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THE LOVER'S CREED 
 I. 
 
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 THE LOVER'S CREED 
 
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 BY 
 
 MRS CASHEL HOEY 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 THE QUESTION OF CAIN ' ' THE BLOSSOMING OF AN ALOE* ' NO SIGN' ETC. 
 
 'ONE, AND ONE ONLY, IS THE LOVER'S CREED' 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES— VOL. L 
 
 bonbon 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1884 
 
 [Ail rie/its reserved] 
 
LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
^5 3 
 
 Pebtcafeb to 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 HUGH CULLING EARDLEY CHILDERS, M.P. 
 
 CHANCELLOR OP THE EXCHEQUER 
 
 ^- 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 AN EMBASSY. 
 
 ' I CAN make time,' said Mr. Dexter, as he put 
 some papers into his rusty black bag. ' I will 
 go down and see Mr. Bassett to-morrow.' 
 
 ' By the morning or the evening mail, sir ? ' 
 'The morning, Mr. Norris, the morning. 
 I must either get up uncomfortably early at 
 this end, or arrive uncomfortably late at the 
 other ; I'll do the first, for then I shall disturb 
 nobody but myself.' 
 
 ' Shall you stay over Monday, sir ? There's 
 nothing very pressing, and a few hours in the 
 country will do you good.' 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Mr. Dexter looked doubtful, and shook his 
 head, as he replied that, although there would 
 be a good deal of business to settle, he thought 
 it most likely he should get back to town by 
 Monday night. 
 
 Mr. Norris was neither sympathetic nor im- 
 aginative, and the notion that the distress of a 
 client could injuriously affect the enjoyment of 
 a run into the country by a busy solicitor, to 
 whom such a chance seldom offered itself, did 
 not occur to him. He would have conveyed 
 news, good or bad, to anybody, with business- 
 like propriety and indifference, and he held his 
 chief to be as sensible a person as himself. But 
 Mr. Norris was not quite right in this flattering 
 estimate of Mr. Dexter. The latter had his 
 weaknesses ; one of them was a strong regard 
 for the client whom he now proposed to visit 
 unannounced. As he buttoned his coat, swept 
 his soft silk handkerchief round his hat to 
 smooth it, and finally departed, bag in hand, 
 from his dingy office in Lincoln's Inn, bound for 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 3 
 
 his modest bachelor's abode in Taviton Street, 
 there was an uncomfortable sense of opppres- 
 sion about Mr. Dexter, and a rueful conscious- 
 ness that the errand on which he was bound 
 could by no means be made to assume a holiday- 
 aspect. 
 
 His chief being gone, and business over for 
 the day, Mr. Norris, who was of a spare habit, 
 narrow-chested, and on bad terms with his di- 
 gestion, betook himself to a gymnasium, where 
 he was in the habit of counteracting the lack of 
 exercise by dumb-bell practice. 
 
 It was on a fine spring morning that Mr. 
 Dexter left Euston Station for Chester by the 
 Irish Mail. Eailway carriages in the year 
 1854 were not so large and luxurious as they 
 are now, and Mr. Dexter was fastidious ; so he 
 carefully scanned the long line of the train 
 before he deposited himself, with his back to 
 the engine, in a corner seat of a first-class 
 compartment in which but one other place was 
 bespoken. The corner seat opposite to Mr. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Dexter 's was occupied by a neatly rolled black 
 woollen shawl, a book, and a small umbrella. 
 Mr. Dexter settled his rug, laid his newspapers 
 beside him, adjusted his travelling cap, and 
 gave himself up to contemplating the arrivals, 
 the growing haste, and the general fuss attend- 
 ing the starting of a train, with the lazy self- 
 approving complacency that comes of being in 
 ample time and removed from every cause of 
 flurry. There was in the scene nothing un- 
 familiar to him, but it amused him — the sense 
 of change is always something to a mono- 
 tonously busy man — and time was all but up 
 ere he observed that the compartment in which 
 he was seated seemed likely to have no other 
 occupant. The owner of the shawl, the book, 
 and the umbrella did not appear, and Mr. 
 Dexter had just leaned out of the window on 
 his side to call the attention of the guard to 
 this fact, when a lady accompanied by a porter 
 came along the platform at a rapid pace and 
 approached th^ carriage. Mr. Dexter drew back 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 5 
 
 as the porter turned the door handle, and had 
 just time to think what a sweet-looking girl his 
 fellow-traveller was, when she stepped up on 
 the footboard, and saying, ' I beg your pardon,' 
 snatched up her portable property, and ran 
 along the train to a compartment lower down. 
 Mr. Dexter was ridiculously disconcerted by 
 this trivial incident, and showed his feelings so 
 plainly in his face, that the intelligent porter 
 ran on for a few steps, with his hand upon 
 the door, as the train moved slowly past the 
 platform, while he said : ' Lady had second- 
 class ticket, sir ; mistook the carriage.' The 
 train glided on, Mr. Dexter nodded to the man, 
 and sat back in his corner with a feeling of 
 relief. 
 
 ' I'm glad it wasn't I that frightened her 
 away,' he thought, ' and I hope she has got 
 into good company.' Then he read his morn- 
 ing paper, dozed, looked out at the beautiful 
 country through which he was passing — grow- 
 ing more beautiful as the sun rose higher and 
 
6 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 the gladness of the spring revealed itself — 
 resolved that he would not think of anything 
 but the scene before his eyes ; by degrees 
 found his thoughts getting into the accustomed 
 office groove, and finally, long before the stop 
 at Eugby, had dived into his bag, and was 
 deep in ' business.' The train was within half 
 an hour of Chester, when Mr. Dexter observed 
 an ivory paper-knife lying on the floor of the 
 carriage. He concluded it had fallen out of 
 the book that had lain upon the opposite seat, 
 picked it up, and resolved to look for the lady 
 of whom he had caught so brief a glimpse, on 
 arriving at the next stopping-place. Probably 
 she was going on to Holyhead ; if she stepped 
 out on the platform at Chester he should 
 recognise her ; if she did not, he would look 
 for her in the train. 
 
 Holding the paper-knife conspicuously, Mr. 
 Dexter alighted on the platform at Chester, 
 and immediately perceived that the lady for 
 whom he was looking had done the same. As 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 7 
 
 he approached, he heard her direct a porter to 
 take her kis^o-aore out of the van. 
 
 ' Pardon me,' said Mr. Dexter, ' I think this 
 must belong to you. I picked it up in the 
 carriage you left.' 
 
 '- Oh, thank you, it is mine,' said the lady, 
 taking the paper-knife from his hand, and 
 placing it between the leaves of her book ; 
 ' I was so sorry w^hen I thought I had lost it.' 
 
 ' Then I am very glad to have found it.' 
 For a confirmed bachelor of fifty, Mr. Dexter's 
 politeness, without a trace of gallantry in it, 
 was remarkably well done, as he added : — 
 
 ' Can I be of any use to you ? Have you 
 reached your destination ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, I leave the train here.' 
 
 She was, as Mr. Dexter had pronounced 
 her in his thoughts, veiy sweet-lookmg, and 
 her manner was simple and modest. She had 
 spoken only a few most ordinary words, she 
 had smiled, very shghtly, with the pleasure of 
 recovering the valueless article by which she 
 
8 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 evidently set some store of association ; these 
 were small indications, and Mr. Dexter was a 
 cautious man ; but he was thinking at that 
 moment, ' If she is as sweet as she looks, what 
 a nice sort of a girl she would be to have for a 
 daughter.' The usual bustle was going on, 
 and as the lady looked about her rather wist- 
 fully, Mr. Dexter repeated his question : — 
 
 ' Can I be of any use to you ? May I see 
 to your luggage ? ' 
 
 ' A porter has gone to get it out of the 
 train,' she said. ' I am very much obliged to 
 you, sir, but I am expecting my father. I 
 thought he would have been on the platform.' 
 
 She did not say this fretfully, or with any 
 of the flurry of a young traveller ; she said it 
 patiently, and she stood quietly, although the 
 crowd was now dispersing. The next moment, 
 the man whom she had sent for her luggage 
 trundled it up to the spot, and asked what was 
 to be done with it. 
 
 'I — I don't know,' she said, now looking 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. ^ 
 
 embarrassed ; ' I had better remain here. Pray 
 do not wait,' turning to Mr. Dexter ; ' my 
 father will come or send some one presently.' 
 
 'Can't leave luggage on the platform, 
 Miss, it ain't allowed — take you to the Ladies' 
 Waiting Eoom,' said the porter. This was 
 clearly the best thing to be done ; the lady 
 bowed to Mr. Dexter, and followed the truck 
 as it went screeching across the footway, in 
 the direction of the dreary wastes that in those 
 days awaited travellers detained at the Chester 
 station. 
 
 Mr. Dexter looked after the lady, noting 
 her erect carriage and her steady, graceful 
 gait, until he was recalled to a recollection of 
 his own business by the man who had taken 
 charge of his valise during this time, and whom 
 he now directed to procure a carriage for him. 
 
 ' With a good horse,' added Mr. Dexter ; ' I 
 want to go to Bassett. You will find me in 
 the Eefreshment Eoom.' 
 
 Having eaten a biscuit and drunk a glass 
 
lo THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 of ale — these things he justly regarded as the 
 only safe resources of the Eefreshment Eoom 
 — Mr. Dexter was wending his way to the 
 vehicle he had ordered, when he again caught 
 sight of the lady. She was just disappearing 
 through the exit doors, and she was no longer 
 alone. A tall, stout, rough-looking man 
 walked by her side, but he had not relieved 
 ber of her book or her shawl. 
 
 ' Her father has turned up, then. I am 
 glad of it ; but I wonder who he is. Not a 
 gentleman, certainly ; and she is just as cer- 
 tainly a lady.' 
 
 The carriage, a lumbering ' fly,' drawn by 
 a horse, sturdy and well-to-do, but with an 
 ungroomed look which at that time nobody in 
 those parts used to mind, was drawn up at the 
 station gate ; in its rear was a ' round car,' 
 of the old-established Welsh pattern, with a 
 dumpy boy in the driving-seat. The youth's 
 hard cheeks, the red in them as well-defined as 
 a square of black or white in a chess-board, his 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED, n 
 
 beady black eyes, and harsh black hair, pro- 
 claimed his nationality. Any one would have 
 called him Jones, or Williams, or both, at a 
 glance. As a matter of fact his name was 
 Eeuben Jones. This youth was looking 
 straight before him at nothing, and stolidly 
 eating his way through an enormous hunch of 
 bread and cheese. From neither of these 
 occupations did he desist while his master, 
 shoved, rather than handed the young lady 
 into the uncouth vehicle, and assisted the 
 railway porter to hoist over the side of the 
 car a large black box, too wide to go in at the 
 door, and to set it up on end within. He was 
 ultimately roused to participation in what was 
 passing, by his master's giving him a rap on 
 the head as he asked him ' why the devil he 
 did not catch hold of the carpet-bag ? ' To this 
 the boy made a practical but voiceless reply 
 by cramming the article in question under his 
 feet, and, having just glanced round to see that 
 his freight was seated, he ' chucked ' the reins, 
 
12 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 and the round car rumbled off over the stones 
 of Chester. 
 
 ' Dexter, eh ? ' said the owner of the round 
 car to himself — he had read the name on the 
 traveller's neat valise, as he passed the carriage. 
 'Dexter, eh? That's the lawyer — and he's 
 going to Bassett. Belike there's something 
 wrong with the Squire/ 
 
 •3r ^ •5r ^ 2^ 
 
 About five miles from the ancient city of 
 Chester, and at the date of this story just that 
 distance out of railway reach, lies the small and 
 pretty village of Bassett. Concerning Bassett, 
 no sanitary horrors had been discovered in 
 1854 ; it had not been pronounced by the 
 Inspectors of anything or the Board of anywhere 
 to be a whited, or rather a red-and-whited, 
 sepulchre, with disease growing in its garden 
 plots, and death on tap in its water supply. 
 It was a passably ignorant village, even judged 
 by the standard of thirty years ago. What 
 would be thought of it in these days of the rule 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 13 
 
 of the School Board, no one who was really 
 fond of the place would like to picture to his 
 or her mind's eye. And yet, somehow or other, 
 Bassett was a happy village in those old times. 
 There was not a great deal of wealth, but 
 neither was there very grinding poverty in the 
 place. The smaller land-owners in the neigh- 
 bourhood were of the stay-at-home order, and 
 a good deal of comfort, arising from continuous 
 employment, not too badly paid, and supple- 
 mented by personal supervision and kindly help 
 from the better-off people who knew all about 
 its needs, was the result of that unfashionable 
 tendency. It was all wrong, possibly, from the 
 philosophical and pohtico-economical point of 
 view. To the advanced thinker who does not 
 care for ' the individual,' there would probably 
 have been discouragement in the stagnant con- 
 tent of Bassett. In the vicinity of such great 
 centres of Industry too ! Why, one of the sights 
 of Bassett was the furnace flames to be seen at 
 night from the great Deeside * Works.' They 
 
14 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 were, however, dull creatures at Bassett, agri- 
 cultural in their ways — a little too beery, 
 perhaps, for the ideal — and decided optimists, 
 without having the shghtest idea of what op- 
 timism meant. Perhaps, however, your real 
 optimist never has any such idea ; for if there 
 be anything to cure one expeditiously and radi- 
 cally of that mood it is the analysing of it. 
 
 Bassett was given to dissent in religion, but 
 the living was held by a wealthy man who was 
 a good deal away for his health, and who gave 
 largely without distinction of ' church ' or 
 ' chapel.' Of the three estates contiguous to the 
 village of Bassett, the smallest was the most 
 ancient and long-descended. The Earl of Dee 
 and Sir Henry Trescoe were very much bigger 
 men than Squire Bassett, but they were com- 
 paratively modern, whereas it was a moot 
 question whether a remote Bassett had given 
 his name to the village that had borne it for 
 centuries, or the village had given its name 
 to a family whose origin was lost in the mists 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 15 
 
 of antiquity. That there never had been a 
 time when there was not a Bassett of Bassett was 
 an article of faith in the place ; that there ever 
 could come a time when some one known as 
 ' the Squire ' would not inhabit the old house on 
 the hill, with its forest of curved and twisted 
 chimneys, and its countless windows, whose 
 shining when the sun was westering was ' a 
 sight,' was an idea too large and fatal to be 
 grasped by the village mind. 
 
 That time had not come yet, at all events, for 
 the Squire is a well preserved and, for all that 
 appearances tell the observer, a prosperous 
 gentleman. We find him on the garden terrace 
 at the back of his ancient red and white house 
 — to which it would be idle to assign a style 
 of architecture, for it has been picturesquely 
 patched ever since it was first built. Whatever 
 may be the news that Mr. Dexter is bringing 
 him, no prevision of it is disturbing him now, 
 as he walks to and fro on the wide red-brick 
 terrace, with a broad flight of shallow steps 
 
i6 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 leading to the vast garden, famous throughout 
 Cheshire for its roses. The Squire looks for a 
 splendid blow this year. Three men are now at 
 work about midway in that great space, and a 
 neat cart, drawn by a donkey who knows and 
 loves the Squire, and has a good time of it if 
 ever donkey had, is in attendance for the 
 removal of weeds. The Squire is what Miss 
 Nestle, the housekeeper, calls ' that particular 
 about weeds, he will not have them if it was 
 ever so ' — a phrase which commends itself to 
 Miss Nestle as of conclusive force and meaning. 
 It is true that the Squire is very particular about 
 his garden, and that it is a source of great plea- 
 sure to him. He has just returned from super 
 intending the operations going on below, and 
 having a friendly talk with Jacob the donkey, 
 and he is thinking, while he walks upon the 
 garden terrace, about a certain letter which he 
 has to Avrite to-day or to-morrow — it will be as 
 well to do it to-day. 
 
 The letter which Squire Bassett is composing 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 17 
 
 in his mind, here rejecting a phrase, and 
 there extenuating an expression, is to be 
 addressed to his son, John Bassett — commonly, 
 indeed universally, known as Jack — to whom 
 he has never in his life said a harsh word, or 
 indited a severe epistle. The Squire has no 
 intention of writing severely to Jack at present ; 
 he means to write gravely, but not severely. 
 There are reasons why he should do this, but 
 they have partly originated in his own fault. 
 His son could not have known what he had 
 never been told, and, now that he has to be 
 warned against a tendency to extravagance, 
 the Squire's warning must not take the form of 
 blame. 
 
 The spring day had brightened to a won- 
 drous loveliness. A light delicious wind stirred 
 the tender green leaves, and sent beautiful 
 ripples over the grass and flower beds ; the 
 small white clouds — not the piled-up silver 
 mounds of summer, but the downy feathers 
 of spring, like angels' wings in the celestial 
 
 h^VOL.I. 
 
i8 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 moulting time — floated under the blue dome of 
 the sky ; the twittering of birds tuning up for 
 evening lent its indescribable charm to the 
 scene. The house was built upon the only 
 eminence in the demesne, a gentle hill, open at 
 the back and front, but well- wooded at either 
 side ; and how it had come to be set in such a 
 situation, being of the age it was, no one could 
 explain ; for the great houses all around were 
 built in hollows, and only Bassett stood hke a 
 beacon on a hill. The irregular pile of build- 
 ing, which had received no additions for half a 
 century, was roomy and commodious, but not 
 grand, and a great part of the house was un- 
 occupied. Not for that reason was it untended, 
 however. Any profane person who should 
 have ventured to suggest ' flue ' in the unused 
 rooms, or to suppose it would take some time 
 to get them ready ' for staying company,' would 
 have received a lesson from Miss Nestle such as 
 he must have had a short memory indeed to 
 forget. The favourite rooms of the sohtary 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 19 
 
 master of the house — for the Squire and his son 
 were alone in the world, and Jack had been 
 but little at home lately — were those that 
 opened on the garden terrace ; the great 
 drawing-rooms he rarely visited and never 
 used. In the hall or saloon stood a billiard- 
 table with bulky brass-adorned legs, uncovered 
 only when Jack came home and ' turned the 
 house out of windows,' as Miss Nestle, who 
 perfectly worshipped him, expressed it. Behind 
 the saloon lay the garden-terrace rooms. 
 
 The pleasantest of these was the Squire's 
 reading and writing- room. He would have 
 called the apartment his library, onl}^ that to 
 do so would have grieved Miss Is'estle to the 
 soul ; for was not the real library, the old 
 library, the family library, lined with locked 
 bookcases containing innumerable books, cor- 
 rectly situated alongside of the great dining- 
 room on the left of the saloon, and opposite to 
 the drawing-rooms on the right? And was it 
 not the joy and solace of Miss Nestle's existence 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 that in this portion of the house at least every- 
 thing had its proper place, and was always 
 kept in it ? 
 
 So that the Squire had the books he wanted 
 about him, and the books he did not want were 
 safe in their shelves, he did not care what the 
 room in which he chiefly lived was called. It 
 was light, lofty, pleasant, v/ith old-fashioned 
 furniture, such as we were wont to despise 'in the 
 days that were earlier ' of this century, but are 
 content to pay smart prices for in our own. 
 The lofty windows were hung with curtains of 
 crimson satin damask that in its time had been 
 gorgeous, and still was rich, but its full tint had 
 faded to a subdued aspect that went well with 
 the sombre carpet and the dark oak furniture. 
 There were no nicknacks in the Squire's 
 favourite room. A bronze timepiece, flanked 
 by candelabra of classical, design, ornamented 
 the high, narrow white marble mantelpiece 
 with fluted jambs inlaid with red, and a florid 
 frontal of allegorical sculpture. There were 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 21 
 
 books everywhere, not only where they ought, 
 but where Miss Nestle held that they ought not, 
 to be — on this point she carried on a covert 
 warfare with the Squire — a number of maps, 
 several portfolios of engravings, and on the 
 large writing-table, placed near the glass door 
 opening on the terrace, there invariably stood 
 a bowl — a rich and rare specimen of the old 
 Crown Derby that is the cheerfullest of china 
 — filled with freshly cut flowers. If a man's 
 character is to be told by his surroundings, 
 Squire Bassett was one whose tastes were at 
 once studious and simple : those of a scholar 
 and a gentleman. 
 
 Turning from his dwelling to his external 
 self, let us see what is tlie aspect of this Squire 
 Bassett, who, be his future what it may, will 
 never again be quite the same as he who 
 walks to and fro in a scene which might form a 
 nook in the earthly paradise of any not alto- 
 gether unreasonable dreams, on this day, so 
 radiant with the beauty and poetical with the 
 
22 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 promise of the spring. Good or evil, or good 
 and evil, may be before the Squire ; but never 
 more the actual condition of things. That is 
 passing away, even as he pauses to observe the 
 beautiful light upon the spread tail of a gor- 
 geous peacock waiting for him to come and 
 scratch its glistening green and purple poll, 
 before it mincingly descends the steps, and 
 walks on the velvet sward, like a court lady 
 trailing a bedizened train. 
 
 The Squire is a slenderly built, erect, spare 
 man ; he carries his fifty years easily. His 
 movements are free, his tread is light, although 
 it is slow ; his eyes are bright, although the 
 lines under them and the creases in the upper 
 eyelids are deep, and they retain their colour to 
 a degree very rare at his age. That colour is 
 the clear, somewhat cold, fearless blue that 
 lends to the eyes of a man the most masterful 
 language ever spoken without words. His face 
 is thin, finely formed, handsomer than when it 
 was younger ; its expression is thoughtful, 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 23 
 
 absent ; that of a man who is accustomed to be 
 much alone, and apt to awake with some dis- 
 comfiture to the consciousness that he is not 
 always so. His smile is rare, but sweet, seldom 
 passing the eyes, but playing pleasantly in them. 
 The Squire wears a full beard, the brown in it 
 is streaked with grey, as his hair, which is very 
 fine, is also. A capable, amiable man, young 
 in all ways for his age : such would be the 
 impression made by Squire Bassett to-day upon 
 any attentive observer. 
 
24 77^5" LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 MR. DEXTER's business. 
 
 The afternoon is wearing away, when the Squire 
 looks at his watch and says to himself: ' I must 
 go and write that letter.' As he turns in from 
 the terrace through the glass door of the book- 
 room, his quick ear catches the sound of wheels 
 in the avenue. Then comes the clang of the 
 door-bell, and presently Mr. Dexter is an- 
 nounced. 
 
 Surprise, but no alarm, is in the Squire's 
 face as he warmly welcomes his friend. This 
 lasts, however, only a moment, for Mr. Dexter's 
 is an expressive countenance. Then the Squire, 
 who has turned pale, says : ' You have come 
 to tell me bad news. Dexter — Is it, is it 
 Jack.?' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 25 
 
 ' No, no ; there's nothing wrong with your 
 son.' 
 
 'Thank God! What is it, then?' His 
 colour has come back, and his voice is clear. 
 
 ' Only business ; but as it is complicated, and 
 this is the end of the week, I thought I would 
 rather come and talk it over with you.' 
 
 ' That was just like you, Dexter. You have 
 to deal me a blow of some kind, and you come 
 to help me to bear it. Another chapter in the 
 history of many years, old friend. And now ' 
 — the Squire laid his hand on Mr. Dexter's left 
 shoulder, and, standing very upright, looked 
 him straight in the face — ' is it the end of that 
 other old story ? ' 
 
 ' No, no, not at all. I have heard nothing 
 whatever. My errand is, in one sense, more 
 serious than anything I could have to tell you 
 on that score. In a word, Squire, we have lost 
 our case.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! That's bad.' 
 
 The Squire gently pushed Mr. Dexter into a 
 
26 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 chair and took a seat himself with great com- 
 posure. Nevertheless he had said the exact 
 truth — his friend had dealt him a blow: dif- 
 ferent men have, however, different ways, not 
 only of bearing, but of estimating blows. 
 
 ' It is very bad. I have been afraid of this 
 result for some time ; it is now certain.' 
 
 ' I suppose,' said the Squire, with a smile, 
 ' we leave the Court without the slightest im- 
 putation on our character ? ' 
 
 ' Of course, of course. Indeed, every one 
 concerned all round is proved to have acted 
 from the most exemplary motives, although, I 
 am bound to admit, with stupendous indifference 
 to the technicalities of the Law of Trusts. 
 Never was there a more vexatious case, within 
 my knowledge, or more serious results from the 
 very best intentions.' 
 
 The Squire's face grew more grave while 
 Mr. Dexter was speaking, and he fixed his 
 eyes moodily upon the ground. 
 
 * I ought to have been better prepared in 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 27 
 
 every way to meet this issue,' he said, after 
 a short pause ; ' it is one of the evils of 
 such long-drawn suspense that one grows care- 
 less and over-bold. However,' he roused him- 
 self, and again he smiled, ' we can discuss all this 
 by-and-by, when you have rested and refreshed 
 yourself. I will take you to your room now.' 
 
 ' I hope Miss Nestle will forgive me for 
 arriving in this unceremonious fashion, without 
 notice.' 
 
 ' She would be less likely to forgive you for 
 supposing it could make any difference whether 
 you gave a week's notice, or arrived as you have 
 done. Miss Nestle's ready guest-chamber is as 
 much of an institution as Napoleon's roast fowl, 
 or George III.'s cherry tart.' 
 
 Thus reassuring his guest, the Squire con- 
 ducted him to a room situated above that in 
 which he had received him, and remarking that 
 he should be found in the book-room, and that 
 dinner hour was half-past six, withdrew. 
 
 The quarters assigned to Mr. Dexter amply 
 
28 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 justified the confidence witli which the Squire 
 had taken his guest to them without asking 
 a question. They consisted of a bedroom and 
 dressing-room, both commanding the garden 
 view ; well lighted, airy rooms, in such perfect 
 order as might have daunted the soul of the 
 untidiest of men, and pervaded by the delicious 
 odour of lavender and rosemary. On a certain 
 day in the early spring of each year. Miss Nestle 
 ' changed her bedrooms,' that is, their draperies ; 
 tasselled snow-white dimity window-hangings, 
 bed curtains, coverlets, and ' furniture ' took the 
 place of the winter plenishing, which, though 
 very comfortable, was not aesthetic, being indeed 
 that combination of drab moreen with black 
 stamped-velvet bordering, which was perhaps 
 the ugliest ' composition ' ever achieved by the 
 upholstery of the past. Mr. Dexter had come 
 in for the dimity and missed the moreen, and, 
 though he was troubled, he could enjoy the de- 
 lightful freshness of the room, the beauty of the 
 terrace and garden, and that of the woodland 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 29 
 
 that inclosed them. After Lincoln's Inn and 
 Taviton Street these things could hardly fail to 
 please, no matter how much might be amiss 
 with other people's affairs, or, indeed, with one's 
 own, short of any of those overwhelming griefs 
 that reduce all places under the sun to an equal 
 monotony of misery. 
 
 Mr. Dexter was in no hurry to rejoin his 
 host. The inevitable blow had been dealt ; it 
 would be well that the Squire should have time 
 to recover from it, perhaps even to relax in 
 solitude the restraint that he had put upon him- 
 self in his manner of receiving it. There was a 
 great deal to talk over and arrange, but they 
 would have time for that to-night, and all to- 
 morrow. So Mr. Dexter changed his travelhng 
 suit for the correct evening clothes of the 
 period, in a slow and deliberate manner, with 
 many pauses to look out of window, and a few 
 to inspect the art ornaments over the mantel- 
 piece and on the walls. These also were of an 
 old-fashioned kind, and included specimens of 
 
30 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 sampler- work in fine silks and hair, such as are 
 hardly to be seen now except in museums. 
 
 Notwithstanding his delay and desultoriness, 
 Mr. Dexter 's mind was not in reality straying 
 from the business that had brought him to 
 Bassett. He was going over all the points 
 which he meant to make, when the serious 
 hour of consultation should have struck, and 
 weighing the for and against of a certain hne 
 of suggestion that had presented itself to him 
 during his journey. It was clear that the sug- 
 gestion of which he was thinking would have 
 to be offered or reserved, according to whether 
 he should find the Squire amenable to his (Mr. 
 Dexter's) view of the situation and its require- 
 ments, or bent upon one of his own which 
 might differ widely from that of his legal 
 adviser. The sun went down with great pomp 
 while Mr. Dexter was making his toilet and his 
 reflections, and when he entered the book-room 
 he found another of Miss Nestle's inexorable 
 laws in operation. Shutters were closed, cur- 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 31 
 
 tains were drawn, candles were lighted, and a 
 small bright fire of well-seasoned wood cut into 
 well-proportioned logs was burning on the 
 hearth, guarded by a brazen rail, and dogs 
 with the ever-reflective head and firmly-posed 
 paws of a pair of sphinxes. 
 
 ' No half-lights for me,' Miss Nestle would 
 say ; ' they're only excuses for idling, and if 
 you want to eat and drink, nothing can be 
 more uncomfortable.' Happily, the Squire was 
 also of Miss Nestle's opinion. 
 
 By tacit consent Mr. Bassett and his guest 
 made no reference to the matter in the minds 
 of both until they had dined : not in the large 
 and necessarily dreary room on the left of the 
 saloon — it was a world too wide for two elderly 
 gentlemen — but in a snug apartment adjoining 
 the book-room, and forming the last of the 
 Squire's ' own ' suite on the garden terrace. 
 
 If the hard-to-be-defined quality of true- 
 blueness includes the faculty of putting other 
 people at their ease, however httle one's own 
 
32 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 mood may resemble that pleasant state, Squire 
 Bassett was undeniably of the number of the 
 true-blue. He was an attentive host, and a 
 pleasant talker ; a man of the world, notwith- 
 standing the voluntary remoteness of his ordi- 
 nary hfe from centres of action ; one to whom 
 no subjects of general interest were unfamihar. 
 He was not only a good talker, he was also a 
 good hstener ; one who gave his interlocutor 
 a fair chance, treating his opinions with respect, 
 even when they were most antagonistic, and 
 readily receiving ideas, which he would fre- 
 quently restore to their originator enriched by 
 his own knowledge, and adorned by his own 
 taste. 
 
 It was neither purely good manners nor 
 the least touch of dissimulation that made the 
 Squire wear an untroubled aspect while eating 
 a tolerably good dinner himself, and seeing that 
 his friend ate a verj^ good one: it was the 
 simple courageousness of his nature. 
 
 When they had dined, the friends returned 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 33 
 
 to the bookroom, and there, in a scene which 
 would have conveyed to a casual observer 
 an impression of tranquilUty, permanence, ease 
 without vulgar luxury, and entire security, 
 they discussed in all its bearings a misfortune 
 whose first and immediate result must be the 
 vanishing away of all this. 
 
 With the cause and progress of the lawsuit 
 that had been for years a never-removed 
 though only intermittently irritating source of 
 trouble and anxiety to Squire Bassett, this story 
 has nothing to do. The affair had been, in 
 the beginning, one of trust, but it had accreted 
 so many extraneous matters, that it would have 
 puzzled all the parties to it, and the Squire in 
 particular, to define it in its present and final 
 shape. It might have served as a type for the 
 celebrated suit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce iu 
 complication, if not in duration ; but now this 
 was all over; the long-delayed decision had 
 been arrived at with a rush in the end. The 
 clear conviction of every one concerned, that 
 
 VOL. I. 1) 
 
34 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 it was very hard, and that the losing side — 
 Squire Bassett — had never had any intention 
 of doing the smallest wrong in his action on 
 behalf of the winning party many years before, 
 had exercised no influence upon the event. 
 
 Mr. Dexter arranged his papers on the 
 table before him, and went into the subject 
 with regularity and method, having admitted 
 that the case had ' doubled upon him ' in an 
 unexpected and surprising way. He earnestly 
 represented to his client that the decision was 
 not to be reversed, and any future action or 
 appeal would only throw away more good 
 money after the large sums which had already 
 followed the bad money that was the root of 
 the matter. 
 
 The Squire listened with intelligent patience, 
 and read, or at least looked at, a number of 
 papers handed to him in succession by Mr. 
 Dexter. He was docile, for he knew that the 
 business habits of his trusty friend would not 
 be content with any smaller concession. When 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 35 
 
 he Lad read the last of these depressing but 
 convincing documents, he pushed his hair off 
 his forehead with a sigh of relief, and expressed 
 himself as entirely ' satisfied.' This was an odd 
 word to use, but Mr. Dexter let it pass, and 
 replaced the papers in his bag with a melan- 
 choly air. 
 
 ' This defeat means something very like 
 ruin. Dexter,' said the Squire, as he turned 
 from the table and the lights, and, bending 
 forward with a slight shiver, spread his hands 
 out to catch the warmth of the wood fire. 
 * You know all concerning me and my affairs 
 so thoroughly, I do not need to tell you that. 
 The sum to be refunded, and the costs of these 
 later proceedings, will oblige me to begin all 
 over again on a very small scale. Well, so be 
 it ; my time will not be very long, my wants 
 need not be very many ; such of my tastes as 
 are costly must be given up. Perhaps all that 
 I value most in my own life and condition will 
 be found to suffer but little change. We shall 
 
36 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 see about that when we go into figures to- 
 morrow. But, Dexter' — here the Squire 
 turned his head sharply round, with a look of 
 pain, towards Mr. Dexter at the table — 'the 
 pinch of it is — Jack ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, I thought so. That has been very 
 much on my mind. Yes,' repeated Mr. Dexter, 
 with the same characteristic short shake of the 
 head that had registered his silent dissent from 
 Mr. Norris's remark upon the advantages of a 
 run in the country ; ' the pinch of it undoubt- 
 edly is your son.' 
 
 ' Such a disappointment as the interruption, 
 indeed the entire abandonment, of his proposed 
 career, just at this time too, when what these 
 young fellows call " chances " are so likely to 
 turn up, will have a bad effect on Jack.' 
 
 ' He has not been prepared for such a 
 termination to the suit, then ? ' 
 
 ' He has known but little about it, and he 
 has, I fancy, thought much less. I dare say I 
 have not been wise, but I have always wanted 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 37 
 
 to keep that soul-killer, worry, out of the boy's 
 way. One does so long to let them have their 
 youth all that youth ought to be — especially if 
 one's own has left a good deal to be desired in 
 more ways than one. Latterly I have begun 
 to doubt the prudence of this, and to think 
 that the " forewarned, forearmed " theory might 
 have been a sounder one to act on in Jack's 
 case. And now I know it would. He will 
 be terribly hard hit. There is an immovable 
 tenacity about him which may be a very 
 valuable quality, but it will make this all the 
 more hard for him to bear.' 
 
 Mr. Dexter looked grave He could not 
 honestly say that he did think the Squire had 
 been wise in his method of treating the young 
 gentleman, whose character he took to be self- 
 willed and obstinate — for that was how he 
 interpreted the ' valuable quality ' of which 
 Jack's father was plainly afraid. So he asked 
 a not strictly relevant question : — 
 
 ' Have you recent news of him ? ' 
 
38 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 ' I have ' — again the Squire turned sharply 
 towards the speaker, with a look of pain — 
 ' and not the best news. He has been working 
 well — that's all right — but he has taken 
 an extravagant turn, and, in fact, I have 
 been troubled in mind of late about this very- 
 thing.' 
 
