mmmrm "LI B HAR.Y OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 823 HfcSth v./ THREE RECRUITS AND THE GIRLS THEY LEFT BEHIND THEM. VOL. I. THKEE RECRUITS AND THE GIRLS THEY LEFT BEHIND THEJI % $ofeI ET JOSEPH HATTON AUTHOR OF CLYTIE," "CRUEL LONDON," "THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA,' &c, &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1880. All rights reserved. LONDON : PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE, BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET. 8as TO i JOSEPH COWEN, M.P. THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED AS A SLIGHT TRIBUTE OF ADMIRATION O r^ AND REGARD. 3 i O £ m J < BOOK I. ENLISTED BY CUPID. O'er crackling ice, and depths profound, With nimble glide the skaters play ; O'er treacherous Pleasure's flowery ground They lightly skim and haste away. Johnson. VOL. I. B THREE RECRUITS CHAPTER I. THE OLDEST AND THE NEWEST FASHION. But there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream : No, there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream. Moore. T"T was years and years ago in an old -*- Midland town ; though it might have been to-day, judging from the topic they were discussing at the Angel Inn, while the London mail was dashing along; the Northern road. b2 4 THREE RECRUITS. Bad times. All the ports of the world closed against English commerce. Ministers denounced and defended. The nation with- out allies. Everything and everybody going to the dogs, except those who had already gone. Such were the themes of the local politicians who smoked their pipes and emptied foaming beakers of strong ale at the principal hotel, waiting to see the coach come in and hear the news from town. It was I said years and years ago. Before railways. Not before Love. That is as old as Hate, or how should we keep a check on villainy ? It was in the good old days of rural simplicity, mail coaches, port wine, and tie-wigs ; in the bad old days of trade riots, civil strife, religious persecu- tions, and hanging for robbery. There were time-serving politicians then as now, and hard, cruel, bitter bad times un- OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 5 tempered by a well-informed Public Opinion. Let it encourage hopefulness in us w r ho live in the present days of commercial distress, when we think of those same hard, bitter times which some of the veterans who are smoking their last pipes at the Angel still, remember, if not from actual experience, through the conversation of their fathers. "We were fighting the world. One ally stood by us ; the romantic King of Sweden. Otherwise the universe may be said to have been opposed to us. Our commerce was attacked in a conspiracy against which we issued retaliatory orders in council that hurt some of our manu- facturers as much as did the enemy's own measures. Heavily taxed, with dear bread, sustaining disasters abroad and disturb- ances at home, harassed by trade disputes, divided counsels, monetary difficulties, D THKEE EECRUITS. currency complications, afflicted with bad harvests, nothing but the innate luck and courage of this bull-dog race held the country together. Hand labour was fighting against machinery, agricultural hirelings were dragging out a miserable existence on the scantiest fare, landlords were demanding payments of their rents in gold, and Napoleon Bonaparte with his continental allies had sworn to crush us beyond the possibility of resurrection. Yet we are here to-day to talk of these things, standing upon a greater height of solid power than ever Home herself looked down from. It is true our industries are under a cloud, and will be until Govern- ments are free to look the cause in the face ; but to-day is summer weather compared with the hard, bitter times the people were talking about at the Angel, in the very earliest days of the wonderful OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 7 century, when this veritable history begins. These things did not, however, at pres- ent greatly concern Susan Hardwick. So long as they are fed and clothed, neither war nor bad trade will trouble young people much; and Love leads an enchanted existence. Nay, it flourishes most in dark days. English officers who upheld the national honour in their gallant deaths at Isandula wore love trinkets and died with their ladies' names on their lips, just as their fathers did in the continental wars, when Susan Hardwick was toying with the all-conquering god. It is an old, old fashion, this Love, a pleasant pain you cannot avoid if you would, a strange trouble you would not put aside if you could. People are afflicted with it in various ways. With some it takes the form of melancholy. Others find in it a transcendent delight. When 8 THREE RECRUITS. it is crossed by disappointment the com- plaint has in it the seeds