V.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER TALES. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
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 /^^z^^ 
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE 
 
 AND OTHER TALES 
 
 BY 
 
 B. FRANCES POYNTBR 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ''MY LITTLE LADY," 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 The changing guests, each in a different mood, 
 Sit at the roadside table, and arise — " 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1886. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 eA3 
 
 V. I 
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 THE WOOIXG OF CATHERINE. 
 
 Ix thinking over what in common phrase 
 are called the tragedies of life — ruined 
 hopes, fallen ambitions, the perfidy of 
 friends or lovers, and the like — there 
 can be no tragedy so great, it has some- 
 times seemed to me, as that of some crime 
 committed by a good man who, through 
 one unwatched impulse or another, finds 
 himself betrayed into a deed at variance 
 with the traditions of his whole life. For 
 if, as we believe, no soul so degraded 
 exists as to be without a germ of better 
 things ; so there lives no human soul, we 
 may be sure,without some hidden possibility 
 
 b2
 
 4 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 for perhaps unthought-of evil. I can, I 
 say, conceive of few things more tragic 
 than such evil suddenly springing up in 
 a life that has hitherto fulfilled its am- 
 bition of kindly deeds and honest days, 
 and through one moment's action, laying 
 waste the years that have been and those 
 that are yet to be. 
 
 In the following story I tell how such 
 a fate befell a good and simple-hearted 
 man, and in what manner he met it.
 
 PART 1 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The beginning of my story dates from 
 some seventy years back, from that 
 great and tragic day, when the tide of 
 battle ebbing from the plains of Water- 
 loo, left them strewn with dark forms 
 prostrate beneath the streaming heavens, 
 the darkening sky. One can fancy what 
 yearning thoughts were busy then in 
 many a rough fellow's breast, what thick- 
 coming fancies, confused by pain and the 
 horrors of the field, were pictured on the
 
 6 THE WOOtNG OF CATHERINE. 
 
 evening air. To one at least among 
 them, Koger Bligh, a big, rough-hewn 
 man who lay there dying in the twi- 
 liofht, there rose a vision of a little vil- 
 lage among hills, where man and boy 
 he had lived for thirty years ; of an old 
 farmhouse too above, and wicket-gate, and 
 his little fair-haired daughter Catherine 
 waiting to run out and welcome her 
 father home from the wars. Then he 
 roused himself from the faintness of mor- 
 tal agony and swift-approaching death, 
 and turned with a groan to an old friend 
 and comrade, Caleb Field, who was lying 
 with a shattered arm at his side. 
 
 ' Are you there, Caleb ?' he said. ' I'm 
 done for, my boy ; I'm a dead man. I 
 shall never see the old place again. Be 
 good to the little 'un, if ever you get back 
 — there's nobody else to be good to her.' 
 
 * I will, Eoger,' said the other, faintly. 
 ' So help me God, I will.'
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 7 
 
 *IVe nothiDg to leave her, not a far- 
 thing,' Roger -went on, in his hoarse, 
 gasping utterance. ' It don't matter — 
 she'll be a rich woman, you know, some 
 day, -when her grandmother dies ; but the 
 old woman's the very devil to her now, I 
 
 know she is Damn the Frenchman's 
 
 bullet, it's done for me ; and yet I swear 
 I never once thought o' dying, or I'd 
 not have left her, maybe. Be good 
 to her, lad ; she's your god-daughter, you 
 know.' 
 
 ' I will, Roger, if I live — as if she were 
 my own,' Caleb said again. 
 
 'And tell the parson I forgive him — 
 you know — his ill-turn in setting my wife 
 at me — she were sorry for it, poor soul, 
 before she died . . . and tell Tom Raikes 
 I forgive him too . . . he'll laugh, I'll 
 take my oath, when he hears of it, but I 
 don't mind that now ; I'll forgive him . . . 
 God'U forgive me, perhaps, and take care
 
 8 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 of the little 'un— -Where's your hand, lad? 
 Fm goinor ' 
 
 * The Lord ha' mercy on your soul/ said 
 Caleb, solemnly. 
 