 ' He will have to pull up now,' said the 
 lawyer. 
 
 The morning hymn of the birds awoke Mr. 
 Dexter on the following morning earlier than 
 he was accustomed to be aroused by the 
 familiar sounds of life in Taviton Street. He 
 dressed expeditiously, and went out on the 
 garden-terrace to enjoy the freshness and 
 beauty of the scene. The added stillness of 
 the day of rest lent it a new charm, and, 
 although everything had been awake long 
 before the birds' matins had aroused him, Mr. 
 Dexter had all the sense of energy, virtue, 
 and sharpened observation that we derive 
 from the consciousness that we are about 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 39 
 
 when nobody else is stirring, and the belief 
 that we are finding nature at her morning 
 toilet. 
 
 Mr. Dexter descended into the garden, and 
 had roamed about it for some time before the 
 Squire came out to look for him. When at 
 length he was joined by the owner of all the 
 peaceful loveliness that brought such welcome 
 refreshment to the soul of the visitor, Mr. 
 Dexter was about to give expression to his 
 pleasure ; but it was smitten into silence by the 
 remembrance of the sentence of loss and change 
 passed upon that fair possession. 
 
 The Squire had slept but little, nevertheless 
 he met the eye of the morning that had risen to 
 find him so different from what he had been 
 yesterday, with strength and serenity, and the 
 grave lines in his face were not those of repin- 
 ing. No trouble, he thought, was unbearable 
 that had not any element of self-reproach in it ; 
 in his great trouble there was none. The pair 
 of friends went into the house together ; they 
 
40 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 found their breakfast ready, and a batch of 
 newspapers and letters on the table. 
 
 ' From Jack/ said the Squire, taking up a 
 letter, and handing a newspaper to his guest. 
 
 The letter consisted of a few lines, by 
 which Squire Bassett's son informed him that 
 he expected to get home by the end of the 
 week ; and that the ' bigwigs ' were quite satis- 
 fied with him. The meaning of this was that 
 Jack Bassett had passed with credit the Sand- 
 hurst examination. This was not a deed of any 
 great emprize in pre- Crimean days ; but it 
 meant ' all they knew ' at that time, in which, 
 nevertheless^ some good soldiers were made. 
 The Squire was pleased with the news, but it was 
 with a rueful smile that he handed over Jack's 
 letter for Mr. Dexter 's perusal, and said : — 
 
 ' He will be terribly cut up when he finds all 
 this has to go for nothing. I cannot think how 
 I shall answer his letter. It will be so hard to 
 tell him that he must give up his hopes of being 
 a Light Dragoon.' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 41 
 
 ' I suppose that would mean a good deal of 
 money both at the start and afterwards. You 
 know how profound is my ignorance of military 
 matters ; I have only a general notion that a 
 commission in a cavalry regiment is a whistle 
 for which a big fancy price has to be paid.' 
 
 ' Jack will have to give up all idea of it. I 
 felt very uncomfortable yesterday at having to 
 find fault with him about some thoughtless and 
 foolish things that he has been doing recently ; 
 but I had made up my mind to w^rite to him. 
 I have too long allowed my besetting sin, pro- 
 crastinatioD, to get the better of me; and now, 
 a harder task lies before me.' 
 
 ' Don't write to him at all. Let him come 
 home, and then tell him about it. He is a 
 manly young fellow, though an only son, and, 
 I have no doubt, a spoilt child : depend upon 
 it, he will take it well A few days' ignorance 
 on his part wdll not matter, and you will have 
 had time to think over several alternatives to 
 the light cavalry for him.' 
 
42 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 'Very true,' assented the Squire, relieved 
 by this suggestion ; ' it will be, as you say, ever 
 so much better that he and I should talk things 
 over. But as for alternatives, I cannot see even 
 one. He has never thought qf himself, and I 
 have never thought of him, as anything but a 
 soldier.' 
 
 ' What vv^ould he say to the law ? ' 
 
 ' He would say "No." Jack would never 
 make a lawyer.' 
 
 ' To farming, then ? ' 
 
 ' Ah, that I cannot say. I have never 
 known him to take an interest in anything of 
 the kind. He is very good friends with all the 
 people about ; but I fancy that is on the ground 
 of sporting affinities. Besides, where is the 
 farm to be found, and the capital ? ' 
 
 'H'm,' said Mr. Dexter, shaking his head, 
 ' there are many difficulties in your way ; and 
 yet this is not the most imminent or pressing.' 
 
 At this point the conversation was inter- 
 rupted by breakfast, and after that the friends 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 43 
 
 ])arted, severally to fulfil the devotional duties 
 of the day. Squire Bassett belonged to the 
 Eoman Catholic Church, as every Bassett had 
 always belonged to it, through all the fortunes 
 of that Church, good, bad, or, as they were 
 just then, middling. Mr. Dexter was a member 
 of the Church of England, and although not 
 strict in his attendance at public worship in 
 London, where nobody knows and nobody cares 
 whether anybody else goes to church, or prac- 
 tises ' the religion of the blue sky ' at home 
 (the religion of the blue sky was very much 
 the fashion in those days), he would not on any 
 account remain away from divine service in the 
 country. It w^as the correct thing to go to 
 church ; everybody did it ; he did not at all dis- 
 like conforming to the custom, and the sacred 
 edifice looked pretty in its green old garments 
 of ivy, on the very edge of the Squire's park. 
 
 The church was built on land which formed 
 a portion of Sir Henry Trescoe's estate ; but 
 it was accessible from the Bassett grounds 
 
44 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 without resort being had to the high road. 
 Mr. Dexter took the path across the fields. He 
 was in ample time ; the orderly and, for the 
 size of the village, numerous, congregation was 
 not more than half assembled. As Mr. Dexter 
 observed its members coming in, his attention 
 was caught by tw^o persons who entered the 
 church by a side door, but separated immedi- 
 ately, one entering a pew just behind that in 
 which Mr. Dexter was seated, while the other 
 walked dow^n the aisle, and ascended the stairs 
 leading to the uncurtained organ- gallery. The 
 elder of the two was a delicate but good-looking 
 woman, about thirty years of age and of a sub- 
 dued and timid aspect. There was nothing in 
 her appearance to raise her above the common- 
 place. If she had come into the church alone, 
 and Mr. Dexter had observed her at all, he 
 would hardly have thought of her as a ' lady ' ; 
 but her younger companion was the undeniable 
 ' lady ' of Mr. Dexter 's little adventure of the 
 preceding day, the owner of the ivory paper- 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 45 
 
 knife. She was as plainly dressed as she had 
 been on that occasion, and her erect graceful 
 carriage, the firm pose of her head, and her 
 steady, elegant gait were even more conspicuous. 
 Her ill-assorted male companion of yesterday, 
 presumably her father, was not present. 
 
 The pew in which Mr. Dexter was placed 
 commanded a distinct view of the organ-gallery, 
 and he observed that the young lady took her 
 place with a little air of authority, which was 
 recognised by a score of small boys cleanly and 
 Sabbatical of aspect. 
 
 ' I hope she sings,' said Mr. Dexter to him- 
 self ; ' she looks as if she ought to sing well.' 
 
 A few minutes set Mr. Dexter 's mind at 
 rest upon this point. The organist came in, 
 and took his seat ; the number of the congre- 
 gation was accomplished ; the officiating clergy- 
 man made his appearance in the reading-desk ; 
 a bald clerk took possession of the mean little 
 box just beneath it, with only his head showing 
 above the ledge, and the service began with 
 
46 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 the singing of a psalm, a fashion that in those 
 days prevailed in churches which were not 
 ' high; 
 
 The psalm was that grand one, happily 
 mated with noble and simple music, which 
 begins with the verse : — 
 
 O God ! our help in ages past : 
 
 Our hope for years to come ! 
 Our shelter from the stormy blast ; 
 
 And our eternal home ! 
 
 The organ was a good one, and the choir was 
 well-trained. The music, although the un- 
 taught congregation joined in the singing, was 
 solemn and impressive, and the voice which 
 Mr. Dexter had hoped, indeed expected, to 
 hear, mingled with and rose above it, in pure, 
 assured, thrilling melody, that went straight to 
 the heart of the unemotional lawyer, and 
 moistened liis eyelids with unconscious tears. 
 He loved music, but he seldom indulged his 
 only artistic taste. Music did not naturally 
 come in his way ; he did not go out of his way 
 to look for it ; he was both too busy and too 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 47 
 
 lonely to do so. There are lives at once so 
 full and so solitary, that the impulse to seek 
 recreation is choked in them. Mr. Dexter's 
 life was one of these, and this unknown young 
 lady's singing made him suddenly aware of 
 the fact, even while it also lifted him for the 
 moment into the higher sphere of feeling to 
 which the strain belonged. The ease with 
 which the rich swelling notes were produced 
 was as remarkable as their purity, and the per- 
 fect enunciation of the words of the psalm came 
 to Mr. Dexter's ear as if the singer only were 
 uttering them. As the first surprise of this 
 delightful music subsided into an intense enjoy- 
 ment of it, he looked around to see whether 
 other people were affected by it as he was ; 
 but there was no sympathetic pleasure to be 
 read in any countenance. The ' good willing ' 
 among the congregation — meaning the great 
 majority^ were singing away for themselves, 
 intent on their hymn-books ; no eyes were 
 raised to the organ-loft. Wlien, as the psalm 
 
48 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 ceased, Mr. Dexter glanced at tlie elder lady 
 who had come into the church with the sweet 
 singer, he saw that she also was wholly un- 
 affected by the music. 
 
 ' The young lady belongs to the village, and 
 they are used to this sort of thing,' was Mr. 
 Dexter's reflection, as he accepted a prayer- 
 book offered to him, with a nudge, by his next 
 neighbour, and wondered how many psalms 
 were considered the correct thing for Morning 
 Service at Bassett. 
 
 Twice again the lawyer enjoyed ' the rap- 
 tiu"e of sweet sound,' and when the service 
 ended he was in no hurry to leave the church, 
 but retained his place until the little choir had 
 dispersed, and the singer, who had occupied 
 more of Mr. Dexter's attention than any young 
 lady, not a client, had been favoured with for 
 the last ten years of his life, came down from 
 the gallery and joined her companion. They 
 left the church by the door that had admitted 
 them, and Mr. Dexter followed them into the 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 49 
 
 churchyard. A flagged passage led to the gate, 
 and there a few groups were gathered, ex- 
 changing greetings, not too much prolonged, 
 for dinner hour at Bassett came pretty close 
 upon church. The fair singer and her friend 
 were detained by some female neighbours, and 
 as Mr. Dexter passed close by them the young 
 lady looked round, and recognised him, after a 
 moment's uncertainty, with a bow. He re- 
 sponded by raising his hat with respect as deep 
 as ever he had shown to his most important 
 lady-client. Mr. Dexter knew very httle about 
 saints, and, naturally, nothing at all about 
 angels : nevertheless, as he struck into the path 
 across the fields, he said to himself, with as 
 much ' cock-sureness ' as if he had been brought 
 up in the society of both : ' That girl looks hke 
 a saint, and sings like an angel. I wonder who 
 she is ? ' 
 
 'Has Mr. Bassett come in from church, 
 Eobert ? ' asked Mr. Dexter of the servant who 
 had admitted him, as he paused in the hall to 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
so THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 substitute a soft hat for the regulation head- 
 coveriDg. 
 
 'Yes, sir, the Squire 's been in some 
 time/ 
 
 ' He is in the garden, I suppose, or on the 
 terrace ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir ; the Squire 's in the book-room. 
 Farmer Wynn is with him.' 
 
 Mr. Dexter made his way to the garden 
 terrace, and there established himself with a 
 newspaper to await the departure of Farmer 
 Wynn, and the arrival of luncheon. There 
 was not much in the newspaper, except the 
 usual dissertation upon the aspect of affairs in 
 the East. Mr. Dexter was not acutely poli- 
 tical ; the day was very fine, the scene which 
 lay before him was sufficiently lovely to induce 
 any man not intent on sporting ^ events ' to re- 
 linquish his newspaper in favour of the face of 
 nature. The voice of the fair singer lingered 
 in the lav^yer's ear. He was just arranging in 
 his mind the terms which he should employ in 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 51 
 
 describing her to Squire Bassett, so as to 
 discover whether she was known to him, when 
 two persons emerged from the glass door that 
 opened from the book-room upon the terrace, 
 and walked away towards the opposite end. 
 One of tliese was Squire Bassett ; the other was 
 the man, clearly not a gentleman, whom Mr. 
 Dexter had seen on the previous day at the 
 Chester railway station, and whom he had 
 taken to be the father of the fair unknown. 
 Mr. Bassett accompanied his visitor to the end 
 of the terrace ; the latter turned off in the 
 same direction taken by Mr. Dexter in the 
 morning, and the Squire came slowly back 
 along the line of the house. His face wore a 
 pondering expression, and Mr. Dexter glanced 
 curiously at him. 
 
 ' It's nearly time for luncheon,' said the 
 Squire, looking at his watch. ' You are only 
 just in, I suppose. What do you think of 
 Little Bassett Church ? ' 
 
 Mr. Dexter praised the sacred edifice. It 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 was not the Squire's * own,' but he took a pride 
 in everything that belonged to Bassett. 
 
 ' Had you a good sermon ? Mr. Colvin is 
 considered a fair preacher, I beheve.' 
 
 ' I don't think I'm a judge of sermons, 
 but I can tell you that Little Bassett may 
 be proud of its organ, its choir, and its 
 psalmody. I never heard a finer voice or more 
 beautiful singing than I have heard this morn- 
 ing in the church there. Oddly enough, I re- 
 cognised the singer. She came down in the 
 train with me yesterday, and she was joined at 
 Chester by the — person ' — (Mr. Dexter had been 
 a-bout to say ' the gentleman,' but didn't) ' who 
 has just left you.' 
 
 ' What, Farmer Wynn ? Oh yes, it was his 
 daughter, no doubt. I believe she sings very 
 well ; she was brought up in London by her 
 mother's sister. She has not been down here 
 long. Wynn mentioned it.' 
 
 ' She does not take after her father ; he 
 struck me as a coarse sort of fellow.' Mr. 
 
J HE LOVER'S CREED. 53 
 
 Dexter had a disagreeable remembrance of 
 the man's rough and careless manner to the 
 girl. 
 
 ' Wynn is that ; but a shrewd, capable man. 
 His daughter has been very little at the farm ; 
 I don't think I have ever seen her since she 
 was a child ; but Miss Nestle holds her in some 
 favour, and has told me wonders of her sincr- 
 ing. There's the gong. By the bye, it's an 
 odd thing — the girl's mother must have had a 
 prevision : the name of Wynn's daughter is 
 Mavis.' 
 
 ' Mavis ? ' 
 
 ' Yes. That means a thrush, you know.' 
 
 ' I did not know. A pretty name, and un- 
 common. She is a singing bird with a fortune 
 in her throat, if ever there was one.' 
 
 ' It is to be hoped that no one will help her 
 to the discovery,' said the Squire, shortly. 
 
 As they passed through the book-room, Mr. 
 Bassett paused at a shelf closely packed with 
 works of travel and discovery, and took down 
 
54 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 a few volumes. They all had reference to the 
 Australasian world. 
 
 ' Wynn came up to ask me to lend him 
 some books,' the Squire explained ; ' he has a 
 brother in Victoria — at Melbourne, I believe — 
 and he has taken a fancy to know something 
 about the country.' 
 
 The afternoon and evening of that day 
 passed quietly away. In all the converse 
 between the friends, on the business that had 
 brought Mr. Dexter to Bassett, the lawyer was 
 the more moved and the more perplexed of 
 the two. Mr. Dexter was to leave Bassett 
 on the Monday morning at an hour which 
 would render it impossible to resume discussion 
 with the Squire. Whatever he wanted, or had 
 made up his mind to say, must be said before 
 they parted for the night. Now there was one 
 thing that Mr. Dexter did want to say to the 
 Squire ; one thing which he had turned over 
 and over again in his imagination, putting it 
 into a variety of potential phrases. Neverthe- 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 55 
 
 less, the limit of their time had been reached, 
 and this one thing remained unsaid. Mr. 
 Dexter knew perfectly well that none of his 
 prepared potential phrases would now get them- 
 selves uttered ; but when the formal last words 
 had been spoken, he added : — 
 
 ' I must say one word more to you. There 
 is a way by which all this can be avoided. 
 Think well of it, and let me take that way — 
 for your son's sake.' 
 
 A spasm of pain crossed the Squire's face ; 
 an angry light gleamed for one moment in^his 
 still clear blue eyes — a light which would not 
 have been good to see in his youth — but he 
 resolutely conquered the emotion that had 
 spoken by these rebellious signs, and he 
 answered calmly : — 
 
 ' No thinking, my dear Dexter, could in- 
 duce me to adopt that way. Once more, good 
 night.' 
 
56 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 COUNSELS OF THE NIGHT. 
 
 Squire Bassett's days were well filled ; he 
 was no idler or dreamer ; Ms way of life 
 was orderly. His correspondence was punc- 
 tually maintained ; the business of his estate 
 was punctually discharged. The Squire's 
 shortcomings occurred in the order of his 
 social duties. He was liked and respected by 
 his tenants and his poorer neighbours, but he 
 was not quite so popular with those of his own 
 class, and he was perhaps a little too indifferent 
 to that fact. A man of station and even 
 moderate wealth, who lives in the country, and 
 does not care for either politics or sport, is 
 an anomalous being. Squire Bassett was an 
 instance of this anomaly. The influence of his 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 57 
 
 religion on his mind kept hira out of active 
 politics, in which there was little place, thirty- 
 years ago, for an English gentleman who was 
 also a devout and consistent Eoman Catholic, 
 and whose political instincts were Conservative, 
 although he could not fail to perceive that 
 justice and the right were coming to professors 
 of his faith in Great Britain and Ireland from 
 the Liberal side exclusively. Besides, there 
 was a strong streak of indolence in him, and 
 this had probably as much to do with Squire 
 Basse tt's abstention from politics, as his sincere 
 conviction of his own insignificance, and his 
 contented reflection that the business of the 
 nation was the affair of ' bigger ' men than he. 
 His attitude towards tlie present was that of 
 a quietly observant, unexcited, but not un- 
 interested spectator ; his student tastes led him 
 to a more close and intimate communion witli 
 the past. There was no Irish blood in Squire 
 Bassett's veins, yet he possessed one character- 
 istic that has been described as a special note 
 
58 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 of the Irish temperament : the tendency to 
 reconstruct the past in imagination, to hve in 
 thought with the past by preference. He was 
 no reckise ; he went through the ordinary 
 routine of social intercourse, in a not very 
 lively part of the country, with propriety ; but 
 heartiness was wanting, and the Squire, when 
 in company, certainly did convey the idea of 
 having come out of himself only to diminish 
 the general ease in his vicinity. He was not 
 really unsympathetic, and his benevolence was 
 as practical as it was unostentatious ; but it 
 was necessary to arouse his attention in order 
 to engage it, and absence of mind, hardly 
 judged by those whose lives are on the surface, 
 but surely a pardonable offence in the case 
 of persons whose lives are for the most part 
 solitary, militated against Mr. Bassett's popu- 
 larity. 
 
 That a man who is no sportsman has no 
 real right to live anywhere, but more especially 
 to live near Am, is the conviction of the man 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 59 
 
 who is all sportsman, and he more or less 
 acknowledges it according to his degree of 
 civilisation. Bassett was situated in a country 
 in which hunting, fishing, and shooting were to 
 be had under conditions favourable enough to 
 satisfy the most exacting ; but the Squire was 
 deeply ' suspect ' on all these points. Not that 
 he had theories ; he did not condemn his 
 neighbours as immoral, or even as cruel, in 
 their tastes and pursuits; he simply did not 
 like ' sport.' He tolerated the dogs, the guns, 
 and the rods which came in his way and on 
 his land in their successive seasons, very much 
 as he tolerated Italian-operatic singing by 
 amateurs, or the playing of practical jokes in 
 country-houses on rainy days. He was as 
 incapable of understanding how hunting, shoot- 
 ing, and fishing could be found engrossing by 
 rational beings, as he was of entering into the 
 humour of practical jokes, but he was aware 
 that he was in the minority ; and so he was 
 always polite in reference to those topics which 
 
6o THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 most effectually fire the breast in 'country 
 parts.' At the same time he was so plainly 
 indifTerent that he was given credit for thinly 
 veiled contempt. This was unjust to Squire 
 Bassett : his was not a contemptuous nature at 
 all ; he did not think too highly of himself or 
 too meanly of his neighbour ; he was simply 
 indolent, outside of his especial tastes. Indiffer- 
 ence on points of that kind, however, rarely 
 fails to cause dislike as surely as opposition 
 excites a similar sentiment. 
 
 Squire Bassett's life had been for many years 
 an uneventful one ; he had held the ordering of 
 it in his own hands, with freedom such as rarely 
 belongs to a man who is weighted by any ties at 
 all, and is not of a disposition to ignore or defy 
 them. Such strength of character as was in 
 him was latent ; there had been no call for the 
 putting forth of it in the calm, externally mono- 
 tonous time that had elapsed since he succeeded 
 his father at Bassett, and took up his residence 
 there, with a motherless little boy of four years 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 6i 
 
 old as his only companion. During all those 
 years he had no history of the sort that those 
 who run may read. What were the objects for 
 which this lonely man, who had so little share 
 in the lives of those around him, really cared ? 
 They were his Faith, his son, his books, his 
 dependents, his flower-garden, and everything 
 animate and inanimate within the old place. 
 
 He had been growing old contentedly 
 enough ; things had been well with him ; there 
 had been only Jack to think about, and his 
 thoughts of Jack had been untroubled until 
 quite of late. The road that lay before him to 
 the bottom of the hill of life had seemed to be 
 smooth, and fenced about with ease, leisure, and 
 all old customs, until the unseen end of it, and 
 the grateful rest. 
 
 That long unbroken peace was ended now. 
 The sweet spring day that had brought the news 
 to the Squire which meant calamity even to him, 
 who looked upon what others would call ruin 
 with a calmer gaze than most men could have 
 
62 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 turned upon that stem and ugly visitant, was the 
 beginning of a new era, of a fresh track in the 
 journey downhill. 
 
 It was neither pride nor stoicism that had 
 kept the Squire up to the point of calm and 
 dignified acceptance of his misfortune, in the 
 presence of his friend. He was incapable of 
 pretence ; the courage he had manifested after 
 the first fear that harm had come to his son 
 passed away, leaving his heart hght, was simple 
 and genuine. But the courage with which we 
 bear our wounds is not the measure of their 
 depth or their se\'erity. 
 
 Squire Bassett, like many men who live for 
 the most part alone, was in the habit of sitting 
 up late. The tranquil and regular occupation 
 of his days was apt to leave him with a sense 
 that there was something special to which he 
 must turn his attention when his rarely dis- 
 turbed leisure should be more entirely secure. 
 The small hours generally found him occupied 
 with a chosen volume carried away from the 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 63 
 
 book-room, and seated in an ancient chintz- 
 covered chair, roomy enough to have accommo- 
 dated the Chinese giant, by the side of a wood 
 fire, which was always kept up in his bedroom 
 except in the dog-days. 
 
 The small hours found Squire Bassett there, 
 and thus — long after he and Mr. Dexter had 
 parted for the night, but the book, which from 
 mere force of habit he had carried to his 
 bedroom, had fallen unheeded on the floor. 
 What had the hours brought to him ? What 
 sharp-pointed arrows, true of aim, flying only 
 he knew whence, had pierced the steady target 
 of his breast in the night watches .^ 
 
 That Squire Bassett should not have long 
 foreseen all the results of such a termination to 
 the lawsuit, that there should have been any- 
 thing left to surprise him withal may be absurd, 
 to the minds of those who are not accustomed 
 to take into practical account the inconsistency 
 of men and women, and the ease with which we 
 get into the habit of ignoring all things un- 
 
64 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 pleasant, and hoping all things pleasant, where 
 we ourselves are concerned. At any rate, and 
 however absurd the fact, it was a fact that 
 Squire Bassett had of late got out of the way of 
 thinking about the suit. 
 
 The last words spoken between Mr. Dexter 
 and himself had no place in the present cogi- 
 tations of the Squire. Those last words he 
 resolutely put away from him, as he had 
 put away the unnamed suggestion they con- 
 veyed, taking no account of them in the argu- 
 ment he was holding with himself. In that 
 solitary dispute, as throughout the discussion 
 that had taken place between himself and 
 Mr. Dexter, his son was the chief object before 
 his mind, the great consideration outweighing 
 every other in the forming of a resolution which 
 on that day had taken a new aspect not yet to 
 be disclosed to his friend. 
 
 Memory was busy with the grave, composed, 
 fine-looking man — he was only middle-aged a 
 day or two ago ; now they would soon begin to 
 call him old — as busy as were vain regret and 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 65 
 
 reluctance. It would be with a desperate 
 wrench that he should tear himself away from 
 Bassett ; and yet, if the place of his forefathers 
 was to be preserved to his son in the future, it 
 must be given up now. Every resource at his 
 command w^ould be strained to the uttermost. 
 It would need careful management to secure a 
 provision for Jack, while the poor disappointed 
 young fellow should be making up his mind 
 about a profession other than that of which 
 he must needs abandon the hope, and for him- 
 self an income on which he should be able 
 to live in the complete retirement that would 
 have no terrors for him. Small liabilities, 
 which had never troubled him previously, re- 
 curred to his mind now ; these would mount 
 up when the day of peremptory settling came. 
 It would be a clean sweep indeed. Poor Jack ! 
 From every wandering excursion into the past, 
 from every glance projected into the future, the 
 Squire returned, with a sigh, to murmur those 
 words. 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
66 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 His brave and cheerful statement of his own 
 case to Mr. Dexter was quite genuine ; but 
 when his friend's face and voice were removed, 
 his heart sank with a womanish dread about 
 ]iis son. Compassion, such as mothers feel for 
 the sorrow and disappointment of youth, came 
 in a strong tide into the heart of this lonely 
 man, whose only son, the pride and delight of 
 liis hfe, its motive and its meaning, had been 
 motherless from his early childhood. 
 
 What if this great trouble should spoil the 
 boy's kindly, joyous, hopeful nature ? What if 
 Jack should bear it badly, and the seeds of 
 bitterness be planted in him .^ What if his son 
 should blame the Squire, w^hen he came to 
 understand how this thing had befallen them, 
 for that first error of judgment in w^hich others 
 were joined with him, but whose penalty he 
 alone had survived to pay, and should charge 
 him with the ruin of his hopes, and the blight- 
 ing of his future ? But he Avould not fear this ; 
 it would be so unlike Jack. So Squire Bassett 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 67 
 
 turned aside the point of that particular arrow 
 by a movement of confidence, such as his son's 
 mother might have felt towards her boy, had 
 she ever known him. 
 
 The day had dawned before sleep came, to 
 shield the Squire from the arrows that fly by 
 night into the fortress that has been breached 
 by trouble. 
 
 Mr. Dexter was up betimes, and busy with 
 a great reinforcement of papers, which he was 
 to take to town with him. The Squire accom- 
 panied him to the Chester railway station, and 
 there took leave of him with his accustomed 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 * He's a wonderful man,' said Mr. Dexter to 
 himself, as the train moved on, ' but he looks 
 ten years older than he looked on Saturday. 
 And he's as obstinate as the devil. Here I am 
 going back without having got one word said of 
 what would put it all right if he would only 
 listen to reason.' 
 
 The journey of Mr. Dexter back to town 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 was not made under circumstances quite so 
 pleasant as his journey down. The local paper 
 with which he proposed to beguile the time was 
 badly printed, and tried his sight; the com- 
 partment was filled with travellers at the first 
 stop, and two children were of the number. Mr. 
 Dexter was not a child-loving bachelor. The 
 devoted mother in attendance thought it neces- 
 sary to pull one of the windows up and down 
 twenty times in an hour, according to the indi- 
 catory sneezes of her offspring. Altogether 
 things went badly, and Mr. Dexter arrived at 
 Euston Station — a place not calculated to re- 
 store anybody's spirits — tired and cross. 
 
 London was full of drizzling rain and drifting 
 ' blacks ' ; the air was dark and clammy ; it 
 was difficult for Mr. Dexter to realise that only 
 a few hours ago he had left behind him such 
 a scene as the terrace and flower-garden at 
 Bassett. Mr. Dexter was dissatisfied with 
 himself, and external things aided his discon- 
 tent. The comfort and orderliness of his own 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 69 
 
 house, dingy and heavily furniished as it was, 
 and lacking all those small arrangements and 
 adornments that tell of the presence of women 
 other than domestics, were grateful to the dis- 
 comfited lawyer. His dinner, well cooked and 
 served, was ready for him so soon as he was 
 ready for it, and at its conclusion he was almost 
 restored to his customary condition of charity 
 with himself, and with mankind in general. 
 The toothache, which he felt sure he was going 
 to have, in consequence of the fluctuations of 
 the railway-carriage window, had not developed 
 itself. The cheery fire, and the light of wax 
 candles reflected in the dark brightness of the 
 polished mahogany, were very pleasant, and 
 the double-shelved waggon on casters, on which 
 Mr. Dexter's business papers were symmetrically 
 laid out, promised a goodly amount of occupa- 
 tion for the evening. 
 
 The waggon was wheeled to the side of 
 Mr. Dexter's easy chair, and he was left to the 
 discussion of his port and his papers. He 
 
70 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 enjoyed the prospect, as a different sort of man 
 might enjoy being rid of business until the 
 next day, for he loved his work. Not only its 
 larger processes, its successes, its results, and 
 the profits that accrued from them — although 
 Mr. Dexter was passably fond of money — but 
 its details, its minutias, the cautious handhng 
 sometimes ungenerously lumped in with prac- 
 tices that are contemptuously stigmatised as 
 ' pettifogging,' and all the ingenuities and 
 formalities of legal procedure. There was, in 
 fact, nothing connected with the routine and 
 practice of his profession which was wearisome 
 to Mr. Dexter ; there was nothing that he 
 would have had abolished, except, perhaps, the 
 Long Vacation. If his mind with respect to 
 that institution could have been got at, he 
 would probably have been found to regard it 
 as a deplorable concession to the Bar. 
 
 At Mr. Dexter's right hand stood the wag- 
 gon ; on the table by his left elbow were laid 
 some newspapers, the Times uppermost. Con- 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 71 
 
 spicuous among the papers on the top shelf of 
 the waggon was a letter without a postage 
 stamp. 
 
 ' Norris's report,' said Mr. Dexter to him- 
 self, as he struck the envelope open with his 
 eye-glass. 
 
 The memorandum was brief: ' M. Reveillon, 
 from Paris, called on Saturday. He wishes to 
 see you without delay, and will call again on 
 Tuesday at 11 a.m.' 
 
 ' M. Eeveillon, from Paris,' repeated Mr. 
 Dexter ; ' I had forgotten the name. I wonder 
 wliat his errand is. Whatever it may be, I am 
 all the more sorry that I could not make the 
 Squire listen to what I had to say.' 
 
 Then Mr. Dexter delivered himself up to 
 the Times. He was a methodical and catholic- 
 minded reader, he never skimmed, and in most 
 public matters he took a lively interest. Those 
 which concerned the empire of France possessed 
 but slender attraction for Mr. Dexter ; he might 
 have left that department of knowledge unex- 
 
72 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 plored, had not the aspect of Eastern affairs, 
 and the prospect that the ' entente cordiale ' be- 
 tween France and England was to mean much 
 more than an interchange of commercial treaties 
 and diplomatic courtesies, lent increased im- 
 portance to the Paris correspondence of the 
 Times. So Mr. Dexter read the news from 
 France, and presently came upon the following 
 passage : 
 
 'The death of M. D'Esterres, the weU- 
 known collector of pictures and objects of art, 
 which took place on the 20th ultimo, throws a 
 quantity of bric-a-brac on the market, and has 
 caused a fluttering among the rival dealers and 
 collectors. According to the instructions of 
 the will of M. D'Esterres, which was made six- 
 teen years ago, a sale of the collections is to 
 take place at the hotel in the Marais, where he 
 lived for half a century. The date of the sale 
 is not yet announced, but the catalogue-makers 
 are hard at work. It is said that the Empress 
 is anxious to secure several articles which 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 73 
 
 formerly belonged to the unfortunate Queen 
 Marie Antoinette, and were especially prized 
 by M. D'Esterres.' 
 
 ' Sixteen years ago, ' said Mr. Dexter, as he 
 laid the newspaper on his knee, and pohshed 
 his glasses with his handkerchief ; ' it is then the 
 old will, the first will, unchanged. It must be 
 a large fortune by this time, fur, even buying 
 rubbish as he did, M. D'Esterres could not have 
 spent two-thirds of his income. I wonder 
 what the figure amounts to by this time : very 
 likely it will be given with the details of the 
 sale.' 
 
 This item of Parisian news was seemingly 
 a fruitful source of reflection to Mr. Dexter, for 
 he did not resume his reading of the newspaper 
 for several minutes, and before he went to work 
 at his papers he cut the paragraph relating to the 
 death of M. D'Esterres out of the Times, and 
 placed it carefully in his pocket book. 
 
74 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 FIELD-FLOWER FARM. 
 
 There was not a spot in all Cheshire more rich 
 in wild flowers — ^those 
 
 ' Treasures that fall alike to all, 
 Type of the promised Heaven/ — 
 
 than the farm occupied by David Wynn. It 
 formed a portion of the Bassett estate, and 
 had been named in days long past Field-flower 
 Farm. The farm boasted of a history ; for the 
 dwelling-house, an object so picturesque that 
 more than one artist of repute had taken its 
 portrait, had once been a fortress. That was 
 in the time of the Welsh wars ; it had 
 been turned into a dower-house at a much 
 later period, when the wealthy and childless 
 widow of the Bassett of that day retired into 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 75 
 
 it from the then newly-built mansion in the 
 park, which passed into the possession of her 
 deceased husband's brother. Dame Dorothy 
 Bassett set about making improvements in her 
 new abode, in a modernising direction ; but 
 they were suspended by her second marriage, 
 when she transferred herself and her fortune 
 to other climes, and the dower-house declined 
 upon a lower level of destiny. The moat had 
 been filled up half a century before Dame 
 Dorothy's time : sheer from the smooth green 
 sward, which for ages had hidden the old 
 pavement of the courtyard beneath it, rose the 
 grey, lichen-grown walls of the house, with 
 its long narrow casements of lozenge-shaped 
 panes of glass set in lead, its sturdy buttress, 
 and its ruined tower, on whose summit a pro- 
 fusion of greenery, sprouting from the ruins, 
 made a well-like bower, accessible from a 
 rough stair. 
 
