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 THE LIBRARY 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 

 
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 TO 
 MY COMMODORE AND OLD FRIEND 
 
 EDWARD ATKINSON, Esq. 
 
 OF ROSEBANK, MIXTOW-BY-FOWEY. 
 
 718167
 
 NOTE 
 
 Some years ago an unknown American friend 
 proposed my writing a story on the loves and 
 adventures of Sir Harry Frankland, Collector of 
 the Port of Boston in the mid-eighteenth century, 
 and Agnes Surriage, daughter of a poor Marble- 
 head fisherman. The theme attracted me as it has 
 attracted other writers — and notably Oliver Wen- 
 dell Holmes, who built a poem on it. But while 
 their efforts seemed to leave room for another, I 
 was no match for them in knowledge of the facts 
 or of local details ; and, moreover, these facts and 
 details cramped my story. 1 repented, therefore 
 and, taking the theme, altered the locality and the 
 characters — who, by the way, in the writing have 
 become real enough to me, albeit in a different 
 sense. Thus (I hope) no violence has been offered 
 to historical truth, while I have been able to tell 
 the tale in my own fashion. 
 
 "Q."
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 BOOK I.— PORT NASSAU 
 
 I. 
 
 The Beach .... 
 
 II. 
 
 Port Nassau .... 
 
 III. 
 
 Two Guineas. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Father and Son . 
 
 V. 
 
 Ruth ..... 
 
 VI. 
 
 Parenthetical — Of the Family 
 
 
 Vyell .... 
 
 VII. 
 
 A Sabbath-Breaker 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Another Sabbath-Breaker 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Scourge 
 
 X. 
 
 The Bench ...» 
 
 XI. 
 
 The Stocks . . ... 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Hut by the Beach 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Ruth sets out 
 
 1 1 
 
 21 
 2 9 
 
 39 
 50 
 
 60 
 
 70 
 
 80 
 
 89 
 
 96 
 
 108 
 
 124 
 
 130
 
 vi 
 
 CONTENTS 
 BOOK II.— PROBATION 
 
 
 I. 
 
 After Two Years .... 
 
 137 
 
 II. 
 
 Mr. Silk. ..... 
 
 152 
 
 III. 
 
 Mr. Hichens .... 
 
 160 
 
 IV. 
 
 Vashti ...... 
 
 166 
 
 V. 
 
 Sir Oliver's Health 
 
 174 
 
 VI. 
 
 Captain Harry and Mr. Hanmer 
 
 185 
 
 VII. 
 
 First Offer ..... 
 
 196 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Concerning Margaret . 
 
 211 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Prospect . 
 
 220 
 
 X. 
 
 Three Ladies .... 
 
 230 
 
 XI. 
 
 The Espial ..... 
 
 241 
 
 XII. 
 
 Lady Caroline .... 
 
 249 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Diana Vyell ..... 
 
 254 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Mr. Silk proposes 
 
 266 
 
 XV. 
 
 The Choosing .... 
 
 277 
 
 BOOK III.— THE BRIDALS 
 I. Betrothed ..... 285 
 II. The Return ..... 295 
 
 III. Nesting ..... 304 
 
 IV. The Bridegroom . . . .316
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 V. Ruth's Wedding Day . 
 
 VI. "Yet he will come — ". 
 
 VII. Housekeeping 
 
 VIII. Home-coming 
 
 vn 
 
 321 
 
 33 l 
 343 
 
 354 
 
 BOOK IV.— LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 I. Batty Langton, Chronicler 
 II. Sir Oliver sails 
 
 III. Miscalculating Wrath 
 
 IV. The Terrace 
 
 V. A Prologue to Nothing 
 VI. Childless Mother 
 
 369 
 
 377 
 386 
 
 394 
 406 
 
 4i5 
 
 BOOK V.— LISBON AND AFTER 
 I. Act of Faith . . . . 43 1 
 
 II. Donna Maria 
 
 III. Earthquake . 
 
 IV. The Search . 
 V. The Finding 
 
 VI. Documents 
 VII. The Last Offer 
 
 Epilogue 
 
 439 
 446 
 
 455 
 463 
 
 472 
 
 484 
 499
 
 " An innocent life, yet far astray." 
 
 Wordsworth's Ruth.
 
 BOOK I 
 PORT NASSAU
 
 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Chapter I 
 THE BEACH 
 
 A 
 
 COACH-AND-SIX, as a rule, may be called 
 an impressive Object. But something de- 
 pends on where you see it. 
 
 Viewed from the tall cliffs — along the base of 
 which, on a strip of beach two hundred feet be- 
 low, it crawled between the American continent 
 and the Atlantic Ocean — Captain Oliver Vyell's 
 coach-and-six resembled nothing so nearly as a 
 black-beetle. 
 
 For that matter the cliffs themselves, swept by 
 the spray and humming with the roar of the 
 beach — even the bald headland towards which they 
 curved as to the visible bourne of all things ter- 
 restrial — shrank in comparison with the waste 
 void beyond, where sky and ocean weltered to-
 
 12 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 gether after the wrestle of a two days' storm ; and 
 in comparison with the thought that this rolling 
 sky and heaving water stretched all the way to 
 Europe. Not a sail showed, not a wing anywhere 
 under the leaden clouds that still dropped their 
 rain in patches, smurring out the horizon. The 
 wind had died down, but the ships kept their 
 harbours and the sea-birds their inland shelters. 
 Alone of animate things, Captain Vyell's coach- 
 and-six crept forth and along the beach, as though 
 tempted by the promise of a wintry gleam to land- 
 ward. 
 
 A god — if we may suppose one of the old care- 
 less Olympians seated there on the cliff-top, nursing 
 his knees — must have enjoyed the comedy of it, 
 and laughed to think that this pert beetle, edging 
 its way along the sand amid the eternal forces of 
 nature, was here to take seizin of them— yes, actu- 
 ally to take seizin and exact tribute. So indomi- 
 table a fellow is Man, improbus Homo ; and among 
 men in his generation Captain Oliver Vyell was 
 Collector of Customs for the Port of Boston, 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 In fairness to Captain Vyell be it added that 
 he— a young English blood, bearing kinship with 
 two or three of the great Whig families at home, 
 and sceptical as became a person of quality— was
 
 THE BEACH 13 
 
 capable as any one of relishing the comedy, had it 
 been pointed out to him. With equal readiness 
 he would have scoffed at Man's pretensions in this 
 world and denied him any place at all in the next. 
 Nevertheless on a planet the folly of which might 
 be taken for granted he claimed at least his share 
 of the reverence paid by fools to rank and wealth. 
 He was travelling this lonely coast on a tour of 
 inspection, to visit and report upon a site where 
 His Majesty's advisers had some design to plant 
 a fort ; and a fine ostentation coloured his progress 
 here as through life. He had brought his coach 
 because it conveyed his claret and his batterie 
 de cuisine (the seaside inns were detestable) ; but 
 being young and extravagantly healthy and, with 
 all his faults, very much of a man, he preferred to 
 ride ahead on his saddle-horse and let his pomp 
 follow him. 
 
 Six horses drew the coach, and to each pair of 
 leaders rode a postillion, while a black coachman 
 guided the wheelers from the box-seat ; all three 
 men in the Collector's livery of white and scarlet. 
 On a perch behind the vehicle — which, despite its 
 weight, left but the shallowest of wheel-ruts on 
 the hard sand — sat Manasseh, the Collector's cook 
 and body-servant ; a huge negro, in livery of the 
 same white and scarlet but with heavy adornments 
 of bullion, a cockade in his hat, and a loaded
 
 r 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 blunderbuss laid across his thighs. Last and alone 
 within the coach, with a wine-case for footstool, 
 sat a five-year-old boy. 
 
 Master Dicky Vyell— the Collector's only child, 
 and motherless — sat and gazed out of the windows 
 in a delicious terror. For hours that morning 
 the travellers had ploughed their way over a plain 
 of blown sand, dotted with shrub-oaks, bay-berries, 
 and clumps of Indian grass ; then, at a point where 
 the tall cliffs began, had wound down to the sea 
 between low foothills and a sedge-covered marsh 
 criss-crossed by watercourses that spread out here 
 and there into lagoons. At the head of this de- 
 scent the Atlantic had come into sight, and all the 
 way down its echoes had grown in the boy's ears, 
 confusing themselves with a delicious odour which 
 came in fact from the fields of sedge, though he 
 attributed it to the ocean. 
 
 But the sound had amounted to a loud humming 
 at most ; and it was with a leap and a shout, as they 
 rounded the last foothill and saw the vast empty 
 beach running northward before them, league upon 
 league, that the thunder of the surf broke on them. 
 For a while the boom and crash of it fairly stunned 
 the child. He caught at an arm-strap hanging by 
 the window and held on with all his small might, 
 while the world he knew with its familiar protec- 
 tive boundaries fell away, melted, left him— a speck
 
 THE BEACH 15 
 
 of life ringed about with intolerable roaring empti- 
 ness. To a companion, had there been one in the 
 coach, he must have clung in sheer terror ; yes, 
 even to his father, to whom he had never clung 
 and could scarcely imagine himself clinging. But 
 his father rode ahead, carelessly erect on his blood- 
 horse — horse and rider seen in a blur through the 
 salt-encrusted glass. Therefore Master Dicky held 
 on as best he might to the arm-strap. 
 
 By degrees his terror drained away, though its 
 ebb left him shivering. Child though he was, 
 he could not remember when he had not been 
 curious about the sea. In a dazed fashion he 
 stared out upon the breakers. The wind had died 
 down after the tempest, but the Atlantic kept its 
 agitation. Meeting the shore (which hereabouts 
 ran shallow for five or six hundred yards) it reared 
 itself in ten-foot combers, rank stampeding on 
 rank, until the sixth or seventh hurled itself far 
 up the beach, spent itself in a long receding curve, 
 and drained back to the foaming forces behind. 
 Their untiring onset fascinated Dicky ; and now 
 and again he tasted renewal of his terror, as a 
 wave, taller than the rest or better timed, would 
 come sweeping up to the coach itself, spreading 
 and rippling about the wheels and the horses' fet- 
 locks. " Surely this one would engulf them," 
 thought the child, recalling Pharaoh and his char-
 
 16 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 iots ; but always the furious charge spent itself in 
 an edge of white froth that faded to delicate salt 
 filigree and so vanished. When this had hap- 
 pened a dozen times or more, and still without 
 disaster, he took heart and began to turn it all 
 into a game, choosing this or that breaker and 
 making imaginary wagers upon it ; but yet the 
 spectacle fascinated him, and still at the back of 
 his small brain lay wonder that all this terrifying 
 fury and uproar should always be coming to noth- 
 ing. God must be out yonder (he thought) and 
 engaged in some mysterious form of play. He 
 had heard a good deal about God from Miss 
 Quiney, his governess ; but this playfulness, as 
 an attribute of the Almighty, was new to him and 
 hitherto unsuspected. 
 
 The beach, with here and there a break, ex- 
 tended for close upon twenty miles, still curving 
 towards the headland ; and the travellers covered 
 more than two -thirds of the distance without 
 espying a single living creature. As the afternoon 
 wore on the weather improved. The sun, soon 
 to drop behind the cliff-summits on the left, as- 
 serted itself with a last effort and shot a red 
 gleam through a chink low in the cloud-wrack. 
 The shaft widened. The breakers — indigo-backed 
 till now and turbid with sand in solution — began 
 to arch themselves in glass-green hollows, with
 
 THE BEACH 17 
 
 rainbows playing on the spray of their crests. 
 And then — as though the savage coast had be- 
 came, at a touch of sunshine, habitable — our 
 travellers spied a man. 
 
 He came forth from a break in the cliffs half a 
 mile ahead and slowly crossed the sands to the 
 edge of the surf, the line of which he began, 
 after a pause, to follow as slowly northwards. His 
 back was turned thus upon the Collector's equipage, 
 to which in crossing the beach he had given no 
 attention, being old and purblind. 
 
 The coach rolled so smoothly, and the jingle of 
 harness was so entirely swallowed in the roar of 
 the sea, that Captain Vyell, pushing ahead and over- 
 taking the old fellow, had to ride close up to his 
 shoulder and shout. It appeared then, for further 
 explanation, that his hearing as well as his eyesight 
 was none of the best. He faced about in a puzzled 
 fashion, stared, and touched his hat — or rather 
 lifted his hand a little way and dropped it again. 
 
 " Your Honour will be the Collector," he said, 
 and nodded many times, at first as if proud of his 
 sagacity, but afterwards dully — as though his inter- 
 est had died out and he would have ceased nod- 
 ding but had forgotten the way. " Yes ; my 
 gran'-darter told me. She's in service at the 
 Bowling Green, Port Nassau ; but walks over on 
 Lord's Days to cheer up her mother and tell the 
 
 5
 
 1 8 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 news. They've been expectin' you at Port Nassau 
 any time this week." 
 
 The Collector asked where he lived, and the 
 old man pointed to a gully in the cliff and to 
 something which, wedged in the gully, might at a 
 first glance be taken for a large and loosely-con- 
 structed bird's nest. The Collector's keen eyes 
 made it out to be a shanty of timber roofed with 
 shingles and barely overtopping a wood pile. 
 
 " Wreckwood, eh ? " 
 
 " A good amount of it ought to be comin' in 
 after the gale." 
 
 " Then where's your hook ? " — for the wreck- 
 wood gatherers along this part of the coast carry 
 long gaffs to hook the flotsam and drag it above 
 reach of the waves. 
 
 " Left it up the bank," said the old man shortly. 
 After a moment he pulled himself together for an 
 explanation, hollowed his palms around his mouth, 
 and bawled above the boom of the surf. " I'm 
 old. I don't carry weight more'n I need to. 
 When a log comes in, my darter spies it an' tells 
 me. She's mons'rous quick-sighted for wood an' 
 such like — though good for nothin' else." (A 
 pause.) " No, I'm hard on her ; she can cook 
 clams." 
 
 " You were looking for clams ? " Captain Vyell 
 scrutinised the man's face. It was a patriarchal
 
 THE BEACH 19 
 
 face, strikingly handsome and not much wrinkled ; 
 the skin delicately tanned and extraordinarily trans- 
 parent. Somehow this transparency puzzled him. 
 " Hungry ? " he asked quickly ; and as quickly 
 added, " Starving for food, that's what you are." 
 " It's the Lord's will," answered the old man. 
 
 The coach had come to a halt a dozen paces 
 away. The child within it could hear nothing of 
 this conversation ; but to the end of his life his 
 memory kept vivid the scene and the two figures 
 in it — his father, in close-fitting riding-coat of 
 blue, with body braced, leaning sideways a little 
 against the wind, and a characteristic hint of the 
 cavalryman about the slope of the thigh ; the old 
 wreck-picker standing just forward of the bay's 
 shoulder and looking up, with blown hair and 
 patient eyes. Memory recalled even the long 
 slant of the bay's shoulder— a perfectly true detail, 
 for the horse was of pure English race and bred 
 by the Collector himself. 
 
 After this, as he remembered, some command 
 must have been given, for Manasseh climbed 
 down, opened the coach door and drew from 
 under the seat a box, of which he raised the lid, 
 disclosing things good to eat — among them a pasty 
 with a crisp brown crust. 
 
 The wreck-picker broke off a piece of the pasty
 
 2o LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 and wrapped it in a handkerchief and memory 
 recalled, as with a small shock of surprise, that 
 the handkerchief was clean. The old man, though 
 ragged enough to scare the crows, was clean from 
 his bare head to his bare sea-bleached feet. He 
 munched the rest of the pasty, talking between 
 mouthfuls. To his discourse Dicky paid no heed, 
 but slipped away for a scamper on the sands. 
 
 As he came running back he saw the old man, 
 in the act of wiping his mouth with the back of 
 his hand, suddenly shoot out an arm and point. 
 Just beyond the breakers a solitary bird — an osprey 
 — rose with a fish shining in the grip of Its claws. 
 It flew northward, away for the headland, for a 
 hundred yards or so ; and then by some mischance 
 let slip his prey, which fell back into the sea. The 
 boy saw the splash. To his surprise the bird 
 made no effort to recover the fish — neither stooped 
 nor paused — but went winging sullenly on its way. 
 
 " That's the way o' them," commented the old 
 wreck-picker. " Good food, an' to let it go. I 
 could teach him better." 
 
 But the boy, years after, read it as another and 
 different parable.
 
 Chapter II 
 
 PORT NASSAU 
 
 '"THEY left the beach, climbed a road across 
 the neck of the promontory, and rattled 
 downhill into Port Nassau. Dusk had fallen 
 before they reached the head of its cobbled 
 street ; and here one of the postillions drew out 
 a horn from his holster and began to blow loud 
 blasts on it. This at once drew the townsfolk 
 into the road and warned them to get out of 
 the way. 
 
 To the child, drowsed by the strong salt air 
 and the rocking of the coach, the glimmering 
 whitewashed houses on either hand went by like 
 a procession in a dream. The figures and groups 
 of men and women on the side-walks, too, had 
 a ghostly, furtive air. They seemed to the boy 
 to be whispering together and muttering. Now 
 this was absurd ; for what with the blare of the 
 postillion's horn, the clatter of hoofs, the jolting
 
 22 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 and rumbling of wheels, the rattle of glass, our 
 travellers had all the noise to themselves — or all 
 but the voice of the gale now rising again for an 
 afterclap and snoring at the street corners. Yet 
 his instinct was right. Many of the crowd were 
 muttering. These New Englanders had no love 
 to spare for a Collector of Customs, a fine gentle- 
 men from Old England and (rumour said) an 
 atheist to boot. They resented this ostent of 
 entry ; the men more sullenly than the women, 
 some of whom in their hearts could not help 
 admiring its high-and-mighty insolence. 
 
 The Collector, at any rate, had a crowd to 
 receive him, for it was Saturday evening. On 
 Saturdays by custom the fishing-fleet of Port 
 Nassau made harbour before nightfall, and the 
 crews kept a sort of decorous carnival before the 
 Sabbath, of which they were strict observers. In 
 the lower part of the town, by the quays, much 
 buying and selling went on, in booths of sail-cloth 
 lit as a rule by oil-flares. For close upon a week 
 no boat had been able to put to sea ; but the 
 Saturday market and the Saturday gossip and 
 to-and-fro strolling were in full swing none the 
 less, though the salesmen had to substitute hurri- 
 cane-lamps for their ordinary flares, and the boy — 
 now wide awake again — had a passing glimpse 
 of a couple of booths that had been wrecked
 
 PORT NASSAU 23 
 
 by the rising wind and were being rebuilt. He 
 craned out to stare at the helpers, while they, 
 pausing in their work and dragged to and fro 
 by the flapping canvas, stared back as the coach 
 went by. 
 
 It came to a halt on a level roadway some few 
 rods beyond this bright traffic, in an open space 
 which, he knew, must be near the waterside, for 
 beyond the lights of the booths he had spied a 
 cluster of masts quite close at hand. Or perhaps 
 he had fallen asleep and in his sleep had been 
 transported far inland. For the wind had sud- 
 denly died down, the coach appeared to be standing 
 in a forest glade — at any rate, among trees — and 
 through the trees fell a soft radiance that might 
 well be the moon's were it only a tinge less yellow. 
 In the shine of it stood Manasseh, holding open 
 the coach door ; and as the child stepped out 
 these queer impressions were succeeded by one 
 still more curious and startling. For a hand, as 
 it seemed, reached out of the darkness, brushed 
 him smartly across the face, and was gone. He 
 gave a little cry and stood staring aloft at a lantern 
 that hung some feet above him from an arched 
 bracket. Across its glass face ran the legend 
 Bowling Green Inn, in orange-coloured letter- 
 ing, and the ray of its oil-lamp wavered on 
 the boughs of two tall maples set like sentinels
 
 24 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 by the Inn gateway and reddening now to the fall 
 of the leaf. Yes, the ground about his feet was 
 strewn with leaves : it must be one of these that 
 had brushed by his face. 
 
 If the folk in the streets had been sullen, those 
 of the Inn were eager enough, even obsequious. 
 A trio of grooms fell to unharnessing the horses ; 
 a couple of porters ran to and fro, unloading the 
 baggage and cooking -pots ; while the landlady 
 shouted orders right and left in the porchway. 
 She deemed, honest soul, that she was mistress 
 of the establishment, until Manasseh undeceived 
 her. 
 
 Manasseh's huge stature and gold-encrusted 
 livery commanded respect in spite of his colour. 
 He addressed her as " woman." " Woman, if 
 you will stop yo' cacklin' and yo' crowin' ? Go 
 in now and fetch me fish, fetch me chickens, fetch 
 me plenty eggs. Fetch me a dam scullion. Heh ? 
 Stir yo' legs and fetch me a dam scullion, and the 
 chickens tender. His Exc'llence mos' partic'ler 
 the chickens tender." 
 
 Still adjuring her he shouldered his way through 
 the house to the kitchen, whence presently his 
 voice sounded loud, authoritative, above the clatter 
 of cooking-pots. From time to time he broke 
 away from the business of unpacking to reiterate 
 his demands for fish, eggs, chicken — the last to be
 
 PORT NASSAU 25 
 
 tender at all costs and at pain of his tremendous 
 displeasure. 
 
 "And I assure you, ma'am," said Captain Vyell, 
 standing in the passage at the door of his private 
 room, " his standard is a high one. I believe the 
 blackguard never stole a tough fowl in his life. . . . 
 Show me to my bedroom, please, if the trunks are 
 unstrapped ; and the child, here, to his. . . . Eh ? 
 What's this ? — a rush-light ? I don't use rush- 
 lights. Go to Manasseh and ask him to unpack 
 you a pair of candles." 
 
 The landlady returned with a silver candlestick 
 in either hand, and candles of real wax. She had 
 never seen the like, and led the way upstairs 
 speculating on their cost. The bedrooms proved 
 to be clean, though bare and more than a little 
 stuffy — their windows having been kept shut for 
 some days against the gale. The Collector com- 
 manded them to be opened. The landlady faintly 
 protested. " The wind would gutter the candles — 
 and such wax too ! ' She was told to obey, and 
 she obeyed. 
 
 In the boy's room knelt a girl — a chambermaid 
 — unstrapping his small valise. She had a rush- 
 light on the floor beside her, and did not look up 
 as the landlady thrust open the lattice and left the 
 room with the Collector, the boy remaining behind. 
 His candle stood upon a chest of drawers by the
 
 26 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 window ; and, as the others went out, a draught 
 of wind caught the dimity curtain, blew it against 
 the flame, and in an instant ignited it. 
 
 The girl looked up swiftly at the sudden light 
 above her, and as swiftly — before the child could 
 cry out — was on her feet. She caught the fire 
 between her two hands and beat it out, making 
 no noise and scarcely flinching, though her flesh 
 was certainly being scorched. 
 
 " That was lucky," she said, looking across at 
 him with a smile. 
 
 " Ruth ! — Ruth ! " called the landlady's voice, 
 up the corridor. " Here, a moment ! ' 
 
 She dropped the charred curtain and hurried to 
 answer the call. 
 
 " Ruth ! Where's the bootjack ? His Honour 
 will take off his riding-boots." 
 
 "Bootjack, ma'am ?" interrupted the Collector, 
 leaning back in a chair and extending a shapely 
 leg with instep and ankle whereon the riding- 
 boot fitted like a glove. " I don't maul my 
 leather with bootjacks. Send Manasseh upstairs 
 to me ; ask him with my compliments what the 
 devil he means by clattering saucepans when he 
 should be attending to his master. . . . Eh, what's 
 this ? " 
 
 " She can do it, your Honour," said the land- 
 lady, catching Ruth by the shoulder and motioning
 
 PORT NASSAU 27 
 
 her to kneel and draw off the boot. (It is likely 
 she shirked carrying the message.) 
 
 " Oh, very well — if only she won't twist my 
 foot. . . . Take care of the spur, child." 
 
 The girl knelt, and with her blistered hand took 
 hold of the boot-heel below the spur. It cost her 
 exquisite pain, but she did not wince ; and her 
 head being bent, no one perceived the tears in her 
 eyes. 
 
 She had scarcely drawn off the second boot, 
 when Manasseh appeared in the doorway carrying 
 a silver tray with glasses and biscuits ; a glass of 
 red wine for his master, a more innocent cordial 
 for the young gentleman, and both glasses filmed 
 over with the chill of crushed ice. 
 
 The girl was withdrawing when the Collector, 
 carelessly feeling in his pocket, drew out a coin 
 and put it into her hand. Her fingers closed on 
 it sharply, almost with a snatch. In truth, the 
 touch of metal was so intolerable to the burnt 
 flesh that, but for clutching it so, she must have 
 dropped the coin. Still with bowed head she 
 passed quietly from the room. 
 
 Master Dicky munched his macaroon and sipped 
 his cordial. He had a whole guinea in his breeches 
 pocket, and was thinking it would be great fun 
 to step out and explore the town, if only for a 
 little way. To-morrow was Sunday, and all the
 
 28 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 stores would be closed. But Manasseh was too 
 busy to come with him for bodyguard — and his 
 father's boots were off; and besides, he stood in 
 great awe and shyness of his admired parent. Had 
 the boots been on, it would have cost him a bold 
 effort to make the request. On the whole, the 
 cordial warming him, Master Dicky had a mind 
 to take French leave.
 
 Chapter III 
 TWO GUINEAS 
 
 T 
 
 *HOUGH the wind hummed among the chim- 
 neys and on the back of the roof, on either 
 side of the lamp over the gateway the maples stood 
 in the lee and waved their boughs gently, shedding 
 a leaf now and then in some deflected gust. Be- 
 yond and to the left stretched a dim avenue, also 
 of maples ; and at the end of this, as he reached 
 the gate, the boy could spy the lights of the fair. 
 
 There was no risk at all of losing his way. 
 
 He stepped briskly forth and down the avenue. 
 Where the trees ended, and with them the high 
 wall enclosing the inn's stable-yard, the wind 
 rushed upon him with a whoop, and swept him 
 off the side-walk almost to the middle of the road- 
 way. But by this time the lights were close at 
 hand. He pressed his little hat down on his head 
 and battled his way towards them. 
 
 The first booth displayed sweetmeats ; the next 
 hung out lines of sailors' smocks, petticoats, sea-
 
 3 o LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 boots, oilskin coats and caps, that swayed according 
 to their weieht ; the third was no booth but a 
 wooden store, wherein a druggist dispensed his 
 wares ; the fourth, also of wood, belonged to 
 a barber, and was capable of seating one customer 
 at a time while the others waited their turn on the 
 side-walk. Here — his shanty having no front — the 
 barber kept them in good humour by chatting to 
 all and sundry while he shaved ; but a part of the 
 crowd had good-naturedly drifted on to help his 
 neighbour, a tobacco-seller, whose stall had suffered 
 disaster. A painted wooden statue of a Cherokee 
 Indian lay face downward across the walk, as the 
 wind had blown it : bellying folds of canvas and 
 tarpaulin hid the wreck of the poor man's stock- 
 in-trade. Beyond this wreckage stood, in order, 
 a vegetable stall, another sweetmeat stall, and a 
 booth in which the boy (who cared little for sweet- 
 meats, and, moreover, had just eaten his macaroon) 
 took much more interest. For it was hung about 
 with cages ; and in the cages were birds of all 
 kinds (but the most of them canaries), perched in 
 the dull light of two horn lanterns, and asleep 
 with open, shining eyes ; and in the midst stood 
 the proprietor, blowing delightful liquid notes 
 upon a bird-call. 
 
 It rascinated Dicky ; and he no sooner assured 
 himself that the birds were really for sale — although
 
 TWO GUINEAS 31 
 
 no purchaser stepped forward — than there came upon 
 him an overmastering desire to own a live canary 
 in a cage and teach it with just such a whistle. 
 (He had often wondered at the things upon which 
 grown-up folk spent their money to the neglect 
 of this world's true delights.) Edging his way to 
 the stall, he was summoning up courage to ask 
 the price of a bird, when the salesman caught sight 
 of him and affably spared him the trouble. 
 
 " Eh ! here's my young lord wants a bird. . . . 
 You may say what you like," said he, addressing 
 the bystanders, " but there's none like the gentry 
 for encouragin' trade. . . . And which shall it 
 be, sir ? Here's a green parrot, now, I can re- 
 commend ; or if your Honour prefers a bird that'll 
 talk, this grey one. A beauty, see ! And not 
 a bad word in his repertory. Your honoured 
 father shall not blame me for sellin' you a swearer." 
 
 The boy pointed to a cage on the man's right. 
 
 " A canary ? . . . Well, and you're right. What 
 is talk, after all, to compare with music ? And 
 chosen the best bird of my stock, you have ; the 
 pick of the whole crop. That's Quality, my 
 friends ; nothing but the best'll do for Quality, an' 
 the instinct of it comes out young." The man, 
 who was evidently an eccentric, ran his eye roguishly 
 over the faces behind the boy and named his price ; 
 a high one — a very high one — but one nicely
 
 32 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 calculated to lie on the right side of public repro- 
 bation. 
 
 Dicky laid his guinea on the sill. " I want a 
 whistle, too," he said, "and my change, please." 
 
 The bird-fancier slapped his breeches pockets. 
 
 "A guinea ? Bless me, but I must run around 
 and ask one of my neighbours to oblige. Any of 
 you got the change for a golden guinea about you ? " 
 he asked of the crowd. 
 
 " We ain't so lucky," said a voice somewhere 
 at the back. " We don't carry guineas about, nor 
 give 'em to our bastards." 
 
 A voice or two — a woman's among them — called 
 " Shame ! ' " Hold your tongue, there ! " 
 
 Dicky had his back to the speaker. He heard 
 the word for the first time in his life, and had no 
 notion of its meaning ; but in a dim way he felt 
 it to be an evil word, and also that the people were 
 protesting out of pity. A rush of blood came to 
 his face. He gulped, lifted his chin, and said, with 
 his eyes steady on the face of the blinking fancier, — 
 
 " Give it back to me, please, and I will get it 
 changed." 
 
 He took the coin, and walked away resolutely 
 with a set white face. He saw none of the people 
 who made way for him. 
 
 The bird-fancier stared after the small figure as 
 it walked away into darkness. " Bastard ? " he
 
 TWO GUINEAS 33 
 
 said. " There's Blood in that youngster, though 
 he don't face ye again an' I lose my deal. Blood's 
 blood, however ye come by it ; you may take that 
 on the word of a breeder. An' you ought to be 
 ashamed, Sam Wilson — slingin' yer mud at a 
 child ! " 
 
 The word drummed in the boy's ears. What 
 did it mean ? What was the sneer in it ? " Brat ! " 
 " cry-baby," " tell-tale," " story-teller," these were 
 opprobrious words, to be resented in their degree ; 
 and all but the first covered accusations which not 
 only must never be deserved, but obliged a gentle- 
 man, however young, to show fight. But "bas- 
 tard " ? 
 
 He felt that, whatever it meant, somehow it was 
 worse than any ; that honour called for the annihi- 
 lation of the man that dared speak it ; that there 
 was weakness, perhaps even poltroonery, in merely 
 walking away. If only he knew what the word 
 meant ! 
 
 He came to a halt opposite the drug store. He 
 had once heard Dr. Lamerton, the apothecary at 
 home, described as a " well-to-do " man. The 
 phrase stuck in his small brain, and he connected 
 the sale of drugs with wealth. (How, he reasoned, 
 could any one be tempted to sell wares so nasty 
 unless by prodigious profit ?) He felt sure the
 
 34 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 drug-seller would be able to change the guinea for 
 him, and walked in boldly. His ears were ting- 
 ling, and he felt a call to assert himself. 
 
 There was a single customer in the store — a girl. 
 With some surprise he recognised her for the girl 
 who had beaten the flame out of the curtain. 
 
 She stood with her back to the doorway and 
 a little sidewise by the counter, from behind which 
 the drug-seller — a burly fellow in a suit of black — 
 looked down on her doubtfully, rubbing his shaven 
 chin while he glanced from her to something he 
 held in his open palm. 
 
 "I'm askin' you," he said, "how you came 
 by it ? " 
 
 " It was given to me," the girl answered. 
 
 " That's a likely tale ! Folks don't give money 
 like this to a girl in your position ; unless — " 
 
 Here the man paused. 
 
 " Is it a great deal of money ? " she asked. 
 There was astonishment in her voice, and a kind 
 of suppressed eagerness. 
 
 " Oh, come now— that's too innocent by half ! 
 A guinea-piece is a guinea-piece, and a guinea is 
 twenty-one shillings ; and twenty-one shillings, 
 likely enough, is more'n you'll earn in a year 
 outside o' your keep. Who gave it ye ? " 
 
 "A gentleman — the Collector — at the Inn just 
 
 ow."
 
 TWO GUINEAS 35 
 
 " Ho ! ' : said the drug-seller, with a world of 
 meaning. 
 
 " But if," she went on, " it is worth so much as 
 you say, there must be some mistake. Give it 
 back to me, please. I am sorry for troubling you." 
 She took a small, round parcel from her pocket, 
 laid it on the counter, and held out her hand for 
 the coin. 
 
 The drug-seller eyed her. " There must be 
 some mistake, I guess," said he, as he gave back 
 the gold piece. " No, and you can take up your 
 packet too ; I don't grudge two-pennyworth of 
 salve. But wait a moment while I serve this 
 small customer, for I want a word with you later. 
 . . . Well, and what can I do for you, young 
 gentleman ? " he asked, turning to Dicky. 
 
 Dicky advanced to the shop-board, and as he 
 did so the girl turned and recognised him with 
 a faint, very shy smile. 
 
 " If you please," he said politely, " I want change 
 for this — if you can spare it." 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " exclaimed the man, staring. 
 " What, another ? " 
 
 "The bird-seller up the road had no change 
 about him. And — and, if you please," went on 
 Dick hardily, with a glance at the girl, " she hurt 
 her hands putting out a fire just now. I expect my 
 father gave her the money for that. But she must
 
 36 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 have burnt her hands dreffully I " — Dicky had not 
 quite outgrown his infantile lisp — " and if she's 
 come for stuff to put on them, please I want to 
 pay for it." 
 
 " But I don't want.you to," put in the girl, still 
 hesitating by the counter. 
 
 " But I'd rather" insisted Dicky. 
 
 "Tut!" said the drug-seller. "A matter of 
 twopence won't break either of us. Captain Vyell's 
 boy, are you ? Well, then, I'll take your coppers 
 on principle." 
 
 He counted out the change, and Dicky — who 
 was not old enough yet to do sums — pretended to 
 find it correct. But he was old enough to have 
 acquired charming manners, and after thanking the 
 drug-seller, gave the girl quite a grown-up little 
 bow as he passed out. 
 
 She would have followed, but the man said, 
 " Stay a moment. What's your name ? " 
 
 " Ruth Josselin." 
 
 "Age?" 
 
 " I was sixteen last month." 
 
 " Then listen to a word of advice, Ruth Josselin, 
 and don't you take money like that from fine 
 gentlemen like the Collector. They don't give it 
 to the ugly ones. Understand?" 
 
 " Thank you," she said. " I am going to give 
 it back ; " and slipping the guinea into her pocket,
 
 TWO GUINEAS 37 
 
 she said " Good evening," and walked swiftly out 
 in the wake of the child. 
 
 The drug-seller looked after her shrewdly. He 
 was a moral man. 
 
 Ruth, hurrying out upon the side-walk, descried 
 the child a few paces up the road. He had come 
 to a halt ; was, in fact, plucking up his courage 
 to go and demand the bird-cage. She overtook 
 him. 
 
 " 1 was sent out to look for you," she said. " I 
 ouphtn't to have wasted time buying that oint- 
 ment ; but my hands were hurting me. Please, 
 you are to come home and change your clothes 
 for dinner." 
 
 " I'll come in a minute," said Dicky, " if you'll 
 stand here and wait." 
 
 He might be called by that word again ; and 
 without knowing why, he dreaded her hearing it. 
 She waited v/hile he trotted forward, nerving him- 
 self to face the crowd again. Lo ! when he 
 reached the booth, all the bystanders had melted 
 away. The bird-seller was covering up his cages 
 with loose wrappers, making ready to pack up for 
 the night. 
 
 "Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Thought I'd 
 lost you for good." 
 
 He took the child's money and handed the
 
 38 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 canary cage across the sill ; also the bird-whistle, 
 wrapped in a scrap of paper. Many times in the 
 course of a career which brought him much fight- 
 ing and some little fame, Dicky Vyell remembered 
 this his first lesson in courage — that if you walk 
 straight up to an enemy, as likely as not you find 
 him vanished. 
 
 But he had not quite reached the end of his 
 alarms. As he took the cage, a parrot at the back 
 of the booth uplifted his voice and squawked, — 
 
 " No prerogative ! No prerogative ! No pre- 
 rogative ! " 
 
 " You mustn't mind him" said the bird-seller 
 genially. " He's like the crowd — picks up a cry 
 an' harps on it without understandin'." 
 
 Master Dicky understood it no better ; but 
 thanked the man and ran off, prize in hand, to 
 rejoin the girl. 
 
 They hurried back to the Inn. At the gateway 
 she paused. 
 
 " I let you say what was wrong just now," she 
 explained. " Your father didn't give me that 
 money for putting out the fire." 
 
 Here she hesitated. Dicky could not think 
 what it mattered, or why her voice was so timid. 
 
 " Oh," said he carelessly, " I dare say it was just 
 because he liked you. Father has plenty of 
 money."
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 FATHER AND SON 
 
 ' I A HE dinner set before Captain Vyell comprised 
 a dish of oysters, a fish chowder, a curried 
 crab, a fried fowl with white sauce, a saddle of 
 tenderest mutton, and various sweets over which 
 Manasseh had thrown the elegant flourishes of his 
 art. The wine came from the Rhone valley — a 
 Hermitage of the Collector's own shipment. The 
 candles that lit the repast stood in the Collector's 
 own silver candlesticks. As an old Roman general 
 carried with him on foreign service, packed in 
 panniers on mule-back, a tessellated pavement to 
 be laid down for him at each camping halt and 
 repacked when the troops moved forward, so did 
 Captain Vyell on his progresses of inspection travel 
 with all the apparatus of a good table. 
 
 Dicky, seated opposite his father in a suit of 
 sapphire blue velvet with buttons of cut steel, par- 
 took only of the fried fowl and of a syllabub. He 
 had his glass of wine too, and sipped at it, not
 
 4 o LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 liking it much, but encouraged by his father, who 
 held that a fine palate could not be cultivated too 
 early. 
 
 By some process of dishing-up best known to 
 himself (but with the aid, no doubt, of the " dam 
 scullion " ) Manasseh, who had cooked the dinner, 
 also served it ; noiselessly, wearing white gloves 
 because his master abominated the sight of a black 
 hand at meals. These gloves had a fascination for 
 Dicky. They attracted his eyes as might the inter- 
 volved play of two large white moths in the pen- 
 umbra beyond the candle-light, between his father's 
 back and the dark sideboard ; but he fought 
 against the attraction because he knew that to be 
 aware of a servant was an offence against good 
 manners at table. 
 
 His father encouraged him to talk, and he told 
 of his purchase — but not all the story. Not for 
 worlds — instinct told him — must he mention the 
 word he had heard spoken. Yet he got so far as 
 to say, — 
 
 "The people here don't like us — do they, 
 father ? " 
 
 Captain Vyell laughed. " No, that's very certain. 
 And, to tell you the truth, if I had known you 
 were wandering the street by yourself I might have 
 felt uneasy. Manasseh shall take you for a walk 
 to-morrow. One can never be sure of the canaille."
 
 FATHER AND SON 41 
 
 " What does that mean ? " 
 
 Captain Vyell explained. The canaille, he said, 
 were the common folk, whose part in this world 
 was to be ruled. He explained further that to 
 belong to the upper or ruling class it did not suffice 
 to be well-born (though this was almost essential) ; 
 one must also cultivate the manners proper to that 
 station, and appear, as well as be, a superior. Nor 
 was this all ; there were complications, which Dicky 
 would learn in time ; what was called " popular 
 rights," for instance — rights which even a King 
 must not be allowed to override ; and these were 
 so precious that (added the Collector) the upper 
 classes must sometimes fight and lay down their 
 lives for them. 
 
 Dick perpended. He found this exceedingly 
 interesting — the more so because it came, though 
 in a curiously different way, to much the same as 
 Miss Quiney had taught him out of the catechism. 
 Miss Quiney had used pious words ; in Miss 
 Quiney's talk everything — even to sitting upright 
 at table — was mixed up with God and an all-seeing 
 Eye ; and his father — with a child's deadly penetra- 
 tion Dicky felt sure of it — was careless about God. 
 
 This, by the way, had often puzzled and even 
 frightened him. God, like a great Sun, loomed 
 so largely through Miss Quiney's scheme of things 
 (which it were more precise, perhaps, to term a
 
 42 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 fog) that for certain, and apart from the sin of 
 it and the assurance of going to hell, every one 
 removed from God must be sitting in pitch-dark- 
 ness. But lo ! when his father talked everything 
 became clear and distinct ; there was no sun at all 
 to be seen, but there was also no darkness. On 
 the contrary, a hundred things grew visible at 
 once, and intelligible and common-sensible as Miss 
 Quiney never contrived to present them. 
 
 This was puzzling ; and, moreover, the child 
 could not tolerate the thought of his father's 
 going to hell — to the flames and unbearable 
 thirst of it. To be sure Miss Quiney had never 
 hinted this punishment for her employer, or even 
 a remote chance of it, and Dicky's good breeding 
 had kept him from confronting her major premise 
 with the particular instance of his father, although 
 the conclusion of that syllogism meant everything 
 to him. Or it may be that he was afraid. . . . 
 Once, indeed, like Sindbad in the cave, he had 
 seen a glimmering chance of escape. It came 
 when, reading in his Scripture lesson that Christ 
 consorted by choice with publicans and sinners, he 
 had been stopped by Miss Quiney with the infor- 
 mation that "publican" meant "a kind of tax- 
 collector." "Like papa?" asked the child, and 
 held his breath for the answer. " Oh, not in the 
 least like your dear papa," Miss Quiney made
 
 FATHER AND SON 43 
 
 haste to assure him ; " but a quite low class of 
 person, and, I should say, connected rather with 
 the Excise. You must remember that all this 
 happened in the East, a long time ago." Poor 
 soul ! the conscientiousness of her conscience (so 
 to speak) had come to rest upon turning such 
 corners genteelly, and had grown so expert at it 
 that she scarcely breathed a sigh of relief. The 
 child bent his head over the book. His eyes were 
 hidden from her, and she never guessed what 
 hope she had dashed. 
 
 It was a relief then — after being forced at one 
 time or another to put aside or pigeon-hole a 
 hundred questions on which Miss Quiney's teach- 
 ing and his father's practice appeared at variance — 
 to find a point upon which the certainty of both 
 converged. Heaven and hell might be this or 
 that ; but in this world the poor deserved their 
 place, and must be kept to it. 
 
 "That seems fine," said Dicky, after a long 
 pause. 
 
 "What seems fine?" His father, tasting the 
 mutton with approval, had let slip his clue to the 
 child's thought. 
 
 " Why, that poor people have rights too, and 
 we ought to stand up for them — like you said," 
 answered Dicky, not too grammatically.
 
 44 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " They are our rights too, you see," said his 
 father. 
 
 Dicky did not see ; but his eagerness jumped 
 this gap in the argument. " Papa," he asked with 
 a sudden flush, " did you ever stand up to a King 
 on the poor people's side, and fight — and all 
 that ? " 
 
 "Well, you see" — the Collector smiled — "I 
 
 was never called upon. But it's in the blood. 
 
 Has Miss Quiney ever told you about Oliver 
 
 Cromwell ? " 
 
 " Yes. He cut off Kino- Charles's head. ... I 
 
 o 
 
 don't think Miss Quiney liked him for that, 
 though she didn't say so." 
 
 The Collector was still smiling. " He certainly 
 helped to cut off King Charles's head, and — -right 
 or wrong — it's remembered against him. But he 
 did any amount of great things too. He was a 
 masterful man ; and perhaps the reason why Miss 
 Quiney held her tongue is that he happens to be 
 an ancestor of ours, and she knew it." 
 
 " Oliver Cromwell ?" Dicky repeated the name 
 slowly, with awe. 
 
 " He was my great-great-grandfather, and you 
 can add on another c great ' for yourself. I am 
 called Oliver after him. They even say," added 
 Captain Vyell, sipping his wine, " that I have some 
 of his features ; and so, perhaps, will you when
 
 FATHER AND SON 45 
 
 you grow up. But of your chance of that you 
 shall judge before long. I am having a copy of 
 his portrait sent over from England." 
 
 For a moment or two these last remarks scarcely 
 penetrated to the boy's hearing. Like all boys, he 
 naturally desired greatness ; unlike most, he was 
 conscious of standing above the crowd, but without 
 a guess that he derived the advantage from any- 
 thing better than accident. His father had the 
 good fortune to be rich. For himself — well, 
 Dicky was born with one of those simple natures 
 that incline rather to distrust than to overrate their 
 own merits. None the less he desired and loved 
 greatness — thus early, and throughout his life — 
 and it came as a tremendous, a magnificent shock 
 to him that he enjoyed it as a birthright. The 
 repetition of "great" — "he was my great-great- 
 grandfather;" "you can add another 'great' for 
 yourself" — hummed in his ears. A full half a 
 minute ticked by before he grasped at the re- 
 mainder of his father's speech, and, like a breaking 
 twig, it dropped him to bathos. 
 
 " But — but — " Dicky passed a hand over his 
 face — " Miss Quiney said that Oliver Cromwell 
 was covered with warts ! ' 
 
 Captain Vyell laughed outright. 
 
 " Women have wonderful ways of conveying a 
 prejudice. Warts ? Well, there, at any rate, we
 
 46 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 have the advantage of old Noll." The Collector, 
 whose sense of hearing was acute and fastidious, 
 broke off with a sharp arching of the eyebrows and 
 a glance up at the ceiling, or rather (since ceiling 
 there was none) at the oaken beams which sup- 
 ported the floor overhead. " Manasseh," he said 
 quickly, " be good enough to step upstairs and 
 inform our landlady that the pitch of her voice 
 annoys me. She would seem to be rating a servant 
 girl above." 
 
 " Yes, sah." 
 
 " Pray desire her to take the girl away and scold 
 her elsewhere." 
 
 Manasseh disappeared, and returned two minutes 
 later to report that " the woman would give no 
 furdah trouble." He removed the white cloth, 
 set out the decanters with an apology for the 
 mahogany's indifferent polish, and withdrew again 
 to prepare his master's coffee. 
 
 At once a silence fell between father and son. 
 Dicky had expected to hear more of Oliver Crom- 
 well. He stared across the dull shine of the table 
 at his parent's coat of peach-coloured velvet and 
 shirt front of frilled linen ; at the lace ruffle on 
 the wrist, the signet ring on the little finger, the 
 hand — firm, but fine — as it reached for a decanter 
 or fell to playing with a gold toothpick. He loved 
 this father of his with the helpless, concentred love
 
 FATHER AND SON 47 
 
 of a motherless child ; admired him, as all must 
 admire, only more loyally. To feel constraint in 
 so magnificent a presence was but natural. 
 
 It would have astonished him to learn that his 
 father, lolling there so easily and toying with a 
 toothpick, shared that constraint. Yet it was so. 
 Captain Vyell did not understand children. Least 
 of all did he understand this son of his begetting. 
 He could be kind to him, even extravagantly, 
 by fits and starts ; desired to be kind constantly ; 
 could rally and chat with him in hearing of a third 
 person, though that third person were but a servant 
 waiting at table. But to sit alone facing the boy 
 and converse with him was a harder business, and 
 gave him an absurd feeling of gene; and this 
 (though possibly he did not know it) was the 
 real reason why, having brought Dicky in the 
 coach for a treat, he himself had ridden all day 
 in saddle. 
 
 Dicky was the first to resume conversation. 
 
 " Papa," he asked, still pondering the problem 
 of rich and poor, " don't some of the old families 
 die out ? " 
 
 "They do." 
 
 " Then others must come up to take their place, 
 or the people who do the ruling would come to an 
 end." 
 
 "That's the way of it, my boy." The Collector
 
 48 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 nodded and cracked a walnut. " New families 
 spring up ; and a devilish ugly show they usually 
 make of it at first. It takes three generations, they 
 say, to breed a gentleman ; and, in my opinion, 
 that's under the mark." 
 
 "And a lady ?" 
 
 " Women are handier at picking up appear- 
 ances ; 'adaptable' 's the word. But the trouble 
 with them is to find out whether they have the 
 real thing or not. For my part, if you want the 
 real thing, I believe there are more gentlemen 
 than gentlewomen in the world ; and Batty Lang- 
 ton says you may breed out the old Adam, but 
 you'll never get rid of Eve. . . . But, bless my soul, 
 Dicky, it's early days for you to be discussing the 
 
 sex ! 
 
 Dicky, however, was perfectly serious. 
 
 " But I do mean what you call the real thing, 
 papa. Couldn't a poor girl be born so that she had 
 it from the start ? Oh, I can't tell what I mean 
 exactly — " 
 
 " On the contrary, child, you are putting it 
 uncommonly well ; at any rate, you are making 
 me understand what you mean, and that's the 
 A and Z of it, whether in talk or in writing. l Is 
 there — can there be — such a thing as a natural 
 born lady?' that's your question, hey?" The 
 Collector peeled his walnut and smiled to himself.
 
 FATHER AND SON 49 
 
 In other company — Batty Langton's, for example — 
 he would have answered cynically that to him the 
 phenomenon of a natural born lady would first of 
 all suggest a doubt of her mother's virtue. " Well, 
 no," he answered after a while ; " if you met such 
 a person, and could trace back her family history, 
 ten to one you'd discover good blood some- 
 where in it. Old stocks fail, die away under- 
 ground, and, as time goes on, are forgotten ; then 
 one fine day up springs a shoot nobody can ac- 
 count for. It't the old sap taking a fresh start. 
 See ? " 
 
 Dicky nodded. It would take him some time 
 to work out the theory, but he liked the look 
 of it. 
 
 His drowsed young brain — for the hour was 
 past bedtime — applied it idly to a picture that 
 stood out, sharp and vivid, from the endless train 
 of the day's impressions : the picture of a girl 
 with quiet, troubled eyes, composed lips, and hands 
 that beat upon a blazing curtain, not flinching at 
 the pain. . . . And just then, as it were in a dream, 
 the beat of her hands echoed in a soft tapping, 
 the door behind his father opened gently, and 
 Dicky sat up with a start, wide awake again and 
 staring, for the girl herself stood in the doorway.
 
 Chapter V 
 
 RUTH 
 
 "T-JEY, what is it?" the Collector demanded, 
 slewing himself to the half-about in his 
 chair. 
 
 The girl stepped forward into the candle-light. 
 Over her shoulders she wore a faded plaid, the 
 ends of which her left hand clutched and held 
 together at her bosom. 
 
 " Your Honour's pardon for troubling," she 
 said, and laying a gold coin on the table, drew 
 back with a slight curtsy. " But I think you gave 
 me this by mistake ; and now is my only chance 
 to give it back. I am going home in a few 
 minutes." 
 
 The Collector glanced at the coin, and from 
 that to the girl's face, on which his eyes lingered. 
 
 " Gad, I recollect ! ' he said. " You were the 
 wench that pulled off my boots ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Well, upon my honour, I forget at this
 
 RUTH 51 
 
 moment if I gave it by mistake or because of 
 your face. No, hang me ! ' he went on, while 
 she flushed, not angrily, but as though the words 
 hurt her, " it must have been by mistake. I 
 couldn't have forgot so much better a reason." 
 
 To this she answered nothing, but put forward 
 her hand as if to push the coin nearer. 
 
 " Certainly not," said he, still with eyes on her 
 face. "I wish you to take it. By the way, I 
 heard the landlady's voice just now, letting loose 
 upon somebody. Was it on you ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you are going home to-night, you say. 
 Has she turned you out ?" 
 
 " Yes." The girl's hand moved as if gathering 
 the plaid closer over her bosom. Her voice 
 held no resentment. Her eyes were fixed upon 
 the coin, which, however, she made no further 
 motion to touch ; and this downward glance 
 showed at its best the lovely droop of her long 
 eyelashes. 
 
 The Collector continued to take stock of her, 
 and with a growing wonder. 
 
 The lower half of the face's oval was perhaps 
 unduly gaunt and a trifle overweighted by the 
 broad brow. The whole body stood a thought 
 too high for its breadth, with a hint of coltish- 
 ness in the thin arms and thick elbow-joints. So
 
 52 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 judged the Collector, as he would have appraised 
 a slave or any young female animal ; while as a 
 connoisseur he knew that these were faults point- 
 ing towards ultimate perfection, and at this stage 
 even necessary to it. 
 
 For assurance he asked her, " How old are 
 you r 
 
 " Sixteen." 
 
 "That's as I guessed," said he, and added to 
 himself, " My God, this is going to be one of the 
 loveliest things in creation ! " Still, as she bent 
 her eyes to the coin on the table, he ran his 
 appraising glance over her neck and shoulders, 
 judging — so far as the ugly shawl permitted — the 
 head's poise, the set of the coral ear, the delicate 
 wave of hair on the neck's nape. 
 
 " Why is she turning you out ? " 
 
 "A window curtain took fire. She said it was 
 my fault." 
 
 " But it was not your fault at all ! " cried 
 Dicky. " Papa, the curtain took fire in my room, 
 and she beat it out. The whole house might have 
 been burnt down but for her. She beat it out, and 
 made nothing of it, though it hurt her horribly. 
 Look at her hands, papa ! " 
 
 " Hold out your hands," his father com- 
 manded. 
 
 She stretched them out. The ointment, as she
 
 RUTH 53 
 
 turned them palms upward, shone under the 
 candle rays. 
 
 " Turn them the other way," he commanded, 
 after a long look at them. The words might 
 mean that the sight afflicted him, but his tone 
 scarcely suggested this. She turned her hands, 
 and he scrutinised the backs of them very deliber- 
 ately. " It's a shame," said he at length. 
 
 " Of course it's a shame ! ' the boy agreed 
 hotly. " Papa, won't you ring for the landlady 
 and tell her so, and then she won't be sent 
 away." 
 
 "My dear Dicky," his father answered, "you 
 mistake. I was thinking that it was a shame to 
 coarsen such hands with housework." He eyed 
 the girl again, and she met him with a straight 
 face — flushed a little and plainly perturbed, but 
 not shrinking, although her bosom heaved — for his 
 admiration was entirely cool and critical. " What 
 is your name ? " he asked. 
 
 " Ruth Josselin." 
 
 He appeared to consider this for a moment, and 
 then, reaching out a hand for the decanter, to dis- 
 miss the subject. " Well, pick up your guinea," 
 he said. " No doubt the woman outside has 
 treated you badly ; but I can't intercede for you, 
 to keep you a drudge here among the saucepans ; 
 no, upon my conscience, I can't. The fact is,
 
 54 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Ruth Josselin, you have the makings of a beauty, 
 and I'll be no party to spoiling 'em. What is 
 more, it seems you have spirit, and no woman 
 with beauty and spirit need fail to win her game 
 in this world. That's my creed." He sipped his 
 wine. 
 
 "If your Honour pleases," said the girl quietly, 
 picking up the coin, " the woman called me bad 
 names, and I was not wanting you at all to speak 
 for me." 
 
 " Oho ! " The Collector set down his glass 
 and laughed. " So that's the way of it — ' Nobody 
 asked you, sir, she said.' Dicky, we sit rebuked." 
 
 " But — " she hesitated, and then went on rapidly 
 in the lowest of low tones — " if your Honour 
 wouldn't mind giving me silver instead of gold ? 
 They won't change gold for me in the town ; 
 they'll think I have stolen it. Most Sundays I'm 
 allowed to take home broken meats to mother and 
 grandfather, and to-night I shan't be given any, 
 now that I'm sent away. They'll be expecting me, 
 and indeed, sir, I can't bear to face them — or I 
 wouldn't ask you. I beg your Honour's pardon 
 for saying so much." 
 
 " Hullo ! ' exclaimed the Collector. " Why, 
 yes, to be sure, you must be grandchild to the old 
 man of the sea — him that I met on the beach this 
 afternoon, t'other side of the headland. Lives in
 
 RUTH SS 
 
 a hovel with a wood pile beside it, and a daughter 
 that looks out for wreckage ?" 
 
 " Your Honour spoke with them ? " Into 
 Ruth's face there mounted a deeper tide of 
 colour. But whereas the first flush had been dark 
 with distress, this second spread with a glow of 
 affection. Her eyes seemed to take light from it, 
 and shone. 
 
 " I spoke with the old man. Since you have 
 said so much, I may say more. I gave him food ; 
 he was starving." 
 
 She bent her head. Her hands moved a little, 
 with a gesture most pitiful to see. " I was afraid," 
 she muttered, " with these gales, and no getting to 
 the oyster beds." 
 
 " He took some food, too, to his daughter, with 
 a bottle of wine, as I remember." 
 
 A bright tear dropped. In the candle-light 
 Dicky saw it splash on the back of her hand, by 
 the wrist. 
 
 " God bless your Honour ! ' Dicky could just 
 hear the words. 
 
 The door opened and Manasseh entered, bear- 
 ing the coffee on a silver tray. 
 
 " Manasseh," said his master, " take that guinea 
 and bring me change for it. If you have no silver 
 in the treasury get the landlady to change it for 
 you."
 
 56 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Manasseh was affronted. His hand came near 
 to shaking as he poured and handed the coffee. 
 
 " Yo' Hon'ah doan off'n use de metal," he 
 answered. " Dat's sho'. But whiles an' again 
 yo' Hon'ah condescends ter want it. Dat bein' 
 so, I keep it by me — art polished. I doan fetch 
 yo' Hon'ah w'at any low trash has handled." 
 
 He withdrew, leaving this fine shaft to rankle, 
 and by-and-by entered with a small velvet bag, 
 from the neck of which he shook a small cascade 
 of silver coins, all exquisitely polished. 
 
 " Count me out change for a guinea," com- 
 manded his master. 
 
 Manasseh obeyed. 
 
 " Now empty the bag, put into it what you have 
 counted, and sweep up the rest." 
 
 Manasseh dropped in the coins one by one, and 
 tied the neck of the bag with its silken ribbon. 
 The Collector took it from him and tossed it to 
 the girl. 
 
 " Here — catch ! " said he carelessly. 
 
 But her burnt hands shrank from closing on it, 
 and it fell to the floor. She stooped, recovered it, 
 and slipped it within her bodice. As she rose 
 erect again her eyes rested in wonder on the black 
 servant who with a crumb-brush was sweeping the 
 rest of the money off the table and catching it upon 
 the coffee-salver. The rain and clash of the coins
 
 RUTH 57 
 
 appeared to confuse her for a moment. Then 
 with another curtsy and a " Thank your Honour," 
 she moved to the door. 
 
 " But wait," said the Collector sharply, on a 
 sudden thought. " You are not meaning to walk 
 all the way home, surely ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "At this hour ?" 
 
 " The wind has gone down. I do not mind the 
 dark, and the distance is nothing. . . . Oh, I 
 forgot : your Honour thinks that, with all this 
 money, some one will try to rob me ? " 
 
 The Collector smiled. " You would appear to 
 be a very innocent young woman," he said. " I 
 was not, as a fact, thinking of the money." 
 
 " Nobody will guess that I am carrying so 
 much," she said simply ; " so it will be quite 
 safe." 
 
 " Nevertheless this may help to give you confi- 
 dence," said he. Feeling in the breast pocket of 
 his laced satin waistcoat, he drew forth a diminu- 
 tive pistol — a delicate toy, with a pattern of silver 
 foliated over the butt. " It is loaded," he ex- 
 plained, " and primed ; though it cannot go off 
 unless you pull back the trigger. At close 
 quarters it can be pretty deadly. Do you under- 
 stand firearms ? " 
 
 " Grandfather has a fowling-piece," she an-
 
 58 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 swered ; " and, now that his sight has failed, on 
 Sundays I try to shoot sea-birds for him. He 
 says that I have a good eye. But last week the 
 birds had all flown inland, because of the gale." 
 
 " Then take this. It is nothing to carry, and 
 you may feel the safer for it." 
 
 She put up a hand to decline. " Why should I 
 need it ? " 
 
 "We'll hope you will not. But do as I bid 
 you, girl. I shall be passing back along the beach 
 in two days' time, and will call for it." 
 
 She resisted no longer. 
 
 " I will take it," she said. " By that time I may 
 have thought of words to thank your Honour." 
 
 She curtsied again. 
 
 " Manasseh ! ' Captain Vyell pointed to the 
 door. The negro opened it and stood aside 
 majestically as she passed out and was gone. 
 
 Let moralists perpend. Ruth Josselin had 
 knocked at that door after a sharp struggle between 
 conscience and crying want. The poverty known 
 to Ruth was of the extreme kind that gnaws the 
 entrails with hunger. It had furthermore starved 
 her childhood of religion, and her sole code of 
 honour came to her by instinct. Yet she had 
 knocked at the door with no thought but that the 
 Collector's guinea had come to her hand by mis-
 
 RUTH 59 
 
 take, and no expectancy but that the Collector 
 would thank her and take it back. She was shy, 
 moreover. It had cost courage. 
 
 " Honesty is the best policy." True enough, 
 no doubt. Yet, when all is said, but for some 
 radical instinct of honesty, untaught, brave to 
 conquer a more than selfish need, Ruth had never 
 brought back her guinea. And, yet again, from 
 that action all the rest of this story flows. When 
 we have told it, let the moralists decide.
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 PARENTHETICAL— OF THE FAMILY 
 
 OF VYELL 
 
 ^"APTAIN OLIVER VYELL, as we have seen, 
 set store upon pedigree : and here, as well in 
 compliment to him as to make our story clearer, 
 we will interrupt it with a brief account of his 
 family and descent. 
 
 The tomb of Sir Thomas Vyell, second Baronet, 
 at whose house of Carwithiel in Cornwall our 
 Collector spent some years of his boyhood, may 
 yet be seen in the church of that parish, in the 
 family transept. It bears the coat of the Vyells 
 (gules, a fesse raguly argent) with no less than 
 twenty-four quarterings : for an Odo of the name 
 had fought on the winning side at Hastings, and 
 his descendants, settling in the West, had held 
 estates there and been people of importance ever 
 since. 
 
 The Wars of the Roses, to be sure, had left 
 them under a cloud, shorn of the most of their
 
 THE FAMILY OF VYELL 61 
 
 wealth and a great part of their lands. Yet they 
 kept themselves afloat (if this riot of metaphor 
 may be pardoned) and their heads moderately high, 
 until Sir William, the first Baronet, by developing 
 certain tin mines on his estate and working them 
 by new processes, set up the family fortunes once 
 more. 
 
 His son, Sir Thomas, steadily bettered them. 
 A contemporary narrative describes him as " chief 
 of a very good Cornish family, with a very good 
 estate. His marrying a grand-daughter of the 
 Lord Protector (Oliver) first recommended him to 
 King William, who at the Revolution made him 
 Commissioner of the Excise and some years after 
 Governor of the Post Office. . . . The Queen, 
 by reason of his great capacity and honesty, hath 
 continued him in the office of Postmaster. He is 
 a gentleman of a sweet, easy, affable disposition — 
 a handsome man, of middle stature, towards forty 
 years old." This was written in 17 13. Sir 
 Thomas died in 1726, of the smallpox, having 
 issue (by his one wife, who survived him but a 
 few years) seven sons and three daughters. 
 
 1. Thomas, the third Baronet : of whom anon. 
 
 2. William, who became a Senior Student of 
 Christ Church, Oxford, a page to Queen Mary, 
 and a Fellow of the Royal Society. A memoir of 
 the time preserves him for us as " a tall sanguine
 
 62 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 man, with a merry eye and talkative in his cups." 
 He married a Walpole, but his children died 
 young. 
 
 3. John, who, going on a diplomatic mission to 
 Hamburg, took a fever and died there, unmarried. 
 
 4. Henry, the father of our Collector. He 
 married Jane, second daughter of the Marquis of 
 Lomond ; increased his wealth in Bengal as 
 governor of the East India Company's Factory, 
 and while yet increasing it, died at Calcutta in 
 1728. His children were two sons, Oliver and 
 Henry, with both of whom our story deals. 
 
 5. Algernon, who went to Jesus College, Cam- 
 bridge, became a Fellow there, practised severe 
 parsimony, and dying unmarried in 1742, had his 
 eyes closed by his college gyp and weighted with 
 two penny pieces — the only coins found in his 
 breeches pocket. He left his very considerable 
 savings to young Oliver, whom he had never seen. 
 
 6. Frederick Penwarne, barrister-at-law. We 
 shall have something to do with him. 
 
 7. Roger, who traded at Calcutta and making 
 an expedition to the Persian Gulf, was killed there 
 in a chance affray with some Arabs. 
 
 8. Anne, who married Sackville. 
 
 9. Frances Elizabeth, who married Pelham. 
 
 10. Arabella, whose affections went astray upon 
 a young Cornish yeoman. Her family inter-
 
 THE FAMILY OF VYELL 63 
 
 fering, the match was broken off and she died 
 unmarried. 
 
 Oliver and Henry, born at Calcutta, were for 
 their health's sake sent home together — the one 
 aged four, the other three — to be nurtured at 
 Carwithiel. Here under the care of their grand- 
 parents, Sir Thomas and Lady Vyell (the Pro- 
 tector's grand-daughter), they received instruction 
 at the hands — often very literally at the hands— of 
 the Rev. Isaac Toplady, Curate in Charge of Car- 
 withiel, a dry scholar, a wet fly-fisher, and some- 
 thing of a toad-eater. They had for sole playmate 
 and companion their Cousin Diana, or Di, the 
 seven-year-old daughter of their eldest uncle, 
 Thomas, heir to the estates and the baronetcy. 
 
 This Thomas — a dry, peevish man, averse from 
 country pursuits, penurious and incurably suspi- 
 cious of all his fellow-men — now occupied after a 
 fashion and with fair diligence that place in public 
 affairs from which his father had, on approach of 
 age, withdrawn. He sat in Parliament for the 
 family borough of St. Michael, and by family 
 influence had risen to be a Lord of the Admiralty. 
 He had married Lady Caroline Pett, a daughter of 
 the first Earl of Portlemouth, and the pair kept 
 house in Arlington Street, where during the session 
 they entertained with a frugality against which
 
 64 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Lady Caroline fought in vain. They were known 
 (and she was aware of it) as " Pett and Petty," and 
 her life was embittered by the discovery, made too 
 late, that her husband was in every sense a mean 
 man, who would never rise and never understand 
 why not, while he nursed an irrational grudge 
 against her for having presented him with a 
 daughter and then ceased from child-bearing. 
 
 Unless she repented and procured him a male 
 heir, the baronetcy would come to him only to 
 pass at his death to young Oliver ; and the couple, 
 who spent all the Parliamentary recesses at Car- 
 withiel because Mr. Thomas found it cheap, bore 
 no goodwill to that young gentleman. He en 
 revanche supplied them with abundant food for 
 censure, being wilful from the first, and given in 
 those early years to consorting with stable-boys 
 and picking up their manners and modes of speech. 
 The uncle and aunt alleged — and indeed it was 
 obvious — that the unruly boys passed on the 
 infection to Miss Diana. Miss Diana never 
 accompanied her parents to London, but had grown 
 up from the first at Carwithiel — again because Mr. 
 Thomas found it cheap. 
 
 In this atmosphere of stable slang, surrounded 
 by a sort of protective outer aura in their grand- 
 parents' godliness, the three children grew up : 
 mischievous indeed and without rein, but by no
 
 THE FAMILY OF VYELL 65 
 
 means vicious. Their first separation came in 
 1726 when Master Oliver, now rising ten. left for 
 London, to be entered at Westminster School. 
 Harry was to follow him ; and did, in a twelve- 
 month's time ; but just before this happened, in 
 Oliver's summer holidays, Sir Thomas took the 
 smallpox and died and went to his tomb in the 
 Carwithiel transept. Harry took it too ; but 
 pulled through, not much disfigured. Oliver and 
 Diana escaped. 
 
 The boys, to whom their grandfather — so far as 
 they regarded him at all — had mainly presented 
 himself as a benevolent old proser, were surprised 
 to find that they sincerely regretted him ; and the 
 events of the next few weeks threw up his merits 
 (now that the time was past for rewarding them) 
 into a sharp light which memory overarched with 
 a halo. Tenderly into that halo dissolved his 
 trivial faults — his trick, for example, of snoring 
 between the courses at dinner, or of awaking and 
 pulling his fingers till they cracked with a distress- 
 ing sound. These and other small frailties were 
 forgotten as the new Sir Thomas and his spouse 
 took possession and proceeded in a few weeks to 
 turn the place inside out, dismissing five of the 
 stable-boys, cutting down the garden staff" by one- 
 third, and carrying havoc into the housekeeper's 
 apartments, the dairy, the still-room.
 
 66 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 In these dismissals I have no doubt that Sir 
 Thomas and Lady Caroline hit (as justice is done 
 in this world) upon the chief blackguards. But 
 the two boys, asking one another why So-and-so 
 had been marked down while This-other had been 
 spared, and observing that the So-and-so's included 
 an overbalancing number of their own cronies, 
 found malice in the discrimination, and a malice 
 directed with intent upon themselves. 
 
 Young Oliver, as soon as Harry was convales- 
 cent, discussed this vehemently with him. Harry, 
 weak with illness, took it passively. He was 
 destined for the Navy. To him already the sea 
 meant everything : as a child of three, on his 
 voyage home in the Mogul East Indiaman, he had 
 caught the infection of it ; on it, as offering the 
 only career fit for a grown man, his young thoughts 
 brooded, and these annoyances were to him but 
 as chimney-pots and pantiles falling about the 
 heads of folks ashore. But he agreed that Di's 
 conduct needed explaining. She had taken a 
 demure turn, and was not remonstrating with her 
 parents as she ought — not playing fair, in short. 
 " It must be pretty difficult for her," said Harry. 
 " I don't see," said Oliver. 
 
 The two boys went back to Westminster to- 
 gether. They spent the Christmas holidays with
 
 THE FAMILY OF VYELL 67 
 
 their Uncle Frederick, the barrister, who practised 
 very little at the law either in court or in chambers, 
 but dwelt somewhat luxuriously in the Inner 
 Temple and lived the life of a man-about-town. 
 Their summer vacation was to be spent at Car- 
 withiel ; but, as it happened, they were not to see 
 Carwithiel again, for before summer came news 
 of their father's death at Calcutta. He had 
 amassed a fortune which, translated out of rupees, 
 amounted to £400,000. To his widow, in addition 
 to her jointure, he left a life interest of a thousand 
 pounds per annum; a sum of £20,000 was set 
 aside for Harry, to accumulate until his twenty- 
 first birthday ; while the magnificent residue in like 
 manner accumulated for young Oliver, the heir. 
 
 Lady Jane returned to England, to live in 
 decent affluence at Bath ; and at Bath, of course, 
 Oliver and Harry spent their subsequent holidays, 
 while their Uncle Frederick continued by occasional 
 dinners and gifts of pocket money, by outings 
 down the river to Greenwich, by seats at the 
 theatre or at state shows and pageants, to mitigate 
 the rigours of school. Had it occurred to Oliver 
 Vyell in later life to set down his " Reflections ' 
 in the style of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, he 
 might have begun them in some such words as these : 
 " From my mother, Lady Jane Vyell, I learned 
 to be proud of good birth, to esteem myself a
 
 68 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 gentleman, and to regulate my actions by a code 
 proper to my station in life. This code she re- 
 conciled with the Gospels, and indeed, she rested 
 it on the rock of Holy Scripture. From my 
 Uncle Frederick I learned that self-interest was 
 the key of life ; that the teachings of the priest- 
 hood were more or less conscious humbug • that 
 all men could be bought ; that their god was 
 vanity, and the Great Revolution the noblest 
 event in English history. . . ." 
 
 The sane infusion of Father Neptune in Master 
 Harry's blood preserved him from these doctrines, 
 and before long indeed removed him out of the 
 way of hearing them. Soon after his fifteenth 
 birthday he sailed to learn his profession shipping 
 (by a fiction of the service), as " cabin boy " under 
 his mother's brother, Lord Robert Soules, then 
 commanding the Merope frigate. 
 
