a I B RARY 
 
 OF THL 
 UN I VER51TY 
 or ILLl NOIS
 
 I 
 
 POET AND PEER. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 POET AND PEEK 
 
 BY 
 
 HAMILTON AIDE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 PENRUDDOCKE," ''RITA," 
 
 &c., &c. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1880. 
 
 AH rirjhts reserved.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 riCINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE, 
 
 BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET.
 
 Riy 
 
 4 
 
 M 
 K 
 
 JS-- 
 5 
 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 TO 
 
 EGBERT, LORD LYTTON, 
 
 THIS RECORD 
 
 IS INSCRIBED 
 
 BY HIS OLD FRIEND.
 
 POET AND PEER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 /\NE August evening, before the harvest 
 ^^ moon had risen over the golden wheat- 
 fields and slopes of orchard land that surround 
 the village of Ripple, a little girl of eleven was 
 seen driving home a cow and her calf from the 
 hill-side pastures where they had been feeding. 
 She was seen, I repeat, and it was by a lad of 
 sixteen, who stood alone, leaning over a gate 
 which divides the Athelstone woods from certain 
 common grounds over which the owner of those 
 woods is also lord of the manor. Ripple be- 
 VOL. 1. B
 
 2 POET AND PEER. 
 
 longs mainly to him ; but it lies three miles 
 away from the Castle, and Lord Athelstone's 
 interests are chiefly with the more populous 
 village of Warley, which nestles at the foot of 
 the Castle steep, There you will find model 
 slated cottages, the national school, and the 
 penny-reading club. At Ripple there is only a 
 dame's school and thatched roofs, and there the 
 sleepy old ways of fifty years since still flourish. 
 The Rippleites lack energy, Lord Athelstone 
 thinks ; he regards them with a beneficent 
 toleration, and ministers to their temporal 
 wants, but his heart goes out to the men of 
 AVarley, who are more enterprising in their 
 farms, and adopt his lordship's steam ploughs 
 and thrashing machines. Not that he is a man 
 for rash experiment, for innovation and re- 
 form : he is a stauncli Conservative ; but, as 
 such, it becomes him to employ all the means 
 which practical science has applied to hus- 
 bandry, when their utility is clearly demon- 
 strated. He is a man whose mind is never 
 disturbed by doubts ; he sees one thing slowly 
 but clearly at a time ; and those who do not see
 
 POET AND PEER. 3 
 
 as he does are either dangerous radicals or pig- 
 headed boors. 
 
 All this is but a natural digression from the 
 young lad who leant over a gate that autumn 
 evehing some twelve years ago. Wilfred 
 Athelstone, his father's only child, was then an 
 Etonian. He knew but little of Eipple, except 
 as a hamlet in an out-lying corner of his father's 
 estate, while every man's and woman's name in 
 Warley was familiar to him. But the boy was 
 unusually open to impressions of beauty ; and 
 the nestling of moss-grown roofs, and diamond- 
 paned casements, the slopes of garden, glowing 
 with rose-cheeked apples, and knots of com- 
 mon flowers, arrested his attention, until it 
 was diverted to the little cow-herd who ap- 
 proached. 
 
 The boy was already something of a poet, as 
 we shall see by-and-by ; and it came into his 
 head, as he stood there, watching this child 
 and her cow, that it was as perfect an idyl as 
 Theocritus ever sang. She tripped along, with 
 the red sunset behind her, tipping the ends of 
 light brown hair that streamed out from under 
 
 b2
 
 4 POET AND PEER. 
 
 the linen bonnet tilted over her pretty face, and 
 glorifying the skirt of her lilac print frock, 
 which the breeze drifted backwards as she 
 danced along. She held a stick — it might 
 almost be termed a wand — in her hand, where- 
 with she made believe to drive the mild-eyed 
 mother and her offspring before her, though, in 
 truth, they showed no reluctance to return for 
 the night to their shed and litter of straw. 
 The child was dehcately made, and her uncon- 
 scious grace, and the sweet clear voice in which 
 she caroled snatches of some old country song, 
 as she advanced, fired the young poet's imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 Her way led directly past the gate on which 
 he leant. She stared somewhat affrighted on 
 seeing him, and brought both little hob-nailed 
 boots together with a courtesy which resembled 
 a futile effort at sitting. 
 
 " Good evening," said Wilfred, in a half 
 shame-faced way (had he addressed a duchess, 
 he would have been bold enough, even to 
 defiance). ..." What is your name, little 
 girl?"
 
 POET AND PEER. 5 
 
 " Nellie Dawson, if you please, sir, . . . my 
 lord," replied the sweet little voice. 
 
 " Oh, you know me ? . . . Not that I am 
 * my lord,' Nellie — never call me that. Where 
 do you live ? Who is your father ?" 
 
 *' I ain't got none, sir. Mother and me lives 
 in yon cottage,'^ and one rosy hand pointed to 
 the first low thatched roof that showed above 
 the apple-boughs. 
 
 " Oh ! you're the child of John Dawson, who 
 died two years ago — I remember. . . . What 
 does your mother do V 
 
 " Mother does everything." 
 
 "You ought to go to school, Nellie, instead of 
 minding the cows." 
 
 " I do go, only it's over at four, if you please, 
 sir, so I run up the field to bring the cow 
 home." 
 
 " xA.nd you can read and write well ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, and 'rithmetic too." 
 
 "That's right. There's nothing like know- 
 ledge. It makes all men equal." The child 
 stared at the aphorism, and said nothing. The 
 young gentleman continued, in his gently
 
 6 POET AND PEER. 
 
 dictatorial way, " You must work liard, and 
 
 then you'll rise. Everyone ought to try to 
 
 rise, you know." The child had heard her 
 
 mother talk about the bread '* rising." She 
 
 had also heard a distich about — 
 
 " Early to bed and early to rise, 
 Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise ;" 
 
 but what the young gentleman meant by her 
 
 " trying to rise," she had no sort of idea. He 
 
 continued, " I shall come and see your mother. 
 
 I've never been in your cottage in my life. I 
 
 am so little at home now. How did you know 
 
 me?" 
 
 " I've a-seed you in church, sir.'' 
 
 " You mustn't say, ' I've a-seed.' Say, ' I've 
 seen. . . . By-the-by, can you milk your cow?" 
 
 '* Oh ! yes, sir, I always does." 
 
 *^ Always do, Nellie. Give me some, then, in 
 this leather cup. Milk warm from the cow is a 
 draught fit for the gods." 
 
 The child looked puzzled at this last utter- 
 ance, but she dropped her little courtesy again, 
 as she took the cup from his hand, and ran to 
 the cow, which was nibbling the grass under
 
 POET AND PEER. 7 
 
 an apple-tree a few yards off. Kneeling down, 
 she deftly filled the cup with the frothing 
 liquid ; then, holding it between both her rosy 
 hands, with careful footsteps, she brought it to 
 Wilfred, at the gate. 
 
 '^ Just like Hebe,^' murmured the boy, as he 
 took the cup. She had no idea what he meant ; 
 but felt proud to have rendered this small ser- 
 vice to ^' the young lord," as she sti*l called him 
 to herself. 
 
 " Thank you, Nellie," said he, drawing a 
 long breath. " One good turn deserves an- 
 other, you know. I shall bring you a book 
 when I come. And, if you like it, you must 
 learn some of it by heart, and repeat it 
 to me." Then, with a nod and a smile, he 
 shouldered his fishing-rod, while the little maid 
 " bobbed " once more, and hurried after her 
 kine. 
 
 Here was a piece of news to give mother ! 
 The young lord had promised to come and see 
 them, and bring her a book. But, oh ! what 
 did he mean by saying that fresh milk was " a 
 drink fit for the gods'' "l It sounded like the
 
 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Ammonites and wicked idolaters she had read 
 of in Holy Writ. Perhaps mother would know 
 what tbe young lord meant.
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 A WORD or two more as to Lord Athelstone, 
 -^ personally and mentally. 
 
 He was now nearly sixty, but more hale 
 and active than most men of half his age. He 
 was getting bald, and what little hair he had 
 was white ; but his eye was keen, his teeth and 
 his digestion sound, and he would walk all day 
 over the stubble_, in the September which was 
 at hand, as vigorously as he did twenty years 
 ago. A certain obstinacy — which was the only 
 point of resemblance between father and son — 
 characterized the lower portion of the face. 
 The forehead was high, narrow, and the per- 
 ceptive organs largely developed. The nose 
 was a good serviceable nose : neither aggres- 
 sively long, nor meanly diminutive; neither
 
 10 POET AXD PEER. 
 
 refined and sensitive, like his son's, nor power- 
 ful and truncular, like the late lord's, as it 
 appeared in the effigy of that learned nobleman 
 "which hung over the dining-room sideboard. 
 
 Lord Athelstone lived in the faith, political 
 and religious, of his fathers, with just so much 
 difference as the change in the times rendered 
 imperative ; no more. They had been orthodox, 
 and so Avas he ; but he tolerated a surplice in 
 the pulpit, and admitted with reluctance the 
 possibility of the world not having been created 
 in seven days. They had been good old 
 Tories ; lie was a Conservative ; yet thirty years 
 ago he had been held by some of his party to 
 entertain unsound views ; voting for the admis- 
 sion of Jews into Parliament, and standing, so 
 to speak, on a small headland, in advance of 
 the strong cliffs of Toryism. Now the tide was 
 above his ankles ; yet still he maintained his 
 footing. He was not a man of parts ; he had 
 never distinguished himself at Cambridge, or 
 in the House of Commons, as a young man, or 
 in the other House, of later years ; but he had 
 strong common sense, and had done his duty as
 
 POET AND PEER. 11 
 
 a husband, a landlorcl and a magistrate^ on the 
 whole^ wisely. How he would do it, in the yet 
 more difficult part of father which he would be 
 called on to play as his son grew up — a part 
 demanding in this particular case infinite tact 
 and judgment — remained to be seen. 
 
 Lady Athelstone was nearly twenty years 
 her husband's junior ; but the disparity of age 
 was apparently felt by neither ; and as time 
 went on, it brought the middle-aged woman 
 nearer and nearer to her still active and ener- 
 getic lord. Lady Athelstone was neither 
 active nor energetic by nature ; but she was 
 consumed by a desire to be irreproachable in 
 every detail of life, goading her into a fitful but 
 fatiguing earnestness, which at first sight 
 resembled both activity and energy. She sat 
 at the board of Benevolent Ladies' Institutions, 
 and belonged to numberless organizations for 
 well-doing, and deserved infinite credit, inas- 
 much as it was not pleasure to her, but grievous 
 trouble. She read books " for improvement," 
 and hoped her information was exact ; if not, 
 fihe begged you would correct her. Her
 
 12 POET AND PEER. 
 
 positioD, in the social scale, both as to rank and 
 fortune, was duly weighed, and it influenced 
 the choice of her bonnets. She was, even at 
 forty, still a pretty woman, of the over-refined 
 type which indicates some impoverishment of 
 the firmer and healthier forms of beauty, by a 
 process of natural selection, in civilization. 
 
 But the perils of personal vanity she had 
 never known. Even when first married, 
 fifteen years ago, she never seemed to expect 
 admiration, and the suggestion of flirtation in 
 connection with her name had never crossed 
 the brain of the keenest scandal-monger. 8he 
 was an admirable and a submissive wife on 
 every point unconnected with Wilfred. Upon 
 this subject she ventured occasionally, in a 
 mild, persistent way, to differ from the boy's 
 father, who, as she thought — and perhaps 
 rightly — did not *• understand " his son, and 
 rendered scant justice to his abilities. Whether 
 the fond mother "understood" him better is 
 questionable ; if " understanding " purports to 
 include the wise regulation of materials not 
 easily reducible to laws. Had she been the
 
 POET AND PEER. 13 
 
 arbiter of his fate in those days, Wilfred would 
 not have gone to a public school, for Lady 
 Athelstone feared the contact of such pate tendre 
 with coarse earthenware. But his father was 
 resolute ; stuff and nonsense about a poetic 
 temperament, and high-strung, sensitive organ- 
 ization, &c., &c. ; four generations of Athel- 
 stones had been educated at Eton ; the boy 
 must rough it, as his forefathers had done. 
 And he did. 
 
 Wilfred^s scholarship, in spite of his reputa- 
 tion in a narrow circle of connections as being 
 '•'so remarkably gifted," was not very notice- 
 able ; but he did fairly well in classics, and won 
 some reputation by his Latin verses. The 
 utterances of his English muse were yet more 
 fluent ; and the impassioned rhapsocJy and 
 revolutionary vaticinations of the aristocratic 
 youth of tender years won for him a certain 
 amount of admiration, not unaccompanied with 
 correlative ridicule. To the latter he was very 
 indifferent ; and, as his geniality and good 
 temper prevented his being impopular even 
 among those who called him *^a young ass/' it
 
 14 POET AND PEER. 
 
 ■came to pass, as it always does in the world, 
 that the enthusiast, however small and foolisli, 
 had a certain following. To these he held 
 forth ; with the others he argued ; among 
 both, his love of hearing himself talk had 
 full scope. His mother declared he would be 
 the Demosthenes of the Upper House one day ; 
 at which Mr. Punchett, the satirist, was heard 
 to say, " it would be a blessing if he prepared 
 for the part now by keeping his mouth full of 
 pebbles." 
 
 Wilfred was rash in opinions, to w^hich he 
 held with tenacity, if they were opposed. The 
 temptation of shocking people a little, and 
 astonishing them a great deal, once yielded to, 
 he found irresistible. His father was a Con- 
 servative ; therefore, as the lines that divide 
 Whiggery from Conversatism are almost im- 
 perceptible in these days, nothing remained to 
 the youth, if he wished to be original, but to 
 <ieclare himself a Red Republican. Had he 
 been brought up at a French Communist 
 school, or a German university, his combative- 
 ness would probably have led him to become a
 
 POET AND PEER. 15 
 
 stauncli upholder of the divine right of kings. 
 But at Eton his friends were the scions of great 
 houses, whose traditions, no less than their im- 
 pulses, led them to defend the patrician insti- 
 tutions in which they had been nurtured. 
 These bojs fought for their cause with pluck 
 and intelligence ; and it required all Wilfred's 
 quickness of memory and swiftness of fence to 
 uphold the extreme views it was his pleasure 
 to adopt. But they liked him ; for he would 
 do any fellow's Latin verses for him, bore the 
 most merciless " roasting " with perfect good 
 humour, and was a very fair stroke in the boats. 
 
 " Athelstone's an awfully good-natured little 
 ohap," said an idle young giant named Bruce 
 to another named St. John, a much older, 
 graver, and cleverer lad, with whom Wilfred 
 especially delighted to argue — "but how he 
 does jaw, by Jove ! and what rot he does talk, 
 about doing away with the aristocracy, and all 
 that!" 
 
 '' He will get into some precious mess by- 
 and-by, if he don't change his tone," replied 
 the other.
 
 16 POET AND PEER. 
 
 " Then he's such a romantic beggar — likes 
 solitude, and mountains, and all that sort of 
 thing," continued Bruce, — "at least, he says so, 
 and pretends he should like to be poor, and 
 have to work for his bread. It's all cheek, I 
 believe. He's too bumptious." 
 
 " He is a poet ; it is part of his stock in 
 trade,'' said St. John, with a smile, ''and he 
 'fancies himself rather in the character. That's 
 all." 
 
 So Wilfred was chaffed ; listened to and 
 admired by the few, ridiculed by the many, 
 tolerated by all, and " put down " by no one. 
 
 It was the evening of the day on which 
 Wilfred had met Nellie Dawson. The boy was 
 seated between his father and mother at a 
 small round table in the great dining-room, 
 with the portrait of the late lord in a thunder- 
 storm over the sideboard, and the army of 
 maroon leather-seated chairs along the wall ; 
 not a cheerful apartment at any time, but 
 forming an especially dreary framework to so 
 small a company ; for the four servants who
 
 POET AND PEER. 17 
 
 hovered round the table might have belonged 
 to the land of shadows, so noiseless were their 
 movements over the soft-piled carpet. 
 
 It was Saturday, and the Castle had been 
 emptied of its guests that afternoon ; a fresh 
 batch was to arrive on Monday; the inter- 
 regnum was agreeable to Lord Athelstone, and 
 doubly so to his wife, who hailed these intervals 
 of rest from the toils of hospitality which she 
 endured, as one of the necessary duties belong- 
 ing to her station, but never enjoyed. Such 
 brief intervals of unshackled intercourse with 
 his boy Lord Athelstone always achieved two 
 or three times during Wilfred's holidays, in 
 spite of the numerous claims upon his time. 
 The soup was not off the table before Wilfred 
 began. 
 
 "Father^ you know Mrs. Dawson at Ripple, 
 don't you? She lives in the first thatched 
 cottage on the hill-side, near the wood ?'* 
 
 " Dawson ? Oh ! The widow of that radical 
 fellow who died two years ago. Yes — a good 
 sort of woman, I believe. Why do you 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 POET AND PEER. 
 
 **I met a child to-day — such a child! — who 
 gave me a drink of milk, and told me her 
 mother was Mrs. Dawson. She was like a 
 dream of health and innocence." 
 
 " A dream ? God bless my soul ! I daresay 
 she has the reality. Always high-flown, Will. 
 What do they say at Eton to your ' dreams' ?" 
 As his son did not respond, Lord Athelstone 
 went on — " Do you know anything of this child, 
 my lady 1 I suppose she goes to the dame's 
 school?" 
 
 "Poor little thing, yes. I wish some better 
 education could be given her. I have not seen 
 her for some time, and meant to make my 
 round of the Ripple cottages next week." 
 
 " If she lives all her life there, the education 
 will do well enough for her," observed Lord 
 Athelstone, decisively. 
 
 "But why should she live there all her life?" 
 asked Wilfred, raising his head quickly. " W^hy 
 shouldn't she go out into the world, and become 
 a " 
 
 '' — A housemaid? The dame's schooling 
 will do well enou^rh for that."
 
 POET AND PEER. 19 
 
 " I didn't mean that — a pupil-teacher, or even 
 something better. Why shouldn't 'she rise, 
 father?" 
 
 *^Why sliould she? That is the question. 
 Why not let her remain contented in the station 
 in which she was born? This over-education 
 and mania to rise are the curse of the present 
 day." 
 
 " The world doesn't stand still, father. 
 Things are not as they were fifty years 
 ago; the poor can no longer be treated like 
 swine." 
 
 " I am not aware that my father treated any 
 of those dependent on him like swine," said 
 Lord Athelstone, drily. *' There is enough 
 progress without our helping to push society 
 more rapidly down-hill." 
 
 " Up hill, I should say," returned his argu- 
 mentative son. " The true wisdom, I fancy, is 
 to educate the people so that they shall learn 
 how to bear with fortitude the accident of 
 poverty." 
 
 Lord Athelstone shook his head. 
 
 "Stuff! They get dissatisfied with hard 
 
 c2
 
 20 POET AND PEER. 
 
 labour. That is the only result. We shall soon 
 have no servants at all. And, as a matter of 
 fact, when you have lived a little longer, you 
 v/ill find that poverty presses more hardly on 
 people of education than on those who, knowing 
 nothing else, are content to live by the sweat 
 of their brow." 
 
 And so the discussion continued for some 
 time, supported with a certain amount of truth 
 on both sides ; the complete truth lying between 
 the two, though the vision of each was focussed 
 to too narrow a point to perceive this. Lord 
 Athelstone sometimes lost his temper with the 
 sharp boy's pertinacity ; sometimes rode rough- 
 shod over the opinions Master Wilfred ad- 
 vanced. Neither course was wise. But have 
 any of us known what it is to be contradicted 
 by a chit of a boy *? How much worse must it 
 be when that boy is one's son and heir ! 
 
 Lady Athelstone smiled on her offspring with 
 a gaze more fond than flir-seeing, and exam- 
 ined her nails. She always did so when she 
 was not quite at ease. It was so daring of 
 him to take up the cause of the poor so enthusi-
 
 POET AND PEER. 21 
 
 astically ! so refined, so unlike most Eton boys, 
 the interest he evinced in this poor little village 
 child ! But she wished he would not argue 
 with his father. She wished they could agree ; 
 it would be so much nicer. No doubt Papa was 
 right ; but then dear Wilfred's views were so 
 generous, would it not be better not to oppose 
 them ? For her part, she disliked all discus- 
 sion. But she promised Wilfred before he went 
 to bed that night that she would go with him 
 to Mrs. Dawson's on Monday.
 
 22 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 nOON after luncheon that day the pony- 
 '^ carriage drew up at the little wicket of 
 Mrs. Dawson's cottage, and Lady Athelstone, 
 followed by Wilfred, walked up the narrow 
 garden-path, fragrant with the odour of sweet- 
 peas and honeysuckle. Mrs. Dawson was 
 washing in tbe kitchen, while Nellie helped her 
 mother to wring the linen, and hang it on the 
 line, stretched between two apple-trees, just 
 outside the door, which stood open. 
 
 Many a lady would have been discomposed 
 at a visit under such circumstances, there being 
 a general sense of steam, and soap-suds, and 
 damp linen in the air. But ]\Irs. Dawson was a 
 very simple creature, whose mind was cast in
 
 POET AND PEER. 23 
 
 an unvulgar mould, and who, when she had 
 expressed her regret to Lady Athelstone at 
 having to receive her thus, did not distress 
 herself further about it, and talked to her visitor 
 with a calm self-possession in which there was 
 no touch of assumption. She was a pale, thin 
 woman, who had been pretty a very few years 
 back ; but hard work and sorrow had aged her 
 before her time. The face was a joyless one ; 
 the voice and manner singularly gentle. 
 
 She hurriedly wiped her hands, and opened 
 the door of her little parlour, made glad by 
 shells, a basket of bead-work, and a cheap print 
 or two. While Wilfred presented the little 
 maid with a selection of English ballads which 
 he enjoined her to read, and learn some of 
 them by heart, especially " King Cophetua's 
 Daughter," and the child's dehghted face vied 
 with the crimson binding of the volume in 
 colour. Lady Athelstone seated herself, and 
 said — 
 
 " Your little girl is very much grown, Mrs. 
 Dawson . . . she is getting to be quite useful 
 to you, I see."
 
 24 POET AND PEER. 
 
 " Yes, ray lady, she is a good child. I wish 
 she took more to her needle ; but she's well- 
 nigh the top o' the school, and the dame says 
 there's ne'er a better girl, so I ought to be 
 satisfied." 
 
 " Doesn't take to her needle ? That's a pity," 
 said Lady Athelstone, with the necessity of 
 small minds to fasten on a speck. *' What is 
 she to do in her station, if she can't work V 
 
 " She'll have to do it by-and-by, my lady, so 
 I'm sorry it don't come natural to her ; but she 
 is very handy in odd jobs, and helps me all she 
 can." 
 
 The child was in the outer kitchen, absorbed 
 in the examination of her book, which the 
 young gentleman beside her expounded, so 
 that neither of them heard the conversation in 
 the parlour. 
 
 " That is right. I am glad she promises so 
 wellj ^Irs. Dawson . . . your only child — so 
 important ! We must see what we can do for 
 her, by-and-by — I assure you my son was quite 
 interested about her. He takes so much inter- 
 est about the — the — our poorer neighbours . . .
 
 POET AND PEER. 25 
 
 What do you mean to do with her when she 
 grows older ?" 
 
 " I hope," said the widow, looking down, with 
 a tremulous voice, " that we shall not have to 
 separate, my lady. Of course, if it is for her 
 advantage^ I shall not stand in the way ; but I 
 have nothing else in the world, and I do hold 
 by her, my lady." 
 
 "Of course; still, you see, Mrs. Dawson, 
 education is a great thing, and Nellie can't 
 improve herself very much at Ripple. There is 
 that to be thought of, and she is fond of books 
 — evidently fond of books," repeated Lady 
 AtheLstone, as she observed through the open 
 door the child's radiant little face bent over her 
 ballads. " She will soon get beyond the dame, 
 and you must then think of what you will do 
 with her. If you have any idea of her entering 
 
 domestic service " Lady Athelstone paused 
 
 a moment, which gave Mrs. Dawson the oppor- 
 tunity, without rude interruption, of saying, 
 
 " Her father didn't wish, my lady, that she 
 should be a servant, and as long as her and me 
 can live independent "
 
 26 POET AND PEER. 
 
 "Ah! I remember Dawson had ideas 
 
 very well. The only thing is, as the child 
 seems intelHgent, it is a pity she should do 
 nothing but help you in the housework, and 
 take care of the cow. However, there is time 
 enough to think over it ; and if, by-and-by, you 
 care for her to go to one of the middle-class 
 schools, let me know, and I will see what can 
 be done." 
 
 " Her uncle Joshua wants nie to go and live 
 near him at Warmington, my lady, but I can't 
 bear to think of leaving Ripple." 
 
 *' Who is her uncle Joshua? What does he 
 do?" 
 
 *'He's Dawson's only brother, my lady — 
 older, and a deal richer. He's in the iron trade, 
 and a voi-y good business, and only one sou, 
 and he'd help me, I know, if I was near him ; 
 but he don't seem to care to do anything for 
 me here. He's one of them, my lady, as likes 
 to have it all their own way. He's a self-made 
 man, and thinks a deal of education, and don't 
 hold by village schools. But I tell him as I'd 
 rather remain poor in Ripple than be well-to-do
 
 POET AND PEER. 27 
 
 in a black, smoky town like WarmiDgton." 
 This was the kind of tentative proposition of 
 sentiments on which Lady Athelstone always 
 shrank from pronouncing. Attachment to home 
 was so nice. That Lord Athelstone's poor 
 tenants should be attached to their homesteads 
 w^as so especially nice, and their landlord would 
 so approve of it ; it was a drag upon the wheel 
 of socialism^ he would say. That was one 
 view of the question. The other, and less 
 sentimental one, w^ould be advocated by all the 
 Societies to which she belonged, for the ad- 
 vancement of women and development of 
 skilled labour in the industrial classes. Re- 
 moval to a stirring intellectual centre, and 
 profiting by any uncle Joshua's beneficial dis- 
 positions, was clearly the wise course for a poor 
 widow with an intelligent child. 
 
 Lady Athelstone's mind oscillated^ as it had 
 an unconquerable habit of doing, on such 
 occasions. It was with difficulty she brought 
 herself to say, because it was absolutely neces- 
 sary to say something — 
 
 " Well .... that is very creditable to you, 
 vol. i. c
 
 28 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Mrs. Dawsou. But the matter should be well 
 weighed — well weighed. You must think of 
 your child's future. If her uncle is disposed to 
 befriend her, it would be foolish, perhaps, to 
 thwart him. Still we should be very sorry if 
 you left Ripple. His lordship does not like to 
 see his old tenants leave the place ; he likes 
 them to go on from generation to generation — 
 and we would always look after Nellie, you 
 know. Still if it is for her welfare — how- 
 ever, you must do nothing rashly — nothing 
 rashly." 
 
 And with this Lady Athelstone rose. She 
 might be led to pledge herself unconditionally 
 to one side or the other if she talked more. In 
 medio tutissima. So she took leave of Mrs. 
 Dawson, promising to call again soon. 
 
 " Did you ever see such eyes, mother ?" cried 
 Wilfred, as they drove off. "And did you 
 observe all her movements? such natural grace. 
 What would the Duchess of St. Leonards or 
 Lady Shoreham give for any of their daughters 
 to be like her !" 
 
 *' She certainly has a refined looJc,^^ replied
 
 POET AND PEER. 29 
 
 Lady Athelstone — " wonderful for a poor child ; 
 but her voice " 
 
 " Her voice I Why, it's lovely. Her way of 
 speaking is countrified, of course ; but the tone 
 of her voice, why, as an old poet says, it is ' far 
 above singing !' " 
 
 " Ah ! what it is to have imagination, ray dear 
 boy ! . . but do not talk in that way before the 
 Duchess and Lady Shoreham, who are coming 
 here presently. They would not understand if. 
 The world generally would not understand it. 
 I am sure I wish I could do anything for this 
 child," continued Lady Athelstone, with a sigh, 
 which embraced a whole round of regrets, be- 
 ginning with her own incompetence, and ending 
 with the poverty incident to the present con- 
 dition of human affairs. " I wonder if she has 
 a vocation V 
 
 '' A what r 
 
 " I mean any turn for a religious life. 1 
 might get her taken into the St. Martha's 
 Sisterhood and educated." 
 
 "And make her a nun, or something like it! 
 What an idea, mother! She'd better wash.
 
 30 POET AND PEER. 
 
 and hang out linen all her life, than tliat,'^ 
 
 " Perhaps, after all, it is better to let her 
 remain as she is. Your papa would certainly 
 prefer it." 
 
 "Prefer it? But he hasn't the ruling of all 
 the children's lives in this parish. If they 
 starve, by-and-by, or go to the bad, does he 
 hold himself responsible? What is the use of 
 his trying to keep people back from the benefits 
 of education ? They'll kick — that's all. There 
 may be a Burns, a Hampden, a Giotto among 
 these peasants, for aught we know. Think of 
 that, mother I" 
 
 Lady Athelstone did think of it. She was 
 ready to accept anything, even the embryo 
 Giotto in Ripple, from her son ; but she held it 
 to be her duty to remonstrate, none the less. 
 
 '' I daresay, Wilfred ... it is quite possible. 
 Still I wish you would not contradict your papa 
 on these matters ; it annoys him. And, after 
 all, is it worth that?" 
 
 ** I am very sorry to annoy him, mother. But 
 I can't give up the cause of the people because 
 he dislikes it. I hope, sooner or later, he'll
 
 POET AND PEER. 31 
 
 come round — in fact, I'm sure he must. 
 Liberty of conscience, liberty of action — he'll 
 find out that the true wisdom is to give them 
 their head a little, to prevent their getting tlie 
 bit between their teeth, as they have done in 
 France." 
 
 " Oh ! in France it is different. Roman 
 Catholics, you know — the priests." 
 
 " We are almost as much priest-ridden here 
 as they are." 
 
 '• Oh ! Wilfred, don't say that. It is shock- 
 ing — so good as our clergy are !" 
 
 ''To those who think as they do — church- 
 goers and communicants. Not to the Metho- 
 dist, nor to the infidel. When a man knows 
 his family will get no coals and blankets at 
 Christmas, unless he pretends to believe all his 
 parson tells him, is that liberty of conscience ?" 
 
 They turned a sharp corner in the lane, and 
 came face to face with Lord Athelstone, on his 
 cob, just as Wilfred propounded this startling 
 inquiry. Lady Athelstone felt relieved from 
 the necessity of making a reply. This dear 
 boy of hers was getting quite too difficult to
 
 32 POET AND PEER. 
 
 deal with. Such advauced ideas, with that 
 generous nature of his. Alas! there was no 
 knowing where they would stop.
 
 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 -jl/I R.JOSHUA DAWSON was an individual 
 -'-"■*- of some weight in Warmington. There 
 were richer and there were cleverer men ; there 
 were none who, from such small beginnings, 
 had risen to be so successful. He had come to 
 Warmington forty-five years ago a penniless 
 boy; he had educated himself; he had striven, 
 without rest or relaxation, to build up his for- 
 tunes, and he was now a thriving tradesman. 
 He spoke truly when he said, " I have no one 
 to thank for this but myself, sir." Had his 
 burden been " I owe it all to the first kindness 
 shown me by such a one," his hearers would 
 probably have been less impressed by awe for a 
 self-made success ; but there would have been 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34- POET AND PEER. 
 
 more sympathy in their regard for their fellow- 
 townsman. It may be that he cared little for 
 this. His appreciation of his own merits, being 
 unchecked by the doubts and dissatisfaction 
 that are apt to cloud the retrospect of less 
 practical minds, fed upon the solid nutriment 
 which his worldly advancement afforded. 
 
 He was a dry, hard-looking man, carrying no 
 superfluous flesh, and of immaculate cleanli- 
 ness ; who still wore a stock, though stocks for 
 the neck were, even then, well-nigh as obsolete 
 a penance as those devised for the other ex- 
 tremity of the human body. He had a sound 
 digestion, an arrogant disposition, and a clear 
 conscience. He attended morning service 
 every Sunda}^ and never grumbled at the poor 
 rates. He had defrauded no man, had estab- 
 lished a Mechanics' Institute, and subscribed a 
 handsome sum to all conspicuous town charities. 
 He had done his duty, in short, by his neigh- 
 bour, and by himself, and he meant that the 
 world should know it. 
 
 He was, even now, committing an act of 
 almost unparalleled magnanimity in bidding
 
 POET AND PEER. 35 
 
 the poor widow of that incorrigible brother of 
 his to come and live in Warmington, and in 
 undertaking to provide for his niece's education. 
 Most men, he liked to believe, in his position, 
 would have sought to ignore this low connec- 
 tion ; but not so Joshua Dawson. Warmington 
 should recognize with admiration the full 
 measure of his exemplary conduct; provided 
 his sister-in-law would give up herself and her 
 child_, body and soul, to him, to do with as it 
 might seem good in his eyes. He had never 
 helped his brother ; no, because that brother 
 had set himself in direct opposition to all 
 Joshua's views and principles of life. Perhaps 
 the secret irritation — we will not call it by so 
 harsh a name as remorse, or regret — caused by 
 this reflection was to be allayed by the ointment 
 of his present magnanimity. Be this as it may, 
 he kept up some communication with the silly, 
 obstinate woman, and from time to time re- 
 newed his offer. 
 
 1 cannot reflect upon what Mrs. Joshua 
 Dawson must have endured in her daily life 
 without according to her a more sincere admira- 
 
 d2
 
 36 POET AND PEER. 
 
 tion than I feel for raauy a canonized saint. 
 She had no great h'ghts, and, like the best men 
 and women, she had some little weaknesses. 
 But she possessed unfailing patience, unfailing 
 affection for him who was, in very truth, her 
 lord and master, unfailing charity and kindness 
 to all whom she could befriend. If she was 
 oppressed at times by a sense of what was due 
 to her as Joshua's wife ; if her black silk, which 
 cost six and sixpence a yard, and over which 
 she spread her handkerchief when she sat down 
 before her •' chayney " tea-service in the back 
 parlour on Sunday afternoons, caused her a 
 glow of pride ; and if at church her thoughts 
 wandered to the reprehensible extravagance of 
 Mrs. Jones's new bonnet, these were but specks 
 of small account upon the disk of this guileless, 
 benevolent nature. You could not look into 
 that round beaming face and doubt it. 
 
 The only offspring of this dissimilar pair, 
 Sam, was just nineteen, a youth of colossal 
 proportions, with features cast in the common- 
 est mould, and much blurred in the casting, 
 too. He spoke very little in his f^ither's
 
 POET AND PEER. 37 
 
 presence ; at other times he was loud and con- 
 tradictious, and his physical strength gave 
 great weight to his arguments among his 
 companions. He had inherited his father's 
 arrogance, but not his father's powers of steady 
 application; and, with his well-oiled carroty 
 hair, his hat cocked over one ear, and his bright 
 blue satin tie, he looked as if he were little 
 likely to follow in Joshua's steady footsteps. 
 But he had a kinder nature^ for all these foibles, 
 than his father ; his heart was not hard, when 
 one reached it ; only there was so much to be 
 connived at in his appearance and manners 
 that few penetrated the offensive crust. He 
 was not popular among his companions ; indeed, 
 behind his back, he was much ridiculed ; but his 
 muscular power and his self-assertion brought 
 him a certain outward consideration, as it often 
 does in this world. With the girls^ opinions 
 were divided concerning him ; but few of those 
 who were unaffected by ulterior considerations 
 regarded Joshua's son and heir with any great 
 favour. 
 
 One evening, about a year after Lady x\thel-
 
 38 POET AND PEER 
 
 Htone's visit to the widow Dawson, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Joshua were in their parlour, in expectation 
 of some guests by the next train whom Sam 
 had gone to the station to meet, and for whom 
 the '' chayney " tea-service was duly laid out. 
 These guests were Nellie and her mother, whose 
 coming had been brought about on this wise. 
 Negotiations, which had been pending many 
 months, had terminated in a compromise. Mrs, 
 Dawson would not give up her home at Ripple ; 
 she had never known any other since her mar- 
 riage, she said, and here she hoped to die. 
 Indeed, if Nellie was to be boarded at the school 
 near Warmington to which her ancle proposed 
 to send her, there was no sufficient reason why 
 her mother should be uprooted ; though Uncle 
 Joshua pointed out that, when his niece was 
 " finished," the Ripple cottage would be no fit 
 home for her. But the widow, having brought 
 her mind to consent to parting with Nellie 
 (chiefly in consequence of Wilfred's advice 
 during his last holidays, backed feebly by Lady 
 Athelstone), took her stand there. She would 
 accompany the child to Warmington, and
 
 POET AND PEER. 39 
 
 remain with her brother-in-law a few days. 
 Then she would return to her solitary home ; 
 and from this resolve no arguments would move 
 her. 
 
 She felt a little bewildered, poor soul, by her 
 journey — the first long railway journey she had 
 ever accomplished ; and the enormous young 
 man who flourished his cane so grandly as he 
 handed her out of the third-class carriage, and 
 asked if she wasn't Aunt Su, caused her some 
 discomfort — more so than Master Wilfred had 
 ever done. But by the time that the aunt and 
 cousins had walked down the High Street to 
 Uncle Joshua's, followed by a porter with their 
 wooden box, Mrs. Dawson had become more 
 accustomed to her nephew's swaggering graces, 
 and seeing how kind he was to Nellie, and how, 
 notwithstanding the cane, he insisted on carry- 
 ing the plaid, and the cotton umbrella, and the 
 jar of clotted cream (brought as a small home- 
 ofiering to Mrs. Joshua), she said to herself, as 
 she afterwards said to her friends in Ripple, 
 " He is a good-hearted young man, is Sam, only 
 he's so big, and is one o^ them as has icays — "
 
 40 POET AND PEER. 
 
 and this, like the foot-note to an obscure text, 
 cleared all difficulties away in its comprehensive 
 reach. 
 
 Mrs. Joshua met them in the passage, with 
 her moon-like face aglow with geniality. 
 
 " Well, I am glad to see you here, Mrs. 
 John." 
 
 It was the first time she had ever seen her 
 sister-in-law, which circumstance seemed to 
 demand a certain outward formality of greet- 
 ing in the good woman's eyes, though the voice 
 and manner were more than cordial. 
 
 Uncle Joshua stood on the hearth-rug in the 
 parlour; then, as the door opened, he advanced 
 a few iron paces, and held out his hand. 
 
