ni 
 
 LI B RAFLY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ILLI NOI5 
 
 82,3 
 D44Zs
 
 SHEEBOENE.
 
 SHERBORNE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS, 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD HENEAGE DERING. 
 
 AL'THOR OF "THE CHTEFTAIN's DAUGHTER, AND OTHER POEMS, 
 ''grey's COrRT," ETC., ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SMITH, ELDER & CO, 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1875. 
 
 (All rights reserved.)
 
 V. 1 
 
 SHEKBORNE. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 " Ante oculos errat domus, Urbs, et forma loconim ; 
 Succeduntque suis singula facta locus." 
 
 Ovid, Trist 
 
 ^ It was in the month, of November, 1869, that 
 
 \ a railway fly, conveying myself, Keginald 
 
 Moreton, a portmanteau, a gun-case, and a 
 
 I bundle of heterogeneous literature, drew up 
 
 J under the archway of the White Hart Hotel, 
 
 in the country town of Lyneham. 
 
 The day was ^^ cold, and dark, and dreary," 
 ^ as Longfellow says; but the next Hne, '*It 
 , rains, and the wind is never weary," did not 
 ^ nold good : on the contrary, the wind appeared 
 j to have been thoroughly tired by some pre- 
 j vious effort, and to have sunk to quiescence, as 
 ^f through sheer want of vigour, or what the 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 doctors call tone. The atmosphere was in 
 that state which, Homer tells ns, is bad for 
 shepherds but good for thieves.* A chilly fog 
 — thin, whitish grey, and equally diffused — 
 made the tip of my nose feel a sort of un- 
 enhvening tingle, such as one's inner self 
 experiences when exposed to the pride, pomp, 
 and circumstance of some ponderously unpro- 
 found criticism. It dimmed the outhne of the 
 policeman's hat at a hundred yards distance, 
 and made the approximate gutter an important 
 object by reason of its comparative distinct- 
 ness. It caused all sounds to strike clearly on 
 the tympanum, and aroused the ears of the 
 mind into a sort of prospective attention. 
 Tennyson says that 
 
 '' In the spring a young man's fancy 
 Lightly turns to thoughts of love. " 
 
 But I believe that in the country the abstract 
 idea of good, sturdy British matrimony — shy, 
 home-growing, and often unconsciously heroic 
 — is most practically busy on grey November 
 days, when the air is chilly but not actually 
 cold, and the sheep-bells tinkle softly in the 
 folded turnip fields. 
 
 I evolved a theory out of my inner conscious- 
 ness about that, but I won't inflict it on the 
 
 * Iloiixicriv ovTi (piXriVy kActttt? 5e re vvKrhs a/xdyu. — II. iii. 11.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 3 
 
 reader now, at any rate ; and as my own fancy 
 was not turning to thoughts of love, either 
 lightly or heavily, we will exchange the aesthe- 
 tics of the sheepfold for a sitting-room on the 
 ground floor of the hotel, containing two 
 window-blinds of brown wire, a horsehair sofa, 
 a metal urn, and a wine-glass of toothpicks on 
 a low mahogany sideboard; a coloured print of 
 a yeomanry review opposite the window, a 
 round gilt looking-glass over the sofa, a 
 money-box for the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society on a small table between the windows, 
 and a voting card of the Conservative can- 
 didate for the northern division of the county 
 on the chimney-piece. 
 
 I walked up to one of the brown blinds, and 
 looked out into the street, which contained 
 a large puddle, an unattached navvy, leaning 
 against the wall, with his hands in his 
 pockets, and a bookseller's shop opposite, 
 decorated, as to its window, with engravings 
 of open-mouthed chorister-boys, Newfoundland 
 dogs, a popular preacher or two, and Garibaldi. 
 
 I had not been in that neighbourhood for 
 many years, but it had once been famihar to 
 me ; so that I began making speculative com- 
 parisons in my own mind as I looked out of 
 the window with the brown blind. 
 
 I was stnring ^t that puddle as a dull \asitor
 
 4 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 stares at a photographic album, or a strong- 
 minded woman at the outside of Mill's Logic, 
 when a voice made its way straight into my 
 ear, uttering these very applicable words — 
 
 **Are you looking for bygone days in the 
 puddle?" 
 
 Within the next four-and-twenty hours I 
 had thought of several appropriate replies to 
 this address, and had pictured to myself the 
 effect theoretically produced thereby ; but for 
 the life of me I could invent none of them 
 at the time ; nay, during the next few seconds 
 even surprise was quiescent, having been fairly 
 elbowed away by the suddenness of the im- 
 mediate demand on my powers of extempore 
 reply — powers which (as the pantomimes always 
 say of the police) are not to be found when 
 they are wanted. 
 
 *' There is a wonderful force in suddenness," 
 said I at last, not to the speaker, but apolo- 
 getically to myself, ** a wonderful force." 
 
 *' There is, for the purpose of lending an 
 artificial superiority where nature has not 
 given it," answered my unknown companion. 
 
 This speech caused me to regain the power 
 of feehng surprised more quickly than I had 
 lost it. 
 
 *' I thought," said I, hesitating, yet much 
 inclined to converse without restraint — " I
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 6 
 
 thought that to derogate from one's own 
 superiority was considered to be a proof of 
 weakness in these days, when a great 
 thought-maker of the day wishes Christian 
 humiHty to be codicilled by pagan self-asser- 
 tion. Anyhow, I thank you for your origin- 
 ahty — an old-fashioned thing that struggled 
 hard against Burke's favourite aversion, the 
 sophists, economists, and calculators, and 
 went out finally with post-horses." 
 
 *' To be henceforth a term of archaeology, 
 like Italian singing and good cooks," said.he. 
 
 *^I don't like that juxtaposition," said I, 
 ^' though it is true, perhaps, of both. I wonder, 
 now, why they ran in couples through your 
 brain. But, I was going to say that you were 
 overrating me just now." 
 
 *' Two men bowing over self-derogation, in 
 the middle of the nineteenth century," said 
 he, haK to himself, drawing nearer to the 
 brown blind, and directing his eyes to the 
 puddle — my particular puddle. 
 
 ^'But what are yon looking for in the 
 puddle — 7ny puddle?" said I, feeling that I 
 had acquired a right to the monopoly of con- 
 templative staring at that lowly work of 
 nature. 
 
 ''I think I must have been looking to see 
 how much I was altered, that you shouldn't
 
 6 SHEEBOKNE; OIJ, 
 
 recognize me," he replied, while a ready-made 
 smile stayed, rather than rested, at the corners 
 of his mouth, and stiffened them as it went. 
 
 '^ How mnch you were altered ! why, who 
 are you, then ? " I asked, turning round, and 
 looking very hard at him, without being any 
 wiser as to who he was. 
 
 *^ Your uncle," he answered, after a rapid, 
 corroborative glance at my features. '' Don't 
 you remember me ? Well, I suppose not." 
 
 I thought of the African magician's address 
 to Aladdin, and carefully scrutinized the ex- 
 terior of him who had made this sensational 
 announcement. He was a strongly built, 
 middle-sized man, whose age it was difficult to 
 guess. He had short-cut dark hair, a well- 
 chiselled mouth, with a twofold and unsatisfied 
 expression, thick, down-rolhng moustaches, 
 and neutral-coloured eyes that opened wearily. 
 
 *^ Won't an aunt's husband's brother do, for 
 an uncle ? " said he, with a" short laugh. ^^ I 
 feel old enough to be the gi'andfather of the 
 oldest inhabitant." 
 
 ^' George Sherborne ? " said I, half-interro- 
 gatively. ^' But how did you find out who I 
 was ? " 
 
 ^'Partly by your voice and manner, which 
 are as unchanged as the eternal laws of self- 
 repeating history and the ever-flowering fresh-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. * 7 
 
 ness of your own convictions and practice, 
 partly by the circumstantial evidence of the 
 brass plate on your portmanteau," said he, 
 mimicking the said voice and manner so well 
 that I could not fail to see myseK mirrored in 
 the imitation. But the caricature was not 
 genial, and the looking-glass had a crack in it. 
 I told him so with great readiness some time 
 afterwards. I think he felt that I had per- 
 ceived this as soon as the words were spoken, 
 for he added quickly — 
 
 ^' I am living the life of a hermit without the 
 hard fare, the praying, or the peace. I mean 
 that one is so bothered with one thing and 
 another — I lamed my best hunter last Monday, 
 and the parson of the parish lectures on botany 
 in the national schoolroom to-morrow. I am 
 fast qualifying for the character of Democritus 
 Junior, and I can't amuse myself hke the man 
 who wrote the ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' by 
 standing on a bridge and listening to bargees 
 slanging each other. But do come and stay 
 with me : you are coming into the country, I 
 hear. Haven't you bought a property the 
 other side of Colesmore ? " 
 
 *^ A hundred acres, and a square brick house 
 that probably held a sturdy yeoman three or 
 four score years back," I replied. ^^ I haven't 
 seen it yet, but I had a chance of buying it
 
 8 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 advantageously, at least as mncli so as one can 
 now-a-days, and so I closed with the offer at 
 once. It was as much of a place as I could 
 pay for. I should be very glad to come and 
 see you at Hazeley, but I am going to stay 
 with Sir Eoger Arden." 
 
 *' So am I ; that is, to dine and sleep, and 
 shoot to-morrow. I am off afterwards to 
 Gorseford, to go to the meet there the next 
 day. I tell you what we will do, if you like. 
 I had to drive in here this morning : now my 
 dog-cart shall take your luggage, and we can 
 walk across country to Bramscote — it's only 
 four miles and a half across Wroxley Common." 
 
 I acceded to this proposal gladly, for a walk 
 along the by-paths and crooked ways of a 
 picturesque and well-remembered country, 
 with a companion who left the weather alone, 
 and was not bounded as to his thoughts by the 
 Highways Act, or the advisability of keeping 
 down rabbits, was one of those pleasures 
 whose value rises like the price of corn, from 
 scarcity. I assented then to the proposal, but 
 with a reservation which I expressed forth- 
 with. '^ I have travelled," said I, ^^from grey 
 morning till now — it is half-past three — and 
 experienced the magnificent deception of the 
 railway refreshment rooms." 
 
 ** Insomuch that you require the traditional
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 9 
 
 mutton-chop of the British inn," said he. 
 ^*I have got to look at a horse close by, and 
 I will call for you in half an hour." 
 
 Accordingly he went off to transact that 
 kind of business in which scepticism is neces- 
 sary for self-defence. A pity it is that the 
 friendly animal who gives us so much pleasure, 
 and keeps off the doctor, should be made the 
 subject of boundless unveracity; but so it 
 is. Whilst he was horse-dealing, I occupied 
 myself with speculations touching him and 
 others who lived, or had lived, in that neigh- 
 bourhood ; or rather, they occupied me — occu- 
 pied my mind as a large family does a small 
 house, by filling every corner of it. 
 
 The traditional mutton-chop arrived, and 
 I did justice to the same, as a Chancery suit 
 does justice to a property contended for, by 
 eating it up ; for I had breakfasted scantily at 
 five o'clock, driven twelve miles over cross- 
 country roads to a station, changed trains a 
 bewildering number of times, and in short, 
 been jolted about from seven o'clock till past 
 two, with occasional intervals of waiting on 
 platforms, where the wind blew from the four 
 quarters of the earth, and placards in large 
 blue letters informed me that the Daily Tele- 
 graph had the largest circulation in the world. 
 
 Then, being left alone, exposed to the silent
 
 10 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 influences of local recollection, I fell by 
 degrees into what may be called intentional 
 dreaming ; I mean that state of mind wherein, 
 by an act of the will, we think in a series of 
 pictures with no outlines. That little room, 
 dingy in colour, rather deficient in fresh air, 
 and smelling of soot, referred my memory to 
 some of its archives, dating back from ten 
 to twenty-two years — I am now twenty-seven. 
 And so did the oval looking-glass, and the 
 horsehair sofa, and the bookseller's shop ; ay, 
 and even the puddle in the road. 
 
 All these commonplace and intrinsically 
 uninteresting things were a sort of rtiemoria 
 teclmica to me : they brought into my mind 
 by association the plotless life-drama of child- 
 hood, and boyhood, and — what shall I call 
 it ? — neutral age, when hfe is fresh, and con- 
 sequences seem open to persuasion. 
 
 How often, when a child, had I been taken 
 to that old country town, and examined all 
 the little commonplace objects in it with an 
 inexhaustible interest that stood its ground 
 even at home among the primroses, and the 
 favourite playthings, and the loved old corners 
 in dark passages, and the little garden, ^lyq 
 feet square, filled with mustard and cress, or 
 blue-bells planted without roots. For was 
 there not a mysterious connection between
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 11 
 
 the local interests of home and that old 
 country town ? The favourite playthings had 
 been chosen at the old toyshop, where, in an 
 upper room, a queer little old man, who im- 
 pressed me with the idea that he had always 
 been the same age, used to cut my hair. 
 That little upper room, with shells on the 
 chimney-piece and odd numbers of the 
 ^' Penny Sunday Eeader " in a green baize 
 bookcase, looked out upon a bookseller's win- 
 dow — even now associated in my mind with 
 '' Mother Hubbard," '' Jack the Giant Kriler," 
 and other sensational literature of my child- 
 hood. From that well-remembered window,, 
 or from shelves behind the staircase — dark 
 shelves indefinably mysterious, even more so 
 than the subterranean receptacle for bacon 
 and yellow soap in the village shop — the 
 favourite playthings had first caught my eye. 
 From the bookseller's shop opposite the 
 favourite story-books had been bought; at 
 the ironmonger's round the corner I had 
 chosen the little spade with which I was con- 
 tinually digging up the rootless flowers I had 
 planted, and the watering-pot from which I 
 usually poured water over my own shoes. 
 Then, again, when older, I used to ride into 
 Lyneham, and buy bullfinches or guinea-pigs- 
 from barbers in back streets and cads in
 
 12 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 difficulties ; and later I came there for powder 
 and shot, just before my first shooting season ; 
 and later still, when I had reached the neutral 
 age of undefined expectation, I came there, 
 on the eve of entering upon the world's 
 perilous ocean. There used I, at the cricket 
 matches, fiercely to despair of cutting out 
 some pompous young squireen in the good 
 graces of Miss Virginia Shale, daughter of a 
 neighbouring rector given to geology. There 
 used I to look small in my own eyes when, at 
 the hunt ball, the temporary heroine of my 
 creative fancy sat down in a corner with a 
 heavy dragoon (they existed in those remote 
 times, and were commonly called plungers) 
 instead of dancing with me. There I came, 
 with all my worldly goods, to start by railway 
 for the long ceaseless battle of life, when I 
 left the home of my childhood, to see it no 
 more save as a stranger. 
 
 But in the mean time I have eaten the 
 mutton-chop, and George Sherborne has re- 
 turned from his horse-dealing expedition. 
 
 **Have you bought the horse?" I asked, 
 as I rang the bell for the waiter, and searched 
 my pocket for the sordid ore. 
 
 ''Yes; and have not been included in the 
 selling process, I think," he answered. *' I 
 fancy I have made a good purchase."
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUPw WAYS. 13 
 
 ^' You are a good judge of a horse, if I 
 remember right." 
 
 " Pretty well. I have been lucky in horse- 
 dealing, certainly. I think it generally goes 
 with ill-success in important things. There 
 is that dullest of prosers. Sir Thomas Grub- 
 hedge, a model of mediocrity, who beheves in 
 himself so hard that he has made other people 
 believe in him. He never bought a horse 
 that he didn't pay half as much again for as 
 he ought, and he never had a horse worth a 
 ten-pound note ; but he causes himself to be 
 considered an authority in agriculture, because 
 he takes everybody to see his steam-plough, 
 and he may safely be backed against the field 
 for his county at the election, whenever he is 
 opposed. In fact, he has succeeded in every- 
 thing within the scope of his narrow ambition ; 
 and I — well ! I have been lucky in horse- 
 deaUng, but I lost my election at Shipton 
 Clayford through his influence. Yes ! A man 
 who is lucky in horse-dealing isn't the man to 
 turn an election by inert force ; and the man 
 who can do that will never win fair lady, 
 though he may obtain her ; and, in short, life 
 is full of incompatibilities. Horse-deahng is 
 a low object of success, but more respectable 
 than betting, and more useful than croquet ; 
 yet it isn't a very practical success — it doesn't
 
 14 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 save one from loss by accidents. Old Grub- 
 hedge, who never rode over a stick, saves that 
 way. I lose nearly as much by accidents as 
 he does by paying too much." 
 
 At that moment the waiter came into the 
 room, and the subject went out of our heads 
 Hke an out-voted ministry, by being turned 
 out. But it was not the waiter who inter- 
 rupted us ; it was the unexpected entrance of 
 no less a personage than that uncompromising 
 foe to trees and popery. Sir Thomas Grub- 
 hedge himself. 
 
 He was a small, compact man, with a bald 
 head rising high at the back, stiff whiskers 
 of a grizzled sandy colour, an outstretching 
 aquiline nose, cold grey eyes, round and rude, 
 a large angular mouth with an immense upper 
 lip; finally, a general expression that is best 
 described as depreciatory. The moment I 
 saw him I felt the secret of his success in 
 impressing the weight of his mediocrity on 
 others. *^ What a fine fellow he must be if 
 he thinks so Httle of us all ! " is what people 
 in general are apt to feel without being aware 
 of it, in the presence of a stiff, pompous- 
 hearted man, who esteems the measurement 
 of his own self-esteem to be objectively true. 
 
 He came forward, or rather placed himself 
 near to where Sherborne stood, and said, in a
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 15 
 
 prolonged monotone, *^ Mr. Sherborne, a — a 
 — I think. How do you do ? I am happy 
 to see you again. You have been absent 
 some time from — a — oh ! ah ! by the bye " 
 (here his memory seemed refreshed, and his 
 stiffness unbent backwards into condescen- 
 sion), '*you are at Hazeley now, of coui'se. 
 A fine country this, but wants opening out, 
 and better farming altogether. I have just 
 come from my great-nephew, Bertram Fy- 
 fields : he drove me over here, and I have 
 ordered a fly to take me on to BramscotOv" 
 
 ^* Does Fyfield still go in for theoretical 
 radicalism after his tenth cigar? " asked Sher- 
 borne, in a tone that suggested a sneer with- 
 out exactly expressing it. 
 
 The door opened, and a tall, sallow-faced 
 young man, with limp light hair and mous- 
 taches, walked in. He wore the last new 
 thing in driving- coats, held a yet unlighted 
 cigar in his mouth, and, like Ossian's heroes, 
 hummed a surly song. 
 
 *^ Good-bye," he said to Sir Thomas, with 
 a joyless laugh. ''Don't forget to read that 
 essay on negative religion, and the 'Hymn 
 to the Devil,' too. It's rather startling, per- 
 haps ; but then, it's only aimed against the 
 priests, you see. ' Hai vinto il Jeova dei 
 Sacerdoti,' it says, which means that he is a
 
 16 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 successful Whalley. He won't interfere with 
 the religion of Laud and Hoadly, of Gumming, 
 Stanley, Mackonochie, and Spurgeon, hecause 
 it would be more impossible to find out what 
 it is than to learn the Basque language, which 
 he tried at for twenty years, and couldn't 
 manage. Good-bye, I'll give you. fifteen 
 pounds for that cob ; and look here — there's 
 a trades-union lecturer, Mr. Cincinnatus 
 Batten, who wants your vote and interest 
 for Shipton Clayford." 
 
 He disappeared through the half-open door, 
 whilst Sir Thomas Grubhedge was muttering 
 an inarticulate remonstrance, in a fat but 
 somewhat unquiet voice. The latter took two 
 or three short turns up and down the room, 
 buttoned the top button of his coat with a 
 jerk of the whole right arm, faced us, stood 
 fixedly, with his legs wide apart, and said, in 
 a sententious voice — 
 
 *^ You mustn't take all that seriously. He 
 has plenty of common sense at bottom, and 
 good abilities, too. It's a foohsh way the 
 young men of the day have got into — this 
 chaff, as they call it, and making themselves 
 Qie makes himself out) a — you know, a — quite 
 different from what he is." 
 
 *^It ^'5 a fashion just now," answered Sher- 
 borne dryly.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 17 
 
 ** Yes, — a — " said Sir Thomas; ^' and — a — 
 the real fact is, you know, he is a Koman 
 CathoHc." This was said in a very fat tone 
 of apology, and the o, in Eoman, sonorously 
 circumfiexed in token of the speaker's con- 
 tempt for Popery. 
 
 **I never knew that Cathohcs were more 
 given to chaff than other people," said Sher- 
 borne, abstracting all expression from his 
 eyes. 
 
 '' No. I don't mean that," answered Sir 
 Thomas, placidly behoving that the question 
 had been put in earnest. ^' You see, he is 
 too intelligent to believe all the priests tell 
 him, but his mother, you know — Oh ! I 
 forgot ' ' 
 
 What it was that he had forgotten did not 
 directly appear; but Sherborne turned rather 
 abruptly, and said: — ^' Allow me to introduce 
 Mr. Moreton." And tacitly impressing on us 
 both his desire that we should do the talking 
 till further notice, left the room to give orders 
 about sending the horse he had just bought — : 
 at least, so he said. 
 
 Sir Thomas, taking this move for a sign 
 that I should be a congenial listener, ap- 
 proached with visible alacrity, and said, in a 
 voice yet fatter than before — 
 
 *' Bertram's father was a very old friend of 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 SHEKBORNE; OR, 
 
 mine, though some years younger than myseK. 
 He was a Protestant, and so was she. She 
 was my niece, and I was her sole guardian 
 after her mother died. Well, poor William 
 Fyfield, this young fellow's father, had gone 
 in for reading ' The Tracts for the Times,' and 
 all that sort of thing ; and a year or two after 
 they married she was got hold of, and went 
 over to Eome. I had rather have seen her in 
 her co£&n. He died when this hoy was only 
 six years old, and they pretended that he, too, 
 had become a Komanist at the last, I don't 
 believe that; but he had been weak enough to 
 let the boy be brought up one, and it gave us 
 a lot of trouble. — I was one of the guardians, 
 and Linus Jones, the rector of Fernham, who 
 had been a friend of his at Oxford, was 
 another — for she wanted to keep him in the 
 hands of the priests ; but we were determined 
 to — that is, I was, for Jones would have given 
 in ; and he was sent to Oxford, which has 
 improved him ; and mixing among young 
 men of the world since has done something 
 for him." 
 
 **I see it has," said I. 
 
 The ambiguity of my answer appeared to 
 strike him ; at least, his eyes opened roundly, 
 and he waited a few moments before he 
 added —
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 19 
 
 ** A fine property, Dredgemere, and ho 
 came into it quite clear. You know the 
 place?" 
 
 '^I was there once as a boy," said I; '^but 
 I have hardly been in this country for the last 
 ten years, from the time when I joined the 
 army. If I remember right, it must be ten 
 miles from here on the Middleford side." 
 
 '^Ah! yes," said he, ^'of course; Linus 
 Jones succeeded your father, to be sure. I 
 remember your father well." 
 
 He took two or three turns up and down^the 
 room, and said — 
 
 '^You remember Sherborne's mother then, 
 of course ?" 
 
 '' Yery well indeed," said I : " she died since 
 I left England." 
 
 '' He's unsettled, Sherborne is," said he. 
 '' With good abilities and all that, he does 
 nothing. I often wish I had acted differently, 
 and then perhaps my niece Isabel (Lady 
 Fyfield) would have been different — mightn't 
 have turned Papist. You know Sherborne 
 wanted to marry her ; but he was a second 
 son then, and I didn't feel justified, as her 
 guardian, in allowing it. If I had been her 
 father it would have been another thing, and 
 so — Well, well! it can't be helped; but he 
 can't get over it, I can see; and he thinks
 
 20 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 I prevented his getting in for Shipton Clay- 
 ford, wMc'i I really didn't do." 
 
 ^^ Yes, it is, as you were saying just now, 
 the fashion to pretend to be what one is not," 
 said Sherborne, reappearing at that moment. 
 " I heard a man say last night he hadn't a 
 rap, before young ladies who had a poetical 
 ideal of that financial condition, whilst his 
 rent-roll, present or futiu'e, was a silent guaran- 
 tee for the production ol^ — what shall I call it ? 
 — the material support of romance." 
 
 ''Yes, exactly," answered Sir Thomas, not 
 perceiving the transformation his former 
 remark had imdergone in the process of being 
 agreed to by Sherborne. ''It is just what I 
 said," he asserted didactically: " you mustn't 
 construe their words literally." 
 
 " Nor their feelings," added Sherborne. 
 
 "To be sure — that's what I [said. They 
 don't mean what they say." 
 
 "No, no more than the atheists and 
 debauchees of the last century meant the 
 French Ee volution, which, what they did 
 intend, approximately caused." 
 
 " H'm — h'm — h'm — h'm — I hope — yes — 
 very bad, very bad." 
 
 "And no more than a man would expect, 
 that an after-dinner speech at a non-political 
 meeting will lose him an election two years 
 afterwards."
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 21 
 
 The red blood came suddenly into Sir 
 Thomas's neatly-whiskered cheeks, and went 
 with no less rapidity, as if afraid of betraying 
 itself by remaining there. Evidently Sher- 
 borne had, by chance or design, touched one 
 sore place in his memory. He coloured then, 
 and the red blood seemed to sting the roots of 
 his whiskers; but the instinct of self-respect, 
 which is often a substitute for tact, a bridle on 
 temper, and a finger-post to the external 
 amenities, effaced that and every other sign 
 of annoyance, except, perhaps, a certain 
 looseness about the corners of his mouth. 
 
 " You are gaining more than you lost, in 
 the way of comparative dignity," thought I to 
 myself when I saw this, and heard him follow 
 it up by saying, in a kindly tone — 
 
 " Ah ! you — you are alluding to when you 
 stood for Shipton Clayford. I have often 
 thought it was a pity you didn't stand for 
 some other place. Your speech was beyond 
 the people there." 
 
 ** Well, we shall meet again at Bramscote 
 by-and-by," said Sherborne rather abruptly. 
 ^' "We are going to walk there by a short way, 
 across the fields, and it's half-past three 
 now." 
 
 Sir Thomas's fly was waiting at the door 
 under the archway, and we saw him get into
 
 22 SHERBOEKE; 0L% 
 
 it as we turned down a by-street that led out 
 of the town in the direction of Brainscote. 
 He wore shepherd's plaid trousers and an 
 unruffled hat ; he had the last number of the 
 Quarterly in his hand, and his servant had an 
 introspective expression of countenance, as if 
 he were in the constant, nay continuous habit 
 of abstracting his individuality from the notice 
 of his master. I made this remark to Sher- 
 borne, as we were leaving the town by a foot- 
 path across a turnip field. 
 
 "Ah, yes," he answered with a short 
 laugh, " that's the regulation pattern — it shows 
 how respectful they are." 
 
 '^ Or rather," said I, " how thoroughly they 
 have got into the way of considering their 
 services as the work of a living machine, ex- 
 actly balanced by the fulfilment of certain 
 conditions on the part of those whom they 
 serve. The very term now creeping into 
 general use, of employer instead of master, 
 shows that the bare bargain is supreme." 
 
 '*I don't see that," answered Sherborne in 
 a tone rather too decided for perfect convic- 
 tion. 
 
 " You protest too much," said I. " I think 
 you have got some shaky theory about this^ 
 and want to take care of it, in order to see 
 what it's made of."
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 23 
 
 He stood still for a minute or two, poked 
 one of the turnips with, his stick, laughed the 
 joyless laugh which had once akeady grated on 
 my ear, and answered slowly — 
 
 ^' You mean that I am a disappointed man, 
 who is trying experiments with unsuccessful 
 theories, like a chess-player trying an imagi- 
 nary game by himself with the pieces, after he 
 has lost it." 
 
 "No," I repHed. "That was not what I was 
 thinking ; but you have made me suspect that 
 there is both more and less truth in the mean- 
 ing you put on my words than you imagine." 
 
 " You have grown sharp — very sharp." 
 
 " Not a bit ; but when one looks in the 
 glass, one is apt to see other things besides 
 one's own face ; and, as I made myself a 
 special study for several years, I learned some- 
 thing of other people in the process." 
 
 " Well, what do you mean by there being 
 both more and less truth in what I said than 
 I imagined ? " 
 
 " I mean that, if I am not mistaken, your 
 heart is more disappointed, and your head less 
 so, than you tell yourself. I mean, in short, 
 that your mind is untrue to its natural 
 instincts, and follows artificial ones. Here is 
 a case in point ; but I am growing prosy " 
 
 " No, no — go on. It refreshes me to hear
 
 24 SHERBORNE; OB, 
 
 something that isn't paraphrased from what 
 Eanke used to call ^ the Englishman's thinking- 
 machine — the Thunderer^'' whose thunderings 
 have been irreverently called a big, pompous 
 bow-wow." 
 
 I was unable to perceive any originality in 
 what I had said, but I suppose I must have 
 looked as if I assented to the idea that it was 
 better not to have one's thinking done for one, 
 like one's washing ; for Sherborne, who was 
 evidently in that state of mind which inclines 
 a man to feel slightly irritated at being agreed 
 to without hesitation, added quickly — 
 
 ^^ Yes, or from the Civilta Cattolica." 
 
 '* Very epigrammatic," said I, ''■ but the 
 antithesis reminds me of those rocks which 
 geologists tell us derive theii^ origin from the 
 mechanical force of moving water." 
 
 '^ You mean that the mental act which pro- 
 duced it was forced, washy, and unstable ? " 
 
 'ado." 
 
 '^ And that, to carrj^ on the geological 
 metaphor, the result is a kind of mental 
 pudding-stone — a conglomeration of shapeless 
 materials ? " 
 
 ''Precisely." 
 
 " You mean, in short, that I have a lot of 
 provisional opinions floating about in an ocean 
 of uncertainty, jostling each other."
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 25 
 
 '* Yes, and I might carry on the metaphor 
 further — talk ahout the process of consohda- 
 tion, and wonder what it will ever form into ; 
 but that would lead me farther than I mean 
 to go." 
 
 '' That is, it would take some of your plea- 
 santest convictions out of the snug harbour of 
 dogmatism, and expose them to the chopping 
 sea of criticism." 
 
 We had just reached a stile ; and I forth- 
 with sat upon it, after the manner of my 
 countrymen when they want to be emphatic 
 during a rui'al walk. 
 
 ^^ Now let us make a bargain," I said. 
 ^' Don't get upon religion, unless you are 
 prepared to give your mind and your con- 
 science fair play ; or you may know too much. 
 For, as Dante says — 
 
 ' . . . . Non torna tal qual ei si muove 
 Chi pesca per lo vero, e non ha I'arte. ' " * 
 
 He made no answer, but walked on, cross- 
 ing the lane below the stile, and passing 
 through a small wood on the other side, into 
 a cross-country road, rough and rutty. After 
 we had walked along the lane a hundred yards 
 or so, he said suddenly — 
 
 ♦ " Much more than vainly doth he loose from shore, 
 Since he returns not such as he set forth, 
 Who fishes for the Truth, and wanteth skill." 
 
 Paradtso. Cary's translatiov .
 
 26 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 ^' You remarked just now (only you went off 
 moralizing about why I didn't think so) — you 
 remarked that, in these days, servants in 
 general, and old Grubhedge's in particular, 
 have a sort of introspective way of looking, as 
 if they desired to abstract their individuality 
 from the notice of their masters; and you 
 said, in other words, that the term ^ employer ' 
 shows the exclusive supremacy of the money 
 bargain — the bartering of time, attention, and 
 labour for wages. And I said that I didn't 
 see it ; but, in fact, I meant something else. 
 I meant, that it's a natural and unavoidable 
 result of civilisation — an inseparable incon- 
 venience." 
 
 ^^ Showing the said civilisation to be a sort of 
 Penelope's web, that goes as much backwards 
 as forwards," I replied. 
 
 ^^ I never said it wasn't," said he. '^ But do 
 you remember that house up in the corner, 
 with the chestnuts at the back ? " 
 
 I looked at it, and seemed to stand on the 
 other side of a period, in a space of time full 
 of vague aspirations and indefinite sentiment. 
 It was the very house where the young lady 
 used to live who preferred the plunger to 
 myself some ten years before. I used to quote 
 poetry to her in the shrubbery, and be cut out 
 by the plunger at the Hunt ball.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 27 
 
 ^'Well, you recollect, wlien you were a 
 youngster, how you used to quote poetry to 
 Miss Shale, and give her bouquets, which she, 
 of course, gave to a heavy dragoon — I forget 
 his name — who married her afterwards, changed 
 into an infantry regiment in India, sold out, 
 and became a barrack-master." 
 
 '* What are you driving at ? " said I. 
 
 " I am driving at this. As a boy, you of 
 course thought her an embodiment of all the 
 heroines that you read of in Byron and 
 Tennyson during the holidays. I don't at 
 all mean that you were definitely in love with 
 her, but that you surrounded her with an ideal 
 romance, whereas she was about the most 
 commonplace little girl you would have found 
 in a day's journey." 
 
 *' And because I idealized Miss Shale when 
 I was sixteen," said I, whilst he was hesitating, 
 *' it follows that I must talk nonsense about 
 things in general now. You had better say 
 it out, my dear fellow, at once, for I know 
 what it is you mean. You mean, that I have 
 as little sense now as I had then, and that I 
 have proved it by becoming a Catholic. Now, 
 I tell you, I won't answer that ; for I don't 
 want to shove a looking-glass before your eyes 
 unless you mean to look fairly at whatever you 
 may see there, which I don't think you do."
 
 28 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 ^' 'Non torna tal qual ei si muove,' etc., eh?" 
 lie answered impatiently. ^' You are very con- 
 siderate. Perhaps you never heard of exciting 
 people's curiosity by elastic conditions." 
 
 ''There is nothing elastic in the conditions I 
 named/' said I. ''They are as stiff as a poker. 
 If you really want to know what the Church 
 teaches, I shall be happy to tell you, so far as 
 my ignorance will serve me ; but if you only 
 mean to cavil and play the fool, I won't answer 
 you at all. I hope you understand this. If 
 not I will speak plainer." 
 
 Of course he evaded the point. 
 
 "I didn't mean," he said, "that you in- 
 tended to entrap me into putting in an 
 appearance as a convert ; but the fact is, you 
 know, that unconsciously certain habits of 
 mind " 
 
 "Learnt, of course, from the itinerant Jesuit 
 in disguise," said I, interrupting him, for my 
 patience was becoming the worse for wear. 
 
 He laughed, or rather, gruffly chuckled. 
 The sound had a joyless self-indulgent quahty 
 — no, not self-indulgent exactly, but self-relax- 
 ing. After a minute he said abruptly — 
 
 " What made you turn ? " 
 
 "I am walking perfectly straight," said I, 
 looking at him in an unintelligent manner. 
 
 " No, no ; I mean, when did you go over ? "
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUIl WAYS. 29 
 
 *^ That farmer will go over if he drives like 
 that," said I, as a stout agriculturist went by 
 in a ^^ shay cart," steering it in a manner that 
 betokened having done much business at 
 market. 
 
 ^^ You are avoiding the question," muttered 
 Sherborne. 
 
 '' I am ; and I mean to do so," I replied, 
 '' and for this simple reason, that you are not 
 in a frame of mind to understand the answer. 
 But who is this coming down the road from 
 Ferry Corner Station? He is asking a. boy 
 the way somewhere, and doesn't seem much 
 the wiser for what the boy says." 
 
 This latter fact became still more apparent 
 as we drew near to where he stood. He was 
 leaning over to Hsten, and listening with his 
 upraised shoulders, his bent head, his ques- 
 tioning eyes. He was evidently a foreigner 
 trying to make out the provincial vernacular 
 of the said boy. 
 
 "He is a priest," said Sherborne; ''a 
 French priest going to Bramscote, I dare say. 
 If he is, I will ask him to join us." 
 
 " Oho ! " thinks I to myself, " what a differ- 
 ence there is between points of view ! You 
 look upon the Ardens from the genealogical 
 side, and think of ^ old Catholics ' in general 
 as of an historico-romantic abstraction ; but
 
 30 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 yon consider 7ne from the standpoint of the 
 Papal aggression. Catholics are to be 
 patronized, so long as they don't get into 
 Parhament, or want justice for their poor in 
 workhouses and county gaols ; hut the in- 
 dulgence must he restricted to certain fami- 
 lies. A certrin number is all very well, but 
 they must be kept down, like hares and 
 rabbits." 
 
 I found it very difficult not to say this 
 aloud ; but, reflecting that I should stultify 
 myself if I did so, when I had declared I 
 would not, and had quoted Dante in illustra- 
 tion, I drew a deep breath, and pondered on the 
 force of controversial obstruction — the most 
 effective, if not the most honest method of 
 verbal warfare. If a man shows that he 
 either cannot, or will not construe correctly 
 the full answer to a question which he asks 
 with the evident design of using his own 
 version of the same against you, he not only 
 puts the onus ]pr oh audi on shoulders that must 
 of necessity refuse the unfair burden, but he 
 entitles himself, according to the popular laws 
 of influence, to assume that the weight of his 
 question, and not the unstable, shifting quality 
 of the principles implied in it, had caused you 
 to decline the undertaldng ; and if, as will 
 probably be the case, he is not formally dis-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 31 
 
 honest about it, you will stand an especially 
 bad chance with him ; for, being honest at 
 heart, he would not commit an act of dis- 
 honesty, unless by training, or other causes, 
 his mind had become really incapable of just- 
 dealing towards you respecting the subject in 
 question. 
 
 It was amusing to see the alacrity with 
 which his manner changed as he walked up 
 to the spot where the stranger stood. Evi- 
 dently he looked upon him from the genea- 
 logical point of view, and not from that of 
 the Papal aggression. 
 
 Whilst he was bowing and scraping in the 
 most approved fashion of international wel- 
 come, I profited by the chance, and took a 
 rapid survey of the privileged Papist. I saw 
 a well-chiselled line of olive-coloured features, 
 illumined by a pair of black eyes that emitted 
 liquid light when he spoke, and I made up my 
 mind, from various signs, difficult to define 
 and still more so to mistake, that he was of 
 sub-alpine origin. He wore an ill-made great 
 coat, evidently bought off a peg in some 
 ready-made shop on the British coast, and 
 he had a knitted shawl or scarf (comforter 
 I believe is the word), of thick white lamb's 
 wool, round his neck. His ^^ get-up" was 
 certainly not sacerdotal ; it bore a efeneral
 
 32 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 resemblance to the sort of dress often worn 
 by English, priests when travelling through 
 their native land, where public opinion 
 respecting them may be rendered thus : ^^ We 
 are extremely — nay, excessively liberal. We 
 have freedom, especially the liberty of the 
 subject, so much at heart that we quite 
 worship it ; and that isn't idolatry you know, 
 because — because Hberty is an abstract idea. 
 We allow, indeed we insist upon, the utmost 
 personal freedom; but you had better not 
 make yourselves too conspicuous, it might 
 seem — we don't say it would — but it miglit 
 seem aggressive." 
 
 And if the reader is not convinced fchat the 
 feeling herein expressed is one of unmixed 
 friendhness, it is much to be feared that he 
 will be still more sceptical as to the good 
 intentions towards the inmates of '^ conven- 
 tual estabhshments," with which the domin- 
 ions of his Satanic Majesty have, in this year 
 1870, been so liberally paved.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 33 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " But loyalty — truce ! we're on dangerous ground : 
 Who knows how the fashions may alter ? 
 The doctrine to-day which is loyalty sound, 
 To-morrow may bring us a halter." 
 
 So sang Burns in the year 1787, and Don 
 Pascolini (such was the name of the ItaHan 
 priest) conveyed the same idea in ItaHan ; for 
 it presently came out in conversation that the 
 Scotch poet's theory about reversible loyalty 
 had been illustrated in practice on divers 
 friends and relations of the abbate's, nominally 
 in favour of the Re Galantuomo, practically in 
 the interest of revolutionism. 
 
 This part of the conversation arose from the 
 fact of his having asked his way. The where- 
 from and the whereto soon developed them- 
 selves into details under the fostering care 
 of Sherborne, who looking upon the abbate 
 from the before-mentioned genealogical point 
 of view, seemed to appropriate his interests 
 
 VOL. I. J)
 
 34 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 for the nonce, as a lawyer does those of his 
 cHent. 
 
 Don Pascolini was going to Bramscote. 
 Sherborne told him that we were going there 
 too, and hoped to have the honour of his 
 company on the way, and was much distressed 
 that there was no conveyance at the station 
 for his portmanteau. 
 
 Being a practical sort of fellow, or perhaps 
 only a meddling one, I remarked that this 
 distress might be remedied by stopping Sher- 
 borne's dog-cart, which was just coming in 
 sight. Sherborne, with many bows and 
 scrapes, offered to drive the abbate in it to 
 Bramscote ; but the latter, being very cold, 
 preferred walking. So the portmanteau was 
 despatched in the dog-cart, and we walked on. 
 
 It turned out that Don Pascolini had, for a 
 time at least, left his native place, somewhere 
 in North Italy, where freedom (save the 
 mark !) was manifested by the Hberties taken 
 with first principles. His health had broken 
 down from fatigue and hardships of various 
 kinds, and he had been pressed to come to 
 England on a visit to his old friend, the 
 Catholic squire. Sir Eoger Arden, who Hved 
 between three or four miles from where we 
 were. He intended, as he presently told us, 
 to take the opportunity by the way, of doing
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 35 
 
 a little begging for some of the starving nuns 
 cast forth from their homes by the ministerial 
 housebreakers of the Eevolution. 
 
 Sherborne's adjustment of conflicting in- 
 clinations, after he had heard this, was, to 
 myself, a curious study, almost amusing, 
 speculatively instructive, perilous to charity, 
 suggestive to imagination, puzzling to judg- 
 ment, unsetthngto conjecture. His undemon- 
 strative excitability formed a very suggestive 
 contrast to the energetic calmness of Don 
 Pascolini. 
 
 There was nothing remarkable about the 
 latter, nothing distinctive, as compared with 
 the average men of his calling and country ; 
 but, as compared with Sherborne, there was 
 something in him very plainly distinguishable : 
 it was something which commonly distin- 
 guishes, more or less, the utterances of a 
 Catholic priest from those of other people, but 
 most especially from those of non-Catholic 
 laymen. 
 
 This something has a positive and a nega- 
 tive side : you may look at it either as the 
 absence of an uncertain sound, or the unob- 
 trusive presence of immovable standpoints. 
 Both are an enigma to non-Cathohcs, and 
 they contribute, more than most of us are 
 aware of, towards keeping up in their minds
 
 36 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 the idea of an indefinable mystery akin ta 
 that of a haunted house, which popular 
 literature has retained among a people in 
 whom common sense is a noticeable charac- 
 teristic. 
 
 Of the two, the negative aspect is perhaps 
 the most enigmatical, and for this reason — 
 the absence of the accustomed is rather more 
 puzzhng than the presence of the unaccus- 
 tomed; first, because you need only observe 
 the one, but the other forces you to think, and 
 it is harder to think than simply to observe ; 
 secondly, because in the one case you have 
 something to lay hold of, whilst in the other 
 you must make the raw material to spin your 
 inductions from. 
 