 The ancient arched gateway had long been 
 built up, and the stones that filled the space 
 
76 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 were dotted with grey, red, and yellow 
 growths ; the chains of the old portculHs still 
 hung, rust-eaten, on either side of the arch, 
 and an extensive fragment of the external wall 
 pushed up its grey head between the stretch of 
 bright green grass that marked the site of the 
 old moat, and a thriving coppice of young oaks, 
 with a fine fringe of graceful larches, which 
 shut out the homely and material aspects of 
 the farm. A narrow gate in this fragment of 
 the old wall gave admittance to the wide grass 
 plat and the flower beds, and a path led to a 
 door in that part of the house-wall which 
 formed an angle with the ruined tower. There 
 was nothing on the western side to indicate 
 that the old place was a farmhouse ; the hag- 
 garts, lofts, stables, cowhouses, piggeries, &c., 
 were on the opposite side, and thence the farm 
 land stretched away to a distance that indi- 
 cated Farmer Wynn as a ' warm ' man. From 
 the upper range of the long, narrow, irregular 
 windows on ' the Dame's parlour-side ' — so 
 
THE LOVERS CREED. -j-j 
 
 called for a century past — a very pretty bit 
 of landscape was visible ; the ground dipped 
 suddenly and steeply beyond the oak and larch 
 coppice, to the bank of a swift stream which 
 ran merrily, between willows and alders, to 
 join the Dee near the ancient city of Chester. 
 On the other side of it were widespread- 
 ing meadows extending to the high road that 
 passed over an old bridge half a mile from 
 the farm. From the gate in the old wall 
 already mentioned, a path, cut through the 
 coppice to the water's edge, led to a sub- 
 stantial summer-house, with a penthouse roof 
 on the river side of it, which afforded shel- 
 ter to a boat. 
 
 The entrance to Field-ilower Farm was 
 modern and ugly, though redeemed to some 
 extent by the fine avenue of trees that 
 divided it from the high road ; but the 
 peculiarity of the house was the distinct 
 character of its western side. Whitewashed 
 walls, windows set in black wooden frames, 
 
78 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 flagged passages, and common staircases, were 
 on the farm side, which was connected with 
 tlie other by a vaulted passage, panelled and 
 ceiled with carved oak, and by carved doors 
 that swung heavily back into recesses in the 
 thick walls of the rooms, three on each floor. 
 
 The furniture of the Dame's parlour-side 
 partook of the mixed character of the house, 
 but the old fashion preponderated ; for the 
 rooms were rarely used by any inmate of 
 Field-flower Farm. Wynn despised the old 
 ' rubbish,' and none of his neighbours would 
 have dissented from his opinion had he 
 deigned to consult theirs. In those days no 
 revival of taste had taken place ; spindle- 
 shanked chairs and tables were not more 
 highly esteemed than were the wan and the 
 limp among human beings. 
 
 The walls, which were very thick, had 
 been covered in, by the care of Dame Doro- 
 thy, with canvas stretched on stout wooden 
 frames, and hung with old tapestry, chiefly 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 79 
 
 representing hunting scenes, but varied by a 
 Nativity above the lofty carved chimney- 
 piece at the end of the suite of three rooms 
 that formed the ground floor, and communi- 
 cated with each other and with the corridor. 
 The spaces between and above the long 
 small-paned windows, with clumsy latches 
 and hasps to fasten them back to the outer 
 wall, were also filled up w^ith tapestry ; on 
 three sides of the room stretched a deep 
 surbase of carved oak, with window-seats of 
 the same. On these lay cushions of faded 
 moreen — waifs and strays from the old church 
 pews. The ceiling was also of carved oak, 
 and its design converged in the centre into 
 the blazoned lozenge of that Dame Dorothy 
 Bassett who had set her mark on the old 
 place. 
 
 It was no admiration of them, but the 
 simple consideration of utility, that had led to 
 tlie stripping of the ' Dame's side ' of several 
 of the old 'pieces' and their transfer to the 
 
8o THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 ' Farm-side,' with the result of rendering the 
 prevailing medley more incongruous. There 
 remained, however, a couple of fine carved 
 cabinets, a ' secretary ' of some rare black 
 wood with richly wrought brass handles and 
 locks, a well-worn Turkey carpet, half a dozen 
 ancient chairs, with initials and dates upon 
 them that assigned a century of existence to 
 the newest. A gigantic hour-glass in an ebony 
 frame, with a pair of feather wings laden with 
 undisturbed dust, fitted into a niche in the 
 tapestry over the central door, and in a corner, 
 by the great chimney-piece, its graceful cut 
 of flax grey with age, stood an ancient spin- 
 ning-wheel, silent since its last owner's thread 
 of life had been severed by the Fates' unhesita- 
 ting shears. 
 
 The solemn air of unused rooms, which in 
 their time have witnessed all the scenes in the 
 drama of human life, pervaded these ; but it 
 was relieved by the entrance of fresh air and 
 sunshine through the hfted window frames, 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED.. 8i 
 
 now pushed outwards, and secured by their 
 clumsy hooks to the broad stone sills, and 
 also by a large nosegay of sweet-scented 
 common flowers that dispensed its sweetness 
 from a wide punchbowl of Old Crown Derby, 
 which would in these days have found ardent 
 admirers. 
 
 The weather was fine, the sun was shining, 
 a gentle wind was astir among the trees, 
 passing over the fair-promising fields and the 
 swift bright streams ; the sounds of animal life 
 and the song of birds were all about, but not 
 too near, and the picture both inside and out 
 on the Dame's parlour-side was a charming 
 one, of the remote and quiet order. Presently 
 its still-life aspect was dispelled by the entrance 
 of the only person whose presence was familiar 
 to the quaint, formally-disposed rooms. This 
 was Mavis Wynn, who, although she would 
 not have dared to speak of 'the Dame's 
 parlour-side ' as her ' own ' — indeed, it would 
 have been hardly safe for a dweller in the 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Field-flower Farm to apply a proprietorial term 
 to his or her soul — had virtual possession of 
 the despised premises, and prized the privilege 
 highly. Even now, though she came in hastily, 
 and was evidently not going to remain, she 
 glanced around lingeringly, advanced to the 
 window and looked out ; then, having raised 
 the lid of a window-seat, and taken from the 
 convenient recess a work-basket and a roll of 
 linen, she stood for a few moments irresolute. 
 There was an air of fatigue and an expression 
 of care about her, such as, one always thinks, 
 the young ought not to wear, and she sighed, 
 unconsciously, as she passed the back of her 
 hand across and across her forehead. 
 
 Despite of the tired, even harassed expres- 
 sion that she now wore. Mavis Wynn would 
 have won somethiug more than mere admira- 
 tion from those who did not insist on brilliancy 
 of colour as an indispensable constituent of 
 good looks. It was not only that the farmer's 
 daughter looked ' hke a lady,' as Mr. Dexter 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 83 
 
 had remarked, but that she possessed quiet 
 grace and lofty simphcity such as mere lady- 
 hood cannot give, for they are the outward and 
 visible signs of a spiritual condition. It was 
 the expression of her face that was chiefly 
 noted by all who observed Mavis Wynn ; the 
 candid, comprehending look in the steady grey 
 eyes, the sw^eet serenity of the mouth, whicli 
 was her one truly beautiful feature. That was 
 an era of hideous hair-dressing, but Mavis 
 Wynn wore her abundant chestnut locks as 
 nature set them on her head, drawn back from 
 her broad forehead, and falling behind her ears 
 in saft thick curls. As the light shone upon 
 the hair, waved all over the top of her head 
 with the shell-like curves that no iron can 
 imitate, a touch of colour, which would have 
 been welcome to an artist's eye, was added to 
 the sombre picture presented by the tall slight 
 figure of the girl in her plain mourning dress, 
 and relieved it. 
 
 Presently she aroused herself from the pause 
 
 (i 2 
 
84 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 of perplexity that had come upon her, and 
 with a last glance around the picturesque old 
 room, at once a harbour of refuge and the 
 home of her dreams, she took her way to the 
 ' Parm-side ' of the house. This might have 
 been in another county for all the resemblance 
 that existed between its plentiful and noisy 
 comfort, and the old-world seclusion of ' the 
 Dame's parlour-side,' with its touch of faded 
 stateliness. 
 
 The common sitting-room, heavily furnished 
 with horsehair-cushioned chairs, a huge sofa to 
 match, and dark red moreen curtains, but 
 boasting a corner cupboard rich in old china, 
 and adorned with some curious pieces of an- 
 cient needlework, in contrast with common Art 
 Union prints in maple frames, was as unpic^ 
 turesque an apartment as any comfortable farm- 
 house could show. The sights and sounds of 
 the farm were not shut out from it, and it was 
 on the si me level with the big kitchen and 
 substantial offices, one small room intervenincr. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 85 
 
 The latter was a place of motley contents, for 
 it was Farmer Wynn's own, and he prohibited 
 meddhng with his papers, accounts, samples, 
 what not, as sternly as the most sensitive and 
 despotic poet, philosopher, playwright, or lite- 
 rary person. With effect too ; for every living 
 creature on the Field-flower Farm was afraid 
 of the master thereof, from that lucky young 
 woman, its nominal mistress, to the beautiful 
 black cat, Isaac. It was a fact of no little sig- 
 nificance that the latter sagacious animal would 
 even vacate his favourite seat in the nook by 
 the fireside, where he was perfectly secure from 
 draughts, and retire under the big horsehair 
 sofa, to a roomy footstool provided for such 
 emergencies by his best friend's care, when an 
 obhque glance from his topaz eyes had apprised 
 him that the farmer was ' put out.' 
 
 To this common sitting-room, which, for all 
 its heaviness and dulness, had its share of the 
 general aspect of plentiful comfort, Mavis bent 
 her steps. Though it was still early, the hour 
 
86 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 was that after-dinner one which usually afforded 
 the female inmates of Field- flower Farm the 
 largest measure of peace and cheerfulness ever 
 meted out to them. The substantial midday 
 meal had been eaten, the table had been 
 cleared, the general tidying previous to the 
 spell of sewing which formed a part of the 
 day's routine had been gone through. The 
 picture presented by the room Avas not without 
 its homely charm, when Mavis seated herself 
 opposite to her stepmother, and applied herself 
 to stitching a wristband. 
 
 ' Your father's gone up to the House,' said 
 Mrs. Wynn, breaking a silence during which 
 she had been glancing uneasily at the downcast 
 face and busy hands of her stepdaughter. 
 
 'Is he?'. 
 
 'We shall have a little comfortable time. 
 Give me the other wristband, Mavis : all's right 
 outside, I may sit still for a bit.' 
 
 ' You look very tired, Sarah ; you don't 
 w^ant to sew, I'm sure, and there's no need why 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 87 
 
 you should. There's no one here to scold you 
 for taking a rest. Sit back in your chair, and 
 shut your eyes for a while.' 
 
 ' I think I will' 
 
 The girl rose, made her stepmother's posi- 
 tion more comfortable by placing a footstool 
 under her feet, and gravely lifted Isaac 
 into her lap. This arrangement conveyed a 
 sense of security, perfectly understood by all 
 three parties to it. Then she resumed her sew- 
 ing, and the stillness was unbroken in the room, 
 save by the ticking of an old clock, which for 
 antiquity and size might have been Master Hum- 
 phrey's own, and had told its monotonous tale 
 for more years than any one now living could 
 count. 
 
 There was a sort of restraint, but not any lack 
 of afiection, between the wife of Farmer Wynn 
 and his daughter. Mavis and her stepmother 
 knew but little of each other, although five 
 years had elapsed since Farmer Wynn brought 
 home to Field-flower Farm the pretty young 
 
88 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 woman whose good luck had been the theme of 
 comment, long after the object of not a little 
 envy had ceased to regard herself as a favourite 
 of fortune. Mrs. Wynn had never heard of 
 Sir Peter Teazle, but she knew what it was to 
 be wished joy, after she had become soundly 
 convinced that joy and she had parted company 
 for evermore. 
 
 Sarah Price was one of ^v^ children, 
 brought up on the scanty earnings of their 
 father, who was in the employ of a Liverpool 
 mercantile firm. Until she set off on her wed- 
 ding jaunt, she had never been out of Liver- 
 pool, except for a Sunday-school holiday in the 
 fields or across the ferry, and to her the comfort, 
 the plenty, the importance of a large farm in 
 Cheshire — her suitor made the most of the 
 advantages to be gained by accepting him — 
 meant promotion indeed. Her father and 
 mother were rejoiced to know that the delicate 
 one of the family, she who had been least able 
 to bear the poor fare and hard work of a 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 89 
 
 household only to be kept together in decency 
 by the unremitting toil of the women, was to 
 have comforts they could never hope to give 
 her, and that she would be ' quite a lady.' 
 They perceived that Sarah's suitor was what 
 they called ' a bit masterful,' and Mrs. Price 
 stated (to her husband) her behef that he was 
 more than a bit selfish. There was, however, 
 no doubt that he was very much taken with 
 their Sarah ; and these good people, w^hose life- 
 long tussle with povery had made them regard 
 well-to-do-ness with not unnatural reverence, 
 were to be excused for making the best of a 
 case that had so much tangible good in it. 
 
 So Sarah Price married David Wynn, and 
 w^as taken to Field-flower Farm, there to begin 
 her new hfe as ' quite a lady.' She knew but 
 little of any kind of hfe except that which they 
 had all led at home ; she was not an imagina- 
 tive person, nor had she derived many extrane- 
 ous ideas from books. There was little taste and 
 less time for reading in the Price household ; 
 
90 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 not a gleam of romance ever shone on that 
 homely existence ; but the realities of it were 
 all good, wholesome, respectable, and, in spite 
 of poverty and struggle, happy. The husband 
 and wife, the parents and children, loved and 
 respected each other. The household peace 
 that wealth cannot create, although, unhappily, 
 poverty so often destroys it, was theirs. If 
 Sarah had been going to the other side of the 
 world, the change of place and scene could 
 hardly have been greater to her ; and it was 
 not surprising that the boys and girls whom she 
 was leaving should entertain notions, as pleasing 
 as they were vague, of what Farmer Wynn — 
 who had a grand place of his own, and had 
 given their Sarah a gold watch and a fine silk 
 gown — might possibly do for some or all of 
 them. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 91 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE WYNNS. 
 
 Five years had elapsed since Sarah Price 
 made the great match, that was talked of to a 
 distance of at least two streets from the dingy 
 dwelling to which her thoughts had often re- 
 turned with unavaihng regret; and it would 
 have been hard to find anywhere a wife who 
 had more soundly repented of her marriage. 
 Timid, narrow-minded, tender-hearted, and 
 weakly, she was not one of those women who 
 can withstand t^^ranny, and who occasionally 
 succeed in curing tyrants, by convincing them 
 that a change of tactics is their best policy ; 
 she was, on the contrary, specially designed and 
 cut out for a victim. David Wynn had never 
 from the first treated her with indulgence ; he 
 
92; THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 had found her timidity exasperating, her ignor- 
 ance of everything connected with country hfe 
 troublesome, her feeble health expensive and 
 inconvenient, and he had speedily made her 
 aware that he regarded his marriage as a bad 
 bargain. 
 
 Under no circumstances could Mrs. Wynn 
 have been an energetic, capable woman, but 
 her lot was an especially hard one, inasmuch as 
 such qualities as she did possess were entirely 
 wasted, while she was made to suffer every day 
 of her life for the lack of others with which 
 she had not been endowed. Her husband was 
 a coarse, mean, suspicious, cruel tyrant ; she 
 had no child, and she would have been a fond 
 and devoted mother — very likely a wise one, 
 also, for the strength that the love of children 
 gives often lies latent in such timid souls. In 
 the house she was totally without consideration. 
 ' The mistress,' who knew no more about farm- 
 ing than she knew about Greek, who was afraid 
 of the tamest of cows, and caught a cold that 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED, 93 
 
 ' lasted her ' for three months the first time she 
 was taken over the farm, was not likely favour- 
 ably to impress the people about her. She was 
 set down by common consent as ' a poor crea- 
 ture ' ; and as Farmer Wynn made it speedily 
 and particularly plain that he thought very 
 little of her, things went on pretty much as 
 they had done during the years that followed 
 the death of the farmer's first wife. 
 
 At the time of David Wynn's second mar- 
 riage but little had been said about his daughter, 
 and that little was not pleasing to Mrs. Price, 
 who possessed good sense and a motherly 
 heart. 
 
 ' Sarah don't need to worry about her,' was 
 Wynn's careless answer to a question con- 
 cerning the girl, then thirteen years old. ' She 
 lives with her uncle and aunt — Jefirey their 
 name is — in London. She ain't coming home ; 
 she'll give Sarah no trouble.' 
 
 ' She wouldn't count it a trouble,' said the 
 mother, whose ' heavy handful ' was so cheer- 
 
94 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 fully carried ; ' she's always been used to doing 
 for the little ones, and our Sarah knows her 
 duty.' 
 
 Once only in the course of four out of the 
 five dreary years since her marriage, had Mrs. 
 Wynn been cheered by the company of her 
 husband's daughter. She had sometimes pre- 
 sumed to think that she would not have been 
 so complete a failure as a stepmother as in every 
 other capacity she had proved to be, if she had 
 been given the chance of trying what she could 
 make of that relation. She checked her regrets, 
 however, just as she repressed the natural 
 longing for a child of her owm, and hushed the 
 natural disappointment when no child came, 
 ' to make her feel that she was anything to any- 
 body,' by the reflection that Mavis was much 
 ])etter away from her father. ' It would be as 
 bad for her as it is for me, or worse, ' this poor 
 w^oman said to herself, when the oppression 
 that weighed upon her life was very hard to 
 bear ; ' for she's young, and has a deal of 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 95 
 
 spirit, and she might not put up with it as I 
 can.' 
 
 David Wynn had given a churhsh recep- 
 tion to the tall, thin, large-eyed girl of fifteen, 
 Avho was sent to Field-fiower Farm to recruit 
 her strength after an illness, and the six weeks 
 of her stay had been anything but pleasant to 
 Mavis. She had no love for her father, and to 
 her acute young perceptions, aided by the 
 very difierent domestic atmosphere of her 
 uncle's house, the wretchedness of her step- 
 mother's existence was plain. The pleasure 
 that Mrs. Wynn derived from the frank affec- 
 tion of the girl was marred by the revelation of 
 a fresh difficulty in her path, and the supply of 
 new aliment to the devouring demon of her 
 husband's temper. Farmer Wynn disliked his 
 wife as much as he despised her ; but he did 
 not choose that she should care for anybody, 
 or have anything in her life beyond tliose 
 things which she held at his absolute will and 
 pleasure. Hitherto, having effectually separ- 
 
96 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 ated her from her own family, he had been 
 able to carry these points. 
 
 The hopes that her fine match liad excited 
 were early extinguished. Mrs. Wynn had no 
 power to invite her parents to her husband's 
 house, even if they had possessed the means 
 of coming to her ; and when she proposed to 
 visit them, Wynn told her if she did so she might 
 stay there, she should not return to him. He 
 would have been incapable of comprehending 
 the courage and self-denial there was in his 
 wife's silent endurance of this act of cruelty, 
 and in her resistance of the temptation to put 
 his brutal threat to the test. As it was, he took 
 her meek submission for a signal victory. She 
 knew better than to quarrel with her bread 
 and butter. She would be long sorry to lose 
 or risk her good home. But what a sneak she 
 was ! He hated a woman with no spirit. 
 Such were the reflections with which Wynn 
 went out to bully his farm-servants and 
 labourers, to the comparatively small extent 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. .97 
 
 of bullying which they would bear from him ; 
 while the wife, in whose case there were no 
 limitations of either law or custom, was weeping 
 her heart out for the poor home she was never 
 more to see, and thinking how gladly her 
 parents would take her back, only that she must 
 not be again a burden upon their poverty. No ; 
 that could never be ; she had to bear this 
 knowledge ; but there was a difference in Mrs. 
 Wynn from that day. She made no farther 
 efforts with herself; she never again tried to 
 care for her tyrant ; she accepted her insignifi- 
 cance with indifference, indeed with thankful- 
 ness. So that she escaped loud-tongued abuse 
 and coarse violence she was content. 
 
 Her neighbours were of the opinion that 
 Mrs. Wynn was ' a poor creature.' She did not 
 care for company, she did not take any pride in 
 the farm ; though the Field-flower butter was 
 well known for excellence, and Wynn was an 
 authority on sheep. Even a bit of dress was 
 not of such value in her eyes as it ought to have 
 
 VOL. I. II 
 
98 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 been. Mayhap she was pious, and that made 
 her low-spirited. Against this ingenious sug- 
 gestion, however, there was the objection that 
 the Wynns were ' Church ' ; now piety was, in 
 those parts, supposed to abide in and to be the 
 pecuhar property of Dissenters, or, as they were 
 called, ' Chapel ' people. Thus she was left a 
 good deal to herself, and as she kept her own 
 counsel with patient reticence that had its origin 
 not in pride but in propriety, Wynn's character 
 stood higher than it deserved. The worst that 
 was said of him was that he was a rough tyke, 
 while there was a good deal of indulgence for a 
 man's not being too fond of his home who had 
 such a mope of a wife in it. 
 
 When Mavis Wynn was eighteen, her aunt, 
 with whom she had lived since the death of her 
 mother, died, and she was summoned home by 
 her father. Mrs. Wynn was more than usually 
 aiUng, and it was expedient that there should 
 be some one to look after her. Her step- 
 daughter would probably do this as well as 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 99 
 
 anyone else, and could be made to do it more 
 cheaply. Mrs. Wynn would hardly have 
 known her for the gawky girl whose inteUigent 
 observation she had dreaded during the brief 
 period they had passed together. Mavis was 
 older-looking than her years, by reason of the 
 serenity and self-possession that expressed them- 
 selves in her features ; in education and refine- 
 ment she was far beyond any one with whom 
 her father's wife had ever associated. Mrs. 
 Wynn knew nothing positive about Mavis's 
 mother ; she would not have dared to ask her 
 husband a question, and he never talked about 
 his past ; but a rumour had reached her that 
 the farmer's first wife, although she had no 
 money to speak of, had come of ' good ' people, 
 and married beneath her. 
 
 Mavis had been only a month at the farm, 
 when she was sent for by Mr. Jeffrey, her aunt's 
 husband, who was dying. David Wynn allowed 
 her, grudgingly enough, to go to London ; but 
 as his brother-in-law, a hard-working professor 
 
 H 2 
 
loo THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 of music, and a man of rare taste and cultiva- 
 tion, had some little property to leave — it would 
 not have been prudent to refuse. Mavis was 
 returning from that sorrowful visit when Mr. 
 Dexter saw her, and commented upon the dif- 
 ference between the father and the daughter. 
 
 If Mr. Dexter had seen Mavis on her first 
 arrival he would have thought her better- 
 looking. A month is not a long time, even 
 when one is only eighteen, and prone to the 
 hasty decisions, severe judgments, and unhesi- 
 tating finality of youth ; but it did not take a 
 fourth of that period to remove any illusions she 
 might have cherished from the mind of Mavis 
 Wynn, to renew her former dread of her father, 
 and to inspire her with profound compassion for 
 her stepmother. The conditions of Mavis's life 
 had of late been such as to mature her mind and 
 develop her feelings ; she had come back to her 
 father's house under the influence of her first 
 serious sorrow, and that influence was a good 
 one. It strengthened the girl for what she had 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. loi 
 
 to bear ; it helped her to discern what she had 
 to do. But the bloom, which her sincere and 
 natural grief had hardly touched, faded under 
 the constraint and misery of a home where 
 a man's overbearing temper and his pleasure in 
 inflicting pain on all who were dependent upon 
 him, rendered wretched every waking hour of 
 the women within its walls. 
 
 The home that Mavis looked back to had 
 been very different ; mutual love and helpful- 
 ness had reigned in it ; industry and frugality 
 had kept it happy and honourable ; pure minds 
 had sanctified, elevated tastes had refined and 
 beautified it. There was the sharp agony of 
 contrast in the suffering which Mavis endured ; 
 there was the desperate hopelessness that only 
 the young feel. This hateful place was her 
 home now, and here she would have to live 
 always ! Even if she were allowed to return to 
 her uncle, she knew that he was a condemned 
 man, before the blow of his wife's death, that 
 was destined to hasten the execution of the 
 
I02 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 sentence, fell upon him. The past was all 
 over ; she would probably not be permitted to 
 pursue any of its occupations, to retain any of 
 its associations. Hep father intended her to be 
 a servant without wages ; her stepmother had 
 no power to defend her, and no courage to 
 make the attempt. 
 
 Mr. Jeffrey left his wife's niece nothing ; 
 his small savings were bequeathed to his only 
 son, who was farming, with a partner, in Canada. 
 Mavis had nothing to show for her journey 
 and travelling expenses, except a box of 
 trumpery keepsakes, mostly old books and 
 rubbish of that kind, and the aggrieved farmer 
 did not spare her on her return, empty-handed, 
 after the funeral. 
 
 ' He will never go on at her as he does 
 at me,' the poor crushed wife had thought with 
 a faint ray of comfort ; * she's young, and her 
 spirit isn't broken, and, after all, she's his own 
 child. Besides, there's Mr. and Mrs. Colvin 
 think so much of her, and Wynn don't want to 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 103 
 
 lose his character with them ; he lets her sing 
 in the choir, though she ain't paid for it, and he 
 sends me to church regularly with her — and oh, 
 what a comfort and a rest it is ! he will never 
 swear at her and bang her about, surely.' 
 
 Once started on this hopeful path of thought, 
 Mi^s. Wynn pursued it to the adventurous 
 length of wondering whether her own lot might 
 not possibly be bettered by the presence of 
 Mavis. If there was any one to put any 
 restraint at all upon the ruffianly nature of 
 her tyrant her life might possibly be lightened. 
 For a while it seemed as if Mrs. Wynn's hopes 
 were not unfounded, but the scene that ensued 
 on the return of Mavis after Mr. Jeffrey's death 
 effectually dissi-pated them. JSTever before had 
 the unfortunate girl realised to the full the 
 coarse brutality of her father's nature ; never 
 had his wife's dread of him reached a more 
 painful height. An immediate result of the 
 scene of foul-tongued raihng was the breaking 
 down of the barrier of silence between the 
 
I04 THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 man's wife and his daughter. When Mrs. 
 Wynn, realising the blessed rehef of the farmer's 
 absence, remarked to Mavis that they should 
 have a comfortable time, she knew that all dis- 
 guise between them was over, that any illusion 
 Mavis might have entertained respecting the 
 life that lay before her was at an end. 
 
 ' What will she do ? I'm afraid she'll never 
 learn to bear it. I saw that in her face on 
 Saturday night, when he called her mother's 
 sister by every filthy name he could lay his 
 tongue to. I couldn't expect her to bear it for 
 my sake only ; I shouldn't for hers, if I had 
 anywhere to go to, or any way of living.' So ran 
 the thoughts of Mrs. Wynn, as she covertly 
 observed her stepdaughter's downcast face and 
 busy fingers, and slowly stroked the glossy 
 black fur of the cat in her lap. She had learned 
 to be so thankful for small mercies that the 
 idleness, the quiet of the tidy room, and 
 the moral certainty that a couple of hours of 
 these good things awaited her, gave her a holi- 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 105 
 
 day feeling, which even her trouble about 
 Mavis could not dissipate. 
 
 ' Sarah,' said Mavis, suddenly, looking 
 straight at the quiet figure in the horsehair chair, 
 and noting afresh the expression of debility in 
 Mrs. Wynn's still pretty but commonplace face ; 
 ' tell me something about yourself. I am here 
 now, you know, for good or for bad — there's 
 no use in our hiding anything from each other ; 
 you are not so many years older than I, and 
 I don't think you are able for half so much. I 
 know very little about you ; and I want to find 
 out whether I can help you in any way. We 
 have to bear it together. Is it always so bad as 
 this .? ' 
 
 ' Almost always,' answered Mrs. Wynn. 
 Her cheek flushed, her eyes deepened in colour, 
 as she sat upright to make her reply more em- 
 phatic ' I've never known a week's peace since 
 I left my home to come here, and no one, no 
 woman, that is, ever could know peace where 
 your father is. I can't help it, though you are 
 
io6 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 his daughter, and I oughtn't to speak, per- 
 haps ' 
 
 ' It does not matter ; those rules may be all 
 very well where things are not so bad as they 
 are with us — you and I had better know what 
 we have to face. Tell me ; have you no 
 friends ? ' 
 
 ' I ? J^ot one. My father and mother died 
 of the fever in the same week. I wasn't told 
 they were ill until they were dead, and then I 
 was not allowed to go and look at their dead 
 faces. The girls are doing for themselves : one 
 is married, the other is in a shop in Liverpool ; 
 the boys are gone to America ; I suppose I shall 
 never hear any more about them.' 
 
 ' Did my father do anything for them ? ' 
 
 'No, never. And I dare say they think 
 that was my fault, too — they didn't know, bless 
 them ! how could they ? My father and mother 
 knew, though ; I have that comfort ; they 
 knew I did not forsake them, or forget them.' 
 
 The habitual timorous quietude of Mrs. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. I07 
 
 Wynn was broken through ; she was trembling 
 now, as a vision of the past came back to her, 
 and her tears fell. There were answering tears 
 in the girl's eyes. 
 
 * I fear you have always been very unhappy. 
 Aunt Jeffrey used to say that you must be. I 
 don't know how she knew it, for she never saw 
 my father since I was quite a little child ; but 
 I'm afraid it must have been because my mother 
 w^as unhappy too. Don't you think this was 
 how she knew ? ' 
 
 ' I suppose it was. But don't you go fret- 
 ting, dear, about that long ago time. She's 
 over it many a year ; and, if all's true we hear 
 in church, she has w^hat's better w^orth thinking 
 of to turn her mind to than those old troubles. 
 Besides, it could not have been so bad when he 
 was quite young ; and she was a lady, too, I've 
 heard say.' 
 
 'Yes, she was a lady,' said Mavis, feeling, 
 with the sensitiveness of her better education, 
 the simple spontaneous humility of her step- 
 
io8 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 mother ; ' but I don't think that can have made 
 any difference in him/ 
 
 ' Perhaps not,' assented Mrs. Wynn, who 
 was not one to stick to her own opinion, ' when 
 he'd got used to having a lady to hector over. 
 All the same, I've seen him meek and mild 
 enough to the gentry hereabout. There's Mr. 
 Colvin, how civil he is to him, and to us before 
 him. Haven't you remarked that, Mavis ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, I've remarked that ; but I observed 
 something else too. Mr. Colvin has come here 
 twice, with the intention of asking father why 
 he never goes to church ; and, civil as father has 
 been to him both times, he has gone away with- 
 out putting the question.' 
 
 ' Now, how on earth did you know that ? 
 He let it out to me, and bragged of keeping 
 the parson in his place ; but you were not in 
 the room.' 
 
 ' Ko, and I didn't need to be. There are 
 things that I seem to feel instead of knowing. 
 I suppose it is because I am so terribly afraid of 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 109 
 
 father myself, that I always know when other 
 people are afraid of him.' 
 
 ' It is well for you that you are afraid of 
 him,' said Mrs. Wynn, with the earnest convic- 
 tion of a victim ; ' for if you were not, you 
 might try to go against him ; you might think 
 it safe, you know, being a grown-up woman as 
 one may say ; but it wouldn't be safe. Mavis. 
 You had better by half be as much afraid of 
 him as I am, for you would have no more 
 chance against him than I've had.' 
 
 The girl had been stitching away all this 
 time in a mechanical manner, but now she 
 desisted, her work dropped on the table, and 
 the colour faded completely from her face. 
 
 ' What do you mean ^ Do you — is it pos- 
 sible — has he ever ? ' 
 
 ' Beaten me, you don't like to say. Indeed 
 he has, many and many a time. I have never 
 told any one ; and he has never struck me when 
 there was anybody by. I might have been 
 protected, you know, though people are mostly 
 
no THE LOVER-' S CREED. 
 
 for letting a man do what lie likes with his 
 own, in these parts. Anyhow, it would have 
 got talked of. But I'm not far off from being 
 as well used to a beating as his dogs and his 
 horses. You know something about that, don't 
 you ? ' 
 
 ' I do indeed,' said Mavis, with a shudder. 
 The knowledge and sight of the habitual 
 cruelty with which animals were treated at 
 Field-flower Farm was the worst part of w^hat 
 she had to bear. She had already found that 
 any interference on her part only made the lot 
 of the helpless creatures harder. 
 
 ' Then, mind what you do or say. I would 
 not have told you — for my own sake — for no 
 matter what one has gone through or how little 
 one has come to think of oneself, it is never 
 easy to confess to that ; but I am afraid for you. 
 He would think no more of knocking you 
 down, if you crossed him when the devil is in 
 him, than he would think of thrashing Ponto. 
 I would have told you this before you went to 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. in 
 
 London, and tried to make you see that it's 
 no use, even though you're young and have a 
 spirit, only that things were really better for 
 that month. He was busy with something we 
 know nothing about, and we gained by that ; 
 and besides, I w^as so ill that I could keep out 
 of his way. But it is time to tell you now, and 
 to warn you. You have seen him bad enough, 
 and heard what he can do with his tongue, but 
 do you not ever persuade yourself that's all you 
 have to fear, for if you do, and take heart to set 
 yourself against him, you'll come in for the 
 same as I've come in for, many a time. Don't 
 you put me down for a bad wife, Mavis, because 
 I've told you ; there's a deal of that in story 
 books, I know, but I'm no saint, nor yet a 
 martyr. I want you to keep whole bones, and 
 I want to save your father from all the dis- 
 grace I can. I have had many a fright since 
 you've been here, but never such a fright as I 
 had on that night when you came home, and 
 he found out that you had been left nothing. 
 
12 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Why he did not strike you in his fury then I 
 do not know.' 
 
 ' I do, and I will tell you presently. Tell 
 me this first. Why have you stayed with him 
 to be so treated all this time ? ' 
 
 ' Because a man's wife must stay with him, 
 child. Try, when your own time comes, to 
 think what that means, for all one's life long. 
 If I had run away to my father and mother, 
 he could have brought me back, to treat me still 
 worse. I never had a shilling of my own since 
 the day I married him ; and I'm afraid you'll 
 have to know what a helpless feeling that gives, 
 for I'm sure he'll never let you have one. 
 Meat, and drink, and clothes, he does not 
 grudge us, but he'll make us feel that we have 
 nothing that we don't owe to him.' 
 
 Mavis looked as if she were about to speak, 
 but checked herself, and resumed her needle- 
 work. 
 
 Mrs. Wynn, whose unusual vehemence and 
 purpose had tired her, said no more for some 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 113 
 
 time, but turned her ever-weary eyes upon 
 the window from which she could see any one 
 coming up to the house. Presently she looked 
 round, and said to Mavis : 
 
 ' I am not going to work, but you had better 
 put the things by my hand.' The last shred of 
 disguise was torn away ; the feeble cunning 
 of the slave in dread of the taskmaster was 
 revealed. If Wynn were to come in and catch 
 her with idle hands, she would be sure of the 
 lash — of his tongue. And how that weary 
 woman dreaded it ! Silently Mavis placed 
 working materials by Mrs. Wynn's side, and 
 stuck a threaded needle in a half-stitched wrist- 
 band. Then she said quietly : 
 
 ' I will tell you why my father did not strike 
 me that night, and why he has never struck 
 you since I came home. It is because he does 
 not want me to leave the house, and he knows 
 I should do it.' 
 