of woes innumer- able. A gentle nature under the blight of unrequited love may become misanthropi- cal. But an arrogant and revengeful spirit is often stirred to desperate deeds when outdone by successful rivalry for the heart of the girl it loves. If you would study this philosophy of love in a philosophical way you will turn to dear old Burton's famous work. Should you be inclined to consider the passion as it was developed in the histories of a trinitjr of fair women who belong to this chronicle of Chesterfield, with all its attendant incidents of romance and mystery, of joy and pain, of broken vows and ruined hopes, of sorrows unexpected and sudden happi- ness, then you will let Burton rest on his shelf and follow these strange adventures, for strange indeed they are, the more so OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. ^ that they are founded in sober truth and honesty. The story of Susan Hardwick, only daughter of William Rutland Hardwick, Esq., millowner and magistrate, of the Hall, is not one of the least romantic in the histories of our county families. What a tantalising picture of young womanhood it was, this English daughter of Eve, sitting in the shadow of a pair of tall elms that sprung like two sculptured shafts out of the green turf in front of her proud father's house on the outskirts of the town. She was watching the gambols of a kitten playing with a ball of cotton that had fallen from some needlework in her lap. " The old straight waistcoats of whalebone," as an art-satirist describes the corset of a previous period, had fallen into disuse, and had for a time been succeeded 10 THREE RECRUITS. .by the easy, graceful fashion of low-necked, baby-waisted dresses and long mittens. Susan's skirts fell in soft folds about her, and there was poetry in the very twinkle of her pretty feet. The kitten playing with that ball of yellow thread somehow struck Oliver North as affinitive to his own position, as he paused in descending the half-a-dozen circular stone steps" that led from the old Queen Anne house known by the high-sounding title already mentioned. Not that Oliver had defined the idea in his own mind, but he loved Susan, and could never quite make out whether he had obtained any return of his passion. That was Susan's secret. " Is that you ?" she asked presently, without looking round, for the shadow of a youthful figure, in square cut coat and breeches, fell upon the green ^ward before her. OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. II " Yes," said Oliver, a blond, broad- shouldered, frank-eyed young fellow. " I beg your pardon, I came to see Mr. Hardwick." " And you are disappointed to find only bis daughter at home ?" It was this gift of repartee that puzzled and sometimes depressed Oliver. He was not skilled in reading the heart ; and Susan's cleverness jarred upon him. " I had important business with your father, but I am very glad to see you, Susan ; you know bow glad." He stood looking at her, his grey eyes full of admiration. " What were you thinking of while you stood looking at me on the steps?" sbe asked, turning towards bim a sunny, mischievous face, witb dark eyes and red parted lips. " I never quite know what I am think- 12 THREE EEORUITS. ing of when I see you, ray thoughts are in such a jumble." " Oh, I'm sorry," she said, kicking the cotton ball with her high-heeled shoe and relapsing into her former attitude. "Yes, I think I do know what I had in my mind ; I thought that was my heart at jour feet." " And that I and the kitten w T ere play- ing with it," she rejoined; "thank you, Mr. North." " I did not mean it unkindly ; but, when I am clear about what I think, I have a habit of letting it out, and I am a little out of sorts to-day." " ] should have thought to find you in spirits, as your old friend is expected by the coach to-night from London." " I don't think," said the youug man sitting by Susan's side, but at a respectful distance, "Philip Scruton was ever a par- OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 13 ticular friend of mine. TVe were com- panions in a way ; though. I could never trust him, and he never really liked me. But what a hero he will be at Chesterfield!' 