguish she fell lifeless to the earth. In a moment
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
all my righteous indignation was dissipated by the sight of
her agony, by her ashy cheeks and bloodless lips. I raised
her in my arms; I had never loved her so wildly, so en¬
tirely, as I did at that moment. Her inconstancy, her
deception, Pearson, all were forgotten; and I thought only
of clutching that beautiful pale form to my bosom, and
holding it there for ever.
" She slowly recovered her consciousness. I do not
know what I said, nor would it avail to repeat my wild
utterances even if I could recall them ; and I might as well
try to recall a hurricane. But then I learnt from her, what
I solemnly declare I had not even suspected before, the
whole of the terrible truth. In the extremity of her dis¬
traction her words were incoherent and hardly intelligible.
But I understood this much—that Pearson had prevailed
with her by means of a solemn promise of marriage, but
that he had kept postponing the fulfilment of his promise
on the excuse that, should his father suddenly discover that
he had married a girl of Mary Lee's position in life, he
would assuredly disinherit him, which would be equally
ruinous, as he argued, to himself and his wife. For I
must tell you that this fellow, whose brutal profligacy and
shameless disregard of honour or honesty might have dis¬
graced the lowest slum in Seven Dials, was the descendant
and heir of an ancient and wealthy- family. And this
cowardly betrayer of a helpless girl—I may say of a mere
child—has since then been belauded for his gallantry as a
soldier. Your father, Grace, is a man of no undistinguished
name, and it is best that at last you should hear it. His
name is Colonel Campion, and he is the possessor—"
" Colonel Campion !" exclaimed Grace. " Not the
Colonel Campion who was in the 25 th Hussars ?"
" The same. But what do you know of him ?"
" It was the regiment which Mrs. Archer's father com¬
manded. She knew him well before her marriage, and was
speaking of him to me only the other day."
" Well, let me proceed with my narrative. He had, as I
have said, sworn to marry her, but had evaded his promises.
FATHER AND CHILD.
At the very interview between them which I had interrupted
a few days before, Mary had pressed him more earnestly
than ever to fulfil it, passionately imploring him to save her
character ere it was too late; and he, driven into a corner
by her pertinacity, had consented to make her his wife
within some short period—a week, I think, or some such
space. But in order to make a last effort to save them from
the beggary in which their marriage, followed, as it was
almost sure to be, by his disinheritance, was most likely to
involve them, he was first to go to his home and beg the
intercession of his mother in Mary's behalf. I could not
doubt for a moment that all this was a mere shallow pre¬
tence to get away. But Mary, poor girl, had believed or
half believed him. She waited eagerly for his return, or for
a letter which they had arranged should be delivered by the
old woman of the beer-shop in the manner I had witnessed.
But when none came, in her desperation she had sent for me.
In what manner she had proposed to herself that I could
help her, whether by pursuing her betrayer to his home or
how, I do not know; very likely at the time she summoned
me she did not know herself. As it happened, accident
intervened to upset her plans, whatever they may have been.
The expected letter came almost at the moment of our
meeting, and my first act was to place it in her hands.
"I took up the letter from the ground, where it had
fallen from her lifeless hand, and read it. It was what
might have been expected—a farewell, a dismissal, couched
in language of brutal levity. And there was an exhortation
to ' patience'—patience, forsooth, in her strait ! In short,
it was a lettep worthy of the man. The very paper, a
crumpled scrap picked up at a roadside inn, and the
writing, scrawled and blotted, proved how lightly he
thought of the ruin he had caused. He had hardly been
able to spare time to waste on these few hurried contemp¬
tuous words of parting; and had, indeed, only done so
while he was kept waiting for an unpunctual stage-coach,
which was to carry him on his journey, doubtless in pur¬
suit of some new intrigue that had still the zest of fresh-
x
306 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
ness, which this had lost. Stay—I kept the letter, and
have it now with me. All connection, all interest for me
with this miserable story now ends. After you leave me,
a few weeks hence, I pray Heaven that I may be able
to blot out, once and for ever, from my thoughts and
my memory, all trace and record of a series of crimes
and misfortunes of which, though others were the authors,
I have tasted a large share of the bitter fruits. I will no
longer retain one memorial of them ; and now that you
have learnt who your father is, it is right that I should
deliver this self-written record of his own baseness into
your hands."
As Mr. Steel spoke he took from his pocket-book a
mean and paltry scrap of flimsy, bescribbled paper. At
the first glance it looked more like a washerwoman's
account than a missive destined to lead to such tragic
consequences. Grace took it mechanically from Mr. Steel's
hand.
"You had better read it," he said. " I will proceed with
my narrative when you have finished."
She obeyed. The letter ran as follows :
" My Darling,—I had no time to write from home, and
am just snatching a few minutes while waiting at the inn
here for the coach which is to carry me the first stage on
my journey to the Continent.
" The gods are certainly against us. Fancy my disgust
on reaching the Hall to find my mother absent, and my
father in the torments of gout and the very devil of a temper.
Of course I said nothing about our marriage. It would have
been sheer madness. Worse ! it would have been nothing
short of parricide, as he would certainly have died of rage
and apoplexy—but not so suddenly as not to have time to
alter his will first. So you yourself must admit that there is
nothing for it but to give up my heart's darling, however
hard the struggle may be. The chance of obtaining my
parents' consent I always looked upon as a forlorn hope,
and without it we can look forward to nothing but penury.
FATHER AND CHILD.
3°7
Bat there is no controlling fate, Mary, and we must both of
us just grin and bear our lot.
" By the bye, my lawyer uncle is staying at the Hall.
We dined together alone, and I asked some fishing questions.
I much fear we bungled that little business at , and it
was quite worthless. Here comes the coach. Good-bye,
pet. Let us hope for better times some day, though the
present is so gloomy. And as to what happened at ,
why, as the Scotch song says, ' If it wasna' weel bobbit,
we'll bob it again,' one of these days.—J. C."
"When your mother left me to return to her father's
house that night," said Mr. Steel, resuming his story, " I
believed that she had consented to fly—in short, to the offer
of marriage which, notwithstanding all that had passed, I
again made her; but I was deceived. Next morning I
learnt that she had gone—alone.
" I was true to her, Grace, to the last. None can ever
question that. I gave up all thoughts of myself and of my
own interests, and devoted all my time and my energies
to a vain pursuit, a fruitless search for her. I left Hailey-
bury, where I was then a student. I was lost to my friends.
And for nearly a year I wandered and searched and in¬
quired, but without, or almost without, finding the slightest
clue.
" During this time I need not say that Campion made
not an effort to discover what had become of his victim.
In all probability he never gave a thought to her fate, and
very likely did not even know that she had fled from her
father's house. It would seem that at this period he had
become surfeited with such triumphs as he had gained over
this poor girl, and turned himself to the acquisition of those
of another kind, in which he was destined equally to dis¬
tinguish himself. Between your mother's flight and her
return, our troops had invaded the Crimea, and the bay,le
of Balaclava had been fought. Campion was engaged in it,
and was, I believe, wounded in the famous charge of the
Lieht Brigade.
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
"At last—it is needless to tell you how—I got upon
the track of her whom I sought. It is equally needless, and
would only add useless pangs to the suffering with which
you must hear this story, to tell you how your mother had
subsisted, and what varied hardships she had endured. I
traced her down to a mean cottage in a great manufac¬
turing town, where for some months before she had suc¬
ceeded in obtaining some kind of work. But I did not
find her there, Grace; I only found you. Her I never
saw again after I parted with her that night in the church¬
yard.
" When I got to this cottage I found you, an infant
scarce a month old, in charge of the good woman with
whom your mother lodged. She had gone away, the woman
told me, to seek help for her child from her friends. She
had been very reserved, and the woman had no idea to what
place she had gone.
" I set off immediately to my grandfather's house, which
was in the neighbourhood of Mr. Lee's. I arrived thither
at night, and intended to go over to Slagby the next morn¬
ing. But on the next morning, before I could set out, came
the shocking news of your mother's death, which had taken
place the afternoon before. I do not know how much you
have heard of the circumstances of that awful event. There
was, and is still, some mystery about it. She had not been,
so far as the villagers of Slagby or the servants and people
about the Parsonage knew, to her father's house. From
Mr. Lee himself no information on this subject could be
obtained; for the first shock of the news of his daughter's
death brought-on a stroke of paralysis, from which he never
again recovered either sense or speech. But Campion had
been seen with her, on the spot from whence she fell into
the river, shortly before she did so. And he was seen also
to treat her with characteristic brutality, shaking her roughly
fropr him, and throwing her to the ground, when she clung
to him in the agony of her despair. But what had brought
him back to the neighbourhood of Slagby, and how they
had happened to be together at that particular spot, I never
FATHER AND CHILD.
309
could find out. He had returned from the Crimea shortly
before, probably on account of his wound. And there
would have been nothing surprising in a man so callous as
he having come again to pay a visit to the gentleman in
the neighbourhood with whom, as I afterwards ascertained,
he had been staying when he first, by evil chance, saw
Mary Lee. But this was not the case. I was unable to
make inquiries on these points at the time, as I myself too
had fallen ill; so at the official investigation even the identity
of the man, who had been seen in her company just before
her death, was not discovered. But some weeks afterwards
I made inquiry, and amongst other things learnt that Cam¬
pion had not been to stay with the gentleman I have alluded
to, but that he had arrived on the morning of the fatal day
at his old lodgings at the beer-shop, which he had occupied
while he had been engaged in his nefarious intrigue. I
extorted this with difficulty from the old hag who kept it,
and who told me also that he had left the house again
within a few minutes of his arrival, and had never returned.
For his not returning to the inn indeed there was a very
obvious reason, for as he approached it he must have heard
from the idlers who hung about the door, that the lifeless
body of his victim lay stretched within ; and even he may be
supposed to have shrunk with horror from looking on what
he had done.
"No more remains to be told. I took charge of you,
and placed you at first under the care of the good soul
whom you cannot have forgotten as the earliest friend you
knew, and whose name you bear. The wretch Campion I
have never met but on that occasion when "we fought, and I
pray Heaven I never may."
It is needless to say how deeply this narration affected
Grace. She had far from recovered her composure when
Mrs. Archer returned home. The Commissioner informed
that lady that Miss Hawthorn would go back with him the
next morning to Beshuckabad. Mrs. Archer was very averse
to this.arrangement, and begged that Grace might remain
her guest until she herself went to England, and then go
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
home with her. But Mr. Steel was obdurate, and Grace
too showed a willing concurrence in his proposal. Perhaps
she did this because she was in duty bound to obey her
benefactor, the more so after the pain which she had just
so gratuitously caused him. Perhaps also she was not
anxious to be called upon for her deferred reply to the
question which Ravensmore's accident had left unanswered,
and which would assuredly be repeated the moment the
young secretary was able to hobble across to the Brownie's
Ring, if she should then be found there. Mrs. Archer was
not a little piqued at her guest's readiness to leave her.
She received Grace's protestations that she would never
forget her kindness very coldly, and she was barely civil
in her leave-taking of Mr. Steel, when he, after mention¬
ing the hour next morning at which the dooly would be
at the door for Grace, got up to return to his own house.
At this very moment a servant brought in a visiting
card. Mrs. Archer took it from the tray, and looking at
the name, said, by no means graciously, "Dr. J. Brandling;
who on earth is he ? Say I am not at home."
The servant left the room, but apparently mistook the
order. Indeed, the good-natured Mrs. Archer was not by
any means in the habit of denying herself to visitors of all
sorts and degrees whatever, and so there is the less blame
to the bearer for having misapprehended so unwonted a
command. So just as Mr. Steel had taken up his hat and
gloves, and was walking towards the door, the curtain was
again drawn aside, and in stepped the gaunt figure of the
late civil surgeon of Diknugger.
" Goodness gracious !" ejaculated Mrs. Archer, stepping
back in amazement. " Colonel Campion ! who ever dreamt
of seeing you here?"
" Colonel Campion !" repeated Mr. Steel, also recoiling
in utter astonishment. And then, after glancing at Mrs.
Archer to make sure that it was'actually to Brandling that
she applied the name, he fixed a keen gaze on the latter's
face, while a dark frown settled on his brow. "Ay," he
said, in a low grating tone, after so looking at him for a
FATHER AND CHILD.
few seconds, " I recognise you at last. I thought from the
moment I saw you there was something familiar to my
memory in that insolent countenance. You ruffianly
scoundrel! So you have once more dared to masquerade
before me under a false name !"
This startling address naturally took Dr. Brandling some¬
what aback. It is true that he was aware he did not stand
high in the Commissioner's good graces; still, he hardly
expected such a greeting as this on their casually meeting
each other in the course of a morning call in a lady's draw¬
ing-room. There was more of amazement than of anger
in his reply, which assumed the interrogative form.
" What do you mean, sir? Are you mad? or do you
know where you are, or whom you are speaking to ?"
" Whom I am speaking to ?" repeated Steel. " Why,
true ; that is not altogether an unreasonable inquiry in the
case of a man with so many aliases as you seem to have at
command."
" Cease this insolence, sir," said Brandling, his grim
visage assuming an ominously lowering look. " And as to
my assuming a false name, I have done no such thing. I
have as good a right to the name of Brandling, under which
you have known me, as I have to that of Campion, which
this lady's recollection now accidentally reveals to you. The
first I was born to ; the second was assumed by my father
when he inherited the estates of the Campion family. When
I thought fit to adopt a new profession I did no wrong to
society in dropping the latter name, which could only have
been an encumbrance to my usefulness. And now, sir, that
I have given the only explanation which you or anybody
else can by any possibility claim a right to require, you will
have the goodness instantly to—"
" And pray," interrupted Steel, with a most insulting
sneer, " is Pearson also included in the convenient cata¬
logue of surnames which, it would appear, is preserved in
your family as a kind of heirloom ?"
" The bold Colonel's brow then changed, I trow,
From high blood-red to pale."
312 CURRENT REPENTA NCE.
He started as if struck, and in his turn scanned his
adversary with a searching look from head to foot, and on
him, too, recognition gradually dawned, but with less cer¬
tainty than in Mr. Steel's case.
"You, then," he said half inquiringly, "are identical
with that vain and meddling youth (who, however, I thought
was called Goldsworth, or some such name), whose imper¬
tinence I was once compelled to chastise."
" My grandfather's name was Crovesworth," replied
Steel, on whose face the last word called up a flush of shame
and rage. " But it must have been your own practice which
led you into the mistake of supposing that I also bore it.
I never did bear it, sir. The fact is, /never undertook any
such villainy as necessitated my juggling with the names of
my relations."
Brandling's self-control—never a very potent factor in
his composition—quite gave way at this.
" You lying blackguard !" he shouted, and took two
mighty strides forward, as if bent upon renewing that per¬
sonal encounter which had been interrupted about a quarter
of a century before. But, happily for Mrs. Archer's elegant
drawing-room furniture, this intention was frustrated by the
timely interposition of the alarmed proprietress thereof.
The chivalrous doctor, thus recalled to his senses and the
consciousness of the presence of the ladies, stepped back
again in confusion.
Mrs. Archer had been so astonished at such an extra¬
ordinary interchange of compliments in her drawing-room,
and this scene of recognition had moreover passed so
rapidly, that she had not until now been able to interfere ;
while Grace, who had sunk down on a chair when Colonel
Campion's name was first uttered, sat staring with a half-
wild, half-stupefied gaze at the man who had been so sud¬
denly revealed to her as her father—the betrayer and, mor¬
ally, the murderer of her mother. Mrs. Archer now came
forward and interposed between the two men. She was a
plucky woman, who knew how to assert herself and up¬
hold the respect due to her drawing-room, even amid the
FATHER AND CHILD.
313
storm of lowering frowns, and flashing eyes, and thundering
threats.
'' Whatever is the meaning of this?''she said. "Mr.
Steel, you seem to have some mysterious quarrel with my
old friend, Colonel Campion. But, please, remember that
a lady's house is not the place for men to fight in."
This unlucky reference to fighting recalled to the Com¬
missioner's mind that allusion to "chastisement," and stung
him beyond control. In truth, I believe—such is the in¬
veteracy of the old Adam in the most regenerate of us—
that the memory of that ill-starred single combat at Slagby
Moor had almost more to do with keeping alive the flame
of Mr. Steel's wrath against the betrayer of Mary Lee, than
that unhappy woman's far deeper wrongs.
" Your house should be sacred, Mrs. Archer," he replied,
" in any ordinary case. But this man's falsehood and cruelty
were of so black a dye as to leave no room in this case for
the conventionalities of etiquette. Wherever and before
whomsoever I might chance to meet him, it must have been
my duty then and there to denounce him as the cold-hearted,
treacherous, dastardly seducer ai*l destroyer of an innocent
girl—"
" If that is the nature of the accusation, Mr. Steel," said
Mrs. Archer, " I think that the recollection that you have a
daughter of your own might at least have restrained you
from uttering it in the presence of Miss Hawthorn."
To tell the truth, the Commissioner, in the violence of
his anger, had clean forgotten not only Miss Hawthorn's
presence, but the deep interest she had in the scene. Mrs.
