a I E> RARY OF THE U N IVLRSITY Of ILLINOIS Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2009 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ,http://www.archive.org/details/mountroyalnovel01brad MOUNT EOYAL % 3obd BY THE AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECEET" ETC. ETC. ETC. VOL. I. LONDON JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET 1882 [All rights reserved] EALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH CHANDOS STREET, LONDON to en cci o CONTENTS TO Y0\. I. CHAP. _ PAGE I. THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE ... 1 3 ir. BUT THEN CAME ONE, THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY 35 in. "tintagel, half in sea, and half on land" 71 ^J IV. " love ! thou art LEi^DING ME FROM WINTRY cold" 103 V. "the SILVER ANSWER RANG, 'NOT DEATH, BUT LOVE'" 128 VI. IN SOCIETY 144 VIL CUPID AND PSYCHE 199 VIII. LE SECRET DE POLICHINELLE .... 228 Vv IX. " LOVE IS LOVE FOR EVERMORE" . . . 275 4 MOUN^T ROYAL. CHAPTER I. THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. ^^ And he was a widower/^ said Christabel. She was listening to an oft-told tale_, kneeling in the firelight, at her aunt^s knee, the ruddy glow tenderly touching her fair soft hair and fairer fore- head, her big blue eyes lifted lovingly to Mrs. TregonelFs face. " And he was a widower, Aunt Diana/' she re- peated, with an expression of distaste, as if some- thing had set her teeth on edge. " I cannot help wondering that you could care for a widower — a man who had begun life by caring for somebody else." " Do you suppose any one desperately in love ever thinks of the past ?" asked another voice out of the twilight. '' Those infatuated creatures VOL. I. B 2 THE DAYS TPIAT ARE NO MORE. called lovers are too tappy and contented with the rapture of the present/^ " One would think you had tremendous expe- rience,, Jessie, by the way you lay down the law/^ said Christabel;, laughing. " But I want to know what Auntie has to say about falling in love with a widower .^^ " If you had ever seen him and known him, I don^t think you would wonder at my liking him/' answered Mrs. Tregonell, lying back in her arm- chair, and talking of the story of her life in a placid way, as if it were the plot of a novel, so thoroughly does time smooth the rough edge of grief. " "When he came to my father's house, his young wife had been dead just two years — she died three days after the birth of her first child — and Captain Hamleighwas very sad and grave, and seemed to take very little pleasure in life. It was in the shooting season, and the other men were out upon the hills all day.'' '* Murdering innocent birds," interjected Chris- tabel. " How I hate them for it !" " Captain Hamleigh hung about the house, not seeming to know very well what to do with himself, THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 6 SO your mother and I took pity upon him, and tried to amuse him, which eflPort resulted in his amusing us, for he was ever so much cleverer than we were. He was so kind and sympathetic. We had just founded a Dorcas Society, and we were muddling hopelessly in an endeavour to make good sensible rules, so that we should do nothing to lessen the independent feeling of our people — and he came to our rescue, and took the whole thing in hand, and seemed to understand it all as thoroughly as if he had been establishing Dorcas Societies all his life. My father said it was because the Captain had been sixth wrangler, and that it was the higher mathe- matics which made him so clever at making rules. But Clara and I said it was his kind heart that made him so quick at understanding how to help the poor without humiliating them.^-* " It was very nice of him," said Christabel, who had heard the story a hundred times before, but who was never weary of it, and had a special reason for being interested this afternoon. '^ And so he stayed a long time at my grandfather's, and you fell in love with him ?" 4 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. " I began by being sorry for bim/^ replied Mrs. Tregonell. " He told us all about bis young wife — bow bappy tbey bad been — bow tbeir one year of wedded life seemed to bim like a lovely dream. Tbey bad only been engaged tbree montbs ; be bad known ber less tban a year and a balf altogetber; bad come borne from India; bad seen ber at a friend^s bouse^ fallen in love witb ber_, married ber, and lost ber witbin tbose eigbteen montbs. ^ Every - tbing smiled upon us/ be said. ' I ougbt to bave remembered Polycrates and bis riug.^ '^ " He must bave been ratber a doleful person/^ said Cbristabelj wbo bad all tbe exacting ideas of early youtb in relation to love and lovers. " A widower of tbat kind ougbt to perform suttee, and make an end of tbe business,, ratber tban go about tbe world prosing to nice girls. I wonder more and more tbat you could bave cared for bim/^ And tben^ seeing ber aunt^s eyes sbining witb unsbed tears, tbe girl laid ber sunny bead upon tbe matronly sboulder, and murmured tenderly, ^' For- give me for teasing you, dear, I am only pretend- ing. I love to bear about Captain Hamleigb ; and THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. D I am not very much surprised that you ended by loving him — or that he soon forgot his brief dream of bliss with the other young lady^ and fell desperately in love with you/'' ^' It was not till after Christmas that we were en- gaged/' continued Mrs. Tregonell^ looking dreamily at the fire. " My father was delighted — so was my sister Clara — your dear mother. Everything went pleasantly; our lives seemed all sunshine. I ought to have remembered Polycrates^ for I knew Schiller's ballad about him by heart. But I could think of nothing beyond that perfect all- sufficing happiness. We were not to be married till late in the autumn, when it would be three years since his wife's death. It was my father's wish that I should not be married till after my nineteenth birthday, which would not be till Septem- ber. I was so happy in my engagement, so con- fident in my lover's fidelity, that I was more than content to wait. So all that spring he stayed at Penlee. Our mild climate had improved his health, which was not at all good when he came to us — indeed he had retired from the service before his 6 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. marriage, chiefly on account of weak health. But he spoke so lightly and confidently about himself in this matter, that it had never entered into my head to feel any serious alarm about him, till early in May, when he and Clara and I were caught in a drenching rainstorm during a mountaineering expe- dition on Rough Tor, and then had to walk four or five miles in the rain before we came to the inn where the carriage was to wait for us. Clara and I, who were always about in all weathers, were very little worse for the wet walk and the long drive home in damp clothes. But George was seriously ill for three weeks with cough and low fever ; and it was at this time that our family doctor told my father that he would not give much for his future son-in-law's life. There was a marked tendency to lung complaint, he said ; Captain Hamleigh had confessed that several members of his family had died of consumption. My father told me this — urged me to avoid a marriage which must end in misery to me, and was deeply grieved when I de- clared that no such consideration would induce me to break my engagement, and to grieve the man THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 7 I loved. If it were needful that our marriage should be delayed, I was contented to submit to any delay ; but nothing could loosen the tie between me and my dear love." Aunt and niece were both crying now. However familiar the story might be_, they always wept a little at this point. " George never knew one word of this conversa- tion between my father and me — he never suspected our fears — but from that hour my happiness was gone. My life was one perpetual dread — one ceaseless struggle to hide all anxieties and fears under a smile. George rallied, and seemed to grow strong again — was full of energy and high spirits, and I had to pretend to think him as tho- roughly recovered as he fancied himself. But by this time I had grown sadly wise. I had questioned our doctor — had looked into medical books — and I knew every sad sign and token of decay. 1 knew what the flushed cheek and the brilliant eye, the damp cold hand, and the short cough meant. 1 knew that the hand of death was on him whom I loved more than all the world besides. There was O THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. no need for the postponement of our marriage. In the long bright days of August he seemed won- derfully well — as well as he had been before the attack in May. I was almost happy ; for, in spite of what the doctor had told me, I began to hope ! but early in September, while the dressmakers were in the house making my wedding clothes, the end came suddenly, unexpectedly, with only a few hours' warning. Oh, Christabel ! I cannot speak of that day !" "No, darling, you shall not, you must not,'"* cried Christabel, showering kisses on her aunt's pale cheek. "And yet you always lead her on to talk about Captain Hamleigh," said the sensible voice out of the shadoAY. " Isn't that just a little inconsistent of our sweet Belle T^ " Don't call me your * sweet Belle' — as if I were a baby/' exclaimed the girl. ^' I know I am incon- sistent — I was born foolish, and no one has ever taken the trouble to cure me of my folly. And now. Auntie dear, tell me about Captain Hamleigh's son — the boy who is coming here to-morrow." THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 9 " I have not seen him since he was at Eton. The Sqnire drove me down on a Fourth of June to see him.^' ^' It was very good of Uncle Tregonell.''^ '' The Squire was always good/' replied Mrs, Tregonell, with a dignified air. ChristabeFs only remembrance of her uncle was of a large loud man, who blustered and scolded a good deal, and fre- quently contrived, perhaps, without meaning it, to make everybody in the house uncomfortable ; so she reflected inwardly upon that blessed dispensa- tion which, however poorly wives may think of living husbands, provides that every widow should consider her departed spouse completely admir- able. " And was he a nice boy in those days V asked Christabel, keenly interested. "He was a handsome gentleman-like lad — very intellectual looking ; but I was grieved to see that he looked delicate, like his father; and his dame told me that he generally had a winter cough." '^ AYho took care of him in those days V ^' His maternal aunt — a baronct^s wife, with a 10 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. handsome house in Eaton Square. All his mo therms people were well placed in life.^' ^' Poor boy ! hard to have neither father nor mother. It was twelve years ago when you spent that season in London with the Squire," said Christabel, calculating profoundly with the aid of her finger tips ; '^ and Angus Hamleigh was then sixteen^ which makes him now eight- and-t wen ty — dreadfully old. And since then he has been at Oxford — and he got the Newdigate — what is the Newdigate? — and he did nothunt^ or drive tandem, or have rats in his rooms_, or paint the doors vermilion — like — like the general run of young men,''^ said Christabel,, reddening, and hurrying on confusedly ; '' and he was altogether rather a superior person at the university.''-' " He had not your cousin Leonard's high spirits and powerful physique,^' said Mrs. Tregonell, as if she were ever so slightly offended. " Young men's tastes are so different.'' " Yes," sighed Christabel, " it's lucky they are, is it not? It wouldn't do for them all to keep rats in their rooms, would it ? The poor old THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 11 colleges would smell so dreadful. Well/^ with another sigh, '^ it is just three weeks since Angus Hamleigh accepted your invitation to come here to stay, and I have been expiring of curiosity ever since. If he keeps me expiring much longer I shall be dead before he comes. And I have a dreadful foreboding that, when he does appear, I shall detest him.''^ "No fear of that," said Miss Bridgeman, the owner of the voice that issued now and again from the covert of a deep armchair on the other side of the fireplace. " Why not, Mistress Oracle ?" asked Christabel. " Because, as Mr. Hamleigh is accomplished and good-looking, and as you see very few young men of any kind, and none that are particularly attrac- tive, the odds are fifty to one that you will fall in love with him." '^ I am not that kind of person," protested Christabel, drawing up her long full throat, a perfect throat, and one of the girl's chief beauties. '^ I hope not," said Mrs. Tregonell ; " I trust that Belle has better sense than to fall in love j:j THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. Tvith a young man, just because he happens to come to stay in the house/'' Christabel was on the point of exclaiming, ^' Why, Auntie, you did it -,'' but caught herself up sharply, and cried out instead, with an air of settling the question for ever. " My dear Jessie, he is eight-and-twenty. Just ten years older than I am/'' " Of course — he^s ever so much too old for her. A blase man of the world,''^ said Mrs. Tregonell. ^^ I should be deeply sorry to see my darling marry a man of that age — and with such antecedents. I should like her to marry a young man not above two or three years her senior." ^^ And fond of rats,'''' said Jessie Bridgeman to herself, for she had a shrewd idea that she knew the young man whose image filled Mrs. Tregonell's mind as she spoke. All these words were spoken in a goodly oak- panelled room in the Manor House known as Mount E-oyal, on the slope of a bosky hill about a mile and a half from the little town of Boscastle, on the north coast of Cornwall. It was an easy THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 13 matter^ according to tlie Heralds' Office, to sliow that Mount Royal had belonged to the Tregonells in the days of the Norman kings ; for the Tregonells traced their descent,, by a female branch, from the ancient baronial family of Botterell or Bottreaux, who once held a kind of Court in their castle on Mount Royal, had their dungeons and their prisoners, and, in the words of Carew, ^' exercised some large jurisdic- tion/' Of the ancient castle hardly a stone re- mained ; but the house in which Mrs. Tregonell lived was as old as the reign of Jg-mes the First, and had all the rich and quaint beauty of that delightful period in architecture. Nor was there any prettier room at Mount Royal than this spacious oak-panelled parlour, with curious nooks and cupboards, a recessed fireplace, or '^ cosy-corner,^' with a small window on each side of the chimney-breast, and one particular alcove placed at an angle of the house, overlooking one of the most glorious views in England. It might be hyperbole perhaps to call those Cornish hills mountains, yet assuredly it was a mountain land- scape over which the eye roved as it looked from 14 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. the windows of Mount Royal ; for those wide sweeps of hill side^ those deep clefts and gorges, and heathery slopes, on which the dark red cattle grazed in silent peacefulness, and the rocky bed of the narrow river that went rushing through the deep valley, had all the grandeur of the Scottish Highlands, all the pastoral beauty of Switzerland. And away to the right, beyond the wild and indented coast-line, that horned coast which is said to have given its name to Cornwall — Cornu- Wales — stretched the Atlantic. The room had that quaint charm peculiar to rooms occupied by many generations, and upon which each age as it went by has left its mark. It was a room full of anachronisms. There was some of the good old Jacobean furniture left in it, while spindle-legged Chippendale tables and luxurious nineteenth-century chairs and sofas agreeably contrasted with those heavy oak cabinets and corner cupboards. Here an old Indian screen or a china monster suggested a fashionable auction room, filled with ladies who wore patches and played ombre, and squabbled for ideal ugliness in THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 15 Oriental pottery ; there a delicately carved cherry- wood prie-dieu, with claw feet^ recalled the earlier beauties of the Stuart Court. Time had faded the stamped velvet curtains to that neutral withered-leaf hue which painters love in a background, and against which bright yellow chrysanthemums and white asters in dark red and blue Japanese bowls_, seen dimly in the fitful fire-glow, made patches of light and colour. The girl kneeling by the matron-'s chair, looking dreamily into the fire, was even fairer than her surroundings. She was thoroughly English in her beauty, features not altogether perfect, but complexion of that dazzling fairness and wild-rose bloom which is in itself enough for loveliness ; a complexion so delicate as to betray every feeling of the sensitive mind, and to vary with every shade of emotion. Her eyes were blue, clear as summer skies, and with an expression of childlike innocence — that look which tells of a soul whose purity has never been tarnished by the knowledge of evil. That frank clear outlook was natural in a girl brought up as Christabel