7 " A hero ! a vagabond, Lord Ellerbie calls him. I heard him telling my father that he will come to no good." " I don't suppose his foreign education has much improved him." "Education! It is quite shocking to hear what Lord Ellerbie calls it. He says he has lived with bandits and robbers, that he has been a spy in the service of Spain, that he has been in the pay of Pitt ; and, indeed, the old lord seems very sorry he has escaped to come back to England." " That is a character to have ! Perhaps Lord Ellerbie is not quite just. Though I cannot remember anything good of Philip, I don't remember anything very bad." " Boys are not particularly good, I 14 THREE RECRUITS. believe, as a rule," said Susan, who had a deal of worldly wisdom for a girl; " you never know what they will be until they have really proved themselves as men." 11 Indeed ! My experience does not enable me to judge," said Oliver, smiling. "No!" answered Susan, kicking the silken ball with her pretty foot. "When I knew Phil, my father was alive, and we were well off, as the saying is. I was at school, and so was Philip ; I had a pony, and so had he. Since then my fortunes have gone back and his have advanced. The man who stood between him and the title and estates of Ellerbie is dead. Times are changed. "We shall have o call him the Honourable Philip Scruton now, I suppose." " The dishonourable Philip Scruton is what his uncle calls him," Susan replied, laughing. OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 15 " Well," said a bard, firm voice, as a thin, wiry man walked slowly from the house, " what is it, North ?" Susan and Oliver rose as Mr. Hardwick spoke. The old man had not changed his habit of dress for years. He still wore the old tie-wig, buckled shoes, brown stuff coat, with brass buttons, which had been the costume of his father. He walked with a crutch-stick. His face was closely shaven. It was a keen, cold face, with thin lips, and square chin. His eyes were shift- ing, and looked anxious. " What is it, North ? You may speak before Susan ; she will have to get accus- tomed to bad news." Susan had gathered up her work and was going into the house. She paused at a word from her father. " I fear there is some real danger at the mill," said Oliver, timidly, evidently not 16 THREE RECRUITS. wishing to speak of it before Miss Hard- wick. "Well? go on; my daughter may hear what it is." "Don't mind me, Mr. North/' said Susan, calmly. " The hands say they won't let the new frames come in, and I find the little machine of my own which they had allowed to be used is again broken." Oliver did not add that upon the pieces was a notice written in red characters, telling him his life would be forfeited if any further attempts were made to reduce the hand-labour of the mill by any more new mechanism. "Ah, I expected your genius for inven- tion would get me into trouble," said Mr. Hard wick. " But you encouraged Mr. North in his work," said Miss Hardwick, looking at her OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 17 father, whose eyes fell under her steady gaze. 11 Yes, yes, I know, his ideas were excel- lent ; well, well, to cut a long story short, what have we to fear ? — speak out, man." " We may not use the new machines, and we must re-employ the old hands, or the mill is to be burnt as others have been." Mr. Hardwick looked at his daughter. He had a great scheme in his mind which related to her, or he would not have wished her to hear Mr. North's message. 11 That means ruin !" he exclaimed, " do you hear, Susan ? It is time you gave up kittens and frivolity to learn that you are now a woman." " If I were a man," she said, " I would go down to the mill and see if they would burn it ! Not that it would matter much, for it has always brought misery to us. vol. i. c 18 THREE RECRUITS. My mother died through the worries of that mill. It is on your mind day and night. I don't see the good of it, if you will have me speak as if I were a woman, and what I say is worth hearing. But they shouldn't burn it, the wretches ! If it is to be burnt, I would burn it myself 1" Now, who would have thought a pretty, gentle maiden, entering upon her first dream of love, playing in the sun with a kitten, could have turned upon her father so sharply ? The old man looked at Oliver and then at his daughter, who gathered her trailing dress about her and went into the house. They did not see that, when she reached her own room, she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. Mary Kirk saw her, for Mary had been sitting in the little ante-room reading a letter which the postman had brought from Grassmoor Farm only within OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 19 the liour. It was an epistle of great moment to Mary, but she laid it by and hurried to embrace and comfort her friend. The clouds were of short duration. Susan presently looked up between the showers, and smiled like a spring day. " What is the matter ?" asked Mary, lovingly twining her white round arms about the slim figure of her friend. " Only my ill-temper, Mary ; I am the matter, nobody else ; I am always at the point of rebellion, and I break down the moment I give my own signals of revolt." " You always were odd," said Mary, looking at the other with a wondering face, " but education does that. I never was educated except just in reading, writ- ing, and arithmetic." "Your good heart is the best education, Mary, and away in that little village of yours