Archer's allusion to her checked the torrent of his wrath in
mid-flood. And all three involuntarily turned their eyes on
Grace. Mrs. Archer and Campion were both astonished
and shocked at her ghastly appearance. Steel, of course,
could not feel much surprise ; but he was for the moment
quite at a loss what to say or how to act. So for a few
moments there was a lull in the stormy scene, while the
attention of all was riveted on Grace.
It may well be imagined that the girl's remarkable like-
314 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
ness to her mother must have struck both the men most
vividly at such a moment, when the thoughts of both had
been violently recalled to the time of Mary Lee's*" few and
evil days." And the likeness was the more forcible, be¬
cause, in the intensity of Grace's emotion, it did not, as
usually, reproduce Mary Lee in the fresh beauty which bad
first charmed their eyes, but as they had last seen her,
pallid, haggard with wasting anxiety, and her glorious eyes
dimmed with trouble. The effect on Campion was plainly
visible. He began to tremble violently, and rested his hand
against the doorway near which he stood, for support. It
must be remembered that when he had seen Grace before,
he had known of no link which could possibly connect her
with Mary Lee, and he had supposed the likeness which
she bore to her to be merely one of those casual resem¬
blances which are far from uncommon. But now, with the
light which the last few minutes' conversation had shed
upon his mind, it was impossible that he could thus regard
it. That he should find a girl almost the exact counterpart
of Mary, living under the care of the man who had been his
rival for Mary's love, was>& coincidence which could not be
accidental. Involuntarily he turned his eyes from Grace's
face to that of Mr. Steel, with a questioning glance.
"Yes, wretched man," said Mr. Steel, in reply to the
mute inquiry. "Look on your child—the child whom,
without a thought of compunction, for the gratification of
your vile lust, you doomed to an existence of misery and
shame, from which she was saved by the man whom you
had foully wronged!"
(i My child ?" said Campion scarce audibly; " she had
no child. I knew of no child."
" Doubtless not," replied Steel, with a bitter ^ laugh.
" How should you, when you did not even trouble to make
a single inquiry what had become of the mother ?"
" That is true—most unhappily too true," replied Cam¬
pion, in a tone of deep remorse. Then he advanced towards
Grace, not with the rapturous impetuosity with which, had
there been no fatal bar of wrong between them, a father
GRACE MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE. 315
might have been expected to clasp to his bosom a child
whom he had found after lifelong separation, but with a
hesitating, almost tottering step.
But Grace started up, and recoiling against .the wall of
the room with shuddering horror, wildly stretched out her
hands as if to prevent his approaching her.
" Do not come near me!" she cried, in shrill accents of
horror. " Do not touch me with those hands !—they are
smeared—foul with the slime of the river which choked—
O my God, my God !—may He forgive you ! But never
come in my sight again. O !" she cried, her shrill tones
rising to a piercing shriek, as she fell on her knees, and with
clasped hands cast her face wildly upwards, " O mother,
mother !" The next moment she fell, or rather threw her¬
self violently forward with her face on the floor, and lay
there motionless.
" What this all means, goodness knows," said the be¬
wildered Mrs. Archer hurriedly to Campion, who had stopped
half-way across the room, and stood as if stunned, with his
hand clenched against his brow. " But it's clear you are
best away from here. So, for Heaven's sake, go !"
She then flew to Grace's aid. Campion, after casting
one look of inexpressible, yearning anguish on the lovely
form of the child who had repelled his touch with words
that struck chill to his heart like a blighting curse, silently
obeyed, and left the house.
CHAPTER XX.
GRACE TAKES HER COURSE, AND MEETS WITH AN
ADVENTURE.
How Dr. Brandling fared in his advocacy of the cause
of Budmash Khan before the august armchair of Sir Duncan
MacTullub, I am ashamed to confess that I never thought
of inquiring. From what I have heard, however, from my
Ma Bap Provinces friends of that respected ruler's habits
316
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
I do not think it probable that he would be lightly seduced
into a step so certain to be provocative of troublesome con¬
troversy and correspondence as an arbitrary interference
with Mr. Steel's proceedings. The official doings of the
Commissioner of Be'shuckabad were about the last place
that the wary old Scot would be likely to put his foot into.
But, whatever his success may have been, Dr. Brandling—
for as such he continued to be known by the very few
people who were aware of his existence at all in Guppy
Tibby—left that pleasant sanatorium the very evening of
the discovery of his daughter. Though no longer officially
connected with Diknugger, and having little enough heart
now for any task, he stuck doggedly to that which he had
undertaken on behalf of his Moofsid client, and returned
for the purpose of holding a further consultation with him
in Captain Baytree's gaol.
Mr. Steel and Grace too started for the plains the next
morning. It had been decided that the latter was to
remain at Beshuckabad only long enough to make the
necessary preparations for her voyage, and was then to
return to England, and seek employment and a home in the
school in which she had formerly been pupil and governess.
This was a period of fierce and dubious strife in the
soul of Grace Hawthorn ; and the struggle, following upon
the rapid succession of deeply-moving revelations which
had rushed upon her during the past few days, visibly
affected her health. Her cheeks began to grow pinched
and thin, and a weary languor fell upon her in place of her
former bright alacrity. But the conflict which had so lately
occupied her whole mind and heart, that between the pale
and barren phantom of a dead and gone love, and the warm,
living, breathing spirit of what, if not love, was at any rate
a hearty esteem—in a word, between Jack Shafto and
Charley Ravensmore—this conflict had suddenly vanished
as completely as if either or both of those young gentlemen
had been the baseless fabric of a vision. The question
between the rival lovers seemed to have no interest, no
reality for her now. The controversy which now tossed
GRACE MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE. 317
her thoughts with stormy violence was also one between
the past and the present, the living and the dead, between
two hostile duties, two antagonistic yearnings, between
the sacred shade of the mother who had been so cruelly
driven to an early grave, and the sad and faded form of
the father who had expiated the crimes of youth by a life¬
time of remorse. For in that long morning's walk they had
taken together, during which the mysterious chords of
nature had so strangely drawn them to one another, she
had learnt many incidents of his life, and seen many indi¬
cations of the deep hopeless gloom which underlay his
restless eccentric manner. To all others he had ever been
most reticent about his own past, so much so that, as we
have seen, Baytree, and even his chosen friend Shafto—
probably inferring his military education from unconcealable
signs—had jumped to the conclusion that he had been a
private soldier. But it is hard for an old man to parry the
pretty inquisitiveness of a girl, in whom he feels a deep
interest, about his own past; and during that walk round
the hill Grace had learnt far more about Dr. Brandling than
Shafto had over the evening pipes of the year and more
that they had jointly occupied a two-roomed house. She
had quickly discovered that he had lived in a position far
superior to the humble office he held under Captain Bay-
tree's administration. She was not long in gathering that
it had been no necessity—at least no pecuniary necessity—
which had impelled him. to take a situation in life so
unattractive to a man of fortune. And before they parted
at Mrs. Archer's gate she had heard from his own lips
almost the whole truth of this matter. A youth sadly
wasted in selfish frivolity, and even worse, he told her, had
been suddenly and fearfully brought to a check by a terrible
family misfortune, of which his misconduct had been the
chief cause. He gave her no further indication of the
nature of this calamity, and it was evidently too delicate a
subject for her to express curiosity about. This had taken
the sunlight from his life, and at once totally changed its
current. But though changed, the new course had for many
3l8
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
years been as useless, selfish, as ill-adapted to give peace
to a troubled and remorseful soul as the old one. He had
tried to drown the voice of memory and conscience in the
tumult of excitement. Wherever war was going on, he
had rushed thither and sought out danger with reckless
ardour. But to no purpose. The still small voice was
heard above the din of battle, and the pale ghost of the
past cowered even over the bivouac fire. Some other
remedy, some other vent for the madness of his remorse,
must be sought for. He naturally turned first, as many in
similar plight have done, to religion. But the conscious¬
ness of his own guilt made him shrink from entering a pro¬
fession which would lay upon him the duty of reproving the
sins of others. Then he thought of the calling which he
ultimately adopted. There was ample scope for energy,
the excitement of danger, the absorption of thought, and
the opportunity of atoning for the worse than uselessness
of his past life, by doing some palpable and material good
in the world.
So he went through the necessary training, and then
for some years devoted himself to gratuitous labour amongst
the poor in the East End of London. But in time the
unconquerable restlessness seized him again, and set him
wandering. Then he bethought him of all the neglected
misery he had seen in India, when he served there with his
regiment. He determined to settle to his chosen work in
that country. He had of course without difficulty obtained
a recommendation to some official dispenser of the loaves
and fishes of patronage, and procured from him that very
small sprat, the Diknugger civil surgeonship.
All this Grace had heard from him with sympathy
indeed, but sympathy weakened by wonder. But now that
she possessed the key to the story she could estimate the
vehemence and the agony of the remorse, which had driven
her unhappy father from one career to another, which had
made him, like Cain, a vagabond on the face of the earth,
but for which in truth there was no rest but in the grave.
Had she a right to scorn this deep repentance as she
GRACE MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE. 319
had done? This was the question which tortured her, and
left no room in her mind for a thought of either Ravens-
more or Shafto. But, on the other hand, how could she
offer the kiss of filial love to those lips which had so treacher¬
ously deceived her mother? How could she even touch
that hand which had actually spurned her mother to the
earth with unmanly violence, while she was in the act of
imploring justice and mercy ?
Over and over again during these days she knelt and
passionately invoked that mother's spirit to aid her in her
perplexity. But she also, while on her knees, appealed, as
by good hap she had been early taught to do, to a more
potent source of counsel than poor weak, vain, and pas¬
sionate Mary Lee's wraith; and the Providence which
shapes our ends solved her difficulty for her.
The epidemic of typhus fever, which we saw raging in
the neighbourhood of Gurhi Moofsid in January, had been
got under to a great extent; but the disease, fed by semi-
starvation, still lingered here and there. Something or
other required the presence of a European officer at Gurhi
Moofsid, and Baytree sent out Bumpas. The unlucky
young man caught the fever, and was brought back to Dik-
nugger very ill. A native doctor had succeeded Brandling
as civil surgeon, and as not much reliance could be placed
upon him, Dr. Brandling, being on the spot in a private
capacity, readily gave his services to poor Bumpas. The
patient recovered after an illness of no great length, but the
doctor caught the fever, and in a most virulent form.
When Baytree saw two out of the little handful of Euro¬
peans in the colony struck down one after another, he may
possibly have speculated with an uncomfortable feeling as
to who might be the next. At all events, he acknowledged
for the first time that there was fever in the district, and
promptly wrote off to the Commissioner—in a respectfully
jeproachful style, which he might have used had this been
j^e last of many vainly repeated appeals—urging the abso-
e necessity of sending them an English doctor.
Mr. Steel arranged to despatch at once to Diknugger a
32°
c UK RENT REPENTANCE.
young surgeon from one of the regiments in the garrison.
And then he pondered as to whether he should tell Grace
(who was to have started on her homeward journey in a few
days) of her father's illness. Unquestionably it would be
best for her that the criminal parent, whom chance had so
unfortunately thrown across her path, should drop silently
out of her sight again. But, on the other hand, Colonel
Campion, as Mr. Steel knew, was a very rich man, with no
near legitimate relations. And even the virulent prejudice
with which Mr. Steel looked upon his old rival could not
blind him to the manifest emotion with which Campion had
been overcome on the discovery of his child. The Com¬
missioner was a man of the world and of sense, and argued
to himself that it could not be right that his ward should
throw away the chance of becoming an heiress. IT, as he
was led to suppose from Baytree's letter, Grace's father was
on his death-bed, a letter from her—which at such a moment
might with propriety be addressed even to the man who had
been guilty of such unutterable iniquity—conveying her for¬
giveness of the wrongs he had done her and her mother,
might change the whole fortune of her life.
Mr. Steel accordingly told Grace the news he had
received, and was about to follow up this announcement
by dropping a suggestion as to the course which he pro¬
posed that she should take under the circumstance. But
Grace gave him no time for this.
"My place is by my father's sick-bed,"she said, without
a moment of hesitation.
Mr. Steel expostulated. He gravely reminded her that
though forgiveness at such a juncture might be a Christian
duty, no such consideration could require, or even justify,
her reconcilement or association with the man who had
brought her mother to destruction. He also warned her
of the dangerously contagious nature of the disease of which
Campion was ill. But Grace would not listen to a word he
said. She kept on desiring him, with repeated and in¬
creasingly impatient urgency, to arrange the means for her
travelling at once to Diknugger. In the end Mr. Steel had
GRACE MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE. 321
no choice but to give way. A dooly and bearers were
promptly provided, and within two hours of her hearing the
news Grace was being shuffled along the miry high-road
leading to Captain Baytree's capital, to the monotonous
accompaniment of the tune which the dooly-bearers
hummed in unison with the cadence of their footsteps. So
successfully did she inspire these honest fellows' minds and
legs with her own impatience, possibly through the medium
of that silver chord which is a wonderful conductor of sym¬
pathy in such a case, that she reached her destination in an
astonishingly short space of time, some hours before the
regimental surgeon, who was not nearly so keen to ex¬
change the comforts of the mess for the gloom of Dik-
nugger, arrived upon the scene.
She found her father hovering between life and death,
and delirious, in the little room in the sarai which he still
occupied. Shafto was nursing him with devoted 'and unre¬
mitting care. The other Europeans in the station rather
fought shy of the -infected sick-room ; and not unnaturally.
Catcheside had his children to think of; should he catch
the disease it would indeed be a dreadful domestic calamity.
And Baytree had to consider the interests of the State ;
were he to fall ill, would it not be a dire public disaster ?
But Mr. De Sylva, the treasury clerk, was bravely helping
Shafto—though I should not omit to state that the value of
his services was somewhat impaired by the large quantity
of brandy which he continued to imbibe throughout the
day and night, partly to keep up his strength and partly to
drown his sorrow. I daresay Mr. De Rozario, the head
clerk, would have been equally assiduous at the sick-bed;
but as his duties required his frequent attendance in Captain
Baytree's office, he had received a plain warning that if he
was caught going within a quarter of a mile of Dr. Brandling's
bedside, he should be immediately dismissed. But though
thus debarred from sharing his friend De Sylva's labours,
he made up as well as he could by a free participation both
in his condolences and potations.
Grace's dooly was set down before the door, and Mr. De
Y
322
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
Sylva, wrapt in alcoholic odours, came out, thinking pro¬
bably it was the doctor from Beshuckabad. Grace scram¬
bled out of the dooly, and flying past the clerk, entered
Campion's room. Her father lay motionless, with the
flush of fever on his sunken cheeks, and the light of deli¬
rium in his eyes. He did not notice her entrance. Shafto
sat by the bed, half dozing. He roused himself and sprang
to his feet as Grace entered.
"What has brought you here, Miss Hawthorn? You
must not stay—indeed, you must not go near," he ex¬
claimed, stopping her by laying his hand upon her arm, as
she attempted to pass him and approach the bed.
" Let me go," she said, pushing his hand aside. " Let
me go to rpy father."
It was no time for explanations ; at any rate Miss
Hawthorn thought not. All she vouchsafed to tell Shafto
in the few brief moments of conversation they had together
in the course of that day, apart from Dr. Brandling's bed¬
side, was that she had discovered that he was her father.
And Shafto the rather shrank from making more particular
inquiries, because during the violent period of his patient's
delirium, before Grace's arrival, he had heard words which
seemed to point to some dark and terrible story, with which
Shafto now conjectured that Grace's birth must be con¬
nected. If Grace was indeed the offspring of such a love-
story as Brandling's ravings suggested, it was a subject
upon which any question must have been infinitely worse
than indelicate. As for the rest of the community at Dik-
nugger, they had no suspicion of the real motive which had
brought Miss Hawthorn to the apothecary's sick-bed. They
thought she had come out of sheer philanthropy, on one of
those amiable but eccentric feminine impulses, such as that
which took Florence Nightingale to the hospitals of Scutari.
Shafto gave up his room, next to Brandling's, to Grace,
and had a bed made for himself in the police-office. But
he still continued to take a large, share in the attendance on
the sick man.
The crisis of the disease occurred a few days after Grace's
GRACE MEETS WITH AH ADVENTURE. 323
arrival. It took a favourable turn, and the doctor, to whom
spare living and hard exercise had given a constitution of
wrought iron, rapidly mended. It need scarcely be said
that Shafto during this time made no attempt to trench
upon the subject of the love he had so foolishly thrown
away. Nevertheless Grace was not free from amorous
solicitations, very ill in accord with the present state of
her mind. Ravensmore had written to her a passionate
letter demanding the consent to his suit, which he would
have received direct from her lips but for his unlucky acci¬
dent. Mrs. Archer had confided to him in confidence
something of the startling revelations which had been made
in her drawing-room. But Ravensmore could not see
how these could in any way affect the position in which
they had stood towards one another, as they lingered on
the margin of the brook, before her father's appearance.
This letter followed Grace to Diknugger, and she left it
unanswered — indeed unthought of—for some days. But
as soon as the great strain of anxiety was over, and the sick
man took a decided turn towards recovery, she replied to
it with a gentle but most uncompromisingly firm refusal.
But Ravensmore was an obstinate man, who would not,
and could not, take a denial, however firm. He had set
his heart on winning Grace Hawthorn, and win her he was
determined that he would, even if the whole order of nature
opposed his design. So much the worse for the order of
nature, that was all.
