* rl4&* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 11 E> R.ARY 
 
 OF THE 
 UN IVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
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 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 NEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES, 
 
 ONE WAY OF LOVE. By Constance Smith, author of 
 
 1 The Repentance of Paul Wentworth,' &c. 3 vols. 
 
 NURSE ELISIA. By G. Manville Fenn, author of ' Mahme 
 
 Nousie,' 'The Master of the Ceremonies,' &c. 2 vols. 
 
 A WOMAN'S AMBITION. By Henry Cresswell, author 
 
 of ' A Modern Greek Heroine,' &c. 3 vols. 
 
 SIR ANTHONY. By Adeline Sergeant, author of ' Caspar 
 
 Brooke's Daughter,' 'A Life Sentence,' &c. 3 vols. 
 
 BENT ON CONQUEST. By Edith Maud Nicholson. 
 
 3 vols. 
 
 LONDON: HURST & BLACKETT, LIMITED.
 
 ALSTON CRUCIS 
 
 BY 
 
 HELEN SHIPTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 DAGMAR,' ' THE LAST OF THE FENWICKES,' ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1893. 
 
 All Rights Reserved.
 
 1)t I 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 3 
 
 I. 
 
 A Funeral 
 
 II. 
 
 Gipsies at Home 
 
 III. 
 
 A Fair Woman 
 
 CI 
 
 IV. 
 
 At Deerhurst . 
 
 ■^ 
 
 V 
 
 V. 
 
 On the Tramp . 
 
 > 
 
 VX 
 
 Mr. Walrond's Hospitality 
 
 VIL 
 
 Secrets . 
 
 I 
 
 62 
 103 
 135 
 176 
 219 
 259
 
 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A FUNERAL. 
 
 What corse is this they follow ? 
 And with such maimed rites ? . . . 'Twas of some estate. 
 
 Hamkt. 
 
 There is a general rebellion nowadays 
 against the good old custom of ending 
 every story with a wedding — the wedding. 
 For a brief space it was restored to popu- 
 larity by the expedient of making the hero 
 or heroine marry the wrong person ; but 
 obviously that was a thing that must not 
 be done too often. And so some pains- 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 ALSTOX CRUCIS. 
 
 taking writers resolved that the written 
 stories should begin as the unwritten ones 
 do, with a birth, and end with a funeral. 
 
 And yet, to one watching from the 
 church-yard gate the dark group beside a 
 closing grave, there conies often a strange 
 feeling that this is not so much an end as 
 a beginning. For even to those sable-clad 
 mourners a new world must be opening, 
 after what seemed for the time more like 
 the end of all things. Life must readjust 
 itself: the gap that form has left must be 
 filled up, be it never so wide. 
 
 He is gone who was master of all, and 
 the very dogs miss him — but even the dogs 
 know that they have a new master. The 
 heir stands now where thirty years ago 
 his father stood, with all life before him ; 
 and so the world goes on, seeming even to 
 move a little faster than before, after its 
 pause of consternation.
 
 A FUNERAL. 6 
 
 Therefore this story shall reverse the 
 obvious order, and begin with a funeral ; 
 and end thereafter as the fates shall 
 please. 
 
 It was at least a strange and noteworthy 
 funeral, which took place on a cold, bright 
 October afternoon, some years ago, in the 
 churchyard of Alston St. Denis. 
 
 A stately pageant enough it seemed at 
 hrst sight, and heathenishly lugubrious : 
 the great hearse with its four black horses 
 lacking nothing of that panoply of woe that 
 custom then made inevitable. 
 
 Xor were followers of a certain kind 
 wanting, for Alston St. Denis is a large 
 village, and it had contributed more than 
 the usual number of village folks in their 
 working clothes, and children of all sizes. 
 
 But the funeral party proper seemed 
 strangely small. For surely this was one 
 
 b 2
 
 4 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 of the county magnates, for whom had been 
 taken clown one of the ponderous iron rail- 
 ings that enclosed half-a-rood of more pon- 
 derous masonry, for whom the family vault 
 gaped wide as the tomb of the Capulets. 
 
 c Malreward ' was the name engraved 
 upon the burnished silver of the coffin- 
 plate ; and the names of so many Malre- 
 wards were cut in stone all around, that 
 one might wonder if there could be room 
 for another in the vault there below. 
 
 In such cases there is usually no lack 
 of mourners, even though half of them 
 may be privately thinking that the world 
 will get on quite as well without their late 
 lamented friend as with him. 
 
 But here, outside the lych-gate, stood 
 but two mourning-coaches, which had con- 
 veyed a party of four only — two private car- 
 riages, which had come empty, — a 'gig' with 
 a handsome mare between the shafts, — and
 
 A FUNERAL. O 
 
 two or three nondescript vehicles evidently 
 belonging to small tradesmen, smaller farm- 
 ers, and possibly the country doctor. 
 
 Inside, by the grave, the group was 
 proportionately meagre. Xearest the 
 coffin, and evidently nearest in every sense 
 of the word, stood a tall young man of 
 about two-anjd-twenty and a boy of thirteen. 
 Xext to them came two respectable-looking 
 elderly gentlemen, the land steward and the 
 family lawyer ; and then ten or a dozen 
 decent, grave-faced persons, presumably 
 tenants, who had acted as bearers, and who 
 looked as if still oppressed by the great 
 velvet pall. And beyond, there was only 
 the soberly-curious population of Alston 
 St. Denis. 
 
 The clergyman who had just read the 
 burial service — and who was not the rec- 
 tor of the parish — had retired hastily up 
 the flagged pathway towards the church,
 
 b ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 to take off his friend's surplice, which was 
 ludicrously too short for him. 
 
 The two slight, young figures in their 
 deep black stood motionless beside the 
 opening of the vault, with not one friend 
 or neighbour beside them ; while the rest 
 of the small part)' stood somewhat with- 
 drawn, silently watching them with half- 
 covert glances. 
 
 They were evidently brothers, dark- 
 haired and dark-eyed both, with that 
 family likeness which seems so strong at 
 first sight, and fades away as faces grow 
 more familiar. 
 
 But while the younger was a good speci- 
 men of a well-grown English boy, the elder 
 had a picturesque un-English face, with a 
 possibility of more than English passion in 
 it, despite the pallor and almost sullenness 
 of grief. 
 
 The boy had been crying during the
 
 A FUNERAL. 7 
 
 service, and was even now making a stren- 
 uous, half-a shamed effort to choke back 
 his tears. But if the young man's eyes 
 were heavy, it was not with tears that any 
 there might have seen him shed. He had 
 stood beside his father's coffin, from first 
 to last, with head erect, and lips compress- 
 ed, and looks full of defiant, smouldering 
 anger. 
 
 Watchful, too, and intent, as if listen- 
 ing for something — perhaps for the tardy 
 arrival of some who surely ought to 
 have been there. Such laggard sympathy 
 might have seemed little better than none : 
 and, indeed, the young man knew well 
 enough why he and his brother stood 
 there all alone. But still he waited, and 
 seemed to listen, and the rest waited too 
 for they knew not what. 
 
 4 Harold, the son of Philip Malreward,' 
 c Philip, the son of Harold.' So ran the
 
 8 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 names on all those great altar-tombs around 
 them, in one unbroken line from the days 
 of Queen Elizabeth. And not one of them 
 all had gone down to his grave without 
 half a county to make lamentation : not 
 one, until this latest Philip Malreward, 
 whose friends and neighbours had sent 
 two empty carriages to follow him to his 
 last resting-place ! 
 
 Little wonder if his two sons stood there, 
 somewhat unapproachable in their wrath 
 and sorrow, while none desired to be the 
 first to speak to them. And in the silence 
 the keen-edged autumn wind wailed shrilly 
 among the tombs, as if at least one yoice 
 of mourning should be heard ; and caught 
 up dust and withered leaves and strewed 
 them upon those once honoured names, 
 as if in mockery or grief for a glory 
 departed. 
 
 It was the lawyer who at last tried
 
 A FUXEKAL. 9 
 
 to put an end to this strained pause. 
 
 ■ Mr. Malreward,' he began, in an under- 
 tone, drawing a little nearer. Then — as a 
 flash of pain or anger in the eyes turned 
 upon him, warned him that he had chosen 
 his words amiss — • Mr. Harold — ' Before 
 he had time to say more, a quick step on 
 the flags interrupted him, and the clergy- 
 man who had just officiated came hastily 
 towards them. 
 
 ' I hoped you would not he gone,' he 
 said, holding out his hand. ' I wanted to 
 
 speak to you as soon as I had got rid of 
 
 My lad, you may have forgotten me in 
 all the years I have been out of this neiadi- 
 bourhood ; but you must have heard your 
 father talk of me.' 
 
 The speaker was a tall, spare man, 
 with a weather-beaten, sunburnt, clean- 
 shaven face, and a nose like an eagle's 
 beak. The eves above it were not un-
 
 10 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 worthy of the nose : keen and small, but 
 not unkindly, with a twinkle in them that 
 seemed to show that they could be jovial 
 at proper times and places. For the rest, 
 the attire that the surplice had partly 
 hidden was not severely clerical even for 
 those times, and had a suggestion of the 
 sportsman about it, though it would have 
 been hard to say in what it consisted. 
 
 ' I remember yon very well, Mr. Walrond,' 
 answered the young man, with an effort 
 that made his words unnaturally clear 
 and rather formal ; c and I have often heard 
 my father speak of you. I thank you in 
 his name for being here to-day; unless, 
 indeed, the favour is intended for Mr. 
 Lucas rather than for us.' 
 
 ' Ah ! Lucas is an old acquaintance of 
 mine, too. I was glad to oblige him, since 
 he was compelled to be absent, but more
 
 A FUNERAL. 1 1 
 
 glad to pay a last token of respect to a 
 dear old friend.' 
 
 1 Was Mr. Lucas compelled to be absent ?' 
 asked Harold Malreward, with a very bit- 
 ter smile. L And all the rest ? Look 
 round, Mr. Walrond, and count up those 
 who ought to be here — the men my father 
 has helped and befriended — his own kith 
 and kin — and tell me where they all are !' 
 
 ' Well, well !' said Mr. Walrond, not un- 
 moved. c God knows one can't wonder 
 that you should take it hard. But you 
 must keep up a brave heart, my boy, and 
 remember that, though a lie is a sort of 
 vermin that's hard to kill, it dies of itself 
 before long. They'll all come round some 
 day, and each man declare and honestly 
 believe that he never credited such a tale 
 for one moment.' 
 
 1 Much good may their belief do them I
 
 12 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 I will clear his name, and give them no 
 choice. But I know now, at any rate, how 
 much their friendship is worth.' 
 
 c Ah, well ! I would answer, of course, 
 for my old friend your lather as I would 
 for myself. And I can tell you there is 
 many another that feels the same. Do you 
 turn out such a man as we all expect of 
 you, and there lies your best chance of re- 
 habilitating the old name. And in the 
 meantime I must see something of you, 
 now that we have come back again into 
 this part of the world. You must come 
 over to Deerhurst, and jou and my young 
 people must be friends as your fathers 
 were before you.' 
 
 c You are very good ! But * The 
 
 young man paused and looked away, and 
 again seemed to be listening for some other 
 sound ; and his new-old friend laid a hand 
 on his shoulder.
 
 A FUNERAL. 13 
 
 • Yon are not much like your father, but 
 more so than I remember you ten years 
 ago. And is this really the little fellow I 
 recollect just big enough to run everywhere 
 after you ? ' 
 
 He turned to the boy, and the young 
 man turned too. with just a shadow of a 
 very pleasant smile that altered his whole 
 expression. 
 
 •Yes,' he said, 'this is Phil;' and the 
 tone sounded like a careless cares.-. 
 
 * And how is Phil's mother, whom I used 
 to know, and your aunts ? As well as can 
 be expected, eh? Well, tell them that I 
 shall be coming over to pay my respects 
 soou, if they will allow me. And now, 
 good-bye. lads, and God bless you both. 
 Ptemember. we shall look for you at Deer- 
 hurst.* 
 
 He was gone : striding down the path 
 towards the 2'ate. outside which his tho-
 
 14 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 rouatfibred was becoming a source of dan- 
 ger to herself and everybody else in her 
 impatience. 
 
 And Harold Malreward looked at his 
 brother and round the almost empty 
 churchyard, and led the way out of the 
 little, iron-railed enclosure. Suddenly he 
 stopped, and raised his head. Whatever 
 he had been listening for so long, it seemed 
 now as though he heard it, though no 
 other car had caught any fresh sounds. 
 
 He turned towards the o-ate, the rest 
 
 O 7 
 
 following him, while the mourning-coaches 
 drew nearer, with much checking and 
 stimulating of the not- very -fiery coal-black 
 steeds. On the steps the young man 
 paused, looking up the road, in the oppo- 
 site direction to that in which Mr. Walrond 
 had just departed. 
 
 c Wait !' he said ; and all looked in the 
 same direction, while now, even to their
 
 A FUNERAL. 15 
 
 ear-, came a sound of strange singing, 
 half-march, half-wail, like and yet unlike 
 to the Highland coronach. 
 
 Down the road came a strains little 
 procession, an elderly man and a woman 
 leading, three men following them, and 
 two women bringing up the rear. 
 
 There was little that was remarkable 
 about their costume, except a somewhat 
 unusual vividne>> of colour, and yet they 
 looked as unlike the country people round 
 them as if they had come from another 
 hemisphere. And they moved with along 
 swinging yet sauntering step, utterly dif- 
 ferent from the tramp of the ordinary 
 rustic. 
 
 (Jut from between the houses they came, 
 as if from the side scenes on to the open 
 stage, and paused suddenly before the 
 steps where Harold Malreward stood look- 
 ing down upon them.
 
 16 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 The lawyer looked annoyed, the steward 
 still more so ; the villagers dismayed and 
 curious ; but the young man was simply 
 grave and attentive, as if he had expected 
 this strange addition to the funeral party 
 before. 
 
 The oldest of the new-comers spoke hrst 
 — what seemed to be a greeting, in a for- 
 eign tongue. And Harold, after a mo- 
 ment's pause, answered him in the same 
 language, upon which he turned to the 
 others, and nodded with a satisfied air. 
 
 c He had not forgotten that, at any rate,' 
 he cried, in English. c Good luck to you. 
 Squire Harold, and long life. But how 
 comes it that he yonder has been laid in 
 the ground, and we never to know of it 
 till too late ? I should have carried his 
 head myself.' 
 
 c She said that she had sent you word,' 
 answered Harold Malreward. c I left it to
 
 A FUNERAL. 17 
 
 her, and she said that you would be here, 
 if it were from the other end of England.' 
 
 ' And she was right,' said the man. c We 
 were eighty miles off, and we have lost no 
 time by the way. We should have been 
 here this morning, though, if she had not 
 grown dull through living under a ceiled 
 roof, and sent the message to a wrongr ken. 
 She will be angry enough with us, but the 
 fault was her own.' 
 
 1 Oh ! never heed it,' cried the young 
 man, with a bitter smile. c You have come 
 now before most of those avIio should have 
 been here. Xow, in with you into these 
 black machines here — they will be filled 
 now, at any rate — and drive to Crucis. 
 You were there at his wedding, weren't 
 you ? How many friends and neighbours 
 sat down at my father's table that day 
 when he brought his bride home?' 
 
 c Two-and-forty,' answered the old gipsy. 
 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 c I looked in at the doorway of the great 
 hall and saw them, but I kept out of sight. 
 I was not going to shame him with the 
 sight of us on that day. But Death makes 
 us all equal, Squire Harold ; and I swore 
 that day that I would be at his funeral, for 
 the sake of the good welcome he gave us 
 then.' 
 
 ' Ah, well ! we have not all such good 
 memories ! You will find no grand com- 
 pany to scare you at Cruris to-night. In 
 with you, and I make you all welcome for 
 his sake.' 
 
 The lawyer touched the young squire's 
 arm, gently but remonstratingly, at this 
 point; but he only went on, with more 
 emphasis, and without even looking round. 
 
 • You shall dine in that same hall to- 
 night, as sure as his name is mine ! And 
 she shall take the head of the table when I 
 take his place at the foot. I will have
 
 A FUNERAL. 19 
 
 some one there that remembered and hon- 
 oured him ; and let those gainsay me that 
 have the right !' 
 
 The lawyer was all remonstrance from 
 head to foot, but Harold Malreward re- 
 garded him not, unless the last few words 
 were intended as a hint for him in parti- 
 cular. He walked down the steps, shook 
 hands with each one of the little band of 
 wanderers, then ceremoniously opened the 
 door of the first carriage, and motioned to 
 them to enter. The leader hesitated a 
 moment, and looked at his followers — half- 
 amused and half-approving ; then seemed 
 resolved upon taking the part assigned to 
 him and stepped into the coach with great 
 dignity, beckoning one of the men and two 
 of the women to follow him. 
 
 The other three were soon bestowed in 
 the second carriage, and the young squire, 
 with an imperious gesture, signed to the 
 
 c 2
 
 20 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 coachmen to drive on. Hitherto the force 
 of passion had carried him on as in a 
 dream; but now, perhaps, he was begin- 
 ning to be uncomfortably conscious of the 
 wonder of Alston St. Denis, as he stood 
 there with his brother by his side and his 
 tAvo disgusted men of business behind him, 
 uncertain what to do next. 
 
 Again it fell to the lot of Mr. Curtice, 
 the lawyer, to put an end to an awkward 
 pause. 
 
 ' There is a dog-cart at the u Grown," 
 he said, with the air of one making the best 
 of a bad matter. c It brought Mr. Swain- 
 
 son 
 
 here- 
 
 c Take it for yourself and Wright,' said 
 Harold, curtly. c My brother and I will 
 walk home.' 
 
 ' Excuse me, Mr. Harold, but after in- 
 viting such a party to the house, at such a 
 time, it is surely your duty to be at home
 
 A FUNEEAL. 21 
 
 to receive them. There is Mrs. Malreward 
 to be considered ' 
 
 c Mrs. Philip Malreward, you mean,' 
 snarled the young man, turning upon him 
 with a look that Mr. Curtice knew well, 
 having seen it in other eyes before his. 4 I 
 shall be at the house before they reach it, 
 never fear ! I wish you good-afternoon, 
 gentlemen, and — I thank you. Come, 
 Phil.' 
 
 He slipped his hand into the boy's arm, 
 and they were gone in a moment, leaving 
 the various spectators of this strange scene 
 to gaze after them with slowly-dawning 
 partial sympathy and comprehension. 
 
 For some time they went on in silence, 
 walking very quickly, the elder lost in 
 thoughts at least as angry as sorrowful, 
 the younger too much in the habit of feel- 
 ing and responding to his mood to be in 
 haste to speak.
 
 22 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 'Were those all the Hemes, Harold?' 
 asked the boy at last, curiosity getting the 
 better of other feelings. 
 
 1 All of them that have anything to do 
 with us. There are plenty more, I be- 
 lieve.' 
 
 c She will be pleased to see them, won't 
 she? And they look — not a bad sort of 
 people.' 
 
 " Much the same as all the rest, I doubt. 
 Say no more about them, Phil ! I have 
 been a fool, as usual, I believe ; but they 
 remembered him, thieves and vagabonds 
 as they are, and it pleased me to think of 
 their sitting where others ought to have 
 been.' 
 
 c You have a right to do what you 
 please, and no one ought to say a word 
 against it,' said the boy, hotly. 
 
 c Ay ! but some folks will think me crazy, 
 or worse. I have given them some reason
 
 A FUNERAL. 23 
 
 to think little of* me already. And how 
 
 can I ever clear him, unless Yon heard 
 
 what Mr. Walrond said?' 
 
 1 Yes ! I liked him. I wish he was here 
 instead of Mr. Lucas. Will yon go and 
 see him, Harry?' 
 
 c Perhaps !' said the young man, shortly, 
 as if he were thinking of something else. 
 
 They had left the high-road by now, 
 crossing a stile in the high thorny hedge- 
 row, and were tracing a well-worn path 
 that led through the fields across the 
 valley. 
 
 It was seven long miles by the driving 
 road from Alston St. Denis to Alston 
 Crucis, albeit the latter was in the same 
 parish ; but across the fields it was barely 
 two. 
 
 The brothers had no need therefore for 
 haste, and yet the elder one moved on 
 hurriedly, with a perplexed, anxious look
 
 24 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 on liis dark, handsome face ; and the boy's 
 quick steps kept pace with his, and neither 
 paused till they were just entering the 
 wood that filled the bottom of the valley. 
 
 Then both stopped and looked back to 
 where the grey old church stood on the 
 hill above them, with the brown roofs of 
 the little town clustering around it. 
 
 The sunlight was dying out behind it, 
 veiled in a mass of pale, fleecy clouds that 
 had gathered in the west, out of a sky that 
 till now had seemed altogether clear. The 
 soft, fading light was unutterably sad ; or 
 perhaps it was only a little homeless wind, 
 rustling the fading leaves of the deep wood 
 behind them, that filled the air with sad- 
 ness. It was the time of all others when 
 the thought of home is dearest, when 
 the hearth-light shines far out into the 
 gathering dusk and the creeping chill of 
 sunset makes the warmth of the hearth-
 
 A FUNERAL. ZO 
 
 tire pleasant to soul as well as to body. 
 
 All the world out of doors seemed home- 
 less, forlorn, and cold. And they were 
 going home and leaving the dead alone up 
 yonder, with only the cold night-dews to 
 weep above the new-laid stone that closed 
 his grave. 
 
 Perhaps the same thought came at the 
 same moment to them both ; for tears 
 sprang to the boy's eves, and the young 
 man suddenly put out his hands towards 
 the point that held both their glances, with 
 a passionate, unconscious gesture. 
 
 ; I will clear him. Phil ! I swore it ove 
 his death-bed, and wondered if he heard 
 me : and swore it again over his grave iust 
 now, and knew that God heard me, whether 
 he heard or not. I will clear him, if it takes 
 me a life-time !' 
 
 L Yes I 1 said the boy, simply, w and I will 
 help, if I can.'
 
 26 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 One last look, and they turned and 
 vanished into the wood, their footsteps 
 rustling in the fallen leaves, while a black- 
 bird fled screaming from the roost he had 
 chosen for himself near the path ; and 
 deeper among the trees a cock-pheasant 
 answered with a half-sleepy crow, and 
 silence reigned once more, complete and 
 profound. 
 
 Nevertheless, Harold Malreward had 
 perceived some signs that shoAved that the 
 solitude was not so complete as it seemed. 
 A little way down the valley, where there 
 was no cottage to account for it, a little 
 thread of bine smoke was stealing up 
 through the evening mist, o'rowino* whiter 
 and denser every moment, as if green wood 
 were being piled upon the flame. A care- 
 less passer-by might have fancied it merely 
 the remains of some woodcutter s daily 
 fire ; but the young squire knew better,
 
 A FUNERAL. 27 
 
 and guessed easily enough what it meant. 
 
 Silently ao'ain the brothers threaded the 
 narrow wood-paths, climbed the sloping 
 fields beyond, and passed through the 
 little park — beautifully wooded, but in size 
 hardly worth)' of the name — that lay 
 around the old abbey of Alston Crueis. 
 When they had reached the drive and 
 turned into the stiff walled garden that 
 lay in front of the house, Harold spoke 
 again, a little shamefacedly. 
 
 1 Well ! I must go and give orders for 
 the entertainment of my visitors, and then 
 I must speak to her. Will you go to your 
 mother and the aunts, Phil, and tell them 
 all about it? Let them blame me as much 
 as they like ; but make them understand 
 that they need only keep out of the whole 
 business. They must dine in the library 
 to-night, and you with them.'
 
 28 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 ' Mayn't I be with you, and — them ? 
 They are as much to me as to you, after 
 all.' 
 
 ' Xo !' answered the young man, laying 
 his hand on the boy's shoulder with a smile 
 and a shake of the head. c I am making a 
 fool of myself with my eyes open, and why 
 I do it I can hardly tell ! But T am not 
 going to have you mixed up in it. I have 
 given you the hardest work as it is, Phil, 
 but it is best left to you, as you know ' 
 
 The boy nodded, and they climbed the 
 long, double flight of steps that led up to 
 the porch, and the heavy door closed be- 
 hind them. 
 
 A quarter-of-an-hour passed, and then 
 the mourning-coaches drove up to the front 
 of the house empty. The drivers waited, 
 looking somewhat embarrassed, and after 
 a moment Harold Malreward appeared 
 upon the steps.
 
 A FUNERAL. 29' 
 
 c What has become of the gipsies ?' he 
 asked, bluntly, much to the relief of the 
 men, whose politeness would have made 
 them hesitate so to describe their late 
 passengers. 
 
 ' They stopped us, about half-a-mile out 
 of Alston, and said they'd be more com- 
 fortable walking, after all. The old man 
 sent you a message, sir, to say they'd not 
 be here till after dark.' 
 
 ' You need not have trailed those de- 
 testable things all the way out here again 
 to tell me that, surely ? Get round to the 
 yard, since you are here, and get a glass of 
 beer, and then take those cattle off the 
 premises. Their owner won't thank you 
 for giving them seven miles more than 
 they need have had.' 
 
 Despite his griefs and perplexities, mere 
 force of habit made him give a critical and 
 disapproving look at the long-tailed steeds.
 
 30 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 The man acknowledged the implication by 
 a o T in and a touch of the hat, and the 
 young squire nodded, with a brief L Good- 
 night,' and walked down the right-hand 
 flight of steps, turning back into a narrow 
 flagged court that lay in front of the house. 
 
 The court was almost like a dry moat, 
 extending all along the front, and the last 
 flight of steps, where the two stairways 
 drew into one, spanned it like a bridge. 
 
 Under the arch, and therefore just under 
 the front door, was another door, which 
 opened into a long stone-paved hall. At 
 the end of it was the great kitchen, where 
 a prodigious chatter and clatter was going 
 on, hushed suddenly as the new master 
 of the house passed silently through the 
 midst of it, and opened the door of a room 
 that lay beyond. 
 
 This, too, was a kitchen apparently, for 
 the floor was stone-paved, and bare, save
 
 A FUNERAL. 31 
 
 for a thick large rug spread in front of the 
 tire. Possibly it had been a kitchen be- 
 fore the other was, for the low windows 
 and the curious arched roof showed it to 
 be as old or older than any other part of 
 the house, and though the room itself was 
 not large, the fire-place yawned immense 
 under a cavernous arch of stone with veri- 
 table chimney-corners on each side of it, 
 such as are but seldom seen in these days. 
 
 Kitchen utensils of every kind adorned 
 the walls, and on and around the fire were 
 various pots and pans that had overflowed 
 from the cooking going on in the other 
 room. 
 
 But there was only one person there, 
 an old, old woman, who sat in the chimney 
 corner, leaning somewhat forward, with 
 her hands between her knees, and her eyes 
 bent upon the fire. 
 
 Her dress was that of a working woman
 
 32 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 as far as style would go, though, a femi- 
 nine observer would have perceived that 
 the materials were not such as working 
 women wear. But it was so oddly com- 
 pounded of shawls, jackets, and a very 
 short skirt, that it would have been hard 
 to say of what it consisted. And above 
 all a I) right crimson shawl, or rather hand- 
 kerchief, was pinned over the head, and 
 framed a face that had probably once been 
 beautiful, but which now was a network 
 of brown wrinkles, from amongst which 
 looked out a pair of l-vus as black as mid- 
 night, with a kind of him over them, dim- 
 ining the glances that had once been so 
 bright. 
 
 The face was too old for much change 
 of expression, but the attitude was ex- 
 pressive enough — grief-stricken and deso- 
 late ; and even a short black pipe, that 
 dangled unheeded between the fingers,
 
 A FUNERAL. 33 
 
 could not rob it of a certain dignity as 
 well as pathos. 
 
 Harold Malreward came forward, and, 
 bending over her, kissed the wrinkled 
 cheek ; then drew back and leaned against 
 the arch, waiting for her to speak, the 
 firelight playing upon his dark face and 
 bringing out a strange and unmistakable 
 likeness to the face in the opposite corner. 
 
 c You've put him under the sod, then ?' 
 she said at last, in a voice singularly sweet, 
 though husky with age and provincial in 
 accent. ' Ah, well ! you young ones must 
 weep for him, I'm too old to have any tears 
 to shed. He should ha' waited and ha' let 
 me go before him.' 
 
 4 They are none too many to mourn for 
 him, grandmother," answered the young 
 man, bitterly. 4 You need not ^rud^e him 
 one more.' 
 
 c Too old,' she went on, unheeding. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 4 There's nought worth crying for, at four- 
 score and five. And he was too tine a 
 gentleman for me all his days. But he was 
 my first-born, my bonny lad ! Ye'll never 
 be as comely a man as your father, Harold, 
 though you're more one of our folk than 
 ever he was.' 
 
 c I know,' he answered. c I was proud, 
 when I was only a boy, to call myself one 
 of " the Nation." But I must put all that 
 aside now, grandmother, and make every- 
 one forget it — for his sake.' 
 
 4 And for why?' asked the old woman, 
 drawing herself more upright, and taking 
 her dim glances from the glowing firelight 
 to fi.^ them upon the young face before her. 
 
 ' I have got to clear him — have you for- 
 gotten ? You know what thev think, all 
 of them, and they have made it plainer 
 to-day than ever. I will have them beg 
 pardon of my father's memory for ever
 
 A FUNERAL. 35 
 
 having harboured such a thought, but 
 they will never heed me, unless ' 
 
 He paused, with a restless movement 
 and an impatient sigh, and the old woman 
 shook her head, looking once more into 
 the fire, and frowning. 
 
