OF THE U N IVE.R5ITY Of ILLINOIS v.i UNWERSin OF ILUNOIS « "«B"*'^ ^^^e for «s Renew ""''"^.^ *Su/caW.o9^^ MAY 2, y i.ou/ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/jessiesexpiation01aust JESSIE'S EXPIATION. |l "^obtL BY OSWALD BOYLE. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1867. \jrhe rights of Translation and Reproduction reserved.'] ^Z5 669^^ CONTENTS THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAP. PA6B I. THE COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME ... 1 II. SO FAR, SUCCESSFUL in. JESSIE SHOREHAM . 37 66 ^ IV. A maiden's resolve 89 V. A MAN S RESOLVE 103 VL A CHANGE OF JOURNEY 130 Vn. "MY COUSIN" 141 ^ VIII. BEAUTY BLESSINGTON 167 '4^^ IX. UNDERHILL, MORRIS, AND UNDERHILL . . . 191 '*S X. THE REAL STATE OF AFFAIRS 223 ^ XI. PERCY CARRYNGTON THINKS THINGS OVER . 250 ' XII. "ladygodiva" 264 XIIL DEFYING THE ENEMY 290 ^ JESSIE'S EXPIATION. CHAPTER I. THE COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. Fleetwood Manse lies on the borders of two southernly counties, and enjoys the con- trasted beauties of each. To the north-east are undulating lands that in autumn wave with yellow corn. To the south-west are wide stretches of glorious woodland. The Manse itself can boast but a vast home park, holding its own in seclusion between these contending glories of English scenery, and the rambling pile which bears the name of the family to which it has immemorially belonged. But at the hour at which this story opens, neither woodland nor cornfield, nor man- sion, could be descried one from the other. VOL. I. 1 y Jessie's expiation. September nights are, ordinarily, clear, even when they are not bright. This one, how- ever, lacked not only the harvest-moon, but was entirely without stars, and matched in utter darkness the mirkiest night of mid- most winter. Rain had been falling all the afternoon and evening, and had ceased after twilight only to be succeeded by dense im- moveable clouds. Anybody who listened might still have heard the raindrops occa- sionally dripping from the roof or from the trees ; but the acutest ear could have caught no other sound. Nevertheless, the three or four gentlemen whom Chichester Fleetwood had assembled under his roof for the purpose of enjoying with them the destructive sports of the season, had retired to rest with the unani- mous avowal that, despite the rain, they had had a capital day's shooting. A hundred and five brace had fallen to six guns, and in sufficiently equal bags to send each man to bed contented without being vainglorious. COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. ^ It was getting on fast to an hour and a half after midnight, gand one would have supposed that, after the arduous pleasures of the day, the host and his guests would all be deeply sunk in slumber. Young ladies occasionally have a weakness for sitting up of nights when they get to their chamber, and wasting the precious hours intended for repose upon an analysis of their feelings, and setting down the result in scented diaries. Even young men who are not yet quite out of their teens, or who carry into their twenties what they ought to have left behind, will now and then burn after-midnight candles in order to satisfy themselves — previously to satisfying the world — that they are geniuses. But it is surely rare for a man nearer to forty than to thirty, to be found wide awake and occu- pied with pen and ink at a time and in a place where sleep offers sovereign attrac- tions. Yet so it was to-night. Chichester Fleetwood and all of his guests save one were dreaming of stubble-fields and well- 1—2 4 JESSIE S EXPIATION. packed coveys. One, however, and lie the least romantic of them all, was bending over ink and blotting-paper. Perhaps he was a politician, and was pre- paring a speech for a great meeting at the neighbouring Mechanics' Institute ? Not in the least. Were he but such, I fear we should not find him particularly interesting, and should certainly fail to make him so to those who are now asked to begin to pursue his fortunes. The best way to find out what he is really doing will be to look coolly over his shoulder and see what he is writing. He has only just commenced a letter. How slowly he seems to get on with it ! Surely he is writing a counterfeit hand ! Watch him. Unquestionably he is. That will account in part for the slowness with which the letter proceeds. But perhaps the lan- guage is counterfeit too ? In that case, he will be doubly slow. Let us read the language. " I received your letter of the 31.st with COMMENCEMENT OE A SCHEME. 5 great delight, for it proved to me that, though absent, I have never been out of your thoughts. See how selfish I am ! I rejoice in your pain, because your pain shows your fidelity. Yet, how can you blame me, my dear pretty Jessie ? If I did not rejoice, you would then be able to say that I no longer loved you. "When shall we again meet, you ask? Soon, very soon ; as soon as ever my pres- sing affairs here and elsewhere will permit of it." " Awfully pressing !" he said to himself aloud, with a slight laugh that was partly sneer. '' The most occupied man in Europe. But then absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say, and little Jessie will learn to want me more and more the less she sees of me. And until I have cultivated her want of me to the very highest pitch, there's not much chance. But I really must run down there again soon. Deuced slow, these fellows here, except Fleetwood himself, who is always amusing enough. 6 Jessie's expiation. Just fancy a fellow having to put up with Fitz-Greville^s drawl, and Fuddleton's fool- ish jokesj instead of being with the naive Jessie. By Jove ! how awfully pretty :sheis!" He had drawn a photograph out of his breast-pocket, and was looking at it with €yes of genuine admiration, if without much semblance of love. " Even those clumsy bumpkins cannot ^poil her, with all their bad lenses and inferior collodion and inadequate booths. You're a beauty, child, and no mistake! How wonderful that such an outline should 'be found among that class! Very good of them to produce such specimens of the sex. Devihsh uncommon, though." He pushed his chair back, and rose from the table. Had strength and elegance ever ■entered into an expressed compromise, they could not have produced a more per- fect proof of their honest unity of action than this man. Muscular power and manly grace had met in him, and come to an COMMENCEMENT OP A SCHEME. 7 agreement. He looked tliirty-eight, and was in reality forty. But it was a forty that was suffering from no excesses. Na- ture had given him a grand constitution, and he showed how he appreciated the favour by never abusing it. He had risked his neck many a time, but he had never once drunk a single bumper too many, or al- lowed pleasure to end in exhaustion. He had never been fatigued in his life, but he had never even tried to experience the vaunted delights of indolence. Everybody allowed that he was handsome, but opinions differed as to whether the handsomeness was plea- sant to look at. For an Englishman, his hair was dark. So were his moustaches, and so would have been his beard and whiskers had he worn them. But both these were shorn, leaving bare a jaw and chin that showed sufficient strength of purpose to anybody who does not judge of such by the clumsy and superficial standard of size. His eyes were dark brown, and clear as a boy's of sixteen; and between 8 Jessie's expiation. beautiful but coldly-cut lips were teeth regular and white. He went to one of the windows, drew back a shutter, looked out^ and then closed it again. "Dark as a dog's mouth. Can't see a yard. What's the time? Half-past one. I think I had better go to bed. No ! I'll finish the letter first, and then it can go oflT by to-morrow morning's bag." He sat down at the WTiting-table and went on. " I would hasten to you at once if I could. If we could but annihilate time and space! But even in these railway days lovers cannot always be happy, and you — why are you so far removed from railways- and roads and everything? "But when I do come, what reception will you give me? I adjure you to make up your mind, if it is not, as I trust, already made up. You know how I long to carry you off from the dull monotonous life which must be yours, and to introduce you to all the pleasures which an acquaintance COMMENCEMENT OE A SCHEME. \) with the larger world affords. But then you must be prepared to confide in me, and to help me to bring about the result for which I so ardently long. Have you read the book I gave you when la.st we parted? Is it not a beautiful poem? Do you re- member those exquisite lines " " By Jove 1 if she does, I don't. How do they go? ' Where souls each other draw. Where Love is liberty, and Nature law.' Yes, but what's the beginning of the first line? Can't remember, for my life. One ought to know. And then it does not do to quote incorrectly to these people, when they can find one out. And Jessie has the book. One loses influence by such blunders. They ought to think one knows everything and is infallible. How does the line go? How odd! There's sure to be a Pope somewhere low down in the old library. I'll go and see, and know once for all. It's an important passage, and well •worth knowing accurately by heart." 10 Jessie's expiation. He took up a candle and passed out of his bedroom into a square empty chamber, which seemed more as if intended for a passage or ante-room than for an inde- pendent apartment. Through it he passed by easily opening folding-doors into a room of very considerable size, around the walls of which were ranged, but with great ir- regularity, shelves of books that seemed to have been lately thrown into disorder and not yet put to rights again. The folding- doors closed with complete noiselessness, but with such rapidity as to create a gust that almost extinguished his candle. He saved the light, however, by a sudden halt and simultaneously screening it with his hand. " Not such an easy matter, after all. A perfect wilderness of morocco covers. But when I was in here the other day, I noticed a lot of poets in this corner. Tillotson. That wont do. ' Harvey on the ' Got to the wrong corner, somehow. Ha ! I see now. Of course. I entered the other day by that end. It's the other corner I must go to." COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 11 The floor was covered with an old Turkey pile carpet, much worn, and in some places positively threadbare; but it returned no audible sound to his slippered feet, as he walked diagonally from one corner to the other. Suddenly he stopped. "What's that noise, I wonder? Rats, probably. No ; there ought not to be rats here. The place is in capital preservation." He listened attentively. " And it was not mortar falling on or off the new scaffolding outside. It goes on all the time. What can it be?" Again he listened. At first he was in- clined to think that his original haphazard supposition was the right one, and that some sleepless rat was working behind the wainscoting. But the sound was too re- gular and unintermittent for that. He stood with his brows slightly knit, and with his head a little on one side, as one stands when one is suspending all one's other faculties in order to give fuller force to the one faculty of hearing. Where did 12 jess[e's expiation. the sound come from ? From above? No. From below? Clearly not. This way, he thought. No, he was wrong. From that side. Yes — yes — yes. Scrape, scrape, scrape. It was outside, surely! He lis- tened. Quietly. It was at a window that was ultimately going to be walled up, but which had as yet only been roughly planked in. He remembered Fleetwood saying so the other day, when they were talking of the alterations which were being made in that part of the house. Unless he was very much mistaken, somebody was trying to enter through it from outside. He smiled. How good ! There was going to be an attempt at burglary, and he was master of the position. How lucky he had not gone to bed ! He was not a man to court danger for danger's sake, for the mere love of it and out of sheer lust of excitement. Quite the contrary. He was a brave man, but he was anything but a rash one. Indeed, he would on all occasions rather have avoided COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 13 danger than have sought it, and would certainly have slipped aside from it when- ever he could have done so without loss of credit or self-respect. Cool and judicious, he knew that a varied life offers a suffi- cient number of unanticipated perils for it to be quite unnecessary for a man wantonly to evoke them. Hence he preferred to keep his valour in reserve for sterling emergencies. But in the present instance there was no danger whatsoever. Had it been possible to make such an opening through the planks which were being tam- pered with, as that two or three men could have entered at once or even in quick succession, he would either have alarmed the house forthwith, or at least have gone in search of a couple of other people, in order that he might meet the burglars on equal terms. As matters stood, however, only one man, and that not a very big one, could possibly be able to creep in at a time. And as he would be expecting that one burglar, whilst the latter would not 14 Jessie's expiation. be expecting him at all, he would deal with his antagonist at an overwhelming advantage. He looked upon the opportunity as one peculiarly admitting of the practice of coolness, and nothing more. A s]3lendid swordsman is not usually a quarrelsome man, seeking on all occasions to extract a duel out of a conversation. But he gladly avails himself, if not otherwise employed, of every opportunity for improving his skill by taking a friendly bout with any other expert master of fence. Perhaps he would find in this instance a foeman worthy of his steel. Perhaps he would not. But in any case he could not fail to get the upper hand. Having satisfied himself that his imagina- tion was playing him no prank — and it had never presumed to take such a liberty with him yet — he reconnoitred the room once more. There was an old sofa, not very far from the newly planked-up window, but yet well away from the wall. The old wmdow- COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 15 shutters, which extended to the floor, and opened down the middle, had not yet been removed, and there was abundance of room for him to screen himself behind one of them, which happened to be swung half open, at about right angles with the wall. He would place his candle on that little table, about a couple of yards away from where he was going to take his stand. There were matches in the basin of the candlestick, so that he could relight it at need. He listened attentively. The fellow was hard at work. He extinguished the candle, and crept to his post. Of course, within the big library it was now pitch dark, and the darkness seemed to render the noise from outside more audible. Besides, the burglar was necessarily getting nearer to his object, and the sound of his labours was in reality more distinct. The face of the watcher would have been an ex- cellent study, could it but have been seen. His lips had relaxed into a slight half- humorous smile, without parting one from 16 Jessie's expiation. the other, and his chin was slightly pro- truded, as though it were the courier of his quiet pent-up determination. His pulse was not moving one in a minute faster or slower. He was simply waiting for the chance which should enable him to give his temper, judgment, and perhaps his muscles, just a little healthy exercise. Waiting makes most men impatient, and few can stand long in a room, dark or light, without giving intimation of their presence by some movement, made with the object of relieving either the tiring or the irksome monotony of their position. He had a good quarter of an hour to wait, but he never stirred, to change foot, leg, or attitude. Had there been another listener within the dark room, he would have heard nothing in that long fifteen minutes to lead him to suppose that he was not alone. At last, it became certain to him, though of course he could see nothing, that the burglar had made an aperture, and that his hand was within it. Quiet waiting in the COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 17 dark sharpens the other senses, in propor- tion as those usually kept most alive have been compulsorily suspended. It was not a hand now, he was