everything is pure, and sweet, and c2 20 THREE RECRUITS. Arcadian ; you don't know what it is to live in a town and be irritated about what my father calls ways and means, and political economy." " Oh, but we all have our troubles, and Grassmoor has plenty, I can tell you, in- cluding highway robberies, and ghosts, and things." " You only say that to comfort me. I can tell just as well as if I were at the back of your thoughts. There, now, don't deny it. I will wipe my eyes and wash my face, and then we will have a good talk, here where we can't be disturbed by Oliver North and his pleasant messages, or by father and his financial theories, which all come to the ground in practice." Mary Kirk, who did not understand what her friend meant by financial theo- ries, sat down upon a low hassock by the window, and watched the town girl with OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 21 admiration and wonder. For Chesterfield was a great busy town compared with Grass- moor, where Mary lived in a low-ceilinged rambling old house called the Home Farm, and walked two miles to church on Sun- days. She was a dove-like girl. Mary ■ she had brown wavy hair, and dark violet- blue eyes. Her dress was something like what we now call Dolly Yarden, and, esti- mating simply the rural character of the name, she might have been a real Dolly Yarden herself. She was a picture of health. Her eyes were bright — they danced with a natural gaiety. Her lips were red always without artifice, and they parted on white teeth, just sufficiently irregular to make you wonder whether she would have been more beautiful had they been quite perfect. Mary Kirk was what nature had made her. Susan Hardwick was the result of a 22 THREE RECRUITS. combination of nature and art. Just as her dainty clocked hose were more artistic than Mary's blue knitted stockings, so were her manners more refined, her thoughts sharper, her wit brighter, and her ambition keener. In good truth, Mary Kirk had no ambition at the mo- ment beyond that of having the prettiest wedding that Grassmoor had ever seen. The greatest difficulty to the realization of this wish was not what her neighbours said, that she could not make up her mind whether to accept Jacob Marks or Tom Bertram, but how to tell the latter that Jacob Marks was her choice. "When the young town lady had dried her eyes and washed her face, this was the subject they fell to discussing. There was supposed to be an exchange of confidences between the two, but the exchange was OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 23 like English free trade, all on one side. Mary Kirk told everything, and Susan Hardwick nothing. Susan patronized Mary without exactly meaning it, and it amused and interested her to hear all about Mary's love affairs. " Jacob Marks was adopted by Theophilus Short, who keeps that tumble-down mill and inn on the little river, beyond Grass- moor." "Well?" " Poor Jacob, his father was Mr. Short's partner, and died without a will or any- thing, and Short said he died in his debt, and he adopted Jacob out of pity, people said ; but Jacob is his right hand in man- aging the mill." "Yes, and is he tall, and has he big shoulders, and can he throw the hammer and swing the quoit?" 24 THREE RECRUITS. " Better than any lad in the village, and he doesn't drink ; he has saved money. Oh, everybody likes him." 11 And Mary Kirk loves him," said Susan, looking into the blushing face of the village girl, who promply shut her eyes and laid her head on Susan's shoulder. Susan stroked the girl's hair and smiled at her pretty confusion, and when Mary looked up again her face was wet with tears. " I'm such a silly girl,"* she said. "I don't know what made me cry ; but, you see, father and mother somehow like Tom Bertram best, and sometimes I think he likes me better than Jacob does." " And you have not quite made up your mind which of the two you mean to marry ?" said Susan, still stroking Mary's hair. " That is very awkward !" OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 25 " Oh ! but I do know," answered Mary. " Tom Bertram is that harum-scarum young fellow who rode the steeplechase when Lord Ellerbie's jockey fell ill ?" "Yes, yes," answered Mary. ''Do you know Tom Bertram?" M I have heard of him." " Who told you about him ?" " Lord Ellerbie." "Do you know his lordship, then ?" " Yes, he visits here now and then." "Oh!" said Mary, as if a cloud had fallen upon her. fe Why do you say Oh, and freeze up in that way ?" " I don't know ; we all curtsey to Lord Ellerbie at Grassmoor, and w T hen he comes into our church, which he does once a year, though he is a Catholic, we all stand up." " Indeed. I would like to see myself standing up when Lord Ellerbie or any- 26 THBEE RECliUITS. body else came into church !" said Susan, with a scornful smile. " It was at