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 UNIVERSITY OF ,mNO|SJJBRAR^^J^T^URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 L161— O-1096 
 

 LADY WEDDERBURFS WISH. 
 
LADY WEDDERBURN'S WISH. 
 
 §1 f ale 0f tilt &mm Mkx. 
 
 By JAMES GRANT, 
 
 AUIHOE OP "the EOMAXCE OF WAE," "fIESI LOVE AXD LIST LOTS," 
 
 "the giel he maeeied," etc. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LOxXDON ; 
 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRiND. 
 
 1870. 
 
 \^All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved.^ 
 
LOXDON : 
 6ATILL, EDWAEDS AND CO., PEINTEBS, CHANDOS STEEET, 
 COYBNT GAEDEN. 
 
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 TO 
 
 LIEUTENANT-GENERAL EGBERT LiW, K.H. 
 
 COLOXEL OF THE 71ST HIGHLAND LIGHT INFAKTET, 
 
 "O THIS TALE OF THE CRIMEAN WAR 
 
 
 |s |itstnhb» 
 
 AS A MEMORIAL OF REGARD, AND OF THE YEARS SPENT 
 '*^ TOGETHER IN AMERICA LONG AGO. 
 
 4 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 r^ 
 
 
P E E F A C E. 
 
 Some episodes which are facts have been woven 
 up with the following story of the War in the 
 Crimea. 
 
 I may mention that the sorrowful adventure 
 of Major Singleton is no fiction,, save so far as 
 the names are concerned^ as it happened to a 
 Scottish medical officer during one of our late 
 wars in India. 
 
 The famous duel fought by De TLisle and 
 De la Fosse occurred^ as narrated^ in the days of 
 the French Monarchy ; and^ by a letter which I 
 had the pleasure to receive from General Lord 
 de Ros (who has referred to it in a recent 
 military work), he informs me that it was first 
 recorded in a volume entitled, " The Military 
 Mentor/^ supposed to be by General Burgoyne — 
 
vill PREFACE. 
 
 of unfortunate memory — the same officer whose 
 army had to capitulate at Saratoga. 
 
 A gambling quarrel nearly similar to that of 
 Major Chesters in the troop-ship once occupied 
 the attention of a court martial_, and suggested 
 the idea of his exposure by the French Colonel 
 as described in the text. 
 
 Of the rest of the narrative the Author leaves 
 his readers to judge for themselves^ as those 
 parts Tvhich belong to history are sufficiently 
 apparent. 
 
 Septemher, 1870. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 <3HAP. PA&E 
 
 I. THE DESPATCH BOX 1 
 
 II. THE WILLOWDEAN 12 
 
 III. LADY WEDDERBURN'S HOPE 21 
 
 IV. lonewoodlee 35 
 
 V. MARY LENNOX 43 
 
 VL TWO LOVERS 54 
 
 VII. SUSPENSE AND DREAD 70 
 
 VIII. iL\RY's JIISTAKE 81 
 
 IX. A SNARE 96 
 
 X. CHESTERHAUGH 108 
 
 XL CHESTERS' " MILD PLAY" 117 
 
 XII. THE LAST OF THE BAY HUNTER 123 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGB 
 
 XIII. GRIEF 133 
 
 XIV. AN UNWELCOME VISITOR liO 
 
 XV. THE SPRING EVENING 154 
 
 XVI. A HAPPY WALK HOME 163 
 
 XVII. COUSIN GWENNY 174 
 
 XVIII. FIRST IMPRESSIONS 183 
 
 XIX. SCHEMES 196 
 
 XX. MY LADY EXPOSTULATES 202 
 
 XXL THE TRYST 210 
 
 XXII. WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT FORTH . . . 225 
 
 XXIII. THE DAWN OF LOVE 244 
 
 XXrV. PARTED IN SORROW 255 
 
 XXV. THE TELEGRAM 265 
 
 XXVI. Mary's new terror 279 
 
LADY WEDDERBUEN'S WISH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DESPATCH BOX. 
 
 " The Colonel has written to the effect, that the 
 regiment has received ' letters of readiness' for 
 foreign service, and that the route for the East 
 may come at any moment." 
 
 '^ My dear boy, Cyril, and yon will be leaving 
 us." 
 
 '^ For old Gib or Malta in the first place, and 
 the Crimea after," continued Cyril, glancing 
 again at the letter he had just opened ; ^^ but 
 the Colonel adds, that until I am telegraphed 
 for, my leave of absence may remain intact — it 
 is a little anomalous ; but he is a thorough good 
 fellow, the Colonel !" 
 
 " And what of Horace ?" 
 
 "There is no word of Horace, dear mother; 
 but he will probably be detailed for the depot." 
 
 " My darling Cyril !" exclaimed the anxious 
 
 VOL. I. 1 
 
LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 mother, as her eyes filled with tears^ and her 
 upper lip quivered. 
 
 The '' darling'^ referred to was a handsome 
 young fellow of five feet ten or so, with a thick 
 curly brown head of hair, shorn short to the 
 regimental pattern, and most unexceptionable 
 whiskers ; one who rather considered himself as 
 the model officer of the Royal Fusileers, in which 
 distinguished corps he — Cyril Wedderburn, then 
 on leave of absence — held the rank of Captain ; 
 and now having laid the Colonels letter beside 
 his plate — for the family were at breakfast — ^he 
 forthwith, and with appetite unimpaired by the 
 prospect of a speedy and too surely perilous 
 change of scene, attacked the drumstick of a 
 devilled turkey. 
 
 Gervase Asloane, the family butler — a portly 
 individual, in an ample white waistcoat and suit 
 of black — had but a few minutes before placed 
 the Russia leather despatch box, with its brass 
 plate, bearing the family arms, &c., beside Sir 
 John Wedderburn, who had unlocked it, and 
 distributed the contents among the party at 
 table, which consisted only of Lady Wedderbm'n, 
 Miss Flora M^Caw, her companion, a Highland 
 maiden of doubtful age but undoubted pedigree; 
 her two sons, Cyril and Robert; her nephew, 
 Horace Ramornie, son of a deceased sister, and who 
 was junior lieutenant in CyriFs regiment ; and a 
 '\dsitor, Chcsters of Chesterhaugh, a gentleman of 
 
THE DESPATCH BOX. 6 
 
 whom the reader may he ar^ perhaps^ too much in 
 future. 
 
 There were no missives for Miss M^Caw; 
 there never were any, so she had long since 
 ceased even to affect that one might come. 
 
 '^ One letter for Horace/^ said Cyril, while 
 decapitating an egg. *^ Well, old fellow, what says 
 your despatch — '^to amount of account rendered/ 
 eh?" 
 
 " It is only some mess-room gossip from 
 Probyn of ours." 
 
 " A kind fellow is Probyn." 
 
 " No word of the war as yet, Cyril, so our 
 leaves are safe," added Horace Ramornie. 
 
 '^ And our lives too, for a time — eh, mamma 
 of mine ! A pink cocked hat for Bob, or invita- 
 tion, or a love letter, of course ? But what is 
 up with you, Chesters ? You look disturbed, as 
 they say on the stage." 
 
 " Perhaps I do," whispered Chesters. ^^ I 
 have again backed the wrong horse, and lost a 
 pot of money, at the last Liverpool Spring 
 Meeting. The rain fell in torrents." 
 
 ^' And the course was soft ?" 
 
 " Soft as butter," replied Chesters, filling his 
 mouth with toast to check a rising malediction. 
 
 '^ How call you talk so gaily and so lightly, 
 Cyril?" urged his mother, reproachfully, with 
 her fine eyes more full of tears than ever. 
 
 " Why, mother dearest, any way, both Horace 
 
 1—2 
 
LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 and I must have had to leave you soon ; the 
 spring drills, the bore of coaching up for the 
 half-yearly inspection, will soon begin, and then 
 quit we should, inevitably/^ 
 
 '' In May ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And this is March : it is hard — very hard ! 
 I had formed such pleasant plans for you." 
 
 " Why don^t you forward them to the Horse 
 Guards — they might soften the hearts of the 
 Commander-in-Chief and Adjutant-General ?" 
 said Cyril, laughing. "Another cup of coffee, 
 Miss M'Caw, at your leisure," he added to 
 that demure personage, who daily officiated at the 
 magnificent silver urn and Wedgwood breakfast 
 equipage. 
 
 " My dear Sir John," exclaimed Lady Wed- 
 derburn, suddenly, as her eyes now fell on her 
 husband, who had remained perfectly silent, 
 '^ what is the matter ? You look quite pale, and 
 — and — the letter you have read is wafered with 
 black !" 
 
 " And edged with black, too," added Robert 
 Wedderburn, a thoughtless, but rather pretty 
 looking lad, about eighteen, with curly yellow 
 hair and dark grey eyes. " What^s up, papa — 
 ' whose mare is dead T " 
 
 But the Baronet did not answer immediately; 
 he permitted the hand retainiug the letter to 
 drop upon his knee, and his chin sank upon 
 
THE DESPATCH BOX. O 
 
 his breast as his head drooped forward, and he 
 seemed to become lost in thought. Then all 
 eyes, including those of old Gervase, the butler, 
 ■were turned inquiringly towards him. 
 
 " Sir John Wedderburn, Bart, of Nova 
 Scotia, and Willowdean, in the Merse — creation, 
 1628," as the heralds have it, was a remarkably 
 good-looking man, and fully six feet in height, 
 though he did stoop a little now, being past his 
 sixtieth year. His features were cleanly cut, 
 and very noble in contour, and benign in ex- 
 pression, his eyes a clear grey, and his white 
 hair started in spouts from his forehead to fall 
 back wavily like a lion^s mane. His hands, 
 though brown — for he never wore gloves — the 
 whip, the gun, the rod, or the weeder, seldom 
 being out of them — were well ghaped and aris- 
 tocratic in form, while his costume — a suit of 
 coarse grey tweed and long brown leather leg- 
 gings, as he sat at table, with a silver whistle at 
 his button-hole, and a dogwhip in his pocket, 
 only required his old wide-awake hat, with its 
 row of flies and fish-hooks, to complete it; but 
 the aforesaid hat hung in the hall without. 
 
 ^^ My letter contains most mournful and 
 sudden news, Katharine,''^ said he, as a tear 
 started to each of his eyes — an emotion all the 
 more painful, as he was a man quite unused to 
 the melting mood. 
 
 " You will perhaps permit me, dear Wedder- 
 
6 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 burnj" said she ; on which Cyril took the letter 
 from his father^s passive fingers and handed it 
 to his mother,, who lifted her gold eye-glass, 
 and, after a pause, read as follows ; but not 
 without great difficulty, as the handwriting was 
 tremulous, and in some places degenerated to an 
 almost illegible scrawl : — 
 
 " The Choultry, Madi-as. 
 
 " My dear Brother John, — My physician 
 and old friend, of the Palmacottah Light Infantry, 
 worthy Doctor Chutnay, who has just left me 
 (and who will forward this to you), has told me 
 that my hours are numbered now. Before this 
 heavy fever fell upon me, I had fondly hoped 
 to be with you once again, to inhale the pure, 
 cool breeze that sweeps over the purple Lammer- 
 muir and all down bonnie Lauderdale; but God 
 has willed it otherwise. I cannot live more 
 than two or three days at the utmost, and have 
 only strength to WTite, that I bequeath to you 
 my most valuable possession on earth — my only 
 child, Gwendoleyne — whom I know that you and 
 dearest Katharine will love and cherish, even as 
 your own boys, for the sake of her mother, who, 
 to the hour of her death, loved you all so well. 
 
 '*The impulsive blood of her mother^s old 
 Welsh race is in my girFs veins, and she is a 
 warm and enthusiastic creature ; so I pray you, 
 as one so soon to face his God as I, alone can 
 
THE DESPATCH BOX. 7 
 
 pray, that you will be her guide and protector. 
 She will be rich ; see that she marries worthily ; 
 guide and watch over her lonely steps, dear 
 
 John, and love — love to but my head swims. 
 
 I cannot pen another line. Be a father to my 
 little Gwenny, and believe me your affectionate 
 brother, '^ William Wedderburn/^ 
 
 While all listened to this in respectful silence, 
 and the letter was passed between the brothers 
 for re-perusal. Sir John had thrust aside his 
 breakfast, and with his chin resting on one hand, 
 sat gazing into the far vista of the sunny lawn, 
 lost in sad thoughts j but Lady Wedderburn very 
 deliberately examined the letter in which it was 
 enclosed, and a document which came with it. 
 
 The letter was from the physician. Doctor 
 Chutnay, and was dated from the cantonments of 
 the 3rd Madras N. I. It stated that '' the de- 
 ceased expired on the second day after the letter 
 was written, and that his daughter. Miss Gwen- 
 doleyne Wedderburn, would leave Madras for 
 Europe by the next P. and 0. liner that came 
 into the Koads, and that herewith he begged to 
 enclose a copy of her poor father^s will. 
 
 William Wedderburn, the younger brother of 
 Sir John — ^younger by six or seven years at 
 least — had spent half his life in the Indian Civil 
 Service, and had realized a handsome fortune 
 by his lucky speculations in the staple produce 
 
8 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 of India,, such as cotton^ indigo^ rice^ and coffee ; 
 and by his will it would appear that, save a few 
 thousands bequeathed to Sir John, he left the 
 bulk of his property, more than three hundred 
 thousand pounds, to his orphan daughter, in- 
 cluding a ^' garden-house^^ like an Oriental palace 
 on the Choultry Plain, shares in the Agra Bank, 
 Indian Stock, and — Heaven only knew all what 
 more ! 
 
 The contents of this letter affected all at the 
 table in various degrees. 
 
 Lady Wedderburn had scarcely — and her sons 
 had never — seen, though they had heard so much 
 of this rich Indian uncle, who yearly sent home 
 such magnificent and graceful (because suitable) 
 presents to the family. He had been a kind of 
 myth to all, save Sir John ; so personally his 
 death stirred no deep or tender chord in their 
 hearts. 
 
 Her first idea was that the thousands now so 
 suddenly bequeathed would be a seasonable aid 
 in pushing on Robert at college and bringing 
 him out for the bar ; also in purchasing a majority 
 for Cyril in some regiment that was not going to 
 the East ; and then, if the orphan cousin was 
 handsome, who could say what might happen? 
 the Madras heiress would make an excellent wife 
 for one of them. 
 
 Her next thoughts ran on the fashion and 
 expense of mourning, for the whole household. 
 
THE DESPATCH BOX. 9 
 
 even to the lodge gatekeepers, would require to 
 be put in black. Was a black hammer-clotli 
 necessary for the carriage? Gaiety, they could 
 have none of it for a time — a confounded bore, 
 Robert thought, ^' when a fellow had so many 
 invitations on hand and in prospect/"* Then as 
 the little heiress would be here anon ; which 
 rooms was she to have ? The best of course, 
 after her own. All these ideas swept in quick 
 succession through her busy brain. 
 
 Chesters of Chesterhaugh thought of the 
 heiress^s thousands and his own ugly bettiug- 
 book. He played with his knife and fork; 
 wondered what she was like, and ventured to 
 inquire her age. 
 
 " She will be eighteen in May. Poor girl ! 
 and quite an orphan ; but so rich. Captain 
 Chesters V 
 
 The poor companion sighed, for she too had been 
 long friendless ; but no lacs of rupees ever fell 
 to the great Celtic line of the M^Caw. 
 
 Horace Ramornie remembered that eight years 
 before this he too had come an orphan to Willow- 
 dean, but "^ so poor ;" and now he had no thought 
 or interest in the matter, save surprise to see 
 tears falling silently over the bronzed cheek of 
 bluff and jolly Sir John Wedderburn. But the 
 memory of the latter was wandering away into 
 the past, and he could recall the lithe, supple, 
 and handsome figure of that dead brother, a 
 
10 LADY WEUDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 blue-eyed and gold en-haired lad, as he went forth 
 to seek his fortune in the sunny East_, with 
 mingled hope and sorrow in his heart, and their 
 mother's tears and kisses lingering on his cheek ; 
 and he could recall many a happy, happy hour 
 they had spent together under yonder old trees, 
 under the roof of Willowdean — days of nutting 
 and bird-nesting in the summer woods, of 
 trouting in the Leader and Whitadder ; or 
 wandering, truant-like, by many a harvest-field 
 and lone burn-brae ; of tricks they had played 
 upon their tutor ; of depredations committed in 
 the vineries and hot-houses ; and their awful fear 
 of discovery, which was more than half the charm 
 of the whole adventure ; of all their rides and 
 rambles, their boyish hopes and mutual aspira- 
 tions ; and now — 7iow he was dead and buried, 
 far, far away in an Indian grave, an old, 
 shattered, fever-stricken man. 
 
 It seemed so difficult to think when he looked 
 across the room to where hung a portrait of the 
 little Willie of the vanished years, a laughing 
 and golden-haired boy ; and Sir John muttered, 
 with something between a sigh and a sob in his 
 throat — 
 
 '^ Yes, Willie, I shall be a kind father to 
 your orphan girl, whatever betide \" 
 
 " Gwendolcyne is a pretty name," said Cyril, 
 approvingly. 
 
THE DESPATCH BOX. 11 
 
 " I am so glad you like it/^ observed his 
 mother, following her own ambitious thoughts. 
 
 " Rather romantic though. There is one I 
 like that is more simple .^^ 
 
 '^ Her mother was a Welsh lady — one of the 
 Ap-Rhys of Llanchillwydd/^ added Lady Wedder- 
 burn, in an explanatory tone. " But she died, 
 poor thing, at Madras, when Gwenny was about 
 three years old, and I wonder that uncle William 
 did not send her home to Europe long ago ; but 
 then she was his only child, and he would have 
 missed her so much V 
 
 As the conversation was now taking a domestic 
 turn, and Sir John Wedderburn was evidently 
 disturbed by the tidings — for, instead of his 
 brother's death, his final return had been antici- 
 pated, — Chesters, who hated the dark or gloomy 
 side of anything, thought he had better go, as 
 he had only ridden over to see a horse of Cyril's ; 
 yet he lingered for a time, smoking a cigar with 
 him and Robert on the terrace before the mansion, 
 while Lady Wedderburn was engaged in family 
 council with her husband. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE WILLOWDEAN. 
 
 The manor house of "Willowdean is situated 
 in the Merse, which,, with Lauderdale and 
 Lammermuir^ forms one of the three great 
 subdivisions of Berwickshire, each of which 
 possesses distinct natural features ; but the 
 former has been long celebrated in Scottish 
 annals for its rich scenery, its industrious popula- 
 tion, and plentiful harvests, while the sterner 
 Lauderdale is bold and rugged, and Lammermuir 
 is lone, bleak, and dreary, all purple morass or 
 pastoral hill, being, in fact, a vast sheepwalk. 
 
 Built on the site of an old Bastile-house, that 
 had many a time been burned or stormed, re- 
 stored and stormed again, by English armies and 
 Warden raiders in the times of old ; lastly, when 
 the Bandcs Fran9aises under D^Esse d^Epainvilliers 
 were in full retreat from Haddington during the 
 wars of Mary of Lorraine, Willowdean we may 
 describe as a handsome modern house, of aristo- 
 cratic appearance, with a peristyle of eight Ionic 
 
THE WILLOWDEAN. 13 
 
 pillars^ in tlie pediment above whicli were the 
 Wedderburn arms — a chevron between three 
 mullets; while their motto — For titer et recte — 
 was carved in large Roman letters on the frieze. 
 The rooms were lofty, the double drawing-room, 
 when its folding doors were slid into the wall, 
 forming a stately salon for dancing, when all its 
 rich furniture was removed, and the Karl Harrgs, 
 Fosters, and Gilberts, that adorned its walls, 
 were alone left behind. 
 
 There was, of course, a noble billiard-room, 
 where many a game was played by Cyril and 
 Chesters, not always to the advantage of the 
 former ; and a great conservatory filled with the 
 rarest exotics, where more than one graceful 
 acacia drooped over statues and fountains, was 
 lit at night with roses of gas made at the home 
 farm. 
 
 The park had been under grass for centuries, 
 if it was ever ploughed at all. Tradition said 
 that Leslie^s six thousand cavalry had grassed 
 there a night or two before the battle of Philip- 
 haugh j and there, as its vista stretched far away 
 to where the purple Lammermutr bounded the 
 distance, far beyond the invisible fence that 
 marked its actual limits, the brown fallow deer 
 might be seen in summer browsing or lying under 
 the ancient oaks and beeches, half hidden among 
 the green fern and pink foxglove ; and that nothing 
 might be wanting in effect, some stately peacocks 
 
14 LADY WEDDERBURN S WISH. 
 
 spread their spotted plumage over the white 
 balustrades of the terrace before the fa9ade of 
 the mansion, to which the gravelled carriage- 
 drive approached by a semicircular sweep on each 
 side, through the smooth and velvet grass. 
 
 Every comfort were there, and every luxury — 
 ice-pit, vineries and forcing-houses, stables and 
 kennel — yet the means of the worthy Baronet 
 were far from adequate to his expenses in this 
 aspiring age, and in Willowdean, as in many a 
 less pretentious dwelling, there was too often a 
 struggle to "keep up appearances." 
 
 Perhaps no part of the house was furnished 
 more luxuriously and elegantly than Lady Wed- 
 derburn^s boudoir, the hangings and furniture of 
 which were blue satin and silver ; but few objects 
 there were more treasured than certain Burmese 
 idols, three-headed gods, triple- trunked elephants, 
 and other hideous little monsters, in bronze and 
 ivory, which her beloved Cyril had picked up 
 amid the " loot^^ at Moulmein, and brought 
 home for " dear mamma,^^ when he was a boy 
 ensign, in his first red coat. 
 
 And now for a little account of some of our 
 dramatis person(B. 
 
 Captain Wedderburn, though a frank, honest, 
 and good-hearted young fellow, was and ever 
 had been a spoiled child of fortune. Pronounced 
 by aunts and nurses " a love of an infant"*^ when 
 crowing and nestling in his silk berceaunette, he 
 
THE WILLOWDEAN. 15 
 
 had gone to Rugby a bold and beautiful school- 
 boy, and left college to join his regiment a 
 dangerously handsome man. He had been 
 pretty snccessful in all the little undertakings of 
 the gay life he led — the career of a soldier in the 
 flirting times of peace. The horse he backed 
 was pretty sure to win ; he could keep his wicket 
 against the prime bowler of the garrison,, and 
 march off the field with his bat on his shoulder ; 
 he won the prize at every pigeon match, rode 
 straight to hounds, pulled a capital stroke oar, 
 and was deemed one of the best round-dancers 
 in the E-oyal Eusileers. There was one thing 
 he had never been able to do, viz., to beat his 
 acquaintance Chesters at cards or billiards, '^ and 
 thereby hangs a tale.'^ Few men among those 
 distinguished Fusileers had been more petted, 
 spoiled, fallen-in-love-with, or so lucky among 
 the ladies as handsome Cyril Wedderburn, who 
 became rather fastidious in consequence. 
 
 A prime hand he was in arranging pic- 
 nics, or a social '^ spread^' on the roof of a drag 
 at race or review, and he affected to dabble in 
 music too, for he had a fine voice, and many a 
 mysterious air he had bribed the band-master to 
 '^ fudge out of another,''^ and dedicate to some 
 pretty girl about whom he dangled till the route 
 came ; and it was his great — yet most ungrateful 
 — boast, in mess-room parlance, that ^' no bit of 
 white muslin had ever hooked him yet.^' 
 
16 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 There was one sweety pale face^ however — but 
 of that anon. 
 
 His cousin and brother-officer, Horace Ba- 
 mornie, though nearly as much petted and 
 admired, was much less a man of pleasure than 
 Cyril. He was by no means so showy an officer 
 or so fashionable a man, yet he was a lad 
 of very striking and interesting appearance, now 
 in his twenty-second year ; slender, graceful, and 
 gentle-mannered, with nearly regular features, 
 and skin of an olive tint ; yet with bat and foil he 
 had held his own against the best at Sandhurst. 
 He had wonderful dark hazel eyes, eyes that, as 
 Cyril said, " were bright enough and soft . 
 enough for a girl, and were quite thrown away 
 upon a fellow like Horace/'' 
 
 The lad had been a hard student, for he knew 
 — and had perhaps been taught to know from 
 his boyhood — that he was dependent on the 
 Wedderburn family for his commission, in the 
 first place, and for his little yearly allowance in 
 the second; therefore, he was chiefly vain of 
 having won a step in the regiment, that he was a 
 lieutenant, and that three letters, p.s.c, after 
 his name in the Army List, showed that he had 
 already passed his final examination at the 
 Staft' College, and was fit for any appointment 
 the Commander-in-Chief might bestow upon 
 him. 
 
 Though amid the expense which their house- 
 
THE WILLOWDEAN. 17 
 
 hold and CyriFs allowance — especially when on 
 home service — entailed, together with Robertas 
 prospects, Lady Wedderburn did sometimes deem 
 Horace somewhat of "a. drag/^ she could not 
 forget that he was her dead sister^s only son; 
 and as she doted on the tomes of Douglas, Burke, 
 and Debrett, she was vain of his direct descent from 
 an old, old Scottish line, that stretched far be- 
 yond the Wedderburns of the Merse into remote 
 antiquity ; for the lad was descended from fierce 
 Sir John Ramoril^ie, the audacious and implacable, 
 the companion and false friend of the helpless 
 Duke of Rothesay, whom, as history tells us, he 
 seized near Strathtyrum, and starved to death in 
 the Castle of St. Andrew^s in 1402, and from 
 Alexander de Ramorgny, who had a free gift of 
 Pitglassie in Fife from Robert Duke of Albany, 
 and so forth ; so Horace, though only a subaltern 
 in Her Majesty^s service, enjoyed an historical 
 name, one among the best of many of Scotland's 
 "unlanded gentry," though Pitglassie and all 
 had gone in recent bank failures, very little 
 store he set thereon, as he walked to and fro on 
 the terrace on that breezy March morning, 
 enjoying a pipe of Cavendish and listening to 
 Chesters, who was descanting most fluently on 
 the merits of certain horses and dogs, and on 
 certain races that were on the tapisj but descant- 
 ing in vain, for Horace was not a betting man. 
 Ralph Rooke Chesters, of Chesterhaugh, a 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
18 LADY WEDDERBURN'b WISH. 
 
 neighbouring proprietor, whose lands were deeply 
 dipped in debt, enjoyed the local rank of Captain, 
 having once been a cornet in a cavalry corps, 
 which he had left " somehow under a cloud/' 
 as the phrase went. He was not mthout a 
 certain amount of good looks, and had un- 
 doubtedly a gentlemanly exterior. Yet he was 
 a blase man, of some forty or five-and-forty years, 
 who had seen and known a vast deal of the 
 world ere half that time was past. His nose 
 was very red, his cheeks were- blotchy, and his 
 sandy-coloured hair was already thickly seamed 
 with grey. There was a perpetual sinister and 
 watchful expression in his pale grey eyes, and 
 usually a compression about his thin, cruel lips, 
 the secret workings of which his sandy moustache, 
 luckily for himself, concealed. 
 
 On this morning he wore a rough suit of 
 heather-coloured tweed, with leather gaiters and 
 baggy knickerbockers, a round jacket, scarlet 
 shirt, and Glengarry bonnet, the vile composite 
 costume of the fast Scotchman " of the period^' 
 whose limbs will not pass muster in the kilt ; 
 and on the left side of the said Glengarry he 
 wore a huge and pretentious silver badge, the 
 crest of the Chesters (a tower), to whose line he 
 certainly was no ornament; and Cyril Wedder- 
 burn, who was very fastidious in his own toilette, 
 disliked this style of dress intensely, and cvcq 
 when shooting or fishing never adopted it. 
 
THE WILLOWDEAN. 19 
 
 His new horse — a iine bay hunter, with dark 
 legs — had fully met Chesters^ approval. The 
 stables, the dog-kennel, and the loose box had 
 been duly visited ; they had tried a stroke or 
 two in the billiard-room, with a glass of Madeira 
 and a biscuit, ere the Captain again announced 
 his intention of going. 
 
 " I daresay, Wedderburn,''^ said he, ^\ you 
 must feel it a thundering bore, this death of an 
 old uncle you scarcely ever saw ? It will spoil 
 all your fun, having to play propriety here till 
 your leave is up.^^ 
 
 Cyril, like Robert, was perhaps thinking so, 
 but had not the coarseness to put his thoughts 
 in words. 
 
 " Uncle William was my father^ s favourite 
 brother,^^ said he, evasively. 
 
 '''Order my horse, Asloane,^^ said Chesters, as 
 the butler was leaving the billiard-room with 
 the salver and decanters. 
 
 " Are you going already ?" asked Cyril, in a 
 tone of equal indifference and politeness. 
 
 '^ Yes, if you will allow me. I am rather de 
 trop here — family grief, house of mourning, and 
 all that sort of thing," said Chesters, smiling as 
 much as he ever smiled; ''but perhaps you will 
 look me up at Chesterhaugh to-moiTow, and 
 pot with me at six, and then we^ll have a little 
 mild play ; not extravagant, remember ; only 
 guinea points.'''' . 
 
 2—3 
 
20 LADY WEDDERBUHn's WISH. 
 
 '' All right, 1^11 be there ; thanks/^ replied 
 Cyril, but in a tone of more indifference than 
 cordiality. 
 
 Cyril Wedderburn courteously accompanied 
 Chesters to the nearest gate-lodge on the verge 
 of the park, and then he galloped off. 
 
 " That is not the way to Chesterhaugh,^^ said 
 Cyril to the lodgekeeper. 
 
 '' No, Maister Cyril,^"* replied that ofiBcial, with 
 a leer ; " but the Captain gangs as often by the 
 road that leads to Lonewoodlee.^' 
 
 The man did not speak unthinkingly, for his 
 tone and manner made the brow of Cyril contract, 
 and he felt his cheek flush with anger, for the 
 inference to be drawn from these simple words 
 was far from being a pleasant one to him. 
 
 " Chesters at Lonewoodlee ! By Heaven, I 
 must look to this V he muttered, as he turned 
 and walked slowly back to the house. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 LADY WEDDERBURN^S HOPE. 
 
 Dinner at Willowdean, even when only the 
 family "were present, was rather a stately and 
 cumbersome meal ; yet Cyril and Horace, accus- 
 tomed latterly to the splendour and glitter 
 of the regimental mess, perhaps liked that it 
 should be so. A service of plate covered the 
 great walnut- wood sideboard. The damask 
 cloths, the elaborately cut crystal, the blue and 
 gold china with the Wedderbum arms — crest, an 
 eagle in full flight, with the motto, Fortiter et 
 recte — which figured on everything from the 
 ice-pails to the salt-spoons, all betokened taste, 
 luxury, and moderate wealth ; while candelabra 
 lit with gas shed a flood of brilliant light over 
 all. Save a few feet of polished wainscot round 
 the room, the floor was entirely covered by a 
 rich deep Turkey carpet. Long and narrow, the 
 apartment had four lofty windows at one end ; 
 these opened towards the Lammermuir Hills, 
 but were now, at six p.m. in the month of March, 
 
23 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 strouded by heavy maroon-coloured hangings 
 with broad gold binding. 
 
 The three servants in attendance were each a 
 perfect " Jeames^^ of the most approved order^ 
 so far as calves,, whiskers^ and livery went ; for 
 the traditional good old-fashioned servants who 
 lived and died in their masters' household^ and 
 were as hereditary as the family pictures and 
 platC;, like many other Scottish things of the 
 best kindj exist only in romance^ and are gone 
 with the past. 
 
 The party which assembled at table when 
 Asloane rang the house-bell at six^ was of course 
 somewhat reserved and taciturn for a time. 
 They conversed but little^ or in low tones, till 
 the cloth was removed, and that little ran chiefly 
 on the weather, or consisted of the courtesies of 
 the table, till ^Tr. Asloane had placed the elabo- 
 rately cut decanters in a row before his master, 
 bowed, and withdrawn. 
 
 Sir John, though grave and even sad in ex- 
 pression, had already been able to think calmly 
 over his " poor brother's^'' death, in conjunction 
 with cei^ain long projected improvements on the 
 property — more particularly the erection of a 
 new wing to the stable- court, and a central clock 
 tower; and yet ever and anon he would come 
 forth with some fond or kind reminiscence of 
 Wilhe, for he seemed at times to live in the past, 
 and could scarcely realize the idea that he had 
 died an elderly man at last. 
 
LADY WEDDERBURN's HOPE. 23 
 
 CyriFs thouglits rose ctiefly upon what the 
 gatekeeper had said so casually ; thus he was 
 taciturn, almost morose, and fidgetted with his 
 cuffs and studs or whisker s_, viciously cracking 
 walnuts as if in the shell of each he crushed an 
 enemy. 
 
 His brother Robert was probably thinking 
 that if their uncle William had left him something 
 out of his lacs of rupees^ he might have cut the 
 Bar, for which he had no great fancy^ and betaken 
 himself to the profession of a man of pleasure ; 
 while young Horace Kamornie had no thoughts 
 of the matter, for he was the least considered in 
 that small family circle, and so made, perhaps, a 
 more substantial dinner than any of them. 
 
 Lady Wedderburn {nee Katharine Douglas, 
 daughter of a poor but ancient family in one of 
 the Wards of Lanarkshire) was no longer young ; 
 she was past the prime even of middle age, but 
 still had great remains of beauty. Her cast of 
 features and the brilliance of her dark grey eyes 
 were unchanged, though wrinkles had taken the 
 place of dimples, and her once black hair was 
 streaked with silvery white. 
 
 Her small and ladylike hands showed the 
 minute wrinkles and blue veins of time; yet 
 they were well-shaped and beautiful hands still; 
 and though she had several rings on them, fully 
 a half of these were black enamel and pearls — 
 the rings in memory of friends and relations she 
 had survived. 
 
24 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 The great remains which she possessed of a 
 high class of beauty rendered her still pleasing, 
 and Cyril^ a very fastidious connoisseur in fine 
 faces, always admired his mother^s more than 
 that of any other woman. She was his model, 
 yet men rarely fall in love with their imaginary 
 models. Her dresses were always rich, the 
 colours well chosen, and in fashion adapted to 
 her years, for she had the art which so few 
 possess — that of gi'owing gracefully old. A fall 
 of rich white lace pinned prettily over her stately 
 head fell with lappets at each side, finishing a 
 coquettish demi-toilette that somehow became 
 her matronly character. 
 
 " Pass the wine, Cyril ; you are very silent,^' 
 said Sir John ; " and let us drink kindly to the 
 memory of your poor uncle AVillie.^'' 
 
 " My dear Sir John,^' said Lady Wedderburn, 
 still pursuing her own secret thoughts, after this 
 little ceremony was over, " on again looking over 
 our dear William^s will, I observed that his pro- 
 perty is conveyed away to certain trustees, of 
 whom you are the chief, for the behoof of that 
 darling child GAvenny, Avhom I already begin to 
 love — quite as a daughter, indced.^^ 
 
 A grave kind of smile spread over Sir John^s 
 face, and Cyril, after a swift but furtive glance 
 at his mother, proceeded to crack more nuts; 
 but no one replied. 
 
 " I do so long to sec her,^^ resumed Lady 
 
LADY WEDDERBURn's HOPE. 25 
 
 Wedderburn^ toyiug tlie while "with some grapes, 
 her head pensively on one side^ and her eyes cast 
 down. " If like her mother, she will be a very 
 beautiful girl, CjriV 
 
 " Indeed — I never saw her mother,'^ replied 
 Cyril, with provoking indifference, as he played 
 with his long whiskers. 
 
 " I don^t think there were many girls who in 
 the bloom of their twentieth year surpassed 
 Gwendoleyne Ap-Rhys !" observed his mother, 
 emphatically. 
 
 " Pass the port, Horace,''^ said Cyril ; '' that 
 Madeira is like our mess tap, rather heady, but 
 makes a capital ^ whitewasher,'' however.^^ 
 
 " Makes a what ?" asked Lady Wedderburn, 
 with a tone of pique. '' But a girl with three 
 hundred thousand pounds will prove a serious 
 responsibility to us."*^ 
 
 " Get her married offhand,''^ said Robert, 
 blunJly. 
 
 " That is the very kind of marriage to be 
 guarded against,''-' replied his mother. " Thus we 
 must be careful whom we introduce to her. 
 She will prove a great comfort to us, however, 
 Wedderburn, when the dear boys are back to 
 their regiment and Robert is at College.^' 
 
 " I quite concur with you, Katharine, about 
 the introductions,^^ said Sir John. " One thing 
 is clear, that after Cyril goes I shall not have 
 that person Chesters coming about Willowdean.^'' 
 
26 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 " He is no particular friend of mine/^ retorted 
 Cyril^ almost haughtily^ while lie coloured with 
 annoyance. " I only met him at the Lothian 
 Racing Club : he knew Probyn and other fellows 
 of ours, and so we came to talk of horses, and 
 turn a card or two, that is all/"' 
 
 " A card or two to your loss, as I am aware ; 
 hut he is a bad style of man, and not the kind 
 of companion I wish you or Horace to make/^ 
 
 " My dear papa,''^ replied Cyril, who, when in 
 his father's presence, never forgot the influences 
 of boyhood, " after a fellow has been eight years 
 in the line, been round the Sand Heads at the 
 mouth of the Hooghly, and marched all through 
 Central India, if he can't take care of himself, 
 he never will/' 
 
 ^^ I know that Chesters got into a scrape in 
 his regiment, and then into the hands of the 
 ^ Chosen People,' " said Horace, laughing. 
 
 '^An easy matter to do so,'"*' added Sir John. 
 " Chesterhaugh, with its rents, wont stand a 
 stud of horses, a pack of harriers, a yacht on the 
 Clyde " 
 
 " Besides a French daiiseiise/' interrupted Cyi'il, 
 under his breath and with a swift glance at his 
 cousin. 
 
 " He rooked that young French officer who 
 was travelling here," said Sir John — '^ what was 
 his name ?" 
 
 " The Captain De la Fosse," said Miss INI'Caw, 
 
LADY WEDDERBURn's HOPE. 27 
 
 softly^ for the flatteries of tlie Frendiman werie 
 still deep and soft in her memory, when he spent 
 a week at Willowdean. 
 
 " Thank you — yes_, De la Fosse. He rooked 
 him so completely that, but for my assistance, 
 he would have had serious difficulty in getting 
 home to France. ^^ 
 
 "Ah, well; don^t let him marry cousin 
 Gwenny/^ said Cyril, once more applying him- 
 self to the port. " But here is a chance for you 
 young fellows. Bob and Horace. Why don^t 
 you toss up for who is to enter stakes for the 
 heiress ?" 
 
 '^ Fie, Cyril ! How can you talk thus — how 
 make a jest so unseemly at such a time — of your 
 own cousin, too ?" exclaimed Lady Wedderburn, 
 with heightened colour and unusual asperity of 
 tone. 
 
 "Why, mother dearest '^ began Cyril, 
 
 with surprise. 
 
 " You might give yourself the preference.'''' 
 
 "The right of the first-born,^' added Bobert^ 
 sententiously. 
 
 " Nay, nay, I am not a marrying man. What 
 the deuce should I do with a wife, when the 
 regiment has got its ' Letters of Beadiness," too ?'' 
 asked Cyril, again having recourse to the nuts, 
 with a gloom in his dark blue eyes. 
 
 " Or Horace either, if it comes to that,'' said 
 Lady Wedderburn^ a little pointedly. "But 
 
28 LADY WEDDERBURN*S WISH. 
 
 under all the circumstaiices, I do not see why 
 you should now go to the East at all, Cyril.''^ 
 
 " Why now more than yesterday ?'' asked 
 Cyril, who seemed to be in a cynical mood of 
 mind. " I daresay you think me far too fine 
 and handsome a fellow to be shot or bayonetted 
 by some filthy Russian linesman, and then flung 
 into a hole or a trench by the wayside, as better 
 men have been/^ 
 
 ^^ Oh, Cyril, what a horrible idea V exclaimed 
 his mother, while tears started to her eyes ; "but 
 there is our neighbour, Lady Juliana Ernescleugh, 
 on the first rumour of war she had her son, the 
 Master, transferred to the Scots Fusileer Guards, 
 and I don^t see why I should be worse treated 
 than she is/^ 
 
 Cyril and Horace laughed on hearing this, and 
 the former said, contemptuously — 
 
 ^' I do not think Lady Juliana made much by 
 that move, as the Brigade of Guards are also 
 under orders for European Turkey/' 
 
 " At all events, when Gwenny comes home — 
 for this house is of course her home. Sir John 
 being her nearest kinsman and chief trustee — I 
 trust that you two boys will do all in your power 
 to soothe and console her after the terrible loss 
 and affliction she has imdcrgone/' 
 
 Horace Ramornie coloured, for he felt himself 
 omitted in this charge ; but then she was no 
 relation of his. 
 
LADY WEDDERBURn's HOPE. 29 
 
 " Of course/^ replied Cyril^ who^ after a pause, 
 began now for the first time to perceive how the 
 current of these remarks tended; " but our time 
 for all that sort of thing — at leasts mine and 
 Horace^s — will be short, and a telegram from the 
 Colonel may whisk us off by the first train at any 
 moment. Gwenny — Gwendoleyne — the name 
 is pretty enough, smacks of Mudie^s, and the 
 novel in three volumes octavo — we must leave the 
 care and the reversion of her to you, Bob.^^ 
 
 '^ She wont have any tinge of colour about 
 her, I hope?'' said that personage, simply. 
 
 " What a griff you are ! Come out for the 
 Scotch Bar; you would certainly shine there. 
 Bob, if nowhere else,'"' said Cyril. 
 
 "Well, a Welsh girl,-'^ persisted Bob, who 
 was at the age when most young men are 
 flippant ; " she'll have black eyes, of course, with 
 the proverbial cheek bones of the Celt and the 
 Cymri — a high-crowned hat, and a scarlet hand- 
 kerchief.'' 
 
 " A nice costume to wear at the Choultry, 
 when the thermometer is at 108° in the shade. 
 Bob, you are the veriest griff I have met since 
 I left Chowringee." 
 
 *^ I am getting utterly provoked by this tone 
 and the tenor of these remarks. Beally the 
 young men of the present day are becoming 
 quite insufferable !" said Lady Wedderburn, 
 actually darting an angry glance at poor Horace, 
 
30 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 who iiad scarcely spoken. " Cyril^ and you espe- 
 cially^ Robert, seem to forget tliat her mother 
 was a lady of one of the best families in Wales, 
 and that her father was your uncle .^^ 
 
 ''Yes/' added Sir John, stiffly; ^^Ap-Rhys of 
 Llanchillwydd is a name second to none in the 
 annals of the old Principality/^ 
 
 '^ Then, papa,^' continued Bob, " when Gwenny 
 comes home, we^ll all have to go in for Burke, 
 Debrett, and pedigree V 
 
 '' Reared in India, and away from all home 
 influences, the girl will too probably place such 
 things at their true value,^^ said Cyril, still more 
 unwittingly shocking his aristocratic mother; 
 "though of course she may, if she please, go 
 far beyond the Wedderburns up to the first 
 Prince of Wales, or Howel Dha, at least.^' 
 
 " Come, come ; no quizzing,^^ said Sir John, a 
 littleseverely. " Remember that she is an orphan.^'' 
 
 "And so rich,^^ added Lady Wedderburn, 
 plaintively. " Miss M'^Caw,^'' she continued, 
 with a bow understood bv that ladv, who, when 
 no other was present, always sat on Sir John's 
 right hand ; and then the four gentlemen rose 
 as ceremoniously as if they were all strangers, 
 while she retired to the drawing-room with her 
 companion. 
 
 The latter, who had been pretty when young, 
 was now well past her fortieth year, and ha-sdng 
 a pedigree — as what Highlander has not ? — she 
 
LADY WEDDERBURn's HOPE. 31 
 
 had sighed with secret impatience and envy, 
 perhaps bitterness, while listening to much that 
 we have recorded ; for she too, as well as the 
 heiress, had come of an old Celtic line that had 
 furnished its patriotic victims for the field and 
 scaffold ; and among her private lares she 
 treasured an old locket of red gold, containing 
 a lock of "the Princess" golden hair, given by 
 his own hand, on the retreat from Derby, to her 
 great-grandsire, the great M'Caw of the '45, 
 who died like a hero in the human shambles at 
 Carlisle. 
 
 She had resided some ten years of an aimless 
 and hopeless life at Willowdean, and had not 
 been without secret thoughts on one or two 
 occasions of entangling Cyril in a matrimonial 
 affair; but he had seen too much of the world 
 even as a boy, and was daily seeing too many 
 fresh young faces to be caught so easily — so all 
 such hopes were past and vanished now. 
 
 She was a calm, quiet person, who, under a 
 tolerably ladylike exterior, concealed much of 
 that discontented pride, fawning, and sub- 
 servience, which are too often the leading cha- 
 racteristics of the modern Celt. 
 
 " I do beg that you will not consider Ralph 
 Chester s as in any way a friend of mine,^^ said 
 Cyril, resuming a thread of the past conversa- 
 tion, after his brother and Horace had betaken 
 them to the billiard-room ; " for I fully agree 
 
32 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 with you that he is not the style of man to meet 
 ladies." 
 
 " Especially one who is such a monetary prize 
 as your cousin/^ said Sir John, pointedly. 
 
 '^ But he talks of going to the army of the 
 East.'' 
 
 '^ In what capacity ?'' 
 
 ^^ An officer of the Bashi Bozooks, or some 
 such distinguished force/' said Cyril, with a 
 hearty fit of laughter. 
 
 " And a good riddance his absence will prove 
 to the Merse/' added Sir John, as he rose to join 
 Lady Wedderburn, leaving Cyril to smoke on 
 the terrace, where he walked to and fro in the 
 clear, cold starlight, with his eyes fixed on a 
 dark spot that was barely distinguishable on the 
 hill side, two or three miles ofi". It was a dense 
 grove of trees, which seemed to have a peculiar 
 attraction for him, and its outline became more 
 distinct when the moon arose. 
 
 " Have you been talking to Cyril ?" asked the 
 lady, as her husband entered her boudoir, and, 
 not without some doubt and hesitation, deposited 
 his burly person in his rough tweed suit on one 
 of her blue and silver fauleuils. 
 
 " Yes," said he, rubbing his forehead with an 
 air of perplexity. 
 
 " Seriously, I hope ?" 
 
 " About Chesters — oh, yes." 
 
 " Tush ! I mean about Gwendoleyne." 
 
LADY WEDDERBURN's HOPE. 33 
 
 '^ No ; but it seems to me that you are already 
 — even on the first day our melancholy news has 
 come — disposed to press your views or wishes 
 too plainly upon Cyril/' 
 
 '^ How so T' asked Lady Wedderburn. curtly. 
 
 " In the choice of a wife^ most men like to 
 please themselves_, not other persons.''^ 
 
 " But surely, Wedderburn, you would wish to 
 see this alliance brought about V said she, 
 earnestly. 
 
 " Undoubtedly ; but Cyril is just the style 
 of young fellow to run rusty — to kick over the 
 traces — if worried about the matter. I know 
 that I should have done so.''' 
 
 " He can have no previous attachment, for 
 never a letter comes here, save from some of his 
 regimental friends, and Horace and Robert see 
 them all.'' 
 