 Oliver proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, and 
 thence (without waiting for a degree) to make the 
 Grand Tour ; in the course of which and in com- 
 pany with his cousin, Dick Pelham, and a Mr. 
 Batty Langton, a Christ Church friend, he visited 
 Florence, Rome, Naples, Athens, and Constan- 
 tinople, returning through Rome again and by way 
 of Venice, Switzerland, Paris. He reached home 
 to find that his mother, who believed in keeping 
 young men employed, had procured him a cornetcy
 
 THE FAMILY OF VYELL 69 
 
 in Lord Lomond's Troop of Horse. He was now 
 in possession of an ample fortune. He would 
 certainly succeed to the baronetcy, and to the 
 Vyell acres, which were mostly entailed. 
 
 But the grave itself could not give lessons in 
 greed to a true Whig family of that period. Lady 
 Jane had it in her blood, every tradition of it. 
 Her son (though within a few months he rose to 
 command of a troop) detested all military routine 
 save active service. He despised the triumphs of 
 the Senate. To keep him out of mischief — or, 
 rather, as you shall hear, to extricate him from 
 it — the good dame made application to the Duke 
 of Newcastle; and so in the year 1737, at the 
 age of twenty -one, Captain Oliver Vyell was 
 appointed to the lucrative post of Collector to 
 the port of Boston. 
 
 He had held it, now, for close upon seven years.
 
 Chapter VII 
 A SABBATH-BREAKER 
 
 MOW, in his twenty-eighth year, Oliver Vyell, 
 handsome of face, standing six feet two inches 
 in his stockings, well built and of iron constitution, 
 might fairly be called a sensual man, but not fairly 
 a sensualist. The distinction lay in his manliness. 
 He was a man, every inch of him. 
 
 He enjoyed hard riding even more than hard 
 gaming, and far more than hard drinking ; courted 
 fatigue as a form of bodily indulgence ; would 
 tramp from twenty to thirty miles in any weather 
 on a chance of sport ; loved the bite of the wind, 
 the shock of cold water ; and was a bold swimmer 
 in a generation that shunned the exercise. 
 
 He awoke next morning to find the sun shining 
 in on his window after a boisterous night. He 
 looked at his watch and rang a small bell that 
 stood on the table by his bed. Within ten 
 seconds Manasseh appeared, and was commanded 
 first to draw up the blind and then, though the
 
 A SABBATH-BREAKER 71 
 
 hour was early, to bring shaving-water with all 
 speed. 
 
 While the negro went on his errand Captain 
 Vyell arose, slipped on his dressing-gown, and 
 strolled to the window. It looked upon the 
 ocean, over a clean stretch of beach that ran north- 
 west, starting from the pier-head of the harbour 
 and fringing the town's outskirt. Half a dozen 
 houses formed this outskirt or suburb — decent 
 weather -boarded houses standing in their own 
 gardens along a curved cliff overlooking the beach. 
 The beach was of hardest sand, and just beneath 
 the Collector's window so level that it served for 
 a second bowling-green, or ten-pin-alley. Thus 
 it ran out for some twenty rods and then shelved 
 abruptly. Captain Vyell, who had an eye for such 
 phenomena, judged that this bank had formed 
 itself quite recently, since the building of the pier. 
 
 A heavy sea was running, and evidently with 
 a strong undertow. When Manasseh returned 
 with the hot water, Captain Vyell announced that 
 he would bathe before taking his chocolate. 
 
 " Yo' Hon'ah will bathe befor' shaving ? " 
 
 " You d d fool, did you ever know me do 
 
 anything before shaving? " 
 
 Manasseh chose a razor, stropped it, and worked 
 the shaving soap into a lather. 
 
 Beggin' yo' Hon'ah's pardon," said he, " it 
 
 (C
 
 72 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 bein' de Lawd's Day, an' these Port Nassau 
 people dam' ig'orant — " 
 
 " Hand me the peignoir" commanded his master 
 sharply. 
 
 He sat, and was shaved. Then, having sponged 
 his chin, he ordered Manasseh to lay out his 
 bathing-dress, retire, find a back way to the beach 
 ami, having opened all doors, attend him 
 below. He indued himself in his bathing-dress 
 very deliberately, standing up for a minute stark 
 naked in the sunshine flooding through the open 
 window — a splendid figure, foretasting battle with 
 the surf. 
 
 Then, having drawn on his bathing-dress and 
 thrust his feet into sand-shoes, he cast his dressing- 
 gown again over him and went down the stairs 
 at a run. The doors stood open, and on the 
 beach the negro awaited him in the right attitude 
 of " attention." To him he tossed his wrap and 
 shoes, and ran down to the beach as might swift- 
 footed Achilles have run to be clasped by the 
 Sea-Goddess his mother. 
 
 Through the shallow wavelets he ran, stepping 
 high ard delicately splashing merry drops against 
 the morning sunlight, leaped over one or two 
 that would have " tilled " him to the knee (to 
 use an old boyish phrase learnt at Carwithiel where 
 he had learnt to swim), and came to the shelf
 
 A SABBATH-BREAKER 73 
 
 beyond which the first tall comber boomed towards 
 him, more than head high, hissing along its ridge. 
 There, as it overarched him, he launched his body 
 forward and shot through the transparent green, 
 emerging beyond the white smother with a thrill 
 and a laugh of sheer physical delight. Thrice he 
 repeated this, — 
 
 '' Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave, 
 Who, being look'd on, ducks as quickly in. . ." 
 
 passed the fourth wave, gained deep water, and 
 thrust out to sea with a steady breast-stroke, his 
 eyes all the while on the great embracing flood 
 which, stretch as it might from here to Europe, 
 for the moment he commanded. 
 
 Manasseh watched him from the beach. From 
 the cliff above two scandalised householders calling 
 to one another across their gardens' boundary 
 pointed seaward and summoned their families to 
 the windows to note the reprobate swimmer and 
 a Sabbath profaned. 
 
 The eyes of a long-shore population are ever 
 on the sea from which comes their livelihood, 
 and nothing on the sea escapes them long. The 
 Collector's head by this time was but a speck 
 bobbing on the waves, but ere he turned back 
 for shore mavbe two hundred of Port Nassau's 
 population were watching, from various points.
 
 74 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 The Port Nassauers, whatever their individual 
 frailties, were sternly religious — nine-tenths of 
 them from conviction or habit, the rest in self- 
 defence — and Sabbatarians to a man. The sight 
 of that heathen slave, Manasseh, waiting on the 
 beach with a bath-gown over his arm, incensed 
 them to fury. Growls were uttered, here and 
 there, that if the authorities knew their business 
 this law-breaker — for Sabbath -breaking was an 
 indictable offence — should be seized on landing, 
 haled naked to justice, and clapped in the town 
 stocks ; but fortunately this indignation had no 
 concert and found, for the moment, no leader. 
 
 The Collector, having swum out more than 
 half a mile, turned and sped back, using a sharp 
 side-stroke now with a curving arm that cleft the 
 ridges like the fin of a fish. His feet touched 
 earth, and he ran up through the pursuing 
 breakers — a fleet-footed Achilles again, glittering 
 from the bath. Manasseh hurried down to 
 throw his mantle over the godlike man. 
 
 "Towel me here," was the panting command. 
 And, lo ! slipping off his bathing-dress and stand- 
 ing naked to the sea, Captain Vyell was towelled 
 under the eyes of Port Nassau, and flesh-brushed 
 until he glowed (it may be) as healthily as did 
 the cheeks of those who spied on him. On 
 this question the Muse declines to take sides.
 
 A SABBATH-BREAKER 75 
 
 For certain his naked body, after these ministra- 
 tions, glowed delicious within the bath-gown as he 
 mounted again to his Olympian chamber. There 
 he allowed Manasseh to wash out his locks in fresh 
 water (the Collector had a fine head of hair, of a 
 waved brown, and detested a wig), to anoint them, 
 and tie them behind with a fresh black ribbon. 
 This done, he took his clothes one by one as 
 Manasseh handed them, and arrayed himself, 
 humming the while an air from Opera, and thus 
 unconsciously committing a second offence against 
 the Sabbath. 
 
 He descended to find Dicky already seated at 
 table, awaiting him. Dicky had slept like a top 
 in spite of the strange bed ; and awaking soon 
 after daybreak, had lain cosily listening to the 
 boom of the sea. To him this holiday was a 
 glorious interlude in the regime of Miss Quiney. 
 His handsome father did not kiss him, but merely 
 patted him on the shoulder as he passed to his 
 chair ; and to Dick (though he would have liked 
 a kiss) it seemed just the right manly thing to do. 
 
 They talked merrily while Manasseh brought 
 in the breakfast dishes — for Master Dicky bread- 
 and-milk followed by a simple steak of cod ; 
 a bewildering succession of chowder, omelet, 
 devilled kidneys, cold ham, game pie, and fruit 
 for the Collector, who professed himself keen-set
 
 76 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 as a hunter, and washed down the viands with 
 a tankard of cider. He described his bathe, and 
 promised Dicky that he should have his first 
 swimming lessons next summer. " I must talk 
 about you to your Uncle Harry. Craze for the 
 sea ? At your age if he saw a puddle of water 
 he must stick his toes in it. He's cruising just 
 now, off South Carolina, keeping a look-out for 
 guarda-costas. He'll render an account of them, 
 you may be sure. He writes that he may be 
 coming up Boston way any time now. Oh, I 
 can swim, but for diving you should see your 
 Uncle Harry — off* the yard-arm — body taut as a 
 whip — nothing like it in any of the old Greeks' 
 statues. Plenty of talk about bathing ; but diving? 
 No. In the east, must go south to the Persian 
 Gulf to see diving. The god Hermes descending 
 on Ogygia — if you could imagine that, you had 
 Uncle Harry — the shoot outwards, the delicate 
 curve to a straight slant, heels rising above 
 rigid body while you counted, begad ! holding 
 your breath. Then the plumb drop, like a 
 gannet's — " 
 
 Dicky listened, glorious vistas opening before 
 him. With the fruit Manasseh brought coffee ; 
 and still the boy sat entranced while his father 
 chatted, glowing with exercise and enjoying a 
 breakfast at every point excellent.
 
 A SABBATH-BREAKER 77 
 
 It was in merest thoughtlessness, no doubt, that 
 having arranged for Dicky's morning walk, and after 
 smoking a tobacco leaf rolled with an art of which 
 Manasseh possessed the secret, the Collector so 
 timed his message to the stables that his groom 
 brought the horse Bayard around to the Inn door 
 just as the Sabbath bells began tolling for divine 
 worship. For as a sceptic he was careless rather 
 than militant ; ridiculing religion only in his own 
 set, and when occasion arose, and then without 
 fanaticism. For such piety as his mother's he 
 had even a tolerant respect ; and in any event 
 had too much breeding to affront of set purpose 
 the godly townsfolk of Port Nassau. At the first 
 note of the bells he frowned and blamed himself 
 for not having started earlier. But he had already 
 made appointment by letter to meet the Surveyor 
 and the Assistant Surveyor at noon on the head- 
 land, to measure out and discuss the site of the 
 proposed fortification ; and he was a punctilious 
 man in observing engagements. 
 
 It may be asked how, if civil to other men's 
 scruples, he had come to make such an appoint- 
 ment for the Sabbath. He had answered this 
 and (as he hoped) with suitable apologies in his 
 letter to the surveyor, Mr. Wapshott : explaining 
 that as His Majesty's business was bringing him 
 to Port Nassau, so it obliged him to be back at
 
 78 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Boston by such-and-such a date. He was person- 
 ally unacquainted with this Mr. Wapshott, who 
 had omitted the courtesy of calling upon him at 
 the Bowling Green, and whom by consequence he 
 was inclined to set down as a person of defective 
 manners. But Mr. Wapshott was, after all, in 
 the King's service and would understand its 
 exigencies. 
 
 He mounted therefore and rode up the street. 
 The roadway was deserted ; but along the side- 
 walk, sober families, marching by twos and threes, 
 turned their heads at the sound of Bayard's hoofs 
 on the cobbles. The Collector set his face and 
 passed them with a grave look, as of one absorbed 
 in affairs of moment. Nevertheless, coming to 
 the whitewashed Church where the streams of 
 worshippers converged and choking the porchway 
 overflowed upon the street, he added the courtesy 
 of doffing his hat as he rode by. He did this 
 still with a set face, looking straight between 
 Bayard's ears ; but with the tail of his eye caught 
 one glimpse of a little comedy which puzzled and 
 amused him. 
 
 A small rotund, red-gilled man, in bearing and 
 aspect not unlike a turkey-cock, was mounting the 
 steps of the portico. Behind this personage sailed 
 an ample lady of middle age, with a bevy of 
 younger damsels — his spouse and daughters
 
 A SABBATH-BREAKER 79 
 
 doubtless. Suddenly — and as if, at sight of the 
 Collector, a whisper passed among them — the 
 middle-aged lady shot out a hand, arrested her 
 husband by the coat-tail and drew him down a 
 step, while the daughters ranged themselves in 
 semicircle around him, spreading their skirts and 
 together effacing him from view, much as a hen 
 covers her offspring. 
 
 The Collector laughed inwardly as he replaced 
 his hat, and rode on speculating what this bit of 
 by-play might mean. But it had passed out of 
 his thoughts before he came to the outskirts of 
 the town.
 
 Chapter VIII 
 
 ANOTHER SABBATH-BREAKER 
 
 PHE road — the same by which he had arrived 
 last night — mounted all the way and led 
 across the neck of the headland. His business, 
 however, lay out upon the headland itself and 
 almost at its extremest verge ; and a mile above 
 the town he struck off to the left where a bridle- 
 path climbed by a long slant to the ridge. Half 
 an hour's easy riding brought him to the top of 
 the ascent, whence he looked down on the long 
 beach he had travelled yesterday. The sea lay 
 spread on three sides of him. Its salt breeze 
 played on his face ; and the bay horse, feeling 
 the tickle of it in his nostrils, threw up his head 
 with a whinny. " Good, old boy — is it not ? " 
 asked the Collector, patting his neck. " Suppose 
 we try a breather of it ? " 
 
 The chine of the headland — of turf, short- 
 cropped by the unceasing wind — stretched smooth 
 as a racecourse for close upon a mile, with
 
 ANOTHER SABBATH-BREAKER 81 
 
 a gentle dip midway much like the hollow of 
 a saddle. The Collector ran his eye along it 
 in search or the two men he had come to meet, 
 but could spy neither of them. 
 
 "Sheltering somewhere from the breeze, maybe," 
 he decided. " We don't mind it, hey ? Come 
 along, lad — here's wine for heroes ! " 
 
 He touched Bayard with the spur, and the 
 good horse started at a gallop — a rollicking gallop 
 and in the very tune of his master's mood ; and 
 if all Port Nassau had not been at its devotions, 
 the chins of its burghers might have tilted them- 
 selves in wonder at the apparition — a Centaur, 
 enlarged upon the skyline. 
 
 Man and horse at full stretch of the gallop 
 were launching down the dip of the hollow — the 
 wind singing past on the top note of exhilaration 
 — when the bay, too well trained to shy, faltered 
 a moment and broke his stride, as a figure started 
 up from the lee-side of the ridge. 
 
 The Collector sailing past and throwing a glance 
 over his shoulder, saw the figure and lifted a hand. 
 In another ten strides he reined up Bayard, turned, 
 and came back at a walk. 
 
 He confronted a lean, narrow-chested young 
 man, black-suited, pale of face, with watery eyes, 
 straw-coloured eyelashes and an underbred smile 
 that twitched between timidity and assurance.
 
 82 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " Ah ? " queried the Collector, eyeing him and 
 disliking him at sight. "Are you "—doubtfully 
 — " by any chance Mr. Wapshott, the Surveyor ? " 
 
 " No such luck," answered the watery-eyed 
 young man with an offhand attempt at familiarity. 
 " I'm his Assistant — name of Banner— Wapshott's 
 unwell." 
 
 " I beg your pardon ? " 
 
 « Mr. — Mr. Wapshott — sends word that he's 
 unwell." Under the Collector's eye the youth 
 suddenly shifted his manner and became re- 
 spectful. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ? " the Collector repeated 
 slowly. " He c sends word,' do you say ? I had 
 not the honour at my Inn — from which I have 
 ridden straight — to be notified of Mr. Wapshott's 
 indisposition." 
 
 Mr. Banner attempted a weak grin and harked 
 back again to familiarity. 
 
 " No, I guess not. The fact is — " 
 
 " Excuse me ; but would you mind taking your 
 hands out of your pockets ? " 
 
 " Oh, come ! Why ? " But none the less 
 Mr. Banner removed them. 
 
 " Thank you. You were saying ? " 
 
 " Well, I guess, between you and me " — Mr. 
 Banner's hands were slipping to his pockets again 
 but he checked the motion and rested a palm
 
 ANOTHER SABBATH-BREAKER 83 
 
 nonchalantly on either hip — " the old man was 
 a bit too God-fearing to sign to it." 
 
 " You mean," the Collector asked slowly, " that 
 he is not, in fact, unwell, but has asked you to 
 convey an untruth ? " 
 
 "You've a downright way of putting it — er 
 — sir " Mr. Banner confessed ; " but you get 
 near enough, I shouldn't wonder. You see, the 
 old — the Surveyor is strict upon Lord's Day 
 Observance." 
 
 The Collector bent his brows slightly while 
 he smoothed Bayard's mane. Of a sudden the 
 small scene by the Church porch recurred to him. 
 " Stay," he said. " I have not the pleasure of 
 knowing Mr. Wapshott, but may I attempt to 
 describe him to you ? He is, perhaps, a gentle- 
 man of somewhat stunted growth, but of full 
 habit, and somewhat noticeably red between the 
 ear and the neck-stock ? " 
 
 "That hits him." 
 
 " — with a wife inclining to portliness and six 
 grown daughters, taller than their parents and not 
 precisely in their first bloom. I speak," added 
 the Collector, still eyeing his victim, " as to a man 
 of the world." 
 
 "You've seen him anyhow," Mr. Banner nodded. 
 " That's Wapshott." 
 
 " I saw him entering his place of worship ; and
 
 84 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 I note that he thinks what you call the Lord's 
 Day well worth keeping at the cost of a falsehood. 
 May I ask, Mr. " The Collector hesitated. 
 
 " Banner." 
 
 " Ah, yes — pardon me ! May I ask, Mr. 
 Banner, how it comes that you have a nicer sense 
 than your superior of what is due to His Majesty's 
 Service ? " 
 
 Mr. Banner laughed uneasily. " Well, you 
 mightn't guess it from my looks," he answered 
 with an attempt to ingratiate himself by way of 
 self-deprecation, " but I am pretty good at working 
 out levels. I really am." 
 
 " That was not my point, though I shall test 
 you on it presently. You are, it appears, a some- 
 what less rigid Sabbatarian than Mr. Wapshott ? " 
 
 Hereupon Mr. Banner became cryptic. " You 
 needn't fear about that," he answered. " I have 
 what they call a dispensation ; and until you 
 startled me, I was up here keeping the Lord's 
 Day as well as the best of 'em. Better, perhaps." 
 
 "We will get to business," said the Collector. 
 " Follow me, please." 
 
 He wheeled his horse and, with Mr. Banner 
 walking at his stirrup, rode slowly out to the 
 end of the headland and as slowly back. The 
 Collector asked a question now and then and 
 to every question the young man responded pat.
 
 ANOTHER SABBATH-BREAKER 85 
 
 He was no fool. It soon appeared that he had 
 studied the trajectory of guns, that he had views 
 — and sound ones — on coast defences, and that 
 by some study of the subject he had come, a while 
 ago, to a conclusion the Collector took but a few 
 minutes to endorse ; that to build a fort on this 
 headland would be waste of public money. 
 
 Professionally, Mr. Banner was tolerable. The 
 Collector, consulting with him, forgot the pertness 
 of his address, the distressing twang of his accent. 
 He had dismounted, and the pair were busy with 
 a tape, calling out and checking measurements, 
 when from the southward there was borne to 
 the Collector's ears the distant crack of a shot- 
 gun. 
 
 At the sound of it he glanced up, in time to 
 see Mr. Banner drop the other end of the tape 
 and run. Almost willy-nilly he followed, vaguely 
 wondering if there had happened some accident 
 that called for aid. 
 
 Mr. Banner, when the Collector overtook him, 
 had come to a halt overlooking the long beach, 
 and pointed to a figure — a speck almost — for it 
 was distant more than a mile. 
 
 " That Josselin girl ! ' panted Mr. Banner. 
 " I call you to witness ! " 
 
 The Collector unstrapped his field-glass, which 
 he carried in a bandolier, adjusted it, and through
 
 86 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 it scanned the beach. Yes, in the distant figure he 
 recognised Ruth Josselin. She carried a gun — or 
 rather, stood with the gun grounded and her hands 
 folded, resting on its muzzle — and appeared to be 
 watching the edge of the breakers, perhaps waiting 
 for them to wash to her feet a dead bird fallen 
 beyond reach. 
 
 " See her, do you ? I call you to witness ! ' 
 repeated the voice at his elbow. 
 
 " Why, what is the matter ? " 
 
 " Sabbath breakin'," answered Mr. Banner with 
 a curious leer. 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " But you yourself don't take much account of 
 the Lord's Day, seemingly. Bathin', f 'r instance." 
 
 " Indeed ! " The Collector eyed his companion 
 reflectively. " You honoured me with your obser- 
 vation this morning ? " 
 
 Mr. Banner grinned. " Better say the whole of 
 Port Nassau was hon'rin' you. Oh, there'd be no 
 lack of evidence ! — but I guess the magistrates were 
 lookin' the other way. They allowed, no doubt, 
 that even a Sabbath-breaker might be havin' friends 
 at Court ! " 
 
 The Collector could not forbear smiling at the 
 youth's impudence. 
 
 " May I ask what punishment I have probably 
 escaped by that advantage ? "
 
 ANOTHER SABBATH-BREAKER 87 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Banner, " for lighter cases it's 
 usually the stocks." 
 
 Still the Collector smiled. " I am trying to 
 picture it," said he, after a pause. " But you 
 don't tell me they would put a young girl in 
 the stocks, merely for firing a gun on the Lord's 
 Day, as you call it ? " 
 
 " Wouldn't they ! " Mr. Banner chuckled. 
 " That, or the pillory." 
 
 " You are a strange folk in Port Nassau." The 
 Collector frowned, upon a sudden suspicion, and 
 his eyes darkened in their scrutiny of Mr. Banner's 
 unpleasant face. " By the way, you told me just 
 now that you were here upon some sort of a dis- 
 pensation. Forgive me if I do you wrong, but was 
 it by any chance that you might play the spy upon 
 this girl ? " 
 
 " Shadbolt asked me to keep an eye liftin' for 
 her." 
 
 « Who is Shadbolt ? " 
 
 " The Town Beadle. He's watchin' somewhere 
 along the cliffs." Mr. Banner waved a hand to- 
 wards the neck of the headland. " It's a scandal, 
 and by all accounts has been goin' on for weeks." 
 
 " So that is why you called me to witness ? 
 Well, Mr. Banner, I have a horsewhip lying on 
 the turf yonder, and I warn you to forget your 
 suggestion. . . . Shall we resume our measure-
 
 88 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 ments ? — and, if you please, in silence. Your 
 presence is distasteful to me." 
 
 They turned from the cliff and went back to 
 their work, in which — for they both enjoyed it — 
 they were soon immersed. It may have been, too, 
 that the wind had shifted. At any rate they missed 
 to hear, ten minutes later, a second shot fired on 
 the beach, not more distant but fainter than the 
 first.
 
 Chapter IX 
 
 THE SCOURGE 
 
 '^'EXT morning, at ten o'clock, the Collector's 
 coach-and-six stood at the Inn gate, harnessed 
 up and ready for the return journey. In the road- 
 way beyond one of the grooms waited with a hand 
 on Bayard's bridle. 
 
 The Collector, booted and spurred, with riding- 
 whip tucked under his arm, came up the pebbled 
 pathway, drawing on his gauntleted gloves. Dicky 
 trotted beside him. Manasseh followed in attend- 
 ance. Behind them in the porchway the landlady 
 bobbed unregarded, like a piece of clockwork 
 gradually running down. 
 
 " Hey ! " The Collector, as he reached the 
 gate, lifted his chin sharply — threw up his head 
 as a finely bred animal scents battle or danger. 
 " What's this ? A riot, up the street ? " 
 
 The grooms could not tell him, for the sound 
 had reached their ears but a second or two before
 
 9 o LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 the question ; a dull confused murmur out of 
 which, as it increased to a clamour and drew 
 nearer, sharper outcries detached themselves, and 
 the shrill voices of women. A procession had 
 turned the corner of the head of the avenue — a 
 booing, howling rabble. 
 
 The Collector stepped to his horse's rein, flung 
 himself into saddle, and rode forward at a foot's 
 pace to meet the tumult. 
 
 Suddenly his hand tightened on the rein, and 
 Bayard came to a halt ; but his master did not 
 perceive this. The hand's movement had been 
 nervous, involuntary. He sat erect — stood, rather, 
 from the stirrup — his nostril dilated, his brain 
 scarcely believing what his eyes saw. 
 
 "The swine! " he said slowly, to himself. His 
 teeth were shut and the words inaudible. " The 
 swine ! " he repeated. 
 
 Men have done, in the name of religion and 
 not so long ago — indeed are perhaps doing now 
 and daily — deeds so vile that mere decency cannot 
 face describing them. It is a question if mere 
 decency (by which I mean the good instinct of 
 civilised man) will not in the end purge faith 
 clean of religion ; if, while men dispute and hate 
 and inflict cruelty for religion, they are not all 
 the while outgrowing it. Libraries, for example, 
 are written to prove that unbaptized infants come
 
 THE SCOURGE 91 
 
 out of darkness to draw a fleeting breath or two 
 and pass to hell-fire ; the dispute occupies men 
 for generations — and lo ! one day the world finds 
 it has no use for any such question. Time — no 
 thanks to the theologians — has educated it, and 
 this thing at any rate it would no longer believe 
 if it could, as it certainly cannot. Faith never yet 
 has burnt man or woman at the stake. Religion 
 has burnt its tens of thousands. 
 
 Behind the first two or three ranks of the mob — 
 an exultant mob of grown men, grown women, and 
 (worst of all) little children — plodded a grey horse, 
 drawing a cart. Behind the cart, bound to it, with 
 a thong tight about her fire-scorched wrists — But 
 no ; it is not to be written. 
 
 They had stripped her to the waist, and then 
 for decency — their decency ! — had thrown a jacket 
 of coarse sacking over her, lacing it loosely in front 
 with pack-thread. But, because their work required 
 it, this garment had been gathered up into a rope 
 at the neck, whence it dangled in folds over her 
 young breast. 
 
 She walked with wide eyes, uttering no sound. 
 She alone of that crowd uttered no sound. A 
 brute with a bandaged jaw walked close behind 
 her. Oliver Vyell saw his forearm swing up — 
 saw the scourge whirl in his fist — met the girl's 
 eyes. . . . She, meeting his, let escape the first
 
 92 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 and last cry she uttered that day. He could have 
 sworn that her face was scarlet ; but no, he was 
 wrong ; while he looked he saw his mistake — 
 she was white as death. Then with that one 
 pitiful cry she sank among the close -pressing 
 crowd ; but her hands, by the cord's constraint, 
 still lifted themselves as might a drowning 
 swimmer's ; and the grey horse — the one other 
 innocent creature in that procession — plodded 
 forward, dragging her now senseless body at the 
 cart's tail. 
 
 " You swine ! " 
 
 It does a man good sometimes to get in his 
 blow. It did Oliver Vyell good, riding in, to 
 slash twice crosswise on the brute's bandaged 
 face ; to feel the whalebone bite and then, as he 
 swung out of saddle, to ram fist and whip-butt 
 together on the ugly mouth, driving in its fore- 
 teeth. 
 
 " Stop the horse, some one ! '■ he commanded, 
 as the Beadle reeled back. " She has fainted." 
 He added, "The first man that interferes, I 
 shoot." 
 
 The crowd growled. He turned on the nearest 
 mutterer — " Your knife ! " The fellow handed it ; 
 so promptly, he might have been holding it ready 
 to proffer. The Collector stooped and cut the 
 thongs. This done, he stood up and saw the
 
 THE SCOURGE 93 
 
 Beadle advancing again, snarling through the 
 bloody gap in his mouth. 
 
 " You had best take that man away," said the 
 Collector quietly, pulling out his small pistol. " If 
 you don't, I am going to kill him." They heard 
 and saw that he meant it. He added in the same 
 tone, " I am going to take all responsibility for this. 
 Will you make way, please ? " 
 
 His first intention was to lift the body lying 
 unconscious in the roadway, carry it to the coach 
 and drive out of Port Nassau with it, defying the 
 law to interfere. For the moment he " saw red," 
 as we say nowadays, and was quite capable of shoot- 
 ing down, or bidding his servants shoot down, any 
 man who offered to hinder. It is even possible 
 that had he acted straightway upon the impulse, 
 he might, with his momentary mastery of the mob, 
 have won clean away ; possible, but by no means 
 likely, for already a couple of constables were 
 pushing forward to support the Beadle, and half a 
 dozen broad-shouldered fellows — haters of " pre- 
 rogative " — had recovered themselves and were 
 ranging up to support the law. Had he noted 
 this, it would not have daunted him. What he 
 noted, and what gave him pause, was the girl's 
 white back at his feet, upturning its hideous weals. 
 He stooped to lift her, and drew back, shivering 
 delicately at the thought of hurting the torn flesh
 
 94 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 in his arms — a vain scruple, since she had passed 
 for the moment beyond pain. He picked up the 
 scourge, and stood erect again, crushing it into his 
 pocket. 
 
 "Will you make way, please," he ordered, "while 
 I fetch a cover to hide your blasted handiwork ? " 
 
 He strode through them, and they fell back to 
 give him passage. He walked straight to the 
 coach, pulled the door open, and, in the act of 
 dragging forth a rug, caught sight of Dicky's 
 small, scared face. 
 
 " Oh papa, what has happened ? " 
 
 " An accident, child. Jump inside ; I will 
 explain by-and-by." 
 
 " Begging your Honour's pardon " — a heavy- 
 featured fellow, who had followed the Collector 
 to the coach, put out a hand and touched the 
 child's shoulder — "I don't hold in whipping 
 maidens, and if it's a fight I'm with you. But 
 you can't carry her out of it, the way you're 
 meaning. They've seen blood, same as yourself. 
 This child of yours — he stands as much chance 
 to be hurt as any, if you push it. Your Honour'll 
 have to find some other way." 
 
 The Collector glanced over his shoulder, and 
 saw that the man spoke truth. 
 
 " Dicky," he said easily, but in a voice the child 
 durst not disobey, " there has been an accident.
 
 THE SCOURGE 95 
 
 Go you down and amuse yourself on the sands 
 till Manasseh calls you." 
 
 He walked back coolly, carrying the rug on his 
 arm. 
 
 " Where was she to be taken ? " he asked. 
 
 " To the stocks ! ' answered a voice or two. 
 " To the Court-house ! " said others. 
 
 " It's the same thing," said the heavy-browed 
 man, at the Collector's elbow. " The stocks are 
 just across the square from the Court-house. 
 You'll find the magistrates there ; they're the ones 
 to face. They took her case first this morning, 
 and this is the first part of her sentence." 
 
 Oliver Vyell walked back to the crowd. It was 
 — a glance assured him — more hostile than before ; 
 had recovered from its surprise, and was menacing. 
 But it gave way again before him. 
 
 He called on them to give more room. He 
 stooped and, spreading the rug over the girl's 
 body, lifted and laid her in the straw of the cart. 
 A constable would have interfered. The Collector 
 swung round on him. 
 
 " You are taking her back to the Court-house ? 
 Well, I have business there too. Where is your 
 Court-house ? " 
 
 The constable pointed. 
 
 " Up the road ? I am obliged to you. Drive 
 on, if you please."
 
 Chapter X 
 
 THE BENCH 
 
 npHE wooden Jail and the wooden Court-house 
 of Port Nassau faced one another across an 
 unpaved grass-grown square planted with maples. 
 To-day — for the fall of the leaf was at hand — 
 these maples flamed with hectic yellows and 
 scarlets ; and indeed thousands of leaves, stripped 
 by the recent gales, already strewed the cross- 
 walks and carpeted the ground about the benches 
 disposed in the shade — pleasant seats to which, of 
 an empty afternoon, wives brought their knitting 
 and gossiped while their small children played 
 within sight ; haunts, later in the day, of youths 
 who whittled sticks or carved out names with 
 jack-knives — ancient solace of the love-stricken ; 
 rarely thronged save when some transgressor was 
 brought to the stocks or the whipping-post. 
 
 These instruments of public discipline stood on 
 the northern side of the square, before the iron- 
 studded door of the Jail. The same hand, may be,
 
 THE BENCH 
 
 97 
 
 that had blackened over the jail's weather-boarded 
 front with a coat of tar, had with equal propriety 
 whitewashed the facade of the Court-house ; an 
 immaculate building, set in the cool shade, its 
 straight-lined front broken only by a recessed 
 balcony, whence, as occasion arose, Mr. George 
 Bellingham, Chief Magistrate, delivered the text 
 of a proclamation, royal or provincial, or declared 
 the poll when the people of Port Nassau chose 
 their Selectmen. 
 
 This morning Mr. Bellingham held session 
 within, in the long, airy Court-room, and dispensed 
 justice with the help of three fellow-magistrates — 
 Mr. Trask, Mr. Somershall, and our friend Mr. 
 Wapshott. They sat at a long baize-covered 
 table, with the Justices' Clerk to advise them. On 
 the wall behind and above their heads hung a 
 framed panel emblazoned with the royal escutcheon, 
 the lion and unicorn for supporters, an inscription 
 in old French to the effect that there is shame in 
 evil-thinking, and another 
 
 CAR II. 
 
 FID DEF. 
 
 distributed among the four corners of the panel, 
 
 with the date 1660 below. This had been erected 
 
 i
 
 98 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 (actually in 1664, but the artist had received 
 instructions to antedate it) when the good people 
 of Massachusetts after some demur rejoiced in the 
 Restoration and accepted King Charles II. as 
 defender of their Faith. 
 
 The four magistrates had dealt (as we know) 
 with a case of Sabbath-breaking ; had inflicted 
 various terms of imprisonment on two drunkards 
 and a beggar-woman ; had discharged for lack of 
 evidence (but with admonition) a youth accused of 
 profane swearing ; and were now working through 
 a list of commoner and more venial offences, such 
 as cheating by the use of false weights. 
 
 These four grave gentlemen looked up in 
 slightly shocked deprecation ; for the Collector 
 entered without taking account of the constable at 
 the door, save to thrust him aside. The Clerk 
 called " Silence in the Court ! " mechanically, and 
 a deputy-beadle at his elbow as mechanically 
 repeated it. 
 
 " Your Worships " — the Collector, hat in hand 
 advanced to the table and bowed — " will forgive an 
 interruption which only its urgency can excuse." 
 
 " Ah ! Captain Vyell, I believe ? " Mr. 
 Bellingham arose from his high-backed throne 
 of carved oak, bowed, and extended a hand across 
 the table. " I had heard that you were honouring 
 Port Nassau with a visit ; but understanding from
 
 THE BENCH 99 
 
 our friend Mr. Wapshott that the visit was — er — 
 not official — that, in fact, it was connected with 
 government business not — er — to be divulged, 
 I forbore to do myself the pleasure — " Mr. 
 Bellingham had a courtly manner and a courtly 
 presence. He was a tallish man, somewhat thin in 
 the face and forehead, of classical features, and a 
 sanguine complexion. He came of a family highly 
 distinguished in the history of Massachusetts ; 
 but he was in fact a weak man, though he concealed 
 this by some inherited aptitude for public business 
 and a well-trained committee manner. 
 
 " I thank you." The Collector shook the 
 proferred hand and bowed again. " You will 
 pardon my abruptness ? A girl has fainted outside 
 here, in the street — " 
 
 Mr. Bellingham's well-shaped brows arched 
 themselves a trifle higher. 
 
 " Indeed ? " he murmured, at a loss. 
 
 cc A young girl who — as I understand — was 
 suffering public punishment under sentence of 
 yours." 
 
 " Yes ? " Mr. Bellingham's smile grew vaguer, 
 and his two hands touched finger-tips in front of 
 his magisterial stomach — an adequate stomach but 
 well on the right side of grossness. He glanced 
 at his fellow-magistrates right and left. " It — er 
 — sometimes happens," he suggested.
 
 ioo LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " I dare say." Captain Vyell took him up. 
 " But she has fainted under the punishment. She 
 has passed the limit of her powers, poor child ; 
 and they tell me that what she has endured is to be 
 followed, and at once, by five hours in the stocks. 
 Gentlemen, I repeat I am quite well aware that this 
 is most irregular — you may call it indecent ; but I 
 saw the poor creature fall, and, as it happens, I 
 know something that might have softened you 
 before you passed sentence." 
 
 Here the Clerk interposed, stiffening the Chief 
 Magistrate, who wore a smile of embarrassed 
 politeness. 
 
 " As His Honour — as Captain Vyell — suggests, 
 your Worships, this is quite irregular." 
 
 "To be sure — to be sure — of course," hemm'd 
 Mr. Bellingham. " We can only overlook that, 
 when appealed to by a person of your distinction ; " 
 here he inclined himself gently. " Still, you will 
 understand, a sentence is a sentence. As for a 
 temporary faintness, that is by no means outside 
 our experience. Our Beadle — Shadbolt — invariably 
 manages to revive them sufficiently to endure — er 
 ■ — the rest.''' 
 
 I'll be shot if he will this time, thought the 
 Collector grimly, with a glance down at a smear 
 across the knuckle of his right-hand glove. The 
 sight of it cheered him and steadied his temper.
 
 THE BENCH 101 
 
 " Possibly," said he aloud. " But your worships 
 may not be aware — and as merciful men may be 
 glad to hear — that this poor creature's offence 
 a.o-ainst the Sabbath was committed under stress. 
 Her mother and grandfather have starved this week 
 through, as I happen to know." 
 
 " That may or may not be," put in Mr. Trask 
 — a dry-complexioned, stubborn, malignant-looking 
 man, seated next on the Chairman's right. Cl But 
 the girl — if you mean Ruth Josselin — has not been 
 scourged for Sabbath-breaking. For that she will 
 sit in the stocks — our invariable sentence for first 
 offenders in this respect." From under his 
 down-drawn brows Mr. Trask eyed the Collector 
 malevolently. " Ruth Josselin," he continued, 
 " has suffered the scourge for having resisted 
 Beadle Shadbolt in the discharge of his duty, and 
 for unlawful wounding." 
 
 " Excuse me," put in Mr. Somershall, speaking 
 across from the Chairman's left. Mr. Somershall 
 was afflicted with deafness, but liked to assert 
 himself whenever a word by chance reached him 
 and gave him a cue. He leaned sideways, arching 
 a palm around his one useful ear. " Excuse me ; 
 we brought it in Attempted wounding," I believe ? 
 1 have it noted so, here on the margin of my 
 charge-sheet." He glanced at the Clerk, who 
 nodded for confirmation.
 
 102 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " It didn't matter," Mr. Trask snapped brutally. 
 " She got it, just the same." 
 
 " Oh, quite so ! " Mr. Somershall took his hand 
 from his ear and nodded, satisfied with having 
 made his point. 
 
 "Wounding ? " echoed the Collector, addressing 
 the Chairman. " To be frank with you, sir, I had 
 not heard of this — though it scarcely affects my 
 plea." 
 
 Mr. Bellingham smiled indulgently. " Say no 
 more, Captain Vyell — pray say no more ! This is 
 not the first time an inclination to deem us severe 
 has been corrected by a fuller acquaintance with the 
 facts. . . . Yes, yes — chivalrous feeling — I quite 
 understand ; but you see — " He concluded his 
 sentence with a gentle wave of the hand. " You 
 will be glad to hear, since you take an interest in 
 the girl, that Providence overruled her aim and 
 Shadbolt escaped with a mere graze of the jaw — so 
 slight, indeed, that, taking a merciful view, we 
 decided not to consider it an actual wound, and 
 convicted her only of the attempt. By the way, 
 Mr. Leemy, where is the weapon ? " 
 
 The Clerk produced it from his bag and laid 
 it on the table. Captain Vyell drew a sharp 
 breath. 
 
 " It is my pistol." 
 
 " Eh ? "
 
 THE BENCH 103 
 
 " I have the fellow to it here." He pulled out 
 the other and handed it by the muzzle. 
 
 " To be sure — to be sure ; the pattern is 
 identical," murmured Mr. Bellingham, examining it 
 and for the moment completely puzzled " You 
 — er — suggest that she stole it ? " 
 
 " Certainly not. I lent it to her.'' 
 
 There followed a slow pause. It was broken by 
 the grating voice of Mr. Trask — - 
 
 " You remember, Mr. Chairman, that the 
 prisoner stubbornly refused to tell how the pistol 
 came in her possession ? Does Captain Vyell give 
 us to understand that his interest in this young 
 woman is of older date than this morning's 
 encounter ? " 
 
 " My interest in her — such as it is — dates, sir, 
 from the evening before last, when she was 
 dismissed from the Bowling Green Inn. The 
 hour was late ; her home, as you know, lies at 
 some distance — though doubtless within the ambit 
 of your authority. I lent her this small weapon to 
 protect herself should she be molested." 
 
 " And she used it next day upon the Beadle ! 
 Dismissed, you say ? Why was she dismissed ? " 
 
 " 1 regret that I was not more curious at the 
 time," answered the Collector with the politest 
 touch of weariness. " I believe it was for saving 
 the house from fire — something of that sort.
 
 io 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 As told to me, it sounded rather heroical. But, 
 sir — he turned again to the Chairman — " I 
 suggest that all this does not afreet my plea. 
 Whatever her offence, she has suffered cruelly. 
 She is physically unfit to bear this second 
 punishment ; and when I tell you on my word 
 as a gentleman — or on oath, if you will — that on 
 Saturday I found her grandparent starving and that 
 her second offence was committed presumably to 
 supply the household wants, surely I shall not 
 entreat your mercy in vain ? " 
 
 The Chief Magistrate hesitated, and a frown 
 showed his annoyance. " To tell you the truth, 
 Captain Vyell, you put me in a quandary. I do 
 not like to refuse you — " Here he glanced right 
 and left. 
 
 "But it can't be done," snapped Mr. Trask. 
 Mr. Wapshott, sitting just beyond, shook his head 
 gently and — as he hoped — unperceived by the 
 Collector. 
 
 "You see, sir," explained Mr. Bellingham with 
 a sigh, "we sit here to administer justice without 
 fear or favour. You see also to what scandal it 
 might give rise if a culprit — merely on the inter- 
 cession of a gentleman like yourself — influential — 
 er — and, in short — " 
 
 " — In short, sir," the Collector broke in, "you 
 have in the name of justice committed one dam-
 
 THE BENCH 105 
 
 nable atrocity upon this child, and plead your 
 cowardice as an excuse for committing another. 
 Influential, am I ? And you prate to me of not 
 being affected by that ? Very well ; I'll take you 
 at your word. This girl resisted your ruffian in 
 the discharge of his duty ? So did I just now, 
 and with such effect that he will resume it neither 
 to-day nor to-morrow. She inflicted, it appears, 
 a slight graze on his chin. I inflicted two cuts on 
 his face and knocked in three of his teeth. You 
 can take cognisance of my wounding, I promise 
 you. Now, sir, will you whip me through your 
 town ? ' 
 
 " This is mere violence, sir." Mr. Bellingham's 
 face was flushed, but he answered with dignity. 
 " The law is as little to be exasperated as defied." 
 
 " I will try you in another way, then," said the 
 Collector, recovering grip of his temper and drop- 
 ping his voice to a tone of politest insolence. " It 
 is understood that you have not the courage to do 
 this because, seated here and administering what 
 you call justice, you have, each one of you, an eye 
 upon England and preferment, and you know well 
 enough that to touch me would play the devil 
 among the tailors with your little ambitions. I 
 except " — with a bow towards Mr. Trask — " this 
 gentleman, who seems to have earned his influence 
 on your counsels by rugged force of character,
 
 106 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 and — " for here Mr. Trask, who enjoyed a dig at 
 his colleagues, cast his eyes down and compressed 
 a grin — "is, I should judge, capable of striking a 
 woman for the mere fun of it." Here Mr. Bell- 
 ingham and Mr. Wapshott looked demure in turn ; 
 for that Mr. Trask led his wife a dog's life was 
 notorious. 
 
 " — In truth, gentlemen," the Collector continued 
 easily, "I am at some loss in addressing you, 
 seeing that through some defect of courtesy you 
 have omitted to wait on me, albeit informed (I 
 believe) that I came as His Majesty's Commis- 
 sioner, and that therefore I have not even the 
 pleasure of knowing your names. I may except 
 that of Mr. Wapshott, whom I am glad to see 
 convalescent this morning." Here he inclined to 
 Mr. Wapshott, whose gills under the surprised 
 gaze of his colleagues took a perceptibly redder 
 tinge. " Mr. Wapshott, gentlemen," explained 
 the Collector, smiling, " had a slight attack of 
 vertigo yesterday, on the steps of his Place of 
 Worship. Well, sirs, as I was saying, I will try 
 you in another way. You have not the courage 
 to bring me to trial for assaulting your beadle. 
 You have not even the courage, here and now, to 
 throw me out. I believe, however, that upon a 
 confessed breach of the law — supported by evidence, 
 if necessary — I can force you to try me. The
 
 THE BENCH 107 
 
 Clerk will correct me if I am wrong. . . . Appar- 
 ently he assents. Then I desire to confess to you 
 that yesterday, at such-and-such an hour, I broke 
 your laws or bye-laws of Lord's Day Observance; 
 by bathing in the sea for my pleasure. I demand 
 trial on this charge, and, if you convict me — here 
 you can hardly help yourselves, since to my know- 
 ledge some of you witnessed the offence — I demand 
 my due punishment of the stocks." 
 
 "Really — really, Captain Vyell ! " hemm'd the 
 Chief Magistrate. "Passing over your derogatory 
 language, I am at a loss to understand — " 
 
 " Are you ? Yet it is very simple. Since you 
 reject my plea for this poor creature, I desire to 
 share her punishment." 
 
 " Let him," snapped the mouth of Mr. Trask 
 again, opening and shutting like a trap. 
 
 " Tou at any rate, sir, have sense," the Collector 
 felicitated him and turned to the Chief Magistrate. 
 "And you, sir, if you will oblige me, may rest 
 assured that I shall bear the magistracy of Port 
 Nassau no grudge whatever."
 
 Chapter XI 
 
 THE STOCKS 
 
 FN the end they came to a compromise. That 
 Dame Justice should be hustled in this fashion 
 — taken by the shoulders, so to speak, forced to 
 catch up her robe and skip — offended the Chief 
 Magistrate's sense of propriety. It was unseemly 
 in the last degree, he protested. Nevertheless it 
 appeared certain that Captain VyeM had a right to 
 be tried and punished ; and the Clerk's threat to 
 set down the hearing for an adjourned sessions 
 was promptly countered by the culprit's producing 
 His Majesty's Commission, which enjoined upon 
 all and sundry " to observe the welfare of my faithful 
 subject, Oliver John Dinham de Courcy Fyell, now 
 travelling on the business of this my Re 'aim , and to 
 further that business with all zeal and expedition as 
 required by him " — a command which might be all 
 the more strictly construed for being loosely 
 worded. To be sure the Court might by dilatory 
 process linger out the hearing of the Weights and
 
 THE STOCKS 109 
 
 Measures cases — one of which was being scandal- 
 ously interrupted at this moment — or it might 
 adjourn for dinner and reassemble in the afternoon, 
 by which time the sands of Ruth Josselin's five 
 hours' ignominy would be running out. But here 
 Mr. Somershall had to be reckoned with. Mr. 
 Somershall not only made it a practice to sit long 
 at dinner and sleep after it ; he invariably lost his 
 temper if the dinner-hour were delayed ; and, 
 being deaf as well as honest, he was capable of 
 blurting out his mind in a fashion to confound 
 either of these disingenuous courses. As for Mr. 
 Wapshott, the wording of the Commission had 
 frightened him, and he wished himself at home. 
 
 It was Mr. Trask who found the way out. Mr. 
 Trask, his malevolent eye fixed on the Collector, 
 opined that after all an hour or two in the stocks 
 would be a salutary lesson for hot blood and 
 pampered flesh. He suggested that, without in- 
 sisting on a trial, the Captain might be obliged, 
 and his legs given that lesson. He cited preced- 
 ents. More than once a friend or relative had, by 
 mercy of the Court, been allowed to sit beside a 
 culprit under punishment. If, a like leave being 
 granted him, Captain Vyell preferred to have his 
 ankles confined — why, truly, Mr. Trask saw no 
 reason for denying him the experience. But the 
 Captain, it was understood, must give his word of
 
 no LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 honour, first, to accept this as a free concession 
 from the Bench, and, secondly, not to repent or 
 demand release before the expiry of the five hours. 
 "With all my heart," promised Captain Vyell ; 
 and the Chief Magistrate reluctantly gave way. 
 
 Ruth Josselin sat in the stocks. She had come 
 so far out of her swoon that her pulse beat, her 
 breath came and went, she felt the sun warm on 
 her face, and was aware of some pain where the 
 edge of the wood pressed into her flesh, a little 
 above the ankle-bones — of discomfort, rather, in 
 comparison with the anguish throbbing and biting 
 across her shoulder-blades. Some one — it may 
 have been in unthinking mercy — had drawn down 
 the sackcloth over her stripes, and the coarse stuff, 
 irritating the raw, was as a shirt of fire. 
 
 She had come back to a sense of this torture, 
 but not yet to complete consciousness. She sat 
 with eyes half closed, filmed with suffering. As 
 they had closed in the moment of swooning, so 
 and with the same look of horror they awoke as 
 the lids parted. But they saw nothing ; neither 
 the sunlight dappling the maple shadows nor the 
 curious faces of the crowd. She felt the sunlight : 
 the crowd's presence she felt not at all. 
 
 But misery she felt ; a blank of misery through 
 which her reviving soul — like the shoot of a plant
 
 THE STOCKS in 
 
 trodden into mire — pushed feebly towards the 
 sunlight that coaxed her eyes to open. Something 
 it sought there ... a face . . . yes, a face. . . . 
 
 — Yes, of course, a face ; lifted high above other 
 faces that were hateful, hostile, mocking her 
 misery — God knew why ; a strong face, not very 
 pitiful — but so strong ! — and yet it must be pitiful 
 too, for it condescended to help. It was moving 
 down, bending, to help. . . . 
 
 — What had become of it ? . . . Ah, now (shame 
 at length reawakening) she remembered ! She was 
 hiding from him. He was strong, he was kind, 
 but above all he must not see her shame. Let 
 the earth cover her and hide it ! . . . and either 
 the merciful earth had opened or a merciful dark- 
 ness had descended. She remembered sinking into 
 it — sinking — her hands held aloft, as by ropes. 
 Then the ropes had parted. . . . She had fallen, 
 plumb. . . . 
 
 She was re-emerging now ; and either shame 
 lay far below, a cast-off weed in the depths, or 
 shame had driven out shame as fire drives out fire. 
 Her back was burning ; her tongue was parched ; 
 her eyes were seared as they half opened upon the 
 crowd. The grinning faces — the mouths pulled 
 awry, mocking a sorrow they did not understand — 
 these were meaningless to her. She did not, in 
 any real sense, behold them. Her misery was
 
 ii2 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 a sea about her. and in the trough of it she looked 
 up, seeking one face. 
 
 — And why not ? It had shone far above her as 
 a god's ; but she had been sucked down as deep 
 again, and there is an extreme of degradation may 
 meet even a god's altitude on equal terms. Stark 
 mortal, stark god — its limit of suffering past, 
 humanity joins the celestial, clasping its kness. 
 
 Of a sudden, turning her eyes a little to the left, 
 she saw him. 
 
 He had come at a strolling pace across the 
 square, with Manasseh and the deputy-beadle 
 walking wide beside him, and the Court-house 
 rabble at his heels, but keeping, in spite of them- 
 selves, a respectful distance. At the stocks he 
 faced about, and they halted on the instant, as 
 though he had spoken a word of command. He 
 smiled, seated himself leisurably at the end of the 
 bench on Ruth Josselin's left, and extended a leg 
 for Manasseh to draw ofF its riding-boot. At the 
 back of the crowd a few voices chattered, but 
 within the semicircle a hush had fallen. 
 
 It was then that she turned her eyes and saw 
 him. 
 
 How came he here ? What was he doing ? . . . 
 She could not comprehend at all. Only she felt 
 her heart leap within her and stand still, as like 
 a warm flood the consciousness of his presence
 
 THE STOCKS 113 
 
 stole through her, poured over her, soothing away 
 for the moment all physical anguish. She sat very 
 still, her hands in her lap ; afraid to move, afraid 
 ^ven to look again. This consciousness — it should 
 have been shame, but it held no shame at all. It 
 was hope. It came near, very near, to bliss. 
 
 She was aware in a dull way of some one un- 
 locking and lifting the upper beam of the stocks. 
 Were they releasing her ? Surely her sentence 
 had been for five hours ? — surely her faintness 
 could not have lasted so long ! This could not 
 be the end ? She did not wish to be released. 
 She would not know what to do, where to go, 
 when they set her free. She must walk home 
 through the town, and that would be worst 
 
 of all. 
 
 Or perhaps he was commanding them to release 
 her ? . . . No ; the beam creaked and dropped 
 into place again. A moment ago his voice had 
 been speaking ; speaking very cheerfully, not to 
 her. Now it was silent. After some minutes she 
 gathered courage to turn her eyes again. 
 
 Captain Vyell sat with his legs in durance. 
 They were very shapely legs, cased in stockings of 
 flesh-coloured silk with crimson knee-ties. He 
 sat in perfect patience, and rolled a tobacco-leaf 
 between his fingers. At his shoulder stood 
 Manasseh like a statue, with face immobile as
 
 ii 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 marble — black marble — and a tinder-box ready in 
 his hand. 
 
 "Why? . . ." 
 
 He could not be sure if it were a word, or 
 merely a sigh, deep in her breast, so faintly it 
 reached him. She had murmured it as if to her- 
 self, yet it seemed to hang on a question. His 
 ear was alert. 
 
 " Hush ! ' he said, speaking low and without 
 glancing towards her, for the eyes of the crowd 
 were on them. " The faintness is over ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Do not talk at all. By-and-by we will talk. 
 Now I am going to ask you a selfish question, and 
 you are just to bend your head for c yes ' or * no.' 
 Will the smell of tobacco distress you, or bring 
 the faintness back ? These autumn flies sting 
 abominably here, under the trees." 
 
 She moved her head slowly. " I do not feel 
 them," she said after a while. 
 
 He glanced at her compassionately before nod- 
 ding to Manasseh for a light. " No, poor wretch, 
 I'll be sworn you do not," he muttered between 
 the puffs. " Thank you, Manasseh ; and now 
 will you step down to the Inn, order the horses 
 back to stable, and bring George and Harry back 
 with you ? I may require them to break a head 
 or two here, if there should be trouble. Tell
 
 THE STOCKS 115 
 
 Alexander " — this was the coachman — " to have an 
 eye on Master Dicky, and see that he gets his 
 dinner. The child is on no account to come here, 
 or be told about this. His papa is detained on 
 business — you understand ? Yes, and by the way, 
 you may extract a book from the valise — the 
 Calderon, for choice, or if it come handier, that 
 second volume of Corneille. Don't waste time, 
 though, in searching for this or that. In the 
 stocks I've no doubt a book is a book : the instru- 
 ment has a reputation for levelling." 
 
 Manasseh departed on his errand, and for a 
 while the Collector paid no heed to his companion. 
 He and she were now unprotected, at the mercy 
 of the mob if it intended mischief ; and the next 
 few minutes would be critical. 
 
 He sat immersed apparently in his own thoughts, 
 and by the look on his face these were serious 
 thoughts. He seemed to see and yet not to see 
 the ring of faces ; to be aware of them, yet not 
 concerned with them, no whit afraid and quite as 
 little defiant. True, he was smoking, but without 
 a trace of affected insouciance or bravado ; gravely 
 rather, resting an elbow on his groin and leaning 
 forward with a preoccupied frown. Two minutes 
 passed in this silence, and he felt the danger ebbing. 
 Mob insolence ever wants a lead, and — perhaps 
 because with the return of fine weather the fishing-
 
 n6 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 crews had put to sea early — this Port Nassau 
 crowd lacked a fugleman. 
 
 " Are you here — because — of me ? " 
 
 " Hush, again," he answered quietly, not turn- 
 ing his head. " I like you to talk if you feel strong 
 enough ; but for the moment it will be better if 
 they do not perceive. . . . Yes, and no," he 
 answered her question after a pause. " I am here 
 to see that you get through this. You are in 
 pain r 
 
 " Yes ; but it is easier." 
 
 " You are afraid of these people ? " 
 
 "Afraid?" She took some time considering 
 this. " No," she said at length. " I am not 
 afraid of them. I do not see them. You are 
 here." 
 
 He took the tobacco-leaf from his lips, blew 
 a thin cloud of smoke with grave deliberateness, 
 and in doing so contrived to glance at her face. 
 
 " You have blood in you. That face, too, my 
 beauty," he muttered, " never came to you but 
 by gift of blood." Aloud he said, "That's brave. 
 But take care when your senses clear and the strain 
 comes back on you. Speak to me when you feel 
 it coming ; I don't want it to tauten you up with 
 a jerk. You understand ? "
 
 THE STOCKS 117 
 
 " I wonder now — " he began musingly, and 
 broke off. The danger he had been keeping 
 account with was over ; Manasseh had returned 
 with the two grooms, and they- -perfectly trained 
 servants on the English model — took their posts 
 without exhibiting surprise by so much as a twitch 
 of the face. George in particular was a tight 
 fellow with his fists, as the crowd, should it offer 
 annoyance, "would assuredly learn. The Collector 
 took the volume which Manasseh brought him, 
 and opened it, but did not begin to read. " You 
 despise these people ?" he asked. 
 
 He was puzzled with himself. He was here to 
 protect her ; and this, from him to her, implied 
 a noble condescension. His fine manners, to be 
 sure, forbade his showing it ; on no account would 
 he have shown it. But the puzzle was, he could 
 not feel it. 
 
 She met his eyes. " No . . . why should I 
 despise them ? " 
 
 " They are canaille." 
 
 " What does that mean ? . . . They have been 
 cruel to me. Afterwards, I expect, they will be 
 crueller still. But just now it does not matter, 
 because you are here." 
 
 " Does that make so much difference ? " he 
 asked thoughtlessly. 
 
 She caught her breath upon a sob. " Ah, do
 
 n8 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 not — " The voice died, strangled, in her throat. 
 " Do not — " Again she could get no further, but 
 sat shivering, her fingers interlocked and writhing. 
 " Brute ! " muttered the Collector to himself. 
 He did not ask her pardon, but opened his Cal- 
 deron, signed to Manasseh to roll a fresh tobacco- 
 leaf, and fell to reading his favourite Alcalde de 
 Zalamea. 
 
 The sun crept slowly to the right over the tops 
 of the maples. It no longer scorched their faces, 
 but slanted in rays through the upper boughs, 
 dappling the open walks with splashes of light 
 which, as they receded in distance, took by a 
 trick of the eyesight a pattern regular as diaper. 
 By this time the Collector, when he glanced up 
 from his book, had an ample view of the square, 
 for the crowd had thinned. The punishment of 
 the stocks was no such rare spectacle in Port 
 Nassau ; and five hours is a tedious while even 
 for the onlooker — a very long while indeed to 
 stand weighing the fun of throwing a handful of 
 filth against the cost of a thrashing. The men-folk, 
 reasoning thus, had melted away to their longshore 
 avocations. The women, always more patient — 
 as to their nature the show was more piquant than 
 to the men's— had withdrawn with their knitting 
 to benches well within eyeshot. The children,
 
 THE STOCKS 119 
 
 playing around, grew more and more immersed in 
 their games ; which, nevertheless, one or another 
 would interrupt from time to time to point and 
 ask a question. Above the Court-house the town 
 clock chimed its quarters across the afternoon heat. 
 
 The Collector, glancing up in the act of turning 
 a page, spied Mr. Trask hobbling down an alley 
 towards the Jail. Mr. Trask, a martyr to gout, 
 helped his progress with an oaken staff. He 
 leaned on this as he halted before the stocks. 
 
 " Tired ? " he asked. 
 
 " Damnably ! " answered the Collector with great 
 cheerfulness. " It takes one in the back, you see. 
 If ever the Town Fathers think of moving this 
 machine, you might put in a word for shifting it 
 a foot or two back, against the prison wall." 
 
 Mr. Trask grinned. 
 
 " I suppose now," he said after a pause, " you 
 think you are doing a fine thing, and doing it 
 handsomely ? " 
 
 " I had some notion of the sort, but this con- 
 finement of the feet is wonderfully cooling to the 
 brain. No — if you dispute it. Most human 
 actions are mixed." 
 
 Mr. Trask eyed him, chin between two fingers 
 and thumb. When he spoke again it was with 
 lowered voice. " Is it altogether kind to the 
 girl ? " he asked.
 
 120 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " Eh ? " The Collector in turn eyed Mr. Trask. 
 
 " Or even quite fair to her ? " 
 
 " Oh, come ! " said the Collector. " Tongues ? 
 I hadn't thought of that." 
 
 " I dare say not." Mr. Trask glanced up at the 
 windows of a two-storeyed house on the left, 
 scarcely a stone's throw away, a respectable mansion 
 with a verandah and neat gateway of wrought iron. 
 " But at the end of this what becomes of her ? " 
 
 The Collector shrugged his shoulders. " I have 
 thought of that, at all events. My coach will be 
 here to take her home. It lies on my road. As 
 for me, I shall have to mount at once and ride 
 through the night — a second test for the back- 
 bone." 
 
 " Ride and be hanged to you ! " broke out Mr. 
 Trask with a snarl of scorn. " But for the rest, 
 if your foppery leave you any room to consider 
 the girl, you couldn't put a worse finish on your 
 injury. Drive her off in your coach indeed ! — and 
 what then becomes of her reputation ? " 
 
 " — Of what you have left to her, you mean ? 
 Damn it — you to talk like this ! " 
 
 " Do not be profane, Captain Vyell. . . . We 
 see things differently, and this punishment was 
 meted to her — if cruelly, as you would say — still 
 in honest concern for her soul's good. But if you, 
 a loose-living man — " Mr. Trask paused.
 
 THE STOCKS 121 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " I thank you. For the moment I forgot that 
 you are not at liberty. But I used not that plain- 
 ness of speech to insult you ; rather because it is 
 part of the argument. If you, then, drive away 
 with this child in public, through this town, you 
 do her an injury for which mere carelessness is 
 your best excuse ; and the world will assign it 
 a worse." 
 
 « The world ! " 
 
 " I mean the world this young woman will have 
 to live in. But we talk at cross-purposes. When 
 I asked, ' What becomes of her at the end of 
 this ? ' I was thinking of the harm you have already 
 done. As a fact, I have ordered my cart to be 
 ready to take her home." 
 
 Captain Vyell considered for a few seconds. 
 " Sir," he said, " since plain speech is allowed 
 between us, I consider you a narrow bigot ; but, 
 I hasten to add, you are the best man I have met 
 in Port Nassau. By the way — that house on our 
 left — does it by chance belong to Mr. Wapshott ? " 
 
 « It does." ' 
 
 " I thought so. For a couple of hours past, in 
 the intervals of my reading, I have discovered a 
 family of tall young women peeking at us from 
 behind the windows and a barrier of furniture ; 
 and once, it seemed to me, I detected the wattles
 
 122 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 of your worthy fellow-magistrate. He ought not 
 to strain that neck ; you should warn him of the 
 danger." 
 
 " It should have warned you, sir, of what mis- 
 chief you are doing." 
 
 " I seem to remember," the Collector mused, 
 "reading the words l Honi soit qui mal y pense' 
 to-day written on the wall behind you. . . . Why, 
 damn me, sir, for aught you or any of them can 
 tell, 1 intend to marry this girl ! Why not ? Go 
 and tell them. Could there (you'll say) be a fairer 
 betrothal ? The reputable plight their troth with 
 a single ring around the woman's finger ; but here 
 
 DO Of 
 
 are four rings around the four ankles, and the bar 
 locked. With your leave, which is the more 
 symbolical ? " 
 
 "You are a reprobate man, Captain Vyell," was 
 the answer, " and I have no relish for your talk. 
 I will only say this, When her punishment is done, 
 my cart shall be ready for her ; and you, if you 
 would vindicate an action which — for I'll give you 
 that credit — sprang from a generous impulse, will 
 go your ways and let this child live down her 
 humiliation." 
 
 Mr. Trask turned and went his way up the 
 alley, across which the sun made level rays ot 
 flame. The Collector sat in thought.
 
 THE STOCKS 123 
 
 He turned his head, surprised by the sound of 
 a sob. A small child had drawn near— a toddle of 
 four, trailing her wooden doll with its head in the 
 dust — and stood a few paces in front of Ruth 
 Josselin, round-eyed, finger at mouth. 
 
 " Steady, my girl. . . . Steady ! " 
 
 At the murmured warning she braced her body 
 stiffly, and no second sob came. But the tears 
 ran — the first in all her long agony — and small 
 shivers, as light winds play on aspen, chased one 
 another down her throat. Almost you could 
 guess them passing down her flesh beneath the 
 sackcloth, rippling over its torn and purple ridges. 
 
 He did not check her weeping. The child — 
 small, innocent cause of it — stood round -eyed, 
 wondering. " She has been naughty. What has 
 she done, to be so naughty ? " 
 
 Over the maples the town clock slowly told 
 the hour. 
 
 They were free. The Collector tossed away 
 the half-smoked tobacco-leaf — his twelfth — drew a 
 long breath, and emitted it with a gay laugh of 
 relief. At the same moment he saw Mr. Trask's 
 bullock-cart approaching down the dappled avenue.
 
 Chapter XII 
 
 THE HUT BY THE BEACH 
 
 ;c A ND you'll never hold up your head again ! 
 No more will any of us. The disgrace of 
 it ! the disgrace of it ! " 
 
 Ruth stood in the middle of the wretched room, 
 with her hands hanging slack and her eyes bent 
 wearily upon her mother, who had collapsed upon 
 a block of sawn timber, and sat there, with sack 
 apron cast over her head, rocking her body. 
 
 " Hush, ye fool ! " said old Josselin, and spat 
 out of window. Mechanically, by habit, his dim 
 eyes swept along the beach by the breakers' edge. 
 " What's the use, any way ? " he added. 
 
 " We, that always carried ourselves so high, for 
 all our being poor ! It's God's mercy that took 
 your father before he could see this day. 'Twould 
 have broken his sperrit. Your father a Josselin, 
 and me a Pocock, with lands of my own — if right 
 was law in this world ; and now to be stripped 
 naked and marched through the streets ! "
 
 THE HUT BY THE BEACH 125 
 
 Ruth's eyes met the Collector's. He stood 
 just within the doorway, and was regarding her 
 curiously. She did not plead or protest ; only, as 
 their eyes met, a flush rose to her cheek, and he 
 guessed rightly that the touch of shame was for 
 her mother, not for herself. The flush deepened 
 as old Josselin turned and said apologetically, — 
 
 " You mustn't mind M'ria. She's weak-minded. 
 Always was ; but sence her husband was drowned 
 — he was my second son — she've lost whatever 
 wits she had. The gal here was born about that 
 time." Here the old man launched into some 
 obstetrical guesswork, using the plainest words. 
 It embarrassed the Collector ; the girl did not so 
 much as wince. 
 
 " Poor might be stood," moaned the woman ; 
 " but poor and shamed ! ' Then of a sudden, as 
 though recollecting herself, she arose with an air 
 of mincing gentility. " Ruth," she said, " it's 
 little we can offer the gentleman, but you might 
 get out the bread and cheese, after his being so 
 kind to you." 
 
 " Sit down, you dormed fool," commanded her 
 father-in-law. " Here, fetch your seat over to the 
 look-out, an' tell me if that's a log I see floatin'. 
 She's wonderful good at that," he explained, with- 
 out lowering his voice, " and it'll keep her quiet. 
 It's true, though, what she said about the property.
 
 126 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Thousands of acres, if she had her rights — up this 
 side of the Kennebee." He jerked a thumb north- 
 wards. "The Pococks bought it off one of the 
 Gorges, gettin' on for a hundred years sence ; and 
 by rights, as I say, a seventh share oughter be 
 hers. But lawyers ! The law's like a ship's 
 pump : pour enough in for a start, and it'll 
 reward ye with floods. But where's the money 
 to start it ? " 
 
 The Collector scarcely heard him. His eyes 
 were on Ruth's face. He had walked briskly 
 down from the Town Square to the Bowling 
 Green Inn, refreshed himself, let saddle his horse, 
 and set forth, leaving orders for his coach to 
 follow. At the summit of the hill above Port 
 Nassau he had overtaken the cart with the poor 
 girl lying in it, had checked his pace to ride along- 
 side, and so, disregarding Mr. Trask's counsel, 
 had brought her home. Nay, dismissing the men 
 with a guinea apiece, he had desired them to return 
 to Mr. Trask and report his conduct. 
 
 " Listen to me," he said suddenly, checking Old 
 Josselin in full flow. " You say, both of you, 
 that Ruth here will live under disgrace ; and I 
 dare say you are right. Why not send her away ? 
 Get her out of this." 
 
 The woman by the window turned her head 
 r/ith a vague simper. The old man, building a
 
 THE HUT BY THE BEACH 127 
 
 small heap of chips on the hearthstone, distended 
 his cheeks and let out his breath slowly, as though 
 coaxing a fire already kindled. 
 
 " All very well — but where ? And where's the 
 money to come from ? Besides, we can't spare 
 the child ; she vittles us. Dorm it, Ruth," he 
 exclaimed, on a sudden recollection, "you don't 
 say you ha'n't brought back the gun ! ' 
 
 " No, grandfather." 
 
 " Why ? The magistrates would have given it 
 back. It's ruination for us without the gun, and 
 that you might have remembered. Better step 
 over and ask 'em for it to-morrow." 
 
 " Must I ? " asked the girl slowly. 
 
 "'Course you'll have to," said her grandparent. 
 " / can't walk the distance, and that you know. — 
 My eyesight's poor," he explained to the Collector, 
 " and I can't walk, because — " here he stated an 
 organic complaint very frankly. "As for M'ria, 
 she's an eye like a fish-hawk ; but you never saw 
 such a born fool with firearms. Well, must heat 
 some water, I reckon, to bathe the poor maid's back." 
 
 " First give her food," said the Collector. He 
 stepped forward and himself cut her a large manchet 
 from the loaf the old man produced. She took it 
 from him and ate ravenously, like a young wild 
 animal, tearing at the crust with her white teeth. 
 " They haven't broken your body's health, then,"
 
 128 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 he thought to himself. Aloud he said, " You don't 
 quite take my meaning, Mr. Josselin, and I'll put 
 it to you in a straight offer. Let her come with 
 me to Boston. She shall be put to school there, 
 say for three years ; she shall live among folk who 
 will treat her kindly, and teach her at any rate to 
 build up her spirit again and be happy, as she 
 will never be within these miles of Port Nassau ; 
 and in return — " 
 
 "Ah ! " said the old man significantly. 
 
 " In return you shall accept from me a decent 
 pension — enough, at any rate, to fend off want. 
 We will not quarrel over the amount, up or down. 
 Or, if you prefer, I will get the lawyers to look 
 into this claim of your daughter-in-law's, and 
 maybe make you an offer for it." 
 
 " Ah ! ' repeated Old Josselin, and nodded. 
 " Taken your eye, has she ? Oh, I'm not blamin' 
 your lordship ! Flesh will after flesh, and — you 
 can believe it or not — I was all for the women in 
 my time." He chuckled, and had added some 
 gross particulars before the younger man could 
 check him. Yet the old fellow was so naif 
 and direct that his speech left no evil taste. 
 He talked as one might of farm stock. " But 
 we're decent folk, we Josselins. It's hard to 
 starve and be decent too, and times enough I've 
 been sorry for it ; but decent we are."
 
