-"fSKiS®*^ Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2009 witii funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/againstwindtide01leeh AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. BY HOLME LEE, ■ - '^r. j AUTHOE OF ''STL VAX HOLT's DAUGHTER," " KATHIE ERAXDE,' ETC. ETC. ' Are these things then necessities ? Tliea let us meet them like necessities." Shakspeake. Ds THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, COENHILL. M.DCCC.LIX. [77ze right of translation is reserved.'] ^3 3 CONTENTS OF THE riEST VOLUME. PAET riRST. Setting Sail. Chap. Page I. The Twin Beothees .... 3 II. Their Mother . . . . . . 42 in. At ilESSES. Hawthoexe axd Co.'s . . 96 IV. Kinsfolk and Friends . , . . 145 PART SECOND. On the Deep^Watees. I, Fair Winds . . . . . .211 II. Ebb and Flow . . . . . . 251 PAET FIEST. fitting S:iil ' There is a liistory in all men's lives, Figuring the nature of the times deceased, The which observed, a man may prophesy, With a near aim of the main chance of things As not yet come to life; which in their seeds And weak beginnings lie entreasured. Such things become the brood and hatch of time." Shakspeare, King Henry 1 V, TOL. I. AGABST mm AND TIDE. CHAPTER THE FIRST. THE TWIX BHOTHERS. " I EEMEMBER the gleams and glooms that dart Across the school-boy's brain ; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part Are longings wild and vain. And the voice of that fitful song Sings on and is never still: A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." LOXGFELLOW. I. ^' Cyrus Hawthorne I " Cyrus did not respond to his name ; lie was not in his place. " Robert, where is your brother ? " Robert made no answer, but he looked red and uneasy. B 2 4 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. "Playing truant again, I suppose," said the schoolmaster, and went on calling over the roll. He had played truant himself when he was a boy, and remembered the sweetness of stolen delights, — also, he remembered the penalty, — also, he was in the habit of exacting it in full from the present generation of delinquents who transgressed his rules. He therefore straightened his cane and laid it handy across his desk, while Robert noted the familiar, ominous preparations and shuddered. It was a parody on Justice whetting her sword. Cyrus was a favourite with the master, but favour did not blunt the edge of the inevitable stroke ; the lad's palm was well acquainted with the sting of a hander, and his idle shoulders had writhed many a time under a vigorous lacing from the supple cane. King Solomon's precept was in high authority at this date, and in full practice also ; but even as with young Rehoboam, it proved a failure with Cyru» Hawthorne. There are some vices that cannot be beaten out of a boy, and Cyrus's tendency to play truant on sunshiny mornings was one of these ingrain vices. The master was a tall, slender, and stooping THE TWIN BROTHERS. man, with a grave blue eye and a wholesome wmter-apple red m his face. He was a north- country man, a personage of intelligence and simplicity, who had drifted into the island nobody exactly knew how or why, and settled himself down at Chinelyn as village pedagogue. He was quite by himself in the cottage, but no neat- handed wife or daughter could have kept it in fairer order. The low-browed, whitewashed- schoolroom, with its hacked desks and benches, its slates on the walls and ink-splashes on the floor, was now filled to its remotest corner with the pleasant sunshine, while the open doorway framed as lovely a vignette of spring as ever Kature tinted in her most poetic mood. There were cherry-trees blossomed over with bridal white, and apple-trees full of a blushing bloom, hereafter to develope into a rosy-cheeked harvest of temptation. Down the narroAV box- edo;ed borders to the o;ate were tall white and purple stocks, rich amber and ruby wallflowers, crimson double-daisies, and sweet pricldy briar, which gave out a luscious harmony of scent. Early May though it was, there were a few pink 6 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. buds of roses opening on the schoolhouse front, and the sweet myrtle, which grew up to the thatch and over it, was putting forth its new red leaflets to replace its last year's faded robe of dark green verdure. Under the eaves and amidst the fragrant branches the birds whistled, chirruped, twittered, sang, as if the music of spring over- flowed from their little hearts. High up in the elm-tree tops, bare of leaf as yet, the life was beginning to stir as the soft wind whispered that May-time was come; and down below upon the shore the waves crept over the sands with the gentle murmur of a caress. The master himself might have been forgiven if he had played truant on such a sunshiny, tempting morning. Indeed, w^iat was it but the truant spirit trifling round about his imagination that drew him from his desk to the open door- way, from the doorway to the garden-gate, and through the garden-gate into the sandy lane ? That beguiling sandy lane ! It first went up a very steep rise, and then dipped down capriciously into a sudden hollow, with high, hedge-crowned banks on either side. It had been a river-bed THE TWIN BKOTHEl^S. t in primeval times, and the windings of tlie waters could still be traced between two caved and broken banks (continuations of those that shut in the sandy lane) across the beautiful meadows into which it led. The master's grey pate was uncovered, and the sunshine Avarmed him both to heart and brain. Poor, frozen, solitary old bachelor I what wonder that he coveted to enjoy it a little longer — that his step strayed on and on to the lane's end, and that there he lingered ? It was a lovely scene that spread itself before his idle gaze. There w^as a group of sleek, dappled cows feeding deliciously upon the new grass, who just turned their lazy heads, looked at him with benign eyes for a moment, and then resumed their feast. Peermg above the woods were the tall, wreathed chimneys and steep roof of the Manor Farm, and spreading to the sun- dimmed verge of the horizon was the wide, blue expanse of an unruffled sea. Above all, there was a swelling knoll of golden furze, and planing over it was a haw^k intent on some object couched amongst the brush. Who could resist that? Certainly not our schoolmaster, who had played 8 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. truant wlien lie was a boy ! The liaAvk was sta- tionary for some moments, then it shot down straight for a few yards, and paused again, as if preparing for its deadly pounce. It had a cruel, sanguinary expression against the cloudless blue ; it was the one discord in that Paradise-morning, and the schoolmaster shouted to scare it away. It sailed heavily oflP, and at the same moment several birds flew out of the furze and winged their way to the woods ; but of all that the master's voice had startled, it had startled nothing so much as himself. He set off up the sandy lane as fast as his feet would carry him. And what a charivari there was in the school when he arrived there ! He was a humourist in his way, and could not forbear hiding a minute or two behind the hedge to watch and listen to what was going forward. The first thing he saw was his favourite — that incorrigible reprobate, Cyrus Hawthorne — seated on his own high stool, his silver spectacles mounted on nose, wielding the awful cane, and mouthing out a queer parody of one of his own lectu^'es to bad boys — the master was rather given to prolixity of remon- THE TWIN BROTHERS. 