L I b R.AFLY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVER5ITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 8Z3 
 
 VZBoH 
 
 v.Z

 
 THE CLYFFARDS OF CLYFFE, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOE OF 
 
 LOST SIR MASSINGBERD, 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 
 
 13, GREAT SIARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1866. 
 
 Ttic rUjht of Translation ix reserved.
 
 LOXDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY MACDONAIJ) A^D TDGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE, 
 
 BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET.
 
 8^3 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The Cloud in the Sunshine 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 II. The Preventive Station 
 
 
 
 . 19 
 
 III. Mr. Stevens 
 
 
 
 
 . 41 
 
 IV. A Night of Storm 
 
 
 
 
 
 62 
 
 V. Intercepted . 
 
 
 
 
 
 85 
 
 VI. Beside the Beacon 
 
 
 
 
 
 104 
 
 VII. Over the Cliff . 
 
 
 
 
 
 124 
 
 Vin. A Second Warning 
 
 
 
 
 
 140 
 
 IX. By the Short Cut 
 
 
 
 
 
 IGO 
 
 X. The Empty Home . 
 
 
 
 
 
 175 
 
 XI. In the Cutter 
 
 
 
 
 
 189 
 
 XII. Waiting for the Prey 
 
 
 
 
 203 
 
 Xni. Desolate 
 
 
 
 
 229 
 
 XIV. An Unexpected Invita 
 
 tion 
 
 
 
 
 244
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CLOUD IN THE SUNSHINE. 
 
 rpWO years have passed since the events 
 recorded m the last chapter. Our 
 scene is no longer laid at Clyffe Hall, but 
 far away in the south country ; while the 
 dwelling which is occupied by our dramatu 
 personce is very unpretending. A little low- 
 roofed cottage, set in a garden glowing with 
 spring flowers, such as only flourish so 
 early in a genial climate. The two 
 French windows open on a tiny lawn, 
 smooth as a boy's cheek, and in the centre 
 rises a tall clump of Pampas grass, watered 
 VOL. II. P
 
 2 The Chjffards of Clyffe. 
 
 by a shapely nymph of marble from a 
 marble pitcher; the lawn is girt by a 
 broad purple belt of fuchsia, beyond which 
 lies the garden, not for show alone, but 
 rich in vegetables and savoury herbs ; while 
 around all this fairy demesne there runs a 
 waving wall of odorous tamarisk. A waving 
 wall, I say, for though the cottage is 
 nestled in the hollow of a chalk- hill, and 
 the boisterous winds from north and east, 
 which roar and revel on the Downs above, 
 can never reach it, it lies open to the 
 south and west winds, whose soothing song 
 scarce ceases the summer through. With 
 them the swallow comes to nestle neath 
 the eaves, with them the bee (whom on 
 the tiny heights their violence will not per- 
 mit to ply his thievish trade) to rob the 
 flowers ; but on a ledge of chalk, full in
 
 The Cloud in the Sunshine. 3 
 
 the noonday sun, stand three stout hives, 
 for which the rent is paid in glittering 
 comb, so that the winged thief is rifled in 
 his turn — a few frail trees, warped by the 
 windy years to grow aslant, keep off the 
 westering sun ; but all the south is open. 
 To those who sit within, the cottage, the 
 sloping garden, and the sloping down be- 
 yond, are seen, and then the sea; but to 
 one who from the window withdraws a pace 
 or two, or lies upon his bed upstairs, the 
 eye looks straight down on the boundless 
 blue of ocean. Ah, precious boon in sick- 
 ness, to watch the shifting shadows of the 
 clouds, the swirling eddies, the daily battles 
 of the wind and tide ; to mark the sea- 
 gulls wheel or blown about by the fierce 
 gusts ; to see the glorious company of 
 white-robed ships, which this or that fair 
 
 b2
 
 4 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 wind has just set free, pass by upon their 
 distant errands, or to gaze upon the more 
 homely toil which, in the little bay, the 
 fishermen are plying; to contemplate the 
 great waters, and those who make their 
 business thereon. Then at night, how the 
 sharp pain is dulled by the sea's monoton- 
 ous undertone, that lullaby of everlasting 
 rest, or overwhelmed and deadened by the 
 majestic music of the storm ! 
 
 But there is no sickness in this cottage 
 now; the tall man sitting in the little 
 balcony above the doorway, whose uncovered 
 head almost touches the green roofing, is 
 not bowed by it ; nor is the graceful form 
 of his young wife, although a year ago or 
 so she blessed the sea, what time, after her 
 blissful trouble, she lay awake long nights 
 with her sweet babe beside her, sleepless,
 
 The Cloud in the Sunshine. 5 
 
 but in rest unspeakable. The baby-girl, 
 too, clinging to her mother's skirt, is well 
 and blooming. And yet there is a shadow 
 upon the young wife's brow, which even 
 the sunshine of that tiny presence cannot 
 erase, nor the blithe and the ringing tones 
 of her husband's voice. 
 
 " What, my pretty one !" quoth he, ^' a 
 cloud upon thy brow upon our marriage 
 morning. For shame ! Come let me kiss it 
 away, love. Not a word of quarrel have we 
 had yet, though we be such old married 
 folks ; but I shall quarrel, and spoil our claim 
 to the Dunmow flitch, if you do not smile 
 to-day. No, not an April gleam like that, 
 which leaves your heaven the darker, but a 
 July brightness, that must last all day. Come, 
 smile like my own Mildred." 
 
 "My dear, dear husband," answered Mil-
 
 6 Tlte Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 dred, tenderly, "I. know I am very foolish, 
 very wrong. There cannot be, of course — 
 there cannot be any real danger to us." She 
 stooped down to her child, and drew her to 
 her bosom, and held her there, and kissed 
 and rocked her to and fro. " It is so long 
 ago, and she has never tracked us yet ; and 
 we have taken no one into our confidence, 
 so that neither by design nor carelessness can 
 we ever be betrayed ; and living here so far 
 away from her, and under another name, we 
 cannot but be safe — I have said to myself 
 all this a thousand times ; and yet, and 
 yet" 
 
 "Yet what, Mildred?" 
 
 "Well, nothing; you would only laugh at 
 me. But to-day, of all the days in the year 
 — the day when I would wish to feel no touch 
 of gloom — a something — some presentiment of
 
 The Cloud in the Sunshine. 7 
 
 evil seems to cast its threatening shadow upon 
 my soul. She will never cease to seek us out, 
 Raymond, while life is in her ; of that I 
 am right sure. A wolf or blood-hound could 
 not be more stanch, more persistent for ill. 
 When I think of her, I always think of that 
 fell creature, tardy but sure as Fate, which 
 pursues the helpless hare whole days and 
 nights, and at the last — no matter when that 
 
 is" 
 
 "My dear wife," interrupted Raymond, 
 impatiently, "you are not complimentary to 
 your aunt Grace at all ! The animal you 
 describe is a creature of evil odour called a 
 stoat; moreover, you do not take a high view 
 of my own courage and ability to defend 
 you and little Milly, in calling me a helpless 
 hare. If I be so, and this vermin comes 
 within kicking distance, I know^ this, she will
 
 8 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 find me uncommonly strong in the hind- 
 legs." 
 
 "Nay, dearest, while you are with us, I 
 rarely have any fear ; but when you leave 
 the cottage even for an hour, and now you 
 are going away to-morrow for two whole 
 nights — ah me, that will be terrible!" 
 
 "Why, what a coward has my Mildred 
 become, who used to be so brave." 
 
 "That was when I had only myself to 
 take care of ; but this little one, Raymond 
 — what would my aunt not give to get her 
 into her power ? The baby-heiress of Clyffe ! 
 I would that we were what we seem to be 
 here, and she but Milly Hepburn, with 
 nothing to inherit save this little house and 
 ground. We have been happier here than 
 ever we were elsewhere." 
 
 "That is very true, love; and I for my
 
 The Cloud ill the Sunshine. 9 
 
 part should be well content to pass all my 
 days here. But if poor Rupert dies — or — or 
 worse, I will not sit down and let that woman 
 usurp my rights, far less my child's. No, that 
 I will not. I know, love, why you shudder. 
 You deem that she would poison me and mine, 
 rather than give up an inch of land, or yield 
 one golden piece. But this poisoning is not 
 so easy as one reads of in the story-books. 
 At Clyffe, indeed, she might have worked her 
 wicked will without much hindrance, or 
 perhaps even subsequent peril ; but not so 
 here. Moreover, she is not above the law. 
 Her unscrupulous fingers cannot clutch what 
 that bids her to deliver up, any more than 
 they can reach us here to harm yourself, 
 your child, or me. I tell you we are safe, 
 Mildred; and if there is a fear on either 
 side, it should be upon Grace Clyffard's.
 
 10 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 Is she to storm and rave for ever, and we 
 to listen shuddering, because we two have 
 chosen to marry ? — Have / no cause to 
 curse her in my turn ; an alien from my 
 home, and forced to keep in hiding like one 
 escaped from prison ? I think that I am doing 
 ill in this, wife. If there were no co-wards, 
 be sure there would be no tyrants in the 
 world. The sum my poor father gave me 
 is nigh spent; I need the gold he told me 
 with his own lips was left to me in his 
 will. Why should I not claim my own f 
 
 "Kaymond, Eaymond," cried the young 
 wife passionately, "for Heaven's sake, be 
 patient. Let us not bring the thunderbolt 
 upon ourselves, even if we are fated not 
 to escape it. Gold is indeed precious in 
 Grace Clyffard's gi'eedy eyes, and power, 
 and the pride of station; but revenge is
 
 The Cloud in the Sunshine. 11 
 
 dearer to her than all. Be sure that 
 on that day when we fled from Clyffe to- 
 gether, upon his very marriage morn, she 
 registered a vow to pay us both." 
 
 "I should have thought my lady would 
 have had enough of vows," returned Ray- 
 mond grimly, "when you kept that oath 
 she so wickedly extorted, to the letter — mar- 
 ried her stepson within thirty days ! Sweet 
 perjurer ! I can forgive poor Rupert^s 
 wrath at having missed his prize so narrow- 
 ly — since he was but her tool, and never 
 knew how cruelly she urged you — but as 
 
 for her Well, let her grind her dainty 
 
 teeth. To think that after two long years 
 of absence, the memory of this kite should 
 still flutter my dove, though folded in my 
 very arms ! Your cheek is chilly, Mildred ; 
 are you cold?"
 
 12 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 "Yes, a little .cold, dear husband. The 
 wind is risinf^ in the west, as thoucrh for 
 tempest. We shall have rough weather to- 
 night." 
 
 " 'Tis like enough ; and if bad weather 
 sets in after this long calm, it will last, I 
 fear. Come, let us have a walk together, 
 while walk we may. Upon one's wedding- 
 day, a ramble arm-in-arm. Darby and Joan- 
 like, is only fitting. Let us pay a visit 
 to the good lieutenant and his wife." 
 
 " Ay, and take the dear child with us, to 
 see her god-parents," exclaimed Mildred joy- 
 fully. 
 
 " You — deceitful — wicked — gipsy," returned 
 her husband, shaking his finger in reproval ; 
 " to see her god-parents, indeed ! You want 
 to have her with us — that is all. I do be- 
 lieve you never feel your little treasure safe
 
 The Child in the Sunshine. 13 
 
 unless beneath our eyes. However, just as 
 you like, love; tell Jane, then, to put her 
 bonnet on." 
 
 "I had rather carry Milly myself, Ray — 
 Jane is rather busy — and it's such a very 
 little way to the coast-guard station." 
 
 " Another white one ! It is three miles, if 
 it is a yard. But then the walk is upon 
 the cliff -top, is it not? a very dangerous 
 pathway in a wind ; and Jane is such a 
 giddy girl, and can never be brought to 
 understand that she carries so much more 
 than her life's worth in her arms, when she 
 has that precious child." 
 
 " Nay, Raymond, dear, I know you love 
 it just as much as I do. How thankful 
 you seemed to be when you were told your 
 child was" 
 
 " Ay, true," interrupted Raymond hastily ;
 
 14 The Chjffards of Clyffe. 
 
 " but that was very foolish of me. If he 
 had chanced to be a boy, what then? 
 He would have had a very different bring- 
 ing-up from that which has ruined so many a 
 Clyffard. He would have been spared the 
 curse which has fallen upon the eldest-bom 
 of us for so many generations." 
 
 "And yet how glad you were that it was 
 a girl, Raymond." 
 
 "Was I? Well, perhaps I was; at all 
 events, I love our Milly. Come, button- 
 mouth; give papa a kiss; then get you 
 gone, you and your mother too, and wrap 
 yourselves up warm, lest the rain should 
 catch us before we can get home again." 
 
 With smiles and kisses, he dismissed them 
 both ; then left alone in the verandah, he 
 leant upon the wooden rail that faced the 
 lawn, and drew a letter from his pocket ;
 
 The Cloud in the Sunshine. 15 
 
 the address ran thus : Mr. J. Hepbukn, 
 Pampas Cottage, by Westportown. It was 
 written in a cramped and vulgar hand, and 
 in one corner was scrawled " Immediatey" 
 underlined three times. "How" fortunate it 
 was," soliloquized Raymond, " that I chanced 
 to meet the postman in my walk this morn- 
 ing. Otherwise, this letter would have driven 
 my wife wild with terror. She would neither 
 have eaten nor slept till she had compelled 
 me to flee once more from the wrath of 
 this she-devil to some obscure hiding-place, 
 just as we have got reconciled to our little 
 cottage here, and have begun to feel it 
 ^home.' I will burrow no more, but fight 
 it out above ground. The threatened peril 
 is mysterious enough, but the warning 
 puzzles me even more. What a hand my 
 anonymous friend writes ; all leaning the
 
 16 The Clyffards of Clyfie. 
 
 wrong way, like . those blown-backward sap- 
 lings yonder. It may be disguised, of course, 
 but at the best I should say it was no 
 gentleman's hand. I am not much of a 
 critic, but the spelling, too, let alone the 
 composition, appears rather faulty. 
 
 " Beivair, Raymond ClyffcLrd. TJie ca£s eyes 
 have found you out at last ; find another hoal 
 for a little ; and at once. There is danger 
 lurking at your very door, — A True Well- 
 wisher." 
 
 It is certainly very strange, and stranger 
 that it comes when my poor wife has this 
 nameless dread upon her. It can be no 
 hoax, for nobody save those we have most 
 cause to fear could have supplied the ma- 
 terials for it. The post-mark is Westportown 
 only ; therefore, the writer cannot be very 
 far off. But except the simple folks whom
 
 The Cloud in the Sunshine. 17 
 
 we are about to visit, what Wellwisher have 
 I about here, or indeed anywhere, alas ! 
 We are compelled to impose even upon 
 these good people; to lead a life of decep- 
 tion, to exist humbly, furtively ! What a 
 fool was I to pass my word to Mildred 
 that it should always be so until Ru- 
 pert" Pie thrust the letter into his 
 
 bosom as his young wife rejoined him, 
 equipped for walking, and with the child in 
 her arms. 
 
 " Well, you have been quick," said he. 
 ^' What, Milly want a toss before she starts ? 
 Give her to me, then, mamma. Nay, now 
 I've got her, I shall carry her myself ; all 
 strategies are fair in love, as in war : she 
 is my lawful prize." 
 
 It was a fair picture — that stalwart father 
 with the wee bairn cradled in one shclter- 
 VOL. TI. C
 
 18 The Chjffards of Clijffe, 
 
 ing arm, and t}ie other thrown around his 
 wife protectingly ; and yet there was some- 
 thing in his eyes beside their love : the 
 fire that glows ^vithin the eagle's orbs what 
 time she sees the fowler inch by inch 
 descending from the crag upon her eyrie, 
 axe in hand, to bear away her young.
 
 19 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE PREVENTIVE STATION. 
 
 rpHE path which led from Pampas Cot- 
 tage to the coast-guard station lay 
 westward along the shore, and for a little 
 distance after passing by the fishing hamlet, 
 as Raymond had said, close to the cliff top, 
 but soon descended, not to the beach, but 
 through an intermediate belt of rock and 
 underwood between the cliff and the sea. 
 Here, sheltered from the rising wind, and 
 amid a verdant wilderness of thorn and 
 hazel, it was easy to have imagined it was 
 midsummer. The jackdaws slid in circles 
 
 C 2
 
 20 The Chjffards of Clyffe, 
 
 from the cliff ; . the wood-lark hanging in 
 the sheltered air poured forth his love; 
 the linnet whistled to his mate from the 
 warm bush; and flitting from shrub to 
 shrub, the tiny wren twitted his mite of 
 thanks in God's own ear. At times, too, 
 from a broad bank of brier, that, like a 
 frieze, stood out from the white cliff, a 
 hawk would shoot forth, noiseless and swift 
 as light, and poise above the peaceful scene, 
 like Satan watching our blam.eless Parents 
 in their sleep ; then shooting up above the 
 down, would glide and poise again, despite 
 the wind, and yet again would rise for 
 broader view, to fall — a malignant star — and 
 strike his innocent prey in some seeming- 
 sheltered homestead. 
 
 No homestead is, however, visible to hu- 
 man eye — no sign of the presence of man.
 
 The Preventive Station. 21 
 
 The broken rocks, indeed, resemble often human 
 architecture — here a fluted shaft, and there 
 a column with its capital acanthus-wreathed 
 — but some great throe of Nature has so 
 strewed them there, who in her pangs can 
 fashion things more beautiful than Art 
 can mould in years of patient toil. The 
 sea is sailless, save for one speck of white, 
 which, like a pure soul passing to eter- 
 nity, goes suddenly out on the horizon's 
 verge. 
 
 ''Is not this a very paradise, my 
 Mildred ? " exclaimed Raymond enthusias- 
 tically. 
 
 "It is indeed, dear Ray. May Heaven's 
 angels guard us while we tarry in it." 
 
 " Amen," answered Raymond gravely. "Not, 
 however," added he more cheerfull}-, "tliat I 
 am aware of our needing any special guardian,
 
 22 The Clyffards of Cbjffe. 
 
 other than what all mortals need against 
 their spiritual foe. As for mortal enemies, 
 never, surely, was a little household so girt 
 about with defenders as is ours. The 
 smugglers in the village would fight for 
 you as resolutely as ever they fought for 
 an anker of rum ; while the good lieutenant 
 and his twenty men here would draw their 
 cutlasses in your defence as gallantly as 
 though you were the Inland Revenue her- 
 self. What a snug home they have yonder! 
 Of all the comfortable-looking, ship-shape, 
 spick-and-pan residences that men can dwell 
 in, I do think a Preventive Station is the 
 most enviable." 
 
 The path had gradually risen until 
 it brought them in sight of the tenement 
 in question, a long low line of building, 
 with a verandah in front of it, and a large
 
 The Preventive Station. 23 
 
 garden, which extended to the sandy shore. 
 They stood now at the look-out station, 
 marked by a mast for signal-flags, and 
 sheltered by a turf-bank from the wind, 
 with the grass worn almost bare upon it 
 in places where the man on duty was wont 
 to lay his telescope — altogether a snug van- 
 tage-ground enough, and of course com- 
 manding a great expanse of view. The 
 picturesque broken ground over which the 
 three had come, upon one side ; and on 
 the other, a white curved bay, with the 
 coast-guard boat high on the shining sand, 
 but ready to be launched at a minute's 
 notice ; while in front the sea could be 
 swept for scores of miles. But by far the 
 most noticeable feature of '' the Look-out " 
 was certain carved wooden images stuck u]) 
 on end, which gave to it the appearance
 
 24 The Clyffards of Clijffe. 
 
 of a spot dedicated to heathen rites. These 
 idols, though representing the softer sex as 
 often as the masculine, were by no means 
 remarkable for personal beauty. Not one 
 liad been permitted to retain its entire 
 complement of limbs, and if a lady had 
 managed to preserve the aquilinity of her 
 nose, she might consider herself a fortunate 
 exception. These were figure-heads of vessels 
 which the cruel waves had mutilated, when 
 they cast the ships to which they belonged 
 upon that long low reef to westward, 
 stretching far out to sea. Already, with 
 the growing wind, the waters churned and 
 foamed there in white malice; but in that 
 comparative calm it was impossible to pic- 
 ture what wild work they made there dur- 
 ing a storm. What hours of human agony had 
 been witnessed by those pitiless cliffs, when,
 
 The Preventive Station. 25 
 
 scudding before the gale, the helpless ships 
 came on to their doom among the hissing 
 breakers ! What vain resolutions of repen- 
 tance had they beheld in the white scared 
 faces of whom Death was beckoning — 
 what dumb resolve to meet the worst like 
 men ! 
 
 From Deadman's Reef, no living man or 
 woman ever yet came to land; nay, the 
 bodies of the Drowned which strewed the 
 coast for days after a wreck could scarcely 
 be called human, so bruised and mangled 
 were they by the sharp and jagged rocks ; 
 but at very low tide the Reef was not 
 without its attractions. Gold had been found 
 there, and was found there still in old- 
 world or alien coins, guineas, moidores, 
 dollars, and doubloons ; while it was even 
 said that on a time when a ship from tlie
 
 26 The Chi ff arch of Clyffe. 
 
 Indies was there wrecked, the silver sand 
 of Lucky Bay (so called in consequence) 
 had been mincrled with sparkling gold-dust, 
 and that the ivory teeth of elephants glis- 
 tened upon the bare brown beach. The 
 little churchyard, some four miles away, 
 was three parts occupied with the bones 
 thus cast on shore ; most of them nameless 
 and unknown, and buried in one mighty 
 grave with a common headstone. Sacred to 
 the Memory of the Creio of this or that 
 vessel, ivho perished in a Storm off Dead- 
 man^s Reef and then the date. Nay, some- 
 times the very ship was nameless ; her home- 
 port and her destination alike unknown ; and 
 the part of the world she came from onh' 
 guessed by her scattered and ownerless cargo. 
 And yet, those who perished in her had 
 relatives, and friends, and lovers, like the
 
 Tlie Preventive Station. 27 
 
 rest of uSj and for long years were watched 
 for, doubtless, and Heaven importuned for 
 them — not altogether, let us hope, in 
 vain. 
 
 But it is an ill wind that blows no one 
 any good, and the coast population there- 
 abouts were by no means averse to a south- 
 west gale, and what it brought them. 
 " Death is king, and vivai wrecks," was 
 their motto ; and many a cottage in the 
 neighbourhood of Lucky Bay was indebted 
 for its most ambitious piece of furniture to 
 the fury of the winds and waves. Such 
 waifs were reckoned as the gifts of Pro- 
 vidence, and accepted by the simple folk 
 with genuine thankfulness, much as a good 
 harvest might be acknowledged by the pious 
 elsewhere. In old times there had been 
 ugly stories afloat of ships having been
 
 28 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 lured to their destruction by false lights, 
 professing to be safety-beacons ; but whether 
 true or false, such matters belonged to the 
 past only. Above the cliffs which looked 
 down on the reef, there was now a little 
 light-house, which shot a fiery warning far 
 out to sea ; and this was served by a couple 
 of men, who resided by turns with the 
 coast-guard, there being only room for one 
 lodger in this pocket Pharos. Thus, Lucky 
 Bay was dedicated, as it were, to the pro- 
 tection of life as well as property, and 
 seemed, at least to one of the three per- 
 sons who w^ere now looking down upon it, 
 as the most desirable of human homes. 
 
 "How I wish that we lived here, dear 
 Kaymond, with those good kind Careys, 
 watched night and day by trusty guardians, 
 instead of in our lonely cottage, where,
 
 The Preventive Station. 29 
 
 whenever you are absent, I feel so forlorn 
 and unprotected. See, there is the lieu- 
 tenant himself, and with a stranger too, as 
 it seems i at least, I never saw him about 
 the station before." 
 
 "Perhaps he is some official visitor, or 
 superintendent; Carey told me the other 
 day that he was expecting some person of 
 that kind. Look how he is pointing out 
 to him the vegetable lions ; I think I can 
 hear him telling about those potatoes having 
 been dibbled in by old Jacob, the lantern- 
 keeper, with his own wooden leg ; that's 
 one of the old gentleman's stock stories. 
 Ah, now he sees us. Look how he inter- 
 rupts his talk, and breaks away from his 
 visitor at once to come and bid you w^el- 
 comc ; we may be sure, therefore, that lie 
 is not the inspector.''
 
 30 The Clyffards of Clijffe. 
 
 Certainly, if .such he was, Lieutenant 
 Carey paid less respect than is usual in 
 such cases to an official superior, striding 
 away from him with rapid steps to meet 
 the new-comers, and pouring forth, in a 
 rich and powerful voice, a rain of welcomes 
 as he came. 
 
 " This is charming of you, Mrs. Hepburn ; 
 this is very friendly to walk so far to our 
 poor home ; and to bring your treasure with 
 you too — my little godchild. Marion, 
 Marion !" (here he raised his voice, as 
 though contending with some fancied strife 
 of the elements) ; " come out, wife ; here 
 are the Hepburns." Then, as he and his 
 visitors approached one another, he went on 
 in what he honestly considered to be con- 
 fidential tones, but which could be heard in 
 a favourable wind about half a mile.
 
 The Preventive Station. 31 
 
 " I am so delighted to see you, Hep- 
 burn; always delighted, of course, but par- 
 ticularly so to-day. Here's a strange lubber 
 come to stay with me from the Croivn of 
 Westportown, recommended by the landlord 
 — a man whom one respects, and to whom 
 I am under obligations, but — just as though 
 I kept a tavern like himself. 'My friend, 
 !Mr. Stevens,' writes he, ' is exceedingly 
 anxious to see the coast near Lucky Bay, 
 and especially the Mermaid Cavern, during 
 these spring-tides; and there being no ac- 
 commodation for himself nearer than this, 
 and much more for his man (who remains 
 here), I have ventured to ask you to give 
 him a shake- down for a night or two.' 
 That's just what the fellow writes, and 
 here is this Mr. Stevens — a lubber, sir, a 
 lubber — upon my hands. I have not an
 
 32 The Clijffards of Chjffe. 
 
 hour's time to spare, in expectation of this 
 inspection. You must shew him the Mer- 
 maid Cavern, Hepburn ; you must shew him 
 the coast." 
 