 THE HUT BY THE BEACH 129 
 
 The Collector frowned. " Mr. Josselin," he 
 answered, " I am offering you to take your grand- 
 daughter away and have her educated. What that 
 will make of her I neither can tell you nor have I 
 means of guessing ; but this I will undertake, and 
 give you my word of honour for it : in three years' 
 time she shall come back to you in all honesty, 
 unharmed by me or by any one. By that time 
 she will be a woman grown, able to decide as a 
 woman ; but she shall come to you, nevertheless." 
 
 The old man fumbled with a finger, scraping 
 together the flakes of touchwood in a tinder-box. 
 
 " D'ye hear, M'ria ? His Honour wants our 
 Ruth to go along with him." 
 
 The Collector glanced at the girl's face. Years 
 after, and a hundred times, he recalled the look 
 with which she turned towards her mother. At 
 the same instant her mother faced about with a 
 vacuous silly smile. 
 
 "Eh?" ' 
 
 " To larn to be a lady," Old Josselin explained, 
 raising his voice as though she were deaf. 
 
 "That would be a fine thing," she answered 
 mincingly, and returned her gaze to the window 
 and the line of shore.
 
 Chapter XIII 
 
 RUTH SETS OUT 
 
 ly/TANASSEH had wrapped Master Dicky up 
 warm in a couple of rugs, and spread a third 
 about his feet. In the ample state seat of the coach 
 the child reclined as easily as in a bed. He began 
 to doze while the vehicle yet jolted over the road 
 crossing the headland ; and when it gained the 
 track, and the wheels rolled smoothly on the hard 
 sand, the motion slid him deep into slumber. 
 
 He came out of it with a start and a catch of the 
 breath, and for a full half-minute lay with all his 
 senses numbed, not so much scared as bewildered. 
 In his dreams he had been at home in Boston, and 
 he searched his little brain, wondering why he was 
 awake, and if he should call for Miss Quiney (who 
 slept always within hail, in a small bedroom) ; and 
 why, when the night-nursery window lay to the 
 left of his bed, strange lights should be flashing on 
 his right, where the picture of King William land- 
 ing at Torbay hung over his washstand.
 
 RUTH SETS OUT 131 
 
 The lights moved to and fro, then they were 
 quenched, and all was dark about him. But he 
 heard Manasseh's voice, some way off, in the 
 darkness, and the sound of it brought him to 
 his bearings. He was in the coach, he remem- 
 bered ; and realising this, he was instantly glad — 
 for he was a plucky child — that he had not called 
 out to summon Miss Quiney. 
 
 Had there been an accident ? At any rate he 
 was not hurt. His father had ridden on ahead, 
 and would reach home many hours in advance. 
 The boy had learnt this from Manasseh. He 
 reasoned that, if an accident had happened, his 
 father would not hear of it — would be riding for- 
 ward, further and further into the night. He 
 wondered how Manasseh and the grooms would 
 manage without his father, who always gave the 
 orders and was never at a loss. 
 
 He sat up, peering out into the night. He was 
 still peering thus, building hasty wild guesses, 
 when again a light showed, waving as it drew 
 nearer. It came close ; it was one of the coach- 
 lamps, and blazed full into his eyes through the 
 window. The door opened, letting in the roar 
 of the beach and smiting his small nostrils with 
 sea-brine, that with one breath purged away the 
 stuffy scent of leather. 
 
 Manasseh was handing some one into the coach.
 
 1 32 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " De child — Mas' Richard — if you'll tak' care, 
 miss. He's fas* asleep, prob'ly." 
 
 "But I'm not" said Dicky, sitting bolt upright 
 and gathering his rugs about him. " Who is it ? " 
 
 Manasseh perhaps did not hear. He made no 
 reply, at any rate, but turned the lamp full on 
 Ruth Josselin as she sank back against the cushions 
 on Dicky's right. 
 
 " You will find plenty rugs, miss." 
 
 He shut the door. Dicky, holding his breath, 
 heard him replace the lamp in its socket, and felt 
 the soft tilt of his great weight as he climbed to the 
 perch behind. 
 
 " R — right away ! " 
 
 There was a tug, and the great coach rolled 
 forward. In the darkness Dicky caught the sound 
 of a smothered sob. 
 
 " Who are you ? " he asked. There was no 
 response, and after a moment he added, " I know. 
 
 You are the girl who put out the fire. I like 
 
 >» 
 you. 
 
 He was very sleepy. He wondered why she 
 did not answer ; but, his childish instinct assuring 
 him that she was a friend, in his somnolence he 
 felt nothing other than trust in her. He nestled 
 close in his rugs and reached out an arm. 
 
 It rubbed across the weals on Ruth's back, and 
 was torture. She clenched her teeth, while tears
 
 RUTH SETS OUT 133 
 
 — tears of physical anguish, irrepressible — over- 
 brimmed her lashes and fell uncounted in the 
 darkness. 
 
 " You are crying. Why ? I like you." The 
 child's voice trailed off into dream. 
 
 " Closer ! ' whispered Ruth, and would have 
 forced the embrace upon her pain ; but it relaxed. 
 Dicky's head fell sideways, and rested, angled be- 
 tween the cushions and her shoulder. 
 
 She sat wide-eyed, staring into folds of darkness, 
 while the coach rolled forward smoothly towards 
 the dawn.
 
 BOOK II 
 PROBATION
 
 Chapter I 
 AFTER TWO YEARS 
 
 "POME down and play ! " 
 
 Ruth, looking down from the open lattice, 
 
 smiled and shook her head. " I must not ; I'm 
 
 doing my lessons." 
 
 " Must not ! " mimicked Master Dick. " You're 
 
 getting stupider and stupider, living up here. If 
 
 you don't look out, one of these days you'll turn 
 
 into an old maid — just like Miss Quiney." 
 " Hs-s-sh ! She's downstairs somewhere." 
 " I don't care if she hears." Dicky ran his eyes 
 
 defiantly along the line of ground-floor windows 
 
 under the verandah, then upturned his face again. 
 
 "After coming all this way on purpose to play 
 
 with you," he protested. 
 
 " You have made yourself dreadfully hot." 
 
 "1 am hot," the boy confessed. "1 gave 
 
 Piggy the slip at the foot of the hill, and I've 
 
 run every step of the way." 
 
 " Is he here ? ' : Ruth glanced nervously toward
 
 138 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 a clump of elms around which the path from the 
 entrance-gate curved into view. "But you oughtn't 
 to call Mr. Silk < Piggy,' you know. It — it's un- 
 gentlcmanly." 
 
 " Why, I took the name from you ! You said 
 yourself, one day, that he was a pig ; and so he is. 
 He has piggy eyes, and he eats too much, and 
 there's something about the back of his neck 
 you must have noticed." 
 
 "It's cruel of you, Dicky, to remember and 
 cast up what I said when I knew no better. You 
 know how hard I am learning: in the beginning 
 you helped me to learn." 
 
 "Did I?" mused Dicky. "Then I wish I 
 hadn't, if you're going to grow up and treat me 
 like this. Oh, very well," he added stoutly after 
 a pause, "then I'm learning too, learning to be 
 a sailor; and it'll be first-rate practice to climb 
 aloft to you, over the verandah. You don't mind 
 my spitting on my hands ? It's a way they have 
 in the Navy." 
 
 "Dicky, don't be foolish! Think of Miss 
 Quiney's roses." Finding him inexorable, Ruth 
 began to parley. " I don't want to see Mr. Silk. 
 But if I come down to you, it will not be to play. 
 We'll creep off to the Well, or somewhere out 
 of hail, and there you must let me read — or 
 perhaps I'll read aloud to you. Promise ? "
 
 AFTER TWO YEARS 139 
 
 " What're you reading ? " 
 
 "The Bible." 
 
 Dicky pulled a face. " Well, the Bible's Eng- 
 lish, anyway," he said resignedly. The sound 
 of a foreign tongue always made him feel pugna- 
 cious, and it was ever a question with him how, 
 as a gentleman, to treat a dead language. Death 
 was respectable, but had its own obligations ; 
 obligations which Greek and Latin somehow 
 ignored. 
 
 The house, known as Sabines, stood high on 
 the slope of the midmost of Boston's three hills, 
 in five acres of ground well set with elms. Captain 
 Vyell had purchased the site some five years before, 
 and had built himself a retreat away from the 
 traffic that surged about his official residence by 
 the waterside. Of its raucous noises very few 
 — the rattle of a hawser maybe, or a boatswain's 
 whistle, or the yells of some stentorian pilot — 
 reached to penetrate the belt of elms surrounding 
 the house and its green garth ; but the Collector 
 had pierced this woodland with bold vistas through 
 which the eye overlooked Boston harbour with 
 its moving panorama of vessels, the old fort then 
 standing where now stands the Navy Yard, and 
 the broad waters of the Charles sweeping out to 
 the Bay.
 
 i 4 o LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 For eighteen months he, the master of this 
 demesne, had not set foot within its front gate ; 
 not once since the day when on a sudden resolu- 
 tion he had installed Ruth Josselin here, under 
 ward of Miss Quiney, to be visited and instructed 
 in theology, the arts, and the sciences, by such 
 teachers as that unparagoned spinster might, with 
 his approval, select. In practice he left it entirely 
 to her, and Miss Quiney's taste in teachers was 
 of the austerest. What nutriment (one might 
 well have asked) could a young mind extract 
 from the husks of doctrine and of grammar pur- 
 veyed to Ruth by the Reverend Malachi Hichens, 
 her tutor in the Holy Scriptures and in the lan- 
 guages of Greece and Rome ? 
 
 The answer is that youth, when youth craves 
 for it, will draw knowledge even from the empty 
 air and drink it through the very pores of the 
 skin. Mr. Hichens might be dry — inhumanly 
 dry — and his methods repellent; but there were 
 the books, after all, and the books held food for 
 her hunger, wine for her thirst. So too the 
 harpischord held music, though Miss Quiney's 
 touch upon it was formal and lifeless. ... In 
 these eighteen months Ruth Josselin had been 
 learning eagerly, teaching herself in a hundred 
 ways and by devices of which she wist not. Yet 
 always she was conscious of the final purpose of
 
 AFTER TWO YEARS 141 
 
 this preparation ; nay, it possessed her, mastered 
 her. For whatever fate her lord designed her, 
 she would be worthy of it. 
 
 He never came. For eighteen months she had 
 not seen him. Was it carelessly or in delicacy 
 that he withheld his face? Or peradventure in 
 displeasure ? Her heart would stand still at times, 
 and her face pale with the fear of it. She could 
 not bethink her of having displeased him ; but 
 it might well be that he repented of his vast 
 condescension. Almost without notice, and with- 
 out any reason given, he had deported her to 
 this house on the hill. . . . Yet, if he repented, 
 why did he continue to wrap her around with 
 kindness ? Why had she these good clothes, and 
 food and drink, servants to wait on her, tutors 
 to teach her — everything, in short, but liberty and 
 young companions and his presence that most of 
 all she desired and dreaded ? 
 
 On the slope to the south-west of the house, 
 in a dingle well screened with willow and hickory, 
 a stream of water gushed from the living rock and 
 had been channelled downhill over a stairway of 
 flat boulders, so that it dropped in a series of 
 miniature cascades before shooting out of sight 
 over the top of a ferny hollow. The spot was 
 a favourite one with Dicky, for between the pen-
 
 142 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 dent willow boughs, as through a frame, it over- 
 looked the shipping and the broad bosom of the 
 Charles. Ruth and he stole away to it, unper- 
 ceived of Miss Quiney ; to a nook close beside 
 the spray of the fall, where on a boulder the girl 
 could sit and read while Dick wedged his back 
 into a cushion of moss, somewhat higher up the 
 slope, and recumbent settled himself so as to 
 bring (luxurious young dog!) her face in profile 
 between him and the shining distance. 
 
 She had stipulated for silence while she read her 
 lesson over ; but he at once began to beg off. 
 
 " If you won't let me talk," he grumbled, " the 
 least you can do is to read aloud." 
 
 " But it's the Bible," she objected. 
 
 " Oh, well, I don't mind. Only choose some- 
 thing interesting. David and Goliath, or that 
 shipwreck in the Acts." 
 
 "You don't seem to understand that this is 
 a lesson, and I must read what Mr. Hichens sets. 
 To-day it's about Hagar and Ishmael." 
 
 " I seem to forget about them ; but fire away, 
 and we'll hope there's a story in it." 
 
 Ruth began to read : " And Sarah saw the son 
 of Hagar the Egyptian^ which she had horn unto 
 Abraham , mocking her. Wherefore she said unto 
 Abraham , Cast out this bondwoman. . ." 
 
 She read on. Before she ended Dicky had
 
 AFTER TWO YEARS 143 
 
 raised himself to a sitting posture. " The whole 
 business was a dirty shame," he declared. " This 
 Ishmael was his own son, eh ? Then why should 
 he cast out one son more than another ? " 
 
 " There's a long explanation in the New Testa- 
 ment," said Ruth. " It's by St. Paul ; and I dare 
 say that Mr. Hichens too, if he sees anything 
 difficult in it, will say that Ishmael stands for 
 the bond and Isaac for the free, and Abraham 
 had to do it, or the teaching wouldn't come right." 
 
 " He can't make out it was fair ; nor St. Paul 
 can't neither, not if you read it to him like you did 
 to me," asserted Dicky. 
 
 " But I shall not," answered Ruth after a pause, 
 "and it was rather clever of you to guess." 
 
 « Why not ? " 
 
 " Because it would shock him. I used to find 
 the Bible just as dull as he makes it out: but one 
 day I heard Mr. Langton standing up for it. Mr. 
 Langton said it was the finest book in the world 
 and the most fascinating, if only you read it in 
 the proper way; and the proper way, he said, 
 is to forget all about its being divided into verses 
 and just take it like any other book. I tried that, 
 and it makes all the difference." 
 
 " You mean to say you like it ? " asked Dicky, 
 incredulous. 
 
 " I love it. I can't get away from the people
 
 i 4 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 in it. They are so splendid, one moment ; and, 
 the next, they are just too mean and petty for 
 words ; and the queer part of it is, they never 
 see. They tell falsehoods, and they cheat, and 
 the things they do to get into Palestine are simply 
 disgusting — even if they had the shadow of a right 
 there, which they haven't." 
 
 " But the land was promised to them." 
 
 She had a mind to criticise that promise, but 
 checked her lips. He was a child, and she would 
 do no violence to the child's mind. 
 
 Getting no answer, he considered for a while, 
 and harked back. " But I don't see," he began, 
 and halted, casting about to express himself. " I 
 don't see why, if you read it like that to yourself, 
 you should read it differently to old Hichens. 
 That's a sort of pretending, you know." 
 
 She turned her eyes on him, and they were 
 straight and honest, as always. " Oh," said she, 
 " you are a man, of course ! " 
 
 Master Dicky blushed with pleasure. 
 
 " Men," she went on, " can go the straight way 
 to get what they wish. The way is usually hard 
 — it ought to be hard if the man is worth anything 
 — but it is always quite straight and simple, else 
 it is wrong. Now women have to win through 
 men ; which means that they must go round 
 about."
 
 AFTER TWO YEARS 145 
 
 "But old Hichens?" 
 
 To herself she might have answered, " He only 
 is allowed to me here. On whom else can I 
 practise to please ? But, alas ! I practise for a 
 master who never comes ! " Aloud she said, 
 "You are excited to-day, Dicky. You have 
 something to tell me." 
 
 " I should think I had ! " 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " It's about Uncle Harry. Dad showed me 
 a letter from him to-day, and he's fought a 
 splendid action down off Grand Bahama. Oh, 
 you must hear ! It seems he'd been beating about 
 in his frigate for close on three months — on and 
 off the islands on the look-out for those Spanish 
 fellows that snap up our fruit-ships. Well, the 
 water on board was beginning to smell ; so he ran 
 in through the nor'-west entrance of Providence 
 Channel, anchored just inside, and sent his casks 
 ashore to be refilled. They'd taken in the fresh 
 stock, and the Venus was weighing for sea again 
 almost before the last boatload came alongside. — 
 Can't you see her, the beauty ! One anchor lifted, 
 t'other chain shortened in, tops'ls and t'gallants'ls 
 cast off, ready to cant her at the right moment — " 
 
 " Is that how they do it ? " 
 
 " Of course it is. Well just then Uncle Harry 
 spied a boat beating in through the entrance. He
 
 146 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 had passed her outside two days before — one of 
 those small open craft that dodge about groping 
 for sponges — splendid naked fellows, the crews are. 
 She had put about and run back in search of him, 
 and her news was of a Spanish guarda-costa making 
 down towards Havana with three prizes. Think 
 of it ! Uncle Harry was off and after them like a 
 greyhound, and at sunrise next morning he sighted 
 them in a bunch. He had the wind of them and 
 the legs of them ; there isn't a speedier frigate 
 afloat than the Venus — although, he says, she was 
 getting foul with weed : and after being chased for 
 a couple of hours the Spaniard and two of the 
 prizes hauled up and showed light. Now for 
 it ! . . . He ran past the guarda-costa, drawing 
 her fire, but no great harm done ; shot up under 
 the sterns of the two prizes, that were lying not 
 two hundred yards apart ; and raked 'em with 
 half-a-broadside apiece — no time, you see, to 
 reload between. It pretty well cleaned every 
 Spaniard off their decks — Why are you putting 
 your hands to your ears ! " 
 
 " Go on," said Ruth withdrawing them. 
 
 " By this, of course, he had lost way and given 
 the guarda-costa the wind of him. But she couldn't 
 reach the Venus for twenty minutes and more, 
 because of the prizes lying helpless right in her 
 way, and in half that time Uncle Harry had filled
 
 AFTER TWO YEARS 147 
 
 sail again and was manoeuvring out of danger. 
 Bit by bit he worked around her for the wind'ard 
 berth, got it, bore down again and hammered her 
 for close upon three hours. She fought, he says, 
 like a rat in a sink, and when at last she pulled 
 down her colours the two prizes had patched 
 up somehow and were well off for Havana after 
 the third, that had showed no fight from the 
 beginning. Quick as lightning he gets his 
 prisoners on board, heads off on the new chase, and 
 by sundown has taken the prizes all three — the 
 third one a timber-ship, full of mahogany . . . 
 That wasn't the end of his luck, either ; for the 
 captain of the guarda-costa turned out to be a 
 blackguard that two years ago took a British 
 captain prisoner and cut off his ears, which 
 accounts for his fighting so hard. c Didn't want 
 to meet me if he could help it,' writes Uncle 
 Harry, and says the man wouldn't haul down the 
 flag till his crew had tied him up with ropes." 
 
 " What happened to him ? " 
 
 " Uncle Harry shipped him off to England. 
 This was from Carolina, where he sailed in with all 
 the four vessels in convoy. And now, guess ! He 
 has refitted there, and is sailing around for Boston, 
 and papa has promised to ask him to take me for 
 a cruise, to see if he can make a sailor of me ! " 
 
 (C But that won't be for years."
 
 148 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 "Oh yes, it will. You can join the Navy at 
 any age. They ship you on as a cabin-boy, or 
 sometimes as the Captain's servant ; and papa says 
 that for the first cruise Uncle Harry's wife will 
 look after me." 
 
 " But " — Ruth opened beautiful eyes of astonish- 
 ment. " Your Uncle Harry is not married ? 
 Why, more than once you have told me that you 
 would never take a wife when you grew up, but be 
 like your uncle and live only for sailing a ship and 
 fighting." 
 
 " He is, though. It happened at Carolina, 
 whilst the Venus was refitting ; and I believe her 
 father is Governor there, or something of the sort, 
 but I didn't read that part of the letter very 
 carefully. There was a lot of silly talk in it, quite 
 different from the fighting. I remember, though, 
 he said he was coming around here for his honey- 
 moon ; and I'm glad, on the whole." 
 
 " On the whole ? When you've dreamed, all 
 this while, of seeing your uncle and growing up 
 to be like him ! " 
 
 " I mean that on the whole I'm glad he is 
 married. It — it shows the two things can go 
 together after all ; and, Ruth — " 
 
 She turned in some wonderment as his voice 
 faltered, and wondered more at sight of his young 
 face. It was crimson.
 
 AFTER TWO YEARS 149 
 
 "No, please ! I want you not to look," he 
 entreated. " I want you to turn your face away 
 and listen . . . Ruth," he blurted, " I love you 
 better than anybody in the whole world ! ' 
 
 « Dear Dicky ! " 
 
 " — and I think you're the loveliest person that 
 ever was — besides being the best." 
 
 " It's lovely of you, at any rate, to think so." 
 Ruth, forgetting his command, turned hei eyes 
 again on Dicky, and they were dewy. For indeed 
 she loved him and his boyish chivalrous ways. 
 Had he not been her friend from the first, taking 
 her in perfect trust, and in the hour that had 
 branded her and in her dreams seared her yet ? 
 Often, yet, in the mid-watches of the night she 
 started out of sleep and lay quivering along her 
 exquisite body from head to heel, while the awful 
 writing awoke and crawled and ate again, etching 
 itself upon her flesh. 
 
 " But — but it made me miserable ! ' choked 
 Dicky. 
 
 " Miserable ! Why ? " 
 
 "Because I wanted to grow up and marry you," 
 he managed to say defiantly. " And the two 
 things didn't seem to fit at all. I couldn't make 
 them fit. But of course," he went on in a cheer- 
 fuller voice, the worst of his confession over, " if 
 Uncle Harry can be married, why shouldn't we ? ' :
 
 ISO LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 She bent her head low over the book. Calf-love 
 is absurd, but so honest, so serious ; and like all 
 other sweet natural foolishness should be sacred to 
 the pure of heart. 
 
 " I ought to tell you something though," he 
 went on gravely and hesitated. 
 
 "Yes, Dicky! What is it ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't quite know what it means, and I 
 don't like to ask any one else. Perhaps you can 
 tell me. ... I wouldn't ask it if it weren't that 
 I'd hate to take you in ; or if I could find out any 
 other way." 
 
 " But what is it, dear ? " 
 
 " Something against me. I can't tell what, 
 though I've looked at myself again and again in 
 the glass, trying." He met her eyes bravely, with 
 an effort. " Ruth, dear — what is a bastard ? " 
 
 Ruth sat still. Her palms were folded, one 
 upon another, over the book on her knees. 
 
 " But what is it ? " he pleaded. 
 
 " It means," she said quietly, " a child whose 
 father and mother are not married — not properly 
 married." 
 
 A pause followed — a long pause — and the 
 tumbling cascade sounded louder and louder in 
 Ruth's ears, while Dicky considered. 
 
 " Do you think," he asked at length " that papa 
 was not properly married to my mother ? "
 
 AFTER TWO YEARS 151 
 
 "i> 
 
 No, dear — no. And even if that were so, 
 what difference could it make to my loving 
 you r 
 
 " It wouldn't make any ! Sure ? " 
 
 " Sure." 
 
 " But it might make a difference to papa," 
 he persisted, " if ever papa had another child — 
 like Abraham, you know — " Here he jumped to 
 his feet, for she had risen of a sudden. " Why, 
 what is the matter ? " 
 
 She held out a hand. There were many 
 dragon-flies by the fall, and for the moment he 
 guessed that one of them had stung her. 
 
 "Dicky," she said. "Whatever happens, you 
 and I will be friends always." 
 
 " Always," he echoed, taking her hand and 
 ready to search for the mark of the sting. But 
 her eyes were fastened on the water bubbling from 
 the well head. 
 
 A branch creaked aloft, and to the right of the 
 well head the hickory bushes rustled and parted. 
 
 " So here are the truants ! " exclaimed a voice. 
 " Good-morning, Miss Josselin ! "
 
 Chapter II 
 
 MR. SILK 
 
 ' I 'HE Reverend Nahum Silk, B.A., sometime of 
 St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, had first arrived in 
 America as a missioner seeking a sphere of labour 
 in General Oglethorpe's new colony of Georgia. 
 He was then (1733-4) a young man, newly ad- 
 mitted to priest's orders, and undergoing what he 
 took to be a crisis of the soul. Sensual natures, 
 such as his, not uncommonly suffer in youth a 
 combustion of religious sentiment. The fervour 
 is short-lived, the flame is expelled by its own 
 blast, and leaves a house swept and garnished, 
 inviting devils. 
 
 For the hard fare of Georgia he soon began 
 to seek consolations, and early in the second year 
 of his ministry a sufficiently gross scandal tumbled 
 him out of the little colony. Lacking the grit to 
 return to England and face out his relatives' dis- 
 pleasure, he had drifted northwards to Massachusetts, 
 and there had picked up with a slant of luck. A
 
 MR. SILK 153 
 
 number of godly and well-to-do citizens of Boston 
 had recently banded themselves into an association 
 for supplying religious opportunities to the seamen 
 frequenting the port, and to the Committee Mr. 
 Silk commended himself by a hail-fellow manner 
 and a shrewdness of speech which, since it showed 
 through a coat of unction, might be supposed to 
 mean shrewdness in grain. Cunning indeed the 
 man could be, for his short ends ; but his shrewd- 
 ness began and ended in a trick of talking, and in 
 the conduct of life he trimmed sail to his appetites. 
 
 His business of missioner (or, as he jocosely put 
 it, Chaplain of the Fleet) soon brought him to the 
 notice of Captain Vyell, Collector of Customs, with 
 whom by the same trick of speech (slightly adapted) 
 he managed to ingratiate himself, scenting the 
 flesh-pots. For he belonged to the tribe to whom 
 a patron never comes amiss. Captain Vyell was 
 amused by the man ; knew him for a sycophant ; 
 but tolerated him at table and promoted him (in 
 Batty Langton's phrase) to be his trencher chaplain. 
 He and Langton took an easy malicious delight, 
 over their wine, in shocking Mr. Silk with their 
 free thought and seeing how " the dog swallowed 
 it. 
 
 The dog swallowed his dirty puddings very 
 cleverly, and with just so much show of protest 
 as he felt to be due to his Orders. He had the
 
 154 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 accent of an English gentleman and enough of 
 the manner to pass muster. But the Collector 
 erred when he said that " Silk was only a beast 
 in his cups," and he erred with a carelessness 
 well-nigh wicked when he made the man Dicky's 
 tutor. 
 
 This step had coincided with the relegation of 
 Ruth and Miss Quiney to Sabines ; but whether 
 by chance or of purpose no one but the Collector 
 could tell. Of his intentions toward the girl he 
 said nothing, even to Batty Langton. Very likely 
 they were not clear to himself. He knew well 
 enough how fast and far gossip travelled in New 
 England ; and doubted not at all that his adventure 
 at Port Nassau had within a few days been whis- 
 pered and canvassed throughout Boston. His own 
 grooms, no doubt, had talked. But he could take 
 a scornful amusement in baffling speculation while 
 he made up his own mind. In one particular only 
 he had been prompt— in propitiating Miss Quiney. 
 On reaching home, some hours ahead of the girl, 
 he had summoned Miss Quiney to his library and 
 told her the whole story. The interview on her 
 part had been exclamatory and tearful ; but the 
 good lady, with all her absurdities, was a Christian. 
 She was a woman too, and delighted to serve an 
 overmastering will. She had left him with a 
 promise to lay her conscience in prayer before
 
 MR. SILK 155 
 
 the Lord ; and, next morning, Ruth's beauty had 
 done the rest. 
 
 " Good-morning, Miss Josselin ! ' 
 
 Ruth started and glanced up the slope with a 
 shiver. The voice of Mr. Silk always curdled her 
 flesh. 
 
 " La ! la ! " went on Mr. Silk, nodding down 
 admiration. "What a group to startle! — Cupid 
 extracting a thorn from the hand of Venus — or 
 (shall we say ?) the Love god, having wounded 
 his mother in sport, kisses the scratch to make 
 it well. Ha, ha ! " 
 
 " Shall I continue, sir ? " said Ruth, recovering 
 herself. " The pair are surprised by a satyr who 
 has crept down to the spring to bathe his aching 
 head — " 
 
 " Hard on me, as usual ! " Mr. Silk protested, 
 climbing down the slope. " But 'tis the privilege 
 of beauty to be cruel. As it happens, I drank 
 moderately last night, and I come with a message 
 from the Diana of these groves. Miss Quiney 
 wishes to communicate to you some news I have 
 had the honour to bring in a letter from Captain 
 Vyell— or, as we must now call him, Sir Oliver." 
 
 " Sir Oliver ? " echoed Ruth, not understanding 
 
 at all. 
 
 " The Fish-hawk arrived in harbour this morning
 
 156 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 with the English mail-bags ; and the Collector has 
 letters informing him that his uncle, Sir Thomas 
 Vyell, is dead after a short illness — the cause, jail 
 fever, contracted while serving at Launceston, in 
 Cornwall, on the Grand Jury." 
 
 " Captain Vyell succeeds ? " 
 
 " To the title and, I believe, to very considerable 
 estates. His uncle leaves no male child." 
 
 "Dicky had not told me of this." 
 
 " — Because," explained the boy, " I didn't know 
 what it meant, and I don't know now. Papa told 
 me this morning that his uncle was dead, home in 
 England ; but I'd never heard of him, and it slipped 
 out of my mind. Can titles, as you call them, be 
 passed on like that ? And if papa died, should I 
 get one ? Or would it go to Uncle Harry ? " 
 
 " It would go to your uncle," said Mr. Silk. 
 " Now run along to the house and tell Miss 
 Quiney that I have found the pair of you. She 
 was getting anxious." 
 
 Dicky hesitated. He knew that Ruth had a 
 horror of his tutor. 
 
 " Yes, run," she commanded, reading his glance. 
 " We follow at once." 
 
 The boy scrambled up the slope. Mr. Silk 
 looked after him and chuckled. 
 
 " Dicky don't know yet that there are two sides 
 to a blanket."
 
 MR. SILK 157 
 
 Getting no answer — for she had turned and was 
 stooping to pick up her book — he went on, " Vyell 
 had a letter, among others, from the widow, Lady 
 Caroline ; and that, between ourselves, is the cause 
 of my errand. She writes that she is taking a trip 
 across here, to restore her nerves, and is bringing 
 her daughter for company. The daughter, so near 
 as I gather, is of an age near-about Vyell's. See ? " 
 
 " I am afraid I do not." Ruth had recovered 
 her book and her composure. A rose-flush showed 
 yet on either cheek, but it lay not within Mr. Silk's 
 competence to read so delicate a signal. " Will you 
 explain ? " 
 
 "Well" — he leered — "it did occur to me there 
 might be some cleverness in the lady's search after 
 consolation. Her daughter and our Collector being 
 cousins — eh ? At any rate, that's her first thought ; 
 to bring the girl — woman, if you prefer it — over 
 and renew acquaintance with the heir. Must be 
 excused if I misjudge her. Set it down to zeal 
 for you, Miss Josselin." 
 
 " Willingly, Mr. Silk — if your zeal for me did 
 not outrun my understanding." 
 
 " Yet you're clever. But you won't persuade 
 me you don't see the difficulty. . . . Er — how 
 shall 1 put it ? The Collector — we'll have to 
 get used to calling him Sir Oliver — is as cool 
 under fire as any man this side of the Atlantic ;
 
 158 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 fire of criticism, I mean. There's a limit though. 
 He despises Colonial opinion — that's his pose ; 
 takes pride in despising it, encouraged by Langton. 
 But England ? his family ? — that's another matter. 
 An aunt — and that aunt an earl's daughter — If 
 you'll believe me, Miss Josselin, I'm a man of 
 family and know the sort. They're incredible. 
 And the younger lady, if I may remind you, called 
 Diana ; which — er — may warn us that she, too, is 
 particular about these things." Here Mr. Silk, 
 having at length found his retort upon her simili- 
 tude of the satyr, licked his lips. 
 
 Ruth drew up and stood tapping her foot. 
 " May I beg to be told exactly what has happened, 
 sir: 
 
 " What has happened ? What has happened is 
 that Vyell is placing Sabines at the disposal of his 
 aunt and cousin for so long as they may honour 
 Boston with their presence. He sends the Quiney 
 word to pack and hold herself in readiness for a 
 flitting. Whither ? I cannot say ; nor can he yet 
 have found the temporary nest for you. But 
 doubtless you will hear in due course. May I 
 offer you my arm ? " 
 
 " I thank you, no. Indeed we will part here, 
 unless you have further business in the house — 
 and I gather that your errand there is discharged. 
 . . . One question — Captain Vyell sent his message
 
 MR. SILK 159 
 
 by a letter, which Miss Quiney no doubt will show 
 to me. Did he further commission you with a 
 verbal one? You had better," she added quietly, 
 £C be particular about telling me the truth ; for I 
 may question him, and for a discovered falsehood 
 he is capable of beating you." 
 
 " What I have said," stammered the clergymai^ 
 " was — er — entirely on my own responsibility. I — 
 I conceived you would find it sympathetic — helpful 
 perhaps. Believe me, Miss Josselin, I have con- 
 siderable feeling for you and your — er — position." 
 
 " I thank you." She dismissed him with a gentle 
 curtsy. " I feel almost sure you have been doing 
 your best."
 
 Chapter III 
 
 MR. H1CHENS 
 
 CHE turned and walked slowly back to the house. 
 Once within the front door and out of his 
 sight, she was tempted to rush across the hall and 
 up the stairs to her own room. She was indeed 
 gathering up her skirts for the run, when in the 
 hall she almost collided with the Reverend Malachi 
 Hichens, who stood there with his nose buried in a 
 vase of roses, while behind his back his hands inter- 
 wove themselves and pulled each at the other's 
 bony knuckles. 
 
 " Ah ! " He faced about with a stiff bow, and 
 a glance up at the tall clock. " You are late this 
 morning, Miss Josselin. But I dare say my good 
 brother Silk has been detaining you in talk ? " 
 
 " On the contrary," answered Ruth, " his talk 
 has rather hastened me than not." 
 
 They entered the library. " Miss Quiney tells 
 me," he said, " that our studies are to suffer a 
 brief interruption ; that you are about to take
 
 MR. HICHENS 161 
 
 a country holiday. You anticipate it with delight, 
 I doubt not ? " 
 
 " Have I been, then, so listless a scholar ? " she 
 asked, smiling. 
 
 " No," he answered. " I have never looked 
 on you as eager for praise, or 1 should have told 
 you that your progress — in Greek particularly — 
 has been exceptional ; for a young lady, I might 
 almost say, abnormal." 
 
 " 1 am grateful to you at any rate for saying 
 it now. It happens that just now I wanted some- 
 thing to give me back a little self-respect." 
 
 " But I do not suppose you so abnormal as, 
 at your age, to undervalue a holiday," he con- 
 tinued. " It is only we elders who live haunted 
 by the words ' Work while ye have the light.' 
 If youth extract any moral from the brevity of 
 life it is rather the pagan warning, Collige rosas." 
 
 Her eyes rested on him, still smiling, but 
 behind her smile she was wondering:. Did he 
 — this dry, sallow old man, with the knock-knees 
 and ungainly frame, the soiled bands, the black 
 suit, threadbare, hideous in cut, hideous in itself 
 (Ruth had a child's horror of black) — did he 
 speak thus out of knowledge, or was he but 
 using phrases of convention ? Ruth feared and 
 distrusted all religious folk — clergymen above all ; 
 
 yet instinct had told her at the first that Mr 
 
 G
 
 1 62 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Hichens was honest, even good in an unlovely 
 fashion ; and by many small daily tests she had 
 proved this. Was it possible that Mr. Hichens 
 had ever gathered roses in his youth ? Was it 
 possible that, expecting Heaven and professing 
 a spiritual joy in redemption, a man could sym- 
 bolise his soul's state by wearing these dingy 
 weeds ? Had he no sense of congruity, or was 
 all religion so false in grain that it perverted not 
 only the believer's judgment but his very senses, 
 turning white into black for him, and making 
 beauty and ugliness change places ? 
 
 " For my part," said Mr. Hichens wistfully, 
 " I regret the interruption ; for I had even played 
 with the thought of teaching you some Hebrew." 
 He paused and sighed. " But doubtless the 
 Almighty denies us these small pleasures for our 
 good. . . . Shall we begin with our repetition ? 
 I forget the number of the Psalm ? " 
 
 "The forty-fifth," said Ruth, finding the place 
 and handing him the book. "My heart is inditing 
 of a good matter : I speak of the things which I have 
 made unto the king." . . . She recited the opening 
 lines very quietly, but her voice lifted at the 
 third verse. Beautiful words always affected her 
 poignantly, but the language of the Bible more 
 poignantly than any other, because her own un- 
 forgettable injury had been derived from it and
 
 MR. HICHENS 163 
 
 sanctioned by it, and because at the base of things 
 our enemies in this world are dearer to us than 
 friends. They cling closer. 
 
 Yet, — and paradox though it be — the Bible was 
 the more alive to her because, on Mr. Langton's 
 hint, she had taken it like any other book, ignoring 
 the Genevan division of verses and the sophisti- 
 cated chapter headings. Thus studied, it had 
 revenged itself by taking possession of her. It 
 held all the fascination of the East, and little 
 by little unlocked it — Abraham at his tent door, 
 Rebekah by the fountain, her own namesake Ruth 
 in the dim threshing-floor of Boaz, King Saul 
 wrestling with his dark hour, the last loathly 
 years of David, Jezebel at the window, Job on 
 his dung-heap, Athaliah murdering the seed royal, 
 and again Athaliah dragged forth by the stable- 
 way and calling Treason ! Treason ! . . . Bedouins 
 with strings of camels, scent of camels by the city 
 gate, clashing of distant cymbals, hush of fear — 
 plot and counterplot in the apartments of the 
 women — outcries, lusts, hates — blood on the 
 temple steps — blood oozing, welling across the 
 gold — blood caking in spots upon illimitable desert 
 sands — watchmen by the wall — in the dark streets 
 a woman with bleeding back and feet seeking and 
 calling, " / charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, 
 if ye find my beloved — "
 
 cc 
 cc 
 
 164 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " Hearken, O daughter, and consider, incline thine 
 ear" — Ruth's voice swelled up on a full note : 
 forget also thine own people and thy father s house ; 
 So shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty : for 
 he is thy lord, and worship thou him" 
 
 " Excuse me — ''for he is thy Lord God,' '' cor- 
 rected Mr. Hichens. . . . "We are taking the 
 Prayer Book's version." 
 
 " I changed to the Bible version on purpose," 
 Ruth confessed ; " and * lord ' ought to have a 
 small ' 1 '. The Prayer Book makes nonsense 
 of it. They are bringing in the bride, the princess, 
 to her lord. She is all glorious within, her clothing 
 is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the King 
 in raiment of needlework : the virgins that be her 
 fellows shall bear her company — " 
 
 " The Hebrew," said Mr. Hichens, blinking 
 over his own text which he had hastily consulted, 
 " would seem to bear you out, or at least to leave 
 the question open. But, after all, it matters little, 
 since, as the chapter heading explains in the 
 Authorized Version, the supposed bride is the 
 Church, and the bridegroom, therefore, necessarily 
 Our Lord." 
 
 " Do you think that, or anything like that, was in 
 the mind of the man who wrote it ? " asked Ruth, 
 rebellious. " The title says, ' To the Chief Musician 
 upon Shoshannim ' — whatever that may mean."
 
 MR. HICHENS 165 
 
 " It means that it was to be sung to a tune 
 called Shoshannim or Lilies — doubtless a well- 
 known one." 
 
 " It has a beautiful name, then ; and he calls 
 it too ' Maschil, A song of Loves.' " 
 
 " Historically no doubt you are right," agreed 
 Mr. Hichens. " The song is undoubtedly later 
 than David, and was written as a Prothalamion 
 for a royal bride. It is, as you say, exceedingly 
 beautiful ; but perhaps we had best confine our 
 attention to its allegorical side. You probably 
 do not guess who the bride was ? " 
 
 " No," Ruth admitted. " Who was she ? " 
 
 " It is generally admitted, I believe, to have 
 been written as a bridal hymn for Queen Jezebel." 
 
 " O— oh ! " Ruth bit her lip, but had to laugh 
 in spite of herself.
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 VASHTI 
 
 HP HE first bad suggestion almost certainly came 
 from Mr. Silk. Two or three of the com- 
 pany afterwards put their heads together and, 
 comparing recollections, agreed that either Silk or 
 Manley had started it. Beyond the alternative 
 they could not trace it. 
 
 But the whole table, they admitted, had been to 
 blame, and pretty damnably. To be sure they 
 were drunk, every man Jack of them, the Collector 
 included. The Collector, indolent by nature but 
 capable of long stretches of work at a pinch, had 
 been at his desk since six o'clock in the morning. 
 The news brought by the Fish-hawk had reached 
 him at five ; and after bathing, dressing, and 
 drinking his chocolate, he had started to write, and 
 had been writing letters all day. The most of 
 these were lengthy, addressed to England, to his 
 relatives, his London lawyers, the steward at Car- 
 withiel. . . . The Surveyor and Deputy-Collector
 
 VASHTI 167 
 
 could deal — as they usually did — with the official 
 correspondence of the Custom House ; his own 
 Secretary had the light task of penning a score of 
 invitations to dinner ; but these letters of con- 
 dolence and private business must be written by 
 his own hand, as also a note to Governor Shirley 
 formally announcing his accession and new title. 
 
 The Collector dined at five. He laid down his 
 pen at four, having written for ten hours almost 
 at a stretch, declining all food — for he hated to 
 mix up work with eating and drinking. Before 
 dressing for dinner he refreshed himself with 
 another bath ; but he came to table with a jaded 
 brain and a stomach fasting beyond appetite for 
 food ; and the wine was champagne. 
 
 Miss Quiney and Ruth Josselin, seated that 
 evening in the drawing-room at Sabines, were 
 startled at eight o'clock or thereabouts by a knock- 
 ing on the front door. Miss Quiney looked up 
 from her tambour-work, with hand and needle 
 suspended in mid-air, and gazed across at Ruth, 
 who, seated at the harpsichord, had been singing 
 softly — murmuring rather — the notes of Ben 
 Jonson's Charts her Triumph — 
 
 " Have you seen but a bright Lillie grow 
 Before rude hands have touch'd it ? "
 
 1 68 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 but desisted at the noise and slewed her body half 
 around, letting her ringers rest on the keys. 
 
 " Who in the world — at this hour ? " demanded 
 Miss Quiney. 
 
 A serving-maid ushered in Manasseh. 
 
 The tall black halted a little within the door- 
 way, saluted and stood grinning respectfully, his 
 white teeth gleaming in the candle-light. 
 
 " Yo' pardon, ladies. His Honah sends to say 
 he entertainin' to-night. Plenty people drink his 
 Honah's health an' long life to Sir Olivah Vyell. 
 He wish pertick'ly Mis' Josselin drink it. He 
 toF me run, get out sedan-chair an' fetch Mis' 
 Josselin along ; fetch her back soon as she likes. 
 Chairmen at de door dis moment, waitin'. I mak' 
 
 'em run." 
 
 Ruth stood up. Her hand went to the edge of 
 her bodice open below the throat. 
 
 " Must I ? " she asked, turning from Manasseh 
 to Miss Quiney. Her voice was tense. 
 
 " I — I think so, dear," Miss Quiney answered 
 after a pause. " It is a command, almost ; and 
 to-night naturally Captain Vyell — Sir Oliver — has 
 a claim on our congratulations." 
 
 " You tell me to go ? . . . Oh ! but let me be 
 sure you know what you are advising." She faced 
 the negro again. "What guests is Sir Oliver 
 entertaining ? "
 
 
 VASHTI 169 
 
 Manasseh enumerated a dozen. 
 All gentlemen ! So, you see ! " 
 Captain — Sir Oliver (bless me, how I forget ! ) 
 has an aversion from ladies' society — Boston 
 ladies. ... It is not for me to criticise, but the 
 distaste is well known." 
 
 " And the gentlemen, Manasseh— they will have 
 taken a great deal of wine by now ? " 
 
 Manasseh spread out his hands, and again his 
 teeth gleamed. " To be sho', Mis' Josselin ; it is 
 not ebery day in the yeah dat Cap'n Vyell become 
 Sir Olivah — " 
 
 " I did not ask you," interrupted Ruth coldly, 
 " to excuse your errand. . . . And now, Tatty 
 dear, do you still bid me to go ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, I forbid it." 
 
 Ruth stepped close to the little lady. Said she, 
 standing straight before her and looking down, 
 " It cost you some courage to say that." 
 
 " It may cost me more to-morrow ; but I am 
 not afraid." 
 
 " My brave Tatty ! But the courage is thrown 
 away, for I am going." 
 
 " You do not mean this ? " 
 
 " I do mean it. My master sends for me. You 
 know what duty I owe him." 
 
 "He is just. He will thank you to-morrow 
 that you disobeyed."
 
 i 7 o LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " I shall not disobey." 
 
 Little Miss Quiney, looking up into her ward's 
 eyes, argued this point no further. " Very well," 
 said she. "Then I go too." She closed her 
 mouth firmly, squaring her jaw. 
 
 " But in the sedan there is room for one only." 
 
 " Then I go first," said Miss Quiney, " and the 
 chair shall return for you. That," she went on, 
 falling back upon her usual pedantic speech, 
 " presents no difficulty whatever to me. What 
 I wear does not matter — the gentlemen will not 
 regard it. But you must dress in what you have 
 of the best. It — it will assist you. Being with- 
 out experience, you probably have no notion how 
 dress assists one's self-respect." 
 
 "I think I have some little notion," Ruth assured 
 her demurely. 
 
 " And while the chair is taking me and returning, 
 you will have good time to dress. On no account 
 are you to hurry. ... It is essential that at no 
 point — at no point, dear — you allow yourself to be 
 hurried, or to show any trace of hurry." 
 
 Ruth nodded slowly. " Yes, Tatty. I under- 
 stand. But, little lioness that you are, do you ? 
 You will be alone, and for some time with these — 
 with these — " 
 
 " I have never mentioned it to a living soul 
 before," said Miss Quiney, dismissing Manasseh
 
 VASHTI 1 7 1 
 
 with a wave of the hand and closing the door 
 upon him ; " but I had an eldest brother — in the 
 Massachusetts militia — who, not to put too fine 
 a point on it, was sadly addicted to the bottle. It 
 shortened his days. ... A bright young genius, 
 of which we hoped much, and (I fear me) not all 
 unselfishly, for our family was impoverished. 
 But he went astray. Towards the end he would 
 bring home his boon companions — I will say this 
 for poor dear George, that his footsteps, at their 
 unsteadiest, ever tended homeward ; he never 
 affected low haunts — and it fell to me as the eldest 
 daughter of the house to keep his hospitality 
 within bounds — " 
 
 " Dear Tatty ! ' Ruth stooped and kissed the 
 plain little face, cutting short the narrative. It 
 was strange to note how these two of diverse ages 
 — between whom for the length of their acquaint- 
 ance no dispute of mastery had arisen — now 
 suddenly and in quick alternation, out of pure 
 love, asserted will against will. " You shall tell 
 me to-morrow. (I always knew that your meek- 
 ness and weakness were only pretence.) But just 
 now we must hurry." 
 
 " Hurry, as I must repeat," answered Miss 
 Quiney primly, smoothing down the front of her 
 creased grey satin skirt, " is — will be — our capital 
 mistake. For me, I need in this weather but an
 
 172 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 additional shawl. I am ready. . . . Go to your 
 room . . . and let me enjoin a certain deliberation 
 even in crossing the hall. Manasseh is there, and 
 before servants — even a negro — ■ The white brocade 
 if I may advise ; it is fresher than the rose-coloured 
 silk — and the hair combed a trifle higher off the 
 brows. That, with the brocade, will correct your 
 girlishness somewhat. Brocades are for dignity, 
 and it is dignity we chiefly need to-night. . . . 
 Shall I send Selina to you ? No ? Well, she 
 would be persuading you to some new twist or 
 experiment with your hair, and you are better 
 without her. Also I shall want a last word with 
 you when I have fetched my cloak, and Selina is 
 better out of the way." 
 
 Miss Quiney's last word was a curious one. It 
 took the form of a pearl necklace, her one possession 
 of value, last surviving heirloom of the Quineys, 
 of whom she was the last surviving descendant : 
 her last tangible evidence, too, of those bygone 
 better days. She never wore it, and it never saw 
 the light save when she unlocked the worn jewel- 
 case to make sure that her treasure had not been 
 stolen. 
 
 She entered Ruth's room with it furtively. 
 Despite her injunction against hurry, the girl had 
 already indued the white brocade and stood before
 
 VASHTI 173 
 
 the mirror conning herself. She wore no jewela ; 
 she owned none. 
 
 " Shut your eyes, dear," commanded Miss 
 Quiney, and, stealing up behind her, slipped and 
 clasped the necklace about her throat, then fell 
 back, admiring the reflection in the glass. 
 
 " Oh, Tatty ! " 
 
 But Ruth, too, had to pause for a moment to 
 admire. When she turned, Miss Quiney, forget- 
 ting her own injunction, had stolen in haste from 
 the room. 
 
 The girl's eyes moistened. For a moment she 
 saw herself reflected from the glass in a blur. 
 Then through the blur the necklace took shape, 
 point by point of light, pearl by pearl, until the 
 whole chain grew definite in the parting of the 
 bodice, resting on the rise of her young bosom. 
 
 Yes, and the girl saw that it was good. 
 
 A string of words danced upon her brain, as 
 though the mirrored pearls reflected them. 
 
 She shall he brought unto the King . . . the virgins 
 that be her fellows shall bear her company.
 
 Chapter V 
 
 SIR OLIVER'S HEALTH 
 
 P\E lady is here, yo' Honah ! " 
 
 Manasseh announced it from the doorway 
 and stood aside. Of the company four had already 
 succumbed and slid from their chairs. The others 
 staggered to their feet, Sir Oliver as promptly as 
 any. With a face unnaturally white he leaned 
 forward, clutching the edge of the long oval table, 
 and stared between the silver candelabra down the 
 broken ranks of his guests — Mr. Silk, purple of 
 face as his patron was pale ; Ned Manley, maun- 
 dering the tag of a chorus ; Captain St. Maur, 
 Captain Goodacre, and Ensign Lumley, British 
 officers captured by the French at Fort Chanseau 
 and released to live at Boston on parole until the 
 war should end ; Mr. Fynes, the Collector's Secre- 
 tary ; Mr. Bythesea, Deputy-Collector ; young 
 Shem Hacksteed and young Denzil Baynes, sons 
 of wealthy New Englanders, astray for the while,
 
 SIR OLIVER'S HEALTH 175 
 
 and sowing their wild oats in a society openly 
 scornful of New England traditions. 
 
 Batty Langton's was the chair nearest the door, 
 and Batty Langton was the one moderately sober 
 man of the company. He had not heard, in time 
 to interfere, the proposal to send for Ruth : it had 
 started somewhere at the Collector's end of the 
 table. But trifler though he was, he thought it 
 cruel to the girl — a damnable shame — and pulled 
 himself together to prevent what mischief he 
 might. At the same time he felt curious to see 
 her, curious to learn if these many months of 
 seclusion had fulfilled the Collector's wager that 
 Ruth Josselin would grow to be the loveliest 
 woman in America. At Manasseh's announcement 
 he faced about, and, with a gasp, clutched at the 
 back of his chair. 
 
 In the doorway stood little Miss Quiney. 
 
 It was so ludicrous a disappointment that for 
 the moment no one found speech. Langton heard 
 Goodacre, behind him, catch his breath upon a 
 wondering " O — oh ! ' and felt the shock run 
 down the table along the unsteady ranks. At the 
 far end a voice — Mr. Silk's — cackled and burst into 
 unseemly laughter. 
 
 Langton swung round. " Mr. Fynes," he called 
 sharply, "oblige me, please, by silencing that clergy- 
 man — with a napkin in his mouth, if necessary."
 
 176 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 He turned again to Miss Quiney. " Madam," 
 he said, offering his arm, " let me lead you to 
 a seat by Sir Oliver." 
 
 The little lady accepted with a curtsy. A faint 
 flush showed upon either cheek bone, and in her 
 eyes could be read the light of battle. It com- 
 manded his admiration the more that her small 
 arm trembled against his sleeve. " The courage 
 of it," he murmured ; "and Miss Quiney of all 
 women ! " 
 
 She needed courage. The Collector's handsome 
 face greeted her with a scowl and a hard stare ; he 
 could be intractable in his cups. 
 
 " Excuse me, madam, but I sent for Miss 
 Josselin." 
 
 She answered him, but first made low obeisance. 
 " Ruth Josselin will attend, sir, with all despatch. 
 The sedan is capable of accommodating but one 
 at a time." 
 
 There stood an empty chair on the Collector's 
 right. To set it for her Mr. Langton had, as 
 a preliminary, to stoop and drag aside the legs of 
 a reveller procumbent on the floor. The effort 
 flushed him ; but Miss Quiney, with an inclina- 
 tion of the head, slipped into the seat as though 
 she had seen nothing unusual. 
 
 " And it gives me the occasion," she continued 
 respectfully, as her eyes passed over the form of
 
 SIR OLIVER'S HEALTH 177 
 
 young Manley opposite, who stood with his glass 
 at an angle, spilling its wine on the mahogany, 
 " of expressing — I thank you. . . . What ? Is it 
 Mr. Silk ? A pleasure, indeed ! . . . Yes, I 
 rarely take wine, but on such an occasion as this 
 — an occasion, as I was saying, to felicitate Sir 
 Oliver Vyell on his accession to a title which we, 
 who have served him, best know his capacity to 
 adorn." 
 
 " Oh, damn ! " growled the Collector under his 
 breath. 
 
 " Half a glassful only ! " Miss Quiney entreated, 
 as Mr. Silk poured for her. She was, in fact, 
 desperately telling herself that if she attempted to 
 lift a full glass, her shaking hand would betray her. 
 
 «Yo' Honah— Mis' Josselin ! " 
 
 Mr. Langton had caught the sound of Man- 
 asseh's footfall in the corridor without, and was 
 on the alert before the girl entered. But at sight 
 of her in the doorway he fell back for a moment. 
 
 " Yes, the Collector's promise had come true 
 — and far more than true. She was marvellous. 
 
 It was by mere beauty, too, that she dazzled, 
 helped by no jewels but the one plain rope ol 
 pearls at her throat. She stood there holding 
 herself erect, but not stiffly, with chin slightly 
 lifted ; not in scorn, nor yet in defiance, though
 
 178 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 you were no sooner satisfied of this than a tiniest 
 curve of the nostril set you doubting. But no ; 
 she was neither scornful nor defiant — alert rather, 
 as a fair animal quivering with life, confronting 
 some new experience that for the moment it fails 
 to read. Or — borrowing her morning's simile, to 
 convert it — you might liken her to huntress-maiden 
 Diana, surprised upon arrested foot ; instep arched, 
 nostril quivering to the unfamiliar, eyes travelling 
 in sudden speculation over a group of satyrs in 
 a glade. For a certainty that poise of the chin 
 emphasised the head's perfect carriage ; as did the 
 fashion of her head-tire, too — the hair drawn 
 straight above the brows and piled superbly, to 
 break and escape in two carelesss love-locks on the 
 nape of the neck — in the ripple of each a smile, 
 correcting the goddess to the woman. The right 
 arm hung almost straight at her side, the hand 
 ready to gather a fold of the white brocaded skirt ; 
 the left slanted up to her bosom, where its finger- 
 tips touched the stem of a white rose in the lace 
 at the parting of the bodice. . . . 
 
 So she stood — for ten seconds maybe — under 
 the droop of the heavy curtain Manasseh held 
 aside for her. The hush of the room was homage 
 to her beauty. Her gaze, passing between the 
 lines of his guests, sought the Collector. It was 
 fearless, but held a hint of expectancy. Perhaps
 
 SIR OLIVER'S HEALTH 179 
 
 she waited for him to leave his place and come 
 forward to receive her. But he made no motion 
 to do this ; not being, in fact, sufficient master of 
 his legs. 
 
 " Good-evening, my lord ! " She swept him 
 a curtsy. " You sent for me ? " 
 
 Before he could answer, she had lowered her 
 eyes. They rested on a chair that happened to 
 stand empty beside Batty Langton, and a slight 
 inclination of the head gave Langton to understand 
 that she wished him to offer it. He did so, and 
 she moved to it. The men, embarrassed for a 
 moment by their host's silence — they had expected 
 him to answer her, but he stood staring angrily as 
 one rebuffed — followed her cue and reseated them- 
 selves. He, too, dropped back in his chair, leaned 
 forward for the decanter, and poured himself more 
 wine. The buzz of talk revived, at first a word 
 or two here and there, tentative after the check, 
 then more confidently. Within a minute the 
 voices were babel again. 
 
 Batty Langton pondered. A baronet should 
 not be addressed as " my lord," and she had been 
 guilty of a solecism. At the same time her manner 
 had been perfect ; her carriage admirably self- 
 possessed. Her choice of a seat, too, at the end 
 of the table and furthest from Sir Oliver — if she 
 had come unwillingly — had been wittily taken, and
 
 180 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 on the moment, and with the appearance of de- 
 liberate ease. 
 
 " They will be calling on you presently to drink 
 our host's health," he suggested, clearing a space 
 of the table in front of her and collecting very 
 dexterously two or three unused wine-glasses. 
 Champagne ? . . . Miss Quiney is drinking cham- 
 pagne, I see, though her neighbours have deserted 
 it for red wine. Sir Oliver, by the way, grows 
 lazy in pushing the decanters. . . . Shall I signal 
 to him ? " 
 
 " On no account. Champagne, if you please 
 . . . though I had rather you kept it in readiness." 
 
 " I am sorry, Miss Josselin, but there you ask 
 of me the one thing impossible. I cannot abide 
 to let wine stand and wait ; and champagne — watch 
 it, how it protests ! ' He filled her glass and 
 refilled his own. " By the way," he added, sink- 
 ing his voice, " one is permitted to congratulate 
 a debutante ? " 
 
 "And to criticise." 
 
 " There was nothing to criticise except — Oh, 
 well, a trifle. At home in England we don't * my 
 lord ' a mere baronet, you know." 
 
 " But since he is my lord ? " She smiled gently, 
 answering his puzzled stare. " How, otherwise, 
 should I be here ? " 
 
 Mr. Langton took wine to digest this. He
 
 SIR OLIVER'S HEALTH 181 
 
 shook his head. " You must forgive me. It is 
 clear that I am drunk— abominably drunk — for I 
 miss the point — " 
 
 "You accuse yourself unjustly." 
 
 " Do I ? Well, I have certainly drunk a deal 
 more wine than is good for me, and it will be 
 revenged to-morrow. As a rule," — he glanced 
 around at his fellow-topers—" I pride myself that 
 in head and legs I am inexpugnable. We all have 
 our gifts ; and i' faith until a moment ago I was 
 patting myself on the back for owning this one." 
 
 "And why, Mr. Langton ? " 
 
 " On the thought, Mistress Josselin, that I had 
 cut out the frigate, as our tars say, and towed the 
 prize to moorings before the others could fire 
 
 a gun." 
 
 " I had hoped," she murmured, and bent her 
 eyes on the wine-bubbles winking against the rim 
 of her glass, " you did it in simple kindness." 
 
 "Well," he owned slowly, "and so I did. 
 This belittling of good intentions, small enough 
 to begin with, is a cursed habit, and I'll renounce 
 it for once. It was little — it was nothing ; yet 
 behold me eager to be thanked." 
 
 " I thank you." She fingered the stem of the 
 glass, not lifting her eyes. " But you have be- 
 littled me, too. I read it in books, and here on 
 the threshold, as I step outside of books, you meet
 
 1 82 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 me with it. We women are always, it seems, poor 
 ships, beating the seas, fleeing capture ; and our 
 tackle, our bravery — " She broke off, and sat 
 musing, while her fingers played with the base ot 
 the Mass. 
 
 o 
 
 " I take back my metaphors, Miss Josselin. I 
 admit myself no buccaneer, but a simple ass who 
 for once pricked ears on an honest impulse." 
 
 "That is better. But hush! Mr. Manley, 
 yonder, is preparing to sing." 
 
 Mr. Manley, a young protege of the Collector's, 
 had a streak of genius as an architect and several 
 lesser gifts, among them a propensity for borrow- 
 ing and a flexible tenor voice. He trolled an old 
 song, slightly adapted — 
 
 " Here's a health unto Sir Oliver, 
 
 With a fal-la-la, lala-la-la ; 
 Confusion to his enemies, 
 
 With a fa-la-la, lala-la-la ; 
 And he that will not drink his health, 
 I wish him neither wit nor wealth, 
 Nor yet a rope to hang himself — 
 
 With a fa-la-la, lala-la-la." 
 
 The effort was applauded. Above the applause 
 the bull voice of Mr. Silk shouted,— 
 
 " But Miss Josselin has not drunk it yet ! 
 Langton monopolises her. Miss Josselin ! What 
 has Miss Josselin to say ? "
 
 SIR OLIVER'S HEALTH 183 
 
 The cry was taken up. " Miss Josselin ! Miss 
 Josselin ! " 
 
 Batty Langton arose, glass in hand. " Is it a 
 toast, gentlemen ? ' He glanced at Sir Oliver, 
 who sat sombre, not lifting his eyes. " Our host 
 permits me. . . . Then I give you ' Miss Josse- 
 lin ! ' Acclamations drowned his voice here, and 
 the men sprang up, waving their glasses. Sir 
 Oliver stood with the rest. 
 
 " Miss Josselin ! Miss Josselin ! " they shouted, 
 and drank what their unsteady hands left unspilt. 
 Langton waited, his full glass half upraised. 
 
 " Miss Josselin," he repeated very deliberately 
 on the tail of the uproar, " who honours this occa- 
 sion as Sir Oliver's ward." 
 
 For about rive seconds an awkward silence held 
 the company. Their fuddled memories retained 
 scraps of gossip concerning Ruth, her history and 
 destiny — gossip scandalous in the main. One or 
 two glanced at the Collector, who had resumed his 
 seat — and his scowl. 
 
 "The more reason she should drink his health." 
 Again Mr. Silk was fugleman. 
 
 His voice braved it off on the silence. Ruth 
 was raising her glass. Her eyes sought Miss 
 Quiney's ; but Miss Quiney's, lifted heavenward, 
 had encountered the ceiling upon which Mr. 
 Manley had recently depicted the hymeneals of
 
 1 84 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Venus and Vulcan, not omitting Mars ; and the 
 treatment — a riot of the nude — had for the moment 
 put the redoubtable little lady out of action. 
 
 Ruth leaned forward in her seat, lifting her glass 
 high. It brimmed, but she spilled no drop. 
 
 « To Sir Oliver ! "
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 CAPTAIN HARRY AND MR. HANMER 
 
 "QUESTS, has he ?— Out of my road, you 
 rascal ! Guests ? I'll warrant there's none 
 so welcome — " 
 
 A good cheery voice — a voice the curtain could 
 not muffle — rang it down the corridor as on the 
 note of a cornet. 
 
 The wine was at Ruth's lip, scarcely wetting it. 
 She lowered the glass steadily and turned half- 
 about in her chair at the moment when, as before 
 a whirlwind, the curtain flew wide and a stranger 
 burst in on the run with Manasseh at his heels. 
 
 " Oliver ! " The stranger drew himself up in 
 the doorway — a well-knit figure of a man, clear of 
 eye, bronzed of hue, clad in blue sea-cloth faced 
 with scarlet, and wearing a short sword at the hip. 
 " Where's my Oliver ? " he shouted. " You'll for- 
 give my voice, gentlemen. I'm Harry Vyell, at 
 your service, fresh from shipboard, and not hoarse 
 with anthems like old what-d'ye-call-him."
 
 1 86 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Running his gaze along the table, he sighted the 
 Collector and broke into a view-halloo. 
 
 " Oliver ! Brother Noll ! ' Captain Harry 
 made a second run of it, caught his foot on the 
 prostrate toper whom Langton had dragged out of 
 Miss Quiney's way, and fell on his brother's neck. 
 Recovering himself with a "damn," he clapped 
 his left hand on Sir Oliver's shoulder, seized Sir 
 Oliver's right in his grip and started pump-hand- 
 ling — " as though " murmured Langton, " the room 
 were sinking with ten feet of liquor in the hold." 
 
 " Harry — is it Harry ? " Sir Oliver stammered, 
 and made a weak effort to rise. 
 
 " Lord ! You're drunk ! ' Captain Harry 
 crowed the cheerful discovery. " Well, and I'll 
 ioin you — but in moderation, mind ! Newly 
 married man— if some one will be good enough to 
 pass the decanter ? . . . My dear fellow ! . . . 
 Cast anchor half an hour ago — got myself rowed 
 ashore hot-foot to shake my Noll by the hand. 
 Lord, brother, you can't think how good it feels 
 to be married ! Sally won't be coming ashore to- 
 night ; the hour's too late, she says ; so I'm 
 allowed an hour's liberty." Here the uxorious 
 fellow paused on a laugh, indicating that he found 
 irony in the word. " But Sally — capital name, 
 Sally, for a sailor's wife ; she's Sarah to all her 
 family, Sal to me — Sally is cunning. Sally gives
 
 CAPT. HARRY AND MR. HANMER 187 
 
 me leave ashore, but on condition I take Hanmer 
 to look after me. He's my first lieutenant — first- 
 rate officer, too — but no ladies' man. Gad ! ' 
 chuckled Captain Harry, " I believe he'd run a 
 mile from a petticoat. But where is he ? Hi, 
 Hanmer ! step aft-along here and be intro- 
 duced ! " 
 
 A tall grave man, who had entered unnoticed, 
 walked past the line of guests and up to his cap- 
 tain. He too wore a suit of blue with scarlet 
 facings, and carried a short sword or hanger at his 
 belt. He stood stiffly, awaiting command. The 
 candle-light showed, beneath his right cheek bone, 
 the cicatrix of a recent wound. 
 
 But Captain Harry, slewing round to him, was 
 for the moment bereft of speech. His gaze had 
 happened, for the first time, on little Miss Quiney. 
 
 " Eh ? ' : he stammered, recovering himself. 
 " Your' pardon, ma'am. I wasn't aware that a 
 lady — " Here his eyes, travelling to the end 
 of the table, were arrested by the vision of Ruth 
 Josselin. " Wh-e-ew ! ' he whistled, under his 
 breath. 
 
 " Sir Oliver — " Batty Langton stood up. 
 
 " Hey ? ' The name gave Captain Harry yet 
 another shock. He spun about again upon his 
 brother. " c Sir Oliver ' ? What's he saying ? " 
 You've not heard ? " said the Collector, grip- 
 
 cc
 
 1 88 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 ping his words slowly, one by one. " No, of 
 course you've not. Harry, our uncle is dead." 
 
 There was a pause. " Poor old boy ! ' he 
 muttered. " Used to be kind to us, Noll, after 
 his lights. If it hadn't been for his womenkind." 
 
 " They're coming across to visit me, damn 'em ! " 
 
 " What ? Aunt Carrie and Di' ? . . . Good 
 Lord ! " 
 
 " They're on the seas at this moment — may be 
 here within the week." 
 
 " Good Lord ! " Captain Harry repeated, and 
 his eyes wandered again to Ruth Josselin. " Awk- 
 ward, hey ? ... But I say, Noll— you really are 
 Sir Oliver ! Dear lad, I give you joy, and with 
 all my heart. . . . Gad, here's a piece of news for 
 Sally ! " 
 
 Again he came to a doubtful halt, and again with 
 his eyes on Ruth Josselin. He was not a quick- 
 witted man, outside of his calling, nor a man apt 
 to think evil ; but he had been married a month, 
 and this had been long enough to teach him that 
 women and men judge by different standards. 
 
 " Sir Oliver," repeated Langton, " Miss Josselin 
 craves your leave to retire." 
 
 " Yes, dear " — Miss Quiney launched an ap- 
 proving nod towards her — " I was about to sug- 
 gest it, with Sir Oliver's leave. The hour is late, 
 and by the time the sedan-chair returns for me — ■"
 
 CAPT. HARRY AND MR. HANMER 189 
 
 " There is no reason, Tatty, why we should not 
 return together," said Ruth quietly. "The night 
 is fine ; and, with Manasseh for escort, I can walk 
 beside your chair." 
 
 " Pardon me, ladies," put in Mr. Silk. " Once 
 in the upper town, you may be safe enough ; but 
 down here by the quay the sh — sailors — I know 
 'em — it's my buishness. 'Low me — join the 
 eshcort." 
 
 But here, perceived by few in the room, a some- 
 what remarkable thing happened. Mr. Hanmer, 
 who had stood hitherto like a statue, put out a 
 hand and laid it on Mr. Silk's shoulder ; and 
 there must have been some power in that grip, for 
 Mr. Silk dropped into his seat without another 
 word. 
 
 Captain Harry saw it, and broke into a laugh. 
 
 "Why, to be sure ! Hanmer's the very man ! 
 The rest of ye too drunk — meaning no offence ; 
 and, for me, — well, for me, you see there's Sally 
 to be reckoned with." He laughed aloud at this 
 simple jocularity. "Hanmer!" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Convoy." 
 
 " If you wish it, sir." The lieutenant bowed 
 stiffly ; but it was to be noted that the scar, which 
 had hitherto showed white on a bronzed cheek, 
 now reddened on a pale one.
 
 190 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Miss Quiney hesitated. "The gentleman, as a 
 stranger to Boston — " 
 
 " I'll answer for Hanmer, ma'am. You'll get 
 little talk out of him ; but, be there lions at 
 large in Boston, Jack Hanmer '11 lead you past 
 
 to 
 
 em. 
 
 cc 
 
 Like Mr. Greatheart in the parable," spoke 
 up Ruth, whose eyes had been taking stock of the 
 proposed escort, though he stood in the penumbra 
 and at half the room's length away. " Tatty — if 
 my lord permit and Lieutenant Hanmer be 
 willing — " 
 
 She stood up, and with a curtsy to Sir Oliver, 
 swept to the door. Miss Quiney pattered after ; 
 and Mr. Hanmer, with a bow and hand lifted to 
 the salute, stalked out at their heels. 
 
 " I'll warrant Jack Hanmer 'd liefer walk up to 
 a gun," swore Captain Harry as the curtain fell 
 behind them. " He bolts from the sight of Sally. 
 I'll make Sally laugh over this." But here he 
 pulled himself up and added beneath his voice, " I 
 can't tell her, though." 
 
 The road as it climbed above the town toward 
 Sabines grew rough and full of pitfalls. Even by 
 the light of the full moon shining between the 
 elms Miss Quiney's chairmen were forced to pick 
 their way warily, so that the couple on the side-
 
 CAPT. HARRY AND MR. HANMER 191 
 
 walk — which in comparison was well paved — 
 easily kept abreast of them. 
 
 Ruth walked with the free grace of a Dryad. 
 The moonlight shone now and again on her face 
 beneath the arch of her wimple ; and once, as she 
 glanced up at the heavens, Mr. Hanmer — inter- 
 preting that she lifted her head to a scent of 
 danger, and shooting a sidelong look despite him- 
 self — surprised a lustre as of tears in her eyes ; 
 whereupon he felt ashamed, as one who had in- 
 truded on a secret. 
 
 " Mr. Hanmer." 
 
 « Ma'am ? " 
 
 " I have a favour to beg. . . . Is it true, by the 
 way," she asked mischievously, " that to talk with 
 a woman distresses you ?" 
 
 " Ma'am—" 
 
 " My name is Ruth Josselin." 
 
 Mr. Hanmer either missed to hear the correc- 
 tion or heard and put it aside. " Been at sea 
 all my life," he explained. "They caught me 
 young." 
 
 Ruth looked sideways at him and laughed — a 
 liquid little laugh, much like the bubbling note of 
 a thrush. " You could not have given an answer 
 more pat, sir. I want to speak to you about a 
 child, caught young and about to be taken to sea. 
 You are less shy with children, I hope ? "
 
 1 92 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " Not a bit," confessed Mr. Hanmer. He 
 added, "They take to me, though — the few I've 
 
 met." 
 
 " Dick will take to you, for certain. Dicky is 
 Sir Oliver's child." 
 
 " 1 didn't know — " Mr. Hanmer came to a 
 full stop. 
 