 He raised himself by the help of his un- 
 wounded arm, dragged himself painfully 
 forward, and lifted his comrade's head 
 upon his breast. So the two were found 
 lying together. Eoger was buried on the 
 field where he lay ; but Caleb was carried 
 to a hospital, where, recovering presently 
 from his wounds, he learned that peace 
 was restored and that he was free to 
 return to England. 
 
 When Caleb Field, the bearer of his 
 comrade's dying charge and dying mes- 
 sages, returned one fine autumn day, to 
 his native village of Haysted, he found all 
 his little village world turned out to meet 
 him. Scarcely a year had passed since he 
 went away, for it Avas no love of soldiering
 
 TEE WOOING OF CATHERINE. V 
 
 that had driven him to be a soldier, but 
 the desire to join his friend, Roger Bligh ; 
 but the year, broadly speaking, had been 
 spent in fighting Buonaparte, and not a 
 soul in Haysted but wished to glorify the 
 man who had seen the field of Waterloo. 
 It was Waterloo, indeed, that they desired 
 to honour in the person of their hero, 
 rather than the man himself, for Caleb 
 had never been popular with his neigh- 
 bours. One of the shyest of mortals, with 
 dreamy ways, and queer, dijfident manners, 
 he had held aloof always from the social 
 life of the village ; and as he passed along 
 now with bent head, his knapsack on his 
 back, his arm still in a sling, he hardly 
 responded to the greetings that met him 
 on every side ; intent only, as it seemed, to 
 gain the refuge of his little house at the 
 end of the short street. The villagers 
 commented good-humouredly enough on 
 him as he walked aloDg. He might be a
 
 10 THE WOOING OF CATHERINT]. 
 
 hero, but he was among his own country- 
 people, and no prophet. 
 
 ' Have you never a word of English left^ 
 old Caleb?' said one of them, a woman, 
 standing at her door ; ' why, you've fewer 
 words than before ever you went away ; and 
 yet they say that in foreign parts they've 
 never done chattering by day nor night.' 
 
 ' He looks ill, poor soul,' said another, 
 standing by, ' he's had a deal to bear, 
 maybe ; and he'll be grieving over the 
 death of that ne'er-do-weel, Roger Bhgh, 
 He's thinking, like enough, that he went 
 off to find him, and that now he's come 
 back without him.' 
 
 ' And a good riddance, too,' said her 
 companion ; ' my man's as steady again 
 since that Bligh went away. It passes 
 me now that a good, honest, pious man 
 like Caleb Field, if he is a bit queer and 
 in his dreams, should ha' taken up with 
 the likes of Roger Bligh. Caleb'll be
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 11 
 
 pleased, thoiigb, when lie hears there's a 
 talk o' makinpr him clerk. He's fit to be 
 parson, is Caleb, let alone clerk, if he 
 had but the learning for it; and he's a 
 rare 'un at reading and writing as it is. 
 See, there's his sister's son, Will Franklin ; 
 he'll stop and speak to him, if he'll speak 
 to no one else. He's fonder o' that lad 
 nor his own father is, I take it.' 
 
 A curly-headed boy of about ten years 
 old had rushed headlong and breathless up 
 the street. 
 
 'Hi, uncle,' he shouted, '-here you are ; 
 what fun to have you back again. Now 
 we shall hear all about the fighting. Oh ! 
 I wish the war'd lasted till I could go for 
 a soldier too.' 
 
 Caleb stopped short, as the woman fore- 
 saw, with a startled look at first, then 
 with a smile as he saw the boy before 
 him. He laid his hand on his head, raising 
 his chin to look in his face.
 
 12 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 * Why, Will lad, ho^ you're growD,' be 
 said ; ' we shall have you a man sood, 
 though there'll be no wars then, I hope, 
 for you to fight in. How's father, 
 lad ?' 
 
 ' He's bad with the rheumatism ; and I 
 go to the grammar-school now, uncle ; but 
 I come home every Saturday to Monday, 
 and I've a holiday besides to-day, because 
 you were coming. And father said he 
 thought he'd make it up with you now 
 you'd been to fight Buonaparte, and he 
 hoped you'd go to see him. Have you got 
 a medal, uncle ?' 
 