 *' Well, here you are at last," w^as his greet- 
 ing — "and you're welcome, Susan. I can say 
 no more. I'm a man of few words. This is 
 your girl, is it? Hm ! more like you than John. 
 You were a pretty woman when I saw you last. 
 How many years ago is that? Fourteen. I 
 went over to give John my advice, and he 
 wouldn't take it; you remember? I couldn't 
 do more than I did. I knew he'd live to repent
 
 POET AXD PEER. 41 
 
 it. Well, you are altered. I should hardly 
 have known you." 
 
 "I've had a deal to change me, Joshua," she 
 replied, gently. " You're very little changed. 
 It's nat'ral — you've had all things going smooth 
 with you." 
 
 "Things go smooth with them as hold by 
 existing institootions, and work hard, Susan. 
 If John'd have done as I told him, instead of 
 spouting against Church and State in the public, 
 and neglecting his trade, things'd have gone 
 smooth with him, too." 
 
 Mrs. Dawson flushed, but held her peace. 
 What he said was true; she knew it; but it 
 seemed cruel to bring up poor John^s unwisdom 
 just now. 
 
 Mrs. Joshua's kind heart felt for her. She 
 was engaged in preparing tea, and thought it 
 wise to create a diversion by saying, 
 
 *' Come, Mrs. John, you sit down here. A 
 dish o' tea'll refresh you. And the little gurl . . . 
 , . . What's your name ? — Nellie ? Dear Heart I 
 That's a pretty name, now. And what a head 
 o' hair, Mrs. John ! It's a real wonder, it is.
 
 42 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Corae_, sit you here . . . And now, Sam, you 
 hand the kettle." 
 
 Uncle Joshua sat down opposite his niece, 
 and fixed a pair of hard, unwinking eyes upon 
 her. 
 
 " Your mother says you are pretty good at 
 arithmetic — got to compound fractions yet?" 
 
 Nellie's mouth being full of buttered toast, 
 she could only nod. 
 
 "Know your jography? What's the capital 
 of Ireland— eh?" 
 
 " Edinburgh," she spluttered forth. 
 
 " 1 thought as much," said Uncle Joshua, 
 sarcastically. " I'm never very far wrong. I 
 thought what the schooling at Ripple'd be like. 
 It's well she's come here, if she's ever to get on 
 in life." 
 
 *' Please, Uncle Joshua, I forgot," cried the 
 child, reddening to the roots of her hair. " It's 
 Dublin, and it contains 260,000 inhabitants." 
 
 Thereupon the discomforted mother plucked 
 up heart to nay, 
 
 " Indeed, Joshua, she's quick at her book. 
 They all say so. That's why I thought it
 
 POET AND PEER. 4^^ 
 
 AvroDg to refuse your kindness. If she'd bia 
 like me — -just good for house-work, and no- 
 more — I wouldn't ha' consented to part with 
 her. But she likes her book better than any- 
 thing; and, as Master Wilfred said to me,. 
 * You've no right to deny the child the advan- 
 tage that's offered to her.' " 
 
 "Who is Master Wilfred r 
 
 " Our lord's son. He takes a great interest 
 — a very great interest — in Nellie, he do, and 
 so does her ladyship, his mother. She gave her 
 that cloak and hat_, and her new prayer-book 
 and bible. Oh ! she has bin very kind ta 
 us." 
 
 " The best Saxony cloth, I declare !" said Mrs. 
 Joshua, holding up the cloak admiringly. 
 
 '*What would John have said to that, Susan?" 
 asked her brother-in-law, with a grim smile — 
 " John, who couldn't abide the aristocracy ! I 
 always told him it'd come to him, or his, having" 
 to accept their charity. There's nothing like 
 keeping independent. Look at me. I owe no 
 one anything — I never was beholden to any 
 man for the price of a loaf, I'm proud to say^
 
 44 POET AND PEER. 
 
 That's why I stand where I do in this town 
 to-day, Susau." 
 
 " I am sure it does you great credit — I always 
 says so," murmured Mrs. Dawson ; then, struck 
 by a sudden thought, she continued, with more 
 vivacity — " Still, you see, if I held by that 
 altogether, I shouldn't accept your kindness in 
 payiug for Nellie's schooling — though relations, 
 to be sure, is different." 
 
 " They're not hound ; I never give in to that, 
 remember," observed Joshua, with stern alacrity. 
 *' I make no promises as to the future for your 
 girl. What I say I'll do, V\\ do. Having no 
 girl of my own, I'll educate yours, and she shall 
 come hereon holidays till her schooling is done, 
 and she's fit to make a good living for herself 
 in the world. If you hadn't set yourself against 
 it, you could have lived hard by, and seen the 
 child every Sunday ; but you was obstinate, 
 and " 
 
 " Say no more about that, Joshua," mur- 
 mured the recipient of his bounty, hurriedly. 
 ^' It may be foolish, but I couldn't abide to leave 
 the house where John and me lived, and where
 
 POET AND PEER. 45 
 
 be died, so I must just be content to see tbe 
 cbild twice a year, wben sbe comes borne — but 
 I tbank you, all tbe same. I'm sure I'd no call 
 to expect tbat you'd be so kind to us." 
 
 " That's because you don't know him rightly 
 yet, Mrs. Dawson," cried his wife. " Joshua's 
 heart's in the right place. Him and me'll look 
 after the little gurl, depend on it, and she shall 
 come here on every half-holiday, and Sam'll 
 take her a walk, won't ye, Sara I" 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder," laughed Sam, running 
 his fingers through his hair, and tlien cutting a 
 huge piece of cake, he handed it gallantly to 
 his cousin. Clearly his father's presence quelled 
 him, for he said no more. The latter, after an 
 interval employed in imbibing his tea from the 
 saucer, with a sound as of escaping steam, 
 looked up at Mrs. Dawson and said — 
 
 "I shall take you to the seminary to-morrow." 
 
 She thought he said cemetery, which she had 
 been told was the refined name for a burial- 
 ground, and she was somewhat startled. He 
 continued, however — 
 
 "It is a first-class estabHshment. Sound
 
 46 POET AND PEER. 
 
 English education. Turns out a lot of girls 
 able to earn their fifty pound a year every half. 
 They say there's a great opening now in New 
 Zealand. California, too, has been spoke of 
 favourably, but the market for educated female 
 labour there is getting over-stocked. A great 
 trade is done with Roosia — and there's no doubt 
 l)ut what I shall place her advantageously some- 
 where, if the girl works. If she don't, there's 
 no use in my spending my money, and she'll 
 have to go back and scrub the floors ; that's all. 
 * Knowledge is Power,' as I've wrote to you 
 more than once. Look at me. Where should 
 I be, if it wasn't for my education 1 And I've 
 given Sam the best of educations, too, only he 
 don't take to work, as I did. Why, I worked 
 -at a night-school for three years, ma'am, after I 
 was turned thirty, and hard at my trade all day, 
 too. No publics for 7ne. That's how I rose, 
 and how I come to be looked up to in this 
 town. Ask any man in Warmington whether 
 there's a name as is more respected than Joshua 
 Dawson's." 
 
 He glared defiantly round, and his poor
 
 POET AND PEER. 47 
 
 sister-in-law's spirits sank lower and lower. 
 Had she come all the way from Ripple for 
 this? Joshua's heart was, no doubt, in the 
 right place ; but his self-assertion crushed her. 
 And then to think of his wanting to send 
 Nellie to New Zealand or Cahfornia? And to 
 talk of the " trade with Roosia " being good, 
 as if her child were like one of the slaves 
 she had heard of, to be sold in the market ! It 
 made the poor mother's blood run cold. But 
 no ; not even Joshua's imperiousness should 
 prevail here. Nellie should never be sent to 
 foreign parts, not even for the certainty of so 
 fabulous an income as fifty pounds a year.
 
 48 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TF this were a book with '^ a purpose," it 
 -"- might be worth while to trace the influence 
 of circumstances upon Nellie Dawson's character 
 in her early girlhood ; to note how the training 
 to which she was subjected in the good middle- 
 class school where she remained four years, 
 and the companions with whom she was 
 thrown, brought into prominence certain 
 qualities which might otherwise have lain 
 dormant. But we are concerned with effects 
 rather than cause, and, as none of these com- 
 panions crossed that after-path which we have 
 made it our task to trace, a few words will 
 suffice to tell of the years that intervened be- 
 tween the day that Mrs. Dawson brought her
 
 POET AND PEER. 49 
 
 little girl to Warmington, and the period when 
 our narration recommences. 
 
 Her school-days were, upon the whole, 
 happy ; and, as the authorities reported favour- 
 ably every half year of his niece's progress, 
 Uncle Joshua could extract inexhaustible food 
 for self-laudation from the success of his mag- 
 nanimous scheme. 
 
 ''My niece, sir, has taken a prize again at 
 the seminary. A very promising scholar, sir^ 
 and highly commended for industry and good 
 conduct — owes it all to me." 
 
 "What?— the good conduct?" asks that low 
 fellow, Jones. Mr. Dawson treats the remark, 
 as it deserves, with silent contempt, and it does 
 not prevent his telling the next neighbour 
 he sees the same story in much the same 
 words. 
 
 The girl, in truth, possessed no startling 
 ability ; but she had a fair memory, and she 
 had learnt now what the ambition '' to rise " 
 meant. Not for herself so much as to satisfy 
 her uncle, to please her mother ; perhaps on the 
 chance of a smile and word of congratulation 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 POET AND PEER. 
 
 from some one else, when she went home at 
 midsummer. Her early love of books had 
 grown with her growth, though her inclination 
 led her still to poetry and works of imagination, 
 which were deemed unserviceable, if not perni- 
 cious, to a girl in her station. Ah ! Wilfred had 
 much to answer for in that first present of 
 Border ballads to the little maid. She knew 
 " King Cophetua " and many others by heart 
 now, and recited them of winter evenings to a 
 select circle, when the schoolmistress was out 
 of hearing. 
 
 Of what value could such literature be to a 
 young person destined for the servitude of the 
 school-room, if not of the nursery ? Miss Daw- 
 son was found reading " Marmion " and the 
 *'Lady of the Lake/' works only suited to 
 romantic young ladies, and which, as the 
 schoolmistress said, could store her mind with 
 no useful knowledge. It is a w^ay some have, 
 when youth is craving for bread, to offer it a 
 stone. For the rest, she was a good girl. 
 (Unfortunately, much too pretty, for it would 
 stand in the way of her advancement.) Amiable
 
 POET AND PEER. 51 
 
 and industrious in school ; a favourite with both 
 masters and playmates ; but the mistress shook 
 her head when she spoke of Nellie's future 
 prospects. " She is too soft and too sentimental 
 €ver to make much of teaching; she has not 
 the stuff in her to keep a class of unruly 
 children in order. Fm sure I don't know what 
 we are to do with her. It is a pity, after all Mr. 
 Joshua is spending on her education ; but I am 
 afraid she will disappoint him. Her head is 
 stuffed with poetry, and such rubbish, and she 
 sadly wants firmness. She'll be blown this way 
 or that by anyone she is fond of." 
 
 The judgments we form of one another in 
 life are often wide of the truth ; but perhaps 
 none are so fallacious as those pronounced on 
 the characters of the very young. When the 
 orchard is a flush of blossom, how can we 
 determine which buds shall be nipped by cold 
 winds, and out of which the goodly fruit shall 
 be formed in due season ? The analogy is not 
 strictly correct ; for the human tree, in youth, is 
 subject to absolute change of character (due, 
 possibly, to subtle influences we do not note), 
 
 E 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UWVERSirr OF ILLlNeiS
 
 52 POET AND PEER. 
 
 whereas we know that grapes do not grow 
 from tliistles. That the schoolmistress's fore- 
 cast of her docile little pupil's character was 
 erroneous will be seen by-and-bj. Whether a 
 more delicate acumen would have arrived at a 
 different conclusion at tliis stage of the girl's 
 young life we will not determine. 
 
 Her midsummer holiday of one month had 
 been passed at Ripple each year ; but it so hap- 
 pened that only twice in the course of these 
 four years had the young hero of her childhood 
 been at Athelstone when Nellie was at home, 
 and even then it was but for a few days. He 
 was travelling abroad with his tutor, or he was 
 in London, and the happiness to which the cliild 
 had looked forward of hearing his approving 
 words was denied her the last two years of her 
 school-life. Each Christmas Mrs. Dawson made 
 a pilgrimage of a fortnight to meet her child at 
 Warmington. Uncle Joshua had ordained that 
 his niece should spend the short winter holiday 
 at his house, and Mrs. Dawsou felt, as this in- 
 cluded an invitation to herself, warmly pressed 
 by her sister-in-law, that it would be ungracious
 
 POET AND PEER. 53 
 
 to offer an}' opposition to the plan. It was not 
 unmitigated joy to the poor mother, for her 
 benefactor was a severe trial, especially on Sun- 
 days, when the family enjoyed the unlimited 
 benefit of his society. During the remainder of 
 the week, however, he was devoted to his 
 business for nine or ten hours daily, and Nellie 
 and her mother had long mornings, during 
 which they could converse unreservedly, with- 
 out other interruption than the occasional visits 
 of Mrs. Joshua to the parlour, fussy with her 
 household matters, but ever beaming with kind- 
 liness. 
 
 On her last visit to Warmington, Sam had 
 been a little trouble to Mrs. Dawson. With the 
 keen eye of a mother, she saw, what appar- 
 ently no one else did, that the young man's 
 attention to Nellie, who was still considered as 
 a child by her uncle and aunt, was something 
 more than cousinly. The way in which his 
 -eyes followed her, the efforts he made to secure 
 a tete-a-tete walk with her, his little presents, his 
 whisperings in corners, were indications that 
 were not lost on Mrs. Dawson. Under any
 
 54 POET AND PEER. 
 
 circumstances she would have been strongly 
 opposed to a marriage between the cousins ; 
 but, placed as she was in reference to Uncle 
 Joshua, it would be unendurable that this 
 attempt at flirtation on Sam's part should grow 
 into serious attachment which she could not 
 doubt would rouse his father's ire, and cause 
 disunion between the families. That Nellie 
 herself was innocent of any attempt to encour- 
 age Sam's devotion, and was, indeed, blind to 
 it^ accepting it all as part of the same orna- 
 mented surface wherewith it pleased him to 
 decorate his intercourse with the world at large, 
 Mrs. Dawson felt sure. She knew^ her child ; 
 anything like coquetry was foreign from her 
 nature; and, courted though Sam might be by 
 some of the AVarmington damsels, his aunt had 
 an intuition which she would not have ven- 
 tured to put into words that it would never be 
 given to the young man to inspire a serious 
 passion. 
 
 All the same A\ as it a secret annoyance to her 
 that the vacuity of her nephew's leisure sliould 
 be filled, whenever his cousin was a guest at
 
 POET AND PEER. 55 
 
 his father's, by unremitting attentions which 
 might hurt him in the end more than they could 
 affect her ; as insects who leave their stings 
 behind them die none the less though the mate- 
 rial on which the poison is expended be invul- 
 nerable. 
 
 Revolving these things in her mind on her 
 return home at the end of the third Christ- 
 raaSj when Nellie had nearly completed her 
 fifteenth year, the good woman arrived at the 
 conclusion that, whatever Uncle Joshua might 
 say, the girl should not spend her holidays 
 again at Warmington. Mrs. Dawson would in 
 the meantime consult Lady Athelstone as to her 
 daughter's future, before the latter returned 
 home at midsummer. She was very nearly the 
 top of the school, and certainly able to gain her 
 livelihood by teaching in some form; and, 
 though Uncle Joshua spoke of keeping his niece 
 at Warmington another year, Mrs. Dawson felt, 
 on every account, the desirability of obtaining 
 her a situation, if possible, before the expiration 
 of that time. 
 
 The widow's difficulties were happily solved
 
 56 POET AND PEER. 
 
 one May morning by a visit from Lady Athel- 
 stone. The pupil-teacher at the Warley School 
 was to leave at midsummer, and Lady Athel- 
 stone proposed that Nellie should be a candidate 
 for the post. It was the thing of all others 
 Mrs. Dawson would most have desired ; her 
 child to live with her, and yet be profiting by 
 her education to earn a fair livelihood. It 
 seemed to the poor woman an ideal piece of 
 good fortune. But Uncle Joshua, when the 
 intelligence was conveyed to him^ did not so 
 regard it. 
 
 What ! a miserable pittance of fifteen pounds 
 a year, after all the money he had spent on 
 her education, when she might, in the course 
 of a year or two, easily get double? And no 
 one would take her as a governess after she 
 had once lowered herself so. Pray what was 
 the use of her French verbs, and her piano, and 
 ancient history, and all the rest of it now? 
 It was recklessly throwing away her advan- 
 tages and truckling to the aristocracy, for this 
 was all Lady Athelstone's doing. The girl 
 wasn't "finished," and he had meant to pay
 
 POET AND PEER. 57 
 
 for another year's schooling for her, " and then 
 my niece would be independent, sir — independ- 
 ent of all my Lady Athelstones, able to support 
 herself, and snap her fingers in their faces. 
 But now — a miserable pupil-teacher ! Her 
 mother's a fool, sir, an obstinate fool !" 
 
 Her folly might be debateable; not all his 
 hearers were convinced that Joshua's sister-in- 
 law was wrong ; but of her obstinacy there 
 could be no doubt. To reject a prospect which 
 offered all the poor Avoman desired at present 
 for her child, because their benefactor had other 
 views for his niece, was a sacrifice she did not 
 feel herself called upon to make. Her letters 
 to the potentate of the Dawson family were 
 deprecatory and grateful ; but she remained, in 
 spite of angry remonstrance, immoveable in her 
 resolve. 
 
 She knew that Joshua was aware of one 
 of her chief reasons for electing to with- 
 draw Nellie from Warmington ; and she could 
 not doubt that Sam's father viewed the case 
 as she did. That he should persist, therefore, 
 in urging her child's return to his house, she 
 vol. i. <i
 
 58 POET AND PEER. 
 
 could only regard, under the circumstances, as 
 an instinct of his unreasoning love of domina- 
 tion. Danger to Sam's peace of mind was not 
 to be regarded (nor Nellie's, either, for that 
 matter). He had ordained that her schooling 
 was to continue another year, and everything 
 ought to have been made to bend to his 
 will. 
 
 She passed her examination satisfactorily, 
 and, backed by Lady Athelstone's influence, 
 obtained the coveted appointment. Some 
 doubts as tu her health standing the drudger}^ 
 of daily tuition were expressed ; the girl had 
 evidently outgrown her strength of late, and 
 looked fragile and willowy. But her courage 
 and good will were indomitable ; she smiled at 
 the notion of not being able to work as hard 
 as any other girl of sixteen. 
 
 Nevertheless, the few weeks after her return 
 home, before entering on her new duties, were 
 an interval of enjoyed rest to Nellie. In the 
 blue shadow of apple-trees, upon the long June 
 grass, she lay for hours, reprehensibly idle as
 
 POET AND PEER. 5^ 
 
 to her fingers^ her late schoolmistress would 
 have declared, and, possibly, her good conscien- 
 tious mother might have admitted, while attri- 
 buting her child's indolence to the languor of 
 over-rapid growth. But, in truth, she was not 
 idle ; the imagination was lifted, the thoughts 
 expanded, her receptive nature filled with the 
 vivid pictures that Pope's '^ IHad," or Spenser's 
 "Fairy Queen," — old volumes from the village 
 library — supplied. The brain was growing, 
 the character was consolidating, day by day. 
 Keble's "Christian Year," given her by Lady 
 Athelstone at the time^ formed an epoch in her 
 life. That closely-knit poetry of a lofty 
 dogmatism, which teaches the renunciation of 
 private judgment, and the acceptance of a 
 sharply-defined faith in the inexplicable, fasten- 
 ed upon her memory with its clear and high- 
 strung music. Her nature heard and answered 
 the appeal. Often, in after-years, when sore 
 troubled and perplexed, some couplet of that 
 little volume tended to strengthen and uphold 
 her.
 
 60 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Riimonrs of a disquieting character touching 
 *' Master Wilfred," as he was still called, 
 reached Warley, and even the remoter Ripple, 
 early that spring. The butler had gathered 
 fragments of conversation between my lord and 
 my lady which, being compared with certain 
 other fragments dropped from the eaves into 
 the ears of the lady's-maid, went to show that 
 the young gentleman had got into some scrape 
 at Oxford, for which he was threatened with 
 "rustication/' — whatever that strange word 
 might mean. Whether he had said or done 
 anything subversive of Church or State, 
 whether he had broken any law against God 
 or Man, was not patent to the original pur- 
 veyors of this gossip ; but by the time it had 
 permeated through the still-room-maid to the 
 head coachman, and from him, in strict confi- 
 dence, to the publican at the '* lien and 
 Chickens," and from him all through the village 
 of Ripple, till it reached the ears of ]\Irs. Daw- 
 son and her daughter, the first stitches were 
 lost in the mass of embroidery \n hich each 
 narrator in turn, having so wide a canvas
 
 POET AND PEER. 61 
 
 given him, felt it his duty to add as he 
 listed. 
 
 The old lord was liked and respected ; his 
 tenants generally expressed their regret that 
 his son was not more like him. The female 
 portion of the commnnit}^, indeed, was disposed 
 to regard leniently the fact that lie did not 
 know mangel-wurzel when he saw it, that he 
 never rode straight to hounds in his life, and 
 that he was but an indifferent shot. The im- 
 penetrable smoke caused by this far-off fire of 
 his iniquity — whatever it might be — almost 
 suffocated the good people of Ripple. They 
 choked and spluttered,, swallowing it all, or 
 angrily rejecting it, according to their proclivi- 
 ties. He was a terrible young gentleman, 
 given up to idolatry, and a dissolute life, or 
 he was the handsomest, sweetest-spoken, 
 kindest-hearted youth that ever walked this 
 €arth. Mrs. Dawson, it is needless to say, was 
 at the head of those who took the latter view, 
 and declined to believe a single word reflecting 
 upon his character. 
 
 Whatever the scandal was, the young man 
 vol, i. e
 
 62 POET AND PEER. 
 
 was not rusticated, and the following June he 
 got '-the Newdigate," which gratified Lady 
 Athelstoue, and afforded his father the mildest 
 measure of satisf^iction. It was a triumph 
 which seemed to him of the most trumpery 
 description. If books Avere his line, why didn't 
 he go in for honours V Why waste his time in 
 writing all this trash about Carthage, which no 
 human being would ever want to read? He 
 had passed his " Mods," and, having done so, 
 he appeared to have abandoned all honourable 
 ambition in his University career. His time 
 seemed to be spent in making wild, foolish 
 speeches, writing idiotic pamphlets and verses 
 ("some people think them beautiful/' mildly 
 remonstrated the fond mother), and leading a 
 very irregular life. He feared that the gaining 
 this prize would only fortify his son in the 
 delusion that he was a great poet, and unfit 
 him yet further for the duties of his future 
 station. 
 
 All the same, it was a great consolation to 
 poor Lady Athelstone, after some keen dis- 
 quietude touching her son, to be able to dis-
 
 POET AND PEER. 63 
 
 seminate the positive and thoroughly respecta- 
 ble piece of intelligence that he had written the 
 prize-poem at Oxford for that year.
 
 64 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 TT was the morning of Trinity Sunday — the 
 -*■ first Sunday that Nellie had entered upon 
 her new duties. She felt a little shy as she 
 came into church, in her neat straw hat and 
 spotless linen frock, marshalling the children 
 with the utmost, dignity of which she was 
 capable, but fearing that it fell short of what 
 the position demanded. She glanced round ; 
 no one seemed to pay any particular attention 
 to her except '^mother;" she, of course, from 
 her seat in the side-aisle was watching her 
 daughter with satisfaction, as the pleased eyes 
 testified. The place appointed for the school 
 and its teachers was in the chancel, immediately 
 in front of the great Athelstone pew, which was
 
 POET AXD PEER. 65 
 
 entered by a small side-door from the park. 
 AVhen Nellie took her seat, the pew was empty. 
 Not until she turned to kneel in the Confession 
 did she see Lord and Lady Athelstone and their 
 
 SOD. 
 
 She buried her face in her hands, so that none 
 could observe the flush of pleasurable surprise 
 that mounted there, and then, with contrite 
 distinctness, she told her Heavenly Father aloud 
 that she had strayed from His ways like a lost 
 sheep, had done those things which she ought 
 not to have done, and was a miserable offender. 
 
 Wilfred had come down from London with 
 Lord and Lady Athelstone for a couple of 
 nights. He was now twenty-one, having at- 
 tained his majority the previous January. 
 Physically he was much improved, though still 
 too slight, and with shoulders too dispropor- 
 tioned in width to the size of his head to be a 
 model of manly grace. The head itself, how- 
 ever, was remarkable, and very attractive, with 
 its broad radiant brow, beautiful eyes, and the 
 winning smile that broke at times over the full 
 and somewhat sarcastic mouth. It was this 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 ^Q POET AND PEER. 
 
 agro-dolce, perhaps, which lent a peculiar charm 
 to the face. Men rarely admired him ; but to 
 eyes that are not extreme to mark what is 
 amiss in carriage — for he slouched almost osten- 
 tatiously, it may be said — he was a strikingly 
 handsome young man. This habit of walk, and 
 his wearing his hair very long, and brushed 
 back in a wild, distraught way, were peculi- 
 arities which angered his father, wlio told his 
 
 son that he looked " like some d d foreign 
 
 musician." 
 
 For the rest, there was a change in him for 
 the better, and a change in him for the worse, 
 since he was sixteen. His antagonism to the 
 things that be had taken too deep root in his 
 nature for him to be any longer explosively 
 contradictious in ordinary conversation. And 
 thus his intercourse with his father was governed 
 by a reticence which delighted Lady Athel- 
 stone, who never saw much below the surface, 
 and satisfied the household fwho had heard 
 how Master Wilfred used to aggravate my lord 
 in days gone by) that a complete concord of 
 sentiment existed between father and son.
 
 POET AND PEER. 67 
 
 His principles — or the theories he was pleased, 
 at this time, to consider as such — and his views 
 of life — all in an inchoate or transitive condition 
 — will be developed by-aud-by. The points in 
 his character which concern us now were these : 
 that he had come to church, in violation of his 
 convictions, out of consideration to his father 
 and mother ; and that, finding himself there, in 
 front of Nellie Dawson's lovely face, he made 
 no effort to detach his thoughts from her, 
 but watched the girl's every movement with 
 interest. 
 
 He had scarcely thought of her during the 
 last two years since he had been at Oxford_, 
 except as a favourite line of poetry which recurs 
 to the memory from time to time. He thought 
 that he had thought of her constantly, but it 
 was not so. She had been absent from Ripple 
 each time that he had been home. Now^ when 
 he faced the prospect of three months with no 
 one to indoctrinate, and in utter solitude of 
 spirit, the hope of renewing that idylHc episode 
 of his boyhood leapt up strong again within 
 him. 
 
 1-2
 
 G8 POET AND PEER. 
 
 And there she was, before him ; and as he 
 beheld her, shot up into a tall, graceful girl, in- 
 finitely more beautiful than he remembered her, 
 all the boy's passionate admiration for the child 
 revived with double force. How unlike she 
 was to everything around her! Romeo's simile 
 occurred to him. " Like a snowy dove troop- 
 ing with crows." She knelt, and his eye 
 followed the lines of her lithe young figure, 
 round waist, and delicate throat, with the knot 
 of burnished brown hair beneath her hat. She 
 rose ; there was nothing of the clumsy village 
 lass about lier movements ; and in her responses, 
 of which he heard every word, the intonation 
 was unvnlgar, and the voice sweet and clear. 
 By-and-by she turned to the east, in the 
 Athanasian Creed, so that he saw her perfect 
 profile, and the down-drooped lashes, and sweet 
 lips parted; and he heard the confession of 
 belief that fell from them with terrible distinct- 
 ness . . . . " Wh'ch Faith, except everyone do keep 
 ichole and iindp filed ; icithont doubt he shall perish 
 everlastingly r 
 
 The young man frowned, and then smiled
 
 POET AND PEER. 69 
 
 oontemptuously ; but, happily, no one observed 
 him. 
 
 " So Nellie Dawson has been made a pupil- 
 teacher, I see, raother," said Wilfred, immedi- 
 ately they left the church. " I suppose you got 
 it for her. Why didn't you tell me ?" 
 
 " I meant to, my dear, but I forgot ib . . . 
 I knew you would be interested^ having known' 
 her from a child. I have really had so much to 
 -do and to think of that " 
 
 " Of course . . . How she is improved ! She 
 is much too good for a pupil-teacher." 
 
 " Too good, my dear?'' |r 
 
 '^ I mean too refined and distinguished- 
 looking. What a type for ^ Una !' such purity !" 
 
 *' ' Una ' 'i Who was she ? This is a very 
 well-conducted girl. She has brought back an 
 excellent character from school." 
 
 " How could it be otherwise with that face ? 
 Is she clever ?" 
 
 " She passed her examination very well. I 
 dou't know that she is clever. She may be, and 
 she may not. She has not been here long
 
 70 POET AND PEER. 
 
 enongli for the head-mistress to judge, I should 
 think." 
 
 " Her judgment would go for nothing with 
 me .... The girl looks miles above that wo- 
 man — miles above everyone in church, indeed." 
 "What's that?" said Lord Athelstone, who 
 had walked on in front, and stopped, overhear- 
 ing his son's last words. '*' Miles above every- 
 one in church ?" 
 
 *'I was speaking of the new pupil-teacher. 
 It is curious the way in which Nature, now and 
 again, asserts her right to ignore our class- 
 distinctions^ and creates a perfect creature like 
 tUis, who, as novelists say, 'looks made to 
 be a duchess,' — though, in reality, half the 
 duchesses are like housekeepers." 
 
 " Stuff! You appear to think that distinction 
 consists in being tall and thin." (Lord Athel- 
 stone was short and thick-set.) *' That's a 
 very nice-looking girl, and she has a good face. 
 I liked, too, the distinct way in which she 
 responded to the Creed. But everyone in his 
 proper place. Put that girl into a drawing-
 
 POET AND PEER. 71 
 
 room, with your duchesses, and see how she 
 would look." 
 
 "I should be sorry for the duchesses," said 
 Wilfred, carelessly, with a smile ; then turned 
 the subject abruptly to ask his father some 
 question about his home-farm, the gate of 
 which they were passing. 
 
 Lady Athelstone usually attended the after- 
 noon service ; but, when luncheon was over to- 
 day, she declared it was too hot, and she could 
 not face the walk across the park a second 
 time. She was additionally and most agree- 
 ably surprised, therefore, when her son said he 
 thought of going. Lady Athelstone had experi- 
 enced some vague fears lately as to his ortho- 
 doxy ; but this set the mother at rest. She 
 took care to draw her lord's attention to the 
 fact in the course of the day ; but he seemed 
 hardly to attach as much importance to it as she 
 could have wished. 
 
 The service was over, the little congregation 
 was dispersed, and still Wilfred lingered in the 
 churchyard. What was he waiting for? He
 
 72 POET AXD PEER. 
 
 had seen her again ^vith the children. Did he 
 expect that she would return here when they 
 were dispersed ? Hardly ; and yet he wander- 
 ed among the grass-grown graves until he 
 found the one whose headstone told how John 
 Dawson had departed this life eight years 
 before. It was curious the turn his thoughts 
 took. Was that active, turbulent spirit at rest, 
 or was it possible that he still watched over 
 his child? Amid all his theological doubts, 
 Wilfred clung to the immortality of the soul. 
 Did the dead man see him now ? Did he frown 
 and motion him back from the pursuit of that 
 innocent child ? Wilfred said to himself that 
 he meant no harm ; yet he turned away, and 
 left the churchyard. But, when once he was in 
 the road, the habit of self-gratification was 
 stronger than superstitious and fanciful scruples, 
 and he saw no reason why he should not pay 
 Mrs. Dawson a visit. 
 
 He reached the lane in which her cottage 
 stood, and opened the wicket. The flowers 
 were in full bloom on either side the narrow 
 pathway ; the cabbage roses, sweet-williams,
 
 POET AND PEER. * 73 
 
 and sweet peas; and the bees, whose hive stood 
 in an angle of the little garden, were humming 
 busilv everywhere. Only the cottage itself 
 was silent ; a tortoiseshell cat lay blinking in 
 the sunshine on the doorstep ; but the door, 
 when he tried, after knocking, to raise the 
 latch^ proved to be locked. 
 
 Very well ; he w^ould sit down on that old 
 cask_, partly under the shadow of the house^ 
 partly under the apple-tree, and wait. He was 
 to return to London with his father and mother 
 the next day. He would not be down here 
 again for a month. He was not used to being 
 balked ; the dinner at Athelstone would not be 
 for another three hours ; he would pass two and 
 a half of them here_, and it would be hard 
 if he did not get speech of Nellie in that 
 time. 
 
 The afternoon sped by ; the bees murmured 
 on among the flowers, the cat slept tranquilly, 
 an insignificant bird or two twittered among 
 the fruit-trees, a white butterfly poised on the 
 blue bottle-brush beside him ; there was the 
 distant lowing of cattle, the occasional bark of
 
 74 POET AND PEER. 
 
 a dog on the road ; no cart-wheels, no cry or 
 grind of labour, for it was Sunday. Such 
 sounds as there only served to enhance the 
 tranquillity ; man, and the beasts of the field 
 that serve him were at rest ; that portion of 
 cre^-tion only that was free sang its low, under 
 song of enjoyment. 
 
 After a time, Wilfred pulled out his note-book, 
 and began writing. His muse at this time was 
 draped in a somewhat pre-Raphaelite garb of 
 the Italian cut, that delights in concetti, and it 
 was not always as easy to follow his embodi- 
 ments of human emotion as it was in the 
 present instance. He never got beyond the 
 first stanza, which ran thus : — 
 
 " I looked for Love among the leaves of June, 
 But only Beauty, passionless and pale, 
 Glided, white-robed, adown the flowery dale. 
 
 To the gold twilight of the afternoon. 
 
 I struck my cythern, telling the old tale 
 
 That Love hath some time heard and answered soon. 
 My passionate singing was of no avail. 
 
 Beauty returned not, Love denied the boon 
 I sought, and, sorrowful as exiles feel, 
 I watched the darkness o'er the landscape steal." 
 
 The church clock struck seven. Another
 
 POET AND PEER. 75 
 
 quarter of an hour, and he roust turn his steps 
 rapidly homewards, across the woods, unless he 
 meant to be late for dinner. Where could she 
 and her mother be ? He had asked himself this 
 question for the twentieth time, when he heard 
 the click of the wicket-latch, and a light step 
 on the pathway. He remained quiet, hidden 
 in some measure by the apple-tree. Nellie 
 came near, twirling the house-key on her finger. 
 She had just placed it in the lock, and was 
 about to turn it^ when she saw him seated upon 
 the barrel three yards from her, with an amused 
 look on his face. She started, and turned quite 
 pale. 
 
 "I believe the sight of me has actually 
 frightened you," he began, laughing. " Where 
 have you been ? Do you know, I have been 
 waiting here hours to see you." 
 
 " I am very sorry, sir/' she said, with great 
 gravity. " I have been a walk with mother 
 and some of the children." 
 
 '* And where is your mother ?" 
 
 '' She stopped in the village to see Mrs, 
 Miles, who is ill, so I came home to put on the
 
 76 POET AND PEER. 
 
 kettle for tea. . . . But I beg your pardon. . . 
 Will you please to walk in, sir ?" 
 
 " No. I must be going almost directly. I 
 am only at home for a few hom-s; but, seeing 
 you in church, I wanted to ask you bow you 
 liked your new position. Don't you find it very 
 irksome, keeping those brats in order?" 
 
 '^ No, sir, I have not found it so as yet." 
 
 "You will. You're not fit for it, you 
 know." 
 
 She looked down, and coloured. 
 
 " I am sorry you think that, sir. Indeed, I 
 try to do my best.'' 
 
 '* You misunderstand me. I mean that you 
 are a thousand times too good for it. I hear 
 you passed a very good examination." 
 
 "■ Yes,'' she replied, simply. " But it was not 
 very difficult. . . I got beyond that at school. 
 . . . May I show you the prize, sir, they gave 
 me at leaving ?" 
 
 She ran in, and came out the next moment 
 with a gaudily-bound volume in her hand. It 
 was *' Paley's Evidences of Christianity." 
 
 *'Ilave you read this? and do you under-
 
 POET AND PEER. 77 
 
 stand it ?" he asked^ abruptly, as he looked at 
 the title. 
 
 *' I have read parts, only. I think I under- 
 stand those." 
 
 " And yon believe it all f 
 
 She looked into his face inquiringly, and 
 remained silent. 
 
 '* By-the-by, Nellie, I wish you wouldn't 
 respond so fervently in that Creed we had 
 to-day, which condemns everyone to everlasting 
 punishment who doesn't implicitly believe what 
 is incomprehensible." 
 
 " I thought I ought to say the responses out 
 loud,^' she replied, after a momentary hesita- 
 tion. 
 
 " Do you know that you are consigning me 
 with many millions more to everlasting punish- 
 ment ?" 
 
 '' Oh, sir !" She looked unutterably shocked. 
 
 "Creeds do a great deal of harm by trying 
 to force those who have naturally religious 
 instincts, but are . . . well, perhaps unruly . . . 
 into straight waistcoats." 
 
 She opened her pretty brown eyes wide.
 
 78 POET AXD PEER. 
 
 '' But the Creed is in the Prayer-book, sir, 
 and if I go to church " 
 
 " I know what you are thinking, that I have 
 no business to go ; but Tve Scripture authority 
 for it. There's a fellow in the Bible who 
 prayed that it might be forgiven hira^ when he 
 bowed down in the House of Rim m on." 
 
 '' Oh, sir !" cried Nellie, startled out of all 
 shyness by her distress. " You don't compare 
 our parish church with the House of Rimmon V 
 
 ''^ Only inasmuch as superstition and human 
 invention have spoilt the simple faith in a 
 Creator of this beautiful world. That is what 
 I want you to believe, and nothing more. All 
 that cursing of others only does harm." 
 
 " I'm sure I don't mean it," said she, looking 
 contrite. "I suppose it was only put in to 
 frighten people a little." 
 
 " Fancy frightening people into belief! No, 
 Nellie, I shall teach you some day a better sort 
 of belief than that. Promise not to run away 
 from Ripple, till I come down here to stay, in 
 August." 
 