 " No," said Ruth, as though she echoed him. 
 " He is eight years old almost." Her eyes 
 looked straight ahead, but she was aware that his 
 had scanned her face for a moment, and almost 
 she felt his start of reassurance. 
 
 " So, the child being a friend of mine, and his 
 father having promised him a cruise in the Venus, 
 you see that I very much want to know what 
 manner of lady is Captain Harry's wife ; and that 
 I could not ask you point-blank because you would 
 have set the question down to idle curiosity. . . . 
 It might make all the difference to him," she 
 added, getting no answer. 
 
 "A child of eight, and the country at war!" 
 Mr. Hanmer muttered. " His father must know 
 that we cruise ready for action." 
 
 " I tell you, sir, what Dicky told me this morning." 
 
 " But it's impossible ! " 
 
 "To that, sir, I might find you half a dozen 
 answers. To begin with, we all know — and Sir 
 Oliver perhaps, from private information, knows
 
 CAPT. HARRY AND MR. HANMER 193 
 
 better than any of us — that peace is in sight. 
 Here in the northern Colonies it has arrived 
 already ; the enemy has no fleet on this side of the 
 world, and on this coast no single ship to give you 
 any concern." 
 
 " Guarda-costas ? There may be a few left on 
 the prowl, even in these latitudes. I don't believe 
 it for my part ; we've accounted for most of 'em. 
 Still—" 
 
 " And Captain Harry thinks so much of them 
 that he sails from Carolina to Boston with his bride 
 on board ! " 
 
 " You are right, Miss Josselin, and you are 
 wrong. . . . Mistress Vyell has come to Boston in 
 the Venus ; and by reason that her husband, when 
 he started, had as little acquaintance with fear for 
 others as for himself. But if she return to Carolina 
 it will be by land or when peace is signed. Love 
 has made the Captain think ; and thought has 
 made him — well, with madam on board, I am 
 thankful — " He checked himself. 
 
 " You are thankful he did not sight a guarda- 
 costa." She concluded the sentence for him, and 
 walked some way in silence, while he at her side 
 was silent, being angry at having said so much. 
 
 " Yet Captain Harry is recklessly brave ? " she 
 mused. 
 
 "To the last degree, Miss Josselin." Mr. Han-
 
 i 9 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 mer agreed eagerly. " To the last degree within 
 the right military rules. Fighting a ship's an art, 
 you see." 
 
 It seemed that she did not hear him. " It runs 
 in the blood," she said. She was thinking, fear- 
 fully yet exultantly, of this wonderful power of 
 women, for whose sake cowards will behave as 
 heroes and heroes turn to cowards. 
 
 They had outstripped the chairmen, and were at 
 the gate of Sabines. He held it open for her. 
 She bethought her that his last two or three 
 sentences had been firmly spoken, that his voice 
 had shaken off" its husky stammer, and on the 
 impulse of realised power she took a fancy to hear 
 it tremble again. 
 
 " But if madam will not be on board to look 
 after Dicky, the more will he need a friend. Mr. 
 Hanmer, will you be that friend ? " 
 
 " You are choosing a rough sort of nurse- 
 maid." 
 
 " But will you ? " She faced him, wonderful in 
 the moonlioht. 
 
 His eyes dropped. His voice stammered, " I — 
 I will do my best, Miss Josselin." 
 
 She held out a hand. He took it perforce in 
 his rope-roughened paw, held it awkwardly for a 
 moment, and released it as one lets a bird escape. 
 
 Ruth smiled. " The best of women," ran a
 
 CAPT. HARRY AND MR. HANMER 195 
 
 saying of Batty Langton's, "if you watch 'em, are 
 always practising ; even the youngest, as a kitten 
 plays with a leaf." 
 
 They stood in silence, waiting for the chair to 
 overtake them. 
 
 " Tatty, you are a heroine ! " 
 
 Miss Quiney, unwinding a shawl from her head 
 under the hall-lamp, released herself from Ruth's 
 embrace. Her nerve had been strained and 
 needed a recoil. 
 
 " Maybe," she answered snappishly. " For my 
 part, I'd take more comfort, just now, to be called 
 a respectable woman." 
 
 Ruth laughed, kissed her again, and stood 
 listening to the footsteps as they retreated down 
 the gravelled way. Among them her ear distin- 
 guished easily the firm tread of Mr. Hanmer.
 
 Chapter VII 
 
 FIRST OFFER 
 
 LITTLE before noon next day word came 
 to her room that Sir Oliver had called and 
 desired to speak with her. 
 
 She was not unprepared. She had indeed 
 dressed with special care in the hope of it ; but 
 she went to her glass and stood for a minute or 
 two, touching here and there her seemly tresses. 
 
 Should she keep him waiting — keep him even 
 a long while ? . . . He deserved it. . . . But 
 ah, no ! She was under a vow never to be other 
 than forthright with him ; and the truth was, his 
 coming filled her with joy. 
 
 " I am glad you have come ! " These, in fact, 
 were her first words as he turned to face her in 
 the drawing-room. He had been standing by the 
 broad window-seat, staring out on the roses. 
 
 " You guess, of course, what has brought me ? " 
 He had dressed himself with extreme care. His
 
 FIRST OFFER 197 
 
 voice was steady, his eye clear, and only a touch 
 of pallor told of the overnight debauch. " I am 
 here to be forgiven." 
 
 " Who am I, to forgive ? " 
 
 " If you say that, you make it three times worse 
 for me. Whatever you are does not touch my 
 right to ask your pardon, or my need to be for- 
 given — which is absolute." 
 
 "No," she mused, "you are right. . . . Have 
 you asked pardon of Tatty ? ' 
 
 " I have, ten minutes ago. She sent the message 
 
 to you." 
 
 " Tatty was heroic " — Ruth paused on the re- 
 miniscence with a smile — " and, if you will believe 
 me, quite waspish when I told her so." 
 
 " You should have refused to come. You might 
 
 have known that I was drunk, or I could never 
 
 have sent." 
 
 " How does it go ? " She stood before him, 
 
 puckering her brows a little as she searched to 
 remember the words — " ' On the seventh day, when 
 the heart of the king was merry with wine, he com- 
 manded the seven chamberlains — ' ' 
 
 " Spare me." 
 
 " ' — to bring Vashti the queen before the king with 
 the crown royal, to show the people and the princes her 
 beauty, for she was fair to look on.'' Do I quote im- 
 modestly, my lord ? "
 
 198 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " Not immodestly," he answered. " For I think 
 — I'll be sworn — no woman ever had half your 
 beauty without knowing it. But you quote mal 
 a propos. Queen Vashti refused to come." 
 
 "< — Therefore was the king very wroth ^ and his 
 anger burned in him. y " 
 
 " I think, again, that you were not the woman 
 to obey any such fear." 
 
 " No. Queen Vashti refused to come, being a 
 queen. Whereas I, my lord — • 
 
 " ' Being your slave, what should I do but tend 
 Upon the hours and times of your desire ? ' " 
 
 " My slave ? " he asked. " Setting aside last 
 night — when I was disgustingly drunk — have you 
 a single excuse for using that word ? " 
 
 " Of your giving, none. You have been more 
 than considerate. Of my own choosing, yes." 
 
 He stared. 
 
 " At any rate Tatty is not your slave," she went 
 on, and he smiled with her. " I am glad you 
 asked Tatty's pardon. Did she forgive you 
 easily ? " 
 
 "Too easily. She was aware, she said, that 
 gentlemen would be gentlemen." 
 
 " She must have meant precisely the reverse." 
 
 " Was 1 pretty bad ? " 
 
 She put a hand across her eyes as if to brush
 
 FIRST OFFER 199 
 
 the image from them. "What matters the degree ? 
 It was another man seated and wearing my lord's 
 body. That hurt." 
 
 " By God, Ruth, it shall never happen again ! ' 
 
 She winced as he spoke her name, and her 
 colour rose. " Please make no promise in haste," 
 she said. 
 
 " Excuse me ; when a man takes an oath for lite, 
 the quicker he's through with it the better — at 
 least that's the way with us Vyells. It's trifles — 
 like getting drunk, for instance — we do deliberately. 
 Believe me, child, I have a will of my own." 
 
 " Yes," she meditated, " I believe you have a 
 strong will." 
 
 " 'Tis a swinish business, over-drinking, when 
 all's said and done." He announced it as if he 
 made a discovery ; and indeed something of a dis- 
 covery it was, for that age. " Weakens a man's 
 self-control, besides dulling his palate. . . . They 
 tell me, by the way, that after you left I beat Silk." 
 
 Ruth looked grave. " You did wrong, then." 
 
 " Silk is a beast." 
 
 " An excellent reason for not making him your 
 guest ; none for striking him at your own table." 
 
 " Perhaps not." Sir Oliver shrugged his 
 shoulders. "Well, he can have his revenge, if 
 he wants it." 
 
 " How so ? As a clergyman he cannot offer to
 
 2oo LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 fight you, and as a coward he would not if he 
 could." 
 
 "Is one, then, to be considerate with cowards?" 
 " Certainly, if you honour cowards with your 
 friendship." 
 
 " Friendship ! . . . The dog likes his platter 
 and I suffer him for his talk. When his talk 
 trespasses beyond sufferance, I chastise him. That's 
 how I look at it." 
 
 " I am sorry, my lord, that Mr. Silk should 
 make the third on your list this morning." 
 
 " Oh, come ; you don't ask me to apologise to 
 Silk ! " 
 
 " To him rather than to me." 
 " But — oh nonsense I He was disgusting — 
 unspeakable, I tell you. If you suppose I struck 
 him for nothing — " 
 " I do not." 
 
 " You cannot think what he said." 
 " Something about me, was it not ? " Then, as 
 Sir Oliver stood silent, " Something a great many 
 folk — your guests included — are quite capable of 
 thinking about me, though they have not Mr. 
 Silk's gift of language." 
 
 " — That gift for which (you will go on to re- 
 mind me) I suffer him." 
 
 " No ; that gift which (you said) trespasses 
 beyond sufferance." She did not remind him that
 
 FIRST OFFER 201 
 
 he, after all, had exposed her and provoked Mr. 
 Silk's uncleanly words. 
 
 Both were beating time now. He had come, as 
 was meet, to offer an apology, and with no intent 
 beyond. He found not only that Ruth Josselin 
 was grown a woman surpassing fair, but that her 
 mere presence (it seemed, by no will of hers, but 
 in spite of her will) laid hold of him, commanding 
 him to face a further intent. It was wonderful, 
 and yet just at this moment it mattered little, that 
 the daylight soberly confirmed what had dazzled 
 his drunkenness over night ; that her speech added 
 good sense to beauty. . . . What mattered at the 
 moment was a sense of urgency, oppressing and 
 oppressed by an equal sense of helplessness. 
 
 He had set the forces working and, with that, 
 had chosen to stand aside — in indolence partly, 
 partly in a careful cultivated indifference, but in 
 part also obeying motives more creditable. He 
 had stood aside, promising the result, but himself 
 dallying with time. And lo ! of a sudden the 
 result had overtaken him. Had he created a 
 monster, in place of a beautiful woman, he had 
 not been more at its mercy. 
 
 But why this sense of urgency ? And why 
 should he allow it to oppress him ? 
 
 Here was a creature exquisite, desirable., educated
 
 202 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 for no purpose but to be his. Then why not 
 declare himself, leap the last easy fence and in a 
 short while make her his ? 
 
 To be sure her education — which, as we have 
 seen, owned one source and spring, the passion to 
 make herself perfect for his sake — had fashioned 
 a woman very different to the woman of his plan- 
 ning. She had built not upon his careless defective 
 design but upon her own incessant instinct for the 
 best. So much his last night's blunder had taught 
 him. He had sent for her as for a handmaid ; 
 and as a handmaid she had obeyed — but in spirit 
 as a queen. 
 
 To put it brutally, she could raise her terms, 
 and he as a gentleman could not beat her down. 
 With ninety-nine women out of a hundred those 
 higher terms could be summed up in one word — 
 marriage. Well and again, why not ? He was 
 rich and his own master. In all but her poor 
 origin and the scandal of an undeserved punish- 
 ment she was worthy — more than worthy ; and 
 for the Colonials, among whom alone that scandal 
 would count against her, he had a habit of contempt. 
 He could, and would in his humour, force Boston 
 to court her salons and hold its tongue from all 
 but secret tattle. The thought, too, of Lady Caro- 
 line at this moment crossing the high seas to be 
 met with the news agreeably moved him to mirth.
 
 FIRST OFFER 203 
 
 But somehow, face to face here, he divined that 
 Ruth was not as ninety-nine women in the hun- 
 dred ; that her terms were different. They might 
 be less, but also they were more. They might be 
 less. Had she not crossed her arms and told him 
 she was his slave ? But in that very humility he 
 read that they were more. There was no last easy 
 fence. There was no fence at all. But a veil 
 there was ; a veil he lacked the insight to pene- 
 trate, the brutality to tear aside. 
 
 Partly to assure himself, partly to tempt her 
 from this mysterious ring of defence, he went on, 
 " I ought to apologise, too, for having sent Silk 
 yesterday with my message. You received it ? " 
 
 She bent her head. 
 
 " My aunt and cousin invite themselves to 
 Boston, and give me no chance to say anything 
 but £ Welcome.' Two pistols held to my head." 
 He laughed. " There's a certain downrightness 
 in Lady Caroline. And what do you suppose she 
 wants ? " 
 
 " Mr. Silk says she wants you to marry your 
 cousin." 
 
 " Told you that, did he ? " His eyes were on 
 her face, but it had not changed colour ; her clear 
 gaze yet baffled him. " Well, and what do you 
 say r 
 
 " Must I say anything ? "
 
 2o 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " Well " — he gave a short, impatient laugh — 
 " we can hardly pretend — can we ? — that it doesn't 
 concern you." 
 
 " I do not pretend it," she answered. " I am 
 yours, to deal with as you will ; to dismiss when 
 you choose. I can never owe you anything but 
 gratitude." 
 
 " Ruth, will you marry me ? " 
 
 He said it with the accent of passion, stepping 
 half a pace forward, holding out his hands. She 
 winced and drew back a little ; she, too, holding 
 out her hands, but with the palms turned down- 
 ward. Upon that movement his passion hung 
 fire. (Was it actual passion, or rather a surrender 
 to the inevitable — to a feeling that it had all 
 happened fatally, beyond escape, that now — beauti- 
 ful, wonderful as she had grown — he could never 
 do without her ? At any rate their hands, out- 
 stretched thus, did not meet.) 
 
 "You talked lightly just now," she said, and 
 with the smallest catch in her voice, " of vows 
 made in haste. You forget your vow that after 
 three years I should go back — go back whence you 
 took me — and choose." 
 
 " No," he corrected. " My promise was that 
 you should go back and announce your choice. 
 If some few months are to run, nothing hinders 
 your choosing here and now. I do not ask you
 
 FIRST OFFER 205 
 
 to marry me before the term is out, but only to 
 make up your mind. You hear what I offer ? " 
 
 She swept him a low, obedient bow. " I do, 
 and it is much to me, my dear lord. Oh, believe 
 me, it is very much ! . . . But I do not think I 
 want to be your wife — thus." 
 
 "You could not love me ? Is that what you mean ?" 
 
 " Not love you ? " Her voice, sweet and low, 
 choked on the words. "Not love you ? " she 
 managed to repeat. " You, who came to me as 
 a god — to me, a poor tavern drudge — who lifted 
 me from the cart, the scourge ; lifted me out 
 of ignorance, out of shame ? Lord — love — doubt 
 what you will of me — but not that i ' 
 
 " You do love me ? Then why — " He paused, 
 wondering. The impalpable barrier hung like a 
 mist about his wits. 
 
 "Did Andromeda not love Perseus, think you ? " 
 she asked lightly, recovering her smile, albeit her 
 eyes were dewy. 
 
 " I am dull, then," he confessed. " I certainly 
 do not understand." 
 
 " You came to me as a god when you saved me. 
 Shall you come to me as less by an inch when you 
 stoop to love me ? " 
 
 "Ah!" he said, as if at length he compre- 
 hended ; " I was drunk last night, and you must 
 have time to get that image out of your mind."
 
 206 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 She shook her head slowly. " You did not ask 
 me last night to marry you. I shall always, I 
 think, be able to separate an unworthy image of 
 you, and forget it." 
 
 " Then you must mean that I am yet un- 
 worthy." 
 
 " My dear lord," she said after a moment or 
 two, in which she seemed to consider how best 
 to make it plain to him, " you asked me just now 
 to marry you, but not because you knew me to 
 be worthy ; and though you may command what 
 you choose, and I can deny you nothing, I would 
 not willingly be your wife for a smaller reason. 
 Nor did you ask me in the strength of your will, 
 your passion even, but in their weakness. Am I 
 not right ? " 
 
 He was dumb. 
 
 " And is it thus," she went on, " that the great 
 ones love and beget noble children ? " 
 
 " I see," he said at length, and very slowly. 
 " It means that I must very humbly become your 
 wooer." 
 
 " It means that, if it be my honour ever to 
 reward you, I would fain it were with the best 
 of me. . . . Send me away from Sabines, my lord, 
 and be in no hurry to choose. Your cousin — 
 what is her name ? Oh, I shall not be jealous ! ' 
 
 With a change of tone she led him to talk of
 
 FIRST OFFER 207 
 
 the new home he had prepared for her — at a farm- 
 stead under Wachusett. He was sending thither 
 two of his gentlest thoroughbreds, that she might 
 learn to ride. 
 
 "Books, too, you shall have in plenty," he 
 promised. " But there will be a dearth of tutors, 
 I fear. I could not, for example, very well ask 
 Mr. Hichens to leave his cure of souls and dwell 
 with two maiden ladies in the wilderness." 
 
 She laughed. Her eyes sparkled already at 
 the thought of learning to be a horsewoman. 
 
 " I will do without tutors." She spread her 
 arms wide, as with a swimmer's motion, and he 
 could not but note the grace of it. The palms, 
 turned outward and slightly downward, had an 
 eloquence, too, which he interpreted. 
 
 " I have mewed you here too long. You sigh 
 for liberty." 
 
 She nodded, drawing a long breath. " I come 
 from the sea-beach, remember." 
 
 " Say but the word, and instead of the mountain, 
 the beach shall be yours." 
 
 " No. I have never seen a mountain. It will 
 have the sound of waters, too — of its own cataracts* 
 And on the plain I shall learn to gallop, and feel 
 the wind rushing past me. These things, and a 
 few books, and Tatty — " Here she broke off, 
 on a sudden thought. " My lord, there is a
 
 208 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 question I have put to myself many times, and 
 have promised myself to put to you. Why does 
 Tatty never talk to me about God and religion and 
 such things ? " 
 
 He did not answer at once. 
 
 She went on : " It cannot only be because you 
 do not believe in them. For Tatty is very relig- 
 ious, and brave as a lion ; she would never be 
 silent against her conscience." 
 
 " How do you know that I don't believe in 
 them ? " 
 
 She laughed. " Does my lord truly suppose 
 me so dull of wit ? or will he fence with my ques- 
 tion instead of answering it ?" 
 
 " The truth is, then," he confessed, " that before 
 she saw you I thought fit to tell Miss Quiney what 
 you had suffered — " 
 
 " She has known it from the first ? I wondered 
 sometimes. But oh, the dear deceit of her ! ' 
 
 " — And seeing that this same religion had caused 
 your sufferings, I asked her to deal gently with 
 you. She would not promise more than to wait 
 and choose her own time. But Tatty, as you call 
 her, is an honourable woman." 
 
 Ruth stretched out her hands. 
 
 " Ah, you were good — -you were good ! ... If 
 only my heart were a glass, and you might see 
 how goodness becomes you ! '
 
 FIRST OFFER 209 
 
 He took her hands this time, and laying one 
 over another, kissed the back of the uppermost, 
 but yet so respectfully that Miss Quiney, entering 
 the room just then, supposed him to be merely 
 taking a ceremonious leave. 
 
 For a few minutes he lingered out his call, hat 
 and walking-cane in hand, talking pleasantly of his 
 last night's guests, and with a smile that assumed 
 his pardon to be granted. Incidentally Ruth 
 learned how it had happened that a chair stood 
 empty for her by Mr. Langton's side. It appeared 
 that Governor Shirley himself had called, earlier in 
 the evening, to offer his felicitations ; and finding 
 the seat on Sir Oliver's right occupied by a toper 
 who either would not or could not make room, he 
 had with some tact taken a chair at the far end of 
 the table and vis-a-vis with his host, protesting 
 that he chose it as the better vantage-ground for 
 delivering a small speech. His speech, too, had 
 been neat, happy in phrase, and not devoid of good 
 feeling. Having delivered it, he had slipped away 
 early, on an excuse of official business. 
 
 Sir Oliver related this appreciatively ; and it had, 
 in fact, been one of those small courtesies which, 
 among men of English stock, give a grace to 
 public life and help to keep the fighting clean. 
 But in fact also (Ruth gathered) the two men did
 
 210 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 not love one another. Shirley — able and ruse 
 statesman — had some sense of colonial independ- 
 ence, colonial ambition, colonial self-respect. Sir 
 Oliver had none ; he was a Whig patrician, and 
 the colonies existed for the use and patronage of 
 England. More than a year before, when Massa- 
 chusetts raised a militia and went forth to capture 
 Louisbourg — which it did, to the astonishment of 
 the world — the Governor, whose heart was set on 
 the expedition, had approached Captain Vyell and 
 privately begged him to command it. He was 
 answered that, having once borne the King's com- 
 mission, Captain Vyell did not find a colonial 
 uniform to his taste.
 
 H 
 
 Chapter VIII 
 
 CONCERNING MARGARET 
 
 E called again, next morning. He came on 
 horseback, followed by a groom. The 
 groom led a light chestnut mare, delicate of step 
 as a dancer, and carrying a side-saddle. 
 
 Ruth's ear had caught the sound of hoofs. She 
 looked forth at her open window as Sir Oliver 
 reined up and hailed, frank as a schoolboy. 
 
 " Your first riding lesson ! " he announced. 
 
 "But I have no riding-skirt," she objected, her 
 eyes opening wide with delight as they looked 
 down and scanned the mare. 
 
 " You shall have one to-morrow." He swung 
 himself out of saddle and gave over his own horse 
 to the groom. " To-day you have only to learn 
 how to sit and hold the reins and ride at a walk." 
 
 She caught up a hat and ran downstairs, blithe 
 as a girl should be blithe. 
 
 He taught her to set her foot in his hand and 
 lifted her into place.
 
 212 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " But are you not riding also ? " she asked as 
 he took the leading-rein. 
 
 " No . I shall walk beside you to-day . . . 
 Now take up the reins — so ; in both hands, 
 please. That will help you to sit square and 
 keep the right shoulder back, which with a woman 
 is half the secret of a good seat. Where a man 
 uses grip, she uses balance. . . . For the same 
 reason you must not draw the feet back ; it throws 
 your body forward and off its true poise on the 
 ips. 
 
 She began to learn at once and intelligently ; 
 for, unlike her other tutors, he started with simple 
 principles and taught her nothing without giving 
 its reason. He led her twice around the open 
 gravelled space before the house, and so aside and 
 along a grassy pathway that curved between the 
 elms to the right. The pathway was broad and 
 allowed him to walk somewhat wide of the mare, 
 yet not so wide as to tauten the leading-rein, 
 which he held (as she learned afterwards) merely 
 to give her confidence ; for the mare was docile 
 and would follow him at a word. 
 
 "I am telling you the why-and-how of it all," 
 he said, " because after this week you will be 
 teaching yourself. This week I shall come every 
 morning for an hour ; but on Wednesday you 
 start for Sweetwater Farm."
 
 CONCERNING MARGARET 213 
 
 " And will there be nobody at the Farm to help 
 me," she asked, a trifle dismayed. 
 
 "The farmer — his name is Cordery — rides, 
 after a fashion. But he knows nothing of a side- 
 saddle, if indeed he has ever seen one," 
 
 " Then to trot, canter, and gallop I must teach 
 myself," she thought ; for among the close planta- 
 tions of Sabines there was room for neither. " If 
 I experiment here, they will find me hanging like 
 Absalom from a bough." But aloud she said 
 nothing of her tremors. 
 
 " Dicky sits a horse remarkably well for his 
 age," said Sir Oliver after a pause. " I had some 
 thought to pack him off holidaying with you. 
 But the puppy has taken to the water like a 
 spaniel. He went off to the Venus yesterday, and 
 it seems that on board of her he struck up, there 
 and then, a close friendship with Harry's lieu- 
 tenant, a Mr. Hanmer ; and now he can talk of 
 nothing but rigging and running -gear. He's 
 crazed for a cruise and a hammock. Also it 
 would seem that he used his time to win the 
 affections of Madam Harry ; which argues that 
 his true calling is not the Navy, after all, but 
 diplomacy." 
 
 Ruth sighed inaudibly. Dicky's companionship 
 would have been delightful. But she knew the 
 child's craze, and would not claim him, to mar
 
 2i 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 his bliss — though she well knew that at a word 
 from her he would renounce it. 
 
 " Diplomacy ? " she echoed. 
 
 "Well," said Sir Oliver, looking straight before 
 him. " Sally — my brother insists on calling her 
 Sally — appears to have her head fixed well on her 
 shoulders : she looks — as you must not forget 
 to look — straight between the horse's ears. But 
 your young bride is apt to be the greatest prude 
 in the world. And Dicky, you see — " 
 
 Her hand weighed on the rein and brought the 
 mare to a halt. 
 
 " Tell me about Dicky ? " 
 
 "About Dicky?" he repeated. 
 
 "About his mother, then." 
 
 " She is dead," he answered, staring at the 
 mare's glossy shoulder and smoothing it. His 
 brows were bent in a frown. 
 
 "Yes ... he told me that, in the coach, on 
 our way from Port Nassau. It was the first thing 
 he told me when he awoke. We had been rolling 
 along the beach for hours in the dark ; and I 
 remember how, almost at the end of the beach, 
 it grew light inside the coach and he opened his 
 
 vV to« • • * 
 
 She did not relate that the child had awaked 
 in her arms. 
 
 " It was the first thing Dicky told me," she
 
 CONCERNING MARGARET 215 
 
 repeated ; " and the only thing about — her. I 
 think it must be the only thing he knows about 
 her," 
 
 " Probably ; for she died when he was born 
 and — well, as the child grew up, it was not easy 
 to explain to him, Other folks, no doubt — the 
 servants and suchlike — were either afraid to tell 
 or left it to me as my business. And I am an 
 indolent parent." He paused and added, "To 
 be quite honest, I dare say I distasted the job and 
 shirked it." 
 
 " You did wrongly then," murmured Ruth, and 
 her eyes were moist. " Dicky started with a great 
 hole in his life, and you left it unfilled. Often, 
 being lonely, he must have needed to know 
 something of his mother. You should have 
 told him all that was good ; and that was not 
 little, I think, if you had loved her ? " 
 
 " I loved her to folly," he answered at length, 
 his eyes still fixed on the mare's shoulder ; " and 
 yet not to folly, for she was a good woman : a 
 married woman, some three or four years older 
 than I and close upon twenty years younger than 
 her husband, who was major of my regiment." 
 
 " You ran away with her ? . . . Say that he 
 was not your friend." 
 
 " He was not ; and you may put it more 
 correctly that I helped her to run away from
 
 216 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 him. He was a drunkard, and in private he 
 ill-used her disgustingly. . . . Having helped 
 her to escape I offered him his satisfaction. He 
 refused to divorce her ; but we fought and I ran 
 him through the arm to avoid running him through 
 the body, for he was a shockingly bad swordsman." 
 
 Ruth frowned. " You could not marry her ? " 
 
 " No, and to kill him was no remedy ; for 
 if I could not marry an undivorced woman, as 
 little could she have married her husband's 
 murderer." He hunched his shoulders and 
 concluded, " The dilemma is not unusual." 
 
 " What happened, then ? " 
 
 " My mother paid twenty calls upon the Duke 
 of Newcastle, and after the twentieth I received 
 the Collectorship of this port of Boston. It was 
 exile, but lucrative exile. My good mother is 
 a Whig and devout ; and there is nothing like 
 that combination for making the best ot both 
 worlds. Indeed you may say that at this point 
 she added the New World, and made the best 
 of all three. She assured me that its solitudes 
 would offer, among other advantages, great oppor- 
 tunity for repentance. c Of course,' she said, * if 
 you must take the woman, you must.' 
 
 He ended with a short laugh. Ruth did not 
 laugh. Her mind was masculine at many points, 
 but like a true woman she detested ironical speech.
 
 CONCERNING MARGARET 217 
 
 "That is Mr. Langton's way of talking," she 
 said ; " and you are using it to hide your feelings. 
 Will you tell me her name ? — her Christian name 
 only ? " 
 
 " She was called Margaret — Margaret Dance. 
 There is no reason why you should not have it 
 in full." 
 
 " Is there a portrait of her ? " 
 
 " Yes ; as a girl she sat to Kneller — a Dryad 
 leaning against an oak. The picture hangs in 
 my dressing-room." 
 
 " It should have hung, rather, in Dicky's 
 nursery ; which," she added, picking up and using 
 the weapon she most disliked, " need not have 
 debarred your seeing it from time to time." 
 
 He glanced up, for he had never before heard 
 her speak thus sharply. 
 
 "Perhaps you are right," he agreed; "though, 
 for me, I let the dead bury the dead. I have 
 no belief, remember, in any life beyond this one. 
 Margaret is gone, and I see not how, being dead, 
 she can advantage me or Dicky." 
 
 His words angered Ruth and at the same time 
 subtly pleased her ; and on second thoughts 
 angered her the more for having pleased. She 
 thought scorn of herself for her momentary 
 jealousy of the dead ; scorn for having felt relief 
 at his careless tone ; and some scorn to be soothed
 
 218 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 by a doctrine that, in her heart, she knew to be 
 false. 
 
 For the moment her passions were like clouds 
 in thunder weather, mounting against the wind ; 
 and in the small tumult of them she let jealousy 
 dart its last lightning tongue. 
 
 " 1 am not learned in these matters, my lord. 
 But I have heard that man must make a deity 
 of something. The worse sort of unbeliever, 
 they say, lives in the present and burns incense 
 to himself. The better sort, having no future 
 to believe in, idolises his past." 
 
 " Margaret is dead," he repeated. " 1 am no 
 sentimentalist." 
 
 She bent her head. To herself she whispered. 
 " He may not idolise his past, yet he cannot 
 escape from it." . . . And her thoughts might 
 have travelled farther, but she had put the mare 
 to a walk again and just then her ears caught 
 an unaccustomed sound, or confusion of sounds. 
 
 At the end of the alley she reined up, wide- 
 eyed. 
 
 A narrow gateway here gave access to what had 
 yesterday been a sloping paddock where Miss 
 Quiney grazed a couple of cows. To-day the 
 cows had vanished and given way to a small 
 army of labourers. Broad strips of turf had 
 vanished also and the brown loam was moving
 
 CONCERNING MARGARET 219 
 
 downhill in scores of wheel-barrows, to build up 
 the slope to a level. 
 
 Sir Oliver marked her amazement and answered 
 it with an easy laugh. 
 
 " The time is short, you see, and already we 
 have wasted half an hour of it unprofitably. . . . 
 These fellows appear to be working well." 
 
 She gazed at the moving gangs as one who, 
 having come by surprise upon a hive of bees, 
 stands still and cons the small creatures at work. 
 
 " But what is the meaning of it ? " 
 
 " The meaning ? Why, that for this week I am 
 your riding-master, and that by to-morrow you 
 will have a passable riding-school."
 
 Chapter IX 
 
 THE PROSPECT 
 
 ''"PHIS happened on a Thursday. On the 
 following Wednesday, a while before day- 
 break, he met her on horseback by the gate of 
 Sabines, and they rode forth side by side, ahead 
 of the coach wherein Miss Quiney sat piled about 
 with baggage, clutching in one hand a copy of 
 Baxter's Saint's Everlasting Rest and with the other 
 the ring of a canary-cage. (It was Dicky's canary, 
 and his first love-offering. Yesterday had been 
 Ruth's birthday — her eighteenth — and under 
 conduct of Manasseh he had visited Sabines to 
 wish her " many happy returns ' and to say 
 good-bye. 
 
 Sir Oliver would escort the travellers for twelve 
 miles on their way, to a point where the inland 
 road broke into cart-tracks, and the tracks diverged 
 across a country newly disafforested and strewn 
 with jagged stumps among which the heavy vehicle 
 could by no means be hauled. Here Farmer
 
 THE PROSPECT 221 
 
 Cordery was to be in waiting with his light tilt- 
 covered wagon. 
 
 They had started thus early because the season 
 was hot and they desired to traverse the open 
 highway and the clearings and to reach the forest 
 before the sun's rays grew ardent. Once past 
 the elms of Sabines their road lay broad before 
 them, easy to discern ; for the moon, well in her 
 third quarter, rode high, with no trace of cloud 
 or mist. So clear she shone that in imagination 
 one could reach up and run a finger along her 
 hard bright edge ; and under moon and stars 
 a land-breeze, virginally cool, played on our two 
 riders' cheeks. Ungloving and stretching forth 
 a hand, Ruth felt the dew falling, as it had been 
 falling ever since sundown ; and under that quiet 
 lustration the world at her feet and around her, 
 unseen as yet, had been renewed, the bee-ravished 
 flowers replaced with blossoms ready to unfold, 
 the turf revived, reclothed in young green, the 
 atmosphere bathed, cleansed of exhausted scents, 
 made ready for morning's "bridal of the earth 
 and sky " : — 
 
 " As a vesture shall he fold them up. . . . In them 
 hath he set a tabernacle for the sun ; which cometh 
 forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber ■, and rejoiceth 
 as a giant to run his course." 
 
 Darkling they rode, and in silence, as though
 
 222 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 by consent. Ruth had never travelled this high- 
 way before : it glimmered across a country of 
 which she knew nothing and could see nothing. 
 But no shadow of fear crossed her spirit. Her 
 heart was hushed ; yet it exulted, because her lord 
 rode beside her. 
 
 They had ridden thus without speech for three 
 or four miles, when her chestnut blundered, 
 tripped, and was almost down. 
 
 "All right?" he asked, as she reined up and 
 steadied the mare. 
 
 " Yes. . . . She gave me a small fright, though." 
 
 " What happened ? It looked to me as if she 
 came precious near crossing her feet. If she 
 repeats that trick by daylight I'll cast her— as I 
 would to-morrow, if I were sure." 
 
 " Is it so bad a trick ? " 
 
 " It might break your neck. It would cer- 
 tainly bring her down and break her knees." 
 
 " Oh 1 " Ruth shivered. " Do you mean that 
 it would actually break them ?" she asked in her 
 
 ignorance. 
 
 He laughed. " Well, that's possible ; but I 
 meant the skin of the knee." 
 
 " That would heal, surely ? " 
 
 He laughed again. "A horse is like a woman — " 
 he began, but checked himself of a sudden. She 
 waited for him to continue, and he went on, " It
 
 THE PROSPECT 223 
 
 knocks everything off the price, you see. Some 
 won't own a horse that has once been down ; and 
 any knowledgeable man can tell, at a glance. It 
 is the first thing he looks for." 
 
 She considered for a moment. " But if the 
 mark had been a scratch only — and the scratch 
 had healed — might she not be as good a horse 
 as ever ? " 
 
 " It would damage her price, none the less." 
 
 " But you are not a horse-dealer. Would you 
 value a horse by its selling price ? " 
 
 He laughed. " I am afraid," he owned, " that 
 I should be ruled by other men's opinions. Your 
 connoisseur does not collect chipped chinaware. . . . 
 There's the chance, too, that the mare, having 
 once fallen, will throw herself again by the same 
 trick." 
 
 " And women are like horses," thought Ruth 
 as they rode on. The night was paling about 
 them, and she watched the rolling champaign as 
 little by little it took shape, emerging from the 
 morning mist and passing from monochrome into 
 faint colours : for albeit the upper sky was clear 
 as ever, mist filled the hollows of the hills and 
 rolled up their sides like a smoke. 
 
 " Look ! ' commanded Sir Oliver, reining up 
 and turning in his saddle. 
 
 He pointed with his horse-whip. Behind them,
 
 224 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 over a tree-clad hill, lay a long purple cloud ; and 
 above it, while he pointed, the sun thrust its edge 
 as it were the rim of a golden paten. Ruth 
 wheeled her mare about, to face the spectacle, and 
 at that moment the cloud parted horizontally as 
 though a hand had ripped the veil across. A flood 
 of gold poured through the rent, dazzling her eyes. 
 
 The sun mounted and swam free : the upper 
 portion of the veil floated off" like a wisp and 
 drifted down the wind. Where the glory had 
 shone, it lingered through tint after tint — rose, 
 pale lemon, palest sea-green — and so passed into 
 azure and became one with the rest of the heavens. 
 
 Sir Oliver withdrew his eyes and sought hers. 
 " When I find the need of faith," he said, " I shall 
 turn sun-worshipper." 
 
 " You have never found that need ? " she asked 
 slowly. 
 
 " Never," he confessed. "And you ? " 
 
 " Never as a need. I mean," she explained, 
 "that though I always despised religion — yes, 
 always, even before I came to hate it — I never 
 doubted that some wisdom must be at watch and 
 at work all around me, ordering the sun and 
 stars, for instance, and separating right from 
 wrong. I just cannot understand how any one 
 can do without a faith of that sort : it's as neces- 
 sary as breath."
 
 THE PROSPECT 225 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " To me one 
 Jehovah's as good as another, as unnecessary, and 
 as incredible. I find it easier to believe that chaos 
 hurtled around until it struck out some working 
 balance ; that the stars learned their places pretty 
 much as men and women are learning theirs to-day. 
 A painful process, I'll grant you, and damnably 
 tedious ; but they came to it in the end, and so 
 in the end, maybe, will poor imitative man. But," 
 he broke off, " this faith of yours must have failed 
 you, once." 
 
 She shivered. " No ; I made no claim on it, 
 you see. Perhaps " — with a little smile — " I did 
 not think myself important enough., I only know 
 that, whatever was right, those men were horribly 
 wrong : for it must be wrong to be cruel. Then 
 I woke up, and you were beside me — " 
 
 She would have added, " How could I doubt, 
 then ? ' But her voice failed her, and she wheeled 
 about that he might not see her tears. 
 
 He, too, turned his horse. They rode on for 
 a few paces in silence. 
 
 " I wish," she said, recovering her voice — " I 
 
 wish, for your sake, you could have felt what 
 
 I have been feeling since we left Sabines ; the 
 
 goodness all about us, watching us out of the night 
 
 and the stars." 
 
 She looked up ; but the stars were gone, faded 
 
 8
 
 226 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 out into daylight. He pushed his horse half a 
 pace ahead, and glanced sideways at her face. 
 Tears shone yet in her eyes, and his own, as 
 he quickly averted them, fell on a tall mullein 
 growing by the roadside. Big drops of dew 
 adhered upon its woolly leaves and twinkled in 
 the sunshine ; and by contrast he knew the colour 
 of her eyes — that they were violet and of the 
 night — their dew distilled out of such violet 
 darkness as had been the quality of one or two 
 Mediterranean nights that lingered among his 
 memories of the Grand Tour. More and more 
 this girl surprised him with graces foreign to this 
 colonial soil, graces supposed by him to be classical 
 and lost, the appanage of goddesses. 
 
 Like a goddess now she lifted an arm and 
 pointed west, as he had pointed east. Ahead of 
 them, to the right of the road, rose a tall hill, 
 wooded at the base, broken at the summit by 
 craggy terraces. Two large birds wheeled and 
 hovered above it, high in the blue, fronting the 
 sunlight. 
 
 " Eagles, by Jove ! " cried Sir Oliver. 
 
 Ruth drew a breath and watched them. She 
 had never before seen an eagle. 
 
 " Will they have their nest in the cliffs ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 Perhaps. . . . No, more likely they come from 
 
 (<
 
 THE PROSPECT 227 
 
 Wachusett ; more likely still, from the mountains 
 beyond. They are here seeking food." 
 
 "They do not appear to be seeking food," she 
 said after a pause during which she watched their 
 ambits of flight circling and intersecting " See 
 the nearest one mounting, and the other lifting 
 on a wider curve to meet him above. One would 
 say they followed some pattern, like folks dancing." 
 
 " Some act of homage to the sun," he suggested. 
 £C They have come down to the sea to meet him — 
 they look over the Atlantic from aloft there — and 
 perform in his honour. Who knows ? " 
 
 Across Ruth's inner vision there flashed a 
 memory of Mr. Hichens, black-suited and bald, 
 bending over his Hebrew Bible and expounding 
 a passage of Job : " Doth the eagle mount up at thy 
 command, and make her nest on high ? She dwelleth 
 and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and 
 the strong place. . . ." 
 
 To herself she said : " If it be so, the eagle's 
 faith is mine ; my lord's also, perchance, if he but 
 knew it." 
 
 Aloud she asked, " Why are the noblest, birds 
 and beasts, so few and solitary ? " 
 
 Sir Oliver laughed. " You may include man. 
 The answer is the same, and simple : the strong 
 of the earth feed on the weak, and it takes all the 
 weaklings to make blood for the few."
 
 228 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 She mused ; but when she spoke again it was 
 not to dispute with him. " You say they look 
 over the sea from aloft there. Might we have 
 sight of it from the top of the hill ? " 
 
 " Perhaps. There is plenty of time to make 
 sure before the coach overtakes us — though I warn 
 you it will be risky." 
 
 " I am not afraid." 
 
 They cantered off gaily, plunged into the woods 
 and breasted the slope, Sir Oliver leading and 
 threading his way through the undergrowth. By- 
 and-by they came to the bed of a torrent and 
 followed it up, the horses picking their steps 
 upon the flat boulders between which the water 
 trickled. Some of these boulders were slimed 
 and slippery, and twice Sir Oliver reached out 
 a hand and hauled the mare firmly on to her 
 quarters. 
 
 The belt of crags did not run completely around 
 the hill. At the back of it, after a scramble out 
 of the gully, they came on a slope of good turf, 
 and so cantered easily to the summit. 
 
 Ruth gave a little cry of delight, and followed 
 it up with a yet smaller one of disappointment. 
 The country lay spread at her feet like a vast 
 amphitheatre, ringed with wooded hills. Across 
 the plain they encircled a river ran in loops, and 
 from the crag at the edge of which she stood a
 
 THE PROSPECT 229 
 
 streamlet emerged and took a brave leap down 
 the hill to join it. 
 
 " But where is the sea ? " 
 
 "That small hill yonder must hide it. You 
 see it, with its line of elms ? If those trees were 
 down, we should see the Atlantic for a certainty. 
 If you like the spot otherwise, I will have them 
 removed." 
 
 He said it seriously ; but of course she took 
 it for granted that he spoke in jest, albeit the jest 
 puzzled her a little. Indeed when she glanced up 
 at him he was smiling, with his eyes on the distant 
 landscape. 
 
 " The mountain too," he added, " if the trees 
 will not suffice. Though not by faith, it shall be 
 removed."
 
 Chapter X 
 
 THREE LADIES 
 
 " ^TOU may smoke," said Dicky politely, setting 
 down his glass. 
 
 "Thank you," answered Mr. Hanmer. "But 
 are you sure ? In my experience of houses there's 
 always some one that objects." 
 
 Dicky lifted his chin. "We call this the 
 nursery because it has always been the nursery. 
 But I do what I like here." 
 
 Mr. Hanmer had accepted the boy's invitation 
 to pay him a visit ashore and help him to rig a 
 model cutter— a birthday gift from his father ; and 
 the pair had spent an afternoon upon it, seated 
 upon the floor with the toy between them and 
 a litter of twine everywhere, Dicky deep in the 
 mysteries of knots and splices, the lieutenant 
 whittling out miniature blocks and belaying-pins 
 with a knife that seemed capable of anything. 
 
 They had been interrupted by Manasseh, bear- 
 ing a tray of refreshments — bread and honey and
 
 THREE LADIES 231 
 
 cakes, with a jug of milk for the one ; for the 
 other a decanter of brown sherry with a dish of 
 ratafia biscuits. The repast was finished now, 
 and Dicky, eager to fall to work again, feared 
 that his friend might make an excuse for departing. 
 
 Mr. Hanmer put a hand in his pocket and drew 
 out his pipe. 
 
 "Your father would call it setting a bad example, 
 I doubt?" 
 
 To this the boy, had he been less loyal, might 
 have answered that his father took no great stock 
 in examples, bad or good. He said : " Papa 
 smokes He says it is cleaner than taking snuff"; 
 and so it is, if you have ever seen Mr. Silk's waist- 
 coat. 
 
 So Mr. Hanmer filled and lit his pipe, doing 
 wonders with a pocket tinder-box. Dicky watched 
 the process gravely through every detail, laying up 
 hints for manhood. 
 
 " I ought to have asked you before," he said. 
 " Nobody comes here ever, except Mr. Silk and 
 the servants." 
 
 Hapless speech and bootless boast ! They had 
 scarcely seated themselves to work again, the lieu- 
 tenant puffing vigorously, before they heard foot- 
 steps in the corridor, with a rustle of silks, and a 
 hand tapped on the door. 
 
 It opened as Dicky jumped to his feet, calling
 
 232 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 "Come in!" — and on the threshold appeared 
 Mrs. Vyell, in walking dress. Dicky liked " Mrs. 
 Harry," as he called her ; but he stared in dismay 
 at two magnificent ladies in the doorway behind 
 her, and more especially at the elder of the twain, 
 who, attired in puce-coloured silk, stiff as a board, 
 walked in lifting a high patrician nose and exclaim- 
 ing— 
 
 " Fah ! What a detestable odour ! " 
 
 Mr. Hanmer hurriedly hid his pipe and 
 scrambled up, stammering an apology. Dicky 
 showed more self-possession. He gave a little bow 
 to the two strangers and turned to Mrs. Harry. 
 
 " I am sorry, Aunt Sarah. But I didn't know, 
 of course, that you were coming and bringing 
 visitors." 
 
 " To be sure you did not, child," said Mrs. 
 Harry with a good-natured smile. She was a 
 cheerful, commonsensical person, pleasant of face 
 rather than pretty, by no means wanting in wit, 
 and radiant of happiness, just now, as a young 
 woman should be who has married the man of 
 her heart. " But let me present you — to Lady 
 Caroline Vyell and Miss Diana." 
 
 Dicky bowed again. " I am sorry, ma'am," 
 he repeated, addressing Lady Caroline. " Mr. 
 Hanmer has put out his pipe, you see, and the 
 window is open."
 
 THREE LADIES 233 
 
 Lady Caroline carried an eyeglass with a long 
 handle of tortoise-shell. Through it she treated 
 Dicky to a deliberate and disconcerting scrutiny, 
 and lowered it to turn and ask Mrs. Harry, — 
 
 " You permit him to call you ' Aunt Sarah ' ? " 
 
 Mrs. Harry laughed. " It sounds better, you 
 will admit, than c Aunt Sally,' and don't necessitate 
 my carrying a pipe in my mouth. Oh yes," she 
 added, with a glance at the boy's flushed face, 
 "Dicky and I are great friends. In any one's 
 presence but Mr. Hanmer's I would say c the 
 best of friends.' " 
 
 Lady Caroline turned her eyeglass upon Mr. 
 Hanmer. " Is this — er — gentleman his tutor ? ' 
 she asked. 
 
 The question, and the sight of the lieutenant's 
 mental distress, set Mrs. Harry laughing again. 
 " In seamanship only. Mr. Hanmer is my hus- 
 band's second-in-command and one of the best 
 officers in the Navy." 
 
 " I consider smoking a filthy habit," said Lady 
 Caroline. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," murmured Mr. Hanmer. 
 
 The odious eyeglass was turned upon Dicky 
 ao-ain. He, to avoid it, glanced aside at Miss 
 Diana. He found Miss Diana less unpleasant 
 than her mother, but attractive only by contrast. 
 She was a tall woman, handsome but somewhat
 
 234 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 haggard, with a face saved indeed from peevishness 
 by its air of distinction, but scornful and discon- 
 tented. She had been riding, and her long, close 
 habit became her well, as did her wide-brimmed 
 hat, severely trimmed with a bow of black ribbon 
 and a single ostrich feather. 
 
 " Diana," said Lady Caroline, but without re- 
 moving her stony stare, " the child favours his 
 mother." 
 
 " Indeed ! " the girl answered indifferently. " I 
 never met her." 
 
 " Oliver has her portrait somewhere, I believe. 
 We must get him to show it to us. A toast in her 
 day, and quite notably good-looking — though after 
 a style I abominate." She turned to Mrs. Harry 
 and explained : " One of your helpless clinging 
 women. In my experience that sort does incom- 
 parably the worst mischief." 
 
 " Oh, hush, please ! " murmured Mrs. Harry. 
 
 But Lady Caroline came of a family addicted to 
 speaking its thoughts aloud. "Going to sea, is he ? 
 Well, on the whole Oliver couldn't do better. The 
 boy's position here must be undesirable in many 
 ways ; and at sea a lad stands on his own feet — eh, 
 Mr. I did not catch your name ? " 
 
 " Hanmer, ma'am." 
 
 " Well, and isn't it so ? " 
 
 " Not altogether, ma'am," stammered Mr. Han-
 
 THREE LADIES 235 
 
 mer. " If ever your ladyship had been in the 
 Navy—" 
 
 "God bless the man ! " Lady Caroline interjected. 
 
 " — you'd have found that — that a good deal 
 of kissing goes by favour, ma'am." 
 
 " H'mph ! ' said Lady Caroline when Mrs. 
 Harry had done laughing. " The child will not 
 lack protection, of course. Whether 'tis to their 
 credit or not I won't say, but the Vyells have 
 always shown a conscience for — er — obligations 
 of this kind." 
 
 On her way back to Sabines, where Sir Oliver 
 had installed them, Lady Caroline again com- 
 mended to her daughter his sound sense in packing 
 the child off to sea. 
 
 " They will take 'em at any age, I understand ; 
 and Mrs. Vyell, it appears, has no objection." 
 
 " She is not returning to Carolina by sea." 
 
 " No ; but she can influence her husband. I 
 must have another talk with her ... a pleasant, 
 unaffected creature, and, for a sailor's wife, more 
 than presentable. One had hardly indeed looked 
 to find such natural good manners in this part 
 of the world. Her mother was a Quakeress, she 
 tells me : yet she laughs a good deal, which I had 
 imagined to be against their principles. She doesn't 
 say ' thee ' and ' thou ' either."
 
 236 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " I heard her tutoyer her husband/' 
 
 "Indeed? . . . Well," Lady Caroline went on 
 somewhat inconsequently, " Harry is a lucky man. 
 When one thinks of the dreadful connections these 
 sailors are only too apt to form — though one cannot 
 wholly blame them, their opportunities being what 
 they are . . . But, as I was saying, Oliver couldn't 
 have done better, for himself or for the child. At 
 home the poor little creature could never be but a 
 question ; and since he has this craze for salt water 
 — curious he should resemble his uncle in this 
 rather than his father — one may almost call it prov- 
 idential. ... At the same time, my dear, I v/ish 
 you could have shown a little more interest." 
 
 « In the child ? Why ? " 
 
 " Really, Diana, I wish you would cure yourself 
 of putting these abrupt questions. . . . Your Cousin 
 Oliver is now the head of the family, remember. 
 He has received us with uncommon cordiality, and 
 put himself out not a little — " 
 
 " I can believe that" said Diana brusquely. 
 
 " And it says much. All men are selfish, and 
 Oliver as a youth was very far from being an ex- 
 ception. I find the change in him significant of 
 much. ... At the same time you have mixed 
 enough in the world, dear, to know that young 
 men will be young men, and this sort of thing 
 happens, unfortunately."
 
 c< 
 
 THREE LADIES 237 
 
 If, mamma, you suppose I bear Cousin Oliver 
 any grudge because of this child — " 
 
 " I am heartily glad to hear you say it. There 
 should be, with us women, a Christian nicety in 
 dealing with these — er — situations ; in retrospect, 
 at all events. A certain — disgust, shall we say ? — 
 is natural, proper, even due to our sex : I should 
 think the worse — very far the worse — of my Diana 
 did she not feel it. But above all things, charity ! 
 . . . And let me tell you, dear, what I could not 
 have told at the time, but I think you are now old 
 enough to know that such an experience is often 
 the best cure for a man, who thereafter, should he 
 be fortunate in finding the right woman, anchors 
 his affections and proves the most assiduous of 
 husbands. This may sound paradoxical to you — " 
 
 " Dear mamma " — Diana hid a smile and a little 
 yawn together — "believe me it does not." 
 
 " Such a man, then," pursued Lady Caroline, 
 faintly surprised, " is likely to be the more appreci- 
 ative of any kindness shown to — er — what I may 
 call the living consequence of his error." 
 
 " Why not say c Dicky ' at once, mamma, and 
 have done with it." 
 
 " To Dicky, then, if you will ; but I was 
 attempting to lay down the general rule which 
 Dicky illustrates. A little gentle notice taken 
 of the child not only appeals to the man as
 
 238 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 womanly in itself, but delicately conveys to him 
 that the past is, to some extent, condoned. He 
 has sown his wild oats : he is, so to speak, 
 range; but he is none the less grateful for some 
 assurance — " 
 
 Lady Caroline's discourse had whiled the way 
 back to Sabines, to the drawing-room ; and here 
 Diana wheeled round on her with the question, 
 sudden and straight, — 
 
 "Do you suppose that Cousin Oliver is range, 
 as you call it ? " 
 
 " My child, we have every reason to believe so." 
 
 " Then what do you make of this ? " The girl 
 took up a small volume that lay on the top of 
 the harpsichord, and thrust it into her mother's 
 hands. 
 
 " Eh ? What ? ' Lady Caroline turned the 
 book back uppermost and spelled out the title 
 through her eyeglass. " c Ovid ' — he's Latin, is 
 he not ? Dear, I had no notion that you kept 
 up your studies in that — er — tongue." 
 
 " I do not. I have forgot what little I learned 
 of it, and that was next to nothing. But open the 
 book, please, at the title-page." 
 
 " I see nothing. It has neither book-plate nor 
 owner's signature." (Indeed Ruth never wrote her 
 name in her books. She looked upon them as her 
 lord's, and hers only in trust.)
 
 THREE LADIES 239 
 
 " The title-page, I said. You are staring at the 
 flyleaf." 
 
 " Ah, to be sure — " Lady Caroline turned a 
 leaf. "Is this what you mean?" She held up 
 a loose sheet of paper covered with writing. 
 
 "Read it." 
 
 The elder lady found the range of her eyeglass 
 and conned — in silence and without well grasping 
 its purport — the following effusion : — 
 
 Other maids make Love a foeman, 
 Lie in ambush to defeat him ; 
 I alone will step to meet him 
 Valiant, his accepted woman. 
 
 Equal, consort in his car 3 
 Ride I to his royal war. 
 
 Victims of his bow and targe, 
 Yet who toyed with lovers' quarrels, 
 Envy me my braver laurels ! 
 
 Lord ! thy shield of shadow large 
 Lift above me, shout the charge ! 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I make nothing of it," owned Lady Caroline. 
 "It appears to be poetry of a sort — probably some 
 translation from the Latin author." 
 
 " You note, at least, that the handwriting is a 
 woman's ? " 
 
 " H'm, yes," Lady Caroline agreed.
 
 2 4 o LADY GOOU-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " Nothing else ?" 
 
 " Dear, you speak in riddles." 
 
 " It is a riddle," said Diana. " Take the first 
 letter of each line, and read them down, in order." 
 
 « O, L, 1, V, E, R V, Y, E, L, L," spelled Lady 
 Caroline, and lowered her eyeglass. " My dear, 
 as you say, this cannot be a mere coincidence." 
 
 " Did 1 say that ? " asked Diana. 
 
 " But who can it be, or have been ? . . . That 
 Dance woman, perhaps ? She was infatuated 
 enough." 
 
 " It was not she," said Diana positively. 
 
 " Somebody can tell us. . . . That Mr. Silk, for 
 instance." 
 
 " Ah, you too think of him ? " 
 
 "As a clergyman — and to some extent a boon 
 companion of Oliver's — he would be likely to 
 know — " 
 
 " — And to tell ? You are quite right, mamma : 
 I have asked him."
 
 Chapter XI 
 
 THE ESPIAL 
 
 O UTH JOSSELIN came down from the moun- 
 tain to the stream-side, where, by a hickory 
 bush under a knoll, her mare Madcap stood at 
 tether. Slipping behind the bush — though no 
 living soul was near to spy on her— she slid off her 
 short skirt and indued a longer one more suitable 
 for riding ; rolled the discarded garment into a 
 bundle which she strapped behind the saddle ; 
 untethered the mare, and mounted. 
 
 At her feet the plain stretched for miles, 
 carpeted for the most part with short sweet turf 
 and dotted in the distance with cattle, red in the 
 sunlight that overlooked the mountain's shoulder. 
 These were Farmer Cordery's cattle, and they 
 browsed within easy radius of a clump of elms 
 clustered about Sweetwater Farm. Some four 
 miles beyond, on the far edge of the plain, a 
 very similar clump of elms hid another farm, 
 Natchett by name, in like manner outposted with
 
 242 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 cattle ; and these were the only habitations of men 
 within the ring of the horizon. 
 
 The afternoon sun cast the shadow of the 
 mountain far across this plain, almost to the 
 confines of Sweetwater homestead A breeze 
 descended from the heights and played with Ruth's 
 curls as she rested in saddle for a moment, 
 scanning the prospect ; a gentle breeze, easily 
 out-galloped. Time, place, and the horse — all 
 promised a perfect gallop ; her own spirits, too. 
 For she had spent the day's hot hours in 
 clambering among the slopes, battling with certain 
 craggy doubts in her own mind ; and with the 
 afternoon shadow had come peace at heart ; and 
 out of peace a certain careless exultation. She 
 would test the mare's speed and enjoy this hour 
 before returning to Tatty's chit-chat, the evening 
 lamp, and the office of family prayer with which 
 Farmer Cordery duly dismissed his household for 
 the night. 
 
 She pricked Madcap down the slope, and at the 
 foot of it launched her on the gallop. Surely, 
 unless it be that of sailing on a reach and in a boat 
 that fairly heels to the breeze, there is no such 
 motion to catch the soul on high. The breeze 
 met the wind of her flight and was beaten by it, 
 but still she carried the moment of encounter with 
 her as a wave on the crest of which she rode.
 
 THE ESPIAL 243 
 
 It swept, lifted, rapt her out of herself — yet in no 
 bodiless ecstasy ; for her blood pulsed in the beat 
 of the mare's hoofs. To surrender to it was 
 luxury, yet her hand on the rein held her own 
 will ready at call ; and twice, where Sweetwater 
 brook meandered, she braced herself for the water- 
 jump, judging the pace and the stride ; and twice, 
 with many feet to spare, Madcap sailed over the 
 silver-grey riband. 
 
 All the while, ahead of her, the mountain 
 lengthened its shadow. She overtook and passed 
 it a couple of furlongs short of the homestead ; 
 passed it — so clearly defined it lay across the 
 pasture — with a firmer hold on the rein, as though 
 
 clearing an actual obstacle. . . . She was in 
 
 o 
 
 sunlight now. Before her a wooden fence pro- 
 tected the elms and their enclosure. At the gate 
 of it by rule she should have drawn rein. 
 
 She had never leapt a gate ; had attempted 
 a bank now and then, but nothing serious. Her 
 success at the water-jumps tempted her ; and the 
 mare, galloping with her second wind, seemed 
 to feel the temptation every whit as strongly. 
 
 In the instant of rising to it Ruth wondered 
 what Farmer Cordery would say if she broke 
 his top bar. . . . The mare's feet touched it lightly 
 — rap, rap. She was over. 
 
 A wood pile stood within the gate to the left,
 
 244 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 hiding the house. She had passed the corner 
 of it before she could bring Madcap to a 
 standstill, and was laughing to herself in triumph 
 as she glanced around. 
 
 Heavens ! 
 
 The house was of timber, with a deep timbered 
 verandah ; and in the verandah, not twenty paces 
 away, beside a table laid for coffee, stood Tatty 
 with three ladies about her — three ladies all 
 elegantly dressed and staring. 
 
 Ruth's hand went up quickly, involuntarily, 
 to her dishevelled hair ; and at the same moment 
 the little lady, as though making a bolt from 
 captivity, stepped down from the verandah and 
 came shuffling across the yard towards her, almost 
 at a run. 
 
 " Ruth, dear ! " she panted. <( Oh, dear, dear ! 
 I am so glad you have come ! " 
 
 " Why, what's the matter ? " The girl, scenting 
 danger, faced it. She swung herself down from 
 the saddle-crutch, picked up her skirt, and taking 
 Madcap's rein close beside the curb, walked slowly 
 up to the verandah. " Have they been bullying 
 you, dear ? " she asked in a low quiet voice. 
 
 " They have come all this way to see us — Lady 
 Caroline Vyell, and Miss Diana ; yes, and Mrs. 
 Captain Vyell — < Mrs. Harry,' as Dicky calls her. 
 They have ferreted us out, somehow — and the
 
 THE ESPIAL 245 
 
 questions they have been asking ! I think, 
 dear — I really think — that in your place I should 
 walk Madcap round to her stable and run indoors 
 for a tidy-up before facing them. A minute or 
 two to prepare yourself— I can easily make your 
 
 excuses." 
 
 "And a moment since you were calling me to 
 come and deliver you ! " answered Ruth, still 
 advancing. " Present me, please." 
 
 Little Miss Quiney, turning and running ahead, 
 stammered some words to Lady Caroline, who 
 paid no heed to them or to her but kept her 
 eyeglass lifted and fixed upon Ruth. Miss Diana 
 stood a pace behind her mother's shoulder ; Mrs. 
 Harry, after a glance at the girl, turned and made 
 pretence to busy herself with the coffee-table. 
 
 " So you are the young woman ! ' ejaculated 
 Lady Caroline. 
 
 " Am I ? " said Ruth quietly, and after a 
 profound curtsy turned sideways to the mare. 
 "A lump of sugar, Tatty, if you please. ... I 
 thank you, ma'am — " as Mrs. Harry, anticipating 
 Miss Quiney, stepped forward with a piece held 
 between the sugar-tongs. " And I think she even 
 deserves a second, for clearing the yard gate." 
 
 She fed the gentle creature and dismissed her. 
 " Now trot around to your stall and ask one of 
 the boys to unsaddle you ! " She stood for ten
 
 246 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 seconds, may be, watching as the mare with a fling 
 of the head trotted off obediently. Then she 
 turned again and met Mrs. Harry's eyes with 
 a frank smile. 
 
 " It is the truth," she said. " We cleared 
 the gate. Come, please, and admire — " 
 
 Mrs. Harry, in spite of herself, stepped down 
 from the verandah and followed. The others 
 stood as they were, planted in stiff disapproval. 
 
 The girl led Mrs. Harry to the corner of the 
 wood pile. " Admire ! ' she repeated, pointing 
 with her riding-switch ; and then, still keeping 
 the gesture, she sank her voice and asked quickly, 
 " Why are you here ? You have a good face, 
 not like the others. Tell me." 
 
 " Lady Caroline — " stammered Mrs. Harry, 
 taken at unawares. " She has a right, naturally, 
 to concern herself — " 
 
 cc Does he know ? " 
 
 " Sir Oliver ? No — I believe not. . . . You 
 see, the Vyells are a great family, and 'family' 
 to them is a tremendous afFair — a religion almost. 
 Whatever touches one touches all ; especially 
 when that one happens to be the head of his 
 house." 
 
 " Is that how Captain Vyell — how your husband 
 — feels it ? — No, please keep looking towards the 
 gate. I mean no harm by these questions, and
 
 THE ESPIAL 247 
 
 you will not mind answering them, I hope ? It 
 gives me just a little more chance of fair play." 
 
 " To tell you the truth," said Mrs. Harry, 
 pretending to study the jump, " I looked at you 
 because I could not help it. You are an extra- 
 ordinarily beautiful woman." 
 
 " Thank you," answered Ruth. " But about 
 1 Captain Harry,' as we call him ? I suppose he, 
 as next of kin, is most concerned of all ? " 
 
 " He did not tell me about you, if that is what 
 you mean ; or rather he told me nothing until 
 I questioned him. Then he owned that there 
 was such a person, and that he had seen you. 
 But he does not even know of this visit ; he 
 imagines that Lady Caroline is taking me for a 
 pleasure trip, just to view the country." 
 
 Ruth turned towards the house. " You will 
 tell him, of course," she said gravely, "when you 
 return to the ship." 
 
 "I — I suppose I shall," confessed Mrs. Harry, 
 and added, " There's one thing. You may 
 suppose that, as his wife, I am as much concerned 
 as any — perhaps more than these others. But I 
 don't want you to think that I suggested hunting 
 you up." 
 
 " I do not think anything of the sort. In fact 
 I am sure you did not." 
 
 " Thank you."
 
 248 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Ruth had a mind to ask " Who, then, had 
 brought them ? " but refrained. She had guessed, 
 and pretty surely. 
 
 " Well," she said with half a laugh, " you have 
 been good and given me time to recover. It's 
 heavy odds, you see, and — and I have not been 
 trained for it, exactly. But I feel better. Shall 
 we go back and face them ? " 
 
 " One moment, again ! ' Mrs. Harry's kindly 
 face hung out signals of distress. " It's heavy 
 odds, as you say. Everything's against you. 
 But the Lord knows I'm a well-meaning woman, 
 and I'd hate to be unjust. If only I could be 
 sure — if only you would tell me — " 
 
 Ruth stood still and faced her. 
 
 " Look in my eyes." 
 
 Mrs. Harry looked and was convinced. " But 
 you love him," she murmured ; " and he — " 
 
 " Ah, ma'am," said Ruth, " I answer you one 
 question, and you would ask me another ! '
 
 Chapter XII 
 
 LADY CAROLINE 
 
 CHE walked back to the verandah. 
 
 " I understand," she said, " that Lady Caro- 
 line wishes a word with me." 
 
 With a slight bow she led the way through a 
 low window that opened upon the Corderys' best 
 parlour, through that apartment, and across a 
 passage to the door of a smaller room lined with 
 shelves — formerly a stillroom or store-chamber for 
 home-made wines, cordials, preserves, but now 
 converted into a boudoir for her use. Its one 
 window looked out upon the farmyard, now in 
 shadow, and a farther doorway led to the dairy. 
 It stood open, and beyond it the eye travelled 
 down a vista of cool slate flags and polished cream- 
 pans. 
 
 On the threshold Ruth stood aside to let Lady 
 Caroline enter ; followed, and closed the door ; 
 stepped across and closed the door of the dairy. 
 Lady Caroline meanwhile found a seat, and, lifting
 
 250 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 her eyeglass, studied at long range the library 
 disposed upon the store shelves. 
 
 "We had best be quite frank," said she, as 
 Ruth came back and stood before her. 
 " If you please." 
 
 " Of course it is all very scandalous and — er — 
 nauseating, though 1 dare say you are unable to 
 see it in that light. I merely mention it in justice 
 to myself, lest you should mistake me as under- 
 rating or even condoning Sir Oliver's conduct. 
 You will guess, at any rate, how it must shock my 
 daughter." 
 
 " Yes," said Ruth ; and added, " Why did you 
 bring her ? " 
 
 The girl's attitude — erect before her, patient, 
 but unflinching— had already gone some way to 
 discompose Lady Caroline. This straight question 
 fairly disconcerted her ; the worse because she 
 could not quarrel with the tone of it. 
 
 " I wish," she answered, " my Diana to face 
 the facts of life, ugly though they may be." As 
 if aware that this hardly carried conviction — for, 
 despite herself, something in Ruth began to im- 
 press her — she shifted ground and went on, " But 
 we will not discuss my daughter, please. The 
 point is, this state of things cannot continue. 
 It may be hard for you — 1 am trying to take 
 your view of it — but what may pass in a young
 
 LADY CAROLINE 251 
 
 man of blood cannot be permitted when he suc- 
 ceeds to a title and the — er — headship of his 
 family. It becomes then his duty to give that 
 family clean heirs. I put it plainly ?" 
 
 Ruth bent her head for assent. 
 
 " Oliver Vyell, as no doubt you know, has 
 already been mixed up in one entanglement, and 
 has a child for reminder." 
 
 " Oh, but Dicky is the dearest child ! the 
 sweetest -natured, the cleanest -minded ! Have 
 you not seen him yet ? " 
 
 Lady Caroline stared. As little as royalty did 
 she understand being cross-questioned. It gave 
 her a quite unexpected sense of helplessness. 
 
 " I fear you do not at all grasp the position," 
 she said severely. "After all, I had done better 
 to disregard your feelings, whatever they may be, 
 and come to terms at once." 
 
 " No," answered Ruth, musing ; "I do not 
 understand the position ; but I want to, more 
 than I can say — and your ladyship must help me, 
 please." She paused a moment. " In New Eng- 
 land we prize good birth, good breeding, and what 
 we too call 'family'; but I think the word must 
 mean something different to you who live at home 
 in England." 
 
 " I should hope so ! " breathed Lady Caroline. 
 
 " It must be mixed up somehow with the great
 
 252 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 estates you have held for generations and the old 
 houses you have lived in. No," she went on, as 
 Lady Caroline would have interrupted ; " please 
 let me work it out in my own way, and then 
 you shall correct me where I am wrong. ... I 
 have often thought how beautiful it must be to 
 live in such an old house, one that has all its 
 corners full of memories — the nurseries most of 
 all — of children and grandchildren, that have 
 grown up in gentleness and courtesy and honour — " 
 
 " Good Lord ! " Lady Caroline interjected. 
 
 " You mean " — Ruth smiled — " that I am talk- 
 ing like a book ? That is partly my fault and 
 partly our New England way ; because, you see, 
 we have to get at these things from books. Does 
 it, after all, matter how — if only we get it right ? 
 . . . There's a tradition — what, I believe, you call 
 an ' atmosphere ' — and you are proud of it and very 
 jealous." 
 
 "If you see all this," said Lady Caroline, molli- 
 fied, " our business should be easier, with a little 
 common sense on your part." 
 
 " And it knits you," pursued Ruth, " into a 
 sort of family conspiracy — the womenkind especi- 
 ally — like bees in a hive. The head of the family 
 is the queen bee, and you respect him amazingly ; 
 but all the same you keep your own judgment, 
 and know when to thwart and when to disobey
 
 LADY CAROLINE 253 
 
 him, for his own and the family's good. I think 
 you disobeyed Sir Oliver in coming here ; or, at 
 least, deceived him and came here without his 
 knowledge." 
 
 "I am not accustomed," said Lady Caroline, 
 rising, " to direct my conduct upon my nephew's 
 advice." 
 
 "That, more or less, is what I was trying to 
 say. Dear madam, let me warn you to do so, if 
 you would manage his private affairs." 
 
 They faced each other now, upon declared war. 
 Lady Caroline's neck was suffused to a purplish 
 red behind the ears. She gasped for speech. 
 Before she found it there came a tapping on the 
 door, and Diana Vyell entered.
 
 Chapter XIII 
 
 DIANA VYELL 
 
 " 0"AVE you not finished yet ? " Miss Diana 
 closed the door, glanced from one to the 
 other, and laughed with a genial brutality. "Well, 
 it's time I came. Dear mamma, you seem to be 
 getting your feathers pulled." 
 
 There was a byword among the Whig families 
 at home (who, by intermarrying, had learned to 
 gauge another's weaknesses), that " the Pett medal 
 showed ill in reverse." Miss Diana had heard 
 the saying. As a Vyell — the Vyells were, before 
 all things, critical — she knew it to be just, as well 
 as malicious ; but as a dutiful daughter she ought 
 to have remembered. 
 
 As it was, her cool comment stung her mother 
 to fury. The poor lady pointed a finger at Ruth, 
 and spluttered (there is no more elegant word for 
 the very inelegant exhibition), — 
 
 " A strumpet ! One that has been whipped 
 through the public streets."
 
 DIANA VYELL 255 
 
 There was a dreadful pause. Miss Diana, the 
 first to recover herself, stepped back to the door 
 and held it open. 
 
 "You must excuse dear mamma," she said 
 coolly. " She has overtired herself." 
 