 ^Nay, lad,' said Caleb, * if father's no 
 better will than that to make it up wi' me, 
 we'll just remain as we are. But you'll 
 come and see me o' Sundays, Will, and 
 we'll have Cathy. You've not forgotten 
 Cathy ?' 
 
 ' I should think not,' shouted the boy ; 
 * Cathy's a real good 'un. She's no good
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 13 
 
 now, though ; she's away up at the Hill 
 Farm, and they say her grandmother beats 
 her. I'm glad I'm not Cathy to live with 
 an old woman like that. Good-bye, uncle ; 
 I can't stop now, I'm going to the river ; 
 but I'll come soon and hear about the 
 fighting.' 
 
 ' Stay, Will,' said Caleb, laying a hand 
 on his arm as the boy was rushing off 
 again, * what's that about Cathy ? Who 
 says her grandmother beats her ?' 
 
 ' Oh ! everyone,' cried the boy ; ' she's an 
 old witch, I believe ; she'll carry Cathy off 
 some day on a broomstick.' 
 
 He darted off. Caleb stood still for a 
 moment looking after him ; then, shaking 
 his head, he opened the door of his own 
 cottage, in front of which he was standing, 
 and went in. 
 
 He entered the front room, parlour and 
 kitchen in one, and looked about him, as 
 one looks who, after an absence that has
 
 14 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 cliangedhis whole life, finds his surroundings 
 unchanged. All his life, until he had gone 
 to fight Buonaparte, Caleb had lived in that 
 house. He had lost his mother in child- 
 hood, his father some ten years later ; and 
 Caleb, always a dreamy and a somewhat 
 melancholy man, had lived alone; not ill- 
 content, for he liked his work, but cheered 
 chiefly in his lonely life by intercourse 
 with his friend Roger Bligh. His friend 
 was gone now; and he had come back 
 alone, to a life empty of its chief joy, with 
 a shattered arm and enfeebled health. 
 He unbuckled his knapsack, and laying it 
 aside, sat down in an armchair by the 
 fireless hearth ; the sunshine fell across 
 the empty grate, and it looked dreary. 
 Some kindly woman neighbour had been 
 in to tidy up the house, and had set out 
 a homely noon-day meal ; but Caleb 
 hardly noticed it was there. He sat down, 
 and leaninor his head on his hand,
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHEKIXE. 15 
 
 remained gazing through the window 
 at the little red-roofed house across the 
 street, where Roger Bligh had lived with 
 his little daughter Catherine. It was in 
 other hands now ; a woman was hanging 
 out clothes over the quickset hedge in 
 front ; half-a-dozen children were swarming 
 in and out. Caleb dropped his head with 
 a groan ; at that moment he wished he were 
 lying at rest beside his friend on the field 
 of Waterloo. 
 
 A knock came at the door ; and before 
 he could open it, the Vicar of the parish 
 walked in, a tall, portly man, kindly and 
 well-meaning, but a trifle formal. 
 
 ' Well, Caleb,' he said, shaking hands 
 with him and seating himself in the arm- 
 chair from which Caleb had risen — ^But sit 
 down, sit down,' he interrupted himself to 
 say, as Caleb remained awkwardly standing 
 and leaning against the table, 'you look 
 shaken by your journey and by your
 
 16 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 wound too, I daresay — Well, I have come 
 to welcome you back. We are proud of 
 you, Caleb ; we are all proud of you.' 
 
 * You're very good to say so, sir,' said 
 Caleb, bashfully, ' and I'm honoured, I'm 
 sure, by your visit.' 
 
 ' Not at all, Caleb ; it is a pleasure that 
 I promised myself as soon as I heard that 
 your return was expected. You must 
 come up to the vicarage, and tell my wife 
 all that you have been seeing and doing. 
 She is specially anxious to know whether 
 you really saw Buonaparte himself. I tell 
 her it's not likely, but she'll not be satisfied 
 without hearing all you have to tell. Yes, 
 yes, Caleb, you'll have a deal to tell us all. 
 And you'll be welcome wherever you go. 
 I disapproved at the time, as you are aware, 
 of your enlisting ; you had your own work 
 here, and went, as I understood it, to put 
 yourself in the way of needless temptation 
 by joining that very reckless and unsteady
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 17 
 
 fellow you had chosen for a friend. But a 
 man who has been wounded in the service 
 of his country deserves all honour. We 
 shall all welcome you back, Caleb.' 
 