 A stout, florid, and, notwithstanding his 
 present trouble, a very cheerful-looking man, 
 was Lieutenant Carey, though he had been 
 pitted by the small-pox in a manner which, 
 he was wont himself to say, was no mere 
 seaming. Though it was his way to be 
 eloquent upon whatever annoyed him, he 
 was by no means of a repining character, 
 otherwise finding himself a lieutenant still, 
 after about forty years of sea-service, he 
 might perhaps have considered his own case 
 a hard one, and Lucky Bay rather a mis- 
 nomer as his place of residence. But, on 
 the contrary, not only did he make the 
 very best of his position, but entertained
 
 The Preventive Station. 33 
 
 the visionary idea that it would be im- 
 proved some day ; that to Iiave a post in 
 the coast-guard was not another name for 
 bein^ put on the shelf ; and that a day 
 would come when he would sniff the in- 
 cense of official favour, and be rear-admiral 
 of half the colours of the rainbow before 
 he died. It was a happy faith, and must 
 have been shared in those evil dajs of 
 favouritism by many another gallant seaman, 
 or surely the Lords of Admiralty would 
 have all met their doom at the hands of 
 naval Bellin^hams; grey-headed mates must 
 have hanged themselves from the yard-arm, 
 and shipless commanders taken to fresh 
 water in despair from the top of Waterloo 
 Bridge. It was Lieutenant Carey's belief, 
 in spite of some adverse evidence, that the 
 Admiralty kept a favourable eye upon him. 
 VOL. II. D
 
 34 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 It was true, indeed, that there had been 
 no indecent haste in promoting their protege, 
 but what they had said to themselves was 
 this : " Whatever happens, we have John 
 Carey in reserve ; we know where to find 
 him — we know where to lay our hand upon 
 him ; and by " (here they swore a little, as 
 it was the fashion to do in those days, 
 particularly when under the influence of 
 friendly emotions) — '^ and by the Lord Harry, 
 but some day we '11 do it." That day was 
 still indefinite, and being so, why, it might 
 be any day. Therefore, Lieutenant Carey 
 held himself constantly in readiness for pro- 
 motion, kept his preventive station in an ab- 
 solutely flawless state of discipline and per- 
 fection; and could have exchanged it for 
 the stern-cabin of any vessel suitable for a 
 young Commander of four-and-fifty at a
 
 The Preventive Station. 35 
 
 moment's notice, and with a good conscience. 
 In the meantime, he indulged his imagina- 
 tion by putting much superior ships in 
 commission than were likely to fall to his 
 share at first, and in reading his own ap- 
 pointment thereto upon the quarter-deck to 
 a crew that had flocked in hundreds to 
 serve under his respected name. He had 
 even concocted a little speech, very short 
 and very pithy, to deliver under those 
 precise circumstances; and pending their 
 occurrence, had repeated it to Marion, 
 his wife, about one hundred and forty 
 times. 
 
 "Don't you think it will be the right 
 sort of thing to say, Marion?" he would 
 inquire ; and after every repetition, ^Irs. 
 Carey would gravely reply, "It couldn't be 
 better, John." She took an immense inter- 
 im 2
 
 36 The Clyfards of Chjffe. 
 
 est ill the alterations which he had deter- 
 mined to make in the cabin arrangements, 
 which was the less to be wondered at since 
 they had nothing but her own convenience 
 and comfort in view; for in those days a 
 sea-captain in His Majesty's service was per- 
 mitted to have his wife on board with 
 him ; and had it not been so, good John 
 Carey's dream would have been robbed of 
 half its pleasure. Marion had been the only 
 daughter of his friend and co-religionist — 
 for Carey was a Catholic, a circumstance 
 which perhaps did not benefit his professional 
 prospects in those days — Lieutenant Henry 
 Linton, who was struck down by his side at 
 the battle of Aboukir, by a spar from the 
 French ship L Orient, when that great vessel 
 was blown to fragments with a thousand 
 men in her, and with his last words he
 
 TJie Preventive Station. 2>1 
 
 had commended the friendless girl to Carey's 
 protection. No bequest, drawn up and 
 sealed with whatever formalities, could have 
 been obeyed with more duteous care; the 
 idea of failing in such a sacred duty never 
 entered into his thoughts ; but the execution of 
 it was not easy. Little Marion, at a girl's 
 school at Hammersmith, had first to be 
 -written to by the bluff sailor, who was 
 terribly put to it how to break such bad 
 news by letter; then the scanty pension 
 the child received from government had to 
 be supplemented from the lieutenant's own 
 purse, in order that her scholastic advantages 
 should be still continued to her, and this 
 necessitated a different system in his own 
 expenditure, which for his means had been 
 hitherto profuse, not to say prodigal. Then, 
 when on shore, those interviews with Aliss
 
 38 The Clijffards of Clyffe. 
 
 Backboard, the .schoolmistress — who nearly 
 had a fit upon his happening, in the ordi- 
 nary course of conversation, to mention the 
 Lord Harry — were very trying; and more 
 embarrassing yet did matters become, when 
 Miss Marion, grown to womanhood, seemed 
 to have a difficulty in calling him papa, 
 w^hich she had done for the last half-dozen 
 years, and could not kiss his weather-beaten 
 cheek as usual without a blush upon her 
 own pretty face. 
 
 Then with a delicacy of expression such 
 as my Lord Chesterfield could not have, 
 achieved, although he had sat up half the 
 night racking his brain for courtly phrases, 
 the lieutenant just appointed to Lucky Bay 
 had offered his horny hand to the friendless 
 girl, to have and to hold in marriage, if 
 such an unequal match could really be con-
 
 The Preventive Station. 39 
 
 templated by her with favour; though if 
 not, the hand was hers still, so long as 
 life was in it, dedicated to her service for 
 her defence and succour always. But 
 Marion Linton accepted her benefactor as 
 her husband, and had never had any serious 
 cause to regret that she had done so. No 
 kinder heart ever beat beneath a blue 
 jacket, nor were its noble simplicity and 
 unselfishness lost upon her. Each, as they 
 imagined, owed a great debt of gratitude to 
 the other, and every day, strange . as it 
 sounds, that debt increased by mutual 
 repayment. Without uxoriousness, which 
 was foreign to his bluff and healthy 
 nature, he was as devoted to her as he 
 had promised to be if he had not become 
 her husband ; while she was anchored to 
 him fast by that trustiest cable whose
 
 40 The Chjffards of Clijffe. 
 
 strands are Reverence and Esteem as well 
 as Love. Lieutenant John Carey had, in 
 short, fallen into luck's way at last, and, 
 as it was his delight to boast, with small 
 thanks to the Admiralty. Their favour had 
 not been demonstrated, and was therefore 
 yet to come; and how so likely to come 
 as through their own official visitor, at 
 present expected % This it was that made 
 the good lieutenant so chary of his hospi- 
 tality at this particular juncture, and so 
 anxious to shift the burden of entertain- 
 ing his strange guest upon Raymond's 
 shoulders.
 
 41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MR. STEVENS. 
 
 "M^ 
 
 ■R. STEVENS," said the lieutenant, 
 as he and the visitors from Pam- 
 pas Cottage came up with that gentleman, 
 "let me introduce you to Mr. and Mrs, 
 Hepburn. Although a comparative new- 
 comer into the neighbourhood, Mr. Hepburn 
 knows more about the coast than the 
 coast-guard, more about the Mermaid Cavern 
 than the mermaids themselves. There could 
 not have been a more fortunate meeting 
 for your purpose than is this. I could 
 not have found you so good a guide had I
 
 42 The Clyffards of Clijffe. 
 
 pressed half the rascals in Sandby — smug- 
 glers mostly, by-the-by, whom this lady 
 tends in sickness, and encourages by every 
 means in her power ; and he is an idle 
 man is Hepburn. No inspection to attend 
 to, no superior to stand in awe of." 
 
 " With the exception, I am sure our 
 gallant friend must mean, of Mrs. Hep- 
 burn," said the stranger, with a smileless 
 bow. 
 
 " Very good ; very true ; bravo !" responded 
 the lieutenant, rubbing his hands. "My 
 dear Marion, you should have been here to 
 have heard what Mr. Stevens says," 
 
 "Well, my dear John, I am here now. 
 Perhaps Mr. Stevens will be kind enough 
 to say it again," said the lady in question, 
 emerging from the little trellised porch, 
 almost the only decoration by which the
 
 Mr. Stevens. 43 
 
 lieutenant's residence was distinguished from 
 those of the men under his command. 
 Then without waiting to listen to the re- 
 mark in question, she greeted Raymond and 
 his wife, and began to caress the child, 
 with much more fervour of affection than 
 is usual with women who are wives, but 
 not mothers. Mrs. Carey was very comely, 
 and even youthful still. Hers was a face, 
 indeed, which does not lose its youth even 
 amid grey hairs and wrinkles, and both 
 these were a score of years away as yet. 
 But her chief charm was her voice — so 
 gentle, so tender, so confidence- inviting to 
 all who seemed to be worthy of her esteem 
 — and she was very charitable in her esti- 
 mation of that worthiness — and yet so 
 dignified, so calmly courteous, distant as a 
 star, when addressing those who repelled
 
 44 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 the trusty needle of her heart. Among 
 the flock of rough fellows beneath the 
 lieutenant's command, most of them would 
 have laid down their lives for her sweet 
 sake; but a few blacksheep, conscious that 
 she knew their characters far better than 
 the simple lieutenant did, heartily wished 
 him unmarried. 
 
 " Now, pray come within doors, my dear 
 Mrs. Hepburn," cried she ; " and if you 
 and your husband will share with us our 
 mid-day meal, it will be very kind of 
 you." 
 
 '*" Well, the fact is, I am afraid of a 
 storm," replied Kaymond. ''It would not 
 do for my wife and child to be caught in 
 one of your sou' westers. What do you say, 
 O most weather-wise Mariner? Come, 
 tell us the truth ; though I own nothing
 
 Mr. Stevens, 45 
 
 .would give us greater pleasure than to dine 
 with such kind friends, and especially to-day." 
 
 "There, if we didn't clean forget it, 
 Marion !" exclaimed the lieutenant. " Upon 
 my word, this is too bad. And to call 
 ourselves old friends, too!" 
 
 "Nay, Mr. Carey, your wife didn't for- 
 get it," observed Mrs. Hepburn reprovingly ; 
 "she whispered to me her congratulations 
 when she kissed me." 
 
 "I assure you, my dear Carey, nothing 
 of that sort happened to m^," remarked 
 Raymond with mock gravity. " / have re- 
 ceived no congratulations; and I tliought it 
 a piece of great unfriendliness and neglect 
 on your part." 
 
 "Pooh, pooh," answered the lieutenant 
 merrily. " I don't care about you at all ; 
 I was only thinking of your dear wife."
 
 46 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 " Upon my word !" ejaculated Raymond, 
 "but this is very pretty." 
 
 "She is not only very pretty, but very 
 ^ood," continued the lieutenant enthusiastically; 
 "and I was a stupid old sea-monster not 
 to remember. My dear Mrs. Hepburn, 
 I wish you many happy returns of the 
 day." 
 
 "You hear that, Mrs. Carey?" cried 
 Raymond ; " he wishes my wife a widow, 
 and more than once ! Because he is married 
 himself, and cannot have her, he mahcious- 
 ly desires the death, not only of myself, 
 but of any person who may happen 
 to take Mrs. Hepburn's fancy after my 
 decease." 
 
 "Is it possible?" asked !Mr. Stevens 
 blandly, while the laughter still broke like 
 running-fire from Raymond and the two
 
 Mr. Stevens. 47 
 
 ladies; and the lieutenant stood smilinor, 
 but shaking his head, as though they were 
 much too hard upon him ; "Is it possible 
 that Mr. Carey has wished this lady many 
 happy returns of her wedding-day?" 
 
 "That's just it," said the lieutenant ; 
 " but there, I own always to forgetting 
 that Mrs. Hepburn is married at all. I 
 thought that I was speaking to a young 
 school-girl like Marion used to be, and 
 wishing her joy of her birthday. They look 
 more like boy and girl, the pair of them, 
 do they not?" 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Hepburn are very young," 
 returned the stranger coldly ; " the happy 
 day, of which this is the anniversary, can- 
 not have been very far distant. Two years 
 ago, I should say, at latest." 
 
 " By the Lord Harry I" cried the Heutenant,
 
 48 The Clyffards of Clijffe. 
 
 slapping his leg, "but Mr. Stevens has 
 guessed it — guessed the very time that you 
 two were made one. Now, 1 should never 
 have guessed it — never. Indeed, my private 
 opinion is, that it's all nonsense still. 
 They're not married, bless you ; they're only 
 children playing at being married — although, 
 to be sure, there's Milly" 
 
 The consciousness of having said something 
 indecorous, here struck the lieutenant dumb; 
 like that figure-head of the good ship 
 Fame, which reposed in his own Look-out, 
 his cheeks grew red and swollen, while, 
 for want of a trumpet to blow, they emitted 
 a loud and prolonged whistle. 
 
 " Milly is rather an uncommon name," ob- 
 served the stranger, breaking the somewhat 
 embarrassing silence : '• it is the short, I 
 conclude, for Melissa."
 
 Mr. Stevens. 49 
 
 " For Mildred, sir," replied Mrs. Hep- 
 burn courteously. " She is named after . 
 myself." 
 
 "A pretty name, and a pretty child," 
 returned the stranger, leaning forward, and 
 regarding it with attention. "But, dear me, 
 she seems very timid." 
 
 It may have been, as Mr. Stevens said, 
 that the child was easily frightened, or it 
 may have been that his own countenance, 
 being morose and stern, was not calculated 
 to inspire an infant with much confidence ; 
 but certain it was that Miss Mildred He]v 
 burn here set up such a wail of dissatisfac- 
 tion as caused her removal within doors, 
 which, of course, compelled the secession of 
 the two ladies. 
 
 " I am extremely sorry, Mr. Hepburn," 
 observed the stranger apologetically ; " I 
 
 VOL. II. E
 
 50 The Clyffards of Chjffe. 
 
 ought to have remembered that I have a 
 very repulsive exterior, although within, I 
 trust, I am not less well-meaning than 
 other people." 
 
 "My dear sir," repHed Raymond much 
 distressed, " there is no need for such con- 
 trition. No one can calculate upon a baby's 
 whims and fancies. — Carey w^as saying you 
 want to see the coast-line hereabouts. Now, 
 if you are going to make any stay here, I 
 shall be delighted to be your guide. But 
 the fact is, I shall be from home the next 
 two days; I have to go to Marmouth to- 
 morrow about engaging a sailing-boat for 
 the summer." 
 
 "And those are the only two days I 
 have at my disposal," replied the stranger 
 regretfully. 
 
 " I tell you icliat^' exclaimed the lieutenant j
 
 Mr. Stevens. 51 
 
 "you could walk with Hepburn as far as 
 you please upon his way, which lies along 
 the most magnificent part of the coast, over 
 the East Downs, and then — if you didn't 
 mind — ^you could walk back again." 
 
 "Thank you," returned Mr. Stevens drily; 
 " but perhaps I should be an incumbrance 
 to Mr. Hepburn." 
 
 "Far from it, my dear sir," returned 
 Raymond earnestly ; " I shall be delighted 
 to have your company. I am quite grieved 
 that you have come at so unpropitious a 
 time ; for the fact is, I have generally 
 nothing at all to do; and, indeed, our 
 friend here — when he does not happen to 
 be expecting a visit from his superior — is 
 not overworked either." 
 
 "Don't say that, Hepburn — don't say 
 that," broke in the lieutenant ; " I have 
 
 E 2 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF
 
 52 The Chiffards of Chjffe. 
 
 plenty to do, and I hope do my duty, 
 although it is not so agreeable to me as 
 that which would fall to my lot if I were 
 afloat. — Ahem, ahem.'* 
 
 " What on earth does Carey mean ?" 
 thought Raymond. "Why does the good 
 soul boast himself after this fashion, and 
 then cough as if he was ashamed of it ? 
 It is evident, however, that he wants to get 
 this fellow off his hands. — With regard to 
 the Mermaid's Cavern," added he, aloud, " I 
 have thought how an opportunity may be 
 afforded Mr. Stevens of seeing that. Is it 
 not the day after to-morrow that your . pro- 
 vision-boat comes in from Marmouth? Well, 
 why should it not drop this gentleman at 
 the cavern on its return-voyage?" 
 
 " A capital idea !" quoth the lieutenant, 
 thoughtfully. " But then it 's a weary way
 
 Mr. Stevens. 53 
 
 round the cliffs back again, unless there is 
 somebody to shew him the short cut over 
 the Downs." 
 
 ''Well, I dare say my wife will shew 
 him," answered Eaymond, good-naturedly. 
 "I am vain enough to think that time will 
 hang heavy on her hands in my absence. 
 She and the nurse might just as well walk 
 to the Mermaid's Cavern as anywhere else; 
 while I know little Milly will be delighted 
 with the sea-flowers." 
 
 "I cannot venture to ask such a favour as 
 that," observed Mr. Stevens, gravely. 
 
 *'I will ask it myself, my dear sir," re- 
 turned Raymond, with cheerfulness, "and 
 let you know to-morrow." 
 
 "Thank you very much," cried the 
 stranger. 
 
 "And / thank you, too," quoth the lieu-
 
 54 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 tenant, slapping his young friend on the back. 
 "But let me tell you one thing, Hepburn, 
 although it may seem somewhat inhospitable, 
 you have only half an hour or so to get 
 home with a dry skin. The storm is brew- 
 ing apace yonder. One of my men shall go 
 with you with a couple of boat-cloaks, and 
 an umbrella also, if you please; although I 
 doubt whether an umbrella can live in such 
 weather as is promised by those clouds." 
 
 "Permit me to carry the boat-cloaks," en- 
 treated the stranger, earnestly ; " let me do 
 something in return for the trouble I am 
 about to give, and in reparation for the 
 mischief I have involuntarily committed. 
 Moreover, by that means I shall learn where 
 your house is, at which I conclude I am to 
 call to-morrow morning in order to accom- 
 pany you on your journey."
 
 Mr, Stevens. 55 
 
 "I am sure you are very polite," re- 
 turned Raymond, frigidly, not altogether 
 relishing, perhaps, the addition of the self- 
 invited stranger to their little party in a 
 walk upon that particular day. "Here is 
 my wife, I see, all ready, warned of her 
 danger by prudent Mrs. Carey, I do not 
 doubt." 
 
 "I have turned her out of doors," laughed 
 that good lady, as she followed her guest 
 into the garden, "for it is not right that 
 either she or the child should be caught in 
 the coming storm. If she could have dined 
 and slept here — and we have both bed and 
 board to spare, although of the humblest — 
 that would have been an excellent plan ; 
 but she said very rudely that she would 
 rather be at home, alone with you." 
 
 "^Welcome the coming, speed the parting
 
 56 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 guest,' is a motto that we think highly of 
 in the north," observed Mr. Stevens, gather- 
 ing the boat-cloaks, which the lieutenant had 
 brought out in the meantime, under his arm. 
 — "I believe that Hepburn is a northern 
 name, by-the-bye, is it not?" 
 
 "I dare say it is," answered Raymond, 
 drily ; " but we are southern folks ourselves. 
 — Good-bye, Mi^. Carey; good-bye, dear lieu- 
 tenant." 
 
 " Good-bye, Hepburn ; and God bless you," 
 whispered the old gentleman, " for being so 
 civil to that lubber ; he has taken quite a 
 fancy to you, it seems, and declines to let 
 me accompany you, and help to carry the 
 cloaks. Do you know, between you and me, 
 I can't help thinking that he may be the 
 Inspector himself; that's why I stopped you 
 just now when you were saying that I
 
 Mr, Stevens, 57 
 
 wasn't overworked. I have told him that I 
 haven't a moment I can call my own. 
 Now, do you go on being civil to him — 
 there 's a good fellow. It 's just the sort of de- 
 vice the government would adopt in order 
 to see if a fellow 's doing his duty ; just 
 the sort of thing, too, for doing which you 
 would give a man a round dozen on board 
 ship. But there — that 's all a matter of 
 opinion. When the Admiralty has once got 
 its eye upon a fellow, they try him in all 
 sorts of ways, to be quite sure he is 
 genuine. There is certainly something under- 
 hand in this Stevens's looks, though it only 
 struck me for the first time when I intro- 
 duced him to yourself. I am pretty confident 
 he is the Inspector." 
 
 Without much belief in the surmise of 
 the good lieutenant, the expression of his
 
 58 The Clyffards of Chjffe. 
 
 wish was quite sufficient to make Raymond 
 more than courteous to his new companion. 
 He walked a little in advance of his wife 
 and Mr. Stevens, for the child he carried 
 in his arms was still curiously impatient of 
 the latter's presence ; but while he did so, 
 he managed to converse about the locality 
 and its wonders in a manner that seemed 
 to interest the stranger greatly ; so much 
 so, indeed, that he rarely interrupted him, 
 except with some interjection of admiration 
 or agreement; nay, even when Hepburn 
 pointed out some object of interest within 
 view, Mr. Stevens would bestow but a pass- 
 ing glance upon it, and then his keen grey 
 eyes would flash back again upon the 
 speaker, and be riveted upon him as fixedly 
 as before. Ere they parted, it was quite 
 settled by the two gentlemen that their
 
 Mr. Stevens. 59 
 
 purpose of walking together towards Mar- 
 mouth the next morning was to hold good, 
 no matter what should be the weather ; 
 while Mildred, upon her part, promised to 
 take her walk on the day after in the direc- 
 tion of the Mermaid's Cavern, if the ex- 
 pected storm should abate sufficiently to make 
 such an expedition feasible. 
 
 "I suppose Mr. Stevens knows," said she 
 to her husband, "that the cavern is only 
 open for two hours, even in these low spring- 
 tides." 
 
 "Yes, I have been informed of that," 
 returned the stranger. "The tide will leave 
 it free on Thursday between two and four. 
 If the weather be fine, I shall stay there 
 to the last moment, in hopes of madam's 
 coming; so I hope she will not leave me to 
 drown."
 
 60 The Clyffarch of Clyffe, 
 
 "I am afraid you will be well-nigh 
 drow^necl this afternoon before you get back 
 to the station," observed Raymond. " The 
 rain is beginning already ; see how the mist 
 comes on like a wall. Yonder is our little 
 cottage ; we, for our part, are quite safe 
 now. But you, sir — will you not step in 
 and rest a little?" 
 
 Perhaps the invitation w^as not given very 
 cordially : at all events, the reply was in the 
 negative. 
 
 "Not to-day, Mr. Hepburn. I will do 
 myself the pleasure of calling for you to- 
 morrow, however, at the hour you mentioned. 
 I wish you a very good evening, sir, and 
 madam." 
 
 He did not offer to shake hands, and as 
 if to prevent their doing so, stepped back- 
 ward as he bowed his farewell.
 
 3fr. Stevens. 61 
 
 "Good-bye, sir," replied the Hepburns, 
 bowing in their turn, '" good-bye until to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Ay, good-bye until to-morrow for one,'' 
 muttered the stranger, as he set his face 
 against the driving mist; "good-bye until 
 the next day for the other. If this be not 
 killing my two birds with one shot, it is 
 bringing them down with a double barrel."
 
 62 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A NIGHT or STORM. 
 
 '^■pAYMOND, dear, do you know I don't 
 like that man?" said Mildred earnest- 
 ly, as they sought the shelter of their little 
 cottage. 
 
 "Yes, I do know it, my love," returned 
 her husband laughing. " You looked at 
 him, when he frightened little Milly with 
 his ugly face, very much as you would 
 look at an ogre sharpening his teeth before 
 a baby-feast. He is, however, only one of 
 those uncomfortable persons who take even 
 their pleasures sadly. It is only charitable
 
 A Night of Storm. 63 
 
 to suppose that there is something really 
 estimable lying deep hid within such un- 
 demonstrative folks, which would exhibit 
 itself, if an opportunity of sufficient mag- 
 nitude should occur. Under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances, they certainly appear morose and 
 disagreeable enough. But it is the poor 
 lieutenant who has cause to complain rather 
 than we. A couple of walks with this Mr. 
 Stevens is the limit of our self-sacrifice; 
 but to have such a wet blanket for a guest 
 in one's own house, in weather like this, 
 with the idea, too, which Carey has got 
 hold of, that he is a coast-guard inspector 
 in disguise — why, with all his seaman's 
 superstitions, I should think he would con- 
 sider Friday next, which rids him of his 
 friend, a lucky day." 
 
 "But Mrs. Carey doesn't think he is an
 
 64 The Cliiffards of Chiffe. 
 
 inspector, " observed Mildred thoughtfully. 
 
 "Well, I hope not," launched Kaymond, 
 " for I never saw her behave so frimdlv 
 to anybody since that scoundrel, Lieutenant 
 Topsell, threw the poor, half-drowned New- 
 foundland back into the surf last winter, 
 and she declined to sit down to dinner with 
 him. What does she think about this 
 Stevens ?" 
 
 " She scarcely knows what to think ; but 
 she has a half-suspicion that, instead of 
 his beine; a coast-^uard official, he is upon 
 quite the other side. The landlord of the 
 Croicn is an obliging person, and stands 
 very well with the lieutenant, but, as she 
 thinks, without much reason. He has endea- 
 voured to shew himself a friend to the Revenue 
 upon more than one occasion ; but his informa- 
 tions are always laid a little late. At the pres-
 
 A Night of Storm, 65 
 
 ent time, it seems the Lucky Bay people have 
 received a hint from other quarters that ^a 
 run' Is to be soon attempted upon a large 
 scale, and, of course, If this be so, a spy 
 such as Stevens In the enemy's camp would 
 be Invaluable." 
 
 "I should have thought Mrs. Carey was 
 too sensible a woman to entertain such 
 far-fetched apprehensions," answered Ray- 
 mond carelessly; "but whether this gentle- 
 man be coast-guardsman or smuggler is 
 no concern of ours, but of the Revenue. 
 So long as we are In these parts, I have 
 made up my mind to mix myself up with 
 neither side. We have never bought a 
 yard of lace or a bottle of brandy since we 
 have been here, although I doubt if those 
 commodities are to be got anywhere else 
 so cheap as In this hamlet of Sandby; 
 
 VOL. II. F
 
 CS The ChjffanU of Chjffe, 
 
 upon the other hand, it is not my business 
 to tell Carey that Simon Reeves has got 
 a cellar under his hearthstone, or that Wal- 
 ter Dickson's boat has a false bottom. That 
 was the new parson's great mistake here, 
 and which has entirely destroyed his use- 
 fulness. A priest of our religion would 
 have been more adroit. And yet, to find 
 himself blocked out of his own pulpit, on 
 the very first Sunday, by kegs of eau de 
 vie! Can't you fancy old Reeves explain- 
 ing in a whisper, from the clerk's desk be- 
 neath, that there was really nowhere else 
 to put them for a day or two, and re- 
 questing his reverence to preach from where 
 he was, instead of shifting!" Raymond 
 roared with laughter at the picture he was 
 thus drawing of a circumstance that had 
 actually occurred but lately in the parish
 
 A Night of Storm. 67 
 
 church ; but Mildred scarcely smiled. Again 
 and a^ain, her husband rallied her upon 
 her silence and melancholy ; at dinner, 
 when he toasted her lovingly in a full 
 bumper, and made her drink a glass her- 
 self to the health of little Milly, she did 
 contrive to cast them off for awhile ; but 
 afterwards, as the evening drew on, and the 
 storm increased, her vague forebodings once 
 more seemed to take possession of her, and 
 after one or two attempts to win her to 
 cheerful talk, Raymond himself grew silent. 
 