 But I ady Caroline continued to point a finger 
 trembling with passion. 
 
 "Her price!' she shrilled. "Ask her that. 
 It is all these creatures ever understand ! ' 
 
 Miss Diana slipped an arm beneath her elbow 
 and firmly conducted her forth. Ruth, hearing 
 the door shut, supposed that both women had 
 withdrawn. She sank into a chair, and was 
 stretching out her arms over the table to bury 
 her face in them and sob, when the voice of the 
 younger said quietly behind her shoulder, — 
 
 "It is always hard, after mamma's tantrums, to 
 bring the talk back to a decent level. Nevertheless, 
 shall we try ? " 
 
 Ruth had drawn herself up again, rallying the 
 spirit in her. It was weary, bruised ; but its hour 
 of default was not yet. Her voice dragged, but 
 just perceptibly, as she answered Miss Vyell, 
 who nodded, noting her courage and wondering 
 a little,— 
 
 " I am sorry." 
 Sorry ? " 
 Yes ; it was partly my fault — very largely my 

 
 256 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 fault. But your mother angered me from the 
 first by assuming — what she had no right to as- 
 sume. It was horrible." 
 
 Diana Vyell seated herself, eyed her steadily for 
 a moment, and nodded again. " Mamma can be 
 raide, there's no denying. She was wrong, of 
 course ; that's understood. . . . Still, on the whole 
 you have done pretty well, and had your revenge." 
 
 Ruth's eyes widened, for this was beyond her. 
 
 Diana explained. " You have let us make the 
 most impossible fools of ourselves. It may have 
 been more by luck than by good management, as 
 they say ; but there it is. Now don't say that re- 
 venge isn't sweet. . . . I've done you what justice 
 I can ; but if you pose as an angel from heaven, 
 it's asking too much." While Ruth considered 
 this, she added, " I don't know if you can put 
 yourself in mamma's place for a moment ; but 
 if you can, the hoax is complete enough, you'll 
 admit." 
 
 " I had rather put myself in yours." 
 
 Their eyes met, and Diana's cheek reddened 
 slightly. " You are an extraordinary girl," she 
 said, "and there seems no way but to be honest 
 with you. Unfortunately, it's not so easy, even 
 with the best will in the world. Can you under- 
 stand that ? " 
 
 " If you love him — "
 
 DIANA VYELL 257 
 
 "Oh, for pity's sake spare me ! " Diana bounced 
 up and stepped to the window. The red on her 
 cheek had deepened, and she averted it to stare 
 out at the poultry in the yard. " You are uncon- 
 scionable," she said after a while, with a vexed 
 laugh. " I have known my cousin Oliver since we 
 were children together. Really, you know, you're 
 almost as brutal as mamma. . . . The truth ? Let 
 me see. Well, the truth, so near as I can tell it, is 
 that I just let mamma have her head, and waited 
 to see what would happen. This was her expedi- 
 tion, and I took no responsibility for it from the 
 first." 
 
 " 1 understand." Ruth, watching the back of 
 her head 3 spoke musingly, with pursed lips. 
 
 " Excuse me " — Diana wheeled about suddenly 
 — "you cannot possibly understand just yet. This 
 last was my tenth season in London. One grows 
 weary . . . and then in the confusion of papa's death — 
 It comes to this, that I was ready for anything to 
 get out of the old rut. I — I — shall we say that I 
 just cast myself on fate ? It may have been at 
 the back of my head that whatever happened 
 might be worse, but couldn't well be wearier. 
 But if you think I had any design of setting my 
 cap at him — " 
 
 " Hush ! " said Ruth softly. " I had no such 
 thought."
 
 258 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " And if you had, you would not have cared," 
 said Diana, eyeing her again long and steadily. 
 " Mamma — you really must forgive mamma. If 
 you knew them, there was never a Pett that was 
 not unpayable. Mamma spoke of asking your price. 
 . . . As if, for any price, he would give you up ! ' 
 
 " I have no price to ask, of him or of any 
 
 one. 
 
 " No, and you need have none. I am often 
 very disagreeable," said Diana candidly, " but my 
 worst enemy won't charge me with disparaging 
 good looks in other women." 
 
 " May I use your words," said Ruth, with a 
 shy smile, "and say that you have no need ?' : 
 
 " Rubbish ! And don't talk like that to me, 
 sitting here and staring you in the face, or I may 
 change my mind again and hate you ! I never said 
 I didn't envy. . . . But there, the fault was mine 
 for speaking of * good looks ' when I should have 
 said, ' Oh, you wonder ! ' " broke off Diana. " May 
 I ask it — one question ? ' 
 
 " Twenty, if you will." 
 
 " It is a brutal one ; horrible ; worse even than 
 mamma's." 
 
 "As 1 remember," said Ruth gravely, "Lady 
 Caroline asked none. It was I who did the ques- 
 tioning, and — and I am afraid that led to the 
 trouble."
 
 DIANA VYELL 259 
 
 Diana laughed, and after a moment the two were 
 laughing together. 
 
 " But what is your question ? " 
 
 "No, I cannot ask it now." Diana shook her 
 head, and was grave again. 
 
 " Please ! " 
 
 "Well, then, tell me—" She drew back, slightly 
 tilting her chin and narrowing her eyes, as one who 
 contemplates a beautiful statue or other work of 
 art. " Is it true they whipped that, naked, through 
 the streets ? " 
 
 Ruth bent her head. 
 
 " It is true." 
 
 " I wonder it did not kill you," Diana mur- 
 mured. 
 
 " I am strong ; strong and very healthy. . . . 
 It broke something inside ; I hardly know what. 
 But there's a story — I read it the other day — about 
 a man who wandered in a dark wood, and came 
 to a place where he looked into hell. Just one 
 glimpse. He fainted, and when he awoke it was 
 daylight, with the birds singing all around him. 
 But he was changed more than the place, for he 
 listened and understood all the woodland talk — 
 what the birds were saying, and the small creeping 
 things. And when he went back among men he 
 answered at random, and yet in a way that astonished 
 them ; for he saw and heard what their hearts were
 
 260 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 saying, at the back of their talk. ... Of course," 
 smiled Ruth, " I am not nearly so wonderful as 
 that. But something has happened to me — " 
 
 Diana nodded slowly. " — Something that, at 
 any rate, makes you terribly disconcerting. But 
 what about Oliver ? They tell me that he brow- 
 beat the magistrates and insisted on sitting beside 
 you." 
 
 Ruth's eyes confirmed it. They were moist, 
 yet proud. They shone. 
 
 " I had always," mused Diana, " looked on my 
 cousin as a carefully selfish person, even in the 
 matter of that Dance woman. You must have 
 turned his head completely." 
 
 " It was not that. " 
 
 Diana stared, the low tone was so earnest, 
 vehement even. " Well, at all events I know 
 him well enough to assure you he will never 
 give you up." 
 
 " Ah ! ' Ruth drew a long sigh over the joy 
 in her heart, and, a second later, hated herself 
 for it. 
 
 " — until afterwards." 
 
 " Afterwards ? " the girl echoed. 
 
 "Afterwards. My cousin Oliver is a tenacious 
 man, and you would seem to have worked him 
 up to temporary heroics. But I beg you to reflect 
 that what for you must have been a real glimpse
 
 DIANA VYELL 261 
 
 into hell " — Diana shivered — " was likely enough 
 for him no more than an occasion for posing. 
 Fine posing, I'll allow." She paused. " It didn't 
 degrade him, actually. He's a Vyell ; and as 
 another of 'em I may tell you there never was 
 a Vyell could face out actual degradation. You 
 almost make me wish we were capable of it. To 
 lose everything — " She paused again. " You 
 make it more alluring, somehow, than the prospect 
 of endless London seasons — Diana Vyell, with 
 a fading face and her market missed — that's how 
 they'll put it — and, pour me d'ntraire this side of 
 the grave, the dower-house, a coach, a pair of 
 wind - broken horses, and the consolations of 
 religion ! If we were capable of it. . . . But 
 where's the use of talking ? We're Vyells. And 
 — here's my point — Oliver is a Vyell. He may 
 be strong-willed, but — did mamma happen to talk 
 at all about the * Family' ? " 
 
 " I think," answered Ruth with another faint 
 flash of mirth, " it was I who asked her questions 
 about it." 
 
 Diana threw out her hands, laughing. " You 
 are invincible ! Well, I cannot hate you ; and 
 I've given you my warning. Make him marry 
 you ; you can if you choose, and now is your 
 time. If there should be children — legitimate 
 children, O my poor mamma! — there will be
 
 262 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 the devil to pay and helpless family councils, all 
 of which I shall charge myself to enjoy and to 
 report to you. If there should be none, we're 
 safe with Mrs. Harry. She'll breed a dozen. . . . 
 Am I coarse ? Oh, yes, the Vyells can be coarse ! 
 while as for the Petts — but you have heard dear 
 mamma." 
 
 They talked together for a few minutes after 
 this. But their talk shall not be reported : for 
 with what do you suppose it dealt ? 
 
 — With Dress. As I am a living man, with 
 Dress. 
 
 In the midst of it, and while Ruth listened 
 eagerly to what Diana had to tell of London 
 fashions, Lady Caroline's voice was heard sum- 
 moning her daughter away. 
 
 Diana rose. " It is close upon dusk," she said, 
 " and Mrs. Harry has command of the waggon. 
 She drives very well — not better than 1 perhaps ; 
 but she understands this country better. All the 
 same, the road — call it an apology for one — bristles 
 with tree-stumps, and mamma's temper will be 
 unendurable if the dark overtakes us before we 
 reach the next farm. I forget its name." 
 
 "Natchett?" 
 
 " Yes, Natchett. We spend the night there." 
 
 " But why did not Mr. Silk drive you over ? ' :
 
 DIANA VYELL 263 
 
 " Did mamma tell you he was escorting us ? " 
 
 " No. I guessed." 
 
 " Nasty little fellow. Sloppy underlip. I cannot 
 bear him. Can you ? " 
 
 " I do not like him." 
 
 " It's a marvel to me that my cousin tolerates 
 him. ... By the way, I shall not wonder if he — 
 Oliver, I mean — loses his temper heavily when 
 he learns of our expedition, and bundles us straight 
 back to Europe. I warned mamma." 
 
 " So — I am afraid — did I." 
 
 "Yes?' -and again they laughed together. 
 " My poor parent ! . . . She assured me that 
 her duty to the Family was her armour of proof. 
 Hark! She's calling again." 
 
 They found Lady Caroline impatient in the 
 verandah. Ruth, to avoid speech with her, walked 
 away to the waggon. Farmer Cordery stood at 
 the horse's head, and Mrs. Harry beside the step, 
 ready to mount and take the reins. 
 
 But for some reason Mrs. Harry delayed to 
 mount. " Is it you ? " she said vaguely and put 
 out a hand, swaying slightly. Ruth caught it. 
 
 " Are you ill ? " 
 
 They were alone together for a moment and 
 hidden from the farmer, who stood on the far 
 side of the horse.
 
 264 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " Nothing — a sudden giddiness. It's quite 
 absurd, too ; when I've been as strong as a donkey 
 all my life." 
 
 Ruth asked her a question. . . . Some word 
 of woman's lore, dropped years ago by her own 
 silly mother, crossed her memory. (They had 
 been outspoken, in the cottage above the beach.) 
 It surprised Mrs. Harry, who answered it before 
 she was well aware, and so stood staring, trembling 
 with surmise. 
 
 " God bless you ! " Ruth put out an arm on 
 an impulse to clasp her waist, but checked it and 
 beckoned instead to Diana. 
 
 " Ton take the reins and drive," she com- 
 manded. 
 
 Diana questioned her with a glance, but obeyed 
 and climbed on board. Ruth was helping Mrs. 
 Harry to mount after her when Lady Caroline 
 thrust herself forward, by the step. 
 
 Now since Diana had hold of the reins, and 
 Mrs. Harry was for the moment in no condition 
 to lend a hand, and since Lady Caroline would 
 as lief have touched leprosy as have accepted help 
 from Ruth Josselin, her ascent into the van fell 
 something short of dignity. The rearward of her 
 person was ample ; she hitched her skirt in the 
 step, thus exposing an inordinate amount of not 
 over-clean white stocking ; and, to make matters
 
 DIANA VYELL 265 
 
 worse, Farmer Cordery cast off at the wrong 
 moment and stood back from the horse's head. 
 
 " Losh ! but I'm sorry," said he, gazing after 
 the catastrophic result. " Look at her, there, 
 kickin' like a cast ewe. . . ." He turned a serious 
 face on Ruth and added, " Vigorous, too, for her 
 years." 
 
 Ruth, returning to the verandah, bent over little 
 Miss Quiney, who sat unsmiling, with rigid eyes. 
 
 " Dear Tatty," —she kissed her — " were they 
 so very dreadful ? " 
 
 Miss Quiney started as if awaking from a 
 nightmare. 
 
 " That woman — darling, whatever her rank, I 
 cannot term her ajady ! — ■" 
 
 " Go on, dear." 
 
 " I cannot. Sit beside me, here, for a while, 
 and let me feel my arm about you. . . ." 
 
 They sat thus for a long while silent, while 
 twilight crept over the plain and wrapped itself 
 about the homestead. 
 
 Ruth was thinking. " If I forfeit this, it will 
 be hardest of all."
 
 Chapter XIV 
 
 MR. SILK PROPOSES 
 
 PARMER CORDERY had six grown sons- 
 Jonathan, George, William, Increase, Homer, 
 and Lemuel — the eldest eight -and -twenty, the 
 youngest sixteen. All were strapping fellows, and 
 each as a matter of course had fallen over head 
 and ears in love with Ruth. 
 
 They were good lads and knew it to be 
 hopeless. She had stepped into their home as 
 a goddess from a distant star, to abide with them 
 for a while. They worshipped, none confessing 
 his folly ; but it made them her slaves, and 
 emulous to shine before her as though she had 
 been a queen of tournay. Because of her presence 
 (it must be sadly owned) challengings, bickerings 
 even brotherly quarrels, disturbed more and more 
 the patriarchal peace of Sweetwater Farm. " I 
 dunno what's come over the boys," their father 
 grumbled ; " al'ays showing off an' jim-jeerin'. 
 Regilar cocks on a dunghill. A few years agone
 
 MR. SILK PROPOSES 267 
 
 I'd Ve cured it wi' the strap ; but now there's no 
 remedy." 
 
 William had challenged his eldest brother 
 Jonathan to " put " a large round-shot that lay in 
 the verandah. Their father had brought it home 
 from the capture of Louisbourg as a souvenir. 
 Jonathan and George had served at Louisbourg too, 
 in the Massachusetts Volunteers ; but William, 
 though of age to fight, had been left at home to 
 look after the farm and his mother. It had been 
 a sore disappointment at the time ; now that 
 Jonathan and George had taken on a sudden to 
 boast, it rankled. Hence the challenge. The 
 three younger lads joined in. If they could not 
 defeat their seniors, they could at least dispute 
 the mastery among themselves. Thereupon in 
 all seriousness (ingenuous youths !) they voted that 
 Miss Josselin should be asked to umpire. 
 
 The contest took place next morning after 
 breakfast, in a paddock beyond the elms, with 
 Ruth for umpire and sole spectator. Nothing 
 had been said to the farmer, who was fast losing 
 his temper with " these denied wagerings," and 
 might have come down with a veto that none dared 
 disobey. He had ridden off, however, at sun-up 
 to the mountain, to look after the half-wild hogs 
 he kept at pasture among the woods at its base.
 
 268 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Ruth measured out the casts conscientiously. 
 In no event would the young men have disputed 
 her arbitrament ; but, as it happened, this nicety 
 was thrown away. Jonathan's " put " of forty 
 feet— the shot weighed close upon sixteen pounds — 
 easily excelled the others', who were sportsmen 
 and could take a whipping without bad blood or 
 dispute. The winner crowed a little, to be sure ; 
 it was the New England way. But Lemuel the 
 youngest, who had outgrown his strength, had 
 made a deplorable "put," and the rest jeered at 
 him, to relieve their feelings. The boy fired up. 
 " Oh, have your laugh ! " he blazed, with angry 
 tears in his eyes. " But when it comes to running, 
 there's not one of you but knows I can put circles 
 round him." 
 
 " Take you on, this moment," answered up 
 young Increase. "Say, boys, we'll all take him 
 
 >> 
 on. 
 
 Jonathan had no mind for any such " foolish- 
 ness." He had won, and was content ; and 
 running didn't become the dignity of a grown 
 man. "We didn't run at Louisbourg, I guess." 
 George echoed him. George could out-tire even 
 Jonathan at wood-cutting, but had no length 
 of leg. 
 
 But Ruth having compassion on the boy's hurt 
 feelings, persuaded them. They could refuse no
 
 MR. SILK PROPOSES 269 
 
 straight request of hers. She pointed to an out- 
 lying elm that marked the boundary of the second 
 pasture field beyond the steading. This should 
 be the turning-post, and would give them a course 
 well over half a mile, with a water-jump to be 
 crossed twice. She ranged them in line, and 
 dropped her handkerchief for signal. 
 
 They were off. She stood with the sun at her 
 back and watched the race. George, of the short 
 legs, broad shoulders, and bullet head, was a 
 sprinter (as we call it nowadays) and shot at once 
 to the front, with Homer not far behind, and 
 Increase disputing the third place with Lemuel. 
 Jonathan and William made scarcely a show of 
 competing. The eldest lad, indeed, coming to 
 the brook, did not attempt to jump, but floundered 
 heavily through it, scrambled up the farther bank, 
 and lumbered on in hopeless pursuit. It was here 
 that Lemuel's long easy stride asserted itself, and 
 taking first place he reached the tree with several 
 yards' lead. 
 
 "He will win at his ease now," said Ruth to 
 herself; and just at that moment her ears caught 
 the sound of a horse's footfall. She turned ; but 
 the sun shone full in her eyes, and not for a 
 second or two did she recognise her visitor, Mr. 
 Silk. 
 
 He was on horseback, and, stooping from his
 
 270 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 saddle, was endeavouring just now — but very 
 unhandily — to unhasp the gate with the crook 
 of his riding-whip. Ruth did not offer to go to 
 his help. 
 
 He managed it at last, thrust the horse through 
 by vigorous use of his knees, and was riding 
 straight up to the house. But just then he caught 
 sight of her, changed his course, and came towards 
 her at a walk. 
 
 " Ah, good-morning ! " he called. 
 
 " Good-morning." 
 
 He dismounted. " Thought I'd ride over and 
 pay you a call. The ladies will not be starting 
 on their return journey for another couple of 
 hours. So I borrowed a horse." 
 
 "Evidently." 
 
 " There's something wrong with him, I doubt." 
 Mr. Silk was disagreeably red and moist. 
 
 " I dare say he is not used to being ridden 
 mainly — or was it wholly ? — on the curb." 
 
 He grinned. "Well, and I'm not used to 
 riding, and that's a fact. But " — he leered the 
 compliment — " there are few dangers I would not 
 brave for a glance from Miss Josselin." 
 
 " You flatter me, sir. But I believe you braved 
 a worse, yesterday, without claiming that reward." 
 
 " Ah ! You mean that Sir Oliver will be angry 
 when he gets wind of our little expedition ? The
 
 MR. SILK PROPOSES 271 
 
 ladies persuaded me — Adam's old excuse ; I can 
 deny nothing to the sex. . . . But what have we 
 yonder ? A race ? " 
 
 " It would appear so." 
 
 " A very hollow one, if I may criticise. That 
 youngster moves like a deer. . . . And what is 
 his reward to be ? — another glance of these bright 
 eyes ? Ah, Miss Josselin, you make fools — and 
 heroes — of us all ! " 
 
 Ruth turned from him to applaud young 
 Lemuel, who came darting into the enclosure. 
 
 " See old Jonathan ! ' panted the boy, looking 
 back and laughing. " That's how they ran at 
 Louisbourg. . . . Miss Josselin, you should have 
 made it a mile and I'd have shown you some 
 broken -winded ones." He laughed again and 
 turned in apology to Mr. Silk. " I'll take your 
 horse to stable, sir, if you'll let me catch my 
 breath." 
 
 The others came straggling up, a little abashed 
 at sight of the stranger, but not surprised out of 
 their good manners. 
 
 " A clergyman ? " said Jonathan. " My father 
 will be home before sundown, sir. He will be 
 proud if you can stay and have dinner with us." 
 
 Mr. Silk explained that he had-, ridden over 
 from Natchett to call on Miss Josselin and had 
 but an hour to spare. They insisted, however,
 
 272 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 that he must eat before leaving, and they led away 
 his horse to bait, leaving him and Ruth together. 
 
 " Will you come into the house ? " she asked. 
 
 " With your leave we can talk better here. . . . 
 So you guessed that 1 made one of the party ? 
 Miss Vyell told me." 
 
 " It was not difficult to guess." 
 
 " And you admired my courage ? " 
 
 Ruth's eyebrows went up to a fine arch. " When 
 you were careful to keep in hiding ? " 
 
 " From motives of delicacy, believe me. It 
 occurred to me that Lady Caroline might — er — 
 speak her mind, and I had no wish to be distressed 
 by it, or to distress you with my presence." 
 
 " I thank you for so much delicacy, sir." 
 
 "But Lady Caroline — let us do her justice! 
 She calls a spade a spade, but there's no malice 
 in it. You stood up to her, I gather. We've 
 been discussing you this morning, and you may 
 take my word she don't think the worse of you 
 for it. They're sportsmen, these high - born 
 people. I come of good family myself, and know 
 the sort. ' Slog and take a slogging ; shake hands 
 and no bad blood ' — that's their way. The fine 
 old British way, after all." Mr. Silk puffed his 
 cheeks and blew. 
 
 " You have been discussing me with Lady 
 Caroline ? "
 
 
 MR. SILK PROPOSES 273 
 
 " Yes," he answered flatly. " Yes," he re- 
 peated, and rolled his eyes. " All for your good, 
 you know. Of course she started by calling you 
 names and taking the worst for granted. But I 
 wouldn't have that." 
 
 " Go on, sir, if you please." 
 
 " I wouldn't have it, because I didn't believe it. 
 If I did — hanor it ! — I shouldn't be here. You 
 might do me that justice." 
 Why are you here ? " 
 
 I'm coming to that ; but first I want you to 
 open your eyes to the position. You may think 
 it's all very pretty and romantic and like Fair 
 Rosamond — without the frailty as yet : that's 
 granted. But how will it end ? Eh ? That's 
 the question, if you'd bring your common sense to 
 bear on it." 
 
 " Suppose you help me, sir," said Ruth meekly. 
 
 "That's right. I'm here to help, and in more 
 ways than one. . . . Well, I know Sir Oliver ; 
 Lady Caroline knows him too ; and if it's marriage 
 you're after, you might as well whistle the moon. 
 You don't believe me ? " he wound up, for she 
 was eyeing him with an inscrutable smile. 
 
 She lifted her shoulder a little. " For the sake 
 of your argument we will say that it is so." 
 
 " Then what's to be the end ? I repeat. Look 
 here, missy. We spar a bit when we meet, you
 
 274 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 and I ; but I'd be sorry to see you go the way 
 you're going. Ton my honour I would. You're 
 as pretty a piece of flesh as a man could find 
 on this side of the Atlantic, and what's a sharp 
 tongue but a touch of spice to it ? Piquancy, 
 beo-ad, to a fellow like me ! . . . And — what's 
 best of all, perhaps — you'd pass for a lady any- 
 where." 
 
 She shrank back a pace before this incredible 
 vulgarity ; but not even yet did she guess the 
 man's drift. 
 
 " So I put it to you, why not ? " he continued, 
 flushing as he came to the point and contemplated 
 his prey. " You don't see yourself as a parson's 
 wife, eh ? You're not the cut. But for that 
 matter Vm not the ordinary cut of parson. 
 T'other side of the water we'd fly high. They'll 
 not have heard of Port Nassau, over there, nor 
 of the little nest at Sabines ; and with Lady 
 Caroline to give us a jump -off — I have her 
 promise. She runs a Chapel of her own, some- 
 where off St. James's. Give me a chance to 
 preach to the fashionable— let me get a foot inside 
 the pulpit door— and, with you to turn their heads 
 in the Mall below, strike me if I wouldn't finish 
 up a Bishop ! La belle Sauvage — they'd put it 
 around I'd found my beauty in the backwoods, 
 and converted her. . . . Well, what d'ye say ?
 
 MR. SILK PROPOSES 275 
 
 Isn't that a prettier prospect than to end as Sir 
 Oliver's cast-off?" 
 
 She put a hand backwards, and found a gate- 
 rail to steady her. 
 
 " Ah ! . . . How you dare ! " she managed to 
 murmur. 
 
 " Dare ? Eh ! you're thinking of Sir Oliver ? " 
 He laughed easily. " Lady Caroline will put that 
 all right. He'll be furious at first, no doubt ; 
 my fine gentleman thinks himself the lion in the 
 fable — when he shares out the best for himself, 
 no dog dares bark. But we'll give him the go-by, 
 and afterwards he can't squeal without showing 
 himself the public fool. . . . Squeal ? I hope he 
 will. I owe him one." 
 
 At this moment young George and Increase 
 Cordery came past the far corner of the house 
 with their team, their harness-chains jingling as 
 they rode afield. At sight of them a strong 
 temptation assailed Ruth, but she thrust it from 
 her« 
 
 " Sir " — she steadied her voice — " bethink you, 
 please, that I have only to lift a hand and those 
 two, with their brothers, will drag you through 
 the farm pond." 
 
 Before he could answer, she called to them. 
 As they turned and walked their horses towards 
 her she glanced at Mr. Silk, half mischievously
 
 276 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 in spite of her fierce anger. He was visibly per- 
 turbed ; but his face, mottled yellow with terror, 
 suggested loathing rather than laughter. 
 
 " I am sorry to trouble you, but will you please 
 fetch Mr. Silk's horse ? He must return at 
 once." 
 
 When they were gone she turned to him. 
 
 " I am sorry to dismiss you thus, sir, after the — 
 the honour you have done me ; the more sorry 
 because you will never understand." 
 
 Indeed — his scare having passed — he was 
 genuinely surprised, indignant. 
 
 " I understand this much," he answered coarsely, 
 "that I've offered to make you an honest woman, 
 but you prefer to be — " The word was on his 
 tongue-tip, but hung fire there. 
 
 She had turned her back on him, and stood 
 with her arms resting for support on the upper 
 rail of the gate. She heard him walk away towards 
 the stable-yard. . . . By-and-by she heard him 
 ride off* — heard the click of the gate behind him. 
 A while after this she listened, and then bowed 
 her face upon her arms.
 
 Chapter XV 
 
 THE CHOOSING 
 
 ' I ^HE minutes passed, and still she leaned there. 
 At long intervals, when a sob would not be 
 repressed, her shoulders heaved and fell. But it 
 was characteristic of Ruth Josselin throughout her 
 life that she hated to indulge in distress, even 
 when alone. As a child she had been stoical ; but 
 since the day of her ordeal in Port Nassau she had 
 not once wept in self-pity. She had taught herself 
 to regard all self-pity as shameful. 
 
 She made no sound. The morning heat had 
 increased, and across it the small morning noises 
 of the farm were borne drowsily — the repeated 
 strokes of a hatchet in the backyard, where young 
 Lemuel split logs ; the voice of Mrs. Cordery 
 also in the backyard, calling the poultry for their 
 meal of Indian corn ; the opening and shutting of 
 windows as rooms were redded and dusted ; lastly, 
 Miss Quiney's tentative touch on the spinet. Sir 
 Oliver in his lordly way had sent a spinet by cart
 
 278 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 from Boston ; and Tatty, long since outstripped 
 by her pupil, had a trick of picking out passages 
 from the more difficult pieces of music and " samp- 
 ling " them as she innocently termed it — a few 
 chords now and again, but melodies for the most 
 part, note by note hesitatingly attempted with one 
 finger. 
 
 For a while these noises fell on Ruth's ear un- 
 heeded. Then something like a miracle happened. 
 
 Of a sudden either the noises ceased or she 
 no longer heard them. It was as if a hush had 
 descended on the farmstead ; a hush of expectancy. 
 Still leaning on the gate, she felt it operate within 
 her — an instantaneous calm at first, soothing away 
 the spirit's anguish as though it were ointment 
 delicately laid on a bodily wound. Not an ache, 
 even, left for reminder ! but healing peace at a 
 stroke, and in the hush of it small thrills awaking, 
 stirring, soft ripples scarcely perceptible, stealing, 
 hesitating, until overtaken by reinforcements of 
 bliss and urged in a flood, bathing her soul. 
 
 He was near ! He must be here, close at hand ! 
 
 She lifted her head and gazed around. For 
 minutes her closed eyeballs had been pressed down 
 upon her arms, and the sunlight played tricks with 
 her vision. Strange hues of scarlet and violet 
 danced on the sky and around the fringes of the 
 elms.
 
 THE CHOOSING 279 
 
 But he was there ! Yes, beyond all doubting 
 it was he. . . . 
 
 He had ridden in through the gateway on his 
 favourite Bayard, and with a led horse at his side. 
 He was calling, in that easy masterful voice of his, 
 for one of the Cordery lads to take the pair to 
 stable. Lemuel came running. 
 
 In the act of dismounting he caught sight of 
 her and paused to lift his hat. But before dis- 
 missing the horses to stable he looked them over, 
 as a good master should. 
 
 He was coming towards her. . . . Three paces 
 away he halted, and his smile changed to a 
 frown. 
 
 " You are in trouble ? " 
 
 " It has passed. I am happy now ; and you are 
 welcome, my lord." 
 
 She p-ave him her hand. He detained it. 
 
 " Who has annoyed you ? Those women ? " 
 
 She shook her head. " You might make a 
 better guess, for you must have met him on the 
 way. Mr. Silk was here a while ago." 
 
 " Silk ? " 
 
 " And he — he asked me to marry him." 
 
 " The hound ! But I don't understand. Silk 
 here ? I see the game ; he must have played 
 escort to those infernal women. . . . Somehow I 
 hadn't suspected it, and Lady Caroline kept that
 
 280 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 cat in the bag when 1 surprised her at Natchett an 
 hour ago. I wonder why ? " 
 
 Ruth had a shrewd guess ; but, fearing violence, 
 forbore to tell it. 
 
 He went on : " But what puzzles me more is, 
 how I missed meeting him." 
 
 In truth the explanation was simple enough. 
 Mr. Silk, turning the corner of the lane, where it 
 bent sharply around Farmer Cordery's wood-stacks, 
 had chanced to spy Sir Oliver on a rise of the road 
 to the eastward, and had edged aside and taken 
 cover behind the stacks. He was now making for 
 Natchett at his best speed. 
 
 " A while ago, you say ? How long ago ? The 
 thief cannot have gone far — " Sir Oliver looked 
 behind him. Clearly he had a mind to call for 
 his horse again and to pursue. 
 
 But Ruth put out a hand. " He is not worth 
 my lord's anger." 
 
 For a moment he stood undecided, then broke 
 into a laugh. "Was he riding ?" 
 
 " He was on horseback, to be more exact." 
 
 " Then he'll find it a stony long way back to 
 Boston." He laughed again. " You see, I've 
 been worrying myself, off and on, about that trick 
 of Madcap's — I'll be sworn she came within an 
 ace of crossing her legs that day. I'd a mind to 
 ride over and bring you Forester — he's a soberer
 
 THE CHOOSING 281 
 
 horse, and can be trusted at timber. I'd resolved 
 on it, in short, even before my brother Harry 
 happened to blurt out the secret of Lady Caroline's 
 little expedition. Soon as I heard that, I put 
 George the groom on Forester, and came in chase. 
 ... I find her ladyship at Natchett, and after 
 some straight talking I put George in charge of 
 the conspirators, with instructions to drive them 
 home. They chose to say nothing of Silk, and 
 I didn't guess ; so now the rogue must either leg 
 it back or gall himself on a waggon-horse." 
 
 " You worried yourself about me ? " 
 
 " Certainly. You don't suppose I want my 
 pupil to break her neck ? " 
 
 "You do Madcap injustice. Why, yesterday 
 she jumped — she almost flew — this very gate on 
 which I am leaning." 
 
 "The more reason — " he began, and broke off. 
 His tone had been light, but when he spoke again 
 it had grown graver, sincerer. " It is a fact that 
 I worried about you, but that is not all the reason 
 why I am here. The whole truth is more selfish. 
 . . . Ruth, I cannot do without you." 
 
 She put up a hand, leaning back against the 
 gate as though giddy. 
 
 " But why ? ' : he urged, as she made no other 
 response. " Is it that you still doubt me — or 
 yourself, perhaps ? "
 
 282 LADY GOOD-FOR NOTHING 
 
 " Both," she murmured. " It is not so easy as 
 you pretend." Bliss had weakened her for a while, 
 but the weakness was passing. 
 
 " Those women have been talking to you. I 
 can engage, whatever they said, I gave it back to 
 'em with interest. They sail by the next ship. . . . 
 But what did they say ? " 
 
 " They say. What say they ? Let them say" Ruth 
 quoted, her lips smiling albeit her eyes were moist. 
 " Does it matter what they said ? " 
 
 " No ; for I can guess. However the old harri- 
 dan put it, you were asked to give me up ; and, 
 after all, everything turns on our answer to that. 
 I have given you mine. What of yours ? " He 
 stepped close. " Ruth, will you give me up ?" 
 
 She put out her hands as one groping, sightless, 
 and in pain. 
 
 " Ah, you are cruel ! . . . You know I cannot."
 
 BOOK III 
 THE BRIDALS
 
 s 
 
 Chapter I 
 BETROTHED 
 
 IR OLIVER rode back to Boston that same 
 evening. Ruth had stipulated that his promise 
 to her folk in the beach cottage still held good ; 
 that when the three years were out, and not a day 
 before, she would return to them and make her 
 announcement. Meanwhile, although the coast 
 would soon be clear of her enemies and he desired 
 to have her near, she begged off returning to 
 Sabines. Here at Sweetwater Farm she could 
 ride, with the large air about her and freedom to 
 think. It was not that she shirked books and 
 tutors. She would turn to them again, by-and-by. 
 But at Sweetwater she could think things out, and 
 she had great need of thinking. 
 
 He yielded. He was passionately in love and 
 could deny her nothing. He would ride over and 
 pay his respects once a week. 
 
 So he took his leave, and Ruth abode with the 
 Corderys and Miss Quiney. Disloyal though she
 
 286 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 felt it, she caught herself wishing, more than once, 
 that her lord could have taken dear Tatty back 
 with him to Boston. 
 
 I desire to depict Ruth Josselin here as the 
 woman she was, not as an angel. 
 
 Now Tatty, when Sir Oliver had led Ruth 
 indoors and presented her as his affianced wife, 
 had been taken aback ; not scandalised, but decid- 
 edly — and, for so slight a creature, heavily — taken 
 aback. It is undoubted that she loved Ruth 
 dearly ; nay, so dearly that in a general way no 
 fortune was too high to befall her darling. What 
 dreams she had entertained for her I cannot tell. 
 Very likely they had been at once splendid and 
 vague. Miss Quiney was not worldly-wise, yet 
 her wisdom did not transcend what little she knew 
 of the world. She had great notions of Family, 
 for example. She had imagined, may be — still in 
 a vague way — that Sir Oliver would some day 
 provide his protegee with a mate of good, or at 
 least sufficient, Colonial birth. She had been out- 
 raged by Lady Caroline's suggestions. Now this, 
 while it triumphantly refuted them, did seem to 
 show that Lady Caroline had not altogether lacked 
 ground for suspicion. 
 
 In fine, the dear creature received a shock, and 
 in her flurry could not dissemble it. 
 
 Sir Oliver did not perceive this. In the first
 
 BETROTHED 287 
 
 flush of conquest all men are a trifle fatuous, un- 
 observant. No woman is. Miss Quiney's arms 
 did not suddenly go out to Ruth. Ruth noted it. 
 She was just : she understood. But (I repeat) 
 she was a woman, and women remember indelibly 
 whatever small thing happens at this crisis of their 
 lives. 
 
 In the end Miss Quiney stretched forth her 
 arms ; but at first she seemed to shrivel and grow 
 very small in her chair. Nor can her first comment 
 be called adequate, — 
 
 "Dear sir — oh, but excuse me! — this is so 
 sudden ! " 
 
 Later, when she and Ruth were left alone, she 
 explained, still a little tremulously, "You took 
 me all of a heap, my dear ! I can hardly realise 
 it, even now. . . . Such a splendid position ! 
 You will go to London, I doubt not ; and be 
 presented at Court ; and be called Lady Vyell. . . . 
 Have you thought of the responsibilities ? " 
 
 She had, and she had not. Her own promised 
 splendours, the command of wealth and of a great 
 household — this aspect of the future was blank to 
 her as yet. But another presented itself and 
 frightened her : it engaged her conscience in 
 doubts even when she shook it free of fears. The 
 Family — that mysterious shadow of which Lady 
 Caroline no doubt showed as the ugliest projec-
 
 288 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 tion ! Ruth was conscientious. She divined that 
 behind Lady Caroline's aggressiveness the shadow 
 held something truly sacred and worth guarding ; 
 something impalpable and yet immensely solid ; 
 something not to be defied or laughed away 
 because inexplicable, but venerable precisely because 
 it could not be explained ; something not fashioned 
 hastily upon reason, but built by slow accretion, 
 with the years for its builders — mortared by senti- 
 ments, memories, traditions, decencies, trivialities 
 good and bad, even (may be) by the blood of 
 foolish quarrels — but founded and welded more 
 firmly, massed more formidably, than any structure 
 of mere reason ; and withal a temple wherein she, 
 however chastely, might never serve without pro- 
 faning it. 
 
 I do most eagerly desire you, at this point in 
 her story, to be just to Ruth Josselin. I wish 
 you to remember what she had suffered, in the 
 streets, at the hands of self-righteous folk ; to 
 understand that it had killed all religion in her, 
 with all belief in its rites, but not the essential 
 goodness of her soul. 
 
 She at any rate, and according to the light given 
 her, was incurably just. Weighing on the one 
 hand her love and Oliver Vyell's, on the other the 
 half-guessed injury their marriage might do to him 
 and to others of his race ; weighing them not
 
 BETROTHED 289 
 
 hastily but through long hours of thought : carry- 
 ing her doubts off to the hills and there considering 
 them in solitude, under the open sky ; casting out 
 from the problem all of self save only her exceed- 
 ing love ; this strange girl — made strange by man's 
 cruelty — decided to give herself in due time, but 
 
 to exact no marriage. 
 
 Why should she ? The blessing of a clergyman 
 meant nothing to her, as she was sure it meant 
 nothing to her lover. Why should she tie him a 
 day beyond the endurance of his love ? Beyond 
 the death of the thing itself what sanctity could 
 live in its husk ? And, moreover, in any event 
 was she not his slave ? 
 
 So she reasoned : and let the reader call her 
 reasoning by any name he will. By some standards 
 it was wicked ; by others wrong. It forgot one 
 of the strongest arguments against itself, as she 
 was in time to prove. But let none call her 
 unchaste. 
 
 After certain weeks she brought her arguments 
 to him ; standing before him, halting in her speech 
 a little, but entreating him with eyes as straight as 
 they were modest. Her very childishness appealed 
 against her arguments. 
 
 He listened, marvelled, and broke into joyous 
 
 laughter. He would have none of it. Why, she 
 
 10
 
 290 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 was fit to be a queen ! — a thousand times too 
 good for him. His family ? Their prejudices 
 should fall down before her and worship. As 
 little as she did he set store by rites of the Church 
 or believe in them : but, as the world went, to 
 neglect them would be to stint her of the chief 
 honour. Was this fair to him, who desired to 
 heap honours upon her and would stretch for them 
 even beyond his power ? 
 
 His passion, rather than his arguments, overbore 
 her. That passion rejuvenated him. Once or 
 twice it choked his voice, and her heart leapt ; for 
 she was a sensible girl and, remembering the dead 
 Margaret Dance, had schooled herself to know 
 that what was first love with her, drenching her 
 heart with ecstasy, could never be first love with 
 him. Yet now and again the miracle declared 
 itself and instead of a lord, commanding her, he 
 stood before her a boy : and with a boy's halting 
 speech — ah, so much dearer than eloquence ! 
 
 Beyond a doubt he was over head and ears in 
 love. He was honest, too, in his desire to set her 
 high and make a queen of her. In Boston, Mr. 
 Ned Man ley, architect of genius, was sitting up 
 into the small hours of morning ; now, between 
 potations of brandy, cursing Sir Oliver for a slave- 
 driver, while Batty Langton looked on and crit- 
 icised with a smile that tolerated a world of fools
 
 BETROTHED 291 
 
 for the sake of one or two inspired ones ; anon 
 working like a demon and boasting while he 
 worked. Already on a hillside between Boston 
 and Sweetwater Farm — the hill itself could be seen 
 from the farmstead 5 but not their operations, which 
 lay on the far side — three hundred labourers were 
 toiling in gangs, levelling, terracing, hewing down 
 forest trees, laying foundations. Already ships 
 were heading for Boston Harbour with statuary 
 and wrought marble in their holds, all to beautify 
 a palace meet for Oliver Vyell's bride. Thus love 
 wrought in him, in a not extraordinary way if we 
 allow for his extraordinary means. He and Ruth, 
 between them, were beginning to sing the eternal 
 duet of courtship : — 
 
 He. — Since that I love, this world has grown ; 
 
 Yea, widens all to be possest. 
 She. — Since that I love, it narrows down 
 
 Into one little nest. 
 
 He. — Since that I love, I rage and burn 
 
 O'erwhelming Nineveh with Rome J 
 
 She. — In vain ! in vain ! Fond man return — 
 Such doings be at home ! 
 
 He had reached an age to know himself in his 
 own despite. He was no boy, to dream of build- 
 ing or overthrowing empires. But he could build
 
 292 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 his love a palace. His friend Batty Langton bore 
 with all this energy and smiled wisely. 
 
 Ruth guessed nothing of these preparations. 
 But his vehemence broke down her scruples, over- 
 bore and swept away what she had built in hours 
 of patient thinking. She yielded : she would be 
 married, since he willed it. 
 
 But the debate had been ; and it left Tatty, 
 with her maxims and taken-for-granted practical- 
 ities, hard to endure at times. 
 
 "The outfit ?" Tatty would suggest. "At this 
 distance from civilisation we cannot even begin to 
 take it in hand. Yet it should be worthy of the 
 occasion, and men — speaking with all respect of 
 Sir Oliver — are apt to overlook these things. 
 Dear Ruth, I do not know if you have thought of 
 returning to Sabines. ... So much handier. . . ." 
 
 Ruth, half-wilfully, refused to think of returning 
 to Sabines. 
 
 But if Tatty fussed, the Cordery lads made more 
 than recompense for her fussing. From the hour 
 when, at supper-time, Sir Oliver led Miss Josselin 
 into the kitchen, his bride affianced, all discord 
 ceased between these young men. He was their 
 master and patron, and they thenceforth were her 
 servants only — her equal champions should occa- 
 sion ever be given.
 
 BETROTHED 293 
 
 Thenceforth too, and until the hour when at 
 nightfall she drove away from Sweetwater Farm, 
 she was their goddess : and as, while Phoebus 
 served shepherd to Admetus, his fellow swains 
 noted that never had harvest been so heavy or life 
 so full of sweet and healthy rivalries, so these 
 young men, who but once or twice saw Ruth 
 Josselin after the hour of her departure, talked in 
 scattered homesteads all their days of that good 
 time at Sweetwater, and of the season's wonderful 
 bearings. Undoubtedly the winter was a genial 
 one — so genial that scarcely a day denied Ruth a 
 bracing ride : the spring that followed seemed to 
 rain and shine almost in obedience to Farmer 
 Cordery's evening prayer (and it never left the 
 Almighty in doubt of his exact wishes). Summer 
 came, and the young men, emulous but no longer 
 bickering, scythed down prodigious swathes ; har- 
 vest-fall, and they put in their sickles among tall 
 stalk and full ear. 
 
 Sir Oliver and Ruth watched the harvest. When 
 all was gathered, the young men begged that she 
 would ride home on the last load. They escorted 
 her back to the farmstead, walking two-by-two 
 before the cart, under the young moon. 
 
 Next evening at the same hour she bade them 
 farewell and climbed into a light waggon that 
 stood ready, its lamps throwing long shafts of
 
 294 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 light. Horses had been sent on ahead, with two 
 servants for escort, and would await her at dawn, 
 far on the road ; but to-night she would sleep in 
 the waggon, upon a scented bed of hay. The 
 reason for this belated start Sir Oliver kept a 
 secret from her. There was a certain hill upon 
 the way, and he would not have her pass it by 
 daylight. He had returned that morning to 
 Boston ; Miss Quiney with him. 
 
 Ruth's eyes were moist to leave these good folk. 
 Farmer Cordery cleared his throat and blessed her 
 in parting. She blessed them in return. 
 
 The waggon, after following the Boston road 
 for a while, turned northward, bearing her by 
 strange ways and through the night towards Port 
 Nassau.
 
 Chapter II 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 '"THE breakers boomed up the beach, and in 
 the blown spray Old Josselin pottered, 
 bareheaded and barefoot. His eyesight had 
 grown dimmer, but otherwise his bodily health 
 had improved, for nowadays he ate food enough : 
 and, as for purblindness, why there was no real 
 need to keep watch on the sea. He did it from 
 habit. 
 
 Ruth came on him much as Sir Oliver had 
 come on him three years before ; the roar of 
 the breakers swallowing all sound of Madcap's 
 hoofs until she was close at his shoulder. Now 
 as then he turned about with a puzzled face, 
 peered, and lifted his hand a little way as if to 
 touch his forehead. 
 
 " Your ladyship— he mumbled, noting only 
 her fine clothes. 
 
 cc Grandfather ! " 
 
 She slipped down from saddle and kissed him,
 
 296 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 in sight of the grooms, who had reined up fifty 
 yards away. 
 
 "What? Ruth, is it ? . . . Here's news, 
 now, for your mother, poor soul ! " 
 
 " How is she ? Take me to her at once, 
 please." 
 
 " Eh ! . . . Your mother keeps well enough ; 
 though doited, o' course — doited. Properly grown 
 you be, too, I must say. ... I didn't reckernise 
 ye comin' on me like that. Inches ye've grown." 
 
 "And you — well, you look just the same as 
 ever ; only fuller and haler." 
 
 "Do I?" The old man save her in the old 
 way certain details of his health. " But I'm 
 betterin'. Food's a blessin', however ye come 
 by it." 
 
 On a sudden, as she read his thought, the very 
 tokens of health in his face accused her . . . and, 
 a moment since, she had been merely glad to note 
 them. 
 
 " Clothes too, ye'll say ? I don't set store by 
 clothes, meself; but a fine han'some quean they 
 make of ye. That's a mare, too ! Cost a hundred 
 guineas, I shouldn't wonder. . . . Well, an' how's 
 the gentleman keepin' ? Turned into a lord, you 
 told us, in one o' your letters : that, or something 
 o' the sort." 
 
 " Then at any rate you have read my letters ? "
 
 THE RETURN 297 
 
 " Why, to be sure. My old eyes can't tackle 
 'em ; but your mother reads 'em out, over an' 
 over, an' I tell her what this an' that means, an' 
 get the sense into her head somehow." 
 
 "Take me to her." Ruth signalled to the 
 grooms, who came forward. They were well-trained 
 servants, recent imports from England, and Sir 
 Oliver had billeted them where they could hear 
 no gossip of her history. They had kept their 
 distance with faces absolutely impassive while their 
 mistress kissed and chatted with this old man, and 
 they merely touched their hats, with a " Very 
 good, miss," when she gave over the mare, saying 
 she would walk up to the cottage and rest for 
 an hour. 
 
 "Oo-oof! the dear old smell!" Ruth, before 
 she turned, drew in a deep breath of it. There 
 was no one near to observe and liken her, standing 
 there with blown tresses and wind-wrapt skirt on 
 the edge of Ocean, to the fairest among goddesses, 
 the Sea-born. 
 
 She walked up the beach, the old man beside her. 
 
 " Ay : you reckernise the taste of it, I dessay. 
 But you'd not come back to it, not you. ... It 
 must be nigh upon dinner : my belly still keeps 
 time like a clock. M'ria shall cook us a few clams. 
 Snuffin' won't bring it back like clams." He 
 chuckled, supposing he had made a joke.
 
 298 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Her mother had caught sight of them from the 
 window where she sat as usual watching the sea. 
 As they climbed the slope, picking their way along 
 loosely-piled wreckwood, she opened the door and 
 stood at first fastening a clean apron and then 
 rubbing her palms up and down upon it, as though 
 they were sweaty and she would dry them before 
 she shook hands. 
 
 " That's so, M'ria ! ' the old man shouted 
 cheerfully, as his eyes made out the patch of white 
 apron in the doorway. "It's our Ruth, all right 
 — come to pay us a visit ! ' He bawled it, at 
 close quarters. This was his way of conveying 
 intelligence to the crazed brain. 
 
 Mrs. Josselin, awed by her daughter's appear- 
 ance — a little perhaps, by her loveliness ; more, 
 belike, by her air of distinction and her fine dress 
 (though this was simple enough — a riding suit 
 of grey velvet, with a broad-brimmed hat and one 
 black feather) — withdrew behind her back the hand 
 she had been wiping, and stood irresolute, smiling 
 in a timid way. 
 
 It was horrible. Ruth stretched out her arms 
 lest in another moment her mother should bob 
 a curtsy. 
 
 " Mother — mother ! " 
 
 She took the poor creature in her arms and held 
 her, shivering a little as she sought her lips ; for
 
 THE RETURN 299 
 
 Mrs. Josselin, albeit scrupulously clean, had a 
 trace of that strange wild smell that haunts the 
 insane. Ruth had lived with it aforetime and 
 ceased to notice it. Now she recognised it, and 
 shivered.- 
 
 " Surely, surely," said the mother as soon as 
 the embrace released her. " I always said you 
 would come back, some day. In wealth or in 
 trouble, I always told grandfather you would come 
 back. . . . That hat, now — the very latest I'll be 
 bound. . . . And how is your good gentle- 
 man r 
 
 " Mother ! Please do not call him that ! ' 
 
 " Why, you ha'n't quarrelled, ha' you ? " 
 
 " Indeed, no." 
 
 " That's right." Mrs. Josselin nodded, looking 
 extremely wise. " Show a good face always, no 
 matter what happens ; and, with your looks there's 
 no saying what you can't persuade him to. All 
 the Pococks were good-looking, though I say 
 it who shouldn't : and as for the Josselins — " 
 
 " Sit down, mother," Ruth commanded. She 
 must get this over, and soon, for it was straining 
 at her heart. " Sit down and listen to what I have 
 to tell. Afterwards you shall get me something 
 to eat ; and while you are dishing it— dear mother, 
 you were always briskest about the fireplace — we 
 will talk in the old style."
 
 (( 
 (< 
 
 3 oo LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " Surely, surely." Mrs. Josselin seated herself 
 on the block-stool. 
 
 "You remember the promise? In three years 
 — and yesterday the three years were up — I was 
 to come back and report myself." 
 
 Is it three years, now ? Time do slip away ! ' 
 The gel's right," corroborated old Josselin, 
 pausing as he filled a pipe. " I remember it." 
 
 " This is what I have to report — Sir Oliver has 
 asked me to marry him." 
 
 There was a pause. " I dunno," said the old 
 man sourly — and Ruth knew that tone so well ! 
 He always used it on hearing good news, lest 
 he should be mistaken for genial--" 1 dunno 
 why you couldn' ha' told us that straight off, 
 without beatin' round the bush. It's important 
 enough." 
 
 " He has asked me to marry him, and I have 
 said ' yes. 
 
 " What else could ye say ? " 
 
 " Of course she said c yes,' the darling ! " Mrs. 
 Josselin clapped her hands together, without noise. 
 " What did I ever say but that 'twas a chance, 
 if you used it ? But when is it to be ? " she added, 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " Very soon. As soon as I please, in fact." 
 
 " You take my advice and pin him to it. The 
 sooner the better — eh, darling?"
 
 THE RETURN 301 
 
 Ruth rose wearily. " I see the pot boiling," 
 she said with a glance at the fireplace, " and I have 
 been on horseback since seven o'clock. Mother, 
 won't you give me food, at least ? I am hungry 
 as a hunter." 
 
 — But this was very nearly a fib. She had been 
 hungry enough, half an hour ago. Now her throat 
 worked in disgust — not at the hovel and its 
 poverty ; for these were dear — but at the thought 
 that thus for three years her dearest had been 
 thinking of her. It had been the home of infinite 
 mutual tolerance, of some affection — an affection 
 not patent perhaps — and for years it had been all 
 she owned. Now it lived on, but was poisoned ; 
 the atmosphere of the humble place was poisoned, 
 and through her. 
 
 " Food ? "- — her mother rose. " Food be sure, 
 and a bed, deary : for you'll be sleeping here, 
 of course ? " 
 
 " No. I go on to Port Nassau ; and thence 
 in a few days to a lodging up in the back country." 
 
 " Such a mare as she's ridin' too ! " put in the 
 old man. 
 
 " I wouldn' put up at Port Nassau, if I was 
 you," said her mother pausing as she made ready 
 to lift the pot-handle. " They won't know what 
 you've told us, and they'll cast up the old shame 
 on you."
 
 3 o2 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 "M'ria ha'n't talked so sensible for days," 
 said the old man. " Joy must ha' steadied her." 
 . . . Clams, is it ? Clams, I hope." 
 
 The meal over, Ruth took leave of them, 
 reproaching herself for her haste, though troubled 
 to have delayed the grooms so long. 
 
 She mounted and rode forward thoughtfully. 
 
 The grooms did not wear the Vyell white and 
 scarlet, but a sober livery of dark blue. Between 
 more serious thoughts Ruth wondered if any one 
 in Port Nassau would recognise her. 
 
 The hostess of the Bowling Green did not, but 
 came to the door and dropped curtsies to her, 
 as to a grand lady. She startled Ruth, however, 
 by respectfully asking her name. 
 
 Ruth, who had forgotten to provide against this, 
 had a happy inspiration. 
 
 " I am Miss Ruth," she said. 
 
 The landlady desired to be informed how to 
 spell it. " For," said she, " I keep a list of all 
 the quality that honour the Bowling Green." 
 
 Ruth signed it boldly in the book presented, 
 and ordered supper to be brought to her room ; 
 also a fire to be lit. She was given the same room 
 in which she had knelt to pull off Oliver Vyell's 
 boots. 
 
 Whilst supper was preparing, in a panic lest
 
 THE RETURN 303 
 
 she should be recognised she tied her hair high 
 and wound it with a rope of pearls — her lover's 
 first gift to her. In her dress she could make 
 little change. The waggon following in her wake 
 would be due to-morrow with her boxes ; but for 
 to-night she must rely on the few necessaries of 
 toilet the grooms had brought, packed in small 
 hold-alls at their saddle bows. 
 
 Her fears proved to be idle. The meal was 
 served by a small maid, upon whom she once 
 or twice looked curiously. She wondered if the 
 landlady scolded her often. 
 
 After supper she sat a long while in thought 
 over the fire, shielding its heat from her with her 
 hands. They were exquisite hands, but once or 
 twice she turned them palms-uppermost, as though 
 to make sure they bore no scars.
 
 Chapter III 
 
 NESTING 
 
 CHE spent a week in Port Nassau, recognised 
 by none. She walked its streets, her features 
 half hidden by a veil ; and among the Port Nas- 
 sauers she passed for an English lady of quality 
 who, by one of those freaks from which the wealthy 
 suffer, designed to rent or build herself a house 
 in the neighbourhood. Her accent by this time 
 was English ; by unconscious preference she had 
 learnt it from her lover, translating and adapting 
 it to her own musical tones. It deceived the Port 
 Nassauers completely. 
 
 She visited many stores, always with a man- 
 servant in attendance ; and, always paying down 
 ready-money, bought of the best the little town 
 could afford (but chiefly small articles of furniture, 
 with some salted provisions and luxuries such as 
 well-to-do skippers took to sea for their private 
 tables). The waggon had arrived ; it, too, con-
 
 NESTING 305 
 
 tained a quantity of wine and provisions, camp 
 furniture, clothes, etc. 
 
 At the end of the week she left Port Nassau 
 with her purchases, the two men escorting her, the 
 laden waggon following. They climbed the hill 
 above the town, and struck inland from the base 
 of the peninsula, travelling north and by west. 
 The road — a passably good one — led them across 
 a dip of cultivated land, shaped like a saddle-back, 
 with a line of forest trees topping its farther ridge. 
 This was the fringe of a considerable forest, and 
 beyond the ridge they rode for miles in the shade 
 of boughs, slanting their way along a gentle de- 
 clivity, with here and there glimpses of a broad 
 plain below, and of a broad-banded river winding 
 through it with many loops. 
 
 But these glimpses were rare, and a stranger 
 could not guess the extent of the plain until, step- 
 ping from the forest into broad day, he found 
 himself on the very skirts of it. 
 
 An ample plain it was ; a grass ground of many 
 thousand acres, where fifty years ago the Indians 
 had pastured, but where now the farmers labori- 
 ously saved their hay when the floods allowed, and 
 in spring launched their punts and went duck- 
 shooting with long guns and wading-boots. For 
 in winter one sheet of water — or of ice, as it might 
 happen — covered the meadows and made the great
 
 3 o6 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 river one with the many brooks that threaded their 
 way to her. But at this season they ran low 
 between their banks and the eye easily traced their 
 meanderings, while the main stream itself rolled 
 its waters in full view — in places three hundred 
 yards wide, and seldom narrower than one hundred. 
 Dwarf willows fringed it : at some distance back 
 from the shore, alders and reddening maples dotted 
 the meadows, with oaks here and there, and 
 everywhere wild cranberry bushes in great moss- 
 like hummocks. 
 
 It ran sluggishly, and always — however long the 
 curve — up to its near or right bank the plain lay 
 flat, or broken only by these hummocks. But 
 from the farther shore the ground rose at a 
 moderate slope, and here were farmhouses and 
 haystacks planted above reach of the waters. A 
 high ridge of forest backed this inhabited terrace, 
 and dense forest filled the eastward gap through 
 which the river passed down to these levels from 
 the cleft hills. 
 
 At one point on the farther shore the houses 
 had drawn together in a cluster, and towards this 
 the road ran in a straight line on the raised cause- 
 way that had suffered much erosion from bygone 
 floods. It cost the travellers an hour to reach the 
 river-bank, where a ferry plied to and from the 
 village. It was a horse-boat, but not capable of
 
 NESTING 307 
 
 conveying the waggon, the contents of which must 
 be unladen and shipped across in parcels, to be 
 repacked in a cart that stood ready on the village 
 quay. Leaving her men to handle this, Ruth 
 crossed alone with her mare and rode on, as the 
 ferryman directed her, past the village towards her 
 lodging, some two miles up the stream. The 
 house stood beside a more ancient ferry, now dis- 
 used, to which it had formerly served as a tavern. 
 It rested on stout oaken piles driven deep into 
 the river-mud ; a notable building, with a roof 
 like the inverted hull of a galleon, pierced with 
 dormer windows and topped by a rusty vane. Its 
 tenants were a childless couple — a Mr. and Mrs. 
 Strongtharm : he a taciturn man of fifty, a born 
 naturalist and great shooter of wildfowl ; she a 
 douce woman, with eyes like beads of jet, and an 
 incurable propensity for mothering and spoiling her 
 neighbours' children. 
 
 The couple received her kindly, asking few 
 questions. Their dwelling was by many sizes too 
 large for them, and she might have taken her 
 choice among a dozen of the old guest-chambers. 
 But Sir Oliver had come and gone a month before 
 and selected the best for her. Its roof-timbers, 
 shaped like the ribs of a ship, curved outwards and 
 downwards from a veritable keelson ; and it was 
 reached by way of a zig-zagging corridor, lit by
 
 308 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 port-holes, and adorned in every niche and corner 
 with cases of stuffed wildfowl. Ruth supped well 
 on game Mr. Strongtharm's gun had provided, and 
 slept soundly, lulled between her dreams by the 
 ripple of water swirling between the piles that 
 supported, far below her, the house's cellarage. 
 
 She awoke at daybreak to the humming of 
 wind ; and looked forth on a leaden sky, on the 
 river ruffled and clapping in small waves against 
 a shrill north-easter, and on countless birds in 
 flocks rising- from the meadows and balancing their 
 
 o o 
 
 wings against it. Before breakfast-time the weather 
 
 to to 
 
 had turned to heavy rain. But this mattered 
 nothing ; she had a day's work indoors before her. 
 She spent the morning in unpacking the stores, 
 which had arrived late overnight from the ferry, 
 and in putting a hundred small touches to her 
 bedroom and sitting-room, to make them more 
 habitable. By noon she had finished the unpack- 
 ing, and dismissed the two grooms to make their 
 way back to Boston and report that all was well 
 with her. It rained until three in the afternoon ; 
 and then, the weather clearing, she saddled Madcap 
 with her own hands and rode to the edge of the 
 
 o 
 
 forest. Little light remained when she reached 
 
 o 
 
 its outskirts, and she peered curiously between the 
 dim boles for a few minutes before turning for 
 her homeward ride. She had brought a beautiful
 
 NESTING 309 
 
 scheme in her head, and the forest was concerned 
 in it ; but for the moment, in this twilight, the 
 forest daunted her. She had — for she differed 
 from most maidens — left her lover to arrange all 
 the business of the marriage ceremony, stipulating 
 only that it must be private. But she had at the 
 same time bound him by a lover's oath that all 
 details of the honeymoon must be left to her ; that 
 he should neither know where and how it was 
 to be spent, nor seek to enquire. She would meet 
 him at the church porch in the village below — in 
 what garb, even, she would not promise ; and after 
 the ceremony he must be ready to ride away with 
 her — she would not promise whither. 
 
 Her project had been to build a camp far in the 
 woods ; and to this end she had made her many 
 purchases in Port Nassau. They included, besides 
 an array of provisions and cooking-pots, a hunter's 
 tent such as the backwoodsmen used in their 
 expeditions after beaver and moose. It weighed 
 many pounds, and a part of her problem was how 
 to convey it to any depth of the forest unaided. 
 
 The easterly gale blew itself out. The next 
 morning broke with rifts of blue, and steadied 
 itself, after two hours, to clear sunshine. She 
 awoke in blithe spirits, and after breakfast went 
 off without waste of time to saddle Madcap. By 
 the stable door she found Mr. Strongtharm seated
 
 310 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 and polishing his gun, and paused to catechise him 
 on the forest tracks, particularly on those leading 
 up through Soldier's Gap — by which name he 
 called the gorge at the head of the plain. 
 
 " The best track beyond, you'll find, lies pretty 
 close 'longside the river," he said. "But 'tis no 
 road for the mare. I doubt if a mule could manage 
 it after the third mile. The river, you see, comes 
 through in a monstrous hurry — by the look of it 
 here you'd never guess. No, indeed, 'tisn't a 
 river at all, properly speakin', but a whole heap o' 
 streams tumblin' down this-a-way, that-a-way, out 
 o' the side valleys ; and what you may call the 
 main river don't run in one body, but breaks itself 
 up considerable over waterfalls. Rock for the 
 most part, an' pretty steep, with splashy ground 
 below the falls. I han't been right up the Gap 
 these dozen years ; an' a man's job it is at the best 
 — a two days' journey. The las' time I slept the 
 night, goin' an' comin', in Peter Vanders' lodge." 
 
 " A lodge ? " 
 
 " That's what they call it. He was a trapper, 
 and a famous one, but before my time ; an' that 
 was his headquarters — a sort o' cabin, pretty stout, 
 just by the head in the sixth fall, or maybe 'tis the 
 seventh — I forget. He lived up there without 
 wife or family — " Mr. Strongtharm would have 
 launched into further particulars about the dead
 
 NESTING 311 
 
 trapper, whose skill and strange habits had passed 
 into a legend in the valley. But Ruth wished to 
 hear more of the cabin. 
 
 " It's standin', no doubt, to this day. Vanders 
 was a Dutchman, an' Dutchmen build strong by 
 nature. The man who built this yer house was 
 a Dutchman, an' look at the piles of it — an the 
 ribs you may ha' noticed. Ay, the lodge will be 
 there yet ; but you'll never find it, not unless I 
 takes ye. That fourth fall is a teaser." 
 
 Ruth saddled her mare, and rode off in the 
 direction of the gap, thoughtfully. Mr. Strong- 
 tharm had given her a new notion. . . . 
 
 It was close upon nightfall when she returned. 
 She was muddy, but cheerful ; and she hummed 
 a song to herself in her chamber as she slid off her 
 mired garments and attired herself for supper. 
 
 That song was her nesting song. Away Boston- 
 wards, her lover, too, was building in his magnifi- 
 cent fashion ; but Ruth had found a secret place, 
 such as birds love, and shyly, stealthily as a mating 
 bird, she set about planning and furnishing. It 
 is woman's instinct. . . . Every day, as soon as 
 breakfast was done, she saddled and rode towards 
 the Gap, and always with a parcel or two dangling 
 from the saddle-bow or strapped upon Madcap's 
 back.
 
 3 i2 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 For the first time in her life she had money to 
 handle ; money furnished by Sir Oliver to be spent 
 at her own disposal on the honeymoon. It seemed 
 to her a prodigious sum, but she was none the 
 less economical with it. I fear that sometimes she 
 opened the bags and gloated over the coins as 
 over a hoard. She was neither miser nor spend- 
 thrift ; but unlike many girls brought up in 
 poverty, she brought good husbandry to good 
 fortune. 
 
 Yet " shopping " — to enter a store and choose 
 among the goods for sale, having money to pay, 
 but* weighing quality and price — was undeniably 
 pleasant. Twice or thrice, bethinking her of some 
 trifle overlooked at Port Nassau, she enjoyed visit- 
 ing the village store — it boasted but one — and 
 dallying with a purchase. 
 
 She was riding back from one of these visits — it 
 had been (if the Muse will smile and condescend) 
 to buy a packet of hairpins — when, half-way up 
 the village street, she spied a horseman approach- 
 ing. An instant later she recognised Mr. Trask. 
 
 There was really nothing strange in her meeting 
 him here. Mr. Trask owned a herd of bullocks, 
 and had ridden over from Port Nassau to bargain 
 for their winter fodder. He had not aged a day. 
 His horse was a tall grey, large-jointed, and ugly. 
 
 Ruth wore a veil, but it was wreathed just now
 
 NESTING 313 
 
 above the brim of her hat. Her first impulse was 
 to draw it over her face, and her hand went up ; 
 but she desisted in pride, and rode by her old 
 enemy with a calm face. 
 
 They passed one another, and she believed that 
 he had not recognised her ; but after a few paces 
 she heard him check his horse. 
 
 " Hi, madam ! " 
 
 She halted, and he came slowly back. 
 
 " You are Ruth Josselin," he said. 
 
 cc T ' " 
 
 " 1 am, sir. 
 
 " And what are you doing here ? " 
 
 She smiled at him a little scornfully. " Do you 
 ask as a magistrate, sir, or in curiosity ? ' 
 
 He frowned, narrowing his eyes. " You are 
 marvellously changed. You appear prosperous. 
 Has Vyell married you yet ? " 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 " Nor as yet cast you off, it would seem." 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 " Ah, well, go your ways. You are a beautiful 
 thing, but evil ; and I would have saved ye from 
 it. I whipped ye, remember." 
 
 Her face burned, but she held her eyes steady 
 on him. " Mr. Trask," she said, " do you believe 
 in hell ? " 
 
 " Eh ? " He was taken aback, but he could 
 not frown away the question ; for she asked it
 
 3H LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 with a certain authority, albeit very courteously. 
 "Eh? To be sure I do." 
 
 " I am going to prove to you (and some day 
 you may take comfort from it) that, except on 
 earth, there is no such place." 
 
 " Ye'd like to believe that, I daresay ! ' 
 
 c For you see," she went on, letting the sneer 
 pass, " it is agreed that, if there be a hell, none 
 but the wicked go there." 
 
 « Well ? " 
 
 " Why, then, hell must defeat itself. For, 
 where all are wicked together, no punishment can 
 degrade, because no shame is felt." 
 
 " There's the pain, madam." He eyed her, and 
 barked it in a short, savage laugh. " The torment 
 — the worm that dies not, the fire that's not 
 quenched. Won't these content ye, bating the 
 shame ? " 
 
 Her eyes answered his in scorn. <f No, sir. 
 Because I once suffered your cruelty, you have less 
 understanding than I ; but you have more ingenuity 
 than the Almighty, being able, in your district, to 
 make a hell of earth." 
 
 " You blaspheme thus to me, that honestly tried 
 to save your soul ? " 
 
 " Did you ? . . . Well, perhaps you did in your 
 fashion, and you may take this comfort for reward. 
 Believe me, who have tried, hell is bottomless, but
 
 NESTING 315 
 
 in its own way. Should ever you attain to it — and 
 there may in another world be such a place for the 
 cruel — go down boldly ; and it may be you will 
 drop through into bliss." 
 
 " You, to talk of another world ! " he snapped. 
 
 " And why not, Mr. Trask ? Once upon a 
 time you killed me." 
 
 He turned his grey horse impatiently. " I 
 whipped ye," was his parting shot. " If 'twarn't 
 too late, I'd take pleasure to whip ye again ! "
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 THE BRIDEGROOM 
 
 "JV/TR. TRASK had not concluded the bargain 
 for his winter fodder. Just a week later 
 he rode over from Port Nassau, to clinch it, 
 and had almost reached the foot of the descent 
 to the river meadows when a better mounted 
 rider overtook him. 
 
 "Ah!" said the stranger, checking his horse's 
 stride as he passed. " Good-morning, Mr. Trask ! 
 But possibly you do not remember me ? " 
 
 " I remember you perfectly," answered Mr. 
 Trask. " You are Sir Oliver Vyell." 
 
 " Whom, once on a time, you sentenced to the 
 stocks. You recall our last conversation ? Well, 
 I bear you no malice ; and, to prove it, will ask 
 leave to ride to the ferry with you. You will 
 oblige me ? I like companionship, and my one 
 fellow-traveller — a poor horseman — I have left 
 some way behind on the road." 
 
 " I have no wish to ride with you, Sir Oliver,"
 
 THE BRIDEGROOM 317 
 
 said Mr. Trask stiffly. " Forbye that I consider 
 ye a son of Belial, I have a particular quarrel with 
 you. At the time you condescend to mention, I 
 took it upon me to give you some honest advice — 
 not wholly for your own sake. You flouted it, 
 and l that's nothing to me ' you'll say ; but every 
 step we take worsens that very sin against which 
 I warned ye, and therefore I want none of your 
 company." 
 
 " Honest Mr. Trask," Sir Oliver answered with 
 a laugh. " I put it to you that, having fallen in 
 together thus agreeably, we shall make ourselves 
 but a pair of fools if one rides ahead of the 
 other in dudgeon. Add to this that the ferry- 
 man, spying us, will wait to tide us over together ; 
 and add also, if you will, that I have the better 
 mount and it lies in my will that you shall neither 
 lag behind nor outstrip me. Moreover, you are 
 mistaken." 
 
 " I am not mistaken. This day week I met 
 Ruth Josselin and had speech with her." 
 
 " Satisfactory, 1 hope ? " 
 
 " It was not satisfactory ; and if I must ride 
 with you, Sir Oliver, you'll understand it to be 
 under protest. You are a lewd man. You have 
 taken this child — " 
 
 Here Mr. Trask choked upon speech. Recover- 
 ing, he said the most unexpected thing in the world.
 
 318 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " I am not as a rule a judge of good looks ; and no 
 doubt 'tis unreason in me to pity her the more for 
 her comeliness. But as a matter of fact I do." 
 
 Sir Oliver stared at him. " Ton to pity her ! 
 Ton to plead her beauty to me, who took it out 
 of the mud where you had flung her, mauled by 
 you and left to lie like a bloody clout ! " 
 
 But the armour of Mr. Trask's self-righteousness 
 was not pierced. " I sentenced her," he replied 
 calmly, " for her soul's welfare. Who said — what 
 right have you to assume — that she would have 
 been left to lie there ? Rather, did I not promise 
 you in the market-square that, her chastening over, 
 my cart should fetch her ? Did I not keep my 
 word ? And could you not read in the action 
 some earnest that the girl would be looked after ? 
 Your atheism, sir, makes you dull in spiritual 
 understanding." 
 