 ^^ But, my dear Katharine," urged Sir John, 
 gently, as he stirred his cup of coffee, ^^ we must 
 consider also the girl's inclinations, her tastes, 
 her sympathies." 
 
 " What right has she to have any at her years ? 
 I am sure I had none !" 
 
 " Complimentary, Kate, for you were just 
 about her age when you married me" 
 
 "Ah, but that was a very different thing. 
 I did not possess three hundred thousand 
 pounds." 
 
 " You possessed much that had far more value 
 
 VOL. I, 3 
 
34 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 in the eyes of Jolm Wedderburn^" said the old 
 gentleman, as he stooped, kissed her upturned 
 forehead gallantly, and to end this matter, went 
 forth to have a look at his horses, and think over 
 the proposed additions to the already magnificent 
 stable-court. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LONEWOODLEE. 
 
 Within a few miles of this splendid and 
 luxurious modern mansion a very different scene 
 was passing in another dwelling. 
 
 In a bleaker part of the Merse, more imme- 
 diately adjoining the Lammermuir range of hills_, 
 was situated the house of Lonewoodlee^ a fine 
 example of what a Scottish fortalice required to 
 be in the troublesome times of the sixteenth 
 century. " It grotesquely associated with its 
 rude strength the fantastic ornaments of a more 
 powerful and civilized people — a type of what 
 the French alliance must often have produced 
 among the gentlemen of the age — the rugged 
 nature of the Scot^ with the style and manners 
 of the mercurial Frank. ^^ 
 
 It was a small square tower^ with round cor- 
 belled turrets at the angles ; but as it has changed 
 hands since then, and been strangely modernized 
 within the last three years, the reader may look 
 for it in vain as we shall describe it. 
 
 3—2 
 
36 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 Numerous loopholes, designed for arrows or 
 arquebuses,, were in the angles of these four 
 turrets, in the sills of the windows, and round 
 the floridly carved entrance-door, over which 
 were the arms of the family, wdth the legend, in 
 quaint letters, in bold relief — 
 
 " Yis tovr finished be Oliver Levenox, loth Apr He, 
 1560, is ovr inheritance.^' 
 
 It was grey, gaunt, lichen spotted, and soli- 
 tary, and was surrounded by a grove of ancient 
 trees on the pastoral slope, from whence it took 
 its most characteristic name of the Lonewoodlee. 
 It was more immediately girt by a massive wall, 
 which had once been for defence, but was ruinous 
 now, for the long-tufted grass and fragrant wall- 
 flower flourished along its cope, and the iron 
 gate had long since fallen from its hinges, while 
 the proud court was almost covered by the grass 
 that sprung up between the stones. 
 
 Even prior to the period of which we write, 
 some fifteen years ago, an attempt had been 
 made to modernize the tower a little, by removing 
 the rusted iron gratings from the windows and 
 enlarging them ; but still the dwelling was 
 gloomy, in consequence of the enormous thickness 
 of the walls and the vaultings of the lower base- 
 ment. 
 
 Among the wood around it were many trees 
 that had sprung from seedlings of the ancient 
 
LONEWOODLEE. 37 
 
 ashj -whicli^ by tlie law of an early Scottish king, 
 every man who built even a cottage was bound 
 to plant near his dwelling for shafts, when the 
 " spear J six Scottish ells in length/'' was required 
 to bear back alike the Norman knights and Saxon 
 infantry of England. 
 
 Many a gloomy old Border legend was con- 
 nected with the Tower of LonewoodleC;, and like 
 some other ancient families,, the proprietors had 
 their warning when fate was nigh — an un- 
 pleasant, however romantic, adjunct ; for it was 
 said that when a Lennox was to die, as the moon 
 rose above a certain quarter of the Lammermuir 
 hills, the shadow of a large human hand — the 
 hand of Destiny — was cast on the eastern wall, 
 with the forefinger pointed at length ; and the 
 local papers actually asserted that such a shadow 
 was visible before Major Lennox was killed at 
 the battle of Waterloo. 
 
 Within all was gloomy, dilapidated, and 
 darkened by time ; the furniture was fully forty 
 years old, and some of it Avas still older. 
 
 In the dining-room, or hall, the sofas were 
 square-elbowed, of horsehair, and furnished with 
 back-squabs; the chairs were of dark blue 
 leather, and in the corners were circular stands 
 for curious china, large shells, and so forth. 
 With cotton furniture, or coloured calico, a 
 meagre attempt had been made by a neat female 
 hand to render gay the apartment that passed as 
 
38 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 a drawing-room^ where the chififonnieres of wood, 
 painted white and gilded, the white marble 
 girandoles (minus half their crystal pendants), 
 and everything else, were old-fashioned, shabby, 
 and worn, for they had been the new furnishing 
 of the mansion when George III. was King, and 
 the mother of the present proprietor had come 
 home a blooming bride. 
 
 Here and there, in oval frames, or bordered 
 only by black oak mouldings, were portraits of a 
 far older period than any of the Georges, as the 
 black wigs and breastplates of the subjects 
 evinced. Every way it was an old and worn-out 
 establishment, where everything looked mouldy 
 and fading away. 
 
 On the same March evening when the maroon- 
 coloured curtains were drawn at Willowdean, 
 and the pompous old butler was placing the row 
 of glittering decanters before Sir John Wedder- 
 burn, an old man was seated in a high-backed 
 leather chair, which was studded with rows of 
 brass-headed nails, seeking to warm his limbs at 
 the fire, which blazed cheerily enough in the 
 great stone chimney of the dining-hall at Lone- 
 woodlee. The grate was old-fashioned, like every- 
 thing else there ; it was a mere iron basket, 
 adorned with four brass knobs, and placed upon 
 two square stones, quite unsuited to the form of 
 the fireplace. Thus the heat of the roaring pile 
 of coals, turf, and bog-oak roots, went all up 
 
LONEWOODLEE. 39 
 
 the great tunnel-like vent_, with a column of 
 sparks. 
 
 Oliver Lennox of Lonewoodlee looked much 
 older than his years warranted, for his wasted 
 figure, clad in a well-worn Indian dressing-gown, 
 or robe-de-chambre of the shawl pattern, tied by 
 a cord and tattered tassel, was bent severely, 
 and his face was furrowed by disease and the 
 emotions of the mind, rather than time, for he 
 was not more, perhaps, than fifty-five years of 
 age. 
 
 His right elbow rested on the arm of his 
 chair ; his chin was placed in the hollow of his 
 hand, and his keen, restless, yet clear blue eyes 
 were fixed dreamily on the ruddy flame that 
 lighted up his sharp aquiline features, and turned 
 to threads of glittering silver his thin white hair 
 that had once been a rich dark brown. 
 
 Seated on a tabouret or little stool by his 
 side, was his daughter Mary, a girl not quite of 
 twenty years ; perhaps the only true friend whom 
 many reverses of fortune left him ; his sole at- 
 tendant, save a couple of female domestics ; others 
 seldom remained long at the Tower, as a querulous 
 master and a gloomy house, which had moreover 
 the steady reputation of being haunted, rendered 
 service unattractive at Lonewoodlee. 
 
 Mary knew he was dying of some internal and 
 mysterious disease with which the doctors had 
 totally failed to grapple — that, in spite of her 
 
40 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 affection and their skill,, of her prayers and their 
 potions^ he was slowly and surely passing away 
 from her ; and she left nothing unsaid or undone 
 to soothe^ by sweet devotedness^ what she knew 
 to he too probably the few months of his last 
 year on earth. 
 
 He had survived the winter, but might never 
 live to see the summer ripen into autumn, and 
 the golden corn waving on the upland slopes 
 that were his own no more. 
 
 To God and herself alone were known the ter- 
 rible thoughts of Mary Lennox in the long, sleep- 
 less hours of the weary nights she passed; yet 
 unswerving in her filial duty, tenderly nursing and 
 ministering as only a woman — only a daughter 
 or wife — can nurse or minister to the wants of a 
 querulous patient ; springing from her pillow 
 with cheerful and affectionate alacrity, to antici- 
 pate his every wish, and smiling to hide the 
 sorrow that preyed upon her own heart. 
 
 Pale and sad usually, her face was beautiful ; 
 yet sadness had not been its normal expression, 
 but rather the result of local influence. Her 
 features were not quite regular, but there was a 
 divine delicacy about them ; her finely lidded 
 eyes were of that blue-grey which is aptly termed 
 violet colour, and her mouth and chin were 
 beautifully formed, so were her tiny ears and 
 hands. Her whole figure, which was petite 
 rather, and the contour of her head, with its 
 
LONEWOODLEE. 41 
 
 masses of ricli brown hair^ were eminently lady- 
 like and indicative of higli breeding and tender 
 culture ; and a cbarming picture slie would 
 have formed, as sbe sat then, with her father's 
 passive left hand locked caressingly in hers, and 
 her soft little face upturned to his, every feature 
 teeming with affectionate solicitude. 
 
 Her dress was plain, inexpensive, and simple, 
 for their means could not afford her many 
 luxuries ; but her starched cuffs and collar — 
 made and dressed by her own hands — and the 
 tiny velvet riband around her slender white 
 neck, made it quite a pretty toilette, while, save 
 an old ring or two that had been her mother's, 
 she was destitute of ornament ; and there the 
 father and daughter sat long in silence, while 
 the blustering March wind soughed in the old 
 wood without, and the flood of red and v/avering 
 light from the capacious fireplace fell upon their 
 faces, and fitfully too upon the portraits of those 
 ancestors, who, if their exchequer had been as 
 low as that of Oliver Lennox, would have chosen 
 just such a moonless night for a quiet ride 
 among the beeves on the southern side of the 
 Border. 
 
 Oliver Lennox had once been a man of con- 
 siderable influence in the Merse, and had even 
 contrived to shine, for a short season, in London 
 society. But deep play, some unlucky bets at 
 Newmarket, one or two vexed law pleas with 
 
42 LADY wedderbur:n's wish. 
 
 Sir John Wedderburn^ in whicli he had been 
 nonsuited -with great loss^ domestic cares of 
 many kinds, particularly the deaths of his wife 
 and several children, all combined to break him 
 down in health and spirit. 
 
 Much of his land had gone, piecemeal, to 
 satisfy the creditors his London career had 
 raised around him, and now the little that re- 
 mained of Lonewoodlee was mortgaged to the 
 utmost; and having but a bare annuity, he 
 knew too surely that when he died there would 
 be neither home nor shelter for his Mary. 
 
 He was a proud, fiery, and irritable man, 
 who would brook neither the pity of his friends 
 nor the scorn of his enemies ; and the knowledge 
 that his only child — his gentle and delicate 
 daughter — would be left to the mercy of the 
 world, or to support herself by the accomplish- 
 ments she possessed, maddened him, so that 
 there were times when his mind wandered, and 
 then it was that the soul of Mary Lennox 
 seemed to die within her with sorrow and 
 terror ! 
 
 " Shall I play to you, dear papa ?" said she 
 softly. 
 
 There was a wonderful chord in Mary^s voice 
 that made it very seductive, but she had to 
 repeat the offer three times before the sense of 
 it fell upon his drowsy ear. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARY LENNOX. 
 
 " Shall I play to you, dear papa V^ slie re- 
 peated for the third time. 
 
 " No, Mary, no/^ said he, peevishly. '' Your 
 piano, child, is in that shabby chintz- covered 
 den you call a drawing-room." 
 
 " Oh, papa ; what served poor mamma may 
 very well do for me." 
 
 '^ And I fear we can^t afford a fire there as 
 well as here." 
 
 " But if I keep the doors open you could 
 hear me. The cold is not great to-night," she 
 urged. 
 
 "No — no, child, thank you ; but I wish to 
 think." 
 
 " To-morrow, papa, I shall have my poor 
 old piano brought here, and then I shall play 
 to you some of the airs you love so well." 
 
 " Pet Mary — but music makes me sad." 
 
 '' But it soothes you too, papa." 
 
 " Your voice, my darling, would soothe any- 
 
44 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 things even the rage of a lion/^ said he, as he 
 drew her head upon his knee and held it caressing 
 there between his tremulous hands ; " but it 
 sounds so like vour mother's, that — that — even 
 while I love to listen my heart grows sad and 
 sick within me ! Music possesses such vast 
 power, especially over a shattered nervous 
 system, and more than anything else can con- 
 jure back the past, the lost, and the dead ! But,^' 
 he added, suddenly, with a louder tone and a 
 strange gleam in his eye, '^ where is your brother 
 Harry ; why is he not here to-night T' 
 
 Then a kind of wail escaped the lips of poor 
 Mary, and the tears started to her eyes, for she 
 knew that his mind was wandering again. 
 
 " Oh, papa y she moaned, and looked at him 
 imploringly. 
 
 " Where is he V' demanded Mr. Lennox, im- 
 petuously, and his eyes flashed in the red light 
 of the fire ; then he struck his hand upon his 
 brow as a gleam of memory came to his aid, 
 and he said, in a choking voice, '' I forgot 
 myself ! God help me — God help me ! True, 
 Mary — true ; my boy is lying in his Indian 
 grave, far, far away, where the bones of the 
 Briton and Sikh lie thick on the battle-field. 
 But you must remember the night I saw him 
 here — here, in this very room V^ 
 
 " I was but a child of eight years when poor 
 Harry died.'' 
 
MARY LENNOX. 45 
 
 " Yes ; and when I saw Mm/^ 
 
 " Oh, papa_, that is a wild idea ; as absurd as 
 —as '' 
 
 ^^ What, girl?'' 
 
 "The shadowy hand." 
 
 " It is not so, and it was not so ! It is not 
 impossible, Mary, when death, more especially a 
 violent one, strikes at a distance one who is dear 
 to ns — dear as your brother Harry was to me — 
 that some intuition, some mysterious present- 
 ment announces the event. How often have I 
 told you that as I sat here in the twilight of 
 evening in this chair, and on this very spot, 
 reading the Gazette of the killed and wounded 
 on that disastrous Indian field, some secret im- 
 pulse made me glance towards the end of the 
 room, and there I saw the figure, the form, the 
 face of your brother, regarding me mournfully 
 and tenderly for a moment, and then all faded 
 away. I was terror-struck, but deemed it fancy ! 
 Again I turned to the fatal Gazette, and the 
 next name that caught my eye among the killed 
 — the killed in action — was that of my own 
 boy, Harry Lennox !" 
 
 " Hush, papa, oh hush !" said Mary, looking 
 round anxiously ; for it was this story to which 
 her father was fond of referring from time to 
 time, that had won the Tower, among the vulgar, 
 the reputation of being haunted, so that do- 
 mestics were terrified to remain, though the 
 
46 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 place -was within a mile or two of the rail to 
 Berwick. 
 
 After a long pause he drew a deep breath and 
 spoke again. 
 
 " Did I not hear_, or was it a dream — for I 
 have strange dreams sometimes — that Wedder- 
 burn^s son buried him — buried my boy ?^^ said 
 he^ in a tremulous voice. 
 
 '' Yes^ papa/"* said Mary, eagerly ; ^' Cyril 
 Wedderbum buried poor Harry, and stood 
 by his grave in that distant land. He did 
 more, papa : he cut off a lock of his hair for — 
 for you." 
 
 '* I could bless him for that, but for his father's 
 sake. I hate that elder Wedderburn. I hate his 
 flaunting wife,^^ he continued, raising his voice 
 and his clenched hand. " I hate the whole brood 
 of them, and shall never cease to curse " 
 
 " Ohj dearest papa, do not — do not speak 
 thus !" cried Mary, imploringly, as she placed 
 a hand upon his mouth, and saw with growing 
 terror the fire, as if of incipient insanity, flashing 
 in his eyes. 
 
 The paroxysm of rage into which he lashed 
 himself when he thought of his lost law suits, 
 especially one in which Sir John Wedderburn 
 asserted and made good his right of pasturage 
 upon a certain part of the Lee, which the 
 Lennox family had claimed as theirs alone for 
 several generations, weakened him so much that 
 
MARY LENNOX. 47 
 
 Mary was glad to give him a soothing draughty 
 and get him to his bedroom for the night. 
 
 After this he became more seriously ill_, and 
 there were more frequent aberrations of intellect. 
 Sometimes he imagined himself in the hunting- 
 fieldj and then he would shout in a quavering 
 and childish treble — 
 
 " Tally ho ! tally ho ! Hallo^ my Lord Wemyss_, 
 what's up at the high fence yonder ? By Jove^ 
 John Wedderburn's brown mare is at fault — her 
 off forefoot is caught in the wires — and over they 
 go^ nag and rider ! I hope the young scoundreFs 
 neck is broke at least V^ 
 
 And Mary wept as she heard the fierce 
 wish^ which referred to some sporting adventure 
 years ago, when her father and Sir John were 
 much younger men, but seemingly no better 
 friends. 
 
 Next night she had her piano moved close to 
 the drawing-room door, so that she might play 
 to him as he lay abed in his own room. She 
 had a magnificent voice, and it had been highly 
 cultivated. She exerted herself to the utmost 
 to please, and played and sang him to sleep, as 
 one might do a fretful child. Then when she 
 was assured that his slumber was sound, she 
 kissed him softly, assumed her hat and veil, her 
 cloak and muff, and hastened from the Tower 
 and its desolate court, to where some one she 
 well knew was awaiting her, at an angle of the 
 
48 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 wood — but in this we are somewliat anticipating 
 our story. 
 
 Two or three dreary days and nights followed 
 his last outburst of mental fury^ and a certain 
 revulsion of spirit and corresponding bodily 
 weakness followed it. Then he became more 
 calm and coherent_, after some opiates had been 
 administered by his medical attendant,, the young 
 parish doctor^ whom the charm of Mary's pre- 
 sence rather than her father^s necessity^ rendered 
 a pretty regular visitor at Lonewoodlee ; but in 
 the hours of her tearful watching, the querulous 
 old man unwittingly stuck many a barb in his 
 daughter's heart. 
 
 '^ I feel weaker every day, Mary dear. I 
 wont be long a burden or a trouble to you/' he 
 would say ; " for something whispers to me that 
 I cannot last long now. Old and weak — old 
 and weak — half blind and wellnigh toothless !'' 
 
 " Papa/' said she, imploringly, " do not talk 
 thus ! You are not yet sixty years of age." 
 
 '^ I know, darling ; but the poor human ma- 
 chine is worn out for all that. Look at "W'ed- 
 derburn ! How hale and strong he is, for 
 fortune has ever favoured him and his family, 
 child; while with me — with me — oh, how is it 
 with me ? Ah, truly says Ossian, that ' age is 
 dark and imlovely, and that the race of men are 
 like the leaves of woody ]\Iorven ; they pass away 
 in the rustling blast, and other leaves lift their 
 
MARY LENNOX. 49 
 
 green heads on high/ So — so shall I soon pass 
 away^ Mary ; but dearest^ you are weary V 
 
 " I am not_, papa/^ sighed the girl. 
 
 " Your eyes are red and dim. To bed^ Mary — 
 to bed. Place the sleeping draught at hand, 
 then kiss me and leave me. Good night.^' 
 
 Then she would slip away to her room, the 
 door of which was always left ajar, so that no 
 sound might elude her ear in the night ; and she 
 would pray and sigh herself to sleep. 
 
 A day came anon when her father was too 
 weak to leave his bed, and from thenceforward 
 he became more than ever a confirmed invalid. 
 
 The sturdy but shambling old shooting pony, 
 on whose broad back he had been latterly able to 
 take a little exercise by a trot to Polwarth or 
 Prestonhaugh, enjoyed a complete holiday; and 
 time, as marked by the old-fashioned repeater 
 at Mr. Lennoxes bed - head, passed slowly 
 indeed ! 
 
 And as he lay there, day after day, and too 
 often night after night, wakeful, and filled with 
 keen and anxious thoughts, he strove to picture 
 — to fashion out — the future of that lonely 
 daughter whose life was, he hoped, to extend far 
 beyond his own. He had plenty of time for 
 this profitless employment, for, save Captain 
 Chesters or perhaps the parish clergyman, no one 
 ever dropped in to talk with or enliven him now, 
 for his ailments and complaints against friends 
 
 VOL. I. 4 
 
50 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 and fortune^ his "wMms and fancies, rendered his 
 society unpalatable to all save poor Mary. 
 
 There was no rousing him to take an interest 
 in anything; and news of the coming war fell 
 dull upon his ear. In vain did Mary read to 
 him of our preparations for the Crimean war ; 
 that already the Russians and Turks had come 
 to blows, and the former been defeated at Olte- 
 nitza, with the loss three thousand seven hundred 
 killed and wounded; that a Turkish squadron 
 had been destroyed by the Russians, and the 
 town cruelly bombarded ; and that the British 
 fleet, under Sir Charles Napier, had sailed for 
 the Baltic from Spithead; that the destruction 
 of Cronstadt was confidently expected, and so 
 forth. 
 
 Oliver Lennox deemed the worthy minister 
 an utter bore, and viewed his attempts to soothe 
 or console him as simply impertinence, which his 
 proud and fiery spirit resented. 
 
 Of Chesters he felt doubtful, and knew enough 
 of the world to fear such a visitor and such a 
 friend for his unprotected daughter. He knew 
 his own debts and difiicultics, his own poverty, 
 and that the annuity he possessed would die 
 with himself, and then what would be left for 
 her — work — starvation — death ! 
 
 It was horrible to lie there — helpless, 
 fettered hand and foot as it were, weak, power- 
 less, and inert, weaving such dark, bitter, and 
 
MARY LENNOX. 51 
 
 distracting fancies ! He writhed and wept on 
 his pillow, and muttering, " Mary — Mary ! my 
 daughter — my daughter V would press his thin 
 wan hands on his burning breast, as if to stifle 
 thoughts that would not be stifled. 
 
 " I have been rash, wasteful, and unfortunate,^^ 
 he would often say, ^' but what have you done, 
 my poor Mary, that you should be stripped of 
 your inheritance ? for this Tower, built by Oliver 
 Lennox, and all the land around it, even to the 
 Whitadder, form your inheritance ; but it must 
 pass away to others — others — oh, my God ! 
 while such people as those Wedderburns live on, 
 surrounded by every earthly blessing V 
 
 ^^ Calm yourself, papa,^^ said the hopeless girl, 
 in a choking voice ; ^^ all may yet be well. 
 Yom' health will revive with the warmth of 
 spring.''^ 
 
 '^The spring grass will be sprouting on the 
 sod that wraps me, Mary ; and there I would lie 
 in peace could I but see your future, child — if 
 God would only in His kindness lift the veil that 
 hides it from me ! But, from the land of 
 shadows, perhaps I may so see it — I may see it, 
 and be a guide and a watch over you.^^ 
 
 Though Mary heard much of this querulous 
 grief, she never became accustomed to it; but 
 seemed always to sufi'er the agony of his death 
 by anticipation when he spoke thus. 
 
 '' Fear not, papa ; fear not for me,^^ she was 
 
 4 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ItU*^'^'^ 
 
52 LADY WEDDERBURN*S WISH. 
 
 wont to reply, while caressing his head on her 
 bosom. " If I lose you, I must trust then to God 
 only/^ 
 
 " To God and yourself, darling ; but there 
 are times when I think with fear that — 
 that " 
 
 '^What, papa?'' 
 
 ^' That Ralph Chesters seems to love you/' 
 
 Mary trembled and grew pale as she 
 said — 
 
 '^ Do not speak of this again, I implore you, 
 dearest papa." 
 
 " I am glad you don't like him ; but what 
 brings him here so often ?" 
 
 " To see you, of course, papa," said Mary, as 
 her pale cheek reddened. 
 
 " An old man sick and ailing ! I don't be- 
 lieve it ; but when was he here last ?" 
 
 " Three days ago." 
 
 " Did you see him ?" 
 
 " No ; when alone with him, his presence be- 
 comes intolerable to me." 
 
 " Why — how ?" asked Lennox, eagerly, and 
 half-raising himself in his bed. 
 
 " There is an expression in his eye I do not 
 like ; moreover, I never leave your room save 
 when you are asleep." 
 
 " Thanks, my darling ; that is kind and good ; 
 but beware of Chesters, for he is a dog that bites 
 but does not bark." 
 
MARY LENNOX. 53 
 
 '' Have no fear for me so far as he is con- 
 cerned/' said Mary, empliatically. 
 
 ^^It is well. Kiss me, child, and then I shall 
 try to sleep. 
 
 The girl kissed him tenderly, restraining her 
 tears as she did. Then with tremulous gentle- 
 ness, her pretty, small hands adjusted the pillow 
 and coverlet, ere she glided noiselessly away. 
 
 Often had Mary pictured — for she was a 
 sensitive creature and full of imagination — how 
 utter her helplessness and loneliness would be 
 when her father was gone ; and, notwithstanding 
 all the love which another had succeeded in 
 kindling in her heart, she longed and prayed 
 that in the hour her father was taken, she might 
 be taken too ! 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TWO LOVERS. 
 
 '' Been fishing to-day^ Cyril V asked Robert 
 "Wedderburn,, with, a quizzical expression in his 
 face,, as his brother assumed his hat^ gloves, and 
 whip in the hall prior to riding out. 
 
 " No/^ replied Cyril, curtly, and colouring 
 with some reason, as he had gone forth for four 
 consecutive days with his rod, and returned with 
 his basket empty; the fishing was merely a pre- 
 text to be alone, for he would have been clever 
 indeed to have found trout or perch on the 
 upland slopes of the Lammermuir, where Horace 
 and Robert had seen him, while shooting hares 
 and rabbits near Lonewoodlee. " I dine with 
 Chesters to-day,^' he added. 
 
 '^You go betimes ?^^ said Robert, suspiciously. 
 
 '^ I want to give my new bay nag a breather 
 — to have a few miles' gallop ere I go to 
 Chesterhaugh,'' replied Cyril, as he rode off". 
 
 It was one of those dull March evenings 
 when the sun sets at six o'clock, as Captain 
 
TWO LOVERS. 55 
 
 Wedderburn dashed on at a rapid pace towards 
 Lonewoodlee. The more fertile part of the 
 Merse was soon left behind, and after a ride of 
 three or four miles among heathy and grassy 
 slopes,, striped here and there with bright green 
 where the track of the Lammas floods had run 
 towards the Leader or the Whitadder rivers, he 
 saw the old grey Tower, whose four round turrets, 
 cope-house, and chimneys stood clearly defined 
 against the evening sky, overtopping even the 
 ancient timber that grew around it. 
 
 Thatched cottages with whitewashed walls, 
 and the ruddy firelight glowing through their 
 small square windows ; hedgerows that were in 
 process of being lopped and trimmed; gardens 
 where the fragrant earth had been newly turned 
 up, and where tufts of the white snowdrop and 
 rows of the yellow crocus or purple violets were 
 appearing, had all gradually vanished, and Cyril 
 found himself amid a voiceless and pastoral 
 solitude, dotted only by black-faced sheep, or 
 huge round boulder-stones, and where here and 
 there a sable gled or raven hung aloft in mid 
 air — a black speck amid the amber glory of the 
 twilight sky — as if on the outlook for the dead 
 wedder or other carrion that might be lying in 
 some moss-hole or mountain burn. 
 
 '^ By Jove, this place is well named the Lone- 
 woodlee, for it could not well be lonelier V 
 thought Cyril, as he rode into the thicket of 
 
56 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 trees. There was no obstruction, for the enclo- 
 sure or boundary_, once a dry stone dyke, had 
 fallen down, and all the place was bare and open. 
 He threw the bridle of his horse over a branch, 
 and, as the twilight deepened, he turned very 
 deliberately towards the mansion on foot, and 
 as he did so, the rabbits and hares flitted before 
 him from among the deep rank grass. 
 
 In spite of the coldness — almost amounting 
 to hostility — between their families, Cyril Wed- 
 derburn and Mary Lennox loved each other 
 dearly. He had met her from time to time at 
 races and country balls, occasionally in the 
 houses of mutual friends. These meetings had 
 not always been pleasant, for latterly they were 
 at times the result of contrivance, as Mr. Lennox, 
 from the peculiarities of his temper, would not 
 have heard of this intimacy with patience. 
 
 On the other hand, Cyril was dependent on 
 his father for his allowance — no man can live on 
 his pay in any regiment now, so least of all was 
 it possible in the Royal Fusileers; — and while 
 her father lived, Mary, under any circumstances, 
 could not think of marriage, and so some three 
 years of a secret and undecided engagement 
 between these young people had slipped away 
 at the period when this story opens. 
 
 Cyril did not enter the desolate looking court- 
 yard, lest he might be seen by either of the two 
 female domestics who now composed the sorely 
 
TWO LOVERS. 57 
 
 reduced household of Oliver Lennox. All was 
 silent in the empty stables and ruined coach- 
 house, and the entire place looked gloomy in the 
 extreme to the eyes of the young officer, ac- 
 customed to his father^s more spacious and mag- 
 nificent mansion, with its great oriels of plate- 
 glass, and he sighed when he thought of Mary. 
 
 Suddenly, through an open window on the 
 second story, there came the swelling notes of a 
 beautiful and tender soprano voice — a girl's — as 
 she sang the grand old Christmas hymn, accom- 
 panying herself upon a piano, which, though a 
 fine one, was nevertheless somewhat old-fashioned 
 and not exactly a grand trichord. 
 
 " Poor thing ! God bless her kind heart ! she 
 is singing to the old man,'' said Cyril, while he 
 listened intently, with his head reclined against 
 the wall, as if to absorb every sound. "So my 
 little fairy sings in Latin \" 
 
 " Adeste fideles, 
 
 Lceti triumphantes ; 
 Venite, venite in Bethlehem : 
 
 Natum videte 
 
 Regem angelorum : 
 
 Venite adoremus, 
 
 Venite adoremus, 
 Venite adoremus Dominum." 
 
 It was a strange song for a young girl ; but, 
 in fancy, Cyril could see the old man listening, 
 and perhaps beating time with his fingers on the 
 
58 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 coverlet or pillow of his bed, as lie was soothed 
 away to sleep. The notes pealed out on the 
 calm evening air with a startling effect, each one 
 stirring a chord in the loving heart of the listener 
 without ; for as his own soul — yea, and dearer 
 than his own soul — did he love the singer, who, 
 after a pause, dashed into a plaintive little Scottish 
 song, and then, quite as suddenly, into the 
 beautiful solo, Cujus aniinam, from the " Stabat 
 Mater^^ of Rossini. 
 
 At last she ceased. He heard, or thought he 
 heard, the piano closed softly ; and in a minute 
 more, with her eyes beaming, her damask cheek 
 glowing with pleasure, as she threw up the veil 
 of her smart little hat, Mary Lennox glided round 
 the corner of the Tower, with her cloak on and 
 her little hands in her muff. 
 
 " At last, my darling — at last we meet V' said 
 Cyril, as he drew one of her hands through his 
 arm, and believing that no human eye saw or ear 
 heard them, led her into a denser and darker 
 portion of the grove that grew about her old 
 paternal home. 
 
 " I have been singing to poor papa.^^ 
 " So I thought, jNIary; and he is now asleep ?" 
 " Yes," replied Mary Lennox, with a bright 
 smile ; for her meetings with Cyril, though stolen 
 and hasty, were the only bright spots in the 
 usually dreary tenor of her life, and she looked 
 up at her lover admiringly and tenderly. His 
 
TWO LOVERS. 59 
 
 rough suit of tweed, his grey round felt. hat, and 
 scarlet shirt, very open at the neck, became his 
 style of manly beauty well, and showed that he 
 belonged to the class of society which can affect 
 and afford so simple and careless a mode of 
 costume. 
 
 '^'^ There is no word of your leave being can- 
 ceUed?^^ 
 
 " None, dearest/' 
 
 " Thank God for that V exclaimed the girl, as 
 she clasped her hands. 
 
 ^^ Four whole days have passed, my Mary, 
 and yet I have not seen you V said Cyril, half 
 reproachfully, while he drew her close to him, 
 gathering her fondly and gracefully to his breast. 
 
 " My poor papa has been so ill,"'^ she urged, as 
 her eyes filled with tears, and her head sank 
 wearily, yet confidently, on his shoulder. 
 
 " I regret to hear it. Poor old man ! I 
 wonder if he will ever receive me V 
 
 ^^ It would madden him, the very thought of 
 doing so, Cdcil.^' 
 
 " This sentiment is very foolish.^' 
 
 ^' He has neither forgotten nor forgiven that 
 last unhappy dispute about your claim of pas- 
 turage on the lower part of the Lee.''' 
 
 " Bother the Lee ! The basket of grapes and 
 peaches I sent from the hothouse ■" 
 
 " They came ; thanks, darling Cyril ; but papa 
 suspected some friend's kindness — pity he called 
 
60 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. * 
 
 it — and the fruit was thrown to the dog in the 
 yard." 
 
 " Folly again !" 
 
 ^' It is restless pride, Cecil ; the pride that 
 fights with poverty/'' pleaded Mary, with a sigh. 
 
 Cyril regarded her anxiously. He could per- 
 ceive that much of her girlish simplicity was 
 passing away; that there was a sadness in her 
 eyes, and about her whole demeanour a more 
 womanly grace perhaps ; but she was growing 
 paler and thinner in her battle with life — a life 
 that would have been utterly cold, hard, and 
 cheerless, but for the ray of light his love was 
 shedding on it. 
 
 " Our households imagine us to be but cold 
 and distant acquaintances, if even so much as 
 that. Could they but peep in here and see us 
 now" said he, as he covered her little face with 
 kisses; for Cyril was merely supposed to lift his 
 hat in the simplest courtesy to Mary, if he passed 
 her on the highway or at church, where she 
 could go but seldom now, in consequence of her 
 father's ill-health, and as for their carriage and 
 horses, they had long become things of the past. 
 
 " Oh, it is a great horror to me, Cyril, to be 
 separated as we are," she began. 
 
 ^' As we are supposed to be, you mean, Mary 
 dear.'' 
 
 " And to meet as we do by stealth, practising 
 such dissimulation." 
 
TWO LOVEllS. 61 
 
 " It is intensely absurd that I, a Captain iu 
 the Line^ a fellow who has been eight years in the 
 service, should stoop to it/' 
 
 '^ Unless for my sake^ love T' 
 
 '^ True, Mary, true. What would I not do for 
 your sake^ my sweet pet ?" 
 
 " But it is degrading to us both, and where 
 will it end V* she said, plaintively. 
 
 " It shall end when we are married, darling. 
 Oh, Mary ! nightly my dreams are of you^ and 
 daily my thoughts. You seem thus to be ever 
 near me, with me, and by me V 
 
 '^ Oh, Cyril, it is very good of you to love me 
 so.'' 
 
 '^Who could help loving you?" was the en- 
 thusiastic response. 
 
 '^ Your mamma does not," said she, smiling ; 
 ^^ and neither does Sir John ; so how much would 
 they hate me did they really know all." 
 
 A gesture of impatience escaped Cyril. 
 
 '^ I must and shall end all this by declaring 
 our engagement ; and should my allowance be 
 cut off, which I can scarcely anticipate, I can ex- 
 change into an Indian regiment, and maintain 
 my wife as other men do." 
 ^' But my poor papa ?" 
 
 '' True ; and then, I am under orders now for 
 the East !" 
 
 " We are very unfortunate/' said Mary, while 
 her tears fell fast. 
 
62 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 '^ How unlucky that Mr. Lennox and Sir John 
 have been at cross-purposes so often^ in courts 
 of law, at public meetings, elections, and county 
 matters, actually about the very mode of hunting 
 with the county pack. Never were two men 
 more antagonistic ; yet is it not strange that — 
 that " 
 
 '^ We should love each other so tenderly. Is 
 that what you were about to say, Cyril ?" 
 
 "Yes, Mary darling.^' 
 
 " But what would they say if they knew of 
 our meeting thus T' 
 
 '^ Why torment yourself by thinking of it ? 
 Your father would storm finely, I doubt not ; 
 mine be loftily indignant ; and as for my lady 
 mother, it would be a case of hysterics and sal- 
 volatile. But I do not see why their silly views 
 sould ruin our peace, Mary.^' 
 
 " Ah, did Sir John but know how weak and 
 feeble my poor papa is now, that his ebbing life 
 is only a matter of time, he would surely come 
 over and forgive him all.^^ 
 
 Cyril scarcely thought so, all the more when 
 he remembered the rich young cousin who was 
 to arrive so shortly at Willowdean ; but he 
 looked silently into Mary's eyes of violet-blue, 
 they were brimming with tears, and her face 
 wore a sad and wistful expression. Perhaps she 
 was marvelling how it would be with her 
 when all was over — when Cyril was before the 
 
TWO LOVERS. 63 
 
 enemy^ and. tliat parent_, so beloved^ had passed 
 away. 
 
 ^' Our engagement seems wrong without the 
 consent of our parents/^ she murmured^ in a low 
 voice ; " and times there are, Cyril, when — when 
 I seek to school myself to the task of releasing 
 you.'' 
 
 A dark and startled expression shot over the 
 fine face of Captain Wedderburn for a moment, 
 for somehow he connected this innocent speech 
 with the idea of Chesters ; but shrinking from 
 putting his thoughts in words, he merely said — 
 
 " Your father might well forgive me for loving 
 you, Mary, if he would remember how I carried 
 off your brother's body in the face of the enemy, 
 after making a rally and charge with the bayonet 
 at the head of my own company, or rather the 
 survivors of it, at a terrible risk and under a fire 
 of grape from the brass guns of the Sikhs. He 
 might remember, too, how I laid the poor iad in 
 his last home, a lonely grave under a palm tree, 
 near the banks of the Sutledge." 
 
 " Alas ! he remembers nothing coherently ; 
 and there are periods when he actually thinks 
 that Harry yet lives, and in moaning terms he 
 entreats him to approach the bed and take his 
 hand." 
 
 ^^ And you have neither seen nor met any of 
 my family during my last absence with the regi- 
 ment, Mary ?" 
 
64 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 '^ No ; and it is better that I have not done so/' 
 
 " Oh ! why, Mary ?" 
 
 '^ Fearing your return, I suppose, or that your 
 brother Robert might fall in love with me '^ 
 
 " Why, Mary, Robert is a mere boy !" 
 
 " He is about nineteen ; and boys of nineteen 
 fall in love sometimes," said Mary, smiling. 
 
 '' Well, darling, well ?' 
 
 '^ Fearing the result of these contingencies, 
 your mother has slighted and put many an 
 affront on me. Pardon me for saying so, dearest 
 Cyril, but I cannot forget that my father, though 
 poor, is Lennox of Lonewoodlee." 
 
 Cyril Wedderburn struck his heel upon the 
 ground angrily. 
 
 " My own Mary," said he, ^' this style of 
 thing is utterly absurd ; it is like the romance 
 of a family feud, Romeo and Juliet — Montague 
 and Capulet, reproduced by an in'itable old 
 gentleman and a match-making woman who 
 thinks no woman good enough for her eldest 
 son." 
 
 '^ You don't know my papa," said Mary, plain- 
 tively, and yet resentfully. 
 
 " I do. I know him to be rash, extravagant, 
 fiery, and passionate ; but pardon me, dearest, 
 I must not forget how dearly I love his 
 daughter." 
 
 " Cyril," said the girl, earnestly, '* reared as 
 you have happily been amid the ease and 
 
TWO LOVERS. 65 
 
 affluence of your own family^ you know not the 
 curse of being a poor gentleman/' 
 
 " Don't I, by Jove ! when bits of blue paper 
 come back_, protested or unaccepted,, and the 
 Colonel and Paymaster look grave V 
 
 " As I said before^ I know not how all this 
 will end. I only know^ that irritated by losses, 
 by poverty, and quarrels, how unforgiving my 
 poor papa has become ; how implacable ; and 
 that without some reconciliation with Sir John, 
 I never could dare to speak of — of " 
 
 " Of me r' 
 
 " Of that which is the only happiness of my 
 life — our engagement ; and my heart bleeds and 
 upbraids me for deceiving him, when lying thus 
 on what may prove his deathbed \" 
 
 Cyril did not reply, for his lips were pressed 
 to those of Mary, and her tears were mingled 
 with their kisses. 
 
 " Situated as we are, Cyril, our engagement 
 may be a long one ; that I don't mind, as I 
 could never leave papa in his present state ; but 
 then it may be a hopeless one for me — that is, 
 papa and I are so poor, so very poor ! You do 
 not know the struggle we have with the world, 
 for all his land is gone, save the patch the old 
 Tower stands on."" 
 
 " It is a cruel and bitter world,'' said Cyril 
 (though he, a favourite of fortune, had not 
 
 VOL. I. 6 
 
66 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 found it so), "and you, my tender Mary, are a 
 deuced deal too good for it/"* 
 
 " All are not bad or bitter though ; there, 
 even Chesters of Chesterhaugh '^ 
 
 " What of him 1" asked Cyril, sharply. 
 
 " Finding me weeping one day about a bill of 
 papa^s that had become due when we had not a 
 shilling to meet it, he — he '' 
 
 '' Took it up, I suppose 1" 
 
 "Yes, Cyril; he lifted a load off my heart 
 by doing so ; but I dislike being under an 
 obligation to any one — to him least of all.^^ 
 
 "And this bill, what was the amount?" 
 asked Cyril, gloomily. 
 
 " A two hundred pounds bill, Cyril ?" 
 
 " Why did you not write to me ?" 
 
 " I did not like to do so," she replied, 
 blushing. 
 
 " Had you not faith in me ?" he asked, im- 
 petuously. 
 
 " Yes, love ; but not in myself What sound 
 is that ?" she added, starting from his arms. 
 
 " Only the hoofs of a horse on the highway," 
 said he, and as they listened the sound died 
 rapidly away on the evening air. 
 
 They had been quite unaware, so absorbed 
 were they in each other, that in the twilight 
 gloom and under the shadow of a great larch-tree, 
 a third person had been lurking and listeniDg ; 
 one who, when he saw their lips meet, had in- 
 
TWO LOVERS. 67 
 
 voluntarily raised his hand and loaded hunting- 
 whip, and with an unuttered malediction — all 
 the deeper for being voiceless, on his cruel white 
 lips — had stolen away, mounted his horse, which, 
 like CyriFs, was concealed in the thicket, and 
 galloped off. 
 
 This lurker was no other than Ralph Booke 
 Chesters, who, intending to visit Mary in passing 
 homeward from the county town, had been 
 compelled to depart, with his heart full of 
 jealousy and his head scheming vengeance. 
 
 And now, after a few more tendernesses, 
 Cyril bethought him of his dinner engagement. 
 
 ^^ I shall get that bill out of Chesters^ hands, 
 if I can,^^ said he ; " one never can tell the use 
 to which he may put such a document, and now 
 good-bye, my darling. At noon to-morrow look 
 for me here; and at twelve to-night look at 
 your ring and think of me, for at the same 
 moment of time I shall turn to mine and think 
 of you.^' 
 
 They separated, and Mary lingered by the 
 Tower- gate till the last sound of the bay hunter's 
 hoofs died away in the distance, and then she 
 stole on tiptoe back to the bedside of her sleep- 
 ing father. She had been with Cyril barely an 
 hour, and as if it had been five minutes only, 
 had that delightful hour sped away. 
 
 •X- ^ -x- -x- * * 
 
 5—^ 
 
68 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 Punctually at twelve that night the girl 
 looked at her ring and murmured the name of 
 her lover, while a beautiful smile spread over 
 her soft pale face, for she was full of romance 
 and enthusiasm. 
 
 '^ The dear fellow; he is now thinking of me!^^ 
 she whispered to herself, as she laid her tiny- 
 watch on the table in the dressing closet, one of 
 the four little turrets, and proceeded to let down 
 the masses of her rich brown hair prior to 
 arranging it for the night ; but ere the minute 
 hand had gone many seconds beyond the hour 
 of twelve a distant sound came to her ear — a 
 sound that rapidly grew louder. 
 
 It was the clanking of hoofs, as a horse in 
 mad career swept along the hard beaten pathway 
 near the Tower. The heart of Mary beat 
 faster, she scarcely knew why ; she threw open 
 the little window of the turret and looked 
 out upon the starry but moonless night, and 
 as she did so the crv of a man in distress or 
 terror came plainly upwai'd to her listening 
 ear, and when dying away on the wind it 
 sounded strangely like the voice of Cyril Wed- 
 derburn. 
 
 But after a time she put aside that idea as 
 too absurd ! Would he, a finished horseman, 
 ride like a madcap at that break-neck pace, and 
 utter a shout like a tipsy brawler on passing 
 Lonewoodlee ? 
 
TWO LOVERS. 69 
 
 And yet, slie knew not why, she felt unhappy 
 about the circumstance; and this anxiety in- 
 creased when the following day passed, and the 
 subsequent evening; and yet she saw or heard 
 nothing of Cyril Wedderburn. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SUSPENSE AND DREAD. 
 
 At noon on the morrow, the time he had 
 promised to come, she looked for Cyril from the 
 turret window of her room, which commanded 
 an extensive view of the road that wound 
 through the grassy and pastoral district. From 
 that turret window and along the same road had 
 more than one ancestress of Mary looked for 
 her husband returning from the Scottish wars, 
 in the times of CromweU, Montrose, and 
 Dundee, and looked in vain. 
 
 Through her lorgnette Mary studied every 
 figure that approached on foot or horseback ; 
 there were not many, perhaps three or four 
 only, during the entire day; but there was no 
 appearance of Cyril Wedderburn, either mounted 
 on his favourite bay hunter or afoot with rod 
 and gun. 
 
 So for that day the thicket was unvisited; 
 no fond whispers were uttered under the old 
 larch-tree, and when midnight came she looked 
 
SUSPENSE AND DREAD. 71 
 
 at her ring as on the preceding night in the 
 vague hope that he might be doing the same^ 
 and thinking of her, wherever he might be. 
 
 Three days — to Mary, long, anxious, and 
 dreary days — passed away. Knowing that his 
 leave of absence from the Fusileers was so short, 
 she grudged every hour he spent with others, 
 when he passed so few with her, and now a new 
 source of terror occurred. Had the war broken 
 out suddenly, and Cyril^s leave been cancelled ? 
 But surely he would have written, and however 
 sudden his departure, should have made an effort 
 to see and to bid her farewell. 
 
 Was he ill ? That was not improbable, as 
 for three days now the parochial Sangrado, 
 Doctor Squills, had not been near Lonewoodlee ; 
 but then she knew that such rich folks as those 
 at Willowdean would depend more on the 
 greater medical talent, for which they could 
 telegraph at any moment to the metropolis. 
 
 She was in an agony of suspense ; their 
 residence was not a cheerful place, so visi- 
 tors were few and far between, and she could 
 learn no tidings of the only other being whom, 
 beside her father, she loved on earth. 
 
 On the fourth day, one of her domestics, 
 Alison Home, an elderly woman, who had noticed 
 her feverish anxiety without suspecting its cause, 
 announced that a person on horseback was ap- 
 proaching the house — coming indeed at a gallop 
 
73 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 over the Lee. Then Mary rushed to her window, 
 only to be disappointed, as she recognised at 
 once, not Cyril Wedderburn on his long-stepping 
 hunter, but the rather awkward figure of Doctor 
 Squills, on his barrel-shaped Galloway cob. 
 