 Now, do people really separate this mys- 
 terious something ? And if so, do they ever in 
 practice look at it from the negative -side ? 
 I think they do. 
 
 I thought of this just then, because the 
 expression of Sherborne's countenance indi- 
 cated a half- conscious efi'ort to discover what 
 it was that he missed in Don Pascolini — in 
 short, to find out the trick ; and if it be asked 
 what happens to a man's features in such a 
 case, perhaps the most pictorial answer would 
 be that they seem altogether upraised, and 
 suggest the form of an arch, as if by a shadow
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 37 
 
 hovering just beloAv the line of each cheek- 
 bone. 
 
 Nevertheless the sentences which made 
 Sherborne's countenance assume this interro- 
 gative form were very simple. They certainly 
 were not obscure, but they were prudently, 
 almost cautiously worded ; in fact, they were 
 little more than bare answers to questions. 
 
 ^^ Italy is not in a pleasant state now," said 
 Sherborne. 
 
 Don Pascolini briefly assented, and then 
 was silent. 
 
 ^^It must be painful," said Sherborne. 
 *' States of transition are, and must be so 
 
 5) 
 
 very— 
 
 ^' I came to England on business," inter- 
 rupted Don Pascolini, with significant decision 
 of manner; '^and Sir Eoger Arden, whom I 
 knew many years ago in Eome, invited me to 
 visit him at Bramscote, when he heard that 
 by chance I was in England. That is what 
 brings me here. I have also done a little 
 business of a different kind, as I happened to 
 be in England. I have been begging for the 
 nuns who have been driven out of their 
 convents." 
 
 '^ It is very distressing," said Sherborne. 
 ^' If there could only be some understanding 
 between — between his Hohness and "
 
 38 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 *^ The thieves who have stolen most of his 
 territories, and want to steal the rest," inter- 
 rupted I. 
 
 ^'I was speaking to Don Pascolini," said he. 
 
 *' Nonsense is public property," said I. 
 
 ^^ They are doing by degrees in Italy what 
 was done in England by Henry the Eighth," 
 said Don Pascohni. 
 
 ^' Ah ! " said Sherborne — by the bye, people 
 always say *^ah" when they want to make 
 you think that they sympathise with you, and, 
 at the same time, strongly desire to avoid 
 committing themselves as to ]3rinciples — • 
 '^ Ah, yes. It's a very sad story." 
 
 Don Pascolini gave one quick scrutinizing 
 glance at the speaker's eyes, without turning 
 his own head, and remained significantly 
 silent. Sherborne became cautious — cautious 
 of saying too little. He evidently wanted to 
 offer credibly a considerable amount of inde- 
 finite and elastic sympathy for the piUaged 
 nuns. Whether this desire signified latent 
 appreciation of the heroic element in the reli- 
 gious life, or merely marked a phase of inter- 
 national politeness, or sprang out of an 
 historico-sentimental feehng, who could say ? 
 Not he, I think. 
 
 WeU then, he became cautious of saying 
 too little, and he showed it by making ges-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 39 
 
 tures of disavowal. Gestui'es, by the bye, 
 never commit one exactly to consequences. 
 I thought that I had better make him say 
 something distinctly uncertain at once, and 
 not let Don Pascolini be kept wondering any 
 longer, whether his wayside companion was a 
 cosmopolitan finder of good in everything, or 
 a ^'Liberal Cathohc" — Sherborne's words and 
 gestures would have done for either; so I 
 abruptly stated my conviction that the Em- 
 peror Napoleon would come to grief for his 
 conduct about Castelfidardo, remarking that 
 his uncle had knocked his head against the 
 Eock of St. Peter, and ended his life on a 
 rock of a very different kind. 
 
 Don Pascolini still said nothing. * Sherborne 
 tried to do the same, but at length hazarded 
 the remark that the Emperor had to steer 
 between shoals and hidden rocks. 
 
 ^' Which is a good reason why he shouldn't 
 try to steer without a compass," said I. 
 
 '' Yes — but," — and here he appealed to the 
 priest — ^^must not a man choose the lesser 
 of two evils ? " 
 
 ^' Certainly, when there is no other choice," 
 answered Don Pascolini. 
 
 *'But," added Sherborne, after a few mo- 
 ments of hesitation and mental listening for 
 something to say, ^' the French wouldn't have
 
 40 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 been satisfied unless he had given them some- 
 thing to be excited about, both in and out of 
 France. Now the Itahan Eevolution did for 
 the one, and the glories of Solferino and 
 Magenta for the other ; and the one stirred up 
 affairs in readiness for the other." 
 
 Don Pascolini was silent for a few seconds, 
 and then said — 
 
 ^' Sed mehus est mihi absque opere incidere 
 in manus vestras, quam peccare in conspectu 
 Domino. What a beautiful view ! " 
 
 This was all that had passed between the 
 man of the day and the priest, up to the 
 moment when I noticed that the former was 
 ^' bothered" by feehng, rather than perceiving, 
 the absence of an uncertain sound in the 
 principles of the latter. 
 
 ^' Are you going to make a long stay at 
 Bramscote ? " asked Sherborne, feeling his 
 attempts at reconciling contradictions hope- 
 lessly unsuccessful with the courteous but 
 uncompromising priest. 
 
 ^^ I hardly know," ansvv^ered Don PascoHni. 
 *' Sir Koger has been so kind as to invite me 
 to stay as long as I can. I scarcely know yet 
 how long that can be." 
 
 Sherborne said nothing, but seemed to be 
 debating within himself. The two natures in 
 him tried, like rival candidates at an election,
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUll WAYS. 41 
 
 whicli should be the representative one. It 
 was an interesting, but not an unusual sight, 
 that battle between the higher and the lower 
 nature, between an instinct of admiration for 
 the heroic, and a cultivated taste for fungous- 
 growths of pseudo-philosophy. The middle 
 way, the tottering standpoint of vested rights 
 based on respectable religiosity, had as yet no 
 place in his mind, or if it had, its place was 
 not on the battle ground of rival feelings, but 
 among the practical conventionalities kept for 
 local use. 
 
 Interesting, but not strange, it certainly 
 was, that moral upheaving in which the lower 
 nature rose, and victory seemed very doubt- 
 ful, interesting because it was a tiny miniature 
 of the ceaseless and variable struggle that 
 torments us from the cradle to the grave, not 
 strange, because it is perpetually recurring, in 
 some form or other, insomuch that, unless we 
 have eyes and see not, we must notice it more 
 frequently than anything else. 
 
 I saw the struggle, I saw it in the corners 
 of his mouth, I saw it in the uneasy position 
 of his shoulders as he walked ; and then I saw 
 the better nature prevail unobtrusively. He 
 turned aside as he walked along, took out a 
 pocket-book, crumpled a ten-pound note out 
 of it, and said —
 
 42 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 ^' Will yon do me the favour to accept this 
 trifle for the nuns ? I wish it were a less 
 unworthy offering — in every sense." 
 
 He thrust the bank-note hurriedly into Don 
 Pascolini's hand, and walked on in silence. 
 
 ^^May God reward you for your charity," 
 said Don Pascolini. 
 
 And then we all remained silent, walking on 
 faster, and all perhaps, thinking of the same 
 thing, hut in different ways. I am quite sure 
 that I was theorizing on the nature and dur- 
 ability of the motive which had just actuated 
 Sherborne ; I am of opinion that Don Pas- 
 colini was comparing Sherborne's words with 
 the specimen he had just given of his actions ; 
 and I fancy that Sherborne himself was em- 
 ployed in undoing the effect which an impulse 
 of genuine almsgiving had left on his mind. 
 I can only assert with regard to myself. I read 
 Don Pascolini's thoughts through the medium 
 of an after remark, but Sherborne almost told 
 me what he was doing ; and it happened that 
 he did so in this way. 
 
 We had just crossed a common, and were 
 descending a steepish hill. Below, at the end 
 of a small valley, formed by a wooded dechvity 
 on one side and a gentle slope of meadow land 
 on the other, were the ruins of an old priory. 
 It was at this moment, as it happened, that I
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 4S 
 
 took notice of his gift, and thanked him as a 
 Cathohc for it. 
 
 One should never praise a person for a good 
 action when he is out of sorts. He pointed 
 out the ruins, and replied — 
 
 " Ah, well ! Want of food and lodging is an 
 ugly thing. Now these picturesque walls, you 
 see, are pleasant and beautiful to look at ; 
 and they don't get in the way of the Social 
 Science Congress, or interfere with an en- 
 lightened worship of the Unknown and the 
 Unknowable." 
 
 ^'I don't quite see," said I, ''what you are 
 driving at — whether you have no convictions 
 at all, or whether you take me for a fool, and 
 want to show that you do so. Is this centri- 
 fugal fun-poking meant for chaff, or for di'aw- 
 ing-room cynicism ? " 
 
 ^'For neither, as far as I know, most sapient 
 monitor," he replied, while a forced smile 
 played uncomfortably about the corners of his 
 mouth, and he began to walk stiffly. 
 
 '' Then," said I, '' it strikes me that your 
 knowledge in that respect is limited." 
 
 ''You think I have no convictions," he 
 answered, "because I am not convinced by 
 either of two extremes." 
 
 "Namely?" I suggested, and held my 
 tongue in expectation.
 
 44 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 ^^ The extreme of scepticism, and the ex- 
 treme of credulity, if you tvill have it," said 
 he. 
 
 ^^ Which two extremes," I said, "meet in 
 yourseK, and make a very aggressive combina- 
 tion, Hke an ill-assorted marriage, or the duet 
 between an octave flute and a big drum in 
 Meyerbeer's ' Huguenots.' " 
 
 He waited a few seconds, looked with a sort 
 of interrogative intelligence at the ground, 
 then waited a little longer, and said — 
 
 "Well, don't you see, some of us, I dare say, 
 might think it must be a comfortable sort of 
 thing to be able to know what one's religion 
 really is, instead of making one's own private 
 conjectures, and caUing the heterogeneous 
 result a creed. But the institutions of the 
 country, my dear fellow, the principles of the 
 glorious revolution, and then the church- 
 wardens, and the people we meet at the cover 
 ■side, and the parson's wives, and the excellent 
 neighbours who sit with us on the bench of 
 magistrates, — think of their collective vis 
 inerticB sitting on a man's influence — eh ? 
 
 ' The weak attraction of the greater fails, 
 We nod awhile, but neighbourhood prevails.'" 
 
 I gave him no answer, which disappointed 
 him evidently. I was sorry for his wasted 
 quotation.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 45 
 
 Don Pascolini then addressed some remarks 
 to me, and we entered into a conversation 
 wliicli lasted till we liad reached the top of 
 the next hill, when a really beautiful, and 
 thoroughly English scene, opened before us, 
 albeit, the first part of the description may 
 sound prosaic. Meadows richly green and 
 dotted with cattle, turnip-fields dark in the 
 shadow of a November sky, and straight-fur- 
 rowed ploughland bordered with hedge and 
 ditch of the squire-trap kind, are symbolical, 
 perhaps, of profit, sport, and easy living, rather 
 than any higher thoughts ; but then, a wind- 
 ing stream flowed through those meadows ; 
 trees, mellow with late autumn tints, appeared 
 at intervals along its banks, and marked the 
 course of a green lane ; sheep-bells tinkled in 
 the turnip-fields ; the pathway across the 
 straight-furrowed ploughland had a stile that 
 led through a wood, ancient, mossy, and sug- 
 gestive of primroses; several churches with 
 low towers rose above the thin smoke of 
 stone-built villages ; cottage gardens were dis- 
 tinguishable ; two or three country houses, with 
 all their appliances and all their records of 
 changeful humanity, were either in sight, or 
 to be traced by a clump of trees ; country 
 life was busy in the vale, and the dark blue 
 line of hills in the distance proposed to the
 
 46 SHEEBORNE; Oil, 
 
 imagination a vague sympatliy with interests 
 embodied on the other side, beyond the white 
 ■streak of light that lay along its edge, stretched 
 ont imder a bank of cloud. 
 
 ^^ There is Bramscote down in the hollow, 
 •about two miles off," said Sherborne. 
 
 '^And the grey gables of Hazeley to its 
 left," said I, ^' on the hill beyond the clump 
 of firs, and Dredgemeie out there, between 
 Bramscote and Ledchester. I can see the 
 trees in the park at Bramscote, and there is 
 the old water-mill on this side, and the village 
 of Fernham, and — the Eectory House : the 
 Eectory House of Fernham, where my father 
 and mother Hved — where I last saw them." 
 
 And then I turned aside, apparently to take 
 •a recognizing survey of the vale and its undu- 
 lations, really to hide my face, for I was doing 
 what the phraseology of false shame would 
 designate ^'making a fool of myself" — the 
 tears would, yes, they would come into my 
 eyes, in spite of me. 
 
 But I might have saved myself the trouble 
 of turning away : Sherborne was fully attend- 
 ing to some thoughts of his own, and Don 
 Pascolini was occupied in taking notice of the 
 ^coimtry.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 47 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 *' Quisquis ubique habitat, Maxime, nusquam habitat." 
 
 Martial. 
 
 From the time when I began life on my t)wn 
 account, that life had been, more or less, a 
 homeless one, and especially the last years of 
 it. The first two years were passed in a 
 marching regiment ; the next three in vigor- 
 ously unsuccessful efforts to convert Austra- 
 lian sheep into English gold; the last three 
 had been filled up with omnigenous investiga- 
 tions — not, indeed, to the extent of Hooke's 
 advice, that people should acquire a know- 
 ledge of the true nature of the history of 
 ''potters, tobacco-pipe makers, glaziers, glass- 
 grinders, looking-glass makers or foilers, spec- 
 tacle makers and optic glass makers, makers 
 of counterfeit pearls and precious stones, 
 bugle makers, lamp blowers, colour makers, 
 colour grinders, glass painters, enamellers,
 
 48 SHEEBOKNE; OE, 
 
 varnisliers, colour sellers, painters, limners ^ 
 picture drawers, makers of baby-heads, of little 
 bowling stones or marbles, fustian makers, 
 music-masters, linsey makers or toggers, the 
 history of schoolmasters, writing masters, 
 printers, bookbinders, stage-players, dancing 
 masters, and vaulters, apothecaries, chirur- 
 geons, seamsters, butchers, bakers, laun- 
 dresses, cosmetics," etc., etc. — but tolerably 
 entensive for my small powers. At any rate, 
 as far as limited opportunities and an equally 
 limited preparation for profiting by them could 
 enable me to take a survey of men and things, 
 I had certainly noticed something, and 
 thought a little. 
 
 I began this autobiographical sketch with 
 the mental determination that the part of 
 autos should be omitted from it, for the events 
 I am about to record concern others and not 
 myself. I may seem to have forgotten my 
 resolution ; but it is not so. I shall keep my 
 word in a Pickwickian sense. I am a separ- 
 able accident, a sort of debased ornamenta- 
 tion hardly belonging to the structure of the 
 story, yet not entirely removable from it, with- 
 out breaking off pieces thereof. But I shall 
 get out of the way presently. 
 
 Perhaps a sensational morahst might say 
 that I took (in another sense than the author
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 49 
 
 intended) Adam Smith's plea for the neces- 
 sity of having philosophers to take part in 
 the division of labour — viz., that there ought 
 to be men whose business it is to do 
 nothing, and observe everything. But that is 
 neither here nor there. I only mention those 
 three periods of my life because they bear 
 upon something that Sherborne said — some- 
 thing that a great many Sherbornes and a 
 great many better, far better men than he, 
 have felt, and do feel — feel it stealing over 
 their senses as men feel the creeping drowsi- 
 ness, so powerful and so deadly, that lulls 
 them into lifelessness among the Alpine snow- 
 drifts. 
 
 Those three periods, then, bear upon that 
 something, and this is how they bear upon it. 
 
 I had begun responsible life in a barrack- 
 room, and a barrack-room is far from being 
 a home ; I had then lived in an Austrahan 
 hut, which is still farther from being so, when 
 its inhabitant is an ' unprotected man ' ; finally 
 I had taken to continental life, and that seems 
 farthest of all from suggesting any idea of 
 abstract domesticity to the said unprotected 
 man, for the simple reason that, like club-life 
 in London, it looks more settled down in its 
 unsettlement. 
 
 Well, then, as I trudged along down the 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 hill, saying nothing, thinking as much, and 
 day-di'eaming backwards, I stumbled upon this 
 comparative estimate of my homeless life 
 during the last ten years, as differing from 
 that with which all the scenery before me 
 was associated. I can't think why I said it ; 
 but I did. I can't think how I could have so 
 exposed a sensitive spot in my idiosyncracy ; 
 but I did expose it, by saying aloud just what 
 I was musing about ; whereupon Sherborne — 
 to whom the remark was not addressed, but to 
 Don Pascohni, if any one, said blimtly, or 
 rather with the jagged bluntness of a knife 
 which has lost its edge and tears in wounding : — 
 
 ^' Home ! I don't profess anything, and 
 I've lots to be ashamed of" (it is wonderful, 
 by the bye, how popular that kind of vague 
 seK-accusation is which implies self-praise) 
 *'I've lots to be ashamed of, and I don't 
 go in for fine feelings or infallible rules for 
 everything." 
 
 ^' Who does ? " thought I ; but I let him go 
 on, for I saw what he was driving at, and 
 considered it best to get it over. 
 
 " I don't profess " ( how prosy a man does 
 become when he takes the line of aggressive 
 humility to slip in a foul blow at some tender 
 point) — *' I don't profess all that sort of thing, 
 but "
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. ol 
 
 ^^But you profess very loudly tliat you 
 don't," said I, for I felt the jagged edge, and 
 could see the weapon. "You had better say 
 it out at once ; there is no mistaking what 
 you mean. You mean that the house at the 
 foot of that hill was my home when a child, 
 and till I went out into the world ; that my 
 father was an AngHcan clergyman ; that all 
 my earhest recollections of childliood, with its 
 joyous innocence and incomparable fi'eshness, 
 were connected with the old chm'ch, and its 
 low tower, and its Norman arch over the en- 
 trance, and with all the well-remembered faces 
 of the old men in smock-frocks, and the old 
 women in red cloaks, and the singers who 
 used to come and sing at Christmas in the 
 dining-room, when the Tsind had a deep, 
 hollow sound in the chimney, and the bark of 
 the house-dog made a weirdlike echo against 
 the wall of that house which I loved as I never 
 can love any other. This is what you meant, 
 only you would probably have put it in a more 
 prosaic and material way. You would have 
 talked about the Christmas-boxes and the 
 mincepies, instead of the Norman arch and 
 the wind howling in the chimney. But you 
 mean a lot more than this, and I am going to 
 tell you what it is, because it is a pity for 
 people to deceive themselves, and think they 
 
 ^VINOIS LIBF
 
 52 SHERBOENE; OE, 
 
 are exercising freedom of judgment when 
 they are in reality the unconscious slaves of 
 worldly interest and human respect, till they 
 mistake a gross prejudice for an objective 
 truth. What you mean is, that the Church 
 of England, as by law established, has appro- 
 priated (and so it has, as far as the shell with- 
 out the kernel is concerned) all the great old 
 avenues of influence connected with all those 
 fundamental institutions of England which, in 
 the natural order, have made this country 
 what she is, and kept her so. Now, you 
 think, though you don't exactly say it, that 
 an Englishman who becomes a Catholic in 
 these days foregoes all those advantages, 
 which of course he does, and takes to a sort 
 of disinherited rehgion — as Dr. Parr impHed 
 when he once said to a Catholic priest, 
 'You are the eldest son of the Church, but 
 we've got the property' — so that he is not 
 in the position he would have been in had 
 he lived before the Eeformation, but in a 
 totally different one, being a sort of spiritual 
 ticket-of-leave man, who is allowed certain 
 rights of citizenship under conditions not very 
 clearly defined. No ! It doesn't pay — of 
 course not ; and a convert doesn't even enjoy 
 that kind of mysterious respect shown to 
 Catholics generally, and expressed in under-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUK WAYS. 53 
 
 tones at the corners of drawing-rooms, and 
 shown more demonstratively in after-dinner 
 speeches, when no poKtical concession is in- 
 volved thereby. But such a view of the 
 matter presupposes either that there is no 
 such thing as objective truth, or else that 
 a man may reject it if the civil power aposta- 
 tizes. But you mean something more still ? " 
 
 ^' Go on," said Sherborne doggedly. 
 
 ^'You mean," said I — ^'though, perhaps, 
 you never recognized the notion in your mind 
 — you mean that the Catholic Church of to- 
 day is not what it was when it made a new 
 world after the break-up of the old heathen 
 empire, not what it was when it helped the 
 barons to put down the tyranny of King John, 
 not what it was when it identified itself with 
 what was greatest in the distinctive character 
 and genius of every nation in the civilized 
 world. But, my dear fellow, the Church is 
 just vv^hat it always was ; and now, as ever, it 
 knows how to develope, guide, and utilize all 
 that is distinctively greatest in a nation. With 
 unerring instinct it knows the genius of the 
 people, and probes the innermost depths of 
 the principles that form its best, its most 
 truly national institutions. Perhaps you will 
 say that I am assuming you to say what you 
 have not said, and it is true literally ; but
 
 54 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 you would never tkLnk of denjdng that yon 
 meant in substance what I have said." 
 
 *' I suppose I did," he answered, relapsing 
 into the weary quietism of a man who has 
 become habituated to holding his convictions 
 provisionally. 
 
 *^I didn't mean," I said, "to get upon the 
 subject of religion, and I have given you 
 reasons why I avoid it; I w^as compelled to 
 speak, however, not by what you said, but by 
 what you caused me to feel about that home of 
 my childhood. Do you suppose that I haven't 
 thought of all you could possibly suggest to 
 wound me with, through ignorance of me, of 
 yourself, of everything that concerns what you 
 said, and what you did not say ? Do you 
 suppose that anything but the certainty of 
 Divine faith, which a man can trifle with only 
 at the peril of his soul, could have made me 
 break through such associations as those of 
 which that old church tower reminds me ? I 
 tell you that I could cry like a child, and kiss 
 the very walls — the stuccoed walls of the 
 ugly Georgian house. I tell you I love that 
 spot of ground to a degree utterly past your 
 comprehension." 
 
 " And your father and your mother ? " said 
 he in a tone slightly mterrogative. 
 
 " You know about that as well as I do,""
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 55 
 
 said I, tui'ning away towards Don Pascolini, 
 who had been left to himself all this while. 
 
 Sherborne pulled out a cigarette fi'om a case, 
 lit it, and replied at his leisure, *^ You are 
 enthusiastic." 
 
 He was welcome to the poor triumph ; he 
 was welcome to the last word. We were 
 passing within two hundred yards of what had 
 once been my home, and never could be so 
 again.
 
 56 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTEB IV. 
 
 " As to the temporal side of the question, I can have no dis- 
 pute with you. All the beneficial circumstances of life, and all 
 the shining ones, lie on the part you would invite me to." 
 
 Pope, in a letter written to a Protestant Friend. 
 
 I SUPPOSE that most of us have known what 
 it is to see in a well-remembered house, re- 
 visited under altered circumstances, or under 
 the emphasizing influence of a gap in time, 
 something besides that which the builder put 
 there. 
 
 And I suppose, too, that some of us have 
 sometimes recognized the influence of neigh- 
 bouring locality in the details of the general 
 impression which we feel, and of the vaguely 
 vivid pictures that float before the mind's eye 
 like moonbeams on the sea, when the moon is 
 behind a broken mass of driving cloud. 
 
 I saw Bramscote, then, as the builder made 
 it, as memory peopled it, as imagination, 
 modified by experience and something more.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 57 
 
 idealized it. I saw it, too, in connection with 
 what I remembered of other houses in the 
 neighbourhood, and of those who Hved, or 
 liad Hved in them ; in connection with theh 
 ups and downs, their influence, and their cha- 
 racters, when they had any ; and in connection 
 with my own life, its fore shado wings, its 
 beginnings, its developments, its labyrinths, 
 and its clue-threads, its dead reckoning, and 
 its movements by compass. Thus I saw 
 Bramscote. 
 
 I ceased to think, and began to contemplate 
 mental pictures, letting my mind rest on 
 pictorial day-dreams, and see in the things 
 before me something more than was physically 
 there. 
 
 Yet I do not imagine or admit that there 
 was anything extraordinary in this prseter- 
 physical recognition of the well-known objects; 
 for I suppose that most of us have done like- 
 wise, when, at some time or other, some cir- 
 cumstance, or convergence of circumstances 
 have emphasized the occasion, hushed inter- 
 rupting interests, and stirred the depths of 
 bygone associations. 
 
 Then it seemed to me, by the way, that it 
 was very friendly of Sir Koger to have invited 
 me, to have recognized the recollection of my 
 existence, to have given me, on the tablets of
 
 58 SHEEBOENE; OE, 
 
 his memory, a local habitation and a name^ 
 when the habitation had long since changed 
 its inhabitants, and the name had ceased to be 
 heard of, there or around. 
 
 *' It was very kind of him," thought I, half 
 aloud ; and then I walked on, not thinking at 
 all, but hearing with my mind indistinct 
 echoes fi'om the past. 
 
 The wind was freshening as the sun went 
 down red and streaky behind the distant 
 hills, and some of those Terpsichorean leaves 
 that Coleridge talks of, when he writes about — 
 
 '' The one red leaf, the last of its clan, 
 That dances as long as dance it can," 
 
 fell at shortening intervals from the trees in 
 the park, falhng, floating, shivering, and whiii- 
 ing through the fitful breeze. But I did not 
 observe that they danced. 
 
 Presently I foimd myself in front of Brams- 
 cote. And a very ugly house it was — a large 
 square building of smooth white stucco, 
 marked out in squares, to look like an imita- 
 tion of stone. It had long sash windows, a 
 square entrance hall, supposed to be supported 
 by some scagliola pillars, a superfluous super- 
 structure of waU at the top of the house 
 outside, fringed with arms and nondescript 
 mythological figures, so that there appeared
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 69 
 
 to be neither chimneys nor roof, two long 
 white wings with the same pseudo-classical 
 ornamentation, and a high flight of steps 
 leading from the level of some underground 
 offices up to the front door. Unfortunately, 
 the house had been rebuilt at the beginning 
 of the century, and this was the inevitable 
 result. 
 
 Fortunate were those houses that needed 
 not rebuilding then, or whose owners were 
 without the means of supplying the want.. 
 Unfortunately for the house that once orna- 
 mented the spot now disfigured, it was 
 dangerously out of repair when Sir Eoger's 
 grandfather inherited it — dangerously, not to 
 life or limb, but to taste and its owner's 
 balance, prudential and pecuniary. 
 
 In those days Enghsh Catholics underwent 
 an oppressive toleration, which took from 
 them their quality of martyrs in intention, 
 and left them scarcely an outlet for temporal 
 energy except house-building. 
 
 A fly, evidently from the railway station, 
 was just driving away from the door as we 
 arrived. The driver's face wore an expression 
 of fat contentment, which indicated that the 
 willowlike youth who was walking up the 
 steps, followed by a servant carrying a port- 
 manteau, a gun-case, and a box of cigars, had
 
 60 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 duly rewarded him for all the elbow-jerkings 
 and bad language employed on the jom-ney. 
 
 " The watch-dog's voice^ that bayed the whispering wind," 
 
 sounded a hollow and conditional welcome 
 from the distant recesses of the com't-yard 
 behind ; 
 
 " And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind," 
 
 greeted us from the square mouth of a fat 
 man, ruddy and round-eyed, who was com- 
 municating his dull joyfulness to a straight- 
 backed youth in knickerbockers and mauve 
 stockings. 
 
 We presently reached the precincts of a 
 library, fully furnished with everything — except, 
 perhaps, books. Afternoon tea was ^^ circu- 
 lating'' — as a special correspondent would 
 express himself in what is meant to be 
 Enghsh. Some fifteen people were disburden- 
 ing themselves of their pent-up borrowings 
 from newspapers, periodicals, and pompous 
 people. The wood fire blazed cheerily, the 
 skye-terrier wagged his tail on the hearth-rug, 
 and Sir Eoger came forward to greet us with 
 a pleasant smile and pleasant words. 
 
 He was a tall, upstanding man, well but not 
 symmetrically built, pictorial but not exactly 
 handsome. His figure was rather too heavy
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 61 
 
 in shape, Ms features rather too sharply cut: 
 His distinguished appearance and high-bred 
 manners were marked, but not marred, by an 
 indefinable expression of reserve, in contrast 
 with evident openness and simplicity of cha- 
 racter. 
 
 Judging from the shape and expression of his 
 features, any one cunning in countenances would 
 have inferred — first, that an inherited habit 
 of suppressing his o^ti individuality claimed 
 a larger share in the government of his in- 
 stincts than his self-rehance was wilHng to 
 concede ; secondly, that the desire to do and 
 to be what his abilities and position required 
 was stronger than circumstances allowed him 
 to carry into successful practice. 
 
 Much conversation of a lively but somewhat 
 feeble kind was going on in different parts of 
 the room, not all at once, but by fits and 
 starts that appeared to obey some natural law 
 of succession : for great is the power of the 
 tea-pot in promoting loquacity of that kind 
 which may be said to be its own object. 
 
 As a rule, afternoon tea is nasty and un- 
 wholesome — nasty in itself, by reason of being- 
 weak and cold, unwholesome, because it 
 intrudes upon the digestion's hom's of rest. 
 Yet it is a great institution in modern country- 
 house life, equivalent to early riding in Kotten
 
 62 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 Kow, and, like that clever device for getting 
 throngli a day withont doing anything, helps 
 to fill up the time with unsuggestive chatter- 
 ing, so that the fogies who rememher a past 
 generation may have less leisure for thinking 
 that English young ladies had not alw^ays 
 the manners of barmaids, and that wit has 
 .gradually become a term of archaeology. 
 
 Strangely enough it happened that, very 
 soon after our arrival, whilst my quahty of a 
 new comer was yet freshly impressed on my 
 own consciousness, and in the aggressive for- 
 bearance of Sir Thomas Grubhedge, who, with 
 his introspective valet, had preceded us by 
 about half an hour — it so happened that I 
 stumbled on this very theory about afternoon 
 tea in the country, and morning rides in Lon- 
 don : only I said nothing about the barmaids, 
 and my allusion to the wit was characterized 
 by an obscurity befitting the present fashion 
 of that ornament, seeing that I wanted to 
 back out of the business as soon as I felt the 
 splash of my tumble into the middle of it. The 
 unlucky plunge was occasioned thus : 
 
 Sir Eoger was talking to Don Pascolini 
 about some old English gentleman whom 
 they had both known formerly at Eome — or 
 rather, Don Pascolini had met him in Sir 
 Koger's apartments there ; and this, theii' first
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 63 
 
 meeting since then, recalled the circumstance 
 to the recollection of both. 
 
 *^ He was a very pohshed man, and appa- 
 rently cultivated," said Don Pascolini; ''at 
 least, so it appeared to me from the little I 
 saw of him. Certainly he was full of wit, and 
 very agreeable, both in what he said, and in 
 his manner of saying it ; but I think that the 
 men of his day either possessed or cultivated 
 these gifts more than people do now." 
 
 Sh Koger assented to this last proposition 
 inclusively, but avoided committing himself 
 thereto ; for it was a rule of his, whether cal- 
 culated or instinctive I cannot tell, to give 
 weak opinions when the company was formed 
 on the denominational system; and though 
 the comparative wit of the period would seem 
 to be decidedly neutral ground for a party of 
 free-born Britons to air their judgments upon, 
 it was evident that he suspected the existence 
 of some by-paths and crooked ways, leading 
 to discussions in which silence would concede 
 by default, and words would be misinterpreted. 
 
 So he answered in a touch-and-go manner, 
 admitting heartily, and retreating with vigom-, 
 two or three steps at a time, into the region 
 ^of generahties. Unluckily, Edward Arden, his 
 second son, who went in for imitating the 
 peculiarities, if not the wit of the period, and
 
 64 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 had therefore not failed to catch the fashion 
 of what may be called interrnptive or incon- 
 sequent talking, stated his conviction that 
 afternoon tea is an awful jolly thing, because 
 people have nothing else to do after they 
 come in, till dressing time. Whereupon a 
 small square man, mth an hregularly deve- 
 loped cerebrum, a large organ of self-esteem, 
 and a joylessly sensual mouth stiffened by 
 trained cynicism, looked up from a photo- 
 graphic album, which had received the impres- 
 sion of his eyes whilst he was explaining to a 
 sharp-featured man, clad in clerico-sporting 
 attire, the latent merits of Hindoo Rationalism. 
 
 Of these two, the small square man was the 
 absentee neighbour, Mr. Crayston, and the 
 hstener, the squarson — a good-humoured man, 
 characterized by a steady love of county busi- 
 ness, and an inclination to quote Horace. He 
 failed to see any cross-road leading from the 
 Bramo Somaj to the Thirty-mne Articles, but 
 was not altogether hostile to the theory that 
 it might be a serviceable hindi^ance to Cathohc 
 missionaries. I gathered this by unavoidable 
 eaves-dropping through chance proximity and 
 sharp ears. 
 
 Well, Crayston looked up, and dehvered 
 himseK of Mr. Kingsley's opinion, that '' Men 
 must work, and women must weep " (he had
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 65 
 
 never done any work at all himself), and that, 
 in the present day, people apportion their care 
 of mind and body better than they ever did 
 before. He was proceeding to quote, or 
 rather to adduce Plato in support of what no 
 one was disposed to deny, viz., the advantage 
 of keeping a due balance between the mental 
 and physical powers, when Sherborne dryly 
 requested to know whether the duty of 
 working included the privilege of afternoon 
 tea ; whether continuous weeping entitles its 
 votaries to be cheered, but not inebriated, by 
 the use a discretion of that soothing herb; 
 and, finally, whether our more practical appor- 
 tionment of time could fairly be gathered from 
 the brief career of the three fishers; ''for," 
 said he, with a sustained gravity which took 
 in half his hearers, and put out the person 
 addressed, ''you see, in the first place, the 
 men were drowned, and the women left 
 chargeable to the parish — a moral quite con- 
 trary to all sound principles of political 
 economy — Malthus would have abhorred the 
 notion ; secondly, from the next line, ' and 
 the sooner 'tis over, the sooner to sleep,' it 
 is evident that the working and weeping are 
 not meant to be permanent institutions, but 
 temporary expedients with a common end in 
 view, which is — ^to do nothing." 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 66 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 Before Crayston had time to gather up in 
 his mind the materials for an answer, Sii* 
 Thomas Grubhedge, who cultivated perceptive 
 obtuseness under the disguise of common- 
 sense, put forth his opinion, that if the fisher- 
 men ^^ were drowned whilst labouring to get an 
 honest Kving, it was only just that the parish 
 should support their families." 
 
 ^' But how about Malthus and nature's 
 banquet ? " said Sherborne. ^' People must 
 show their tickets, you know, or go without, 
 he says — or somebody else does." 
 
 ^^But you were speaking of work, I think," 
 said Sir Koger, making a reckless plunge — he 
 hardly cared whither, in his anxiety to be rid 
 of that awkwardly suggestive subject. 
 
 ^^ And the balance of power between brain 
 and muscle," interrupted Sherborne. '^ I be- 
 lieve Crayston thinks that if it were not for 
 the swinging gallop before luncheon, and the 
 invigorating sensation of seeing pigeons shot 
 at Hurlingham, and the dancing and banquet- 
 ing at all hours, from four o'clock in the day 
 to four o'clock in the morning, the girl of the 
 period would become too much spuitualized 
 by the Hght literature, or philosophy teaching 
 by examples." 
 
 ''Which, by the bye, was said of history, 
 not of novels, while you are about it," said 
 Crayston.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 67 
 
 ^^All right," answered Sherborne. **Did 
 you get that from a book of quotations, or 
 from ?" 
 
 ^^ Where ? " said Crayston, who knew the 
 value of an interrupted question in weakening 
 the force of the interrupted one. But Sher- 
 borne was equal to the occasion, and made the 
 suggestive reply — 
 
 ^'You know best. It comes from where 
 you found it." 
 
 ^^ A pretty sort of philosophy they would 
 get out of the novels of the day," said Grub- 
 hedge, who had followed the conversation 
 after the manner of blind-man's-buff. 
 
 ^^ Philosophy — eh ? " said Edward Arden, 
 who remembered nothing about the same 
 except the rooms he had inhabited at college 
 while supposed to be studying it. *^ I never 
 could see the pull of philosophy — not I." 
 
 He uprose to the full height of a figure that 
 could only be described by the homely but 
 time-honoured simile of a thread-paper, and, 
 digging his hands into the pockets of his 
 knickerbockers, essayed to put forth a joke, 
 but got no farther than a shake of the head, 
 a rounding of the eyes, and an upraising of 
 the eyebrows. Then he repeated his con- 
 viction that tea before dinner was a jolly 
 thing, because it filled up the time; and then
 
 68 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 I said (when appealed to) that it did, and that 
 so did all the other jolly things just referred to 
 by Sherborne, and that fillings up are not 
 made up of the soundest materials. And then 
 it suddenly occurred to me that I had not 
 meant to say this, and I wondered why I had 
 done so. 
 
 And then there was a break in the talking, 
 as if by general consent, the demand and the 
 supply appearing to stop all at once ; and then 
 there was a hesitation, a move, and a muster- 
 ing of the ex-talkers, after which the newly- 
 arrived guests filed off, under hospitable escort, 
 to their rooms. 
 
 ^' Who is that man you were pelting with 
 somewhat hard confetti .^ " said I to Sherborne. 
 
 ^'Oh! — what's his name? — Crayston. He 
 wasn't in this neighbom'hood when you were 
 a boy. He's a great humbug — pretends to 
 know a lot, and doesn't." 
 
 ^'And that young fellow — handsome, and 
 with a well-developed head" (there was no one 
 else answering the whole description) ^* at the 
 other side of the room — who is he ? " 
 
 *^ Oh ! some fellow or other — how should 
 I know?" 
 
 *' And how should I know that you did not ? " 
 thinls I. *^ There is some reason for that. 
 I wonder what it is ? "
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 69 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " We ridicule men of one idea, but a great many of us are 
 bom to be such, and we should be happier if we knew it. " 
 
 Dr. Newman, Grammar of Assmf. 
 
 If concerning England I have one convic- 
 tion stronger than any other, it is that the 
 so-called Keformation killed the goose with 
 the golden egg; in other words, that it 
 destroyed the source whence her true great- 
 ness flowed ; or more correctly, that it sold out 
 the treasure from its investment, and pro- 
 •ceeded to use up the principal, insomuch that, 
 if the remainder he not re-invested ere long, 
 the waste will be apparent to those whom it 
 concerns, when it is too late for them to profit 
 by their knowledge. 
 
 "Whether this view (I could wish it were 
 a more distant one, for the more I look at it 
 the less I like it) be a natural production of 
 my poor brain, or was made to grow there by 
 budding, or whether it was self-sown from
 
 70 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 elsewhere, like thistles, and had germiuated 
 by ''unconscious cerebration," is a problem 
 not worth the trouble of solving ; for, at the 
 least, I only noticed what is so conspicuous, 
 that one must be blind, or wear coloured 
 spectacles, not to see it. I certainly made up 
 my own mind before I had heard or read any- 
 thing on the subject — anything, at least, that 
 was not either contradictory of my own con- 
 viction, or unintelligible ; yet not even in this 
 restricted sense could I claim the invention. 
 As well might every person who has a tooth 
 drawn claim the merit of discovering that the 
 process is painful to the patient, as an in- 
 dividual Christian take credit for seeing in- 
 dependently of others what he cannot help 
 seeing unless he shut his eyes, or allow him- 
 self to be hoodwinked by the selfish soj)hisms 
 of a false liberality. 
 
 My conviction in this matter was not likely 
 to sit looser upon me after I had arrived in 
 
 the county of than when I lived far away 
 
 from the land whose local associations confirm 
 them whithersoever one casts one's eyes ; and 
 in fact, as soon as I found myself in my room, 
 surrounded by quick incentives to musing — 
 such as the gentle heat of a good fire, some 
 old prints of local scenery, a boot-jack of old- 
 fashioned size and weight, the peculiar broken
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 71 
 
 silence of an English conntry-honse, and the 
 local scenery suggested by dim vistas through 
 the gathering mists of a November evening — 
 they began to turn themselves over in my 
 mind, repeatedly and in succession, like 
 a shoal of porpoises in the wake of a ship 
 sailing before the wind — a metaphor, by the 
 way, which does not appear to fail in point of 
 fulness, however poor it be in quality, seeing 
 that we are confessedly being borne onwards 
 at a quicker rate than can be calculated 
 except by measurement of the distance done. 
 
 As soon as I had unpacked my portmanteau, 
 I sallied forth into the white frosty mists, and 
 strolled about the park, continuing to think 
 on the same subject, and accounting the same 
 to be a business-like study for an Engli^man 
 who left England before he had attempted to 
 think at all. 
 
 *' Ex fumo dare lucem 
 Cogitat " 
 
 thought I, as I lit my pipe under an ancient 
 beech, and found myself evolving from my 
 inner consciousness, a sort of anxiomatic 
 summary of what had been passing in my 
 mind. But this is not the time or place to 
 enter upon so large a subject. 
 
 I sauntered slowly on, and by the time 
 I had reached the eastern boundary of the
 
 72 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 park, my pipe began to cast up ashes and 
 feeble sparks in my face, whereupon I ceased 
 puffing, and turned my steps towards the 
 house, from the back of which the great bell 
 sent forth its characteristic monotone into 
 the darkness, reminding me that society 
 expected every man to dress himself hke 
 a waiter. 
 
 ^' Well," thought I, in continuation of what 
 had been running in my head Hke the bur- 
 den of a melancholy ballad, ''what next? 
 Society looks different fi'om what it was, or 
 seemed, when I was a very small boy. Social 
 restraints have given way to shooting- 
 jacketism ; whilst the honest old bigotry that 
 dozed and trusted within the four corners of 
 square pews lined with green baize, has 
 passed away like a dissolving view at the 
 Polytechnic, succeeded by an equally bigoted 
 indifferentism that resents objective truth as 
 a personal affront. Yet they say there is 
 a vein of earnestness even there — a real desire 
 to find the truth, an unspoken, perhaps un- 
 conscious, resolution to accept it when found ; 
 and such a habit of mind, it may be urged, is 
 healthier than that which makes a man rest 
 satisfied with a stone for bread — healthier, 
 because less obstructed, and therefore more 
 open to the reception of the Faith. It may
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 73 
 
 be so, but a sieve too is open, and the Danaides 
 are represented as endlessly filling vessels 
 that have no obstructions, but also no bottom. 
 I had now reached my own room, when, 
 being recalled to the practical details of life by 
 the sight of the smoking canful of hot water 
 on the wash-hand stand, the Hghted candles 
 on the dressing-table, and the folded clothes 
 on the bed, I bethought me that instead of 
 speculating about a comparatively new state 
 of things, it would be advisable to see what I 
 could pick up by observation. So I dressed, 
 and presently appeared in the drawing-room, 
 where I found some twenty social specimens 
 for the exercise of such perspicuity as I might 
 suppose myself to possess.
 
