^-.^^£br ..JXjrSfa^f:^.^ UK: 
 
 L I E, R.ARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N I VER5ITY 
 
 or ILLI NOIS 
 
 M3B8s 
 
 V.I
 
 STRANGE CHAPMAN, 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 
 X 
 
 
 a^ 
 
 //ffc^
 
 STRANGE CHAPMAN 
 
 A NORTH OF ENGLAND STORY 
 
 BY 
 
 W. MARSHALL, B.A 
 
 AUTHOE OF 
 
 ^' MONSELL DIGBY." 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1882. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 3 
 
 W.I 
 
 
 STRAIiGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 COLONIAL. 
 
 ' ' A sorrowful gesture. 
 - "Is he gone, Biddy?" 
 " Yis, sm--r." 
 . "Ah!" A deep breathy neither sigh nor sur- 
 ^ prise, a long low groan through closed lips, 
 ' relief alike to mind and chest. Then profound 
 X^thought, as of one travelling far backward or 
 ^ forward, handling a dark matter in the deeper 
 
 soul. 
 -- She is standing with her fat hand on the 
 door-latch, this middle-aged serving-woman, 
 interest on her face that banishes the long 
 V^ VOL. I. B
 
 2 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 •weariness, a gleg of mischief in her eye that 
 imparts a spice of mahce to her keen, inquisi- 
 torial look. 
 
 Still he sits, unwitting of that secret chuck- 
 ling something within the woman, a flush of 
 excitement on his prone countenance, thinking 
 — thinking sadly, it may be, but assuredly very 
 deeply. 
 
 A shuffle of shoes, a rub of clothes, a little 
 sigh, and instantly that knowing gaze gives 
 place to a demure, stony, stupid expression as 
 he looks up. 
 
 " Did he go quietly, Biddy f 
 
 "'Deed he did, sur-r; loike a choild, loike 
 swate Miss Beaty going to slape." 
 
 " H'm-m !" A shake of the head and thought 
 again, as the face settles on the hands, the arms 
 on the knees, the eye fixed in floorward stare. 
 
 A moment she looks at him, a moment there 
 flashes up a triumphant light in her eye, banish- 
 ing the stolid expression ; then weariness seems 
 to supervene^ like gloom after a midnight 
 rocket, and she silently withdraws. 
 
 " It's himself that thinks he'll be the betther 
 for this, the harrud crayther, an' it's meself
 
 COLONIAL. ^ 
 
 that's put a spoke ia Lis wheel for trateing 
 missis so cold. But, miisha, oi must have some- 
 thing to dhrink, for oi'm desthroyed entoirely. 
 The wautching was taydeous beyond ivery thing." 
 
 In awhile the gentleman rouses up from his 
 sorrow, or his meditations^ and takes from a 
 drawer a black-sealed packet. 
 
 " To be opened after my death. J. C." is in- 
 scribed upon it. 
 
 He breaks the seal and reads with great 
 attention, his swarthy countenance lighting up 
 with a flash of interest or glooming again Avith 
 a suggestion of disappointment. He puts down 
 the documents and walks up and down the 
 room, his head bent forward, his hands folded 
 behind him. His satisfactions are clearly very 
 mixed, very alloyed. He sits down again, 
 reads, re-reads, ponders, until the folios drop 
 from hand to knee, from knee to carpet, while 
 he knows it not, the large white eyes fixing on 
 the opposite wall, the big person rigid as a 
 frozen traveller in the morgue at St. Bernard's. 
 
 He might be mentally forming figures, pat- 
 terns, vortices out of the dancing motes in that 
 shaft of sunbeam. Scheme might be revolving 
 
 b2
 
 4 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 about scheme, plot and cycle merging into cycle 
 and plot, and he in long watch for the central 
 point of the system, like a Kepler in another 
 field of thought^ so long and intent is that 
 gaze. Then words. 
 
 '' Two children. Delicate, likely enough, as 
 father and mother have both died young. An 
 old frump of a parson as co-guardian. Nuis- 
 ance that. Those parsons are often starchy, 
 crotchety people ; but they don't know busi- 
 ness ; and if this one is soft and mufify, as most 
 of them are, all may work well. Dewsy Manor 
 is a nice property. Jim and I went shooting 
 there more than twelve years ago, before it was 
 his. Poor Jim ! I wonder if he really married 
 that woman. We sowed a good many Avild 
 oats together, as young fellows will, and I 
 should have liked to have had some talk with 
 him about a lot of things. But 1 must do 
 what's right, as executor, to the youngsters. 
 And Dewsy Manor comes to me if " 
 
 Again he was silent in his deep specula- 
 tion, stilled, almost entranced, with absorbing 
 interest. 
 
 '* Rich, though, that Sylvester's name is not
 
 COLONIAL. 5 
 
 in it, nor any of bis own family's, nor his wi — I 
 mean that person's relations. And a deed of 
 gift, too ! Not a will needing proving, regis- 
 tering, and so forth, letting everybody know. 
 Fortunate that," &c., &c. 
 
 Gradually his brow clears with a conclusion. 
 
 " I'll leave the colony, and go to Dewsy 
 .Manor. Nellie will like it ; and, if she doesn't, 
 well — " and he shakes his head like a fate. 
 
 An idea now enters his mind that he has 
 somewhat neglected hostly duties. He rings 
 with severity the bell. 
 
 '' Send Biddy here." 
 
 " Biddy's aslape, yer honour, wid fattaygue," 
 replies a help from Erin. 
 
 " Is that itl" There is a warning note in the 
 voice, a hard, suspicious look on his face. 
 
 " Shure, yer honour " 
 
 " Now mind." 
 
 " Well, thin, yer honour, it isn't desayving 
 ye that oi'U be. Biddy had such a pain in her 
 insoide wid the wor-rk all day an' noight that 
 she tuk a sthrong dhram, an' she's stretched 
 clean dhrunk on her bed, so the poor crayther 
 is."
 
 6 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 *' Let the fool lie there ; but did she atteiid 
 to the body T 
 
 " iVch, shure she did, an' missis too; an' she 
 said, did Biddy, it was an illigant corrups that 
 desavved waking intoirely ; an' " 
 
 *' That will do/' and he gives her a look which 
 would have closed summarily a much more 
 obstinate interview. His mind is in some 
 secret disquiet, and he turns again to the 
 23apers. He makes a busy search among the 
 dead man's effects and documents contained in 
 two trunks which had been committed to his 
 charge. 
 
 A letter turns up full of life's pathos. It de- 
 scribes where his two children will be found- 
 It is almost a prayer for their welfare. It begs 
 him to unite with his co-guardian in bringing 
 them np carefully and virtuously. It appeals 
 to him by their school-boy friendship that had 
 never changed on his part. It is written in a 
 faltering hand^ bears a late date in figures, a 
 late one, it may be, in sentiment, when be- 
 wailing a misspent life, it utters gentle^ fervid 
 hopes that his son's may be a better^ happier 
 life than his own had been.
 
 COLOXIAL. 7 
 
 It is one of those letters over which even a 
 stranger can weep when picturing a penitent 
 with his last strength writing thus, with norma- 
 tive near, and the grim king standing beclvoning. 
 
 This letter is soon put down, and another 
 taken up. A letter full of figures, details of 
 investments, directions where to find the securi- 
 ties, &c. 
 
 He looks towards the deed of gift. 
 
 " Did Jim execute this in duplicate ? It 
 isn^t usual, but he always said that a man was 
 a fool who didn't have his will in duplicate. 
 And Jim was brought up to the law." 
 
 Over the mass of papers he pores again, but 
 all in vain. He is not quite satisfied, but more 
 so than before, and desists at last from sheer 
 fatigue. 
 
 " Yes, Dewsy Manor will be better than 
 squatting and cattle-rearing here. Nearly 
 twenty years ere the girl is of age. What 
 may not happen in twenty years !" 
 
 The funeral over, Mr. Mumford had an ab- 
 stracted day or two, curt of word and close of 
 moodj only saying he wished Mooranga was off 
 his hands. Then he bade his wife tarry at the
 
 8 STRANGE CHAP:\IAN. 
 
 inn, while he rode up country. Could it be 
 that they were going to return to the old 
 squire-like conditions of earlier days in old 
 Suffolk ?—" Silly Suffolk," as some dared to 
 call it, but the dearest spot on earth to Eleanor 
 Muraford. Something surely was in progress, 
 or why that absorbed look in John which was 
 never seen except when he had got some pur- 
 pose which he was determined to carry, and 
 which, for anything she knew, he was at that 
 very moment effecting somewhere in city or 
 bush. She must bide her time here at the 
 tavern until he chose to disclose his plans. 
 
 It might be trying, but she was only being 
 tried where she was strong. A patient, gentle, 
 little woman was Eleanor Mumford, one whose 
 footfall was silent in the housCj and her voice 
 not loudly heard ; an essence rather than a 
 presence where her lord appeared ; and yet one 
 of those whom rough, loud men in their deepest 
 hearts often thank God for sending ; a ruler in 
 her own way ; a woman gifted to get inside 
 shut souls, and silently to nestle there in gentle 
 word or voice as a wholesome power when they 
 know it not.
 
 COLONIAL. 9 
 
 That large, pale brow, o vailed by its setting 
 of fair hair tired Madonna-wise_, that quiet, in- 
 quiring eye, that calm, forbearing face, those 
 little hands that clasped so resignedly on her 
 lap, when she bore the gale of her husband's 
 strong self-will, those measured words were not 
 lost altogether upon him, even when he seemed 
 to pass her prudent expostulations by with his 
 impatient '• tut, tut." Nor was she without 
 evidence that her words had told on his con- 
 duct even when he had seemed to laugh at her 
 fears or suggestions. There was often some- 
 thing of change in direction or of toning down 
 in expression to show that the self-contained 
 man had let another voice be heard in the wil- 
 ful mind. The queens of the settlements 
 around — near neighbours and adverse critics of 
 ten and twenty miles away — might say she was 
 *' a poor little thing," and that, if they were in 
 her place, Mumford should hear them " sound 
 their horn," or "they'd die for it;" but it was 
 not clear that her method was less powerful 
 than theirs. True, she was not mistress of her 
 servants — the most vicious Semiramis of the 
 squatting stations was not that — but she could
 
 10 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 keep them about her when others could not. 
 And, if she had to bear with disobedience from 
 Biddy, especially when she got a trifle elevated, 
 yet Biddy rated stockman and shepherd roundly 
 if they neglected " the inisthress's " quiet little 
 commands, and allowed none to disobey her 
 but herself. 
 
 She had married for love, had given every- 
 thing for very little of the same commodity in 
 return, as some are doomed to do, and had 
 come ten years ago a timorous young bride 
 from an ancestral home to this rough land. 
 Amid those grassy plains and shadowy gum- 
 tree forests the girl had shrunk within herself 
 more and more. Spontaneity had retreated 
 into timid reserve, and reticence into restraint, 
 until the frank bearing of gentlehood had been 
 changing into the distrustful shyness of one 
 who was weaning from the world, or knew it 
 not. Her lord was not master of the art of 
 divining her secret ailment. The lute was full 
 of music, but he knew not how to sound a single 
 stop, and scarcely seemed to care. Her languid 
 manner he put down to home-sickness, when a 
 little of manly cherishing would have made the
 
 COLONIAL. 11 
 
 ■whole world a home so that he were there. 
 Her growling diffidence he divined with far 
 more skill. That old-maidish manner, which 
 was coming over her like a thin mist, he knew 
 would disappear ; but as yet, for six years, they 
 had had no promise of a child. Then the joy- 
 oiis presage was received, and, when the seventh 
 year of exile closed, a little voice was heard in 
 the house. Another eighteen months, and 
 Millie joined Beaty, and soon two little pairs of 
 feet had begun to drum on her knees. Anon 
 there were two little hearts nestling consciously 
 to her own ; two little pairs of feet w^ere patter- 
 ing on the stairs; two little tongues telling in 
 chant or dirge the childly joys or woes ; two 
 little moving pictures ever at their office of re- 
 storing the fading memories of her own child- 
 hood, the innocence and joyous hope of life's 
 early spring. 
 
 Mooranga, with its long rows of cattle-sheds, 
 its stockades and store-houses, its homely log 
 dwellings, adorned only with such nicknacks of 
 feminine taste as she had been able to contri- 
 bute, was now a different place to her. The 
 plains around were sunnier, the solemn mystery
 
 12 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 of the great woods less weird, the roll and rush 
 of the Mnrrimbidgee near not half so com- 
 panionable to her soul as the two little heart- 
 warmers scampering over the grass or lying 
 like stilled seraphs in their little snowy cots. 
 Sweet, genial^ dignified matronhood infused 
 into her manner, and effervesced in rippling 
 smile or low, cadenzaed laugh which banished 
 the old air of restraint, and broke the crust of 
 the old reserved demeanour. Nevertheless, she 
 was not altogether as others ; not like gossipy 
 Mrs. Jones, who declared her stiff; nor like 
 gushing Mrs. Brown, who said she was proud ; 
 nor like familiar Mrs. Stubbs, who felt repelled 
 by her quiet civility, and considered that she 
 ihought too much of herself now that "the 
 run" was turning out so well; whereas, if 
 everyone was fairly reckoned up, some people 
 were as good as some other people, and a good 
 deal better, &g., &c. 
 
 Two or three placid years went by swiftly in 
 the novel pleasures of this new-found existence, 
 and then a fear fell upon her. Were these 
 children to have no other advantages than what 
 pertained to this lonely ranche, small with all
 
 COLONIAL. 13^ 
 
 that she could do, but oh ! how ineffably smaller 
 if she should be taken away. It came at first 
 as a vague doubt, a thin, ghostly fear, but it 
 boded change into a crystallised alarm. Often, 
 when she had gone into their night-nursery, and 
 soothed herself in her husband's long absences 
 by looking at the little peaceful sleepers and 
 kissing them doubly and trebly in rapture 
 tremulous, had the vision of these jDossibilities 
 chilled on her mind. And more and more 
 powerfull}^ fell the fear upon her as the months 
 flew by. 
 
 But a delightful word had reached her amid 
 these boding disquiets. Mr. James Chapman, an 
 old friend of her husband's, a refined and 
 travelled man, was coming out for the sake of 
 his health, and would join them as a guest ; 
 perha}:is, if the climate suited him, as a partner 
 in the "run." Very pleasant was that prospect 
 to all of them. Very earnest was the prepara- 
 tion, very heavy the rubbing up and cleaning 
 down to make all *' nice." A velvet softness of 
 content, a stray visitor there^ had come over 
 John's face ; a very planning, thoughtful one 
 over his wife's, and a very hot one over the
 
 14 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 toiling servants'. At last everything was ready, 
 and the merry party jolted down to the capital 
 in their waggon, heedless of the long roadless 
 ways, jocose over the mishaps in crossing gully 
 and creek, fascinated with city life when they 
 got there, positively bewitched with the charms 
 of shopping and "trying on;" for John had 
 bidden his wife to stint nothing, and apparel 
 herself, Biddy, and the bairns handsomely. 
 
 And then, arrayed in splendour, the bonny 
 weans, the very pattern of chubby, childly 
 beauty, in their white frocks and pink sashes, 
 Biddy herself, in high-toned glory, following 
 with a hand of each in her own, behind their 
 parents, they had all boarded the Staffa to meet 
 their expected friend. But cold indeed was the 
 chill which fell on them when they saw him not 
 on the deck. 
 
 " Are you Mr. Mumford, sir ?" 
 
 It was the captain, with a solemn counten- 
 ance. 
 
 " I regret to say, sir " 
 
 They followed him down to the little berth 
 where the languid form was laid, and the wan 
 eves, from the hollow, emaciated countenance,
 
 COLONIAL. 15 
 
 gleamed feverishly upon them with a wistful, 
 hungering look. A cold, steelly pang went to 
 Eleanor's heart when she beheld that wasted 
 form, that candle of life flickering out in its 
 last spasmodic glimmer. A touch of the old 
 boyish feeling came back to John^s breast and 
 eyes as he listened to those feeble tones, broken 
 by the hacking cough, begging him to take 
 him hence to his inn^ nor leave him during the 
 few hours that he had to live. 
 
 Not unsolemn was that dying man's petition 
 to John to bring up his two beautiful children 
 as he would his own, nurturing and teaching 
 them well. Very painful, but deeply suggestive 
 to Mrs. Mumford, was that long supplicating 
 look, when he mentioned his brother Sylvester's 
 name in connection with his boy and girl, say- 
 ing, ''if ever you should see him, will you — " a 
 request cut short by the entrance of her hus- 
 band, and never completed ; for soon came on 
 the thirty hours of swoon, and wandering words, 
 and delirious drowse which portalled James 
 Chapman into the Great Unseen. 
 
 In a little while they were struggling through 
 the Eucalyptus woods, their bodies swathed in
 
 16 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 blacky their minds taking prismatic tinge from 
 new hopes, for Mr. Mumford had found a 
 customer for " the run," and had vouchsafed the 
 clarion word " Home !"
 
 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HO^IEWARDHO! 
 
 rpHE clank of hoist and chaii), the thud of box 
 -^ and bale dropping- into the hold, the shouts 
 of seamen, the rush of stevedores bearing lug- 
 gage, the commands of blue-clad officers, the 
 bewildered looks of ladies and children on the 
 crowded deck ; below, hot people hunting after 
 their berths, stewards and stewardesses looking 
 hotter, roaring fires in the engine-room, coal- 
 heavers, stokers, engineers, all busy on their 
 vocations ; groups of friends on board, groups 
 standing on shore ; all show^ that a great vessel 
 is on the eve of a long voyage. It is the good 
 ship Marco Polo, and she starts for Liverpool in 
 two hours ; a swift boat, with a first-rate cap- 
 tain and crew. See with what a celerity they 
 clear those encumbered decks of their moun- 
 YOL. I.
 
 18 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 tains of baggage and merchandise. Look with 
 what a regularity the passengers stream on 
 board. Mark them as they come, for they are 
 not altogether of the common order. Here are 
 men flushed with the rapid wealth of the gold 
 fields ; suttlers that have gleaned as rapidly a 
 still fuller purse ; squatters who have grown 
 slowly, solidly rich ; merchants, explorers, ad- 
 venturers, victims. Pleasure is uppermost in 
 many faces, hope in more, hurry in all: 
 
 There is one bent on the grand tour, and re- 
 solved, after the finest things of Europe are 
 seen, to settle down somewhere at '^ home." 
 Ah ! how long in solitary hut has he dreamed 
 of that! How frequently, on lonely twilight 
 plains, yearned for the shadowy reward ! There 
 is another who will buy an estate — but where? 
 This one has visions of a little dainty model 
 farm, that of a villa in some pleasant watering- 
 place, with a little fairy — still to be found — 
 ruling it wisely and well. Here is one wearing 
 a proud look, as he stands beside the burly 
 countryman who has achieved a competency. 
 And well he may. But two years ago he rush- 
 ed hither in flight from a grave, and now he
 
 HOMEWARD HO! 19 
 
 returns stronger than ever. There is a couple 
 that seem to cower out of sight. Poor things ! 
 they came out as first-class passengers and 
 they go back in the steerage, their last penny 
 invested therein. 
 
 And who are you, sir, with bag in hand ? 
 
 How wistfully, as he comes on board_, he 
 looks about to see whom he does not know ! 
 How that gaze, which seemed to grow almost 
 red rimmed in its eager intensity just now, 
 softens down when he finds no ^'friend" to 
 accost him there ! 
 
 Ah ! now that the last party has come on 
 board, and they are casting the vessel off, how 
 his cheerfulness battens on ignorance! 
 
 The face of this young man of twenty-five is 
 of the smooth, mobile sort. It is weak in things 
 hirsute, strong in an alluring, silky smile. A 
 rich, glossy hair, well-pencilled brown eyebrows, 
 eyes that are bright and quick, waiting, watch- 
 ing eyes, sometimes with a scrutinising alarm in 
 them, sometimes with a pussified archness im- 
 plying they are capable of the flattery of un- 
 spoken compliment. His voice is fine and 
 richly modulated, and his bearing implies that 
 
 C2
 
 20 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 he had social privileges in early life, when 
 they tell most vitally. He is little rather than 
 than tall ; furtive in manner rather than 
 frank. 
 
 Ls he a gentleman ? Well^ he is, and he is 
 not. He has had advantages which ought to 
 make a man that. He has an undertoned 
 shadow on his face, a second light in his eye, 
 dark depths apparently in the stream of beings 
 while the surface is mellowing or glittering in 
 sunshine, which might make the sagacious man 
 or the pure-minded maiden deny chivalry to 
 him. 
 
 Ls he a detective? He might be, for he 
 certainly believes at this moment that the 
 proper study of mankind is man, as he stands 
 there, half hidden in a recess, scanning curiously 
 every face. 
 
 Anyway, whatever he may be, the ladies will 
 vote him nice, and he will earn much goodwill 
 on the voyage. He is a man whom you can 
 imagine hanging about a proud, imperions 
 belle with soft, patient, unperturbed smile, 
 deferential and suave, when she is in her little 
 tifis ; or, lounging by the taff-rail, sympathetic
 
 HOMEWARD HO ! 21 
 
 ■with her siinnier moods, an interested listener to 
 anything she may condescend to say. You 
 might imagine him waiting unwearied on a 
 worrity old lady, or beaming silently on the bray- 
 ings of a choleric old gentleman with an un- 
 wholesome liver. 
 
 He appears particularly interested in the last 
 party that came aboard. It almost seems 
 providential that he has an opportunity of do- 
 ing them a service directly they are on deck. 
 A child is lost_, *'the little harrut-breaking 
 <3olleen," as her nurse describes her, and he 
 recovers the precious little waif and hands it 
 to the nurse with such a sweet, lingering look 
 and smile that they go at once to the roots of 
 the w^arm, Irish spontaneities. 
 
 The mother of this little girl is rather short 
 in stature, with a pale, patient face, redeemed 
 by a fine spanse of forehead outlined by the 
 fair Madonna hair. The father treads deck 
 and earth as if his heel crushes and pulverises 
 something of right ; a strong, big man, with 
 square face and shoulders. He lifts his hat, as 
 if over-heated with his walk hither, and reveals 
 a well-rounded head^ thatched with sere, crisp,
 
 22 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 flaxen hair that is worn cut quite close. The 
 face suggests boyishness, and reflection shows 
 you that it means hairlessness. The forehead 
 is seamed, the nose is regular_, the mouth 
 straight, the thin lips, souring in their rims, 
 are drawn tight over the strong, well-set teeth. 
 The cheeks tend to square on the jaw-bone, 
 giving the features a masculine, cold, and 
 sceptical character. 
 
 Altogether it is a head of hard practicalities, 
 one not given to idealisms or Utopian dreams. 
 Those clear, whiteish eyes have in them some- 
 thing per se not severe nor repulsive, yet, like 
 the light of a fine October day, bright but chill : 
 not cold enough to repel nor warm enough to 
 invite. And yet he can attract. The high, 
 thin voice, the love of talk, the pert, pointed, 
 shrewd remark, bring listeners around, when 
 the strong, unmoved face and the inquiring, 
 light, grey eye forbid intimacy and ignore 
 cordiality. Life to him, it would seem, is a 
 mart, and talk — as the means to knowledge, 
 and knowledge to pelf — is a coin of its 
 currency. 
 
 The pair, Mr. Dacre Mumford and his lady,
 
 HOMEWARD ho! 23 
 
 pass to their little state-room, the prompt 
 manner and firm tread of the one as unlike the 
 gentle deference of the other as his stature 
 to hers. 
 
 The paddles turn at last. The white hand- 
 kerchiefs flutter convulsively on shore^ faces 
 fade, figures lapse into the crowd, the crowd 
 into a dark blot. Sydney, the Queen of the 
 South, with her wondrous Botanical Gardens, 
 her parks, and cathedrals are fading out of 
 sight ; Wooloomooloo, Port Jackson, and Cock- 
 atoo Island are in the rear_, and that fairy 
 land of rockwork, — fretted into headland, inlet 
 and cove, vik and naze, — with tw^o arms holds 
 the dazzling blue on which, like a thing of 
 life, the steamer walks. 
 
 Gazing on those fifty-four miles of coast 
 beauty the Briton only sees one thing which 
 his country can equal along that lovely fiord. 
 Those lines and groups of dull green on shore are 
 not tinted like the charming woods of his mother- 
 land. The forts are passed, the lighthouse on the 
 Sow and Pigs, Pinchgut and Garden Islands, 
 and the twin gateways of the glorious haven. 
 The azure waves shade into those of the great
 
 24 STRANGE CHAP^IAN. 
 
 " wine dark mere," and the stormy Pacific rolls 
 before them. 
 
 The three days' tempest are over, and Mr. 
 Mumford glances from his book with a hard, 
 scrutinizing look at the first pale-faced sufferers 
 struggling to the deck. He has paid no for- 
 feits to Neptune, and scarcely understands why 
 anybody should, only he notices that they do. 
 The captain hopes that the ladies are better, 
 and the young officers are very polite to the 
 pretty girls. Mr. Mumford is turning to his 
 book again, when a suggestion about the wea- 
 ther, rather than a frank, outspoken opinion, 
 reaches him. It is from a gentleman, sidling 
 up with an air of deference. Mr. Mumford 
 belongs to the approachable class, and prefers 
 talk to reading. He prefers it because it is 
 more malleable. A clever man can turn and 
 shape it much at will. It is more instructive, 
 he thinks, because you can get all sorts of 
 tips out of it about practical matters, hke 
 markets, bargains, and business generally ; lots 
 of hints about people, their doings and be- 
 longings. It is far jollier, too. Your printer's 
 devil takes the sparkle from the eye, the inflec-
 
 HOMEWARD HO! 25 
 
 tlon from the voice, the inuendo from lip, face, 
 and meiu, and leaves you nothing but the dry 
 husk of the matter ; ay, and in the case of a 
 fine woman he robs what she says of the ineff- 
 able grace and beautiful countenance that give 
 such a charm to the utterances. But, best of 
 all, you are rid of dictation. An author takes 
 the bit in his teeth and bolts with you in what- 
 ever direction he chooses, and your only chance 
 if you do not like it is to throw yourself out 
 of the gig ; whereas, in talk, you have got a 
 nag broken to your hand, and, if 3^ou know 
 how to drive, you can take any road that 
 offers to your goal. ^loreover, at sea, your 
 book dances too much, while, on the other hand, 
 talk seems to be the right thing, and there 
 is endless time for it and constant opportunity. 
 The gentleman who accosts him has a tentative 
 style ; advancing remarks rather than making 
 them, and watching furtively sideways to see 
 how they take. Mr. Mumford's is of a bolder 
 order. He has a bluff mode in giving, and a 
 contradictory way of receiving observations; 
 but the former falls short of dictation, and the 
 latter has only so much of the spice of an-
 
 26 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 tagonism as to stimulate talk with an appetiser 
 for conflict. Mr. De Burgh might seem to be 
 getting a little mauled in the mutual declara- 
 tions of opinion, only the blows fall on him 
 as on a cork in the water, aud are well dodged. 
 It works upon Mr. Mumford to find that he 
 has met with a man who will not wince, and who 
 still seems to hold his own when apparently 
 defeated. Interest is clearly evoked when he 
 is saying to himself, " What a queer little 
 fellow ! Always cool, however hard you hit him." 
 
 They begin to smoke together, have a rubber 
 in the evenings, chat and walk on deck, 
 and gradually grow distantly confidential. It 
 dawns as gradually on Mr. Mumford's mind, 
 but he can scarcely tell how, that Mr. De 
 Burgh is hard up, has been in trouble, badly 
 used perhaps, and generally is so ill-disposed 
 to face his highly connected relatives at home 
 that he would rather do anything else. 
 
 ^' Looks a sharp chap. Couldn't he do that 
 business for . me, if I promise to pay him well 
 when it's done ?" so ruminates Mr. Mumford 
 as the Marco Polo disdainfully throws the long 
 leagues behind her.
 
 HOMEWARD HO! 27 
 
 The ladies have long since voted Mr. De 
 Burgh nice ; so aristocratic in his manners ; you 
 can see the gentleman in every inch of him, 
 and so on. But, strange to say, as Mr. Mum- 
 ford has coldly warmed, Mrs. Mumford has 
 warmly cooled towards him. She could not as 
 yet give you a very satisfactory reason, but she 
 has satisfied herself. She might point out that 
 he was rather fond of heavy stakes at whist 
 and loo, but were not many others of these 
 rough nouveaux riches the same? She might 
 say that he was making up too strongly, too 
 clandestinely to Miss Kooney, the wealthy gold 
 miner's daughter. Well, she was no chicken, 
 and could take care of herself. She liked it. 
 Besides, didn't other young men talk to her, 
 and was not flirting on shipboard the most 
 natural way of killing time to those who were 
 not old ? Well, yes ; but his was different. 
 Further, wasn't there a mystery about him 
 which didn't seem satisfactory? Well, if you 
 talk of mystery, what do you know about any 
 one of these young fellows? Who are the}^ 
 and what have they been at? Ah! well, 
 they svere not like him ; you could make them
 
 28 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 out. This man did not open up with know- 
 ing. They seemed as if they never cared what 
 yon knew about them, so it were true, but he 
 did. Then again he was always on the look 
 out to recommend himself. Psha ! everybody 
 is that in his own way. 
 
 *'No, not like him. It's a business, Dacre, 
 with him to get into other people's good books." 
 "Nonsense, Nellie. I'm afraid, unlike your- 
 self, that you have taken against him because his 
 manner is so much more refined than that of 
 these other fellows." 
 
 '• Well, it might be so. His hands showed 
 that he hadn't touclied hard colonial work. 
 His manner showed that he hadn't been one of 
 them. His conduct implied that he had some- 
 thing to hide, and his persistent attentions that 
 he wished to find somebody to use for his own 
 advantage. Altogether I don't like him, Dacre, 
 and I shall be glad if you will have less to do 
 with him." 
 
 "That's as may be, Nellie. There's some- 
 thing in what you say, but not enough to con- 
 vince judge and jury. What I may have to 
 do with him appertains primarily to my advan-
 
 HOMEWARD HO! 29 
 
 "tage and only secondarily to his, and don't 
 think I mean to be his victim. So you must 
 leave me, Nellie, to pilot my own way." 
 
 " As I always have, Dacre," she says, with a 
 meek reproach. 
 
 She is anxious to speak, for the silky little man 
 brings a stifling atmosphere with him to her, and 
 she wishes to see the last of him with the voyage. 
 To-night men say the Scilly Isles and Cornwall 
 may come into view ; to-night tears of welcome, 
 tender tears of reminiscence, will root in wo- 
 manly eyes, and Hope will spread her wings as 
 if for rapid flight to what she loves. The great 
 vessel, like a racehorse nearing its goal, pants 
 swiftly on with majestic speed as Mrs. Mumford 
 sits in her little cabin dropping silent tears in the 
 vexation of apparent defeat. But she cannot 
 help it ; she has delivered her soul, and seem- 
 ingly in vain. Well, if he does entangle him- 
 self with this man, she has chosen the wifely 
 Cassandra's part and risked anger to secure his 
 weal. She kneels down and. utters a supplica- 
 tion that they may be kept from the evil, and 
 when she rises she is struck to see that little 
 Beaty is looking in wonderment at her, the
 
 30 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 large light blue eyes so roundly open that it 
 seems as if the child's face is filling with two 
 sapphire orbs. The motherly feeling chases 
 awa^^ the grief, and she begins to interest her 
 pet with pictures, and ends with a little romp. 
 
 A ringing cheer. What is it'^ Ah! those 
 racing footsteps tell that all are hastening to 
 the deck to catch a glimpse of the homeland. 
 Mists are gathering on this spring evening over 
 a low line of seeming cloud, and eyes as misty 
 are looking out on the dim bar of apparent 
 haze, while hearts beat fascinated with the grey 
 vision that foots the far-off waters. They 
 stand and talk long together, but it fades out 
 in the coming twihght. Supper that night is 
 not the merriest_, but it is the most memorable. 
 The company can never meet in such combina- 
 tion again ; they are satisfied mostly that it 
 shall be so, but they are not unmoved, and 
 they eat with fuller hearts and talk with deeper 
 soul than in the earlier voyage. Ladies gather 
 up their nick-nacks and bear them to their 
 cabins ; gentlemen linger in twos and threes for 
 a parting glass and smoke, for all know that if 
 uo mischance comes they will be in Liverpool
 
 HOMEWARD HO! 31 
 
 to-morrow night, or ia the small hours following. 
 
 " Mr. Mumford," says a gentleman to his 
 companion as they sit apart smoking sedately, 
 " I envy you your happiness." 
 
 Mr. Mumford takes his great happiness very 
 quietly, and only nods to it. 
 
 " So rich, so fortunate, so successful in every- 
 thing, so supplied with every condition of enjoy- 
 ment, I do think you the favoured of the gods." 
 
 Mr. Mumford says to himself, " What is the 
 fellow driving at V but, strange to tell, he half 
 likes it. Perhaps because it is partly false, or, 
 maybe, because it gives him the same import- 
 ance as if it were true. 
 
 " What a different case is yours from mine ! 
 You return flushed with prosperity, and I undone ; 
 you to the open arms of your friends, I to be 
 disowned by mine, cashiered from my regiment 
 because I challenged an officer who had insulted 
 a lady ; you with a plain course open to you, I 
 not knowing what to do." 
 
 " Make it up with your people." 
 
 " I fear they are utterly inexorable. Indeed, 
 I do, Mr. Mumford, and worse still, I haven't the 
 money even to reach them."
 
 32 STRANGE CHAP^IAN. 
 
 " That's bad management on your part, 
 though." Mr. Mumford's manner is decidedly 
 hard and keen. He might seem to be devoting 
 himself to his weed, for his pulls are long, and 
 the clouds are heavy, and he is silent several 
 minutes. Mr. De Burgh is watching him side- 
 ways, while apparently sunk in pensive woe. 
 
 At last he slowly speaks. 
 
 " Look here, De Burgh, if that be your 
 name " 
 
 Mr. De Burgh assures him, by the bones of all 
 his ancestors, that it really is. *^ He wonldn't^, 
 as a gentleman that had borne Her Majesty's 
 commission " 
 
 " Well, well, you know best/' says Mr. Mum- 
 ford, the high ring of his \'oice in play, as it gen- 
 erally was in moments of impatience ; "but tell 
 me now, if you care to tell a mere outsider, 
 what you mean to do." 
 
 It fell icily on Mr. De Burgh^s ears. What I 
 all this honeyed attendance, that sugared com- 
 pliment, the suave service with tongue, and 
 hand, and. eye to end thus. The bitter word, 
 however, must be swallowed, or he will get 
 nothing whatever out of the churlish fellow.
 
 HOMEWARD HO! 33 
 
 " What d'you mean to do V 
 
 Mr. De Burgh cannot tell. He can take a 
 secretaryship, tutorship, anything that is fit 
 for a gentleman to do ; has been good at pri- 
 vate theatricals — 
 
 •' Ah, that's much more likely. The walking 
 gentleman can be done there, you know, for a 
 start, and I think at fifteen shillings a 
 week, if you are fortunate ; but the other two 
 require a character, and I fear Her Majesty's 
 Government won't give it." A long hard stare. 
 ^Ir. De Burgh's eyes are unequal to the battle, 
 and droop modestly till it is over. He sighs. 
 
 " It is hard," he says, " that for simply sending 
 a challenge, what every ofiicer might have done, 
 when a lady was " 
 
 "Never mind that now. Think of the fu- 
 ture. Your best chance would seem to be the 
 stage — cards and billiards won't carry you far, 
 you know^and in ten years you might get to 
 what they call ' good business,' and play old 
 Dodderems, or Young Buck in the *■ Rake's Pro- 
 gress,' or any other leading character your mas- 
 ter, the manager, might cast for you. I can 
 imagine something better than all that." 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 "No! what is it?" 
 
 '* Well, have 3'ou ever thought of anything in 
 the agency line ?" 
 
 " What did Mr. Mumford mean V 
 
 " Why, you see, there are lots of things all 
 right, but of a confidential character, which re- 
 quire a sharp fellow that has seen the world ; 
 private inquiry business, that pays splendidly 
 when it's w^ell done. And you look to me the 
 very man to take it up.^' 
 
 Mr. De Burgh expresses his desire to take the 
 business up and embrace it at once. 
 
 " Bravo ! And, if you get on, jou may rise 
 to keep a private inquiry office of your o\vn, 
 and become a bigger swell than ever. Look 
 here now, I've taken a bit of a fancy to you, 
 and I've got a little matter, only finding a per- 
 son's address, wdiich I haven't time to do myself. 
 I'll be five pounds down, and five more when 
 it's found, to a man that can do it for me." 
 
 Mr. De Burgh would be thankful to under- 
 take it. 
 
 " Why, now I think of it, I had resolved to 
 go to the detectives at Liverpool, skilled hands, 
 you know, who'd run up the business in no time,
 
 HOMEWARD HO! 35 
 
 ^nd I'd have no misgivings about their relia- 
 bility, besides being cheaper." 
 
 Mr. De Burgh hastens to inform him he may 
 thoroughly trust himself. 
 
 Mr. Mumford relents, and they discuss his 
 little project for some time. 
 
 ^' You think you can do it?" 
 
 " Oh, certainly, Mr. Mumford. Fll work night 
 and day to give you satisfaction. But what is 
 your home address to write to f 
 
 "Oh, never mind that. Address me under 
 cover to Featherclough Brothers, solicitors, 
 Charing Cross." 
 
 A shadow comes over Mr. De Burgh's face, 
 as if a point is lost. 
 
 '' Xever mind," he mutters to himself, ^- if he 
 w^on't trust me, I'll make that out as well as 
 this." 
 
 d2
 
 36 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SCANDAL. 
 
 4 DEEP winding valley worn of eld by the 
 -^ Tyne ; lengthening swells and billows 
 of moor ; gronse a-flutter as you tread elastic 
 purple heathers ; upland airs that move dream- 
 ily, yet stimulate, intoxicate with life the lan- 
 guid fugitive from burning causeway a.nd 
 steaming street : ah, Yeddon Common is not 
 a place to be despised on this hot August day. 
 Lie down on Nature's springy mattress of ling, 
 ye that want holiday from city business and 
 litigious thought. Lull and summer in the bliss 
 of mere animal existence, careless chield ; thy 
 veins full of slow, thrilling rapture, thy half- 
 closing eyes drowsy with joy, as from the slop- 
 ing bed thou gazest lazily over long rolls and 
 hollows of waste, bathed in happy haze, to the
 
 SCANDAL. 37 
 
 dim farthest, where the outer world is barred 
 out with impalpable blue. 
 
 How louely we are on this heathery slant ! 
 Yet misty centuries ago the conquerors of the 
 world came out on days like this with their 
 Julias and Octavias, and doubtless told their 
 tales just here of incident and escape amid 
 Parthian wilds and Libyan sands. 
 
 In moments like this, Roman matron grew 
 patient here with her chilly, vaporous home 
 of marshy lea and reedy wold. Over these 
 hills flaunted the British girl in her southern 
 finery with legionary and Teuton Cnecht. 
 Hither came Hispanian cavalier with his Gothic 
 bride to saunter in sunshine, while he pointed 
 out to the lustrous, passion-filled eyes the lair 
 of wild boar and wolf, or showed where he 
 slew the great red deer or savage British bull. 
 Here Tungrian brave loitered with his yellow- 
 haired, fair-skinned damsel. Generals and 
 mighty captains gazed from hence on the wild 
 weird charms of their unchosen home ; for are 
 we not close to a Torres Vedras of lang syne, 
 to Hadrian's wall, and the great round fortress 
 of Borcovicus that once laughed at the heart-
 
 38 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 broken valour of poor red-Laired savages, held 
 sternly there at bay ? Is not the still life of 
 antiquity found beneath our feet, traces of 
 atrium and balnearia, bits of tombstones with 
 their diis manibus figured thereon, and broken 
 members of old dea3 matres ? Ah ! vanitas 
 vanitatum. There, in the mountain moss and 
 couch-grass, is the shadowy suggestion of a 
 weed-mantled way to the old military gate. Up 
 thither chariot rolled, bearing reclining beauty, 
 clad richly in ornatus or chlamys, her diamond 
 fibula a-flash with the imperishable stones that 
 may be sheening even now on ivory wrist or bust 
 of some English girl ; ay, along that road she 
 sped in the gay attire which had been aired 
 in Forum or Colosseum, or glittered on the 
 Esquiline in the Holland House of other days. 
 
 What a pathetic thrill it gives us as we put 
 our finger into the ruts in that gateway stone, 
 deep with ten thousand grindings of the chariot 
 wheels, a-gallop on war or pleasure. How it 
 flashes up the picture of an old, bygone life 
 to pass into the ruined guard-house and scan 
 the little chess-board the lazy soldier scratched 
 with his weapon on its floorstoue. How we feel
 
 SCANDAL. 39 
 
 antiquity touching hands with us as we mark 
 the brown stains of the iron bolts in the stone, 
 eloquent of the barrings-out for myriads of 
 nights until that one night came when the 
 Pict burst through, with torch in hand, to hold 
 his wild carnival here — to hold it in confla- 
 gration, and to pelt in boyish delight the 
 statues of Cybele, Bacchus, and Victory from 
 their pedestals, leaving them headless, armless,. 
 noselesSj where they have been found after 
 their sleep of fourteen hundred years. 
 
 But we may not linger here. Betwixt this 
 crest — where old mind still justifies itself in 
 its magnificent military choice of this fine de- 
 fensive position — and that shadowy one oppo- 
 site, is a hazy chink, a valley, in short, where 
 these old soldiers marched, hunted, and lived. 
 Let us descend thither amid the music of flutter- 
 ing grouse and whirring partridge which we 
 disturb. 
 