Now Bumpas was almost convalescent when Dr. Brand¬
ling fell ill. But the effects $f a severe fever do not all
disappear in a week or two. It was evident that, for some
time Mr. Bumpas would be quite unfit for work, and it was
highly desirable that his progress towards the recovery of
his normal robustious vigour should be stimulated by change
of air. So the doctor from Beshuckabad sent him away on
sick-leave. But Captain Baylree was not the man to be
left without an assistant to bully. And he importuned
Wiggins, the secretary, on this point to such an intolerable
degree (enlarging on the overwhelming mass of work now
324 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
thrown upon him, and the sufferings of heart-sick suitors,
who consequently had to bear " the law's delays"), that
although-Wiggins feared not work (when it fell on other
people), neither regarded suitors, yet was he so wearied by
Baytree's continual writing, that at last he looked about for
some one to send in Bumpas' place. He pounced upon
young Tuppins Hawpenny, who had just come up to Guppy
Tibby to recruit on two months' leave, after untold labours
in the sweltering deserts of Gurdahgunj. Ineffable was the
ill-used Hawpenny's disgust when he was told that, instead
of the dalliance and coolth which he had promised his
weary soul and exhausted body at Guppy Tibby, he was to
go off to drudgery again on the burning plains under the
lash of that notorious taskmaster, Captain Baytree. But
there was yet balm in Gilead for Hawpenny. As soon as
Ravensmore heard of what was going on, he went to the
astonished Sir Duncan MacTullub, and suggested that, in¬
stead of the arrangement proposed, Mr. Hawpenny should
take his (Ravensmore's) desk in the secretariat, while he,
the said Ravensmore to wit, should.go as Captain.Baytree's
assistant to Diknugger. He had never, he said, had any
experience of district work, and here was a fine opportunity
to learn it. It need scarcely be said that Ravensmore had
his way. The delighted Hawpenny, with a heart swelling
with gratified ambition, _ entered into possession of the
under-secretary's little room (and, I may add, heartily
wished himself out of it again before a week was over);
while Ravensmore hurried down to Diknugger, where he
was hospitably accommodated with a lodging in Captain
Baytree's own house, and treated by that stern martinet
with a "deference and consideration which he was by no
means wont to lavish on his subordinates.
It is probable that this very unlooked-for addition to the
administrative staff of the little station had almost as much
to do as the wretchedly cramped and uncomfortable accom¬
modation in the sarai bungalow in determining Grace to
hasten her father's removal to Beshuckabad. Brandling
(for we may as well continue to call him by the name he
GRACE MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE. 325
was still known by) had picked up so well under her care
that he was quite strong enough to be moved by easy stages
to the Cantonment, whence, after a further rest, he might
continue his journey down country to Bombay. For now
that he had regained possession of his child, he was eager
to welcome her into the ancestral halls of Beechly. So
Ravensmore had no sooner come to Diknugger than he
learned, to his infinite vexation, that Grace was about, at
once, to leave it.
When Dr. Brandling bade good-bye to Shafto, neither
made the slightest allusion to Grace, though the thoughts
of both were full of her. Shafto of course was deterred by
the same considerations which had repressed his curiosity
in conversation with Grace herself. Brandling would have
given much to be able to encourage the young man, whom
he dearly loved, to renew his suit. But he was conscious
that he could exercise no influence over his daughter either
through filial duty or filial trustfulness. He acknowledged
to himself, in bitterness of soul, that he owed her presence at
his bedside merely to charity, to the same feeling which takes
a sister of mercy to the wards of a hospital, where all the in¬
mates are strangers to her. So the two men parted, as both fully
believed, never to meet again, with sorrow that was deepened
by the enforced reserve which they were obliged to maintain
on the subject which was dearest to the heart of each.
Shafto, however, without any encouragement from with¬
out, had made a desperate effort to secure a redintegratio
amoris. But Grace checked him at the very beginning with
a quiet but grave and almost stern repulse. As to what he
had said to her and thought of her when they last parted,
he need ask no pardon for that. If his behaviour needed
forgiveness, he had hers freely, and she asked forgiveness
from him for her own impatience and hard words. But the
whole current of her life had become changed since then.
She had now before her a duty which left no room for any
such ideas as he sought to renew.
" Why should your duty to<Dr. Brandling be any bar to
our union, Grace ?" urged Shafto desperately. " I love him
326
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
as you do, loved him before you did : and have we not even
now been sharing together in sympathetic anxiety the ebb
and flow of hope by his sick-bed?"
" For all you have done for him," answered Grace,
"take my heartfelt thanks. Take them, too, for all that
you would bestow upon me. Be assured I do not under¬
value it. But the duty I speak of is no common one of
child towards parent. It is one that I can neither explain
nor—shrink from. And it sets an impassable barrier
between you and me. Good-bye," she said, giving him her
hand. " May God bless you."
Grace got away from Diknugger without the necessity of
any further explanation with her other pertinacious suitor.
Ravensmore could hardly force himself upon her while she
was in close attendance upon her father. They left the
station late in the afternoon, both travelling in doolies, and
as they could go but slowly, it was almost dark when they
reached their first halting-place, the pretty bungalow near
Zoolumkote, where Grace had spent the day with the Steels
and Ravensmore and Shafto on their march towards Dik¬
nugger in the winter. Here they found everything prepared
for the sick man with solicitous care ; for Shafto had ridden
out that morning and seen to all the arrangements himself.
One mark of attention, however, Grace could willingly
have dispensed with. This was a visit almost immediately
after their arrival at the bungalow from the young Nawab.
Grace, knowing how much her father, as a staunch cham¬
pion of the adverse Gurhi Moofsid faction, disliked this
youth, and also because the Colonel was fatigued with his
journey and required quiet, received the Nawab alone. She
had thought him offensive enough on the occasion of their
former meeting. But on* that occasion, while she was a
member of the Commissioner's household, his flattering
evidences of admiration for her beauty had been restrained
to some extent by his feeling of awe for her guardian. But
now that she had left Mr. Steel's family apparently in dis-.
grace (for we may be sure that the row between the Com¬
missioner's wife and Miss Hawthorn had not been conducted
GRACE MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE. 327
so quietly as not to reach the ears of bearers and ayahs,
who in their turn had disseminated their own account of the
affair far and wide, wherever the doings of the Commissioner
of Beshuckabad and his belongings were regarded with
interest), now that Grace had been dismissed from that
household,"and was travelling about the country an errant
damsel in attendance on a discarded, uncovenanted apothe¬
cary, the gallant Nawab's demeanour was a great deal more
familiar than respectful.
Grace was dreadfully annoyed and perplexed. She did
not know how to get rid of the wretch, and half regretted
that she had so peremptorily rejected the offer which Shafto
had made to accompany her and her father and see them
safely across the river. At last, by pleading the absolute
necessity of returning to her attendance on the sick Doctor
Sahib, she induced her troublesome visitor to take his leave.
Before doing so, with his twinkling little eyes fixed on her
face, he presented her with a pair of beautiful gold bangles,
which she, however, to his manifest amazement, summarily
refused to accept. He assured her they were worth three
hundred rupees each ; but even this information, incredible
as it seemed, made no impression upon her. So the fat
youth handed the despised trinkets back to his attendant
with an air, in which offence at the slight of his gift, and satis¬
faction at saving its cost,, seemed to contend for mastery.
Then he informed Miss Hawthorn with deep regret, in
which she did not appear to sympathise, that he was obliged
to keep an appointment with Captain Baytree at seven
o'clock the next morning, which necessitated his immediate
departure for Diknugger, otherwise he would gladly have
condescended to remain, and afford the young lady and her
invalid friend the benefit of his protection and company for
as long as they remained in the vicinity of his castle.
Grace had never deemed it possible that she could ever
experience sentiments of kindliness and gratitude towards
Captain Baytree, a man whom she had instinctively ab¬
horred from the moment when she first met him ; but now
she acknowledged her mistake.
328
c UKRENT REPENTANCE.
The visit of the Nawab upset her, strained as her nerves
already were by fatigue and anxiety, far more than such a
trifle should have done. She felt angry with herself for her
weakness, but this did not make matters any better. So,
after seeing her father composed to rest, she retired into the
next room, leaving the door between them ajar, and with¬
out undressing sat or walked about the room till long past
midnight, her mind tossed and disturbed with a strange
medley of distressing thoughts and irrepressible fancies.
Amongst other things, altogether irrelevant to her
present situation and to the serious cares which should
have occupied her mind, the picture of that blank-walled
dungeon, the women's apartments in the kila of Zoolum-
kote, and the dark hints of horrible deeds still perpetrated
in the silent recesses of such places, which Shafto had thrown
out on the occasion of their visit to the castle, though
neither had ever once recurred to her memory since that
day, would keep cropping up in an obtrusive way now. Of
course this is easily accounted for. The mere circumstance
of her revisiting for the first time the bungalow whence the
visit had been paid, of her having just seen the Nawab
himself again, and of her mind being in a state to receive
and dwell upon gloomy impressions, are quite sufficient to
explain the phenomenon. But to Grace it seemed like a
presentiment.
And a presentiment, as a matter of fact, it was very soon
to be proved to be. For though the Nawab was at this
moment sonorously snoring off the evening meal with'which
he had overstuffed himself, in his lodging at Diknugger, and
the ladies of his household and their attendants were doubt¬
less lapt in balmy slumber, and free as newborn babes from'
thoughts of ill within the stuffy but very snug and safe zenana,
danger and captivity were nevertheless close at hand—even
at the door.
She was aroused from her thoughts by a terrible hubbub
near the servants' houses on the further side of the com¬
pound. She went to the window and looked out. But the
night was pitch dark, and she could see nothing; her door
GRACE MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE. 329
did not command a view of the huts from which the sounds
proceeded. The noise increased, and shrieks began to
mingle with the hoarser tones of men's voices.
Though Grace, in her present tension of thought, was
naturally inclined to attribute the uproar to the occurrence
of something dreadful, she made a vigorous effort to call up
the strength of mind of which she had a fair reserve. It
could after all, she assured herself, be only some squabble
amongst the servants. But it must be stopped, or it would
disturb the sick man in the next room, to whom a good
night's rest after the fatigue of his journey was essential.
So, after peeping through the half-open door, and seeing
that her father was still asleep, Grace slipped out and ran
across towards the servants' houses.
The hubbub had somewhat lulled, and though screams
still continued to break the silence of the night, they
seemed to be rapidly receding in the distance, as if the
persons uttering them were running away; there was a glare
of light beyond the huts, and when Grace had got within a
few yards of them, and paused, uncertain whether, as the
noise had almost ceased, she should go on, or return to the
house, three or four men suddenly appeared round the
corner, one of them carrying a torch, and all armed with
tulwars. Grace turned and fled back towards the house.
But they had caught sight of her white dress, and with a
savage yell started in pursuit. We know she was a good
runner, and might have reached the house before them—if
that could have availed her aught—but half-way she put
her foot into a hole and fell flat on her face. She was up
again in a moment, but by this time she was surrounded
by fierce turbaned faces, and dark eyes flashing on her
savagely from between tangled masses of unkempt hair.
She had occasionally seen the wild figure of old Kumbukt
Khan when he came to visit the Commissioner, and had
frequently heard Mr. Steel speak of the savagery of that
old chief's clansmen. As she looked on her captors, in a
moment the terrible conviction flashed upon her mind that
she was in the hands of Moofsid marauders.
CHAPTER XXL
one of grace's lovers follows her.
I need not perhaps say much more than the reader has
already heard in hints and allusions dropped by Dr. Brand¬
ling as to what had been the fortunes of the Moofsids—or
rather their misfortunes ; for all that happened to that luck¬
less race in these days took that objectionable prefix—since
we last visited their abode. The famine, so to speak, burnt
itself out; that is, it starved so many men and animals to
death that the scanty crops which came up in due course
sufficed to keep the bodies and souls of the remainder to¬
gether. The fever also died out, chiefly, it seemed, because
these things can't last for ever. Psena, despite her game
leg and the roughness of the paths through the ravines,
stuck to her pursuit of that antecedent rogue, Budmash
Khan, and got him into her grip at last; and the hopeful
youth was at this moment lying in Diknugger gaol, awaiting
an opportunity of being shipped across the "black water"
to the pleasant isles of Andaman, there to atone in exile for
breaking into the worthy Cheetun Shah's granaries, a crime
for which, as Shafto remarked, he richly deserved to be
punished, as it was only by the merest chance, and not from
any goodwill, that he was not concerned in it.
His uncle the old chief, and his cousin the fiery and
half cracked DilawarKhan, naturally, however, did not look
upon his fate from this very philosophical and logical point
of view. The latter especially was full of vengeful thoughts
and threats, and from the first talked of forcible rescue, and
hinted broadly at following that up by proclaiming the in¬
dependence of the country, and roasting the Nawab in his
own dripping over the burning embers of his own roof-tree.
It was a pestilent class of wandering fakeers who had put
notions of this sort into the young man's flighty brain, fel¬
lows who went about collecting subscriptions to keep alive
the good cause of religion and national independence, but
who were themselves in heart the most loyal subjects of the
ONE OF GRACE'S LOVERS FOLLOWS HER. 331
British Crown; for under its tolerant and drowsy sway they
were able to drive a profitable trade, that might not be so
safely carried on under any other rule.
But when Dilawar Khan talked in this way before his
father, the old man would sententiously remark that if his
son had not happened to be snug in the nursery at the time
they had their former thrashing from the English, he would,
not be so lightly inclined to invite another. So, as long as
the hope of obtaining justice by peaceful means was kept
alive by Dr. Brandling's efforts on Budmash Khan's behalf,
no overt act followed Dilawar Kahn's big talk.
But now all chance of aid from that quarter had been
put an end to by the doctor's illness. And the young man's
vehemence and persistence began to tell on the old one's
enfeebled will. Not to make an unnecessary mystery, I may
mention here, what only became known at a later time, that
more than one of the insidious fakeers who fanned the fierce
flame of Dilawar Khan's fury, and strove to puff some slight
glow even amongst the cold ashes of Kumbukt Khan's spirit,
were in the pay of the Nawab. A futile rising against the
British power, or even a successful attempt to break into
the Diknugger gaol, would put the coping-stone to the for¬
tunes of the present house of Zoolumkote by consummating
the ruin of that which it had superseded. This scheme, it
need not be said, was not the product of the Nawab's thick-
witted brain. It had been conceived and patiently carried
out by his astute and faithful Diwan.
Between three and four o'clock in the morning, after the
departure of Dr. Brandling and Grace, Shafto was aroused
from his sleep by a summons from his chief, Colonel Catche-
side, to meet him at once at Captain Baytree's house, on a
matter of the utmost urgency. He hurried on his clothes
and went to the Deputy-Commissioner's house. He found
Baytree, Catcheside, and Ravensmore already assembled in
the office-room, the two latter in much excitement, but the
former as cool as a cucumber. The nature of the alarm was
soon explained.
The headman of a village lying about half-way, as the
332 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
crow flies, between the station and the ferry on the Beshuck-
abad road, had galloped in half an hour before, and brought
the news that there was a great fire to be seen apparently
at or near the ferry; and that some of his villagers who had
been out in their fields during the night had seen a large
body of men, many of whom were armed, and some at least
of whom they declared, from their dress and appearance, to
be Moofsids, pass by towards the river some two hours
before the conflagration had been seen.- One man said he
recognised in their leader, who, with several others, was
mounted, no other than Dilawar Khan.
"There Can't be a doubt about it," said Catcheside, in
great agitation. " They have brought the boats over from
the other side of the river and burnt them, and we are cut
off from all hope of aid from Beshuckabad."
"Yes, yes," said Baytree calmly. 'f But that is only half
the story. The Thanadar of Bubblana has just now come
in—mind, Catcheside, you must come down upon him when
this is over, and smash him- at least, for leaving his post—
he has just arrived, and says there is a body of several thou¬
sand rioters marching on the station from the direction of
Gurhi Moofsid."
" I haven't more than fifty men in the lines, so help
me!" exclaimed Catcheside, gesticulating excitedly, "and half
of them have never been drilled, and ten of the remainder
are Moofsids themselves, and of course will join with their
brethren."
" Pooh-pooh ! not a bit of it," replied Baytree, " unless
they see you looking as if you wondered why they don't.
Your Moofsid knows as well as anybody which side his
bread is buttered on, and will not be too eager to exchange the
plenty of the police lines for the starvation of his ravines again."
" Still, I think our only course is to put the ladies and
children into your carriage, and let us all make a bold push
• for Zoolumkote. The kila might be defended for a time,
though the rampart is ruined on one side."
" A bold push it would have to be indeed," put in
Ravensmore, with supreme contempt. " I for one have no
ONE OF GRACE'S LOVERS FOLLOWS HER. 333
courage enough to face the consequences, which would be
universal derision for the rest of our lives."
"By the way, the Nawab is here, is he not?" said Bay-
tree. " If he has brought in a good handful of armed
sowars—and the conceited fool seldom moves without a
tag-rag and bobtail a hundred yards long—they might sup¬
plement your police. Ah, here is the Nawab. Now, I will
tell you what I propose to do. These fellows, no doubt, are
rather strong for us at present—though, of course, you may
safely divide the Thanadar's enumeration by ten or twenty.