 She opened her eyes wide, and smiled.
 
 POET AND PEER. 79 
 
 "Run away, sir? What should make me 
 run away ?" 
 
 "You may want to ''better yourself,' as it is 
 called. You are thrown away here ... or you 
 may even think of marriage," he continued, 
 looking at her searchingly. '' You are very 
 young, but there will be plenty of young fel- 
 lows after you very soon." 
 
 " I have never thought of such a thing," she 
 said, gravely. " I shall never leave my mother, 
 either to marry or for anything else, sir, as long 
 as T can teach at the school here." 
 
 " You have no higher ambition ? Come, now, 
 tell me, as your friend — your oldest friend, 
 Nellie — was there no young fellow at Warm- 
 ington whom you ever thought of as " 
 
 " Never — never !" cried the girl, emphatic- 
 
 ally. 
 
 "I am awfully glad of that," said Wilfred, 
 slowly. "If there had been, I should like to 
 have punched his head .... I must go now." 
 He rose, and took her hand, and held it within 
 both his, while he continued — " Since that first 
 evening when I met you, as a little girl, driving
 
 80 POET AND PEER. 
 
 your cow, yon have always been to me like a 
 poem of purity and simplicity. Remain so. 
 Don't let admiration and conventionality spoil 
 you. And remember me. I shall be back again 
 later in the summer." 
 
 Then he walked rapidly away.
 
 81 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A GREAT change, though a subtle and 
 -^ gradual one, began in Nellie from that 
 hour. She was awaking, as the marble nymph 
 awoke beneath Pygmalion's touch — awaking to 
 the life of womanhood, to the consciousness of 
 a heart and senses that were no longer those of 
 a child. But with this consciousness came a 
 terror and a shame from which the poor girl 
 found her only refuge in prayer. Not even to 
 her mother could she pour out her heart ; for 
 her mother could never understand her trouble. 
 Only to the Father, from whom no secrets are 
 hid, could she turn for comfort in the silent 
 watches of the night, and, asking His forgive- 
 ness for all her wicked and foolish thoughts, 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 POET AND PEER. 
 
 pray to Hira for strength to overcome them. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson attributed the young girl's ex- 
 treme quietude and apparent weariness at times 
 to the hard work and confinement in a some- 
 what close school-room. The weather was 
 relaxing. Nellie was new to the labour of 
 keeping a score of children in order, and her 
 voice, not being strong, was tried by the con- 
 stant demands upon it. Thus the mother 
 accounted for the change, when she found that 
 her daughter refused to admit that she was un- 
 well, and shrank from seeing the village doctor. 
 Mrs. Dawson hoped the return of cool weather 
 would bring back the rose to her Nellie's cheek ; 
 the school-holiday, too, was at hand. 
 
 At this juncture she received a letter which 
 surprised and perplexed her a good deal. 
 
 Since the expression of Uncle Joshua's dis- 
 satisfaction at his niece's being withdrawn from 
 school to accept so poor a post as that of pupil- 
 teacher, Mrs. Dawson had not heard from the 
 family at Warmington. That was three months 
 ago. The letter which now arrived, and which 
 Mrs. Dawson had some difficulty in decipher-
 
 POET AND PEER. 83 
 
 inpjj owiag to the running stream of words 
 being embanked in so many flowery flourishes, 
 was from Sam's pen. He wrote, he said, by his 
 father's instruction, to request Mrs. Dawson and 
 Nellie to pass the three weeks' holiday which 
 the latter would shortly have at Warmington. 
 Sam, on his own part, warmly expressed a hope 
 that his aunt would accept this invitation ; but, 
 if circumstances should unfortunately prevent 
 her doing so, then Sam proposed, having re- 
 ceived, he said, his father's full sanction, to run 
 down to the " Hen and Chickens " at Kipple for 
 a few daySj that he might have the pleasure of 
 his aunt^s and cousin's society. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson, as I have said, was both sur- 
 prised and perplexed. Could it be that Uncle 
 Joshua, far from being angered, actually en- 
 couraged his son's admiration for his cousin? 
 She had told him plainly enough why she 
 thought it better the girl should be removed 
 from Warmington. Yet here he was, not only 
 inviting her expressly to return, but sanctioning 
 Sam's pursuit, even to the " Hen and Chickens !" 
 It was incomprehensible, and she felt sorely 
 
 g2
 
 84 POET AND PEER. 
 
 puzzled how to act. The visit to Warraington 
 was, of course, without the pale of considera- 
 tion ; though, under other circumstances, she 
 would have hailed a change of air for her droop- 
 ing child. And, if Sara chose to come here, of 
 course his aunt could not prevent it. The 
 question was, how to avoid inflicting pain on 
 the young man, and unnecessary annoyance to 
 the girl, without incurring the charge of in- 
 gratitude to Uncle Joshua. 
 
 " What am I to say to Cousin Sam's coming 
 here?" she inquired of her daughter, after 
 weighing the matter over in her mind for some 
 hours. She was engaged in ironing when she 
 asked the question, and never looked up. Nellie 
 handed the linen to her from the clothes-horse 
 every now and then. Mrs. Dawson continued — 
 *' It's a fullish waste o' money." 
 
 *' If Uncle Joshua does not mind that, mother, 
 we ought not to say so, ought we ? I think 
 you must say you hope he'll come." 
 
 " But it isn't true. I wish he 'd stop 
 away." 
 
 " What harm can he do, mother ? Perhaps
 
 POET AND PEER. 85 
 
 he is a little vain and silly, but he was always 
 kind to me. He will find everything very poor 
 here, after Warmington, and dull too, I am 
 afraid; but, if he wants to come, you must not 
 mind him, mother. 1 will keep him out of your 
 way." 
 
 " That's just what I don't want," said Mrs. 
 Dawson, ironing more vigorously than ever. 
 " There's no knowing the fullishness as young 
 chaps is capable of talking to girls; and I won't 
 have him come here with his silly stuck-up 
 ways, fancying .... fancying .... I don't 
 know what all." 
 
 Nellie looked at her mother, surprised, and 
 remained silent for a minute. Then she said, 
 with a smile, 
 
 " You think I am still a child, mother." 
 
 "No, that's just it. You ain't no longer a 
 •child, my dear. That's why I ought to speak 
 out open to you." Here she laid down her 
 iron, andj leaning both hands upon the table, 
 looked at her daughter for the first time as she 
 went on — " Your uncle's bin very good to us. 
 There's no saying as he hasn't, and I should be
 
 80 POET AND PEER. 
 
 sorry if trouble came to his soa through us, 
 Nellie." 
 
 *' What sort of trouble is likely to come to 
 him?" 
 
 " I fancy he's a mind to ask you to be his 
 wife." 
 
 " What an idea, mother ! Sam ? . . . Sam, 
 who thinks so much of himself, marry mel 
 Why, the Princess Royal is hardly good enough 
 for him !" 
 
 *' Maybe ; but the Princess Royal ain't here, 
 and you are. I'm afraid the lad's fallen in love 
 with you; and, what's more, I don't fancy, 
 somehow, as your uncle minds it. It's strange 
 — I can't make it out. You, without a penny, 
 
 and his cousin, and all It's scarce to be 
 
 credited ; yet it's my opinion as it is so. Now, 
 I don't give you my advice, remember, my dear. 
 You must make up your own mind, if he asks 
 you, what you mean to say. Only, if you don't 
 mean to have him " 
 
 *' How can you ask me, mother?" The girl, 
 for once, was roused to something near akin to
 
 POET AND PEER. 87 
 
 indignatioD. " I shall never, never marry any- 
 one ; but to think of marrying Sam /" 
 
 *'I didn't believe as you would, my dear. 
 That's why Tm speaking to you now. Else it'd 
 be easy to let things go on as they are. But, if 
 Sam comes here, you must let him understand 
 bow it is. It'd be cruel not to show him, plain 
 enough, that it's no use his thinking o' you." 
 
 " I think you are mistaken, mother. I'm sure 
 I hope so ... I hope he won't be so silly as to 
 say anything to me . . . but if he does, well, I 
 will certainly tell him the truth." 
 
 After this, no more passed between mother 
 and daughter on the subject. A letter was 
 despatched to Sam, declining with gratitude 
 the invitation to Warmington, and saying that, 
 if he came to the '^ Hen and Chickens," his aunt 
 would of course be glad to see him, though she 
 feared he would find Ripple dull. She omitted 
 all mention of Nellie^s name, and endeavoured 
 to strike the mean between forgetfulness of past 
 obligations and a cordiality which should mis- 
 lead her too-easily-encouraged nephew.
 
 88 POET AND PEER. 
 
 He came. It was on the afternoon of a day 
 in August, soon after Nellie's holiday had 
 begun. There had been torrents of rain all the 
 morning, but towards five o'clock it cleared ; 
 the clouds drifted off, leaving patches of pale 
 blue sky visible ; the rushing streams of water, 
 which had forced themselves channels in the 
 sandy roads, subsided, and the birds began 
 calling to each other from the dripping boughs 
 that the sun was not yet gone to bed, and 
 would come out presently. 
 
 The town-bred young man, with his tall hat 
 and blue satin tie, his mackintosh and umbrella, 
 excited some attention, as he swaggered up 
 the street, and demanded the way to Mrs. 
 Dawson's cottage. 
 
 The mother and daughter were at work as he 
 entered. 
 
 *"I hope I don't intrude?' as Paul Pry says. 
 How do you do. Aunt Su ? . . . How are you, 
 Nell? A little pale. . . Well, here I am ; and 
 I hope you are glad to see me, for the journey 
 here is horrible — three changes I These cross 
 lines are the devil."
 
 POET AND PEER. 89 
 
 *' They ai^e ill-convenient," observed his aunt, 
 in a deprecatory tone. 
 
 *' And what a deal of rain you 'ave in these 
 southern counties. Why, it was quite fine when 
 I left Warmington this morning, and 'ere it's all 
 of a sop." 
 
 " It was fine here, too, very early," said 
 Nellie, a little resentful at the aspersion on the 
 Ripple climate. 
 
 ^' Well, you've a nice nut-shell of a place," 
 continued Sam, condescendingly, as he divested 
 himself of his mackintosh, and opened his um- 
 brella to dry. Then he sat down, extended his 
 legs, like a pair of tongs, and looked around 
 him. "It wouldn't do for the gov'nor, you 
 know. He's so precious partic'lar ; but I don't 
 mind your rough and ready style, when beauty 
 presides over the 'arth." The interesting 
 youth here leered at his cousin ; but, as she 
 continued stitching, without raising her eyes, 
 it was only Mrs. Dawson who observed the 
 expressive glance. 
 
 "I've only just cleared away tea, Sam," she 
 said. " Shall I make you some, or will you
 
 90 POET AND PEER. 
 
 have the cold neck o' mutton, and I'll bile you 
 a potato ?" 
 
 *'Noj 1 shall 'ave supper at the inn, by-and- 
 by; but you may give me a glass o' beer, 
 Nell." 
 
 ^^Tll run and fetch you some. It's only 
 roun' the corner ; but Nellie's a bit tired/' said 
 his aunt. 
 
 "Bless my stars! No beer in the 'ouse? 
 But, Lor', do you think I'd let you fetch beer 
 for me ? No, that won't do. Aunt Su. Make 
 me a cup o' tea. That's the ticket . . . and 
 Nellie shall pour it out for me, won't you ? . . . 
 Why, you sit there like mum-chance ! Haven't 
 you word to say to me, after four months ? . . . 
 Ah ! Nellie, the 'igh Street 'as seemed an 'owl- 
 ing wilderness to me since you went." 
 
 " I seldom went into High Street," — the girl 
 roused herself to reply, laughing — "so I'm 
 afraid I cannot take your compliment to my- 
 self, Sam. But you haven't told us yet how 
 uncle and aunt are ?" 
 
 ** Oh ! pretty bobbish. I say, Nell," he con- 
 tinued, seeing that his aunt had gone into the
 
 POET AND PEER. 91 
 
 kitchen to set the kettle on the fire, "what 
 do you think the gov'nor says ? That 'e feels 
 as though you were 'is daughter. He often 
 says there's no gal in Warmington he'd so soon 
 'ave for a daughter." 
 
 " That's very kind of Uncle Joshua," returned 
 his cousin, quietly. " It is because I am the 
 only girl who ever stayed in his house. Of 
 course, he would take to others just as much^ if 
 he knew them all as well." 
 
 "Not at all. He ain't very soft-hearted, 
 ain't the gov'nor. You know that, Nell; but 
 he's right down fond of you, and no mistake.'^ 
 Here Mrs. Dawson returned, and Sam, with 
 some show of hesitation, pulled out a photo- 
 graph, framed in scarlet leather, from his 
 pocket. " I've brought this for you, Nell. I 
 'ad it done on purpose. I'm afraid it ain't very 
 good. . . In fact, it's a 'orrid thing. They 
 
 say it don't do me justice, and I believe it's 
 
 Anyways, it ain't flattering ; but, such as it is, it 
 will remind you, when absent, of yours truly, 
 ehf 
 
 Mrs. Dawson looked over Nellie's shoulder.
 
 92 POET AND PEER. 
 
 iiud they both exclaimed, '' Oh ! " 
 
 *'But it's the very image of you, Sara !" 
 
 " Just the way you always sit." 
 
 "And the expression of the mouth ! and the 
 whiskers !" 
 
 *' And the curl of the hair ! and the collar I" 
 
 " And the tip of the nose !" 
 
 " Oh ! come, now, my nose ain't so snub as 
 that — and the tie don't sit so genteel as mine — 
 and the light on the 'air makes me look as 
 though I was bald." 
 
 " Well, it's a most capital likeness," main- 
 tained his aunt. " Say what you will, Sam." 
 
 " I really think you ought to be quite satis- 
 fied/' chimed in his cousin. " I don't think it 
 could be better." 
 
 Let us acknowledge this was aggravating. 
 To be told by the object of one's affections that 
 the monstrosity in her hand does you ample 
 justice would be trying to more philosophical 
 natures than Sam's. 
 
 "Well, there are those as think different," 
 said he, runniog his fingers through his hair, 
 and looking round the humble little room in
 
 POET AND PEER. 9^ 
 
 Tain for a square inch of mirror. " There are 
 those that think I'm a deal better-favoured than 
 that beastly thing. I wouldn't have brought 
 it, if I'd thought you'd have bin so unkind as- 
 to say that, Nellie." 
 
 " I can't help saying what I think, Sara. I 
 am sorry it hurts you — you shouldn't hav& 
 asked me." 
 
 '*You think me a fright, I suppose, now^ 
 then ?" He was by this time in a state of con- 
 siderable irritation. " You didn't always. But 
 it's out of sight, out of mind, I suppose, with 
 you as with so many." 
 
 " What fullishness you're talking, Sam," said 
 his aunt, almost sternly. '' Out o' sight, out o' 
 mind, indeed ! What's that got to do with the 
 pictur' being like you or not? You think a 
 deal too much of what others think about you, 
 Sam. That's your fault." 
 
 " Oh ! of course ; and I come all the way from 
 Warmington to Ripple to be told that by you, 
 aunt. Well, I didn't expect it of you, and " 
 
 "Now, take your tea, Sam, and hold your 
 tongue. You're no better than a big baby.
 
 94 POET AND PEER. 
 
 flaring np like that, when no one means nothing 
 unkind. Why, what does a man's looks sig- 
 nify? If we all made ourselves, we'd all be 
 beauties. You can't help being what you are 
 any more than I can. It's what we does in life, 
 Sam, that signifies — that draws hearts to us 
 like, and makes us remembered when we're 
 gone. You're little better than a lad, and have 
 got life before you. Don't you waste it all in 
 folly, Sam." 
 
 He drank his tea in silence. He was 
 thoroughly put out. This was not the kind of 
 reception he had looked for. He had expected 
 to meet with great consideration ; firstly, as 
 Sam, irresistible to Nellie as to her sex in 
 general ; secondly, as son and heir of the pros- 
 perous Joshua Dawson. His aunt and cousin, 
 though they lived in this mean cottage, seemed 
 to have no respect for his position ; and the way 
 in which they had spoken of his nose — it was 
 disgusting. He felt, like the man in the para- 
 ble, "Some enemy hath done this." Some 
 fellow had come between him and Nellie, and
 
 POET AND PEER. 95 
 
 had turned the hearts of both the women 
 against him ; there was no accounting for such 
 conduct otherwise. Mrs. Dawson tried to make 
 conversation, her daughter threw in a remark 
 or two ; but Sam maintained a dogged silence 
 until he had finished his tea. Then he rose, 
 and, looking at his cousin, said — 
 
 " It^s a fine evenin'. I s'pose you ain't goin' 
 to refuse to take a walk with me ?" 
 
 She glanced up at her mother, but laid down 
 her work and rose. Mrs. Dawson interposed. 
 
 " Indeed, Sam, and I think, if you'd excuse 
 her, she's a deal better at home. She's bin that 
 tired and weakly of late that I haven't liked 
 her to walk at all, and " 
 
 " Oh, mother," said Nellie, quickly, seeing the 
 angry cloud on Sam's face, " I have not been 
 outside the door to-day, and the air will do me 
 good. Sam won't take me too far . . . I'll run 
 and put on my hat." 
 
 She returned a moment later, and the cousins 
 left the cottage together. 
 
 " Well, p'rhaps it's better," said Mrs. Dawson
 
 06 POET AND PEER. 
 
 to herself, as she watched them turn down the 
 lane towards the Athelstone woods. *' I s'pose 
 he'll speak now, and she'll give him his answer, 
 and then there will be an end to it." 
 
 There was an end to it ; but not quite the 
 one she anticipated. 
 
 They had been walking- nearly a quarter of 
 an hour on the outskirts of the Athelstone 
 wood. Sam had by this time quite recovered 
 his good humour, together with his self-confi- 
 dence, which had only received a temporary 
 shock. He was depicting in all the glowing 
 colours his imagination could suggest the joys 
 incident to an existence spent in a back street 
 in Warmington, "in a ^ouse of my own, with 
 the party of my choice." He was approaching 
 his object in view by this sure, if circuitous, 
 route, from which Nellie saw no side-path of 
 escape, and with a beating heart she awaited 
 the moment which her mother had foreseen, 
 and which tlie girl felt she must nerve lierself 
 to meet. She certainly had never felt so ill- 
 disposed towards her cousin as now, never had 
 his vulgarity and conceit been so offensive to
 
 POET AND PEER. 97 
 
 her. She felt inclined to ciy. If she could 
 only get rid of him ! Why, oh ! why did she 
 ever consent to come out? 
 
 Just then, when Sam's blatant voice had, in 
 his excitement, reached its culminating point, 
 a gate in the Athelstone wall close at hand 
 was opened, and Wilfred stood before them. 
 Nellie was so startled that she gave a faint cry, 
 and, unconsciously, grasped the hand he held 
 out to her for support. 
 
 The two men stared at each other, the one 
 with his shabby shooting-jacket, long hair and 
 slouching gait, possessing with it all the un- 
 mistakeable air of a gentleman, the other, in 
 spite of his spick-and-span clothes, best dog-skin 
 gloves, and erect carriage, the unmistakeable 
 air of a snob. He glared angrily, and tilted his 
 nose at Wilfred. The latter surveyed him 
 calmly from head to foot, as he spoke to the 
 girl whose hand he held. 
 
 "How is you mother, Nellie? I was on 
 my way to your cottage. I only came home 
 to-day." 
 
 *' Mother is very w^ell, thank you, sir," 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 POET AND PEER. 
 
 she replied, feebly, as she disengaged her 
 hand. 
 
 *' And who is this person ?" inquired Wilfred, 
 rather coldly. " A stranger to me." 
 
 *^'It is my cousin Sam, sir. . . . Uncle 
 Joshua's son, who's come from Warraington to 
 — to see us." 
 
 "From Warmington? That's a longdis- 
 tance," said Wilfred, addressing Sam, but with- 
 out the shadow of a smile on his some- 
 what scornful mouth. "How long do you 
 stay?" 
 
 *^' As long as I feel inclined. I ain't taken a 
 return-ticket," replied Sam, eyeing the stranger 
 fiercely. 
 
 " Oh ! indeed. . . . Well, I won't interrupt 
 your walk any longer, Nellie. I hope you will 
 enjo\^ it. But my mother wishes to see you to- 
 morrow morning. Can you come up before 
 eleven? — or are you too much occupied with 
 your cousin to spare the time?" 
 
 The poor child was so confused and 
 annoyed that she could only stammer out, 
 
 *' Of course, sir, I shall wait upon my lady."
 
 POET AND PEER. 99 
 
 Then he nodded, and, without taking any 
 further notice of Sam, walked on. 
 
 That young man was struck dumb for a 
 moment at the mention of " my lady ;" then his 
 ire found tongue — 
 
 " So that's my lord, is it ? And a seedy- 
 looking lot 'e is, and as impudent a one as ever 
 I met — looking at me like that, and I'm every 
 
 bit as good as 'e is, d n him. I dessay the 
 
 gov'nor could buy 'im up ; these liaristocrats 
 are mostly sewn up, I'm told. I'm sure 'is coat 
 looks like it. Why, I wouldn't pick it off a 
 dung-hill !" 
 
 " You're not worthy to do it," cried Nellie, 
 struggling between her anger and her tears. 
 " You ought to be ashamed of yourself, speak- 
 ing so rudely to Mr. Wilfred when he 
 was good enough to address you, Sam. 
 What must he think of you? I felt so 
 ashamed — and he who has been so good 
 to us ?" 
 
 "Oh! that's the ticket, is it? I ought to 
 grovel in the dust and lick 'is feet when 'e 
 -condescends to speak to me, eh? I tell you 
 
 h2
 
 100 POET AND PEER. 
 
 what it is. I don't care that,'' and Sam snapped 
 bis fingers defiantly in the direction Wilfred 
 had taken, " what 'e thinks of me, or any dozen 
 like 'im. But now I know the sort of man 'e 
 is, let 'im look out, that's all. I can see 
 through a nine-inch Avail as well as any chap, I 
 flatter myself. 'E'd better take care what 'e's 
 after. 
 
 "■ What do you mean, Sam ? I think you are 
 mad." 
 
 " Never you mind. I know what's what. I 
 ain't got eyes in my 'ead for nothing. It's no 
 puzzle now why we're so changed — that's all ; 
 why a fellow who you was glad enough once to 
 walk with, when he comes down here is ridi- 
 culed and abused, and treated like this." 
 
 *' I will walk with you no more, Sam,'' said 
 his cousin, stopping dead short and looking him 
 in the face. "I don't know what you mean, 
 but your temper is quite changed since old days. 
 You seem to wish to make yourself disagree- 
 able, and I won't go on listening to you. I 
 shall go home." 
 
 She turned away, and this seemed to bring
 
 POET AND PEER. 101 
 
 him to bis senses. He followed, and in humbled 
 accents entreated her to continue their walk ; 
 be had so much still to say to her ; he begged 
 her pardon ; bis temper bad got the better of 
 him just now; but his tongue should not offend 
 again. She remained obdurate, however. She 
 declared, what was indeed the truth, that she 
 felt tired. The emotions of the last ten minutes 
 had quite upset her. To listen to Sam's declar- 
 ation now w^as beyond her powers. 
 
 He was upon his best behaviour the rest of 
 the evening ; but Nellie crept to bed early. 
 Sam said no word to his aunt of what had 
 passed.
 
 102 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 V17ILFRED ATHELSTONE^S rage, as he 
 ' * walked away, was none the less that it 
 was self-contained. He could glance coldly at 
 Sam^ and nod carelessly to Nellie, but his blood 
 boiled with indignation all the same. That 
 angelic girl " keeping company " with a vulgar 
 brute like this ! Had it been a simple plough- 
 boy, Wilfred felt that he could have tolerated 
 him better than this impudent, swaggering 
 snob. 
 
 The chief attraction he had held out to him- 
 self in returning home to pass his long vacation 
 was the prospect of seeing Nellie Dawson daily ; 
 of instructing and elevating her mind; in short, 
 of moulding this beautiful and, as he doubted
 
 POET AND PEER. 103 
 
 not, plastic clay, to his liking. And what after 
 this ? He never asked himself. If the thought 
 suggested itself, he put it away. He shut his 
 eyes to anything beyond the pleasure the hours 
 thus spent would afford him. A man with more 
 self-control would have resolved to shun such 
 peril ; peril to himself no less than to her, unless 
 be was prepared to sacrifice father and mother 
 to a passion which as yet had been nourished 
 chiefly by his imagination. But Wilfred, with 
 too kind a heart knowingly to inflict pain, had 
 never consulted any other law than that of his 
 inclination. Happily it had not led him to in- 
 dulge very deeply in the dissipations common 
 to his age. A woman without refinement, a 
 woman whom he could not surround with 
 something of the halo of romance, could gain 
 no real ascendancy over him. He had made 
 the acquaintance of many such who had striven 
 to ensnare him ; but he had never been subju- 
 gated for more than a few hours. He had 
 broken his bonds like Samson, and regarded 
 Dalilah cynically as a subject for dramatic 
 study.
 
 104 POET AND PEER. 
 
 The fact is, his principles about women, as 
 about religion, were as yet only sketched in 
 wavering, undeterrninate lines. He had read 
 Mary Wolstonecraft, Godwin and Shelle3\ He 
 felt inclined to believe, with the latter, that 
 *' Love withers under restraint ; its very essence 
 is liberty ; it is compatible neither with obedi- 
 ence, jealousy, nor fear ; it is there most pure, 
 perfect, and unlimited, where its votaries live in 
 confidence, equality, and unreserve." And, as 
 a natural corollary from this proposition, he was 
 wont to maintain in discussions with his friends 
 that constancy had no virtue in itself, and 
 that people should remain united only so long 
 as they loved each other. At this time, indeed, 
 the idea of marriage, of a tie binding him for 
 life, was practically repugnant to him ; though, 
 regarded as a mystical and entirely delightful 
 union of two congenial spirits, it appealed to 
 the poetic side of his nature. To pass one's 
 life at the feet of an ideal woman was a raptur- 
 ous dream ; but was there any woman in the 
 flesh at whose feet he could pass his life ? 
 
 He said to himself that he should probably
 
 POET AND TEER. 105 
 
 never marry. As regarded the little village 
 maid^ whose sweet eyes and modest ways had 
 first attracted him as a child, he certainly did 
 not contemplate any such act of egregious folly. 
 If he disgraced himself — so his father would 
 consider it — by marrying beneath him, Wilfred 
 knew that Lord Athelstone would never for- 
 give his son. Indifferent as he was to social 
 distinctions himself, his parents valued them as 
 next in importance to their religion, and the 
 fact had been duly impressed on Wilfred since 
 his boyhood. Like some able orators, it might 
 be said of him that he was never so strong 
 as in opposition ; but Wilfred now rarely 
 opposed his father openly. He loved him ; he 
 respected him ; and he pitied his narrow- 
 mindedness. Discussion was worse than useless 
 with a man of Lord Athelstone's stamp ; 
 therefore his son would avoid discussion, avoid 
 angering the old gentleman, whose health had 
 been a good deal shaken during the last two 
 years. Only a passion which over-bore every 
 filial consideration would drive WWred to com- 
 mit an act which would be a virtual separation
 
 106 POET AND PEER. 
 
 from the parents whom, with all his wilfulness, 
 he loved well. 
 
 Under these circumetances he resented — and 
 all the more, perhaps, that he felt he had no 
 right to resent — the intrusion of this detestable 
 cousin upon pleasure grounds which Wilfred 
 had marked for his own. He brooded over it 
 all the evening, while apparently absorbed in 
 the '' Earthly Paradise," which had just been 
 published. At one time he resolved to relin- 
 quish his plan of waylaying Nellie when she 
 left his mother the following morning. He 
 would never seek out the girl again, never hold 
 other than the most casual intercourse with 
 her. But such resolves, wise though they 
 might be, were only bred of irritation and 
 disgust. AVhen eleven o'clock struck next day, 
 it found him on a bench in the maple-wood 
 through which the girl must pass on her way 
 back to the village. He had seen her shown 
 into Lady Athelstone's boudoir a few minutes 
 before. 
 
 The interview was soon over. When Lady 
 Athelstone had questioned the young pupil-
 
 POET AND PEER. 1 07 
 
 teacher relative to some children in whom she 
 was interested, she said, 
 
 " Gossip travels quickly. My maid told me 
 just now that you were thought to be engaged 
 to a cousin of yours, who is come here from 
 Warmington to see you. Is it true?" 
 
 Nellie flushed scarlet. 
 
 ''No, my lady, certainly not." 
 
 " Oh, really ? Well, I was in hopes — not but 
 that you are very young. . . Still . . . ." 
 
 "Indeed, my lady, I have never thought of 
 such a thing. . . and I wouldn't marry my 
 cousin on any account." 
 
 '•Indeed? . . . Well, I daresay some worthy 
 young man by-and-by ... I believe you to 
 be a very good girl, and we are quite pleased 
 with you in the school. . . You can go now. 
 Good morniug." 
 
 With these disjointed sentences, after her 
 peculiar fashion, the patroness dismissed the 
 dependant ; and Nellie, thankful to escape, 
 crossed the garden rapidly, and entered the 
 maple-wood. A few yards in, the path was 
 intersected by one running at right angles.
 
 108 POET AND PEER. 
 
 She turned to the left, and immediately per- 
 ceived Wilfred on the bench at some distance 
 off. She would have given worlds to retrace 
 her steps. Though only to look upon hira now 
 was a joy to the poor child, which all the 
 schooling of her rebel heart could not repress, 
 she shrank from encountering him at this 
 moment. She felt afraid of herself. How he 
 would despise her, if she betrayed, by any 
 weakness, that all his kindness to her had been 
 misunderstood, and that the interest he had 
 shown in her must be evinced no longer ! 
 
 She had no choice, however, but to go for- 
 ward with slow and rather uncertain footsteps, 
 until she approached him, when he rose. 
 
 " You look a little pale, Nellie," he said, 
 kindly. " You had better sit down here for a 
 few minutes. . . Are you not well ?" 
 
 " I have not been very strong lately, sir." 
 
 " You are over-worked in the school. I told 
 you you were not fit for it." 
 
 " Indeed, I'm not over-worked, sir. . . Mother 
 thinks it's the weather." 
 
 " Well, at all events, you won't be over-
 
 POET AND PEER. 109^ 
 
 worked much longer. I hear you are to be 
 raarried/' 
 
 "It is not true . . . not a word of it." 
 " It seems to be the talk of the village. 
 That very smart young man who is staying at 
 the ' Hen and Chickens ' gives it to be under- 
 stood, I hear." 
 
 "If I thought it, I'd never speak to him 
 again," cried Nellie. " But Sam would never 
 be so base. I'll not believe it, sir." 
 
 *' You allow him to live on hope, perhaps 1" 
 "Mr. Wilfred, indeed I don't . . . please 
 don't say that." 
 
 " Why do you walk with him, then ?" 
 *^How could I refuse, when he is come all 
 
 this way to see us, sir, and " 
 
 "And to ask you to marry him, no doubt." 
 "After all Uncle Joshua has done for me, I — 
 
 I " here she burst into tears. 
 
 " Don't cry. I didn't mean to make you 
 cry. Only, do you remember what I said to 
 you the last time we met ? I felt inclined to 
 punch your cousin's head yesterday. He look- 
 ed as if he onli/ had a right to be with you.
 
 110 POET AND PEER. 
 
 and I was an intruder. After all, I am an 
 older friend than he is, ain't I ?" 
 
 She wiped away her tears, and murmured, 
 « Yes, sir.'' 
 
 "And you like me better? Say that you 
 like me better, Nellie." 
 
 She did not dare lift up her eyes. 
 
 '*0h, sir," she stammered, "it is so — so 
 different, you know, the respect " 
 
 " Hang the respect. I want liking. I want 
 you to say you like me better than that 
 cad." 
 
 What could she sayV She could not lie to 
 him. She almost imperceptibly nodded her 
 head. It was enough for Wilfred. 
 
 '^Now promise me that 3'ou'll walk no more 
 with him, and that you will walk sometimes 
 with me." 
 
 *' No ; I can't promise that." 
 
 *'Why not? If you could w^alk with liirrif 
 why not with me ?" 
 
 " I can't tell why, sir ; there is a differ- 
 ence." 
 
 *' There are so many things I want to
 
 POET AND PEER. Ill 
 
 teach jou, Nellie — so much I want to read 
 to you." 
 
 "Oh I dear. How I should like that!" she 
 exclaimed, forgetting herself for a moment. 
 
 " You think you would like it ? I shall bring 
 down some books to-morrow." 
 
 She looked frightened. 
 
 ** Oh, sir, not to-morrow ; because — be- 
 cause '^ 
 
 "• Because this cousin will still be here ? and 
 everything must give way to him !" 
 
 " Sam is so passionate ! He will only be here 
 a day or two. Please don't come, sir, till he's 
 gone." 
 
 She put her hands together, and looked up 
 with that sweet, child-like expression which 
 Wilfred found so bewitching. He bent his face 
 till it almost touched her. 
 
 *' Tell me," he said, " are you afraid for Sam 
 or for me V^ 
 
 "For you,^^ — the words escaped her in- 
 voluntarily. 
 
 The next instant he had clasped her in his 
 arms. She rose, trembling in every limb, and
 
 112 POET AND PEER. 
 
 tried to walk away ; but her head swam round ; 
 she staggered, and fell fainting on the path. 
 Wilfred, much alarmed, lifted her up, and laid 
 her gently on the bench. 
 
 " My darling, look up ! I am so grieved. 
 What a brute I was I Nellie. Speak to me ! 
 Say you forgive me !" — but her eyes remained 
 closed, and, though not insensible, she could 
 not speak. He bethought him of a stream not 
 far off, and dashed through the trees to fetch 
 some water. As he did so, a rustling among 
 the boughs and leaves a few yards off attracted 
 his attention for a moment. Could he be 
 watched? He looked round, but saw nothing ; 
 and his anxiety about Nellie absorbed every 
 thought. He ran on, and brought back some 
 water in his hat. He bathed her face, and in a 
 few minutes she sat up, pale, indeed, but 
 declaring that she felt able to walk. 
 
 *' Wait here till I run home and fetch you 
 some wine in my flask." 
 
 She said nothing ; she let him go. Then, as 
 soon as he was out of sight, she rose resolutel}', 
 and walked as fast as she was able, poor child, 
 through the wood towards Ripple.
 
 POET AND PEER. 113 
 
 When Wilfred returned to the spot a few 
 minutes later, he found to his disgust that she 
 was fled. He meditated pursuing her, when he 
 heard a step among the dead leaves close by, 
 and, turning round, Sam Dawson stood before 
 him. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 114 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 rpHE young shopkeeper's face was white, and 
 -*- his lips tight-clenched. He grasped an 
 oak stick in his hand, and his demeanour, in the 
 intensity of passion, lost much of its vulgar 
 assumption. 
 
 " May I inquire what you want here ? These 
 grounds are private." 
 
 It was Wilfred who spoke first, and with a 
 calmness which, to say the truth, he was far 
 from feeling. This fellow's intrusion was inso- 
 lent, and irritating in the extreme. What if he 
 bad been playing the eavesdropper ? 
 
 " You know well enough why Fm *ere. I'm 
 Nell Dawson's cousin, and I mean to be 'er 
 'usband," replied Sam, between his teeth.
 
 POET AND PEER. 115 
 
 "I doubt that. Did you overhear our con- 
 versation? If so, you must have been grati- 
 fied." 
 
 " I didn't ^ear a word — but / saw. That was 
 enough. If you think I'm goiog to stand your 
 "'umbugging her — if you think I'm going to 
 take your leavings, you're d ly mistaken." 
 
 " I think nothing of the kind. In the first 
 place, Nellie Dawson will never be your wife — 
 fihe told me so." Sam ground his teeth; but 
 Wilfred continued, and the words that fell from 
 him were certainly not those he would have 
 used an hour before — " I am ready to account 
 for my conduct to her mother, but certainly not 
 to you." 
 
 Sam looked at him in silence for a moment, 
 and something like a demoniacal smile crossed 
 his lips. 
 
 " 'Ow if I tell all over the village what I've 
 seen ? You'll like that, won't you ?" 
 
 Wilfred inwardly winced; but he was not 
 going to allow this blackguard to see the ad- 
 vantage he had over him. 
 
 " It is just what I should expect from you," 
 
 i2
 
 lie POET AND PEER. 
 
 he replied. " A fine, manly action, certain!}-, 
 to come down here and try to ruin your 
 cousin's reputation by spreading a groundless 
 scandal." 
 
 *' Groundless ? Come, I like that !" 
 
 *' Yes, groundless. I have known her since 
 she was a little child. No one who had not a 
 black imagination would fancy that I meant to 
 harm her." 
 
 '' 'Arm her ? You don't mean to marry her, I 
 suppose? That's about it. It's 'arm enough, 
 if you turn the girl's 'ead, and make 'er unfit 
 for 'er station, and then walk away, and leave 
 'er! But I tell you what it is," he continued, 
 raising his voice, and thrusting his clenched fist 
 almost in ^Yilfred's face, " I'm not to be put off 
 with your 'igh and mighty airs. I'm not a fool. 
 I know what sort yoii are. And I tell you, if 
 you seduce that girl, Fll have your Mood — I will, 
 if I swing for it !" 
 
 With that he turned upon his heel and strode 
 away. 
 
 Wilfred had a certain sense of being worsted, 
 a certain sense of humiliation, which he could
 
 POET AND PEER. 117 
 
 not account for. He had explained nothing; 
 he had promised nothing ; he had given this 
 insolent fellow no pledge of any kind ; and yet 
 he felt somehow as if Sam had gone away vic- 
 torious from the encounter. The whole thing 
 was vexatious beyond measure. The incidents 
 of the morning had inflamed his passion four- 
 fold. Nellie loved him ; there could be no doubt 
 about it. Her modest reluctance to avow that 
 love only enhanced its value in his eyes. To 
 -abandon the treasure which he had won, on 
 account of any paltry obstacle which the world 
 or its laws of convention might set between 
 them, he began to say to himself, would be 
 miserable weakness. But what course was he 
 to adopt? This troublesome brute's interfer- 
 ence had complicated matters, and rendered it 
 essential that Wilfred should take a decided 
 line. After some deliberation he resolved to 
 call on Mrs. Dawson that afternoon. 
 