 " I am glad that it does, sir." 
 
 "If your passion for Ruth Josselin held an 
 ounce of honesty, you would not be glad ; for 
 even in this world you have ruined her." 
 
 " Mr. Trask, I have not." 
 
 Mr. Trask glanced at him quickly. 
 
 " — Upon my honour as a gentleman I have not, 
 neither do I desire it . . . Sir, twice in this half- 
 mile you have prompted me to ask, What, here on 
 this meadow, prevents my killing you ? Wait ; I
 
 THE BRIDEGROOM 319 
 
 know your answer. You are a courageous man 
 and would say that as a magistrate you have 
 schooled yourself to accept risks and to despise 
 threats. Yes," Sir Oliver admitted with a laugh, 
 "you are an infernally hard nut to crack, and 
 somehow I cannot help liking you for it. Are 
 you spending the night yonder, by-the-bye ? ' 
 He nodded towards the village. 
 
 " No, sir. I purpose returning this evening to 
 Port Nassau." 
 
 " Then it is idle to invite you to my wedding. 
 I am to be married at nine o'clock to-morrow." 
 
 Mr. Trask eyed him for a moment or two. 
 Then his gaze wandered ahead to the river, 
 where already the ferrymen had caught sight of 
 them and were pushing the horse -boat across 
 with long sweeps ; and beyond the river to a 
 small wooden-spired church, roofed with mossy 
 shingles that even at this distance showed green 
 in the slant sunlight. 
 
 " Yonder ? " he asked. 
 
 "Ay : you would have been welcome." 
 
 " I will attend," said Mr. Trask. "A friend of 
 mine — a farmer — will lodge me for the night. A 
 hospitable man, who has made the offer a score of 
 times. After so many refusals I am glad of an 
 excuse for accepting." 
 
 " I stipulate that you keep the excuse a secret
 
 3 2o LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 from him. It is to be quite private. That," said 
 Sir Oliver, turning in saddle for a look behind him, 
 " is one of my reasons for outriding my fellow- 
 traveller." 
 
 " The clergyman ? " 
 
 " Ay . . . To-morrow, maybe, you'll admit to 
 having misjudged us." 
 
 " Maybe," Mr. Trask conceded. " I shall at 
 any rate thank God, provisionally. He is merci- 
 ful. But I have difficulty in believing that any 
 good can come of it."
 
 Chapter V 
 
 RUTH'S WEDDING DAY 
 
 CHE had left it all to him, receiving his instruc- 
 tions by letter. It was to be quite private, as 
 he had told Mr. Trask. She would ride down to 
 the village in her customary grey habit, as though 
 on an early errand of shopping. He would lodge 
 overnight at the Ferry Inn, and be awaiting her by 
 the chancel step. Afterwards — ah, that was her 
 secret ! In this, their first stage in married life, 
 he had promised — reversing the marriage vow — 
 to obey. 
 
 Happiness bubbled within her like a spring ; 
 overshadowed by a little awe, but not to be held 
 down. Almost at the last moment she must take 
 Mrs. Strongtharm into her confidence. She could 
 not help it. 
 
 "Granny," she whispered. (They were great 
 friends.) " I am to be married to-morrow." 
 
 " Sakes ! " exclaimed Mrs. Strongtharm, peering 
 
 at her, misdoubting that she jested. 
 
 11
 
 322 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 But Ruth's face told its own tale. " May I ? " 
 asked the elder woman, and her arm went about 
 the girl's waist. " God bless ye, dear, and send 
 ye a long family ! Who's the gentleman ? Not 
 him as came an' took the rooms for ye ? He said 
 you was a near relation o' his. . . . Well, never 
 mind ! The trick's as old as Abram." 
 
 " Be down at the church at nine to-morrow, and 
 you shall see him, whoever he is. But it is a secret, 
 and you are not to tell Mr. Strongtharm." 
 
 "Oh!" said Mrs. Strongtharm. "Him ! " 
 
 'to' 
 
 " But you ought to make some difference," 
 whispered the good woman next morning, after 
 breakfast, as she was preparing to slip away to 
 the village. " Be it but a flower in your bodice. 
 But we've no garden, and the season's late." 
 
 Ruth took her kiss of benediction. She was 
 scarcely listening ; but the words by a strange 
 trick repeated themselves on. her brain a few 
 minutes later, upstairs, as she went about her 
 last preparations. 
 
 She leaned out at the lattice over the river. A 
 lusty creeper, rooted in terra firma at the back of 
 the house, had pushed its embrace over west side 
 and front. The leaves, green the summer through, 
 were now turned to a vivid flame-colour. She 
 plucked three or four and pinned them over her
 
 RUTH'S WEDDING DAY 323 
 
 bosom, glanced at the effect in the mirror, and 
 went quickly down the stairs. 
 
 Fairer day could hardly have been chosen. 
 " Happy is the bride the sun shines on." ... In 
 the sunshine by the stable door Mr. Strongtharm 
 sat polishing his gun. She asked him what sport 
 he would be after to-day. 
 
 He answered, " None. I don't reckon 'pon 
 luck, fishing, after a body's mentioned rabbits ; 
 and I don't go gunning if I've seen a parson. 
 A new parson, I mean. Th' old Minister's all 
 in the day's work." 
 
 " You have seen a strange clergyman to-day ? " 
 
 " Yes ; as I pulled home past the Ferry. I'd 
 been down-stream early, tryin' for eels. On my 
 way back I saw him — over my left shoulder too. 
 He was comin' out o' the Inn by the waterside 
 door, wipin' his mouth : a loose-featured man, 
 with one shoulder higher than t'other, and a 
 hard drinker by his looks." 
 
 Ruth saddled -up and mounted in silence. 
 Fatally she recognised the old fellow's description ; 
 but — was it possible her lover had brought this 
 man to marry them ? — this man, whose touch 
 was defilement, to join their hands ? If the 
 precisians of Port Nassau had made religion 
 her tragedy, this man had come in, by an after- 
 blow, to turn it into a blasphemous farce. If
 
 3 2 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Ruth had lost Faith, she yet desired good thoughts, 
 to have everything about her pure and holy — and 
 on this day, of all days ! 
 
 Surely Oliver — she had taught herself to call 
 him Oliver — would never misunderstand her so ! 
 Why, it was a misunderstanding that went down, 
 down, almost to the roots. Those whom God hath 
 joined together let no man put asunder . . . but here 
 was cleavage, and from within. Say rather of 
 such sundering, What man could remedy it ? 
 Those whom God hath joined together— ah, by such 
 hands ! 
 
 It was not possible ! In all things her lover 
 had shown himself considerate, tender ; guessing, 
 preventing her smallest wish. As she rode she 
 sought back once more to the wellspring of love. 
 Had he not stooped to her as a god, lifted her 
 from the mire ? It was not possible. 
 
 Yet, as she rode, the unconquerable common 
 sense within her kept whispering that this thing 
 was possible. ... It darkened the sunlight. She 
 rode as one who, having sung carelessly for miles, 
 surmises a dreadful leap close ahead. Still she 
 rode on, less and less sure of herself, and came 
 to the church porch, and alighted. 
 
 The church was a plain oblong building, homely 
 within to the last degree. The pews were of 
 pitch-pine, the walls and rafters coated with white-
 
 RUTH'S WEDDING DAY 325 
 
 wash, some of which had peeled off and lay strew- 
 ing the floor. A smell of oil filled the air ; it was 
 sweet and sickly, and came from the oozings of 
 half a dozen untended lamps. Ornament the place 
 had none, save a decent damask cloth on the 
 Communion table. 
 
 Oliver Vyell stood by the chancel rail. The 
 rest of the congregation comprised Mr. Trask, 
 seated stiff and solitary in the largest pew, Mrs. 
 Strongtharm, and half a score of children whom 
 Mrs. Strongtharm had collected on the way and 
 against her will. They followed her by habit, 
 after goodies ; but just now, though they sat 
 quiet, her reputation was suffering from a transient 
 distrust. (Allurements to piety rarely fell in the 
 path of a New England child ; but even he was 
 child enough to suspect them when they occurred.) 
 At the sound of the mare's footsteps they turned 
 their heads, one and all. Mr. Silk, clad in white 
 surplice and nervously turning the pages of the 
 Office by the holy table, faced about also. 
 
 Ruth was seen alighting, out there in the sun- 
 light. She hitched the mare's bridle over a staple 
 and came lightly stepping through the shadow of 
 the porchway. Her lover walked down the aisle to 
 meet her. He, too, stepped briskly, courteously. 
 
 Three paces within the doorway she came to a 
 halt. The sunlight fell on her again, through the
 
 316 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 first of the southern windows. It flamed on the 
 leaves pinned to her bosom. 
 
 He offered his arm. But she, that had come 
 stepping like a wild fawn, like a fawn stood at 
 gaze, terrified, staring past him at the figure by 
 the table. Mr. Silk commanded an oily smile 
 and, book in hand, advanced to the chancel step. 
 
 "Ah, no ! " she murmured. "It is wicked — " 
 
 She cast her eyes around, as though for help. 
 They did not turn — it was pitifullest of all — to him 
 who was about to swear to help her throughout 
 life. They turned and encountered Mr. Trask's. 
 
 With a sob, as Sir Oliver would have taken 
 her arm, she threw it up, broke from him, and 
 fled back through the porchway As she drew 
 back that one pace before fleeing, the sun fell 
 full again on that breast-knot of scarlet leaves. 
 
 He stared after her dumbfoundered, still doubt- 
 ing her intent. He saw her catch at the mare's 
 bridle, and, with a bitter curse, ran forward. But 
 he was too late. She had mounted, and was 
 away. 
 
 He heard the mare's hoofs clattering up the 
 street. His own horse was stabled at the Ferry 
 Inn. It would cost him ten minutes at least to 
 mount and pursue. . . . 
 
 " I said ' provisionally.' " It was Mr. Trask's 
 voice, speaking at his elbow. "Nay, man, don't
 
 RUTH'S WEDDING DAY 327 
 
 strike me ; since you meant business, 'tis yourself 
 you should strike for a fool. You were a fool to 
 invite me ; but she was scared before ever she 
 caught sight of me — by that buck-parson of yours, 
 I guess." 
 
 He had fetched Bayard, had mounted, and was 
 after her. He pulled rein at her lodgings. Yes, 
 Mr. Strongtharm had seen her go by. The old 
 fellow did not guess what was amiss ; as how 
 should he ? " It's cruel for the mare's hoofs," 
 he commented, " forcing her that pace on the hard 
 road. She rides well, s' far as ridin' goes ; but the 
 best womankind on horseback has neither bowels 
 nor understandin'." 
 
 He pointed towards Soldiers' Gap. c£ She rides 
 there most days," he said ; " but it can't be far. 
 There's no Christian road for a horse, once you're 
 past the second fall." 
 
 Oliver Vyell struck spur and followed. Already 
 he had the decency to curse himself, but not yet 
 could he understand his transgressing. 
 
 " Your atheism " — Mr. Trask had said it — 
 " makes you dull in spiritual understanding." 
 
 Sceptics are of two orders, and religious dis- 
 putants gain a potential advantage, but miss truth, 
 by confusing them. Oliver Vyell was dull, and
 
 328 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 his dullness had betrayed him, precisely because 
 his reason was so lucid and logical that it shut 
 out those half-tones in which abide all men's, all 
 women's, tenderest feelings. He knew that Ruth 
 had no more faith than he in Christian do^ma : no 
 raith at all in what a minister's intervention could 
 do to sanctify marriage. He had inferred that she 
 must consider the tying of the knot by Mr. Silk, 
 if not as a fair jest, at least as a gentle mockery, 
 the humour of which he and she would afterwards 
 taste together. Why had she not pleaded against 
 rite of any kind ? . . . Besides, the dog had once 
 insulted her with a proposal. Sir Oliver never 
 allowed Mr. Silk to guess that he had surprised 
 his secret ; and Mr. Silk, tortuous himself in all 
 ways, could not begin to be on terms with a candid 
 soul such as Ruth's, craving in all things to be 
 open where it loves. Sir Oliver had supposed 
 it a pretty lesson to put on a calm, negligent face, 
 and command the parson, who dared not disobey, 
 to perform the ceremony. Mr. Silk had cringed. 
 
 Likewise, when inviting Mr. Trask to the nup- 
 tials, he had looked on him but as a witness to his 
 triumph. The very man who had sentenced her 
 to degradation — was there not dramatic triumph in 
 summoning him to behold her exalted ? 
 
 For behind all this reasoning, of course, and 
 below all his real passion for her, lay the poisonous,
 
 RUTH'S WEDDING DAY 329 
 
 proud, Whig sense of superiority, the conviction 
 that, desirable though she was, his choice exalted 
 her. Would not ten thousand women — would not 
 a hundred thousand — have counted it heaven to 
 stand in her place ? 
 
 Yet she had earnestly begged off the rite which 
 to every one of these women would have meant 
 everything. This puzzled him. 
 
 On second thoughts the puzzle had dissolved. 
 She accepted his negations, and, woman-like, im- 
 proved on them. The marriage service was hum- 
 bug ; therefore she had willed to have none of it. 
 The attitude was touching. It might have been 
 convenient, had he been less in love. 
 
 But he was deeply in love, so deeply that in 
 good earnest he longed to lift and set her above 
 all women. For this, nonsensical though they were, 
 due rites must be observed. 
 
 At the last pinch she had broken away. Was 
 it possible, then, that after all she did not love 
 him ? She had crossed her arms once and called 
 herself his slave. . . . 
 
 Not for one moment did he understand that 
 other scepticism which, forced out of faith, clasps 
 and clings to reverence ; which, though it count 
 the rite inefficient, yet sees the meaning, and counts 
 the moment so holy that to contaminate the rite is 
 to poison all.
 
 330 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Not as yet did he understand one whit of this. 
 But he vehemently desired her, and his desire was 
 straight. Because it was straight, while he rode 
 some inkling of the truth pierced him. 
 
 For, as he rode, he recalled how she had cast up 
 an arm and turned to flee. His eyes had rested 
 confusedly on the breast-knot of scarlet leaves, 
 and it seemed to him, as he rode, that he had seen 
 her heart beating there through her ribs.
 
 •X 1 ] 
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 "YET HE WILL COME—" 
 
 HE cabin stood close above the fall. It was 
 built of oak logs split in two, with the barked 
 and rounded sides turned outward. Pete Vanders 
 would have found pine logs more tractable and 
 handier to come by, and they would have outlasted 
 his time ; but, being a Dutchman, he had built 
 solidly by instinct. 
 
 Also, he had chosen his ledge cunningly or else 
 with amazing luck. A stairway shaped in the solid 
 rock — eight treads and no more — led down to the 
 very brink of the first cascade ; yet through all 
 these years, with their freshets and floods, the 
 cabin had clung to its perch. Within doors the 
 ears never lost the drone of the waters. There 
 were top-notes that lifted or sank as the wind 
 blew, but below them the deep bass thundered on. 
 
 Ruth had doffed her riding-dress for a bodice 
 and short skirt of russet, and moved about the 
 cabin tidying where she had tidied a score of times
 
 332 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 already. Through the window- opening drifted 
 wisps of smoke, aromatic and pungent, from the 
 fire she had built in an angle of the crags a few 
 yards from the house. (It had been the Dutch- 
 man's hearth. She had found it and cleared the 
 creepers away, and below them the rock-face was 
 yet black with the smoke of old fires.) Some way 
 up the gorge, where, at the foot of a smaller water- 
 fall, the river divided and swirled about an island 
 covered with sweet grass — a miniature meadow — 
 her mare grazed at will. About a fortnight ago, 
 having set aside three days for the search, on the 
 second Ruth had found a circuitous way through 
 the woods. A part of it she had cleared with 
 a billhook, and since then Madcap had trodden 
 a rough pathway with her frequent goings and 
 comings. It had immensely lightened the labour 
 of furnishing, but she feared that the pasturage 
 would last but a day or two. Her lover, when 
 he came, must devise means of sending the mare 
 back. 
 
 She never doubted his coming. He would 
 probably miss the bridle-path, the opening of 
 which she had carefully hidden, and be forced 
 to make the ascent on foot. But he would come. 
 See, she was laying out his clothes for him ! He 
 had sent to Sweetwater, at her request, two valises 
 full, packed by Manasseh ; and she had conveyed
 
 "YET HE WILL COME—" 3 33 
 
 them hither with the rest of the furniture. Care- 
 fully now she made her selection from the store : 
 coat, breeches of homespun and leather, stout 
 boots, moccasined leggings such as the Indians 
 wore, woollen shirts — but other shirts also of 
 finest cambric — with underclothes of silk, and 
 delicate nightshirts, and silken stockings that could 
 be drawn like soft ribbons between the fingers. 
 She thrilled as she handled them garment by 
 garment. Along the wall hung his two guns, 
 with shot-bag and powder-flask. 
 
 Here was his home. Here were his clothes. . . . 
 She had forgiven him, hours ago, without necessity 
 for his pleading. So would he forgive her. After 
 all, what store did he set by church ceremony. 
 He had vowed to her a dozen times that he set 
 none. He loved her ; that was enough, and assur- 
 ance of his following. He would confess that 
 she had been right. ... As she moved about, 
 touching, smoothing this garment and that, there 
 crossed her memory the Virgilian refrain — 
 
 "Nihil ilk deos, nil carmina curat. 
 Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin." 
 
 She murmured it, smiling to herself as she 
 recalled also the dour figure of Mr. Hichens in 
 the library at Sabines, seated stiffly, listening while
 
 334 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 she construed. If only tutors guessed what they 
 taught ! 
 
 She hummed the lines: "Nihil ilk deos" he 
 
 cared nothing for church rites; u nil carmina" 
 
 she needed no incantations. 
 
 She never doubted that lie would arrive ; but, 
 as the day wore on, she told herself that very 
 likely he had missed his road. He would arrive 
 hungered, in any event. . . . She stepped out to the 
 cooking-pot, and, on her way, paused for a long 
 look down the glen. The sun, streaming its rays 
 over the high pines behind her, made rainbows in 
 the spray of the fall and cast her shadow far over 
 the hollow at her feet. The water, plunging past 
 her, shot down the valley in three separate cas- 
 cades, lined with slippery rock, in the crevices of 
 which many ferns had lodged and grew, waving 
 in the incessantly shaken air. From the pool into 
 which the last cascade tumbled — a stone dislodged 
 by her foot dropped to it almost plumb — the 
 stream hurtled down the glen, following the curve 
 of its sides until they overlapped ; naked cliffs 
 above, touched with sunlight, their feet set in 
 peat, up which the forest trees clambered as if 
 in a race for the top— pines leading, with heather 
 and scrubby junipers, oaks and hemlocks some 
 way behind ; alders, mostly by the waterside, with 
 maples in swampy patches, and here and there a
 
 "YET HE WILL COME—" 335 
 
 birch waving silver against the shadow. The pines 
 kept their funereal plumes, like undertakers who 
 had made a truce with death by making a business 
 of it. But these deciduous trees, that had rioted 
 in green through spring and summer, wrapped 
 themselves in robes to die, the thinner the more 
 royal ; the maples in scarlet, the swamp-oak in 
 purple — bloody purple where the sun smote on 
 its upper boughs. Already the robes had worn 
 thin, and their ribs showed. Leaves strewed the 
 flat rock where Ruth stood, looking down. 
 
 She was not thinking of the leaves, nor of the 
 fall of the year. She was thinking that her lord 
 would be hungered. She went back to her cook- 
 ing-pot under the cliff overhung with heath and 
 juniper. 
 
 Herself fearless — or less fearful than other 
 women — she did not for some time let her mind 
 run on possible accidents to him. He was a man, 
 and would arrive, though tired and hungered. 
 Not until the sun sank behind the upper pines 
 did any sense of her own loneliness assail her. 
 Then she bethought her that with night, if he 
 delayed, the forest would wrap her around, form- 
 less, haunted by wild beasts. The singing of 
 birds, never in daylight utterly drowned by the 
 roar of the fall, had ceased about her ; the call of 
 the hidden chickadees, the cheep-cheep of a
 
 326 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 friendly robin, hopping in near range of the 
 cooking-pot, the sawing of busy chipmunks. 
 
 These sounds had ceased ; but she did not feel 
 the silence until, far up the valley behind her, a 
 loon sent forth its sole unhappy cry. It rang a 
 moment between the cliffs. As it died away she 
 felt how friendly had been these casual voices, and 
 wondered what beasts the forest might hold. 
 
 She went back to the cabin, lit a lamp, and lifted 
 one of the guns off its rack. She charged it— well 
 she had learnt how to charge a gun. 
 
 Twilight was falling. The fire burned beneath 
 the cooking-pot ; but, seated on the flat stone with 
 the gun laid across her knees and the fall sounding 
 beneath her, she had another thought — that the 
 fire, set in an angle of the rock, and moreover 
 hidden around the house's corner, was but a poor 
 signal. It shed no ray down the glen. 
 
 She would light another fire on the flat stone. 
 In the dusk she collected dry twigs, piled stouter 
 sticks above them, covered the whole with leaves, 
 and lit it, fetching a live brand from under the 
 cooking-pot. The flame leapt up, danced over the 
 leaves, died down and again revived. When as- 
 sured that it was caught, she sat beside it, staring 
 across the flame over the valley now swallowed 
 in darkness, still with the gun laid across her 
 knees.
 
 "YET HE WILL COME—" 337 
 
 « Ruth ! O Ruth ! " 
 
 His voice came up over the roar of the fall — 
 which, while he stumbled among the boulders 
 below, had drowned his footsteps. 
 
 " Dear ! Ah — have a care ! " 
 
 " Yes ; hold a light. ... It must be dangerous 
 here." 
 
 She snatched a brand from the fire. She had 
 collected a fresh heap of twigs and leaves in the 
 lap of her gown, groping in the dusk for them ; 
 and his first sight of her had been as she stood 
 high emptying them in a red stream to feed the 
 flames. A witch she seemed, pouring sacrifice on 
 that wild altar, while the light of it danced upon 
 her face and figure. Having gained the ledge of 
 the second cascade, he anchored himself on good 
 foothold and stared up, catching breath before he 
 hailed. 
 
 Her first glimpse of him, as she held the blaz- 
 ing stick over the edge of the fall, was of a face 
 damp with sweat or with spray, and of his hands 
 reaching up the slimed rock, feeling for a grip. 
 
 " Ah, be careful ! Shall I come down to you ? " 
 For the first time she realised his peril. 
 
 " Over rocks that are steepest" he quoted gaily, 
 between grunts of hard breathing. He had hand- 
 hold now. " Hero on her tower — and 'faith, 
 Leander came near to swimming for it — once or
 
 338 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 twice " (grunt) " Over the mountains. And over the 
 waves — hullo ! that rock of yours overhangs. 
 What's to the left ? " (grunt) " Grass ? I mistrust 
 grass on these ledges. . . . Reach down your 
 hand, dear Ruth, to steady me only. . . ." 
 
 She flung herself prone on the flat rock beside 
 the fire, and gave a hand to him. He caught it, 
 heaved himself over the ledge with a final grunt of 
 triumph, and dropped beside her, panting and 
 laughing. 
 
 "You might have killed yourself!' she shiv- 
 ered. 
 
 " And whom, then, would you have re- 
 proached ? " 
 
 " You might have killed yourself — and then — 
 and then I think I should have died too." 
 
 « Ruth ! " 
 
 " My lord will be hungry. He shall rest here 
 and eat." 
 
 He flung a glance towards the cabin ; or rather 
 — for the dusk hid its outlines— towards the light 
 that shone cosily through the window-hatch. 
 
 " Not yet ! ' she murmured. " My lord shall 
 rest here for a while." She was kneeling now to 
 draw off his shoes. He drew away his foot, pro- 
 testing. 
 
 " Child, I am not so tired, but out of breath, 
 and — yes — hungry as a hunter."
 
 "YET HE WILL COME—" 339 
 
 " My lord will remember. It was the first 
 service I ever did for him." It may have been an 
 innocent wile to anchor him fast there and helpless. 
 ... At any rate she knelt, and drew off his shoes 
 and carried them to a little distance. " Next, my 
 lord shall eat," she said ; and having rinsed her 
 hands in the stream and spread them a moment to 
 the flame to dry, sped off to the cabin. 
 
 In a minute she was back with glasses and clean 
 napkins, knives, forks, spoons, and a bottle of 
 wine ; from a second visit she returned with plates, 
 condiments, and a dish of fruit. Then, running to 
 the cooking-pot, she fetched soup in two bowls. 
 "And after that," she promised, "there will be 
 partridges. Mr. Strongtharm shot them for me, 
 for I was too busy. They are turning by the fire 
 on a jack my mother taught me to make out of 
 threads that untwist and twist again. . . . Shall I 
 sit here, at my lord's feet ? " 
 
 " Sit where you will, but close ; and kiss me 
 first. You have not kissed me yet— and it is our 
 wedding day. Our wedding feast ! O Ruth — 
 Ruth, my love ! " 
 
 " Our wedding feast ! . . . Could it be better! 
 O my dear, dear lord ! . . . But I'll not kiss you 
 yet. 
 
 "Why, Ruth?" 
 
 " Why, sir, because I will not—and that's a
 
 34Q LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 woman's reason. Afterwards — but not now ! You 
 boasted of your hunger. What has become of it ?" 
 
 They ate for a while in silence. The stream 
 roared at their feet. Above them, in the gap of 
 the hills, Jupiter already blazed, and as the last of 
 the light faded, star after star came out to keep 
 him company. 
 
 He praised her roasting of the partridges. "To- 
 morrow," she answered, " you shall take your gun 
 and get me game. We must be good providers. 
 To-morrow — " 
 
 " To-morrow — and for ever and ever — " He 
 poured wine and drank it slowly. 
 
 " Ah, look up at the heavens ! And we two 
 alone. Is this not best, after all ? Was I not 
 right ? " 
 
 " Perhaps," he answered after a pause. " It is 
 good, at all events." 
 
 " To-morrow we will explore ; and when this 
 place tires us — but my lord has not praised it 
 yet — 
 
 " Must I make speeches ? " 
 
 " No. When this place tires us, we will strike 
 camp and travel up through the pass. It may be 
 we shall find boatmen on the upper waters, and a 
 canoe. But for some days, O my love, let these 
 only woods be enough for us ! '
 
 "YET HE WILL COME—" 341 
 
 Their dessert of fruit eaten, she arose and turned 
 to the business of washing-up. He would have 
 helped ; but she mocked him, having hidden his 
 shoes. " You are to rest quiet, and obey ! ' 
 
 Before setting to work she brought him coffee 
 and a roll of tobacco-leaf, and held a burning 
 stick for him while he lit and inhaled. 
 
 For twenty minutes, perhaps, he watched her, 
 stretched on the rock, resting on his elbow, his 
 hunger appeased, his whole frame fatigued, but in 
 a delicious weariness, as in a dream. 
 
 Far down the valley the full moon thrust a rim 
 above the massed oaks and hemlocks. It swam 
 clear, and he called to her to come and watch it. 
 
 She did not answer. She had slipped away to 
 the house— as he supposed to restore the plates to 
 their shelves. Apparently it took her a long 
 while. . . . He called again to her. 
 
 The curtain of the doorway was lifted and she 
 stood on the threshold, all in white, fronting the 
 moon. 
 
 " Will my lord come into his house ? " 
 
 Her voice thrilled down to him. . . . Then she 
 remembered that he stood there shoeless ; and, 
 giving a little cry, would have run barefoot down 
 the moonlit rocky steps, preventing him. 
 
 But he had sprung to his unshod feet, and with 
 a cry rushed up to her, disregarding the thorns.
 
 342 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 She sank, crossing her arms as a slave — in hom- 
 age, or, it may be, to protect her maiden breasts. 
 
 " No, no—" she murmured, sliding low within 
 his arms. " Look first around, if our house be 
 worthy ! " 
 
 But he caught her up, and lifting her, crushing 
 her body to his, carried her into the hut.
 
 Chapter VII 
 
 HOUSEKEEPING 
 
 CHE awoke at daybreak to the twittering of 
 birds. Raising herself little by little, she bent 
 over him, studying the face of her beloved. He 
 slept on ; and after a while she slipped from the 
 couch, collected her garments in a bundle, tip- 
 toed to the door, and lifting its curtain, stole out 
 to the dawn. 
 
 Mist filled the valley below the fall. A purple 
 bank of vapour blocked the end of it. But the 
 rolling outline was edged already with gold, and 
 already ray upon ray of gold shivered across the 
 upper sky and touched the pinewoods at the head 
 of the pass. 
 
 Clad in cloak and night-rail, shod in loose 
 slippers of Indian leather-work, she moved across 
 to the fire she had banked overnight. Beside it 
 a bold robin had perched on the rim of the cook- 
 ing-pot. He fluttered up to a bough, and thence 
 watched her warily. She remade the fire, build-
 
 344 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 ing a cone of twigs ; fetched water, scoured the 
 cauldron, and hung it again on its bar. As she 
 lifted it the sunlight glinted on the ring her lover 
 had brought for the wedding and had slipped on her 
 finger in the cabin, binding her by this only rite. 
 
 The fire revived and crackled cheerfully. She 
 caught up the bundle again and climbed beside the 
 stream, following its right bank until she came to 
 the pool of her choice. There, casting all gar- 
 ments aside, she went down to it, and the alders 
 hid her. 
 
 Half an hour later she returned and paused on 
 the threshold of the hut, the sunlight behind her. 
 In her arms she carried a cluster — a bundle almost 
 — of ferns and autumnal branches — cedar and black- 
 alder, the one berried with blue the other with 
 coral, maple and aromatic spruce, with trails of the 
 grape vine. He was awake and lay facing the 
 door, half-raised on his left elbow. 
 
 " This for good-morning ! ' She held out the 
 armful to show him, but so that it hid her 
 blushes. Then, dropping the cluster on the 
 floor, she ran and knelt, bowing her face upon the 
 couch beside him. But laying a palm against 
 either temple he forced her to lift it and gaze at 
 him, mastering the lovely shame. 
 
 He looked long into her eyes. "You are very 
 beautiful," he said slowly.
 
 HOUSEKEEPING 345 
 
 She sprang to her feet. " See the dew on my 
 shoes ! I have bathed, and — " with a gesture of 
 the hand towards the scattered boughs — "after- 
 wards I pulled these for you. But I was in haste 
 and late because — because — " She explained that 
 while bathing she had let the ring, which^was loose 
 and heavy, slip from her finger into the pool. It 
 had lodged endwise between two pebbles, and she 
 had taken some minutes to find it. "As for 
 these," she said, "the flowers are all done, but I 
 like the leaves better. In summer our house- 
 keeping might have been make-believe ; now, with 
 the frosts upon us, we shall have hard work, and a 
 fire to give thanks for." 
 
 He slid from the couch and, standing erect, 
 threw a bath-gown over his shoulders. " I must 
 build a chimney," he said, looking around ; " a 
 chimney and a stone hearth." 
 
 " Then our house will be perfect." 
 
 " I will start this very day. . . . Show me the 
 way to your pool." 
 
 They ate their breakfast on the stone above the 
 fall, in the warm sunshine, planning and talking 
 too-ether like children. He would build the chim- 
 ney ; but first he must climb down to the lower 
 valley and find Bayard, deserted at the foot of the 
 falls, and left to wander all night at will.
 
 346 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 He must take the mare, too, she said ; and 
 promised to start him on the bridle-path, so that 
 he could not miss it. 
 
 " What ! Must 1 ride on a side-saddle ? " 
 
 " It should be easy for you," she laughed. 
 " You pretended to know all about it when you 
 taught me." In the end it was settled that she 
 should ride and he walk beside till Bayard was 
 found. " Then you can lead her back and leave 
 her with Mr. Strongtharm." 
 
 " But I shall need Bayard to bring home a sack 
 of lime for my mortar. And you are over thought- 
 ful for Madcap. I walked up to inspect the 
 pasture, and there is enough to last the pair for a 
 week. It is odds, too, we find some burnt lands 
 at the back of these woods, with patches of good 
 grass. Let us keep the horses up here, at any rate 
 until the nights turn colder. A taste of hard faring 
 will be good for their pampered flesh, as for mine. 
 Besides — though you may not know it — 1 am a 
 first-class groom." 
 
 " As well as a mason ? You will have to turn 
 hunter, too, before long, else your cook will be 
 out of work. Dear, dear, how we begin to crowd 
 the days ! " 
 
 For a whole week he worked at intervals, build- 
 ing his chimney with stones from the river bed,
 
 HOUSEKEEPING 347 
 
 and laying them well and truly. Ruth helped 
 him at whiles, when household duties did not 
 claim her. Now and then, when his back ached 
 with the toil, he would break off for a spell and 
 watch her as she stooped over the cooking-pot, or 
 knelt by the stream-side, bare-legged, with petti- 
 coat kilted high, beating the linen on a flat stone. 
 
 When the chimney was finished they were in 
 great anxiety lest, being built close under the cliff, 
 it should catch a down-draught of the wind and fill 
 the dwelling with smoke. But the wind came, 
 and, as it turned out, made a leap from the cliff to 
 the valley, singing high overhead and missing the 
 chimney clear. When they lit their first fire 
 indoors and ran forth to see the smoke rising in a 
 thin blue pillar against the pines, they laughed 
 elated, and at supper drank to their handiwork. 
 
 Ruth's first sacrifice on the new hearth was the 
 solemn heating of a flat iron, to crimp and pleat 
 her lover's body-linen. 
 
 Next day he shot a deer and flayed it ; and, 
 the next, set to work to build a bed. Their couch 
 had been of white linen laid upon skins, the skins 
 resting on a thick mat of leaves. Now he raised 
 it from the ground on four posts, joining the posts 
 with a stout framework and lacing the framework 
 with cords criss-crossed like the netting of a ham- 
 mock. Also he replaced the curtain at the entrance
 
 348 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 with a door of split pinewood, and fashioned a 
 wooden bolt. 
 
 The halcyon weather held for two weeks, the 
 delicate weather of Indian summer. Day by day 
 the forest dropped its leaves under a blue windless 
 sky ; but the nights sharpened their frosts. Ruth, 
 stealing early to her bathing-pool, found it edged 
 with thin ice, and paused, breaking it with taps of 
 her naked foot while she braced her body for the 
 cold shock. 
 
 The flat rock over the fall was still their supper- 
 table. After supping they would wrap themselves 
 closer in their cloaks of bearskin, and sit for long, 
 his arm about her body. The stars wheeled over- 
 head. At a little distance shone the open window 
 inviting them. From their ledge they overlooked 
 the world. 
 
 She marvelled at the zest he threw into every 
 moment and detail of this strange honeymooning. 
 He had taken pride even in skinning and cutting 
 up the slain deer. 
 
 She had, in fact, being fearful of her experiment ; 
 had planned it, in some sort, as a test for him. 
 She was no sentimentalist. She had believed that 
 he loved her — well she knew it now. But for him 
 this could not be first love. Many times she had 
 bethought her of the dead Margaret Dance, and as
 
 HOUSEKEEPING 349 
 
 a sensible girl without resentment. But, herself in 
 the ecstasy of first love, she marvelled how it could 
 die and anything comparable spring up in its 
 room ; and she had only her own heart to inter- 
 rogate. Her own heart told her that it was impos- 
 sible. " Fool ! ' said her own heart. " Is it not 
 enough that he condescends — that you have found 
 favour in his sight — you, that asked but to be his 
 slave ? " 
 
 " Fool ! ' said her heart again. " Would you 
 be jealous of this dead woman ? Then jealousy is 
 not cruel as the grave, but crueller." 
 
 And she retorted, " The woman is dead and 
 cannot grudge it. Ah, conscience ! are you the 
 only part of me that has not slept in his arms. I 
 want him all — all ! " 
 
 " How can that be — since vou are not his first 
 love?" objected conscience, falling back upon its 
 old position. 
 
 " Be still," she whispered back. " See how love 
 is recreating him ! " 
 
 Indeed, the secret may have lain in her passing 
 loveliness — by night, beside their fire on the rock, 
 he would sit motionless watching her face for 
 minutes together, or the poise of her head, or the 
 curve of her chin as she tilted it to ponder the 
 stars ; and, in part, the woodland life, chosen by 
 her so cunningly, may have bewitched him for a
 
 350 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 space. Certain it is that during their sojourn here 
 he became a youth again, eager and glad as a 
 youth, passionate as a youth, laughing, throwing 
 his heart into simple things and not shrinking 
 from coarser trials — as when he plunged his hands 
 into the blood of the deer. 
 
 This story is of Ruth, not of Oliver Vyell ; or 
 of him only in so far as his star ruled hers. For 
 the moment their stars danced together and the 
 common cares of this world stood back for a space 
 and left a floor for them. 
 
 Their bliss was absolute. But the seed of its 
 corruption lay in him. Her spirit was chaste, as 
 her life had been. For him, before ever Margaret 
 Dance met and crossed his path, he had lived 
 loosely, squandering his manhood ; and of this 
 squandering let one who later underwent it record 
 the inevitable sentence. 
 
 " But ah ! it hardens all within, 
 And petrifies the feeling." 
 
 Nor could this temporary miracle do more for 
 Oliver Vyell than wake in him a false springtide of 
 the heart and delay by so long the revenge of his 
 past upon his present self. 
 
 Midway in the third week the weather broke.
 
 HOUSEKEEPING 351 
 
 He had foreseen this, and early one morning set 
 forth upon Bayard, the mare following obediently 
 as a dog, along the downhill circuit to the village. 
 There he would leave them in stall at the Ferry 
 Inn, to be fetched by his grooms. Ruth walked 
 some way beside him, telling off a list of purchases 
 to be made at the village store to replenish their 
 household stock. 
 
 She left him and turned back, under boughs too 
 bare to hide the lowering sky. She had gained 
 the hut and he the village before the storm broke. 
 Indeed it gave him time to make his purchases 
 and reach the Inn, where a heavy mail-bag awaited 
 him. He was served with bread, cheese, and beer 
 in the Inn parlour, and dealt with the letters then 
 and there ; answering some, tearing up others, 
 albeit still with a sense of bringing back his habits 
 of business to a world with which he had no con- 
 cern. While he wrote, always in haste, on the 
 cheap paper the Inn supplied, the storm broke and 
 with such darkness that he pulled out his watch. 
 It was yet early afternoon. He called for candles 
 and wrote on. 
 
 The last letter, addressed to Batty Langton, 
 Esquire, he superscribed "Most urgent" and having 
 sealed it, arose and shouldered his sack for the 
 homeward tramp. By this time the wind howled 
 through the village street, blowing squall upon
 
 352 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 squall of rain before it. It blew, too, dead in his 
 path ; but he faced it cheerfully. 
 
 Before he gained what should have been the 
 shelter of the woods, the gale had increased so that 
 they gave less than the road had given. The trees 
 rocked above him ; leaves and dead twigs beat on 
 his face, and at length the blast forced him almost 
 to creep on all fours. It was dark, too, beneath 
 the swaying boughs. But uppermost in his mind 
 was fear for his love, lest the hut should have 
 given way before the tempest, and she be lying 
 crushed beneath it. 
 
 Still he fought his way. Darkness — the real 
 darkness — was falling, and he was yet a mile from 
 the hut when in his path a figure arose from the 
 undergrowth where it had been crouching. 
 
 " Ruth ! " 
 
 " Ah, you are safe ! . . . I could not rest at 
 home — " 
 
 They took hands and forced their way against 
 the wind. 
 
 "The cabin ? " 
 
 " It stands, please God ! " 
 
 After much battling they spied the light shining 
 through the louvers of its closed shutter The gale 
 streamed down the valley as through a funnel, but 
 once past the angle of the cliff they found themselves 
 almost in a calm. He pushed the door open.
 
 HOUSEKEEPING 353 
 
 On the hearth — the hearth of his building — a 
 pile of logs burned cheerfully. Over these the 
 kettle hissed ; and the firelight fell on their bed, 
 with its linen oversheet turned back and neatly 
 folded. 
 
 She entered and he closed the door behind her. 
 She laughed as he pushed its bolt. They were 
 drenched to the skin, the pair. 
 
 " This is best," said she with another soft and 
 happy laugh. 
 
 " This is best," he repeated after her. " Better 
 even than in fair weather." 
 
 12
 
 Chapter VIII 
 HOME-COMING 
 
 A WEEK later they broke camp and set forth to 
 climb to the head of the pass. 
 
 Behind it — so Sir Oliver had learnt from old 
 Strongtharm — lay an almost flat table-land, of 
 pine-forest for the most part, through which for 
 maybe half a dozen miles their river ran roughly 
 parallel with another that came down from the 
 north-west. At one point (the old fellow declared) 
 less than a mile divided their waters. 
 
 "Seems," he said, "as if Nature all along 
 intended 'em to jine, and then, at the last moment, 
 changed her mind." He explained the cause 
 of their severance — an outcropping ridge of rock 
 not above a mile in length ; but it served, 
 deflecting the one stream to the southward, the 
 other to north of east, so that they reached the 
 ocean a good twenty leagues apart. 
 
 He showed a map and told Sir Oliver further 
 that at the narrowest point between the two rivers
 
 HOME-COMING 355 
 
 there dwelt a couple of brothers, Dave and Andy 
 M'Lauchlin, with their households and long 
 families, of whom all the boys were expert log- 
 drivers, like their fathers. They were likewise 
 expert boatmen, and for money, no doubt, if Sir 
 Oliver desired, would navigate the upper reaches 
 of either stream for him. Of these reaches the old 
 man could tell little save that their currents ran 
 moderately — " nothing out of the way." The 
 M c Lauchlins sent all their timber down to sea by 
 the more northerly stream. " Our river 'd be the 
 better by far, three-fourths of its way, but — " with 
 a jerk of his thumb — "the Gap, yonder, makes it 
 foolishness." 
 
 Sir Oliver asked many questions, studying the 
 map ; and ended by borrowing it. 
 
 He had it spread on his knee when Ruth came 
 out of the cabin for the last time, having said 
 farewell to her household gods. 
 
 " What are you reading ? " she asked. 
 
 " A map." He folded it away hastily. 
 
 " And I am not to see it ? " 
 
 " Some day. Some day, if the owner will sell, 
 you shall have it framed, with our travels marked 
 out upon it. But, just now, it holds a small 
 secret." 
 
 She questioned him no further. " Come," she
 
 356 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 said, " reach your arm in at the window and draw 
 the bolt, and afterwards we will pull the shutter 
 and nail it. Are you going inside for a last look 
 around ? " 
 
 He laughed. " Why ? The knapsacks are 
 here, ready." 
 
 " Our home ! " 
 
 " I take the soul of it with me, taking you." 
 
 It was prettily said. Yet perversely she 
 remembered how he had once spoken of Margaret 
 Dance, saying, " Let the dead bury their dead." 
 
 The sky, after six angry days — two sullen, 
 four tempestuous — was clear again and promised 
 another stretch of fair weather. This was im- 
 portant, tor they counted on having to sleep a 
 night in the open before reaching the M'Lauchlins' 
 camp. Old Strongtharm had told Sir Oliver of a 
 cave at the head of the pass and directed him how 
 to find it. Should the sky's promise prove false ? 
 they would descend back to the hut. Snow was 
 their one serious peril. 
 
 They carried but the barest necessaries ; for 
 although the worst of the falls lay below and 
 behind them, the upper part of the Gap was 
 arduous enough, and the more difficult for being 
 unknown ; also Sir Oliver had old Strongtharm's 
 assurance that the M'Lauchlins would furnish
 
 HOME-COMING 357 
 
 them with all things requisite for voyaging by 
 water. 
 
 Sir Oliver climbed in silence. He was flinging 
 a bridge, albeit a short one, across the unknown, 
 and the risk of it weighed on him. For himself 
 this would have counted nothing, but he was 
 learning: the lesson common to all male animals 
 whose mates for the first time travel beside them. 
 As for Ruth, it was wonderful — the course of the 
 path once turned, the small home left out of 
 sight — how securely she breasted the upward path. 
 Her lover and she were as gods walking, treading 
 the roof of the world. 
 
 Through thickets they climbed, and by stairways 
 beside the singing falls. In a pool below one of 
 these falls they surprised a great loon that had 
 resorted here to live solitary through his moulting- 
 season. He rose and winged away with a cry like 
 an inhuman laugh ; and they recognised a sound 
 which had often been borne down the gorge— once 
 or twice at night, to awake and puzzle them. 
 
 They came to the uppermost fall a good hour 
 before sunset, and after a little search Sir Oliver 
 found the cave. They could have pushed on, but 
 decided to sleep here : and they slept soundly, 
 being in truth more weary than their spirits, 
 exhilarated in the high air, allowed them to 
 guess.
 
 358 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 They might, as it turned out, by forcing the 
 march, have found the M'Lauchlins' settlement 
 before dusk. For scarcely had they travelled five 
 miles next morning before they came on an outpost 
 of it : a large hut, half dwelling-house, half boat- 
 shed. It stood in a clearing on the left shore, 
 and close by the water's edge was a young man, 
 patching the bottom of an upturned canoe. Two 
 children — a boy and a girl — had dropped their play 
 to watch him. A flat-bottomed boat lay moored to 
 the bank, close by. 
 
 The children, catching sight of our travellers, 
 must have uttered some exclamation ; for the young 
 man turned quickly, and after a brief look called 
 " Good-morning." There was a ford (he shouted) 
 fifty yards up-stream ; but no need to wade. Let 
 them wait a minute and he would fetch them. 
 
 He laid down his tools, unmoored the flat- 
 bottomed boat, and poled across. On the way 
 back he told them that he was Adam M'Lauchlin, 
 son of David. The little ones were children of 
 his father by a second wife ; but he had seven 
 brothers and sisters of his own. . . . Yes, their 
 settlement stood by the other river ; at no great 
 distance. " If you'll hark, maybe you can hear the 
 long saws at work. ..." 
 
 He led them to it, the small children bringing 
 up the rear of the procession. The Z'w — Z'm of
 
 HOME-COMING 359 
 
 the saws grew loud in Ruth's ears before crossing 
 the ridge she spied the huts between the trees — 
 a congregation of ten or a dozen standing a little 
 way back from a smooth-flowing river. Between 
 the huts and the river were many saw-pits, with 
 men at work. 
 
 At young Adam's hail the men in view desisted, 
 quite as though he had sounded the dinner horn. 
 Heads of others emerged from the pits. Within a 
 minute there was a small crowd gathered, of burly 
 fellows diffusing the fragrance of pine sawdust, all 
 stamped in their degrees with the M'Lauchlin 
 family likeness, and all eager to know the strangers' 
 business. 
 
 Sir Oliver explained that he wanted a boat and 
 two strong guides, to explore the upper waters. 
 He would pay any price, in moderation. 
 
 "Ay," said their spokesman. He wore a 
 magnificent iron-grey beard powdered with saw- 
 dust ; and he carried a gigantic pair of shoulders, 
 but rheumatism had contracted them to a per- 
 manent stoop. " Ay, I'm no fearin' about the pay. 
 You'll be the rich man, the Collector from 
 Boston." 
 
 Ruth was startled. She had supposed herself to 
 be travelling deep into the wilderness. She had 
 yet to learn that in the wilderness, where men 
 traffic in little else, they exchange gossip with
 
 360 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 incredible energy — talk it, in fact, all the time. 
 In those early colonial days the settlers overleapt 
 and left behind them leagues of primeval forest, 
 to all appearance inviolate. But the solitude was 
 no longer virgin. Where foot of man had once 
 parted the undergrowth the very breath of the 
 wind followed and threaded its way after him, 
 bearing messages to and fro. 
 
 " I'm no spsirin'," said the oldster cautiously. 
 " But though our lads have never been so far, 
 there's talk of a braw house buildin'." 
 
 Here, somewhat hastily, Sir Oliver took him 
 aside, and they spent twenty minutes or so in 
 converse together. Ruth waited. 
 
 He came back and selected young Adam, with a 
 cousin of his — a taciturn youth, by name Jesse, 
 son of Andrew — to be their boatman. Five or 
 six of the young men were evidently eager to 
 be chosen ; but none disputed his choice. Rome, 
 which reaches everywhere, reigned in the forest 
 here ; its old law of family unquestioned and 
 absolute. The two youths swung off to pack and 
 provision the canoe. An hour later they reported 
 that all was ready ; and by three in the afternoon 
 the voyagers were on their way up-stream. 
 
 The voyage lasted four days and was seldom 
 laborious ; for the river ran in long loops through
 
 HOME-COMING 361 
 
 the table-land, and with an easy current. But here 
 and there shallow runs of rock made stairways for 
 it from one level to another, and each of these 
 miniature rapids compelled a portage ; so that 
 towards the end of the second day the young men 
 had each a red shoulder spot chafed by the canoe's 
 weight. 
 
 They camped by night close beside the mur- 
 muring water, ate their supper beside a fire of 
 boughs, slept on piled leaves beneath a tent of 
 canvas stretched over a long ridge-pole. The two 
 young men had a separate and similar tent. 
 
 For two days the forest hemmed them in so 
 closely that although frost had half-stripped the 
 deciduous trees, the eye found few vistas save 
 along the river ahead. On either hand was drawn 
 a continuous curtain of mossed stems and boughs 
 overlapping and interlacing their delicate twigs. 
 Scarcely a bird sang within the curtain ; scarcely 
 a woodland sound broke in upon the monotonous 
 plash of the paddles. Alder, birch, maple, pine, 
 spruce, and hemlock — the woods were a lifeless 
 tapestry. Ahead curved and stretched the water- 
 way, rippled now and again by a musk-rat cross- 
 ing, swimming with its nose and no more above 
 water. 
 
 A little before noon on the third day they 
 emerged from this forest upon a wide track of
 
 362 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 burnt land ; and certain hills of which the blue 
 summits had for some hours been visible above 
 the tree-tops on their right, now took shape from 
 the base up, behind thin clumps of birch, poplar, 
 and spruce— all of them (but the spruce especially) 
 ragged and stunted in growth. For the rest this 
 burnt land resembled a neglected pasture, being 
 carpeted for the most part with moss and blue- 
 berry. A mysterious blight lay over all, and 
 appeared to extend to the foot of the hills. 
 
 All through the afternoon the chine of these 
 hills closed the landscape ; purpled at times by 
 passing clouds, at times lit up by sun-rays that 
 denned every bush and seam on the slopes. All 
 through the afternoon the folded gullies between 
 the slopes unwound themselves interminably, 
 little by little, as the voyagers traced up the 
 river, paddling almost due southward, along its 
 loops and meanders. 
 
 But by nightfall they had turned the last spur 
 of the range, and the next morning opened to 
 them a vastly different landscape : an undulating 
 country, wooded like a park, with hills indeed, 
 but scattered ones to the south and west, and 
 behind the hills the faint purple dome of a far- 
 distant mountain, so faintly seen that at first Ruth 
 mistook it for a cloud. 
 
 She could not tell afterwards— though she often
 
 HOME-COMING 363 
 
 asked herself the question — at what point the 
 landscape struck, her as being strangely familiar. 
 Yet she was sure that the recognition came to 
 her suddenly. Sir Oliver since the morning's 
 start had been indisposed to talk. From time 
 to time he drew out his map and consulted it. 
 The M'Lauchlin lads, on the other hand, seemed 
 to be restless. During the halt for the midday 
 meal they drew aside together and Ruth heard 
 them conversing in eager whispers. 
 
 Possibly this stirred some expectation in her, 
 which passed into surmise, into certainty. Late 
 in the afternoon she drew in the paddle she had 
 been plying, laid it across the canoe, and called 
 softly, — 
 
 " Oliver ! 
 
 He turned. She was pointing to a hill now 
 full in view ahead of them. 
 
 " That cliff . . . you remember — the eagles ? " 
 
 He laughed as though the question amused him. 
 
 " It is very like. Yes, certainly, it is very 
 like. But wait until we open the clump of trees 
 yonder. . . ." 
 
 They opened it, and her heart gave a leap. A 
 moment before she had been sure this was the 
 very hill. His laugh had confirmed it. . . . She 
 remembered how, at the foot of it, just such a 
 river as this looped itself through the plain. . . .
 
 364 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 But, lo ! in the opening gap, inch by inch, a long 
 building displayed itself: a mansion, gleaming 
 white, with a pillared front and pillared terraces, 
 rising — terrace on terrace — from the woodland, 
 into which a cascade of water, spouting half-way 
 down the slope, plunged and was lost. 
 
 She sat dumb. His eyes were upon her ; and 
 he laughed quietly. 
 
 " It is yours — as you commanded. See ! ' 
 
 He flung out a hand to the left. She beheld 
 
 o 
 
 a clearing — an avenue, that ran like a broad ribbon 
 to the summit of a flat-topped rise. 
 
 "You demanded sight of the ocean," he was 
 saying, and his voice seemed to lose itself in the 
 beat of the churning paddles. " We cannot see 
 it from here ; but from the house — your house — 
 you shall look on it every day. Did you not bid 
 me remove a mountain ? " 
 
 For the rest of the way she sat as in a dream. 
 One of the M'Lauchlin lads had produced a cow- 
 horn and was blowing it lustily. . . . They came 
 to shore by river-stairs of stone, where two ser- 
 vants in the Vyell livery stood like statues await- 
 ing them. 
 
 It was falling dusk when Sir Oliver disembarked 
 and gave her his hand. The men-servants, who 
 had bent to hold the canoe steady as she stepped
 
 HOME-COMING 3 6$ 
 
 ashore, drew themselves erect and again touched 
 foreheads to their lord and lady. 
 
 Still as in a dream, her arm resting within her 
 lover's, she went up the broad stairways from 
 terrace to terrace. Above her the long facade was 
 lit with window after window blazing welcome. 
 
 At the head of the perron, under the colonnaded 
 portico, other tall men-servants stood in waiting, 
 mute, deferential. She passed between their lines 
 into a vast entrance hall, and there, almost as her 
 foot crossed its threshold, across the marbled floor 
 little Miss Quiney came running a-flutter, inarticu- 
 late, with reaching hands. 
 
 Ruth drew back, almost with a cry. But before 
 she could resist, Tatty's arms were about her and 
 Tatty's lips lifted, pressed against either cheek. 
 She suffered the embrace. 
 
 " My darling Ruth ! — at last ! ' Then with a 
 laugh, " And in what strange clothes ! . . . But 
 come — come and be arrayed ! ' She caught Ruth's 
 cold hand and led her towards the staircase. 
 " Nay, never look about you so : your eyes will 
 not take in a tenth of all the wonders ! " 
 
 Later, as an Indian gong sounded below, he 
 came from his dressing-room into the great bride- 
 chamber where she stood, arrayed in satin, before 
 her mirror, hesitating as her fingers touched one
 
 366 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 after another of the jewels scattered on the dressing- 
 table under the waxen lights. Her maid slipped 
 away discreetly. 
 
 " Well ? " he asked. He was resplendent in 
 a suit of sapphire velvet, with cravat and ruffles 
 of old Spanish lace. " Is my love content with 
 her home-coming ? " 
 
 She crossed her arms slowly. 
 
 " You are good to me," she said. " You do me 
 too great honour, my lord." 
 
 He laughed, and catching up a necklace of 
 diamonds from the dressing-table, looped it across 
 her throat, clasped it, leaned over her shoulder 
 and kissed her softly between the ear and the 
 cheek's delicate round. Their eyes met in the 
 mirror. 
 
 " I invited the Quiney," he said gaily, " to give 
 you a feeling of home among these strange faces. 
 She will not dine with us, though, unless you 
 choose." 
 
 " Let us be alone, to-night ! " she pleaded. 
 
 " So be it. . . . But you shiver : you are cold. 
 No ? Then weary, perhaps — yes, and hungry. 
 I've a backwoods hunger, for my part. Let us 
 go down and dine."
 
 BOOK IV 
 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING
 
 Chapter I 
 
 BATTY LANGTON, CHRONICLER 
 
 From Batty Langton, Esquire, to the Hon. Horatio 
 
 Walpole 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts, 
 Jcifiuary 21st, 1748. 
 
 You ask me, my dear Sir, why I linger 
 
 on year by year in this land of Cherokees and 
 Choctaws, as you put it, at the same time hinting 
 very delicately that now, with my poor old father 
 in his grave and my own youthful debts dis- 
 charged, you see no enduring reason for this exile. 
 It is kind of you to be so solicitous : kinder still 
 to profess that you yet miss me. But that I am 
 missed at White's is more than you shall persuade 
 me to believe. In an earlier letter, written when 
 the Gaming Act passed, you told me they were 
 for nailing up an escutcheon to mourn the death 
 of play ; they nailed up none for me. And I 
 gather that play has recovered, and Dick Edg-
 
 370 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 cumbe holds my cards. I doubt if 1 could endure 
 to revisit St. James's — save by moonlight perhaps. 
 Rappelez-moi to the waiters. They will remember 
 me. 
 
 But in good deed, dear Sir, what should I be 
 doing at home among the Malvern Hills upon 
 a patrimony of £%oo ? — for to that it has dwindled. 
 Can I hoe turnips, or poke a knowledgeable finger 
 into the flanks of beeves ? I wonder if your 
 literary explorations ever led you across the furrow 
 of an ancient ploughman who 
 
 - — on a May morning, on Malvern hills 
 
 was weary of wandering and laid him down to 
 sleep beside a brook — having been chased thither 
 betimes, no doubt, by a nagging bedfellow. I have 
 no wife, nor mean to take one, and find it more 
 to my comfort to sleep here by the River Charles 
 and dream of Malvern, secure that 1 shall wake to 
 find myself detached from it by half a world. 
 
 Yet your last letter touched me closely ; for it 
 happens that Sir O. V., for love of whom rather 
 than for any better reason I have kept this exile, 
 has taken to himself a Lady. That, you'll say, 
 should be my dismissal ; and that I like her, as 
 she appears willing to be friends with me, gives 
 me, you'll say again, no excuse to linger. Yet I 
 do, and shall.
 
 BATTY LANGTON, CHRONICLER 371 
 
 As for her history, Vyell picked her up in a 
 God-forsaken fishing town, some leagues up the 
 coast ; brought her home ; placed her under 
 gouvernante and tutors ; finally espoused her. 
 Stay : finally he has built a palace for her, " Eagles " 
 by name, whither he forces all Boston to pay its 
 homage. For convenience of access to the god- 
 dess he has cut a road twenty feet broad through 
 the woodlands of her demesne. 
 
 The palace in a woody vale they found, 
 High-raised, of stone — 
 
 or, to speak accurately, of stone and timber com- 
 bined. Be pleased to imagine a river very much 
 like that of Richmond, but covered with grey 
 crags. " Fie," you will say, " the site is savage, 
 then, like all else in this New World ? " My dear 
 sir, you were never more mistaken. Mr. Manley's 
 young eye of genius fastened upon it at once, to 
 adapt it to a house and gardens in the Italian 
 style. 
 
 Have I mentioned this Mr. Manley in former 
 letters ? He is a young gentleman of good Mid- 
 land blood (his county, I believe, Bedfordshire), 
 with a moderate talent for drinking, a something 
 more than talent for living on his friends, and 
 a positive genius for architecture. He will have 
 none of your new craze for Gothic. Palladio is
 
 372 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 his god, albeit he allows that Palladio had feet of 
 clay, and corrects him boldly — though always, as 
 he tells me, with help of his minor deities, Vignola 
 and the rest, who built the great villas around 
 Rome. He has studied in Italy, and tells me that 
 at Florence he was much beholden to your friend 
 Mann, who, I dare swear, lost money by the 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Vyell, his present patron, takes him out and 
 shows him the site. " Italy ! " exclaims the Youth 
 of Genius. " Italy ? " echoes Maecenas, astonished. 
 t£ We'll make it so," says the Youth. "These 
 terraces, this spouting water, these pines to serve 
 us for cypresses ! " " But, my good sir, the 
 House?" cries the impatient Vyell. "A fig for 
 your house ! Any fool can design a house when 
 the Almighty and an artist together have once 
 made the landscape for it. Grant me two years 
 for the gardens," he pleads. " You shall have 
 ten months to complete landscape, house, every- 
 thing. " " I shall need armies of workmen." 
 "You shall have them." The Youth groaned. 
 " I shall have to be sober for ten months on 
 end ! ' " What of that I " says V. Lovers are 
 unconscionable. 
 
 Well, the Youth sits down to his plans, and at 
 once orders begin to fly across ocean to this port 
 and that for the rarest marbles — rosso antico from
 
 BATTY LANGTON, CHRONICLER 373 
 
 Mount Taenarus, verde antico from Thessally ; 
 with green Carystian, likewise shipped from 
 Corinth ; Carrara, Veronese Orange, Spanish broc- 
 catello y Derbyshire alabaster, black granite from 
 Vyell's Cornish estate, red and purple porphyries 
 from high up the Nile. . . . The Youth conjures 
 up his gardens as by magic. Here you have a 
 terrace fenced with columns ; below it a cascade 
 pouring down a stairway of circular basins — the 
 hint of it borrowed from Frascati (from the Villa 
 Torlonia, if I remember) ; there an alley you'd 
 swear was Boboli dipping to rise across the river, 
 on a stairway you'd swear as positively was Val 
 San Zibio. Yet all is congruous. The dog: scouts 
 the Villa d'Este for a " toy-shop." 
 
 The house at first disappoints one, being straight 
 and simple to the last degree. (" D — n me," says 
 he, " what can you look for, in ten months ? ") It 
 is of two storeys, the windows of the upper storey 
 loftier by one-third than those beneath ; and has 
 for sole ornament a balustraded parapet broken 
 midway by an Ionic portico of tv/elve columns, 
 with a loggia deeply recessed above its entrance 
 door. To this portico a flight of sixteen steps 
 conducts you from the uppermost terrace. 
 
 Such is Vyell's new pleasance of Eagles, Boston's 
 latest wonder. I have described it at this length 
 because you profess to take more interest in houses
 
 374 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 than in women ; and also, to tell the truth, be- 
 cause I am shy of describing Lady V. To call 
 her roundly the loveliest creature I have ever set 
 eyes on, or am like to, is (you will say) no descrip- 
 tion, though it may argue me in love with her. 
 
 On my honour, no ! or only as all others are 
 in love — all the men, I mean, and even some pro- 
 portion of the womankind. The rest agree to 
 call her " Lady Good-for-Nothing," upon a double 
 rumour, of which one half is sad truth, and the 
 other (my life on it) false as hell. 
 
 They have heard that when Vyell found her 
 she was a serving-girl, undergoing punishment (a 
 whipping, to be precise) for some trumpery offence 
 against the Sabbath. Yes, my dear sir, this is 
 true ; as it is true also that Vyell, like a knight- 
 errant of old, offered to share her punishment, and 
 did indeed share it to the extent of sitting in the 
 stocks beside her. You'd have thought an honest 
 mind might find food for compassion in this, and 
 even an excuse to believe the better of human 
 nature ; but it merely scandalises these Puritan 
 tabbies. They fear Vyell for his wealth and title ; 
 and he, despising them, forces them to visit her. 
 
 Now for the falsehood. The clergyman who 
 read the marriage ceremony for V. somewhere in 
 the backv/oods (this, too, was his whim, and they 
 have to be content with it) is a low-bred trencher-
 
 BATTY LANGTON, CHRONICLER 375 
 
 chaplain, by name Silk. He should have been 
 unfrocked the next week, not for performing a 
 function apostolically derived, but for spreading a 
 report — I wait to fasten it on him — that before 
 marriage she was no better than she should be. I 
 have earned better right than any other man to 
 know Vyell, and I know it to be calumny. But 
 the wind blows, and the name " Lady Good-for- 
 Nothing " is a by-breath of it. 
 
 Vyell guesses nothing of this. He has a mas- 
 culine judgment and no small degree of wit — 
 though 'tis of a hard intellectual kind ; but through 
 misprising his fellow creatures he has come to lack 
 flair. His lady, if she scent a taint on the wind 
 wafted through her routs and assemblies, no doubt 
 sets it down to breathings upon her humble origin, 
 or (it may be) even to some leaking gossip of her 
 foregone wrong. (Women, my dear sir, are brutes 
 to rend a wounded one of the herd.) She can 
 know nothing of the worse slander. 
 
 She moves through her duties as hostess with a 
 pretty well-bred grace, and a childishness infinitely 
 touching. Yet something more protects her ; a 
 certain common sense, which now and then very 
 nearly achieves wit. For an instance — But yester- 
 day a certain pompous lady lamented to her in my 
 hearing (and with intention, as it seemed to me, 
 who am grown suspicious), the rapid moral decay
 
 376 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 of Boston society. " Alas ! ' sighs my heroine ; 
 "but what a comfort, ma'am, to think that neither 
 of us belongs to it ! ' Add to this that she has 
 learning enough to equip ten precieuses — and hides 
 it : has read Plato and can quote her Virgil by the 
 page — but forbears. Yet all this while you have 
 suspected me, no doubt, of raving over a 'Belle 
 Sauvage, a Pocahontas. 
 
 Well, I shall watch her progress. ... I have 
 become so nearly a part of Vyell that 1 charge my- 
 self to stand for him and supply what he lacks. 
 He loves her ; she loves him to doting ; but I 
 cannot see into their future. 
 
 Vyell, by the way, charges me to request your 
 good offices with Mr. Mann to procure him a 
 couple of Tuscan vases. I know that your friend 
 is infinitely obliging to all who approach him 
 through you : and this request which my letter 
 carries as a tag should have been its pretext, as in 
 fact it was its occasion. Adieu ! my dear sir. 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 Bat. Langton.
 
 Chapter II 
 
 SIR OLIVER SAILS 
 
 ■jV/TR. LANGTON was right. Theologians, 
 preaching mysteries, are helpless before the 
 logical mind until they abandon defence and boldly 
 attack their opponents' capital incapacity, saying, 
 " Precisely because you insist upon daylight, you 
 miss discovering the stars." The battle is a secular 
 one, and that sentence contains the reason, too, 
 why it will never be ended in this world. But the 
 theologians may strengthen their conviction, if 
 not their argument, by noting how often the more 
 delicate shades of human feeling will oppose them- 
 selves to the logical mind as a mere wall of blind- 
 ness. 
 
 Oliver Vyell loved his bride as passionately as 
 his nature, hardened by his past, allowed him. To 
 the women who envied her, to the gossips and 
 backbiters, he opposed a nescience inexpugnable, 
 unscalable as a wall of polished stone : but the 
 mischief was, he equally ignored her sensitiveness.
 
 378 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Being sensitive, she understood the hostile shadows 
 better than the hard protecting fence. To noble 
 natures enemies are often nearer than friends, and 
 more easily forgiven. 
 
 But Mr. Langton was also right in guessing her 
 ignorant of the rumours set going by Silk, who, 
 as yet, had whispered falsehoods only. The 
 worst rumour of all — the truth — was beyond his 
 courage. 
 
 Ruth loved her lord devoutly. To love him 
 was so easy that it seemed no repayment of her 
 infinite debt. She desired some harder task ; and 
 therefore, since he laid this upon her, she — who 
 would have chosen a solitude to be happy in — re- 
 joiced to meet these envious ladies with smiles, 
 with a hundred small graces of hospitality ; and 
 still her bliss swallowed up their rancour, scarcely 
 tasting its gall. He (they allowed) was the very 
 pattern of a lover. 
 
 He was also a model man of business. Even 
 from his most flagrant extravagances, as Batty 
 Langton notes in another epistle, he usually con- 
 trived to get back something like his money's 
 worth. He would lend money, or give it, where 
 he chose : but to the man who overreached him 
 in a money bargain he could be implacable. More- 
 over, though a hater of quarrels, he never neglected 
 an enmity he had once taken up, but treated
 
 SIR OLIVER SAILS 379 
 
 it with no less exactitude than a business 
 account. 
 
 Their happiness had endured a little more than 
 three months when, one morning, he entered 
 Ruth's morning-room with a packet of letters in 
 his hand. He was frowning, not so much in 
 wrath, as in distaste of what he had to tell. 
 
 "Dear," he said brusquely, bending to kiss her, 
 " I have ill news. I must go back to England, on 
 business." 
 
 " To England ? " she echoed. Her wrists were 
 laid along the arms of her chair, and, as she spoke, 
 her fingers clutched sharply at the padding. She 
 was not conscious of it. She was aware only that 
 somehow, at the back of her happiness this shadow 
 had always lurked ; and that England lay across 
 the seas, at an immense distance. . . . 
 
 He went on — his tone moody, but the words 
 brief and distinct. " For a few months, only ; five 
 or six, perhaps ; with any luck, even less. That 
 infernal aunt of mine — " 
 
 " Lady Caroline ? " She asked it less out of 
 curiosity than as a prompter gives a cue ; for he 
 had come to a full stop. She was wondering how 
 Lady Caroline could injure him, being so far 
 away. . . . 
 
 He laughed savagely, yet — having broken his 
 news, or the worst of it — with something of
 
 380 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 relief. " She shall smart for it — if that console 
 
 you r 
 
 " Is it on my account ? " 
 
 " Only, as I guess, in so far as she accuses you 
 of having played the devil with her plan for marry- 
 ing me up with my cousin Di' ? If Di' had been 
 the last woman in the world. . . . But the old 
 harridan never spoke to me after the grooming I 
 gave her that morning at Natchett. 'Faith, and 
 I did treat her to some plain talk ! " he wound up 
 with another laugh. 
 
 " But what harm can she do you ? " 
 
 He explained that his late ; uncle Sir Thomas 
 had, in the closing years of his life, shown unmis- 
 takable signs of brain-softening, and that a symp- 
 tom of his complaint had been his addiction to 
 making a number of wills — "two-thirds of 'em 
 incoherent. Every two or three days he'd com- 
 pose a new one and send for Huskisson, his lawyer ; 
 and Huskisson, after reading the rigmarole through, 
 as solemn as a judge, would get it solemnly wit- 
 nessed and carry it off. He had three boxes full 
 of these lunacies when the old man died, and I'll 
 wager he has not destroyed 'em. Lawyers never 
 destroy handwriting, however foolish. It's against 
 their principles." 
 
 "But," said Ruth, musing. "I understood 
 that he died of a jail fever, caught at the
 
 SIR OLIVER SAILS 381 
 
 Assizes, where he was serving on — what do you 
 call it?" 
 
 " The Grand Jury." 
 
 " Well, how could he be serving on a Grand 
 Jury if his head was affected as you say ? " 
 
 "You don't know England," he assured her. 
 " Ten to one as a County magnate he stickled for 
 it, and the High Sheriff put him on the panel to 
 keep him amused." 
 
 " But a Grand Jury deals sometimes with matters 
 of life and death, does it not?" 
 
 " Often, but only in the first instance. It finds a 
 true bill usually, and sends the cause down to be 
 tried by judge and jury, who dispose of it. Actu- 
 ally the incompetence of a grand juror or two 
 doesn't count, if the scandal be not too glaring. 
 . . . But I see your drift. It will be a point for 
 the other side, no matter how lunatic the docu- 
 ment, that after perpetrating it he was still thought 
 capable by the High Sheriff of his county." 
 
 " I do not know that the point struck me. I 
 was wondering — " Here she broke off. The 
 thought, in fact, uppermost in her mind was that 
 he had not suggested her voyaging to England 
 with him. 
 
 " It is a point, anyway," he persisted. " But it 
 won't stand against Huskisson's documentary proof 
 of lunacy. . . . You see, the greater part of the
 
 382 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 property was entailed, and the poor old fool 
 couldn't touch it. But there's an unentailed estate 
 in Devonshire — Down ton by name — worth about 
 two thousand a year. By a will made in '41, 
 when his mind was admittedly sound, he left it to 
 me with a charge upon it of five hundred for Lady 
 Caroline. By a second, made three years later 
 and duly witnessed, he left her Downton for her 
 life ; and with that I chose not to quarrel, though 
 1 could have brought evidence that he was unfit to 
 make any will. 1 agreed with the infernal woman 
 to let things stand on that. But now, being at 
 daggers drawn with me, she digs up (if you please) 
 a will made in '46 and apparently sane in wording, 
 by which, without any provision for the heir-at- 
 law, the whole bagful, real and personal, goes 
 to her, to be used by her and willed away, as 
 she pleases ; this, although she well knows I can 
 prove Sir Thomas to have been a blethering idiot 
 at the time." 
 