 A tower-top emerges, for we are nearing the 
 old hamlet of Whisselton. That tower is strong, 
 square_, squat, as though made for refuge in time 
 of war, as many of its fellows were. Soon the 
 ridge-line of a long, low edifice reveals. It is
 
 40 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 Whisselton church, grey with lichen, which the 
 damp hills have engendered in those slow ages 
 during which its bell has summoned worship- 
 pers to mass and vespers, matins and evensong, 
 bringing the mourner to the open grave, send- 
 ing the bridegroom rejoicing away. See how 
 the thick, rich, oily mould has been lifting 
 to the window-sills with the interments of 
 centuries. Mark how those houses, bare, love- 
 less, barrack-like things, have been encroach- 
 ing on Gfod's acre, hemming it in on three 
 sides — a stony parable of greed on the one 
 part, and generations of old rectors girding 
 at the ugly trespass on the other, but too lazy 
 or too good-natured to oust those cottage in- 
 vaders, those humble annexionists and land 
 leaguers of yore. 
 
 A queer old place is this church, stuffy, 
 choky, and damp. One fancies the walls and 
 fittings are all a-mould and giving off some- 
 thing, for the stilled air travels down the throat 
 like a thin soup of fungus matter. A dim old 
 place, where whitewash looks clayey, the quon- 
 dam white paint livid or bilious, and ancient 
 gildings a tarnished chrome, relieved with
 
 SCANDAL. 41 
 
 splotches of ruined orange. The stone floor 
 is black with moisture ; the oak seats are pit- 
 ted or frayed with age ; the crimson baize has 
 gone to a dim^ brick-dust hue ; the cloth of pew 
 or hanging is moth-eaten, and the regal dye of 
 cushion and tassel in pulpit and desk is dull ; 
 the velvet is mangy and pileless, and the tout 
 ensemble seedy and forlorn. Slabs are seen 
 on the walls, recounting the virtues of for- 
 gotten people. Here and there are beheld, in 
 black smear on a dingy white ground, wooden 
 panels bearing text, creed, and commandment. 
 The organ is on the tower arch, its pewter pipes 
 toning to a leaden tarnish, and the royal arms 
 above it looking very rusty. Clearly the great 
 wave of a2sthetic church life has not lapped 
 this shore. Yet there is no neglect, no dust, no 
 dirt, no indications of parsimonious squalor or 
 slatternly indifference. It is the church of one 
 hundred years before, and some mind, in love 
 rather than meanness, wills that while he reigns 
 it shall not have its venerable homeliness, its 
 strongly marked characters swept away. 
 
 But there are things here that astonish and 
 interest. Over many a square pew, important
 
 42 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 in its faded baize, and representing, doubtless^ 
 some considerable farmstead, hangs slung from 
 rafter above a long tin case, the exact counter- 
 part of an archer^s quiver. It contains docu- 
 ments about tithe charge and so forth, and 
 seems to remind parson and people of their 
 financial relations, bringing " temporals " too 
 much into the House of God. How strange 
 those hanging tin tubes look! And dim, too,, 
 like everything else, with age. 
 
 One could fancy that some medigeval com- 
 pany of archers had repulsed a band of Moss 
 Troopers, and then had come and left these 
 quivers as a dedication to the Virgin, whose 
 eiSgy in olden time was seen in that empty 
 niche over the keystone of the chancel arch. 
 
 i^t your right as you enter the old church is 
 the little stone ledge on which the holy w^ater 
 vessel stood ten generations ago. Here, in a 
 recess, is a piscina ; there is an aumbry behind 
 the communion table ; indications of a door and 
 stairway appear behind the pulpit, and above 
 the stone-benched porch is the chamber where 
 dwelt the priest of yore, in scantier comfort, it 
 would seem, than his present successor.
 
 SCANDAL. 43 
 
 Let us pass through God's acre, by grey old 
 headstones, with cherub head or skull and 
 crossboues, to that antique house outside. It 
 is a solid stone edifice, weathered and gre^', 
 strong and stern. Its mullioned windows and 
 broad eaves interest us; its uneven roof, hol- 
 lowing in places like a cow's back, with bearing 
 the thick, heavy flag-slates, speaks most of age. 
 It is the old rectory, and, like the church, seems 
 sinking into the rich soil that so plainly rises 
 up to door and sill. 
 
 Children's voices ! They seem strange here, 
 as if infantine laughter and quarrel were ring- 
 ing around conventual walls. They are out of 
 sight, the little rogues ! Let us pass over that 
 dainty white step, and beyond the black door 
 whose brazen handle and knocker look so brill- 
 iantly clean, and get out of the hot sunshine. 
 
 An old-fashioned room, with books in store, 
 and cosy chairs cushioned thoughtfully for 
 backbones of all dimensions. The grey-haired 
 gentleman has a look that belongs alike to 
 church and cover. The healthy country visage 
 refers to the moors, the white cravat to the 
 church, and the shooting-coat and leggings to
 
 44 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 the rods and guns at bis right, in the corner of 
 the study. He is talking, as we look on unseen, 
 to -a thin, severe-faced female, with a snowy 
 apron over her black gown and a very clean 
 collar, one who is the essence of a highly re- 
 spectable domestic, clothed in a housekeeper's 
 brief authority. She is above the middle size, 
 but her spareness makes her appear not only 
 tall but almost gaunt; and very lank and 
 curveless she looks, habited in that tight, 
 straight skirt and bodice. Her hands fold 
 demurely in front, with an old-maidish grace, 
 while she listens to her master. 
 
 If you scan her more closely you will observe 
 that her hair is wiry, wanting in youthful gloss, 
 but not yet iron-grey. Her thin face is some- 
 what triangular, sloping evenly on each side 
 from caving temple and broad, [sharp-squared 
 brow to the pointed, resolute, well-developed 
 chin. The spare cheeks have full muscular 
 prominence betwixt cheekbone and nostril; 
 muscles that work into ridge and hollow under 
 strong emotion, giving great power of will and 
 character to the facial expression. And the 
 eyes ? — they are not soon forgotten if they are
 
 SCANDAL. 45 
 
 noticed at all. Large hazel orbs without bril- 
 liance^ naj, with a set dimness upon them; 
 Avith a fixed sadness dulling them out of all 
 volatile sparkle and flash, seen in less stable 
 souls ; a lorn look, that will, under high excite- 
 ments, transform into a glow-worm light steady 
 and strong. The complexion shadows some- 
 what darkl;yj and in some moods becomes 
 leaden. The every-day expression of the 
 whole face is prim, staid_, distant^ downright ; 
 respectful, but refusing to accept gush or to 
 give it ; a steadfast face, leal to friend and 
 stern to foe ; uncompromising in its principle 
 and probity; rigid,, and tending, perhaps, to 
 unforgiveness, with little of patience for the 
 easy-going lapses which a fashionable may 
 smilingly allow. 
 
 Need we say that she has been a power in 
 the house from her unflinching conscientious- 
 ness? Need it be wondered at that the old 
 rector values her, the worthless alms-hunter 
 detests to see her come to the door, the curates 
 are awed by her, the country side has voted her 
 odd, or that bumptious people have elected her 
 for a pet hatred, while judicious observers
 
 46 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 smile when her name is mentioned, but in most 
 honourable mood? 
 
 "1 don't know what to say, Mrs. Bostock, 
 about these children. Children are not much in 
 my way." 
 
 " Indeed^ sir. My opinion is they're very 
 much in everybody's way." 
 
 There is vehemence in the voice of the old 
 rector^s faithful steward of the household, and 
 he looks up amused. A " rise " out of Rebekah 
 is not a common thing. 
 
 "Nay, nay, they are charming little things 
 enough, but they cause a trouble we were not 
 prepared to undertake." 
 
 " They cause a deal of trouble, sir." 
 
 What is the meaning of that emphasis on 
 the word ? 
 
 "Why, have they been worse than usual 
 lately?^' 
 
 *' No, sir, but other people have." 
 
 "Oh, indeed!" The old gentleman gives a 
 searching look, and the iron woman's face 
 flushes up and shows a momentary confusion. 
 
 '^ What have other people been doing?" he 
 says, as he looks intently at her. 
 
 " More than they ought, sir. It is as I say
 
 SCANDAL. 47 
 
 to cook, sir. 'Cook,' says I, ' the children are 
 nice children_, but they're a misunderstanding.' " 
 
 " A misunderstanding !" 
 
 " Yes, sir. I told Farmer Smart's wife 
 yesterday when she was going on so. ' Mrs. 
 Smart,' says I, ' people shouldn't impute.' " 
 
 "People shouldn't impute I" The old gentleman 
 crosses right knee over left, takes out his tooth- 
 pick, and uses it daintily. '' Tell me more 
 about it, Mrs. Bostock,'' he says, carelessly. 
 
 Mrs. Bostock does not know how to begin, but 
 stands fumbling the door handle with her right 
 hand, smoothing down her snowy apron with 
 her left, and giving little spasmodic starts of 
 her head, as if frowning and nodding at a 
 naughty boy or a forbidden idea. 
 
 "Come, Mrs. Bostock, tell me what people 
 are imputing to the children." 
 
 " It's not them, sir ; it's others. It's frightful, 
 sir. It is." 
 
 '^ The scandal, you mean V 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 '•'But you don't tell me what it is." 
 
 Mrs. Bostock looks as if she dare not do that, 
 and wants to go now that she has fairly opened 
 the flood-gates and let in the deluge. Mr.
 
 48 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 Fossett seems in no Avay inclined to help her. 
 
 *' Surely, Rebekah," he says, with quiet 
 solemnity, '' you are old enough to have learnt 
 that you live in a censorious world ; and surely 
 you are good enough not to allow that wicked 
 world and these idle tongues to hurry you into 
 unjust and cruel feelings and acts towards 
 these poor little things. When an old pupil 
 asked leave to send these two motherless 
 children here for health and protection, while 
 he went seeking life elsewhere — I haven't told 
 you anything about them yet, but you shall 
 know all some day — I could not refuse him, 
 inconvenient as it was to me. He will return, 
 I hope, re^ored to health and strength, and 
 reward you for the great care you have taken 
 of them during the last three months, since we 
 had to dismiss the worthless nurse that he sent 
 with them, and who gave us both so much 
 bother for three months before that. If any 
 nnkindness is felt towards you outside, depend 
 upon it that woman has started it. But it will 
 soon die away. Character conquers everything 
 at last." 
 
 *' Yes, sir ; but when character is gone, yes,
 
 SCANDAL. 49 
 
 gone, sir, what is to become of a poor woman ?" 
 
 " What is to become " but Kebekah had 
 
 vanished. '' Dear me, how moved that poor 
 creature is ! and she so little given to showing 
 feminine weaknesses. Vm afraid they've been 
 hitting her hard about these two sweet little trots ; 
 but what they can have said concerning them I 
 can't imagine. That little, freckled, snub-nosed, 
 unwholesome thing, whom poor Chapman, never 
 a good judge about whom he should trusty sent 
 in charge of them, has started a lie in revenge 
 for being dismissed as a thief. That's it. 
 Humph ! I'll match a bad woman against Dia- 
 boluSj and a good one against — against any- 
 thing; Ruth and Mary in Paradise, if you like. 
 It's a fine morning. I think I'll have a cast in 
 the Upper Ghyll, and call upon an old friend 
 for a little light on the way. I think a reddish 
 fly will be the thing to-day," &c. 
 
 He was soon busy among flies, gut, and 
 fishing appurtenances ; soon seen issuing 
 with his white hat bristling with circles of 
 tackle and roughed with bobs of white, brown, 
 and red feathers ; net and rod in his hand, and 
 basket at his back. It was beginning to be a 
 VOL. I. . E
 
 50 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 daring thing to do this, only Mr. Fossett, like 
 Marshal Ney, did not concern himself with 
 being daring. He left bravery to take care of 
 itself. Still it was daring — nay, it was becoming 
 defiant ; for the world since he was ordained, 
 some forty years before, had learnt to wag its 
 pow in a very disapproving way at things 
 which it once smiled to see, ay, and noted, as a 
 mark, that its minister was a man of spirit, if 
 not a spiritual man. But the new mode had 
 come in and conquered most. One had given 
 up this thing, and another conformed by giving 
 up that. Not so Mr. Fossett. He hked field 
 sports, and he would have what he liked until 
 it was proved wrong, if all gowns, bands, and 
 atrabilious faces should charge down upon him 
 in massed column. 
 
 " Why, sir," he would say, " this new light, 
 with its religion of frames and feelings and appro- 
 priations and so forth, is only a thing of catch- 
 words and finnicking phrases^ shibboleths and 
 party mottoes, not a whit better at the core than 
 a set of election cries. Show me a man's life, 
 sir, his work, his fidelities, his charities, his si- 
 lent renderings to Cgesar of the things that are
 
 SCANDAL. 51 
 
 Osesar's, and to God the things that are God's, 
 and I'll love him. I'll admire him, if we differ 
 as wide as the poles ; but spare me sickening 
 cant, got up expressions, and the whole mass of 
 sanctimonious ejaculations that are often the 
 hypocrite's arsenal, the liar's resource. The 
 prim crew, who can't be seen abroad unless they 
 have black togs, black gloves, black walking- 
 stick, black looks, rigid backbone, and circum- 
 spect, starchy step, as if they trod on eggs or a 
 bubble world, may think that is Christianity, but 
 I call it, sir, the masquerade which is negative 
 proof that the whole is a cheat or a self-delu- 
 sion," &c. 
 
 Thus the old man would talk, but he would 
 never ''reform." In early life he said he never 
 went to extremes in one way^ and in old age 
 he would not go to extremes in the other; and, 
 in sooth, he had seen and heard much which he 
 never practised. 
 
 Duelling parsons of the type of the Reverend 
 Sir Henry Bates, canon and baronet, and Father 
 Dorriforth were possibilities when he was born, 
 though a very small class. The Fleet Street 
 gentry had been extinguished a little before, 
 
 e2
 
 52 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 but the flavour of them was remembered by 
 old pastors living ; the cock-fightiDg parson had 
 died out in his own day; the hunting one was 
 going after the dodo ; but the one that loved 
 angling and a little grouse or cover shooting 
 should exist as long as he could handle rod or 
 gun. 
 
 The old lady he consulted about Rebekah's 
 " fit," as he called it, evidently knew much^ but 
 only smiled and said nothing. '* Take na 
 notice, rector," was the tenor of her advice. 
 
 " But that won't satisfy Eebekah." 
 
 " Well, perhaps not now, but she will soon 
 see it in a right light." 
 
 " See what f 
 
 The old lady only smiled and was silent. 
 
 " Dear me, these women are kittle cattle," he 
 sajs to himself in his vexation, while he mounts 
 to the Ghyll. "I shall say that Rebekah's 
 cracked and Whisselton is becoming Bedlam, if 
 I hear any more about this mysterious mat- 
 ter." But the merry breeze blows the vexation 
 out of the healthy, manly mind, and the fine 
 take perfects the cure. He is in his ordinary 
 mood, genial and jokesome, when he descends
 
 SCANDAL. 53 
 
 the bill with his heavy pannier at his back. 
 
 Two little folks meet him at the gate. A 
 little toddles of some two years and a half, 
 with an eye as blue as the lightest azure above, 
 and curling, rippling locks as bright as any 
 cloud the coming sunset will gild ; and a boy, 
 some couple of years older, whose eye is grey el- 
 and hair a much darker chestnut. 
 
 A great shout of delight from the infantine 
 throats. 
 
 "Come, Florrie, give me a kiss." 
 
 The little lips are turned up poutingly with 
 an arch appearance of indifference. Smack, 
 smack, smack. 
 
 "Go div doggy a tiss." 
 
 "No_, no, my sweet little puss, I won't do 
 that, although I love doggy very much." 
 
 " You're a naughty old man," cries the boy, 
 striking him playfully and running away. 
 
 " Oo naughty man," cries little bright eyes, 
 who echoes her brother very faithfully at all 
 times. 
 
 The old rector professes to give the boy 
 chase ; rod, basket, tackle, fish rattle and shake, 
 dogs scamper and bark as the old gentleman
 
 54 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 runs after him over the lawn ; the boy screams 
 with shrill laughter while he is being pursued ; the 
 little girl looks very rueful, puts a finger in her 
 eye, and seems preparing to cry, when the chase 
 ends in a catch, loud, screaming laughter, and a 
 kiss as brother drops struggling on the grass. 
 The lad again strikes him playfully and demands 
 a penny for goody, and the old gentleman gives 
 it for another kiss. Rebekah is looking down 
 from an upper window with a grim face, but 
 slowly relaxes as dogs bark and the human trio 
 give voice in different keys. 
 
 "Div baby a take," says the little fairy^ 
 creeping up to his side and looking up until 
 she shows such a charming white little throat 
 that he plucks her up and kisses it and the 
 little cherry lips rapturously. 
 
 "Tum along, and we'll doh and det somesing 
 nice." 
 
 Ready acquiescence, the whole party retiring 
 to the study to deposit the fishing-tackle and 
 explore a well-known tin canister kept for such 
 occasions. 
 
 " There, Florrie." 
 
 *' Div ^m some/' looking at her brother.
 
 SCANDAL. 55 
 
 For the next ten minutes the lawn becomes 
 to the little folks an earthly Eden, where every 
 sponge cake pleases and nothing else is vile. 
 
 Then Mr. Fossett has a mission to his cellar. 
 Carefully he uncorks the bottle, decants the port, 
 and puts it in a very cool place. Dinner, dur- 
 ing which Rebekah seems to have an impetuous 
 swing upon her when "siding;" anon a pilgrim- 
 age to the cellar for the ruby which is brought 
 up very tenderly ; a couple of glasses and his 
 post-prandial nap. In twenty minutes he 
 awakes, rubs his eyes, and rings. 
 
 The flush of sunset, in grand crimson and 
 amber bars and globing clouds, is upon the 
 heavens and the earth, and the calm is broken 
 alone by the parting song of the birds. 
 
 " Rebekah, is it quite ready ?" 
 
 It is. 
 
 The old gentleman rises, enters the garden, 
 and gets a spade out of the tool-house. He 
 wends his way to the orchard near the thick 
 boundary hedge and begins to dig a little 
 grave. When he gets out, Rebekah is seen 
 crossing towards him with a long coffin-like 
 something in her hands. He takes it from her.
 
 56 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 lays it down very, very tenderly in the grave, 
 and covers it in softly and gently. 
 
 When his task is done, and all is levelled as 
 before, he leans upon his spade looking 
 down, Rebekah standing dutifully by. At 
 last, with a gentle sigh, he is turning away, 
 when a rustle, a low laugh, and retreating steps 
 are heard from the other side of the hedge ; but 
 they can see no one, owing to the deepening 
 dusk, and the rich, thick mass of shrub and 
 hedge. 
 
 " Who is that V Rebekah cannot tell.
 
 57 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 TEA AND TATTLE. 
 
 T7"ING FLUENCY reigns paramount to-night 
 -■-^ at the Manor Farm, and Queen Con- 
 science — Ah, well! we'll pass her by as only- 
 cast for an inferior part, and turn to the man- 
 ageress, or first tragedy queen of the holding, 
 Mrs. Smart. This lady is a fine-looking woman, 
 big, strong, and broad-shouldered, having a 
 comely, proud face of a high tone, surmounted 
 by a rich wavy fell of very warm brown hair, ap- 
 proaching, in fact, to a chestnut. Her pulse beats 
 high, and well it may, for is not her best china 
 on the board, and above the snowy table-cloth 
 are there not seen all the rich resources of a 
 good farm consummated in creams, butters, 
 cakes, crumpets, " fat rascals," chickens, ham,
 
 58 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 and toDgue, with a fitting guest to discuss 
 them all ? 
 
 Yes, the table indicates Yorkshire catering- 
 strayed into Northumbria, for Mrs. Smart, as 
 she says, is " Yorkshire all over/' She has a 
 Yorkshire force of will that is not seen in her male 
 appendage, a Yorkshire canniness, and a York- 
 shire tartness that makes even her facetiousness 
 somewhat biting. She is not a lady to forget 
 that she has a very fine silk velvet mantle for 
 her voluminous person, a fine spruce gig, a 
 good house, a commanding presence, a face 
 that certifies she is on the right side of thirty. 
 
 Her guest may be about her own age, or 
 a couple of years older, but a certain austerity 
 of manner seems to widen the chasm of 
 time betwixt them. A strongly made man of 
 that five feet-eight-or-nine standard which in- 
 cludes such a mass of athletes and able men, 
 there is nothing of the jovial in him. Severity 
 is the prevailing characteristic of his face, re- 
 lieved by a factitious sugary smile that would 
 be unctuous if it were finished. That attainment, 
 no doubt, lies in the future. His hair is black- 
 ish, stubby, and creeps on the ample brow in a
 
 TEA AND TATTLE. 59 
 
 downward crescent. The eyes are somewhat 
 cavernous, and darkle to some shade of nigre- 
 scent dun. His face is large, flabby, and rather 
 hanging, the nose is regular, but, being some- 
 what too small, shadows a meanness upon the 
 countenance. The upper lip is therefore very 
 long, the mouth a thought pouchy, the cbin 
 neutral. 
 
 Perhaps the complexion is the most remark- 
 able thing about the countenance. The whole 
 face is shaven close, leaving two shadowy 
 stripes along the whisker region, that appear 
 to continue beyond even up to the roots of 
 the nose; each pore seeming to hold a dark 
 unsprouted hair, giving a pitted appearance 
 of black puncture to the visage. Hence, the 
 face is well qualified for hanging upon it a 
 sanctimonious gloom or a look of forbidding 
 piety. Indeed, the sugary smile seems only to 
 give ebon gloss to that habitual expression of 
 super-excellence, unco gudeness, consecration, 
 assurance, and overt scrupulosity which make 
 up the Reverend Jedidiah Knowles. 
 
 But this gentleman is as notable for his 
 negations. He never laughs. Whether it be
 
 60 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 that " laughter has in it the nature of sin," or 
 that he has been sent into the world without 
 any cachinnatory apparatus, the peasantry see in 
 him a great contrast to old Bector Fossett, 
 whose ruddy face and round hearty laugh 
 '' do'n good, he do." He does not appear to 
 €njoy some good things. His eye only gives 
 an askance, it never breaks out into manly, spon- 
 taneous dazzle when sweet maidenhood with 
 rustling dress and gentle footfall draws near. A 
 pained smile and facial muscles tensed severe 
 offer in him the homage of the conventionalities 
 to her. Another cardinal negation of his seems 
 to be that he can discover around little that is 
 good. The world is a lost world, its people 
 righteously doomed ; that is, all but a few, him- 
 self and some friends. These are saved, saved 
 as by fire, yet still through a blessed dispensa- 
 tion, not permitted to be even scorched. Hence 
 a, Aveight of spiritual consequence creeps into 
 his walk, yea, even into the articles he walks in. 
 Some twelve months before, Mr. Fossett had 
 appointed this gentleman to the small incum- 
 bency of Yeddon-le-Moors, on the recommenda- 
 tion of a friend. This testifier had described
 
 TEA AND TATTLE. 61 
 
 Mr. Knowles as a hard-working man of more 
 than average ability ; and, in certain senses, this 
 was true. But, somehow, a simmering of un- 
 ease had come with him to Yeddon and Whis- 
 selton. Zeal, ridicule of old ways, agitation, 
 frowning in puritanwise at innocent pleasures, 
 had got into the quiet theological air. He had 
 founded a Clergy Society, and come to the 
 front. That rigid gait, that walk as if it touched 
 an unholy earth, that laughless face, with its 
 dark-haired sanctity, which seemed ever to be 
 shaking a reproving head at a naughty world, 
 that unaccustomed doctrine, combined with 
 more than average theological attainment in 
 certain veins, had silenced older, rustier men, 
 and won upon the younger clerks. 
 
 Reproof, criticism, scrutiny, irreverence, disap- 
 proval seemed all to have sprung into being 
 like mushrooms in a single night. The elder 
 clergy, in a kind of mysterious shrinking, were 
 beginning to merge their old manly, straight- 
 backed, free demeanour into a round-shoulder- 
 ed, apologetic one, preparatory to the sem- 
 blance of conversion and swimming with the 
 stream.
 
 62 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 There were, of course, exceptioDS, and Mr. 
 Fossett was a pestilent one. His brain and 
 breadth were awkward factors for the new 
 lights to deal with, and his merry laupjh and 
 jovial smile were even greater stumbling-blocks. 
 That quiet little quizzing of the new creed, and 
 ridiculing by homely similes of the acrid moods 
 and tense facial muscles of the " maw-wormish 
 farce," as he called it, that sparkle in the keen 
 eye which seemed to christen the movement 
 an organised hum, was not to be borne silently. 
 The iron entered into the soul of Knowles, and 
 came out again as the steel of a two-edged 
 sword in temper and on tongue. 
 
 He suspended altogether his rare visits to the 
 House of Rimmon, as he designated Whisselton 
 Rectory, and held aloof from ""the man of sin," 
 as he called its dear old rector, but this only 
 among his clerical confidantes. Secretly the 
 acids were working violently within, and openly 
 he showed his high displeasure to his patron by 
 a pompous austerity of double blackness when 
 they met, and a saccharine complaisance at 
 all times when he heard anything to his dis- 
 advantage.
 
 TEA AND TATTLE. 63 
 
 They have sat loDg over the good fare, and 
 weighty things have been said about free will, 
 fixed fate, election, " the many called and the 
 few chosen/' &c., and altogether Mr. Knowles 
 has been overwhelmingly powerful. Poor Smart, 
 a simple-minded man, has been reduced to dumb- 
 foundered helplessness, save that he has been 
 wondering why he need sell a sackful of corn 
 to the sack, or give a quartful of milk to the 
 measure, if a moral life reckons for something 
 less than nothing, and an infusion of something 
 which Mr. Knowles calls faith will do instead. 
 Mrs. Smart has not been crushed entirely, for 
 she has only attended weakly. A rising thought 
 has been yearning for deliverance, a bubbling 
 fountain of knowledge has been longing to 
 surge out into a river course. Sly hits have 
 been made at men whose self-sacrificing lives 
 were notable, but still only " a savour of death 
 unto death," as not possessing the one thing 
 needful, which Knowles and a few others had. 
 And generally it has been shown, beyond all 
 contradiction, that no teaching, preaching, 
 living, loving, doing, or leaving undone were 
 of any use whatever, unless they had the
 
 64 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 Geneva infusion, wherein the great speaker him- 
 self and his set had been steeped. 
 
 All this, as we have said^ was awful to Smart. 
 It was bewildering to those old-fashioned no- 
 tions of poetic justice which arch over every 
 poor mortal's natural ethical system. Still Mrs. 
 Smart has survived it, and when the great 
 genius pauses to take breath, groping in his 
 spiritual wallet for things new and old, the 
 daring woman cuts in. 
 
 Had he heard about the strange doings at the 
 old church? 
 
 Now this was annoying. As autocrat of the 
 tea-table he was dethroned from divinity to 
 chatter. As, referred to " the old church," he 
 was reminded of his 2iew one, its ecclesiastical 
 inferiority, and the bitter fact that the excellent 
 of the earth do not always get its most excel- 
 lent things. He paused. He would not reply. 
 He would wait, looking on with a big marvel at 
 the Amalekite woman who had no appetite for 
 the choice manna of the chosen race. 
 
 "" I mean about them childer at old Fossett's." 
 
 The great man's face showed less of Erebus ; 
 nay, it even relaxed.
 
 TEA AND TATTLE. 65 
 
 '^Oh! the children, Mrs. Smart !"— a little 
 laugh. " Of course, I don't go to Whisselton 
 Rectory notuJ" 
 
 ''I should think not, Mr. Knowles," exclaimed 
 the lady, with scorn. 
 
 " Therefore I haven't seen them. I think 
 they came some six months after I did. I 
 hear, however, that they are handsome little 
 things." 
 
 " Handsome, indeed ! They're ower like their 
 mother for that ! though they're bonnier than 
 her^ as may easily happen." 
 
 " Indeed !" said Mr. Knowles, rousing up. 
 '' Some one told me that their mother was dead, 
 but who that mother might be, the person could 
 not say." 
 
 '^Dead! It's all fudge. Never mind," and 
 Mrs. Smart shook her head and winked oceans 
 of knowledge. 
 
 '^ Eh ! What ?" 
 
 The great divine had fired up at last with all 
 the eagerness of a gossip. 
 
 '* Never mind." 
 
 The rubicund face looked still more sly and 
 suggestive. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " Dear me ! how remarkable ! Who is their 
 mother f ' 
 
 Mrs. Smart hummed and ha'd, and merely 
 said she was quite near enough to them to cook 
 their *' boiley." 
 
 "No. Dear me, is it possible?" 
 
 Mrs. Smart gave another nod of her head 
 and another ""Never mind." 
 
 '' You don't say so ? Well, it's scandalous. 
 It's perfectly shocking. And their father, my 
 dear sister in the faith ? Surely it cannot be — " 
 
 Mrs. Smart nodded her head knowingly, prim- 
 med her lips smirkingly, and gave another 
 '•'Never mind" in sing-song self-satisfaction. 
 
 " Well, I'm grieved at such a downfall. I'm 
 quite staggered, I am indeed. Such a charge 
 on those grey hairs ! But I might have known 
 that no good could ever come of all those dogs, 
 guns, rods, leggiogs, Godless shooting-jackets, 
 and all such carnal distractions. It is indeed a 
 terrible termination to a career which has not 
 been a recommendation of the Truth." 
 
 " You may weel say that, Mr. Knowles." 
 
 "But what seems curious is their infatuation 
 in bringing them to Whisselton."
 
 TEA AND TATTLE. 67 
 
 " Ob ! that's their cunning. They want 'em 
 near ^em, an' they think they can blind folks by 
 saying they're orphans." 
 
 ''But," said Mr. Knowles, checking himself 
 in the full ecstacy of tittle-tattle, " all this may 
 be only supposition, and we may grievously 
 err against that charity which rejoices in the 
 truth " 
 
 '^ It's trew as Gospel, Mr. Knowles. It is, 
 for sure. Fve had it from them as knows." 
 
 " Let us be cautious though. There's only 
 one person that can tell us anything, and that is 
 the nurse, whom Mr. Fossett has cashiered, per- 
 haps because she began to peach ; or it may be 
 in the daring of innocence, or again, in the 
 fatuity of guilt. Such men are ecncoTicnikvoL rfj 
 Bcavota . . . Sta ti-]v Trcopcoacv tt}? Kaphla<^ avroivJ' 
 
 Mrs. Smart looked unutterable awe at what 
 she took as a mystic incantation that might 
 open the earth and bring sable majesty upon 
 them instanter, 
 
 " Oh ! Mr. Knowles, don't say so any more, 
 don t, sir. 
 
 " I don't know, Mrs. Smart/' he rejoined, 
 with severity. ^' I feel strongly in this matter.
 
 68 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 And you really satisfied yourself of the truth of 
 
 all this r 
 
 " I did. I seed her about it. I telled her what 
 I suspected, an' she said it was trew, an' that 
 was what she was turned away for. *An' 
 Rebekah knowed it wor trew.' Them's her 
 very words, Mr. Knowles." 
 
 " Well, that is shocking." 
 
 " It is, Mr. Knowles. An' it shall be trew, 
 that shall." 
 
 For some time there is deep, confidential 
 talk, in sotto voce, as if the momentous solemni- 
 ty of the matter made the natural tones a kind 
 of profanation. 
 
 Poor Smart sits girding. He does not go 
 with them, and it does not matter, for he is 
 plainly nobody. 
 
 A knock. The lady disappears, returns, looks 
 more important, more mysterious than ever. 
 Two people, yes, two of their own servants, she 
 at last says, have seen the old rector and Re- 
 bekah, the mother of them childer, burying 
 something in a coffin — both swore it was a 
 coffin — under a happle-tree at dusk. 
 
 Even Mr. Knowles's great logical acumen
 
 TEA AND TATTLE. (59 
 
 admits that this looks ugly and suspicious. 
 
 Mrs. Smart beams like one who has convinced 
 judge and jury. But her husband does not 
 follow on the same side. 
 
 ^' Happen a favour-ite cat hes deed^ an^ they 
 wor burying it. Or t' auld man wor trenching 
 for sallery. He likes good yetting." 
 
 *^ Theh high-dea !" exclaims his spouse, with 
 a snort of contempt. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Smart,'' says Mr. Knowles, who 
 does not want to be quite the' cat's-paw of a hot- 
 headed, ignorant woman, " it may_, as your 
 husband says, be different, after all, from what 
 we think. Some would consider it a case for 
 the authorities, which I do not advocate — in 
 fact, rather deprecate — at this stage. No, let us 
 wait awhile ; ' watch and pray,' as the good old 
 Book says, and then," &c., &c.
 
 70 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ^' SAYRCH." 
 
 II TR. FOSSETT was busy next day amongst 
 -'-^-^ his sick and poor. As he walked home 
 late in the afternoon, he thought Mrs. Smart 
 looked in very high spirits while she flaunted 
 smirking past. Glancing at the cottage porch 
 whence she had issued, he saw Ann Gresley, 
 the discarded nurse, essaying to squeeze herself 
 out of sight. The woman, though a criminal, 
 had never been prosecuted, and therefore was 
 free to come and go, yet he was surprised to 
 see her. He wondered what this pair had been 
 doing together, and was very much astonished 
 that Mrs. Smart, being so proud a woman, could 
 have allowed herself to speak with a thief. 
 However, he did not trouble himself over-much 
 about the matter, and went home serenely to hi&
 
 THE " SAYRCH." 71 
 
 dinner and nap. After these — ruby sunset, and 
 shadow among his orchard-trees. Rousing up, 
 with a great yawn, he lounges to the window 
 to look out on the fading glories. 
 
 '• Dear me ! Is that some one moving 
 amongst the ribstons ? Why, there are two men. 
 Ay, and doing something too." Taking his 
 hat, he crosses the lawn towards them^ some- 
 what angry at the intrusion. 
 
 The constable and his assistant only look 
 askance, and go on digging. 
 
 "What are you doing here, Macgregor ?" 
 
 '' Makking a sayrch, minister." 
 
 "Surely there is nothing wrong there?" 
 
 " Weel, weel, I'll sin' fin' that oot." 
 
 '' Some mistake," says the old gentleman. 
 " But we must yield to the powers that 
 be." 
 
 "Ye mun, minister," replies the man_, signifi- 
 cantly, as Mr. Fossett quietly sinks down into a 
 settee on the lawn. 
 
 He notices that two women are looking on 
 through the gate, and one is Ann Gresley I 
 
 '' Be carefu', varra carefu'," cries the police- 
 man to his help, who is in a grave they have
 
 72 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 dug and has struck his spade upon something 
 which he is now tugging at with his hands. 
 
 " Bide a wee, mon, bide a wee till I win doon 
 to 't." 
 
 Together they disentomb alongish something 
 encased in wood and covered carefully with 
 sack-cloths. They bring it out on the lawn for 
 the benefit of the light near to where Mr. 
 Fossett coolly sits. 
 
 Villagers seem to be gathering about the 
 gates. They unwind the sack-cloths, and an 
 upper and under board are beheld. Next a 
 thick wrapping of old, white napkins. They 
 grow eager, breathless, for they are on the 
 verge of discovery. They unwind the napkins 
 and soon blood stains appear, which make the 
 white cloths stick to each other. What next ? 
 Macgregor, in his excitement, snatches the 
 object from his assistant's grasp, and, with a 
 triumphant look at Mr. Fossett out of the 
 corner of his eye, tears, with a sterner hand, 
 while they stick the more, the cerements off one 
 by one. 
 
 " Ah ! I thocht we would fin' it oot," he cries, 
 unwinding rapidly.
 
 THE " SAYRCH." 73 
 
 " The de'il's in it !" be exclaims, and dashes 
 it angrily to the ground. The last napkin torn 
 off has revealed a — leg of mutton. 
 
 Mr. Fossett looks on with quizzing, dancing 
 -eyes. There is confusion at the gate, and 
 feminine garments rapidly withdrawing through 
 the little crowd. 
 
 " Well, Macgregor, and how do you like your 
 find ?" 
 
 " Ou, ay, it's unco strange, but we munna 
 be pit aff wi' this." 
 
 *' Oh ! dig all night. But just be kind enough 
 to put that back." 
 
 Macgregor is looking ruefully at the 
 mutton. 
 
 '' Tell me, minister, wher'for' ye bury yer 
 flesh r 
 
 " To make it tender, man." 
 
 "Muckle gude that wad do me when my 
 thochts were on t' wor " 
 
 " And who," demands Mr. Fossett, interrupt- 
 ing, "sent you here, constable?" 
 
 " Nay, nay, minister, I munna tell that." 
 Then, as if to himself, " The tappetless hizzie ! 
 A minister's housekeeper should be mair carefu',
 
 74 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 mair preceese, an' shouldna mell o' sich things. 
 She's dowff an' he's daist." 
 
 '' So I thought," says Mr. Fossett to himself, 
 catching a word or two which the cunning 
 child of the north perhaps intended. *' Get him 
 candles^ cook, that will last till morning." 
 
 " I'se dig na mair the nicht. Tak' it back, 
 tak'.it back," to his assistant, "an' be as gleg 
 as a whittle wi' 't." 
 
 He turns to go away by the stables and 
 kitchen, avoiding the little mob at the gate. 
 Unfortunately Rebekah is there to meet him. 
 She " wants to know how a person like him 
 dares for to presume that a gentleman like Mr. 
 Fossett could ever do anything wrong. Oughtn't 
 a man like him, with a wife and five children, to 
 be ashamed of himself? But why should she 
 disgrace herself with speaking to the likes of 
 him? Isn't a Scotch fool as big a fool as 
 any other fool ?" and she sweeps majestically 
 into the kitchen without even having allowed 
 the poor man a chance of uttering a word. 
 
 Poor Rebekah ! This was not her usual 
 style of castigating; she had a much sterner 
 and quieter mode which Macgregor would have
 
 75" 
 
 liked still less, only she was just now stirred to 
 the very depths of her being and frenzied a 
 little off her balance. . 
 
 The scandal which had been only simmering 
 amongst the aristocracy of Whisselton was next 
 day in full ebullition among the commonalty. 
 
 Hodge hinted to Hodge dark things, of which 
 murder was only one. For a whole week the 
 tempest raged, and three things happened 
 which perpetuated the storm for another week 
 at least. First, Mr. Fossett laughed ; secondly, 
 Mr. Knowles discharged his housekeeper as '' a 
 busybody in other men's matters/' in spite of 
 her touching plea that she thought she was 
 only doing what he wished ; and thirdly, Re- 
 bekah — stung to the quick at finding, for the 
 first time in her life, that her name was smirch- 
 ed — retired from Whisselton Rectory, heedless 
 of Mr. Fossett's importunities, to a distant home 
 amongst her kith and kin. 
 
 But she only left one sorrow for another. 
 She could not rest ; she grew almost ill. Silent 
 as she was, her cousin Peggy spelled out her 
 secret. 
 
 '' Mebby it's them twea conny, lile brats at
 
 76 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 fafHes ye, Mrs. Bostockr' asked Mrs. Met- 
 calfe, lovingly, in the patois of the Yorkshire 
 Dales. 
 
 " VV^^a, wya, lass," said her husband, when 
 they were alone together, *' wait a bit ; she'll 
 girn as weel as other fwoak te Yule. Let her 
 be, let her be." 
 
 Yes, those two bonny little things during the 
 last six months had worked down deeper into 
 her heart of hearts than she had known. When 
 in her impatience she had talked to Mr. Fossett 
 a few weeks before about sending them away, 
 she little knew how much they had become a 
 part of herself. She knew it now, and the lost 
 heritage of love made her fretful and impatient 
 wherever she was. 
 
 Should she write and ask leave to return? 
 Nothing but her indomitable resolution could 
 have combated the knowledge that she was 
 welcome to return whenever she chose. Oh ! it 
 was weary, morning, noon, and night, this 
 painful void. Her cousins watched her stand- 
 ing moping, then setting wildly to work, then 
 going with pen and paper to the window to 
 write, scribbling a few lines, and tearing them
 
 77 
 
 up at once ; and they silently shook their heads 
 as they watched. 
 
 At last a letter came in bearing the Whisselton 
 postmark. The new servant, Mr. Fossett said, 
 conld not manage the little folks. Nobody in 
 the house conld. Indeed he felt that they had 
 changed towards himself. Would she come to 
 them, or, if she was still of the same mind^ 
 would she take them to herself? Everything 
 with respect to expenses could easily be ar- 
 ranged. This was joyful news to Rebekah, and 
 she was another woman after the few tears had 
 flown from her eyes heavy as the preliminary 
 drops of the thunder shower. Frank and Peggy 
 were soon on the way with a note — Rebekah 
 had a power of compelling obedience — taking 
 the tax-cart with them to bring the little folks 
 back. She could not trust Frank with the 
 children nor Peggy with the trap, and therefore 
 sent them both ; sent them^ for she felt she 
 could never, never, never enter Whisselton 
 again unless her master were ill and needed 
 nursing. Then she would go, but not else for 
 the whole world. 
 
 They came at the end of the third day all
 
 78 STRANGE chap:man. 
 
 safe and sound, these little ones in whom her 
 heart was bound up, although she could tell no 
 one who their parents were or what was to be 
 their position and fortune when they grew 
 older. Nor did it matter. She had a little 
 money, and she would bring them up ; and, if 
 their friends should claim them, she trusted and 
 believed that they would allow her to be with 
 them. Hence she had a full meal of content in 
 the present. 
 
 Very happy, very frolicsome were her merry, 
 ruddy young charge. Sylvan peace was around. 
 Beautiful walks along lane and field wooed 
 them into the life-giving air of Arken garth, 
 where a stranger was rarely seen. The primi- 
 tive folk all knew each other, and passed their 
 quaint, kindly greetings whenever they met. 
 