Courtenay had been at a good woman's knee. 16 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. shut in aud sheltered from the rough worlds reared in the love and fear of God, shaping every thought of her life by the teaching of the Gospel. She had been an orphan at nine years old, and had parted for ever from mother and father before her fifth birthday^ Mrs. Courtenay leaving her only child in her sister's care, and going out to India to join her husband, one of the Sudder Judges. Husband and wife died of cholera in the fourth year of Mrs. Courtenay's residence at Calcutta, leaving Christabel in her aunt's care. Mr. Courtenay was a man of ample means, and his wife, daughter and co-heiress with Mrs. Tregonell of Ralph Champernowne, had a handsome dowry, so Christabel might fairly rank as an heiress. On her grandfather's death she inherited half of the Champernowne estate, which was not entailed. But she had hardly ever given a thought to her financial position. She knew that she was a ward in Chancery, and that Mrs. Tregonell was her guardian and adopted mother, that she had always as much money as she wanted, and never experienced the pain of seeing poverty which she could not relieve THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 17 in some measure from her well- supplied purse. The general opinion in the neighbourhood of Mount Royal was that the Indian Judge had accumulated an immense fortune during his twenty years' labour as a civil servant ; but this notion was founded rather upon vague ideas about Warren Hastings and the Pagoda tree, and the supposed inability of any Indian official to refuse a bribe, than on plain facts or personal knowledge. Mrs. Tregonell had been left a widow at thirty- five years of age, a widow with one son whom she idolized, but who was not a source of peace and happiness. He was open-handed, had no petty vicesj and was supposed to possess a noble heart — a fact which Christabel was sometimes inclined to doubt when she saw his delight in the slaughter of birds and beasts, not having in her own nature that sportsman's instinct which can excuse such murder. He was not the kind of lad who would wilfully set his foot upon a worm, but he had no thrill of tenderness or remorseful pity as he looked at the glazing eye, or felt against his hand the last feeble heart-beats of snipe or woodcock. He was VOL. I. c 18 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. a troublesome boy — fond of inferior company^ and loving rather to be first fiddle in the saddle-room than to mind his manners in his mother^s pink-and- white panelled saloon — among the best people in the neighbourhood. He was lavish to recklessness in the use of money, and therefore was always fur- nished with followers and flatterers. His University career had been altogether a failure and a disgrace. He had taken no degree — had made himself notorious for those rough pranks which have not even the merit of being original — the traditionary college misdemeanours handed down from genera- tion to generation of undergraduates, and which by their blatant folly incline the outside world to vote for the suppression of Universities and the extinc- tion of the undergraduate race. His mother had known and suffered all this, yet still loved her boy with a fond excusing love — ever ready to pardon — ever eager to believe that these faults and follies were but the crop of wild oats which must needs precede the ripe and rich harvest of manhood. Such wild youths, she told herself, fatuously, generally make the best men. THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 19 Leonard would mend his ways before lie was five- and-twenty, and would become interested in his estate, and develop into a model Squire, like his admirable father. That he had no love for scholarship mattered little — a country gentleman, with half a dozen manors to look after, could be but little advantaged by a familiar acquaintance with the integral calculus, or a nice appreciation of the Greek tragedians. When Leonard Tregonell and the college Dons were mutually disgusted with each other to a point that made any further residence at Oxford impossible, the young man graciously announced his intention of making a tour round the world, for the benefit of his health, somewhat impaired by University dissipations, and the widen- ing of his experience in the agricultural line. '^ Farming has been reduced to a science,^^ he told his mother ; " I want to see how it works in our colonies. I mean to make a good many reforma- tions in the management of my farms and the conduct of my tenants when I come home.^' At first loth to part with him, very fearful of 20 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. letting him so far out of her keri^ Mrs. Tregorieli ultimately allowed herself to be persuaded that sea voyages and knocking about in strange lands would be the making of her son ; and there was no sacrifice, no loss of comfort and delight, which she would not have endured for his benefit. She spent many sad hours in prayer, or on her knees before her open Bible ; and at last it seemed to her that her friends and neighbours must be right, and that it would be for Leonardos good to go. If he stayed in England she could not hope to keep him always in Cornwall. He could go to London, and, no doubt, London vices would be worse than Oxford vices. Yes, it was good for him to go ; she thought of Esau, and how, after a foolish and ill-governed youth, the son who had bartered his father^s blessing, yet became an estimable member of society. Why should not her boy flourish as Esau had flourished ? but never without the parental blessing. That would be his to the end. He could not sin beyond her large capacity for pardon : he could not exhaust an inexhaustible love. So Leonard, who had suddenly found that wild Cor- THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 21 nish coast, and even the long rollers of the Atlantic contemptibly insignificant as compared with the imagined magnitude of Australian downs, and the grandeurs of Botany Bay, hurried on the preparations for his departure, provided himself with everything expensive in gunnery^ fishing- tackle, porpoise-hide thigh-boots, and waterproof gear of every kind, and departed rejoicing in the most admirably appointed Australian steamer. The family doctor, who was one of the many friends in favour of this tour, had strongly recommended the rough-and-tumble life of a sailing-vessel ; but Leonard preferred the luxury and swiftness of a steamer, and, suggesting to his mother that a sailing-vessel always took out emigrants, from whom it was more than likely he would catch scarlet-fever or small-pox, instantly brought Mrs. Tregonell to perceive that a steamer which carried no second-class passengers was the only fitting conveyance for her son. He was gone — and, while the widow grieved in submissive silence, telling herself that it was God^s will that she and her son should be parted, and 22 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. that whatever was good for him should be well for her_, Christabel and the rest of the household in- wardly rejoiced at his absence. Nobody openly owned to being happier without him ; but the knowledge that he was far away brought a sense of relief to every one ; even to the old servants, who had been so fond of him in his childhood, when the kitchen and servants^ hall had ever been a happy hunting-ground for him in periods of banish- ment from the drawing-room. '' It is no good for me to punish him/^ Mrs. Tregonell had remonstrated, with assumed dis- pleasure ; " you all make so much of him.''-' " Oh, ma'am, he is such a fine, high-spirited boy,''"' the cook would reply on these occasions ; ^^ ^tesn-'t possible to be angry wdth him. He has such a spirit/' '' Such a spirit '' was only a euphuism for such a temper; and, as years went on, Mr. Tregonell's visits to the kitchen and servants' hall came to be less appreciated by his retainers. He no longer went there to be petted — to run riot in boyish liveliness, upsetting the housemaids' work-boxes. THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 23 or making toffy under the cook^s directions. As he became aware of his own importance^ he speedily developed into a juvenile tyrant ; he became haughty and overbearing, hectored and swore, befouled the snowy floors and flags with his muddy shooting-boots, made havoc and work wherever he went. The household treated him with unfailing respect, as their late master^s son, and their own master, possibly, in the future ; but their service was no longer the service of love. His loud strong voice, shouting in the passages and lobbies, scared the maids at their tea. Grooms and sta!ble-boys liked him; for with them he was always familiar, and often friendly. He and they had tastes and occupations in common ; but to the women servants and the grave middle-aged butler his presence was a source of discomfort. Next to her son in Mrs. TregonelFs affection stood her niece Christabel. That her love for the girl who had never given her a moment's pain should be a lesser love than that which she bore to the boy who had seldom given her an hour''s un- alloyed pleasure was one of the anomalies common 24 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. in the lives of good women. To love blindly and unreasonably is as natural to a woman as it is to love : and bappy sbe whose passionate soul finds its idol in husband or child, instead of being lured astray by strange lights outside the safe harbour of home. Mrs. Tregonell loved her niece very dearly; but it was with that calm, comfortable affection which mothers are apt to feel for the child who has never given them any trouble. Christabel had been her pupil : all that the girl knew had been learned from Mrs. Tregonell ; and, though her education fell far short of the requirements of Girton or Harley Street, there were few girls whose intellectual powers had been more fully awakened, without the taint of pedantry. Christabel loved books, but they were the books her aunt had chosen for her — old-fashioned books for the most part. She loved music, but was no brilliant pianist, for when Mrs. Tregonell, who had taught her carefully up to a certain point, suggested a course of lessons from a German professor at Plymouth, the girl recoiled from the idea of being taught by a stranger. ^^ If you are satisfied with my playing. Auntie, THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. JO I am content never to play any better/^ she said ; so the idea of six months^ tuition and study at Plymouth, involving residence in that lively port, was abandoned. London was a far-away world, of which neither aunt nor niece ever thought. That wild northern coast is still two days^ journey from the metropolis. Only by herculean labour, in the way of posting across the moor in the grey dawn of morning, can the thing be done in one day ; and then scarcely between sunrise and sunset. So Mrs. Tregonell, who loved a life of placid repose, had never been to London since her widowhood, and Christabel had never been there at all. There was an old house in Mayfair, which had belonged to the Tregonells for the last hundred years, and which had cost them a fortune in repairs, but it was either shut up and in the occupation of a caretaker, or let furnished for the season ; and no Tregonell had crossed its threshold since the Squire^s death. Mrs. Tregonell talked of spending a season in London before Christabel was much older, in order that her niece might be duly pre- sented at Court, and qualified for that place in 26 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. society whicli a young lady of good family and ample means might fairly be entitled to hold. Christabel had no eager desire for the gaieties of a London season. She had spent six weeks in Bath^ and had enjoyed an occasional fortnight at Plymouth. She had been taken to theatres and concerts,, had seen some of the best actors and actresses^ heard a good deal of the finest music, and had been duly delighted with all she saw and heard. But she so fondly loved Mount Royal and its surroundings, she was so completely happy in her home life, that she had no desire to change that tranquil existence. She had a vague idea that London balls and parties must be something very dazzling and brilliant, but she was content to abide her aunt's pleasure and convenience for the time in which she was to know more about metropolitan revelries than was to be gathered from laudatory paragraphs in fashionable newspapers. Youth, with its warm blood and active spirit, is rarely so con- tented as Christabel was : but then youth is not often placed amidst such harmonious circumstances, so protected from the approach of evil. THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 2? Christabel Courtenay may have thought and talked more about Mr. Hamleigh during the two or three days that preceded his arrival than was absolutely necessary^, or strictly in accordance with that common-sense which characterized most of her acts and thoughts. She was interested in him upon two grounds — first, because he was the only son of the man her aunt had loved and mourned ; secondly, because he was the first stranger who had ever come as a guest to Mount Royal. Her aunt^s visitors were mostly people whose faces she had known ever since she could remember : there were such wide potentialities in the idea of a perfect stranger, who was to be domiciled at the Mount for an indefinite period. ^^ Suppose we don^t like him T' she said, specula- tively, to Jessie Bridgeman, Mrs. TregonelFs house- keeper, companion, and factotum, who had lived at Mount Royal for the last six years, coming there a girl of twenty, to make herself generally use- ful in small girlish ways, and proving herself such a clever manager, so bright, competent, and far-seeing, that she had been gradually entrusted with every 138 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. household care^ from the largest to the most minute. Miss Bridgeman was neither brilliant nor accomplished, but she had a genius for homely- things, and she was admirable as a companion. The two girls were out on the hills in the early autumn morning — hills that were golden where the sun touched them^ purple in the shadow. The heather was fading, the patches of furze-blossom were daily growing rarer. Yet the hill -sides were alive with light and colour, only less lovely than the translucent blues and greens of yonder wide- stretching sea. " Suppose we should all dislike him ?'' repeated Christabel, digging the point of her walking-stick into a ferny hillock on the topmost edge of a deep cleft in the hills, on which commanding spot she had just taken her stand, after bounding up the narrow path from the little wooden bridge at the bottom of the glen, almost as quickly and as lightly as if she had been one of the deeply ruddled sheep that spent their lives on those precipitous slopes ; " wouldn^t it be too dreadful, Jessie ?'' '' It would be inconvenient,^^ answered Miss THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 29 BridgemaH;, coolly^ resting both liancls on the horny crook of her sturdy umbrella,, and gazing placidly seaward ; " but we could cut him/^ " Not without offending Auntie. She is sure to like him, for the sake of Auld Lang Syne. Every look and tone of his will recall his father. But we may detest him. And if he should like Mount Royal very much, and go on staying there for ever ! Auntie asked him for an indefinite period. She showed me her letter. I thought it was rather too widely hospitable^ but I did not like to say so.^^ " I always say what I think/^ said Jessie Bridge - man, doggedly. ^' Of course you do, and go very near being dis- agreeable in consequence.^^ Miss Bridgeman^s assertion was perfectly correct. A sturdy truthfulness was one of her best qualifica- tions. She did not volunteer unfavourable criticism; but if you asked her opinion upon any subject you got it, without sophistication. It was her rare merit to have lived with Mrs. Tregonell and Chris- tabcl Courtenay six years, dependent upon their so THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. liking or caprice for all the comforts of her life, without having degenerated into a flatterer. ^^ I haven^t the slightest doubt as to your liking him/'' said Miss Bridgeman, decisively. '' He has spent his life for the most part in cities — and in good society. That I gather from your aunt's account of him. He is sure to be much more interesting and agreeable than the young men "who live near here_, whose ideas are^, for the most part^ strictly local. But I very much doubt his liking Mount Royalj for more than one week.'-' " Jessie/' cried Christabel, indignantly, '^ how can he help liking thisV She waved her stick across the autumn landscape, describing a circle which included the gold and bronze hills, the shadowy gorges, the bold headlands curving away to Hart- land on one side, to Tintagel on the other — Lundy Island a dim line of dun colour on the horizon . "No doubt he will think it beautiful — in the abstract. He will rave about it, compare it with the Scottish Highlands — with Wales — with Kerry, declare these Cornish hills the crowning THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 31 glory of Britain. But in three days he will begin to detest a place where there is only one post out and in^ and where he has to wait till next day for his morning paper.