 ' Do it ! why, how could you ? Where 
 could you go to ? ' 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 ' I don't know ; but I could leave this place, 
 and I would. If you are right, if he's afraid of 
 what people would say of him, then there is a 
 way of helping you. It's my staying here, and 
 putting that much check on him. And, please 
 God, I will do it, Sarah.' 
 
 She laid her slender hand upon Mrs. 
 Wynn's arm for a moment with a half-soothing, 
 half-protecting touch, and then, saying she 
 would make her some tea, left the room. Mrs. 
 Wynn had her tea, but Mavis did not return. 
 She had taken refuge in the Dame's parlour, 
 and, kneeling upon the cushioned window-seat, 
 was letting the sweet air play upon her troubled 
 face. Shame, aversion, disgust, were strong 
 within her, and her mind was full of youth's 
 impatient questioning. Was every thing, was 
 every one, bad in this world ? How could 
 such out-of-jointness exist as that one human 
 being should be free to make all around him 
 miserable ? Mavis put a bad half-hour over her 
 then and there ; one that she never afterwards 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 115 
 
 forgot. Before slie left the Dame's parlour she 
 took a sealed packet out of a drawer in an old 
 cabinet, looked long at it, and restored it care- 
 fully to its place. 
 
 ' Ah, my dear, dear Aunt Jane,' so said 
 Mavis in her thoughts, ' how wise you were, 
 liow right you were, how well you knew. And 
 yet, you did not, you could not, foresee the full 
 value of what you did for me.' 
 
 ' Your father has come in,' said Mrs. Wynn, 
 glancing nervously at Mavis when she re- 
 turned, and busily stitching the wristband ; 
 ' he is in quite a good humour. Whatever his 
 business with the Squire may be, it must be 
 going well. And Mr. Jack has come home.' 
 
 I 2 
 
ii6 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 TROTTY VECK. 
 
 Mavis Wynn was, fortunately for herself, an 
 habitually early riser. Had she made any 
 difficulty about the ' routing out ' which her 
 father insisted upon, she would have come in 
 for a frank expression of his contempt for her 
 lazy London ways. She escaped this, however, 
 by the readiness with which she rose in time to 
 see the household undress in its simplest ex- 
 pression, and to assist in the tasks which were 
 none too much for the two strapping Welsh 
 girls employed in the farmhouse. Among the 
 many discomforts of her existence, poor feeblfe 
 Mrs. Wynn regarded enforced early rising with 
 especial distaste. Wynn was apt to come in 
 from his morning inspection of man, beast, and 
 
 I 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. n; 
 
 general 'gear' in a humour for fault-finding, 
 and she was bound to be on the spot. 
 
 ' It isn't often I get a bit of peace at dinner,' 
 was Mrs. Wynn's mental summary of the situa- 
 tion, ' but it's nothing compared to breakfast. Oh 
 dear, oh dear, what a way of beginning the 
 day, every day of one's life ! ' 
 
 Mavis regarded it as a victory, that she had 
 contrived to procure for her stepmother the 
 immense privilege of breakfasting in bed on a 
 few occasions, by speaking of it to her father 
 as a thing of course, on account of a cold or 
 a headache. As she took especial care that 
 everything should be orderly and comfortable 
 for his own morning meal, there had been 
 nothing worse to encounter than some surly 
 growls at the uselessness of women. On these 
 festivals Mrs. Wynn would be quite cheerful 
 when she came down to her sewing in the big 
 parlour, with a pleasant sense that she was 
 taking the day with the chill off. She had 
 never heard that clever French saying about 
 
ii8 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 'im mari qui avait des absences delicieuses,' 
 but the English equivalent of it was her own 
 cherished though unspoken sentiment. 
 
 ' You need not get up/ said Mavis, coming 
 into Mrs. Wynn's room, on the morning after 
 the conversation just recorded ; * there's some- 
 body coming to breakfast with father, and he 
 does not want either of us. So lie still, and I 
 will fetch your tray.' 
 
 ' Somebody coming to breakfast ! Who 
 can it be ? He didn't say he was expecting 
 any one.' 
 
 ' I don't think he did expect any one, for I 
 was in the passage when this person came to 
 the door, and father seemed surprised. They 
 went into the big parlour, and father came out 
 in a minute, and told me he should not want us 
 at breakfast.' 
 
 ' Who can the man be ? Have you ever 
 een him before ? ' 
 
 ' No, he is a stranger, I think. I heard 
 father call him Eeckitts.' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 119 
 
 ' I don't know the name.' 
 
 Mavis ate her own breakfast in the kit(3hen, 
 and went about her ordinary occupations. 
 Wynn and the stranger remained in the big 
 parlour until long after the usual breakfast 
 time. At length Mavis heard her father call- 
 ing to her, and quickly presented herself at the 
 door. The white cloth had been pushed away 
 from one half of the large table in the middle 
 of the room, and a heap of papers and account- 
 books occupied a cleared space ; in front of 
 this the visitor was seated. His elbows rested 
 on the table, and he was looking at a pen-and- 
 ink-drawn plan or map, holding it with both 
 hands at a few inches from his near-sighted 
 eyes. Mr. Eeckitts was a good-humoured- 
 looking man, under fifty, with pepper-and-salt 
 hair, and a florid complexion. He desisted 
 from his occupation and gave Mavis a nod, but 
 he did not rise. 
 
 'My daughter,' said Wynn, shortly, and 
 hardly allowed his visitor to say, ' Glad to see 
 
I20 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 you, Miss,' before he added : ' Are the win- 
 dows and doors open on the Dame's parlour- 
 side?' 
 
 ' Yes, father.' 
 
 ' Is the place fit to be seen ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, father ; I have just been dusting the 
 rooms.' 
 
 ' Then we can go and have a look at 
 them,' said the farmer, addressing the visitor. 
 'There's some valuable old wood up there.' 
 
 These words startled Mavis. She instantly 
 jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Keckitts 
 had come to Field-flower Farm to purchase 
 some of the tapestry or furniture, of whose 
 value she had a much more just idea than her 
 father, for she had seen such things in queer 
 out-of-the-way shops in London, and her uncla 
 Jeffrey had instructed her concerning them. 
 This Mr. Keckitts did not resemble the people 
 she had seen in the old-furniture shops, and 
 who were generally of a greasy and slinking 
 aspect : he was as distinctly bucolic as her 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 121 
 
 father, though less rough, and more agreeable 
 to look at. Still, she was sure she had hit on 
 the explanation of his visit, and it was discon- 
 certing. She should be sorry if the old things, 
 which aided her to weave the romances in 
 which she found relief from the unlovely 
 realities of her life, were taken away. The im- 
 mediately pressing consideration was, however, 
 what she should do if her father were to examine 
 the cabinet and find what she had hidden there ? 
 
 ' Shall you want me on the Dame's parlour- 
 side ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' Xo. Will you come ? ' said Wynn to Mr. 
 Eeckitts. The latter assented and rose. 
 
 ' Wait a bit,' said the farmer, his habitual 
 suspiciousness coming into play, ' while I put 
 these away.' 
 
 He began to gather up the papers and 
 account-books on the table, that he might put 
 them under lock and key, and Mavis availed 
 herself of this opportunity to dart away, flit 
 through the intervening passages, gain the 
 
122 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Dame's parlour-side, and secure the hidden 
 packet. On her return she passed her father 
 and the stranger on the stairs, and Wynn 
 addressed her : 
 
 ' Miss Nestle wants to see you. You had 
 better go up to the House this morning.' 
 
 ' I dare say you are right,' said Mrs. Wynn, 
 when Mavis had told her how she accounted 
 for Mr. Eeckitts' visit, * though I can't see why 
 he should want to keep us out of the way, if it 
 is only that the man has come about. How- 
 ever, we shall be none the wiser if we were 
 to guess ever so ; and if he sells the things, 
 whether he lets us know anything about it 
 until they have to be packed to go away, will 
 depend on the humour he's in.' 
 
 ' Oh, dear ! I should be sorry for the 
 Dame's parlour then ; how forsaken it would 
 look. You would be sorry too. You're fond 
 of those old things, aren't you ? ' 
 
 ' No, I'm not, Mavis. I should not mind ; 
 I'm not fond of anything.' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 123 
 
 'Yes, yes, you are, you're fond of me,' 
 said the girl, gaily. ' Good-bye. I shall have 
 a lovely walk. I wish you were coming.' 
 
 As fresh and as fair as the spring morning 
 itself was Mavis Wynn, as she set off on her 
 way to Bassett. The elasticity of her eighteen 
 years was asserting itself; everything around 
 her was bright and beautiful ; might there not 
 come some brightness and beauty into her life 
 also? Yesterday the shadows lay long and 
 dark ; to-day they were lighter. Nothing was 
 changed in reality, but it was a fine day, she 
 was free to enjoy it, she delighted in a long 
 walk. At the end of this one there was a 
 pleasant visit. 
 
 There was quite enough bloom on Mavis's 
 fair cheek when she passed through the narrow 
 gate in the old wall, took the path through the 
 coppice where the oak trees were just awaken- 
 ing to their tender-green time, and the larches 
 were preparing to ' hang all their tassels forth,' 
 and reached the arbour-boathouse by the 
 
124 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 water's edge. Here she paused and looked 
 around. Perchance Eeuben might be lounging 
 about somewhere, and would push the boat 
 down into the water for her. It was not too 
 much for her own strength to do this ; the 
 slope was easy, and she had done it many 
 times before to-day; but Mavis had dressed 
 herself with a good deal of care, and she 
 wanted to avoid possible splashes on her best 
 gown and her black silk scarf. There was, 
 however, no lounging Eeuben within view, and 
 she managed to slide the boat into the water 
 without injury to her dress. She crossed the 
 stream, fastened the boat to the post set up for 
 that purpose on the other side, and took the 
 path through the fields. 
 
 There was a delicious light wind, it came 
 softly towards her bearing the odours of the 
 spring. The song of birds was in the air ; not 
 yet with the piercing fulness of the summer 
 music in it, but strangely gladsome like the 
 young year ; the girl's elastic spirits responded 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 125 
 
 to the influences of the time ; the perplexed 
 and weary look her face too often wore passed 
 from it. ' And as she walked, she sang,' like 
 the pilgrims in the one perfect allegory; exer- 
 cising her sweet powerful voice in the solitude, 
 with such enjoyment of ber own music as 
 she had not felt for a long time. Only yester- 
 day she had been in despair ; to-day, though 
 nothing had happened, she was as gay as the 
 lark whose carol was no sweeter than her own. 
 The path that Mavis had taken led through 
 undulating fields, to the high road, which 
 lay for some distance deep down between 
 green banks and hedges — an unusual feature 
 in that part of the country. On the far side 
 were the Bassett plantations of tall slender 
 trees, their stems set about with a multitude of 
 wild flowers. Mavis ceased her singing as she 
 approached the boundary of the fields, whence 
 a few zigzag steps cut in the green bank gave 
 access to the road, and was walking at a swifter 
 pace towards the lodge gates of Bassett, when 
 
126 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 her quick ear caught a sharp yelping cry and 
 the patter of feet between the hedge and the 
 plantation. Mavis ran lightly up the face of 
 the bank, and saw a small grey terrier with 
 a wiry coat, a meagre tail, and a distressful 
 expression of countenance, limping along on 
 three legs, with the fourth held up, as if hurt. 
 The intelligent little dog, meeting the enquiring 
 gaze of Mavis, stood still on his three legs, but 
 yelped anew. She sought for a conveniently 
 wide space in the hedge, knelt down and called 
 him to her ; he came, and immediately recog- 
 nised a friend. Mavis examined the wounded 
 paw, and found a long sharp thorn embedded 
 in it. She seated herself on the green bank, 
 took off her gloves, laid the httle terrier in her 
 lap, and talked to him in the reasonable way 
 that always does with a nice dog. 
 
 ' I can take it out, if you'll let me, and be 
 good,' she said, handling the poor paw tenderly ; 
 ' you don't look as if you would bite me, even 
 if I did hurt you a little. It will be all right 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 127 
 
 in a minute.' She had been feeling with her 
 fine finger-tips for the head of the thorn, and 
 she now suddenly and skilfully pulled it out. 
 The terrier justified her good opinion of him ; 
 he uttered a little whine, but he did not snap 
 at her hand, and presently when she put him 
 down, and rose to her feet, the patient fell to 
 licking the wound with great satisfaction. 
 
 Mavis shook out her dress, thinking, with 
 a smile, that the little dog w^as as bad as the 
 boat, and trying to remember, as she patted 
 the terrier's rough head in adieu, what was the 
 hard name of somebody, in a classical story, 
 who extracted a thorn from a lion's paw. She 
 had just moved onward, when she again heard 
 steps on the other side of the hedge. This time 
 it was not a four-footed tread, and it was 
 accompanied by a lively whistling. Mavis 
 walked on. But the little terrier had also 
 caught the sounds, and recognised them ; he 
 scampered before her for some distance and 
 ran up with the liveliest demonstrations of 
 
128 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 delight to a young man who now appeared at 
 the top of the bank. 
 
 ' Ha ! Trotty, old boy, where have you 
 been ? ' said the master of the terrier, and the 
 next moment he saw the lady passing along 
 the path, close under the point at which he 
 stood. He raised his hat. Mavis bent her head 
 slightly, and they went on their several ways. 
 For a moment it seemed as though the wiry 
 terrier owned a divided allegiance ; he'^cocked 
 his ears interrogatively, turned a wistful gaze 
 upon his master, ran back a few steps, and 
 looked after the lady who had befriended him. 
 But the master whistled, and the little dog 
 followed him, puzzled, no doubt, at the un- 
 accountable stupidity of human beings. Here 
 were two persons calculated to enjoy each 
 other's society — they were both kind to him ; 
 could there be a closer bond? — and yet he 
 was unable to introduce them, owing to that 
 vexatious necessity for speech, so absurdly 
 imposed upon mankind. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 129 
 
 Miss Nestle's rooms were situated in a 
 cheerful part of the old house, and occupied 
 a position of vantage. They commanded tlie 
 offices, and yet they were socially central. 
 Miss Nestle had a comfortable conviction that 
 ' much could not go on ' without her knowledge, 
 so long as the household might be descended 
 upon suddenly and noiselessly from her own 
 room. This conviction was a great help and 
 stay to Miss Nestle, for she was of an anxious 
 temperament, and entertained the firmest con- 
 viction that ' much ' was always ' going on,' 
 wherever her eye, or the almost equally 
 efficacious dread of it, was not. They were 
 ideal rooms for their purpose, for they were 
 absolutely comfortable to the occupant, and 
 they formed a kind of household museum. 
 Lined with cupboards -guiltless of a speck of 
 mildew, or a grain of dust ; fitted with drawers 
 and closets on any item of w^hose miscellaneous 
 contents Miss Nestle could have laid an un- 
 erring hand in the dark ; spacious, light, and 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
j'SO THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 airy, Miss Nestle's rooms were the admiration 
 of her friends, and a source of much heart- 
 burning to the handmaids under her firm and 
 uncompromising rule. Young housemaids on 
 their promotion, ardently desirous of a character 
 from 'the county,' had been known to 
 relinquish their project of serving on the 
 Bassett establishment, upon merely contemplat- 
 ing the superhuman cleanliness of Miss Nestle's 
 rooms ; the crispness of the chintz curtains, the 
 polish of the mahogany furniture, and the 
 brilliant burnishing of the brass grates, fenders, 
 and fire-irons. 
 
 Audience of the housekeeper was a much 
 more serious ordeal than audience of the 
 Squire, when any error had to be acknow- 
 ledged, or shortcoming explained away; not 
 that Miss Nestle was a merciless person, but 
 that she had a genuine incapacity for under- 
 standing how anybody should fail to do his 
 or her duty, and yet regard himself or herself 
 as fit to live. Her point of view was unchang- 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 131 
 
 ing, her decisions were prompt. It did not 
 matter, according to Miss Nestle, "whether you 
 left ' your corners ' unswept, or whether you 
 robbed a bank ; ' you were, in proportion to 
 your opportunities, equally unfaithful to your 
 employer in either case. In the one, you were 
 entrusted with a sweeping-brush, in the other 
 with the key of the safe ; in either you did 
 your worst ; the difference was merely con- 
 ventional. If her mind could have been got at, 
 it probably would have been found that Miss 
 Nestle carried her consistency to the point of 
 thinking that if a similar punishment could be 
 awarded to both offences it would be well. 
 
 Miss Nestle was a little woman, with a face 
 which would have been sharp if it had not been 
 round — that is to say, its shape contradicted its 
 features. Her keen eyes, interrogative nose, 
 and firm mouth displayed themselves in a 
 smooth and placid disc of chin, cheek, and 
 forehead, all of juvenile colouring, and her 
 abundant light hair, brushed until it shone 
 
 K 2 
 
133 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 like glass, was put plainly away under a cap 
 which many a woman ten years Miss Nestle's 
 senior would have considered herself too 
 young to wear. That cap was a solemn institu- 
 tion ; only one hving individual had ever 
 ventured to treat it with levity, and the good 
 humour with which Miss Nestle took his 
 impertinence gave the measure of his import- 
 ance with her. The irreverent scoffer was 
 Jack Bassett, who told her he was sure she 
 wore that awful thing to awe the maids and 
 scare away the men. 
 
 Miss Nestle, her rooms, and the celebrated 
 cap, were all at their spick-and-span-est when 
 Mavis arrived to visit the Squire's housekeeper, 
 who was regarded with great respect by the 
 neighbours, and who remembered Farmer 
 Wynn's first wife well. In the cupboard-lined 
 sitting-room a bright fire was burning, as only 
 Miss Nestle's fires burned, making no ' ash ' 
 and observing the nice distinction between 
 crackle and sputter. In her chintz-covered 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 133 
 
 chair sat Miss Nestle, with her invariable key- 
 basket upon the crimson-covered table at lier 
 side, together with her workbox, a solid 
 structure of rosewood, with her initials on a 
 little mother-of-pearl tablet like a whist-counter 
 inserted in the lid. 
 
 She received Mavis kindly, but ran a quick 
 eye over her attire, to ascertain whether it had 
 any ' fallahshness ' about it. Fallahshness was 
 in Miss Nestle's vocabulary a generic term for 
 the evil results of London bringing-up. She 
 had never visited the great city, but she enter- 
 tained as bad an opinion of it as the most 
 intimate knowledge could have justified. Ee- 
 assured by the unpretending neatness of her 
 visitor's dress. Miss Nestle plunged cosily into 
 a conversation which consisted chiefly of 
 questions on her part and answers on that of 
 Mavis, concerninoj the details of her uncle 
 Jeffrey's illness and death, and the process of 
 her own ' settling down ' at Field-flower Farm. 
 
 ' You'll find a deal to do, my dear, for I'm 
 
134 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 told Mrs. Wynn is but a poor creature in 
 health, so you will have to be active and look 
 after things. It can't be all reading and 
 writing with you now ; no, nor all playing the 
 piano either, as your father says it has been. 
 You'll be settling down, you know.' 
 
 While Miss Nestle spoke thus, in the 
 distinct staccato tone used by certain persons 
 in speaking to small children, she cast an 
 upward glance at the presses which lined 
 the opposite wall, as though she foresaw 
 a long career of potting and preserving for 
 Mavis, now happily rescued from frivolous 
 pursuits. 
 
 ' I shall have to help, of course,' said Mavis, 
 with a little hesitation, on which Miss Nestle 
 instantly pounced. 
 
 ' You are not going to give way to fallalish- 
 ness, I hope. That would never do. Depend 
 upon it, my dear, there's nothing li^ knowing 
 one's place, and keeping oneself in it. What I 
 always say, and what I always will say, is : 
 
-mE LOVER'S CREED. 135 
 
 Keep yourself in your place, and then you can 
 respect yourself, and other people can respect 
 you.' This sententious sentiment was so well 
 known to Miss Nestle's intimates, that a saucy 
 still-room maid, being at the time ' under 
 notice,' had once observed it was a wonder 
 Belshazzar the parrot, who lived in Miss Nestle's 
 parlour, had not learned the saying by rote 
 long ago. 
 
 ' And I'm sorry to say there's a great deal 
 of the other kind of thing going on. Young 
 people that are above their station are safe to 
 get into trouble, for they're just fit for no place 
 at all.' 
 
 ' I did not mean that — I am not so foolish,' 
 5aid Mavis ; ' I only meant that I have not been 
 used to a farm, and my uncle and aunt thought 
 I should be a good teacher of music, after a 
 time. I must not give up my music, must I ? ' 
 
 ' No, I suppose not,' admitted Miss Nestle, 
 grudgingly ; ' but I hope you'll never want to 
 teach music, or anything else, my dear. What 
 
136 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 I like is to see girls useful and happy in their 
 parents' homes, until such time as they have 
 homes of their own provided for them by hus- 
 bands of their own station and way of life. 
 When things are like this, girls can keep them- 
 selves in their place, and then they can respect 
 themselves, and other people can respect them.' 
 
 ' J^esty ! Have you got any Friar's Balsam 
 in the Museum ? ' 
 
 The voice came from the door, and Miss 
 Nestle turned her head sharply in that direc- 
 tion. A good-looking young man, with merry 
 blue eyes, a sunburnt complexion, and a very 
 pleasant smile, had entered the room unheard 
 by her, and was standing near the door, hold- 
 ing his soft felt hat (known in those days as a 
 wideawake) in his left hand, and a wiry grey 
 terrier under his right arm. 
 
 ' Goodness ! Mr. Jack, is it you ? ' ex- 
 claimed Miss Nestle, ' and wanting Friar's Bal- 
 sam ! Of course I've got it. It is in the Store- 
 Medicine division of the second press, on the 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 137 
 
 third shelf from the top ; but I shall have to 
 fetch the steps to get it.' 
 
 ' I'll fetch the steps, JSTesty,' said the in- 
 truder, coming forward and bowing to Mavis, 
 who acknowledged his salutation with a very 
 becoming blush ; ' I beg your pardon for 
 intruding in this way.' 
 
 ' Not at all, Mr. Jack,' said Miss Nestle ; 
 ' it's only Farmer Wynn's daughter come to see 
 me. What's wrong, that Friar's Balsam 's 
 wanted ? ' 
 
 Mr. Jack, having adroitly treated Miss 
 Nestle's rejoinder as an introduction of himself 
 to Mavis, addressed her : — 
 
 ' My dog has hurt his paw. Miss Wynn, I 
 don't know how ; he went lame suddenly, and 
 he has a bad scratch ; ' — here Mr. Jack set the 
 terrier down, and that sagacious creature gave 
 Mavis a sniff and a pleasant bark of friendly 
 recognition — ' so I came to the Museum for 
 Miss Nestle's cure-all.' 
 
 ' Oh, then, it's for Trotty Yeck you want it. 
 
138 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Mr. Jack. I was afraid you liad been up to 
 some mischief of your own. Here, Trotty, 
 Trotty Veck, let me see what has! happened to 
 you. Bless the dog, he won't come near me ! 
 Any one would think he knew you, Mavis.' 
 
 ' Mavis ! ' said Mr. Jack to himself, ' what a 
 pretty name ! ' 
 
 ' I believe he does know me,' said Mavis, as 
 she stooped over the dog, and smoothed his 
 hard httle skull, while he winked his gratifica- 
 tion. ' We have met already. I can tell you 
 how he was hurt. It was a thorn, and it ran 
 very deep into his foot. I was passing the 
 hedge at the time. I saw him limping and 
 in great pain, so I took the thorn out, and he 
 remembers me.' 
 
 Mavis did not get through this explanation 
 without some embarrassment, for the merry 
 eyes of Trotty Yeck's master were fixed upon 
 her, and though she was looking down she was 
 conscious of that fact ; nor did her embarrass- 
 ment escape the notice of Miss JSTestle. This 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 139 
 
 was as it should be ; the farmer's daughter was 
 becomiugly gratified by the notice of the 
 Squire's son. 
 
 ' I'm sure we are both — myself and Trotty 
 Veck, I mean — very much obliged to you, Miss 
 Wynn,' said Mr. Jack ; ' it was very kind and 
 very clever of you to come to his aid like that. 
 How do you like his name ? ' he continued, im- 
 mediately assuming their community of interest 
 in the terrier, after the fashion of all true lovers 
 of animals. 
 
 ' I don't know,' said Mavis, raising her head 
 and meeting his eyes for the first time ; ' it is an 
 odd name ; not like a dog's. Why did you call 
 hhn Trotty Veck .^' 
 
 ' Don't you know " The Chimes," Miss 
 Wynn ? Aren't you up in your Dickens ? 
 Don't you remember the patient httle ticket- 
 porter with the good daughter, waiting for a 
 job in the angle of the wall, with all the spirits 
 floating out of the bells ? You do ? Ah, I 
 thought so. Well, I called him Trotty Veck, 
 
I40 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 because he is so like the ticket-porter in the 
 face, and has just the same springy, on-the-go 
 sort of look — you see it, don't you ? ' 
 
 ' He isn't very springy just at this moment, 
 is he ? ' said Mavis, with a smile which Mr. 
 Jack mentally noted as ' heavenly : ' ' but I know 
 exactly what you mean. He is a dear dog, and 
 of course you are very fond of him.' 
 
 Mr. Jack felt an unaccountable desire to 
 say that he should be much more fond of Trotty 
 Yeck from that day forward ; but mingled 
 bashfulness and discretion restrained him. 
 
 While this dialogue was in progress, the 
 practical-minded Miss Nestle slipped out of the 
 room, reappeared with a light mahogany step- 
 ladder, and mounted to the investigation of the 
 third shelf in the Store-Medicine division of 
 the second cupboard, and the research of Friar's 
 Balsam. At this moment, Mr. Jack pretended 
 to become aware for the first time of what 
 she was doing, and vigorously assisted her. 
 Trotty 's foot was dabbed with the panacea, and 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 141 
 
 then there did not seem to be any valid reason 
 why Mr. Jack should not go on his way, 
 especially as Miss Nestle persisted in standing 
 by the side of the table, in an attitude of re- 
 spectful waiting which he could not pretend to 
 misunderstand. He could not go on talking 
 any longer about the dog, and the fortunate 
 thing it was that Miss Wynn had seen Trotty 
 (neither he nor Mavis hinted at their having 
 observed each other on that interesting occasion), 
 and he could not think of anything else to talk 
 about. Miss Nestle came to his aid, without 
 intention, by saying : 
 
 ' I was going to take Mavis Wynn to see 
 the rooms, Mr. Jack. She's got to be at home 
 by dinner-time.' 
 
 ' Then I'll come round with you and Miss 
 Wynn — if she will allow me. It's ever so long 
 since I've been in the old rooms. There is not 
 much to see; you must not expect curiosities.' 
 
 ' You're used to fine places ; other folks are 
 not, Mr. Jack,' remarked Miss Nestle, severely. 
 
142 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Her susceptibilities were slightly ruffled. Mr. 
 Jack was just a little too polite to Mavis. To 
 talk about Miss Wynn allowing him to accom- 
 pany her, and to suggest that she could fail to 
 be impressed with the grandeur of the house, 
 was a departure from the golden rule of keep- 
 ing himself in his place. As the trio quitted 
 the room, leaving Trotty Veck, invested with 
 the privileges of an invalid, to enjoy the fire 
 and Miss Nestle's large and comfortable foot- 
 stool, there was discontent in the shake of the 
 celebrated cap. 
 
 Mavis was taken to see all the glories of the 
 ancient house, and her companions expatiated 
 on them, each in a characteristic way. The 
 books, and the family portraits^ pleased Mavis 
 most. To hve among those pictures, and to be 
 able to read all those books, would be an envi- 
 able lot. Mavis thought, and then she wondered 
 whether there was a portrait of Mr. Jack's 
 mother anywhere, but reproved herself im- 
 mediately. That would be, of course, in one 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 145 
 
 of Squire Bassett's own rooms, not to be seen 
 by every comer. 
 
 In the great drawing-room stood a hand- 
 some grand pianoforte. The sight of this 
 object w^as to Mavis what the sight of wine 
 would be to a toper who had not seen a bottle, 
 or the sight of a box of cigars to a smoker who 
 had not smelt tobacco, for a purgatorial age ; 
 she longed inexpressibly to run her fingers over 
 the keys. Miss Nestle demanded her attention 
 for the heraldic carvings of the mantelpiece, 
 but her eyes turned so reluctantly from the 
 piano that her guide could not but notice her 
 preoccupation. 
 
 * It is a beautiful bit of rosewood,' said Miss 
 Nestle, complacently. ' I have heard say they 
 don't make them like that nowadays, — and a 
 splendid polish. I have kept it bright ; I don't 
 hold with covers.' 
 
 ' The piano has a fine tone, no doubt.' 
 
 ' Do try it, JMiss Wynn. You play, I know 
 you do, I can see you do,' cried Mr. Jack, 
 
144 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 impetuously endeavouring to open the instru- 
 ment. 
 
 ' Oh no, no, pray don't,' said Mavis, shrink- 
 ing back in great confusion. 
 
 ' Mr. Jack, what are you thinking of ? ' 
 remonstrated Miss Nestle. ' Of course the 
 grand piano is always kept locked, except when 
 there's company.' 
 
 ' Is it, ISTesty ? ' said Mr. Jack, coaxingly ; 
 * then you've got the key, and you'll let Miss 
 Wynn try the piano.' 
 
 But Mavis did not give Miss Nestle time to 
 answer him. She said she must go, that she 
 ought to be at home now, and must hurry 
 away. She would look at the tapestry another 
 day, if Miss Nestle would allow her. 
 
 ' If she was what's called a lady — for a real 
 lady she certainly is,' said Jack Bassett to him- 
 self, ' and she had come here alone, I should 
 have offered to walk home with her as a matter 
 of course ; but because she's Farmer Wynn's 
 daughter, I mustn't. It would not be the thing 
 to do. And that's manners ! ' . . . 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 145 
 
 ' I saw young Mr. Bassett,' Mavis said to 
 Mrs. Wynn ; 'he came to the housekeeper's 
 room for something he wanted.' 
 
 ' Well, and what do you think of him ? ' 
 
 ' Of his looks, do you mean ? He is very 
 pleasant and happy -looking.' 
 
 ' Yes ; he's all that. I suppose he'll be 
 going off to his regiment soon — and a hand- 
 some officer he'll make. No wonder the 
 Squire's so proud of him. Miss Nestle says he's 
 to marry some great lady, but I don't remem- 
 ber her name, when he's old enough.' 
 
 ' Oh, indeed,' said Mavis. She added, after 
 a minute : ' Young Mr. Bassett has a dear little 
 dog, with a queer name — Trotty Veck.' 
 
 ' He always was such a one for dogs. 
 But, Mavis, do you know Mr. Eeckitts is only 
 just gone, and your father has taken him in 
 the car to the station. I never saw him at all ; 
 I had orders to stay upstairs. There's some- 
 thing more up than selhng the old oak, depend 
 upon it.' 
 
 VOL I. 
 
146 THE LOVER'S CREED 
 
 CHAPTEE VII, 
 
 JACK. 
 
 Jack Bassett had been two days at home, but 
 he was still ignorant of the change that had 
 passed upon the Squire's fortunes. There was 
 so much similarity between the state of mind 
 of both father and son that each felt reluctant 
 to enter upon the matter foremost in his 
 thoughts. The letter of reproof and remon- 
 strance that the Squire had been planning and 
 putting off when Mr. Dexter brought the bad 
 news to Bassett, had never got itself written. 
 What the Squire really did write to his son 
 was : ' Come home at once, and let us talk things 
 over.' Jack Bassett came home, and was 
 received by his father without the smallest 
 symptom of a disposition to blame or call him 
 
THE LOVERS CREED. 147 
 
 to account for anything. How was he to break 
 in upon this blissful state of things with a peni- 
 tent narrative of his fooHsh expenditure, and 
 the manner in which he had been ' let in * by 
 a couple of fellows who were in ' holes,' out of 
 which their respective ' governors ' would not 
 help them, as Jack knew his ' governor ' would 
 have helped him had he been so green as 
 either of them. The truth was that Jack 
 Bassett had been considerably the greenest of 
 the three, and now he knew it ; but this cor- 
 rection of his impressions rendered it more 
 difficult for him to speak to his father. All 
 the way down in the train he had been won- 
 dering what he should say, and he had hoped 
 the {Squire would begin that talking-over of 
 things which Jack dreaded and disliked as 
 much as most young people, likewise the 
 middle-aged and old, dread and dislike the 
 facing of a difficulty. 
 
 Jack knew it was not the money the 
 Squire would mind so much ; it was his having 
 
 l2 
 
I4« THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 made a fool of himself in more than one way. 
 And yet his second day at home was wearing 
 on to evening, and not a word had been said 
 by his father about those peccadilloes which 
 Jack was conscious he had considerably extenu- 
 ated in his written communications. 
 
 The Squire was looking worn and grave — 
 Jack had sufficient grace to feel an accusing 
 twinge as he noted the deepened hues in his 
 father's face and the absent expression of his 
 eyes — the bad quarter of an hour was going 
 to be a really bad, though plainly not an 
 angry one. Anger on his father's part was 
 completely out of his experience ; the Squire 
 had always been gentle to a fault with the boy ; 
 ' father and mother both,' people said, when 
 Jack was a child. The bad quarter of an hour 
 seemed to be hanging off, however ; and Jack, 
 to whom it never occurred that his father had 
 any trouble of his own on which he, too, was 
 reluctant to enter, allowed his high spirits 
 to have their way, and presented a remark- 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 149 
 
 ably cheerful aspect to everybody about the 
 place. 
 
 'My besetting sin, procrastination,' the 
 Squire had said to Mr. Dexter ; and if that was 
 not the gravest, it certainly was an important 
 defect in his character. In the present in- 
 stance, most people would have been disposed 
 to regard it leniently, for the Squire had 
 a hard thing to do. The sight of his son 
 was hke summer sunshine to his eyes : he 
 allowed them to enjoy it for a little while. 
 The disappoint m.ent, anxiety, and apprehension 
 that he had been full of when he pondered 
 over and put off his letter to Jack were now 
 reduced to trifling proportions ; the greater 
 trouble had swallowed up the less ; nothing of 
 what Jack was thinking about was in his 
 father's mind. 
 
 A third day might have elapsed without 
 recording Jack Bassett's bad quarter of an 
 hour among its incidents, but for certain occur- 
 rences which combined to oblige the Squire to 
 
I50 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 take his courage in his two hands. On the 
 third morning the post brought a letter for Mr. 
 Bassett from Mr. Dexter, and one for Jack 
 from Sir Henry Trescoe, a neighbour and 
 friend. The Squire put Mr. Dexter 's letter in 
 his pocket and said nothing about it, but Jack 
 with great satisfaction imparted to him the 
 contents of Sir Henry's missive. 
 