 Conversation, however, was by that time 
 rendered almost impossible by the violence 
 of the rain, shuddering against the windows, 
 and beating with monotonous thud upon 
 the straw-thatched roof. After they had 
 retired to rest, and Raymond had fallen 
 asleep, and the waxen lids of the little 
 
 f2
 
 68 The Clyffards of Clyfie. 
 
 child in the cot by her side were closed in 
 slumber^ Mildred lay wide awake, consumed 
 with shadowy fears. To be in the same 
 room with one who sleeps, is, in some re- 
 spects, to be more lonely than if quite 
 companionless. There is something awful in 
 the thought that, though the body is there, 
 the soul of our companion is probably far 
 away; that the reins of his own being are 
 out of his control ; that he is separated 
 from us, and even from himself, as 
 thoroughly, for the time, as though he were 
 Dead. The quiet breathing may indeed as- 
 sure us that he lives; but the shut face 
 and motionless limbs irresistibly remind us 
 of that time when those eyes will never 
 open to gladden us more, or those lips 
 bless us with gracious speech — when we 
 shall be Alone indeed, and all the sympathy
 
 A Night of Storm. 69 
 
 that man can heap upon us will not avail 
 to fill up the aching void in our hearts 
 by ever so little, and when the best com- 
 fort that God himself can give us — or so 
 it seems to our poor stricken souls — is to 
 let us die too. I doubt if it is usual for 
 even the most worldly-minded — the merest 
 slave of scrip and share — to weave, under 
 such circumstances, the same gross web of 
 contrivance that solely usurps his thoughts 
 by day. He does not surely lie on his 
 sleepless pillow while his true wife slumbers 
 by his side, calculating still, like some ho- 
 rizontal triumph of Professor Babbage, with- 
 out one thought of Him who made him 
 and the hushed world rotating without, and 
 the stars which no accountant can num- 
 ber. 
 
 At all events, such was always a solemn
 
 70 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 time to Mildred Clyffard, and would have 
 been solemn now had it not been terrible. 
 The world was far from hushed, nor were 
 the stars shining. The elements were at 
 deadly strife, as we mortals say, when Rain 
 and Wind are only fulfilling God's word ; 
 and except that the forces employed were 
 far more prodigious, it was wonderfully like 
 a battle among men. There were pauses 
 when the powers of the storm seemed 
 gathering themselves together as after a 
 repulse, only to make a more tremendous 
 onset. Then the skirmishers — the sharp, 
 thin, driving rain — were pushed forward in 
 countless thousands, and the tempest came 
 rolling up behind them, column upon 
 column, while the heavy guns thundered 
 ceaselessly — the awful diapason of the sea I 
 Then, again, at the bidding of some solitary
 
 A Night of Storm. 71 
 
 blast, which might well be taken for a 
 trumpet sounding the recall, the legions of 
 the air would grudgingly retire, and gather 
 together as before. 
 
 Mildred was no coward; but oppressed as 
 she now was by premonitions of evil, the 
 viewless war that was raging without ap- 
 peared to have some affinity with the 
 vague dangers that seemed to threaten her 
 and hers. Mechanically she stretched her 
 arm over her unconscious child, as though 
 to protect her from some imaginary foe. 
 If Heaven should see fit to take her 
 husband from her, what would become of 
 their child? She might not herself die — 
 as she would wish to do — having that 
 sacred trust, the guardianship of the little 
 Milly, committed to her ; but how should 
 she be able to fulfil it? It was not the
 
 72 The Chjffards of Clyffe. 
 
 apprehension of poverty, the fear of being 
 unable, in such a case, alone to support 
 the child, which struck a chill to her 
 mother-heart ; but the sense, should Ray- 
 mond be removed, of the utter defenceless- 
 ness of their position, and of the unswerv- 
 ing resolution of their mortal enemy. 
 During the first year of her marriage, and 
 while her husband was all in all to her, 
 she was not thus troubled. From what she 
 knew, indeed, of the implacable disposition 
 of her aunt, she was well aware that the 
 endeavours to discover their wdiereabouts 
 never flagged, and that, when found, some 
 terrible vengeance would be attempted, and 
 perhaps perpetrated. Still — suppose the very 
 worst that could happen — suppose they 
 slew her Eaymond — well, let tliem slay her 
 also. It would not be difficult for one like
 
 A Night of Storm. 73 
 
 her to die, having nothing left to live for. 
 But now, with little Milly, although Ray- 
 mond was no dearer to her than before — for 
 that he could not be — yet how infinitely 
 more precious was his life ! Even this deeji 
 sleep of his filled her with the sense of 
 separation. How would she feel, then, when 
 he should in reality have left her? She 
 did not venture to picture the loss of him, 
 though a sudden shrinking of the heart 
 told her that such a thought had passed 
 unbidden athwart her brain; but how 
 would she feel to-morrow, when he would 
 in reality be absent? How would she feel 
 in such another night of storm, when 
 there should be no protector beside her, 
 whom she could wake with a touch, as 
 now, and cry, "Raymond, I fear;" and 
 straight be comforted?
 
 74 The Clyffards of Chjffe. 
 
 Her husband had never left her for a 
 single night before. She dreaded his ab- 
 sence beyond measure, although she could 
 not explain her fears even to herself. 
 The expectation of it had thrown a 
 shadow upon her life ever since she 
 had heard of his intention of going to 
 Marmouth, and had even saddened, as 
 we have seen, the anniversary of their 
 marriage-day. Ay, it was now two years 
 since she had escaped from that 
 dread slavery — from the woman who had 
 claimed her very heart to dispose of as 
 her own — and began to breathe an atmo- 
 sphere of liberty and love. For two years, 
 her former taskmistress had been foiled in 
 her schemes of vengeance, for that schemes 
 she had had was as certain as that the 
 thunder-cloud holds the lightning. But was
 
 A Night of Storm. 75 
 
 it always to be so? Was not this present 
 haj^piness too great to be enjoyed, notwith- 
 standing that it was thus marred by her 
 fears ? Would not those fears be one day 
 realised ? And at what time was this more 
 likely to take place than when Raymond 
 and she were temporarily separated ? Upon 
 whom would the blow first fall? 
 
 An intermission longer than usual was 
 taking place in the elemental war without; 
 mutterings only were to be heard, as though 
 the powers of the air were counselling to- 
 gether as to the point against which they 
 should next direct their fury. 
 
 Suddenly, and yet with the naturalness 
 peculiar to the situation, for nothing that 
 occurs to our minds at such a time seems 
 strange or to demand inquiry as to how it got 
 there — suddenly, Mildred's thoughts reverted
 
 76 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 to Mr. Stevens. Why did Mrs. Carey dis- 
 like him so? A good woman, if ever there 
 was one, was the Heutenant's wife; sincere 
 and pure, and with a marvellous faculty 
 for discernment of character, which the pure 
 sometimes possess — even the simplest, such 
 as children — as though the crystal soul 
 shrank from gross contact, as the Venice 
 glass shrinks and proclaims the presence of the 
 poison. As for herself, Mildred was aware 
 of the want of foundation in her own sus- 
 picions; she suspected every stranger of 
 boding them no good. That very Lieu- 
 tenant Topsell, whom Raymond had spoken 
 of that afternoon, she had identified in 
 some manner with their enemies ; and in- 
 deed his merciless and brutal character 
 seemed to have fitted him for the ally of 
 her she feared. But she had been mistaken
 
 A Night of Storm, 77 
 
 in that case, and had done the poor wretch 
 wrong, who had since then met with his 
 end, and not discreditably for that matter, 
 fighting against overwhehiiing odds in his 
 lawful calling. But this Stevens, who had 
 given no evidence of an evil disposition, 
 why did she shrink from /iz??i, in spite of 
 herself? Why had she shuddered to see his 
 cold grey eyes riveted upon Raymond ? 
 And why did the threatened absence of her 
 husband on the morrow seem to lower more 
 menacingly because he was to be accom- 
 panied by this man upon some portion of 
 the way? She had no fear but that her 
 . Raymond was a match, and more than a 
 match, for him, but his very strength and 
 courage made him careless and unsuspicious; 
 and, besides, what could the strongest arm 
 avail against a deadly weapon ?
 
 78 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 While her mind indulged itself with this 
 ghastly apprehension, she was by no means 
 insensible of the extreme improbability of 
 the event her imagination thus foreshadowed ; 
 but the idea grew upon her nevertheless, 
 until she had made up her mind to send 
 Mrs. Carey a private note in the morning 
 to entreat that the lieutenant would accom- 
 pany his guest in the proposed excursion. 
 She knew that the wife w^ould sympathise 
 with her terrors — doubly unreasonable though 
 they must seem to her, who knew^ nothing 
 of the Hepburns' former history — and she 
 knew that the gallant coastguardsman would 
 run the risk of losing promotion to a line- 
 of-battle ship, no matter how imminent it 
 might seem, rather than let her suffer the 
 heartache. As for meeting Mr. Stevens her- 
 self in the Mermaid's Cave, on the ensuing
 
 A Night of Storm. 79 
 
 afternoon, that might be considered after- 
 wards ; sufficient for the next day was the 
 possible evil thereof. In the meantime, 
 she had mentally arranged for Raymond's 
 safety. Thus relieved from her more 
 immediate fear, and the rain and wind 
 keeping an armed truce, if not subsiding, 
 tardy sleep touched her eyelids, as it had 
 long ago sealed those of the other two oc- 
 cupants of that little room. Mildred's spirit, 
 too, was freed from the trammels of the 
 flesh, and roamed, only God knows how, 
 through space and time. How long she 
 slept, a minute or an hour, she could not 
 tell, but she awoke with a spasm of terror, 
 amid the raging of such a tempest as made 
 what had preceded it seem but as the light 
 winds that diversify the calms of summer. 
 Were her companions drugged, that they
 
 80 The Clyffards of Clijffe. 
 
 slept throu.^h it? She took the child into 
 bed with her, and hugged it close, as though 
 in fear that the whirling eddies which 
 thundered down the chimney, and made 
 the night-lamp flicker and flare, should 
 snatch her from her side. Was that a step 
 upon the balcony outside — close outside their 
 very chamber -room window? or a falling 
 
 brick ? or a " Raymond, Raymond, they 
 
 are breaking in the house-door!" At the 
 top of her voice, she shrieked, while she 
 shook her husband by the shoulder. The 
 next instant he had leaped from the bed, and 
 snatched something from beneath his pillow. 
 
 " Let them beware," he cried ; " their blood 
 be upon their head." Then pressing his 
 left hand to his forehead, he added more 
 calmly, "I am not myself, Mildred. Did 
 vou call?"
 
 A Night of Storm. 81 
 
 " They are in the house," said she ; " do 
 you not hear them? They have torn the 
 door off its hinges." 
 
 " I hear the rain beating and the wind 
 roaring, Mildred. The door must have been 
 blown in. I must get it shut, and put up 
 the bar, or we shall have the roof lifted 
 off our heads." 
 
 Putting on some garments hastily, he was 
 about to leave the room, when he felt a 
 hand upon his shoulder. Mildred, ashy pale, 
 and in her dressing-gown, with the still 
 sleeping child clutched in her arms, was 
 standing beside him, making signs that she 
 would go too. Terror had deprived her of 
 the power to raise her voice to the pitch 
 necessary to make herself heard in that 
 great tempest. 
 
 ^'I am not going to take the lamp with 
 
 VOL. II. G
 
 82 The Clyffarch of Clyffe. 
 
 me," cried he, smiling at the tone he was 
 obliged to use. " Never fear, love ; I shall 
 not leave you in the dark." 
 
 But she, like one stone-deaf, only shook 
 her head, and followed him downstairs to 
 the little passage where the wind was pour- 
 ing in like a deluge through a broken 
 dike. The whole cottage rocked like a tree. 
 It was not so dark but that they could see 
 what had happened — the door was off its 
 hinges, and was jammed back on the wrong 
 side against the wall. Through the gap 
 could be seen the steady light from the 
 little Pharos above Lucky Bay ; a cheering 
 sight to Mildred, glad to feel that there 
 were fellow-creatures there, up and about 
 their usual task, and even counteracting to 
 some extent the awful effects of the storm ; 
 perhaps, too, it reminded her of that Eye
 
 A Night of Storm. 83 
 
 which, although we may not care to look 
 for it in fair weather, watches us always, 
 and in the storms of Life beacons us to 
 haven, and in the Night of Death is a 
 star of hope. 
 
 " Hold this, dear Mildred : nay, your hand 
 shakes; let me leave it on this step." 
 
 Raymond put down the thing he car- 
 ried, and shouldering the wainscot, while 
 his wife watched him from behind the angle, 
 advanced step by step. Twice he essayed to 
 heave the house-door into its proper posi- 
 tion, and twice was borne back with it 
 against the wall and bruised. The third 
 time, taking advantage of a moment's lull, 
 a lucid interval in the mad fury of the 
 storm, he managed to close the door, and 
 put the bar up. Then they went over the 
 little house, seeing that all was safe. The 
 
 g2
 
 84 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 cook and housemaid were sitting up in their 
 respective beds, with their nic;ht-caps tucked 
 behind their ears, as though the storm was 
 an oratorio of which tliey would not have 
 missed a note upon any account, but both 
 in tears. Mildred affected to laugh at their 
 fears, and endeavoured to reassure them ; 
 but when she once sought her own couch 
 it was not to sleep. A new and totally 
 unexpected cause of apprehension had now 
 taken possession of her mind. 
 
 Why, for the first time during their 
 married life, did her husband sleep with a 
 loaded pistol under his pillow ? Was he, 
 too, beset by a presentiment of imminent 
 peril, or was he cognizant of some real 
 danger, the nature of which he was con- 
 cealing from her? Mildred did not dare to 
 ask him the question, for very dread of what 
 might be the reply.
 
 85 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 INTERCEPTED. 
 
 T)ALE and haggard from her ahiiost sleep- 
 less night, arose Mildred Hepburn, and 
 wrote her note in secret, and despatched it 
 to the coast-guard station by a trusty hand. 
 The elements which had denied her rest 
 were now at amity. The rain was over 
 and gone ; the winds were wdiistling care- 
 lessly enough their favourite tune, Over the 
 hills and far away ; and the dark clouds, 
 scattered and bleached, were hurrying over 
 a bright blue sky. Even the sea wore a 
 smile upon its lips, still white with wrath,
 
 86 The Chjffards of Clyffe. 
 
 and strove to look as though its great 
 green waves, which were tossing about for 
 leagues upon their crests the fragments of 
 men's floating homes, and, not far down, their 
 drowned and mangled limbs, were only at 
 play. There are storms, of course, in day- 
 time, but the Wind loves the Night, and 
 under her black wing more often works its 
 malice than in the day. The sunshine, like 
 a healthy public opinion among men, seems 
 spmewhat to restrain it. Upon this April 
 morning, at all events, it shewed no trace of 
 malign fury, but seemed to delight in 
 practical jokes, such as whirling the white 
 pigeons of Sandby Farm (which considered 
 itself inland) in twice as many circles as 
 their own spiral habits would have suggested, 
 and so bewildering them with the speed 
 thereof, that they scarcely knew themselves
 
 Intercepted, 87 
 
 from gulls ; also meeting with the round 
 hat of Mr. Walter Dickson, mariner, stuck 
 on merely, as it seemed, by capillary at- 
 traction to the extreme back of his head, 
 it tossed it hither and thither, and "skied" 
 it, and rolled it, and "chivied" it, like a 
 good-natured mob at a fair ; and not like 
 a blood-thirsty rabble, greedy for rapine and 
 ruin, as had been its behaviour but a few 
 hours before. 
 
 Nevertheless, these high-spirited proceed- 
 ings of the zephyrs were far from relished 
 by Mr. Dickson, not too well pleased, in 
 the first place, with his appointment of 
 special messenger to Mrs. Hepburn, since it 
 involved his visitinfj the coast-ffuard station : 
 he would have done anything in the world 
 for lier^ and indeed he was doing even this ; 
 but it is impossible for any gentleman who
 
 88 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 trades in lace^ and owns a vessel with a false 
 bottom, to perform with cheerfulness a service 
 which brings him into personal contact with 
 the guardians of the revenue. No one "svith 
 any feeling would select from among all his 
 acquaintances a notorious pickpocket, or even 
 a receiver of stolen goods, to go on an 
 errand for him to the sitting magistrate at 
 Bow Street ; nor would Mrs. Hepburn have 
 employed Walter Dickson on this particular 
 mission if she could have helped it. But, 
 in the first place, he was her nearest 
 neighbour, and there was no time to spare, 
 since Mr. Stevens was expected very early ; 
 and in the next place, the objection of 
 being connected, openly or secretly, with the 
 contraband trade, lay against every man, 
 woman, and child in Sandby, who looked 
 upon French brandy and Brussels lace as
 
 Intercepted. 89 
 
 productions of their own labour, and upon a 
 coast-guardsman as ^' the interloping foreigner." 
 The high tariff of import duties in those 
 days was certainly an example of a Law 
 but for which many men would have been 
 free from sin ; like the game-laws of to-day, 
 it begat, as its immediate effects, treacheries, 
 blood-shedding, murders, as well as indi- 
 rectly producing a general lawlessness — a 
 hatred of all laws as tyrannies. The ill- 
 feeling thus engendered between the governed 
 and their governors manifested itself with 
 greatest intensity, of course, in its first 
 stage ; that is, between the actual violators 
 of the obnoxious law, and the parties whose 
 duty it was to uphold it. A smuggler 
 would behave towards a coast-guardsman as 
 he would behave to nobody else who was 
 his enemy. Sandby men, who had wives and
 
 90 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 children of their own, to whom they hoped 
 God would be merciful, by preserving to 
 them their bread-winner, had made women 
 widows and children orphans in that little 
 colony at Lucky Bay before now, with but 
 small scruple. Even on a windy night, it 
 was not probable that a blue-jacket so used 
 to the cliff as Robert Deans, for instance, 
 should have been hloitm over it; which 
 happened in January last, during a dead 
 calm, and, by a curious coincidence, on the 
 very night when a large cargo was known 
 to have been run within half a mile of 
 the spot; or even granting so much out of 
 an abundant charity, William Boyce, another 
 guardian of the revenue, could scarcely have 
 dug that pit on the sea-shore for himself, 
 in which he was found dead one winter's 
 morning, with only his head above the shingle.
 
 Intercepted. 91 
 
 Nor is it to be supposed that all the 
 cruelty was exercised upon one side. There 
 were men at Lucky Bay ready to slash 
 with their cutlasses upon very slight provo- 
 cation, and who looked upon a Guernsey shirt 
 as a very pretty mark for a pistol-bullet. 
 Worst of all, perhaps, informers infested 
 the neighbourhood, and sowed suspicion 
 everywhere, making bad blood even, where 
 it should have flowed most purely, in the 
 veins of kinsmen. Writers who are not 
 practically acquainted with troubles of this sort 
 generally fall into the error, when describing 
 them, of making it appear that, notwithstanding 
 all crimes or vices which may be generated 
 by such a state of things, the courtesies of 
 life, the ordinary relations of man and man, 
 go on pretty much the same as under 
 more favourable circumstances. But this is
 
 92 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 far from being the case. No war is carried 
 on with that distinguished politeness which 
 it presents in the cream -laid pages of the his- 
 torian, and civil war least of all. When coast- 
 guardsman and smuggler met one another in 
 the neighbourhood, incidentally and during 
 what I may call the intervals of business, 
 they did not give one another " good day :" 
 and if they spoke at all, they consigned each 
 other's eyes and limbs to everlasting perdi- 
 tion. Even when engaged upon a lawful 
 calling like the present, Mr. Walter Dickson 
 fully expected the roughest of receptions at 
 Lucky Bay. A perceptible stiffness seizes 
 the most affable of medical practitioners, 
 when a homoeopathist enters the same room ; 
 a county magistrate addresses a poacher, 
 even non-officially, in tones which he gene- 
 rally uses towards the Canine world rather
 
 Literceioted. 93 
 
 than the Human ; and I think I have seen 
 a clergyman of the Established Church turn 
 almost livid when brought into connection 
 with Baptists. Similarly, Lieutenant Carey, al- 
 though a most capital fellow, was by no means 
 rose-water to the enemies of the Revenue. 
 Moreover, as I have said, there was just 
 now a rumour afloat of some great robbery 
 (as he considered it) to be presently com- 
 mitted upon His Majesty's customs in those 
 parts, and it was not wholly out of the range 
 of probability that he might suspect Mr. 
 Dickson of having lent his lug to the 
 Tempter on this occasion, as he had often 
 been known to lend his lugger. 
 
 Altogether, if commissionaires had been 
 an institution of those times, and Mr. 
 Dickson had happened to find one waiting 
 for an errand in so unpromising a thorough-
 
 94 The Clyffards of Chjffe. 
 
 fare as that between Sandby and Lucky 
 Bay, he would have preferred to hand over 
 the handsome guerdon which Mrs. Hep- 
 burn had given him for his trouble, as 
 well as something out of his own pocket, 
 to get this letter taken to Mrs. Carey by 
 other hands. He did not, indeed, find a 
 commissionaire, but he found Mr. Stevens, 
 who had strolled out with a cigar (and a 
 spy-glass) before breakfast, a quarter of a 
 mile or so on the Sandby side of the 
 Look-out Station. Perhaps we shall not go 
 far wrong in supposing that from that post 
 of espial he had seen Mr. Dickson coming, 
 and had purposely gone forth to meet him. 
 
 " A fine fresh morning, my good fellow," 
 observed this gentleman carelessly. "Was 
 there much damage done at your place by 
 last night's storm?"
 
 Intercepted, 95 
 
 "Not as I knows on," replied the mes- 
 senger gruffly ; " but the fact is, I came 
 away before my eyes were well open, for 
 the wind kept me awake with blowing the 
 shingle off my roof, and when I should 
 have had my snooze this morning, 1 got 
 this to carry to the preventive station ;" 
 and he held out the letter to Mr. Carey 
 at arm's-length, as a man does who has got 
 a material grievance to expatiate upon. 
 
 "Well, as far as that goes," rejoined the 
 stranger, " I can save you the rest of the 
 walk, and welcome, as I am the guest of 
 Lieutenant Carey at present, and am going 
 back to his house at once to breakfast." 
 
 " Well, you see, it's got ^ Private ' written 
 upon it," observed Mr. Walter Dickson 
 indecisively; "and yet" — here he scratched 
 his head with extraordinary vehemence — " I
 
 96 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 have no great fancy for putting ray head 
 into that there hive yonder, even to deliver 
 a letter, and that's the truth. But I ask 
 your pardon, sir; perhaps you may belong 
 to them blessed ^Bluebottles?'" 
 
 *^Not /, my friend," rejoined the stranger 
 laughing ; " the very cigar I am smoking 
 came to my lips free of the Custom-house. 
 I am only here to look at some of' your 
 sea-sights — the Mermaid Cavern, and so on. 
 I came, too, recommended by mine host of 
 the Crown — " here he sank his voice, and 
 looked cautiously about him — "which should 
 be a passport — should it not ? — to all free- 
 traders." 
 
 " Perhaps it should, and perhaps it should 
 not," returned the other warily. "The 
 coast-guard station is a queer place for an 
 honest man to put up at : the rat doesn't trust
 
 Intercepted. 97 
 
 tlie dog, you know, that lies in the same 
 basket with the cat." 
 
 "And yet, if he offered the use of his 
 teeth to carry a letter," laughed the stranger, 
 " I should think even the most cautious of 
 rats might accept that service. By all 
 means, carry it yourself, however, if you 
 thhik it right to do so, although I should have 
 thought that the word 'Private' referred 
 rather to the contents of the letter than to 
 any particular hand by which it was to be 
 delivered." 
 
 " Ay, that's true enough, master, surely ; 
 and if you're going to breakfast with the 
 lieutenant and his wife, it's like you'll have 
 an earlier opportunity of giving her this 
 here than I, for them Bluebottles is sartin to 
 keep me hanging about, and listening to tlieir 
 sauce, instead of taking in the letter direct." 
 VOL. II. H
 
 98 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 " Very good,"* observed Mr. Stevens, quietly 
 pocketing the note; "I will see that Mrs. 
 Carey gets it at once." 
 
 He nodded carelessly, and turning upon 
 his heel, sauntered back in the direction 
 of the preventive station ; while Mr. Dick- 
 son, not displeased at having been spared 
 the most unpleasant portion of his errand, 
 walked hastily Sandby-ways, without once 
 looking behind him. If he had entertained 
 any suspicion of Mr. Stevens as a letter- 
 carrier, and had kept his eyes turned west- 
 ward for a few minutes, he would have 
 remarked that that gentleman was a con- 
 siderable time emerging from the little 
 thicket which lay between him and the 
 Look-out. This interval was spent in a 
 manner which few besides the late Sir 
 James Graham could have conscientiously
 
 Intercepted, 99 
 
 commended. Nothing was * easier than to 
 untwist the little note, which had neither 
 seal nor fastening of any kind, except that 
 moral one conveyed by its superscription, 
 "Private," and the contents were his own 
 (by appropriation) in half a minute. 
 
 " Dearest Mrs. Carey, 
 
 "Pray beseech the lieutenant to 
 accompany Mr. Stevens and my husband 
 in their walk this morning. This is a very 
 silly request, I know; and yet I think you 
 will grant it, even without having a reason 
 assigned by. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 "Mildred Hepburn." 
 