 The Doctor was a suave, well-meaning, fair, 
 florid, and passably good-looking man, about 
 thirty-five or forty years of age, anxious to please 
 all, and to spread the practice in a district where 
 the people were so healthy, that, save for his pa- 
 rochial salary, and one or two retired Bengalees 
 with large livers and purses, he must have 
 starved, his patrons being as few as his patients. 
 Mr. Lennox was certainly a permanent, but far 
 from a lucrative one ; yet the Doctor was kind 
 and attentive, all the more so that he had na- 
 turally a secret desire to stand well in Mary's 
 estimation, and whenever he visited Lonewoodlee, 
 he almost unconsciously made a more careful 
 toilette than usual. 
 
 She received him with a genuine smile of 
 welcome in the gloomy little dining-room, with 
 its deeply embayed windows, its dingy old family 
 portraits, the two great horsehair sofas and 
 veteran chairs and tables, of the shabbiness of 
 which, by long use and wont, she had ceased to 
 be ashamed, though the pretentious coat-armorial 
 of the Lennoxes was carved in stone above the 
 fireplace, at the richly moulded jambs of which 
 there still huna: on each side those steel chains 
 
SUSPENSE AND DREAD. 73 
 
 by which the fireirons were secured in the good 
 old Scottish times^ when guests would quarrel 
 over their cups, and if their swords were left in 
 the hall, were wont to enforce their arguments 
 with the poker and shovel, if not thus secured to 
 the wall. 
 
 *' By that bright smile I augur well of my 
 patient, Miss Lennox?'''' said Doctor Squills, 
 taking Mary^s hand between his own, patting it 
 the while, and seeming very much disposed to 
 retain it as he seated himself, for it was a 
 lovely little hand indeed. 
 
 " Thanks, Doctor Squills — papa has been 
 singularly easy and free from pain for three days 
 past," replied Mary, making an effort to retain 
 her impatience for some news of the outer 
 world. 
 
 ^'^That is good — very good. The composing 
 draught taken as usual, I suppose?''^ 
 
 '^ All according to your orders. I am a good 
 little nurse, I hope," said Mary, with a smile 
 and a sigh. 
 
 There was a pause, and then the Doctor said, 
 
 " You have heard the great news, of course. 
 Miss Lennox ? but we^ll talk of it after I have 
 seen your papa. Is he awake just now ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mary, in a breathless voice, for 
 the idea of " news" terrified her, and she seemed 
 as one frozen, while the Doctor, after leisurely de- 
 positing his hat and gloves on the -table, where 
 
74 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 with trembling hands she was placing a decanter 
 of wine, and cake of her own making, from an 
 antique buffet — with his bland smile of pro- 
 fessional sympathy and jaunty step, took the way 
 which he knew so well, to the bedchamber of Mr. 
 Lennox. 
 
 What '' news" had the Doctor ? was it of war 
 and peril, of hasty departure, of sickness or 
 sorrow, of joy and triumph, or what? The 
 Doctor knew nothing of her interest in Cyril ; so, 
 could he be referred to ? 
 
 Poor girl ! she was not left long in suspense, 
 for the Doctor soon came sidling in with the same 
 jaunty air, saying — 
 
 " Pulse regular, head cool, breathing good. 
 Complaining of appetite too ; capital ! Give him 
 any reasonable thing he may wish. Strength 
 must be kept up at his years, you know, Miss 
 Lennox — at his years especially." 
 
 '^ And you think papa better to-day ?" 
 
 ^^ Indubitably so — beyond my expectations." 
 
 " Thank God for that !" said Mary, fervently. 
 
 It was only a brief rally before the great 
 catastrophe ; but the good-hearted Doctor had not 
 yet the courage to tell her so. 
 
 " You spoke of news. Doctor ?" said she. 
 
 " Ah — sad — sad — very sad, indeed ! Those 
 poor folks are greatly to be pitied." 
 
 " Who — where ?" 
 
 " The family at Willowdean." 
 
SUSPENSE AND DREAD. 75 
 
 " Pitied for what ?" exclaimed Mary, starting 
 as she grasped with a white and trembling hand 
 the arm of the sofa on which she sat. 
 
 ^^ The awful loss which they have too evi- 
 dently sustained/^ said the Doctor, pouring out a 
 glass of poor Mary's indifferent sherry, as he 
 remembered that he had a ten miles ride over the 
 hills before him. 
 
 ^^ What loss ? What has happened ? Oh, tell me, 
 tell me. Doctor, for the love of Heaven \" 
 
 " Is it possible that you have not heard what, 
 now, all in the county know T' 
 
 " No — no — no ; I have heard nothing,^^ said 
 Mary, wringing her hands piteously, while her 
 dilated eyes, her blanched visage, and quiver- 
 ing lip betrayed a depth of emotion for which the 
 Doctor, who knew of the coolness between the 
 families, totally failed to account. '^ What do you 
 mean ?" she added. 
 
 " The disappearance — the death, no doubt — 
 of young Captain Wedderburn, Sir John^s heir 
 apparent, the heir to so fine a property, and a 
 title among the oldest of our Nova Scotian 
 baronets — and with a rich wife in prospect too — 
 one we hear worth half a million of money. It 
 is a great and unparalleled calamity, and his 
 family are plunged, as you may well suppose, in 
 the profoundest affliction — the affliction of the 
 wealthy and noble is always profound^ it would 
 seem, to judge from editorial sympathy — and to 
 
76 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 be in deptli far beyond anything that the middle 
 class or poor folks can have any idea oi," added 
 the Doctor, with a sigh^ which was perhaps induced 
 more by cynical repining than pure sympathy^ as 
 he drank his sherry, and then turned to Mary, 
 and saw, with some amazement and alarm, her 
 crushed and wobegone aspect. 
 
 " Disappearance — death ?" she thought. ^^ Oh, 
 what does this mean ? Do I hear aright ? Am 
 I mad, asleep, or dreaming?" 
 
 " I see, my dear Miss Lennox, that your 
 tender susceptibilities are greatly shocked ; but 
 I can only tell you what I heard, and what the 
 local papers of this morning contain ; but first, 
 take a glass of wine, and then listen to me. 
 Take it, pray — nay, you must," and the kind Doc- 
 tor forced her to swallow that which nearly 
 choked her, and then resumed in his chirruping, 
 gossipy manner, "the terrible catastrophe," 
 happened thus — on Wednesday last — let me see, 
 was it Wednesday or Thursday ?" 
 
 " Wednesday, I suppose. Go on, in the name 
 of mercy !" said Mary, in a voice all unlike her 
 own; the rich chord was gone, and a cracked 
 unearthly sound now remained. 
 
 " Yes, my dear Miss Lennox, it was on Wed- 
 nesday, for the Berwick Warder has it so — 
 Captain Wedderburn dined with that gay man 
 of the world (rather too gay he is). Captain 
 Chesters, at the Haugh, but did not return home. 
 
SUSPENSE AND DREAD. 77 
 
 His non-appearance at breakfast next morning — 
 though Mr. Asloane rang the great house-bell 
 thrice — created no alarm among the family, as 
 it was supposed he had remained overnight with 
 his new sporting friend,, and would probably turn 
 up about luncheon time ; though as Chesters was 
 only a recent acquaintance, it excited a little 
 surprise at Willowdean that Captain Wedder- 
 burn would tax his hospitality. That I learned 
 from Mr. Asloane himself, as I had to ride over 
 to see one of the laundry-maids who had a 
 
 whitlow, which I treated successfully by '' 
 
 '^ Oh, go on — go on, I implore you V 
 " It was on her right thumb — well, you are 
 impatient, I see. After a time, a whisper came 
 of his having left Chesterhaugh before midnight 
 on Wednesday. This was alarming. If so, 
 where had he been for these twelve hours past ? 
 The butler came to Lady Wedderburn at the 
 usual hour about orders for the carriage, or 
 horses for riding ; they were both postponed, 
 and the luncheon was delayed. Master Robert, 
 his cousin. Lieutenant Ramornie, old Asloane, 
 all the gamekeepers, gardeners, and grooms; 
 even Sir John, and the Master of Ernescleugh, 
 with all his people, proceeded to beat the woods, 
 shrubberies, the park, and all the roads, but did 
 so in vain. No traces of the Captain were dis- 
 covered until yesterday, when a hat — a grey felt 
 wide-awake, known to be his — was found at 
 
78 LADY WEDDERBURN S WISH. 
 
 Buncle- edge, and his silver-mounted whip at 
 Falaknowe, about a mile further eastward. 
 There were no traces of blood, however. Pardon 
 me, for I seem to shock you : but last night the 
 darkest tidings of all came from Lady Juliana 
 Ernescleugh. A horse known to be his, a fine bay 
 hunter with black fetlocks, which he had pur- 
 chased from her son the Master, was found by 
 some of the Dunbar fishermen sorely bruised, 
 battered, and drowned, with saddle-girths re- 
 versed, beside the rocky cleugh or beach, some- 
 where near Fast Castle. So what has happened, 
 how he has perished or by what means, and as to 
 where his body may be lying, whether on the 
 land or in the sea, we are as yet helplessly and 
 hopelessly in the dark. It is a terrible and 
 melancholy catastrophe, and affects you deeply, 
 I see, my dear young lady. I know not whether 
 you ever saw Captain Wedderburn, but he was 
 one of the finest young men in the Merse.'''' 
 
 As the Doctor concluded this harrowing story, 
 calmly and quietly, but unwittingly dealing 
 death-stabs in her heart, poor Mary Lennox 
 sank quietly back with eyes closed into a recess 
 of the sofa; she was icy cold, and but for his 
 presence and the means he took to recover her, 
 by forcing her to take more wine, she must have 
 fainted. 
 
 A stupor or torpor seemed to come over her. 
 She became stunned, blind, and almost deprived 
 
SUSPENSE AND DREAD. 79 
 
 of the power of volition. She knew not what 
 to think or beUeve, or what to do. Aware of 
 the stern necessity for keeping up appearances 
 and for preventing the secrets of her heart from 
 becoming patent to a stranger, she made a vehe- 
 ment essay to start np and question the Doctor 
 again, only to find that he had been gone for 
 nearly an hour and she had known it not. 
 Neither she knew or cared what instructions 
 regarding herself he had left with her two 
 startled and dismayed domestics. 
 
 She only knew and could only realize that her 
 lover, her affianced husband, the secret husband 
 of her heart, had perished by some miserable 
 death, whether the result of foul play or some 
 terrible accident she might never know; and 
 now she recalled with grief and terror how she 
 had heard a horse galloping madly past, when 
 she looked at her watch on that fatal Wednesday 
 at midnight ; and the wild cry, the prompting, 
 as it seemed, of fear or of despair, that came 
 upward to her ear ; and how she had associated 
 that cry with the voice of Cyril Wedderburn ! 
 
 And his horse had been found at Ernescleugh, 
 near Fast Castle (the Wolfs Craig of Scotf s 
 romance), and she knew how frightfully steep 
 the rocks are there ! 
 
 Her kind, her handsome, and her loving Cyril ! 
 Never again would his strong arm caress her 
 slender waist, or his love-lit eyes gaze tenderly 
 
80 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 into hers; and now all his soft and loving ways 
 came vividly before her, mingled with a dreadful 
 sense of calamity and loss, till the very tears — 
 tears which she longed to mingle with those of 
 his haughty mother — almost choked her as she 
 lay on her bed, prostrate on her face. 
 
 On Wednesdav she had seen him last, and 
 this was Sunday forenoon : she could hear the 
 bells for service ringing in the \dllage church 
 about a mile distant to remind her of the fact, 
 and that four days — four days in this age of 
 steam and telegraphy had elapsed without trace 
 or tidings of her lost one ! 
 
 Then she became suddenly aware that her 
 father was ringing his hand- bell furiously, and 
 was querulously, even peevishly, demanding her 
 presence for something. 
 
 Her tears, and the cause of them, she was 
 alike compelled to conceal; so, after bathing her 
 eyes hurriedly, she tottered away to attend him 
 as usual. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MARY^S MISTAKE. 
 
 She regretted that slie had permitted her emotions 
 to overpower her so much in the presence of the 
 Doctor, and that hence he had been allowed to 
 depart without further questioning when she had 
 so many inquiries to make. From Alison Home 
 and her other domestic she could gather nothing, 
 save that on the same Wednesday, at midnight^ 
 they had both heard the swiftly-ridden horse 
 pass along the roadway, and also the strange cry 
 of the rider. 
 
 Could it be possible, she was ever asking of 
 herself, that they would meet no more ? Never 
 more in the thicket, never more at the stile in 
 the lane at the end of the Lee ? that she should 
 never again be gathered to his breast so kindly 
 and so tenderly? 
 
 CyriFs love had made her very happy ; so much 
 so that it often inspired her with gratitude to 
 God for blessing her so, and no shadow had 
 ever rested upon it, save the secrecy they were 
 
 VOL. I. 6 
 
82 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 compelled to practise^ as they hoped,, for a time 
 only, and being both proudly spirited, they had 
 felt that necessity a degradation and source of 
 irritation. Now all that and the love itself had 
 passed away, and a cloud of thought and gloom 
 black as midnight, seemed to envelop the pale 
 girl as she sat alone in the little chamber, gazing 
 listlessly at the sunlit scenery, and with no sound 
 in her ears save the beating of her heart. 
 
 Oh, had her brother Harry been spared to her, 
 thought she, CyriFs friend and comrade in India, 
 how differently might she have been situated ! 
 How she longed to rush to Willowdean and pro- 
 secute inquiries there, but dared not even give 
 expression to the thought ! 
 
 Only lately she had been anticipating in dread 
 the withdrawal or expiry of his short leave of 
 absence, and his departure to Turkey with the 
 proposed Allied Army. Now she felt that to see 
 him going forth even to face the perils and 
 chances of the threatened Russian war would be 
 a welcome exchange for the present doubt and 
 horror she endured. 
 
 All that day no food passed her lips, and as 
 evening drew on the dread of enduring another 
 night without some further intelligence proved 
 too much for her grief and impatience ; so the 
 craving to go forth and inquire personally — she 
 could not trust to the discretion of her servants, 
 and shrunk instinctively from their morbid sur- 
 
mart's mistake. 83 
 
 mises — ^became so strong, that on finding her 
 father sleeping calmly and peacefully after the 
 slight repast he deemed a dinner, she dressed 
 herself in haste to go out — but for where and to 
 whom were her next thoughts ? 
 
 The nearest house was Chesterhaugh ; it was 
 little more than four miles distant, and though 
 she shrunk from the idea of seeing or being seen 
 by Captain Chesters, she resolved, come what 
 might, to question his gatekeeper, as if casually^ 
 about the last he had seen of Cyril Wedderburn ; 
 for as the coldness between the two families was 
 pretty well known in that secluded district, she 
 felt assured that the man would imagine her to 
 be prompted by the merest curiosity. 
 
 As she set forth on foot, she sighed when 
 passing the empty coachhouse and the stables 
 where the hoofs of horses and the rattle of their 
 stall collars were heard no more. She was 
 young, active, and would walk the distance in 
 an hour; yet not to repine a little when she 
 thought of all that should and might have been, 
 was perhaps impossible. 
 
 She did not anticipate that the gatekeeper 
 could add much to the alarming details already 
 furnished by the Doctor, yet she longed to see 
 him as one who, however humble, had been the 
 last who looked on CyriFs winning face and 
 heard his cheerful voice ; moreover, the utter 
 solitude of her home had proved on this day 
 
 6—2 
 
84 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 intolerable. She dared not speak of the occur- 
 rence to her father, for he would be the last 
 perhaps to express genuine sympathy ; so the 
 desire to move abroad, to speak to some one, to 
 be doing anything bu^ sitting still and brooding, 
 became an irresistible impulse. 
 
 Full of her own thoughts as she walked on, 
 she did not perceive how stormy clouds had en- 
 veloped the afternoon sun ; that the dull grey 
 mist was rolling swiftly along the grassy glens 
 and upward to the slopes of the Lammermuirs, 
 and with how melancholy a sound the wind shook 
 in gusts the leafless trees of the old wood near 
 the Tower, while on the hill sides the shepherds 
 were driving fast their tlocks to the thatched 
 hughtSy or sheepfold in sheltered places. Neither 
 was she aware that her chief domestic, old Alison 
 Home, looked after her with mingled admiration 
 and compassion, as if reading something of her 
 secret, when she passed out upon the highway; 
 for Mary Lennox, though charming at times, was 
 looking unusually handsome, graceful, and com- 
 pact in her smart velvet hat and plume — the 
 wing of a golden pheasant shot for her by Cyril 
 — her cuffs and muff of grey Iceland duck, her 
 jacket of sealskin (imitation, avc are sorry to say), 
 her veil drawn tightly over her pretty face and 
 ears, and her skirts looped up, less to show the 
 scarlet petticoat, taper ankles, and balmorals, 
 than for activity, as she set forth. 
 
Mary's mistake. 83 
 
 Which of all those hoof-marks she could trace 
 upon the road were those of CyriFs fatal horse ? 
 How often had she walked along that road to 
 church and to the nearest market town since 
 they had lost their carriage, but never with a 
 heart so heavy, and with such a sensation of 
 being benumbed and stupefied with grief. 
 
 " Sorrow, misery, and horror \" she muttered 
 from time to time. '^ Oh what a life is before me 
 now ! Cyril, Cyril V' and at the sound of his 
 name, even on her own lips, the tears rolled forth 
 beneath the closely drawn veil, and the little 
 hands were wrung convulsively within her muflp. 
 
 Every moment she thought that she must see 
 him coming to meet her; it seemed impossible 
 that he could be thus blotted out of existence ! 
 All appeared chaos and confusion to Mary as she 
 walked on ; the order of events and the course of 
 time seemed to be alike inverted. 
 
 It appeared as if years had elapsed since she 
 had last seen Cyril — last stood in his close em- 
 brace in yonder thicket, and heard his loving 
 voice, while the events of years ago seemed to 
 have happened yesterday ; even his arrival from 
 India, when she was much younger, with her 
 dead brother^s sword and watch, his rings and 
 lock of hair, and the happy subsequent time 
 when his and her secret intimacy began. How 
 much had passed since then ; they were lovers, 
 and engaged, so solemnly too — and now — the 
 
86 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 mass of ■anuttered thouglits seemed to rend her 
 heart ! 
 
 Circumstances had given her few friends, and 
 now she sorely felt the want of one. 
 
 School companions^ girls from town and else- 
 where, with gay and happy home circles, had 
 occasionally broken the monotony of her life by 
 becoming her guests ; but she grew painfully 
 conscious that owing to the dreary seclusion of 
 the old Tower, where few sounds met the ear save 
 the bleating of sheep or the whistle of the curlew, 
 and also from her father^s querulous eccentricity, 
 they curtailed their visits, and seldom or never 
 came again. Then, as he ailed so frequently and 
 aged so fast, she could not accept invitations in 
 return, even those given by neighbours so near 
 as Lady Ernescleugh and others, who were dis- 
 posed to be kind to the lonely little Chatelaine 
 of Lonewoodlee. 
 
 Ere long she reached the handsome iron gate 
 and grotesque little lodge of Chesterhaugh, 
 beyond which she could see the sweep of the 
 gravelled approach that led to the house. The 
 park was perfectly bare and open now, as the 
 thriftless Captain had long since converted into 
 cash every tree on the estate ; and the park itself, 
 once his father^s pride, was now let to a grazier 
 of cattle. 
 
 Mary was flushed and breathless as she ap- 
 proached the gate. She had walked very quick 
 
mae-y's mistake. 87 
 
 that she might the sooner return, and she had 
 not been insensible to the fast increasing coldness 
 of the temperature, the howling of the March 
 wind, and the gathering of dark masses of cloud 
 in the east, hastening, or anticipating by nearly 
 an hour, the shades of evening. 
 
 She was in the act of questioning old Tony 
 Heron, the lodgekeeper, who approached her 
 respectfully with a hand at his hat, " if the tidings 
 were true that Captain Wedderburn" — how her 
 voice faltered as her quivering lips pronounced 
 the name — " had really suffered by some accident 
 after leaving Chesterhaugh," when the sound of 
 hoofs struck her ear, and before the man could 
 fully reply, Captain Chesters — in nearly the same 
 costume in which he had breakfasted at Willow- 
 dean — dashed up, accompanied by his favourite 
 and only groom, Billy Trayner, to whom he at 
 once threw the reins of his horse on dismounting. 
 
 " Good morning, Miss Lennox," said he, lifting 
 his hat with profound courtesy. 
 
 '' It is evening, rather,^^ said Mary, covered 
 with confusion and annoyance by this unexpected 
 rencontre J ^^ and I must not delay, lest poor 
 papa " 
 
 " Ah ! to be sure ; but the old gentleman was 
 all right, fast asleep, Alison told me, as I stopped 
 for a moment at the Tower to inquire for you 
 in passing. But to what good fairy is the 
 humble house of Chesterhaugh indebted for the 
 
88 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 honour of a visit from you,, Miss Lennox^ and 
 alone too?" he added, as lie led her very de- 
 liberately inside the gate, which the keeper shut ; 
 '^ and you have no demon of a duenna or chape- 
 ron. It beats cock-fighting, ^ bangs Banagher/ 
 as O^ Grady of ours used to say." 
 
 " You make me feel more and more the ex- 
 treme awkwardness of my situation by this 
 banter, Captain Chesters," said Mary ; " but — 
 but " 
 
 " Out with it. You came to ask about young 
 Wedderburn !" exclaimed Chesters, bluntly. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the lodgekeeper, officiousl ; 
 ^' she was just asking me when you rode up, and 
 I was about to tell her " 
 
 " That according to our old Scottish proverb, 
 ^ a fu' man and a fasting horse go quickly 
 home' — but, by Jove ! Cpil Wedderburn went 
 rather further than he quite reckoned on." 
 
 ^^I ask pardon, sir, but I think you are 
 wrong," said the man, touching his hat ; ^' the 
 Captain was not the worse of wine, though his 
 horse seemed mad." 
 
 " How the devil should you know anything 
 about it ? Silence, Tony !" 
 
 " I let him out, and shut the gate." 
 
 " Then shut your mouth now, or speak only 
 when you are spoken to," said the Captain, 
 furiously, on which the man slunk into his lodge, 
 abashed. 
 
Mary's mistake. 89 
 
 " Poor Cyril Wedderburn V' said Mary, biting 
 her nether lip to control her emotion. 
 
 " He left Chesterhaugh quietly enough, but 
 his horse was disposed to be restive, straining 
 hard on the curb, and so forth, and would seem 
 to have run away with him. It is a very 
 mysterious and melancholy affair," added Ches- 
 ters, drawing off one of his riding gloves ; " but 
 if you will permit me to lead you into the house 
 I shall then tell you all about it, at least, all 
 that I can pretend to know." 
 
 " Thanks, no, excuse me," replied Mary, 
 hurriedly, as she was nearly swept away by a 
 sudden gust of wind, while hail and snow came 
 on suddenly with great force and density 
 " Good Heavens !" she exclaimed, " it is quite a 
 storm. I must take shelter here a few minutes, 
 if you will permit me." 
 
 " In my gate-lodge ? Impossible ! Absurd ! 
 Come with me into the house, and if the blast 
 does not lull in a few minutes, I shall have the 
 pleasure of driving you over to Lonewoodlee." 
 
 Mary looked rather despairingly through the 
 bars of the handsome iron gate, and saw the 
 bleak wide moorland waste she had traversed 
 whitening fast, and that the road was becoming 
 more and more obscure, as the snow covered and 
 the darkness overshadowed it ; and while her 
 tears and her repugnance to accept the invitation 
 increased, she said — 
 
90 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 " Thank you_, Captain Chesters ; you are very 
 kind. I was most rash to come; but I could 
 scarcely walk back now, and alone too.^^ 
 
 " To walk alone ; the thing is not to be thought 
 of. And do not talk of thanks, you owe me 
 none. Do permit me." And taking her hand 
 with all the suavity he could assume — for Chesters 
 was harassed in aspect, having been questioned 
 and cross- questioned by the Procurator Fiscal 
 and the constabulary till he was sickened by the 
 name of Cyril Wedderburn — he conducted Mary 
 into the house of Chesterhaugh, where she had 
 not been for several years, since she was a little 
 girl and led by her father's hand. 
 
 Through the marble-floored and oak-panelled 
 entrance-hall, which was hung with spoils of the 
 field and chase — trophies of arms brought by 
 Chesters from India, tiger skins, skulls and 
 horns, with a multitude of whips and spurs, 
 cloaks and riding-boots ; thence through a long 
 corridor, that in his father's time had been 
 furnished by magnificent cabinets of buhl and 
 marqueterie, and hung with fine old paintings, all 
 of which had gone, like the trees of the park — 
 he led her into a handsome and well-appointed 
 dining-room. 
 
 Though the assurance given by Chesters 
 that he had left her father asleep but a short 
 time before was not strictly true, it tended to 
 soothe Mary's mind a little till the shower of 
 
Mary's mistake. 91 
 
 hail that crashed on the windows of the room 
 disturbed her^ all the more that the closely-drawn 
 curtains, and the twelve waxlights in the chan- 
 delier of Florentine bronze, suggested ideas of 
 nightfall, though the hour was barely six o^clock. 
 
 Chesters courteously drew a chair for her near 
 the fire, and led her to it. 
 
 " Permit me to relieve you of your mufi" and 
 hat. Wont you even lift your veil?^'' he en- 
 treated, as he leant, half caressingly, over her 
 chair ; but Mary was determined to remain in 
 all her walking gear, to be ready for departure, 
 and said — 
 
 ^' Captain Chesters, do kindly order Trayner 
 to drive me home without delay.^'' 
 
 " Why such haste V 
 
 '' I perceive that you are just going to dine.^^ 
 
 "And will you not share my poor bachelor 
 fare, and by your presence shed a light over my 
 lonely board for an hour or so, and then I shall 
 drive you home in person V 
 
 But Mary was resolute. No food had passed 
 her lips ; but she had dined, she said, long ago, 
 by her papa^s bedside. Go she must, and at 
 once, she added, and was only pleased that her 
 tears and her blushes of irritation were hidden 
 by her tightly drawn veil, as with a very peculiar 
 expression in his face. Captain Chesters languidly 
 rang the bell for Trayner. 
 
 Unlike her gloomy paternal residence, and 
 
92 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 unlike the more elegant and modern mansion of 
 Willowdean, the house of Chesterhaugh had 
 been built in the reign of George II._, when art 
 was at its lowest ebb in Scotland^ and taste was 
 studied less than solid comfort. It was a great 
 square blocks three stories in height,, with all its 
 chimneys clustered in the centre ; the roof sloped 
 down from them in the pavilion form, and the out- 
 side walls were roughcast with gravel and lime ; 
 and poor Mary thought sadly of her own older- 
 fashioned and more sordid home, and of the few 
 comforts that surrounded the declining days of 
 her father, as she surveyed and contrasted with 
 a rapid glance all the details of the spacious and 
 lofty dining-room of Chesterhaugh — the walnut- 
 wood furniture so elaborately carved, the chairs 
 of green morocco, the crimson damask window- 
 curtains with their gilded cornices, the many 
 pictures in which horses seemed to predominate 
 in place of men ; the brilliant plate console 
 mirrors, in which all these objects were repro- 
 duced in two endless perspectives ; the elegant 
 ironstone dinner-service of pink and gold, laid 
 for Chesters ; the massive plate ; the claret airing 
 near the fire — and she marvelled how all this 
 luxury was supported, when remembering that 
 the Captain had the reputation of being a spend- 
 thrift, a bankrupt, and worse. 
 
 She little knew that Cyril Wedderburn, when 
 last he had been in that room, had sat in the 
 
Mary's mistake. 93 
 
 very chair she now occupied; but Chesters re- 
 membered the circumstance, and a disdainful 
 smile crossed bis face as he did so. 
 
 Again and again he pressed her to take wine ; 
 but Mary steadily declined ; and at last, after 
 being rung for thrice, Mr. Bill Trayner appeared 
 — a very good specimen of a smart but un- 
 scrupulous groom, small in stature, with a long 
 body and short bandy legs, a mean and narrow 
 forehead, sleek black hair, shorn short, with a 
 circular lock or curl plastered on each pro- 
 minent cheek-bone, and with sharp, cunning 
 eyes. 
 
 Bill was a Scotchman of Newmarket growth, 
 and to all the worst points of the national cha- 
 racter, added the roguery that may be so easily 
 gained in the atmosphere of the betting-house, 
 the stable-yard, and training-ground. He kept 
 a betting-book as well as his master, whom he 
 was always ready to second in mischief, and to 
 betray, if it suited his private interests to 
 do so. 
 
 A perfect oracle on all matters pertaining to 
 the turf, he knew by heart or rote all the 
 entries and engagements made at the various 
 race meetings throughout the country ; and knew 
 shrewdly which horses were the best to back and 
 which were likely to be scratched. 
 
 " How about the waggonette, Trayner ?' said 
 Chesters. " You know I have no other carriage, 
 
94 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 Miss Lennox/' lie added^ parenthetically, to 
 Mary. 
 
 " Tlie waggonette, sir/"* repeated Trayner, 
 trying to fathom the meaning of a peculiar glance 
 his master gave him. 
 
 " Yes, the waggonette with the patent springs," 
 resumed Chesters, with a remarkably knowing 
 wink. 
 
 " The springs is broke, sir,'"* replied Trayner, 
 with a similar mode of telegraph, when he glanced 
 at Miss Lennox, and took in the whole situa- 
 tion. 
 
 " Broken — the devil they are V 
 
 " All to smash, sir.'' 
 
 " Then the waggonette wont be in working 
 order for " 
 
 " Not for ever so long, sir.'' 
 
 " Then I must walk, and at once !" said Mary, 
 rising from her chair. '^ I have not a moment 
 to lose." 
 
 " Walk ? Listen to the rising blast and the 
 crash of the hailstones," urged Chesters. 
 
 '*^Ah, there's more there than hailstones, 
 Miss," said Trayner. " It is a regular feeding 
 storm. The snow is some inches deep already." 
 
 '' Oh, my poor papa !" exclaimed Mary. " If 
 he is awake and calling for me ! Surely the 
 lodgekeeper will accompany me ?" 
 
 " The two old women at Lonewoodlee will 
 surely suffice as attendants for a couple of 
 hours." 
 
Mary's mistake. 95 
 
 " Hours ! Impossible, Captain Chesters V 
 "That will do, Trayner. You may go/' said 
 Chesters, and his fidus Achates vanished with 
 a leer, which he conveyed to the servants in the 
 hall below, together with the information that 
 '^ the master had been and gone and done it 
 again. Kerens a lark ! He^s got that girl of 
 old Lennoxes, and means to keep her in Chester- 
 haugh all night if he can — only she seems spirited, 
 and likely to kick over the traces." 
 
 Mary had seen something of the man^s ex- 
 pression of face as he retired, and she felt that 
 in her anxiety and grief for Cyril Wedderburn 
 she had made a mistake it was too late to remedy 
 now j but it was destined to have a fatal effect 
 upon her interests and happiness at a future 
 time. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A SNARE, 
 
 She rushed to the window and drew back the 
 heavy damask curtains. Snow — snow and hail 
 on the bitter blustering wind of March had 
 whitened all the moorland waste^ and was 
 deepening fast there. 
 
 She permitted the curtain to drop from her 
 tremulous baud, and returned in a kind of de- 
 spair to her seat ; for although the distance 
 between her and home was short, the night was 
 too wild for her to venture forth alone. 
 
 " It will serve no purpose your taking this 
 little delay so much to heart/^ said Chesters. 
 " You must have patience. Pray compose your- 
 self, and do lay aside your wraps.^^ 
 
 " Excuse me, I cannot," replied Mary, in a 
 choking voice. 
 
 "And so you came to ask about young 
 Wedderburn ?" 
 
 " Yes," faltered Mary ; " but only of the gate- 
 keeper as I was passing." 
 
A SNARE. 97 
 
 '^ That young muflP, tlie Master of Ernescleugli, 
 is making himself excessively busy in the affair/' 
 
 " But they are — alas ! must we say were — 
 neighbours — friends/'' urged Mary, with surprise 
 at his tone. 
 
 '^ That is no reason why he should have come 
 to me thrice with the people of the Procurator 
 Fiscal in the prosecution of inquiries. He should 
 join his regiment in London, or his papa, ray 
 Lord Ernescleugh_, at his government in the 
 Ionian Isles, and leave Cyril Wedderburn and 
 his fate to the family and the local authorities ; 
 but he'll linger on here no doubt, and enter stakes 
 for the heiress.'^ 
 
 " What heiress f' 
 
 " Haven't you heard about her ?" asked 
 Chesters, with a languid but malevolent smile. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Sir John Wedderburn's brother William has 
 died lately at Madras, and left his whole fortune, 
 some three hundred thousand pounds at least, 
 with a palace in the Choultry, to his only 
 daughter — a girl, who is coming to Willowdean 
 as her new home. She is a great beauty, they 
 say; and Mamma Wedderburn," he added, a 
 little spitefully, '' had an eye on her as a wife 
 for Cyril." 
 
 '^ 1 know nothing of it," sighed Mary. 
 
 '^Ah, but I do. I was at breakfast with the 
 family on the morning the news came, and I 
 
 VOL. I. 7 
 
98 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 read tlie whole intention in Lady Wedderbnrn^s 
 face and manner; bnt now^, as Cyril has gone, 
 that legal prig Bob will very likely have a chance 
 of making her a prize /^ 
 
 Mary only answered these surmises so slangily 
 expressed by her silent tears ; but while he spoke 
 she remembered,, as one in a dream — for she had 
 tiot slept since she heard them — the words of the 
 Doctor about a rich bride in prospect for her lost 
 Cyril. 
 
 But the rumour excited neither jealousy nor 
 fear. Oh^ what did it matter now ! 
 
 She looked so exquisitely lady-like as she sat 
 with her little hands folded in her tiny muff 
 which rested on her knees, and her veiled 
 face upturned to Chesters, that he — no bad judge 
 of breeding in women or horses — thought what 
 a creditable-looking wife she would make for him 
 or any man ; but she was pooi', and he was up 
 to the ears in debt ; thus neither her poverty nor 
 her beauty excited his pity, though they gave 
 quick suggestion to his worst passions. He 
 loved Mary in a fashion of his own ; but he 
 knew that the wife for him must have money, 
 and poor Mary had none. 
 
 Full of grief as he saw she was for the terrible 
 and mysterious disappearance of Cyril Weddcr- 
 burn, Captain llooke Chesters was far too 
 judicious, or far too cunning, to press any suit of 
 his own just tiien. He could wait his oppor- 
 
A SNARE. 99 
 
 tunity ; but lie tliouglit that if by luring or de- 
 taining her under any pretence in bis own bouse 
 for a few bours_, be could compromise, or place 
 ber in a false position, it would achieve all be 
 wanted at the time. 
 
 All that day, we have said, she bad not taken 
 food, yet be pressed ber in vain to join him at 
 dinner. She felt weak, ill, and giddy. The 
 room seemed to become larger and larger still ; 
 its further end appeared to recede as if to a vast 
 distance ; all around ber became like a species of 
 phantasmagoria, and only by a violent effort of 
 ber own will did she resist the faintness that was 
 stealing over her. 
 
 She was in an agony of mind as the hours of 
 the stormy night wore on. 
 
 She pictured to herself her ailing and querulous 
 father asking for her, in an alarm that might 
 prove detrimental to his shaken system — missing 
 the poor wan girl, who, in her faded dressing- 
 gown, was at all hours of the weary night ever 
 at hand to give him the medicines or soothing 
 draughts prescribed for him by Doctor Squills ; 
 ever ready to arrange the pillows ; to caress him 
 and bathe his hot and tremulous hands or 
 aching bead with cold water, with Rimmel or 
 other aromatic vinegar ; and she was here — here 
 at Cliesterhaugh, imprisoned by the darkness, the 
 bail, and the snow ! 
 
 Chesters bad bis own dark purpose to achieve, 
 
 7—^ 
 
100 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 and as he forsook champagne for claret, and 
 idled over his walnuts, he viewed her impatience 
 and her mental agony with perfect composure, 
 though treating her with well-bred sympathy the 
 while. 
 
 But, as the night wore on, Mary felt more 
 and more the awkwardness, the ultimate doubt 
 and danger of her position, in being thus alone, 
 without a lady friend or chaperon, in the house 
 of a bachelor ; and more than all, one who bore 
 such a local reputation as Ralph Rooke Chesters ! 
 She was conscious that the very servant — he of 
 the inevitable calves and plush — who removed 
 the dinner and brought in maraschino and coffee, 
 inspired by some of Mr. Bill Trayner^s knowing 
 remarks and cruel inferences in the servants' 
 hall below, regarded her with curious eyes. 
 
 It has been said that ^' even bad men have 
 some good traits in them, and that selfish men 
 are capable oi feeling." 
 
 Perhaps it may be so ; but Chesters was in- 
 capable of sensibility or caring for any one but 
 himself, and was destitute of a single good trait 
 or generous emotion; so even while watching 
 Mary's restlessness, agitation, and her evident 
 dread of the detention she was undergoing, he 
 muttered, inwardly — 
 
 " Pshaw ! women can't help loving those who 
 love them ; so I'll make a bold attempt to cozen, 
 if I cannot crush or win her !" 
 
A SNARE. 101 
 
 It was perhaps a little dangerous for Mary 
 that, though she often expressed and displayed a 
 great aversion of Chesters, there were times 
 when she did not altogether feel it ; for few 
 women can hate a man who professes to love 
 and consequently admire them : yet, seeing the 
 full sense of her false position, she began to hate 
 and fear him now. 
 
 Should the story get abroad that she had 
 spent some hours in his house, under any cir- 
 cumstances, it was a contretemps that might cost 
 her dear; for how would the censorious world 
 interpret her conduct or acknowledge her reason? 
 That she had come to inquire about the fate of 
 Cyril Wedderburn, and been storm stayed, few 
 would believe, for what vital interest was she 
 supposed to have in the lost heir of Willowdean? 
 
 Alas, alas ! for secret loves. 
 
 Secluded though her life had been at Lone- 
 woodlee, she knew quite enough of the world to 
 be aware that a young lady could not, with pro- 
 priety, visit a gay young bachelor as she appeared 
 to have done — one to whom she was neither re- 
 lated nor engaged — and it was this consciousness, 
 together with the craving desire to be again by 
 her father^s side, that made her so steadily 
 resist taking any refreshment, even coffee, or 
 doffing any part of her costume, and which made 
 her writhe under the well-bred commonplaces 
 uttered by Chesters, such as that he " hoped she 
 
102 LADr wedderburn's wish. 
 
 wouldn^t fret. Wliat the deuce was tlie good of 
 it ! The storm must soon abate ; indeed, it was 
 abating now. It is very unfortunate, no doubt/^ 
 and all that sort of thing ; adding, " but it is 
 very stupid work this, and we should do something 
 to amuse each other/^ 
 
 Yet he could neither soothe nor amuse her; 
 he could not leave her for the smoking-room ; 
 neither could he smoke in her presence,, and so 
 betook him to champagne dashed with brandy, a 
 perilous mixture, through the influence of which 
 some very daring ideas began to form in his 
 cunning brain. 
 
 Bad, bold, and daring as he was, Rooke 
 Chesters would scarcely have ventured to trepan 
 a girl of Mary Lennoxes undoubted rank in the 
 county into a false position, but for his perfect 
 knowledge of her father's helplessness, his poverty, 
 and the bill he possessed. Moreover, the only 
 man who would have protected her — the lover 
 whose arms he had seen around her in the 
 thicket — was gone, no one knew where or 
 how. 
 
 "There is a climax in this life,'' says a writer, 
 with stern truth, ^' a climax in mental and 
 bodily pain, after which we can feel no more, 
 and after it all other sources of emotion appear 
 tame by comparison." And this climax had poor 
 Mary passed already. 
 
 Cyril was gone ; her father she knew was 
 
A SNARE. 103 
 
 dying; and when he went, who would she have 
 to care for, to study, or to love ? Hence for a 
 time, perhaps, she cared less what happened to 
 herself, till the massive black marble clock on the 
 mantelpiece struck the alarming hour of eleven. 
 
 '^ Eleven ! I have been here five whole hours ! 
 Oh, I shall go afoot, if I die on the moor ! I 
 cannot and must not stay here another moment V 
 she exclaimed^ starting from her chair and moving 
 towards the door. ^' Oh, papa — my own papa — 
 how much you may have missed me V 
 
 "Be not in such a hurry, pray. I had a 
 pleasant surprise for you,^^ said he, laughing. 
 
 " How, Captain Chesters T^ 
 
 " Trayner must have patched up the springs of 
 the waggonette by this time. He is a clever 
 fellow, Trayner, and if the horses are put to, I 
 shall take you over in a few minutes.^^ 
 
 " Ohj thanks — a thousand times thanks \" 
 
 " No thanks are necessary.^' 
 
 Again he rang the bell, and said, with perfect 
 calmness, to the servant who answered the 
 summons — 
 
 c( fpgj^j^ Trayner to get out the waggonette, if it 
 is ready ; trace the horses, and bring it round to 
 the front door."*' 
 
 Without perceiving in the least the intelligent 
 glance that passed between Chesters and his 
 domestic, Mary could know that she had been 
 deluded and drawn into a species of snare, the 
 
104 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 object of which she did not then quite clearly 
 comprehend. 
 
 In a few minutes more the tramp of horses^ 
 hoofs and the muffled sound of wheels amid the 
 snow without were heard, and JNIary rose^ her 
 face almost beaming with delight through her 
 veil, as she took his proffered arm to be led forth 
 on her way home at last. 
 
 The waggonette, a veiy handsome ^^ bang-up 
 affair/^ as Chesters deemed it, was drawn up close 
 to the flight of steps which led to the entrance 
 door ; and the long lines of radiance from its 
 two silver lamps shone far amid the white waste 
 of snow in the now treeless park. The storm had 
 ceased, the wind had passed away, and the 
 clouds were divided in Heaven overhead ; the 
 stars shone out with frosty brilliance, and 
 the night was calm and clear. The steam 
 from the quivering nostrils of the impatient 
 horses curled up in white wreaths above their 
 heads. 
 
 Chesters lifted Mary — somewhat liugcringly, 
 even caressingly perhaps, as he did so — upon the 
 front seat, and carefully folded a warm railway- 
 rug over her shoulders ; then buttoning the 
 leather apron across her knees as he took his 
 seat beside her. Mr. Bill Trayner vaulted up 
 behind, and away they went, yet it was close on 
 the hour of twelve (midnight) ere they were clear 
 of the lodge-gates, the drowsy keeper of which 
 observed with surj^rise the lady who was still 
 
A SNARE. 105 
 
 his master's companion — Miss Lennox of Lone- 
 woodlee ! 
 
 As Chesters bent his face close to hers^ he 
 thought the time had come when he might ven- 
 ture to say something tender, and the cham- 
 pagne he had imbibed caused him to do it 
 bluntly. 
 
 '^ Women, like men, may love many times in 
 life ; but none. Miss Lennox, as I now love you 
 — believe me, I speak from my heart/' 
 
 " At this time I entreat you not to torment 
 me in that way,'' said Mary ; '' in Heaven's name, 
 I implore you !" she continued. 
 
 " Ah, you think only of Cyril Wedderburn !'' 
 was the spiteful rejoinder. 
 
 ^^ I do," said Mary, a dash of anger mingling 
 with her grief, as her tears fell fast again. 
 
 " I am a lover as well as he was." 
 
 ^^ Of mine, do you mean ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 ^' No, sir — no," replied Mary, firmly. " I 
 cannot permit you to talk thus, and take advan- 
 tage of my situation." 
 
 " What the deuce do you mean ?" he asked, 
 bluntly. 
 
 " That you are no lover, though a love- 
 maker." 
 
 " Are they not the same ?" asked Chesters, 
 with unaffected surprise. 
 
 " Nay, Captain Chesters^ the difference be- 
 tween them is great." 
 
106 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 " As you please/^ said he^ biting his nether 
 lip^ while he lightly touched the horses with the 
 lash about the ears. 
 
 The lodge-gate had scarcely closed behind 
 them when a mounted gentleman, wearing an 
 Inverness cape of rough material (which, like his 
 half-bullet hat, was well coated with snow), and 
 long black overalls, came up at a hard trot, ac- 
 companied by a diminutive groom. On passing 
 the waggonette, he curbed his horse abruptly 
 back upon his haunches, and half looking round, 
 cried, cheerily — 
 
 " Hallo, Chesters, old fellow, Avhere are you 
 going ? A bitter night for March V 
 
 <( Very. Good night,^^ replied Chesters, with- 
 out stopping ; for the speaker was young Everard 
 Home, the Master of Ernescleugh, who was very 
 much surprised to see a young lady leaving the 
 gate of Chesterhaugh at that time of night, and 
 alone with Rooke Chesters ! But in a few mi- 
 nutes he was perfectly enlightened on the subject 
 by his groom, who rang the lodge -bell on pretence 
 of wanting a light for his cigar. 
 
 A terror seized Mary lest she might have been 
 recognised by these men. She said nothing of 
 it to Chesters, for the deduction was humiliating ; 
 but her tears fell again, and she whispered in her 
 heart — 
 
 " Oh, what matter is it. I have no Cyril 
 now r 
 
A SNARE. 107 
 
 She was soon deposited^ with great politeness 
 on the part of Chesters^ at her own door, and in 
 her anxiety and irritation she darted in and closed 
 it^ forgetting even to thank him for his escort. 
 
 Her father had slept soundly for hours ; but 
 now he was awake_, and calling alternately for 
 her and his dead son Harry^ upbraiding them 
 both for neglect^ and threatening that he would 
 break his own neck when next he rode to the 
 hounds, " even as he once hoped that fellow 
 Wedderburn had done -/' and Mary^s heart died 
 within her, when she found his intellect thus 
 wandering. But the brave girl cast aside her 
 wrappings, took his old head carefully in her 
 tender arms, and strove to forget, what might be 
 nervous fancy only, that her two drowsy domes- 
 tics who had seen her arrive in Chesters^ equi- 
 page, looked somewhat oddly on her, and at each 
 other. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 CHESTERHAUGH. 
 
 Let us now recur to a fe^Y nights ago^ for the 
 unravelling of much of this mystery. 
 
 With the soft memory of a minute and deli- 
 cate little face that had been for nearly an hour 
 so close to his own in the dark thicket^ and all 
 unaware that he had been observed or watched^ 
 Cj^il Wedderburn rode at a hard gallojo from 
 Loiiewoodlee^ and ere long had reined uj) at 
 Chesterhaughj tossed his bridle to the obsequious 
 Bill Trayner, who tugged his forelock as he led 
 admiringly away the bay hunter^ and then Cyril 
 was ushered into the same dining-room in which 
 Mary Lennox was afterwards to spend the weary 
 and anxious hours we have described. 
 
 " Glad to see you, Wedderburn/'' said the 
 host, taking his proffered hand ; " punctual to a 
 minute nearly.'^ 
 
 ^•"Nay, scarcely. Fm a quarter of an hour 
 late/^ replied Cyril, who was flushed by the rasp- 
 ing pace at which he had ridden the few miles 
 
CHESTERHAUGH. 109 
 
 that lay between Chest erhaugh and Willow- 
 dean. 
 