Everything depends on delaying their advance. If we can
only keep them at a distance for two hours or so, we shall
have So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so in " (mention¬
ing influential zemindars of the neighbourhood), " and shall
probably be able to present a force that will send our friends
back to Gurhi with their tails between their legs ; for these
Moofsids are great braggarts, but great cowards. But—if
they only have the sense—luckily they are d—d fools, too
■—but if they have the sense to make a dash of it, why,
egad ! I don't see what is to prevent their burning our bun¬
galows, knocking us on the head, and carrying off Budmash
Khan and ail the rest of the gaol-birds in triumph." And
Captain Baytree rubbed his hands and smiled pleasantly.
" Let us now gather the few natives who will stand by
us," cried Catcheside, as excited as ever, but on another
tack now, " and sally out and attack them. It is madness
waiting to be crushed here. Why do we waste time ? Come,
let us go. Shafto, follow me !"
" Nonsense," said Baytree. " We must delay them, and
the only chance of doing that is by pretending to parley.
Now, Nawab, you are the man to whom I will intrust that
honourable duty. You, of course, are the fittest person,
being a near relation of the rebel leader, Kumbukt Khan;
he will listen to you if to any one."
But the Nawab flatly refused the proffered honour.
" Then," said Baytree, in a tone meant to clinch the
matter, and check in anticipation any idle debate, " your
Diwan must go as your substitute."
334 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
The Diwan, who stood respectfully behind his master's
chair, turned green.
" Catcheside," continued Baytree, in the same decided
tone, "you will be kind enough to order four picked men
to accompany and watch—I mean protect—the Diwan. It
will be best that none of the Nawab's own men should
accompany him; it might alarm or irritate the rioters."
" For God's sake, Sahib—" gasped the Diwan, whose
complexion had now assumed a colour which I have no
word or similitude adequate to describe. But Baytree
would not listen.
" There, Catcheside,'' he said, waving his hand impe¬
riously, " don't lose time. You know what to say, Diwan,
better than I could instruct you. Now," he continued com¬
placently, when Catcheside had taken the terrified Diwan
off, and the Nawab had followed, " if the Moofsids are the
men I take them for, they will not knock that man, who
has done each and all of them more injury individually and
generally than any other person alive—they won't, if they
are half the men I believe them to be, knock him brutally
on the head, or cut his throat. The least they will do will
be to hang him, and it is more probable still that they will
roast him over a slow fire. Either operation takes time, and
I calculate we shall gain at least half an hour, which may
be of inestimable value to us."
What may have been the view taken by Messieurs
Ravensmore and Shafto of Captain Baytree's diplomacy,
neither that officer nor the world was destined to learn;
for before either of them had time to speak, a horseman
dashed up to the door with a portentous clatter.
"Well, what next?" asked Baytree, going out into the
verandah, followed by the two young men.
"Zoolumkote has been attacked," cried the excited
cavalier.
"Pooh! is that all?" answered Baytree. "Now," he
added in English, " if these scoundrels who are coming
down upon us could only be informed that their brethren
were sacking the Nawab's kila, gad! I suspect Budmash
ONE OF OF ACE'S LOVERS FOLLOWS HER. 335
Khan would be left to cool his heels in his irons, while they
made off to Zoolumkote to get their share of the loot. Is
the looting over yet?" he asked in Hindustani.
" There has been no looting. The Kurneyl Sahib" (such
was the respectable title of the commander-in-chief of the
Nawab's score of tatterdemalion musketeers), " the Kurneyl
Sahib made all the men that were left in the fort appear on
the ramparts, and had the big drum beat; and then the
rebels, after giving us a lot of abuse, went off."
" Where had they come from ?"
" They were the party returning from seizing the ferry¬
boats."
"And so they went off without doing any harm?" said
Baytree, in a tone of excusable disappointment, " and have
gone off to join the main body, I suppose ?"
"Yes, no doubt," said the messengerbut they did do
some harm first. When they found we were on the alert at
the kila, they went to the bungalow and burnt it down."
" Burnt the bungalow !" exclaimed Ravensmore and
Shafto in a breath. " Good Heavens! are you certain of this ?"
" O, no matter," said Baytree; " we will get a heavy
compensation from Kumbukt Khan for the damage, and
build a better one. The original plan of that one was
intrinsically bad, and no tinkering could ever have made a
really comfortable house of it."
" But, merciful Heavens ! Brandling and Miss Hawthorn
were in it!"
"By Jove ! so they were. O, we will make old Kum¬
bukt Khan shell out threefold compensation on that account,
and if I don't build such a rest-house—"
"What became of the Sahib and the Mem Sahib?"
eagerly inquired the young men of the messenger.
" I had not time to wait to make certain ; but they could
not be found when I left. It was believed they were burnt
in the house."
"Here, syce ! my horse, quick !" shouted Shafto.
" And mine. Come, don't be all day!" screamed
Ravens more.
336
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
" Where are you two going to?" asked Baytree. " Not
to the bungalow? Why, the mischief is done and over. If
they have been burnt in the house they are cinders by this
time, and if they have escaped they are all safe; for you
hear the incendiaries have gone off to join the other party.
No, no. There is other work for you both—work that will
be of some use."
" I must be satisfied of their fate," said Shafto. "Ravens-
more will remain with you here."
" I'll not remain here another moment while there is a
doubt of Miss Hawthorn's safety," cried Ravensmore.
" And you will both abandon the post of duty and the
post of danger? leave the ladies and the women in the
station here to the brutality of this band of savages ? leave
Catcheside's helpless children, and the swarm of whitey-
brown little imps that are for ever popping in and out of
Mr. De Sylva's quarters like rabbits in a warren—you will
leave them to be butchered, while you run away on a wild-
goose chase ? Come, young fellows, show more manliness
than that." Thus expostulated Captain Baytree.
" I tell you," replied Ravensmore impetuously, as he
sprang on the horse with which the syce now hurried up,
"one tress of that angel's hair is of more value than all the
lives in Diknugger put together, and Beshuckabad to boot;
and if one of them has been but singed, I'll have a Moofsid's
life for every single hair in it."
And off he rode at full gallop, staying no further ques¬
tion.
"H—m," muttered Baytree, "his angel is a veritable
guardian one for him, for she is leading him nicely out of
danger. Well, Shafto," he said, as that individual stood
hesitating, with one foot in the stirrup and one on the
ground, looking wistfully after the rapidly-disappearing
figure of his rival, " do you intend to obey orders, or do you
propose to run away too ?"
" After what you have said," answered Shafto, in accents
of utter despondency, and slowly withdrawing his foot from
the stirrup, " I cannot go. If harm has befallen them, then
ONE OF GRACES LOVERS FOLLOWS HER. 337
I care not what my own fate maybe—disgrace or death were
equally indifferent to me. But there are others to be thought
of, as you have said. I am ready to be employed wherever
and however I can be of most use."
"Then go off as hard as you can to the Bunder ferry,
six miles further up the river. It is evident from Dilawar
Khan's party having returned by Zoolumkote, that they
have not thought of securing that means of passing the
river. From there despatch a messenger for aid to Beshuck-
abad, and then return yourself to the station as fast as you
can."
"And must I then turn my back on danger, after all ?"
said Shafto, little satisfied with the tame part assigned to
him. " Surely a native might do that errand."
"No, indeed. It is the one chance all our safety
depends on, and I would not trust it to a native for worlds."
So Shafto reluctantly set off, leaving both his lady-love
and the foe behind him. Assuredly his lot was hard.
It must be confessed that Baytree came out well in this
affair. A better man might have envied the way he put the
case of duty versus impulse before the two young men, and
one of these at least felt lasting gratitude to him for his
having recalled him to the right path at a critical moment.
Shafto could never afterwards speak of Baytree's most un¬
scrupulous iniquities with the hearty reprobation which was
their due. The thought that he had once been beholden to
this shameless official profligate for a timely warning against
taking a step which he could never have looked back upon
without self-contempt, always rose to his mind and softened
his opinions of Baytree strangely.
But Captain Baytree not being one of the heroes of this
veracious romance, we need not waste further time in re¬
cording or commenting upon his sayings and doings in this
eventful crisis. It would indeed be interesting and instruc¬
tive to lay before the reader an account of the cleverly
mingled measures of force and fraud, which happily resulted
in warding off the threatened attack upon the station, and
sending the invading atuiy in lull retreat Lack to their
333 CURRE1V1 Rhl E A1A1VUET.
native fastnesses within an hour or two after sunrise, plun¬
dering all the villages on their road, but leaving Major
Baytree's bungalow and the gaol which contained the
person of Budmash Khan intact. To those whom a fuller
recital of the doughty deeds of the Diknugger Ulysses
would please, I would say, are they not written in the book
of the chronicles of the Ma Bap Provinces—to wit, in the
official Gazette, at pages 1782 et seq.—for the year in which
these occurrences took place ? There may be found a full
account of all (or very nearly all) that happened (and a good
deal besides), in the hero's own best style, which is as
infinitely superior to that of Caesar as the brilliancy of the
deeds commemorated transcended the most redoubtable
triumphs of the Roman general. There, those who run
may read, mark, and learn how entirely the outbreak itself,
and certain unfortunate accidents which marred the lustre
of its suppression, were brought about by the misconduct
and mismanagement of others, while the full credit for the
final triumph of order belongs entirely to one single indi¬
vidual, named Greene Baytree.
But our task is to follow those who showed less steadi¬
ness in the hour of trial. Ravensmore was certainly wrong
to go flying off to look after Grace Hawthorn, who, if she
was not buried beneath the ashes of the rest-house, and so
beyond any help that her devoted lover could hope to bring,
must be in a state of comparative safety, either in the neigh¬
bouring village, or behind the solid walls of the kila of
Zoolumkote—certainly in infinitely smaller peril than the
numerous less attractive, but still human and Christian,
females whom he left behind without a care in Diknugger.
Still, I don't know that one can blame him very severely.
Probably, if we had not done the very same thing as he
did under the same circumstances, it would have been
—in the case of many of us—only because the warmth
of our devotion to the lady of our love was less ardent
than his.
He was in much too high a state of excitement to think
of the expediency of taking any one with him to give aid,
ONE OF GRACE'S LOVERS FOLLOWS HER. 339
should there yet be time for aid to avail. Luckily, how¬
ever, as he galloped along the road, he met three young
fellows, fine specimens of what we may call the yeoman
class, who were riding into the station from an adjacent
village, armed, having heard of the threatened attack, and
eager to prove their loyalty to the " Sirkar." On meeting
Ravensmore, and exchanging a hurried word with him,
these turned their horses' heads and galloped after the
young Englishman, naturally taking it for granted that he
was hastening to where there was the greatest likelihood of
coming to hard knocks with the Moofsids.
The small party reached the rest-house in little over half
an hour. They found nothing but the blackened brick
walls and the pillars of the verandah standing, while inside
was a smoking mass of charred timber and thatch burnt to
ashes, which, as half a dozen labourers worked hard at
removing the debris, and disturbed the light substance,
rose in dense clouds, which enveloped and almost choked
them.
Dr. Brandling sat on the unburnt end of a fallen beam,
evidently completely exhausted with the frantic exertions
which (as one of the labourers whispered to Ravensmore)
he had, notwithstanding his weak condition, at first made
with his own hands to assist in the removal of the rubbish.
He was now, with feeble voice, but intense and impatient
earnestness, urging the men to redoubled efforts, and stimu¬
lating their zeal in their task by promises of the most
extravagant reward.
" Good God! is it true, then !" exclaimed Ravensmore,
throwing himself from his horse. " Is she—has she been—
Come, lend a hand here. It may not even yet—it shall not
—be too late."
And therewith he set about lifting and removing huge
beams with the strength of a young Samson, ably and zeal¬
ously aided by his three followers.
But Ravensmore had not been more than a few minutes
at work when a murmur began to arise among the by¬
standers, and reached the men who were working at
34° CURRENT REPENTANCE.
debris, causing them one after the other to pause in their
labours. Ravensmore was at first too intent on the des¬
perate search to notice this; but at last, observing that
all save himself had desisted from the work, he too stood
up, and angrily asked the cause of their cessation. He
was soon informed. It appeared that a few villagers living
on the edge of the waste two or three miles off had some
time before daylight seen three men on horseback making
at full speed for the jungle, and that one of them carried
before him on the saddle a person (whether a man or woman
the men could not in the dark make out, but dressed in
white clothing), who seemed to be struggling violently but
vainly to get free.
On hearing this, Ravensmore began eagerly to inquire
into the circumstances of the burning of the bungalow.
From Brandling, distracted with grief, he could get no
coherent or intelligible information. But from the servants
of the rest-bouse he learnt that they had been suddenly
aroused from sleep by a party of armed Moofsids rushing
into their huts, and laying about recklessly with their
tulwars. The darkness and confusion, however, fortunately
favoured their escape, and they all managed to get outside
and run away, without sustaining any damage beyond a
slight flesh-wound which one received on the shoulder.
They were too terrified to stop until they got to the village,
nearly a quarter of a mile off, and there gave the alarm.
But scarcely had a body of the villagers started towards the
bungalow, when they saw that it was in a blaze. They
hurried forward; but before they could arrive one side of
the house was completely enveloped in flames, and the
fire was spreading with fearful rapidity along the thatched
roof. They rushed into the room which was still unburnt,
and which was that occupied by the invalid. He had
apparently that very instant been awoke by the heat and
noise of the fire, and was just raising himself in his bed.
Two stalwart villagers seized him, and carried him from
the blazing house. He resisted his removal as well as his
feeble strength enabled him, and wildly expostulated against
ONE OF GRACE'S LOVERS FOLLOWS HER. 341
being carried out until he had rescued Grace from the next
room. But to enter the next room would have been to
enter a burning fiery furnace; they had indeed barely
time to escape with life from that in which he himself had
lain. Nevertheless, the moment they set him down outside,
he sprang up and rushed back to the burning house. They
only seized him in time to forcibly withhold him from
plunging into the midst of the fire. He struggled frantically,
and despite the enfeebling effects of his illness, it was all
that three or four strong young fellows could do to hold
him. And the struggle was still going on when the whole
roof fell in, within a few feet of them. Grace Hawthorn
not having been found outside, it was naturally taken for
granted that she had perished in the burning house. But
now the information just brought seemed to throw con¬
siderable doubt upon this inference.
''Don't give up the work here!" cried Ravensmore.
"There is still no certainty. But you," he said to the three
young men who had followed him from Diknugger, " come
with me. Get these villagers' horses, and let them show us
where they saw the men pass. Is there a tracker to be
found ?''
A servant of the Nawab's, who had been directing the
labourers in their efforts to clear away the ruins, stepped
forward and said that one of the people he had with him
was well skilled in tracking; they, too, would mount their
horses and go with Ravensmore. So the party, now in¬
creased to eight, set forth, leaving Brandling, who was
totally incapable of joining them, to keep the men left
behind up to the still necessary work of searching the ruins.
They soon reached the spot where the villagers had
seen the horsemen pass, and the tracker was laid like a
bloodhound on the scent. And really the skill, or rather
instinct, with which he followed it was as wonderful as that
of the sleuth-hound in its palmiest days. At first the dents
of the horses' feet were pretty clear, and Ravensmore him¬
self could detect them. But after they got into the jungle,
and the grass showed to the unpractised eye no sign of an
342
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
impression, still the man went from point to point with the
most remarkable decision.
But their pursuit seemed nevertheless far from hopeful.
Quick and keen-sighted as the tracker was, still their pro¬
gress could only be at a foot's pace. The jungle through
which they passed was almost uninhabited, and there was
no means of discovering which direction the fugitives had
taken but by their footprints. The day wore on, and by
noon they had made little over a dozen miles, while Grace's
captors were no doubt long ago safe in the wild broken
country, where it would be an almost desperate enterprise
to trace them. Ravensmore's eager impatience could be
restrained no longer; and leaving the tracker to proceed at
leisure, he and the three young men who had followed him
from Diknugger dashed off towards Gurhi Moofsid in the
forlorn hope of obtaining some news of those of whom they
were in search.
They were more fortunate than might have been ex¬
pected. When they had ridden a few miles, and had
nearly emerged from the further side of the jungle, they saw
two horsemen and a group of men on foot at some distance
in front of them. They were too far off for Ravensmore
and his companions to observe whether they carried a
prisoner with them, or whether they wore the dress and had
the long tangled hair which distinguished the Moofsids.
But from the direction, and the hurried pace in which they
were going, it seemed likely that they were a party of
the insurgents on their retreat. The pursuers advanced
cautiously, making a circuit amongst the bushes, and so cut
the party off, getting before them and taking up a position
in ambush close to the line of their retreat.
As the men drew near it was seen that several among
them were unquestionably Moofsids. The rest were pro¬
bably blackguards from the open country, who had fol¬
lowed the Moofsid raid in hope of sharing their plunder.
But they had neither Grace Hawthorn nor any other prisoner
with them.