 74 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTBE VI. 
 
 Tore d'avOpuiraiv 
 yvwfxai iroWai 
 Kcu SvadpeffToi ZUKvaicrav. 
 
 Iph. in Aul. 
 
 A DINNER party in the country has four periods^ 
 each with its own special characteristics. 
 The period of prospective enjoyment and 
 self-vahiation, before dinner; the period of 
 agreeabihty and self-manifestation, at dinner ; 
 the period of views and self- obtrusion, after 
 the ladies have left the dining-room ; and the 
 period of general friendhness, when the car- 
 riages have been ordered. During the first 
 of these periods, conversation rarely extends 
 beyond news and elastic generalities, nor did 
 it pass the boundary on that occasion. In 
 London it has, as a rule, only two periods : 
 the period of descriptive apologies for being 
 late, and the period of talking against time, 
 after which individuals and famihes disappear 
 suddenly at intervals. In London your toes
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE POUll WAYS. 75 
 
 may be trodden on morally at any time, from 
 your arrival to yom' departure ; but in the 
 country you are probably safe till after the 
 soup, possibly till the arrival of the entrees; 
 for convictions of a certain class are suscep- 
 tible of gastronomic influence, and grow by 
 what the person holding them feeds on. 
 
 The Poet Campbell assui'es us that fi-eedom 
 shrieked when Kosciusko fell. "We are not 
 told what it did when, by the Cathohc Eehef 
 Bill of 1829, all the regular clergy were 
 declared liable to be transported for life. 
 Perhaps it made merry over that sop to 
 certain irreconcilables of the period, shrewdly 
 foreseeing that the threat would probably 
 be harmless. And yet the joke would be 
 a grim one. No doubt that clause iii the 
 bill is in itself practically harmless ; but so are 
 the notices about man-traps and spring-gims 
 at the corners of woods, in which, nevertheless, 
 the wayfarer will not be welcome, and may 
 be suspected of poaching, or damaging young- 
 trees, or loitering about to set a stack on 
 fire. 
 
 Now an English Catholic is politically and 
 socially in a position not unhke that of the said 
 wayfarer. He is like a man walking along an 
 unfrequented public path over land which his 
 ancestors planted and reclaimed from the
 
 76 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 waste, and where he now lives by sufferance 
 under an unquestionable, though somewhat 
 vague, byelaw of trespass. He sometimes 
 turns aside from the path, finding it muddy in 
 places, and not pleasant, for he has been told 
 that the man-traps and spring-guns have no 
 real existence; and he goes his way, deeming 
 himseK on the whole fortunate in being able 
 to pass unnoticed among the pollarded remains 
 of the oaks which his forefathers had planted. 
 
 But, it may be asked, what is the meaning 
 of all this metaphor ? Where is the trespass ? 
 What sort of annoyance does it, and what 
 evils maij it, entail ? The answer is, unfortu- 
 nately, but too self-evident. 
 
 By the common law of pubHc feeling in 
 England, Catholics commit a trespass when- 
 e\QY they seek that share of influence, poli- 
 tical or social, for which they theoretically 
 have a right to compete on equal terms with 
 Jews, Unitarians, and Atheists. Whenever 
 they make, or appear to make, the attempt, 
 they are warned off. They are warned off the 
 House of Commons by being persistently not 
 elected : they are warned off the inner circle 
 of all public life by the respectful suspicion of 
 the general public, and the prohibitory nature 
 of the demands that w^ould confi'ont their con- 
 sciences there.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUli WAYS. 77 
 
 Fui'thermore, the notice board is fixed at 
 the entrance to the sociabiHties of private 
 life ; and this was what I felt concerned me 
 most as I joined the mixed assemblage in Sir 
 Koger Arden's di'awing-room before dinner. 
 Sherborne had caused me, as the reader is 
 aware, distinctly to feel it during our walk 
 from the station; and I was still smarting 
 from the effort of having to talk to an old 
 friend, with, if I may so express it, my tongue 
 half tied up. 
 
 Civihty, the suspicions of others, the con- 
 viction of being misunderstood in everything 
 that bears, even indirectly, upon any objective 
 truth, warn Catholics in mixed society to 
 keep the foot-path of generalities, material 
 benevolence, local chatter, and, so far as 
 it can be treated superficially, the latest news. 
 
 Now, there are two reasons why this is a 
 pre-eminently disagreeable position, and oc- 
 casionally a painful one. In the first place, 
 the society, in which one holds that position, 
 is, as regards one's self, a mental masquerade. 
 Sometimes one is like the veiled prophet of 
 Khorassan, highly respected till one drops the 
 veil, and then taken for — no matter what. 
 Secondly, it necessitates a dilemma which 
 may be thus rendered : — If I am attacked, 
 whether directly or indirectly, I must either
 
 78 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 reply, or not reply. If I do not reply, either I 
 shall seem a sneak, or my cause will suffer 
 depreciation. If I do reply, the answer must 
 be either sufficient or insufficient. A sufficient 
 answer must often he, or seem, by the nature 
 of the questions involved, uncourteous ; an in- 
 sufficient answer will score for the other side. 
 Therefore, do what I will, I must appear in 
 the wrong. 
 
 Of course, one must choose the lesser evil, 
 and as it is a lesser evil to be misunderstood 
 than to be caught shuffling, it is clear that one 
 must either reply unreservedly, or unreservedly 
 state why one declines doing so — which comes 
 to the same thing as regards hoisting one's 
 colours. 
 
 Can one avert the dilemma by a suggestive 
 reply that will cause the questioner to turn 
 aside from his question ? Just as often as one 
 can do so without showing the object of the 
 manoeuvre — how often will depend on one's 
 tact and the obtuseness of the audience ; but 
 as soon as the motive becomes apparent, the 
 movement becomes a worse blunder than 
 answering insufficiently, or holding one's 
 tongue : for the shii-k is more evidently inten- 
 tional, and . what is not said is made more 
 conspicuously absent. 
 
 It comes then to this : one must either reply
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 79 
 
 unreservedly, or unreservedly state why one 
 declines to answer at all ; and this reply, or 
 rather refusal, must be worded with a view to 
 showing as much courtesy as circumstances 
 will permit, cu'cumstances which one cannot 
 foresee or modify, and which occasionally leave 
 no room for anything but plain-speaking. 
 
 As I soon found, but not before dinner. 
 
 Clearly enough, on that occasion, the time 
 before dinner was a period of prospective 
 enjoyment and self-valuation. People talked 
 at intervals, and looked about Uke playgoers 
 before the curtain rises, and the majority 
 seemed impressed with the idea that there 
 was nothing objective in the world except 
 their own position. We were twenty-four, 
 including Sir Koger and his family. Here* is a 
 list of them : — 
 
 First, Lord Oxborough, who was, by the 
 way, my mother's first cousin — a good, yet not 
 an exceptional specimen, of Post-Eeformation 
 territoriaHsm. He believed in the duties of 
 property, and the Divine right of the Privy 
 Council on doctrinal points, respected 
 Catholics in a genealogical sense, and ex- 
 plained all the difficulties concerning them to 
 his own satisfaction by that much employed 
 term- of- all- work, Ultramontanism. He had a 
 certain force of character, slow but imyielding,
 
 80 SHEKBOKNE; OR, 
 
 and much ]3ractical common sense, Kmited in 
 action by the poHtico-reHgious necessities of 
 rural Anglicanism. He had well-formed 
 features, enlivened by a cheerful expression of 
 amiable sturdiness ; his general appearance 
 betokened a working country gentleman, a 
 quiet fulfiUer of his duties, as far as he could 
 see them, and a deserving owner of several 
 weight-carrying hunters. 
 
 Secondly, Lady Oxborough, a modern 
 variety of the female territoriahst, careful in 
 social self-assertion, careless of what needed 
 none, expansive to fashionable Hfe-wasters 
 and literary bamboozlers of moral sense, syste- 
 matically neglectful of social ties and the 
 duties of country neighbourship. She seemed, 
 and she was, better in her capabilities than in 
 her actions ; but her mind, like a piece of 
 newly-woven cotton, took the print of the 
 ** last pattern out." 
 
 Thirdly, her daughter, Miss Exmore, and 
 fourthly, a younger daughter. The eldest was 
 about half an inch taller than her sister, and 
 her features were a trifle more marked, other- 
 wise the happy man who was engaged to her, 
 might easily have been put off with the wrong 
 one at the altar of Hymen, and have gone 
 through the honeymoon without discovering 
 his mistake. In body and mind both were as
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 81 
 
 inexpressive and as symmetrical as a palladian 
 house : there was no physical angularity in 
 either of them, nor any points of character. 
 But then, they were also free fi'om angularity 
 of temper, and they were not fast. Self- 
 contained, and calmly self-conscious, but not 
 self-sufficient, they appeared to derive much 
 pleasure from the contemplation of their own 
 limited theories of good and evil, so that 
 virtue was its own reward by means of a plea- 
 sant introspection; yet they never paraded 
 their Hmited liabihty in the heroic, still less 
 did they erect it into a virtue. They were 
 good, as far as they went, and they made no 
 pretence in any direction whatever. As wives, 
 they would probably be attached rather than 
 affectionate, as mothers, attentive rather than 
 careful, in all relations of Hfe, almost ob- 
 structively matter-of-fact within uncertain 
 limits, and undemonstrative to the extreme 
 verge of coldness ; but it might, perhaps would, 
 be possible for some person or persons unknown 
 to develope them beyond a standard so respect- 
 able and so uninteresting. It certainly would 
 be not only possible, but easy, to go farther 
 and fare worse in the matrimonial lottery; 
 indeed, that end might have been attained 
 without going farther than Sir Eoger Arden's 
 dining-room, where — 
 
 YOL. r. G
 
 82 SHEEBORNE; OR, 
 
 FiftUy, between a High Churcli rector and 
 myself, a Miss Hermione Alberta Crumps 
 maintained a conspicuous appearance among 
 milder manifestations of millinery, and by 
 means of an active self-consciousness, remotely 
 connected, perhaps, with abortive claims of 
 higher instincts, caused her presence to be 
 felt. She was sister-in-law to a neighbouring 
 Anglican vicar, Mr. Linus Jones, who was 
 also present with his wife, her admiring elder 
 sister. He has been already mentioned by 
 Sir Thomas Grubhedge, as co-guardian of Sir 
 Bertram Fyfield, and as successor to my 
 father in the hving of Fernham. 
 
 This self-impressed young lady represented 
 two characteristics of modern civilisation, in- 
 consequence, and unconscious recklessness. 
 She idolized Garibaldi, and venerated the 
 relics of Toryism, loved the externals of aris- 
 tocracy, and admired principles fandamentally 
 opposed to it. She was intermittently ex- 
 citable, rather than enthusiastic, strong- tem- 
 pered, rather than impassioned ; uncontrolled, 
 rather than susceptible; a cultivator of sen- 
 sational symbolism, rather than a lover of art. 
 She sang, as I afterwards found to my cost, in 
 the hysterico-declamatory style; was ecstatic 
 over Edmond About's writings in general, and 
 La Question Bomaine in particular; prided
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 83 
 
 herself on being personally acquainted with 
 several revolutionary characters, and read the 
 Guardian when she was in England. She 
 had been taught many things, including a 
 multiplicity of alleged facts, whose only title 
 to the name was the fact of their being 
 asserted ; but in education, properly so-called 
 — the systematic training of soul, intellect, and 
 heart — she was almost exceptionally deficient. 
 Sometimes her better instincts rebelled faintly 
 against playing second fiddle, but they were 
 promptly put down and made to do as they 
 were bid. So that she may be fairly described 
 as a creature of second-hand impulse. Her 
 features were well marked, rather than well 
 formed ; her countenance agitated, rather Jbhan 
 expressive ; her figm-e tall and large, but 
 neither harmonious in form nor graceful in 
 movement ; her manner self-asserting, her 
 general appearance pretentious. It was my 
 lot to be seated between her, and — 
 
 Sixthly, Lady Alicia Grubhedge, wife of 
 the most respectable Sir Thomas. She was 
 the daughter of an Irish Earl, whose very 
 proximate ancestor (for he had no remote 
 ones) gained his peerage by favouring all 
 measures calculated to render Ireland, as far 
 as might be, uninhabitable for the Irish, and 
 untenable for the English. Strictly speaking,
 
 (S4 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 she had no opinions, hut her mind was imbued 
 with a few corollaries of one fundamental 
 principle, viz. : the unalienable rights of the 
 Protestant ascendancy. William the Third 
 was her Eodolph of Hapsburg, and the his- 
 tory of England, prior to the battle of the 
 Boyne, was to her a sealed book that she 
 would not presume to understand. 
 
 There were four AngHcan clergymen of four 
 different schools, which may appropriately be 
 described as the late High-and-diy, the Broad- 
 decorative, the Institutional, and the Eitual- 
 istic ; the first-named school being represented 
 by Mr. Linus Jones before mentioned, the 
 husband of Miss Hermione Crumps' sister. It 
 differs from the Georgian High-and-dry school 
 mainly in a certain grim attachment, under 
 protest, to the first four centuries. The Broad- 
 decorative churchman was Dr. Shale, brother 
 of the young lady whose preference for the 
 plunger used to wound my schoolboy suscepti- 
 bilities. His strongest behefs were ^ views,' and 
 he was a local authority on painted windows. 
 
 The Institutional school had a most respect- 
 able representative in Mr. Glenfillan Bruff, 
 before mentioned. It is hardly a school, but 
 rather an optimistic variety of several others, 
 and it differs from the rest of the EstabHsh- 
 ment in this, that it accepts cheerfully the
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 85 
 
 <joiisequences of being a State institution, 
 instead of complaining, or pretending to be 
 something else. 
 
 Ritualism was impersonated by a young 
 man in an enormously long garment like a 
 cassock, and a Roman collar, or something 
 like one. He was mainly distinguishable by 
 a restless sympathy with excommunicated 
 CathoUcs and Greek schismatics, an habitual 
 contempt for his own bishop, a fierce rever- 
 ence for collective Episcopal authority in the 
 abstract, and an interior assent to imaginary 
 decrees of an impossible council. 
 
 Mrs. Linus Jones was a symmetrical woman 
 on a large scale, with a mind balanced by false 
 weights, that made her seem to herself and to 
 many people, especially matter-of-fact* ones, 
 very sensible, practically judicious, highly 
 principled, and amiable, insomuch that the 
 general opinion of the neighbours epitomized 
 her as a superior woman in general, and a 
 right thinking one in particular. This effect 
 was produced by doctoring the weights, not 
 quite intentionally, yet not without a dim 
 uncertain consciousness of causing people to 
 assist facts. Her friends were wont to be 
 ecstatic when observing how equal was the 
 amount of pleasure she appeared to take in 
 duties and in recreation, in attending to her
 
 86 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 cliildren, and in sympathizing very much with 
 the world. 
 
 It never occurred to them that it costs little 
 and pays well to put up for the reputation of a 
 careful mother among people favourably pre- 
 disposed, or incompetent to test the claim. It 
 is one thing to be busy and another to work, 
 one thing to make investments of time and 
 another to practice seK-denial. But it is often 
 more profitable to a reputation, in social hfe, 
 to seem laborious and self-denying than to be 
 so, because people's attention is nudged and 
 stirred up by the spasmodic action of di'amatic 
 domesticity, and because people are apt to be 
 unconsciously pleased at hearing high praise 
 given to something less than the utmost they 
 could do themselves without an uncomfortable 
 effort. 
 
 Therefore Mrs. Linus Jones was very com- 
 fortably popular. She excited no envy, for it 
 made people feel comfortable to praise her. 
 She had no occasion to strain her representa- 
 tive powers beyond what was natural, for a 
 higher standard would have narrowed the 
 sphere of her popularity, and made an open 
 question of her right to the same. She was 
 not called upon, either by herself or by other 
 people, to be what she seemed, for the appear- 
 ance was quite satisfactory to both. The
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 87 
 
 Anglican clergymen considered lier to be a 
 model wife ; their wives thought her a model 
 mother ; the Archdeacon pronounced her an 
 excellent clergyman's wife ; the master of the 
 hounds asserted that she was *^ a devihsh 
 clever woman." Some called her a sweet 
 woman, others an uncommonly fine woman, 
 others a highly principled woman ; whilst 
 others, again, were impressed with the large- 
 ness of her sympathies, and her tendency to 
 quote from '' Come into the garden, Maud." 
 She accepted all this with a kind of depreca- 
 tory depreciativeness, very attractive to the 
 unwary — a fact which, as she sat opposite to 
 me, largely clothed and heavily chignoned, 
 impressing her presence on the mind of a 
 young man whose eyes wandered fugitively 
 toward the younger of the two Miss Ardens, 
 was sufficiently apparent. 
 
 Mrs. Shale was a little suppressed looking 
 woman, with unnoticing eyes, and a washed- 
 out complexion. She retailed her husband's 
 opinions apologetically, and collected butter- 
 flies. 
 
 Miss Gertrude Arden, a niece of Sii' Eoger's, 
 who was seated next but one to Hermione 
 Crumps, was really a remarkable specimen of 
 what can be done with a nature good as far as 
 it goes, but small. Protestant friends felt sure
 
 88 SHERBOENE; OB, 
 
 that a convent education had *^ impeded her 
 development," whatever that might mean, and 
 occasionally some very unintellectual Cathohcs 
 thought that her intellect might have heen 
 more cultivated : but the truth was wide of 
 their wisdom. The fact was, that her in- 
 structors had so thoroughly made the most of 
 her in every way, that she might well be 
 credited with a margin which had no real 
 existence. The distinctive characteristics of 
 a well-trained Catholic maiden — the special 
 purity, the expression of baptismal innocence, 
 the absence of self-consciousness, the illumin- 
 ative presence of Divine faith, the practical 
 wisdom of Catholic instincts — made one recog- 
 nize in her an indescribable superiority over 
 girls far above her in natural gifts of every 
 kind. Her features were of a type originally 
 good, but weakened, and, so to speak, worn 
 down unevenly : therefore she was neither 
 handsome nor pretty, in the strict sense of 
 those words. Her manner was considered by 
 certain superficial observers to be unformed, 
 her talk trifling, her tastes apparently frivolous. 
 But the expression of baptismal innocence 
 softened the outline of features that in any 
 one of the guests at that table would have been 
 httle short of plain ; her manner seemed to be 
 unformed only because she was brought into
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 89 
 
 comparison with people whose constant self- 
 consciousness brought theirs changefuUy into 
 evidence ; her talk appeared trifling because it 
 was not rash, depreciative, or presumptuous; 
 her tastes were apparently frivolous because 
 they were innocent. Had she been a saint 
 and a genius, no doubt her somewhat passive 
 goodness would have risen to the heroic, and 
 her innocent faith to something more instruc- 
 tive ; but the social machinery has to be 
 worked by more every-day means, and if the 
 smaller wires were pulled by no worse hands 
 we should have fewer breakages perhaps. 
 
 Miss Winifred Arden, Sir Koger's second 
 daughter, was of a stronger type in everything : 
 in features unmistakably, and little less than 
 unmistakably in that collective expression 
 from them, which, for want of a better term, 
 goes by the name of coimtenance. And not 
 only was hers a stronger type, but in a 
 certain sense a higher one— actually, though 
 perhaps not originally, higher. The original 
 pattern was the same as her father's — and 
 a fine old pattern it was, pure and vigorous as 
 a church window of the thirteenth century. 
 For her the proportions and strength of 
 the prototype had been transmitted entire : to 
 her cousin, altered and weakened, like the 
 same window perpendicularized. Thus it was
 
 90 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 that she was beautiful, in spite of a distant 
 family likeness to a cousin who was almost the 
 reverse. This fact I noted while Miss 
 Hermione Crumps was struggling with the 
 bones of a red mullet. 
 
 I now began to speculate as to who the 
 young man might be who was listening with 
 joyless civihty to an exposition of principles 
 from Mrs. Linus Jones. 
 
 He seemed about &Ye and twenty, rather 
 more than less. His appearance and manner 
 were prepossessing — I apologise for that 
 threadbare term, but they were so. His 
 features were of a noble cast, and his counte- 
 nance indicated, in the true sense of the words, 
 a noble nature. There was no appearance of 
 more than average brain-power, but what he 
 had was evidently in sound working order. 
 Whether he was that generic being known in 
 England as a foreigner, or merely an absentee 
 Englishman, I could not make out ; but it was 
 somehow clear that he had lived much abroad, 
 and equally so that he was not at home with 
 Mrs. Linus Jones. Miss Arden, Sir Eoger's 
 eldest daughter, a lady and gentleman whose 
 names I failed to catch, and two young men, 
 with faces quite undistinguishable from num- 
 berless others, made up the party. 
 
 " Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa.'
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 91 
 
 The conversation flowed on like a mill- 
 stream, rapidly and by external forces; the 
 motive power being, in some to give pleasure, 
 in others to gain approbation, in others to 
 enforce applause, in others to make themselves 
 quietly conspicuous by cutting away the social 
 dignity of successful repartee from some one 
 else. There was a certain physical vigour in 
 it, not entirely separable from the influence of 
 an exceptionally good dinner ; and there was 
 also a kind of competitive intenseness, 
 amiable, friendly, self-seeking, spiteful, or 
 merely apparent and conventional, as the case 
 might be. 
 
 The Ai'dens talked to give pleasure, even 
 the empty-headed second son did so in a 
 degree ; Mrs. Linus Jones to gain approbation; 
 her sister and Mr. Crayston to enforce ap- 
 plause; Sherborne to make himself quietly 
 conspicuous by putting down Crayston. Don 
 PascoUni would, no doubt, have tried to give 
 pleasure if he had happened to have a chance 
 of so doing ; but, as he was placed between 
 Lady Alicia Grubhedge, whose small under- 
 standing was only accessible in English, and 
 Mr. GlenfiUan Bruff, whose sprightly self- 
 satisfaction was simply impenetrable, his 
 opportunities were limited. As to the young- 
 man who was being talked to by Mrs. Linus
 
 92 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 Jones, lie appeared to be out of the mill- 
 stream altogether. He Hstened with his ears 
 but not with his mind; and he made no 
 attempt whatever to let any one know that he 
 also had a personahty of his own. 
 
 It is said that dreams, however long their 
 fulness of detail may cause them to seem, are 
 really instantaneous ; but it is certain that 
 almost in the twinkling of an eye one can take 
 observations which, when subjected to the 
 cumbrous contrivances of language, drag them- 
 selves out to a portentous length — and the 
 reader will perhaps have found this to his 
 cost ; for be it known that the observations 
 I took on the worthy people who sat roimd 
 that dinner- table, lengthy as they may seem 
 in description, occupied no more time than 
 was barely sufficient for Miss Hermione 
 Crumps to eat her fish fast and fiercely. In 
 fact, I had taken down my notes in mental 
 shorthand, and was just about to make some 
 mild remark on some indefinite subject, when 
 she looked up suddenly — 
 
 " La bocca sollevo dal fiero pasto," 
 
 and in reference to the said mild remark, 
 which happened to be on what I must call, for 
 want of a better term, comparative chmat- 
 ology, answered me as follows : —
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 93^ 
 
 ** Oh, yes, isn't it horrid, after the glorious 
 Italian sun, so strong and so intense ? Even 
 the hottest summer's day here is chilly by 
 comparison; at least, it seems so in a way that 
 I can feel but can't explain. Don't you^ now ? 
 I am sure yon do, because you have l)een so 
 much abroad, and the ItaHans are as intense 
 as their own sun " 
 
 ** Or their own tramontana wind," quoth 
 I — I really couldn't help it. 
 
 A backward jerk of her chignon, and a 
 partial ecHpse of the unsteady light that was 
 wont to shoot forth from her eyes when she 
 was talking, caused me to understand that the 
 antithesis had not pleased her ; so, to modify it, 
 I went on to say that the tramontana, though 
 sharp, was short and freshening. Hefe I 
 stopped abruptly, afraid of being driven into 
 a worse than unprofitable discussion on the 
 sickening subject of Italian politics; but the 
 topic was evidently her cheval-de-bataille for 
 conversation : she had got it up carefully, and 
 enriched it with many indefinite words of in- 
 definite import. Nevertheless, thought I, it 
 shall be shoved on one side, if I have to upset 
 the epergne to do it. 
 
 My resolution was quickly put to the proof. 
 She arranged the skirt of her dress, gave a 
 downward glance at the same, and then, 
 raising her eyes, not to, but at me, said —
 
 94 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 ^^I don't know whether I am speaking to 
 a friend of Italy or not." 
 
 ^^ Talking of friends of Italy," said I, ''did 
 you ever come across that book (I forget the 
 author's name) that makes out ItaKan to be 
 an older language than Latin ? " 
 
 The interruption was a signal failure. She 
 made a haK-turn in her chair, and said — 
 
 ''Do you know, I have not read it yet: 
 it must be intensely interesting. I can well 
 believe that Ttahan 'was the original language. 
 And how dehghtful it is to see Italy now — 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " There are friends, and friends of Italy," 
 said I. 
 
 This trite remark appeared to be unin- 
 telligible to her, so I added — 
 
 " There are true friends, and false friends, 
 and mistaken friends. A true friend will not 
 countenance his friend in bad actions ; a false 
 friend will encourage him to do them; a 
 mistaken friend will consent to them through 
 misapprehension or weakness. But I am 
 becoming prosy." 
 
 "Not in the least. I delight in being talked 
 to by a man who wiU express his real sen- 
 timents, whatever they may be," quoth 
 Hermione with energy. " I hate to be treated 
 like a child, and given only sugar plums. 
 But you were going on to say "
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 95 
 
 Into the trap I straightway fell. For the 
 hfe of me I could not find any conversational 
 by-path to get me into any other subject. 
 
 "You said that it is dehghtful to look at 
 Italy as she is now," I replied : '^ for my own 
 part I can only think of the fisherman in the 
 ' Arabian Nights/ who inadvertently let a genius 
 out of the leaden vessel in which he had been 
 shut up by King Solomon. The lid of that 
 vessel (if I remember rightly) had the name 
 of God engraven on it, and therefore the genius 
 could not get out till it was removed; then 
 out he came, drew himseK up in the form of 
 thick black smoke, and finally took the shape 
 of a horrible monster. But the astute 
 oriental, having enticed him back by pre- 
 tending to disbelieve that he would fit- into 
 so small a space, quickly shut down the Hd, 
 and was again master of the situation. 
 Analogously, the monster of Eevolution was 
 kept in from 1815 until he was let out at 
 Castelfidardo, because governments had not 
 yet ceased to be Christian. But then they 
 let him out ; and he gradually reared his head, 
 until at last, out of a shapeless mass of 
 wickedness, he confronted renegade Caesarism 
 with the full programme of the International. 
 The Catholic sovereigns of Europe threw off 
 the fear of God, and let the monster escape
 
 96 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 them. They will not find him so easy to 
 deal with as the compressihle genius ; but if 
 they do succeed in gaining the upper hand, in 
 consequence of his showing too rashly what 
 he can do, he will soon get the better of them 
 again, unless they entitle themselves to God's 
 protection. And, if they don't mind, he won't 
 give *them the chance of shutting down the 
 lid; he will treat them as the genius would 
 have treated the fisherman, if the fisherman 
 had not been too sharp for him. The genius 
 had sworn, during the first hundred years of his 
 imprisonment, that, if any one should let him 
 out, he would make him the richest man in 
 the world ; afterwards he swore that he would 
 make his liberator a potent monarch ; finally, 
 he was 'that aggravated' that he swore he 
 would kill him, only allowing the unlucky 
 wight to choose the manner of his death. 
 Similarly caged, Eevolution held out to 
 Society, at first luxury, then licence, and 
 finally, destruction either by violence or vice. 
 This is the present position of society, and 
 nowhere more so than in Italy. The monster 
 will certainly put his threat into execution, 
 if they give him the opportunity much 
 longer." 
 
 Why I thought of all this, and, still more, 
 why I gave utterance to it, as I did, and to
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 97 
 
 such a listener as Miss Hermione Crumps 
 too, I cannot tell. But it had this advantage, 
 that she hazarded no further remarks to me on 
 the subject of Italy either during that dinner 
 party or afterwards. The discussion of an 
 entree reheved her at that moment from the 
 necessity of an immediate reply, and, when 
 I renewed my conversation with her, I took 
 care to make remarks more suitable to the 
 occasion. I asked all sorts of local questions ; 
 and the more I found that she was a com- 
 parative stranger to the county, the more 
 I asked them — not as if addressed to her, 
 but as if I was airing my recollections. 
 Thence I passed on to different kinds of small 
 talk, touching on most small subjects, from 
 pigeon-shooting and bridesmaids' dresses to 
 the current price of pug dogs. At length we 
 came to a short pause; and, whilst I was 
 thinking to myself, ^' What shall I say next 
 that will be farthest from Italian politics ? " 
 the Eitualist, who sat on the other side of 
 her, began to quote from Mr. Ffoulkes et hoc 
 genus omne. I turned to my next neighbour, 
 and found myself talking to Lady Alicia 
 Grubhedge. 
 
 The dialogue was of an extremely simple 
 character. On my part it was made up en- 
 tirely of negative propositions, mild and 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 colourless : on hers, it consisted of social 
 theories founded on principles that had no 
 hasis, Uke a wall built on a morass. It was 
 pitiable to hear her monotonous lamentations, 
 but still more so to think how many people 
 in England, well intentioned and honest like 
 her, are, like her, reduced to mumble and 
 whine at the evils of the day, unconsciously 
 contributing to their growth by sullen hostility 
 to the one and only power on earth capable of 
 resisting them. 
 
 An abridgment of her table-talk would run 
 thus : " Nothing can go on as it used to do. 
 It's quite enough that a thing was, for it to be 
 changed and pulled down. It's nothing but 
 destruction. And what they have got by 
 their education and their revolutionary mea- 
 sures, and by letting Jews and Roman Catho- 
 lics into Parliament, and all that ! I always 
 hated the sight of that Cardinal Wiseman 
 driving about, and I happen to know he 
 made the Fenians ; and Dr. Manning wiU be 
 the ruin of this country some day, only I 
 ought not to say it in this house, and perhaps 
 you're a Roman Cathohc. I hope not ; I 
 mean, I wouldn't say so if you were. And 
 there's that Bradlaugh and the rest : I always 
 knew what the Papal aggression would do 
 for us."
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 99 
 
 Now, what could one say in answer to this 
 poor, moving nonsense? Under correction, 
 nothing at all. She was simply one of the 
 numerous victims to that organized system 
 of enormous lying which created the great no- 
 popery tradition in England. She virtually 
 beheved in the infalHbihty of her old gover- 
 ness, who had taught her in accordance with 
 that tradition ; and the utterances of The BocJc 
 were to her as articles of faith. 
 
 It is said that when King Victor Emmanuel, 
 of Sardinia and elsewhere, made some per- 
 sonal remarks about the Emperor Napoleon 
 the Third to the French Ambassador, the latter 
 replied, *^ Your majesty will permit me not to 
 have heard a word of what you have just 
 spoken." Well, T did not exactly address 
 Lady Alicia in those terms, but I took French 
 leave to answer at cross purposes, as if I had 
 unconsciously misapprehended her words ; for 
 she meant to be kind, and was quite honest 
 in herself. In fact, I answered her intentions, 
 not her words. 
 
 But Miss Hermione Crumps grew weary of 
 the Bituahst before their conversation had 
 lasted many minutes; for the truth was she 
 had never heard of Mr. Ffoulkes, and knew 
 the ex-Pere Hyacinthe only by his photo- 
 graph, thought that the A.P.U.C. was a
 
 100 SHERBOllNE; OR, 
 
 cricket club, and preferred General Prim to 
 Dr. Dollinger ; so that slie gave him up as 
 hopelessly incomprehensible, and tried me 
 again. 
 
 Having by tacit consent banished regene- 
 rated Italy from the Hst of subjects, we got on 
 very fairly for a time ; but before the end of 
 dinner the intervals of silence became more 
 frequent and more prolonged. We began to 
 search, and speculate, and dwell wearily on 
 the fag ends of stories that had no particular 
 cause of introduction. At last she bethought 
 herself of something which never fails to 
 light up the embers of conversation — a ghost 
 story. 
 
 "Are you fond of ghost stories?" she 
 asked rather suddenly, after we had been 
 talking about the neighbourhood for a few 
 minutes. 
 
 **I shall be delighted to hear you tell one," 
 I replied. 
 
 " Well, you know Hazeley ? " 
 
 "I knew it well, but I have not been in 
 this country for some years." 
 
 *' Did you ever hear of a ghost there ? " 
 
 "Never." 
 
 " Of course I don't beheve in them, you 
 know ; but should you like to hear it ? " 
 
 " I shall be delighted to hear any story you 
 may tell."
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 101 
 
 ** Yes, yes ; but do you care about ghost 
 stories ? " 
 
 '' Not particularly." 
 
 " Oh, you are not worthy of it then, and I 
 won't tell it. It's very curious and remark- 
 able — very — and romantic and mysterious, 
 and all that. Not that I believe in those 
 things : everybody knows they can be ac- 
 counted for scientifically." 
 
 She ceased speaking, and lowered her eyes 
 in the direction of the bouquet in front of 
 her dress. I interpreted the movement to 
 signify that she wished to seem indifferent 
 about ghost stories in general, and the tell- 
 ing of that one in particular, but was not 
 so really. It was little less than evident 
 that, but for the honour of the thing, she 
 might as well have had no religion at aU, 
 so well had the honeyed blasphemies of syco- 
 phantic emigrati, and the hard religionism of 
 her brother-in-law, succeeded in frostbiting 
 those germs of indefinite faith which often 
 grow up spontaneously in Protestantized Eng- 
 land, as it were, under the shade of the old 
 parish churches. But that was no hindrance to 
 a belief in ghosts ; rather the reverse. When 
 the space is empty where faith ought to be, 
 something must fill the vacuum. Hero- 
 worship not unfi'equently does that office ; but
 
 102 SHERBOKNE; OE, 
 
 the space is large, and the substitutes are apt 
 to shrink up after a time. What next ? Per~ 
 haps table-rapping, for those who are spirit- 
 ually hlasc, and ghost stories for those who 
 have any freshness of soul left. 
 
 Miss Hermione was not insensible to the 
 dreamy delights of that subjective spiritualism, 
 elastic and unexacting ; but she was ashamed 
 to own it, lest any one should mistake what 
 was superstitious, and she thought was not so, 
 for what was not, and she thought was. Hence 
 all this beating about the bush before the 
 inevitable ghost story was told — for told at 
 last it was of course. 
 
 ^' I don't think I shall tell it you, for you 
 will only call me superstitious ; and I am not 
 so, I assure you," said she, as the ice was 
 being handed round. 
 
 '' No, I never use words in general society 
 that have no definite meaning there," said I. 
 
 ^'Ah, but you would say something else 
 with the same meaning." 
 
 *^ What meaning ? " 
 
 ^' Now don't. I know you are dying to hear 
 the story, and I have a great mind not to tell 
 it you; but I won't be so hard, though you 
 deserve that I should. Well, the story is 
 this : — 
 
 *^ You see, it's a strange old house, full of
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 103 
 
 gables and galleries and odd corners. They 
 say there's a tiny room, no more than a closet, 
 under the floor of a dark attic, in the oldest 
 part of the house, and very puzzHng to find, 
 where the priests used to hide : but that was a 
 long time ago." 
 
 ^^Yes, not later than our reverses in the 
 American War," said I parenthetically. 
 
 " Well, I don't know about that," said she 
 quickly. 
 
 ^* Do you wish to know ? " said I. 
 
 *' I meant that I was trying to get on with 
 the story," said she, fixing her eyes with a 
 studied expression of carelessness on the menu^ 
 which happened to lie before her. 
 
 One should never volunteer information to 
 any one who evidently takes pride in not 
 having it ; for, if the person to whom you 
 offer it be a man, he will keep you at bay with 
 sonorous sophistries till you are interrupted ; 
 and if you have to deal with a woman, she 
 will contrive somehow to put you in a false 
 position. Miss Hermione's answer — '^ I don't 
 know about that," was made to drop its 
 proper meaning, and to signify — ''I more 
 than question your alleged fact — indeed, I 
 know better ; " whilst, owing to her pecu- 
 liarly feminine gesture of aggressive resigna- 
 tion at being apparently delayed in continuing
 
 104 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 her story, I had no time to retrieve the false 
 step. 
 
 '^ But the ghost story ? " I said, feehng that 
 the least said was soonest mended. 
 
 ^^ Didn't you want to tell me something 
 ahout the American war first ? " said she ; 
 *^ or," she added in a languid tone, as if care- 
 lessly correcting herself, *' something about 
 religion." 
 
 This was just a httle too much, especially 
 as she said the last few words loud enough for 
 the Eitualist on her right to hear, and did so 
 evidently on purpose. So I said in an equally 
 audible voice, ^^ I answered you about an his- 
 torical fact on which you were either indis- 
 tinctly informed, or distinctly misinformed — I 
 don't quite know which, and you wish to turn 
 my remark about the date of the latest priest- 
 hunting into an attempt at edging in doctrinal 
 argument, and you have sho^\m much aptitude 
 for the task. But you want a httle more 
 experience in the art of word-conjuring. You 
 were quite right, according to your own prin- 
 ciples, when you made my words appear tire- 
 some before you proceeded to give them a 
 meaning not their own — one must smear out a 
 picture before one can paint over the canvas ; 
 but you want a Httle more practice." 
 
 She looked at me for a moment or two,
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 105 
 
 much puzzled, not so mucli in her mind as in 
 her — I had better say, feehngs, to avoid a less 
 euphemistic word; then she coloured, but 
 under protest, as appeared from various self- 
 asserting gestures of a mild sort, such as a 
 sudden stiffening up of the body, and an 
 unnecessary resettlement of the flower in the 
 back of her hau\ At length she laughed 
 gruffly, and said — 
 
 ^' That wasn't it at all, not the least. But 
 I see you want the ghost story, and so here it 
 is. Well, you know the house better than I 
 do, I believe. I never saw it but once. You 
 know what long passages there are in it, and 
 ghostly corners — are there not ? ' ' 
 
 I was on the point of disclaiming any know- 
 ledge of what a ghostly corner might piean ; 
 but, deeming it inexpedient to say so, I met 
 her half-way, by saying that I remembered 
 the dark corners ; and she went on as follows, 
 almost without taking breath — 
 
 '^ They say that Mr. Sherborne's great- 
 grandmother, or something, was a very queer 
 old woman, and came wi'ongly by the place. 
 I don't exactly remember what I heard about 
 it, but they say there is some bad story about 
 it, and that there is an old woman about the 
 place who knows a lot about it ; but I dare 
 say it's only gossip. However, the people say
 
 106 SHERBORNE, OR, 
 
 that the old great-grandmother's ghost haunts 
 part of the house, and that she has spoken to 
 people, or to some person at any rate — I 
 beheve it was this old woman who knows all 
 about it. She was a servant there, I think, or 
 a governess, or a companion, or something; 
 and I am told that none of the maid-servants 
 will remain, except, of course, the old house- 
 keeper, who has been there for ages, and one 
 old housemaid. A girl that went to be 
 kitchenmaid from my brother-in-law's parish, 
 left only last week, declaring she couldn't 
 stop there any longer, for as she was in bed 
 one night (you must know she slept in the 
 attic next to the one where there is the trap- 
 door going down into the priest's hiding-hole) 
 she heard a sound of footsteps, and thought it 
 proceeded fi^om the next room, which was 
 used to keep boxes in, and, getting up, she 
 opened the door to see who it could be. The 
 moon was quite bright, shining through the 
 window, and she distinctly saw, so she said, a 
 very old lady Hft the trap door, which was at 
 the farther end, and go down into the hiding 
 hole. The girl was so frightened that she 
 called one of the other servants. They lighted 
 a candle and peered down into the hole. I 
 think it was very courageous, but no one was 
 to be seen, and there is no exit from it. So
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUPw WAYS. 107 
 
 they gave warning the next day. And 
 other people too declare that they have seen 
 the old lady, and a mysterious light in an 
 upper room, and her shadow passing across 
 it. Now, of course, I don't believe all this ; 
 but it sounds very odd, doesn't it ? Did you 
 ever hear of all this ? " 
 
 '' I can't say that I never heard anything 
 about it," said I; "for now that you recall it 
 to my recollection, I do remember to have 
 heard, when a child, that old Mrs. Sherborne's 
 husband haunted the house, or a part of the 
 house ; but I never heard more than that." 
 
 " What do you think about it ? " 
 
 " I suppose some one saw a light in a 
 window late at night, and some one else saw 
 a curtain shake in the wind by moonlight, and 
 thought it looked like old Mrs. Sherborne's 
 portrait." 
 
 At this moment the ladies began to file off 
 from the dining-room, which event probably 
 saved me fi'om being examined in Mrs. Crowe's 
 "Night-side of Nature."
 
 108 SHEKBOENE: OR, 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE QUEER INHABITANT OF THE HOUSE AT THE 
 FOUR WAYS. 
 
 * ' Non ingenerantur hominibiis mores tarn a stirpe generis ac 
 seminis, quam ex iis rebus qiife i\h ipsa natiira loci, et a vitse con- 
 suetudine suppeditantur, quibus alimur et vivimus." — Cicero. 
 
 When Julius Caesar asked the Belgic Britons, 
 near the banks of the Thames, who the 
 ancestors of their Celtic neighbours were, he 
 was told that they were the spontaneous pro- 
 duction of the soil ; and no doubt they were 
 so, though not in the sense intended by the 
 worthy ethnologists who undertook to describe 
 them for his information. No doubt they were 
 what is called redolent of the soil, or in other 
 words, had received from the locality they 
 lived in a certain character perceptible and 
 distinct. If not, they must have been indi- 
 vidually more original, or collectively less so, 
 than the later inhabitants ; for at least among 
 English country gentlemen, there was, and is
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 109 
 
 still, thongli in a diminishing, perliaps a rapidly 
 diminisliing degree, a certain liabit of mind on 
 certain subjects, a certain practical instinct, 
 self-conscious, but not communicative, in 
 short, a certain corporate idiosyncracy apart 
 from that of the individual, and depending on 
 locality or manner of life, rather than on 
 family and parentage. I am not alluding to 
 the influence of geographical featm-es and par- 
 ticular provincial customs on the different 
 classes in a rural population, for such an 
 inquiry might be long enough for an essay, 
 and would at any rate be quite out of place 
 here, but to the general result of certain con- 
 ditions, physical and mental, under which 
 English country gentlemen hve and flourish. 
 