Brackenfield Towers that the ghost was seen," said Mary, looking more and more awe-stricken. "Well, I am not a ghost," answered Susan ; " what is the matter with the child?" "It seems so strange that you should talk to his lordship, and your father be friendly with him and visit like, and that I should be your guest and friend too, and that he should talk of Tom Bertram, because he is so grand with us, you've no idea ; and Brackenfield Towers is haunted with a ghost to a certainty, and they say he hates us all at Grassmoor because we know and have seen it." " Well, you are a silly child ! You have not over-estimated yourself, Mary, if you feel like that. Don't you love me, then, OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 27 because Lord Ellerbie comes here? And don't you want to talk about Tom Bertram because the ghost's master gossips about him." " I'm glad it's day-time," Mary answer- ed, looking round the old wainscoted room ; " if it were night I should shut my eyes and bury my head under the bed- clothes." " You dear, silly, sweet blossom of Arcadia !" exclaimed Susan, kissing her, " one day, when I make my return visit to the Home Farm, we will find out a time when Lord Ellerbie is away ; and we will go and exorcise that ghost." 11 It has a dagger in its right hand." " Then we will get Jacob Marks or Tom Bertram to bring a blunderbuss, which is more than a match for a dagger," said Susan, laughing. " But not for a ghost !" said Mary, seri- 28 THREE RECRUITS. ously, " you don't believe in ghosts ; I suppose you don't have them in towns ; but wait until you have seen one." u Have you seen one ?" " No ; but I know several people who have, and one Sunday your Vicar of Chesterfield preached about ghosts at our church, and he frightened us terribly ; his text was from Job, and it was 'Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before me ; the hair of my flesh stood up ; an image was before mine eyes.' Father and mother, too, thought he ought not to have preached about such things ; we are frightened enough already on dark nights." " Does Jacob Marks believe in ghosts ?" " Yes, indeed he does." " I thought so. And Tom Bertram ?" "No; he says they're rubbish,. and has OLDEST AND NEWEST FASHION. 29 offered to fight the best ghosb in the country for a wager." " You are delightful," exclaimed Susan, " it is like reading a romance to have you here. And now come, put on your things, and let us take a walk round the market place and see the shops, and have a gossip at the letter-carrier's. Perhaps we shall see the London coach come in ; this is the day for it, and there is not a bonuier sight in all the county." 30 CHAPTER II. A PASSENGER BY THE LONDON MAIL. The surly drums beat terrible afar, With all the dreadful music of the war. Broome. " TJARD times !" said the landlord of -*-- ■- the Angel, in a rich jovial voice, as if hard times were something good to eat or drink, "hard times! Bless my heart, I should think so; but they'll be harder yet, and what's the good of blaming Government, when ministers is only mortal like ourselves." A LONDON MAIL PASSENGER. 31 This brief summary of the situation was addressed to a select party of Ches- terfield men, and other persons, who had dropped in to smoke and chat, and drink strong ale, after the business of the day was over. The Angel had a smoking- room with a bow window, that looked out upon the market-place, a large open space, surrounded with shops and private houses, where the market folks pitched their stalls on Saturdays, where the fairs were held, and, once a year, the town sports, that included sack-racing, pole-climbing, quoits, throwing the hammer, smoking, and women's races for new gowns. On ordinary days the market-place was un- occupied, except here and there by piles of stall fittings, and a travelling caravan or two : but these were placed well out of the way of the coaches that used to come into the town from the east corner, and 32 THREE RECRUITS. leave by the west, changing horses midway at the Angel. " I tell you the manufacturers of Eng- land are being ruined," said a local mill- owner, emphasizing the remark with a wave of his pipe. " And what about the farmers ?" asked Mr. George Kirk, of Grassmoor, who had, five minutes previously, ordered his mare to be put into his cart, intending to call at the Hall on his way home, and see if his daughter wanted anything. He had driven into Chesterfield with Tom Bert- ram during the afternoon on a little busi- ness, and they were just having a glass, " to set them on the way," as he put it. " What about the farmers ?" repeated the manufacturer. " Oh ! you're always safe ; we must have beef and bread, and I should judge Grassmoor is thriving, to look at you, Mr. Kirk." A LONDON MAIL PASSENGER. 