 ' Why care what they think?' she said, 
 and went on murmuring epithets in an un- 
 known tongue, the meaning of which was 
 plain enough without translation. 
 
 Her grandson's lips had formed the 
 word c honour,' but he looked at her and 
 held his peace. 
 
 Her aspect was witeh-like enough, as 
 she bent towards the lire, her dark face 
 touched with its ruddy glow, every wrinkle 
 full enough now of expression, and that 
 not a pleasant one, while from under the 
 black, over-hamnno; brows — 
 
 ' Two unmistakable eye-points, duly 
 Live and aware, looked out of their places.' 
 
 D 2
 
 36 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 The belief in the power of witches was 
 not then so comfortably extinct as it is 
 now ; though the time of which I speak is 
 
 not so Ion or a£0 but that there are those 
 
 © © 
 
 still living who have seen the sight which 
 I have just described. 
 
 There were perhaps only two people in 
 Alston Crucis who would have dared to do 
 what the young squire did next, with all 
 the freedom of an acknowledged favourite. 
 
 4 What is the use of all that ?' he asked, 
 
 sitting down on the settle beside her, and 
 
 © 
 
 thro wins; his arm round the bending figure 
 
 o © © 
 
 ill a kind of rough caress. c You know 
 you don't really think that all that will 
 happen to them ! And what does it matter 
 what happens to them, so long as they are 
 obliged to own themselves either liars 
 or fools ?' 
 
 ' They broke his heart,' she answered, 
 fiercely. ' I would have had him despise
 
 A FUNERAL. 37 
 
 them all and think no more of them, but 
 he never heeded me. There was more of 
 his father's blood in his veins than mine. 
 He never despised the Gentiles as you 
 would have done, if I had had the training 
 of you, as I meant to have .... Did ever 
 I tell you how I took to the tents again, 
 when you were but two years old? and 
 how I bore you in my bosom when the 
 ways were rough, till you grew brown and 
 strong and bold, and there was none in the 
 tribe but would have sworn that you were 
 a true Romany ? . . . And then he found 
 us, and would have you back; and my 
 heart grew soft, and, what's more, the tents 
 were not what they had been in my young 
 days. So I came back, and dwelt under a 
 roof once more, and you are what you are, 
 and not what I would have made you.' 
 
 * AVho knows which would have been 
 best?' sighed the vouns: man, who had
 
 38 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 heard this story, in more or less detail, at 
 least a hundred times, and was plainly 
 thinking of something else. c Grand- 
 mother! you have never read my fortune, 
 since I was old enough to understand. 
 Read it for me now.' 
 
 c Why should I?' she asked, with a keen 
 glance at his face. c You never believed 
 that I could read it true.' 
 
 c How do I know what I believed ? I 
 was more than half a gipsy till to-day, and 
 now I must be a gipsy no more. Tell me 
 what is coming, grandmother, for no one 
 ever had more need to know than I have 
 now. And you will believe it all, whether 
 I do or not !' 
 
 He held out his hand, a brown hand, but 
 smaller and more delicately formed than 
 might have been expected from his height 
 and breadth of figure, and she took it be-
 
 A FUXERAL. 39 
 
 tween her trembling fingers, and scanned 
 it seriously enough. 
 
 ' It is a Rom's hand,' she said, c not like 
 your father's. Stir the fire, and let me 
 have light to see the lines. Stay ! and I 
 will cross it with the gold your grandfather 
 gave me.' 
 
 Her eyes were clear and awake enough 
 now, and her dark brows bent. There 
 was little doubt but that she believed 
 in her own power; but the young man 
 watched her with a half-amused, half- 
 wistful smile. He scorned himself for 
 coming near to believing, and yet — he had 
 known so many strange predictions of hers 
 come literally to pass ! 
 
 ' Can you tell me what I want most in 
 the world?' he asked, more in earnest than 
 he cared to own. 
 
 ■ I could guess, but the lines will not tell.'
 
 40 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 c Can you tell me whether I shall get it ? 
 If I shall be fortunate ?' 
 
 c The lines run strangely ; there is trouble 
 of more than one sort, trouble close at 
 hand, and more to follow. But they seem 
 to run right in the end.' 
 
 c Why. so they do for every man, — in the 
 end, when he lies where my father does 
 to-night, and sleeps too sound to hear what 
 his neighbours say of him ! Come ! granny, 
 you are turning out but a poor prophet 
 after all. Is there not a fair lady some- 
 where ? There must be, for a blaek-a-vised 
 fellow like me !' 
 
 c There is a fair lady, and you shall 
 marry her, but you have not seen her yet !' 
 
 Harold started, and half-withdrew his 
 hand. 
 
 1 What nonsense it is !' he said, with an 
 uneasy laugh. ' Shall I see her soon, 
 then ?'
 
 A FUNERAL. 41 
 
 ' I cannot tell, there is something in the 
 way. But it will not stand in the way 
 always. There is another woman, but her 
 line never crosses yours, though it comes 
 near enough — and too near — and she will 
 bring you trouble. 1 
 
 The lithe, brown hand suddenly escaped 
 from the old woman's grasp altogether, 
 and the young man rose hastily. 
 
 c There ! enough of that, grandmother. 
 If vou did but know, you are foretelling 
 what can never be ! And I have no time 
 to waste in this fashion. I came in here 
 to tell you that I have seen the Hemes, 
 though they came too late for my father's 
 funeral, and they are coming here to-night.' 
 
 For an instant the old witch of Endor 
 had looked disposed to be offended, but his 
 last words drove even her own slighted 
 predictions out of her mind, or so it seemed. 
 
 'Our people? Which of them?' she
 
 42 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 asked, sitting upright, while her eyes 
 gleamed in the firelight. 
 
 c Gabriel Heme and his wife, and their 
 son and two daughters. And your brother 
 Reuben's two sons, Will and Joe.' 
 
 She started to her feet, showing a stature 
 above the ordinary height of woman, despite 
 the slight stoop of age. 
 
 c Joseph Heme here ? And coming to- 
 night under this roof with the rest ? What 
 brings them here?' 
 
 c I asked them. They came, though late, 
 while all the rest turned their backs upon 
 him. And I said that they should sit at 
 his table to-night, and you at the head 
 and I at the foot, and we would make them 
 welcome for his sake.' 
 
 She shaded her eyes with her withered, 
 trembling hand, and looked at him for a 
 moment under her shaggy brows as if she 
 would read his very soul. Then slowly
 
 A FUNERAL. 43 
 
 she re-seated herself, fumbled in her pocket 
 for a handful of tobacco, filled her short 
 black pipe, and lighted it. 
 
 ' What is to be will be,' she said. c I 
 tell you Joseph Heme will not come here 
 with the rest. And as for them — shall 
 you tell them what men say of my son, 
 your father?' 
 
 ' They know ! Who doesn't know ?' said 
 Harold, sullenly. 
 
 6 Ay ! they know — and know, perhaps, 
 more than you think,' answered the old 
 woman, with a glance of infinite cunning. 
 c Tell them, my lad — and tell them what 
 he said to us as he lay dying — and let me 
 watch their faces while you speak. I am 
 not so old yet but I can see !' 
 
 c Do you mean — ?' he cried, and stopped 
 short, with lips apart. Something of the 
 same expression was reflected in his own 
 face — the hereditary vulpine cunning of a
 
 44 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 race that had lived, limiting and hunted, 
 through centuries of hardship and danger. 
 
 c Never you heed what I mean,' she an- 
 swered, putting her pipe between her lips 
 and half turning her back upon him. c Go 
 you and tell those fine ladies — my daugh- 
 ters — who is coming, and bid them keep 
 out of our folks' way. You are master 
 now — and I will be mistress for this one 
 more night before I die.' 
 
 Perhaps Harold Malreward knew that 
 in that mood there was nothing more to be 
 £ot out of her, for he turned and went 
 away, though he looked far from satisfied. 
 And, when he was gone, the whole scene 
 lost somehow its strange and incongruous 
 look : the quaint old kitchen was just a 
 kitchen and no more ; the stout cook came 
 in from the outer room to look to the con- 
 dition of her saucepans ; and the old woman
 
 A FUNERAL. 45 
 
 smoking in the chimney-corner might have 
 been merely a privileged mendicant, ad- 
 mitted there by the servants' condescending 
 charity. 
 
 It is the custom to say that every house 
 has its skeleton. Certainly there was a 
 skeleton at Alston Crucis, not kept very 
 strictly in its cupboard; but there was also, 
 what is less common, a living monument 
 of the folly, rather than the crime, of the 
 past generation. 
 
 Perhaps the Malre wards, never having 
 been very conventional, did not object, as 
 much as many families might have done, 
 to the presence of that ancient beldame in 
 their ingle-nook. But they had some 
 reason to wish that old Squire Harold, the 
 grandfather of the present Harold Malre- 
 ward, had not thought fit to make a gipsy 
 the mistress of his house, and the mother
 
 46 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 of his children. Possibly she may have 
 wished so, too, though she never confessed 
 as much. 
 
 She had had her day of triumph and 
 splendour, as old people in the neighbour- 
 hood could still remember ; had gone in 
 silks and jewels with a kind of barbaric 
 yet not untasteful display, and had claimed 
 her place as the lawful wife of one of the 
 county magnates, and played her part in 
 that new world not altogether amiss. 
 
 That phase lasted not very long, and 
 then her children came — a daughter first, 
 then a son, and then two more daughters 
 — and the squire, who was eccentric but 
 not crazy, took the management of them 
 out of her hands entirely, and handed them 
 over to tutors and governesses, to be 
 brought up as befitted his position and 
 theirs. 
 
 For a while after that their mother alter-
 
 A FUNERAJL. 4:7 
 
 nated between slovenliness and some at- 
 tention to les bienseances ; between gipsy 
 and county lady. But as her daughters 
 grew older she abandoned the effort al- 
 together, and left them to rule the house 
 and enter into society without her. 
 
 The daughters grew up, and the elder 
 one married (very much against her father's 
 will) a solicitor who occupied a not very 
 good position in the neighbouring town of 
 Aldersford. 
 
 And the son grew up — Philip Malre- 
 ward — turning out far less of a gipsy than 
 his son afterwards proved, though wild 
 enough in his youth. His father died 
 when he was thirty, and forthwith he mar- 
 ried a handsome, fascinating woman who 
 came from nobody knew where ; who made 
 him very happy for nearly two years, and 
 died when her boy Harold was born. 
 
 Two years after, Squire Philip married
 
 48 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 again, the only daughter and heiress of a 
 neighbouring squire — the very lady who 
 by common consent had been picked out 
 for him from the first, and who had been 
 obliging enough to wait so long. 
 
 And then the smothered discontent of 
 his gipsy mother broke forth, after years 
 of repression and of semi-civilised life, and 
 she vanished from his house, presumably 
 to join her tribe. 
 
 People said that Philip Malreward would 
 never have troubled himself to reclaim her 
 if she had not carried off with her his son 
 and heir; but therein, perhaps, they did 
 him an injustice. Certainly he found her 
 and brought her back, as well as his little 
 son, and if henceforth she lived quite apart 
 from the family, more like some aged pen- 
 sioner than the dowager Mrs. Malreward, 
 it was altogether her own doing. She took 
 up her abode in the kitchen, sans f aeon, as
 
 A FUNERAL. 49 
 
 feeling most comfortable there, and if the 
 tide of domestic affairs ebbed into another 
 channel and left her stranded there, alone 
 for the most part, it was because the ser- 
 vants preferred it, and not because she 
 showed any wish that her privacy might 
 be respected. 
 
 The servants feared her, not because she 
 had once been mistress of Alston Crucis, 
 but because she was undoubtedly a witch. 
 Not only had she charms and spells by 
 which half the evils under the sun might 
 be averted or driven away, but she had 
 used some of them, even within the memo- 
 ry of her grandchildren, with startling 
 success. 
 
 And though she cared but little for a 
 show of respect and observance, yet there 
 were moments when she capriciously re- 
 collected what she had been and still was, 
 and when any unfortunate domestic who 
 
 VOL. i. e
 
 50 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 seemed to forget it felt all the force of her 
 unrestrained, yet almost stately displeasure. 
 In her wrath she was apt to become pro- 
 phetic, and her predictions had an uncanny 
 knack of coming true that did credit at 
 any rate to the estimate of characters and 
 probabilities silently formed under the 
 red handkerchief in that dark chimney- 
 corner. 
 
 Leaving the precincts of the kitchen, the 
 young master of Crucis had taken his way 
 through a labyrinth of passages, up a flight 
 of stairs, across the entrance-hall, and 
 down another corridor, towards a door with 
 a heavy curtain across it^ outside which he 
 paused an instant, then braced himself as 
 if for an effort, opened it, and went in. 
 
 It was a large room, but low, and some- 
 how Harold looked too big for it. or at any 
 rate for the rest of its contents.
 
 A FUNERAL. 51 
 
 The furniture was of the slender, spin- 
 dle-legged, Chippendale order; small and 
 slight, and scattered all over the carpet 
 in a bewildering manner ; and now that 
 the heavy, dark curtains were drawn across 
 the bow windows the room looked decidedly 
 dusky, in spite of the light of a bright 
 fire, a moderator lamp, and half-a-dozen 
 candles. 
 
 The occupants of the room were on as 
 small a scale as the furniture, and in their 
 deep black rather aided the sombre effect 
 it produced just now. 
 
 Two ladies of between forty and fifty 
 sat together at one side of the room, one 
 reading, one at work upon some small gar- 
 ment of charitable appearance. They were 
 both small, slender, and upright, and 
 nearly as dark as was Harold himself; but 
 they both had the Malreward face, comely 
 enough, but too large-featured to look well 
 
 E 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF IWwnw
 
 52 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 except with the height which they had 
 somehow failed to attain. 
 
 These were Laura and Margaret Malre- 
 ward, the two unmarried sisters of the late 
 squire. Their married sister had been 
 dead for years — and well for her, perhaps, 
 that it was so — for a reason that will pre- 
 sently appear. 
 
 They were heiresses in a small way, but 
 it was their pleasure to live on in their old 
 home, and neither of their brother's two 
 wives had interfered with them, finding 
 them, perhaps, easy enough to live with. 
 
 The second Mrs. Philip Malreward was 
 sitting now beside the fireplace, idly fin- 
 gering the heavy folds of crape that were 
 the badge of her widowhood, and looking 
 more full of annoyance than grief. A 
 small, fair woman she A\ r as, somewhat 
 inclined to be stout, with bands of light, 
 shining hair tucked away under her cap.
 
 A FUNERAL. 53 
 
 Her expression just now did her an in- 
 justice, for she had loved her husband 
 sincerely, after her own fashion, and had 
 thought of little but her loss from the day 
 it took place till now. But a small annoy- 
 ance will for the time drive out a great 
 grief, even from deeper and tenderer hearts 
 than this little woman had ever possessed, 
 and it certainly seemed to her that she did 
 well to be angry. 
 
 Her son, the younger Philip, sat on a 
 footstool near her, with his knees hunched 
 up, and his chin upon them ; looking some- 
 what sulky and disconcerted. 
 
 He had tried argument upon his aunts, 
 and they would not listen to him, and had 
 tried coaxing upon his mother and found 
 it only increase her anger; and now he 
 looked up as Harold entered, with a glance 
 that said, c I have done my best, and made 
 a mull of it.'
 
 54 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 Harold Malreward did not suppose him- 
 self to be clever, never having been led to 
 compare his peculiar faculty with other 
 people's want of it. But he had an in- 
 stinct that generally enabled him to judge 
 correctly of moods and tenrpers, of the 
 expression of a face or the turn of a head ; 
 and he had, for a young man, a great deal 
 of patience. 
 
 Consequently, he did not begin at once 
 with excuse or explanation, but stood si- 
 lently leaning an elbow upon the mantel- 
 shelf, waiting, as it seemed, for accusation 
 or reproof. He knew that what he had 
 done might well have given offence, even 
 had he been a favourite ; and he knew, 
 too, that he had never been altogether a 
 favourite, either with his aunts or with 
 his stepmother. 
 
 His aunts were very fond of him in their 
 own way ; but the Malrewards were not a
 
 A FUNERAL. 55 
 
 demonstrative family, and shone more in 
 criticism than in expressions of endear- 
 ment ; and they had never altogether for- 
 given him for showing the gipsy blood so 
 unmistakably. Freaks that might have 
 been pardonable, or even amusing, in any 
 other young fellow, had seemed grave mat- 
 ters in him — knowing as they did what 
 wild impulses prompted them, and to what 
 extremes those impulses might lead. They 
 had cried for joy when his father brought 
 him back from the gipsy tents, brown and 
 strong, and chattering Romany as fluently 
 as his broken baby-English : but they had 
 been conscious of something alien about 
 him ever since. 
 
 As for his stepmother, she neither loved 
 him as her own, nor hated him melodra- 
 matically as stepmothers are frequently 
 supposed to do. He was generally kind 
 and considerate to her; and she, for her
 
 56 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 part, bore him no grudge for being the 
 heir rather than her own boy ; being, on 
 the whole, a sensible though narrow- 
 minded little woman. 
 
 But they chafed one another occasion- 
 ally, as near connections must who have 
 neither deep affection nor the tenderest 
 ties of blood to bind them so close that 
 friction is impossible. Mrs. Malreward 
 knew that her stepson did not feel any 
 profound admiration or respect for her, 
 and Harold was well aware that he could 
 easily do wrong in his stepmother's eyes, 
 as well as in those of his two aunts. 
 
 To do him justice, however, it never 
 occurred to him that the master of Alston 
 Cruris need care very little whether these 
 women were pleased or not, — that it was 
 now their business to acquiesce in what- 
 ever he might choose to do, and be pleas- 
 ant over it, or to make themselves homes
 
 A FUNERAL. 57 
 
 elsewhere. The half of Harold Malreward 
 that was not gipsy was gentleman to the 
 backbone ; and he was far more sorry to 
 have annoyed his womenkind than he 
 would have been if his father had been 
 alive, to call him sharply to account for 
 inconsiderate conduct. 
 
 Nevertheless, his passive behaviour per- 
 haps helped them to realise the true state 
 of the case, for Mrs. Malreward held her 
 tongue with unwonted discretion, and only 
 the eldest Miss Malreward broke the si- 
 lence at last, in a tone somewhat milder 
 than he had expected. 
 
 ' I must say we have been very much 
 surprised, Harold ! At such a time, and 
 in such an unexpected way 
 
 c The time and the unexpectedness are 
 my only excuse, Aunt Laura,' he answered, 
 gravely. l They were there — and heaven 
 knows where the rest of our friends were !
 
 58 ALSTON CRUCTS. 
 
 The}' had come eighty miles to pay him 
 that last token of respect ; and, under the 
 circumstances, it seemed to me that that 
 atoned for a good deal. If it had been 
 this time last year, I might not have eared 
 to ask them here, to revel ; but, as it is, I 
 asked them to do — something as near 
 joining in our mourning as will be done 
 by anyone !' 
 
 L It makes Mrs. Philip nervous to think 
 of having them in the house,' remarked 
 Miss Margaret, in a strictly neutral tone. 
 L She is thinking of the plate and other 
 valuables, I suppose !' 
 
 c You can assure her that we are safe 
 enough,' answered Harold, with an impa- 
 tient gesture, but with studied gentleness 
 of voice. L I would not warrant them else- 
 where, but I can answer for it that gipsies 
 do not rob their own relations.' 
 
 ' It is absurd to talk of their being
 
 A FUNERAL. 59" 
 
 relations,' said Mrs. Malreward, somewhat 
 
 snappishly. 
 
 1 It's a fact, though,' said the young man, 
 simply. c And after to-night we shall not 
 see much of them. You need not fear 
 their being troublesome.' 
 
 1 That is just what I do fear ! They will 
 be always hanging about ; and I cannot 
 see how we are to regain our position in 
 the county, while ' 
 
 : What do I care about our position in 
 the county?' he cried, with eyes full of 
 dark lightning. c If I can but clear my 
 father's name, they may think what they 
 please of me !' 
 
 1 You might think a little of Phil,' she 
 said, in a fretful tone. And the boy turned 
 on his stool and looked up at Harold ; and 
 the young man looked down at him, and 
 smiled. 
 
 1 Phil knows !' he said ; and did not
 
 60 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 think it necessary to justify himself 
 further. 
 
 ' As for your father's name,' said his 
 eldest aunt, stiffly, c that was certainly 
 cleared at the inquest. Xo one could pos- 
 sibly believe any of those strange stories 
 after that ; though naturally such things 
 must leave a little awkwardness for a 
 time ' 
 
 She did not finish her sentence, and 
 Harold looked at her and half-sighed, but 
 said nothing. He did not know whether 
 that was her real belief, or only what she 
 considered it her duty to believe. Either 
 way, what was the use of protesting? 
 Life was hard enough upon these women, 
 who had just lost husband and brother, 
 without proving to them that the family 
 honour was lost too. Harold was too 
 young to believe that the shame could ever 
 be lived down and forgotten : but he said
 
 A FUNERAL. 61 
 
 to himself that he would find out the truth 
 and prove it, before these lorn creatures 
 under his protection had realised the 
 shame, or their own forlornness.
 
 62 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 
 
 ' You may see where Ave have been 
 By the burnt spot on the green, 
 By the grass and hedgerow cropped 
 
 Where our asses have been grazing, 
 By some old torn rag we dropped 
 
 When our crazy tents were raising.' 
 
 Philip Malreward — who had just gone 
 to a grave less honoured than any of his 
 ancestors' had been — had not been a ten- 
 der father to his two sons ; but he was 
 mourned as tender fathers are not always 
 mourned ; partly because of certain circum- 
 stances not yet explained, and partly because 
 even his undemonstrative manner had not
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 63 
 
 been able always toconceal a very real affec- 
 tion for them both, and a pride of possession 
 
 — especially in Harold, his eldest — all the 
 deeper for being carefully restrained. 
 
 Xor had he been a specially judicious 
 father, though he had chosen a good public 
 school for both his sons, and had sent 
 them early and with all due regularity. 
 
 He had been somewhat wild himself in 
 his youth — if all talcs were true — and that 
 amount, at least, of wildness he regarded 
 as almost inevitable in a young man. But, 
 as sometimes happens, he had settled down 
 after his stormy youth into a somewhat 
 strict and puritanical middle-age ; and 
 looked upon the mildest sowing of wild 
 oats as a o-reat though necessary evil. 
 Thus it came to pass that he was neither 
 sanguine nor sympathetic; neither re- 
 strained his eldest-born with a strong 
 hand, nor made holiday with him as
 
 64 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 some wise fathers do with their sons. 
 
 It was a state of things that might easily 
 have led to disastrous consequences ; but, 
 on the whole, it hardly seemed to have done 
 so. Harold loved his father ; and had not 
 fallen as yet into any very vicious courses ; 
 and if, in the exuberance of over-much 
 liberty, he had contrived to entangle him- 
 self in a snare that was like to put an end 
 to his freedom once and for all, he hardly 
 knew it himself, as yet; and his father had 
 certainly died in complete ignorance of any 
 such calamity impending. 
 
 Apart from that, Philip Malreward's last 
 days had been sad enough. Perhaps men 
 do not, in this prosaic age, die of a broken 
 heart ; but if a man's heart is really broken, 
 especially if he is past his first youth, he 
 may die of any trifling ailment, such as in 
 happier times would have been a thing to 
 smile at.
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 65 
 
 The late master of Alston Crueis had 
 lost what he had been too proud to know 
 how much he valued — the respect of his 
 neighbours, the love of his tenants, the 
 cheery companionship of men whose fathers 
 had known his father, and with whom he 
 was connected by a thousand ties of kin 
 and of mutual association. He had braved 
 it out. had given no one a chance to show 
 a second time that they had mistrusted 
 him. and had said nothing to anvone — not 
 even to his eldest son. who had his confi- 
 dence as far as anyone had. 
 
 But the spring of life was gone ; and 
 Philip Malreward. whose iron frame had 
 hardly known an ache or pain in all his 
 fifty years, died, as the family doctor said, 
 of a chill ! Died mute, too, as far as a 
 curious neighbourhood could discover ; 
 and, guilty or not guilty, carried his secret 
 to the grave with him. 
 
 VOL. I. f
 
 66 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 The friends and neighbours who had 
 condemned him decided that death did not 
 condone such offences as his ; and even 
 pity for the living could not make them 
 lav aside their righteous indignation 
 against the dead. 
 
 Once let them get the funeral over, some 
 of them thought, and they were quite will- 
 ing to he kind to Harold Malreward, wild 
 fellow though he was, and give him a 
 chance to live down his father's disgrace. 
 And Harold, meanwhile, was prepared to 
 scorn all kindness offered to him merely 
 for himself, and to put all possible friends 
 to this one test : l Did they, or did they 
 not, believe in his father's innocence ?' 
 
 He could hardly have put to that test 
 the strange friends and kinsfolk assembled 
 round his table in the great dming-hall at 
 Crncis on the night of his father's funeral.
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 67 
 
 In the first place, it was doubtful how far 
 the gipsies were acquainted with all the 
 circumstances, in spite of their strange 
 ways and means of acquiring information ; 
 and, in the second place, their views as to 
 the heinousness of robbery and murder 
 might not agree with those of the county, 
 or even with Harold's own. They evident- 
 lv did not blame Squire Philip, but they 
 might believe, for all that, that he had done 
 Avhat was laid to his charge. 
 
 The table had been spread in the hall by 
 the disgusted and wondering servants, and 
 the gipsies had already arrived and were 
 standing in a group beside the fire, when 
 Harold entered with his grandmother 
 leaning on his arm. 
 
 From the beautiful carved over-mantel 
 the marble half-length of a bearded old gen- 
 tleman in an Elizabethan ruff looked down 
 his long nose at the new-comers, as if he 
 
 f 2
 
 68 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 wondered what these Egyptian wanderers 
 were doing on the hearth which he had 
 laid, and to which he had even once wel- 
 comed his sovereign. 
 
 It was indeed as strange a group as could 
 have been seen that night airywhere in this 
 land of contrasts. 
 
 Harold had not thought fit at first to 
 dress as usual for dinner, but, to his sur- 
 prise, had been sharply desired by his 
 grandmother to c make himself look like a 
 gentleman,' and had yielded, resolved that 
 for this one night she should be mistress, 
 as she had said. 
 
 As for her, by what strange inconsistency 
 had she hurried on one of the gowns and 
 head-dresses of her brief days of splendour, 
 and loaded her withered neck and fin- 
 gers with the jewels that old Squire Harold 
 had given her in the briefer days of his 
 first ardent love ?
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 69 
 
 She had been proud, and had taught her 
 grandson to be proud, of her gipsy blood ; 
 she had longed, with the heart-sick long- 
 ing of a lifetime, for the freedom of the 
 tents and the old days among her own 
 people. Did she want to show her wild 
 kin that at least she had that for which 
 she had sold herself, that the price had 
 been fully paid to her and to her de- 
 scendants ? 
 
 However it was, she received them in 
 stately fashion enough ; and the women 
 scanned her attire with half-envious ad- 
 miration, hardly aware perhaps that even 
 there, beneath a civilised roof, their own 
 coarse, bright garments looked far more 
 picturesque and becoming. 
 
 All the gipsies, both male and female, 
 were far more at their ease than English 
 rustics would have been in such a position ; 
 and, though they spoke but little and
 
 70 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 smiled less, they seemed to perceive a cer- 
 tain humour in the situation and to enter 
 into it. 
 
 Almost before they were in the room the 
 old woman had pressed Harold's arm with a 
 sudden significant gesture, and he, count- 
 ing the group by the fire, had seen that 
 one of them was indeed missing. 
 
 1 Where is Joseph Heme?' she demand- 
 eel, when greetings had been interchanged 
 in the broken jargon, half Romany, half 
 English, which it pleased them to talk. 
 
 c He has hurt his foot, sister. The wood- 
 men had left a tree across the path — ill 
 luck to them ! — and poor Joe missed see- 
 ing it in the dusk, and got a fall.' 
 
 c Has he lost his eyes, then ?' she de- 
 manded, scornfully. ' Since when have 
 our people wanted a lantern to walk in 
 the woods after sunset? Sj^eak the truth, 
 brother, and say that he would not come !'
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 71 
 
 The old gipsy made no answer, affect- 
 ing to be lost in admiration of the soft nig 
 that lay before the fire ; and, after looking 
 at him for a moment, Harold Maireward 
 signed to his strange guests to take their 
 places at the table, where their dinner was 
 already awaiting them. 
 
 For a moment the new master evidently 
 intended to take the master's place, but 
 there his courage or his heart failed him. 
 Quietly he slipped into the place prepared 
 for the absent gipsy, and left the great 
 oaken chair at the foot of the table empty. 
 
 He said nothing, but his dark cheek 
 paled perceptibly, and for a moment his 
 lips quivered as he glanced once and again 
 towards that vacant chair, and, despite his 
 duties as host, he was silent until the 
 strange dinner-party was more than half 
 over. 
 
 At least one pair of eyes was watching
 
 72 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 him intently, eyes perhaps more used to 
 note the signs of superstitious fear than of 
 love and trouble. 
 