9 strances before entermo- on flagellation. This was interrupted by a fe^y distinct words in Robert's voice, words of judicious warning and reproof, to which C}T.'us responded defiantly — " Isn't master playing truant himself ? I passed him within a yard or two watching a hawk over Fusmount, and he never saw me. He ought to have a liander as well as us if he stays out, that he ought." This daring assertion was received with an affirmative shout of applause, and then followed the swish of the cane throuo;h the air, as if Cvrus were inflicting condign punishment on a shadow. The master was a just man and benevolent — be- sides, was he not delinquent more than any ? So, instead of stealing in upon his flock unawares, he coughed hoarsely, made a difficulty with the latch of the gate, and marched up the pathway with slow dehberation. Ah! what a studious silence, what a beautiflil application, reigned amongst all those promising young scholars as his bent figure darkened the sunshine in the doorway ! Every nose was pointed down at ever^' slate or book, and every brow wore 10 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. a calculating frown ; you would have said their very hearts were in their tasks. The master stepped to his desk without a word, and cast a shrewd glance all round upon the young hypo- crites. It was an interesting picture, and he for- bore to disturb its harmonious completeness; he even chose to be blind to the inquisitorial twinkle which now and then shot out towards his counte- nance from the eye-corner of some scapegrace a degree bolder than the rest, and the presence of the truant, now peacefully seated beside his twin brother, he quite ignored. 11. Amongst all those common-place mean or rustic countenances it was rather strange to see two such beautiful heads as the young Hawthornes'. Robert's fair, blond curls, which maturity would darken, his blue eyes, clear, calm, and full, and rich grave lips, his healthy bloom and brown of complexion, made up a visage to which the eye of affection, and its heart too, could turn and turn THE TWIN BROTHERS. 11 again with a feeling of repose and dependableness, such as the more strikmg, and, perhaps, more intellectual face of his brother Cyrus was not calculated to mspire. Yet Cjrus was generally the greater favourite of the two. His ardent temperament gave a quickness and warmth to his feelings such as were not prominent in Robert's slower and deeper cha- racter. His bram, equally vigorous, was more bril- liant in conception, and would hereafter be more distinct in utterance, and so much the more powerful as genius is more powerful than talent ; but to these spiritual graces, to which the world, as with one consent, accords its homage, were united dangerous faults of temper and disposition such as have ere now made w^reck of the finest parts. If he was more vehement in his affections than Robert, he was also more fickle and capricious ; his generosity was an impulse ; liis judgment was weakened by levity, rashness, indiscretion, petu- lance ; his predilections and antipathies were gene- rally violent and uncertain; he had a thorn of jealous vanity always stinging him in presence of another's superiority; and in everything he was .12 AGAIKST WIND AND TIDE. wilful, headstrong, and exacting. These latter qualities showed themselves nowhere more fre- quently than in his dealings with his brother. The bond of love between them was strong with that peculiar strength which always appears to unite children of one birth; but as, even there, equality never subsists, the earlier developed cha- racter of Cyrus dominated that of his brother. To see them sitting side by side at their desk now was sufficient illustration of this. Kobert, who was considerably the taller and the broader of the two, cramped his arms close to his body that Cyrus might have the more room to fling his abroad; which he did with an indolent ease and grace, expressive enough of his self-crowned king- ship. There were half-a-dozen boys there physi- cally capable of beating him to a mummy, Imt there was that sense of repressed power in his air which always served him as shield and buckler ; his reputation lay, not so much in what he had done, as in what he was conceived capable of doing, and the elements of fear and admiration entered largely into that universal liking which he attracted and drew to himself. THE TWIN BROTHERS. 13 Robert had his friends too, but they felt him more as one of themselves than Cyrus. Nobody was afraid of him, — nobody, that is, unless there were a question of a combat with him as opponent, for there were not many who cared to stand up before that young lion when he was roused and angry. He had homely, every-day qualities about him, such as simplicity, truth, faithfulness, and fortitude, that gave an idea of calm, resolute strength ; you might lean upon him, and he would not give way; trust liim, and he would be silent as the grave ; love him, and he would love you without any jealous exaction or weak passionate harassment, such as Cyrus inflicted upon his often- changed friends. If the future of either was to be mainly influenced by his own peculiar idiosyn- crasy — and who can doubt that om' lives are all so influenced ? — it were easy to previse that Cyrus would create for himself many a mortification, many a stumbling-block, and that he would wring his cruellest pangs out of his own heart ; and it were also easy to see that Robert's troubles would come to him from without, from the hand of God, not from the bitter broadcast seed of passion and 14 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. wrong-doing, which Cyrus might have to gather in when the time of harvest came. For their age — they were drawing on to twelve years old — their distinctive traits were very strongly marked. It was time, and more than time, that they were removed from the village school and the tuition of Master Scrope; but their grand- father was penurious of temper, and evaded every proposal that might lead to expense. He had already decided on the line of life each was to pursue. Cyrus he designed to keep as his own helper and ultimate successor on the Manor Farm, which the Hawthornes had tenanted from genera- tion to generation ; Robert was to be sent out of the island to his great-uncle's manufactory of paint and varnish at Walton Minster, and to be duly initiated into its mysteries with a view to carrying it on when his relative should retire from it. With such prospects in view, their grandfather argued, sensibly enough, that a highly polished education was not needed ; and as Master Scrope made them good readers, writers, and accountants, he declared that no further instructor should they have. THE TWIN BROTHEES. 15 Those were not the days of universal knowledge, when everybody was taught everything, and the young Hawthomes were not sensible of any very grievous deprivation. If their mother, Mary, in looking at her beautiful boys, sometimes felt ambitious for them — as what mother's heart does not feel for her darlings ? — she battled the proud impulse down and held her peace : what had she^ what had they, to do with pride, ambition, and rising in the world — they of all the boys in Chinelpi, whose very existence there was imputed to her for an indelible disgi-ace ? Having said thus much in this place, we must say a little more. III. Time was when Mary Hawthorne was not only the most beautiful, but also the blithest and happiest maiden in the pansh ; she was a handsome woman still, and a remarkable looking woman, but it needed nothing deeper than the casual glance to trace the footmarks of the anguish that had gone over her soul. She had been a pious good girl too, and 16 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. til at made her misfortunes all tlie crueller, and, in her own mind, all the more rankling and indelible. But she had no taint of wilful sin chargeable upon her ; that even the most censorious and jealous of those who had envied and hated her for her temporary exaltation were ready to admit. When she was about sixteen there was one night a yacht run aground on the rocky beach below Chinelyn, and in reaching the shore a gentleman, the owner of the skiff, received more than one severe injury which necessitated his immediate removal to some quiet dwelling where he could be comfortably nursed and attended upon. At this date there was no such place at Chinelyn, and Simon Hawthorne gave a reluctant consent to his being carried up to the Manor Farm. The stranger became known in the village as Sir Philip Nugent, and long after he had regained convalescence he lingered in the neighbourhood, or, if he left it,' he always returned at the end of two or three days, until, at last, a wonderful rumour went abroad — a rumour which the event authenticated very speedily. One morning Mary Hawthorne was seen driving THE TWIX BROTHERS. 