 " The salmon wont be spoiled^ I daresay/'' said 
 Chesters, with an imperceptible smile ; " but it 
 takes one some time to get round that thicket at 
 Lonewoodlee, if one^s horse don^t clear the stile. 
 After your ride, have a B and S/"* 
 
 " Thanks ; no. I suppose you mean brandy 
 and soda T' said Cyril, who disliked slang, and 
 who coloured a little at the reference to the 
 thicket at Lonewoodlee. 
 
 "A glass of Madeira then, or a nip of Kimmel 7^ 
 
 ^' Neither. I have an excellent appetite, and 
 don^t wish it spoiled.^^ 
 
 " Cautious V muttered Chesters, under his 
 moustache, as he eyed with covert malevolence 
 and suspicion the open and handsome counte- 
 nance of his guest, who sat in a lounging yet 
 elegant attitude in one of the soft elbow-chairs. 
 
 ^" Co\ers for two only, I perceive ; so we dine 
 alone ?' 
 
 " Yes. I wanted Home of Ernescleugh to 
 join us ; but he is engaged. By-the-bye, I 
 should have asked your cousin Bamornie, and 
 your brother Bob, but '^ 
 
 '' Robert is not a player, neither is Horace, 
 and we meant to turn a card to-night,^^ said 
 Cyril, coldly, and evidently disliking the assump- 
 tion of familiarity in the other, who was but a 
 recent acquaintance. 
 
110 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 " I knew that — hence my omission/^ 
 The real reason was_, that when Chesters played 
 he disliked to have spectators. 
 
 ^^And now let us to dinner/"* he added^ as 
 they seated themselves at table. 
 
 The viands were all that could be desired, and 
 the wines also were unexceptionable. Cyril was 
 not a toper, so the suggestions of Chesters to 
 try various heady vintages fell flatly on his ear, 
 as he contented himself with pale dry sherry, an 
 occasional glass of Sauterne, and after dinner 
 adhered rigidly to claret, greatly to the disgust, 
 apparently, of his entertainer. 
 
 Their conversation ran for a time on the topics 
 of the day ; the increasing prospects of a war in 
 the East ; the departure of our fleet for the 
 Baltic, with hopes that '^ old Charlie Napier 
 would knock Cronstadt to pieces ;" and the 
 chances of the " sick man at Stamboul being," 
 as Chesters phrased it, " snufi"ed out by the 
 Russians," unless France, Britain, and Sardinia 
 were prompt in succouring him. 
 
 Then came local matters, the pack of harriers, 
 the master of the foxhounds, and his new mode 
 of hunting the country ; race meetings and 
 sporting news of various kinds, till after the 
 claret jug had travelled pretty often between the 
 two, Chesters, with his own secret purposes and 
 his own ends in view, began to talk on matters 
 more nearly concerning themselves ; but not 
 
CHESTERHAUGH. Ill 
 
 until tlie cloth had been removed and the ser- 
 vants had "withdrawn. 
 
 " When does your Indian cousin arrive V 
 
 " Don^t exactly know," replied Cyril, curtly. 
 
 " Ah ! when you are in Turkey^ Lady Wed- 
 derburn will have to play the duenna closely 
 with the heiress — three hundred thousand pounds, 
 by Jove V 
 
 " Her fortune is said to exceed that." 
 
 '^Fellows will swarm round her like flies 
 round a honey-pot.^^ 
 
 Cyril made no reply, but toyed with the 
 embossed grape scissors. 
 
 ^* Will your family winter in Edinburgh or 
 London?" asked Chesters. 
 
 ^^ In London, of course ; if they don^t remain 
 at Willowdean." 
 
 " Edinburgh is a seedy place, after all, with 
 its legal prigs and tradesmen's daughters — ^ mer- 
 chants,'' as Dr. Johnson laughingly said they called 
 themselves. What would she do amid its 'upper 
 ten dozen T No suitable match would be there, 
 and small amusement among its dreary gaieties." 
 
 " You talk bitterly of the Athens of the 
 North," said Cyril, smiling. 
 
 The truth was, that Chesters had been black- 
 balled at one or two of the clubs there ; his pro- 
 posal, that character was estimated at a low figure 
 indeed. After a pause, he said, abruptly — 
 
 " Why don't you cut the service now " 
 
112 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 " On the eve of a war V^ exclaimed Cyril. 
 
 " Yes ; and cut in for the heiress. I should if 
 I were you^ and I think Lady Wedderburn would 
 like it." 
 
 " I trust, Captain Chesters, and I doubt it 
 not, that Lady Wedderburn will leave me to 
 choose for myself/"* said Cyril, with considerable 
 hauteur at what he justly deemed presumption 
 in the other. 
 
 " Don^t take it up that way, my dear fellow. 
 Pardonnez moi, and let us say no more about 
 it. Will you try a glass of my port ? I have 
 some that has been thirty years in the cellar; 
 it belonged to my father when he was master of 
 the foxhounds, and he was as good a judge of 
 wine as of horses. ^^ 
 
 " Thanks ; no. 1^11 adhere to the claret. It 
 is one of the curses which attend the heir to a 
 fortune or a title — even a baronetcy," resumed 
 Cyril, with reference to Chesters^ advice, and 
 feeling considerably ruffled, " to have his matri- 
 monial views or intentions made the subject of 
 debate and speculation among aunts, match- 
 making mothers, and meddling friends. This 
 or that girl will be suggested to him, and per- 
 petually thrown in the way till he shudders at 
 her name ; while the one he might prefer — the 
 one whom perhaps he loves in secret — is deemed 
 unsuitable, and is sedulously kept from him. 
 
 " Ah, yes — very true," said Chesters ; and as 
 
CHESTERHAUGH. 113 
 
 the voice of Cyril grew gradually tremulous^ the 
 memory of the former recurred to the recent 
 scene in the thicket, and a pang of jealousy shot 
 through his heart. 
 
 Ch esters and Cyril alike loved the pure and 
 simple-minded Mary, and it was perhaps strange 
 they should both do so, as they were so different 
 in their habits, tastes, and nature. The former 
 was a man without soul or heart — selfish and 
 sensual. The latter was innately refined, so his 
 love was as full of delicacy, tenderness, com- 
 passion, and spirituality, as that of Chesters 
 was mere earthly passion, amid which he could 
 calmly see with satisfaction that ere long death, 
 debt, difficulties, and utter friendlessness, with 
 the loss of Cyril by separation, would cast the 
 hapless girl completely at his mercy ! 
 
 The same image filled the minds of both 
 these men at the same time, but each viewed 
 it from a very different point. 
 
 ''You know Oliver Lennox of Lonewoodlee, 
 I presume, being so near a neighbour ?^^ said 
 Cyril. 
 
 " Of course ; all in the Merse know him for a 
 crotchety old pump.^"* 
 
 '• That is not what I mean ; do you know him 
 personally?^' asked Cyril, with marked annoy- 
 ance. 
 
 " A little.^' 
 
 " You visit there, probably V 
 
 VOL. I. 8 
 
114 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 " Well — no — 1 cannot be said to do so/^ 
 drawled Chesters, while he watched Cyril with 
 half- closed eyes. ^^Who the deuce would go 
 there^ unless '' 
 
 " Unless what V 
 
 " One went after the girl.^^ 
 
 ''^ Do you mean his daughter V asked Cyril, 
 swelling with secret anger. 
 
 " Certainly. I don''t mean either of his two 
 old female domestics. Pass the claret jug, 
 please.''' 
 
 ^^ I was a fool to accept this fellow's invi- 
 tation/' thought Cyril ; " I shall have a row 
 with him yet, and I must forbid his visiting 
 Lonewoodlee at all hazards, even if I declare 
 myself to the old gentleman. I must take care 
 of Mary, and watch over her if he cannot do so. 
 That bill, too — Chesters would never be so 
 liberal as to take it up without some ulterior 
 purpose." 
 
 After a minute's silence, during which each 
 had been covertly eyeing the other, 
 
 ^^ You took up a bill of old ^Ir. Lennox's, I 
 have heard," said Cyril, as if casually; "that 
 was most kind and generous of you." 
 
 " Not at all — not at all ; but who told you of 
 
 it?" 
 
 " I forget — heard it incidentally somehow. 
 Have you destroyed it ?" 
 
 " No," replied Chesters, as he stuck liis glass 
 
CHESTERHAUGH. 115 
 
 in his right eye and looked Cyril full in the 
 face. " I have it here/^ he added,, drawing from 
 his breast pocket a handsome Hussian leather 
 case (girt with an elastic band)^ -wherein he kept 
 various odds and ends, I O U^s, memoranda of 
 races and coursing matches, with veterinary 
 recipes, &c. ; and taking the fatal slip of blue 
 paper, showed it to Cyril, and replaced it in the 
 pocket-book. 
 
 '' It has been noted and protested V ex- 
 claimed Cyril, as a flush crossed his face. " Why 
 did you not destroy it — what piece of cunning is 
 this r' 
 
 " Come, come, Wedderburn, that is rather a 
 harsh term. I had it noted and protested, be- 
 cause, although 1 took it, I cannot afford ulti- 
 mately to lose the money. Have some more 
 "wine?^^ 
 
 Cyril Wedderburn shook his head. 
 
 " Come — one glass of Madeira, as a ^ white- 
 washer,^ and then I ring for coffee. ^^ 
 
 But Cyril rose from the table and would 
 drink no more. His mind had become imbued 
 by mistrust and suspicion; yet he felt a desire 
 to obtain that bill if possible, and he might do 
 so amid the play he had promised to have with 
 Chesters ; so after the bay hunter^s good points 
 had been fully discussed, after the stables, the 
 gun-room, the billiard and smoking-rooms, had 
 all been lounged through, in a snug little par- 
 
 8--2 
 
116 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 lour, with a box of cigars and some brandy-and- 
 water beside them, they sat down to cards — an 
 act of folly on the part of Cyril AVedderburn. 
 
 The monetary difficulties of Rooke Chesters 
 were nearly as great as those of the so-called 
 " proprietor" of Lonewoodlee ; but he possessed 
 the skill and the means of supplying his ex- 
 chequer which the other had not. His care- 
 fully studied betting-book, his intimacy with most 
 of the horsey men on the turf, his means of 
 getting secret information, his sharp practice and 
 dexterous hand with cards, billiards, and dice, 
 seldom failed to keep him in tolerable funds, 
 though most of his land was mortgaged, and he 
 had more than once sought the sanctuary of 
 Holyrood when his difficulties had been greatest ; 
 and it was with this clever schemer that Cyril 
 Wedderburn sat down to be regularly ^' plucked.'^ 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CH ESTERS^ ^^ MILD PLAy/^ 
 
 Like many other apartments — even the bed- 
 rooms — at Chesterhaugh^ the little parlour was 
 hung with pictures of lean_, bony_, gaunt horses, 
 with little particoloured jockies perched on them ; 
 and Cyril^ as he cast a glance at them, thought 
 by contrast of the soft and tender works by 
 Greuze, the sombre Titians, the Raphaels, the 
 Canalettis, and Correggios, which adorned the 
 walls of Willowdean, interspersed with stately 
 and creditable looking portraits of his forefathers, 
 who had been all good men and true in the times 
 of old. 
 
 Several packs of new cards, a dice-box, &c. 
 were produced, and while carefully selecting a 
 cigar each, cutting the ends thereof, and so forth, 
 Cyril reverted to the subject of his favourite 
 new horse. 
 
 " And so you like my bay hunter T' 
 '^ Amazingly ! he has all the fine points of 
 thoroughbred — an ample chest, compact body. 
 
118 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 broad loins, a small head and thin neck, the legs 
 all bone and muscle; if with these he has the 
 requisites of courage and temper ^' 
 
 " I am sure he has both, though I have never 
 tried him yet; but what the deuce shall I do 
 with him if we go on foreign service ?'' 
 
 '^ You should have thought of that before 
 buying him ; but as the night is so cold, I would 
 give him a warm mash with some nitre in it/' 
 
 '^A warm mash — why?'"* 
 
 '^ You came here at a rasping pace, and the 
 animal may cool too much. I would have his 
 eyes and nose spunged too, after your return/' 
 
 " Do you think such necessary T' asked Cyril, 
 with great simplicity. " I know you are a judge." 
 
 " Rather.'' 
 
 ^' I am somewhat ignorant of horses." 
 
 '' Shall I ring for Trayner ?" 
 
 " If you please." 
 
 Chesters lit his cigar and rang the bell, but 
 on hearing steps approaching, he rose, and said — 
 
 '^ I'll speak to Trayner myself about it : excuse 
 me for a moment," and quitting the room he 
 gave some instructions to the groom in an under- 
 tone. Cyril afterwards remembered hearing an 
 expression of surprise escape the man, but little 
 suspecting the vile trickery to which his horse 
 and himself were about to be subjected ; he began 
 to think, that could he reconcile or explain away 
 the affair of the bill, Chesters was perhaps " not 
 
CHESTERS "mild PLAY. 119 
 
 such a bad style of fellow, after all;^'' and no 
 doubt the brandy- and-water he was imbibing 
 went far to strengthen this conclusion. 
 
 " Tve made it all right about your nag/^ said 
 Chesters, reseating himself at the table and fixing 
 his glass in his right eye ; " and now for a little 
 mild play — what is it to be_, ecarte or casino, or 
 five-card cribbage V 
 
 " What say you to ecarte V 
 
 " Well, Wedderburn, ecarte be it — the regular 
 gambler^s game.'"' 
 
 Chesters arranged the pack into thirty-two 
 cards, withdrawing the twos, threes, fours, fives, 
 and sixes. 
 
 " How many points shall we have ?^' asked 
 Chesters. 
 
 " Five. Cut for the deal.'' 
 
 They did so, and it fell to Chesters. 
 
 " Take another jorum of the brandy- and-water. 
 Do you like those cigars? I could spare you 
 a hundred or so. Oh, no thanks at all : they are 
 quite at your service. Three cards to you, and 
 three to me.'' 
 
 While Chesters chatted thus, to throw the 
 victim off his guard, the latter played in a care- 
 less manner that was usual with him, talking and 
 smoking all the time, and quite unaware how 
 the whole faculties of Chesters were absorbed in 
 the game, which is one of a nature wherein fore- 
 sight and nice calculation are of a necessity so 
 
120 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 requisite, and thus he was no match for his host, 
 who, after perniitting him to win two or three 
 games at guinea points, proposed to increase the 
 stakes to five guineas. 
 
 Now flushed with play, Cyril rashly assented, 
 and the game went on. 
 
 " I mark the king V said he. " By the way, 
 that ring of yours, Chesters, is a splendid one/' 
 
 " An onyx." 
 
 " So I see. Are those arms yours ?" 
 
 " No ; it belonged to that Frenchman, Louis 
 De la Fosse, w^hom your father befriended. We 
 played for it, and I w^on it/^ 
 
 " Did you actually take the poor fellow^^s ring ? 
 A family relic, perhaps \" 
 
 " Well;, I might have lost mine but for my 
 superior play. Bravo ! that card plays out the 
 four tricks. ^^ 
 
 " The world is apt to shake its head at such 
 gaming as yours and his was." 
 
 " Pass the decanter. Deuce take the world and 
 its head too ; though it shake till palsied, what 
 is it to me !" cried Chesters, laughing bitterly. 
 
 '^ But the world is censorious.'''' 
 
 " So are all one^s goodnatured friends — 
 < d — d goodnatured friends,^ as Scott, I think, 
 calls them. The Frenchman, Dc la Fosse, lost 
 some thousands to me by backing no less than 
 three losing horses at the Derby." 
 
 Cyril found that he had rapidly lost nearly 
 
CHESTERS " MILD PLAY. ' 121 
 
 two hundred pounds^ and declined to play 
 more. 
 
 " Not even to have your revenge V asked 
 Chesters, with feigned sui'prise^ in which some- 
 thing of disdain was mingled. 
 
 ^^ No/^ was the curt reply. 
 
 " Why, man alive, what do you mean ?^' asked 
 Chesters, in a slightly bullying tone, with his 
 glass shining in his eye. 
 
 " Simply that somehow. Captain Chesters, I 
 do not like your mode of playing.^^ 
 
 ^' Then we'll drop this and try casino : it is a 
 good game for two.^^ 
 
 '^ Agreed — five guinea stakes, as before." 
 
 They cut for the deal, which fell to Cyril ; but 
 though he won several games, which only served 
 still further to flush and excite him, in the end 
 he found that he had no better luck than before ; 
 and ere long, instead of getting up Mr. Lennox's 
 bill, he rose from the table minus two hundred 
 and fifty pounds and had given his I O U for 
 three hundred more. The time was close on 
 midnight then, and he insisted on having his 
 horse brought from the stables ; so once more 
 the acute Mr. William Trayner was summoned. 
 
 Already repenting deeply the extreme folly 
 into which he had been lured by a man for whom 
 he felt at heart only contempt, and resolving 
 never more to pass the threshold of Chesterhaugh, 
 Cyril — already pondering whether he would get 
 
122 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 the money lost from Robert or his doting mother 
 — put on his riding gloves^ took his whip^ and 
 descended the steps to where his bay horse stood 
 in the starlight^ champing on the bit and pawing 
 the gravel with impatience. 
 
 Had he looked round at that moment, he 
 might have detected a strange and unfathomable 
 smile on the face of Chesters. 
 
 The horse seemed very restive, swaying away 
 when he put his foot in the stirrup, so that he 
 mounted with difficulty, and gathered up and 
 shortened the reins. 
 
 " Allow me, for a moment,^^ said Chesters ; 
 " there is something wrong about the curb chain, 
 I think/^ 
 
 " The bridle's all right, sir,'"* urged Trayner, 
 who still held it in his hand, while Chesters very 
 deliberately lengthened the straps a hole or two. 
 " You'll do now, Wedderburn. Touch him with 
 the spur. Good night.-" 
 
 " Good night ; thanks,'' cried Cyril, and away 
 his horse went like the wind; and he was barely 
 clear of the lodge-gate before he found that the 
 animal was totally immanageable, and moreover 
 had got the bit firmly between its teeth ! 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE LAST OF THE BAY HUNTER. 
 
 ^' He is rightly named Rooke Chesters^^^ muttered 
 Cyril, as liis horse began to caracole sideways 
 along the high road, " for he has rooked me to 
 some purpose. By Jove ! I can never confess my 
 folly to my father, after all his warnings too. 
 Halloa, old nag, what is the matter with you ?'' 
 He now became sensible that his horse was 
 becoming extremely restive ; something was 
 wrong with the bridle he knew, but the conduct 
 of the animal rapidly became so outrageous that 
 he feared to dismount lest it should kick him or 
 run away, in which case he felt that he would 
 cut a ridiculous figure before his own household, 
 by arriving on foot and whip in hand without 
 his nag. His father and brother he knew would 
 quiz him unmercifully. Dismount ! Pshaw ! 
 the idea was not to be thought of. So being a 
 good horseman he kept his saddle, and en- 
 deavoured by every means, first to soothe, and 
 then by the whip to control, the growing fury of 
 the bay hunter, but strove in vain. 
 
124 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 It was swelling, trembling, and panting with 
 rage ; its quivering ears lay backward flat, its 
 bead was outstretched, and its bloodshot eyes 
 turned back, till at times be could see the white 
 of them in the darkness. 
 
 After plunging and rearing, and endeavouring 
 by every means to throw the rider, and after 
 twice attempting to crush him against the park 
 wall of Chesterhaugh, he suddenly flung out his 
 forefeet, and with a fierce snort of rage, galloped 
 at a terrible i^ace along the high road. The 
 beautiful bay of which Cyril was so proud, as 
 showing all the best points of a fine English 
 hunter, seemed now changed into a tearing 
 devil ! 
 
 The curb chain was loose, the bit was clenched 
 between its teeth, the reins were powerless, and 
 Cyril Wedderburn could no more control its 
 actions than he could rule a whirlwind. 
 
 Ploughed fields and gates, stackyards and 
 farm steadings, houses and cottages, all sunk in 
 darkness, even as their inmates in sleep, were all 
 passed with frightful sj^eed, and seeking only to 
 keep his seat till the animal became exhausted, 
 Cyril trusted to his skill as a rider, and let the 
 hunter take its way. 
 
 The open waste of Lonewoodlee, the dark 
 thicket, and the quaint old Tower Avith its corner 
 tourelles, were quickly at hand. As he swept 
 past, Cyril saw the light in Mary's window : nay 
 
THE LAST OF THE BAY HUNTER. 125 
 
 more, lie saw her figure for an instant, and 
 then it was that the irrepressible cry which Mary 
 heard escaped him ; for he had begun to fear 
 that there was more than the warm mash fer- 
 menting in the interior of his maddened nag ; 
 that the animal had been drugged, as there 
 were few " horsey'^ tricks of which Ralph Rooke 
 Chesters, and his man Bill Trayner, were 
 ignorant. 
 
 As this exasperating conviction forced itself 
 upon him, he conceived the idea of stunning the 
 horse by a blow between the ears. 
 
 His riding whip had a ponderous silver handle^ 
 and with the thong twisted round his right 
 hand, he dealt upon the hunter's head a down- 
 ward stroke that might have felled an ox ; but 
 instead of finding it sink beneath him, as he 
 confidently expected, so that he might leap from 
 the saddle, a fresh gust of rage seemed to in- 
 spire the horse, which actually bounded from the 
 earth, and snorting, panting, and quivering 
 afresh, it went blindly and madly thundering 
 onward in its fierce career. 
 
 This was at Falaknowe, where the whip which 
 had dropped from his hand was afterwards 
 found. 
 
 For a time he had thought that the horse 
 might know its way home, and stop at the park- 
 gate of Willowdean ; but gate and lodge had 
 long been left behind, the woods and house of 
 
126 LAor wedderburn's wish. 
 
 Rentou too; the rising ground beyond was 
 soon devoured by the rapid hoofs, and Cyril 
 might have said, with Mazeppa, as alarm gathered 
 in his heart — 
 
 " All behind was dark and drear. 
 And all before was night and fear. 
 How many hours of night or day 
 In those suspended pangs I lay 
 I could not tell ; I scarcely knew 
 If this were human breath I drew — " 
 
 for before him were the impending bluffs of a 
 rocky shore, and the dashing billows of the Ger- 
 man Sea ! 
 
 By stern use of his spurs, burying the sharp 
 rowels in blood, he had forced the animal to 
 clear by a flying leap more than one closed toll- 
 gate ; but the idea pressed upon him, that if he 
 lost his seat or was dashed on the hard road, to 
 be found a bleeding mass of broken bones, of 
 what the emotions of the mother who doted on 
 him, of his tender Mary, of his ambitious father, 
 and of all his friends would be, if he were 
 brought home to Willowdean an unsightly corpse; 
 and now, as death seemed close and nigh, in- 
 numerable episodes of his past life — good, bad, 
 and foolish — came thronging fast upon him, as 
 he rode this terrible race. With these came a 
 longing for vengeance upon Chesters, and a 
 loathing of the infuriated brute that bore him. 
 How he longed for a loaded pistol, that he might 
 put a bullet through its head. 
 
THE LAST OF THE BAY HUNTER. 127 
 
 Cyril was an excellent horseman, and had 
 always been a little vain of his riding ; but now 
 he was becoming worn out. 
 
 After a twenty miles run, the horse had now 
 left the highway, and was traversing one of those 
 large fields (of some forty Scottish acres or so) 
 that are peculiar to the Merse and West Lothian. 
 It had been recently^ ploughed, and as the 
 hunter^s small hoofs and slender fetlocks sank 
 deep amid the soft and loamy soil, while its 
 panting and breathing grew harder, Cyril hoped 
 that it was weary and would soon stop ; but the 
 hope was vain. 
 
 CyriPs fingers were powerless with grasping 
 the twisted reins of the useless bridle, and his 
 arms ached and tingled to the shoulders with 
 the long strain upon them ; his whole body 
 trembled, and he felt that little now would dis- 
 mount him, so fast and furious had been the 
 career of his runaway steed, so many the leaps 
 he had made over gates and walls of turf and 
 stone, over high hedges and deep water-courses; 
 a regular steeplechase over everything that came 
 in his way. The roughest hurdle-race was as 
 nothing compared with it ; and now, we have 
 said, before him lay the sea. 
 
 He knew the ground well, and the whole 
 locality ; he had too often rambled there birdnest- 
 ing when a happy, heedless boy, and while hunting 
 or shooting in manhood; and he knew also 
 every foot of that terrible shore from Eymouth 
 
128 LADr wedderburn's wish. 
 
 to the Bridge of Dunglass ; and he was aware 
 that at the end of the field, he traversed there 
 was no enclosure,, no wall or hedge^ no boundary 
 but the giddy verge which overhung the sea 
 that foamed some forty feet below. So now the 
 time had come when he must cast himself from 
 his saddle or perish. 
 
 He released his right foot from the stirrup- 
 iron, but somehow omitted to clear the left so 
 readily. In a moment he was on his back 
 among the soft loamy furrows, and dragged fu- 
 riously along; the next, he felt himself shot 
 fearfully through the air, which seemed to whiz 
 upward past him. 
 
 " God — oh, God save me !" escaped him, 
 while his mother^s face, and Mary^s too, flashed 
 on his memory, with Mary's gentle voice and 
 tender eyes, as he fell through space ; and ere 
 he could again respire he found himself head- 
 long in the midnight sea, with the black water 
 closed above his head. 
 
 Panting he rose to the surface, but to sink 
 again and again, for he was weak, powerless, and 
 breathless ; yet being a good swimmer, when he 
 rose the third time he kept himself afloat and 
 looked around. 
 
 He was free from the fatal bay hunter now. 
 
 High over him towered a ridge of those black, 
 beetling rocks which bound the shore and cul- 
 minate in the cliffs of Fast Castle and those of 
 
THE LAST OF THE BAY HUNTER. 129 
 
 St. Abb_, covered with sea fowl,, and with the 
 foam of the German Ocean rolling against them. 
 The moon^ which had been hitherto veiled by a 
 mass of clouds^ now emerged from them^ and as 
 she was waning from amid the ragged edges of 
 the floating vapour^ her light, .cold, pale, and 
 ghastly, shone along the tossing sea. 
 
 Even if he could have protracted his existence 
 by swimming, in the end he must perish ; for 
 all along that shore no footing place or sandy 
 beach was nigh, and the waves, he feared too 
 surely, would dash him on the blufi's a battered 
 corpse. 
 
 Already his horse, with true instinct, had 
 turned to the shore and swam through the 
 billows, which dashed it again and again upon 
 the wall of rock, the slippery face of which it 
 beat and pawed with its hoofs in vain to find a 
 footing. 
 
 A mass of weedy and isolated rock some yards 
 from that perilous shore caught the eye of Cyril 
 in the moonlight. The waves boiled and seethed 
 around but not over it. There he would find 
 footing he hoped for a time, till daylight broke 
 and his situation might be seen from the land or 
 the sea ; and with a prayer of thankfulness to 
 Heaven in his heart and on his lips, he swam 
 boldly and reached its slippery apex by grasping 
 the seaweed that covered it. 
 
 Cold and drenched he sat there with the white 
 
 VOL. I. 9 
 
180 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 waves seething round him ; and he could remem- 
 ber that many a time when a boy he had striven, 
 by tossing stones from the clifiP above^, to hit this 
 identical rock which now afforded him a temporary 
 place of safety. 
 
 Ere long he felt sensible that the water was 
 rising, that the tide was flowing inshore, and 
 might in time, perhaps, cover the rock, in. 
 which case he was certain to be washed off and 
 drowned. 
 
 The moon soon disappeared behind that 
 stupendous rock which is crowned by the ruins 
 of Fast Castle, and is inaccessible on all sides, 
 save by a narrow neck of land, and then a double 
 gloom seemed to fall upon the sea. About a 
 mile off he could see a solitary light in the window 
 of a house upon the shore, the light too probably 
 of some watcher by a sick bed; and wistfully 
 and yearningly he regarded it, as he sat, or 
 crouched rather, on that isolated rock, perishing 
 miserably within a few miles of his splendid 
 home. 
 
 There he knew that by this time all would be 
 a-bcd, after his father, his brother, and Horace Ra- 
 mornie had had a few amicable strokes at billiards, 
 and after his mother had grown weary of weaving 
 out the future of the coming heiress ; and he knew 
 that Gervase Asloane, the old butler, would be 
 sleepily awaiting his return from Chestcrhaugh. 
 
 One other light was visible for a time; it was 
 
THE LAST OF THE BAY HUNTER. 181 
 
 on board a large steamer about eight miles dis- 
 tant in the offings where gradually it passed out 
 of sight as she sped on her way to England or 
 Holland. 
 
 To shout^ Cyril knew was worse than useless ; 
 few craft ever ventured near that iron shore, 
 and there his voice would be heard by sea birds 
 only. 
 
 Poor Cyril Wedderburn ! He had not been 
 much given to prayer since he became a man of 
 the world, or since he had last lisped his childish 
 orisons at his mother^s knee ; but now, in his 
 hour of desperate need, he invoked God earnestly 
 for deliverance from a death so early and so 
 terrible as that which menaced him : and by 
 some strange idiosyncrasy of the human mind, 
 amid these pious thoughts, and amid the bewil- 
 dering horrors of his situation, there occurred to 
 his ear and his memory scraps of mess-room 
 songs, of frivolous banter, and operatic airs, as if 
 in grotesque mockery, till he feared he was 
 growing mad ! 
 
 Suddenly a terrible cry — a cry that seemed to 
 belong neither to Heaven nor earth — a cry alto- 
 gether dissimilar to any other sound he had ever 
 heard before, pierced his ears. Its singularity of 
 tone made the pulses of his heart stand still. 
 Were the tales he had heard of the water kelpy, 
 and his shrieks of triumph over the drowning, 
 true after all? 
 
 9-— 2 
 
132 LADY VVEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 No other sound followed but the monotonous 
 dashing of the waves, the hiss of the surf upon 
 the rocks, and the voices of the now startled sea 
 birds as they were roused from their nests by 
 that unearthly yell. 
 
 It was the death scream of his drowning horse ; 
 for a horse, when in extremity of terror, can 
 utter a dreadful cry at times; and now its body 
 floated passively in the eddy round a wave-beaten 
 promontory, the sport of the billows, and Cyril, 
 with little regret certainly, saw it tossed to and 
 fro in the starlight, till it disappeared, and that 
 was the last he saw of his fatal bay hunter ! 
 
 And now another deep invocation of God 
 escaped him, for he became assured that slowly, 
 but steadily and terribl}^, the rising tide was 
 closing round him ! 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 GRIEF. 
 
 In his exciting conversation with Mary, worthy 
 Squills,, the village doctor, had not over-rated 
 the grief and consternation which the great 
 catastrophe excited among the bereaved family 
 at Willowdean. " There are days in some lives 
 which are so full of pain that no term of after 
 years, no joy or peace of after- granting, can 
 enable us to think of them without a shudder, 
 even to the last hour of existence/^ So was it 
 with Lady Wedderburn then, on that black fatal 
 day, and for many a day after, when memory 
 went back to the terrible shock her nervous 
 system had received. 
 
 Accustomed from her infancy to all the perfect 
 repose and care that wealth, position, and pros- 
 perity so frequently inspire, this calamity 
 seemed beyond all her power of realization as a 
 fact! 
 
 The absence of Cyril from the formal morning 
 prayer read by Sir John (the Wedderburns were 
 
134 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 rather High Church)^ and from breakfast^ excited 
 no great surprise ; and when it was reported 
 from the stable-yard that neither he nor his 
 horsej the famous bay^ had come home last nighty 
 the natural conclusion of the family circle was 
 that he had been pressed to remain at Chester- 
 haughj and would doubtless ride home in time 
 for the family luncheon ; but Sir John, who 
 disliked some of Rooke Chesters^ procli\dties, 
 particularly his proneness to gamble, was sur- 
 prised that his son (usually so careful and 
 fastidious in his acquaintanceships) should so 
 far tax that person^s hospitality. 
 
 When Lady Wedderburn, in her gay little 
 dressing-room, was in deep consultation with 
 Miss Flora M^Caw about her style of mourning 
 for Uncle William, of Madras, and the proper 
 sets of jewellery, jet, silver, or gold, to be worn 
 therewith, and also when the season for second 
 mourning arrived, the startling tidings came, 
 in the form of a vague rumour at first, that 
 her son Cyril had left Chesterhaugh about mid- 
 night, and had now been absent, unaccounted 
 for, none knew where or how, for twelve 
 hours ! 
 
 For one so extremely regular in all his habits 
 and so temperate in conduct, this seemed incom- 
 prehensible, and every hopeful, vague, and wild 
 surmise was indulged in only to culminate at last 
 in the fear of some terrible accident or outrage, 
 
GRIEF. 
 
 135 
 
 and yet the people of the disti'ict were peaceful 
 and orderly. 
 
 Then, as the Doctor had related to Mary, 
 Horace Ramornie, and all the household, assisted 
 by friends and neighbours, set forth to search 
 the country. His hat was found at Buncle-edge, 
 and his whip at Falaknowe, five miles nearer the 
 sea ; but Lady Juliana Ernescleugh sent her son, 
 the Master, with the darkest tidings of all, that 
 CyriFs well-known bay hunter had been dis- 
 covered drowned, and fearfully bruised and bat- 
 tered, among the rocks eastward of Fast Castle, 
 and then the conviction that a dreadful calamity, 
 the details of which were incomprehensible, had 
 taken place. 
 
 The Coastguard were set to work, the shore 
 was searched, and, save where the rocks were 
 impassable or inaccessible, every creek and cranny 
 were examined between Broxmouth and the Red- 
 heugh shore ; a fleet of fisherboats dragged all 
 the water in the vicinity, but all their seeking 
 was vain. 
 
 No further trace was found of Cyril. 
 
 The telegraphs were at work, with descriptions 
 of his person and clothing, and rewards were 
 offered for information, with no better success, 
 and thus four days of agonizing suspense and 
 horror were passed by the family at Willowdean. 
 
 All the servants sorrowed for Cyril, the 
 feminine portion especially; he was so hand- 
 
136 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 somCj and always so smiling and suave ; and old 
 Gervase Asloane^ on whose back he had ridden 
 many a time when a boy^ wept for him, and 
 Miss Flora M'^Caw wept too. Solitary, and of 
 a necessity selfish though her life had been, she 
 felt genuine grief for the loss of so fine a young 
 man, and recalled the secret hopes and tender 
 passion in which she had once ventured to 
 indulge Avhen the heir of Willowdean was in his 
 mere boyhood, in the time that seemed so long 
 past now. 
 
 Messages and cards of condolence poured in 
 from friends and neighbours ; and among others 
 came a black- edged note, per Mr. Bill Trayner, 
 from Kooke Chesters, expressing profound sorrow 
 for the untoward event, and enclosing Cyril's 
 I O U for three hundred pounds, which " he 
 hoped Sir John Wedderburn would find it con- 
 A^enient to liquidate, as he was just about to 
 travel. ^^ 
 
 " Oh, detestable taste V exclaimed Horace 
 Uamornie, with a flush of anger and contempt 
 on his handsome face ; but Sir John, though his 
 brown, manly hand trembled the while, signed a 
 cheque for the amount, and enclosed it to Chesters 
 without a word of comment. 
 
 He then looked sadly at the I O U, the last 
 words, no doubt, his son's hand had traced, and 
 with a sigh threw it into the fire. 
 
 When the second and third day passed, Lady 
 
GRIEF. 137 
 
 Wedderburn was too ill to leave her bed_, and it 
 required all the skill of Doctor Squills, and all 
 the solace of Miss M^Caw, with the aid of 
 camphor, sal-volatile, and RimmeFs vinegar, to 
 save her from a succession of fainting fits. 
 
 Cyril was gone — gone for ever ! 
 
 These words seemed ever in her heart and on 
 her lips, and to be written, as it were in letters 
 of fire upon the wall, and this feeling seemed to 
 fill the air around her. The stunning sense of 
 her bereavement was most keen in the wakeful 
 hours of the night and of the early morning. 
 Then it seemed to rush like a flood upon her. 
 Never more would her slender fingers run caress- 
 ingly through his rich dark hair ; never more 
 would his soft and beautiful, yet manly eyes, 
 turn affectionately to hers ; never again would 
 his voice, always so sweetly modulated when ad- 
 dressing her, fall upon her listening ear. 
 
 A lonely girl at Lonewoodlee was full of 
 exactly similar thoughts, sorrows, and memories ; 
 yet those of the bereaved mother were perhaps 
 the deepest — the most keen and the hardest to 
 bear. Cyril was her firstborn — the apple of her 
 eye. To her he was beautiful as Absalom was 
 to David, and as she thought of that, she re- 
 peated in her heart — 
 
 " 0, Absalom, my son, my Absalom, 
 Would to God my life would ransom thine !" 
 
 Had Lady Wedderburn seen Mary Lennox then, 
 
138 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 and known the common cause of their grief, she 
 might have forgiven and even loved her ; but she 
 had never yet connected the idea of Mary with 
 her son. 
 
 When Cyril was absent with his regiment — 
 the Fusileers — the sight of his empty chair, his 
 vacant place at table, always inspired her with 
 sadness ; but she knew that he was no longer a 
 boy, and could not be kept for ever by her side. 
 Now his place would ever more be vacant, or 
 filled by a terrible shadow — an unseen presence 
 only. Even his grave she would never look upon ; 
 and every relic of Cyril — the portrait painted of 
 him, as a cherry-cheeked boy ensign, in his first 
 red coat and epaulettes, with pipe- clayed belt and 
 black bearskin ; the lock of his hair which had 
 never left her bosom since he joined his regi- 
 ment, then warring on the banks of the Sutledge ; 
 his unused books, his bed, the soft cambric 
 pillow-case his cheek had touched, his favourite 
 meerschaum pipe, lying where he had last left 
 it — all became as something sacred in her eyes, 
 and inspired her with bursts of the most passionate 
 grief. 
 
 The schemes she had been so fondly forming 
 for his aggrandizement, by marriage with his 
 rich cousin who was coming home, were all for- 
 gotten now ; and in the bewilderment of her 
 grief she almost forgot to pray. Poor Lady 
 Wedderburn was stupefied ; and the snow of 
 
GRIEE. 139 
 
 that sudden storm which imprisoned Mary 
 Lennox at Chesterhaugh added^ while it lasted 
 on hill and moor_, double desolation to her heart_, 
 for the gloom of the weather adds keenly to the 
 grief of the imaginative and impressionable. 
 
 Where was now the future she had pictured,, 
 with CyriFs children crowing and nestling upon 
 her knee ? Robert^ her younger son — the future 
 Baronet — yet was left to her ; but at present all 
 her sorrow^ tears, and regrets were for the lost 
 one. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 
 
 '' The fiftli day^ and no news of him yet — no trace, 
 save tlie dead horse ! By Jove ! what can have 
 happened ? I meant only to break a few of his 
 bones, or spoil his pretty face, perhaps, for Mary, 
 and nothing more. Where the devil can he have 
 drifted to — the coast of Holland perhaps ? Hand- 
 some of the old boy to cash up the I O U. 
 "Wish it had been for six hundred, though !" 
 
 Thus thought Ralph Rooke Chesters, when on 
 the afternoon of the fifth day — the Monday — 
 after the disappearance of Cyril he dismounted 
 at Lonewoodlec, under the door which bore the 
 quaint legend, and presenting his card, asked 
 for Miss Lennox. 
 
 '' Miss Lennox was at home,^' Alison said, and 
 ere long she received him in the gloomy apartment 
 which passed for her drawing-room, with its 
 chintz-covered furniture, its chiffonnieres of 
 painted wood, its old-fashioned girandoles, and the 
 meagre finery of her mother's bridal days, to 
 
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 141 
 
 whicli her own eyes had become accustomed. 
 Her piano stood open, for though her heart was 
 full of grief, she had been compelled to sing and 
 play to amuse her father. 
 
 " To what do I owe the — the pleasure of this 
 visit ?^^ said Mary, politely yet coldly, for the 
 memory of yesterday^s snare haunted her un- 
 pleasantly, and secretly she resented it. 
 
 '^ My anxiety lest you should have suffered 
 from the snow (now nearly gone, by-the-bye) and 
 the cold drive in an open waggonette," replied 
 Chesters, with as soft a smile as his face could 
 assume. 
 
 " Thanks ; I am well," said Mary, still more 
 coldly, for there was something in the manner 
 of Chesters which inspired doubt and dislike. 
 Yet he placed his hat on the table, brushed a 
 speck off his tweed knickerbockers with his 
 handkerchief, and quietly seated himself with the 
 air of a man who meant to remain. 
 
 '^ And the old gentleman. How is he ?" 
 
 " As usual," sighed Mary ; " very weak and 
 ailing. I know not with what; and I don^t 
 think that Doctor Squills knows either." 
 
 " Get some other skill than this cub of a 
 parish doctor possesses. Send to town — to 
 London or Edinburgh." 
 
 But Mary shook her head and sighed again 
 as she thought of their slender means ; and 
 there was a pause, during which she hoped that 
 
143 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 he would soon go_, as she had to be at the railway 
 station at a certain hour to receive certain 
 medicines which the Doctor had ordered from 
 Edinburgh for her father^s use. 
 
 She was conscious that Chesters was regarding 
 her earnestly; indeed, he had been unable to 
 get out of his evil mind the effect of her pretty 
 and ladylike little figure while she sat so many 
 hours in his dining-room last night ; so he had 
 come in the prosecution of his nefarious suit ; 
 but old as he was in the ways of the world he 
 lived in, he felt an awkwardness in his mode of 
 advancing it ; for Mary looked so provokingly 
 calm and composed, and so exquisitely ladylike ; 
 her beautifully dressed hair so gorgeous in colour 
 and quantity, with her plain but perfect toilette, 
 and her only ornament, a simple brooch, nestling 
 at her pretty neck. 
 
 To Mary^s eye he looked older to-day and 
 less careful in his costume ; his nose was cer- 
 tainly redder, and the blotches on his cheeks 
 were deeper in colour; his watchful and sinister 
 grey eyes were more restless in expression, and 
 it soon became evident that he had been imbibing 
 freely, though the day was yet young. Wine, 
 or something worse, alone could have made him 
 depart from his policy of yesterday and blunder 
 on as he did while the young girFs grief was so 
 fresh and keen. 
 
 He rose, and coming close to the chair in 
 
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 143 
 
 wMcli she was seated^ laid his hand on the back 
 of it, touching her rounded shoulder as he did 
 so; and lowering his voice, he said — 
 
 '^ Miss Lennox ; or may I call you Mary T^ 
 
 '' Yes, if you choose. You have known me 
 since I was a mere child /^ 
 
 " I have served in India since then/^ said he, 
 with an ill-concealed grimace ; for he winced at 
 the remark, or what it inferred ; and oblivious 
 of the tender scene he had witnessed in the 
 thicket, and the grief which filled her heart, he 
 said — 
 
 " I am come to ask you if you will allow me 
 to love you, Mary Lennox ?" 
 
 " I can neither prevent people from loving or 
 hating me,^^ she replied, evasively ; for she re- 
 membered the bill which he possessed ; the power 
 it gave him over her father, and she trembled in 
 her heart. 
 
 ^^ Ah, Mary, who could hate you ?'^ he 
 whispered, bending still nearer her face. 
 
 " But I beg that you will not speak of love to 
 me.^^ 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 " For a reason I care not to give. Pray let 
 that suffice," urged Mary, as she bit her lip and 
 kept her pale face averted to hide the tears with 
 which her eyes were filled. 
 
 " Then you love another ?" said Chesters, 
 bluntly. 
 
144 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 " That is my affair^ sir/'' 
 ^' But yon do ; or shall I say, did ?'' 
 " As you please/^ replied the girl, wearily, 
 shrugging her shoulders, and her words seemed 
 to come from her heart. 
 
 ^' At least, I have a kind of admission from 
 your own lips,'''' he resumed, with a half-muttered 
 imprecation under his sandy grey moustache, and 
 with a dangerous gloom in his false and sinister 
 eyes. '' But do you know your own mind T' 
 " I trust that I do,'''' was the gentle reply. 
 ^^You are right to speak doubtfully.^'' 
 Mary changed her seat to the other side of 
 the fireplace ; for, as his face came nearer hers, 
 a kind of shiver passed over her. 
 
 '' I do not understand you. Captain Chesters,''^ 
 said she, haughtily, as she erected her pretty 
 head, and looked at him intently and steadily. 
 
 " \ say you are right to speak doubtfully, for 
 at your years a girl scarcely knows her own 
 mind,^^ he resumed more tenderly, again drawing 
 near her and attempting to take her hand. " It 
 is quite possible to love one person at one time, 
 aud another much more at a future time ; and 
 thus you might love me. "Who is the writer 
 that says, ' we may love with but a part of our 
 nature — for the heart must love something — 
 until we chance upon a being our every nature 
 sympathizes with; one that will awaken new 
 faculties to love with ; one that we can love 
 
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 145 
 
 with all the love we gave the first_, with still 
 more added — a being made for iis_, and us 
 alone/ '' 
 
 Chesters poured out this quotation at a breathy 
 for he was sensible that his utterance was be- 
 coming thicker_, and a smile of disdain passed 
 over Mary^s face. 
 
 *'\ don't know who the writer is/' said she, 
 with growing irritation, as she rang the bell, 
 " but it all sounds very French — like some of 
 the maxims of Jean Jacques Rousseau. One 
 thing I am sure of. Captain Chesters ; my nature 
 would never sympathize with yours, and I could 
 never — pardon me for saying so — marry a man 
 old enough to be my father.'' 
 
 Chesters ground his teeth at this reply, and a 
 little hollow and bitter laugh escaped him ; for 
 with all his open and secret admiration of Mary, 
 which was genuine enough — as the charms of 
 her person and manner were undeniable — a mar- 
 riage with her formed no part of his plans. He 
 was about to renew the subject, when old Alison 
 appeared, in answer to the summons of her young 
 mistress, who said — 
 
 " Ask, please, if my papa feels well enough 
 to see Captain Chesters." 
 
 " He has just been inquiring for him. Miss." 
 
 " Good. Come with me. Captain Chesters, if 
 you are so disposed. Papa sees so few, that your 
 visit will be quite an event." 
 
 VOL. I. 10 
 
1 4G LADY WEDDERBURN S WISH. 
 
 Now Chesters^ with all his suavity and plausi- 
 bility^ when he had an object in view, could rarely 
 give much sympathy to any one or anything, 
 and above all, he hated the boredom of illness or 
 sickness in himself or others, felt just then only 
 anger at the quick mode in which Mary cut short 
 his intrusive love-making ; but he bowed, and 
 followed her into the room where poor Oliver 
 Lennox lay in the bed from which, it was too 
 probable, he never would rise. The oppressive 
 odour of the sick room in such a chill season, 
 and in such a house, where the walls were of 
 such enormous thiclsness, was unpleasantly per- 
 ceptible to Chesters, and had the result of making 
 his recent potations more seriously affect his 
 brain. 
 
 However, being withal a well-bred man, he 
 shook the thin wan hand of Mr. Lennox with 
 apparent cordiality, made the usual polite but 
 conventional inquiries about his health, and re- 
 ceived the same unmeaning and querulous replies, 
 which he had heard a score of times in the same 
 place. 
 