 Within the meaning of the term ^' country 
 gentlemen," I include, conveniently for the 
 present purpose : firstly, resident landed pro- 
 prietors, great and small, with their sons of 
 course ; secondly, hirers of country places, 
 who enter into country life by taking interest 
 in local self-government, agriculture, etc. ; 
 thirdly, Anglican clergymen, who have com- 
 fortable benefices, and a ^' proud submission" 
 to the theology of the Privy Council ; fourthly, 
 curates who aspire to such benefices, and do 
 not offend the once-a-week theory which is an 
 integral part of religion in the mind of the
 
 110 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 Protestant bucolic. All these men have cor- 
 porate, apart from individual characteristics ; 
 the former being, perhaps, more openly shown, 
 but less clear — more openly shown because 
 people do not care to conceal what is 
 sanctioned by the authority of extensive com- 
 panionship, less clear because it is difficult to 
 separate them from those of the individuals 
 who compose the body. 
 
 I propounded this theory to Don PascoKni 
 next day. I had just returned from shooting, 
 and found him taking a stroU down the 
 avenue. We began to talk about EngKsh 
 country houses, because they were a new 
 experience to him. 
 
 ^^ How are you impressed, if at all, by 
 Enghsh country life, so far as you have 
 seen ?" I asked. 
 
 ^' Favourably as to the kind of life, and as to 
 the nature of the people who follow it — un- 
 favourably as to the conditions by which both 
 are modified," said he. 
 
 We walked on in silence a little way, and 
 after a while I proposed my theory of corporate 
 characteristics. He appeared to reflect for 
 a few moments, and then asked the very 
 pertinent question — 
 
 '' What are they ? " 
 
 Now, in truth I had not arrived so far as
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. Ill 
 
 that : I could see where, but not what, or if 
 I could, it was through a mist ; and I owned 
 the fact, not without a sense of shame. He 
 came to my assistance unexpectedly — very 
 unexpectedly, for he waited I should think 
 two or three minutes before he spoke, and 
 then he said — 
 
 '^I am not quahfied to give an opinion 
 about it worth anything, but it seems to me 
 that perhaps one of the characteristics which 
 you say belong to country gentlemen collec- 
 tively, may be defined as the habit of repres- 
 sing the external action of their finer qualities. 
 
 ^^Yes," said I. ''But one observes the 
 same in others as well : it seems to be cha- 
 racteristic of Englishmen in general." 
 
 ''As Englishmen simply, or as Englishmen 
 and something besides ? " 
 
 " As Englishmen and something besides, 
 as Englishmen spiritually disinherited, as men 
 whose minds are shackled by a tradition that 
 flatters self-esteem, and fixes prejudice, but 
 fails to satisfy heart, soul, or intellect — a tradi- 
 tion which can seem respectable only by dis- 
 claiming its origin, and ancient only by 
 disclaiming its respectability." 
 
 " You think it then a characteristic not 
 original in the race, but an after-growth pro- 
 duced by the action of something foreign to
 
 112 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 the true nature of the people and injurious to 
 their true interests." 
 
 *' Yes; and by that something I mean the 
 Eeformation." 
 
 *^ You think that the habit of negatively 
 affecting a lower tone of mind than their own 
 is an excrescence from a kind of shame-faced 
 humility?" 
 
 ^^Yes; a kind of schoolboy shame at the 
 idea of looking like a sneak, by making them- 
 selves out better than somebody else." 
 
 ^^ And you think that this feeling has, to a 
 certain extent, changed its nature ? " 
 
 " I do. I think that the bluff humility is, 
 to a great extent, adulterated with an admix- 
 ture of human respect, instinctive but often 
 unconscious. Fear of being sneered at — which 
 fear is much increased by the moral taci- 
 turnity of their friends, and the consequent 
 difficulty of knowing how high a moral 
 standard they vnll bear, has a great deal to do 
 with it." 
 
 "But who is that old woman under the 
 clump of trees yonder ? She has been watch- 
 ing us, and following at a little distance, and 
 apparently listening." 
 
 We had strayed out of the avenue and were 
 following the line of a foot-path, watching the 
 effect of the light and shade on the scene
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 113 
 
 before us. The effect was singularly pic- 
 turesque and wild. Tlie sun had just set 
 beneath a dark, almost black horizon, leaving 
 a blood-red line of light enclosed in masses of 
 storm-cloud that gradually rolled in, to quench 
 it before its time : and when the last gleams 
 of this fiery twilight fell on the cloaked figures 
 of the old woman, as she advanced and 
 crouched and hstened among the trees, while 
 the antlers of the deer peeped up from a fore- 
 ground of high fern, and a solitary crow flew 
 heavily by through the gathering darkness, one 
 felt that if there was no mystery in the sudden 
 appearance of the old woman at that moment, 
 there ought to be. 
 
 We were not kept long in suspense as to 
 her present intention. She drew herself up, 
 and came towards us with an air of tremulous 
 determination that brought us at once to a 
 halt. Who she could be, and what she wanted 
 with us, was a puzzle beyond the range of 
 guess-work; but that she did want to speak 
 with one or both of us, and meant to attain 
 her object, was unmistakable. So we stood 
 still, and awaited the result. 
 
 When she had approached within two or 
 three hundred yards, it struck me that I had 
 seen her before, but I was then unable to 
 remember where, when, or under what circum- 
 
 YOL. I. I
 
 114 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 stances. An indistinct recollection arose in 
 my mind of wondrons conjectural tales, half- 
 heard on winter evenings, and invested with 
 an unfathomable mystery in my infant mind, 
 by the flickering candle, the broken whispers, 
 the hollow roar of the wind in the chimney, and 
 the hsijmg of the watch-dog in the stable-yard. 
 Whoever she might be, she evidently 
 wanted to address one of us, and that one was 
 not myself; for she turned aside as soon as 
 she had taken a keen survey of our two faces, 
 and then, bearing down upon Don Pascohni, 
 stood still just in front of him. They stood 
 looking at each other for a few seconds, he in 
 quiet astonishment, she collectiug her un- 
 quietness into a steady focus. At length she 
 
 addressed him decisively, thus : — 
 
 ^' You're a CathoHc priest, and a foreigner?" 
 "I am," he replied; adding rather quickly, 
 
 for fear of mistakes, ^'I understand English 
 
 very little." 
 
 '' That is unfortunate," said she, ^^for I am 
 
 quite out of the habit of speaking French ; 
 
 and Italian I never could speak, though I read 
 
 it a good deal, many many years ago. You 
 
 are an Italian — are you not ? " 
 
 He bowed assent to the last words ; and then 
 
 she went on to say, in very fair French for one 
 
 who was unaccustomed to the language : —
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 115 
 
 ^^I will try to explain myself in French; 
 but it will be difficult for me, and I must ask 
 your indulgence. But you must — yes, you 
 really must be patient, and listen to what I am 
 going to say." 
 
 ^^ Who on earth," said I to myseK, ^^can this 
 old woman be whose words cause one to scruti- 
 nize her dress?" Then I remembered a certain 
 Mrs. Smith, who used to live mysteriously in 
 a lonely house at the corner of four lonely 
 lanes, and was considered by the neighbours 
 to be either a free-thinker, a Jesuit, or a 
 wandering Jew who had taken to sedentary 
 habits. 
 
 *'Who is that?" she asked, after she had 
 given a rapid and piercing glance at me. 
 
 Don Pascohni was unable to give her the 
 desired information, for he had either forgotten 
 my name or never heard it. 
 
 I prompted him, and he repeated my pat- 
 ronymic after me. She looked again at my 
 face, and then, turning again to him, said — 
 
 *^ Very well ; but I must speak to you alone 
 — I must, indeed." 
 
 ^^ Are you a CathoHc?" asked Don Pascohni, 
 after a pause, during which, as it seemed to 
 me, he was wishing heartily that he had 
 walked in another direction. 
 
 ^* No," she replied : ''In some respects I wish
 
 116 SHERBOK]S-E; OK, 
 
 I were No ! it cannot be. I am not — not 
 at all. But I have something very important 
 to say ; and I know that Catholic priests are 
 trained to advise well, and to help people in 
 trouble." 
 
 ** But there is the priest of the mission," 
 said Don Pascolini. '' Surely you had better 
 go to see him." 
 
 ^^No," said she, very emphatically; ^' he is 
 a very good man, I believe : but there is a 
 reason why I must speak to you and not to 
 him." 
 
 '* I am a foreigner," said he; '^a total 
 stranger to this country, and I cannot speak 
 a dozen words of English consecutively." 
 
 " If you will listen to me," she answered, in 
 a tone of suppressed irritability, ^' I will con- 
 vince you that he would not do as well as you. 
 I have come to you just because you are a 
 foreigner." 
 
 "But foreigners are from various countries," 
 he urged; "perhaps you are looking for a 
 Frenchman, and I am from the north of 
 Italy." 
 
 " Yes, I know you are an ItaHan," she said; 
 "but I can't help that. Perhaps it will do as 
 well so. In short, I must and will speak to 
 you privately." 
 
 " Suppose I were to decline being the con-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUK WAYS. 117 
 
 fidant of your secret," said he, *^is it probable 
 tliat any one would be injured in consequence 
 of my refusal ? ' ' 
 
 ^' If you do so," she replied solemnly, *' you 
 will find it difficult to settle the account with 
 your own conscience." 
 
 *' Very well, then," said he. '^ But I am 
 afraid I shall need an interpreter in order to 
 understand clearly." 
 
 She reflected for a moment or two, and 
 acknowledged the difficulty. The fact was 
 that her French, which was pretty good at 
 first starting, had proved unequal to fm'ther 
 demands on its resources, just as muscles, 
 long unused, acquit themselves for a short 
 effort, but break down in attempting to sus- 
 tain it. 
 
 She fixed her eyes on me, and said — 
 
 ^' I think I can trust you. I believe your 
 father was an honest man. Now will you 
 pledge me your word that you will not men- 
 tion to any one what I am going to say before 
 you, until the time shall have come when it is 
 right it should be known ? " 
 
 Like Don Pascolini, I felt that I was fairly 
 in for it. I gave her the required promise, 
 and opened my ears. And so did she, as it 
 appeared, for she detected more quickly than 
 I did the sound of some footsteps on the grass,
 
 118 SHEKBORNE; OR, ' 
 
 and she turned quickly in tlie direction whence 
 it proceeded. 
 /^ We are seen," she said. 
 
 ^' Never mind," said I — for I wanted to get 
 it over at once. '' We are not conspirators." 
 
 *' If I had meant the whole parish to listen 
 I should not have waited here half the day 
 for this interview," she replied, with a quick 
 movement of impatience and a short laugh. 
 
 I acknowledged myself shut up, and passively 
 submitted to her dictation. So did Don Pas- 
 colini. We both felt that we had to go through 
 the strange business which had been thrust 
 upon us, not only against our w^ill, but even in 
 spite of our endeavours to avoid it. The old 
 woman was mistress of the situation. 
 
 '' You are not going to leave Bramscote 
 yet ? " she asked. 
 
 ^'I am going to stay some days," said I. ^^I 
 am not sure about Don Pascolini." 
 
 '^ My stay at Bramscote is uncertain," said 
 the latter. 
 
 " Then you will come to my house to- 
 morrow morning at eleven o'clock — will you 
 not ? " said she earnestly. 
 
 Don Pascolini and I promised that we 
 would do so ; and she added in a low voice, 
 addressing myself — 
 
 " At eleven o'clock, then. You must re-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 119 
 
 member where I live — at the corner of the 
 four lanes by the fir wood." 
 
 ^^Yes," said I, as she moved away in the 
 opposite direction to that in which the sounds 
 of the footsteps had proceeded. 
 
 And there we stood, Don PascoHni and I, 
 looking at each other as if waiting for some 
 explanatory information which neither of us 
 was able to give. 
 
 '' Well," said I, ^^ wonder what the plot of 
 this drama is." 
 
 ** I wish we had walked in some other direc- 
 tion," said Don PascoHni. '* I have no desire 
 to be set down in the play as ' The Intriguing- 
 Priest,' or ^ The Jesuit in Disguise.'" 
 
 "After all," said I, "it seems to be only 
 advice that she wants." 
 
 He simply repeated after me, but with an 
 emphasis that suggested much, the words, 
 " Only advice ! " 
 
 " True," said I, in answer to the intonation. 
 " But then you will have a witness ? " 
 
 " Well," said he, " I could not in conscience 
 refuse such a request so solemnly made ; and 
 after all, I have often been placed in very 
 much worse positions, not merely disagreeable 
 ones, but dangerous and compromising." 
 
 " Through pretended penitents in the in- 
 terest of the Eevolution ? " I added.
 
 120 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 He made a slight gesture of assent and 
 walked on, till, in the dark, we almost ran 
 against some one coming along the path. It 
 was the same person who had caused the old 
 woman to disaj)pear hy the sound of his foot- 
 steps, and he tui'ned out to be Father Kan- 
 ford, the priest of the mission. I remembered 
 having seen and spoken to him after dinner on 
 the previous day, and if I forgot (as I think 
 I did) to include him in the hst of the people 
 I met at that dinner-table, it was very odd, 
 and indeed unaccountable, unless on the prin- 
 ciple that the mind, like the body, may be 
 stunned by being struck too hard ; for cer- 
 tainly my attention was forcibly drawn to 
 what Mr. Glenfillan Bruff, Mr. Linus Jones, 
 and Dr. Shale said and looked in respect of 
 Mm. Agreeing in nothing else, they had dis- 
 played an edifying unity in the half-veiled 
 aversion that they put forth, like a domesti- 
 cated Cerberus, between him and them. Of 
 course they were not rude, but they were 
 implicitly offensive by means of carefully 
 unpointed omissions that showed where the 
 points had been padded. 
 
 It so chanced that, as he was walking 
 with us part of the way home, I said this, or 
 words to the same effect. He smiled and 
 rephed —
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 121 
 
 ^^You are liard upon them. Kemember 
 tliat no-popery traditions and the accom- 
 plished fact of possessing all the old Catholic 
 endowments, are the title-deeds of the Estab- 
 lishment."
 
 122 SHEKBOKNE; OE, 
 
 CHAPTEK VIII. 
 
 IN WHICH, PAEENTHETICALLY, SHEEBOKNE MAKES HIS 
 COMMENTS ON A SMALL BUT PEOLIFIC SCANDAL, 
 TAKEN NOT UNWILLINGLY BY MANY, AND GIVEN, 
 OUT OF THE DEPTHS OF THEIE DEFICIENCIES, BY 
 A FEW. 
 
 " , . . He must beware, if happily he have occasion of 
 necessary business, at his departure from home, not to have his 
 hawke tyed on a pearche of any greate length from the grounde, 
 for feare of bating and hanging by the heeles, for then either 
 will she caste hir gorge, or otherwise spoyle hyrself." — The 
 Booke of Falconrie. 
 
 I SUPPOSE that most of us are socially tied on 
 a perch — in other words, compelled by arti- 
 ficial necessities to let ourselves appear before 
 the world more or less above the level of our 
 actual selves, yet far below what we might 
 be if we were not so tied ; and I suppose 
 that this social perch is so far useful, that if 
 it hinders us from soaring, it also checks inad- 
 vertence. Yet it may be too high, so that in 
 endeavouring to reach higher still, we only
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 123 
 
 spoil ourselves, like the aforesaid liawk ; and 
 the instances of such misplaced self-confidence 
 are not very unfrequent. But surely the most 
 pitiable exhibition in that line is the tragi- 
 comic spectacle of a worldly EngUsh Catholic, 
 
 " Most ignorant of what he's most assured, 
 His glassy essence," 
 
 in which the bad fit of the self-assertion he 
 has clothed himself with is seen as distinctly 
 as a stereoscopic portrait. The world will not 
 take him at his own valuation ; for the world, 
 with the unerring instinct which it ever dis- 
 plays in distinguishing between its fellow- 
 craftsmen and its honorary members, can 
 perceive that there is a reservation in his 
 interior assent to its principles and practice. 
 The world will make use of him, patronize 
 him, flatter him to a certain extent and in a 
 certain way, when and how it suits its purpose 
 to do so ; but it despises him both from its 
 own standpoint and from his. It despises 
 him from its own standpoint as a bunghng 
 pretender in a craft he does not understand ; 
 it despises him from his for his human re- 
 spect, which no true Englishman really tole- 
 rates in a Catholic, whatever may be said, 
 done or inferred to the contrary notwith- 
 standing. 
 
 And if that were the only effect produced
 
 124 SHEEBOENE; OR, 
 
 by the efforts of these amatenr woiidhngs, the 
 mischief would be limited; but unhappily it 
 has consequences growing out of it, conse- 
 quences that were visible to the naked eye 
 before, at, and after dinner, on that second 
 day of my visit. 
 
 For then and afterwards, till about the 
 end of my stay at Bramscote, there were 
 two guests who did their amateur worldli- 
 ness in an offensive manner, and gave false 
 models for popular representations of practical 
 catholicity. One was a man whose personal 
 appearance I forget, insomuch that I should 
 probably not recognize his photograph, if I 
 were to see it. All I remember about him is 
 that his mouth had got itself into angles by 
 dint of expressing his conviction of his own 
 importance ; his eyes had a rude twinkle of 
 semi-polished self-assertion. 
 
 The other was a lady whose appearance and 
 manner combined to show that she ought to 
 have been well-bred, and was not; in other 
 words, that she had bartered her birthright of 
 good breeding for a very uncertain tenure of 
 a doubtful ascendancy among Protestant 
 pleasure hunters and over-dressed girls of the 
 period. She had, as it were, abdicated the 
 honourable and dignified position of an here- 
 ditary Catholic, in the land of More, Fisher,
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 125 
 
 and the missionary Priests, to grasp and 
 clutch at a stray trinket in the tinsel crown 
 of deteriorated fashion, and establish an 
 unhononred notoriety on the sufferance of a 
 generation that will tolerate any one who 
 will entertain lavishly, and stun people by 
 sheer weight of purse. 
 
 Like the jackdaw in peacock's feathers, she 
 dressed herself up in the exclusiveness of the 
 fine ladies that once were ; but having neither 
 their cleverness, their tact, their graceful 
 manners, nor theii' knowledge of the world, 
 she looked vulgar therein. Yet the jackdaw 
 in his natural state finds his home in more 
 honourable places than the peacock can 
 attain to. 
 
 Sherborne happened to sit next me affer the 
 ladies had left the dining-room, and he began 
 talking on this subject in the uncertain tone 
 which had so often unsettled my reading of 
 his character, yet might have helped me to 
 understand it, and did so afterwards. He was 
 near the end of the table farthest from Sir 
 Eoger. There was no one beyond him on the 
 same side, no one just opposite, and my next 
 neighbour was a chair's width off, talking 
 sonorously to some one opposite on some 
 local topics. Sherborne, who had been silent 
 and moody all dinner-time, pushed the claret
 
 126 SHERBOPtNE ; OR, 
 
 as far as possible across the table, lowered his 
 head in apparent contemplation of the filberts 
 on his plate, and spoke without turning 
 towards me. 
 
 '^I hke one thing or the other," said he. 
 -^' Don't you?" 
 
 '^ Certainly," I replied; *' and especially the 
 other." 
 
 He smiled a grim smile, and said — 
 
 ^^Yes; but what do you think of pious 
 worldliness in Catholics, who are supposed to 
 have some self-knowledge, and to call a spade 
 a spade in their own consciences ? " 
 
 " I should question their piety or their 
 brains," I replied. 
 
 '^ All right ; but let us drop the wise saws, 
 and take up the modern instances. There is 
 one famous specimen in the house." 
 
 ^^ There are two ways of looking at that 
 question — admitting the fact," said I ; '' and 
 the one goes far towards balancing the other. 
 The comparative amenities of the Protestant 
 world in England to Catholics are of so recent 
 a date, that it is hardly to be wondered at, if 
 we find silly women and lightly ballasted men 
 kicking up their heels like ponies' got sud- 
 denly into condition; but the airs they give 
 themselves are childish rather than mahcious. 
 Don't forget their great comparative sim-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 127 
 
 plicity, or you will form an unfair judgment of 
 them." 
 
 ^^ But their moral standard is higher, or at 
 least more defined : and they go to confession, 
 which, though I am not saying that I approve 
 of it, certainly ought to give them a deeper 
 insight into the quahty of then' own actions, 
 and a clearer self-knowledge than you have a 
 right to expect from others who have not their 
 advant — who are differently circumstanced.'* 
 
 I took no notice of the significant ehsion, 
 but considered within myself for a few seconds 
 as to what might be the least alterable reply. 
 For I knew that answers to such questions, 
 after they have got into the questioner's mind, 
 are apt to change their nature by a process 
 of mental assimilation, especially when the 
 non-Catholic questioner is, unknown to him- 
 self, forging sophisms out of his unsettled in- 
 tellect wherewith to fetter the instinct of his 
 struggling faith. 
 
 ^^ Well, what have you to say about it ? " he 
 said, trying to look impenetrable, and partially 
 succeeding in the attempt. 
 
 ''I have to say," said I, ''first, that your 
 comparison is unfair ; and secondly, that the 
 foUies you mention, taken at their worst, are 
 immeasurably less bad than the sins that in 
 the non- Catholic world pass unnoticed."
 
 128 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 *^ How is the comparison unfaii' ? " lie asked^ 
 after he had skinned a walnut with much 
 dehberation. 
 
 '^ Because," I replied, '' you are comparing a 
 definite few specially circumstanced with an 
 indefinite many who are not so. Catholics (I 
 mean, of course, those among them who 
 attend to theii' religious duties) are positively 
 warned off from many an easy path of plea- 
 sant sin over which Protestants are allowed to 
 stray under certain restrictions, Hke Eton boys 
 out of bounds ; and the only two points in 
 which such CathoHcs can show any gratitude 
 to the world for the trouble it takes to corrupt 
 their principles, is to go in for over-dress and 
 social impertinence. If you examine these 
 two follies, or whatever their proper epithet 
 may be, you will find that they are aberrations 
 from something lawful, and that the point of 
 departure is difficult to put one's finger on. 
 Over-dressing is the excess of dressing accord- 
 ing to one's position : social impertinence I 
 suppose to be an exaggerated, capricious, and 
 self-sufficient setting forth of that position. 
 But where is the exact frontier-line ? Now, 
 when people don't see a point of departure, 
 they are slow to discover that they are off the 
 road at all, especially if there are no paiiiicular 
 landmarks to fix their attention ; and, there-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 129 
 
 fore, it is unjust to infer that the consciences of 
 these people are dishonest because they don't 
 pull them up for strutting about like turkey- 
 cocks, and loading themselves with expensive 
 clothes. 
 
 " I thought that pride was a mortal sin," 
 said he, still peeling his walnut. 
 
 ^^ Of course it is," said I; ^'but making an 
 ass of one's self is not, unless one does so under 
 the influence of something that is mortal sin ; 
 and I don't for a moment beheve that such is 
 the case in the instance you refer to. Self- 
 deception, owing to defective head-ballast, 
 makes these good people fail to see where 
 dignity ends and bumptiousness begins, or to 
 moderate the superfluous clothes whose price 
 might save the souls of children threatened 
 with board schools." 
 
 '^When I was a boy, and after," said he, 
 '^ Catholics were distinguishable for their good 
 breeding, unassuming dignity, and just in- 
 stincts of position. The supercilious assump- 
 tion, the capricious exclusiveness, and the 
 self-satisfied devotion to marketable successes 
 in society, which I see in some of them now, 
 are a fungus growth of late years." 
 
 ^'I know that," I replied, '' and I was just 
 going to account for the difference. The fore- 
 fathers of these people suffered persecution, 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 SHERBORNE ; OR, 
 
 long, terrible, and wearying, for tlie faith ; and 
 if you trace the history of that persecution, 
 you will find that it worked on a shding scale 
 singularly well suited to disarrange mental 
 hallast in the course of time — so much so, 
 that, but for the supernatui'al force of Catho- 
 licity, the result would have been immeasurably 
 and irretrievably worse. Look at the apostates 
 of the last century, who fell away like rotten 
 pears after the legal relaxations of 1778, and 
 you will see that I am not supposing a thing 
 which has no precedent in fact ; and yet I can 
 show, I think, that the position of EngHsh 
 Cathohcs since that time has been, in some 
 respects, a more difficult one than it ever was. 
 If you trace the sliding scale of persecution, 
 you will see what I mean. The no-popery 
 persecution in England has had five phases, 
 and is entering upon a sixth ; but the people 
 we are speaking of have not yet had their 
 plasticity moulded by that, and each phase has 
 had its own special effect on those whom it 
 concerned. There were the days of racking at 
 the mercy of the informers, and embo welling 
 aHve under a gibbet; the days of missionary 
 priests, and of those who sheltered them at 
 the peril of their lives ; the days when Mar- 
 garet Clitherow was pressed to death, and 
 Father Oldcorn v/as butchered alive by the
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 131 
 
 liangman's knife. All the finest qualities of 
 regenerated humanity were developed in those 
 days. Heroic examples trained the higher 
 instincts, and temptation had no dignity. 
 Then came the days of social stamping out 
 and moral torture, the days when Catholics 
 were consigned to unnoticed outlawry and 
 hopeless inaction. People learned to cultivate 
 passive sufferance in those days, and to be 
 simply patient, as one learns to lie still under 
 the influence of a leaden headache. They 
 were heroes and heroines in those days, 
 though they were safe from the rack and the 
 hangman's knife, for they bore their mental 
 pressing to death in the spuit of martyrs ; but 
 their energising power grew weak, like an arm 
 in a sling. It was hardly their fault, but the fact 
 remains. Then came the days of liberalistic 
 patronage and deceitful offers, when the 
 American War and the Irish Kebellion modi- 
 fied the policy of statesmen, and made them 
 try what a little poisoned honey could do — the 
 days of Dr. Milner and the Catholic Com- 
 mittee. The stamping-out system had done 
 its work to a certain extent : so had Jan- 
 senism, Gallicanism, and the great French 
 Kevolution. The conduct of not a few showed 
 that in them the martyr spirit was leavened 
 with a half- unconscious spirit of compromise.
 
 132 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 Then came the days of emancipation, when 
 bare justice looked like a favour. The change 
 was great, but its effects on those it concerned 
 were slow, for habits alter slowly. Its imme- 
 diate effects were little more perhaps than 
 preparatory and suggestive : its remote effects 
 appeared later, when the influx of converts, 
 and the consequent numerical increase of 
 CathoHcs, drew them more or less within the 
 social current of the day. Since then, two 
 effects have become apparent — a good effect 
 on many, a bad effect on some. The good 
 effect is that EngHsh CathoHcs are gradually 
 recovering the use of their energies ; the bad 
 effect is to be found in the foUies you have 
 been speaking of. The same wind tm^ns the 
 wind-mills and blows chimney-pots off; but 
 the mischief done by the erratic chimney-pots 
 is hmited, and the wind-mills giind the corn 
 that supports hfe." 
 
 " You are right," said he mildly. 
 
 *'I know that," thought I; '^but what is 
 the meaning of this unwonted disposition to 
 acknowledge it ? " 
 
 Perhaps he read or guessed what was in my 
 mind, for he added this qualification. 
 
 '' But their worldliness is not only awkward, 
 it is absolutely vulgar ; and the ladies' dresses 
 are the most exaggerated in London ; and
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 133 
 
 the manners of the young ladies, both married 
 and single, are rude and flippant." 
 
 ^'Too often it is so," I replied. *^ They 
 have, as I said, mixed with the Protestant 
 world, and, being inexperienced in its ways, 
 have copied some of its most unattractive 
 models. But what is offensive always multi- 
 plies itself in one's imagination, especially 
 when the bad models are commonly seen 
 in a lot, and the good ones are scattered. 
 What do you think, for instance, of the second 
 Miss Arden?" 
 
 Just then every one rose to leave the dining- 
 room. It seemed that he took advantage of 
 the movement to avoid answering my ques- 
 tion, for he turned away a little, and^ then, 
 coming back to me as we were leaving the 
 room, said — ^' I will volunteer to acknowledge 
 that there is in CathoHc women a distinctive 
 purity, and that if the people I have been 
 criticising were not Cathohcs, they would, 
 considering all circumstances, be infinitely 
 worse than they are." 
 
 *' And what do you infer from that ? " I asked. 
 
 *'That the influence which did so much 
 ought to have done more," he rephed rather 
 shortly. 
 
 Thinks I to myseK, ^'No, you shall not 
 have that last word ; so, hurrying after him,
 
 134 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 just as he was going to speak to some one 
 else, I said — 
 
 ^' The dodge of unduly exalting a power 
 for the purpose of unduly depressing the merit 
 of its exercise is an old one, and unites the 
 immediate advantages of injustice with the 
 staying qualities of apparent fairness." 
 
 He stopped, as if to answer, and then 
 walked on without speaking to any one. In 
 the drawing-room he sought out the youngest 
 Miss Arden as soon as might be, and devoted 
 himself to her with much carefulness. Evi- 
 dently he was in love, either with her, or with 
 an idea which she realized ; and, for a keen- 
 witted man, he was strangely obtuse respect- 
 ing her. She was not exactly bored by him, 
 for he was not made of the stuff that bores 
 are made of; but in all civility and friend- 
 liness she wished him farther off. Some one 
 else evidently wished him still farther, indeed, 
 out of sight, and that was the young man of 
 whose name he had seemed to affect ignor- 
 ance when I wanted to loiow who he was. 
 I happened to notice the fact, and should 
 probably have forgotten it without delay, if 
 Sherborne had not attracted my attention, 
 and caused me to search for the centre of his 
 mind. 
 
 One thing I perceived plainly at and about
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 135 
 
 that time, viz. the incalculable mischief 
 arising from extravagant dress and social 
 impertinence on the part of *' strict Catholics," 
 to use a popular Protestant term. I saw it 
 reflected in the words of various people as in 
 a looking-glass, for several people referred to 
 it while conversing with myself unreservedly, 
 under the impression that I was a Protestant. 
 And each of them expressed or impHed 
 individually an increase of that complex 
 mis-apprehension which is the palladium of 
 anti-Catholic prejudices in England. It 
 was to no purpose that I showed the in- 
 justice and absurdity of their inferences. I 
 might as well have talked to the deer in the 
 park. 
 
 The evening passed off pleasantly enough, 
 but with nothing particular to mark it, except 
 that Sherborne, being a sensitive man, and 
 quick of perception, nevertheless consented 
 to play the part of a bore i^er accidens in 
 respect of Miss Winifred Arden. 
 
 Then there was a limited migration to a 
 smoking-room, Crayston being among the 
 number, to the disadvantage of everybody; 
 for he was one of those men whose presence 
 is pestilential, and especially so when they 
 speak feelingly. I had hoped that we were 
 rid of him, as his place was not far off; but
 
 136 SHEEBORNE; OR, 
 
 it turned out that lie was staying two days 
 at Bramscote, so there he was still; and 
 there was Sherborne, but he was in a mild 
 and moody humour, and after coming little 
 farther' than the door, he went away under 
 the plea of a headache. 
 
 Then Crayston unfolded himself in varying 
 hues, all having the same object, as a tailor 
 displays his book of patterns ; but his talk 
 differed widely from what it was when I 
 overheard his dialogue with Mr. Glenfillan 
 Bruff. Liberalistic no-poperyism, fortified with 
 didactic self-assertion, was his little game 
 then, being calculated to insure at once the 
 sympathies and the deprecatory hero-worship 
 of that worthy optimist ; but now he took 
 another line, equally well adapted for the 
 purpose of misleading his audience. It may 
 be described as the limited easy-going line, 
 and is very efficacious against the judicial 
 defences of unwary Catholics, who are apt to 
 judge it by rules of interpretation exclusively 
 charitable — which was Sir Eoger's mistake 
 on that occasion, or else are in danger of 
 unconsciously tempering their charity with a 
 little pseudo-amiable human respect, as his son, 
 Edward Arden, did, owing to the fact that his 
 ideas had to travel through a certain empty 
 space, and were apt to lose their way sometimes.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 137 
 
 ^'Yoii were speaking of having been at 
 Florence when a boy," said Sir Eoger. *^ You 
 passed some time there, I think." 
 
 His manner, as he said this, was simply 
 perfect in point of good breeding, both 
 natural and habitual : Crayston's was poHshed 
 on the surface and hard imderneath. Sir 
 Eoger never smoked. He came into the 
 room for the one and undivided purpose of 
 making himself agreeable to those guests who 
 were there. Crayston, too, meant to be agree- 
 able, and he was so : but so are the effects of 
 opiam. He made a conspicuous pause of 
 some seconds in answer to Sk Eoger' s ques- 
 tion, and then said in a regretful tone of 
 voice. ^ 
 
 ^^Yes, I was born at Florence. All the 
 pleasant memories of my early life, and all 
 the painful ones, too, belong to the time I 
 passed there. My school and university life 
 had no particular colouring." 
 
 "Colouring!" echoed Edward Arden in a 
 low voice, looking much perplexed and pulling 
 hard at his pipe whilst he looked with round 
 eyes at the opposite wall. 
 
 His elder brother, who had decorated the 
 results of doing nothing at College by pitch- 
 forking on the surface of his mind scraps from 
 dangerous authors, and amusing his silly, but
 
 138 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 not vicious self-conceit with false pliilosopliy, 
 like a child playing with fireworks, shook his 
 head sapiently, and whispered something: 
 whereupon the other rephed — 
 
 ''I hioiu, I didn't suppose he was a 
 painter. But what does he want to talk 
 poetry for?" 
 
 In the meanwhile Crayston had gone on 
 to say — 
 
 '^I have liked a great many places, but I 
 care most for the place I knew best when 
 a child." 
 
 '-'- A good feeling that — shows that his heart 
 is sound," thought Sir Eoger. I know he 
 thought so, for I could read it in the kindly 
 smile that took up its position on his trans- 
 parently honest countenance. Crayston, too, 
 saw it, and proceeded to angle for the sym- 
 pathies of the younger generation. 
 
 ^'It's a long time ago," he said. ''You 
 young fellows have it all before you : I have 
 let my chances go by — such as I have had. 
 I belong to the generation of men who may 
 maintain what they have gained in the battle 
 of life, but cannot acquire : you are of the 
 generation representative, and you will do 
 your work in your different ways ; I could 
 envy you — only you are so jolly about it, that 
 I can only wish you success."
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUr. WAYS. 139 
 
 The bait was swallowed in all simplicity. 
 He had gained theii* good opinion by flattery 
 disguised under the appearance of good 
 wishes; and both of them were too inexpe- 
 rienced to see through the disguise. 
 
 To receive undue compliments for some- 
 thing so undefined that contradiction has 
 little to lay hold of, is a trial more or less 
 severe to the self-knowledge of the recipient. 
 How then can we wonder if two very young 
 men, who knew nothing of the world beyond 
 the externals of its amusements and the 
 novelty of its external attractions, arrived at 
 the sapient conclusion that Crayston was a 
 good-hearted, straight-forward sort of a fellow. 
 
 " I remember seeing your father at Flgrence 
 about five and thirty years ago," said Sir 
 Eoger. "But I only stayed there two or 
 three weeks." 
 
 "Yes, I was at school then. How time 
 does pass ! " said Crayston. He repressed a 
 sigh that needed no repression, it being under 
 orders. Sn Eoger acknowledged the fact 
 that passing away is one of Time's idiosyn- 
 cracies. 
 
 "I suppose," said Crayston, "that the 
 mixed impressions of my early Hfe are what 
 gave me the sort of two-fold character which 
 I have. The sunny sky of Tuscany made me
 
 140 SHEEBOKNE; OR, 
 
 sanguine, and my English associations put a 
 chill into it, that gives me a twinge of low 
 spirits and a kind of aching regret for past 
 opportunities every now and then — as it did 
 just now." 
 
 ^^ I think your father had a house outside 
 the city," said Sir Eoger, wishing to be very 
 civil and avoid aesthetics, which thoroughly 
 bewildered him at any time. 
 
 ^' Yes," answered Crayston. ^' He Hved in 
 one of those many white villas that lie round 
 about the city, and make it seem at a distance 
 very much larger than it is — -just hke the 
 dogmatic Protestantism of the Church of 
 England, which assumes a mock-catholicity 
 by reckoning the crowds outside its very 
 elastic barriers." 
 
 Sir Eoger' s good breeding was on the horns 
 of a dilemma. He must either take no notice 
 of a remark addressed to himself, or break 
 through his rule of never giving an opinion 
 respecting Protestantism in the presence of a 
 Protestant. He turned, paid some almost 
 inaudible compHment to Crayston's wit gene- 
 rally, and saying that he expected a long day's 
 hunting the next day, wished us all good-night 
 decisively. 
 
 His two sons laughed, each according to 
 this measure, and both of them thought — no
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 141 
 
 wisely, bnt too well, of Crayston. But a 
 sturdy old Catholic, who sat next to the eldest 
 (I forget his name, for I never saw him before, 
 and he left next morning) pertinently said — 
 
 ''If he 7neans that, he has no right to 
 remain a Protestant ; and if he does not, he 
 must say it either because he has no belief at 
 all, or because he wants to make a fool of you." 
 
 Wise as were his words, their only effect on 
 the person addressed was to make him shrug 
 his shoulders and credit himself with superior 
 perspicuity. 
 
 '' Your father did not care for hunting and 
 that sort of thing? " asked the younger brother, 
 who, though quite convinced that all this was 
 very fine, felt rather at a loss as to his own 
 share of the proceedings. 
 
 ''Not a bit," answered Crayston. "He 
 came to Marleton, and after staying there less 
 than a year, he migrated to Bath, where he 
 devoted himself henceforth to eating exclu- 
 sively. It was a bad chance for me ; there 
 can be no doubt of that. Nothing is much 
 worse for a yonng feUow than to find that his 
 father is a selfish sensualist of a grovelling 
 type. I am afraid this sounds hreverent, but 
 I had a mother too, and his treatment of her 
 was such that it makes me say things I ought 
 not to say, perhaps. Well, but human beings
 
 142 SHEKBORNE; OE, 
 
 — wretched human creatnres, with, passions 
 and feelings, and dimly defined aspirations, 
 will distinguish between sins that are pm^ely 
 selfish and grovellingly safe, and those that 
 are of a noble origin and entail risk. No one 
 respected him, and the nearest approach to 
 toleration was the fat smile of self-complacency 
 from people who felt themselves raised by his 
 being worse than themselves. This was not 
 a good chance for me, and yet, perhaps, I 
 may say in Irish fashion, that it might have 
 been worse if it had been better. Had my 
 father been a respectable average rate-payer, 
 who took his children to the pantomime, and 
 went to sleep in the softest arm-chair when- 
 ever there was no one else but his wife to 
 occupy it, I should probably have been worse 
 than I have been." 
 
 *' Yes — worse," he added with a sigh, when 
 he had given emphasis to the hollow senti- 
 mentality by a pause in his speech and a pull 
 at his pipe. 
 
 N.B. — By the bye, I have noticed that if, 
 after putting forth, while smoking, some senti- 
 ment about home, general or particular, you 
 take a few hard pulls at your pipe, and stare 
 hard at nothing with blinking eyes mdely 
 opened, you will be given credit for having 
 what is called ''lots of feeling."
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUE WAYS. 143 
 
 However that may be, Crayston's sigh was 
 a real one, and if put into words, it would 
 have said just this : — ^^ I am sorry that I have 
 not lived a better life, because, had I done so, 
 I should be in a better position, social and 
 financial, and I should have enjoyed myself 
 more too, I think, and be likely to enjoy 
 myself longer. Moreover, I have lost irre- 
 trievably by losing my freshness of feel- 
 ing. I can't realize the joys of domestic hfe, 
 though I really believe them to be the most 
 lasting of any that I can form any idea of. I 
 am sorry, too, bitterly sorry, to perceive how 
 time shps away from under me, as it were, and 
 passes on to the end of all the pleasures I 
 clutch at and hang on to." 
 
 That was what the sigh said, but Sir Koger's 
 two sons evidently took it for an instinct of 
 contrition, and pitied him heartily for not 
 knowing what to do with it. So that when — • 
 after speaking with a respectful smile on his 
 lips, and a permeating sneer in his voice of 
 some Catholic acquaintance who had fasted 
 contrary to the doctor's orders, he proceeded 
 to assume an easy-going practice on their 
 part — they coloured, and let the supposition 
 (which was not true in fact) go by default. 
 
 And that was just what he wanted, whether 
 he was clearly aware of it, or manoeuvred by
 
 144 SHERBOENE; Oil, 
 
 mere force of habit. I had my own opmion 
 on that point. 
 
 " By the bye," he said, in answer to Edward 
 Arden's permissive silence, ^^you were eating 
 a good breakfast one day — in Lent, I think it 
 ^as — and your father had nothing but a bit of 
 toast, about enough for a robin in a hard frost." 
 
 Instead of saying that he was under the age 
 of fasting (he was only twenty), Edward Arden 
 produced a forced laugh out of his thi'oat, and 
 replied — 
 
 ^^ Oh, one needn't be so particular." 
 
 This tribute of thoughtlessness to human 
 respect went straight into the unsettled mind 
 of one young man in the room, and did a work 
 there which the speaker httle recked of. That 
 young man was a distant neighbour, and had 
 come to shoot, dine, and sleep at Bramscote. 
 He had what is popularly called ^' Catholic 
 leanings," but like many others in his position, 
 he had a morbid tendency to judge the whole 
 body of Catholic doctrine by the practice, 
 real or apparent, of individuals, and by their 
 idle words, more or less misinterpreted. 
 
 ^^ Are you in earnest about that ? " he said, 
 and there was a morbid sensitiveness in the 
 tone of his voice that made one feel for the 
 poor fellow, who was in a kind of spiritual low 
 fever.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 145 
 
 ^' Of course lie is, my dear fellow," inter- 
 rupted Crayston. " They are not so straiglit- 
 laced as you suppose — of course not." 
 
 Edward Arden looked ill at ease, but did not 
 explain ; his brother put on a manner of 
 pompous indifference and self- containment ; 
 the sturdy old fellow, who had spoken up 
 before, now looked bluff, and held his tongue 
 doggedly. I waited to hear what any one 
 might say, and just as I had said to myself, 
 '^ If no one will clear that bit of road for him, 
 I will," the party broke up. 
 
 I went to bed, oppressed with a sense of 
 what I can only call representative responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 ^^ We Catholics of England," I said to my- 
 seK, '' are credited individually with a repre- 
 sentative character, which many of us are far 
 from possessing — a representative character 
 which is often imputed to people who, like 
 myself, have it not, a representative character 
 which is ever entailing sudden calls on pru- 
 dence taken at a disadvantage, a representa- 
 tive character that demands conclusive expla- 
 nations for people whose minds are closed 
 against them, a representative character 
 damaged beforehand by every lie, every mis- 
 statement, every exaggeration, that colours 
 and enlarges the sins, imperfections^ short- 
 
 YOL. I. L
 
 146 SHEEBOENE; OE, 
 
 comingSj and weaknesses of each and every 
 Catholic thronghoTit the world. 
 
 Two people passed my door, just as I had 
 entered my room. I heard Crayston's voice : 
 I heard him say to the young man before- 
 mentioned — 
 
 ^^ Nonsense, my dear fellow; it's all very 
 beautiful in an archaeological point of view, 
 and as a part of English mediaeval Hfe. I 
 know that it made people religious and good 
 then, but it's an anachronism — you can see 
 that for yourself; and men don't believe in it, 
 except a few converts who are proud of sup- 
 posing that they have thought for themselves, 
 and couldn't face the shame of stultifying their 
 own act. Depend upon it the Established 
 Church is really " 
 
 This was too much. I threw wide the yet 
 unclosed door, and said — 
 
 '' As a Cathohc and a convert, I beg to 
 deny the truth of every word you have just 
 asserted." 
 