17 away from Cliinel}ii iii a handsome carriage with Sir Phihp Nugent hy her side. She had been married to liim that day by the parish priest at the altar of the parish church, and bitter-tongued scandal had not a word to say. Beautiful Marv was no longer a simple village maiden ; she was my Lady Xugent, wife of a gentleman as hand- some as ever stepped, mistress of houses and lands, men-servants and maid-servants, and of more luxuries than the exacro-erated rustic imaf^ination CO o could conceive. Many months — nearly a year — went over, and still Simon Hawthorne held up liis head and spoke proudly of Mary — '• AJy daughter Mary, Lady Nugent, who is travelling abroad with her hus- band," — until one bitter ]March night, Avhen a frozen north-east wind was whistling over the downs, there came a low tremulous knock at the door of the Manor Farm, and when Simon hurried to open it, his child stood outside alone. '' Take me in, dear father ! " cried she, and fell, half fainting, upon his breast. It is a piteous story, but it has been told often before. She had been cruelly deceived ; she was VOL. I. c 18 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. about to become a mother, but she was no wife. Sir Philip Nugent had been previously married to a foreign lady, from whom he was judicially separated, but who was still alive. Mary had extracted this confession from his own reluctant lips, and evading his watchfulness, she made her escape and fled from him to her father's protection. He pursued her ; he tried to win her back ; he offered to make upon her and her offspring any settlement she chose to demand ; but Mary, strong in her purity of spirit, however weak she might be in her love, refused ever to look upon his face again ; and old Simon Hawthorne flung back his lavish proffers of money in his teeth. I shall not attempt to make Sir Philip Nugent's apology. That he had been ill-used himself was no plea for inveigling Mary by such a base de- ception as he had practised on her innocence. Still less can his passionate love be admitted in excuse. He departed in anger, and returned abroad, to chafe over his loss and disappointment ; and while Mary's shame and misery were still new to her, her twin boys struggled into the world. She had them baptized by the names of Cyrus THE TWIN BROTHERS. 19 and Robert Hawthorne, and the villagers resumed calling her also by her father's name. Since then twelve long years had gone over her head — years how woful, how weary, with vain longing and vain sorrow none but her Father in Heaven -will ever know ! They had gi^en to her countenance the refinement of a suffering unme- rited, a hoi}', a tender beauty, fav beyond the fatal loveliness of her youth. Surely one could not look up so long and so faithfully to the throne of mercy without, like her, winning somewhat of an^el OTace and angel fairness too ! The father of the boys still lived, but Maiy was never known to mention him, though Cpms could scarcely come before her eyes without vividly re- calhng not only his features and general au', but also his simplest gestures, and the ver\- tones of his voice. Perhaps this was the subtle reason why her heart clave to him with greater tender- ness than to his brother, though she thought it was because he showed a more eacjer and exactino- love for her. I would willingly evade all further allusion to the man who had done her such grievous wrong, but if their story is to be faith- 20 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. fully told, that would be impossible. Mary's cliil- dren inherited from him too much for their pater- nity ever to be ignored : Cyrus was his literal copy, personally, mentally, and morally; and though Robert took of his mother's inner character and expression, he also had the noble visage, the high 'courage, the strong sound brain, that were hereditary in the family from which Sir Philip Nugent sprang. Vfithout having any knowledge of the actual truth, the boys were intuitively .sensible of a difference between themselves and their associates. Neither w\as ever guilty of a lie, a meanness, a cowardice ; but this moral rectitude might be the graft of their mother's good teaching; for if they were children of sorrow, they were also children of many prayers. Cyrus, like most boys of lively imagination, was a day dreamer. In his vanity he loved to identify himself with all histories of princes in disguise, or wrongfully dispossessed heirs ; and long before Robert awoke to any idea of romance as attached to himself, his brother had woven a tissue of com- plicated adventures which invariably terminated with glorious triumph to them both. He had THE TWIN BROTHERS. 21 reticence enougli to keep tliese visioriS to himself, but ^laiy more than suspected them, and looked forward with shrinking dread to the hour when she must take the boys into the secret of her heart, and tell them all the truth concernino; themselves and her own mournful motherhood. IV. ThouMi old Simon Hawthorne miirht, in his own mind, destine Cyrus to the quiet, eventless, pastoral life, the lad would never follow it, and he had confided as much to Master Scrope, who kept his counsel faithfully, because he sympathized with him. The schoolmaster recognised in him that genius which none other — not even ISIary — did, and he had a sublime respect for it. He was one of those who allow to genius a moral, or immoral, licence such as they will accord neither to passion, temptation, weakness, nor ignorance. He would say that genius was not amenable to ordinary rules or codes of law, yet he did not grant to Cyrus a practical exemption from his own regula- 22 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. tioiis ; in which he differed not from many amongst ourselves, who find it a hard task to fit our acts to our theory ; a sentiment of justice in- terfered with him, as indolence, caprice, or selfish- ness may interfere with us. Close beside the master's desk there were three hanging shelves of books, not school-books, dull and dreary, but play books, poetry books, ro- mances, travels, biographies of learned and famous men, and a few scientific works, not attractively illustrated as are our popular editions nowadays, but plain and solid both inside and out. The young Hawthornes had free access to these shelves, and when lessons were over for the morn- ing and the other lads gone out, they marched straight up to them, and grasped a favourite volume each. They Avere not permitted to carry the books home, for they were Master Scrope's only wealth, and he set especial store by them; so they had a custom of seating themselves on the school-door step in the sunshine, and reading there until the clock in the corner warned them home to dinner. While they were thus employed, the master THE TWIX BROTHERS. 