 Caleb did not immediately answer. He 
 sat upright on the edge of his chair, 
 his wounded arm resting on the table 
 beside him. 
 
 * Well,' he said slowly, at last, ' there's 
 one that died for his country, who deserves 
 more honour than I do. Roger died at 
 my side, sir, on the battle-field ; and al- 
 most his last words, if you'll excuse me, 
 sir, was to bid me tell you he forgave 
 you. Maybe he was not altogether in 
 his collected mind at the time, to send 
 such a message; for he was going fast, 
 poor fellow. But those, sir, were his 
 words; and the words of a dying man I 
 take to be sacred.' 
 
 'Well, well,' said the Vicar, choking 
 a little, ' he meant well, no doubt, Caleb ; 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 IS THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 and, as you say, he died for his country ; 
 we will hope that he is now — ahem — 
 in a better world. I canuot say I regret 
 his absence from the village ; certainly 
 not; but I am sorry for his little girl. 
 They say her grandmother treats her 
 unkindly; they even say that she beats her.' 
 
 ' Who says it, sir ?' said Caleb, quickly. 
 
 ' Popular report, Caleb ; it may or may 
 not be true. I have no dealings of any 
 kind with Mrs. Wright, as you know ; 
 nor am I likely to have ; so I can do 
 nothing for the child. But I am sorry 
 for the little thing; she was very fond 
 of her father, I know, and might have 
 been a good influence in his life as time 
 went on.' The Vicar rose. * Well, I 
 must be going, Caleb ; I only looked in 
 for a minute in passing; but I must not 
 forget the most important thing I had 
 to say. Youll hardly be able to return 
 to your carpentering at present, I sup-
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHEEINE. 19 
 
 pose? It is your left arm, happily, that 
 is injured ; but I suppose it rather disables 
 you, eh?' 
 
 Caleb looked down at his arm. 
 
 * I shall never work at mv trade ao^ain,' 
 he said, 'unless it be the lighter kinds 
 by-and-by, when I'm a bit stronger. Some 
 light kinds o' cabinet-work I might be able 
 to manage.' 
 
 'And that you are skilful at, as I am 
 aware,' said the Vicar. ' Well, what I 
 had to say, is this. Old Peter Symes, 
 the clerk, died not long ago, and we've 
 kept the place open, thinking you might 
 like the offer of it.' 
 
 A flush rose to Caleb's pale face. 
 
 'I'd accept it, and thankfully,' he said. 
 ' I shall have my pension, and be able 
 to keep myself, one way or another ; no 
 fear. But it's a sort o* business I've a 
 fancy for ; and thank you, sir, for thinking 
 of me.' 
 
 c2
 
 20 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 ' Well, then, we'll consider that as set- 
 tled,' said the Vicar ; ' and now, Caleb, 
 I hope you will see a little more of 
 your neighbours than formerly. It's a 
 pity for a man to hold aloof from his 
 kind, as I've often told you. By-the-by, 
 I saw your little nephew, Will FrankliD, 
 in the village to-day ; what a fine lad 
 he's growing. You're not on terms, I 
 think, with his father, Caleb? That's a 
 pity now, you know.' 
 
 'Well, sir,' said Caleb, with more deci- 
 sion of manner than he had yet shown, 
 * Franklin chose to quarrel with me at the 
 time of his wife's, my sister's, death ; and 
 it's not for me to make advances till he 
 chooses to see he were in the wronof. Bat 
 he does well by the boy ; he's giving him 
 a good eddication, though he's only a small 
 tenant-farmer himself, and he never hin- 
 ders the lad from coming to see me. I'm 
 glad o' that, for I'm fonder o' that boy, sir, 
 than I could say.'
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 21 
 
 ^ Well, Caleb, he'll be an interest to you, 
 no doubt,' said the Vicar, kindly. * And 
 now, come up to the vicarage this evening, 
 will you ? My wife will be glad to see 
 you, as I have said ; and we can talk over 
 the clerk's business afterwards.' 
 