 He found her alone. Nellie, on seeing him 
 come up the garden, had fled to her own room. 
 The widow's demeanour was civil and respect- 
 ful as usual, but there was a certain constraint
 
 118 POET AND PEER. 
 
 in her manner that did not escape Wilfred, fie 
 learnt, much to his surprise and satisfaction, 
 when he made a casual remark about her 
 nephew, that the young man had left Ripple by 
 that afternoon's train. Wilfred's curiosity could 
 not be restrained. 
 
 " Why did he go so suddenly?" he asked. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson hesitated a moment. 
 
 "fie wanted Nellie to say she'd marry him, 
 for one thing, sir." 
 
 **And she refused?" 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Wilfred, and then him and me 
 had words." 
 
 " 1 can guess what about. It was about me, 
 now ; wasn't it, Mrs. Dawson ?" 
 
 *-It was, Mr. Wilfred. He spoke shameful, 
 and I told him he should never come inside my 
 doors again. I know you're an honourable 
 gentleman as would never lead my girl astray, 
 and I know what he said was all malice, 
 because she won't have him. But at the same 
 time, Mr. Wilfred, I've had it in my mind I 
 ought to speak to you, and I will. You 
 mustn't meet NelHe in the wood, sir. We're
 
 POET AND PEER. 119 
 
 poor people, and our characters is all as we 
 have to look to — we can't make light of what 
 folks say, as the rich can, when they knows 
 they're doing nothin' wrong. Therefore, Mr. 
 Wilfred — I'm sure as you mean too kindly by 
 my girl to wish to injure her — you must not 
 meet her alone, else evil tongues, besides Sam's, 
 '11 be set waggin'." 
 
 " I may come here ?" said Wilfred, quite 
 humbly. "You will let me bring her books, 
 and read to her here, Mrs. Dawson?" 
 
 The good woman looked puzzled. She could 
 not conceive that there could be anything 
 wrong in this, yet instinct told her it was 
 one of those innocent things that are better 
 avoided, 
 
 ''If you lend her books, Mr. Wilfred, I'm 
 sure as Nellie '11 be grateful. And if you drop 
 in promiscuous now and then, as you've often 
 done since you was a boy, Mr. Wilfred, folks 
 can't say nothin'. But I think you'd better not 
 come too often." 
 
 Wilfred sighed, and stroked the cat, who had 
 jumped upon his knee, and mused.
 
 120 POET AND PEER. 
 
 *' I know I wish I and the few people I care 
 for in the world were living in a desert 
 island, where there was no such thing as 
 * propriety,' and all did as they liked." 
 
 " Lor ! Mr. Wilfred, that'd be a pretty state 
 of things ! No, depend on 't, sir, we're better 
 as we are. You'll think so some day. When 
 I've bin in trouble, and the Lord's bin good to 
 me, and delivered me out of it, I've thought to 
 myself that all the contrairies was perhaps just 
 put here to bring out the good. If we had all 
 we want thereM be no need o' patience and 
 sacrifice and kindness, and a lot o' things as is 
 drawn out of us like." 
 
 "Exactly so," said Wilfred, looking up from 
 the cat with a little ironical smile. *^*If we 
 didn't require them, there would be no use in 
 worrying ourselves about them. I, for one, 
 should be very glad to dispense with patience 
 and self-sacrifice." 
 
 Mrs. Dawson meditated a moment. Then 
 she said, gravely, 
 
 *' Perhaps not in others, Mr. Wilfred." 
 
 He laughed.
 
 POET AND PEER. 121 
 
 " You are very hard on me, Mrs. Dawson. I 
 had no idea you were satirical." 
 
 " Does that mean scoffing-like ? No, Mr. 
 Wilfred. But you're young, and haven't 
 known trouble yet. You've had everything 
 pretty much your own way, I take it. It 
 oan't be always so. When sorrows come, 
 you'll learn the valley o' those things you want 
 to do without." 
 
 "I have not everything my own way now. 
 I want to educate Nellie. I want to teach her 
 a great many things that will make her wiser 
 and happier; and, because of the world's mis- 
 chievous folly, I am not to be allowed. I don't 
 see the beauty of patience or self-sacrifice here 
 at all." 
 
 " The child will do very well as she is, sir ; 
 she has edication enough; don't think about 
 her. 'Tis only her health troubles me. This 
 last month, I don't know what ails her, but she 
 is grown as pale and weak as anything, and, 
 though she won't own it, I know she don't 
 sleep o' nights." 
 
 Wilfred looked up anxiously. " Doesn't she ?
 
 122 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Poor Nellie!" Then he remained silent for a 
 minute. It was just a month since Trinity 
 Sunday. Could he be the cause of her illness '^ 
 Was it the struggle to repress her love for him 
 that had affected her health — was, perhaps, en- 
 dangering her life? " Has she seen the doctor?" 
 he asked, presently. 
 
 " No, I can't get her to see him. She says 
 there's nothing the matter with her." 
 
 " But she must see him ; I insist upon it. I 
 shall make my mother come and talk to her. 
 It's nonsense going on like this. She has no 
 cough ? no pain ?" 
 
 "No; it seems a kind o' wasting like, and 
 her sperits is quite changed ; but she don't 
 complain o' nothin', and so she may get strong 
 again, I hope, when the warm weather is past. 
 It was terrible hot last week." 
 
 " She must see the doctor at once. Whatever 
 is the cause, she ought to have advice. My 
 mother shall send him here." He sprang up. 
 ''Tell her what I say; and now, good-bye, Mrs. 
 Dawson." 
 
 Lady Athelstone, obedient to her son's com-
 
 POET AND PEER. 125 
 
 mands, sent a message to the village apothe- 
 cary, desiring him to call and examine Nellie 
 Dawson, and report to Lady Athelstone what 
 his opinion was as to the girl's condition. 
 
 But before Mr. Dole had gone his round the 
 following morning, he was sent for post haste 
 to the Castle. The messenger informed him 
 that his lordship had had a fit in his dressing- 
 room; that he was insensible, and that her 
 ladyship was greatly alarmed.
 
 124 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 rpHE post arrived daily at the Castle between 
 -^ seveu and eight o'clock, and it was one of 
 Lord Athelstone's peculiarities that no one 
 should open the bag but himself. It was 
 brought him, with his hot water ; he unlocked 
 it, took out his own letters, and gave back the 
 others to his valet for distribution. 
 
 On the morning in question he rose, not feel- 
 ing very well. The bag was laid, as usual, on 
 his table. There were four letters for him. 
 One, which he had been expecting, from his 
 lawyer ; two from friends upon business con- 
 nected with the approaching Borough election ; 
 and one in a handwriting which, from its copy- 
 book flourishes, he concluded was a trades-
 
 POET AND PEER. 125" 
 
 man's. This he laid aside, while he digested 
 the contents of the others. 
 
 So the purchase of that farm was effected,. 
 and his man of business wrote that he was 
 satisfied that the transaction was an advan- 
 tageous one to my lord. He was much pleased 
 at this, and thought over it a good deal while 
 he was shaving. The next two letters gave 
 him much food for reflection, and of a less 
 pleasant kind. His correspondents wrote very 
 much to the same effect; that if, at the ap- 
 proaching election, the Honourable Wilfred 
 Athelstone would come forward upon Conserva- 
 tive principles, his return for the Borough could 
 be almost ensured. If it could be ascertained 
 beyond doubt that the young man was guided, 
 in his political views, by his father. Lord Athel- 
 stone's name would be sufficient guarantee for 
 his son. Indeed, even as a moderate Liberal, 
 though there might be a contest, his chances of 
 election were very good. But a rumour had 
 got abroad of his holding very extreme Radi- 
 cal opinions. Should this rumour be unhap- 
 pily verified, the writers both stated plainly
 
 126 POET AND PEER. 
 
 enough that they must decline to support him. 
 Lord Athelstone could not but approve their 
 decision. In their place he would do likewise. 
 Then came the question, could any arguments, 
 any persuasion of his, induce Wilfred to 
 modify, if not his present convictions, at least 
 such expression of them as must alienate the 
 suffrages of the main body of electors ? Lord 
 Athelstone's good sense, which seldom per- 
 mitted him to indulge in delusions, constrained 
 him to negative this. His son had become 
 much more docile in discussion of late ; he was 
 aifectionate to his father, and that he possessed 
 good abilities of a certain kind was unquestion- 
 ed. He was spoken of as a young man who 
 might do almost anything, " if he liked." Un- 
 fortunately, he did not like, apparently, to 
 work in the particular groove which alone 
 could bring solid distinction, and give him a 
 claim to personal consideration in the county — 
 for what was a prize for poetry, or any such 
 rubbish, worth? Then the boy's opinions on 
 most subjects at present were altogether perni- 
 cious. He hoped, he believed, they would
 
 POET AND PEER. 127 
 
 change, as Wilfred grew older ; but it must be 
 a work of time ; he was not deceived by his 
 son^s reticence, he knew full well that there 
 were rocks of obstinacy beneath the fluid 
 amiability of Wilfred's home-relations which 
 nothing would remove. It was hopeless to 
 expect from him at present any renuncia- 
 tion of opinions, which he held none the less 
 that he was silent concerning them when at 
 home. 
 
 It was annoying, it was even irritating, for 
 Lord Athelstone wished, above all things, that 
 his son should have some experience of 
 parliamentary life before the time came that he 
 should be called to the Upper House. And 
 who could tell how soon that might be ? Lord 
 Athelstone was scarcely a very old man ; he 
 was not fanciful or nervous about his own 
 health. But he had had two warnings in the 
 com'se of the past twelve months which were 
 not to be disregarded ; he knew he might die 
 any day. Was his son fit for the responsibilities 
 that would devolve upon him? Was he not 
 rather, in spite of his cleverness and amiability,
 
 128 POET AXD PEER. 
 
 lamentably ill-calculated to fulfil his duties as 
 a peer, a prominent and influential man in the 
 county, a landlord whose wisdom or unwisdom 
 would leaven the opinions of large masses in 
 his neighbourhood ? 
 
 Lord Athelstone said to himself, with a sigh, 
 that it was so. He had sat down a few 
 minutes before, feeling a little giddy ; and 
 there he was, leaning back, half dressed, in his 
 arm-chairj with his correspondence I^ang on 
 the table before him. The tradesman's letter 
 was as yet unread, and at last, after a long 
 interval, he listlessl}^ opened the envelope. 
 The writing was clear enough, in spite of its 
 flourishes, yet it was some minutes before he 
 could grasp the meaning of what he read. 
 
 '' Mr Lord, 
 
 " I was witness of a scene to-day in 
 your wood, which makes me write this letter, 
 as I think you should be informed of the 
 blackguard conduct of your son towards the 
 pupil-teacher in your parish school, ^Miss NelHe 
 Dawson. He is using all his arts to seduce the
 
 POET AXD PEER. 129 
 
 girl, and she is so infatuated about him that 
 there is little doubt he will succeed, if you do 
 not prevent it. You can separate them fast 
 enough, if you choose. If you do not, I can 
 tell you that you and yours shall hear of it. 
 And what is more, besides the scandal, my lord, 
 I have took an oath. If that girl, who is my 
 cousin, is seduced, I will shoot your son, like a 
 dog. So I warn you plainly. 
 
 '^ Your lordship's obediently, 
 
 " Samuel Dawsox." 
 
 What happened, after Lord Athelstone had 
 mastered the contents of this letter, was never 
 known. His servant heard a noise, and, enter- 
 ing the room, found his master in a fit upon the 
 floor. No one connected the attack with any 
 sudden emotion occasioned by his letters that 
 morning. They were swept hurriedly into a 
 drawer, unread by anyone, and it was only 
 long, long afterwards that Sam's effusion fell 
 under Wilfred's eye. 
 
 The village doctor, when summoned, did not 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 POET AND PEER. 
 
 seem gravely alarmed. It was a slight apo- 
 plectic seizure, similar to one his lordship had 
 had early in the year, and the usual course of 
 remedies were administered. Lady Athelstone, 
 however, wished for further advice, and a 
 physician from London was telegraphed for, 
 and arrived that evening. Absolute quiet, free- 
 dom from excitement, from thoughts of any 
 kind, if possible, was the prescription this 
 authority chiefly insisted on, and had eighty 
 guineas for doing so. 
 
 The enforcement of this during the next few 
 days was not difficult ; for Lord AtJielstone lay 
 in a sort of lethargy from which it was almost 
 impossible to rouse him, even to take nourish- 
 ment. Wilfred was unremitting in his atten- 
 tion to his father, and Lady Athelstone never 
 left the room but to take necessary rest. On 
 the fourth day there seemed a decided chauge 
 for the better, and the doctor, when he came, 
 was surprised at the improvement. He per- 
 suaded Lady Athelstone that she ought to take 
 a drive ; she was beginning to suffer from her 
 constant presence in the sick-room, and the
 
 POET AND PEER. 131 
 
 absence of fresh air. Wilfred accompanied the 
 doctor into the hall, and then said, 
 
 '' By the by, in all our anxiety here, it has 
 escaped my mother to ask if you have been to 
 see the Dawsons. What do you think of the 
 girl?" 
 
 *' Has been a little over- worked, I suspect, 
 just when she was growing. Tells me she has 
 a holiday now for three weeks. Wants rest, 
 and plenty of good nourishment." 
 
 When his mother was going out that after- 
 noon, Wilfred, after repeating the doctor's 
 words, continued — 
 
 " Why not invite her up here, mother, where 
 she would be very useful to you just now in a 
 thousand ways, and where she would be better 
 fed than she is at home? The change would 
 be much the best thing for the poor child, I feel 
 sure." 
 
 Lady Athelstone demurred a little. Was it 
 advisable? She was not sure. Would it be 
 taken " as a precedent ?" Her son asked, " A 
 precedent for what ?" To which her reply was 
 not very lucid. Finally, she shifted the respon- 
 
 k2
 
 132 POET AND PEER. 
 
 sibility of decision upon her maid, of whose 
 disapproval touching all matters that concerned 
 '* the household " she lived in great awe. Nellie 
 happened to be a favourite with this function- 
 ary, and she consequently accorded her sanction 
 to the scheme. Then Lady Athelstone went ou 
 her way, and graciously intimated to Mrs. 
 Dawson that, as a little change might do Nellie 
 good, she was to come up to the Castle for a 
 few days. The good mother was touched at 
 her lad^^sbip's kindness, which she believed to 
 be spontaneous, and glad, in her unselfishness, 
 that the child should leave her for awhile, fare 
 sumptuously, and rest from even the small 
 labours of the cottage. To her surprise, the 
 girl seemed to shrink from going. Mrs. Dawson 
 could only attribute her reluctance to shyness, 
 which the mother sought to overcome by all 
 those sensible arguments which are so entirely 
 powerless to aifect our inclinations. Nellie's, it 
 is true, would have led her too joyfully to where 
 she should see Aim, hear him speak, feel under 
 the constant influence of his presence, were it 
 not for the instinct of self-mistrust which shook
 
 POET AND PEER. 133 
 
 her heart with fear. She had prayed, poor 
 child, to be delivered from this peril, and lo ! 
 the net was closing round her, and she saw no 
 escape. 
 
 Between her and her mother there existed 
 the tenderest affection ; but the girl's superior 
 education had placed her stand-point of obser- 
 vation and reflection at a distance from Mrs. 
 Dawson's, so that the intimacy which grows 
 with years, from an interchange of thought^ 
 unchecked by any sense of inequality between 
 friends, could not subsist. Mrs. Dawson's 
 nature was loving and upright ; she was, more- 
 over, by no means a stupid woman. But she 
 had been used all her life to view things directly 
 before her in the straightforward line of sight ; 
 wearing blinkers, so to speak, which prevented 
 any side-glance at disturbing objects. That 
 Nellie should have permitted her gratitude and 
 her admiration to deepen into a passionate 
 attachment for one immeasureably above her in 
 station would have seemed to Mrs. Dawson not 
 only gravely reprehensible, but as almost be- 
 yond the pale of belief. Still less would she
 
 134 POET AND PEER. 
 
 have been able to understand the conflict going- 
 on in her daughter's mind, the struggle to fight 
 or to flee, the -sveak yielding, the terror, the 
 remorse. Her calmer nature could so little 
 understand a temperament opposed to her own 
 that any other course than the plain one indi- 
 cated by dut}', of doing or of leaving undone, 
 would have appeared impossible to her, and 
 would have met with little sympathy. Aud 
 Nellie knew this. Also, it is not impossible 
 that, in some vague and far off way, Mrs. 
 Dawson was conscious of a chasm between 
 her dear young daughter and herself, which 
 it did not lie in the power of either to bridge 
 over. 
 
 Therefore Nellie now, in her dire necessity, 
 could not bring herself to open her heart to 
 her mother. The girl knew she had better not 
 go and be an inmate of Ids home ; but to tell 
 her mother why was impossible. Do not be too 
 hard on her ; she was but sixteen. 
 
 That evening she and her little box went 
 up to the Castle.
 
 135 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SOME days elapsed, and Lord Athelstone in 
 many respects seemed better. His mind, 
 though it was far from having regained its 
 vigour, was much clearer in its apprehension of 
 surrounding objects ; his powers of speech 
 returned, though he used them but spariogly ; 
 and he still kept his bed, declaring that he felt 
 quite incapable of rising. 
 
 Wilfred's close attendance upon his father 
 had necessarily relaxed with the amendment in 
 Lord Athelstone's health. Indeed, Lady Athel- 
 stone herself was less constantly in the sick- 
 room ; she read the papers to my lord in the 
 morning, and wrote most of her correspondence 
 by his bed-side ; but in the afternoon she went 
 out daily.
 
 136 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Wilfred had beeu ia the habit of never 
 leaving his own '' den," as he called it, till 
 luncheon. That habit, being broken in upon 
 by Lord Athelstone's illness, had not been 
 resumed. It seemed very natural that he 
 should sit in his mother's boudoir, which was 
 close to the sick-room, and that he should ask 
 her to allow Nellie Dawson to come there of a 
 morning, and make herself useful by copying 
 some of his almost illegible MSS. under his 
 personal supervision. The girl wrote such a 
 clear hand, and she was so intelligent, it would 
 immensely forward the completion of his 
 volume, if he used her as an amanuensis. 
 Lady Athelstone was delighted with the idea. 
 She left them to go to her lord, and, when 
 she returned to her boudoir, she always found 
 the pale, modest girl seated on one side of the 
 table, writing, and Wilfred on the other, 
 apparently absorbed in the arrangement of 
 the blotted sheets which were littered about. 
 
 Between father and son, no word had passed 
 as to the subject of Sam's letter. Whether 
 the recollection of it had been partially effaced
 
 POET AND PEER. 137 
 
 from Lord Athelstone's raind, until subsequent 
 events brought it back, or whether he waited 
 for renewed strength to speak to his son, 
 matters little. He said nothing ; and, though 
 his eyes watched Wilfred with perhaps greater 
 scrutiny than before his illness, this was the 
 only change apparent. 
 
 He was not aware of Nellie Dawson's proxim- 
 ity, for nothing had led his wife to name a cir- 
 cumstance so little likely to interest him, as she 
 believed. And the pupil-teacher's visit at the 
 Castle might have remained a mystery to the 
 sick man for some time, but for a circum- 
 stance which happened about a week after her 
 arrival. 
 
 Wilfred had gone to the neighbouring town 
 on business, and Lady Athelstone debated in 
 her mind whether she, too, might leave her 
 sick lord to attend a Dorcas Society, of which 
 she was president, and whose accounts were 
 in a hopeless state of muddle. The invalid had 
 told her repeatedly to-day — and the last time 
 with some irritation — that he did not want her 
 to stay with him. Lady Athelstone wished
 
 13S POET AND PEER. 
 
 some one would decide whether she ought to 
 obey him or not. Perhaps he was better alone? 
 But then, there was the reading? He certainly 
 could not read to himself; and he still took an 
 interest in the papers. A brilliant idea struck 
 her, and she hurried to his room. 
 
 " I was thinking of going in to the Dorcas 
 Society ?" she began, in an interrogatory tone. 
 
 *' Well, go — go by all means." 
 
 " But I do not like leaving you quite alone. 
 I was thinking, if you did not object, of asking 
 Nellie Dawson to ■" 
 
 " Who ?" almost shouted Lord Athelstone. 
 
 "Nellie Dawson. She has not been well, 
 poor girl, and I have had her up here for change 
 of air. She reads very well, and if you will 
 allow her " 
 
 Lord Athelstone was sitting up in his bed, 
 having raised himself by a sudden effort, and 
 was staring at his wife, while every vein in his 
 forehead was swollen, and his face was almost 
 purple with excitement. 
 
 "How long has she been here?" he inter- 
 rupted her to ask.
 
 POET AND PEER. 131)* 
 
 *<A week." 
 
 " And was this yonr idea — to ask the girl — 
 or did — Wilfred suggest it?" 
 
 "Well, Wilfred certainly suggested it, be- 
 cause the doctor said " 
 
 "That's enough. That's all I wanted to 
 know. Good God ! It is true, then ! And 
 you have been playing into this wretched boy's 
 hands ! He must go at once. He shall go this 
 very day !" 
 
 " Go ? My dear ! go where ? What do you 
 mean? Surely you don't suppose for an instant 
 that Wilfredj so good, so high-minded " 
 
 " I don^t suppose — I knoiv,''' cried Lord Athel- 
 stone. " If it had not been for my illness, which 
 seems to have prevented my thinking of any- 
 thing, I should have sent him away long ago. 
 He shan't stay another day here — and the girl 
 — the girl must return home at once. Do you 
 hear? At once. See that she is gone before- 
 he comes in, and I'll pack him off to London 
 to-night. I tell you^ Jane, if they meet again,, 
 God knows what may come of it." 
 
 Had a thunderbolt fallen, Lady Athelstone
 
 140 POET AND PEER. 
 
 could hardly have been more alarmed. In the 
 first place, her husband's excitement was very 
 prejudicial to his health, she well knew ; and 
 then she asked herself, had he taken leave of 
 his senses ? What could this dreadful suspicion 
 of dear Wilfred mean ? Banish him ? Banish 
 his only child now that he, the father, was so 
 ill ? Impossible. She was at her wits' end. 
 She stood irresolute at the foot of the bed, 
 saying— 
 
 "My dear, pray calm yourself. This idea of 
 yours, I assure you, is quite . . quite " 
 
 " Never mind what it is," said her lord, in the 
 same excited tone — *' see that my orders are 
 obeyed, Jane. Go. Don't stand there — go at 
 once, and send Wilfred to me immediately he 
 returns. Stay" — and he rang the bell vio- 
 lently, — " I will send orders to the stables." 
 
 Then Lady Athelstone saw that nothing was 
 to be done. She went out, and told Nellie to 
 put up her little box, and walk down to her 
 mother's cottage at once. 
 
 "My lord is in a very strange state," she said, 
 thinking it necessary to account for the girl's
 
 POET AND PEER. 141 
 
 sudden dismissal. " I suppose it is the idea of 
 anyone being here which irritates him. I am 
 sorry to send you away, but there is no help 
 for it." 
 
 Nellie felt a great pang at leaving the Castle. 
 How happily those days had sped I There had 
 never been any like them in her life before; nor 
 could there ever be again, she said. If she 
 should pass the remainder of her existence in a 
 routine of drudgery, she had at least these 
 blissful hours to look back to ; nothing could 
 rob her of them. He had bent down from his 
 high estate to her, as she had read of the fabled 
 sun-god stooping to a humble flower; and 
 though it was but a ray, perhaps, in passing, 
 though he should go on his course through the 
 heavens, and forget her, and the glory he had 
 shed on her, the memory of that noontide hour 
 would be a joy to her through life. A romantic 
 little girl, this, with all the unwisdom that 
 belongs to sixteen, but very pure at heart. No 
 vain or ambitious fancies troubled her love. 
 She did not expect, nay, she did not even hope 
 for, anything beyond the pride and happiness-
 
 142 POET AND PEER. 
 
 of these few days, and she could kneel dowa 
 beside her Jittle bed that night and thank her 
 Heavenly Father for His goodness to her, add- 
 ing, with all the fervour of her soul, a prayer 
 that Wilfred Athelstone might be guided and 
 strengthened in his onward course. 
 
 Lady Athelstoi^e, meantime, returned to her 
 lord's room, and was alarmed at the condition 
 in which she found him. His excitement had 
 been followed by complete prostration. After 
 giving his valet orders that Wilfred should be 
 sent to his father immediately the dog-cart re- 
 turned, Lord Athelstone had fallen back upon 
 his pillows, and seemed incapable of even open- 
 ing his eyes. The doctor was at once sent 
 for; but he was out, and had not arrived at 
 the Castle when Wilfred returned home. He 
 ran up at once to the sick-room, and found 
 his mother greatly agitated. Why did the 
 doctor not come? What w^as to be done? 
 The stimulants seemed to produce little effect. 
 Wilfred sat down by the bed-side, and took 
 his father's hand. Lord Athelstone was appar- 
 ently unconscious of his son's presence. He
 
 POET AND PEER. 1 43 
 
 breathed heavily ; but did not move for nearly 
 an hour. Then he opened his eyes, and they 
 fell upon Wilfred, and gradually there kindled 
 a light in them which told of returning memory, 
 force, intelligence. He attempted to sit up. 
 
 •'You must keep quiet, my dear," said his 
 wife. 
 
 " Leave the room, all of you — except Wil- 
 fred," he replied, in his old peremptory way; 
 only the voice was weak. 
 
 " Just wait, my dear, till the doctor comes," 
 pleaded Lady Athelstone. 
 
 " If I wait, it may be too late. I have 
 strength enough to say what I want now. 
 Go." 
 
 Lady Athelstone saw that further opposition 
 to his will would only excite him ; she left the 
 room. 
 
 The old man turned to his son, who still held 
 his hand, and said, slowly, 
 
 '* You and I have never had a quarrel, W^il. 
 We have not the same opinions, and I'm sorry 
 you hold those you do ; but your conduct — 
 that has never given me real uneasiness un-
 
 144 POET AND PEER. 
 
 til now. If what I've beard is true — I hope 
 to God it isn't — you're doing a rascally thing. 
 What's there between you and this Dawson 
 girl?" 
 
 Wilfred started, and flushed crimson. He 
 was angry to feel that he did so, and replied, 
 impetuously, 
 
 '' Nothing, father. I hope no one has been 
 telling you any lies ?" 
 
 Lord Athelstone, instead of replying, con- 
 tinued, as though his son had not spoken, 
 
 "I have always considered the endeavour, 
 on the part of a man in your station, to take 
 advantage of it for the purpose of ruining a 
 girl in humble life, as black an act as a man 
 can commit. A young fellow can't lead the 
 life of a saint. I don't expect it. But this — 
 here in your own village — a gh-1 you've known 
 since she was a child — it's a shame and a dis- 
 grace ! The anger I felt, when I heard you 
 accused of this was the immediate cause of my 
 attack." 
 
 " Good God I Father, who can have poison- 
 ed your mind against me? I will give you my
 
 POET AND PEER. 145 
 
 oath that 1 had sooner cut ofi my right hand 
 than injure Nellie Dawson. She is as pure as 
 any girl in the land." 
 
 '''I am glad of it," said Lord Athelstone. 
 One fear was, indeed, set at rest by his 
 son's energetic denial; but the other dread, 
 present in the father's mind, only waxed 
 stronger. — " I am glad of it ; but your warmth 
 shows the interest you take in the girl. She 
 has been up here in the house, I find, at your 
 suggestion. What folly! What does it all 
 mean? Do you suppose you can play this 
 sort of game with impunity? It's handling 
 fire, 1 tell you. You'll turn the child's head^ 
 and damage her character, and then — then, with 
 your romantic ideas, I shouldn't wonder if you 
 ofiered to marry her ! Now, mark my words, if 
 you do, she'll be a miserable woman. She may 
 have every virtue under the sun, but you can't 
 make her a lady. She will be looked down 
 upon by your own class, and her life will be a 
 succession of humiliations." 
 
 He spoke with great excitement, and the 
 fear of agitating his father caused Wilfred to 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 POET AND PEER. 
 
 reply with more calmness than he might other- 
 wise have done. 
 
 " I assure you 1 entertain no such idea. 
 Pray disabuse your mind on this subject, 
 father. If I have been foolish, I promise you 
 I will give idle tongues no cause to wag about 
 Nellie for the future. I will remember your 
 words." 
 
 The dying man would, perhaps, have done 
 well to leave the matter there. But he 
 could not be satisfied without going a step 
 further. 
 
 " Then you will promise me never to marry 
 this girl?" 
 
 Wilfred shifted uneasily, though he still held 
 his father's hand. After an instant's pause, he 
 said — 
 
 *'I have a horror of promises of this nature. 
 I think no man has a right to bind himself in 
 this way. But I will pledge myself to this, 
 father : to avoid the temptation you fear for me 
 as far as possible ; not to seek the girl in any 
 way. You believe me?" 
 
 " Yes," said Lord Athelstone, after an inter-
 
 POET AND PEER. 147 
 
 val of at least a minute, during which he 
 arrived at the decision he now pronounced ; 
 '* andj this being so, there is but one thing to 
 be done. My life may be prolonged for days, 
 or weeks — who knows ? I will not have you 
 hanging about here, and throivn in the way of 
 the temptation you promise me to avoid. We 
 will take leave of each other now, and you 
 must go away to-night." 
 
 " Go away? Leave you, father, noio ?" 
 " Y"es, a little sooner or later — what matter? 
 I cannot last long, and I shall not be easy as 
 long as you remain here, Wil." 
 
 The son knelt down and pressed the old 
 man's hand to his lips. His voice was choked 
 as he murmured — 
 
 *' Let me be with you to the end, father." 
 " No ; you will come back to bury me, and 
 then it is my wish that you take your mother 
 away, and shut up Athelstone. If you mean to 
 work at Oxford, if you mean to go in for 
 honours, return there. If not, you had better 
 cut the place. It has done you no good. You 
 had better go abroad with your mother. On 
 
 l2
 
 148 POET AND PEER. 
 
 your return in the spriiif^, you "^'ill take 
 your seat, and, I hope, change your politics ; 
 and I hope, too, that you will marry early — a 
 girl in your own position. That's all I have to 
 say. And now, God bless you !" 
 
 His voice was growing weak with much talk- 
 ing, and Wilfred saw that further opposition to 
 his father's wishes was impossible. He had no 
 choice but to obey, and to master his emotion 
 at this trying juncture, as far as it was possible 
 to do so. 
 
 Lord Athelstone, like most Englishmen, 
 had seldom in his life, when deeply moved, 
 shown what he felt ; and now, upon the 
 threshold of the grave, he was beyond such 
 displays. 
 
 Wilfred kissed his father's brow, and their 
 eyes met in one long look which Wilfred never 
 forgot. Then the dying man nodded his head 
 once, and Wilfred, taking this as a signal for 
 his dismissal, hurried from the room with a 
 bursting heart. 
 
 He found his mother anxiously awaiting him. 
 " Well, my dear, what is it?"
 
 POET AND PEER. 14:9 
 
 He leant his head between his hands upon 
 the mantelpiece, and jerked out — 
 
 " You are to go to him. He has bid me 
 good-bye. He says I am not to stay. What 
 shall I dor 
 
 " Do as he desires you," she replied,, quickly. 
 Ifc was, perhaps, the only instance on record 
 of Lady Athelstone's answering so decidedly. 
 *' Your conscience would not feel easy, my dear, 
 if you disobeyed his last commands ; and — 
 besides that, he would probably find it out if 
 you stayed, and be very angry. Go to Oxford ; 
 you can be with me in a couple of hours if I 
 telegraph for you." 
 
 For some time after Lady Athelstone entered 
 her husband's room he did not speak. She sat 
 down by the bedside, and he looked at her ; but 
 either he was weighing what he should say, or 
 was too much exhausted by his conversation 
 with his son to utter. At last the wife was 
 startled by these few words^ enounced with a 
 feeble voice, but most distinctly — 
 
 "Pack them off, mother and daughter, to 
 Australia — if you can."
 
 150 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Lady Athelstone could be at no loss as to 
 whom he meant ; but she was much distressed 
 and perplexed. What strange persistence in a 
 crotchet! Come what might of it, however, 
 this was no moment for argument; she must 
 humour him. 
 
 " Of course, my dear, if you wish it." 
 
 " ril make a provision for them in that case. 
 If they won't go, you must get the girl placed 
 as nursery-governess somewhere. You can 
 manage that — eh? and the further off the 
 better. As long as she is here, keep Wil 
 away." 
 
 Lord Athelstone's only son left home that 
 same evening, and the fact naturally gave rise 
 to much comment and conjecture. An attorney 
 
 from arrived at the Castle, in compliance 
 
 with his lordship's instructions, and certain 
 codicils were added to his will, which will be 
 named by-and-by. 
 
 Three days later, Thomas, ninth Baron 
 Athelstone, departed this life in the seventieth 
 year of his age.
 
 151 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 T\URING bis last hours, the old lord had 
 •^ mapped out, prospectively, his widow's 
 course of action with great completeness ; and, 
 in tracing her conduct, it will be understood 
 that she faithfully adhered to his instructions, 
 though the sharp and decisive lines of the 
 original plan were a little blurred in passing 
 through her hands. But for this, however, her 
 judgment could hardly have supported the 
 strain of regulating independent actions with- 
 out reference to her son. Happily, he accepted 
 with perfect docility all she proposed, as being 
 the last wishes of his father. Athelstone was 
 to be shut up; and immediately after the 
 funeral — it was then the beginning of Septem-
 
 152 POET AND PEER. 
 
 ber — they would start for the continent, and 
 pass the winter in Italy. If disposed to return 
 to Oxford and work for honours, in the spring, 
 he could do so. 
 
 He felt that this was the wisest plan, all 
 things considered. It was incumbent on him 
 to leave Athelstone, which was now full of sad 
 associations, not unmixed with self-reproach. 
 Though his father's fears had gone far in ad- 
 vance of the truth, there was no escape from 
 the conviction that the interest Wilfred had 
 shown in NelHe had occasioned comment that 
 might damage her, and that the discovery of 
 this had so agitated his father that it might 
 be said to be the remote cause of his death. 
 The old man's words rang in his son's ears ; 
 and Wilfred resolved that_, suffer as he might, 
 he would be better than his promise, and 
 resolutely avoid NelHe, if chance brought 
 them together. Absence was the only remedy 
 for the evil he had wrought. He did not 
 believe, as regarded her, that the mischief could 
 be lasting. As for himself, he would not, in 
 his present condition, attempt to analyse his
 
 POET AND PEER. 153 
 
 feelings. He had loved his upright, unvarying- 
 ly kind old father very truly, and the thought 
 that his last hours had been clouded by dis- 
 quietude concerning his son, cut the young 
 man to the heart. 
 
 It was in this frame of mind that he heard 
 his father's will read aloud, after the funeral, 
 with the codicil, bequeathing five hundred 
 pounds to Mrs. Dawson, if she should desire to 
 emigrate, and a further sum of five hundred 
 pounds to her daughter, on the day of her mar- 
 riage, provided that such marriage met with 
 Lady Athelstone^s approval. 
 
 To the trustees, who heard the codicil read, 
 it had no special significance : to Wilfred it 
 naturally had, and, as evidence of the dread 
 which absorbed his father's thoughts at the 
 last_, it added a stone to the cairn which had 
 accumulated on the young man's heart. The 
 thought that he was now absolute lord over 
 lands producing a clear rental of fourteen 
 thousand a year was far from being a consola- 
 tion, as it would have been to many. He cared 
 nothing for money; he hated trouble in any
 
 154 POET AND PEER. 
 
 direction Avhere daring individuality was 
 cramped. No original system of administering 
 an estate having occurred to him, he regarded 
 the responsihilities that now devolved upon the 
 possessor of the Barony of Athelstone with 
 little short of dread. And this reluctance to 
 assume responsihilities being the temper of his 
 mind at the moment was another reason why 
 he hailed with satisfaction a lengthened absence 
 from home. 
 
 Lady Athelstone had an interview with Mrs. 
 Dawson, whom she sent for, the following day. 
 It was Saturday, and on Monday Wilfred and 
 his mother were to leave the Castle. 
 
 This was what passed. 
 
 " I sent for you, Mrs. Dawson," began Lady 
 Athelstone, "instead of communicating the fiict 
 through the solicitor, to tell you that my dear 
 lord left you a legacy in his will, under certain 
 conditions." 
 
 " A legacy ? dear me ! my lady, I " 
 
 Lady Athelstone raised her hand from her 
 chin. 
 
 "Wait a minute. He has left you five
 
 POET AND PEER. 155 
 
 hundred pounds, provided you will emigrate — 
 that is, of course, if you have any desire to 
 do so." 
 
 "Any desire to emigrate?" repeated the 
 astounded Mrs. Dawson. '*No, my lady, I 
 haven't none. I'm sure it was most good of 
 my lord to think of me ; but what ever should I 
 do a " 
 
 " Wait a minute/' again interrupted Lady 
 Athelstone, and again she raised her hand. 
 ** You must hear all, and not decide rashl3^ 
 That is why I wanted to talk the matter over 
 with you. My dear lord was much interested 
 about Nellie." (This was strictly true, in a 
 certain sense.) " He thought that, with her 
 intelligence and — and good looks, you know, 
 she was likely to make a better marriage in the 
 Colonies than she could expect to make here." 
 (This, I fear, was not strictly true.) " He has 
 left another sum of five hundred pounds for her, 
 if she marries in such a way as I approve of." 
 
 Mrs. Dawson was struck dumb. She did not 
 know if she was in a dream. 
 
 "Dear! my lady," she faltered at last, "I
 
 156 POET AND PEER. 
 
 can scarce believe it — I, who never so much as 
 knew my lord had ever noticed Nellie . . . But 
 as to the emigration, my lady, I haven't no call 
 to reflect, for I couldn't do it. I've lived at 
 Kipple, and I'll die there, please God. Joshua 
 {that's my brother-in-law) wanted me to go and 
 live at Warmington, but I wouldn't, and it 
 would be worse to cross the seas, and go among 
 strange folk. I'm too old for it, my lady. I 
 hope you won't be displeased." 
 
 " Oh, no, Mrs. Dawson," replied Lady Athel- 
 stone, a little nervously. "It was only for 
 your own good^ and your daughter's, my dear 
 lord suggested it. In case you declined, he 
 desired me to try to find her a situation as 
 nursery-governess, which would be an advance- 
 ment on her present position. You would not 
 object to her leaving you, I suppose V" 
 
 " Well, my lady, I did hope to keep her here 
 a bit." 
 
 *'But for her advancement, you know?" 
 