23 strode between them into the garden to cut a salad for his midday repast^, dressed it after a fashion of his own with a liard-boiled egg of his speckled hen's laying, and then ate it with a hunch of coarse brown bread which he had kneaded and baked himself. It was lucky for poor old blaster Scrope that, with his northern breeding, he had imbibed a natural turn for economy ; else, instead of bread and lettuce with contentment, he must have had emptiness and sorrow for his dinner often. Education was not at a premium amongst the rising generation at Chinelyn, and it must be allowed that the master was in no danger of grow- ing too plump on his penny-a-week vocation. Cyrus had seen the frugal shape and substance of the old man's dinner too often to have his attention distracted thereby from his book now, and he pored steadily on until Master Scrope touched him on the shoulder after thrice repeating the same question: "Where did you go this morning, C}Tus, instead of coming to school?" Then indolently lifting his eyes from the attractive page, but without detaching his thoughts from it, he replied. 24 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. " I went clown on the shore to see the boats come in ; " after a moment's pause he added, with a touch of audacity in his voice and a significant glimmer in his dark eyes, " I came up by Fusmount and saw that hawk — you know." The master smiled : " I was playing truant too, even an old man tires of being wise every day, and all day," said he. This sentiment caused Robert to look up. "I w^ish you would give us a holiday this afternoon, master ; I want to go through the landslip, and it is just the weather, neither too sultry, nor too windy, nor too anything, but just right," was his plea. " Why don't you take holiday ? " whispered Cyrus, with a mischievous, defiant glance at the master, who feigned neither to hear nor see. He was never the pedagogue out of school; from which it may be safely inferred, that he was not heartily in love with his vocation ; for there is none other that sticks so adhesively as that, if it ever succeed in pervading the aflPections and habits. To make the master's confession for him once for all, let us say that he regarded himself as THE TWIN BROTHERS. 25 a fine actor spoilt ; a noble tragedian cast away on the barren intelligences of an obscure village ; a great artist, doomed by adverse fate to waste his talent on a primer and a cane I Which of lis has not railed at Fortune more or less, for pushmg us off the stage where we hoped to play a part and win distinction, and resolutely hand- ing us into another theatre where the roles are all strange and distasteful to us? What cares she, imperious jade ! Not a sous ! She portions our task, and pins us down to it spite of our yea or nay! I protest this world seems to me often a game of the most wilful cross purposes ! There's one whose natural mind o-oes clad in motley, and Avhose outward husk drapes itself in a high tragedy robe ; there's another, with dust and ashes powdering his fool's cap and bells, and sackcloth instead of iuo-o-ler's flesliing;s ; there's J CO CD ' another of port gi'and, grave, and serious, that every idle spite makes a mock at, as if dignity were a mere ninepin set up for ill-luck to bowl down into the mire ! When I see one of these unhappy travesties I can* never help falling into the moralist's parenthetic view. 26 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. There was a warm, yellow, noonday sunshine « steeping the three figures in the schoolroom door- way. The master had his dish of salad on the end of the desk, and ate it meditatively and slowly; he possessed a smattering of classical knowledge, and could season his dinner of herbs with re- collections of great men, w^ho, in their adversity, had fared no more sumptuously than he, and doubtless he did so season it. His rusty black figure, his long grey hah', his bony, placid face, and frosty eye, might have served as a model of a village philosopher. There also, to com- plete the picture, were his young disciples at his feet ; the passionate enthusiast, whose Avay would be one season a luxuriant flowery land, and the next a thorny wilderness ; and the patient learner who would put by in his heart every lesson that experience might teach him, and would guide him- self after the everlasting beacon of the Cross in the sky, until he could fold his sails and cast anchor in the still waters of the fair heavenly haven. Master Scrope had not the gift of the second siffht, but he had a shrewd discernment, a clear perception, of the finer traits of human nature and THE TWIX BROTHERS. 27 individual character ; and as lie sat contemplating the two youthful heads, he might have prophesied the main features of the lads' lives within a line or two of the truth. There was the repose of quiet strength m Robert's attitude, a grave clear- ness in his countenance; but in Cyrus's mobile features there was the latent fire, the pre- anxious, melancholy expression, which physiogno- mists have professed to trace even in the portraits of those foredoomed to do and suffer much. His variable spirit passed in smile and gloom over his face, like light and cloud over the sky ; as distinct to see, as easy to interpret ; amongst his weaknesses and his errors, he was rarely a dis- sembler; he betrayed himself at his best and at his worst at once. The book he was now reading was an old brown volume, entitled a " History of the Stao-e." It introduced him first to the cart of Thespis, and then carried him swiftly down through the dark ages to the days of monkish mysteries and morahties; to the days of Shakspeare, and Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Congreve, Far- quhar, Drvden, and the rest of them. In its 28 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. pages lie made acquaintance with fair Kitty Clivc, with Mistress Eleanor Gwynne, Mistress Woffing- ton and others — their contemporaries ; but there was no mention of the three then celebrities — Kemble, Siddons, and Kean — the book was before their reign, in fact. Immature genius has generally the trick of imitation strong, so, whatever interested Cyrus became, for the nonce, the foundation of his day dreams. When he heard or read about great actors, one half-hour he was treading the stage with tragic power, and drawing tears from every eye as maddened Lear; the next he was con- vulsing his audience in some broad farcical part, and again he was causing young hearts to beat warm and fast as he made love to Juliet — an impassioned Romeo. His imagination did not always bind him to achieve success. Sometimes he Avould heroically support persecution prompted by envious rivals; he was great there; full of dignity and fortitude ; he Avould even let him- self be conquered, and then what did he do ? I am sorry to say he died : when he ceased to enthral he always died ! A dreary after-time of THE TWD; EliOTHERS. 