 He went away. Caleb sat down again ; 
 but he did not again fall into despondent 
 musings. The Vicar's visit had roused him. 
 In a minute he rose and cut himself a slice 
 of bread and bacon ; then taking his stick, 
 started on his way to the Hill Farm.
 
 22 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 A BYE-WAY near Caleb's cottage conducted 
 between hedges and across fields to a 
 point on the high-road not far removed 
 from the steep lane that led upwards from 
 the valley to the Hill Farm. He chose it 
 now, in preference to again running the 
 gauntlet o£ the village street. Not that 
 he wished to be ungracious ; he was grate- 
 ful, on the contrary, to his neighbours for 
 their kindly feeling; simply it was that 
 now, as throughout his life, to hold aloof 
 from his kind, as the Yicar termed it, was 
 Caleb's first instinctive care. 
 
 Caleb Field was at this time between 
 four and five-and-thirty, a thin man, tall
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 2S 
 
 and stooping, with a lean, brown face, 
 dreamy eyes, and a very sweet and willing 
 smile. His dreaminess it was, perhaps, 
 that most impressed itself on those about 
 him, that tended most of all to make him 
 unpopular. A frank and impenetrable 
 stupidity could be understood; but a 
 dreaminess that might conceal anything, 
 could naturally only be regarded with mis- 
 trust. Caleb was in fact one of those men 
 who, with perfect simplicity of nature, 
 have certain qualities of mind and imagina- 
 tion which, when unexplained by educa- 
 tion, are apt to make them a puzzle to 
 themselves and to those about them. 
 Caleb had had little education apart from 
 his trade ; he could read and write, but 
 books were dear in those days and hard to 
 come by for men in his rank of life. Nor 
 in any case, perhaps, would it have occur- 
 red to him to moralize on his own char- 
 acter. The small amount of self-conscious-
 
 24 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 ness which he possessed only produced a 
 perplexed recognition that he was in some 
 way different from his neighbours, a fact 
 causing him no little pain in so far as it 
 raised a barrier between him and them — a 
 barrier he vainly tried to remove by such 
 unobtrusive acts of kindness as came in 
 his way. 
 
 There is always a touch of pathos about 
 the contradictions of a mind whose natural 
 instincts are stronger than the power of 
 reasoning upon them, especially when a 
 man is thereby led to such wisdom as 
 appears folly to his fellow-men. Caleb's 
 instincts had led him into deeds with which 
 reason had apparently little to do. They 
 had led him, for instance, to bestow time 
 and labour in giving a better finish to his 
 work than was accounted needful by other 
 men. They had made him love and ad- 
 mire the strong and reckless Roger Bligh 
 more than any man on earth, so that,
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 25 
 
 when Eoger enlisted in one of his wild 
 inoods, Caleb also turned restless, and 
 knew no content till he went to fight at 
 his friend's side. Caleb again had a simple 
 piety, which found a sufficient outlet in 
 regular church-going and devout atten- 
 tion to the parson's sermons. But when 
 Koger had his famous quarrel with the 
 Yicar for interfering in his domestic con- 
 cerns, a wider sympathy, for which lie 
 could have found no name, made Caleb 
 side with his friend. 
 
 * The parson's a good man,' he said, 
 speaking with the energy and decision 
 that came to him when he was strongly 
 moved, * and knows where to find a power 
 of fine words o' Sunday, but he should ha' 
 let Roger be ; or, if he had anything to 
 say, he should ha' spoken out like a man, 
 and not have set his wife, poor fool, upon 
 him.* 
 
 Such was Caleb Field before he left his
 
 26 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 native village, popular at once and un- 
 popular — half-liked for his gentle kindly 
 temper, half-misfcrusted for his diffidence 
 and queer ways ; and such, with little 
 change beyond the loss and trouble brought 
 to him by the past year, was Caleb Field 
 that autumn day as he made his way to 
 the Hill Farm to visit his comrade's or- 
 phan daughter Catherine. 
 