 ^'If I had known that I was m your 
 presence," he answered blandly, '^ I should 
 not have made the remark — ^it would have been 
 very ill-bred to have done so." 
 
 He bowed with much external dignity, and 
 passed on. He had the best of it, simply 
 because he was dishonest.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 147 
 
 Of course lie had that young man's cou- 
 iidence all the more for what had passed. 
 I never saw the latter again, but I afterwards 
 heard that he had married the daughter of a 
 neighbouring rector, and gone into the wine 
 trade. 
 
 '^ Well," thought I, '' I have seen several 
 people drawing conclusions, unreasonable, but 
 under their circumstances not to be wondered 
 at, from the sight of a worldly Catholic or 
 two, and I have seen one poor fellow get off 
 the road owing to the results of a thought- 
 less speech — and all this in one evening. I 
 wonder how much mischief I myself have 
 done by words or example? Who can tell, 
 when one's words and actions glancq off so 
 often from some impenetrable prejudice in 
 one's hearer's mind, like a bullet striking 
 against a stone, and go off at an uncertain 
 angle from the original direction !
 
 148 SHERBORNE: OR, 
 
 CHAPTEE rX. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE OLD LADY WHO LIVED IN 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 
 
 Bob Acres. — Hey, Sir Lucius ! — we — we — we — we — won't rmi. 
 
 TJie Rivals. 
 
 I MUST confess that wlien my promise to the 
 mysterious old woman flashed across my mind 
 in the cold grey morning, I felt very much 
 inchned to exclaim, with the worthy Boh 
 Acres, ^'No, I say we won't run, by my 
 valour." 
 
 But there was no escape ; so I made the 
 best of it, and directly after breakfast went 
 forth with Don Pascolini on our strange 
 adventure. Not wishing the whole parish to 
 know where we were going, I steered in 
 another direction, and we came circuitously 
 to the house without meeting any one. 
 
 The house had rather a weird-like appear- 
 ance. It stood in a hollow, at the junction of
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 149 
 
 four roads, with a large turnip-field behind 
 stretching upwards, a steep slope of coarse 
 grass in front, a long reach of flat pasture 
 land, of which only a narrow strip was visible, 
 to the right. On the left a turn of the lane 
 shut out everything except a fir-wood on a 
 steep incline, which, when one saw it between 
 the outhnes of two hills that narrowed the 
 view in that direction, looked not unlike the 
 edge of a forest. The front of the small 
 house, for such it was in shape and character, 
 being high and narrow, with one attic window 
 in the roof, all but touched the road on 
 three sides, and at no point was more than 
 three or four yards from it. It was indeed a 
 lonely dwelling, and stood in a lonely ^pot. 
 Mrs. Eadcliffe might have chosen it for a 
 scene in the '' Mysteries of Udolpho." The 
 Avails were partly of flint and partly of 
 mud. The windows were shut, except the 
 little one in the roof. There was no living 
 creature to be seen anywhere, except a hawk 
 flying heavily over the big turnip-field, under 
 a leaden canopy of rain-cloud. 
 
 But Don Pascolini took no notice of all this 
 romantic symbolism: his imagination was 
 practically employed on the prospects of our 
 interview with the mysterious old woman. I 
 therefore said nothing to him, but walked up
 
 150 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 to tlie door and looked about for the bell, for 
 a door-bell there was, though all a^^pearances 
 betokened that its office was well-nigh a sine- 
 cure. It was wooden, and of the same colour 
 as the wall in which it lay embedded. The 
 rusty wire scraped and squeaked when it was 
 aroused from its long repose, and it sent forth 
 a sharp tinkle, as if resenting the unwonted 
 distm'bance. 
 
 " What will happen next ? " I thought, after 
 the sound had ended, or, more correctly speak- 
 ing, when the bell-clapper had ceased to strike, 
 and only swung to and fro, creaking as it went. 
 In a few seconds there was a sound of heavy 
 footsteps under a light weight, as of a small 
 person, either decrepit, or otherwise deficient 
 in elasticity. The door was opened slowly, 
 but without any hesitation, and a little old 
 woman, not unlike many others, hobbled up 
 to the opening. 
 
 ^^ Is a ? " said I, in a hesitating sort of 
 
 way, for the whole affair looked so unreal, 
 when judged by the prosaic standard of 
 modern coimtry-life, that I was taken aback 
 at being suddenly called upon to give an 
 account of why I was there. 
 
 She made a gesture of assent, di'ew back 
 whilst we entered the house, and shutting the 
 door, preceded us up stairs into a small sitting-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOTJE WAYS. 151 
 
 room, where she left us alone to wait and 
 expect. The furniture was of the late eigh- 
 teenth century style, and, like all fashions 
 whatsoever, told its tale in silence. 
 
 Perhaps farniture symbolises the general 
 characteristics of a period in England as clearly 
 as buildings, literature, or fashions of living — 
 possibly more so than dress, because its 
 changes are less frequent and minute in their 
 symbolism, therefore more perceptible. The 
 massive carvings of the Middle Ages tell 
 of a massive race, in whom sin was strongly 
 defined, and contrition vigorous. The sensual 
 ornamentation of the Eenaissance harmonizes 
 well with the revived heathenism which marks 
 that period of sensual refinement and senti- 
 mental impurity ; the plain rosewood and 
 mahogany of the time between the battle of 
 Waterloo and the Tractarian movement seem 
 appropriate to a period when society was 
 polished and neatly defined, but showed no 
 moral vigour, no aspirations, no design in the 
 battle of life. Again, in the period dating 
 from the Gothic revival — a period marked by 
 a strong Cathohc movement and a counter- 
 acting spirit of self-indulgence, we see Gothic 
 carvings and Sybaritic cushions, church stoves 
 of mediaeval patterns, fourteenth-century bed- 
 steads in panelled rooms lighted with gas.
 
 152 SHEEBORNE; OR, 
 
 Now the period from tlie American declara- 
 tion of independence to the end of the great 
 contest with Napoleon belonged partly to that 
 corrupt excrescence of the old world, com- 
 monly called the ancien regime^ partly to the 
 principles of 1789 modified and made respect- 
 able. It was a dark period enlivened here and 
 there by smooth surfaces of a dull hue. Men's 
 aspirations were, as a rule, small in scope and 
 mean in design ; but there were faint echoes 
 from times long past — echoes unheard after- 
 wards when Europe had settled down into a 
 solid tranquilhty, and Catholic governments 
 put their trust in police agents, instead of in 
 God and His Church, whilst revolution bided 
 its time, gained experience, and influenced 
 rising generations legally in schools and uni- 
 versities. 
 
 As society was, so was the furniture — dark, 
 relieved by inlaid surfaces of a dull hue ; small 
 in size, and mean in design, yet not without a 
 sort of feeble gracefulness and beauty of a 
 gravely meretricious type. The furniture of 
 that period always makes me sad : Hke the 
 minuet, it tells me of a great social system 
 based on Catholicity, and grown effete through 
 being unfaithful to its own traditions, untrue 
 to itself. 
 
 The furniture of the little room was of that
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 153 
 
 f^tyle and date, but small, plain, and dull even 
 of its kind. An oval table of dark mabogany, 
 witb tbin legs, and small bits of diamond- 
 sbaped satin-wood inlaid at tbe four corners 
 of eacb leg, stood in tlie middle of tbe 
 room. Half tbe table was covered with a green 
 baize clotb, on which a mahogany desk lay 
 open : on the other half were two or three old 
 numbers of Notes and Queries, The Daily 
 Telegraph of the previous morning, a back 
 number of the Contemporary Bevieiv, and 
 several volumes of the latest light literature. 
 One narrow arm-chair covered with dark- 
 brown leather, two mahogany chairs with 
 faded carpet-work on their seats, a small work- 
 table, with a yellow silk bag hanging down 
 between the thin mahogany legs, two octagon- 
 shaped embroidered screens very much faded, 
 one small table of mahogany streaked with 
 satin-wood, near the windows, a secretaire 
 surmounted by bookshelves hned with green 
 baize, and some dark maroon window-curtains 
 of thick damask, old but still fresh, completed 
 the upholstery of the room. The walls were 
 covered with brown flock paper. Over the 
 mantelpiece were two black shade portraits 
 and a stone match-box in the shape of an urn. 
 On either side were two brown, flat bell-pulls, 
 with round handles. On the bookshelves I
 
 154 SHEEBOKNE; OK, 
 
 observed ^' Tillotson's Sermons/' one of Yol- 
 taire's works, ^'Essays and Eeviews," Kings- 
 ley's "Yeast," Lamennais' "Paroles d'un Croy- 
 ant," Hume's ^' Essay on Man," ^'Keliques 
 of Father Front," some numbers of the ex- 
 tinct Home and Foreign Bevietv, Boccacio's 
 "Cento Novelle," Charles Butler's "Memoirs," 
 Eichardson's '^ Clarissa," *' The Mysteries of 
 Udolpho," '' Manon L'Escaut," '' Malthus on 
 Population," ''The Sorrows of Werther," 
 '' La Frequente Communion," and Eousseau's 
 '' Contrat Sociale : " a curious collection to be 
 owned by an old woman living alone in a road- 
 side house, and one that made me begin to 
 wonder whether her possession of it was the 
 result of accident or design — whether it indi- 
 cated anything or nothing. 
 
 But at this moment the object of this 
 inquiry entered the room, and I took to 
 noticing herself, instead of my 0"v\ti fancies. 
 I observed in her less anxiety and more 
 earnestness ; less assertion and more dignity ; 
 less mannerism and more manner. Socially, 
 she was quite at ease, but her mind was not at 
 rest : therefore, her bearing was graceful, and 
 the lines of her face indicated anxiety. Her 
 bearing and her way of expressing herself 
 were of the last century : they went far to 
 prove that she had lived with well-bred people
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 155 
 
 in early life, and by herseK since, as in fact 
 she liad. 
 
 ^' It is very obliging of yon to come so 
 promptly," she said. '^ Will yon have tbe 
 goodness to be seated ? " 
 
 We sat down, and she did Hkewise, opposite 
 ns, bolt npright, without being stiff, and 
 redolent of times that have left no trace at all 
 on the society of our own. 
 
 Don Pascolini bowed ; I said that I was 
 happy to have had it in my power to do as she 
 desired; and we relapsed into silence. All at 
 once, while I was wondering what would 
 happen next, she plunged in medias res, and 
 grew so earnest, that the last century became 
 hardly distinguishable. 
 
 *' I am an old woman," she said, ^^ and 
 when I am dead there will be no one to tell 
 what I want to be known, or to do even the 
 little that I can do. Now, I will tell you the 
 facts of the case at once, and then I will ask 
 you to advise and help me ; for I want to carry 
 out the just mshes of one who cannot do so 
 for herself, because she is dead." 
 
 ^' Anything that I can do by just means for 
 a just cause I shall be happy to do," said Don 
 Pascolini. 
 
 She inclined her head sHghtly, and pro- 
 ceeded as follows, while I interpreted for Don
 
 156 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 Pascolini such sentences as he could not 
 clearly understand — 
 
 ^' That place, Hazeley, on the other side of 
 the hill to the right of this house, helonged to 
 the ancient family of the Sherbornes. The 
 present possessor is not a Sherborne, though 
 he bears the name. The family suffered much, 
 and the property was much diminished, by 
 the penal laws; yet still the property was 
 lield together, though the lives, liberties, and 
 possessions of successive owners were in con- 
 tinual danger, and more than one of the family 
 died on the scaffold for his faith." 
 
 At this moment a change came over her 
 countenance — a change for the worse — as if 
 the devil were entering a protest within her 
 against the inferences of her story. She 
 smiled harshly, eliminated from her eyes all 
 appearance of seeing, so that they could not 
 come in contact with ours, and added, as in a 
 parenthesis — 
 
 ^' You must not think that I am going to be 
 a Catholic." 
 
 *' Do not fear. I never thought so," inter- 
 rupted Don Pascolini in English : after which 
 he relapsed into his former attitude of close 
 and inexpressive attention. 
 
 This treatment of the protest rather dis- 
 concerted her : she took refuge in what may
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 157 
 
 be called sentimental archaeology, and covered 
 the retreat with feminine special pleadings 
 thus — 
 
 ^^But you might have thought that I had 
 some interest in a family that I know so well 
 — too well." 
 
 Thinks I, ^'You are a woman still, any- 
 how." 
 
 ^^ The last possessor in the direct male 
 line," said she, after a short pause, ^' died in 
 1746, just after the battle of CuUoden. The 
 connection of those two dates began the train 
 of events I am going to relate. He had not 
 been in any way concerned in the rising ; but 
 a friend who was, had stopped one night at 
 his house dming that period, which gave a 
 colourable pretext for treating him as a rebel. 
 So the heir, who was a boy at Douai College, 
 was deprived of his inheritance by confisca- 
 tion; and a first cousin of his father's, who had 
 turned Protestant, entered into possession as 
 heir-at-law. The rightful heh, then only 
 fifteen, had a sister three years older. She 
 had fallen in love with this cousin, and she 
 gave up her religion to marry him; but she 
 had no direct hand in depriving her brother of 
 his inheritance, as I shall show presently. 
 She survived her husband many years, and 
 died at the age of 86 ; it was the year before
 
 158 SHERBOENE; Oil, 
 
 the battle of Waterloo. She had one son and 
 a grandson living when I was with her. The 
 gTandson was a little older than myself." 
 
 As she said these last words her voice 
 trembled much, her eyehds fell, and a faint 
 blush passed over her withered cheek. Recover- 
 ing herself with an effort, she went on to say — 
 
 ''And now I must make an effort that v/ill 
 cost me a great deal. I am going to tell you 
 the story of my life, in order to show that 
 circumstances, and not eccentricity, have 
 made me live by myself so long; otherwise 
 you might suspect me of drawing on a dis- 
 eased imagination for what I relate. 
 
 '' I am well born on my father's side, and 
 by no means the reverse on my mother's. 
 My father, who was the eleventh child of a 
 younger son, was of course poor. He held a 
 small family living, and offended his relations 
 by his marriage. He died in difficulties when 
 I was only sixteen, and old Mrs. Sherborne, 
 who had known him when he was a boy, 
 took me as a companion — or, perhaps I ought 
 to say, she half adopted me. I hated the idea; 
 but beggars mustn't be choosers, they say." 
 
 She paused, and appeared to be gathering 
 herself up for an effort. The effort was aided 
 by a heterogeneous influx of feelings — good, 
 bad, mixed, and inscrutable.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 159 
 
 ^' This withered old creature," said she, 
 ^' who now trespasses on your kind patience, 
 was once less unattractive — at least Mrs. 
 Sherborne's grandson, Alfred Sherborne, 
 thought so. But his father would not hear 
 of it. Then he went back to the MiHtia, 
 which was embodied in those days ; and he 
 was forbidden to come home because I was 
 there ; and my heart was breaking, and my 
 woman's pride, or self-repect, or delicacy — 
 call it what you will — had to be ignored, for 
 they kept me there out of charity. One day 
 he rode many miles to meet me by appoint- 
 ment. I dare say it was very wrong of me, 
 but I don't know much about duty — I never 
 was taught it, except as a thing that would 
 somehow or other bring punishment if it was 
 neglected. I loved him very truly, and I 
 Vv'^anted to see him at least once more. I 
 thought I should have died when we parted ; 
 for, though I had spoken hopefully to him, 
 my heart was sinking all the while." 
 
 She paused again, but only for a second, and 
 drew a quick breath. Then she pronounced, 
 very distinctly, but in a totally altered voice, 
 these words — 
 
 ^^ But people are not killed so easily as I 
 thought — I have lived here fiffcy-five years. 
 The means of doing so were left me by Mrs. 
 Sherborne when she died.
 
 160 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 '^ How I lived through, that time I don't 
 know, nor how I hved through the first year 
 in this house. All I know is that my body 
 survived, and my mind survived, but my heart 
 was turned into stone. And, now, do you 
 think I am wi'ong in the head ? " 
 
 ^'No," answered Don Pascolini with de- 
 cision. I echoed his reply. She bowed 
 shghtly, and said — 
 
 ^^Mrs. Sherborne's brother lost his inherit- 
 ance, ostensibly on account of the rising of 
 1745, with which every one knew he had 
 nothing to do, but really because he was a 
 Catholic. I can't say when the law was last 
 enforced which deprived any one educated 
 beyond the seas in a Cathohc college of the 
 right to inherit property in England. It 
 gradually died out in practice, and I don't 
 know when it was put in force for the last 
 time ; but, anyhow, it was not wanted on that 
 occasion. They had a better card to play. 
 There is little doubt, if any, that the cousin 
 helped, in an underhand way, to get the 
 business done ; and I fear that the lady let 
 things take their course quite wiUingly. 
 Their son had a brother and a sister who 
 died young, or at any rate unmarried. His 
 wife had died (I think of consumption) before 
 I knew him. He had only one child — Alfred. 
 I have already mentioned him.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 161 
 
 ^' After old Mrs. Sherborne died, the property 
 went to her son, Alfred's father. He lived 
 there alone for many years, and his death 
 made no impression at all on any one, except 
 the undertaker. 
 
 ''But I shall shock you," she muttered, 
 with a hard smile. " The fact is, I must 
 have died if I had not grown hard. Oh yes, 
 of course, if I were a saint — but I am not." 
 
 Then finding that Don Pascolini took no 
 notice of the challenge, she said — 
 
 ''He died some years ago at a great age — 
 I don't know exactly how old he was, and 
 he left the property to his niece — the mother 
 of the present possessor, George Sherborne. 
 
 "I wonder," thought I, "whether Ggorge 
 Sherborne knows the remote cause of his 
 having this estate ? If he does, I can under- 
 stand his spasmodic attraction to the Estab- 
 lishment." I wondered also what became of 
 Alfred, the grandson; but I did not like to 
 ask her, and merely said — 
 
 "I have a dim idea of having heard some- 
 thing about the Hazeley estate going out 
 of the direct line, but I never heard how." 
 
 "I dare say," said she. "People tell half 
 the truth in everything — in everything, every- 
 thing." 
 
 Whether these last words were* intentional 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 SHEKBOKNE; OR, 
 
 or only an utterance of despair, I cannot 
 say ; but I, for my part, could not help think- 
 ing that, wisely, in the interest of justice, does 
 the law of England require its witnesses 
 to speak the whole truth, wisely, according 
 to the wisdom of this world, does the Great 
 No-Popery Tradition avoid such dangerous 
 precision. If honest Protestants in this 
 country could but perceive that in the matter 
 of Catholicity they never hear the whole 
 truth, the days of that No-Popery Tradition 
 would be numbered. 
 
 The old lady remained silent for a while, 
 and appeared to be absorbed in the contem- 
 plation of her own memories. At last she 
 roused herself, not without an effort, and 
 said — 
 
 " Now I am going to tell you more about 
 Mrs. Sherborne — you will presently see why. 
 I have said that she did nothing against her 
 brother, but consented to what was done. 
 Dmdng the years I passed at Hazeley I was 
 her only confidante — indeed, her only friend ; 
 for she saw no strangers, and was very re- 
 served with her two nearest relations, her son 
 and grandson. I wondered at the time why 
 she seemed so ill-at-ease with them; but I 
 understood it well enough afterwards — and so 
 will you. So often did I hear from her what
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 163 
 
 I am about to relate, that I must have no 
 memory at all if I did not remember it 
 almost word for word. She used to begin 
 in this way : ^ Oh, my dear young friend, you 
 don't know what it is (and I hope you never 
 may) to find your conscience all wrong, and 
 to hear a voice tell you it is too late to be of 
 any use. What would I not give to be again 
 a girl, and all that I used to be ! ' 
 
 '' One day — I remember it well, we were 
 sitting in her own old wainscoted room — she 
 mumbled something about not being able 
 to pray, and having no one to advise or 
 comfort her in any way ; and • when, not 
 knowing what to say, I asked her mechanic- 
 ally if she would like to see the clergyman 
 of the parish, she became excited and 
 answered ' No, no ! never ask me to do that. 
 I tell you he can be of no more use to me 
 than the parish clerk or the churchwarden.' 
 After that she was silent for ever so long, 
 and absent, taking no heed of anything. At 
 length she went on to speak ; and she spoke 
 very slowly, as if she wanted to impress what 
 she said upon my mind. And this was what 
 she said : — 
 
 '''I think you know,' said she, 'that my 
 brother was deprived of his inheritance, whilst 
 a boy at Douai, in consequence of the rising
 
 164 SHEKBORNE; OR, 
 
 (rebellion they called it, though the monarchy 
 is an hereditary one, and the Pretender, as 
 they called him, was the legitimate heir) ; and 
 I think I have told you that my father had 
 nothing to do with the rebellion.' 
 
 ^''Yes,' said I, ^ you told me that once 
 before ; ' and she replied — 
 
 ^''Yes, yes; but I never told you that I 
 consented to the wrong, profited by the wrong, 
 tempted another to do the wrong, silenced 
 every suggestion of my conscience in pursuing 
 the special object that tempted me to wish for 
 the wrong, apostatized trom the faith, without 
 even the miserable pretence of having lost it, 
 to gain that special object which made me reck- 
 less of the wrong. All this you did not know ; 
 and it is necessary that you should know it, 
 because you may one day, perhaps, be the 
 means of helping me to make restitution. 
 Ever since my husband died I have secretly 
 tried to find out what had become of my 
 brother. While my husband lived I dared not 
 speak on the subject ; he was so violent. He 
 was an unkind and a faithless husband, though 
 for his sake I had in a way helped to rob my 
 own brother, yes — and sold my soul to marry 
 him. For, indeed, I never wanted to have 
 anything to do with the property, only it was 
 impossible for me to marry him without ; and
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 165 
 
 SO I did that also, as I would have done any- 
 thing else, I suppose, for him.' 
 
 '^ Then she told me all about the trials and 
 disenchantments of her married life — a sad 
 story and a long one. She went on with it 
 for, I dare say, an hour or more. The rest of 
 what she said I will read straight off from the 
 notes I made at the time." 
 
 She took a small bunch of keys fi'om her 
 pocket, and crossing the little room with a 
 dignity that made it seem a large one, un- 
 locked the bureau. Then she removed a 
 bundle of what appeared to be receipted bills 
 from one of the pigeon-holes, and pressing an 
 invisible spring at the farther end, produced 
 out of a secret drawer below, a manuscript 
 folded up in a letter-cover, as letters used to 
 be folded before the days of the penny-post,* 
 and read out as follows : — 
 
 *' ^And that was the return I met with, after 
 giving up everything for him. Not that I 
 blame him — oh, no ! I dare say it was my 
 fault, and it made no difference in my feel- 
 ings — only I want you to see that wrong-doing 
 never leads to good. I had not been married 
 
 * That is, as established in 1840. It appears, however, to have 
 existed in Sir John Vanbrugh's time. See ^' The Provoked 
 Wife," where Lady Brute's maid says, " Madam, here's a letter 
 for your Ladyship by the penny-post."
 
 166 SHEEBORNE; OR, 
 
 many days wlien I discovered that lie only 
 cared for the property, and not for me ; bnt 
 that served me right. Now, my family had 
 suffered much for the faith. Yon mustn't be 
 offended at what I say. The ParHament had 
 thought it right to make laws against us 
 Catholics that pressed very hard on us, and 
 from time to time they had been enforced by 
 sheriffs, and magistrates, and others in autho- 
 rity.' 
 
 " And I," said the old lady, laying down 
 her notes for a moment and addressing Don 
 Pascohni; "I had to reassure her that I was not 
 offended, and would not make any unfair use 
 of her words, before she would proceed — so 
 strong was the traditional fear of persecution 
 among English Catholics even then, and later 
 still, as if they half expected to see the penal 
 laws enforced again, unless they kept very 
 quiet. I couldn't help expressing my surprise 
 at this, especially as she had become a Pro- 
 testant outwardly when she married, and 
 remained so. Mrs. Sherborne rephed," said 
 the old lady again referring to her notes : — 
 
 " ^ If you had known and seen what even I, 
 who have been out of the way of these things 
 for sixty-eight years, have known and seen, 
 you would not be surprised. But all that — 
 and none but those who were alive in those
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 16/ 
 
 days could have any idea of what it was — all 
 that was as nothing compared with the things 
 that had been. My dear young friend, I 
 assure you those things were spoken of in 
 whispers even when I was a girl. I knew a 
 gi'eat deal about them, but not a tenth part of 
 what actually happened; for the houses of 
 Cathohcs were always hable to be ransacked, 
 and themselves di'agged away to prison, so 
 that they were afraid of having written docu- 
 ments ; and what ^Titten evidence there is, 
 tells but a very very small part of the truth. 
 When I was about twelve years old, a great- 
 aunt of mine — an elder sister of my gi'and- 
 mother's, was at Hazeley for six months or 
 more. She was infii'm, and I, as the eldest, 
 sat with her a great deal. She was eighty 
 then, and could remember the days of Titus 
 Gates. But besides that, she had heard her 
 father and mother speak of what happened in 
 theii' time. She had heard them speak of 
 what they had heard in their childhood fi'om 
 old people about James the First, and Cecil, 
 and Chief-Justice Coke, and Topcliffe the 
 priest-hunter — and it was but twenty years 
 before then that Margaret Clitheroe was slowly 
 crushed to death for refusing to betray the 
 priest who had been sheltered in her house. 
 I don't know that I need talk of these thino:s
 
 168 SHEKBORNE; OK, 
 
 though ; but old women are garrulous, and 
 Uke to tell things in a roundabout way. They 
 can't go on straight to the point.' 
 
 ' ' I hastened to assure her that I was much 
 interested in all she was saying. She looked 
 pleased at this ; and, indeed, all the time she 
 was talking about the sufferings of Catholics 
 under the penal laws she seemed happier than 
 usual, as if the thoughts they suggested gave 
 her relief from others more painful. 
 
 " ^ Well, then,' she said, ' I will go on with 
 my story in my own way. If the walls of this 
 old house could speak, they could tell you a 
 long, long story of suffering and patience and 
 heroism and holiness and brutality. Under 
 the floor of an attic at the other end of the 
 house is a priest's hiding-place, a few feet long 
 and quite dark. There was another made by 
 cutting off part of the inside of a large 
 chimney : it was entered fi'om the roof ; and 
 there was a trap-door to enter the roof by at 
 the top of a large cupboard in another part of 
 the house. You must move the shelves to see 
 it. That one was pulled down by my hus- 
 band, because he wanted to have a fire in the 
 room, and the wood (for the hiding-place was 
 of wood) would have been dangerous. In 
 those hiding holes, holy priests, living saints, 
 have lain concealed, with no room to stretch
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 169 
 
 their limbs, and almost afraid to breathe, lest 
 they should compromise the inmates of the 
 house, whilst the vilest ruffians were bursting 
 into ladies' rooms, often in the dead of the 
 night, breaking open boxes, carrying off 
 private letters, and driving pickaxes into the 
 walls for the purpose of bringing those that 
 were sheltered there to the rack, and the 
 gibbet, and the bowelling knife. Yes, my dear, 
 you never heard of that, I dare say; for history 
 has been made to order, and people must not 
 know how the Protestant religion was forced 
 upon the English nation. But those mission- 
 ary priests used to be cut down from the 
 gibbet, and quartered ; and, not unfrequently, 
 they were cut down so quickly that they were 
 still alive — some of them actually spoke and 
 prayed afterwards. Do you wish to hear 
 more ? I could give you a much more graphic 
 account if you like — a story which no romance 
 can equal — a story that will draw tears from 
 your eyes, make you turn pale with horror, 
 take possession of your nerves as if a terrible 
 drama were being now played before you, so 
 that at night you would start up from your 
 sleep, and fancy yourself living in the days of 
 Topcliffe. No, no ! I should frighten you ; 
 and besides, I must get on. 
 
 ^' ' By-and-by you shall hear more about
 
 170 SHERBOKNE; OE, 
 
 it, and about the days too when I was a 
 girl. Of those days I will only say now that 
 none but Catholics living at the time could 
 have any idea of what they were. They were 
 more dei^ressing, more wearying to human 
 nature, more trying to perseverance, than the 
 days of racks and gibbets and quartering 
 knives. We were, so to speak, degraded from 
 the honour of martyrdom, and had become 
 pariahs in a land where every good law, every 
 great work, every right principle told of what 
 Catholics had done for it. And so things 
 remained, too, after that — but not for me to 
 witness, except from a distance, where I could 
 only guess at the truth now and then. I had 
 inherited the privilege of suffering for the 
 faith, and I had sold my bkthright ; and what 
 little I learned about those who remained 
 faithful I only learnt from hearsay, without 
 being certain of anything about it except that 
 it was certain to be more or less untrue.' 
 
 " Which," remarked the old lady, by way of 
 parenthesis, putting down for a moment the 
 documents she was reading, and addressing 
 Don Pascohni, " I afterwards discovered to be 
 no exaggeration, but rather the reverse ; for, 
 when Father Malone was condemned to per- 
 petual imprisonment for saying mass, all 
 she heard of it was that he had got into
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 171 
 
 trouble throngli being incautious ; and she 
 was assured that it was an unusual occurrence, 
 though I found afterwards that nearly every 
 week from 1765 to 1772 Payne, the informer, 
 had some priest arrested, or took some step in 
 the prosecution of one ; ''' and an attorney in 
 Gray's Inn told Charles Butler in 1780, that 
 his own firm- had defended more than twenty 
 priest s.f You will think I am going to be a 
 CathoHc after that, but I am not going to do 
 any such thing ; but that is neither here nor 
 there at this moment. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Sherborne went on to say just 
 this. Here it is in my notes. She said : — 
 
 ^''Now, my dear young friend,' — I was 
 young then,'' parenthesized the interesting, 
 l)ut unpleasant old lady, with a hard citrl of 
 the lip — ''^I have a favour to ask,' con- 
 tinued Mrs. Sherborne. ' I believe that 
 my brother remained in France, but during 
 my husband's lifetime I could make no in- 
 quiries, and since then there has been almost 
 incessant war ; and besides, what could a 
 poor lonely woman do— for lonely enough I was, 
 with my son often away, and myself not caring 
 to enter into anything, and altogether wretched 
 in my mind ? I don't suppose my brother is 
 
 * Barnard's " Life of Dr. Clialloner," p. 132. 
 t " Butler's Memoirs/' vol, ii. p. 64,
 
 172 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 alive, for I am very old, and tie was only three 
 years younger ; but there may be a son, or a 
 grandson living. Now, what I want you to 
 do before I am dead is this : — and I think 
 that will be soon, and I hope, and I will pray, 
 if I have not lost the power of praying, that I 
 may be reconciled to the Church before I die 
 — only it seems too hard a thing to do, almost 
 as if it had been taken from me by the judg- 
 ment of God — and first, I must tell you that 
 I have invested for you a sum sufficient to 
 give you an income of three hundred a-year, 
 which I inherited from my mother. So you 
 will be independent. Well, then, what I want 
 you to do is this : they tell me there are some 
 French people staying at Bramscote, the 
 Arden's place. Now, I don't know why, but 
 the idea possesses me that they may be able 
 to give some information about my brother or 
 his heirs. I have been told that they came 
 from the north of France ; and at least it can 
 do no harm ; and if they can tell nothing, ten 
 to one they can put me in the way of making 
 inquiries ; for though the college was seized 
 and all the people belonging to it scattered by 
 the French Eevolution in 1793 — that is only 
 one and twenty years ago, and there must be 
 people in or near the town of Douai who re- 
 member some of the people of the college, and
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 173 
 
 may have heard about my brother losing his 
 inheritance : for those things are hkely to be 
 remembered, and the only thing is to get hold 
 of the right people. 
 
 ^' ^ You must know that after all the Catholic 
 schools had been suppressed in England, there 
 was a law passed in James the First's reign 
 by which any one educated in a Cathohc 
 college beyond seas forfeited his inheritance ; 
 and, though the rebelKon of '45 was made the 
 pretence, every one knew very well that it was 
 his religion, and nothing else ; and so the 
 thing might perhaps be remembered in con- 
 nection with the college. Now, I can't call 
 at Bramscote myself, because I have never 
 been there since all this. How could If JIow 
 could I, under any circumstances, face a family 
 where the father had had his horses taken 
 away out of his carriage because they were 
 worth more than five pounds apiece, and had 
 been obliged to get a written permission from 
 my husband, as a magistrate, before he could go 
 more than five miles from home to be married, 
 Avhilst I was living in all the material comfort 
 of apostasy, at ease in everything except in 
 heart and in conscience ? And though sixty- 
 eight years have passed since then, and both 
 father and son are dead, I canH enter that 
 house now. I don't mind not having called
 
 174 SHEEBORNE; OR, 
 
 for SO many years, oh, no! but I can't meet 
 the eye of the priest. Later I hope and in- 
 tend ; but noiv you must do thi^ thing for me. 
 The best way to do it is this. Go there, and ask 
 to see the priest; tell him why you have come, 
 and ask him either to introduce you to the 
 foreigners or get their answer for you. And 
 do go to-day if you can — there is plenty of 
 time to do it. 
 
 ^' ^ And if I can hear that my brother or his 
 heirs are still living, I want to make my will 
 in their favour. For, as you know, all this 
 property is mine, and I have power over it 
 by will. Therefore, do go to-day. Only it is 
 better not to drive up to the door ; it would 
 make people talk, perhaps, if the carriage were 
 seen there. Stay — you can call at the Eectory ; 
 there you will put up the carriage, if they are 
 at home, and after you have sat there awhile, 
 you can say that you want to see Dame Ayres. 
 She was my maid years ago, and she Hves in 
 the village : her husband is the blacksmith. 
 Tell her that I was not well enough to come 
 myself — indeed, I feel fit for nothing to-day — 
 and then say you are in a hurry, and slip into 
 Bramscote Park by the foot-path just out of 
 the village. If you are quick about it, you 
 will get back to the Eectory without their sus- 
 pecting that you have been anywhere else but
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 175 
 
 with Dame Ayres ; and if you are longer about 
 it tlian you expect, you can be supposed to 
 have gone into the large wood behind the 
 cottage, and lost your way by getting off 
 the public path that runs through it. Yes, 
 you had better go into the wood after you 
 have left the cottage ; and if you keep at the 
 edge of the wood, and turn to the left, you 
 will come out where there are some wooden 
 steps over the park wall, unless it is altered 
 (but I drove there not many months ago, and 
 it was there then), and a footpath will take 
 you up to the house. Now do go — I will order 
 the carriage to come round at once. Pon't 
 say No ! for, if you refuse, you will make 
 yourself an accomplice in the evil deed ; . you 
 will be consenting to it, and so call down 
 upon yom^self the curse with which Almighty 
 God never fails to visit, in one way or 
 another, those who oppress the widow and 
 the orphan. 
 
 '^ ' Go, my child, and try to help a poor old 
 creature, who is scarcely able even to wish 
 aright, so heavily do the consequences of one 
 sin He upon her soul, weighing it down till it 
 becomes incapable of making any eiforfc. Oh ! 
 I would ask some of them to pray for me, for 
 I am in the utmost need of prayers. Ask. the 
 priest, and the others too, as many as you can.
 
 176 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 to pray for one who has almost lost the power 
 of praying for herseK, one who, having long 
 refused the grace of God, is weak against the 
 temptations of the devil, and wavers in her 
 will. Don't ask me what I mean by that — at 
 least, not unless you were older, and deter- 
 mined to know. He will know what I mean. — 
 Stay a moment.' 
 
 ^^ Then she rang the bell, and ordered the 
 carriage. I was about to leave the room to 
 get myself ready, when she took me by the 
 hand, and said — 
 
 '^ ^ Come with me first : I shall not detain 
 you long. I have something more to say — 
 something to show you.' 
 
 *' I followed her, wondering what would come 
 next. The whole story was so strange to me : 
 it had set going a train of ideas so new, so 
 contradictory of all I had hitherto been taught 
 to suppose, that I was prepared for anything, 
 and inclined to imagine anything. She took 
 me into a little room or closet, inside her own 
 bedroom, and looking furtively around, closed 
 the door; then she seemed, as it were, to 
 start up from a painful day-dream, and 
 smiled ; but the smile was a very sad one. 
 
 " ^ How silly I am,' she said, ' to peep about 
 as if I expected to be taken up as a recusant ; 
 but the fact is, my poor child — yes, I call you
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 177 
 
 SO, for you haven't the consolations they had 
 who were hunted like wild beasts for their 
 faith ; well, I didn't mean to hurt your feel- 
 ings, or to say anything — it slipt out unawares ; 
 but, as I was saying, the fact is, these things 
 carry me back to the days I can remember, 
 and to days that I heard so vividly described 
 that I seemed to have lived in them also.' 
 
 " In this little room, against the wall of the 
 chimney belonging to the bedroom, stood an 
 oak press for hanging up gowns. Mrs. Sher- 
 borne said, * I feel very feeble to-day — and no 
 wonder. Will you be so obliging as to help 
 me. There, if you get on this chair, I will 
 show you what to do next.' 
 
 '' She pointed to a chair that was near „ and 
 stood with her eyes fixed on the panelled wall 
 immediately above the press. I got upon the 
 chair, and looked round for further instruction. 
 
 ^^ ^ Now/ she said, * put your finger or thumb 
 (there is just room) about an inch down 
 behind the centre of the press, and push it 
 ]iard against the panel — you must feel for the 
 spot — it is at the bottom of the panel, where 
 the flat part joins the framework, about the 
 middle.' 
 
 " I did as she directed, and presently found 
 something yield, just like the spring of a 
 secret drawer in a desk. Immediately the 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 SHEKBORNE; OR, 
 
 panel slid down into the framework, which 
 was very hroad, and disclosed a space about 
 eighteen inches long, perhaps four inches 
 high, and I should think the depth of two 
 bricks, in the back of the chimney. There 
 was nothing in it except one sheet of letter- 
 paper, folded up, but not directed. 
 
 ***Yes,' she said, Hhat is it. That place 
 used to be full of records — records of things 
 that will be denied by-and-by, as many of 
 them have been already. In most places they 
 were destroyed, or not kept at all, for fear of 
 discovery; because no hiding-hole, however 
 small, however well-constructed, was really 
 safe, when every Catholic house was not only 
 in danger of being violently ransacked with a 
 view to discovering such hiding-holes, but 
 was liable to change owners, either by confis- 
 cation, the apostasy of the next heir, or the 
 consequences of ruinous fines — not to men- 
 tion being at the mercy of trustees, who, how- 
 ever, as a rule behaved well. But this was 
 an out-of-the-way place, and though the in- 
 mates suffered much for the faith, they ran 
 the risk of keeping many important records, 
 hoping to keep them and the old property, or 
 at least some of it — until at last there came 
 one who destroyed them all.' 
 
 ^' I couldn't help interrupting her — I was
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 179 
 
 SO interested in what I had heard, and the 
 interest grew so upon me. I believe that I 
 said, ^ Oh, why was that ? ' or something of 
 the kind. She answered sadly : — 
 
 *^ ^ He was my husband, and he had had 
 great disadvantages. Well, they are gone ; 
 but I remember their contents nearly by 
 heart. Oh, I could tell you much, and I 
 will, if I live. Now, give me that paper.' 
 
 *' I put it into her hands, and there was a 
 dead silence for I don't know how long — it is 
 difficult to compute time when a great deal of 
 interest, a great deal of feeling, and a great 
 deal of expectation are crowded into a com- 
 paratively short space of it.' 
 
 ^' There we stood, with a gap of sixty-eight 
 years between us — she, absorbed in the memo- 
 ries of the past, I, standing on the threshold 
 of experience, whose beginnings I already felt 
 and trembled at whilst I clung to them. I 
 was eighteen — she eighty-six ; but we were 
 strongly drawn together in sympathy, for I 
 was the only friend she had ever had all 
 through the long years of her married life and 
 widowhood, and she was the first person who 
 had shown me that such a thing as friendship 
 could be. And there are strange inconsis- 
 tencies of the human heart — at least, we call 
 them so, to save ourselves the trouble of look-
 
 180 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 ing a little closer. Wliy was I so deeply 
 interested in the fortunes of tlie right line 
 when Alfred Sherborne was the heir in the 
 the wrong one ? Because I had made the 
 honour of his family my own, and the heroic 
 commends itself to the pride of birth as well 
 as to the sense of duty. Well, there we 
 stood — I still on the chair, she with her eves 
 fixed on the paper she held in her hand, yet 
 apparently not reading it. At length she 
 said : — 
 
 ** ' During that long gloomy period when 
 CathoUcs could have no education in Eng- 
 land, and forfeited the rights of Englishmen 
 like felons if they got it abroad, so that they 
 could not succeed to the landed inheritance 
 of their fathers, the custom was to send boys 
 to Douai or elsewhere, under feigned names. 
 My brother was sent to Douai under the name 
 of Flaxley — a fact known to no human being 
 but my father and myself, and as there was 
 no such name in any way connected with our 
 family, we felt tolerably secure of his not 
 being traced. Well, he didn't lose his inherit- 
 ance in that way, as I have told you already ; 
 but he probably would, only the other way of 
 doing the business was more simple, and 
 looked better. Anyhow, this secret was known 
 to him who ought not to have known it—
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 181 
 
 never mind how; and, what is more important, 
 it would now have no chance of being known 
 by those who ought to know it, unless I had 
 kept a record of it, with a full description of 
 him. I have kept that record up there, in 
 that secret place, for sixty-eight years, and 
 here it is.' 
 
 " And here it isT' repeated Mrs. Atherstone, 
 taking a paper from under the manuscript 
 notes that she held in her hand. ^'I have 
 kept them nearly as long as she kept them. 
 Sixty-eight and fifty-five is a hundred and 
 twenty- three — a long while, isn't it ? " 
 
 Then there came over her countenance that 
 uncomfortable smile to which neither jest nor 
 earnest could prove its claim; and not so nauch 
 addressing myself apart from Don Pascolini, 
 as causing me to feel appreciably the precise 
 value of the distinction, she said, '^ There is 
 a difference between those days and these ; 
 you live in easier times." 
 
 '' Yes," said I. ^^ Then the pubhc was more 
 just than the law ; now the law is more just 
 than the public. Then, a man's neighbour 
 would stable his horses for him, that he might 
 not have them forcibly bought for five pounds 
 apiece ; noiv the law permits him to be 
 elected a member of parliament, but the 
 electors take good care not to elect him."
 
 182 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 " Here is the paper," said she, putting on 
 an appearance of non-perception. 
 
 She held it out to us, but as it contained 
 what she had akeady told about the young 
 brother's age, the name he took when he went 
 to college, a description of his person and the 
 rest, we merely glanced at it, and she went 
 on to say : — 
 
 *' Mrs. Sherborne then put this document 
 into my hands, which I was to take with me 
 for fear I should forget the name, and said, 
 'If they can find my brother or his heirs, and 
 will send a trusty messenger to me with the 
 proofs, I will pay all expenses, and undertake 
 tliat justice shall be done.' 
 