29 obscurity never cli'opped upon him and left liini to fade out of remembrance: sliouts of applause or yells of jealous hatred heralded him to a grave, which men's loving, repentant tears were to keep ever green. If, in books, he went down to the sea in ships, he was the navigator who discovered new worlds; if he marched with an army, he was the general who conquered king- doms ; if he was the sage in his closet, art and science were for ever indebted to him; and the conclusion was always the same — a shrine of immortal honour visited by pilgrim feet from gene- ration to generation. An analysis of Robert's character would not show any such wildly egotistical aspirations. Therein was a deep, tender love for his mother, a sentiment that pervaded all his natm-e, a quiet enthusiasm for things beautiful and true, a ser- viceable energy and a persistent power of work ; but he never fancied himself a hero to anybody, and he was certamly not a hero to himself. His volume was one that Catus would have called dry; it was a geological work, and the subject was not treated in a lively manner, but 30 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. it was real, and therefore lie liked it. Hugh Miller had not penned his picturesque stories of the Old World, or tracked the footprints of the Creator through it, when Robert Hawthorne was a boy, else he would have made another fervent young disciple of nature. Master Scrope had recently taken to the study, under the im- pression that he had had enough of men and women, and should find stones more interesting and satisfactory; but he never acknowledged to having done so. Indeed, on one occasion when Mr. Ford, the parish priest of Chinelyn, ven- tured to impugn the character of some of the books upon his shelves, he was excited to reply with almost disrespectful warmth ; and there afterwards appeared in the " Banner of Freedom," a slightly revolutionary paper edited by a Scotch cousin of his, a.n article on literature, containing the following tirade apropos of Mr. Ford's remarks : "The poet, novelist, and playwright study human nature, and try to compel its secrets from it. They see or strive to see how it is v/rought upon by the poAvers of heaven, earth, and hell. I uphold that this study is a THE TWIN BROTHERS. 31 nobler one tlian your geologist's, ayIio goes about chipping stones and grubbing amongst the cast- off sloughs of this old serpent the world ; it is nobler than your botanist's rage for compassing land and sea to find a new weed ; than your entomologist's rejoicing over a strange beetle, and naming it vaingloriously after himself ! The climax of the whole uniA'erse, the Creator's mas- terpiece, is the heart of man I Where else is there such infinite variety, complication, versa- tility ? Answer me that, iiTCA'creut blocks, who set what their Maker destined for king and ruler beneath the earth which was made for him to walk upon, the vegetables that cover its naked- ness, and the creeping things that hide as he approaches ! " Assuredly Master Scrope was not born for a village schoolmaster ! V. Cyrus Hawthorne unscrupulously availed him- self of the advice that he had offered to the rejection of his more conscientious brother, and 32 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. took tlie half-holiday which the schoolmaster would not grant without inconveniencing himself by announcing his intentions. He directed his truant steps towards the Chine, through which he meant to descend to the beach, always his favourite resort. The Chine was an immense rift into the body of the earth, at the bottom of which rushed a narrow, but impetuous torrent ; at its head, this torrent poured over a lofty slab of rock, and formed a miniature waterfall, whence the spray rose in glittering clouds. The sinuosities of the rift, which the rude steps and pathways were obliged to follow, perpetually disclosed lovely surprises in the scenery. For five minutes, Cyrus walked through a green gloom of overhanging verdure, almost as rich and various in its spring colouring as when the trees have put on their warmer autumnal robes. Then he crossed a frail plank bridge, thrown over the abyss, and found himself exposed to the full rays of the afternoon sunshine between two earthy cliffs, all bare and black. A little farther, and as the Chine widened, the foliao-e became still richer and more luxuriant THE TWIN BROTHERS. 33 Through the branches of elms, beeches, chesnuts, and sycamores, the yellow light filtered down upon emerald grasses, with here and there a vivid patch of wild flowers, such as love a moist vaporous atmosphere. An occasional fruit tree, full of pink and white blossoms, and the bright dark leaves of a holly or laurel, still further diversified the hues of the picture, and looking upwards to the narrow band of sky which roofed the Chine, light, feathery branches of fir, of yew, of alder, and hazel, were seen waving against the blue. The cliffs near the water were clothed with a close, dark green, velvety lichen, and from many a cleft and crevice hung down long ten- drils of the small vein-leaved ivy, and ribbon-like tassels of the glossy hart's tongue fern. Such a mellowness of warm light suffused the air, such a silence, except for the ti*ickling music of the waterfall, and the lapping of the tide upon the shore, that Cyrus, ever open to impressions and beguilements of beauty, lingered there longer than his wont. There is a moral meanino: and a moral influence in the varying scenes and seasons of earth, to which imaginative minds are pecaliarly VOL. I. D 34 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. susceptible, and as lie idled tlirougli this wilder- ness of verdant beauty, bis spirits rose to a wild exaltation, as if the youth of the spring and the youth in his veins ran with a swifter, warmer current in this budding May-time of the year than at any other. On the eastern side of the Chine, near where its rivulet flowed out, and lost itself among the sea-sands, there was a little cottage perched aloft upon an elevated plateau, and almost buried in verdure, like a bird's nest in the branches of an elm. In this cottage lived two fishermen, named Brett — father and son — of no very good repute ; for they were smugglers, wdien smuggling was a profession of risk and profit. From them, Cyrus Hawthorne, and Robert too, had heard many a wild tale of the sea, its perils, marvels, and fascinations ; for the lads were favourites with the two fishermen, especially with the younger. As Cyrus came whistling down the steep path opposite the cottage, he saw the old man sitting outside the door, mending his nets in the sun- shine, while his son stood a little way off on a prominence, which commanded the whole arc of THE TWIN BROTHERS. 35 the bay. He liad his glass in his hand, and was intently watching the movements of a sail upon the horizon. " What craft is yon, Mark ? " asked Cyrus, springing up the precipitous ascent, to the young man's side ; " it is a fast sailer." " Here, father, look you if you know it. It has been a long while a stranger in these waters, if it is what I take it to be," said Mark, handing the glass to the old man, who had dropped liis task, and come hobbling tow^ards him. Brett himself seemed for a moment surprised or baffled, and when he lowered the glass after his examination, Mark asked if he had ever seen it before. " Yes," was the brief reply, *' and so have you, Mark. It is the ' Stormy Petrel,' sure enough." The younger man turned a savage look sea- wards, and then walked away. Cyrus, in astonish- ment, mquned what was the matter with him. "I told you once, my lad, that if you came about my place, there must be no questions, and no tellings of what you might see," replied Brett, curtly. " Do you want the glass yourself? " i> 2 36 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. Cyrus took it for a minute or two, but soon rendered it back, and ran down upon tlie shore while the old fisherman returned to his net- mending, and his son strode away to the top of the cliff to watch the strange sail. Cyrus enter- tained no virtuous horror of smugglers and smug- glings, and in the idea that the " Stormy Petrel " Avas an inopportune member of the preventive service which would dispute his friend's method of importation for some time to come, he did not w^isli it any special good luck, butw^ent on his wa}^ to a wild rocky point, where, at low water, it was his custom to seek for anemones and other strange things of the sea, such as were lefl in the deep pools, and clinging to the stones by the retiring tide. The beach at Chinelyn varied greatly from season to season ; its cliffs of earth and sandstone were continually crumbling down or falling in heavy masses, which the action of the water, in process of time, hardened to the appearance of rock. The wonders of the deep were the earliest inspiration of Cyrus's muse, and this afternoon, when he was tired of hunting for new specimens. THE TWIN BROTHERS. 