 ' There's a lot of people staying at Trescoe, 
 and Sir Henry invites me for three days. He 
 says he knows of old it's no good asking you. 
 How jolly it was there at Christmas ! ' 
 
 ' Is it for this week or next ? * 
 
 Tor Thursday,' said Jack, pushing the 
 note across the breakfast-table towards his 
 father, who looked at it absently and laid it 
 down, while Jack indulged in reminiscences 
 of his last visit to Trescoe Park, chiefly refer- 
 ring to horses and dogs. 
 
 'You wish to go there, then?' said the 
 Squire, abruptly, when Jack came to a pause. 
 
 ' Yes ; that is, if you don't mind,' added 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 151 
 
 Jack, slightly confused, for it occurred to him 
 that his father might think it rather soon for 
 him to leave home. Consideration of the 
 Squire's feelings was one of Jack's good points'. 
 
 ' I don't mind at all, my dear boy.' 
 
 The Squire left the table, and stood on the 
 hearthrug in silence. Jack felt very uncom- 
 fortable ; the bad quarter of an hour was casting 
 its shadow before it. His spirits vanished, and 
 he left off eating toast and marmalade. 
 
 ' I have letters to write,' said the Squire, at 
 length, 'but I want you by-and-by. What 
 were you thinking of doing this morning ? ' 
 
 'There's that pointer pup at Fieldflower 
 Farm that Wynn was talking of,' said Jack, v-zith 
 an unaccustomed sensation of warmth about his 
 ears ; ' I was thinking of having a look at it. 
 But, of course, there's plenty of time for that in 
 the afternoon.' 
 
 ' Come to the bookroom in an hour,' said the 
 Squire, and then he went away hastily, regard- 
 less of his newspapers. Poor Jack sat staring 
 
152 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 disconsolately at the coffee-pot, until an admoni- 
 tory paw placed on his knee reminded him that 
 Trotty Yeck liked a lump of sugar o' mornings. 
 ' It's very bad for you, I believe,' said Jack, 
 severely, as he carefully selected the proper- 
 sized lump, which was bolted by Trotty with a 
 grateful snap, ' but you may as well have it. 
 
 Come along.' 
 
 ***** 
 
 ' It is as well there has been something to 
 make me do it to-day,' said the Squire to him- 
 self, as he prepared to write to Mr. Dexter, ' or 
 I do believe I should still have put it off. But 
 this makes it so plain that the change must be 
 thorough, I can't let my boy go on talking of 
 what is never to be.' 
 
 Squire Bassett's letter was a long one, and 
 not easy to write. There had been no urgent 
 occasion in the Squire's affairs for that kind of 
 minute method which is to some men a distinct 
 and palpable pleasure, while to others it is a 
 simple impossibility, and now that he had to look 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 155 
 
 at everything all round, he could not make his 
 resources come up to the general estimate of 
 them at which he and Mr. Dexter had arrived. 
 The purport of his letter was to point out to his 
 adviser that the change in his position must be 
 even more radical than they had contemplated. 
 At that point the Squire paused, and held his 
 pen suspended over the nearly filled sheet. He 
 wrote a small neat hand, of a kind which 
 generally goes with much reading, annotating, 
 and extract- making, and his epistolary method 
 was of the polished and careful kind that has 
 not been so completely discarded by the men as 
 by the women of the present generation. The 
 long pauses, and the effort that it cost him to 
 add the concluding paragraph, were out of pro- 
 portion to the seeming simplicity of the matter 
 of it, for it contained merely these words : — 
 
 ' The details of your interview with Monsieur 
 Eeveillon are curious ; the result is, I should 
 think, much more important than was antici- 
 pated. Believe me, I thoroughly appreciate 
 
154 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 your motives, and I quite understand your 
 views, but I must ask you to say no more. I do 
 not wish to be informed of anything beyond the 
 facts which you have now told me.' 
 
 The Squire, having written his letter, rose 
 and walked to and fro, thinking, until he heard 
 steps on the terrace, and presently saw Jack, with 
 Trotty Yeck at his heels, at the French window. 
 He admitted the young fellow, who glanced at 
 him rather shyly as he said, ' Here I am, sir, up 
 to time, I hope,' and his heart was sore for the 
 beloved son who had all his troubles before 
 him. 
 
 ^ ^ ^ •9r *|$ 
 
 ' Almost the worst of it is that what I have 
 to tell you about myself — for you don't know it 
 all yet — will make this harder for you. I've 
 been a fool, father, and more than a fool.' 
 
 The young fellow's tone was full of remorse, 
 and tears stood in his eyes. ' The best of it,' 
 rephed his father, ' is that you feel thus. The 
 worst of it to me, much the worst, is the change 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 155 
 
 to you. We will not talk or think of any follies 
 or mistakes on your part now ; they are swept 
 away by a more serious calamity, and I am sure 
 nothing of the sort would have occurred again.' 
 
 ' I hope not, father,' said Jack, much moved 
 by the Squire's ready forgiveness and unshaken 
 trust ; ' but I've had a lesson in not thinking too 
 well of myself, and so I won't say I'm quite 
 sure.' 
 
 ' That is right. You do well to distrust 
 yourself, and I do well to trust you. As things 
 are, we may both take it as certain that you will 
 never incur debts which neither you nor I can 
 hope to pay ; and, that being so, let me have a 
 memorandum of everything you owe. Every- 
 thing^ mind. Jack ; don't make the mistake 
 of keeping anything back — it will only be a 
 skeleton in a closet if you do — and you shall 
 have the money at once. The lecture I meant 
 to administer to you in v^'iting shall be taken as 
 read, and you and I will look the future in the 
 face together.' 
 
156 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Jack Bassett was not given to introspection, 
 or afflicted with self-consciousness; but, if he 
 had thought about it, he might have dated 
 his ceasing to be a boy and becoming a man 
 from that particular hour. 
 
 He was conscious that there was an im- 
 mense gulf set between yesterday and to-day, 
 and that he had as completely done with his 
 old self in certain respects as he had done with 
 the short jacket and peaked cap which dis- 
 tinguished the garb of boyhood in his time. 
 The facts were bewildering, even with his 
 father's full and free explanation ; but Jack 
 had never heard much about the big lawsuit. 
 It had been a dim but not a terrible image to 
 him, something which he did not distinguish 
 from mortgages, charges, and so forth ; things 
 impartially set down by him as nuisances, in- 
 separable, he supposed, from the possession of 
 landed property, and exclusively within the 
 province of Mr. Dexter. He had never been 
 troubled with a prevision that the suit might 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 157 
 
 interfere with him personally, to blight his 
 hopes and obstruct his purposes. The revela- 
 tion took him entirely by surprise. No latent 
 suspicion or apprehension leaped up into light, 
 to aid the Squire in his task, and that task was 
 as hard as he expected to find it. 
 
 There was, however, solace in the good 
 and noble trait that showed itself in Jack's 
 first spontaneous utterance, and the Squire's 
 burden was sensibly lightened by this. The 
 very change that fell upon his son's face, as 
 the conversation proceeded, was pleasing to 
 tlie Squire to see ; for it was the impress of 
 strength and composure set upon the counten- 
 ance of one who had hitherto had no call for 
 either. 
 
 The talk that was begun in the book-room 
 was continued upon the terrace ; the two 
 walked up and down there in the spring sun- 
 shine, the father leaning closely on the arm 
 of the son, and feehng, in the very depth and 
 intensity of his concern and commiseration for 
 
158 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 him, a closer companionsliip than had ever 
 before existed between them. 
 
 Jack was not even hke what the Squire 
 must have been in his youth ; the hues of his 
 face were different, and the thoughtful inward 
 look of the father was not to be found in the 
 eyes of the son. The one had the expression 
 of a man of books ; the other that of a man 
 who was ready for a life of action when the 
 chance should come to him. There was cour- 
 age as well as lightheartedness in Jack's merry 
 blue eyes, and determination in the hues of 
 his well-cut, not too dehcate, mouth and chin. 
 A bright, sociable, honourable young fellow, 
 who might, perhaps, have no extraordinary 
 brains, but would belie his looks if he ever 
 failed to produce at need sufficient intelHgence 
 to get him creditably through life ; this is just 
 what Jack Bassett looked like and what he 
 was. Not an heroic figure, but a simple and 
 a manly one ; the sort of person of whom 
 gentle, kindly-natured women v^ere apt to say, 
 
THE LOVERIS CREED. 159 
 
 ' How fond of him his mother would have 
 been ! ' 
 
 This record of some incidents in Jack 
 Bassett's career has to do, not with the details, 
 but with the result of that conference. It 
 was entirely confirmatory of the Squire's view 
 of his son's character ; the tenacity, which he 
 had been inclined to rate more highly than 
 Mr. Dexter regarded it, came out very strongly. 
 Jack had never thought of himself in the future 
 as anything but a soldier, and he was not 
 going to be moved by what had happened to 
 think of himself as anythiog but a soldier now. 
 A soldier he would be, and if the dazzling 
 portion of his vision, the career of the ' light 
 dragoon,' with its dash, its extravagance, its 
 pleasure, its prestige, and the tinge of romance 
 that still hung about it, and was so soon to 
 be deepened in its tints by war, glory, and 
 poetry, had to be relinquished— Jack compre- 
 hended at once that it must be — there would 
 be left the plain and solid portion. It was 
 
l6o THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 not difficult to get a commission in a line 
 regiment ; if his father could not allow him 
 anything, why then he could, and would, live 
 on his pay. He knew what that would mean 
 — the next thing to the impossible, but only 
 the next ; while it was not the absolutely im- 
 possible he could do it. But rather than not 
 be a soldier, rather than be anything else. 
 Jack Bassett would serve in the ranks. Did 
 his father know the splendid chances that were 
 coming, and how impossible it would be for 
 Jack to turn his mind to any civil pursuit ? 
 The Squire, although he had never been 
 troubled with a military aspiration of his own, 
 entered with sympathy into the feelings that 
 he had foreseen. 
 
 If it lay within his power to get for Jack 
 his own way, the boy should have it. A 
 thwarted desire should not be added to fallen 
 fortunes. There was something in Jack's re- 
 solution that rang true; at all events, it had 
 not been the mere external glitter of a military 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. i6l 
 
 life that had attracted his son. This pleased 
 the Squire, although, so far as the desired 
 object was concerned, no hen could less have 
 shared the propensity of her duckling-chick to 
 take the water. 
 
 Perhaps this very strangeness also pleased 
 him. Like most studious and scholarly men, 
 Squire Bassett was a great novel-reader. The 
 romance of military life as Maxwell depicted 
 it, its pomp and dash as Lever drew them, had 
 given him pleasure of an intense kind, but 
 pleasure as abstract and as uninfectious as that 
 with which he read the 'Arabian Nights,' or 
 narratives of Arctic exploration. From the 
 first, he had acquiesced in the boy's choice 
 of a profession ; but now he seemed to see 
 that it was something more, that it was a 
 vocation, and wath that perception came a re- 
 solution that this thing should be. 
 
 The machinery that in the good old times 
 before Abolition of Purchase converted a youtK 
 who could pull through at Sandhurst into a 
 VOL. I. M 
 
1 62 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 young gentleman bearing her Majesty's com- 
 mission, was very different from tliat which now 
 accomphshes a Uke result. It implied not only 
 the expenditure of more money, but the em- 
 ployment of interest ; and both had been pro- 
 vided for in Jack's case, on the supposition that 
 he was going to be a light dragoon of the 
 approved type, with a liberal allowance, and the 
 prospective inheritance of the Bassett estate to 
 lend ease and distinction to that career. But 
 the money had now to be withdrawn, and the 
 interest to be turned into another channel, and 
 the talk between the Squire and his son did not 
 come to an end until the proceedings to be 
 taken in this new conjuncture of affairs had 
 been arranged. 
 
 It was surprising, but true, that at the close 
 of this momentous interview Jack was in much 
 better soirits than he had been at its beginning. 
 He knew the worst ; and was it so bad after 
 all? Yes, it was very bad; not all Jack's 
 youth and spirits could obscure his common 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 163 
 
 sense ; but it might have been so much worse I 
 There might have been nothing at all saved out 
 of the wreck of their fortunes, and then what 
 should he have come to ? A clerk's desk, per- 
 haps ; but no, that could never have been while 
 the Queen's shilhng was within reach. How- 
 ever, he had to be grateful that the worst was 
 only what it was. As Jack obeyed his father's 
 suggestion that he should try to ' walk it off,' 
 wdiile the Squire himself was adding a postscript 
 to his letter to Mr. Dexter, to tell him how 
 uncommonly well the boy had behaved, he felt. 
 that strange elation which sometimes comes to 
 strong natures when a great demand is made 
 upon them, however painful it may be. 
 
 It would, however, have been pitiful to a 
 keen observer to notice the quickened interest 
 with which Jack Bassett looked around him, as 
 he took his way past the stables and the back 
 of the gardens, down by the old fishpond, 
 and struck into the roadside plantation out of 
 which Trotty Yeck had run the day before. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 There was in his look something hke the 
 quickened curiosity of a stranger. This was 
 his home ; all these places and objects were 
 familiar to him ; why did he look at them 
 to-day as though they were full of novelty? 
 Because, for the first time in his life, he looked 
 at them with the fear of losing them at his 
 heart. The Squire had said that the horses 
 must go, and the land must be let ' up to the 
 windows.' But this would surely not be 
 necessary, if only he, Jack, should be able to 
 do with very little ? Still, he had listened to 
 the horses, rustling and stamping in their com- 
 fortable stalls, as he passed the stables, and his 
 glance had rested lingeringly on the smooth 
 lawn and the fine trees, with their pleasure- 
 ground aspect. 
 
 One of the effects of a sudden change was 
 making itself evident to Jack ; it felt like a long 
 time since yesterday, since this morning ; it 
 seemed as if, all things being so different, he 
 could not possibly be the same. Not that he 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 165 
 
 was thinking it out methodically ; there was no 
 such systematic wisdom and cold-bloodedness 
 about him ; his mind was, so to speak, in a 
 great whirl, and amid his confused feelings 
 only two were clear and persistent. He hoped 
 Mr. Dexter would not declare the Line also to 
 be out of the question, and he wondered what 
 all the fellows w^ould say. 
 
 It was early in the year for Mrs. Wynn to 
 carry her needlework out of doors, but the 
 fineness of the day and the weariness of her 
 spirits had tempted her into the arbour boat- 
 house, during the absence of Mavis, who had 
 gone to see the curate in charge about the 
 church music for the next Sunday. The par- 
 sonage was in the neighbourhood of Squire 
 Bassett's house, and Mavis on this occasion also 
 availed herself of the short cut effected by 
 crossing the river. Thus, when Jack, in the 
 course of his walk, came to the fields facing 
 (with the river between) the ancient side of 
 Fieldflower Farm, he found the boat fastened 
 
i66 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 to its post, and, looking across, saw Mrs. Wynn 
 sitting in the arbour. Although he had not 
 forgotten his purpose of visiting the farm, or 
 that subtle pretext of the pointer pup, he had 
 not taken the path over the bridge by which 
 he would have reached the front gate ; he had 
 not been thinking of where he was going, and 
 the sight of the boat was a suggestion on which 
 he acted promptly. Making a speaking- 
 trumpet of his hands. Jack shouted to the 
 occupant of the arbour : 
 
 ' How do you do, Mrs. Wynn ? I am coming 
 across.' 
 
 Mrs. Wynn rose hurriedly, dropping her 
 needlework, and received 'Mr. Jack,' as he 
 stepped out of the boat, with her usual half- 
 frightened respect. Wynn was not in the way, 
 she said ; he had gone to Chester, and she 
 hoped she saw Mr. Jack well. 
 
 She saw Mr. Jack very well indeed, and 
 very glad to be at Bassett again and to see all his 
 friends. What fine weather they were having. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 167 
 
 and how jolly the old place was looking ! Mr. 
 Jack was a little disjointed in his talk, and 
 rather fidgety in his manner, looking about him 
 a good deal, sitting down and getting up again, 
 and not attending much to Mrs. Wynn's civihties. 
 She was disturbed by Wynn's absence, when 
 Mr. Jack was so kind as to come to the farm, 
 and he such a httle time at home too ! 
 
 ' Never mind about that, Mrs. Wynn,' said 
 Jack, in that cheery tone which the poor 
 woman declared to Mavis did her as much 
 good as the hymns on Sunday ; ' I've lots of 
 time on my hands. I can come to see Wynn 
 and the pup any day.' 
 
 ' It's a beauty, Mr. Jack.' 
 
 ' I'm sure of that. But how came the 
 boat on the other side ? Wynn wouldn't use it ; 
 he's gone the other way.' 
 
 ' Oh no, ]\Ir. Jack,' answered Mrs. Wynn ; 
 ' it was Mavis — that's Wynn's daughter, you 
 know. She's come home to live with us now 
 since her Aunt and Uncle Jeffrey's death. 
 
i68 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 She's gone down to the parsonage, and she 
 took the boat across.' 
 
 ' I must return as I came then, and leave it 
 back for Miss Wynn. I had the pleasure of 
 meeting her yesterday ; she was very good to 
 my dog, Trotty Yeck. I should have brought 
 Trotty to see you, Mrs. Wynn, for you really 
 do know a good dog when you see one, only 
 that he is still a little lame. Did you say 
 Miss Wynn had been gone some time ? ' 
 
 ' Since just after dinner. I could let you 
 see the pup now, if you liked, Mr. Jack.' 
 
 ' No, no, thank you, I think I will not 
 mind it to-day. It would be better to wait for 
 Wynn, perhaps. You must be glad to have 
 Miss Wynn with you ; it has been rather lonely 
 for you, and Miss Nestle says you haven't been 
 very well since Christmas, when I was at home 
 last.' 
 
 Now this was just what Mrs. Wynn liked 
 in Mr. Jack ; for a young gentleman hke him 
 he was so knowledgeable and kind in his ways. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. i69 
 
 Why, even when he was quite a boy, he would 
 speak nice and quiet, and keep from knocking 
 things about, on account of her poor head ; a 
 plea which had no chance whatever with her 
 ordinary surroundings. Praise of this simple 
 kind lavished upon the object of their common 
 admiration, constituted Mrs. Wynn's chief con- 
 tributions to the conversation when she and 
 Miss Nestle, of whom the farmer's wife was 
 rather afraid, met. This was well, for it molli- 
 fied the contempt with which Miss Nestle was 
 disposed to regard Mrs. Wynn, on account of 
 her feeble notions of housekeeping, and lack 
 of enthusiasm for that fine and precious art, 
 
 ' It is very friendly of Miss Nestle to think 
 about my health, I'm sure, Mr. Jack, and it is 
 but poorly at the best of times, as she knows. 
 But Mavis is a good companion to me, and if 
 it was not for herself I should be very glad of 
 her coming home.' 
 
 'But why "for herself'?' asked Jack, 
 with frank curiosity, taking a seat on the 
 
[70 THE LOVER'S CREED 
 
 bench by Mrs. Wynn's side ; ' isn't it all right 
 for her too ? ' 
 
 ' Well, no, Mr. Jack, it isn't quite ; because 
 Mavis has had such a good education, you see, 
 on account of her Uncle and Aunt Jeffrey being 
 in that line, and there's no way here for her to 
 keep it up. There's no books, except those 
 old ones in Wynn's room, and her own, that's 
 mostly school prizes, and there's no way for 
 her music unless it's the church hymns on 
 Sundays. So, that,' added Mrs. Wynn, pull- 
 ing herself up with a sudden consciousness 
 that there was not much to interest a young 
 gentleman in all this, ' is why it is not so good 
 for her as it is for me. But I beg your pardon, 
 Mr. Jack, for talking about it to you.' 
 
 ' Not at all, not at all. Of course I quite 
 see that it must be an awful bore for Miss 
 Wynn to have no books and no piano ; but 
 isn't that Miss Wynn coming from the far side 
 of the field opposite ? In black, with a straw 
 hat?' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 171 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mrs. Wynn, bending forward to 
 follow the indication of his hand ; ' that is 
 Mavis.' 
 
 Jack got into the boat without a word 
 more, pulled across the stream, and advanced 
 towards the figure coming slowly — for Mavis 
 was reading a sheet of music as she walked — 
 on the other side. Mrs. Wynn watched him 
 as he neared the girl, unconscious of his 
 presence, and, raising his hat, addressed her. 
 Then she saw Mavis pause — they spoke to- 
 gether — and presently walked down to the 
 water's edge. 
 
 ' i have made free with your boat already 
 once to-day,' said Jack, ' and now you must 
 let me take you across.' 
 
 ' But who is to take you back again, for 
 the boat must be housed ? ' Mavis asked, with 
 an unembarrassed smile. ' We should be like 
 the people who saw each other home until 
 morning.' 
 
 ' Not at all ; I shall go back by the road.' 
 
172 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 He placed her in the boat — it was pleasant 
 to be thus waited on like a lady — she had 
 been long enough at home to have her percep- 
 tions sharpened on that point — and they were 
 presently in the middle of the little river. 
 
 Jack ceased to ply the sculls, and looked 
 deliberately about him. 
 
 ' What a pity it's so short a pull across,' he 
 said ; ' this is just the sort of day for a good 
 row ; a few minutes of it is only tantahsing. 
 Must I really take you straight over .^ ' 
 
 Jack had discovered yesterday that Farmer 
 Wynn's daughter was very unlike what she might 
 have been expected to be ; he had now made 
 the farther discovery that her eyes were of his 
 favourite colour, and also that her speech 
 was as sweet-toned as some other women's 
 singing. She had not uttered more than half 
 a dozen sentences to him, but that did not 
 matter at all ; there are moods in which im- 
 pressions are rapid, and there are natures on 
 which all impressions are deeply made. 
 
' In tie middle of the little river. ^ 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 175 
 
 ' Mrs. Wynn is looking out for ine,' said 
 Mavis, simply, ' and there will be father's tea 
 to see to.' 
 
 How Jack hated Mavis's father, and how he 
 resented his tea ! He could have ' squared ' Mrs. 
 Wynn easily, but there was impossibility in 
 Mavis's quiet reply. The idea of a girl like 
 this one, with such eyes and such a voice, 
 having to ' see to ' anybody's tea, aroused in 
 Jack's breast a sudden antagonism to the 
 existing order of things. 
 
 He lingered about for some time after he 
 had housed the boat, and talked in his youthful 
 pleasant way. Mrs. Wynn and Mavis were, 
 however, so uneasy and constrained that he could 
 not fail to see it, and reluctantly took his de- 
 parture, having made a formal appointment, 
 subject to Farmer Wynn's convenience, for the 
 inspection of the pointer pup on the following 
 day. 
 
 ' They were horribly uncomfortable about 
 his coming home,' thous^ht Jack. ' He has 
 
174 THE LOVER'S CREED: 
 
 always been pleased to see me at the farm, so 
 it could not be that. I suspect he's a bit of a 
 brute to that poor delicate wife of his. I 
 wonder how he treats his daughter.' 
 
 It was surprising how hot and angry the 
 doubt involved in this speculation made Jack 
 Bassett feel. His visit to Fieldflower Farm 
 was only an episode in the history of a mo- 
 mentous day in the young man's life ; only an 
 interval between the disclosure of the morning 
 and the resolution and action which had to be 
 taken as its consequence; a trifling incident 
 hardly worth recording. In the time to 
 come, however, when his recollection of the 
 serious events of that day had grown dim, 
 when he could not have quoted his father's 
 words, or recalled his own sensations on hear- 
 ing them, every trivial detail of that episode, 
 every moment of that interval, every look, 
 word, and gesture which had marked the in- 
 significant interview between himself and Mavis 
 Wynn was distinct and present to him. Who 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 175 
 
 is tliere that can define the strictly common- 
 place in his own life, or infalhbly discern it in 
 another's ? 
 
 Mr. Bassett and his son had always been 
 very good company for each other ; for nothing 
 that concerned or interested Jack could fail to 
 occupy his Either. They were even better 
 company than usual that evening. Neither 
 had now any concealment from the other, and 
 this relief made itself felt at their cheerful 
 tete-a-tete dinner, although the topic of the 
 morning was not referred to until afterwards. 
 Then the Squire told Jack that he intended to 
 go up to London, and transact his business in 
 person. 
 
 ' We will start together,' said the Squire, 
 ' on Thursday ; you can take me to Chester 
 before you go to Trescoe Park.' 
 
176 THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EARLY DAYS. 
 
 On the foUowiug day Jack Bassett walked over 
 to Fieldflower Farm, accompanied by Trotty 
 Veck, who was now convalescent. He wanted 
 to see the pointer pup, being indeed unac- 
 countably desirous of conciliating its owner, 
 and he also wanted to see Mavis, and induce 
 her to promise that she would come to the 
 House and keep up her music by playing on 
 the unused pianoforte. If he made her the 
 invitation, he felt sure neither the Squire nor 
 Miss Nestle would seriously oppose it, but he 
 thought it more prudent to say nothing to Miss 
 Nestle beforehand. He had a prophetic dread 
 that she might propound her favourite axiom 
 to either the Squire or himself as an objection. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 177 
 
 There were the books, too ; he was glad Mrs. 
 Wynn had mentioned Mavis's privations in that 
 respect ; he would take her some books, and 
 tell her that the contents of the library were at 
 her disposal. What sort of reading did she 
 like? he wondered. There were lots of noveh 
 among the Bassett books, and the Squire took 
 in the important serials. It was the golden 
 prime of Dickens, and Thackeray was a world's 
 wonder at that time. Jack, who was no reader, 
 hoped that Mavis preferred Lever, as he did, 
 and finally set off with ' Tom Burke of Ours ' 
 under his arm. 
 
 The first part of his mission sped fairly 
 well. Wynn was in the farmyard, and he 
 received tlie Squire's sou with what stood for 
 cordiality with him. He was indeed quite 
 good-humoured, and not only took the visitor 
 into the big parlour, but addressed his wife 
 civilly with the remark that Mr. Jack had 
 come to see her. Any reference to his daughter 
 would have seemed superfluous to Wynn, even 
 
 VOL. I. H" 
 
178 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 had she been present, but she was not. The 
 conversation went on in a constrained and 
 halting manner, until a fortunate summons 
 took the farmer away, when Jack boldly stated 
 that he had brought some books for Miss 
 Wynn, and also propounded his views about 
 tlie piano. 
 
 'It's very kind indeed of you, Mr. Jack,' 
 said Mrs. Wynn, ' and Mavis will be just de- 
 lighted with the books ; she misses them sorely, 
 though it's little time she has for reading.' 
 
 ' What has she to do, then ? ' 
 
 ' A many things, and pretty well all day 
 long. Wynn isn't one to hke books about ; he 
 thinks reading is idle work for women ; and as 
 for the piano, I'm sure we're very thankful for 
 your thinking of such a thing — there's few 
 young gentlemen like you that would — but 
 there would be no good in even mentioning it.' 
 
 ' Why ? ' asked Jack, with an angry sparkle 
 in his eyes. ' I should have thought, from 
 what you said yesterday, she would like it.' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 179 
 
 ' So she would, but it isn't her hking that's 
 the question. Wynn would never let her waste 
 her time like that ; it's quite a wonder that he 
 gave in about the singing in church.' 
 
 * What's the good of learning to play the 
 piano, and then giving it up ? Miss Wynn will 
 forget it all if she doesn't practise — at least I've 
 heard that sort of thing said to girls,' remon- 
 strated Jack, with a burning consciousness that 
 he was making a fool of himself ; ' and I sup- 
 pose it's the same for all of them.' 
 
 ' I suppose so ; but Wynn thinks it does not 
 matter about her losing the music. She only 
 learned because her uncle was a teacher ; she is 
 nought but a farmer's daughter, you know, Mr. 
 Jack, and Wynn don't want her to be above her 
 station.' 
 
 ' But she is above her station, and Wynn 
 can't prevent it,' said Jack, rashly ; ' she's just 
 as ladylike as she's pretty, and clever, and — and 
 that. It is a shame to try and keep her back. 
 I'm sure you don't wish to do it.' 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 ' No, I don't indeed ; but I can't go against 
 Wynn, and I'm sure he wouldu't hear of her 
 going up to the House to play on the piano. 
 Thank you, very much, all the same, sir, but 
 I think none of us had better say anything 
 about it.' 
 
 This was said so seriously, and with such an 
 air of taking Jack into the speaker's confidence, 
 that he was immediately convinced. From that 
 moment the image of Mavis, already sufficiently 
 attractive to the young man, was invested with 
 the additional charm lent by suspicion and 
 dawning dishke of her father. The ' bit of a 
 brute ' theory of Farmer Wynn's character was 
 gaining confirmation in Jack's mind. 
 
 'Very well, then, I won't,' he said, reluc- 
 tantly ; ' but I am very sorry you think Miss 
 Wynn cannot have this little pleasure. She 
 isn't in, I suppose ? ' Jack put this question 
 w^ith so ridiculously unsuccessful an assumption 
 of its having occurred to him to ask it quite 
 accidentally, that it must have amused any one 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. i8i 
 
 with a sense of humour. Mrs. Wynn had none, 
 and she answered in entire good faitli : ' No, 
 she isn't in. There's a choir practice on Wed- 
 nesdays at the parsonage, and Mavis is there.' 
 
 Jack took his leave after this with remark- 
 able celerity, and wended his way towards the 
 parsonage. He had no distinct notion of what 
 he was about, for he could hardly hope to 
 be admitted to the choir-practice. Fortune 
 favoured him ; he met Mavis just as she was 
 about to ascend the zigzag steps leading to the 
 path across the fields, and there was no third 
 person within sight to witness their meeting. 
 He had walked very quickly — it was a good 
 distance round by the road — and he greeted 
 Mavis eagerly, congratulating himself on his 
 good luck in not having missed her. Mavis 
 was surprised, pleased, a httle fluttered, and as 
 Jack stepped up the bank before her, and offered 
 her his hand to accomphsh the easy ascent, 
 while he reminded her that it was just there, but 
 on the opposite side, he had seen her first, the 
 
i82 THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 swift tinge of colour that occasionally lent a 
 peculiar charm to her face passed over it. 
 Jack Bassett said afterwards, and always 
 believed, that at this precise monaent he fell in 
 \eve with Mavis Wynn ; but he might have 
 antedated the mischief. 
 
 They turned into the field path, and, with- 
 out troubhng themselves with any consideration 
 as to whether it was the correct thing or not, 
 they enjoyed a heavenly walk so far as the river 
 bank. They talked, of course, and probably in 
 a silly, disjointed, and unmeaning manner, but 
 that was of no consequence at all. Trotty Yeck, 
 with a supercanine perception of the position, 
 frisked about and supplied the two with a topic 
 of interest. He plainly said to them : ' My 
 dear, innocent, awkward young people, I 
 brought you together, so to speak, and now you 
 can make friends, and get over the preliminary 
 stages, by admiring my sagacious eyes, my dis- 
 criminating nose, and my commentative tail.' 
 
 Thev made some of those wonderful dis- 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 183 
 
 coveries, which, although not in themselves 
 absolute novelties to the human race, are 
 especial miracles to each successive couple that 
 finds them out; for instance, that spring is a 
 lovely season, that a walk in the fields is a de- 
 lightful experience, that birds sing sweetly, and 
 that the country is better to live in than the town. 
 The girl and the young man found something 
 more than this to say, no doubt, but these were 
 their first confidences, and perhaps many of us 
 could look back to a certain occasion, which, 
 although it brought no impressions of greater 
 moment than such futilities to our wise and clever 
 selves, will remain, ' while memory holds her 
 seat,' a recollection to be summoned up at wilL 
 
 Jack did not fail to remind Mavis that she 
 had promised Miss Nestle a second visit, and 
 adding that there were lots of things in the old 
 house which he w^ould like to show to her him- 
 self, ' as she knew so much about art ' — a pure 
 but permissible assumption on Mr. Jack's part 
 — he ventured to insinuate that it would be well 
 
1 84 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 to wait until after his own return from Trescoe 
 Park. 
 
 ' They're sure to w^ant me to stay the full 
 week; there's always so much going on,' said 
 Jack. ' I have never yet gone to the Park 
 that I have not remained twice as long as I in- 
 tended ; but this time I shan't. I'm sure to be 
 back on Saturday. Could you say Saturday 
 for a look at the pictures .? ' 
 
 Mavis wore a broad-leaved straw hat which 
 concealed her face rather provokingly, and 
 besides, she happened to be attending to Trotty 
 Veck, so that Jack could not see whether she 
 looked sorry, but he thought her voice sounded 
 sorry as she replied that she could not, because 
 there was always a great deal to do at home on 
 Saturdays. The words jarred on Jack's ear, as 
 Mrs. Wynn's reference to the household tasks 
 of Mavis had jarred. He had only the vaguest 
 notions of what these household tasks might be ; 
 but a combi^iation of the occupations of the 
 print-gowned, white-capped handmaidens whom 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 185- 
 
 Miss Nestle kept so rigidly in their place, and 
 those of the red-armed Welsh girls whom he 
 had seen about the farm, presented itself to his 
 imagination, and filled him with wrath. This, 
 if he had been a wise young man, ought to have 
 put him on his guard; for, after all, what afiair 
 was it of his that the graceful, fair-faced girl 
 by whose side he was walking, whose every 
 tone was musical, and her speech more choice 
 and correct than his own, was, as her step- 
 mother had said, 'noudit but a farmer's dauah- 
 ter,' and had no place at all among the refined 
 scenes in which Jack seemed to see her, an 
 ornament and a harmony ? What though the 
 shapely hands at which he cast a pained look, 
 had to twirl a sweeping brush or to feed calves 
 — two possibilities that had presented them- 
 selves to Jack's mind — instead of putting 
 through them the elegant industries of ladies' 
 lives, what business was that of Jack Bassett's P 
 xVs, how^ever, he was not a wise young man, 
 these rational questions did not occur to him. 
 
i86 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 ' On Sunday, then ? ' asked Jack, but was 
 again denied. 
 
 Permission to attend and sing at the morn- 
 ing and evening services was the sole privilege 
 which the day of rest brought to Mavis. This 
 was vexatious ; but, as Jack was aware that the 
 farmer never went to church, he immediately 
 formed a subtle plan for meeting Mavis and 
 Mrs. Wynn in the fields, and walking home to 
 the farm with them. He could hardly per- 
 severe farther in his attempts to get Mavis to 
 name a day for her second visit to Miss Nestle. 
 His perceptions were quickened by his distrust 
 of Wynn ; he saw that she could not give an 
 answer of her own free will, and, with all his 
 youthful selfishness, he was too true a gentle- 
 man to place her in a painful or awkward 
 position. 
 