^"* " "What can he want with newspapers, if he is enjoying his life with us ? I am sure there are books enough at Mount Royal. He need not expire for want of something to read.^^ " Do you suppose that books — the best and noblest that ever were written — can make up to a man for the loss of his daily paper ? If you do, offer a man Shakespeare when he is looking for the Daily Telegraph, or Chaucer when he wants his Times, and see what he will say to you. Men don^t want to read nowadays, but to know — to be posted in the very latest movements of their fellow-men all over the universe. Renter's column is all anybody really cares for in the paper. The leaders and the criticism are only so much padding to fill the sheet. People would be better pleased if there were nothing but telegrams.'^ " A man who only reads newspapers must be a most vapid companion,-*^ said Christabel. 32 THE DAYS THAT ARE ^'0 MORE. ^^ Hardly, for he must be brim full of facts/'' " I abbor facts. Well, if Mr. Hamleigh is that kind of person, I hope he may be tired of the Mount in less than a week.^^ She was silent and thoughtful as they went home by the monastic churchyard in the hollow, the winding lane, and steep village street. Jessie had a message to carry to one of Mrs. TregonelFs pen- sioners, W'ho lived in a cottage in the lane ; but Christabel, who was generally pleased to show her fair young face in such abodes, waited outside on this occasion, and stood in a profound reverie, dig- ging the point of her stick into the loose earth of the mossy bank in front of her, and seriously damaging the landscape. '^ I hate a man who does not care for books, who does not love our dear English poets,^^ she said to herself. " But I must not say that before Auntie. It would be almost like saying that I hated my cousin Leonard. I hope Mr. Hamleigh will be — ^just a little different from Leonard. Of course he will, if his life has been spent in cities; but then he may be languid and supercilious, looking upon Jessie and THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 33 me as inferior creatures ; and that would be worse than Leonardos roughness. For we all know what a good heart Leonard has^ and how warmly attached he is to usJ' Somehow the idea of Leonardos excellent heart and affectionate disposition was not altogether a pleasant one. Christabel shuddered ever so faintly as she stood in the lane thinking of her cousin, who had last been heard of in the Fijis. She banished his image with an effort, and returned to her consideration of that unknown quantity, Angus Hamleigh. " I am an idiot to be making fancy pictures of him, when at seven o^clock this evening I shall know all about him for good or eviV^ she said aloud, as Jessie came out of the cottage, which nestled low down in its little garden, with a slate for a doorstep, and a slate standing on end at each side of the door, for boundary line, or ornament. "All that is to be known of the outside of him," said Jessie, answering the girFs outspoken thought. " If he is really worth knowing, his mind will need a longer study." VOL. I. D 34 THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. ^^ I think I shall know at the first glance if he is likeable/^ replied Christabel ; and then, with a tremendous effort, she contrived to talk about other things as they went down the High Street of Bos- castle, which, to people accustomed to a level world, is rather trying. With Christabel the hills were only an excuse for flourishing a Swiss walking-stick. The stick was altogether needless for support to that light well-balanced figure. Jessie, who was very small and slim and sure-footed, always carried her stout little umbrella, winter or summer. It was her vade-mecum — good against rain, or sun, or mad bulls, or troublesome dogs. She would have scorned the affectation of cane or alpenstock : but the sturdy umbrella was very dear to her. 35 CHAPTER 11. BUT THEN CAME ONE, THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. Although Angus Hamleigh came of a good old west country family, he had never been in Cornwall, and he approached that remote part of the country with a curious feeling that he was turning his back upon England and English civilization, and entering a strange wild land where all things would be different. He would meet with a half-barbarous people, per- haps, rough, unkempt, ignorant, brutal, speaking to him in a strange language — such men as inhabited Perthshire and Inverness before civilization travelled northward. He had accepted Mrs. TregonelFs in- vitation out of kindly feeling for the woman who had loved his father, and who, but for that father's untimely death, might have been to him as a second mother. There was a strong vein of sentiment in his character, which responded to the sentiment betrayed unconsciously in every line of Mrs. 36 BUT THEN CAME ONE, TregonelFs letter. His only knowledge of the father he had lost in infancy had come to him from the lips of others^ and it pleased him to think that here was one whose memory must be fresher than that of any other friend^ in whose mind his father^s image must needs be as a living thing. He had all his life cherished a regretful fondness for that unknown father, whose shadowy picture he had vainly tried to recall among the first faint recollec- tions of babyhood — the dim dreamland of half- awakened consciousness. He had frankly and promptly accepted Mrs. TregonelFs invitation ; yet he felt that in going to immure himself in an old manor house for a fort- night — anything less than a fortnight would have been uncivil — he was dooming himself to ineffable boredom. Beyond that pious pleasure in parental reminiscences, there could be no possible gratifica- tion for a man of the world, who was not an ardent sportsman, in such a place as Mount Royal. Mr. Hamleigh's instincts were of the town, towny. His pleasures were all of an intellectual kind. He had never degraded himself by vulgar profligacy. THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 37 but he liked a life of excitement and variety ; he had always lived at high pressure, and among people posted up to the last moment of the world^s history — people who drank the very latest pleasure cup which the Spirit of the Age — a Spirit of passing frivolity — had invented, were it only the newest brand of champagne; and who, in their eagerness to gather the roses of life, outstripped old Time himself, and grew old in advance of their age. He had been contemplating a fortnight in Paris, as the first stage in his journey to Monaco, when Mrs. TregonelFs letter altered his plans. This was not the first time she had [asked him to Mount Royal, but on previous occasions his engagements had seemed to him too imperative to be foregone, and he had regretfully declined her invitations. But now the flavour of life had grown somewhat vapid for him, and he was grateful to any one who would turn his thoughts and fancies into a new direction, " I shall inevitably be bored there,''^ he said to himself, when he had littered the railway carriage with newspapers accumulated on the way, ^' but I should be bored anywhere else. When a man 38 BUT THEN CAME ONE, begins to feel the pressure of the chain upon his leg, it cannot much matter where his walks lead him : the very act of walking is his punishment/' When a man comes to eight-and-twenty years of age — a man who has had very little to do in this life, except take his pleasure — a great weariness and sense of exhaustion is apt to close round him like a pall. The same man will be ever so much fresher in mind, will have ever so much more zest for life, when he comes to be forty — for then he will have entered upon those calmer enjoyments of middle age which may last him till he is eighty. But at eight-and- twenty there is a death-like calmness of feeling. Youth is gone. He has consumed all the first fruits of life — spring and summer, with their wealth of flowers, are over ; only the quiet autumn remains for him, with her warm browns and dull greys, and cool, moist breath. The fires upon youth^s altars have all died out — youth is dead, and the man who was young only yesterday fancies that he might as well be dead also. What is there left for him ? Can there be any charm in this life when the looker-on has grey hair and wrinkles ? THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 39 Having nothing in life to do except seek liis own pleasure and spend his ample income^ Angus Hamleigh had naturally taken the time of life's march prestissimo. He had never paused in his rose-gathering to wonder whether there might not be a few thorns among the flowers^ and whether he might not find them — afterwards. And now the blossoms were all withered^, and he was beginning to discover the lasting quality of the thorns. They were such thorns as interfered somewhat with the serenity of his days, and he was glad to turn his face west- ward, away from everybody he knew, or who knew anything about him. " My character will present itself to Mrs. Tre- gonell as a blank page/"* he said to himself; ^'^ I wonder what she would think of me if one of my club gossips had enjoyed a quiet evening's talk witli her beforehand. A dear friend's analysis of one's character and conduct is always so flattering to both; and I have a pleasant knack of offending my dearest friends V Mr. Hamleigh began to look about him a little 40 BUT THEN CAME ONE, when the train had left Plymouth. The land- scape was wild and romantic, but had none of that stern ruggedness which he expected to behold on the Cornish Border. Deep glens, and wooded dells, with hill-sides steep and broken, but verdant to their topmost crest, and the most wonderful oak coppices that he ever remembered to have seen. Miles upon miles of oak, as it seemed to him, now sinking into the depth of a valley, now mounting to the distant sky line, while from that verdant undulating surface of young wood there stood forth the giants of the grove — wide-spreading oak and towering beech, the mighty growth of many centuries. Between Lidford and Launceston the scenery grew tamer. He had fancied those deep ravines and wooded heights the prelude to a vast and awful symphony, but Mary Tavy and Lifton showed him only a pastoral landscape, with just so much wood and water as would have served for a Creswick or a Constable, and with none of those grand Salvatoresque effects which he had admired in the country round Tavistock. At Launceston he found Mrs. TregonelFs landau THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 41 waiting for him, with a pair of powerful chestnuts^ and a couple of servants, whose neat brown liveries had nothing of that unsophisticated semi- savagery which Mr. Hamleigh had expected in a place so remote. " Do you drive that way T' he asked, pointing to the almost perpendicular street. ^'Yes, sir/'' replied the coachman. " Then I think I'll stroll to the top of the hill while you are putting in my portmanteaux/' he said, and ascended the rustic street at a leisurely pace, looking about him as he went. The thoroughfare which leads from Launceston Station to the ruined castle at the top of the hill is not an imposing promenade. Its architectural features might perhaps be best described like the snakes of Ireland as nil — but here arid there an old-fashioned lattice with a row of flower-pots, an ancient gable, or a bit of cottage garden hints at the picturesque. Any late additions to the domestic architecture of Launceston favour the unpretending usefulness of Camden Town rather than the aspiring sestheticism of Chelsea or Bedford Park ; 42 BUT THEN CAME ONE, but to Mr. Hamleigh^s eye the rugged old castle keep on the top of the hill made amends. He was not an ardent archaeologist; and he did not turn out of his way to see Launceston Church, which might well have rewarded him for his trouble. He was content to have spared those good-looking chest- nuts the labour of dragging him up the steep. Here they came springing up the hill. He took his place in the carriage, pulled the fur rug over his knees, and ensconced himself comfortably in the roomy back seat. ^' This is a sybaritish luxury which I was not prepared for/-' he said to himself. " Vm. afraid I shall be rather more bored than I expected. I thought Mrs. Tregonell and her surroundings would at least have the merit of originality. But here is a carriage that must have been built by Peters, and liveries that suggest the sartorial excellence of Conduit Street or Savile Row.'''' He watched the landscape with a critical eye, prepared for disappointment and disillusion. First a country road between tall ragged hedges and steep banks, a road where every now and then THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 43- the branches of the trees hung low over the carriage and threatened to knock the coachman's hat off. Then they came out upon the wide waste of moorland, a thousand feet above the sea level,, and Mr. Hamleigh, acclimatized to the atmo- sphere of club-housesj buttoned his overcoat, drew the black fur rug closer about him, and shivered a little as the keen breath of the Atlantic, sweeping over far-reaching tracts of hill and heather, blew round him. Far and wide as his gaze could reach, he saw no sign of human habitation. Was the land utterly forsaken ? No ; a little farther on they passed a hamlet so insignificant, so isolated, that it seemed rather as if half a dozen cottages had dropped from the sky than that so lonely a settle- ment could be the result of deliberate human in- clination. Never in Scotland or Ireland had Mr. Hamleigh seen a more barren landscape or a poorer soil; yet those wild w^astes of heath, those distant tors were passing beautiful, and the air he breathed was more inspiring and exhilarating than the atmosphere of any vaunted health-resort which he had ever visited. 44 BUT THEN CAME ONE, '' I think I might live to middle age if I were to pitch my tent on this Cornish plateau/' he thought; '^ but, then, there are so many things in this life that are worth more than mere length of days/' He asked the names of the hamlets they passed. This lonely church, dedicated to St. David — whence, oh ! whence came the congregation — belonged to the parish of Davidstowe; and here there was a holy well ; and here a Vicarage ; and there — oh ! crowning evidence of civilization — a post-office ; and there a farm-house ; and that was the end of Davidstowe. A little later they came to cross Toads, and the coachman touched his hat, and said, " This is Victoria,'' as if he were naming a town or settlement of some kind. Mr. Hamleigh looked about him, and beheld a low-roofed cottage, which he assumed to be some kind of public-house, possibly capable of supplying beer and tobacco ; but other vestige of human habitation there was none. He leant back in the carriage, looking across the hills, and saying to himself, " Why, Victoria ?" Was that unpretentious and somewhat dilapidated hostelry the Victoria Hotel ? or the THE LOVELACE OE HIS DAY. 45- Victoria Arms ? or was Royalty^s honoured name given^ in an arbitrary manner^ to the cross roads- and the granite finger-post ? He never knew. The coachman said shortly^ " Victoria/^ and a& " Victoria" he ever after heard that spot described. And now the journey was all downhill. They drove downward and downward, until Mr. Ham- leigh began to feel as if they were travelling towards the centre of the earth — as if they had got altogether below the outer crust of this globe^ and must be gradually nearing the unknown gulfs beneath. Yet, by some geographical mystery, when they turned out of the high road and went in at a lodge gate^ and drove gently upward along an avenue of elms, in whose rugged tops the rooks were screaming_, Mr. Hamleigh found that he was still high above the undulating edges of the cliffs that overtopped the Atlantic, while the great waste of waters lay far below, golden with the last rays of the setting sun. They drove, by a gentle ascent, to the stone porch of Mount Royal, and here Mrs. Tregonell stood, facing the sunset, with an 46 BUT THEN CAME ONE, Indian shawl wrapped round her, waiting for her guest. '^ I heard the carriage, Mr. Hamleigh/^ she said, as Angus alighted ; '^ I hope you do not think me too impatient to see what change twelve years have made in you ? '' " I^m afraid they have not been particularly advantageous to me/'' he answered, lightly, as they shook hands. '^ How good of you to receive me on the threshold ! and what a delightful place you have here ! Before I got to Launceston, I began to be afraid that Cornwall was commonplace — and now I am enchanted with it. Your moors and hills are like fairy-land to me ! '^ " It is a world of our own, and we are very fond of it,''^ said the widow ; ^' I shall be sorry if ever a railway makes Boscastle open to every- body.