sure, but an entire arm that was within. The fellow worked a little clum- sily and incautiously, he thought ; but that probably arose from extreme confidence that nobody could possibly be in the library^ Two arms were through now, he could have sworn, though all was still as pitch dark as- ever. Then they were withdrawn, and suc- ceeded — yes, he was positive of it, as posi- tive as if he had seen it — by the introduction of a head. He could distinctly hear the drawing through of the shoulders, and then the fresh intrusion of the arms. Presently a long breath was drawn, and was succeeded by the completely audible but whispered monologue of — " There ! — that's done.'' Half a minute more, and the fellow would be standing in the room. Still, there was no light, and so far he had heard no words spoken to anybody outside. Was VOL. I. 2 18 Jessie's expiation. the burglar alone? That was highly im- probable. It could not have been an easy thing to get up to the aperture from with- out. True, there was a scaffolding ; but as the ladder to it was of course removed every night, only a very lithe and active fellow could have climbed — for it must have been done by climbing — the main timbers of the scaffolding, so as to get to the place where he had been making himself an entrance. No doubt his con- federates — if he had any — were below, and waiting to see the result of his efforts. There he was ; through ! He was standing on the floor, right on the other side of the shutter. He was putting his head out of window, and far out. That also was audible enough. Would not this be a good moment for securing him? No; for he would be sure to call out, and the other fellows — if there were any — would get the alarm and run for it at once. Besides, there was no light, and it was better to see one's way as well as feel it. COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 19 ^'Hist! Bill! Bully Bill! Sam, old fellow! hist!" Then there came a low whistle from below, rising and falling away slowly at either end, so that all piercing sharpness was taken away from it. Beyond this, our listener heard no answer from without to the above words, sibillated close to him through the window. '' That's all right. They can't see, I dare say; but they know I'm in now, safe enough. Where the devil's the match-box ? I have it." He drew the match along the sole of his boot. "Why the devil doesn't it light? By Jove ! if they haven't got wet in that beastly rain of this afternoon 1" He tried another, but with the same result. "What an ass! It's not the matches, it's the boot that's wet. What a sell if they had been !" Then he scraped a match on the wall, 2—2 20 Jessie's expiation. and a light shot out immediately. Then came the clinking sound of the opening of a lantern, a pause, a growing, steadying light, and the closing of the lantern. A moment, and he had advanced beyond the shutter^ Another iTxoment, almost before another moment, the lantern was snatched out of his hand, and he felt himself swung violently round, and hurled backwards on to some- thing soft. There was a terribly strong man's hand at his throat, and a terribly strong man's knee on his chest. Then the light of his own lantern was thrown full on his face. ''Why, it's Abraham ! Lying Abraham, as I live! Do you remember m^, you vagabond?" " Yes, my lord," said the fellow, gasping for breath on the sofa, though his lordship had not only let go of his throat, but having roughly passed his hand over his clothes so as to satisfy himself that no weapons of offence were secreted in them, had released him entirely, and now stood passively by his side, with the lantern in his hand. " Yes, my lord; remember your lordship COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 21 perfectly. I should think so. Everybody remembers how Lord Rendover was the best cue in Potzer's rooms; many a long month as it is since they've seen you there, my lord." Abraham might have sat for the beau ideal of a billiard-marker, did such a subject fairly belong to the painter or the sculptor. Lithe, slight, but badly made ; cunning, im- pudent, servile, no age in particular, ugly, familiar, and cowardly ; he immediately fell into the old attitude of forward deference the moment he recognised the man who, of all the myriads who in his time had swung in and out of the folding-doors of Potzer's, had been both by him and them the most feared and the most truckled to. Even there he had never ventured on a real impertinence to Lord Rendover. His awful reverence for that personage was due partly to the fact that he had never seen his match either at pool or pyramids, but also to the fact that he had been witness of two memorable scenes in one of which, under small but sufficient 22 Jessie's expiation. provocation, his lordship had knocked big Septimus Blacklock down as flat as a floun- der, and in the other of which, under in- tolerable insolence, he had dragged the Hon. Thersites Cheek right across the room by the scruff of the neck, along the narrow, awkward passage, then discharged that, to him, light cargo in the street gutter, and forthwith returned and played surer and better even than he had ever been known to play before. Some recollections of that old life perhaps rose up again before Lord Eendover also, as he stood smiling good- naturedly enough at the lick- spittle, brazen- faced, miserable little wretch who now stood before him, adjusting the collar of his some- what disordered coat. '^ You're not much of a burglar, Abra- ham, I fear. The old ways stick to you. You don't like to have your shirt front rumpled or blacked, as we used to rumple and black it for you sometimes at Potzer's.'' " Yes, my lord* And very jolly it was. Should like to have it blacked again, COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 23 though I mightn't sometimes seem to like it then." " You've left Potzer's then, have you ? What did you do that for?" " Why, you see, my lord, they're a rough lot that goes there sometimes ; not at all like your lordship and your lordship's set." Eendover could not help smiling as he heard the fellow's complimentary tone, and remembered how he and "his set" had many a time in their very convivial moments treated Abraham to a few practical jokes, which even they in their sober ones had confessed among themselves to be rather too strong. " They're not all gentlemen that goes ta Potzer's, my lord." "Not quite all, Abraham," said Lord Rendover, drily. " And if your lordship had not given up coming to Potzer's; if your lordship had only been there when it happened, I'm sure your lordship wouldn't have let it happen at aU." 24 Jessie's expiation. " No doubt I should not, Abraham. But what was it that did happen? Did they make you swallow the chalk, or bolt all the balls that were out of baulk at the end of the game? I certainly should have inter- fered to prevent that." Abraham laughed a mean little servile laugh. " They tried to make out that I was bribed by Potting Hayes — you remember him, my lord?" " Yes, as big a scoundrel as ever made a stroke." " I dare say he was, my lord. Am sure he was, since your lordship says it. But they tried to make out that I was bribed by him to mark unfairly, and '^ " And they kicked you out, Abraham, did they? Very wrong of them. And you've taken to this little trade instead?" " It*s the first time I've tried it, my lord. Upon my word it is ! And only after trying to get a place at all the rooms in London, and failing. Failing, my lord, because fellows COMMENCEMENT OF A SCUEME. 25 had spread that beastly — I beg your pardon, my lord! but — that — that lie about me everywhere. I swear, my lord, it's the first time I ever tried it on ; and I swear it shall be the last, if you only let me go, my lord." " It will probably be the last, even if I don't. Don't you see that, Abraham?" " Yes, my lord," he answered, trying to conceal his horrible fear behind a repetition of the mean little laugh. '' But I think you might let me off, my lord, this time, as it's the first." '' Well, let us see about it. How many are there of you ? You had better tell me the truth. For whether you tell me the truth or you don't, you'll equally find me more than your match." " Yes, my lord; I'm quite sure of that." And Abraham fully meant what he said. " And how many are there of you then ?" Lord Rendover had changed his tone, and now addressed Abraham in words of com- mand and authority, all familiarity being laid aside. He knew he could frighten the 26 Jessie's expiation. cunning creature out of his skin, even out of his cunning. "How many are there of you?" he re- peated in a voice sharp and rapid. '^ We're three, my lord, at this business.'' '^ And where are the other two?" "Down below, my lord; outside, in the garden." " How did you get up there? And why did they stop below?" He asked the questions so quickly and with such an incisive manner that Abra- ham also was forced to answer quickly and to the purpose. There was no room for premeditated deception, even had Abraham had the courage to attempt it. " I climbed up the scaffolding, my lord. I^m more active and smaller than they are, my lord." " Active enough. And who are the other two? What are their names ?" "We call them Bully BiU and Sam Slaughterous, please, my lord." " Terrible fellows, eh?" COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 27 " Pretty well, my lord." " And how are they to get in?" " I was to let them in, my lord." "But you say they can't get up the scaffolding." " I was to let them in down below, by the hall, or some of the windows." " I see." "But you'll let me go, my lord, wont you?" His lordship had put the lantern down well out of sight, and turned the eye of it quite away from the aperture through which Abraham had entered. But he had taken the additional precaution, needless though it seemed, of silently swinging the shutter against it also. So that Bully Bill and Sam Slaughterous, looking in the direc- tion in where their lither colleague had entered, would see no light and would con- clude that he had already made his way down to the ground-floor, and was all this time trying to discover the door or other en- trance by which he could best admit them. 28 Jessie's expiation. " You will, wont you, my lord ?" asked Abraham again at the end of a minute or more, during which Lord Rendover had been walking silently up and down the centre of the room, evidently meditating what course he would pursue. " Let you go, Abraham ?" he said, drop- ping his tone of sharp severity, and return- ing to the old tone of contemptuous banter; " I think not. On the whole, I think not." " But, my lord, I assure you, my lord " " Quietly, Abraham. You disturb me. I'm thinking something over. No, no, no ! You're three altogether, you say? Not more ?" '' Only three, my lord; I'll swear it." " Never mind swearing. You're three, and you came purposely to commit a bur- glary, did you?" " Am sorry to say, my lord, we did." " You need not be sorry, Abraham. In- deed, I think you had better commit it. It's a pity for a thing so excellently well commenced to be abandoned. And then, COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 29 you see, as far as you are concerned, you have already committed it, and / know it. Just reflect over that a little, Abraham, You have committed a burglary, and I, Lord Rendover, know that you have." He paused a little, and went on walking up and down the centre of the room, still evidently pondering some matter over very intently. Shortly, he again spoke. "Have you reflected over that, Abra- ham?" " Yes, my lord." " And does it strike you that, even if I choose to let you go now, you'll be no better off than if I let you go when you have admitted your friends, and the entire purpose of the burglary has been effected ? I think I could still contrive to find you?" " Yes, my lord. But I wouldn't try to get away from you. I'll always do what your lordship wishes, and come when your lordship wants me." " Very obliging of you, Abraham. Where are your head-quarters now ?" 30 Jessie's expiation. "At the ' Cut and Shuffle,' Saint Giles, my lord. I dare say your lordship never heard of it." " I can't say I ever did." '' It ain't a very aristocratic neighbour- hood, my lord. But I'm always to be found there now, my lord, by them as knows how to look for me." '' Are they very desperate fellows. Bill what's-his-name, and " "Not so very, my lord, unless they're made. I think they'd rather not hurt a man, unless they were driven to it." " That's all right. Now, look here ; you do precisely what I tell you." " Yes, my lord, to the letter; every word of it." " You have lost time already ; you must lose no more. It suits me that this burglary should be committed by the whole three of you. You will trust me, and I, for once, shall be forced to trust you. Only if you try to deceive me, I can easily find you, and have you nabbed for this." COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 31 "But I wont attempt to deceive you, my lord." '' I have no doubt you will not; for you must have wit enough to see that, if you tried, you would not succeed. You will admit those fellows outside, without ever saying a word to them about me. You will pretend that everything has gone all right, but that you have lost your time in finding your way and in being cautious. You understand.'' " Yes, my lord ; I'll never breathe your name to them.'^ " And now I'll tell you a short way of letting them in ; see here." He walked across the room, and Abraham followed him. " This is a door; there it goes !" He had put his hand upon one of the bookshelves, and part of the wall, books and all, opened noiselessly outwards into a small ante-chamber, not unlike the one at the other end of the library through which he had passed on his way to it from his own 32 Jessie's expiation. bedchamber. There was a door, now wide open, which gave from it on to a small land- ing and the top of a circular staircase. '' That will lead you down into the hall; to the left of it is the dining-room. You had better admit them through one of the dining-room windows, which 3^ou will find easy enough to open ; only ordinary shut- ters. Are you listening attentively? you needn't be afraid." "No, my lord; for I'm sure your lord- ship doesn't mean to harm me. I'm listen- ing to every word of it." " Having let them in, bring them up that staircase at once, and straight through the library. Do you understand?" " Yes, my lord, perfectly." " You see those folding-doors at the other end ? They lead into a little passage- room, just like this. Beyond that is my bedroom ; you will lead them into it." " Into your bedroom, my lord ?'* " Yes, into my bedroom. I shall undress at onc^ put out my candle, go to bed, and COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. SS*' pretend to be asleep. You will tell them that you passed through my bedroom with- out awakening me; that I am sleeping soundly, and that beyond my room there is another, a sort of drawing-room, where there are plenty of things worth taking." "And are there, my lord?" "What do you mean, you scoundrel?' Of course there are; don't I tell you so, you fool?" "Yes, my lord; I beg your lordships- pardon, I'm sure." " As you all pass through my room, I shall pretend to awake. I suppose one of them is sure to be down upon me." " Yes, my lord ; I'm sure Sam will, at any rate." "All right," said his lordship, coolly. I wont hurt him ; he can't expect an unarmed man in bed and in his nightshirt to make a ver}'' terrible resistance." " I wouldn't advise you to do so, my lord."' " Keep your advice to yourself, Abraham. I shan't call out, you may be sure. As I VOL. I. 3 34 Jessie's expiation. said, he will stop and try to gag me, I sup- pose, whilst you two other fellows go on and take what is worth having. I'll leave some money and a few things upon my dressing-table, and what I don't want you to take, I'll hide in the library here, behind one of the books. See, we'll do it now; and then you may go and let them in." He relighted his own candle and took Abraham with him across the library, through the little square passage, and through his own bedroom into a hand- somely-furnished chamber, where there was plenty to delight the eye of the virtuoso and tempt the hand of the thief. " See ; that door leads on to the main land- ing and the main staircase of the house. But — quietly ! — as you see by the boots outside that door, there's somebody else sleeping there, and if you attempt to pass along it, you'll be likely enough to rouse him. You can point that out to your fel- lows, and show how it will be better for them to be content with what they find COMMENCEMENT OF A SCHEME. 