 The children's pleasures indoors were many, 
 though simple, and their play continuous with- 
 in or without. They learnt to love natural 
 things, a matter of vital value to a happy life. 
 The pet lamb, brought in for nursing, the weal 
 of calf, or hatch of chickens, were all great 
 concerns in their secluded existence ; while the 
 day seemed marked with a white stone or a
 
 THE " SAYRCH." 79 
 
 red letter which brought them toys or ginger- 
 bread from Reeth fair or distant Richmond, 
 grand with its castle, monastic cells, and abbey 
 ruins. Yes, there were three happy hearts 
 at Arkengarth Farm. So autumn passed, and 
 winter spread its fleece from Lune Forest to 
 Masham Chace, and spring, and summer, and 
 winter came again, until a happy eighteen 
 months had glided out of all their lives, marked 
 by those pyramids in memory — Mr. Fossett's 
 visits with goody for bonny little greedy 
 mouths, and money for Rebekah and Mrs. 
 Metcalfe.
 
 80 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DETECTIONAL, 
 
 IIR. JOHN SMITH— the gentleman we for- 
 -^^-^ merly knew on board the Marco Polo as 
 Reginald Courcy de Burgh, Esq., late of her 
 H. M.'s 50th Regiment of Dragoon Guards — 
 like many others, had uphill work in commenc- 
 ing a new craft and a new career. He could 
 not dig_, to beg he was ashamed, and betwixt 
 him and hunger lay that hateful resource — 
 work : a resource as hard and as harsh as the 
 man that had offered it. 
 
 The train was whisking him through a land 
 of work. Town succeeded town, each more 
 dusky than its fellow with the ensigns of toil. 
 Thousands of great brick and mortar stalks 
 pierced heaven in the eye, and every stalk ter- 
 minated in a vent. From every vent rolled out
 
 DETECTION AL. 81 
 
 billows of blackness that sank on the stilled air, 
 and drooped wearily over the stalk, like great, 
 dark, mushroom tops. Mushroom grew into 
 mushroom until there was one vast fungus of 
 many stalks, a lurid canopy of many supports, 
 an ebon banyan grove roofing its parent trunks. 
 Within that funereal grove the toiling, struggling 
 thousands of a manufacturing town had house 
 and home. Only where a silver hiss of escap- 
 ing steam shot high over the lowly dwelling 
 did this " blackness of darkness for ever " seem 
 to Mr. Smith's mind to be relieved at all. He 
 felt very depressed. Every great flagstaff, with 
 its drooping banner of smoke and grime, seemed 
 to say to him^ "in this battle now being fought 
 we give no quarter to sluggard or drone." In 
 sooth, he felt no proud quickening pulse at that 
 swift stirring parable of energy. He hated it 
 as an unclean thing. He detested shriek of 
 whistle, rumble of wheels, and loud hum of 
 whirling machinery ; the booming thuds, the 
 baritone complainings where boilers were a- 
 make: the shriller noises of hammer in conflict 
 with nail or wood, the crash of steel bar or 
 iron sheet when cut or struck ; the grinding of 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 laden lurries, the curses of carters, and the 
 harsh cries of men a-shout at their tasks were 
 all abhorrent to this child of pleasure, driven, 
 as he thought, into the very hell of toil. 
 
 It was late when he got to his goal. 
 
 An inky drizzle, brewed out of smut and 
 mirk, dripped down upon Smiths, Browns, and 
 De Burghs most impartially. A fog had in- 
 fused into the becalmed air, and lay heavy on 
 the streets, dwarfing lamplight to rushlight 
 and giving it the jaundice. The causeways 
 were sloppy, and the citizens passed shrugging 
 their shoulders and dropping their heads betwixt 
 them as they went, chilled to the marrow. It was 
 not a night for lounging at street corners, and 
 only where there was a subterranean bakery 
 Avere the loafing class willing to tarry on the 
 heated pavement. 
 
 It was indeed a lonely moment, a life-crisis, 
 when Mr. John Smith stood there in that street, 
 bag in hand, looking for his inn, and none the 
 less so that he was subjected to unfeeling chaff 
 from contiguous corner-men in a dialect he 
 might divine, but could not understand. 
 
 In that lonely moment an inner voice seemed 
 to suggest dark things. Was a life of industry
 
 DETECTIONAL. 83 
 
 ill such scenes worth living? Wasn't it better 
 to cheat at cards, sharp at billiards, welch on a 
 race-course, swindle at borrowing, fatten on 
 -defrauded innkeepers, or fill his purse by an 
 occasional forgery rather than exist by working 
 in such streets and towns as this ? 
 
 He put the thought aside, would not listen 
 to it, and turned into the Talbot, where he 
 sweetly restored sinking nature with its gener- 
 ous fare. 
 
 Next morning saw a change. It was a 
 sweet spring day even in this place, and he 
 started in his new vocation with a new hope. 
 
 " Eliza Gaythorn, Clarence Street," that was 
 it, but where? The local directory gave twen- 
 ty-seven Clarence Streets in that huge city, and 
 many Gaythorns, but never a Gaythorn in a 
 Clarence Street. Search and inspection showed 
 him some Clarence Streets where business 
 life had overtaken home life and expelled it. 
 Inquiry among many Gaythorns made it clear 
 that each Gaythorn knew little or nothing 
 about any other Gaythorn. Weary work it Avas, 
 pacing street after street to get a clue to Eliza ; 
 depressing work it was to get a hint of the truth, 
 
 g2
 
 84 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 and when it was run to ground, to find it van- 
 ish ; bewildering work it was to listen to the 
 strange patois of the natives, and puzzle 
 through it to the meaning ; disgusting work it 
 was to him, but not to hundreds of better men, 
 clergymen, surgeons, city missionaries, to face 
 those sights and sounds. But what tried him 
 most were the manners, or the want of them. 
 He would politely go to a door, and a man 
 would come and show his back with a muttered 
 he " kuowed nowt abeawt th' wench ;" or an old 
 woman, as if she did not approve of him, would 
 anticipate his question, saying, " they didna 
 favver howkers ;" or a girl would at once turn 
 her back upon him and bawl upstairs, 
 
 " Sithee, Molly, yers a felley spurrin' efther 
 someb'dy caw'd Lizer Gaythorn. Does ta 
 ken owt gradely, lass, whar hoo lives ?" 
 
 " Neaw. Mebby hoos de-ad." 
 
 Some were civil ; most meant to be that, 
 although they looked to him the reverse; a few 
 could not be called away from that work in 
 cellar or chamber, which he thought was done 
 at such a fever heat, and nobody could help him. 
 He began to dislike his task. He hated the in-
 
 DETECTIONAL. 85 
 
 success ; he detested the shrill, harsh voices ; he 
 disliked the hard, unsympathetic look so many 
 wore, as if man were their natural enemy. His 
 moral fibre was not of steel, and naturally 
 gave way under such hard usage during ten 
 da^^s, and in a moment of depression he put an 
 enemy in his mouth. But he rallied and went 
 to his work again, yet day after day, like a 
 mirage, Eliza still was unobtained. 
 
 All this time in Angel Street — a name scarce- 
 ly reliable as a certificate of character for 
 everybody in it — a lady was carrying on her 
 business. The street had seen better days, had 
 in fact been suburban, and a forgotten trades- 
 man when he wished to gratify his forgotten 
 wife and daughters, and stand out consequen- 
 tial as the successful j\Ir. X. in the eyes of for- 
 gotten neighbours_, had built this house. It 
 was a decent house of red brick, with an area 
 kitchen long since let off as a cellar shop to a 
 noisy, tinplate worker. The front door was 
 guarded by a large round pillar of freestone 
 on each side, and these bore an architrave 
 with triangular top. You entered the man- 
 sion by three broad crescent steps, which,
 
 86 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 when scrubbed nicely with tawny sand, reliev- 
 ed by a little pipeclay scrollwork^ looked im- 
 posingly clean. Yes, when a hundred years 
 ago the proud parents and the blooming happy 
 girls entertained their forgotten friends at the 
 first housewarming^ it must have been a nice 
 place with the fields and trees in front, and the 
 great garden behind sloping towards the river, 
 and commanding the pleasant scene beyond. 
 Fields and trees and gardens are all gone ; su- 
 burban flower and emerald shrub have yielded 
 to the dingy shop and squalid home of central 
 city life ; the fresh, blooming, wholesome looking 
 maiden is seldom seen where dirty uncomely 
 women, showing nngathered hair and an occa- 
 sional black e^^e, with dinner in their hands — 
 a red herring from the huckster's, and a frothing 
 mug from the beer house — go clattering up and 
 down in clog or clouted shoe. This house, and 
 one or two others of its stranded fellows that 
 have not perished in the march of improvement, 
 alone with the old church represent the old 
 days, and it still looks down upon the wretch- 
 ed cottages which stand on its former garden 
 and pleasances with an air of fallen greatness..
 
 DETECTIONAL. 87 
 
 The -u'indow shows a glass globe filled with 
 water, as if for gold fish, but creatures of an- 
 other kind are in possession. A little board 
 above it bears the inscription, ^'Bleeding luith 
 Leeches r 
 
 In the room behind them, a spacious apart- 
 ment, with a nicely-moulded ceiling and pan- 
 iielled walls, whose gold and white have long 
 since toned into a rich tobacco smoke dye, sits 
 a woman. 
 
 Somehow or other she also looks, like the 
 house and the street, as if she had seen better 
 days. A fuU-waisted individual, with deep 
 chest and fine bust; that double chin, large face 
 of good pattern, and full, keen brown eye, 
 stamp her as one with a brain and a will that 
 might queen it easily over the poor inebriates 
 and scolds around. Sternness has marked her 
 for his own ; and that face, with its strong 
 under jaw and its heavy, pondering brow, 
 might easily be taken for a man's, were it not 
 for the beardless cheek and the thick fell of 
 dark_, glossless hair. It is, in sooth, a face 
 which has little of the quick expression and 
 mobile play of woman's. You speak and she
 
 88 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 listens, her ejes alone seeming to reciprocate ; 
 you sraile and she does not respond. 
 
 A quiet lifting of the brow into a deep wrinkle 
 shows that she is interested : a setting of the 
 teeth, as if to crunch something hard betwixt 
 them, tells that she is getting dangerously reso- 
 lute. Her habits are not as other people's. She 
 is out at unusual hours ; is away on the sudden, 
 sometimes for days ; has odd, queer people 
 coming to her on stolen visits^ who seem 
 anxious to come and go unseen. Many times 
 she has left home at midnight; more than twice 
 she has driven hither in " the wee sma' hours 
 ayont the twal," and a "wee sma'" voice 
 has been heard along the old passages up 
 to attic realms; often dingy women have come, 
 and the little voice has protested again from 
 garret to front door and cab outside on its final 
 exit. 
 
 She is deep in thought to-day. '' I ought to 
 have twenty-five pounds, and I'll not do it for 
 less." She might be speaking to the visitor 
 that has just gone. *' There's a good deal of 
 trouble about these cases, and the law is hard 
 to dodge. The risk deserves something as well
 
 DETECTION AL. 89 
 
 as the bother." She looks scarcely happy, 
 scarcely miserable, halting on the grey border- 
 land betwixt the two, where business and profit 
 front danger and penalty. There is some dis- 
 quiet, for she sits very still a long time, and 
 the wrinkle remains unrelaxed on the brow, and 
 the teeth set closer than before. 
 
 The door flies open and a child gets headlong 
 into the room before she seems to know it. It 
 stirs the woman's wrath to be rudely inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 " Eliza Ann, how dare you enter in that way ?" 
 
 The child — a girl of eleven years — stands 
 confused with her own impetuosity. The re- 
 buke has told also, but she is sustained with 
 the importance of bearing weighty tidings. 
 
 "Mother, yers a mon " 
 
 *' You^re a naughty girl ; and where's your 
 little sister?" 
 
 She names the place. 
 
 " Then go and bring her. I'll have none of 
 my children going neighbouring." 
 
 "But, mother, he wanted Eliza Gaythorn, 
 an' I said " 
 
 Mrs. Scaife is at once interested.
 
 90 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 '^ Yes, Eliza, and you said what ?" 
 
 ^* I said my cousin at Chester wor cawd that ; 
 an' he's coming, an' I run'd to tell you first." 
 
 " Quite right, Eliza. Go to your sister," she 
 said, as a gentleman was heard knocking at the 
 door. It was Mr. John Smith striking the door 
 Avith his fist, and somewhat incapable of seeing 
 the knocker. She looked out upon him with 
 eyes which had in them interest, contempt, but 
 little amusement. She saw at once that John 
 Smith was not at his best. He had, in fact, got 
 into very low spirits with sixteen days of failure, 
 and, at the close of a hard day, had been pour- 
 ing other spirits down upon them by way of 
 getting them up. His manner was very su- 
 perior, even now, to the average of Angel 
 Street deportments, but he was in no condition 
 for delicate negotiation. He licked his lips» 
 smiled in a foolish way, and looked very un- 
 steady and blinky about the eyes. On the 
 other hand, Mrs. Scaife had heard something 
 which made her thoroughly herself. 
 
 The unsteady hand keeps hammering on the 
 door. 
 . " Well, sir, and what do you want?" It is
 
 DETECTIONAL. 91 
 
 said with a hard, unsympathetic, alien manner. 
 He feels it ; it disturbs much his somewhat pre- 
 carious balance, and he stammers out something 
 about a little girl, Eliza Gay thorn. 
 
 " There's no little girl called Eliza Gaythorn 
 here." 
 
 He tells her with increasing intelligence that 
 he does not mean that. It was Ehza Gaythorn 
 who told him where to find a little girl. 
 
 She looks at him with a solicitude that 
 masks her scorn. 
 
 " No, dash it, I mean the house where Eliza 
 Gay thorn's little girl keeps her cousin Chester." 
 
 Mr. Smith blinks his eyes, grins, and looks 
 triumphant, as if he has done a most difficult 
 thing right at last. 
 
 '' Come in, sir." He enters, more and more 
 convinced that he has done it cleverly. She 
 handles him deftly, and learns his quest. 
 
 '^Ehza Gaythorn. Yes, I can help you to 
 ■find her. But it's not my little girl's cousin at 
 Chester. And who wants her?" 
 
 '' Mr.— M— Mum " He isn't at liberty to 
 
 say ; that is, he wants her himself. 
 
 "Nonsense, sir, you are trilling. Your em-
 
 ^2 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 ployer wants her, and bis name is Mumford." 
 
 Mr. Smith is staggered, for he is sobering 
 fast. Perhaps the fusil oil, imbibed in the two 
 glasses of bad whisky bought at the " Packer's 
 Arms " near, and which has so disturbed a head 
 capable of battling successfully with four when 
 the '' dew " is pure, is working off. Perhaps the 
 anti-mesmerising power of the woman or the 
 circumstances are restoring him to himself. 
 Anyway, he is more of De Burgh than a little 
 while ago. 
 
 " Tell me where John Dacre Mumford may 
 be found." 
 
 That woman's great, convex eyes seem to 
 shoot towards him as she speaks. He shrinks 
 with the thought that she could rifle his soul of 
 its secrets. 
 
 " Where is he now?" He is saved ; he doesn't 
 know, and cannot tell. 
 
 "Don't know'i' Psha ! You've got to tell 
 him when you know where this Eliza Gaythorn 
 is — and you haven't found her yet, by the way 
 — and you must have his address." 
 
 "No, he has only a London address, and he 
 cannot give it."
 
 DETECTIONAL. 95 
 
 *' Very well, then, come to me again when 
 you can." 
 
 She brings him to terms, and gets the address. 
 
 " Now you must go, for I'm engaged. Write 
 to him and say a lady, who showed you a ring 
 with the motto 'truth in absence' inside it, 
 will tell him when he calls here where Eliza 
 Gaythorn may be found."
 
 94 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INTERVIEWING. 
 
 WHILE Reginald Courcy de Burgh, Esq., 
 tliat is John Smith, was busy in his 
 quest, Mr. Mumford went on one of his own. 
 He travelled to Whisselton to have a word with 
 that " old frump of a parson,^' whom he expect- 
 ed to meet and mould in the rectory house. He 
 was not fortunate in finding the old gentleman 
 in. The servant told him that he had gone out 
 with his rod, and would not be Lack for two 
 hours, at least. Mr. Mumford was not a gentle- 
 man to care much about things sesthetic or 
 antiquarian, when things commercial or causes 
 legal came into question, otherwise the scenery, 
 the old church, the Roman wall, and the very 
 farm-houses within easy reach, into which bits of 
 ancient Roman carvings had been sacrilegiously
 
 INTER VIEWIEG. 95 
 
 built, would all have furnished him with 
 delightful objects of attention. His mind was 
 on weightier matters. "Let us leave these 
 things," he would have said, '• to dilletante fools 
 and canting idlers." Yetwhat was he to do during 
 those two precious hours? There wasn't time 
 to go and order dinner, wait till it was cooked, 
 and then eat at leisure, washing all down with 
 bad country wine. Besides, he wanted neither 
 dinner nor lunch, and, if he went, the old 
 gentleman might turn up, and then drift in 
 another direction, giving him another two 
 hours of waiting, perhaps. No, he would go 
 into the churchyard, which was a snuggish- 
 looking place on one side, and loiter in the 
 sweet spring sunlight. He got tired of saunter- 
 ing from one odd-looldug gravestone to 
 another, and at last sat down on a tomb, 
 swinging one foot carelessly backwards and 
 forwards, as, with his hat drawn down to shade 
 off the sun, he pondered on his plans and his 
 errand hither. 
 
 " 1 must succeed. All life is utter foolishness 
 without success. There's only a step from the 
 sublime to the ridiculous, and that step is down
 
 96 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 into failure. All ability counts for nothing, all 
 effort, if the verdict upon it is insuccess. Peo- 
 ple may say that duty is the first consideration, 
 and results only the second; but nobody thinks 
 so. I'm sure your so-called good people don't, 
 A bishop who took his third class, and got 
 canonry_, deanery, and mitre by trimming and 
 truckling, turns up his unctuous nose in smug 
 privacy at the great First, who ended as rector 
 of some mouldy-looking old church like this. He 
 sneers in his sleeve at the prince-scholar once 
 so high above him, now so far below, who has 
 made nothing out of it all, and who didn^t 
 know, simple man, the little tricks which more 
 than equalise all such advantages. And why 
 so? Because the standard of life is success. 
 Sawbones may be A 1 at an operation, and 
 Bolus and Pilula mix the best messes that 
 ever kept a fellow out of this place, but, if 
 they haven't got the requisite hum to make 
 it felt, they'll trudge it on foot to their pa- 
 tients, while Quack and Smirk, who were 
 ploughed twice each, look down upon them 
 with a grin from their carriage and pair. Ay, 
 and so will other people with them. And
 
 INTERVIEWING. 97 
 
 'U'hy ? Because they are palpable failures. 
 
 "Soldiers, lawyers, ay_,and even philosophers 
 and scientists, follow suit. Haven't I known these 
 last lie and steal to secure an idea, and get it 
 out in their own name before a brother savan 
 could ? And what does it all mean, even in these 
 transmundane creatures? ^^'hy^ that success 
 is a finer thing without worth than failure with 
 it. As for your merchant — everybody's that in 
 some sense or other — why, gilded Traffic looks 
 down with a pitying smile at leaden Trudge, 
 who's never known how to finesse betwixt 
 crime and capture, or to whitewash, liquidate, 
 and so forth, into easy-got wealth. And what's 
 the reason that he reaps so much of honour and 
 of everything that^s good? He's successful. And 
 I'll be that^ too. I have been that in a way, all 
 except that great mistake in the beginning — " 
 Here an ague qualm seemed to shoot through 
 him ; he got up quickly, and began walking up 
 and down the churchyard paths. 
 
 Suddenly he saw an old man sitting on a 
 gravestone with his leg thrown across his 
 crutch, as if in a gout-rest, and looking at him 
 with a wistful, inquiring glance. He felt as if 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 the old man had been playing the spy upon his 
 mind, and he spoke carelessly to him, as if to 
 throw him off the scent. Talk was potential 
 knowledge, and knowledge power, with Mr. 
 Mumford, and he was soon in a quiet confab 
 with the maimed old labourer. 
 
 " And so your rector is an old man ?" 
 
 "No ; he's only youngish — not seventy yet." 
 
 " That's a good age, though. I suppose he's 
 had children ?" 
 
 " Ay ; a raather of two, a lad an' a lass." 
 
 "Oh! indeed. A boy and a girl," says Mr. 
 Mumford, growing interested. 
 
 " Ay, both dee-ad." 
 
 " You don't say so ! How sad !" exclaims 
 Mr. Mumford, with increasing interest. " Tell 
 me something about them." 
 
 The old peasant explains that one died in 
 India, a soulger, a nossifer like ; and the young 
 lady died about the time she might have been 
 married. 
 
 Mr. Mumford is much affected, and pities the 
 poor old bereaved father. 
 
 " How lonely he must have been ever since ! 
 Has he had no grandchildren here to stay with 
 him?"
 
 INTERVIEWING. 99 
 
 The old man gives a thin, dry, senile langh. 
 
 " Theer wor two childei* ; but iverybody 
 •wants to knaw what^s getten ■'em. It's ray 
 opinion theer's sum mat wrang, like them bab- 
 bies i' t' wood, an' t' resurrection men hes ^em 
 now, I'll be bund. They wor theer a Sundey, 
 an' a Mondey they wor oat o' seet, an' three 
 week afore that Mrs. Bostock went away. It's 
 varra queer," suggests the old peasant, inquisi- 
 tively. 
 
 *'It looks so, anyway, my friend." 
 
 " Ay, ay ; I dunnot like to say owt agin Mr. 
 Fossett, he's been varra good to me an' Ailie ; 
 but I doubt they're his and Mrs. Bostock's." 
 
 " No. You are wrong there, my friend. I 
 know very well who was their father, and their 
 mother has been some time dead." 
 
 "Nay, now, is that trew? I'm fain t' hear 
 't's trew. Air ye sure, sir, it's trew ?" 
 
 Mr. Mumford vouches for the truth of it. 
 
 " Tm glad on 't, I'm sure. I'll gan an' tell 
 Ailie now. It's time t' folk knew that." 
 
 Mr. Mumford looks after him with a quizzi- 
 cal look, and a little internal sense of satisfac- 
 tion, as the old man's crutch clatters on stone 
 
 h2
 
 100 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 and flag in his hurried flight. He moves to- 
 wards the house, convinced that the fishing-rod 
 which he sees quivering on the sky-line above 
 the privet-hedge of the garden has an old 
 gentleman attached to the bottom of it, and 
 that that gentleman's name is Fossett. 
 
 Twenty minutes afterwards, the old rector is 
 handing him back a letter he has inspected 
 with more preciseness and business steeliness 
 than had been expected. 
 
 " It is indeed the handwriting of my old 
 pupil, James Chapman." 
 
 "Yes; and you will observe that I am co- 
 guardian with you, sir." 
 
 " I do," replies the old man, with a matter of 
 fact voice and a very matter of fact look. 
 
 "And, therefore, as you are an old man with- 
 out family, it would, perhaps, be more appropriate 
 that I should take the children and bring them 
 up with mine." 
 
 "You are aware, Mr. Mumford, that these 
 children were solemnly committed to me by my 
 late pupil before he left England. Have you 
 any document to show that he wished them to 
 be out of my hands f
 
 INTERVIEWING. 101 
 
 No, he had not, but he had thonglit that Mr. 
 Fossett would scarcel}^ care to have the bother 
 of them. 
 
 " That is a different matter. Duty is one thing, 
 inclination another, and a very secondary con- 
 cern." 
 
 '^ Oh, indeed ! That is to say, I quite agree 
 with you." 
 
 " You do, do you f 
 
 " Certainly. But as James and I were boys 
 together at school " 
 
 '• Ah ! but we were friends in riper years at 
 college, Mr. Mumford — at Oxford and after- 
 wards." 
 
 " Well, so you were ; but I should have 
 thought that when he expressed a wish that I 
 should bring up the children " 
 
 " Not to me, sir." 
 
 " Well, but he did ; it can be proved." 
 
 '' That letter only begs Mr. Mumford to work 
 harmoniously with me as co-guardian." 
 
 " Yes ; but he said more in his dying hours. 
 And, as a proof of the trust which he put in me, 
 he made me his contingent residuary legatee." 
 
 *' Ah ! then he gave you an interest in the
 
 102 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 children's deaths. Foolish, foolish act. But 
 can you show me any proof of this confidence — 
 any document ?" 
 
 He had not brought the deed. But did Mr. 
 Fossett doubt his honour ? 
 
 " By heavens I if anyone dares to say that 
 I'd do anything wrong " 
 
 '' Nobody says anything of the sort. Only 
 the very argument that you advance for having 
 them is the very one .which should keep them 
 out of your hands and make you very delicate 
 about ever suggesting such a course to anyone, 
 much less to me." 
 
 Mr. Mumford considered himself scarcely 
 treated as a gentleman by such an allusion. 
 
 ^'^ Listen, sir," and a tone which his dogs 
 when naughty knew well came into Mr. Fos- 
 sett's voice, while his manner was studiously 
 polite. " Listen. I'm a much older man than 
 you, and have learnt to look at matters on 
 more sides than one. You have brought me a 
 letter which I admit is genuine ; you say you 
 have besides a deed giving you certain rights. 
 That also may be as genuine. I admit that 
 this letter mentions one John Dacre Mumford ;
 
 INTERVIEWING. 103 
 
 but I don't know him, and you bring no evi- 
 dence to prove that you are really that person." 
 
 Mr. Mumford started. 
 
 *' You may be ; 1 do not say that you are or 
 that you are not. It is possible to buy these 
 documents and take the name ; it is possible to 
 steal them and do the same. Mumford may 
 be dead, or a sot who would sell his rights for 
 a trifle, or a madman that could be robbed of 
 them. And the person getting these under one 
 or other of these conditions may feel sufficiently 
 secure as a claimant that his identity will not 
 be disproved by the right heir. In short, there 
 is no end to the forms of chance or fraud which 
 may have brought these documents into the 
 wrong person's hands, enabling him to reap the 
 advantages they offer. I do not say I have 
 any proof," he continued, as Mr. Mumford's face 
 began to register " stormy," " but I am not 
 bound to furnish any. It is for you, not me, to 
 prove that you are the John Dacre Mumford 
 whom poor James knew. When you have 
 done that, then, sir, assume the tone with 
 which you began." 
 
 Mr. Mumford did not like the " old frump of a
 
 104 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 parson," and felt the inconvenience of having 
 to prove to such a sceptical mind what he 
 thought was sufficiently self-evident. But he 
 would do that and more, he said to himself, 
 and beat the old fellow at last. 
 
 Dauntless resolution was one of his secret 
 mental prides, and he determined that he would 
 conquer, but he could not help feeling that he 
 had met with a foeman worthy of his steel. 
 Invoking a shade of impassibility on his coun- 
 tenance to cover his mortified pride,, he said he 
 could understand Mr. Fossett's great caution in 
 behalf of these children, but he begged to 
 assure him that he could give him every satis- 
 faction that he was the gentleman he repre- 
 sented himself to be. 
 
 There was his wife. 
 
 "No evidence." 
 
 '^ Well, there were the servants, confound 
 
 it- 
 
 " Be calm, Mr. Mumford ; this is business, you 
 know — legal business, and, therefore, exact busi- 
 ness, nothing else." 
 
 ^' Well, to cut the matter shorty there were 
 several persons, all of whom could be easily pro-
 
 INTERVIEWING. 305 
 
 duced. If 3Ir. Fossett required this evidence 
 it was only rigbt that he should have it. It 
 was also well that they should work pleasantly 
 together, because if the children remained at 
 the rectory, the question of allow^ances would 
 have to be considered and settled." 
 
 " Of course." How drily the old man said 
 this ! " But you must permit me to say that 
 the Court of Chancery has power therein, and 
 you can have little interest in bringing that 
 paramount influence into the business by refus- 
 ing what is reasonable. Though, for the mat- 
 ter of that, if poor Jim had died insolvent, the 
 children should still have had gentle breeding, 
 as I am neither poor nor powerless." 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt. And now that I am 
 goings I should like just to see these dear little 
 ones. Doubtless they are in the house." 
 
 " No ; they are away in the country, but you 
 are welcome to go to see how they are lodged 
 and provided. Here is their address," he con- 
 tinued, scribbling two or three words on a card. 
 
 Mr. Mumford waved the card away as it was 
 offered. He could quite trust Mr. Fossett's 
 fatherly supervision of the young folks. He
 
 106 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 made great show of refusing it, but at leugth 
 the card went into his pocket. 
 
 '^ Can I offer you a little lunch ?" 
 
 "No, thank you." 
 
 Mr. Mumford felt as if that would have 
 choked him outright.
 
 107 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DIPLOMATIC AND OTHERWISE. 
 
 TT was on the evening of the following day 
 ■*- that a gentleman might have been seen in 
 Angel Street. He knoclved at a door, and Eliza 
 Ann opened it, and showed him into the faded 
 old wainscotted room. A lady was there, square 
 of figure_, large and round of face, who received 
 him with less than a welcome. It seemed like 
 the meeting of ^neas and Dido in the shades. 
 
 " She on the ground averted kept 
 Hard eyes that neither smiled nor wept ; 
 JSTor bated more of her stern mood 
 Than if a monument she stood." 
 
 The only difference was that the apparition 
 loomed not half clad in mist, except so far as 
 the evening fog had fought with the candle and
 
 108 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 conquered it, and that the well grown shade 
 was not doomed to speechlessness for want of 
 that fleshly garniture which makes voice possible. 
 With all expression wiped out of her face, she 
 motioned to a chair, and then sat down. 
 
 The gentleman scarcely appeared altogether 
 at his ease for the first moment, and sat looking 
 at her as if recovering his breath. Still she sat, 
 wearing the same expressionless look, giving 
 no help to any advances he might be wishful to 
 make. 
 
 '^ Eliza, I have come " 
 
 '^ You mean Mrs. Scaife, sir." 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Scaife be it, then. I've come to 
 ask your assistance in a particular matter." 
 
 "And you would never have left me, sir, if 
 my assistance had been wanted." 
 
 " But I didn't behave badly. I gave you five 
 hundred pounds when I married you to Scaife, 
 and it was almost every farthing that I 
 possessed." 
 
 " You left me, John Dacre Mumford, because 
 you had to choose betwixt prospective wealth, 
 from your old aunt, and me — me, whom you 
 found an innocent, good girl in her house as
 
 DIPLOMATIC AND OTHERWISE. 109 
 
 her maid, and innocent as I have never been 
 since." There were tears starting now in those 
 stony eyes, but they soon siped back to their 
 well-spring. "And nicely," she exclaimed, with 
 feehng of another sort, " did the old hag serve 
 you out at last !" 
 
 The suggestion seerned to have a terrible 
 sting in it, for the strong man writhed for an 
 instant, incapable of concealing the pain which 
 went crawling like worms of fire through the 
 marrow of every bone. 
 
 He paused to calm himself, then with pale 
 face and low voice said, 
 
 " We need not talk of that now, Eli " 
 
 ^'Mrs. Scaife, sir?'' 
 
 "Mrs. Scaife I mean. Nor were you the 
 better off because she broke her solemn promise 
 to me.''' 
 
 " She met perfidy with perfidy. Had you 
 never promised me what you did, the ruin 
 which came would have passed me by." 
 
 There was a flash on the face which told of 
 coming tempest. 
 
 " Nay, do not say so, EK " 
 
 "Ah, let me hear that again, and "
 
 110 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 '' Well, well, you know that I always treated 
 you kindly." 
 
 "Yes/"* she retorted, with a kindling sneer, 
 " as the vulture the dove." 
 
 "No, now, that is unjust. I never said one 
 unkind word or denied you one clearly ex- 
 pressed wish." 
 
 '' Except the one wish of all, to make me an 
 honest woman. That wish was expressed as 
 clearly as your promises were, sir." 
 
 Mumford fidgeted in his chair ; this was not 
 like succeeding at all. 
 
 "Ah, Mrs. Scaife — Eliza comes most natural 
 to me " 
 
 " We will have no Elizas, I tell you. One 
 Eliza more and out of this house you go. Is 
 the man growing weak?" 
 
 "Not weak, only very regretful. If you only 
 knew, Mrs. Scaife_, what my punishment has 
 been, you wouldn't upbraid me thus. The 
 world darkened when I blindly gave you up, 
 and no one took your place that could charm 
 or guide me as you could." 
 
 There was untruth to a solemn vow at an 
 altar rail in this, some untruth and some truth
 
 DIPLOMATIC AND OTHERWISE. Ill 
 
 to fact, but she softened in manner, though not 
 in tongue as yet, choosing the sugared side of 
 things, as we are all apt to do. 
 
 " And richly you deserved that and worse." 
 
 " And I have got it, Eliza, and all else I de- 
 served." 
 
 Strange there was no ordering him out of 
 the house now. She was simply silent, gazing 
 with eyes out of which the stoneiness had 
 somehow dropped. 
 
 " Yes_, long lonely years, hard life in a dis- 
 tant rough colony make a purgatory that ought 
 to burn away many sins by their keen, torturing 
 fires. I have suffered and thought, Eliza, and 
 thinking have only suffered the more, when 1 
 remembered the two years that made life a 
 fairy land." 
 
 " Then why did you not make all your life 
 that, Dacre ? as you might have done ? You 
 confessed your happiness often enough, and 
 you deceived me, if you did not deceive your- 
 self." 
 
 " I deceived myself. Nay, I confess, not even 
 that. I allowed family pride, family importu- 
 nity, the hopes of succeeding to the little
 
 112 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 family estate, all to sway me, and the result 
 you have taunted me with." 
 
 " Yes, and I'll ever taunt you with it. It 
 was base, Dacre, base beyond all expression. 
 I gave you a beautiful girl's whole heart, — for 
 beautiful you know I was — and, if you didn't 
 know you had my very soul in your keeping, 
 you were duller than John Dacre Mumford ever 
 showed himself where there was any possession 
 to acquire, or gain to get ; and what did you 
 give me, I should like to know'^ The honeyed 
 droppings of poisoned lips, lies, and desertion 
 to crown them all at tlie bidding of another. 
 And think what I am now become merely to live." 
 
 The hard, hot eyes dimmed with scalding, 
 angry tears as she uttered this last thought. She 
 would have gone barefoot through the world 
 with this man, begging her bread and enduring 
 all stress and hap, so that he had never with- 
 drawn from her a man's truth and a man's 
 trust. And she had been struck where the 
 blow was sure to be most felt. 
 
 " And I also have suffered, Eliza. I say now 
 that I did wrong. I say I ought to have 
 braved my aunt's w^rath. I say she would have
 
 DIPLO^IATIC AND OTHERWISE. 113 
 
 respected the man who defied her and was true 
 to his own character, more than the one who 
 was false to it by yielding. I know that now, 
 I say that, during these last twenty years since 
 we met, I have had no pleasure in thinking of 
 my conduct. I had none in the three years 
 before ray aunt's death, during which she treat- 
 ed me as her acknowledged heir. I had none 
 after, as you have reminded me. You have 
 had a larger revenge than most women get, 
 especially when I tell you that I gave you near- 
 ly every penny that I had. What would you 
 have more now, Ehza?" 
 
 The woman seemed not unmoved by his 
 pleading ; old memories, buried but not dead, 
 were rising above ground. Still she would 
 speak no word of forgiveness, nor would her 
 woman's pride give any sign of renewed inter- 
 est in him or his. 
 
 " You might, Eliza, let twenty years cover 
 the vexations which they have buried." 
 
 No, they have never been buried, still — still 
 above ground, walking ghosts asking for re- 
 venge. No, her wrongs were not forgotten 
 things, and never could be. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 "It cannot be helped now, but there can be 
 compensation in some way or other." 
 
 " What compensation could ever be made by 
 anyone? And what would ever be offered by 
 one like yourself?" 
 
 Compensation ! the word seemed to irritate 
 her as concussion vexes dynamite, and the ful- 
 minates in general. 
 
 He tried to persuade her that he would en- 
 deavour to find a way to compensate the past. 
 She listened in silence, and he thought that he 
 was loosening the roots of her antipathies. 
 But he was scarcely right. She was rather 
 stranded by the fierce self-suppression and the 
 wrath that had found no relief in adequate 
 words ; or, fatigued with holding in unreinable 
 passions, was growing angry with herself, and 
 still angrier that she had not been more fiercely 
 angry all through. 
 
 '' I don't want the will, Eliza, and I may have 
 more and more the power of being useful to you." 
 
 His past conduct was a very poor pledge of 
 it, she said. The woman was beginning to 
 loathe herself because she had not launched a 
 stormier passion at his head, but he saw it not.
 
 DIPLOJklATIO AND OTHERWISE. 115 
 
 " Well," he said^ a surly look of being banlk- 
 -ed flitting across his wrinkling eyebrows, "I 
 was hard pressed ; mother, sisters, brother, 
 aunt, all importuning and threatening." 
 
 "A true man never for such childish reasons 
 deserts the woman he pretends to love." 
 
 ^^ Pretends!" 
 
 ^' Yes, lying, perjured wretch^ pretends ! It 
 was all pretence ; viler pretence than ever hell 
 or evil offered to gain its cursed end. Weeks, 
 months, years of pretence, till a little filthy ad- 
 vantage was offered, and then away went the 
 mask. You've had remorse, have you, scoun- 
 drel ? You've had your tortured hours, the 
 snakes of hell and heart-rack hissing in your 
 sordid mind, eh? May they never leave you I 
 May they be with you on your dying bed, spit- 
 ting out in poison the name of the place to 
 which you will go ! May blight, ruin, and de- 
 struction crown every self-seeking plot your 
 accursed life is spent in weaving, and may a 
 coward traitor's death be its only epitaph !" 
 
 She had risen as the convulsing torrent came 
 from her bottomest hate, her eyeballs glaring, 
 her arm menacing, her whole being teUing that 
 
 i2
 
 116 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 she was swept away in her fury by the hoarded 
 angers of twenty years. 
 
 He had risen, too, astounded, almost stupefied 
 with this outburst of passion. He had calcu- 
 lated on much of it having died away in her 
 heart as it had in his own memory, never 
 dreaming that there are natures to whom time 
 only intensifies wrong and wrath until both are 
 avenged. 
 
 "Mrs. Scaife, you are mad. Whatever has 
 come over you ?" 
 
 ** Come over me, wretch ? Why, the wrongs 
 of my girlhood, the mockeries of my woman- 
 hood, the insults of my wifehood with that cruel 
 clown to whom you married me^ the crimes of 
 my widowhood, to which I've had to stoop to 
 keep three children from starving. All have 
 come over me. Your very presence has brought 
 them, for if I had never known you they would 
 never have known me." 
 
 " Then ril go." 
 
 " You shall not, sir," and, with her back to 
 the door, she confronted him_, looking a death- 
 less hate and defiance. 
 
 He seemed, bold and acute as he naturally
 
 DIPLOMATIC AND OTHERWISE. 117 
 
 was, to be too dazed to gather up the signs that 
 a subtle thought was entering her brain, now 
 that it was cleared of the thunder-cloud of its 
 wrath. Still he saw that he had made no open 
 progress towards that success which always 
 condoned with him so much. He saw this as 
 clearly as he failed to see that purpose, with its 
 protean adaptations, was taking shape in her 
 mind. 
 
 " You came for something. Sit down and 
 tell it." 
 
 He hesitated. No, he would not. 
 
 " You used to boast that nothing ever drove 
 Tou from your point," she said, with a sneer, 
 "and a few angry w^ords can do it from an 
 injured woman. Be true to that vaunt, if you 
 are false to every other !" 
 
 No, the angry woman must take her angry 
 words for her reward. He would go, for she 
 was neither reasonable nor just. 
 
 " You would have a wronged woman suffer 
 silently. That's your reasonable, John Dacre 
 Mumford; and your 'just' is to endure, without 
 a word, organized false " 
 
 "Now, by Jove ! you are madder than ever I
 
 118 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 I never organized anything. Others might, 
 but I held on, at the worst only half wavering,, 
 till just such a mad passion as this, mixed with 
 jealousy, accusation, and false charges, drove 
 me into the arms of those who hated you. 
 That outrageous fury twenty years ago on that 
 night when you looked beauty itself filled with 
 a score of fiends, that settled me, when months 
 of railing against you passed by like an idle 
 wind. Then I listened to my mother^s appeals 
 and my aunt's bribes, but not until you helped 
 them both, Eli — I mean Mrs. Scaife." 
 
 A flickering thought fell on her face, a baffled, 
 refuted look it was, before which the storm 
 weakened. She hid her face in her hand for a 
 moment, as if conscious that there was too 
 much to be seen therein. He had never 
 told her all this before, but she felt its truth. 
 Her face was very pale when she withdrew her 
 hand, and an angry tear was seen in each eye 
 as she struggled to compose herself She mo- 
 tioned him to sit down. He stood sturdily 
 silent. 
 
 " You know my nature. Be seated and tell 
 me what you want."
 
 DIPLOMATIC AND OTHERWISE. 119 
 
 " I want no more of this madness/' he an- 
 swered, bitterly; "and I would not have come 
 a hundred miles to talk to one so self-govern- 
 less, if I had thought that twenty years could 
 have teiught you so little." 
 
 " And you would have expected nothing 
 better if you had known the life to which you 
 condemned me, Dacre. Sit down, do. It may 
 be that we have something to forgive each 
 other." 
 
 In spite of all her opprobrious language, he 
 admired that fiery nature, which sent some- 
 thing of the old beauty over the haughty, de- 
 fiant face, and he was half disposed to accept 
 the half-offered advance. But he would not 
 show it, and remained standing with sullen brow. 
 
 '*What do you want?" 
 
 '' To bid you good evening." 
 
 " No ; you want me to do something for you." 
 
 "I did do, but you have showm me clearly 
 that I should put myself into the hands of an 
 enemy." 
 
 " No. The fury of many bitter thoughts 
 during long, soured years of trial is gone now. 
 You may tell me what you want."
 