 By the time the river-side came in view, and 
 the useful little craft — ungratefully designated 
 in Jack's thoughts 'that odious boat' — was 
 reached, Mavis and her escort had contrived to 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 187 
 
 find out more of each other's minds. Mavis 
 knew that a soldier, and nothing but a soldier. 
 Squire Bassett's son would be, and unspeakable 
 was her admiration of his noble resolve, while 
 she had no idea of what would be involved in 
 the carrying out of it — ^for Jack had even yet 
 sufficient discretion left to keep the family 
 troubles to himself. Jack knew that the death 
 of the girl's best friends had forced Mavis to 
 abandon the hope of making an independence 
 by the exercise of her musical gifts. She told 
 him this very simply and frankly, as if it must 
 of necessity be quite final, and Jack had a 
 guilty feeling of satisfaction on hearing it. He 
 had either inherited or acquired many of his 
 father's notions, and among them a OTcat dis- 
 like to any kind of publicity, even the most 
 honourable, for women. Again, had he been 
 wise, he might have taken warning ; for what 
 business of his was it whether the daughter of 
 Farmer Wynn did or did not become a public 
 singer ? 
 
i88 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 * Don't be disappointed about it,' he said 
 eagerly, ' yon would never have liked it : 
 indeed, I am sure you never could have done 
 it. I could not imagine you on a stage with 
 a lot of actors, and a crowd staring at you and 
 discussing you.' 
 
 'I could not imagine that myself,' said 
 Mavis, smihng. ' My uncle did not hope that 
 I should ever be equal to anything beyond 
 concert-singing. I daresay I should never 
 have had courage even for that. At all events,' 
 I must think of it no more.' 
 
 They had come to the river-side, where 
 the boat was made fast to the post. The 
 arbour was unoccupied ; the Dame's Parlour- 
 side presented a sunny, solitary aspect ; on the 
 roof sat peaceful pigeons ; no near sound was to 
 be heard except the pleasant ripple of the water 
 under the boat's keel. Trotty Veck jumped into 
 the little craft with a joyful bark as his master 
 laid his hand on the rope to loose it. Jack 
 turned an entreating look on Mavis. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 189 
 
 ' You'll let me take you across ? ' 
 
 ' Xo, thank you.' She looked over to the 
 far side of the stream with the same anxious 
 expression that Jack had already noticed ; ' I 
 would rather not.' 
 
 ' Come out, sir, you're not to go,' said Jack 
 to Trotty, sharply. Trotty obeyed, but under 
 protest ; and then, with a touch of the cruelty of 
 his sex and age, Jack took a stately leave of 
 Mavis, who, as he was well aware, could not do 
 otherwise than refuse his request. Having seen 
 her pull off, he took the return path with 
 ostentatious haste. 
 
 'I have offended him,' thought Mavis, 
 the tears springing to her eyes ; ' and he 
 has been so kind. But I could not help it ; 
 how could I tell what sort of humour my 
 father might be in, or what he would have 
 said ? ' 
 
 Before she had time to say anything to her 
 stepmother about the little adventure of her 
 homeward walk, Mrs. Wynn began to tell her 
 
190 THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 of Mr. Jack's visit, and that he had brought 
 some books for her. 
 
 ' I put them in your cupboard,' said Mrs. 
 Wynn, in the confidential tone that had been 
 estabhshed by their mutual explanation. ' It's 
 just as well your father shouldn't see them. 
 Lord knows how he'd take it ; we cannot tell. 
 Be quick, dear, and get your things off; you're 
 wanted in the dairy.' 
 
 Mavis did as her gentle stepmother bade 
 her, but she snatched two minutes to look at 
 'Tom Burke of Ours,' just to glance at a few of 
 the dashing illustrations, and to think that Mr. 
 Jack would make as fine a figure in his beauti- 
 ful uniform, and be as brave a soldier, as any 
 of those gallant gentlemen. Her father's voice 
 calling her put the splendid vision to flight; 
 she hurriedly replaced the book, and obeyed 
 the summons. 
 
 ' So you've done your squalling, have you ? ' 
 — thus Farmer Wynn addressed his daughter — 
 ' and can make yourself useful.' He had called 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 191 
 
 her into the small room in which his business 
 was transacted, and was standing by a table 
 with a bundle of papers in his hand. 
 
 ' I was going to help Eebecca in the 
 dairy.' 
 
 'Eebecca be I tell you I want you 
 
 here. Sit down at my desk and copy this.' 
 
 'Yes, father,' said Mavis, obediently, but 
 she was more than usually hurt by Wynn's 
 way of speaking to her. The sweet taste of 
 courtesy and homage to her womanhood still 
 lingered with her, and, because of it, this daily 
 and hourly presented cup of coarse unkindness 
 was additionally revolting. The paper was an 
 inventory of house furniture and fittings, and 
 Mavis made the required copy diligently. She 
 had just completed her task when her father 
 came back into the room, and she handed him 
 the paper. , 
 
 ' That will do,' he said. ' Now be off— I'm 
 busy.' 
 
 Mavis, only too glad to be dismissed, re- 
 
192 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 joined Mrs. Wynn, and told her of the task her 
 father had set her. 
 
 ' What can he want of another hst ? — in- 
 ventory it's called at the top of the paper/ said 
 Mavis. 
 
 ' Goodness knows. If it was only the 
 Dame's Parlour- side furniture, it would look 
 like that Eeckitts buying it, as you thought ; 
 but it's all the furniture, isn't it ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, there's everything in it, upstairs room 
 and all.' 
 
 'Then it can't be tliat^ said Mrs. Wynn, 
 with her usual sigh of acquiescence in her 
 own ignorance of all that might be supposed to 
 concern her most ; ' and it's no use thinking 
 about it.' 
 
 The Squire and his son left Bassett on the 
 following Thursday ; the former for London, 
 the latter for Trescoe Park. A large and 
 merry party was assembled there, including two 
 young fellows of Jack's acquaintance who had 
 just got their commissions. Utter indifference 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 193 
 
 to what they were going to do in life had not 
 then come into fashion among young English- 
 men, and these two boys were very full of ' the 
 Service.' Jack was perhaps strengthened in his 
 resolution to return home on Saturday, by feeling 
 that the sudden obsciu*ing of his own prospects, 
 and the vagueness of his own future, made it 
 hard for him to join with due heartiness in their 
 exultant discourse. At all events, he was not 
 to be tempted to remain by the evident dis- 
 appointment of Caroline and Jane Trescoe, two 
 young ladies, who had never taken any par- 
 ticular notice of him on previous occasions, 
 except to make him feel himself, Hke David 
 Copperfield, ' remarkably young.' He was 
 not even flattered by the testimony to com- 
 plete recognition of his young-manhood that 
 reached him from every side ; the men of 
 the party admitting him to their society as 
 readily as did the ladies. He was thinkino- of 
 quite other matters : occasionally, to do him 
 justice, of his ftither, and the puzzhng problem 
 VOL. I. 
 
194 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 of the future, but almost continuously of Mavis 
 Wynn. 
 
 On the Sunday morning Jack heard from 
 his father. The Squire had taken up his 
 quarters at the bouse of Mr. Dexter, who 
 would not hear of his staying alone at an 
 hotel, and he was likely to be detained in 
 London for at least a fortnight. In the mean- 
 time, he should be too busy for much writing, 
 but Jack was to keep up his heart, for Mr. 
 Dexter ' saw his way.' 
 
 Jack was well pleased with this communica- 
 tion. Any of us who have ever been young, 
 and have not quite forgotten what it feels like, 
 will not be shocked to learn that he was very 
 glad of a fortnight's freedom from having to 
 face the trouble of the time, and also to have 
 plenty of leisure, without fear of being called 
 to account for his employment of it. 
 
 The ensuing fortnight was a pleasant but 
 dangerous time to Jack Bassett and Mavis 
 Wynn. Beautiful weather, nothing particular 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 195 
 
 to do, some painful thoughts to get rid of, and 
 an interval of suspense to hve through ; these 
 were all incentives to Jack's already pronounced 
 inclination to meet his fair neighbour as often 
 as he could contrive to do so on any pretext 
 which commended itself to him as reasonable. 
 In this respect he allowed himself a good deal 
 of latitude, and displayed not a httle ingenuity ; 
 for although his frequent errands to Field- 
 flower Farm had Farmer Wynn for their 
 ostensible object, he contrived to time his 
 visits so as not to find the farmer on the home 
 premises. 
 
 It has been said that Jack was not of a 
 scheming disposition in general, but as frank and 
 above-board a young fellow as one who has 
 never suffered the indignity of distrust ought 
 to be ; yet was he no more consistently incor- 
 ruptible than the rest of us. Surprisingly soon 
 after the occasion of the choir practice at the 
 parsonage — well within the first of the two 
 weeks — he had begun to feel that a day with- 
 
 2 
 
196 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 out the chance of seeing Mavis in it would be 
 drawn blank, and was to be avoided by all 
 means. 
 
 Circumstances favoured Jack. For some 
 reason with which nobody but himself w^as 
 acquainted, Farmer Wynn was more frequently 
 away from the farm than his wife had ever 
 previously known him to be, and he was also 
 unusually disposed to leave his womankind at 
 peace and to their own devices. Provided 
 that his commands, usually issued at breakfast- 
 time, were punctually fulfilled, and he never 
 called for anything without its being instantly 
 forthcoming, he did not trouble the big parlour 
 much with his presence during these halcyon 
 days. Mrs. Wynn enjoyed them, although 
 always with the prescient proviso that they 
 were much too good to last. In the afternoon 
 Wynn was either absent, or shut up in his 
 own room ; in the evening he devoted himself 
 to the unfamiUar occupation of reading, and 
 pored over the books which he had borrowed 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 197 
 
 from the Squire with the deepest attention, 
 while his wife and daughter plodded in silence 
 at their needlework. 
 
 The afternoon absences of the farmer were 
 revealed by Mrs. Wynn to Jack, when on the 
 day following the choir practice he presented 
 himself on dog-business, and had a delightful 
 hoiu- in the big parlour with Mavis. Jack did 
 not appear to pay any attention to Mrs. Wynn's 
 remark, but he reckoned on these precious 
 occasions, and thenceforth had a pretext ready, 
 until the time came when no pretext at all was 
 offered or required. 
 
 ' Tom Burke of Ours ' proved very success- 
 ful. The pleasure which Mavis took in that 
 wild, witty, and pathetic story ; her enthusiasm 
 about the Peninsular war scenes, her delight 
 with the Irish incidents, her agitated question- 
 ing, ' Can it be true ? Did anything like that 
 ever really happen ? ' when they talked of 
 Father Tom's drive throug^h the mountains to 
 the rebel's death- bed, were all wonderfully 
 
198 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 charming to Jack, who took immense pleasure 
 in these tales of war, love, and adventure. He 
 had hitherto been rather inarticulate in ladies' 
 society, but it was surprising how easy he 
 found it to talk to Mavis about all his likes and 
 dislikes, and how much she was interested in 
 what he said. To be sure, she did make the 
 silly mistake of treating his time at Sandhurst 
 as school, and his grinding as lessons, which 
 rather checked him for a minute, with a 
 dreadful suspicion that she might possibly be 
 laughing at him ; but the simple seriousness in 
 the face of Mavis dispelled his apprehension 
 quickly. Girls never know about things of 
 that kind — how should they ? It was very 
 nice of her to care to hear — ^that was more 
 than most of them would, Jack thought, with 
 tlie free generalisation of his time of hfe. On 
 this occasion there was none of the constraint 
 and uneasiness in her manner, or that of her 
 stepmother, which he had previouslv observed, 
 and his suspicion that the difference was caused 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 199 
 
 by the absence of Wynn was confirmed by Mrs. 
 Wynn's remark. 
 
 The last object in his vicinity which it 
 would have occurred to Farmer Wynn to 
 observe was his daughter's countenance. Had 
 this been otherwise, he might have marked a 
 change in Mavis's fair, sweet, too serious face, 
 as she bent, evening after evening, over her 
 needlework, in the hght of the old-fashioned 
 oil lamp, while he occupied one of the big 
 horsehair- covered chairs by the fireside, with 
 his feet up on a second. He might have seen 
 the slight but lovely smile that occasionally 
 parted her lips, the quick light that occasionally 
 shone in her eyes, the brisk movement of her 
 needle, the look of something to think about 
 that engaged and pleased her, shortening the 
 time, and obscuring the actual scene. There 
 was music sounding somewhere, to which the 
 girl was hearkening ; there was a vision, and 
 the eyes of her soul saw it. 
 
 Had Mavis been reminded of the fit of 
 
200 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 despair that had come upon her only so few 
 days before, in the Dame's Parlour, she would 
 have wondered at herself, blamed herself for 
 being so foolish, for thinking so ill of Provi- 
 dence, life, and the beautiful world, and fearing 
 her fate so much. 
 
 Jack Bassett's days were pleasant on the 
 whole for a young gentleman who had sub- 
 stantial troubles in the present, and no very 
 bright prospects for the future. He was popu- 
 lar in the neighbourhood, and he had friends 
 in a regiment then quartered at Chester. On 
 most evenings liis dogcart conveyed him to a 
 pleasant dinner at some friend's house within 
 a few miles ; but he returned home at night 
 with exemplary regularity, and he joined no 
 parties of an afternoon. 
 
 It was impossible to Jack to take books out 
 of the legitimate library without Miss Nestle's 
 knowledge, but he was not prepared to be 
 found out in extracting some from the goodly 
 store of novels in the Squire's book-room. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 201 
 
 One day, as he stepped out of the glass door, 
 with three vohimes under his arm, he was 
 confronted by Miss i^estle, who had been look- 
 ing after Jacob, by special desire of the Squire. 
 Perfectly respectful but peculiarly disconcerting 
 was the look which Miss Nestle darted, first at 
 the books, and then at Jack. 
 
 ' Hallo ! Nesty, who'd have thought of see- 
 ing you at this side of the house ? ' said Jack, 
 with overdone effusion. ' What have you been 
 about ? ' 
 
 ' I have been taking some sugar and a 
 store-apple to Jacob, Mr. John, by the Squire's 
 orders, received this morning,' answered Miss 
 Nestle, Avith prim precision. 
 
 ' Mr. John ' was a signal corresponding to 
 the hoisting of a storm drum. 
 
 ' Just like him to remember the donkey in 
 the midst of his business,' said Jack, heartily. 
 ' I ought to have taken his sugar and apple to 
 Jacob. Where is he .^ — with the cart ? ' 
 
 ' On the third rose walk, at the east corner, 
 
202 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 near the laburnum trees' — Miss Nestle was 
 still eyeing the books, and Jack had not 
 presence of mind to nod and leave her. 
 
 ' Well, you've given him as much as is 
 good for him for to-day. I'm off to Field- 
 flower Farm, to see about the pointer pup — I'd 
 rather Eobert took him in hands now, so I 
 shall ask Wynn to send him up this evening 
 — and I'm taking Miss Wynn some books. 
 They're wretchedly off in that way at the 
 farm.' 
 
 Miss Nestle's features settled themselves in 
 her disc-like countenance into an expression of 
 disapproval as she said : 
 
 ' Of course you know best, Mr. John, but 
 what Mavis Wynn can want with story-books, 
 now that she's settled down at the Farm, I 
 can't tell. It's no kindness to make people 
 discontented, or to put them out of their place ; 
 and a farmer's daughter don't ought to idle 
 over story-books as if she was a lady. What 
 I say is, if you keep your own place every 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 203 
 
 one will respect you, and you can respect your- 
 self.' 
 
 With this, Miss Nestle would have gone into 
 the house, but that Jack, whom her words had 
 made extremely uncomfortable, detained her. 
 
 ' Wait a minute, Nesty,' he said, ' and don't 
 be cross. Why do you talk about Miss Wynn 
 as if she were just like the other farmers' 
 daughters? She isn't, you know; she's been 
 highly educated, and her mother was a gentle- 
 man's daughter — was she not ? ' 
 
 Thus artfully did Jack avail himself of an 
 untoward incident to get the information that 
 he wanted. 
 
 ' Mr. Warne was a gentleman of a queer 
 sort ; for he ran through all his property in 
 betting and horse-racing and such hke wicked- 
 ness, and left his wife and children to want and 
 woe. The poor lady did not live long, and the 
 children, so I heard from Mavis's mother, were 
 brought up in a school to be teachers, poor 
 things.' 
 
204 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Jack had by this time tacitly beguiled Miss 
 Nestle into walking along the terrace with him. 
 The housekeeper was inflexible on her oflicial 
 side only, and now, old recollections, probably 
 of pity and help, softened her reproving coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 ' How came one of Mrs. Warne's daughters 
 to marry Wynn ? ' 
 
 ' That I cannot tell you, Mr. Jack ' — he 
 felt things were coming right again — ' I never 
 heard it rightly ; but I suppose there was no 
 one else to marry her, and being put out 
 of her place already, through the doings of 
 her father, she very likely did not feel it so 
 much.' 
 
 ' You knew her .^ What sort of person was 
 she?' 
 
 ' Mavis is as like her as two peas, if one was 
 dark and the other was fair ; and she speaks 
 hke her. But Mrs. Wynn never did much 
 good at the farm ; she never took to it, and' — 
 with a sudden return to her former attitude — 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 205 
 
 ' neither will Mavis, take my word for it, Mr. 
 John, if you go putting notions into her head 
 when she ought to be settling down.' 
 
 They had reached the end of the house, and 
 Miss Nestle came to a standstill. 
 
 'Never mind, Nesty,' said Jack, persua- 
 sively ; ' I shall not be here to give Miss Wynn 
 notions, as you call it, very long ; or to lend 
 her books ; but she must have these, you 
 know, because I told her I should bring them. 
 I dare say you often did her mother a kind- 
 ness when things were not too pleasant for 
 her. So I'm off! Look out for the pointer 
 pup.' 
 
 He ran lightly down the terrace steps, 
 turned into the shrubbery that bounded the 
 rose garden, and was out of sight before Miss 
 Nestle had done shaking her cap at him. 
 
 ' What a pity the dear boy isn't more like 
 the Squire ! ' thought j\iiss Nestle, as she 
 retraced her steps, ' content to be quiet at 
 home, instead of wanting to be off to the wars 
 
2o6 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 again, or I ought to say, the first time, hke 
 the person in the song, who hung his harp on 
 a willow-tree. But' — here Miss Nestle nodded 
 sharply two or three times — ' as he won't be 
 satisfied unless he can be put in the way of 
 killing his fellow-creatures, I shan't be sorry if 
 he gets the chance soon. I think well of Mr. 
 Jack, very well; but he don't keep himself in 
 his place so strict and constant as the Squire 
 does, and I don't hold with girls having their 
 heads turned.' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 207 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 ' THIS SPEING OF LOVE.' 
 
 The memorable year that broke up the tradi- 
 tion of peace, only a short time after its great 
 commemoration, formed an epoch in the hfe of 
 England whose importance will probably be 
 rated in the future even more highly than it 
 is by us, who have seen how far and how fast 
 the ball that was then set rolling has since 
 rolled. To all who remember it with grown- 
 up memory, the first year of the Crimean war 
 stands apart as an epoch at which a great 
 change passed upon men's minds, and the sub- 
 jects of main interest to them were largely 
 multiplied and magnified. The young people 
 of those days learned to understand the Water- 
 loo time, and the feelings of their predecessors 
 
2o8 THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 of that glorious period ; while the pohtical field 
 of vision widened out in a surprising fashion, 
 to go on widening at accumulating speed ever 
 since. 
 
 Some day, a great writer, an historian and 
 philosopher, with the accuracy proper to the 
 one and the calm proper to the other, with the 
 fine insight of a poet, and the love of form of 
 an artist, with the soul of a patriot, and rich in 
 treasures of experience, will set down the story 
 of ' the fifties ' veracious and entire. Then the 
 English people of that day will learn, better 
 than we who have lived in and near it can 
 know, how wonderful, great, and ominous a 
 decade that was. 
 
 With the historic events that were ushered 
 in by the spring of 1854, we are concerned 
 but transiently, and for the sole reason 
 that the outer edge of the great whirlpool, 
 created by the flinging of the Titanic stone 
 of offence into the long-unruffled waters of 
 European peace, stretched far enough to draw 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 209 
 
 within its swirl the quiet people with whom this 
 humble tale has to do. It is permissible to 
 borrow a phrase from a great master, and to 
 say, as Mr. Thackeray said of his immortal 
 narrative, ' Vanity Fair,' that the place of this 
 story, while the battle rages, and the fate of 
 countries and kings hangs on its award, ' is 
 with the non-combatants below.' 
 
 When Squire Bassett spoke to Mr. Dexter 
 about ' the chances ' on which young men of 
 Jack's way of thinking were then calculating, 
 he alluded, of course, to the war between Eussia 
 and the alhed Powers which had just been 
 declared. What Jack called the glorious luck 
 of the oncoming of war was calculated to con- 
 firm his resolution. The Squire and the lawyer 
 contemplated this matter each from his separate 
 point of view : Mr. Bassett with distaste, indeed, 
 but with a single-hearted desire to let his son 
 have his own way ; Mr. Dexter with regret 
 and impatience. Concerning those chances Mr. 
 Dexter was sceptical ; the prizes that were to 
 
 VOL. I. p 
 
2IO THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 be snatched by liappy hazard, or laboriously 
 climbed for, were not numerous, and the 
 matter presented itself to him in the most 
 prosaic light. 
 
 ' It is just like the technical talk with which 
 they cover up the horrors, the miseries, the 
 cruelty, and the waste of war,' thought the 
 lawyer ; ' their advances, operations, evolutions, 
 steady fire, closing up, falling back in good 
 order, charging, and all the rest of it. What 
 does the simplest bit of all that jargon imply 
 but suffering to man and beast, a woeful waste 
 of precious life and hard-earned money, all in- 
 curred for the attainment of some object to be 
 cheerfully rehnquished by the next generation? 
 There were " chances " for the young fellows 
 when the Emperor of Eussia helped us to beat 
 " Boney " ; there are chances for the young 
 fellows now that " Boney's " nephew is going 
 to help us to beat the Emperor of Eussia ; and 
 the meaning of both sets of •' chances " is 
 " dead men's shoes." ' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 211 
 
 Mr. Dexter, being thus insensible to tiie 
 claims of glory, and ruthlessly realistic in his 
 views, was not sympathetic with the Squire in 
 his quest of the realisation of Jack's heart's 
 desire ; but he was none the less useful. Once 
 convinced that his friend's son was of the num- 
 ber of those who ' will to Cupar,' and therefore 
 ' maun to Cupar,' he would do all in his power 
 to set that ill-judging young man, mounted and 
 provisioned for the journey, on the way to 
 Cupar. The Squire having told him on his 
 arrival in London that there was no doing any- 
 thing with Jack, Mr. Dexter at once proceeded 
 to act upon this assurance, in his own depart- 
 ment of Mr. Bassett's affairs, while the Squire 
 went to work in another. 
 
 The result of the exertions of the two 
 friends proved satisfactory, and was attained 
 with greater facility than the Squire had 
 anticipated. 
 
 The fortnight had not quite expired when 
 Mr. Bassett sent his son news that suddenly 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 changed the aspect of affairs. The Squires 
 communication was received by the aspirant 
 to mihtary glory with less pleasure than that 
 wherewith Jack would have welcomed similar 
 intelligence when he bade the Squire good-bye 
 at the Chester railway station. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The long casements of the Dame's Parlour 
 commanded, as we have seen, a view of the 
 little river and its opposite bank. It would 
 be both vain and unfair to ask how soon Mavis 
 Wynn's interest in that prospect attached it- 
 self to the tolerably punctual appearance of 
 Mr. John Bassett hard by the spot at which 
 the boat was now regularly to be found for his 
 convenience. 
 
 The boy, for whom Mavis had looked in 
 vain on a certain recent day, never to lose its 
 importance in her memory, was readily forth- 
 coming when it occurred to Mr. Jack that it 
 would be convenient and expedient to make 
 his visits to Fieldflower Farm by way of the 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 213 
 
 river. The red-cheeked, black-haired, beady- 
 eyed boy, Eeuben Jones, who held a nonde- 
 script position at the farm, undertook to be 
 on the look-out for Mr. Jack of afternoons, to 
 take the boat across for him, and likewise to 
 row it back to the boathouse after Jack's de- 
 parture. If Eeuben ever wondered why Mr. 
 John Bassett did not make his visits to the 
 farm like other people, walking up the avenue, 
 and sitting gravely in the big parlour where 
 the Sunday tea-set and the family Bible abode, 
 and if he guessed aright at the reason, it was 
 doubtless with sweet and soothing satisfaction. 
 The beady-eyed boy disliked his master so 
 heartily that it actually freshened up his facul- 
 ties to be called upon to use them presumably 
 against Wynn. 
 
 So the spring days crept on ; their keen- 
 ness was beginning to be tempered by that 
 sweetness whose only parallel has been found 
 for it by the greatest of poets. To Mavis all 
 their meaning was that each would surely bring 
 
214 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Jack to the river-side, and to Jack, that among 
 the hours of every one of them some would 
 be passed in the bhssfnl company of Farmer 
 Wynn's daughter. Every day, Jack and Trotty 
 Yeck made their little voyage in the boat, and 
 the young man and the girl sat and talked in 
 the arbour, or walked on the smooth sward 
 under the grey fortress wall, or along the 
 river's edge, while Trotty sedulously sought 
 the society of Mrs. Wynn, feeling, but with a 
 magnanimous absence of bitterness, that his 
 own was less welcome than formerly. 
 
 On two or three occasions Jack had seen 
 the farmer, but Wynn had made no sign of 
 surprise, displeasure, or curiosity ; he merely 
 exchanged a few sentences with the Squire's 
 son, and went about his business. 
 
 Mrs. Wynn hardly knew herself — to use 
 her own expression — in the cheerful atmo- 
 sphere created by Jack's mere presence. It 
 was ' lovely,' she thought, to hear the pleasant 
 talk of the two ; although there was a great 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 215 
 
 deal of it that she did not understand. Their 
 walks were extended daily, while the river- 
 side arbour or the big parlour saw less and less 
 of Jack and Mavis. They left her with ever- 
 shortening apologies, it is true ; but she had 
 never before been so well treated, so nearly 
 restored to self-respect, or so httle tormented 
 with fear and distress on account of Mavis. 
 
 Mrs. Wynn had not a mother's instinct to 
 quicken her perception where Mavis was con- 
 cerned. She was sorry, when she was obliged 
 to think of it, that the end of this pleasant 
 change in the life of Fieldflower Farm must 
 come so soon. Mr. Jack would have to go 
 off to the place where the other grand officers 
 were (Mrs. Wynn's notion of the war and its 
 locality was equal to old John Willet's in clear- 
 ness), and then it would be as dull as ever for 
 Mavis. Thus did Mrs. Wynn — who had never 
 been in love in her life, and whose always 
 slow mind was becoming more inert under the 
 influence of illness, of which she dared not 
 
2i6 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 complain — regard a state of things, fraught, as 
 ordinary common sense should have taught her, 
 with danger to the one being in the world 
 whom she loved. That, however retired and 
 unneighbourly the ways of Fieldflower Farm 
 were, other people might hear and talk of Mr. 
 Jack's assiduities, and the breath of scandal 
 taint the fair fame of Mavis, no more occurred 
 to Mrs. Wynn than that the ' end of it ' might 
 mean a broken heart and a wasted life to her 
 stepdaughter. Mrs. Wynn carried a broken 
 heart in her own breast, but love had had 
 nothing to do with its fracture ; nor indeed 
 hate, which will sometimes work a like ill and 
 desolation ; but only sheer tyranny and con- 
 stant fear. 
 
 Jack had been made free of the Dame's 
 Parlour, whither he had conveyed quite a little 
 collection of the Bassett books. The quaint 
 old rooms pleased him ; his fancy, not over- 
 quick or miich indulged, had shared in the 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 217 
 
 awakeniDg of his feelings, and all things lent 
 themselves to — 
 
 The one unequalled pure romance. 
 
 The farm-side would perhaps have fed it as 
 effectually, though otherwise ; but the ancient, 
 quiet, solemn, tapestried rooms, their spare, 
 bygone furniture, and the exquisite neatness 
 that pervaded them — this, indeed, Mavis had 
 the art of maintaining wherever she had any 
 control — formed a frame for the fair image 
 of his first love which had a great charm for 
 Jack. 
 
 It was in the Dame's Parlour that he first 
 heard Mavis sing ; after he had endured a 
 twinge of something — it could not be jealousy, 
 he was sure, because that would be foohsh, 
 but it was at all events unpleasant — because 
 others had the privilege of hearing that sweet 
 music, and not he. So he asked Mavis to 
 sing to him ; and she, being entirely free from 
 coquetry or affectation, consented to do so, but 
 
2i8 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 said that only certain hymns, and a few songs 
 that were real poetry, were pleasing without 
 an accompaniment. Jack positively hated Miss 
 Nestle as he thought of the ' beautiful piece of 
 rosewood ' at home, and eagerly assured Mavis 
 that her voice needed no accessory. She sang 
 to him, and Jack listened with strange, almost 
 painful, pleasure, and a sudden consciousness 
 that hitherto he had never knov^n what music 
 meant. He made her no florid compliments, 
 but the look with which he thanked the singer 
 set her heart beating quickly, and took away 
 from her the power of answering him. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mrs. Wynn, simply, as if Jack 
 had spoken to her ; ' it is the kind of singing 
 that does one good. Her Uncle Jeffrey thought 
 a deal of her voice.' 
 
 'No wonder,' was Jack's only comment. 
 He was rather silent after this, and went away 
 earlier than usual. It w^as a rainy day, and 
 there had been no walk by the river-side. 
 
 From the Dame's Parlour, where he had 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 219 
 
 taken leave of her, Mavis looked out at 
 Jack, as he crossed the river and took his 
 way through the fields. As she lost sight 
 of him a thought came to her that carried 
 with it a keen and dreadful pang. He would 
 soon vanish out of her life, as he had but now 
 passed beyond her vision, and what should she 
 do, what should she be then ? Her step- 
 mother's remarking that they had better see to 
 the tea seemed to wake her from a dream, and 
 she looked around with a sort of terror of the 
 closing up again of the walls of her prison- 
 house. They had fallen apart ; she had seen 
 wonderful visions beyond them, and now at the 
 same moment there come to her the meaning of 
 those visions, and also the chill certainty that 
 she must part with them. 
 
 Mavis had, however, to rouse herself and 
 go to her prosaic occupations, and this was well. 
 Her father came in wet and surly ; in a mood 
 to kick the dogs and bully the women. He 
 indulged his mood, and when Mavis got away 
 
220 THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 to her own room that night, a great bewilder- 
 ment fell upon her. She was very young in 
 years, but much older in mind, as such an ex- 
 perience as hers must have made any one who 
 was not a fool ; she was helpless, and yet the 
 sole help of another more pitiable still. A 
 deep sense of humihation possessed her, and 
 under, over, above, all round those racking 
 thoughts, was the agony of knowledge that the 
 brightness and the sweetness which had changed 
 all her life for a few short days must go out of it, 
 and leave it darker and more bitter than before. 
 This had been true from the very first gleam of 
 that brightness, from the very first taste of that 
 sweetness, but she had not felt it until to-day; she 
 had been so content ! What was this dreadful 
 pain? What had happened to her that she 
 should feel so wretched, and that the doom 
 under which she must live had become more 
 than ever intolerable ? Why had her heart 
 died within her that evening ? Why had her 
 flesh crept with shame and repulsion, when 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 221 
 
 Wynn used language to his wife and daughter 
 not more vile and violent than they had en- 
 dured many times before ? 
 
 ' Oh,' she sobbed, as she knelt in the moon- 
 light beside her little bed and hid her face in 
 her hands, • he's a gentleman, a gentleman ; and 
 how can I be treated in this way, and live this 
 hfe, and yet bear to look at him ; to let him re- 
 spect me as if I were the first lady in the land ? 
 But, oh ! how am I to bear it when he is gone 
 away? It will be worse then, far worse. 
 The days without a sight of him, the weeks 
 and months, and all this to suffer, without a 
 word or a look of his. . . .' 
 
 When Jack Bassett came to the river-side 
 next day, he found the boat ready for him as 
 usual, but Eeuben was sitting on the bank eat- 
 ing bread and cheese. He scrambled to his feet 
 and bolted a huge mouthful, as Jack came up 
 and asked him why he was waiting. 
 
 ' Please sir,' answered Eeuben, ' I was to 
 tell you that Missis is bad with a headache, and 
 
222 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 she hasn't come down to-day, and Miss Mavis is 
 done with these/ 
 
 So saying he ducked into the boat and pro- 
 duced a couple of vokimes. Jack took them 
 with a frown. 
 
 ' That means that I am not to come across 
 to-day ; but why ? No matter, I must and I will. 
 Get in,' said he to Eeuben ; ' I'm going across.' 
 
 The door in the wall of the Dame's- Parlour- 
 side was ajar. Jack walked in unceremoniously, 
 and found Mavis, as he expected, in the parlour. 
 She had seen him cross the river, despite her 
 implied prohibition, and she knew that the im- 
 pending meeting must be unlike any that had 
 gone before it. The scene of yesterday, and 
 the self-revelation that succeeded it, had un- 
 nerved Mavis ; and now, as she stood by the 
 casement with one hand on the broad sill and 
 the other clasping her forehead, while she strove 
 for the composure which his rapid step upon 
 the stair put utterly to flight, she was pale and 
 trembling. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 223 
 
 In a minute he was in the room. Her hand 
 fell from her brow, and she tried to speak like 
 her ordinary self, but she saw that a change 
 had passed on him too. There was a brighter 
 light in his eyes, he looked less boyish, more 
 commanding, and in liis first words of greeting 
 there was a deeper tone. 
 
 ' You did not want me to come to-day — 
 why ? ' 
 
 ' I — Mrs. Wynn is not well — I thought ' 
 
 ' Something has happened. What is it ? ' 
 She had been standing by the window, but 
 a great carved chair was near, and she seated 
 herself without answering. How could she tell 
 him what had happened, the scene with her 
 father, or the later strife of her own thoughts ? 
 His eyes were searching her face for the reply 
 to his question ; their look was strangely keen 
 and lofty, and her heart beat quickly, hurried 
 by the sense of something impending. She 
 leaned her head against the back of the chair, 
 her chestnut curls lay soft and bright against 
 
224 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 the rigid heraldic device in old black oak, and 
 Jack thought he had never seen her look so 
 fair. 
 
 'Something has happened since yesterday. 
 What is it ? ' he repeated. ' Will you not tell 
 me ? Why did you try to prevent me from 
 coming? Why did you not want to see me 
 to-day ? What have I done ? ' 
 
 ' You — done — Mr. Bassett .^ ' stammered 
 Mavis, with a deep blush ; ' nothing indeed. 
 It was not on account of you.' 
 
 ' I am glad of that,' said Jack, guessing at 
 the truth. ' I would not have you offended 
 with me, or not care to see me, for the world.' 
 The phrase was very commonplace, but it was 
 poetry and music combined to Mavis's ears. 
 
 'I could not have obeyed you, though I 
 knew well enough what your message meant. 
 I could not have let the day pass without 
 seeing you. I have something to tell you — 
 something about myself 
 
 He was standing near her chair, and he 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 225 
 
 laid his arm upon the back of it, and spoke 
 the next words bending slightly towards lier. 
 A mist passed before her eyes. Was he going 
 away ? or was it — was it the great lady whom, 
 according to her stepmother, he was to marry, 
 and of whom she had never thought once in all 
 these happy days ? But almost with the sugges- 
 tion came the conviction that it was not that. 
 