 Mr. Stevens folded up the letter as before, 
 and placed it in his waistcoat pocket, with 
 
 3.2
 
 100 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 an unpleasant fmile. "No, Mrs. Eaymond 
 — Hepburn," soliloquised he slowly, " I 
 don't think that plan will suit me. Two 
 is company — for a little way — but three is 
 none. What a very fortunate thing that 
 I was at the Look-out, and thereby able 
 to anticipate your little arrangement!" 
 
 Mr. Stevens had not been the only per- 
 son among the Figure-heads that morning. 
 Early as it was, Mrs. Carey had stepped 
 out there with the intention of telling her 
 guest that the tea was "made," and had 
 been an unseen witness to the interview 
 between him and Dickson. This so greatly 
 strengthened her suspicions of his connec- 
 tion with the smuggling interest, that she 
 ventured to confide them to her husband. 
 But from an inspector of coast-guard sta- 
 tions to a sort of polite Will Watch, was
 
 Intercepted, 101 
 
 too many points for the , opinion of tiie 
 lieutenant to veer round all in a hurry. 
 He had only begun to admit the possibility 
 of Mr. Stevens's not being a direct emissary 
 of the Admiralty, when the object of their 
 discussion appeared coming up the little 
 garden. 
 
 "Let us see whether he mentions having 
 seen Dickson," said Mrs. Carey hurriedly, 
 and the next moment their guest was 
 seated at the breakfast-table. Not a word 
 did he utter about any such meeting, and 
 very little about anything else; ever and 
 anon, Mrs. Carey shot a glance of signi- 
 ficance at her husband, as much as to say, 
 " Did I not tell you so ;" but the conver- 
 sation languished. It was felt a rehef by 
 everybody when the meal was finished, 
 although the host had something of em-
 
 102 The Clijffards of Clyffe, 
 
 barrassment to endure still, when Mr. 
 Stevens observed, " Come, lieutenant, if 
 you cannot be my companion for a longer 
 walk, you will, at least, accompany me 
 half-way to Sandby." And poor Mr. Carey 
 dared not say "No," albeit he was burn- 
 ing to have his talk out with his spouse 
 concerning the character and intentions of 
 this inexplicable person ; nor was Mr. 
 Stevens satisfied even with dragging him 
 half-way, but compelled him to accompany 
 him to the height corresponding to the 
 Look-out, upon the Sandby side of the 
 bay. There, in sight of Pampas Cottage, 
 the stranger struck his forehead theatrically. 
 "Upon my life, Mr. Carey," cried he, "I 
 believe I might just as well wear a turnip 
 as this head of mine. I have clean for- 
 gotten a letter which a messenger from
 
 Intercepted. 1 03 
 
 Mrs. Hepburn intrusted to me this very 
 morning to give to your wife's hands. 
 But stay ; I don't think you must open it, for 
 you see it is marked ' Private.' I won't 
 detain you another moment ; pray, take it 
 back at once, and make my humblest 
 apologies ; pray, do — pray, do !" 
 
 Mrs. Hepburn, watching in the little 
 garden, had beheld with a grateful heart 
 the appearance of the lieutenant with his 
 guest upon the western hill-top ; and her 
 disappointment was extreme when she now^ 
 saw the former shake hands with his com- 
 panion with the evident intention of return- 
 ing. She even beckoned to him with her 
 hand to come on ; but although he took 
 off . his hat, in token that he saw her, 
 he only shook his head emphatically, and 
 walked rapidly away homeward.
 
 104 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BESIDE THE BEACON. 
 
 "R. STEVENS pursued his way to 
 Pampas Cottage, and as he waited 
 for the servant to answer the bell, pulled 
 out his watch somewhat ostentatiously, as 
 though he would observe, "I am a 
 punctual man ; I trust I shall not have 
 to wait." Mrs. Hepburn had withdrawn 
 within doors, but he was well aware that 
 this piece of pantomime could not be lost 
 upon her or on anybody else who chanced 
 to be in the downstairs' sitting-room ; and 
 when he was admitted he took his umbrella
 
 Beside the Beacon, 105 
 
 in with him, as one who has come not to 
 make a call, but to take a walk, and who 
 expects to start immediately. He had his 
 reasons for not wishing to waste time ; 
 while poor Mildred, who was quite over- 
 whelmed by what seemed the desertion of 
 the lieutenant, did not know that she had 
 any interest in delaying his departure. Not 
 five minutes elapsed, therefore, before Ray- 
 mond and the stranger were climbing 
 together the Down behind the cottage, and 
 Mildred with her child in her arms was 
 watching them, and fashioning with dumb 
 white lips a prayer for her husband's safe 
 return. At the top of the Down, he paused 
 and turned, standing up against the horizon 
 very distinctly. There he motioned to her 
 a farewell, kissing his hand twice, once for 
 her, and once for little Milly, as she well
 
 106 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 understood it, then vanished over the brow 
 of the hill, while her own fingers were yet 
 upon her lips. Mr. Stevens lingered an 
 instant behind him, and seemed to imitate 
 her gesture, mockingly, like some malignant 
 Spectre of the Brocken. She had promised 
 to meet this man on the morrow at the 
 Mermaid's Cavern, and be his guide home- 
 ward; yet she now feared nothing at his 
 hand for herself, but everything for Kay- 
 mond; and although she knew it not, she 
 had good cause for fear. 
 
 The two men pushed swiftly on their 
 way. There was not enough sympathy 
 between them to make them slacken their 
 pace for the convenience of conversation. 
 They walked, rather, like the Alpine 
 amateurs who walk for walking's sake, and 
 about whom the professional guides they
 
 Beside the Beacon. 107 
 
 employ would, I should think, be very 
 unwilling to express their own private 
 opinion. When, however, they came to any 
 remarkable spot, Kaymond would pause, and 
 courteously explain to his companion what- 
 ever of interest belonged to it. Their path 
 lay almost always close to the verge of the 
 chalk-cliffs ; but every now and then a huge 
 cleft, riven by some convulsion of nature, 
 or worn away by the constant action of 
 some little river, would compel a detour. 
 These sheltered spots, wooded for the most 
 part to the very verge of the ribbed sea- 
 sand, were very lovely, but in the eyes of 
 an inhabitant of the locality, their pic- 
 turesqueness had but little claim upon his 
 regard. They were all more or less used 
 for smuggling purposes : not a boat lying 
 up high and dry on the shore that tern-
 
 108 The Clyffards of Clijffe. 
 
 pestuous morning but had held at one time 
 or another its contraband cargo — and about 
 each there was a tale of adventure, and 
 peril, and blood to be told, to which 
 Mr. Stevens seemed to lend an attentive 
 ear. The Downs themselves, with many a 
 velvet hollow, meet for the noiseless pas- 
 sage of the cloud-shadows, many a tiny 
 dingle, dotted with gorse, and shaggy with 
 thorn, were by no means without their story. 
 More than once, the wayfarers would come 
 upon the "barrows," or burial-places, of the 
 long- forgotten dead — some rifled of their con- 
 tents by brutal curiosity, but others still in- 
 tact, with the same earth upon the moulder- 
 ing bones which Briton or Saxon, centuries 
 ago, had placed with pious hands above 
 their dead. These tumuli were invariably 
 upon some lofty ridge, as though the dying
 
 Beside the Beacon. 109 
 
 wish of those beneath them had been to be 
 laid within the spot from which their homes, 
 and fields, and all the little world which 
 they had known in life, could best be 
 seen." 
 
 Some observation of this sort Kaymond 
 made ; but his companion only shrugged his 
 shoulders, not seeming to appreciate antiqui- 
 ties, or the reflections arising therefrom, so 
 much as the tales about "Will Watch." 
 
 "What does it matter, when a man is 
 dead," observed he roughly, " where his 
 bones are put to?" 
 
 " Very true," replied Raymond. " Still, 
 one has a fancy in these matters. One 
 would not like to lie unburied, for instance, 
 with one's bones picked by obscene birds, 
 and whitening on a desert; or in the depths 
 of ocean, tossing about with shell and sea-
 
 no The Chjffards of Clyffe, 
 
 weed, and sucked by the cold lips of tooth- 
 less fish." 
 
 "You are fastidious, Mr. Hepburn/' re- 
 sponded the stranpjer, hammering at the 
 rounded turf with irreverent heel. 
 
 "If it be so to prefer land to water for 
 a last resting-place, I am," returned Ray- 
 mond. " It is, as I have said, but fancy. 
 Still, I would like to be laid where my 
 wife and child could come to look upon 
 the earth which to them at least would be 
 sacred; nay, like these ancestors of ours, I 
 confess I would rather find my last home 
 where all the scenes around had been fami- 
 liar to me during life." 
 
 "We have not all that choice," observed 
 jMr. Stevens coldly. 
 
 "Nice, agreeable, cheerful companion this," 
 said Raymond to himself: "I hope he is
 
 Beside the Beacon, 111 
 
 not going to tire himself by walking with 
 me too far." 
 
 Almost immediately, and as though in an- 
 swer to this unexpressed thought, Mr. 
 Stevens stopped ; he did not, however, hold 
 out his hand to say Good-bye ; he pointed 
 with it to a dark object looming upon a 
 crest of down far in advance. " Why, 
 what is that f he muttered. " It looks like 
 — like a gallows !" 
 
 So haggard, so wild, and yet so menac- 
 ing was the stranger's appearance as he 
 made this inquiry, that Raymond might 
 aptly have retorted, " And you look like 
 a gallows-bird." But he only answered, 
 smiling, ^'For one who has no foolish 
 fancies such as we were speaking of but 
 now, you seem strangely moved by Mar- 
 mouth Beacon. It is certainly black, and
 
 112 The Clyffards of Clyfe. 
 
 it is made of timber, but I never knew it 
 taken for a gallows before. A beacon has 
 stoodj in some shape or another, on that 
 promontory, which is one of* the highest 
 cliffs in the south country, for perhaps a 
 thousand years. In the middle ages, it 
 flashed forth its warning far and near, 
 whenever an invader threatened; it did 
 good service, too, when the Spaniard would 
 have laid his yoke upon us, and told with 
 a tongue of flame when his great Armada 
 made the Deep yonder twinkle with myriad 
 lights, like another heaven." 
 
 " Ay, he would have brought back the 
 old faith," said Mr. Stevens carelessly, but 
 with a stealthy glance at his companion. 
 
 "I am a Catholic myself," answered Ray- 
 mond simply, ^'but I w^ould not force my 
 creed down a nation s throat at the point of
 
 Beside the Beacon, 113 
 
 the sword. In these times, as during the 
 late war, the beacon is only used as a tele- 
 graph. Those wooden arms, which give it, 
 as you say, so ghastly an appearance, have 
 a vocabulary, when made to speak, of many 
 hundred words, which on a fine day can 
 be heard, or rather read, miles and miles 
 away." 
 
 "Are there any people stationed there to 
 work it?" inquired the stranger. 
 
 "No, not now: the wooden hut is pulled 
 down where the semaphore men used to 
 live, and at present I suppose it is one of 
 the most lonely places hereabouts. From 
 the sea, it is totally inaccessible; the cliffs 
 everywhere are sheer; and except by the 
 coast-guard in their night-patrol, I doubt 
 whether it is visited once a week by any 
 human creature. If you would like to pass 
 
 VOL. 11. I
 
 1 14 The Chjffards of Chjffe. 
 
 by it, liowever, it will not take us much 
 out of our way." 
 
 " I should like to do so much," replied 
 Mr. Stevens : " I have never yet been 
 close beside a beacon, nor even seen one 
 before." 
 
 ^*Yet hereabouts they call them See'ema- 
 fores," observed Hepburn laughing. The 
 fresh, clear air, the rapid walk, had worked 
 with Raymond's naturally healthy animalism, 
 and put him in high spirits, which even 
 the companionship of the sombre Mr. Stevens 
 could not damp. 
 
 " You are pleased to be jocular, sir," 
 responded that worthy; ^'in our north coun- 
 try, such mirth is held to be a bad sign. 
 ' Against ill-chance,' it is said, ' men are 
 ever merry.' We call it /e." 
 
 *' Indeed !" responded Raymond, laughing
 
 Beside the Beacon, 115 
 
 still. "I never knew that a poor pun was 
 held to bring bad luck ; and yet I know the 
 north country well, too." 
 
 " I thought you told me yesterday you were 
 from the south," observed the stranger gravely. 
 
 "I have lived in both north and south,*' 
 answered Raymond in some confusion. 
 "Now, look at those little lumps of chalk 
 which run to and from the Beacon, like 
 the outlines of some children's game. With- 
 out them, the coast- guardsman would never 
 find his way at night; and once some 
 cowardly scoundrels, for whom smuggler was 
 far too good a name, arranged them after 
 dark so that the poor wretch, thinking that 
 he was only upon his usual beat, fell over 
 the cliff-top." 
 
 "And was killed, I suppose?" inquired 
 Mr. Stevens. 
 
 I 2
 
 116 The Chjffards of Chjffe. 
 
 "Killed! — ay; if he had had nine lives, 
 he must have lost all before he reached the 
 bottom. Whether a man fell from yonder 
 edge upon sea or shingle, it would matter 
 nothing to him by the time he reached 
 either. See! the very rabbits in the warren 
 there have left a space between their burrows 
 and the hideous steep, and squat at a re- 
 spectful distance. The poor victim's name 
 is carved somewhere upon the Beacon itself: 
 yes, here it is — a more fitting record of his 
 fate, perhaps, in such a place, than any 
 other monument : 
 
 Abraham Price — periit 
 
 The date is already erased by the wind and 
 weather, but the thing took place but a very 
 few years ago." 
 
 "But why periitT inquired IVIr. Stevens
 
 Beside the Beacon. 117 
 
 with unwonted interest. " That is not the 
 Latin for ^murdered,' is it?" 
 
 "Wellj not exactly, I believe," laughed 
 Raymond; "but the fact is, the crime was 
 never brought legally home to the wretch, 
 although the finger of justice seemed to 
 point him out as clearly as yonder arm is 
 pointing to you." 
 
 The stranger looked up in the direction 
 indicated by his companion, then staggered 
 back with his face pale as ashes. The 
 long black arm of the telegraph was 
 grimly covering him, as a musket covers its 
 mark. 
 
 "Well, for a gentleman who entertains 
 no silly fancies, I must say you are easily 
 frightened," observed Raymond with some 
 contempt. " Why, Marmouth Beacon is quite 
 a scarecrow to you. I shoidd have almost
 
 1 1 8 The Chjffards of Clijffe. 
 
 thought you were the conscience-stricken mur- 
 derer himself, but that I happen to know he 
 has paid the forfeit of his crime. He was the 
 very man I was telling you of who was 
 shot through the head by Mr. Topsell, at 
 the second ' chine ' we came to. His name 
 was Peter Elliot. — Take care where you 
 are going to, sir, for Heaven's sake! You 
 are standing too near the edge, unless you 
 have a very steady eye." 
 
 "I am never giddy from physical causes," 
 returned the stranger coolly, ''although, as 
 you have been good enough to remark, 
 some things make me nervous. Do you 
 mean to say that a man would have no 
 chance for his life who fell from here into 
 deep water, when the tide was well up — 
 as it is now, for instance?" 
 
 "Not the very slightest," returned Ray-
 
 Beside the Beacon. 119 
 
 mond confidently. " Where we are now, 
 the cliff overhangs a little, and we can see 
 nothing beneath us ; but turn your eyes a 
 few feet westward, and you may see in 
 yonder precipice a counterpart of the sheer 
 steep upon whose beetling edge we stand, 
 so lofty that the roaring of the surf which, 
 sycophant-like, licks the huge white wall it 
 slowly undermines, cannot reach our ears ; 
 so smooth, that there is scarce a foothold 
 save upon the ledges where the sea-gulls 
 breed, and the foolish guillemots stand in 
 ordered line, by scores and scores." 
 
 " Still, this very smoothness would have 
 given the poor wretch you spoke of a 
 greater chance \ he would not at least have 
 been dashed from rock to rock in his 
 descent, and at the bottom there is sand, I 
 see."
 
 120 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 "Nay," returned Raymond, "but you see 
 no sand, and your mistake is a proof of 
 the great height at which we stand. What 
 looks Hke sand from here, so brown and 
 small, is a beach of rounded stones, which 
 would dash the life out of a man, though 
 he fell but one quarter of this distance, 
 while the next ebb-tide would bear him 
 out to sea; and yet" 
 
 "Ay, what? You were going to say 
 something. You think a person even in 
 such a strait might yet be saved?" 
 
 "Not so, sir; I was calling to mind how 
 in this very spot I saw the bird-catchers 
 at work last spring. No less than five 
 were clinging to the face of that same 
 precipice, with nothing but a rope of hide 
 apiece to anchor them to life. I saw one 
 being drawn up with a young fulmar — the
 
 Beside the Beacon, 121 
 
 oily gull — in either hand, striking his foot 
 against the smooth chalk, and bounding out 
 into the very air, as though he scorned 
 even a foothold; and all that time he was 
 bawling jokes to his mate upon the edge 
 here — who merely held the hide, like 
 reins — upon whose strength and presence 
 of mind his existence solely depended. 
 Some of these adventurers do not have a 
 mate at all, but trust to a mere stake, 
 which they themselves drive into the earth 
 above, and to which they fasten their rope. 
 The only difficulty they seem to find in 
 the matter is at the last part of their 
 unassisted ascent, when they have to jerk 
 themselves from the face of the precipice, 
 in order to insert their hand beneath the 
 rope and the cliff-edge. No accident, indeed, 
 happens, I believe, either bird-catching or
 
 122 The Clyffards of Clyfie, 
 
 samphire-gathering, but well has Shakspeare 
 called it a Mreadful trade.'" 
 
 "You interest me immensely," said Mr. 
 Stephens ; " for all we know, then, there 
 may be half a dozen folks beneath us, 
 whose presence we know nothing about." 
 
 "No, not to-day," returned Raymond; 
 
 "the wind is far too strong for 
 
 Lord have mercy upon me ! Help, 
 man, help ! Stain not your soul with 
 murder !" 
 
 With one strong push between the 
 shoulders, the treacherous stranger had thrust 
 his companion over the cliff. 
 
 He had fallen, of course, but not sheer ; 
 his great muscular strength and agility had 
 enabled him, even in that instant, to twist 
 round with his face, and not his side, to- 
 wards the precipice ; and there he clung, a
 
 Beside the Beacon, 123 
 
 few feet below the edge, with lils nails 
 dug into the soft chalk, and his feet 
 striving for, and even attaining a momentary 
 hold.
 
 124 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OVER THE CLIFF. 
 
 TIAYMOND was well aware that the 
 period of his existence must now be 
 numbered by seconds, unless the heart of 
 this treacherous ruffian should relent, whose 
 sullen face was looking down from the cliff - 
 top upon his dying agonies. 
 
 "There is still time, man," he gasped, 
 "to reach down your arm, and save a fel- 
 low-creature from death, who is not fit to 
 die. So help me. Heaven, I will forgive, 
 nay, bless you, if you will!" 
 
 " Forgive me, Raymond Clyffard !" replied
 
 Over the Cliff. 125 
 
 the stranger scornfully. " ^^Jj the debt 
 is even still upon your side, and be sure 
 I will exact it to the uttermost. You have 
 found a resting-place, I see, which perhaps 
 will last you (although, I am afraid, the 
 nature of the chalk is friable^ while you 
 listen to what I have to say." 
 
 Hideous as was Raymond's position, closely 
 as the mysteries of futurity were pressing 
 upon him, yet he could not but inquire of 
 that wicked gloating face, "What devil, 
 then, art thou?" 
 
 " My name is Gideon Carr," returned the 
 stranger hoarsely. Then Raymond's face 
 grew white as the cliff to which he clung, 
 and as damp, with the dews of the terror 
 of death, for he knew that he could expect 
 no mercy. 
 
 "Ay, well mayst thou groan, young Ray-
 
 126 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 mond. It was your turn to laugh when you 
 stole away Mildred Leigh from your bro- 
 ther's arms" 
 
 " He never set you to do this," inter- 
 rupted the doomed man passionately. "I 
 am sure Rue never did." 
 
 '* You are right, sir. Your brother, being 
 a lunatic, has not the sense to plot revenge. 
 But when you wronged /«'m, you crossed 
 the path of my sister Grace, and you 
 had better have balked a tigress of her 
 meal." 
 
 "But would you do murder for her sake, 
 man ? My arms are getting stiff, my fingers 
 ache. God sees us both from yonder heaven. 
 Ah, save me and yourself too by one good 
 deed." 
 
 "Ay, it is but natural for one in your 
 position to raise theological arguments," re-
 
 Over t1ie Cliff. 127 
 
 turned Gideon coolly. "But for me, who 
 am safe on the top here, I prefer to take 
 a practical view of matters. You ask me 
 whether I would commit what you are 
 pleased to describe as a murder, although 
 nobody else will take that view of it. I 
 parted from you at yonder ^barrow,' where 
 you expressed your intention of going by 
 the Beacon for the sake of the view. (I 
 was constructing this little story as we came 
 along from that very place, and I think 
 it will do capitally.) My last words, as I left 
 you there, were, * Pray, be careful of the 
 cliff; you do walk so very near the edge, 
 my dear Mr. Hepburn.' If your body is 
 never found again, as you just now guar- 
 anteed would be the case, when you little 
 thought you were talking of yourself, then 
 I need say nothing; and I am afraid
 
 128 The Clyffards of Chjffe. 
 
 you will suffer the inconveniences you hinted 
 at as we came along, which result from 
 being denied the rights of sepulture. But 
 if your body is found, then there is my 
 little story to explain your latest mischance. 
 But I am digressing, and you have no time 
 to spa:re, I'm sure. You w^ould say, ^Why 
 slay me for your sister's sake, since I have 
 not injured youT But you have injured 
 me, Raymond Clyffard; and, like Grace, I 
 never forgive. Long ago, she and I to- 
 gether made up our minds that we would 
 have Clyffe Hall; that the Clyffards of 
 Clyffe should die out, and the Carrs rule 
 there in their stead. Once get you out of 
 the way, and marry Mildred to that poor 
 fool, your brother, and we should have him, 
 through that girl's influence, under our 
 thumb ; he would leave his lands to the
 
 Over the Cliff, 129 
 
 proper persons ; and having done so, would 
 evince — but after a decent interval, so that 
 there might be no dispute about his testa- 
 ment — such evident symptoms of lunacy as 
 to cause him to be shut up — say at the 
 Dene, in custody of his loving relatives. 
 A nice plan, was it not, and yet you and 
 this minx, my niece, chose to thwart it ! 
 Ah ! if you had heard the vow Grace 
 Clyffard made upon that day you fled, it 
 would have made your heart sink, and 
 your cheek grow cold, even when you kissed 
 your bride. Grace always hated you ; but 
 when this plain-spoken, honest lad, forsooth, 
 turned out a plotter, and a successful one, 
 her fury well-nigh choked her. I do be- 
 lieve, although she loves her wealth, she 
 would give ten thousand golden pieces to 
 stand where 1 do now, watching your use- 
 VOL. II. K
 
 1 30 The Clyffards of Chjffe. 
 
 less struggles on the verge of death. ^Kill 
 him !' cried she, on the very day when we 
 found out your whereabouts, but a few 
 weeks ago ; ^ be sure you kill him, Gideon ; 
 and if it can be done, let him die some 
 dreadful death ! First take her protector from 
 
 her'" 
 
 An involuntary shudder passed through 
 Raymond's frame, and into his face, wrin- 
 kled and wan as though with age, entered 
 a new agon3^ 
 
 ■ " Ho, ho ! what ! that pricks you, does 
 it?" grinned his torturer. "You tremble 
 for your dainty, fair young wife. You 
 may safely leave her to her relatives, young 
 sir. Is she not our niece % Do we not 
 owe her an old score upon the mother's 
 account? Did not she, like herself, run 
 away from our good care, and marry in
 
 Oi:ev the Cliff. 131 
 
 spite of us? Mrs. Hepburn is cominp- 
 to the Mermaid's Cave to-morrow, she and 
 the child too. The spring-tide rises fast, 
 you tell me, in these parts — so fast that a 
 stranger like myself might very well be 
 caught by it. Nothing, indeed, could be 
 more likely. Well, the tide does catch us ; 
 and after a resolute but unsuccessful at- 
 tempt to rescue them — this is my second 
 little story — I am compelled to swim away 
 in order to save my own life. Tlmj^ un- 
 fortunately, cannot swim. Now, you see, 
 I have confided to you my whole pro- 
 gramme, feeling confident that your sense 
 of honour will prevent your revealing the 
 particulars to any human creature. How 
 surprisingly strong you must be in the 
 arms, Raymond Clyffard ! I had no idea 
 that I should have a listener so loner ;
 
 132 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 however, you are perceptibly slipping now. 
 There is a curious furrow on your right, 
 down which you will probably glide to your 
 destination. It almost looks like a path, 
 from here." He paused to gloat upon" his 
 helpless, hopeless victim, then continued: 
 "Now, what would you not give, if I 
 reached down my arms to you even now, 
 and acknowledged that I was merely playing 
 a practical joke? What would you not 
 give, I say, to grasp the hand of Gideon 
 Carr, the touch of which would at this 
 moment be more grateful than that of any 
 hand in Christendom, however fair, since it 
 can save thee, and no other? Come, what 
 will you bid? Will you give Clyffe? 
 Will you make over all that would be 
 yours, if your brother should die without a 
 will?"
 
 Over the Cliff. 133 
 
 "I will give you all I have," gasped 
 Raymond; "but Clyffe is not mine to give 
 — it is ray child's." 
 
 "What! the child's that is to die to- 
 morrow !" cried Gideon scornfully. — " Listen 
 to this man, foolish guillemots ; rabbits of 
 the warren, prick your ears : here is a 
 case you will understand. What a hand 
 at bargaining is this unhappy gentleman, 
 who has about a second or so to live ! 
 He offers, as ransom for his life, not even 
 the money which I have already in my 
 pocket ! The door standing wide open, he 
 wants to haggle with one about giving 
 up the key! It is impossible that one can 
 treat with a person of this character. You 
 are growing very weak indeed, Kaymond 
 Clyffard — you seem to me to be in extremis. 
 Have you got any bequest to make ? Your
 
 134 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 last words will be interesting. I can answer 
 for that at least as respects one person — 
 namely, my sister Grace. I will send them 
 to her by to-night's post, I promise you, 
 with all the details of your misfortune." 
 