 120 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " I did want to see you, and I've heard you 
 too. I wanted you to do something which 
 would have been an income for you, involving 
 small trouble, but I see I can't trust either your 
 prudence or your fidelity." 
 
 " You may trust both.^' 
 
 '^ Not to-night." 
 
 He essayed to go out_, but she kept her hand 
 on the door. He looked very stern, and she 
 began to feel that she had driven him beyond 
 the range of her power. There was only one 
 way now of leading him which she knew. She 
 grew gentle and half apologetic, but he looked 
 at her with a hard manner, only a glimmer once 
 or twice in his eye told of a passing softness 
 frozen on the instant within. She grew almost 
 coaxing, but he would not yield. 
 
 " If I am to say what I came to say, I must 
 know to whom I am saying it." 
 
 Such were his words as he went out. She 
 followed him only to learn Avhere his hotel might 
 be. His bearing was not repellent, rather that 
 of one hurt than angry. He could not permit 
 her, he said, for the sake of old times, to thread the 
 streets bonnetless after him. He must always
 
 DIPLOMATIC AND OTHERWISE. 121 
 
 treat her as a lady wherever he naet her, and 
 he therefore begged her to go home. If she 
 wanted his address it was at her service, but, 
 after what had occurred, he must beg her not 
 to use it. 
 
 She seemed more touched with this than might 
 have been expected. 
 
 " Would he not return with her?'^ 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Might she call at his hotel in the morning ?" 
 
 He preferred not. If she wished to see him 
 again, for the sake of days which he could never 
 forget, he would call in the morning. 
 
 *' Please come. Do, Dacre, do."
 
 122 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A BARGAIN. 
 
 rpHE storm was not renewed next day. Mrs. 
 -*- Scaife was calm, almost humble, certainly 
 deferential in her demeanour. Mr. Mumford 
 was not upbraiding. He wanted her, he said, 
 to take charge of some children whose father 
 he had known, and who had died out of 
 England; a faithful friend, who had always 
 served him well. 
 
 "One of your managers, Mr. Mumford?" 
 No, not quite that. The children were deli- 
 cate children, and, he feared, might not live. 
 The lady looked very long and scrutinisiugly 
 at him as he said this, but he went on unheeding. 
 '* They would most likely have to get their 
 own livings, poor little things, and must be 
 brought up accordingly ; but that was a matter
 
 A BARGAIN. 12 a 
 
 for future cousideration. There would, of 
 course, be board and lodging and some little 
 education, also her own trouble, to be paid for. 
 What did she think would recompense her?" 
 
 Mrs. Scaife looked serious, as if calculating 
 closely up all the petty details of expenditure ; 
 but in reality she was saying to herself. 
 " What is it he wants me to do ? I know he^U 
 pay well for it, if it is done to his mind."" At 
 length she named a figure. 
 
 Well, yes, it was quite reasonable ; indeed 
 he had rather expected that she would have 
 asked more. 
 
 Ah ! well, she knew that she could trust to 
 him to make up an^'thing that she had not 
 taken into account. 
 
 '' To be sure ; to be sure." 
 
 " When will they come?" Such a little im- 
 patient coaxing manner^ as if she must have 
 them at once. 
 
 He could not say. Perhaps in a month, or 
 it might be in a very few days. Anyway, he 
 would bring them himself, and he was now go- 
 ing to see about them, and if, she would prepare 
 to receive them at any moment, he should feel
 
 124 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 obliged. He hoped, after he had placed them 
 under her care_, to be able to send a portman- 
 teau or two of second-hand linen and garments, 
 which might be made up again as clothing for 
 them, &c. 
 
 The lady said it was all right, and the gentle- 
 man seemed glad that nothing this time had 
 gone wrong, and both effervesced into smiles of 
 gratification over the mutual transaction. They 
 Avere at the door shaking hands when the 
 gentleman seemed to be struck with an idea. 
 
 "By the way, Eliza, it occurs to me that we 
 might arrange this matter more to your satis- 
 faction and convenience in another w^ay." 
 
 He stood ponderhig, as if lost in thought. 
 
 '' Come in, Mr. Mumford, if there is anything 
 more you Avish to name.'" 
 
 He scarcely seemed to hear her^ he was 
 so deep in meditation. 
 
 " Come in." 
 
 He followed her in mechanically, and so sat 
 down, lost in the world of a new and brilliant 
 idea. 
 
 " It has just struck me — but, hang it, I'll say 
 nothing about it now. It isn't my way to
 
 A BARGAIN. 125 
 
 broach new ideas imtil I've turned em' round 
 and looked at every side. I'll think it over, 
 and tell you, Eliza, another time." 
 
 The lady grew pressing. 
 
 " Do tell me, Dacre ; I may be able to help 
 you ; and you know, clever as you are," she con- 
 tinued, with one of her little fascinating, coaxing, 
 pleading looks, " I've done that before to-day." 
 
 " Well, it has just struck me, but I haven't 
 had time enough to think it out, dash it. I think 
 I'd better let it stand over for the present." 
 
 " No, do tell me. Do, Dacre." What a sv/eet, 
 little, childish plaint the big able woman could 
 put into manner and voice ! 
 
 " Well," he said, apparently no longer able 
 to resist such appeals, " it strikes me, but — but 
 I scarcely can see it all round as yet. You 
 know you'll want your money every fortnight 
 or so ?" 
 
 She was afraid that she would, as the children 
 must prevent her attending as closely to her 
 business as she had done. 
 
 '' That's it. You must be paid very regularly 
 and punctually, and, on the other hand, as a 
 business man, I may be often out of England
 
 126 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 for a long time together; in India, Canada, at 
 the Cape, or where not? and there may be 
 delays in sending remittances. Posts miscarry, 
 steamers founder, agents embezzle, and so 
 forth. And it has struck me that it might be 
 better, perhaps, to pay you a year in advance 
 at a time, or a lump sum down once for all. I 
 prefer the former plan." 
 
 Strange to relate, the lady preferred the latter, 
 if it were commensurable with the necessities of 
 the case, and pressed it. 
 
 " And you think so ? Well, I haven't con- 
 sidered it fully, as I said. It does strike me 
 that it has this merit, that a business man never 
 knows how soon he'll be ruined ; and if he pays 
 down on the nail while he's got it, as I have 
 now, he^s done with it once for all. But, as I 
 said, I must consider the matter." 
 
 It looked as if Mrs. Scaife stood to win, and 
 she grew eager and pressing. 
 
 "Now the idea, Dacre, of your hesitating! 
 — you who are the very pink of promptness. 
 Can't you make up your mind now, and name 
 what you propose to give ?" 
 
 '^I propose to give nothing now, Eliza, be-
 
 A BARGAIN. 127 
 
 cause I can^t see a good basis to work upon. 
 The boy is about five, and at fifteen in this 
 district would be earning his own living in one 
 of your mills. The girl is about three or four, 
 and might be earning her living earlier or later 
 iis a mill-girl. And I can't see whether ten or 
 twelve years' purchase is the proper sum to 
 put down with their coming here." 
 
 She thought twelve years would be a very 
 fair and reasonable basis to go upon ; but if he 
 was not satisfied, why, say the word, and she 
 would accept ten, although it would be closer 
 dealing than his transactions with her had ever 
 been. 
 
 '' I'm glad to hear you say that, Eliza. I 
 always liked to be liberal with you. I'll think 
 it over, and, if the plan approves itself to my 
 judgment, twelve years be it. You think it 
 over, too, in the meantime, and then there will be 
 two heads working on the subject, and we may 
 get right at last about it. I must claim the 
 right of withdrawal if the scheme won't work. 
 On the other hand, it would be awkward if I 
 got up into the heart of the Transvaal or the 
 Andes, and the money sent got lost, or stuck to
 
 128 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 somebody's fiDgers, and you were compelled ta 
 send the poor little things to the workhouse. I 
 shouldn't like that, anyhow, and we must stave 
 off that possibility for both of ^^ou^ whatever 
 plan we adopt. A nice lump sum, which I am 
 able to pay down now, if it were well invested, 
 would bring in enough to be going on with, 
 and would always be at hand." 
 
 It was curious what a fascination the lump 
 sum had for this woman. 
 
 *'Tell rae, Dacre, how much it would come 
 to, for I'm poor at calculations ; and, now that 
 you have whetted a woman's curiosity, she can- 
 not wait. She wouldn't be a woman, you know, 
 if she could." Again the little fascinating, 
 coaxing manner. 
 
 "No, no ; let it stand over," &c., &c. 
 
 And so the pair played with each other like 
 little children. Would that infantine innocence 
 had been theirs likewise ! 
 
 " By the way, Eliza/' he said, as he shook 
 hands at the door, '' you will still carry on as 
 much of your business here as you can, and I 
 think that this locality is as good for the two 
 youngsters as any other."
 
 A BARGAIN. 129 
 
 " Oh ! certainly-, if you wish it, Dacre." 
 
 There was less of heartiness in this than in 
 some other parts of their conversation. 
 
 ''Ah!" he said internally, as he quickly de- 
 livered himself from Angel Street, " the man 
 that is worth his salt will succeed. I've got 
 that woman body and soul again into my ser- 
 vice, and she'll do the needful work. Only let 
 a woman's spite exhale off her hot tongue, and 
 you may make a deal out of her afterwards." 
 
 " What is it that he wants out of me ?" re- 
 flected the lady. " A lump sum down ; no fur- 
 ther bother ; the children to take my name, or 
 some other than their own ; and to live in this 
 nasty street I heartily hate ? I've got it." 
 
 She ruminated long on what she had got, but 
 did not say what it was, as she sat with eyes 
 almost looking ossified in their fixed gaze into 
 vacancy. 
 
 Mr. Mumford's morning engagements were 
 not yet at an end. His destination was Corn 
 Street, which was as suggestive of golden har- 
 vests as the other one of cherubim and seraphim. 
 It was a narrow, dark, damp, little street, shut 
 in at one end by a great, noisy " works," where 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 fiery iron was beaten by ponderous steam- 
 hammers into shape, and where great bars of 
 metal seemed to be eternally a-clatter as they 
 were thrown from waggon to iloor, or swung 
 from floor to waggon. Its redeeming feature 
 for the residence of a gentleman of studious 
 mind was that there were not so many children, 
 whose faces were sticky with goody and dirt, to 
 fall over as in Angel Street. 
 
 Mr. John Smith was sojourning in Corn 
 Street at this time. 
 
 "I think I've booked her, and she doesn't see 
 it. Now for this fellow, who hasn't half her 
 brains, and wdiom I must work at will like a set 
 of marionettes." 
 
 Thus soliloquising internally, Mr. Mumford 
 knocked at the black, blistered old door. Mr. 
 Smith was within. 
 
 " YoQ got m}^ note from the 'Spread Eagle'?" 
 
 " Yes_, and he hoped Mr. Mumford was satis- 
 lied with his conduct. He could assure him 
 that he had had great difficulty, and days and 
 nights had been given to the task of finding 
 her. He was quite footsore with the everlast- 
 ing street-trotting and tramping, kenfound it."
 
 A BARGAIN. 131 
 
 " Finding her? Wlaj, Smith, she found you !" 
 
 ]\Ir. Smith looked terribly taken aback. 
 
 •' Oh ! no. I found her in her own house.'' 
 
 " Nonsense, man. A chiki found you half- 
 screwed in the streets, and took you to her 
 home, and her mother, Mrs. Scaife, turned you 
 inside out and stole your secret. Tut, tut! A 
 precious style of training this for a private de- 
 tective and fashionable inquiry-office near to a 
 swell square in London, Avhen a little, ignorant 
 girl out of a back street can lead you to a 
 woman who can detect you I Faugh 1 Man- 
 aged the business well, indeed !"' 
 
 Mr. Smith looked small, and the noggin of 
 whisky which he had swallowed as Mr. Mum- 
 ford knocked at the door ceased to burn, out- 
 done by a greater internal fire. 
 
 "And the time you've been about this busi- 
 ness ! Why, it ought to have been done in three 
 days, and Fve already been waiting from home 
 twenty, to the serious concern of my family." 
 
 ^Ir. Smith was very sorry, but he could not 
 help it. *' If I had known " 
 
 " Well, it's no use crying over spilled milk. I 
 did think that I'd wash my hands of you, but, if 
 
 k2
 
 132 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 you'll proraise to keep off that muddling drink, 
 I don't mind giving you another chance and 
 paying you just as if you really had found this 
 woman who found yon." 
 
 Mr. Smith put on a little dignified air. He 
 said he could not admit that she found him. 
 He would go and see her and 
 
 " Mind you do nothing of the sort. She's- 
 more than a match for two of you." (Mr. Smith 
 groaned internally at the naked truth of this.) 
 
 '' Besides, she'll warm your ears for making- 
 false statements about her. Your letter^ I 
 think, stated that her business consists in re- 
 moving squalling children from rich to other 
 and more silent quarters, eh?" 
 
 Mr. Smith looked nervous. He could not 
 deny it, and did not like to admit it. 
 
 " I said I understood so, sir." 
 
 " Pretty much the same thing. Well, Smith, 
 she swears it's a lie, and, if ever she gets the 
 sight of you again, she'll not only comb your 
 face with her ten commandments, but she'll set 
 all the bullies of the neighbourhood at you." 
 
 Mr. Smith waxed uncomfortable. 
 
 "I'll be bound," said Mr. Mumford, medita-
 
 A BARGAIN. 133 
 
 tivel}', as if talking to himself, '' that you could 
 get a murder done hereabouts for a sovereign 
 and a skull cracked for ten shillings. No, no, De 
 Burgh, that is. Smith, keep off her vicinity. 
 You've tried to rob her, she says^ of discovery 
 and character, and she'll nobble you if you come 
 near, or ' law you ' for defamation, if you write 
 any more about her. Keep away, neither call- 
 ings writing, nor concerning yourself in any 
 manner about her affairs, otherwise you're done 
 for." 
 
 Mr. Smith had no inclination to know any 
 more of such a person than he was compelled, 
 and looked quite a superior person as he said 
 this. 
 
 "Right, Smith, right; there's sense in that. 
 She's an awful temper, and, if I were your 
 «nemy instead of your friend, I'd send you 
 down to her just now, and I'd bet, if she only 
 lifted her finger, that those corner boys, cracks- 
 men, and nobblers generally would give you a 
 ticket in no time for a coffin, or a month in the 
 infirmary at the very least. And, if she only 
 lifted her tongue instead of her finger, you 
 wouldn't forget even that minor punishment as
 
 134 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 long as 3'ou lived. I've found her ont, 1 caii 
 tell you." 
 
 Mr. Smith said, rather huffily, that he had 
 given his word he would not go near her, and 
 that was enough betwixt gentlemen. Somehow 
 Mr. Mumford felt that this was a hint that he 
 was going too far, and that Mr. Smith was not 
 a dog. 
 
 " Scarcely, Smith, scarcely. Don't annoy her 
 with letters, tale-telling, hints to the police, or 
 tips of an}^ kind to any other of your brother 
 detectives. I mean let her henceforth be dead 
 to you, for I can assure you that, if anybody 
 does her any injury of any kind, she'll debit you 
 with it; and, if one of those friends of hers in the 
 neighbourhood can discover where you are to 
 be found, he'll travel far to find you." 
 
 Mr. Smith thought it was very hard that he 
 should henceforth be responsible for every in- 
 jury that everybody might do to an evil-tem- 
 pered, vindictive woman who was de facto or 
 potentially a criminal. 
 
 "So 1 think, Smith, so I think; but you must 
 take people according to their natures. Yet if 
 you think that I have any other interest in this
 
 A BARGAIN. 135 
 
 matter than protecting yon^ pay her a visit 
 when you have done Avith me this morning. 
 Only you'll put me to the pain — it will be pain, 
 because I want to give you a start in life, which 
 your rich, distingnished relatives won't, you 
 know — to the pain of finding a fresh agent, for 
 I'm sure you'll not be equal to doing anything 
 for anybody for some weeks to come." 
 
 Mr. Smith looked as if he wished the inter- 
 view, Mr. Mumford, and Mrs. Scaife in particu- 
 lar, consigned to the things that were. 
 
 '• I have passed my word," he answered, 
 impatiently. '• Isn't that enough?" 
 
 "It is if you stick to it. Only, Smith, if 
 you're wise, get out of this without delay. 
 You've bungled this business sadly, but I've 
 got another chance for you. Only while 3'ou 
 are about it, stick to the cup that cheers and 
 not inebriates, as Shakespeare says, or Milton, I 
 forget which." 
 
 Mr. Smith hid away a very sickly little laugh, 
 the last faint wintry gleam of which caught Mr. 
 Mumford's eye and put an edge on his voice, 
 shiill as a band of bagpipes in full skirl. 
 
 "DonH sniggle, De Burgh, vel Smith, or
 
 136 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 what the cloose you're called when fairly reck- 
 oned up. I had some work for you, but, now I 
 look at you, I believe you've been tipplin|^ 
 already this morning." 
 
 The little man cowered before the big one, 
 and swore by the whole college of Olympians 
 that he was as sober as a judge, or even as Mr. 
 Mumford himself. 
 
 " Come, come, Smith ; I've not tasted this 
 morning, never do, in fact, and anybody with a 
 nose can tell you have." 
 
 Mr. Mumford stared sternly at Mr. Smith, 
 who fidgeted and looked too uneasy to be up 
 to high detective mark. 
 
 "Are you equal, Smith, to listening to me?" 
 
 Mr. Smith was. 
 
 " Well, then, there's a woman who'll be 
 liberated to-morrow morning at nine o'clock 
 from Newcastle jail. She's been doing her 
 six months for a theft, I hear. Her name is 
 Ann Gresley. Meet her at the prison doors 
 and arrange with her to travel across coun- 
 try to this address " — giving him a card — 
 " in order to help you quietly to regain two 
 children from a woman called Bostock who
 
 A BARGAIX. 137 
 
 has stolen them, rm interested in getting 
 these youngsters, a boy of five and a girl of 
 three or so^ restored to their friends, and this 
 woman Gresley knows them, having been once 
 servant in a house where they lived. Besides, 
 she'll work on the job con amore, because she 
 has a spite against Bostock. You must be very 
 spry about it. Endeavour to find the exact 
 house where they are living ; have a trap at 
 hand, and try to get clear off, unseen by any- 
 body, if possible. There'll be no end of bother 
 and delay if we go to law. We're sure to win^ 
 if we do, but a woman that takes a fancy to 
 €hildren like this one, sticks to them like an 
 octopus. So you see, Smith, this little plan, 
 if well carried out, will save us months and 
 years of litigation. Whereas, once in our hands, 
 we can easily prove our right, and, being in 
 possession, she^U not dare to impeach it. Her 
 crime in stealing them forbids that. When 
 you^ve got clear away, use the children ten- 
 derly — mind that — attending to all their little 
 wants. Give the woman the slip, and make 
 by Askrigg and Middleham for York to this 
 address, where you'll find me."
 
 138 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PURSUIT. 
 
 rnHE sweet breath of morn at Arkengarth is 
 -^ mingling incense of hyacinth and polyan- 
 thus from the little garden with that of milking 
 kine, and lark and laverock are making heaven 
 melodious with their matin hymns. A sweet, 
 dreamy hush seems on over-laden Nature, so 
 tliat Nanny, when she brings in her pails, 
 frothing white with their nectar, appears to 
 set them down in gentler wise than is her 
 wont. The clink of chain and gear is heard 
 outside as the husbandmen harness their horses 
 for the field, and the soft bleat of lambs in 
 the distance blending with the purling brook 
 alone give voice to the pastoral peace of morn- 
 ing. One might be looking on the childhood 
 of the world, so still is the scene in the hazy 
 bliss of this matin light; so few the moving
 
 PURSUIT. 139 
 
 evidences of man and his Avorks ; so absent the 
 dank of machine, or reek of spouting chimney 
 or belching furnace ; so utterly unknown the 
 hurry of commerce, and the headlong rush of 
 fretful men racing, fevered, to their graves. The 
 tranquil spell seems to be upon these homely 
 farm folks, who are so unaccustomed to the city's 
 fidgety existence. They move with a more 
 subdued mein, and Nanny, as she calls to Jack^ 
 Aveans out of her voice the loud laughing tones 
 which are wont to be there when she gives 
 him, with coquettish malice^ some order to har- 
 ness horse or tend the little milch herd in byre 
 or field. 
 
 The children are at their breakfast near 
 the window, through which and the outside 
 eglantine begin to struggle the morning rays 
 of a dreamy sun. What a gloss there is on 
 little Florrie's amber hair! How the rippling 
 tresses and curls shine as she tosses them about 
 while dipping spoon into smoking bread and milk, 
 and conveying the prey up to cherry lip and 
 little pearly gateway. There is a solemn earn- 
 estness about her as she looks seriously down 
 into the basin, selects carefully the next bit of
 
 140 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 sop, lifts it to her little mouth, and gives them 
 a sweety grave look from those sapphire orbs 
 while she sucks and swallows the juicy morsel^ 
 then digs with relish into the steaming pottage 
 again. The boj^ with ruddier face and darker 
 complexion, seems quite as happy as his little 
 sister, and throws merry glances at the attend- 
 ants from the grey-blue eyes, fringed with 
 long, girlish black lashes, which make you ask 
 what is it that is so unusual and witching 
 about those liquid globes. 
 
 Rebekah is standing over them, a happier 
 looking woman from tending these young peo- 
 ple than when we saw her in Whisselton Rec- 
 tory. She preserves her grave_, authoritative 
 manner, but you can see that every mouthful 
 the bright, healthy-looking children swallow 
 goes as nourishment to her own being. The 
 farmer's wife sits gazing at them with loving 
 glances of gratified pleasure, her hands folded 
 in her lap^ her eyes beaming with a smile as 
 they wander from Florrie's creamy face to the 
 boy's brown cheek and roguish eyes. Her 
 husband smokes his after-breakfast pipe, and 
 seems, with a mute pleasure and wonder, to
 
 PURSUIT. 141 
 
 follow bis wife's glances towards the children's 
 table, and, whiie the blue wreaths carl lazily 
 over his head, the cat rolls at his feet on its 
 back, its legs a-stretch and claws revealed, 
 playing witli his wife's worsted ball on the 
 clean, sanded floor, and throwing upward piis- 
 sified looks, as if protesting gently that it also 
 is an object of interest when impartial justice is 
 done. 
 
 The landscape outside, golden with sunny 
 haze, the near hills, with their ashen mist-caps 
 still a-wear, the solitary valley, with its hold- 
 ings few and far between, the fleecy sheep lying 
 on the slopes or browzing lazily at ease, the 
 ploughman whistling on his way to yesterday's 
 broken toil, the happy group within the old 
 farm house, warm at heart with pleasant an- 
 ticipation in their own simple way — all might 
 make a peace-pursuer say, " This is the anchor- 
 age for my unquiet bark ; here will I moor it,. 
 and set up the staff of my rest." 
 
 Anou these good folks begin to talk. 
 
 "I think, Mrs. Bostock, t'lile lass's raash is 
 gone." 
 
 " Yes. But it wasn't a rash, only a spot or two."'
 
 142 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " Ess, it gone," chimes in baby, with grave 
 importance^ through a mouth full of warm 
 bread and milk. 
 
 "An' wheer hes it goan, conny, lile woman?" 
 asks Pegg}^; coaxingly. 
 
 " Out of winder," replies baby. 
 
 The women laugh, and Mrs. Metcalfe de- 
 clares she " be-ats owt she iver seed." 
 
 They discuss the day's proceedings, and 
 Eebekab's journey to the nearest town to make 
 her purchases. 
 
 " Ye'll cowp (exchange) a lot o' chink 
 (money) away, I reckon, afore ye come back, 
 Mrs. Bostock.^' 
 
 Rebekah is a great capitalist in the eyes of 
 these homely folks. Twice Mr. Fossett had 
 been to see them during the last eighteen 
 months, before his visit last week, and he has 
 always left a nice sum with them ere he has 
 driven away. The little folks are wanting 
 lighter clothing and summer raiment, to make 
 them "^ menseful/' and Rebekah to-day starts 
 <.)n the important mission of purchasing ma- 
 terial. She has been their dressmaker, with 
 the help of the vihage sempstress. It has been
 
 PURSUIT. 143 
 
 a pleasant task to her, and she is calculating on 
 as ranch enjoyment in the forthcoming cuttings 
 and sewings of the next dozen days. The past 
 behind is a sweet dream in which old sores have 
 healed, and delightful pre-occupations have 
 filled up that benumbed void, felt ever since her 
 elected husband died twenty-five years ago, 
 just before she sought Mr. Fossett's service 
 to get away from painful sights and surround- 
 ings. The present, as we have shown, seemed 
 like tranquilHty transfixed, and no boding storm 
 lay on the outlook. 
 
 •' To-morrow shall be as this day, and much 
 more abundant/' might have been taken as a 
 fair forecast of many days to come. And yet 
 there is a little cloud. Rebekah cannot bear 
 to be away from these children for a single 
 moment, and she is anxious to know if the 
 horse is all rights so that they may soon get back. 
 
 " Xiver you fret, Mrs. Bostock ; Jack'll tak 
 t' spring cart, and bring ye back i' a rattling 
 yaat (gatCj style). He'll pey alang at all ivvers 
 (pitsh along at no end of a paGe)^ 
 
 Then " who'll take care of the children ?" is 
 the next question.
 
 144 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 "Nanny. Nanny's a decent lass, mawra 
 (demure) an' fendy," {painstaking, thoughtful), 
 and she herself will spare her from the churning 
 to look after them. 
 
 "Nanny, put that piggen (pail) doun, an' 
 tak' t' barns alang t' inbank (sloping icay). Gie 
 'em hawf a haver keh'k (oat-cake). I can trust 
 Nanny weel." 
 
 Nanny seems proud of her promotion, for it 
 is by no means an every-day thing to have the 
 charge of *"' Mees Florrie." Rebekah looks re- 
 assured as she mounts the cart, and gives a 
 last look at the little group filling up the door- 
 way, kissing hands, while Jack gives a buckish 
 flourish with his whip, and bears her away. 
 
 When Nanny had been absent with her charge 
 an hour and a half, Mrs. Metcalfe began to 
 come out every few moments and look expect- 
 ant down the inbank for their re-appearance. 
 At last she got impatient, and confided her 
 opinions to her lesser half, who had come in. 
 
 "If that mazeling, Frank, doesn't come di- 
 rectly, there'll be a bonny durdam when she 
 does." 
 
 Frank thought it curious that she had not
 
 PURSUIT. 145 
 
 come back ; but, being a patient man, and a 
 >vordless withal, said very little. 
 
 Another half horn- had passed, heated and 
 fretted with continual runnings to the garden 
 gate, and occasional shouts of " Nanny !" Then 
 she threw down her dairy implements, and set 
 off, agitated at first with anger, and soon with 
 alarm, to find the party. Nowhere could she see 
 them. They had evidently strayed far beyond 
 the limits which she had prescribed. Down the 
 slope she ran whither the lower meadows and 
 the highway met, but she failed to see them. 
 Her anger was a-move with being put to all this 
 trouble, but apprehension soon took its place 
 when she failed to find them in that one little 
 hollow which she could not overlook, and where 
 she fondly hoped they would be at play. Ap- 
 prehension froze into cold dismay when she 
 beheld Nanny being led homeward by a 
 jieighbour, and the children not in sight. A 
 wailing cry, prolonged and shrill, broke from 
 her lips, but her eagerness carried her quickly 
 onwards to where the couple were. 
 
 "Thou ill-heppened trapes, (Ill-favoured 
 trollops), wheer's them childer." 
 
 VOL. T. L
 
 146 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 But the sight of Nanny's face as she got 
 nearer silenced all censure. The poor girl was 
 being led like one who had received a death 
 stab, and was fainting away. 
 
 " What's all this ?" 
 
 " Connily_, connily, Misthress Metcalfe. I fund 
 her runniug an' shouting an' skirling i' th' road 
 like somebody clean daft," said the woman. 
 
 " Nanny, Nanny, wheer's them childer?" and 
 the frantic woman shook her in her urgency to 
 restore her to her senses. 
 
 The girl's head and white face wagged from 
 side to side in a wan, forlorn, weary way, but 
 she could not speak. There seemed to be 
 blood on her pallid lips, the ruddy cheeks had 
 become livid; the eye lost the last glimmer of 
 speculation, the head fell back, and she sank 
 down in a swoon on the grass. The woman 
 ran quickly to the little rill near, and filling her 
 two hands again and again with water, dashed 
 it in her face. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Metcalfe was perfectly helpless. 
 
 " Whativer shall we do ? What mun we 
 say to Bekah V she kept moaning, as she hung 
 over the unconscious girl. " Nanny, Nanny ! 
 t'childer ! Wheer's them barns ?"
 
 PURSUIT. 147 
 
 No response. 
 
 "What's te clone wi' era, lass? Nanny, 
 Nanny." 
 
 "Bide a bit, Misthress Metcalfe. She's 
 coming to." 
 
 The eyes opened and stared wildly about. 
 
 " Nanny, Nanny, lowp np, lass, and show ns 
 t' childer." 
 
 "Hawd a bit, Mrs. Metcalfe_, ye'll drive her 
 clean maddled," said the woman, deprecatingly. 
 
 But Nanny was gaining sense while her mis- 
 tress was losing it. Intelligence began to be 
 seen even in her wandering words. She looked 
 at them at last, mumbled something, and point- 
 ed up the road. They could not make it out. 
 
 "Mum — mum — mum," and still eye and fin- 
 ger were in the same direction. 
 
 ^' Chil-der — gig," she at last stammered. 
 
 The women looked at each other confused. 
 
 "Man an' woman." 
 
 "Ah ! I've getten 't," exclaimed the woman. 
 ^'Twea on 'em hev gipsied 'em. I saw that 
 man an' woman. They're up that way." 
 
 *^ Run, run," gasped Nanny. 
 
 Mrs. Lletcalfe set off like a deer-hound, but
 
 148 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 suddenly on her right the sound of wheels was 
 heard. It was Jack and Mrs. Bos took in the 
 spring cart. 
 
 " Bekah! Bekah ! they're stown, they're stown." 
 
 " Whatever's the matter V cried Mrs. Bos- 
 tock, in alarm. 
 
 " T'childer's stown. Beeath kidnapped fra' 
 Nanny." 
 
 Rebekah pressed her hand to her heart as 
 she heard this, but the mental power came at 
 once into office. Getting down with Jack's as- 
 sistance, she made her way stumblingly to the 
 girl who was now seated leaning back on the 
 kindly neighbour's arm. The girl could now tell 
 them how that when they got out of the fields 
 into the road a gentleman appeared, who talked 
 to the children, and asked her some questions ; 
 presently they came to where a lady was, and 
 she saw a gig a little ahead, the horse eating 
 the grass by the wayside. The children seem- 
 ed to know the lady, and played with her as she 
 sauntered up to the gig. Meanwhile he had 
 kept her in play with her back to the children, 
 asking the names of hills and farmhouses which 
 he pointed out in the opposite direction. When.
 
 PURSUIT. 149 
 
 she tiirued round, she saw the lady and the chil- 
 dren in the gig^ and the horse beginning to move 
 off. She instantly felt she had done wrong, 
 and ran towards them. The man seized her. 
 They struggled a moment, and then she was 
 thrown down the bank into the little beck ; when 
 she got out and into the road again, he was 
 just taking over the reins and starting off some 
 thirty yards ahead. She ran screaming after 
 them, but the man whipped the horse, a fleet 
 one, furiously, and she could not catch them ; 
 after that she remembered no more. 
 
 '^ They've been hanging about here for days/' 
 said the woman. 
 
 Mrs. Bostock had a man's decision. 
 
 " Now, Jack, if you're a man, drive for your 
 life." 
 
 Jack was a man, and drove as if his salva- 
 tion depended upon it. Whip and voice, hiss 
 and whistle, anything and everything to lift 
 the steed over the ground. 
 
 " Hamsam," as Jack called it, pell mell, in 
 reckless desperation, the nag was driven. Oc- 
 casionally on some distant rise of the road 
 Jack said he got a "gliff" of them, but they
 
 150 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 never gained on the thieves. Poor Lanty's 
 sides smoked and lathed with the toil, but all 
 in vain ! One cruel uncertainty was that no 
 one was met for long who could tell them if 
 the} had seen the fugitives. At last a labourer 
 told them that they were " hawf an hour ayed." 
 Another uncertainty was whether their horse 
 would keep on the trail much longer. Jack 
 had driven him sharply into town to show off 
 his points, and sharply out to indulge Mrs. 
 Bostock's impatience to get home again, and, 
 betwixt the two, most of his brilliancy and stay- 
 ing power had gone. More and more slow- 
 ing did poor Lanty become, and the smoking 
 coat, the creaming yeast churning up under 
 collar, strap, and back saddle, the groggy gait, 
 blowing nostril, and starting eyes distressed, 
 showed that Lanty would soon cease to totter 
 forward at all. 
 
 "A mile more, Jack, and we can get Farmer 
 Puke's horse, and he's a good 'un." 
 
 Jack encouraged his steed with voice and 
 whip, but all in vain ; the poor dumb creature^ 
 having done his all, came to a dead standstill, 
 and then dropped.
 
 PURSUIT. 151 
 
 "Run, Jack, and borrow their horse and gig, 
 and send somebody here." 
 
 Jack was fitter for the plough stilts thati 
 competitive foot racing, but he clattered along 
 with right good will. 
 
 The horse and gig had gone out. 
 
 "He might tak a pleugh boss if he liked," 
 said Mrs. Puke. 
 
 "Fetch him, an' I'll be efter 'em i' sex 
 needles."* 
 
 They brought out Piper, a fat kind of equine 
 hogshead set on four thick legs, and to his 
 saddleless back Jack at once climbed. But 
 Piper's pace was not according to Jack's 
 haste. The great heavy feet clanked over the 
 stony road, and Jack sawed at his mouth, and 
 kicked with his spurless heels, but it seemed as 
 if they almost stood still. Jack lifted from his 
 back at each great clumsy bound, until betwixt 
 him and Piper you might have taken a fine 
 sight of the landscape, but the scoring in miles 
 was small. All the sawings, kicks, and "gee 
 hups," and even profaner encouragements were 
 
 * A common phrase in the Dales, signifying an interval 
 during which a woman knitting would work the loops off 
 six needles.
 
 152 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 of no avail. There was puffy haste, great 
 labour, great noise_, tremendous clattering, and 
 no little shower of sparks from Piper's iron 
 hoofs, but small progress. Still Jack did not 
 lose heart. He got distant views of the cul- 
 prits. At last on a distant rise of the road, 
 clear against the sky line, he saw them from 
 the top of a long descent. 
 
 It aroused his whole soul, and, with a tremen- 
 dous digging into his flanks, he got Piper into 
 a thundering gallop adown the slant. His 
 great plunges lifted Jack nearly on to his neck 
 at ev^ery bound as the beast pumped and gruf- 
 fed and huffed with his efforts. 
 
 " Thenk goodness, he's gannin' at last. Ony 
 let me get t' t' new inn, twea miles moer, an' 
 then " 
 
 A tremendous flop. Piper has dug knee and 
 nose into the ground, and Jack has spun over 
 his head into a bath of mud, rushes, and green 
 slime at the side in the slack of the road. 
 Splashings and dashings in extrication. Gurgles, 
 grunts, and gutturals, as Jack cleans his mouth 
 of the mess; "By gums" of astonishment, as 
 he clears the slime from his eyes, and pulls the
 
 PURSUIT. 153 
 
 sedges out of his hair, gazing at them with 
 rueful looks. 
 
 '- Wh — -Nvh — wh — whoy, Piper. When I can 
 see thee weel eneugli, winuit I gie thee't, goby." 
 
 Piper struggles on to his broken knees, and 
 looks very shaky. 
 
 " Theer_, govisou, (blockhead) tak that," and 
 Jack flings maliciously at him the wisp of 
 rushes wherewith he has rubbed down his own 
 bemudded person. He sits down to get his 
 breath and collect his thoughts in this supreme 
 moment of defeat, w^atching the faltering horse 
 with great disgust, and then melts with a 
 touch of pity. Poor Piper hobbles aimlessly, 
 a,nd then makes for a runnel of water, and drinks. 
 Poor Jack! deserving to win, yet baffled thus. 
 It is hard. Himself here, Rebekah behind, and 
 the children, where ?
 
 154 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 STING THOUGHTS. 
 
 I T is Sunday morning in York. The grand 
 -*• chimes of the minster are making the 
 ■upper airs palpitate with the burden of their 
 joy, and from each of the twenty-four old 
 churches of the city comes the summons to 
 prayer and praise. There is Sabbath calm in the 
 very tremulousness of the peal-tormented atmo- 
 sphere, there is peace in the shufHing of those little 
 male and female regiments of quaintly attired 
 charity children as they wend to church ; there 
 is a peace in the clatter of heavy boot and spur, 
 and sabre rattling in its metal scabbard, as 
 these dragoons pass on to sermon or mass; 
 peace in the quickened pace of laggards when the 
 chimes die out, and the warning bell declares 
 that clergy are leaving their vestries to begin
 
 STING THOUGHTS. 155 
 
 sentence and exhortation. There is even peace 
 in that hurrying tread of belated maid or youth, 
 in that important father and reddening mother 
 hastening on their brood, in that prim, creaking, 
 old maid, lank and severe, in this one of fifty 
 dressed for twenty-five, as they struggle to pew 
 and seat ere the first sentences of worship shall 
 sound. And when impatient footfall and imperi- 
 ous bell have ceased, and flag and street know^ 
 neither figure nor footpat, the silence of lonely 
 ruins reigning around, there is appalling peace, 
 cloister peace that upbraids to the ear of that 
 tall man who walks up the great steps of the 
 ancient minster, and dare not go in. Why 
 should the grand frontage of the old cathedral, 
 frosted with the stilled voices of six hundred 
 years, rebuke him? Why should the distant 
 sounds of rising hymn against reiterating 
 chant hereabouts fall like reprimand on the 
 quailing ear? 
 
 So Sabbath-like seem the old walls, conse- 
 crated, overhung with embalmed prayer and 
 undersong of ancient saint and pious worth, 
 such mystic breathings appear to come out 
 from lofty arch and cunning tracery, quaint
 
 156 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 t 
 
 chiselled stone and awe commanding tower, 
 that other days seem to have tongues for souls 
 that need their voice. And there across the 
 causeway, nestling like St. Margaret's under 
 Westminster Abbey, deep is answering to deep 
 as Luther's hymn from worshippers, in little 
 St. Michael-le-belfry, replies to the grand im- 
 pressive choruses of the great cathedral. 
 
 This man seems like an army caught in a 
 defile betwixt the two ; like Lot's wife struck 
 on the plain with her eye and heart on the 
 Sodom she loves. So still here alone outside 
 while hundreds are making the air vibrant with 
 their uplifted praise, so lonely while there is such 
 voiceful communion of saints with each otherand 
 God, why does he not go in and pass an hour 
 in a way which he has not done for a score of 
 years ? It would kill questioning time, it 
 would titilate the fancy, work up the attention 
 from unwelcome things on which it is too prone 
 to feed, and altogether give a new sensation or 
 overlay an old one. Who can tell ''^. There 
 may come into the mind breathings of that 
 calm which, doubtless, some of these worship- 
 pers feel, that exalted tranquillity to which even
 
 STIXG THOUGHTS. 157 
 
 poor erring hnmauitj can attain, borne on the 
 wings of celestial hope over the tossing waves 
 of this troublesome world. He will go in, but 
 which shall he choose. Ah ! the humbler sanc- 
 tuary will be the better for him ; quieter, more 
 soothing ; and so he crosses towards St. Michael- 
 le-belfry. A single voice in earnest intonation. 
 He pushes the door aside, and sees a rapt 
 attention in most faces, none observing him 
 save a beadle, who is even himself sitting and 
 joining in the service, and, not wishing to 
 disturb or be disturbed, gives a silent glance 
 towards a vacant seat by way of pointing out 
 accommodation, then listens on. 
 
 " Oh, man, what doth the Lord require of thee 
 but to do justly and love mercy, and to walk 
 humbly with thy God." 
 
 The head is withdrawn. No, he cannot go 
 in there and sit with satisfaction. There is no 
 telHng what that reader may read, what that 
 preacher may preach. There is no knowing 
 what may come from hymn or psalm, with their 
 many sided references to an every-sided experi- 
 ence of man's as saint or sinner. No, they may 
 be the doomsters of his intent, and that will
 
 158 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 never do, for he must succeed. If he could only 
 be sure that he would not get annoyed, he would 
 like to go in. There might be eloquence lifting 
 a man out of himself ; play of passion that stirs 
 the care-fettered soul ; imagination that soars 
 aloft with one who is becalmed with dulness or 
 dazed into utter, aching void ; anecdote, analysis, 
 even some little commiseration by way of ac- 
 knowledging the weakness which taints the best 
 and that would be as salve to the mind. But 
 there is the risk of threat, denunciation, utter 
 hopeless condemnation. No, the experiment is 
 too risky for a man not overmuch at peace with 
 himself, and he had better go ; and soon his 
 feet are echoing on the stone as if he were 
 treading alone some Tadmor of the wilderness 
 which men had shunned. 
 
 He re-entered the deserted coffee-room of 
 the " York Tavern ;" fidgeted with nail cutting, 
 window gazing, carpet walking, but only to 
 feel self-vexation the more palpably. He would 
 try a strong remedy, for even he felt that the 
 sabbath arouia, or a rebukeful unsympathetic 
 something had got into the very tavern itself. 
 He would read the highly sensational novel, of
 
 STING THOUGHTS. 159 
 
 the scrofulous Gallic pattern^ which he had 
 bought for a weary or self-tormenting hour like 
 this. With a sense of sin, with a feeling that his 
 mother's shade was rebuking him from her grave, 
 but wilful still as ever, he adjusted the cushions 
 and laid back on the sofa to read. He urged 
 himself the first few pages, nay, he compelled 
 himself to wade through the brainless tissue of 
 dreary wickedness, not pleased, and certainly 
 not in the attainment of pre-occupation. But 
 out of the vapid inane story of sensuality, an 
 incident, a plot, a narrative rose like a cresting 
 serpent above a pitchy marsh, giving fire, 
 venom, horror to the monotonous slough. He 
 read with purpose now, eagerly on, seeking the 
 end. Did it run out smoothly at last, no hitch, 
 no misadventure, the end gained, the estate re- 
 tained in the clutcher's hands, and no Nemesis 
 at the goal? Ten pages more and then he 
 should know the result, ay, and the author's 
 opinion implied in the sequel ; for somehow he 
 cared about the unknown driveller's verdict on 
 the plot of the faithless trustee. 
 