 L Do you see anything yonder?' half 
 whispered at last the old gipsy, next to 
 whom Harold had placed himself. c Men 
 say they are not always willing that their 
 places should be taken. For my part, I 
 can't say. We Roms have no place, dead 
 nor living ; and, though we wander till we 
 die, I judge that the dead are willing to lie 
 still. I never heard of a Rom who wanted 
 more, when his time came to go, than a 
 quiet place to lie in.' 
 
 Harold looked up, and motioned to the 
 sedately-curious butler and his satellites to 
 go. He had made up his mind to speak 
 freely to his father's kinsfolk, such as they 
 were, and though the servants knew all, 
 and more than all, he was about to say, he 
 did not choose to speak before them.
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 73 
 
 c If ever the dead came back to the liv- 
 ing,' he said, when they were gone, c my 
 father Avill come back to me ! He cannot 
 rest in his grave till I have done what he 
 wished. And so, help me, God ! I will 
 never leave off trying till it is done.' 
 
 The words touched, as he knew they 
 would, the one sensitive spot in his hearers' 
 conscience — that respect for the wishes of 
 the dead that is the religion of the gipsy 
 race. 
 
 'What was it that he wished?' asked 
 Gabriel Heme, glancing again towards that 
 empty seat. 
 
 1 Yon know — or can guess. Yon have 
 heard, surely, how things were with my 
 father before he died ?' 
 
 L Partly !' answered the old man, with 
 affected humility. c We poor gipsies pick 
 up a word here and a word there, but who 
 would tell the rights of a tale concerning
 
 74 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 a great family to the likes of us ? We 
 heard of the death of the lawyer yonder, 
 but how should we know why men should 
 lay it at Squire Philip's door?' 
 
 6 I will tell you' said Harold, raisins; his 
 voice and looking down the table, while 
 the faces of the strange company all turned 
 towards him. c My father owned you all 
 as his kin. Not one of you ever came to 
 him in trouble and was not helped as you 
 would help a brother. Listen, all of you, 
 and hear what was laid to his charge, and 
 what he thought of it. And if — after 
 that ' 
 
 He checked himself suddenly, and the 
 old woman at the head of the table leaned 
 her elbows upon it and rested her chin 
 upon her hands, dropping her shaggy eye- 
 brows till they all but hid the keen sparkle 
 of the eyes beneath them — eyes that
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 75 
 
 travelled slowly from one face to another 
 as the young man went on, more coolly, 
 
 c You know that my grandfather bor- 
 rowed money on Benson's farm, down 
 yonder, towards Aldersford — borrowed it 
 of old Mr. Crofton, whose eldest son mar- 
 ried my father's sister, my aunt Marian ? 
 And you know, too, that not even that 
 marriage ever made them friends, and 
 that since my aunt died her husband and 
 my father never spoke when they met. 
 But you mayn't know that when old Crof- 
 ton died, and his son and Thornton Harris 
 took to the business, they brought forward 
 evidence of having advanced another large 
 sum of money, of which my father had 
 never heard. He did not believe that my 
 grandfather had ever had the money, or 
 that what seemed to be his signature was 
 genuine. He went to law about it, and
 
 76 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 lost. Courts of law are not lucky for us 
 Malre wards !' 
 
 c Xot likely to be — to one who was even 
 half a Rom !' said the old gipsy, with quiet 
 conviction. 
 
 c Well ! you may wonder why my father 
 did not pay them and be rid of them. But 
 my grandfather had tied up the estate, 
 leaving it to him only for his life, and after 
 him to his male heirs, or — failing those — to 
 the eldest son of his eldest daughter, my 
 aunt Marian. Crofton made him put that 
 in, in the days when they were friendly. 
 And what little ready-money there was 
 the law-suit had taken. The interest was 
 paid regularly, and Crofton kept quiet 
 enough, but the principal could never be 
 paid till last Xovember, when I came of 
 age, and joined my father in selling some 
 land that belonged to us in Shropshire, and 
 so raised the money.'
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. < I 
 
 The gipsies were listening hitherto with 
 well-bred half-attention, while the speaker 
 went over these details evidently for the 
 hundredth time. But as he came to ' last 
 November ' a little thrill of interest went 
 through the circle, and his own voice took 
 a tone of deeper excitement. 
 
 6 Yes ! Last November was the end of 
 it — or the beginning. My father had the 
 
 monev in notes, because Croft on had 
 
 »/ > 
 
 taunted him with having denied his 
 father's signature, and had said that he 
 would deny his own if he dared, so he 
 had sworn that he would never draw a 
 cheque for him. Sam Croft on was away 
 that day, the 20th of November, when my 
 father took the notes into Aldersford, and 
 Harris received them. Harris was by way 
 of being friendly then, though since I 
 
 have found him out in Well ! that has 
 
 nothing to do with the story. I was away
 
 78 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 from home at the time. I tell you what I 
 heard when I came hack, but very little of 
 it from my father. 
 
 1 Crofton came over here that same even- 
 ing, after dark, and my father and he 
 were closeted together for two hours and 
 more. He had brought back the notes, 
 and said that the payment had been made 
 too late, and that the land had fallen into 
 his hands the day before ; but my father 
 held the receipt that Harris had signed, 
 and refused to give it up, or to take back 
 the money. He said openly at the inquest 
 that after that they quarrelled, and laid 
 hands upon one another, — not, he said, 
 about the mortgage, but about another 
 matter, which he would not explain, then 
 or afterwards. 
 
 ' Crofton came out of the library yonder, 
 mad with rage, and went away. And an 
 hour after my father came back into the
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. < V 
 
 I 
 
 house. — but no one had seen him go out. 
 He refused at the inquest to say where he 
 had been, or for what. But the next 
 morning Sam Crofton was found dead, in 
 a ditch beside the road on Scarrisdale 
 Moor, between here and Aldersford. — 
 you know the spot, I daresay. He had 
 had two blows on the head, either of 
 which, the doctors said, might have killed 
 him. And my father's riding-whip was 
 found in the. ditch not far from him.* 
 
 ' Well.' said Gabriel Heme, coolly, as 
 the young man ended, and sat gloomily 
 silent. * I think a poor gipsy would have 
 been hanged for less ! What did Squire 
 Philip, my sister's son, do to save himself 
 from hanoincr ?' 
 
 c Little enough ! He refused to answer 
 many questions that one would have 
 thought he might have answered. But he 
 proved that he did not leave the house
 
 80 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 again that ni^ht after the servants saw him 
 come in at nine. And two witnesses swore 
 to having seen Croft on alive and well, at 
 nearer ten than nine.' 
 
 'Who were they?' asked the gipsy, half- 
 shutting his eyes. 
 
 c George Benson and his wife. They 
 were coming home from visiting a neigh- 
 bour, and met Crofton, riding his black 
 mare, and a man walking beside him. It 
 was moonlight, they said, and they saw 
 them both distinctly. And — the man was 
 a gipsy.' 
 
 ' How did they know that?' 
 
 c They would not own to knowing it at 
 first. It Avas when they were obliged to 
 describe him, it came out that such was 
 their impression. But they swore that he 
 was not a Heme.' 
 
 Harold was watching the old gipsy's 
 face as he spoke, and so was his grand-
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 81 
 
 mother, from her place at the head of the 
 table. But the dark features were as im- 
 passive as an Indian's, though the eyes 
 were narrowed to two slits. 
 
 ' It was thought it might be one of you, 
 — one of my father's family,' went on 
 Harold. c But Benson and his wife have 
 had many kindnesses from my father, and 
 they tried not to say a word that might do 
 him harm. They had better have accused 
 him at the market cross ! For everyone 
 saw their drift, and they were cross-ex- 
 amined and made to contradict themselves 
 and say what they never meant. They 
 stuck to the main point, however, and the 
 verdict was returned against " some per- 
 son or persons unknown." But men be- 
 lieve my father guilty, for all that. Some 
 say that he did it himself, and that the 
 Bensons lied throughout. And some say 
 that he sent the gipsy to do it. They ask 
 
 VOL. i. G
 
 82 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 what became of the notes, which Croft on 
 certainly had with him. My father said 
 that " he was unable to save the numbers 
 of them," though he would not swear that 
 he had never taken them down : — and, 
 what is even stranger, Harris professes not 
 to have noticed or made any note of the 
 numbers, either ! They say that my father 
 had even the boldness to pay a large sum, 
 two days after, into the Aldersford bank, 
 where his account was overdrawn — the fact 
 being that it was a small sum, paid in the 
 day before — the surplus left from the sale 
 of the Shropshire property. Oh ! there is 
 no end to the theories ! — very pretty and 
 probable theories ! — and every fool in the 
 county can invent a fresh one, to blacken 
 the name of the man who was worth them 
 all ! And what can / say, — but that I 
 know they lie ?'
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 83 
 
 1 Did he tell you no more than the rest, 
 then T 
 
 1 Xot a word ! I may have wondered 
 that he did not speak more fully to me, 
 but I never asked him. Should I go to 
 my own lather and say, " Prove to me 
 that you did not steal hack the money 
 with which you had just paid your lawful 
 debts ! Prove to me that you did not send 
 a man to assassinate your enemy in the 
 night" ? I would have cut my tongue out 
 sooner !' 
 
 Harold glanced round the table with 
 flashing eyes, but the strange gipsy eyes, 
 so like his own, were not specially re- 
 sponsive. They could appreciate the peril 
 and inconvenience of such an accusation, 
 but they were not shocked by it. 
 
 - Well!' said Harold, with a little catch 
 of the breath. ' they broke his heart amongst 
 
 g2
 
 84 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 them — and lie is dead ! No one thought at 
 first that his illness was serious ; and after 
 he grew worse he was not able to speak 
 much until just the end. The last day he 
 spoke to me — I don't know whether he 
 knew quite what he said. He told me to 
 keep still — to let ill alone. He said that 
 he had been silent till then — that he hoped 
 to be strong enough to hold his tongue 
 until he died — that what he had borne he 
 could bear.' 
 
 The words came with more and more 
 effort, and at the last the speaker was 
 obliged to stop. He started up and walked 
 hurriedly to the fireplace, and stood there 
 with his back to the table, leaning his 
 folded arms against the marble and his 
 forehead against his arms, while over his 
 dark head his ancestor's carven face looked 
 calmly down. 
 
 The gipsies looked at one another, one
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 85 
 
 or two of them with an expression almost 
 of relief; and that weirdly-splendid figure 
 at the head of the table watched them all, 
 without moving a finger. 
 
 : That was not all ' went on the young 
 man, presently, without turning his head. 
 ' I was with him just at the last, we two 
 alone ; and he spoke again. And I know 
 that that time he knew what he said. L ' I 
 doubt there has been a great wrong done," 
 he said, " I dared not meddle — I let it 
 alone, for your sake. But you must set it 
 right, for mine — that I may lie quiet in 
 my grave. I can't die with this on my 
 soul. Swear to me, Harry, that you will 
 look to it, and set it right." He tried to 
 say something more — something about 
 some papers that I should find ; but I could 
 not hear a quarter of it distinctly. And so 
 lie died, and never had had my promise ! 
 But I swore on his hand, as he lay dead,
 
 86 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 that I would not rest till I had cleared his 
 name, and set the wrong' right.' 
 
 His voice was resolute enough, but he 
 had to pause again ; and again the gipsies 
 glanced at one another, but did not speak. 
 
 There was dead silence through the hall, 
 broken only by one smothered sob, till 
 presently he came back to the table, stand- 
 ing at the foot of it, with one hand upon 
 the back of that empty chair. 
 
 ' And now !' he said, c what will you do 
 to help me ? — you that are his kinsfolk, 
 and mine.' 
 
 'What is it you think to do, Squire 
 Harold?' asked Gabriel Heme, after a 
 moment. 
 
 ' I will find the man who murdered Sam 
 Crofton. When he is found, and convicted, 
 my father's name will be cleared — and no- 
 thing else will do it.' 
 
 6 1 doubt we cannot do much to help.
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 87 
 
 You say that the man who was seen with 
 him that night was not a Heme.' 
 
 ' I never said so !' 
 
 Harold Malreward knew better than to 
 waste his glances upon the other's impas- 
 sive face, but his eves were bent on the 
 j 
 
 old gipsy's hands, and as he spoke he saw 
 the fingers twitch a little, and made a 
 mental note of the fact. 
 
 1 We could find out, may be, what all 
 our people were doing that night. Or, if he 
 were one of the Lovels or the Smiths, we 
 might find out something. But it is clean 
 against the Romany law, my son. Why 
 should we help to hunt down one of bC The 
 Nation," because of the death of a Gentile 
 — a stranger — and a lawyer, to the back of 
 all?' 
 
 • Was not my father one of a The Xation,'' 
 too?' cried the young man, passionately. 
 1 Will you let him lie in a dishonoured
 
 88 ALSTOX CRUCIS. 
 
 grave for want of such help as you might 
 srive t 
 
 - 
 
 An Englishman might have answered 
 that the man was dead anyway ; and that 
 dead men sleep soundly, and hear no tales, 
 any more than they tell them. But the 
 gipsy traditions made it impossible for 
 Gabriel Heme to take that view of the 
 matter, so he merely muttered, almost 
 inaudibly, l He was but half Romany;' 
 with a glance towards the old woman at 
 the head of the table. 
 
 Her eyes flashed, and she drew herself 
 up as if ready to make a fiery answer; but 
 Harold lifted his hand. 
 
 ; You did not tell him that when you 
 came to him in your trouble, four years 
 ago. But let that pass. We do not know 
 that the man who killed the lawyer was a 
 gipsy at all. The Bensons may have been 
 mistaken ; or, if not, the man who was with
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 89 
 
 Crofton then may not have been the man 
 who killed him.' 
 
 The old man made no answer; He was 
 evidently thinking deeply, and Harold 
 watched him a moment in silence. 
 
 6 Gipsy or not,' he went on at last, c I 
 will find him. If it costs me half my 
 fortune — if I have to do it all alone — I will 
 certainly find him in the end. But the 
 man who helps me will find it the best 
 day's work he ever did.' 
 
 Gabriel Heme looked from his sister in 
 her jewels at one end of the table, to her 
 grandson at the other, tall and erect, with 
 his hand on his dead father's chair. 
 
 His grandmother had bidden him make 
 himself look like a gentleman, and he had 
 certainly succeeded. To the Malrewards 
 he might look more than half a gipsy, but 
 the gipsies were very conscious of the 
 other element in him, that look of a born
 
 90 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 leader that centuries of wealth and security 
 
 had given to his father's family. 
 
 The two together impressed them with 
 almost a superstitious awe. A gipsy might 
 be pour and despised, though clever ; a 
 rich man might be the gipsy's prey and 
 dupe, despite his position. But this young 
 fellow who was both — who knew their tra- 
 ditions and inherited their wisdom, with 
 his fore-fathers" wealth and power to back 
 it — surely he must have his way ! At any 
 rate, it would not be well to oppose him 
 openly, however good might be their rea- 
 sons for wishing to thwart his desierns. 
 
 1 "Well ! we will do what we can,' said 
 Gabriel Heme, after a long pause, and he 
 was too clever to say it otherwise than 
 grudgingly. ' Though, if the fellow was 
 not one of our people, he may be out of 
 our beat altogether. He has been looked 
 after already, I suppose ?'
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 91 
 
 L Of course ! But he seems to have dis- 
 appeared off the face of the earth, as far 
 as those bunglers, the police, are concern- 
 ed. But you have ways and means that 
 they know nothing of.' 
 
 ' Perhaps ! But do you sit cpiiet, Squire 
 Harold, and do nothing till you hear 
 from us. That pack of gaze-hounds may 
 hunt in packs, hut the fox does best 
 alone.* 
 
 It was still early when the gipsies left. 
 The wine, that Harold had pressed upon 
 them with a young man's recklessness, 
 was not the temptation to them which it 
 would have been to an English tramp in 
 their position ; and, though they had ac- 
 cepted the young scruire's invitation in a 
 spirit of bravado, they were by no means 
 at their ease under the roof of Alston 
 Crucis.
 
 92 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 They had hardly gone when Harold 
 turned eagerly to his grandmother. 
 
 'Well?' he said. 
 
 4 They know more than they will tell,' 
 she answered, bitterly. c They have turned 
 against me and my son because a Gentile 
 was his lather. They could help if they 
 would, but they will not. Mark my 
 words, Joseph Heme knows, and therefore 
 they would not trust him to come here 
 to-night.' 
 
 c You say he came here and saw my 
 father, the morning after. But no one else 
 seems to have seen him. And the Ben- 
 sons swore that Crofton's companion was 
 not a Heme.' 
 
 : Ay ! and the fools swore that they saw 
 his face distinctly by the moonlight ; and 
 it came out afterwards that the moon could 
 not possibly have been over the tree-tops 
 at the time they had sworn to ! Xo Rom
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 93 
 
 would have been fool enough to make such 
 a blunder as that. Come, I am tired, and 
 I am going to bed, my lad. Help me 
 down those stairs — I shall never climb 
 them again ! I am too old for all this. If 
 Joseph Heme were not what he is, I should 
 say he had dune it himself; but he has not 
 wit enough to carry such a thing through, 
 or even to hate a Gorgio lawyer as he 
 should be hated !' 
 
 Very early the next morning Harold 
 M aire ward was c brushing with hasty steps 
 the dews away.' but making his way down 
 into the misty valley rather than aiming 
 to ' meet the sun upon the upland lawn.' 
 
 Many and many a time as a boy had he 
 stolen out. against his father's wish if not 
 in dehanee of his express command, to 
 seek the gipsies' encampment, when the 
 Hemes happened to be in the neighbour- 
 hood.'
 
 '94 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 1 They are our relations, sir,' would have 
 been a sufficient answer had his father 
 openly remonstrated ; but the feeling that 
 his home circle, and particularly his aunts, 
 disapproved of the proceeding, gave a spice 
 to the boy's pleasure. And the gipsies 
 had been very good to him, loading him 
 with little presents — worthless enough in 
 themselves, but valuable in a boy's eyes — 
 initiating him into some of the secrets of 
 their wandering life, and telling him tales 
 of adventure with more regard to his in- 
 nocence than might have been expected. 
 Squire Malreward was a powerful protec- 
 tor for them in all that country-side, and 
 they had no wish to forfeit his favour by 
 corrupting his son and heir. 
 
 Of late years Harold had seen less of 
 the gipsies, since he had grown to man's 
 estate, and had sought out other compan- 
 ions for himself, somewhat nearer his own
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 95 
 
 rank in life, though still not what his 
 father would have chosen. 
 
 So it was the thought of his boyish clays 
 and a boyish sense of wrong-doing, that 
 haunted him, as, guided by certain well- 
 known signs, he traced out the gipsies' 
 resting-place. 
 
 ' Father would not mind if he knew the 
 reason,' he found himself thinking ; and 
 then realised, with a dreary sense of free- 
 dom, that henceforth he was accountable 
 to no one but himself, and that every wish 
 of his dead father's was more to him than 
 ever it had been before. 
 
 It was a very pretty glade of the wood 
 which the wanderers had chosen for their 
 temporary home, though their choice had 
 been determined, not by its beauty but by 
 the practical convenience of the shelter- 
 ing trees that surrounded it, and the little 
 brook that flowed beside it.
 
 96 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 A gipsy camp has become a conven- 
 tional stagey thing, described so often by 
 people who have never seen it, that the 
 descriptions have become, for the most part, 
 mere catalogues of certain ' properties ' 
 which no camp worthy of the name could 
 be without. Harold Malreward had been 
 familiar with the whole thing from a time 
 when he was far too young to be struck 
 by any of its distinguishing features, and 
 took no special interest, therefore, in low- 
 browed tent or handsome, dark-haired 
 sibyl bending over the black pot on the 
 fire : cared not for the bark of ragged curs, 
 who left their play with equally-ragged 
 children to greet his approach ; or for the 
 quick, suspicions look with which the men 
 of the tribe sprang to their feet as the dogs 
 gave warning of a stranger's arrival. 
 
 The tribe was assembled here almost in 
 full force, numbering perhaps thirty; but
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 97 
 
 Harold knew them all, nearly as well as 
 they knew him. and was aware that they 
 were all his own relations in some degree, 
 
 C 7 
 
 though not so closely connected as those 
 who had come the night before to Crueis. 
 
 He nodded to the girls and women, and 
 interchanged greetings with such of the 
 men as were awake, but all the time his 
 quick eyes were roaming round the en- 
 campment, seeking the one individual 
 whom he had come to see. 
 
 'Where is Joe Chalkeye?' he asked, of 
 a tall, handsome lad, who lounged past 
 him with hands in his ragged pockets. 
 
 The boy was about to answer, when one 
 of the women, who had been at the house 
 the night before, hurriedly interposed. 
 
 c He'll be asleep in one of the tents," she 
 said. * I've not seen him this morning." 
 
 'Ah ! Just rout him out for me, will 
 you?' said Harold, sitting down upon a 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 ALSTON CRTJCIS. 
 
 tree-stump with what he meant for com- 
 mendable patience, but with an absolute 
 certainty of being obeyed that somewhat 
 impressed the gipsy lad. He stood gaping 
 and irresolute till roused by a warning 
 look from the woman ; upon which he 
 went off without a word, and deliberately 
 entered all the half-dozen tents in turn. 
 He was I0112; enough about it, but he came 
 back at last to where Harold sat. with the 
 woman still hovering near him. 
 
 ' I — can't find him,' he said, with a look 
 at the woman first, as if to gather from her 
 face the answer he ought to make. She 
 broke out into voluble ejaculations of sur- 
 prise, first in Romany, and then in English, 
 and went off, as if to consult another and 
 older woman. 
 
 ' He's gone down to the brook to bathe 
 his foot,' she said, when she came back. 
 ' His ankle was swollen as biff as two, and
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 99 
 
 he thought cold water would do it good.' 
 Harold's lips just twitched a little, but 
 he repressed a smile. Glancing up the 
 stream a moment before, he had seen, in 
 the farthest reach, a kingfisher at work. 
 And up the stream, from the bend below, 
 he had just come himself, and had seen no 
 sign of anyone about ; but rather — in the 
 movements of bird and fish — very palpable 
 sioTLs of no one having been about for 
 hours. 
 
 ' Very likely,' he said, composedly. ' I'll 
 wait here till he conies back. He'll not be 
 gone long, I daresay.' 
 
 The woman looked somewhat discon- 
 certed, but she said no more ; only strolled 
 off, and in some way or other communi- 
 cated the state of things to Gabriel Heme, 
 who presently appeared from one of the 
 tents — looking patriarchal enough — and 
 proceeded to entertain his great-nephew. 
 
 h 2
 
 100 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 His attempts to get the young man away 
 were carefully veiled, and quite sufficient- 
 ly clever to have succeeded with anyone 
 whose suspicions were not already roused. 
 Harold, who had to a certain extent known 
 beforehand what to expect, sat on com- 
 posedly in spite of them, and was present- 
 ly rewarded by the very sight which the 
 other was earnestly endeavouring to pre- 
 vent his seeing — the sight, namely, of 
 Joseph Heme, commonly known as Joe 
 Chalkeye, walking boldly into the camp 
 with no special sign of lameness about 
 him. 
 
 True, he limped elaborately enough 
 when he caught sight of Harold and met 
 the scowl with which the old gipsy greeted 
 him, but the attempt should have been 
 begun five minutes earlier to have had 
 any chance of being successful, for the 
 very sound of his footsteps as he drew
 
 GIPSIES AT HOME. 101 
 
 near had betrayed him to Harold's quick 
 ear. 
 
 ■ He is no more lame than I am,' thought 
 the young man, as he exchanged greetings 
 with his half-cousin, who was a more 
 stupid and less good-looking individual 
 than most of the men of the tribe, having 
 a strange whitish-coloured wall eye, which 
 had gained him the sobriquet by which he 
 was distinguished from several other 
 Joseph Hemes. 
 
 He was not only odd-looking, but dis- 
 tinctly odd ; having, perhaps, less than 
 his full share of gipsy intellect — such as 
 it was ; and the best that could be said 
 for him was that his face, if more vacant, 
 looked somewhat more good-tempered than 
 theirs. 
 
 Stupid though he might be, he was hard- 
 ly stupid enough to tell the truth when 
 anything else might be expected to serve
 
 102 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 Ms turn better; and, as Gabriel Heme 
 
 stuck close to his elbow, Harold saw that 
 there was little chance of surprising him 
 into making any unguarded statement. 
 
 He had already, however, learned as 
 much as he expected. He had assured 
 himself that there was some connection 
 between the gipsies and the mystery of 
 Sam Croft on's death ; that there was more 
 than one key by which this mystery might 
 be unlocked ; and that one of them at least 
 was in the comparatively lax hands of 
 Joseph Heme.
 
 103 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A FAIK WOMAN. 
 
 1 O, the strong hand !' she said. 
 1 See ! look at mine ! But wilt thou fight for me 
 And win me this fine circlet, Pelleas, 
 That I may love thee ?' 
 
 Pelleas and Ettarrc. 
 
 The daily routine of life at Alston Crucis 
 was not much altered by the fact that 
 Philip Malreward slept with his fathers, 
 and Harold his son reigned in his stead. 
 Indeed, there were fewer changes than 
 might have been expected, now that the 
 reins of government had fallen into the 
 hands of an impetuous young fellow of 
 two-and-twenty.
 
 104 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 There were some arrangements to dis- 
 turb which would have been to Harold like 
 interfering with the course of day and 
 iiiffht, and some which were sacred to his 
 remorseful affection simply because he 
 had chafed against them in his father's 
 time. And, above all, he had too much to 
 do and to think of to be in a hurry to prove 
 his newly-gained liberty and power. 
 
 In one matter only did he immediately 
 assert his independence. He declined to 
 appear on Sunday, with the rest of the 
 family, in the great, red-curtained family 
 pew in the church at Alston St. Denis. 
 And, on being remonstrated with by his 
 elder aunt, he made answer that the 
 Reverend William Lucas was an old 
 hypocrite and time-server, and that he was 
 not going to be prayed for or preached to 
 by him. 
 
 These epithets were not altogether ap-
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 105 
 
 plicable to the poor old gentleman, who 
 
 was offending his own squire because he 
 could not help sharing the opinion of all 
 his other neighbours. But Miss Malre- 
 ward did not discuss that point, but mere- 
 ly represented to her nephew that he could 
 never hope to be respected in the neigh- 
 bourhood if he did not attend his parish 
 church. And that aspect <>i' the matter 
 Harold took into serious consideration. 
 
 It was not the highest motive that could 
 have been put before him, but his education 
 had not prepared him as yet to take any 
 lofty views of such matters, and it was from 
 no self-interest that he desired the respect 
 of ' the county." 
 
 Harold did not relent in favour of Mr. 
 Lucas' ministrations ; but he resolved to 
 go over to Deerhurst and consult his 
 father's old friend, Mr. Walrond. 
 
 : He's honest' he thought. ' I'll attend
 
 106 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 his cliurcli, if lie thinks that'll do. It is 
 but ten miles at most, and seven when the 
 ground's in condition for jumping.' 
 
 But there was a house in the opposite 
 direction to Deerhurst which had for Harold 
 an earlier and a stronger attraction — a 
 house from which nothing hut such pain- 
 ful and urgent business as had occupied 
 him lately could have kept him away for 
 so long. 
 
 The first afternoon, therefore, that he 
 found it possible to get off, he turned his 
 back upon the claims of his property, 
 ordered his horse, and rode away by Alders- 
 ford and the lonely country lanes that lay 
 beyond. 
 
 The Malrewards were not a c horse}- ' 
 family, but there was never a Malreward 
 who could not ride, and ride well. And 
 Harold's ancestors on the other side of the 
 house could do a great deal more with a
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 107 
 
 horse than merely ride him. It goes with- 
 out saying, therefore, that the young master 
 of Alston Crueis was well-mounted, and 
 that part at least of his reputation for wild- 
 ness was due to his knowledge of horses 
 and their works and ways — knowledge 
 which is generally supposed to be incom- 
 patible with perfect respectability. 
 
 Aldersford boasted one good-sized and 
 fairly respectable hotel, which, with its 
 billiard-saloon, served the young men of 
 the neighbourhood in lieu of a club. Per- 
 haps they got into mischief occasionally 
 at this resort — though not so often as their 
 anxious mothers and aunts supposed — and 
 certainly Harold had made there a good 
 many acquaintances somewhat below the 
 traditional dimity of his family. 
 
 At the door of the ' Crown ' he stopped, 
 and gave his horse to a passing workman 
 to hold; going in and up the wide old-
 
 108 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 fashioned staircase towards the billiard- 
 room. It was Aldersford market-day, and 
 the room was full of young men watching 
 the players and exchanging an occasional 
 bet. 
 
 Harold knew them all, and their greet- 
 ing at any other time would have been 
 boisterous enough ; but none of them had 
 seen him since his father's death, and 
 Squire Philip's funeral was full in all their 
 minds — while graceful and appropriate con- 
 dolences might not have come very readily 
 to them at best. 
 
 Only two or three, therefore, of the most 
 self-assured and least well-bred found much 
 to say : and it was soon obvious that Har- 
 old meant to play Henry A", to their Fal- 
 staff. Mr. Malreward of Alston Crucis 
 did not greatly desire their acquaintance, 
 though c Mr. Harold ' might have allowed
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 10£ 
 
 them to call themselves his intimates. A 
 man less absorbed in one idea would have 
 been less abrupt in cashiering old asso- 
 ciates ; if only for fear of what they would 
 think and say. But Harold had rarely 
 room in his head for more than one idea 
 at once, and it was so evident to himself 
 that it was for his father's sake that he 
 wished to be free from his old entangle- 
 ments that the obvious inference had not 
 even occurred to him. 
 