 " Tell her, then," said Kaymond, speaking 
 with laboured breath, "that I bequeath to, 
 her the malediction of a murdered man. 
 You smile; but the hour will come when it 
 will take effect. I know it as surely as I 
 know what fate aw^aits me within the next 
 few^ moments. May the bane of that 
 ancient race, of w^hom she has been the 
 evil star, cling to her as it has clung to 
 us ! May she inherit with our lands the 
 Curse wdiich has pursued us through so 
 many generations!" 
 
 " Your good wishes shall be faithfully 
 transmitted," returned Gideon mockingly;
 
 Ocer the Cliff. 135 
 
 ^^ but I own to you they are unlikely to 
 bear fruit. My sister Grace is the wisest 
 woman I know, and the least likely to lose 
 her wits like you proud foolish Glyffards. 
 Why, look you, the Clyffards were always 
 boastful of their genealo2;y, yet not one of 
 them could count such a Mong descent' as 
 is now^ awaiting you ! I do not often joke ; 
 but upon occasions of this sort, dulce est 
 desipere (one of the few phrases I ever 
 picked up at school) in loco ; that is to say, 
 it is well to be merry on the brink of a 
 precipice." 
 
 " Thou art Jie, Gideon Carr," replied Kay- 
 mond solemnly, though speaking with great 
 effort. "Thou art on the brink of the })re- 
 cipice of Death. Well mayst thou shrink 
 and grow pale. I tell thee, I, myself a 
 dying man, can mark the sheet wound high
 
 136 The Clyffards of Chjffe. 
 
 upon thy wicked limbs, the token of Black 
 Doom that stands behind thee — close." 
 
 Involuntarily, and with a face almost as 
 white as that of his victim, Gideon Carr 
 glanced over his shoulder. 
 
 The next moment he was alone. 
 
 Beneath him were the marks in the w^et 
 cliff, where the poor wretch had struggled 
 and clung, but the failing limbs had given 
 way during that instant, and the body had 
 slipped down the furrow into the viewless 
 air. Scarce a sound had until now been 
 heard save the voices of the two men, in 
 that unequal talk; but now, as though re- 
 leased from some horrible spell, the thou- 
 sand sea-birds which had been sitting upon 
 the ledges, or hovering above their nests, 
 seemed to send forth one great cry of hor- 
 ror and alarm, and up they came swirling
 
 Over the Clif. 137 
 
 from the abyss below, with scream on 
 scream, and circled round in the clear blue 
 like wreaths of snow, as though appealing 
 to Hi^h Heaven for murder done. The 
 silent warren shone with timorous eyes; from 
 every burrow stared a harmless face, which' 
 ne'er till now had looked upon a crime ; 
 and what seemed worst of all, the rusty 
 semaphore, noiseless heretofore, began to shake 
 and creak, as the accusing winds swept by, 
 and bade it point them out the manslayer! 
 Gideon Carr, to do him justice, was not 
 one to shrink from any conflict, man to 
 man, or even against odds ; but he was by 
 nature, like his brother, superstitious. Of re- 
 ligion he had none, not even that faith 
 made up (if one may say so) of the worst 
 part of religion, which finds divinity in hate 
 instead of love, and clasps pale Fear in place
 
 138 The Clyffards of Cbjffe. 
 
 of roseate Hope; and looks for Night, and 
 worse, instead of the dawning of the eternal 
 day. He feared, as Clement said, neither 
 God nor man. But his mind, which could 
 see nothing in the firmament or in the 
 •ocean to suggest a Creator, entertained many 
 a gross and vulgar article of the creed of 
 the unlearned. To him, the future fashioned 
 itself after the shape of a coal out of the 
 fire ; the croak of a raven would secretly 
 fill him with forebodings, and the chatter 
 of a jay with joy ; secretly, I say, for he 
 was ashamed of these weaknesses of his, and 
 it was only very rarely that he betrayed to 
 others the fact of their existence. It is 
 also fair to add, that like most people simi- 
 larly credulous, he had never been prevented 
 by any portent from committing a bad ac- 
 tion, or constrained by any omen to perform
 
 Over the Cliff. 139 
 
 a good one. When the crime was com- 
 mitted, however — as now — which he happened 
 to have in hand, Gideon Carr became a 
 prey to his superstition; and moved by he 
 knew not what, except that it was no sting 
 of remorse or touch of compassion, he fled 
 from the strange sights and sounds that 
 filled earth and air about Marmouth Beacon, 
 and which his own act seemed to have 
 evoked, with a fleet foot and a wet brow.
 
 140 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 A SECOND WARNING, 
 
 "VTOTHING, except seeing her husband 
 return safe and sound, could have 
 been a gladder sight to Mildred Hepburn 
 on that fatal morning than what she did 
 see within an hour or so of Raymond's 
 departure — namely, the kindly sympathising 
 face of Mrs. Carey. The lieutenant accom- 
 panied her to the cottage in the slender 
 hope that the two pedestrians might not 
 yet have started ; but finding that they had 
 gone, he returned to the preventive station, 
 by no means grudging his pains, although
 
 A Second Warning. 141 
 
 not without a good-humoured laugh at Mil- 
 dred's foolish fears. ~ He left a little port- 
 manteau behind him, "which," said Mrs. 
 Carey, " please to let me put in your room, 
 Mildred." 
 
 " What !" replied that poor lady, attempting 
 to be jocular, "is it something so valuable 
 that you dare not leave it at home, but 
 have brought it to this fastness of Pampas 
 Cottage, garrisoned so strongly by myself 
 and little Jane the nursemaid?" 
 
 " Well," returned Mrs. Carey, kissing 
 her, " the fact is it 's my brushes and 
 comb, and just a few things for a couple 
 of nights, which I have invited myself to 
 pass with you, my dear, until Mr. Hepburn 
 comes back again to scold you for being in 
 such a fright about nothing." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, dear Mrs. Carey," cried
 
 142 The ClyffaTds of Chjffe. 
 
 Mildred, "this is more than kind indeed. 
 And, ah me," she involuntarily added, 
 "how little have I deserved it at your 
 hands !" 
 
 " Bless us, and save us !" exclaimed the 
 honest lad}^, " one would think you had 
 done me and the lieutenant some grave 
 injury." 
 
 "And so we have," exclaimed Mildred 
 passionately ; " for to mistrust the honest, 
 and to deceive the pure of heart, is a 
 grievous wrong. I feel as 1 have never 
 felt before — so lonely, desolate, friendless — 
 I must tell you all about it, or I shall 
 go out of my mind." 
 
 "Stay, my dear," said Mrs. Carey kindly, 
 but placing a finger upon her friend's 
 eager lips : " you must not do anything in 
 a hurry, and particularly when your hus-
 
 A Second Warning. 143 
 
 band is not here. I have long known — 
 although I do not know if others suspect 
 it — that you carry some burden about with 
 you, deep in your loving heart. But I do 
 not blame you for it ; and unless I can 
 help you to carry it, I do not wish to 
 know its nature." 
 
 '^ But you ccm help me, my dear and 
 only friend. I have yearned to pour my 
 sorrow out before you, scores and scores of 
 times. Ah, what have I not suffered from 
 your love and kindness ! Like some im- 
 prisoned bird that sees through glass the 
 sunshine and the trees, but feels that 
 between him and them an invisible wall 
 of crystal intervenes, and shuts out all — 
 such is a secret between loving hearts. 
 And yet — although I know my husband 
 would not mind, for he has often told me
 
 144 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 to tell you if I would — now I have said 
 
 so 
 
 much, I seem to wish I had never 
 
 spoken. Things are better as they are, 
 perhaps. It is such a sad, sad story." 
 
 ^' Nay, Mildred, do not weep ; come out 
 into the cool fresh air. The open air is 
 best for sorrow, for Dame Nature's hand, 
 though rough, is kindly — at least I have 
 always found it so." 
 
 " You I dear Mrs. Carey — well, dear 
 Marion, if you will have it so — why, what 
 can you know of sorrow?" 
 
 "Not much, thank God, my friend," re- 
 plied Mrs. Carey earnestly ; " and if He 
 seems to you to have been good to me, 
 who know not what He has done for a 
 poor orphaned, friendless girl, how much 
 more gracious and benign should He seem 
 to me. No, dear, as you say, I have no
 
 A Second Warning. 145 
 
 sorrow; there is no room within my heart 
 for aught but gratitude." 
 
 "And Love. I am sure that there is 
 room for Love," said Mildred tenderly. 
 
 "Yes, dear. It would be strange, indeed, 
 if He, who is Love's self, should have 
 withheld that precious gift." And yet Mrs. 
 Carey sighed. " You know, I hope, that 
 John is dearer to me far than life; 
 my father, husband, benefactor, friend — 
 my all in all. A blessing for which I 
 bless God every day. But we were never 
 boy and girl together, like Mr. Hepburn 
 and yourself; and when I married, I was 
 
 not so young but that I Look you," 
 
 she interrupted herself smiling, "I am like 
 yonder Pampas grass, that has everything 
 comfortable and snug about it, with an 
 attendant in white marble to keep it moist 
 
 VOL. II. L
 
 146 The Chjffards of Cbjffe. 
 
 and green, but which has but little or no 
 bud in spring-time." 
 
 "Ay, but in autumn, when the flowers 
 fade and die," cried Mildred, "it blossoms 
 in a hundred feathery sprays, and none of 
 them will perish, even though they be 
 gathered from the stalk." 
 
 "Yes, dear, I know," said Mrs. Carey 
 quietly; "they are pleasant to have about 
 the house (when, as you say, there are no 
 flowers to be got), although their blossom 
 is grey." 
 
 The two women did not speak for a 
 little, but each held the other's hand. 
 Then Mildred led her guest to a sheltered 
 corner, where a seat was cut out in the 
 cliff. 
 
 " I think I will tell you my story now," 
 whispered she.
 
 A Second Warning, 147 
 
 So hand in hand they sat, with their 
 fair faces first in shadow, then in sunshine, 
 then in shade again, as the morn grew to 
 afternoon, while Mildred Clyffard told her 
 tale from first to last. 
 
 " Am I anxious, fearful, without reason ?" 
 ended she. " Have we not cause to fear, 
 with a foe such as this aunt of mine ?" 
 
 "Much cause," returned Mrs. Carey grave- 
 ly, "and much need for friends. No harm 
 is done at present, but I wish you had 
 told us this before. The lieutenant" 
 
 "What! You will not tell liimT cried 
 Mildred, starting from her seat. " Oh, 
 what will Raymond say ?" 
 
 " He will say I should have no secrets 
 from my husband," replied the other firmly. 
 "No, none, Mildred, none; not even that 
 one whereof I spoke just now, and which 
 
 L 2
 
 148 The Clyffards of Chjffe. 
 
 should have been his and mine alone, but 
 that I saw you needed some great con- 
 fidence to lure forth your own hidden 
 woe. John would have given you help- 
 ful counsel, for, though he is trusting 
 and simple about his own affairs, he 
 is both wise and keen when acting for 
 others." 
 
 "He could not picture a woman like my 
 aunt," said Mildred with a shudder; '^no 
 one could, who does not know her — so 
 relentless of purpose, so unscrupulous in 
 means, and actuated by such deadly hate." 
 
 " Ay," returned Mrs. Carey, musing, '* to 
 be foiled by her whom she had thought 
 her own instrument — that must have been 
 wormwood to such a one as you de- 
 scribe. A woman that knows nor shame 
 nor fear, is dangerous indeed. Yet — you
 
 A Second Warning. 149 
 
 seem to dread some physical harm — is it 
 possible that she would incur the risk 
 of" 
 
 *^ To gain her end," interrupted Mildred, 
 solemnly, "Grace Clyffard would dare the 
 gallows." 
 
 " Nevertheless, you have done wrong, and 
 very wrong," pursued Mrs. Carey, "to hide 
 yourselves away, and so to let her know 
 you fear her." 
 
 "It was I," said Mildred, in low and 
 broken tones. "My husband would have 
 defied her to the teeth. But I — I know her 
 so well." 
 
 " Poor child — poor child !" cried Mrs. 
 Carey, tenderly. " This woman has done you 
 harm enough already : to have inspired such 
 terror should be a sufficient triumph to the 
 most malignant. And yet, if you lived
 
 150 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 under your own names, and were known 
 to all about you, and if your aunt was 
 known to wish you ill, it w^ould not be 
 risk she would be running, did she w^ork 
 you harm, but the certainty of detection : 
 the blow she aimed at you w^ould scarcely 
 fall before the arm w^ould be pointed out 
 that struck it. But now, if you had not 
 told me this to-day, why, your husband, 
 your child, yourself, might be involved in 
 some sudden catastrophe, the clue of which 
 it would not be possible for us to discover. 
 I do not wish to terrify you, Mildred, but 
 I do think that you have taken the very 
 
 means Hark! did you not hear the 
 
 garden wicket go?" 
 
 '^I did," gasped Mildi'ed, starting up, and 
 running into the cottage, at the back of 
 which was the arbour in wdiich they had
 
 A Second Warning. 151 
 
 been sitting — " I did ; and little Milly is 
 playing in the garden all alone." 
 
 Mrs. Carey followed, not without some 
 undefined apprehension, which set her orderly 
 pulses beating thick and fast. The visitor, 
 however, was no one more formidable than 
 a curly-headed youth, who called occasion- 
 ally both at the Cottage and Lucky Bay, 
 bringing with him fresh eggs and other 
 delicacies from Westportown. This after- 
 noon, however, he was without his basket, 
 and bore in its place a large leathern bag, 
 suspended from his shoulders. 
 
 " Please, ma'am, the letter-carrier have been 
 took ill this morning," observed he grinning, 
 " and I 'm a-doing postman for him ; only, 
 what with driving here and there, and then 
 back again, because of missing somebody 
 out, and likewise the horse being dead-
 
 152 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 beat, I 'm afraid I 'm rather late. Here 's 
 a letter for Mr. Hepburn, ma'am, and that 's 
 all." And off trotted the deputy-deliverer 
 of His Majesty's mails. 
 
 "A bill from Westportown, I suppose," 
 said Mildred, scrutinising the somewhat 
 hieroglyphical address ; '' and yet does not 
 this word in the corner look to you like 
 Immediate, Mrs. Carey ?" 
 
 *'It is as like as the writer can make 
 it," returned that lady, confidently. "How 
 unfortunate that your husband did not get 
 it before his departure ! " 
 
 "Perhaps I had better open it," said 
 Mildred ; " something may have to be done 
 at once. I hope it is not from Marmouth 
 about his boat, or he may have taken his 
 
 journey for Great Heaven, what is 
 
 this?
 
 A Second Warning, 153 
 
 ^ Bewair of the man calling himself Ste- 
 vens, who loges, I believe, ivith the coast- 
 guard, 
 
 ' Your Well-wisher as Before/ 
 
 And Eaymond has gone with him alone," 
 cried Mildred passionately. " I shall never 
 see his bright and glorious face again !" 
 
 It was terrible to see how the light faded 
 out of her own features as she spoke, and 
 how the large and lustrous eyes lost all 
 their light, as the note fell from her nerve- 
 less hand, and fluttered to the ground. 
 
 Mrs. Carey picked it up, and scanned 
 it closely. "Never be frightened by an 
 anonymous letter, Mildred ; it is almost 
 always the weapon of the base and cowardly. 
 Suppose this Stevens is an honest man after 
 all."
 
 154 The Clyfards of Chjffe. 
 
 "No," replied Mildred with a shudder, 
 "I will not suppose that. Dame Nature, 
 whom you praised just now, has told me 
 otherwise too plainly." 
 
 " Still, man to man, your husband is more 
 than a match for him." 
 
 "Yes, but unsuspecting" 
 
 "Nay, not so, Mildred," interrupted the 
 other ; " look you, ^ your well-wisher as 
 before' This is not, then, the first w^arning 
 your husband has received." 
 
 "True, true; and that explains why he 
 now sleeps with a loaded pistol beneath his 
 pillow. I would that he had taken his 
 weapon with him this unhappy day." 
 
 " Stay, Mildred ; there is need of judgment 
 here; there must be no rash leaping to 
 conclusions. You do not know what schemes, 
 what treacheries, are ever working about us,
 
 A Second Warning. 155 
 
 born of this wretched smuggling. I do not 
 think it, of course — ^let me not offend you 
 by what I say — but has your husband any 
 connection with those who call themselves 
 Freetraders? I do not ask you to betray 
 him ; whatever you tell me, shall be held 
 as secret as the grave. I know there are 
 many persons, otherwise honest, who have 
 dealings with these people. If this man 
 Stevens is, as my husband thinks, an officer 
 of the government, this w^arning may have 
 well been sent to Mr. Hepburn in case he 
 
 be concerned" 
 
 "No, no," sighed Mildred hopelessly; "I 
 wish it were as you suggest; his life, at 
 least, would then not be in peril. We are 
 good friends enough with all in Sandbv, 
 but we have no dealings with the law- 
 breakers."
 
 156 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 " Nevertheless," quoth Mrs. Carey, " I 
 should like to see that first letter to which 
 this present one seems to refer. It is almost 
 certain to be more explicit, and from it 
 we mip;ht gather at least from what quarter 
 to expect the danger. I will wait here 
 while you search for it, and try to shape 
 some course to follow, if things should be 
 as you fear, and this warning date from 
 Clyffe." 
 
 "We have very few possessions," returned 
 Mildred with a sad smile, " and no hiding- 
 places that I am aware of. If Raymond 
 has not taken the letter with him, I shall 
 find it in five minutes." 
 
 It was well that Mrs. Carey's woman's 
 instinct had suffered her friend to make 
 that search alone. Truly, it was no exten- 
 sive one, but somehow everything of Ray-
 
 A Seco7id Warning. 157 
 
 mond's had acquired in those few hours 
 of absence a sort of dearness which made 
 her linger over each with reverent hands, 
 and grudge that any but her own should 
 touch them. There was a picture of herself 
 in their little drawing-room ; but, lo ! she 
 now found another, drawn by him, her lord, 
 in pencil, and, by the date, before he had 
 been her declared lover, and with it a cer- 
 tain rosebud, dead and -withered, which 
 she had given him at his request, before 
 her heart had learned to leap at his foot- 
 fall ; along with these was one little lock 
 of Milly's hair — a very history, in brief, of 
 his love for her from dawn to mellow 
 noon : true records, fading to the eye, but 
 to the heart fresh as the sundew, fragrant 
 as the May. Then in a drawer, his "secret 
 drawer" he used to call it, but the spring
 
 158 The Chjffavds of Clyffe. 
 
 was broken some days back, through mak- 
 ing it leap out to please the child, she found 
 the thing she sought, and would have rather 
 found an adder coiled. 
 
 ^' Beware^ Raymond Clyffard. Tlie ca£s 
 eyes have found you out at last; find an- 
 other hoal for a little; arid at once. There 
 is danger lurking at your very door, 
 
 "A True Well-wisher." 
 
 And straightway, when she read these words, 
 the things that were her Kaymond's seemed 
 in Mildred's misty eyes not only dear, but 
 sacred — sacred as the farewell breathed from 
 a mother's lips on one who sails for alien 
 climes to dwell there, and who cannot hope 
 to see again on earth that tearworn face, 
 now tortured by its love, that smiled upon 
 him in his cradle — sacred as the last words
 
 A Second Warning. 159 
 
 of a dying man, who points to his orphaned 
 child at play among her toys, and whispers, 
 " Thou wilt not forsake her, friend ; thou 
 art fellow-guardian of her now with God 
 himself;" for Death seemed shadowed forth 
 on that poor scrawl, as certainly to her 
 who read it, as though it were a tombstone 
 telling, " Here Raymond lies ;" and by that 
 Awful Hand all things are consecrated, no 
 matter how common, with which our loved 
 and lost have had to do. 
 
 No weeds could have made Mildred Clyf- 
 fard look more widowed, than when, with 
 her white face all drawn and gaunt, she 
 sank down on her knees beside her hus- 
 band's vacant pillow; and there, while she 
 strove to pray for Mercy, Mercy came, and 
 numbed her pain with swoon.
 
 160 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BY THE SHORT CUT. 
 
 " TTEEE is your child, my dear, here is 
 little Milly; will you not kiss your 
 child?" were the first words which Mildred 
 heard upon recovering her grief-stricken 
 senses. It was Mrs. Carey that uttered 
 them, who had lifted her upon the bed, and 
 was sitting patiently beside it with the little 
 girl in her arms. She laid her precious 
 burden down by the mother's side, and let 
 the round large eyes of the infant do their 
 gracious work. 
 
 "I have read that letter, dear/' said she,
 
 By the SJiort Cut. IGl 
 
 ^' and I do not augur so ill from it as you 
 do." 
 
 Mildred groaned, and put up her hand to 
 hide the torture of her face. 
 
 "If this Mr. Stevens intended any evil to 
 your husband, it is clear he would not have 
 come home." 
 
 " Come home !" cried Mildred, starting from 
 the pillow with the look of one who, ship- 
 wrecked in the tropic seas, beholds from his 
 lonely raft some succouring sail : " Raymond 
 come home?" 
 
 " No, love, not Raymond." 
 
 The rounded arm on which the listener 
 leaned gave sudden way, and with one long- 
 drawn moan, the head sank back upon the 
 pillow. 
 
 "But this Stevens has come back, for I 
 have seen him, and even spoken with him. 
 VOL. II. M
 
 1 62 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 He called here just after you left me on 
 the lawn, and very much surprised he 
 seemed to be at seeing me here. However, 
 that he has returned, instead of taking to 
 flight, as he might easily have done, con- 
 vinces me that at present no mischief has 
 occurred. And if these warning letters be 
 genuine, we are now forewarned." 
 
 "What did this man say?" asked Mil- 
 dred, w^ith eyes tight shut, as though to 
 keep out some hideous vision. 
 
 "He said your husband bade him look 
 in here on his way back, to remind you 
 that you should be at the Mermaid Cavern 
 by three o'clock to-morrow at latest, if Milly 
 is to see the sea-flowers. Mr. Hepburn and 
 he parted company, he said, on Marmouth 
 Down by the Saxon Barrows." 
 
 "Ay, at the grave-side," said Mildred
 
 By the Short Cut. 163 
 
 hoarsely. "And now he thirsts for this 
 little life and mine." ^ 
 
 " If you have any such foolish fancy, 
 Mildred, you should not go to meet this 
 man." 
 
 "What? disobey my husband's last com- 
 mand? No, my friend; I go to-morrow as 
 he bids me." 
 
 "Then I go with you, Mildred, that is 
 certain : nay, but I do. You are rather 
 obstinate, my dear, yourself just now; but 
 compared with me, when I have made up 
 my mind to anything, you are Docility per- 
 sonified — ask John else. I am not afraid 
 on my own account or yours; but if we 
 have Milly with us, I shall take one of 
 our men from Lucky Bay to help to carry 
 her, if we tire." 
 
 " True friend in need !" cried Mildred ; 
 
 M 2
 
 164 The Chjffards of Clyffe. 
 
 *•' my mind seems feeble as my limbs. I 
 cannot think at all, but only suffer. Yet 
 cannot the road be searched where this 
 man went with Raymond, and the — the 
 cliff?" 
 
 " That has been done, dear. One of the 
 coast-guard followed them this morning, di- 
 rectly I got your letter. He met LIr. 
 Stevens returning, very near the spot where 
 he says he parted with your husband, and 
 then went on as far as (by the time) the 
 the two could possibly have gone together, 
 a mile beyond the beacon, but there was 
 no trace of anything wrong." 
 
 "Thanks, thanks, dear Marion; I have 
 no right to despair, having a friend like 
 you. This little one, too ; yes, you are 
 right, she shall not go with us to-mor- 
 row."
 
 By the SJwrt Cut. 165 
 
 " That's a wise woman ! Now Mildred is 
 like herself again. But one whole day, and 
 you will have your husband back, I pro- 
 mise you ; and in the meantime, fear not 
 this man at all. The lieutenant has had a 
 word from me, and will Avatcli the man as 
 a cat watches a mouse. My husband's 
 honest heart takes all he does not know for 
 good ; but being warned, his hand is like a 
 vice to grip the wicked. Woe, bitter woe 
 to him who plots against an unprotected 
 woman and her child beneath John Carey's 
 eyes! This Stevens is a very bold and 
 crafty villain, you would say; but he with 
 whom he has now to deal is keen, although 
 not cunning; and as for boldness, I do in- 
 deed believe my husband would, in his shirt- 
 sleeves — in the cause of honour or duty — 
 defy a lion."
 
 166 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 Mrs. Carey laughed, but while she spoke, 
 the fire of honest pride glowed in her 
 cheeks and eyes, and made her pleasant face 
 one glory. 
 
 "So, Mildred, without being very brave 
 ourselves, we may rest to-night without fear. 
 Come, you must have some tea, and then 
 to bed; and this young lady, too, must be 
 persuaded to retire, since such late hours 
 are bad for her complexion." 
 
 I think unto the house of sorrow there 
 is no human blessing equal to a breezy- 
 minded woman, tender at heart, but chary 
 of her tears, ready to listen to woe, but 
 not to flatter it, and, Martha-like, careful to 
 fulfil the ordinary duties of the house, what- 
 ever earthquake may have shaken the pillars 
 of its peace. 
 
 The night passed, thanks to Mrs. Carey,
 
 Bi) the Short Cut. 167 
 
 without alarms; and when the next day, at 
 noon, the two friends set forth upon the 
 inland way which led by a short cut to 
 the cliffs above the Mermaid Cavern, the 
 clouds of evil foreboding had thinned, so 
 that a little sunshine straggled through, and 
 found its way to Mildred's heart. It was 
 a lovely walk ; the fields, w^ith garments 
 various and rich, were w^elcoming everywhere 
 the presence of the Spring; the woods had 
 donned their beautiful green robes, and all 
 the incense-breathing earth was bright and 
 glad. Now their road lay through lanes 
 with lofty banks, by nature's lavish hand 
 set thick with flowers, and where overhead 
 the pale sprays of hawthorn upon either 
 side strove hard to kiss ; and now it climbed 
 some hill-top, from whence many a mile of 
 pleasant English ground, with hall and
 
 168 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 hamlet, cliurch tower and low white farm, 
 wooed their willing eyes. 
 
 "This is the third time," said Mildred ap- 
 prehensively, when they had gone a consider- 
 able distance, "that looking back I have 
 perceived that man yonder ; he pretends to 
 be gathering violets w^henever we turn round, 
 but I do not like his following us in that 
 manner. When we pass Mr. Jasper's farm, 
 we will step in, and then he must needs 
 miss us." 
 