 " Oh I In course, if — if it's for her good, I 
 can't say nothing, my lady ; only she is not 
 over-strong, you see."
 
 POET AND PEER. 157 
 
 *' That is just it. She wants the best nour- 
 ishment, and light work. This school-teaching 
 is too much for her." 
 
 " Very well, my lady — anythiug but to emi- 
 grate ; not that." 
 
 Lady Athelstone looked abstractedly at a 
 paper-weight on the table before her, and 
 mechanically moved ,it. Then she moved it 
 back to its original position. Had she done 
 all that was demanded of her ? Had she failed 
 in carrying out her lord's instructions to the 
 letter ? No ; if she had not pleaded the cause 
 of emigration with the earnestness which a 
 conviction of its importance in this case could 
 alone have given her, she had repeated what 
 she had been told to say, and it only remained 
 for her now to write certain letters in the girl's 
 behalf. Her conscience would then be clear. 
 
 *' I am going abroad with my son," she said, 
 looking up, after a pause, ^^ and we shall be 
 absent all the winter. I will write to some 
 institutions and offices for the employment of 
 young women where I am well-known ; and, if 
 Nellie has any applications during my absence,
 
 158 POET AND PEER. 
 
 the ladies can be referred to me, and to the 
 schoolmistress. Now, I will detain you no 
 longer, Mrs. Dawson, for I have a great deal to 
 do ; but I made a point of seeing j^ou myself; 
 and remember that, if at any time you change 
 your mind about emigrating, it will be a pleas- 
 ure to me to carry out my lord's views." 
 
 " I haven't words, my lady, to thank you 
 enough for all your kindness," said Mrs. Daw- 
 son, in a tremulous voice, "nor yet to say, what 
 I hope you won't take it as a liberty, my lady, 
 how I feel for you in your trouble, which I've 
 known the like myself. May God support you, 
 my lady, under your loss. We know it's our 
 own loss, too, for there wasn't a better landlord 
 in all the country-side, though I make no doubt 
 that blaster Wilfred — that is, my lord — will 
 follow in his father's steps, and be a blessing 
 and a comfort to you, my lady, and an honour 
 to his name." 
 
 What comes from the heart goes to the heart, 
 if there be a heart to reach. Lady Athelstone 
 had not shed many tears since her husband's 
 death, which his long illness had so prepared
 
 POET AND PEER. . 159 
 
 her to expect that it was no shock when it 
 came ; and, not being of an emotional nature, 
 her feelings did not seek the relief which many- 
 demand. But she had a heart, and she did feel 
 more deeply than anyone guessed, except her 
 son, the severance of a companionship which 
 had never faltered in faithfulness for five and 
 twenty years. There had been nothing of 
 romance in their early attachment, nor was 
 there that close communion of souls in later 
 times which is like a glimpse of heaven given 
 to certain married lives. But they had suited 
 each other very well, for all that ; and Lady 
 Athelstone knew, with an instinct in advance 
 of her mental acuteness, that, in spite of the 
 affection which subsisted between herself and 
 her son, he would never open his heart un- 
 reservedly to her, never come to her in trouble 
 or annoyance, as his father had always done. 
 There was something lost from her life which 
 nothing could replace ; and the poor widow's 
 words, in their simplicity, touched a chord 
 which brought tears into the rich one's eyes. 
 She held out her hand.
 
 160 POET AND PEER. 
 
 " Thank you. I shall always remember your 
 sympathy with gratitude, Mrs. Dawson, and 
 shall always befriend NeUie, depend upon 
 that." 
 
 With what startling vividness she remember- 
 ed those words long afterwards! There are 
 moments in most lives, apparently unimportant, 
 which, for some unexplained cause, remain en- 
 graved on the memory. The sweet, refined 
 face of the poor woman, the unspoken trust 
 which shone in her eyes, as they met Lady 
 Athelstone's, were never forgotten by that 
 lady. 
 
 The next day was one of heavy showers, 
 alternating with half hours of a brilliant falla- 
 cious sunshine. Wilfred attended morning ser- 
 vice. He had done so, out of deference to his 
 father's views, during the old lord's life-time ; 
 and he would not seize the first opportunity of 
 proclaiming his emancipation from doctrinal 
 restraints. It was a trial ; he occupied the big- 
 pew alone ; he knew that the eyes of the curious 
 were upon it, and he felt as if he Avere a humbug. 
 The Psalmist, exultant in his own righteousness,
 
 POET AND PEER. 161 
 
 and cr^nng out for the extermination of his 
 enemies, had nothing in common with the 
 young man, nor had the venerable chronicler of 
 the bloody wars of Judah ; he wondered why 
 their utterances were read, and of what profit 
 they could ever be to anyone ; to him, at this 
 moment, they were so much sound and fury 
 signifying nothing. His thoughts were with 
 the old man who had gone to his rest, doubting 
 nothing, fearing nothing, able blindly to accept 
 all ; and Wilfred's heart, as he buried his head in 
 his hands, sighed — 
 
 " O, that it were possible 
 For one short hour to see 
 The souls we love, that they might tell us 
 What and where they be !" 
 
 Towards five o'clock that day, the sun shone 
 slantwise through the dripping red and yellow 
 leaves for the last time before it sank into the 
 belt of woods westward. Wilfred knew that 
 the afternoon service was over, and that the 
 churchyard was likely to be deserted at this 
 hour. He was minded ^o look once more on 
 the spot where his father lay, and, as if the 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1G2 POET AND PEER. 
 
 mute, unconscious clay could hear him^ to pour 
 out his heart on that spot in bitter self-reproach 
 to the departed shade whoni he had vexed so 
 sorely. His mind was in an abnormal condi- 
 tion ; neither his remorse nor his grief was al- 
 together natural and healthy. But for him, 
 his father might be alive at this moment. 
 That was the thought that haunted him. He 
 had behaved very wrongly about Nellie; his 
 conduct had been self-indulgent and mischiev- 
 ous, and the first to suffer from it was his up- 
 right, sensitively-honourable father. He de- 
 spised and loathed himself; and perhaps the 
 best thing for the girl was that she should be 
 brought to despise and loathe him too. He 
 would not see her willingly again for years, nor 
 would he write to her. But the reflection that 
 each action we commit carries consequences 
 with it that are interminable and incalculable, 
 forced itself inconveniently upon him. No ; the 
 laws of cause and effect were not to be 
 reversed for him, by profession or performance 
 either ; the past must, assuredly, bear its fruit
 
 POET AND PEER. 163 
 
 — uay_, had already borne it in one grievous 
 direction. 
 
 With his head buried on his chest, he 
 walked slowly up the churchyard. The place 
 was dark with wide-armed yews and tall black 
 cypresses, which almost completely shut out the 
 glimmering gold of the evening light. Not 
 until he was close upon the ivy-grown balus- 
 trade which fenced in the large square family 
 vault did he become conscious of a woman's 
 form, with her back towards him, within the 
 enclosure. She was scattering a few of the last 
 roses of autumn on the fresh-laid stone. At 
 the sound of Wilfred's approaching footstep, 
 she turned quickly round. A chance sunbeam 
 made an aureole of the soft brown hair, and the 
 face beneath looked that of a young saint. It 
 was Nellie. 
 
 He stood suddenly still ; nay, he drew back ; 
 the movement was not to be mistaken. 
 
 Pale and hesitating, she advanced towards 
 him. In order to escape from the enclosure, 
 she must pass close to where he stood. 
 
 m2
 
 164 POET AND PEER. 
 
 *' I beg your pardon, sir," she began, very 
 gently, " I — I did not know " 
 
 But he had started at the first sound of her 
 voice as if he were stung, and the strange, 
 almost savage air with which he glared at her 
 frightened her so much that she stopped short. 
 For one moment he hesitated ; then, with a 
 heavy sigh, and without a word, he turned 
 sharply on his heel, and walked rapidly away. 
 
 The girl clung to the railing, and presently 
 her wounded heart found relief in sobs. 
 
 " He is offended with me. I have done some- 
 thing wrong. AYhat, oh! what is it? He 
 never treated me so before ... he was always 
 so kind. Is it because I came here? I thought 
 no one would know it was me, and that he 
 would like to find the floAvers when he came. 
 And now he will go away, angry with me, and 
 I shall see him no more !" 
 
 He did go away the next day, and she saw 
 him no more. But his anger was directed all 
 against himself, and not against her. It would 
 have consoled the poor child, could she have 
 known it.
 
 165 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 TX December Wilfred and his mother were at 
 -*- Florence, and there they passed nearly the 
 whole winter. He had never been abroad 
 before, and decided to remain in the Tuscan 
 capital^ and see it and the neighbouring cities 
 thoroughly, rather than hurry through, with the 
 great tide of travellers, to Rome and Naples. 
 These should be left for another year, since it 
 was necessary that he should return to England 
 in March, to take his seat in the House of Lords. 
 Under the influence of sunshine, and the novelty 
 and interest of all that surrounded him, the 
 young man's mind soon recovered its tone. 
 The shock of his father's death was passed ; the 
 painful impression left on his heart by his part- 
 ing from Nellie^ his self-reproach and regretful
 
 166 POET AXD PEER. 
 
 retrospection, grew fainter and fainter as tlie- 
 weeks sped on. Perhaps it would have been 
 •unnatural had it been otherwise. He was still 
 very young, and his temperament was one of 
 which the morbidity found a safety-valve in poe- 
 try concerning his devastated youth; while its 
 buoyancy asserted itself in the keen pleasure he 
 experienced as he looked up from the banks of 
 the Arno and beheld Giotto's campanile clear 
 cut against the cloudless sky, or down from 
 San. Miniato on the city, lying like a jewel in 
 the lap of lilac-tinted hills. His imagination 
 was stirred b}^ those storied walls ; his senses 
 were quickened to appreciate the beauty of 
 things he had never before beheld. Art, as Art, 
 he did not understand ; but its poetical, imagi- 
 native, and historical qualities appealed strongly 
 to him. He stood among the tombs of Santa 
 Ooce ; he wandered among the cloisters of 
 Santa Maria Novella ; and peopled the arcades 
 of the Palazzo Publico with the shadows of the 
 mighty dead. 
 
 He only wanted some human sympathy^ 
 which he could not look for in his amiable
 
 POET AND PEER. 107 
 
 mother, to be really very happy ; and this he 
 found before long. Lady Athelstone took a 
 daily drive on the " Colle," or in the '' Cascine," 
 and passed the rest of the day immersed in cor- 
 respondence, chiefly on business. 
 
 Perhaps the complete change of climate, 
 scene, and association was better for her than 
 seclusion at Athelstone would have been ; but 
 it was not within the limit of possibilities that 
 those influences which operated so beneficially 
 upon her son should be felt by her. She 
 remained much depressed ; and neither Michael 
 Angelo nor Giotto availed to distract her 
 thoughts. She would like to say all the right 
 things about Florence when she left it ; but at 
 present her intercourse with her son was of an 
 afiectionate realism_, undisturbed by ulterior 
 considerations ; the quality of the beef, and the 
 odours of the Hotel d'Arno, being of more 
 interest and moment than the Tomb of the 
 Medici. 
 
 An old acquaintance of hers, Lady Bannock- 
 burn, with her daughter, Lady Frances Cope, 
 arrived at the same hotel; and Lady Athel-
 
 1G8 POET AND PEER. 
 
 stone, though she paid no visits, consented to 
 see them. After this, they " dropped in " very 
 often of an evening, and, the first impression, 
 of Lady Frances's plainness having worn off, 
 Wilfred found her a most agreeable companion. 
 He escorted them daily to one or other of the 
 palaces or villas, and the acquaintance very 
 rapidly ripened into an intimacy which Lady 
 Bannockburn viewed with great satisfaction. 
 
 Lady Frances was short and plain. But she 
 was clever, quick, and humorous ; she had read 
 a good deal, had considerable independence of 
 character, and very warm affections. Wilfred 
 had never met a young woman the least like 
 her. She amused — nay, she interested him, in 
 some degree. But his pleasure in her society 
 was chiefly due to the fact that he had found 
 himself appreciated. She argued with him, she 
 contradicted him ; but he felt that she under- 
 stood him. And that her society was congenial 
 he frankly — perhaps too frankly — evinced. His 
 mother only felt a sense of relief that his 
 thoughts had been diverted from the little 
 pupil-teacher. She attached no great import-
 
 POET AND PEER. 169 
 
 ance to the flirtation, if flirtation it was ; but 
 Lady Frances bad a considerable fortune, and, 
 regarded in every respect, she was — except the 
 mere shell — a desirable young person for Lord 
 Athelstone to marry. His mother was in no 
 hurry for this event ; and more brilliant daugh- 
 ters-in-law were, no doubt, waiting ready to 
 accept her peerless Wilfred when the moment 
 arrived for him to renounce his independence. 
 But he might do worse than marry Lady 
 Frances Cope ; and Lady Athelstone felt that, 
 for the time being, at any rate, this friendship 
 was a benefit to her son. 
 
 How the young lady viewed it will best be 
 fihown by some passages from letters to her 
 great friend, Miss Sylvia Brabazon, at Naples ; 
 to whom the reader will be introduced later. 
 The first of these ran as follows : — 
 
 " I wish I could describe Lord Athelstone to 
 you, dear Sylvia. He is a hero, begun with the 
 finest intentions by a sculptor who had not 
 quite enough marble to finish him. He is too 
 short (being a dwarf myself, I like tall men, 
 of course) ; but he has a handsome head, with a
 
 170 POET AND PEER. 
 
 very intellectual and speaking countenance, the 
 expression of which, unless he is bored, is 
 singularly agreeable. He has a charming 
 voice and manner, and there is something 
 about him quite unlike the ordinary young men 
 one meets. He seems to like being with us, 
 and, though we have only known him ten days, 
 we are already almost intimate. You see. Lady 
 Athelstone, being in the first three months of her 
 widowhood, goes nowhere, and her son knew 
 no one, and was quite alone until we came ; 
 and, though he talks a great deal about liking 
 solitude, he never refuses to join us in our 
 walks and drives, and he certainly seems more 
 cheerful than when we met him — without 
 knowing who he was — looking like Manfred, a 
 prey to gloomy thoughts, the day after our 
 arrival. At first I thought he rather encouraged 
 that resemblance ; he seemed made up of ice and 
 thunder ; scowled at us in the passage, and 
 bowed in the most freezing manner, without 
 ejaculating a sound, when he was introduced. 
 However, the sun broke through the thunder- 
 cloud at last, and then he did not take long to
 
 POET AND PEER. 171 
 
 melt. I wonder what you would think of hira, 
 dear; for 1 know no one whose opinion I value 
 as I do yours, and I cannot make up my own 
 mind. If he is as charming, on further acquaint- 
 ance, as he appears at first, you would agree 
 with me there are few men, out of a hook, to h& 
 found like him. His conversation is really 
 delightful ; all he says is so fresh and unex- 
 pected — sometimes even startling ; but I can 
 pardon anything that is original. He is a poet, 
 my dear, and (I imagine, for I have read nothing-^ 
 of his) of the most advanced modern schooL 
 Still one cannot listen to hira and not feel sure 
 that whatever he does must possess merit, how- 
 ever eccentric it may be. But I must not run 
 on, or you will think ... I do not know ivhat 
 you will think of your faithful and foolish 
 friend, F. C." 
 
 The next extract is from a letter written a 
 fortnight later. 
 
 •' Lord Athelstone repeated to me some of 
 his poetry yesterday. It is most musical, and 
 delightful to listen to ; but I felt a little bewil- 
 dered ; I am not sure that I understood it alL
 
 172 POET AND PEER. 
 
 He has apparently been very unhappy, for a 
 great deal of it is in a most miserable strain. 
 Can it be that, at his age, he has already been 
 disappointed in love? It seems to me impossi- 
 ble that anyone to whom he was attached could 
 remain insensible to his affection. He reminds 
 me of some poet of another age — Ariosto, per- 
 haps. There is a fire and tenderness, a resolute 
 and eloquent obstinacy in his discussions, very 
 unlike the curbed and careful utterances of most 
 of the men I know, who are not fools. 
 
 " He is sitting before the fire now, reading 
 * Galignaui,' and the lamplight falls upon his 
 head — let me sketch it for you. A massive 
 brow, from which the hair waves backwards in 
 a dark mass ; light grey eyes, over which the 
 lids droop languidly, and the black brows close 
 into one straight line above them, when the 
 interest or excitement that kindled their fire 
 dies down ; a perfectly cut nose, and delicate 
 little moustache, as yet too slight to veil (as it 
 one day will, no doubt) the only error of this 
 face — a mouth which, T. must confess it, is 
 somewhat large and sensual. Except this in-
 
 POET AND PEER. 173 
 
 fan tine moustache, there is no hair on his face, 
 and the shape of the chin and jaw, which are 
 firm even to obstinacy, rising from a throat like 
 that of Antinous, is perfectly displayed with the 
 loose open collar which he wears a la Byron. 
 
 " He is a great worshipper, by the way, of 
 this poet, whom it has been the fashion of late 
 years, he says, to under-rate. He wants me to 
 read everything Byron wa-ote, and is disgusted 
 with mamma for laying an embargo on ' Don 
 Juan.' Thereupon ensued a hot argument 
 between them ; mamma maintaining that the 
 knowledge of evil came to us all soon enough, 
 and that the longer a girl could be kept from it 
 the better; Lord Athelstone vehemently declar- 
 ing that human beings, when they arrived at 
 years of discretion, were meant to choose 
 between good and evil, and that it was a very 
 poor compliment to a girl to suppose she could 
 be hurt by ' Don Juan,' the many beauties of 
 which would enrapture her, while its immorality 
 would be distasteful. ' This is no question of a 
 compliment,^ mamma replied. ' It is a question 
 for judgment, founded upon observation. It is.
 
 174 POET AND PEER. 
 
 too much the fashion now for young women to 
 read everything. I do not think the tone of 
 their minds is improved ; there is no bloom left ; 
 nor is there any gain to compensate for this 
 loss.' 
 
 " Of course Lord Athelstone did not give in ; 
 he never does ; but in spite of his great clever- 
 ness, and of my desire to believe him right, I 
 think mamma had the best of it." 
 
 Again, three weeks later, she wrote as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " I am miserable and elated by turns, 
 Dearest Heart. Your warning came too late. 
 But of what avail are w^arnings in such a case ? 
 Had I been armed with warnings before we 
 €ver met, it would have been the same. God 
 knows whether I am deceived in thinking 
 W. A. cares about me ! I only know that, 
 intentionalbj or not, he has won my heart, and 
 that the past six weeks have sped like a dream. 
 Shall I wake and find it so ? Alas! I begin to 
 have my fears. Until three nights ago he 
 spent almost every evening with us. His 
 mother never came ; sometimes we went to
 
 POET AND PEER. 175 
 
 her ; but she often sent to say she was too tired 
 to receive us, and then Lord A. generally came 
 to our room. For the last three evenings he 
 has not done so. His manner is just as charm- 
 ing to me as ever ; he always delights in what 
 he calls ^ drawing me out ;' and on Wednesday, 
 when he drove us to the Poggio Imperiale, he 
 was in unusual spirits, and, as I was so too, we 
 talked a great deal of nonsense. He said it 
 was the pleasantest afternoon we had yet 
 passed in Florence. But, though we have 
 seen him since, he pleaded some excuse for 
 not accompanying us, as he had promised to do, 
 to Vinciliata on Friday, and again yesterday. I 
 asked him point-blank where he was going, 
 and he replied, ' to call on some Italians,' 
 whose acquaintance he had made at the 
 Pergola on Wednesday night. Mamma said I 
 ought not to have asked him ; but 1 cannot see 
 the harm, intimate as we have been. Yester- 
 day he brought us a basket of camelias and 
 violets ; but he did not remain ten minutes. As 
 we drove in the Cascine later, we saw him at 
 the door of a carriage drawn up in the square,
 
 176 POET AND PEER. 
 
 after the idiotic fashion of tliese Florentines, 
 who sit there, day after day, shivering in their 
 open carriages, listening to the compliments or 
 the gossip of the * golden youth' who crowd 
 round them. What an existence ! Is it possi- 
 ble that lie, with his high aspirations, his poetic 
 mind, should be content to swell such a 
 throng? The lady he was talking to was 
 dark, and looked quite old. I was glad to see 
 that." 
 
 Yet another ten days, and Miss Brabazon 
 received a sad letter from her friend, out of which 
 we take the following passage, which is the last 
 we shall quote from her correspondence : 
 
 *' Tt is all over. Everything is changed now. 
 I can no longer remain under a delusion. AVe 
 meet daily, sometimes in Lady Athelstone's 
 room, sometimes in the street, or on the stairs ; 
 and he has paid us tiuo visits — think of that ! 
 When we meet, he always seems desirous, for 
 the moment, to regain the footing from which 
 he has slid voluntarily away ; but it is useless. 
 His voice, his smile, are always the same — 
 always charming ; but there is an effort in his
 
 POET AND PEER. 177 
 
 uianner and conversation, which is apparent 
 even to mamma. Poor mamma I She little 
 guesses how deeply I have felt all this, for I 
 have from the first exercised all my powers of 
 repression, seeing how improbable it was that 
 such a man could really care for me. When 
 she animadverts severely upon his capricious- 
 ness, I try to laugh it off; but every word 
 drives a dagger into my heart. 
 
 '* And now you will ask, w^hat is the cause of 
 this change ? I am told it is the fascination of 
 a certain Madame liberties society — a woman 
 no longer young, nor even good-loohing, and of 
 very bad reputation, though she still lives with 
 her husband. Is it not dreadful to think that a 
 vile creature like this can attract such a man as 
 Lord Athelstone ? I do not understand it — 
 sometimes I refuse to believe it. But there is 
 the fact that every evening now he goes to her 
 box at the opera, and afterwards to smoke in 
 her horrid rooms. 
 
 " Mamma is indignant ; she says this is the 
 result of reading ' Don Juan,' and such litera- 
 ture. It is in vain that I have supplicated her 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 POET AND PEER. 
 
 not to let the smallest difference be apparent in 
 her manner ; it is no business of ours what 
 society he keeps; but she is too sincerely 
 interested in him not to let her anger be 
 apparent, and the result, I foresee, will be that 
 he will never come near us. As to Lady 
 Athelstone, who is most amiable, but may be 
 said to be a goose stuffed with sage opinions, 
 she says she is 'so glad dear Wilfred has 
 taken to going out a little again, now that it is 
 the fifth month, you know ; and it is so nice, he 
 has got into Italian society. Foreign society is 
 such an advantage.' Mamma, to do her justice, 
 never opens her lips to Lady Athelstone on the 
 subject. She says it is better that we should 
 leave Florence. Perhaps she is right. You 
 know we did not originally mean to remain so 
 long ; and, though I shall be unhappy wherever 
 I am, elsewhere I should not be subject to the 
 irritation and mortification which 1 now experi- 
 ence here daily. Though I try to keep up, and 
 make stupid little jokes, and wear a stereo- 
 typical grin on my ftice, I am cut to the heart. 
 I know I shall never care for any other man as
 
 POET AXD PEER. 179 
 
 I have done for this one, and I say to myself, 
 ^What a fool you have been to put all your 
 eggs into one basket, and set that on the head 
 of a man who capers about the world, and prob- 
 ably makes himself equally charming to every 
 woman he comes near.' Our lot is hard_, dear 
 Sylvia. We may sit in the sunshine, and accept 
 the fruit it pleases men to bring us ; we must 
 utter no murmur when they ride away in the 
 cool of the evening, and only the stalks and the 
 rind are left us to feed on through the long, 
 long night !" 
 
 Poor Lady Frances ! Yes, nothing but the 
 stalks and the rind were left you. The apples 
 were green, and would have proved very indi- 
 gestible for life's sustenance ; but they seemed to 
 you delicious in that brief Florence time, which 
 jou cannot bear to look back to now.
 
 180 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 nnHE lady to whom Atbelstone was presented 
 -^ the first evening he set foot wdthin the 
 *' Pergola/' and who has been named in the 
 foregoing letters as Madame Uberti, w^as a 
 person of considerable mark in the Florentine 
 world. Lady Frances had said truly she was 
 not very young ; but few men (at least, after 
 half an hour's conversation) would have ratified 
 her judgment that the lady was not good- 
 looking. She had beautiful eyes, a profusion 
 of black hair, and a faultless figure. Her fea- 
 tures were not regular, certainly ; but there was 
 a charm in her smile, and a honliomie in her 
 manner, that were irresistible to many. In 
 fact, she had the attraction that belongs sq
 
 POET AND PEER. 181 
 
 peculiarly to her nation, of perfect naturalness, 
 which made it impossible for anyone to feel ill 
 ^t ease in her company. Her salon was very 
 popular in consequence ; and, whatever people 
 might say behind her back, there was no one in 
 Florence whose invitations were more prized. 
 
 Madame Uberti was one of those soft, ease- 
 loving natures that like to see everyone around 
 them, including their husbands, happy, and all 
 the wheels of the domestic machinery well-oiled. 
 As neither of this amiable couple had the 
 shadow of a principle, or entertained any jea- 
 lousy of the other_, there was no obstacle to the 
 gratification of their separate inclinations, and 
 they lived most harmoniously, meeting at meals 
 — nay^ occasionally driving together, and lead- 
 ing absolutely separate lives. One man after 
 another had his seat, by a well-understood pre- 
 scriptive right, in Madame Uberti's box, and 
 was to be found, day after day, smoking his 
 cigarette in that lady's blue satin bergere 
 by the fire. Then his dominion — sometimes 
 abruptly, sometimes gradually — came to an 
 'end, and another reigned in his stead. There
 
 182 POET AND PEER. 
 
 was no violent disseverance; like over-ripe fruity 
 they dropped from the bough, and were swept 
 away. 
 
 This was just the woman to obtain a brief 
 ascendancy over Wilfred Athelstone at this 
 early stage of his career. She attacked that 
 side of his character which was weak, and, as 
 yet, comparatively untried. The Italian nature, 
 with its frank flattery, its momentary fervours, 
 its self-indulgence, and its amiability, the 
 existence steeped in oblivion of all beyond the 
 present moment, the sans gene of society at the 
 Palazzo Uberti, were new experiences; and the 
 unknown had always an attraction for him. It 
 was a relaxation, too, after the hard high 
 standard of Lady Bauuockburn, and the 
 intellectual qui vive on which he had been kept 
 by Lady Frances. No bow can stand too long 
 tension ; and he remembered in those days that 
 the greatest minds had generally found solace 
 in Avomen who were, so to speak, pillows of 
 softness, and not boards of mental resistance. 
 He sank into the blue satin hergcre^ and watch- 
 ed the clouds of smoke curl upwards to the
 
 POET AND PEER. 183 
 
 painted ceiling, while he composed couplet after 
 couplet in praise of Madame Uberti's charms. 
 Her arms, her throat, her chin, the pulsations of 
 her heart, the perfume of her hair, were 
 chronicled in alliterative verse of great ingenu- 
 ity and uncastigated exuberance. There seem- 
 ed no reason^ indeed, why they ever should 
 stop ; for, though the human body would not 
 appear to be an inexhaustible theme, the changes 
 that may be rung upon every portion of it are 
 of endless variety. He thought of Byron at 
 the feet of another fair Florentine ; but it did 
 not strike him that Byron's instinct was too jBne 
 to destroy the effect of one touch of colour by 
 loading his canvas with all the other tints 
 upon his palette. 
 
 I have no wish to linger over this episode 
 in Wilfred's career. It lasted but two months, 
 and then Madame Uberti passes from these 
 pages to be seen no more ; while, except for 
 that influence which every action of a man's life 
 has upon his character, Wilfred's intimacy with 
 her brought no consequence, and left but little 
 trace behind.
 
 184 POET AND PEER. 
 
 I could not_, however, be altogether silent on 
 the subject, for reasons that will be apparent 
 by-and-by ; since the fact was soon known in 
 England to all who were interested in Lord 
 Athelstone's future. It offered some obstruction 
 to the clear caligraphy of eulogiuin in which 
 the name of a youth so endowed was sure to be 
 inscribed ; as an inequality on the surface of a 
 fair sheet of paper makes the pen splutter that 
 would fain glide over it. The pen does glide 
 on again ; but the splutter remains. 
 
 His mother came to him one morning towards 
 the end of February, and said, 
 
 " I think it would be better — I wish, indeed, 
 to return to England now. The wind is 
 getting very cold here — and there are those 
 leases — and then your seat in the House, dear, 
 and altogether I believe it is best." 
 
 " If you feel the wind cold here, my dear 
 mother, what will you do in England ?" 
 
 " Oh ! it is not the same thing there, in one's 
 own warm hou^se — and I want to get back to 
 it, dear. There are so many things to arrange 
 —so much I left undone, coming away in that
 
 POET AND PEER. 185 
 
 sad hurry — and, besides, you talk of going to 
 Rome next winter." 
 
 " Yes ; but Florence is just beginning to be 
 delightful now — in the spring." 
 
 *' Oh ! the heat of the sun here will be very 
 trying soon_, and " 
 
 " Why, just now you complained of the cold 
 wind." 
 
 " So I do ; but I am sure it would be worse if 
 it were hot. T shall be quite glad to get away 
 from these nasty smells. They are reall}^ too 
 dreadful. I feel as if I should have typhoid 
 fever, if w^e stayed here till it got really warm." 
 
 " I never heard you complain of them 
 before," said her son, as he turned away. 
 
 The explanation of this sudden desire to 
 quit Florence was not far to seek, though 
 "Wilfred did not surmise it. 
 
 The Bannockburns had departed that morn- 
 ing, and on the previous evening, in wishing 
 Lady Athelstone good-bye, her friend's reti- 
 cence, which had been proof against great and 
 increasing irritation all these weeks, partially 
 gave way.
 
 186 POET AND PEER. 
 
 "If you have your sou's real interests at 
 heart, my dear Lady Athelstoue, I must warn 
 you that the sooner you can quit Florence the 
 better. If I were not going away myself, for 
 obvious reasons, my tongue would be tied. 
 But I cannot see a young man drifting away 
 to destruction, and not do something — if only 
 for your sake — to try to save him !" 
 
 "Good gracious! Lady Bannockburn, what 
 do you mean ? ' Drifting away to destruction ' ? 
 Impossible ! Wilfred, I am glad to say, has 
 never had any taste for gambling, or low com- 
 pany, and I am sure a better son " 
 
 " I know that,'' interrupted Lady Bannock- 
 burn, with some sharpness ; " and as to low 
 company — no, it would be almost less danger- 
 ous if he icere addicted to it, my dear friend. 
 An entanglement in his own sphere is so much 
 
 "An entanglement in his own sphere? Oh! 
 Lady Bannockburn, what do you mean ? I 
 brought him here on purpose to break off " 
 
 She stopped short, and grew red and white. 
 It was very foolish to allude to Nellie Dawson,
 
 POET AND PEER. 187 
 
 she knew; but she felt so nervous, she hardly 
 Avas conscious of what she said till the words 
 were beyond recall. 
 
 Lady Bannockburn, like a well-bred woman^ 
 did not ask for a completion of that sentence. 
 She covered her friend's confusion by replying 
 quietly, 
 
 " The very air of this vicious place is poison 
 to a young man. The Italian society he fre- 
 quents is corrupt — the house he frequents most 
 is, I am told, one of the worst. I can say no 
 more. After this, you must be guided by your 
 own judgment as to the length of your stay 
 here." 
 
 Lady Bannockburn was as good as her word ; 
 she could not be brought to say more than this, 
 but it was enough for Wilfred's anxious mother. 
 Whether this thing was true or not — true, that 
 is, to its worst extent — it behove her to remove 
 her darling out of temptation's way. Lady 
 Bannockburn, she felt, was sore at the intimacy 
 between him and her daughter having cooled ; 
 it was probable that she exaggerated matters ; 
 but there was something — or, at all events, the
 
 188 POET AND PEER. 
 
 world would suppose there was something ; and, 
 for once, she felt tolerably sure her judgment 
 was not at fault in following the path to which 
 Lady Banuockburu had acted as a finger- 
 post. 
 
 Wilfred walked away ; it was a bore to leave 
 Florence just now ; he would like to have re- 
 mained six weeks, or it may be two months, 
 longer ; to have visited the Villa Uberti up in 
 the Apennines, when its fields were carpeted 
 with April flowers ; to have wandered, and 
 sketched, and written verses under the sweet 
 influences of " climate and the afiections," as the 
 lady says in " Lothair." But that the affections 
 were uot very strong, not strong enough to 
 resist the strain of so small an exigency as this, 
 might be inferred from the ease with which he 
 decided that it was difficult to let his mother 
 return to England alone, and impossible to 
 urge her remaining abroad, against her inclin- 
 ation. 
 
 Could Lady Bannockburn have known that 
 they were not gyves of iron, but ropes of sand, 
 which had bound him, that vigilant and ad-
 
 POET AND PEER. 189 
 
 mirable mother might have been yet further 
 exasperated. 
 
 As he walked down the Lung' Arno, medi- 
 tating how he should break to his fair friend 
 the fact of his approaching departure, he nearly 
 ran against a tall, heavily-built young man, in 
 the nnmistakeable shooting-jacket and round 
 hat of the travelling Englishman. Wilfred did 
 not look up ; he was mentally rehearsing the 
 scene at the Casa Uberti, when a hand was laid 
 on his shoulder. 
 
 " Hallo, Athelstone !" 
 
 " Why, St. John, old fellow, where do you 
 come from ? How long have you been 
 here?" 
 
 "I come straight from England. I only 
 arrived last night." 
 
 "And how long do you stay? Where are 
 you going?" 
 
 "I am thinking of going to Corsica in a few 
 days. Will you come ?" 
 
 " Hm ! I don't say no. I must think about it. 
 I should like nothing better than a little tour 
 with you ; but there's my mother "
 
 190 POET AND PEER. 
 
 The 3'oung men had not met for some years, 
 -and both were changed, but Hubert St. John 
 perhaps the most so, for he was three years 
 Wilfred's senior. The coarse features which, in 
 Eton days, had been characterized by a strength 
 and decision unusual in a boy, were in some 
 measure relieved now by a fair bushy beard. He 
 was unquestionably ugly, and there was little 
 vivacity to redeem the ugliness ; but it was an 
 interesting face, for all that. The brow, be- 
 neath a shaggy mane of dull brown hair, was 
 corrugated with horizontal lines, and impended 
 somewhat over a nose of that andeterminate 
 shape, which the clever author of '' Notes on 
 Noses" designates as cogitative. The passion 
 of the wide-spread nostrils, however, belonged 
 more to the man of energy and action, than to 
 the student or philosopher. The eyes were 
 small but clear, and of singular directness in 
 their glance. The habitual expression of the 
 face was one of melancholy; but gleams of 
 humour and sarcasm flashed over it in conver- 
 sation, and at times a look of infinite tender- 
 ness came into the eyes.
 
 POET AND PEER. 191 
 
 Instead of three, there seemed to be thirteen 
 years' difference between the two friends now ; 
 life's stream having carried the one rapidly 
 along, through vicissitude, sorrow, and convic- 
 tion, while with the other it had crept between 
 the flower-fed banks of prosperity, fretting over 
 the little pebbles of its daily course, unvexed by 
 eddies, unopposed by rocks. 
 
 *'Is it true you are going to be married?" 
 said St. John. "I heard so in London." 
 
 " To whom, pray ? It is the first I have heard 
 of it." 
 
 *^ Lady Frances Cope — a charming girl, I was 
 told." 
 
 " What nonsense !" He flushed, and looked 
 annoyed, however, as he continued, "Just be- 
 cause we were great friends here ! She is the 
 last girl I should think of marrying, however 
 . . . not that I mean to marry for an age. I 
 am only beginning to know the sex. I must 
 have more p re-matrimonial experience first." 
 
 " You will be married before two years are 
 over," replied St. John, with an incredulous 
 smile. '^ You are just the fellow to meet with
 
 192 POET AND PEER. 
 
 your 'fate' early, and then to the wind with 
 your resolutions !" 
 
 Wilfred shook his head. 
 
 **No; I may have momentary aberration. I 
 may be carried awa}' to — to a certain point ; 
 but marry — no, I never " 
 
 He looked over the glittering Arno, and in- 
 stead of the Ponte alle Grazie^ and the dome of 
 the Carmine beyond, a little face arose he had 
 once believed to be his '' fate." He stopped 
 short. Somehow, the conviction that what he 
 was about to say was not true smote him. 
 How sorrowful, how reproachful that little face 
 looked ! His resolutions had not been scattered 
 to the winds. But Madame Uberti? 
 
 It all flashed by him in that moment's pause. 
 Then, rousing himself, he said, quickly, 
 
 " And you ? You have been in India these 
 three years. Did you never think of marrying 
 there ? Tell me all about yourself." 
 
 A cloud of pain crossed St. John's fiice. He 
 looked at his friend fixedly for a moment. 
 
 "No, I never thought of marrying. Some 
 day or other I may tell you what befell me in
 
 POET AND PEER. 193 
 
 India — as a warning, Athelstone — but not now. 
 My father was a judge, as you know. He died 
 there last summer, so I threw up my office and 
 came back in the autumn." 
 
 "Why did you do that?" 
 
 " Oh ! for several reasons. I hated office 
 work, and there were circumstances which ren- 
 dered my remaining in Calcutta very painful. 
 Besides, my father left me far better off than I 
 expected. Not that that would be sufficient 
 excuse for being idle. Every fellow is better 
 for work. Unfortunately, I am now too old to 
 grind away at a profession." 
 
 " Why not turn artist ? You have plenty of 
 talent." 
 
 '^A certain amount," replied his friend, simply. 
 '' Enough for the amusement of an amateur, not 
 for the vocation of a painter." 
 
 "Stuff! You have more than half the 
 painters whose works are exhibited in the 
 Academy." 
 
 "I don't think it is worth while adding to 
 the amount of indifferent pictures in the world. 
 If I believed in myself, the want of training all 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 1 94 POET AND PEER. 
 
 these years should not prevent my setting to 
 work at anatomy, and all the rest of it now. 
 As it is, I mark, learn, and inwardly digest the 
 good things in nature and in art that I see ; and 
 some day or other you may find me blossoming 
 out into that wonderful exotic of recent times — 
 the art-critic, with all his jargon of word- 
 painting." 
 
 *' Well, I know nothing about art, but I be- 
 lieve these critics you laugh at have done good 
 work — destroyed some of the old fetish-worship, 
 and taught people to look and judge for them- 
 selves." 
 