33 " Ah ! well," said the farmer, in a pleas- ant northern dialect, " that's all right ; we shannat do so badly, I reckon, so long as we get a tidy harvest." "It's cheerful," said the landlord, "to hear somebody besides myself as doesn't complain ; at the same time, gentlemen, don't think I am not sorry for my neigh- bours ; but what I say is things will be worse. A man can't sit here day after day and talk to travellers by this coach and that, travellers posting and travellers rid- ing, without picking up information ; and them as goes to and fro in the world knows how it wags, let me tell you that, gentle- men." " Ay, ay," remarked several quiet topers, who approved of the oracular utterances of the host. "You needn't go to and fro much to know things are bad and getting worse," VOL. I. D 34 THREE RECRUITS. said the manufacturer ; " all very well to have whopped those Frenchmen at sea, but Bony will smash us on land, and what then ?" " He'll never do it !" said several voices together ; " never I" " Never," said the cantankerous politici- an, who hated the Government and blamed them for everything, weather, small-pox, dear bread, and the miserable condition of the roads, and would like to have had a great military defeat at their door, " but he's doing it, my friends ! It's as bad to be stricken down in our trade as on the field of battle. Good heavens, don't you read, any of you? Don't you know our industries are paralysed, our ships confiscated, every port closed against us?" "We'll open them, every dam one of 'em !" exclaimed Tom Bertram, slapping A LONDON MAIL PASSENGER. 35 bis empty tankard on the black shining mahogany table, ringed with the memorials of a century of pewter and silver cups. " Bravo, Tom," said Mr. Kirk. "Open them!" said Tom, standing up, six feet of broad Anglo-Saxon manhood, " ay, and eat 'em !" A round of cheers and a roar of laughter greeted his remark. " Oh, indeed," said the political econo- mist, u and where do you get your opinions from, sir?" The " sir" was flung in cuttingly. But it fell upon Tom's consciousness as harm- lessly as a raindrop on a paving-stone. " From history, master," answered Tom, in a frank, fearless way, with a sufficient smack of dialect to show that he was a North-countryman, " from sort of natural feeling Englishman ha' gotten in him, and from belief that we are made of same d2 36 THREE RECRUITS. mettle as our fathers, and from downright conviction as there is no nation, nor no twenty nations, that can smash us." "Hear, hear," said the listeners, all but one, and the manufacturer, who, turning superciliously to Mr. Kirk as if he would ignore his friend, said: "Any nation! Why, doesn't the fellow know that our clever ministers have put us at enmity with all the world, and what do you think is to become of a little country like England with a conspiracy of nations against us abroad, and a world of discontent at home ?" 1 'God will defend the right!" said Mr. Kirk. " Then I wish he'd begin and do it," answered the politician. " That's profane," said a severe, hard- looking man, who had hitherto appeared to take no interest in the conversation, and A LONDON MAIL PASSENGER. 37 who was the one silent member of the crowd just referred to, " that's blasphemy, and I can't listen to it." "Very well, Mr. Short," said the land- lord, " we koow you're a bit religious, and so I'll fine the last speaker glasses round and pay it myself." This restored the good humour of the company. The person who had objected to profanity did not refuse a glass of rum and water, which he declared was more wholesome in hot weather than beer. 11 You are going on by the local coach, I suppose ?" said the landlord. " Unless Mr. Kirk will give me a lift," answered Theophilus Short. " Of course I will ! Tom, lad, have back seat put in cart," said the farmer. By this time the vehicle was standing at the door at the Angel yard, and the travel- lers going to Grassmoor departed. 38 THEEE EECRUrTS. " That Short is a humbug !" said the politician, "a canting hypocrite, and I'm glad he's gone ; as for the young man, he is simply deluded, that's all; but a fine lad, a fine lad." Mr. Kirk got down near the Hall, and, going up to the house, found Mary had gone out. He left a message with the housekeeper, merely his own and her mother's love, and that of the children, and then away the Grassmoor cart rattled homewards. Tom and Mr. Short had some slight bickering on the road. When they put Short down where he could get home a near way across the fields, Tom made a very similar remark about him to that in which the Chesterfield politician had summed him up. " I do believe the fellow is a damned scoundrel, that's a fact!" said Kirk, " but A LONDON MAIL PASSENGER. 