 Weak and worn though he was, could Oliver 
 Lennox but have seen into Chesters^ heart, and 
 read the plans he cherished there, he would have 
 smote him by his bedside ! 
 
 Propped on pillows which his daughter's tender 
 hand had arranged, Mr. Lennox, looking twenty 
 years older than his time of life warranted, had 
 
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 147 
 
 been lying tlie whole forenoon with his clear blue 
 restless eyes bent on the muirland scene that 
 stretched for miles away before his window — the 
 acres upon acres that were no longer his own; 
 acres won and held by his forefathers in the old 
 stirring times of Scottish raids and wars. 
 
 The snow of the unexpected storm had already 
 disappeared ; the day really looked like one in 
 spring ; the sky a deep blue ; the air soft and 
 ambient. The bulb roots were expanding amid 
 the prepared mould in Mary^s little garden on 
 the southern side of the Tower; the primroses 
 and wild violets were cropping up beneath the 
 sprouting hedgerows ; the grass looked greener 
 on the lonely hill sides and in the meadows, over 
 which the shadows of the clouds were passing 
 quickly ; and even the bleak Lammermuir looked 
 less bleak than was its wont ; for the day was of 
 a kind to make one feel content for the present, 
 hopeful for the future, and prayerful to God. 
 
 Oliver Lennox felt its genial influence in his 
 own fatuous way ; but not so his daughter, for 
 her heart was rent by anguish for the loss of 
 Cyril, and mortification for the annoyance which 
 the suit of Chesters occasioned her. 
 
 '' How kind of you to come and see an old 
 broken-down fellow such as I am,^^ said the in- 
 valid, turning his sharp aquiline face to his visitor, 
 and presenting his hand for a second time. 
 
 " Not at all, my good friend. Glad to see you 
 
 10— a 
 
148 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 looking so well. Egad ! I shouldn^t wonder 
 to see you in the saddle again^, scouring across 
 the country — the leading man in the field/^ 
 
 But Mr. Lennox only shook his head and sighed 
 despondingly, while Mary felt disgust for the 
 untrue sympathy of Chesters_, who stood sucking 
 the ivory handle of his whip, while she rearranged 
 with her quick hands the pillows under her 
 father^s head. 
 
 " It was just on such a breezy March day as 
 this I hunted last, Chesters/^ said the invalid, 
 with a sad smile. ^^ We all came at a slapping 
 pace through Oxendean, and round Buncle-edge, 
 till, oddly enough, a bed of sweet violets and 
 primroses — only think of it ! — in Renton Wood 
 quite threw the hounds off the scent, and the 
 fox escaped ! Since that day Oliver Lennox has 
 never been in the hunting field, or backed aught 
 but an old Galloway cob.^^ 
 
 " Take courage. There is a good time coming, 
 as the song has it.^' 
 
 " My Mary is the veritable ^ Brownie^ of 
 Lonewoodlce, who cooks and watches in the 
 night, and all that, so I should not repine,^^ said 
 Mr. Lennox, with a fond smile, as he played 
 with her snowy and statuesque fingers; " but her 
 unwearying love, and all her tender kindness 
 cannot avert fate, or hide the out-stretching of 
 the Shadowy Hand.^^ 
 
 " Oh, papa, do not — do not pierce my heart V^ 
 implored the girl. 
 
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 149 
 
 ^^ How much more of life is there in this old 
 grumbler yet ?'' thought Chesters, as he actually 
 gnawed the whip-handle with his teeth, while 
 watching admiringly the contour of Mary^s 
 bust_, the taper form of her white arms, and the 
 high arch of her instep, as she hung about her 
 fa therms bed. 
 
 " You will be kind to her, Chesters, when I 
 am gone,^"* said Lennox, in his usual querulous 
 way; and the request was so much in unison 
 with Chesters^ own thoughts, that the blotches 
 deepened to scarlet in his face. 
 
 '^ Kind to her, Mr. Lennox ?" he faltered. 
 
 " Yes. I leave so few friends behind me now, 
 that Mary's future fills my heart with intense 
 anxiety.^'' 
 
 " Papa dearest, fear not for me,''"' said Mary 
 becoming deeply agitated. 
 
 " Had your brother Harry but been spared — '' 
 
 "Don^t talk of poor Harry, papa,^^ urged 
 Mary, as her father's mind was apt to wander 
 then, and to confound the past and the pre- 
 sent together ; " do not talk thus, papa, when 
 strangers are present. You may live I hope and 
 trust for many years to come. ' God alone de- 
 cides who shall live to suffer, or who shall suffer 
 and die."* I, perhaps, may be one of the 
 latter." 
 
 A scarcely perceptible gesture of impatience 
 escaped Chesters ; but slight though it was, the 
 quick eye of the invalid detected it. 
 
150 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 ^^,^' Wellj I daresay I weary you. Take Ches- 
 ter s into the dining-room^ Mary, and give him a 
 glass of Madeira, or brandy-and-water, after the 
 ride. I always took a horn after a gallop in my 
 day — the day that will never come again. Lone- 
 woodlee had ever a name for hospitality, and 
 it shall not lose it while I am above the turf, 
 lassie.^' 
 
 " Thanks : then we shall adjourn to the dining- 
 room/^ said Chesters, and glad to escape from 
 the sick chamber, he shook the hand of Oliver 
 Lennox, and ere long found himself in the sombre 
 little dining-hall, seated on one of the square- 
 elbowed haircloth sofas, and looked down upon 
 by a few faded and gloomy portraits of the 
 Lennoxes of past times, in wigs, wide cuffs, and 
 pasteboard skirts, or breastplates of steel, just as 
 Lely, Ramsay, or Medina had depicted them ; 
 and somehow he thought that in all the faces of 
 these dead men he could read something of scorn 
 and scrutiny, so his eye avoided them, and he 
 applied himself to mixing a stiff glass of brandy- 
 and-water, while Mary hovered irresolutely near. 
 She was all anxiety that he should depart, for in 
 an hour now the train would be in, and she 
 wished to receive in person the medicines that 
 were coming for her father. She dreaded also to 
 mention her errand or purpose, lest he might 
 offer to accompany her, and give the affliction of 
 yet more of his society. 
 
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 151 
 
 But Chesters found himself perfectly com- 
 fortable. His dinner-time was three hours distant 
 yet; the brandy-and-water proved quite to his 
 taste — so, too, was Mary — thus he at once resumed 
 the thread of their conversation, but in a more 
 jocular, or as Mary justly deemed it, more in- 
 solent tone ; for helplessness and friendlessness 
 encouraged this vaurien, while her rare beauty 
 inspired his worst passion. 
 
 '' Ah, Mary, we might be so jolly if you would 
 only learn to love me a little.^^ Then becoming 
 maudlinly sentimental, he proceeded to quote 
 Shelley— 
 
 " See the mountains kiss high Heaven, 
 
 And the waves clasp one another; 
 No sister flower will be forgiven, 
 
 If it disdain its brother. 
 And the sunbeams kiss the earth : 
 
 And the moonbeams the sea. 
 What are all those kissings worth, 
 
 If thou kiss not me ?" 
 
 " The order of that line should be reversed ; 
 
 but, by Jove, my voice is getting quite feathery V' 
 
 He was becoming inarticulate, and almost 
 
 " Captain Chesters," said Mary, gravely, " do 
 not go on thus, I implore you ! You would pity 
 me if you knew all — the horror of living alone, 
 or nearly alone, in this dreary house ; my sole 
 occupation the sad, sad one " 
 
152 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 '^ Of what P^-* said he, as tears choked her 
 utterance. 
 
 '^ Soothing and amusing a dying father.^' 
 
 " Oh bosh ! my dear girl/^ was the coarse re- 
 sponse ; " the old fellow may live long enough 
 yet ; and I am sure that he would rather have me 
 for a son-in-laAv — I who know so thoroughly the 
 points of a horse and the secrets of the turf — a 
 thoroughbred sportsman, who could take the 
 county j)ack in hand, and, had I the means, 
 would hunt the Merse and Lauderdale as they 
 never were hunted before — than yonder mooning 
 fellow from whom you parted in the thicket on 
 the night he disappeared. Ah, you sly puss, 
 you little knew that I saw you there V^ 
 
 Mary felt herself grow deadly pale, and then 
 she flushed to the temples with anger, as these 
 rude and almost fiercely spoken remarks, so 
 wounding to her delicacy, fell on her sensitive 
 ear. Again her hand went to the bell for the 
 purpose of having Chesters shown to the door at 
 all hazards of the future, but ere she could ring 
 Alison Homers hard and wrinkled visage ap- 
 peared, and she announced that " Captain 
 Chesters^ servant, Trayncr, wished to speak with 
 him immediately." 
 
 " Send him up then," said Chesters, sulkily. 
 *^ Most singular, this ! What the deuce can the 
 fellow want Tvith me ? I left him in the stables." 
 
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 153 
 
 " He says, sir_, that he has something for your 
 private ear/^ replied the greyhaired domestic. 
 
 Now Chesters had so many strange involve- 
 ments, and so many secrets to keep, that he very 
 palpably changed colour on hearing this, and felt 
 compelled to go to his servant_, who had dis- 
 mounted at the door, and was now dressed in 
 livery, with an orthodox cockade and brown 
 leather belt. 
 
 Mary only heard Chesters utter a fierce ex- 
 clamation of astonishment in reply to a communi- 
 cation made by Trayner, who was coolly smoking 
 one of his master's cigars, concerning ^' Willow- 
 dean and a telegram •/' and then, without the 
 courtesy of returning to bid her adieu, or making 
 any explanation whatever, her unwelcome visitor 
 rode off towards Chesterhaugh, accompanied by 
 his servant ; and Mary could see from her win- 
 dow that as they galloped along the road they 
 were side by side and in close and rapid con- 
 versation. 
 
 About what ? 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE SPRING EVENING. 
 
 Ere the night fell and the moonlight paled out 
 on the Lammermuirs and on the sea^ Mary was 
 fated to hear what this secret communication 
 was ! 
 
 "What had happened at Willowdean — what 
 was the nature of the telegram T' she asked of 
 her own heart and of Alison in vain ; the dis- 
 covery of Cyril^s body in the sea^ or cast upon 
 the shore perhaps, and even she who loved him 
 so^ yea as her own soul, dared not ask permission 
 to look upon his pallid face again ! 
 
 This conviction was a great, a bitter, and a 
 mortifying grief! Well, well, if the world were 
 going to pieces, she knew that she must attend 
 to the health and wants of her father, and on 
 looking at her watch, she found that she had not 
 a moment to lose if she would be at the station 
 when the train from the North came in. She 
 tied on her smart hat and veil, took her tiny 
 muff, and set forth. 
 
THE SPRING EVENING. 155 
 
 She might have sent Alison Home^ but she 
 had a craving to be a little abroad in the open 
 air_, for the atmosphere of the house seemed 
 to stifle her^ and there were times when the 
 clamorous fluttering of her heart amounted to 
 agony^ and when she felt as one in a dream — 
 one enduring sorrows not her own^ but those of 
 another. 
 
 She passed the thicket and the stile where 
 she had been wont to meet him in the evenings 
 and she glanced at both wistfully. No need was 
 there now to wait with anxious heart to watch 
 the clock_, or wonder whether papa would be 
 asleep^ awake, or fretful when the time for 
 trysting came. All was ended now ! and yet as 
 she looked at the rude steps of the stone stile, 
 grey and spotted with lichens, it seemed to her 
 as if she could, in her mind''s eye, trace the out- 
 line of her handsome and winning lover^s figure, 
 waiting for her as of old — as he had waited only 
 five days ago — her lost Cyril ! 
 
 Never more ! Oh, how much of sadness, of 
 bitterness, and hopelessness, do these two words 
 contain ! 
 
 Save in a few hollow places on the hill sides, 
 the snow of the preceding night had totally dis- 
 appeared. The sunset deepened with a warm and 
 russet glow on the summits of the pastoral hills, 
 the air was balmy, and the chirping of the birds 
 came clearly upon it, with the voices of children 
 
156 LADY AVEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 from a distance. The green buds were swelling 
 in the hedgerows, and near a cottage which had 
 once been a lodge of Lonewoodlee (now let to 
 a cottar) she saw a group of rosy, barelegged 
 " bairns^^ peeping with wonder into the first 
 bird^s nest of the season, which some unwary 
 sparrow had built in the cleft of an open bush. 
 The rooks were cawing aloft, the brown hares 
 were gliding among the glistening furrows of the 
 freshly ploughed fields, or " mains^^ as they are 
 named in the Merse ; there was a fragrance and 
 odour of verdure in the air, and though the 
 month is usually a rude and boisterous one, Mary, 
 as she walked rapidly on, could not be insensible 
 of the genial influence of spring. 
 
 Pausing at times, she looked fondly and sadly 
 back to the gloomy old Tower, the tourelles, bar- 
 tizan, and stone roof of which stood out so darkly 
 against the bright blue evening sky. There, in 
 the stirring times of old, by the Border Laws, or 
 Leges Marchiarum, her forefathers had been com- 
 pelled to keep a watch with alarm-bell and fire- 
 pan, to give warning to the North, to Soltra and 
 Dunpender, when the English crossed the Tweed 
 or entered the Merse, and now their descendants 
 trembled at the approach of an angry creditor ! 
 How long would her dwelling be there, and 
 where would be her home when — but she thrust 
 that thought aside as too painful, and hastened 
 on. 
 
THE SPRING EVENING. 157 
 
 She passed ere long the handsome modern 
 gate and Grecian lodge of Willowdean^ the pil- 
 lared peristyle and white fa9ade of which she 
 could see at a distance between the trees of the 
 park (or chase^ it might be called in England), 
 and an irrepressible sob escaped her for one who 
 would never more be under its roof; and thus, 
 with the tears welling but unseen beneath her 
 closely tied veil, she entered the market town 
 of Willowdean, which owed its existence and 
 prosperity to the Wedderburns. 
 
 It is a quaint old Scottish Burgh of Barony, 
 and was so long before the union of the king- 
 doms, remaining very much unchanged for more 
 than a century after, and singularly so, as in 
 Scotland nothing stands, for there whatever fails 
 to " go ahead^^ must decline and pass away, like 
 many of the burghs of Fife. It has stood almost 
 unchanged, even by the railway, save for the 
 erection of a few gayer shops and taverns — un- 
 changed in its general aspect since Queen Mary 
 made her famous ride to Hermitage, and from 
 its aspect, its cross — a slender shaft of stone sur- 
 mounted by a mouldered unicorn — its kirk, and 
 crow-stepped gables abutting on the street, its 
 quaint outshots and turnpike stairs, one might 
 expect to see the mailed knights of Mary, or 
 buff-coated troopers of Leslie, fresh from Mars'ton 
 Moor, drinking at the market well, or " chaffing^' 
 the girls at the grated windows of the houses. 
 
158 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 some of whicli still sliow the iron crosses of St. 
 John of Jerusalem. 
 
 The town once boasted of a castle, bnt after 
 being burned by some Northumberland raiders 
 in the time of Charles II., it has dwindled down 
 to a few vaults and a green mound, the favourite 
 resort of the children for games and play. 
 Willowdean still boasts of a parochial barn, called 
 a kirk, where God is worshipped according to the 
 cold and stern form ordained in 1559 by the 
 Lords of the Congregation, when Mary of Guise 
 was Regent of the realm, enlightened Scottish 
 lords who could barely make their mark like an 
 Irish navvy, and who (could such an investment 
 have been made) would have sold their fathers* 
 skins to Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 This church had, however, attached to it the 
 Gothic fragment of an older fane, still called the 
 Lennox Aisle, and there lay most of the forefathers 
 of her who now entered the street afoot, and 
 sick and sad at heart. 
 
 To many of the "burgh merchants^' in that 
 little town was her father in debt, yet everywhere 
 did Mary meet with respect; all touched their 
 hats to her, for the memory of her father's open- 
 handed youth was a popular one : and in a place 
 so sequestered and out of the route of the tourist, 
 even in fast-changing and radical Scotland, some 
 more respect is paid at times to the representative 
 of an old family than might be accorded to a 
 
THE SPRING EVENING. 159 
 
 wealthy parvenu, and all the more readily when 
 the said representative is a lovely young girl like 
 Mary Lennox. 
 
 In the middle of the street — the town has but 
 one, with a few thatched closes or alleys diverging 
 therefrom — she encountered a group of little 
 children dancing hand-in-hand and singing in 
 chorus one of those local rhymes which are so 
 peculiar to the Lowlands, as they came merrily 
 along, enumerating, to an air of their own, several 
 localities, thus — 
 
 " Braw Bughtrig and braw Belchester, 
 
 Leetholm and the Peel ; 
 The lad wha gets a wife frae there 
 
 Will ever do weel ; 
 But better far in Willowdean, 
 
 And bonnier will he see, 
 If he'll ride further up the muir. 
 
 Unto the Lonewoodlee." 
 
 Then, as they suddenly perceived and recognised 
 Miss Lennox, the little creatures blushed and 
 curtseyed; and, but for the chronic sadness of 
 her heart, Mary could have smiled at the old 
 rhyming compliment to the alleged beauty of the 
 ladies of her family. 
 
 At last she reached the railway station, of 
 which no description is necessary, as such edifices 
 bear a strong family resemblance all over Europe. 
 There were the same liveried porters loitering 
 about that one sees everywhere ; passengers with 
 
160 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 labelled luggage awaiting the up-train or the 
 down-train ; the book-stall, with its inevitable 
 rows of yellow, green, or red novels. Punchy and 
 the Illustrated News. 
 
 Mary had not long to wait. With a shrill 
 and vicious whistle, the train for England swept 
 out of the tunnel, a long pennant of smoke 
 streaming behind, and its crimson lamps flaming 
 like the eyeballs of a demon in front, for the 
 twilight had deepened to the gloaming now. 
 Clang went the bell, the engine " slowed,^' 
 and, amid the bustle, the opening and slamming 
 of doors, the production and notching of tickets, 
 the choice of seats and stowal of luggage, the 
 darting of the thirsty into the refreshment-room, 
 and so forth — for all had to be adjusted and the 
 train off in five minutes, if it would avoid the 
 express for Berwick — Mary looked in vain for 
 the familiar face of the friendly guard who 
 frequently did her little services, and who 
 was to bring her the important packet from 
 town. 
 
 The man on duty this evening was a total 
 stranger to her. 
 
 " A packet for you. Miss V said he, in reply 
 to her inquiries. ^' What is the name T' 
 
 " For Mr. Lennox, of Lonewoodlee.^^ 
 
 " It was given to a gentleman in the train ; he 
 offered to take charge of it.^"* 
 
 " By whom ?' 
 
THE SPRING EVENING. 161 
 
 " The other guards to whom he seemed well 
 known^ and to whom he offered in person to 
 deliver it/^ 
 
 " Singular ; a gentleman V exclaimed Mary, 
 in vague alarm that the long-expected packet 
 might be lost or stolen. 
 
 " Yes, Miss ; a regular gentleman, for he gave 
 me a crown when smoking in the van/^ 
 
 " But where is he T' 
 
 " Yonder, on the platform. Miss. Seats, gen- 
 tlemen, seats \" and cutting short the conversa- 
 tion, the bustling official hurried away, touching 
 the brass-lined peak of his cap. 
 
 Clang went the doors and the bell; the engine 
 panted and screamed, the train glided away, and 
 Mary went towards the gentleman indicated by 
 the guard. He was speaking in an animated 
 manner to a few of the loiterers on the platform, 
 who had formed a group about him, and Mary 
 fancied that he Jiad a small sealed packet in his 
 hand. 
 
 Irresolute about addressing him, she lingered 
 for a moment, till something in his air and 
 manner stirred a secret chord in her heart, which 
 vibrated painfully, and a low cry escaped her lips, 
 when the handsome face, with the well-known 
 moustache and tender loving eyes of the lost one, 
 was turned towards her ! 
 
 " Cyril V she exclaimed, and would have 
 fallen, but that his arm was instantly around her. 
 
 VOL. I. 11 
 
162 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 ^' Mary — Mary Lennox \" 
 
 It was hej but looking paler and thinner^ and 
 strangely attired ; and they met thus abruptly 
 amid a group of people on the open and most 
 prosaic of places — a railway platform ! 
 
 Great though his excitement^ Cyril Wedder- 
 burn had that horror of a '' scene''^ natural to 
 every well-bred Briton^ and rapidly recovering 
 his consciousness of the necessity for appearing 
 calm and unmoved, he lifted his hat, and said — 
 
 " Take my arm. Miss Lennox : allow me to 
 see you out of this place. I have here the packet 
 addressed to your father. I hope to hear that he 
 is better. Good evening, gentlemen and friends ; 
 thanks for all your kind wishes and congratula- 
 tions/'' 
 
 He drew Mary^s arm through his, waved his 
 hat to the people who had recognised and crowded 
 about him on the platform, welcoming his return — 
 resuscitation, what you will — with a genuine cheer 
 that died away in a buzz of speculation and 
 wonder, for the Wedderburns were deservedly 
 popular in the district ; and then he led away 
 Mary, who was in a state of intense bewilderment, 
 for much of utter terror was mingled with her 
 joy, so that her steps tottered as they left the 
 station and proceeded through the street of 
 Willowdean, where the windows of the little shops 
 were beginning to be lit with feeble gas, or still 
 more feeble candles, and from thence out upon 
 the familiar highway that stretched beyond. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A HAPPY WALK HOME. 
 
 " Cyril/^ exclaimed Mary, in a low but piercing 
 voice,, while slie clung to her lover^s arm ; " in 
 the name of mercy and for the love of blessed 
 Heaven, explain all this terrible mystery V 
 
 " Oh, my darling, my darling, how pale and 
 wan you look !" he exclaimed, as he lifted her 
 veil and kissed her tenderly. 
 
 '' And you too, Cyril. But speak of yourself, 
 not me,^^ she added, dropping her head wearily 
 on his breast, and giving way to a passionate fit 
 of weeping. ''^ What has happened to you, where 
 have you been, and how have you returned in 
 so sudden and unexpected a manner, from the 
 grave — from the very grave, as it seems to me ? 
 I have wept and mourned for you as one who 
 was numbered with the dead ! Oh, the horror, 
 the black, indescribable horror of those days and 
 nights now past !" 
 
 " My tender, loving Mary V' 
 
 " Oh, Cyril, hold me up. I feel as if I could 
 
 11—^ 
 
164 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 die just now — the shock of joy is so^ so great t 
 see you again ; to hear your voice, for the sound 
 of which I have longed in a species of silent, 
 gasping yearning, that no words can describe, 
 and which God alone knows V 
 
 '^ So have I longed for you, Mary/"* said he, 
 in a broken accent, for her words and the tone 
 of Jier voice moved him deeply, as it had in it 
 that wonderful tremolo which added so much to 
 its power. 
 
 Oh, was it real, and not a dream ? — each asked 
 of their hearts — this clinging and gasping em- 
 brace in which they both indulged for a time, in 
 a happy, happy silence, too deep for words. 
 
 After a pause, Cyril said — 
 
 " I telegraphed to my brother Robert that I 
 should arrive by this train, and asked him or 
 Horace Ramornie to meet me with the trap or 
 carriage, and drive me home; but there must 
 have been some mistake, for neither are here, 
 which is lucky, as I shall have the unexpected 
 joy of a walk home with you, my darling Mary, 
 my wee wifie, who, strange to say, has been 
 the first to greet me !^^ 
 
 So this must have been the telegram referred 
 to by Trayner in his rapid communication to 
 Chesters, who, in the true spirit of jealousy, fear, 
 or malevolence, had ridden off, without men- 
 tioning it to her. 
 
 " Surely you would not have left me another 
 
A HAPPY WALK HOME. 165 
 
 night in grief and suspense ?" said Mary^ plain- 
 tively. 
 
 '' Not another hour ! I telegraphed to the 
 family at Willowdean, first,, of my safety ; and 
 again that I was to be home by the evening 
 train. I meant to have gone to Lonewoodlee by 
 the way^ my excuse for doing so being this 
 packet, which I should have left for you^ with 
 a sufficient message^ if we had failed to meet.''^ 
 
 '' But the mystery^ Cyril — the mystery of your 
 story ; tell me all V' she implored^ with a heart 
 full of love and natural curiosity. 
 
 In a few words he rapidly sketched all the 
 adventures of the night on which he disappeared — 
 adventures he would yet have to detail to many 
 a listener^ but to few that would listen so lovingly 
 and breathlessly as poor Mary Lennox — horrors 
 that were to come back in many a dream ! He 
 told of his dining at Chesterhaugh ; of the night 
 spent in rash gambling there ; of his desire, but 
 failure, to get possession of her father^s bill ; and 
 then how his horse had proved first restive and 
 afterwards mad^ and completely ungovernable ; 
 of the fierce race by Buncle-edge and Falaknowe 
 — a ride like that of the Wild Huntsman of 
 German renown — till he was borne right into 
 the sea ; of the narrow escape he had from being 
 dashed to pieces ; but how^ by the aid of kind 
 Providence, he had reached the fragment of 
 isolated rock, and sat there in cold and misery. 
 
166 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 witli the moon waning, the night deepening, and 
 the tide rising round him, while all hope of 
 reaching the land by swimming was futile, as 
 the cliffs rose sheer like a wall from the sea, 
 which was rolling with a mighty force against 
 them ; and Mary heard all this, with hands 
 clasped upon his arm, with exclamations of com- 
 passion and dismay, with her eyes full of tears, 
 and her parted lips revealing her closely set little 
 teeth. 
 
 He described, that around him there wheeled 
 flights of the snow-white solan goose, the black 
 guillemot, the grey gull, and other sea birds; 
 and that once there came a seal — a seadog, as 
 the Scottish fishermen name it — which swam in 
 circles round the rock, with its bullet- shaped 
 head, black glittering eyes, and two fore-paws 
 alone visible, as it paddled about ; and often the 
 memory of that incident came back in dreams, 
 for he had envied the animal its amphibious 
 nature, while the rising tide flowed over his feet 
 and legs; and often, in the same visions of 
 night, came back the sounds he had heaid when 
 there — the gurgling, the hissing, and the surging 
 of the sea, as the ridgy waves succeeded each 
 other in unvarying rage, round the rock on 
 which he sat and against the cliffs that beetled 
 over him. 
 
 Mary shuddered and shed many a tear while 
 she listened, though Cyril appeared to speak 
 
A HAPPY WALK HOME. 167 
 
 somewhat lightly of the affair,, as ^^ a devil of a 
 spill — an awful mess — a narrow escape/^ and so 
 forth. 
 
 The strange weird scream of his dying horse 
 was ultimately the means of saving him. It 
 had been heard to seaward on board of a small 
 fishing smack^ the skipper of which lay to, and 
 sent his little boat in shore to discover whence 
 that unearthly cry proceeded; and two men who 
 rowed it, and whose superstitious fears inspired 
 them with the utmost unwillingness for the duty, 
 fortunately descried CyrU by the starlight, and 
 were just in time to save him. He swam off 
 towards them, and was taken on board the smack, 
 speechless with cold and exhaustion. 
 
 The kind fishermen took every means in their 
 limited power to restore him ; they placed him 
 in one of the only two berths they possessed, 
 for the entire crew consisted but of five men, 
 and of these three were always on duty ; they 
 drew off his wet clothes, covered him cosily up, 
 and gave him the only medicine they knew of — 
 a totfuU of hot stiff grog — and then he fell into 
 a deep slumber. 
 
 When morning came, the smack was out at 
 sea, on her homeward voyage to the coast of 
 Angus. Cyril awoke feverish and ill. The 
 atmosphere of the little den in which he lay was 
 redolent of tar, stale herrings, and coarse tobacco, 
 and every way was not conducive to a speedy 
 
168 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 recovery. His head ached fearfully ; his whole 
 frame felt as if bruised and battered ; his senses 
 wandered^ and it was not until the evening of 
 the second day that his preservers learned v^ho 
 he was ; whence came the singular cry they had 
 heard ; how he chanced to be on that isolated 
 rock, and that they would be well rewarded for 
 having saved him. 
 
 The smack was light ; they had sold their 
 cargo of herrings to the French at Dunbar,, and 
 were anxious now to haul up for their own homes, 
 somewhere about Montrose ; but a head wind 
 drove them into the North Sea. and four days 
 elapsed before they succeeded in landing him at 
 Lunan Bay, where he lost no time in telegraphing 
 home, and starting by the first train for the 
 Merse; and this was the solution of all that 
 recent sorrow and mystery. 
 
 " Had my left foot not been freed from the 
 stirrup in my fall, or had my horse not uttered 
 that remarkable cry which attracted the atten- 
 tion of the fishermen, I had been lying now a 
 drowned corpse in yonder sea, Mary,^^ said Cyril, 
 in conclusion. 
 
 Mary still sobbed, as she was terribly excited 
 by the whole narrative ; but joy made her face 
 seem radiantly beautiful ; and in a burst of confi- 
 dence that was perhaps not overwise, she told 
 him of Chesters' love-declaration to herself, and 
 of his having been en perdue in the thicket on 
 
A HAPPY WALK HOME. 169 
 
 the night tliey had last met. Cyril's eyes 
 sparkled with indignation ; he knit his brows^ 
 gave his moustache a fierce twirl^ and said — 
 
 " I see it all, Mary. His jealousy made me 
 the victim of some foul revengeful trickery, which 
 I shall yet have unravelled and punished !" 
 
 Mary omitted to speak of her detention at 
 Chesterhaugh ; for now the annoyance to which 
 Chesters had subjected her more than ever by his 
 address ; her repugnance of him ; the mortifica- 
 tion she had occasionally felt as a high-spirited 
 girl for the secresy of her love aff'air with Cyril 
 himself, and the plans and precautions they were 
 compelled to observe, were all forgotten in the 
 joyous conviction of his safety — the charm of his 
 manner and presence. 
 
 What delight to lean again upon his arm ; to 
 feel her hand pressed caressingly to his side ; to 
 look into his face and hear his voice ; and, ah 1 
 how different were his tone and bearing from 
 those of Chesters, when with genuine interest 
 he asked about the health of her father. Was 
 this evening walk not all a dream, a sudden 
 madness ? 
 
 " Oh, Cyril, you do not know my papa V she 
 exclaimed, in answer to some remark. 
 
 " Save by sight, as mere neighbours, and not 
 very friendly ones now ; but I wish I did know 
 him.-'' 
 
 " He is altering fast, and looking so fearfully 
 
170 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 wizened and pale, even I, who see him hourly, 
 can perceive that/'' 
 
 " Poor old man !" 
 
 At last they were close to Lonewoodlee, where 
 the old Tower and its dense thicket stood sharply 
 defined in purple shadow against the last flush 
 of light that lingered in the amber tinted west. 
 
 Mary still clung to Cyril, loth to part from 
 one so recently and so suddenly restored to her, 
 till he whispered softly in her ear — 
 
 " You forget, Mary dearest, that I have a 
 fond mother at Willowdean, longing to see 
 me too.^^ 
 
 " True. I am most selfish in detaining you 
 so long from all at home, and I have to read or 
 sing papa asleep ; for he cannot read now, and 
 his nights are so dull and lonely. Oh, Cyril, 
 how I shall sing to-night V 
 
 '' Would that I were there to hear you. Good- 
 night, my sweet Mary, until the usual hour 
 to-morrow. Good-night.^^ 
 
 Another moment and he was gone, and Mary 
 lingered at the gate until his rapid footsteps died 
 away. 
 
 " Where was all this to end V thought Cyril, 
 as he walked hastily homeward. He felt, as a 
 gentleman and man of honour, that this secret 
 love for Mary Lennox was unjust to her, and 
 might peril her good name ; it was trifling with 
 her undoubted position and with his own, and 
 
A HAPPY WALK HOME. 171 
 
 lie resolved that, come wliat might, he must 
 ere long declare it to his family, despite the 
 mohurs, rupees, and thousands of cousin Gwen- 
 dolyne, and the ambitious views of his father and 
 mother, the latter especially. 
 
 Mary had as yet but one thought, as she 
 rushed with a happy heart into her room and 
 threw off her hat and sealskin jacket; that the 
 first kiss after his return had been on her cheek, 
 even before that of his mother. 
 
 Was this a little bit of the superstition or the 
 selfishness which exists with all love ? Perhaps 
 so ; but then she had barely a bowing acquain- 
 tance with Lady Wedderburn, and situated as she 
 was with her son, the humiliation of that cir- 
 cumstance was somewhat galling to Mary^s pride. 
 
 But how wild was the joy of the impulsive 
 girl ! How she sang and played that night for 
 hours, lost in happy, happy dreams ! He had 
 been restored to her again, her lover, the hope 
 of her future life ; he who to her was " gallant 
 and gay as the young Lochinvar j" and yet, who 
 in reality, was only a very good specimen of a 
 gentlemanly officer of the Line. She forgot all 
 about the tenor and brevity of his leave of 
 absence, and that he might be summoned away 
 at a moment^s notice ; she forgot all but that he 
 had been restored to the world and to her, and 
 that he loved her, oh, so truly ! Of all fears 
 she was oblivious for a time, till other thoughts 
 
172 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 than joyous ones stole gradually into her mind ; 
 and then her white fingers strayed mechanically 
 over the ivory keys of the piano_, and her tre- 
 mulous voice^ like the last faint notes_, died 
 away. 
 
 Alas ! there can be no human happiness with- 
 out some alloy ! 
 
 She now recalled some of Rooke Chesters' 
 malevolent hints and speeches about the wealth 
 and beauty of the expected cousin, and of Lady 
 Wedderburn^s evident views concerning her and 
 Cyril ; though from what precise source he drew 
 those deductions was quite unknown, unless 
 the ready invention of a mind inflamed by 
 jealousy. 
 
 When this Indian heiress came, rich and 
 lovely — for Chesters had assured Mary that she 
 was lovely' — would there be any chauge in their 
 destiny ? Oh, she must not think of that ; Cyril 
 could never change, never forget all they had 
 been to each other. 
 
 " Alas V thought she, " this man — this Rooke 
 Ghesters, for whom I care nothing — can come 
 openly to see me, to talk, and even, if 1 per- 
 mitted him, to walk with me ; while Cyril — 
 Cyril Wedderburn, who is to be my husband, 
 whom I love so ; love as Heaven alone knows — 
 I see only by stealth ! It is hard ; very hard ! 
 But this is not a night on which I should repine,^' 
 and she lifted up her hands and her soft eyes, 
 
A HAPPY WALK HOME. 173 
 
 while her heart was full of prayerful thoughts 
 and gratitude, to Heaven. 
 
 ^^ Forsaking may be human, but betraying is 
 the vice of devils -" and Chesters only sought to 
 betray, to lure, and destroy. Yet Marj'^ knew 
 not of that, though aware of his terrible cha- 
 racter, for he had actually, but somewhat jocu- 
 larly, spoken of marriage ; and Mary shivered at 
 the thought. 
 
 In her small turret- chamber that night — the 
 same from the window of which she had heard 
 the wild cry and seen the galloping horse — she 
 shed happy tears, as she prayed beside her little 
 couch; for the gloom that once enveloped her 
 soul had departed, and all the bitter past seemed 
 now a vanished dream ! 
 
CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 COUSIN GWENNY. 
 
 Great contentment and supreme happiness 
 reigned at Willowdean_, where long consultations 
 were held by the gentlemen concerning Chesters, 
 who had suddenly taken his departure to London. 
 They had doubts of what to do, for suspicion 
 was not proof, and Cyril had to conceal the 
 espionage practised on himself at Lonewoodlee, 
 and that jealousy had aught to do with the sup- 
 posed treacherous trick played to his horse. 
 Hence the whole affair seemed inexplicable to 
 his father, his brother, and cousin, till in CyriFs 
 mind there stole a kind of cloudy doubt even of 
 Chesters^ guilt. 
 
 " Could it be possible,^' he asked of himself, 
 '^ that he could conceive and carry out a scheme 
 so singularly infamous against an unsuspecting 
 guest ?" 
 
 For the next day or two, Cyril found some 
 difficulty in keeping his appointments with Mary, 
 for his doting mother could scarcely trust her 
 
COUSIN GWEMNY. 175 
 
 tall^ curly-pated and heavily-moustaclied captain 
 of Fusileers out of her sight, she had so much to 
 ask and to learn : and nobly were the poor 
 skipper of Angus and the four fishermen of his 
 smack rewarded. Cyril_, however, wrote little 
 notes to Mary, making his excuses, and express- 
 ing his love for her ; and such notes were a great 
 solace to her in her loneliness at home. 
 
 How trivial now seemed the adoption of 
 mourning for Uncle William ; the suits of black 
 for the family and servants, the note-paper and 
 cards with sable edges and crests, when com- 
 pared with the gloom of such preparations for 
 the loss of the heir of Willowdean ! 
 
 Cyril knew that of course he was his father^s 
 heir ; and that if God and the Russian bullets 
 spared him in the expected war, he might in 
 time become the Baronet of Willowdean ; but 
 with all his interest, personal and sentimental, in 
 the old family estate, he felt bored when his 
 father talked to him, as country gentlemen will 
 talk, of the probable appearance of the crops and 
 the face of the country, of the farm and pasture 
 land, of top dressing, subsoil, and tile drainage, 
 especially for the lower meadows and three great 
 fields of the home-farm ; the weight of pigs. 
 " By Jove," Cyril would mentally exclaim, " the 
 weight of pigs \" 
 
 He could feel an interest when the county 
 pack was on the tapis, or when he heard that 
 
176 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 the covers would require looking to ; the patent 
 powder to feed the pheasants ; the rooting out 
 of weasels and foumarts ; of the new stables, 
 and so forth; but never in agriculture,, which, 
 in all its branches, he viewed and voted as an 
 unqualified bore. Hunting after a night poacher, 
 who occasionally visited the home-farm in '' the 
 glimpses of the moon," was more in CyriFs way 
 than the alternation of green or white crops, and 
 so forth ; but his thoughts, if not with the regi- 
 ment, were ever at Lonewoodlee. 
 
 Horace Ramornie felt some interest in Sir 
 John's topics, for though he had not an acre of 
 land, he repined occasionally at the loss of the old 
 patrimonial estates of his family, and felt somewhat 
 too keenly his dependence on his uncle. 
 
 Lady Wedderburn was now intent apparently on 
 the arrangements necessary for the reception of 
 the expected ward ; but the chief thought of her 
 mind was obvious to all, and she could not avoid 
 recurring to it whenever she and Sir John were 
 alone. 
 
 '' I know that Cyril cannot quit his regiment 
 with honour just now, when it has got letters of 
 readiness,^' said she, on one occasion ; " but, 
 dear Sir John, I should so like him to sell out, 
 and reside quietly at home. He is not obliged 
 to pursue his career as a soldier, like Horace, 
 who is penniless.''^ 
 
 ^' Quit V' repeated Wedderburn, testily, " I 
 
COUSIN GWENNY. 177 
 
 should think not. Quit on the eve of a war ! 
 I would rather see the lad in his coffin than 
 taunted with showing the white feather/'' 
 
 " In three days Gwenny will be here_, and if 
 she is so handsome as Doctor Chutnay of 
 Madras assures us she is_, she must be charming ! 
 And if Cyril must go soon^ I should wish — wish 
 that he were married^ or at leasts solemnly con- 
 tracted to her. You understand me^ Wedder- 
 burn ?'' 
 
 " Why such hasty hopes and plans,, Kate T^ 
 
 '' Because^ as I have already hinted^ some one 
 else may marry her^ and it would be an act of 
 injustice to Cyril and ourselves to permit all her 
 wealth to pass out of the family. Besides, our 
 neighbour Chesters, every way a bad style of 
 man, may see and admire her^ with views of his 
 own.'^ 
 
 " If he ever should meet her, which after 
 recent events I think barely probable/'' said Sir 
 John, somewhat angrily, 
 
 " Then there is the Master of Ernescleugh.^' 
 
 "I don''t envy your task as chaperon,^' said 
 Sir John, laughing ; " you will be in dread of 
 every young fellow in the county ! But suppose 
 that the girl may have been foolish enough to 
 fall in love with some enterprising subaltern on 
 the overland route home — we hear of such 
 results every day — some fellow in whose pleasant 
 society she has been cast by sea and land for a 
 
 VOL. I. 12 
 
178 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 montli or more ? She may come liere engaged ; 
 married, perhaps V 
 
 The bare suggestion of such a catastrophe filled 
 Lady Wedderburn with unutterable dismay; all 
 the more easily, perhaps, that the same fear had 
 occurred to herself. 
 
 The three days glided away. By the evening 
 train Miss Gwendoleyne Wedderburn was ex- 
 pected to arrive from London; and Cyril, who 
 had not seen Mary Lennox for four consecutive 
 days, resolved to take advantage of the incidental 
 bustle at home to ride over to Lonewoodlee for 
 an hour after dinner; but just as Gervase 
 Asloane was removing the cloth, and placing the 
 decanters before Sir John, Lady Wedderbui'n 
 said — 
 
 " You are aware, Cyril, that your cousin will 
 be at the railway station in two hours from this 
 time ?'' 
 
 ^' Yes. Does she travel alone ?" asked Cyril, 
 with provoking indifference of manner. 
 
 " Alone. No. Could you imagine that she 
 would do so ?'' 
 
 ^' How then — with whom ? Has old Chut- 
 nay come all the way from Madras with her T^ 
 
 '' She travels with her maid. You will, of 
 course, go over with the carriage to meet her, 
 as your father has complained of a twinge or 
 two of gout." 
 
 " Can^t Horace or Robert go ?" asked the 
 
COUSIN GWENNY. 179 
 
 Captain, bluntly, as lie filled his glass with, 
 golden-coloured Chateau d'Yquem from a white 
 crystal bottle. 
 
 ^^ If Sir John cannot go, you should and must, 
 as his representative/^ 
 
 "Why must the whole house be under arms 
 because a little Indo-Briton is coming home ?" 
 
 *^ Cyril \" she exclaimed, lifting up her plump 
 white hands. 
 
 *^ Besides, mamma dear^f ^ said he, with some- 
 thing of his coaxing manner when a boy, ^' the 
 fact is, I have a particular engagement.^^ 
 
 " With whom ?" 
 
 The Captain coloured slightly, gave his mous- 
 tache a twirl, and said — 
 
 '^ Oh, what does it signify ? To look at a horse 
 I wish to take back with me to the regiment.^^ 
 
 " Not a bay hunter, I hope,'^ said his brother 
 Robert. 
 
 '' I have had enough of bay hunters/^ replied 
 Cyril, with a short laugh; and then he added, 
 " Horace, my man, as your superior officer, I 
 order you to go upon this tour of duty.^^ 
 
 " With pleasure,^^ replied Horace ; but Lady 
 Wedderburn struck in — 
 
 " If Cyril is not courteous enough to go for 
 his cousin, let Robert appear alone. Why 
 trouble poor Horace ?" 
 
 " Why not, mamma ? What trouble can it 
 
 12—2 
 
180 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 be to look after a pretty girl ? Let Horace go, 
 by all means." 
 
 ^' But he is not her cousin \" 
 
 '^ What does that matter, Kate ? Let him 
 go also/^ said Sir John, while a droll but furtive 
 smile was exchanged by Cyril and Horace Ra- 
 mornie ; " the carriage wdll surely hold three. 
 Fve known it come from a ball with six. Her 
 maid may sit in the rumble with the servant — 
 an arrangement which ^perhaps may be agreeable 
 to them both. Asloane, order the carriage to be 
 here punctually at seven.''^ 
 
 Determined to have his own way, and no 
 longer grieve Mary by his protracted absence, 
 Cyril left the dinner-table early, while Lady 
 Wedderburn had serious misgivings about him ; 
 and punctually at the hour ordered, the hand- 
 some family carriage, with its two bright coloured 
 bays, with plated harness ; its two resplendent 
 lamps, and a pair of spotted Dalmatian dogs in 
 attendance, departed with Robert and Horace 
 E-amornie for the railway station, from whence, 
 in less than an hour, it returned with the heiress 
 and her half-caste Indian maid, a tawny woman, 
 whose dress, as yet, was a strange but ample 
 scarlet garment, enveloping her whole person j 
 and the tall footmen were immediately in requi- 
 sition to carry in her bullock trunks, portman- 
 teaus, and a huge '^ overland," covered with black 
 canvas and bound with iron. 
 
COUSIN GWENNY. 181 
 
 More than ever provoked and piqued by the 
 unaccountable absence of Cyril at this interesting 
 juncture^ Lady Wedderburn — though after her 
 late terror she felt she must forgive him every- 
 thing — started forward with all eagerness as the 
 drawing-room door was thrown open by Asloane, 
 and a wonderfully handsome^ and evidently 
 highly-bred young girl, attired in a fashionably 
 accurate suit of deep mourning, and all in the 
 most exquisite taste, was led in by Horace and 
 Robert, who saw — as the latter afterwards said 
 — his mother^s " company smile^^ brighten into 
 one of genuine affection and sympathy, as she 
 embraced and kissed on both cheeks the young 
 heiress, of whom she was now to be the custodian 
 and chaperon. 
 
 '^ Welcome to Willowdean, my dear, dear 
 girl,^^ said Sir John, taking both her hands in 
 his, and saluting her with great tenderness. " I 
 am yom' old uncle Wedderburn ; yet not perhaps 
 so very old, after all,^"* he added, with a smile, 
 while she looked wistfully and earnestly in his 
 face, as if seeking to trace there a likeness to her 
 dead father ; but though striving hard to do so, 
 she failed, yet thought in her heart — 
 
 " I shall always love him, because he is my 
 papa^s only brother. And, dear Aunt Wedder- 
 burn, these are my cousins ?" 
 
 " One is your cousin Robert. Cyril you shall 
 see ere long, Gwenny.^^ 
 
182 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 "Doctor Chutnay, of Madras, wlio was so 
 kind to poor papa and me, has seen my cousin 
 Cyril at Chatham Barracks, and says he is so 
 handsome V 
 
 *' He is, indeed, Gwenny \" said Lady Wed- 
 derbnm, greatly delighted by this remark ; " but 
 now, dearest girl, you must be weary with your 
 long journey, though you would stop at York 
 and Berwick, of course. Permit me to see you 
 to your room, or Miss M'Caw will do so, and 
 take off some of your things, if your maid is too 
 weary." 
 
 And with a bow of acquiescence, and a bright 
 pleasant smile, the young lady, who had evidently 
 made a most favourable impression on all, retired 
 to her own apartments ; while Lady Wedderburn 
 turned to Sir John, and said — 
 
 " A delightful girl — so charming and winning! 
 How provoked I am by Cyril^s protracted ab- 
 sence — about a horse, too. Who goes to buy horses 
 at night ?' 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 Fortunately for his mother^s peace of mind, 
 Cyril arrived even before his cousin descended 
 from her rooms,, where her own maid, Zillah, and 
 Lady Wedderbnrn''s abigail had begun to unpack 
 the huge overland and portmanteaus, which were 
 filled with Indian marvels in the form of Delhi 
 needlework and Champac jewellery of mkaculous 
 fabric; Dacca muslins, ivory fans and puzzle- 
 balls ; inlaid boxes of ivory and silver from Bom- 
 bay, for essences and perfumes ; and now, with 
 memory of the sad and tender kiss of Mary 
 Lennox lingering on his cheek — a kiss all the 
 sadder and perhaps foreboding, as she had 
 heard of the arrival of this terrible Indian 
 heiress — he had to welcome and salute his cousin, 
 to whom he tendered many *^ apologies for an 
 absence that was so perfectly unavoidable ;" 
 and then came coffee, with a little repast for 
 the fair traveller, who, though conscious that 
 she was an object of imdisguised interest, and 
 
184 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 as such, undergoing inspection, never betrayed 
 the slightest confusion; for the mode of life in 
 India, and the nearly total want of privacy pe- 
 culiar to it, together with the number of persons, 
 faces, places, and scenes she had met on the long 
 route overland, rendered her perfectly self- 
 possessed, without, however, the least over-con- 
 fidence. 
 