37 lie clambered up the red cliffs to a point wliencc he had a glorious view over the bay, and as the white ships went and came in the distance, and the gulls skimmed the opalescent water lightly as foam flecks, he took out a little red pocket-book and began to write. He was not over difficult in the matters of rhyme and metre (nor always of reason either) at this date, but Mary fondly cherished all his verses, and thought them beauti- ful ; she was a gentle critic, and his songs made music in her ears. IIow much of them was original, and how much was merely the reflection of other minds upon his, she never inquired. He was her poet-boy, the pride and delight of her heart, and if anybody had made her hear the voices of which his was only the echo, she would have said in her loving soul, if she did not speak it with her lips, that his had still the finer, purer, sweeter, loftier tone. While Cyrus was absorbed in his composition, the vessel which had excited such visible annoy- ance in the yomiger Brett approached nearer in shore, and a boat containing two persons put off" from it. His verses done, Cp'us descended from 38 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. his eerie, and turned liis steps in the direction of the place where it would land its passenger. The tide was flowing in now, and brought the boat through the water so fast that when he reached the little pier of loose stones, Mark Brett was just casting out a rope to secure it. The elder fisherman liad come down from mending his nets, and Robert also, school being out, had found his way to the beach in search of his brother. The two lads, in their idle, affectionate way, twined their arms round each other's neck, and stood watching, while a fine-looking gentleman stepped up upon the pier Avithin half a dozen yards of them. His visage was brow^n and much lined, but it w^as a handsome face still, and of a singu- larly attractive expression. The boys looked at him with rustic admiration, but without obtru- siveness, until they perceived that he also was intently regarding them. He did not speak, but Mark Brett, following tlie direction of his gaze and seeing wliere it rested, said, significantly — " Those two are Mistress Mary Hawthorne's boys, — twins, Sir Philip Nugent. I remember vou, sir, of old." THE TWIN BROTHERS. 39 The stranger started to find himself thus aljruptly recognised, but he approached the boys, wlio had retreated to a httle distance, and ex- claimedj wliile a glow of natural emotion suffused his face — " Are you indeed Mary Hawthorne's sons ? Is she up at the Manor Farm still ? " The boys were silent; they felt rather than guessed in what relation this noble-looking gentle- man stood towards them, and for a minute or two C}Tus was fool enough to imagine that his romantic day-dreams were coming true ; by what prescience Robert divined the reality I cannot tell, but that he did divine it, and was stung to his heart's core with shame, the burning crimson that dyed his face as liis eyes and his^father's met betrayed. I have intimated elsewhere that Robert had more of his mother in his counte- nance than Cyrus ; perhaps that shamed look of his reminded Sir Philip Nugent of some painful scene betwixt Marv and himself Ions; ao-o. He Stood a moment or two as if pondering what to do, but, at last, he made a sign to the boys that they should accompany liim up the Chine, and 40 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. tliey ol)eyed. Cyrus was tlie least shy of the two, and though restless and disquieted, he kept beside the stranger all the way; but it was on Robert's shoulder that Sir Philip chose to lean his hand, and it was Robert's lineaments that he perused with the most affectionate interest. He asked many questions about their mother, assidu- ously striving to veil his anxiety under a pretence of simple friendship ; he asked about their grand- father and about their own bringing up, but all was left to Cyrus to answer. Robert's calm nature was stirred to its depths ; when he would have spoken, a strangling sensation in his throat stifled the words ; it was an agony of shame and torture that the lad underwent during that short Avalk. When they reached the Chine head. Sir Philip Nugent paused. '^ You are going home to your mother now, are you not ? " he said. Cyrus replied that they were. " Say nothing of having met any stranger here ; you will see me at the Manor Farm ere long ; till then be silent." He did not wait for a promise, neither did they THE TWIN BROTHERS. 41 offer to give one, and tliej parted at once ; Sir Philip Nugent taking the road into the village, and the boys turning homewards. " What does it mean, Robin ? " Cyrus asked confusedly, as they went slowly across the fields ; '• wlio is that gentleman ? " *^ Cannot you feel, Cyrus? you are quite like him in the face," was the reluctant answer. Cpiis coloured and glanced uneasily at liis brother. It was some time before either spoke again, but when they got into the Manor garden amongst the shady trees, an excitmg discussion commenced between them — a discussion which, I am afraid, left poor, passionate, poetical Cyrus but very little of his magnificent day-dreams remain- ing. 42 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. CHAPTER THE SECOND. THEIR MOTHER. " I HAVE lingered by the past, As by a death-bed, with unwonted love, And sucii forgiveness as we bring to those Who can offend no more." — Balder. Sydney Dobell. I. Chineltn Manor Hofse, where tlie Hawthornes lived, was a large, square built, steep-roofed edifice with a heavy cornice round it and uniformly placed windows, rather high than wide, which were fur- nished with seats throughout. The fire-places, by some architectual freak, peculiar either to the island or the date of the house, were placed each in a corner of the rooms, which were otherwise suffi- ciently lofty and well-proportioned. Their plenish- ing was neither new nor choice, and the whole — the kitchen excepted — looked bare and comfortless, probably from the fact that the best of them were rarely entered except for cleaning purposes. THEIR MOTHER. 43 But upstairs there was a little parlour looking eastward over the sea, with an old wooden balcony before its window, which the boys always called " ^Mother's Room." This balcony was almost falling with decay, but there grew up over it on one side a bush of sweet clematis, while a red cluster rose garlanded it on the other. ]Mary had trained them there from a girl, and if they had had the gift of speech they could have told us all the story of her life. Many a time had she stood out there watching towards Longi'idge white cliffs as a sail went and came into the bay — her lover's sail. Spies had seen the flutter of her dress in the early morning and late evening, which signalled that she was on the look out for him. Poor, simple, loving little heart! happy vigils were those, happy wak- ings in the gray dawn, happy dreams in the long night when he was just coming or but just gone ! And spies had seen her, too, in her deep, deep sorrow, gazing wistfully— oh, so wistfully — over the sea where that fatal sail might, perhaps, come never again ! They had seen her there with her children almost daily since, and a right pleasant place for them it was. What should thev know of 44 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. eager hopes enjoyed, of dumb, dead agonies there suffered through ? Mother's eyes were all sunshine looking into their baby eyes, mother's voice was all song and sweetness over their rest, mother's heart was warm to the core for love of them ! They were G od's gifts to her ; if she had been childless as well as wronged, she would have gone to her grave uncalled. The boys to their lives' end had a sacred remembrance of this room ; such a remembrance as most of us retain of the church where we went as children — of the chamber where we have looked our last on a dear, dear friend — or of the grave where we have buried our best beloved. First prayers, first lessons, first stories belonged to its archives, and all Sunday teachings ever since. The big old family Bible with its quaint engravings, each one an indelible history, was kept there ; and from the hour when they had stood on one footstool, or knelt on one chair, with brotherly arms round each other's neck, to look at them and listen to their mother's reading out the narrative, they had loved and reverenced that book ; one of them never wavered in his love and THEIR MOTHER. 