 His friend returned, with an amused look, 
 
 " You were always apt to do that about 
 everything, Athelstone. Have you given up 
 holding forth about liberty of opinion, and so 
 on?" 
 
 " My views are only strengthened with time. 
 As to ' holding forth ' " 
 
 " You will have an opportunity of doing that 
 in the House. A Radical lord will be a variety." 
 
 Wilfred laughed. 
 
 *'Come and dine with me at seven. We
 
 POET AND PEER. 195 
 
 will have a smoke and chat afterwards." 
 He had little admiration, and less reverence^ 
 for most living men : the poets, the philoso- 
 phers, the politicians of the day, he generally 
 "pooh-pooh'd." But for this Hubert St. John 
 at Eton he had always felt a regard, blent with 
 a strange measure of respect for a lad only 
 three years his senior; and, as he now parted 
 from his friend, he fell to moralizing upon the 
 unusual character which had stood out in relief 
 from his other companions. 
 
 " It is very odd that he should have liked me. 
 We had nothing in common, except that I took 
 an interest in his drawing. He thrashed that 
 bully Norton, who had kicked me — that was the 
 first thing drew me to him. I used to call him 
 ' Sir Galahad,' because he was so chivalrous — 
 always succouring the oppressed. I wrote a 
 poem about him. He tore it up, and said I was 
 a young ass. I don^t think he ever appreciated 
 my poetry. I wonder whether he would do so 
 more now ? He could be awfully passionate, I 
 remember ; though he generally had his pas- 
 sion wonderfully under control for a boy. 
 
 0-2
 
 196 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Took 110 end of prizes, I remember, though it 
 was more by his determination and persever- 
 ance, I fancy, than by transcendent talent. 
 He never cared for anything light— anything 
 fanciful ; he was always so awfully earnest. 
 That's what makes him look so melancholy 
 now. He has loved ' not wisely, but too well * 
 — of course. Poor old Hubert ! Well, of all 
 the fellows I have ever known, he is the one in 
 whom T would soonest trust." 
 
 How much reason he had to think thus, the 
 reader will see, if he has patience to follow 
 Wilfred Athelstone's career.
 
 197 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ■" TIT HAT have you been doing here for the 
 ^ ^ last three months ?" asked St. John ot 
 his friend that eveniog. 
 
 '* Studying Italian character, chiefly," replied 
 Wilfred, after a moment's hesitation. ^' First 
 its art and literature ; secondly, in its people." 
 
 " Talking of literature, have you given up 
 writing poetry? You had a turn that way." 
 
 Wilfred did not like the expression — *^ A turn 
 that way !" It was clear his friend had been in 
 India, and was not aware with what enthusi- 
 asm and reprobation his fugitive verses had 
 been received in fashionable literary circles, 
 and to what lively discussions they had given 
 i'ise. He rose, however, and, walking to a
 
 198 POET AND PEER. 
 
 drawer, took out a pile of MSS., and said, 
 
 " If yon care to hear them, these are some 
 of the last thiugs I have written," and he 
 began reading a sonnet in the deep rhythmical 
 sing-song which is the triumph of sound over 
 sense, affected by many latter-day poets. 
 
 St. John was silent for a few moments. 
 
 " I am not sure that I quite understand it, 
 but the versification is clever, and the lines 
 melodious. You always had great verbal fa- 
 ciHty." 
 
 " Men like you, Hubert, seldom judge of 
 poetry by the only right standard. You want 
 the dry meaning of every word ; whereas it is 
 the feeling evoked, the imagination stirred, 
 by the general colour of a poem, you should 
 consider." 
 
 '' Certainly I want thoughts I can understand. 
 My imagination refuses to be stirred without 
 that. Surely words are like beautiful clothes^ 
 meant to adorn the body underneath, not to 
 conceal emptiness and a few wires, like a 
 dressmaker's stand." 
 
 '' Well, if you want a human body, here is a
 
 POET AND PEER. 199 
 
 poem about one. Perhaps you will understand 
 i/u's," said the poet, with a slight touch of scorn ; 
 and he began to read a poem consisting of 
 forty couplets, inspired — if such a word is ad- 
 missible — by the charms of Madame Uberti. 
 
 "I do understand that," said St. John, taking 
 the pipe out of his mouth, when Wilfred had 
 finished. " I do understand all that, and I 
 must say I don't care for it. It is like an 
 auctioneer's list of a woman^s attractions. I 
 don't see the use of writing that sort of thing." 
 
 " It is anacreontic ; of course, if you can't 
 throw yourself into the spirit of the singer, it is 
 not to be argued about. All human passion 
 has a certain sacredness about it — is a worthy 
 theme for the poet — and the gist of my poem 
 (perhaps you missed it ?) lies in that verse — 
 
 " ' It is not for these I have woo'd thee, 
 As the wind woo'd the mountains of old ; 
 It is not for these I have sued thee, 
 
 As the sun sues the rose to unfold, 
 The fragrance of thyme from the summit, 
 
 The passion of scent from the south. 
 It kissed, and I could not o'ercome it, 
 
 The warm breath of love from thy mouth !' "
 
 200 POET AND PEER. 
 
 *' Humph ! There is a great deal to get to 
 so little, Athelstone. I think you might do 
 much better than that if you had a mind ; you 
 used to be interested in deeper matters. Have 
 you uothing there that is more thoughtful — 
 more in that line ?" 
 
 "Oh! yes. Here is a thing I sent to the 
 * Pantheon ' a few months ago, and which 
 had a good deal of success. But I doubt 
 whether you will like it. You are orthodox, I 
 know." 
 
 They were fiery verses, written in one of his 
 combative moods, directed against all formu- 
 las of Faith, and far more intolerant than 
 the intolerance they deprecated. There was 
 nothing new in them ; St. John had heard the 
 same cry repeatedly, in less hysterical prose. 
 Still he was bound to admit that some of the 
 lines had a fine ring that was calculated to 
 carry away a hearer who was more open to the 
 impressions of rhyme than reason. 
 
 *' The worst of them," he continued, *' is, that, 
 in spite of their vehemence, they don't bring 
 with them any sense of your conviction to me.
 
 POET AND PEER. 201 
 
 You can't believe all you say there ; it is impos- 
 sible — 
 
 " ' The righteous, whose rigour and rancour 
 Have blighted the young buds, like frost . . .' 
 
 You can't believe that the effect of all righteous- 
 ness is to blight, sadden, and destroy? You 
 must have known good people whose religion 
 was a living faith, working in their lives, and 
 tending to make them really happier ?" 
 
 " Yes ; but they are the exceptions. I see 
 lying, worldliness, and greed, hand in hand 
 with long prayers, fasting, and all the rest of 
 it; and I say, if those people believe in their 
 religion, what is it worth to them ? They put 
 it on and off at their church- doors, like shoes 
 at the door of a mosque. But the fact is, not 
 one tenth of the people who go to church do 
 believe. They go from habit — for 'example's 
 sake,' or out of regard to the wishes of those 
 they love, and among the latter is myself. If 
 men really believed what they pretend, they 
 could not lead the lives they do." 
 
 '• Do you think there is any scheme, compact, 
 or career possible to Humanity, that can com-
 
 202 POET AND PEER. 
 
 iiiand thorough sincerity ? How many books, 
 how many pictures, how many lives are lies ! — 
 self-deceptions, sometimes, but none the less 
 untrue to some portion of the inner man. Do 
 you remember what Faust says about our two 
 angels — our double nature? How can we 
 expect absolute thoroughness in religion, when 
 we find it in nothing else ?" 
 
 '* But, as I pointed out just now, St. John, 
 religion is a vremium upon insincerity." He 
 stood up, and kicked vigorously at the wood- 
 fire, then faced about, having gathered his 
 antagonistic forces in hand, and continued — " It 
 is far worse than any other insincerity can be 
 in life, because it eats into the heart of what 
 ought to be proof against all humbug. How 
 can a structure built up of a lot of fables — 
 which were all very well in the infancy of the 
 world, but which no one believes now — be a 
 citadel of truth and a refuge? How can it 
 stand against the beleaguering armies of science, 
 when its own garrison is split up into fifty dif- 
 ferent sections? It served its purpose once; 
 everything does in this world of progress ; but
 
 POET AND PEER. 203^ 
 
 it is obsolete, an anachronism ; we have got 
 beyond it." 
 
 "Beyond it? and where f said St. John, 
 with a sigh. "Into chaos — into a world with- 
 out form, and void ; while the conditions of 
 Humanity remain the same. If you destroy, 
 without giving us anything in its place, shall 
 we be the better or the happier for that ? Are 
 we so much cleverer than Plato, or Marcus 
 Aurelius, or Thomas a Kempis, or Shakspere (1 
 take great names at hazard, no matter what 
 their faith), that we can be cut adrift from all 
 beliefs, and not be sufferers by it ?" 
 
 "I don^t want men to be cut away from all 
 belief — only from priestcraft and the dogmatism 
 of the Church." 
 
 "For which you would substitute some sort 
 of Pantheism, I suppose ?" 
 
 " I don't care much what you call it. I 
 believe in a First Cause, and in Nature's un- 
 erring laws. I believe in that 'absolute religion 
 which is hidden in all other religions,' as 
 Theodore Parker says. But I loathe and 
 abominate the endeavour to cram doctrines-
 
 204 POET AND PEER. 
 
 down men's throats which then- reason repu- 
 diates, and from which their sense of justice 
 revolts." 
 
 ^' That is all very well ; but how do you 
 decide what is right from what is wrong, if 
 you reject all authority except Nature ? The 
 conscience of a man who has no unalterable 
 standard of right and wrong is certainly not to 
 be trusted. He may be high-minded, benevo- 
 lent, patriotic ; and, because he does not recog- 
 nise any Divine law over-ruling what he con- 
 siders an heroic impulse for the good of his 
 fellow-men, he may become a regicide. That's 
 where Nature's laws land 3'ou." 
 
 "The conscience of civilized man in the 
 present state of the world denounces any crime 
 against his fellow. Aberrations cannot be used 
 as arguments." 
 
 '' But our civiHzed consciences are addition- 
 ally open to sophistry," St. John said, quickly. 
 Then he stopped and looked, as if he hesitated 
 to continue. " I can only speak for myself," 
 he added, after a pause. *' Doctor Johnson said 
 that every man knows j^^'ohahli/ worse of him-
 
 POET AND PEER. 205 
 
 self than he certainly knows of his neighbour. 
 Experience has taught me that conscience can 
 be made, by plausible arguments, to accept any- 
 thing — will drift hither and thither with the 
 tides of opinion — until anchored to a rock from 
 which it cannot break away." 
 
 The conversation between the two friends 
 continued far into the night. Wilfred fought 
 with all the intemperate zeal of an enthusiast 
 for theological and intellectual freedom ; Hu- 
 bert's arguments did not touch him. Perhaps 
 few arguments ever do, in a discussion of this 
 kind; the combatants stand too far apart. 
 Hubert did not expatiate upon his past. The 
 longer he talked to Wilfred, the stronger his 
 conviction grew that his friend would profit by 
 by no vicarious experience. He must "learn in 
 suifering " something better worth teaching '^ in 
 song" than the worship of Liberty, and the 
 destruction of Law. 
 
 Nevertheless, as I look back upon the past, I 
 am disposed to regard it as very unfortunate 
 that circumstances prevented Wilfred Athel- 
 stone accompanying his friend to Corsica at this
 
 ^06 POET AND PEER. 
 
 time. The influence of one mind upon another 
 in daily intercourse may be incalculable, how- 
 ever valueless the result of a mere contest of 
 opinions may prove. Lady Athelstone urp;"ed 
 her son so strongly to return to England with 
 her (fearing, I have no doubt, that he might 
 be lured back to Florence from Corsica), that 
 Wilfred felt he had no choice but to yield. He 
 was never inconsiderate of her comfort ; in all 
 that concerned her personally, he was amiable 
 and self-denying, though he often ran counter 
 to her wishes in other respects. 
 
 So the two friends parted, not to meet again 
 for months, and then only casually. The sad 
 and solitary man went and took counsel of 
 nature as to what he should do with his future ; 
 the spoilt child of fortune returned to the small 
 world where this lover of liberty reigned 
 an autocrat, and to the bigger world where 
 his vanity was ministered to in a thousand 
 ways.
 
 207 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 T ADY ATHELSTONE, along with her in- 
 ^ decision and mistrust of her own percep- 
 tions, worked with the steady perseverance 
 and untiring energy of a mole for the attain- 
 ment of any object the accomplishment of 
 which she had at heart. She had given herself 
 infinite pains, while in Florence, to secure for 
 Nellie Dawson a good situation as nursery 
 governess. Until this was accomplished, she 
 felt that it was out of the question to think of 
 returning to Athelstone. Her son's interests 
 demanded that the girl should be removed ; 
 her kindliness demanded that this should not 
 be at the expense of Nellie's comfort, but
 
 208 POET AND PEER. 
 
 that it should be a benefit to her in eveiy 
 way. 
 
 Lady Athelstone had advertised for some 
 weeks, had written letters to various societies 
 in London on her protegees behalf, and had 
 answered several letters from ladies requiring" 
 a domestic slave to undertake the rudimentary 
 education of their children^ before the right 
 situation offered. 
 
 Mrs. Goldwin was known to Lady Athel- 
 stone, not only as the wife of a rich shipbuilder 
 in the north, but as a perfect lady of very culti- 
 vated tastes, whose health was indifferent, and 
 who led, in consequence, a somewhat retired 
 life. She had two children, to whom she was 
 devoted, and Nellie would therefore possess the 
 rare advantage of close and constant intercourse 
 with a woman of refined and elevated character. 
 Lady Athelstone did not hesitate to accept for 
 her protegee the liberal terms which Mrs. Gold- 
 win offered. It was the position, of all others, 
 best suited to the girl's present needs, as she 
 wrote to tell Mrs. Dawson, who, though sorely 
 troubled at parting with her daughter, thank-
 
 POET AND PEER. 209 
 
 fully assented to Lady Athelstone's arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 All this had happened some weeks before the 
 departure from Florence, and Nellie had been 
 established nearly a month at the Gold wins, in 
 Northumberland, when Wilfred and his mother 
 returned home. 
 
 It was then the middle of April. Wilfred had 
 arrived in London in time to take his seat before 
 the Easter recess, had elected not to return to 
 Oxford, and was now at Athelstone with his 
 mother, occupied with business matters which 
 demanded his attention. 
 
 He announced many strange doctrines upon 
 tenant right, which made his father's old steward 
 open his eyes_, and shake his head with a sigh ; 
 but his dealings with the farmers and cottagers 
 on his property were not characterised by any 
 conspicuous acts of folly. Until one day, when 
 the bailiff declared the young lord had taken 
 clear leave of his senses. It was on this wise. 
 
 Lady Athelstone had, after much mental 
 exercise, broken to her son, while they were in 
 London, the fact of Nellie Dawson's removal 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 POET AND PEER. 
 
 from Ripple. Wilfred received the announce- 
 ment in silence. What could he say ? He knew, 
 in his heart, it was the best thing that could 
 have happened for them both. But he had been 
 making all manner of heroic resolves ; and to 
 find that these would be of none elBfect — that 
 the ground was cut away from him, so to speak 
 — and that no merit of self-sacrifice might now 
 be his, was a little trying, a little irritating to 
 one of his temperament. Had time and ab- 
 sence lessened the young girl's impression on 
 his heart? He answered no; and perhaps he 
 was right; for certainly no other image had 
 effaced or interfered with it. He thought of 
 the tender light in her eyes, he recalled tlie 
 sweet tones of her clear young voice, with as 
 vivid and passionate delight as he did the day 
 they parted. But the shadow of his father 
 stood between them. He had resolved to resist 
 the temptation against which the old lord had 
 so urgently warned him, but the temptation 
 was removed out of his path. He felt de- 
 frauded. 
 
 One morning he walked over to Ripple.
 
 POET AND PEER. 211 
 
 *' What accounts have you of Nellie, Mrs. 
 Dawson?" he asked, after he had sat down in 
 the widow's cottage. 
 
 '' The very best, my lord," replied the widow, 
 quickly. She was peeling some onions, and did 
 not look up ; but her face flushed slightly as 
 she continued — " She is quite happy and con- 
 tented, as I'm sure she's every reason to be. I 
 €ouldn^t have expected such good fortune for 
 her as to find such a home as she's got, and 
 such a lady as Mrs. Goldwin, my lord ; and I'm 
 sure I return my lady my most grateful 
 thanks." 
 
 *'We are both very much interested in her, 
 as you know, Mrs. Dawson," said Athelstone, 
 drawing patterns with his stick upon the 
 floor. 
 
 " Yes, my lord ; and my lady'll like to know 
 that the girl is making advances every day in 
 her studies, she tells me. Mr. Goldwin is a 
 great deal from home, and she reads to Mrs. 
 Goldwin of an evening when the children are 
 a-bed. The lady's a kind o' mother to her, and 
 never tires of explaining things to the girl, it 
 
 ?2
 
 212 POET AND PEER. 
 
 seems. It's a happy change from the drudgery 
 of school-teacher, which was almost too ranch 
 for her. It's only me as it comes hard on to 
 lose her ; but I don't mind, for I know she's a 
 deal happier than she could be with me here." 
 
 This was an unusually lon^ oration for Mrs. 
 Dawson ; she must have been moved by some 
 powerful motive to make it ; but it did not com- 
 pletely satisfy her auditor. Of course he was 
 glad that Nellie was in such good keeping; 
 glad to find that Mrs. Goldwin was a cultivated 
 as well as a kind woman ; glad that the girl 
 should have already attained to some moderate 
 degree of contentment. But, what! not a 
 regret for the past? A happy change to leave 
 Ripple, and his vicinity? The separation, 
 which he had nerved himself for with what he 
 believed to be an heroic effort, did it cause no 
 struggle in Nellie herself? He could not be 
 completely satisfied. He knit his brows and 
 sighed. 
 
 "^It must be a great trial to her all the same 
 to part from you and — and Ripple, Mrs, 
 Dawson."
 
 POET AND PEER. 213 
 
 " Oh ! she's a good child to me, my lord, and 
 an affectionate ; but life is all before her, and 
 new things is pleasant to the young. She was 
 glad to leave Ripple, though she's as fond of 
 me as I could wish ; but she knows as it's for 
 her good, and so do I." 
 
 " We know that physic is good for us^ but it 
 does not make us relish it. Mrs. Dawson, you 
 have occupied this cottage ever since you mar- 
 ried, have you not?" 
 
 '* Yes, my lord ; nineteen years come Michael- 
 mas." 
 
 " Well, you would be sorry to be turned out. 
 Life is uncertain ; my possession here may be a 
 short one. It is in my power to make over this 
 cottage to you, free, for the period of your life, 
 and I am going to execute a deed to that effect. 
 It will save you a few pounds, and my succes- 
 sor, if you live to see him, might raise the 
 rent." 
 
 " Vm sure, my lord, I donH know how to find 
 words to " 
 
 '' Don't try, Mrs. Dawson. I know you are 
 grateful, and that is enough. Tell Nellie I have
 
 214 POET AND PEER. 
 
 been glad to do this for your sake and hers^ 
 -will you V" 
 
 Then he shook hands with the somewhat 
 bewildered woman, and left the cottage. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson stated the fact briefly when she 
 wrote to her daughter; she did not dilate on it, 
 nor did she give the young lord'^s message. 
 
 There was a fund of good sense in this gentle, 
 uneducated woman. She had got to see pretty 
 clearly how matters stood between the wilful 
 and ill-disciplined young man, whose heart had 
 many a kind impulse, but whose conduct was 
 at the mercy of every gust of passion, and her 
 pure and tender little daughter, whose health 
 had been so severely tried, in the past year, by 
 the straggle to overthrow the love which had 
 grown up within her unconsciously, year by 
 3^ear, since childhood. Something the poor girl, 
 in her bitter desolation and self-abasement, liad 
 let fall after Lady Atlielstone and her son were 
 gone abroad. It was but a few words, wrung 
 out, in the watches of the night, when slio was 
 ill, and her mother sat beside her bed. The 
 widow did not press her child to say more ; she
 
 POET AND PEER. 215 
 
 soothed her with gentle words of encourage- 
 ment and comfort ; then, as the girl grew better 
 able to bear the tonic of graver and stronger 
 language, Mrs. Dawson applied her styptic to 
 the wound with firm though loving hand. This 
 evil, which clung like a bind-weed round her 
 child's heart, must be plucked out, and trodden 
 under foot. There was no good to be got out 
 of it, only poisonous exhalation, which threat- 
 ened to destroy the healthy activity and equi- 
 poise of body and mind. Such was the spirit 
 and substance, if not the framework, of the 
 mother's exordium. 
 
 And, to outward seeming, it worked its 
 effect, though slowly, painfully, and after many 
 a hard-fought battle. When the time came 
 that Nellie should leave her home, she was pale 
 and thin, but quite composed. The great 
 sorrow in her eyes was hidden away ; she 
 smiled rarely, but had regained her strength, 
 and capacity of application, and self-control. 
 Mrs. Dawson was satisfied. 
 
 Nellie's new employer was at first puzzled and 
 disappointed to find the girl of scarcely seven-
 
 216 POET AND PEER. 
 
 teen she had hoped would be a blithe com- 
 panion to her children, so joyless and subdued. 
 But Mrs. Goldwin had keen instincts, as well as 
 a kind heart ; they led her to the conclusion 
 that there was some immediate cause for this 
 depression, which might be removed in time. 
 It was not natural that a well-grown girl 
 should rigidly perform her duties day by day, 
 and the sound of a glad laugh be never heard. 
 She would give her a trial ; and this was the 
 beginning of a course of wise and tender treat- 
 ment to which the young governess was sub- 
 jected at the hands of her mistress. Some of 
 Mrs. Goldwin's friends told her she would 
 completely spoil the girl — make her forget her 
 station — unfit her for the drudgery of a 
 nursery school-room. The lady smiled, and 
 heeded not. She had her own opinions upon 
 most matters ; and, being left at perfect liberty 
 by her husband to do as she liked, she seldom 
 troubled herself about the approval of others. 
 
 She led a very solitary life with her children, 
 Mr. Goldwin seldom being at home for more 
 than a few days, and her health obliging her to
 
 POET AND PEER. 217 
 
 remain a prisoner in the house during the 
 winter months. She read a great deal, and 
 enjoyed discussion upon what she had read, 
 having lived at one time in a circle of intel- 
 lectual men and women, who had fostered her 
 natural tastes. She rarely met anyone now 
 who talked about books ; the state of trade, the 
 weather, and the crops forming the main loaves 
 of conversation with her husband's friends, into 
 which a few plums of country gossip were sur- 
 reptitiously introduced by the wives from time 
 to time. 
 
 Perhaps it was less meritorious^ therefore, 
 than it might at first appear, when Mrs. Gold- 
 win, being interested in her young governess's 
 appearance, resolved to try the experiment 
 upon her of that education, so far higher and 
 more precious than all the teaching of the 
 schools, which constant intercourse with a 
 thoughtful, cultivated mind can alone give. 
 She found that Nellie's nature was not only far 
 more refined and sensitive than that of most 
 girls in a superior station of life ; it was also 
 siugularly receptive. Not that her memory, or
 
 218 POET AND PEER. 
 
 what is commonly called *' quickness/' -was re- 
 markable ; but her fine taste to distinguish 
 the true from the false in literature, her sym- 
 pathy Avith all that was noble, lier fancy, so 
 swift to follow wild flights of poetry, were 
 gifts which no artificial training can impart. 
 
 By slow degrees the poor little frozen heart 
 thawed under the warmth of kindness and con- 
 stant occupation for her thoughts. She had no 
 time to sit and meditate. During the day she 
 and the children were often with Mrs. Goldwin ; 
 driving with her, or walking beside her garden- 
 chair, as the spring came on, or playing about 
 the drawing-room, when she iiad no visitors ; 
 and, after the children were in bed, every even- 
 ing Mrs. Goldwin sent for her governess to 
 read and talk with her. The girl's mind 
 expanded like a flower. Her powers of reflec- 
 tion had been too early forced by circumstances, 
 perhaps, for the elasticity of youthful spirit ever 
 completely to return ; but before many weeks 
 w^ere passed Mrs. Goldwin saw that her children 
 laughed and romped fearlessly with their new 
 governess, and clambered upon her knee and
 
 POET AND PEER. 219 
 
 liugged her with a vehemence which spoke well 
 for the understanding that subsisted between 
 them. 
 
 Into Nellie's past she never inquired ; and the 
 girl would sooner have died than confess, even 
 to this excellent friend, the sorrow that had 
 x3vershadowed her young life. Alas ! at night, 
 when she knelt down beside her little bed, and 
 prayed, her lirst thought — she acknowledged it 
 with shame — was of liim. All else was still 
 secondary to that one idea. She might school 
 herself throughout the busy day ; she might, for 
 s, time, banish that image, but, at this hour^ 
 ^vhen the poor child laid bare her heart, she 
 €Ould no longer dissemble with herself. 
 
 " All thy best blessings, my Father, keep 
 for him. Guard him from harm ; give him true 
 wisdom ; and may the echo of his good deeds 
 reach me from afar. I ask no more than this. 
 I have sinned, Lord. What was I that I 
 should raise my eyes so high ? Thy hand hath 
 been laid heavily upon me, though not in 
 anger. I thank Thee for all thy mercies. Be 
 patient with me still.'^ 
 
 vol. i. p
 
 220 POET AND PEER. 
 
 This, or soraethiug like it, was the substance 
 of her prayer, night after night. The months 
 went by ; she never heard his name mentioned, 
 nor did her mother, since the return of the 
 family to the Castle, ever speak of the young 
 lord, after that brief statement to which I have 
 referred. 
 
 Mrs. Goldwin was too clever not to have 
 arrived at some approximation to the truth as 
 regarded Nellie, by that process of induction 
 which is called " putting two and two together.'^ 
 She never dropped a hint that she read between 
 the lines of the girl's enthusiastic praises of 
 Lady Athelstone, her eloquent description of 
 the Castle, its woods, its gardens, its stately 
 rooms ; and her absolute silence as to the 
 young man who now reigned there. But all 
 this was not lost upon her auditor. 
 
 One day the girl was reading aloud, when 
 she came to a quotation — 
 
 " 'Tis better to have loved aud lost, 
 Than never to have loved at all !'' 
 
 Struck by the line she, half unconsciously.
 
 POET AXD PEER. 221 
 
 paused. Mrs. Goldwin sighed, and then looked 
 up. 
 
 "You are too young, my dear, to feel tha 
 truth and beauty of that." 
 
 The girl coloured, and replied, after a mo- 
 mentary hesitation, 
 
 '* No, Mrs. Goldwin, I think I can understand 
 that the worst fate in life would be never to 
 have loved anything." 
 
 Mrs. Goldwin said no more. 
 
 Another time she was arranging some flowers 
 in a vase, w^hen Mrs. Goldwin entered the room, 
 without the girl's hearing her. She was re- 
 peating a verse of poetry in a soft, low voice, 
 as she took up the roses, one by one, and smelt 
 them. Mrs. Goldwin listened. 
 
 "Unto my rose I gave a rose, 
 
 And, ' !Never more,' I said, 
 * Shall this fair flower its scent disclose. 
 
 When its warm heart lies dead. 
 But though Love's heart be wounded, crush'd, 
 
 Its sweet breath never dies. 
 And when our voices both are hush'd. 
 
 It still wiU scent the skies.'" 
 
 '' What is that you are repeating, my dearf ^
 
 222 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Nellie started. 
 
 " Nothing, Mrs. Goldwin. I meau, only a 
 verse I — I once heard." 
 
 "Do you know who wrote it? It sounds 
 -almost like Waller, or one of those old fanciful 
 poets." 
 
 "It is Lord Athelstone's,'' she said. 
 
 " Oh ! You have not read much of his, I 
 suppose '?" 
 
 '' I had to cop3^ some — his prize poem on 
 Carthage, and some translations from the Greek 
 — when I was at the Castle." Then, after a 
 moment's demur, she added, quickly, without 
 looking up — " They are published. I saw them 
 advertised in the paper yesterday. Would you 
 not like to read them, Mrs. Goldwin?" 
 
 She had read them, and the book was in the 
 house ; but she answered^ unhesitatingly, 
 
 "No, my dear; I don't think it is at all the 
 sort of reading I should like." 
 
 In Mrs. Goldwin's monotonous existence, the 
 successful endeavour to rouse and interest her 
 young companion, was an occupation which 
 drew Nellie closer to her heart each day. Aud
 
 POET AND PEER. 223 
 
 with the increasing affection which she felt for 
 the girl, there was thankfulness that she had 
 been removed from the perils which had, no 
 doubt, environed her position at home^ and that 
 she was safely harboured here. And thus the 
 summer passed by. 
 
 In the meantime, to return for a moment to 
 the transaction I have spoken of as taking place 
 at Ripple in the spring, it was not effected 
 without strong remonstrance from Wilfred's 
 agentj and some mild expostulation from his 
 mother. 
 
 "It is a precedent, my lord, which you will 
 find leads to no end of trouble and future diffi- 
 culty," said the former. 
 
 " I don't admit the force of precedent in such 
 a case. I have a right to do what I choose 
 with my own ; and I choose to give that cottage 
 to Mrs. Dawson for her life. As to trouble and 
 difficulty," he added, laughing, "that will be 
 your look-out, Matcham. If it wasn't for that 
 sort of bother, I should be my own agent, you 
 know." 
 
 Mr. Matcham w^ent his ways; but he was
 
 224 POET AND PEER. 
 
 heard to say more than once that this was the 
 next thing to Communism, — suddenly, without 
 rhyme or reason, to give up one of the best 
 cottages in the village of Ripple, held by a 
 woman who was well able to pay for it, when 
 there were such a number of indigent tenants 
 out of whom Mr. Matcham had infinite trouble 
 to screw the rent ! 
 
 "Have you considered well, my dear boy?'* 
 said Lady Athelstone. *' Is it — is it quite wise 
 to do this sort of thing? I do not think your 
 father " 
 
 "Did not my father propose to give her five 
 hundred pounds if she went to Australia ?" 
 
 *' But — but she declined. You see, my dear 
 Wilfred — under all the circumstances people — I 
 really tliink people might talk." 
 
 *' Let them ; it won't influence me," and the 
 young man walked away.
 
 225 
 
 CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 T ORD ATHELSTONE'S first volume of col- 
 ^ lected verse was published that June, and 
 created considerable stir. The audacity of this 
 young patrician poet^s utterances took away 
 people's breath. Was he a second Byron or 
 not? Were these whirlwinds of passion, these 
 scathing denunciations, mere sound and fury, 
 signifying nothing? Or was he, in truth, one 
 of those rare beings in whom all that is irra- 
 tional, unprincipled, and offensive to good taste 
 must be pardoned for the sake of their tran- 
 scendent genius ? 
 
 Ecclectic-fashionable circles fought over these 
 poems ; some declared them to be *' entirely 
 noble, informed with that far-seeing spirit of 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 POET AND PEER. 
 
 the poet (or prophet) which subjects all minor 
 moralities to the great exigencies of our 
 Human Nature/' Others compared the new 
 star to a dancing dervish, " fluent and flatu- 
 lent ; his excitement being begotten of a rota- 
 tory motion of rhyme which lashes him into a 
 frenzy of froth and foam." Severe strictures 
 and extravagant praise of the book appeared in 
 the critical journals. One article^ beginning 
 "This will never do," was said to have sent the 
 volume at once into a second edition. 
 
 They were discussing him at Lady B 's 
 
 one night, in whose salon opinions the most 
 opposed met upon common ground, and lances 
 in politics and literature were freely broken. 
 
 " Are we to encourage this young man ?" 
 asked the lady of the house of an eminent 
 statesman. " I am afraid he is very immoral ; 
 but how original ! What ingenious versifica- 
 tion ! What subtle harmony !" 
 
 '* His philosophy amounts to this/' observed 
 the statesman. '' There is nothing true, and 
 there is nothing new ; and it don't signify. 
 Enjoy yourselves."
 
 POET AND PEER. 227 
 
 "It is horribly irreligious," said his wife, 
 severely, " besides its immorality. It is a book 
 I would never allow to lie upon my table." 
 
 " By all means, my ^ear. Keep it under the 
 sofa-cushion," and the statesman smiled grimly. 
 
 " Irreligious ? Oh ! but its Pantheism is so 
 exquisite. It breathes the piety of the prairie, 
 if not of theology," piped a young man with a 
 long, yearning throat, who spoke like an 
 expression-stop, and wrote aesthetic essays. 
 " Have you read Lord Athelstone's ' Wail of 
 the Wandering Winds ' ? People call it blas- 
 phemous, but there is more of unconscious de- 
 votion in the sad soughing of the breeze, the 
 wild agony of the screaming tempest, as one 
 bears it in those strophes and antistrophies, than 
 in many a psalm. Indeed, it is a psalm, full of 
 the remorse of unaccomplished desire, of struggle 
 from trammels of the finite towards infinity !" 
 
 " Struggles from trammels, I admit," ob- 
 served the cynical statesman. '* As to the 
 
 rest " he shrugged his shoulders, with a 
 
 smile. 
 
 But let one half the world deride or reprobate 
 vol, L q
 
 228 POET AND PEER. 
 
 the other — which inchided most of the young 
 men and women whose eyes and ears were 
 more sensitive than their understandings — the 
 vast crowd who are swept, resistless, every 
 year into maelstroms of enthusiasm over some 
 vain thing, held the new poet to be "a reve- 
 lation," and fed on him in secret, or avowed, 
 delight. 
 
 Towards the end of July Hubert St. John 
 returned to England, after visiting the Greek 
 Islands, and wandering slowly up the little- 
 visited Dalmatian coast; writing, sketching, 
 pondering over the scenes and monuments of 
 historic interest he visited, or, better still, 
 letting Nature and Sunshine, in silence, work 
 their bene6cent influence on wounds which, 
 though outwardly healed, had left him numbed, 
 and, as it seemed, disabled for social enjoy- 
 ment. He was too soundly built, however, 
 intellectually and physically, for his recupera- 
 tive power not to be strong at six and twenty. 
 He came back happier than he had been for the 
 past two years, with hopes and convictions 
 wliich had been fluent, consolidated, and ready
 
 POET AND PEER. 229 
 
 to find expression in immediate action. What 
 these were will presently be apparent. 
 
 He met Athelstone on, the steps of the St. 
 James's Club the day after his arrival. After 
 inquiring where his friend had been during the 
 past four months, Wilfred said, 
 
 '^ I suppose you have not seen my book yet ? 
 I daresay you have not even read a review on 
 it ? I am glad to say it has been awfully cut 
 up — ^just what I wanted." 
 
 " I suppose you think it necessary for a 
 book to be cut up in order to be devoured?" 
 said the other, smiling. " But the only notice 
 of your book I saw did not slash at it very 
 viciously." 
 
 " You mean that it damned it with faint 
 praise ? That was the work of an enemy, then. 
 My only friends among the critics are those 
 who * deplore that this young man^ with all his 
 great gifts,' &c. Those who pat me on the 
 head, as a young lord, who has ' really, in 
 spite of his birth, got something in him, and 
 who may perhaps do better things by and by,' 
 I should like to strangle them. I wish you
 
 230 POET AND PEER. 
 
 would review the book, old fellow. I'll send it 
 you to-night.^' 
 
 Hubert shook his head, laughing. 
 
 " You won't complain of ray lenity, if I do. 
 You had better not ask me. Remember what I 
 told you at Florence." 
 
 "I do remember. Our views are not the 
 same on most points ; but you have capital 
 brains, and you are not prejudiced. Above all, 
 you are not bound to turn out so many pages 
 of ill-digested matter a week. Come down to 
 Athelstone next week, and let us argue out our 
 philosophies under the cedars on the lawn. We 
 leave town on Monday." 
 
 *"' I am sorry I cannot at present. I am kept 
 by business in London for the next fortnight, 
 and then I have promised to go to a cousin of 
 mine in Northumberland. Later in the autumn, 
 if you will ask me '^ 
 
 " Write when you can come. We shall be 
 there till November. After that, it is probable 
 I may go to Rome. But I shall send you the 
 poems, and, remember, you are to write a
 
 "POET AND PEER. 231 
 
 criticism. The Regent Street Review will take it, 
 I know." 
 
 As a matter of fact, St. John^did not leave 
 London for some weeks. Before that time 
 came he had found work for his hands, and an 
 object for the outlay of a large portion of his 
 ample income. It came to his knowledge that 
 a mechanics' institute was needed in a certain 
 very poor district in the East-end of London ; 
 but funds were not forthcoming to establish 
 this. There was, moreover, a hunger for 
 intellectual help among the keen-eyed and 
 inquiring artisans who sw^armed in those 
 narrow alleys, which there was none to satisfy. 
 Those who had the capacity had not the time, 
 those who had the time had not the capacity. 
 The demands upon the over- worked clergy 
 were too numerous for them to be able to 
 devote many hours in the month to seeking out 
 and becoming friendly with men who perhaps 
 never, or very rarely_, came to church. 
 
 This was the want which St. John saw it was 
 in his power to supply. The erection of a suit-
 
 232 POET AND PEER. 
 
 able building, and the formation of a library, 
 would be the work of several months ; and 
 having concluded the purchase of the site, and 
 approved of the architect's plans, his presence 
 in London was no longer necessary. But, in 
 the interval which must elapse before any 
 personal supervision and organization of his 
 scheme could begin, might he not pave the way 
 to that free and friendly intercourse which he 
 hoped to establish between the artisans and 
 himself, by a little weekly chat upon paper, 
 carried on from wherever he might chance to 
 be, on whatsoever subject it pleased his corre- 
 spondents to suggests 
 
 The plan which he conceived and carried out 
 was this : to print, and to distribute, on the 
 payment of a small sura quarterly, a paper each 
 week, in which one subject should be treated, 
 and a certain number of questions propounded 
 by his readers. For, as they read, objections 
 would probably arise in their minds, and it 
 might be that some of these he would find it 
 hard to meet. But, when it was so, he would 
 frankly confess his inability; for his aim was
 
 POET AND PEER. 233 
 
 to establish himself on the footing, not of an 
 instructor, but of a friend, ready to discuss 
 difficulties, with no assumption of omniscience : 
 a friend who, by adventitious circumstances, 
 had enjoyed facilities for study and travel de- 
 nied to those with whom he now talked ; but 
 not, necessarily for that, deeper-sighted or 
 more highly-endowed than they. There were 
 things he could tell them which they knew 
 not : theories, arguments, quotations, which 
 would be new to them, and which they would 
 ponder over, or discuss among each other ; but 
 he divined that there might be acute and logical 
 minds among those artisans, who would detect 
 a fallacy in the theory — a flaw in the argument, 
 and who would brush away quotations like flies 
 from a window — possibly as obstructions to the 
 light — whose buzzings could not affect the 
 truth, as each individual intelligence receives 
 it. 
 