^' '^ And what a noble old house ! '' exclaimed Angus, as he followed his hostess across the oak- panelled hall, with its wide shallow staircase, curiously carved balustrades, and lantern roof. "Are you quite alone here?'' THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAV. 47 '' Oh, no ; I have my niece^ and a young lady ivho is a companion to both of us." Angus Hamleigh shuddered. Three women ! He was to exist for a fortnight in a house with three solitary females. A niece and a companion ! The niece, rustic and gawky ; the companion sour and frumpish. He began^ hurriedly, to cast about in his mind for a con- venient friendj to whom he could telegraph to send him a telegram, summoning him back to London on urgent business. He was still meditating this, when the butler opened the door of a spacious room, lined from floor to ceiling with books, and he followed Mrs. Tregonell in, and found himself in the bosom of the family. The simple picture of home-comfort, of restfulness and domestic peace, which met his curious gaze as he entered, pleased him better than anything he had seen of late. Club life — with its too studious indulgence of man's native selfishness and love of ease — fashionable life, with its insatiable craving for that latter-day form of display which calls itself Culture, Art, or Beauty — had afforded him no vision so enchanting 48 BUT THEN CAME ONE, as the wide hearth and high chimney of this sober, book-lined room, with the fair and girlish form kneeling in front of the old dogstove, framed in the glaring light of the fire. The tea-table had been wheeled near the hearth, and Miss Bridgeman sat before the bright red tea- tray, and old brass kettle, ready to administer to the wants of the traveller, who would be hardly human if he did not thirst for a cup of tea after driving across the moor. Christabel knelt in front of the fire, worshipping, and being worshipped by, a sleek black-and-white sheep-dog, native to the soil, and of a rare intelligence — a creature by no means approaching the Scotch colley in physical beauty, but of a fond and faithful nature, born to be the friend of man. As Christabel rose and turned to greet the stranger, Mr. Hamleigh was agreeably reminded of an old picture — a Lely or a Kneller, perhaps. This was not in any wise the rustic image which had flashed across his mind at the mention of Mrs. TregonelFs niece. He had ex- pected to see a bouncing, countryfied maiden — rosy, buxom, the picture of commonplace health THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 49 and vigour. The girl he saw was nearer akin to the lily than the rose — tall, slender, dazzlingly fair — not fragile or sickly in anywise — for the erect figure was finely moulded, the swan-like throat was round and full. He was prepared for 6he florid beauty of a milkmaid, and he found himself face to face with the elegance of an ideal duchess, the picturesque loveliness of an old Venetian portrait. Christabel's dark brown velvet gown and square point lace collar, the bright hair falling in shadowy curls over her forehead, and rolled into a loose knot at the back of her head, sinned in no wise against Mr. Hamleigh^s notions of good taste. There was a picturesqueness about the style which indicated that Miss Courtenay belonged to that .advanced section of womankind which takes its ideas less from modern fashion-plates than from old pictures. So long as her archaism went no further back than Vandyke or Moroni he would admire and approve ; but he shuddered at the thought that to-morrow she might burst upon him in a meditcval morning-gown, with high-shouldcrcd VOL. I. E 50' BUT THEN CAME ONE, sleeves, a ruff, and a satchel. The picturesque idea? was good, within limits ; but one never knew how far it might go. There was nothing picturesque about the lady sitting before the tea-tray, who looked up brightly, and gave him a gracious bend of her small neat head, in acknowledgment of Mrs. TregonelFs in- troduction — '' Mr. Hamleigh, Miss Bridgeman V This was the companion — and the companion was plain : not unpleasantly plain, not in any manner repulsive, but a lady about whose looks there could be hardly any compromise. Her com- plexion was of a sallow darkness^ unrelieved by any glow of colour; her eyes were grey^ acute, honest,, friendly, but not beautiful; her nose was sharp and pointed — not at all a bad nose ; but there was a hardness about nose and mouth and chin, as of features cut out of bone with a very sharp knife. Her teeth were good^ and in a lovelier mouth might have been the object of much admiration. Her hair was of that nondescript monotonous browu which has been unkindly called bottle-green, but it was arranged with admirable neatness, and offended THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 51 less than many a tangled pate, upon whose locks of spurious gold the owner has wasted much time and money. There was nothing unpardonable in Miss Bridgeman's plainness, as Angus Hamleigli said of her later. Her small figure was neatly made, and her dark-grey gown fitted to perfection. ^^ I hope you like the little bit of Cornwall that you have seen this afternoon, Mr. Hamleigh,^^ said Christabel, seating herself in a low chair in the shadow of the tall chimney-piece, fenced in by her aunt^s larger chair. ^' I am enraptured with it ! I came here with the desire to be intensely Cornish. I am prepared to believe in witches — warlocks '■ " We have no warlocks," said Christabel. ^'^ They belong to the North.'^ " Well, then, wise women — wicked young men who play football on Sunday, and get themselves turned into granite — rocking stones — magic wells — Druids — and King Arthur. I believe the principal point is to be open to conviction about Arthur. Now, I am prepared to swallow everything — his castle — the river where his crown was found after e2 52 BUT THEN CAME ONE, the fight — was it his crown, by-the-by, or some- body else^s ? which he found — his hair-brushes — his boots — anything you please to show me/' •^^We will show you his quoit to-morrow, on the road to Tintagel/' said Miss Bridgeman. " I don't think you would like to swallow that actually. He hurled it from Tintagel to Trevalga in one of his sportive moods. We shall be able to give you plenty of amusement if you are a good walker, and are fond of hills.'' " I adore them in the abstract, contemplated from one's windows, or in a picture; but there is an incompatibility between the human anatomy and a road set on end, like a ladder, which I have never yet overcome. Apart from the outside question of my legs — which are obvious failures when tested by an angle of forty- five degrees — I'm afraid my internal machinery is not quite so tough as it ought to be for a thorough enjoyment of moun- taineering." Mrs. Tregonell sighed, ever so faintly, in the twilight. She was thinking of her first lover, and how that fragility, which meant early death, had THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 53 showed itself in his inability to enjoy the moorland walks which were the delight of her girlhood. "The natural result of bad habits/'' said Miss Bridgeman, briskly. '^ How can you expect to be strong or active^ when I dare say you have spent the better part of your life in hansom cabs and express trains ! I don^t mean to be impertinent^ but I know that is the general way with gentlemen out of the shooting and hunting season/^ ^' And as I am no sportsman, I am a somewhat exaggerated example of the vice of laziness fos- tered by congenial circumstances, acting on a lymphatic temperament. If you write books, as I believe most ladies do now-a-days, you should put me into one of them, as an awful warning/^ " I don^t write books, and, if I did, I would not flatter your vanity by making you my model sinner," retorted Jessie ; " but 1^11 do something better for you, if Christabel will help me. 1^11 reform you." " A million thanks for the mere thought ! I hope the process will be pleasant." " I hope so, too. We shall begin by walking you off your legs." 54 BUT THEN CAME ONE, ^' They are so indiflerent as a means of locomo- tion that I could very well afford to lose them_, if you could hold out any hope of my getting a better pair/^ '' A week hence, if you submit to my treatment^ you will be as active as the chamois hunter in '' Manfred/ '' " Enchanting — always provided that you and Miss Courtenay will follow the chase with me/'' '^ Depend upon it, we shall not trust you to take your walks alone, unless you have a pedometer which will bear witness to the distance you have done, and which you will be content to submit to our inspection on your return,'' replied Jessie, sternly. " I am afraid you are a terribly severe high priestess of this new form of culture," said Mr. Hamleigh, looking up from his tea-cup with a lazy smile, ** almost as bad as the Dweller on the Threshold, in Bulwer's ' Zanoni.' " " There is a dweller on the threshold of every science and every admirable mode of life, and his name is Idleness,'' answered Miss Bridgeman. " The vis inertice, the force of letting things alone," THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 55 said Angus ; " yes, tliat is a tremendous power, nobly exemplified by vestries and boards of works — to say nothing of Cabinets, Bishops, and the High Court of Chancery ! I delight in that verse of Scripture, ' Their strength is to sit still/ '^ " There shall be very little sittiDg still for you if you submit yourself to Christabel and me,^^ replied Miss Bridgeman. " I have never tried the water-cure — the descrip- tions I have heard from adepts have been too repellent ; but I have an idea that this, system of yours must be rather worse than hydropathy,^^ said Angus, musingly — evidently very much entertained at the way in which Miss Bridgeman had taken him in hand. " I was not going to let him pose after Lamartine^s 'poete mourant, just because his father died of lung disease,^' said Jessie, ten minutes after- wards, when the warning gong had sounded, and Mr. Hamleigh had gone to his room to dress for dinner, and the two young women were Avhispering together before the fire, while Mrs. Trcgonell indulged in a placid doze. 56 BUT THEN CAME ONE, *'Do you think he is consumptive, like hia father?" asked Christabel, with a compassionate look j *' he has a very delicate appearance.*' " Hollow-cheeked, and prematurely old^ like a man who has lived on tobacco and brandy-and-soda^ and has spent his nights in club-house card-rooms." " We have no right to suppose that," said Christabel;, " since we know really nothing about him." *' Major Bree told me he has lived a racketty life, and that if he were not to pull up very soon he would be ruined both in health and fortune." " What can the Major know about him ?" ex- claimed Christabel, contemptuously. This Major Bree was a great friend of ChristabeFs; but there are times when one^s nearest and dearest are too provoking for endurances. * "Major Bree has been buried alive in Cornwall for the last twenty years. He is at least a quarter of a century behind the age," she said, impatiently. *' He spent a fortnight in London the year before last," said Jessie ; ^* it was then that he heard such a bad account of Mr. Hamleigh." THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 0/ " Did he go about to clubs and places malvinoj in- quiries, like a private detective ?" said Christabel, still contemptuous ; " I bate such fetching and carrying!'^ " Here he comes to answer for himself/^ replied Jessie, as the door opened, and a servant announced Major Bree. Mrs. Tregonell started from her slumbers at the opening of the door_, and rose to greet her guesto He was a very frequent visitor^ so frequent that he might be said to live at Mount Royal, although his nominal abode was a cottage on the outskirts of Boscastle — a stone cottage on the crest of a steep hill-side, with a delightful little garden, perched, as it were, on the edge of a verdant abyss. He was tall, stout, elderly, grey, and florid — altogether a comfortable-looking man, clean- shaved, save for a thin grey moustache with the genuine cavalry droop,, iron grey eyebrows, which looked like a repetition of the moustache on a somewhat smaller scale, keen grey eyes, a pleasant smile, and a well set-up figure. He dressed well, with a sobriety becoming his years, and was always the pink of neatness. A man welcome everywhere, on account of an inborn 58 pleasantness;, whicli prompted liim always to say and do the riglit thing; but most of all welcome at Mount Royal_, as a first cousin of the late Squire''s, and Mrs. Tregoneirs guide^ philosopher, and friend in all matters relating to the outside world, of which, despite his twenty years^ hybernation at Boscastle, the widow supposed him to be an acute observer and an infallible judge. Was he not one of the few inhabitants of that western village who took in the Times newspaper ? " Well V exclaimed Major Bree, addressing him- self generally to the three ladies, " he has come — what do you think of him ?' ^' He is painfully like his poor father,^^ said Mrs. Tregonell. " He has a most interesting face and winning manner, and I^ii afraid we shall all get ridiculously fond of him/^ said Miss Bridgeman, decisively. Christabel said nothing. She knelt on the hearth-rug, playing with Randie, the black-and- white sheep-dog. "And what have you to say about him, Chris- tabel?'' asked the Major. THE LOV^ELACE OF HIS DAY. 59 '^ Notliing. I have not had time to form an opinion," replied the girl ; and then lifting her clear bine eyes to the Major^s friendly face, she said^ gravely, "bat I think, Uncle Oliver, it was very unkind and unfair of you to prejudice Jessie against him before he came here/^ " Unkind ! — unfair ! Kerens a shower of abuse ! I prejudice 1 Oh ! I remember. Mrs. Tre- gonell asked me what people thought of him in London, and I was obliged to acknowledge that his reputation was — well — no better than that of the majority of young men who have more money than common sense. But that was two years ago — Nous avo7is change tout cela I'' " If he was wicked then, he must be wicked now/' said Christabel. " Wicked is a monstrously strong word V said the Major. " Besides, that does not follow. A man may have a few wild oats to sow, and yet become a very estimable person afterwards. Miss Bridgeman is tremendously sharp — she'll be able to find out all about Mr. Hamleigh from personal observation before he has been here a 60 BUT THExV CAME ONE, week. I defy him to hide his weak points from her/^ -' What is the use of being plain and insignificant if one has not some advantage over one's superior fellow- creatures T' asked Jessie. " Miss Bridgeman has too much expression to be plain, and she is far too clever to be insignificant/' said Major Bree, with a stately bow. He always put on a stately manner when he addressed himself to Jessie Bridgeman, and treated her in all things with as much respect as if she had been a queen. He explained to Christabel that this was the homage which he paid to the royalty of intellect; but Christabel had a shrewd suspicion that the Major cherished a secret passion for Miss Bridgeman, as exalted and as hopeless as the love that Chastelard bore for Mary Stuart. He had only a small pittance besides his half-pay, and he had a very poor opinion of his own merits ; so it was but natural that, at fifty-five, he should hesitate to off'er himself to a young lady of six-and-twenty, of whose sharp tongue he had a wholesome awe. Mr. Hamleish came back before much more THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. Gl could be said about him, and a few minutes after- wards they all went in to dinner, and in tlie brighter lamplight of the dining-room Major Bree and the three ladies had a better opportunity of forming their opinion as to the external graces of their guesfe. He was good-looking — that fact even malice could hardly dispute. Not so handsome as the absent Leonard, Mrs. Tregonell told herself complacently; but she was constrained at the same time to acknow- ledge that her son^s broadly moulded features and florid complexion lacked the charm and interest which a woman^s eye found in the delicate chiselling and subdued tones of Angus Hamleigh's countenance. His eyes were darkest grey, his complexion was fair and somewhat pallid, his hair brown, with a natural curl which neither fashion nor the barber could altogether suppress. His cheeks were more sunken than they should have been at eight-and-twenty, and the large dark eyes were unnaturally bright. All this the three ladies and Major Bree had ample time for observing, during the leisurely course of dinner. There was no flagging in the conversation, from the 02 BUT THEN CAME ONE, beginning to the end of the repast. Mr. Hamleigh was ready to talk about anything and everything, and his interest in the most trifling local subjects,, whether real or assumed^ made him a delightful companion. In the drawing-room^ after dinner, he proved even more admirable; for he discovered a taste for, and knowledge of, the best music, which delighted Jessie and Christabel, who were both enthusiasts. He had read every book they cared for — and a wide world of books besides — and was able to add to their stock of information upon all their favourite subjects, without the faintest touch of arrogance. " I don^t think you can help liking him, Jessie,^^ said Christabel, as the two girls went upstairs to bed. The younger lingered a little in Miss Bridgeman's room for the discussion of their latest ideas. There was a cheerful fire burning in the large basket grate^ for autumn nights were chill upon that wild coast. Christabel assumed her favourite attitude in front of the fire, with her faithful Kandie winking and blinking at her and the fire alternately. He was a privileged dog — allowed to sleep on a sheepskin mat THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 63 in the gallery outside liis mistress's door, and to go into her