45 reverence for it. This room continued ever the brightest, distinctest spot in their early home. Under its window lay the garden, a place of delights ; so old, green, and shady ; on the out- skirts so sunny, so flower-gaudy in front. The fold-yard was beyond, with its kine knee-deep in the golden straw, its rough, mettlesome colts, sleek black pigs, and strutting poultry ; the rick-yard adjoined, and there were few gayer rural sights to be seen anywhere than that bal- conied window presented on a dewy sunshinv morning, when the waggon, high piled with sacks of grain, was rolling heavily through the great gates, its team of four black horses in fringed scarlet trappings, and with musical bells at their collars chimino; as thev went. II. Hitherto I have spoken of Mary Hawthorne in her past, and, so to say, ideal, relation, but now let me speak of the woman in her habit as she lived. She had an air of rusticity, though nature had gifted her with delicately refined features; 46 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. these features, pallid and. worn, with deeply sunken eyes under a brow like marble, could not but look remarkable ; her countenance, that once attracted by its rosy maiden beauty, now fascinated by an Intensity of suffering expression ; but it will easily be understood that its charm for a lover's gaze was gone. Her dress was simple and homely, but graceful in its simplicity, shoAving that, while she had put by youth and gaiety, she could not put by the subtle perfume and attrait they leave behind. Sorrow had done for her the work of time, for though not yet thirty years old, broad silver lines streaked her luxuriant hair where the cap did not cover it, and the delicate veins of her thin hands shone distinctly through the white skin, and yet with all this subdued, refined tone of feature and colour, her general air was still that of a woman of the class in which she had been born and bred. I would have this clearly felt and appreciated, because it goes to explain sub- sequent events. She guided her father's household carefully and assiduously ; she put her hand to many a task which is now servant's work without feeling THEIR MOTHER. 47 it irksome ; to and fro in the kitchen, to and fro in the dairy, to and fro in the poultry-yard, she went all day and every day; serviceable, ener- getic, thrifty, methodical in all her labours. Methodical, I have said — mechanical would have expressed more correctly the manner of her ac- tivity. One saw that in this life, which, as true wife and mother, would have satisfied every desire of her nature, her heart was not and never could be. For enjoyment she had got hard rou- tine, for happiness she had got necessity, for daily sustenance of soul she had got duty. Left innocent in her natural estate, she would have shared some plain honest man's homely joys and homely cares, would have brought up liis cliildren in the fear of God, and would have died blessed and blessing others by her fair example. Cast adrift as she had been from a woman's only safe anchor, all her prayers, all her patience, fortitude, resig- nation, had been unable to stay her craving heart ; she found her feet set in a grove, and walked straight along it, looking upwards for guidance and support; but that did not prevent that in ilie dead time of the night, in the soft evening. 48 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. in tlie gleamy morning, old sights and sounds should carry her thoughts away from the tame dull present to the bitter sweet of the past. Mary Hawthorne's battle was to fight over again almost every day. III. The day to which Mary had looked forward with greatest dread came upon her unawares at last. That evening, when her boys returned home after their rencontre with Sir Philip Nugent, she was sitting alone in her room, the window being open to the balcony, and the sun shining over the garden. She saw them enter by the wicket gate from the meadow, and, after pacing about for some 'minutes, throw themselves down on the grass, under the great walnut-tree. She had her Bible open on her lap, but she regarded the children, who were holding what seemed a very vehement argument ; she saw that Cyrus was much excited, and that he would have broken away from his brother more than once, if Robert had not held him fast by main force. She had never accus- THEIR MOTHER. 49 tomed herself to interfere in their trifling fi'aternal differences, being of opinion that such righted themselves the more easily for being let alone; so the present scene would have passed unnoticed, had not something further occurred. Mr. Ford came in leisurely from the Parsonage lane, and no sooner did he appear than Cyrus sprang towards him, and began to question him with fiery eager- ness. Robert stood by silent, but endeavouring by sign and gesture to restrain his brother, while he looked from time to time up at the balconied window, where he discerned the listening outline of his mother's figure. Even from that distance, Mary could perceive that Cyrus's easily roused indignation Avas bm-n- ing on lip and cheek, and that Robert looked strangely downcast and uneasy. The minister laid his hand solemnly on Cyrus's shoulder, and answered him. When Mary saw his grave ear- nest manner, and the sudden efiect it had upon the impetuous lad, she understood what it meant, and, dropping on her knees, she hid her fiice in her hands and tried to pray. Half an hour after, when IMr. Ford came into VOL. I. E 50 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. the room, slie was still in tlio same attitude — she had never once stirred since she sank down upon the floor. His step disturbed her, and she rose to her feet nervously, passing her hand before her eyes, to gain a little time, and then stood hold- ing by the table all white and dismayed. ■ The good clergyman was touched by her look of plaintive distress. " The time is come, Mary, for you and your children to understand each other fully," said he. " Oh ! how shall I tell them, Mr. Ford? If they despise their mother, I cannot survive it ! How shall I tell them of tlieir cruel shame ? " cried she, trembling and weeping. All her courage, all her often rehearsals of this trying time, vanished in view of the reality. *^ You have lived through fiercer trials than this, Mary; but the boys know the truth now. It seems that something has occurred to excite their suspicion ; they did not tell me what, neither did I ask ; but Cyrus demanded an explanation of me, and I gave it to spare you." Mary looked as if she would have asked how they bore it, and he replied to her unspoken question. THEIR MOTHER. 