 Gwendoleyne Wedderburn w^as more than a 
 pretty girl. Though colourless — even ])ale — 
 she was in fact remarkably beautiful, with a vast 
 quantity of fine dark hair, and very dark hazel 
 eyes, with long black lashes, which she inherited 
 from her Welsh mother, " Gwendoleyne Ap-Ehys 
 of Llanchilhvydd,^^ as Lady Wedderburn fre- 
 quently reminded her. Her hands and feet were 
 beautifully formed ; she carried her head perhaps 
 a little too haughtily ; but she was conscious of 
 her own appearance, and had been petted and 
 treated with extreme deference in the sunny land 
 she had come from. Her mouth was very per- 
 fectly curved, and when in repose and not smiling 
 — which was seldom — the upper lip resembled a 
 little Cupid^s bow, while the under was like a 
 tiny cherry. 
 
 She formed, Cyril thought (and he was no bad 
 judge), a perfect picture, as she sat a little apart 
 from all at a small tripod table, with a little 
 hastily-prepared dinner before her, served on 
 Dresden china. Her figure, slight and graceful. 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 185 
 
 clad in a crape dress, the blackness of whicli con- 
 trasted so powerfully with the dazzling whiteness 
 of her shoulders as they gleamed in the light of 
 the gaselier which fell in a flood about her. Her 
 dress was cut low about the neck and bust — Lady 
 Wedderburn thought a little too low^, especially 
 when her black lace shawl fell oif. A necklet 
 of jet beads encircled her delicate and slender 
 throatj and_, save it and one magnificent ring of 
 pearls and diamonds,, other ornament she had 
 none but her beautiful hair, which was dressed to 
 perfection. 
 
 '^ Heavens ! if that should be an engagement 
 ring V thought Lady Wedderburn, as she glanced 
 nervously at the girFs hand. 
 
 Her face was expressive of innocence and 
 sweetness, just suggestive a little of pride ; and 
 every moment she became more and more radiant 
 as she became more familiar with those about 
 her, and jested and chatted with her "three 
 newly-found cousins,^^ as she called them. Her 
 manner and voice were sweet, and the girl was 
 full of pretty ways ; thus every action of her 
 head or hands was graceful. 
 
 " Suppose all these three young fellows fall in 
 love with her, my Lady Wedderburn will be in a 
 nice dilemma then ! And what is more likely to 
 happen in a country house, where people have so 
 little to do, and are so much thrown together ?^^ 
 thought Sir John Wedderburn, who was regarding 
 
186 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 her witli a fond and fatherly smile^ and seeking to 
 trace out some memory of his brother, the Willie 
 of other days — the days of rambling, riding, and 
 bird-nesting in Renton Woods and Willowdean 
 — but save a phrase or two which escaped her, 
 he found none for a time. 
 
 Lady Wedderburn claimed nearly all the good 
 points of Gwendoleyne, as inherited from the 
 Wedderburns ; but Sir John saw that the girl 
 was more like what her beautiful Welsh mother 
 had been when first she came to Willowdean on 
 her happy bridal tour, ere she went to India, the 
 land of splendid exile ; and Cyril, while he hung 
 over her chair, while he conversed with her and 
 looked into the bright depths of her dark and 
 liquid eyes, was thinking how different was the 
 lot of this wealthy and beautiful cousin as con- 
 trasted with that of the lonely girl he had lately 
 quitted, and who at that moment was probably 
 hanging about her father's sick bed ; and he felt 
 that his genuine and growing admiration of 
 Gwendoleyne's beauty was a species of treason 
 to Mary Lennox. 
 
 Will he always think so ? We shall see. 
 
 Though the death of her father was a recent 
 event comparatively, Gwenny was neither sad 
 nor -sorrowful now, save when she spoke of him, 
 and then would her voice become tremulous and 
 her eyes suflfusc with tears, for she was soft and, 
 by nature, impressionable. 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 187 
 
 Since leaving Madras, she had. been nearly six 
 weeks on the route home, in a splendid Peninsular 
 and Oriental liner, crowded with gay cabin pas- 
 sengers, officers of the Queen^s and East Indian 
 armies. Civil Service men, &c. — happy fellows, all 
 coming home on leave or to retire altogether, as 
 the case might be. 
 
 She had seen many marvels that were even 
 glories to her Indian eyes, since she had watched 
 with tears, from the lofty poop of the Kajah, the 
 low, flat, sandy shore of Madras, so long her 
 home, with the Castle of St. George and all the 
 white minarets and gilded pagodas sinking into 
 the blue sea, as the vessel steamed out of the 
 roads. She had seen Aden, with its splintered rocks 
 and arid shore of sand and ashes, where, accord- 
 ing to Mohammedan fable, once the rose-garden 
 of Irem bloomed ; and she had seen the sun^s 
 rays shining like the Scriptural column of fire 
 through the Gate of Tears, as she sailed past 
 Perim into the Red Sea. Then she spoke of 
 Suez, with its mosques and bazaars, and the 
 exciting journey through the desert; and she 
 clasped her pretty hands at the memory of some 
 of the scenes she had witnessed there : its occa- 
 sional horrors — camels, even men, lying dead, 
 partly decayed or wholly skeletons, and* half 
 buried in the shifting sand, with the black 
 vultures hovering over or perching on them, and 
 for a background to the whole, the Pyramids 
 
188 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 rising in the distance, like purple cones against a 
 sky of fire and amber. And then there was the 
 awful thirst endured there — a thirst that rendered 
 bitter beer,, potass^ and sherry, veritable nectar, 
 however homely they may be deemed elsewhere. 
 
 Then came the Mediterranean, where she had 
 encountered one of those sudden storms peculiar 
 to that sea, when its waves changed from dark 
 blue to pale green, and from thence to purple and 
 silver, while the rain descended as if the windows 
 of Heaven had been opened again. But old 
 Gibraltar, its rock and town, its terraces and 
 batteries, had filled her with delight, and so did 
 everything else. 
 
 By that time, most of her compagnons du 
 voyage were married ladies, old officers, or invalids 
 — a statement which soothed some of Lady Wed- 
 derburn^s fears — and so, chatting merrily, she 
 told of all she had seen ; and, in the energy of 
 her manner, and full of her narrative, which, 
 somehow, she addi'essed chiefly to Horace 
 Bamornie — but then he too had recently come 
 home by the P. and O. route — when she laid, quite 
 involuntarily, her soft ungloved hand, with its 
 white modelled fingers, on his arm, the young 
 man felt a thrill run through him, though he 
 was not " a cousin''^ — a circumstance on which 
 their mutual Aunt Wedderburn placed so much 
 weight. 
 
 Did this new friend, this lovely girl, possess 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 189 
 
 some magnetic power^ or what was it ? for 
 Horace felt himself grow giddy with delight 
 whenever she touched him. 
 
 She heard CyriFs thrilling story of his late 
 terrible adventure^ which was so keenly fresh in 
 his mind and in the minds of all the household, 
 but while she listened, it seemed to Lady Wed- 
 derburn, who was nervously observant, that her 
 eyes, ^^ whose lids seemed to be fringed with 
 feathers from a bird^s wing rather than with 
 ordinary lashes, so thick and soft lay their 
 shadows on her cheek,^^ from time to time 
 sought, not those of Cyril, but of Horace 
 Ramornie. 
 
 Gwenny was soon found to be generous to a 
 fault, and, by the suitable presents she lavished 
 on all sides, she made friends with all. Her 
 poor papa's magnificent hookah, with its snaky 
 coil of silk and gold, and its pure amber mouth- 
 piece, she had brought carefully home, with 
 many other mementos, for her uncle Wedder- 
 burn. To Lady Wedderburn she gave a beautiful 
 diamond ring, and made poor little Miss Flora 
 M'Caw radiantly happy by a set of gold Champac 
 ornaments, necklace, rings, and bracelets, that 
 the Begum Sumroo, or even the terrible Queen 
 of Delhi, might have worn with credit. 
 
 Three clays saw her perfectly domesticated and 
 at home in her new abode ; but many things 
 there excited her surprise. 
 
190 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 " How few servants you have, dear Auntie V 
 said she one day, ^^ only tlie Kitmutgar Asloane 
 — sucli a droll name lie lias ! — a few bheesties, 
 syces, and ayahs, a butler, coachman, two valets, 
 and a few women. How on earth do you con- 
 trive to do Avith so few ? We had nearly fifty 
 at our house in the Choultry, besides six punka- 
 wallahs/^ 
 
 " Fifty ! where did you find beds for them aU, 
 Gwenny ?'' 
 
 " Oh, they slept on mats, everywhere or any- 
 where — on the stairs, in the corridors, on the 
 roof, or in the verandahs, when the rainy season 
 was over/' 
 
 " Such ari'angements would scarcely suit 
 Willowdean,^^ said her aunt, laughing. 
 
 The fireplaces, the carpeted floors, the total 
 absence of a great dark punkah swaying noise- 
 lessly overhead, all filled her with a wonder 
 that was almost childish. Horace and Cyril 
 could both speak with her of India, having 
 served there ; the former two years, and the latter 
 five. Poor Bob knew nothing about it, so, as 
 he was rather ignored, he fumed a little in 
 secret, and thought to himself, " when those 
 fellows^ leave of absence is up, I shall have it 
 all my own way — patience till then.^^ 
 
 All the ideas of the young heiress were odd 
 for a time, being of course those of an Indo- 
 Briton. The Indian summer had just ended 
 
"FIRST IMPRESSIONS. I9l 
 
 when she left vMadras, and the Scottish spring 
 had just begun when she arrived at Willowdean, 
 hence the verdure was not so great as she might 
 have found it in Devonshire. The fruit and 
 flowers in the conservatory seemed all strange, 
 puerile, and meagre to her eyes. Luxury and 
 splendour there appeared but little. There was 
 no state kept, she thought, at Willowdean; no 
 horde of half-nude native servants, obsequious 
 to slavery ; no camels, with gorgeous housings ; 
 no elephants, bearing gilded ho wdahis with silken 
 curtains ; no dhoolie or palanquin bearers, singing 
 gaily as they trotted along. She woke at un- 
 earthly hours in the morning, to the astonish- 
 ment and annoyance of the butler and house- 
 maids, and wished to have a drive, as if she 
 were still at the Choultry of Madras ; and then, 
 the perpetual clouds, and more than all the 
 occasional mist from the German Sea — white, 
 dense^ and palpable — filled her with wonder, 
 accustomed as she had been to the pure and 
 deep blue sky of Hindostan. 
 
 She smiled, and even laughed with provoking 
 playfulness, when Lady Wedderburn, who was 
 fond of "talking peerage,^^ expatiated on the 
 historical and somewhat shady traditionary 
 glories of the Welsh race of Ap-Rhys of Llan- 
 chillwydd; on the famous Dafydd-ap-Gwilym- 
 ap-Rhys, who inherited all the virtues of Howel 
 Dha, whose daughter had been his great-great- 
 
192 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 grandmotlier, and gave him the blood of the 
 Pendragons. All this sounded odd to Gwenny — 
 very odd — for her papa had been a man of the 
 "world, a thorough man of business, "who stuck 
 to his ledgers and counting-house, always look- 
 ing forward, setting little store upon the past, 
 and nothing at all upon a dead ancestry. 
 
 Gervase Asloane, the old housekeeper, and 
 other domestics, she somewhat shocked by using 
 the piano on Sunday, and by yawning, more 
 than a young lady should, in church — the paro- 
 chial barn — oh, good heavens ! how unlike it 
 was to the lofty, airy, and white chunam-coated 
 cathedral of the Bishop of Madras ! Then 
 there was no organ, and, to her ears, the psalm- 
 singing sounded but as a torrent of dissonant 
 strains. 
 
 Her conversation for a time naturally enough 
 ran on memories of the brilliant land she had 
 left — the Choultry of Madras, with all its stately 
 palaces, the black and the white towns, and the 
 catamarans tossing amid the white and foaming 
 surge, which there boils for ever on the shore ; 
 of chowries and mosquito curtains ; of punka- 
 wallahs and tatty wetters ; of bheesties and peons, 
 and other persons and things incomprehensible 
 to Lady Wedderburn, who, however, was greatly 
 delighted that Cyril could talk w4th her on such 
 mysterious matters, and understood what she 
 meant. But then, unluckily, Horace Kamornie 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 193 
 
 knew all about them too^ and had been in gar- 
 rison at Vellore ; still Bob sulked, and when 
 Sir John laughed,, voted it all " a dreadful bore/' 
 
 She was astonished to find that people slept 
 in their beds, and not merely on them ; that 
 blankets and broadcloth were used even in 
 summer ; that the butter was neither poured 
 out like cream nor thickened with dead flies. 
 The state of the thermometer was a source of 
 perpetual wonder to her, and she said to 
 Horace — 
 
 " Is it as cool always at Willowdean as on 
 the Blue Mountains of Madras in the wet sea- 
 son?^' 
 
 But greater surprises were in store for her, 
 when winter came with its frost and snow, its 
 skaters and curlers on loch and river. 
 
 With all her kindness and goodness of heart, 
 Lady Wedderburn, in pursuit of her secret wish, 
 was singularly injudicious. 
 
 Gwenny had come among her relations, an 
 orphan. Horace Bamornie, though now a soldier, 
 a young lieutenant of the Line, could remember 
 the time when he, too, came to Willowdean in 
 the days of his early orphanage, and the lonely 
 hours when he lay in his little bed at night, 
 seeing, in fancy, his parents^ faces amid the dark- 
 ness, and longing, with all a childish longing and 
 yearning, " for a touch of the vanished hand, and 
 the sound of a voice that was still 3" and these 
 
 VOL. I. 13 
 
194 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 recollections made him very tender in his manner 
 to Gwenny, thougli Horace had ever a gentle 
 and a winning way with all women^ old as well 
 as young. 
 
 "Cousin Horace/^ said she^, on one occasion, 
 " and you have been an orphan like myself ; how 
 strange \" 
 
 " Horace is not your cousin, but Cyril is/^ 
 said Lady Wedderburn, in a pointed manner, as 
 she passed through the drawing-room into the 
 conservatory. 
 
 Her words conveyed a volume, for Gwenny 
 blushed scarlet, and the young man grew pale. 
 
 " I am not your cousin. Miss Wedderburn — 
 would that I were,^"* said he, with a low sigh. 
 
 " Why, what difference would it make T^ 
 
 " For then I might — might claim something 
 more than mere friendship/^ 
 
 " Not my cousin T' queried Gwenny, her dark 
 eyes dilating as she spoke. " Oh, I know that 
 you are not, though Lady Wedderburn is aunt 
 to us both ; but why call me Miss — say Gwenny, 
 as CjT-il and Robert do.^"* 
 
 " Gwenny then,^^ said Horace, tremulously 
 and softly, for the girFs wonderful beauty be- 
 wildered, while her frank and candid manner 
 charmed and entranced him ; but he felt a secret 
 consciousness that, before Lady Wedderburn, to 
 call Gwenny by her abbreviated name would be 
 rather injudicious. 
 
riRST IMPRESSIONS. 195 
 
 While shrinking from the idea of rivalling his 
 cousin Cyril, and earning thereby the anger of 
 such benefactors as his uncle and aunt^ Horace 
 E/amornie was in love with all the deep strength 
 of a young man's first and genuine passion. 
 The girl, as we have said^ was undoubtedly 
 beautiful, and if love will glorify all it looks 
 on, to his eyes the face and presence of Gwendo- 
 leyne became as something divine, and Horace 
 was intoxicated by her ! 
 
 Night after night he lay awake for hours, 
 feeding his soul with the idea of Gwendoleyne ; 
 longing for and yet nervously dreading his recall 
 to the regiment, amid this strange and fresh 
 emotion that had grown in his heart, and which 
 was alike his torment and delight. 
 
 He would sigh deeply and bitterly, clasping 
 his hands in the dark, as he thought of his 
 cousin CyriFs greater chances of success, his 
 superior position, his attainments, and many 
 genuine good qualities ; and also of his aunt's too 
 perceptible opposition ; and then he would wring 
 them like a love-sick girl, for Horace was by 
 nature shy, impressionable, and enthusiastic. 
 
 Another was wi'inging her hands at times in 
 Lonewoodlee, and weeping the silent tears of 
 sad and bitter misgiving ! 
 
 13—^ 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ^ 
 
 SCHEMES. 
 
 Lady/Ernescleugh, a large^ showy, and fashion- 
 able-looking woman, had driven to Willowdean 
 with her son Everard, the Master of Ernescleugh, 
 who was a lieutenant in the Household Brigade, 
 on hearing of the new arrival ; and though the 
 future lord was so wealthy that money was no 
 particular object to him, the beauty of Gwenny, 
 and the piquancy that was in all she did and 
 said, impressed him favourably ; and now a series 
 of dinners, picnics, drives to various places of 
 interest, and even a pleasure excursion in his 
 yacht, were schemed out ; but, to some of the 
 former, and more especially the latter. Lady 
 Wedderburn was decidedly opposed; and the 
 too recent death of Sir John^s only brother 
 aiforded her a good pretext for doing so, and 
 keeping Gwenny at home, while CyriFs leave of 
 absence lasted, at least. 
 
 Lady Ernescleugh urged her to take Gwenny 
 to London, and have her presented at the very 
 
SCHEMES. 197 
 
 first Drawing Room next season; adding, that if 
 Lady Wedderburn cared not about going to town, 
 she would herself only be too happy to act as 
 chaperon to a girl so beautiful and so certain 
 to make a sensation ; but the watchful mother 
 had no desire that the wealthy heiress should be 
 lost to her Cyril in the splendid whirlpool of 
 London society, while he, perhaps, was fighting 
 the Russians. Heaven alone knew when, for as 
 yet the scene of the expected war was vague 
 indeed. 
 
 Pier whole aim was to " bring the young 
 people together,'''' and in this instance it was 
 overdone. Cyril saw through her scheme, though 
 Gwenny did not ; and he was both amused and 
 bored by it, for the master-thought evinced itself 
 in many trifling ways. 
 
 *^ Gwenny, my darling,^^ said she, one evening 
 in the drawing-room, " I am sure your cousin 
 longs to hear you sing and play. Don^t you, 
 Cyril ?' 
 
 '■^ Of course,^^ replied Cyril, who had been 
 furtively looking at the French clock on the 
 white marble mantelpiece, and thinking it was 
 almost time he was drawing near the stile at 
 Lonewoodlee. " Of course, if she will so far 
 favour us,^^ he added, hastening to open the 
 piano, set up the music-frame, and adjust the 
 stool; devoutly hoping the while that the per- 
 formance would be as short as possible. 
 
198 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 ^^ I play little^ and sing less now/' said 
 Gwenny. 
 
 '* Gwendoleyne V exclaimed Lady Wedder- 
 burn, as she shook lier lace lappets and diamond 
 pendants. 
 
 " Besides_, dearest Aunt, Horace Ramornie is 
 a critic, and I dislike to play before critics.''^ 
 
 " You played and sang to him yesterday/^ said 
 Robert Wedderburn, before Horace, who was 
 about to deprecate being deemed a critic, could 
 speak. 
 
 " True ; but he pressed me so,'^ said Gwenny, 
 with the faintest blush. 
 
 '^ Come, Horace, and press her again,'' urged 
 Cyril, with a nonchalant laugh. 
 
 "Will you, then, favour me — us, T mean," 
 whispered Horace, leading her to the piano, while 
 his cheek reddened. 
 
 She seated herself at the instrument, S23reading 
 all her crape flounces over the stool, and began 
 at once the prelude to some little air she had 
 picked up abroad. Her voice was sweet and 
 tender ; but neither the words of the song nor 
 her execution were brilliant ; and Cyril, while he 
 listened, admiring the while her ivory neck and 
 pretty hands, was thinking of another whose fine 
 voice, a glorious soprano, could thrill his heart to 
 the core. 
 
 Lady Wedderburn often found her eldest son 
 and his cousin in the conservatorv — in the librarv, 
 
SCHEMES. 199 
 
 and even in the billiard-room ; and always left 
 tliem discreetly, little thinking that Gwenny was 
 in the first instance merely expatiating on the 
 superior flora of Madras and the Carnatic; in 
 the second, perhaps selecting a book or so by 
 Cyril^s suggestion; and in the third, that he, so 
 far from talking of love when looking into the 
 soft dark eyes of Gwendoleyne, was discussing 
 most learnedly, cue in hand, on the screw and 
 side-twist ; of losing and winning hazards ; of 
 what a famous stroke Probyn of ours was ; of 
 winning no end of scores off the red ball running ; 
 of pool and pyramid; all of which were as 
 Sanscrit and Oordoo to the fair listener. 
 
 Busy with his steward or ground bailie, riding 
 about one day, or rambling the next, with weeder 
 in hand, his sturdy legs cased in brown leather 
 gaiters, and his wide-awake garnished with hooks 
 and flies. Sir John spent most of his time out of 
 doors, looking after his estate, seeing where trees 
 were to be cut down or others planted, water courses 
 to be changed, or little bridges to be built ; and 
 only once did he speak to Cyril of Gwenny, 
 and even then at Lady Wedderburn^s sugges- 
 tion. 
 
 " If you mean to propose for your cousin, 
 Cyril, you have my free consent. Do so, and 
 do it at once. You know om' maxim in 
 hunting ''■' 
 
 " Never crane if you mean to take a leap ?" 
 
200 LADY WEDDERBURn's WISH. 
 
 '^ Exactly. And now I am off to see how the 
 tile-draining gets on." 
 
 " Is she not handsome, Cyril ?" said Lady 
 Wedderburn on one occasion,, passing her arm 
 through that of her son, as he stood, abstractedly, 
 looking from the library window on the gravelled 
 terrace, where Gwenny and Horace were feeding 
 the peacocks with crumbs of biscuit. 
 
 " Of course she is handsome,'''' replied Cyril, 
 twirling his mustache ; " but '' and he paused. 
 
 " But what ?" 
 
 " One sees so many handsome girls in every 
 garrison town. At such places as Canterbury 
 they are thick as blackberries." 
 
 '^ Eut few garrison hacks have three hundred 
 thousand pounds." 
 
 " Few indeed,'' replied her gay Captain, 
 laughing. '^ And as for loving them, fellows 
 only go in for that, mother dear, till the route 
 comes. It is a very limited liability after all ; 
 and then we leave them little pink notes — per- 
 haps a lock of hair ; or simply send our servants 
 with our august bits of pasteboard, scribbled 
 P. P. C, for Dublin or Delhi, Brighton or 
 Beloochistan, as the case maj^ be ; the mess plate is 
 packed, the colours are cased, and away we go 
 "with the band playing, ' Good-bye, sweetheart, 
 good-bye.' " 
 
 " Cyril, you will drive Gwenny to Coldingham 
 to-morrow, and show her the ruins of the Priorv." 
 
SCHEMES. 201 
 
 " I don^t think that a girl who has seen the 
 vast rock-hewn temples of the Buddhists and the 
 Pyramids of Egypt will care much about our 
 old Priory. Besides^, she is to be driven there 
 by Horace. He knows all about these old places 
 more than I do ; and can tell her the whole story 
 of how Edgar, King of Scotland,, built it in the 
 eleventh century, and gave it to the monks of 
 Durham, and all that sort of thing. ^'' 
 
 '' Horace ! It is always Horace/^ said his 
 mother, with undisguised annoyance. 
 
 ^' Besides, I am engaged.^^ 
 
 " How — where, and with whom T' she asked, 
 while the gloom deepened on her fair and open 
 brow. 
 
 " Three questions, mother dear. You worry 
 me ! How am I engaged ? By a previous 
 arrangement. Where ? At Ernescleugh to 
 dinner. With whom ? The Master. And now 
 you have it all,^^ said he, kissing her, as he used 
 to do in boyhood. 
 
 Still she was dissatisfied, and taking his hand 
 in hers, led him into her beautiful little boudoir 
 — ^that toy chamber, wdth the blue satin and 
 silver hangings, where she kept all CyriFs Indian 
 presents to herself. 
 
 " Come," said she, as she closed the door, 
 " I must speak with you seriously on the subject 
 that is nearest my heart." 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MY LADY EXPOSTULATES. 
 
 Cyril^s love for Mary Lennox was great ; all 
 the greater that his heart was an honest on e^ and 
 that so much of compassion was blended with 
 his love. He knew that when he left her for 
 the East she would be alone — most terribly- 
 alone — if her father died ; for with his life her 
 means would pass away. So Cyril had been 
 thinking seriously of a secret marriage, and thus 
 making for her such a provision or position as 
 would compel his family to support her honour- 
 ably, if he fell in action, or died of those diseases 
 which follow an army into the field. 
 
 But he felt, on consideration, that proposing 
 or effecting such a measure would perhaps be an 
 act of injustice both to Mary and his family, 
 placing her, perhaps, in a false position with 
 them in particular and the world in general. 
 
 Too well he knew that to announce openly his 
 engagement, or a resolution, to marry the poor 
 and penniless IVIary Lennox, the daughter of a 
 
MY LADY EXPOSTULATES. 203 
 
 bankrupt and spendthrift^would excite tlie greatest 
 opposition — perhaps a quarrel with his father and 
 mother^ whom he justly loved and respected. 
 
 On the strength of his opposition_, Sir John 
 might take very high ground and cut off his 
 allowance ; without it, could he rejoin the regi- 
 ment ? and if he failed to do so, on the eve of a 
 war, where would his honour be as a soldier and 
 a- man ? He felt sure that even his brother 
 Robert would open his eyes very wide with 
 wonder at such a matrimonial scheme ; for he 
 had studied law long enough to have imbibed 
 something of the caution peculiar to the legal 
 tribe. 
 
 CyriFs monetary difficulties were not trivial. 
 He had come on leave from an expensive regi- 
 ment to retrench a little, and within a few days 
 he had lost the bay hunter, just after paying 
 Ernescleugh for him ; and with what he had lost 
 at cards with Chesters, this made over a thousand 
 pounds. Then he had some gambling and other 
 debts at headquarters ; but no I O U^s were per- 
 mitted to circulate in the Royal Fusileers, by a 
 mess regulation of that corps, where the word of 
 a brother officer was always deemed sufficient. 
 
 He felt worried on every hand, and once or 
 twice his evil angel whispered that, were Mary 
 Lennox less winning, less sweet, and more than 
 all, less helpless, he might listen to his mother's 
 suggestions ; but no sooner was the evil idea in- 
 
204 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 sinuated^ tlian the honest fellow crushed it in his 
 heart. He could never be false to his tender^ 
 true^ and secret love ! 
 
 With his mind thus agitated by conflicting 
 thoughts^ it may be imagined with what patience 
 he listened to his mother^, who still retained his 
 hand confidingly and caressingly in hers_, as she 
 seated herself by his side on a blue satin fauteuil, 
 and began thus sententiously — 
 
 " The whole of this beautiful estate of Willow- 
 dean^ when it comes to you, as in the course of 
 events it will, burdened as it is bv sundry old 
 
 J ft/ 
 
 debts_, and the allowances to your brother and 
 Horace Ramornie, will not yield " 
 
 " And to you, mother dear." 
 
 " Don^t talk of me ; I have no wish to survive 
 my dear husband. Will not yield, I was about 
 to say, enough for one of your expensive tastes 
 and habits ; therefore, a wealthy marriage is 
 necessary.^^ 
 
 " You flatter me ; but I love to be inde- 
 pendent.'''' 
 
 '' And like many independent men, may end 
 by making a fool of yourself," she added, with 
 more bluntness of manner than was usual with 
 her. " Pardon me, Cyril, but perhaps you have 
 done so already." 
 
 " How ?" 
 
 " By forming some unsuitable, if not unworthy, 
 attachment." 
 
MY LADY EXPOSTULATES. 205 
 
 CyriFs handsome face flushed and grew pale 
 under her scrutiny. 
 
 ^' Mother dear/^ said he, gently, '' you never 
 spoke to me in this strange tone before. Oh, 
 why adopt it now? I know what you mean 
 and wish ; but do not ask me now, at least.^^ 
 
 '^ Then if you will not be so attentive to your 
 cousin as I wish, promise me one thing, Cyril .^^ 
 
 " Twenty, if you choose, mother.^^ 
 
 '^That you form no hasty attachment else- 
 where, and enter into no engagement without 
 consulting me T^ 
 
 Again he coloured perceptibly, for he felt that 
 the keen eyes of his mother were watching him, 
 while the earnest grasp of her soft white hand 
 tightened upon his ; but he replied, evasively, 
 and with a laugh — 
 
 " I shall engage the Russians only. There, 
 will that suffice you ? I beg your pardon, dearest 
 mother,^^ he urged, '' but do let us cease this 
 most unpleasant subject : and now 1^11 have a 
 quiet weed in the conservatory.^^ 
 
 But Lady Wedderburn was not yet done with 
 him, and said, with growing excitement — 
 
 '' Am I to conclude that you are a bad, or un- 
 natural son, Cyril, who would repay my love and 
 anxiety with banter ?" 
 
 '^ Because I wont propose to a woman — a 
 girl I don^t care for, and who does not care for 
 me ? Bv Jove ! it is too absurd.^'' 
 
206 LADY wejdderburn's wish. 
 
 " Your interjections are not choice. If 
 Gwendoleyne is beautiful in her eighteenth year^ 
 what Tvill she be some time hence, in the full 
 development of womanhood ?'' 
 
 " Adorably lovely, I know ; yet I am in no 
 mood to marry /^ 
 
 " No mood to marry her, perhaps/^ said Lady 
 Wedderburn, with a sudden flash in her eyes. 
 ." Think of her wealth.^' 
 
 '^ I am ashamed to say that I have thought of 
 it/^ said Cyril_, with a sigh ; ^^ all the more that 
 I am pretty close run for money, both here and 
 at headquarters ; but, for Heaven''s sake, don'^t 
 let us have a row about Gwenny.^^ 
 
 " A ' row !' How can you talk in this slangy 
 mode to me ? How dare you, Cyril \" she 
 added, rising. " I thought that you rather 
 boasted of your good taste over such men as 
 Chesters of Chesterhaugh.^'' 
 
 " ^Pon my soul, you go beyond old Colonel 
 Bahawder, of the depot battalion ! But, my 
 lady motlier,^^ said he, kissing her hand with 
 playful respect, and caressing the braids of her 
 black hair, which was now becoming seamed 
 with white, " like some of the well-fed perch 
 in yonder pond, I am content to coquette with 
 the sweets and crumbs that come my way, 
 even as Gwenny is now throwing them in ; but 
 as for matrimony, that I leave to a sober-sided 
 fellow like Robert, or a melancholy-eyed Romeo 
 
MY LADY EXPOSTULATES. 207 
 
 like Horace : and now that I think of it, she 
 changes colour so visibly when Horace speaks to 
 her_, that I begin to suspect " 
 
 '' That he is in love with her T^ 
 
 ^^No/^ 
 
 "What then?'' 
 
 " By Jove ! that she is in love with himj' 
 replied Cyril, quietly selecting a cigar from a 
 handsome case (embroidered for him by some 
 confiding garrison beauty), and preparing it for 
 smoking by carefully biting off the end, and 
 heedless that his mother's eyes were sparkling 
 with resentment. 
 
 " Are you aware that what I urge is also your 
 father's wish ?" she asked. 
 
 " Likely enough," replied Cyril, with growing 
 annoyance. "There are Baronets as well as 
 Knights of the Golden Calf, and both are more 
 numerous than the Knights of the Golden 
 Fleece." 
 
 " Go on, sir, go on ; though I never before 
 heard you sneer at your good papa." 
 
 " How you pervert my words ! I do not 
 sneer ; but in all this matter has poor Gwenny 
 no right to be consulted ?" 
 
 " Not much ; she is so young, she is our ward, 
 whom we are to see properly bestowed in mar- 
 riage ; and where could she be given more pro- 
 perly than to one whom we have known from 
 his boyhood." 
 
208 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 '' And a little earlier/^ said Cyril_, laughing 
 outright. 
 
 " You may — nay, you must win her, if you will 
 only try, Cyril.^^ 
 
 " But I don^t want her. By Jove ! think of 
 a fellow going in for matrimony and the corps 
 having got its letters of readiness. I might be 
 telegraphed away from the very altar — have to 
 make a halt of it, a half-married man. There 
 would be a little melodrama for you ! The whole 
 thing is absurd, mother. ^^ 
 
 " Well, when you return? " 
 
 ^' Who can count on returning ? There 
 are such things as shot and shell, shipwreck, 
 camp-fever, frost and starvation, and so forth," 
 was the gloomy response. " I may be taken 
 prisoner by the Russians, and never heard of 
 again." 
 
 ^' Do not talk so, Cyril, I implore you. Marry 
 Gwenny and get on the staff. If you will still 
 soldier, let it be at home." 
 
 ^' If I do, may I be — cashiered, that is all !" 
 
 Usually, Lady Wedderburn's manner had all 
 the perfect serenity and unrufifled calmness pe- 
 culiar to good and gentle breeding, but now her 
 brow, wont to be so smooth, became clouded 
 over ; wrinkles actually appeared where none had 
 been visible before ; her fine mouth became com- 
 pressed, and an expression, almost of baleful 
 spite, stole into her clear, dark grey eyes, as she 
 
MY LADY EXPOSTULATES. 209 
 
 drew herself up to her full height^ and said^ with 
 half-averted face — 
 
 " I know to whom I am indebted for this 
 steady opposition to my wishes/"' 
 
 ^' To whom, mother ?" 
 
 " That artful girl at Lonewoodlee. Ah ! 
 servants will talk, and local gossips too !" and 
 with a scornful sweep of her skirts, she glided 
 from the boudoir, even as she did so repenting 
 that she should leave in wrath the Absalom- she 
 had so nearly lost by a terrible fate ! 
 
 '' So, so, it^s out at last ! Local gossips have 
 been busy with Mary^s name — curse them V' mut- 
 tered Cyril. " Mamma has opened the trenches 
 with a vengeance ! Well, I am not a boy, though 
 she seems disposed to treat me as such. What 
 is to be done now ? See my poor Mary about it, 
 at all hazards."*^ 
 
 As he glanced round his mother^s luxurious 
 boudoir, with its blue satin and silver hangings, 
 its Aubusson carpet of pale green studded with 
 beautiful bouquets, its marble busts and alabaster 
 vases, and tiny tables glittering with a crowd of 
 handsome and elegant trifles, and thought of 
 Mary^s gloomy home, his heart felt sick and 
 sore ; he sighed deeply, and entering the lofty 
 and stately conservatory, lit his cigar, and threw 
 himself on a sofa, to think &ver his plans for the 
 future. 
 
 VOL. I. 14 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE TRYST. 
 
 At the close of a recent chapter^ it is mentioned 
 that Mary Lennox had been shedding silent tears, 
 and had not been without secret misgivings or 
 forebodings of coming sorrow. 
 
 Situated as she was with regard to Cyril, it 
 was scarcely possible that she should feel other- 
 wise than restless when the absence of her lover, 
 and the circumstance of his having unavoidably 
 broken some appointments with her, were coupled 
 with the hints of Chesters, and the stories told 
 her by her two gossiping old domestics, of the 
 wealth and undoubted beauty of the new resident 
 at Willowdean. 
 
 Without absolutely cutting her — for that was 
 a solecism in good breeding of which she would 
 be loth to be guilty — Lady Wedderburn had too 
 plainly held aloof from Mary Lennox in the few 
 public places where they met ; and Mary had 
 tolerated much of that " tabooing," but with a 
 bursting heart, for she could not forget that the 
 
THE TRYST. 211 
 
 haughty offender was the mother of Cyril ; though 
 how little could that scheming matron then know 
 what Cyril was to Mary — what they were to each 
 other ! 
 
 Though Mary mourned in her loneliness when 
 he was absent with his regiment, and moving 
 then_, as she knew_, in a gay and fashionable 
 circle, his letters were a constant solace to her; 
 and now that he was at home, though she trusted 
 him — or strove to do so — to see him riding, 
 driving, talking, and laughing with his cousin 
 and other ladies, while he could only accord her 
 a furtive smile or a polite bow, fretted, galled, 
 and humilitated her; for she could not forget 
 much of her father's teaching, or that she was a 
 lady whose forefathers had a name among the 
 Scottish Border Barons long before the Wedder- 
 burns had an acre of land in the Merse. 
 
 She began to recall, perhaps too much, the 
 artful insinuations of Chesters, and to brood over 
 them till they sank deep into her heart. She 
 began also to repine and fear a little when she 
 heard of all those things — of such gaieties at 
 Willowdean as the season of conventional mourn- 
 ing permitted ; and when she knew that he was 
 constantly thrown in the society of this perilous 
 beauty — when he was away for days with her 
 and other ladies at race meetings and other 
 places ; and now, through Doctor Squills and 
 the Minister's wife, almost her only other visitors, 
 
212 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 came a rumour that he and she were to have 
 quite a little cruise in the Master of Ernes- 
 cleugVs yacht_, to the Isle of ^l^j, to Coquet- 
 mouth_, to Lindisfarne Abbey^ and other places. 
 So when she thought of all the advantages of 
 propinquity, and remembered all she had heard 
 and read of the pleasant intercourse that cousin- 
 ship permitted, and how much more a re- 
 cently known cousin might be likely to impress 
 him than one long known from infancy like a 
 sister, her poor little heart trembled within her ! 
 
 One day, however, she was made happy by 
 Lady Wedderburn bowing to her pleasantly, and 
 even stopping the carriage to ask for Mr. Lennox, 
 but that was in the fulness of her heart after 
 the restoration of her son. 
 
 " So your mamma is coming round to me by 
 degrees, at least, Cyril/' said Mary, with a hope- 
 ful smile. 
 
 But Cyril knew too well what his mother's secret 
 aspirations were, and answered only with a sigh. 
 
 Three days after this, gossips had been at 
 work, and when Lady Wedderburn saw her in 
 the little street of Willowdean she looked straight 
 at the ears of her horses as the handsome car- 
 riage bowled away on the Erncsclcugh road, 
 without according a glance gf recognition to 
 Mary, who felt crushed and hurt keenly, all the 
 more so that she saw the dark eyes of Gwen- 
 doleyne remarking her with an expression of 
 
THE TRYST. 213 
 
 interest; and Maiy could judge for herself how 
 great was the girFs beauty. 
 
 Mary knew that it was tradition in her family 
 that two ladies of it, both sisters, had died as 
 nuns among the Cistertians at Lennel, and 
 somehow, now she often thought of those two 
 women, their reasons for becoming recluses, and 
 wondered if they had found within their cells 
 the peace she feared she would not find in the 
 world. Then she smiled a bitter smile, as she 
 thought that nothing lasted for ever ; that all 
 things passed away ; that even Lennel was a 
 shattered ruin, and its cemetery, where the 
 sisters lay, had been swept away by the Tweed 
 into the sea. 
 
 All unaware of the gloomy misgivings of her 
 he loved, in the evening after the long and un- 
 pleasant conversation with his mother, Cyril, 
 after riding from one of the gates of Willowdean 
 as if going towards Greenlaw, the county town, 
 turned off abruptly by a narrow bye way, and 
 took that for Lonewoodlee, for he was to meet 
 Mary at the stile, which quite as often as the 
 coppice formed their place of tryst. 
 
 He was full of perplexing thoughts, and per- 
 mitting the reins to drop on his horse^s neck, let 
 the animal proceed at a slow walk along the 
 path which led only towards the residence of 
 Mr. Lennox. 
 
 He felt that some explanation, some more 
 
214 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 open and more decided arrangement_, were im- 
 peratively dne to a girl of Mary^s position and 
 character ; but^ as already stated,, he dreaded 
 the opposition of his whole family ; he dreaded 
 the debts he had contracted in his folly^ and to 
 marry on his pay — if his father in his indignation 
 reduced him to that — a pittance which barely 
 paid for his messing, glazed boots and cigars — 
 would be the act of a madman^ even if Mary 
 would consent to it ; but then he knew that 
 Mary, even were she as rich as his cousin Gwen- 
 doleyne, would not do so at present, as she was 
 chained by filial love and duty to her father's 
 sick-bed. 
 
 Well, that necessity freed him from one item 
 of responsibility in the awkward position of their 
 affairs. 
 
 Cyril drew from his portemonnaie a ring ; it 
 was a plain hoop, and so like a wedding one that 
 it might have passed as such, but for a single 
 diamond of great value that was set therein, and 
 this altered its character. It was a tiny ring 
 too, and he trusted it would fit the dear finger 
 for which he intended it. With a fond smile he 
 replaced it in his purse, and dismounting at the 
 stile, threw the bridle of his horse over his arm, 
 and looked around him. 
 
 The stile was old and well worn by the foot- 
 steps of many a wayfarer. It was simply formed 
 by three great stones, projecting from an ancient 
 
THE thyst. 215 
 
 wall, and stood in a sequestered place, secret and 
 lonesome, where the pink and white hawthorn 
 usually bloomed and scented the air ere the end 
 of May ; where the pendant cups of the bright 
 foxglove and the blue-bell mingled with the 
 brown autumn fern, among which the hare and 
 rabbit lurked, and where hardy little thistles 
 grew in every cleft, while over all towered the 
 triple arms of a gigantic thorn of vast age, 
 whereon many a Scottish outlaw and English 
 moss-trooper had been hung ^'in his boots,^^ as 
 the phrase went, in the foraying times of old ; 
 for the whole Borderland is full of such dark 
 memories. 
 
 Around the pastoral hills stood up grim and 
 silent against the red sunset sky. As Cyril 
 looked on all these objects, so long familiar to 
 his eyes, he pondered on what other scenery they 
 might be resting ere long, and where that day 
 month might find him ; too probably far away 
 at sea, on board a transport crowded with 
 troops, longing to be ashore and in front of the 
 enemy. 
 
 And Mary too had often surveyed their meet- 
 ing-place with wistful eyes and boding heart, 
 thinking how lonely it would be when he should 
 come no more, and how terribly desolate it 
 seemed when he was supposed to be lost to her 
 and all the world ; and how often had she shud- 
 dered at the story of the midnight race, the 
 
216 LADY WEDDERBURN's WISH. 
 
 pluDge^ and the narrow escape — the rescue of her 
 Cyril from a terrible death ! 
 
 His mother^s taunt was yet tingling in his 
 ears ; > and now_, lest watchful eyes might be upon 
 them, he almost dreaded to meet Marv at the 
 accustomed stile or in the coppice ; for had not 
 Chesters basely condescended to spy upon their 
 meeting there ? 
 
 '' Ah V thought Cyril, '' had I but known of 
 such a circumstance on that terrible night, in- 
 stead of sharing his sham hospitality, my hunt- 
 ing-whip and Rooke Chesters'' shoulders had 
 made an intimate and not to be forgotten ac- 
 quaintance/^ 
 
 Cyril had but a minute or two to wait, when, 
 the slight figure of Mary, so lithe, graceful, 
 and so compact, from her little round hat and 
 feather to her brass-heeled Balmorals, came trip- 
 ping down the pathway between two fields, and 
 ascended the stile, from whence his ready hand 
 now helped her down. 
 
 " Cyril, dearest Crril, I have kept you wait- 
 ing,^^ said she, looking upward with a strange and 
 earnest expression in her violet-blue eyes. Secure 
 as she had been of his love, and familiar with it, 
 there had always been a charming shyness in 
 Mary^s manner when with Cyril ; now it was 
 sad and gloomy, though visibly she sought to 
 conceal it, aftecting to smile, and with her tightly- 
 gloved hand to twirl, nervously, her parasol upon 
 her shoulder. 
 
THE TRYST. 217 
 
 '' And what of your papa to-day T' he asked. 
 
 " Kind Cyril, you always ask for him, my 
 only and unfailing friend ; papa is sleeping : he 
 always takes an after-dinner nap ; but when I 
 watch him thus there always comes over me a 
 horrible, an awful thought, Cyril !" 
 
 " What— which V 
 
 "li he were dead — dead — my dear papa, in- 
 stead of only sleeping, what should I do then ?" 
 
 " Rely on me, darling,^^ he whispered, and 
 drew her close to him, and now he observed 
 that Mary had her veil tied tightly over her 
 face, to conceal her tears, perhaps. 
 
 " I canH kiss you through that thing, dearest,'' 
 he urged, while endeavouring to remove it. 
 
 " Better not kiss me at all. Oh, would 
 that you had never done so, Cyril \" 
 
 His fine dark blue eyes possessed usually a 
 wonderful, a magnetic power of fascination in 
 them ; but on this occasion they failed to reassure 
 Mary, who, despite all her efforts at self-control, 
 began to weep, and Cyril, with his natural ab- 
 horrence of a scene, felt more of worry than 
 wonder. 
 
 ^' What is the matter ? Speak, darling Mary,'' 
 he urged, tenderly ; for he could see that she 
 looked wan, and a dark tinge that lay under each 
 of her eyes, was visible through the purity of 
 her skin. 
 
 " Oh, forgive me, Cyril, forgive me !" 
 
 " For what ?" he asked, with growing wonder. 
 
218 LADY WEDDERBUKn's WISH. 
 
 " For having doubted your affection ; but 
 doubts did begin to steal into my bead. I began 
 to fear there was a change somewhere, and I 
 have been praying humbly to God that you might 
 not love me less now than before.^^ 
 
 " Love you less ! I do not comprehend V 
 
 " Yes, yes/^ sobbed Mary, nestling her sad 
 little face on the breast of his black velvet 
 shooting coat ; " for Chesters hinted to me ^' 
 
 '' What dared he to hint ?'' exclaimed Cyril, 
 striking his spurred heel into the gravel. 
 
 " Oh, pardon me, Cyril. I know not what I 
 am saying. I have slept so little for two or 
 three nights past. I never do sleep when I have 
 not seen you, and Cyril, you seem always so gay 
 and happy with her — I mean — those people with 
 whom I see you at times.^' 
 
 '^ Gay, Mary ? Yes. I have to smile, like 
 the Spartan boy, who had the fox under his 
 mantle — the fox whose teeth devoured his "vdtals,'^ 
 replied Cyril, making rather a far-fetched simile. 
 *' One is not always happy when smiling. I think 
 ever of you, when absent, of our coming sepa- 
 ration, and the difficulties of our mutual position." 
 
 There was a pause, during which he looked 
 tenderly and lovingly into the violet eyes of 
 Mary, and thought how dovelike, sad, and sweet 
 they were in expression. 
 
 Then he began to perceive her ruling thought 
 by her leading question. 
 
THE TRYST. 219 
 
 " Your new cousin seems to be a most attrac- 
 tive girl. Is she not so V^ 
 
 " Very. Her eyes are gloriously beautiful, 
 Mary.'' 
 