 "When will you dine, sirf 
 
 Confound the fellow for interrupting. 
 " Usual time, of course.'^
 
 1 60 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 The race of incident, escape, danger, denoue- 
 ment gets exciting. Only two pages more 
 and he will know the upshot, and that opinion 
 which he now values more than ever. 
 
 The same interrupting voice. 
 
 Doose take the fellow. Engaged. Can't be 
 bothered. Nuisance. Why does the homma- 
 haun stand chattering at the door? 
 
 ''What is it, man, that you can't let one alone?" 
 
 " There is a person at the door, sir," the 
 waiter blandly replies, — they are accustomed to 
 county families at the York Tavern, — '^ who 
 says he must see you at once. A Mr. Smith 
 with two children, sir." 
 
 The gentleman gains his feet with a great 
 bound as if he has got a heavy electric 
 shock, and quite alarms the waiter, who is " not 
 used to that sort of thing." 
 
 "I will see him at once. Let me see, you 
 can let me have a private room V 
 
 " Yes'r." 
 
 Two little things of very tender years, bear- 
 ing a very tossed, crumpled, bunched up 
 appearance in their dress, tired, too, with their 
 long morning ride, are led into the private
 
 STING THOUGHTS. 161 
 
 room. They have great hunches of bread and 
 butter in their hands, a man's device for their 
 sustenance, rather than a woman's, as it ought 
 to have been, and they look up into the tall 
 man's face with a child's instincts hungering 
 for love. He notices them with an interest 
 which they feel is not for them, and the little 
 faces don fear, as they read his hard, keen eye, 
 and the younger begins to whimper, and at 
 last to wail aloud. The little boy hugs her to 
 his breast regardless of those present, whisper- 
 ing to her something which soothes. 
 
 The man's eye has a flutter in it for a mo- 
 ment^ and then he relieves himself with putting 
 on a cold, stern manner, as he addresses their 
 conductor. 
 
 " You are two days late, Mr. Smith, and 
 here have I been waiting with the furies sting- 
 ing me to be off to attend to important business 
 elsewhere, that has been neglected at great 
 loss on account of this trifling affair." 
 
 Mr. Smith apologises. They had so much 
 trouble. 
 
 " Never mind that now. How did you get 
 rid of that woman ?" 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " I gave her the money I bargained for, sent 
 her to get some finery for herself, and then 
 bolted, riding here." 
 
 " Do you think she will be able to trace you 
 soon?" 
 
 " No. I made several changes of conveyance 
 and route in order to perplex anyone follow- 
 ing us, and I think even 'a 'cute un' Tvill be 
 thrown off the scent." 
 
 " And you are sure that we have finally done 
 with her ? No hint of any place or person you 
 have seen in this inquiry." 
 
 No. Mr. Smith had maintained the secrecy 
 of the grave all through, and the discretion 
 which was hereafter to distinguish his celebrat- 
 ed private inquiry oflSce had been exhibited in 
 this particular quest. He would stake his re- 
 putation that she never crossed their path 
 again, always barring accidents, of course. 
 
 The children had given over eating. The 
 faces of these two men spake something to them 
 which none but the childish heart could hear, 
 and they both began to cry with a cruel look 
 of desolation on their fair young countenances. 
 
 Mr. Smith's hand had looked as if it was
 
 STING THOUGHTS. 163 
 
 preparing to cuff the boy's head. The lad 
 seemed to know it, and shrank from him. 
 
 '- Let him alone^ Smith. We'll ring and have 
 'em put to bed for a few hours.'' 
 
 The landlady herself came ; womanly curiosity 
 or_, far more likely, womanly tenderness for the 
 two poor little motherless waifs drawing her 
 thither with the strong instinct of the maternal 
 heart. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, madam, but I want 
 these two little folks put to bed and kept quiet. 
 They have had a long ride and have got over- 
 excited. Can you let them have all that they 
 want and allow no one to see them except 
 yourself until evening?" 
 
 " Oh, certainly, sir." 
 
 '^ Tum wid me to me own beddy, beddy, bed," 
 she said, plucking up the little girl, who nestled 
 her frightened little head at once on the great 
 matronly bosom ; " tum with me, my bonnie 
 ittle boy," taking his hand ; and out the trio 
 sailed with feelings which that brace of men 
 would have envied to the bottom of their souls 
 if they could have realised what they were. 
 ''Now, Smith, to business. Of course you 
 
 M 2
 
 164 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 will leave York by an early train to-day."" 
 
 Mr. Smith bad not tbougbt of it, bad rather 
 promised himself after all bis toils and dangers 
 some little indulgence, and looked as if be 
 rather demurred to this. His master observed it 
 with a kindling look of that ascendency Avhich 
 be considered be held over Smith. 
 
 *• Mark me, Smith. I'm not going to have 
 you here to lead to identification. The further 
 you get from this at once, the safer these young- 
 sters from recapture and you from quod as a 
 kidnapper of children. D'ye bear me, Smith V" 
 
 Mr. Smith did, and was not convinced. Some 
 other " move " was behind that, be said to him- 
 self. He promised, however, to be in the train 
 by two P.M. for the south. 
 
 "Kight, Smith, and I'll remember it in the 
 reward, but on one condition : you never peach 
 about these children, mind, and you never in- 
 quire about them again after to-day." 
 
 Mr. Smith cared nothing about the children. 
 His only object was to serve and please his 
 clients. 
 
 " Bravo, Smith, that's the correct professional 
 cut. You'll make your fortune yet in that
 
 STING THOUGHTS. 165 
 
 inquiry office line. I'll get other business for 
 you in time, if I hear nothing more of this^ you 
 know. Remember now, that my name never 
 escapes your lips, and you never indicate any- 
 thing about me in any way to anyone until I 
 wish it." 
 
 The gentleman was handling a pocket-book, 
 with a good deal of a peculiar kind of crisp 
 paper in it, as he spoke. Mr. Smith's mouth 
 watered at the sight of all that wealth, which 
 had a basilisk fascination for eye and heart, and 
 he readily gave the desired promise. 
 
 Judging from the air of satisfaction with 
 which he pocketed that sibilant crackling paper, 
 he considered his fee a liberal one. 
 
 "You are sure. Smith, you left no trail." 
 
 ''Sure as death, sir/' said Mr. Smith, solemnly, 
 and passed from his patron's presence, who 
 wore a gratified smile, as he nodded dismissal 
 and good-bye. 
 
 ^' I wonder what the doose did get those 
 letters," said Mr. Smith to himself at the rail- 
 way station, as he felt at every pocket in vain 
 and shook his head sagely in the wise way of 
 the semi-tipsy.
 
 166 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE BARGAIN COMPLETED. 
 
 TT was very early next morning, and the 
 -*- silent stars were watching the cab that 
 stopped at an abode where " bleeding luith 
 leeches " could be done. Very solemn was the 
 hour, very still ; and the old church opposite 
 re-echoed loudly to the cabman's knock at the 
 door, and the crowded dead around that sanc- 
 tuary might have seemed to hear and answer, 
 so clearly responded the sepulchral void to the 
 iron voice. It was but two o'clock as yet, and 
 all but rakes, roysterers, and cracksmen were in 
 profound oblivion, or wishing they were. A 
 light at last appeared at an upper lattice. A 
 figure huddled in flannels, a gown thrown over 
 all as a mantilla, the empty sleeves dangling
 
 THE BARGAIN COMPLETED. 167 
 
 in front like prolonged ears, noises from about 
 the uigbt-cap and tbe curl papers, feminine 
 objurgations in fact on all unseasonable visitors 
 while that figure waddled down the stairs. The 
 door was soon ajar, and a nose experimenting 
 on the outer airs. 
 
 "Bless my soul," the figure exclaims, "come 
 into the house ;" and, throwing open the front 
 door, leaves the light in the front parlour, 
 and flees into the upper gloom. Wheels are 
 heard to go away, steps to enter, the door to 
 close ere the lady has struck another light and 
 made herself presentable. But she is wonder- 
 fully quick, notwithstanding, and is soon in 
 decent fashion before her visitors. 
 
 "And those are they, Dacre?" 
 
 A little boy of five or six is awake and look- 
 ing at her, a little girl is laid peacefully sleep- 
 ing on the squab. 
 
 " Yes, they are now youv children, Eliza.'^ 
 
 " What is their name, Dacre ? 
 
 " Scaife — your own name." 
 
 Ah, that was what he meant. Then he 
 ought to pay for it handsomely, thinks the lady. 
 
 " Will you take anything, Dacre ? I can only
 
 168 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 offer you a bottle of stout and some bread and 
 cheese." 
 
 '' Yes, thank you ; that will suit me veiy 
 well. My train goes in two hours, and I shall 
 get nothing until nine o'clock. But first take 
 these little folks away." 
 
 She proceeds to do so, but hangs over the 
 sleeping girl longer than such a prosaic person 
 might have been expected to have done. 
 
 '* It is a beauty, and so like," she is saying to 
 herself, half aloud, as she takes it in her arms, 
 and leads the lad out to higher quarters. 
 
 *' I said to you, Eliza,'^ the gentleman re- 
 marks, as he finishes the last drop of his glass 
 of porter, '^ that I would consider whether I 
 should allow you something monthly for their 
 keep or give you a lump sum down. My own 
 inclination is to allow you something each 
 month or quarter — " the lady gives a great 
 start, and is going to speak, yet hesitates, — " but 
 it might have inconveniences for you. I might 
 be abroad_, or short of cash, or fifty other things 
 might cause irregularity. Hence I must take 
 the course I care least abont. Now, what will 
 satisfy you, EHza, to take these two children,
 
 THE BARGAIN COMPLETED. 169 
 
 bring them up as yonr own, and, in short, do 
 what you think proper with them ?" 
 
 A hard, keen, bargaining look comes over the 
 face of the woman, but she only answers in- 
 directly. 
 
 " Well," she says, slowly, " they will be a 
 great trouble, and 1 know you will like them 
 nicely brought up." 
 
 " Oh, of course, carefully brought up." 
 
 " They'll be one person's work nearly. Then 
 they'll want food, clothing, schooling, and the 
 little one some nursing for awhile. They'll be a 
 deal of bother to one at my time of life." 
 
 " Well, for the matter of that," says the gen- 
 tleman, as if the bargaining spirit was being 
 invoked in him, " they'll go well enough with 
 your own children." 
 
 '^ Oh, yes," she interposes quickly, divining 
 her danger in invoking that; she would have 
 called Mumford a Bismarck in bargaining, if that 
 genius had then come fully out ; " and it will 
 be a pleasure to do it for you, Dacre. Only I've 
 got a business, and I shall have to choose be- 
 twixt them." 
 
 " Tut, tut, Eliza, a woman of your brains will
 
 170 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 make them all go together. Tell me, what 
 shall we say down on the nail now ?" 
 
 That " now " is too much for Mrs. Scaife, and 
 her eyes and face express eagerness^ zeal in 
 spite of her diplomatic instincts, — a great mis- 
 take. Her woman's cunning, however, soon 
 comes to her aid. She replies in broken hints 
 and looks that she will leave it to himself. 
 
 He counts out a mass of notes and spreads 
 them before him. 
 
 "Will that do?" 
 
 Her eyes light into flash and lambent flame 
 as she realises the amount. 
 
 " I've got it now, Eliza. I may not have it 
 to-morrow, and I want you to have it. Mind 
 now, two things I bargain for. I must have no 
 bother with these children, and they must be 
 forthcoming w^henever I am passing through 
 Manchester. And you must promise me that 
 nothing but death shall part you and them." 
 
 The lady assents. 
 
 " Then take that pen and paper, and write 
 me a letter to ray dictation." 
 
 She stares. 
 
 *' It is only putting the bargain we have just
 
 THE BARGAIN COMPLETED. 171 
 
 made into black and white for the benefit of the 
 relatives of these two young folks, who may 
 want to see it, you know." 
 
 She takes the pen and prepares to write. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Mumford, 
 
 " I will gladly undertake the charge 
 of bringing up the two young children which 
 you have entrusted me with. I will treat them 
 as my own. I will allow no one to take them 
 from me except yourself, and will endeavour to 
 bring them up so carefully that they shall al- 
 ways, when you call to see them, be found clean, 
 well-clad, well-nourished, and healthy, as far as 
 I can provide for it, and in every way reared as 
 respectable children ought to be. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " Eliza Scaife." 
 
 He takes the letter, places it composedly in 
 his pocket-book where the money has lately 
 been, and pushes the little hillock of notes over 
 towards her. She takes them greedily, and yet, 
 withal, feeling that she has been over-reached. 
 In a little while he buttons his coat, saying 
 that he must go now, but he will send from
 
 172 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 London a portmanteau, perhaps two, contain- 
 ing some things which she will be able to make 
 np into useful clothing for the children. 
 
 " I wonder what he wants that letter for ? 
 As a checkmate for me/' she says to herself, as 
 he passes up the street in the early dawn. 
 "He's over-reached himself before now, and 
 may do it again, clever as he is."" But a glance 
 at the notes kindles an exultant feeling which 
 banishes every trace of doubt or twinge of 
 fear. Cupidity is king, and afc this moment he 
 wears his crown in Mrs. Scaife's kingdom with 
 jaunty satisfaction.
 
 173 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AT DEWSY MANOR. 
 
 ll'RS. MUMFORD had a trying season iii 
 Liverpool. Her husband had left her on 
 " business," a periphrasis that covered every- 
 thing and anything with him. At first it was 
 for four days, then for another week, and then 
 letter after letter named a future day for his re- 
 turn. But one pleasure relieved the tedium. 
 She met with her old friend and schoolfellow, 
 Mrs. Witton, went to her house, and got intro- 
 duced to her son Roger, a lad of some sixteen^ 
 and her daughters, girls mostly his juniors. 
 
 Mrs. Mumford had more than one trouble 
 with Biddy. That faithful henchwoman and nurse 
 had taken the two children out and forgotten to 
 return. When found she was still as faithful to 
 her trust as her elevated condition allowed in
 
 174 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 that bar-room among so many Irish stevedores 
 and shouting swaggering women. 
 
 " 'Deed, marm, it was only Tim O'Lanahan as 
 oi hadn't seen for twinty ye-ar. An' he says to 
 me, says he, 'Biddy, let's have a lashing o' 
 the crayther for the sake iv Ould Oireland.' 
 Me an' Tim, marm, was girls tegither at Bally- 
 mahony." 
 
 Again it happened, and Biddy was found 
 with her face very red and her bonnet very 
 much awry in a gin palace, hugging and kiss- 
 ing Beaty Asthore Machree, the little darlint, 
 and otherwise going into excessive endearment. 
 Hence, Mrs. Mumford was getting very restive 
 when a letter came in, telling her to go home 
 to Oxlea, near Laveuham, where he would soon 
 join her. That letter bore the York postmark. 
 
 What had he to do there ? He was not the 
 man to make a pilgrimage to cathedrals and old 
 shrines of religion. The Minster, the Lollards' 
 Tower, the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, or the 
 Roman remains had no charms for him. What 
 could he be after? Moreover, there was a 
 postscript to the letter which puzzled her and 
 set her feminine curiosity a-move.
 
 AT DEWSY MANOR. 175 
 
 " When you have time go and inspect Dewsy 
 Manor, near Diss. I'm thinking of taking it as 
 a residence in order to have a little gentleman 
 farming, for I must find something to do. I 
 have written to the present tenant asking him 
 to show you over the house and grounds." 
 
 Here was a fountain of vague expectations^ 
 of thoughts pleasant or otherwise^ but assur- 
 edly not indifferent. She gathered up her be- 
 longings, including Biddy, who would not 
 leave her even for the lashings galore of Liver- 
 pool, and flew like a wearied but hopeful bird 
 safely to the early nest. 
 
 The old welcome, the old house, the old 
 scenes, and the remnants of the old friends 
 made the home-going very grateful. The old 
 society was a real charm to her after so many 
 years of exile. But the honours at Oxlea fell 
 to the children. Two maiden aunts were there 
 who fondled them, and, it must be confessed, 
 petted and spoiled them to their heart's content 
 with kiss, cuddle, and cakes. Mrs. Mumford 
 felt that there was enough of this ; Biddy 
 thought that there was far too much, and, in 
 correcting moments, would shake them, declar-
 
 176 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 iog that " she'd rattle the silfishness oot iv 'em 
 whoil they was hyoung." 
 
 And Dewsy Manor ? Did she go and approve ? 
 She could not tell why, but she shrank from it. 
 It was an old Franklin's or Yeoman's house of 
 the better class. A brick building, purple-red, 
 roofed with thick, dark, plum-coloured, square 
 tiles, the long, rambling kitchens and scul- 
 leries and dairy running alongside the by-road, 
 and prolonged by a high, dead wall to an angle 
 where the gate was found. Ingress here was 
 obtained to a large, open spanse of garden and 
 shrubs, showing a house with a good frontage 
 and an imposing door, shadowed by a flat 
 entablature supported on stout, round stone 
 columns. 
 
 Inside the rooms were large and square, 
 though rather low. There was abundance of 
 accommodation within, and fine premises with- 
 out for farming purposes. There were poultry- 
 runs, dove-cote, home fields where noisy geese 
 might gabble o'er the pool, or turkeys stalk 
 majestic with their broods ; everything for the 
 children's use, everything for her own ; and yet 
 she did not care about Dewsy Manor. A good
 
 AT DEWSY MANOR. 177 
 
 home farm about it, a grand common close at 
 band, a picturesque feu leading down to the 
 sluggisb Waveney ; woods bere and there in- 
 closing old halls, undulations lifting old 
 churches into view, everything that might 
 make an old country house acceptable was 
 here. Why was she loath to love it as a home? 
 She could not tell, but she had her misgivings. 
 She felt sure she should never be happy therein. 
 Was it that the house was full of forbidding 
 ghosts that touched her mind unseen, or shot 
 spectral-wise their doubts into her soul ? She 
 could not say, she could not give her reasons,, 
 but to Dewsy Manor she did not take. Ah ! 
 yes, there was the reason now she reflected, 
 she said to herself, when coming outside she 
 looked at the alders and willows lying thick 
 on the near fringe of that coarse, tall grass^ 
 looked at those battalions of reeds, with the 
 water glinting on every hand in lurking pools, 
 tiny oblongs, circles, and serpentines, which 
 stretched for a quarter of a mile down to the 
 bed of the sleeping Waveney. Yes, she knew 
 now it was the fen ; and fen on the brain she 
 carried away. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 Fen meant fog, fog malaria, malaria typhoid, 
 typhoid danger, if not death, to her two dear 
 little chicks. The people said they suffered no 
 inconvenience, saw nothing particular, though 
 it made the place a little colder in the winter. 
 Not much, though, for their children took no 
 harm from it. But in summer— ah ! that was 
 the time — the mass of wild flowers was won- 
 derful to behold, and so on. Nevertheless, 
 she was still unpersuaded. It was the fen ; 
 she could not put up with that fen, and she 
 would tell Dacre, when he came home next 
 week, that she never, never, never could make 
 up her miud to live at Dewsy Manor. 
 
 In due course, Mr. Mumford appeared at 
 Oxlea. He was very close about his recent 
 travels. " Urgent private affairs " met every 
 inquiry. But if he was close on this matter, he 
 was open as the day on another, and that was 
 on Dewsy Manor. Why did she object? That 
 was what he wanted to know. 
 
 She couldn^t tell ; she had a feeling that no 
 good would come of it. Perhaps that fen 
 would be the death of the children, or give 
 them hoop, roop, or chronic bronchitis ; or, in
 
 AT DEWSY MANOR. 179 
 
 short, there was no telling what it might not do. 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! The people are 
 healthy, and their children as well, and ours 
 will be the same. The fact is, Nellie, we are 
 going. I've taken over the lease, and mean to 
 settle down to a little gentleman-farming, and 
 jou must find something to do, as my little 
 Nellie always can," he said, turning the matter 
 off playfully. 
 
 " Ah ! Dacre, you always do that when you are 
 most exacting, and want something out of us." 
 
 *' Tut, tut ! It's only a foolish fancy you've 
 taken against Dewsy Manor. It's a nice old 
 place ; fine land around it for me, all sorts of 
 knicknacks and contrivances indoors and out 
 for you, your poultry, milk, cheese, butter, 
 baking, brewing, housemaids, pantry, et cet- 
 era ; two grand commons not far away, a 
 fine old church with grand old tombs, and 
 rusting sword, gauntlet, and helmet over them ; 
 nice famihes around — the clergyman is sprung 
 from one of them, — a very pleasant squire near; 
 the village only a mile away, where you can 
 find poor enough for your patent medicines, 
 soups, and caudles all the year round. No, 
 
 n2
 
 180 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 no, Nellie, don't be unreasonable. Whatever 
 you may think of it, I am thankful. It is a 
 far better place than ever I had hoped to end 
 my days in. And, Nellie, my little witch," he 
 said, endearingly^ pulling her on his knee as 
 she stood by the side of the fireplace, and 
 thrusting into her hand a morocco case con- 
 taining a magnificent pair of gold bracelets 
 adorned with diamonds, " think of Mooranga, 
 with its barbarisms, and the chance, after years 
 of toil, of losing one^s all by some cattle 
 plague, or having one's brains knocked out by 
 bushrangers, or of all being turned into cinders, 
 children and all, by those infernal cowardly 
 tribes of savages sending their burning arrows 
 into our wooden buildings." 
 
 It was one of his rare moments when tender- 
 ness seemed uppermost, and he really wished 
 to win her good-will. 
 
 She drooped her eyes as he kissed her, caring 
 more for the kiss than the case of jewelled toys. 
 Hers was a heart that went athirst for a little 
 love. She did not rebuff his advances. These 
 moments of tenderness were few and far be- 
 tween, and, therefore, very precious to a heart
 
 AT DEWSY MANOR. 181 
 
 hankering for a something seldom obtained. 
 They were more than endurable^ they were 
 ■welcome, even although she felt something in 
 her heart of hearts left still in reserve and 
 never called out. He talked to her, as she sat 
 quiescent on his knee, in gentle mood, appeal- 
 ingly almost for one of such a combative nature, 
 and the unwonted voice and manner thawed 
 down the sharp edges of her resistance. She 
 could not dissipate her convictions, but she 
 could for the moment give them scanty hear- 
 ing, and his request to put aside her repugnance 
 and give the place and him a fair trial fell on 
 ears whose outworks were always won by a 
 few kindly words of his. So she answered his 
 kiss with one that seemed to herself to let go a 
 world of boding alarms, and the drooping eyes 
 rose and opened and looked him fully, frankly 
 in the face as she repeated the seal of love. 
 
 So to Dewsy Manor they went with a full 
 heart on Eleanor's part to make the best of 
 everything. And the best seemed to couie of 
 it. The dreaded fen was a flower-garden all 
 through the summer, where you might fill both 
 hands with rare cups and stars, of white and
 
 182 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 blue and pink, which grew nowhere else. It 
 looked like a sea of tall rushes, browning with 
 the months, relieved by bush and shrub. Au- 
 tumn came, but there were no particular incon- 
 veniences from fog or milky cloud, no special 
 hoast_, no rheum, no pulmonary complaint, no 
 febrile scourge. 
 
 There were neither in summer nor winter the 
 intolerable trials of their late Australian home, 
 and therefore, in the presence of such experi- 
 ences, many prejudices died away. On the 
 other hand, they had pleasant neighbours, 
 families of long standing in the land, tendering 
 a frank, genial welcome to the new-comers.. 
 Moreover, there were pleasant little errands to 
 village and cottage, meetings with the clergy 
 at their homes and her own; and altogether 
 these satisfactions, with the material one of a 
 good harvest and good luck with the dumb- 
 denizens of shippon, stall, and fields helped to 
 banish every misgiving which Mrs. Mumford 
 had once felt. And he had helped her ; a satis- 
 faction had sat on his countenance, a readiness 
 of resource in hand and brain had appeared 
 when settling down which had smoothed her
 
 AT DEWSY MANOR. 183 
 
 path. Though a lover of talk when it had a 
 purpose ii] it, one who would converse as 
 readily with beggar and labourer as with squire 
 and peer, he was not naturally a sociable man 
 in the sense of loving to be amongst a coterie 
 or crowd of his fellows merely for the sake of 
 meeting them ; yet he had been good to her. 
 He had gone with her — and she knew that it 
 was secretly " against the grain " — to every 
 gathering and party to which they had been 
 invited, and almost with the air of a man, even 
 to her, who liked it. He had seemed as if he 
 wanted her to have friends to visit and receive 
 in abundance. 
 
 The children were thriving splendidly. 
 Millie could mangle the mother tongue in 
 sweet, childish guise_, and Beaty could run 
 merrily about; and Biddy — that torment and 
 affectionate necessity, who seemed to grow in 
 clinging fondness for herself — was less trouble- 
 some, because the enemy was harder than ever 
 to meet. Relatives were not far away, and the 
 two maiden aunts were finding continual ex- 
 cuses for driving over for the day to dandle 
 their little nieces and gossip with sister Nellie.
 
 184 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 At last she was almost contented with her lot, 
 and beginning to look out on life as a possible 
 scene of heart's-ease and rest. Never in mar- 
 ried existence had she known a more tranquil 
 time than during the January and February 
 after the rompings and parties of Christmastide 
 were over. 
 
 A deep-set frost was on the land, a solemn 
 stillness brooded over the fields. Robin and 
 sparrow came catering after the oft-thrown 
 crumbs, and low of kine or crackle of ice under 
 foot sounded through the stilled airs with un- 
 accustomed clearness and solemnity. The maid, 
 as she went to milk or to draw at the well, 
 drooped in gait, as if in a more reverent pres- 
 ence; ploughman and shepherd looked more on 
 the ground, and seemed to tread more awe- 
 somely in that great, brooding calm. There 
 was even a hush in men and women's voices, 
 and the scold of the cottage appeared more 
 absorbed and quiet than was her wont ; no- 
 where did there seem a desecration of the 
 brooding silence lodged within the curtains of 
 that rimy air, save where the boys on the dis- 
 tant pond profaned the temple stillness in noisy
 
 AT DEWSY MANOR. 185 
 
 glee as they slid on treacherous foot or flew 
 on mazy skate. 
 
 It was a season when charity awoke in that 
 hushed repose to a deeper, profounder sensi- 
 bility, and the brain pondered unbidden on 
 expedients, and the hand and foot w^ent will- 
 ingly to work them out in relieving the woes 
 of tireless and foodless homes. And Mrs. Mum- 
 ford felt the solemnity in all the suppressed 
 sublimity of its stilled voices, and heard the 
 call from cot and hovel in all its plaintive 
 tones to " come over and help us." And she 
 w^as happy, very happy, in her own sweet, ab- 
 sorbed way, as she emerged to her astonish- 
 ment into the captaiucy over a band of ladies 
 who recognised the w^orth and resource of the 
 retiring little woman. Then the days grew busy, 
 and the nights became thoughtful, until the re- 
 lief had shaped itself into well-ordered avenues 
 of operation. The burdened time was closing 
 in deep-whispered heart satisfactions, the gentle 
 echoes of louder thanks outside, when she 
 stood again one evening by the blazing logs. 
 Again there was the same look of content with 
 her, almost of tenderness, certainly of admira-
 
 186 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 tioiij on the face of her husband, and values 
 of his managing little wifey's right good- 
 will. 
 
 He pulled her down upon his knee, pressed 
 her pale face to his great chest, praised her 
 with the quoted praises of other men and 
 women. She felt gratified^ almost at rest in 
 heart with him. They talked cordially, on her 
 side affectionately, and he looked at her with 
 eyes that seemed for a moment to dim over 
 their steely keenness with a tender dew. Then 
 there was silence, heart-fulness on her side, a 
 subdued sigh from deepest soul-recesses on his. 
 She raised her head quickly; her thought was to 
 speak, to inquire, to learn what was that moan 
 as of a regret coming from the deep Hades of 
 perturbed spirits. But that whisper, which 
 comes to woman like second sight and divina- 
 tion direct, said, *' Ask not ; put away the wish ; 
 turn the apparent theme." She did. She 
 rushed upon another subject to cover the con- 
 fusion of the moment. 
 
 " Dacre dearest, you remember what Mr. 
 Chapman said when he wished us to give an 
 eye to his children? What are you doing
 
 AT DEWSY MANOR. 187 
 
 about them ? Ought they not to be brought 
 up here with our own T 
 
 " No — oertainl}^ not. Let me never hear any 
 more, Nellie, on that subject." 
 
 It was said in his sharpest, most grating, and 
 most intolerant tones. 
 
 *' Well, love, but " 
 
 " Noj not another word. FU look to matters 
 of that kind." 
 
 He rose as he spoke, and she only avoided 
 sliding off his knee to the hearth by the 
 quickness which her terrors gave her. 
 
 She was still standing confused with the 
 suddenness of his revulsion when the door 
 closed, and she knew he was gone. When she 
 saw him again there was a different aspect on 
 his countenance, and he affected to treat it as a 
 trifle caused by a sudden spasm, to which he 
 said he had lately become subject; but she 
 observed that it was long before he gave her 
 again the slightest indication in his manner 
 that she might speak of anything which he 
 wished to keep to himself. 
 
 But whither did he go from that drawing- 
 room ? He went to a study which he called
 
 188 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 his factotum-room, where he wrote hordes of 
 letters, and reviewed his army of accounts, 
 and kept his safe. He stood for awhile 
 frowning with his back to the fire and the 
 lappets of his coat in his hands. Angry 
 thoughts^ upbraiding thoughts, were flickering 
 over his mind like shadow-clouds over fields of 
 corn. It was a bitter mood he was in, such as 
 gives energy to certain kinds of thought. 
 
 " Ah ! I've neglected that matter, and she 
 will see them, and be asking some awkward 
 questions." 
 
 He lit a candle and moved to a room oppo- 
 site, unlocked some drawers, and gazed at their 
 contents. 
 
 " Yes, better out of the house at once," he 
 murmured to himself, softly, as he turned his 
 eye on a couple of portmanteaus in a corner of 
 the chamber. 
 
 He went out of the room to the nursery, 
 where Biddy was sitting brooding before the 
 fire, and set her to the task of packing the 
 two trunks with the plenishment of the draw- 
 ers. Then he shut himself up in his study 
 again.
 
 AT DEWSY MANOR. 189 
 
 *' Wlioi,shure now, it's his own ; the stockio's, 
 an' shiiTuts, an' flannins the poor gintleman had 
 in these thrunks when he doid in Australy. He 
 made me feel in 'em till oi got the p'haypers he 
 put nnther his piller an^ doid wid there. 
 ' Biddy,' he said, giving me a goold sovereign, 
 ' they're for mee childer.' Then the fits came 
 on, and he niver knew anythin' more, but just 
 muttered and babbled about FJorrie an' Lu- 
 stbrauge, but oi couldn^t make all out. Shure 
 now, oi wunther what's got thim two spalpeens. 
 Missis isn't happy about 'em at all at all, an^ 
 wunthers and wunthers where masther's put 
 'em. An' if anybody should have their father's 
 old cloze, it's the little childer. Masther might 
 send 'em these two thrunks to warrum 'em, for 
 the time's cruel cowld. By the powers, oi'd 
 set the missis to ask, but he trates all her swate 
 love as if it were peelin's of praties. What a 
 noice shirrut ! an' thim stockin's is illigant," she 
 said, laying them tenderly in order in the 
 portmanteau. " Ah !" she exclaimed, suddenly 
 stopping as if a thought had struck her, " it 
 lays heavy on me sowl to keep them p'haypers, 
 if oi can git 'em to the little uns. Oi'U try the
 
 190 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 masther, an' see if oi can git it out iv him. 
 But it's the black looks he^ll give me for a 
 month o' Sundays." 
 
 She went to the door and knocked. 
 
 " Come in." 
 
 " Did yer honour say oi should pack up the 
 big men's stockin's for the childer too '{ They'd 
 fit me, an' " 
 
 '' You impudent huzzy ! when did I tell you 
 they were going to any children f 
 
 ^' Ochj shure now, sur-r, things is alius going 
 to childer ivery day out o' this house. Yes- 
 therday missis made me pack up some things. 
 * They'll be nice for the childer will Beaty's old 
 stockin's,' says she ; an' the day before she — " 
 
 " That was for the villagers. These are not 
 going to them, and I never told you that they 
 were for any children. They're going away, 
 all of them, and mind you pack everything up 
 in those drawers without fail." 
 
 " Shure now, oi ask yer honour's pardon, but 
 oi thought widin meself that you said " 
 
 " I'm afraidj Biddy, you've been having one 
 of your strong drams, and have muddled 
 matters."
 
 AT DEWSY MANOR. 191 
 
 " No_, yer honour, oi could take me oath- 
 
 " That'll do, Biddy. Get the packing done." 
 (" I'll not have a shred of those things in the 
 house to annoy me," said Mr. Mumtbrd, betwixt 
 his teeth.) 
 
 •' Oi'm shure them things is going to the 
 childer. Oi know masther when he's fratchin'. 
 Oi'll goo and git the parcel o' p'haypers." 
 
 From the recesses of her big trunk Biddy 
 drew a flat packet, sealed and tied with red 
 tape, and committing it to her capacious 
 pocket, which was equal to storing a good- 
 sized bottle, she descended and finished her 
 work. She then informed her master that all 
 was packed up. With a frown he gave her a 
 couple of keys, telling her to lock the port- 
 manteaus and return the keys at once to him. 
 
 She opened the lesser one, searched carefully 
 for the secret pocket, and then looked stealthily 
 round the room, for fear that even a ghost 
 might see her. 
 
 " If the missis, poor thing, could ha' done 
 it, it's herself that should ha' had these 
 p'haypers long agoo. But she'd have given 
 him them wid all the swate trust in the
 
 192 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 wor-rld, and the poor cbilder would niver ha' 
 got their own, at all at all. He was a noice 
 gintleman, and a most illigant corrnps, an' it's 
 a pity his childer wouldn't ha' the packet. 
 What's in't ?" she muttered, gazing intently at 
 it. " Oi niver durst open it, for fear the poor 
 gintleman should come back to me. Ah ! poor 
 sowl, ye'll be content even in Glory at what 
 oi'm doing now/' said Biddy, solemnly. 
 " Many's the faults of Biddy, but she's alius 
 thrue to her frinds." 
 
 She put in the packet, locked and strapped 
 up the trunks as tight as she could, and then 
 returned the keys to her master. The next 
 morning the portmanteaus were sent away.
 
 193 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DURANCE. 
 
 rpHE world might be going well with Mrs, 
 -*- Scaife. "Bleeding with leeches," a de- 
 partment of her business which she never cor- 
 dially liked, has disappeared from her window, 
 and a smarter bonnet and mantle have come 
 like a brighter vision over her portly person. 
 The neighbours have felt the change. 
 
 " Thah yorney, conna thah see," says Flash 
 Charley, the cock of the street, pushing his 
 hands deep into his pockets and ceasing from 
 that clog-dance which he has been performing 
 in wondrous shakes, trills, and stamps with those 
 marvellous clogs, brass-toed and brass-eyeletted 
 in front until they are pitted like pumice-stone 
 — " conna thah see, mon, hoo geets preouder an 
 preouder ivery day V 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " A¥eel, that's nohn s'yessy," replies his pal, 
 one of the cleverest thieves in Angel dom, 
 a gentleman with an extensive acquaintance 
 among " the force," and much local knowledge 
 of several large mansions kept up by public 
 subscription to supply board and lodging gratis 
 to their class ; " hoo allis wor preoud. Hoo's 
 getten eyne that leeak at a felly as if he wor 
 nowt but muck unther her shoon." 
 
 These gentlemen have felt the iron enter into 
 their souls as they have tendered the honour of 
 their acquaintance and been disdained by the 
 haughty fair. But Angel Street generally has 
 noticed the change, has discussed it warmly 
 over beer and whisky at the bar of the 
 " Packer's Arms," and has grown interested. 
 
 Ladies not given to following the latest 
 fashions so carefully as many of us love to 
 behold, and often seen in Angel Street with 
 black and blue and blake adornments about 
 eyes and nose which we deplore too much to 
 admire, have become fawning and officious in 
 their desire to brighten up a very dim acquaint- 
 ance. Gentlemen of the Charley type have 
 endeavoured, with sneaking condescension or
 
 DURANCE. 195 
 
 appealing impudence, to do the same ; have 
 spoken to her, knocked at her door about un- 
 necessary matters, saluted and given unappre- 
 ciated greetings, asked unnecessary questions, 
 shown an effusive affection for her and hers ; all 
 of which has been silently ignored in the old 
 style to their own puzzlement, but not much to 
 the increase of the olden dislike, for Mrs. Scaife 
 is far too prudent to give any grave offence in 
 such a locality. She merely wishes to abridge 
 famiharity, and cannot afford neighbouring, 
 even if she desires it, which she never did. 
 
 But Angel Street is impressed, for it is con- 
 vinced that she is '*in luck," and may yet take 
 small toll, notwithstanding all this stiffness of 
 madam's. At best it will be only in small vails, 
 judiciously given for sundry pints and quarts, 
 but the greater desire of closer intimacy will 
 remain unsatisfied. 
 
 Let us pass that portal so sternly denied to 
 the Charlies, Jemimas, and Sallys of this 
 celestial quarter. 
 
 It is morning. Mrs. Scaife's voice is heard 
 calling out, "EHza Ann, take 'em up their 
 porridge !" We pass upstairs with the girl, a 
 
 2
 
 196 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 little sister climbing laboriously after us. We 
 enter at the top of the house a great attic, 
 stufiy and close. There is still life in abund- 
 ance. A rickety four-legged table, with one 
 leg badly maimed, stands in the centre. Round 
 the sides of the room are some rush-bottomed 
 chairs burst through, the rushes shedding down- 
 wards, like bewildered straws, to the floor. 
 There is a fire-grate, dead with old ashes and 
 soot that soil it and the hearth drearily. In a 
 corner is a bed, tumbled and disordered, just as 
 it has been left. A three-legged stool lies on 
 its back with its legs appealing to the ceiling. 
 Little garments, little shoes lie here and there 
 on that floor of bare boards, stained with many 
 hues. The lean-to ceiling is blackened, the 
 walls are a dim, mousy colour. There is no 
 window save that skylight in the roof. A look 
 of neglect, a look of squalor reigns despotic 
 about the room. 
 
 But there is something else on which the eye 
 rivets. Two children are there, a little boy 
 and a younger girl. They are playing in lan- 
 guid style, and with wan, unchildish spirits. 
 They move silently, for they are shoeless. Two-
 
 DURANCE. 197 
 
 or three bits of wood amuse the boy, a few rags 
 and the headless stump of a doll, shedding out 
 its tattered internals, serve the girl for play- 
 things. The lad^s clothes have lost all their 
 smartness and neatness, albeit they are not yet 
 worn into holes ; but they are fluffy with bits of 
 cotton and thread, seedy w^ith neglect, dirty, 
 unbrushed. His jacket and trousers are stained 
 with gouts of grease and filth. His waistcoat 
 is off, showing a sombre shirt, buttonless at the 
 neck and wrists. His hands are dirty, his face 
 is sticky and blotched with yesterday's bread 
 and treacle. His beautiful, warm, brown hair, 
 erst so glossy, is matted, dusty, nay, rusty for 
 want of comb and care. His complexion is 
 tallowy ; his beautiful, blue-grey eyes, with the 
 long, girlish, black lashes, which gave them 
 such a witching look, are lurid rather than 
 bright, a leaden, glooming crescent gathering 
 below each orb. The girl is even worse. Her 
 pinafore is a mass of dirty spots, her stockings 
 are down, her dress is frayed at the bottom ; 
 her neck and breast are bare and dim for want 
 of washing. Where are the pearl and pink that 
 lately formed her complexion ? the dimples that
 
 198 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 were liquid in their motions on cheek and chin ? 
 the merry laugh that shook her chubby little 
 frame? the soft, velvet curves of her fine-cut, 
 oval face? the silver of her ai'ching brow? the 
 swanny hue that sat upon her lovely little 
 throat? And her hair! — that beautiful, curly 
 crown of saffron films — where is that won- 
 drous fell of silken strands which have lit up like 
 shining golden tissue in a morning sun ? Why 
 this dim sorrel of claggy^ matted tresses ? Are 
 these the two children, bright with health and 
 cleanliness, whom we saAV breakfasting in 
 Arkeugarth Farm full of infantine laughter 
 and glee ? They would not have had that 
 troubled hair, those dirty hands, those clarty 
 faces and seedy garments in a reformatory, or 
 even in one of those more imposing palaces of 
 guilt to which we still consign juveniles of 
 tender years for naughtiness as well as crime, 
 ere we import them into some remedial home, 
 which their wronged, neglected state demands 
 of right. 
 
 " How is the gold become dim ! how is the 
 most fine gold changed !" says head to heart, 
 as we notice with a XDang, a stab of sharp^ in-
 
 DURANCE. 199 
 
 dignant pain, these bright little creatures that 
 were frolicking so blithely around homestead 
 and meadow such a little while ago. 
 
 The girl has kicked open the door for us, in 
 order that Tve may see it all. She has put the 
 tray down on the rickety table with a bang — 
 that tray which groans under the wealth of 
 two small plates of porridge and a jug of milk 
 skimmed down to a rich sky-blue, — and, under 
 the thump and collision, the rocking table 
 threatens destruction to the provender. The 
 boy's hand stays the overturning jug. 
 