 Perhaps some of those whom he snubbed 
 were wondering what he had come there 
 for at all, when the matter was cleared up 
 by the entrance of a new-coiner, whom 
 Harold greeted frankly enough, if some- 
 what autocratically. 
 
 He was a tall, fair young man, who came 
 in with his chin poked out, staring about 
 him in a short-sighted fashion, with an
 
 110 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 air of being a stranger to the place, that 
 was well-assumed, perhaps, but deceived 
 nobody. 
 
 ' Colvin !' cried Harold, imperiously, 
 1 come here, will you ? I want to speak 
 to you. 1 
 
 The young man, who had not seen him 
 before, started, and came round the table, 
 holding out his hand with great cordiality, 
 and Harold drew him aside. 
 
 c I am o'oino; out to Xetherfold ' he said. 
 c I suppose I shall be there all the evening. 
 Don't bring any of those fellows up — that's 
 all/ 
 
 ' Of course not. I am glad you told me,' 
 said Spencer Colvin, with ready acquies- 
 cence. ' Alicia has not been expecting you, 
 of course, under the circumstances, but I 
 needn't say that she has missed you lately.' 
 
 Harold did not appear to consider that 
 this speech demanded an answer. With a
 
 A FAIR WOMAX. Ill 
 
 cool nod of leave-taking, that included all 
 the rest of his acquaintance, he moved 
 towards the door. 
 
 But before he reached it a rare and wel- 
 come thing happened, which gave the 
 young men of Aldersford something to talk 
 about for the whole week to come. An 
 event, namely, that only just failed to he 
 a- exciting as it was dramatic. 
 
 Another man entered the room, a man 
 between youth and middle age. with sandy 
 hair brushed back from a pale face, and 
 curious eyes of alight steely blue. Those 
 eyes met Harold's dark ones with a look 
 almost of defiance. " Hast thou found me, 
 mine enemy?' they said, if ever eyes 
 spoke, and the two men stood still, looking 
 at one another, as men rarely look in this 
 peaceful and commonplace age. 
 
 It was obvious that a meeting between 
 Philip Malreward's son and the friend and
 
 112 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 partner of the lawyer who was supposed 
 to have met his death at Philip Malre- 
 ward's hand, could not fail to be an embar- 
 rassing one, especially as no one had 
 done more than the man who now entered 
 to blacken the squire's character — always 
 in a calm, moderate, judicious fashion that 
 seldom failed to carry conviction with it. 
 But no one in that room, not even the 
 young man who had entered just before, 
 and who knew both parties better than any- 
 one else did, could even form a conjecture 
 as to what the two would do. 
 
 Harold, being many years the younger, 
 was naturally the least self-possessed. His 
 breath came quick, and his hand clenched 
 itself upon his whip as if he longed to use 
 it. Xaturally, therefore, he was the first 
 to speak, though he controlled himself 
 just sufficiently to speak with dangerous 
 quietness.
 
 A FAIE WOMAN. 113 
 
 * I am glad to meet you, Mr. Harris. 
 
 If we had not met so soon bv accident. I 
 
 j 
 
 should have taken steps to bring about an 
 interview. But. as it is, I am glad to speak 
 before witnesses.' 
 
 " You can have nothing to say to me, 
 Mr. Malreward, that will not be alike 
 useless and painful to us both." answered 
 the other, looking at him with a steady, 
 commiserating gaze, from which, as if by 
 an effort, he had banished the defiance. 
 
 ; I am no lawyer, thank heaven !' said 
 Harold, bluntly. 'It would be easier for 
 me to thrash you than to make speeches : 
 but I will not brawl about my dead father's 
 honour in this or any other place ; and you 
 are lawyer enough to know what an action 
 for libel means. I give you warning, that 
 I will have public and legal satisfaction 
 for every lie that you have spoken con- 
 cerning my father : for every false report 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 that lias been going the round of the 
 country and that I have traced home to 
 yon. The more careful you are, from this 
 day forward, the better it will be for you 
 when the day of reckoning comes.' 
 
 His voice was still under control, but, 
 without taking his eyes from the other's 
 face, he allowed himself the satisfaction of 
 drawing his riding- whip slowly and sug- 
 gestively through his left hand. 
 
 The steely eyes did not flinch, and the 
 owner of them did not even condescend to 
 look angry. 
 
 L It is evident that you are no lawyer, 
 Mr. Malreward. If you were, you would 
 know it is better not to stir muddy water. 
 I am sorry for your painful position, but it 
 may easily be made worse. If I could call 
 myself your friend, I should advise you to 
 let ill alone.' 
 
 c Possibly ! But if you were my friend
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 115 
 
 I should not take your advice. I have one 
 end of the clue already, and I believe that 
 I shall live to find the other. Meanwhile, 
 stand out of my way, coward and slanderer 
 of the dead ! before I treat you as my father 
 would treat you if he were here.' 
 
 Harold's passion got the better of him a 
 little as he uttered the last words, and Mr. 
 Harris did stand aside. 
 
 He was not by any means a coward in 
 the ordinary sense of the word, but he saw 
 no good in answering a fool according to 
 his folly, and getting himself half-killed ; 
 even though he mio-ht make out a case of 
 ass ault af t er ward s . 
 
 So Harold, looking for the moment 
 capable of anything, walked downstairs 
 and mounted his horse and rode away, 
 calming clown a little as he got into the 
 picturesque network of green lanes beyond 
 the town, and beginning to think with 
 
 i2
 
 11 6 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 some complacence of the person he was 
 next ffoing to see. 
 
 He could not hear the babel of com- 
 ments he had left behind him in the bil- 
 liard-room at the c Crown,' in which the word 
 4 Gipsy ' played a considerable part — nor 
 would he have cared much if he had. The 
 boys at school had been wont to taunt him 
 in the same fashion until they found that 
 he regarded it rather as a compliment 
 than otherwise ; after Avhich they ventured 
 upon other provocations, and found that 
 putting Harold Malreward in a passion 
 was an amusement more exciting than safe. 
 
 Xetherfold was a square, uninteresting 
 house, not very new, and of considerable 
 size ; with a square garden in front of it, 
 only divided from the quiet country road 
 l»y a sunk fence. Such as it was it had 
 generally been the residence of a ' county 
 family,' and it had been considered rather
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 117 
 
 a piece of presumption on the part of old 
 Mr. Colvin, a respectable veterinary sur- 
 geon, when he spent part of a modest for- 
 tune — acquired no one quite knew how — 
 in the purchase of Xetherfold and the two 
 or three fields belonging to it. 
 
 The old man was dead by this time, and 
 his two sons, Ernest and Spencer, were 
 carrying on a composite business as auc- 
 tioneers, valuers, estate-agents, and half- 
 a-dozen other less reconcilable professions. 
 They had been brought up on the border- 
 lands of gentility, and even now were not 
 c recognised ' by many of their neighbours ; 
 but they were getting on. Their father, 
 the c vet,,' and their grandfather, the cattle- 
 breeder, would have been proud of the 
 position they had attained, and have re- 
 garded them as 'quite gentlefolks;' but 
 perhaps the young men themselves were 
 more keenly aware of the heights from
 
 118 ALSTOX CRUCIS. 
 
 which the) 7 were still excluded. And there 
 was another member of the household 
 whose perceptions in this respect were 
 even more acute than theirs. 
 
 The drawing-room into which Harold 
 was shown was furnished not only in a 
 more modern style, but one might almost 
 say in better taste, than the drawing-room 
 at Alston Cruris. There was nothing 
 crude about it, nothing incongruous, and 
 it had even that air of comfortable occu- 
 pation which is generally the last touch 
 that such rooms lack. 
 
 It had nothing spontaneous, nothing 
 that had ' crowed ' of itself in the course 
 of years of refined and cultivated living — 
 and that was the worst that the most cap- 
 tious critic could have found to say. 
 
 And it held one thing, at least, that 
 would have atoned in most people's eyes 
 for a multitude of faults. One person,
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 119 
 
 that is — a young woman — and an exceed- 
 ingly beautiful one. 
 
 Alicia Colvin knew that she was beau- 
 tiful, and she did not look conceited, but 
 merely regal, as great beauties generally 
 do. She knew that her skin was milk- 
 white and her dark -brown hair rich and 
 abundant : that her features were not 
 merely irreproachable but striking, with 
 her aquiline nose and dark blue eyes ; 
 and that her figure was nearly perfect, save 
 for a waist somewhat too small, which she 
 did not regard as a defect. 
 
 She had heard of these perfections ever 
 since she was old enough to understand, 
 and none of them had ever been gainsayed. 
 They were of little importance to her now, 
 save as means to an end ; and at present 
 she valued them chiefly because they had 
 won her the first step towards the chief 
 desire of her heart.
 
 120 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 Many a man would have envied Harold 
 Malreward as he entered that room and 
 took his greeting in the shape of a kiss 
 from those perfect lips ; and indeed he 
 felt himself to be envied. But he took it 
 somewhat seriously, for all that, for he had 
 lost his father and buried him since he 
 had touched those lips last, and Squire 
 Philip had never known that his son was 
 pledged to ' old Jack Colvin's ' daughter. 
 
 ' Perhaps he knows now, and thinks 
 that I deceived him,' thought Harold ; and 
 the thought robbed the kiss of some of its 
 sweetness. 
 
 The beautiful eves that were watch- 
 ing his took note of his sudden gravity 
 and change of expression ; but Miss Col- 
 vin's first words had no reference to 
 that. 
 
 c I thought you would come to me be-
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 121 
 
 fore long,' she said. l Something whis- 
 pered that perhaps you would come to-day. 
 I have been thinking a great deal about 
 you lately.' 
 
 ' Is that something new?' he asked, half 
 jealously. 
 
 ' Xo ! not since the third of March,' she 
 answered, smiling, and turned her head a 
 little away. Any man would have sworn 
 that she blushed, and yet she did not ; the 
 tint of her delicate cheek did not deepen in 
 the least. 
 
 The mere fancy of it was enough for 
 Harold, and when he had expressed his 
 gratitude in the pleasantest and most 
 natural way, Alicia went on, more 
 gravely, 
 
 ' Of course I have been thinking more of 
 you since you have been in such trouble. 
 Though I do not know the rest of your
 
 122 ALSTOX CBUCIS. 
 
 family. I could not help mourning with 
 you. in my own way/ 
 
 She glanced down at her black dress as 
 she sj^oke, and the glance told the young 
 man that he was expected to notice it, 
 which, manlike, he had not done before. 
 
 • It is very good of you.' he said, ten- 
 derly. c I like to think of you wearing 
 mourning for my father. I am sure he 
 would have loved you if I had had time to 
 — accustom him to the idea. I would 
 have tried it long since if matters had not 
 gone so much amiss at our house since 
 that ever-blessed and memorable third of 
 March. And now ' 
 
 He paused, and she looked up inquir- 
 ingly, and recognised perhaps a new qual- 
 ity in her young lover's face. 
 
 L And now he is gone. And I am free 
 — and yet not free. Free to love you more
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 123 
 
 than ever and to tell the whole world, if 
 yon will let me, that you have promised 
 to be my wife.' 
 
 c And how not free V 
 
 c I have something that I must do,' an- 
 swered Harold, simply, - first and foremost 
 of all, before I think of happiness for my- 
 self. Your brothers mnst have told yon, 
 Alicia, what men say about my father. 
 Could I ask any woman to take my name 
 while such a stain rests upon it as 
 that?' 
 
 1 It would depend upon how much she 
 loved you,' answered Alicia Colvin, look- 
 ing frankly at him with keen yet wistful 
 eyes. 
 
 ' No ! not altogether. The less you 
 thought for yourself, the more I should be 
 bound to take thought for you. And that 
 is not all. I — I can't quite say what I
 
 124 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 mean. But I deceived my father and did 
 many things against his will, and now he 
 is dead — broken-hearted — and men throw 
 dirt upon his name ' 
 
 He stopped, perhaps because his voice 
 was not altogether under control, and she 
 gave him a moment to recover himself. 
 
 ■AVell?' she said at last, 
 
 c I must clear him, first. I should be 
 ashamed to think of my own happiness 
 — my own interest — before I have at 
 least done my best. My love and my 
 whole life are yours; but the next two 
 or three years must be my father's — 
 unless, as I hope, the truth comes out 
 sooner.' 
 
 How line a woman's ear can be at times ! 
 His tone was pleading, almost anxious, 
 and yet a more stupid woman than Alicia 
 Colvin would have divined from it that the
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 125 
 
 speaker's mind was made up, and that it 
 
 was the time for acquiescence, not for 
 remonstrance. 
 
 She sat for a moment silent, her down- 
 cast eyes tracing the pattern of the carpet, 
 while he watched her anxiously. 
 
 Then she looked up with a frank smile, 
 and let him take her hand. 
 
 * I believe you are right ! I would never 
 try to stand between a man and his ideas 
 of honour, even if I thought them over- 
 strained.' 
 
 ' Do yon think mine so ?' 
 
 ■ X — no ! Perhaps I love you the better 
 for them, any way. But now I have my 
 ultimatum, too, and you must listen to it 
 and try to understand me. If we are to 
 go on as we are, it must be in all respects. 
 Of course people may say and think what 
 they please about your coming here, as they
 
 126 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 do already, but I cannot have anyone told 
 that we are engaged.' 
 
 " Why not ? That has been my one 
 consolation of late, that now, at least, I 
 could claim you openly.' 
 
 ' But suppose I do not choose to be 
 claimed?' 
 
 ' You ought at any rate to tell me why.' 
 — The tone implied — L that I may prove to 
 you that you are wrong.' And Alicia 
 looked at him, still smiling. 
 
 1 1 will tell you. I always speak the 
 truth, as you know, however awkward 
 it may sound. It is quite " on the cards " 
 that a young man in your position might 
 get tired of being engaged to a young 
 woman in mine. — Hush ! — I do not think 
 that you will, but I could not blame you 
 if it were so. And I should not care 
 to feel that you felt yourself bound to
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 127 
 
 me because the world knew that we were 
 engaged.' 
 
 It seemed as if Harold was about to 
 make a vehement answer : but he checked 
 himself, and for the moment made no 
 answer at all. 
 
 c Have I offended you?' she asked, try- 
 ing to meet the sombre, thoughtful gaze of 
 dark eyes. 
 
 c No ! I am only wondering in what 
 way I can bind myself to you more com- 
 pletely than I am bound already.' 
 
 c You need not. You mean to be true, 
 and so do I : and I would as soon doubt 
 myself as you. But I will not be labelled 
 as your property : both for your sake and 
 my own.' 
 
 Harold looked like a thundercloud, but 
 again he was in no hurry to answer : and 
 she smiled again, but covertly this time.
 
 128 ALSTOX CRUCIS. 
 
 c Did you ask for me, or for my brothers, 
 this afternoon?' she asked, presently. 
 
 ' For you. I knew that they were neither 
 of them at home.' 
 
 ' Ah, well ! in future you must always 
 ask for them. And if they are not at home 
 you must not come in — as a rule — unless 
 you can make up some ingenious excuse 
 for wanting to see me, which must not be 
 done often.' 
 
 Harold took her two hands almost 
 roughly in his, and looked her steadily in 
 the eves. Those glances of his could read 
 even' sign in earth and sky, in wood and 
 water ; but what were they to interpret the 
 secrets of a woman's face ? 
 
 ' You are treating me very hardly,' he 
 said. ' I wonder why ? Remember, you 
 cannot prevent my telling people that we 
 are engaged.' 
 
 ' If vou do. it will not be the truth !' she
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 129 
 
 answered, promptly. c You must take me 
 on my own terms, or not at all. And you 
 must not look so lowering over it, or I 
 shall be afraid to have anything to do 
 with you. Come ! sir — is it to be a 
 quarrel ? — or shall Ave — agree — and be 
 friends?' 
 
 i Kiss and be friends, you should say,' he 
 answered, letting himself be coaxed out of 
 his anger by her sudden change into a 
 frankly-gracious and most winning tone. 
 c You must have your own way for the time, 
 I suppose ; but I may find a way to outwit 
 you yet, Madam Absolute !' 
 
 'You had better not try! Xow Peace! 
 
 — and tell me what you have been doing 
 lately?' 
 
 ' Attending to business. And thinking 
 about my father, and making fifty impossi- 
 ble plans for clearing his name. But I 
 have done nothing yet.' 
 
 VOL. i. k
 
 130 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 c It must be so hard for you to know what 
 to do.' 
 
 ' Oh ! by the way, I have made one step. 
 I have given Mr. Thornton Harris a piece 
 of my mind, and insulted him in a public 
 place.' 
 
 c Harold ! Surely that was not wise. I 
 should not think him a safe man to quarrel 
 with.' 
 
 c I believe he is a little out of his mind 
 — and that is the only thing I can say in 
 his favour. If half the stories they tell 
 about him could be proved, his friends 
 would find it very easy to lodge him in a 
 lunatic asylum. ' 
 
 c Ah ! but did you ever notice what all 
 those stories illustrate ? — his insane deter- 
 mination to have his own way, even in 
 trifles, at any cost. Ernest was telling me 
 the other day how he has made up his 
 mind, for no reason at all, to have that
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 131 
 
 little farm down beyond Alders ford, ad- 
 joining some land of yonrs. And Ernest 
 says that he will have it, too, though the 
 owner does not want to sell. He will ruin 
 him, or himself: — but he will get what he 
 wants ! I wish you had not made an 
 enemy of him.' 
 
 L Xonsense ! — what could he do to me ? 
 He might have tried secretly to throw 
 difficulties in the way of this search of 
 mine : but by making him an open enemy 
 I have put a spoke in that wheel.' 
 
 L Perhaps so !' she said, looking at him 
 with a glance that would have been almost 
 unpleasantly keen, but that the eyes that 
 gave it were so beautiful. c Harold ! I 
 wonder if you are clever, after all?' 
 
 ' I was not considered so at school,' he 
 answered, simply. c Sweetest, why should 
 you care whether I am or not? Such as 
 I am you promised to love me : and we 
 
 k2
 
 132 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 shall never need to live by 1113' wits.' 
 
 c Yon don't know what I may expect of 
 yon, if that da)' ever comes which we must 
 not speak of as yet ! If I said to yon, 
 " Become a great man for my sake," — 
 would you do it?' 
 
 L I would try, no doubt,' answered the 
 young man, very soberly. ' But it is not 
 an easy thing to be a great man nowadays, 
 and I doubt whether the game is worth 
 the candle.' 
 
 c I think it so — but I am only a woman. 
 You must conquer the world for me, and 
 make me proud of you, and I will love you 
 a hundred times the more.' 
 
 He shook his head rather sadly. 
 
 L Meanwhile, I must clear my name, be- 
 fore I get it talked about ! I must con- 
 quer Mr. Harris and his kind before I set 
 out to conquer the world ! And for that, 
 at any rate, I shall try hard enough.'
 
 A FAIR WOMAN. 133 
 
 Miss Colvin gave him another keen 
 glance, but she said no more upon any 
 doubtfully-agreeable topics. On the con- 
 trary, she made the rest of her lover's 
 visit as pleasant to him as she knew how 
 to make it — which was pleasant enough 
 to have turned an older and a steadier 
 head than his. 
 
 Nevertheless, on his way back to Crucis, 
 as he gradually recovered from the blissful 
 bewilderment of her presence, he found 
 that the interview as a whole had left an 
 unpleasant impression behind it. 
 
 L She would have married me at once, 
 but she will not be eno-a^ed to me !' he 
 
 o o 
 
 said to himself. c That means that she 
 does not trust me : and that means that 
 some one has been putting it into her head. 
 She is too true for it to have come there 
 
 of itself Her brothers? Well! they 
 
 know that I would wring their necks if I
 
 134 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 caught them interfering between us : but 
 that doesn't always keep people from mak- 
 ing fools of themselves. I must look to 
 it ! And next week I will go to Deer- 
 hurst, and see what Mr. Walrond has to 
 say to me.'
 
 135 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AT DEERHURST. 
 
 —You, with eyelids pure, 
 Scarce witting yet of love or lure ; 
 
 —To you, with bird-like glances bright, 
 Half-paused to speak, half-poised in flight. 
 
 Austin Dobson. 
 
 Harold was quite determined to show the 
 old friends of the Malreward family that, 
 in casting off his father, they had cast off 
 him. But it was not possible to enjoy the 
 loneliness that this determination involved, 
 and it was not without a little more excite- 
 ment than he would have felt in happier 
 times that he thought of his first visit to
 
 136 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 Deerhurst, and the possibility of finding 
 friends there. 
 
 Indeed, friends of any sort were scarce 
 enough, and Harold was so anxious for 
 the good opinion of the one man who still 
 believed in his father's honour and re- 
 spected his memory, that he actually felt, 
 for the first time in his life, a little shy, 
 and anxious as to the impression that he 
 himself might make. 
 
 Perhaps that was the reason that he 
 allowed his half-brother to accompany him, 
 recalling on the way, for his benefit, his 
 own hazy recollections of Mr. Walrond and 
 his son and daughter, dating fourteen years 
 ago, though the Rector of Deerhurst was 
 an old and respected resident in the county. 
 For these were the good old days of plur- 
 alities and absentees ; and Mr. Walrond — 
 for reasons connected with his wife, who 
 was now dead — had lived for years in an-
 
 AT DEERHURST. 137 
 
 other parish at the other end of the shire, 
 and had only returned to the neighbour- 
 hood within the last few months, when the 
 shadow had fallen so darkly over Alston 
 Crucis that no one had the heart to call 
 upon him. 
 
 1 He came to see our father, I heard,' 
 said Harold, briefly. ' It was while you 
 were at school and I was away. But I 
 don't think my father ever went over to 
 Deerhurst.' 
 
 It was something of a disappointment to 
 both brothers when, at the door of Deer- 
 hurst Rectory, a somewhat stupid-looking 
 maid informed them that Mr. Walrond was 
 not at home. They rode slowly away, 
 looking round at the old-fashioned garden, 
 and quaint, rambling house which just 
 then was thought very ill-built and in- 
 convenient, but which had only to wait a
 
 138 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 few more rears to be considered all that 
 there is of the most picturesque and 
 delightful. 
 
 The main entrance was in front, looking 
 over the garden, and the drive-gate was at 
 the back, so that the narrow, moss-covered 
 drive came round the corner of the house, 
 close to the windows, which were on all 
 possible levels and of all possible sizes, and 
 so heavily mullioned and latticed that it 
 was impossible to see into the rooms, and 
 not very easy to look out of them. Some 
 one was looking out, however, for just as 
 they were turning the corner a window, 
 about on a level with their horses' heads, 
 opened upon its hinges like a little door. 
 Opened only a few inches, and a voice 
 said, 
 
 c I beg your pardon, do you want to see 
 Mr.Walrond?'
 
 AT DEERHURST. 139 
 
 Harold turned in his saddle, and lifted 
 his hat to the invisible speaker. 
 
 c Thank you ; we came over in the hope 
 of seeing him,' he said, ' but I hear he is 
 not at home.' 
 
 c We expect him home in about five 
 minutes,' said the voice. c Sarah should 
 have told you. If you will go round into 
 the stable-yard you will find someone there 
 to take the horses, and perhaps you can 
 find your way in from there.' 
 
 It was such a clear, careful, unembar- 
 rassed little voice that Harold set the 
 speaker down as probably a precocious, 
 thoughtful little lady of twelve or thirteen, 
 and smiled as he once more raised his hat 
 and rode on round the corner, while Phil 
 was almost laughing. 
 
 They both sobered down suddenly, how- 
 ever, as thev turned from the drive into
 
 140 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 the yard-gateway, and all but ran against 
 a slender, very solemn-looking young man 
 who was just coming out of it. 
 
 This young man was dressed in black : 
 in fact, in the peculiar garb of a clergyman 
 of the Church of England. But if he had 
 worn scarlet, or sky-blue, or one of the 
 white-flannel suits that were then in the 
 womb of futurity, in reserve for a happier 
 generation, his profession would have been 
 just as unmistakable. There was some- 
 thing in the set of his lips and the cut of 
 his hair that would have betrayed him, 
 whatever disguise he might have put on. 
 Indeed, he was very like a budding eccle- 
 siastic of the great Roman Church (though 
 it would have been difficult to horrify him 
 more than by telling him so) : notwith- 
 standing that he had a very good, honest 
 expression, with which he, for one, would 
 have been loth to credit a c Papist.'
 
 AT DEER HURST. 141 
 
 He- stepped back against the gate, and 
 looked at the two intruders in a srrave, 
 inquiring manner. 
 
 Harold drew rein, and sat still, waiting 
 
 a 
 
 for him to make some remark or to pass 
 on ; but he did neither. 
 
 c I came to see Mr. AYalrond,' said Harold 
 at last. ' I believe he will be in soon ?' 
 
 i I believe so. He is already about thir- 
 teen minutes after the time at which he 
 proposed returning,' answered the other, 
 in clear, precise tones, and said no more ; 
 while Harold involuntarily glanced round 
 for the stable-clock, in compliment to such 
 evident accuracy. 
 
 L Can we leave the horses here for a 
 little while ?' he asked. 
 
 c I think there can be no objection,' said 
 the young clergyman. ' You are Mr. Mal- 
 reward, are you not ?' 
 
 c Certainly, and this is my brother, Phil/
 
 142 ALSTON CBUCIS. 
 
 answered Harold, dismounting. L Is there 
 anyone here, do you know, who can take 
 them ?' 
 
 c I believe not. My father's man, who 
 is far from being what I should wish, has 
 j>robably taken advantage of my father's 
 absence to go to the " Dog and Spectacles," 
 round the corner. If he had been any- 
 where else, I should have been most happy 
 to have gone to fetch him, but as it is * 
 
 c 111 fetch him,' said Harold, not at all 
 amused at the gravity of the young man's 
 tone, but finding it quite natural, being 
 something of a disciplinarian himself in 
 the stable-yard. L Here, Phil, catch hold ! 
 I saw the house jnst now. What's your 
 man's name ?' 
 
 L Pray don't think of such a thing. I 
 could not think of letting you go to such 
 a place. The house is anything but re- 
 spectable, though I cannot persuade my
 
 AT DEERHURST. 14o 
 
 father to get the licence removed. If it 
 were necessary, it would be better that I 
 should go myself; but I think it is not. 
 The stable is almost empty, and I am 
 almost sure that I can tie up your horses 
 securely.' 
 
 ' Oh, if there's room for us to tie them 
 — here — jump off, Phil ! — they'll be all 
 right, of course. But which is the stable, 
 and which is the house V 
 
 The question sounded impolite, but was 
 not uncalled-for. The rambling old house 
 seemed to surround the yard, and what 
 was now stable had been a dwelling-house 
 once, to judge by the shape of its doors 
 and windows. 
 
 c The stable is there on the other side,' 
 said the young parson, answering the 
 question as seriously as it had been put. 
 c I am sorry, but my father will be here 
 directly, I believe, and James always
 
 144 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 watches for him and is here to meet him 
 by the hack way, — I fear in the spirit of a 
 mere eye-server. I have observed that 
 our horses have a habit of getting loose, 
 but ' 
 
 At this point in the conversation some 
 one laughed — a clear, rippling laugh, as 
 difficult to L locate ' as Ariel's music, but 
 which seemed to Harold to come from an 
 open window near which they stood. And 
 while Phil was still gazing up in the sky, 
 as if he thought the sound had dropped 
 from thence, two fresh actors came upon 
 the scene. First, the delinquent James 
 emerged from a little archway, panting 
 and somewhat red in the face. And the 
 next instant a door in the house-wall 
 opened, and a young lady stepped out 
 bare-headed into the pale autumn sun- 
 shine — a young lady whose slim, willowy 
 figure made her look tall, which she was
 
 AT DEERHURST. 145 
 
 not, and whose delicately-rounded, fair, 
 open face made her look like a child, 
 which she was not, though it was not very 
 long since she had been one. From the 
 gleam of her grey eyes and the curve of 
 her lips it was evident to Harold that it 
 was she who had laughed, and he rather 
 wondered whether it had been at him or 
 at the young clergyman. Xot that he 
 cared much, but he distinctly wished that 
 she would laugh again. It was a pleas- 
 ant sound, and there had never been 
 much laughter at Alston Crucis, or even 
 at Xetherfold. 
 
 ' John,' she said, c I did not know you 
 were here till I heard your voice just now. 
 I came out because from the top window 
 I saw my father coining. May I intro- 
 duce you ? Mr. Malreward — Mr. John 
 Walrond.' 
 
 1 1 was not aware that you could remem- 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 ber Mr. Malreward,' said tlie young man, 
 with a solemn bow to Harold, who had by 
 this time handed over the reins to the 
 man. 
 
 The grey eyes gleamed and twinkled, 
 and the pretty lips twitched a little, but 
 she merely said, 
 
 c Mr. Philip Malreward— Mr. John Wal- 
 roncl. My dear Jack ! you need not look 
 at me reprovingly ; I can assure you that 
 those really are their names. I am sure 
 they will tell you so themselves, if neces- 
 sary.' 
 
 The brother looked not merely reprov- 
 ing but horrified ; but the little, formal 
 speech that he was beginning to make was 
 drowned in the rattle of wheels as Mr. 
 Walrond drove briskly into the yard. 
 