 ' I am going away. My father has settled 
 everything for me, and desires me to join him 
 in London with as little delay as possible. I 
 shall be gazetted to the Eifle Brigade in a 
 few days, and am to join the regiment at 
 once.' 
 
 At his first words she had quivered all 
 over ; this was the reahsation of the dread 
 that had fallen upon her last night. The 
 answer to her question, ' What shall I do 
 then? what shall I be ?' would now come 
 soon enough. She could not speak ; no matter 
 what he might think of her silence, she could 
 not speak. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 He bent bis head more towards her, and 
 went on, with some hurry in his voice : 
 
 ' Do you know where I shall be going to ? ' 
 
 No words, but the movement of her eyelids 
 answered him. She did not know, but she 
 feared. 
 
 ' To the seat of war. We are ordered out 
 to Gallipoli. It is a splendid chance for me. 
 My father got it all settled, and never said 
 anything until it was done. Don't look so 
 shocked ; you knew I was going to be a 
 soldier — al wa y s . ' 
 
 ' Yes — but not — not that you were going 
 to fight.' 
 
 'Ah, but that's my grand luck, you see, 
 and my father's good friends ; he knows a lot 
 of people, though he lives out of the world. 
 This is what I came to tell you — this, and a 
 great deal more.* 
 
 « You — you are glad ? ' 
 
 ' Of course I am glad.' He drew himself 
 up proudly for a moment, with a passing look 
 of surprise, but it yielded to one of his pecu- 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 227 
 
 liarly bright smiles. He resumed his former 
 attitude, and went on speaking, blending, in a 
 very manly and attractive way, deference to 
 the woman with the soothing manner in which 
 he might have quieted a child. 
 
 ' But I am sorry too. You know why, do 
 you not ? You know what I have to leave ! 
 Mavis, you know that I love you ! ' 
 
 On his bended knee beside her, in the good 
 old style of lover's wooing, drawing away the 
 hands that she clasped before her eyes, and 
 holding them tightly in his own, Jack begged, 
 right humbly for all his hopefulness, and witli 
 a simple eloquence that became him well, for 
 the one great boon, which possessing he should 
 have no more to ask of fate. 
 
 What did Mavis say to him? Very few 
 and simple words, and spoken with difficulty. 
 To her lover's ears those words had the gran- 
 deiu* and glory of the proclamation of a king's 
 coming to his kingdom ; for they were, ' I 
 think I loved you first.' 
 
 q2 
 
228 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 The girl raised her serene eyes to her 
 young lover's, and their pure and trustful 
 appeal was so sacred and beautiful, that it filled 
 his heart with a great transport of love and 
 fidelity. She seemed newly, doubly, dear and 
 divine to him. He had hoped, he had meant, 
 he had willed to win her ; but now that she 
 was won, he was so amazed at his great joy 
 that it seemed like some other, unimagined, 
 and the kiss that sealed the promise by which 
 they bound themselves to each other for time 
 and eternity, to mark the beginning of a new 
 hfe. 
 
 They were so young and so happy, it was 
 no wonder that on the first hours of their 
 acknowledged love no shadow of doubt or 
 misgiving fell, and even that of imminent 
 parting held aloof. That their first confi- 
 dences were like those of many myriads of 
 their like since time began, and love with it, 
 who can doubt ? It is no less certain that to 
 them they were as simply marvellous, and 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 229 
 
 apart from all the experiences of humanity, as 
 if they had been exchanged by creatures of <\. 
 different race, in another planet. For the girl 
 the whole face of the enrth was changed. 
 What had become of the questions she had 
 asked herself — ' What should she be ? What 
 should she do ? ' She was to be Jack's be- 
 trothed, and she was to love him, in every 
 moment of her beatified existence, with all her 
 heart and soul, and so to grow worthy — if 
 such worthiness were indeed possible — to be 
 his wife when he should come for her. 
 
 What harm could any one do her now ? 
 With that hope set before her, what was there 
 she could not bear, and keep it from her true 
 lover's knowledge, lest it should distress him P 
 Humiliation and fear had no more hold upon 
 her ; at the touch of the great magician they 
 fell away like the burst bonds of a captive. 
 He loved her ; she was safe for evermore. It 
 was not, however, in the first hour of that 
 wonderful bhss which, for every woman worthy 
 
230 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 of the name who has known it, transforms the 
 world, that Mavis thought of these things at 
 all. In the intensity and wonder of her happi- 
 ness, external things seemed lost ; it was of 
 Jack only she could think, of Jack who loved 
 her, to whom she belonged henceforth. A 
 great gulf lay between to-day, when she knew 
 that this was so, and yesterday, when she had 
 known only that she loved him, and that she 
 should soon see him no more ; a great gulf in 
 which a load of trouble and dread was buried 
 out of sight and out of mind. 
 
 The lovers had not much time on the 
 supremest day of their lives for the concerting 
 of plans, or for the comparing of notes upon the 
 successive chapters of the ever-new old story, 
 that form an early and delightful stage of that 
 madness which is so much better than sanity. 
 Jack had an engagement at home, and Mavis 
 had to perform Mrs. Wynn's tasks in addition 
 to her own. Each felt, though neither said so, 
 that no risk of Jack's meeting Wynn must be 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 231 
 
 incurred on that day. The one indication of 
 the future, given by Jack to Mavis in the midst 
 of the sweet love-talk of those blissful hours, 
 was in the sentence : ' We must keep our secret 
 quite to ourselves for the present.' There 
 would have been no keeping of the secret from 
 any one who could have seen the young man 
 and the girl, with the hght of love in their 
 faces, as Mavis waved a farewell to Jack from 
 the quaint old casement of the Dame's Parlour, 
 which, in its time, had framed many a fair 
 and smiling, many a weary and woe-worn face, 
 and he saluted her as reverently and gallantly 
 as though his wideawake had been a plumed 
 beaver, and the young lover a knight of old. 
 
 ' I thought you were never coming. Mavis,' 
 said poor Mrs. Wynn, with unusual querulous- 
 ness, when her stepdaughter appeared in the 
 room. * Where have you been ? Have you 
 got the cheeses rubbed ? There will be such a 
 to-do if that's not been seen to ; and my 
 head's been so bad, I forgot all about it until 
 
232 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 just this minute. How I'm to get up, I don't 
 know.' 
 
 ' Don't hurry,' said Mavis, as she collected 
 Mrs. Wynn's garments, ' there's an hour 
 yet before tea-time. The cheeses have been 
 rubbed ; there's nothing neglected. But ' — she 
 came nearer and looked sharply at her step- 
 mother — ' you don't look fit to be up at all. 
 I am sure you are really ill. Don't get up, 
 Sarah ; stay where you are, and I will ask 
 father to send for Dr. Williams.' 
 
 ' Oh no ! — for goodness' sake don't do that; 
 if you had heard how he went on at me over 
 the Christmas bill, you wouldn't wonder that I 
 would suffer anything rather than have what 
 I cost him thrown at me.' 
 
 ' But if you get really ill for want of know- 
 ing what to do for yourself,' persisted Mavis, 
 who had to be very plain of speech with Mrs. 
 Wynn, ' there won't be any saving in that, you 
 know.' 
 
 ' No, I suppose there won't ; but Wynn 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 233 
 
 must be left to see it for himself. I often 
 think — indeed, I feel sure — — ' But here 
 she paused, perceiving that although Mavis 
 Avas standing near with some of her clothes 
 on her arm she was not listening^, but was 
 smiling absently at some thought of her own. 
 The patient woman left the sentence unfinished, 
 and with a tired sigh began to dress herself. 
 
 Mavis longed to tell Mrs. Wynn what great 
 joy had come into her own life. She did 
 thorough justice to her stepmother by the 
 conviction that the intelhgence would be a 
 great consolation to her in the trouble which it 
 could not actually touch. But she resisted the 
 strong temptation : until Jack gave her leave 
 to reveal it, the secret of her happiness should 
 be untold. Her resolution was the more diffi- 
 cult to keep that Farmer Wynn relieved the 
 two women of his presence for the whole even- 
 ing by attending a club dinner, and they might 
 have had a delightful talk over this great 
 wonder. As it was, Mavis made the evening a 
 
234 THE LOVER' ^ CREED. 
 
 happy one for Mrs. Wynn, reading to her while 
 she cared to be read to, and talking, when she 
 tired of the book, on all the most cheerful 
 topics she could find ; avoiding the home 
 miseries, not only because her own heart was 
 lifted out of them, but for the sake of her 
 dejected companion. 
 
 ' I am sure she is really ill,' thought Mavis, 
 as she afterwards watched Mrs. Wynn dozing 
 in her chair, with the faint smile that she had 
 succeeded in calhng to her weary face still 
 resting upon it in her light slumber. 'I must 
 ask Jack what I ought to do.' 
 
 Again Mavis Wynn knelt in the moonlight 
 by her little white bed, and hid her face in her 
 hands ; but the thoughts that came thronging 
 to her were full of amazement that it had been 
 possible for her to be so miserable, when such 
 happiness as was now hers had all the time 
 been so near. It was almost frightening to 
 think of that ; it taught her practically the 
 hard lesson of our mysterious ignorance ; for 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 235 
 
 might she not, at her happiest moment, when 
 Jack should be with her, and she most sure 
 that he loved her, be parted from new sorrow 
 by only as brief an interval ? 
 
 This cloud passed quickly, like the thin 
 vapours that were flitting across the silvery 
 moon, and the girl's pure heart gave itself over 
 to the security and innocent triumph of her love. 
 Mavis was of a faithful and a grateful nature ; 
 her dead were not buried out of her sight. Never 
 had the dear friends to whom she owed even Jack 
 - — because, little as there was in her to justify his 
 love, she owed to them that there was anything — 
 been remembered with more poignant tenderness. 
 Ah, if they could have known ! if they could 
 only have been spared apprehension and anxiety, 
 such as had troubled the closing days of both 
 her aunt and uncle, with what additional 
 radiance would the bliss that was now hers 
 have been invested ! 
 
 While these and myriads of other thoughts 
 were crowding upon Mavis, there was not one 
 
236 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 that did not centre in her lover. It was be- 
 cause Jack was Jack, and loved her, that the 
 dear ones who were gone would have rejoiced 
 for her. That the lover whose faith had just 
 been plighted to her was the only son of her 
 father's landlord, a gentleman of position and 
 fortune, one entitled by the world's laws to 
 mate far above her, did not at first enter into 
 Mavis's mind. Her humility was unaffected, 
 but it was altogether personal ; only Jack and 
 herself were present to her guileless and inex- 
 perienced thoughts. Only the dread of parting, 
 more imminent and definite than when last 
 night it had shaken her hke the wind, broke up 
 the lustrous serenity of the mirror into which 
 she gazed, seeing those two images. Even that 
 dread had been deprived of half its pain : for 
 now, although, indeed. Jack would have to go 
 away, they could not be parted in reahty, and 
 when he came back, it would be to her. 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 23^1 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AN APRIL DAY. 
 
 Jack Bassett's friends, Mr. Brett and Mr, 
 Chancellor, had come over from the barracks 
 at Chester. This, being Jack's first independent 
 dinner-party at Bassett, was an occasion of some 
 solemnity. He could not help thinking, rue- 
 fully, that it might also be his last. He was 
 not bhnd to the fact that the proceedings of 
 that day would add to the complication of 
 affairs. Miss Nestle liad made choice prepara- 
 tion for the entertainment of his guests. Jack 
 liad told the housekeeper that he was to join 
 the Squire in London very shortly, and would 
 soon be off* to the war, and he was not a little 
 surprised to fmd that she took the announcement 
 easily ; that, in fact, she was unmistakably 
 
238 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 pleased. He idly wondered at this for a while, 
 and then forgot it in the discussion of the pro- 
 jected festivity. 
 
 The three young men dined in the terrace 
 room. It was a pleasant party. ' The Service ' 
 was a topic common to all now ; and although 
 they were surprised at Jack's change of purpose, 
 they thought a great deal more about his luck in 
 getting sent ' out ' at once, and they eagerly dis- 
 cussed the prospects of their own corps. Every- 
 thing connected with the war had hitherto been 
 vague ; the localities were obscure, and Mr. 
 Eussell's letters to the Times were only begin- 
 ning to show the world how a special corre- 
 spondent could educate it. Jack and his friends 
 were intelligent, and interested in the matter. 
 Among the Squire's books were some that 
 treated of Eussia and Turkey ; after dinner the 
 young men got out these, and also some maps, 
 and discussed the coming campaign. 
 
 It was a fine moonhght night when Mr. 
 Brett and Mr. Chancellor, being due at morning 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 23^ 
 
 parade, started on their drive back to Chester. 
 Jack and they had a hearty parting at the 
 farthest gate-lodge j where he jumped off the 
 dogcart, and stood hstening to its wheels in the 
 stillness for some minutes, wondering when and 
 where Brett and Chancellor and he should 
 meet again. He walked slo-wly back to the 
 house, enjoying the keen air and the solemn 
 light and shadow. The image of Mavis then 
 resumed its sway, and for that one night at 
 least there was nothing in his mind but the 
 ineffable triumph of the lover who has won his- 
 suit. 
 
 There was, however, a practical side to 
 Jack Bassett's character, and tliis prevented 
 him from shirking the straightforward con- 
 sideration of all that was involved in the 
 engagement between himself and Mavis Wynn. 
 He had thought the wliole position out next 
 day, calmly enough, considering the depth and 
 strength of his feehngs, before the hour arrived 
 at which he might reckon on seeing Mavis. 
 
240 THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 Coldly stated, the case was a hard one 
 against Jack. He knew that it must be an 
 additional and severe blow to his father to learn 
 that he purposed marrying the daughter of a 
 farmer : a man in no way superior in educa- 
 tion and refinement to the generality of his 
 class. That his father needed only to see 
 Mavis to be aware of her superiority to all other 
 daughters of all other farmers in Cheshire, or 
 the world, her lover knew, of course ; but in 
 the meantime he would have to take Jack's 
 word for this superiority. Jack felt, too, that 
 with all his indulgence, so recently experienced, 
 liis father was a proud man, with fixed ideas on 
 the fitness of things, and as likely as the sternest 
 and least accommodating of parents to think 
 that he knew best what would be for his son's 
 welfare and the family honour. Jack wished 
 with all his heart that Mavis were net Farmer 
 Wynn's daughter, but this did not advance 
 matters ; he could only fall back on the reflec- 
 tion that every lesser consideration must give 
 way before a creature so lovely and perfect as 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 24^ 
 
 Mavis, and that his own happiness as lier 
 accepted lover was too great to permit anything 
 with wliich he might have to contend to distress 
 liini seriously. He was not going to be a ricli 
 man — even on the moderate scale of wealth 
 that had been represented by Bassett before the 
 big loss came — he was going to be poor, and of 
 no particular importance to the world, the 
 county, or anybody, except Mavis and his 
 father. They need not live at Bassett — in fact, 
 there was no chance of their being able to do 
 so — and then it would not so much matter, 
 although Mavis could hold her own anywhere. 
 So far had his fancy travelled from the old love 
 of his home, and the first pangs of regret with 
 which he had learned how it was menaced. 
 So utterly had love put prudence to flight, and 
 taken possession of Jack, who, if selfish in this 
 new and strong passion, Avas at least not ignobly 
 selfish, but was ready to make sacrifices on his 
 ow^n part as well as to demand them on liis 
 father's. 
 
 VOL. 1. B 
 
242 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 His notions were as vague as they were 
 romantic ; he did not look beyond the first 
 obstacle in his path. To have to tell the truth 
 to the Squire, just when he was leaving him to 
 encounter alone a great change in his own 
 mode of life, and all the anxiety that Jack's 
 ' grand luck ' must entail, was enough to give 
 pause even to so resolute and exultant a 
 lover. 
 
 Jack was so much engrossed and perplexed 
 by his thoughts, that instead of going out, 
 making a round of the stables, the gardens, 
 nnd the place in general, as he usually did, 
 with a cheery word for everybody, and a 
 vspecial eye to the welfare of the horses and 
 dogs, and winding up with a visit to the 
 Museum before luncheon — an attention which 
 Miss Nestle prized highly — he remained in the 
 book-room. The sun shone outside, and the 
 soul of Trotty Yeck was troubled by this 
 deplorable departure from custom. 
 
 In his cogitations Jack took no account of 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 243 
 
 that side of the question which involved 
 Wynn's sentiments. Nor did this arise from 
 arrogance — he was free from that vulo^ar vice 
 — but rather from heedlessness, and preoccu- 
 jDation with his own point of view. 
 
 Miss Nestle had already given her metho- 
 dical mind to the supplying of Jack with 
 every sort of requisite for his expedition to 
 foreign parts. The present occasion she took to 
 be very much like his former goings to school 
 — only farther off, and with danger for him to 
 get into instead of merely trouble — and he 
 was diverted from his thoughts and the slow 
 passage of the hours by having to correct the 
 housekeeper's ideas of what he ought to take 
 with him. She proposed to pack a small 
 ship-load selected from the contents of the 
 store-rooms and Museum, and met his repre- 
 sentations of the probable restrictions upon 
 officers' baggage with the stohd remark : ' The 
 Squire won't like it, Mr. Jack. You never 
 have been without your comforts, and why 
 
 B 2 
 
^44 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 you should leave 'em behind now that you 
 are going among savages, I can't think.' 
 
 He was destined, before long, to come to 
 the conviction that Miss Nestle's views had 
 been much sounder than his own. 
 
 Profoundly did she afterwards enjoy 
 the forwarding her rejected stores to the seat 
 of war, and highly did she pride herself on 
 having foreseen the great Crimean muddle, 
 and forestalled the general despatching of 
 hampers from home as a panacea for its 
 miseries. 
 
 ' I don't care where they are,' Miss Nestle 
 would say, when the campaign was the subject 
 of conversation, ' whether it's hurting them- 
 selves with lessons and games at school when 
 they're boys, or going against the Litany in 
 foreign parts with their battle, murder, and 
 sudden death, when they're not much more ; 
 what I say is, they're all hearted-up by a hamper 
 from home. You should see ' (she would add 
 as a clincher) 'what Mr. Jack wrote to the 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 245 
 
 Squire about the muffatees and marmalade he 
 had out in the worst of it.' 
 
 Again Jack, observing the cheerful com- 
 posure with which Miss Nestle regarded his 
 approaching departure, reflected upon his luck. 
 If the only woman who was officially privi- 
 leged to make a fuss over him on this interest- 
 ing occasion had thought proper to do so, it 
 would have been a bore. It was not until 
 he was on his way to FieldHower Farm that 
 the source of Miss Nestle's unlooked-for hero- 
 ism occurred to him. 
 
 ' She has suspected me more or less from 
 the first,' thought he, ' and now she is glad I 
 am going to be kept out of mischief.' 
 
 Neither love, trouble, nor his prospects 
 had as yet taken boyishness entirely out of 
 Jack Bassett. He laughed with the unembar- 
 rassed glee of that phase of existence, as he 
 thought how mistaken the dear old lady was ; 
 how very thoroughly he had got into what she 
 would call ' mischief.' 
 
246 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Again fortune favoured Jack, and he had a 
 few minutes alone with Mavis in the Dame's 
 Parlour. He availed himself of them to en- 
 treat that she would come out for a walk with 
 him after he had seen Mrs. Wynn. He had a 
 great deal to say to her, he pleaded, hold- 
 ing her in his arms, and filling his eyes and 
 his soul with the quiet loveliness of her face, 
 all suffused with a beauty new since yesterday ; 
 but their time was so short, so terribly short. 
 Mavis started at the words ; she had not 
 reahsed that their parting was so imminent, 
 but Jack broke it gently to her that after to- 
 day they were to meet but once more, until 
 the blessed time when he should come home 
 and claim her as his wife. 
 
 'My father expects me to join him in 
 London on Thursday. My darling, it is very 
 hard to say good-bye so soon ; and yet I think 
 every hour would make it harder. Sure 
 though I am of you, it is almost death to go.' 
 
 ' And what is it to stay ? ' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 247 
 
 ' Worse, I suppose. They always say so ; 
 they do that much justice to women, at all 
 events.' 
 
 It is surprising what broad views of the 
 virtues and sufferings of the whole female sex a 
 man will take when he is in love ; it is equally 
 remarkable how his vision contracts when he 
 has got out of love. All women were angels 
 in Jack's eyes just then. How angry he would 
 have felt if anybody had hinted that very 
 recently they had been merely a lot of girls ! 
 
 ' Don't look so frightened, darling, or Mrs. 
 Wynn will see there's something the matter.' 
 
 ' May I not tell her ? She — she would be 
 very glad ; and she is so unhappy, and so ill.' 
 
 ' Not now — not just at this moment, I 
 mean ; I have so much to explain to you. I 
 must talk to you first, without fear of interrup- 
 tion. You are free at this time ? ' 
 
 All his distaste to the supposed tasks that 
 he hated to think of was in Jack's tone, but 
 Mavis took no note of this ; she answered 
 
248 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 simply that she was free, and could go out 
 with him. 
 
 Jack found Mrs. Wynn in the big parlour, 
 and looking ill. She was glad to see him, as 
 usual, and heard with her customary acqui- 
 escence that he and Mavis were going to have a 
 look at the swans' nest near the weir. By this 
 Jack knew that the farmer was out of the way ; 
 but she was even more than ordinarily quiet, 
 inert, and subdued. She did not seem able to 
 care much about anything, Jack thought. Mavis 
 came in presently, looking lovely in the same 
 straw hat that he had recognised so far off on 
 one memorable day, and then the two set off 
 for a walk in the earthly paradise. 
 
 It was, perhaps, due to the nearness of their 
 parting, and to the quality of simplicity which 
 they both possessed, that these newly betrothed 
 lovers were not shy and embarrassed, and that 
 perfect confidence rapidly estabhshed itself be- 
 tween them. , The young man, as was natural, 
 estimated far more justly than the girl the 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 249 
 
 seriousness of their independent disposal of 
 their lives ; she was lost in the wonder and the 
 joy of it. There was no mock humility about 
 Mavis, nor was there any sham chivalry about 
 Jack ; each honestly held the love of the other 
 to be a boon beyond price. If Jack only 
 had any notion of what was to be paid for it, 
 that too was best. 
 
 They walked along the river's edge until 
 they came to the swans' nest near the weir. It 
 was among the reeds, like that famous nest in 
 Mrs. Browning's poem, which Elsie was never 
 to show to her lover ; and the mother swan was 
 in it with her two cygnets — dingy creatures 
 looking like changelings by the side of the 
 snowy, downy, majestic, but far from amiable 
 bird, a pensioner of Mavis, who carried bread 
 to her every day. Cygnus pere was saihng on 
 the river, slowly trailing his black paddles, and 
 seemingly unconscious of human intrusion ; but 
 Mavis was up to his ways, and knew he would 
 presently come close for his share of the 
 
250 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 scattered bread, and would adjudicate that share 
 hberally on his own side. 
 
 'They quarrel about it sometimes,' said 
 Mavis, ' and I am afraid Jill gets the worst of 
 it. I call her Jill, and him Jack.' 
 
 She laughed and blushed, doing both 
 divinely, her lover thought. 
 
 ' Do you indeed ? ' said he ; ' so you are 
 used to the name. But you have never called 
 me Jack yet ! Suppose you try ? ' 
 
 She laughed and blushed again, but she did 
 try. Then Jack told her how he thought her 
 name the sweetest ever devised for a woman, 
 but had never hked his own until that moment. 
 If any who read the story of this young pair, 
 or any of their ancestors back to the most re- 
 mote, have not heard, said, and beheved exactly 
 the same words in their time, they have been 
 done out of an inalienable right. 
 
 The swans' nest was in a convenient — i.e, 
 solitary — place, and Jack might hold Mavis in 
 his arms undisturbed, and she might lay her 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 251 
 
 face on his breast while she gave him her 
 promise that every day on that spot she would 
 think of him, and remember that she was his, 
 solelv and for ever, while the river thev were 
 standing by should run, and the wind that dried 
 the tears on her cheek should blow. 
 
 ' I shall always be thinking of you,' Mavis 
 said as they began to retrace their steps ; ' and 
 there will be nothing in my life, morning, noon, 
 and night, to prevent me, or to hurry me in my 
 thoughts. And nothing — nothing about myself 
 only, I mean — can ever trouble me any more. 
 You will always be able to be quite happy 
 about me. Of course I know this cannot be so 
 with you.' 
 
 The old wall of the fortress side of the farm, 
 with the buttress and the ruined tower, was in 
 front of them, to the right of the riverside path ; 
 that particular view of it was very picturesque. 
 Mavis added, with a faint smile and a move- 
 ment of her hand in the direction of the 
 tower : 
 
'252 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 ' There's a poem about the knights that went 
 to the wars — I dare say some of them went 
 from that old place — and about the ladies who 
 were left for months and years — 
 
 Still bending o'er their 'broidered flowers, 
 AVitli spirit far away. 
 
 I shall have something better than that to 
 do before the time comes for me to look out of 
 Dame Dorothy's window, and wave my scarf 
 to you like Dona Inez ; but my spirit will be as 
 far away as any of theirs ever was.' 
 
 ' That must have been an awful life,' said 
 Jack, with profound conviction. ' Lots of 
 them, too, must have been old and ugly when 
 the knights came back, none the better for the 
 battering they had had.' 
 
 ' Oh, but that would not matter ; they 
 would be all the same to each other.' 
 
 ' Ah, perhaps they would.' 
 
 Jack assented, but not confidently. He 
 was glad Mavis had said this ; glad she should 
 not have a doubt upon the subject : he knew 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 253 
 
 very nice women always do believe just that 
 sort of thing. 
 
 ' It must have been dreadful,' said Mavis : 
 ' they could not hear what was happening ; 
 everybody could not be always sending off 
 messages, and there was no post in the real 
 old time — not at least when these walls w^ere 
 new. Oh, what those women must have 
 suffered I ' 
 
 ' Yes ; but then nobody was better off any- 
 where, and what people didn't know they 
 couldn't miss,' said Jack, getting rid of a 
 digression from the one engrossing topic of 
 lovers, themselves. But Mavis, even while she 
 hstened to his delightful love-talk, was think- 
 ing, with fresh reality and interest, of the old 
 house, and all the lives it had seen. The joy 
 that had come to her ; the pain and the wait- 
 ing, the hope and the blessedness, that were 
 coming, seemed in some mysterious way to 
 make her a part of its past. The feeling gave 
 her a solemn thrill. How many men and 
 
254 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 women had loved, hoped, parted, within those 
 walls, even as she and her lover, and were gone 
 away for ever from the sun and the minds of 
 men! 
 
 As they approached the house Mavis 
 pointed out to Jack that in the last few days 
 all the shrubs at the top of the ruined tower 
 had sprouted, and overrun the broad broken 
 edges, and that the young sprays and tendrils 
 were beginning to creep downwards. 
 
 ' I shall sit there in the summer,' she said, 
 ' when I can have some time to myself, and 
 look over the fields and the woods toward 
 Bassett. You can see the house, and a part of 
 the garden terrace, from the tower.' 
 
 ' I have never been up in the tower,' said 
 Jack. ' Let us go there now ; so that I may 
 be able to see exactly where you are, when I 
 shall have to think of you as thinking of me in 
 the summer-time.' 
 
 They climbed the rough stone steps, and 
 found themselves within the ruined walls. 
 
THE LOVER'S^ REED. 255 
 
 Long ago, probably in Dame Dorothy's time, 
 a flagged flooring had been laid over the 
 winding internal stairs, and about four feet of 
 wall rose above it ; a stone bench formed a 
 convenient seat, and even now there was 
 abundant shelter in the greenery that had 
 sprung from the crevices, and thriven amid 
 moss and ivy roots. In the summer this would 
 be a fairy bower. Jack was delighted with 
 the view that broke upon him, revealing points 
 of the landscape so familiar and so dear to him, 
 under a new aspect. 
 
 The old house, in its commanding position on 
 the hill, the spreading lawn, the woods putting 
 on their tender green, the blue smoke rising 
 in the pure air, the winding road and cultured 
 fields that lay between Bassett and Fieldflower 
 Farm, made up a fair and peaceful picture. 
 Jack directed Mavis's eyes to all his favourite 
 points, and they followed his guiding finger 
 eagerly, but were turned on his own face with 
 startled surprise when he said, in a changed 
 
2s6 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 voice, * It will be hard for my father to part 
 with it all.' 
 
 'Part with it?' 
 
 ' Yes, Mavis. This is a good time, and a 
 good place, with all that was ours before my 
 eyes, to tell you what has happened to my 
 father.' He placed her on the bench by his 
 side, and told her very simply that a great 
 change had come over the fortunes of the 
 Squire, and that it was only a poor soldier to 
 whom she had promised herself; 'but the 
 richest man in the world for all that,' he added, 
 as he kissed the hand he had held while telling 
 his story. His face was grave and steadfast, 
 and she crept closer to his side, with an added 
 sense of his strength and manliness, as, instead 
 of the words of regret, or even sympathy, that 
 he waited for, she said — 
 
 ' Oh, I am so glad ! for now it will not 
 matter so much.' 
 
 ' So glad, Mavis ! what can you mean .^ ' 
 
 'I am sorry for the Squire, of course ; 
 
' This is a good time, and a good place? 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 257 
 
 and I oiifrht to think of him first, but I cannot. 
 Did you believe that I did not know what a 
 difference there is between us ? If you really 
 are poor, as you say, and have to make yoi^r 
 own way, so much the better for me. I shnll 
 be far, far happier, and surely the Squire will 
 not mind so much ? ' 
 
 Jack was touched, but also relieved, by 
 Mavis's words. They were worthy of her 
 womanliness and simplicity, but they showed 
 Jack that she was not all untroubled by the 
 reflections that had disturbed him ; she too 
 was aware that the Squire might be expected 
 to ' mind.' There would be no risk of his 
 giving her offence by touching on his difficul- 
 ties, and proposing a plan that had presented 
 itself to him during their walk. This was 
 no other than the keeping of their blissful 
 secret from the knowledge of everybody, 
 hoarding it up in their own hearts, a treasure 
 of strength, hope, and consolation to both 
 during his absence, not revealing it until, as he 
 VOL. I. s 
 
258 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 hoped, his conduct and his fortune in the 
 Service would have given his father such 
 reason to be pleased with him that any con- 
 cession would come easy to the Squire. 
 
 How cordially Jack Bassett now hated the 
 memory of his recent follies ! With what con- 
 tempt he regarded his own self of only a few 
 weeks before I The wholesome humiUty of a 
 true love was in the young man's heart, as he 
 assured Mavis, in all fervent sincerity, that she 
 was a thousand times too good for him, and 
 that his father, when he came to know her, 
 would think so too, although he had much too 
 high an opinion of his only son. It was en- 
 tirely reasonable, according to their notions, 
 for these young lovers to regard the fact that 
 they loved each other as of supreme and unap- 
 proachable importance, and all other consider- 
 ations as merely relative ; but so soon as they 
 agreed to face those other considerations, gene- 
 rously to spare to them a slice out of their para- 
 dise, it was astonishing how they grew and waxed 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 259 
 
 strong. Jack was as yet a long way from 
 asking himself any sucli practical question as 
 how was he to marry, even were his liberally 
 estimated ' chances ' realised ; but the other 
 difficulties of the position began to define 
 themselves. 
 
 A serious and business-like conference be- 
 tween the lovers now tc^ok place, in which 
 Jack learned from Mavis enough of her daily 
 life and experience to show him that his sus- 
 picions of Wynn were well founded. Mavis 
 did not willingly tell the tale of her father's 
 tyranny, and the wretchedness of her home, 
 but she could not refuse her lover's appeal. 
 
 ' I must know how I leave you, and to 
 what,' he said ; ' I must be able to follow your 
 hfe from day to day. There cannot be any 
 secrets between us.' 
 
 She was obliged to tell him that her father 
 was unkind, harsh, and violent, and that she 
 lived in great fear of him. Jack restrained as 
 well as he could the v/rath with which this 
 
 s 2 
 
26o THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 avowal filled him, and asked lier how she 
 thought Wynn would take their engagement ? 
 
 ' I don't know ; I cannot guess. I know 
 in reality nothing at all of my father outside of 
 the things that happen every day. He tells us 
 nothing ; we are not his companions ; we don't 
 know what he would think or do about any- 
 thing. Because it would make me very happy, 
 I — I am afraid he would refuse.' 
 
 'Eefuse! Why he cannot, Mavis; I mean 
 he cannot prevent our marriage when the time 
 comes. There is no power on earth,' Jack 
 went on, with flashing, angry eyes, ' that can 
 do that if you are true to me.' 
 ' And if you are true to me.' 
 ' Nonsense ! that's not the same thing. I 
 true to you ! Talk of that when the needle 
 does not point to the north in these latitudes. 
 I'm my own master, darling ; no one can control 
 me. But you may be bullied, and that is dread- 
 ful to think of.' 
 
 ' He never lets us know his miud. Even 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 261 
 
 now something is going on unknown to us. 
 He has been constantly away. It would have 
 been impossible for us to have seen you so 
 often, if he had not been taken up with some- 
 thing that he is keeping from us.' 
 
 Jack privately bestowed a benediction on 
 the farmer's secretiveness, and suggested that 
 his conduct was a reason for their keeping their 
 secret until circumstances should make it neces- 
 sary to reveal it. 
 
 Mavis acquiesced ; the suggestion was a 
 great relief; but she begged for one modifica- 
 tion. 
 
 ' Mrs. Wynn is so fond of me,' she said, ' and 
 she frets so much about me — though her own 
 trouble might be enough for her — that I should 
 like to be able to relieve her mind. It would 
 be different for her if she might only know that 
 nothing can harm or hurt me, that no one in 
 the world can trouble me any more ! ' 
 
 ' And that is so, Mavis ? ' 
 
 Jack spoke solemnly, and with tears in his 
 
263 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 eyes, so beautiful was the girl's absolute trust 
 and sacred love. 
 
 * Yes,' she answered, smiling. ' That is what 
 it means, isn't it ? ' 
 
 ' This is what it shall mean, so help me 
 God ! ' 
 
 Mavis looked quietly at him, wondering a 
 little at his emotion, and continued — 
 
 ' My life has been hard sometimes, but it 
 will not be hard any more ; and I shall be able 
 to make it easier for her now that I shall not 
 have myself to think of at all. The days will 
 pass, not quickly, because for a while they 
 cannot bring you, but they will be full of you ; 
 and the rest will not signify. Let me tell her. 
 Jack.' 
 