 " Thar !" snorts Eliza Ann, with all the native 
 scorn of a '•' superior person," and turns to go. 
 
 The children are starting ravenously to eat 
 the porridge, when the boy checks himself and 
 his sister. He puts his hands together, says a 
 few words reverently, and then they attack the 
 mess with avidity. All has disappeared, the 
 last drop of the well-skimmed has gone, and 
 yet the boy is testing if that stony-hearted jug 
 will yield another drop of milk, when the little 
 girl's hands go together as if she were saying 
 her prayers. " F' what-we-seed-amen^" all in 
 one breath. Then they amuse themselves in
 
 200 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 the same old manish, old womanish way, 
 without a smile, without a laugh, uay, even 
 without a childish quarrel, until there is a 
 little alleviation of their lot, if such there may 
 be to-day. When visitors are not expect- 
 ed, Mrs. Scaife allows them to come down 
 to play for a few hours in the back room, and 
 then she appears to have a little pleasure in 
 tidying up the girl, in whom she seems to ob- 
 serve some likeness to some one being who has 
 had an interest for her secret soul. Once or 
 twice a month she has bewildered them by tak- 
 ing them out into the crowded, jostling streets, 
 so unlike anything they have ever seen before, 
 and the little things have cried in their loneli- 
 ness at seeing so many cold, unsympathising 
 faces ; for they have been always used to look 
 at so few, and every one so warm with love, 
 light, and coaxing pleasure. 
 
 To-day she takes them out, for some reason 
 known to herself, and avoids the haunts of men. 
 Hailing an auxilium, the ancestor of the modern 
 'bus, she passes along Collyhurst, and gives 
 them a ride past fine houses and green fields. 
 Then they get out and walk where daisies and 
 bluebells grow. They pass through a little
 
 DURANCE. 201 
 
 wood and emerge into a beautiful dell where a 
 stream runs and turns the wheel that sets the 
 millstone to pulverise the corn. 
 
 They are in the well-known Boggart's Hole 
 Clough. What transmuting influence has come 
 over that boy ? The pasty complexion has dis- 
 appeared ; his cheeks are pink, his eye alight, 
 his countenance aglow, while rolicking, scream- 
 ing, and laughing as though intoxicated with 
 the ozone and ether of an enchanted air. The 
 girl is excited and rapidly changing, but her 
 little legs will not move apace with the boy's. 
 It is wild pleasure with both, a break in the 
 dreadful monotony of their young lives which 
 will shine out afar off as a spot of sunshine 
 coming through cloud-rift on a louring day. 
 The unwonted softness of manner and indul- 
 gence lasts until the children are on the verge 
 of fatigue, when she leads them back through 
 the Clough to find another conveyance, and 
 give them another ride home. What angel of 
 beauty has flitted from cheek and eye during 
 that ride? When they get out of the auxilium 
 at the top of Angel Street, the pasty looks have 
 usurped the glowing rose-tints, and the little 
 eyes are heavy and dull with weariness.
 
 202 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 She gives them a good tea in this same in- 
 dulgent mood, and, as the little folks revive, 
 wheels are heard at the door. It is the parcels- 
 van from the railway, bringing two trunks to 
 her and a great deal of speculation to Angel- 
 dom, which cannot understand why cabs and 
 vehicles should so often pass their own doors 
 and carry the *' luck " to hers. 
 
 " It is his handwriting," she says to herself, 
 as she examines the address, but she is self- 
 restrained enough to let the little folks have 
 their fill before she dismisses them to another 
 room. Then she takes out of her pocket the 
 tiny keys which came in a letter that morning 
 and indulges her woman's curiosity, fastening 
 first the door and overhauling them alone. 
 *' Humph ! there are trousers, and coats, and 
 vests enough to last the boy until manhood, 
 and linen enough for Eliza Ann and Florrie till 
 they want long clothes." 
 
 She is putting the things back with an air of 
 tired curiosity, when her hand strikes against 
 the side of the little portmanteau, and interest 
 arouses again. She feels something, and 
 searches for the secret entrance. A parcel of
 
 DURANCE. 203 
 
 documents is obtained, wrapped in stiff, crack- 
 ling paper. She opens it to see what they are 
 about. Paper ? No, there is a parchment also. 
 She reads the latter carefully, as well as the 
 other documents. There is a point of burning 
 light in each eye_, an almost hectic spot of ex- 
 citement on each cheek-bone, gathering while 
 she reads them through. 
 
 *• I've got him now," she mutters to herself, 
 in a deep tone of profound satisfaction^ while she 
 carries off the documents to some receptacle 
 where she knows they will be safe. 
 
 Her manner after this begins to soften to- 
 wards the two children, as if they have acquired 
 a new value for her, but most of all towards the 
 girl, who seems to rouse in her an instinctive 
 interest the more she looks at her now. What 
 reminiscence does that little face and one little 
 document she has found in that parcel, signed 
 with a clergyman's name, flash up in her mind? 
 Thereby hangs a tale, but henceforth the little 
 features and the lovely hair know no more of 
 the old neglect, and the children see less of that 
 attic and more of those fields than of late.
 
 204 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TRAVAIL. 
 
 ^' /\H ! Peggy, don't flite and stevin so. Let 
 ^' Nanny be. I'm clean maddled and 
 moidered." 
 
 The pained,, stunned face that has looked up 
 so white and wan drops again into the hands 
 of the bowed woman, and low groan follows 
 groan as the shoulders rise and the breast 
 heaves. 
 
 Peggy's weaker character has been able to 
 find relief in scolding Nanny, the servant^ for 
 losing the two children ; but Rebekah's anguish 
 is very different. She is utterly undone, this 
 woman of the iron will. They had brought her 
 home scarcely conscious when she saw that 
 they were hopelessly lost, and here she has sat, 
 almost motionless, almost in a semi-swoon, her
 
 TRAVAIL. 205 
 
 elbows on her knees, her weary, fainting head 
 on her open hands. For two hours, giving no 
 sign of life, in a dreadful, alarming daze, has 
 she sat thus ; while poor Peggy, as if it were a 
 propitiatory offering to the manes of the deeply- 
 stricken, has abused Nanny with all her heart, 
 stevining or shouting until the house has rung 
 again. At last this appeal. Then the soft- 
 nesses of femininity have made the quarrelling 
 pair turn solicitous to the bowed form. 
 
 " Coom, conny, coom. Dunnot gie way se-a. 
 Tak a sup o' tea." 
 
 A groan and a shake of the head. 
 
 "Bekah! Bekah ! t' barns'll be fund, ah'll 
 warrand that. Pluck up yer sperrits an' tak 
 summat. We'll all gan seeking 'em i' a bit. 
 Do, conny, tak this cup o'tea." 
 
 No answer, and servant and mistress stand 
 looking at her, while the great kitchen-clock 
 ticks loud and solemn as a knell. Then poor 
 Peggy's eyes fill at the sight, and she sinks 
 down into a chair and wails aloud. 
 
 At last the stunned, expressionless face — oh ! 
 so many years older-looking than at that happy 
 breakfast scene in the morning — lifts, and seems
 
 206 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 to intimate without words that it will take re- 
 freshment. The two peasant women, with the 
 beautiful insight of their sex, seem to apprehend 
 by a spiritual agency, and run to the tea and 
 administer it with tender, gentle alacrity, min- 
 gling therewith soothing, loving, comforting 
 words. The tea revives her a little, the kindly 
 caresses and endearing speech more, and she 
 mutely gives them thanks. Then Jack appears 
 to announce that he has got the best horse in 
 Arkengarth Dale promised for dawn to-morrow 
 morning, when they will start again in pursuit. 
 Why can't they start that instant ? No ; they 
 may not have the horse, and they cannot travel 
 if they might. 
 
 "Coom, conny woman, lig down a bit an' 
 get some sleep, an' then ye'll be as lish as iver, 
 Mrs. Bostock." 
 
 The strong intellect asserts itself, and she 
 yields. They put her to bed as if she were a 
 child, and she drops asleep in tlie very weari- 
 ness of grief and prolonged exertion. She 
 awakes before dawn, and rises at once. 
 
 " Shall I go to Mr. Fossett first f 
 
 No, that will run away with two days ; too
 
 TRAVAIL. 207 
 
 much time has ah-eacly been lost. She will 
 write now and see him afterwards. By the 
 candlelight on that May morning she pens her 
 sorrowful epistle, and at the first glimmerings 
 of dawn Jack is helping her into the taxed-cart. 
 Past Feetham, over Bolton Moors, by Redmires 
 to Leyburn, to Bedale ; and all in vain, though 
 the scent is warm and many tell them of see- 
 ing the fugitives. At last the trail is lost. 
 
 *' Northallerton Station?" suggests Jack. 
 
 A nod, and away they go. The porters have 
 not seen the party. 
 
 " They'd mak for York," says one of them. 
 
 Rebekah dismisses Jack, and takes the first 
 train. Up and down the York streets the poor 
 woman goes, some pitying her, others almost 
 smiling at her expectation of discovering a clue. 
 She enters a street near the minster, where 
 house approaches so near to opposite house 
 w^ith each storey, until at the top the neigh- 
 bours can almost reach across and shake hands. 
 She rests, refreshes, inquires. The landlady is 
 compassionate and thoughtful. 
 
 " Here^s a man can help you for a trifle, 
 ma'am."
 
 208 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 A little, ferretty-looking man he seems, with 
 a liking for the task. They begin with common 
 lodging-houses in various streets and courts. 
 All in vain. Next the beer-houses. Still in vain. 
 The better inns ; but they do not succeed there. 
 
 ''It's no use goin' to wheer t' quality puts 
 up ?" he asks, doubtfully. 
 
 "Yes, go even there.^^ 
 
 They turn to the " York Tavern." The reply 
 is, " The gentleman left last night with the two 
 children for the station." They discover at the 
 station that he took tickets for Leeds. At 
 Leeds poor, tired Rebekah loses all clue, and, 
 for the first time in her quest, sits down in 
 despair. Tears leave the stern eyes and run 
 down the hard-featured face. A pitying official 
 endeavours to obtain some information, and 
 comes back with the opinion that they will 
 have gone on to some of the great Lancashire 
 towns, and most probably Manchester. Thither 
 she proceeds, arriving in the grey morn. No 
 seeking of hers and her detective throws any 
 light upon the case. Once they seem near dis- 
 covery. A cabman is found who took them up 
 at the Victoria Station to convey them to that
 
 TRAVAIL. 209 
 
 at London Road, but midway the gentleman 
 alighted with the two children and paid him off, 
 saying that he would not go forward to-night. 
 No other cabman is found who will say he took 
 them up. She leaves for Liverpool, goes to 
 other great towns like Bolton, Blackburn, 
 Wigan, Preston ; seeks in the same methodical 
 mnaner, and with the like disappointing, heart- 
 sickening result. Everywhere she and her 
 agent are baffled. The police seem sometimes 
 as if they cannot understand her. 
 " Are the children yours?" 
 " No." 
 
 '' Do you know whose they are ?" 
 "No." 
 
 "Can you give us any idea of anyone who 
 can have an interest in stealing them ?" 
 "No." 
 
 And so some wise ones shake their heads and 
 seem to conclude that the woman is in a frenzy, 
 and has never lost any children at all — the 
 hardest thing of all to bear. 
 
 After six weeks of weary hunting in town and 
 purlieu, she is quite knocked up, as well as 
 successless. She must go home to rest. She 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 writes to Mr. Fossett to meet her on the way 
 — nothing on earth will induce her to enter 
 Whisselton again except his illness. He does 
 so. 
 
 " There is one man," he says, " who wanted 
 to have these children in his own hands as 
 joint trustee, but 1 scarcely can think that he 
 would risk stealing them. Besides, I have got 
 a letter lately from him. It is a London letter, 
 and in it he proposes to make a certain allow- 
 ance — and a liberal one, too — for their main- 
 tenance. He also incloses the first quarter's 
 payment, and only stipulates that he may be 
 allowed to see them whenever he comes our 
 way. Here is his letter." 
 
 Mrs. Bostock feels so strong a curiosity to 
 see it that she holds her hand out for it as if by 
 instinct. He gives it her. Straight, strong 
 strokes, with curious little sharp angles in some 
 letters ; a hand that is not remarkable, but yet 
 easy to remember. She returns it with a 
 thoughtful face. 
 
 '' If it were not a business one, you should 
 keep it, Rebekah." 
 
 "1 shall know that hand, sir, among ten
 
 TRAVAIL. 211 
 
 thousand. The lines are as hard and cruel as 
 doom." 
 
 " You think so ? Anyway, I'll write to him 
 and ask him plain out if he knows anything 
 about this business." 
 
 " There's no address, sir." 
 
 " Upon my word, there is not ! What shall I 
 do?" 
 
 A suspicion that had assailed him from the 
 first, that things were not quite canny, deepens 
 with this little incident, and, after a thoughtful 
 pause, he says, 
 
 " Rebekah, go back to Arkengarth and get 
 up your strength for another search: We must 
 recover these children." 
 
 " I will, sir, or I'll die on the tramp after 
 them." 
 
 There is great welcome at Arkengarth, great 
 regret at her worn appearance, great promise 
 that she shall soon be as well as ever, and great 
 effort to cheer her in every homely way they 
 can. But the strength does not return quickly 
 where the heart is pining and longing, and 
 there is little to cheer in the letters of those 
 officers whom she has employed and desired to 
 
 p2
 
 212 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 forward her the result of their investigations. 
 And no reports seem so hopeless as those which 
 come in from Manchester. After such letters 
 the early grief in the early form returns. 
 Peggy, learning little by experience, then 
 again attacks Nanny for her carelessness, 
 stevius in the old style, with the old result : all 
 the " govisons," " slaitches/' " rummledusters," 
 " femmering slindges," " feckless ket/' and 
 " daft fwoak/' with other windy missiles which 
 she hurls at her hand-maiden's head, failing to 
 help Rebekah in her fit of depression. At such 
 moments of bad news Mrs. Bostock seems to 
 frenzy, walking up and down the kitchen talk- 
 ing to herself, while the Metcalfes look on quite 
 awed ; or going to the settle at the little win- 
 dow, to look out on the homely garden, and 
 gaze into vacancy. 
 
 " Poor creether ! she sees them barns playing 
 amang t' pansies an' primroses, an' then she 
 sees they're nut here." 
 
 Sometimes the distraught air passes away 
 with dissolving tears ; sometimes it intensifies. 
 They hear her at night pacing up and down in 
 her chamber. Once she has got up, gone down-
 
 TRAVAIL. 213 
 
 stairs, and wandered about the garden under 
 the great August moon, looking among the 
 hollyhocks and under the gooseberry-bushes 
 for something which she could not find, two 
 night-capped heads the while, with very round 
 eyes, at the window overlooking her. 
 
 " Poor, poor Bekah ! she's getting clean 
 maddled." 
 
 '' She's gine daft, clean daft," replies Frank. 
 
 To-day there will be relief. Rebekah is sip- 
 ping her tea with that look which you only see 
 on the face of an invalid recovering, and when 
 the terrible, grave-bearing illness has been 
 arrested. Cousin Peggy is in great spirits. 
 She hangs about her in endearing little offices, 
 with the light of hope in her eye, the touch of 
 subdued joy on her gentle hand, the hush of 
 a great happiness felt in the very breath which 
 seems first to pass warming over her thankful 
 heart. Rebekah wakes up to a kind of peace 
 as she reads in those homely faces and in those 
 solicitous looks a great, tender interest in her 
 and her unmerited wrongs. The eyes dim as 
 she puts the cup down, but they can talk to her 
 now, and, docile as a little child, she answers
 
 214 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 their wondering questions about the great 
 fatigue and the weary, luckless hunt she has 
 had after those two children that have woven 
 themselves around her very soul. They marvel 
 at the strange places, the tale of miles tra- 
 versed_, the devices tried and found successless 
 in their quest. They are all ears and eyes 
 when footsteps enter the dairy adjoining. 
 
 " It mun be about summat." 
 
 It is Jack's voice. 
 
 ''Niver mind, Nanny, gan an' gie it to Mrs. 
 Bostock. It'll happen dea her good." 
 
 "Lawksj Jack, what's t' use uv a bit o' 
 paper? It's nobbut a bit o' thee whay-say " 
 (jyrete^ice). 
 
 Jack insists upon her taking it in. 
 
 Rebekah clutches the scrap of letter greedily. 
 Her eyes seem to start nearly out of her head. 
 
 *' It is his handwriting ! Jack !'' — shouting 
 to him outside — " where did you get this ?" 
 
 Jack explains, and Nanny remembers that it 
 was there she had her struggle with Mr. John 
 Smith. 
 
 Rebekah learns that Jack saw this letter 
 lying in the bottom of the hedge, and, being
 
 TRAVAIL. 215 
 
 neither able to read nor write, had thought he 
 should like to know its contents, and therefore 
 had brought it home. It is only a piece of a 
 letter, giving nothing very definite, having been 
 torn across as if the receiver had used half of 
 it for lighting his pipe, but containing hints 
 that set Rebekah's curiosity aflame. 
 
 "I must take Jack with me to that place," 
 she says. 
 
 They seek carefully for some time, and ap- 
 parently in vain, until an earth-stained some- 
 thing is found which when opened turns out to 
 be two short notes difficult to decipher. 
 
 " I'm glad Mrs. Scaife, Angel Street, Manch 
 .... to be Eliza . . . ." 
 
 The other says, 
 
 *' Bring them . . . ' York Tav . . . '" 
 
 It is signed cautiously,, " Yours, J. D. M." 
 
 Her woman's wit leaps swiftly to where her 
 suspicions had pointed, and she knows the 
 name which that " M." initials. 
 
 As they gaze at her, she seems to grow erect 
 before their eyes, and the weary looks of weak- 
 ness and faintness are passing away before a 
 shaping resolution. She will wait until Mr.
 
 216 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 Fossett either writes or comes to see her, she 
 tells them, and then she must be off. She seems 
 to recover strength now rapidly during the few 
 days she is awaiting his reply. At length a 
 letter comes containing money, and bidding her 
 be wary, and get assistance, if she can, of the 
 right sort in order to succeed. 
 
 " I am but poorly, scarcely equal to a little 
 bottom-fishing, or I would have preferred to 
 have seen you personally on this matter. Be 
 cautious, and send me word where you have 
 gone after recovering them. It will not be well 
 to return to Arkengarth Farm. When you 
 have got settled with them again, I hope to 
 come and tell you who they are and what I 
 know about them." 
 
 Rebekah felt the force of this advice. On the 
 third evening after^ there might have been seen 
 a tall woman in a great cloak asking in Angel 
 Street at dusk where Mrs. Scaife's house might 
 be found. 
 
 " Hoo lives theer," was the response of a 
 knowing little man, that immediately set to 
 work at the clog-dance again, while he kept an 
 eye on the woman's movements.
 
 TRAVAIL. 217 
 
 The inquirer passed the house slowly, and 
 disappeared down the street. 
 
 *' Aw wonder if hoo^s sent by some felly that 
 wants to goo in for a burst?" (Jioiisehreaking) 
 he muttered thoughtfully to himself. " It'll be 
 omost like doing a jug (robbing a bank) theer 
 neaic^^ he said, reflectively, as he ceased his jig. 
 "Hoo geets preawder an' preawder, finer an' 
 finer_, ivery day. Aw should like to crack her." 
 
 But the reflection that his style of cracking 
 was known amongst his own select society in 
 xlngeldom, and might be known to Mrs. Scaife, 
 somewhat damped the ardency of aspiration. 
 
 " Hoo's that wakken it'll be as hard to do a 
 screwing theer as to geet inta a Peter/' {a safe), 
 he maundered to himself. 
 
 Ultimately, like more distinguished philoso- 
 phers, he turned his disquieted thoughts from 
 the unfathomable problem to more mundane 
 matters. It was the voice of the charmer and 
 the eye feminine which next took him captive. 
 He obeyed the whispered "Follow me, but not 
 close," of a female passing up the street some 
 time after the woman with the cloak had gone 
 out at the other end ; followed her into a secret
 
 218 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 chamber, and, when the little conference was 
 over, the compact was completely arranged. 
 
 Next day Eliza Ann and the children were in 
 the fields by Collyhurst, and a stout, strong girl 
 was with her whom she had picked up as a 
 companion by the way. The two children were 
 playing merrily some distance ahead. A woman 
 was seen loitering behind, who came and en- 
 gaged their attention. A man, who had previ- 
 ously passed along in front screened by a hedge, 
 suddenly rose from the ground and coaxed the 
 boy towards him, but failed to induce the little 
 girl, who turned timid at the stranger's voice, 
 and refused to go to him for the goody. She 
 began to cry as her little brother trotted off 
 with the stranger whither the path broke in a 
 little descent to the stream that runs through 
 Medlock Vale. 
 
 As the man disappeared, the woman seemed 
 disconcerted. Suddenly she ran towards the 
 little girl, seized her, and began to make off 
 after the man. The two girls instinctively 
 seemed to understand the plot. The stronger 
 one ran swiftly after the woman, seized hold of 
 Florrie, and was struggling hard with her
 
 TRAVAIL. 219 
 
 when Eliza Ann's screams alarmed the kid- 
 napping female. She dropped the child and 
 ran quickly along the road by which the man 
 had disappeared. The stronger girl remained 
 guarding Florrie, while Eliza Ann seemed para- 
 lysed after she had run some distance, and 
 stopped to scream and cry. Houses were not 
 far off, and some of the women came to the 
 doors, looked over their little garden-hedges, 
 apparently unable to understand the case. One 
 or two came out towards her across the field, 
 and learnt the story of the kidnapping. Loud 
 was the din then, and wild the hunt along the 
 many paths which broke away from the main 
 one near the stream. But much time had been 
 lost, and it was long ere they met with one who 
 had seen the man and the boy together. And, 
 when they had traced him up to a definite 
 point, they learnt that he had disappeared in a 
 vehicle which came up mysteriously at the very 
 moment in which it was most wanted. As for 
 the woman, she was not seen by anyone, and it 
 was inferred^ when too late for a search, that 
 she had found a refuge in some house near 
 until the dusk had set in.
 
 220 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 That night, in a little house in a back street 
 in the very heart of the great city, a tall, stern- 
 looking woman was introduced to a select circle. 
 A boy was lying asleep on a mattress in a 
 corner. A knowing-looking man was talking 
 to another, seen at a glance to be a rough and 
 a dandy, and to a woman who had acquired the 
 gaol-bird's sinister, half-cowed looks. 
 
 "Nay, nay^ lad, a fin (bank-note) apiece is 
 good pay," he said to the murmuring rough. 
 
 " Dunno yo think, Ann, that we owt to ha' 
 another fin atwixt us for lifting this lad ? We'n 
 might ha' had a stretch to do for 't." 
 
 The lady loudly protested that fifteen pounds 
 — three fivers or fins — was not too much. Be- 
 sides, they had had expenses, cabs and hush- 
 money to pay. 
 
 The knowing gentleman smiled, and declared 
 that he always liked to do the " square " thing 
 by his friends ; but it was onl}^ a small matter, 
 and they had really failed in their mission. 
 
 '* Why didn't they nick (catch) the girl, that's 
 what he wants to know?" 
 
 Well, they would do, only they couldn't, &c., 
 and they grew excuseful and apologetic, look-
 
 TRAVAIL. 221 
 
 ing as ranch at their ease as people generally 
 do under snch circumstances. 
 
 "Quarter pay's my notion for half-work in 
 such cases as this." the knowing-looldng man 
 remarked, in a hard tone. They murmured 
 loudly. *' Well, Flashy, mind you serve me well 
 next time if I get you more for this." 
 
 Charley vociferated that he would. 
 
 "Hush! she's here." 
 
 The door opened. The head of a stranger 
 peered in, seeking something whose all- 
 absorbing importance shut out every other 
 consideration. The eye rested upon the bed, 
 and the whole woman seemed instinctively to 
 be drawn thither ; a tall woman, bending 
 sorrowfully over the pallet, murmuring to her- 
 self, unheeding aught else, " Sorely changed, 
 sorely changed !" but she kissed him fervently 
 at each word. 
 
 The lesser younger woman had started^ 
 astonished. Her hand seemed to rise of itself, 
 as if to strike, while her face filled with passion 
 and glaring wrath. She followed the unheed- 
 ing figure up to the couch, as if nothing but a 
 blow would relieve her feelings. The knowing-
 
 222 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 looking man stretched out his hand with a for- 
 bidding motion, and she slunk back. 
 
 " Sorely changed, sorely changed !" mur- 
 mured the woman to herself. " His little sister 
 will look as badj quite as bad." 
 
 There was silence in the room, and they 
 heard a great, gurgling inner sob as the strong 
 woman struggled with herself, and a solitary 
 tear trickled from those stern eyes and rolled 
 down the hard, furrowed cheeks. The lesser 
 female's passion seemed to be ebbing away 
 while she gazed at the tall, lank woman sup- 
 pressing her great heart-trouble. The latter at 
 length turned round, after another great kiss, 
 and gazed upon the two observant men and the 
 woman with her natural undaunted air. Her 
 eye hardened as it fell upon the latter, but 
 otherwise she stood calm, silent, and unmoved. 
 Why was there no suggestion of violence now 
 in her manner ? 
 
 The knowing-looking man was about to say 
 something with a kind of apologetic nod, when 
 the female anticipated him borne forward by 
 some sudden gust of feeling. 
 
 ''Mrs. Bostock, I'm glad you've getten him,
 
 TRAVAIL. 223 
 
 if it's only to spite that thief Smith, what stole 
 him." 
 
 A flash came into Mrs. Bostock^s eyes. 
 
 " Then you know something about that 
 wicked kidnapping?" 
 
 She acknowledged that she did. 
 
 " Who set him to do it ?" 
 
 "She couldn't tell. Smith never told her. 
 Ay, he was a bad un." 
 
 "And you helped the bad man?" 
 
 " Yes, she was vexed with herself now that 
 she did." 
 
 A spasm of hate flitted across her face that 
 testified to the truth of this. 
 
 " The fact is, ma'am, she believes Smith 
 robbed her of her share of the swag," said the 
 knowing-looking man. 
 
 Ann Gresley grew more angry. 
 
 " A nasty, oily, sneaking good-for-nowt ; 
 if ever we catch him, Charley, in Angel 
 Street, won't we land him some hot uns, a 
 vile " 
 
 Ann Gresley's face grew more furious and 
 fiendish, apparently at the thought of being 
 bilked so shamefully.
 
 224 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " Was that all the wrong, Gre«ley, that he 
 did you?" 
 
 Rebekah's question seemed to quicken every 
 sleeping serpent of the Eumenides in Ann's 
 mind, and foul oaths left her lips as two white 
 hot points gathered in Mrs. Bostock's scornful 
 eyes. 
 
 Yes, Ann, you are suffering the pangs of a 
 woman scorned rather than a person cheated ; 
 and that tall, stern member of your sex sees 
 deep down into your mind and the sea of gall 
 through which the serpents swim. 
 
 " This here talk's no ase," says the knowing- 
 looking man, " and I've another job on hand in 
 Broughton. You must come wi^ me, ma'am. 
 And Charley and you, Ann_, mind, mum's the 
 word. If yon follow us or give any bloke the 
 orfice, I'll — as sure as I'm alive." 
 
 "If you could afford another fiver to split 
 atween 'em" he whispered to Bebekah, " I 
 think I'd stand it, if I were you. It'll make 
 'em fly about this, and hot to nail the girl for 
 you." 
 
 She nodded a careless Yes, and the man 
 turned to them, saying,
 
 TRAVAIL. 225 
 
 " You see, the lady pays handsome." 
 "•Gresley, if I were you, I'd sue Smith for 
 breach," whispered Rebekah. 
 
 Ann seemed to shrink and shiver under the 
 tone and imputation, as Mrs. Bostock and the 
 knowing-looking man, carrying the sleeping 
 boy. passed cautiously out into the rainy, misty 
 night. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 226 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 
 
 IT is an autumnal day, with something in 
 the air which tells of change treading on 
 the golden heels of summer. Mr. Fossett 
 leaves the rectory in a slow, thoughtful way 
 with rod and net in hand and basket slung 
 from his shoulder. He makes sedately for the 
 old church, unlocking the little chancel postern, 
 and leaving his rod and other implements lean- 
 ing against the wall outside. His steps echo 
 very forlornly along the aisle flags. The old 
 quivers, suspended so grotesquely above the 
 pews, swing slightly in the breeze which comes 
 through the open door. Their very motion is as 
 solemn as the slowly-shaking head of one in 
 mournful mood. He wanders up and down, as 
 if to see that everything is clean and in order
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 227 
 
 for the next service — faded, dingy as all ap- 
 pears. He has always been an enemy to 
 " restoration." 
 
 " It takes the old life out of a church, sir, and 
 we cease to see it as our fathers saw and knew 
 it, when they came to service, marriage, or 
 funeral. The very uncouthness of the oak 
 settles and the inartistic inscriptions bring 
 thoughts and lessons to my heart of old custom 
 and homely worth which none of your spic and 
 span newnesses ever can. No, sir, I like to 
 worship, as my fathers did, with the dear old 
 surroundings." 
 
 He looks long into the old reading-desk and 
 pulpit, where he has so often gone during the 
 last forty-five years, looks at cushion and 
 hangings as if peering for specks of dust, then 
 turns slowly away and leans over the side of an 
 old, square pew near, resting his arms upon the 
 closed door. There is a pensive softness in his 
 eyes and on his lips and cheeks, as of one 
 luring gentle shadows out of the far and near 
 labyrinths of memory into view. 
 
 " Jim, that fell at the head of his company in 
 India, sat there. Oswald, my poor nephew, who 
 
 q2
 
 228 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 got drowned at Oxford, loved that corner. Be- 
 twixt them sat my sweet flower Alice, so like and 
 yet so unlike the golden-haired seraph that was 
 lately in my house. In that other corner sat 
 my gentle, faithful wife, who lies with Ally on 
 the other side of that window. Gone, all gone, 
 and the last and least worthy of them all has 
 lingered on twenty years alone, alone. May 
 we soon be one family again, mingling voices in 
 a better church, a better world." 
 
 He wanders down the aisles again, looks in 
 at the vestry, lingering at the doorway, reads 
 and re-reads the marble slab which records his 
 family losses, and that other one, the cenotaph 
 which brother-officers erected here in memoriam 
 of the worth and valour of him whose bones 
 mingle with the orient soil of a red, red field. 
 He sighs as he turns away wdth ver}- solemn 
 face and mien, wanders up and down the aisles 
 once again, lingers looking at the east window, 
 while the sounds of his steps echo and die 
 away, then goes to the little postern door. 
 There he stands some minutes in deep reverie 
 or in long, loving observation, then passes out, 
 closing the door, the reverberations of which
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 229 
 
 are heard inside like the plaining questions of 
 unquiet ghosts. 
 
 A few steps, and he is beside a tomb and a 
 family grave, his eye dimming, his lips quiver- 
 ing, a heavy breathing, stertorous in the flutter- 
 ing nostrils, a choking, unaccustomed something 
 filling his throat. With a shrinking lest any- 
 one may have seen him, with his heart still 
 clinging to the scene, he turns, and, slowly 
 gathering up his implements, wends his way 
 with bent head on this autumn morn. Has 
 anything unusual been occupying his thoughts, 
 solemnising his mind? Let us go into Mr. 
 Fossett's house, into his study. It is not the 
 ''den" of a great litterateur, or of a great, 
 scholarly man, laden with piles of forgotten 
 books, or priceless manuscripts, or unique edi- 
 tions of world-famed works. There are plenty'- 
 of books, once resplendent in gilded leather, 
 and now, like many a former beauty, toned 
 down into dimness and the twilight of their 
 former selves. That fine edition of Valpy's old 
 classics was a college prize fifty years ago. That 
 grand set of folios, old Saville's St. Chrysos- 
 tom, was bought and partially read in the curly
 
 230 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 days of his curating. And those different edi- 
 tions of the New Testament in Greek, and of 
 St. Augustine, Cjril, Origen, TertuUian, and 
 Theophylact, &c., were all bought lang syne, 
 when he had thoughts of his office, which the 
 new lights, with their shallow catchwords and 
 sanctimonious jargon, would have declared as 
 utterly disproved by that gun in the corner, 
 that fishing-rod which must be somewhere at 
 present by the sparkling waters, those bounding 
 pointers which are peradventure now frolicking 
 over the meads and returning to gaze, with 
 almost human love and w^omanly faithfulness, 
 into his face. 
 
 Yes, the fishing-rod is on its mission, and 
 that is why we can play the spy at our leisure 
 in the dear old man's sanctum. There is a 
 letter laid open on that blotted, dull green 
 baize writing-desk, and the ink is scarcely dry. . 
 
 '' Whisselton Kectory, Sept. 28, 1848. 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 "It is so long since you have 
 seen the writer of this, or heard of him, I be- 
 lieve, that you may have considerable difficulty
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 231 
 
 in recalling him to mind. Nor would I tyran- 
 nise over your attention so far as to recall my- 
 self to your recollection, were it not that there 
 are grave matters demanding consideration, 
 and which, I believe^ you ought at least to 
 know. I am an old man now; I cannot, in the 
 course of nature, expect to live long, and I 
 have had my premonitory warnings, telling me 
 to set my house in order. This, of course, is 
 not a matter to trouble you with, nor would 
 you have heard it if something had not occurred 
 which brings in your own family concerns. To 
 be brief, then, I must refer to your elder bro- 
 ther, and you must forgive me if I recall painful 
 experiences of your own in connection with him. 
 You know I loved him very much when he was 
 ray pupil preparing here for Oxford. His fine, 
 dashing manner, his open, manly countenance, 
 his free-handed generosity, his liberal senti- 
 ments, his great abilities, nay, even his proud, 
 wayward temper, had all a fascination for me, 
 and I loved him with the love of a father. I 
 was pleased to see him take out into the fields 
 my young boy when he went coursing, or fish- 
 ing, or seeking an otter. You know, alas ! too
 
 232 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 well bow he fell into temptation at Oxford, 
 neglected his reading, gambled, frequented the 
 turf, and became the victim of male and female 
 harpies, until his little fortune was almost en- 
 tirely gone. But you may not know that, when 
 he left England a dying man, as it has since 
 turned out, he sent me a letter, and with it two 
 children, begging me to take charge of them as 
 his. Gauging my fatherly heart, he said, by 
 his own, he knew that I would not refuse to 
 shelter them for a few months, inasmuch as all 
 my own children had passed away. I felt the 
 compHment. I felt also the responsibility; but I 
 must confess I felt also some little pique when 
 he furnished me with no information whatever as 
 to their mother. Were they born in wedlock? 
 Is their mother living or dead ? Why did he 
 not send them to his relatives — yourself or his 
 married sister ? 
 
 " These and many other questions at once 
 suggested themselves, and I must say that they 
 would not have entered my house as residents 
 had it not been that he sent them and his re- 
 quest, together with the intimation that he was 
 already on his travels, and that he confided
 
 T^O LETTERS AND T^YO TRUSTEES. 233 
 
 them entirely to my care, because he knew no 
 one else to whom he could entrust them, and 
 that I should suffer no loss. I could not shut 
 my door against them. 1 received them with 
 the letter their nurse brought — two interesting 
 creatures, the boy the very image of his father, 
 the girl the child of a beautiful woman, I doubt 
 not, if that woman w^ere anything like her off- 
 spring. I gave them a home, and they re- 
 mained with me for many months, endearing 
 themselves very much to my heart. After- 
 wards, for reasons which I can explain to you 
 when we meet — and I feel I ought to speak 
 with you before I die — I sent them into the 
 Yorkshire dales under the charge of a very old 
 servant, who had taken a wonderful liking to 
 them. While they were away, a person un- 
 known altogether to me, of the name of Mum- 
 ford, called and showed me a letter, in your 
 brother's handwriting, naming him as co- 
 guardian with myself. He said that your 
 brother died under his care out in Australia. He 
 was very mysterious about poor James's con- 
 cerns, although at the time he affected the 
 greatest candour. He pleaded ignorance of
 
 234 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 your brother's affairs, could not say whether on 
 realisation there would be anything for the 
 children or not, and seemed extremely solici- 
 tous to relieve me of the charge of them, wish- 
 ingj he said, to bear the burden of their main- 
 tenance and education out of his own purse as 
 a mark of affectionate regard towards your late 
 brothers memory. I must confess that I felt a 
 secret repugnance to this man; but as co- 
 guardian, and especially as he appeared to 
 waive handsomely his own wishes in deference 
 to my mine, I gave him their address. Some 
 little time after they were both kidnapped. There 
 may be no connection betwixt his desire to have 
 them and this crime, but I must confess to many 
 misgivings, especially as I have reason to sus- 
 pect that two scraps of notes, lost where the 
 man struggled with the nurse when he stole 
 them, bear initials that answer to his name. 
 
 *' The poor woman who had charge of them 
 sought everywhere in vain, and returned, after 
 ten weeks of hunting, to recruit her strength. 
 These two notes just found have sent her off 
 again on the search, and not altogether in vain. 
 But herein lies my reason for addressing you.
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 235 
 
 I may uot live to protect them, or even to 
 hear of the recovery of the girl, and I want 
 you to take my place as their guardian, for 
 they will need one. I cannot say who they 
 are. I only know your brother committed 
 them solemnly to me as his own. I cannot 
 assert that there is a penny left to them ; 
 indeed, I fear that there is not ; but, assum- 
 ing their legitimacy, I should like to pro- 
 vide for the girl, educate the boy, and make 
 him ray heir. I am in great perplexity about 
 the bearings of the whole case, and would 
 have waited upon you this week to consult 
 upon it, had I felt sufficiently strong. Will 
 you indulge an old man so far as to meet me 
 at Hexham at an early date, or come up here 
 and take a bed with us at the rectory? Do if 
 you can. 
 
 *' Yours faithfully, 
 
 *' Gilbert Fossett. 
 
 " To Syh'ester Chapman, Esq." 
 
 We fold the letter up thoughtfully, leaving it 
 just as we found it, ready for the sealing-wax 
 prior to the post. We observe another_, which
 
 236 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 has been lying there four hours since the letter- 
 carrier delivered it. It is in a very different 
 handwriting, less of the clean_, crisp,-; round 
 Greek characterisation of the educated cleric, 
 and more of the cramped style of one unused 
 to the pen. It has, besides, the marks of one 
 writing either in great haste or under agitated 
 feelings. 
 
 " Crabley, Sept. 26, 1848. 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 '' I have come to the quietest place 
 I could think of, and to an old fellow-servant's 
 house, which got married. I am sorry to say 
 that I could only recover one of the children, 
 but they say they'll try to get me the girl, and 
 keep her safe until they can hear from me ; but 
 I feel as I don't believe as they will. Poor 
 little Florrie ! my heart bleeds when I think of 
 her being among them roughians and that 
 dreadful woman. I want to talk to you, sir, 
 very much about the boy, which is recovering 
 some of his good looks. And, my duty to you, 
 sir, I should be obhged to you if you would tell 
 me who his friends are, as you said you would,
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 237 
 
 and as I've long wished to know. Not but 
 what I shall love him and jBnd for him, if nobody 
 claims him. But those as belong to them ought 
 to know how the childer is going on, yet I 
 scarcely feel as if I can give little Strange up. 
 I'd work my fingers to the bone, if it's all the 
 same to you, sir, to keep him, and I hope they 
 won't take him from me, when you tell me all 
 about his father and mother as is away foreign. 
 Besides, if they should die in them places^ and 
 my late travels has shown me what accidents 
 may happen_, I ought to be able to tell him all 
 about himself when he gets older. I am very 
 tired with travelling ; but I hope this will find 
 you well, as it leaves me at present — thank God 
 for it. So no more from 
 
 *' Your dutiful servant, 
 
 '' Bebekah Bostock. 
 
 " P.S. — Do come soon, for you know I cannot 
 come to Whisselton. Also his trousers is out^. 
 and his clothes was lost, and all my money is 
 done." 
 
 AVe sit down to ponder on these two letters,, 
 but a shrill voice interrupts.
 
 238 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " I say, master's very late, and there's old 
 Jinny to be buried, and Mrs. Smart to be 
 churched." 
 
 "He'll come, niver fear," returns a gruffish 
 voice,, ceasing that professional whiss-ss-ss-s-s 
 peculiar to the groom when rubbing down a 
 horse. 
 
 " I say," we hear in a while, after again perus- 
 ing the epistles. 
 
 "Well, well, what (whiss) is it noo?" (whiss.) 
 
 " They're coming down t' hill. Jinny's funeral 
 is. Go and find master at once." 
 
 " Oh ! dear me. All t' wimmin are alike 
 (whiss). They^re alius in a fuss (whiss. Whoi, 
 be still, Fanny.) Niver still a minit. I'll be 
 bund (whiss) t' mayster's i' t' church (whiss) 
 putting on his surplice, wi' his rod and net 
 leaning agin t' vestry doer cheek (whiss. Be 
 quiet, Fanny,"— so^io voce. "She's as skittish 
 as all t^ she tribe.") 
 
 " I doubt it," retorts the housekeeper, shaking 
 her head. 
 
 " But I dun not," replies the old man, leading 
 Fanny, afrisk with corn, into her box. 
 
 He comes out with an air of manly but
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 239 
 
 offended importance, thrusts his hands into his 
 pockets, and loiters vestrywards, in a philo- 
 sophic spirit, to prove his case. The funeral is 
 getting to the lych-gate on one side of the 
 church, when the groom approaches the vestry- 
 door on the other. No rod nor long-handled 
 net uprear against the wall. A locked door, a 
 silent room. 
 
 ^^By gum, this is aukerd," he is saying to 
 himself, when the sexton comes round to him. 
 
 "Hoo, noo?" 
 