room every morniug_, in company with the maid who carried her early cup of tea; when, after the exchange of a few remarks, in baby language on her part^ and expressed on his by a series of curious grins and much wagging of his insignificant apology for a tail, he would dash out of the room, and out of the house, for his morning constitutional among the sheep upon some distant hill — coming home with an invigorated appetite, in time for the family breakfast at nine o'clock. ^' I don't think you can help liking him — as — as a casual acquaintance !" repeated Christabel, finding that Jessie stood in a dreamy silence, twisting her one diamond ring — a birthday gift from Miss Courtenay — round and round upon her slender finger. "1 don^t suppose any of us can help liking him,'^ Jessie answered at last, with her eyes on the fire. " All I hope is, that some of us will not like him too much. He has brought a new element into our lives — a new interest — which may end by being a painful one. I feel distrustful of him." '64 "Why distrustful? Why, Jessie, you who are gene- rally the very essence of flippancy — who make light of almost everything in life — except religion — thank God, you have not come to that yet ! — you to be so serious about such a trifling matter as a visit from a man who will most likely be gone back to London in a fortnight — gone out of our lives altogether, perhaps : for I don't suppose he will care to repeat his experiences in a lonely country-house.'' " He may be gone, perhaps — yes — and it is quite possible that he may never return — but shall we be quite the same after he has left us ? AVill nobody regret him — wish for his return — yearn for it — sigh for it — die for it— feeling life worthless — a burthen, without him ?" " Why, Jessie, you look like a Pythoness/' ^* Belle, Belle, my darling, my innocent one, you do not know what it is to care — for a bright particular star — and know how remote it is from your life — never to be brought any nearer ! I felt afraid to- night when I saw you and Mr. Hamleigh at the piano — you playing, he leaning over you as you THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 65 played — both seeming so happy, so united by the sympathy of the moment! If he is not a good m an — if '' " But we have no reason to think ill of him. You remember what Uncle Oliver said — he had only been — a — a little racketty, like other young men/^ said Christabel, eagerly; and then, with a sudden embarrassment, reddening and laughing shyly, she added, ^^ and indeed, Jessie, if it is any idea of danger to me that is troubling your wise head, there is no need for alarm. I am not made of such inflam- mable stuff" — I am not the kind of girl to fall in love with the first comer." " With the first comer no ! But when the Prince comes in a fairy tale, it matters little whether he come first or last. Fate has settled the whole story beforehand." ^^ Fate has had nothing to say about me and Mr. Hamleigh. No, Jessie, believe me, there is no danger for me — and I don^t suppose that you are going to fall in love with him ?" " Because I am so old ?" said Miss Bridgeman, still looking at the fire ; " no, it would be rather VOL. I. F 66 BUT THEM CAME ONE, ridiculous in a person of my age_, plain and passee, to fall in love with your Alcibiades/^ " No^ Jessie, but because you are too wise ever to be carried away by a sentimental fancy. But why do you speak of him so contemptuously ? One would think you had taken a dislike to him. We ought at least to remember that he is my aunt^s friend, and the son of some one she once dearly loved.^^ " Once/^ repeated Jessie^ softly ; " does not once in that case mean always ?" She was thinking of the Squire^s commonplace good looks and portly figure, as represented in the big picture in the dining-room — the picture of a man in a red coat^ leaning against the shoulder of a big bay horse, and with a pack of harriers fawning round him — and wondering whether the image of that dead man, whose son was in the house to-night, had not sometimes obtruded itself upon the calm plenitude of Mrs. TregonelPs domestic joys. " Don^t be afraid that I shall forget my duty to your aunt or your aunt's guest, dear/'' she said suddenly; as if awaking from a reverie. ^'^You THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 67 and I will do all in our power to make him happy, and to shake him out of lazy London ways^ and then^ when we have patched up his health, and the moorland air has blown a little colour into his hollow cheeks, we will send him back to his clubs and his theatres, and forget all about him. And now, good-night, my ChristabeV'' she said, looking at her watch ; " see ! it is close upon midnight — dread- ful dissipation for Mount Royal, where half-past ten is the usual hour." Christabel kissed her and departed,, Randie following to the door of her chamber — such a pretty room, with old panelled walls painted pink and grey, old furniture, old china, snowy draperies, and books — a girFs daintily bound books, selected and purchased by herself — in every avail- able corner ; a neat cottage piano in a recess, a low easy-chair by the fire, with a five-o^clock tea-table in front of it; desks, portfolios, work-baskets — all the frivolities of a girFs life ; but everything arranged with a womanly neatness which indicated industrious habits and a well-ordered mind. No scattered sheets of music — no fancy-work pitch-and- tossed r2 68 BUT THEN CAME OIS'E, about the room — uo slovenliness claiming to be excused as artistic disorder. Christabel said her prayers^ and read her accustomed portion of Scripture, but not without some faint wrestlings with Satan, who on this occasion took the shape of Angus Hamleigh. Her mind was overcharged with wonder at this new phenomenon in daily life, a man so entirely different from any of the men she had ever met hitherto — so accomplished, so highly cultured ; yet taking his accomplishments and culture as a thing of course, as if all men were so. She thought of him as she lay awake for the first hour of the still night, watching the fire fade and die, and listening to the long roll of the waves, hardly audible at Mount Royal amidst all the common- place noises of day, but heard in the solemn silence of night. She let her fancies shape a vision of her aunt's vanished youth — that one brief bright dream of happiness, so miserably broken ! — and wondered and wondered how it was possible for any one to outhve such a grief. Still more incredible did it seem that any one who had so loved and so THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. 69 lost could ever listen to another lover ; and yet the thing had been done, and Mrs. Tregonell's married life had been called happy. She always spoke of the Squire as the best of men — was never weary of praising him — loved to look up at his portrait on the wall — preserved every unpicturesque memorial of his unpicturesque life — heavy gold and silver snuff-boxes, clumsy hunting crops, spurs, guns, fishing-rods. The relics of his murderous pursuits would have filled an arsenal. And how fondly she loved the son who resembled that departed father — save in lacking some of his best qualities ! How she doated on Leonard, the most commonplace and unattractive of young men ! The thought of her cousin set Christabel on a new train of speculation. If Leonard had been at home when Mr. Hamleigh came to Mount Royal, how would they two have suited each other ? Like fire and water, like oil and vinegar, like the wolf and the lamb, like any two creatures most antagonistic by nature. It was a happy accident that Leonard was away. She was still thinking when she fell asleep, with that uneasy sense of pain and trouble in the future 70 BUT THEN CAME ONE, THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY. whicli was always suggested to her by Leonardos image — a dim unshapen difficulty waiting for her somewhere along the untrodden road of her life — a lion in the path. 71 CHAPTER III. '' TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LANd/'' There was no sense of fear or trouble of any kind in the mind of anybody next morning after break- fast, -when Christabel, Miss Bridgeman, and Mr. Hamleigh started, in the young lady^s own particular pony carriage, for an exploring day, attended by Randie, who was intensely excited, and furnished with a pic-nic basket which made them independent of the inn at Trevena, and afforded the opportunity of taking one^s luncheon under difiSculties upon a windy height, rather than with the commonplace comforts of an hotel parlour, guarded against wind and weather. They were going to do an immense deal upon this first day. Christabel, in her eagerness, wanted to exhibit all her lions at once. " Of course, you must see Tintagel," she said ; '^ everybody who comes to this part of the world is 72 "tintagel, half in sea, and half on land." in a tremendous hurry to see King Arthur's castle. I have known people set out in the middle of the night." '^ And have you ever known any one of them •who was not just a little disappointed wdth that stupendous monument of traditional royalty?" asked Miss Bridgeman_, with her most prosaic air, '^They expect so much — halls, and towers, and keep, and chapel — and find only ruined walls, and the faint indication of a grave-yard. King Arthur is a name to conjure with, and Tintagel is like Mont Blanc or the Pyramids. It can never be so grand as the vision its very name has evoked." " I blush to say that I have thought very little about Tintagel hitherto," said Mr. Hamleigh; "it has not been an integral part of my existence ; so my expectations are more reasonable than those of the enthusiastic tourist. I promise to be delighted with your ruins." " Oh, but you will pretend," said Christabel, " and that will be hateful ! I would rather have to deal with one of those provoking people who look about them blankly, and exclaim, ^ Is this all?' TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." 7'3< and who stand in the very centre of Arthur^s Hall, and ask, ^ And, pray, where is Tintagel ? — when are we to see the castle ?^ No ! give me the man who can take in the grandeur of that wild height at a glance, and whose fancy can build up those ruined walls, re-create those vanished towers, fill the halls with knights in shining armour, and lovely ladies — see Guinevere herself upon her throne — clothed in white samite — mystic, wonderful V "And with Lancelot in the background,''^ said Mr. Hamleigh. " I think the less we say about Guinevere the better, and your snaky Vivien, and your senile Merlin, your prying ^lodred. What a disreputable set these Round Table people seem to have been altogether — they need have been dead thirteen hundred years for us to admire them \" They were driving along the avenue by this time^ the stout chestnut cob going gaily in the fresh morning air — Mr„ Hamleigh sitting face to face with Christabel as she drove. What a fair face it was in the clear light of day ! How pure and delicate every tone, from the whiteness of the lily to the bloom of the wild rose ! How innocent the cxprcs- 74 ^'tintaqel, half in sea, axd half ox land. sion of the large liquid eyes^ which seemed to smile at him as he talked ! He had known so many pretty women — his memory was like a gallery of beautiful faces ; but he could recall no face so com- pletely innocent, so divinely young. ^' It is the youthfulness of an unsullied mind/^ he said to him- self; " I have known plenty of girls as young in years, but not one perfectly pure from the taint of worldliness and vanity. The trail of the serpent was over them all \" They drove down hill into Boscastle^ and then straightway began to ascend still steeper hills upon the other side of the harbour. '^ You ought to throw a viaduct across the valley/-' said Mr. Hamleigh — '' something like Brune?s bridge at Saltash ; but perhaps you have hardly traffic enough to make it pay." They went winding up the new road to Trevena, avoiding the village street, and leaving the Church of the Silent Tower on its windy height on their right hand. The wide Atlantic lay far below them on the other side of those green fields which bordered the road; the air they breathed was keen with the soft ^^TINTAGEL^ HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." 75 breath of the sea. But autumn had hardly plucked a leaf from the low storm-beaten trees^ or a flower from the tall hedgerows, where the red blossom of the Ragged Robin mixed with the pale gold of the hawk- weed, and the fainter yellow of the wild cistus. The ferns had hardly begun to wither_, and Angus Ham- leigh;, whose last experiences had been among the stone walls of Aberdeenshire, wondered at the luxuriance of this western worlds where the banks were built up and fortified with boulders of marble-veined spar. They drove through the village of Trevalga^ in which there is never an inn or public-house of any kind — not even a cottage licensed for the sale of beer. There was the wheelwright^ carpenter,, builder, Jack-of-all-trades, with his shed and his yard — the blacksmith, with his forge going merrily — village school — steam threshing-machine at work — church — chapel; but never a drop of beer — and yet the people at Trevalga are healthy, and industrious, and decently clad, and altogether comfortable looking. " Some day we will take you to call at the Rec- tory," said Christabel, pointing skywards with her whip. 7G ''tintagel, half in sea, and half on land." " Do you mean that the Eector has gone to Heaven ?■'■' asked Angus, looking up into the distant blue ; " or is there any earthly habitation higher than the road on which we are driving." " Didn^t you see the end of the lane, just now ?" asked Christabel, laughing ; " it is rather steep — an uphill walk all the way ; but the views are lovely." " We will walk to the Rectory to-morrow," said Miss Bridgeman ; " this lazy mode of transit must not be tolerated after to-day." Even the drive to Trevena was not all idleness; for after they had passed the entrance to the path leading to the beautiful waterfall of St. Nectan^s Kieve, hard by St. Piran^s chapel and well — the former degraded to a barn, and the latter, once of holy repute, now chiefly useful as a cool repository for butter from the neighbouring dairy of Trethevy Farm — they came to a hill, which had to be walked down ; to the lowest depth of the Rocky Valley, where a stone bridge spans the rapid brawling stream that leaps as a waterfall into the gorge at St. Nectan's Kieve, about a mile higher up the valley. And then they came to a corresponding hill, which had to be "tINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." 11 walked up — because in either case it was bad for the cob to have a weight behind him. Indeed, the cob was so accustomed to consideration in this matter, that he made a point of stopping politely for his people to alight at either end of anything exceptional in the way of a hill. '■'■ Vvn afraid you spoil your pony/^ said Mr. Hamleigh, throwing the reins over his arm, and resigning himself to a duty which made him feel very much like a sea-side flyman, earning his day's wages toilsomely, and saving his horse with a view to future fares. " Better that than to spoil you," answered Miss Bridgeman, as she and Christabel walked briskly beside him. " But if you fasten the reins to the dashboard, you may trust Felix." " Won't he run away ?" " Not he," answered Christabel. " He knows that he would never be so happy with anybody else as he is with us." " But mightn't he take a fancy for a short run ; just far enough to allow of his reducing that dainty little carriage to match- wood ? A well-fed under- 78 ^'TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND. worked pony so thoroughly enjoys that kind of thing/' ^' Felix has no such diabolical suggestions. He is a conscientious person, and knows his duty. Besides, he is not underworked. There is hardly a day that he does not carry us somewhere .''' Mr. Hamleigh surrendered the reins, and Felix showed himself worthy of his mistress's confidence, following at her heels like a dog, with his honest brown eyes fixed on the slim tall figure, as if it had been his guiding star. " I want you to admire the landscape,'' said Christabel, when they were on the crest of the last hill ; " is not that a lovely valley ?" Mr. Hamleigh willingly admitted the fact. The beauty of a pastoral landscape, with just enough of rugged wildness for the picturesque, could go no further. " Creswick has immortalized yonder valley by his famous picture of the mill," said Miss Bridgeman, " but the romantic old mill of the picture has lately been replaced by that large ungainly building, quite out of keeping with its surroundings." ^'tIXTAGEL, half IX SEA, AST) HALF OX LAND." 79 '' Have you ever been in Switzerland ?" asked Angus of Christabelj when they had stood for some moments in silent contemplation of the landscape. " Never/' ^' Nor in Italy ?'' ^'No. T have never been out of England. Since I was five years old I have hardly spent a year of my life out of Cornwall/' *' Happy Cornwall,, which can show so fair a product of its soil ! Well, Miss Courtenay, I know Italy and Switzerland by heart, and I like this Cornish landscape better than either. It is not so beautiful — it would not do as well for a painter or a poet ; but it comes nearer an Englishman's heart. What can one have better than the hills and the sea ? Switzerland can show you bigger hills^ ghostly snow-shrouded pinnacles that mock the eye, following each other like a line of phantoms, losing themselves in the infinite; but Switzerland cannot showyouthat." He pointed to the Atlantic : the long undulating line of the coast, rocky, rugged, yet verdant, with many a curve and promontory, many a dip and rise. ^^ It is the most everlasting kind of beaut}^, is it 80 "tintagel, halp in sea, and half on land." not?