39 lie's never been found out, thou sees, lad, that's it." " Ah ! he will be, let's hope," said Tom. Meanwhile the grooms at the Angel had led out into the market-place four sleek bays with shining coats and polished hoofs, and at the same moment you heard a distant horn. Suddenly the precincts of the tavern were alive with loungers and lookers-on. The topers in the smoke-room came to the window and looked out, the landlord brought his pipe into the street, and re- garded the proceedings with pride. The horses champed their bits, and presently from the eastern corner of the market- place came toiling along the mail-coach from London to Manchester, a picture of light, and life, and elegance. A whip flourished harmlessly over the steaming 40 THEEE RECRUITS. cattle, a horn blown merrily behind, a flash of red and gold, and black and silver, and the coach pnlled up in front of the Angel window; there was a rush of grooms and stable-helps; and luggage, horses, passengers almost together poured into the inn yard, and in less than five minutes the fresh team was harnessed. It was a sudden bustle and excitement, which lasted hardly any longer than the arrival and departure of the modern railway- train en route, and it had the advantage of being more picturesque. You knew that it had come from busy cities, through quiet country highways, by pleasant homesteads, over chattering streams bridged by ancient ways; that children had greeted it from field and hedgerow ; that it had passed low lumbering waggons and farmers' gigs ; that it had halted here and there to have the horses' mouths washed out and the A LONDON MAIL PASSENGER 41 passengers regaled with foaming ale ; that it was redolent of country lanes and grass lands, of hay and straw, and old-fashioned flowers. While we are thinking of the sight the passengers have seen, the whip is on the box again. "Now, Bill, let go their heads. So ho ! Beauty ; steady, old lass. Away you go !" Forward dashes the team, the guard swings up behind, and Mary Kirk, standing with Susan Hardwick at the primitive Post-office door, whence the mail- bags had just been carried in and out, said it was indeed a bonny sight to see the fast coach change horses at the Angel. "And I wonder if that foreign-looking person standing by the hotel yard is Mr. Philip Scruton," said Miss Hardwick ; " let us ask the Post-office's daughter. She will not be able to tell us, but we can talk to her, she is very nice." It was a quaint little place, the postal 42 THREE RECRUITS. house of those days situated near the Angel tavern. The business of receiving and dis- tributing the correspondence of Chester- field and the neighbourhood was carried on in connection with dealings in hay and straw and stationery. There was a little room at the back of the post-office's shop, where Jessie Burns was generally to be found, helping to keep her father's books, he having been promoted in life, not on account of his learning and intelligence, but out of respect to his local patron, the B.everend JSTormanby Wingfield, Vicar of Chesterfield, an appointment by which there hangs a tale. The vicar and Mac, as everybody called him, had been soldiers together, Mac a sergeant in Colonel Wing- field's regiment, and when the Colonel laid down the weapons of the flesh and return- ed to the practice of those of the spirit, to which he had been originally educated, A LONDON MAIL PASSENGER. 43- Burns's time was up, and his Colonel bad sufficient influence to obtain for bim the post-office in the old midland town where his ancestral living was situated. Duncan was a Scotchman, and Jessie was a sandy-haired Scotch lassie, with a tendency to Puritanism and fine ribbons, a union about which Chesterfield was very censorious. Jessie was a clever girl. She sang in the church choir, collected sub- scriptions for the missions, and was the neatest, tidiest, smartest lassie in all the borough, firm on her feet, but sly, the gos- sips said, decidedly sly; and she flirted with the vicar's son uncommonly. There was the faintest lilt of the pibroch in her voice and manner, just a piquant suggestion of the Highlands ; and when she received Miss Hardwick and Mary Kirk in that little parlour behind the post-office, that trinity of fair women I told you of was 44 THREE RECRUITS. now complete. You might have travelled the world over, and not have seen three girls half as pretty, each a type, each a beauty, who had no cause to be jealous of the other. " I saw the gentleman ; he was on the coach when it came in," said Jessie. " Yes, he was, and I do not know Mr. Scruton, who they say will be the next Laird o' Ellerbie, but I should think, from what I've heard, that jon odd-looking person is him. I heard the vicar say he is worse than a Jacobite, and he looks very foreign." " You have heard about him, then ?" said Susan, in her quiet inquiring way. "Well, only just what the' vicar said to father, ye ken," answered Jessie, cautious- ly; "but you should be the best-informed about him, Miss Hardwick." " I only know that he was a boy here, and that he went away to be educated, A LONDON MAIL PASSENGER. 