 " Pooh, pooh, my dear ; do not flatter 
 yourself that the gentleman is so inter- 
 ested in our proceedings," said Mrs. Carey, 
 laughing; "see, he has deserted us al- 
 ready, and has taken that path across the 
 fields." 
 
 " I am heartily glad of it, Marion ; for 
 now that you have put me in better hope
 
 By the Short Cut. 169 
 
 about dear Eaymond, I am ashamed to say 
 I begin to be alarmed about ourselves. I 
 almost wish that we had got that escort 
 with us you proposed, in case of our having 
 brought little Milly." 
 
 More lanes, more hills, more beauties on 
 all sides; and now the banks decrease, and 
 become mere rounds of green, and the road 
 dwindles to a turf -track, and presently is 
 lost upon the boundless down. Now, too, 
 the thunder of the unseen sea breaks in 
 upon the inland harmonies, and the scented 
 air grows fresh. "We are very late, dear 
 Mildred ; we must not tarry now ; it is long 
 past three." 
 
 These words of Mrs. Carey referred to a 
 disinclination evinced by her companion to 
 arrive at their destination ; a scared and 
 hare-like look had once more taken posses-
 
 170 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 sion of her, as though she beheld some 
 object of fear behind and about her. 
 
 "Did you not hear some sound like a 
 human voice, Marion ?" 
 
 "Yes, love; our west winds are full of 
 such cries," returned Mrs. Carey, coolly. 
 " When I first came to live in these parts, 
 I used often to open our bed-room window, 
 both before and after the gales, under the 
 impression that some one lay outside in 
 pain. The sea, too, is getting very loud ; I 
 think it must be near mid tide." 
 
 "But we were to be at the cavern long 
 before that, were we not?" 
 
 " Yes, if we took Milly to see it ; but not 
 otherwise. Why should we trouble to de- 
 scend the cliff, and then toil up again? 
 We have only to guide Mr. Stevens home. 
 He cannot mistake the only path that leads
 
 By the SJiort Cut. 171 
 
 hither from the shore, and when he has got 
 up, he cannot fail" 
 
 " There he is !" interrupted Mildred, hastily. 
 "How my heart beats — how my knees trem- 
 ble ! But why is he lying down f 
 
 "That is not him," returned Mrs. Carey, 
 confidently; "it is a larger man even than 
 he." 
 
 " Yes, great Heaven !" cried Mildred ; " it 
 is the very person who has been tracking 
 us all the way, and who pretended to take 
 the path across the fields. Marion, my friend, 
 we are betrayed, and it is I who have led 
 you into the snare. May Heaven and you 
 forgive me ! Your husband never will, I 
 know." 
 
 "I think he will," rejoined the lieutenant's 
 wife, laughing "for that is Robert Andrews, 
 one of his own men. 1 did not feel so
 
 172 The Clyfiards of Clyffe. 
 
 brave as you did about this expedition at 
 starting, so I bei^fred to liave a bodyguard, 
 in case we wanted one. It was I who 
 beckoned him, behind your back, to take 
 the field-path, and so get here before us. 
 You are not vexed, are you, Mildred?" 
 
 "I am grateful beyond all that words can 
 say," answered ^lildred, fervently. 
 
 At a sign from Mrs. Carey, the man arose, 
 and came forward to meet them. 
 
 "Have you seen anything of Mr. Ste- 
 vens?" inquired she. "Is it possible that 
 he could have missed us after cxDming up 
 the cliff?" 
 
 " Quite impossible, ma'am. If your head 
 can stand looking over here, you will see 
 that yonder is the only path up from the 
 bay; and, except at low tide, one cannot 
 get round either point. The cavern lies
 
 By the Short Cut. 173 
 
 almost underneath us. If lie had come up 
 here on the Down, we must have seen him : 
 there is no shelter except that very lane as 
 you came by." 
 
 "But the tide has now risen quite high, 
 Robert, and he cannot possibly be in the 
 cavern." 
 
 " Not unless he be a merman, ma'am," 
 assented Andrews, grinning and touching his 
 hat, as though in apology for joking before 
 his superior. " My own belief is as the 
 gentleman got sea-sick, and was landed a 
 good way short of this. He may be back 
 at Sandby, or even Lucky Bay, by this time." 
 
 "Back at Sandby!" cried Mildred with 
 clasped hands ; " then he may even now be 
 at the cottage ! Home, home, for Heaven's 
 sake ! Why did I ever leave my child ?" 
 
 With that she turned, and began to re-
 
 174 The Cbjffards of Clyffe. 
 
 trace her steps, without waiting to hear 
 what comfort the lieutenant's wife was en- 
 deavouring to find for her. Moreover, Mrs. 
 Carey's face belied her cheering words; it 
 was pale and full of apprehension ; and after 
 one more glance at the insatiable sea, which 
 had already devoured the shore, and was 
 sucking with greedy lips the cUff itself, she 
 hastened after her friend.
 
 175 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE EMPTY HOME. 
 
 rpHE road which the two ladies had taken 
 from Sandby to the Down above the 
 Mermaid's Cavern, although a short cut in 
 comparison with that along the chff-top, was 
 several miles in length, and as Mildred fled 
 back along it now, it seemed as though it 
 would never end. Her eyes were blind to 
 its beauties, or if they were observed, it was 
 only as landmarks to calculate how much 
 of the tedious way still stretched before her. 
 She could not listen to aught that the af- 
 fection of Mrs. Carey, or the honest sympa-
 
 176 The Clyffards of Chjffe. 
 
 thy of Robert Andrews, prompted each to say. 
 Her thoughts had sped on with her heart, 
 before her, to the Cottage and its precious 
 treasure she had left unguarded there, deem- 
 ing that she herself was standing between it 
 and him who coveted it. She felt like some 
 out-manoeuvred chieftain, who, having set 
 forth with his forces to offer battle, learns 
 that the foe has got between him and the 
 fenceless town where the women and chil- 
 dren have been left, and by forced marches, 
 hastens back, fearing unutterable things; and 
 as, to his anxious eyes, it is something to 
 see the town yet standing yonder, and not 
 a mere heap of smoking ruins, so, when she 
 first caught sight of her little home, tranquil 
 and fair as ever, wdth the blue smoke from 
 the kitchen chimney streaming in the wind 
 (the pennant that shoAvs that Commodore
 
 The Empty Home. 177 
 
 Comfort is aboard), and all its windows open 
 to the sun, her white lips moved, although 
 they did not speak to mortal ear, and with 
 one long sigh she dismissed half her sor- 
 row. 
 
 "I suppose Milly is in the kitchen, beg- 
 ging for plums," said Mildred to her friend, 
 like one whose thoughts need endorsement; 
 " cook always spoils the darling. Why do 
 you not speak, Marion 1" 
 
 " I was looking at that white thing on 
 the roof ; at the little window of the attic : 
 there is somebody waving a handkerchief." 
 
 "Yes, so there is. That is Jane's bed- 
 room ; she is dressing, and the child is with 
 her, doubtless; she is making a sign of 
 welcome to us — that is all." 
 
 The mother's tremulous voice sorted ill 
 with her confident words, and Mrs. Carey 
 VOL. II. N
 
 178 The Clyffards of Chjffe, 
 
 did not reply. As they drew nearer, they 
 heard Jane calling, "Let me out — let me 
 out, ma'am ; he has locked me in." 
 
 Without inteiTogating her further, the two 
 women ran upstairs, and found the attic 
 door locked against them. "He has taken 
 the key away," sobbed the poor nursemaid 
 from within, " and you must burst it in." 
 
 " Come up here, Robert Andrews," cried 
 the lieutenant's wife. " Can you break this 
 door open at once, without a crowbar?" 
 
 "Ees, ma'am, I rather think I can," re- 
 turned the coast-guardsman, with a twinkle 
 in his eyes. " Stand back, young ooman, 
 within there, if you please." 
 
 Then raising his foot — that earliest batter- 
 ing-ram in the long roll of warlike instru- 
 ments — he brought it down ^^'ith accuracy 
 upon the simple lock : away flew staple and
 
 The Empty Home, 179 
 
 screw heads, as though a petard had been 
 applied to the spot, and behold Little Jane, 
 sitting on her own bed in tears, with two- 
 pence-halfpenny tight clasped in one hand, 
 and her pocket-handkerchief in the other! 
 
 "I couldn't 'elp it, ma'am," sobbed she; 
 " indeed, indeed, I could not. Who would 
 have thought of any harm in a horgin- 
 grinder, with moving himages all round and 
 round, and one of 'em a-playing on the 
 pianna! And poor dear little Milly so 
 pleased — I felt quite obligated to give him 
 what I could spare ; and I ran up here 
 for the money, leaving that precious darling 
 dancing with delight, and he pretending to 
 be so kind; and he must have followed me 
 with his shoes off, for I never heerd nothin' 
 till he locked the door upon me, and then 
 went down and carried off that beautifullest
 
 180 The Clijfards of Clyffe, 
 
 child ! Oh ! ^ave you seen anything of her, 
 and can you forgive me, though it ain't my 
 fauh, ma'am, it ain't, it ain't indeed?" 
 
 "When did the man take my child away, 
 girl?" asked Mrs. Hepburn, hoarsely. 
 
 "Oh, nigh two hours ago, ma'am. You 
 see, cook she went down to Sandby after some 
 s'rimps — or leastways after George Brown, 
 for it's no use telling fibs in a time like 
 this — and I and little Milly, we was left 
 quite alone; and while we was playing in 
 the garden, who should come over the hill 
 from Lucky Bay but this here man with 
 the music, and little folks dancing in front 
 of it — such a sight as I never before seed ! 
 And when he had inveigled me here, and 
 locked me in, I watched him with the 
 little darling on his shoulder, still so proud 
 and pleased, taking the road across the
 
 The Empty Home. 181 
 
 Downs to Westportown ; but thoucfli I 
 screamed and hollered, .and squoze my head 
 out at the little window, and very nearly 
 never got it back again, not a soul heard 
 me till I see you coming home to where 
 there was no Milly." 
 
 The poor girl rocked herself in such an 
 agony of distress as no reproaches could 
 heighten. Mrs. Hepburn did not attempt to 
 reproach her. ^'I was thanking God for 
 this J Marion," whispered she, in hollow tones. 
 
 "God is never thanked in vain, Mildred," 
 returned Mrs. Carey, gravely. — "Now, do 
 not cry, Jane," added she, addressing the 
 still sobbing girl, "but answer my questions 
 truthfully and sensibly ; thereby you will be 
 doing what you can to repair the mischief 
 which has happened. Did you ever, to your 
 recollection, see this organ-man before?"
 
 182 The Chjffards of Clijffe. 
 
 " Never, never, never !" answered the girl, 
 hysterically. 
 
 "You do not think it possible that it 
 could even be anybody you have seen be- 
 fore, in disguise; not, for instance, the man 
 who called here yesterday and spoke to me 
 upon the lawn — that Mr. Stevens?" 
 
 "I did not see the gentleman, not to re- 
 member him, ma'am ; but this was a tall, 
 big man, with a cruel face (though I didn't 
 think so at the time), and he had grey 
 eyes and grizzled hair." 
 
 " That is enough," said Mrs. Carey, thought- 
 fully. 
 
 "Ay, and more than enough," groaned 
 the wretched mother. "My Milly has been 
 in his power these two hours." 
 
 "Yes, but he has the organ to carry, 
 and the child as well," reasoned the lieu-
 
 The Empty Home. 183 
 
 tenant's wife. " Do you, Robert, take the 
 road to Westportown, .and try to come up 
 with this villain. Pursue him, no matter 
 whither he has gone. Give my husband's 
 card to the chief constable, and tell him to 
 spare no pains. Here is my purse. Ten 
 precious minutes have been lost already." 
 
 She had scarcely ceased to speak ere the 
 willing giant was upon his way. 
 
 Mildred had sunk down on the floor, 
 and, huddled together like some poor wretch 
 who feels the teeth of the frost, there she 
 sat shivering. She was neither weak nor 
 witless; but she saw in what had happened 
 the corroboration of her worst suspicions ; 
 and as the partridge cowers while the hawk 
 is in the air, so she shrank beneath this 
 unmistakable work of the relentless hand 
 of her aunt Grace. Mrs. Carev dared not
 
 184 The Clijffards of Chjfe. 
 
 leave her in such a plight (for the nurse- 
 girl was worse than useless), nor, had she 
 done so, could help have been obtained 
 nearer than Lucky Bay. Nobody at Sandby 
 Avould have done the bidding of the lieu- 
 tenant's wife, or even listened to her, so 
 bitter was the feeling in the hamlet against 
 the coast-guard and all connected with it. 
 So the three sat where they were, only 
 that ever and anon Mrs. Carey went to 
 the little window, and looked forth in hopes 
 of seeing the figure of Kobert Andrews, or 
 some messenger of his, upon the westward 
 road; but she saw nothing but the line of 
 silver birches, thin and bowed, and the 
 wild waste of down, and beyond, the ebb- 
 ing sea and broadening sand. Once only 
 she whispered to the girl, " Did ^lilly go 
 with this man willingly f
 
 The Empty Home. 185 
 
 " Oh, yes, ma'am, quite ; and though of 
 course it was the dancing figures which 
 mainly pleased her, yet the poor dear child 
 seemed to take a fancy to him from the 
 first." 
 
 " That is very strange," mused Mrs. 
 Carey. 
 
 After many a weary hour, the coast- 
 guardsman returned. He had been unable 
 to overtake the child-stealer ; but the con- 
 stables were on the alert, and the alarm 
 had been given far and wide. The organ, 
 with the figures in front of it, which had 
 been so fatally attractive to the stolen girl, 
 had been found in a ditch scarce half a 
 mile away. 
 
 Mildred listened to what he had to say, 
 without the blank despair upon her face 
 taking any impress. She had expected no
 
 186 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 better news, and worse could scarce have 
 been brought to' her. Later in the even- 
 ing, as they sat in the little parlour with- 
 out lights, since Mrs. Carey averred that 
 she could knit without them, and the gloom 
 w^as dear to Mildred in her grief, there en- 
 tered the truant cook. " Having a few hours' 
 leisure," explained she, "she had imprudently 
 taken a sail with Mr. Brown in the Good 
 Intent, and the wind, though favouring them 
 in going out, had been so contrary wdien 
 coming back, that they had been delayed 
 thus long; also, when they did land, she 
 had received such news as had quite "turned 
 
 her," and she had been obliged to" 
 
 " We know all that," interrupted Mrs. 
 Carey sharply, and making an imperious 
 sign that she should leave the room. Then, 
 after a few minutes, she herself arose, and
 
 The Empty Home, lb . 
 
 going into the kitchen, said, "Your mis- 
 tress thought you were about to speak just 
 now of her poor child's being stolen; but 
 if there is any new misfortune, tell it me. 
 Heaven forbid that you have any bad tid- 
 ings about ]\ir. Hepburn." 
 
 " No, ma'am not about him." 
 
 With a great sigh of relief, Mrs. Carey 
 listened to the narration of this domestic, 
 discursive, egotistical, didactic, as it is the 
 manner of her class to be, and more espe- 
 cially when they are conscious of being in 
 disgrace, as though they would hide their 
 error in a very mist of words. 
 
 Having heard all, she returned to her 
 childless friend. 
 
 " Am 1 not right, dear Mildred, in sup- 
 posing that of this bitter draught you have 
 to drain, the bitterest drop is this, that the
 
 188 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 man Stevens, against whom you have been 
 warned, and against whom Nature herself 
 has w^arned you, should be the" 
 
 " Yes, that my Milly should be in his 
 clutches, above all men, that seems worst of 
 all," cried the hapless mother. " No other 
 could be half so cruel ; no other ever fright- 
 ened my lost darling by his very looks before." 
 
 "Ay, so I thought, my love. Now, Milly 
 was not frightened at this man, who seemed 
 to have a kind way with him, according to 
 Jane's story. I thought that that had in it 
 some seeds of hope; and now I have just 
 heard " 
 
 "What? what?" cried Mildred, clasping 
 her feverish hands. 
 
 "Something that makes it quite impos- 
 sible that the man who stole your Milly 
 could be Stevens."
 
 189 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 IN THE CUTTER. 
 
 TTPON the same morning that the two 
 ladies started on the expedition above 
 described, Mr. Stevens took his departure 
 for the same place in the coast-guard cutter, 
 but several hours earlier. The cutter was 
 on its return to Marmouth, and it was ar- 
 ranged by the lieutenant that his guest 
 should be disembarked in Mermaid Bay, 
 where the Cavern was situated, as near the 
 time of low tide as might be, there to re- 
 main until Mrs. Hepburn, or some other 
 person in default of her, acquainted with
 
 190 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 the short cvit homeward, should join him. 
 To return to Lucky Bay, or even Sandby, 
 by the cliff-top was a very long round (in- 
 cluding the whole of the walk taken by 
 Mr. Stevens and his victim the previous 
 day) ; and the sea-passage, of course, was 
 longer still. Moreover, the boat could sel- 
 dom come near the shore in consequence of 
 the reefs and rocks. The cutter, however, 
 had a fair wind for her voyage, and sped 
 along at a great pace, all on one side, as 
 is the manner of such fast-sailing craft, and 
 shewing her very keel to the sun, as a 
 flirt shows her ankle. Nor, I regret to say, 
 was Mr. Stevens sea-sick. Upon that churn- 
 ing sea, with its patent double action of 
 toss and roll, where most landsmen would 
 have lost both heart and stomach, this 
 gentleman sat as unmoved as though he
 
 In the Cutter. 191 
 
 possessed neither, and swept the land with 
 a telescope lent him by the boatswain. 
 Was it not well understood that he was 
 there to see the beauties of nature, the 
 conformation of the chalk-cliffs, and the in- 
 teresting habits of the sea-fowl? The crew 
 had orders to give him the fullest informa- 
 tion, and to afford him the best opportuni- 
 ties of observing whatever was most curious. 
 Under these circumstances, they were rather 
 surprised, as they approached the cliffs beneath 
 Marmouth Beacon, which are notoriously 
 the finest on the south coast, that Mr. 
 Stevens seemed to take but little interest in 
 them, and, on the contrary, expressed a 
 wish that the cutter should at that very 
 point make a circuit round the Dutch- 
 woman, an isolated rock of considerable 
 size, but no great beauty.
 
 192 The Clyffards of Clijffe, 
 
 True, it was peopled by legions of sea- 
 birds, whose proceedings were most varied 
 and extraordinary; some of the whitest, 
 like undergraduates in their surplices, just 
 returned from chapel to an unfinished 
 wine-party, seemed never to be able suffi- 
 ciently to express their satisfaction, as Mr. 
 Stevens and his friend drew near ; others, 
 on the contrary, with uplifted beak and 
 wing, gave utterance to the most vigorous 
 protests against such an infringement of the 
 laws of trespass ; the island was theirs, they 
 contended, "theirs, theirs, theirs," and even 
 the water within forty fathoms of the place 
 was private property ; " it was shameful, it 
 was disgraceful, and no bird worthy of the 
 name of Larus Marinus should put up with 
 it for a moment." Some of these feathered 
 sticklers for their rigjits so grievously
 
 In the Cutter, 193 
 
 exhausted themselves by their deprecatory 
 statements, that they had to retire a while 
 apart into certain holes of the rock for rest, 
 or to partake, perhaps, of some marine 
 medicament for the recovery of the voice, 
 and in the meantime confined themselves 
 to scrutinising the strangers with suspicion, 
 and shaking their heads. The young people, 
 who presented the appearance of solid thistle- 
 down — little round balls of feathers — ex- 
 hibited in their tremulous flappers, in their 
 straining necks, and in their gaping mouths, 
 such astonishment as only the young are 
 capable of. The solemn guillemots sat all 
 of a row upon the ledges, coming to no 
 decision upon the matter whatever, but like 
 the noblesse in revolution time, gradually 
 increased by new accessions to their con- 
 clave, until the spape grew insufficient for 
 VOL. II.
 
 194 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 them, and the original members were top- 
 pled off croaking feebly. As for the cor- 
 morants, they never ceased to take their 
 "sensation headers," one after the other, 
 like patriots who, perceiving their native 
 soil is about to be violated by the foot of 
 the foe, determine that there is nothing for 
 it but suicide. 
 
 The foot of no foe, however, not even 
 that of a bird-catcher, had ever been placed 
 upon the brawny shoulders of the Dutch- 
 woman ; sheer and smooth she rose for many 
 a yard from the deep blue sea, before the 
 jutting ledges commenced which led like 
 inverted stairs to the crown of the rock, 
 upon which grew some scanty herbage. 
 Ages ago, perhaps, ere the island had been 
 divorced from the land, some four-footed 
 creature might have pastured on it; but
 
 In the Cutter, 195 
 
 henceforward, while the world lasted, neither 
 sheep nor kine would crop a mouthful 
 there. The cliffs, too, were green with 
 samphire, doomed to grow there unpickled 
 to the end of time ; otherwise, the mighty 
 rock was without a trace of vegetation, 
 and in its inaccessible isolation looked un- 
 speakably stern and lone. 
 
 "There's just as many birds, sir, in those 
 cliffs yonder, and they are as steep as this, 
 and three times as high," observed the 
 cockswain, who had had enough of the 
 Dutchwoman, and did not much relish 
 the voyage home being lengthened by 
 any more detours to examine islands, of 
 which there was quite an archipelago yet to 
 come. 
 
 " I know it," replied Mr. Stevens, quietly , 
 " and we will keep in-shore for the future ; 
 
 02
 
 196 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 but I can see the Beacon cliffs very well 
 from here, through your telescope." 
 
 "Do you see a very steep place, just 
 under the Beacon, sir — for I can't myself 
 without the glass — where the chalk pro- 
 jects all the way down so as to form a 
 sort of shoot?" 
 
 Mr. Stevens, as it so happened, was 
 attentively regarding the very spot thus 
 indicated, but he replied carelessly that 
 all the cliffs seemed much alike to him. 
 
 "Nay, but the place I mean is steeper 
 than most," persisted the cockswain, " and, 
 as it seems to me, who lost a friend 
 there, like one great grave-stone. He was 
 pushed over the top by a smuggler chap : 
 a murdered man, sir. If you'll hand me 
 my glass, I '11 find the place out for you 
 in a moment Why, bless my soul,
 
 In the Cutter, 197 
 
 sir, you 've dropped it in the water ; it 's 
 one of Dolland's best^a fifteen-guinea one : 
 who the devil am I to look to for making 
 it good?" 
 
 "To Tne," returned Mr. Stevens coolly, 
 producing a well-stuffed leather purse. "It 
 was exceedingly careless of me; but that 
 cormorant came up so close to me from 
 his long dive, that he startled me out of 
 my senses. You shall be no loser, my 
 man; and while I am paying my debts, 
 let me add a couple of sovereigns, that my 
 friends here may have the wherewithal 
 to drink my health at Marmouth. I can 
 scarcely make myself heard : what an infer- 
 nal noise and clangour these birds do make ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; I am sure if we could have 
 made them quiet, we should have done it 
 for you, a most liberal gentleman, I'm
 
 198 The Clyffards of Clijffe. 
 
 sure; but they do say the laughing-gulls 
 only give themselves one hour's rest in 
 the twenty-four, and, for my part, I've 
 never had the luck to hit it; and they're 
 just as noisy yonder on the mainland as 
 they are here." 
 
 "Well, then, let's give 'em a wide berth 
 for the present, for they have fairly dazed 
 me -with their clamour," replied the stranger: 
 " the colony does not extend much beyond 
 the Beacon Head, I believe." 
 
 "No, sir; they're very partial in their 
 breeding haunts. If I steer out to sea for 
 the next five minutes, and keep well off 
 the headland, you will be no more annoyed 
 by their chattering. If it wasn 't for their 
 young uns, one would think that all gulls 
 was females." 
 
 Whether the ear of ^Ii'. Stevens was
 
 In the Cutter. 199 
 
 really so delicate as to suffer from the 
 dissonance of sea-fowl or not, it was clear 
 that he was seriously annoyed by some- 
 thing. He lay back in the stern-sheets, 
 frowning heavily, and without speaking, 
 and ever and anon he shaded his eyes 
 with his hand, and looked back through 
 his fingers, as through a closed visor, at 
 the long white line of cliffs the cutter 
 was fast leaving behind it. 
 
 Thus he remained lost in his own medi- 
 tations, and only dreamily conscious of 
 where he was, or wdiat people about him 
 were saying, when suddenly the cockswain 
 nudged him, "Do you see that speck of 
 white, sir, yonder?" 
 
 " No, no !" cried Mr. Stevens, leaping to 
 his feet as though he were on dry land, 
 and thereby nearly falling overboard ; " it 's
 
 200 The Clyffards of Clijffe. 
 
 nothing. Keep her out, I say. — I beg your 
 pardon," added he, perceiving that they 
 were by this time far out to sea ; " you 
 startled me from an ugly dream. What 
 was it you were saying ? " 
 
 " 1 merely wanted to draw your attention, 
 sir, to that white thing yonder gliding 
 under the white cliff ; you would scarcely 
 think it to be a boat, I daresay, but it is 
 one. That's Walter Dickson's craft, the 
 cunning thief. It is almost impossible to 
 see her, painted white as she is, when 
 she's sailing between us and the chalk ; 
 and yet, since he caught sight of us, look 
 you how she hugs the land! I'll wager 
 she has been to Marmouth for no good. 
 Nobody but a dare-devil chap like Dickson 
 would venture so close in-shore, with such 
 a sea on; you may take your oath he has 
 contraband goods on board."
 
 In the Cutter. 201 
 
 " Fire on her ! sink her ! run her do^yn !" 
 exclaimed Mr. Stevens' excitedly. " Why do 
 you let the villain escape?" 
 
 "Well, we must keep on the right side 
 of the law, you see. Nobody ought to know 
 that better than jou, sir, I fancy — asking 
 your pardon for the liberty — for it strikes 
 me you have worn the anchor buttons ; one 
 of ourselves, sir, only a deal higher up the 
 tree," added the cockswain, touching his 
 cap. 
 
 "I will bear you harmless if you will 
 stop that boat," replied the stranger pas- 
 sionately. "I will give you fifty pounds if 
 you catch her before she rounds the head- 
 land. Put the helm about, I say, and cut 
 her off." 
 