 "Is it worth while ? " 
 
 " Worth while ? " he echoed, as if doubtful that 
 she had understood. " The woman is doing it 
 out of spite, of course. Very likely she is fool 
 enough to think that, fixed here with the Atlantic 
 between us, I shall give her the double gratification 
 of annoying me and letting her win by default." 
 
 fC It is a large sum," she mused.
 
 SIR OLIVER SAILS 383 
 
 "Of course it is," he agreed sharply. "An 
 estate yielding two thousand pounds interest. You 
 would not suggest my letting it go, I should 
 hope ! " 
 
 "Certainly not, if you cannot afford it." 
 
 " If it were a twentieth part of the sum, I'd not 
 be jockeyed out of it." He laughed harshly. 
 " As men go, I am well-to-do : but, dear, has it 
 never occurred to you to wonder what this place 
 and its household cost me ? " 
 
 She answered with a small wry smile. " Often 
 it has occurred to me. Often I tell myself that 
 I am wicked to accept, as you are foolish perhaps 
 to give, all this luxury." 
 
 " You adorn it. . . . Dear, do not misunder- 
 stand me. All the offering I can bring is too 
 little for my love." 
 
 " I know," she murmured, looking up at him 
 with moist eyes. " I know ; and yet — " 
 
 " I meant only that you are not used to 
 handling money or calculating it — as why should 
 you be ? " 
 
 " If my lord will only try me ! " 
 
 " Hey ? " 
 
 " Of what use is a wife if she may not contrive 
 for her husband's good — take thought for his 
 household ? Ah, my dear, these cares are half a 
 woman's happiness ! . . . I might make mistakes.
 
 384 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Nay, 'tis certain. I would the house were smaller : 
 in a sense I would that your wealth were smaller — 
 it would frighten me less. But something tells 
 me that, though frightened, I should not fail 
 you." 
 
 He stared down at her, pulling his lip moodily. 
 " I was thinking," said he, " to ask Langton to be 
 my steward. Would you really choose to be 
 cumbered with all this business ?" 
 
 She held her breath for a moment ; for his 
 question meant that he had no design to take 
 her with him. Her face paled a little, but she 
 answered steadily. 
 
 " It will at least fill my empty hours. . . . 
 Better, dear — it will keep you before me in all the 
 day's duties ; since, though I miss you, all day 
 long I shall be learning to be a good wife." 
 
 As she said it her hand went up to her side 
 beneath her left breast, as something fluttered 
 there, soft as a bird's wing stirring. It fluttered 
 for a moment under her palm, then ceased. The 
 room had grown strangely still. . . . Yet he was 
 speaking. 
 
 He was saying — " I'll teach these good people 
 who's Head of the Family ! ' 
 
 Ah, yes — " the Family ! " Should she tell 
 him ? . . . She bethought her of Mrs. Harry's 
 sudden giddiness in the waggon. Mrs. Harry
 
 SIR OLIVER SAILS 385 
 
 was now the mother of a lusty boy — Sir Oliver's 
 
 heir, and the Family's prospective Head. . . . 
 
 Should she tell him ? . . . 
 
 He stooped and kissed her. " Love, you are 
 
 pale. I have broken this news too roughly." 
 She faltered. " When must you start ? " 
 " In three days. That's as soon as the Maryland 
 
 can take in the rest of her cargo and clear the 
 
 customs." 
 
 " They will be busy days for you." 
 
 " Desperately." 
 
 "Yet you must spare me a part of one, and 
 teach me to keep accounts," said she, and smiled 
 bravely albeit her face was wan. 
 
 13
 
 Chapter III 
 MISCALCULATING WRATH 
 
 TV/f R. LANGTON sat in his private apartment 
 by Boston Quay trying the balance of a 
 malacca cane. 
 
 Sir Oliver had sailed a week ago. Mr. Langton 
 had walked down to the ship with him and 
 taken his farewell instructions. 
 
 " By the way," said Sir Oliver, " I want you to 
 make occasion to visit Eagles now and again, and 
 pay your respects. I shall write to you as well as 
 to her ; and the pair of you can exchange news 
 from your letters. She likes you." 
 
 " I hope so," answered Langton, " because 'tis 
 an open secret that I adore her." 
 
 Sir Oliver smiled, a trifle ruefully. " Then 
 you'll understand how it hits a man to leave her. 
 Maybe — for I had meant to make you paymaster 
 in my absence — you'll also forgive me for having 
 changed my mind ? " 
 
 " I'd have called you a damned fool if you
 
 MISCALCULATING WRATH 387 
 
 hadn't," said Langton equably. " She's your 
 wife, hang it all : and I'll lay you five pounds 
 you'll return to find her with hair dishevelled 
 over your monstrous careless bookkeeping. My 
 dear Noll, a woman — a good woman — is never 
 completely happy till convinced that she, and only 
 she, has saved the man she loves from ruin ; and, 
 what's more, she's a fool if she can't prove it." 
 
 " Nevertheless she's a beginner ; and I'll be 
 glad of your promise to run over from time to 
 time. A question or two will soon discover if 
 things are running on an even keel." 
 
 " I shall attempt no method so coarse," Lang- 
 ton assured him. " I don't want to be ordered 
 out of the house — must I repeat that I adore 
 her ? It may be news to you that she repays my 
 attachment with a certain respect. . . . Should she 
 find herself in any difficulty — and she will not — I 
 shall be sent for and consulted. In any event, 
 fond man, you may count on my calling." 
 
 As they shook hands Sir Oliver asked, " Don't 
 you envy me, Batty ? " 
 
 " Constantly and in everything," answered 
 Langton ; " though — ass that I am — I have rather 
 prided myself on concealing it." 
 
 " I mean, don't you wish that you, and not I, 
 were sailing for England ? For that matter, 
 though, there's nothing prevents you."
 
 3 88 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " Oh yes — there is." 
 
 "What, then?" 
 
 " Use and wont, if you will ; indolence, if you 
 choose ; affection for you, Noll, if you prefer it." 
 
 " That had been an excellent reason for coming 
 with me." 
 
 " It may be a better one for staying. . . . Well, 
 as you walk up St. James's, give it my regards." 
 
 " For so fine an intelligence Noll can be infer- 
 nally crass at times," muttered Mr. Langton to 
 himself as he walked back to his lodgings. 
 
 He kept his promise and rode over to Eagles 
 ten days later, to pay Ruth a visit. He found 
 her astonishingly cheerful. The sum left by Sir 
 Oliver for her stewardship had scared her at first. 
 It scared her worse to discover how the heap 
 began to drain away as through a sieve. But 
 slowly she saw her way to stop some of the holes 
 in that sieve. He had calculated her expenses, 
 taking for basis the accounts of the past few 
 months ; and in the matter of entertaining, for 
 example, she would save vast sums. . . . She 
 foresaw herself a miser almost, to earn his 
 praise. 
 
 " — Who can find a virtuous woman ? for her 
 price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband 
 shall sa f ely trust in her, so that he shall have no need
 
 MISCALCULATING WRATH 389 
 
 of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the 
 days of his life. 
 
 " She seeketh wool, and fax , and worketh willingly 
 with her hands. She is like the merchants' ships ; she 
 bringeth her food from afar. She riseth also while it 
 is yet night l , and give th meat to her household. . . . She 
 considereth a field and buyeth it. . . . She looketh well 
 into the ways of her household. 
 
 "Her children rise up, and call her blessed. ..." 
 Her children ? But she had let him go, after 
 all, without telling her secret. 
 
 Mr. Langton sat and balanced a malacca cane in 
 his hand. When his man announced the Reverend 
 Mr. Silk, he laid it down carefully on the floor 
 beside him. 
 
 " Show Mr. Silk up, if you please." 
 
 Mr. Silk entered with an affable smile. " Ah, 
 good-morning, Mr. Langton ! ' said he, deposit- 
 ing his hat on the table and pulling off a pair of 
 thick woollen gloves. " I am prompt on your 
 call, eh ? But this cold weather invites a man to 
 walk briskly. Not to mention," he added, with 
 an effort at facetiousness, " that when Mr. Lang- 
 ton sends for a clergyman his need is presumably 
 urgent." 
 
 " It is," said Mr. Langton, seemingly blind to 
 the hand he proferred. " Would you, before tak-
 
 39Q LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 ing a seat, oblige me by throwing a log on the 
 fire ? . . . Thank you — the weather is raw, as 
 you say." 
 
 " Urgent ? But not serious, I hope ? " 
 
 " Both. Sit down, please. ... 1 am, as you 
 know, a particular friend of Sir Oliver Vyell's." 
 
 " Say, rather, his best." Mr. Silk bowed and 
 smiled. 
 
 " Possibly. At all events so close a friend 
 that, being absent, he gives me the right to resent 
 any dishonouring suspicion that touches him — or 
 touches his lady. It comes to the same thing." 
 
 Mr. Silk cocked his head sideways, like a bird 
 considering a worm. " Does it ? " he queried, 
 after a slight pause. 
 
 " Certainly. A rumour is current through 
 Boston, touching Lady Vyell's virtue ; or, at 
 least, her conduct before marriage." 
 
 " 'Tis a censorious world, Mr. Langton." 
 
 " Maybe ; but let us avoid generalities, Mr. 
 Silk. What grounds have you for imputing this 
 misconduct to Lady Vyell ? " 
 
 " Me, sir ?" cried Mr. Silk, startled out of his 
 grammar. 
 
 " You, sir." Mr. Langton arose lazily, and 
 stepping to the door, turned the key ; then re- 
 turning to the hearth, in leisurely manner turned 
 back his cuffs. " I have traced the slander to
 
 MISCALCULATING WRATH 391 
 
 you, and hold the proofs. Perhaps you had best 
 stand up and recant it before you take your hid- 
 ing. But, whether or no, I am going to hide 
 you," he promised, with his engaging smile. 
 Stooping swiftly he caught up the malacca. Mr. 
 Silk sprang to his feet and snatched at the chair, 
 dodging sideways. 
 
 " Strike as you please," he snarled ; " Ruth 
 Josselin is a — " But before the word could out 
 Batty Langton's first blow beat down his guard. 
 The second fell across his exposed shoulders, the 
 third stunningly on the nape of his neck. The 
 fourth— a back-hander — welted him full in the 
 face, and the wretched man sank screaming for 
 pity. 
 
 Batty Langton had no pity. " Stand up, you 
 hound 1 ' he commanded. The command was 
 absurd, and he laughed savagely, tickled by its 
 absurdity even in his fury, while he smote again 
 and again. He showered blows until, between 
 blow and blow, he caught his breath and panted. 
 Mr. Silk's screams had sunk to blubbings and 
 whimpers. Between the strokes he heard them. 
 
 His valet was knocking timorously on the 
 door. " All right ! ' called Langton, lifting his 
 cane and lowering it slowly — for his victim lay 
 still. He stooped to drag aside the arm covering 
 the huddled face. As he did so, Mr. Silk snarled
 
 392 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 again, raised his head and bit blindly, fastening 
 his teeth in the flesh of the left hand. Langton 
 wrenched free and, as the man scrambled to his 
 teet, dealt him with the same hand a smashing 
 blow on the mouth — a blow that sent him reeling, 
 to overbalance and pitch backward to the floor 
 again across an overturned chair. 
 
 Somehow the pleasure of getting in that blow 
 restored — literally at a stroke — Langton's good 
 temper. He laughed and tossed the cane into a 
 
 corner. 
 cc 
 
 You may stand up now," said he sweetly. 
 " You are not going to be beaten any more." 
 
 Mr. Silk stood up. His mouth trickled blood, 
 and he nursed his right wrist, where the cane had 
 smitten across the bone. Langton stepped to the 
 door and, unlocking it, admitted his trembling 
 valet. 
 
 " My good fool," he said, " didn't 1 call to you 
 not to be alarmed ? Mr. Silk, here, has been 
 seized with a — a kind of epileptic fit. Help him 
 downstairs and call a chair for him. Don't stare ; 
 he will not bite again for a very long time." 
 
 But in this Mr. Langton was mistaken. 
 
 He took the precaution of cauterising his bitten 
 hand ; and before retiring to rest that night con- 
 templated it grimly, holding it out to the warmth
 
 MISCALCULATING WRATH 393 
 
 of his bachelor fire. It was bandaged ; but above 
 the edge of the bandage his knuckles bore evidence 
 how they had retaliated upon Mr. Silk's teeth. 
 
 He eyed these abrasions for a while and ended 
 with a soft complacent laugh. " Queer, how little 
 removed we are, after all, from the natural sav- 
 age ! " he murmured. " Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 allow me to introduce to your notice Batty Lang- 
 ton, Esquire, a child of nature — not perhaps of 
 the best period — still using his naked fists and for 
 a woman — primitive cause of quarrel. And didn't 
 he enjoy it, by George ! " 
 
 He laughed again softly. But, could he have 
 foreseen, he had been willing rather to cut the 
 hand off for its day's work.
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 THE TERRACE 
 
 "D UTH was happy. To-day, and for a whole 
 week to come, she was determined to be 
 purely happy, blithe as the spring sunshine upon 
 the terrace. For a week she would, like Walton's 
 milkmaid, cast away care and refuse to load her 
 mind with any fears of many things that will never 
 be. Her spirit sang birdlike within her. And 
 the reason ? — that the Venus had arrived in har- 
 bour, with Dicky on board. 
 
 Peace had been signed, or was on the point to 
 be signed, and in the North Atlantic waters His 
 Majesty's captains of frigates could make a holiday 
 of duty. Captain Harry used his holiday to sail 
 up for Boston, standing in for Carolina on his 
 way and fetching off his wife and his firstborn — 
 a bouncing boy. It was time, they agreed, to pay 
 their ceremonial visit to Sir Oliver and his bride ; 
 high time also for Dicky to return and embrace 
 his father.
 
 THE TERRACE 395 
 
 Sir Oliver had written of his approaching mar- 
 riage. "Well, dear," was Mrs. Harry's comment, 
 " 'twas always certain he would marry. As for 
 Ruth Josselin, she is an amazingly beautiful girl 
 and I believe her to be good. So there's no more 
 to be said but to wish 'em joy." 
 
 Captain Harry kissed his wife. " Glad you take 
 it so, Sally. I was half afraid — for of course there 
 was the chance, you know — " 
 
 " I'm not a goose, I hope, to cry for the 
 moon ! " 
 
 " Is that the way of geese ? " he asked, and they 
 both laughed. 
 
 A second letter had come to them from Eagles, 
 telling them of his happiness, and franking a note 
 in which Ruth prettily acknowledged Mrs. Harry's 
 congratulations. 
 
 A third had been despatched ; a hurried one, 
 announcing his departure for England. Before 
 this reached Carolina, however, the Venus had 
 sailed, and Dicky rushed home to find his father 
 gone. 
 
 But a message came down to Boston Quay, with 
 the great coach for Mrs. Vyell, and the baggage 
 and saddle-horses for the gentlemen. There were 
 three saddle-horses, for Ruth added an invitation 
 for Mr. Hanmer, " if the discipline of the ship 
 would allow."
 
 396 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " She always was the thoughtfullest ! " cried 
 Dicky. " Why, sir, to be sure you must come 
 too. . . . We'll go shooting. Is it too late for 
 partridge ? . . . One forgets the time of year, down 
 in the islands." 
 
 Strangely enough Mr. Hanmer, so shy by 
 habit, offered but a slight resistance. 
 
 It was Dicky who, as Ruth sped to him with a 
 happy little cry, hung on his heel a moment and 
 blushed violently. She took him in her arms, 
 exclaiming at his growth. 
 
 " Why— look, Tatty— 'tis a man ! And is that 
 what he means ?— Ah, Dicky, don't say you're too 
 tall to kiss your old playmate." 
 
 Then, holding him a little away and still observ- 
 ing his confusion, she remembered his absurd 
 boyish love for her and how he had confessed it. 
 Well, she must put him at his ease. . . . She 
 turned laughingly to welcome the others, and now 
 for a moment she too flushed rosy-red as she 
 shook hands with Mr. Hanmer. She could not 
 have told why ; but perhaps it was that instead ol - 
 returning her smile, his eyes rested on her face 
 gravely, intently, as though unable to drag them- 
 selves away. 
 
 Captain Harry and his wife marvelled, as well 
 they might, at the house and its wonders. Sir
 
 THE TERRACE 397 
 
 Oliver had chosen to take his meals French fashion 
 and at French hours ; and Ruth apologised for 
 having kept up the custom. Captain Harry, after 
 protesting against so ungodly a practice, admitted 
 that his ride had hungered him, and at dejeuner 
 proved it not only upon the courses but upon the 
 cold meats on the side-table. 
 
 "You must have a jewel of a housekeeper, my 
 dear ! ' Mrs. Harry had been taking in every 
 detail of the ordered service. " c Housekeeper,' 
 do I say? 'Major-domo' — you'll forgive me — " 
 
 Ruth swept her a bow. " I take the compli- 
 ment." 
 
 " And she deserves it," added Miss Quiney. 
 
 "What ? You don't tell me you manage it all 
 yourself? . . . This palace of a house ! ' 
 
 "Already you are making it feel less empty to 
 me. Yes, alone 1 do it ; but if you wish to praise 
 me, you should see my accounts. They are my 
 real pride. But no, they are too holy to be 
 shown ! " 
 
 They sat later — the gentlemen by their wine — 
 on the stone terrace overlooking the wide cham- 
 paign. 
 
 " But," said Ruth, for she observed that the 
 boy was restless, " 1 must leave Tatty to play 
 hostess while I take a scamper with Dick. There's 
 a pool below here, Dicky, with oh, such trout ! "
 
 398 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Dicky was on his feet in a trice. " Rods ? " 
 
 " Rods, if you will. But there are the stables, 
 too, to be seen ; and the gunroom — " 
 
 " Stables ? Gunroom ? — Oh, come along ! — 
 the day is too short ! " Here Dicky paused. 
 "But would you like to come too, sir?" he asked, 
 addressing Mr. Hanmer. 
 
 Mrs. Harry laughed. "Those two," she told 
 Ruth, " are like master and dog, and one never 
 can be quite sure which is which." 
 
 " My dear boy," said Mr. Hanmer, " you must 
 surely see that Lady Vyell wants you all to herself. 
 Yet I dare say the captain and I will be strolling 
 around to the stables before long." 
 
 "Ay, when this decanter is done," agreed Cap- 
 tain Harry. 
 
 " That was rather pretty of you," said Ruth, as 
 she and the boy went down the terrace stairs 
 together. 
 
 " What ? — asking old Hanmer to come with 
 us ? . . . Oh, but he's the best in the world, and, 
 what's more, never speaks out of his turn. He 
 has a tremendous opinion of you, too." 
 "Indeed?" 
 
 " Worships the very ground you tread on." 
 Ruth laughed. " Were those his words ? " 
 Dicky laughed too. " Likely they would be !
 
 THE TERRACE 399 
 
 Fancy old Han talking like a sick schoolgirl ! I 
 made the words up to please you : but it's the 
 truth, all the same." 
 
 They reached the pool ; and the boy, after ten 
 minutes spent in discovering the biggest monster 
 among the trout and attempting to tickle him with 
 a twig, fell to prodding the turfed brink thought- 
 fully. 
 
 " We talked a deal about you, first-along," he 
 blurted at length. " I fancy old Han guessed that 
 I was — was — well, fond of you and all that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 « Dear Dicky ! " 
 
 " Boys are terrible softies at this age," my young 
 master admitted. " And, after all, it was rather 
 a knockdown, you know, when papa's letter came 
 with the news." 
 
 "But we're friends, eh? — you and I — just as 
 before ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course — only you might have told. . . . 
 And I've brought you a parrot. Remember the 
 parrots in that old fellow's shop in Port Nassau ? ' 
 
 She led him to talk of his sea adventures, of the 
 ship, of the West Indies among which they had 
 been cruising ; and as they wandered back from 
 terrace to terrace he poured out a stream of 
 boyish gossip about his shipmates, from Captain 
 Vyell down to the cook's dog. Half of it was
 
 4 oo LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Hebrew to her ; but in every sentence of it, and 
 in the gay, eager voice, she read that the child had 
 unerringly found his vocation ; that the sea lent 
 him back to the shore for a romp and a holiday, 
 but that to the sea he belonged. 
 
 "There's one thing against shipboard though." 
 He had come to a halt, head aslant, and said it 
 softly, eyeing a tree some thirty yards distant. 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " No stones lying about." Picking up one, he 
 launched it at a nuthatch that clung pecking at 
 the moss on the bark. " Hit him, by George ! 
 Come — " 
 
 He ran and she raced after him for a few paces, 
 but stopped half-way, with her hand to her side. 
 The nuthatch was not hit after all, but had 
 bobbed away into the green gloom. 
 
 "Tell you what — you can't run as you used," 
 he said critically. 
 
 " No ? . . ." She was wondering at the mysteri- 
 ous life a-flutter in her side — that it should be his 
 brother. 
 
 "Not half. I'll have to get you into training. 
 . . . Now show me the stables, please." 
 
 They were retracing their steps when along a 
 green alley they saw Mr. Hanmer coming down 
 to meet them. He was alone, and his face, always 
 grave, seemed to Ruth graver than ever.
 
 THE TERRACE 401 
 
 " Dicky ! " said he. " Service, if you please." 
 
 " Ay, sir ! " Dicky's small person stiffened at 
 once, and Dicky's hand went up to the salute. 
 
 " Wait here, please. I wish a word in private 
 with Lady Vyell — if you will forgive me, ma'am?" 
 
 " Why to be sure, sir," she answered, wonder- 
 ing. As he turned, she walked on with him. 
 After some fifty paces she confronted him under 
 the pale-green dappled shadows of the alley. 
 
 " Something has happened ? Is it serious ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Looking straight before him, as they resumed 
 their walk, he told her ; in brief words that 
 seemed, as he jerked them out, to be pumped 
 from him ; that made no single coherent sentence, 
 and yet were concise as a despatch. 
 
 This in substance was Mr. Hanmer's report : — 
 
 They had remained on the terrace, seated, as 
 she had left them — Captain and Mrs. Harry, Miss 
 Quiney and he. The Captain was talking. . . . 
 A servant brought word that two ladies — Mr. 
 Hanmer could not recall their names — had called 
 from Boston and desired to see Mrs. Vyell. 
 cc Surely," protested Mrs. Harry, " they must 
 mean Lady Vyell ? " The servant was positive : 
 Mrs. Captain Vyell had been the name. "They 
 are anxious to pay their respects," suggested Miss 
 Quiney. " Anxious indeed ! Why we landed
 
 4 o2 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 but a few hours since. They must have galloped." 
 Miss Quiney was sent to offer them refreshment 
 and discover their business. 
 
 Miss Quiney goes off on her errand. Minutes 
 elapse. After many minutes the servant re- 
 appears. " Miss Quiney requests Mrs. Harry's 
 attendance." Mrs. Harry goes. 
 
 "Women are queer cattle," says Captain Harry 
 sententiously, and talks on. By-and-by the servant 
 appears yet again. Mr. Hanmer is sent for. 
 "Why, 'tis like a story I've read somewhere, 
 about a family sent one by one to stop a tap 
 running," says Captain Harry. " But I'll say this 
 for the women — I'm always the last they bother." 
 
 Following the servant, Mr. Hanmer — so runs 
 his report — enters the great drawing-room to find 
 Miss Quiney stretched on the sofa, her face buried 
 in cushions, and Mrs. Harry standing erect and 
 confronting two ladies of forbidding aspect. 
 
 " In brief," concluded Mr. Hanmer, " she sent 
 me for you." 
 
 " To confront them with her ? I wonder what 
 their business can be. . . ." With a glance at his 
 side face she added, " I think you have not told 
 me all." 
 
 "No," he confessed haltingly; "that's true 
 enough. In — in fact Mrs. Harry first employed 
 me to show them to the door."
 
 THE TERRACE 403 
 
 " And — on the way ? " 
 
 " Honoured madam — " 
 
 " They said — what ? — quoting whom ? ' 
 
 "A Mr. Silk. But again — ma'am, I am awk- 
 ward at lying. I cannot manage it." 
 
 " 1 like you the better for it." 
 
 " I did not believe — " 
 
 " Yet you might have believed. . . . And suppose 
 that it were true, sir ? " 
 
 He shook visibly. " I pray God to protect 
 you," he managed to stammer. 
 
 Her face was white, but she answered him 
 steadily. " I believe you to be a good man. ... I 
 will go to them. "Where is Dicky ? " She glanced 
 back along the alley. 
 
 " Dicky will stand where I have told him to 
 stand : for hours unless I release him." 
 
 " Is that your naval code ? And can a mere 
 child stand by it so proudly ? Oh," cried she, 
 fixing on him a look he remembered all his days, 
 " would to God I had been born a man ! ' 
 
 Yet fearlessly as any man she entered the great 
 drawing-room. Miss Quiney still lay collapsed 
 on her sofa. Mrs. Harry bent over her, but faced 
 about. 
 
 " Mr. Hanmer managed, then, to discover you ? 
 Two women have called. ... I thought it better,
 
 4 o 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 their errand being what it was, to show them 
 out." 
 
 " I can guess it, perhaps," Ruth caught her up 
 with a wan smile. "They managed to talk with 
 him before he gave them their dismissal." 
 
 " Forgive me. I had not thought them cap- 
 able — " 
 
 " There is nothing to forgive," Ruth assured 
 her. " They probably told the truth, and the 
 fault is mine." 
 
 Miss Quiney, incredulous, slowly raised her 
 face from the cushions and stared. 
 
 " Yes," repeated Ruth, " the fault is entirely 
 
 mine." 
 
 " But — but," stammered Mrs. Harry. Ruth 
 had turned away towards the window, and the 
 honest wife stared after her, against the light. 
 " But he will make it all right when he returns." 
 She started, of a sudden. Cunningly as Ruth had 
 dressed herself, Mrs. Harry's eyes guessed the 
 truth. " You have written to him ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " He guesses, at least ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then you are writing to him ? There is 
 enough time." 
 
 " No."
 
 THE TERRACE 405 
 
 Their eyes met. Ruth's asked, " And if I do 
 not, will you?" Mrs. Harry's met them for a 
 tew seconds and were abased. 
 
 No words passed between these two. " And as 
 for my Tatty," said Ruth lightly, stepping to the 
 sofa, " she is not to write. I command her."
 
 Chapter V 
 
 A PROLOGUE TO NOTHING 
 
 CIR OLIVER wrote cheerfully. His lawsuit 
 was prospering ; his prompt invasion of the 
 field had disconcerted Lady Caroline and her 
 advisers. He had discovered fresh evidence of 
 the late Sir Thomas's insanity. His own lawyers 
 were sanguine. They assured him that, at the 
 worst, the Courts would set aside the '46 will, 
 and fall back for a compromise on that of '44, 
 which gave the woman a life-interest only in the 
 Downton estates. But the case would not be 
 taken this side of the Long Vacation. ... (It 
 was certain, then, that he could not return in 
 time.) 
 
 He had visited Bath and spent some weeks 
 with his mother. He devoted a page or two 
 to criticism of that fashionable city. It was clear 
 he had picked up many threads of his younger 
 days ; had renewed old acquaintances and made 
 a hundred new ones. Play, he wrote, was a craze
 
 A PROLOGUE TO NOTHING 407 
 
 in England ; the stakes frightened a home-comer 
 from New England. For his part, he gamed but 
 moderately. 
 
 " As for the women, you have spoilt me for 
 them. I see none — not one, dearest — who can 
 hold a taper to you. Their artifices disgust me ; 
 and I watch them, telling myself that my Ruth 
 has only to enter their balls and assemblies to 
 triumph — nay, to eclipse them totally. . . . And 
 this reminds me to say that 1 have spoken with 
 my mother. She had heard, of course, from 
 more than one. Lady Caroline's account had 
 been merely coarse and spiteful ; but by that 
 lady's later conduct she was already prepared to 
 discount it. The pair encountered in London, 
 at my Lady Newcastle's ; and my mother (who 
 has spirit) refused her bow. Diana, to her credit, 
 appears to have done you more justice ; and Mrs. 
 Harry writes reams in your praise. To be sure 
 my mother, not knowing Mrs. Harry, distrusts 
 her judgment for a Colonial's ; but I vow she 
 is the soundest of women. ... In short, dear 
 Ruth, we have only to regularise things and we 
 are forgiven. The good soul dotes on me, and 
 imagines she has but a few years left to live. 
 This softens her. . . . 
 
 " There is a rumour — credit it, if you can ! — 
 that my Aunt Caroline intends to espouse a Mr.
 
 4 o8 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Adam Rouffignac, a foreigner and a wine mer- 
 chant ; I suppose (since he is reputed rich) to 
 arm herself with money to pay her lawyers. What 
 his object can be, poor man, I am unable to con- 
 jecture. It is a strange world. While her ugly 
 mother mates at the age of fifty, Diana — who 
 started with all the advantages of looks — withers 
 upon the maiden thorn. . . ." 
 
 His letters, every one, concluded with protests 
 of affection. She rejoiced in them. But it was 
 now certain that he could not return in time. 
 
 At length, as her day drew near, she wrote to 
 him, conceiving this to be her duty. She knew 
 that he would take a blow from what she had 
 to tell, and covered it up cleverly, lightly covering 
 all her own dread. She hoped the child would 
 be a boy. (" But why do I hope it ? " she asked 
 herself as she penned the words, and thought of 
 Dicky.) 
 
 She said nothing of Mr. Silk's treachery ; 
 nothing of her ostracism. This indeed, during 
 the later months, she recognised for the blessing 
 it was. 
 
 Towards the end she felt a strange longing 
 to have her mother near, close at hand, for her
 
 A PROLOGUE TO NOTHING 409 
 
 lying-in. The poor silly soul could not travel 
 alone. . . . Ruth considered this and hit on the 
 happy inspiration of inviting Mrs. Strongtharm 
 to bring her. Tatty was useless, and among 
 the few women who had been kind Mrs. Strong- 
 tharm had been the kindest. 
 
 Ruth sat down and penned a letter ; and Mrs. 
 Strongtharm, unable to write, responded valiantly. 
 She arrived in a cart, with Mrs. Josselin at her 
 side ; and straightway alighting and neglecting Mrs. 
 Josselin, sailed into a seventh heaven of womanly 
 fuss. She examined the baby-clothes critically. 
 
 " Made with your own pretty hands — and with 
 all this mort o' servants tumblin' over one another 
 to help ye. But 'tis nat'ral. ... It came to noth- 
 ing with me, but I know. And expectin' a boy o' 
 course. . . . La ! ye blushin' one, don't I know the 
 way of it ! " 
 
 When Ruth's travail came on her the three were 
 gathered by candle-light in Sir Oliver's dressing- 
 room. Beyond the door, attended by her maid 
 and a man-midwife, Ruth shut her teeth upon 
 her throes. So the prologue opens. 
 
 Prologue. 
 
 Mrs. Josselin sits in an armchair, regarding the 
 pattern of the carpet with a silly air of self-importance ;
 
 4 io LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm in a chair opposite. By the window 
 Miss Quiney, pulling at her knuckles, stares out through 
 the dark panes. A clock strikes. 
 
 Miss Quiney (with a nervous start). Four o'clock 
 . . . nine hours. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm. More. The pains took her 
 soon after six. . . . When her bell rang I looked 
 at the clock. 1 remember. 
 
 Miss Quiney. My poor Ruth. 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm. Eh ? The first, o' course. . . . 
 But a long labour's often the best. 
 
 Miss Quiney. There has not been a sound for 
 hours. 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm. She's brave. They say, too, 
 that a man-child, if he's a real strong one, will wait 
 for daybreak ; but that's old women's notions, I 
 shouldn't wonder. 
 
 Miss Quiney. A man-child ? You think it will 
 be? 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm. {She exchanges a glance with 
 Mrs. Josselin, who has looked up suddenly and nods?) 
 Certain. 
 
 Mrs. Josselin. Certain, certain ! I wonder, now, 
 what they'll call him ! After Sir Oliver, perhaps. 
 Her own father's name was Michael. In my own 
 family — that's the Pocock's — the men were mostly 
 Williams and Georges. Called after the Kings of 
 England.
 
 A PROLOGUE TO NOTHING 411 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm {yawns). Oliver Cromwell was 
 as good as any king, and better. Leastways my 
 mar says so. For my part, I don't bother my 
 head wi' these old matters. 
 
 Miss Quiney {tentatively). Do you know, I was 
 half hoping it would be a girl, just like my darling. 
 (To herself) God forgive me, when I think — 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm {interrupting the thought). She 
 won't be hoping for a girl. You don't understand 
 these things, beggin' your pardon, ma'am. 
 
 Miss Quiney {meekly). No. 
 
 Mrs. Josselin. You don't neither of you under- 
 stand. How should you ? 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm {stung). I understand as well as 
 a fool, I should hope ! {She turns to Miss Quiney.) 
 'Twas a nat'ral wish in ye, ma'am, that such a piece 
 o' loveliness should bear just such another. But 
 wait a while ; they're young and there's time. . . . 
 My lady wants a boy first, like every true woman 
 that loves her lord. There's pride an' wonder in 
 it. All her life belike she's felt herself weak an' 
 shivered to think of battles, and now, lo an' behold } 
 she's the very gates o' strength with an army 
 marchin' forth to conquer the world. Ha'n't ye 
 never caught your breath an' felt the tears swellin' 
 when ye saw a regiment swing up the street ? 
 
 Miss Quiney. Ah ! ... Is it like that ? 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm. It's like all that, an' more. . . .
 
 4 i2 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 An' though I've wet my pillow afore now with 
 envy of it, 1 thank the Lord for givin' a barren 
 woman the knowledge. 
 
 A pause. 
 
 Mrs. Josselin {with a silly laugh). What wonderful 
 patterns they make in the carpets nowadays ! Look 
 at this one, now — runnin' in and out so that the eye 
 can't hardly follow it ; and all for my lord's dress- 
 ing-room ! Cost a hundred pound, I shouldn't 
 wonder. 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm. T'cht ! 
 
 Mrs. Josselin. He must be amazing fond of her. 
 Fancy, my Ruth ! . . . It's a pity he's not home, 
 to take the child. 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm. Men at these times are best 
 out o' the way. 
 
 Mrs. Josselin. When my first was born, Michael 
 
 that's my husband — stayed home from sea o' 
 
 purpose to take it. My first was a girl. No, 
 not Ruth ; Ruth was born after my man died, 
 and I had her christened Ruth because some one 
 told me it stood for "sorrow." I had three 
 before Ruth — a girl an' two boys, an' buried them 
 
 all. 
 
 Miss Quiney (listening). Hush ! 
 
 Mrs. Josselin (not hearing, immersed in her own mental 
 flow). If you call a child by a sorrowful name 
 it's apt to ward off the ill-luck. Look at Ruth
 
 A PROLOGUE TO NOTHING 413 
 
 now — christened in sorrow an' married, after all, 
 to the richest in the land ! 
 
 Miss Quiney (in desperation). Oh, hush ! hush ! 
 
 A low moan comes from the next room. The women 
 sit silent, their faces white in the dawn that now comes 
 stealing in at the window, conquering the candle-light by 
 little and little. 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm. 1 thought I heard a child's 
 cry. . . . They cry at once. 
 
 Miss Quiney. Ah ? I fancied it, too — a feeble 
 one. 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm {rising after a long pause). Some- 
 thing is wrong. . . . 
 
 As she goes to listen at the door, it opens, and the 
 man-midwife enters. His face is grave. 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm and Miss Quiney ask him together, 
 tinder their breath — Well ? 
 
 He answers : It is well. We have saved her life, 
 I trust. 
 
 — And the child ? 
 
 — A boy. It lived less than a minute. . . . Yet 
 a shapely child. ... 
 
 Miss Quiney clasps her hands. Shall she, within her 
 breast, thank God ? She cannot. She hears the voice 
 saying — 
 
 A very shapely child. . . . But the labour was 
 difficult. There was some pressure on the brain 
 some lesion.
 
 4H LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 They would have denied Ruth sight of the poor 
 little body, but she stretched out her arms for it and 
 insisted. Then as she held it, flesh of her flesh, 
 to her breast and felt it cold, she — she, whose 
 courage had bred wonder in them, even awe — 
 she who had smiled between her pangs, mur- 
 muring pretty thanks — wailed low, and, burying 
 her face, lay still.
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 CHILDLESS MOTHER 
 
 FN the sad and cheated days that followed, she, 
 with the milk of motherhood wasting in her, 
 saw with new eyes — saw many things heretofore 
 hidden from her. 
 
 She did not believe in any scriptural God. But 
 she believed — she could not help believing — in an 
 awful Justice overarching all human life with its 
 law, as it overarched the very stars in heaven. 
 And this law she believed to rest in goodness, 
 accessible to the pure conscience, but stern against 
 the transgressor. 
 
 Because she believed this, she had felt that the 
 marriage rite, with such an one as Mr. Silk for 
 intercessor between her vows and a clean Heaven, 
 could be but a sullying of marriage. Yes, and she 
 felt it still ; of this, at any rate, she was sure. 
 
 But in her pride — as truly she saw it, in her 
 pride of chastity — she had left the child out of 
 account. He had inherited the world to face, not
 
 4 i 6 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 armed with her weapon of scorn. He had not won 
 freedom through a scourge. He had grown to 
 his fate in her womb, and in the womb she had 
 betrayed him. 
 
 She had been blind, blind ! She had lived for 
 her lover and herself. To him and to her (it had 
 seemed) this warm, transitory life belonged ; a 
 fleeting space of time, a lodge leased to bliss. . . . 
 Now she fronted the truth, that between the 
 selfish rapture of lovers Heaven slips a child, 
 smiling at the rapture, provident for the race. 
 Now she read the secret of woman's nesting 
 instinct ; the underlying wisdom stirring the root 
 of it, awaking passion not to satisfy passion, but 
 that the world may go on and on to its unguessed 
 ends. Now she could read ironically the court- 
 ship of man and maid, dallying by river-paths, 
 beside running water, overarched by boughs that 
 had protected a thousand such courtships. Each 
 pair in turn — poor fools! — had imagined the 
 world theirs, compressed into their grasp ; whereas 
 the wise world was merely flattering, coaxing 
 them, preparing for the child. 
 
 She should have been preparing, too. For what 
 are women made but for motherhood ? She ? 
 She had had but a hand to turn, a word to utter, 
 and this child — healthily begotten, if ever child 
 was, and to claim, if ever child could, the best —
 
 CHILDLESS MOTHER 417 
 
 has broken triumphing through the gate of her 
 travail. But she had betrayed him. The new- 
 born spirit had arrived expectant, had cast one 
 look across the threshold, and with one wail had 
 fled. Through and beyond her answering wail, as 
 she laid her head on the pillow, she heard the lost 
 feet, the small betrayed feet, pattering away into 
 darkness. 
 
 When she grew stronger, it consoled her a little 
 to talk with Mrs. Strongtharm ; not confiding her 
 regrets and self-reproaches, but speculating much 
 on this great book of Maternity into which she 
 had been given a glimpse. The metaphor was 
 Mrs. Strongtharm's. 
 
 " Ay," said that understanding female, " a book 
 you may call it, and a wonderful one ; written by 
 all the women, white an' black, copper-skin an' 
 red-skin, that ever groped their way in it with 
 pangs an' joys ; for every one writes in it as well 
 as reads. What's more, 'tis all in one language, 
 though they come, as my man would say, from all 
 the airts o' Babel." 
 
 " I wonder," mused Ruth, " if somewhere in it 
 
 there's a chapter would tell me why, when I lie 
 
 awake and think of my lost one, 'tis his footsteps 
 
 I listen for — feet that never walked ! " 
 
 " Hush ye, now. . . . Isn't it always their feet, the 
 
 11
 
 4 i 8 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 darlings ! Don't the sound of it, more'n their 
 voices, call me to door a dozen times a day ? . . . I 
 never bore child ; but I made garments in hope o' 
 one. Tell me, when you knitted his little boots, 
 wasn't it different from all the rest ? " 
 
 " Ah, put them away ! " 
 
 "To be sure, dearie, to be sure — all ready for 
 the next." 
 
 " I shall never have another child." 
 
 Mrs. Strongtharm smiled tolerantly. 
 
 " Never," Ruth repeated ; " never ; 1 know it." 
 
 With the same assurance of prophesy she 
 answered her lover on his return, a bare two 
 months later. 
 
 " But you must have known. . . . Even your 
 letters kept it secret. Yet, had you written, the 
 next ship would have brought me. Surely you 
 did not doubt that?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then why did you not tell me ? " 
 
 It was the inevitable question. She had fore- 
 stalled it so often in her thoughts that, when 
 uttered at last, it gave her a curious sensation of 
 re-enacting some long-past scene. 
 
 " I thought you did not care for children." 
 
 He was pacing the room. He halted, and 
 stared at her in sheer astonishment. Many a
 
 CHILDLESS MOTHER 419 
 
 beautiful woman touches the height of her beauty 
 after the birth of her first child ; and this woman 
 had never stood before him in loveliness that, 
 passing comprehension, so nearly touched the 
 divine. But her perversity passed comprehension 
 yet farther. 
 
 " Do you call that an answer ? " he demanded. 
 
 " No. . . . You asked, and I had to say something ; 
 but it is no answer. Forgive me. It was the best 
 I could find." 
 
 He still eyed her, between wrath and admira- 
 tion. 
 
 " I think," she said, after a pause, " the true 
 answer is just that I did wrongly — wrongly for the 
 child's sake." 
 
 " That's certain. And your own ? " 
 
 " My own ? That does not seem to me to 
 count so much. . . . Neither of us believe that a 
 priest can hallow marriage ; but once I felt that 
 the touch of a certain one could defile it." 
 
 "You have never before reproached me with 
 that." 
 
 " Nor mean to now. I chose to run from him ; 
 but, dear, I do not ask to run from the conse- 
 quences." 
 
 "The blackguard has had his pretty revenge. 
 Langton told me of it. . . . All the prudes of Boston 
 gather up their skirts, he says."
 
 4 2o LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " What matter ? Are we not happier missing 
 them ? . . . Honester, surely, and by that much at 
 any rate the happier." 
 
 " Marry me, and I promise to force them all 
 back to your feet." 
 
 She laughed quietly, almost to herself, a little 
 wearily. " Can you not see, my dear lord, that I 
 ask tor no such triumph ? It is good of you — oh, 
 I see how good ! — to desire it for me. But did 
 we want these people in our forest days ? " 
 
 " One cannot escape the world," he muttered. 
 
 " What ? Not when the world is so quick to 
 cast one out ? " 
 
 " Ruth," he said, coming and standing close to 
 her, " I do not believe you have given me the 
 whole answer even yet. The true reason, please ! " 
 
 " Must a woman give all her reasons ? . . . She 
 follows her fate, and at each new turning she may 
 have a dozen, all to be forgotten at the next." 
 
 " I am sure you harbour some grudge — some 
 reservation ? " His eyes questioned her. 
 
 She kept him waiting for some seconds. 
 
 " My lord, women have no consistency but in 
 this — they are jealous when they love. As your 
 slave, I demand nothing ; as your mistress, I demand 
 only you. But if you wished also to set me high 
 among women, you should have given me all or 
 nothing. . . . You did not offer to take me with you.
 
 CHILDLESS MOTHER 421 
 
 1 was not worthy to be shown to that proud folk, 
 your family." 
 
 " If you had breathed a wish, even the smallest 
 hint of one — " 
 
 " I had no wish, save that you should offer it. 
 I had only some pride. I was — I am — well con- 
 tent ; only do not come back and offer me these 
 women of Boston, or anything second best in your 
 eyes, however much the gift may cost you." 
 
 "Have it as you will," said he, after a long 
 pause. " I was wrong, and I beg your pardon. 
 But I was less wrong than your jealousy suspects. 
 My family will welcome you. Forgive me that I 
 thought it well — that it might save you any chance 
 of humiliation — to prepare them." 
 
 She swept him a curtsy. " They are very 
 good," she said. 
 
 He detected the irony, yet he persisted, holding 
 his temper well in control. " But all this pre- 
 supposes, you see, that you marry me. . . . Ruth, 
 you confess that you were wrong, for the child's 
 sake. He is dead ; and, on the whole, so much 
 the better, poor mite ! But for another, should 
 another be born — " 
 
 " There would be time," she said quietly. " But 
 we shall never have another." 
 
 She had hardened strangely. It was as if the
 
 422 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 milk of motherhood, wasting in her, had packed 
 itself in a crust about her heart. He loved her ; 
 she never ceased to love him ; but whereas under 
 the public scourge something had broken, letting 
 her free of opinion, to love the good and hate the 
 evil for their own sakes, under this second and 
 more mysterious visitation, she kept her courage 
 indeed, but certainty was hers no longer ; nor was 
 she any longer free of opinion, but hardened her 
 heart against it consciously, as against an enemy. 
 
 Not otherwise can I account for the image of 
 Ruth Josselin — my Lady Vyell — Lady Good-for- 
 Nothing — as under these various names it flits, for 
 the next few years, through annals, memoirs, 
 correspondence, scandalous chronicles ; now vin- 
 dicated, now glanced at with unseemly nods and 
 becks, anon passionately denounced ; now purely 
 shining, now balefully, above and between the 
 clouds of those times ; but always a star and an 
 object of wonder. 
 
 " In all Massachusetts," writes the Reverend 
 Hiram Williams, B.D., in his tract entitled A Shoe 
 Over Edom, " was no stronghold of Satan to 
 compare with that built on a slope to the rearward 
 
 of Boston, by Sir O V , Baronet. Here 
 
 with a woman, born of this Colony, of passing wit 
 and beauty (both alike the dower of the Evil One), 
 he kept house to the scandal of all devout persons,
 
 CHILDLESS MOTHER 423 
 
 entertaining none but professed Enemies of our 
 Liberties, Atheists, Gamesters." Here one may 
 pause and suspect the reverend castigator of 
 confusing several dislikes in one argument. It is 
 done sometimes, even in our own day, by religious 
 folk who polemise in politics. " Cards they played 
 on the Sabbath. Plays they rehearsed too, by 
 Shakespeare, Dryden, Congreve and others, whose 
 names may guarantee their lewdness. . . . The 
 woman, I have said, was fair ; but of that sort 
 their feet go down ever to Hell. . . ." 
 
 " My Noll's "Belle Sauvage,' writes Langton to 
 Walpole, " continues a riddle. I shall never solve 
 it ; yet 'till I have solved it, expect me not. 
 'Tis certain she loves him ; and because she loves 
 him, her loyalty allows not hint of sadness even to 
 me, his best friend. Guess why she likes me ? 
 'Tis because (I am sure of it) even in the old 
 clouded days I never took money from Noll, nor 
 borrowed a shilling that I didn't repay within the 
 week. She is a puzzle, I say ; but somehow the 
 key lies in this — She is a woman that pays her 
 debts. . . . 
 
 " They sail for Europe next spring ; but not, as 
 I understand for England, where his family may 
 not receive her, and where by consequence he will 
 not expose her to their slights. If I have made 
 you impatient to set eyes on her, you must e'en
 
 4 2 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 pack and pay that long-promised visit to Florence. 
 She is worth the pilgrimage." 
 
 They sailed in the early spring of 1752 — 
 Langton with them — and duly came to port in the 
 Tagus. From Lisbon, after a short stay, they 
 travelled to Paris, and from Paris across Switzerland 
 to Italy, visiting in turn Turin, Venice, Ravenna, 
 Florence, Rome, Naples, and returning from that 
 port to Lisbon, where (the situation so charmed 
 him) Sir Oliver bought and furnished a villa 
 overlooking the Tagus. 
 
 As she passes through Paris we get a glimpse of 
 her in the Memoirs of that agreeable rattle, 
 Arnauld de Jouy: — 
 
 " I must not forget to tell of an amusing little 
 comedy of error played at the Opera-house this 
 season (1752). All Paris was agog to see the 
 famous English — or rather Irish- — beauty, my 
 Lady Coventry, newly arrived in the Capital. She 
 was one of the Gunning sisters, over whom all 
 London had already lost its head so wildly that 
 I am assured a shoemaker made no small sum 
 by exhibiting their pantoufles to the porters and 
 chairmen at three sous a gaze. . . . On a certain 
 night, then, it was rumoured that she would pay 
 her first visit to the Opera, but none could say
 
 CHILDLESS MOTHER 425 
 
 whose box she intended to honour. ... It turned 
 out to be the Due de Luxembourg's, and upon my 
 lady's entrance — a little late — the whole audience 
 rose to its feet in homage, though Visconti 
 happened just then to be midway in an aria. The 
 singer faltered at the interruption, perplexed ; 
 her singing stopped, and lifting her eyes to the 
 lines of boxes she dropped a sweeping curtsy — 
 to the opposite side of the house ! . . . All eyes 
 turn, and behold ! right opposite to Beauty 
 Number One, into the box of Mme. the Marechale 
 de Lowcndahl there has just entered a Beauty 
 Number Two, not one whit less fair — so regally 
 fair indeed that the audience, yet standing, turn 
 from one to the other, uncertain which to salute. 
 Nor were they resolved when the act closed. 
 
 " Meantime my Lady Coventry (for in truth the 
 first-comer was she) has sent her husband out to 
 the foyer, to make enquiries. He comes back and 
 reports her to be the lady of Sir Oliver Vyell, a 
 great American Governor [But here we detect de 
 Jouy in a slight error] newly arrived from his 
 Province ; that she is by birth an American, and 
 has never visited Europe before. ' She must 
 be Pocahontas herself, then,' says the Gunning, 
 and very prettily sends across after the second Act, 
 desiring the honour of her acquaintance. Nay, 
 this being granted, she goes herself to the
 
 426 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Marechale's box, and the pair sit together in 
 full view of all — a superb challenge, and made 
 with no show (as I believe, with no feeling) of 
 jealousy. The audience is entranced. . . . Report 
 said later that my Lady Coventry, who was given 
 to these small indiscretions, asked almost in her 
 first breath, yet breathlessly, her rival's age. Her 
 rival smiled and told it. * Then you are older than 
 I — but how long have you been married ? ' This, 
 too, her rival told her. ' Then,' sighed the 
 Gunning, * perhaps you do not love your lord as I 
 love my Cov. It is wearing to the looks ; but 
 'faith, I cannot help it ! ' " 
 
 From Lisbon Sir Oliver paid several flying 
 visits to England, where his suit against Lady 
 Caroline still dragged. Nor was it concluded 
 until the summer of 1754, when the Gentleman's 
 Magazine yields us the following: — 
 
 "June 4. A cause between Sir Oliver Vyell, 
 baronet, plaintiff, and the lady of the late Sir 
 Thomas, defendant, was tried in the Court of 
 King's Bench by a special jury. The subject of 
 the litigation was a will of Sir Thomas, suspected 
 to be made when he was not of sound mind ; and 
 it appeared that he had made three — one in 1741, 
 another in 1744, and a third in 1746. In the first
 
 CHILDLESS MOTHER 427 
 
 only a slender provision was made for his lady, 
 by the second a family estate in Devonshire, of 
 ,£2,000 per annum, was given her for her life, and 
 by the third the whole estate real and personal 
 was left to be disposed of at her discretion without 
 any provision for the heir-at-law. The jury, after 
 having withdrawn for about an hour and a half, set 
 aside the last and confirmed the second. In a 
 hearing before the Lord Chancellor some time 
 afterwards in relation to the costs, it was deemed 
 that the lady should pay them all, both at common 
 law and in Chancery." 
 
 Thus we see our Ruth by glimpses in these 
 years which were far from being the best or the 
 happiest of her life — " an innocent life, yet far 
 astray." 
 
 But one letter of hers abides, kept in contrition 
 by the woman to whom she wrote it, and in this 
 surely the noble soul of her mounts like a star and 
 shines, clear above the wreck of her life. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Harry, — "Let there be few 
 words between us. My child did not live, and I 
 shall never bear my lord another ; therefore, 
 outside of your feelings and mine, what you did 
 or left undone matters not at all in this world. 
 You talk of the next, and there you go beyond
 
 428 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 me ; but if there be a next world, and my 
 forgiveness can help you there, why you had it 
 long ago ! . . . * You reproach yourself constantly,' 
 you say ; l You should have told him and you 
 withheld the letter ; ' ' You did wickedly ' — and the 
 rest. Oh, my dear, will you not see that I have 
 been a mother, too, and understand ? In your 
 place I might have done the same. Yes ? No ? 
 At any rate I should have known the temptation. 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " Ruth." 
 
 The law business ended, she and Sir Oliver 
 sailed for Boston and spent a few weeks at Eagles. 
 He had resigned the Collectorship of Customs, 
 but with no intent to return and make England 
 his home. His attachment to Eagles had grown ; 
 he was perpetually making fresh plans to enlarge 
 and adorn it ; and he proposed henceforth, laying 
 aside all official cares, to spend his summers in 
 New England, his winters in the softer climate of 
 Lisbon.
 
 BOOK V 
 LISBON AND AFTER
 
 Chapter I 
 
 ACT OF FAITH 
 
 " T-IOW is it possible for people beholding that 
 glorious Body to worship any Being but 
 Him who created it ! " 
 
 Upon the stroke of nine the procession filed 
 forth into the Square. It was headed by about 
 a hundred Dominican friars, bearing the banner 
 of their founder. The banner displayed a Cross 
 betwixt an olive tree and a sword, with the motto 
 Justitia et Misericordia. 
 
 After the Dominicans walked five penitents ; 
 each with a sergeant, or Familiar, attending. Two 
 of the five wore black mitres, three were bare- 
 headed. All walked barefoot, clad in black sleeve- 
 less coats, and each carried a long wax candle. 
 These had escaped the extreme sentence ; and after 
 them came one, a woman, who had escaped it also, 
 but narrowly and as by fire. In token of this her 
 black robe was painted over with flames, having 
 their points turned downward.
 
 432 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Close behind followed three men on whose san- 
 benitos the flames pointed upward. These were 
 being led to execution, and two of them who 
 carried boards on their breasts, painted with dogs 
 and serpents, were to die by fire for having pro- 
 fessed doctrines contrary to the Faith ; the third, 
 who carried no board, was a " Relapsed," and 
 might look forward to the privilege of being 
 strangled before being cast to the flame. To each 
 of these three was assigned, in addition to the 
 Familiar, a couple of Jesuit priests, to walk beside 
 him and exhort him. 
 
 The man who was to be strangled came through 
 the gateway of the Inquisition Office with his gaze 
 bent to the ground, apparently insensible to the 
 mob of sightseers gathered in the Square. The 
 doomed man who followed — a mere youth, and, 
 by his face, a Jew — stared about him fiercely and 
 eagerly. The third was an old man, with ragged 
 hair and beard, and a complexion bleached by long 
 imprisonment in the dark. He halted, blinking, 
 uncertain how to plant his steps. Then, feeling 
 rather than seeing the sun, he stretched up both 
 arms to it, dropping his taper, calling aloud as 
 might a preacher, " How is it possible for people, 
 beholding that glorious Body, to worship any 
 Being but Him who created it ! " 
 
 A Jesuit at his side flung an arm across the old
 
 ACT OF FAITH 433 
 
 man's mouth ; and as quickly the Familiar whipped 
 out a cloth, pulled his head back, and gagged him. 
 The young Jew had turned and was staring, still 
 with his fierce, eager look. He was wheeled about 
 and plucked forward. 
 
 Next through the gateway issued a troupe of 
 Familiars on horseback, some of them nobles of 
 the first families in Portugal ; after them the In- 
 quisitors and other Officers of the Court upon 
 mules ; last of all, amid a train of nobles, the 
 Inquisitor-General himself on a white horse led 
 by two grooms : his delicate hands resting on the 
 reins, his face a pale green by reason of the sun- 
 light falling on it through a silken scarf of that 
 colour pendant over the brim of his immense 
 black hat. 
 
 All this passed before Ruth's eyes, and close, 
 as she sat in the mule-chaise beside Sir Oliver. 
 She would have drawn the leathern curtains, but 
 he had put out a hand forbidding this. 
 
 She could not at any rate have escaped hearing 
 the old man's exclamation ; for their chaise was 
 jammed in the crowd beside the gateway. Her 
 ears still kept the echo of his vibrant voice ; almost 
 she was persuaded that his eyes had singled her 
 out from the crowd. 
 
 — And why not ? Had not she, also, cause to
 
 434 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 know what cruelties men will commit in the name 
 of religion ? 
 
 Her heart was wrathful as well as pitiful. Her 
 lord had given her no warning of the auto-da-fe, 
 and she now suspected that in suggesting this 
 Sunday morning drive he had purposely decoyed 
 her to it. Presently, as the crowd began to clear, 
 he confirmed the suspicion. 
 
 " Since we are here, we may as well see the 
 sp — " He was going to say " sport," but, warned 
 by a sudden stiffening of her body, he corrected 
 the word to " spectacle." " They erect a grand 
 stand on these occasions ; or, if you prefer, we 
 can bribe them to give room for the chaise." 
 
 He bent forward and called to the coachman, 
 " Turn the mules' heads, and follow ! " 
 
 " Indeed I will not," she said firmly. " Do you 
 go — if such crimes amuse you. . . . For me, I 
 shall walk home." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " It is the custom 
 of the country. . . . But, as for your walking, I 
 cannot allow it for a moment. Juan shall drive 
 you home." 
 
 She glanced at him. His eyes were fixed on 
 the opposite side of the square, and she surprised 
 in them a look of recognition not intended for 
 her. Following the look, she saw a chaise much
 
 ACT OF FAITH 435 
 
 like their own, moving slowly with the throng, 
 and in it a woman seated. 
 
 Ruth knew her. She was Donna Maria, Count- 
 ess of Montalagre ; and of late Sir Oliver's name 
 had been much coupled with hers. 
 
 This Ruth did not know ; but she had guessed 
 for some time that he was unfaithful. She had 
 felt no curiosity at all to learn the woman's name. 
 Now an accident had opened her eyes, and she 
 saw. 
 
 Her first feeling was of slightly contemptuous 
 amusement. Donna Maria, youthful wife of an 
 aged and enfeebled lord, passed for one of the 
 extremely devout. She had considerable beauty, 
 but of an order Ruth could easily afford to scorn. 
 It was the bizarrerie of the affair that tickled her, 
 almost to laughter — Donna Maria's down-dropt 
 gaze, the long lashes veiling eyes too holy-innocent 
 for aught but the breviary ; and he — he of all 
 men ! — playing the lover to this little dunce, with 
 her empty brain, her narrow religiosity ! 
 
 But on afterthought, she found it somewhat 
 disgusting too. 
 
 " I thank you," she said. " Juan shall drive 
 me home, then. It will not, I hope, inconvenience 
 you very much, since I see the Countess of Mont- 
 alagre's carriage across the way. No doubt she 
 will offer you a seat."
 
 436 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 He glanced at her, but her face was cheerfully 
 impassive. 
 
 " That's an idea ! ' he said. " I will run and 
 make interest with her." 
 
 He alighted, and gave Juan the order to drive 
 home. He lifted his hat, and left her. She saw 
 Donna Maria's start of simulated surprise. Also 
 she detected, or thought she detected, the sly 
 triumph of a woman who steals a man. 
 
 All this she had leisure to observe ; for Juan, 
 a Gallician, was by no means in a hurry to turn 
 the mules' heads for home. He had slewed his 
 body about, and was gazing wistfully after the 
 throng. 
 
 " Your Excellency, it would be a thousand 
 pities ! 
 
 " Hey ? " 
 
 " There has not been a finer burning these two 
 years, they tell me. And that old blasphemer's 
 beard, when they set a light to it ! ... I am a 
 poor Gallego, your Excellency, and at home get so 
 few chances of enjoyment. Also I have dropped 
 my whip, and it is trodden on, broken. In the 
 crowd at the Terreiro de Paco I may perchance 
 borrow another." 
 
 Ruth alighted in a blaze of wrath. 
 
 " Wretched man," she commanded, " climb 
 down ! "
 
 ACT OF FAITH 437 
 
 " Your Excellency — " 
 
 cc 
 
 Climb down ! You shall go, as your betters 
 have gone, to feed your eyes with these abomina- 
 tions. . . . Nay, how shall I scold you, who do 
 what your betters teach ? But climb down. I will 
 drive the mules myself." 
 
 " His Excellency will murder me when he hears 
 of it. But, indeed, was ever such a thing heard 
 of?" Nevertheless the man was plainly in two 
 minds. 
 
 " It is not for you to argue, but to obey my 
 orders." 
 
 He descended, still protesting. She mounted 
 to his seat, and took the reins and whip. 
 
 " The brutes are spirited, your Excellency. For 
 the love of God have a care of them ! " 
 
 For answer she nicked them with the whip — he 
 had lied about the broken whip — and left him 
 staring. 
 
 The streets were deserted. All Lisbon had 
 trooped to the auto-da-fe. If any saw and won- 
 dered at the sight of a lady driving like a mere 
 bolhero^ she heeded not. The mules trotted briskly, 
 and she kept them to it. 
 
 She had ceased to be amused, even scornfully. 
 As she drove up the slope of Buenos Ayres — the 
 favourite English suburb, where his villa stood 
 overlooking Tagus — a deep disgust possessed her.
 
 438 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 It darkened the sunshine. It befouled, it tar- 
 nished, the broad and noble mirror of water spread 
 far below. 
 
 "Were all men beasts, then ?"
 
 Chapter II 
 DONNA MARIA 
 
 T 
 
 HEY would dine at four o'clock. On Sun- 
 days Sir Oliver chose to dine informally 
 with a few favoured guests ; and these to-day 
 would make nine, not counting Mr. Langton, 
 who might be reckoned one of the household. 
 
 By four o'clock all had arrived — the British 
 envoy, Mr. Castres, with his lady ; Lord Charles 
 Douglas, about to leave Lisbon after a visit of 
 pleasure ; Mrs. Hake, a sister of Governor 
 Hardy of New York — she, with an invalid hus- 
 band and two children, occupied a villa somewhat 
 lower down the slope of Buenos Ayres ; white- 
 haired old Colonel Arbuthnot, doyen of the 
 English residents ; Mr. Hay, British Consul, and 
 Mr. Raymond, one of the chiefs of the English 
 factory, with their wives. . . . Ruth looked at the 
 clock. All were here save only their host, Sir 
 Oliver. 
 
 Mr. Langton, with Lord Charles Douglas, had
 
 44-o LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 returned from the auto-da-fe. Like his friend 
 George Selwyn — friend these many years by cor- 
 respondence only — Mr. Langton was a dilettante 
 in executions and like horrors, and had taken 
 Lord Charles to the show, to initiate him. He 
 reported that they had left Sir Oliver in a press of 
 the crowd, themselves hurrying away on foot. 
 He would doubtless arrive in a few minutes. 
 Mr. Langton said nothing of the executions. 
 
 Mr. Castres, too, ignored them. He knew, of 
 course, that the auto-da-fe had taken place, and 
 that the Court had witnessed it in state from a 
 royal box. But his business, as tactful Envoy of 
 a Protestant country, was to know nothing of this. 
 He went on talking with Mrs. Hake, who — good 
 soul — actually knew nothing of it. Her children 
 absorbed all her care ; and having heard Miriam, 
 the younger, cough twice that morning, she was 
 consulting the Envoy on the winter climate of 
 Lisbon — was it, for instance, prophylactic against 
 croup. 
 
 At five minutes past four Sir Oliver arrived. 
 Before apologising he stood aside ceremoniously 
 in the doorway to admit a companion — the Count- 
 ess of Montalegre. 
 
 " I have told them," said he as Donna Maria 
 tripped forward demurely to shake hands, " to 
 lay for the Countess. The business was long, by
 
 DONNA MARIA 441 
 
 reason of an interminable sermon, and at the end 
 there was a crush at the exit from the Terreiro de 
 Paco and a twenty good minutes' delay — impos- 
 sible to extricate oneself. Had I not persuaded 
 the Countess to drive me all the way home, my 
 apologies had been a million instead of the thou- 
 sand I offer." 
 
 Had he brought the woman in defiance ? Or 
 was it merely to discover how much, if any- 
 thing, Ruth suspected ? If to discover, his design 
 had no success. ' Ruth saw — it needed less than 
 half a glance — Batty Langton bite his lip and 
 turn to the window. Lord Charles wore a faintly 
 amused smile. These two knew, at any rate. 
 For the others she could not be sure. She greeted 
 Donna Maria with a gentle courtesy. 
 
 " We will delay dinner with pleasure," she said, 
 " while my waiting-woman attends on you." 
 
 Durino- the few minutes before the Countess 
 reappeared she conversed gaily with one and an- 
 other of her guests. Her face had told him 
 nothing, and her spirit rose on the assurance that, 
 at least, she was puzzling him. 
 
 Yet all the while she asked herself the same 
 questions. Had he done this to defy her ? Or 
 to sound her suspicions ? 
 
 In part he was defying her ; as he proved at
 
 442 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 table by talking freely of the auto-da-fe. Donna 
 Maria sat at his right hand, and added a detail 
 here and there to his description. The woman 
 apparently had no pity in her for the unhappy 
 creatures she had seen slowly and exquisitely 
 murdered. Were they not heretics, serpents, 
 enemies of the true Faith ? 
 
 " But ah ! '" she cried once with pretty affecta- 
 tion. " You make me forget my manners ! . . . 
 Am I not, even now, talking of these things among 
 Lutherans ? Your good lady, for instance ? " 
 
 At the far end of the table, Ruth — speaking 
 across Mr. Castres and engaging Mrs. Hake's 
 ear, lest it should be attracted by this horrible 
 conversation — discussed the coming war with 
 France. She upheld that the key of it lay in 
 America. He maintained that India held it — 
 " Old England, you may trust her ; money's her 
 blood, and the blood she scents in a fight. She'll 
 fasten on India like a bulldog." Colonel Arbuth- 
 not applauded. " Where the treasure is," quoted 
 Ruth, " there the heart is also. You give it a 
 good British paraphrase. . . . But her real blood — 
 some of the best of it — beats in America. There 
 the French challenge her, and she'll have, spite 
 of herself, to take up the challenge. Montcalm ! 
 . . . He means to build an empire there." " Par- 
 don me " — Mr. Castres smiled indulgently — " you
 
 DONNA MARIA 443 
 
 are American born, and see all things American in 
 a high light. We skirmish there . . . backwoods 
 righting, you may call it." 
 
 " With a richer India at the back of the woods. 
 Oh ! I trust England, and Pitt, when his hour 
 comes. England reminds me of Saul, always go- 
 ing forth to discover a few asses and always in the 
 end discovering a kingdom. Other nations build 
 the dream, dreams being no gift of hers. Then 
 she steps in, thrusts out the dreamers, inherits the 
 reality. America, though you laugh at it, has 
 cost the best dreaming of two nations — Spain first, 
 and now France — and the best blood of both. 
 Bating Joan of Arc — a woman — France hasn't 
 bred a finer spirit than Montcalm's since she bred 
 Froissart's men. But to what end ? England will 
 break that great heart of his." 
 
 She was talking for talking's sake, only anxious 
 to divert Mrs. Hake's ears from the conversation 
 her own ears caught, only too plainly. 
 
 Mrs. Hake said, " I prefer to believe Mr. 
 Castres. My brother writes that every one is 
 quitting New York, and I'm only thankful — if 
 war must come, over there — that we've taken our 
 house on a three years' lease only. No one 
 troubles about Portugal, and I must say that I've 
 never found a city to compare with Lisbon. The 
 suburbs ! . . . Why, this very morning I saw the
 
 444 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 city itself one pall of smoke. You'd have thought 
 a main square was burning. Yet up here, in 
 Buenos Ayres, it might have been midsummer. 
 . . . The children, playing in the garden, called 
 me out to look at the smoke. Was there a fire ? 
 I must ask Sir Oliver." 
 
 Mrs. Hake had raised her voice ; but Ruth 
 managed to intercept the question. 
 
 All the while she was thinking, thinking to her- 
 self.--" And he, who can speak thus, once endured 
 shame to shield me ! He laughs at things infi- 
 nitely crueller. . . . Yet they differ in degree only 
 from what then stirred him to fight. . . . 
 
 — " Have I then so far worsened him ? Is the 
 blame mine ? 
 
 — " Or did the curse but delay to work in him r 
 — in him, my love and my hero ? Was it fore- 
 ordained to come to this, though I would at any 
 time have given my life to prevent it ? " 
 
 Again she thought.—" I have been wrong in 
 holding religion to be the great cause why men 
 are cruel,— as in believing that free-thought must 
 needs humanise us all. Strange ! that I should 
 discover my error on this very day has showed 
 me men being led by religion to deaths of tor- 
 ture. . . . Yet an error it must be. For see my 
 lord — hear how he laughs as cruelly, even, as the 
 devote at his elbow ! "
 
 DONNA MARIA 445 
 
 They had loitered some while over dessert, and 
 Ruth's eye sought Donna Maria's, to signal her 
 before rising and leaving the gentlemen to their 
 wine. But Donna Maria was running a pre- 
 occupied glance around the table and counting 
 with her fingers. . . . Presently the glance grew 
 distraught and the silly woman fell back in her 
 chair with a cry. 
 
 Jesus ! We are thirteen ! " 
 Faith, so we are," said Sir Oliver with an easy 
 laugh, after counting. 
 
 " And I the uninvited one ! The calamity 
 must fall on me — there is no other way ! ' 
 
 " But indeed there is another way," said Ruth, 
 rising with a smile. " In my country the ill-luck 
 falls on the first to leave the table. And who 
 should that be, here, but the hostess ? " 

 
 Chapter III 
 
 EARTHQUAKE 
 
 T^HE auto-da-fe was but a preliminary to the 
 festivities and great processions of All Saints. 
 For a whole week Lisbon had been sanding its 
 squares and streets, painting its signboards, drap- 
 ing its balconies and windows to the fourth and 
 fifth stories with hangings of crimson damask. 
 Street after street displayed this uniform vista of 
 crimson, foil for the procession, with its riot of 
 gorgeous dresses, gold lace, banners, precious 
 stones. 
 
 Ruth leaned on the balustrade of her villa 
 garden, and looked down over the city, from 
 which, made musical by distance, the bells of 
 thirty churches called to High Mass. Their 
 chorus floated up to her on the delicate air ; and 
 — for the chimneys of Lisbon were smokeless, the 
 winter through, in all but severest weather, and 
 the citizens did their cooking over braziers — each 
 belfry stood up distinct, edged with gold by the
 
 EARTHQUAKE 447 
 
 brilliant morning sun. Aloft the sky spread its 
 blue bland and transparent ; far below her Tagus 
 mirrored it in a lake of blue. Many vessels rode 
 at anchor there. The villas to right and left and 
 below her, or so much of them as rose out of their 
 embosoming trees, took the sunlight on walls of 
 warm yellow, with dove-coloured shadows. 
 
 She was thinking. . . . He had tried to discover 
 how much she suspected ; and when neither in 
 word or look would she lower her guard, he had 
 turned defiant. This very morning he had told 
 her that, if she cared to use it, a carriage was at 
 her disposal. For himself, the Countess of Mont- 
 alegre had offered him a seat in hers, and he had 
 accepted. . . . He had told her this at the last 
 moment, entering her room in the full court dress 
 the state procession demanded ; and he had said 
 it with a studied carelessness, not meeting her eyes. 
 
 She had thanked him, and added that she was 
 in two minds about going. She was not dressed 
 for the show, and doubted if her maid could array 
 her in time. 
 
 " We go to the Cathedral," said he. " I should 
 recommend that or the Church of St. Vincent, 
 where, some say, the Mass is equally fine." 
 
 " If I go, I shall probably content myself with 
 the procession." 
 
 " If that's so, I've no doubt Langton will escort
 
 448 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 you. He likes processions, though he prefers 
 executions. To a religious service I doubt your 
 bribing him." 
 
 Upon this they had parted, each well aware 
 that, but a few weeks ago, this small expedition 
 would have been planned together, discussed, 
 shared, as a matter of course. At parting he 
 kissed her hand — he had always exquisite manners ; 
 and she wished him a pleasant day with a voice 
 quite cheerful and unconstrained. 
 