 He was out of the dog-cart in a moment, 
 and most warmly greeting Harold and his 
 brother, and as his daughter slipped round
 
 AT DEERHURST. 147 
 
 and stood beside him he took her hand, 
 as if instinctively, and tucked it under his 
 arm. 
 
 ' So you have been renewing acquaint- 
 ance with my young people already,' he 
 said, s milin g round with his keen eagle- 
 • face on the group. 
 
 L John has been introduced to them, but 
 I have not,' his daughter said, demurely. 
 1 I sent them round here, so I thought it 
 my duty to make them known to John ; 
 but he did not do the same kind office for 
 me ; it was neglectful of him !' 
 
 Mr. Walrond glanced at his son's du- 
 bious face, and smiled. 
 
 ' Very incorrect !' he said. ' Xow I must 
 make the introduction. Miss Elizabeth 
 Wabrond ' 
 
 1 Miss Walrond remembers our names 
 very well,' interrupted Harold, smiling, 
 ' and I am much obliged to her, for if she
 
 148 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 had not been good enough to stop us we 
 should have gone away, and just have 
 missed you.' 
 
 The young lady held out her hand 
 frankly enough to both of them, and meet- 
 ing the eye of Phil, who was laughing, 
 broke herself into the very echo of the 
 laugh they had heard just before. 
 
 c Come !' said her father. c Come in ! 
 AYe will make no strangers of you ; you 
 shall come by the short cut — the " Spider's 
 web,'' my saucy wench here calls it — and I 
 will bet you anything in reason you don't 
 find the same way yourselves the second 
 time, nor hardly the third.' 
 
 He opened a door that led into a sort of 
 harness-room as he spoke, and led the way, 
 cautioning them to beware of two steps 
 in the next doorway, and perhaps hurry- 
 ing them a little more than was necessary. 
 It was, indeed, a complicated route, won-
 
 AT DEE E HURST. 149 
 
 clerfully so considering that the space 
 traversed was after all not great. It seem- 
 ed as though each former rector of Deer- 
 hurst must have bound himself to add at 
 least one room to that end of the house, 
 or to divide some room that his predecessor 
 had built, but never to pull down, or even 
 to break through a partition wall. 
 
 'Rather puzzling, isn't it?' said Eliza- 
 beth "Walrond to Phil, with modest pride, 
 when at last their twists and turns, and 
 ups and downs, had brought them to the 
 drawing-room, which was at the front of 
 the house, and at the other end. 
 
 ' Yes ; but Harold could find his way 
 back, and never make a wrong turn,' said 
 Phil, with a little pride of his own. looking 
 across the room to where his brother was 
 talking to Mr. Walrond. 
 
 : Could he ? There never was anyone 
 came here vet who could.' she answered.
 
 150 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 in a tone of good-tempered pique. c I re- 
 member people used to say so when we 
 were here before.' 
 
 c Harold never forgets where he has 
 once been.' 
 
 ' He wasn't noticing at all — I watched 
 him. He was talking to my father all the 
 while.' 
 
 c You can't always tell when he is no- 
 ticing. I think sometimes he knows his 
 way by instinct. But he never forgets a 
 turning, or a face that he has once seen.' 
 
 1 Really, he ought to be a detective !' 
 said the young lady, a little amused, and 
 glancing in her turn at the subject of all 
 this panegyric, who somewhat confused 
 her by turning his head with a quick 
 glance and smile which showed that he had 
 distinctly heard her low-toned observation. 
 
 It was surprising enough that he should 
 have been able to catch the words at the
 
 AT DEERHURST. 151 
 
 further end of that long room ; but what 
 surprised her more was his evident satis- 
 faction. 
 
 1 Does he want to be a detective ?' she 
 asked herself, even while she was hastily 
 looking away, and rushing into conversa- 
 tion upon some other topic with her new 
 boy-acquaintance. Then a new idea oc- 
 curred to her, suggested by that teazing 
 of her brother which was one of the 
 amusements of her life. 
 
 • We will send your brother back that 
 way presently,' she said, lowering her voice 
 still more. ' And John shall go with him, 
 to report how often he hesitates, and 
 whether he gets through fairly, without 
 asking anyone." 
 
 Elizabeth beckoned, smiling, to John 
 WaJrond, who was sitting by in attentive 
 silence, while his father and their visitor 
 talked about shooting. He crossed the
 
 152 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 room to her side, and she gravely told him 
 what was expected of him, secretly enjoy- 
 ing his dismayed and disapproving looks, 
 while Phil listened, half-puzzled and con- 
 siderably amused. 
 
 And meanwhile Mr. Walrond had sud- 
 denly thought fit to turn the conversation 
 to graver matters. 
 
 c I hear,' he said, c that there was a row 
 between you and Thornton Harris last 
 week in Aldersford. Of course it was 
 talked about, and I suppose that was your 
 intention. But, my dear lad, you must 
 excuse an old friend for giving you a hint 
 that that is not the way to do what you 
 were speaking of the other day.' 
 
 ' I am not so sure of that,' said Harold, 
 slowly. ' But, anyhow, I could not rest 
 till people knew that we were personal 
 enemies. Mr. AValrond ! he is at the bot- 
 tom of all this — this feeling against mv
 
 AT DEERHUEST. 153 
 
 father. But for that I would have let him 
 alone.' 
 
 • It would have been wiser to let him 
 alone as it is. He has never actually said 
 
 anything ' 
 
 %/ <_ 
 
 c He knows the truth." broke in the 
 young man. in low, emphatic- tones. ' I 
 saw it in his face at the inquest. I told 
 my father so, and he refused to speak 
 about it. but I read in Ms face that he 
 thought so too. And Harris kept glancing 
 at my father and alluding to him in a way 
 that no one could mistake, all through his 
 evidence, while he pretended to be merely 
 relating facts. And. when the affair was 
 over, he stood with that diabolical smile of 
 his, to watch my father leave the room 
 without one friendly hand stretched out to 
 him. I take o Te at credit to myself that I 
 did not knock him down then ; but yester- 
 day I did not want to ! I will have better
 
 154 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 satisfaction out of him than that some 
 day.' 
 
 ' You will have your own way, I sup- 
 pose, like your father before you,' said Mr. 
 Walrond, after a pause. ' You are an ob- 
 stinate lot, you Malre wards, and I have 
 lived too long- to set any bounds to what 
 an obstinate man may do if he sets his 
 mind on it. But you must not be re- 
 vengeful, you know, even for his sake.' 
 
 " Xo !' said Harold, in his most matter-of- 
 fact manner, and he did not proceed to ex- 
 plain what he understood by being c re- 
 vengeful,' but went on naively to confess 
 that he did not care to £0 to church on 
 Sunday at Alston St. Denis, and to ask if 
 Mr. Walrond thought that attendance at 
 Deerhurst would ' do." 
 
 Mr. Walrond, though a very good man, 
 was not a L spiritually-minded' clergyman, 
 even for those days. His private opinion
 
 AT DEERHURST. 155 
 
 was that if a wild young fellow like Harold 
 Malreward went to church anywhere it 
 would c do ' very well, and was almost more 
 than might have been expected. He as 
 good as told Harold so much, being moved, 
 perhaps, to a little extra plainness of 
 speech by the sight of his son's grave 
 countenance, for John Walrond had left 
 the other group by this time, and was 
 dutifully ready, if necessary, to relieve his 
 father of the burden of the conversation. 
 
 Hospitality in those days was not to be 
 satisfied by the offering of a doll's teacup- 
 ful of afternoon tea, and presently Mr. 
 Walrond left the room to order in some 
 wine that should not disgrace his cellar in 
 the estimation of his friend's son, who 
 might and ought to be a judge. 
 
 And Harold crossed the room to where 
 Phil and his young hostess were c getting 
 on ' with great rapidity.
 
 156 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 ' So you think I ought to be a detective, 
 Miss Walrond?' he said, smiling down upon 
 this frank-faced girl, who bore, now he came 
 to look at her again, considerable likeness 
 still to the child with whom he had now 
 and then played, ten years before. 
 
 ' Don't you think, yourself, that you 
 would like the profession?' she rejoined, 
 as little afraid of him as he was of her. 
 
 ' Xot particularly; except just now, and 
 for certain reasons,' he answered, with a 
 momentary seriousness. ' But, as you sug- 
 gest, we will have a try just now at that 
 little performance you thought Avas be- 
 yond me. And, if I manage to get through 
 your spider's web, you must ' 
 
 'Well! what must I do?' 
 
 c Make your father bring you over to 
 Crucis, and see if you can find your way 
 through our yew-hedge in the garden 
 there ! I remember your losing your way
 
 AT DEEBHUBST. 157 
 
 in it ten years ago, though I daresay you 
 don't. Phil will have told you that his 
 mother has sent cards, though, of course, 
 she could not call herself just now, and 
 she and my aunts would be so pleased to 
 see you.' 
 
 ' Thank you ; I should like very much 
 to come,' answered Elizabeth, sedately. 
 And in her heart she said, c Oh ! you hoy, 
 you great, good-looking, stupid boy ! You 
 speak to me as if I was seven years old 
 still, do you ? Won't I pay you out for 
 this, if ever I know you well enough to 
 tease your life out, as you deserve !' 
 
 ; I believe that your yew-hedge at Alston 
 Crucis is very remarkable, and at least Hxe 
 hundred years old,' said John Walrond, in 
 his clear, precise tones. c Do you know 
 which of the abbots is said to have planted 
 it?' 
 
 'No! I don't. I know that my grand-
 
 158 ALSTOX CRUCIS. 
 
 father was going to have it cut down, and 
 saw a ghost, which he took as a warning to 
 let it alone.' 
 
 c How very interesting !' said Elizabeth, 
 with wide, grave eyes. ' It was the ghost 
 of the planter, of course. Didn't it look 
 like any one of the abbots in particular?' 
 
 c My grandfather was far from sober at 
 the time,' explained Harold, seriously 
 enough, while her brother murmured some- 
 thing about c popular superstition.' c And 
 an old white pony was found the next 
 morning to have been wandering about all 
 night in the garden. But it always made 
 him very angry to hear anyone hint that it 
 was only the pony he saw. So people 
 gave up talking about it, for as we had two 
 good ghosts at Crucis already, no one 
 seemed to want another.' 
 
 She looked up, with a quick glance of 
 inquiry, but the dark eyes that met hers
 
 AT DEERHURST. 159 
 
 seemed to defy her to guess whether their 
 owner was in jest or earnest. And at that 
 moment Mr. Walrond returned. 
 
 c Father,' said Elizabeth, 'Mr. Malreward 
 says he can find his way straight back 
 again to the harness-room — or, at least, his 
 brother says so for him. And John would 
 like to see him do it !' 
 
 At this audacious mis-statement the 
 young clergyman opened his lips with a 
 gasp and seemed unable to shut them 
 again, and his father laughed compre- 
 hendingly. 
 
 ' We will all see him do it, if he doesn't 
 mind being treated with so little ceremony,' 
 he said. c You must excuse my little girl, 
 Mr. Malreward,' he went on, half aside. 
 c She has teased us two till she thinks that 
 is what men are made for. And John is 
 polite enough for both/ 
 
 ' Come then !' said Harold, smiling, and
 
 160 ALSTOX CRUCIS. 
 
 walked towards the door, while the others 
 followed closely. Elizabeth just at his 
 elbow, putting her hands behind her, as if 
 to restrain herself, and Phil just behind 
 her elbow, jealously explaining in an under- 
 tone that to find one's way back was harder 
 than to find the same way again. 
 
 c You are afraid of a failure, now !' said 
 the young lady. 
 
 c No, I am not !' answered the boy. 
 
 ' Phil ! you are forgetting your manners,' 
 remarked his brother, and, only pausing 
 for one glance round the hall, he opened 
 one of the numerous doors and went through 
 it. 
 
 c This, 1 he said, in the tone of a cicerone, 
 c is the justice-room of the Reverend George 
 Walrond, J.P.' 
 
 c How do you know that?' asked Mr. 
 Walrond's daughter. ' It looks much more 
 like a young sportsman's " den " !'
 
 AT DEEEHURST. 161 
 
 ' Perhaps I may have been brought up 
 before him some time for poaching ! or per- 
 haps I may have seen volumes like that 
 before,' he answered, nodding towards some 
 ponderous calf-bound books on an insigni- 
 ficant bookshelf just behind a well-worn 
 easy-chair. 
 
 ' " The ax relating to A Gustus Pease f n 
 murmured Elizabeth, as he opened another 
 door, and went through it without any 
 hesitation. 'Well! where are we now?' 
 
 They were in a short, dark passage, 
 against one wall of which Harold laid his 
 hand. 
 
 ' The kitchen is behind this,' he said, 
 4 but the kitchen door is on the other side. 
 The door at the end there leads into your 
 store-room. * 
 
 c I should really like to know how you 
 knew that !' 
 
 L Three grains of rice on the doorstep. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 It was only a guess,' he answered, with a 
 little laugh. ' Now ! this door opposite 
 leads to the cellar, I believe, because it 
 goes under the staircase, and this one to 
 the left is our way. Mind the step, Miss 
 Walrond.' 
 
 c Of course I am minding it!' answered 
 Elizabeth, speaking almost crossly, be- 
 cause she had all but tripped over that 
 familiar step while looking back and 
 wondering. 
 
 But she asked no more half-scornful 
 questions, and only followed with the rest 
 of the little party, amused and a little 
 excited, while Harold led the way unhesi- 
 tatingly through the last and most puzzling 
 convolutions of the labyrinth, and "finally 
 opened the harness-room door. 
 
 There were two men there, sitting soci- 
 ably over the harness-room hre. One was
 
 AT DEERHURST. 163 
 
 the lawful tenant of that room, the ' rec- 
 tor's James,' the other his guest, a man 
 somewhat younger than himself, respect- 
 ably dressed, Avith a kind of jockey-like 
 smartness ; with a neat little riding-switch 
 which he nursed across his knees. 
 
 Both men rose in surprise at the appari- 
 tion of so many unlooked-for visitors, and 
 James seemed somewhat confused. But 
 Harold and the stranger were looking at 
 each other in more than surprise — in 
 evident recognition. 
 
 1 You here, Will?' said Harold, with a 
 smile. c I thought you had gone out of 
 the country altogether,' and he added a few 
 words in Romany, at the sound of which 
 the other's dark face lighted up as if by 
 magic. 
 
 1 You've not forgotten that, sir !'he said, 
 with a quick movement of his hand to- 
 
 m 2
 
 164 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 wards his head that was more groom-like 
 than gipsy-like. c You've altered, though, 
 since I saw you ; but that's a good 
 while.' 
 
 1 Ay ! not since I was a boy. And how 
 are you getting on, and Annette, and the 
 little ones ?' 
 
 c Very well, sir, thank you. They're 
 well, and better off than formerly.' 
 
 1 And have you been with our people 
 lately?' 
 
 L Not to stay. I was with them one night 
 last week,' answered the man, his face 
 darkening somewhat ; and he glanced at 
 Mr. Walrond and the rest as if he did 
 not care to be questioned before so many 
 listeners. 
 
 Harold took the hint, nodded a farewell, 
 and turned back by the way he came ; 
 then, when the whole party were in the
 
 AT DEERHURST. 165 
 
 passage again, he uttered a hasty c Excuse 
 me,' and dashed back into the harness- 
 room. 
 
 Apparently his business there was only 
 to ask one question in Romany, and in so 
 sudden and peremptory a tone that he got 
 an answer to it; though the other seemed, 
 an instant after, to regret that he had 
 spoken. In another instant Harold had 
 rejoined his host, looking grave and 
 thoughtful, but like a man who had heard 
 only what he had expected to hear. 
 
 c You know that fellow, then ?' said Mr. 
 Walrond. 
 
 c He is one of my — connections,' said 
 Harold, with an odd smile. c His name is 
 Heme ; but he is only a half-gipsy, like 
 myself. He used to live with the tribe, 
 though, and was a great friend of mine. 
 Do you know anything of him ?'
 
 166 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 ' No ! except that I believe that he was 
 groom for a short time to a parishioner of 
 mine.' 
 
 c Thornton Harris ? Ah ! I thought so ;' 
 and Harold grew silent and still more 
 thoughtful while they re-entered the draw- 
 ing-room, and Mr. Walrond poured out the 
 wine and told its history, and called upon 
 them to admire its colour. 
 
 ' I must have it all drunk in my life- 
 time,' he said, with a smile, and a small 
 but heartfelt sigh. c John there doesn't 
 know a glass of good wine when he tastes 
 one, and it would be a sin to waste such 
 stuff as this on a fellow who would as soon 
 recruit his spirits out of an old woman's 
 tea-pot.' 
 
 1 I am not much of a judge, either,' said 
 Harold. c But I believe we have some 
 good wine at Crucis, thanks to my grand-
 
 AT DEERHURST. 167 
 
 father. I hope you will do us the honour 
 to taste it, sir, before long. And Miss 
 Walrond has promised to pay us a visit, 
 and laugh at the elephants and peacocks 
 on our yew-hedge that we think so much 
 of.' 
 
 4 She shall come with me, and treat the 
 wonder of the county with proper respect, 
 as her lather did before her,' said Mr. Wal- 
 rond, smiling. ' I met Miss Malreward 
 the other day, and she spoke very kindly 
 of wishing to see my " little girl." Folks 
 about here forget how time has flown since 
 we were last in this neighbourhood, don't 
 they, Elizabeth ?' 
 
 His daughter did not condescend to 
 accept the implied apology, but she was 
 talking very graciously to Phil, and Mr. 
 Walrond drew Harold a little to one 
 side.
 
 168 ALSTON CRUCTS. 
 
 c Forgive me if I seem meddlesome,' lie 
 said. ' But I met Mrs. Malre ward's brother 
 also, on that occasion, and he told me 
 that you and he had no dealings now with 
 each other ; isn't that something of a pity, 
 eh?' 
 
 c Mr. Bolingbroke has made his opinion 
 of my father so plain that it would ill be- 
 come my father's son to have any dealings 
 with him,' answered Harold, his face dark- 
 ening. ' He never came near the house 
 when my father lay dying — he sent an 
 empty carriage to my father's funeral ! 
 What did I care, after that, for his inviting 
 me to Ashleigh,and offering me his advice 
 and assistance ? I flung back his " kind- 
 ness " in his face, and I am happy to hear 
 that he knew Avhat I meant by it.' 
 
 ' He has a great deal of influence in the 
 county,' said Mr. Walrond, shaking his 
 head. 4 And he is trustee, you see, for
 
 AT DEEKIIURST. 169 
 
 Master Phil and his mother. It will make 
 it very awkward for you, I am afraid." 
 
 c / am Phil's guardian,' answered the 
 young man, with a touch of boyish pride. 
 1 Mr. Bolingbroke has no right to interfere 
 between us, and he may very safely leave 
 Phil's interests to me.' 
 
 It must be a very uninterested or very 
 unsympathetic household in which there is 
 not some comparing of notes soon after 
 new acquaintances have taken their de- 
 parture. Mr. Walrond only waited to see 
 his young visitors out of the gate before 
 turning back into the drawing-room to say, 
 
 'Well, Queen Bess, what do you think 
 of them?' 
 
 c The boy is delightful' said Elizabeth, 
 in a more than motherly — almost a grand- 
 motherly — tone. c And the young man is 
 interesting. His face is like the first chap- 
 ter of one of those novels that you despise
 
 170 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 so much, father, and read with so much 
 avidity !' 
 
 ' I don't quite see how that can be,' said 
 Mr. Walrond. c But it's lucky if his life 
 does not turn out only too like a novel — 
 murders and mischances and all. He's 
 hard set, poor lad, and I can't blame him 
 for taking it hardly. But I wouldn't 
 answer for what may happen, with the 
 fiery, obstinate Malreward blood, and that 
 queer new strain that old Harold thought 
 fit to breed into it. The lad is like his 
 father, but the cross has come out, as it 
 generally does in the second generation, 
 and I should be afraid to reckon on him as 
 I could have done on his father.' 
 
 1 Surely,' said John Walrond, with even 
 more than his usual gravity, c men have 
 power to refuse the evil and to choose the 
 good, whatever their forefathers may have 
 been?'
 
 AT DEEEHURST. 171 
 
 L I suppose so,' said his father, slowly. 
 c I suppose one must believe so. But, upon 
 my word, after what I have seen in the 
 course of my experience, I could very 
 easily bring myself to doubt it ! You can't 
 always depend on breed in a dog or a 
 horse, and you can't always depend on it 
 in a man — and that's about all there is to 
 be said of it, so far as I can see.' 
 
 ' You ought to like him, John,' said the 
 girl, stroking her brother's sleeve. c He 
 has just about as little sense of humour 
 as you have yourself, and I didn't think 
 your equal in that respect could have been 
 found so easily." 
 
 The stiff, grave young man smiled down 
 upon her kindly enough. Perhaps she 
 was the sunshine of his life as well as the 
 plague of it. 
 
 " Mr. Malreward did not strike me as a 
 particularly grave person. And, as for
 
 172 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 me, I am always ready to join in a laugh 
 when I see anything to laugh about,' he 
 said — and wondered why she should laugh 
 at that, 
 
 Harold, meanwhile, riding homewards, 
 seemed too much preoccupied to have 
 much to say in answer to Phil's remarks 
 upon the Walronds. It was hardly to be 
 expected that Alicia Cohan's lover would 
 be much impressed by Elizabeth Walrond's 
 child-like, flower-like grace and comeliness, 
 and he merely smiled as Phil, half-shyly, 
 asserted that she was the very prettiest 
 girl he had ever seen. And when they 
 arrived at home he went at once into the 
 basement story to the old kitchen, where 
 his grandmother sat, bending over the fire 
 with her short pipe in her hand, as if she 
 had never moved since that first evening
 
 AT DEERHURST. 173 
 
 we saw her there, as indeed she seldom 
 had, except into the room on the same 
 floor which had been fitted up as a bed- 
 room for her, and which no one was 
 allowed to enter but herself. 
 
 c Grandmother !' said Harold, abruptly, 
 L I have just heard of our people, and Joe 
 Heme is not with them.' 
 
 She answered with a little gesture of 
 hand and head that expressed 'Of course !' 
 as clearly as if she had said it. 
 
 c They want to stop about here a bit,' 
 she said. c But of course they don't want 
 him with them.' 
 
 ' Why not?' 
 
 c Because you might get hold of him, 
 and he has a loose tongue. And somehow 
 my brother sees his way to more profit by 
 getting Joe to keep silence if he can. So 
 he's sent out of harm's way.'
 
 174 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 1 I'm not so sure of that ! But now — 
 you have ways and means, grandmother 
 — and you must find out for me where he 
 is. If I can get hold of him, away from 
 the rest, they may find that they have 
 outwitted themselves.' 
 
 c I doubt he'll have been well warned to 
 keep out of your way, wherever he is. But 
 I can find him for you, if you can make 
 him speak when he is found.' 
 
 c Trust me for that ! How soon can you 
 find him?' 
 
 c You ask foolishly !' answered the sibyl, 
 with severity. c If I could tell you that, I 
 could tell you now where to find him. 
 Give me your hand again, my lad. I want 
 to look at those lines I spoke of the night 
 that he was buried.' 
 
 c No !' said Harold, smiling, but putting 
 his hands jealously behind him. ' You
 
 AT DEEEHURST. 175 
 
 told me too much then ! Two fair women 
 is one too many. I am going to shape my 
 fate for myself, let the lines say what they 
 will !'
 
 17G 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE TRAMP. 
 
 ' I love you clearly, O my sweet, 
 Although you pass rue lightly by.' 
 
 The next Sunday, Elizabeth "Walrond, 
 looking down from her place in the c sing- 
 ers' gallery,' in Deerhurst church, was 
 aware of a head towering above the old 
 women's bonnets in the straight-backed free 
 seats at the lower end of the building. It 
 was Harold Malreward who had bestowed 
 himself there, modestly conscious of the 
 splashes of mud he had acquired in his 
 hastv ride across country, and listening
 
 ON THE TRAMP. 177 
 
 to the quaint turns and convolutions of 
 the morning hymn with an intense gravity 
 that made his dark face look very sombre. 
 
 It was only his usual ' Sunday face,' a 
 kind of Red-Indian impassiveness that was 
 habitual with him except when he was ex- 
 cited or amused ; but Elizabeth could not 
 know that. And. indeed, his thoughts were 
 really sombre enough in complexion, and 
 the touch of imaginative pity with which 
 she now and then regarded him was not 
 uncalled-for : though he did not feel quite 
 as tragic as he looked. All through his 
 ride he had been revolving a wild scheme, 
 that was to be carried out as soon as he 
 had obtained sufficient clue to start with : 
 and in the prospect of something to be 
 done, and of change and adventure, he 
 was not without consolation in his troubles. 
 
 It was raining sharply when the con- 
 gregation left the church, and Mr. Wal- 
 
 vol. i. X
 
 178 ALSTOX CRUCIS. 
 
 rond in his hospitality sent round the clerk 
 to intercept Mr, Malreward at the lych- 
 gate, and ask him to stay at the Rectory 
 for early dinner — which message that 
 functionary gave in a peremptory manner 
 befitting a magistrate's warrant. And 
 Harold accepted the invitation in a becom- 
 ing spirit of meekness, and they dined very 
 pleasantly in the old-fashioned wainscoted 
 dining-parlour, while the rain pattered on 
 the dead leaves outside. 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Walrond thought he had 
 presumed far enough upon his privileges 
 as an old friend when they met before, for 
 he said nothing more about Harold's pri- 
 vate affairs, but discoursed of sport, and 
 guns, and dogs, with as much zeal as any 
 young man could have displayed, and far 
 more knowledge. 
 
 John Walrond said very little. He 
 never said much when his father was by,
 
 ON THE TRAMP. 179 
 
 though he loved his father very heartily, 
 and would have respected him even more 
 if some of his other friends would have 
 allowed it. But in no case would he have 
 had anything in common with Harold Mal- 
 reward. They were about as different as 
 two young men could be, and, though they 
 were supposed to have played together as 
 boys, they had neither of them much recol- 
 lection of the fact. Indeed, as a boy John 
 had been a good deal away from Deer- 
 hurst before his father left it : and even 
 then had not perhaps had much play in 
 him. 
 
 As for Elizabeth, her father had accus- 
 tomed her to sit at his elbow, and join in 
 whatever conversation he might be carry- 
 ing on, with a word put in here and there, 
 but more often with a smile, or a turn of 
 the head, or a small infectious laugh. She 
 enjoyed the things he talked of, and un- 
 
 N 2
 
 180 ALSTOX CKUCIS. 
 
 clerstoocl c sport ' theoretically, though, she 
 had never dreamed of carrying a gun, or 
 even a fishing-rod. 
 
 John would not have talked about shoot- 
 ing on Sunday, even if he had been any- 
 thing of a shot, which he was not. He 
 was to preach for his father that afternoon, 
 and presently retired to prepare himself; 
 and, as if out of sheer perversity, the three 
 whom he had left behind, fell immediately 
 into talk on somewhat more serious sub- 
 jects — starting with the possibility of the 
 immortality of the brute creation, and 
 drifting from that into such a quaint, 
 dreamy discussion as Elizabeth and her 
 father loved. 
 
 Harold said but little, but what he did 
 say showed that he, too, had thoughts of 
 other things than sport — in his own some- 
 what blunt and original fashion. And 
 when Elizabeth spoke he looked at her,
 
 ON THE TRAMP. 181 
 
 she fancied, as if lie wondered that c a 
 girl ' should have any ideas about such 
 things at all. 
 
 As it happened, that was not what he 
 was thinking in the least ; but only how 
 much better right women — such women at 
 least as this — had to an opinion on such 
 points than men ! He did not in his oavii 
 mind compare Elizabeth to an angel — in- 
 deed, it is doubtful whether he had even 
 gone the length of calling Alicia Colvin an 
 angel, though lovers will do such things. 
 But this fair-skinned creature, with her 
 soft chin nestling in her soft palm, and her 
 wide grey eyes full of abstract visionary 
 enthusiasm, struck him as being some- 
 thing more spirituel than ever he had seen 
 as yet — the sort of creature to whom one 
 might apply the word clairvoyante, if it had 
 not been degraded by the way in which it 
 has been used.
 
 182 ALSTOX CRUCIS. 
 
 ' I thought she was a child still !' he said 
 to himself. c She was so little when I re- 
 member her before. Is that the way all 
 women grow up ? If a man was in a fix, I 
 suppose it would be ridiculous for him to 
 ask advice of a girl like that. How should 
 she know any more than a bird or a flower ? 
 But, all the same, I shouldn't wonder if 
 she could advise him well !' 
 
 The end of that same week, greatly to 
 his stepmother and aunt's surprise, Harold 
 announced that he was going to pay a visit 
 to a college friend of his in the next 
 county. 
 
 Mrs. Philip Malreward thought it full 
 soon after her husband's death for his son 
 to be paying visits in a gay establishment : 
 and Miss Malreward very reasonably 
 thought that Harold ought to have more
 
 OX THE TRAMP. 183 
 
 than enough to do at home for the present. 
 And they both expressed their opinion, 
 more or less judiciously, but Harold re- 
 ceived their remonstrances with careless 
 good-humour and hardly answered them. 
 Moreover, he made his own preparations 
 for the visit, with a certain secrecy, and 
 with so much care that the ladies of the 
 house had a wild idea that he might be 
 2'oino: a-wooino\ If so. thought his step- 
 mother, he ought in common courtesy to 
 oive her some hint of his intentions : but 
 he departed when the time came, and made 
 no sign, even to Phil. 
 