 But the cockswain showed no inclination 
 to obey. " Lor bless you, sir, we 'd be glad
 
 202 The Clyffards of Clyfe. 
 
 to do it for half the money, and indeed for 
 nothing at all, since you would take the 
 risk; but it ain't no manner of use. The 
 Saucy Sail runs three feet to our two. 
 She'll be at Sandby, with the wind against 
 her, a'most as quick as we were coming 
 with the ebb and all. And, by the by, 
 the tide is on the turn by this, and you 
 will have less time, since we have steered 
 out so far, for seeing the Mermaid's Ca- 
 vern, than you had calculated upon. However, 
 we'll land you just beyond the point there, 
 and we shall come in view of the bay 
 in a very few minutes. 'Tis the pret- 
 tiest sight to be seen in all these parts, to 
 my mind."
 
 203 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WAITING FOR THE PREY. 
 
 npHE cockswain was right, although not 
 particularly happy in his adjective. 
 There is not a more glorious sight in all 
 the coast-scenery of Britain than Mermaid 
 Bay. There are grander scenes, perhaps 
 scenes more beautiful, but none excel it 
 for a combination of the beautiful and the 
 grand. It cannot be viewed from above 
 to any advantage, because the cliffs are 
 sheer, except in one spot, where a zigzag 
 path leads to the lofty Down ; but from 
 the sea and from the beach it is beheld
 
 204 The Chjffards of Clyffe, 
 
 under circumstances equally favourable, though 
 totally different in character. Approaching 
 the bay from seaward, as in the present 
 case, a crescent of chalk cliffs formed the 
 background of a picture in which everything 
 for that reason stood out as if in relief. 
 Immense masses of outlying fragments still 
 bid defiance to the waves, which furiously 
 beat against them, and then, as if maddened 
 by their resistance, thundered white-lipped 
 on, and wore the cliff itself into a hundred 
 caverns. At one point in particular it 
 seemed as though the charging host of waves 
 had used some strategy, whereby the pre- 
 cipice had been pierced in more than one 
 place, and a junction of its watery foes 
 had been effected far within it. Sooner or 
 later, the tall cliff for many a yard was 
 doomed, thus undermined, to fall ; and on
 
 Waiting for the Prey. 205 
 
 its face, the oblique layers and rows of 
 flint — nature's own hieroglyphic — shewed like 
 Belshazzar's w^arning. Small use it was to 
 set those mighty w^arders, clothed in white, 
 to break the advancing columns, when with 
 every tide the enemy forced its way into 
 the very heart of the citadel, and sapped 
 the lessening pillars at their base, and tore 
 the weakened walls. 
 
 The outlook from the extremity of this 
 natural excavation was beautiful exceedingly. 
 Left and right, the light streamed in under 
 rugged archways, each making a framework 
 for the picture of the sparkling bay. In 
 the one, the waste of waters stretched un- 
 broken till it met the sky ; in the other, a 
 line of jagged cliffs, about two furlongs 
 from the land, rose sheer as an iceberg, 
 and pierced, like it, in weird and fantastic
 
 206 The Clyffards of Clyp. 
 
 forms. But what was to be seen within the 
 cavern itself was even still more curious and 
 beautiful, for the sunrays, broken and in- 
 tersected by a thousand shadows, shone upon 
 walls of rainbow hues, such as no colourist 
 could rival; panellings of the brown bar- 
 nacle, "picked out" with scarlet and yellow 
 sponges, and dotted as the firmament with 
 stars by innumerable sea-anemones of richest 
 tint.* Amethyst and ruby, garnet and eme- 
 
 * A curious illustration of the blindness of our 
 forefathers to natural beauties is exhibited in the fol- 
 lowing account of the sea-anemone, extracted from an 
 old English magazine, and headed "Singular Animal 
 Flower Found in 1764 :" " The inhabitants of St. 
 Lucia have discovered an anunal flower. In a cavern 
 of that isle near the sea is a large basin, from 12 to 
 15 feet deep, the water of which is very brackish, and 
 the bottom composed of rocks, from whence at all 
 times proceed certain substances, which present at 
 first sight beautiful flowers, of a bright sliining colour,
 
 Waiting f 07' the Prey, 207 
 
 raid, all were there, standing out like bosses 
 on a shield ; but instead of being a stone, 
 each was a soft and yielding substance, fresh 
 as a flower, and bright with a brightness 
 that only life itself can yield. The ceiling 
 of this treasure-house of nature was equally 
 gorgeous; but the floor was of softest sand, 
 
 and pretty nearly resembling our marigolds, only that 
 their tint is more lively. On examining this sub- 
 stance closely, there appears in the middle of the disc 
 four brown filaments resembhng spiders' legs, which 
 move round a kind of yellow petal with a pretty brisk 
 spontaneous motion. These legs reunite pinchers to 
 seize their prey ; and the yellow petals immediately 
 close to shut up that prey, so that it cannot escape. 
 Under this appearance of a flower is a brown stalk, 
 of the thickness of a raven's quill, and which appears 
 to be the body of some animal." By the above, it 
 would seem that only one hundred years ago was 
 this creature discovered, whose extraordinary beauties 
 the caves of ocean probably exhibited thousands of 
 years ago as lavishly as now — but it was the pre- 
 Gossean era.
 
 208 The Clyffards of Chjffe. 
 
 and doubtless often printed by the twink- 
 ling feet of the sea-fairies, after whom the 
 place was named the "Mermaid's Cavern." 
 
 A few times only in the year, at very 
 low spring-tides, w^ere mortals admitted with- 
 in this exquisite chamber, and then only 
 for a very little while. Summer and winter, 
 day and night, its beauties were hidden be- 
 neath the unconscious wave, to which, never- 
 theless, they ow^ed their brightness and their 
 bloom, but gladdening who shall say what 
 eyes ? 
 
 Even on this occasion, the most oppor- 
 tune in all the year, there w^ere but two 
 houi'^ between the time that the last re- 
 luctant wave left the silver fringe of the 
 floor of the cave, and when the first notes 
 of the great ocean -organ should again begin 
 to haunt its echoing walls ; and as the
 
 Waiting for the Prey. 209 
 
 keel of the cutter clove the yielding sand to 
 land its passenger — 
 
 "If you stay with the mermaids, sir, be- 
 yond an hour and twenty minutes," was the 
 cockswain's warning, "you will not leave 
 their company without wet feet." 
 
 Then one leaped into the sea, and pushing 
 the boat into deep water, climbed himself 
 within it, and the sail filled once more, and 
 lessened, and was lost, as the man Stevens 
 watched it from the land. 
 
 With an evil glance up at the zig-zag 
 path, and a smothered oath at woman's 
 tardiness, he sat down on the narrow beach, 
 and drawing a letter from his pocket, read 
 the contents slowly to himself. " She's 
 wrong," he said, slapping the paper — " she's 
 quite wrong there. — WJien you have made 
 sure of R. — Well, I have done that. It can- 
 
 VOL. II. P
 
 210 The Chjffards of Clyffe, 
 
 not be but that he is dead. I myself saw 
 his dying look; an ugly sight, that haunts 
 me still. I was- a fool just now for shew- 
 ing It must have been what folks call 
 
 conscience, I suppose ; but I did see it — 
 saw it as plain as I see this letter. I 
 must get rid of all such nonsense, for I 
 have a worse job in hand than that of 
 yesterday. — When you have made sure of R., 
 do not risk more at present. M. icill he 
 useful to us, and, indeed, almost indispens- 
 able. I can only calm R. C. by p>romising 
 that she shall still be his, as indeed she 
 may be, if all has gone well. He 
 is obstinate as a mide, and mad as the 
 maddest, unless this lure is dangled before 
 his eyes. Again I say do not risk more 
 with M.; and as for the child, it unll 
 he invaluable. We ivill find means to bnng
 
 Waiting for the Prey. 211 
 
 it hither, and then its foolish mother loill 
 follow J I warranty as a dam follows its 
 lamb. Do not think 77ie a onilksojyy nor 
 that I forget my debts and yours ; they will 
 be all paid in time. Bat again I say, when 
 you have made sure of R., risk nothing more 
 at present. — I do risk nothing," soliloquised 
 Gideon Carr impatiently. " This business I 
 have now in hand is a certainty. Never 
 again is it possible that such an opportu- 
 nity will occur for killing both birds with 
 one stone. Rupert Clyffard will then be 
 left without kith or kin. — Mad as the maddest, 
 she says. — I doubt it not ; but I think I 
 know a way to persuade even madmen to 
 do what I will. If his fingers have joints 
 in them, they shall write the words I dic- 
 tate; or, at all events, sign his name in 
 the right place on the parchment. How 
 
 p2
 
 212 The Chjffarch of Chjffe, 
 
 strange it seems that Grace and I, wlio 
 have made so many sane folks appear mad, 
 should now be striving to shew this madman 
 sane ! I daresay Clement takes credit to 
 himself for this, and calls it reparation. 
 Poor superstitious fool ! However, most of 
 us have our hours of weakness, or at least 
 our moments — as I had mine a •while ago. 
 It must have been some touch of — what 
 do they call it % Remorse ; ay ; some mawk- 
 ishness which I myself knew not was 
 within me, that caused me to think I saw 
 through that man's glass — what ? — pshaw ! the 
 thing must be a score of miles aw^ay by 
 this time — half-way between the shingle and 
 the foam ; just as he said he would not 
 have it be : of all fates, that the worst, 
 he said — to welter on, unburied, in the 
 boundless seas. I am sorry that I dropped
 
 Waiting for the Prey. 213 
 
 that telescope. If the man had looked, what 
 then? There was nothing for him to see; 
 and nothing for that Dickson neither. I was 
 a fool; and now am I a fool to stand 
 here on the open beach, and let 3^on fellows 
 see that I care nothing for this Mer- 
 maid's Cavern, which I have come so far 
 to explore." 
 
 He walked to the nearest opening, and 
 looked in. "A dainty place for any lady 
 of the land, not being a mermaid," muttered 
 he with a grim smile, " to die in. What 
 a soft silver couch ! What splendid hang- 
 ings, and how rich the roof! Somewhat 
 low, i' faith, but else how could one see 
 the jewels? Would they were precious 
 stones indeed, and that I alone knew 
 of this Aladdin's cave ! Why, it would 
 almost be worth while to adopt Cle-
 
 214 The Chjffards of Clyffe. 
 
 ment's plan, who means, it seems, when he 
 gets rich enough, to become pious, good — 
 to make investments in the way of charity, 
 which may repay him in the other world. 
 Methinks the interest should be high indeed, 
 where the security is so problematical. — Why 
 does not this woman come ? She loill come, 
 I feel certain : that fictitious message from 
 her husband, reminding her not to fail, was 
 an excellent thought : she is a good wife, 
 and she will come." He paused a little, 
 then broke forth, as if in a passion, "Why 
 should she have thrust herself between my 
 ends and me? Why have refused the man 
 we chose for her? Why married him, of 
 all men in the world most hateful to us ? 
 True, she is our niece, but for that very 
 reason, she should have done our bidding. 
 No, curse her; she shall die! Will she bring
 
 Waiting for the Prey. 215 
 
 the child herself, I wonder, or will there be 
 the nursemaid? Or will that woman, the 
 lieutenant's wife, who is now staying at her 
 house, come with her? — that slow-speaking, 
 demure hostess of mine, who, I can well 
 see, entertains no favour for Mr. Stevens. 
 I trust she may ; there is room for all 
 three to drown in here — the tide will choke 
 a dozen as easily as one. It is a question 
 of five minutes, more or less, with any- 
 body ; that is all. Mildred is tallest, and 
 will be the survivor of her child and friend. 
 — Ah ! what fine crabs are here ! Why, 
 there's not a stone but roofs its tenant. 
 That's what they talked of in the cutter, 
 as we came along ; but I was thinking of 
 — I mean I was playing the fool. AVell, 
 these side-long gentry will have some pretty 
 pickings ere the day is out. IIow late their
 
 216 The Chjffards of Chjffe. 
 
 guests are, who will also be their suppers ! 
 They will scarcely arrive here clryshocl ; if 
 the}^ see me standing without, that will be 
 an excuse for them not to enter. They 
 will merely beckon me up the cliff, and 
 beckoning will not serve my turn ; therefore, 
 I shall stay within here. — Come, Mr. Crab, 
 thou art so very large, that I have a desire 
 to kill thee." 
 
 This he said as one of the creatures 
 stretched a mailed arm from under a huge 
 rock (for with great rocks, bearded with 
 trailing weed, the sand was strewn), and 
 then withdrew it suddenly, as though its 
 hard projecting eye had seen some danger. 
 " Come, friend, come out of thy hole." 
 
 He laid his strong hands on the rock, 
 and strove with might and main to turn it 
 over; but it did but move in its damp
 
 Waiting for the Preij. 217 
 
 setting a hair's-breadth. Thus foiled in his 
 first pMn, and angry at being foiled, Gideon 
 Carr made another attempt to gain his 
 end. He knelt down, and scratched the 
 sand away with both his hands, as a terrier 
 scratches at the burrow of a rabbit ; but 
 when he had made a considerable hole, he 
 desisted, " for,'' muttered he, " she will take 
 it for a grave, perchance, as indeed it looks 
 like one. But, nevertheless, this crab will 
 I have." The hole was small; but he bared 
 his brawaiy arm, and lying down with- 
 in the hollow he had made, thrust it into 
 the very shoulder. The fingers reached 
 that he sought, but as he grasped it, the 
 crab in its turn, with its toothed claw, 
 seized them like a rack and vice in one. 
 For one instant, the man felt faint with 
 agony, but rage soon conquered pain. "When
 
 218 The Clyfarch of Clyffe. 
 
 I get out, my friend in armour/' muttered 
 he, " although I shall have no time to 
 take you home to boil, I will drive wedges 
 into these claws of yours (a thing which 
 I'm told you do not like), and leave you 
 to die, without supping like the rest 
 upon certain dainty fare. Yes, you will 
 come, notwithstanding that you struggle, and 
 are so very large and strong;" and, in- 
 deed, huge as the creature was, the giant 
 strength of Gideon Carr was dragging it 
 forth, and had brought it almost to the 
 very mouth of its dwelling, when suddenly 
 the huge stone itself, undermined by the 
 previous digging, and shaken by the present 
 contest, toppled and fell forward — only a 
 few inches, but within them was included 
 Gideon's naked wrist, on which it pressed 
 like a new world on Atlas. Taken even
 
 Waiting for the Prey. 219 
 
 at this friglitful disadvantage, the man 
 could still, perhaps, Jiave wrenched out his 
 maimed limb, but for the tenacity of the 
 crab, which held on to him more resolutely 
 than ever; his closed fist forming with the 
 creature itself a sort of soHd knot, which 
 it was impossible to withdraw through the 
 now narrovved aperture. 
 
 For the first time in his long life — in 
 view at least of any material danger — the 
 damps of fear gathered upon the brow of 
 Gideon Carr. The frightful thought : 
 What if this creature holds me till the 
 tide comes up and drowns me ! sped with 
 a sharp agony through In's brain. But 
 straightway he became himself again ; re- 
 solute, indomitable, calm. Without motion — 
 for was not every moment now a loss of 
 priceless strength ? — he lay, calculating his
 
 220 The Clyffarch of Clyffe. 
 
 chances. She would surely come, this Mil- 
 dred for whom he had been waitinfj so 
 long, but not until now, impatiently. He 
 had felt quite certain of her coming, a 
 minute ago or so, when he was free and 
 out of all danger ; then why should he 
 doubt now? His own misadventure could 
 not have altered lier plans. No ; she must 
 needs come. He would set her to dig at 
 the sand about his wrist, and then, when 
 he was loose — yes, he would drown her 
 still. He was not like Clement to cry, 
 ^'Ye powers of good, if ye will help me 
 now I will henceforth serve you." Why, 
 was it not through this woman's tardiness — 
 curse her ! — that he was now Iviiio; hum- 
 bled and racked with pain ? There was no 
 bone, however, broken — he knew that; 
 nothing to prevent his swimming away
 
 Waiting for the Prey. 221 
 
 when the time came. But suppose she 
 could not free him- with all her efforts. 
 Then he would hold her there, and they 
 should drown together. Ay, but they 
 should. There should be no lying stories 
 of righteous retribution, forsooth, told about 
 Gideon Carr. As he had lived, implacable, 
 
 unbelieving, defiant, so would he But 
 
 pshaw ! why think of death ? He should 
 not, could not die ! Were all his mighty 
 plans for the future to be scattered by a 
 paltry creature that was sold in the market 
 for sixpence? Was Clyffe Hall to be 
 plucked from his grasp for ever, and tens 
 of thousands of pounds to be lost — for if 
 he did not get them, were they not lost? 
 — and thirst for vengeance not to be 
 slaked after all, but only whetted? For 
 what was Raymond's death? He had
 
 222 The Clyffards of Clijffe, 
 
 written to Grace last night, The first step 
 of the road you think so perilous has been 
 taken. E. C. is gone, — The first step ! 
 And was it, could it be fated that he 
 was not to take a second ? Fated ! that 
 word, though unformed by his lips, sent a 
 tremor throughout his frame. What had 
 the fool Raymond meant in his last agony 
 by saying that he saw the winding-sheet 
 bound high about him, the token of 
 black doom immediately impending? Doubt- 
 less a last malicious effort to give him 
 discomfort — that was all. — Ha ! the rus- 
 tling of a dress, and that of more than 
 one ! They are coming at last ; the more 
 the better, for the time is getting short, 
 
 and the Gideon Carr did not conclude 
 
 that thought, but groaning, passed his 
 disengaged arm for the second time across his
 
 Waiting for the Prey. 223 
 
 forehead. It was no rustle of a dress which 
 he had heard, but the echo of the first 
 sibilating wave as it swept the sandy 
 threshold of the Mermaid's Cavern ; yes, 
 that herald of the rising spring-tide had 
 given its fatal warning; by that he knew, 
 although he could not turn to see it, that 
 the rim of beach was now no longer visible : 
 then, for a moment, his iron heart gave 
 way, and a shrill scream of terror broke 
 from his labouring lungs. Such a sound — 
 the inarticulate confession of defeat — they 
 had never sent forth before, and even now 
 he did not appeal to Heaven, nor yet to 
 Man. 
 
 The coast-guardsman sitting lazily upon 
 the cliff above was startled by it, and looked 
 out sharjily for the strange sea-bird that 
 had uttered so harsh a note; and Mrs.
 
 224 The Clijffards of Chjffe. 
 
 Hepburn heard it on the Down beyond, and 
 asked her friend what sound it was, who 
 told her it was but the west wind. If he 
 had repeated it — but no voice could have 
 framed a second time a cry so terrible, the 
 concentrated anguish of a hopeless heart — 
 perhaps help might have come. No w^oman 
 could possibly have released him from his 
 position, but the strong arm of Robert An- 
 drews might have done it. Even as it was, 
 unaided, this imprisoned wretch, made 
 frenzied by his peril, heaved up the rock 
 by a tremendous effort some quarter of an 
 inch, so that he saw the creature that was 
 his gaoler; then back the mighty mass 
 sank down, and pinioned him as closely as 
 before. 
 
 And now, when he knew that his own 
 efforts must he unavailing, a curious change
 
 Waiting for the Prey, 225 
 
 came over him : he had never — that is to 
 say, within the last ten minutes, in which 
 his whole life seemed to have been com- 
 prised — he had never felt so confident of 
 rescue. Mildred would come, of course, and 
 seeing the tide up, would conclude that an 
 accident had occurred — that he had had a 
 fit, or sprained an ankle, and would hasten 
 down at once, for what w^as getting her 
 feet wet in comparison with saving a fellow- 
 creature's life ? That was the way the woman 
 would reason ; doubtless, she must be positively 
 certain he was there. She must have seen 
 the cutter that brought him pass by Sandby. 
 Where else could he be? And had not her 
 
 husband told her Once more the guilty 
 
 wretch shuddered from head to heel, for as 
 his thoughts touched on Kaymond, an icy 
 hand was laid upon his limbs, as though a 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 226 The Chjffards of Clyfe. 
 
 corpse had clasped them. Up, up it crept, 
 and with it a stealthy sound. The tide had 
 reached his feet, and higher yet. Though 
 the floor of the cavern sloped up\Yard, his 
 very mouth was only a little higher than 
 his feet, as there he lay; nay, the hollow 
 of the sand which his own hands had dug, 
 would cause him to drown more quickly. 
 He had said that it looked like a grave, 
 but never dreamt that his own form 
 would fill it. He had jested of a few 
 inches more or less making all the differ- 
 ence as to survivorship in such a case as 
 this, and now, thus prostrate, he was doomed 
 to drown sooner than any child of two years 
 old. He remarked for the first time that the 
 cavern was growing dark, and that a greenish 
 tinge was mixed with what light there was; 
 and turning as well as he could, he saw
 
 Waiting for the Prey. 227 
 
 the two approaches to the place half filled 
 with the rising tide,' and only a jagged 
 crescent of blue sky above it. Even while 
 he looked, a tall, white crested wave hissed 
 in, and swept him to the very neck, and 
 dashed his face with spray. The freshness 
 of the foam seemed to revive him ; and with 
 a gleam of hope in his worn and anguished 
 face, but wuth a cruel look upon it too, 
 even though the coming pain was to be 
 his own, he drew forth a clasp-knife from 
 his pocket; then dragging it open wqth his 
 teeth, he began to saw the blade against the 
 sinews of his captive wrist. He would escape 
 still, ay, that he would. What was a hand 
 more or less compared wqth life ? If he had 
 but thought of this a little earlier ; but even 
 now it was not too late. A mighty wave here 
 whelmed him from foot to head. " Too late, too 
 
 q2
 
 228 The Chjffards of Clyffe. 
 
 late !" it echoed, thundering in. " Too late, 
 too late !" the screaming beach replied, dragged 
 down by its return. Blinded by the salt 
 water, Gideon could not find the place to 
 aim at, but like an inexperienced woodman, 
 cut and knocked the limb at random. Then 
 another wave swept in, and roamed about the 
 cave at leisure, and fell back upon him from 
 the splendid roof and wall ; and then another, 
 and another, thundering Doom!
 
 229 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DESOLATE. 
 
 " TTOW shall I tell Raymond when he 
 comes home ?" was the thought which 
 now occupied poor Mildred's mind, whenever 
 it was not dwelling upon her lost Millie's 
 fate. "How shall I find words to let him 
 know that we are desolate, nay, worse than 
 desolate, for that is what we say when 
 Death has snatched our darlings only to 
 give them to God !" The agony of the 
 mother was the more insupportable, since 
 she was forced to remain inactive — since no- 
 thing could be done, save what already had
 
 230 The Clyffards of Clyfe. 
 
 been done. She could not take coach to 
 Clyffe, and cry to the wolfish woman there, 
 "You have stolen my lamb." Well con- 
 vinced as she was that such was the case, 
 she had not a particle of proof to support 
 the accusation. It was useless to inform the 
 police of the true state of the case, since 
 that would enable them to take no further 
 steps at present. When the actual stealer 
 of the child should be tracked and secured, 
 then, indeed, some blow might be struck at 
 her who had set him on. But, at present, 
 there was nothing for it but to wait and 
 weep. Perhaps, when Kaymond came, he 
 might suggest some course of action, and 
 yet the terror of having to tell him, " Our 
 Milly is stolen," so weighed down her soul 
 that she scarce wished him back. It would 
 have almost been a relief to her, in
 
 Desolate, 231 
 
 her lonely anguish, if he had sent a mes- 
 senger from Marmouth to say, " My busi- 
 ness keeps me here a while." In the in- 
 terim, perhaps, the robber might be captured, 
 the child restored; or Aunt Grace herself 
 might relent. No, that was impossible. 
 Even if she could have heard of her niece's 
 agony, of the desolation she had wrought 
 in hearth and heart, of the utter wreck of 
 that humble little household, which she had 
 effected as by the lightning's stroke, no touch 
 of pity would have moved her ; of that 
 Mildred was as sure as of her loss itself. 
 Hope she felt still ; on which, indeed, alone 
 she fed, through which alone she lived, and 
 did not wither suddenly like a flower be- 
 neath the pall of the first snow — but not 
 in her aunt's mercy. No, it was the thought 
 of that hard, vengeful woman, which, more
 
 232 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 than all, made her dread her husband's 
 coming. But when Kaymond did not come, 
 nor any messenger to tell her wherefore, 
 and the third evening of his absence was 
 thickening into night, then she began to 
 feel that the uttermost depths of wretched- 
 ness had not been sounded even yet. 
 
 Terrible, indeed, are the weapons which 
 God sometimes uses, or, in his inexplicable 
 wisdom, suffers to be used against his crea- 
 tures for their good. Inexhaustible is the 
 armoury of His tremendous will. "The 
 Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken 
 away, blessed be his name," is a wise say- 
 ing; but let no human mourner venture to 
 add — He can now take away no more ; He 
 has done his worst, or what seems to be 
 his worst, when in truth all is good. 
 
 The arrows of his wrath have darkened
 
 Desolate. 233 
 
 our suiij but the night of our sorrow has 
 still, perhaps, some moon of comfort. What, 
 then, if the flight of His chastening darts 
 continue yet, and darken it also, until all 
 indeed is night ! The shield of Resignation 
 is sometimes raised in vain — or what seems 
 in vain, to our poor, impatient, ignorant, 
 fretful spirit, with its "How long, how 
 long?" — and, smitten through and through, 
 we lie prostrate in the dust, and still are 
 smitten. Then, what was sorrow before be- 
 comes almost joy by contrast with the more 
 dismal present, as one who, from inner 
 gloom, looks forth on some late-traversed 
 dusky way, and wonders how, with those 
 glimmering stars above it, it ever could have 
 seemed so dark. 
 
 Thus, no sooner did the shadow of lier 
 coming widowhood begin to steal over poor
 
 234 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 child-bereft Mildred, than all her former 
 woe seemed almost light ; she no longer 
 feared her husband's arrival, but waited for 
 it eagerly, and at first hopefully; then 
 yearned for it as never bride longed for 
 bridegroom ; then prayed for it, as for some 
 blessed boon, almost beyond the power of 
 Heaven to grant; and still her husband 
 came not. Mildred had heard from Mrs. 
 Carey of the frightful fate of the man 
 Stevens; of how one of the Sandby fisher- 
 men had gone to the Mermaid's Cave for 
 crabs at the next low^ tide, and found the 
 'drowned man still imprisoned like another 
 Milo by the pitiless stone, with his wrist 
 half cut through, and the knife still clasped 
 in his other hand. Directly she heard the 
 news, a shudder had run through her 
 frame, not upon his account alone who had
 
 Desolate, 235 
 
 thus perished, but because she also seemed 
 to see a retribution in it for some crime 
 at present undivulged — the fincrer of the 
 Avenger pointing to another fatal cata- 
 strophe, in which Raymond's own life might 
 be involved. And when, after a little, news 
 arrived that he had never reached Marmouth, 
 never got to the end of the journey begun 
 with his dread companion, then, indeed — her 
 husband murdered, and her helpless child 
 in the power of her bitterest foe — it 
 seemed that there was no new sorrow, as 
 no joy, left in the world for Mildred. In 
 vain Mrs. Carey besought her to leave her 
 own desolate home, and remove to " Lucky 
 Bay," out of reach of further hurt. 
 