When they were opposite the place of ambush, Ravens-
ONE OF GRACE'S LOVERS FOLLOWS HER. 343
more and his allies rushed out, and calling upon them to
halt, dashed at them at full speed. But short as the distance
between the two parties was, the Moofsid horsmen were too
alert and active for their would-be captors, and turning short
round, made each for a different point in the jungle, and
were hopelessly lost in the mazes ere Ravensmore could
overtake them. While he followed these he very nearly let
the footmen, scarcely less active than their mounted com¬
rades, escape too. But one of his companions was prudent
enough to devote his energies to the infantry, two of whom,
a Moofsid and another man, he managed to secure.
Little could be got from the Moofsid, who answered all
questions with a half-sullen half-defiant pretence at not
understanding the questions. But the other man was
moved at the sight of Ravensmore's revolver, and still
more by the look of desperate determination to use it on
small provocation which was manifest in the young officer's
face, to be more communicative. But he could not tell
much. He had not been at Zoolumkote nor the rest-
house, but had joined this detached party of Moofsids
as they passed his village on their way back, and had
assisted them in plundering some of his friends the bun-
niahs in neighbouring villages. But whence the rest had
come when he joined them, he had not thought it necessary
to inquire. Asked as to the presence of a "Mem Sahib"
with the party, he at first seemed quite abroad, and appa¬
rently could not understand what his interrogators were
driving at.
" This is clearly not the party we are in search of," said
one of Ravensmore's followers. " He is evidently speaking
the truth, and knows nothing of the lady."
But Ravensmore's almost forlorn anxiety was not to
be so easily convinced.
" The fellow may be shamming stupidity," he answered.
" I believe he is. Now, you scoundrel," he exclaimed,
with angry violence, suddenly bringing the muzzle of the
revolver within an inch of the man's eye, " tell me where
the girl is, or I will shoot you dead."
344
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
" O, mercy, Sahib !" cried the terrified prisoner, clutch¬
ing at Ravensmore's knee. For God's sake! O, the
girl ? I will take you to where they left her, if you will
spare my life. But I swear I had nothing to do with that
business. I only took a handful of flour from a bunniah's
shop, because I was starving. That is all I did. I had
nothing to do with the ill-treatment of the girl, and would
have protected her if I had dared."
With his dread and horror wrought up to the highest
pitch by the ominous confession thus extorted by the man's
abject terror, Ravensmore made him get up behind one of
his followers and lead them to where Grace had been "left,"
as he had grimly expressed it. For his life Ravensmore
could not ask a fuller explanation of that word; the ques¬
tion stuck in his throat when he tried.
They went several miles along the edge of the jungle
until they came in sight of a village lying just on the de*
bateable land between the wilderness and the cultivated
country. While still a great way off it was easy to perceive
that the place had undergone a thorough sack. No living
soul appeared to be near it. The inhabitants had apparently
fled in terror. Some of the houses were smoking ruins, and
some cattle and a donkey lying here and there, either shot
or hamstrung, bore witness to the brutal revel of wanton
cruelty and destruction which had accompanied the more
practical business of plundering.
A sickening horror overcame Ravensmore as his mind
conjured up the scene of violence and worse which these
indications too surely told of, and the thought of Grace Haw¬
thorn having been present in it, helpless and unprotected.
His guide led them round to the other side of the vil¬
lage, and there, on the margin of the foul and miry cattle-
pond, there lay something else than the carcasses of mutilated
and butchered cattle. It was a slight, small object, which
would not have been readily seen as it lay on the muddy
bank, had it not been conspicuous from being clad in white
muslin.
Ravensmore sickened at the sight, and reeled and almost
THE OTHER FOLLOWS DUTY.
345
fell from the saddle as he pulled up short He covered his
face with both hands in horror, and said to one of his com¬
panions, " Go and see. I cannot. But there may be life yet."
"No, Sahib," replied the guide. "The girl was quite
dead before they left her."
CHAPTER XXII.
the other follows duty.
If the excitement of Ravensmore's chase was agonising,
the dull, dangerless duty which had fallen to Shafto's lot, at
a time when his mind was so distracted by doubts and fears
about the fate of Grace Hawthorn, was a yet harder trial.
Accompanied by a couple of mounted policemen, he made
the best of his way towards the ferry indicated by Baytree;
but as he galloped along his thoughts were far away from
the mission on which he was bound. It was, indeed, so
simple and safe a one that it needed no thought or care.
All he had to do was to see that one of his orderlies got
quickly across the river with Baytree's note to the Com¬
missioner calling upon him for assistance. There was no
chance of his being interrupted, for he knew that Dilawar
Khan and his party, after destroying the boats at the ferry
on the main road to Beshuckabad, had returned to Dik-
nugger by Zoolumkote, and could not possibly, therefore,
be anywhere in the direction in which his path lay.
One of his orderlies, a rough old soldier, being less
highly educated than Shafto, and consequently less logical
in his reasoning, did not appear quite so fully convinced of
this irrefragable Q.E.D. He exchanged a hurried word or
two with the country-people they met on the road, and
what he heard caused him evident uneasiness with regard
to the careless manner in which his officer was galloping
forward. Shafto, it need not be said, was far too much
absorbed in his own distressing thoughts to pay the least
346
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
attention to his follower's hasty snatches of conversation
with the passers-by. And even when the old fellow, riding
up alongside of him, ventured to enjoin some little wariness
in their mode of advance, Shafto's mind did not take in an
atom of the sense of his words. The old man drew his
horse back with a pious and philosophical reference to the
will of Allah, and the little party galloped on as before.
Suddenly, as they dashed up to the edge of a wide de¬
pression in the surface of the ground, which had been an
old bed of the river, they saw at the botton of the hollow,
only a hundred yards before them, a band, or rather a rab¬
ble, of some hundred men, of whom, perhaps, ascore were
mounted, and many more were armed with every variety of
weapon, ranging from long rusty matchlocks to iron-bound
clubs. We know from experience on a former occasion
that Shafto's favourite Waler was never very well in hand.
Now he was riding at a swinging gallop, with a loose rein,
and had got fairly on to the downward slope before'he was
aware of the enemy in front. So by the time he succeeded
in pulling up, scarce fifty paces separated him from Dilaw4r
Khan's party. For Dilawar Khan's party in fact it was, as
Shafto could not possibly doubt; for there was the half-
insane young chief himself riding at their head. Even the
wisdom of Baytree was liable to error; and he had quite
forgotten to take into account the very obvious truth that,
though some of the band which had burnt the boats on the
Beshuckabad road ferry must have returned direct to the
Zoolumkote rest-house in order to have done the same by
it, it by no means followed that all had done so. He should
have considered that others might have pushed on to secure
the smaller ferry higher up the river. As a fact, Dilawar
Khan, with the main body of his followers, had taken this
latter course, and was now on his way to cooperate with his
father's force in the attack upon the station, after having
effectually cut off all means of communication between
Diknugger and Beshuckabad.
When Shafto succeeded in halting he called out to the
leader of the band, demanding to know what he meant by
THE OTHER FOLLOWS DUTY,.
assembling this riotous crowd. Dilaavar Khan's answer was
to dash forward at the young police-officer, brandishing his
tulwar, and followed by several of his mounted followers.
Seeing this, Shafto drew his sword and went to meet his
enemy half-way. He and Dilawar Khan rushed together,
and each struck several violent blows. But to tell the truth,
neither had had much practice as swordsmen in real action,
though Shafto was a fair hand at single-stick, and the young
Moofsid could cut a slice off a lemon without fail while
galloping past it at full speed ; and, unromantic and unhe-
roic as it may sound, neither did the other the least harm.
But one of Dilawar Khan's foot followers coming up, caught
Shafto by the leg while he was engaged in parrying a sword-
cut from another of the mounted men, and pitched him out
of the saddle. Half a dozen clubs were instantly raised to
knock him on the head ere he could raise it from the ground,
and the thickness of his skull was likely to have been put
to a ruder test than even when he dived head foremost into
the nullah during the memorable chase after Grace Haw¬
thorn's Arab; but Dilawar Khan himself interfered to save
him. They were both keen sportsmen, and had spent many
a hard day and night together in the jungles; and the me¬
mory of their comradeship restrained the fury of Dilawar
Khan even at this time, when his normal semi-insanity had
been converted, by excitement and success, into something
like raving madness. So Shafto's life was spared, and he
and his two followers were merely disarmed and made
prisoners.
As he was led along with the mob back towards the
station, Shafto attempted to learn from his captors some¬
thing of Grace's fate. But they were quite ignorant even
that the rest-house had been attacked. They told him
that after the chief object of their incursion, the securing of
the main ferry, had been accomplished, their leader did not
consider so strong a force necessary to effect the seizure of
the minor ferry, and had dismissed nearly half of his original
Moofsid following to go direct to join his father's party. If
the rest-house wantonly put itself in their way, Shafto's
348
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
informants acknowledged, it was by no means unlikely that
they might burn it down en passant.
As they neared the station the insurgents began to hear
rumours from the villagers they caught and questioned, which
seemed to have a decidedly sobering effect on the excitement
of most of them, but only drove their leader into wilder tran¬
sports of fury. It was said that Kumbukt Khan, with the
main body, had been repulsed, and was already in full retreat
towards Gurhi Moofsid. Shafto felt genuine joy at these
tidings, which seemed to assure the safety of the ladies and
children. But it must be confessed that they were not of a
kind calculated to afford him any unalloyed delight. For
it was in the highest degree improbable that Dilawhr Khan's
unaccustomed tenderness of heart, which had been strong
enough to stand out against the intoxication of triumph,
would be proof against the rage of disappointment and defeat.
And the odds were great that he would manifest his disgust
at the failure of his enterprise by cutting his prisoner#s throat.
Such an apprehension would, I say, have doubtless consi¬
derably alloyed the exultation with which Shafto heard of the
enemy's retreat under any other circumstances. But now it
is a fact that he was in such a depth of despondency that
he cared little what might be his own fate. If, as he could
not help acknowledging was all but certain, however
much he strove against the conviction, Grace had been
buried in the blazing ruins of the rest-house, why should he
wish to survive so dreadful a catastrophe ? And even if
she were safe—and God grant she might be !—still his case
was no better. Would not gratitude to the chivalrous lover,
who had put all other considerations aside to fly to her res¬
cue, blast for ever the last lingering hope of the cold-hearted
rival, who, while her fate was worse than doubtful, had tried
to run away towards Bdshuckabad ?
Making a wide detour, Dilawar Khan led his followers to
that side of the station opposite which he should have found
his father. And then the news of the latter's retreat was con¬
firmed beyond a doubt. But instead of at once proceeding
to the assassination of his prisoner, the young leader resolved
THE OTHER FOLLOWS DUTY.
349
to make one attempt to accomplish the object of his expe¬
dition. He led his men to the attack of the station by them¬
selves ; that is, he led as many as would follow. And though
these included most of his own tribesmen who were with
him, very few indeed of the volunteer auxiliaries who had
joined him showed any stomach for an encounter with the
muskets of the police.
Shafto was left behind well guarded, and saw nothing of
the battle. It was a brief one. There was a rattling volley
from Catcheside's men, supported by the Nawab's retainers,
which, though it did no great damage, was quite enough
even for the Moofsids, who turned tail, dragging their leader
back along with them by main force.
The whole party at once, with one consent, Moofsids
and auxiliaries, turned their backs resolutely on Diknugger.
And now had come the moment when Shafto prepared him¬
self for that separation of the thorax which he believed
to be inevitable. And no doubt his anticipations would
have been fully justified by the event, had not one of Dila-
war Khan's followers been inspired at the critical moment
with a happy thought.
" Let us not retire without doing some act of vengeance,"
shouted this doughty warrior. " If we can't break the gaol
and loot the station, we can at any rate snatch back some of
the plunder that our great enemy has been taking from us
these twenty years, and clear off a score with him. The
Nawab and most of his men are at Diknugger helping the
Sahibs. Let us go and sack the kila of Zoolumkote."
This proposition was hailed with acclamation, and even
Dilawar Khan was somewhat appeased by it. So the party
set off towards the Nawab's castle, Shafto still accompanying
them as a prisoner.
The castle was soon reached. There were but few men
in it, the Nawab having taken the most efficient of his armed
retainers, as he was wont, to swell his train on his visit to the
station. Those inside shut to the ponderous iron-studded
doors, which closed the great arched gateway. And the
insurgents, with such weapons and implements as they had,
35° C URRENT REPENT A NCE.
could have made little impression against this obstacle. But
as luck would have it, the Nawab was at that time rebuild¬
ing a part of the outer wall which had fallen into disrepair,
and just at this particular juncture the work of demolition
had been completed and that of reconstruction not begun.
So there was an open breach twenty yards in the wall, the
rubbish from which half filled up the ditch opposite to it.
Through this opening the assailants thronged in, knocking
over and trampling under foot a gallant old sepoy who,
timidly backed by half a dozen others, made a show of oppo¬
sition. The rest threw away their arms and ran as soon as
they saw him fall. No other opposition of any kind was
offered, and now the work of loot and destruction began.
The mob spread themselves over all parts of the build¬
ing, beating or slaughtering without mercy all who fell in
their way—old men, women, and children,—all, in a word,
who had not possessed activity enough to escape from the
place in time. There was, perhaps, a quarter of an hour of
wild riot, confusion and noise, shouts and execrations,
mingled with shrieks and fiendish laughter. Then arose, at
first faint, but growing rapidly stronger, the smell of fire.
Then volumes of smoke were seen issuing from the door
and the unglazed windows of the great hall. And a minute
or two later, with one sudden burst, the whole central pile
of buildings became wrapped in flame. The fire had doubt¬
less been kindled intentionally by some of the insurgents,
and probably, indeed, by Dilawdr Khan's own order. Never¬
theless it placed numbers of his followers in imminent peril,
as many of them were still engaged in searching and sacking
the upper stories when it broke out. The confusion, which
had been wild enough before, became now, from this cir¬
cumstance, doubly redoubled ; the frantic plunderers aloft
yelling to their comrades below for help, cursing them be¬
cause they could not or would not lend it, and leaping in
desperation from the flame-licked balconies and turrets into
the stone-paved court below.
While these scenes rapidly passed before him, Shafto
had remained for some time perforce a passive spectator.
THE OTHER FOLLOWS DUTY.
But as the plunder of the castle proceeded, his guards be¬
came more and more fidgety. It was not in a Moofsid's
nature to see unmoved his brethren securing rith plunder
while he was himself condemned to the profitless inaction
of guarding a prisoner. They began to eye Shafto askance,
and he in turn watched them not altogether without a quick¬
ening of the pulse. That they would very shortly abandon
their guard, and leave him to himself, he felt quite sure.
But whether they would leave him with an ungashed throat
was a more doubtful question. Two of them handled their
long knives ominously; and the scowls which gathered
beneath their tangled locks and above their glittering eyes,
as- they whispered eagerly together, were not suggestive of
hope. But the third, who was a personal attendant of
Dilawar Khan, and had often accompanied him and Shafto
on their shooting excursions, and received little kindnesses
from the latter, stuck to him now. After a brief but vehe¬
ment controversy, during which Shafto had self-control
enough to sit perfectly still, instead of taking advantage of
the preoccupation of his guards in their dispute to attempt
an escape, which would have certainly ended in his being cut
down, they led him into the inner court of the castle, and
there leaving him unharmed, rushed off to secure their own
share of the good things going.
He immediately caught up a tulwar, which had either
been thrown down by one of the fugitive retainers, or dropped
by some plunderer, who required all the hands with which
Nature had endowed him to carry his booty. Then slipping
into the outer courtyard during the confusion accompanying
the first outbreak of the fire, he ran towards the breach.
But he soon saw it would not be safe to attempt to escape
that way, as numbers of the rioters were about. He there¬
fore turned towards the opposite side, resolving to escape
by dropping from the rampart into the ditch.
When he reached the wall he looked back for a moment
to see how matters were going on before he leaped down,
and his attention was caught by a little group of women
who at that moment emerged from a small, scarcely notice-
352 cuRREirr~RETKrn'7i^rjr.
able back door of the block of buildings occupied by the
zenana, and hurried, with the uncertain stumbling steps of
frantic terror, towards an outhouse—a cowshed or some¬
thing of the sort—at a little distance. They were doubtless
the Nawab's wives and their attendants, who had hitherto
contrived to conceal themselves in some hiding-place among
the labyrinthine passages and apartments of the zenana, but
now, either terrified by the fire or by the approach of the
rioters to their hiding-place, had been forced to seek
another refuge outside. But before the fluttering garments
of the last of them disappeared through the door of the
cowshed, it was too late. Three or four ruffians had fol¬
lowed them to the zenana wicket, just in time to discover
their new place of refuge, and with a yell of savage laughter
rushed towards it.
It was not in Shafto to turn his back on the horrors
which must ensue from this discovery without an effort to
avert them. He might not be able to do so; there were
four men in pursuit of the women, only one of whom, fortu¬
nately, however, was armed with a sword. He could not
hope to prevent their entrance into the shed sooner or later,
and he must certainly sacrifice his own life. But there was
just the bare chance that he might delay the ruffians for a
minute or two, and that there might be some means of exit
from the building on the other side, through which the
women in the mean time could escape.