35 here and in my bedroom, and to go back by the way they came, without trying any- thing else." " Yes, my lord. And as Sam 11 be busy with you, they'll be in a hurry to get away. I understand it all, my lord. And you intend us all to get away." " Of course I do. All you have got to do, is to say not a word to them about me, but to make believe that everything has happened quite naturally, or — well, all the worse for you. This way." They re-entered Lord Kendover's bed- room. " I should not like you to take this — nor this — nor that. That's about all. You're welcome to the rest. Come along." They were again in the library. He made no secret of where he put the things he did not wish to be stolen. He felt he had Abraham in the hollow of his hand. " There ! They will be safe behind that big book. They would never think of looking there for anything." 3—3 86 Jessie's expiation. " Of course not, my lord/' "And now go and let them in, and I shall go to bed. And mark you, Abraham^ if you funk it, or if you think you will do better by telling them all about what has happened and by cutting away at once, I pity you, that's all.*' " But I wont, my lord. I'll do just as you've told me, my lord." *^ All right. Away with you, then." CHAPTER II. so FAR, SUCCESSFUL. Abraham's task had now become a com- paratively easy one. The topography of the house had been made simple to him by Lord Rendover's clear explanations. He would gain considerable credit with Bully Bill and Sam Slaughterous for the mastery which he had obtained of the position, and which they would suppose he had obtained entirely by his own coolness and dexterity. The only task which he now had to perform was to go straight to a mndow and open it, -and for the rest to keep his own counsel and hold his tongue. As he crept cautiously down the circular staircase which, despite all his caution, would persist in creaking a little, he grew 38 Jessie's expiation. only strengthened in the conclusion that he must do exactly what Lord Rendover had told him. He had a superstitious terror for the man whom he had long been accustomed to see work wonders in the department of life to which he had himself so long be- longed. And then Lord Rendover was not only the very best biiliard-player whom Abraham had ever seen — and he had seen a fair number — but he was a lord, immensely rich, fiercely strong, and coolly courageous. To challenge such a man's decision or hos- tility would have seemed to Abraham, and to braver men than Abraham, very like challenging fate. Bully Bill was a foul- mouthed fellow enough, and Sam Slaugh- terous was a rough-and-ready sort of a cus- tomer, not always very agreeable to deal with. But they could be outwitted, whilst Lord Rendover could not. They were far less terrible than his lordship. Besides, in this instance, he was told to do nothing that would arouse their anger. What Lord Rendover's object was in allow- so FAR, SUCCESSFUL. 39 ing the burglary to be committed, Abraham could not conceive. But at any rate, it was not in order to entrap all three, instead of entrapping one and letting the other two go. His confederates would get all they expected from the enterprise, and would be well satisfied with his share in it. Even if they were taken up for it afterwards, they would not be led to attribute their capture to him, and he would be no worse off than he was at present, now that Lord Rendover already knew of his attempt and could de- nounce i\. No. His own chance of safety dependeo entirely upon obeying Lord Ren- dover to the letter. He had no difficulty whatever in finding the dining-room, or in opening the first win- dow of it Ihat he tried. Having done so, he had just a& little in attracting the attention of his fellows, who were posted, as it hap- pened at thij moment, near to that very spot. " Is it al right, Abe ?" asked a broad- shouldered,shock-headed, red-haired fellow, shoving in lis shaven pimply face. 40 Jessie's expiation. " Right as a trivet, Sam. Yoa never saw anything so pretty in your life." '' You've been a precious long time," said the other, coming forward, and dis- playing a head and face as big and round as Sam's, but with a thick Newgate frill under his chin, big black bushy eyebrows, and a head of hair rusty-brown and densely matted. " What the devil made you such ,a while about it ?" " Come, Bill, old boy, don't be so impa- tient. I had to be cautious, you inow/' "You're always so mighty cautious," answered Bully Bill, pulling himself up and irettino; throuo-h the window. ^ Is there summut to drink ?" "Let's see. I haven't looked. But wait till Sam's through." They were now all three in the dining- room, and the two who had jiJst entered proceeded at once to take off th there ain't a blessed fly-sheet nowhere. And they read all them^ do they, Abe? Well, that's rum." Abraham was on ahead a little, and Bill was close at his heels, for he seemed never to let the " young 'un," as he called him — though Abraham was a couple of years older than himself — out of his sight when he could help it. Sam [seemed to regret not being allowed time to indulge his taste for observation, and to examine more closely a place that he ever afterwards de- clared to be " the rummiest den that a chap was ever let loose in, and that Wombwell's biggest van was a fool to it." But his own professional turn was too strong for him, and he silently quickened his feet and passed with the other two through the silently-moving folding-doors, whose mo- tion, it will be remembered, had well nigh extinguished Lord Rendover's candle. Their light was Abraham's lantern, which was not exposed to the same dangers. "Cautiously now, my boys,'^ said Abra- 46 Jessie's expiation. liam, assuming an unwonted air of leader- ship, which was justified by his superior knowledge of the ground. *' This is the room where the cove's asleep." '^ You go first, then," said Sam. " Bill goes second, and I'll lag behind, and just take a p^ep at our friend, and see that he's having pleasant dreams." They entered the room, and heard no sound. But conversation was now sus- pended among them. They communicated only by gestures. Abraham took Bully Bill by the sleeve and led him to the dressing-table,j where carelessly lay Lord Kendover's hunting-watch and chain, just one ring, seven sovereigns, and a mixture of twice as many half-crowns and shillings, and a pocket-book with nothing in but some visiting-cards, and half-sheets of paper written over with memoranda. All these Bill stowed quietly away into his pocket, and then followed Abraham into the next room, whilst Sam stood bending over the bedside. so FAR, SUCCESSFUL. 47 The sleeper seemed to be as little dis- turbed by the opening of the door that led out of his bedroom as he had been by the opening of the one that led into it. But Sam remained by the bedside all the same, whence he could just hear now and then the movement of his friends in the next room among the ''valeyables." But by -degrees Lord Rendover seemed to be be- coming less comfortable and sound in his slumber. He breathed more loudly. Then he was still again. Then he slightly snored. Sam watched him with attentive and noiseless attitude. He turned just a little on his side, and gradually almost lay on his back. He looked as if he might possibly awake. Sam was quite ready for him if he did. He began breathing heavily again. Then the breathing ceased. He half opened his eyes. He closed them again. But the light had struck them, and he opened them again — this time fully — and gave a slight start. Sam's hands were tight at his throat. 48 Jessie's expiation. *' I'd advise you to lie still," growled Sam into his ear, under his mask. '* 111 not hurt you, if you don't force me to." " But — but — you — are — hur — hur — hurting me," gasped out the prisoner as well as he could. " Lie still and hold your tongue, and I'll not hurt you more nor I can help. But if you stir or shout, I'll hurt you till you'll never stir or scream again. All right. Bill! I've got him. Look sharp." These last words were addressed to Bill, who, quick to detect any sort of noise, had come in to see if the " cove " had awoke. " We must make short Avork of it, young 'un !"he said, returning to Abraham. '''Deed, I think we've got all the valeyables that's moveable and worth carry in'. Come along? That's the door you spoke of, isn't it ?" " Yes," said Abraham, " but you'd better not open it." "Teach your grandmother," retorted Bill. ''Now Sam, my hearty, we're all ready, aren't we?" so FAR, SUCCESSFUL. 49 "Just a second. '^ I've been tryin* not to hurt this cove; but I believe I've at nearly throttled him as not. But he'll get over it in time, if he's lucky. The taste '11 last him ten minutes or so more, and we'd best be making the most of the ten minutes to sheer off clear o' all this. On with you !" Sam gave one more look at the prostrate man, saw that he looked pretty much as he had described him, and then made after the others. Again he would have liked to linger in the library, which seemed to have for him such a fascination as a menao^erie has for children and nursemaids. But he controlled his feelings, and descended the spiral staircase close at their heels. Below, they prepared to put on their boots again. Abraham then remembered that his were upstairs in the library, where he had taken them off when he first made his way through the aperture. " Then you'll have to do without 'em now, young 'un," said Bully Bill. "We VOL. I. 4 50 Jessie's expiation. never runs no risks. Up with you, and we'll follow." One by one they passed through the window, and disappeared into the night. Lord Rendover had certainly just passed through the most disagreeable ^ye minutes of his life. Not resisting an enemy, indeed not getting the better of one, was quite pain enough to him, and we may be sure that he would not have endured it without some very strong motive. But over and above the annoyance of having to seem to submit to the physical degradation, he had also endured no slight physical torture. It is true that he had feigned to be worse for Sam's continuous grip than he really was. Nevertheless, his throat and windpipe, even now that they were released, were anything but comfortable ; and he felt that, had the operation lasted as long again, he would have had either to resist or to be very seriously and permanently injured. Very little more, and he questioned if he would not have fainted. As it was, he felt no little difficulty so FAR, SUCCESSFUL. 51 at first in pulling himself up and getting out of bed. But to his strong nerves and grand physique every moment of re- gained liberty was a moment of accelerating recovery; and before a couple of minutes or so more were over, he stood erect in the centre of the room, not only perfectly con- scious, but feeling, as ever, firm, brawny, and vigorous. Listening afresh, he half thought he heard a sound as of their foot- steps returning. Surely they could not be coming back ? " No ; it is the scoundrels getting out of window. There they go, and the devil go with them — until I want you again, my fine fellows! I always thought Abraham would turn out to be useful some day or other. The creature was born to mark other men's scores." He put on his slippers, his panjambas, and his dressing-gown, and walked to his toilet-table, and examined his throat. '' He has left his mark, and no mistake. It was not a bad sort of a grip, but I imaging^- wO^^^* 52 Jessie's expiation. mine would be worse. I may have hold of the vagabond's throat some day. Who knows? It's just as well that it's as bad as it is. It would never do to appear at breakfast, without the visible traces of treatment too forcible to resist. I fear I jhall lose a little of my bruising reputation for not having resisted ; but then one must make sacrifices of some sort when one wants a thing, and it's a loss I can easily make up at some other time, if any fellow thinks to presume upon it. I should not advise any- body to try. Besides, who could be ex- pected, waking up in bed and finding him- self literally pinned to the pillow, to offer any sort of resistance. But it's not pretty," he added, looking more closely at the welts raised on his throat. Then he glanced from the looking-glass to the toilet-table. '' They've made a pretty sweep of it. All gone — watch and all. Cheap at the price, however, if things turn out as they ought to do."' He was thoroughly himself again by this so FAR, SUCCESSFUL. 55 time. He put one or two little touches to himself in the way of making himself both more comely and more comfortable, and went into the library to bring back the things which he had hidden, in Abraham's presence, behind the books. These he found just as he had left them, and re^ turned with them to his own room in quiet triumph. "He played fair, it seems. He was in too mortal a funk to do otherwise. He evidently did just as I bade him. Lucky for him he did. . . And now I'll finish the letter to Jessie. I might as well go in for the whole thing, now. I've got another string to my bow, in case I want it." He sat down again at the writing-table^ where we first looked over his shoulder. Let us do so again. "I never found the quotation. Those fellows interrupted me. Never mind. I found something a great deal more to the purpose than a poet's couplet. Wont bother about that now. Better go on with 54 JESSIE S EXPIATION. the letter straight. Where did I leave off?" He readjusted the paper, and wrote — "But in order, my pretty Jessie, to give both liberty and love a chance, you must get over your scruples about formalities, and have lull confidence in me. I mean to make you the happiest, brightest, cheeriest little creature in the world. But 1 can do so only by your permitting me to be the judge as to the preliminary steps. Think of the glorious life we shall have together. I have seen a horse that will carry you splendidly. And then the boating that we will have together, of whicli you are so fond. I will take you to all the beautiful places not only in England, but in countries, still more beautiful, of which you have only read, but which I have seen and shall be delighted to show you." There was more to the same effect, and all written with the purpose, as far as one could judge, of inflaming the imagination of a girl by displaying before it visions of so FAR, SUCCESSFUL. 55 simple joys, untasted but not undreamt of. Then the writer would return to the neces- sity of her placing implicit confidence in his judgment, and of sacrificing her own un- skilled notions of what was for the best to his foreseeing discretion. Between this necessity and the picture of what sweet pleasures were in store for her, if she would only defer to this necessity, the letter kept constantly but dexterously oscillating. At length it was finished; and, as it seemed, to the writer's satisfaction. He folded it, and enclosed it in an envelope, which he addressed — still in a feigned hand — thus : Miss Jessie Shoreham, Post Office, Dipleydale. In a couple of minutes he was undressed, and very shortly fast asleep. " There was a burglary on the premises last night,'' said Fuddleton, with a profes- sional air, to Fitz-Greville, as the latter 56 Jessie's expiation. sauntered in from an early visit to the Fleetwood stables, looking as fresh as the morning, and quite as cool and uncon- cerned. " A burglawy, was there ? Ha, indeed I Have heard of such things. You hang fellows for doing it, don't you, or impwison them, or do something with them, don't you?" Fuddleton had lately taken silk, but was still the great defending counsel in heavy criminal cases on the Southern Circuit. A bigger blockhead never wore a gown. But then he was not at all aware of the fact. Neither were the attorneys. And as, if he had the brains of an ass, he had also the lungs of one, he was not altogether badly equipped for his main occupation. Fuddle- ton was dull, but jurymen were usually still duller ; and as the accused were always guilty, and he occasionally got them oif, Fuddleton was held amongst country lawyers' clerks and some county magistrates to be one of the cleverest and most specious of mankind.. so I'AR, SUCCESSrUL. 