 '''How can this be without the consent 
 of your son ? ' I asked wonderingly. 
 
 "'The property is in my own power,' she 
 replied. ' My husband left it so when he died, 
 because my poor son was such a sad spend- 
 thrift, and in his youth gambled much money 
 away. But of course I should leave my son 
 and grandson properly provided for.' 
 
 "After repeating two or three times more 
 what she wanted me to do, she hurried me 
 off. There was something strangely impres- 
 sive in the old lady's countenance and 
 manner, as she took me by the hand, and, 
 with the nervous strength of her screwed-up
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOTJK WAYS. 183 
 
 feebleness, dragged me, so to speak, out of 
 the room. It was what I could imagine to 
 be represented by the highest tragic art. Oh ! 
 I can assure you that it was tragedy, and 
 nothing less. There was grief, and there was 
 remorse, and there was the struggle of inward 
 resolution against despair that rolled in like 
 a tide, and there was the inborn habit of 
 dignity maintaining itself, as it were for its 
 own sake, when there was nothing left to 
 make it worth keeping. Yes ! there was all 
 that, and I was impressed by it then ; but 
 since then I have sometimes admired and 
 sometimes despised it, just according to the 
 light I saw it in — that is, according to whether 
 I thought she was kept up by self-respect — 
 which you would call pride, and make a sin 
 of, or depressed by what you would dignify 
 with the name of conscience, and I should call 
 a morbid condition of mind. For what harm 
 had she done ? She had sacrificed everything 
 for the man she loved — and I would have 
 done the same — and I have^ as far as it was 
 possible for me to do it." 
 
 She paused for a moment, and as she had 
 done several times before, looked at me side- 
 ways, to see what effect was produced by thus 
 again giving me to understand that she had 
 been hardened by sorrow, and made ^'like
 
 184 SHEEBOKNE; OR, 
 
 sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh." 
 Upon which I caused my countenance to 
 express an exclusive capacity for Hstening, 
 and she, almost instantaneously relapsing into 
 her previous state of mental absorption in 
 the past, said — 
 
 ^^ Yes, I can see her now — oh ! it seems but 
 yesterday — standing in that little old room, 
 with the time-stained sheet of paper in her 
 hand, and its queer hiding-place above her, 
 that showed by a square framework of dust 
 the space where the document had lain. Oh ! 
 I can revel, even now, old and worn-out as I 
 am, I can revel in the romance that seemed 
 to float in the very atmosphere of those old 
 rooms and long passages. I revel in the 
 poetry that hangs about the very names of 
 the people who lived there and died there — 
 when they didn't die in prison or under a 
 gibbet — and suffered there, and showed courage 
 and constancy and strong patience there. I 
 revel in the memories of the place, and the 
 stories I have heard concerning it, and the 
 dreary imaginings that grow out of them by 
 contemplation. I revel in all this. It is the 
 only interest I have in life. In fact, I'm 
 rather like the German student in " The Pil- 
 grims of the Ehine," who lived his hfe in 
 dreams directed at will, and vegetated at
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 185 
 
 other times. Yes, I love and admire those 
 people ; they showed grand qualities. But 
 what has all that to do with theology ? " 
 
 Still I made no sign, though the temptation 
 to tear the flimsy fallacy was great. Nor 
 would I break silence even when she went on 
 to say in a tone haK sad, half defiant : — 
 
 ^' Yet, at one moment, I could have been, 
 and, you would say, ought to have been a 
 Catholic. And then it melted away like 
 shadows of the night — shadows of the night." 
 
 ^^Does it never occur to you," said I, when 
 she had repeated the words with significant 
 emphasis — "does it never occur to you that 
 it was rather a clouding over of the dawn ? " 
 
 " It's of no use teUing me that — none at all, 
 none whatsoever," she answered bluntly. 
 
 " I ought to apologize for uttering a truism," 
 said I. 
 
 She coloured, and continued her narrative 
 as nearly as I can remember in these words : — 
 
 "I started, then, on my strange errand, 
 which was not an easy one, nor devoid of 
 danger, in one sense, as you will see presently. 
 Off I set, in a high yellow chariot, alone, but 
 yet hardly fancying that I was so ; for I 
 rehearsed in idea my interview with — I knew 
 not whom, the whole way to Bramscote. 
 When I arrived at the Kectory I started, and
 
 186 SHEKBOENE; OR, 
 
 for the first time/ began to realize the reality 
 of my position, and I wished myself at home ; 
 but before there was time for me to think my- 
 self into a helpless state of fright, I was in the 
 presence of Mrs. Thomas, her daughter, and, 
 soon afterwards, of the rector. Mrs. Thomas 
 was a httle old woman with blumpy features, 
 and a twinkle in her eyes. The daughter 
 looked about the same age as her mother, and 
 otherwise resembled her, except as regards 
 the twinkle, which in her case was of a some- 
 what fierce character. 
 
 ^' The rector was a hale old man, stout and 
 florid, with bristly powdered hair, and very 
 grey eyes. He had written a book of Evi- 
 dences, which consisted of some general plati- 
 tudes about the Deity, and a few mild 
 exhortations to believe in the reasonableness 
 of religion. I knew them all three, but I was 
 not the less put to it when, after talking to 
 them for a quarter of an hour, and then again 
 for another five minutes, as if to postpone the 
 difficulty, I found myself face to face with 
 the necessity of proceeding on foot to Brams- 
 cote, and somehow concealing what I was 
 about. What was I to do ? If I were to 
 drive there the coachman must know it ; and 
 if I left the carriage at the Eectory, one of the 
 three, at least, would offer to accompany me
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUE WAYS. 187 
 
 to Dame Ayres's cottage. If I drove off, and 
 put up the horses at the puMic-house stables, 
 people's curiosity would be still more aroused ; 
 and if I got off without being accompanied 
 and without suspicion, how should I account 
 for the length of time I should have to be 
 away ? Well, I cut the Gordian knot at last, 
 as people do when driven to act by instinct. 
 I said that I had to go and see Dame Ayres, 
 and to do one or two other things in the 
 village, and would come ba.ck afterwards to 
 finish my visit. I said this so abruptly, and 
 suited the action to the word with such 
 promptitude, that they were all either taken 
 in, or, at any rate, taken aback ; and within 
 ten minutes I had been to the cottage, talked 
 with Dame Ayres, told her that I wanted to 
 look for some wild-flowers in the wood, and 
 fairly started on my unpleasant errand. I 
 went into the wood, turned into the path that 
 led soonest out of it, and soon found myself 
 inside the park, walking rapidly along the 
 foot-path towards the house, the chimneys of 
 which could be seen among the trees in the 
 distance. 
 
 '^ And then I stopped suddenly, and began 
 to think of what I was going to do ; or, more 
 correctly speaking, different views of it came 
 before me, almost without any effort of mine,
 
 188 SHEEBORNE; OR, 
 
 and temptation made my heart beat till the 
 sound filled my ears and shortened my breath. 
 
 " For was I not about to aid in transferring 
 the inheritance of my betrothed to a stranger ? 
 
 ^*But the temptation gave an uncertain 
 sound as yet, and pictured its advice indis- 
 tinctly. You shall hear it all as it comes in 
 order. 
 
 ^*I stopped a few seconds only; then I 
 walked up to the house at a rapid pace, and 
 rang the bell. What a noise it seemed to 
 make ! But I had screwed myseK up, and 
 was not nervous. Not even the awful mystery 
 attached to Catholic houses in the mind of an 
 inexperienced girl, who, when a child, had 
 been told all sorts of queer hes about them, 
 could make my pulse beat quicker ; for I was 
 wound up to the point at which the nerves 
 are kept steady by tension. Only when it 
 flashed across my mind — just as the door 
 was opened, by the bye, to make it pleasanter 
 — that I was there as a stranger, whose name 
 and birth would be unknown, I felt a hot flush 
 in my cheeks, and a sudden movement of pride 
 in my heart. But this, after the first surprise, 
 gave me courage — there is nothing like pride 
 to give one the instinct of self-preservation 
 when one is in a disagreeable position." 
 Here she looked up again sideways, quickly
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 189 
 
 tried to look as if she had not done so, and 
 added, '' So, womanhke, I asked for Sir Joseph 
 Arden ; for I felt that I should be better able 
 to preserve my dignity, under the circum- 
 stances, in the presence of a man than in the 
 presence of a woman. Sir Joseph was out, 
 so, as the next best thing, I asked for the 
 priest. The old butler, who had been brought 
 up in the palmy days of Payne the informer, 
 looked at me suspiciously, and indirectly ques- 
 tioned the fact of his existence. But I was 
 equal to the occasion. I said I wanted to go 
 to confession — I, who had the vaguest idea 
 of what confession meant, and who (mind you) 
 later on, turned away from Catholicity because 
 I could not make up my mind to do what I 
 knew I should be told to do if I did go to con- 
 fession. Well, the old butler, being a pious 
 Catholic, could not find it in his conscience to 
 say ^ No ' unconditionally, under the circum- 
 stances ; so he said that perhaps Sir Joseph 
 might not be far off — in fact, very likely was 
 not, and showed me into the Kbrary. Here I 
 remained a few minutes — time enough for me 
 to examine the room well ; but my heart was 
 beginning to flutter a little, I hardly knew 
 why — I soon found out though — and so it 
 happened that I looked almost wiiuout seeing. 
 Presently in came the priest. I forget his
 
 190 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 name, and what lie was like ; but I remember 
 that he had very fine courteous manners and 
 an ascetic look. Well, I asked him (at once, 
 or I should have begun to hesitate) whether 
 there were any French people staying in the 
 house. He said there were two — a Count 
 (I forget his name) and his wife. I said that 
 I wanted to ask them an odd question, and 
 one which it was very unlikely they would be 
 able to answer, considering the size and popu- 
 lation of France. I wished to ask if they 
 knew anything of any one going by the name 
 of Brabourne, and descended from one who 
 had been deprived of his inheritance, in 1746, 
 when a boy at Douai ; begging them at the 
 same time to consider my inquiry strictly 
 secret and confidential, and not to mention to 
 any one that I had made it. The priest said 
 he would ask the question, and left the room. 
 Presently he returned, bringing the Count 
 with him, a high-bred old gentleman of the 
 old school. To make a long story short, what 
 the Count told me was this : He remembered 
 an Englishman who had lost his inheritance 
 in the manner described, and who had taken 
 the name of Brabourne for a fortune. But he 
 couldn't quite remember the name he went by 
 at coUege. I asked if it was Flaxley, and he 
 replied, * Yes, that is it.' Well, I was on the
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 191 
 
 track, so far ; but then lie went on to say that 
 he himself had been absent from France 
 twenty-three years, and lost sight of the 
 family. I asked how many children there 
 were. He said three — a married daughter 
 (I forget whom he said she had married), 
 living, I think, in Italy, and two sons, about 
 his own age, of whom he had seen very little 
 since they were boys, they having gone to 
 Paris, whilst he was living at his father's 
 chateau. I asked what sort of people they 
 were. He hesitated for a moment, then said 
 that he liked them much when they were 
 boys ; he believed that they had grown up to 
 be estimable men, and the eldest had distin- 
 guished himself at college. He was unfortu- 
 nately guillotined, he understood, in 1793, as 
 an aristocrat. The younger, who was by 
 several years the youngest of the family, had 
 married before the Eevolution, and lost his 
 wife within a year. There were no children 
 by that marriage. 
 
 '^ '■ Then,' said I, ' there will be an end of 
 the family — at least, of the elder branch.' 
 
 '' ' I am not sure of that,' said the Count, 
 ^ for not long ago a friend of mine met him in 
 London, and he told him that he had just 
 married again. He had escaped from France 
 in 1792, gone to India, traded with the fortune
 
 192 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 lie had had with his first wife, made money, 
 come to England, married again, and was 
 going back to India soon. His second wife is, 
 I hear, very beautiful. He had met her acci- 
 dentally. Her father was a younger son with 
 many children.' 
 
 " * Of an ancient family? ' I asked, almost 
 breathless — you will see why in a moment. 
 
 ^' ' Yes,' he said, ' of an ancient family.' 
 
 '' ' Is the name,' said I—' is it Ath ? ' 
 
 ^' ^ Yes, Atherstone,' he said. 
 
 ''Oh! then I had heard enough — quite 
 enough to set my head in a whirl, and my 
 heart in a flutter. I thanked him, and bowed 
 myseK out as quickly as I could. He offered 
 to accompany me to the carriage. I told him 
 that I had walked ; and I hurried away, leav- 
 ing him, I dare say, much puzzled as to who 
 I was ; for I had not given my name, and no 
 one there knew me. 
 
 " As soon as I had got a little way from the 
 house, I began to walk very slowly, so that 
 I was twice as long in going back as I had 
 been in coming; and yet the time seemed a 
 great deal shorter — I suppose, because there 
 was nothing to mark it, my brains having 
 been in a hopeless state of confusion all the 
 way. Not tiU I had returned to the Eectory, 
 made some commonplace remarks, and set
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 193 
 
 cut homewards in the old yellow chariot, did 
 I begin to see what it was that made me 
 tremble and hesitate at the idea of doing 
 anything, and feel angry with myseK and 
 every one else. The solemn roll of the old 
 yellow chariot, the solitude of the cross- 
 country roads on a winter's day, the stillness 
 of the frosty mist that hung, grey and cold, 
 over the fields by the road-side, cooled my 
 brains and warmed my energies. I began to 
 see something more than I had bargained for 
 when I undertook to do Mrs. Sherborne's 
 behests. When I undertook that office, I 
 felt as a girl ; now I felt as a woman. I mean 
 that then my feeling about it was simple, and 
 noiv it was complex. Yes ! indeed, I began 
 to see something more than I had bargained 
 for. But I must explain one thing first about 
 my own family, otherwise you will not under- 
 stand why I was taken aback when the Count 
 told me about Thomas Brabourne's second 
 marriage. My name is not Smith. I as- 
 sumed it, without y's or e's, when I came to 
 this house, because I wanted to be unknown,, 
 and leave an ancient family to struggle with 
 the chances of silly representations and scamp- 
 ish heirs, without having its drawbacks in- 
 creased by me. My real name is Atherstone — 
 Mrs. Atherstone: in my young days unmarried 
 
 YOL. T.
 
 194 SHEEBOKNE; OE, 
 
 women when they arrived at a certain age 
 were called Mrs. instead of Miss. Now you 
 see why the Count's words affected me so 
 much. The second wife of the direct heir 
 was my own sister; and here began the tug 
 of war in my heart. 
 
 ^'When Mrs. Sherborne told me (as you 
 remember) that her brother had gone by the 
 name of Flaxley at Douai, it suggested no- 
 thing to me ; but when I learned that he had 
 assumed the name of Brabourne, it flashed 
 across me that my brother-in-law must be the 
 heir she wanted. Thus, at the time of my 
 conversation with the Count, I suddenly saw 
 too much and too Httle. Fool, dolt, idiot, 
 that I was ! I could only see that, if I helped 
 Mrs. Sherborne to discover her brother's 
 direct male heir, I should be helping to take 
 away the inheritance from Alfi'ed. Don't stare 
 at me ! Yes — from Alfred, my betrothed. 
 I Httle thought that I should lose him by 
 7iot doing so. Don't think I am ashamed 
 of the way I acted. I have nothing to be 
 ashamed of — everything to regret. But you 
 must pardon the garrulousness of a poor old 
 wretch, who has no life except in the past. 
 I can't tell the story I have to tell, without 
 giving vent to the memories of my own great 
 sorrows — immense, complete, hopeless. I only
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 195 
 
 live in them. And you mustn't mind — well, 
 you have borne with my irritating digressions 
 of another kind very patiently, I must say — 
 you mustn't mind if I express myself strongly 
 about what I am now telling you ; for I can't 
 speak of it calmly — how can I, when I ruined 
 our prospects and caused his death by what 
 I did ? I determined, after a terrific struggle 
 (for bare truth- teUing was the one and only 
 principle I had been taught) I determined to 
 keep back the truth, and say that the Count 
 had known her brother's younger son, the 
 elder having been guillotined, but not that 
 he had heard of him lately in London. I was 
 very sorry to do so, and though I tried to 
 comfort myself by hoping that he would have 
 no son, and that so there would be no per- 
 manent injury, I could only succeed so far as 
 to drown the scoldings of my own imagination 
 (call it the voice of conscience, if you hke) 
 in what I considered just anger against every- 
 body and everything for bringing me into the 
 dilemma. I was an idiot to act as I did, 
 because, what would it signify if he did lose 
 the inheritance of the property ? It wouldn't 
 make him penniless, and it would have made 
 Mrs. Sherborne do her utmost to remove ob- 
 stacles which she would then have had the 
 power to do, because his father, as well as 
 himself, would then be dependent on her.
 
 196 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 ^' Too late I knew wliat I had done ; but 
 you shall hear that presently. 
 
 '' When I reached home, I found Mrs. 
 Sherborne in the same httle room where I 
 had left her three hours before. The hiding- 
 place had been closed; but the documents, 
 together with various other papers of the same 
 date apparently, lay on the table, and she 
 was so absorbed in them that she was not 
 aware of my entrance until I spoke. Then 
 she looked up and through me. And I began 
 to doubt and reproach myself, and hate my 
 own thoughts ; and then I grew angry, and 
 listened no more to this internal voice, what- 
 ever it might be. In short, I cut off my own 
 retreat by saying : — 
 
 ^' ^ I saw the Count; I forget his name. He 
 remembers your brother and his wife and 
 three children — two sons and a daughter. 
 The eldest son was guillotined ; the youngest 
 son married, but his wife died soon after her 
 marriage, and left no children. He after- 
 wards went to India, and — and it is believed 
 — ^he — died.' 
 
 *' Then the poor old creatm-e — no ! I shall 
 cry if I let myseK talk in that way, she, Mrs. 
 Sherborne, was so affected that she could 
 neither speak nor take notice. Oh ! I hated 
 myself for what I did, but I did it : I let
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 197 
 
 her think that I had told her all ; I let the 
 little flickering spark of hope die within her ; 
 I left her to the great sorrow which a word 
 could have dispelled. She sank back in the 
 old arm-chair where she was sitting, and 
 covered her face with her hands. She said 
 nothing, but I heard a very low wail, and 
 I saw the tears trickle slowly through her thin 
 fingers. Do you think I relented? No. 
 I hated myself, and took a passionate delight 
 in giving myself cause to do so : ay ! and 
 I felt a sort of hysterical pleasui-e in the 
 remorse under which I was writhing. That 
 day's work was the beginning of the end with 
 her. She felt that she had no other chance, 
 for she had few acquaintances, and .her 
 strength had been giving way perceptibly 
 during the last few months. 
 
 *^ With me, too, it was the beginning of the 
 end. I had taken my own line, and chosen 
 wrongly. I felt that I was wrong, but I had 
 not given way when I could, and a few days 
 afterwards Alfred's father heard of our engage- 
 ment. He had suspected it for some time, 
 and sent him away, as I told you before. 
 
 *^ Some days passed on, and then Mrs. 
 Sherborne sent for me early in the morning, 
 before she was dressed, and looked at me so 
 kindly that I could have torn my own heart
 
 198 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 out. She told me that she had wished for the 
 marriage ; ■ for/ said she, ' I have a great 
 affection for yon : yon are the only friend I 
 ever had ; and yon are qnite as well-born as 
 he is. But there is no moving my son ; for he 
 will Hsten to no persuasions, and I cannot 
 compel him to give in, because he feels he 
 is in a manner independent of me; he is 
 independent of me because he knows that, 
 although the property is in my own power, he 
 is sure of it. If my brother had left a male heir, 
 and I could find him out, it ivould he different.'* 
 
 ^^^How could that be?' said I, trembling 
 all over, as the whole truth rushed into my 
 mind like a flood. 
 
 " * Because, my dear,' she repHed, ^ it would 
 then be a matter of conscience with me to 
 leave the property to him, my brother's heir ; 
 whereas, now I am equally bound to leave it 
 to the nearest heir I know of, which heir is 
 my son. In fact, my husband (who had the 
 honour of his family at heart), though he 
 left the landed property to my disposition, 
 bound me so far that I cannot leave it to a 
 stranger if there is a male heir of the family in 
 existence, at the time of my making my will. 
 Therefore my son is now really independent 
 of me, because I am obliged to make him my 
 heir ; but had I found my brother's heir, then
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 199 
 
 my son would have nothing but what I 
 should settle on him of personal property, and 
 I could and would make the amount depend 
 upon his yielding to my wishes ; for they are 
 just and right, and it is very disrespectful of 
 him to behave as he does — very.' 
 
 ** Then she remained silent for a few mo- 
 ments or minutes, I can't say which — it 
 seemed an age, and the expression of her 
 countenance grew ineffably sad, so that it 
 would have been very painful to look upon, if 
 I had been in a condition to feel anything 
 but the awful struggle that was going on 
 within me. You will wonder, perhaps, how 
 there could be a struggle — how I could see 
 before me what few ever see, another chance, 
 and not clutch at it — how I could be able to 
 hesitate when the obvious course to pursue 
 would probably gain for me all I cared for in 
 the world. 
 
 ^* Oh ! but human natm^e uncontrolled is 
 like a straw before the wind ; it goes straight- 
 forward with the storm, and circles with the 
 current. My heart's best affections were 
 driving me to tell her everything, when a 
 word from her raised a cross current of opposi- 
 tion in me — my pride revolted against con- 
 fessing the whole truth — I turned aside, and 
 my last chance was gone.
 
 200 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 " It happened in this way: Mrs. Sherborne 
 roused herself somewhat suddenly, and said, 
 * My dear, did you say anything to the priest 
 about me ? ' * No,' I repHed rather shortly. 
 
 ^' Now, I was conscious of beheving — you 
 see I am making my confession to you; but 
 all that, remember, is past — past, I tell you. 
 Don't forget that. However, I was then 
 conscious of beheving the Catholic Church 
 to be the one true Church. I don't now^ 
 because I don't beheve in any rehgion at all. 
 Oh, yes 1 and I am not mad, though I must 
 appear to you very flighty every now and 
 then. I can'fc help it. I mustn't cry and 
 break down before I have finished my story. 
 Well, you see I was conscious of resisting my 
 own conscience : do you understand tliat ? 
 Conscious of resisting it, because he was a 
 Protestant. I loved him with that kind of 
 self-annihilation that sometimes makes a 
 woman give up her soul to the object of her 
 love, partly from intense affection, partly from 
 what would now be called hero-worship ; and, 
 in fact, with myself it was not exclusively a 
 question of whether I should lose him or not, 
 though that was the motive that determined 
 me, but it was partly the fear of losing him, 
 partly an unbridled passion of casting every- 
 thing at his feet, and of sacrificing everything
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 201 
 
 and everybody to what I fancied was his 
 interest. 
 
 " I had not forgotten her request. I remem- 
 hered it all the time I was talking to the 
 priest in the library at Bramscote, and I said 
 nothing. That was the first step in dishonesty 
 of purpose ; this was the second, and the last, 
 too, for the work was done, and when I would 
 have given the wealth of a thousand worlds 
 to undo it, the opportunity was gone for ever. 
 The reason why I had said nothing about her 
 to the priest was a wretched one, but intelli- 
 gible. I was afraid of his coming, because I 
 was afraid that, if he did, I might somehow 
 be made to see more clearly into my own 
 conscience than I wished to see. 
 
 ^^ I was ashamed of having acted so, but 
 I shrank from offering to remedy the evil. If 
 she had said one word, I think perhaps I might 
 have offered to go for him ; but she was weary 
 and weak, and she sat quite silent — how long 
 I cannot tell, for I felt as if the moments 
 were rushing away from me, and mocking my 
 feeble, half-hearted attempts to clutch at 
 them. And then her maid came into the 
 room, and I went away in a state of mind 
 impossible to describe, but never to be for- 
 gotten when once experienced. 
 
 '^ She remained upstairs and alone all the
 
 202 SHEEBOENE; OE, 
 
 morning ; the maid said tliat she seemed to be- 
 fatigued and in low spirits. Why did I not go 
 to her, and tell her the truth, and offer to 
 repair my neglect? I could easily have 
 walked to Bramscote, I was young and strong, 
 and across the fields it would have only been 
 three miles; but I was hke a person under 
 a spell. Even the time combined to tempt 
 me. It was within a little of the hour at which 
 I was to meet liivi. And so I went, reckless 
 of everything but one, leaving her to the fate 
 which it was in my power to avert, letting my 
 last chance go like a gambler's last guinea. 
 
 ^' I went to our place of meeting slowly, be- 
 cause I was making an effort all the while to 
 satisfy myself that what I had done had no 
 alternative. I thought I was strong, when I 
 was only trying to drive away the humiliating 
 suspicion that while I thought I was too 
 proud, I was really too weak to confess that 
 I had told a lie." 
 
 ^' Now, think what you will — what do I care 
 now what any one thinks ? I have set myself 
 to tell the whole story, because the upshot of 
 it is part of a complicated whole, and there is 
 a dreadful harmony in it all which must not 
 be broken. Then the question tormented me. 
 What would he think of me afterwards were 
 he to discover that I had acted so ?
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 203 
 
 *^ The bare idea was intolerable when once 
 I stood face to face with it, as I did before I 
 arrived at the spot where we were to meet. 
 I had not reaHzed this before. Now I did 
 realize it — now when I had done the deed, 
 and consented to it twice again, and recog- 
 nized the weakness that I had thought strength 
 — I tell you it was intolerable to contemplate 
 how I should fall in his estimation, and I was 
 as ready as ever to throw my will in every- 
 thing — ay, in everything, at his feet. The 
 idea was so intolerable that it almost made me 
 decide to tell all, while there was yet time, 
 both to him and to Mrs. Sherborne, and then go 
 to Bramscote as quickly as possible, to do as 
 I had promised. It -would seem that I had 
 my last chance that morning, when I resisted 
 an appeal that might have moved a stone ; 
 yet now, within an hour, I had one more — the 
 fourth that had been given me, and this time 
 it came authorized by the one absorbing 
 passion of my hfe. 
 
 *^ Of course you took advantage of it this 
 time, many people would say. Of coui'se I 
 did not. Of course I shrank again from doing 
 so : when I saw him all was forgotten but 
 the one absorbing idea, and we wasted the 
 time in unpractical declarations of hopeful- 
 ness, which neither of us really felt. I could
 
 204 SHEKBORNE; OR, 
 
 see that lie had no belief in the words of hope, 
 which he repeated again and again, to comfort 
 me, and, if it were possible, to persuade him- 
 self. I think — I would I were not sure, that 
 he was made reckless by seeing no hope for 
 us. When it grew so late that I could stay 
 no longer without discovery, he mounted his 
 horse, followed me at a little distance, whilst 
 I hurried homewards, and then he rode to- 
 wards the river. I was seized with a sudden 
 and uncontrollable terror. I ran back as far 
 as I could, and called after him to stop and not 
 to cross the river, but to go roimd by the bridge, 
 a mile off; and in my agony of mind I said 
 that I had something to say which I had for- 
 gotten, something of the utmost importance 
 to us. The presentiment of some impending 
 danger drew that cry of terror from me, and 
 made my heart force my will. I determined to 
 tell him all, and implore him to be prudent for 
 my sake. He pulled up at once; and then 
 I thought he was safe, and I thought I could 
 save him without teUing all. So when he 
 asked me what I had to tell, I hesitated, and 
 said that the floods had swollen the river, and 
 made it unsafe to cross. 
 
 ^^ ^ Is that all ? ' he said, in a tone of dis- 
 appointment which I can never forget — no ! 
 not if I were to live five hundred years. Just
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 205 
 
 then he caught sight of some one on horse- 
 back turning a corner of the lane, about a 
 quarter of a mile off, and he galloped away 
 towards the river. It was too late to call him 
 back then. 
 
 *^I saw him plunge into the river at the ford. 
 I saw his horse carried away by the flood. I saw 
 the horse slip in struggling to clamber up the 
 loose stones at the side. I saw the horse fall 
 upon him, and get up dragging him stunned 
 and helpless. I saw the horse rushing along 
 in wild terror, partly swimming partly carried 
 along by the current. 
 
 ^^ For the first few moments I stood, as it 
 were, fascinated by the ineffable horror of the 
 sight. Then I ran to the river-side and oblong 
 the bank with the recklessness of despair. I 
 ran, I know not how far, at a speed that would 
 have seemed impossible, and with an endur- 
 ance very far beyond my natural powers. At 
 length I came within, I suppose, fifty yards of 
 him, and then I plunged into the torrent. I 
 sank and rose again on the dark seething 
 water; then I struggled convulsively, not to 
 get out, but to get on; then I felt a rushing 
 of water into my mouth and ears, and a sense 
 of suffocation, followed by a sudden state of 
 dreaminess, during which my whole life passed 
 before me in an instant. And then I knew
 
 206 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 nothing, felt nothing, till I found myself in a 
 cottage, with a doctor and several other people 
 beside me. I had been carried by the current 
 towards the bank at a sharp turn of the river, 
 and been rescued by a laboiuing man who was 
 passing. I scarcely felt the pain of returning 
 animation, though it is no slight thing, as 
 those who have been saved from drowning can 
 testify ; for with the first breath of returning 
 animation came the consciousness of all that 
 had happened. I saw it all pictured with a 
 preternatural distinctness before my eyes, as 
 I lay there — whether on a bed or on the floor 
 I know not. The horrible agony of that 
 moment so stimulated the vital powers, that 
 I recovered myself more rapidly than any one 
 could have expected; and, whilst the doctor 
 was still administering restoratives, I started 
 up wildly, tried to raise myself, and gasped 
 Out, ^ Where is he ? ' 
 
 ^' Oh, there is a horrible quaintness in that 
 juxtaposition of the awful and the absurd 
 which you often see in the tragedies of real 
 life. The labourer, who had heroically saved 
 my Hfe at the risk of his own, and whose 
 honest face was beaming with sympathy, 
 replied, ^ Please, miss, he's drownded.' 
 
 *^ His words ring in my ears even now. 
 That tinge of the burlesque at such a moment
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 207 
 
 seemed to mock my unutterable anguish, and 
 say, ' You shall not even have the dignity of 
 woe, for it is not your misfortune, but your 
 fault.' 
 
 ^' I ivould be taken into the room where he 
 lay. I threatened to dash my brains out 
 against the grate (which was close to me) if 
 they refused. I saw him : he was quite dead, 
 icy cold. I remembered nothing more after 
 that till after many days. I had been de- 
 lirious with some sort of fever, I believe. My 
 hair had been cut off. 
 
 ^^ After a time I asked for Mrs. Sherborne, 
 but without caring much what the answer 
 might be. I had lost all, all interest in every- 
 thing whatsoever, and took what was g\ven 
 me without pleasure or dislike, or recognition 
 of kindness. They told me she was ill — dying. 
 Gradually I understood what that meant, and, 
 bit by bit, the whole story of her kindness to 
 me and my ungrateful return was put to- 
 gether in my mind, like a piece of mosaic, till 
 the vividness of the picture forced from me 
 the resolution to tell her the whole truth now, 
 and go to Bramscote for her, come what 
 would. 
 
 '' By this time I was able to walk, though 
 with some difficulty, and I went straight to 
 her room. She was evidently very ill, but
 
 208 SHERBOENE; OE, 
 
 perfectly sensible. Bitter disappointment had 
 been her death-blow : what followed had but 
 hastened the end a little. I remembered that, 
 on my return from Bramscote, she was stricken 
 down at once ; and, at the first moment, 
 wondered that the failure of what appeared to 
 be a mere wild-goose chase should have 
 affected her so tremendously. Thinking it 
 over now, after the lapse of more than half a 
 century, I adhere to the conviction which then 
 forced itself on my mind : I was and am con- 
 vinced that she read me through when I stood 
 before her, withholding the truth on the 
 very spot where she had made her last appeal 
 to loyalty, to gratitude, to the plain dictates of 
 humanity. It became evident to me on reflec- 
 tion, and that for two reasons — her sad and 
 searching look at me, and her appeal to my 
 own interest afterwards. 
 
 ^^ And now I was standing by her death-bed 
 — for such in fact it was, though she hved a 
 fortnight after that — watching the irremediable 
 consequence of my own deed, my own delibe- 
 rate choice, my own by neglect of warnings, 
 my own by repetition. I stood there simply 
 overwhelmed. Grief, regret, remorse, mourn- 
 ing, affection, love, despair, were blended in 
 one tremendous sensation of pain, and con- 
 tinued more or less indivisible for many days ;
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 209 
 
 the only difference being that, while I re- 
 mained by her death-bed that sensation was 
 characterized by remorse, whereas afterwards 
 passionate regret was the predominant quality 
 of the suffering by which my heart was 
 tortured till it could feel no longer. 
 
 ** I went up to the bedside, and told what I 
 had to tell without delay or excuse ; and it 
 cost me no effort to do so, for I was calmly 
 reckless. I had no hope whatever in this 
 world or the next, for I had rejected the one — 
 yes, yes, don't tell me I didn't, or try to per- 
 suade me that I can undo it — I had rejected 
 the one, and thrown away the other; but I had 
 some good feeling left, such as a dog shows 
 towards a person who has been kind to him, 
 and I was perfectly reckless as to what any one 
 might say, think, or do about me. So I said 
 just this : — 
 
 ^* ^ I have deceived you. Your brother's heir 
 is alive — his only surviving son. The Count 
 told me so.' 
 
 '''May God ^-forgive you, my child,' she 
 said. ' I dare say you were fearfully tempted, 
 and I, at least, have no right to reproach you.' 
 
 "'But I will at once repair the mischief 
 I have done,' said I, ' cost what it may. I will 
 order the carriage this moment, go to Brams- 
 cote, make the Count find out your brother's 
 
 YOL. I. p
 
 210 SHEKBOENE; OR, 
 
 grandson — lie is in England, perhaps, and 
 bring the priest straight back to you.' 
 
 " I then rang the bell violently, and when 
 the maid came running in, breathless, thinking 
 that her mistress had been suddenly taken 
 worse, I told her to order the carriage imme- 
 diately — any carriage — whatever could be got 
 ready soonest. She stared, but I repeated the 
 order in a tone that stopped all questioning. 
 Mrs. Sherborne looked at me earnestly, and 
 said (oh ! I recollect every word she said), 
 ^ Thank you, my dear, for that. It is the one 
 matter that concerns me now.' 
 
 '' ' But I must get ready,' said I, for I 
 bought that there was no tune to be lost. 
 
 '^ ' Stay a moment,' she replied. * I wish to 
 
 say one word more. I have told my son all, 
 
 and implored him to make restitution for me, 
 
 if he ever finds my brother's heir, reserving 
 
 for himself what was his father's fortune, what 
 
 was mine by my father's marriage settlement, 
 
 and what was his own younger son's portion. 
 
 For you know, or perhaps you don't, that he is 
 
 the youngest of eight children — all dead ; and 
 
 it has been the same with his children, too — it 
 
 has not prospered, that evil deed of mine. 
 
 Now, I intreat you, never miss an opportunity, 
 
 and if you succeed in finding the heir, remind 
 
 my son of what I said to him, and if my son
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 211 
 
 should be dead, tell his heir. Tell how ill it 
 has prospered. Tell — oh ! you know what to 
 tell ; but I fear that he will not do it, still less 
 his heir. I am weak and can talk but little 
 at a time, and I must reserve my remaining 
 strength. Go, my child, and bring the priest. 
 God bless you for thinking of that ! Stay a 
 moment. Open that top drawer of the chest 
 of drawers between the windows — the top 
 drawer nearest this way; take out a bunch of 
 keys, and open my desk with one of them 
 — it is labelled. In the desk you will find a 
 paper directed to you. It tells what I have 
 left you in a codicil of my will, which I 
 made six months ago ; and also about — 
 having masses said for me — I feel sure that 
 you will do it, and I could trust no one else. 
 Oh ! how I wish you would see him yourself 
 when he comes. Now go — my strength will 
 not last much longer — go — as fast as you 
 can.' 
 
 '^ I threw on a bonnet and cloak, ran down 
 stairs, and jumping into the carriage — it was a 
 gig — told the coachman to drive to Bramscote 
 as hard as he could go. He looked at me 
 inquiringly for an instant, touched his hat, and 
 put the horse into a gallop. When we reached 
 Bramscote (and whether the people who met 
 us stared or not, I never noticed) I sprang out,
 
 212 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 rang the bell violently, and, as soon as the 
 door was opened, said, ' I want the priest to 
 come with me to a dying person — go and 
 fetch him ; ' and I stayed in the hall while the 
 servant took the message. The priest was at 
 home, and came instantly. I don't know 
 how three people sat in a gig, but I know 
 that we did so, and we drove back as fast as 
 we had come. I took him to Mrs. Sher- 
 borne, and, shutting myself in my own room, 
 walked up and down — I know not how long. 
 I could not be still, though I was so weak 
 that I could hardly stand if I stopped for a 
 moment. 
 
 ^* Well, I am coming near the end of the 
 story — the miserable story which has been 
 trying your patience so long. I will finish it in 
 a few words. The priest remained with Mrs. 
 Sherborne two hours, I should think, perhaps 
 more. She rallied wonderfully, and lived for 
 a fortnight after that. I was with her when 
 she died. I have never heard from my own 
 family since then. I have written many 
 times, but had no answer. Whether they 
 ever heard that my keeping back the trutli 
 from Mrs. Sherborne had deprived my sister's 
 husband of the estate, I don't know. I should 
 not be surprised if it were so. But I cannot 
 even be sure that the two persons — he, my
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 213 
 
 brother-in-law, and the lost heir, are identical. 
 My efforts to discover it at the time were 
 fruitless. The Count had left Bramscote. 
 Mr. Sherborne was very angry when I pressed 
 him to try to carry out his mother's wishes. 
 He said that his uncle had lost the property 
 legally for treason (which was untrue), and 
 hinted that I had trumped up the whole 
 story, or been bribed by my sister to bother 
 him about it ; and he talked in the same 
 strain to other people. But I never saw him 
 again. He died many years afterwards, as 
 I think I told you. It was thirty years ago. 
 He was a very old man. He had left the 
 property to a great niece. She was married 
 to a Mr. De Beaufoy who had another property 
 at the other side of the county. I forget 
 the name of the place. She had two sons. 
 Her husband died soon afterwards ; she lived 
 with her sons at Hazeley. My health, which 
 entirely broke down after Mrs. Sherborne's 
 death, incapacitated me, for many years, from 
 making any effort to find the lost heir. For 
 many years I never left my room, scarcely 
 my bed. They said I had injured myself 
 internally when I jumped into the river. By 
 the time I was able to get about, Mrs. 
 Sherborne's eldest son was dead. He died 
 in the year 1837; that was twenty-three years
 
 214 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 after — twenty-tliree years. Then the niece 
 came to Hazeley, and lived there till she 
 died six years ago. I said nothing abont it 
 to her, because I knew it was no use talking 
 to a woman whose son was to inherit. Well 
 then, she died, and this man came into 
 jiossession — he was her second son, and he 
 took the name of Sherborne, as his brother 
 had done. I went to him one day and told 
 him all as old Mrs. Sherborne had desired. 
 He got rid of the question by saying that^ 
 as the heir had not been found, it would be 
 idle to make magnanimous resolutions. What 
 he would do if the heir were to be found I 
 cannot say. He is not married ; and he must 
 be over forty, or thereabouts. They say he 
 had a disappointment some years ago. At any 
 rate I will try him if I can. It is the one 
 object of my life. Now, can either of you put 
 me in the way of finding the heir? I have 
 no friends, no acquaintances, and as a last 
 resource I came up and addressed you both 
 in Bramscote Park. Although I had noticed 
 3 on and the priest walking with Mr. Sher- 
 borne by my house on your way to Bramscote 
 the day before, our meeting last night was 
 quite accidental. I generally steal out to- 
 wards dark, and on that occasion I happened, 
 to extend my walk along the path where you
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 215 
 
 met me. As soon as I saw a priest, I said 
 to myself, ^ Who knows but he may be able 
 to help me ? At all events I am sure of being- 
 well advised as to what I ought to do ' — yes, 
 yes ! I know that. And when I saw he was 
 a foreigner, I thought I might have two 
 possible chances — the chance of his making 
 inquiries for me in England, and the chance 
 (dim and distant if you will, but still the bare 
 chance) of his being able to trace out some- 
 thing abroad. I have neither friend nor 
 acquaintance, and, as I know that a priest is 
 never surprised, can hold his tongue, and is 
 trained to advise, I followed the impulse of 
 the moment and spoke. Why didn't I speak 
 to the priest of the mission, you will sa^^, as 
 soon as I became sufficiently recovered from 
 my long illness to turn my mind to the 
 subject once more ? I will tell you why. 
 After Mrs. Sherborne's death I became 
 hardened. I said to myself, ' My half desire 
 to be a Catholic has only brought desolation 
 into my heart. If I had not felt that half 
 desire I should not have been afraid of speak- 
 ing to the priest about Mrs. Sherborne when 
 she sent me to Bramscote with that intention; 
 and if he had come to see her, as no doubt he 
 would have done, I could not have ventured to 
 withhold the fact that her brother's heir was
 
 216 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 alive and in England, because she would 
 certainly have mentioned the subject to him. 
 Therefore it was not my fault, but the fault 
 of the religion.' That was what I said to 
 myself; and I brooded over it, and hated the 
 sight of a priest, and neglected, as far as that 
 went, her last wishes. For I lived a sort of 
 unspiritual interior life, contemplating the 
 memories of past passions ; and it was many, 
 many years before the volcano that was in 
 me became quite extinct. Time, age, and 
 solitude have done their work now; and I 
 had almost made up my mind that I would 
 write to the priest about it when I met you 
 both. Can either of you help me ? Oh ! don't 
 say you can't." 
 
 '' The main difficulty in the case," said Don 
 Pascohni, "would be to persuade the man in 
 possession to give up the property." 
 
 "Don't be in a hurry, and see only the 
 difficulties. Think it over, and come to me 
 to-morrow. Do, for pity's sake. I am old 
 and very much broken down, though I may 
 seem to be active. I shall not live long. 
 Promise me you will come." 
 
 " I do promise," said Don Pascohni. 
 
 "You," said she, turning to me, "may 
 perhaps find it more difficult to get away — 
 perhaps you will be out shooting. I think
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 217 
 
 I can manage after a fashion without an 
 interpreter. Good-bye, and thank you. I am 
 very much obHged to you both." 
 
 She rose, shook hands with us, and sank 
 down into her chair, evidently exhausted 
 more than the mere fatigue of telling a long- 
 story would warrant. Then getting up again 
 with an effort, just as we were leaving the 
 room, she rang the bell, and bowed gracefully. 
 The same old woman who had opened the 
 door when we arrived came hobbling up to let 
 us out, and we set off homewards at a pace 
 that was not kept up very long. 
 