 ' Of course you shall tell her. Poor woman ! 
 But I am glad she appreciates you, darling. 
 And it will be better for you to have one person 
 to speak to. Perhaps she will not be very 
 much surprised. Don't you think she must 
 have known that I fell in love with you that 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 263 
 
 day when she was so charitable as to tell me 
 that you were at the parsonage ? or at least 
 that she must be well aware of the fact 
 now ? ' 
 
 ' No, indeed, I am sure she is not,' said 
 Mavis, blushing celestially, and much confused ; 
 ' because — because she thinks you are going to 
 be married to a " great lady " — Miss Nestle 
 told her so.' 
 
 ' Did she indeed ? ' cried Jack, with a boy- 
 ish, gleeful laugh. ' What a well-conducted 
 lover the great lady would have if I were he, 
 and how divinely free from jealousy she would 
 have to be ! No, no, the great lady exists 
 only in Miss Nestle's imagination, assisted 
 by her wishes. Even if I had never met 
 you, Mavis, I could never marry for any motive 
 but the one. Do you care to know this, my 
 darling ? ' He drew her closely to his breast, 
 and spoke very low. ' I am not all unworthy 
 to ask for such a treasure as your love and 
 promise ; for, though I have been a fool in 
 
264 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 many things, I have never even imagined that 
 I loved any woman but you.' 
 
 These words achieved the turning of earth 
 into heaven for Mavis. 
 
 The rest of their talk turned chiefly upon 
 the mode of Mavis's life in the absence of Jack. 
 Perhaps, if she had ever known paternal love, 
 or filial confidence, Mavis would not have con- 
 sented so readily to Jack's proposal of silence. 
 But she had no sense that she was doing wrong 
 towards her own father, and she implicitly 
 believed that Jack must know best about his. 
 Mavis had never seen the Squire. 
 
 The question of correspondence now arose, 
 and it presented a difficulty. Mavis could not 
 receive letters openly without question. It 
 was rarely indeed that the letter-carrier brought 
 anything to the farm, to the address of the 
 farmer's wife or daughter. Twice or thrice a 
 year, perhaps, the former would hear from her 
 sister, who was now forewoman in a miUiner's 
 shop at Liverpool. Mavis occasionally had a 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 265 
 
 letter from a former pupil of her Uncle Jeffrey, 
 a Miss Silcote, who lived in London ; but she 
 had no otlier correspondent. 
 
 Jack's countenance fell when Mavis told 
 him this, and he began to think, but with no 
 immediate result, how the difficulty might be 
 met. Nothing that he had seen or heard gave 
 him so clear a notion of the narrow meagreness 
 of the life to which Mavis was condemned, as 
 this particular feature of it. How delightful it 
 would be to rescue her some day from this 
 vulgar dulness and slavery ! 
 
 Mavis could make no suggestion ; when 
 they had to go into details of this kind she 
 felt the pain of the inevitable secrecy, and 
 it embarrassed her. But she was not ab- 
 solutely unreasonable ; she knew her happi- 
 ness must have some drawback, and here it 
 was. 
 
 ' We must let this point be unsettled until 
 to-morrow,' said Jack, looking at his watch, 
 'for now I must leave you. I have to dress 
 
266 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 and drive to Trescoe Park, and shall barely 
 have time to do it in.' 
 
 ' Are there many people staying there 
 now ? ' Mavis asked timidly, as she took hold 
 of his watch-chain, and curiously examined a 
 bloodstone seal that hung from it, locket- wise. 
 She was thinking how much she should like to 
 see Trescoe Park, and the people with whom 
 Jack passed his time ; to get a glimpse of the 
 favoured hves that were so entirely unknown 
 to her. There was no touch of jealousy or 
 envy in Mavis ; her high-mindedness and sw^eet 
 temper preserved her from such evil ; she was 
 simply curious and interested because Jack was 
 concerned. 
 
 ' I don't know,' he answered carelessly — 
 ' there generally is a lot of people ; but Sir 
 Henry did not say. I don't want to go there, 
 but I must bid the Trescoes good-bye.' 
 
 The utterance of the word saddened him. 
 He sighed as. he pressed his arm more closely 
 about her waist, and his eyes fell on the 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 267 
 
 slender hand, with his seal lying on the open 
 palm. 
 
 ' That was my mother's seal,' he said, ' the 
 only thing I possess that belonged to her. 
 Will you keep it for me, until I can send you 
 a ring in exchange for it ? You must have an 
 " engaged" ring, you know, my darling.' 
 
 ' Oh no, no ! ' said Mavis, ' I could not 
 wear one ; it would be seen.' 
 
 ' That's true ; I forgot. Well, it's all the 
 same, a ring or a seal. Wear this where it 
 won't be seen, and close all your letters to me 
 with it.' 
 
 He loosed the seal from the chain, and 
 gave it to her. 
 
 Jack's mother ! She had never heard him 
 allude to her before. Was he like her ? Mavis 
 wondered. She had died young, as Mavis's 
 mother had died, but she must have been sorry 
 to die ; whereas the wife of David Wynn could 
 only have been glad. 
 
 ' I must go,' said Jack ; ' let us say good- 
 
258 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 bye here. Though it's growing dark, you can 
 see me ahuost all the way across the fields. 
 Look ! I can make out a car on the road now.' 
 
 ' It is father's,' said Mavis. ' I cannot stay 
 here. We will go down together,' 
 
 He left her at the door of the Dame's 
 Parlour-side, and she rejoined Mrs. Wynn, 
 again to find her in trepidation. 
 
 ' You don't know how late it is,' she said, 
 ' and there's many tilings behindhand. It's 
 very pleasant for you to have so much of Mr. 
 Jack's company, but I do wish he wouldn't 
 stay so long. I doubt we shall get into trouble 
 about it.' 
 
 ' He is only coming once more,' said Mavis ; 
 ' he is going away on Thursday.' 
 
 Mavis would have been glad to tell Mrs. 
 Wynn the truth then and there, but the wheels 
 of the round car w^ere drawing very near, and 
 her story was not one to be told in a hurry. 
 Mrs. Wynn seemed more of a ' poor creature ' 
 than usual this evening, and Mavis knew that 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 269 
 
 she was troubled about her ; but she smiled to 
 think how baseless was the trouble, and how 
 soon it would be dispelled. A light broke 
 upon Mrs. Wynn when Mavis spoke ; the girl's 
 voice and face revealed her feelings, to the 
 great alarm of her stepmother, whose instan- 
 taneous thought was, ' If any harm comes to 
 
 her through this, Wynn will kill me ! ' 
 
 ***** 
 
 'Now you quite understand,' said Jack 
 Bassett to Mrs. Wynn when the moment of 
 parting was very near, ' the reason why I do 
 not speak to my father and to Wynn, and let 
 everybody whom it may concern know that 
 Mavis is my promised wife ? You are satisfied 
 — you, her best friend, are you not ? ' 
 
 'I quite understand, Mr. Jack,' was Mrs. 
 Wynn's answer, made with her inveterate sub- 
 missiveness, at which Jack winced. ' And it is 
 much better for us all as it is.' 
 
 It was in the Dame's Parlour that the 
 lovers said their parting words. Mavis thought 
 
270 THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 of them afterwards for many a day, as though 
 they had been spoken in a blessed dream. 
 Solemn, amid their tenderness and passion, were 
 the vows which the young man and the girl 
 exchanged ; for as Jack held Mavis in a close 
 embrace he pronounced resolutely, and made 
 her repeat after him, that awful promise : 'For 
 better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sick- 
 ness and in health, to love, honour, and cherish, 
 until death do us part.' 
 
 And then he was gone ! Mavis, standing 
 pale and rigid as a statue at the casement of 
 Dame Dorothy's Parlour, saw him cross the 
 little river, tie the boat up to the post, wave 
 his hat to her, and take the path across the 
 fields. The ' uncertain glory ' had vanished 
 from the 'April day.' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 27T 
 
 CHAPTER XI, 
 
 FAEMER WYNN's BUSINESS. 
 
 All the world was awaiting with deep anxiety, 
 and reading, when they came, with intense 
 interest, those famous letters in the Times, 
 written from the East, which, for the first time 
 in our history, made England a spectator of 
 the great drama of her own destiny, while it 
 was being acted upon foreign shores. The war 
 was the great topic of the time, and countless 
 hearts in the United Kinordom were thrillino^ 
 with a hitherto unknown, unimagined dread. 
 Actual hostihties had not yet begun, but the 
 muster of the allied forces was going on briskly, 
 and among the young officers who went out 
 in the early period of those ' brave days ' was 
 Jack Bassett. 
 
272 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 Every day of his stay in London was so 
 Mly occupied by the business of his start in 
 hfe and the preparations for his voyage, that 
 he had but httle leisure for any talk with his 
 father on matters not strictly relating to him- 
 self. He was well aware during that busy and 
 hurried time that the Squire, acting with his 
 invariable generosity, was expending money 
 unsparingly, and making everything as easy as 
 possible for him. He was also conscious that 
 Mr. Dexter thought there was a little too much 
 of this. The lawyer's notion was, that if cir- 
 cumstances render it necessary for a young 
 man to be economical, and to learn the art of 
 doing without, the sooner he enters on that 
 course of education the better. His own early 
 training had been of such a kind, and Mr. 
 Dexter was on the whole not ill-satisfied with 
 the result. If he had had the ordering of the 
 proceedings in the present instance, the young 
 soldier would have started off on the path to 
 glory or the grave with a humbler kit and a 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 273 
 
 smaller allowance. But on those points the 
 Squire would heed no advice and take no hints. 
 Jack had had a tumble from his hiHi horse 
 already, and had picked himself up so cheer- 
 fully, with never a grumble, that his father 
 could not bear to hold his hand in anything 
 that would be for the brave and manly young 
 fellow's comfort and welfare. 
 
 Those who have not closely observed of 
 what exquisite tenderness and inventive affec- 
 tion some men are capable, would have called 
 the Squire's care and foresight, in every pro- 
 vision and arrangement for his son, womanlike. 
 Womanlike they would also have esteemed 
 his self-repression and evasiveness, when Jack 
 occasionally adverted to what his father meant 
 to do by-and-by. 
 
 ' By-and-by ' was a good vague phrase ; the 
 young man used it naturally ; he had no pre- 
 science of all it signified ; his mind was full of 
 himself, his heart was full of Mavis. If he was 
 a little careless, he was not ungrateful ; the 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 concealment of what lie felt to be the great 
 fact of his hfe from the father of whose love 
 and indulgence he received fresh proofs every 
 day, sometimes gave him an uneasy twinge. 
 The plea by which he assuaged the pang — that 
 of consideration for the Squire — was a real 
 reason, not merely an excuse. 
 
 To say that the Squire suffered much during 
 those days of preparation for the parting that 
 he dreaded, is only to say that lie loved the son 
 whom he was sending from him to danger, it 
 might be death, with the singleness of a tender 
 nature, which had but one object of affection. 
 But in the perfectness of that one affection his 
 strength lay ; it inspired him with the courage 
 of self-sacrifice, and it made him completely 
 reasonable in all his expectations from his son. 
 The ' by-and-by ' would be for him to consider 
 and regulate when Jack was gone from his 
 sight ; he was unfeignedly glad that his son's 
 easy-going nature had accepted the vague assur- 
 ance that it would be ' all right.' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 275 
 
 Thus there was not any shadow ou those 
 last days which the father and son passed 
 together. The secret in Jack's breast did not 
 produce the constraint that is almost always the 
 result of confidence being withheld where it is 
 due. The Squire bade him God-speed, and was 
 left to the arrows that fly by night, without the 
 slightest suspicion that he could have given his 
 son a bit of supremely important information. 
 
 Mr. Bassettdid not return home immediately 
 after Jack's departure. Business arose to detain 
 him in London. This was the prospect of a 
 tenant for Bassett, who offered terms as advan- 
 tageous as Mr. Dexter had ever hoped to secure, 
 and who was willing to consult the convenience 
 of the Squire with respect to the time of taking 
 possession. 
 
 Mr. Dexter was in good spirits. He had 
 been disposed to demur to the Squire's letting 
 Jack go away without having the whole of his 
 father's intentions made plain to him, but he had 
 forborne from urging this view, reflecting that if 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 he carried his point it would probably do more 
 harm to the father than good to the son. The 
 Squire's intentions he could not but approv^e, 
 while he profoundly regretted them. The offer 
 for Bassett came exactly at the right moment to 
 facilitate their being carried out without delay, 
 and with the minimum of inseparable and in- 
 evitable pain. 
 
 ' A retired silk merchant, formerly of Lyons ; 
 an Enghshman, very English in looks and 
 speech ; very fond of travelling, not likely to be 
 much at home, and yet anxious to take Bassett 
 for ten years, although he has no connection 
 with the neighbourhood. It sounds odd, doesn't 
 it ? ' asked the Squire of Mr. Dexter. 
 
 The aspirant had called on Mr. Dexter in the 
 afternoon, and the Squire and his friend were 
 discussing the interview after dinner. 
 
 ' I don't see that. A man who has lived his 
 life and made his money in a town, must break 
 quite new ground when he comes into the 
 country, and is as hkely to be led by the eye as 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 277 
 
 by any other consideration. This appears to be 
 Mr. Lansdell's case ; he has seen Bassett, and 
 fallen in love with the place at first sight.' 
 
 ' Seen Bassett ! When ? I don't remember 
 any one of that name ever coming there.' 
 
 ' No, he does not know you. He was there 
 last week. He came to know that you might 
 be open to an offer through your tenant, Farmer 
 Wynn. He met Wynn at Chester, and got into 
 conversation with him accidentally. It was he 
 who took Mr. Lansdell to Bassett, and procured 
 him a sight of the house, without waiting for 
 formal permission from you.' 
 
 The Squire smiled : 
 
 ' Wynn thought he was advancing his own 
 business by giving mine a shove. And he 
 is right. When 'tis to be done, 'twere well that 
 it Avere done quickly. I wonder what sort of 
 reception Miss Nestle gave him. It would not 
 have been a cordial one if she had any inkling 
 of the truth.' 
 
 The Squire spoke lightly, but there was 
 
278 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 a look of anxiety in his face. The faithful 
 servant, who would regard any interruption of 
 the decorous and long-descended prosperity of 
 Bassett of Bassett as unaccountable misbehaviour 
 on the part of Providence, was a serious con- 
 sideration to him. It would be hard to console 
 or appease Miss Nestle ; she would be sure to 
 denounce the law and its exponents, and to hold, 
 until the end of her days, the firm belief that 
 the Squire had been victim of a dark con- 
 spiracy. 
 
 ' Ah ! I wonder,' said Mr. Dexter. ' He was 
 immensely pleased with everything, and, as you 
 know, apphed to me ; that, also, on Wynn's in- 
 formation. He is a shrewd and practical man, 
 I should say, but, like many men of that kind, 
 content to pay a fancy price for a fancy. He 
 was very cordial and pleasant when the formal 
 part of our interview was over, and seemed 
 chiefly anxious to make it plain that he was 
 entirely at your disposal in all secondary 
 matters.' 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 279 
 
 ' Will it be necessary for me to meet this 
 gentleman ? ' 
 
 ' Not exactly necessary,' answered Mr. 
 Dexter, ' at least for the present ; but, as you 
 will certainly have to meet him afterwards, and 
 will like to be on friendly terms with him, 
 if only for the sake of your people ' — (he knew 
 his words were making the Squire wince, but 
 he felt bound to say them) — ' do you not think 
 it would be as well for you to make his 
 acquaintance now ? ' 
 
 The Squire agreed, but with evident reluc- 
 tance. Here was a poiut on which his habit of 
 procrastination would have led him into hesita- 
 tion that could only cause more pain in the future. 
 It was like him to have made up his mind, 
 with external calmness and comparative ease, to 
 the great change in his way of life that was 
 demanded, and then to find a single detail of it 
 almost intolerable, to shrink from coming face 
 to face with the man who was to fill his place. 
 He leaned forward, with his elbow on the table. 
 
28o THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 and Ills eyes shaded by his hand, while Mr. 
 Dexter repeated the sum of the conversation 
 between himself and Mr. Lansdell, and thought 
 that the feelings of a disembodied spirit, revisit- 
 ing the scene where it had lived, been replaced, 
 and forgotten, would be something like his 
 own. But he soon shook off this mood, and 
 was his patient and practical self once more. 
 
 There was so much good-will on both sides, 
 that the weighty matter of the letting of Bas- 
 sett, the park, the home-farm, and the house, 
 to Mr. Lansdell for ten years, at a rent which 
 would enable the Squire to do all that was 
 obhgatory upon him, was effected with sur- 
 prising celerity. Before a hint of the changes 
 impending at Basset t had reached the ears of 
 the neighbourhood, while the prolonged ab- 
 sence of the Squire and the departure of Jack 
 were still talked of at the general shop in the 
 village, and at the gatherings in the churchyard 
 after divine service, a great revolution had been 
 silently effected, and the house on the hill had 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 281 
 
 passed into the tenancy of a stranger whose 
 name had never been heard in the place. 
 
 It was not the least remarkable feature of a 
 transaction which had sufficient appositeness 
 and concurrence of convenience to realise 
 Tony Lumpkin's ' concatenation accordingly,' 
 that Mr. Lansdell was not only in no hurry to 
 take possession of his newly acquired mansion, 
 but that he was actually about to leave 
 England. He was detained only by the for- 
 malities of this important transaction, whose 
 every step was easy, smooth, and satisfactory. 
 The necessary documents were completed ; the 
 necessary investigations proved entirely satis- 
 factory ; the Squire and Mr. Lansdell met, and 
 got on very well together. Certain feelings 
 inseparable from the position, and his anxiety 
 to observe what manner of man the person was 
 who must now inevitably possess influence in the 
 place where he himself had so long exercised it, 
 preserved the Squire from falling into the 
 absence of mind that sometimes made strangers 
 
282 > THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 set him down as cold, stiff, and indifferent. 
 The manner of the new master of Bassett 
 was blameless. 
 
 It had not escaped the quick perception o 
 Mr. Dexter that the Squire's tenant was very 
 observant of him, although he did not make 
 the mistake — into which a less well-bred person 
 might have fallen — of pressing attentions upon 
 Mr. Bassett. The arrangement by which the 
 Bassett hbrary was to remain undisturbed was 
 suggested by Mr. Lansdell as a favour to him- 
 self, and he added a request that, as much as 
 possible, the household should be left as it was 
 then constituted. At this Mr. Dexter shook 
 his head : the mainstay of all things at Bassett 
 was Miss Nestle, and she would go with the 
 Squire, however heart-breaking it might be to 
 her to leave the scene of her long and undis- 
 puted rule. No doubt she would not refuse to 
 make proper provision for the well-being of 
 the house ; but, as Mr. Dexter felt certain she 
 would hate Mr. Lansdell's very name, he did 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 283 
 
 not venture to be cordial in his assurances. 
 He got out of the matter, as lie thought, by sug- 
 gesting that as the new tenant did not intend 
 to take immediate possession, or even to visit 
 the place at present, he ought to be repre- 
 sented there by his own man of business. At 
 this point a fresh surprise awaited Mr. Dexter. 
 Mr. Lansdell told him that he was not in the 
 habit of employing any such functionary ; that 
 he transacted all his affairs himself, as he had 
 done in the present instance ; and, in every- 
 thing that concerned Bassett during his tenancy 
 of the place, wished Mr. Dexter himself to act 
 lor him. 
 
 ' There cannot, I am sure, be any objection, 
 either professional or personal, to your doing 
 this,' continued Mr. Lansdell. ' The interests 
 of Squire Bassett and myself cannot possibly 
 clash in any way ; and it would be impossible 
 to devise an arrangement better for both par- 
 ties.' 
 
 The Squire, to whom Mr. Dexter referred 
 
284 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 this proposal, was of Mr. Lansdell's opinion ; 
 the new tenant had his own way in this par- 
 ticular also, and the business was concluded 
 with friendliness on all sides. 
 
 Mr. Lansdell went back to his hotel, after 
 his final visit to Mr. Dexter, in a complacent 
 state of mind. Before he was at liberty to eat 
 his last dinner and go to his last play in a city 
 where the sun's visits were of the angelic order, 
 he had only to write the following lines to a 
 friend : — 
 
 ' It is all settled. I start to-morrow. D. is 
 a fine old fellow, but you were right ; he is 
 much too honest to be trusted — it was well 
 you saw him and discovered that. I shall 
 report myself speedily. 
 
 'D. L.' 
 
 The writer addressed this missive to — 
 
 ' Monsieur Eeveillon, 
 
 ' Eue Neuve des Mathurins, 100, 
 
 ' Paris.' 
 ^ * * * * 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 2S5 
 
 It would still be some time before news of 
 Jack could reacli England. In the Crimean 
 war time we used to talk about the suspense 
 to which our predecessors were condemned 
 in the days of the Great Duke and the Corsican 
 adventurer, and now, regarded in comparison 
 with the daily epitome of the current history of 
 the world for which we now look as a matter 
 of course, communication seems to have been 
 slow in ' the fifties.' The Squire lingered on in 
 London until he had heard from Jack of his 
 safe arrival, and all the world was reading the 
 brilliant Times correspondent's letter that told 
 of the making of the intrenched camp at Bulari, 
 the vastness and convenience of the new 
 barracks at Scutari, and the approaching depar- 
 ture of the allied forces for Yarna. 
 
 The Squire was affected as weU as pleased 
 by Jack's letter. The boy was a man now, and 
 a soldier ; taking heartily to the life that he 
 liad selected for himself ; an active life, at least in 
 this initial stage of it. What would he make 
 
286 THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 of it ? The Squire asked of Fate the same 
 question we all ask about our chiklren, and 
 followed it up with the reflection that comes to 
 the majority of us, whatever may be our ex- 
 ternal record : ' I trust not such a failure as I 
 have made of mine.' Then, referring^ ac^ain to 
 the letter that seemed to him to mark an epoch, 
 the Squire dwelt with satisfaction upon the 
 unlikeness of Jack to himself. ' He has evei y 
 quality that goes to the forming of a success- 
 ful, popular, happy man ; he will not be ruled 
 by the fastidious pride and the egotistical 
 sensitiveness that have made the very opposite 
 of me. I don't think Jack will ever disappoint 
 me, or be himself disappointed very deeply by 
 anything, after the admirable way in which he 
 has taken all this.' 
 
 ***** 
 
 The ' general shop ' is an old-world institu- 
 tion still surviving in many English villages, 
 and at the time of this story it usually com- 
 bined the proper purposes denoted by its name 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 287 
 
 Avitli the functions of a post-office. The general 
 shop in the village of Bassett was a case in 
 point, and a great centre of news and gossip as 
 well. Its proprietor was a Welshman, so like 
 Eeuben Jones, come to more than middle age, 
 and worn with prolonged distribution of gro- 
 ceries, cheap prints, choice flannel, articles of 
 ironmongery, and postage stamps, that he 
 might have been that youth's father — only he 
 wasn't ; and indeed, Lewis, the baker, whose 
 shop was next door, was equally like the typi- 
 cal Welsh boy. Mrs. WiUiams was also black- 
 haired, beady- eyed, red -cheeked, and she might 
 have been Mr. WiHiams's sister, so much did 
 she resemble him. She was, however, only his 
 far-away cousin, and active, dutiful, imperious 
 vrife. This childless couple were as greedy of 
 gain as if they had had a hungry brood to pro- 
 vide for, and their community of motive united 
 them with thoroughness such as the finest tastes 
 and talents possessed in common by a wedded 
 pair will sometimes fail to produce. It was 
 
2ga THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 chiefly through Squire Bassett's influence that 
 they had been given the post-office to keep, 
 and the privilege, though not lucrative in itself, 
 had realised the calculations of Mrs. Williams 
 to a nicety. Even in such a quiet village as 
 Bassett, people made a sort of centre of a place 
 into vv^hich news was constantly drifting, and 
 where a word or two with a neighbour might 
 be had at most times for the trouble of crossing 
 the street. A steady stream of small remunera- 
 tive custom poured into the general shop, and 
 w^hen the bright idea struck Mrs. Williams that 
 they might as well do a little trade in news- 
 papers — for which an unprecedented demand 
 sprang up about that time — the ' London parcel ' 
 hour saw a daily group awaiting her leisurely 
 distribution of the journals. 
 
 At the general shop the first rumour of 
 something wrong at Bassett arose ; no one 
 could tell exactly how, nor was it ever traced 
 to its source. Some one from the village, 
 who had been employed up at the House, had 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED, 289 
 
 brought back and liberally dispensed a story of 
 how Miss Nestle was terribly put out about 
 something, and 'that arbitrary and particular 
 no one couldn't please her ; ' and how, as it was 
 well known she had nobody belonging to her, 
 and did not ' look beyond ' the Squire, there 
 could be no doubt but that trouble had come to 
 him. This story went farther than this, even 
 extending to a hint, from which the talebearer 
 seemed to shrink as from somethincr sacrilegious, 
 of the House being let to a strange family, and 
 the Squire going aw^ay ' to foreign parts.' 
 
 This rumour reached the ears of Mavis 
 Wynn, as she stood before the rail of the 
 dark httle hutch, on one side of the shop, in 
 which the post-office business of Bassett was 
 transacted by JMr. Wilhams, while his wife 
 served their customers at the other side. 'Any 
 letter for you to be kept till called for. Miss ? ' 
 Williams repeated after her, wdth provoking 
 slowness, and turning to a shelf at the back of 
 the hutch, while her heart beat so strongly that 
 
 VOL. I. U 
 
igo THE LOVER'S CREED, 
 
 it seemed to rcxjk her from side to side as she 
 stood. 
 
 ' Any letter for you to be kept till called 
 for ? Well, yes, there is one, by this morning's 
 mail, London postmark.' 
 
 He turned over a small packet as hngeringly 
 as though he could not bear to part with the 
 precious thing, and at last pushed it towards 
 Mavis with the remark : — 
 
 ' The carrier's gone up your way with a 
 registered parcel/ 
 
 Mavis had come for Jack's first letter from 
 the East, and she now held it in her hand ; the 
 envelope was directed by herself, and it had 
 been posted for him by a friend in London. 
 Jack had devised this means of overcoming 
 tlieir difficulty. It had been arranged between 
 them that whenever the newspaper intelligence 
 informed Mavis that letters had been received 
 from the army in the East, she was to apply at 
 the village post-office. The lovers were not 
 unaware that there was some risk in this plan ; 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 291 
 
 that in so small a place as Bassett things were 
 apt to get talked of, and that village postmasters 
 were not always models of discretion ; still, 
 there was nothing else for it. The incurious 
 and unihterested manner in which Mr. Williams 
 had attended to her inquiry on the present 
 occasion, and also previously when she asked 
 for the two letters to which Jack prudently 
 restricted himself while he was in London, was 
 reassuring to Mavis ; very likely he thought 
 nothing at all about the circumstance, and 
 would • forget it. She turned towards the 
 counter behind which Mrs. Williams was stand- 
 ing, and asked for some household trifle ; and 
 then she heard what two women, who were 
 enjoying a comfortable gossip while they com- 
 pared samples of flannel, were saying. She had 
 full opportunity of listening to their discourse ; 
 for Mrs. Williams was so much engrossed by it 
 that she took no notice of Mavis's modest 
 request, but stood, absorbed, with the yard- 
 measure in her hand. 
 
 V S 
 
292 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 ' Well, that is a wonderful thing, to be sure/ 
 said Mrs. Williams, when all the tale had been 
 unfolded ; ' and I'm sure I hope it's no come- 
 down along of the young gentleman that's gone 
 to the wars.' 
 
 ' Oh dear ! I heard nothing of that,' said 
 the informant, while the other woman shook 
 her head with a comfortably lamentable air. 
 ' but of course there's no saying, Mrs. Williams. 
 We mostly are punished through our idols, you 
 know, and it's well for them that has not got 
 any. But Squire Bassett will be a sore miss for 
 many ; and, dear heart, but it will be cur'ous to 
 have strangers up at the House.' 
 
 ' What did you want. Miss ? ' asked Mrs. 
 Williams, roused by Mavis's moving towards 
 the door, and abandoning the gossips for the 
 moment. Mavis constrained herself to make 
 her small purchase, and then escaped with the 
 precious letter. 
 
 She was not greatly disturbed by the talk 
 she had overheard, for she held it to be merely 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 293 
 
 an exafy^eration of the truth as Jack had told 
 it to her. ' The land will have to be let up to 
 the windows,' he had said, but never a word 
 of the Squire leaving his own house. Mavis 
 carried Jack's letter unopened to the top of the 
 tower, a rich bower of varied greenery now, 
 where she was hidden from every eye, and read 
 it, with such throbs of joy and pain as love- 
 letters have caused since the first of them — 
 where is the antiquary who will put a date to 
 it? — was written. 
 
 The letter was characteristic of its writer. 
 All the narrative part of it was succinct and 
 simple ; the lover's talk was like Jack's spoken 
 words, manly and earnest, with fervour and 
 fidelity in it which would be surprising if not 
 altogether ridiculous in these different days, 
 when, if modern chroniclers of the time are to 
 be believed, it is the women and not the men 
 who make all the love. Jack ended with an 
 entreaty to her to get herself brought under 
 his father's notice as soon as possible. ' There 
 
294 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 will be nothing awkward in your going up to 
 see Miss Nestle now,' wrote the simply-astute 
 lover, who had carefully concealed from Mavis 
 his discovery of Miss Nestle's suspicions. 
 ' My father has only to learn what you are to 
 love you ; to know that the best that could 
 befall him would be to have you for his 
 daughter.' 
 
 She read the precious pages many times, 
 kissed them, and shed over them tears, that to 
 her far-distant lover would have been pearls of 
 great price, to be gathered by his lips from 
 her fair cheeks, but which the lonely wind had 
 now to dry. At last Mavis placed the docu- 
 ment in a little silken case containing Jack's 
 first letters and the seal he had given her, and 
 hid them away in her bosom, together with the 
 image that reigned there, never to be displaced. 
 She was consoled, elated, made happy by her 
 lover's letter ; she was strong to face the tasks 
 of the day, and whatever it might bring. 
 
 Mrs. Wynn was in the big parlour. Mavis 
 
THE LOVER'S CREED. 295 
 
 found her regarding with uneasy wonderment 
 a bulky parcel that had come by post, and 
 speculating on its probable contents. 
 
 ' Your father wasn't in, and so I signed for 
 it,' said Mrs. Wynn. ' Just feel it, Mavis ; it 
 crackles for all the world like lawyers' paper 
 — parchment, I mean. Perhaps it's his will ; 
 but he hasn't been ill lately, and he's not the 
 man to make his will so long as he can 
 avoid it.' 
 
 ' Never mind what it is, Sarah,' said Mavis, 
 as she hovered about her stepmother in the 
 graceful caressing way that to the forlorn 
 woman was balm for all but the most grievous 
 and incurable of her wounds. * I have 
 something worth thinking of to tell you. I 
 have a letter from Jack, from Scutari ; he 
 is safe and well, and he writes in such good 
 spirits.' 
 
 Then Mavis repeated the contents of her 
 lover's letter, with omissions, and patiently 
 explained to Mrs. Wynn the localities and the 
 
296 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 interests of which he wrote, and which she had 
 studied by every means within her reach, since 
 that far-off country, whose soil Jack Bassett 
 trod, had become a glorified land to her who 
 loved him. 
 
 Life had been no easier in any of its 
 external circumstances to the women at Field- 
 flower Farm since the departure of Jack. 
 There was no change in the moroseness, varied 
 only by violence, of the man who held them in 
 a bondage as real and as hopeless as that of 
 household slaves in pagan times, and there was 
 no variety in the round of their occupations. 
 But they both bore their weary life better : 
 Mavis, because there was within her breast a 
 source of happiness that no one and nothing 
 in her daily existence could trouble ; and Mrs. 
 Wynn, because her unselfish nature had at 
 length found an outlet for its disinterested 
 tenderness, and also because the unknown dear 
 delight of a love-affair engrossed her to a sur- 
 prising extent. She was never tired of talking 
 
THE LOVERS S CREED. 
 
 297 
 
 of Jack ; many and wild were her speculations 
 as to what he was to achieve, and how ' high 
 up ' he would be on his return. Sometimes she 
 w^ould approach the subject of Mavis's future 
 grandeur as the mistress of the House on the 
 hill ; but Mavis shrank from that part of the 
 subject. She could dream dreams of the ' poor 
 soldier' hfe, sketched out by Jack, and, to 
 her fancy, Elysian ; but she had no ambition 
 in her, beyond that vast ambition which had 
 already found so surprising a realisation. 
 
 Mavis knew from Jack that he had written 
 at length to his father. She was talking to 
 her stepmother of the Squire ; saying that she 
 wished much to see him, yet felt nervous about 
 it, and was just going to tell Mrs. Wynn the 
 foolish tale she had overheard at WiUiams's, 
 when the unexpected appearance of her father 
 checked her. 
 
 * Is there a parcel come by post ? ' he 
 asked, barely crossing the threshold of the 
 room. 
 
298 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 ' Yes, father,' said Mavis, rising, and hand- 
 ing it to him. He slammed the door and went 
 into the small adjoining room. 
 
 ' I thought we shouldn't know what is in 
 it,' said Mrs. Wynn, with childish resignation ; 
 ' he would be sure not to open it before us.' 
 
 The next minute Wynn returned, and bade 
 his wife see to getting a room ready for Mr. 
 Eeckitts. 
 
 ' He is coming over from Crewe this 
 evening,' said Wynn, ' and you had better 
 look sharp and see that he's comfortable.' 
 
 He spoke in his usual bullying tone, yet 
 Mavis fancied he did not use it altogether 
 naturally. Mrs. Wynn quietly replied that 
 she would see about the room at once ; but 
 she showed no curiosity. He turned towards 
 the door and spoke again, in his surliest 
 manner : 
 
 ' I have something to say to you two before 
 Eeckitts comes. When you've seen to things 
 upstairs, come back here.' 
 
THE LOVERS CREED. 299 
 
 Mavis and her stepmother exchanged 
 alarmed looks as they went upstairs, but did 
 not speak until they were quite out of his 
 hearing. 
 
 ' Mavis,' said Mrs. Wynn, in a half-whisper, 
 ' what can it be ? I'm frightened ! ' 
 
 Wynn was standing in front of the fireplace 
 in tlie big parlour when his wife and daughter 
 returned. His hands were thrust into his 
 pockets, and his face wore its blackest look. 
 Mrs. Wynn, with fear and feebleness painfully 
 written on her countenance, sank into a chair 
 near the door, and wrapped up her shak- 
 ing hands in her black silk apron. Mavis, 
 though rather pale, stood by her side com- 
 posedly, and waited for the farmer to speak. 
 Her heart was strong, for it beat against her 
 lover's letter. 
 
 ' What I've got to say to you is this,' Wynn 
 began, ' and you would have heard it sooner, 
 only for the cursed clack of you women, when 
 you've got to do anything you mayn't like. 
 
300 THE LOVER'S CREED. 
 
 I've been tired of the farm for a good bit, and 
 making up my mind to take to another kind of 
 life. I've settled matters with my brother. 
 Eeckitts takes the farm, just as it stands, and 
 you'll have to sail for Melbourne in three 
 weeks.' 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
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