 Phil, for his part, did not remonstrate ; 
 but he felt himself defrauded. It would 
 be better to be at school than at home all 
 by himself: and Harry would not even say 
 how lono- he meant to be away. And, fur- 
 ther, there were those dreams of theirs for
 
 184 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 proving their father's innocence. Harold 
 had said not a word about them of late : 
 and now he had gone away to enjoy him- 
 self, still without a word. Phil began to 
 take' delight in prowling about alone, re- 
 volving schemes by which he, unaided, 
 might find out the truth, and astonish his 
 In-other and the world. 
 
 He was walking alone in the wood below 
 the park, the afternoon after Harold's de- 
 parture, cherishing these high thoughts, 
 when a rustling in the winter woodland 
 near him made the boy start, and wonder 
 what it could be. The instincts of the 
 woodland dwellers were not so strong in 
 him as in Harold, but companionship with 
 his elder brother had taught him to keep 
 his ears and eyes open when he walked 
 abroad. 
 
 Some small wild creature fled precipi- 
 tately through the drv fallen leaves, and
 
 ON THE TRAMP, 185 
 
 the next instant the bushes beside the 
 track parted, and a tall gipsy lad sprang 
 on to the path. 
 
 ' Good-day to you, young gentleman,' he 
 began, in a glib but somewhat whining 
 voice. c Can you tell me if this is the way 
 to Alston Crucis ?' 
 
 'Well, it is — audit isn't. You're tres- 
 passing, you know,' said the country gen- 
 tleman's son. ' If you've come from St. 
 Denis, you should keep to the high-road 
 till you come to the lodge gates, and get 
 through the park that way/ 
 
 ' Av ! but I've a message for the young 
 squire, from one that doesn't want all the 
 country to know that he is sending. So I 
 thought best to make a cut across.' 
 
 4 Then you shouldn't tell your business 
 to the first fellow you meet,' answered 
 Phil, shrewdly. 
 
 ; Av ! but you're his brother. If I
 
 186 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 give you the word, that'll do, won't it?' 
 
 L Harry went away, and never said any- 
 thing,' said Phil to himself. c But, if there 
 is anything, some one ought to know it. 
 — Mr. Malreward is away,' he went on, 
 aloud. c But if you give your message to 
 me I'll see that he gets it.' 
 
 c I don't know that you need trouble 
 yourself!' remarked the gipsy, in quite a 
 different tone, pushing back his soft, shape- 
 less hat, and a black bandage that had 
 hidden one eye and half the cheek beneath 
 it. 
 
 L Why ! Harold V cried the boy, in blank 
 amazement, and the young man leaned 
 against a tree, and laughed. 
 
 c Good ! so far,' he cried, before Phil 
 had got back his breath sufficiently to 
 speak. ' I felt mean, in not letting you 
 into the secret before : but I had to keep 
 you in the dark to experiment upon !'
 
 OX THE TRAMP. 187 
 
 c Oh ! why didn't you tell me ? Why 
 didn't you let me help get you up ? What 
 an awful scamp you look ! What are you 
 going to do ? ' 
 
 ' That's what I came back to tell you — 
 that, and to find out whether I was safe, 
 whether you would know me. If you 
 didn't, I knew I was all right. It was a 
 pity you had to miss the fun, but I could 
 not spare you as a test.' 
 
 1 No one could possibly know yon. But 
 what are you after ?' 
 
 c Joe Heme ! He knows something, and 
 he has been sent away because, being little 
 more than half-witted, he might be " got 
 at." But I believe I can find him, in 
 this trim, and get out of him what he 
 knows.' 
 
 c I see !' said Phil, meditatively. c I wish 
 I could come with you !' 
 
 c I half wish you could. But it is not a
 
 188 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 mere dressing-up frolie,' answered Harold, 
 trying to look and feel sufficiently serious, 
 but making rather a failure of it. c If I 
 find out anything, some one will have to 
 smart for it ; and if I don't there's no say- 
 ing where else I should turn for a clue. 
 But now I want you to keep a look-out 
 for me here. If anything important turns 
 up, tell the grandmother, and she will find 
 means to let me know. I told you before 
 to collar all my letters, but of course now 
 you won't forward them. They must stay 
 till I come back, and heaven knows when 
 that will be. If I can write to you I will, 
 and you must contrive that your mother 
 and the aunts don't see the postmark : but, 
 if I don't write, you'll know why.' 
 
 ' Yes ! Harry ! what would they say if 
 they knew about this ?' 
 
 c It would horrify them, of course ; and 
 that is one of the reasons why no one must
 
 OX THE TRAMP. 189 
 
 know. But I can't afford to respect the 
 Malreward proprieties just now. You'll 
 hear me blamed for going away, and blam- 
 ed for not writing to Curtice, who will be 
 at his wits' end about those leases ; but 
 don't you even look as if you knew of any 
 excuse.' 
 
 1 111 try not !' 
 
 'All right then! Good-bye! If ' 
 
 Harold checked himself. He had been 
 on the point of saying, L If I get put out 
 of the way in a gipsy squabble, as is al- 
 ways possible, take up the task I leave 7 
 and clear the old name, for my sake as 
 well as our father's.' But, on second 
 thoughts, it seemed better not put the idea 
 of such a possibility into Phil's head. 
 Only the presence of it in his own mind 
 moved Harold to an unwonted demonstra- 
 tion. " Good-bye !' he said again, and put 
 his arm for an instant round the boy's neck
 
 190 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 and bestowed on him a rough, kiss. Then 
 he drew the bandage again over his face, 
 parted the nut bushes that overhung the 
 steep bank, and was gone before Phil had 
 time to look round. 
 
 There was one more person upon whom 
 Harold proposed to experiment, before 
 finally starting upon his uncertain expedi- 
 tion ; a person whom he had not thought fit 
 to mention to his brother. 
 
 Xetherfold did not lie by any means in 
 the direction which he had been warned that 
 it would be necessary to take, and time was 
 precious, but Harold had persuaded him- 
 self that the detour would be but a trifling 
 hindrance. He could hardly, in this guise, 
 inquire for Miss Colvin; but it was possible 
 that he might meet her in the lanes adjoining 
 Xetherfold, or, if not, even a sight of the 
 house where she lived would be something
 
 ()X THE TBAMP. 191 
 
 to a lover who was going away for an in- 
 definite time, and upon an errand so mo- 
 mentous to them both. 
 
 Slowly and more slowly he walked as he 
 drew near the house, passing it twice and 
 looking at it with longing eves. But it was 
 not until he had passed it by more than 
 half-a-mile that his heart gave a bound 
 that warned him of the identity of a grace- 
 ful figure that was but just in sight, at a 
 distant turn of the lane. 
 
 Harold quickened his pace, wondering 
 how he could venture to speak to her with- 
 out at first betraying himself, and yet with- 
 out startling her. Fortune favoured him, 
 for just as his rapid steps had almost over- 
 taken hers, Miss Colvin dropped something. 
 It was only a spray of ivy ; but it gave him 
 an excuse to spring forward and pick it 
 up, saying in his assumed voice, as he 
 offered it,
 
 192 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 1 1 think you have dropped something, 
 my lady/ 
 
 c Thank you, it is of no consequence,' 
 she answered, coldly, and glanced at the 
 young man so slightly that he felt no fear 
 of being recognised. She walked on, not 
 offering to take the spray from his hand, 
 and he kept pace with her, taking care not 
 to come too close. 
 
 c My people have a saying,' he said, c that 
 it is ill-luck to a woman to pluck a green 
 thing and cast it aside.' 
 
 c I did not cast it aside purposely, but 
 I don't want it. And I don't believe in 
 luck.' 
 
 Alicia Colvin's beautiful proud face 
 showed no signs of uneasiness, but she 
 walked somewhat faster, little dreaming 
 how watchful and reverent were the eyes 
 that followed her every movement. 
 
 ' You've no need to be frightened,' said
 
 OX THE TRAMP. 193 
 
 Harold, quietly. c And there's men in 
 that field yonder would hear you if you 
 just spoke loud. But I want to tell your 
 fortune, my lady, if you'll let me.' 
 
 L I thought it was only your women who 
 did that,' she answered, too proud to appear 
 alarmed. 
 
 I The women do it for the Gorgio gentle- 
 men,' he said ; c but for a lady like you, — a 
 man's eye sees clearer.' 
 
 I I don't want to know my fortune,' she 
 repeated, walking on steadily. 
 
 4 Yet I could tell you something,' he went 
 on, still watching her. c There is some 
 one who loves you, my lady. Do you want 
 to know whether he will be true ?' 
 
 1 1 would not ask vou to tell me, even if 
 you could know,' Alicia Colvin answered ; 
 and unawares a cool, confident smile stole 
 over her ripe, curved lips. The lover's 
 heart sank a little at the sight of that smile 
 
 vol. i. o
 
 194 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 — so unreasonable is man ! If it meant 
 anything, it meant confidence in his truth 
 and attachment, and yet, — he did not de- 
 rive much satisfaction from it. 
 
 c You have been hard upon him, I can 
 see that,' Harold went on, after a moment, 
 carefully guarding his face and voice. 
 ' Shall I tell you whether he will love you 
 the better for it, or whether you will drive 
 him away?' 
 
 ' I will give you sixpence, if that is what 
 you want,' said the young lady, firmly. c I 
 have nothing more with me ; and, as you 
 say, those men are quite near enough to 
 hear me if I were to call them.' 
 
 At the mention of the sixpence Harold 
 laughed under his breath, and was on the 
 point of accepting it, and then at once de- 
 claring himself. But as his lady-love 
 spoke the last words, and drew back, slack- 
 ening her steps as she spoke, he changed
 
 ON THE TEAMP. 195 
 
 his mind suddenly and passed on without 
 a word, touching his slouched hat with a 
 s ullenly-re sp e c tf ul ge s tur e . 
 
 All at once it was clear to him that it 
 was as well that Alicia had not recognised 
 him ; that she would probably sympathise 
 more with his eccentric expedition after he 
 had returned successful, and that the 
 fewer people knew of his proceedings the 
 better, however trustworthy they might 
 be. 
 
 All very true, doubtless ; but it may be 
 questioned whether it would have occur- 
 red to him just then if it had not been for 
 that little smile that had chilled him like a 
 touch of early frost. 
 
 But Harold Malreward was not intro- 
 spective by any means. He did not ana- 
 lyse his own emotions after he had once 
 given himself a reason for his sudden 
 change of conduct. He looked back once, 
 
 o2
 
 196 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 before the turn of the lane hid his lady's 
 figure from his siffht — a look of that hon- 
 est, unreasoning passion that has always 
 something a little pathetic about it — and 
 hid the ivy spray in the breast of his dis- 
 reputable jacket. And then he went on 
 his way, not exactly rejoicing, but grad- 
 ually walking himself into high spirits and 
 confidence once more. 
 
 No one knew the lanes and by-ways of 
 the country-side better than the young 
 master of Alston Crucis ; and he made 
 good speed, guiding himself by a sort of 
 instinct, even where experience was at 
 fault. Time was precious ; for he knew at 
 present where to find the tribe that now 
 enjoyed the privilege of Joseph Heme's 
 society; but, should they break up their 
 camp and go, there might be some delay 
 in overtaking them, though little difficulty
 
 ON THE TRAMP. 197 
 
 in tracing their route to one who knew the 
 secrets of gipsy travelling. 
 
 Nevertheless, the detour by Netherfold 
 had taken time, and night found Harold 
 nearer home than he could have wished. 
 He was quite sufficiently confident in his 
 disguise to go in and ask for some supper 
 at a little wayside inn where he had often 
 stopped when out hunting; but he had 
 resolved to go on again after supper, and 
 if necessary to walk for the greater part of 
 the night and sleep under a haystack, that 
 he might be well away from this familiar 
 neighbourhood before the searching day- 
 light of the next morning. 
 
 'There's another of you, then?' said 
 mine host, as Harold entered the low-ceiled 
 inn kitchen. c You gentry don't often go 
 about single. Where's the rest of the 
 gang?'
 
 198 ALSTON CliUCIS. 
 
 c That's their business,' answered Harold, 
 carelessly ; and leaning against the door- 
 post he looked carefully round the inn 
 kitchen, wondering what could have 
 brought a single gipsy to the c Brown Cow ' 
 on Watchett Edge. 
 
 The next instant he gave a start, and 
 instinctively drew back, to give himself 
 time to think what he had better do. For 
 beside the fire, warming his brown hands 
 at the blaze, and watching the culinary 
 operations of the landlady, sat the young 
 man of whom he was in search. His eyes 
 alone would have made him unmistakable, 
 even if he had been as much disguised as 
 Harold himself, and he, too, seemed to 
 have made some attempt in that direction. 
 
 c Now, what's he after ; and is this bad 
 luck or good?' thought Harold, as he 
 mechanically answered certain lofty re- 
 marks of his host, and tried to compre-
 
 OX THE TRAMP. 199 
 
 hencl this unlooked-for development. Has 
 lie fallen out with that lot ? or is he 
 on his way to find me, and make a bargain 
 to tell me what I want to know ? I might 
 hear all that I want, in that case — and a 
 good deal more than the truth ! I believe 
 I had better tackle him first as a stranger, 
 any way.' 
 
 So reflecting, Harold drew near the fire, 
 ordered the refreshment that seemed to 
 him most in character, and boldly set 
 himself to attract Joe Heme's attention by 
 certain signs well known amongst the gipsy 
 tribes, as among the numerous race of 
 tramps and beggars who are the camp- 
 followers of their rapidly-diminishing 
 army. 
 
 Old Mrs. Malreward had taken care 
 that Harold should not forget his childish 
 knowledge of the gipsy tongue ; and even 
 if he had known less of it than he did
 
 200 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 he might have contrived to impose upon 
 Joseph Heme, who belonged to a genera- 
 tion that was rapidly losing its original 
 language and adopting a more cosmopo- 
 litan argot. 
 
 They chatted over their supper in 
 friendly fashion enough, while the land- 
 lord of the i Brown Cow ' watched them 
 with some distrust, and talked c at ' them 
 to his wife and daughter. Harold was too 
 busy to notice the disparaging tone of 
 these remarks, and would not have cared 
 for it if he had. This unexpected change 
 in all his plans had made him forget the 
 lighter aspect of his disguise, and it no lon- 
 ger amused him to think of the difference 
 between his present welcome and those he 
 had met with in the past. 
 
 It was with unfeigned satisfaction that 
 mine host saw the ' two gipsies ' rise and 
 go off together, having finished their sup-
 
 OX THE TRAMP. 201 
 
 per and paid for it, and Harold having 
 flung down his money with a carelessness 
 of which the next instant he was ashamed, 
 as being utterly inartistic and out of 
 keeping. 
 
 c Which is your road then, brother ?' he 
 asked, as soon as they got outside, speak- 
 ing quickly lest the other should ask him 
 the same question and the answer prove 
 unsatisfactory. 
 
 c Well, I'm going west,' answered Joseph 
 Heme, cautiously. 
 
 c That's an odd thing, for I'm going 
 west, too,' said Harold, after an imper- 
 ceptible pause, as he turned back by the 
 other's side along the very road by which 
 he had come. 
 
 c He is after me ,' he thought. : Well, 
 no use in being in a hurry. It is all in 
 my way, and I don't see why I should 
 save him a walk.'
 
 202 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 They walked along, exchanging a word 
 or two now and then, till they reached the 
 turn that led down to Alston Crucis, and 
 Harold drew back a little, waiting to see 
 which way his friend was going, and care- 
 ful not to startle him by seeming to guess. 
 But he kept straight on, and Harold fol- 
 lowed him, wondering. 
 
 L Is it Deerhurst?' he said to himself. 
 1 What can he be wanting there ? — Thorn- 
 ton Harris V 
 
 His heart gave a bound, half in wrath 
 and half in exultation. 
 
 c If only I could make a third at that 
 meeting ! This one might be fool enough 
 to let me, but I fear the other is not.' 
 
 ' Is this the nearest way to Alston ?' he 
 asked presently, in a careless tone. 
 
 c Is it the house you want, or the 
 village ?' 
 
 c Well, the village must do for to-night.
 
 OX THE TRAMP. 203 
 
 It'll be too late, by the time I'd get there, 
 to see anybody at the house.' 
 
 ' This way's as good as any other for 
 Alston St. Denis,' drawled Joe Heme, as 
 if he were thinking of something else. 
 4 Who do you want to see at the house ?' 
 
 c That's my business — and maybe one 
 other's. I was sent for !' said Harold, 
 mysteriously. 
 
 c Ay ? The squire's dead that was a 
 good friend to us, and as for the young one 
 — I don't know.' 
 
 'What's wrong with the young one?' 
 
 c I don't know,' repeated the gipsy. 
 c Friend or enemy, Fm not going to meddle 
 with him. Is it him you want to see?' 
 
 c Xo ! There's some one else in that house 
 that it isn't well to cross. If she sends for 
 you, you'll have to go ; wherever you are 
 and whatever you may be doing.' 
 
 4 She knows nothing about me — nor
 
 204 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 you either. Are you one of our folks ? ' 
 ' She says so ! And she knows more 
 than you think. If you've got a secret 
 you want to keep from her, you'd better 
 have put a thousand miles between you 
 than have come down this way. Xot that 
 that would help you long !' 
 
 Harold had fancied he detected a shade 
 of uneasiness in his companion's tone, and 
 instantly resolved to trade upon his grand- 
 mother's reputation as a witch. Beyond 
 this he had little enough idea of what to 
 do. Diplomacy could avail little in the 
 general uncertainty, and Harold had few 
 of the diplomatist's qualifications beyond 
 a certain boldness and readiness to act 
 when the time for action came. He had 
 wisdom enough now to hold his tongue, 
 and Joe Heme made no immediate answer, 
 being, perhaps, absorbed in unpleasant 
 reflections.
 
 OX THE TRAMP. 205 
 
 On they went between the leafless 
 hedgerows, arched over by the pale night- 
 sky, the gipsy walking with the sauntering 
 
 yet untiring step of a life-long wanderer, 
 and Harold with the ease of one trained to 
 field sports almost from babyhood. 
 
 He was wondering what the other was 
 thinking of, and waited impatiently for the 
 next word ; but he found time to think his 
 own thoughts too as they went. 
 
 What was Alicia doing ? Was she sit- 
 ting alone in her perfumed drawing-room 
 thinking of him ? or had her brothers 
 brought up some of their friends to pay 
 their too obvious compliments and ogle her 
 beauty. Harold grew a little hot as he 
 thought of them, though he would not pay 
 them the compliment of being jealous. He 
 need hardly have feared any of these as 
 rivals, even if Alicia had not given him 
 her promise ; but the Malreward pride
 
 206 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 was a little sore at the idea that any one 
 of them might think himself free to enter 
 for the prize, which was apparently within 
 his reach. 
 
 For a moment it did occur to him that 
 he had better be at home, in his own 
 character and looking after his own inter- 
 ests, than in this mean disguise, wandering 
 about the country on a wild-goose chase. 
 But the next, — a sudden turn of the road — 
 a trick of memory — had made him thrust the 
 thought from him with shame. 
 
 It was in this very lane that he was rid- 
 ing with his father, long ago, so long that 
 he had almost forgotten how old he was 
 then. But he remembered the pony — the 
 first large pony he had ever had, and 
 almost the first time of riding it. And 
 the pony — a chestnut it was, and somewhat 
 dangerously spirited for so small a rider — 
 made a desperate shy just by that gnarled
 
 ON THE TRAMP. 207 
 
 oak-tree yonder, and lie was thrown and 
 stunned for a minute or two. 
 
 As one remembers a dream, Harold re- 
 membered coming to himself again in his 
 father's arms, and the deadly pallor of his 
 father's stern face, and the unwonted quiver 
 in the voice that whispered 4 Thank God!' 
 Some children grow up from babyhood 
 with an easy, indifferent consciousness of 
 the love that surrounds them ; but Harold 
 had never known before how much he 
 was loved — and never doubted it after- 
 wards. 
 
 Not for a moment had he ever imagined 
 that he could free himself from the promise 
 that he had made for his dead father's sake. 
 But now he flushed hotly in the darkness 
 at the thought that he had for a moment 
 wished that he might be free. 
 
 Harold turned again to his companion, 
 and drew him into talk about himself —
 
 208 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 not a very difficult matter at any time — 
 showing a knowledge of the affairs of the 
 tribe that half bewildered Joe Heme and 
 half inclined him to be confidential. 
 
 It seemed that Joe had a grievance 
 against his family, and was suffering 
 under a sullen sense of injury that per- 
 haps would have found vent in words, 
 even had he been walking alone. Half- 
 witted as he was, he had caution enough 
 to tell less than half his story, but Harold 
 could supply more of the missing links 
 than he dreamed. 
 
 'They would not trust him — that lot! 
 They had sent him away, and they were 
 going tu make their own market out of 
 what they would never have known but 
 for him. But he should outwit them yet. 
 He had given Jem Lovell the slip already, 
 for all he thought himself so sharp ; and 
 the rest of them might look long enough
 
 OX THE TRAMP. 209 
 
 before they caught sight of him again ! He 
 knew those that would be willing enough 
 to make it worth his while to keep out of 
 their way for good and all.' 
 
 This was the sum and substance of his 
 maunderings, told with endless repetition 
 and circumlocution. And Harold could, 
 to a certain extent, read between the lines. 
 
 c It is hush-money they want !' he said 
 to himself, with a sudden flash of enlight- 
 enment. L Joe saw it done, and he has let 
 them know who did it. And they want to 
 make their own bargain in the matter ; and 
 he, not unnaturally, wants to make his. 
 Now ! has he wit enough to put me off the 
 scent, or shall I find out who he goes to ? 
 To stick to him like a leech is obvious and 
 easy ; but have I the best chance of creep- 
 ing into his confidence as I am now, or in 
 my proper person ?' 
 
 A soft, full note came up the valley on 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 the cool night wind. Deerhurst church 
 clock striking ten. 
 
 c Come on !' said Harold, aloud, speaking 
 by a sudden impulse. c You'll be late 
 £etti»£ to Mr. Harris's.' 
 
 c How did you know I was going there V 
 asked the other, stopping short in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 ' She told me about you. And she sent 
 me to help you — or hinder you — as you 
 choose to take it !' 
 
 He spoke with a business-like coolness, 
 as if he did not care whether his com- 
 panion was impressed or not. And Joe 
 Heme made no answer for the moment, 
 being amazed, or cautious, or sullen, or 
 perhaps all three. 
 
 c Xo man had better try to hinder me,' 
 he said at last; ' and I want no help. I've 
 had too much !'
 
 ON THE TKAMP. 211 
 
 c Well ! I've orders to stick to you. And 
 with what you have to say to Mr. Harris 
 you'd be the better of a witness, as anyone 
 might see. But take it how you choose.' 
 
 c Hell never let you hear what we have 
 to say to each other,' answered Joe Heme, 
 after another pause. c But you may come 
 on with me if you like, and chance it. I 
 can give a guess as to how my great-aunt 
 comes to know what she does know, but 
 I'll not be the one to cross her.' 
 
 His acquiescence, sullen though it was, 
 took Harold a little by surprise. They had 
 lingered a moment or two while they dis- 
 cussed the matter, but now they went 
 swiftly on, almost without another word, 
 towards the lights of Deerhurst gleaming 
 below them. 
 
 The house they were seeking lay to the 
 left of the village, in rather a lonely situa- 
 
 p2
 
 212 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 tion beside a winding lane overhung with 
 trees. In the darkness of those trees 
 Harold asked a sudden question. 
 
 c He doesn't know you are coming ? How 
 are you to get speech of him ?' 
 
 L I know his study windows. We can 
 o;et there without being; seen.' 
 
 c Better go boldly to the door and ask for 
 him. He won't refuse, and what does it 
 matter if his people know that you speak 
 to him?' 
 
 c It matters a deal ! What they don't 
 know they can't tell. I'll not have him 
 say that I broke my word with him. He'd 
 make that excuse to give me nothing — or 
 something worse ! Come on, and be still.' 
 
 They had reached the back gate as they 
 spoke, but the gipsy passed it, and in a 
 moment more climbed a stone stile that led 
 over the wall into a small plantation. He
 
 ON THE TRAMP. 213 
 
 moved on like one who knew the route, 
 and Harold followed, vividly conscious 
 that he was sneaking like a thief about the 
 premises of the man whom of all others he 
 hated, and whom, therefore, he would have 
 wished to treat with the most ceremonious 
 courtesy. But fate had flung this chance 
 of getting information too temptingly into 
 his hands ; he could not quarrel with it, 
 though the means had been even more 
 doubtful. 
 
 The house they were seeking had been 
 a farm-house once, and was still surrounded 
 with a labyrinth of anomalous out-build- 
 ings, and queer little patches of garden 
 ground, some cultivated, some left to run 
 wild. Through these Joe Heme threaded 
 his way, Harold following, till, unexpect- 
 edly, they found themselves close beneath 
 the wall of the house and near a low sash-
 
 214 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 window garlanded with leafless stems of 
 Virginian creeper. The shutters were 
 closed inside, but above and below them 
 the light streamed out in long level rays, 
 deepening the pale grey glimmer of the 
 night into black darkness. 
 
 The gipsy took one long look round, 
 then stole silently to the window and tap- 
 ped on the pane, while Harold drew back 
 a little, out of sight, but not out of hearing. 
 They waited, both listening intently, and 
 Harold had time to be aware of something 
 eerie in the silence — broken only by the 
 soft rush of the night-wind that sounded 
 always like something coming that never 
 came. 
 
 c He's there ; I hear him moving,' mut- 
 tered the gipsy, and tapped again ; and a 
 moment afterwards came the clanking 
 sound of a long bar being lifted, and a
 
 OX THE TBAMP. 215 
 
 gleaming crack appeared between the 
 shutters. 
 
 The crack widened to half a yard, and 
 then there was a pause, and Joe Heme 
 whistled softly like some sleepy bird of 
 night. A hand appeared and threw up the 
 sash, and a head was thrust forth into the 
 darkness. The light being behind it, the 
 instant the face was well forth of the win- 
 dow it was invisible. But Harold had 
 caught sight of it in the moment of pass- 
 ing, and knew that those blunt round fea- 
 tures were not Harris's. 
 
 c Keep back ! It is not our man, 1 he 
 whispered ; but Joe Heme had moved for- 
 ward without giving himself time to heed. 
 
 ' Xow, then! what do you want?' de- 
 manded the dark figure in the window, 
 distinguishing the gipsy far more clearly 
 than the gipsy could see him.
 
 216 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 The unfamiliar tone convinced Joe Heme 
 of his mistake, and he shrank back among 
 the laurel-bushes, irresolute. 
 
 4 1 see you !' went on the other. c I've 
 seen some of you about before — up to no 
 good. Come back and tell your business 
 like an honest chap, or I'll send a charge 
 of shot after you.' 
 
 Master Joe was still too much in front 
 of the window to distinguish the move- 
 ments of the man who so addressed him. 
 But Harold from the side had seen the 
 light glance on the barrel of a gun. 
 
 ' Speak to him, you fool !' he said, 
 sharply, and de Itaut en bas, forgetting his 
 assumed voice. ' Stand still and answer 
 him.' 
 
 But the other made no answer beyond a 
 retrograde movement, like a snake's, into 
 the bushes. And the jealous guardian of
 
 OX THE TRAMP. 217 
 
 the house, flurried, perhaps, by a voice 
 from another and hitherto unsuspected 
 quarter, lifted his weapon and hastily 
 pulled the trigger. 
 
 As quickly, but only just in time, Har- 
 old's blackthorn struck up the muzzle of 
 the gun. It was small shot, for it pattered 
 through the branches above like hail, and 
 before the report had died away Joe 
 Heme's retreating footsteps were heard 
 flying down the long shrubbery walk. 
 Without an instant's hesitation, Harold 
 dashed after him. He could do nothing 
 there without his unsatisfactory ally, per- 
 haps not even make his way back to the 
 road without observation. 
 
 Bang ! the second barrel of the gun 
 roused the echoes that had not yet done 
 with the first ; and a sting of pain that 
 went throuodi Harold's arm from the wrist
 
 218 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 to the elbow warned him that it had been 
 otherwise loaded — with a ball, in fact — 
 and that the ball had happened to come his 
 way.
 
 219 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MR. WALBOND's HOSPITALITY. 
 
 Small cheer and great welcome make a merry feast. 
 
 Comedy of Errors. 
 
 Little enough lie eared for that ; but per- 
 haps it confused him a little, or perhaps, 
 in the excitement of the moment, he had 
 not been noticing the he of the land with 
 his usual care, as he followed his late guide. 
 Certainly he turned the corner of a high 
 wall, expecting to find himself in an empty 
 stack-yard, and, to his inexpressible dis- 
 gust, found himself instead close to the 
 back-door of the house, and almost in the
 
 220 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 arms of two men who had that instant 
 rushed out of it. 
 
 Flight was impossible, and resistance 
 undignified ; and, in the very act of allow- 
 ing them to seize hold of him, Harold had 
 time to remember that Thornton Harris 
 was lawyer enough to know that he had no 
 case against him, and that, if not detained, 
 there was still a possibility that he might 
 not be recognised. 
 