 From the sunlit terrace she looked almost 
 straight down upon the garden of Mrs. Hake's 
 villa. The two little girls were at play there. 
 She heard their voices, shrill above the sound of 
 the church bells. Now and again she caught a 
 glimpse of them, at hide-and-seek between the 
 ilexes. 
 
 She was thinking. If only fate had given her 
 children such as these ! . . . As it was, she could 
 show a brave face. But what could the future 
 hold ? 
 
 She heard their mother calling to them. They 
 must have obeyed and run to her, for the garden 
 fell silent of a sudden. The bells, too, were 
 ceasing — five or six only tinkled on. 
 
 She leaned forward over the balustrade to make
 
 EARTHQUAKE 449 
 
 sure that the children were gone. As she did so, the 
 sound of a whimper caught her ear. She looked 
 down, and spoke soothingly to a small dog, an 
 Italian greyhound, a pet of Mr. Langton's, that 
 had run to her trembling, and was nuzzling 
 against her skirt for shelter. She could not think 
 what ailed the creature. Belike it had taken 
 fright at a noise below the terrace — a rumbling 
 
 c to 
 
 noise, as of a cart mounting the hill heavily laden 
 with stones. 
 
 The waggon, if waggon it were, must be on the 
 roadway to the left. Again she leaned forward 
 over the balustrade. A faint tremor ran through 
 the stonework on which her arms rested. For a 
 moment she fancied it some trick of her own 
 pulse. 
 
 But the tremor was renewed. The pulsation 
 was actually in the stonework. . . . And then, even 
 while she drew back, wondering, the terrace under 
 her feet heaved as though its pavement rested on 
 a wave of the sea. She was thrown sideways, 
 staggering ; and while she staggered, saw the 
 great flagstones of the terrace raise themselves on 
 end, as notes of a harpsichord when the fingers 
 withdraw their pressure. 
 
 She would have caught again at the balus- 
 trade. But it had vanished, or rather was 
 
 vanishing, under her gaze, toppling into the 
 
 15
 
 450 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 garden below. The sound of the falling stones 
 was caught up in a long, low rumble, prolonged, 
 swelling to a roar from the city below. Again the 
 ground heaved, and beneath her — she had dropped 
 on her knees, and hung, clutching the little dog, 
 staring over a level verge where the balustrade had 
 run — she saw Lisbon fall askew, this way and 
 that : the roofs collapsing, like a toy structure of 
 cards. Still the roar of it swelled on the ear ; yet, 
 strange to say, the roar seemed to have nothing to 
 do with the collapse, which went on piecemeal, 
 steadily, like a game. The crescendo was drowned 
 in a sharper roar and a crash close behind her — a 
 crash that seemed the end of all things. . . . The 
 house ! She had not thought of the house. 
 Turning, she faced a cloud of dust, and above it 
 saw, before the dust stung her eyes, half-blinding 
 her, that the whole front of the villa had fallen 
 outwards. It had, in fact, fallen and spread its 
 ruin within two yards of her feet. Had the ter- 
 race been by that much narrower, she must have 
 been destroyed. As it was, above the dust, she 
 gazed, unhurt, into a house from which the front 
 screen had been sharply caught away, as a mask 
 snatched from a face. 
 
 By this the horror had become a dream to her. 
 As in a dream she saw one of her servants — a 
 poor little under-housemaid, rise to her knees
 
 EARTHQUAKE 451 
 
 from the floor where she had been flung, totter to 
 the edge of the house-front, and stand, piteously 
 gazing down over a height impossible to leap. 
 
 A man's voice shouted. Around the corner of 
 the house, from the stables, Mr. Langton came 
 running, by a bare moment escaping death from a 
 mass of masonry that broke from the parapet, and 
 crashed to the ground close behind his heels. 
 
 " Lady Vyell ! Where is Lady Vyell ? " 
 
 Ruth called to him, and he scrambled towards 
 her over the gaping pavement. He called as he 
 came, but she could distinguish no words, for 
 within the last few seconds another and different 
 sound had grown on the ear — more terrible even 
 than the first roar of ruin. 
 
 " My God ! look ! ' He was at her side, 
 shouting in her ear, for a wind like a gale was 
 roaring past them down from the hills. With one 
 hand he steadied her against it, lest it should blow 
 her over the verge. His other pointed out over 
 Tagus. 
 
 She stared. She did not comprehend ; she only 
 saw that a stroke more awful than any was falling, 
 or about to fall. The first convulsion had lifted 
 the river bed, leaving the anchored ships high and 
 dry. Some lay canted almost on their beam ends. 
 As the bottom sank again they slowly righted, but 
 too late ; for the mass of water, flung to the oppo-
 
 452 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 site shore, and hurled back from it, came swooping 
 with a refluent wave, that even from this high 
 hillside was seen to be monstrous. It fell on their 
 decks, drowning and smothering : their masts only 
 were visible above the smother, some pointing 
 firmly, others tottering and breaking. Some rose 
 no more. Others, as the great wave passed on, 
 lurched up into sight again, broken, dismasted, 
 wrenched from their moorings, spinning about 
 aimlessly, tossed like corks amid the spume ; and 
 still, its crest arching, its deep note gathering, the 
 great wave came on straight for the harbour quay. 
 
 Ruth and Langton, staring down on this por- 
 tent, did not witness the end ; for a dense cloud 
 of dust, on this upper side dun-coloured against 
 the sunlight, interposed itself between them and 
 the city, over which it made a total darkness. 
 Into that darkness the great wave passed and 
 broke ; and almost in the moment of its breaking 
 a second tremor shook the hillside. Then, indeed, 
 wave and earthquake together made universal roar, 
 drowning the last cry of thousands ; for before it 
 died away earthquake and wave together had 
 turned the harbour quay of Lisbon bottom up, 
 and engulfed it. Of all the population huddled 
 there to escape from death in the falling streets, 
 not a corpse ever rose to the surface of Tagus. 
 
 But Ruth saw nothing of this. She clung to
 
 EARTHQUAKE 453 
 
 Langton, and his arm was about her. She be- 
 lieved, with so much of her mind as was not 
 paralysed, that the end of the world was come. 
 
 As the infernal hubbub died away on the drop- 
 ping wind, she glanced back over her shoulder at 
 the house. The poor little criada-moga was no 
 longer there, peering over the edge she dared not 
 leap. Nay, the house was no longer there — only 
 three gaunt walls, and between them a heap where 
 rooms, floors, roof had collapsed together. 
 
 Of a sudden complete silence fell about them. 
 As her eyes travelled along the edge of the terrace 
 where the balustrade had run, but ran no longer, 
 she had a sensation of standing on the last brink 
 of the world, high over nothingness. Langton's 
 arm still supported her. 
 
 " As safe here as anywhere," she heard him 
 saying. " For the chance that led you here, thank 
 whatever Gods may be." 
 
 " But I must find him ! " she cried. 
 
 "Eh? Noll?— find Noll? Dear lady, small 
 chance of that ! " 
 
 " I must find him." 
 
 " He was to attend High Mass in the Cathe- 
 dral — " 
 
 " Yes . . . with that woman. What help could 
 such an one bring to him if — if — Oh, I must 
 find him, I say ! "
 
 454 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 " The Cathedral," he repeated. " You are 
 brave ; let your own eyes look for it." He had 
 withdrawn his arm. 
 
 " Yet I must search, and you shall search with 
 me. You were his friend, I think ? " 
 
 "Indeed, I even believed so. ... I was thinking 
 of you. ... It is almost certain death. Do you 
 say that he is worth it ? " 
 
 Do you fear death ? " she asked. 
 Moderately," he answered. " Yet if you 
 command me, I come ; if you go, I go with you." 
 
 " Come." 
 
 (C 
 
 cc
 
 T 
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 THE SEARCH 
 
 HEY set out hand in hand. The small dog 
 ran with them. 
 Even the beginning of the descent was far from 
 easy, for the high walls that had protected the 
 villa-gardens of Buenos Ayres lay in heaps, cum- 
 bering the roadway, and in places obliterating it. 
 
 About a hundred and fifty yards down the road, 
 by what had been the walled entrance to the 
 Hakes' garden, they sighted two forlorn small 
 figures — the six and five year old Hake children, 
 Sophie and Miriam, who recognised Ruth and, 
 running, clung to her skirts. 
 
 " Mamma ! "Where is mamma ? " 
 
 " Dears, where did you leave her last ? " 
 
 " She pushed us out through the gateway, here, 
 
 and told us to stand in the middle of the road 
 
 while she ran back to call daddy. She said no 
 
 stones could fall on us here. But she has been
 
 456 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 gone ever so long, and we can't hear her calling 
 at all." 
 
 While Ruth gathered them to her and attempted 
 to console them, Mr. Langton stepped within the 
 ruined gateway. In a minute or so he came back, 
 and his face was grave. 
 
 She noted it. " What can we do with them ? " 
 she asked, and added with a haggard little smile, 
 " I had actually begun to tell them to run up to 
 our house and wait, forgetting — " 
 
 "They had best wait here, as their mother 
 advised." 
 
 " It is terrible ! " 
 
 He lifted his shoulders slightly. " If once we 
 begin — " 
 
 "No, you are right," she said, with a shudder- 
 ing glance down the road ; and bade the little 
 ones rest still as their mother had commanded. 
 She was but going down to the city (she said) to 
 see if the danger was as terrible down there. 
 The two little ones cried and clung to her ; but 
 she put them aside firmly, promising to look for 
 their mamma when she returned. Langton did 
 not dare to glance at her face. 
 
 The dark cloud dust met them, a gunshot be- 
 low, rolling up the hillside from the city. They 
 passed within the fringe of it, and at once the 
 noonday sun was darkened for them. In the
 
 THE SEARCH 457 
 
 unnatural light they picked their way with dif- 
 ficulty. 
 
 " She was lying close within the entrance," said 
 Langton. "The gateway arch must have fallen 
 on her as she turned. . . . One side of her skull 
 was broken. I pulled down some branches and 
 covered her." 
 
 "Your own face is bleeding." 
 
 " Is it ? '' He put up a hand. " Yes — I re- 
 member, a brick struck me, on my way from the 
 stables — no, a beam grazed me as I ran for the 
 back-stairs, meaning to get you out that way. 
 The stairs were choked. ... I made sure you 
 were in the house. The horses . . . have you 
 ever heard a horse scream ? " 
 
 She shivered. At a turn of the road they came 
 full in view of the black pall stretching over the 
 city. Flames shot up through it, here and there. 
 Lisbon was on fire in half a dozen places at least ; 
 and now for the first time she became aware that 
 the wind had sprung up again and was blowing 
 violently. She could not remember when it first 
 started : the morning had been still, the Tagus — 
 she recalled it — unruffled. 
 
 At the very foot of the hill they came on the 
 first of three fires — two houses blazing furiously, 
 and a whole side-street doomed, if the wind should 
 hold. Among the ruins of a house, right in the
 
 458 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 face of the fire, squatted a dozen persons, men and 
 women, all dazed by terror. The women had 
 opened their parasols — possibly to screen their 
 faces from the heat — albeit they might have 
 escaped this quite easily by shifting their positions 
 a few paces. None of these folk betrayed the 
 smallest interest in Ruth or in Langton. Indeed, 
 they scarcely lifted their eyes. 
 
 The suburbs were deserted, for the earthquake 
 had surprised all Lisbon in a pack, crowded within 
 its churches, or in its central streets and squares. 
 Yet the emptiness of what should have been the 
 thoroughfares astonished them scarcely less than 
 did the piles of masonry, breast-high in places, over 
 which they picked their way in the uncanny twi- 
 light. They had scarcely passed beyond the glare 
 of the burning houses when Langton stumbled 
 over a corpse — the first they encountered. He 
 drew Ruth aside from it, entreating her in a low 
 voice to walk warily. But she had seen. 
 
 " We shall see many before we reach the Cathe- 
 dral," she said quietly. 
 
 They stumbled on, meeting with few living 
 creatures ; and these few asked them no questions, 
 but went by, stumbling, with hands groping, as 
 though they moved in a dream. A voice wailed 
 " Jesus ! Jesus ! ' and the cry, issuing Heaven 
 knew whence, shook Ruth's nerve for a moment.
 
 THE SEARCH 459 
 
 Once Langton plucked her by the arm and pointed 
 to some men with torches moving among the 
 ruins. She supposed that they were seeking for 
 the dead ; but they were, in fact, incendiaries, 
 already at work and in search of loot. 
 
 She passed three or four of these blazing houses, 
 some kindled no doubt by incendiaries, but others 
 by natural consequences of the earthquake ; for 
 the kitchens, heated for the great feast, had com- 
 municated their fires to the falling timberwork on 
 which the houses were framed ; and by this time 
 the city was on fire in at least thirty different 
 places. The scorched smell mingled everywhere 
 with an odour of sulphur. 
 
 There were rents in the streets, too — chasms, 
 half-filled with rubble, reaching right across the 
 roadway. After being snatched back by Langton 
 from the brink of one of these chasms, Ruth 
 steeled her heart to be thankful when a burning 
 house shed light for her footsteps. At the houses 
 themselves, after an upward glance or two, she 
 dared not look again. They leaned this way and 
 that, the fronts of some thrust outward at an 
 angle to forbid any but the foolhardiest from 
 passing underneath. 
 
 But, indeed, they had little time to look aloft 
 as they penetrated to streets littered, where the 
 procession had passed, with wrecked chaises, dead
 
 460 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 mules, human bodies half-buried and half-burnt, 
 charred limbs protruding awkwardly from heaps 
 of stones. Here, by ones and twos, pedestrians 
 tottered past, crying that the world was at an end; 
 here, on a heap where, belike, his shop had stood, 
 a man knelt praying aloud ; here a couple of 
 enemies met by chance, seeking their dead, and 
 embraced, beseeching forgiveness for injuries past. 
 These sights went by Ruth as in a dream ; and as 
 in a dream she heard the topple and crack of 
 masonry to right and left. Langton guided her ; 
 and haggard, perspiring, they bent their heads to 
 the strange wind now howling down the street as 
 through a funnel, and foot by foot battled their 
 way. 
 
 The wind swept over their bent heads, carrying 
 flakes of fire to start new conflagrations. The 
 stream of these flakes became so steady that Ruth 
 began to count on it to guide her. She began to 
 think that amid all this dissolution to right and 
 left, some charm must be protecting them both, 
 when, as he stretched a hand to help her across a 
 mound of rubble she saw him turn, cast a look up 
 and fall back beneath a rush of masonry. A fly- 
 ing brick struck her on the shoulder, cutting the 
 flesh. For the rest, she stood unscathed ; but her 
 companion lay at her feet, with legs buried deep, 
 body buried to the ribs.
 
 THE SEARCH 461 
 
 " Your hand ! " she gasped. 
 
 He stretched it out feebly, but withdrew it in 
 an agony ; for the stones crushed his bowels. 
 
 " You are hurt ? " 
 
 "Killed." He contrived a smile. "Not so 
 wide as a church door," he quoted, looking up at 
 her strangely through the wan light ; " but 'twill 
 serve." 
 
 " My friend ! and I cannot help you ! ' She 
 plucked vainly at the mass of stones burying his 
 legs. 
 
 He gasped on his anguish, and controlled it. 
 
 " Let be these silly bricks. . . . They belong 
 to some grocer's kitchen-chimney, belike — but 
 they have killed me, and may as well serve for 
 my tomb. Reach me your hand." 
 
 He took it and thrust it gently within the breast 
 of his waistcoat. There, guided by him, her 
 fingers closed on the handle of a tiny stiletto. 
 
 " The sheath too ... it is sewn by a few 
 stitches only." He looked up into her eyes. 
 " You are too beautiful to be wandering: these 
 streets alone." 
 
 " I understand," she said gravely. 
 
 "Now go." He pressed the back of her hand 
 to his lips, and released it. 
 
 " Can I do nothing ? " she asked, with a hard 
 sob.
 
 462 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 "Yes . . . 'tis unlucky, they say, to accept a 
 knite without paying for it. One kiss. . . . You 
 may tell Noll. Is it too high a price ? " 
 
 She knelt and kissed him on the brow. 
 
 "Ah ! . . ." He drew a long sigh. "I have 
 held you to-day, and to-day you have kissed me. 
 Go now." 
 
 She went. The dog ran with her a little way, 
 then turned and crept back to its master.
 
 Chapter V 
 THE FINDING 
 
 X-TOLA ! " hailed a man, signalling by a brazier 
 with his back to the wind. " For what 
 are you seeking ? " 
 
 Ruth halted, gripping her stiletto. This man 
 might help her, perhaps. At any rate, he seemed 
 a cool-headed fellow who made the best of things. 
 
 For two hours she had searched, and for the 
 time her strength was nearly spent. Dust filled 
 her hair and caked her long eyelashes. Her face, 
 haggard with woe and weariness, was a mask of 
 dust. 
 
 " For one," she answered, " who was to have 
 attended High Mass in the Cathedral." 
 
 u Eh ? " The man swept a hand to the ruined 
 shell of that building, at the end of the Square, 
 and to a horrible pile of masonry covering many 
 hundreds of bodies. " If he reached there, your 
 Excellency had better go home and pray for his 
 soul ; that is, if your Excellency believes it
 
 464 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 efficacious. But first, will your Excellency sit 
 here and rest ? — no, not on the lee side, in the 
 fumes of the charcoal, but to windward here, 
 where the fire is bright, and where I have the 
 honour to give room. ... So your Excellency 
 did not attend the Mass ? — not approving of it, 
 maybe ? " 
 
 " It would seem that you know me ? " said 
 Ruth, answering something in his tone, not his 
 words. 
 
 The question set him chuckling. 
 
 " Not by that token — though 'faith 'tis an ill 
 wind blows nobody good. This earthquake, 
 considered philosophically, is a great opportunity 
 for heretics. You and I, for example, may sit 
 here in the very middle of the square and talk 
 blasphemy to our heart's content ; whereas — " 
 He broke off. " But I forget my manners. I 
 ought to have started by saying that no one, 
 having once set eyes on your Excellency's face 
 could ever forget it ; and, by St. James, that is 
 no more than the truth ! " 
 
 " Where have you seen me before ? " 
 
 " By the gateway of the Holy Office, in a 
 carriage with your lord beside you. I marked 
 his face, too. What it is to be young and rich 
 and beautiful ! . . . And yet you might have re- 
 membered me, seeing that I made part of the
 
 THE FINDING 465 
 
 procession, though — praise be to fate ! — a modest 
 
 one. 
 
 Ruth gazed at him. " I remember you," she 
 said slowly ; " you were one of the Penitents." 
 
 " They were gracious enough to call me so. 
 Yes, I can understand that a san-benito makes 
 some difference to a man's personal appearance. . . . 
 And old Gonsalvez — I saw your Excellency wince 
 and your Excellency's beauty turn pale when he 
 cast up his hands to the sun. . . . Hey ? How 
 is it possible — how went the words ? " 
 
 Ruth had them well by heart. " How is it 
 possible for people, beholding that glorious Body, to 
 worship any Being but Him who created it ? ' 
 
 Right — word for word ! Well, they made a 
 lens for that glorious Body and fried old Gonsalvez 
 with it. Were you looking on ? " 
 
 " No," said Ruth, and shivered. 
 
 " Well, I did — perforce. 'Twas part of my 
 lesson ; for you must know that I, too, had had 
 my little difficulty over that same glorious Sun, 
 touching his standing still over Gibeon at the 
 command of ancient Joshua. 'Faith, I've no 
 quarrel with a miracle or so, up and down ; but 
 that one ! . . . Well, they convinced me I was 
 a fool to have any doubt, and a worse fool to let 
 it slip off the tongue. And yet," said the Penitent, 
 warming his hands and casting a look up at the
 
 466 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 sky, where the dust-cloud had given place to a 
 rolling pall of smoke, " what a treat it is to 
 let the tongue wag at times ! " 
 
 Ruth, her strength refreshed by the few 
 minutes' rest, thanked him and arose to continue 
 her search. 
 
 " Stay," said the Penitent. " Your Excellency 
 has not heard all the story, nor yet arrived near 
 the moral. . . . Between ourselves the reverend 
 fathers were lenient with me because — well, it 
 may have been because I hold some influence 
 among the beggars of Lisbon, who are numerous 
 and not always meek, in spite of the promise that 
 meekness shall inherit the earth. I may confess, 
 in short, that my presence in the procession was 
 to some extent a farce, and the result of a com- 
 promise. But, all the same, your Excellency does 
 ill to disbelieve in miracles : as I dare say your 
 Excellency, casting an eye about Lisbon on this 
 particular day of All the Saints, will not dispute ? " 
 
 " Alas, sir ! I have seen too many horrors 
 to-day to be in any mood to argue." 
 
 "Then," said the Penitent, skipping up, "you 
 are in the precise mood to be convinced ; as I have 
 seen men, under extremity of torture, ready to 
 believe anything. Come ! " 
 
 She hesitated. " Where would you lead me ? " 
 
 "To a miracle," he answered, and, with a fine
 
 THE FINDING 467 
 
 gesture, flinging his tattered cloak over his shoulder, 
 he led the way. He strode rapidly down a couple 
 of streets. Once or twice coming to a chasm 
 across the roadway he paused, drew back, and 
 cleared it with a leap. But at these pitfalls he 
 neither turned nor offered Ruth a hand. She 
 followed him panting, so agile was his pace. 
 
 The first street ran south, the second east. He 
 entered a third which turned north again as if 
 to lead back into the Square. After following 
 it for twenty yards he halted and allowed her to 
 catch up with him. 
 
 " You are a devoted" wife," said the Penitent 
 admiringly. " Would it alter your devotion at 
 all to know that he was with another woman ? " 
 
 " No," answered Ruth. " I knew it, in fact." 
 She wondered that this beggar man could force 
 her to speak so frankly. 
 
 " In an earthquake," said he, " one gets down 
 to naked truth, or near to it. If he were unfaith- 
 ful now — would that alter your desire to find and 
 save him ? " 
 
 Sir, why do you ask these things ? " 
 Did your Excellency not know that its beggars 
 are the eyes of Lisbon ? But you have not 
 answered me." 
 
 " Nor will. That I am here — is it not enough ?" 
 
 The Penitent peered at her in the dim light and 
 
 cc
 
 468 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 nodded. He led her forward a pace or two and 
 pointed to something imbedded in a pile of stones, 
 lime, rubble. It was the wreck of a chaise. Two 
 males lay crushed under it, their heads and a 
 couple of legs protruding. A splintered door, 
 wrenched from its hinges, lay face - uppermost 
 crowning the heap. It bore a coronet and the 
 arms of Montalegre. 
 
 "Are they — " she stammered, but caught at her 
 voice and recovered it. " — Are they here^ under 
 this?" 
 
 " No," he said, and again led the way, crossing 
 the street to a house of which the upper storey 
 overhung the street, supported by a line of pillars. 
 Three or four of these pillars had fallen. Of the 
 rest, nine out of ten stood askew, barely holding 
 up the house, through the floors of which stout 
 beams had thrust themselves and stuck at all 
 angles from the burst plaster. 
 
 " Here is Milord Vyell," said the Penitent, 
 picking up a broken lath and pointing with it. 
 
 He lay on his back, as he had lain for close 
 upon three hours, deep in the shadow of the 
 overhanging house. His eyes were wide open. 
 They stared up at the cobwebs that dangled from 
 the broken plaster. A pillar, in weight maybe 
 half a ton, rested across his thighs ; an oaken beam
 
 THE FINDING 469 
 
 across his chest and his broken left arm. The 
 two pinned him hopelessly. 
 
 Clutched to him in his right lay Donna Maria. 
 She seemed to sleep, with her head turned from 
 his breast and laid upon the upper arm. The 
 weight of the pillar resting on her bowels had 
 squeezed the life out of her. She was dead : 
 her flesh by this time almost cold. 
 
 " Oliver ! — Ah, look at me ! — I am here — I 
 have come to help ! ' 
 
 The lids twitched slightly over his wide eyes. 
 in the dim light she could almost be sworn that 
 the lips, too, moved as though to speak. But 
 no words came, and the eyes did not see her. 
 
 He was alive. What else mattered ? 
 
 She knelt and flung her arms about the pillar. 
 Frantically, vainly, she tugged at it : not by an 
 inch or the tenth part of an inch could she 
 stir it. 
 
 " Speak to me, Oliver ! . . . Look at least ! ' 
 
 " If your Excellency will but have patience ! ' 
 The Penitent stepped out into the street and she 
 heard him blowing a whistle. Clearly he was a 
 man to be obeyed ; for in less than ten minutes 
 a dozen figures crowded about the entrance, 
 shutting out the day. This darkness of their 
 making was in truth their best commendation. 
 For against any one of them coming singly Ruth
 
 470 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 had undoubtedly held her dagger ready. They 
 grumbled, too, and some even cursed the Penitent 
 for having dragged them away from their loot. 
 The Penitent called them cheerfully his little sons 
 of the devil, and adjured them to tall to work 
 or it would be the worse for them. 
 
 For his part, he lifted no hand : but stood 
 overseer as the ruffians lifted the pillar, Ruth 
 straining her strength with theirs. 
 
 But when they came to lift Donna Maria, for 
 a moment something hitched, and Ruth heard 
 the sound of rending cloth. The poor wretch 
 in her death-agony had bitten through Sir Oliver's 
 arm to the bone. The corpse yet clenched its 
 jaws on the bite. They had to wrench the teeth 
 open — delicate pretty teeth made for nibbling 
 sweetmeats. 
 
 To his last day Oliver Vyell bore the mark 
 of those pretty teeth, and took it to the grave 
 with him. 
 
 Ruth drew out a purse. But the Penitent, 
 though they grumbled, would suffer his scoundrels 
 to take .no fee. Nay, he commanded two, and 
 from somewhere out of devastated Lisbon they 
 fetched a sedan-chair for the broken man. "You 
 may pay these if you will," said he. " Honestly, 
 they deserve it."
 
 THE FINDING 471 
 
 On her way westward, following the chair, she 
 called to them to stop and search whereabouts 
 Mr. Langton had fallen. They found him with 
 the small greyhound standing guard beside the 
 body. His head was pillowed on his arm, and he 
 lay as one quietly sleeping.
 
 Chapter VI 
 DOCUMENTS 
 
 From Abraham Castres Esq.: his Majesty s Envoy 
 Extraordinary to the King of Portugal, to the 
 Secretary of State , Whitehall, London. 
 
 Lisbon, November 6th, 1755. 
 
 "Sir, — You will in all likelihood have heard 
 before this of the inexpressible Calamity befallen 
 the whole Maritime Coast, and in particular this 
 opulent City, now reduced to a heap of Rubbish 
 and Ruin, by a most tremendous Earthquake on 
 the first of this Month, followed by a Conflagra- 
 tion which has done ten times more Mischief than 
 the Earthquake itself. I gave a short account of 
 our Misfortune to Sir Benjamin Keene, by a Spaniard, 
 who promised (as all intercourse by Post was at a 
 stand) to carry my Letter as far as Badajoz and see 
 it safe put into the Post House. It was merely to 
 acquaint His Excellency that, God be praised,
 
 DOCUMENTS 473 
 
 my House stood out the Shocks, though greatly- 
 damaged ; and that, happening to be out of the 
 reach of the Flames, several of my Friends, burnt 
 out of their Houses, had taken refuge with me, 
 where I have accommodated them as well as I 
 could, under Tents in my large Garden ; no Body 
 but Lord Charles Doivg/ass, who is actually on 
 board the Packet, besides my Chaplain and my- 
 self having dared hitherto to sleep in my House 
 since the Day of our Disaster. The Consul and 
 his Family have been saved, and are all well, 
 in a Country House near this City. Those with 
 me at present are the Dutch Minister, his Lady, 
 and their three Children, with seven or eight of 
 their Servants. The rest of my Company of the 
 better Sort consists of several Merchants of this 
 Factory, who, for the most part have lost all they 
 had ; though some indeed, as Messrs. Parry and 
 SVlellisK s House, and Mr. Raymond, and Burrell, 
 have had the good Fortune to save their Cash, 
 either in whole or in part. The number of the 
 Dead and Wounded I can give no certain Account 
 of as yet ; in that respect our Poor Factory has 
 escaped pretty well, considering the number of 
 Houses we have here. I have lost my Good 
 and Worthy Friend the Spanish Ambassador, who 
 was crushed under the Door, as he attempted to 
 make his Escape into the Street. This with the
 
 474 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Anguish I have been in for these five Days past, 
 occasioned by the dismal Accounts brought to us 
 every instant of the Accidents befallen to one or 
 other of our Acquaintance among the Nobility, 
 who for the most part are quite Undone, has 
 greatly affected me ; but in particular the miser- 
 able Objects among the lower sort of His Majesty's 
 Subjects, who fly also to me for Bread, and lie 
 scattered up and down in my Garden, with their 
 Wives and Children. I have helped them all 
 hitherto, and shall continue to do so, as long as 
 Provisions do not fail Us, which I hope will not be 
 the Case, by the Orders which ^M. de Car-valho has 
 issued in that respect. One of our great Mis- 
 fortunes is, that we have neither an English or 
 Dutch Man of War in the Harbour. Some of 
 their Carpenters and Sailors would have been of 
 great use to me on this occasion, in helping to 
 prop up my House ; for as the Weather, which 
 has hitherto been remarkably fair, seems to 
 threaten us with heavy Rains, it will be impos- 
 sible for the Refugees in my Garden to hold out 
 much longer ; and how to find Rooms in my 
 House for them all I am at a loss to devise ; 
 the Floors of most of them shaking under our 
 Feet ; and must consequently be too weak to bear 
 any fresh number of Inhabitants. The Roads for 
 the first Days having been impracticable, it was
 
 DOCUMENTS 475 
 
 but yesterday I had the Honour in Company with 
 <!M. de la Calmette, of waiting on the King of 
 Portugal, and all the Royal Family at Be/em, whom 
 we found encamped ; none of the Royal Palaces 
 being fit to harbour Them. Though the loss His 
 Most Faithful Majesty has sustained on this occa- 
 sion is immense, and that His Capital-City is 
 utterly Destroyed ; He received us with more 
 Serenity than we expected, and among other 
 things told us, that He owed Thanks to Provi- 
 dence for saving His and His Family's Lives : 
 and that He was extremely glad to see us both 
 safe. The Queen in her own Name, and all the 
 young Princesses, sent us word that they were 
 obliged to us for our attention ; but that being 
 under their Tents, and in a Dress not fit to appear 
 in, They desired that for the present we would 
 excuse their admitting our Compliments in Person. 
 Most of the considerable Families in our Factory 
 have already secured to themselves a passage to 
 England, by three or four of our London Traders, 
 that are preparing for their departure. As soon 
 as the fatigue and great trouble of Mind I have 
 endured for these first Days are a little over, I 
 shall be considering of some proper method for 
 sheltering the poorer Sort, either by hiring a 
 Tortuguese Hulk, or if that is not to be had, some 
 English Vessel till they can be sent to England ;
 
 476 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 and there are many who desire to remain, in hopes 
 of finding among the Ruins some of the little Cash 
 they may have lost in their Habitations. The best 
 orders have been given for preventing Rapine, and 
 Murders, frequent instances of which we have had 
 within these three Days, there being swarms of 
 Spanish Deserters in Town, who take hold of this 
 opportunity of doing their business. As I have 
 large sums deposited in my House, belonging to 
 such of my Countrymen as have been happy 
 enough to save some of their Cash, and that my 
 House was surrounded all last Night with Ruffians ; 
 I have wrote this Morning to JH. de Qarvalho^ to 
 desire a Guard, which I hope will not be refused. 
 We are to have in a Day or two a Meeting of our 
 scattered Factory at my House, to consider of 
 what is best to be done in our present wretched 
 Circumstances. I am determined to stay within 
 call of the Distressed, as long as I can remain on 
 Shore with the least Appearance of Security : and 
 the same Mr. Hay (the Consul) seemed resolved 
 to do, the last time I conferred with him about it. 
 I most humbly beg your Pardon, Sir, for the 
 Disorder of this Letter, surrounded as I am by 
 many in Distress, who from one instant to the 
 other are applying to me either for Advice or 
 Shelter. The Packet has been detained at the 
 Desire of the Factory, till another appears from
 
 DOCUMENTS 477 
 
 England, or some Man of War drops in here from 
 the Streights. This will go by the first of several 
 of our Merchant Ships bound to England. I 
 must not forget to acquaint you, that Sir Oliver 
 Vyell and Lady are safe and well, and have the 
 Honour to be, &c." 
 
 II 
 
 From the Same to the Same. 
 
 ' Belem, November jf/i t 1755. 
 
 " Sir, — . . . The present Scene of Misery and 
 Distress is not to be described ; the Kingdom of 
 Portugal is ruined and undone, and Lisbon, one 
 of the finest Cities that ever was seen, is now no 
 more. The Escape of the forementioned Sir. O. 
 Vyell is one of the most providential Things that 
 ever was heard of; for whilst he was riding about 
 the middle of the City in his Chaise, on the first 
 instant, he observed the Driver to look behind 
 him, and immediately to make the Mules gallop 
 as fast as possible, but both he and they were 
 very soon killed and buried in the Ruins of a 
 House which fell on them ; whereupon Sir Oliver 
 jumped out of the Chaise, and ran into a House 
 that instantly fell also to the Ground, and buried 
 him in the Ruins for a considerable Time ; but 
 it pleased God that he was taken out alive, and
 
 478 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 not much bruised. His Lady likewise was pro- 
 videntially in the Garden when their House fell, 
 and so escaped. About half an Hour after the 
 first Shock, the City was on fire in five different 
 Parts, and has been burning ever since, so that 
 the English Merchants here are entirely ruined. 
 There have been three Shocks every Day since 
 the first, but none so violent as the first. The 
 King has ordered all the Soldiers to assist in 
 burying the Dead, to prevent a Plague ; and 
 indeed upon that Account the Fire was of Service 
 in consuming the Carcasses both of Men and 
 Beasts. The English have miraculously escaped, 
 for notwithstanding the Factory was so numerous, 
 not more than a Dozen are known to have been 
 killed ; amongst whom was poor {Mrs. Hake, Sister 
 to Governor Hardy of New York, who suffered as 
 she was driving her Children before her ; and the 
 Spanish Ambassador was killed also, with his young 
 Child in his Arms. Every person, from the King 
 to the Beggar, is at present obliged to lie in the 
 Fields, and some are apprehensive that a Famine 
 may ensue."
 
 DOCUMENTS 479 
 
 III 
 
 An Extract of a Letter from on board a Ship in Lisbon 
 Harbour^ Nov : 1 9, to the same Purport. 
 
 " Mine will not bring you the first News of the 
 most dreadful Calamity befallen this City and whole 
 Kingdom. On Saturday the first instant, about 
 half an Hour past nine o'clock, I was retired to 
 my Room after Breakfast, when I perceived the 
 House began to shake, but did not apprehend the 
 Cause ; however, as I saw the Neighbours about 
 me all running down Stairs, I also made the best 
 of my Way ; and by the time I had cross'd the 
 Street, and got under the Piazzas of some low 
 House, it was darker than the darkest Night I 
 ever was out in, and continued so for about a 
 Minute, occasioned by the Clouds of Dust from 
 the falling of Houses on all sides. After it cleared 
 up, I ran into a large Square adjoining ; but being 
 soon alarmed with a Cry that the Sea was coming 
 in, all the People crowded foreward to run to the 
 Hills, I among the rest, with Mr. Wood and Family. 
 We went near two Miles thro' the Streets, climbing 
 over the Ruins of Churches, Houses, &c, and 
 stepping over hundreds of dead and dying People, 
 Carriages, Chaises and Mules, lying all crushed 
 to Pieces ; and that Day being a great Festival
 
 480 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 in their Churches, and happening just at the time 
 of celebrating the first Mass, thousands were as- 
 sembled in the Churches, the major part of whom 
 were killed ; for the great Buildings, particularly 
 those which stood on any Eminence, suffered the 
 most Damage. Very few of the Churches or 
 Convents have escaped. We staid near two Hours 
 in an open Campo ; and a dismal scene it was, the 
 People howling and crying, and the Sacrament 
 going about to dying persons : so I advised, as 
 the best, to return to the Square near our own 
 House and there wait the event, which we did 
 immediately ; but by the Time we got there the 
 City was in Flames in several distant Parts, being 
 set on fire by some Villains, who confessed it 
 before Execution. This completed the Destruc- 
 tion of the greatest Part of the City ; for in the 
 Terror all Persons were, no Attempt was made 
 to stop it ; and the Wind was very high, so that 
 it was communicated from one Street to another 
 by the Flakes of Fire drove by the Winds. It 
 raged with great Violence for eight Days, and this 
 in the principal and most thronged Parts of the 
 City ; People being fled into the Fields half naked, 
 the Fire consumed all sorts of Merchandise, House- 
 hold Goods, and Wearing Apparel, so that hardly 
 anything is left to cover People, and they live in 
 Tents in the Fields. If the Fire had not happened,
 
 DOCUMENTS 481 
 
 People would have recovered their Effects out of 
 the Ruins ; but this has made such a Scene of 
 Desolation and Misery as Words cannot describe. 
 
 " The King's Palace in the City is totally 
 destroyed, with all the Jewels, Furniture, &c. 
 The India Warehouses adjoining, full of rich 
 Goods, are all consumed. The Custom-house, 
 piled up with Bales upon Bales, is all destroyed ; 
 and the Tobacco and other Warehouses, with the 
 Cargoes of three Brazil Fleets, shared the same 
 Fate. In short, there are few Goods left in the 
 whole City." 
 
 IV 
 
 From a Ship's Captain writing home under the 
 
 same date. 
 
 "... On Saturday the first instant, I arose at 
 Five, in order to remove my Ship from the 
 Custom-house, agreeable to my Order ; by Nine 
 we sailed down and anchored off" the upper end of 
 the Terceras. Wind at N.E. a small Breeze, and 
 a fine clear morning. Ten Minutes before Ten, I 
 felt the Ship have an uncommon Motion, and 
 could not help thinking she was aground, although 
 sure of the Depth of Water. As the Motion in- 
 creased, my Amazement increased also ; and as I 
 
 was looking round to find out the Meaning of this 
 
 16
 
 482 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 uncommon Motion, I was immediately acquainted 
 with the direful Cause ; when at that Instant look- 
 ing towards the City, I beheld the tall and stately 
 Buildings tumbling down, with great Cracks and 
 Noise, and particularly that part of the City from 
 St. Paul's in a direct Line to Eairroalto ; as also, at 
 the same Time, that Part from the said Church 
 alone: the River-side Eastward as far as the Gal- 
 lows, and so in a curve Line Northward again ; 
 and the Buildings as far as St. Joze and the Rofcio, 
 were laid in the three following Shocks, which 
 were so violent as I heard many say they could 
 with great Difficulty stand on their Legs. There 
 is scarce one House of this great City left habit- 
 able. The Earth opened, and rent in several 
 Places, and many expected to be swallowed up. — 
 As it happened at a Time when the Kitchens were 
 furnished with Fires, they communicated their 
 Heat to the Timber with which their Houses were 
 built or adorned, and in which the Natives are 
 very curious and expensive, both in Furniture and 
 Ceilings ; and by this means the City was in a 
 Blaze in different Parts at once. The Conflagra- 
 tion lasted a whole Week. — What chiefly contri- 
 buted to the Destruction of the City, was the 
 Narrowness of the Streets. It is not to be ex- 
 pressed by Human Tongue, how dreadful and 
 how awful it was to enter the City after the Fire
 
 DOCUMENTS 483 
 
 was abated : when looking upwards one was struck 
 with Terror at beholding frightful Pyramids of 
 ruined Fronts, some inclining one Way, some 
 another ; then on the other hand with Horror, in 
 viewing Heaps of Bodies crushed to death, half- 
 buried and half-burnt ; and if one went through 
 the broad Places or Squares, there was nothing to 
 be met with but People bewailing their Misfor- 
 tunes, wringing their Hands, and crying The World 
 is at an End. In short, it was the most lamentable 
 Scene that Eyes could behold. As the Shocks, 
 though Small, are frequent, the People keep build- 
 ing Wooden Houses in the Fields ; but the King 
 has ordered no Houses to be built to the Eastward 
 of Alcantara Gate. — Just now four English Sailors 
 have been condemned for stealing Goods, and 
 hiding them in the Ballast, with Intent to make 
 a Property of them."
 
 Chapter VII 
 
 THE LAST OFFER 
 
 11JIS villa being destroyed, they had carried Sir 
 Oliver out to Belem, to one of the wooden 
 hospitals hastily erected in the royal grounds. 
 There the King's surgeon dressed his wounds and 
 set the broken left arm, Ruth attending with splints 
 and bandages. 
 
 When all was done and the patient asleep, she 
 crept forth. She would fain have stayed to watch 
 by him ; but this would have meant crowding the 
 air for the sufferers, who already had much ado to 
 breathe. She crept forth, therefore, and slept that 
 night out on the naked ground, close under the 
 lee of the canvas. 
 
 Early next morning she was up and doing. A 
 dozen hospitals had been improvised and each was 
 crying out for helpers. She chose that of her friend 
 Mr. Castres, the British envoy. It stood within 
 a high-walled garden, sheltered from the wind 
 which, for some days after the earthquake, blew
 
 THE LAST OFFER 485 
 
 half a gale. At first the hospital consisted of two 
 tents ; but in the next three days these increased 
 to a dozen, filling the enclosure. Then, just as 
 doctors and nurses despaired of coping with it, the 
 influx of wounded slackened and ceased, almost of 
 a sudden. In the city nothing remained now but 
 to bury the dead, and in haste, lest their corpses 
 should breed pestilence. It was horribly practical ; 
 but every day, as she awoke, her first thought was 
 for the set of the wind ; her first fear that in the 
 night it might have shifted, and might be blowing 
 from the east across Lisbon. The wind, however, 
 kept northerly, as though it had been nailed to 
 that quarter. She heard that gangs were at work 
 clearing the streets and collecting the dead ; at 
 first burying them laboriously ; after the third 
 day, burning them in stacks. As the Penitent had 
 said, in an earthquake one gets down to nakedness. 
 During those next ten days Ruth lived hourly 
 face to face with her kind, men and women, naked, 
 bleeding, suffering. 
 
 She contrived too, all this while, to have the 
 small motherless Hake children near her, invent- 
 ing a hundred errands to keep them busy. Thus, 
 to be sure, they saw many things too sad for their 
 young eyes, yet Ruth perceived that in feeling 
 helpful they escaped the worst broodings of 
 bereavement, and, on the whole, watching them
 
 486 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 at times, as their small hands were busy tearing up 
 bandages or washing out medicine bottles, she felt 
 satisfied that their mother would have wished 
 it so. 
 
 Sir Oliver's arm healed well, and in general (it 
 seemed) he was making a rapid recovery. It was 
 remarkable, though, that he seldom smiled, and 
 scarcely spoke at all save to answer a question. 
 He would rest for hours at a time staring straight 
 in front of him, much as he had lain and stared 
 up at the ceiling of the fatal house. Something 
 weighed on his mind ; or maybe the brain had 
 received a shock and must have time to recover. 
 Ruth watched him anxiously, keeping a cheerful 
 face. 
 
 But there came an evening when, as she returned, 
 tired but cheerful, from the hospital, he called her 
 to him. 
 
 « Ruth ! " 
 
 " My lord." She was beside his couch in a 
 moment. 
 
 " I have something to say to you ; something I 
 have wanted to say for days. But I wanted also to 
 think it all out. ... I have not yet asked you to 
 forgive me — " 
 
 " Dear, you were forgiven long ago." 
 
 " — But I have asked Heaven to forgive me."
 
 THE LAST OFFER 487 
 
 Ruth gave a little start and stared at him doubt- 
 fully. 
 
 "Yes," he went on, "as I lay pinned — those 
 hours through, waiting for death — something 
 opened to me ; a new life, I hope." 
 
 "And by a blessing I do not understand — by a 
 blessing of blessings — you were given back to it, 
 Oliver." 
 
 " Back to it ? " he repeated. " You do not 
 understand me. The blessing was God's special 
 grace ; the new life I speak of was a life ac- 
 knowledging that grace." 
 
 There was silence for many seconds ; for a 
 minute almost. Ruth's hands had locked them- 
 selves together, and she pulled at the intertwisted 
 fingers. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," she said at length. "You 
 are right — I do not understand." Her voice had 
 lost its ring ; the sound of it was leaden, spiritless. 
 But he failed to note this, being preoccupied with 
 his own thoughts. Nor did he observe her face. 
 
 " I would not speak of this before," he went on, 
 still with his eyes turned to the window, " because 
 I wanted to think it all out. But it is true, Ruth ; 
 I am a changed man." 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 Again he did not hear, or he failed to heed. 
 " Not," he pursued, " that any amount of thinking
 
 488 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 could alter the truth. The mercy of God has been 
 revealed to me. When a man has been through 
 such horrors — lying there, with that infernal woman 
 held to me — " 
 
 " Ah ! " she interposed with a catch of the 
 breath. " Do not curse her. She was dead, 
 poor thing ! " 
 
 " I tell you that I cursed her as I cursed myself. 
 . . . Yes, we both deserved to die. She died with 
 her teeth in my flesh — the flesh whose desire was 
 all we ever had in common." 
 
 " Yes ... 1 knew." 
 
 " Have you the coat I wore ? " 
 
 " It is folded away. Some boxes of clothes were 
 saved from the house, and I laid it away in one of 
 them." 
 
 " Her teeth must have torn it ? " 
 
 " Yes." Ruth would have moved away in sheer 
 heart-sickness. Why would he persist in talking 
 thus ? 
 
 " I shall always keep that coat. If ever I am 
 tempted to lorget the mercy of God, the rent 
 in that coat shall remind me." 
 
 She wanted to cry aloud, " Oh, cease, cease ! ' 
 This new pietism of his revolted her almost to 
 physical sickness. She recognised in it the selfish- 
 ness she had too fatally learned to detect in all 
 pietism. "At least he had owed enough to his
 
 THE LAST OFFER 489 
 
 poor little fellow - sinner to spare a thought of 
 pity ! " . . . But a miserable restraint held her 
 tongue as he went on — 
 
 " Yes, Ruth. God showed Himself to me in 
 that hour ; showed me, too, all the evil of my 
 past life. I had no hope to live ; but 1 vowed 
 to Him then, if I lived, to live as one re- 
 formed." 
 
 He paused here, as if waiting for her to speak. 
 She did not speak. She felt her whole body 
 stiffening ; she wanted, too, to laugh outright, 
 scornfully. " The evil of his past life ? Am 1 
 next to be expelled, as a part of it ? Is it up 
 to this he would lead ? . . . God help me, if there 
 be a God !— that this should be the man I loved ! " 
 
 "And another oath I swore," he went on 
 solemnly : " to do what compensation I may to 
 any my sinning has injured. You are the chief 
 of these." 
 
 " I, Oliver ? " 
 
 " You, who under Heaven were made, and 
 properly, the means of saving my life to repent- 
 ance." 
 
 Somehow with this new piety he had caught the 
 very phraseology and intonation of its everyday 
 professors, even those very tricks of bad logic 
 at which he had been used to laugh. Ruth had 
 always supposed, for example, that the presumption
 
 490 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 of instructing the Deity in appropriate conduct 
 was impossible even to second-rate minds until 
 by imitation slowly acquired as a habit. It was 
 monstrous to her that he should so suddenly and 
 all unconsciously be guilty of it. Indeed for the 
 moment these small evidences of the change in 
 him distressed her more than the change itself, 
 which she had yet to realise ; just as in company 
 a solecism of speech or manners will make us 
 wince before we have time to trace it to the 
 ill-breeding from which it springs. His mother, 
 she had heard (he, in fact, had told her), was 
 given to these pious tricks of speech. Surely 
 his fine brain had suffered some lesion. He 
 was not himself, and she must wait for his re- 
 covery. But surely, too, he would recover and 
 be himself again. 
 
 " Ruth, I have done you great wrong." 
 " O cease ! cease, Oliver ! ' Her voice cried 
 it aloud now, as she dropped to her knees and 
 buried her face in the coverlet. " Do not talk 
 like this — I had a hundred times rather you 
 neglected me than hear you talk so ! You have 
 done me evil ? You, my lord, my love ? You, 
 who saved me ? You, in whose eyes I have found 
 grace, and in that my great, great happiness ? You, 
 in whose light my life has moved ? . . . Ah, love, 
 do not break my heart ! "
 
 THE LAST OFFER 491 
 
 "You misunderstand," he said quietly. "Why 
 should what I am saying break your heart ? I am 
 asking you to marry me." 
 
 She rose from her knees very slowly and went 
 to the window. Standing there, again she battled 
 off the temptation to laugh wildly. . . . She fought 
 it down after a minute, and turned to encounter 
 his gaze, which had not ceased to rest on her as 
 she stood with her beautiful figure silhouetted 
 against the evening light. 
 
 " You really think my marrying you would 
 make a difference ? " 
 
 " To me it would make all the difference," he 
 urged, but still very gently, as one who, sure of 
 himself, might reason with a child. " I doubt 
 if I shall recover, indeed, until this debt is paid." 
 
 " A debt, Oliver ? What kind of debt ? " 
 
 " Why, of gratitude, to be sure. Did you not 
 win me back from death ? — to be a new and 
 different man henceforth, please God ! ' 
 
 Upon an excuse she left him and went to her 
 own sleeping tent. It stood a little within the 
 royal garden of Belem, and (the weather being 
 chilly) the guard of the gate usually kept a small 
 brazier alight for her. This evening for some 
 reason he had neglected it, and the fire had sunk 
 low. She stooped to rake its embers together,
 
 492 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 and, as she did so, at length her laughter escaped 
 her ; soft laughter, terrible to hear. 
 
 In the midst of it a voice — a high, jolly, school- 
 boy voice — called out from the gateway demanding, 
 in execrable Portuguese, to be shown Lady Vyell's 
 tent. She dropped the raking-iron with a clatter 
 and stood erect, listening. 
 
 " Dicky ? " . . . she breathed. 
 
 Yes ; the tent flap was lifted and Dicky stood 
 there in the twilight ; a Dicky incredibly grown. 
 
 " Dicky ! " 
 
 " Motherkin ! ' He was folded in her arms. 
 
 " But what on earth brings you to this terrible 
 Lisbon, of all places ? " 
 
 " Well, motherkin," said he with the finest air 
 of importance, " a man would say that if a crew 
 of British sailors could be useful anywhere — 
 We'll teach your Portuguese, anyhow. Oh, yes, 
 the Pegasus was at Gibraltar — we felt the shock 
 there pretty badly — and the Admiral sent us 
 up the coast to give help where we could. A 
 coaster found us off* Lagos with word that Lisbon 
 had suffered worst of all. So we hammered at 
 it, wind almost dead foul all the way . . . and here 
 we are. Captain Hanmer brought me ashore in 
 his gig. My word, but the place is in a mess ! ' 
 
 " That is Captain Hanmer's footstep I hear by 
 the gate."
 
 THE LAST OFFER 493 
 
 " Yes, he has come to pay his respects. But 
 come," said the boy, astonished, "you don't tell 
 me you know Old Han's footstep — begging his 
 pardon — at all this distance." 
 
 Yes, she did. She could have distinguished 
 that tread had it marched among a thousand. 
 Her brain had held the note of it ever since the 
 night she had heard it at Sabines, crushing the 
 gravel of the drive. Dicky laughed, incredulous. 
 She held the boy at arm's length, lovingly, as 
 Captain Hanmer came and stood by the tent door. 
 
 So life might yet sound with honest laughter ; 
 ay, and at the back of laughter, with the firm 
 tread of duty. 
 
 The story of Ruth Josselin and Oliver Vyell 
 is told. They were married ten days later in the 
 hospital at Belem by a priest of the Church of 
 Rome ; and afterwards, on their way to England 
 in His Majesty's frigate Calliope^ which had 
 brought out stores for the relief of the suffering 
 city and was now returning with most of the 
 English survivors, Sir Oliver insisted on having 
 the union again ratified by the services of the 
 ship's chaplain. Ruth, whose sense of humour 
 had survived the earthquake, could smile at this 
 supererogation. 
 
 They landed at Plymouth, and, posting to
 
 494 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 Bath, were tenderly welcomed by Lady Jane, to 
 whom her son's conversion was hardly less a 
 matter of rejoicing than his rescue from a living 
 tomb. In Bath Ruth Lady Vyell might have 
 reigned as a toast, a queen of society ; but Sir 
 Oliver had learnt a distaste for fashionable follies, 
 nor did she greatly yearn for them. 
 
 He remained a Whig, however, and two years 
 later received appointment to the post of Consul- 
 General at Lisbon. Its duties were not arduous, 
 and allowed him to cross the Atlantic half a dozen 
 times with Lady Vyell and revisit Eagles, where 
 Miss Quiney held faithful stewardship. He never 
 completely recovered his health. The pressure 
 under which he had lain during those three terrible 
 hours had left him with some slight curvature of 
 the spine. It increased, and ended in a constric- 
 tion of the lungs, bringing on a slow decline. In 
 1767 he again retired to Bath, where next year 
 he died, aged fifty-one years. His epitaph on the 
 wall of the Abbey nave runs as follows : — 
 
 "To the memory of Sir Oliver Hastings 
 Pelham Vyell of Carwithiel, Co. Corn- 
 wall, Baronet, Consul-General for many 
 years at Lisbon, whence he came in hopes 
 of Recovery from a Bad State of Health 
 to Bath. Here, after a tedious and pain-
 
 THE LAST OFFER 495 
 
 ful Illness, sustained with the Patience 
 and Resignation becoming to a Christian, 
 he died Jan. n, 1768, in the Fifty- 
 second Year of his Life, without Heir. 
 This Monument is erected by his affec- 
 tionate Widow, Ruth Lady Vyell."
 
 EPILOGUE
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 13 UTH LADY VYELL stood in the empty 
 minster beneath her husband's epitaph, and 
 conned it, puckering her brow slightly in the 
 effort to keep her thoughts collected. 
 
 She had not set eyes on the tablet since the day 
 the stonemasons had fixed it in place ; and that was 
 close upon eight years ago. On the morrow, her 
 pious duty fulfilled, she had taken post for Ply- 
 mouth, there to embark for America ; and the 
 intervening years had been lived in widowhood at 
 Eagles until the outbreak of the Revolution had 
 forced her, early in 1775, to take shelter in Boston, 
 and in the late fall of the year to sail back to Eng- 
 land. For Eagles, though unravaged, had passed 
 into the hands of the " rebels " ; and Ruth, though 
 an ardent loyalist, kept her old clearness of vision, 
 and foresaw that King George could not beat his 
 Colonists ; that the stars in their courses fought 
 against this stupid monarch. 
 
 This pilgrimage to Bath had been her first 
 devoir on reaching England. She had nursed
 
 500 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 him tenderly through his last illness, as she had 
 been in all respects an exemplary wife. Yet, stand- 
 ing beneath his monument, she felt herself an im- 
 postor. She could find here no true memories of 
 the man whose look had swayed her soul, whose love 
 she had served with rites a woman never forgets. 
 This city of Bath did not hold the true dust of 
 her lord and love. He had perished— though 
 sinning against her, what mattered it ? — years ago, 
 under a fallen pillar in a street of Lisbon. Doubt- 
 less the site had been built over ; it would be 
 hard to find now, so actively had the Marquis 
 de Pombal, Portugal's First Minister, renovated 
 the ruined city. But whether discoverable or 
 not, there and not here was written the last of 
 Oliver Vyell. 
 
 Somehow in her thoughts of him on the other 
 side of the Atlantic, in her demesne of Eagles 
 where they had walked together as lovers, she had 
 not separated her memories of him so sharply. 
 Now, suddenly, with a sense of having been 
 cheated, she saw Oliver Vyell as two separate men. 
 The one had possessed her ; she had merely 
 married the other. 
 
 With the blank sense of having been cheated 
 mingled a sense that she herself was the cheat. 
 The tablet accused her of it, confronting her with 
 words which, all too sharply, she remembered as
 
 EPILOGUE 501 
 
 of her own composing. "After a tedious and pain- 
 ful Illness^ sustained with the Patience and Resignation 
 becoming to a Christian." Why to a Christian more 
 than to another ? Was it not mere manliness to 
 bear (as, to do him justice, he had borne) ill-health 
 with fortitude, and face dissolution with courage ? 
 How had she ever come to utter coin that rang 
 with so false and cheap a note ? She felt shame 
 of it. The taint of its falsehood seemed to blend 
 and become one with a general odour of humbug, 
 sickly, infectious, insinuating itself, stealing along 
 the darkened Gothic aisles. Since nothing is 
 surer than death, nothing can be corrupter than 
 mortality deceiving itself. . . . The west door of 
 the Abbey stood open. Ruth, striving to collect 
 her thoughts, saw the sunlight beyond it spread 
 broad upon the city's famous piazza. Sounds, too, 
 were wafted in through the doorway, penetrating 
 the hush, distracting her ; rumble of workday 
 traffic, voices of vendors in distant streets ; among 
 these — asserting itself quietly, yet steadily, regu- 
 larly as a beat in music — a footfall on the pave- 
 ment outside. . . . She knew the footfall. She 
 distinguished it from every other. Scores of times 
 in the watches of the night she had lain and 
 listened to it, hearing it in imagination only, 
 echoed from memory, yet distinct upon the ear as 
 the tramp of an actual foot, manly and booted ;
 
 5 o2 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 hearing it always with a sense of helplessness, as 
 though with that certain deliberate tread marched 
 her fate upon her, inexorably nearing. This once 
 again — she told herself — it must be in fancy that 
 she heard it. For how should he be in Bath ? 
 
 She stepped quickly out through the porchway 
 to assure herself. She stood there a moment, 
 while her eyes accustomed themselves to the sun- 
 light, and Captain Hanmer came towards her from 
 the shadow of the colonnade by the great Pump- 
 room. He carried his left arm in a sling, and 
 with his right hand lifted his hat, but awkwardly. 
 
 " I had heard of your promotion," she said after 
 they had exchanged greetings, " and of your wound, 
 and I dare say you will let me congratulate you on 
 both, since the same gallantry earned them. . . . 
 But what brings you to Bath ? . . . To drink the 
 waters, I suppose, and help your convalescence." 
 
 " They have a great reputation," he answered 
 gravely ; " but I have never heard it claimed that 
 they can extract a ball or the splinters from a 
 shattered forearm. The surgeons did the one, 
 and time must do the other, if it will be so kind. 
 . . . No, I am in Bath because my mother lives 
 here. It is my native city, in fact." 
 
 " Ah," she said, " I was wondering — " 
 
 "Wondering?" He echoed the word after a
 
 EPILOGUE 503 
 
 long pause. He was plainly surprised. " You 
 knew that I was here, then ?" 
 
 " Not until a moment ago, when I heard your 
 footstep." As this appeared to surprise him still 
 more, she added, " You have, whether you know 
 it or not, a noticeable footstep, and 1 a quick ear. 
 Shall I tell you where, unless fancy played me 
 a trick, I last proved its quickness ? " 
 
 He bent his head as sign for assent. 
 
 " It was in Boston," she said, " last June — on 
 the evening after the fight at Bunker Hill. At 
 midnight, rather. Before seven o'clock the hos- 
 pitals were full, and they brought half a dozen 
 poor fellows to my lodgings in Garden Court 
 Street. Towards midnight one of them, that had 
 lain all the afternoon under the broiling sun by 
 the Mystic and had taken a sunstroke on top of 
 his wound, began raving. My maid and I were 
 alone in the house, and we agreed that he was 
 dangerous. I told her that there was nothing to 
 fear ; that for an hour past some one had been 
 patrolling the side-walk before the house ; and I 
 bade her go downstairs and desire him to fetch 
 a surgeon. You were that sentinel." 
 
 Again he bent his head. " I was serving on 
 board the Lively" he said, " in the ferry-way be- 
 tween you and Charlestown. I had heard of you 
 — that you had taken lodgings in Boston, and that
 
 50 4 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 the temper of the mob might be uncertain. So that 
 night I got leave ashore, on the chance of being 
 useful. I brought the doctor, if you remember." 
 
 " But would not present yourself to claim our 
 thanks." She looked at him shrewdly. " To-day 
 — did you know that I was in Bath ? " she asked. 
 
 He owned, " Yes ; he had read of her arrival 
 in the Gazette, among the fashionable announce- 
 ments." He did not add, but she divined, that he 
 had waited for her by the Abbey, well guessing 
 that her steps would piously lead her thither and 
 soon. She changed the subject in some haste. 
 
 "Your mother lives in Bath ?" 
 
 " She has lived here all her life." 
 
 " Sir Oliver spent his last days here. I am sorry 
 that I had not her acquaintance to cheer me." 
 
 " It was unlikely that you should meet. We 
 live in the humblest of ways." 
 
 " Nevertheless it would be kind of you to make 
 us acquainted. Indeed," she went on, " I very 
 earnestly desire it, having a great need — since you 
 are so hard to thank directly — to thank you through 
 somebody for many things, and especially for help- 
 ing Dicky." 
 
 He laughed grimly as he fell into step with her, 
 or tried to — but his obstinate stride would not be 
 corrected. " All the powers that ever were," he 
 said, " could not hinder Dicky. He has his cap-
 
 EPILOGUE 505 
 
 taincy in sight — at his age ! — and will be flying 
 the blue before he reaches forty. Mark my 
 words." 
 
 On their way up the ascent of Lansdowne Hill 
 he told her much concerning Dicky — not of his 
 success in the service, which she knew already, but 
 of the service's inner opinion of him, which set 
 her blood tingling. She glanced sideways once 
 or twice at the strong, awkward man who, outpaced 
 by the stripling, could rejoice in his promotion 
 without one twinge of jealously, loving him merely 
 as one good sailor should love another. She 
 noted him as once or twice he tried to correct his 
 pace by hers. Her thoughts went back to the 
 tablet in the Abbey, commemorating a husband 
 who (if it told truth) had never been hers. She 
 compared him, all in charity, with two who had 
 given her an unpaid devotion. One slept at 
 Lisbon, in the English cemetery. The other 
 walked beside her even with such a tread as out 
 somewhere on the dark floor of the sea he had 
 paced his quarter-deck many a night through, 
 pausing only to con his helm beneath the stars. 
 
 They turned aside into an unfashionable by- 
 street, and halted before a modest door in a row. 
 Ruth noted the railings, that they were spick-and- 
 span as paint could make them ; the dainty window- 
 blinds. Through the passage-way, as he opened
 
 5 o6 LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 
 
 the door, came wafted from a back garden the 
 clean odour of flowering stocks. 
 
 In the parlour to the right of the passage, a frail, 
 small woman rose from her chair to welcome them. 
 
 " Mother," said her son, "this is Lady Vyell." 
 
 The little woman stretched out her hands, and 
 then, before Ruth could take them, they were lifted 
 and touched her temples softly, and she bent to 
 their benediction. 
 
 " My son has often talked of you. May the 
 Lord bless you, my dear. May the Lord bless 
 you both. May the Lord cause His face to shine 
 upon you all your days ! " 
 
 THE END.
 
 Notes on 
 Nelson's New Novels. 
 
 No work of second-rate quality will 
 be included in this Series. 
 
 The novel is to-day the popular form of literary art. 
 This is proved by the number of novels published, 
 and by the enormous sales of fiction at popular prices. 
 
 While Reprints of fiction may be purchased for [a 
 few pence, New Fiction is still a luxury. 
 
 The author of a New Novel loses his larger audience, 
 the public are denied the privilege of enjoying his 
 latest work, because of the prohibitive price of 4s. 6d. 
 demanded for the ordinary "six shilling " novel. 
 
 In another way both author and public are badly 
 served under the present publishing system. At cer- 
 tain seasons a flood of new novels pours from the press. 
 Selection becomes almost impossible. The good novels 
 are lost among the indifferent and the bad. Good 
 service can be done to literature not only by reducing 
 the price of fiction, but by sifting its quality. 
 
 The number of publishers issuing new fiction is so 
 great, that the entrance of another firm into the field 
 demands almost an apology — at least, a word of ex- 
 planation. 
 
 Messrs. Nelson have been pioneers in the issue of
 
 Notes on Ne/sons New Novels. 
 
 reprints of fiction in Library Edition at Sevenpence. 
 The success of Nelson's Library has been due to the 
 careful selection of books, regular publication through- 
 out the whole year, and excellence of manufacture at a 
 low cost, due to perfection of machinery. 
 
 Nelson's Sevenpenny Library represents the best that 
 can be given to the public in the way of Reprints under 
 present manufacturing conditions. 
 
 Nelson's New Novels represent the same standard 
 of careful selection, excellence of production, and lowest 
 possible price applied to New Fiction. 
 
 The list of authors of Nelson's New Novels for iqio 
 includes Anthony Hope, E. F. Benson, H. A. Vachell, 
 H. G. Wells, " Q," G- A. Birmingham, John Masefield, 
 Mrs. W. K. Clifford, J. C. Snaith, John Buchan, and 
 Agnes and Egerton Castle. Arrangements for subse- 
 quent volumes have been made with other authors of 
 equally high standing. 
 
 Nelson's New Novels are of the ordinary " six shilling " 
 size, but are produced with greater care than most of 
 their competitors. They are printed in large, clear 
 type, on a fine white paper. They are strongly bound 
 in green cloth with a white and gold design. They are 
 decorated with a pretty end-paper and a coloured 
 frontispiece. All the volumes are issued in bright 
 wrappers. The books are a happy combination of 
 substantial and artistic qualities. 
 
 The price is the very lowest at which a large New 
 Novel with good material and workmanship, and with 
 an adequate return to author, bookseller, and pub- 
 lisher, can be offered to the public at the present time. 
 
 A new volume is issued regularly every month. 
 
 ii
 
 ^Descriptive Notes 
 on the Volumes for 1910: — 
 
 SECOND STRING. Anthony Hope. 
 
 This brilliant social comedy contains all the qualities 
 which have given Anthony Hope his unique reputation 
 as a historian of modern life. He introduces us to the 
 society of the little country town of Meriton, the trades- 
 people, the loungers in the inn parlour, the neighbouring 
 farmers and squires, and especially to Harry Belfield, 
 the mirror of fashion in the county and candidate for 
 its representation in Parliament. We see also his 
 former school friend, Andy Hayes, who has returned from 
 lumbering in Canada to make a living at home. The 
 motif of the tale is the unconscious competition of the 
 two friends, of whom Andy is very willing to play 
 " second fiddle," did not character and brains force 
 him to the front. The young squire of Halton is too 
 selfish and capricious to succeed, and in spite of his 
 loyalty to friendship, Andy finds himself driven to 
 take his place both in love and in politics. A host of 
 characters cross the stage, and the scene flits between 
 Meriton and London. The book is so light in touch, so 
 shrewd in its observation, so robust and yet so kindly 
 in its humour, that it must be accorded the highest rank 
 among Anthony Hope's works — which is to say, the 
 first place among modern social comedies. 
 
 FORTUNE. /• C. Snaith. 
 
 Mr. J. C. Snaith is already known to fame by his 
 historical novels, his admirable cricketing story, his 
 essay in Meredithan subtlety " Brooke of Covenden,^ 
 and his most successful Victorian comedy " Araminta." 
 In his new novel he breaks ground which has never be- 
 fore been touched by an English novelist. He follows 
 no less a leader than Cervantes. His hero, Sir Richard 
 
 in
 
 Notes on Nelson s New Novels. 
 
 Pendragon, is Sir John Falstaff grown athletic and 
 courageous, with his imagination fired by much ad- 
 venture in far countries and some converse with the 
 knight of La Mancha. The doings of this monstrous 
 Englishman are narrated by a young and scandalized 
 Spanish squire, full of all the pedantry of chivalry. Sir 
 Richard is a new type in literature — the Rabelaisian 
 Paladin, whose foes flee not only from his sword but 
 from his Gargantuan laughter. In Mr. Snaith's ro- 
 mance there are many delightful characters — a Spanish 
 lady who dictates to armies, a French prince of the 
 blood who has forsaken his birthright for the highroad. 
 But all are dominated by the immense Sir Richard, 
 who rights wrongs like an unruly Providence, and then 
 rides away. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY. H. G. Wells. 
 
 If the true aim of romance is to find beauty and 
 laughter and heroism in odd places, then Mr. Wells is 
 a great romantic. His heroes are not knights and ad- 
 venturers, not even members of the quasi-romantic 
 professions, but the ordinary small tradesmen, whom 
 the world has hitherto neglected. The hero of the new 
 book, Mr. Alfred Polly, is of the same school, but he 
 is nearer Hoopdriver than Kipps. He is in the last 
 resort the master of his fate, and squares himself de- 
 fiantly against the Destinies. Unlike the others, he 
 has a literary sense, and has a strange fantastic culture 
 of his own. Mr. Wells has never written anything 
 more human or more truly humorous than the adven- 
 tures of Mr. Polly as haberdasher's apprentice, haber- 
 dasher, incendiary, and tramp. Mr. Polly discovers 
 the great truth that, however black things may be, 
 there is always a way out for a man if he is bold enough 
 to take it, even though that way leads through fire and 
 revolution. The last part of the book, where the hero 
 discovers his courage, is a kind of saga. We leave him 
 in the end at peace with his own soul, wondering dimly 
 about the hereafter, having proved his manhood, and 
 found his niche in life. 
 
 IV
 
 Notes on Nelson s New Novels. 
 
 DAISY'S AUNT. E. F. Benson. 
 
 It is Mr. Benson's chief merit that, without losing 
 the lightness of touch which makes good comedy, he 
 keeps a firm hold upon the graver matters which make 
 good fiction. The present book is a tale of conspir- 
 acy — the plot of a beautiful woman to save her young 
 niece from a man whom she regards as a blackguard. 
 None of Mr. Benson's women are more attractive than 
 these two, who fight for long at cross-pxirposes, and end 
 as all honest natures must, with a truer understanding. 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. H. A. Vachell. 
 
 In this remarkable book Mr. Vachell leaves the beaten 
 highway of romance, and grapples with the deepest 
 problems of human personality and the unseen. It is 
 a story of a musical genius, in whose soul worldliness 
 conquers spirituality. When he is at the height of his 
 apparent success, there comes an accident, and for a 
 little soul and body seem to separate. On his return 
 to ordinary life he sees the world with other eyes, 
 but his clearness of vision has come too late to save his 
 art. He pays for his earlier folly in artistic impotence. 
 The book is a profound moral allegory, and none the 
 less a brilliant romance. 
 
 SIR GEORGE'S OBJECTION. Mrs. W. K. Clifford. 
 
 Mrs. Clifford raises the old problem of heredity, and 
 gives it a very modern and scientific answer. It is the 
 story of a woman who, after her husband's disgrace 
 and death, settles with her only daughter upon the shore 
 of one of the Italian lakes. The girl grows up in 
 ignorance of her family history, but when the in- 
 evitable young man appears complications begin. As 
 it happens, Sir George, the father of the lover, holds 
 the old-fashioned cast-iron doctrine of heredity, and 
 the story shows the conflict between his pedantry and 
 the compulsion of fact. It is a book full of serious in- 
 terest for all readers, and gives us in addition a charm- 
 ing love story. 
 
 v
 
 Notes on Nelson's New Novels. 
 
 PRESTER JOHN. John Buchan. 
 
 This is a story which, in opposition to all accepted 
 canons of romance, possesses no kind of heroine. There 
 is no woman from beginning to end in the book, unless 
 we include a little Kaffir serving-girl. The hero is a 
 Scottish lad, who goes as assistant to a store in the 
 far north of the Transvaal. By a series of accidents 
 he discovers a plot for a great Kaffir rising, and by a 
 combination of luck and courage manages to frustrate 
 it. From beginning to end it is a book of stark ad- 
 venture. The leader of the rising is a black missionary, 
 who believes himself the incarnation of the mediaeval 
 Abyssinian emperor Prcster John. By means of a 
 perverted Christianity, and the possession of the ruby 
 collar which for centuries has been the Kaffir fetish, 
 he organizes the natives of Southern Africa into a 
 great army. But a revolution depends upon small 
 things, and by frustrating the leader in these small 
 things, the young storekeeper wins his way to fame 
 and fortune. It is a book for all who are young enough 
 in heart to enjoy a record of straightforward adventure. 
 
 Others in ^Preparation. 
 
 THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, 
 
 London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York. 
 
 VI
 
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