He was about as far from the door of the shed as the
men were. But he was a good runner. He sprang from
the rampart into the courtyard again, and reached the place
just in time. His first blow, dealt before the men were
aware of his presence, was by good luck more effectual than
those with which a few hours before he had assailed Dilawar
Khan. It stretched one of his opponents on the ground
hors de combat. But still he had three powerful men to deal
with, one armed like himself with a sword, and the other
two with formidable clubs. They lost no time in setting
upon him, but he put his back against the wall, and laid
about him lustily. He got one or tvK> na.fly blous from th_
THE OTHER FOLLOWS DUTY.
clubs, and after a time a slash across the neck with a
tulwar, while he himself could not succeed in giving his
adversaries a fair cut. At this rate it was evident that a
few seconds more would see him done for. He resolved to
change his tactics. Disregarding altogether the club-men
who were on either side of him, he made a sudden spring
forward at the swordsman who was in front, and having
found the blade of the tulwar—in his hands at least—less
effective than he could have wished, he now used the hilt
instead, dashing it into his opponent's face with a good
blow straight out from the shoulder. It caught the swords¬
man right between the eyes, and stretched him on his back.
But Shafto was completely at the mercy of the other two
men who were now behind him. Both had their hands raised
above their heads, holding the clubs pointing downwards
behind them, so as to be brought upon his unguarded head
with a full swing. One club, that of the man on the left,
did describe its swift semicircle, and descended, not, luckily,
on Sha'fto's head, but on his shoulder, as he quickly turned
from his prostrate foe in front to tackle him who was on the
right. But this right-hand man's weapon encountered an
unexpected obstacle to its destined course. One of the
women had pluckily come out from the shed and caught
hold of it from behind, just as its wielder was in the act of
swinging it round. He turned instinctively to see who or
what had hindered him, and that incautious movement was
his destruction. For while his hands and weapon were
encumbered and his face averted, Shafto cut him down.
The fourth man, seeing no less than three of his companions
laid low so rapidly, one after the. other, declined further
contest, and took to his heels.
" Grace !" exclaimed Shafto the moment after he had dealt
his last stroke. " How, in Heaven's name, came you here?"
For it was indeed Grace Hawthorn, and no other, who
had so opportunely caught hold of the right-hand man's club.
But there was no time for explanations, or even to wait
for a reply to his question. The three fallen men were not,
it was to be feared, killed so dead that they might not pos-
AA
354
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
sibly repeat the miracle which, as we know on the unexcep¬
tionable testimony of Sir John Falstaff, was once accom¬
plished by two slain men on Shrewsbury field. So calling
to the other women who were still inside the shed to follow,
he led Grace away. Eat how to get out of the castle now
was the question. It was all very well for him to think of
dropping twenty feet or so into the ditch, but he could
scarcely expect the ladies to do this in safety. But as he
was looking anxiously about for some place of concealment
within the walls, a shrill panic-cry arose amongst the
plunderers round the blazing pile of buildings in the centre
of the enclosure, " The soldiers, the soldiers !" Then a
general stampede was made towards the breach. A few
minutes afterwards the great castle gate was swung open,
there was a tremendous clattering of hoofs on the roughly-
paved causeway, and presently a troop of hussars with
flashing sabres appeared in the courtyard, and set diligently
about cutting down such of the fugitive looters as had not
been already fortunate enough to escape through the breach.
The native women who had been Grace's companions
in flight being no longer in danger, Shafto left them to their
own devices, and escaping with Grace from the confusion
in the castle-yard, asked for an explanation of her unex¬
pected appearance at Zoolumkote. It was soon given. The
men who had set fire to the rest-house and carried her off
were not Moofsids at all, nor attached in any way to
Dilawar Khan's band, but were in reality scoundrels in the
Nawab's service disguised as such. That youthful noble¬
man, as we know, had fallen in love with Grace at first
sight, and he had ever since longed to possess the charms
which had enraptured him. As long as Grace remained
under the protection of the Commissioner, the Nawab
would not have dreamt of committing an outrage. But
when he saw her turned out, as was reported, in disgrace
from Mr. Steel's household, and in attendance on the
apothecary, who had also just been dismissed the service, the
Nawab began tothink that there might be no very excessive
danger in taking a little liberty with her. Grace, pf course,
THE OTHER FOLLOWS DUTY. 355
could not account for, and Shafto could only guess at, the
cause of the remarkable coincidence in the time selected by
the Nawab for kidnapping her, and by Kumbukt Khan
for attempting the rescue of his nephew. But the simple
explanation of this came out not long after, and we may as well
give it here. I have already mentioned that certain fakeers,
who were very active in instigating the Moofsids to adopt
some violent course, were in the pay of the Nawab, or
rather of his Diwan; and these men naturally also kept
their employer well informed of the progress of their endea¬
vours. From them the Nawab and the Diwan had learnt
in good time of the intended raid. And the former, taking
advantage of the accident of Grace being at the rest-house at
the opportune moment, hit upon the bright idea of contriving
a little under-plot of his own as a supplement the more serious
scheme of his Prime Minister. The burning of the rest-
house was a necessary concomitant of the kidnapping of
Miss Hawthorn, in order that it might be presumed that she
had either perished in the flames, or been taken away and
murdered in the wilds beyond Gurhi Moofsid; and that
thus no search might be made for her, at all events in his
direction. But in order the more effectually to divert sus¬
picion from himself, he had taken care to be at Diknugger
on the eventful night.
"From the moment I was free from those dreadful men,
and was lodged safely in the zenana, Jack darling," said
Grace (for I need say that in that moment, during which
the end of the club was held down, and prevented from
swinging round on the said Jack's darling head, a certain
contract which had been for months in abeyance had been
tacitly renewed), " I was treated very kindly. No one
came near me but the women. O, how wonderfully God's
providence orders all things for the best !"
" Yes, indeed, Grace," assented Shafto. "But I shall
not forget, too, the debt of gratitude I owe to that old vil¬
lain Baytree. But for him I should have been at this
moment wandering all over the place in vain search of you;
as, I suppose/poor B.avensmore actually is doing."
356 CURRE^-RERBNT^rNVET.—
Before this Shafto had learnt from one of the Nawab's
men, who had also by this time arrived with his lord at the
castle, that Dr. Brandling was safe; and Grace was anxious
to set off to the bungalow and see for herself how her father
had endured the physical fatigue and mental anguish of the
past twelve hours. Shafto got her a horse, and contrived a
tolerable side-saddle by means of blankets. But he had one
imperative duty to perform ere he left the castle. So, seat¬
ing Grace upon the horse, and placing her in charge of an
honest old native magistrate, who had also now appeared
on the scene, to be conducted to the rest-house, and pro¬
mising to overtake her in a few minutes, he returned to the
courtyard and walked towards the still blazing buildings.
There he found, as he had expected, the fat Nawab looking
on at the destruction and spoliation of his gear in great
tribulation. The ill-fortune which had befallen this young
man might have moved Shafto to pity. But Shafto was a
cool thinker, and he reflected that all the damage which the
Moofsids had wrought their chief enemy would be more
than counterbalanced by the advantage and gratification
which he would derive from the utter and irretrievable ruin
which must overwhelm the Gurhi Moofsid family after this
escapade. Then doubtless the grave displeasure of the
Government and of the Commissioner would fall upon the
Nawab for his outrageous treatment of Miss Hawthorn,
which could not possibly escape the notice of those autho¬
rities. But Shafto had a shrewd guess that the paramount
expediency of hushing up a scandal—nay, he felt keenly
that consideration for Grace's own feelings must prevent
any very severe—which must necessarily be also a very
public—punishment being meted out to the Nawab for his
conduct on the present occasion. Therefore, taking these
circumstances into consideration, Shafto not only did not
pity the stout youth's hard case, but he thought he was
pretty sure to get off altogether too easily, and he was firmly
resolved accordingly to do what little in him lay to obviate
such a failure of justice.
The Nawab had ridden home fast, and he still held in
THE OTHER FOLLOWS DUTY. 357
his hand the ch&book or riding-whip with which he had urged
his steed. Now the Indian ch&book is an instrument in com¬
parison with which the severest English jockey-whip is as a
lady's riding-switch.
Shafto, walking calmly up to the Nawab, as he stood
surrounded by his satellites, laid his left hand on the noble
youth's collar, and his right on his chabook ; and then, with¬
out a word of preface, proceeded to administer such a flog¬
ging as very quickly tore the victim's gaudy silken garments
to shreds, and raised weals on his broad back, the marks of
which would not disappear for many a year. The Nawab
writhed and howled so that it was good to see and hear him.
But at last the boldest of his retainers took heart of grace
and attempted forcibly to interfere. Shafto was very savage
at this. The scoundrel had not had half enough yet, but
how could he administer the full tale of stripesjwith proper
vigour while half a dozen men were tugging at his arms or
grasping him round the waist ? Exerting his full strength,
and shaking himself free from them for a moment, while he
held tenaciously to the Nawab, he slipped the chabook into
his left hand, and with his right drew the tulwar, which he
still carried stuck in his waistband. This action made them
all recoil for a moment; but it was clear that they would
return, and obstruct and annoy him as soon as he should
put the weapon back. It was really very hard.
Just then a voice said in English, " Hullo ! what game
is up here ?"
Shafto turned, and beheld the officer who commanded
the detachment of hussars which had lately arrived.
" This young ruffian has had the insolence to attempt to
carry off a young lady," said Shafto, " and I am giving him
a little of what he deserves. Can't you keep these black¬
guards off me for a few minutes ?"
" O, certainly," replied the officer affably. "No casti-
gation can be too severe for a man who attempts to carry
off young ladies. So lay on, Macduff! and I'll keep the ring
clear for you." .
Shafto briefly thanked the moral young officer who
358 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
uttered this excellent sentiment, and proceeded with his
task.
" Ah," said the officer complacently, when the operation
was finished, and the Nawab lay bellowing and grovelling
in the dust—-" Ah, it is a pleasure to see a scamp who has
attempted to commit such a disgraceful crime as carrying
off a young lady so soundly punished. It does one good, I
assure you."
And certainly it is to be hoped that the spectacle had
done the speaker good ; for he was no other than our old
friend, Lieutenant Rattley Trapton !
This necessary duty performed, Shafto hurried after
Miss Hawthorn.
CHAPTER XXIII.
the end.
We have still to trace the adventures of one other of our
chief characters during this e%ventful day. Notwithstanding
the ill-success of Shafto's attempt to communicate with
Beshuckabad, the Commissioner was not only early apprised
of the occurrence of the disturbance at Diknugger, but
was able to transport himself and a body of cavalry into
the district without any undue delay at the river. The
fact was that Dilawar Khan's followers' impatience to begin
the work of destruction had defeated their own object.
Had a party of them quietly crossed to the Beshuckabad
side of the stream and seized unexpectedly the boats
which were moored there, Mr. Steel would certainly
have been detained till nightfall, if not till the follow¬
ing morning. But while the men who had started to
secure the boats on the Beshuckabad side had been still in
mid-stream, their comrades who were left on shore began
to set fire to the huts of the boatmen on the Diknugger
bank. This aroused the alarm of the boatmen on the
Beshuckabad side, who, guessing that something was wrong,
manned two of their boats and silently slipped with them
THE END.
359
down stream. At the same time a messenger was sent off
to the nearest Tahsil. And thus, when the raiders arrived
on that side to destroy the means of communication, it was
too late. The alarm was already flying towards Bdshuck-
abad, and the means of carrying the troops across the river
were lying concealed under the dark bank half a mile down
stream. So the Commissioner, accompanied by a detach¬
ment of horse, was able to cross into the disturbed district
about noon.
The troops under Trapton pushed on direct to Zoolum-
kote : but Mr. Steel, being informed of the disaster at the
rest-house, went thither first. He found Campion still em¬
ployed in urging on the fruitless task of clearing the ruins.
Indeed the wretched father had, notwithstanding that the
weakness of disease had been aggravated by his having
tasted no food since the previous evening, set to the work
again with his own hands. Mr. Steel was shocked alike at
his aspect and his demeanour; he thought that he was actu¬
ally in delirium.
" Come, come, you must give this up," he said gently,
taking Campion by the arm,,and speaking, notwithstanding
his aversion to the man, with deep sympathy.
- " You tell me to give it up !" cried Campion, turning
fiercely upon him. " You, who are the cau§e of this misery !
Stand aside, I say, and leave me alone, at your peril."
"Your grief has rendered you distraught, sir," replied
Steel. " How am I to blame ? But I cannot resent any¬
thing you can say to me at such a moment."
" How are you to blame? Has it not been your doing,
your contrivance, from first to last? Why did you give me
my child but for this ? Would to God that I had died in
ignorance of her existence !"
" Could I foresee this awful fate ?" said Steel, much
moved. " Mother and daughter both to meet such terrible
deaths ! It is dreadful, but it is the will of Heaven."
" Was it the- will of Heaven that you should rob me of
my child these twenty years, and give her up to me in
mockery only that I might see her destroyed before my
360 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
eyes ?" cried Campion. " No, it was the work of hell; it
was the will of the serpent, whose fiendish subtlety has been
the moving spirit of your line of craft and treachery.
"What do you mean—madman?" said Steel.
" It was your insidious arts which first cast the poison
of jealousy between me and the mother," Campion went on
with frenzied vehemence. " It was your dark whispers that
beguiled her to flight. Did you suppose that I was ignorant
that you met her in secret and under the cloud of darkness
the very night before she fled from her father's house?
What devilish lies you told her then to induce—"
" Lies, you scoundrel!" gasped the Commissioner, almost
speechless, and perfectly livid with rage. " The lies were
all your own, which, thank Heaven, there is evidence extant
to prove !"
"You bewitched her with some foul sorcery, I say—
some invention of hell, I know not what," Campion went
on, unheeding the piously-ejaculated interruption. "You
deceived me."
" There ! there !" cried Steel. " Does not this prove the
reckless insanity of your charges ? And how, sir, did I ever
deceive you ?"
" Did you not leave the place at the very time when she
disappeared, and hide yourself from all the world, in order
to persuade me—pitiful dupe and idiot that I was—to
slander in my thoughts the purest of women by believing
that she had fled with you ?"
" You could not have believed that."
"Ay," said Campion softly, dropping with startling
abruptness the tone of loud and vehement fury in which he
had hitherto spoken. " It may well seem incredible that
I or any man endowed with reason and a conscience could
have sunk to such a depth of brutish vileness as to harbour
a thought so dishonouring to one who was clothed in truth
as with a garment, and crowned with purity as with a halo
of heavenly light. Nevertheless, it was so. That most foul
thought found entrance into this accursed breast. It caused
me to abandon to despair and destruction the woman who
THE END.
361
had given up all for the love of me. And then—then it
changed, compelled by the stern power of that cold, still,
white face to assume the real shape of the hell it emanated
from—'the shape of the worm that dieth not and the fire
that is not quenched."
"You blame yourself justly, sir," said Steel, "for your
own self-deception, if indeed you were deceived. I pity
your remorse, which, I doubt not, has been bitter; and
from my heart I sympathise with your present calamity.
But I cannot allow even the violence of your grief to
excuse—"
" At least," cried Campion, resuming his former vehe¬
ment tone, "at least you cannot deny that this lies at your
door. What right had you to steal and hide away a child
from her own father ?"
" I did it for the best," was Mr. Steel's somewhat lame
defence.
"No, you did it for the worst. The vindictiveness of
your miserable wounded vanity could not be appeased even
by death."
" I tell you, maniac ! if you have sufficient reason left
to understand a plain statement—I had no ground to sup¬
pose that the seducer who had left the mother to starvation
or suicide would trouble himself with the care of the child.
Nor can I be blamed for thinking that such a man was no
fit guardian for a young girl."
" But you considered yourself an unexceptionable one.
Hypocrite ! You pretend a great reverence for law, when
it is employed by greedy usurers to wring the life-blood from
starving peasants. Did it never occur to you that keeping
my child concealed under a false name Avas an offence
against the law of the country, as well as against that of
nature and of Heaven ?"
"Nothing of the kind," answered the Commissioner,
piqued at this view of the case being presented. " A father
has no more legal right to the custody of an illegitimate
child than—"
" Illegitimate child!" thundered Campion, making a
362
C UKKH. N1' REPENT A NCE.
spring towards Steel, as if he would have strangled him.
" How dare you utter—"
" Hullo, doctor !" cried a cheery voice at this moment;
and Shafto, coming round the corner of the blackened wall
at a run, seized the ex-civil surgeon by the hand, and shook
it as if he would have wrung it off.
At sight of him Campion's feelings, which had been
strung to an unnatural pitch beyond what it was possible
that his enfeebled strength could sustain long, suffered a
complete revulsion. He sank his head on the young man's
shoulder, and, with a sob which shook his frame, murmured,
" O Shafto, never again !"
" Yes, yes," replied Shafto. " Indeed you shall see her
again, and that even now. Look up—look up !"
Campion raised his head with wild surprise, and the next
moment father and daughter were locked in each other's arms.
" We had better leave them alone," said Mr. Steel.
And he and Shafto walked towards the little arbour at the
bottom of the garden, where, it may be remembered, Shafto
and Grace had had an interview when they first visited this
fateful rest-house together. "You can tell me now," said
the Commissioner, " how things have gone, so far as you
know, and then I will go on to Diknugger."
They had not been many minutes talking together in
the arbour, when Grace and Colonel Campion rejoined them.