 ' Here's one of them,' panted the owner 
 of the bullet-head that had last been seen 
 against the light of the study window. 
 4 Now, my fine chap, you'll perhaps stop 
 next time you're called to. What have 
 you been after ?' 
 
 c I came to see your master,' answered 
 his captive, coolly. c I suppose he's out, by 
 the way you behave ! Next time he sees 
 you, perhaps you'll hear what he thinks of 
 your way of receiving folks when they
 
 MR. WALROND S HOSPITALITY. 221 
 
 come to see him on business. You'll do 
 mischief some clay with that confounded 
 gun of yours.' 
 
 ' Don't be insolent, young fellow,' said 
 his other captor, whose long grave face had 
 a not-unbenevolent look but a solemnity 
 that well befitted the village sexton. 
 c You've been detected trespassing, and I 
 doubt you are after no good, or you'd not 
 have tried to run away when spoken to. I 
 believe it'll be our duty, Mr. Harris being 
 out, to take you before the nearest magis- 
 trate.' 
 
 He spoke as appealing to the bullet- 
 headed man, who looked unwilling to give 
 up the captive of his bow and spear. 
 
 c We've a very safe room here,' he said. 
 4 I'd rather lock him up till master comes 
 back.' 
 
 L Look here,' put in Harold, trying hard 
 to be patient and diplomatic. ' I wouldn't
 
 222 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 advise you to do either. You can't prove 
 that I'd done or meant any harm, and to 
 lock up a man before he's been tried is a 
 punishable offence. — May I be forgiven !' 
 he added, mentally. — ' Besides,' he went 
 on, aloud, c if you take me before a justice, 
 111 give one of you in charge, as sure as I 
 stand here, for firing at me, and wounding 
 me, without any provocation.' 
 
 The servant-man's grasp relaxed a little. 
 He had no doubt that it was a gipsy's arm 
 he was holding ; but there was an undefined 
 tone of power about the voice that he did 
 not like or understand. But the sexton 
 had another view of duty and responsibility. 
 
 c Wounding you ?' he said, drawing 
 Harold nearer to the light that streamed 
 from the open kitchen door. L What's that ? 
 Let's have a look.' 
 
 By this time Harold's sleeve was wet 
 with blood, and he took advantage of the
 
 mb. walbond's hospitality. 223 
 
 grasp being transferred from his arm to 
 his collar to twist his handkerchief tightly 
 round it. 
 
 1 It's not much,' he said : ' but no man 
 likes to be peppered for nothing. If you 
 let me go peaceably. I'll say no more 
 about it ; and I can't speak fairer than 
 that.' 
 
 The firer of the shot looked willing 
 enough to agree to this compromise ; but 
 the other shook his head. 
 
 • It's our duty to do things legal and 
 regular," he said. : You're too anxious by 
 half to get away, it seems to me. young 
 fellow. And as for James Johnson here, 
 if he did wrong in shooting at you. he 
 ought to answer for it before a magistrate. 
 So you and he will both be like to come 
 with me to Mr. Walrond's, and we'll abide 
 by what he says.' 
 
 Fervently Harold wished that he had
 
 224 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 never mentioned the shot he had received. 
 He ' that was of milder mood ' evidently- 
 thought now that he had two criminal cases 
 to deal with, and that it behoved him to 
 see justice done. And Johnson, finding 
 the tables thus suddenly turned upon him 
 by his assistant, plainly dared not take 
 any further risk in the matter. There was 
 nothing to be done but to go quietly with 
 them, and trust that argument might pre- 
 vail by the way. 
 
 4 It's not far to Mr. Walronds,' he 
 thought. ' If they do get me as far as that, 
 he will be certain to quash the whole mat- 
 ter ; or, at worst, I can ask to speak to him 
 alone, and throw myself on his mercy.' 
 
 Johnson shouldered his gun, either by 
 way of precaution or as taking the most 
 important piece of evidence with him. 
 And the sexton grasped his stick more 
 firmly in his left hand, and tightened the
 
 me. waurond's hospitality. 225 
 
 grasp of his right upon Harold's arm above 
 the elbow, and in this order they moved 
 out of the yard and down the road, Harold 
 fuming with anger and a kind of grim 
 amusement. 
 
 ' A nice beginning !' he said to himself. 
 ' Now, where is Joe Heme ? If he knew 
 me, he would probably leave me to shift 
 for myself; but, as it is, of course he is 
 hanging about somewhere to see what can 
 be done. A cleverer fellow than he might 
 well be puzzled at present.' 
 
 They had not gone for, in fact, before a 
 rustling in the bushes beside the road, and 
 a faint, peculiar whistle, told Harold that 
 his late companion was not far off. But 
 he made no attempt to answer the signal. 
 His captors held him fast, with an attention 
 that was not to be distracted even for a 
 moment, and the smart of his arm made 
 him unwilling for a struggle just then. 
 
 vol. i. Q
 
 226 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 And so, walking soberly enough, the 
 trio, with their unseen attendant, reached 
 the more populous part of the village. It 
 was not very late even yet, but nearly all 
 the lights were out, and even adult Deer- 
 hurst safe in bed. 
 
 Harold wondered whether they would 
 have to ring up Mr. Valrond ; and a con- 
 fused remembrance of how angry all this 
 would have made his father added to his 
 vague discomfort. But there were plenty 
 of lights in the rectory, and a carriage, 
 out of which the horses were being taken, 
 was standing in the vard ; and the as- 
 tonished maid, who came to the yard-door, 
 admitted that her master had just come 
 home. 
 
 ' Then be so good as to show us to his 
 room, young woman,' said the sexton, 
 majestically, and she obeyed without fur- 
 ther question, awed by his manner.
 
 mr. ayalroxd's hospitality. 227 
 
 It was not the harness-room by which 
 they entered this time, and a shorter and 
 simpler way than c the labyrinth ' brought 
 them to the front hall, and from thence to 
 Mr. Walrond's justice-room, where that 
 worthy parson and magistrate often dis- 
 pensed very odd legal, but excellent moral, 
 justice. 
 
 A bright lire was burning there, and a 
 couple of candles were lighted on the high 
 mantel-shelf; and Mr. Walrond stood with 
 his back to the fire, warming himself, with 
 the cheerful aspect of one who had just 
 returned from spending a pleasant even- 
 ing, and smiling down upon his daughter, 
 who sat leaning back in his huge, shabby 
 arm-chair, warming her little feet on the 
 fender. 
 
 Her fur cloak was thrown back, showing 
 her white dress and the gleaming orna- 
 ments on her bare white neck and arms. 
 
 Q2
 
 228 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 The dress enhanced the childish delicacy 
 of her appearance, and yet she looked 
 more womanly than when Harold had 
 seen her last. Not that he had time to 
 think of such things just then, but the 
 pretty vision certainly intensified his an- 
 noyance at the plight in which he found 
 himself, and his desire to get out of it as 
 quickly as possible. 
 
 There was another person in the room, 
 John Walrond, who was sitting very 
 upright in a wooden chair, and not ap- 
 parently contributing much to the con- 
 versation. 
 
 'Hallo! what's all this?' asked Mr. 
 "Walrond, turning round very sharply, as 
 the three new comers entered. ' It's late 
 to-night for business, my men. Why ! 
 Dalton, what's the matter?' 
 
 c It's this young man, please, sir, as has 
 got into trouble up at Lawyer Harris's,'
 
 mr. walrond's hospitality. 229 
 
 began the sexton, slowly. ; So we thought 
 best to bring him down here to you.' 
 
 After the first glance round. Harold had 
 dropped his head, and only looked out of 
 the corners of his eyes, with the true fur- 
 tive, hunted look of a gipsy w in trouble.' 
 But he saw John AYalrond glance at his 
 sister and towards the door, and saw her 
 shake her head with a little mutinous 
 smile. Her lather had not remembered to 
 bid her take herself off, and until he did 
 so Mistress Elizabeth had no objection to 
 indulge her womanly curiosity. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Daltonhad plunged into 
 a circumstantial and painstaking account 
 of what he called ' the recent occurrence,' 
 occasionally interrupted or corroborated 
 by Johnson. From this duet Harold 
 gained, perhaps, as much information as 
 anybody. It appeared that Harris had 
 left home that day, leaving Johnson with
 
 230 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 an exaggerated idea of his own responsi- 
 bility and a craze on the subject of bur- 
 glars. He had been much exercised by 
 the fact that Mr. Harris's last groom had 
 been a gipsy, and had had it ' borne in on 
 him ' that the man, or some of his pals, was 
 hanging about after no good. He had been 
 sitting in his master's study on the look 
 out when he heard the window tried, had 
 looked out and seen a chap lurking about, 
 and, after due warning, had fired. 
 
 'Well,' said Mr. Walrond, when at 
 length these facts had been arrived at, 
 L you were uncommonly rash, let me tell 
 you ; and, if you had happened to hit, it 
 would have been a very awkward thing 
 for you. But as for you, young fellow, 
 you seem to have been trespassing, to 
 make the best of it. What have you to 
 say for yourself?' 
 
 Harold knew better than to sav too
 
 mr. walroxd's hospitality. 231 
 
 much, or to make his tale too coherent. 
 He muttered something about wanting to 
 see Mr. Harris, and some one having told 
 him that that was the right way to get 
 speech of the gentleman privately ; and he 
 contrived to infuse into his tone a suffi- 
 cient amount of sulky defiance to change 
 it very effectually. 
 
 Mr. Walrond thrust his hands deep into 
 his pockets, and stood silent for a moment 
 with his brown-red eagle face bent in a 
 considering attitude. And the sexton 
 nudged the unfortunate Johnson with a 
 look that said so plainly, c If you don't 
 tell I shall ! ' that the latter c up and 
 spake.' 
 
 c Please, sir, I had only small shot in 
 my gun. But the young man says I hit 
 him in the arm, though I only meant 
 frightening him.' 
 
 'Hit you?' said Mr. Walrond, turning
 
 232 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 sharply on Harold. c Is it much ? Why 
 didn't you mention it before?' 
 
 1 It's nothing !' answered he, sullenly, 
 keeping his arm as much out of sight as 
 possible. c I don't miud it ; only a fellow 
 doesn't expect to be peppered when he was 
 doing no harm. I'm willing to say no more 
 about it if I'm let go.' 
 
 Mr. Walrond smiled to himself, and after 
 an instant's pause, turned to the other 
 two. 
 
 c Look here !' he said, severely. ' It's no 
 good your taking the law into your own 
 hands, and then coming tome. You've no 
 proof against this young man whatever. 
 He seems to have acted in a suspicious 
 manner, but you had no warrant to shoot 
 at him ; and if he's willing to cry quits I 
 think you had better take yourselves off, 
 and consider that no charge was made 
 against him. Now that he is here I shall
 
 mb. waujond's hospitality. 233 
 
 examine him privately, and if I find out 
 anything that concerns your master I will 
 let him know.' 
 
 L Doesvhe guess ?' said Harold to himself 
 in some dismay. But the sexton and his 
 companion, at any rate, guessed nothing. 
 They relinquished their grasp of his arms, 
 touched their foreheads to Mr. Walrond 
 and his daughter, and departed, half-re- 
 lieved and half-disgusted at the flatness of 
 the conclusion. 
 
 And Harold stood still where they had 
 left him, and resisted an inclination to 
 draw himself up and look Mr. Walrond 
 straight in the face. He was beginning to 
 feel the strain, and to wish that the rector 
 would be quick and get his cross-examina- 
 tion over. The room was hot, and his arm 
 was painful, and the extempore bandage 
 had by no means stopped the bleeding. 
 He could have wished to face what was
 
 234 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 coming with a clearer head, but he had not 
 given up yet. 
 
 'Are you a Heme?' asked Mr. Wal- 
 rond after a moment, dropping his voice 
 as if there might be a listener at one of 
 the numerous doors of the justice-room. 
 
 ' Yes,' answered Harold reluctantly, 
 having taken an instant to reflect. And 
 Elizabeth sat up in her chair, as he knew 
 by the little silken whisper of her dress, 
 and shot another glance of mutiny at her 
 brother's suggestive face. 
 
 4 And you came to see Mr. Harris on the 
 business of Crofton's murder?' 
 
 c Yes !' said Harold a^ain. 
 
 Mr. AValrond paused, and looked keenly 
 out from under his sharply-defined black 
 eyebrows. 
 
 c My lad, I speak as a friend of Mr. Mai- 
 re ward, and his father before him. Have
 
 me. waleoxd's hospitality. 235 
 
 you not come from him, to act as a spy upon 
 Mr. Thornton Harris ?' 
 
 Again Harold paused, and wished he 
 could think to more purpose. Oh, for a 
 breath of the keen outside air ! 
 
 c Sir,' he answered at last, ' I have al- 
 ways heard that you were a gentleman ; 
 and when they spoke of bringing me here 
 to-night I said to myself, " Well, at any 
 rate, the parson won't set his wits against 
 a poor gipsy lad, to make him get himself, 
 and maybe other folks, into trouble." 
 
 The rector half smiled and shook his 
 head. 
 
 ' You are sharp enough ; but don't you 
 see that, if Mr. Malreward has not been 
 foolish enough to set you on to act for him, 
 I ouo'ht to restrain you, in his interests ?' 
 
 1 Only one person outside this room 
 knows what I'm after, and I will take my
 
 236 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 oath that that person isn't Mr. Malreward ; 
 but I don't mean anything against him, 
 for all that.' 
 
 Harold hardly knew what he had an- 
 swered. It seemed as if he could not 
 think beyond the present minute ; but a 
 kind of surface cunning did not desert 
 him yet. 
 
 4 But Mr. Harris is my parishioner, and 
 entitled to be protected from annoyance. 
 I should not be iustined in lettino; vou^o 
 if you intend to hang about his premises 
 and persecute him, on any grounds what- 
 ever.' 
 
 ' I want nothing of him but that he 
 should speak the truth,' said Harold, faint- 
 ly. The room was whirling round him by 
 this time, and the lights on the mantel- 
 shelf were swimming before his eyes. He 
 put out his hand to catch hold of a chair 
 that stood near him, missed it, and would
 
 mk. walroxd's hospitality. 237 
 
 have fallen but that Mr. Walrond stepped 
 hastily forward and caught him by the 
 
 arm. A vague impression he had of hear- 
 ing the rector tell his son not to be a fool, 
 but to do — something or other, — but for a 
 moment or two he hardly knew where he 
 was, or what was happening to him. 
 
 When he recovered himself he was lying 
 on the straight, leather-covered couch, with 
 John Walrond's hand unloosing the hand- 
 kerchief at his throat, and Mr. Walrond's 
 kindly-severe face bent over him in a little 
 anxiety. 
 
 c I beg your pardon,' he said instinct- 
 ively, speaking in his natural tone for the 
 second time that night ; L I am ashamed — 
 gentlefolks' rooms are too hot for us gipsies, 
 and this keeps on bleeding.' 
 
 He had recollected himself while he 
 spoke, and slid imperceptibly into his 
 gipsy voice, as he glanced at his wounded
 
 238 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 arm, and moved to get up. He had looked 
 before, and been rather pleased to see that 
 the bandage was soaked in blood and 
 grimed by the hands of his captors, for 
 while carefully dressing himself c in char- 
 acter ' he had carelessly kept one of his 
 own handkerchiefs instead of the orthodox 
 red one. But, all the same, it was the 
 sight of the blood that had completed his 
 overthrow. 
 
 ' Lie still !' said Mr. Walrond, impera- 
 tively. c John, fetch some cold water, will 
 you ? Elizabeth, can you find us some- 
 thing to tie it up with, my dear?' 
 
 Harold laid his head back again, shut 
 his eyes, and held his tongue. Least said 
 might be soonest mended just now, though 
 his scattered wits were coining back once 
 ao'ain. 
 
 John returned with some water, and he 
 gladly drank some, and began to feel him-
 
 MR. WALRONd's hospitality. 239 
 
 self again ; and in another moment Eliza- 
 beth came back with some strips of linen 
 raff, her bright eves full of interest, and an 
 odd something-else that was half amuse- 
 ment and half consternation. 
 
 ■ Now, my lad,' said Mr. Walrond, tak- 
 ing up Harold's wrist and proceeding to 
 bathe and examine the two little wounds 
 in a capable fashion. ' Why didn't you 
 tell us about this before ? You didn't 
 suppose I wanted to keep you standing 
 there till you dropped ?' 
 
 L It was nothing to make a song about,' 
 muttered Harold, forcing himself to speak 
 sulkily, even with those kind hands busy 
 about him. ' I'd have been all right if I'd 
 been out of doors. I'll be right now as 
 soon as you let me go.' 
 
 c I don't think that'll be to-night,' an- 
 swered his host, composedly. ' For the 
 credit of Deerhurst, we can't have even one
 
 2-AO ALSTON CRTJCIS. 
 
 of your lot found in a ditch in the morn- 
 ing. Hallo ! did I hurt you ?' 
 
 ' Xo ! tha — , I don't mind it. But it's 
 time 1 was getting on my way, and you 
 said yourself, sir, that you'd no right to 
 detain me.' 
 
 : Xot as a magistrate, perhaps ; but you 
 won't leave this house to-night, and in the 
 morning you'll get on all the faster. Where 
 did you have anything to eat?' 
 
 c On Watchett Edge. I'm not hungry.' 
 
 L Watchett Edge !' said Mr. Walrond to 
 himself, as though it were not what he ex- 
 pected. L John, will you go out and find 
 James, if he is not gone yet, and ask him 
 to come here to me ? Elizabeth, I am go- 
 ing to tell James to make up a bed in the 
 room next the harness-room. Will you 
 call up one of the maids, or can you hud 
 him some warm coverings?' 
 
 L I can find them,' she answered, and
 
 MR. WALROND S HOSPITALITY. 241 
 
 left the room again, while Harold made 
 an impatient movement under Mr. Wal- 
 rond's decisive and not unskilful surgery. 
 But he said nothing, for the rector's tone 
 was authority itself, and it was evident 
 that as yet he suspected nothing. 
 
 ' I cannot find James in the stables or 
 in the yard,' said presently John Walrond's 
 voice at the door. ' But I will ring the 
 outside bell for him. He can hardly have 
 got back to his own house as yet.' 
 
 Mr. Walrond uttered a little exclamation 
 of annoyance, and followed his son out of 
 the room. 
 
 c I don't want ' he said, and then 
 
 his voice died away in the intricacies of 
 the passages ; and Harold lifted his head 
 and looked keenly round, like a trapped 
 fox. 
 
 The moment for escape was not come, 
 however, for a light step was at the other 
 
 vol. I. R
 
 242 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 door, and Elizabeth entered, her slim 
 white arms loaded with a pile of rugs and 
 pillows which she dropped on a chair by 
 the door. 
 
 One glance round she gave, then stepped 
 forward and paused a moment, looking 
 first at him and then into the flickering, 
 dancing firelight. 
 
 c Will they not be anxious about you at 
 Crucis, Mr. MalrewardT she asked, very 
 softly and deliberately. 
 
 Harold started, and his brown cheeks, 
 which had been pale enough before, were 
 dyed for the moment burning red. 
 
 c You know me, then ? I thought I 
 was safe here, when even Phil didn't re- 
 cognise me. I am ashamed. I ask your 
 pardon a thousand times ! But I was 
 brought here so entirely against my will, 
 and I should have been so glad if I could 
 have got away without being recognised.'
 
 ME. WAIiROND's HOSPITALITY. 243 
 
 • I can well believe that ; but what 
 
 brings you liere, and in such 1 beg 
 
 your pardon ! Of course I have no right 
 to question you.' 
 
 She spoke with frank curiosity, and 
 checked herself with frank compunction 
 like a child. Alicia Colvin would have 
 known very well that a young man might 
 be bent upon an errand that he could not 
 tell to her, but Elizabeth Walrond had 
 never realised such a possibility. 
 
 Something in her tone banished Harold's 
 momentary vexation, and he answered, ea- 
 gerly, raising himself on his elbow. 
 
 • Indeed, I could tell you, and gladly, 
 
 if there was time. It has to do with this 
 
 shameful charge that they have brought 
 
 against my father. I have a clue — I 
 
 thought I [could follow it up best like 
 
 this. But must your father know? He 
 
 will think me crazy, and my reputation 
 
 b 2
 
 244 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 in that respect is worse already than I 
 deserve.' 
 
 The corners of Elizabeth's month dim- 
 pled with a provoking smile, but she only 
 said, 
 
 ' If he does not guess, I will not help 
 him. I think he would understand you, 
 but John might be puzzled.' 
 
 She was still standing at a little distance 
 from the couch, looking as ready to be 
 gone as if she had but just alighted there, 
 and could take flight again in an instant. 
 But after a momentary pause she drew 
 nearer, with a sudden bird-like motion, 
 still ready to be gone in an instant, but 
 her face softening into pitying interest. 
 
 c Perhaps I understand, too,' she said. 
 L I think you are right, and I knoio you 
 will prove your father's innocence some 
 day. If I could help you ' 
 
 ' You say you will not tell your father,*
 
 MR. WALROXD S HOSPITALITY. 245 
 
 said Harold, energetically, sitting up. 
 c That is good of you. But if only you 
 could contrive some way for me to escape 
 to-night ! He is almost sure to find me 
 out in the morning.' 
 
 Mr. WaLrond's A^oice was heard at some 
 distance down the passage, and his daugh- 
 ter flitted noiselessly to the door, opened 
 it and listened, then closed it again and 
 flitted back. 
 
 c He and John are doing the room ; they 
 will not be here just yet,' she said. ' I 
 think you had better confide in him, and 
 get him to advise you.' 
 
 ' I am past advice,' he answered, looking 
 at her with more pathos than he was aware 
 of in his dark gipsy eyes, and in the sweet- 
 toned voice that had come to him from the 
 same doubtful source. c If I listened to 
 what sensible people say, I suppose I should 
 sit at home and do nothing, and let my
 
 246 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 father lie in a dishonoured grave. But I 
 can't. If I am crazy on this point, it is no 
 wonder.' 
 
 The soft grey eyes had lost all their 
 mocking light. They made so direct and 
 compassionate an answer that he never 
 realised that she had not spoken aloud. 
 
 ' That being the case,' he went on, c I 
 would rather not give your father the 
 trouble of remonstrating with me. I wish 
 I were not giving you all so much trouble 
 now.' 
 
 c But you are not fit to go away to-night.' 
 
 c Indeed I am. There is nothing the 
 matter with me now. I can't imagine how 
 I came to be so idiotic, except that the 
 sight of blood sometimes does bowl me 
 over. I am as strong as a horse all the 
 same !' 
 
 c Let me think,' said Elizabeth, looking
 
 MR. walroxd's hospitality. 247 
 
 at him judicially and puckering lier delicate 
 brows. ' If you would promise to take a 
 rest first, and make your escape in the grey 
 of the morning, I might try if I could help 
 you.' 
 
 ' You are very good ; and I will promise 
 anything you like, in reason.' 
 
 c The harness-room door will be locked, 
 and James keeps the key. My father 
 will lock this door into the passage and 
 take the key with him. But, if I suc- 
 ceed, you will find in the room where 
 they are going to put you a key that 
 will open it. You must come this way — 
 I know you can find it — and get out by the 
 front door.' 
 
 1 Thank you. Some day I will beg your 
 father's pardon for the liberties I have 
 taken in his house, but I can never thank 
 you enough '
 
 248 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 L Tell me all your adventures some clay, 
 and how you get on ; I should like that 
 better than thanks.' 
 
 ' I will !' Harold was answering emphati- 
 cally, smiling in answer to her quick gleam- 
 ing smile, when, quick as light, she had 
 vanished. Swiftly and noiselessly the 
 door into the hall closed after her, and 
 Harold sat staring at it, wondering if she 
 had indeed whispered c Gocl speed ' as she 
 disappeared, or if he had only fancied it. 
 And the next instant the passage-door 
 opened and Mr. Walrond re-entered, fol- 
 lowed by his son. 
 
 c Now, my lad,' he said, in a kindly, im- 
 perative tone, c you look a little more alive 
 than you did just now, I'm glad to see. 
 And now, here's a better shelter for you 
 than the nearest hedge-bottom. I keep 
 you a prisoner to-night for my own satis- 
 faction, you understand, and if you have
 
 mr. waleoxd's hospitality. 249 
 
 any honest business on hand you can go 
 about it in the morning, after a good 
 breakfast, and bring an action against me 
 for unlawful imprisonment, if you like !' 
 
 The rector laughed a iollv laugh as he 
 ended, and Harold looked down and mut- 
 tered something in a placable tone to the 
 effect that gentlemen must have their own 
 way. 
 
 4 Come along, then,' went on Mr. Wal- 
 rond, picking up the armful of rugs that 
 his daughter had left behind her. c John, 
 give him an arm, if he wants it. Hallo, 
 Queen Bess, what are you doing down 
 here ? Time you were in bed, and all the 
 rest of us too.' 
 
 Coining round the first corner of the 
 passage he had encountered Elizabeth, her 
 peach-blossom cheek a little flushed, and 
 the breath coming quickly between her 
 parted lips, as if she had been hurried.
 
 250 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 c Have you all you want ?' she said. c I 
 would not call either of the maids, and I 
 am going to bed myself now.' 
 
 She made a little gesture of farewell to- 
 wards her father, as if she kissed him good- 
 night from a distance, then swept her eyes 
 past Harold as if his presence no longer 
 moved her, even to curiosity, nodded to 
 her brother, and was gone ; while Harold 
 wondered whether she had succeeded, or 
 whether the rector had been too quick, 
 even for her. 
 
 It was a comfortable little room into 
 which they conducted him, with a little 
 fire burning in the grate, and an extempore 
 couch made of a mattress spread on a huge 
 chest. 
 
 c Wait a bit,' said Mr. Walrond, hastily, 
 and disappeared. 
 
 Harold was not sorry to sit down on the
 
 MR. WALROND S HOSPITALITY. 251 
 
 couch, and John "Walrond leaned against 
 the wall and looked at him, with an ob- 
 vious wish to say something. He had 
 indeed an honest and commendable wish 
 to say what he would have called ' a word 
 in season,' and it was not his fault that he 
 did not know in the least how to talk to 
 such an individual as he believed Harold 
 to be. 
 
 ' I suppose you realise that you have 
 been in great peril of your life to-night ?' 
 he said at last, very gravely. 
 
 L No ! I don't think I have,' answered 
 Harold, unconsciously making the most 
 disconcerting response that could well be 
 made. But the other misconstrued it. 
 
 c Then will you not try to realise it 
 before you sleep, and give thanks where 
 thanks are due?' 
 
 c I mean that I wasn't in danger. The
 
 252 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 fellow had only small shot in the first 
 barrel, and he wouldn't have fired the 
 second if I'd been nearer. He played the 
 fool, and so did I, and if I'd suffered from 
 it worse than I have I should have laid 
 the blame on myself, and not on the 
 Almighty.' 
 
 Harold spoke seriously enough, but his 
 interlocutor seemed to find something 
 mocking and faithless in his speech. 
 
 ' I fear yours has been a bad school in 
 which to learn faith or gratitude. I have 
 always understood that there is little 
 religion among your people, but surely 
 you have been taught the main truths of 
 Christianity?' 
 
 Perhaps the ludicrous side of events was 
 not that which usually struck Harold the 
 most forcibly. But to-night he seemed 
 somehow to hear this conversation through
 
 MR. WAIiROND's HOSPITALITY. 253 
 
 another pair of ears, and to catch the echo 
 of a light, elfish laugh, heard once before. 
 He answered, however, with tolerable 
 gravity, 
 
 ' Yes, I've been taught." 
 
 1 Can you read ?' 
 
 1 Yes, a little.' 
 
 1 There is a Bible — a copy of the AYord 
 of God — in that corner. I should be glad 
 to think that you would read a little in it 
 to-night. I could not find a smaller volume, 
 and I fear that that one is too large for you 
 to be willing to take it away with you. 
 Probably you have not one of your own ?' 
 
 Before Harold had time to answer, the 
 door opened again, and admitted the rec- 
 tor, with a mug of ale in one hand and a 
 piled plate in the other. 
 
 • There, my lad,' he said, heartily, c AYat- 
 chett Edge is a good way from here, and
 
 254 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 you'll sleep all the better for a second 
 supper. Good-night to you, and don't let 
 me find any reason for denying you your 
 liberty in the morning.' 
 
 c I hope you won't have the chance,' said 
 Harold to himself, as Mr. Walrond with- 
 drew, taking his son with him. Then he 
 glanced round upon the tokens of his 
 host's kind-heartedness, and looked re- 
 pentantly and gratefully towards the door 
 that had just closed behind him. c What 
 a kind old potentate it is ! but I could wish 
 he had been less humane, just for to-night. 
 And, now, has that little white witch con- 
 trived what she promised to try for?' 
 
 The room was too bare to afford much 
 scope for that game beloved of children 
 and by them called c Hidey.' 
 
 But Harold looked round it in vain for 
 any sign of what he wanted, until he
 
 me. walrond's hospitality. 255 
 
 turned to the corner indicated by John Wal- 
 round, where on a little shelf lay a good- 
 sized, brown-leather-covered Bible, and 
 under it a key, upon which he pounced 
 with joy. His promise to the giver, as 
 well as the necessity of waiting till the 
 house was quiet, prevented him from using 
 it at once. But here was the pledge of 
 his escape before the searching daylight 
 betrayed him, and he was beginning to 
 feel that an hour or two's sleep would not 
 be unwelcome. 
 