 It was with no delusion, therefore, as to the 
 smoothness of his task that he left London, 
 after establishing the machinery of which he 
 was to be the motive power. The preliminaries
 
 234 POET AND PEER. 
 
 had oflered few difficulties ; he supphed money 
 and a scheme; some coadjutors among the 
 middle class presented themselves; the men 
 themselves contributed a zealous curiosity and 
 desire to forward their new friend's views. 
 
 He had found a stimulant for his mental 
 energy. Work, the best calculated to satisfy 
 his needs, was now ready to his hand. He felt 
 a certain anxiety as to its success : that is inci- 
 dent to all new undertakings ; but to feel 
 anxiety about anything is preferable to the 
 indifference as to all things which had threaten- 
 ed to mildew the young man^s mind a few- 
 months since. His hopes might be only par- 
 tially realized, but here was work to be done 
 which he believed he could do, and for which, 
 perhaps, few were so well-fitted by circum- 
 stances as himself. Anyhow, if he over- 
 estimated his strengtli, if he failed in what he 
 had undertaken, the impetus given to his life, 
 linking it with other lives and other interests 
 than his own, was higher than aimless study or 
 a search after the picturesque. 
 
 He went straight to Northumberland, taking
 
 POET AND PEER. . 235' 
 
 -with Lira a box of such books of reference as 
 he thought he was not likely to find in his 
 cousin's house. She was, howevtsr, a woman 
 of cultivation and refinement, and her name- 
 was Mrs. Gold win. 
 
 They had been together a great deal as chil- 
 dren; indeed, up to the time of Mary St. John's 
 marriage, she and Hubert had constantly met 
 during his vacations, and had been more like a 
 younger brother and elder sister than cousins 
 often are. Between them existed a strong re- 
 gard — the regard that springs from sympathy 
 and a complete understandings even more than 
 from a community of tastes. During the last 
 six years, however, they had only met once, 
 and that was for a few hours in London, on 
 Hubert's return from India last November. 
 Much had befallen them both during those six 
 years, and both were much changed. Hubert 
 had leapt from boyhood to mature manhood — a 
 manhood that had sinned and suffered, that had 
 learnt its idols to be of clay, and had found 
 the fruit of the tree of knowledge bitter to the 
 taste.
 
 23G POET AND PEER. 
 
 The Judge, though a fond, had been a some- 
 what rigid and severe parent ; there had been 
 an episode in his son's hfe in India which he 
 sternly reproved ; and almost immediately after 
 this he died, while yet the estrangement be- 
 tween them existed. These circumstances had 
 very powerfully affected the young man ; nay, 
 more, they had wrought a considerable change 
 in his character. Had he been subject to such 
 influences later in life, it would have been dif- 
 ferent. When the bark is toughened, and the 
 branches naturally bent, no wind can alter the 
 contour of the oak ; but stripling trees are 
 swayed one way by the south-wester, and for 
 ever retain that inclination. 
 
 Hubert had been high-spirited, enthusiastic, 
 enterprising, as a boy ; that his temperament 
 was only modified at six-and-tweuty was shown 
 by the vigour and alacrity he displayed in 
 maturing the scheme he had now devised ; but 
 Mrs. Goldwin knew that a great revolution had 
 been wrought in her cousin's character. The 
 •events of his life, his letters, all had prepared 
 Jier for this ; and she awaited his coming now,
 
 POET AND PEER. 237 
 
 not without a certain fear that between the 
 Hubert she had known so intimately and this 
 man had grown up another individuality with 
 whose complexities she would find it more diffi- 
 cult to sympathise. 
 
 As to her own life, it might be summed up in 
 a few words. She had been reared in an atmo- 
 sphere of intellectuality and refinement ; she liad 
 married, at four-and-twenty, into an atmosphere 
 of ox-like calm, splendour, stupidity. Her hus- 
 band was termed — and he well deserved the 
 encomium — " a very worthy man." He was 
 really fond of his wife, and had the most un- 
 bounded confidence in her ; but he was engrossed 
 in business, which obliged him to be a great 
 deal from home, and Mrs. Goldwin's health, 
 since her last confinement, had compelled her 
 more than once to go abroad. Thus months 
 sometimes elapsed without the husband and 
 wife meeting; and it must honestly be admitted 
 that this was not a loss calculated to disturb 
 the current of Mrs. Goldwin's existence. She 
 respected her husband ; she was grateful to 
 him ; and he was the father of the two children
 
 -238 POET AND PEER. 
 
 in whom her life was bound up ; but between 
 this strangely-assorted pair there could only be 
 a community of interest, none of thought. If 
 the truth must be told, she rather dreaded a 
 Ute-a-Ute with him. When they had talked of 
 the children, and the new glass-houses, only the 
 fly-leaves of conversation were left to be turned 
 over between them ; the body of the book was 
 done. She could affect no interest in the iron- 
 trade, or in county-business, or even in the 
 broader field of politics ; he could affect none in 
 literature or in art. She could not despise 
 him; she knew he had capital abilities of a 
 certain kind ; he had strong common sense, and 
 was liberal in his dealings with all men. On 
 his side, he admired, though he did not the least 
 understand, his wife. 
 
 He knew as little of her now as he had done 
 six years ago, when he asked the beautiful and 
 penniless Mary St. John to marry him. Why 
 liad she said "yes"? It was the old story; 
 love at eighteen, disappointment ; an interval 
 of five years, and then acceptance of an excel- 
 lent offer, in the world's estimation, from a sense
 
 POET AND PEER. 239 
 
 of the expediency, if not the obligatiou, of a 
 woman's marrying to afHiience and apathy, 
 when the alternative was spinsterhood with 
 straitened means. She would probably have 
 acted no differently now, had the same alterna- 
 tive been placed before her ; for she possessed 
 what is called " strong good sense." In other 
 words, though she had some romance in her 
 composition, with an exalted ideal of what mar- 
 ried life should be, she was not deficient in 
 worldly wisdom. The cousins had each had a 
 story ; only hers was simple enough, his full of 
 passionate complication. The past with her 
 had long been dead and buried — hope and ex- 
 pectancy only lived in her children now ; how 
 would she find it with Hubert ? 
 
 It was this question she propounded to her- 
 self constantly in the days that preceded his 
 arrival at Danecourt. His letters indicated that 
 all the buoyancy of youth was gone ; but men 
 are differently constituted from women ; surely, 
 at six and twenty, the capacity for another love, 
 which should vivify the young man's life, was 
 not impossible ?
 
 240 POET AND PEER. 
 
 The busy weaving brain of woman, that 
 turns out fabrics of such marvellous and un- 
 serviceable texture, sent its shuttle to and fro, 
 with gossamer threads of possibilities. Her four 
 years' seniority now seemed to her as twenty ; 
 and it was with almost a maternal feeling of 
 affectionate solicitude that she greeted St. 
 John to her home^ resolved to afford him 
 every opportunity of reconstructing a romance 
 which should this time have a happy termina- 
 tion.
 
 241 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 nnHE Miss Brawnes were handsome, highly- 
 ■*- cultivated young women. They were so 
 decorative in a room, and all they did was so 
 well done, that it seemed surprising they 
 should lack the subtle charm by which inferior 
 women often enslave a number of helpless 
 men. 
 
 Men never became helpless under their influ- 
 ence. They flirted, but with discretion; and, 
 on learning that the sisters were poor, turned 
 their thoughts in other directions, without 
 poignant regret. It was chiefly by their own 
 sex that the Miss Brawnes were enthusiastically 
 admired ; and Mrs. Goldwin^ who was not 
 much given to neighbour cultivation, duly 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 242 POET AND PEER. 
 
 appreciated and always iuvited tliem to 
 stay at Danecourt when she had other 
 guests. 
 
 They were established there when Hubert 
 arrived. *' Either of them would make him a 
 most suitable wife," thought Mrs. Goldwin ; 
 " but I should prefer Eliza — I do hope he will 
 fall in love with Eliza ;" and, if such thought 
 can be termed a scheme, she certainly planned 
 one for the realization of her wish. But the 
 futility of such is proverbial. 
 
 " I hope, now you are come back to 
 England, and are tired of wandering, you 
 tell me, dear Hubert, that you will think of 
 marrying." 
 
 They were alone in her boudoir the morn- 
 ing after his arrival, when she said this. He 
 shook his head, with a smile, and something 
 like a sigh. 
 
 " Not until I meet such a woman as I have 
 never yet known, Mary." 
 
 She paused ; then felt impelled to say, 
 
 " But you loved once, dear boy, though
 
 POET AND PEER. 243 
 
 unwisely — why not again, and to better pur- 
 pose f 
 
 '' I was blind. A fellow may be blind once 
 — especially at one and twenty — he is a 
 fool if he is blind twice. My eyes are too 
 wide open, I believe, ever to fall in love 
 again." 
 
 *' Nonsense ! You would be so much happier 
 married, Hubert." 
 
 '^ Marriage must be either Heaven or Hell, in 
 my opinion. To have a companion who is not 
 only flesh of one's flesh, but soul of one's soul, 
 is the happiness accorded but to few. Less than 
 this I should not be content with." 
 
 Mrs. Goldwin's fair face contracted for a 
 moment. 
 
 " You expect too much of human nature. If 
 all exacted so much, how many marriages 
 would there be ? And is not the balance of 
 happiness with those who do marry, have 
 children, and merge their personal interests in 
 others, rather than with those who lead solitary 
 lives r 
 
 r2
 
 244 POET AND PEER. 
 
 "I don't know about the aggregate, Mary ; 
 every rnan must judge for himself. Some soft- 
 hearted, easy-going fellows seem to be so con- 
 stituted that they only ask that a woman 
 should be fond of them to take her to their 
 bosom at once. It is much the same whether 
 she be Jane or Eliza." 
 
 "How very odd," laughed his cousin. 
 "Are you aware that those are the Miss 
 Brawnes' names?" 
 
 "No. I beg their pardon for taking them in 
 vain." 
 
 "Very handsome girls, ain't they?" 
 
 " Y — yes — good-looking, certainly." 
 
 '• And so clever." 
 
 " Ah ! I daresay." 
 
 ''Eliza is really delightful — so very agree- 
 able." 
 
 " Just a little self-conscious — isn't she ?" 
 
 "Not at all. That is only manner. I assure 
 you it entirely wears off." 
 
 "Does it? Well, she may be charming, but 
 she is not the kind of woman who would ever 
 interest me. By-the-by, was the young girl
 
 POET AND PEER. 245 
 
 who came in after dinner your governess? I 
 didn't speak to her, but she struck me as lovely, 
 and the young parson seemed to think so, for 
 he never left her side." 
 
 " Miss Dawson has a very sweet face, and is 
 a very nice girl. She is only a nurser}- gover- 
 ness^ and of very humble origin, but she has 
 great natural refinement^ and I find her quite a 
 <iompanion when we are alone." 
 
 *' AVhat a lucky thing for her to have come 
 here! I suppose this is her first place? She 
 looks so young." 
 
 '• Yes ; and if I had not received such a 
 very strong recommendation of her from Lady 
 Athelstone " 
 
 '• From Lady Athelstone ?" 
 
 " She was pupil-teacher in their school, and 
 her mother lives in their village." 
 
 " How small the world is ! I have not a large 
 acquaintance, as you know, but Athelstone was 
 a school-fellow of mine, and, I may say, is still 
 my friend." 
 
 '''Dear me! 1 should have thought, from 
 .all I have heard, he was not at all the sort
 
 246 POET AXD PEER. 
 
 of man you would have cbosen for a friend. '^ 
 " Friendship is sometimes the result of circum- 
 stances. Certainly Athelstone and I agree upon 
 very few points ; but we were in the same 
 house together at Eton, and he exhibited a 
 blind reverence for me then (1 am a good deal 
 older), which, I am sorry to say, years have 
 corrected. Still he is very cordial ; and I feel 
 that, in spite of all his nonsense, there is much 
 that is good in him, which I think will pre- 
 dominate — if he falls into wise hands." 
 
 " And that is the reason you cling to him ? 
 Why did j^ou not prevent his publishing all this 
 abominable poetry?" 
 
 " I could not have prevented it, had I been 
 in England. He is very obstinate ; and when 
 I talk of wise hands, they must be hands that 
 do not appear to guide, but, gently superim- 
 posed, use a magnetic influence of which the 
 subject is unconscious. Have you ever seen a 
 person icilled to do a thing. That is how Athel- 
 stone must be moved. He is a strange fellow, 
 and 1 fear may cause much trouble to those who- 
 love him ; but he interests me."
 
 POET AND PEER. 247 
 
 "I think he must be a very unprincipled man. 
 I have been obliged to put away his book, for 
 fear Miss Dawson should see it. She is natu- 
 rally interested in all that relates to the Athel- 
 stones. Say nothing about these poems,, unless 
 she asks you." 
 
 That afternoon Hubert declined to drive with 
 his cousin and the Miss Brawnes to a ruin some 
 miles distant, alleging that he had his forth- 
 coming paper to prepare. Mrs. Goldwin was 
 disappointed ; but she was too clever not to 
 know that a man shut up in a carriage, against 
 his will, for two hours and a half, would be in 
 a frame of mind unfavourable to the first in- 
 roads of fascination, and she submitted in 
 silence. To-night, she said, after a solitary 
 afternoon J he would^ by a natural rebound, find 
 keener enjoyment in the society of these charm- 
 ing girls. Hubert had always a fine taste 
 for music. Eliza should play that scherzo 
 of Mendelssohn's — it would at once delight 
 and astonish him. This would lay the first
 
 248 POET A>a) PEER. 
 
 stone. And so the fair builder of a Spanish 
 castle went a-driving. 
 
 It was a very still, golden day, early in 
 September. In the garden it was just the mo- 
 ment when the glories of summer and autumn 
 meet ; when the advancing dahlias and china- 
 asters come face to face with the retiring 
 geraniums and calceolarias. Hubert looked out 
 upon it all from his open window, and, after 
 writing a few sentences, it occurred to him that 
 he might as well be seated under one of those 
 wide-spreading beeches^ inhaling the sweet 
 breath of all the growing things around, as re- 
 main imprisoned in his bed-room, now that he 
 was secure from interruption ; for the other men 
 staying at Danecourt had gone out partridge- 
 shooting early. 
 
 He sauntered across the lawn, note-book in 
 hand, till he came to a little stream which 
 divided the garden from the beech-wood be- 
 yond. He crossed the small foot-bridge, and 
 had advanced a few 3^ards down the winding 
 path, when a pair of stout little legs, carrying 
 a small rosy blossom of a face, ran up to hiin,
 
 POET AND PEER. 249 
 
 ill all the sweet confidence of five years' old. 
 She had been picking beech-nuts, and the white 
 serge frock she clutched tight with two hot 
 hands was filled with her treasure. 
 
 "Look, what Fve dot for de pigs I Dere's 
 lots more ; turn along, and I'll show you. Will 
 you put dese in your pocket ? Den I will pick 
 up more." 
 
 " But if we carry off all the nuts, Tricksy, 
 there will be no young trees to grow up." 
 
 " Oh, 'es, dere will. God sticks in de trees, 
 I know." 
 
 In an incautious moment she let go her frock 
 to tug at his coat, and the pigs' dessert lay 
 scattered on the path. 
 
 Hubert was fond of children; but, as he 
 stooped to pick up the nuts, he remembered his 
 essay with a sigh. For the evolution of exact 
 thought, he would have done better to remain 
 in his bed-room. 
 
 " Well, I will put these in my pocket for you. 
 Tricksy, and stay here while you run off and 
 look for more." 
 
 But this arrangement did not suit Miss
 
 250 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Tricksy, who was partial to the institution of 
 shivery. 
 
 *' No, no. Yon must turn wid me. Dere is 
 lots of booTul flowers, and — " she pulled lustily 
 at his coat ; but here a sweet voice, belonging 
 to a speaker whom St. John had not heard ap- 
 proaching behind him, broke in. 
 
 " You must not be troublesome. Tricksy. 
 Come here." 
 
 He turned. She was standing, in her dark 
 bkie dress and garden-hat, against the silver 
 stems and yellow leaves of the beeches. A 
 little flush tinged the ivory face, the sweet, 
 grave brown eyes were bent upon the elder 
 child, while the younger one toddled at her 
 heels. This was the picture he often recalled 
 in after -years ; it was thus he thought of her, 
 thus he felt that he had first seen her; for the 
 glimpse of the previous evening had left no 
 enduring impression. But every incident of 
 this afternoon remained in his memory. Not a 
 word she let fall — and how unimportant would 
 they seem if set down here ! — that Hubert St. 
 John ever forgot. She said but little; he had
 
 POET AND PEER. 251 
 
 most of the talking to himself; but now and 
 again he put some question which drew from 
 her a reply. They strolled along the pathway, 
 the children playing before them ; they sat on a 
 bench, while the children gathered more nuts ; 
 the sunshine made a network of blue shadows 
 among the fallen leaves ; a little wind rustled in 
 the branches overhead as the evening wore on, 
 and stirred the edges of the girl's soft brown 
 hair. He talked of iithelstone, and she lis- 
 tened ; he asked about her old home_, and she 
 felt drawn to speak to him, as she never did to 
 the curate and the other gentlemen whom she 
 saw occasionally at Danecourt. For this was a 
 friend of his, who had known him since boyhood. 
 It was a link between them ; she could talk of 
 Ripple, and feel that he was interested in what 
 was nearer to her heart than anything in the 
 world. 
 
 She was a little shy at this time, as was only 
 natural. Not that she was afflicted with self- 
 consciousness ; but a fear of putting herself, or 
 of being put, into undue prominence, and a very 
 humble estimate of her own powers, kept her
 
 ^252 POET AND pp:er. 
 
 mostly silent in company. She looked bewil- 
 dered at a compliment, and was a little slow to 
 seize the jests current in society. Though 
 never awkward or embarrassed, she needed 
 sympathy to be able to converse, and it was 
 this she had found in Mrs. Goldwin. The eight 
 months passed with that kind and clever woman 
 had done more to enlarge and mature the young 
 girl's intellect than years passed in the old life 
 at Ripple would have done. But the talks she 
 had in those long tete-a-tete evenings, though 
 they helped to form her judgment upon many 
 things, did not teach her to talk nonsense with 
 grace and assurance. The truth is, she would 
 never, under any circumstances, have kept up 
 the ball of banter with spirit ; it was not in her 
 nature ; and, circumstanced as she was, her 
 reserve sat well upon her — at least, so thought 
 all except the young men who were disap- 
 pointed to find the pretty governess "awfully 
 slow and well-behaved — doesn't understand 
 chaff!" 
 
 Now, however, sitting on the woodland bench, 
 she found herself listening with interest to the
 
 POET AND PEER. 25,? 
 
 young man's conversation, which flowed so 
 easily, and yet was so full of thought and sug- 
 gestion, so free from compliment or personality, 
 that from response she was drawn on to ques- 
 tion and argument insensibly. 
 
 '' Children should be allowed to read no 
 poetry but the Old Ballads, and Walter Scott, 
 and Macaulay's 'Lays,'" — St. John was saying- 
 — " nothing that is morbid and unhealthy." 
 
 " The first poetry I read was * Percy's 
 Reliques/ " said Nellie, looking up, with a 
 smile. "Lord Athelstone gave it me when I 
 was very small." 
 
 " I am glad he gave you such wholesome 
 food," St. John replied. " His taste in poetry 
 has deteriorated since then, 1 am afraid." 
 
 She paused_, and hesitated a moment. 
 
 *'I read in a paper some time since that he 
 had published a volume of poems. I will not 
 believe what they said about them was true ; 
 but Mrs. Goldwin would not send for the book. 
 Have you read it ?" 
 
 " I have — it is not a book you would like^ it 
 is not one you would even understand. You
 
 254 POET AND PEER. 
 
 ranst rest satisfied with this assurance : you 
 know I am his friend." 
 
 *' He did write beautiful poetry once," said 
 the girl, in a low voice. 
 
 "And will again, I hope. Lord Athelstone 
 is very clever ; but he is young, and his judg- 
 ment is not matured. AVhat he writes now he 
 Avill condemn and repudiate later. I have told 
 him so." 
 
 "Is her ladyship vexed with himf asked 
 Nellie, anxiously. 
 
 " 1 don't know. Perhaps she has something 
 of a mixed feeling ; the mother's vanity may be 
 flattered. The book has made considerable 
 stir. Tell me," he added, abruptly, desirous of 
 getting off ground Avhere he felt himself to be 
 trammelled, ^' who is your favourite poet, Miss 
 Dawson ?" 
 
 " Lord Byron. Mrs. Gold win says I ought 
 to like Shakspere better ; perhaps when 
 I know more I shall. But I cannot pre- 
 tend to care for more than parts of his plays 
 now." 
 
 "I am not surprised. Shakspere's wonder-
 
 POET AND PEER. 255 
 
 ful humanity seldom appeals to the very young. 
 One must have thought, and known^ and 
 suffered a good deal before the deep truth, the 
 insight into human nature, the beauty of mau}^ 
 a transient touch can be appreciated. I shall 
 read some of Shakspere to my cousin and you, 
 when the other guests are gone, and try to 
 make you see he was a far wiser and greater 
 man than Byron." 
 
 "Dere's a 'quirrel running up dat tree," cried 
 Tricksy, running. "P'esse, Mit Dawton, let 
 gentleman go after de 'quirrel for me," and 
 she pulled lustily at Hubert's coat once 
 more. 
 
 " It is time for us to be going home," said 
 the young governess, rising, with a scarcely 
 perceptible flush at the child's suggestion that 
 she was detaining St. John. "Come, Flossy, 
 come in to tea. Come, Tricksy." 
 
 She took the younger child's hand. He rose, 
 but did not accompany them back to the house. 
 There was his essay to be written ; and now 
 he was alone. The last fold of the dark bine 
 dress had disappeared among the now dark
 
 25G POET AND PEER. 
 
 grey beech-stems, the last bubble of the 
 children's joyous voices had burst and died 
 upon the air ; he had the woodland path in the 
 gathering twilight to himself. And there was 
 his essay to be written. 
 
 He had some difficulty in concentrating his 
 thoughts.
 
 257 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 1 TISS ELIZA BRAWNE had a very attentive 
 -'-"-^ listener that night, and the scherzo met 
 Tvith a reticent, measured approbation carrying 
 with it a conviction of its sincerity which might 
 not have accompanied more vehement applause. 
 When it was done, St. John rose, and came to 
 the piano, and stood there, discussing the new 
 school of music in Germany with the intelli- 
 gent conservative exponent of Mendelssohn, 
 who shuddered at the names of Wagner, 
 Brahms, and Raff. Mrs. Goldwin wished he 
 would sit down ; but he did not ; he asked Miss 
 Eliza to play a certain andante of Beethoven's, 
 and then he wandered away ; strolled up to the 
 fire-place, examined a picture on the wall, said 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 POET AND PEER. 
 
 a few words to the elder Miss Brawne (who was 
 engaged upon some high art embroidery, on a 
 sad-coloured ground, representing a nameless 
 fruit, like gigantic scarlet wafers transfixed on 
 thorns), and finally drew a light cane chair 
 near to the table at which Nellie was seated, 
 working. 
 
 Mrs. Goldwin was a little vexed. This was 
 not at all what she wished. It was giving her 
 nice little governess an importance which was 
 undesirable in every way. She was sincerely 
 fond of her — too fond to desire that the child 
 should be spoiled, or that she should rouse any 
 feelings but sympathy and benevolence in the 
 breasts of the Miss Brawnes. It was hardly 
 possible that this marked preference should not 
 be resented. He sat there the whole evening, 
 and no manoeuvre of his cousin's succeeded in 
 making him abandon his entrenchment behind 
 the table, and so near Nellie that what he said 
 could be overheard by none. 
 
 The ^liss Brawnes were left to two uninter- 
 esting and ineligible sportsmen, who knew 
 nothing of Mendelssohn or high art embroidery,
 
 POET AND PEER. 259 
 
 while Mrs. Gold win had to talk to the curate. 
 It was altogether wrong ; his place was beside 
 Miss Dawson, with a view to whose especial 
 edification this excellent young man had been 
 invited to spend a few days at Danecourt ; and 
 here was Mrs. Goldwin, having to pump up 
 conversation about the neighbourhood to him, 
 while she tried to catch with one ear the mur- 
 mured talk that was going on at the table ! It 
 would have tried any temper less sweet than 
 hers ; but she was not going to allow matters 
 to continue thus. 
 
 " Hubert," she said that night, as he handed 
 her her bed-room candle (the ladies were gone 
 upstairs, the men to the smoking-room), " you 
 must oblige me by going with us on our expe- 
 dition to-morrow — I can't spare you." 
 
 *' But you are to be out the whole day — and 
 I have work I must get through. I did so little 
 to-day." 
 
 "Because you chose to play with the chil- 
 dren, and talk to Miss Dawson in the wood. 
 No, the Brawnes are only here for a few days, 
 and they are much too good to be wasted on 
 
 s2
 
 260 POET AND PEER. 
 
 those two stupid men. You really must 
 come." 
 
 " How long do the Brawnes stay ?" 
 
 " Why do you ask ?" 
 
 *' Because I will make this sacrifice for you 
 once, Mary ; but remember^ when I came down 
 here, you promised I should do exactly as I 
 liked." 
 
 "So you shall, after to-morrow. But I am 
 sure you will like it. The Brawnes are so de- 
 lightful, if you would only cultivate them." 
 
 *' They are so cultivated already," said her 
 cousin, laughing. 
 
 '' Nonsense !" cried Mary Goldwin, impatient- 
 ly. *^ You are determined to shut your eyes to 
 everything except Miss Dawson's pretty eyes. 
 I am ashamed of you, Hubert. I had expected 
 better things of you. I will not have 3'ou turn- 
 ing my little governess's head. I have much 
 too great a regard for her. Good night." 
 
 But neither did the expedition the following 
 day, nor any subsequent effort which Mrs. 
 Goldwin made during the Miss Brawnes' stay at 
 Danecourt, succeed in producing premonitory
 
 POET AND PEER. 261 
 
 symptoms of admiration for either sister from 
 Hubert St. John. He conversed pleasantly 
 with both; they were really well-read, agree- 
 able women, and justified, in a great measure, 
 Mrs. Goldwin's enthusiasm ; but neither sister 
 touched, or even interested him in the faintest 
 degree ; and it needed no very keen sight to 
 detect this. 
 
 At the end of a week his cousin threw up the 
 game. She did not attempt to detain the 
 Brawnes when the limit of their visit drew near ; 
 she even felt a certain relief, though it was ac- 
 companied with a sense* of failure, when the 
 sisters drove away from the door ; of rehef, that 
 is, from a continued strain and effort to accom- 
 plish the unattainable. " You may take a horse 
 to the water, but you can't make him drink," 
 she murmured to herself, with half a smile and 
 half a sigh. Now she and Hubert would be 
 alone together — without interruption, without 
 any disturbing element ; and she would get to 
 understand his condition of mind better than 
 she felt she did at present. 
 
 He spent the greater part of his days ostensi-
 
 2G2 POET AND PEER. 
 
 bly ill writing and in walking. He hated 
 driving, and therefore never accompanied his 
 cousin, and when she came home she always 
 lay down for a couple of hours. Thus it came , 
 to pass that St. John, as it seemed, in the 
 natural course of things, was a great deal " with 
 the children " — that was the euphemism by 
 which it pleased him to designate his daily 
 study of Nellie Dawson's character. It was not 
 complicated. Barring that one secret in her 
 young life, the current of her thoughts and 
 feelings flowed clear, and was reflected in her' 
 sweet, truthful eyes. There was none of that 
 reserve and careful balance of words which — 
 occasionally bred in early youth by untoward 
 circumstances — are the species of wisdom that 
 geniality most cordially resents. He read her 
 — or thought that he read her — like a book, and 
 it was a study that never seemed, to tire him. 
 After the type of woman he had seen chiefly in 
 India, how fresh and lovely did this young 
 creature's nature seem to him ! What could 
 the world — all the Miss Brawnes, with their 
 highly-surfaced minds, all the " eligible connec-
 
 POET AND PEER. 263 
 
 tions" Mrs. Goldwin could recommend him — 
 what could the world ofifer him that was worth 
 this? 
 
 One evening that Hubert had been reading 
 aloud some passages in various plays of Shak- 
 spere to the ladies, while the children played 
 in a distant corner of the room, when they and 
 Nellie had retired, Mary Goldwin said abruptly 
 to her cousin — 
 
 " Do you know, I am afraid there is a certain 
 similarity between the case of my little govern- 
 ess and Helena in * All's Well that Ends Well.' " 
 
 " What do you mean ?" he said, quickly, 
 looking up. 
 
 " That her affections are set hopelessly in a 
 very different station from her own." 
 
 He flushed to the very roots of his hair. She 
 saw it, and continued, ruthlessly — 
 
 '•' Of course you know to what I allude ? To 
 your friend, who has stood in much the same 
 position towards her that Bertram did to 
 Helena." 
 
 He started and grew suddenly pale ; it was 
 nearly a minute before he said,
 
 2G4: POET AND PEER. 
 
 " What reason have you for thinking this, 
 Mary?" 
 
 *' My own observation — especially when she 
 first came here. Even now, whenever his name 
 is mentioned, I see the change that comes over 
 her face." 
 
 " Her gratitude to the Athelstone family is 
 enough to account for that. I should be very, 
 ve7y sorry if you Avere right. Good God ! To 
 think of the girl sacrificing her life to such a 
 chimera !" 
 
 *' As to that, Hubert, time and absence will 
 cure her, I make no doubt. But have you not 
 told me yourself how attractive Lord Athelstone 
 is ? What is more likely than that her affec- 
 tions should be set on the 'bright particular 
 star' that first shone down on her?" 
 
 " I can't believe it. Athelstone writes mis- 
 chievous stuff — propounds all sorts of theories I 
 bate ; but he is not the man to try to entangle 
 a girl's affections for the mere gratification of 
 vanity." 
 
 " I did not say he had tried." 
 
 *' You believe, then, that this modest, retiring
 
 POET AND PEER. 265 
 
 little girl would become enamoured of a man 
 who did not care — or, at least, pretend that he 
 cared — for her ? It's monstrous." 
 
 " What did Helena do '? Did not Shakspere 
 understand human nature ?" 
 
 " I have always thought her the least attrac- 
 tive of all the women he meant to be so. She 
 was an artful, persevering minx. He has given 
 her some beautiful things to say, but her con- 
 duct removes all sympathy from her, in my 
 opinion." 
 
 " Well, she was a thousand times too good 
 for that miserable Bertram. She must have 
 repented of her persistence in after-life, poor 
 thing! But this is wandering away from the 
 point, Hubert. You know as well as I do it is 
 possible for the most charming, modest girl to 
 set her affections on some man v/ho cares 
 nothing about her. One sees it every day. 
 My theory is that this simple child has been 
 dazed by your brilliant By ronic friend. She 
 will recover, but it will take time — probably'- 
 some years, and then she will marry, I hope, 
 some nice schoolmaster or country curate."
 
 266 POET AND PEER. 
 
 " Prosperity has had its usual effect on you, 
 1 see, Mary. You are become very worldly,'' 
 observed her cousin, with a sarcastic smile. 
 
 »' Why so r 
 
 " You adjust the social balance with such 
 nicety. There must be a rise — but not too 
 great a rise, for your governess. You like her 
 very much indeed — but a schoolmaster or a 
 poor curate is as much as you can afford." 
 
 "And if I do 'adjust the social balance with 
 nicety/ as you call it, — what then? Do you 
 think it is because I attach an undue importance 
 to position ? No. I am ever so much older 
 than you, Hubert, in knowledge of the world, 
 and I know that marriages in different stations 
 of life rarely answer — either when a woman of 
 rank and fortune marries much beneath her, or 
 ince versa. Such marriages are certainly not 
 to be desired as offering the best chance of 
 happiness." 
 
 " That depends on the character of the con- 
 tracting parties," returned Hubert, smiling again. 
 " Speaking as a man who doesn't care a rush 
 for worldly distinctions, I say that, if a girl is,
 
 POET AND PEER. 267 
 
 in feeling, in education, and in manner a lady, 
 she is what many a woman of high social stand- 
 ing is not, and any man may be proud to win 
 her." 
 
 *' That is all very fine theoretically ; but the 
 more sensitive and w?ivulgar she is, the more 
 she will feel she is in a false position — admitted 
 into many houses upon sufferance, as it were, 
 and possibly conscious that she is an obstacle 
 to her husband's advancement." 
 
 " There is your worldly way of looking at 
 things again ! A man who is worth his salt 
 will never go to a house where his wife is ad- 
 mitted ' on sufferance,' and his merits must be 
 colourless indeed^ if his wife's parentage is to 
 counterbalance them. In the present day, if a 
 fellow was a shoeblack, and his wife the rat- 
 catcher's daughter, provided he has ability, he 
 must rise — nothing can keep him back." 
 
 "You are thinking of the Duke of Lucca's 
 groom, who rose to be his prime-minister," said 
 Mary Goldwin, laughing ; " but I beg to re- 
 mark that is beside the argument. I don't 
 object to the shoeblack or the groom ; it is the
 
 268 POET AND PEER. 
 
 ratcatcher's daughter I make a stand against. 
 The lives of many learned and remarkable men 
 prove the truth of my contention : their mar- 
 riages were as millstones round their necks ; 
 and their wives, if they had any feeling, must 
 have suffered cruelly from the consciousness 
 that such was the case." Then, abandoning 
 generalities, this bold woman, with an unpre- 
 meditated rush, clave her hearer to the heart 
 with the scimitar of personal application. " If 
 you are going to make a fool of yourself, my 
 dear Hubert, for goodness' sake leave Dauecourt 
 at once." 
 
 He winced, and was silent for a moment. 
 Then he raised those clear, piercing eyes of his 
 from the book on which they rested, and said, 
 simply, 
 
 '* Why did you ask me here, Mary ?" 
 " Candidly, my dear, besides my wish to see 
 you, I hoped you might fall in love with one of 
 the Miss Brawnes ; but you turned away from 
 both those charming women, either of whom 
 would have made you an unexceptionable 
 wife."
 
 POET AND PEER. 26^ 
 
 ''Either'^ My dear Mary, I still hold the 
 views you once held, before you — when you 
 were twenty, that those who have any indi- 
 viduality cannot be mated indifferently, either 
 with this one or that one. If a man is free, and 
 can fortunately marry the woman — the one 
 woman — who, he feels, is calculated to bless and 
 to complete his life, no consideration should 
 stand in his way." 
 
 ''Welir 
 
 "My mind is made up about Miss Dawson. 
 I have never seen a girl to compare with her, 
 in my eyes. You know that old story about 
 me, perhaps, in India? Don't throw that in 
 my teeth. I was two and twenty — 1 was a 
 fool ; but I never was deceived about her. 
 Having asked me here, Mary, you must abide 
 by the consequences. If this girl will have me, 
 I shall marry her." 
 
 " If she accepts, I shall be sorry — very sorry 
 for you both. My own belief is that she will 
 not accept, and I would have spared you the 
 pain of this by what I began by telling you.
 
 ^70 POET AND PEER. 
 
 But, if you are bent on doing a foolish thing, 
 let it be done at once." 
 
 Maiy Goldwin, though she was something of 
 a tyrant, had a loving, benevolent nature. She 
 wished everyone to be happy, if possible, as she 
 directed ; if not, why then after his own unwise 
 fashion. As she took her solitary drive that 
 afternoon, she argued thus with herself: 
 
 *' Few young men are situated like Hubert — 
 his own master as to fortune, and absolutely 
 without ties or responsibilities of any kind. His 
 committing a folly can hurt or distress no 
 one. i\.gain, his nature is peculiar — averse 
 from general society — averse from the ordi- 
 nary fields of ambition. He wants a com- 
 panion who can enter into his life-work — 
 his philanthropic schemes — without pining for 
 the pleasures of the world — a wife he can, in 
 some measure, mould ; and such this little girl 
 would certainly be. It is a pity — and I know 
 I am right, on principle, to oppose it — but, if he 
 could bring her in time to care for him, he 
 might, perhaps, with a view to his own happi-
 
 POET AND PEER. 271 
 
 ness, do worse. Yes ; I must confess to myself, 
 though I would not to Mm, that he might do 
 worse. 
 
 Meantime two were seated under the wide- 
 armed cedar beside the stream that divided the 
 garden from the beech-wood. There was sun- 
 light and tremulous blue shadow among the 
 leaves and mosses on the opposite bank, but 
 here where they sat was impenetrable gloom, 
 under the pall of the immoveable black foliage 
 which no ray could pierce. The children had a 
 little friend to visit them, and were absorbed in 
 daisy-chains upon the lawn ; Nellie had her 
 needle-work, at which she stitched rapidly. 
 She had learned not to feel the least afraid of 
 the big, kind^ clever man beside her. She even 
 ventured, in her miserable ignorance, to ask 
 him all manner of questions. For it would 
 seem that he knew almost everything, and that 
 to instruct her was a pleasure instead of a bore. 
 It was wonderful what confidence, what repose 
 she felt in the company of this acquaintance of 
 little more than a fortnight's standing. With
 
 272 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Athelstone, on the contrary, she had never been 
 without a certain sense of fear, begotten of her 
 bh'nd admiration and craving for his approval. 
 With this far graver and more imposing man, 
 she experienced no solicitude as to her talk. 
 It never occurred to her to consider what he 
 thought of her. It was pure benevolence that 
 made him join her in her daily walk with the 
 children, and converse with her of an evening, 
 instead of with the Miss Brawnes or any other 
 ladies that might be present. She. was not 
 concerned to show her ignorance before him, so 
 she spoke freely. 
 
 He had been telling her of his London 
 project, and how sanguine he was of its 
 success. 
 
 "The thing that is most wanted among the 
 poor of London is the sacrifice of time and 
 brains. People are ready enough to help with 
 their money ; but few, comparatively, are able 
 or willing to devote any portion of their lives, 
 like the late George Denison, to humanizing 
 some of their fellow-citizens. I am happily 
 so situated that I can ; and I mean to do so."
 