 Little Catherine, the only descendant of 
 a yeoman family that for generations had 
 farmed its own acres, would be, as her 
 father had said, a rich woman one day. 
 At present she was only a lonely child 
 living with her grandmother, Mrs. Wright, 
 a vigorous, hard-featured old woman, who 
 rode to markets and fairs to drive her 
 own hard bargains, quarrelled with her 
 neighbours, never went to church, but 
 lived, as she was presently to die, an inde- 
 pendent old heathen. She never forgave 
 her daughter's marriage with Roger Bligh ;
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 27 
 
 she took no notice of her daughter's death, 
 which occurred a year or two after Cathe- 
 rine was born ; and Catherine, living in the 
 village with her father, never even saw 
 her grandmother in her infancy. It was 
 only when her father enlisted and the 
 child was left alone, that her grandmother, 
 suddenly descending one day, bore her off 
 to the Hill Farm that in the years to 
 come would be Catherine's own. 
 
 The Hill Farm was an old-fashioned, 
 deep-roofed house standing among barns 
 and ricks and hay-stacks at the top of a 
 steep and bushy lane that opened on a 
 far-reaching stretch of heathery moorland. 
 Below, a green and fertile land sloped 
 downwards to the valley ; cows fed in 
 deep pastures, grass ripened, seed was 
 sown, the harvest was gathered in the 
 wide-spreading fields and meadows that 
 would one day belong to Catherine Bligh ; 
 but immediately behind the farm-house
 
 •28 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 lay undulating tracts of heath where sheep 
 and cow-bells tinkled amon^ gorse and 
 bracken, and sweeping breezes brought a 
 fresher breath than the sheltered valley 
 knew. A gate to stay straying cattle 
 crossed the top of the lane ; immediately 
 beyond, a paling with a smaller gate, 
 where a clump of red-stemmed fir-trees 
 made a black shade, shut in the open 
 space in front of the farm-house itself. 
 Well as Caleb knew the place by sight, 
 he had never yet been within that gate. 
 Catherine's grandmother cultivated no ac- 
 quaintance with her neighbours ; least of 
 all with her reprobate son-in-law's friend. 
 But to-day he made his way up to the 
 house-door, and was admitted without 
 difficulty by the woman-servant who came 
 to open it. 
 
 * Mistress is gone to market,' she said ; 
 ' she won't be home till nightfall. But if 
 it's Cathy you're wanting, she's at home.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 29 
 
 She's always at home, is Cathy ; she sits 
 and mopes from morn till night, for all 
 mistress can say to her. Mistress scolds 
 her above a bit — too much, maybe ; but 
 it ain't natural, not in a child of her age. 
 I took her doll to her just now; she used 
 to be fond of her doll, but she took no 
 notice one way or another.' 
 
 The woman had opened the door into 
 the kitchen as she spoke. It was a large, 
 low-beamed room, running almost from 
 end to end of the house. A lattice looked 
 out upon a grass-plot and cherry-tree in 
 front, and the long slope of a barn ; at 
 the back a door opened into a passage 
 leading to the dairy. The October sun 
 shone in, and a few embers only, glowed 
 under the great black pot hung in the 
 depths of the chimney. Beside them on 
 the raised brick hearth crouched a fair- 
 haired child of eight years old, half-sitting, 
 half-kneeling, her elbow resting on a
 
 60 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 wooden chair set in the chimney-corner, 
 her cheek leaning on her hand. The 
 neglected doll lay on its face behind her ; 
 she was not crying, she was not doing 
 anything, only listlessly drawing the fin- 
 gers of one hand backwards on the dusty 
 bricks. Her back was turned to the room, 
 and she did not move at the noise made 
 by Caleb in entering, nor seem to notice 
 him till he spoke. 
 
 ' Why, Cathy,' he said, going up to her, 
 ^you've never forgotten your old god- 
 father, have you ? Why, it's not a year 
 hardly since we saw each other every day, 
 and a year's too soon to forget.' 
 
 Catherine looked round, and got up 
 slowly. She came to where Caleb stood, 
 and putting her hand into his, looked at 
 him with wide-open eyes. 
 
 'I've not forgotten,' she said. 
 