45 that he has never returned since, and is reported to have had some strange adven- tures," said Susan. "But ye ken Laird Ellerbie? He was visiting at the Hall a good deal, and the vicar says he talks about the young man with much anger." Jessie looked mischievously at Miss Hardwick, crossed her arms upon her knees, and leaned back in her chair. Mary Kirk sat tranquilly listening, but thinking all the time about what she would say in reply to that letter she had received from Jacob Marks. "You are wicked to-day, Jessie," said Miss Hardwick. " You have got your scandal cap on." "Oh, Miss Hardwick, you are unkind to say that. I know you come to hear the news, and I don t make the news." "You are the most truthful girl in 46 THEEE EECRUITS. Chesterfield, Jessie, but you have your own way of emphasising and setting forth a fact. Do the people talk about Lord Ellerbie's visits to the Hall P" ""Yes, indeed they do." " And what do the poor creatures say ? — that he is going to be my father's partner ?" Susan knew that Chesterfield had the measure of her fathers purse, and that he was noted for his pride, his thrift, for his love of speculation, for his losses, and also for his troubles with the mill; so she con- fronted the opinion of the town straight. "No, they were not saying that; but you will be angry if I tell you." "It is not possible for all Chesterfield to make me angry, whatever it may say or think," Susan answered, her eyes flashing a sparkling denial of the declaration. " Well, then, they say the partner Lord A LONDON MAIL PASSENGER. 47 Ellerbie will be taking is just yourself, Miss Hardwick." "Jessie !" exclaimed Susan, "this is dis- graceful !" "Ye made me tell ye," said Jessie. "And was that a piece of news you heard the vicar tell your father," said Susan, rising, and glancing a command to Mary to do the same, " or was it the vicar's martial son who told you, Jessie Burns, when your father was out." The millowner's daughter and her friend took their leave on this, Mary a little con- fused at being witness of an unexpected and unpleasant scene (which appeared to have humiliated Susan), and Miss Hardwick evidently both angry and hurt. "Eh, but that's a spiteful lassie," said Jessie Burns, smoothing her dainty apron, and looking at herself in a hand mirror. " I declare but she's fetched the colour into 48 THREE RECRUITS. my cheeks! Eh, George, but I hope ye nor me may have to suffer for my sharp tongue, nor my faith and trust in your ower kind words and loving promises !" 49 CHAPTER III. THE STRANGER BRINGS TROUBLE IN HIS TRAIN. The miller plyed a double trade, A double trade plyed he ; By day a saint who'd sing a hymn, At night a rover free. FT was a different-looking market-place -■- then, the picturesque old square . that Philip Scruton looked upon, from that which modern progress has made it. The railway " navvy," the pitman of Staveley and Claycross, the Irish labourer, had not darkened its ways, and called into existence cheap stores and strange lodging-houses. VOL. I. E 50 THEEE BECRUITS. The reign of stucco, and brick, and blue slates had not yet wiped out the old Sessions-house, the Gothic mansion, the English bay-windows, the clump of thatch- ed cottages by the West Bars, and the glints of green country that filled in the ends of the passages on the lower pave- ment of the old resort of local trade and commerce. The people were dressed characteristically, each class as became its station ; and there were French prison- ers of war, on their parole of honour, lounging under the piazzas, and dreaming of their native land. Then, as now, the steeple of the ancient church, rivalling the tower of Pisa, leaned over the town, as if listening to the music of the brook that once ran shimmering and glassy over smooth pebbles, and which now creeps along dark and tainted. The steeple is twisted, as if in recoil at the smudges THE STRANGER BRINGS TROUBLE. 51 which coal and commerce, and an unclean invasion, have made upon the once dreamy historic town, never quite lovely in itself, but looking from a height like a rough gem in a gorgeous setting of emerald and gold. Philip was not sorry to be again in a safe place, though he scorned a quiet life, and had no scruples about the character of the adventures in which he engaged. He had made, however, one serious mis- take in his reckless acceptance of danger- ous service, and that was in connection with a secret society of Spain, a semi- religious Brotherhood which had for its object the promotion of the temporal power of the Church, the secular advance- ment of its chiefs in the diplomatic world, and the removal of obstacles, heretical, spiritual, or otherwise, to the schemes of the Society. The Brotherhood in numbers E 2 & # \W X