" I have no more reproaches to utter, Mr. Steel," said
Campion. "Whatever wrongs you may have done me, I
can now at any rate freely forgive. But there is one matter
which must be explained, and that without another mo¬
ment's delay. Have you led my daughter to believe what
your words expressed just now? Has she been taught to
do her unfortunate mother's memory this cruel injustice in
her thoughts for so many long years? Grace, for the future
at least, know that you have as full a right to the name of
Campion as I have, and that the love which Providence in
its wisdom has decreed that you should be able to pay only
to a mother's grave may be laid there unsullied by one
thought of shame."
THE END,
363
This declaration, satisfactory to all parties concerned,
as one might have supposed, seemed to agitate Mr. Steel
strangely.
" I wish I could believe it," he said, in a hurried ner¬
vous manner. " But it cannot be—it is impossible. Is this
miserable history to be marked by your falsehood to the
very end ?"
Campion's eyes gleamed, but he restrained himself.
Joy at his daughter's unlooked-for safety left little room in
his breast now for angry passions.
Mr. Steel," he said, "I will not at the moment when
Heaven has vouchsafed me so inestimable, so unlooked-for,
and so undeserved a mercy, be provoked again to anger.
And it is only apart of my just punishment for the base and
insane suspicion which consigned one so pure and innocent
to a cruel fate, that I should be called upon solemnly to
assure my own child that her mother was my wife. You
may remember, Mr. Steel, that after a severe illness Miss
Lee was invited to spend a few weeks with a lady who lived
in the neighbourhood of her father's parish. We took
advantage of the opportunity, and were married at "
(naming a large manufacturing town). "I selfishly insisted,
my child, that the marriage should be kept secret, knowing
that my father would disapprove of it, and might disinherit
me in consequence. At first she made no objection. But
as months passed, and I still with despicable cowardice put
off the inevitable task of announcing my marriage to my
parents, she became importunate. Then angry scenes took
place between us, and bitter reproaches and retorts. During
one of these—I must confess it, though in doing so I risk
my last hopes of earthly comfort—she threatened to go and
present herself to my parents as their son's wife. Stung to
madness by her too just taunts and b/the consciousness of
my own mean cowardice, I spoke words which in the day
when the Recording Angel's volume is opened shall be
found written there in characters of blasting fire. I told
her that she would find it hard to prove the marriage, as I
had necessarily given a false description of her to obtain
364 CURRENT REPENTANCE.
the license for one who was so palpably under age, and
that she knew not where to find the witnesses—nay, that
she probably knew not even the name of the town to which
I had taken her for the purpose."
"You are a precious villain, sir, even according to your
own account," said Mr. Steel. "It may seem cruel to say
it in your daughter's presence, but I owe a duty to myself
also. I have to vindicate my own acts. And I say I have
even now no assurance—indeed, there is still every ground
for regarding it as most improbable—that you were married
to Mary Lee. Had there been even the smallest reason to
suppose so, I never would have—"
He stopped abruptly. He had been speaking with
great rapidity and excitement.
"You would never have done what?" asked Grace.
The intensity of her interest in the conversation may be
more readily imagined than described. But she had hither¬
to not uttered a word or an exclamation.
" Colonel Campion," replied Mr. Steel, collecting him¬
self, " has reproached me with having withheld you from
him for so long. I say, had there been the slightest reason
for supposing that your mother had been his wife, I should
not have been justified in this."
"You were not justified," said Grace. She spoke re¬
proachfully, but very gently. " I feel that you have done
me a great wrong. But I believe you did it with no other
thought than my own good. I know now that you were
wrong. I am not the less grateful for all you have done,
and all you wished to do for me; but in that you have done
me an irreparable wrong."
Mr. Steel was the last man to approve of being lectured
and forgiven by his protegee.
"You have no right to say that," he answered. "You
may feel resentment at having been separated so long from
a wealthy parent who, as it now turns out, is willing to re¬
ceive and acknowledge you as his daughter. But remem¬
ber that I could only judge of this man's probable conduct
towards you by the way in which he had treated your
THE END.
365
mother—by the heartless cynicism, the insulting levity of
that disgraceful letter, in which he plainly told her that he
cast her off for ever, and by the—"
" What letter ?" exclaimed Campion. " I never sent her
any such letter. If any such was sent to her," he continued,
in a voice of increasing emotion, as a light seemed to
flash on his mind, "it must have been a forgery, and may
account for her flight, which, after my first mad suspicion of
its cause was dissipated, has always been to me utterly in¬
explicable."
" It was no forgery, sir," said the Commissioner sternly;
" and of that you may convince yourself by the evidence
of your own eyes. Your daughter has the letter in her
possession."
Campion looked eagerly at Grace, who, with fingers
trembling so violently that she could hardly perform the
task, drew from the bosom of her dress the little packet
which she always wore there. It contained the two letters
which her guardian had given her at different times : poor
Mary Lee's frantic summons to Mr. George to meet her in
the churchyard, which he had given to Grace on the Sunday
when Bella's delinquencies had led to their first conversa¬
tion about her mother; and the hastily-scrawled scrap
which Mrs. Potts of The Good Intent had deposited by the
gravestone, and which Mr. Steel, it will be remembered,
had handed to Grace on the occasion of his second and
full account of Mary Lee's story in Mrs. Archer's draw¬
ing-room. Grace took the latter document from the en¬
velope, and held it out in silence. Campion seized it and
glanced at it.
" Ay, this is the last letter I wrote to her," he muttered.
" I remember the circumstance as if it were yesterday—the
difficulty there was to find me writing-materials in the
little roadside inn, the crumpled sheet of flimsy foreign paper,
the rusty magnum bonum pen, the soiled envelope, and the
wafer, which were the best that the landlord could at last
produce."
He read the letter over. As the reader may not have a
366 C URRENT^RETIl NI 'ANCE.
very accurate recollection of its contents, I will, for conveni¬
ence' sake, again transcribe them here :
" My Darling,—I had no time to write from home, and
am just snatching a few minutes while waiting at the inn
here for the coach which is to carry me the first stage on my
journey to the Continent.
" The gods are certainly against us. Fancy my dis¬
gust on reaching the Hall to find my mother absent, and
my father in the torments of gout and the very devil of a
temper. Of course I said nothing about our marriage. It
would have been sheer madness. Worse! it would have
been nothing short of parricide, as he would certainly have
died of rage and apoplexy—but not so suddenly as not
to have time to alter his will first. So you yourself must
admit that there is nothing for it but to give up my heart's
darling, however hard the struggle may be. The chance
of obtaining my parents' consent I always looked upon
as a forlorn hope, and without it we can look forward to
nothing but penury. But there is no controlling fate,
Mary, and we must both of us just grin and bear our lot.
"By the bye, my lawyer uncle is staying at the Hall.
We dined together alone, and I asked some fishing ques¬
tions. I much fear we bungled that little business at
, and it was quite worthless. Here comes the coach ;
good-bye, pet. Let us hope for better times some day,
though the present is so gloomy. And as to what hap¬
pened at , why, as the Scotch song says, ' if it
wasna' weel bobbit, we'll bob it again-' one of these days.
"J- C.'"
Campion read the letter through, and as he did so a
look of dismay and perplexity overspread his face. Grace,
who watched it earnestly, and had perhaps cherished the
hope that he would again indignantly repudiate the writing
as a forgery, was bitterly disappointed.
" There is something wrong here," was all he could
stammer out.
" Well, sir," said Mr. Steel, " I have only one plain
THE END.
367
question to ask, and when that is answered, ay or no, this
wretched business may be closed for ever, so far as I am
concerned—I will say or hear not another word about it.
I ask you, once for all, is this your handwriting ?"
" I cannot deny it. It is my handwriting ; it is my very
letter. I have a thousand times striven to recall to mind
what I wrote, in the endeavour to find some unfortunate
turn of expression which she might by possibility have
misunderstood, and which might have prompted her
strange conduct. I recognise much here that I remember
writing. And yet, though it is the same in form, some
infernal magic seems to have completely changed its sense."
" Enough. Then my part is over, and I leave you,"
said Mr. Steel with dignity; and walked towards the door
of the arbour.
" But stay," said Campion. " This is only half a sheet.
Where is the other leaf?"
" Bah ! this shuffling is too sickening," remarked the
Commissioner; and added, with scornful irony, "Your
postscript on the other side (which is so unhappily missing)
explained, I presume, that all that is written here was a
merry jest. It was a sad mischance that both the unfortunate
girl to whom the letter was addressed and I overlooked this
important postscript."
Shafto, although he had kept in the background during
this scene, had not been able to bring himself to go out of
earshot of a conversation which so nearly concerned Grace,
as perhaps strict delicacy should have prompted him to do.
He now whispered to Grace, " Is that paper which you
have given to your father the same which I found lying on
the floor of this arbour when we spoke together here in
January, which I handed to you, and which you at first said
was not yours ?"
"No; this was given to me by Mr. Steel months after
that."
" Then if they are not the same, they must be twin
brothers. The paper, the scratchy writing, the faded colour
of the ink, all make up a strange family likeness. If you
368
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
did not remove that scrap of paper from the niche where I
put it that day, it must be there still."
He stepped towards the little cleft behind the door¬
post of the summer-house, where, it may be remembered,
he had put the piece of paper he picked up on the occa¬
sion referred to, intending to take it away again when he
left and return it to Brandling, to whom he supposed, from
the handwriting, that it belonged. Mr. Steel at the same
moment reached the door on his way out. He paused for
a moment, and said, " Shafto, you had better come with me.
I am going now to Zoolumkote, and then on to Diknugger."
"Wait two seconds," replied Shafto, feeling about for
the paper. " Ah, here it is, sure enough."
"What are you about, and what is that you have got?"
said the Commissioner.
But Shafto, without answering, handed the paper he had
just extracted from its hiding-place to Grace. She eagerly
unfolded it, and sure enough, as Shafto had observed, there
was a most striking family likeness between it and the other
piece of paper which Campion was still turning over and
over, and reading and re-reading in hopeless perplexity. It
also was only half a sheet of the same flimsy foreign paper,
and, except that the writing covered only one side instead
of both, appeared from a little distance to be the exact
counterpart of the other.
"What is that you are doing?" again asked Mr. Steel.
Grace's back was turned to him, and he had not caught
sight of what Shafto had given her.
She had scarcely glanced at the writing when she ex¬
claimed, reechoing, in a tone which seemed to thrill through
every one of her hearers, the words which her father had
used just before.
" Infernal magic ! Ay, indeed ! O, my murdered
mother ! may the bitter curse of a girl most foully deceived
cling for ever to the vile wretch who betrayed your trust!"
" Child, forbear, forbear!" exclaimed Mr. Steel, horror-
struck by this sudden outburst of imprecation, of which he
could not guess the cause. " Remember, he is your father."
1ME El\'D.
369
" My father !" said Grace, turning fiercely upon the
speaker. " You are the object of my curse. You, whose
devilish cunning changed the sense of this letter from honey
to gall!"
" Girl, you are beside yourself!" cried Mr. Steel.
" You were with my mother when she received this letter.
You delivered it to her with your own hands. You tolcl me
so yourself."
"Well ?"
"But before delivering it you opened it, and you tam¬
pered with it so as to make it convey the very opposite
meaning to that which it originally had."
" How could I do so? The letter was not in my hands-
five minutes, and in a place where no writing-materials
could possibly have been obtained."
"You tore one half off, and only delivered the other
half. You thought your paltry trick was a safe one, and
could never be proved against you, as a bold forgery might.
But Heaven would not allow such mean treachery impunity
for ever, and has thus wonderfully brought the missing sheet
to light in this very place. Here it is."
" It is a counterfeit," cried Steel, in a husky voice, while
the perspiration stood in great drops upon his forehead,
from which, as well as from his cheeks and quivering lips,
every tint of colour had vanished. " It is physically impos¬
sible that this can be the other half of that letter, I tell you,
for I destroyed—I mean—"
" Ay, what was it you destroyed ?" asked Grace. " And
you," she went on, in a voice of fiery indignation, under
which the Commissioner quailed and cowered—" and you
have dared over and over again to denounce to me with
every term of scorn and contumely—to denounce to me,
the child of the woman you pretend to have loved,. my
father, whom you knew to be innocent of the falsehood and
treachery that you attributed to him, and which existed only
in your own black heart. Slanderous hypocrite !"
Grace then took the other .half-sheet of paper from
Campion's hand, and laid the two side by side on the little
BB
370 CURRENT KL.ri.NTANCK. ~
rustic seat. It was manifest in a moment that they were
halves of the same sheet. And the method of the trick
which had been passed on the unhappy Mary Lee was
equally readily apparent. Campion, writing at the roadside
inn, where he had found difficulty in obtaining writing-
materials of any kind, had evidently been without blotting-
paper. And being hurried, he had, after filling the first
page of the sheet, instead of going on to the second, which
would have necessitated his laying the side on which the
ink was still wet downwards on the table, passed over to
the third page; after covering which, he had turned back
and finished his letter on the second page. The same half-
sheet therefore contained both the beginning and end of
the letter. And as it so chanced that the broken sentence
at the bottom of the first page and the broken sentence at
the top of the second page fitted into each other so as to
make sense, the removal of the second half-sheet left an
apparently complete letter.
The first page ended with the words, " So you yourself
must admit that there is nothing for it but to—
The writing on the second half-sheet, now discovered
by Shafto, ran as follows :
"—follow my mother to Rome, where she has gone,
and try my eloquence with her. This, of course, must con¬
siderably delay my promised return. But you must be
patient and true. You know it is not without reason I have
to underline that word. However, for the present, a cer¬
tain meddling coxcomb you wot of has, I hope, got what
will make him less ready to poach on other ^people's pre¬
serves. Mind, I am far from satisfied with your explanation
of your intercourse and relations with that young man. I
hope you are true to your troth, Mary; but Heaven knows
I have-sometimes thought I had reason to doubt it. For
myself, I know my own heart, and you shall never have
cause to falter in your trust in me. I am yours, and yours
only, till death; for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse.
Come what may—through beggary and shame, if it must
needs be so—I will never—"
THE END. 371
And here the bottom of the page was reached. Then
the second page began with the words—"give up my heart's
darling, however hard the struggle may be."
As Campion and his daughter, stooping over the seat
on which the latter had laid the papers, read the words
together, they paid little further attention to Mr. Steel.
Shafto, though he had gained some clue to the mystery of
Grace's connection with Brandling from the doctor's wild
utterances during his delirium, was still quite at a loss to
guess at the import of the letter which seemed so deeply to
affect all his three companions. As he turned in bewilder¬
ment from Grace and her father to seek some enlightenment
from the Commissioner's countenance, he was absolutely
shocked at the change which had passed over it. The
usually calm, grave, and imperturbable visage was distorted
by the workings of helpless agitation. Twenty additional
years of age seemed in a moment to have fallen upon the
head that was wont to be held so erect, and the slight figure
lately so firm and elastic. The mouth was vainly moving,
as if Mr. Steel were endeavouring to speak words which the
parched tongue and lips refused to utter. The sight was so
pitiable that Shafto turned away; and feeling now that he
had no right to be longer present, he left the arbour.
As soon as she had read the now completed letter, Grace
threw herself sobbing on her father's breast. The grim old
soldier hugged the girl to his heart with the energy of feel¬
ings pent up for half a lifetime; and then, overcome by the
varied exertions and emotions of the day, sank down on
the bench utterly exhausted, while Grace bent over him,
grasping his thin brown hand in a transport of rapturous
love mingled with anxiety.
In the mean time Mr. Steel was able to call up some of
his habitual self-command unobserved. .Yet when he spoke
his voice was strangely husky.
" Miss Hawthorn—I should say Miss Campion—you
have discovered (by what means I am unable to guess, and
I do not care to inquire) a deception that the terrible
dilemma in which your mother had involved herself com-
372 CURREN'CJiLLl'.XTA Xl /■'.
pelled me to practise. It is not for me to excuse my act
either to the man whose villany it was done to counteract,
or to the child for whom I alone, of all the world, cared
enough to seek her out in the squalid hovel in which she
pined, and would, in all human probability, have soon died
a deserted and famished infant, and who now repays that
care with—curses !"
" Forgive me," murmured Grace; " I spoke in a moment
of passion."
" I make no complaint," Mr. Steel went on, with meek
dignity. " We now part for ever. As to what I have done,
and my motives for doing it, I can answer to Heaven and
my own conscience. It is enough for me to say here that
the weakness of the being whom I was called upon to
rescue, and the cruelty and treachery of the designs from
which I had to rescue her, were, in my opinion, an ample
warrant for all I did."
" You have no longer any right to speak of cruelty or
treachery!" exclaimed Grace, again flaring up. "Your
error may have been excusable then. But now that you
have had the proof that it was an error, to repeat it is a
foul slander !"
" The proof is not so full as you think it to be. I would
indeed, for your sake, that it were so."
" The proofs of my marriage," interposed Campion,
" can easily be made as full as any court of justice could
require. And I will take care that they are sent to you."
" I do not want them," replied Steel. " I now turn
down and close for ever this most painful page in my past
life. I blot out the very names of Mary Lee and Grace
Hawthorn from my thoughts, and I pray to God that they
may never be recalled."