^^ asked Christabel, delighted at this little gush of warm feeling in one whose usual manner was so equable. ^^One could never tire of the sea. And I am always proud to remember that our sea is so big — stretching away and away to the New World. I should have liked it still better before the days of Columbus J when it led to the unknown V^ '' Ah !" sighed Angus^ ^^ youth alway yearns for the undiscovered. Middle age knows that there is nothing worth discovering V^ On the top of the hill they paused for a minute or so to contemplate the ancient Borough of Bossiney, which^ until disfranchised in 1832^ re- turned two members to Parliament^ with a con- stituency of little more than a dozen^ and which once had Sir Francis Drake for its representative. Here Mr. Hamleigh beheld that modest mound called the Castle Hill^ on the top of which it was customary to read the writs before the elections. An hour later they were eating their luncheon on that windy height where once stood the castle of the great king. To Christabel the whole story of Arthur and his knights was as real as if it had been ^'tintageLj half in sea, and half on land." 81 a part of her OAvn life. She had Tennyson^s Arthur and Tennyson^s Lancelot in her heart of hearts, and knew just enough of Sir Thomas Mallory's prose to give substance to the Laureate's poetic shadows. Angus amused himself a little at her expense, as they ate their chicken and salad on the grassy mounds which were supposed to be the graves of heroes who died before Athelstane drove the Cornish across the Tamar, and made his victorious progress through the country, even to the Scilly Isles, after defeating Howel, the last JCing of Cornwall. • ^^ Do you really think that gentlemanly creature in the Laureate's epic — that most polished and per- fect and most intensely modern English gentleman, self-contained, considerate of others, always the right man in the right place — is one whit like that half-naked sixth century savage — the real Arthur — whose Court costume was a coat of blue paint, and whose war-shriek was the yell of a Red Lidian ? What can be more futile than our setting up any one Arthur, and bowing the knee before him, in the face of the fact that Great Britain teems with monu- VOL. I. G 82 '^TINTAGELj HALF IX SEA^ AND HALF ON LAND." ments of Arthurs- — Artliur^s Seat in Scotland, Arthur's Castle in Wales^ Arthur's Round Table here, there, and everywhere ? Be sure that Arthur — Ardheer — the highest chief — was a generic name for the princes of those days, and that there were more Arthurs than ever there were Caesars." " I don't believe one word you say," exclaimed Christabel, indignantly; ^^ there was only one Arthur, the son of Uther and Ygerne, who was born in the castle that stood on this very cliff, on the first night of the year, and carried away in secret by Merlin, and reared in secret by Sir Anton's wife — the brave good Arthur — the Christian king — who was killed at the battle of Camlan, near Slaughter Bridge, and was buried at Glaston- bury." "And embalmed by Tennyson. The Laureate invented Arthur — he took out a patent for the Eound Table, and his invention is only a little less popular than that other product of the age, the sewing-machine. How many among modern tourists would care about Tintagel if Tennyson had not revived the old legend ?" The butler had put up a bottle of champagne for Mr. Hamleigh — the two ladies drinking nothing but sparkling water — and in this beverage he drank hail to the spirit of the legendary prince. '' I am ready to believe anything now you have me up here/^ he said, "for I have a shrewd idea that without your help I should never be able to get down again. I should live and die on the top of this rocky promontory — sweltering in the sum- mer sun — buffeted by the winter winds — an unwilling Simeon Stylites." " Do you know that the very finest sheep in Cornwall are said to be grown on that island/"* said Miss Bridgeman gravely, pointing to the grassy top of the isolated crag in the foreground, whereon once stood the donjon keep. "I don''t know why it should be so, but it is a tradition." ^^ Among butchers T' said Angus. " I suppose even butchers have their traditions. And the poor sheep who are condemned to exile on that lonely rock — the St. Helena of their w^oolly race — do they know that they are achieving a posthumous perfec- tion — that they are straining towards the ideal iu 84 '^TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." butcher's meat ? There is room for much thought in the question.'^ " The tide is out/^ said Christabel, looking sea- ward ; " I think we ought to do Trebarwith sands to-day." '^ Is Trebarwith another of your lions ?" asked AnguSj placidly. " Yes.'' " Then, please save him for to-morrow. Let me drink the cup of pleasure to the dregs where we are. This champagne has a magical taste^ like the philter which Tristan and Iseult were so foolish as to drink while they sailed across from Ireland to this Cornish shore. Don't be alarmed, Miss Bridge- man, I am not going to empty the bottle. I am not an educated tourist — have read neither Black nor Murray, and I am very slow about taking in ideas. Even after all you have told me, I am not clear in my mind as to which is the castle and which the chapel, and which the burial-ground. Let us finish the afternoon dawdling about Tintagel. Let us see the sun set from this spot, where Arthur must so often have watched it, if the men of thirteerk ^^TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." 85 hundred years ago ever cared to watch the sun setting, which I doubt. They belong to the night- time of the world, when civilization was dead in Southern Europe, and was yet unborn in the West. Let us dawdle about till it is time to drive back to Mount Royal, and then I shall carry away an impression. I am very slow at taking impressions." ^^ I think you want us to believe that you are stupid/'' said Christabel, laughing at the earnestness with which he pleaded. " Believe me, no. I should like you to think me ever so much better than I am. Please, let us dawdle.^^ They dawdled accordingly. Strolling about upon the short sea-beaten grass, so treacherous and slippery a surface in summer time, when fierce Sol has been baking it. They stumbled against the foundations of long-vanished walls, they speculated upon fragments of cyclopean masonry, and talked a great deal about the traditions of the spot. Christabel, who had all the old authorities — Leland, Carcw, and Norden — at her fingers' ends, was delighted to expound the departed glories of 86 "ttntagel, half in sea, axd half on land." this British fortress. She showed where the ancient dungeon keep had reared its stony walls upon that '^ high terrible crag, environed with the sea; and how there had once been a drawbridge uniting yonder cliff with the buildings on the mainland^^ — now divorced, as Carew says, " by the downfallen steep cliffs, on the farther side, which, though it shut out the sea from his wonted re- course, hath yet more strengthened the island ; for in passing thither you must first descend with a dangerous declining, and then make a worse ascent by a path, through his stickleness occasioning, and through his steepness threatening, the ruin of your life, with the falling of your foot.'''' She told Mr. Hamleigh how, after the Conquest, the castle was the occasional residence of some of our Princes, and how Richard, King of the Romans, Earl of Cornwall, son of King John, entertained here his nephew David, Prince of Wales, how, in Richard the Second^s time, this stronghold was made a State prison, and how a certain Lord Mayor of London was, for his unruly mayoralty, condemned thither as a perpetual penitentiary; which seems very hard upon the ^'tintagel^ half in sea, and half on land." 87 chief magistrate of the city, who thus did vicarious penance for the riot of his brief reign. And then they talked of Tristan and Iseult_, and the tender okl love-story^ which lends the glamour of old-world fancies to those bare ruins of a tra- ditional past. Christabel knew the old chronicle through Matthew Arnold'^s poetical version, which gives only the purer and better side of the character of the Knight and Chatelaine, at the expense of some of the strongest features of the story. Who, that knew that romantic legend^ could linger on that spot without thinking of King Marcos faith- less queen ! Assuredly not Mr. Hamleigh, who was a staunch believer in the inventor of '^ sweet- ness and light/'' and who knew Arnold^s verses by heart. " What have they done with the flowers and the terrace walks ?'' he said, — ''^ the garden where Tristan and his Queen basked in the sunshine of their days ; and where they parted for ever ? — " * All the spring time of their love Is already gone and past, And instead thereof is seen Its winter, which endiireth still — 88 ^^TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." Tyntagel, on its surge-beat hill, The pleasaunce walks, the weeping queen, The flying leaves, the straining blast, And that long wild kiss — their last.' And where — oh, where — are those graves in the King^s chapel in which the tyrant Marc_, touched with pity_, ordered the fated lovers to be buried ? And_, behold ! out of the grave of Tristan there sprung a plant which went along the walls,, and descended into the grave of the Queen, and though King Marc three several times ordered this magical creeper to be cut off root and branch, it was always found growing again next morning, as if it were the very spirit of the dead knight struggling to get free from the grave, and to be with his lady-love again ! Show me those tombs, Miss Courtenay.'^ " You can take your choice,^^ said Jessie Bridge- man, pointing to a green mound or two, overgrown with long rank grass, in that part of the hill which was said to be the kingly burial-place. " But as for your magical tree, there is not so much as a bramble to do duty for poor Tristan. ^^ " If I were Duke of Cornwall and Lord of Tin- tagel Castle, I would 23ut up a granite cross in memory '^TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA^ AND HALF ON LAND." 89 of the lovers ; though I fear there was very little Christianity in either of them/^ said Anous. '^''Anci I would come once a year and hang a garland on it/' said Christabel^ smiling at him with " Eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue — Eyes too expressive to be blue, Too lovely to be grey." He had recalled those lines more than once when he looked into Christabel's eyes. Mr. Hamleigh had read so much as to make him an interesting talker upon any subject; but Cliris- tabel and Jessie noticed that of his own life, his ways and amusements, his friends, his surroundings, he spoke hardly at all. This fact Christabel noticed with wonder, Jessie with suspicion. If a man led a good wholesome life, he would surely be more frank and open — he would surely have more to say about himself and his associates. They dawdled, and dawdled, till past four o'clock, and to none of the three did the hours so spent seem long; but they found that it would make them too late in their return to INIount lloyal were tlicy to wait for sundown before thev turned their faces 90 homewards; so while the day was still bright, Mr. Hamleigh consented to be guided by steep and perilous paths to the base of the rocky citadel, and then they strolled back to the Wharncliffe Arms, where Felix had been enjoying himself in the stable, and was now desjDcrately anxious to get home, rattling up and down hill at an alarming rate, and not hinting at anybody's alighting to walk. This was only one of many days spent in the same fashion. They walked next day to Trebarwith sands, up and down hills, which Mr. Hamleigh declared were steeper than anything he had ever seen in Switzerland ; but he survived the walk, and his spirits seemed to rise with the exertion. This time Major Bree went with them — a capital com- panion for a country ramble, being just enough of a botanist, archseologist, and geologist, to leaven the lump of other people^s ignorance, without being obnoxiously scientific. Mr. Hamleigh was de- lighted with that noble stretch of level sand, with the long rollers of the Atlantic tumbling in across the low rocks, and the bold headlands behind — spot beloved of marine painters — spot where the "tintagel, half in sea, and half on land." 91 gulls and the shags hold their revels, and where man feels himself but a poor creature face to face with the lonely grandeur of sea, and cliff, and sky. So rarely is that long stretch of yellow sand vul- garized by the feet of earth^s multitudes, that one half expects to see a procession of frolicsome sea- nymphs come dancing out of yonder cave, and wind in circling measures towards the crested wave- lets, gliding in so softly under the calm clear day. These were halcyon days — an Indian summer — balmy western zephyrs — sunny noontides — splen- did sunsets — altogether the most beautiful autumn season that Angus Hamleigh had known, or at least, so it seemed to him — 'Uay, even more than this, surely the most beautiful season of his life. As the days went on, and day after day was spent in ChristabeFs company — almost as it were alone with her, for Miss Bridgeman and Major Bree were but as figures in the background — Angus felt as if he were at the beginning of a new life — a life fdled with fresh interests, thoughts, hopes, desires, unknown and undreamed of in the former stages of his being. Never before had he lived a life so uneventful — never 02 ^'tintagel, half in sea, and half on land." before had he been so happy. It surprised him to discover how simple are the elements of real content — how deej) the charm of a placid existence among thoroughly loveable people ! Christabel Courtenay was not the loveliest woman he had ever known, nor the most elegant, nor the most accomplished, nor the most fascinating ; but she was entirely different from all other women with whom his lot had been cast. Her innocence, her unsophisticated enjoyment of all earth's purest joys, her transparent purity, her perfect trustfulness — these were to him as a revelation of a new order of beings. If he had been told of such a woman he would have shrugged his shoulders misbelievingly, or would have declared that she must be an idiot. But Christabel was quite as clever as those brilliant creatures whose easy manners had enchanted him in days gone by. She was better educated than many a woman he knew who passed for a wit of the first order. She had read more, thought more, was more sympathetic, more com- panionable, and she was delightfully free from self- consciousness or vanity. He found himself talking? to Christabel as he had '^TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA^ AND HALF ON LAND." 9(^ never talked to any one else since those early days at the University,, the bright dawn of manhood, when he confided freely in that second self, the chosen friend of the hour, and believed that all men lived and moved according to his own boyish standard of honour. He talked to her, not of the actualities of his life, but of his thoughts and feelings — his dreamy speculations upon the gravest problems which hedge round the secret of man's final destiny. He talked freely of his doubts and difficulties, and the half- belief which came so near unbelief — the wide love of all creation — the vague yet passionate yearning for immortality which fell so far short of the Gospel's sublime certainty. He revealed to her all the complexities of a many-sided mind, and she never failed him in sympathy and understanding. This was in their graver moods, when by some accidental turn of the conversation they fell into the discussion of those solemn questions which are always at the bottom of every man and woman's thoughts, like the unknown depths of a dark water-pool. For the most part their talk Avas bright and light as those sunny autumn days, varied as the glorious and ever- 94 '^TINTAGEL^ HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." changing hues of sky and sea at sunset. Jessie was a delightful companion. She was so thoroughly easy herself that it was impossible to feel ill at ease with her. She played her part of confidante so pleasantly^ seeming to think it the most natural thing in the world that those two should be absorbed in each other, and should occasionally lapse into com- plete forgetfulness of her existence. Major Bree when he joined in their rambles was obviously de- voted to Jessie Bridgeman. It was her neatly gloved little hand which he was eager to clasp at the cross- ing of a stilc; and where the steepness of the hill-side path gave him an excuse for assisting her. It was her stout little boot which he guided so tenderly, where the ways were ruggedest. Never had a plain woman a more respectful admirer — never was beauty in her peerless zenith more devoutly worshipped ! And so the autumn days sped by, pleasantly for all : with deepest joy — ^joy ever waxing, never waning — for those two who had found the secret of perfect sympathy in thought and feeling. It was not for Angus Hamleigh the first passion of a spot- less manhood ; and yet the glamour and the delight ^^TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." 