57 Chicliester Fleetwood did not think much of him. But as some of his neighbours did, and Chichester Fleetwood was good-natured, and Fuddleton had picked up a considerable number of good stories in court and at mess, he was made welcome every autumn at the Manse for a week or ten days' shooting. " It all depends," answered Fuddleton, putting on his grandest legal air. " Bur- glary, if committed within certain hours of the night and attended with violence, is still punishable with death. I have heard sentence of death for such offences passed several times, and it has been my good fortune on more than one occasion to save from the penalty, by my professional skill, fellows who richly deserved it." ''I don't think I should much care to have done that," said the calm scion of an exceeding calm house. " And if I had, I question if I should find the wecoUection of my skill so agweeable as it seems to be to you." "Duty, you know, duty. There's no 58 Jessie's expiation. help for it. Somebody else would have to do it, if I did not ; though I must say there are not many men on the Southern who could do it, except myself. A poor lot, the new race of juniors. But, as I was going to say, though sentence of death is pro- nounced, it is never carried out now-a-days, for such offences as those we have been talking of." "Which is much to be wegwetted," answered Fitz-Greville. " They don't hang half enough. Better out of the way, those wough fellows." And he took up a thin slice of brown bread and butter, just to stay the hungry edge of appetite till the breakfast bell rang, and the host should make his appear- ance. This he did almost immediately. He had heard of the burglary from his valet, for it had been the talk of the entire house- hold ever since they had been astir, and he entered the room full of it. In a couple of minutes more in came Lord Rendover. 59 "Why, Rendover, some fellows broke into the house last night !" '^ I should think they did. Just look at my throat !" They all crowded round him. " You don't mean to say that " ex- claimed one. " How the deuce did " exclaimed another. "I mean to say that I awoke in the middle of the night, and before I could say Jack Robinson, I felt myself pinned to the bed, and pressed down as tight as a cock- chafer to a cork. I need hardly say I'd have shown fight if I could; but it was too late. I had neither limb nor muscle to make use of. I felt the blood rushing to my head, my head swimming, and then — why, then — ^I remember nothing more till I awoke, and felt devilish queer, and crept out of bed, and got myself some brandy out of my dressing-bag , and found my watch, my chain, a couple of rings — look there ! " — and he held out his bare 60 Jessie's expiation. fingers — " and some seven or eight pounds there were on the table, all gone!" "What an audacious attempt!" said Fuddle ton. " Glad it was you, not me, AVendover," drawled out Fitz-Greville. " They seem to have got in by that window I pointed you out in the library the other day,'' said Fleetwood. " We must go and examine the spot carefully after breakfast," said Fuddleton. " Yes, after bweakfast,'' said Fitz-Greville, tapping an egg. "After bweakfast ; not before, I vote. Some coffee, Wobert." " One of the fellows — in his hurry, I sup- pose — left his shoes there as he entered." "They must be kept," said Fuddleton, with an air of fussy importance. " On no account must they be lost; they may turn out to be a most important link in the chain of evidence." " But, tell us, Rendover," said the host, " do you know how many fellows there were altoofether?" so FAR, SUCCESSFUL. 61 " Yes, three. At least, I saw only three. Two of them wore masks." " And the third?" asked Fuddleton. " Didn't see his face at all," answered his lordship, laconically. " We didn't know they had been through your room at all. I have been talking it all over with Robert and Cleaver, and they thought that one fellow had got in at the library, had gone downstairs by the small staircase, admitted the other fellows, and that then all three of them had crept up the main staircase, on to the landing — by your room, Fitz-Greville, you know— and so entered the room where I keep all my pretty follies for the women to look at and amuse themselves with, when they're stay- ing here." " I guessed as much," said Rendover. " I mean, that they had gone in there; but through my room to it, not by the main staircase at all." "And that's what they have done, my lord," said Robert; ^' they never went near 62 Jessie's expiation. the main staircase at all; they must have gone up the little spiral one, through the library, through your lordship's room, and on into the other one, where they've taken a fine lot o' things, I can assure you." " But I hope you're no worse, Eendover," said Fleetwood, with the proper sympathy of a host. " Upon my word, I'm awfully sorry." "Not at all, just a little shaken; wind- pipe a little queer, but soon got over it. I'm sorry for you. I wish I had awoke sooner, and I'd have astonished them — the brutes. I fear you'll be the great loser. My things weren't worth much." " A hundred and fifty pounds, at least — watch, rings, and everything." " Never mind. I w^ould give ten times as much to have that fellow by the throat that had me by mine before I knew where I was." " But why didn't you knock some of us up, Rendover," asked Fuddleton, " as soon as ever you could ?'' so FAR, SUCCESSFUL. 63 *^ Bravo ! Fuddleton. Every man to his last," answered Rendover, gaily. '' You'd have been knocked up, but in a very different sense, if you had been in my position ; so knocked up, that I don't think you would have been down to breakfast this morning at all. Why, man, how long do you suppose I was in coming round? And when I did come round, can't you under- stand I was only too glad to be quiet? And where was the use, such a dark night as it was, and long after the fellows were far away?" ^'Not a bit of use," said Fitz-Greville; " vewy glad you didn't, Wendover; gweat bore to be woke out of one's sleep, after a fellow has taken such a deuced deal of twouble to fall into it." '^ Quite right, quite right,'' said Fleet- wood. " The grooms rode oiF to the police station the first thing, to give information, and the rascals will be nabbed before long, no doubt." "It's a pity, though." said Fuddleton, 64 Jessie's expiation. " so much valuable time has been wasted. But keep the shoes. On no account lose sight of the shoes ; they are of the very first importance." But though the shoes were not lost sight of, though the grooms had ridden straight off to the police-station, and though Fuddle- ton devoted the whole of his abilities to encouraging and inspiring the local authori- ties in their search for the malefactors, a week passed away without their being discovered, or any available trace of them being hit upon. The county papers were full of the burglary committed at Fleetwood Manse ; and the police had, of course, put themselves in more silent communication with their brethren in the detective craft elsewhere. But all in vain. Neither through jewellers, nor pawnbrokers, nor publicans, was any clue obtained to the burglars, or to the property which they had carried off. It was quite clear that they had managed to get back, without delay, to London, whence it was concluded so FAR, SUCCESSFUL. 65 they had probably come. In that vast abode of knaves and honest men, amateur thieves and professional receivers, where nearly all deeds, even if committed in broad daylight, may be made deeds of darkness, if only the perpetrators be sufficiently skilled^ the three men who had broken into Fleetwood Manor, and treated Lord Rend- over so roughly, were universally concluded to have sought and found impunity and shelter. By degrees, the burglary, if it was not wholly forgotten, ceased to be talked of; the more rapidly because, within a month after, an old woman poisoned three of her grandchildren in the same neigh- bourhood, and turned the attention of an enlightened public to the details of her more interesting crime and surer punish- ment. VOL. I. CHAPTER III. JESSIE SHOREHAM. Eighteen montlis before our story opens, the prettiest girl in Taunton was Jessie Shoreham, tlie humpbacked schoohnaster's daughter. Kate Tiptree was certainly a very pretty girl, and her golden hair was a distraction even to the most devout of the congregation ; and the Miss Silvertops were sweet-looking creatures, particularly, as old Mrs. Wareing used to say, "when they had on their lovely bonnets and not those nasty hats, just like everybody else — which in the squire's daughters was unbe- coming, to say the least of it." But when vou had gone the entire round of the con- gregation, and lauded this one's hair, that JESSIE SHOREHAM. 67 one's features, and that other one's figure, you were forced to fall in with the general Taunton opinion, and confess that for real beauty — beauty that was beautiful in bonnet, or hat, or nothing at all — not one of the Taunton girls was fit to hold a candle to Jessie Shoreham. But if everybody peaceably acquiesced in the verdict as to her beauty, it was impos- sible to arrive at anything like unanimity as to her behaviour. Whilst some persisted in declaring that she was an exceedingly forward young woman, others maintained that she was as retiring and modest as any girl could be expected to be who was the recognised belle of the township. Three old maiden sisters, who lived with their bachelor brother, a retired architect, stoutly reite- rated on every possible occasion, that she gave herself airs, both in church and out of it, to which her position did not at all entitle her; and that it was a disgraceful thing to see a mere schoolmaster's daughter smirking down the aisle as though she 5—2 68 Jessie's expiation. were a lady born and could do no wrong. Kind, widowed Mrs. Charity Humble, on the other hand, who was a lady born, and feared that she herself, if nobody else, was always doing wrong, for her part liked to see the pretty things know that they were pretty; and when the service was over, and the organ was playing them all out, she did not see what harm there was in the young people giving each other a friendly smile. With herself, and poor old things like her, it was different. She had nobody to smile at now, and she ought to give a good ex- ample, and she prayed hard and tried to da so, but she feared she succeeded very indiffe- rently. She was quite sure she meant no wrong, two and fifty years ago, when she used to glance round to see if Ealph Humble was at service, and if he was, when she ^ave him the sweetest smile she could muster. Jessie Shoreham had always been a favourite of hers, ever since Ralph had patted the schoolmaster's child on the head and given her half-a-crown to buy a new JESSIE SHOREHAM. G9 hymn-book with. And Jesse had shown her the very book only the other day ; and was that being forward? From which I think we may conclude that, though Jessie Shoreham was superior in external advantages to most of her sex, she was neither much better nor much worse in other respects. She was no wonder of severe virtue: but, on the other hand, she was no lighter than the most sensible moralist would wish to see the fairer and younger portion of God's creatures. Her father — mother, alas ! she had none — was perfectly well contented with her conduct; and we may be sure that, tender as he was to the big beams in his own eye, he would have been swift to discover and condemn any serious mote in hers. He was rather a worthless old vagabond in reality; but being both a schoolmaster and a cripple, he indulged in those transgressions which are of a silent and unscandalizing nature, in preference to any of the more outrageous ones which would have injured at once hh; 70 Jessie's expiation. professional position and his poor puny frame. If he ever and anon got whimsi- cally drunk, he got drunk at home and out of school hours. He was a great prop of the church choir, and never ap- peared anything but perfectly sober when a new anthem had to be practised or a new response to be approved. Tuition at Taunton, as may be supposed, is not the most remunerative of occupations, and some folks used to wonder how Jessie managed to dress so smartly, being only the daughter of an ill-paid pedagogue. But only the extremely ignorant asked so simple a question. Our considerate Constitution has provided that no Parliament shall sit more than seven years, and our combative political habits are so steady in their opera- tion, that practically an appeal to the good will of the people is made between every three and four. A general election, it is well understood, is one of the great sources of wealth to the nation. Taunton has always stoutly insisted upon having its fair JESSIE SHOREHAM. 71 share of the imperial largesse ; and school- master Shoreham was sensible man enough to have the very most he could get out of the local plunder. " Shoreham never votes under a hundred," local agents would tell the canvassing candidate. "It is no use calling on him till the very last. We will give it him if we want him; but we shall know better about that a little later." One side or the other, however, always " wanted" him, and the humpbacked school- master counted upon an annuity of twenty- five pounds for the term of his natural life, arising out of the election contests, and paid, as it were, by a direct provision of the State, with far more certainty than he counted upon the quarterly payments from the parents of what he used to call his "parcel of good-for-nothing idle young vagabonds." Pretty, coquettish Jessie Shore- ham ! Is it not pleasant to think that your becoming pink bonnet-strings were paid for by that greatest and most revered of all 72 Jessie's expiation. human entities, the grand old British Con- stitution ? But there came a time when the pink bonnet-strings had to be exchanged for black ones, and the good-for-nothing idle young vagabonds suddenly found them- selves most agreeably released for awhile from their lessons. The schoolbooks were closed, and poor humpbacked Shoreham's name was struck off the register, and the next time the candidates for the sweet voices of Taunton asked if Shoreham's vote had been secured, and if he wanted the same big price as before, they were told that he had himself gone to a house in which no amount of bribery will gain a man a seat. The choir lost a valuable baritone, and Jessie her only Taunton relative. They are a kindly set of people there and thereabouts, and they would have managed to do something among them for the pretty orphan, had not a sister of the de- ceased suddenly appeared on the scene where she had rarely appeared before, and, with JESSIE SHOREHAM. 73 her husband, offered to give Jessie house and home. They were very simple folks, though the husband seemed the simpler of the two. Jessie knew all about them, though she had seen her aunt but twice before, and one of the times was on the occasion of her mother's death, a period so remote and coming so early on in her OAvn little life as to have left but a faint impression on her mind. But she did remember Aunt Mary and her uncle Roger Barfoot, and also hearing that the former was supposed to have married rather ml- fully, and, as the phrase is, even among that sort of people as among their betters, be- neath her. Roger Barfoot was a small farmer, living near Dipleydale, which everybody has heard of as being near to the finest coast scenery of the extreme south-west of England. He had not much to offer to the lass, he said, in his blunt way, but she was own kith and kin to his good woman, and she was free of such as he had, poor as it was, and 74 Jessie's expiation. maybe not like what Jessie had been accus- tomed to. But he understood from his good woman, that her brother, Master Shoreham, had left no more behind him than would see him decently buried ; and if Jessie did not go back with him to Dipley- dale, he did not see what else she Avas to do. One thing he did not intend, or, at least, his good woman said she did not intend, and that was just the same thing — they did not intend Jessie to go out to service. No Shoreham, nor Barfoot either, had ever done that, and was not going to do. For the rest, he was quite ready to hear the good folks of Taunton, now that they had heard him. The good folks of Taunton had very little to say. They would be very sorry to lose such a pretty face from among them as Jessie ; but flesh and blood were flesh and blood, and if Mr. and Mrs. Barfoot thought it their duty to offer her a home, it was plainly Jessie's duty to accept it, and the duty of Taunton to tell her so ; which it did. JESSIE SHOREHAM. 