 " No," answered she, with bitterness ; " lest 
 my slain Raymond's spirit, wandering hither, 
 should seek for me in vain; or lest, when
 
 236 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 Grace deems it time to smite, that of my 
 murdered Millie should return, and wail for 
 me about the desolate home which is the 
 only one she knew. While as to further 
 hurt, my friend," continued she, "I would 
 thank this aunt of mine to send and slay 
 me, as the most welcome revenge she can 
 take." 
 
 If friendship and genuine sympathy could 
 have mitigated such woes as Mildred's, 
 there were many that would have gladly 
 helped to bear them. Coastguard and smug- 
 glers for the first time united in a com- 
 mon object — in striving to bring her comfort. 
 If the stealer of her child had fallen into 
 the hands of either party, it would have 
 gone hard with him indeed. The lieutenant 
 was quite a changed man; all merriment 
 and good-nature had left his eyes ; like a
 
 Desolate, 22^1 
 
 knight-errant under a vow of vengeance, 
 who abjures feast and tourney, and even 
 puts in abeyance his fealty to his own 
 sovereign lady, so did Lieutenant Carey 
 forsake pipe and glass, and even his duty 
 to his fair mistress the Revenue, and 
 scoured the country night and day, and by 
 land and sea, in Mrs. Hepburn's cause. 
 Every yard of cliff, and particularly the 
 Beacon Cliff, about which suspicions had 
 been excited by Stevens's behaviour in the 
 cutter, was examined by his own eyes, from 
 his own boat; every foot of ground traversed 
 by Raymond along the down-land on that 
 fatal day was gone over with the careful- 
 ness of a sleuth-hound. His men, too, 
 whose hearts had been won by Raymond's 
 generosity and friendly bearing, worked in 
 the same cause with a will; nor, as I
 
 238 The Clyfiards of Clijffe. 
 
 have said, were the free-traders backward 
 in shewing their sympathy for the widowed 
 and childless lady, although they evinced it 
 in a very strange manner. 
 
 They would not permit the body of 
 Stevens to lie by the side of their own 
 dead in the little churchyard. In vain were 
 they told that they had no right to charge 
 the poor WTetch wdth a crime which it 
 w^as not even proved had been committed 
 at all. In vain was the drowned man 
 interred with all decency by clergyman and 
 clerk. They dug him up, again and 
 again, and cast his dishonoured limbs upon 
 the wayside stones, until it was found neces- 
 sary to remove them to a distant locality. 
 Walter Dickson, whose boat had visited 
 the Beacon Cliffs so immediately after 
 Stevens had exhibited such an inexplicable
 
 Desolate. 239 
 
 dread of them, had come up himself to 
 Pampas Cottage, and assured poor Mildred, 
 with a profusion of the strongest expres- 
 sions in his vocabulary, that it was out 
 of possibility that any person could have 
 been pushed over the clift' in that part, 
 without leaving, to a practised eye like his 
 (to which, moreover, the place was known 
 as well as the palm of his own hand), 
 some trace of his fall. The evident desire 
 of the man to give some comfort, so 
 moved Mrs. Carey, who was present, that 
 she rose up and shook both the free- 
 trader's hands. "But you see it is no use, 
 my man," she whispered, pointing to Mil- 
 dred's hopeless face ; " and even if you 
 could give her hope, it would be a mistaken 
 kindness. Nevertheless, I owe you a good 
 turn for this, Walter Dickson, and will
 
 240 The Clyffards of Clyffe, 
 
 repay it you, if it should ever be in my 
 power." 
 
 " Bless your kind honest face !" returned 
 the smuggler, with a curious sort of 
 struggle in his own weather-beaten features. 
 "If ever a coast-guardsman does go to 
 heaven, it will be your husband, who has 
 got an angel for his wafe, to shew him 
 the way. Perhaps it is as you say, and 
 nothing as I can tell this poor lady can 
 do her good ; but if she was to take the 
 good book to my old woman this evening, 
 as she has often done afore, who is down 
 and abed with the rheumatics, and nothing 
 to think upon except the boys we lost at 
 sea, older than this poor child (whom, 
 please God, w^e shall see again) and there- 
 fore worse to part with, she might maybe 
 forget for a little this sad trouble of her
 
 Dfsolate. 241 
 
 own in Tliere, if she ain't c;one to 
 
 put on her bonnet - and shawl already I 
 We w^on't keep her from your company — 
 that is, my old woman won't — not half an 
 hour. She'll read, it is likely, just a 
 chapter out of Job, something as teaches 
 folk to put up with everything; although 
 Job, I warrant — and saving your presence, 
 Mrs. Carey — never knew what it was to be 
 troubled with the Excise." 
 
 Whether it was the act of a good 
 Catholic to read the sacred volume in the 
 vulgar tongue to a female heretic, deserved- 
 ly suffering from the rheumatics, was a 
 question with which, I fear, Mildred Clyf- 
 fard did not concern herself, although she 
 was probably the first of her name who 
 had ever committed mortal sin in that 
 particular. Perhaps the Church forga^'e her 
 
 VOL. IT. R
 
 242 The Chjffards of Clyffe, 
 
 in consideration of her ignorance and her 
 good intentions. But certainly, upon her 
 return — which did not take place nearly so 
 soon as Mr. Walter Dickson had specified 
 — she did not present the appearance of 
 one who had incurred grave spiritual 
 penalties. On the contrary, the consolation 
 which she had administered she also seemed 
 to have partaken of, and that so largely, 
 that Mrs. Carey could not restrain an 
 ejaculation of joyful surprise. "' You have 
 heard some good news, dear Mildred. 
 I am sure you have," exclaimed she ex- 
 citedly. 
 
 " I have nothing new to tell you, 
 Marion, but only the corroboration of some- 
 thing you said the other day; but which 
 I, Heaven forgive me ! was too hard of 
 heart to acknowledge. You told me then
 
 Desolate. 243 
 
 that God was never thanked in vain. 
 Within these few minutes, I have found, 
 my friend, that that is a true saying; but 
 please do not ask me any questions." 
 
 R 2
 
 244 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AN UNEXPECTED INVITATION. 
 
 T CANNOT think that the postman, in 
 this my district, W., who deals out Birth 
 and Death, and Happiness and Misery, and 
 Ruin and Competence, every morning of 
 his life, save Sundays, to one or other of 
 his fellow-creatures, does ever himself receive 
 a letter ; otherwise, he could not surely go 
 about his work with such methodical im- 
 passibility. I have watched him taking his 
 morning round — the one which is the most 
 big with fate, since little comes by the 
 afternoon post except bills and invitations —
 
 An Unexpected Invitation* 245 
 
 I have often watched him, I say, dis- 
 tributing his momentous missives, and not 
 a feature alters, whether he hands in the 
 blackbordered envelope, which the fingers 
 of the recipients do not venture to open, 
 but hold it in their trembling grasp, while 
 the lips murmur a silent prayer; or the 
 scented billet-doux^ which the lover tears 
 asunder in his haste, but the maiden hides 
 in her bosom till she shall be alone. Nothine; 
 interests him except a registered letter, at 
 which (notwithstanding that he must know 
 it brings its welcome with it) he grumbles 
 and repines, because he has to wait while 
 we sign our name. At Christmas, though 
 he must know that those enormous oblonors 
 he brings are bills, he has not so much as 
 an "I'm sorry for you ;" and an underlined 
 "Immediate," in red ink, which sets tingling
 
 246 The Clyfarch of Clyffe. 
 
 all the blood in one's body, does not afflict 
 him nearly so much as a trifle of insuffi- 
 cient postage, without being reimbursed for 
 which, he is quite prepared to take the 
 urgent document away again unopened : he 
 doesn't care tuppence — yes, he does care 
 exactly tuppence, and that's all. Upon 
 Valentine's Day, indeed, he 7nay shew some 
 signs of human sympathy, but that is a 
 mere conventional and passing enthusiasm, 
 and one which is incidental to his pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Now, the country postman is a very dif- 
 ferent person from this red and blue auto- 
 maton of the town, and does not hold him- 
 self so high above human affairs. Homo est. 
 He is a letter-carrier, and he considers 
 nothing which letters contain to be beyond 
 his sympathy, or out of his beat. If you
 
 A71 Unexpected Invitation, 247 
 
 want to get acquainted with a countiy neigh- 
 bourhood, I know of no better plan than 
 that of accompanying the postman in one of 
 his morning rounds. What an interest he 
 takes in the letter for AYidow Chareall, the 
 hardworking, honest soul, who comes out of 
 the cottage and down to the garden gate 
 with her bare arms, damp from the wash- 
 ing-tub, and her three chubby children 
 hanging about her skirts, and who thinks 
 it must be a mistake, for who, alack! is 
 there left to write to her now, and, indeed, 
 for the matter of that, who ever did Avrite, 
 for her poor dear John was no scholar. 
 But the postman assures her that for her 
 it is, and for no other, and lingers whilst 
 she breaks the seal, and learns with genu- 
 ine pleasure that a bit of monc}^, it 
 seems, is coming to her, about which John
 
 248 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 always used to talk with a certain vague hope. 
 
 Then away by the short cut through the 
 park, where the deer do not raise their 
 heads at the sound of his well-known foot- 
 fall on the path, nor the hares at their 
 morning toilet mistake for a moment his 
 letter-wallet for a game-bag ; and so by the 
 range of stables to the back door of the 
 Hall, where, if the footman is not in the 
 way, the cook relieves him of the Hall bag, 
 which she unlocks with her floury fingers, 
 sets aside these for master, those for missus, 
 and that on foreign paper for the eldest 
 young lady with a grin, which our peripa- 
 tetic friend reciprocates, for does he not 
 know all about her engagement to the young 
 soldier-officer in the Indies? 
 
 At the [Manor Farm, again, he has a 
 friendly chat with the guidwife, whose hus-
 
 An Uneocpected Invitation. 249 
 
 band is away at the cattle-show in town, and 
 who takes counsel with him as to the pro- 
 priety of opening that letter with the West- 
 portown postmark, which she feels certain is 
 about the heifer, and ought to be seen to at 
 once; but finally decides to abide by his 
 advice, and to "let it be," particularly since 
 Mr. Leasehold is so very singular in the 
 respect of ^^ never thinking anything can be 
 properly seen to except by hisself." He is 
 not in such a hurry, is the country post- 
 man — although between his stoppages, mind 
 you, he steps out with such vigour that con- 
 versation is rendered well-nigh impossible — 
 but that he has a cheery word for all he 
 meets ; and when he approaches the house 
 of sorrow, such as Pampas Cottage, he finds 
 time to remember to omit to wind his horn ; 
 and when the lady of the house, in deepest
 
 250 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 mourning, herself steps forth to meet him, 
 his voice has something in it which expresses 
 his sympathy. 
 
 Thus it happened, at least, with the post- 
 man from Westportown — just recovered from 
 his late ailment, and therefore perhaps more 
 full of the milk of human kindness than usual, 
 upon a certain morning which I have in 
 my mind. Mr. Hepburn had stood by him 
 upon a certain occasion when he had been 
 wrongfully accused to his superiors by old 
 Frumps, Lord Absentee's agent and bailiff, 
 of having kept back some letter for twenty- 
 four hours, in order to save himself trouble 
 in the delivery thereof ; nor w^ere Christmas 
 boxes neglected at Pampas Cottage, nor was 
 the offer of a glass of ale in inclement 
 weather altogether unprecedented at that hos- 
 pitable little house.
 
 An Unexpected Invitation. 251 
 
 "I have two letters for you, ma'am, this 
 morning," observed he respectfully — "one on 
 'em franked." And if ever a face added, 
 " And I trust it may bring you some com- 
 fort in your trouble, dear lady," it was the 
 face of that genial postman. This good fel- 
 low was well aware that he was speaking 
 to one whose husband had been mysteriously 
 snatched away but a few days before, and 
 whose child had been as strangely stolen 
 from her; but yet he deemed that a letter 
 which was franked by a nobleman, and bore 
 a seal with a large coat of arms upon it, 
 must needs contain consolation. The other 
 missive had by no means an aristocratic ap- 
 pearance. In the pre-envelope epoch, it was 
 not so easy to turn out a neat-looking note 
 as now, and the individual who had folded 
 this particular document had either possessed
 
 252 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 a very indifferent eye for rectangles, or had 
 accomplished this matter ingeniously (but 
 still not well) with his feet instead of his 
 hands : it had a number of those dirty 
 creases upon it, each of which, like a wrinkle 
 on the human brow, tells of failure and dis- 
 appointment; and when all had been done 
 and undone of which foolscap is capable, the 
 wafer had been evidently too lavishly moist- 
 ened, and then hammered down with a 
 penny. And yet, without even a glance at 
 its more imposing companion, it was upon this 
 homely epistle that the eye of Mrs. Hep- 
 burn rested with anxious welcome. 
 
 " Thank you," said she, and while the man 
 still lingered — " thank you, and good day ;" 
 but she never took her eyes off that strag- 
 gling superscription, which might easily have 
 been accomplished, like the folding, by a
 
 An Unexpected Invitation 253 
 
 tolerably plastic foot, and which was spattered 
 all over with ink to' an extent inconceivable 
 by those who have not witnessed the mo- 
 dern method of transferring ferns to dinner- 
 doileys. 
 
 "It is the same handwriting," murmured 
 she, "which warned me truly that — of my 
 poor husband's fate. It can have no worse 
 terrors for me now. What, then, if it offer 
 some crumb of comfort ! Perhaps about my 
 Milly!" 
 
 Reader, have you ever had a letter in 
 your hand directed to yourself, and only 
 waiting the touch of your thumb and fin- 
 ger, which yet you dared not open ? A 
 poor farthing's worth of paper, with a little 
 writing within it, which you have no more 
 ventured to unfold without some prepara- 
 tion, thought or spoken, of the heart, than
 
 254 The Clyffards of Clijffe, 
 
 one of the Wanderino; Kace would have 
 ventured to break irreverently into the 
 Holy of Holies. If so, you may re- 
 member that^ notwithstanding your faith in 
 Heaven's mercy, you delayed that supreme 
 moment again and again, and even endea- 
 voured perhaps meanwhile to interest your- 
 self in matters of little moment — in the chil- 
 dren playing in the street, or in sparrows 
 fighting for a straw. Thus was it with 
 Mildred Hepburn, as, with that pregnant 
 missive in her hand, she turned her atten- 
 tion to its fellow-letter, expecting to find 
 in it, she knew not, cared not what, but 
 something that might help her to put off 
 for a few moments longer the plucking of 
 the fruit of that dread knowledge-tree. But 
 no sooner had her eyes lit upon the hand- 
 writing, than, with an inarticulate cry of
 
 An Unexpected Invitation, 255 
 
 hate and pain, she ran towards the house, 
 exclaiming, " Marion, Marion !" 
 
 Mrs. Carey, who had been watching her 
 from the window, was by her side in a 
 moment. 
 
 " See !" exclaimed the wretched woman, 
 "this is the writing of Grace Clyffard. 
 Not content with gloating over the ruin 
 she has wrought, she must needs write to 
 tell me that it is her work. Yes, I tell 
 you Yes ; you do not know her yet, nor 
 what her revenge is like. It would not 
 seem to her to be complete unless she wrote : 
 * Niece Mildred, I am even with you now. 
 That was my hand which struck you, through 
 those you loved.'" 
 
 "If she writes that,'' said Mrs. Carey, 
 gravely, "she acknowledges a crime, and in- 
 curs the punishment."
 
 256 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 " Aj, true," gasped Mildred. " Her cun- 
 ning is as great as is her hate — she has 
 let me know it, then, by some less direct 
 means — that is all. Take it — take it : it chills 
 my blood to touch the paper over which the 
 snake has trailed! What is it that she says? 
 What cruel gibes? What subtle stabs? 
 What lies ? But no, I care not what she 
 says. She cannot harm me worse by wicked 
 deeds; why, then, should I let her wound 
 my ears with her barbed words!" 
 
 Mrs. Carey took the letter, opened it, 
 and read it slowly to herself. "It is most 
 audacious^ barbarous, and base," groaned she. 
 "She hints, I fear, that Milly is at 
 Clyffe" 
 
 "Then let me hear," interrupted Mildred, 
 passionately. "Nay, I will be calm, dear 
 Marion. Please to read it out. One likes
 
 An Unexpected Invitation. 257 
 
 to know about one's dear ones — even how 
 they die. What news is there of my little 
 unprotected darling in the she-wolf's den?" 
 
 "Even she-wolves, as one reads, have 
 sometimes been kind to babes," returned Mrs. 
 Carey, soothingly. ^^1 cannot think that any 
 bearing the name of woman w^ould harm a 
 child like yours." 
 
 But Mildred only shook her head, and 
 signed that she should read the letter 
 out. 
 
 "Niece Mildred, — / tJiink that I have 
 now no cause to owe you any grudge. How- 
 ever great 7nay have been an insidt in the 
 first place, when the duel has been fought, the 
 combatants, although in nowise friends, need 
 be no longer enemies. They may even act 
 together when their interests happen to be in 
 VOL. II. S
 
 258 The Clyffarch of Chiffe. 
 
 common^ loliicli chances to he our own case. 
 It is of importance to me that you should 
 come at once to Clyffe. You ivill have nothing 
 to fear in so doing ^ either from hate or love. 
 My wrath is quite burned out; luhile, as for 
 Rupert y he is ill, p)oor fellow, and needs a 
 sick -nurse more than ever. If the ties of 
 relationship and your own natural benevolence 
 do not move you to accept this invitation, ice 
 are not ivithout another little attraction, or 
 tcliat I believe to he such. But this shall be 
 a secret till you come.^^ 
 
 "• Ay, she holds my child," groaned Mil- 
 dred, as Marion ended ; " and, as I have 
 seen boys who have robbed an ousel's nest, 
 carry home its young, and place them 
 where the mother may hear their cries, 
 and so herself be captured through her
 
 An Unexpected Invitation. 259 
 
 own loving instincts, so does tliis aunt of 
 mine -bait her fell: tra]) for me with my 
 very flesh and blood. Well, wdiat then? 
 I care not for myself what happens 
 to me ; and if I see my Milly once 
 
 again"- 
 
 "Mildred Clyffard," interrupted Mrs. Carey 
 solemnly, " the thing which we do in our 
 despair is rarely right. Moreover, there is 
 scarcely anything the doing of which affects 
 ourselves only, and no other. While you 
 live and are free, your child has a friend 
 to avenge, if not to protect her, and to 
 protect by the menace of avenging. This 
 woman feels this, and therefore desires to 
 ^et you into her power. She has made a 
 mistake, as I think, in >vritlng this letter. 
 Iler wrath has outrun her prudence, and 
 carried her within reach of the law. There 
 
 S2
 
 260 The Chjffards of Chjfe. 
 
 is much to explain in this, and which will 
 have to be explained before jud^e and jury. 
 — But what is that other letter which you 
 hold in your hand % " 
 
 "I had almost forgotten it," answered 
 Mildred, sighing, ^' although, before I re- 
 cognised Grace Clyffard's hand, it seemed 
 of urgent moment. It is from him who 
 warned us of the man Stevens. You may 
 read it also, if you please. There is 
 nothing to be warned of now, and, alas, 
 nothing to be told that is good tidings." 
 
 "But this is very strange," said Mrs. 
 Carey. "Look you, the postmark is the 
 same with that borne by the letter from 
 your aunt. Why, ilds comes from Clyffe 
 Hall likewise !" 
 
 Certainly, at the top of the page were 
 scrolled those words above the date, which
 
 An Uneayecied Invitation. 2G1 
 
 was the same as in Mrs. Clyffard's com- 
 munication. The - rest of its contents were 
 as follow ; 
 
 Widowed, hit not yet childless woman, my 
 heart bleeds for you. I have done ichat I 
 could hithei'to, and 1 have failed. Never- 
 theless, let me at least preserve what is re- 
 maining to you. Mrs. Clyfard will presently 
 ask you to come hither, relying on your 
 love for your child, ivho, indeed, is here, 
 safe and ivell. Yon will doubtless suspect a 
 snair, as is only 7iatural, but if it be a 
 snair, it is for herself that Grace Clyfard 
 has set it. Come hither, and fear not. The 
 unknoicn friend who watches now over your 
 child ivill then watch over you also. It is 
 true 1 have loarned you in vain, but, as- 
 you have bitterly learned, not without there
 
 2G2 The Clyffards of Clyfe. 
 
 having been need of ivarning. I heseech you, 
 put faith in me this time. If, hy cutting 
 off my ovm hand, I could have saved your 
 hushand^s life, I ivoidd have done so, as 
 God is my judge; no?' in this do I boast, 
 since the murderer Stevens (for he was the 
 murderer) woidd have done as much, if he 
 could, to have saved his worthless self 
 That man icas Gideon Carr ; the most 
 dangerous of the foes who menace you and 
 yours is therefore dead. You can count the 
 rest upon three fingers — Grace, Clement 
 Carr, and the man Cator. They are all 
 here, hut I am here also. Come, then, 
 without fear. 
 
 " Your Well-wisher." 
 
 With downcast head, and hands clasped 
 as if in prayer, ]\Irs. Hepburn Hstened
 
 An Unexpected Invitation. 263 
 
 patiently, as penitent before a priest, only 
 at the word "murderer" a shiver seized 
 her limbs as takes the poplar when its 
 leaves turn pale before the bitter East. 
 When all was read, she took the letter 
 from Mrs. Carey's hand, and kissed it. 
 
 " I have faith in this man," quoth she, 
 " who has taken pity upon the widow and 
 the fatherless." 
 
 " What ! and yet you have never seen 
 him, nor can even guess who he is?" 
 cried the lieutenant's wife. 
 
 "Yes," said Mildred firmly. "Is not that 
 the very definition of true faith? This is 
 no pretence or stratagem, I am sure. It 
 never could have entered Grace's heart, 
 with all its cunning, to snare me thus. 
 There is no approach to that for any 
 good, not even in seeming."
 
 2U The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 " But how stranf:re, Mildred, that you can 
 make no ^uess ■ at who this friend may be ; 
 for kindHness, not like that warmth which 
 makes the quicksilver to mount the tube, 
 unconscious of what sort of heat it be, 
 whether from sun or fire, sets the heart at 
 once inquiring from whence the genial glow 
 proceeds that has so moved it. Friend re- 
 cognises friend, no matter under what dis- 
 guise he does his loving service. All love 
 you here, dear Mildred, to the humblest. 
 Have you, then, left none at Cl3ffe whom 
 you can accuse of honest fealty ?" 
 
 "No one more than another, dear Marion," 
 answered Mrs. Hepburn thoughtfully. "They 
 were all respectful to me — nay, even kind ; 
 but they could not forget, I think, that I 
 was this woman's niece. They liked the 
 Clyffard race, their natural lords — and es-
 
 An Unexpected Invitation. 265 
 
 pecially their late master, Ralph — but not 
 the interloping Carxs. No ; I cannot fix 
 upon a single face in which so much of 
 pity as this letter breathes has ever shewn 
 itself." 
 
 "Then I would not go to Clyffe, clear 
 Mildred," exclaimed Mrs. Carey. " Remain 
 here ; or, still better, come to us. Set the 
 law to work at once. Give this woman to 
 know that if any harm comes to Milly, 
 she herself will pay for it with her life. 
 We do not live in times when murder goes 
 unpunished, and far less dares, with its 
 reeking hand, to point thus gibingly at those 
 whom it has made desolate." 
 
 " Ah, that was how my own dear Ray- 
 mond used to speak," cried Mildred with 
 agitation. " You feel as he felt, indignant 
 — nobly brave ; but again, I say. You do
 
 266 Tlie Ch iff arch of Cliiff'e. 
 
 not know this woman. She fears nothinrj — 
 nothing — except that she should be thwarted 
 in her purpose. / do not want revenge ; 
 I want my child, my Milly. If she would 
 but say, * There, take her, safe and well," 
 I would promise never to molest her 
 more." 
 
 " So would not I, then," cried the lieu- 
 tenant's wife with flushing cheeks. " What ! 
 forgive the wretch who set a man to slay 
 my husband ? No : had she twenty lives, 
 she would need to look to them all. And 
 if, in truth, she sat above the law, then 
 ivithout the law would I exact the penalty. 
 I have no child, 'tis true, nor, as I hope, 
 may I ever bear a child, if, having borne 
 it, it should make me thus forgetful of 
 my husband's wrongs Pardon me, Mil- 
 dred ; I have a home un shattered, a -bus-
 
 An Une.vpected Invitation. 267 
 
 band living — 1 know not what it is to be 
 forlorn like you, " or, perhaps, like you, I 
 should sit down content with any shred of 
 comfort that the destroyer might permit me 
 to retain, and almost thankful that so much 
 was left." 
 
 For a minute or so, over Mildred's face 
 passed traces of some painful inward struggle, 
 but presently it grew calm, and even smil- 
 ing. " I love you for your frankness, 
 Marion, quite as much as for your charity. 
 Some day, perhaps — not now — you will know 
 how much I thank you for it ; how my 
 heart yearns towards yours. Perhaps again, 
 after this day and night, I shall never see 
 you more ; then God will thank you for 
 me, and far better. May it be long, in- 
 deed, ere death o'ershadow ijour dwelhng, 
 and may loss like mine be never known to
 
 268 The Clyffards of Clyffe. 
 
 your true heart. Nay, do not weep, dear 
 Marion : it is your part, not mine, to play 
 the comforter; and that you have done so, 
 He will not forget, who repays human love 
 with love divine. May he suffer us, in 
 Heaven, if not here, to meet again." 
 
 "But what mean you, Mildred?" mur- 
 mured Mrs. Carey, through her tears. 
 " Whither are you going ?" 
 
 "I start to-morrow morning, Marion, for 
 Clyffe Hall." 
 
 END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUaWT:LL, BLENHEIM HOUSE.
 
 ILLINOIS-URBANA