" But," pleaded Grace, with all the wonted tenderness
restored to her sweet voice, " I cannot blot out jiwur name—
I cannot cast away the love and reverence which has grown
up in my heart from childhood. So, for my sake, you should
consent to receive the proofs which my father offers."
"My dear Grace," said the Commissioner, in a softer
THE END.
373
tone, " with regard to the marriage, I am only too willing to
believe it on Colonel Campion's own assertion, although
the firm conviction that there had been none was the best
justification of the' course which I took in a crisis of great
difficulty. But, alas, there are other circumstances which
his explanation has not even touched."
" What circumstances ?"
"Nay, do not ask me. You have decided, and doubt¬
less rightly, to cast in your lot- with your father. It is best
to let the dead past sleep henceforth. Now we part for
ever. God bless and keep you, Grace !"
"No, no," she said. "You cannot leave me thus after
what you have said. What circumstances are still unex¬
plained ? I have the right to know, and I insist."
" Unhappy girl 1" replied Steel. " Be content. Let the
matter rest here."
" No. It is best that my confession should be made
fully once for all," said Campion. "My actions at that
time were, indeed, one tissue of selfishness and cowardice,
the mere confession of which in detail could avail neither
the living nor the dead. But I would not willingly leave
anything now unexplained that admits of explanation.''
" You force me to speak, then," answered Steel. " Be
it so. You have explained your conduct before the unhappy
girl's flight. You have even attempted to explain, by the
pretence of suspecting me, your conduct during her con¬
cealment. But there remains your conduct after her return
to Slagby yet to be accounted for."
" What do you mean ?"
" What do I mean!" cried the Commissioner, again
stirred to most righteous anger. " How do you account for
the savage brutality with which you were seen to repulse
the agonised prayers of "the woman—of your own wife, as
you now tell us, whom you had vowed at the altar to love
and cherish ? How do you account—cowardly ruffian !—
for the dastard blow which felled her to the ground ?"
"What are you speaking of?" said Campion. "You
are under, some strange delusion."
374
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
u What, sir ? Do you mean to say that you carried your
cynical indifference to your victim's fate so far that you did
not even trouble to inquire what evidence there was against
you ? Do you tell me that you do not know that you were
seen—that a witness came forward at the inquest to depose
that he had seen you on the river-bank—on the very fatal
spot—actually strike—actually strike to the ground—"
" Do you mean to say that you—that any one ever sup¬
posed that /was that man?" asked Campion, in horror.
" Who else, then, was it ?" cried Steel. " Who else
could it have been ? Is this, too, a part which your ingeni¬
ous suspicions have assigned to mel You have told me
you supposed me to be the seducer of Mary Lee. Are you
going to pretend that I was her murderer also ?"
I thought it was well known," said Campion quietly,
" that that point—at first, I know, regarded as doubtful and
perplexing—had been cleared up. Is it possible that you
do not know that the man with whom my unfortunate wife
was last seen was her father? He had walked to Puddle-
borough that day, and she had waited for him by the road¬
side on his way back. Owing to his sudden and fatal illness
on hearing the news of her death, and the state of confusion
into which the household at the Parsonage was thrown, this
fact was not ascertained at first; but ample evidence of it
was found by the magistrates, who, at my instance, after¬
wards made further inquiry."
" Her father, was it ?" said Mr. Steel. " That idea never
struck me. It accounts, indeed, for many circumstances
which seemed incomprehensible on any other theory. But
I must say, a doubt never entered my mind as to your being
the man. You were seen at the place, that is, at the-inn,
on the very morning."
" Yes. On my return from the Crimea very shortly
before, I saw reason to doubt the truth of my first most
unworthy and unpardonable assumption as to the cause of
my wife's flight. And as the first step towards discovering
the truth, I employed persons to watch you. These agents
followed you to the place where she had last lived imme-
THK Jbl\L>.
375
diately after you yourself had discovered it, and brought me
the same information that you yourself had learnt—except
with regard to the child ; most unhappily they told me
nothing of her existence. I came to the same conclusion
that I presume you did, that she had returned to her father's
house; and I followed her there. I reached the little public-
house, which had been my former lodging, on the very
x morning of the fatal day. The landlady, who was the only
person in the neighbourhood who had been in our secret,
had heard no rumour of Mary's return. I went out and
spent the whole day in making inquiries in all directions—
at Slagby, in Puddleborough, in the hamlets round, and
even amongst the servants at Mr. Crovesworth's residence,
Goldmore Hall—but without result. Late at night, still
completely ignorant of the awful occurrence of the afternoon,
I returned to The Good Intent. The place was, as usual, at
that hour silent, and no one was about; but a light burned
in the parlour. I presumed that it had been left burning
for me, and went into the room. The people who had been
left to watch had apparently preferred to occupy an adjoim
ing room, and were doubtless asleep. For the parlour had
only one occupant."
The speaker stopped, overcome, as may well be imagined,
by the memory of that dread meeting. He covered his face
with his hands, and his head sank forward on his knees, as
he sat on the rough bench. Grace dropped on her knees
by his side, and put her arm round him.
" Was she there?" she asked, in a low, awe-struck voice.
He lifted his head and went on : "Yes, my child. The
shock must to any one have been terrible—so unexpected,
at such a time, in such a place. But I knew the instant I
entered the room, and that solemn ghostly form met my
- sight, I knew by presentiment, by conscience, that there
beneath that white shroud lay the corpse of my love and of
my earthly happiness."
" Did you—did you—what did you do, father?" asked
Grace, with intense interest
" Yes, my child, I did. Once again we were clasped in
376
CURRENT REPENTANCE.
one long last embrace. And then I went forth like Cain.
But Heaven has extended to me the mercy that I never
hoped or even dared to pray for; and I have found rest and
peace at least a little way on this side of the dark river on
whose further shore I humbly hope I shall meet her again."
Business must be attended to sooner or later, though-
disclosures and explanations ever so nearly touching one's
innermost life and feelings may be going forward. And
Mr. Steel, after riding post-haste from Beshuckabad, had
certainly loitered a most unconscionable time in the little
arbour, where no public duties whatever required his pre¬
sence. So now it was more than high time for him and
Shafto to go and see how matters were progressing in the
outer world. He therefore left the place, and the two old
rivals for poor Mary Lee's fickle affections looked upon
each other for the last time in their lives. Ere they parted,
Campion held out his hand to Steel.
" You did me a great injury," he said, " but you have
also done an inestimable service. Had I had my child to
comfort my lonely lot through these past years, there would
have been a gleam of sunshine in a life which has been one
of unbroken gloom. But perhaps in that case I should not
have undertaken or carried through such atoning labours as
God has given me strength for, and which I hope may be
accepted as some payment for the irreparable wrong I
wrought one most innocent of His creatures. And as for
Grace, whatever portion of her lovable qualities may have
been the gift of nature or an inheritance from her dear
mother, I cannot but acknowledge that had her childhood
been passed under the influence of a broken-hearted, rest¬
less, and remorseful man like myself, she could never have
grown up to be what she is. If your guardianship of her
has been a wrong to me, it has been full of advantage to
her, and I sincerely thank you for it."
Mr. Steel took the proffered hand, but not cordially.
" I am glad," he said, " that that sad story has, by the
explanations you have been able to give to-day, been de¬
prived of some of its worst features. You say I have done
THE END.
377
you an injury. It may be so. I myself was deeply, most
deeply injured. I too claim that I have done what I could
to atone for any evil which may have been caused through
my errors in judgment."
His farewell to Grace was less cold, but very brief.
" Thank you," she said, " for all you have done for me,
and forgive the words I spoke in my anger. Please tell
Mrs. Steel I beg her pardon for whatever pain my petulance
may have caused her. And give my fondest love to dear
Bella. I shall always pray for her happiness and yours."
" God bless you, Grace," was Mr. Steel's only reply.
After he had left the arbour, accompanied by Shafto, the
father and daughter sat side by side in silence for some time,
lovingly clasping each other's hands. At last Grace said,
"I am so thankful," father, that it was you who saved
Bella Steel from that dreadful Trapton."
" Yes," replied Campion, " that at least was something
in requital of Mr. Steel's care of you, my child. Do you
know, I was induced to make my journey that night, in the
course of which I met Miss Steel, by a very strange occur¬
rence. I was on my way in exactly the opposite direction,
having left Gurhi Moofsid that morning with the intention
of returning to Diknugger, and at once resigning my appoint¬
ment. But I was troubled in mind, for I had left my work
among the poor sick people, because my own selfish pride
had been hurt. Conscience urged me to return to the work
to which I had set my hand, and which I had no right to
leave in the moment of emergency. But I could not do so
without humbling myself in a way at which my pride re¬
volted. I was resting for the night at the little bungalow
on the Rungrootpore road. And as I paced up and down
in the tumult of my mental strife, I saw—I thought I saw
your mother, Grace, drooping and wan as I had .last seen
her in life, leaning against a pillar of the verandah in the
moonlight. I knew she had come to recall me to the task
of atonement which. I was ready to abandon. I at once
returned towards Gurhi Moofsid, and thus it chanced that
I met Miss Steel."
378
CURRENT iNrEIVANL'R.
"It was me you saw that night, father," said Grace.
" Mr. Ravensmore and I had driven so far along the road
in pursuit of Bella. He went to the police-station to make
inquiries, but to avoid exciting curiosity I waited for him by
the bungalow, not knowing that any one was in it. I was
tired, and very, very wretched about Bella, and I daresay I
looked sad enough."
.And now my story is done. It is scarcely necessary to
tell how Shafto married Grace Campion, and how he and
his wife established themselves along with his father-in-law
at Beechly Park. The Colonel did not live many years to
enjoy his new-found peace of mind and domestic happiness.
But his bones do not rest with those of his fathers in the
vault of the Campions ; they lie under the green sod and
brown heather which contend for mastery in the desolate
churchyard on the bleak hillside at Slagby.
Perhaps the reader may reasonably look for a word of
explanation on two points before he closes the book. First,
how it was that a man so punctiliously honourable as Mr.
Steel could have committed so mean an act as to tamper
with a letter? Second, how did the missing half-sheet find
its way from Slagby churchyard into the arbour in the
Zoolumkote rest-house garden ? But in both cases I can
offer nothing more than conjecture.
It must not be forgotten that when chance placed this
letter in George Steel's hands on the fatal night of his meet¬
ing with Mary Lee in the churchyard, his mind was tempest-
tossed by more than one passion, and (to put it in the
mildest terms) was off its normal balance. Except for this
it is incredible that he should have deceived himself by the
transparent sophism that the weakness of the victim he was
called upon to rescue, and the unscrupulous seducer he had
to combat, justified him in turning the latter's own weapon
.of fraud against him. But in the state of mind in which
he was he probably argued somewhat in this wise : Chance
had made him the bearer of a letter which he believed would
be the instrument designed for the consummation of Mary's
THE END.
379
ruin. If he delivered these insidious promises to her, would
he not himself help in luring her into the snare from which
he had cojne to save her ? Where the victim's own cre¬
dulity was the chief means to be employed for her destruc¬
tion, he was surely more than justified in protecting it from
being practised on.
As to the other point, how the missing half of the letter
had turned up so opportunely, my own private idea is this :
that Steel, when he had torn it off, hid it away hurriedly in
the receptacle which happened at the moment to be most
handy, which was the envelope of Mary's letter summoning
him to meet her; but that, in the absorbing agitation con¬
sequent on his crime and the events which followed, he
quite forgot what he had done, and afterwards, not finding
the paper, took it for granted that he had destroyed it. It
may be remembered that, though he had kept Mary's letter,
he had never dared again to take it from its envelope to read
it. And as the concealed half-sheet was very thin, and pro¬
bably folded up small, it may easily have escaped Grace's
notice, and remained in the envelope on the many occasions
when she took her mother's letter out, until the day of her
first visit to the arbour, when, as she took out Mary Lee's
letter, she had pulled out Pearson's along with it, but had
let it fall unobserved. This, I say, is my theory of how the
thing happened ; but if any reader's ingenuity can hit upon
a better one, he is quite welcome to adopt it.
Mr. Steel did not, after all, become Lieutenant-Gover¬
nor of the Ma Bap Provinces. So he came home in
disgust in the same ship with Sir Duncan MacTullub, and
now lives in South Kensington. He is a good deal changed,
and has become crusty and short-tempered. The proprietor
of the principal butcher's shop in the vicinity of their resi¬
dence, in the course of a little discussion held the other day
with Mrs. Steel, informed the ex-Commissioner's wife, in the
presence of some half-dozen customers, that she was " no
lady "—which opinion it would appear from certain hints,
recorded in an earlier chapter of this narrative, he holds in
common with that well-known ornament of London, and
380
erst of Simla, society, the Countess of Feathertop—which
goes a great way to show that there is much more sympathy
and unity of sentiment than some people suppose between
the higher and lower orders in this country.
Bella's sunny presence does not light up the somewhat
dull and dreary establishment in Queen's Gate. She at any
rate has put it out of the power of any butcher or baker or
candlestick-maker, or other rude person, to say she is no
lady, by acquiring an indefeasible legal right to that title.
She married Sir Ruby Carr, her father's chum at Haileybury,
when that respected member of the Council of the Viceroy
and Governor-General had been a widower six months.
Charles Ravensmore left the Indian service immediately
after the final disappointment of his hopes of winning Grace.
He is now in Parliament, and still unmarried. I met him at
Beechly once, when I did not form a high opinion of his
social qualities. He was decidedly dull.
He did, however, on that occasion tell me one story
which interested me much. It was the history of his fruitless
pursuit of the Moofsids who were supposed to have carried
Grace off. And I must here confess, with deep contrition,
that in telling me this story, he treated me better than I
have done my much-abused readers in the repetition of it;
for he did not break off the narrative at the critical
moment when he first caught sight of the dead girl lying on
the bank of the village pond, but went on at once to tell
me that, although he and his compaions at first believed it
was her whom they sought, a closer approach quickly unde¬
ceived them. It was the body of a poor child whom the
rioters had murdered when they had plundered her home.
Baytree still flourishes. He has now stepped into Mr.
Steel's shoes as Commissioner of Be'shuckabad. He is a
terror to evil-doers in the way of deputy-commissioners who
attempt to depart one hair's-breadth from the strict rules
of Justice, Equity, and the Accountant-Gefieral.
THE END.
CHEAP UNIFORM EDITION OF NOVELS BY "RITA"
\ ri«c Publishers have the pleasure to announce that they have arranged for the pro¬
duction of a Cheap Uniform Edition of "RITA'S" Novels, all of which will
appear in regular succession on alternate months, Probably no series of works of
ficbon of equal merit and popularity have been so long detained in their original ana
costly form of publication. It is therefore confidently hoped that the proposed issue,
in Two-Shilling Volumes, carefully printed upon good paper, and neatly bound in
characteristic picture boards, or m cloth gilt at 2s. 6J., or hail' morocco at 3-f. 6d.,
I will be welcomed throughout the length and breadth of the land, and will carry
! amusement and comfort into many a distant home, to fhany a yearning heart.
Price 2s., Picture Board?; 2s. 0d., Cloth Gilt 5 3s. 6d., Half
Morocco. (Postage 4d. each.)
DAME DU RDE N
" ' Dame Dure!on is .a chm ming conception."—Morning Post.
,'t would be vv 11 indc <1 if fiction gencrtllv could be kept up to this level."—Academy.
I!Y LADY COQUETTE
"Of great merit; veil ' :e.' out; a good idea is H lied; tiie author carries the reader's
sympathy ,vHh her."— ' • -emeum.
V I V I E N N E
" ' RrrA' l.as ] -1 : -ed a novel as enthralling a« V.'ilkie Collins ' Woman in White,' or Miss
Braud .n's ' Lady .'-.'l iley'i Secret. —St ■■ .dard. " ,
" ' Vivienne ' i: intensely dramatic, abounding in imidetit and sensation." — Telegraph.
LIKE DIAN'S KISS
"a pretty story, remarkable alike for pathos and ciuver portraiture.'—Tunes
COUNTESS DAPHNE
it is written with considerai ':ui. -Atieuj-um
fRAGOLETTA
•The Italian heroine certainiy fitis in; -si «• rniantic circuni t. ices—enough in coptlir.ution I
to break down a stronger nature 'ban that the hide '■ n i f the :ory."—Athena-nut.
A SINLES' SECRET
" Simple and pathetic episode^ ere is >f -he love oassfiges, whei
the dogue is sweetly pretty with- ... ecoming tame or • i.fkiy -.H 'emv.
FAUSTINE
"'Faustina is a remarkable work, un t ;.a; i i erhanc-the author' reputation \ write
- Court 7• "n.al.
AFTER LONG GRIEF AND PAIN
" The moral of the story is sound, the-dia >giie «■ - and ii w ,. an the six h; -.'ear and \ i^orous
throughout."—Daily Telegraph.
TWO BAD BLUE EYES
" In the present volume there is a good deal of ver writing, 1 a p centage of thought in the
dialogue. "—A tkenirum.
J, & R, MAXWELL, Milton Hou e, 14 and 15, Shoe Lane. Fleet Street; j
and 35, St. Bride Street, L agate Circus, E.G.
And at all Railway Bookstalls, Book.- .lers, and Semsa<jeut$.