75 It was a hard leave-taking. I do not know that Jessie Shoreham had any very stanch or dearly-loved friends of her own age in Taunton, but she had a great many very pleasant acquaintances, and she had none at all whither she was going, and from all accounts there would be few or none to be had. Aunt Mary was five-and-fifty, and Uncle Barfoot must have been eight years older still, and they had no children or young thing about them. She was going into an unknown land which was certainly no land of promise. She went, however, and the reality was in this instance, what it very rarely is where dread or aversion is the feeling with which it is approached, worse than the anticipation. It was not that the home to which she had been suddenly removed was deficient in comfort ; indeed, it could more than endure comparison with the one which she had so suddenly quitted. The real contrast which troubled her was the lone- liness of the one compared with the liveli- 76 Jessie's expiation. ness of the other. It was the old contrast between town and country, which in female eyes, and especially of the less educated sort, rarely, if ever, seems to tell in favour of the latter. Roger Barfoot had but a small farm and a small homestead, but the first was well cultivated, and the second was neat and almost a pattern of rural comfort. It con- tained, of course, but one simple sitting- room, but this was always in use, at least from the moment that the niece came among them. Overhead were two rooms, one of which had been done up and spe- cially prepared for her arrival. Scrupu- lously nice and clean, and quite large enough for her wants, it had from its little window a view such as is gained from the corridors or terraces of but few stately seats even in lordly England. Nor was Jessie dead to this advantage. Indeed, Roger and his wife soon began to complain that she appeared to be too keenly alive to it, so much time did she spend in her own room, JESSIE SHOREHAM. 77 looking, as she averred, at the beautiful view of wood, hill, stream, and sea all com- bined. But even an eye with a finer sense, and a heart with a still larger love for Nature's choicest favours than Jessie Shore- ham's, will weary, if not tire, of them all, if they be not occasionally exchanged for the glow of human faces, the noise of human tongues, and the play of human interests. Jessie loved the sunset, knew when it would commence, and patiently watched its dying moments. But not the less would she like to have heard the rattle of the Exeter coach, or seen the big lum- bering omnibus bring in its last batch of travellers from the express train. Oh! the sound of that distant cascade! She could never be sick of listening to it, she was sure. But for all that, was it unnatural that she would have liked to see again some of the bright young faces, and hear again some of the complimentary things, she used to see and hear in Taunton market-place under the shining round 78 Jessie's expiation. clock, when busy Saturdays came plea- santly round? But the nearest cluster of houses to Roger Barfoot's farm was the little village of Dipleydale, and even it was a good mile and more away. It had no market-days proper of its own, and every time that Jesse contrived to visit it, she found it duller and more dead-alive than before. Even Sunday brought no alleviation to the monotonous colour of Jessie's new existence. The church which her uncle and aunt at- tended twice every Sunday with unfailing regularity, was not down in Dipleydale, but away on the moor, further inland. It was a long, weary pull, especially the last bare quarter of a mile, from Netwold Farm to where Uskmoor church stood, with its square squat tower looking blankly to all the four quarters of the compass, and though very silent, not seeming particularly to point towards heaven. It was the spot to which the units of human life scattered over the high broad undulating moorland JESSIE SHOREHAM. 79 regularly one day in seven conventionally converged. It was not a very intelligent or in any other way striking congregation ; and its pastor, though somewhat more intelligent, was scarcely more striking than his flock. He matched with the squat tower and the bare moorlands. He was not a man of large or lofty aspirations, fertile in flowers of culti- vated rhetoric, or prone to limit and rigidly define the doctrines of which he was sup- posed to be the expounder. But he was a sane, sensible man; and when he per- ceived that a large per-centage of his con- gregation had dropped ofl* to sleep, he woke them up by quickly bringing to a close the sermon, which might with equal appropriate- ness have been concluded at any other por- tion of it. Then the good folks trudged into the open air, shook hands all round with a suc- cession of jerks from the elbow, inquired after each other's health briefly, but with an un- failing introduction into the inquiry of each other's christian names ; then broke up, and diverged again into the week-day unit life. 80 Jessie's expiation. Poor Jessie ! This was very different from Sunday at Taunton, when the sacred but withal not unmerry Sabbath morning was ushered in by the ringing of the SAveet bells of the beautiful tower, and when everybody knowing everybody else entered into a plea- sant emulation of bright looks and brighter finery. There was no well-directed choir to make church-going agreeable now. At Taunton she had to traverse two or three streets crowded with nodding and smirking acquaintances, and then she found herself in her accustomed seat, the conscious object of many male and every female eye for the first minute or two after her arrival. Now she had to trudge over stony path and irregular ridge for more than half-an-hour to arrive at Uskmoor in a most unbecom- ing state of perspiration, and where it did not much matter in what state she arrived. She really could not have brought herself to care much for Uskmoor admiration, had she happened to excite it. But the truth must be told ; the Uskmoor folks were JESSIE SHOREHAM. 81 not a very entliusiastic, and still less were they a very critical set of people; and had Jessie Shoreham been their sort of beauty, which she unquestionably was not, she would not have created much flutter in the general bosom. Smiles, and nods, and signs, and coquettish greetings in tran- sept, aisle, or porch — these were things of the dear irrevocable Taunton past. All days at Netwold Farm were dull and dreary, but Sundays were the dullest and dreariest days of all. She had to walk far more than she liked, and she had all the walking for nothing. Still Jessie could not help feeling grateful to her excellent aunt and uncle who, with- out any motive but the charity of blood, and with nothing to gain by their timely generosity, had taken her to their home. It was an awfully stupid home, but where was there another ? And now that she was there and had been there for some little time, did they not still do everything in their power to make matters pleasant to VOL. I. 6 82 Jessie's expiation. her ? Roger Barfoot was a regular hard- working farmer; and with Aunt Mary, "doing something," as she invariably termed it, was a perfect passion. She had worked so hard all her life that any tem- porary interference with the course of her labours would have been as fatal, I verily be- lieve, as a stoppage of the circulation of her blood. But they were more considerate of Jessie than of themselves. They both knew that she had been accustomed to lead a do- nothing sort of life, and neither wished to impose upon her all at once the burthen of a sudden change of habits, in addition to that of a sudden and sorrowful change of scene. But over and above all this, it was with them both a point of honour, that no work, at least no work that could be said to partake of the character of drudgery, should be thrust upon the niece whom they had gone to Taunton and fetched thence in her or- phanage to Netwold Farm. Nobody should ever say, sturdy old Roger affirmed, that he JESSIE SHOREHAM. . 83 had made anything out of poor Shoreham's child. He had taken her in, and who so likely, when somebody or other was called upon to see to the poor creature. But he was not going to turn his friendliness to profit, or even to get back out of her as. much as he had given. She must have had a good deal of time- on her hands, you will think. A large portion of it she spent, as we have seen, at the little window from which, as from a high mountain top, she could see all the wonders of nature and the glory thereof. But it was not to be expected that she could sit so long and long even afront that various panorama, with no other companion but her own unaided thoughts. Poor Jessie's edu- cation had been too limited, though she was a schoolmaster's daughter, and her expe- rience too brief and confined, for her to find in sunrise and sunset sufficient food for her heart any more than for her eyes. Ever and anon she made excursions to Dipleydale, a mile and more down the 6— a 84 Jessie's expiation. valley, or more strictly speaking, the ravine, through which the Dipp vagrantly and pre- cipitously tumbles to the sea. But just where the Dipp ends its wooded course, and plashes out more broadly before being sucked in by the ocean, is the village of Dipleymouth, own brother to Dip! ey dale, both in age, size, and quietness. The two are not half a mile apart, though to him who has to make the ascent from the lower to the higher it seems a terribly long mean- dering half mile. At both there is, or there was, a stationer's shop, each belonging to the same enterprising individual, who had originally wandered into these parts with the noble but rather Quixotic idea of conducting and publishing a weekly newspaper, and otherwise satisfying the literary cravings of the neighbourhood. But he had soon found that their craving for pins and needles was greater than for leading articles ; and with that admirable adaptability to circum- stances, which is the main superiority of the lower order of man over the higher JESSIE SHOREHAM. 85 order of brute, Mr. Jabez Britton laid in a stock of the above necessary commodities, and instead of devoting himself to the higher walks of literature, contented him- self with such a dedication to the lower as is implied in the sale of note-paper and black-lead pencils. But Mr. Jabez Britton' s enterprise did not end here. It had been part of his original scheme to found a lending library, and this portion of his scheme he saw no reason to abandon. He very soon dis- covered that it would not be very remune- rative, but as he had already purchased books for the purpose, he thought he had better turn them to some, however small, a profit, than to none at all. Accordingly, he divided them in half, keeping one moiety at Dipleydale and the other at Dipleymouth. Novels formed almost exclusively the catalogue of Britton's library; and had it been otherwise, it would have been still more unremunerative than it was already. Assuredly, Jessie Shoreham, for one, would 86 Jessie's expiation. not have been so assiduous a patron. The heavy romances which she carried away with her, with infinite addition to the toil of her journey ings, from Dipleydale or Dipleymouth to Netwold Farm, formed the entire staple of her society when, in her little room, she grew wearied of gazing at the clouds, the woods, and the sea. Not unoften, though only of an evening, she had to read them aloud to Uncle Roger, who, though he confessed he liked the newspaper better, especially when there was any assize intelligence in it, liked to be read to by pretty Jessie whilst he smoked his long pipe, and so prepared himself for his long slumbers. But though Jessie made no difficulty about reading aloud to dear kind Uncle Roger, she infinitely preferred having her romances all to herself up in the little room, where she could devour them as rapidly, or linger over them as long, as she liked. They were a great comfort to her, these novels from Britton's. Indeed she did not know what she should have done without them. They JESSIE SHOREHAM. 87 did not tell her of things altogether like her Taunton life, but they were a sort of link between her Taunton life and her present dreary one. Indeed they dealt with people, and things, and scenes, much grander than any in or about Taunton. They created for her a delightful world in the midst of her dull one. Alas! they were preparing her to behave as foolishly and perhaps as fatally as the most beautiful and most be- trayed of any of their heroines ! Oh, my sister and brother novelists ! Does it ever occur to ♦you what a tremendous power, with consequent responsibility, you wield over the morals of the time? The old teachers are largely dispossessed of their authority. The pulpit no longer has a monopoly of instruction. You have ousted the preachers, and you are standing aloft in their stead. Have a care that you preach the right sermons ! It is for boys and virgins that you mostly write. Inflame not their imaginations too hotly ; or if you needs must so inflame them, inflame them 88 Jessie's expiation. with a passion for the simple, the pathetic^ the pure, and, most of all, for the true. You talk to them of human nature. Pray leave them their instincts of reverence and of pity. Above all, lead them not to ridicule, to scorn, or to disbelieve. Better be dull than disloyal Yet no such cruel alternative is^ offered you. Ruth standing amid the corn will interest ages unborn, when the adultresses of to-day's sensation stories will be as forgotten as the name of her who is herself remembered only because she tempted Joseph in vain. CHAPTEK IV. A maiden's resolve. The storm had passed away, but everybody might have guessed that with it had passed away the soul of the summer. Again there was a perfectly cloudless sky. The sea was sparkling and but mildly ruffled. The streams, though swollen, were glittering with sunlight. But the rain had fallen on the woods, not to freshen their foliage, but to hasten its fall. The air was clear and balmy; but in it was a piercing quality which told that autumn had at last de- clared for the side of winter, and that the cold spears of the latter would soon be coming down the gorges. Still, how soft, how bright, how beautiful ! 90 Jessie's expiation. Jessie looked forth from her little window, and thought how the prospect from it had never been so lovely before as on this shining October evening. " He will not come now/' she had been saying to herself all the afternoon. " He cannot come now ; and if he did, how could I go and meet him? I should be wet through to the skin, and Aunt Mary would know all about it to-morrow morning when she saw my clothes. There is no chance of the storm ending, and its taking up now. He will not come, and I shall not be able to see him, and I did want so much to see him and tell him that it must all end, and that I cannot meet him any more." Now all was changed. She would be able to meet him, after all. Not only the storm itself, but all traces of it had disappeared, and Jessie sat at the window, excited and expectant, but striving to be calm. She had need of all her presence of mind. She had come to a resolution, and had been nervously thirsting for the moment A MAIDEN S RESOLVE. 91 when she could carry it out. Hence, when the storm burst over Dipleydale about three o'clock, she had been plunged into despondency, from feeling that, though her resolution would remain the same under all circumstances, the opportunity for acting upon it must necessarily be postponed, and that she would have to live and go about for days and days, perhaps for weeks and weeks more, under the consciousness that she had behaved most umvisely if not wrongly, without being able to get rid of the self-reproof by finally undoing all that she had hitherto done. Who has not expe- rienced that painful relaxation of the nerves which takes place whenever they have been tightly strung for the execution of some set but disagreeable purpose, and the oc- casion for the execution, deemed to be close at hand, is indefinitely delayed? Now, thank Heaven, it was not to be delayed. It would, after all, present itself this very night. The sky was clear, and the sun was setting only in his own golden 92 Jessie's expiation. shroud. There wanted but the falling of the night, and the passing of four brief hours, and then Jessie would set all right again and free herself from a thraldom in which she ought never to have been bound. But the four hours which seemed so brief, when looked at by her imagination, as it fixed itself on the concerted moment and spot of meeting, down in the woods hard by the little stone bridge that spanned the Dipp, seemed anything but brief as she sat in her room waiting for them to pass. They moved away with provokingly measured regularity. They would pass, it was certain, but why could they not pass more quickly? Jessie was compelled at last to spend them in most dangerous society. Her novels interested her not this evening. She had a romance of her own of, to her, far more thrilling interest. Its written records were few; but such as they were, she brought them forth and read them over once more at the window. There were but five letters, and three of them but short A maiden's resolve. 