 '*Nay, I knaw nowt about it. T' maister 
 must ha' fergitten." 
 
 "Nay, he niver fergits." 
 
 *' Happen someb'dy's takken badly i' t' road 
 here_, an' kept him." 
 
 '' Happen soo." 
 
 The bearers are standing reverently with their 
 burden by the lych-gate, wondering how it is 
 that the solemn voice, ''lam the resurrection 
 and the life," is not devoutly floating the 
 words from the coffin to the upper airs as it has 
 done since most of them were children. 
 
 Murmurs are heard. The men grow restive 
 under their burden^ and set down the bier
 
 240 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 gently under the little roof. There is whis- 
 pered comment, words that show a sense of 
 slight, and offended pride. 
 
 ''Nay, nay, Ailie," says an old man on a 
 crutch, a kind of labourer, "I've known Mr. 
 Fossett near fifty year, an' this niver happened 
 afore. There's summat wrang, lass, summat 
 wrang. He's nut t' man t' hurt poor fowk's 
 feelin'g. We munna be unjust. We Avere all 
 that a year er twea back." 
 
 Ailie subsides into silence. 
 
 They wait a quarter of an hour_, twenty 
 minutes, half an hour ! Mrs. Smart has come 
 up to the lych-gate, grandly dressed, quite 
 overwhelming in her silk-velvet mantle, and 
 throned in their own spruce gig ; come under 
 the impression that the funeral party must have 
 gone homewards ere now. The sexton tells her 
 she will have to wait. " ' First come, first sarv- 
 ed,' yer knaw, Mrs. Smart," he says, when not- 
 ing a look of disdain arise at having to wait for 
 these poor people. ''Actilly t' lowest o' t' 
 low," as she mutters, poutingly, to her husband. 
 
 Three quarters of an hour ! 
 
 The funeral party is no longer a well-ordered
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 241 
 
 tail ; it is a round, angry group, with a gig 
 behind, and a coffin before it. 
 
 " Weel, weelj ah canna do ony bether for ye, 
 Summat's happened, that's what it is. An' when 
 did onybody wait here afore? that's what ah 
 want to knaw," continues the sexton, with in- 
 dignation in his voice. 
 
 There is silence, but discontent. 
 
 " There's nowt for 't, ah tell ye, if t' coffin 
 isn't to stay all neet i' t' church, but sending 
 for t' new clergyman, him as corned i' Mr. 
 Knowles's place, efter he gat what he called 
 his call into anuther part o' t' vineyard. Mrs. 
 Smart, ye'd bether put up for a bit at t' ' Rid 
 Lion,' " the sexton says, respectfully, to the more 
 august party after soothing the labourers, " till 
 I send for him that's followed Mr. Knowles ye 
 kenned well." 
 
 Mrs. Smart seems less soothed than before. 
 No, she's not going to be churched by somebody 
 n' better'n a kewritt. Mr. Fossett shall do it ; 
 ay, and she^ll make him do it at her time too. 
 
 " Ye munna be angry, Mrs. Smart. Acci- 
 dents will happen, an' ah niver knawed this 
 afore o' Mr. Fossett." 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 Mrs. Smart intimates " t' bishop shall know- 
 it, if she lives another day," and commands her 
 husband to drive home to the Manor Farm. 
 The poor man mildly beseeches her not to 
 make a fool of herself, but does as she bids 
 him nevertheless. 
 
 The new clergyman is easily found, and will- 
 ingly helps, but the poor sorrowing folk go back 
 to arvel and cakes with less of appetite because 
 the old rector has not officiated at the last offices 
 of the dead. 
 
 An hour afterwards^ the groom says to the 
 housekeeper, bodingly, 
 
 *' Dear me, how lang t' maister is." 
 
 " Oh ! you are anxious at last. You men are 
 all such dull, stupid things. I was just putting 
 on my things to go and seek him, as them that's 
 eaten his bread didn't think it w^orth their 
 while." 
 
 The old man grows fidgety, and goes to seek 
 his friend the sexton, just then putting the last 
 touches on old Jinny's grave. They agree to 
 follow up the stream until they meet him. On 
 they go without seeing him until they get to 
 the Upper Ghyll. Ah I there are traces at last.
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 243 
 
 His rod is fixed in the ground by the spear end. 
 It is leaning over the stream, the top bent bow- 
 like_, and the line tight and moving about. 
 
 " There's a fish on 't, by George !" 
 
 The two men are moved like school-boys, and 
 run to see ^' the bite." They pause suddenly, 
 without attempting to land the spotted prey, 
 and look furtively around, for Mr. Fossett's hat 
 is laid at the foot of his fishing-rod. No, they 
 cannot see him. 
 
 " Happen he's gone up t' Ghyll a bit." 
 
 They start forwards, but only go a few yards. 
 Rounding a little shoulder of the Ghyll they 
 stop, and are silent. Mr. Fossett is sitting on 
 a stone, leaning against the bank. There is a 
 great peace on his face, a great rest, and his 
 two faithful dogs are laid at his feet, looking 
 wistfully into that countenance they love. One 
 of them sets up a plaintive whine, and comes 
 crouchingly up to the men. 
 
 " Why, he's fallen asleep !" whispers the 
 sexton. 
 
 He has ; into the longest sleep of all. 
 
 Another six days and that little knot of 
 raourners who had accompanied poor old Jinny's 
 
 r2
 
 244 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 remains to the " narrow house and dark ^' are 
 standing again at that lych-gate with many, 
 many more— standing in deeper grief than 
 before — around another coffin ; waiting until the 
 tremulous tones of a very old man, a college 
 friend in far-off years of him who is gone, shall 
 lead them into church, lead them in sorrow while 
 uttering that great voice of gladness : " I 
 am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the 
 Lord : he that believeth in Me, though he were 
 dead, yet shall he live : And whosoever liveth 
 and believeth in Me shall never die." Shall we 
 linger around that grave when the sprigs of 
 rosemary and the flowers cut from cottage 
 window plants, or plucked from homely gar- 
 dens, have dropped deep down with honest 
 tears in their wake_, and the old priestly com- 
 panion has closed the book and gone sadly 
 away ? It is but to listen to those few old 
 peasants, whose thin, white locks wanton in 
 the gentle wind as they talk with hat in hand. 
 
 They tell how it is fifty years almost since he 
 came among them in their youth or in their early 
 manhood and womauhoodj and all that were 
 up-grown save themselves are now at rest be-
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 245 
 
 neath the heavy turf around. Names are men- 
 tioned, words remembered, which those said to 
 him, or he to them — these brethren again of the 
 same silent kingdom around. 
 
 There is sorrowful pride, sedate pleasure in 
 the welling up of these fountains of reminis- 
 cence, while they watch the last rounding sods 
 laid reverently on the new mound at their feet. 
 
 '^ A}', ay, he was one o' t' auld sort, he was, 
 an' t' last of his name ; good folks all of 'em, as 
 mony laid about here could tell, if they might. 
 A bit odd he was, a bit stiff, but varra kind, an' 
 varra just. We cannot be lang efter him, an' 
 may we all pass away as quietly when our time 
 comes." 
 
 Amongst those present at the funeral were 
 two gentlemen, Mr. Fossett's trustee and Mr. 
 Sylvester Chapman, a tall, gentlemanly-look- 
 ing man, with an air of the county squire and 
 travelled man added to a something which im- 
 plies the dilletante agriculturist. 
 
 They are seated in the old rector's study. 
 
 '• That letter in your hand, found upon this 
 desk, Mr. Chapman, will explain why I wanted 
 you here."
 
 246 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Blyth, but I scarcely see ^vbat I 
 have to do with the case." 
 
 '^ They are your brother's children, and they 
 were sent by him to Mr. Fossett." 
 
 " Ah ! but my brother did not recognise me in 
 the case at all." 
 
 ''I confess I neither understand his motives 
 nor his actions, but, I submit, you are their 
 natural guardian under the circumstances.^' 
 
 " I don't know about that. Who are these 
 children ? Where is their mother ? They 
 may be a couple of by blows for anything I 
 know." 
 
 " I cannot answer those questions. I only 
 know that by this letter, found amongst Mr. 
 Fossett's papers, he acknowledged them as 
 his.'' 
 
 Mr. Sylvester takes the offered letter, and 
 reads it. 
 
 " I see it says nothing more than Mr. Fos- 
 sett's letter intimates. Nothing whatever is 
 said of the mother or her family. There is no 
 doubt that my brother wrote this letter. But, 
 Mr. Blyth, if you had known him, you would 
 rather have inferred from his life, as well as his
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 247 
 
 letter, that there was somethiDg irregular about 
 this matter. And, I must confess, I cannot 
 enter heartily into it without more information 
 about his marriage, if marriage at all there 
 was." 
 
 *' It is hard to visit the sins of the fathers 
 upon the children, on the one side, and, on the 
 other, it is really little that I wish you to do 
 beyond asserting your legal position as their 
 ' next friend.' If anything has been left to 
 them, you will have to vindicate their rights ; 
 if not, they will not remain unprovided for." 
 
 " Pardon me, Mr. Blyth/' he answers, proud- 
 ly, " the Chapmans have never yet left any of 
 their blood to starve. What I want to know 
 is, who are those children, and where are they ? 
 Vindicating their rights,, as you call it, may be 
 attacking the rights of my sister's children." 
 
 " I fear I can give but a lame answer to your 
 questions. Who they are, you know as well as 
 I do. Where they are can only be answered in 
 part. We have got one of them ; the other 
 that was kidnapped is still untraced." 
 
 " Oh ! indeed. Where is the interesting sal- 
 vage ? I mean the one recovered from those
 
 248 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 people who have such a mysterious desire to 
 pay for the board and lodging of two poor 
 children." 
 
 *' He is safe, and we will talk of that view of 
 the case presently. But I hope you don't refuse 
 us your name in dealing with the solemn rights 
 of these children." 
 
 " My dear sir, you are begging the whole 
 question. Have they any legal right at all, is 
 the point we have got to settle, and I see no 
 evidence of it of any kind whatever. I never 
 heard of my brother's marriage_, nor did any 
 member of my family. The whole case, like 
 that of his death, came upon us as a surprise. 
 Indeed, I could not swear in a Court of Justice 
 that he is dead, although I believe it." 
 
 '^ Well, well, but one of the children is with 
 us. There is a mysterious interest about them 
 in some quarter or other. They have been kid- 
 napped. One, the boy, has been recovered, 
 and the woman in charge of the girl has de- 
 camped. All these things show us that there is 
 something to explain, to say the least of it. 
 There is a mysterious personage, too, looming 
 in the case. You have got his name in Mr.
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 249 
 
 Fossett's letter, a man named Mumford." 
 
 *' Mumford, Mumford," echoes Mr. Chapman, 
 wonderingly, as he gazes deep into the fire. 
 " Who is this Mumford ?" he asks, looking up 
 with quiet, subtle interest. 
 
 " I really don't know. Nor do I know where 
 his residence is. All communications come 
 fi'om a London firm of solicitors, who refuse 
 his address." 
 
 "Mumford, Mumford. What is it I know 
 about that name ? It can't be that old miserly- 
 squireen. No, that's not it." 
 
 " John Dacre Mumford is the full name." 
 
 ^' John Dacre ! Ah ! my poor brother's 
 greatest curse !" 
 
 He speaks with a kindling vehemence, which 
 contrasts strangely wuth his usual laisser faire 
 manner. 
 
 " I see old Mumford is dead, and this man 
 has taken his name for what he might get." 
 
 '•And he's really in this business'?" 
 
 *' He is, Mr. Chapman. But how far, I 
 cannot say." 
 
 *' Then I will cross his purpose. Mr. Blyth, 
 I will be the guardian of this boy along with
 
 250 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 yourself, and you must contrive to let me see 
 him soon." 
 
 '•' Agreed," he exclaims, pleasantly disap- 
 pointed at the signs of human interest. 
 
 They talk on now confidentially in a low 
 tone, and papers are freely referred to. At 
 last Mr. Blyth is heard saying, 
 
 " Then you agree that the boy shall be dealt 
 with in the manner these memoranda, found in 
 his desk, show Mr. Fossett intended ?" 
 
 *' Yes. Let him, in a while, go to Mr. Sin- 
 gleton, a genial-hearted clergyman, as you say, 
 of the old-fashioned school, as Mr. Fossett's 
 notes propose. He can board and lodge with 
 him, and I will contrive every now and then to 
 see him casually, and without his knowing who 
 I am." 
 
 •' Well, and what shall we do with respect to 
 the old housekeeper, Mrs. Bostock ?" 
 
 '' Clearly we cannot tell her who this boy is, 
 for we only imperfectly know ourselves, and it 
 will produce ineffable mischief on the boy's 
 mind if he is brought up with the idea that he 
 is some grandee defrauded of his just rights.
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 251 
 
 I've seen one such case end in misery and ruin. 
 Let her understand that the boy has no expec- 
 tations but in his own efforts, and must be so 
 brought up that his parentage is practically 
 unknown. He may stay with her until he is 
 old enough to go to Mr. Singleton, when she 
 perhaps may obtain another situation. If the 
 girl should be recovered, why, let her be treated 
 like the boy ; and if he should show any apti- 
 tude for learning, why, as you say there are 
 funds available for sending him up to the 
 university^ let him go there. I think this is 
 legislating for his future quite far enough." 
 
 " I agree with you_, Mr. Chapman. As you 
 wish it, I will see all this carried out and write 
 to you in due course." 
 
 " Good day." 
 
 " Good day." 
 
 The two gentlemen shake hands, and sepa- 
 rate like men who have discovered that they 
 can work together. 
 
 That evening, he is alone in his private 
 room, and the face of Mr. Sylvester has lost the 
 little dolce far niente look which has been man-
 
 252 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 tliog there for some years ; there is anger, 
 perturbation, as he walks up and down the 
 apartment; haughtiness, offended rectitude in 
 that changing cheek and stiffening figure. 
 
 " So you are stirring mud at the bottom of 
 this pool, Mr. Mumford. It is like you, and the 
 pity is that James could never see you as you 
 are. But, beware! beware! You might pre- 
 vent my brother sending me a last message; 
 you might cozen me out of my affianced bride ; 
 but you will not do what you like with these 
 children. Poor little Nellie ! You will know 
 nothing of what is being plotted. He will 
 never tell you, because he knows that he will 
 have a foe in the business that will bring it to 
 nought. But at least I know that you will 
 wish justice to be done, and, if my brother 
 made a will or left anything, it shall be looked 
 to. Yes, I vow that to-morrow I'll begin at 
 Doctors' Commons and read the will, and, as 
 nearest of kin, enforce its provisions. Poor 
 Nellie ! poor Nellie ! I might have once said 
 poor Sylvester, but I need no commiseration 
 compared with you." 
 
 He was as good as his word. To his sur-
 
 TWO LETTERS AND TWO TRUSTEES. 253 
 
 prise, he learnt that no will of such a person as 
 James Chapman had been proved by snch a 
 person as John Dacre Mumford or anyone else, 
 either at Doctors' Commons, Chester, or York.
 
 254 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 PERPLEXITIES. 
 
 A BOX of papers had found their way from the 
 ^^ late Mr. Chapman's London solicitors to De w- 
 sy Manor, and had furnished Mr. Mumford with 
 much interesting and private reading in what 
 he called his factotum-room. He had learnt 
 many things therefrom, palateable and otherwise, 
 and he had earned his learning by the devot- 
 ed manner in which he had diligently perused 
 all the deeds and documents. Mr. Mumford, as 
 we have seen before, believed that knowledge 
 was power, and power success, the one great 
 sauce of existence. He had had several hauls 
 at these family archives, and considered that he 
 had pretty well sucked all the marrow out of 
 them ; but, as he was putting them back for the 
 last time into the box, his attention was at-
 
 PERPLEXITIES. 255 
 
 tracted by a sheet of memoranda hitherto little 
 heeded ; he picked it np, and saw at ODce that 
 it was in the neat, small, precise handwriting of 
 his late friend. He read it carefully, and dis- 
 covered that it contained instructions to his 
 lawyers about his will to be executed in dupli- 
 cate. "In Duplicate!" he exclaimed to himself. 
 ''Did they do it? I must write to them at 
 once." On second thoughts he decided not, 
 and set to work forthwith to elucidate the 
 matter. Old bills were diligently perused 
 which had been glanced at only as such — we 
 generally throw them aside^ if duly discharged, 
 with something of the air and feeling of a man 
 kicking out of his way the body of a whip snake, 
 killed in its attempt to sting him — and the 
 scrutiny showed him that Mr. Chapman had 
 been charged for a deed of gift, executed in 
 duplicate — an after-thought as to the mode in 
 carrying out his purpose. The solid earth 
 seemed for a moment as if it were breaking 
 under this man's feet. Great beads of perspi- 
 ration gathered on his brow as it heated, and 
 his countenance flushed and dimmed under the 
 vexing discovery. Knowledge was unhappiness
 
 256 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 for some painful moments to him, and reflection 
 did not clear the glooming sky. 
 
 Where could that copy of the deed of gift 
 be? Was it in some one's hands in England? 
 Had that stern old parson, whom he called a 
 frump no longer now, got it ? Was he biding 
 his time to turn him out of Dewsy Manor? 
 Would there be an exact scrutiny of those stocks 
 and shares which he had been realizing lately, 
 and re-investing in another name? Evidently 
 he must make his line of retreat clear in pres- 
 ence of this unexpected peril confronting him 
 on his flank. He walked up and down that 
 chamber a weary half-hour, with the question, 
 "Where is it?" struggling within him like a 
 wild animal tied up in a bag. At length an 
 idea occurred to him, and at once, according ta 
 his wont, he acted upon it. Going to the door 
 he softly summoned Biddy. 
 
 " Biddy, where are those papers you found in 
 the room when Mr. Chapman died V 
 
 A glimmer of uncertainty wavered in Biddy's 
 eyes, but she soon recovered. 
 
 *' The p'haypers, surr ? Shure, now, yer hon- 
 our niver towld me to look for any p'haypers.'^
 
 PERPLEXITIES. 25T 
 
 *'No, but YOU might have found some, you 
 know, Biddy, and I want to know where you 
 put them." 
 
 Biddy stoutly denied finding any papers in 
 the room. 
 
 ** She knows," said Mr. Mumford, with a sort 
 of rehef to himself. " 1 saw it in her eyes." 
 
 " Shure, I niver found 'em in the room at all 
 at all. They were unther his head, poor gin tie- 
 man," said Biddy, in her heart, lulling her 
 conscience. 
 
 That afternoon a bottle of strong whisky 
 w^as found standing on a table in the da}' 
 nursery, with a glass beside it, as if some one 
 had been lately taking a little. Biddy felt, 
 after bringing in the children from their walk, 
 that she was tired, and that it had a most en- 
 chanting smell. She said to herself that she 
 was on the point of fViinting, and that it smelt 
 dacent. Surely the taste was as dacent as the 
 smell, and the second taste better than the first ! 
 So it happened_, when Mr. Mumford sauntered 
 accidentally into the room seeking something, 
 that Biddy was in a very sublime and talkative 
 condition, with all her natural dislike of her 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 master softened down to a marvellous degree. 
 He easily wheedled it out of her, but the new 
 knowledge was scarcely power, and anything 
 but comfort. 
 
 *'I must see that woman. She's got an 
 awful power over me now, if she only knows 
 it. A few more bank-notes, if she has gone 
 on right with those children, and a threat, if 
 she has not, to lay that written undertaking of 
 hers to treat them well before the magistrates, 
 ma}^ bring her to her senses. Fool that I was 
 to send those old clothes and stuff to her ! But 
 I couldn''t bear them in the house. Why didn't 
 I burn them, sell them, drop them into the sea, 
 or do anything rather than Vv^hat I did f 
 
 Next day towards dusk a gentleman might 
 have been seen in Angel Street loitering care- 
 lessly down it as if the place had no particular 
 interest for him. But he started when he ob- 
 served a house, superior in its style and size to 
 those around, shut up, wearing that forlorn ap- 
 pearance peculiar to empty houses when the 
 small boys have had a good time of it in ston- 
 ing the windows into man}^ punctured patterns. 
 Dirt, neglect, squalor, dilapidation, were written
 
 PERPLEXITIES. 259 
 
 11230U it from doorstep to garret-window. Even 
 the brass knocker, that shiny emblem of the 
 late tenant's respectability, had been wrenched 
 off and turned, hard as it was, by the conjuring 
 of a marine store-dealer into flowing whisky. 
 If the gentleman had had an inclination for in- 
 vestigation, he might have got the key, gone 
 inside, and discovered that every lead pipe and 
 tap had been transmuted in the same wonderful 
 manner into strong waters. 
 
 His involuntary, startled look had not escaped 
 the attention of two gentlemen near, who had 
 a professional interest in his pocket, intensified 
 by the fact that he was not of a size and build 
 to render it safe to make an assault prior to a 
 scientific investigation of his personal property. 
 They were near to him when his eye fell upon 
 them. 
 
 '* Who was it that lived here ?" 
 
 "Auld Mother Scaife. Yo knaw that weel, 
 maister, yersel." 
 
 This was embarrassing, but had points of 
 hope about it. 
 
 "Ah! yes_, I remember having once to call 
 here. Where has she gone V 
 
 s2
 
 260 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 Nobody knew, they said. If he'd stand a 
 drink, they'd tell him summat. 
 
 Half a crown glittered at once in his hand, to 
 buy the knowledge which was power. They 
 told him that she had grown very proud, very 
 fine, turning up her nose at everybody ever 
 since two children came to her one night, and 
 that the boy had been stolen, and then Mrs. 
 Scaife had sent the girl away, sold all her fur- 
 niture, and entirely disappeared. 
 
 "Had they no idea where she was?" 
 
 No. Iverybody wanted to know that. 
 
 " Did they know what had got the boy ?" 
 
 Nob'dy could tell reetly, but it might be fund 
 out if brass enough were forthcoming. 
 
 The gentleman parted with his half-crown, 
 and the pair passed on to the ^'Packer's Arms,"" 
 overcome with thirst after so much talk. 
 
 " If she has lost that boy," he reflected, " this 
 circumstance has drawn her fangs. The deeds 
 are of little use to her, because the girl only 
 gets her allowance out of the property through 
 him. He must be forthcoming ere she can live 
 out of the estate through this girl, always sup- 
 posing the child lives to become twenty-one.
 
 PERPLEXITIES. 201 
 
 Bnt whose interest was it to regain the young 
 folks?" 
 
 His countenance grew very dark as he dis- 
 cussed this thought in all its bearings. Clearly 
 he had some powerful enemy who was watch- 
 ing over these children. Probably enough Mrs. 
 Scaife^ having got everything she could out of 
 him, had sold herself to that enemy^ and taken 
 liim the deed of gift, and goodness knows what 
 other papers besides, for Biddy admitted that it 
 w^as a largish packet. Likely enough the loss 
 of the child was a mere ruse ; in fact, a mere lie 
 wdth a circumstance, and without any loss of 
 him at all, to palm off on one or two of her 
 intimates as an excuse for leaving the neigh- 
 bourhood so suddenly. Nevertheless, it was 
 clear that he must find her, and ascertain how 
 the land lay. The recovery of the boy was a 
 secondary matter to this. Still_, after endea- 
 vouring carefully to get information through a 
 local private detective in vain about her, it 
 struck him that, possibly enough, Mr. De Burgh, 
 alias John Smith, might help him. If the person 
 who had regained the child were the same as 
 the one from whom it w^as stolen, Smith would
 
 262 STEANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 know much of her personal appearance and 
 other matters, which would help in tracing it 
 out. And, if the boy were found in the hands 
 of an agent of that old parson's, depend upon it 
 Mrs. Scaife might be found upon a near trail, 
 and he might recover them all in a bunch. 
 
 But the wily man groaned at heart as he 
 thus reasoned, walking restlessly up and down 
 his room. Avenues of unfavourable possibilities 
 opened up to his mental outlook. Probabilities 
 against him_, chances of detection, mischances, 
 he called them, seemed to lurk on every side 
 along the road he purposed travelling. A 
 settled conviction for the first time came over 
 him that he must be ruthless now in sweeping 
 away every obstacle from his path, otherwise 
 he should be utterly undone. He must spend 
 and be spent in staving off this new danger,, 
 and succeed he would whatever he did. But, 
 oh ! what a dreary outlook lay before him. It 
 must prove perilous getting this agent or that to 
 commit a crime when it was wanted. Some of 
 them would be sure to "round" on him_, if he 
 did not keep well in the background, and how 
 he could do that always he did not clearly see..
 
 PERPLEXITIES. 2(j^ 
 
 Smith, he believed, was a criminal ; most likely 
 of the fiDessing type ; but he could not as yet 
 prove it. If he could, he should get him into 
 his power, and do everything through him. 
 Pay on the one side and threats on the other 
 might make snaffle and curb with two good 
 reins attached whereby to drive and turn him 
 whithersoever he would. He must go up to 
 London to-day, and send Smith down at once 
 on this quest after the boy and Mrs. Scaife; 
 and, in the meantime, he might get information 
 from some of his late brothers colonial there, 
 who had come home as the papers testified by 
 recent mails. 
 
 He found Mr. Smith in a seedy condition, 
 and very willing to undertake the mission. The 
 private inquiry business was scarcely a success. 
 Smith despatched, Mr. Mumford sought out a 
 Melbourne friend or two, and was gratified to 
 find that such a person as he described was 
 really wanted for a course of petty forgeries, 
 which had been found out before they could 
 bring in much pecuniary spoil. One of them 
 was amused at Mr. Mumford's earnestness in the 
 inquiry, but he told him, nevertheless, all that
 
 264 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 he remembered about the gentleman's personal 
 appearance, his antecedents, and performances. 
 He was an Oxford man, he remarked, once in 
 the army, next a sharper, then a store clerk, 
 and at last a forger. 
 
 '^ The thing's certain. He'll find it hot, if 
 he goes back to Melbourne/' continued the old 
 colonial. 
 
 "And another thing's certain," said Mr. 
 Mumford to himself, ^' he^ll find it hot without 
 going back, if he doesn't do what I want?" 
 
 Mr. Smith detected nothing. He discovered 
 enough to show him that Rebekah had got the 
 boy, he did not doubt that Mrs. Scaife had the 
 girl, but where either was he remained absolute- 
 ly unable to divine. Mr. Mumford sneered at 
 poor Smith's imbecility in a bitter way, but he 
 could give no hint that would assist his agent. 
 
 He returned after a somewhat lengthened 
 absence to Dewsy Manor in a gloomy, dis- 
 contented vein. For days and weeks he scarcely 
 seemed to be able to come sufficient!}^ out of 
 himself to be barely sociable at table, and, when 
 not there, was moodily pacing his fields, or shut- 
 ting himself up in his room. Nor was this his only
 
 PERPLEXITIES. 265 
 
 vexatioD. Letters were awaiting him on his 
 return home which led him to expect a fraud 
 upon him in the letting and sale of his Mooranga 
 sheep run and cattle farm. 
 
 "" The guarantors and the buyer are ruined 
 men now, and I fear the latter is very shaky in 
 more senses than one," so said his correspondent. 
 
 There were times when a dark, vengeful 
 look was in his eye, but generally his de- 
 meanour was that of absorbed depression. 
 
 Nor was he the only disquieted person in the 
 house. His wife naturally desired to know 
 why this gloom and moodiness. But she want- 
 ed to know something more. She was wishful 
 to ascertain the condition and whereabouts of 
 Mr. Chapman's children. The brave little wo- 
 man felt that there was something wrong, but 
 what she could not tell, and the thought hung 
 about her like a threat of coming neuralgia, 
 giving a chalkier pallor to the pale, thought- 
 ful brow, and the thin, transparent cheek. She 
 could only bide her time, and once again, after 
 weeks of dejection, she chose a moment when, 
 in the evening firelight, he seemed to have 
 grown more cheerful, more like his former self.
 
 26Q STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 But such an explosion of wrath met her gentle 
 inquhy, followed by such a bang of the door as 
 he left the room, that she almost fainted with 
 terror. Still she did not feel subdued into 
 silence, and returned to the charge afterwards 
 when an opportunity seemed to present itself. 
 But this time he treated her differently. He 
 bade her remember how troubled he had been 
 for several weeks, and all on account of those 
 two children. The fact was, he said, he had 
 put them under the care of a suitable person, 
 and she had somehow mysteriously disappeared. 
 AVhy, or wherefore, he could not tell, but he 
 had employed detectives in search of them, yet 
 hitherto without avail. When they were found 
 he would inform her^ but the subject was so 
 painful to him that he begged she would not 
 mention it again until he should broach it him- 
 self. And the little woman, with the sense of 
 a great wrong, with the intuition that they 
 were standing on the borderland of crime, but 
 ignorant what that crime might be, kept all 
 these things in her heart, yet drooped and 
 grew languid at times with the secret load.
 
 267 
 
 CHAPTER XVIT. 
 
 OLD SINS AND NEW 
 
 ATEAR to Dewsy Manor is the well-known 
 ■^^ common called Wortle Long Green — really 
 a green, and certainly very long. It is a drive 
 of a full mile from entering to quitting that 
 long stretch of bright, mossy grass, tall reeds, 
 oblongs and rounds of little mere lying in the 
 many hollows, whitherabouts the swan- white 
 geese flock in store. Here and there are clumps 
 of bossy alders bursting into myriads of withes. 
 Here and there are flocks of sheep scattering 
 for the short, sweet herbage ; up and down 
 stalks chanticleer, with his female following, or 
 golden-green headed drake, circled by his 
 harem ; here and there a man or woman is 
 crossing the green, a maiden sauntering with a 
 child, or troops of naughty boys frolicking-
 
 268 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 from school and running to congenial mischief. 
 The roads across the common are pebbled with 
 nodules of flint, fantastically rounded, glisten- 
 ing white without and black-blue within. 
 
 It is a glorious common, with its neat, straw- 
 thatched cottages around it at intervals, rich in 
 the wealth of their gardens and a sylvan peace. 
 How charming on this summer afternoon, in 
 the clear air, athwart that Italian sky, to 
 watch those little, steely viens of smoke worm- 
 ing upwards to the azure bend. Outside the 
 waste at intervals are holdings, and one or two 
 of them, by their little camps of corn-stacks, 
 indicate substantial comfort. On the central 
 common, near the main road_, is a clump of 
 trees embosoming a forge and a cart manufac- 
 tory, where objects new and subjects old are 
 seen in all stages of perfection, breakage, or 
 repair. At the upper end of the green, where it 
 growls wide and circular, a sweep of cottages 
 curves ahead, with school premises in the cen- 
 tre, having an ambitious gateway, dedicated in 
 large letters to "Faith, Hope, and Charity." 
 Hereabouts the roads break off in many direc- 
 tions. It is a pleasant scene in this mid-after-
 
 OLD SINS AND NEW. 269 
 
 noon of the hot, hay-scented July day; the 
 peace and quiet felt palpably above the distant 
 shouts of children, and the cries of woolly and 
 feathered flocks. The lungs acknowledge here 
 a stirring, life-giving air different from that of 
 the close, narrow lands, made almost stuffy with 
 the wealth of hazel and thorn vegetation rising 
 high over head. Surely as one breathes this 
 nectar, with such a cool thrill about it, like 
 champagne fresh from a deep cellar ; as one 
 looks at that soft, rounding landscape, enriched 
 with church and hall, globing pollard oak, and 
 spiry beech and poplar, severed by breadths of 
 golden corn, or verdant fields of turnip and 
 root crops, surely one may rejoice here in the 
 cool of this July afternoon. 
 
 A lady enters the green, riding in a little 
 basket-chaise drawn by one of those strong, 
 beautiful, tawny creamy cobs of the pure Suf- 
 folk breed. Two little girls are with her, who 
 are old enough to be very patronizing to 
 '' baby." The peasantry that meet her bow and 
 curtsey with great deference, but the homage is 
 relieved with pleasant looks of friendliness and 
 love. A gleam of pleasure infills her counte-
 
 270 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 nance as one or other passes, but it is immedi- 
 ately followed by a look of weariness and lan- 
 guor. One asks, why this vision of lassitude on 
 that gentle, little woman's large, pale brow and 
 thin, narrowing' face? 
 
 Wh}^ do we see that meek eye dim so soon 
 after lighting up with such a genuine ray of 
 benevolence and tender interest ? 
 
 Doubtless she has her troubles, some worm i^ 
 the bud that sucks of the very soul at its centre 
 of being. Yet she has much to live for, and 
 looks at what she has as well as what she has 
 not, and this gives a secret strength to her life 
 and regularity in the fulfilment of its calls. She 
 is driving the children across the green for the 
 benefit of its stimulating air on this day of lan- 
 guor elsewhere. She talks to Beaty and Millie ; 
 Baby crows ; its mother thrills with pleasure, 
 while the others ripple into laughter, driving 
 along more merrily, the vital air getting into 
 her veins. Why does she start as that man, 
 dust-stained and limping, comes across the 
 grass towards the chaise, the men in the black- 
 smith's shed pointing her out? When this dingy 
 man turns to meet her on the way, why does
 
 OLD SINS AND NEW. 271 
 
 she shrink with a spasm of dislike ? A much 
 more graceful bow than such road-treaders 
 generally give, a much more highly-polished, 
 gh'stening smile. Why does she turn her head 
 as if with revulsion, nodding coldly, and dris^- 
 ing hotly on, this gentle woman who seems in- 
 capable of being harsh to any sentient thing ? 
 
 " That evil little man De Burgh, whom T can't 
 endure," the governess hears her say to herself. 
 
 •'It's all very fine, Mrs. Mumford," mutters 
 the man, as he looks after the chaise, " but I've 
 found your trail and I'll keep it/' and he turns 
 and asks more questions of the two blacksmiths, 
 who show fealty to the lady by answering drily 
 and treating him as a suspicious character. 
 
 " Shall I turn round and drive past him home 
 to tell Dacre?" she asks herself, as soon as a 
 little calm is on the startled nerves. 
 
 No, she will not do that. Dacre either knows 
 of this man's coming, or he does not; if he 
 does, he has sent for him, and nothing that she 
 can say will alter matters ; if he does not, and 
 the man is unwelcome, he will take stern 
 account of this. She therefore continues her 
 drive with but wan enjoyment.
 
 272 STRANGE CHAPMA.N. 
 
 Mr. Mumford is in a very moody humour ia 
 his factotum room. The haymakers and others 
 have had his mind about their agricultural sins, 
 a mind served up in vinegar. He is pondering 
 the perpetual theme in worse than ordinary 
 temper. 
 
 " Where is that boy, that packet, that woman ?" 
 A tap at the door, and Biddy is saying, in a 
 voice of secret malice, 
 
 " Yer honour's wanted by a thramp." 
 " You know I don't see tramps, nurse." 
 '' It's a gintleman thramp, sur-r, that knows 
 yer honour, and says you know him." 
 " I suppose you mean a pedestrian?" 
 " Yes, yer honour, a pesthrian thramp called 
 De Burgh that was wid us in the Marco Polo, 
 He says, the crayther, he's turned into Smith, 
 just as iggs turns into chickings, sur-r." 
 " Send him here." 
 
 " Ah ! he's found something out at last. But 
 how has he found this out ? That's serious." 
 
 Mr. Smith enters, and the first glance shows 
 Mr. Mumford that the man knows nothing. If 
 he had found out the secret there would have 
 been importance in his bearing. Mr. Smith is
 
 OLD SINS AND NEW. 273 
 
 in distress, yet there is no supplicancj in his 
 manner. He knows two great facts about Mr. 
 Mumford now — those children and this home. 
 He ma}^ find others out, and then the sinner is 
 servant to him that farms the hidden sin. Ha ! 
 ha ! ha ! 
 
 " No letter has reached me, sir, through 
 my solicitors that you were coming." Mr. 
 Mumford's tone is curt. Mr. Smith's self-ease 
 is ebbing out. He explains that going else- 
 where, on important inquiry business, he saw 
 Mrs. Mumford, learnt the house was near, and 
 thought a w^ord with himself might be season- 
 able. He had heard that the boy was near 
 Aysgarth, and Mrs. Scaife he believed could be 
 found somewhere about Doncaster. 
 
 They have a long talk, and Mr. Smith is com- 
 missioned to make another search. 
 
 " He thinks that my secrets are passing into 
 his hands," says Mr. Mumford, internally, as he 
 scans a little smirking smug expression on the 
 Smithly face. "It's time I let him learn some- 
 thing of what 1 know." 
 
 " By the way, I've had a letter about you, 
 Smith." 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " About me, Mr. Mumford ? Dear me, who 
 can it be f ' 
 
 " Ah I the world takes an interest still in 
 Albert Conway, late cashier to Reeves and Co., 
 Melbourne." 
 
 Mr. Smith's crest lowers, but he stoutly asks 
 what Albert Conway has to do with him ? 
 
 '.'See, Smith, De Burgh, or what the doose 
 you call yourself, look at this description. It's 
 you to a T. Examine the handwriting to that 
 cheque. It's like this signature to your last 
 letter to me, and has an awkward dash of Mr. 
 Reeves's fist about it too. I say, Conway, Smith, 
 it was incautious of you to be found out." 
 
 Mr. Smith protests his innocence. 
 
 " Tell that to the marines, Smith. Would 
 you object to my showing the officer, whom this 
 Melbourne storekeeper has sent over, your letter, 
 with a hint where you may be found? If 
 you've no objection to proving your innocence, 
 
 rii " 
 
 Mr. Smith sits as if his chair were a wasp's 
 nest, his mouth opening, his eyes indicating 
 the wits on swoon before this man's flinty face 
 and curt, shrill alto-tones.
 
 OLD SINS AND NEW. 275 
 
 " Shall I tell the detective, Smith, where your 
 -collar can be touched when you're inside the 
 coat?" 
 
 The little man wakes up to self-defence, de- 
 nies that he is the man, or that there is any 
 evidence against him. 
 
 " Smith," says his tormentor, meaningly, 
 " there is much more evidence in this housQ of 
 your doings. And Reeves has got a friend 
 wanting you whom it's my interest to oblige. 
 If you don^t mind I'll put him on you." 
 
 No, he didn't mean that. He had, he knew, 
 committed faults, not so bad as Mr. Mumford 
 thought, but still faults. 
 
 " Crimes, Smithy crimes, man. But we won't 
 quarrel about words. Tell me, am I to oblige 
 my friend, or not?" 
 
 Mr. Smith would rather that he didn't move 
 in the matter. Why should he? Hadn't he 
 served Mr. Mumford with zeal and fidelity? 
 
 " I don't know about that. You've cost me a 
 lot in trying to do what is still left undone. I 
 sometimes think. Smith, that, while you've been 
 taking my money, you've been in somebody 
 else's pay." 
 
 t2
 
 276 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " Now, by heavens, it's false ! I " 
 
 "False!" Mr. Mumford's voice is shrill to 
 absolute pain. "False! and that to me! If 
 you don't unsay that word, you infernal little 
 forging and lying rascal, I'll throw you out of 
 that window now !" 
 
 The strong man has his hand on his collar, 
 
 " No, I didn't mean that. I meant that I 
 didn't " 
 
 "You did, sir. Haven't I got the papers 
 there in that safe?" 
 
 Mr. Smith explains, palpitating visibly with 
 fright, that he wasn't giving Mr. Mumford the 
 lie. He was only protesting that he never was 
 in anybody's pay. No, he never was. " S'help 
 me " 
 
 " Well, well," says Mr. Mumford^ as if relent- 
 ing. " If I could only rely upon you ? It did vex 
 me, Smith, to think that one I had taken such a 
 fancy to should play me false, and one I can 
 help and protect — protect. Smith, mind that — 
 shouldn't be loyal to me and his bargain. If I 
 could only rely upon you, Smith, what wouldn't 
 I do !" 
 
 Mr. Mumford shakes his head reproachfully.
 
 OLD SINS AND NEW. 277 
 
 and speaks in a regretful, hurt tone. Mr. 
 Smith protests that he does him injustice, and 
 will serve him with all his soul. 
 
 •' I don't know. I don't know." 
 
 Mr. Mumford is eyeing him as he speaks in 
 this dubious mode. 
 
 Yes, he will do anything he can, only he 
 mustn't set that kenfounded officer upon him. 
 
 " I'll make a bargain with you, Smith. It's 
 necessary that you should be out of town just 
 now, so don't return. Above all, don't mention 
 my name in anything, and don't come here 
 again. D'you agree?" 
 
 Mr. Smith does. 
 
 " Well,, to business. You must find me that 
 woman, Mrs. Scaife. And that boy, I must have 
 him alive or dead. Dead or alive, Smith ; d'you 
 understand ?" 
 
 Mr. Smith nods. 
 
 '• Then you must find somebody that's not 
 particular about trifles." 
 
 Mr. Smith thinks he can — nay, he's quite 
 sure of it, and the bargain is struck. 
 
 " Expenses now. The reward when you suc- 
 ceed."
 
 278 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 These are Mr. Mumford's last words. 
 
 " He won't give me much for fear I should 
 bolt. I wish I could get hold of something to 
 bring him into my power. I wish I could." 
 
 Such are Mr. Smith's reflections as he takes 
 the back way from the house to avoid prying 
 people. 
 
 Mr. Mumford stands long leaning against 
 the mantel-piece, deep in thought. 
 
 '• I wonder if I cowed him just enough. Any- 
 way he must do this work. There'll be no peace 
 until it's done." 
 
 The private inquiry man does not find it 
 hard to approach Ann Gresley. She has been 
 consoled by the friendship of Flash Charley, 
 and the intimation that John Smith has some- 
 thing for this gentleman to do that will be well 
 paid for, condones everything. Besides, Mrs. 
 Bostock's parting insinuation has chilled the feel- 
 ings of regret in Ann's breast, and she is quite 
 disposed to give her aid. The result of this 
 galaxy of talent working on the subject is that 
 the game is run to earth. 
 