 " Oh, indeed/' said Mary^ while her nether 
 lip quivered^ her eyes drooped, and a pallor 
 almost ghastly stole over her soft face. 
 
 " Yes, just like yours, except that the lids are 
 not so finely formed, nor the lashes, though thick, 
 so long.'' 
 
 " Am I to compare with her ?" she asked, a 
 little assured. 
 
 " Yes," said Cyril, smiling back at the wistful 
 smile. 
 
 " Indeed !" 
 
 " Yes ; but you would gain immensely by the 
 comparison. But come, my dearest, there must 
 be no pouting, no doubt of me, no jealousy of 
 poor Gwenny. You know how dearly I love, 
 and have ever loved you — ay, almost since you 
 were a mere girl, when I came home from India, 
 and brought your dead brother's sword and rings 
 to Lonewoodlee; but listen to me now, I have 
 much to say, and may not have so good an op- 
 portunity again." 
 
 His left arm was round her waist ; their right 
 hands were clasped together, and as Mary's head 
 drooped on his shoulder, her words became sighs 
 or only half-articulated tenderness. She looked 
 helpless and beautiful, soft and ladylike ; and once 
 
220 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 more, in the tumult of his heart_, Cyril, with 
 broken accents, urged a private marriage, for her 
 further security, in case the worst should happen 
 to him ; but Mary was firm, and with tears and 
 paleness — not blushes — spoke of her father^s 
 health, and how she w^ould not and could not, 
 with honour to herself, marry even Cyril (whom 
 she loved as her own soul) in a fashion such as 
 he proposed, as it would insure the contempt of 
 his family aod the doubt of society ; and this 
 she reiterated again, firmly, sadly, earnestly, and 
 with her eyes full of tears, till Cyril became 
 convinced that the idea was impolitic, unwise, 
 and not calculated to conduce to their future 
 happiness. 
 
 He drew the glove from her left hand, and 
 while placing the diamond ring upon her wedding 
 finger — a slender little finger it was — he drew her 
 still closer to his breast. 
 
 " Mary/^ he whispered, " my darling Mary, 
 you are the secret wife of my heart. Never let 
 this betrothal ring — the ring that binds you to 
 me — leave your finger until I replace it by one 
 that shall be consecrated V and he kissed her on 
 the eyes, and then the hand that bore the symbol 
 which was indicative of afiectfon long before the 
 days of Juvenal. 
 
 " As your wife, Cyril, I shall ever deem my- 
 self; as your widow, should we never meet 
 again V said Mary, in a soft, low, agitated voice. 
 
THE TRYST. 221 
 
 And with something of a prayer in his heart, 
 Cyril lifted his hat_, as he kissed her once more. 
 After this they became more composed_, even 
 more happy, perhaps, for their hearts became 
 filled with a divine trust in themselves and in 
 the fviture. 
 
 " Yet what shall I do when you are far away 
 from me, Cyril V asked Mary. " Men love so 
 differently from women. They have their avo- 
 cations, occupations — their friends and amuse- 
 ments. The lonely woman can but brood and 
 weep in silence : her heart, thrust back upon 
 herself as it were, for lack of the thousand little 
 tendernesses and kindnesses that the man she 
 loves can alone bestow.^^ 
 
 " True, Mary ; but do not repine thus, dar- 
 ling/' 
 
 The twilight had deepened into the gloaming 
 now, and even that was darkening fast; so 
 leading his horse by the bridle, Cyril walked 
 along the lonely hill-side path with Mary towards 
 her home, and at last, with happy hearts, they 
 parted at the end of the ancient thicket. 
 
 " Shall I see you to-morrow, Cyril T' she 
 asked, as he mounted. 
 
 '' It is impossible, Mary. I am engaged to 
 dine at Ernescleugh, and that place lies in quite 
 an opposite direction from this. Adieu till next 
 evening. Adieu, with a thousand kisses to 
 you.'' 
 
222 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 And he galloped away. 
 
 Mary^s heart misgave her ; he was to dine at 
 Ernescleughj with Everard Home. She had, 
 with a reticence that was unwise and unlike her, 
 shrank nervously from speaking to Cyril of her 
 enforced detention at Chesterhaugh ; but now 
 she trembled lest the young Master of Ernes- 
 cleugh had recognised her in the waggonette, and 
 might speak of the strange circumstance of her 
 being there with Chesters, and at such an hour. 
 
 The demon of doubt had been removed from 
 her heart ; but fear now took his place, and a 
 time came when Mary repented bitterly of the 
 reticence in question. 
 
 She was alternately happy and fearful — ^long- 
 ing intently for her next meeting with Cyril, 
 and resolved to tell him openly of the only secret 
 that haunted her; and she was never weary of 
 kissing and looking at the ring, the solemn link 
 which bound her fate to that of Cyril Wedder- 
 burn. 
 
 And now, when she thought of the place where 
 it had been placed upon her finger — the old 
 triple thorn tree — there came back to memory a 
 quaint legend connected with her family. It 
 was a little ominous, so far as regarded the ring, 
 and yet Mary laughed. 
 
 For local tradition avers that, in the days 
 when Mary of Lorraine was Regent of Scot- 
 land, Malcolm Lennox, younger brother of Oliver, 
 
THE TRYST. 223 
 
 who built the present Tower of Lonewoodlee, 
 was a famous Border warrior, who caused an 
 infinite deal of trouble and anxiety to the 
 Governor of Berwick, the Captain of Norham, 
 and other Wardens along the English Border. 
 Like his compatriot^ Sir William of Deloraine — 
 
 " A stark moss-trooping Scjot was he 
 As ere couched Border lance bj knee. 
 Blindfold lie knew the paths to cross, 
 By Solway sands and Tarra Moss. 
 By wily turns and desperate bounds. 
 He baffled Percy's best bloodhounds." 
 
 But one night he had got more wine than 
 usual, when supping with the Laird of Thirlstane, 
 and lost his way in Dogden Moss, where he 
 must have perished, had not a beautiful young 
 woman, who suddenly appeared, become his guide 
 to firm land, and before daybreak he had be- 
 trothed himself to her, and placed on a finger of 
 her left hand a golden ring. 
 
 Some nights after this, he was assailed by a 
 multitude of wild cats, who seemed to have been 
 holding a species of " sabbatt," or Walpurgis 
 festival, at the triple thorn tree, and had to 
 defend himself with a sword. In the course of 
 this strange melee he hewed the foreleg from one 
 which had made itself particularly obnoxious in. 
 the assault ; and on the yelling grimalkins taking 
 to flight, he found that his trenchant whinger 
 had amputated, not the limb of a cat, but the 
 
224 LADY WEDDERBURN S WISH. 
 
 fair and handsome arm of a young woman ; and 
 on a finger of the hand he found his own ring, 
 and knew thereby that he had betrothed himself 
 to a witch ! 
 
 He never recovered his horror of this adven- 
 ture j he became more reckless of life than ever, 
 and perished some years after in the famous Raid 
 of the Redswire, on the green ridge of the Carter- 
 fells, pierced by three English arrows. This was 
 the last conflict of any importance fought on the 
 Borders prior to the union of the Crowns, and 
 was chiefly remarkable from the circumstance 
 that the Scots won the day by being well sup- 
 plied with firearms, while the English had only 
 the long-bow, with bill and spear. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT FORTH. 
 
 Cyril found that a note had come from Lady 
 Ernescleugh_, inviting all at Willowdean to dine 
 with her, enfamiUe, to talk over their plans for 
 the future season in London,, when it came. " As 
 for Edinburgh/^ she added, " with its eight as- 
 semblies, and a few club balls, all so mixed, it is 
 not to be thought of in these railway times. 
 What suited our grandmothers wont suit us, who 
 have young folks to introduce in society .^^ 
 
 So Cyril found that the carriage and pony- 
 phaeton had been ordered, as all were going to 
 the Cleugh, save poor little Miss M'^Caw, whom 
 Lady Ernescleugh had omitted, notwithstanding 
 her long pedigree ; but then it was only a High- 
 land one, as her ladyship thought, " and those 
 people all boast of such, whether they are Peers 
 of the realm or street-porters."'^ 
 
 Ere long we shall have more startling events 
 to describe than dinners, drives, or luncheons^ 
 and so shall only say that the '' festive board^"* at 
 
 VOL. 1. 15 
 
226 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 Ernescleugh^ a fine mansion facing the sea^ and 
 perched on a lofty eminence^ was like any other 
 in a wealthy and noble family. 
 
 Before the windows^ stretched away in distance 
 the vast extent of the dark blue German Sea^ with 
 here and there a white sail;, or the long wreathed 
 smoke of a steamer visible ; and just as the com- 
 pany sat down to dinner _, they might have seen, 
 had not the curtains been closely drawn, the 
 light on the Isle of May, about five-and-twenty 
 miles distant, at the mouth of the Firth of 
 Forth, twinkling redly out upon the waste of 
 waters. 
 
 Save the wines, everything on the table was 
 Scotch : the fish were from the adjacent sea or 
 the Leader; the beef and mutton bred and fed 
 on the Lammermuir hills ; the vegetables and 
 flowers were reared by the gardener at Ernes- 
 cleugh ; but all these figured in the bill of fare 
 under French names, as potages, poissons, releveSj 
 and entrees — a source of sore bewilderment to 
 plain folks like the Rev. Gideon M*^Guffog, 
 parish minister ; Dr. Squills, the Law^^er, and the 
 Baron Bailie of Willowdean, when once or so 
 in the year they were invited to a state dinner 
 at Ernescleugh. 
 
 Everard Home, the Master, a fashionable 
 looking young man of a very good style, in ab- 
 sence of the Lord, his father, who was on diplo- 
 matic service in the Ionian Isles, placed Lady 
 
WHAT THE MORKOW BROUGHT FORTH. 227 
 
 Wedderburn on his right. Sir John handed the 
 hostess to her place, and Cyril^ to his mother's 
 satisfaction, led in Gwenny ; but then no other 
 lady was present. 
 
 When Cyril looked at the unexceptionable wife 
 his mother urged upon him, with her delicate 
 neck and arms, so snow-white when contrasted 
 with her black dress and jet ornaments^ her rich 
 Indian shawl of alternate black, gold_, and scarlet 
 stripes^ diamonds flashing out here and there, as 
 bright as her own eyes, his mind wandered away 
 involuntarily to little lonely Mary, in her plain 
 stuff attire; her sole ornaments a brooch and 
 collar. 
 
 Lady Ernescleugh, a more showy, dowager- 
 looking, and though fair-haired_, an older and 
 haughtier style of woman than Lady Wedderburn, 
 with very good taste, wore a black dress of the 
 richest velvet, trimmed only with silver grey 
 grebe, as all her guests were in mourning, and 
 both families had been intimate for years. 
 
 As three of the gentlemen present belonged 
 to the service, a little ^^ shop" would creep into 
 their conversation, which ran chiefly on the ap- 
 proaching war, and the mustering of armaments 
 by sea and land ; for by the London papers of 
 the previous day it was fast becoming apparent, 
 as the Master said, ^^ that matters were looking 
 less and less rosy in the East -/' and Lady Ernes- 
 cleugh, who had recently got him transferred 
 
 15— '4 
 
228 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 from tlie Line to the Scots Fusileer Guards, in 
 the hope that he might soldier only in London, 
 and never encounter harder service than might 
 be seen at Windsor, in the Wellington Barracks, 
 at the Bank, or the Tower, was both alarmed and 
 disgusted to find that several battalions of the 
 Household Brigade were detailed to form a por- 
 tion of the army of the East — the force destined 
 to protect Turkey from the Bussiaus ; "those 
 barbarous Bussians,^^ she added, "^whom she and 
 Ernescleugh, when he was Ambassador at St. 
 Petersburg, found to be little better than their 
 forefathers are described to have been under 
 Catharine/' 
 
 " The S emir amis of the North/^ said Bobert 
 Wedderbm'n. 
 
 "And we all know how wicked her times 
 were,"*^ said Lady Ernescleugh. 
 
 How little could Cyril foresee to what this 
 conversation was to lead ; when the young host 
 said, laughing — 
 
 " By Jove, mother, there is more wickedness 
 now in the world than ever existed then. Yes, 
 even among ourselves,^^ he added, wiping the 
 champagne froth from his fair moustache, " only 
 we don''t always see it.^' 
 
 " How, Everard ? I do not understand.''^ 
 
 " It is more subtle, more refined, more cunning, 
 and much better bred.^^ 
 
 " The latter is certainly some advantage," said 
 Cyril. 
 
WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT FORTH. 229 
 
 " Besides,, Wedderburn^ we don^t call our little 
 peccadilloes by such deuced bard names as our 
 rough ancestors did — that is all." 
 
 " I do not quite understand you^ Everard/^ 
 said Lady Ernescleugh, smiling^ but Avith a little 
 air of j)ique ; '^ you seem to be aiming at some- 
 thing or some one/^ 
 
 Cyril, who had been talking to Gwenny, now 
 became aware that the Master was bending over 
 his wine glass, and saying something to Horace 
 Ramornie, in a low tone, but laughing and con- 
 fidentially. He detected the name of " Mary 
 Lennox,'''' and after a time those alarming words, 
 " By Jove, Bamornie, it could not be termed a 
 summer flirtation, as he was driving her home 
 through the snow, at midnight, too. Queer, is it 
 not ? for we all know the fellow^s character : but 
 then the poor girl is so left to herself, in that 
 old house by her ailing father, that" — here his 
 voice sank lower — '' but it is a pity, for she is so 
 pretty !" 
 
 What had happened ? To whom was he re- 
 ferring? Cyril felt his ears tingling, his heart 
 grow still, and his face turn pale ; all the more 
 so that the clear keen eyes of his mother were 
 on him, and he remembered the conversation in 
 her boudoir. 
 
 He burned with impatience until the three 
 ladies withdrew to the drawing-room; and the 
 moment they had been bowed out, and he and 
 the other gentlemen resumed their seatSj ere 
 
230 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 closing up towards their young liost^ he very 
 plainly asked,, " what they had been talking 
 about ?' 
 
 '^ The strangest thing in the world/'' replied 
 Horace^ with a serious expression in his quiet 
 dark eyes ; ^^ a scandalous story concerning the 
 daughter of old Oliver Lennox, of Lonewoodlee. 
 Of coui'se, you know the gii'l; by sight, at 
 least/' 
 
 ^^ Scandalous V repeated Cyril, making a vio- 
 lent effort to control himself, though there came 
 a flash from his eye, lurid as that from a cannon's 
 mouth, and there came a terrible frown from his 
 brow, which he concealed by resting it on his 
 hand. " And this story T' 
 
 " Is, that she spent a night in the house of 
 Chesterhaugh/'' 
 
 " Take care, take care," said Sir John ; '^ she 
 represents one of the oldest families in the 
 Merse/' 
 
 " A fact !" persisted the Master of Ernes- 
 cleugh, in a low tone ; " she spent there a night, 
 or nearly so, about the time you were so mys- 
 teriously missing, Wedderburn. I was riding 
 home from Greenlaw, accompanied by a groom; 
 there had been a severe fall of snow, and just 
 as we drew near the gate of Chestcrhaugh, it 
 was opened by old Tony Heron, the keeper, and 
 out came Rooke Chesters, in that bang-up wag- 
 gonette of his, with Miss Lennox seated by his 
 
WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT FORTH. 23] 
 
 side. I could swear to her^, though she was well 
 muffled up in a railway-rug. The time was past 
 twelve^ and he was evidently driving her home ! 
 Now we all know that ladies,, old or young, 
 don^t visit Rooke Chesters. It is an ugly story, 
 and I would rather not have known it.^^ 
 
 CyriFs voice sounded strange, even to himself; 
 but he asked, calmly — 
 
 " Did you see her face. Home T^ 
 
 " No. She was closely veiled ; but I know 
 her little hat with the golden pheasant''s plume. ^^ 
 
 Cyril remembered that he had shot that phea- 
 sant. 
 
 " Did you speak with her ?" 
 
 " No. We passed each other at a hard trot.^^ 
 
 '^ Then what proof have you, beyond mere 
 suspicion, that the lady was Miss Lennox at 
 all r 
 
 There was something categorical in CyriFs tone 
 which made Everard Home tug his moustache ; 
 but he replied — 
 
 " My groom got a match for his cigar from 
 the gatekeeper, Tony Heron, whose information 
 put the matter beyond a doubt, and Chesters^ 
 groom, Trayner, confirmed the story next day, 
 with many a joke Miss Lennox would not like to 
 have heard. But pass the wine, the decanters 
 stand with you, my Royal Fusileer.^^ 
 
 What horrible mystery, worse even than that 
 of his own disappearance, lay concealed under all 
 
232 LADY wedberburn's wish. 
 
 this ? Was Rooke Chesters ordained by fate to 
 be the evil genius of them both? Heron, 
 the gatekeeper, the groom of Chesters, and 
 Ernescleugh were cognizant of the story, and 
 Mary's name and honour were a joke and a 
 source of vulgar and malevolent speculation in 
 every servants^-hall and household in the Merse ! 
 A stunned sensation came over him. Even were 
 the story utterly false it was a terrible one, and 
 the most degrading deductions would be drawn 
 from it ; and even as he sat and thought over it, 
 mechanically passing the decanter, and filling 
 and emptying his glass, an age seemed to have 
 elapsed since yester-evening by the stile — a 
 mighty gulf to have opened between him and 
 Mary Lennox. 
 
 " I usually make it a legal rule/'' said Robert 
 Wedderburn, " only to believe the half of what 
 I see, and nothing that I simply hear. These 
 groom fellows may have been mistaken, after all ; 
 but it is passing strange V 
 
 Cyril could have embraced his brother for 
 these words ; but still the story had gone abroad. 
 
 Cyril now remembered of Mary admitting that 
 Chesters had addressed her in the language of 
 love ; and yet she had ventured to spend some 
 hours — gossips said a night — in the house, the 
 house of a man with a reputation so tainted. 
 
 He also remembered her strange emotion when 
 they last met. Was it compunction for her own 
 
WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT FORTH, 233 
 
 perfidy _, or affected doubt of his love_, or neither, 
 or what was it ? Alas ! he knew not what or 
 whom to believe in now. 
 
 Her doubts must have been of herself and of 
 her own faith ; not of him or his faith ! His 
 Mary, so pure and gentle in eye and manner, to 
 be subjected even to the glances of a man like 
 K-ooke Chesters was exasperating. What then 
 was he to think of the companionship of hours ? 
 He knew that Chesters visited occasionally her 
 bedridden father, hence an interview could be 
 nothing novel to either ; but fast in his passionate 
 and impulsive heart, the emotions of jealousy, 
 doubt, and mortification became predominant. 
 
 He almost loathed the Master of Ernescleugh 
 for his unwitting communication ; but he con- 
 cealed all he felt, for the bitter conviction forced 
 itself upon him, that if Mary Lennox were un- 
 worthy of his love, there would then be more 
 reason than ever to hide that love from all. So 
 those who saw him, as he sat at table chatting of 
 politics, the coming war, the points of this horse 
 or that terrier or pointer, could little have 
 dreamed of the volcano that was in his heart, 
 through which a hundred varying emotions were 
 sweeping. 
 
 There were utter perplexity and keen distress ; 
 shame and doubt, jealousy and wounded self- 
 esteem. Could it really be the case that she 
 had encouraged the advances of two — of Chesters 
 
234 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 and himself — as lovers, and on hearing of the 
 loss of one had gone, actually gone to the house 
 of the other ? He had known of such things. 
 There was his old flame at Canterbury, who had 
 beaded the cigar-case ; but, pshaw ! she was a 
 garrison-hack of ten years standing, and was 
 known to every corps from Chatham to China. 
 
 What did it all mean, or what would it all 
 mean ? To be the rival of Chesters would be 
 humiliation enough. He was grieved and mad- 
 dened by the whole affair; for his secret love, 
 the light and joy of his soul, was about to be 
 quenched now. 
 
 His family — his mother, at least — had heard 
 of it ; and knowing, as they and she did, the 
 reputation of Chesters, could he speak now of 
 making her his wife ; and yet he loved her so ! 
 Surely she would be able to explain it all; but 
 still the ugly cause for explanation existed. 
 
 Why had she concealed the whole circumstance 
 from him ? Why such reticence ? There was 
 something in this fact that filled him with dire 
 and dark suspicion, and but yesterday he had 
 placed a ring on her wedding finger, a token of 
 their solemn betrothal before God, and amid the 
 silence of the starlight and the dewy evening he 
 had tenderly taken her to his breast and called 
 her his wife — " the wife of his heart ;'' and yet she 
 had acted thus in the time of his absence — of 
 his supposed death — and made her name and 
 
WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT EORTH. 235 
 
 honour the sport of gossips, of grooms and gate- 
 keepers ! 
 
 If so artful, why decline on any terms or pre- 
 tence the proposal of marriage he had made her ? 
 Chesters had insinuated something to her of 
 himself (Cp'il) and Gwenny, something to excite 
 her jealousy and to pique her by her own ad- 
 mission; thus they must have been talking con- 
 fidentially, and to what purpose ? 
 
 So did he torment himself, viewing the cir- 
 cumstance in all its worst points. Glass after 
 glass of strong, deep-coloured, and heady old 
 Madeira did Cyril imbibe ; and then others of 
 Grande Chartreuse and Cura9oa, by way of 
 chasse-cafey ere the gentlemen took their cofPee 
 and joined the ladies ; indeed Cyril, though in- 
 variably most temperate, on this night seemed 
 not to care how much he drank, provided 
 he drowned, or even deadened, care for the 
 time. 
 
 On entering the drawing-room he was pain- 
 fully conscious, by a peculiar expression, almost 
 a radiant one, in his mother^s face, that Lady 
 Ernescleugh had told her the whole of this ob- 
 noxious story, this horrible esclandre, about the 
 girl he had hoped or meant to marry ; to whom 
 he was solemnly but secretly plighted, and whom 
 he loved with inexpressible tenderness. 
 
 There was a steady glitter in his mother^s eye 
 that provoked him, and he turned to Gwenny, 
 
236 LADY wedderbukn's wish. 
 
 who was idling over the keys of the piano, as if 
 waiting for some one to speak with her. 
 
 He said something, he knew not what, and 
 she replied without his seeming to hear or under- 
 stand her ; but she immediately began to play 
 with more animation. How nimbly and grace- 
 fully her white fingers wandered over the ivory 
 keys, making even them seem almost dull in 
 colour by comparison ; and he looked on, and 
 turned the leaves of the music, as one in a 
 terrible dream, ignorant or heedless whether 
 Gwenny was playing a Highland Reel or the 
 '^ Soldier's March^^ in Faust, for the soul of him 
 he could not have told, as he heard only the 
 voices of his mother and Lady Ernescleugh, as 
 they lay back in a crimson satin faiiteidl, with 
 their heads stooped towards each other, and talk- 
 ing over their glittering fans. 
 
 " They are no doubt a strange set,^'' said his 
 mother, '' that small family of Lonewoodlee" 
 (small, indeed ! thought Cyril). " The father, a 
 quarrelsome old person, has had, as you know, 
 endless law disputes with Sir John ; but, luckily 
 for us, has always lost them. A spendthrift, he 
 is now a bankrupt ; and his girl, though so quiet 
 and modest in aspect and manner, must be a 
 designing minx.''^ 
 
 " But, my dear Lady Wedflcrburn, quiet ones 
 arc always the deepest. ' Smooth waters,^ you 
 are aware," said Lady Ernescleugh, with a little 
 laugh. 
 
WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT FORTH. 237 
 
 '^ And wlio knows what she may be_, if all 
 were known ?^^ 
 
 " The esclandre about visiting a bachelor of 
 Captain Chesters^ proclivities does not surprise 
 me a bit ; no doubt it is the result of her bringing- 
 up_, or rather the want of bringing-up/^ 
 
 " She has been motherless for years/^ urged 
 Lady Wedderburn^ gently. 
 
 " Hence the result/^ replied Lady Ernescleugh, 
 a cold and haughty dame_, who had never perhaps 
 committed a solecism in her life^ and never 
 pardoned one in others. " I am so glad we have 
 never had her herCj though the girl is handsome 
 and presentable enough." 
 
 " And now that Gwenny has come to Willow- 
 dean^ my countenancing her^ even by a casual 
 bow_, is impossible. I have already passed her at 
 church and elsewhere before the story came out ; 
 and one cannot be too careful whom one knows, 
 for you are aware, my dear Lady Ernescleugh, 
 
 that " and here his mother^'s voice sank to a 
 
 whisper, but Cyril was nearly driven mad by 
 what he had heard. 
 
 ^' Dear Aunt," said Gwenny, " I do not know 
 the unfortunate young person of w^hom you are 
 talking " 
 
 '' And must never do so." 
 
 " But I am reminded of a maxim of my poor 
 papa^s." 
 
 '^ Ah ! and this maxim ?" 
 
238 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 " Was always, ^ Sift news first, and swallow it 
 afterwards/ Pi'overbs are bad taste, I believe; 
 but he often said this wben lie heard wild stories 
 of Thugs and Dacoits, of stranglings and poison- 
 ings, of men being carried ofi" by tigers, and all 
 the odd things that happen in Indian life/^ 
 
 " But, Gwenny," said Cyril, patting her white 
 shoulder, and looking very much as if he would 
 like to kiss her, " this is not India, but prosaic, 
 self-righteous, and censorious Scotland/^ 
 
 " True, Cyril/^ added Horace Ramornie, who 
 had also drawn near Gwenny ; " the world here 
 finds no fault with imprudence, or even wicked- 
 ness ; but great fault with either being found 
 out. So with this girPs rash visit to Chester- 
 haugh, in which there may have been no harm ; 
 but I am sorry for her old father^s sake, though 
 I have rarely seen him, and sorry for her own."" 
 
 " But the fact of spending four or five hours 
 alone with an enterprising fellow like Chesters 
 has an ugly sound about it,^' said Robert. 
 
 " You speak with the natural suspicion of a 
 lawyer ; Horace with the generosity of a soldier,^^ 
 retorted Cyril, on whom all these remarks fell 
 like molten lead. 
 
 Thus, one of the very ends which Chesters had 
 in view when he took advantage of the snow- 
 storm, and by a special falsehood, framed between 
 him and Trayner, contrived to detain the restless 
 Mary in his house, seemed on the point of being 
 
WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT FORTH. 239 
 
 achieved ; for there are many men in the world 
 like him — men who seek to blacken the reputa- 
 tion of the very girls they mean to betray, to 
 forward their own purpose by dislocating them 
 from the sympathy, protection, and even com- 
 passion of men. 
 
 As for the pity of their own sex, that is easily 
 lost! 
 
 To Cyril the rest of the evening passed away 
 like a nightmare; and at last, to his infinite 
 relief, the carriage and phaeton came to the door, 
 and Ernescleugh, the frowning rocks, the sea, 
 and the distant light that twinkled on the Isle 
 of May, were all left behind as they drove home- 
 ward inland. 
 
 Sir John wished to smoke ; so he, Robert, and 
 Horace were in the open phaeton, while Cyril 
 sat in the carriage with his mother and Gwenny. 
 Of what had they been arranging for the London 
 season he knew nothing, and cared less. When 
 that time came, he should be, he hoped, face to 
 face with the Cossacks. 
 
 He was sternly moody and silent, and both 
 failed to extract a Avord from him. His mother 
 knew his secret ; with her he was past acting, 
 and endurance could endure no more. 
 
 She stole her soft hand into his — the hand 
 that in infancy and youth had never tired of 
 caressing him — and whispered in his ear — 
 
 " My beloved Cyril, a noble heart like yours 
 
240 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 was not meant to be wasted on a worthless girl 
 like Mary Lennox of Lonewoodlee." 
 
 Cruel words, though she said them ever so 
 softly and tenderly; but they put a finishing 
 stroke to his misery, and he started as if stung 
 by a wasp. 
 
 On arriving at home, he hastened to his own 
 room, and desired Gervase Asloane, the butler, 
 to bring him a bumper of champagne ; and with 
 the wine Asloane brought him a letter. He 
 tore it open. It was from Chester s, the first 
 he had ever received from him, and he rapidly 
 perused it, with surprise and rage mingling in 
 his heart. It ran thus : — 
 
 " Army and Navy Club, 
 London. 
 
 '^ My dear Wedderburn, — Glad to hear of 
 your turning up again in this sublunaiy sphere; 
 but sorry that I could not stay at home to con- 
 gratulate you in person. I suppose we shall see 
 all about it in the papers — Bell's Life, most 
 likely ? I had to leave in haste, as Bill Trayner 
 put me up to a good thing or two, about to come 
 off on the Turf. Sir John cashed up your I O U 
 like a brick ; but I mean to let Chesterhaugh — 
 put it out to dry-nurse — and go abroad, or take 
 service in one of the proposed foreign battalions. 
 Have you made up your book ? The City and 
 Suburban is the next good handicap set for 
 
WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT FORTH. 241 
 
 decision. Eugenie is said to be really a good 
 thing. Those who back her wont regret it. 10 
 to 30 are taken for Varna ; and 1000 to 10 
 against Baltic.^^ [" What the devil is all this to 
 me !" muttered Cyril. ^^Bah !''] 
 
 ^' Awful scrape yours was. What the deuce 
 did you do to the bay hunter to render it un- 
 manageable ? How excited that little girl at 
 Lonewoodlee was about the affair. I had no end 
 of trouble, one night_, before 1 got her consoled ; 
 but consoled she was in the end. And now, 
 with best wishes, old fellow, believe me ever 
 yours faithfully, 
 
 " R. R. Chesters.^' 
 
 ^^ Insolent scoundrel V' exclaimed Cyril, before 
 whom came in memory the mocking laugh, the 
 sinister smile, and the green-grey, phosphorescent- 
 like eyes of the writer, as he crushed up the 
 jibing letter, and tossed it in the fire ; but not 
 before he observed that it was sealed with the 
 onyx ring which bore the arms of Louis De la 
 Fosse, the young French traveller whom Chesters 
 had so unmercifully pillaged at play. 
 
 There was a tone of banter in Chesters'' letter, 
 and of insolent reference to Mary, that filled the 
 heart of Cyril with fury. 
 
 What meant this sudden horror ? Cyril asked 
 in his heart : an intrigue with Chesters at the 
 very time when he himself was supposed to have 
 
 VOL. I. 16 
 
242 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 perished by a violent and mysterious death. 
 How could he question her about it without 
 degradation to them both ? and yet, as their 
 mutual relations stood, confidence between them 
 was necessary, most necessary. If he should 
 speak of it, what would her answer be, yea or 
 nay ? If the former, how was she to explain it 
 away ? If the latter, must he believe her ? Oh, 
 it was maddening ! An intrigue with Chesters — 
 of all men in the world, Chesters ! 
 
 Perhajis it was about her father^s protested 
 bill she had visited him. If so, what terms 
 might not Chesters have made with her for it ? 
 So, as jealousy makes the food it feeds on, he 
 wove endless pictures of treachery and duplicity, 
 and vowed to call out Chesters, and shoot him 
 down like a dog, on the first available oppor- 
 tunity, forgetting that even then, in the year we 
 were to storm the heights of Alma, duels had 
 become out of fashion and forbidden. 
 
 He thanked Heaven for the prospect of a 
 speedy war, and a hot one, too. Anything was 
 better than enduring what he suffered. Would 
 he resign his leave and rejoin the Fusileers at 
 once, or remain till the last hour, and make 
 fierce love to his cousin Gwenny ? 
 
 Perhaps it was all some horrible mistake, 
 which might be easily explained. But why had 
 Mary so studiously avoided all reference to the 
 circumstance? Desperately he clung to hope, 
 
WHAT THE MORROW BROUGHT FORTH. 243 
 
 and resolved himself to see about it. And now 
 he, the heedless young officer_, the man of plea- 
 sure and amusement, wealth and position, felt 
 for the first time in his life that sickening and 
 gnawing emotion of clamorous anxiety in his 
 heart which Mary had endured during the sus- 
 pense consequent to his disappearance, since 
 Chesters had engendered in her heart a jealousy 
 of Gwendoleyne Wedderburn, and never perhaps 
 so keenly as on the evening she walked to 
 Chesterhaugh. 
 
 Cyril knew that he should have no further 
 opportunity of questioning the Master of Ernes - 
 cleugh, as the leave of the latter was on the 
 point of expiry, and he was to start by train on 
 the morrow to rejoin his battalion of the Guards 
 in the Wellington Barracks, London. 
 
 16—2 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE DAWN OF LOVE. 
 
 Prior to all this the intimacy between Horace 
 Ramornie and Gwendoleyne Wedderburn had 
 been ripening with a rapidity that her aunt, had 
 she known of it, would have deemed " fright- 
 fur^ as well as fatal to all her hopes ; but 
 still love had never been spoken of between 
 them. 
 
 Eusy about his estate and the farms thereon ; 
 busy too about country matters, and the affairs 
 of the little Burgh of Barony which owned him 
 as patron and superior. Sir John AVedderburn 
 spent much of his time out of doors, and a deal 
 of it in his saddle. Cyril had been entirely 
 occupied by his own secret passion, while Robert 
 was sulky, and affected to be deep in his legal 
 studies, reading up for a forthcoming examina- 
 tion, and frequently went alone fishing. As the 
 household was in mourning there were few invi- 
 tations given, and few visitors at AVillowdcan ; 
 hence, in spite of all Lady Wedderburn^s plans^ 
 
THE DAWN OY LOVE. 245 
 
 Horace — not Cyril — and Gwenny were generally 
 thrown together ; and Avhat could be more natural 
 than that the young people should learn to love 
 each other ? 
 
 Yet he dared not speak of the passion that was 
 growing in his heart. 
 
 Lady "Wedderburn had not been without a 
 dread that the Master of Ernescleugh^ young 
 Everard Home^ who was every way an agreeable 
 and remarkably good-looking man^ might " cut 
 out''"' both her sons. Gwenny knew that he was 
 the heir to a peerage^ and rank would have much 
 Aveight in the mind of an Indian-bred girl; so 
 she was thankful when his leave of absence 
 expired, and he was recalled to London. She 
 did not speak again to Cyril of Mary Lennox, 
 either tauntingly or otherwise ; but once she said 
 to her husband — 
 
 '^ Cyril has been looking pale and unhappy of 
 late, and I know it must be caused by that artful 
 girl at Lonewoodlee. What does the foolish 
 fellow go on about ? Absurd ! It is only a 
 girFs pretty face, after all.^^ 
 
 '' Have you forgotten the days of your own 
 youth, and what your face was then to me as 
 Kate Douglas ? Ay, and is so still,^^ said the 
 good-natured Baronet, pinching her chin. 
 
 '' True ; but I didn^t gad about the country 
 alone on snowy nights with men like Rooke 
 Chester s. Cyril is conscious of her unworthi- 
 
246 LADY WEDDERBUUn's ^VISH. 
 
 ness ; so it is only the memory of a face that 
 disturbs him/-' 
 
 " Don^t worry poor Cyril ; once with his regi- 
 mentj he may forget all about her. Yet what 
 does a poet say ? — 
 
 " * Only the face of a woman ; 
 
 Only a face — nothing more ! 
 But the memory of that sweet vision 
 
 Comes hack to my heart o'er and o'er. 
 Only a woman's soft eyes ; 
 
 Only a look, that was all ; 
 A glance that I chanced to encounter 
 
 Still binds my soul in thrall.' 
 
 It was at a ball of the Caledonian Hunt we first 
 met, Kate. And never forget you were once 
 young.''- 
 
 Gwendoleyne Wedderburn thought there was 
 some analogy in the destiny of herself and 
 Horace from the fact of his being so young, and 
 having come, like herself, to Willowdean in his 
 boyhood, without father or mother. Horace was 
 a smart subaltern in the Line now, and had quite 
 considered himself a man in all respects for a few 
 years past ; but Gwenny loved to think of him 
 as the lonely boy he had been ; for his manner was 
 grave and gentle, and his voice and smile were 
 ever sweet and pleasant to her. 
 
 Cyril, we have said, was pre-occupied, and 
 Robert had enough of the student in him to be 
 somewhat brusque, so Horace she preferred un- 
 
THE DAWN OF LOVE. 247 
 
 disguisedly^ to the infinite chagrin of Lady Wed- 
 derburn; and^, if truth must be told, somewhat 
 to the amusement of Sir John^ who, though he 
 would have been pleased enough to see his son 
 with a bride so suitable and wealthy, was an 
 enemy to all match-making. 
 
 The large and stately house of Willowdean, 
 with its shady library, its galleried conservatory, 
 its long corridors hung with valuable pictures, and 
 its spacious garden, was a pleasant place for such 
 sweet companionship ; and whatever young Ra- 
 mornie did, when not with Gwenny, was always 
 done as if in a kind of dream to occupy the 
 blank of time when he could not be with 
 her. 
 
 How would time be occupied when they should 
 be parted, perhaps to meet no more ! 
 
 The garden was older than the house, having 
 belonged to its predecessor, the ancient mansion, 
 '' the peel and fortalice of Willowdean •" thus its 
 yew hedges and boxwood borders were thick and 
 dense beyond any to be seen in gardens of more 
 modern date ; and in the centre stood the ancient 
 sun-dial, by the gnomon of which Sir John^s fore- 
 fathers had set or regulated their round silver 
 watches that were like turnips in shape, and had 
 perhaps wooden wheels that were worked ^' by 
 thorl and string/' 
 
 As yet the garden was only in bud, and there 
 for the first time Gwenny heard with wonder the 
 
24S LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 voice of the cuckoo when she and Horace were 
 planting some rare Indian seeds which she had 
 brought from the Choultry ; and she sighed 
 when reflecting that he must be so far away when 
 these seeds became flowers in all their tropical 
 glory ; and when (then so bleak and bare); with 
 its famous ribbon-borders of every imaginable 
 colour^ the hedges of azaleas and drooping 
 fuchsias under the shelter of the older rows of 
 privet and yew, the clusters of beautiful shrubs 
 and beds of geraniums, verbenas, and calceo- 
 larias were in all the bloom and splendour of 
 summer. 
 
 And many a delightful drive they had in the 
 park, when Gwenny usually took the reins of the 
 pony-phaeton, for there the grass was smooth as 
 a billiard-table, having been carefully rolled and 
 mowed in season, ever since clover-seeds had 
 first been sown in it, in 1708, by Sir Cyril 
 Wedderburn — the same Baronet who drank the 
 health of James YIII., sword in hand, at Green- 
 law Cross, when the Comte de Fourbin^s fleet, 
 with the Scots and Irish Brigades on board, was 
 oflf the Isle of May; who nearly rabbled out the 
 Union Parliament, and played many other political 
 pranks in his time. 
 
 The month was still March : but alreadv the 
 park — or ^^ policy,'^ as the Scots called it — was 
 sheeted with pale yellow primroses, where, in the 
 next month the Lent lilies would be in all their 
 golden bloom. 
 
THE DAWN OF LOVE. 249 
 
 But their drives were not confined to the 
 parkj for frequently they had the open carriage. 
 Then Lady Wedderburn and Miss M^Caw 
 were always present ; and, as the large and 
 handsome vehicle bowled along the smooth 
 roads, Gwenny would laugh, and like a happy 
 child, clap her hands to the two white-and-black 
 spotted Dalmatian dogs, which bounded along on 
 each side, caracoling amid the dust, and seeming 
 to exult in the dignity of being outriders to 
 such an equipage, reminding her of the bare- 
 footed suwaries she had often seen running beside 
 the elephant of a native prince on the plain of 
 the Choultry. 
 
 Poor Horace, however, saw the views and 
 wishes of his aunt pretty plainly, for she w^as 
 unskilful enough to show her hand to all but 
 Gwenny. 
 
 He knew, and felt keenly conscious, of all he 
 owed to the uncle upon whom he had been cast 
 in boyhood, a penniless orphan : his education, 
 his commission and yearly allowance ; and though 
 loving Gwenny passionately, and with all his soul 
 — for she seemed the realization of the wife he 
 could love, the ideal of his dreamy hours — he 
 shrank from any declaration that might, perhaps, 
 mar the plans of those to whom he owed every- 
 thing in the world, and also mar, it might be, the 
 fortune of his relation, his brother officer and 
 friend, for he was ignorant of the recent ties 
 already formed by Cyril. 
 
250 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 It was hard for Horace to know and feel that 
 the love he had longed for^ the wife he had pictured 
 in many a vision of fervid fancy,, was now daily by 
 his side^ and yet that he dared not look upon 
 her as more than a friend ; while^ at the same 
 time, it was impossible to resist the charm, the 
 delight, the intoxication of her presence, and the 
 craving to seek her society ; to listen to her 
 voice, to look into her softly -lidded eyes, that were 
 by turns shy, passionate, and full of child-like sur- 
 prise ; to touch her hand timidly, and think of all 
 that might have been. 
 
 Ah, what did it all matter ! A little time, 
 and it would be a thing of the past, this de- 
 lightful companionship. Miles upon miles of 
 land and sea must be between them, and the 
 Russian hordes would be before him. 
 
 Yet often was the perilous secret, that he 
 loved her, on the point of his lips, on certain 
 occasions that suddenly seemed to invite it. 
 
 Attended by a groom they had ridden one 
 day past the house, the park, and woods of 
 Ernescleugh, to the verge of the cliff over which 
 Cyril had been dragged by his horse. The tide 
 was out, and the isolated rock from which he 
 had been rescued by the crew of the fisher- 
 smack was plainly visible, with the gulls wheel- 
 ing in circles and the white waves boiling 
 round it. 
 
 Gwenny was shuddering as she looked alter- 
 
THE DAWN OF LOVE. 251 
 
 nately down at the rock and upward at the ruins 
 of Fast Castle, perched on the giddy verge of a 
 tremendous cliff, the fragment of a baronial 
 tower " ^twixt cloud and ocean hung/^ with the 
 blue sky visible through its fissures and gaping 
 windows. Laying his right hand on her reins,, 
 as if to steady her horse, which the booming of 
 the waves below and the screaming of the sea- 
 birds above had startled, he sought in reality 
 but to touch the pretty bridle-hand, that was 
 cased in its tight black leather riding gauntlet, 
 as he said — 
 
 " I think you admire this sample of our grim 
 Scottish scenery. Miss Wedderburn ?''■' 
 
 " Before I answer you," said she, looking with 
 a bright smile under her veil, which the wind 
 was blowing out like a pennant, " you must tell 
 me why you persist in calling me Miss Wedder- 
 burn ? Did I not say once before that you 
 were to call me Gwenny ? Miss sounds so 
 stiflP! All the family at Willowdean, and even 
 cold and hard Lady Ernescleugh, call me 
 Gwenny.'''' 
 
 '^ And by that name I always think of you — 
 in my heart." 
 
 *' Then call me Gwenny, I insist, as I once 
 did before." 
 
 ^' I do not like to do so, when, when " 
 
 " Is not the name pretty ? It was my 
 mamma''s." 
 
252 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 " Apart from itself, association will ever render 
 it adorable to me/^ 
 
 " Well ?' 
 
 '' Somehow I donH like to do so when Lady 
 Wedderburn is present ; something tells me that 
 she would not be pleased/^ replied Horace, 
 blushing in spite of himself, and then the girl 
 blushed too^ for she began to see something of 
 his meaning and the inferences to be drawn 
 from what he said. ^' But/^ he added, retaining 
 her reins and hand in his for a little way, " let 
 us leave this giddy verge ; it is dangerous with 
 a shying horse/'' 
 
 The groom drew near to make the same re- 
 mark, and so the occasion was lost. 
 
 At another time the news came that the 
 Queen, in conjunction with the Emperor of the 
 French, had at last declared war against Russia ! 
 
 Gwenny^s dark eyes were uj)on Horace as 
 he read the Times aloud in the conservatory, 
 with a flush on his cheek and a strange emotion 
 in his heart. 
 
 " All leaves will be cancelled now V said he. 
 
 " And you, cousin Horace, you will be quite 
 anxious to find yourself in Turkey V" 
 
 " I was anxious,^^ said he, in a low voice. 
 
 " And what has made you change your mind ; 
 surely not dread of danger?" 
 
 Her question was a home thrust ; but he 
 
THE DAWN OP LOVE. 253 
 
 only answered curtiy, wHle his heart beat 
 quicker and his cheek grew pale — 
 
 " I am a soldier_, Gwenny/^ 
 
 " Then what has caused the change V 
 
 " Dare I tell you T'' he asked, in a low and 
 tremulous voice,, as he took her hand ; '^ but 
 no^ I dare not/^ he added. 
 
 Nor could he have done so then^ for Lady 
 Wedderburn was not far from them, feeding a 
 screaming parroquet, whose neck Horace could 
 have wrung with stern joy. Still he was ven- 
 turing to say something more in an incoherent 
 and desponding way, when Gwenny came close 
 to him, with her soft, serene, and loving eyes 
 smiling into his, and placing her rapid little 
 hand on his mouth, she said — 
 
 " Now, Horace, if you love me, silence ; for 
 sadness worries me, and I wont be worried or 
 sad till you are gone; and then Heaven knows 
 I shall be sad enough.^'' 
 
 She joined her aunt, and again the secret 
 remained untold. 
 
 ^^ If I love her !" thought Horace, with a 
 choking sensation in his throat ; but Gwenny 
 had begun to suspect or feel all that he had 
 left untold, through ^^ that silent method of 
 communion which no crowd can prevent per- 
 sons who know each other well from inter- 
 changing.'''' 
 
 To all the beauty we have described, a beauty 
 
254 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 that was dark and pale^ yet sparkling, Gwen- 
 doleyne added a manner that came with her 
 Welsh blood ; it was full of those nameless and 
 indescribable charms which the French, ever so 
 happy in apt phraseology, term foldtre et cares- 
 sante, winning and playful; but there is no 
 perfection out of novels and romances, so 
 Gwenny, with all her loveliness, was not perfect. 
 She had a fiery little temper at times, which, 
 like her dark eyes and their long lashes, she in- 
 herited with her Welsh blood ; but she was all 
 perfection to young Horace E-amornie, and in 
 the core of his heart he idolized her ! 
 
CHAPTEK XXIV. 
 
 PARTED IN SORROW. 
 
 In the dining-room at Lonewoodlee Mary was 
 seated in the deep recess of a window. She 
 was sewing, and singing merrily the while. She 
 felt happy_, light in heart, and high in spirit, 
 unusually so for her; but ever and anon she 
 paused in her work and even in her song to 
 contemplate her new ring and recall the exact 
 words of Cyril when he placed it on her finger, 
 the expression of his eyes, and the tone of his 
 voice. 
 
 The window was open, for the time was noon- 
 tide, the day was warm and sunny, and the 
 spring freshness in the atmosphere was delightful. 
 The bleating of the sheep that browsed close by 
 the Tower, the voices of the birds that twittered 
 in the old trees and shrubbery, with the hum 
 of insect life, all came pleasantly to the girFs 
 ear, so, as we have said, at times her song died 
 away, and her needle paused as she sank into 
 happy thought, and abandoning herself to her 
 
256 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 day dreams,, repeated^ " Wife of my heart ; ah, 
 he called me so ; the wife of his heart V 
 
 So pre-occupied was Mary that she did not 
 hear the hoofs of a horse approach the Tower, 
 nor the ringing of the door-bell announce a 
 visitor, till Alison Home, her face a little flushed 
 with surprise and importance, placed in her hand 
 the card of 
 
 Cyeil Weddeebuen, 
 
 Royal Fusileers. 
 