51 " You must allow for Cyrus's proud spirit for a little while, but Robert is only anxious to show how much more he can love you. Oh ! Mary, God has given you a treasure in that boy's heart." '• I know it, sir, I know it ! " said she, sending a wild, moumfid, pleading glance towards her other darhng, who lay upon the gi'ass alone, sullenly plucking the daisies and casting them away. With ever\' idle fling of his hand he dealt a stab at liis poor mother's swelling breast. vShe felt how anger, shame, and unutterable disappoint- ment were deahng with him, and would have endm-ed their pangs a thousand-fold to spare him. one. Glanciug upwards to the balcony, he saw her white face watching him thus ; he sprang to his feet, and fled indoors. She ran out upon the stairs to meet him ; he came and flung himself upon her bosom, cr)'ing between his passionate sobs, " Oh, mother, mother, I do love you, I do love you ! " as if he had been thinking of her unjustly, until he met her sad eyes upon him, and read in them a humble plea against her children's reproach. It was several minutes before she be- E 2 UBRARt UNiVERsmr OF nuHOif 52 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. came conscious that Robert also was near lier, with his arm twined round her waist. Mr. Ford had gone out and closed the door upon that pitiful scene ; I think we will close the door upon it too. IV. Mary's children had told her how and where they had seen their father, and when the lads were gone to their early rest she stood out upon the balcony gazing through the clear spring twi- light at the little yacht in the bay whose frail spars were designed in sharp lines against the blue sky. " Wliy was it there ? " she asked her- self; and one moment there came into her cheeks a wavering blush, the next, sick and trembling, she was fain to support herself against the crazy balustrade with its flowery wreath. Old Simon was in the garden smoking his evening pipe^ and paying visits of inspection and admiration to the well-tended plots of flowers upon the lawn. He knew Mary was up in her room, and presently he called out to her — '^ Mary, these double-stocks of yours are doing THEIR MOTHER. 53 finely this year. Come and take u turn with me if you are not over-busy." She was a good daughter, and always obeyed her father's behests ; without considering her own trial of the day or suffering it to keep her in solitude, she immediately joined him, and they continued to walk to and fro, until the old man's pipe was out and himself tired; then he went indoors and left her out upon the lawn. She had not said a word to him about the arrival of Sir Philip Nugent at ChineljTi, or of the revelation that had just been made to her children. It was a subject on which she would ever, if it were possible, have avoided speaking to him ; they could not agree upon it ; time had not lessened the bitterness of his resentment in any measure aojainst his daughter's destrover, or made him regard the two boys as anything but visible signs of a dishonoured name. His pride was quite a.s sensitive, quite as tenacious, as that of any born noble or gentleman in the land ; yet in his prac- tical spirit he looked to the boys' future as, in the main, depending upon him, and did his plain duty by them without ever leaniing to love them really. 54 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE., When he left her in the garden, Mary strayed out tlirough the wicket into the sweet open meadows. There was a lovely lonely bank under the hedge of the wood, in whose moist hollows grew the treasures of yellow primroses, and lying along it was the decaying trunk of a gigantic elm which had recently been felled. She and the children were in the habit of visiting this spot on summer Sunday evenings, and the same intense longing for quiet and repose drew her steps towards it now. No one would seek her there ; in that solitude she could take her life into her hands and examine it where it was weak, guard it where it was exposed, above all, arm it against the subtle foe that lurked within the citadel. What is most women's salvation — their faithful love — was Mary's danger ; she knew it and prayed against it. It is hopeless to try to explain what it made her suffer. It is wisest, when we can do it, to put away the past altogether ; we have done with it in the way of action, v/e cannot improve it by way of thought. We have a future, at least we have a present, where effort need not be spent in vain, but it is sexton's work to linger I THEIE MOTHER. 55 moralizing perpetually amongst graves. If vre have strength, close we that inevitable gate and go forth amongst the striving tin'ong, to live and labour, to wait and pray. This was what ]\Iary Hawthorne had endeavoured and was still en- deavouring to do, but when her children told her what had happened to them u]Don the shore, when she learnt tliat their fatlier was actually at Cliinelyn, the sharpest thorn that had yet pierced her in mounting the hill Difficulty pricked her to the bone. What had brought him back if it were not the uro-ino; of that unsatisfied love that had been the bane of both — blinding him to honour, spotting her sweet innocence? How should she meet him — how repulse, when her own weak, passionate heart, even in his absence, pleaded for him so warmly ? These were ques- tions that she asked herself again and yet again as she rested on the fallen tree, and the evening grew dim and ever dimmer all around. But help was preparing for her — such help and such safety as Heaven ofttimes gives to the weak in their own despite. Foresight is a melancholy gift ; perhaps if Mary had foreseen the manner 56 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. of lier deliverance, it miglit have appeared crueller tlian any pang she had }'et endured ; in all sin- cerity she prayed, ^' Lead me not into temptation. Keep me from evil," and she was kept according to lier desire — faithful if faint — and preserved against herself. AYhen she left the Manor gardens and strayed across the meadow, she did not perceive that she was watched, but Sir Philip Nugent had seen her while walki]ig to and fro the lawn with her father, and he now followed her, carefully evading dis- covery by keeping tinder covert of the trees. He had come to Chinelyn with an object : his wretched wife was dead, and he proposed to redeem past wrong and gain present happiness by marrying Mar}'. He had pleased his imagination with visions of her joyous beauty as he remembered it, of her youthful grace and simplicity, then capable of being moulded into any form ; — but what did he behold when he came stealthily mider the Manor hedge and looked over at her in the garden. He beheld a woman separated from him in state and station by ten long years of almost menial work — a woman considerably older than her age. THEIPw MOTHER. 57 thin to emaciation, sorrowful almost to apatliy. He was touched, but lie was repelled : this poor faded Mary, to whose lips he had pressed the cup of all bitterness, never could be wife of his. He was a man of the world; not altogether heartless, perhaps, but certainly selfish. He was not the Curtius to cast lihnself into that gulf which long separation had made between the habits of her life and his. To meet her again would be like making a new acquaintance, and might still further revolt his fastidious taste ; but for her two beautiful boys he would provide. How glad, how proud would he have been could he have called either of them his lawful heir and bearer of his name, for no child had been born to him of his marriao-e : he had no son to carrv down to posterity the talents and honom's of hi.s race. In this his pride was very fitly scom-ged ; his early sin became his life-long, his irreparable mortification. Mary sat upon the secluded bank mitil the moon rose and the heavy dews began to fall; Sir Philip Nugent, concealed m the wood behind, could see the outline of her figure so expressive of 58 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. weariness and dejection, and when she moved to