 One night Mrs. Bostock, in that homely,
 
 OLD SINS AND NEW. 279 
 
 comfortable cottage at Crabley, ensconced amid 
 green fields, with a thick little orchard around 
 it, and the roar of a great waterfall not far off, 
 retires to rest. The boy, now^ eight years old, 
 is sleeping quietly in his little, white-curtained 
 cot, in a room contiguous. She fancies she 
 hears a pane of glass break, then says to her- 
 self she must have been dreaming. In a while 
 she hears a board creak — she knows the very 
 board in the passage — as if a shoeless foot has 
 trodden on it. She listens, gets silently up_, 
 and goes to the door. A current of cool air as 
 from some open door or window. Who has 
 been taken poorly'^ Some one groping up- 
 stairs in the dark. Swiftly but noiselessly she 
 enters the boy's room. A man is striking a 
 light. Instantly she dashes at him and seizes 
 his hair. He kicks viciously at her shins with 
 his shoeless feet, but she grapples him tight, 
 pushes him before her, shocks him against the 
 casement, and window and man go bodily out 
 together. A man is heard running downstairs. 
 Kebekah screams for assistance. When the 
 household assemble in his bed-room, the boy is 
 just awaking, quite unharmed.
 
 280 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " Make an effort, Charley. Come on, or we'll 
 be nabbed." 
 
 The voice is urgent,, and comes from fleeing 
 men outside the orchard. Inside the house 
 poor Rebekah is pressing the boy to her breast 
 like something new found. 
 
 With his hand he rubs one eye ; the other eye 
 is closed. Anon the boy's head droops, falls 
 on her bosom ; a snore^ and he is peacefully 
 asleep again. 
 
 " Poor dear ! he doesn't know what an escape 
 he's had," she says to her hostess. 
 
 Outside lanterns are moving, and the hus- 
 band comes in, saying he " reckons they've 
 getten clean off. But ye mun hev hurt him, 
 Mrs. Bostock. Ye've knocked hafe et window 
 out, an' theer's blood on t' brokken glass. See, 
 I fund these below t' winder." 
 
 He shows a pair of clogs, dandy's clogs, with 
 a multitude of brass eyelets, cleated and toe- 
 plated ; terrible weapons for kicking-matches. 
 
 She heeds them little, says she must be off 
 before daybreak whither they will not find 
 her, and requests them to get a trap ready at 
 once.
 
 OLD SINS AND NEW. 281 
 
 This failure, clever as the tracking had been, 
 was a great blow to Mr. Smith, and he felt that 
 Mr. Mumford would be so exasperated with it 
 that he might give the Australian officer a tip 
 about him. Clearly his only chance was to 
 mollify his master by finding out Mrs. Scaife. 
 He worked with a will. The talent of Angel 
 Street was in his pay, and in a little while he 
 was able to write to his employer that the lady 
 was living at 31, Hammond Street, Rotherford, 
 and let lodgings there. 
 
 Mr. Mumford went down, but she stoutly de- 
 nied that she had any documents. He offered 
 a round bribe, but she was still cold and firm. 
 The fact was she had argued herself into the 
 belief that he had deprived her of the boy in 
 order to get out of her power. His coming 
 satisfied her that there was a screw loose, that 
 the plot had not effected all he had intended, 
 and that he was now harking back by at- 
 tempting to regain the children. Therefore she 
 would wait and see the result, satisfied that she 
 stood to win more that way than by giving the 
 documents up. The woman's teeth and lips set 
 in sullen wise, and the great, round face grew
 
 282 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 obstinate in expression as she pondered those 
 things in her heart. 
 
 Mumford went back to London convinced 
 that she had them. He took counsel with 
 Smith. All the way up to town he was asking 
 himself, '' How far shall I trust this man ?" 
 
 It seemed clear that, unless he was candid 
 with the amateur detective, he could get no- 
 thing, inasmuch as the man would not know 
 what to seek. It w^as equally clear, if he frank- 
 ly told him all, that he should put himself in 
 his power ; and he had no relish for being as 
 much in Smith's grip as he thought Smith 
 was in his own. " What shall I do ?" Ah ! it 
 was a hard question to answer, fraught with 
 danger on every side. If he had only foreseen 
 how many of these questions he would be called 
 upon to resolve, he would have left this busi- 
 ness untouched, and watched his flocks and 
 herds still at Mooranga. But he must suc- 
 ceed, or all is lost ; while success, now as ever, 
 will cover a multitude of sins. 
 
 " What shall I do ?" The question is press- 
 ing, and will not be toyed with. He hits at 
 last upon a possible solution of the problem.
 
 OLD SINS AND NEW. 283 
 
 Biddy had described to him in her cups the 
 exact size of the parcel, the colour of the paper, 
 the black sealing-wax impressed with a crest — 
 everything external. That crest was doubtless 
 Mr. Chapman's, impressed by the very seal in 
 his own possession now. He would show Smith 
 the seal, tell him generally of the shape, size, 
 and appearance of this parcel, leaving him to 
 infer that John Dacre Mumford knew exactly 
 what was within it, and only wanted it as a 
 mere matter of form, although this latter was 
 exigent. All this, some bullying about his fail- 
 ures, some promises if successful, might bring 
 the packet into his hands. Then hail, all hail, 
 peace and safety at last. 
 
 Mr. Mumford was very hard upon muddlers 
 that managed nothing successfully for his 
 money, when he met Smith in Norfolk Street: 
 very severe, very frowning, and just holding 
 slightly ajar a door to his good opinion, 
 through which the delinquent might squeeze 
 into safety again, free of all dread of that 
 policeman with the warrant from Melbourne. 
 The amateur groaned in spirit under his thral- 
 dom, but felt he must grin and bear it. He
 
 284 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 received his instructions, given in a jaunty, in- 
 scrutable way, as from one who knew every- 
 thing, and only needed these documents for 
 purposes immaterial to his interests, but touch- 
 ing his pride and the fitness of things. But 
 this time they must be obtained, otherwise — 
 Mr. Mumford looked so much and said so little 
 that Smith felt the gulf was actually opening 
 for him, and brimstone burning at the bottom. 
 
 '' It's hard to bear, is all this," said Smith to 
 himself, as he went with a smiling face, worn 
 awry inwardly, from the great man's presence. 
 " What did he mean by hinting that I must get 
 it whatever I had to do at that woman ? And 
 the boy, dead or alive, must be produced. 
 Humph I I must walk from the hulks, for my 
 own advantage, towards a tow with a noose to 
 it for his. A poor bargain ! If I can only get 
 at a secret of his, then look out, Nero." 
 
 Some three weeks after this, a woman took 
 lodgings at 31, Hammond Street, Rotherford, 
 a rising town close to Whittlemore, the great 
 centre, as all the world knows, of the razor 
 trade. She was a quiet person, little, freckled, 
 and snub-nosed, but very friendly, very in-
 
 OLD SINS AND NEW. 285 
 
 siuuating iii her mannerSj withal. She had a 
 small independency, she said, and that account- 
 ed for the fact that she did not serve in a shop, 
 or get her living by dress- making, like other 
 ladies who had lodged in the house. She 
 stayed a month, and then disappeared. Now it 
 chanced, after she had made a remarkably clear 
 exit, that Mrs. Scaife went to a particular 
 drawer to dream over the contents of a par- 
 ticular packet, as she loved to do in moments 
 when she desired to drag the future into her 
 hands, and brood over its honeyed vaticinations. 
 
 \Yhy was she so startled? Why that angry 
 cry ? Why did she scatter and tumble contents 
 of drawer and box everywhere, always coming- 
 back to look blankly into one corner of a cabi- 
 net, and to lapse into tiger rage, or rumination 
 long, wrinkled and leaden in its atrabilious hue ? 
 
 How different her mien to the smirk of satis- 
 faction, the glint of mockery, the look of release 
 in the eye of that little man who cons them 
 over secretly in a room far away ! 
 
 "The man that holds these is master," he 
 says, quietly, to himself. "Yes, John Dacre 
 Mumford, Esq., of Dewsy Manor. I know now
 
 286 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 why you were so shy in letting your nest be 
 known, that we could only get at you through 
 your solicitors. You are having your pickings 
 out of the little estate, and I'll have mine. And 
 as for the argumentum ad terrorem^ we'll meet it 
 with another enfant terrible that is quite as grim 
 to you, oh Nero. We'll have an argumentum ad 
 hominem, with the Court of Chancery behind it. 
 Yes, I'll make up a parcel which you shall pay 
 dearly for, oh, churlish squatter, and I'll take care 
 that the thing of things shall not be there, and, 
 while you growl and pale, I'll fatten on your 
 money, and have many a postica sanna at your 
 expense, my lord."
 
 287 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A NEW HOME. 
 
 1 TRS. SCAIFE left Angel Street without beat 
 -'-'-*- of drum, or rather, without publishing her 
 route. She left in an angry mood, darkened 
 wath the sense of defeat. Nevertheless^ she 
 w^as not subdued. She still held a fortress base 
 of operations in that little packet. Those three 
 bits of paper and sheepskin were to her as in- 
 fantry, cavalry, artillery ; as guns, powder, 
 shot and shell. She retired from the field with 
 grievous loss, but still with every division of 
 her army save one intact. The boy was gone ; 
 the girl was still in hostage ; the documents in 
 hand. Very angry was she ; somewhat stricken 
 with a sense of helplessness at having to begin 
 life afresh when its half-way house was passed, 
 as all must be, especially women ; very resolute,
 
 2bS STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 withal, to avenge what she now considered her 
 wrongs. She chose Rotherford, for a mysteri- 
 ous reason. No friend lived there ; no special 
 opening offered that she knew of for "bleed- 
 ing with leeches," though, to be sure, everybody 
 there, as everywhere else, had blood, good or bad, 
 and some of it doubtless would be too hot and 
 too rebellious for a moiety of them. Whittle- 
 more was a larger town, offering greater scope to 
 genius phlebotomic, and certainly more clients 
 in that other branch of her profession, which was 
 more lucrative^ if needfully more secret. Why 
 didn't she go^ with truer insight into potential- 
 ities and possibilities, to Whittlemore instead of 
 to Rotherford? We are all swayed by what 
 appear trifles, or, at best, but caprices to others ; 
 potent trifles they are^ grasping with the strong 
 grip of our secret loves or hates that weaker 
 vessel, the reason, and veering, pushing, hust- 
 ling it whither it says it is folly to go. What 
 was it that thus handled the judgment of this 
 self-contained, stern, tight-lipped woman, and 
 sent her to Rotherford ? Three children were 
 in her house, but a girl, with the royal hair of 
 the -^sirj and not of her own blood, was prime
 
 A NEW HOME. 289 
 
 in her regard, the first factor now in every 
 calculation, in every bill of accommodation she 
 drew mentally upon the days to come. That 
 young girl's face and hair had strangely haunt- 
 ed her ever since she threw her first glance upon 
 them. Who could she be ? Whom did she sug- 
 gest with her childish smiles, and every move- 
 ment of eyebrow, cheek, and hand ? No, it can't 
 be she. The likeness must be accidental. But, 
 lo ! she had learned that the mother of that girl 
 was the onl}^ female friend she ever cherished. 
 That marriage certificate show^s that St. Bride's, 
 Hallamshire, witnessed the ceremony. Her 
 memory tells her that at Kotherford, ten miles 
 off, live poor Edith Snowden's relatives, who 
 had quarrelled with her. Rotherford will serve 
 as an asylum to her and hers^ and there, with 
 only one half of her old profession followed and 
 the money she had, she might get a living, 
 while she should probe this mystery to its very 
 heart. There she pitched her tent, and there 
 she prospered in her degree by such modes as 
 she tried. She found the Snowdens distant, 
 very upright and downright, very stiff. It was 
 not easy to get speech with them. These 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 ■ STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 people, sellers of beef and mutton, would deal 
 with her, but they wanted no words beyond. 
 Cautiously she broached her former friendship 
 with their sister Edith ; as cautiously they shut 
 up themselves like a sensitive plant, or drew in 
 like a snail whose horns she had touched_, and 
 shortened speech with dry response. She 
 decided to bide her time with these austere 
 folks who had such a high sense of their own 
 rectitude and all that was due to themselves 
 and it. 
 
 " Your sister got married, I think ?" 
 
 They would answer nothing, and only asked 
 what meat she wanted to-day. 
 
 " Ah ! never mind," said Mrs. Scaife, in her 
 inmost heart, " that girl gets more like her 
 mother every hour. I'll work through her." 
 
 She felt she could bide her time. One aching 
 void there was, the loss of that boy, which 
 troubled her much, but she could get no light 
 upon the transaction. Then occurred that theft 
 which had ruined all the castles she had built in 
 the future. The great anger came and went, and 
 two things she did. She wrote out everything 
 carefully with name and place appended that was
 
 A NEW HOME. 291 
 
 in those documents, wrote them while all was 
 fresh iu memory, and she cherished the child 
 with a more jealous care than ever, keeping 
 her constantly in sight. Ten years passed and 
 then there came to Rotherford to occupy a small 
 milk farm a family of the name of Smart. They 
 had lived in Northumberland, and been very 
 unfortunate in losing all their stock on the 
 farm from a rinderpest of some sort or other. 
 
 " You're a Snowden/' said Mrs. Scaife to 
 Mrs. Smart, the first time she called for the 
 milk account. 
 
 It was true. 
 
 " I knew your sister Edith." 
 
 Mrs. Smart's face dimmed, but not as inexor- 
 ably as the faces of her kin. 
 
 *' Edith was a good, pure girl when I knew 
 her, and, I believe, ever remained such." 
 
 Mrs. Smart seemed to welcome the news, but 
 in a silent, dubious way. A roughish, masterful 
 sort of a woman, she was still and gentle on 
 this theme, with a certain hesitancy of manner 
 which she knew on no other. 
 
 Later, when she had called with another 
 bill, on a fine summer day, Florrie came from 
 
 u2
 
 292 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 the fields into the room where she sat. The 
 girl, impatient with the heat, tore off her snow- 
 white hood, and let the Claude-tinted cm-ls fall 
 down like golden torques and films of rounding 
 flame on her neck, framing the glowing face, as 
 it were, with sunset cloud. 
 
 Mrs. Smart startled. 
 
 " Who is that f 
 
 "Can you trace nobody in that girl?" said 
 Mrs. Scaife, when Florrie had been sent up- 
 stairs. 
 
 *' We'll talk about that another time," she 
 replied, quickly^ with the air of one disagree- 
 ably surprised. What her kinsfolk might have 
 said, what pride of theirs might have been 
 ruffled, or what pique or annoyance had become 
 tangent to Mrs. Smart's mind, Mrs. Scaife could 
 never tell ; but she never called herself for the 
 milk account again. 
 
 Florrie, meanwhile, was earning money as a 
 pupil teacher.
 
 293 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 NIGHT-THOUGHTS, 
 
 '' T WONDER if he did. I gave him money 
 -*- to get him out of the country, whether 
 he did or not. It was safer ; but I never could 
 believe that Smith gave me all the papers that 
 Ann Gresley stole from Mrs. Scaife's cabinet. 
 I believe he's kept one or two back. At least, 
 he read them all through and made an abstract 
 of them. And I doubt if he remained in the 
 States, whither he went after getting a lot out 
 me for his services and his expatriation, a little 
 rogue. I shouldn't be hearing what I am, if 
 he'd been true and stayed quietly there." 
 
 Backwards and forwards, with broken words, 
 with heavy steps, often stopping to ponder on 
 a shooting thought, or bear a spasm of self- 
 crimination, this man ambles in his study. A
 
 294 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 grizzled man, with a tossed_, scraggy, grey- 
 beard, a neglected look about throat and poll, 
 he is one that has a great burden on his mind, 
 and the shadow of a greater coming which he 
 forebodes. A tall man bowed, a strong man 
 breaking, a resolute man sinking into weak, 
 fevered obstinacy, a hopeful man settling into 
 the lees of dismay and dread, a bold man be- 
 come fearful, he is an object of either pity or 
 contempt, or it may be both. His dejected 
 look, his startled attention at sudden noise, his 
 wandering eye, while the fixed thought seems 
 to stereotype the brow into furrowed concern, 
 all tell of wearing trouble fretting on a con- 
 quered nerve. At times the slow, weary pace 
 quickens, at times a pause ; the man unmoving, 
 statuesque, idea struck, lost in a world of 
 rumination — a tangle of plot or plan — which 
 cheats the sense out of things present into an 
 ideal realm of thorns. Then he will wake up 
 with a deep, low sigh or groan ; the uncertain 
 step will patter over carpet pile again ; the 
 man will wear the hours away in cogitation that 
 fathers no act as it was Avont in younger and 
 stronger days.
 
 NIGHT-THOUGHTS. 295 
 
 Perchance he will seek to end the quarrel 
 twixt soul and self by finding the outer air. 
 Often he has done this during these later years 
 that have been glooming more and more. Over 
 the roads, across the commons he has gone, 
 under the moon, under the stars^ or when 
 neither deigned their light. Men have seen, 
 women have seen a tall figure pass silently by 
 in the lanes at dusk, hugging the great hazel 
 hedges so close that they scarce knew who it 
 was, and trembled with superstitious fears. 
 Men crossing the Long Green have seen a dim 
 outline of a man, away from the pebbled roads, 
 gliding noiseless over the grass, and answering 
 no greeting ofiered to propitiate the rising- 
 ghostly dread in their own breasts. Women have 
 run palpitating away with smothered shriek, 
 and have almost dropped with pallid terror 
 when they regained their cottage doors, looking 
 back with fearful, starting eyes. Whispers 
 have gone abroad asking w^ho is the night 
 walker? Rumour has torn explanations from 
 the spirit world, and said that it was some 
 murderer's ghost walking where his gibbet 
 chains once made iron music to the wintry
 
 29(5 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 storm ; or some murdered tradesman slain for 
 his little pack; or some restless miser returned 
 to seek the gold he hid in earth and never 
 recovered; some cavalier slain in rough old 
 time, some woman wronged, and so forth. 
 Tales have passed asserting that this being, 
 fleshly or spiritual, was of enormous size ; heroic 
 tales of certain persons daring to speak to it 
 and getting no answer as it glid swiftly by; 
 improbable tales, bearing the lie on their very 
 face, of Dick or Jim, notorious bouncers both, 
 having told over their cups of going up to it 
 and getting only a gruff response, or actually 
 holding a conversation of two or three ques- 
 tions with it ere it sped out of sight. 
 
 But this stage of spiritual terror is over, and 
 people have discovered that it is a strange, 
 strong-willed man from a large house, a first- 
 rate farmer and grazier that has taken to these 
 night walkings. Another terror has come after 
 it, and women will not, men care not to meet 
 on lonely road, by solitary field stile, or on 
 sedgy common the big, stalwart man who looks 
 so absorbed and uncanny. They ask if he is so 
 far himself as to be lawfully at large. They
 
 NIGHT-THOUGHTS. 297 
 
 murmur that it is not right that poor folic 
 should run the risk of being frightened out of 
 their seven senses if they want to go out after 
 sundown. Peasants say, " Summat'Il happen." 
 Gentlefolks ask if something should not be 
 done? 
 
 Sir Montford Tandem, over their wine, has 
 told Squire A. about a big man appearing sud- 
 denly at the leader's head as his cart entered 
 the wood by Broome Hurst. " Ged, I never 
 was so frightened before." John, coachman 
 to the wealthy Misses B., has told his stable- 
 help that he was " quite funky, froze like when a 
 tree-men-jious giant, with a black face, looked 
 at him over the off mare's head in that nasty 
 bit where you turn out of Dungeon Planta- 
 tion." People have watched a figure standing 
 by the still, moveless Waveney, where it was 
 deepish, looking down into those reedy waters 
 as if contemplating something ; have watched, 
 under cover of the wood, anticipating some 
 terrible end to the long gaze, and gone away 
 turning their private thoughts into public scan- 
 dal. But, if sensation has been a-simmer dur- 
 ing this last winter outside, it has been getting
 
 298 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 almost to boiling point inside Dewsy Manor 
 Biddy, now much stifFer in the joints and 
 redder in the nose, has been the only servant 
 that would stay amid all those wanderings up 
 and down the house at unseasonable hours. As 
 late as one o'clock, as early as four A.M., has Mr. 
 Mumford been astir. Why and wherefore, what 
 to do or to purpose, nobody can tell. Biddy 
 has stood on guards so to speak, over " the mis- 
 thress," and those three young ladies, "the 
 darlints," whom we have seen as children under 
 her care. 
 
 She has watched him out and in, and listened 
 when he went to his bed — he has slept alone 
 for some time — ere she has allowed herself rest. 
 Poor Biddy ! she has had a hard time of it, self- 
 chosen and silently borne, and she has been 
 very loyal, and in her own way — when she was 
 Biddy solus, and not Biddy plus something 
 else — very helpful, very comforting during these 
 darkening seasons. One piece of loyalty has 
 not, perhaps, increased her mistress's comfort, 
 that wherein she has confessed to her about the 
 packet which poor Mr. Chapman had out of his 
 trunk to peruse, and died with under his pillow
 
 NIGHT-THOUGHTS. 299 
 
 unread : ominous packet, since gone, whither she 
 knew not, in that leather portmanteau with the 
 Chapman wardrobe. But other more tangible 
 troubles have dwarfed this one, while not alto- 
 gether obliterating its features. Mrs. Mumford 
 has kept up wonderfully during these last trying 
 years since she met Smith on the Long Green, 
 supported by the interest of her budding daugh- 
 ters, the love of poor folk, and the respect of 
 rich yeoman and squire around. Her health 
 has never failed, because she has always fought 
 annoyance with pre-occupation, and set blessing 
 over against loss or lack. Her cheek has whiten- 
 ed, her manner stilled, and her brow has almost 
 seemed to work with thought in the eyes of 
 dependents appealing for direction or instruc- 
 tion. Yes, a more mental life and an absorbed, 
 a life more pale lipped and pensive, but still a 
 life with the motherly and its solicitudes al- 
 ways callable to the surface, has been this little 
 woman's ; a hfe stayed up ever on a deep sense 
 of innocence, whatever may be the sin which 
 lies at their door through liim. He may have 
 said once to '* evil, be thou my good," as she 
 believes that he has long since said to his in-
 
 300 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 most spirit, ''Trust not in a friend, and put 
 not confidence in a guide; keep the doors of 
 th J mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom ;" 
 but her heart has been kept free, and her soul 
 clear by waiting on God. 
 
 To-day she has made one more of those many 
 attempts to know what his trouble is, and how 
 he has discharged that one claim which has 
 stood like a bar betwixt them and pure con- 
 nubial confidence. He has been very violent, 
 very abusive, very denying of the faintest scrap 
 of marital trust and troth. It has been too 
 much for the little woman, and she has gone to 
 bed with a sick headache. To-night he has 
 gone down by those back-stairs which the serv- 
 ants use, and through the passages into the 
 accommodation road by the little holm along 
 the low-lying meadows. 
 
 A fair young girl from her boudoir watches 
 him pass under the moon's rays among the 
 squat bushes. How like her mother in her 
 quiet thoughtfulness, her large brow, her placid 
 eye, her stilled manner, her slight form. He 
 comes in at length, and this girl of nineteen 
 follows him, after a pause, into his study, where
 
 NIGHT-THOUGHTS. 301 
 
 he is found pacing up and down, as he has been 
 most of the day_, talking aloud. 
 
 " Sylvester Chapman, ha ! ha ! ha ! I beat 
 him once, and I'll beat him again. He wrote to 
 me again through his lawyer, when that boy 
 must have come of age, saying a Mr. Blyth had 
 died, and that, on becoming his executor, he found 
 reference among his papers to this young man, 
 and he wanted to know something about him. 
 I outflanked 'em easily enough then ; ay, and 
 tJiis letter " — striking it in his palm angrily — 
 " may hint what it likes. Let 'em find the heir. 
 Ha I ha ! ha ! That's beaten me, and it'll beat 
 them. Then he's to be proved legitimate, and 
 Sylvester Chapman is an outsider, with no 
 locus standi. Besides, we can cause his family 
 pride and honour to forbid him to move in the 
 case of a bastard. Yes, I've a strong line of 
 battle against attack from that quarter." 
 
 Pausing. 
 
 *' I wonder if he really knows anything about 
 this boy? Tut, tut. It's only revenge. He 
 got bilked of his bride, and he can't let a chance 
 pass of annoying a successful rival. Silly, silly 
 fellow ! If he only knew how much one woman
 
 302 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 is like another, and all of 'em a pest and a 
 bother, he'd keep quiet. Smith can't have 
 found him out. Besides, Smith's in America. 
 Mrs. Scaife couldn't sell him any papers. She 
 lost ^em. That old parson couldn't do anything 
 to stir things up, for he's long been dead. No, 
 no, Sylvester, you are no more able to move 
 with success in this business now than you 
 were to influence your brother against me more 
 than twenty years ago. I'll beat you, and your 
 lawyer, too. Ha, ha, ha." 
 
 Standing still. 
 
 " I wish there was an end of it." 
 
 What a hollow, half-hearted laugh maugre 
 the malice and triumph in it ! The eye may 
 glare with a boiled setness, yet the lower face 
 plainly declares that it has taken bitter for 
 sweet. What a sudden change of tone ! 
 
 " Papa dearest, what troubles you V Are you 
 not wellf 
 
 He stops, startled in that walk, which had 
 almost a limp of lameness in it. He looks as 
 scarcely comprehending the gentle vision in 
 virgin white. The arm lifts to his neck with 
 its soft muslin caress, the lips petition to his
 
 NIGHT-THOUGHTS. 303 
 
 cheek as he comes out of semi-dazement, looks 
 down^ and, comprehending, gives an impatient 
 " Tut, tufc, child," tossing the head in a tiff at 
 interruption. 
 
 '' Papa, what ails you ?" says the strong love 
 which will not be rebuffed. "What ails you? 
 Sit down. You look tired." 
 
 She pulls his chair towards him, shakes up 
 the cushion coaxingly, leads him to it, and 
 kneels down beside him, looking lovingl}' up 
 into his half comprehending face. He feels 
 towards her waist with the left arm, and, 
 understanding, she rises, and seats herself 
 gently on his knee, pressing the warm, young 
 face and vibrant curls to his wan cheek. 
 
 *' Tell me, pa, what pains you f " 
 
 He has an answer of ailments, but none that 
 her sympathy can heal. She whispers her 
 little soothing thoughts. She is his favourite 
 daughter that might always approach him when 
 in his sternest and most, taciturn moods, 
 but her power to-night cannot uncurtain the 
 thoughts which are secretly killing. 
 
 " Pa, do tell me what is the matter. It makes 
 ma sad, Millie sad, Janet sad, and me sad to
 
 304 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 see you so troubled and lonely, leaving us all 
 the day to pine here, never coming into the 
 drawing-room whoever may be staying with 
 us." 
 
 A great sigh, as the worn face looks down- 
 wards, the cheeks and lips hanging flabbier than 
 heretofore. The head sways wearily, even with 
 all the witchery of that young heart so close, 
 its pure feeling, its fresh hopes, its innocence, its^ 
 tender sympathies waiting like fragrant tendrils 
 to cling and bless. Ah ! it is the ecstacy of 
 subtle pain that these things can be seen, felt, 
 possessed, and not enjoyed, for the gnawing 
 dread that comes between. 
 
 '^Papa, I go early to-morrow morning to 
 Whittlemore, to mamma's old friends, the 
 Wittons. Won't you tell me now what I can 
 do to make you happier?" 
 
 *' Nothing, nothing, but stay here." 
 
 " 1 will, pa. I'll go and tell Biddy to stop 
 packing my box." 
 
 ''No, no, child. You must go. I did not 
 mean what I said. You must go." 
 
 '^ Pa, I won't go, if you will say that you'll 
 be happier for my remaining at home."
 
 NIGHT-THOUGHTS. 305 
 
 " Goj love. I'll try to be happier here if you 
 go, and Millie shall tell me how you get od. 
 Young folks should take pleasure, for old folks 
 can enjoy nothing." 
 
 *' Then, pa, I'll stay, and grieve with you 
 rather than pleasure with the Wittons." 
 
 No. She must go. He will be the happier 
 to hear of her enjoyment, and it will cast 
 its reflection upon him. Yes, she must go to 
 Whittlemore to-morrow, as arranged. 
 
 " Won't you tell me, pa, what ails you ?" 
 
 No, nothing ails him. Only his sciatica is 
 ver}' painful. He's getting old now, and old 
 folks must bear pains if only to balance the 
 pleasures of their young, foolish lives, long since 
 worn out. 
 
 He will bid her good-bye to-night. 
 
 '^ Won't you tell me, pa, what troubles you?" 
 
 The gentle arm is round his neck, the tender, 
 tearful eye glancing into his, the white-draped 
 form clinging to the dark garb like innocence 
 to hopelessness ; but all in vain. He will con- 
 fide nothing. He kisses the cherry lips, each 
 damask cheek glowing with feeling, and lets 
 her go. There are dim spots dulling the 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 virgin sheen of the girl's dress when she re- 
 gains the drawing-room, tell-tales of silent 
 tears.
 
 307 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PRISON AND A VISITOR. 
 
 " 11 TAY it please your lordship. Gentlemen 
 •^^^ of the jury, the defendant, Eliza Scaife, 
 is indicted for having feloniously conspired to 
 make away with a young child, as you have 
 heard, and I will prove, beyond all question, 
 
 that she did not " 
 
 The gentleman in horse-hair did nothing of 
 the sort ; he only managed to reduce the crime 
 to a lower category, and the penalty to eight- 
 een months' imprisonment. 
 
 Some years before, we have seen this woman 
 living at Rotherford, and endeavouring to bring 
 up that child Florence, to whom she had taken 
 such a fancy, in a respectable walk of life. The 
 girl had, in fact, become a schoolmistress in a 
 contiguous village, and was much respected by 
 
 x2
 
 308 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 the clergyman there. They had lived quietly^ 
 getting an honest livelihood, these two, until 
 this disaster fell upon them. Nemesis had come 
 for a crime committed years before, and when 
 men said it was too late as a punishment for past 
 evil, and only a deterrent of present and pros- 
 pective good in Mrs. Scaife herself. The girl felt 
 the disgrace more than the woman's own child- 
 ren, and roused up, after the first shock, to such 
 energy in providing the means of defence that 
 she succeeded in mitigating the penalty very 
 materially. 
 
 She had gone into Whittlemore to a solicitor 
 named Witton, a hard-headed, shrewd man, and 
 interested him so much in the case that he had 
 worked on every possible point of the indict- 
 ment and kept out much damaging evidence as 
 irrelevant. The girl in her excitement^ in her 
 tender sympathy for this woman, had uncon- 
 sciously added something to the rays of the 
 golden hair, the blue eyes, the oval face, the 
 bright, healthy complexion. This, of course, 
 had had no effect upon a matter of fact bache- 
 lor of thirty-six, with a practical turn and a 
 sarcastic power of expression. Solicitors work
 
 PRISON AND A VISITOR. 309 
 
 for money, and this one did. The only sign of 
 mitigation in him was that, when she had paid 
 counsel's fees, he said he would not press her 
 for his own bill. The counsel's fees were 
 named, and made a prodigious hole in her 
 quarter's salary, but, singularl}^ enough, the 
 lawyer's bill lingered on its way to the young 
 teacher. Occasionally she had to see him, and 
 he, so brisk in getting rid of his press of 
 clients, generally found time to listen patiently 
 to her feminine roundabout way of putting her 
 case. 
 
 '' Whenever you feel in any difficulty, Miss 
 Scaife — by the way, you said Mrs. Scaife was 
 not your mother. By what name shall I call 
 you r 
 
 "Oh, that will do, sir," Florence had said, 
 blushing. 
 
 Mystery upon mystery about the girl, Mr. 
 Witton had said to himself, and then finished 
 his sentence. 
 
 '• Well, if ever you need advice, come here. 
 It will give me pleasure to serve you.^' 
 
 Curious to relate, this girl's cloud of hair 
 and pleading eye lingered longer than more
 
 310 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 important professional things in the lawyer's 
 mind, and he always was at liberty when his 
 clerk announced " Miss Scaife." 
 
 And Mrs. Scaife ; how did she get on ? Of 
 course she bore the prison discipline and en- 
 dured the prison fare, hard things at her time 
 of life, as best she might ; but they were not 
 her heaviest care. Her load was in one sense 
 lightened, for now the crime that had floated 
 as an evil, airy spectre before her boding mind 
 for long, had come in the tangible form of 
 punishment^ and dwarfed in mould while 
 materialised somewhat in aspect. In another 
 sense her burden was the heavier. She had 
 much time to think of past sins, and one sin 
 grew no lighter by being pondered over in that 
 lonely cell. Had she done all that she could to 
 right that affectionate girl who had been more 
 helpful to her than her two daughters? Her 
 conscience acquitted her of the charge of not 
 seeking after the missing boy, but it did not com- 
 mend everything else. It did not approve the 
 reason why she had simply waited and watched 
 for this girl, instead of doing and daring some-
 
 PRISON AND A VISITOR. 311 
 
 thing ill her behalf. True, without the boy it did 
 not seem she could do much, and the imple- 
 ments with which she had in due time intended 
 to -work had been mysteriously stolen from her. 
 But then this was only another reason for 
 suspecting a grievous wrong was being done to 
 the two children. It was a reason why she 
 should have stirred the quiet waters, and, for- 
 getting her own fears, have prospected what 
 might be got by playing more vigorously on 
 another person's. And yet she had not had a 
 clear case altogether ; only surmises, but still 
 of such a character as not only to justify action, 
 but to incite it. When she got out of prison, 
 she said to herself, she would do something. 
 She did something in the meantime. She wrote 
 to Mrs. Smart, the milk- woman, requesting a 
 visit, but that lady said to her friends that she 
 " warn't going to visit a prisoner ;" and to Mrs. 
 Scaife and Florence that Lancaster was so far 
 from Whittlemore that she couldn't go there. 
 
 But Mrs. Scaife received a visit she did not 
 request. 
 
 A big, feeble man came, fat, and breathing
 
 312 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 asthmatically, along the close passages. His 
 lower face was covered with a great muffler, 
 and he walked with a faltering, uncertain step 
 into the cell. She flushed at the apparition, 
 and glared as the second glance drew him into 
 recognition. 
 
 *• Eliza," he began, very gaspingly and 
 palpitatingly, " I was so sorry to hear of your 
 being in this place that I have come to say so." 
 
 " You lie, John Dacre Mumford. You are 
 sorry for your own reasons that I am going to 
 get out." 
 
 u Oh ! Eliza ^' 
 
 " Mrs. Scaife, if you please, sir." 
 
 " Oh ! Mrs. Scaife, if so you will it, you are as 
 hot and unjust as ever. What interest can I 
 have? What," he said, with a little feeble 
 deprecation, a little senile snivel, — " what but 
 pity could bring me here, when so poorly, to 
 see you V 
 
 '^ Nothing but self-interest ever would have 
 brought you." 
 
 '^ Eli — Mrs. Scaife, I mean, have you no pity 
 for a poor man, much broken in health, and, 1 
 fear, utterly in fortune ? Look at me.'^
 
 PRISON AND A VISITOR. 313 
 
 " Look at me, John Mumford. Should I ever 
 have been here, if your falsehood had not brought 
 me to the want that made me commit crime to 
 get my fatherless children bread ? Would you 
 €ver V did you ever put forth a finger to help 
 me until you wanted something out of me ? 
 Let us have no cant now, sir. Say what you 
 want at once, and begone." 
 
 " Oh dear, oh dear," he sighed out, feebly, 
 " Fm not fit for this encounter^ but you might 
 have some reason." 
 
 " Have you advanced anything as yet to exer- 
 cise reason upon ? What does the man want ? 
 Is he becoming a whining dotard ?" she cried, 
 with scorn in eye, in voice, on lip, and flushing 
 face. 
 
 « Eliza " 
 
 " If I hear that word again, I'll " and she 
 
 rose, menacing like a fury over him. 
 
 '' Well, Mrs. Scaife. I ask again, have you 
 no pity ? I'm a poor, broken man, swindled 
 out of my Australian property." 
 
 " Swindling's like chickens and curses, come 
 home to roost." 
 
 " I'm broken in health and means, and must
 
 314 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 soon die. Can you not have some mercy, and 
 hear what I have come to say ?" 
 
 ** Say on," she said, with sullen brow, " and 
 cut it short." 
 
 " I want, Mrs. Scaife, to do an act of justice. 
 Where is that boy I committed to your 
 hands?" 
 
 '* Did I not tell you I do not know ? Why 
 do you want him ?" 
 
 " I can tell him of something to his advant- 
 age." 
 
 ^'And yours, too/' she replied, with a sneer. 
 *^ But why don't you ask about the girl f 
 
 "The boy is all important. If he cannot be 
 found, then I shall, in time, want her. But the 
 boy is everything." 
 
 •' And what do you want with him?" 
 
 '^ I cannot tell you that as yet." 
 
 " Then I'll tell you. You have been keeping 
 him out of his property, and trouble is coming 
 to you for your crime." 
 
 '' No, no. You don't know that." 
 
 '' But I do. Didn't I read the documents ?" 
 
 ^' Then you told me a lie, when you said you 
 never got that packet of papers."
 
 PRISON AND A VISITOR. 315 
 
 *' I did, in a good caiise. I meant to bring 
 you before this to your account-giving." 
 
 " But you can't prove what you say. No- 
 body would believe you." 
 
 " And why ? You sent a thief into my house 
 to steal them, as you very well know*." 
 
 "But she didn't steal all." 
 
 '"She! Ah! I've caught you. It was a 
 woman that did it. ^Yell, never mind how 
 much she did steal, or she didn't. That's my 
 affair." 
 
 " But, Eliza, if you^^e got any of them, 111 
 pay you well for them." 
 
 " I'll sell you nothing. This," she cried, look- 
 ing round at the bare prison walls, "is w^hat 
 comes of having dealings with such as you." 
 
 '^ You do me wrong. I want to right things." 
 
 " John Dacre Mumford, they ivill be righted, 
 mind that. But what were you righting when 
 you were bribing me, in an underhand way, to 
 destroy these children 1 Making it my interest, 
 by giving a lump sum of money with them, to 
 get rid of them and trouble all at once. Ay, and 
 robbing them even of their very names until 
 they should be put out of the way."
 
 31 b STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 *' Oh ! no, I never did that." 
 
 *'Liar! You did." 
 
 "For shame, Eli — that is, Mrs. Scaife/' — as 
 he saw her at the word rise as if for violence. 
 " Did I not take a note from you promising care- 
 ful cherishing, and vouching to produce them 
 in health whenever I should require them?" 
 
 " Yes, you did, and you never meant to 
 require them. It was a coward^s way of 
 covering himself at the expense of his 
 victims." 
 
 " Oh ! Mrs. Scaife ! oh ! Mrs. Scaife !" and he 
 held up his hands, as if utterly shocked. 
 
 "And, Mumford," she said, with incisive 
 insinuating bitterness, ''you thought in the 
 same vein to get those documents into your 
 hands to rob those poor children of their all, 
 when you couldn't take their lives. You want 
 to buy now what you think will serve yourself 
 at their cost. You stole, through that woman, 
 what you got." 
 
 " No. Never. I never stole them." 
 
 " Yes, thief, you did. But, mark, you stole 
 and you didnH steal; because you couldn't 
 steal my memory and intelligence with these
 
 PRISON AND A VISITOR. 317 
 
 documents. Everything in them was carefully 
 abstracted. There's quite enough yet in my 
 hands in black and white, Mumford/' she ex- 
 claimed, with a malicious laugh, "to put the 
 avengers on the scent in that time which is 
 coming on so fast." 
 
 The man sat with open, helpless mouth and 
 wandering eye. None of the high, ringing 
 voice, the crushing, forceful manner, the cold, 
 imperturbable look, meeting, to her astonish- 
 ment, the outpour of these vials of long hoarded 
 hate. Far otherwise. In plaintive, semi-crying, 
 senile, almost whining tones, he asked if she 
 wouldn't have pity upon his poor girls and him- 
 self, an impoverished man ? 
 
 " Never !" she screeched, with a vindictive 
 stamp of her foot. " Never. We'll have justice, 
 and you shall have it too, you heartless wretch." 
 
 " Eliza — Mrs. Scaife — oh ! think of my im- 
 poveiishment." 
 
 " Impoverishment, forsooth ! You will be 
 rich as long as roguery pays, else I might think 
 of your family." 
 
 " Time's up," cried a gruff voice, as a knock 
 at the door was heard.
 
 318 STRANGE CHAPMAN. 
 
 " Yes, and your time will soon be up^ scoun- 
 drel." 
 
 Her clenched fist was in his face as the officer 
 entered. 
 
 " Begone to your doom, and may it be as vile 
 as your heart. Take him out, warder, and let 
 this moral skunk come here no more. The 
 sight of him scorches my very eyebaills. Next 
 time to see is to kill." 
 
 What meant she? The man stared at 
 her. Her eyes seemed to blaze on both, and a 
 nimbus of single hairs appeared to lift in her 
 passion about her brow, as if great electric 
 batteries were charging her with their tempest 
 fluid. 
 
 The officer was astonished. The matron had 
 said that she had been so quiet and good as a 
 prisoner. He led the big, bewildered man 
 panting out as the female warder entered. 
 
 *'It seems to me as how she's one too many 
 for you, sir. Who'd ha' thought she was sitch 
 a tiger ! But then women — '' and he shook his 
 head, and went silently on his way, for rumour 
 said he was married, very much married in- 
 deed.
 
 PRISON AND A VISITOR. 319 
 
 Mr. Mnmforcl endeavoured, notwithstanding 
 what had happened, to obtain another inter- 
 view. He had an idea that he had managed 
 badly, and still might hedge with her about 
 the girl, making offers somehow still unmade ; 
 but prisoner and magistrate alike sternly- 
 refused, and he went thence a beaten, down- 
 hearted man. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 :.Ox^DON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN :.LA.CDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE.
 
 //^