 Not just yet, however. He sat down 
 beside the fire, the warmth of which was 
 pleasant, for the room was chilly, and 
 lived through again the day's adventures, 
 lingering longest upon that which had 
 passed most quickly, his brief meeting 
 with Alicia. The recollection was fasci- 
 nating, none the less so because not alto-
 
 256 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 aether satisfactory, but be dragged his 
 
 O •/ 7 CD 
 
 thoughts from it at last, and brought them 
 to bear upon his present situation. 
 
 Provoked he was undoubtedly at his 
 secret having been so soon discovered, 
 and inclined to look upon Elizabeth Wal- 
 rond as not altogether canny; and yet, 
 does a man ever really object to having a 
 secret in common with a woman, if only 
 she be moderately sympathetic ? It seem- 
 ed to Harold that when all the bother was 
 over it would be pleasant enough to come 
 back and tell his story, and see those 
 bright eyes flash with mirth and soften 
 with interest. It might be disconcert- 
 ing to John Walroiid, though ; and his 
 looks turned upon the big Bible, with a 
 mingling of amusement and respect, as he 
 remembered the young clergyman's words. 
 
 4 I believe he is a good fellow. I won- 
 der what I should think of him if I were
 
 mr. walroxd's hospitality. 257 
 
 really what lie takes me for ! As it is, I 
 am afraid I am not serious enough to take 
 this as he meant it. But as a Christian 
 gipsy — a thing one doesn't often hear of — 
 I might try my fortune with it, my grand- 
 mother not being here.' 
 
 Smiling to himself, and yet perhaps one- 
 tenth part in earnest, he took down the 
 Bible, opened it, and without looking at it, 
 laid his finger on the page. 
 
 Then he glanced down at the verse, knit 
 his black brows over it, studied the con- 
 text for a moment, and finally, with a 
 grim, somewhat disconcerted smile, shut 
 up the book and restored it hastily to its 
 place. 
 
 1 It is written " Vengeance is Mine " ' 
 
 ' Tlierefore ' 
 
 ' I don't want vengeance, — only justice,' 
 he said to himself, looking into the heart 
 of the glowing fire. l But it would be idle 
 
 vol. i. s
 
 258 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 to pretend that Thornton Harris is not 
 my enemy. And when we meet, right or 
 wrong, it shall be the worse for him !'
 
 259 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SECRETS. 
 
 Some ran to coffer and some to kist, 
 
 But nought was stow'n that could be mist, 
 
 She dancit her lane, and cry'd ' Praise be blest ! 
 
 I hae lodged a leal puir man !' 
 
 King James V. 
 
 In spite of all the fatigues and excitement 
 of the day, Harold slept — lying dressed as 
 lie was upon his familiar couch — the 
 dreamless, undisturbed sleep of a born 
 wanderer. 
 
 But it could hardly be expected that 
 Elizabeth should do the same. So long: 
 she lay awake, between excitement, amuse- 
 
 s2
 
 260 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 ment, and a little dismay, that she began 
 to fancy that it must be morning, and time 
 for the prisoner to make his escape. Sup- 
 pose he blundered it, and her father 
 caught him ! It would all come out then, 
 including her own share in the matter, 
 and possibly her father would be vexed. 
 c Queen Bess ' was not used to being dis- 
 approved of, though Mr. Walrond could 
 be severe enough upon occasion, and she 
 dreaded it the more. 
 
 She found her chief consolation in the 
 fact that this peculiar and unaccountable 
 young man did not look like a blunderer, 
 but she lay listening — in her quaint little 
 oak-panelled chamber above the hall — for 
 an hour or two of suspense too keen to be 
 pleasant, longing to hear the front door 
 close softly behind him. 
 
 Harold was far too adroit to have let her 
 hear anything of the kind, even if she had
 
 SECEETS. 261 
 
 not fallen asleep at last, before the first 
 grey shimmer of dawn gave him leave to 
 attempt his evasion. 
 
 The first she heard of it or of him was 
 when her old nurse made her appearance 
 at her bedside, a little later than usual in 
 consideration of last night's dissipation, 
 with a face full of news. 
 
 c Missy,' she said, after as much preamble 
 as would have befitted Juliet's nurse, ; that 
 young man that master locked up last night 
 has orot out somehow, and taken himself 
 off!' 
 
 c Has he taken anything else ?' asked 
 Elizabeth, with sleepy presence of mind, 
 pushing back the wavy tumbled masses of 
 light-brown hair. 
 
 L Xot as has been seen at present. But 
 1 say I'll answer for nothing till I've taken 
 another look round. I could almost hope 
 he had taken something, if I thought it
 
 262 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 would cure master of giving house-room to 
 vagabonds.' 
 
 ' How did he get out ?' 
 
 c Nay, that passes me to say. Through 
 the front door he went, for the bolts are all 
 undone, but the passage door is locked, 
 just as master left it, and the key's in his 
 dressing-room. It's a very queer business, 
 and I wish it may turn out that he won't 
 come back and murder us all in our 
 beds.' 
 
 ' That is all very well,' said Elizabeth to 
 herself, as, left alone at last, she went on 
 with her toilet ; c but what has he done 
 with the store-closet key that I took him ? 
 No one knows but me that it would open 
 the passage door. And if I have to ask 
 father for his key to get to the store-closet, 
 he is quite sharp enough to put two and 
 two together and to want to know what 
 became of the other. He had better have
 
 SECRETS. 263 
 
 left it in the lock, though that might have 
 led to awkward questions.' 
 
 She knitted her slender brows and 
 hurried her dressing, in what she sup- 
 posed to be a state of great perturbation 
 and annoyance. But if she had been 
 offered the chance of going back to yester- 
 day's uneventful calm it may be doubted 
 whether she would have accepted it. 
 
 Coming down to the little sunny morn- 
 ing-room she found her father and brother 
 already at breakfast, and carrying on an 
 animated discussion, which had no doubt 
 begun with the disappearance of their 
 guest of the night before, but which had 
 by this time arrived at the best method of 
 dealing with tramps and gipsies as a class, 
 a generality for which Elizabeth was 
 devoutly thankful. 
 
 c Good-morning, sweetheart,' said her 
 father, as she kissed him. ' I tell you
 
 264 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 what it is, John, you never heard of a fox 
 or a wolf that was tamed into a sheep-dog, 
 and you never will. One generation, or 
 half-a-dozen generations, won't alter what's 
 been bred in the bone for a thousand 
 years.' 
 
 ' I think, sir, that you hardly allow for 
 the very powerful motives that ought to 
 be brought to bear, for religion and 
 civilisation ' 
 
 ' As for religion, I don't believe they are 
 capable of understanding it. And civilisa- 
 tion does them distinct damage. That 
 young fellow last night seemed so much 
 more civilised than a genuine old gipsy 
 that I fully expect on looking round to find 
 that he has made off with the most valuable 
 piece of portable property he could lay his 
 hands on. His grandfather would have 
 had some savage notions of honour and 
 honesty that would have stood in the way
 
 SECRETS. 265 
 
 of his doing so, but that sort of thing is 
 dying out amongst them very fast, as they 
 learn to read and write.' 
 
 1 The more shame then for us,' said John 
 WaLrond, almost sadly. 
 
 L I don't see that it is any fault of ours. 
 We did not make them, and we cannot 
 mend them — at least, not to any appreci- 
 able degree. 1 
 
 I Do you think that they have not souls, 
 then?' 
 
 • I suppose they have. I wouldn't say 
 that dogs and horses have not souls, but 
 I don't feel responsible for old Ponto's 
 spiritual welfare.' 
 
 Elizabeth was perfectly aware that her 
 father probably meant less than half of 
 what he said ; but her brother looked grave 
 and distressed. 
 
 I I trust you are wrong,' he said. ' I 
 trust and hope that something may yet be
 
 266 ALSTON CRTJCIS. 
 
 done for these wanderers — by religion and 
 education. For as they exist now they are 
 a disgrace to Christian England.' 
 
 ' Yon don't discriminate !' said Mr. Wal- 
 rond, vigorously stirring his last cup of 
 coffee. ' Some of them — tramps and trav- 
 elling beggars — are the off-scouring of 
 society, and are in a sense a disgrace to it. 
 And, if you improved them all off the face 
 of the earth to-day, their places would be 
 supplied to-morrow. There appears to be 
 a kind of demand for that sort of thing, and 
 the supply follows. But the gipsies are 
 different. They are a race to themselves, 
 and perhaps a law to themselves ; at any 
 rate, they used to be.' 
 
 • They are godless — hopeless — heathens 
 in a Christian land ! That young man last 
 nisrht almost laughed in my face when I 
 asked him if he could read, or had read, 
 his Bible.'
 
 SECRETS. 267 
 
 L His grandfather would certainly have 
 laughed outright, supposing him to have 
 been a genuine gipsy. But he would not 
 have admitted himself to be a heathen, for 
 all that. After all, before modern civilisa- 
 tion corrupted them, all their women were 
 chaste and all their men were sober ; and 
 that is more than ever I could say for any 
 con ore nation of mine.' 
 
 ' Works will not save them an}' more 
 than they can save us.' 
 
 c Now you are getting out of my depth,' 
 said the rector, rather coldly, putting down 
 his empty cup and rising from the table. 
 1 Possibly, the Almighty will damn nine- 
 tenths of those poor fellows for not believ- 
 ing what they never heard or had a chance 
 of understanding ! But 1 shall have to 
 learn a good deal more about the matter 
 before I can believe that, or think it right 
 and just.'
 
 268 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 1 There is but one way of Salvation, for 
 them and for all.' 
 
 ' Granted ! But, if you and the rest of 
 the new lights of the present day really 
 mean what you say you mean by that, I 
 wonder you do not spend your lives in 
 preaching and teaching at the street- 
 corners.' 
 
 c Some of us do !' answered the young 
 man, simply. But Mr. Walrond left the 
 room without answering, or even seemino; 
 to hear. There had been a shade of un- 
 wonted bitterness in his tone, for this was 
 a topic of disagreement that was apt to 
 recur, periodically, ever since John Wal- 
 rond's return from college with a new set 
 of religious convictions. And on both 
 sides there was an unspoken personal 
 reference, silenced in the one by breadth 
 and kindliness of temper, and in the other 
 by filial respect, but never on either side
 
 SECIiETS. 269 
 
 forgotten. Mr. Valroncl was perfectly 
 aware that his son was doubtful as to 
 whether he was indeed regenerate, and 
 John, for his part, though not quick of 
 perception, could hardly fail to see that 
 his father thought him a prig. Thus, 
 though these two did not quarrel, Eliza- 
 beth was wont to listen with some un- 
 easiness when they began to argue : sym- 
 pathising with her father with all her 
 might, and yet dimly aware that much 
 might and ought to be said on John's side 
 that he was not quick enough to say for 
 himself. 
 
 He did not seem now to resent his 
 father's implied sarcasm, but leaned his 
 head on his hand, with a dejected look 
 that somehow seemed to soften and en- 
 noble his somewhat prim and ' narrow ' 
 face. 
 
 c Some of us do V he repeated, half to
 
 270 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 himself. ' And the rest of us would do 
 the same, if we had but faith and love and 
 — courage — enough. It is easy for my 
 father to taunt me, but if I had but his 
 courage and his power of dealing with 
 men — especially those beneath him ' 
 
 c Dear Jack, all the village people are 
 getting fond of you. And they like your 
 sermons very much, even better than 
 father's.' 
 
 Elizabeth had left her place, and laid a 
 consoling hand on her brother's shoulder : 
 and he brightened a little, but looked 
 dejected still. 
 
 ' I am afraid of them — out of church,' he 
 said. c And most of them seem to think 
 very little of me out of church, though I 
 have tried to let no man despise me. And 
 much that seems to me shocking and pain- 
 ful only amuses my father, and even 
 you !'
 
 SECEETS. 271 
 
 c Father knows best,' said his daughter, 
 loyally. ' If he thinks people are not so 
 very bad, I don't think you need worry 
 about them.' 
 
 John Walrond sighed. He, too, had an 
 infallible pope, but that pope was not his 
 father. He knew that, if he had asked the 
 
 great Mr. S his opinion of Mr. Wal- 
 
 rond's spiritual state, the Rector of Deer- 
 hurst would have been unhesitatingly pro- 
 nounced to be still in the gall of bitterness 
 and the bond of iniquity. But he could 
 not tell Elizabeth so. 
 
 t One ought not to murmur for sifts 
 that have been withheld, 1 he said, after a 
 moment. ' But it seems hard that he, who 
 does not care, should be able to wind men 
 round his finger and control them with a 
 look, while I, who would use the power to 
 save souls ' 
 
 Elizabeth did not answer. Perhaps it
 
 272 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 did occur to her that possibly it was as 
 well that John "Walrond had not always 
 the power to save souls just in his own 
 fashion, honest and devoted though he 
 was. But he would have understood by 
 that so very much more than she meant, 
 that it was best to leave it unsaid. Be- 
 sides, her own perplexities were beginning 
 to weigh again upon her mind. Nurse 
 would be wanting things out of the store- 
 closet directly, and where teas the key ? 
 
 Half-absently she crossed the room to 
 her own little table by the window, to re- 
 place an end of ribbon that worried her by 
 hanging out of her workbox. The little 
 key stood in the lock as usual, but she 
 was surprised to find it turned. c I never 
 leave it so !' she thought, as she unlocked 
 it ; then started and coloured with glad 
 surprise. There lay the key of the store- 
 room, and round the handle of it a scrap
 
 SECEETS. 273 
 
 of paper twisted, on which was written — 
 apparently with her own bine pencil — the 
 one word c Thanks.' 
 
 c That young man seems to have made 
 himself very much at home !' she said to 
 herself, as she gladly slipped the restored 
 treasure into her pocket. ' I wonder how 
 long he was roaming about here last night, 
 and what business he had to know that the 
 box was mine ? But he has managed 
 rather well ; and perhaps some day I may 
 tell him so ! I wonder if he will ever tell 
 me any more, and how he is faring now ?' 
 
 If Elizabeth could have had her wish, 
 later on in that day. and have seen as L in 
 the crystal ' what her new acquaintance 
 was doing, what would the magic mirror 
 have shown her ? 
 
 Only two disreputable-looking young 
 gipsies, deep in earnest conversation, trudg- 
 
 VOL. I. t
 
 274 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 ing along, by lanes and by-ways, with their 
 faces set towards Alston Crucis. 
 
 c As for saving your life,' Harold was 
 saying. ' I don't know about that ! It 
 was close work, and you would have been 
 peppered pretty well ; but I daresay it 
 wouldn't have killed you ! If you think 
 you owe me anything, though, you must 
 thank her for it ; for she sent me after you. 
 And the best thing you can do is to come 
 back and tell her the whole story, first 
 and last, before worse comes of it.' 
 
 And apparently the wall-eyed individual 
 thought so too, for he was meekly retrac- 
 ing his steps by Harold's side, in a mood 
 divided between gratitude and fear. 
 
 That weird old sibyl at Alston Crucis had 
 her own ways and means of communicating 
 with her own people. It was not the first 
 time that a gipsy hand had tapped at the 
 latticed casement of the old kitchen, late
 
 SECRETS. 275 
 
 at night, when all the servants had retired 
 to their own upper regions, and the base- 
 ment was left to the rats, a huge Tom-cat, 
 and herself. 
 
 She nodded approvingly as her grandson 
 came forward ushering in his new acquaint- 
 ance, who seemed not unlike a captive, so 
 obviously unwilling was he to meet the 
 eye of his terrible great-aunt. But nothing 
 could be more gracious than her manner 
 to him, though she gave him to understand 
 that unless he made a clean breast of all 
 he knew, then and there, he would have 
 cause to repent it to his last hour. 
 
 He seemed disposed to make a full 
 confession, and Harold encouraged him by 
 accomplishing a raid upon his own larder, 
 and producing besides some strong cigars 
 — more likely than strong drink to loosen 
 a gipsy's tongue. 
 
 The two young men satisfied their hun- 
 
 T 2
 
 276 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 ger ; and then for a few moments Joe 
 Heme sat silent, looking into the fire 
 and drawing long jets of smoke from 
 his cigar — perhaps arranging the misty 
 things that to him stood for ideas and 
 recollections. 
 
 Then he began, abruptly enough. 
 
 c It was the night Lawyer Crofton was 
 killed, and I met him, as I was coming 
 down Alston Lane. He was riding that 
 black mare of his, and he looked as if the 
 great Devil was sitting behind him. I 
 never saw a man in such a rage, but he 
 didn't tell me what the matter was. I asked 
 him about a bit of business I'd been doing 
 for him, and I went back up the lane with 
 him, walking beside the mare. So we 
 came to the top of the lane, and out on 
 over Scarrisdale Moor ; and there Thorn- 
 ton Harris overtook us, driving in his 
 trap, and Will Heme with him. When
 
 SECRETS. 277 
 
 Crofton saw them, lie swore a big oath. 
 " I've been wanting to speak to yon all 
 day !" he said. " YouVe done more mis- 
 chief than yon'll do good as long as yon 
 live." And Harris said, " Come up here, 
 then, and say your say," — and he laughed, 
 and made Will Heme get down and take 
 the mare. The moon was up by that time, 
 and I saw the way those two looked at 
 each other as Crofton climbed up into the 
 trap — and I was glad I hadn't to sit be- 
 tween them !' 
 
 ' Well !' said Harold, impatiently, as he 
 paused. 
 
 c We dropped behind, Will and I, and 
 they drove on together. Slow enough they 
 went, and Harris never heeded where he 
 was £omor for one wheel would be in the 
 middle of the track, and the other right 
 amongst the heather, and the cart swaying 
 from side to side.'
 
 278 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 'Were they quarrelling?' asked Harold, 
 in a fierce whisper. 
 
 fc They had their heads together — they 
 were talking, eager enough. And the cart 
 came slowly to the top of the rise, so that 
 we could see them both, clear and black, 
 against the sky. And suddenly Thornton 
 Harris snatched the riding- whip out of the 
 other's hand, and struck him twice on the 
 head with it — as hard — I judge — as he 
 could strike.' 
 
 c I knew it /' Harold sprang to his 
 
 feet, and his voice rang exultantly in the 
 vaulted roof of the kitchen, in strange 
 contrast to the hushed tones in which 
 they had before been speaking. c I knew 
 he was at the bottom of it all ! Did Will 
 Heme see ? I will make his fortune, and 
 yours too, if between you you can make 
 this story good.' 
 
 c He saw what I saw. Croften fell for-
 
 SECRETS. 279 
 
 ward, and the horse took fright at some- 
 thing and gave a plunge. I doubt Harris 
 had left hold of the reins ; for in a minute 
 horse and cart were over the hill and out 
 of sight, Will jumped on the mare, and I 
 put my arm over the saddle, and we were 
 after them as quick as we could. But it 
 was five minutes before we came on any 
 trace of them.' 
 
 c And then ?' 
 
 c We found Crofton lying beside the 
 ditch there, where the road goes down 
 again towards Aldersford and turns sharp 
 round the corner. The cart was gone, 
 but we could hear the horse's feet a good 
 way off. Will got down and tied the mare 
 to the fence, and we lifted his head, and 
 felt at his heart, and Will said to me, " I 
 doubt he's dead." 
 
 c Was he dead?' 
 
 c We did the best we could for him !'
 
 280 ALSTON CEUCIS. 
 
 cried the gipsy, firing as if at some im- 
 plied accusation. c I fetched some water, 
 and Will loosened his collar ; but he never 
 moved nor spoke. " He's clone for !" Will 
 said at last, and laid his head down. I 
 saw the mark where the whip had caught 
 him, and I would swear it was enough to 
 have killed him. Then Will put his hand 
 in Crofton's breast-pocket, and took out a 
 biggish book and opened it. There was a 
 pocket in each side of it, and he took a 
 bundle of something out of the one, and 
 was just going to slip it away when I 
 caught hold of his hand. " Let's look," 
 I said, and I saw they were bank-notes. I 
 never saw any but once before : but I 
 don't forget, Will Heme meant to have 
 had them all, but I was too sharp for him !' 
 c So you shared them, I suppose?' said 
 Harold, while the old woman leaned for- 
 ward, watching him intently.
 
 SECRETS. 281 
 
 • I wish we had !' he answered, with an 
 accent of unmistakable regret, : I don't 
 know how much they were worth, but 
 there was a lot of them. " Let's look in 
 the other side," Will said, but I knew 
 what he would be after, and I kept hold 
 of his left hand that had the notes in, 
 while he pulled something out of the 
 other side. There were some papers tied 
 up, and he wanted to look at them. So 
 he swore by — you know what ! — and made 
 me do the same, and we laid the bundle 
 of notes on the road, about a yard in front 
 of us, while Will looked at the papers, 
 and I held a brimstone match for him to 
 see the writing — I must have burned half- 
 a-dozen — and then he tied them up again. 
 " I can't make head nor tail of them," he 
 said, " but I think they belong to Squire 
 Malreward. It mio-ht be worth money to 
 him to get them back." He put them into
 
 282 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 the book again, and was going to slip it 
 into his pocket, I think, when all of a 
 sudden he gave a great start, and dropped 
 it. It was Thornton Harris came round 
 the turn of the road, without the horse 
 and trap, and when he saw us he put his 
 hand in his waistcoat and drew a little 
 pistol half-way out. I gave a jump, too, 
 but I didn't forget to pick up the book, 
 while the other two were looking at each 
 other.' 
 
 He stopped to chuckle softly at his own 
 acuteness, with all the vanity of a half-wit ; 
 and Harold said nothing, but watched him 
 with eyes that seemed as if they would 
 drag his secret out of him. 
 
 L Go on !' said the sibyl, from the other 
 side of the tire ; ' and speak the truth, or 
 else you had better never have been born !' 
 
 4 I am speaking truth !' answered Joe 
 Chalkeye, eagerly. ' Harris kept his hand
 
 SECRETS. 283 
 
 on the handle of the pistol, but he was 
 only making believe with it. He took a 
 high hand at first, and swore that we were 
 robbing his friend, and that he would give 
 us in charge for robber)*, and, maybe, mur- 
 der. But he soon saw that we knew too 
 much for that, and he came down a little. 
 Will Heme stood out for the notes to be 
 shared between us two, but Harris laughed 
 in his face. He said he'd sooner let us say 
 what we pleased ! it would be only our 
 word against his, and who would believe a 
 couple of gipsies ? But to avoid scandal, 
 he said, he would give us a fair share, only 
 we must keep the notes dark until the 
 affair had blown over a bit, or it would be 
 the worse for us. He's a cool hand, that 
 Harris ! There lay the body, not two 
 yards from us, and after the first he never 
 looked round at it, never once, till all the 
 business was done. He save us what he
 
 284 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 called a fair share, but if it hadn't been for 
 the pistol in his bosom we shouldn't have 
 been contented so easily. So he ordered 
 "Will to lay the body in the ditch, a little 
 out of the road and out of sight ; and they 
 looked for the riding-whip till they found 
 it, and laid it beside him. Then Harris 
 found the mare, and dragged the saddle 
 half-round, and gave her a cut of the whip 
 and she galloppecl off; and he, and Will 
 Heme too, threatened what they'd do to 
 me if ever I breathed a word to anyone ; 
 and off they went, and round by Alder- 
 brook bottom ; and I believe they picked 
 up the horse and trap, and went home by 
 another road. So I was left on the road- 
 side there with him, and I began to wish 
 myself far enough. I thought they might 
 turn against me, both of them, and say i'd 
 done it ! But I looked about to see if 
 there'd been anything dropped '
 
 SECRETS. 285 
 
 1 Did you find anything?' 
 
 • Ay!' he answered , with a cunning look. 
 ' But what I found may be worth some- 
 thing if ever another trial comes on, and 
 I'll keep it till then I saw the moon- 
 light shine on the silver plate on the whip, 
 and I looked, and it had Squire Malreward's 
 name on it ! — but I daren't move it. Then 
 I began to think the sooner I was out of 
 this country the better ; but I'd no money 
 with me but the notes, and I daren't change 
 them. So I bethought myself of the papers 
 in the book, and I came straight off here, 
 and got to see the squire as soon as I could,, 
 and told him what I'd seen, and ' 
 
 • What V cried Harold, springing to his 
 feet again. ' Did my father know this tale 
 of yours ? Did you tell him that Harris 
 killed Croft on?' 
 
 c Ay, sure ! — and gave him the papers. 
 and he gave me money enough to get away
 
 286 ALSTON CKUCIS. 
 
 with, and bid me go, and say nothing to 
 anyone.' 
 
 c Then either you were lying, and he 
 knew it ; or ' 
 
 Harold stopped short. There seemed no 
 alternative ; and yet, this story of the 
 gipsy's had seemed so complete a solution 
 of a hitherto unsolved mystery ! 
 
 He turned away, and paced up and down 
 the kitchen — a picturesque figure enough, 
 in his beggar's dress, but with a downcast 
 face of thought such as no careless vagrant 
 ever wore. And the two by the tire 
 watched him intently, having both of them 
 reason enough to wonder what he was 
 thinking of. 
 
 c Well ? — what more ?' he said at last, 
 curtly, turning as he reached the other end 
 of the room. 
 
 c I went away, and went back to the 
 tribe, and somehow Uncle Gabe got it all
 
 SECEETs. 287 
 
 out of me ; and he's been trying to get me 
 out of the way, and keep me out, ever since, 
 but he doesn't know Joe Heme. If my 
 pigs are to be taken to market, I'll sell them 
 myself.' 
 
 ' Why did your brother not tell me this 
 the other night, think you ?' asked Harold, 
 in an undertone, turning to his grand- 
 mother. ' Did I not offer enough to the 
 man that could help me ?' 
 
 ' A child could tell you that !' she an- 
 swered, speaking in the English of her early 
 married life, in marked contrast to the 
 patois that Joe Heme had been talking, 
 and which has been here freely translated. 
 ' Gabe was always cunning — cunning 
 enough to take himself in, at times. He 
 hated your father, always ; and he thinks, 
 I daresay, that fear will pay better than 
 gratitude, and that Thornton Harris will 
 be willing to pay him to be silent when
 
 288 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 you might be weary of paying him for hav- 
 ing spoken. A secret that is told is worth 
 nothing more !' 
 
 Harold laughed bitterly. 
 
 ' So much for relations, and their grati- 
 tude ! Well ! the secret will soon be worth 
 little enough to him. As for you, Joe, 
 you'll do what I bid you — if you're wise ! 
 You'll go where I tell you, and you'll keep 
 quiet, and I'll see you don't want. But 
 you'll have no dealings with any of the 
 tribe; and if you come across them, or if 
 they come across you, you'll lose a pound 
 for every word you say to any of them on 
 this business. Before daybreak you must 
 start, and so must L' 
 
 c Where are you going ?' asked his grand- 
 mother, anxiously. 
 
 c I'll tell you presently !' he answered, 
 with a significant look. ' We had a short 
 night last night, Is there anywhere that
 
 SECRETS. 289 
 
 Joe can lie down and get a nap before we 
 start?' 
 
 c There's a mat yonder,' said Joe's affec- 
 tionate great-aunt, pointing with her fin- 
 ger, as if he had been a dog. c He can lie 
 down there. Harold, my lad ! come here 
 on the settle by me.' 
 
 Joe Heme withdrew, and flung himself 
 down on the knitted rug in the far corner ; 
 and Harold suffered himself to drop into 
 the seat pointed out to him, and sat staring 
 into the fire, deep in thought. His grand- 
 mother's eyes — pin-points of brightness in 
 a network of wrinkles — were fixed upon 
 his face ; but he hardly heeded them. 
 
 L Are they all quite well ?' he asked, at 
 last. c Phil — and my aunts — and Mrs. 
 Philip?' 
 
 ' Ay ! well enough, I believe. I've little 
 enough to do with them. It was but yes- 
 terday you saw them.' 
 
 vol. i. u
 
 290 ALSTON CRUCIS. 
 
 c Yesterday ? Was it ? Ay ! I remember. 
 It seems longer.' 
 
 c And where are you going next, my lad ?' 
 
 1 First, to get rid of Joe Heme, and put 
 him where he can't be tampered with.' 
 
 'Where's that?' 
 
 c Do you remember old Bilson, who used 
 to be gamekeeper here in my grandfather's 
 time ?' 
 
 c Ay ! I remember him.' 
 
 c He loved my father, and he will watch 
 Joe Heme, if I bid him do it, for my 
 father's sake, like a terrier over a rat-hole. 
 He has that lone house now on Thansley 
 Moor, and I shall leave Master Joe there 
 while I go on my way.' 
 
 c And what are you after next?' 
 
 c I must find Will Heme,' he answered, 
 lowering his voice, though they were 
 speaking in undertones already. ' I must 
 make him speak out, and see if his tale
 
 SECRETS. 291 
 
 agrees with this one, before I can at all 
 decide what ought to be done next.' 
 
 For a little while longer they talked in 
 hushed whispers, and then Harold flung 
 his arms above his head and fell asleep in 
 the corner of the settle ; while the old 
 woman sat beside him, like one of the 
 sleepless Fates, glancing from time to time 
 at his sleeping face, as if she read there 
 the prophecy that he would not suffer her 
 to read in the lines of those brown shapely 
 hands. 
 
 EXD OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 London : Printed by Duncan Macdonald, Blenheim House, W.
 
 
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