 POET AND PEER. 273 
 
 " How I should like to do it, too, if I was 
 able !" said Nellie, simply. 
 
 He was leaning his head upon his hand, 
 his elbow resting on his crossed knee, so that 
 he could look under the garden-hat which 
 shaded the girl's face, as she bent over her 
 work. 
 
 " Will you help ^e f ' he asked, in a low 
 voice. ''Not now — not at once — I do not ask 
 for an answer yet — you know me too little, 
 perhaps, though I feel I know you so well — by- 
 and-by " 
 
 He paused for a moment, and the girl, who 
 had raised her eyes in wonder, somewhat dis- 
 concerted him by exclaiming_, 
 
 ''How could I help you, Mr. St. John? I am 
 sure I would, if I could." 
 
 " Could you ever like me well enough, do 
 you think, to become my wife ? Do not look 
 so frightened, dear. I have given you my 
 heart — it is yours — but I do not ask you to 
 make me any promise now; I shall never 
 change. You are very young — you have 
 seen nothing of the world. Wait. Only 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 POET AND PEER. 
 
 think of me as your best, unalterable friend." 
 
 " Oh ! Mr. St. John — this is some mistake. 
 Oh ! sir, if Mrs. Goldwin knew " 
 
 *'Be quite at ease; she does know. She 
 even urged my speaking to you. She " 
 
 " Oh, pray — pray do not go on. You distress 
 me. I don't know what to say. I so little 
 thought " 
 
 " I have taken you by surprise. Say nothing 
 — or only say this : that there is no obstacle in 
 the way of our union — no one to whom your 
 affections are engaged." 
 
 " No, no/' cried the girl, in an agony of terror. 
 *' There is no one ; how could there be ?" It 
 seemed as if her secret were about to be dragged 
 from her. Her cheek crimsoned and paled ; 
 then she burst into tears, indignant tears. It 
 was cruel, it was shameful, to make her tell a 
 lie. Her heart was hardened against the kind, 
 brave fellow who sat there, and who would have 
 given up his life for her. 
 
 " Don't cry, dear — don't cry, my child. That 
 is quite enough. I am satisfied, and will say 
 no more now. I have to go to London to-
 
 POET AND PEER. 275 
 
 morrow, and I do not think my cousin would 
 care that I should return here. But she talks 
 of wintering in Rome ; and if so, I shall cer- 
 tainly take a month's holiday and follow her. 
 If you can give me any hope then, I shall be 
 the happiest man alive. But remember, what- 
 ever happens, I am your friend — you cannot 
 deny me that — and a true friend is worth some- 
 thing in life. Dear, God bless you !'' 
 
 He took her hand, held it a moment in his, 
 and left her. 
 
 But those daisy-chain makers were not wholly 
 unmindful of what passed. 
 
 " Mamma," said Tricksy that evening, '' why 
 did Coudin Hubert make Mit Dawton cwy 
 under de tedar dit afternoon ?" 
 
 Mamma said nothing to Cousin Hubert, but 
 discreetly held her peace. When he bade her 
 good night_, however, the young man said, 
 
 " I am going to-morrow, Mary. I have busi- 
 ness in London, and, after what you said to-day, 
 I feel I should only be a disturbing influence 
 here. I have spoken, and it was not as you 
 thought. But I have no answer. It is only 
 
 t2
 
 276 POET AND PEER. 
 
 fair she should know something of life, and see 
 more of me before deciding. Like Ravenswood, 
 ' I bide my time.' "
 
 277 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 /^NE crisp, sparkling morning in the following 
 ^ December a tall lady, singularly clad, 
 stood on the sunny terrace on the Pincio in 
 Rome. Beside her was a large, comfortably- 
 furred white poodle, her only t)ompanion. She 
 was sketching in a small book, as she leant 
 there on the balustrade ; but it was not St. 
 Peter's, nor any of the glittering domes of the 
 fair city, wdth its background of the Monte 
 Mario, that tempted her to draw. At the back 
 of the Via Babuino, upon which she looked, was 
 a wooden balcony to which the last yellow 
 leaves of a vine were clinging. Upon this bal- 
 cony were hung ftmdr}^ clothes to dry. Two 
 great earthen jars and a string of onions were
 
 278 POET AND PEER. 
 
 also accessories to the picture, the only figures 
 in which were a mother and her child. The 
 woman wore a white panjio on her head, and 
 the sunlight touched a spot of scarlet in her 
 skirt. But, as is generally the case, they moved 
 before the artist had completed drawing her 
 unconscious sitters ; and, as she closed her book 
 and turned her steps homewards to the 
 " Europa," she became aware that her steps 
 were followed, though at a respectful distance, 
 by a young man, who happened to have been 
 the only other person on the terrace at that 
 early hour. 
 
 The lady's appearance was so striking that 
 indeed it was no wonder she should attract 
 attention. She had a peculiar nobility of aspect, 
 which was more remarkable than her beauty, 
 and, though eccentrically attired, it was impos- 
 sible to associate the idea of vanity or coquetry 
 with such simple dignity. She wore a dark 
 red robe — it would be sacrilege to call it a gown 
 or frock — trimmed with fur, and made as nearly 
 as possible like that we afe accustomed to 
 associate with Faust's Marguerite. A velvet
 
 POET AND PEER. 279 
 
 and gold bag was slung at her side, and on her 
 head was a small cap of fur. Beneath it her 
 hair, which was of a reddish brown and very 
 thick, hung in loose coils in a net far down her 
 back. Her f;ice was pale, and her features not 
 absolutely regular ; but the light grey eyes were 
 singularly lustrous, and the mouth, though per- 
 haps too large for perfect beauty, had the charm 
 of combined sweetness and decision which was 
 felt by even casual passers-by. 
 
 The passer-by on this occasion — and he could 
 not be called casual, for he had passed several 
 times while she was sketching without her 
 looking up — was Wilfred Athelstone. He and 
 his mother had arrived in Rome a few days 
 previously, and taken up their abode at the 
 "Tempietto," that charming house at the 
 corner of the Via Gregoriana, overlooking the 
 Trinita del Monte steps. 
 
 He ran into the drawing-room where Lady 
 Athelstone sat, a quarter of an hour later, and 
 flung down his broad-leaved hat on the table, 
 and himself into a chair. 
 
 ** I have just seen the most divine creature,
 
 280 POET AND PEER. 
 
 mother! — a goddess walking this earth in a 
 mediaeval costume. Burne Jones never con- 
 ceived anything more lovely — and then her 
 dress — so entirely delightful. She is like a 
 Botticelli, or Lippo Lippi — stepped out of a 
 frame !" 
 
 "Indeed, my dear! How very curious! 
 Botticelli was a Florentine, was he not, born, if 
 I remember right, in 1437 ? How very odd 
 that a young woman in the present day should 
 go about dressed like that !" 
 
 "Not at all odd. It shows she has a soul 
 that is above subscribing to those horrid French 
 fashions — those degrading swathing-bands, 
 that reduce every woman to a tailor's block. 
 The idea of any M. Worth dictating to the 
 women throughout the universe how they are 
 to clothe ! Wait till you see this girl. I have 
 discovered who she is — and, curiously enough, 
 I remember now having heard all about her 
 from Lady Frances Cope." 
 
 " Really ! Then she is in society? I thought 
 she must be some painter's model, from your 
 account, my dear ; but Lady Bannockburn, I
 
 POET AND PEER. 281 
 
 know, is very particular as to whom she lets 
 Frances associate with." 
 
 *' Lets her associate with ? Why, that dumpy 
 little thing is not fit to tie the shoestrings of 
 this goddess !" laughed Wilfred. 
 
 " The qualities we look for in an associate," 
 remonstrated Lady Athelstone, with a weak 
 attempt to improve the occasion, " do not de- 
 pend — eh, my dear? — upon — upon looks. You 
 can know nothing about this person's mind and 
 character. What is her name ?" 
 
 " Her name is Brabazon ; and my instinct, 
 my perception, would tell me a great deal about 
 her mind and character, if I had not already 
 heard so much of both from her friend. She 
 used to say she was unlike any other woman 
 in the world, and so she is — I feel sure 
 she is." 
 
 " Brabazon," repeated Lady Athelstone, medi- 
 tatively. "There used to be some Brabazons 
 I knew in Park Lane." 
 
 " You are not likely ever to have known 
 these. The father married an Italian, and they 
 have lived chiefly abroad. The father died
 
 282 POET AND PEER. 
 
 here a few years ago. Miss Brabazon has never 
 gone out in London, and her acquaintance there 
 is chiefly in the literary and artistic world. 
 They are here at the *£uropa' (I followed 
 her in there, and asked the porter). I wonder 
 who knows her? I must get introduced at 
 once." 
 
 *' I am going to the Embassy to-day. I will 
 ask about them there," said his mother, with 
 something approaching to a sigh. 
 
 This dear, brilliant, gifted son of hers was 
 sadly difficult to manage — always breaking out 
 into some extravagance. Heaven only knew 
 Avhat these people were like ! She prayed 
 they might be unobjectionable; but she felt 
 some doubt on the subject, in spite of Lady 
 Frances's supposed intimacy — for that might be 
 only dear Wilfred's assumption : he always 
 jumped so rapidly at conclusions. 
 
 The inquiries at the Embassy, however, 
 proved perfectly satisfactory. Mrs. Brabazon's 
 birth, it is true, was supposed to be obscure ; 
 but she had always been of irreproachable con- 
 duct, and that in spite of considerable tempta-
 
 POET AND PEER. 283 
 
 tion ; for she had been remarkable for her 
 beauty, and her husband had always led the 
 life of an invalid. His income had been scarcely 
 more than moderate, but it was found, at his 
 death, that he had lived within his means, 
 and his only child was heiress to a considerable 
 fortune. Since she was fifteen — and she was 
 now six and twenty — she had never had a home. 
 They lived at hotels, six months in one place, 
 or as much as nine months in another : health 
 and education being the two motive powers 
 that had regulated their course during many 
 years. Since Mr. Brabazon's death they had 
 been even less in England than before, passing 
 each winter in a different capital. The untried 
 had attractions for both mother and daughter : 
 they liked travelling, despised what is ordinari- 
 ly understood as comfort, and were indifferent to 
 general society. 
 
 " You will find a lot of their intimates — and a 
 very queer lot they are — if you ever drop in there 
 of an evening," said Beauport, a merry young 
 attache, to Athelstone at the English club that 
 day — " painters and poets, with shaggy beards
 
 284 POET AND PEER. 
 
 and suspicious linen, strong-minded American 
 females, and a few persevering Italian fortune- 
 hunters, who, undeterred by the very tall talk 
 that goes on, and by Miss Brabazon's treat- 
 ment of themselves — for she can be contemptu- 
 ous at times, let me tell you — worship at her 
 shrine constantly. I go in sometimes for the 
 fun of the thing; but I can't stand it very 
 long, or very often. My intellect is not very 
 strong, and the strain is too great. I should 
 have blood to the head." 
 
 "Can't you take me to-night? I want to 
 know her at once." 
 
 '' No, I can't," rephed the attache, decidedly. 
 " I tried that on once, but I found they objected 
 to having people brought to them. If we meet 
 them, I'll ask to introduce you ; but I warn you 
 they are peculiar. They don't care about posi- 
 tion, and that sort of thing, a bit. Miss Brabazon 
 will like to know you because you are a poet — 
 that's all." 
 
 Nothing could have quickened Wilfred's 
 desire to make the acquaintance of this original 
 young lady more than this speech ; and the
 
 POET AND PEER. 2S5 
 
 following Sunday afternoon at our charming 
 ambassadress's little reception the introduction 
 was effected. 
 
 Lady Athelstone looked in astonishment at 
 -the apparition of a tall young woman in faded 
 green, with puffed sleeves tied up with faded 
 blue ; but the face was wonderfully sweet, and 
 Lady Athelstone could not but greet it with 
 forbearance. In the mother there was nothing 
 to be connived at ; she was still a very hand- 
 some woman, with that grave grace which 
 belongs to Italians, and her attire was only 
 conspicuous from her chancing to be the only 
 woman in black. 
 
 Wilfred at once monopolized Miss Brabazon, 
 and Lady Frances Cope was naturally the 
 ground he first broke. 
 
 " I have heard so much of you from her — I 
 feel as if I knew you." 
 
 "I have also heard of you," replied the 
 young lady, looking directly into his eyes. He- 
 did not wince, and she went on, " Do you know 
 that she and her mother are coming here very 
 soon ?"
 
 286 POET AND PEER. 
 
 " No, I didn't," he replied, carelessly. " I am 
 very glad. She is capital company — only I 
 wish she could come without her mother, who 
 in meddlesome, and a bore." 
 
 " I never found Lady Bannock burn meddle- 
 some ; and Lady Frances is something better 
 than * good company.' She is a loyal, noble 
 girl ; and I have the greatest respect, as well as 
 affection, for her." 
 
 '' You ought to have," returned Wilfred, 
 nothing daunted, " for I never heard one 
 woman praise another as she did you." 
 
 "Perhaps you have been unfortunate in 
 yonr experience of our sex," said the young 
 lady, gravely. 
 
 He understood it all. She had heard of 
 Madame Uberti from Lady Frances or her 
 mother. " Confound those gossips !" was his 
 secret objurgation. 
 
 " I have known some very good women," said 
 he, biting his lip. 
 
 " Have you? I should not have thought so 
 from your poems."
 
 POET AND PEER. 287 
 
 " YoTi have read them, then f He looked 
 pleased. 
 
 " I have." 
 
 He looked less pleased. 
 
 "From the tone in which yon say that, I 
 fear you liked nothing in the book? Of 
 course, I am aware it is not one for a conven- 
 tionally brought-up young lady ; but I fancied 
 you were not that." 
 
 '• No, I am not that, or I should hardly 
 acknowledge I have read it." 
 
 '^ Why did you do so f ' 
 
 She paused a moment. 
 
 " Because I had some curiosity, having heard 
 of you from my friend." 
 
 -' And you hated the book altogether?" 
 
 "I thought it showed misapplied talent — a 
 capacity for doing better things." 
 
 "These poems are meant to illustrate the 
 various phases of a young man's inner life. 
 Nothing must be hid. His soul's vicissitudes — 
 the outpourings of his rapturous thongh transient 
 passions — his discouragements as to this present
 
 2b8 POET AND PEER. 
 
 world — his doubts as to the next. You must 
 take it as a whole, not condemn isolated 
 passages." 
 
 Miss Brabazon looked up at a small Byzantine 
 trjptich on a gold ground, which hung on the 
 wall opposite. To the uninitiated it was crude 
 and harsh : to her it seemed full of solemn 
 majesty and fervour. 
 
 " If I tell you what I really think, you will 
 not mind?" she said, slowly. 
 
 " I shall not mind." 
 
 "I do not hear in your verse the throb- 
 bing pulse of real passion, any more than I hear 
 the cry of a soul's real anguish. It seems to 
 me like a clever imitation of both, and leaves 
 me unmoved. As to the doubts expressed, it is 
 the fashion for every young man to have them, 
 and talk about them, now. But when I look 
 at such a picture as that, which has soothed 
 many a troubled spirit for centuries past, and 
 think of the simple lives that produced work 
 like that, I feel how miserable and insignificant 
 is all the labour and learning of the present 
 day, the outcome of which is a lamentable cry
 
 POET AND PEER. 28 D 
 
 that can only grieve and startle those whose 
 souls are at peace, and bring no comfort to 
 those who are afflicted." 
 
 A little colour had come into her pale cheeks 
 with the excitement of saying unreservedly 
 what she felt to a stranger about his writings. 
 It was boldness which extorted Wilfred's admi- 
 ration, in spite of his annoyance. There was 
 neither assumption nor vehemence in her man- 
 ner, and the lovely look in her eyes, as she 
 bent them upon him, was that of a reproving 
 angel. He could not be angry. 
 
 "Sylvia," said Mrs. Brabazon, approaching, 
 " it is time we are to be going. It make dark 
 so soon. Lord Athelstone, I am at 'ome nearly 
 always in prima sera. I shall be 'appy to see 
 you, when you like to call." 
 
 And thus ended Athelstone's first interview 
 with Sylvia Brabazon. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 290 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 rpHE woman upon whom Wilfred Athelstone's 
 -*- thoughts were now riveted presented a 
 combination which to some minds was inex- 
 plicable. She had an artistic love of what was 
 picturesque, and that which appeared delightful 
 to her in colour or in form, she saw no good 
 reason why she should not wear. That this 
 love of strange attire should co-exist with an 
 inflifference to general admiration, and an ab- 
 sence of all coquetry, seemed impossible to 
 many. But, after all, given the grand, simple 
 outline of such a character, it was not difficult 
 to explain how the filling up had come to have 
 this apparent inconsistency. Her father had 
 much affected the society of artists, and from
 
 POET AND PEER. 291 
 
 childhood she bad lived a great deal with them, 
 and with many of the free lances of literature, 
 whose company Mr. Brabazon had found divert- 
 ing in the various towns where they resided. 
 Her eye bad been early trained to judge many 
 things by the standard of persons who were 
 ignorant of, or revolted from, the canons of the 
 " comme il fautT 
 
 Her fine intelligence and elevated instincts 
 w^ere, indeed, vastly superior to those from 
 wbom she imbibed many of her opinions, and 
 it was curious to note how a mind, unspotted 
 by affectation, accepted the formula of men 
 who were blatant impostors. She lived very 
 much in a world of her own — a world the in- 
 habitants of which but little resembled those 
 she saw around her. She had, as yet, never 
 loved : she had had no delusions : she Avas 
 happy. 
 
 Mrs. Brabazon had never sought to exercise 
 any influence over her daughter. She was 
 intellectually Sylvia's inferior, in every respect, 
 but a strong affection subsisted between them. 
 Mrs. Brabazon had seen things for twenty years 
 
 u2
 
 292 POET AND PEER. 
 
 through her husband's eyes, and for the last six 
 through her daughter's. She was simple, and 
 profoundly indolent ; unworldly, amiable, with 
 occasional outbursts of passion ; a devourer of 
 French novels, rarely going out if she could 
 avoid it, but living for her prima sera, and the 
 gossip it brought with it. In her the Italians 
 were sure of a ready listener, and round her 
 they were generally grouped, while Sylvia was 
 discussing literature or art with persons of 
 whom Mrs. Brabazon knew little besides their 
 names. They were her daughter's friends, and 
 belonged to the category of things that were 
 to be accepted, but not understood. It had 
 been so in her husband's time, and she had be- 
 come used to the presence of those strange, 
 mildewed professors, or others like them, and 
 to hear a jargon talked of which she barely 
 understood the rudiments. 
 
 At the imperative desire of her son. Lady 
 Athelstone called next day at the " Europa," 
 and left her card. She hoped she was not act- 
 ing unwisely ; these people were received at the 
 Embassy, and Lady Bannockburn knew them.
 
 POET AND PEER. 293 
 
 The daughter, too, had a sweet face ; but it was 
 not good taste to render herself so conspicu- 
 ous : her dress made one shudder. Still she 
 was respectable, and after that Qberti episode, 
 and dear Wilfred's avoidance of all society in 
 London or in the country during the last eight 
 months, it was something to see him willing to 
 visit people who were above reproach. On the 
 other hand, Lady Porchester had said at the 
 Embassy that " no one had ever heard of these 
 Brabazons," and that if there was a thing she 
 abhorred, it was " a woman who goes in for 
 being artistic." Lady Porchester was known 
 to have an exceedingly bitter tongue, and she 
 had a young daughter to whom Wilfred had 
 not vouchsafed a syllable. Therefore Lady 
 Athelstone was a little afraid. She hoped Lady 
 Porchester would not think that she was going 
 out of her way to encourage an intimacy be- 
 tween Wilfred and these people. 
 
 That evening Athelstone made his first bow 
 in Mrs. Brabazon's drawing-room. He was 
 received with cordial graciousness by that lady, 
 ivhom he found seated before a tea-table. He
 
 294 POET AXD PEER. 
 
 was surprised at the transformation which taste 
 had effected in an ordinary hotel apartment. 
 Hangings of old Italian embroidery, fine in 
 design and general " tone," though much faded^ 
 concealed the hideous doors, and covered one 
 long stretch of putty-coloured wall opposite 
 the fireplace. On the sides of the room hung a 
 number of oil-sketches and small pictures of Miss 
 Brabazon's painting. An easel stood near the 
 window. There was an odd mixture of books 
 upon the tables : Enghsh essays ; German 
 poetry ; Italian MSS. on vellum ; the last enun- 
 ciations of Zola and Daudet. A mandolin lay 
 upon the piano; the white poodle upon a 
 Turkish rug. The air was heavy with the scent 
 of flowers in majolica jars. 
 
 Mrs. Brabazon and a dark little woman who 
 sat on the same sofa were supported on either 
 side by a young Italian, olive in complexion 
 and oily in manner. The Marchese Tivoli and 
 Count Scappa were good-natured and impecuni- 
 ous. The one was big, and the other little* 
 They did nothing, thought nothing, aspired to 
 nothing that a shepherd from the Abruzzi, with
 
 POET AND PEER. 295 
 
 a six months' veneer of civilization, might not 
 have done. Politics were a dead letter to 
 them ; so was Literature ; so was Art. Neither 
 had ever been inside the Gallery of the Vatican, 
 nor had visited the Palace of the Csesars. The 
 Pincio, the Opera, the legs of a thorough-bred 
 or of a baliet-girl, the fortune of the last Ameri- 
 can heiress (as per invoice), the chances of 
 so-and-so succeeding so-and-so in such a 
 married lady's good graces — these were their 
 only subjects of conversation. They talked 
 and laughed freely with Mrs. Brabazon ; they 
 were at their ease with her. At her daughter — 
 " quel bel' pezzo di donna " — they looked much 
 as flies may be supposed to gaze at a lump of 
 sugar in an impenetrable glass case. So desira- 
 ble, from every point of view, and so unattain- 
 able ; nay, so absolutely unapproachable ! 
 
 The object of these sighs stood leaning 
 against the mantelpiece conversing with a 
 gentleman and lady as Wilfred entered. She 
 wore a high dress of some dark brown material, 
 in which, here and there, appeared a thread of 
 gold. She held a fan of peacocks' feathers in
 
 296 POET AND PEER. 
 
 Ler hand, and in the cloud of hair drifted over 
 her brow were stuck three marigolds. As she 
 leant there over the fire, she seemed to Wilfred's 
 imagination to be some wonderful enchantress 
 of old come to life. 
 
 The lady who sat near her on the sofa, 
 however, belonged to the nineteenth century, 
 without the possibility of misapprehension. 
 Athelstone was introduced to her as Miss 
 Decker, and with the first words she spoke he 
 saw she was American. She was a vivacious, 
 clever, determined little woman of five-and- 
 tliirty, the correspondent for two newspapers, 
 one in New York and one in Philadelphia, who 
 pushed her way everywhere, interviewed every- 
 body, gave her decided views upon every sub- 
 ject (and some were very strange ones for an 
 unmarried lady to attack), and had not a scruple 
 in reporting all the private conversations she 
 succeeded in obtaining with persons of note. 
 Her dress was of the smartest prose, from the 
 Boulevards ; strongly accentuated, but sinning 
 against no laws of fashionable grammar, as 
 contrasted with the wild, indefensible poetry of 
 Sylvia's attire.
 
 POET AND PEER. 297 
 
 The gentleman who balanced the equilibrium 
 of power at this end of the room, until Athel- 
 stone upset it, was tall and thin, and all his 
 movements were willowy. He was apparently 
 about forty, was guiltless of any hair upon his 
 face^ and very little on his head ; had a high, 
 narrow, and receding forehead, and pale eyes, 
 which at times flashed malevolently behind his 
 short-sighted spectacles. It was a pity he 
 was not better-looking; one felt he would 
 have been so much happier. One fancied him 
 sighing, as he gazed at his own image, " Alas ! 
 I cannot be beautiful, but at least I can be grace- 
 ful. I owe it to my reputation." He had an un- 
 comfortable w^ay of knotting and writhing his 
 members, down to the very roots of his body, 
 when conversing, which would have impressed 
 one as the result of a distressing humility, had 
 it not been for the curious affectation ot 
 his delivery and the arrogance of his upper lip. 
 Mr. Spooner was an apostle of culture ; he had 
 written a great deal, and lectured a great deal, 
 and was considered an authority on art in every 
 form, but especially Christian art. Persons who
 
 298 POET AND PEEK. 
 
 did not like involved and nebulous English, 
 anathematized his works ; but he could afford to 
 smile at these : he had a large public of the 
 young men and women who sip with delight at 
 criticism that is presented to them with a froth 
 of fme language. 
 
 Wilfred had meant to monopolize Miss 
 Brabazon ; during the early part of the even- 
 ing he found this was impossible. After intro- 
 ducing him to Miss Decker, she had at once 
 renewed a discussion with the professor, which 
 Wilfred's entrance had interrupted. And the 
 little American fastened upon her new prey 
 with a tenacity there was no shaking off. 
 It must be confessed she amused Wilfred. 
 
 " You're a great poet, I hear. I haven't read 
 your works ; but I shall do so, and write them 
 up in America." 
 
 "My works won't take you long — they're 
 contained in one small volume." 
 
 " Oh ! — They're rather voluptuous, I hear." 
 
 He looked her full in the face, and said, 
 '*Very." 
 
 She laughed. Then she tried another tack.
 
 POET AND PEER. 299' 
 
 ''So you have just come right away from 
 England, have you. Lord Athelstone ? Well, I 
 hope we are going to have a good time in 
 Rome presently. We have been vurry dull till 
 now." 
 
 " I don't care how dull it is. I didn't come 
 for society. I hate it." 
 
 " Do you, now ? That's because you are 
 a poet, I suppose. But pray, don't you call 
 this society ?" she added, with twinkling eyes. 
 
 " This is sociability. There is a difference. 
 Can you tell me who the lady is sitting by Mrs, 
 Brabazon ?" 
 
 " She is a marchesa. Oh, my ! I forget her 
 name. Let me see. I have it written down,'^ 
 and she took a note-book from her pocket. 
 *' Pulci— that's it." 
 
 "Is she married?" 
 
 " Why, yes — more than most women. I have 
 heard she has quite a number of husbands, of 
 one sort or another. But I believe she has 
 given up love for politics of late." 
 
 ''It is about time. She must be near 
 
 fifty."
 
 300 POET AND PEER. 
 
 "That's so; but she is vurry clever. All 
 the meu like talking to her. She knows 
 everything that goes on. Some people say 
 she is a spy." 
 
 " She can't worm much out of those two 
 young, stupid-looking Italians, I should think ?" 
 
 "A woman can sometimes get more out of 
 a fool than out of a genius, Lord Athelstone," 
 and her eyes twinkled merrily again. " Besides, 
 she belongs to the Quirinal party, and, I guess, 
 has few opportunities of meeting any of the 
 ' Neri ' except here, or in some other foreign 
 ' salon.' Those two men belong to the Guardia 
 Nobili, and will tell her all the gossip of the 
 Vatican. They're a couple of geese; but I 
 often pluck them myself, and serve up their 
 scandal in my letters." 
 
 Wilfred laughed. 
 
 "Now tell me who is the man just come in, 
 who looks as if all colour and starch had been 
 washed out of him '? So languid a specimen of 
 humanity I have not seen for some time, is he 
 English r 
 
 "■ No; he ought to be, but he's Amurricau; not
 
 POET AND PEER. 301 
 
 a type of our go-ahead race, however. I guess 
 that young man was born tired ; and then he 
 was raised in England, which just finished him. 
 I am told half the young fellows in England 
 are like that — a kind o' cross between Lord 
 Dundreary and John the Evangelist. This is 
 quite a model young man, and nourishes a 
 hopeless passion for Miss Brabazon." 
 
 " Why does she have him here ?" 
 
 "Why? I've just told you! Isn't that 
 enough to melt any woman to pity ? Here is 
 another of her worshippers coming in — Mr. 
 Briggs, the artist." 
 
 " Is that Briggs ? — that burly, red-haired 
 man? Well, he is not a beauty ; but I admire 
 his pictures. They are so bold and unconven- 
 tional." 
 
 " That they certainly are — and the man is 
 like them. Nothing limp and washed-out about 
 him, Vurry sensual." 
 
 ''Strong and coarse— yes. But I like the 
 face, for all that." 
 
 "Sympathy?" suggested Miss Decker, mali- 
 ciously. " No doubt he admires your poetry^
 
 302 POET AND PEER. 
 
 I went to his studio two weeks ago to see a 
 portrait of Miss Brabazon he is paiuting, 
 and " 
 
 '' Is it like ? Has he done her justice ?" 
 
 " Well, it does look like her ; but he has given 
 her too much colour ; and then she is located in 
 a sort of a bower of red azaleas — wonderfully 
 painted, no doubt, but harassing to the eye. 
 Still when I gazed round upon all the fair-haired 
 goddesses, with their dvnipevy-rnowhere, — it was 
 a relief to return to the picture of a woman 
 clothed, and in her right mind." 
 
 " He is Venetian in his luxur}- of form and 
 colour. What is akin to that in Miss Brabazon's 
 beauty he would seize. I should not expect 
 him to reproduce the Umbrian delicacy, the re- 
 finement, and dignity — that must be beyond 
 him. My heavens! what a laugh! Does he 
 always roar like that?" 
 
 "Always, when he has Professor Spooner for 
 his butt." 
 
 Wilfred turned and listened. The professor 
 had taken up his parable again, after one scorn-
 
 POET AND PEER. 303 
 
 ful glance at the great hirsute painter. He fixed 
 a vague, far-seeing gaze on the tapestried wall 
 opposite. 
 
 " Yes," he continued, " until we learn to take 
 the sandals from off our feet when we enter the 
 Temple of Art, until we drive the money- 
 changers from its courts, and offer up the turtle- 
 doves of sacrifice and obeisance, we shall never 
 be purified. We shall continue to eat the flesh 
 of swine with unwashed hands, and drink to the 
 lees the debasing draughts of sensuality, by 
 painting the superficies of flesh and goodly 
 I'aiment delightful only to the grosser parts of 
 man, and informed and elevated by no spirits of 
 ethereal beauty." 
 
 Briggs's laugh was heard again. 
 
 " Sorry you don't like pork, Spooner. You're 
 not a Jew ? No_, I thought not. As to spirits, 
 I * inform ' myself very often with a glass of — 
 not ether — but absinthe — never enough to ' ele- 
 vate' me, however." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Briggs," said Miss Brabazon, shak- 
 ing her head, with a smile, "you take other
 
 304 POET AND PEER. 
 
 spirits worse than yourself, and — you know 
 the rest. Is all life a jest to you ? I wonder if 
 you are ever serious." 
 
 Strange to say, he looked for once discon- 
 certed. 
 
 " You should know," he said, with a sudden 
 change of manner. 
 
 *' Indeed I don't. When you appear to be 
 so, I always suspect you are laughing in your 
 sleeve. For instance, at ray sketch for 'La 
 Belle Jeune Giroflee.'" 
 
 "I have no sympathy with the pre-Raphaelite 
 language of painting which you have adopted," 
 he said, bluffly. *' That 3^ou know : I never 
 have concealed it. I don't like angular forms, 
 and I do like aerial perspective. But between 
 that and laughing at anything you do, there is 
 a vast difference. 1 see a great deal honestly 
 to admire in your work — a remarkable feeling 
 for colour, a wonderful power of expression. 
 The drawing of the limbs is not quite — quite 
 right, sometimes " 
 
 *' Could Giotto draw limbs correctly ? or Fra 
 Angeh'co ?" burst in Mr. Spooner, with a sar-
 
 POET AND PEER. SO 5 
 
 castic smile; but without looking anywhere 
 near Briggs. " That cold perfection belongs to 
 the Ecclectic Schools. It is the spirit we want 
 — the spirit we so rarely find — not the careful 
 reproduction of our miserable limbs " 
 
 "My limbs are not miserable — I deny it," 
 shouted Briggs, laughing. "The human body 
 was the last work in creation, Spooner, — conse- 
 quently the best; and I don't see why it is to 
 be pooh-pooh'd. You fall into ecstasies over 
 a flower, or piece of jewellery, or pattern on a 
 robe, minutely copied by one of these old fellows 
 who, if he had devoted half the time to the 
 human body, would not have given it to us dis- 
 located. And your extravagant praise of all these 
 minutise does a deal of harm." 
 
 The idea of telling Professor Spooner that he 
 did '' a deal of harm !" It made even Wilfred 
 the bold wince. Miss Brabazon said, with de- 
 cision, 
 
 " I think you are quite wrong, Mr. Briggs. 
 It is delightful to see the smallest thing in 
 nature painted as well as the painter knows 
 how. Anatomy is incalculably more difficult; 
 
 YOL. I. X
 
 306 POET AND PEER. 
 
 if he could have painted legs and arras perfectly, 
 he would have done so. That is no reason he 
 should not have copied accurately, and with a 
 loving hand, the beautiful objects of still life 
 around him." 
 
 ''Very delightfully expressed," said the pro- 
 fessor, gently- waving his head up and down, 
 in the young lady's direction. " Of course 
 you are right. Of course there is no coin- 
 passable voyage of opinion on other seas 
 for the earnest mariner. Let us be thankful 
 (the imperious brevity of human life precluding 
 universal perfection) for any piece of genuine 
 work — the filigree of a Van Eyk, or the fungi 
 ofaMabuse. Do they not indicate subjection, 
 humility, patience? — those fruits of the spirit so 
 conspicuously absent, in these latter days, from 
 Art !" 
 
 " And its critics/' laughed the painter. It 
 
 was not in the professor's power to inflict a 
 
 wound on him, as Wilfred observed ; he was 
 
 only vulnerable to Miss Brabazon's words. 
 
 " Will you show me some of your drawings.
 
 POET AND PEER. 307 
 
 Miss Brabazon?" asked Wilfred, suddenly, 
 before the professor's acrimony had found a 
 vent. She walked to the easel, and drew back 
 a piece of silk that hung over it. 
 
 " This is what I am finishing. Can you guess 
 the subject? I suppose you know well all the 
 old metrical romances V 
 
 Wilfred examined the water-colour drawing 
 before him for two or three minutes before he 
 replied. It represented an ancient church or 
 monastery door, close to which grew a venerable 
 ash-tree. Ig the hollow of the tree, a young 
 woman upon her knees was depositing an 
 infant, wrapped in a rich robe. The dawn was 
 breaking over the roofs and turrets of a con- 
 vent ; far off the husbandmen were hastening 
 to their labour in the field ; a priest's figure was 
 dimly discernible within the church. 
 
 " It is from one of Marie's Lays/' he said at 
 last. "I remember it all now, though I haven't 
 read it since I was twelve years old. It is 
 €alled 'LayLe Fraine,'and tells how the wicked 
 woman who maHgned her friend for having 
 
 x2
 
 308 POET AND PEER. 
 
 twins, when she was similarly visited, aban- 
 doned one of her children in an ash-tree." 
 
 " Yes, only this is not the mother, but a good 
 little maid who prays — stay, here is the whole 
 passage. I have copied it out for the benefit of 
 those who do not know it: — 
 
 " On her knees she sat her down, 
 And said, weepand, her orisouu, 
 * Lord,' she said, ' Jesu Christ, 
 That sinful mannes bedes* hearst, 
 Underfongt this present 
 And help this seli innocent, 
 That it mote y-christened be 
 For Marie-love, thy mother fre^!' 
 She looked up, and by her seigh 
 An asche, by her, fair and high, 
 "Well y-boughed, of mickle price ; 
 The body was hollow, as many one is. 
 Therein she laid the child, for cold, 
 In the pel,t as it was, by-fold 
 And blessed it, with all her might. 
 AVith that, it gan to dawe light, 
 And fowles up, and sung on bough. 
 And acre-men yede to the plough ; 
 The maiden turned again anon 
 And took the way she had ere gone." 
 
 Wilfred was no judge of Art. His admiration- 
 
 * Prayers t Receive. J Fur.
 
 POET AND PEER. 3C9 
 
 and Lis dislike were, critically, worth little ; but 
 they were, at least, honest. He saw nothing ta 
 admire in RafFaelle's "Transfiguration," and in 
 Michael Augelo's " Last Judgment/' and he 
 said so. On the other hand, an indifferent 
 painting occasionally roused his enthusiasm. 
 Miss Brabazon's drawing was by no means 
 faultless ; but it was poetically conceived, and 
 she had that rare possession which can neither 
 be bestowed nor taken away — the gift of 
 *• colour." The silver-grey shadows over the 
 sleeping convent, the flush of dawn in the 
 eastern sky, the dim-lit gold embroidery and 
 fur folded round the babe, in the black hollow 
 of the ash-tree, could not have been improved 
 in their rich and tender harmony. The maid's 
 kneeling figure was not absolutely right, but 
 there was a quaint beauty in it which seemed — 
 to Wilfred's imagination, at least — perfectly to 
 embody the old poet's intention. In a word_, 
 he wa§ moved as he seldom was by a design. 
 Perhaps — who knows? — the absence of the 
 critical iu this young enthusiast was not wholly 
 unpleasing to the fair artist, who was more
 
 210 POET AND PEER. 
 
 accustomed to technical praise or strictures 
 from the cognoscenti than to the fervid recogni- 
 tion of that imaginative faculty which soars 
 above perspective and the pectoral muscles. 
 
 She talked to him for some time, and the im- 
 pression he made was far more favourable than 
 on their first interview. She was not alto- 
 gether satisfied with this change of opinion, 
 which she regarded almost as an act of dis- 
 loyalty to her friend. She had been displeased 
 with his tone in speaking of Lady Frances and 
 her mother ; she had thought him a little pre- 
 suming — perhaps on his rank, perhaps on his 
 abilities. Either wa}^ she had deemed it well 
 to show this self-satisfied young lord that she 
 was not over-favourably disposed towards him. 
 She had, through the greater part of this even - 
 ing, bestowed no attention upon him, until 
 obliged, in common civility, to show him some 
 of her drawings. 
 
 '' He can certainly be very pleasant;' sl^e said 
 to herself that night, when he was gone. " I 
 am not surprised at poor Frances's iuftituation.
 
 POET AND PEER. 311 
 
 There is a peculiar charm in his manner, just 
 because it does not seem to be trying to charm 
 you. If he ever loves truly, and loves the right 
 loomaUf she ought to be able to do a great deal 
 with him." 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BT DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEDtt HOUSE.