93 ones, merely naming days and hours of meeting. Two there were of greater length, and one of these we have seen before. It was the one written at Fleetwood Manse, though it bore no such address. They were all signed simply '' Arthur." Yet how Jessie had loved these letters ! What messengers of joy they had been to her, whenever she had found them lying for her at the Post-office, at Dipleydale ! They had made her a heroine in her own sight, the centre of thrilling incidents, the very sub- ject for a story still more powerful than all Britton^s three volume novels. She would give them back to him to- night. And with them she would return the two or three little trinkets which he had with difficulty forced upon her accept- ance. She would bid him adieu for ever, and make the sacrifice which she was sure that duty demanded from her. She could not bring herself to regret what had occurred, resolved though she was to bring its incidents to an absolute 94 Jessie's expiation. close to-night. She could not regret having received those letters. They had been such a pleasure, such an excitement to her, in the desert of her dull, desolate life. She was rather sorry she had not been still more firm in objecting to take the little trinkets. But no matter. In a few more hours it would be as though she had never received them. One thing, however, she did regret. She might not be sorry that she had received those five letters, but she was more than troubled when she was forced to remember the five that she herself had written in re- turn. She coloured, alone though she was, as she thought of them. But, again, no matter. He would return them to her, no doubt, just as she was going to return him his. And then she would destroy them — tear them up, and throw their fragments into the Dipp when it was turbid and strong, and they would float awa}^ into the sea, and there would be an end of it all. She would be very miserable. She was quite prepared A maiden's resolve. 95 to be very miserable. But she would not be so miserable as if she consented to do what he asked her to do now. She would be miserable, but she would have done her duty. What was it that he was asking her to do? Nothing, according to his own ac- count, but what he might reasonably de- mand of her, if she loved him. Something, according to her view, which he would never ask her to do, if he loved her. He was asking her to leave her home, not only without her uncle's and aunt's consent, but even without their knowledge. This was the point between them. Why not marry her with their consent ? She was quite sure they would give it. She would answer for that. She had done as he had wished her all along, and had never breathed a word to them a.bout her acquaintance with him, or how it had been formed. She was sorry now that she had done so, but so it was. But she could not leave Netwold without their knowledge. 96 Jessie's expiation. That was quite out of tlie question. Wliy not tell Uncle Roger and Aunt Mary all? They would be very angry with her at first, she knew. But when they saw how nice he was, and how fond of her, they would forgive her, and give their consent to anything she asked. And even if they re- fused it — why, then, she promised she would marry him without their consent, marry him at Uskmoor Church, or Dipleydale, or Dip- leymouth, or Taunton, or anywhere. Simple, foolish, incautious, naughty, but at heart virtuous Jessie ! This was her view of the case. The following was his. Why not come away without saying a word to the old folks, who would be sure to make all sorts of difficulties, and make things disagreeable to him, and give no end of bother? They would not understand how it was that Jessie and he came to know each other. He did not hide from her that there was great difference of rank between him and her, still more be- tween him and them. Had her o^vn parents A maiden's resolve. 97 been alive, who were, as she had told him, superior people to her uncle and her aunt, it would have been different. They would have understood it all. But this old couple up in the hills, farmer and farmer's wife, would be stupid, and obstinate, and un- manageable. To tell the truth, he did not want to have too much to do with them. It was not as if they had been Jessie's own parents. She must understand that he would of course raise her to his own rank, and that she, with her beauty, was more than worthy of being so raised. But he could not possibly raise them. They would give her their blessing when the thing was done and told to them, and that was surely enough. She must conquer her scruples, and come away without saying a word to either of them. This she had already by letter resolutely refused to do, and he was coming to-night to take her refusal in person, and to hear from her own lips that they must make an end and part for ever. VOL. I. 7 98 Jessie's expiation. Was the making an end very bitter to lier? — very, very bitter? In itself, and apart from all other circumstances, I ques- tion if it would have been extremely so? Supposing that any other form of excite- ment was to follow, I think Jessie would have found the sacrifice easier to bear. But nothing would follow. Nothing but the old, dull, unbroken, monotonous life, such as she had been leading before she had tnown him. Duty, a keen sense of duty, would have been almost enough to counter- balance the pain of sacrifice, if the sacrifice was not about to leave her so terribly stranded and alone. Did she not love him, then ? The ques- tion reads like a simple one, but for all that it is not too easy to answer. Hearts re- semble soils, and are quite as various in their qualities. Some, without any preparation, seem ready to produce at once a rich harvest of passion. Others, only after long and diversified cultivation, after being turned over and experimented on and tried A maiden's resolve. 99 with lighter crops, end by yielding large measure to the sower. Perhaps Jessie was of these last. Certainly she was not of the first. The surface only of her heart had been scratched, and she had yielded of her affec- tions accordingly. She liked him, unques- tionably. Perhaps she loved him. But she certainly was not desperately and hopelessly in love with him. He was handsome, and fascinating, and strong, and was above her in station. She loved him just enough not to be able to resist him altogether. But she did not love him sufficiently not to be able to resist him at all. A very material difference. Did he really and truly love her? At first she had thought so, and this had pro- bably made her love him as far as she did love him. It had certainly been the cause of her loving to be courted by him. Indeed it had been to her the soul of the entire incident. Had she been still satisfied that he really and truly loved her, he would 1—2, 100 Jessie's expiation. have had more power over her than, luckily for her, he now had. She did not think now that he really and truly loved her. The discovery was not of that painful nature which it would have been had she arrived at the stage of loving him quite independently of his love for her. But she had not. And the discovery was proportionately docked of its bitterness. Nevertheless, the discovery was not plea- sant. It was mortifying. But it nerved her" for action, and operated as a most useful ally to duty. If he really loved her, why did he let her go rather than face her uncle and aunt before their marriage ? She felt confident that she was right in her re- fusal. English girls are usually more innocent than many wise people imagine. But what with association, and the opinions they hear, and that strange half-knowing, half-unknowing sort of thing which we call instinct, they feel that it would be wrong, terribly wrong, to commit themselves to the care of one man, even though swearing that A maiden's resolve. 101 he is going to lead them straight to the altar or the registrar, and though they have but the vaguest and most indefinite notion of what will happen should he end by taking them to neither. Let us thank a ►dexterous providence which has made women thus far cautious without making them very knowing. Still, though she had failed terribly of her duty hitherto, and was now about to do nothing but what it was her duty to do, let us not be too hard upon poor Jessie. She really was making a serious sacrifice. It had been very sweet and pleasant to meet him in the Dipleydale woods ; and it would have been very pleasant *to have gone away with him and married him, and been taken by him about the big world instead of sticking up there at Net wold Farm alone, and with no prospect of a change for the better. She was already fond of him, and she had no doubt that she would have grown to love him immensely, when she saw that he loved her immensely too. But there was 102 Jessie's expiation. no hope now of anything of the kind. It was all over, or would be all over in a few hours, and then she would be as desolate as ever. The sun had set. The very afterglow was dying out. The twilight was sweet and clear. But the air was growing chill. She closed the little window and walked towards her chest of drawers. She looked hot and flushed, but she felt cold and pale. If it were only half-past nine ! CHAPTER V. A man's resolve, "Jessie didn't seem to want to read to me to-niglit," Roger Barfoot was saying to his wife. Jessie had kissed them both, and taken her candle, and gone upstairs, plead- ing that she felt rather tired. '^ I don't know how it is, but she's not all right lately, somehow. Something's amiss/' " I tell you what it is, Roger," answered his wife ; " I tell you what it is. You spoil her, and that's what's amiss." "Nay, nay," he answered, striking the bowl of his pipe against the top hob of the grate, in which their first fire of the autumn was dying out, and scattering the grey tobacco-ash over the smouldering 104 Jessie's expiation. embers. " Nay, nay, I don't see how it can be that, seeing as how I think I've treated her pretty much the same ever since she came to us ; and I never knew her not want to read to me before. It was the book that was not very interesting, maybe. It did seem rather a dull 'un, though they're none o' them very lively to me. I like the ^size news best, I do." " And a much more reasonable and sen- sible sort of taste, too," said the old woman, ^'though I can^t say as I care much for either o' them. I think the Bible and the ^Pilgrim's Progress' is a deal more interest- ing than both, and a very deal wholesomer and more to the purpose." "1 don't see that, Mary. I've nothing to say agin the Bible. That's always un- derstood. But I do think that last case, where the old woman poisoned her grand- children, and which '11 be coming on the Tery next 'sizes, more exciting like than the Delectable Mountains." '' Well, tastes differ, Eoger. But I don't A man's resolve. 105 think there can be much difference of taste about Jessicas conduct to-night. You didn't like it, and I didn't like it neither." "The lass was tired. Didn't you hear her say as much?" " Tired ! What's she tired about ! Were it nothing but being tired, I should be right glad to hear her say so. I only wish she had anything to tire her. Had she been scrubbing pans all day, like some folk I could mention " " There, there, my dear ! It's no use talking about scrubbing pans. Shoreham's child shall do no scrubbing of pans in my house. Nobody shall ever say that I took Shoreham's child from Taunton when she were an orphan like, and brought her to Netwold and set her to scrub pans." '^ Now, now, Koger, do be reasonable. Who wants her to scrub pans ? And when has she ever done anything of the kind? I'm sure no lady of the land could do less in the way o' Avork than she does." " And I don't want her to," answered 106 Jessie's expiation. Eoger, rather equivocally as to the sense. But as his sentiments were so well known to his wife, she understood him quite as well as if he had been grammatical. "She sews, and stitches, and darns, and puts on the buttons, and counts the linen, and does all that ni ever agree for Shoreham's child to be set doing." " Well, well, you know best, Eoger." " I do about that, my dear ; though I never professed to be very knowing about most things, and 11 give in to you at all times. Always saving that." " I don't want the girl to be set to do rough work. She'd only spoil it if she tried. But when you yourself say she's queer — and she's queer enough, off and on — I think it's time to ask why. Why didn't she want to read to 'you to-night? She used to want. Why didn't she want now ?" " She'll read to me again to-morrow night, hard enough. The book was dull^ my dear, I tell you." A man's resolve. 107 " It wasn't the book as was dull, Roger. It's herself as is dull. The place is dull, and you're dull, and I'm dull, and it's all dull together; and well it may be to a young thing as sticks her head cram-full of them fond stories, and lives in a fly-by- night sort of an atmosphere, where nothing happens as really does happen, and where everybody has as much money as is ever convenient to them, and nobody works for it, no more than Jessie does herself, more's the pity. That's what's amiss with her, and now you know." Aunt Mary had unburthened her mind by this long speech. Roger had himself com- menced the conversation by remarking that something was amiss with Jessie of late, and he could not be so inconsistent as to finish it by maintaining that the lass was all right. Indeed, even as it was, he had contradicted himself a little; and had the old woman been as passionately fond of verbal victory as some of her sex, she might have pressed the contradiction home. 108 Jessie's expiation. But she was a worthy wife and spared him. He felt her generosity; and also feeling that there was a good deal of truth in what she said, he contented himself with rising from his straight-backed chair, lay- ing down his pipe on the chimney-piece, and saying — " Well, well, my dear, let's go to bed. I'm tired, whoever's not. That rain took me unawares, and I didn't get all that bit o' thatching done, with all my staying out so late and going on at it till dark." " If you'd only have got somebody to help you do it, instead o' half killing yourself, Eoger, as you're always doing, it'd be better. You're not as strong as you used to be, whatever you may think." " Maybe I'm not, though I trust I've a deal o' work left in me yet." Half-an-hour later, and Jessie stole si- lently out of the house, where the two old people lay soundly sleeping. She had had no occasion to dress hurriedly, and accord- ingly she was fittingly prepared for the A man's resolve. 