 At the end of the first half-mile Don Pas- 
 colini raised his hat on his forehead signifi- 
 cantly, and began to step short. Observing 
 this, I slackened speed. He appeared to 
 appreciate the change, but said nothing, nor 
 did I. Not till we were inside the park at 
 Bramscote did either of us break silence. Of 
 course I spoke first, having nothing to say 
 worth hearing; and, as might be expected, 
 I said just the wrong thing, just what I would 
 not have said, too, if I had learned to feel 
 responsibilities before my habits were formed. 
 I said — 
 
 '' That was a very interesting story ; but is 
 it worth while doing anything about her, not 
 knowing what it may entail ? ' '
 
 218 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 He made no answer, but just looked up for 
 an instant with an expression of slight dis- 
 appointment, by which I felt thoroughly' 
 reproved. 
 
 ^' Then you think you can do something for 
 her?" said I. 
 
 ^'I cannot say yet," he replied. 
 
 ^' In spite of her repeated protests," said 
 I, ^'I fancy that she has a half-unconscious 
 longing to be received into the Church." 
 
 ^'Possibly," said he; "I hope it may turn 
 out so." 
 
 '' What do you think ? " said I. 
 
 ^' I think you are right," said he. 
 
 " But will she follow her inclinations or 
 resist them ? " said I. 
 
 " If you had seen as much of sin and suffer- 
 ing as I have," he replied, "you would know 
 too well what an unstable thing human nature 
 is to trust it much." 
 
 By this time we had reached the house, and 
 on looking instinctively at our watches, found 
 that it was nearly three o'clock. 
 
 [Here ends this fragment of autobiography 
 in a manner that reminds one of the symboli- 
 cal hot potato, so suddenly does Keginald 
 Moreton drop it. His own words give some, 
 clue to the reason of his so doing. He said
 
 THE HOUSE AT TflE FOUR WAYS. 219 
 
 that lie would omit tlie part of azdos, in a cer- 
 tain sense ; and he kept his word, for he has 
 described others, not himself. But it is not 
 so easy to remain alwaj^s an outsider in the 
 drama of life, and he discovered the fact about 
 this time.
 
 220 SHEKBORNE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 [As Moreton's private journal here comes 
 to an abrupt and premature end, whilst the 
 interrupted story, which is indeed sufficiently 
 strange to interest the general reader, has not 
 even begun to develop itself, the Editor (who is 
 anonymous, because he is in no way connected 
 with the events about to be recorded) will 
 continue the narrative, endeavouring, for the 
 sake of unity, to identify himself with More- 
 ton's manner of writing and habits of thought.] 
 
 " A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." 
 
 Keats. 
 
 Not if it is a young lady with whom you are 
 hopelessly in love — 
 
 As Keginald Moreton thought, while he 
 meditated with much prudence and profundity 
 on that subject, the cause of his meditation 
 being Miss Arden. 
 
 Sir Eoger Arden had three daughters. The
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 221 
 
 eldest was a nun in a convent at Ledchester, 
 about twenty miles off; the other two we have 
 already seen — and so had Moreton, especially 
 the elder, of whom he has left us no descrip- 
 tion at all. 
 
 It may be remembered that at the dinner- 
 party, a young man, of whose name Sherborne 
 had with some impatience declared himself 
 ignorant, was observed to let his attention 
 wander definitely away from the lady who sat 
 next to him. The definite attraction was the 
 youngest Miss Arden. But where was the 
 other? Moreton has told us nothing about her, 
 though she was at that dinner-table, among 
 the three or four and twenty people whom he 
 described rather minutely ; but he was not so 
 reticent with himself. Exhaustively, to his own 
 mind if not to the subject, did he theorize on 
 the fate of the hypothetical man who should 
 have an unrequited, or otherwise unfortunate, 
 attachment to just such a girl as she was ; 
 and, with the comic seriousness of one who is 
 playing with edged tools, he decided that such 
 cases v/ere fatal to the universality of Keats 's 
 dictum, inasmuch as, under such circiim- 
 stances, the thing of beauty would be a grief 
 instead of a joy — a very great grief, so great, 
 that at length, when he thought of it in her 
 presence, and still more in her absence, he
 
 222 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 l)egan to find the idea first disagreeable, then 
 annoying, then indefinitely painful. But when 
 it came to that, he said to himself sharply, 
 " Nonsense, to suppose that I should have 
 thought of imaginary cases, as if it were my- 
 self all the while." 
 
 Having decided thus, to his own disturb- 
 ance rather than satisfaction, he allowed 
 himself, without let or hindrance, to seek 
 her society and make the most of it ; nor did 
 he meet with any impediment, but, as it 
 happened, quite the reverse. For it so 
 chanced that the rest of the party staying 
 in the house had settled down into their 
 talking by a kind of natural selection, as 
 people in country houses are wont to do ; and 
 thus it came to pass that, finding his choice 
 often Hmited, he limited it still further, seeing 
 no danger to himself, but only to some person 
 or persons unknown, who might not be as 
 careful as he was in taking their own heart- 
 soundhigs. Thus he talked to her a little 
 in the library just after his arrival, more than 
 a little after dinner, much more than a little 
 
 at various times afterwards, until But 
 
 this sentence must be finished in the next 
 chapter : in this it has no place. 
 
 Sir Roger Arden, who retained the spirit, and 
 kept up the practice, of a certain old-fashioned
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 22 
 
 Z^^'J 
 
 and inherited friendliness in hospitality, which 
 is now so rare that people would seem to have 
 sold this portion of their social bu'thright, 
 and left the price of it among the unclaimed 
 dividends, had invited him, not for three 
 days' fatiguing festivities, vrith a battue in the 
 middle and a long railway journey at each 
 end, but for a full fortnight, ^ith a margin to 
 it ; and had expressed himseK to that effect 
 more than once. This invitation Moreton 
 had accepted with genuine, not conventional 
 pleasure, a pleasure derived as much from the 
 way in which it was given as fi'om the visit 
 itself. For, indeed, it is a pleasant thing to 
 meet a man who has the art of making you 
 feel that he is glad to see you ; and it hac the 
 pecuHarity, which those who suffer fi'om its 
 absence had rather it had not, of being 
 uncommon ; but especially pleasant is it when 
 the manner that impresses it is the reflex of a 
 reahty within, as Sir Eoger Arden's was, and 
 not a fair imitation, which betrays its spurious- 
 ness at the first test. 
 
 Another guest was going to stay as long — 
 the young man who would not attend properly 
 to the instructive conversation of Mrs. Linus 
 Jones. He turned out to be a Count de 
 Bergerac, and a Pontifical Zouave. 
 
 Don Pascolini, too, had deferred his depar-
 
 224 SHEKBOENE; OK, ^' 
 
 twee. Of the remainder, some were to return 
 for a ball, after visiting elsewhere, at distances 
 varying from five and tw^enty miles to three 
 hundred ; others migrated finally at the end 
 of the conventional three days. From the 
 end of these three days until the day before 
 the ball which was to take place at Bramscote, 
 Moreton and the Zouave had full opportuni- 
 ties of making their own game, if they had 
 any game to make. 
 
 The length of Moreton's visit accounts for 
 the length of the broken-off autobiography, 
 w^hich was written during that time. The 
 immediate cause of his writing it was this : 
 returning late, after his interview with Mrs. 
 Atherstone, and finding, as might have been 
 expected, between luncheon and afternoon 
 tea in a full country house, that every one had 
 disappeared either out of doors or upstairs, 
 he, for want of necessary occupation, began 
 to reflect on what he had just heard ; and he 
 said to himself : — 
 
 ^'I will write it all down; for though, of 
 course, nothing can come of it, it is very in- 
 teresting as far as it goes, particularly those 
 simple records of persecution, in the different 
 shapes it assumed against the much-tried 
 Catholics of England." 
 
 He went to his room and sat down to write ;
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUK WAYS. 225 
 
 but after he had wiitten about half a page, the 
 idea occurred to him that the story had better 
 be prefaced by some account of the house 
 where it was told, the person who told it, the 
 cause of his going there, the place he came 
 from, the reason why he was at that place. 
 
 And thus he found himself beginning the 
 autobiography which afterwards came to so 
 abrupt an end. By the time he had finished 
 the first chapter, and carefully flattened the 
 pages on some fresh blotting-paper, people 
 were again talking by natural selection in the 
 library, accompanied by the soothing strains 
 of a hissing urn. It was the witching hour 
 of afternoon tea, and Moreton could not 
 choose but talk to Miss Arden; nor wonld 
 he have chosen differently if he could. 
 
 Many people would have thought that their 
 conversation had nothing in it, and yet would 
 have felt otherwise of its effects on themselves. 
 The mountain air refreshes us, though we are 
 so constituted that we cannot see it, and the 
 tone of that conversation would have benefited 
 many hearers who were quite incapable of 
 knowing why. Each not only drew from the 
 other, without effort or self-consciousness, the 
 best that was truly there, but also saw it in 
 the most favourably true Hght, as when, in 
 the physical order, we see a building bathed 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 SHEEBOENE; OE, 
 
 in moonbeams, or a line of distant hills at 
 sunset; and this nnconscious insight made 
 them perfectly natural to themselves as well 
 as to each other. 
 
 Yet, even in this similarity of feeh'ng there 
 was a difference ; for was not one of them a 
 woman, and not only a woman but a girl, and 
 not only a girl but a Catholic girl ? The dif- 
 ference of course was this : Miss Arden was 
 natural, but not conscious of the fact as 
 applicable to the occasion. Moreton was 
 natural, and conscious of an external cause for 
 being so. He was not, indeed, conscious about 
 himself in reference to himself absolutely, or 
 in reference to her as individually affecting his 
 self-esteem, which I suppose would be self- 
 consciousness ^z^r et simjole ; but he was con- 
 scious about himself in reference to her, and 
 he made the subtle distinction that it was in 
 reference to her separately, not in connection 
 with any feelings of his own. Lucian, in his 
 ^^ Dialogues of the Dead," represents Menippus 
 walking after Croesus and Sardanapalus, telling 
 them that he will persistently continue to din 
 into their ears, ^' Know thyself;" a piece of 
 advice which, by that time, they might be sup- 
 posed no longer to require. He would have 
 been of more use apparently at Moreton's 
 elbow just then, while the " heart " of the tea-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUE WAYS. 227 
 
 urn was '^hissing in steam on its own'' square 
 table, and divers people were tijing to like 
 the coloured milk-and-water wHcli, in country 
 houses of the period, is sometimes dispensed, 
 with much dignity, between the hours of five 
 and six p.m., under the name of tea. 
 
 After a while the party began to disperse, 
 and Moreton with the rest; but there were 
 many more days before him in that house, and 
 he made use of them in a way which caused 
 the limits of time to seem beside the question 
 of the moment; so that, taking the beautiful 
 in a comprehensive sense, we may fairly sup- 
 pose him to have had a vague impression that 
 ^' a thing of beauty is a joy for ever."
 
 228 SHEKBOENE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 " If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing 
 old signs : he brushes his hat o' mornings ; what should that 
 bode ? " — Much Ado About NotMng. 
 
 A FOETNiGHT 01 more had passed, and Eeginald 
 Moreton, our ex-autoMograplier, arose from 
 sleep, on the morning of the last day but one 
 of his stay at Bramscote, not exactly oppressed, 
 perhaps, but at least heavily weighted in his 
 mind. Lord Byron tells us that he woke up 
 one morning and found himseK famous. 
 Eeginald Moreton woke up, and found him- 
 self, not indeed famous, but what comes to the 
 same thing, conscious of an alteration in him- 
 self relatively. Why people feel such things 
 more when they wake in the morning than 
 when they went to bed, let psychologists 
 decide ; but, at any rate, it happened to be so 
 in the case of Eeginald Moreton; and if we say 
 that so it ever is, the experience of every one 
 who has had anything to feel will confirm the
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 229 
 
 statement. The hopes come freshly before us, 
 like flowers after the dews of the night ; the 
 fears are more vivid, for they appear suddenly, 
 and, as it were, out of the darkness; the 
 wounds, if any there be, have grown stiff and 
 sore. Altogether, the aesthetic side of our 
 nature becomes morbidly sensitive, as we 
 open our eyes to the outer world, and take 
 in by involuntary contemplation the things 
 that lay dormant in our memory while we 
 slept. 
 
 Keginald Moreton experienced all this. The 
 tenor of his life had been disturbed, and as 
 he woke that morning the disturbance was 
 renewed ; the valves of his heart were moved 
 by an influx of remembrances from a point of 
 time, hke the sound of a canon-shot that leaps 
 across a chasm and echoes from the rocks be- 
 yond. There were two causes of disturbance, 
 but the one was a ripple on the surface, the 
 other an undercurrent, stirring unexplored 
 depths ; the one gave him a hint of dramatic 
 possibilities very strange and uncertain, the 
 other made him feel a weight, a chill, and 
 a tremor about the heart by turns, whereat 
 he shivered and looked forth into the morning 
 mist, feehng much but not clearly. 
 
 The shght disturbance was occasioned by 
 the strange story he had heard in the House
 
 230 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 at the Four Ways, and the strange old lady 
 who lived there. But what was the greater 
 disturbance ? What made him shiver and 
 turn pale so suddenly ? Something which 
 had changed the current of his life, and made 
 clouds gather thickly in the distance. 
 
 If, within the space between the Land's 
 End and John o' Groat's house, there was a 
 woman more adapted than any other to attract 
 a man whose ideal of woman was really high, 
 and not a sickly, morbid dream, it was pre- 
 cisely Mary Aixlen. Due allowance being 
 made for the weakness of human nature, it 
 was not too much to say of her that she was a 
 comparatively perfect specimen of a young 
 Catholic lady. Moreover, she was beautiful — 
 not beautiful as an angel, whatever that may 
 mean, but as beautiful as any beautiful girl 
 you could find. No wonder the poor fellow 
 felt a distm^bance in his mind, and an inter- 
 mittent chill in his heart, when he thought of 
 her that morning, and remembered what it is 
 that never did run smooth. There he stood, 
 looking out heavily towards the morning mist^ 
 so grey and so still, and the trees wet with 
 crystal-like drops of dew that were ready to 
 fall on the dark tufts of grass beneath them at 
 the first movement of the leafless branches. 
 First of all he resigned himself to a Httle
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUK WAYS. 231 
 
 hypothetical self-deception, and supposed it 
 possible that he had been impressed, not by 
 the concrete image of Mary Arden, but by the 
 reflex universal idea, in a reahstic sense, of 
 Mary Ardenism. Of course, this little straw 
 sank as he grasped it, and then he had to face 
 these two facts : that he was in love with Miss 
 Arden, and that the chances in his favour 
 were infinitesimal: whereupon he made so 
 strong an effort to bear the almost intolerable 
 burden, that all the objects of the outer world 
 grew dim. The sun had risen above the hills 
 behind Ledchester, and the night-dew sparkled 
 as it fell from the trees, when he turned away, 
 and left the room with a firm but unelastic 
 step, to hear mass. When he appeared at^the 
 breakfast-table long afterwards, people said, 
 ^'What is the matter with him?" Noting 
 which, he began to talk much and fast, so that 
 they soon forgot what they had said; and 
 Edward Arden thought him a jollier sort of 
 fellow than he had seemed at first. 
 
 But how about Miss Arden herself ? When 
 a certain 'prcfet apologised to Napoleon the 
 First for not having fired a salute, he headed 
 the Hst of excuses with, " D'abord il n'y avait 
 pas de canon;" whereupon the Emperor 
 dechned hearing the rest ; and it would seem 
 no less evident that, if the lady were not
 
 '232 SHEEBORNE; OR, 
 
 affirmatively disposed, other impediments 
 woiild be superfluons. 
 
 Now here is just the place to make an 
 imaginary analysis of her feehngs ; but we will 
 do nothing of the kind : for, in the first place, 
 we have not the remotest idea what they were ; 
 and if we had, a Catholic maiden of the true 
 type is too pure a creature to be made the 
 subject of speculative sentimentality. 
 
 Poor Moreton ! It was his last day at 
 Bramscote, and yet he would have to spend a 
 long morning in the society of Miss Arden at 
 Hazeley, where there was to be a luncheon 
 party, probably preceded and followed by ex- 
 peditions. Anything better adapted than this 
 to torture him slowly cannot easily be ima- 
 gined. He turned several shades paler when 
 he heard of it, made up his mind to sell the 
 small property he had just bought in the 
 neighbourhood, and walked slowly down to the 
 little Cathohc church at the entrance of the 
 village. At the end of about an hour he 
 returned, wrote to his solicitor about the sale, 
 and was ready for the expeditions ; but he 
 trembled when he saw her. 
 
 He saw her for a moment only, and h'om a 
 distance, as he was going downstairs ; yet that 
 moment was quite long enough to make him 
 wish it shortened, whilst he longed for its con-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 233 
 
 tiniiance ; and here, but nowhere else in this 
 book, there shall be given a very brief descrip- 
 tion of her. The pure whiteness of fresh 
 fallen snow can only be portrayed approxi- 
 mately, and more than one failure would 
 amount to an impertinence : yet one there 
 must be, for I suppose it would seem strange 
 to leave the frame of her portrait empty. 
 
 She was of middle height, graceful in move- 
 ment and in repose, and in that combination 
 of both with expression of feature and instinc- 
 tive training of charitable tact, vv^hich forms a 
 perfect manner. Her figure, though in fact 
 well-proportioned, attracted no attention separ- 
 ably ; her features, though in fact well formed, 
 owed their charm to the chaste Hght- of 
 spiritualized human sympathies that played 
 softly on them like moonbeams on the rippled 
 surface of the ocean on a summer's night. In 
 a word, she was a beaikiful example of the 
 most beautiful thing that can be found living 
 in the world — a beautiful girl. Catholic in 
 faith, instincts, and training, beautiful in mind 
 and body, beautiful as a girl, beautiful as a 
 mother, beautiful in old age, beautiful in 
 death. No wonder that Moreton, when he 
 saw her for a moment standing there, uncon- 
 sciously typifying to his mind and his heart 
 the loveliness that domestic life may attain to,
 
 234 SHERBOENE; OE, 
 
 but seldom does — no wonder, that when lie 
 looked on her, appreciated her, loved her, 
 realized all that he dared not hope for, yet 
 could not forget, he hurried away from the 
 contemplation of the terrible contrast : for 
 whether Dante's oft-repeated lines, ''Nessun 
 maggior dolore," etc., require a grain of salt 
 or not, certain it is that the immediate com- 
 parison of intense happiness with the moral 
 certainty that it will be imattainable, is a trial 
 as much greater than the memories of the past 
 as present pain is severer than the aching 
 exhaustion that remains behind what is past. 
 
 Perhaps a few words descriptive of Keginald 
 Moreton, also, may not be out of place here, 
 though it is difficult to find a good reason for 
 describing a man's outward appearance at all. 
 He had finely chiselled features, a well formed 
 figure, rising vigorously to the height of six 
 feet, a pale complexion that grew paler when 
 he thought or felt much, dark eyes with an 
 habitually pensive expression and a latent fire 
 in them ready for an occasion ; a broad, rather 
 square brow, a well-shaped head with well- 
 balanced phrenological organs, a graceful 
 imaffected manner, a countenance in which 
 power and repose, energy and gentleness were 
 blended into one, except where there was a 
 special call upon either.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUE WAYS. 235 
 
 Two or three more ladies were near, for 
 some of the party were about to start on an 
 expedition somewhere at a distance on their 
 way to Hazeley. They were adapted to 
 make quite another sort of contrast in his 
 mind, if his mind had then been capable of 
 receiving any additional impression whatso- 
 ever. They belonged to what newspapers 
 describe as the Catholic body, and their own 
 bodies were much decorated with costly silks 
 that swayed imeasily to the tune of clacking 
 tongues, whose utterances were monotonously 
 flippant, pretentiously undignified, vulgarly 
 exclusive. We all know the fable of the ass 
 in the lion's skin; but people like these, who 
 put aside their own proper dignity and superior 
 advantages to make bad imitations of worldh- 
 ness with swaggering servility, reverse the 
 fable : they typify a very small, inexperienced 
 lion strutting about in an ass's skin, and 
 making awkward attempts to bray properly. 
 These were the people that immediately con- 
 trasted with Miss Arden as Moreton hurried 
 through the hall ; but he heeded them not ; 
 perhaps did not see them. 
 
 Just then Sir Eoger came up, and asked 
 him how he would like to go to Hazeley. He 
 answered that he would rather walk, as he 
 ■wished to call at his old home, Fernham
 
 236 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 Eectory, on his way : whicli was true in a 
 sense, thongli it was not the true reason of 
 his electing to walk alone. Alone he walked, 
 however, without waiting to see whether any 
 one would join him; indeed, hoping to he left, 
 not in peace exactly — for that could hardly 
 he, at least as the term would commonly he 
 understood under the circumstances — hut un- 
 disturbed, or, as colloquial English would 
 exactly express it, ^' by himself." 
 
 ^' I am a fool," he thought — perhaps it 
 would he more correct to say mentally affirmed 
 — ^^ I am a fool to take this impersonation of 
 an ideal for a reality. The fact is, that she is, 
 or seems, nearer some half-defined ideal of my 
 own than others who have fallen in my way ; 
 and so I become enthusiastic, and then, 
 because I should have no chance, up springs 
 a romance at once, and I fancy myself 
 miserable." 
 
 But the fact remained that he was in love 
 with Miss Arden, and it simply annihilated 
 his theory, which only lasted till he was 
 within a hundred yards of the lodge. Then 
 he hurried on, and tried to put thinking into 
 abeyance, but quite failed to do so ; indeed, 
 the more he tried the farther he found him- 
 self from success. The effort only sharpened 
 his attention.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 237 
 
 One tiling did, for a time, not indeed take 
 his thoughts, but divide them; it was the 
 recollection of Fernham, the house in which 
 he was born. He must go there, and it was 
 on his way to Hazeley, and he had just said 
 that he was going there, and, moreover, in a 
 certain indistinct sense, he desired to do so ; 
 but he began to walk slowy when the village 
 became visible in the distance through the 
 lodge gate, and he turned aside, as if to gain 
 time. It so happened that the circuit he made 
 took him through the small gate by which the 
 old woman in the lonely house had gone when 
 a girl of eighteen, with the power in her hands 
 to mould the one great event of her life for 
 good or for evil. He remembered the circum- 
 stance as he passed out into the wood, and 
 then he began to meditate — or rather, listen 
 mentally to what came into his head respect- 
 ing that strange history and the question it 
 had left unsolved. 
 
 ^*I cannot tell," he thought, "why this 
 story begins now to interest me so much ; for 
 as to the question who John Sherborne's male- 
 heir may be, it has no practical bearing at all. 
 The present possessor of the property is 
 legally entitled to it, and he certainly would 
 not entertain for a moment the idea of doing 
 a thing that the world would call Quixotic
 
 238 SHEEBOENE; OE, 
 
 and langii at — especialty wlien lie could say, 
 and perhaps truly, tliat he did not believe 
 the cock-and-bull statements of a crazy old 
 woman, who had lived alone for half a century, 
 about another old woman who died half a 
 century ago ; and her brother, who very likely 
 died young, or was never born, seeing that 
 there is no authentic evidence about him 
 whatever, except the crazy old woman's 
 account of what she alleges to have heard 
 from the other old vv^oman and from a Count 
 Somebody. That is what he could and would 
 say, though, as a matter of fact, the old woman 
 is not crazy, but has her wits about her more 
 than most other people, and evidently tells 
 what she knows, as well as believes to be 
 true. Certainly it is a curious fact that no 
 one has prospered in that house since John 
 Sherborne was dispossessed of his inheritance 
 — ^no direct heir of the man who supplanted 
 him has lived to inherit ; but then it may 
 be said that such things will sometimes 
 happen where no wi'ong has been done, and 
 not always where it has, all the evidence in 
 Spellman's * History of Sacrilege ' notwith- 
 standing. So that, in fact, if John Sher- 
 borne's heu' were to turn up this day and 
 prove his identity, things would remain pre- 
 cisely as they are. Yet the story is extra- 
 ordinarily interesting — full of pathos."
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 239 
 
 The village of Feniliam, where Moreton liim- 
 •self had been born, was about two miles from 
 Bramscote. He came upon it at a turning 
 of the* road, and recognized the chimneys of 
 the Eectory between the leafless boughs of 
 some beeches. Involuntarily he slackened 
 his pace, for the image of Miss Arden had 
 just begun to float before his 'eyes again, and 
 impress his heart from within a clear atmos- 
 phere of its own, almost as powerfully as if 
 she had been present. The interest he had 
 been trying to feel in the question about John 
 Sherborne's heir, and had really felt in Mrs. 
 Atherstone's own story, had taken up just 
 enough of his attention to make him realize 
 more vividly that which expelled it and again 
 mastered him. It mastered him again for a 
 while — that was why he slackened his pace ; 
 and then — so strange, at least apparently, are 
 the vagaries of impulse in suffering human 
 hearts — he began to muse in a dim and dreary 
 manner on both subjects, mingling them with 
 recollections of his childhood as he drew nearer 
 to the Eectory. 
 
 But here we come to a point at which a new 
 chapter suggests itself.
 
 240 SHEEBOENE; OE, 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine captos 
 Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
 The ancient Eomans, like all respectable 
 heathens, had a good deal to say about love of 
 country. They felt and, to a certain extent, 
 understood it thoroughly. But then religio 
 loci was limited in two ways : it was of course 
 in the natural order only, and it cannot with 
 propriety be said to have included the idea of 
 home, as we understand the word. 
 
 What we mean by the word ^'home" pre- 
 supposes a state of things in which woman 
 plays a part that she can never play in a 
 society that is Pagan. Paganism, with or 
 without a mythology, can produce female 
 slaves and strong-minded heroines : it can 
 never produce a true wife and mother, duti- 
 fully strong through love, and gently in- 
 fluencing for good those who come within
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 241 
 
 her sphere. In England, thank God ! home^ 
 in the Christian sense of the word, is still to 
 a great extent a reality ; for we are a retentive 
 people, and three hundred years have not 
 sufficed for the total uprooting of Catholic 
 principles. A ray of the supernatural still 
 lights up the natural beauty of a virtuous 
 humanism in many a household whose in- 
 mates would be indescribably astonished and 
 scandalised if they were told that it comes, 
 from that which they have been trained to 
 misrepresent on principle, and hate mildly. 
 What will become of domestic hfe in another 
 generation, if the influences now wildly work- 
 ing continue, is a question which fathers and 
 mothers had better ask themselves before' it 
 is too late : we have only to do with the time 
 ranging between Moreton's childhood and the 
 period of which we are speaking. 
 
 When Moreton was a child, the house in 
 which he was born could justly claim, without 
 prejudice to its next inhabitants, the title of 
 Home. His recollections of it during his 
 early childhood were pleasant, and their effect 
 morally advantageous when he had entered 
 otherwise unarmed into the battle of life. 
 Perhaps it is not too much to say, that they 
 sowed the seeds of that yearning after the 
 objectively true, which afterwards led him 
 
 YOL. I. li
 
 242 SHEEBOKNE; OR, 
 
 lip to the Clinrcli. In the mind of a 
 little child, all that its mother teaches is 
 objectively trne. Not only have the first 
 simple ideas of religion, derived fi'om a good 
 devout-hearted mother, a real objectivity, 
 because they are really true as far as they 
 go, but all other things learned from the same 
 source are taken as such by the child; for 
 a Uttle child knows nothing about opinions 
 — it simply believes, as a Catholic does in 
 matters of faith. Whatever remains of de- 
 finite religious belief among the Protestants 
 of England, is mainly, if not altogether, owing 
 to the little Bible stories they learned from 
 their mothers. 
 
 But we are now concerned with Moreton's 
 early home, his parentage, and his history, 
 up to the time of his visit to Bramscote. 
 
 Moreton's father was, in the first place, a 
 thorough gentleman ; and, lest that compre- 
 hensive term (almost as comprehensive as the 
 Established Church) should be misunderstood 
 in the present instance, we may as well define 
 in what sense it could fairly be appHed to him. 
 
 We understand the term "gentleman" in 
 two senses — as signifying (rather vaguely 
 sometimes) a certain social rank, and as ex- 
 pressing certain qualities which we attribute 
 to that rank. In the latter sense it has three
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 243 
 
 meanings. First, it means graceful manners 
 and social tact, as ornamenting a solid reli- 
 gions and moral nature, not as a decorative ad- 
 dition, but as part of its solidity ; secondly, it 
 may mean agreeable manners and social skill, 
 strongly built into a foundation of honour 
 and Pagan virtue ; thirdly, it may mean the 
 faculty of making one's own selfishness har- 
 monize with that of other people in a calm 
 and dignified manner. Of these three types, 
 the last is common enough — quite enough and 
 rather more : the second was characteristic of 
 a school that began with wigs, was at its 
 height during the reign of pig-tails, and went 
 out with flannel shirts ; the first, if it be a 
 school at all in these our days, is reduced like 
 a school of small boys, broken up by some 
 infectious disorder, and represented by a 
 master or two and a few solitary scholars. 
 
 To that school Moreton's father belonged. 
 Left an orphan when but a few months old, 
 he had been adopted by a lady, a widow 
 without children, who brought him up as her 
 own son, and left him all her disposable fortune 
 — about a thousand a year. Affectionate, 
 simple-minded, accustomed from infancy to 
 see Protestantism in its most attractive and 
 specious form associated with what he justly 
 loved and respected, he drew out of the depths
 
 244 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 of liis invincible ignorance a large amount of 
 Catholic intention, and acted npon it, quite 
 unconscious of what it was, or whence it 
 came. His graceful manners and social tact 
 were a solid and an integral part of this, and 
 therefore he might be called a gentleman in 
 the sense first mentioned. 
 
 He was twice married. His first wife had 
 a daughter, who had married some lustres 
 ago, and lived in a distant county. Moreton 
 had just been staying with her when he came 
 to Bramscote. By his second wife he had a 
 daughter, who died early, and a son, Keginald 
 — the poor fellow who was now making an 
 appeal to one set of feelings in order to divert 
 his attention from another, and whose hfe, up 
 to the time of which we are speaking, may be 
 told in a very few words. 
 
 He went to a public school and into a 
 regiment of the line, served in the latter about 
 two years, and then, reviewing his income 
 one day in juxtaposition with matrimonial 
 eventualities, emigrated to Austraha, where 
 he remained until, at the end of rather less 
 than three years, a small unexpected accession 
 of fortune enabled him to retire from a mode 
 of life which had not begun to be at all profit- 
 able, and which he had long since begun to 
 dislike emphatically. As he had no family
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 245 
 
 ties — his father had died soon after he entered 
 the army, and his mother a year afterwards — 
 he did not stay ui England on his return, but 
 set off for Italy in less than a fortnight after 
 he had landed. Then, at the age of twenty-four, 
 he in a sense began life anew ; for he said to 
 himself, " My life has been made up of un- 
 finished beginnings, from my school-days 
 until now." Then he read much and thought 
 more, and conversed with many people ; and 
 craving distinctly to know that truth for 
 which he had previously longed with a vague 
 disquietude, he received in Eome the gift of 
 faith; and then he felt at rest, so that he could 
 afford to be satisfied with having no prospect 
 of ever making his mark in the world. • He 
 remained abroad three years more, travelling 
 much, but passing some time in Eome, to his 
 great satisfaction and advantage, and then 
 returned to England. How desperately he 
 now tried to wish that he had not done so. 
 
 The sight of his old home, as he drew near 
 to it, and recognized in rapid detail its 
 familiar features, was a sort of counter-irritant 
 for a limited time, relieving his deeply-seated 
 sorrow a little, just as long as it could 
 keep his active attention, and that was no 
 longer than the length of time he remained 
 within the premises.
 
 246 SHEEBOENE; OE, 
 
 The rector was Mr. Linus Jones, wliose 
 acquaintance, as also tliat of his oppressively 
 popular wife, we have already made in a former 
 chapter. Both were at home, and in walked 
 Moreton, drawing a long breath to steady ther 
 unequal beating of his heart as he entered the 
 house where he had seen his father and 
 mother for the last time. Whilst awaiting 
 the entrance of the worthy rector and 
 rectoress into the drawing-room, he looked 
 round, and invokmtarily compared what he 
 saw with what he remembered. The room 
 looked smaller and newer. Instead of the old 
 odds and ends of Georgian mahogany, made 
 almost picturesque by shabbiness, admixture 
 of Dresden china, and the dark shadows of 
 trees and high laurels growing up close to 
 the windows, there were j)9^pier-inach6 chairs 
 of Lilliputian size, walnut-wood tables sym- 
 metrically laid out with knick-knacks from 
 Barry's, an upright pianoforte by Oetzmann and 
 Plumb, and a low book-case, edged with green 
 velvet, containing among its foreign hterature, 
 ^' Les Paroles d'lm Croyant " in ominous, 
 proximity to ^^Ecce Homo." On the walls 
 were hung prints of three distinct sorts — 
 religious, sentimental, and Landseerian — - 
 framed accordingly. The rehgious pictures 
 were in Oxford frames, and w^ere as follows :.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUIl WAYS. 247 
 
 Leclcliester Catlieclral, the state bishop of the 
 diocese, the three irrepressible chorister bo3^s 
 with their months open, a portrait of Jeremy 
 Taylor, the ex-Pere Hyacinth, Ary Scheffer's 
 *' St. Angnstine and St. Monica," a cross with 
 a text gi'owing ont of some flowers, Edward 
 the Sixth, and Doctor Dollinger. There were 
 three of the sentimental sort, in fi'ames of 
 very dark oak slightly carved, viz. Millais' 
 ''Black Brnnswicker," a poacher in gaol, and 
 a conntry lad making love unsuccessfully to 
 a girl standing against the wall of a cottage. 
 The Landseerian class was represented by the 
 well-known three horses drinking, a Skye 
 terrier sitting up on his hind legs under 
 a parrot-stand, and two or three Highland 
 scenes. On the large round table in the 
 middle of the room were The Evening 
 Standard J The Guardian, Le Maudit, the 
 last volume of Dr. Hook's '' Lives of the 
 Archbishops of Canterbury," Miss Braddon's 
 last novel, a printed Eeport of the Society for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel, Mr. Ffoulkes' 
 ''Divisions of Christendom," "The Christian 
 Year," and a thin volume bound in green 
 morocco and entitled "A Garland for Gari- 
 baldi," by Hermione Alberta CiTimps. More- 
 ton gave a rapid glance at these things in 
 detail ; then the room and its contents faded
 
 248 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 away from his inind, and his eyes no longer 
 took note of them. He saw what his memory 
 raised np, not what was physically before him. 
 
 This day-dream of the past, whatever might 
 have been its natural duration, was soon 
 interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Linus 
 Jones. That sweet and superior woman re- 
 ceived him in such sort that, under pain of 
 seeming to judge rashly, he would have been 
 compelled to say what he did not feel as to 
 her words and manner. She thanked him for 
 his visit, depreciating herself oppressively in 
 fat tones that breathed forth patent self-con- 
 sciousness from a mde expanse of visible 
 personality highly scented with musk. Then, 
 throwing into her eyes an expression of re- 
 gretful sympathy, she said — 
 
 ^' I always feel so much for the children of 
 clergymen — especially when I think of my own 
 little ones, who may one day come to visit 
 their old home, no longer theirs, as you have 
 done to-day." 
 
 Moreton winced a Httle internally, but only 
 replied — 
 
 '' Not yet, I hope." 
 
 Then she said, ^'But I forgot — oh! I beg 
 your pardon ; it was the last thing I intended. 
 I ought to have remembered that — that ' ' 
 
 ^^ That what ? " asked Moreton, though he
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 249 
 
 knew perfectly well wliat slie meant ; for lie 
 said to himself, '^I object to having an 
 allusion swallowed up in a hiatus." 
 
 ^' Oh, you know," she replied, turning down 
 the corners of her mouth, and curling them 
 up again. 
 
 '' How should I ? " said he. 
 
 ^^ Oh, of course," said she, '' I mean — but 
 I did not wish to say it." 
 
 '^ You began to say it, whatever it may be," 
 was his provoking reply. 
 
 She coloured slowly, and said nothing, but 
 sighed with emphasis. 
 
 Moreton's countenance clouded suddenly, 
 and he said in a low voice, firm, yet rather 
 forced, and slightly altered — 
 
 ^^ You mean that the associations of my 
 childhood must necessarily have lost their 
 power over my feelings, because I am now 
 a Catholic, and then was not." 
 
 ^* I didn't put it so," said she. 
 
 ^' No, but you meant it," he replied; ^^ and, 
 considering the unfathomable ignorance con- 
 cerning the Catholic faith, practice, history, 
 and habit of mind, in which Protestants 
 (myself among the number when I was one) 
 are carefully trained and instructed, by means 
 of histories, novels, poems, plays, operas, 
 pictures, newspapers, periodicals, lectures.
 
 250 SHERBOKNE; OE, 
 
 sermons, and conversational gossip of eveiy 
 sort, from heavy Puritanism down to a style 
 whicli respect for the presence of a lady 
 forbids me to name, I am not sm^prised at 
 yonr confusing Divine faitli witli natural 
 affection. Now, should you like to know 
 what I really do feel about these old familiar 
 scenes of my childhood, and how far they 
 have even acted on my inclination against my 
 will, on my judgment against my reason, and 
 on my imagination against my faith ? " 
 
 She stared, and sat down, holding her garden 
 hat in one hand, smoothing her hair with the 
 other, and trying to look proudly unintelli- 
 gent. 
 
 '^Because," said he, "I am sure that you 
 would like to hear the truth, and equally sure 
 that you never have." 
 
 Feeling that she had brought the imwel- 
 come information on herself, she assumed a 
 listening attitude, with her eyes fixed on the 
 carpet ; and Moreton, in a clear voice, pro- 
 ceeded to impart that information. He said — 
 
 '' One thing alone held me back, not for 
 months, but for years, from taking the step 
 which the grace of God and my own convic- 
 tions compelled me to do at last; and that 
 thing was simply the enormous power of early, 
 associations, interwoven mth my best feelingSj
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 251 
 
 happiest memories, and earliest impressions of 
 goodness. I loved tliis place as I never can 
 love any other. There hnng aronnd the grey 
 walls of the old parish clmrch an atmosphere 
 of bygone Catholicity, which made my affec- 
 tions cling to it as if it were living, associated, 
 as it was, in my mind with the position of my 
 good father, who, but for the ignorance of 
 Catholicity in which his faith had been im- 
 prisoned, w^oiild have been as admirable a 
 Catholic in fact as he was in natural dis- 
 positions. If any power or influence on earth 
 could have kept me back from becoming a 
 Catholic, it would have been the local asso- 
 ciations connected directly and indirectly with 
 the Establishment. And as for what I feel — 
 standing here, in this house, so full of sweet 
 memories, and no painful ones — this house 
 where I last saw my father, my mother, my 
 sister, all dead, and the place so changed, yet 
 so suggestive of what it was — why I tell you 
 I could cry like a child, sob on the floor, and 
 he there forgetting your presence and even 
 your existence. Do you understand the 
 difference between Divine faith and natural 
 affection now? " 
 
 What her reply would have been if Mr. 
 Linus Jones had not entered the room at that 
 moment, we have no means of ascertaining.
 
 252 SHEEBOENE; OR, 
 
 She composed her countenance qnickly, from 
 wliicli fact tlie reader may infer, if lie will, 
 that it had been discomposed, and said 
 blandly — 
 
 '^My dear, Mr. Moreton has been giving 
 me such an interesting description of his 
 childhood, and all about this place, you know." 
 
 ^'I am sure that nothing would give me 
 greater pleasure than to show you round the 
 old place," said Mr. Linus Jones to Moreton. 
 ' ' Or perhaps you would prefer to walk roimd 
 by yourself? Pray do now. I dare say you 
 would like to visit the rooms you remember so 
 well, and to go all about the grounds." 
 
 Moreton thanked him, but hesitated. 
 
 ^*It is late now," he said. ^' George Sher- 
 borne has a large party to-day, and I am going 
 to lunch with him at Hazeley." 
 
 ^^ So are we," answered the rector. 
 
 He left the room, and returning quickly, 
 said in a low voice to Moreton — 
 
 ^' You will not be disturbed. I have given 
 orders about it. You will not meet any one." 
 
 ^^ It is very kind of you ; I will not keep you 
 long," answered Moreton ; and off he started, 
 saying to himself — 
 
 ^^It is the last chance — I shall never come 
 into this country again." 
 
 But he did keep them long, though he
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 253 
 
 fancied lie was hastening. He wandered 
 througli the rooms and well-remembered 
 passages, now moving rapidly, now standing 
 rooted to the spot, now pushing on again, 
 seeing all, yet scarcely raising his eyes. He 
 wandered through the grounds, and stood still 
 awhile, looking about him, but taking notice 
 of what he remembered, rather than of what 
 he saw. More than liaK an hour had elapsed 
 when he turned towards the house, saying 
 half aloud — 
 
 *' I MUST go back, I suppose, or it would 
 seem rude." 
 
 When he entered the drawing-room, pain- 
 fully anxious to make his escape as soon as 
 possible, he found not only Mrs. Linus Jones 
 without her more tactful husband, but Miss 
 Hermione Crimips to boot, largely dressed 
 and energising in an oppressive manner about 
 haunted rooms. 
 
 ''Am I to go through that dinner-party 
 again without its distractions ? " thought he. 
 
 But they had it all their own way : sorrow 
 had made him indifferent to annoyance. 
 
 '' Oh, you know Hazeley of old — you must 
 show me the haunted room," she said; ''the 
 room we were talking about the other night at 
 Bramscote, you know. You must show it to 
 me. Now, don't say there isn't one."
 
 254 SHERBOENE; OR, 
 
 ''Hadn't you better come with us?" said 
 Mr. Linus Jones, entering the room, watch in 
 hand. '' You will he late if you walk — it is a 
 quarter to one now, and we have plenty of 
 room." 
 
 And the end of it was, that Moreton arrived 
 at Hazeley in a wagonette with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Linus Jones and Miss Hermione Crumps — a 
 situation which plainly demands that this 
 chapter shall come to an end.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 255 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 " Quoique leurs chai)eaiix sont bien laids, 
 God dam ! moi j'aime les anglais." 
 
 Ber ANGER. 
 
 Peehaps wlieu Beranger wrote these lines 
 Englishmen's hats were uglier than French- 
 men's — perhaps they were not : but the female 
 hat of the present day, when raised up on the 
 top of a chignon, and leaning forward like a man 
 craning at a fence, is portentous. Its expres- 
 sion is ungraceful and conspicuous, repelling, 
 and, at least negatively, immodest : it takes 
 from the wearer half her attractions, and 
 apparently all her mental freshness, in short 
 it would seem expressly devised for the pur- 
 pose of seeming to have eliminated the 
 qualities that form the distinctive charm of 
 girlhood. 
 