 *Well, I've come to look after you a 
 bit, Cathy,' Caleb went on. ' That's the
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 31 
 
 last thing your father said before he died, 
 that I were to be good to you. You'll 
 like to hear about father, and all we 
 did together, Cathy?' 
 
 Catherine turned away her head, and 
 pressed her hands together. 
 
 * It's no good,' she said ; ' father's dead. 
 I don't care now.' 
 
 Caleb was silent for a moment, baffled 
 by this quiet child-despair. 
 
 ' But he remembered you, Cathy,' he 
 said at last, ''Twas the last thing almost 
 he said before he died ; '' Be good to the 
 little 'un," he said ; and he'd like for 
 you to know all he did. And he bought 
 something for you in one o' those foreign 
 towns we went to, a toy like what the 
 children there play with. He thought 
 you'd like it. I've got it down at my 
 house now. Would you care to come 
 down with me, Cathy, and fetch it ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the child, ' I'd like that. I
 
 32 THE TVOOIXG OF CATHERINE. 
 
 haven't been to tbe village since father 
 went away.' 
 
 'Then come,' said Caleb, *you shall 
 have your supper with me to-night, and 
 we'll get a little cake at the shop, like 
 we used to do, and you shall toast it. 
 You'll like that, Cathy ?' 
 
 She put her hand into his for answer ; 
 and in a few minutes the two were walk- 
 ing down the hill together. 
 
 Caleb was not a man to care greatly 
 for the companionship of children. Al- 
 ways silent and dij0&dent, he was especi- 
 ally so in their society, feeling too un- 
 certain about the thoughts and wishes 
 busy in their small minds to know how 
 to talk to them. His kindly purpose of 
 being good to Cathy had helped him 
 through their interview at the Hill Farm ; 
 but he said little during their walk, and 
 when he had his little guest in his own 
 room at home, he stood looking at her
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 3.^ 
 
 in silent embarrassment, smiling, indeed, 
 to show his good-will, but lost for the 
 moment as to what should be done next. 
 Catherine relieved him by taking matters 
 into her own hands. She walked straight 
 to the lattice-window that jutted out upon 
 the street, and kneeling on the window- 
 seat with her arms resting on the sill, 
 remained fixed in contemplation of her 
 old home just opposite. Caleb, willing 
 to leave her undisturbed, lighted the fire, 
 and himself toasted the cake, not speak- 
 ing again until supper was ready. 
 
 ' Come, Cathy,' he said then, ' here's 
 supper ready ; and see, here's your little 
 knife and fork, just like you used to 
 have when you came here with father.' 
 
 She came up to the table, and stood 
 looking at it for a minute in silence. 
 Then, going up to her godfather, she 
 put her hand in his again, and laid her 
 cheek against his arm. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 SA THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 *rd like to stay here always/ she said. 
 
 ' Why, would you, Cathy ?' said Caleb. 
 ^ Ain't you happy up at the Hill Farm ? 
 Is grandmother not good to you ?' 
 
 The child made no direct reply. ' I d 
 like to stay here,' was all she said. 
 
 Caleb stood silent and pondering for a 
 while. 
 
 ' Well, you shall then,' he said at last, 
 * you shan't go back to the Hill Farm any 
 more, Cathy. There's a little room up- 
 stairs with a little bed in it as '11 just fit 
 you. You shall stay here wi' me, and 
 we'll have Will to come and play with you. 
 You remember Will, Cathy?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the child, with brightening 
 eyes, ' he used to break my dolls ; but I'm 
 older now, and I shan't mind. I hope 
 Will '11 come soon.' 
 
 * Yes, yes, you shall stay wi' me,' said 
 Caleb again. 'I'll make things straight 
 with your grandmother. And Will shall
 
 THE WOOING OK CATHERINE. 35 
 
 •come. He goes to grammar-school now, 
 he tells me, but we'll get his father to let 
 him come o' Sundays, and perhaps of a 
 Saturday sometimes.' 
 
 * There is Will,' said Catherine, 
 suddenly. 
 
 A boy ran past the window and the 
 next moment burst into the room. 'Good- 
 bye, uncle, I'll come again soon,' he cried. 
 'HuUoa, why, here's Cathy; however did 
 you get here, Cathy ? I thought your 
 grandmother kept you tied up to her 
 broomstick.' 
 