109 expedition on which she was bound. In- deed, she had given no slight pains to her toilette, moved thereto, no doubt, by the feminine desire to look her very best in her lover's eyes at the moment that he was going to resign possession of her. There was no moon, but there were plenty of stars, and the night was clear. Accustomed to her presence in the dusky hours, he would be able to distinguish whether she were dressed carefully or not; and her pride co-operated with her vanity to induce her to let him see that she was the former. She was in a flutter of excitement. But for all that, her bonnet-strings had never received from her closer attention, nor had she ever adjusted the collar of her cloak with more critical pains. She got clear of the cottage and of the farmyard without any difficulty, and soon found herself in the moorland road, which a little further on bifurcated into two paths, the left of which bore gradually away to Dipleydale, and the right plunged 110 Jessie's expiation. straight into the woods and to the Dipp, and so conducted by the torrent to Dipley- mouth. She chose this last, and was soon among the foliage of the trees, from which ever and anon a heavy drop of water, stayed by the broad leaves, would fall and plash upon her bonnet. The path would have been more moist and slippery had it been less stony and less precipitous. Several times, never- theless, she nearly lost her footing, now from one cause, and now from the other. She found that she was hurrying along most unwisely, and indeed, unnecessarily. The hour of meeting was a quarter past ten. She would be in plenty of time. Now she could distinctly hear the rush of the stream. Nearer and nearer. It was no longer the rush of a stream, but the roar of a torrent. It was tremendously swollen by the rain which had fallen during the storm, and it was tearing madly along as if for dear life, and to make way for the flood of water behind that had yet to come. A man's resolve. Ill How awful ! The stars shone clear through the openings of the foliage. The trees themselves were still ; and the torrent seemed to have become the only voice, the mind, the passionate soul of the woods; and it was shaking them with its sublime and voluble frenzy. She paused. She was not far from the little stone bridge where she was to meet him. Was he sure to be there ? Much as she dreaded the interview, she devoutly trusted that he would. She had met him at the same place before more than once, but never at the same hour. She did not like the hour to-night; and she had con- sented to meet him at such an hour on this occasion, only because she was so anxious to see him, and because it would be their last interview, and he had not given her time to write and fix an earlier one. She had received his last note only the day before yesterday, and in it he had told her that he should be travelling till he saw her, and had given her no address through 112 JESSIES EXPIATION. which any remonstrance as to the hour could reach him. She had never met him at latest save in twilight before. But what matter? It was the last meeting. She was going to say adieu to him, and for ever. She was still standing perfectly at rest. How different were her feelings now from what they had been on other occasions when she had been on her way to see him I Then, as now, her footsteps had been clan- destine. Then, however, the reproaches which her conscience had addressed to her for their clandestine character, had been partly silenced or overborne by the joyous palpi- tation of her heart. Now the reproaches which her conscience should still perhaps have addressed to her, were silenced en- tirely by the self-flattering sentiment that she was bound on a painful errand dictated by duty. Again she was on her way. One turn more of the stream and she would be close to the little stone bridge, and he A MAN S RESOLVE. 113 ought to be there. She made the turn, and he was standing before her. Instead of waiting, he had come a little up stream to meet her. He did what he had never done before, save in parting from her. He put his arms round her at once, and was about to kiss her fondly, but she half withdrew from his embrace, and half pushed him away from her, though not with violence, and then stretched out her hand to him. He said something, but she could not hear him for the noise of the water. " I fear we shall not hear each other, Jessie, darling," he said, raising his voice almost into a shout. They were walking t<3wards the little stone bridge as he did so, as though, that having always been the conventional spot for their meeting, they must go to it again this evening, despite his having come to meet her higher up. The noise grew louder still as they approached the bridge, for the torrent narrowed before plunging under it, and VOL. I. 8 114 Jessie's expiation. then leaped over a sharp ledge of rock and fell, at first a mass of boiling, hissing spray^ to become further on a deep, dark, swift, hurrying stream of foam-ilecked sweeping water. " We shall not hear each other a bit just here," again he shouted ; " let us cross the bridge and go a little further down, where the stream is quieter." The woodland path along which Jessie had come, and which, it will be remem- bered, led down to Dipleymouth, did so by crossing the little stone bridge, and follow- ing the stream along its other bank. On this side the path broke short, or was con- tinued only along a strip of broken rock and sward, which was difficult enough even in broad daylight. "Very well," answered Jessie, shouting back. '^ You go first." He did as she asked him, for the bridge was not broad enough for two to go abreast. As she followed him across, she put her hand a little above her heart and pressed A ma*n's resolve. 115 it against her dress. She was feeling if the five letters and the little trinkets she was going to return to him were safe in her bosom. Yes; it was all right — they were still there. He stopped when they had got sufficiently down the stream for them to be out of the overpowering sound of the fall. They still could hear it plainly enough, but it no longer prevented their voices from being easily audible to each other. He turned, and she halted. Again he seemed as if he was about to embrace her. Again she stepped back, and almost raised her hand. But, seeing the first movement, he desisted in time to render the second unnecessary. " May I not kiss you, Jessie dear? It is so long since I saw you." "It will be longer before you see me again," she answered. She was not a mighty dame, instructed either by grand experiences of her own, or by the utterances of a metropolitan stage 8—2 116 Jessie's expiation. She was only the simple product of Taunton and Dipleydale. It is true she had read a great many fine speeches in Mr. Britton's novels, made by young ladies to their lovers ; but she forgot all about these now. She was too much in earnest, and, therefore, too natural to be anything but unsophisticated Jessie Shoreham. She thought she was doing the right thing, and in that sense a heroic thing. But her utterances were not likely to be especially heroic. They were far more likely to be a little petulant, even from the commence- ment. She did not like the sacrifice she was making, and she did not feel in a very good humour with the man who was com- pelling her to make it. " It will be longer before you see me again," she said accordingly. '^ Nonsense ! Jessie. I hope it will never be so long again." ''But it will ; and that you'll soon find out." " You are cross with me, pet. What is it? Tellme.'^ A man's resolve. 117 " I am not cross with you in the least* Cross, indeed! What have I to be cross about?" " That is precisely what I want to know. Here, I have come right from one end of England to the other on purpose to see you, and you give me no better reception than this. I think it is rather hard." " I am very sorry you should have had the trouble of coming.'^ "It is not the trouble of coming,'' he replied, persuasively. " You know that, Jessie, well enough. I would have come ten times, a million times, the distance, for the pleasure of being near you. It is the coming for the purpose of receiving so un- kind a welcome that I meant." "I would have prevented you from coming if you had only given me time to do so. But you gave me no address, and I received your letter only the day before yesterday." " I am very glad I did not give you time, in that case," he replied, throwing a tone of 118 Jessie's expiation. chivalrous gaiety into his voice. "But why would you have prevented me from coming?" '^ I would have prevented you from com- ing at this hour, at any rate. You had no right to mention so late an hour." " Upon my word, Jessie dearest, I could not help it. I have only just arrived, and J knew I should arrive only at this time. If you had not met me to-night, I should have had to wait till to-morrow evening, for you, yourself, told me that you never could meet me before sundown. You know you did, Jessie; now, didn't you?" She knew she had told him so. And she blushed in the dark woods, r.emember- ing how it was she who had first feared the light of day, and the risk of familiar eyes, ■and the gossip of familiar tongues, and had proposed twilight hours of meeting. " And I could not wait till morrow," he went on, "a whole day, nearly twenty-four hours, without seeing you. You might not have cared," he added, with reproachful tenderness ; you might not have cared, A man's resolve. 119 Jessie ; but to me it would have seemed an eternity." '^ It's no use talking to me like that ; for you know I have come only to say good- bye to you, and to tell you that " " I know you Avill tell me nothing of the kind, pretty one." " I have already told it you by letter, and I meant what I wrote, and I mean it still ; and I should not have come here to-night at all except to tell it you with my own lips, and not to seem unkind by refusing to see you once more, if only to say good-bye." Whatever may have been in her heart as she uttered these last words, he took courage from hearing them. Such kind- ness is to a man always a strong ground of hope, an augury of success. ''So kind of you, darling; so, so kind. And I beg you a thousand, thousand pardons, for dragging you out at this hour. But wont you forgive me? I could not Avait. I was dying to see you." She made no reply. But the fact of her 120 Jessie's expiation. being there was proof enough that slie pardoned him quite sufficiently, he thought, for his purpose. So, as she still remained silent, he continued — " And you came here to-night intending to say good-bye to me for ever?" " I did, and I intend it still." " No, no, Jessie ! You intended it, but you will not do it. It is impossible ! You can- not mean that you are going to abandon me." There was a slio;ht shiver amon^f the trees, and the voice of the torrent for a moment seemed to swell into a growl, as if Nature shuddered, and would fain annihi- late the last-born but loftiest of her pro- ducts, when, in the face of all the rest, he desecrates the noble passion which she has given to him alone, with a lie ! ''It is not I who abandon you," she answered. "Who is it, then?" he asked. He wanted her to answer, "It is you who abandon me." But she Avas a maideiv and had too much maidenly feeling for that. A MAN*S RESOLVE. 121 He was disappointed that he had not sur- prised her into the avowal. It was neces- sary to trip her up in some other way. " Nobody else proposes to separate us. Heaven knows we shall never be separated by wish of mine. I love you, Jessie, dar- ling, as much as ever I did, and I want to have you with me more than ever." " It is all no use," she answered, sadly; '' and you know it is no use, Arthur. I am very sorry I have ever met you at all. It was all my own fault, I know. I ought not to have allowed you to speak to me, when you first did so in these woods. At least, I ought not to have answered you." He did not interrupt her as long as she was saying either what was so true that he felt he could not persuade her to the contrary, or what he could not turn to very dexterous account. " And when I had done so wrong as to let you speak to me, and to answer, I ought to have told my aunt at once." " Have you done so?" he asked, quickly. 122 Jessie's expiation. " No," she said, ^' I have not. I pro- mised you I would not, and I have kept my promise. I would break my promise now though, if I. could do any good by tell- ing her; for -I feel somehow that it would be my duty rather to break my promise than to deceive her any more. I cannot argue it with you, but I feel that. It would do no good, however, to tell her any- thing about it now. It would only make her miserable. And as I will positively never meet you again, what does it matter ? It is I who have done wrong, and I must bear the consequences." If she could only have looked into his heart as he listened to this, her simple ac- cusation ! If she could only have looked into his face ! That would have been some- thing. For even there she would have read what he could not hide, a conscious- ness that she had placed herself in his power already, and a determination to press his power ruthlessly to the utmost. But though there Avas such beautiful simplicity A man's resolve. 123 and truthfulness in the confession, there was so much penitence besides, that she could not raise her eyes to look at his, but hung her poor little head for shame as she spoke. " But there will be no consequences to bear, my dear girl," he exclaimed. "No sad ones, at any rate. You talk as if I was going to desert you." Again he paused, the dastard hoping that she would answer tearfully, '' And so you are." But again she refused the basely held- out bait. There was nothing for him to do but to go on. "As if I had made your acquaintance in a hurry, and now worse than in a hurry I was going to cease it ! On the contrary, my darling, our life together is only just be- ginning. Indeed it is not yet begun. We will be united, never to be separated. I will love you, see to you, and always seek to amuse you. Nothing shall stop us. I am rich, and Jessie darling, to you I should always be generous. No more dull days, my pretty one. We will go everywhere, 124 Jessie's expiation. see everything, and have every pleasure that life can give ns. And all this, to- gether. Do not dash my hopes. I love you, and you have told me more than once that I have won your love. Have you taken it back, and to whom have you given it ?" She must have been made of very un- maidenly stuiF indeed, if his ardent words — words too into which he had thrown a tone of earnestness, for he was in earnest in a sense and from one point of view — had alto- gether failed to move her. But they moved her only whilst she heard them, or just so much longer as she remained silent before attempting to reply. " You know that I have taken back no- thing that I ever gave." '' Do you love me still, Jessie?" "I shall not answer the question," she answered, " but I am quite sure that you do not love me." " But I tell you that I do. There was a time when you did not hesitate to answer the ques- tion and to assure me that you did love me." A man's RESOLVE. J 25 '' Because I believed that you loved me. You told me so, and I had no reason to think otherwise, as I have now." "In what have I changed?" he asked, as though she were grievously wronging him. " I asked you to pass your days with me, I ask you still." " But I misunderstood you then. I do not misunderstand you now. I never meant to leave home before we were — well, you know what I mean — and I never will. That is all about it." " Before you were married, you mean?" She made no answer. She felt too sure that he knew that he was right in his con- struction of the sentence which she had left unfinished, "Then you stake our happiness," he said, " upon the question of half-an-hour. Your uncle and aunt would know as soon as ever you were married, and surely " She stamped her foot fretfully, so snap- ping short his sentence. " Enough, I will not talk of it. It is hateful to me. See 1" 126 Jessie's expiation. and she drew the little packet from her bosom. '^ Here are your letters and the ring and the locket you gave me. You will find them all in here — the ring and the locket and the five letters ; only five." She held the little packet out to him. " What do you want me to do with these ?" he asked, innocently. " To take them back, and to give me back my letters too." " You foolish little Jessie. I prize your letters before all things. I hope I shall not have many more from you, or 3^ou many more from me. But the ring and the locket are only the beginning of really lovely things that I will shower on you all your life. Jessie, Jessie, I will not lose you !" " Do you mean to marry me ?" she asked, driven to desperation by words which excited her so. " You know I do," he answered, quietly. " But with my Aunt Mary's knowledge, and before I leave home ?" A man's resolve. 