 " Where is he — this gentleman ?" asked Mary, 
 starting from her seat. 
 
 " In his saddle at the door ; but he asks if he 
 can see you, Miss Lennox/^ 
 
 '^ Show him in at once, Alison/^ 
 
 When their past mode of meeting and cor- 
 responding are considered, it may easily be sup- 
 posed that a visit from Cyril, openly, formally, 
 and at such an early hour as noon, filled Mary 
 with anxiety, excitement, and alarm ! To visit 
 thus had long ceased to be his use and wont, 
 after the quarrels ensued with his family ; so what 
 could it portend ? With true feminine instinct 
 she glanced at a mirror — one of those quaint, 
 old-fashioned, carved plate glasses with bevelled 
 borders, set in an ebony frame — gave a final 
 smooth to her rich brown hair, and was not ill- 
 pleased to find, that though she was scarcely 
 
PARTED IN SORROW. 257 
 
 dressed Id a style to receive visitors^ she wore a 
 morning robe of spotted muslin that was very 
 becomings and from the frilled sleeves and neck 
 of which her taper arms and slender throat came 
 forth to the best advantage. 
 
 Save his ring^ ornament she had none. 
 
 Cyril was ushered in with hat and whip in 
 handj and the moment their eyes met^ her heart 
 became filled with dismay. He did not approach 
 her or take her hand, even the faint sickly smile 
 that conventionalism or good-breeding had spread 
 over his face passed away, and he stood looking 
 at her irresolutely, and keeping the dining-table 
 between them. 
 
 Grieved and exasperated as he was by the 
 ugly story he had heard so recently^ Cyril 
 glanced sadly from Mary to the old faded 
 portraits that hung on the walls — older they 
 were than some of the ancestry at Willowdean — 
 and much of sorrow and pity began to mingle 
 with his indignation. And there, too, were the 
 arms and monogram of Oliver Lennox, who had 
 been a good man and true to his Queen in the 
 stormy times of the Reformation, carved above 
 the antique fireplace, which looked so quaint 
 with its heavy Scoto-Italian mouldings of stone ; 
 but in the old-fashioned basket-grate there burned 
 a cheerful fire_, composed less of coal than of 
 cuttings from the thicket without, roots, fircones, 
 and peat. 
 
 VOL. I. 17 
 
258 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 " Oh^ Cjiil," exclaimed Mary^ piteously, 
 '^ what has happened — what is amis ? You 
 have such a pale and tell-tale face ! You neither 
 take my hand nor seat yourself/' 
 
 " Nor shall I do either until you have heard 
 me — if I even do so then_, Mary/' said he^ slowly, 
 as if to gain time or arrange his j)crplexed 
 thoughts, and doubtful in what terms to break 
 the purpose of his unhappy visit, she looked so 
 charming in that plain undress, so gentle-eyed 
 and dove-like. '' Things were said of you last 
 night by Everard Home, my mother, and Lady 
 Ernescleugh, that have rent my heart asunder. 
 Long, long will their words haunt me. Oh, Mary, 
 I shall not readily forget that dinner at Ernes- 
 cleugh V 
 
 Mary now knew all ; the Master had recog- 
 nised her on that fatal night, when, in her inno- 
 cence and helplessness, she fell into the species 
 of snare contrived for her by Chesters and his 
 roguish groom. Dropping her needlework, she 
 grasped the back of a chair for support, and 
 asked, with something of hauteur, neverthe- 
 less — 
 
 "And what did you say, Cyril, when those 
 people dared to say hard things of me?" 
 
 " Say, girl ! what could I say ? I sat and 
 smiled, I suppose. I was in good society, where 
 people must hide every emotiou, and had to 
 smile like the Spartan boy I spoke of; and to 
 
PARTED IN SORROW. 259 
 
 smile thus is too often the hardest portion of 
 the weary battle of life/' 
 
 '^ To the pointy Cyril — oh^ of what do they 
 accuse me T^ 
 
 " On the night of the snow-storm^, you visited 
 the house of Chesterhaugh ; you were there for 
 hours, and Everard Home saw you leaving the 
 gatC; at midnight^ in Chester s' waggonette^ and 
 seated by his side. Home's groom saw this_, too ! 
 Was such a visit, in such a time of supposed 
 grief, and to such a man, becoming in the girl 
 whom I loved, and who I thought loved me ? 
 Even though I was believed to be dead, was it 
 becoming in your father's daughter? He is, I 
 know, a ruined man ; but ruin or improvidence 
 cannot blot out the past, or alter the fact that 
 he is a gentleman descended from as good blood 
 as any in Scotland — not that most folks set much 
 store on that nowadays, but I do. Oh, that I 
 had indeed been drowned — that I had perished 
 on that night of terror, rather than have lived to 
 hear this said of Mary Lennox, that she is no 
 longer worthy of me !" 
 
 " Cruel, Cyril ! Ob, how cruel is all this of 
 you !" said Mary, wringing her hands. 
 
 " Oh, Mary, Mary ! God alone knows how I 
 have loved you, and how I love you still ; but 
 even were that story not true, that such should 
 be said of you — my future wife — tears up my 
 heart by the roots." 
 
 17—2 
 
260 LAUr WEDDERBURN S WISH. 
 
 " But it is true/^ said Mary. 
 
 ^^What was your reason for such a visit and 
 at such a time ?" 
 
 ''Oh, Cyril, the best/' said Mary, with a 
 bursting heart, while she stretched her trembling 
 hands towards him, for his somewhat imperious 
 manner chilled and scared her. 
 
 '' Why were my informants of a circumstance 
 so strange and improper first the Master of 
 Ernescleugh, and then Chesters himself? What 
 was your motive for concealment ?'' 
 
 "A good one. I felt assured that you might 
 disapprove of it, and I was powerless ; I had no 
 control over my stay there. I was in Chester- 
 haugh certainly, but I did not go to visit Captain 
 Chesters. I was lured in ; the snow fell : I 
 could not get away; and — and — and, oh, how 
 can you speak to me thus, and think such things 
 of me !" 
 
 Cyril bit his nether lip passionately, for the 
 jesting words, the sneer of Chesters, that " she 
 was consoled in the end,^' seemed burnt into his 
 heart. 
 
 " I care not now for vour motive, or even to 
 inquire into it. Mary Lennox, we cannot undo 
 the past ; what I have to think of is the future.^' 
 
 " Oh, Cyril, bear with me, and hear a very 
 simple explanation connected with yourself.^^ 
 
 But he Avould listen to nothing, and ex- 
 claimed, in a hollow tone — 
 
PARTED IN SORROW* 261 
 
 " Oh, has God no pity for love lost^ for trust 
 misplaced, and a heart wasted as mine has been 
 on you P' 
 
 " I am innocent, Cyril, innocent of wrong, 
 even of error,^^ said Mary, with simple dignity ; 
 and had he not been goaded by his ov,ni angry 
 thoughts and the galling words of others, he 
 might have read the assurance of what she said 
 in the expression of her face, in her clear earnest 
 eyes, her parted lips, and her very attitude, as 
 she stood with outstretched hands. " I am guilt- 
 less of all blame, and a day must come when 
 God will clear me/' 
 
 " The day may come — but too late," said he, 
 hoarsely and gloomily. 
 
 "Never too late if we are both on this side 
 of the grave, Cyril; yet, thank Heaven, this life 
 does not last for ever.''^ 
 
 " And your father^'s ?" said he, reproachfully. 
 " Oh, Cyril, your rebuke is just !" said Mary, 
 in a flood of tears ; " but your anger is not so, 
 and it makes me so miserable." 
 
 " You can have no explanation to give, and I 
 seek nothing beyond the admission of the fact," 
 said Cyril, with a cold severity that afterwards 
 surprised himself; ^* and now I quit you. Thank 
 fate, we are on the eve of a war. A few days — 
 ay, perhaps but a few hours — and I shall leave 
 you and all the folly of regret and love behind me, 
 to enter on a stirring and a glorious career. 
 
262 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 Adieu ! Never more shall we be as we have 
 been ; never more shall we meet where we have 
 met so often ! All is at end between us, Mary ; 
 and from this hour our paths in life must lie for 
 ever apart !" 
 
 The door closed; she heard the clatter of his 
 horse^s hoofs die away in the distance, and then 
 she knew that Cyril was gone — gone, without 
 even asking, or learning the cause of her ^dsit to 
 Chesterhaugh. 
 
 She felt that he had treated her both harshly 
 and unjustly, and the sense of that bore her up 
 for a time ; but a time only. As one in a dream, 
 she still clutched the back of the chair to prevent 
 herself from falling. The bleating of the sheep 
 in the meadow, the voices of the birds in the 
 trees and among the ivy that rustled on the old 
 Tower wall, and the hum of the insects, were all 
 in her ears as before. Her eyes wandered over 
 the pastoral Lammermuir hills with something 
 of a hunted and despairing expression in them ; 
 of wild anxiety, as though peace and rest lay 
 somewhere far beyond, and the whole interview 
 seemed like a dream-— an unreality. 
 
 Nothing was distinct ; she felt as if struggling 
 with a nightmare. 
 
 After a time, and as the day wore on, she 
 began to perceive the realities of her position, 
 and to feel the imperative necessity for a com- 
 plete explanation with Cyril ; but she was over- 
 
PARTED IN SORROW. 263 
 
 whelmed by tlie false position in wMcli she was 
 placed^ by sbame^ anger, and unmerited morti- 
 fication, that such a story should have gone 
 abroad in the fashion it had done, and she knew 
 how it would be viewed by the severe and 
 censorious. 
 
 She knew that ^^ woman is woman's worst 
 foe '" and to be pointed at by stern spinsters, 
 with rigid religious and moral opinions — spinsters 
 who never missed sermon or communion, or 
 omitted their names in such lists as 'printed the 
 names of the charitable, and who had in their 
 hearts only a pretended horror for the mammon 
 of unrighteousness — would be terrible and humi- 
 liating in the extreme. 
 
 From the dinner-table at Ernescleugh, she 
 knew, or feared, the story in many exaggerated 
 forms would spread like wildfire among the pro- 
 fessing Christians and stern Church — we beg 
 their pardon — ifir^-goers, and nasal-singing 
 Pharisees of Willowdean; and that many hands 
 and eyes would be uplifted in dismay at the 
 ^^ shortcomings of the daughter of Lonewoodlee.^' 
 
 She knew, also, how utterly merciless such 
 local gossips were ; but to be an object of specu- 
 lation to the self-righteous on one hand, and to 
 be pitied and misjudged by those who had loved 
 her on the other, was a fear that proved bitter 
 as the waters of Marah — yea, more bitter than 
 death could be — to the sensitive Mary Lennox. 
 
264 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 She felt humbledj and seemed to have made ac- 
 quaintance with degradation,, she knew not why. 
 
 Oh^ how in her heart she hated that man 
 Chesters, who had caused all this misery ! 
 
 But Cyril would come again to Lonewoodlee, 
 to console and to comfort her. 
 
 " After all the vows we have exchanged — after 
 all our hours of happiness together — Cyril, Cyril ! 
 how could you leave me thus cruelly and coldly V 
 she would exclaim^ almost aloud, while wringing 
 her poor hands in a paroxysm of grief. 
 
 Sometimes, when an emotion of anger at his 
 determined injustice and assumption of her guilt 
 got the better of her sorrow^ she drew the 
 betrothal ring almost off her finger, and as often 
 kissed and slid it back again, loth, by removing 
 it^ entirely to break the spiritual link or tie 
 between herself and Cyril Wedderburn. 
 
 '^ He will come to me again,"*^ she often 
 whispered in her heart, fondly. ^' Oh^ yes : he 
 must come to me once more.^^ 
 
 But days went by, and Mary watched and 
 weptj for the days became weeks and months ; 
 yet Cyril Wedderburn came no more to Lone- 
 woodlee. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE TELEGRAM. 
 
 So infirm was lie of purpose^ notwithstanding his 
 severity with Mary^ that he had barely quitted 
 her presence and ridden oflP, ere he began to 
 relent towards her; and then the mocking story 
 of Everard Home_, and the cruel and stinging 
 passage of Chesters^ letter^ came back to me- 
 mory, tearing the wound afresh to exasperate 
 him : and now events succeeded each other with 
 considerable rapidity. 
 
 The whole of the afternoon subsequent, to his 
 interview with Mary, Cyril secluded himself in 
 his own room ; there he wrote three letters to 
 her, full of sorrow for what he termed her error, 
 with the earnest advice and hope that, if ever she 
 required a friend — oh, how cold seemed the word ! 
 — she should remember him ; but each produc- 
 tion in turn dissatisfied him. He knew not how 
 the tenor of them might sound when read, so 
 each in succession was concluded onlv to be torn 
 up and committed to the flames; and in this 
 
266 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 state of indecision lie remained until tlie first 
 gong for dinner resounded in the lofty vestibule 
 below. 
 
 Under bis very window^ as be wrote, be could 
 bear bis father's groom openly relating to one 
 of tbe gardeners Mr. Bill Trayner's very coarse 
 and freely-garnisbed account of tbe visit paid by 
 ^' old Lennox's daughter to tbe Captain on tbe 
 night of tbe storm.'' 
 
 It was evident to all how moody Cyril had 
 become ; and on this day be felt relieved rather 
 than bored, as be usually was, by tbe presence 
 of tbe Reverend Mr. M^Guffog, a prosy old man ; 
 the nervous, but good-natured Dr. Squills, and 
 tbe Baron Bailie, whom Sir John bad brought 
 home with him, as be wished their conjunct 
 advice about some local matter. 
 
 Cyril knew that tbe eyes of his mother, Horace, 
 and Robert, were on him ; and although tbe two 
 last-named suspected that be bad some little 
 interest at Lonewoodlee, tbe former knew to a 
 certainty tbe cause of that gloom and depression 
 which, to do him justice, be endeavoured to 
 conceal. He strove to interest himself in the 
 minister's chief topics, an augmentation of bis 
 stipend and repairs of tbe manse; with the 
 Doctor on tbe important subjects of compulsory 
 vaccination, and his quarrels with tbe parochial 
 board ; and even with the Baron Bailie, who was 
 a grocer in tbe Yennel of Willowdean, on the 
 
THE TELEGRAM. 267 
 
 probable war-prices of butter and cheese ; but lie 
 was glad^ when he bad done bis duty thus^ to turn 
 to Gwenny, and rest bis bead tbougbtfully on his 
 hand, through the fingers of which his hair stole 
 in dark and glossy brown locks, close, thick, and 
 crisp j and Lady Wedderburn, as she saw their 
 faces bent near each other, looked at them ad- 
 miringly, and thought how handsome they were, 
 and how admirably suited to each other. 
 
 But the world is full of cross-purposes, and 
 while Cyril poured some good-natured nothings 
 into Gwenny's ear, her eyes, from time to time, 
 sought those of Horace Ramornie. 
 
 An unusually important ring at the hall-door 
 bell reached the ears even of those at the dinner 
 table, and made all exchauge glances, just as 
 Lady Wedderburn and Gwenny rose to retire ; 
 but the entrance of Gervase Asloane, with a sus- 
 picious looking yellow document on a silver 
 salver, made them pause. 
 
 ^' A telegram for Mr. Cyril — for the Captain, 
 I mean,^^ said the old man, in a subdued voice, 
 and, as Cyril tore it open, his mother grew pale 
 as a lily. 
 
 " From whom is it, dearest V' she asked, 
 drawing near. 
 
 " The Colonel." 
 
 A low exclamation escaped her. 
 
 " He telegraphs, ' We are to embark for the 
 East on the 5th proximo, so you have not a mo- 
 
268 LADY wedderbijrn's wish. 
 
 ment to lose in rejoining. Provide yourself with 
 a good six-chambered revolver. All ours have 
 done so. Tell Ramomie he is detailed for the 
 Depot, so his leave remains intact.'' " 
 
 A bright flush spread over Cyril's face as he 
 read. There in action,, far away from Willow- 
 dean and Lonewoodlee, and from all his present 
 bitter associations and mortifications, was a relief 
 opened suddenly up; yet his eyes turned to the sad, 
 the earnest and anxious look of his poor mother, 
 who, instead of retiring to the drawing-room, 
 reseated herself at the table for a little time, 
 with her eyes full of tears. 
 
 Heartfelt and well-bred hopes were expressed 
 by the Minister, the Doctor, and the Baron Bailie, 
 that he and all his comrades might have a plea- 
 sant and prosperous voyage to the land of the 
 Turk and the Heathen, " whither/'' added the 
 Minister, '' no Christian soldiery had gone since 
 the Twelfth Crusade, so ours was an epoch in 
 the world^s history /' but there might be no 
 actual war after all, for was not this an age of 
 subtle diplomacy and peace-making at any price ; 
 and to these last expressions of hope, his mother 
 clung desperately, with a sob in her throat and 
 a prayer in her heart ; but Sir John, who was a 
 bitter enemy of Lord Aberdeen's Government, 
 and was suspicious of his Russian sympathies, 
 pretty broadly " d — d the notion of peace 
 at any price, and hoped the day would never 
 
THE TELEGRAM. 269 
 
 come when Britannia^ if smitten on one cheek, 
 would quietly turn the other V 
 
 *' You^ll not be long behind me^ Horace, I 
 fear/^ said Cyril, gaily, as he took off his wine ; 
 "the service companies are barely the full 
 strength, and we shall soon have gaps to fill. 
 Gervase," he added, turning to the old butler, 
 who lingered nervously behind his chair, with 
 an expression in his face that indicated a desire 
 to " whimper,^^ and to pat Cyril on the head or 
 back, as he had often done in boyhood, "you'll 
 have all my traps packed and brought down- 
 stairs. Have the carriage brought round in 
 time for the night train for England/' 
 
 Before this, Cyril had been, perhaps, the most 
 silent member of the company; now it was he 
 who talked most and was the gayest; but his 
 mother was voiceless, and even Gwenny felt 
 crushed (and would have been more so had 
 Horace been going), for all knew they were 
 looking on a face they might never see again, 
 and listening to a voice that never more might 
 fall upon their ear. 
 
 The fatal telegram ! 
 
 It lay on the polished table, like an execu- 
 tioner's warrant, to Lady Wedderburn's eyes — 
 the ukase that was to tear her son from her — 
 and she forgot all about her matrimonial schemes 
 and fears of Horace; she only looked at her 
 handsome and curly-haired Cyril, and thought 
 
270 LADY WEDDERBURN^S WISH. 
 
 of all that was before him ; that terrible perspec- 
 tive ; the long voyage in a comfortless hired 
 transport, by the stormy Bay of Biscay, the 
 Mediterranean and the Levant, the Bosphorus 
 and the Black Sea ; of the varied climates ; and 
 more than all — oh, more than all ! — the chances 
 of an unequal and disastrous war against the 
 hordes of Russia. Then her maternal heart 
 died within her ; she could only lay her face on 
 his breast and weep. 
 
 Many a wife and mother over all the British 
 Isles felt the same emotion at that fatal time, 
 when, after forty years of peace, and Waterloo 
 had become as a tale that is told, the clouds of 
 war began to gather in the North and East ; and 
 long, long in London, the mighty heart of the 
 Empire, was remembered that early morning 
 when the drum beat that summoned the Guards, 
 the flower of our army, to the field ; on that 
 same morning when sixty thousand citizens of 
 Edinburgh accompanied the departing steps of 
 the King^s Own to the ship that bore them away, 
 for all the land was full of sympathy. 
 
 Now Cyril hated ^' a scene.''' 
 
 "What''s the row, mamma?'' asked he, in- 
 dignantly. " How often have you seen me leave 
 home to join the Eusileers, and always come 
 back jollier than ever ?" 
 
 " But you never left Willowdean at such a 
 time of war and peril as this — going from me 
 perhaps never to return, my boy !" 
 
THE TELEGRAM. 271 
 
 " Kate, my love, do be calm, be sensible,'^ 
 urged Sir Jobo ; and becoming less excited, sbe 
 left the room, leaning on Gwenny^s arm, and 
 urging Cyril soon to join ber. 
 
 All ber future plans and minor considerations, 
 even tbe dread of Mary Lennox, were merged 
 now in one tbougbt ; and wben sbe regarded 
 his fine face and stalwart figure, ber memory 
 went back over tbe sunny days of bis boyhood, 
 and to tbe tenderer time beyond, wben, "like 
 the callow cygnet in its nest,^^ he clung to her 
 bosom, wben merry bonfires were blazing redly 
 on the Twinlaw and Earlston Hill, on Beimer- 
 side, and over all tbe Lammermuirs, from tbe 
 beautiful vale of the Gala to the terrible rocks 
 of St. Abb, for the birth of an heir to the beloved 
 house of Willow dean. 
 
 And now, now, what might it all come to — 
 the care, affection, education, and pride of past 
 years ? 
 
 A bullet shot from the musket of an unlettered 
 Russian slave, and a tomb without a coffin or a 
 stone ! ^ 
 
 So might tbe life of one so loved — the life 
 she had hoped was to stretch out so far beyond 
 that of his parents as God should will — pass 
 away. Cyril, whom she had prayed and trusted 
 might live to see his children's children, long 
 after she had been laid in tbe family vault at 
 Willowdean church. And as she skilfully tor- 
 mented herself by dark anticipations like these. 
 
272 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 she turned to Gwenny (who,, sooth to say^ was 
 somewhat scared by the suddenness of the sum- 
 mons, and her excessive and unwonted burst of 
 grief), and said — 
 
 '^ Oh, Gwenny, why did I ever permit him to 
 be a soldier — why ? But regrets are useless now ; 
 yet I am very ill used, I think. Horace has 
 neither father nor mother to regret him, and yet 
 he remains with the Depot, as that provoking 
 Colonel says, while Cyril goes abroad with the 
 regiment V 
 
 She glanced at the magnificent French clock, 
 a miracle of sculpture and gilding, that stood on 
 a white marble console table. 
 
 In two hours she knew he must be gone. 
 
 " Two hours only, Gwenny \" she said. 
 
 The gentlemen soon joined them, and then 
 she was compelled to preserve an appearance of 
 calmness. Cyril did not immediately come in 
 with them, and her heart misgave her that per- 
 haps he had started to Lonewoodlee, but he had 
 only visited his own room for a moment to give 
 it a farewell glanoe, and issue to Gervase some 
 final instructions. His mother now, however, 
 grudged every moment he was absent from her 
 side. Sir John drew near and took her hands 
 caressingly in his own, for their sympathies of 
 course were one, though her emotions were the 
 keener of the two. 
 
 The long-looked-for and dreaded day, yea, 
 
THE TELEGRAM. 273 
 
 the very hoiir^ had come when there was to be 
 a final parting; when CyriFs place and chair 
 would be vacant once more,, and \Yillowdean a 
 broken home ! His sword-case and portmanteau 
 were already strapped in the entrance-hall ; and 
 now the little family cii'cle that had lived to- 
 gether in such close and pleasant companionship 
 was to be severed. 
 
 The grief of Miss M^Caw was so noisy and 
 uncontrollable that she had to retire to her own 
 room ; and Lady Wedderburn looked almost 
 hostilely, certainly with envy, at her unconscious 
 nephewj who " was detailed for the Depot/'' and 
 whose home leave extended for nearly a month 
 beyond that of Cyril, as the spring drills had 
 not yet commenced. 
 
 " I would to Heaven that Horace's leave had 
 been up too/^ said Lady Wedderburn through 
 her tears, in a whisper to Sir John. 
 
 " Why, surely there is time enough for him 
 to go, poor boy !" 
 
 " Because we should then have had but one 
 leave-taking, and — and this rioting and romping 
 about with Gwenny is scarcely proper.^' 
 
 " Oh, the old idea ! A month will see it all 
 over; a memory of the past, and Horace will 
 have other and sterner work on hand than flying 
 over the Merse with a pretty young girl.^^ 
 
 " Yes ; but the memory thereof may last with 
 the lives of both." 
 
 VOL. I, 18 
 
274 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 " Scarcely. Where are now all the girls I 
 flirted with when I was the age of Horace? 
 Gwenny is only eighteen_, at a time when love 
 is often a mere illusion_, Kate^ that passes away 
 or fixes on some other object, often with perilous 
 rapidity ; so Cyril may have the best chance 
 after all when in a few months he comes back 
 to us/"* said Sir John, with an external air of 
 confidence and cheerfulness he was far from 
 feeling, as he rose and crossed the room to bid 
 farewell to their three guests, who, finding them- 
 selves rather de /ro/?, after formally partaking of 
 coffee, were bowed out. 
 
 Poor CyriFs heart had been sorely divided 
 and torn since the arrival of the telegram. 
 From that moment till the time of his final 
 departure by train, four hours, he knew, would 
 intervene ; his horse would in a few minutes 
 have taken him to Mary^s presence, and so 
 vacillating and unstable are the resolutions of 
 a jealous lover, that there were times when he 
 felt strongly impelled to visit her once again ! 
 
 Had he done so, how much suff'ering might in 
 the future have been spared to both ; but the 
 golden moments passed and never returned again. 
 
 " To what end or purpose should I go T' he 
 asked of himself, almost fiercely. " Weakness, 
 folly, disgrace ! No — no ! Once in the train 
 for London, and then all is over V 
 
 Yet his soul was full of compassion and dread 
 
THE TELEGRAM. 275 
 
 for what miglit yet be the fate^ tbe future, of 
 tliis delicate girl, wliom he had loved so truly 
 and tenderly. 
 
 Cyril was sincerely attached to all the house- 
 hold at Willowdean, to his parents and family, 
 and to none more than his mother, who had 
 ever been, to his eyes, the belle ideal of all a 
 lady and a mother ought to be ; yet he was glad, 
 as he had to go, that the telegram and the rail 
 would whisk him off, as he said, " double quick/' 
 for the solemnity of leave-taking bored and 
 worried him ; so he shared not his mother^s envy 
 of poor Horace's more protracted visit. 
 
 He was now anxious only to have it all over, 
 and be gone ! 
 
 After the dark turn his love affair had taken, 
 he felt inclined to thank God for the relief he 
 should find amid the turmoil of war and foreign 
 service with the Fusileers ; he felt o, gloomy joy, 
 or grim satisfaction, in the idea that Mary might 
 weep if she saw his name in the Gazette among 
 the killed ; but instantly thrust aside the morbid 
 thought, as he reflected compassionately on his 
 tender mother, his loving father, and all the 
 friends by whom his loss would be lamented ; and 
 life certainly was more valuable than the tears of a 
 false woman ! 
 
 Already the carriage was at the door ; his 
 luggage, sword, and rugs were placed in it ; he 
 heard the horses' hoofs rasping impatiently among 
 
 18— a 
 
270 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 the gravel, as if they resented being harnessed 
 out at such an hour_, and the spotted dogs were 
 gambolling about them. Then CyriFs lips 
 quivered, as he drew on his kid gloves with 
 singular but nervous accuracy. His father, 
 brother, and cousin proposed to accompany him 
 to the station ; but he was affectionately per- 
 emptory, and would have no second leave- 
 taking. 
 
 As his mother cut a parting lock from his 
 thick brown hair, she fairly broke down again, 
 and sobbing, fell upon his neck. By this Sir 
 John, who had his emotions more under control, 
 was greatly moved; for to see Cyril joining his 
 regiment noiv was so different from what his 
 departure had been on any previous occasion, 
 save on his first appointment, when he was under 
 orders for India. 
 
 " Mother darling,^"* whispered Cyril, '^ when 
 going now, I have but one favour to ask of you ; 
 be kind to that poor girl at Lonewoodlee, should 
 aught happen. I have loved her well ; and for 
 my sake " 
 
 '' I shall, Cyril— if I can.^^ 
 
 Some hurried salutes, tears, and shaking of 
 hands, a murmured adieu from the assembled 
 servants, and all was over like a dream. He 
 was lying back in the recess of the well-cushioned 
 carriage, and heard the budding branches of the 
 old avenue — ^budding now as they had done for 
 
THE TELEGRAM. 277 
 
 two hundred springs and more — sweeping its 
 roof as he was driven away. 
 
 The old minister^ Dr. Squills^ with many more, 
 were ah'eady at the railway station to see him 
 finally ofi"^ with a farewell cheer ; and as the 
 departing train plunged with a mad shriek into 
 the dark tunnel and vanished^ the former la- 
 mented aloud that " once again the Merse had 
 lost the best angler that ever dropped a line in 
 the siller Tweed ; the primest curler that ever 
 shot a stone at the rinks ; the boldest rider^ the 
 best sportsman, and the lightest dancer in a"* the 
 country side ; but God^s blessing and a^ our 
 gude wishes follow him V^ 
 
 Until far on in the coming grey dawn, even, 
 till the sun rose on land and sea, his mother lay 
 a-bed, sleepless, with watch in hand, reckoning 
 with anxious heart the hours and pauses in his 
 southern journey. Now she knew he must be at 
 Berwick ; now at York ; now at Peterborough, 
 and so on, until in fancy she saw the train 
 rushing into the roar and bustle of King's Cross 
 Station. 
 
 How long a period might elapse, and how 
 much would he have to undergo, before he tra- 
 versed that route homeward to her again ? 
 
 After a little time poor Mary Lennox heard, 
 and a dreadful shock it gave her, of his abrupt 
 departure on the very night of the sorrowful day 
 when last they met ; and she knew that he had 
 
278 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 gone without a farewell word or letter of ex- 
 planation_, and tliat lie still thought hardly and 
 strongly^ even bitterly, of her, and the girFs heart 
 waxed sore with its great grief. 
 
 They could meet no more at the stile by the 
 triple thorn, or under the old pine-trees ; and 
 for her own peace she meant in future to shun 
 those places. 
 
 Did she repine, even enviously, a little, when 
 Dr. Squills told her incidentally, that Cyril had 
 telegraphed home (and not to her) " of his safe 
 arrival at headquarters ?" We fear she did. 
 
 Cyril^s new line of conduct seemed so harsh ! 
 Had he wished to quarrel with her, and begun 
 to love his cousin ? It almost seemed so. Well, 
 she had still her poor old father, who clung to 
 her and her only, even as a helpless and querulous 
 child might have done ; but how long should 
 he be spared to her? 
 
 God alone knew. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Mary's new terror. 
 
 Some weeks elapsed after this, and yet Mary heard 
 nothing of Cyril ; even the lingering hope that he 
 would write to her died away ; she knew not where 
 his regiment was stationed; where it was to sail 
 from_, when, or for where ; and still full of deep 
 and tender interest, as her heart was for him, 
 this ignorance of all concerning him was most 
 tantalizing, till one evening she was startled by 
 a sudden visit from Captain Chesters, who had 
 been for some time absent in London; and 
 with all her horror of him, she hoped to glean 
 in the course of conversation some tidings of 
 the absent and the loved. 
 
 The month was April now, but the day had 
 been rainy and gloomy, and Lonewoodlee, with 
 its weather-beaten walls, its masses of dark 
 green ivy and group of stern old pines, had 
 worn its most grim aspect. 
 
 The live-long day the rain had been sowing 
 
280 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 moor and lea, gorging the watercourses and 
 runnels,, while masses of cold white vapour were 
 rolling slowly upward from all the lower portions 
 of the pastoral landscape. The desolate face of 
 Nature around the Tower increased the desola- 
 tion of Mary^s heart, for she was at all times an 
 impressionable creature, and the whole of that 
 dreary day she had sat by her father^s bed-side 
 sewing, or reading to him, and thinking of Cyril 
 Wedderburn ; where was he — on the land or on 
 the sea — and did he ever think of her now ! 
 
 On this day it had seemed to Mary that 
 when her father spoke, a strange brightness and 
 smoothing out of wrinkles spread over his 
 withered face ; his brow became stern at times, 
 his eyes sparkled with a new light, and she saw 
 something of what his features must have been in 
 the days of his youth, and in the time of her dead 
 mother^s bridal — in the happier years that had 
 gone for ever. 
 
 Then as she watched and saw how the brow 
 seemed to become broad and open, the cheek to 
 flush, and a younger appearance to steal over 
 all his face, she trembled in her heart lest the 
 last great crisis and the Shadowy Hand were ap- 
 proaching, for most of the day he had raved of 
 his dead son, and the now almost forgotten 
 Indian war in which he fell. " It is always 
 dreadful even to the accustomed watchers of the 
 sick, when the mind wanders,' writes the charm- 
 
Mary's new terror. 281 
 
 ing authoress of " Lost and Won ;" '' when the 
 soul goes on some wild journey of its own^ away 
 from direct human associations, fighting with 
 imaginary dangers^ yearning for impossible 
 delights^ living among distorted shadows and 
 amazing pictures that have their origin in some 
 magic-lantern reflection of past or present life." 
 So it was with poor Oliver Lennox. Some- 
 times he mistook Mary for her mother^ who was 
 in the grave ; then came scenes in the hunting- 
 field_, for he had been a keen and fearless sports- 
 man^ mingled oddly with terror and hatred of 
 duns_, and the fancied presence of his dead son 
 Harry, to whom he had been tenderly attached. 
 To these occasional aberrations of intellect, Mary 
 never became used, and they always filled her 
 with the keenest anguish and dismay. 
 
 And so for a long and weary day Mary had 
 been enduring all this, till she thought her own 
 brain would turn, when Alison Home announced 
 that Captain Chesters was in the dining-room, 
 where she found him booted and spurred, and 
 warming himself before the large fire of coal, 
 roots, and peat, and perfectly dry, apparently, his 
 overalls and ample Inverness cape, which he 
 had left in the hall, having protected him com- 
 pletely from the rain. 
 
 The same old portraits that had looked down 
 on Cyril Wedderburn — portraits of the Lennoxes 
 of past times, " seeming ghostly, desolate, and 
 
282 LADY WEDDERBUR^^'S WISH. 
 
 dread/^ were looking down on him, but they 
 suggested no other idea to his niind than that 
 they were ^' uncommonly seedy, and were in 
 appearance only fit for Wardour Street." 
 
 Her father was slowly, but surely, passing 
 away, and Mary, in the utter loneliness of her 
 heart — she had so few visitors and fewer friends — 
 now felt compelled (despising herself the while 
 therefor) to receive politely this unwelcome 
 visitor, for, save her father, she knew no human 
 being to care for, or who seemed to care for her ; 
 thus a kind of sullen desperation had been 
 stealing over her since CyriPs sudden departure. 
 
 Aware that it was Chester s who had injured 
 her with her betrothed, Mary regarded him with 
 a secret fear, equalled only by her loathing, and 
 summoned as she had been from the bedside of 
 her ruined and impoverished parent, whom she 
 knew to be in this man^s power, made these 
 emotions all the stronger. 
 
 To the roue Chesters there was something alto- 
 gether delightful in the freshness and presence 
 of this young girl, so plainly and modestly 
 attired, and with her rich hair so beautifully 
 dressed, as she came near him, and brought an 
 odour of the dried lavender (from plants in the 
 old garden), amid which all her handkerchiefs, 
 collars, and cuflfs were folded ; and in her 
 bosom, fastened by her solitary little brooch, were 
 some of the first violets of the season, which 
 
Mary's new terror. 283 
 
 Alison had gathered for her^ singularly enough, 
 near the stile at the old triple thorn. 
 
 Mary had not been without many a mortifica- 
 tion since CyriFs departure, and since the story 
 had gone abroad. Lady Wedderburn, Lady 
 Ernescleugh and others — even the unpretending 
 Mrs. M'Gufi'og, the minister's wife — had eyed her 
 coldly and curiously from under their parasols ; 
 and some even had ventured to survey her more 
 boldly than had been their wont — or she ner- 
 vously fancied they did so — and all this she owed 
 to the scheme and tongue of Ralph Rooke 
 Chesters ! 
 
 And now with the first glance, Mary discerned, 
 to her alarm, that her visitor was, as the saying 
 is, '^ flushed with wine," or too probably some- 
 thing more potent, as his face was almost purple 
 in some places, his green eyes were bloodshot, 
 and his utterance was somewhat uncertain. He 
 held out his hand, without drawing his thick 
 riding glove off, and regarded her with one of 
 his cool, leering, and insolent smiles. 
 
 " Bravo, Miss Lennox ! How goes it with 
 you T' he asked. " Dull enough, I suppose, in 
 this atrocious weather?" 
 
 " Pray be seated," said Mary, retreating back 
 a pace, after barely touching his hand. 
 
 " Thanks," he replied, continuing to eye her 
 smilingly, and to twirl and untwirl the lash of 
 his short riding whip. 
 
284 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 Ignorant of all that passed at Willowdean 
 between Lady Wedderburn and Cyril^ or know- 
 ing only that the latter was gone^ the advent 
 of Gwenny gave Chesters some courage to 
 renew his attempts to gain a place in Mary^s 
 heart,, or at least to bend her to his purpose ; 
 and when tired of her — for tire he knew he 
 should — why, then in Cyril's absence, he might 
 have a chance of winning the heiress, if he met 
 her in London ; for Chesters was a man of the 
 most unbounded assurance. 
 
 " So Wedderburn is off to join his regiment 
 at last — ha ! ha ! — after engaging himself to his 
 pretty cousin T' said he, bluntly. 
 
 "You are surely misinformed/' said Mary, 
 faintly. 
 
 " I am not. He told me all about it in 
 London."" 
 
 This, of course, was utterly false; but Mary 
 could not know that it was so, and he was re- 
 solved on making her miserable by inspiring her 
 with jealousy and mistrust. 
 
 " And where is his regiment lying at present V^ 
 she asked. 
 
 " ^Tisn^t lying anywhere just now,^^ he replied, 
 in a mocking tone, which, like his smile, was 
 replete with insolence. 
 
 " I do not understand you, sir,^' said Mary. 
 
 "You^re dying to know all about it, though. 
 Well, after our mutual friend Wedderburn had 
 
Mary's new terror. 285 
 
 been going it, as usual_, among the girls at 
 Chatham and Rochester — oh^ I know the style 
 perfectly — the Fusileers sailed from Southamp- 
 ton on the fifth of this month. ■'^ 
 
 " For where T' asked Mary_, in a low, breath- 
 less voice. 
 
 ''' Oh, Malta, Turkey, or somewhere there- 
 about. What can it matter to you now ? Come, 
 Miss Lennox — or may I not call you Mary ? 
 
 " * See the mountains kiss high Heaven, 
 And the waves clasp one another.' " 
 
 And he proceeded to quote again his favourite and 
 almost only piece of poetry^ drawing nearer her 
 as he did so ; but Mary arose, with lips com- 
 pressed and eyes flashing, and so Chesters, whose 
 ideas of love-making had not been acquired in 
 the society of ladies generally, became corre- 
 spondingly irritated. 
 
 " Well, if you wont be jolly, but are deter- 
 mined to be unpleasant,''^ said he, with an in- 
 solent laugh, " suppose we talk about business T' 
 
 ^^ I am more and more at a loss to under- 
 stand you, sir." 
 
 " You can understand this, I presume, Miss 
 Lennox, that I took up the old gentleman^s bill 
 — not for his own sake, but yours T' 
 
 *' Though you have been so often his guest in 
 better days ? Yet, from whatever motive you 
 freed my poor papa from the terror of it, you 
 
286 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 performed an act of great kindness and charity, 
 for which I shall ever thank you and rememher 
 you in my prayers/^ 
 
 " Bah V said he, with gloomy scorn, " who 
 pray nowadays ? You treat me more like a dog 
 than a gentleman, Miss Lennox ; but/^ he added, 
 as the fumes of what he had taken were beginning 
 to mount upward, ^' do you know that for all the 
 grand airs you give yourself, I could have your 
 father arrested and marched off to Greenlaw 
 Gaol; and if you continue as obdurate as you 
 are now, what the devil is to hinder me from 
 doing so ?" 
 
 Terror of the man, and of his new and un- 
 wonted bearing, got the better of Mary^s anger, 
 and compelled her to dissemble. But she said — 
 ^' You talk daringly, sir ; for what reason 
 could you, or any such as you, have Oliver Len- 
 nox of Lonewoodlee arrested ?^' 
 
 " Debt. Have you already forgotten the bill 
 I took up for him ?" 
 
 "Never shall I forget your kindness. But 
 has not the bill expired ? I think the phrase is.'^ 
 " No ; it can never expire. I had it protested 
 and renewed ; so it grows daily in value — in- 
 terest upon interest. The world is divided into 
 two classes — at least, I have found it so — fools 
 and scoundrels, or dupes and despots. Now, by 
 Jove ! I prefer being the last named ; anything is 
 better than being a fool or a dupe.^^ 
 
Mary's new terror. 287 
 
 Mary was speechless. The bill 1 that fatal 
 bill ! She remembered how she had bathed her 
 father^s trembling hand in Rimmel and iced 
 water,, before he had achieved the signing and 
 indorsation of it, with a signature so all unlike 
 what his own was wont to be, that the bank 
 people had eyed it dubiously for a time. 
 
 " How did your father ever expect to meet 
 this bill, unless some good-natured fellow like 
 myself had come forward ? He is a veritable 
 old goose, who seems to have thought his pasture 
 land of Lonewoodlee a perfect California, a Gol- 
 conda, or El Dorado, that no end of money could 
 be got out of.^^ 
 
 *^ And what have you thought of Chester- 
 haugh ?" retorted Mary. 
 
 " Pretty much the same, by Jove ! But though 
 Chesterhaugh is entailed, I have contrived to 
 make all the timber march, and something more.^' 
 
 Amid all the difficulties, monetary and other- 
 wise, that Mary had undergone, no man had ever 
 before dared to address her in the tone and manner 
 now adopted by this bold reprobate. A clamo- 
 rous anxiety, a strong sense of weary confusion, 
 a terrible, yet dull oppression of the heart and 
 aching of the head, a sensation as if she was all 
 pulse, pervaded her. She made a struggle to 
 appear calm, and only after a time became con- 
 scious that Chesters was speaking again, but with 
 thicker utterances than ever. 
 
ZbO LADY WEDDERBURN S WISH. 
 
 '^ Give me one kiss, Mary dear, and a promise 
 of a little hope that you will love me in the time 
 to come, and I shall be patient, though I want 
 money horribly. Once I had only to draw upon 
 my banker, now I have to draw upon my wits — 
 a devil of a difference, you^U admit. So just one 
 kiss, my sweet '' 
 
 " Stand back, sir, I command you !" ex- 
 claimed Mary, raising her hand to the bell. 
 
 " Why, hang it ! you don^t mean to mourn for 
 ever about that selfish muff, Wedderburn, who 
 has discarded you — cast you off for a richer en- 
 gagement ?" 
 
 " He could not well have made a poorer one," 
 sighed Mary. 
 
 " Had he been a man of honour, he would 
 never have concealed from his family the fact 
 that he loved you." 
 
 This was perhaps ""the most stinging remark 
 Chesters had made, and having some truth in it, 
 Mary felt it more keenly ; so if fear made her 
 tolerate the presence of Chesters, wounded pride 
 now caused her to loathe him more and more. 
 Remembering all the trickery of which Cyrils— 
 her absent Cyril — had suspected him, hinting 
 even at intended murder, perhaps; his sharping 
 at cards, and the apparent snare into which he had 
 lured herself, indignation for a moment got the 
 better of her fear and policy, and with invincible 
 hauteur in her face and manner, she said — 
 
Mary's new terror. 289 
 
 ^^ I have to request, sir, that you never again 
 mention the name of Captain Wedderburn to 
 me. Indeed, I am astonished that you dare to 
 speak of him to any one J' 
 
 "Why? by JoveP' 
 
 " When you know that his horse was drugged 
 on that terrible night." 
 
 ^' By whom ?" he asked, with a frown. 
 
 " Your worthy groom, or yourself.'^ 
 
 " Dare you say so to me — a gentleman ?" he 
 asked, making a stride towards her, and laying a 
 hand heavily on her arm. 
 
 " I do. A gentleman ? Take your hand away, 
 Captain Chesters, or, though a girl, I shall '' 
 
 '' Do what ?" 
 
 " Summon aid, and have you expelled," re- 
 plied Mary, feeling again all her own helplessness. 
 
 Her words and bearing had, however, the 
 effect of completely sobering her tormentor, who 
 took up his hat, and, while a cruel white glitter 
 came into his green eyes, said, with a mocking 
 bow, " As you please, Mary Lennox ; as you 
 please. But I warn you, that if you are not 
 more complaisant when next we meet, my pro- 
 tested bill shall go into the hands of Grubb and 
 Wylie, my solicitors. If you have no mercy on 
 me, why the deuce should I have any on your 
 father? And so I wish you good evening." 
 
 Mary made no reply to the unmanly threat of 
 this would-be lover ; but turned her back upon 
 
 VOL. I. 19 
 
290 LADY wedderburn's wish. 
 
 Mm and rang the bell, that Alison might usher him 
 out. And as the sound of his horse's hoofs died 
 away in the rain that lashed the windows, she 
 felt as if her heart was dying within her, for 
 never before had she undergone an interview so 
 singular and insulting; and she felt, moreover, 
 an intuitive foreboding that she had not seen the 
 last of Rooke Chesters. " Sufficient unto the 
 day is the evil thereof,'"* saith the old Scriptural 
 proverb. But she could not help dreading evil 
 and gloom, misery and desperation, beyond the 
 present ; and that Chesters might, in his baffled 
 rage at herself, be infamous enough to attempt to 
 arrest her father, place him in prison, and so 
 kill him outright, came on her soul like a new and 
 hitherto unforeseen terror. 
 
 But strange events were to happen ere Mary 
 and her tormentor met again. And after a few 
 weeks she learned, incidentally, from Dr. Squills, 
 that Chesters had left the neighbourhood once 
 more, and betaken himself to London. All that 
 remained of Chesterhaugh, being entailed, had 
 been put under trust for the behoof of his long- 
 patient creditors ; the house and grounds were 
 advertised to be let by Messrs. Grub and Wylie ; 
 so Mary and the district were alike freed from 
 the annoyance of his presence for a time. 
 
 But she found her home gradually growing 
 more and more intolerable to her. CyriFs sudden 
 and unwonted visit just before his departure, and 
 
Mary's new terror. 291 
 
 her subsequent anxiety for letters whicli never 
 came, all betokened some mystery. Her rather 
 stormy interview with Chesters, overheard, doubt- 
 less, by vulgar ears that were at the keyhole, and 
 the total cessation of his visits afterwards ; to- 
 gether with the great local esclandre of the snowy 
 night at Chesterhaugh, had been made subjects 
 for discussion at the village tap, the blacksmith^s 
 forge, and even beside her own kitchen- hearth. 
 
 Mary could gather much of this from the 
 manner of Alison Home and her other 
 domestic ; and they had seen much that Mary 
 wist not of, for, like all their class, they could read 
 the faces of their superiors as one may read a 
 book ; and in hers they saw only trouble and 
 sorrow, distraction and care. 
 
 She felt that Cyril had deserted her, and she 
 would say in her heart — 
 
 " His love for me was but one thought, one 
 fancy, it may be, among many ; while mine, alas ! 
 it was the die on which I staked my all — the 
 chain whereon all the links of my life were 
 strung.^^ 
 
 END OF VOL. Ii 
 
LOKBOIT : 
 8ATILL, BDWABDS AND CO., PEINTEBS, CnJOTDOS SISEET, 
 COTENT GABDEN. 
 
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