 The luncheon party was numerous. Not 
 less than a dozen people had come from 
 Bramscote : neighbouring houses had sent
 
 256 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 forth guests to the number of, perhaps, twenty 
 more. The rooms were bristhng with female 
 hats of the period. In one or two cases the 
 lady infused her own expression into the hat ; 
 in some, and they w^ere the most numerous, 
 the hat imposed its own character on the lady. 
 Two or three ladies there w^ere who, though 
 unable to infuse any expression of their own 
 into their hats, because they had no expres- 
 sion to infuse, at least did not reflect in their 
 countenances the tone of their millinery. 
 These last were Catholics — very silly Catho- 
 lics, and they w^ere morally separable fi'om 
 their millinery, just because they were Catho- 
 lics. Their millinery was vicious, and no 
 amount of meretricious dressing could make it 
 otherwise. They looked very silly, and the 
 jerky pretentiousness of their manners plainly 
 showed that they were as weak in mimicry as 
 in wisdom : nevertheless, if any one had 
 judged them merely by the example they gave 
 in their folly, the judgment would certainly 
 have been unjust, for it would have missed, not 
 only what was best in them, but what was 
 more truly theirs than the acquired absurdities 
 that stuck to the surface of their reaUty like 
 barnacles on a ship's keel. 
 
 And if any one, thus rashly judging, felt 
 inclined to generalize yet more rashty from an
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 257 
 
 ex parte opinion, the presence of the two Miss 
 Ardens must have suggested not only a very 
 di£ferent sort of generahzation, but also more 
 charitable possibilities as regarded the others. 
 
 The two sisters resembled each other, not 
 only in countenance and what countenance 
 reflects, but even in features and manner : 
 still there was a difference in favour of the 
 elder, and Moreton idealized not a Httle upon 
 that fact in connection with a very high 
 estimate of the younger. If we were to go no 
 deeper than the surface of his appreciation 
 we might appropriately suppose him to have 
 realized the meaning of those beautiful lines 
 in The Giaour : — 
 
 " She was a form of life and light • 
 
 That seen, became a part of sight, 
 And rose, where'er I turned mine eye, 
 The morning star of memory. " 
 
 Perhaps he did so ; but he reaUzed afar deeper 
 meaning. He realized that which consoled him 
 as a CathoHc, whilst it almost broke his heart 
 as a man : he reaHzed the interior loveHness 
 which animated and characterized her visible 
 beauty : he realized the obligation of being 
 worthy to have loved her. 
 
 And so he went through the slow torture of 
 that luncheon-party, sitting, as at the dinner- 
 party, between Miss Hermione Crumps and 
 
 VUL. I. S
 
 258 SHERBOENE; OE, 
 
 Lady Alicia Grubliedge, whilst Miss Arden, 
 exactly opposite, was talking to Count de 
 Bergerac. The presence of the latter seemed 
 unwelcome to his host. He looked past him, 
 towards him, away from him, and was evi- 
 dently thinking about him uncomfortably. It 
 may be remembered that soon after their 
 arrival at Bramscote, Moreton asked who he 
 was, and that Sherborne turned away, saying, 
 "How should I know?" — an answer sugges- 
 tive of ill-humour too sudden to be causeless. 
 A cause there certainly was ; but what was it ? 
 His own obtrusive attentions to the younger 
 sister on the evening of that day seemed to 
 account for his dishke of the stranger, who 
 was a formidable rival, by reason of his religion 
 and the lady's marked preference, not to men- 
 tion that he was twenty years younger than 
 Sherborne ; but why care about him now, 
 when he is devoting himself to the elder 
 sister as attentively as if he had never seen 
 the younger ? And what could that mean, 
 by the bye ? Was Count de Bergerac a mere 
 trumpery flirt ? or, did he make so much of her 
 because she was the sister of the other ? 
 
 These questions might naturally have 
 occurred to Moreton, seeing that, as the phrase 
 goes, he rather went in for observing people 
 and things ; but they did not. He saw Mary
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 259 
 
 Arden, heard her voice, thought of her. Her 
 presence was to him exclusive, so that he 
 spoke at random, and Hstened without attend- 
 ing. 
 
 At length a simultaneous sound of chairs in 
 motion, followed by a rustle of petticoats, and 
 a momentary lull of voices, told that luncheon 
 was over. Several ladies at once came 
 forward, and reminded Sherborne of his 
 promise (which, by the bye, they had extorted 
 from him) to show them all over the house : 
 upon which, inasmuch as he led the way, 
 though under mute protest, there was a 
 general crowding to the front, every one want- 
 ing to see whatever was to be seen, and few 
 caring what it might be. Moreton followed 
 with the rest, and so did Miss Hermione 
 Crumps. 
 
 But she asked him no more questions about 
 the haunted room; and, as much as possible, 
 avoided speaking to him. Her woman's 
 instinct had supplied the place of discern- 
 ment, and given her tact for the occasion. 
 
 How he and others got through the expedi- 
 tion, we shall see in the next few pages. 
 This chapter seems to end naturally with a 
 question, which the intelhgent reader will 
 no doubt have asked ere now, viz. Why did 
 Moreton give up all hopes at once and, so
 
 260 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 to speak, finally ? Cardinal Eichelieu said, 
 ^' There is no such word as ^ fail ' ; " at least, he 
 says so in the play, for I have heard Mac- 
 ready and Charles Kean dehver the sentiment 
 in a thrilling manner ; and if that is not 
 historical, why what becomes of the *' Bene- 
 diction des Poignards," in ^'The Huguenots," 
 which we have all of us seen on the stage as 
 real as life, the chorus dressed as monks and 
 nuns, holding the daggers aloft in time to the 
 music, and bawhng with all their might ? And 
 if the very word " impossible " has no existence 
 (which, as one says it, reminds one of the 
 Irishman who said, "I'm not here at all,") why 
 suppose the reality of the thing itself? But, 
 however this may be, why, at least, did 
 Moreton so far forget the ancient maxim, 
 "Faint heart never won fair lady?" as to 
 assume that his case must of necessity be a 
 hopeless one. There are, at least, three 
 possible solutions. That he had overstrained 
 his sensitiveness till it was out of tune ; that 
 he resisted his own feelings because he knew 
 their force, and dreaded the consequences ol 
 allowing himself to be deluded by false hopes ; 
 that he had some real or fancied means of 
 knowing what the result must be. The two 
 first of these suppositions give us the real clue, 
 to his state of mind ; and, once arrived at that
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 261 
 
 condition, he exaggerated his own fancied 
 unworthiness and the smallness of his fortune, 
 until he became persuaded that Sir Koger 
 must refuse him the hand of his daughter, 
 even if the young lady herself could be in- 
 duced to look favourably on him. But there 
 is another question, which, as it must have 
 occurred to the judicious reader, ought to be 
 stated in connection with the preceding. 
 What chance did Sherborne suppose himself 
 to have, when religion, age, and the young 
 lady's very civilly marked aversion, were 
 patent facts ? His perseverance would have 
 almost made one suppose that he had boundless 
 confidence in the persuasive effect of his own 
 talking powers, for he literally persecuted her 
 and her father with conversational diplomacy, 
 perhaps on the principle that " some Cupid 
 kills with arrows, some with traps." 
 
 There may yet be another question in the 
 reader's mind. How came it that Moreton, 
 who had lived to the age of twenty-seven 
 years without losing his heart, and who 
 appeared to be a very unlikely subject for 
 dramatic sentimentalism — how came it that 
 his affections had got out of hand in so brief 
 a period ? But, perhaps, the puzzle is only 
 apparent. Can an absolutely exclusive at- 
 tachment be formed before its exclusive object
 
 262 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 is seen ? Will a man love the less because 
 lie has not previously made speculative 
 attempts to do so ? Does his heart arrive at 
 the certainty of its own feehngs by a slow 
 process of induction ?
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 263 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 " Ovxt ^eiifd; Thv ijxhv olKeiv Zlkov ovk eda-ofiai" "^ 
 
 Iph. in Aul. 
 
 Those energetic ladies who had insisted on 
 lionizing the house — there were three of them, 
 and Mrs. Linns Jones, the model matron, the 
 irrepressibly popular neighbour, was one — had 
 not proceeded far before they tacitly under- 
 took to lead the vray and pronounce a col- 
 loquial panegyric on its beauties. Sherborne 
 had evidently intended to have got out of this 
 domiciliary visit, for his brow had clouded 
 over, in spite of strenuous efforts to look 
 pleasant before Miss Winifred Arden. He tried 
 hard to persuade his persecutors that they had 
 better get through the other expeditions while 
 it was light, and he told them that there was 
 nothing to be seen in the house worth looking 
 at. But his remonstrances were of no more 
 avail against their cheerful misconstruction 
 than waves against a sea-wall ; and when they
 
 264 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 had thus got the better of him^ they were so 
 exuberantly pleased with the idea of being able 
 to extract, somehow, a few thrilling tales of 
 ghosts, and monks, and murderers, and love- 
 sick heirs, and damsels working tapestry, to the 
 end that good and evil, God and mammon, the 
 antiquity and poetry of Catholicism, and the 
 vested interests of the Establishment, should 
 blend into a pleasantly mystifying unity, that 
 their excitement soon began to steam itself 
 off in vague loquacity and legendary general- 
 ities. 
 
 In wishing to see the house they had ex- 
 hibited good taste, whether they possessed 
 any or not. Hazeley would have repaid the 
 notice of any one, with the exception of those 
 who believe in decorators and makers oi 
 shining steel fenders, for it had the ines- 
 timable advantage of having been left alone 
 during the worst period of taste. The dreadful 
 Boldoni, who went about sticking up square 
 masses of red brick on flights of stone steps, 
 had not had the chance of pulling it down ; 
 it was uncared for in the days of stucco, and 
 escaped somehow the perils of experimental 
 Gothic ; so that it was genuine, and, like all 
 houses similarly circumstanced, had a charac- 
 ter of its own. There were bits, here and 
 there, of the old wall, that might have been
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 265 
 
 in existence before the wars of the Eoses had 
 enabled a race of toadying courtiers to succeed 
 the barons of England, and cringe and steal in 
 the name of the Gospel ; there were bits even 
 traceable, perhaps, to the fourteenth century. 
 But the period that characterized the house as 
 a whole was the latter end of the fifteenth. 
 Long, low, and regularly un symmetrical, with 
 gables of varied size and form blending into 
 perfect harmony of design, it had evidently 
 been rebuilt in the reign of Henry YII., evi- 
 dently had not been touched since, except for 
 necessary repairs. The diamond-shaped lat- 
 tice windows, too, through which light entered 
 softly, and softly shadowed the deep recesses 
 made by the inside wall, told the same •tale ; 
 so did the massive oak beams, and the small 
 carved panels, and the deep chimney in the 
 hall, and the heart-of-oak rafters in the roof, 
 and the low ceilings that could not have been 
 six inches higher without perceptible injury to 
 proportion. 
 
 The furniture was of a mixed kind — that is 
 to say, some of it, including two or three bits 
 of tapestry, was of the same date as the 
 rebuilding of the house, and the rest had 
 been added as required — some in the reign of 
 Charles II. or James 11. , and some as late as 
 the first and second Georges. There was
 
 266 SHEEBORNE; OR, 
 
 nothing newer except a few small tables and 
 thick silk window curtains and hangings, 
 which appeared to have been made about 
 eighty years ago, and some of the furniture in 
 the bedrooms. 
 
 The mixture of styles, incongruous in prin- 
 ciple, was scarcely so in practice, possibly 
 owing to its having arisen from the necessities 
 of wear and tear; for necessity, being above 
 the law, may be supposed to do no wrong, and 
 therefore, not to offend against the laws of 
 taste ; possibly, also, because time, by mellow- 
 ing even the latest of those fashions, had 
 brought them into a kind of negative harmony. 
 Altogether the house and its contents bore the 
 stamp, not only of age, but of that which age 
 alone can give, yet gives not always in the 
 same degree — the silent accumulation of un- 
 written and, perhaps, unremembered histories, 
 histories often of trials and sufferings wilfully 
 incurred or wilfully caused, histories in which 
 sin and sorrow are the text, and happiness the 
 occasional notes. 
 
 By this time they were in the gallery, a 
 long large room upstairs, running about ninety 
 feet along the southern front of the house, 
 looking down upon the terraced garden, and 
 far away over the distant undulating glades 
 of the park. It was filled with rare old
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 267 
 
 cabinets, china, and family portraits, and had 
 a beautifully designed, rather than orna- 
 mented ceihng, with oak carvings, from which 
 at intervals hung pendant bosses, with shields 
 and other armorial devices, the colouring of 
 which time had softened, but not impoverished. 
 It so hap23ened that the dates and the qualit}' 
 of the pictures curiously corresponded with 
 the family history as affected by the pecuniary 
 action of the penal laws. There were some 
 very fine portraits of the Holbein period, 
 several original Holbeins, a cavalier by some 
 inferior painter, a lady tolerably painted in 
 the style of Lely — but certainly not by Lely 
 himself, and a lady and gentleman of the 
 time of George II., very badly painted* In 
 other words, the Catholic owners of Hazeley 
 after the Eeformation could, as a rule, afford 
 neither the expense of having a portrait 
 painted, nor the risk of introducing a stranger 
 into the house for that purpose, except when 
 there was an interval of comparative security, 
 and they could find some one who would paint 
 very cheaply. But, from the time when the 
 estate fell into Protestant hands, in the 
 manner described by the old lady in the 
 desolate house at the Four Ways, the vacant 
 spaces were filled with portraits of portly 
 people by Eeynolds, Gainsborough, Eomney,
 
 268 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 Lawrence, and others only second to these 
 in their day ; nor did the Hst end hut with 
 a full-length portrait of the present owner, 
 and one of Sir Hugh de Sherhorne, the 
 Crusader. It is needless to add that this 
 last was a fancy portrait, painted ahout the 
 middle of the nineteenth century for the 
 present owner's mother, who, he it observed, 
 had taken to the Puseyite persuasion in her 
 latter years ; which leads me to notice, paren- 
 thetically, the fact that a certain vague hero- 
 worship of the middle ages is often to be 
 found co-existent with a total misapprehension 
 of what they were, and a chronic state of 
 irritability regarding the Faith which made 
 them so — nay, even co-existent with the open 
 profession of modern liberalism. People who 
 applaud Bismarck, and would shake hands with 
 Garibaldi, expand with seK-conscious satisfac- 
 tion at the thought of some remote ancestor, 
 who, if he had come across such men would 
 have cloven their skulls with his battle-axe. 
 
 ^^ Oh, what a love of a Crusader ! " said 
 Miss Hermione, who would have been just as 
 ecstatic if it had been a picture of Mazzini. 
 
 Several other people spoke to the same 
 effect, though in terms more prosaic. Sher- 
 borne looked really pleased, for he valued his 
 ancestry to the verge of excess. It was his
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 269 
 
 weak point, and, at the same time, one of his 
 best. 
 
 ** Where is the haunted room ? " said Miss 
 Hermione to Sherborne. 
 
 *' You must ask some one who is better 
 informed on those matters than myself," he 
 replied. ^' I never heard of one." 
 
 The question evidently annoyed him, and 
 though he tried hard to make the best of it, 
 its effect on his countenance was not what 
 he would have desired under the circum- 
 stances ; yet he might have saved himsell 
 both the trouble and the annoyance : the lady 
 on whose account he felt the one and took the 
 other did not even perceive either. She was 
 dimly aware of being besieged, and wished 
 that some one would raise the siege ; but her 
 mind was quite void of any defined impres- 
 sions about him. Miss Crumps perceived that 
 it was useless to seek information from Sher- 
 borne ; but she had begun to energise again 
 in the matter of the marvellous in general, and 
 was not going to be discouraged easily. She 
 turned to Moreton, forgetting that she had 
 recently seen cause not to do so, and said — 
 
 *^ Isn't there an old woman near here who 
 knows all about it ? " 
 
 Moreton was too miserable to be taken 
 aback. He replied without hesitation —
 
 270 SHEKBORNE; OR, 
 
 '' There may be. Does she ride on a broom- 
 stick ? " 
 
 But a woman is not to be put off so. She 
 answered at once, ^' I am sure now that you 
 know, by your answering in that way." 
 
 ^^ As a boy I knew this country very well," 
 said he; "but I have never been in it since 
 my father died till last week. I never heard 
 then that any old woman knew anything 
 about a ghost here or elsewhere ; and how 
 could I possibly have heard of it now, when 
 no one but yourself has spoken to me on the 
 subject?" 
 
 " I don't know about its being possible," 
 said she ; " but are you sure that you have not 
 heard anything of the kind — anything strange 
 and mysterious about this place ? " 
 
 " I have from you," said he, hoping that 
 some one would interrupt them. 
 
 "No; I mean from some one else," she 
 replied, making herseK appear to know all 
 about it. 
 
 " How could I ? " said he, trying to look as 
 if he had nothing to conceal. 
 
 "By hearing it from the old woman," said 
 she. 
 
 Moreton started, or thought he did so. " Is 
 that a random shot," said he to himself, " or 
 an effort to verify a suspicion, or an attempt
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 271 
 
 at extorting from me by surprise an admission 
 of what she knows ? But how can she know ? 
 There was no one with me but Don PascoHni, 
 and no one to be seen either when we went in 
 or came out. Can the strange old lady who 
 told us the story be a monomaniac, and make 
 confidantes of other people besides Don Pas- 
 colini and myself. It really looks like that." 
 
 ^^ Well, then, you did hear it from the old 
 woman?" said the pertinacious Miss Her- 
 mione. 
 
 *' How am I to free myself from the ques- 
 tionings of this dreadful woman?" thought 
 he. " Suppose she really has heard some- 
 thing about it ? Some fellow round the corner 
 may have seen us come away from the hpuse, 
 and picked up or guessed something more. 
 Will nobody interrupt us ? " 
 
 Mr. Linus Jones did so, by calling his sister- 
 in-law's attention to the carving of a chimney- 
 piece. 
 
 Moreton had been grateful to him that 
 morning for an inadvertent but well-timed 
 interruption : he was immeasurably more 
 grateful now. 
 
 He slipped away under cover of two or 
 three fat people, and, falling back among some 
 strangers, he remembered no more about the 
 interrupted cross-questioning and the subject
 
 272 SHEEBORNE; OR, 
 
 of it — SO suddenly did his own great sorrow 
 rush again into his mind like a flood that 
 has been dammed up ; for a great sorrow it 
 was — perhaps the greatest sorrow simply that 
 could have fallen to his lot. 
 
 Any one who has ever had chloroform ap- 
 plied to his temples, when suffering from 
 violent neuralgia, will not forget how it 
 burned him, and how the neuralgia went on 
 all the same, so that he felt two distinct sorts 
 of pain at the same time, the one attracting 
 most attention, the other taking the most out of 
 him. Now this was just what Moreton began 
 to experience as he walked through the crowd, 
 shrinking from every one, avoiding notice, 
 noticing no one except Miss Arden, and en- 
 deavouring to wish himself far away. The 
 house and its history distracted his mind : it 
 could not relieve his heart. 
 
 Presently they came to a small passage 
 with a door at the end. Miss Hermione 
 Crumps muttered, "Law! I shouldn't won- 
 der if that were the haunted room," and led 
 the way, followed by three or four large ladies. 
 Moreton followed, saying to himself, " I 
 shouldn't wonder if the little room beyond, 
 that I remember formerly, should turn out to 
 be the Httle room where Mrs. Atherstone says 
 that she saw the secret place in the panel."
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 273 
 
 '* I am sure it's the haunted room," said 
 the irrepressible Hermione, who had found 
 her way in. ^^ It looks just like one — it does, 
 I declare. And look there at the great 
 window-seat. That could never have been 
 made for any good. I dare say there's a 
 skeleton inside, if the truth were known." 
 
 '' I should be sorry to interrupt your con- 
 versation," said Sherborne, with a slightly 
 sarcastic emphasis on the words ; "■ but if you 
 wish to see the steam-saw, and the Eoman 
 encampment, and all the things that I was 
 told to show, there is no time to lose." 
 
 The ladies went hastily in quest of new 
 sights. Moreton remained for a while in the 
 little room where old Mrs. Sherborne had -told 
 her pitiful tale of weak wickedness, and sorrow 
 miserably merited. That pitiful tale seemed 
 almost real to him, as he lingered behind and 
 looked at the old press described by Mrs. 
 Atherstone, and the unaltered panels on the 
 wall. 
 
 " It must be true," he thought, felt, or sug- 
 gested to himself, and could not tell which. 
 *' It must be true ; for certainly she was sane, 
 and I suppose no sane person would have told 
 the story in the way she told it, if it were 
 not true." 
 
 The sound of voices died away, but he 
 
 VOf/. I. T
 
 274 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 lingered still, asking himself at intervals how 
 his interest in the vicissitudes of that house, 
 with which he had no concern, as far as he 
 knew, could be kept up at all while Miss 
 Arden was under the same roof. 
 
 ''After all," thoughthe, ''the whole storymay 
 
 be the fiction of a diseased fancy. Imagine a 
 
 person living fifty-five years in that plastered 
 
 house at the junction of four roads, with a 
 
 fixed idea and a maid- of- all- work ! How one 
 
 would invent and muse on one's inventions 
 
 till one behoved them to be true ! But, really, 
 
 knowing George Sherborne well, too, I feel as 
 
 if the old lady's confidences had made me a 
 
 sort of conspirator nolens volens. It is a good 
 
 thing that I am going away to-morrow ; I 
 
 shall have no more of her and her cock-and-a- 
 
 buU stories. Is she mad, I wonder ? It 
 
 would seem so, by her supposing that there is 
 
 any chance of George Sherborne's giving up 
 
 an inherited property because an eccentric old 
 
 lady swears that his great-great- aunt wished it 
 
 to go in another line, though she left neither 
 
 will, nor codicil, nor any sort of document to 
 
 that efi"ect. He would be a fool if he did, and 
 
 I should be something worse if I troubled my 
 
 head any more about it. I wonder what Don 
 
 Pascolini thinks. I don't remember that he 
 
 said anything to indicate what he thought.
 
 THE HOUSI: AT THE FOUR WAYS. 2'i5 
 
 He appeared to feel more interested in lier 
 mind than in her stoiy. I will ask him — but 
 he is not here, and he leaves Bramscote to- 
 morrow. Oh, what does it all signify to me I 
 Of what consequence is anything on earth to 
 me now!" And to prove that nothing on 
 earth was of any consequence to him, he 
 turned pale suddenly as the words came into 
 his mind. Then he hurried away, guided by 
 the distant sound of many voices, but turned 
 yet paler when he saw Miss Arden talking to 
 the Zouave, who was devoting hknself to her 
 with a quiet earnestness, highly symbolical of 
 some special right to do so. Moreton at first 
 stood motionless, his heart resenting the con- 
 clusions of his will, so that humanity struggled 
 much within him, and asserted itself in pro- 
 tests that quickened his pulses, and made the 
 blood rush up to the roots of his hair, all his 
 resolutions notwithstanding ; then he turned 
 aside and became talkative among a small 
 crowd of people waiting in the hall for their 
 carriages, and finally, after looking at his 
 watch, but not at the hands of it, went off as 
 if in search of somebody's carriage. He left 
 the house at a rapid pace, in the direction of 
 Bramscote, while most of Sherborne's guests 
 were going to see a model cottage, a view of 
 the next county from a hill-side, a Koman
 
 276 SHEKBORNE; OR, 
 
 encampment, and a steam-saw. How much 
 amusement and instruction they derived from 
 those sights has not been ascertained; but, 
 when they had all gone back to their own 
 homes, their host uttered an invocation, more 
 forcible than parhamentary, in connection 
 with the names of the three stout ladies who 
 had insisted on the domiciliary inspection. 
 
 '' And bothering about it just as if it were 
 the Castle of Otranto," he said, lighting a 
 pipe overmuch, till the tobacco fiercely up- 
 heaved and emitted a shower of sparks. 
 
 That evening there was to be a ball at 
 Bramscote, " a sound of revelry by night," 
 and the next morning a general departure of 
 guests, not for a field of battle, but to the 
 railway station. The two events affected 
 Sherborne and Moreton differently. Sher- 
 borne said to himself wdth emphasis, though 
 not aloud, " The sooner they go the better, 
 if it includes — the Zouave." 
 
 And Moreton, standing still for a moment, 
 as he turned out of sight, said aloud, "The 
 sooner the better, because it forces me away 
 fi'om where I " 
 
 Of these broken sentences the one was, 
 and the other had better have been, un- 
 finished.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUK WAYS. 277 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 "But, oh, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness 
 through another man's eyes ! — As You Like It. 
 
 Few passages, even of Shakespeare's, touch 
 a more responsive chord in the human heart 
 than this. Moreton, whose heart was as sad 
 and desolate as it could well be without re- 
 proach of conscience, felt the truth of it 
 intensely. Earthly happiness, in the truest, 
 purest sense of that term so often misused, 
 happiness that includes, induces, or suggests, 
 the highest duties of people living in the 
 world, he saw through another man's eyes ; 
 and he felt that it was a bitter thing indeed. 
 True, the imagined eyes through which he 
 saw this had no corresponding reality ; but 
 some time elapsed before he found out that the 
 Zouave's attention to Miss Arden at Hazeley 
 was on account of her sister, and when he 
 did, his first impression may be rendered in 
 these words : —
 
 278 SHEKBOEIsE; OE, 
 
 "Does a certainty become an uncertainty 
 by a removal of its fulfilment a little farther 
 off?" 
 
 Pleasantly to all but to Mm the dinner 
 passed oif — so runs the common phrase, as if 
 the pleasantest moment of a pleasant time 
 were its termination. Pleasantly to all but 
 him did the intermediate time pass, the time 
 of preparation and expectancy, when every one 
 looks and feels pleased, because pleasures in 
 prospect are rich in promise, and not within 
 reach of disappointment. Pleasantly to all 
 but him the hours went by after the ball had 
 begun, till the rooms were deserted, and the 
 sound of the last carriage wheels had died 
 away along the avenue. 
 
 Strictly speaking, perhaps, we ought to 
 except Sherborne also, inasmuch as, in his 
 rivalry with the Zouave, he was nowhere ; but, 
 in fact, the force of a fixed idea had so 
 fascinated his fancy, that it usurped the duties 
 of common sense, and enabled him to main- 
 tain, by the support of artificial self-assertion, 
 a negative confidence as long as the lights 
 and the music lasted. How he felt when he 
 was driving home, at three o'clock in the 
 morning, through a frosty fog, is another 
 affair. 
 
 The ball was what might correctly be called
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 279 
 
 a very pretty one : everything you saw was 
 fresh and moderately pictorial. The walls 
 had lately been repainted; the curtains were 
 sufficiently new to be fresh without being 
 highly coloured. The mild brilHancy of many 
 wax candles made each object stand out like 
 a stereoscopic picture, well defined, yet soft 
 at the edges. The young ladies, too, were 
 pretty in more instances than a few, and their 
 collective effect was really charming in its 
 own measure and degree, though somewhat 
 vague, perhaps. It left a general impres- 
 sion of camellias, and jessamine scent, and 
 golden masses of hair, and dresses of many 
 soft hues, and blooming vitality radiant with 
 smiles. 
 
 There were about 8. hundred and fifty people 
 present, the majority of whom lived in the 
 county, and came, some from their more or 
 less distant homes, others from different 
 houses in the neighbourhood. All the people 
 whom Moreton had met on the day of his 
 arrival were there. Some of them were very 
 much there, if their own consciousness of 
 their presence be taken in evidence of the 
 fact. Sir Bertram Fyfield played the part 
 of himself with great fidelity, to the edifica- 
 tion of the emptier-headed sort, amongst 
 whom Sir Eoger's second son was ao^ain
 
 280 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 more conspicnous than lie could have con- 
 trived to be under any other category. Cray- 
 ston had it all his own way this time, for 
 Sherborne was too much pre- occupied to 
 interfere with him; so he and two or three 
 others talked their sparkling trash, in the 
 interests of social rottenness, whenever they 
 had a chance of doing so. But we have had 
 enough of him; and the use of such people 
 in description is like the employment of the 
 hangman in real life, a necessity not to ,be 
 admitted too often. 
 
 There was Mr. Linus Jones, rather over- 
 shadowed by the ponderous virtues of his 
 wife, yet holding on with befitting dignity to 
 a character of his own, and not at all a bad 
 one either. There was Miss Hermione 
 Crumps, from whom, when he saw her. More- 
 ton turned and fled, for he feared her cross- 
 questionings. There was Dr. Shale, who knew 
 all about the pre- Adamite man ; and there was 
 his wife, who meditated mildly on his erudition. 
 There was Mr. Glenfillan Bruff, the optimistic 
 man who enjoyed so comfortably a comfortable 
 estate, and a comfortable family living in a 
 comfortable house, and who had such a com- 
 fortable confidence in the natural disposition 
 of things to right themselves. He was half- 
 bred, and he showed that he was by the pre-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 281 
 
 ponderance of polish over habit. His respect 
 for what he called " family " was great, but he 
 looked on the traditional obligations of the 
 same (which, by the bye, he got in a mutilated 
 condition, owing to the manner of its trans- 
 mission) as adapted for mottoes and rhetorical 
 figures of after-dinner speech, rather than for 
 practical use in everyday life. This sprightly 
 little man, appreciating, after his fashion, the 
 enjoyable advantages of the time being, agreed 
 with everybody, as far as he could do so, with- 
 out committing himself to any fixed opinion. 
 He sympathised with Sir Thomas Grubhedge 
 against the payment of Cathohc chaplains in 
 workhouses and gaols, and he assured Sir Koger 
 Arden that he lamented the extravagances of 
 The Bock newspaper; but no one could 
 say that he had committed himself to a 
 decided opinion on the principles involved in 
 either case. 
 
 Then there were those Catholics whose 
 absurdities had excited Sherborne's virtuous 
 indignation when he had nothing else to dis- 
 charge his pent-up annoyance at, respecting 
 whom we might say, ^'Non ragioniam di lor^'' 
 etc. But as we have had that quotation be- 
 fore, we will merely take the advice of the 
 "■ dolce pedagogo,'' and pass on. 
 
 We stop awhile in the doorway — the natural
 
 282 SHERBORNE; OR, 
 
 position of those who neither dance nor talk, 
 and we watch the pretty scene — for a pretty 
 scene it is, whatever the school of Democritus 
 Junior, Cui vitam dedit et m-ortem ^nelan- 
 cholia, may say to the contrary. 
 
 To say that the round dances and free-and- 
 easy customs of modern ball-rooms are favour- 
 able to manners and modesty on the whole, 
 and do not tend to wear away that chivalrous 
 reverence for women, which, if a young man 
 has not, he begins life with mind and heart 
 diseased, would be to make an assertion more 
 conspicuous for its boldness than for its con- 
 formity with experience ; but there is no 
 denying that the fresh bloom of girlhood, seen 
 with its effect heightened, not altered, by 
 attractively picturesque dresses and a clear 
 mass of soft light, is a very pretty thing to 
 look at. 
 
 And no doubt every man did, according to 
 his measure, perceive that it was so, whether 
 distinctly aware of his own impression or not ; 
 every one, that is to say, except Moreton, to 
 whom the whole scene appeared, not indeed 
 distorted, nor discoloured, but apart from him, 
 separated by his own removal from the orbit 
 of that httle world. To him it truly was as if 
 it were not. 
 
 Two practical difficulties arose without delay.
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 283 
 
 How could he not dance with the nbiquitoiis 
 and ever energizing Miss Hermoine without 
 seeming rude, or dance with her without 
 stumbhng over some of the unlucky ques- 
 tions that she was sure to ask persistently? 
 And how could he not ask Miss Arden 
 to dance, or, if he danced with her, keep 
 silent ? 
 
 With both these difficulties — difficulty is no 
 word for the last, he dealt in a practical 
 manner, as might be expected (though, per- 
 haps, it would not) from the state of his mind 
 at the time ; for really deep feeling is practical, 
 and makes the mind so. To escape from Miss 
 Hermione's questionings without seeming rude 
 there was no way but the pardonable, though 
 not quite original fraud, of coming conspicu- 
 ously towards her, and carefully getting him- 
 seK into a dead block between two resolute 
 dowagers, i servant carrying a tray to the 
 musicians, and a tall, bearded curate talking to 
 a stout young lady of aspect fierce ; which is 
 just what he did two or three times, with 
 variations of detail, according to circum- 
 stances. And he did it gravely, almost stolidly, 
 from blind instinct, not even seeing the 
 grim absurdity of the thing. This went on 
 for nearly an hour, when, finding himself near 
 Miss Arden, he obeyed an impulse that would
 
 284 SHEEBOKNE; OE, 
 
 not be struggled with, and asked her to dance. 
 It happened that she was disengaged, and 
 when the next quadrille had begun, he was 
 neither able nor willing to escape from a posi- 
 tion in which pleasure and pain could be 
 recognized, but not distinguished. 
 
 At first he could say nothing, think of 
 nothing, but trembled inwardly, and laboured 
 without intention to regain the power of 
 utterance. Shakespeare's words, ^' cold ob- 
 struction," can alone express the state in 
 which he was, and in which he then believed 
 himseK to have remained very long, though 
 it really lasted an unappreciable time, so 
 intense was the effort he made to force himself 
 out of it. What he said, when he did speak, 
 (whether accidentally, or through unconscious 
 cerebation, who shall say ?) was just what he 
 would have been likely to feel under the 
 circumstances. He said — 
 
 ^^How the people crowded in one spot at 
 Hazeley after luncheon ! and not for a short 
 time, but all the time, so that I — one — nobody 
 could get to — anywhere." 
 
 Now, if that meant anything, and had to 
 be translated into its only possible meaning, it 
 would stand thus : — 
 
 ''I care for no other woman in the world, 
 and I feel that I have no chance ; there-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 285 
 
 fore I wish you to believe that I intend to 
 seem as if I didn't care ; and, at the same 
 time, I don't wish you to beheve that I don't 
 care." 
 
 And, if any man, being exactly in Moreton's 
 position could act otherwise at such a moment, 
 he must be very, very — something or other. 
 He must possess the seK-control of a saint or 
 have no feeling at all. But then in the one 
 case he could not, and in the other he would 
 not, have been exactly in that position. 
 
 Miss Arden looked up with that charmingly 
 natural expression of interest which is so 
 delightful to every one except to the man who 
 would like to monopolize it, and dreads the 
 answer he expects it to give. It was the same 
 expression which, till within the last four and 
 twenty hours, had appeared to him so simply 
 charming that he could not have realized the 
 possibility of any accidental change in his 
 admiration of it ; and now, when her beautiful 
 eyes were raised as before, their pare light, 
 colouring what it rested on, as the rays of the 
 harvest moon colour the landscape where it 
 shines, he looked nervously down and about, 
 dimly seeing through his eyelashes the handle 
 of her fan, and the glove of the hand that held 
 it. But she was speaking, answering him ; 
 and he must again say something, without
 
 286 SHERBOENE ; OR, 
 
 being better' prepared to say what be meant, 
 or clearly knowing what he meant, than 
 before. She said — 
 
 ^^ Yes, I saw you in the distance just before 
 we came to the portrait-gallery. But you went 
 away so early." 
 
 Moreton was now^ at his wits' end, and 
 nearly at the end of his self-control. " I saw 
 you in the distance," and " you went away so 
 early," rang in his ears, and his heart vibrated 
 as he recalled the tones of her voice imme- 
 diately after she had spoken. He idealized 
 those tones after the model of ii'repressible 
 wishes. 
 
 " God help me ! " he said within himself, 
 and the exclamation seemed audible to him, 
 so that he held his breath involuntarily, as if 
 he might be overheard. 
 
 " I went away, because — I couldn't stay," 
 he said. 
 
 And then, because her beautiful eyes 
 looked, or appeared to look, puzzled as to 
 the meaning of what he had said, he re- 
 peated the words more nervously than before, 
 adding — 
 
 '^And I couldn't stay because I was — j 
 tdiought — indeed, I felt it was impossible — as 
 it was — I could not — ought not " 
 
 Mary Arden turned her head almost imper-
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 287 
 
 ceptibly away, and her long eyelashes fell 
 over the eyes that just before had looked up 
 with childlike confidence. Those four broken 
 sentences, and the sudden loss of power to 
 control his own words, or hide the expres- 
 sion of voice, look, and manner, told a tale 
 whose meaning no woman could fail to under- 
 stand. 
 
 Whilst he was reproaching himself for what 
 he had said, yet trying in vain to see how he 
 could have resisted the impulse to say it, there 
 was a slight change of colour in her cheeks, 
 a pale pink hue, too gradual for a blush, and 
 then a settled paleness that might have been 
 caused by fatigue, or even by the colour of 
 the light where she stood ; for the window 
 curtains behind her were green, and the light 
 was rather strong. 
 
 The dance ended either just then or soon 
 after ; but he could neither measure that time 
 nor remember how it passed — so protracted 
 did it seem while it lasted, so short when it 
 had gone by. He spoke no more, made no 
 effort to speak, yet was unable to tear himself 
 from the spot. She, too, remained silent now, 
 and by degrees moved — whether instinctively 
 or in consequence of pressure from the crowd 
 which was beginning to expand after the dance, 
 who can tell ? Such an instinct in such a
 
 288 SHERBOKNE; OR, 
 
 girl is like the rose-tint of the early dawn on a 
 summer's morning : you can appreciate its 
 pure and inimitable beauty, but you can 
 neither see the hght itself, nor trace the out- 
 hne of its reflection. 
 
 Some one came up, and finding her ap- 
 parently disengaged, began talking to her. 
 Moreton drew back with a sudden effort, hesi- 
 tated for a moment, and fixing his eyes in a 
 resolute, almost dogged manner on the ground, 
 left the ball-room. 
 
 " What have I said ? " were the first words 
 that took shape in his mind. " What have 
 I said ? and what did I mean by it ? and 
 what did she understand it to mean ? Why 
 did I not plead some sudden business or for- 
 gotten engagement, or go off without giving 
 any reason — do anything, rather than place 
 myseK in such a position as I let myself drift 
 into?" 
 
 He passed through the room, rapidly making 
 his way among the crowd without seeing it ; 
 and the crowd, which, hke others of its kind, 
 looked so much and observed so httle, made 
 its way, if not without seeing, at least without 
 particularly noticing him. 
 
 There was one person who took notice, but 
 he was not in the crowd at that moment : it 
 was Sherborne. He was standing behind the
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 289 
 
 door of a smaller drawing-room, where people 
 were sitting down in twos and threes, oftener 
 in twos, within the shadow of the ball-room. 
 Another door opened into a conservatory, 
 which opened on the terrace ; and Moreton, 
 desiring nothing distinctly, except to go any- 
 where out of the way, was hurrying as quickly 
 as he could in that direction, when a sudden 
 crowding in a narrow space, among the 
 ottomans and sofas, brought him close to the 
 spot where Sherborne was. A voice that cer- 
 tainly was Sherborne's, but a very unpleasant 
 specimen of it, addressed itself to him slowly 
 and with much ostensible dehberation, first in 
 a short artificial laugh, and then in these 
 words : — 
 
 '^ So you're off, as the man said to his head 
 when he couldn't tell his own name." 
 
 Moreton, pre-occupied as he was, and quite 
 inattentive to everything except his own pre- 
 sent position, started at the sound; but he 
 answered without hesitation, " Yes, to-mor- 
 row," and edging his way through the group 
 of people that stood between him and the 
 conservatory, walked on. 
 
 Between the small drawing-room and the 
 conservatory there was a sort of ante-room, 
 half sitting-room, half greenhouse, separated 
 from the former by glass only, from the latter 
 
 YOL. I. U
 
 290 SHEEBOENE; OE, 
 
 by the wall of the house. It had two sofas 
 covered with blue and white chintz, a non- 
 descript vase or two, some Indian matting, 
 and two heavy folding doors. As he went 
 through this httle room, which was now 
 brilliantly lighted, he saw the Zouave talk- 
 ing very earnestly to the youngest Miss 
 Arden — and so did Sherborne from the other 
 door. 
 
 Passing through the conservatory and out 
 upon the terrace, he gave one look at the 
 lighted rooms, and turning away from the 
 house, walked on slowly, in a dkection 
 which he took mthout choice or inten- 
 tion. 
 
 *^ Shall I go off at once," he thought — ^^now, 
 and not return to fetch my hat — and write 
 some excuse, running the risk of whether they 
 think me mad or anything else that I may 
 seem?" 
 
 But he made no answer to his own question, 
 though he asked it repeatedly in different 
 forms of words, and put it to his will without 
 words. 
 
 If Horace's opinion be' true, as no doubt it 
 is generally, that crossing the sea does not 
 enable us to leave oui' sorrows behind, the 
 inference is, that a lonely stroll by very fitful 
 moonhght could hardly be expected to have
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUR WAYS. 291 
 
 a comforting inflnence over a man situated as 
 Moreton was ; and, in fact, the farther he 
 went, the more miserable he felt. The heavy 
 mist, the dead stillness, ■ and the sharp chill 
 of the dew on the grass, emphasized and 
 elaborated the impressions of the ball-room, 
 epitomizing from time to time the whole 
 subject in a series of propositions so rapidly 
 that they were hardly distinguishable. For 
 instance : — 
 
 '' I had no right to say what I said to her, 
 unless I had been justified in saying more. 
 I shouldn't have been justified, because I felt 
 that — what did I feel about it ? that she would 
 or would not ? I can't tell. I feel that I wish 
 she would, and that I fear she would .not; 
 for whether she would and he father would 
 not, or whether both she and her father 
 would not — God help me! If I were not a 
 Catholic, and have consolations which un- 
 aided humanity dreams not of, I should go 
 mad." 
 
 Then, after a while, he made a great effort 
 to think, if not to feel, more calmly ; and he 
 thought in this manner : — 
 
 ^' Why am I so sm-e that it is impossible 
 — if she would? I don't think her father 
 is worldly, and I have now about a thousand 
 Si year — which is sui'ely enough to live upon,
 
 292 SHERBOENE; OE, 
 
 and I am quite as well born as they are, 
 if that is of any use in these days. I am 
 wrong, as well as a fool, to give it np till I 
 have given myseK the opportunity of being 
 refused." 
 
 The idea of being supposed, even by himself 
 hypothetic ally, to have shrunk from the risk 
 of refusal, with a bare possibility of being 
 accepted, made him turn round, look back 
 towards the Hghted mndows, and form a 
 sudden resolution to risk the refusal. 
 
 ^' If I fail," he said, ^^ as of course I shall, 
 this world can take nothing more from me ; 
 and, whatever humihation the world may attri- 
 bute to such a refusal, I offer it as my homage 
 to her whom I have very unworthily loved. 
 He shall have the opportunity of snubbing me, 
 and of laughing at me civilly to himself for 
 having exposed myself to the snub without 
 any encouragement from her, or reason to 
 expect any ; and any one that likes may have 
 the gratification of laughing at me. I will 
 speak to him to-morrow morning, come what 
 will. But I know too well what will come 
 of it." He turned away from the sight of the 
 lighted windows, and walked on, thinking 
 aloud : — 
 
 " Yes, I know too well what will come of
 
 THE HOUSE AT THE FOUE WAYS. 293 
 
 it. But I will speak [to her father to-morrow 
 morning, nevertheless ; for what sort of love 
 is it that would allow pride, in any shape 
 whatsoever, to come between itself and its 
 object." 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Caxton Printing Works, Beccles.