127 Now, Jessie, how can you be so- " I will not listen to another word," she said. ''Take these letters. Take them, Arthur, I say you shall. I am determined you shall." He made no movement to receive them from her. She put them in the bend of his arm, and they fell to the ground. He did not pick them up ; neither did she. But she went on breathlessly. " And you will send me mine — to the post-office, as before — and then it will all be finished. And I hope you will be happy. But I never will see you again. And it will be no use writing any more, for I shall show anything you write to my aunt. Oh, what a fool I have been ! And now good-bye. I must go, I really must go. If you do not choose to say good-bye to me, I must go without it." He caught at her dress and tried to stop her, but she persisted in her purpose. He begged of her to listen to him again, but 128 Jessie's expiation. she would not. Again he caught at her dress, and again she broke away. " No, no ; good-bye. I really must go. Good-bye." She was hurrying towards the little stone bridge, and he was obliged to take fast strides to keep up with her. Evidently she was in earnest. A few seconds more and she would reach the bridge. He slipped round to the right, was there before her, and barred the way. '' Let me pass, Arthur ! I insist upon going. This is cruel." There w^as a sob in the middle of the last word. The tears were coming at last. He put up his hands to fondle her. " Listen to me, Jessie — darling — pretty one — -just a word — just " "No, no; good-bye. Let me pass; you have no right, you have " " It's no use, I see," he said, not to her, however, but aloud to himself. At the same time he wheeled right round and looked across the bridge, with his back, of course, A man's resolve. 129 now turned towards her. But, as we have seen, so narrow was the bridge, it would have been idle for her to attempt to get past him. Then he gave a loud whistle. She had heard the words, " It's no use,'' and now she heard the whistle, and saw him looking across the bridge. She imme- diately concluded that the whistle would be answered from the direction in which he was looking. Terrified, she turned, and was going to run down the path in the direction of Dipleymouth ; but she had scarcely done so before she found herself in somebody's extended arms, and suddenly all was dark- ness to her. Then there was yet another pair of hands upon her, and she felt herself lifted from the ground. She had tried to scream, but she knew somehow she had not succeeded. She heard only the roar of the torrent, and then she felt a rocking, downward motion, as though she were being tossed and borne away on it. And then both sense of motion and sound of torrent died out in her. VOL. I. 9 CHAPTER YI. A CHANGE OF JOUENEY. " Give her air now ; she will not scream any more. Carefully! Bear away to the right; better follow me; just one minute." He ran back to the spot where he had held his interview with her, and there stooped and groped along the ground. " All right," he said, hastening back to them; "I have got what I wanted. On again, now." He had gone back for the little packet containing the trinkets and the letters, and was putting them away carefully in his pocket. But was this the man that had been talk- ing to Jessie? Impossible! The face of A CHANGE OF JOURNEY. 131 Jessie's companion was closely shorn, save where a slight dark moustache fringed the upper lip. This man had a dark brown beard and full whiskers, and moustaches of the same colour. It was the same man, nevertheless. Whilst his face and figure were turned away from her, as he looked along the bridge and gave the loud whistle, he had had plenty of time to draw from his pocket and put on the simple but effectual disguise. By the time he again turned, Jessie's power of seeing him or anybody had been com- pletely frustrated. But the men who held and bore her in their arms, and of whom he now assumed the leadership, seemed to notice nothing strange in his appearance. His wide-awake was pulled lower over his brows than it had been when he had been talking to Jessie, and his loose cloak was ga- thered perhaps morq closely about him. The men had enough to do to carry their burthen safely over the steep, rough, slippery path ; and as he always kept the lead, and never 9—2 132 JESSIES EXPIATION. turned round when he gave them his brief directions, it was his back that was always turned towards them. At last a fine ear might have noticed that another sound beside that of the tumbling torrent blended itself with the night. A sound, fuller, deeper, not like that of the stream, made up of quick, turbulent notes, but consisting of long, solemn, measured chords. Gradually the more petulant music was dying away, and the grave, deep-toned music waxing louder and nearer. They were moving away from the Dipp, though still in a descending direction, and getting into the thinner outskirts of the wood. Fairly out of the foliage, they heard but one monopolizing sound, the wash of the waves upon the shore. " Is the boat all ready ?" he asked, addressing another man who here ap- proached and touched his hat. ''Quite ready, my lord; anchored quite safe ; sea as smooth as a fish-pond." " That's all right. I turn off to the right A CHANGE OF JOURNEY. 133 there, and cut across to the tax-cart. I think it's safe enough." " Safe as possible, my lord. The horse was fastened tight, and he'd lots to eat. I don't think he'd move, my lord." " No ; I am not afraid of that. But are you quite sure you can steer the boat to the exact spot?" " Quite sure, my lord. I've had practice enough over the ground ; but I can't answer so positively for their rowing." " Then you must make up for it with your steering. You said one of them had been accustomed to a pair of sculls." " So he has, my lord." "He will have to do all that himself. The other fellow wiU have plenty to do to see after her. Mind that he does not hurt her. If she struggles, he is quite strong enough to keep her quiet without injuring her. That's the main point; and, remem- ber, the steering is the next. It's fairly light, and the sea being smooth, you ought not to keep me waiting long." 134 Jessie's expiation. '* You think you'll be there first, my lord?" " Of course I shall." " It's a bad, rough bit of road." "That's nothing. I shall go the short cut. And look you, I hope you have im- pressed upon those fellows the necessity, for their own sake, of catching the morning train back to town. The moment the boat touches the shore, and she and you are out of it, they must pull back again and lose no time in getting away. Do they thoroughly understand this?" "Thoroughly, my lord. They're quite satisfied with what I've promised them for the job. They say they've never had such a haul in their lives." "And the other trap is laid securely, too?" " Can't miss, my lord." "I hope not. But even if it does, it will not be too late to lay another. Here is my turn. Remember all I have said; and mind she is not hurt." He glanced A CHANGE OF JOURNEY. 135 round to see that the two men were behind ; and then resigning their guidance to the person with whom he had been walking as he gave the above instructions, he darted away to the right. The others made straight for the sea, loosed a small boat from its moorings, entered and pushed off. They acted in perfect conformity with the orders given to the man who had last made his appearance. He confined himself to steering. One of the other two rowed away lustily, and on the whole steadily. The third tightly clutched his burthen. Ever and anon there was a semi- suppressed scream, and the beginnings, as it were, of a scuffle. But neither ever came to anything. '* Don't hurt her," said the man who was steering. " Don't hurt her — give her some air. She can't do much harm here. But don't hurt her." " Shut up, young 'un. I'm carryin' her like a baby ; and she's about as quiet. She has lots o' air, and water too." For every 136 Jessie's expiation. now and then he put his hand over the side of the boat into the waves, and sprinkled her with the brine. *' She'll come to no harm^ she wont." "Quietly. Backwater; just a bit more. Pull away. That's it." And the boat grated on the pebbles. "I see him. He's there, and the tax- cart too. Lift her out carefully; there's no use your both coming. You stick to your oars and the boat, or it '11 drift away. There's nothing to fasten it to. That's all right. Can you carry her? or shall I help you?" " Yoii help ! I could carry you and her too, more like.'' Where a lane — a lane evidently made for sand-carts — abruptly ended at the shore^ stood a tax-cart and a man. The man stood at the horse's head and did not offer to move from it." "Put her up there," said the fellow who had late been steersman ; " while I get in at the other side and receive her; that's it. And now you'd better go and pull back as- A CHANGE OF JOURNEY. 137 quickly as you can ; for if you miss that train, you'll not get another till to-morrow afternoon ; and the sooner you^re out of this part of the world for the present, the better. I only wish I could go with you. But Saturday night at the old den ; and I'll bring lots of plunder with me, for this same job." " You'd better, or " He did not finish that sentence, but turning in the direction of the man at the horse's head, touched his hat and said, "Good night, master! And good luck to you." " Good-night, my man." And in a minute more the tax-cart was being slowly driven up the lane, and the boat swiftly pulled across the waters. ***** " She's coming — I hear her, Sam." " Nay, she's not due yet ; not for three minutes." " She's here all the same. I see the light afore her engine." ''So it is. We've done it to a nicety. Safe again, Bill. Nothing like running no 138 Jessie's expiation. risks, say I. Seven hours, and we're in Lunnun." What few people there were on the plat- form thus early in the morning and before daybreak, were bending forward and look- ing towards the train, which was coming up from the west. It was slackening speed, and was now close to the station. " Any passengers for London? Up train to London. Take your seats." • " This way. Bill. This 'U do us." '^ Nay, this looks comfortabler, a deal. Now then, what are you arter?" These last words were addressed by the speaker to a man who had pressed on behind and against him, as though with the intention of entering the same compart- ment. But instead of getting an answer to his polite inquiry, Master Bully Bill sud- denly found his wrists in painful proximity and his person generally reduced to com- plete poweiiessness. " I say, Sam, look here ! Here's a go," he said, turning around to his comrade. A CHANGE OF JOURNEY. 139 But Sam Slaughterous was in a precisely similar predicament. " And what may all this here mean, guv- nor?" asked Sam of one of the officials who now had charge of them. " You know fast enough what it all means. It means that a burglary was com- mitted at Fleetwood Manse last September, and that you and your pal were in it. Now, I caution you both to say as little as may be ; for anything you say 11 be used against you when you're tried at the Assizes." "Do you hear that, Sam?" " Ay, ay, I hear it." '' Then you'd best say nought." " All right ! I've nothing to say. But it's a rummy start, isn't it ?'' " Now then, come along." '' Perhaps the gem'man as we took the tickets of for London, wouldn't mind giving us back the money, as it seems we are not to use 'em." "You'll want nor money nor tickets either," said one of the detectives, gruffly. 140 Jessie's expiation. Then there was the ringing of a bell, a whistle, a snort, a heavy creak, and the train started off for London, but without the excellent company of Bully Bill and Sam Slaughterous, who were accommodated in a closed van, and carried leisurely across country to the county gaol. CHAPTER VII. "my cousin." London was exceedingly full, though the season proper could scarcely be said to have begun. It promised to be a very brilliant one, for there had been a royal marriage, and Easter fell early. As yet, however, it was Lent, and only the middle of March. But by that date Parliament has usually got into working order, and the clubs begin to be crowded. The hunting months are coming to a close, and the country has as yet brought no compensation for the break- up of winter. Every young fellow who has the smallest claim to be considered a man of fashion, belongs to the Rutland, and the Rutland 142 Jessie's expiation. was this evening more than usually full of our golden youth. Some half dozen of these were sitting and lolling near the main window of the reading-room. The Eutland does not profess to be either serious, learned, or political, and there is no necessity in any of its rooms for its members to observe the silence or the decorous whisper which is expected in most other clubs in the apart- ments devoted to the reading of the daily papers. Hence these six young gentlemen were talking without any restraint. At last one of the handsomest of them rose to his feet and stood with his legs, Colossus-like, apart, fronting the rest. " Are you going, Carryngton?" " Yes, I must. I have to dine — " and he hesitated a little — " at home." " Don't go, Percy, just yet," said another. "Rendover doesn't dine before half-past seven, surely?" " Yes, he dines at seven. It's a whim of his. Very absurd. But what can a fellow do? Take care of yourselves." ti TirTT ^^TTOX^T " MY COUSIN. 143 " But you^ll be at the club before eleven, wont you?" asked another, calling after him. " Noj I shan't. I'm going to the Pall- Mali. There's a new piece there, and I've promised to go and applaud. Ta-ta." " Devilish lucky fellow, Carryngton. They say Rendover gives him anything he wants." "Then his wants must be very mode- rate," said a faultless-looking youth, who seemed as though he could absorb all the gold and jewels of Golconda without being any richer, happier, or more splendid for them. " If anybody would give me all I wanted, I shouldn't sit, in forma pauperis, upon this cursed hard table. I'd have Hautbois' ponies, and Rumford's drag, and " "Yes, yes, we know all that," said another older lounger. " But Percy Car- ryngton has a soul above buttons, and would cut us all dead to-morrow to be President of the Board of Trade or some such thing." 144 Jessie's expiation. " Just fancy that !" exclaimed another. ''^ De gustihus — got a cigar, anybody? Then what the deuce makes him go to the theatre. You don't pass from the stage- box to the ministry, do you ?" " No, but you must ask Casta Diva that." " Casta Diva. Who's she ? Never heard of her." " Much better for your young mind that you should not. Lady Godiva, to be sure; Godiva Underhill." Percy Carryngton meanwhile was hasten- ing on foot towards Grosvenor Gate. He was as handsome and well-dressed as any of the men whom he had quitted, and care seemed to sit as lightly upon his shoulders. The same tailor dressed his tall figure, the same hair-dresser clipped and washed his light- brown hair and trimmed his still lighter beard and whiskers; the same bootmaker encased his feet, the same hatter crowned his person, the same hosier provided his superfine linen, and perfectly-fitting gloves, and from the same stick-seller came that "my cousin." 145' elegant but unpretentious cane. But there was a something about him, or rather in him, which only just hinted itself on the surface, but which all those dawdlers whom he had quitted, were entirely without. What was it ? Was it in his stride ? Was it in the way in which he put down his foot ? Was it that slight bend in the shoulders? Was it that carrying of the head, steady without being stiff ? Was it the elasticity, the latent possibility of some- thing more, about him, that marked him off from them, all externals in common despite. Many people — most people perhapS' — would have failed to grasp or to define it. But he would have been right who had drawn this plain distinction between him and them. None of them would ever have been seen in the front unless they had been born in it. He might, and probably would have come to the front, no matter where he had been born. He had some- thing in him, it was certain — perhaps that something was a great deal. They had pro- VOL. I. 10 146 Jessie's expiation. bably nothing in them, and if they had any- thing in them, assuredly it was very little. He had reached his destination, and rang at one of the handsomer, though by no means the handsomest, of the private pa- laces that give to Park Lane its world-wide renown. " Lord Rendover come in, Davey ?'* " Yes, sir. My lord came in ten minutes ago." " What time do we dine — seven, isn't it?" " Yes, sir; the same hour as usual." " Then I'll go upstairs and wash my liands at once." Carryngton's carpets are known the whole world over. But the whole world does not know, though a fair portion of it does, that they took their name from Lord Rendover's own father, Richard Viscount Rendover, the first peer who bore the title. Richard Carryngton was perhaps the most successful manufacturer that the Mid- land Counties, fertile in such men, ever pro-