95 were as new as if he had never loved before. He had never so purely, so reverently loved. The passion was of a new quality. It seemed to him as if he had ascended into a higher sphere in the universe, and had given his heart to a creature of a loftier race. ^^ Perhaps it is the good old lineage which makes the difference," he said to himself once, while his feelings were still sufficiently novel and so far under his control as to be subject to analysis. "The women I have cared for in days gone ,by have hardly got over their early affinity with the gutter ; or when I have admired a woman of good family she has been steeped to the lips in worldliness and vanity." Mr. Hamleigh, who had told himself that he was going to be intensely bored at Mount Koyal, had been Mrs. TregonelFs guest for three weeks, and it seemed to him as if the time were brief and beau- tiful as one of those rare dreams of impossible bliss which haunt our waking memories, and make actual life dull and joyless by contrast with the glory of shadowland. No word had yet been 9(j ^^TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." spoken — nay, at the very thought of those words which most lovers in his position would have been eager to speak, his soul sickened and his cheek paled; for there would be no joy fulness in the revelation of his love — indeed, he doubted whether he had the right to reveal it — whether duty and honour did not alike constrain him to keep his converse within the strict limits of friendship, to bid Christabel good-bye, and turn his back upon Mount 'Rojalj without having said one word more than a friend might speak. Happy as Christabel had been with him — tenderly as she loved him— she was far too innocent to have considered herself ill- treated in such a case. She would have blamed herself alone for the weakness of mind which had been unable to resist the fascination of his society — she would have blushed and wept in secret for her folly in having loved unwooed. " Has the eventful question been asked ?" Jessie inquired one night, as Christabel lingered, after her wont, by the fire in Miss Bridgeman^s bedroom. *^ You two were so intensely earnest to-day as you walked ahead of the Major and me, that I *^TINTAGEL^ HALF IN SEA^ AND HALF ON LAND." 97 said to myself, ' now is the time — the crisis has arrived V " "There was no crisis/^ answered Christabel, crimsoning ; " he has never said one word to me that can imply that I am any more to him than the most indifferent acquaintance.'''' " What need of words when every look and tone cries ' I love you V Why he idolizes you, and he lets all the world see it. I hope it may be well for you — both V Christabel was on her knees by the fire. She laid her cheek against Jessicas waistband, and drew Jessicas arm round her neck, holding her hand lovingly. " Do you really think he — cares for me ?" she faltered, with her face hidden. "Do I really think that I have two eyes, and something which is at least an apology for a nose !" ejaculated Jessie, contemptuously. " Why, it has been patent to everybody for the last fortnight that you two are over head and ears in love with each other. There never was a more obvious case of mutual infatuation." VOL. I. H 98 ' " Oh, Jessie ! surely I have not betrayed myself. I know that I have heen very weak — but I have tried so hard to hide ''■' *'^And have been about as successful as the ostrich. While those drooping lashes have been lowered to hide the love-light in your eyes, your whole countenance has been an illuminated calendar of your folly. Poor Belle ! to think that she has not betrayed herself, while all Boscastle is on tiptoe to know when the wedding is to take place. Why the parson could not see you two sitting in the same pew without knowing that he would be reading your banns before he was many Sundays older.^^ ^' And you — really — like him T' faltered Chris- tabel; more shyly than before. " Yes/-' answered Jessie, with a provoking lack of enthusiasm. '^ I really like him. I can't help feeling sorry for Mrs. Tregonell, for I know she •wanted you to marry Leonard." Christabel gave a little sigh, and a faint shiver. " Poor dear Leonard ! I wonder what traveller's hardships he is enduring while we are so snug and "tintagel^ half in sea, and half on land." 99 happy at Mount Royal ?'' she said, kindly. " He has an excellent heart ''' " Troublesome people always have_, I believe/'' interjected Jessie. '' It is their redeeming feature, the existence of which no one can absolutely dis- prove.^^ '^ And I am very much attached to him — as a cousin — or as an adopted brother ; but as to our ever being married — that is quite out of the question. There never were two people less suited to each other.'' " Those are the peo]3le who usually come to- gether/' said J essie ; ^' the Divorce Court could hardly be kept going if it were not so." " Jessie, if you are going to be cynical I shall say good-night. I hope there is no foundation for what you said just now. I hope that Auntie has no foolish idea about Leonard and me." '' She has — or had — one prevailing idea, and I fear it will go hard with her when she has to relinquish it/' answered Jessie, seriously. " I know that it has been her dearest hope to see you and Leonard married, and I should be a wretch if T ji '? 100 ^^TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." were not sorry for her disappointment, when she has been so good to me. But she never ought to have invited Mr. Hamleigh to Mount Royal. That is one of those mistakes the consequences of which last for a lifetime.''^ ^' I hope he likes me — just a little/^ pursued Christabel, with dreamy eyes fixed on the low wood fire ; ^' but sometimes I fancy there must be some mistake — that he does not really care a straw for me. More than once, when he has began to say something that sounded '^ ^^Business-like, " suggested Jessie, as the girl hesitated. " He has drawn back — seeming almost anxious to recall his words. Once lie told me — quite seriously — that he had made up his mind never to marry. Now, that doesn't sound as if he meant to marry me.'' "That is not an uncommon way of breaking ground/' answered Jessie, with her matter-of-fact air. ^^ A man tells a girl that he is going to die a bachelor — which makes it seem quite a favour on his part when he proposes. All women sigh for ^^TINTAGEL^ HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND." 101 the unattainable ; and a man who distinctly states that he is not in the market^ is likely to make a better bargain when he surrenders." " I should be sorry to think Mr. Hamleigh capable of such petty ideas/^ said Christabel. *' He told me once that he was like Achilles. Why should he be like Achilles ? He is not a soldier." " Perhaps, it is because he has a Grecian nose," suggested Miss Bridgeman. " How can you imagine him so vain and foolish," cried Christabel, deeply offended. ^^ I begin to think you detest him !" " No, Belle, I think him charming, only too charming, and I had rather the man you loved were made of sterner metal — not such a man as Leonard, whose loftiest desires are centred in stable and gun-room ; but a man of an altogether different type from Mr. Hamleigh. He has too much of the artistic temperament, without being an artist — he is too versatile, too soft-hearted and impressionable. I am afraid for you, Christabel, I am afraid; and if it were not too late — if your heart were not wholly given to him " 102 "tintagel, half in sea, and half on land." '' It is/' answered Christabel, tearfully, with her face hidden ; " I hate myself for being so foolish, but I have let myself love him. T know that I may never be his wife — I do not even think that he has any idea of marrying me — but I shall never marry any other man. Oh, Jessie! for pity's sake don't betray me ; never let my aunt, or any one else in this world, learn what I have told you. I can't help trusting you — you wind yourself into my heart somehow, and find out all that is hidden there \" ^' Because I love you truly and honestly, my dear," answered Jessie, tenderly -, " and now, good- night ; I feel sure that Mr. Hamleigh will ask you to be his wife, and I only wish he were a better 103 CHAPTER IV. '^ love ! thou art leading me from wintry cold/'' After this came two or three dull and showery daySj which afforded no opportunity for long excursions or ramblings of any kind. It was only during such rambles that Mr. Hamleigh and Miss Courtenay ever found themselves alone. Mrs. TregonelFs ideas of propriety were of the old- fashioned school, and when her niece was not under her own wing, she expected Miss Bridgeman to perform all the duties of a duenna — in no wise suspecting how very loosely her instructions upon this point were being carried out. At Mount Royal there was no possibility of confidential talk between Angus and Christabel. If thcv were in the drawing-room or library, i\Irs. Trcgonell was with them ; if they played billiards, Miss Bridgeman was told oif to mark for them ; if they went for a con- 104 ^^ LOVE ! THOU ART LEADIXG ME stitutional walk between the showers,, or wasted half-an-hour in the stables looking at horses and dogs^ Miss Bridgeman was bidden to accompany them ; and though they had arrived at the point of minding her very little, and being sentimental and sympathetic under her very nose, still there are limita to the love-making that can be carried on before a third person, and a man would hardly care to propose in the presence of a witness. So for three days Christabel still remained in doubt as to Mr. Hamleigh's real feelings. That manner of making tender little speeches, and then, as it were, recalling them, was noticeable many times during those three days ot domesticity. There was a hesitancy — an uncertainty in his attentions to Christabel which Jessie interpreted ill. '^ There is some entanglement, I daresay,'''' she told herself ; "it is the evil of his past life which holds him in the toils. How do we know that he has not a wife hidden away somewhere ? He ought to declare himself^ or he ought to go away ! If this kind of shillyshallying goes on much longer he will break Christabers heart." FROM WINTRY COLD." 105 Miss Bridgeman was determined that, if it were in her power to hasten the crisis^ the crisis should be hastened. The proprieties, as observed by Mrs. Tregonell^ might keep matters in abeyance till Christmas. Mr. Hamleigh gave no hint of his departure. He might stay at Mount Royal for months sentimentalizing with Christabel, and ride off at the last uncompromised. The fourth day was the Feast of St. Luke. The weather had brightened considerably, but there was a high wind — a south-west wind, with occasional showers. '^ Of course, yon are going to church this morning/' said Jessie to Christabel, as they rose from the breakfast-table. " Church this morning ?'' repeated Christabel, vaguely. For the first time since she had been old enough to understand the services of her Church, she had forgotten a Saint^s day. '' It is St. Luke^s Day." " Yes, I remember. And the service is at Minster. We can walk across the hills." 106 '' LOVE ! THOU ART LEADING 3IE " May I go with you T' af^ked Mr. Hamleigh. " Do you like Treek-day services ?" inquired Jessie, with rather a mischievous sparkle in her keen grey eyes. " I adore them/^ answered Angus, who had not been inside a church on a week-day since he was best man at a friend's wedding. "' Then we will all go together," said Jessie. " May Brook bring the pony-carriage to fetch us home, Mrs. Tregonell ? I have an idea that Mr. Hamleigh won't be equal to the walk home." " More than equal to twenty such walks !" answered Angus, gaily. ^' You under- estimate the severity of the training to which I have submitted myself during the last three weeks." *^^The pony-carriage may as well meet you in any case," said Mrs. TregonelL And the order was straightway given. They started at ten o'clock, giving themselves ample leisure for a walk of something over two miles — a walk by hill and valley, and rushing stream, and picturesque wooden bridge — through a deep gorge where the dark-red cattle were grouped FROM WINTRY COLD." 10? against a background of gorss and heather — a walk of which one could never grow weary — so lonely, so beautiful, so perfect a blending of all that is wildest and all that is most gracious in Nature — an Alpine ramble on a small scale. Minster Church lies in a hollow of the hill, so shut in by the wooded ridge which shelters its grey walls, that the stranger comes upon it as an architectural surprise. ^^ How is it you have never managed to finish your tower T' asked IMr. Hamleigh, surveying the rustic fane with a critical air^ as he descended to the churchyard by some rugged stone steps on the side of the grassy hill. " You cannot be a par- ticularly devout people, or you would hardly have allowed your parish church to remain in this stunted and stinted condition/^ "There was a tower once/^ said Christabel, naively ; " the stones are still in the churchyard ; but the monks used to burn a light in the tower window — a light that shone through a cleft in the hills, and was seen far out at sea." " I believe that is geographically — or gcomctri- 108 LOVE ! THOU ART LEADING ME cally impossible," said Angus laughing ; " but pray go on/'' *^^The light ^as often mistaken for a beacon^ and the ships came ashore and were wrecked on the rocks." " Naturally — and no doubt the monks improved the occasion. "Why should a Cornish monk be better than his countrymen ? ^One and alF is your motto." " They were not Cornish monks/^ answered Christabel;, " but a brotherhood of French monks from the monastery of St. Sergius, at Angers. They were established in a Priory here by William de Bottreaux, in the reign of Eichard^ Coeur de Lion ; and^ according to tradition_, the townspeople resented their having built the church so far from the town. I feel sure the monks could have had no evil intention in burning a light; but one night a crew of wild sailors attacked the tower^ and pulled the greater part of it down." " And nobody in Boscastle has had public spirit enough to get it set up again. Where is your re- spect for those early Christian martyrs, St. Sergius FROM WINTRY COLD." 109 and St. Bacchus, to whose memory your temple is dedicated V " I don^t suppose it was so much want of respect for the martyrs as want of money/^ suggested Miss Bridgeman. " We have too many chapel people in Boscastle for our churches to be enriched or beautified. But Minster is not a bad little church after all.^^ ^' It is the dearest, sweetest, most innocent little church I ever knelt in," answered Angus ; " and if I could but assist at one particular service there '' He checked himself with a sigh ; but this un- finished speech amounted in Miss Bridgeman's mind to a declaration. She stole a look at Christabel, whose fair face crimsoned for a moment or so, only to grow more purely pale afterwards. They went into the church, and joined devoutly in the brief Saint's Day service. The congregation was not numerous. Two or three village goodies — the school children — a tourist, who had come to see the church, and found himself, as it were, entangled in saintly meshes — the lady who played the harmonium, and the incumbent who read prayers. These were 110 ^^love! thou art leading me all, besides the party from Mount Royal. There are plenty of people in country parishes who will be as pious as you please on Sunday, deeming three services not too much for their devotion, but who can hardly be persuaded to turn out of the beaten track of week-day life to offer homage to the memory of Evangelist or Apostle. The pony-carriage was waiting in the lane when Mr. Hamleigh and the two ladies came out of the porch. Christabel and the gentleman looked at the equipage doubtfully. ^^ You slandered me, Miss Bridgeman, by your suggestion that I should be done up after a mile or so across the hills/^ said Mr. Hamleigh ; " I never felt fresher in my life. Have you a hankering for the ribbons 1" to Christabel ; " or will you send your pony back to his stable and walk home T' ''1 would ever so much rather walk.'"* "And so would 1,'^ '' In that case, if you don^t mind, I think I^'ll go home with Felix/^ said Jessie Bridgeman, most unexpectedly. " I am not feeling quite myself to- day, and the walk has tired me. You won^t mind FI103I WINTRY COLD." Ill going home alone with Mr. Hamleigh_, will yon, Christabel? You might show him the seals in Pentargon Bay." What could Christabel do ? If there had been anything in the way of an earthquake handy, she would have felt deeply grateful for a sudden rift in the surface of the soil,, which would have allowed her to slip into the bosom of the hills, among the gnomes and the pixies. That Cornish coast was under- mined with caverns, yet there was not one for her to drop into. Again, Jessie Bridgeman spoke in such an easy off-hand manner, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for Christabel and Mr. Hamleigh to be allowed a lonely ramble. To have refused, or even hesitated, would have seemed affectation, mock-modesty, self-consciousness. Yet Christabel almost involuntarily made a step towards the carriage. *^ I think I had better drive," she said ; ^' Aunt Diana will be wanting me." ^' No, she won^t," replied Jessie, resolutely. '^And you shall not make a martyr of yourself for my sake. I know you love that walk over the hill, 112 "■ LOVE ! THOU ART LEADING ME and Mr. Hamleigh is dying to see Pentargon Bay " " Positively expiring by inches ; only it is one of those easy deaths that does not hurt one very much/'' said Angus, helping Miss Bridgeman into her seatj giving her the reins, and arranging the rug over her knees with absolute tenderness. " Take care of Felix/^ pleaded Christabel ; " and if you trot down the hills trot fast.^' " I shall walk him every inch of the way. The responsibility would be too terrible otherwise." But Felix had his own mind in the matter, and had no intention of walking when the way he went carried him towards his stable. So he trotted briskly up the lane, between tall, tangled blackberry hedges, leaving Christabel and Angus standing at the churchyard gate. The rest of the little congre- gation had dispersed; the church door had been locked ; there was a gravedigger at work in the garden-like churchyard, amidst long grasses and fallen leaves, and the unchanged ferns and mosses of the bygone summer. Mr. Hamleigh had scarcely concealed his delight FROM WINTRY COLD." 113 at Miss Bridgeman^s departure, yet_, now that slie was gone, he looked passing sad. Never a word did he speak, as they two stood idly at the gate, listening to the dull thud of the earth which the gravedigger threw out of his shovel on to the grass, and the shrill sweet song of a robin, piping to himself on a ragged thornbush near at hand, as if in an ecstasy of gladness about things in general. One sound so fraught with melancholy, the other so full of joy ! The contrast struck sharply on ChristabePs nerves, to-day at their utmost tension, and brought sudden tears in her eyes. They stocfd for perhaps five minutes in this dreamy silence, the robin piping all the while ; and then Mr Hamleigh roused himself, seemingly with an effort. " Are you going to show me the seals at Pentargon?'' he asked, smilingly. " I don^t know about seals — there is a local idea that seals are to be seen playing about iu the bay ; but one is not often so lucky as to find them there. People have been very cruel in killing them, and I^m afraid there are very few seals left on our coast now." VOIi. I. I 114 ^^ LOVE ! THOU ART LEADING ME ^^ At any rate,, you can show me Pentargon^ if you are not tired/^ " Tired V cried Christabel, laughing at such a ridiculous idea, being a damsel to whom ten miles were less than three to a town-bred young lady. Embarrassed though she felt by being left alone with Mr. Hamleigh, she could not even pretend that the proposed walk was too much for her. " I shall be very glad to take you to Pentargon/' she said, ^^ it is hardly a mile out of our way ; but I fear you^ll be disappointed ; there is really nothing particular to see.^^ ^' I shall not be disappointed — I sh^l be deeply grateful." They walked along the narrow hill-side paths, where it was almost impossible for two to walk abreast ; yet Angus contrived somehow to be at Christabers side, guiding and guarding her by ways which were so much more familiar to her than to him, that there was a touch of humour in this pretence of protection. But Christabel did not see things in their humorous aspect to-day. Her little hand trembled as it touched Angus HamleigVs, when 115 lie led her across a craggy bit of path, or over a tiny water-pool. At the stiles in the valley on the other side of the bridge, which are civilized stiles, and by no means difficult, Christabel was too quick and light of foot to give any opportunity for that assistance which her companion was so eager to afford. And now they were in the depths of the valley, and had to mount another hill, on the road to Bude, till they came to a field- gate, above which appeared a sign-board, and the mystic words, " To Pentargon." " What is Pentargon, that they put up its name in such big letters T' asked Mr. Hamleigh, staring at the board. " Is it a borough town — or a cattle market — or a cathedral city — or what ? They seem tremendously proud of it." "It is nothing — or only a shallow bay, with a waterfall and a wonderful cave, which I am always longing to explore. I believe it is nearly as beauti- ful as the cavern in Shelley's ^ Alastor.^ But you will see what Pentargon is like in less than five minutes.^' They crossed a ploughed field, and then, by a big I 2 IIG ^^love! thou art leading me five-barred gate, entered the magic region whicb was said to be tbe paradise of seals. A narrow "walk cut in a steep and rocky bank, where the gorse and heather grew luxuriantly above slate and spar, described a shallow semicircle round one of the loveliest bays in the world — a spot so exquisitely tranquil in this calm autumn weather, so guarded and fenced in by the massive headlands that jutted out towards the main — a peaceful haven, seemingly so remote from that outer world to which belonged yonder white- winged ship on the verge of the blue — that Angus Hamleigh exclaimed involuntarily, — ^' Here is peace ! Surely this must be a bay in that Lotus land which Tennyson has painted for usP Hitherto their conversation had been desultory- mere fragmentary talk about the landscape and the loveliness of the autumn day, with its clear bright sky and soft west wind. They had been always in motion, and there had been a certain adventurous- ness in the way that seemed to give occupation to their thoughts. But now Mr. Hamleigh came to a dead stop, and stood looking at the rugged amphi- FROM WINTRY COLD." 117 theatre^ and the low weedy rocks washed smooth by the sea. " Would you mind sitting down for a few minutes V^ he asked ; " this Pentargon of yours is a lovely spot,, and I don^t want to leave it instantly. I have a very slow appreciation of Nature. It takes me a long time to grasp her beauties." Christabel seated herself on the bank which he had selected for her accommodation, and Mr. Hamleigh placed himself a little lower, almost at her feet, her face turned seaward, his half towards her, as if that lily face, with its wild rose bloom, were even lovelier than the sunlit ocean in all its variety of colour. ^' It is a delicious spot," said Angus, "I wonder whether Tristan and Iseult ever came here ! I can fancy the queen stealing away from the Court and Court foolery, and walking across the sunlit hills with her lover. It would be rather a long walk, and there might be a difficulty about getting back in time for supper ; but one can picture them wandering by flowery fields, or by the cliffs above that everlasting sea, and coming here to rest and 118 ^^love! thou art leading me talk of their sorrow and their love. Can you not fancy her as Matthew Arnold paints her ? — " Let her have her youth again — Let her be as she was then ! Let her have her proud dark eyes, And her petulant, quick replies : Let her sweep her dazzling hand, With its gesture of command, And shake back her raven hair With the old imperious air. I have an idea that the Hibernian Isenlt must have been a tartar, though Matthew Arnold glosses over her peccadilloes so pleasantly. I wonder whether she had a strong brogue, and a sneaking fondness for usquebaugh/'' " Please, don't make a joke of her/' pleaded Christabel ; ^' she is very real to me. I see her as a lovely lady — tall and royal-looking, dressed in long robes of flowered silk, fringed with gold. And Tristan '' ^^What of Tristan? Is his image as clear in your mind? How do you depict the doomed knight, born to suffer and to sin, destined to sorrow from the time of his forest-birth — motherless, beset with enemies, consumed by hopeless passion. I hope you feel sorry for Tristan V^ FROM WINTRY COLD." 119 " Who could help being sorry for him T' '' Albeit he was a sinner ? I assure you, in the old romance which you have not read — which you would hardly care to read — neither Tristan nor Iseult are spotless/^ "J. have never thought of their wrong-doing. Their fate was so sad, and they loved each other so truly/-' " And, again, you can believe, perhaps — you who are so innocent and confiding — that a man who has sinned may forsake the old evil ways and lead a good life, until every stain of that bygone sin is purified. You can believe, as the Greeks believed, in atone- ment and purification/'' " I believe, as I hope all Christians do, that repentance can wash away sin.^' ^' Even the accusing memory of wrong-doing, and make a man^s soul white and fair again ? That is a beautiful creed/^ " I think the Gospel gives us warrant for believing as much — not as some of the Dissenters teach, that one effort of faith, an hour of prayer and ejacula- tion, can transform a murderer into a saint ; but 120 ^' LOVE ! THOU ART LEADING ME that earnest^ sustained regret for wrong-doing, and a steady determination to live a better life '^ " Yes — that is real repentance/' exclaimed Angus, interrupting her. ^^ Common sense, even without Gospel light, tells one that it must be good. Christabel — may I call you Christabel ? — just for this one isolated half-hour of life — here in Pentargon Bay ? You shall be Miss Courtenay directly we leave this spot.'' " Call me what you please. I don't think it mat- ters very much," faltered Christabel, blushing deeply. " But it makes all the difference to me. Chris- tabel, I can't tell you how sweet it is to me just to pronounce your name. If — if — I could call you by that name always, or by a name still nearer and dearer. But you must judge. Give me half- an-hour — half-an-hour of heartfelt earnest truth on my side, and pitying patience on yours. Chris- tabel, my past life has not been what a stainless Christian would call a good life. I have not been so bad as Tristan. I have violated no sacred charge — betrayed no kinsman. I suppose I have been hardly worse than the common run of 121 young men, who have the means of leading an utterly useless life. I have lived selfishly, un- thinkingly — caring for my own pleasure — with little thought of anything that was to come afterwards, either on earth or in heaven. But all that is past and done with. My wild oats are sown ; I have had enough of youth and folly. When I came to Cornwall the other day I thought that I was on the threshold of middle age, and that middle age could give me nothing but a few years of pain and weariness. But — behold a miracle ! — you have given me back my youth — youth and hope, and a desire for length of days, and a passionate yearning to lead a new, bright, stainless life. You have done all this, Christabel. I love you as I never thought it possible to love ! I believe in you as I never be- fore believed in woman — and yet — and yet ^' He paused, with a long heartbroken sigh, clasped the girFs hand, which had been straying idly among the faded heather, and pressed it to his lips. ''And yet I dare not ask you to be my wife. Shall I tell you why V 122 " LOVE ! THOU ART LEADING ME " Yes^ tell me/^ slie faltered, her cheeks deadly pale, her lowered eyelids heavy with tears. ^' I told you I was like Achilles, doomed to an early death. You remember with what pathetic tenderness Thetis speaks of her son, ' Few years are thine, and not a lengthened term ; At once to early death and sorrows doomed Beyond the lot of man !' The Fates have spoken about me quite as plainly as ever the sea-nymph foretold the doom of her son. He was given the choice of length of days or glory, and he deemed fame better than long life. But my life has been as inglorious as it must be brief. Three months ago, one of the wisest of physicians pronounced my doom. The hereditary malady which for the last fifty years has been the curse of my family shows itself by the clearest indications in my case. I could have told the doctor this just as well as he told me ; but it is best to have official information. I may die before I am a year older; I may crawl on for the next ten years — a fragile hot-house plant, sent to winter under southern skies. ^^ "And you may recover, and be strong and well 123 again \" cried Christabel^ in a voice choked with sobs. She made no pretence of hiding her pity or her love. " Who can tell ? God is so good. What prayer "will He not grant ns if we only believe in Him ? Faith will remove mount ains.^^ " I have never seen it done," said Angus. " Vm afraid that no effort of faith in this degenerate age will give a man a new lung. No^ Christabel^ there is no chance of long life for me. If hope — if love could give length of days^ my new hopes^ born of you — my new love felt for you_, might work that miracle. But I am the child of my century : I only believe in the possible. And knowing that my years are so few^ and that during that poor remnant of life I may be a chronic invalid, how can I — how dare I be so selfish as to ask any girl — young, fresh, and bright, with all the joys of life untasted — to be the companion of my decline ? The better she loved me, the sadder would be her life — the keener would be the anguish of watching my decay V' " But it would be a life spent with you, her days would be devoted to you ; if she really loved you, she would not hesitate," pursued Christabel, her 124 ^'love! thou art leading me hands clasped passionately, tears streaming down her pale cheeks, for this moment to her was the supreme crisis of fate. " She would be unhappy, but there would be sweetness even in her sorrow if she could believe that she was a comfort to you '/'' " Christabel, don't tempt me ! Ah, my darling ! you don't know how selfish a man's love is, how sweet it would be to me to snatch such bliss, even on the brink of the dark gulf — on the threshold of the eternal night, the eternal silence ! Consider what you would take upon yourself — you who perhaps have never known what sickness means — have never seen the horrors of mortal disease." '^ Yes, I have sat with some of our poor people when they were dying. I have seen how painful disease is, how cruel Nature seems, and how hard it is for a poor creature racked with pain to believe in God's beneficence ; but even then there has been comfort in being able to help them and cheer them a little. I have thought more of that than of the actual misery of the scene." " But to give all your young life — all your days and thoughts and hopes to a doomed man ! Think FROM WINTRY COLD." 135 of that^ Christabel ! When you are liappy with him to see Death grinning behind his shoulder — to watch that spectacle which is of all Nature's miseries the most awful — the slow decay of human life — a man dying by inches — not deaths but dis- solution ! If my malady were heart-disease, and you knew that at some moment — undreamt of — • unlooked for — death would come^ swift as an arrow from Hecate's bow, brief, with no loathsome or revolting detail — then I might say, ^ Let us spend my remnant of life together/ But consumption, you cannot tell what a painful ending that is I Poets and novelists have described it as a kind of euthanasia ; but the poetical mind is rarely strong in scientific knowledge. I want you to understand all the horror of a life spent with a chronic sufferer, about whom the cleverest physician in London has made up his mind/'' "Answer me one question,^^ said Christabel, drying her tears, and trying to steady her voice. " Would your life be any happier if we were together — till the end?^' " Happier ? It would be a life spent in Paradise. 126 "love! thou art leading me Pain and sickness could hardly touch me with their sting." " Then let me be your wife/^ " Christabel^ are you in earnest ? have you con- sidered ?" " I consider nothing, except that it may be in my power to make your life a little happier than it would be without me. I want only to be sure of that. If the doom were more dreadful than it is — if there were but a few short months of life left for you^ I would ask you to let me share them; I would ask to nurse you and watch you in sickness. There would be no other fate on earth so full of sweetness for me. Yes_, even with death and ever- lasting mourning waiting for me at the end.'''' " My Christabel, my beloved ! my angel, my com- forter ! I begin to believe in miracles. I almost feel as if you could give me length of years, as well as bliss beyond all thought or hope of mine. Christabel, Christabel, God forgive me if I am asking you to wed sorrow; but you have made this hour of my life an unspeakable ecstasy. Yet I will not take you quite at your word, love. You FROM WINTRY COLD." ['27 shall have time to consider what you are going to do — time to talk to your aunt." "1 want no time for consideration. I will be guided by no one. I think God meant me to love you — and cure you." " I will believe anything you say ; yes^ even if you promise me a new lung. God bless you^ my beloved ! You belong to those whom He does ever- lastingly bless, who are so angelic upon this earth that they teach us to believe in heaven. My Christabel, my own ! I promised to call you Miss Courtenay when we left Pentargon, but I suppose now you are to be Christabel for the rest of my life !" " Yes, always." "And all this time we have not seen a single seal," exclaimed Angus, gaily. His delicate features were radiant with happiness. Who could at such a moment remember death and doom? All painful words which need be said had been spoken. 128 CHAPTER V.