 ' Hush, boy,' said Caleb, ' Cathy's come 
 to live wi' me now, and mind you get 
 father to let you come of a Sunday, my 
 lad, and then you'll see her.' 
 
 ' That'll be fun,' said the boy, ' if Cathy 
 won't be a ninny and cry over her dolls. 
 You don't care about dolls now, do you, 
 Cathy ?' 
 
 ' Yes, I do,' said Catherine, with decision, 
 
 d2
 
 36 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 * but I'll put 'em away on Sunday, Will, if 
 you don't like them.' 
 
 * Like 'em !' said Will, with measureless 
 contempt. ^ We'll go nutting, Cathy ; see if 
 you don't like that better than a fool of a 
 doll. Do you know where the best nuts 
 grow ? At the top of your grandmother's 
 far field. We'll peep and get 'em when 
 she's not looking, and run if she comes 
 near. That'll be the fun of it.' 
 
 That same evening Caleb went again to 
 the Hill Farm and confronted Mrs. 
 Wright. What passed between them, no 
 one ever knew, but Caleb carried his 
 point. He carried his point, for he 
 could act with both energy and determina- 
 tion when the occasion demanded it. In 
 an hour he returned with a bundle of 
 Catherine's things, and that night the stars 
 shone down on a peaceful home in the 
 village street. Catherine slept for the 
 first time in the little chamber under her
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 37 
 
 godfather's roof that was to be her own 
 for the next thirteen years ; and for Caleb, 
 with the close of his old life in the death of 
 •his friend, a new life was begun through 
 'his friend's child.
 
 38 
 
 PART IL 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Thirteen years later Caleb Field awoke 
 early one fine morning in June, when the 
 birds were beginning to stir and twitter in 
 the clear red dawn and the grass was 
 still grey with dew, to feel that not the 
 sun, but darkness was about to rise upon 
 his world. On that day Catherine was to 
 leave him, and go to her own home at the 
 Hill Farm. 
 
 Caleb still lived in his little house on the 
 village street, though through choice rather 
 than necessity. He was a well-to-do man
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 39 
 
 in these days, so far as money was 
 concerned. For bis injured arm havio^ 
 with time recovered strength and power 
 sufficient to enable him to apply him- 
 self to such lighter kinds of cabinet 
 work as had amused his leisure hours 
 when he was a journeyman carpenter, he 
 presently acquired with practice so much 
 skill both in design and execution that 
 his name became known in the country 
 round, and he had as many commissions 
 as he could undertake. He was a well-to- 
 do man now, and could have lived in a 
 bigger house had he cared to do so. But 
 a snail that has crawled to the top of a 
 wall would as soon think of ordering a 
 new shell to adorn its new position, as 
 Caleb of changing the house that had 
 sheltered him all his life. He was one of 
 those men for whom memories tapestry 
 walls and furniture much more effectu- 
 ally than the upholsterer's art. He loved
 
 40 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 his old home ; his father and mother had 
 lived and died there ; and when be thought 
 about death at all, he meant to die there 
 also. 
 
 Caleb lived on then, just as he had done 
 during the previous thirty or forty years. 
 His habits had changed, indeed, a little to 
 meet his changed circumstances ; he was 
 the parish clerk now ; he was his own 
 master ; he had Catherine ; but they had 
 changed only to become confirmed. He 
 was still much the same stooping, dreamy, 
 diffident man he had been in youth ; only 
 youth was gone from him, and viras grow- 
 ing up before his eyes instead. Caleb was 
 ageing ; but at his side in all these years 
 had been the springing life of Catherine. 
 
 In the first days after her arrival, 
 Caleb had still felt a certain shyness 
 towards the little companion who had 
 unexpectedly come into his life. But his 
 kindly nature soon drew him more frankly
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 41 
 
 towards one so young and so dependent 
 upon him, and before long a sort of tender 
 friendship grew up between the man and 
 the child. They never had a great deal 
 to say to each other. Catherine was a 
 silent, practical child, of loving ways but 
 few words ; she rarely laughed ; she had 
 no bubbling flow of childish chatter, or 
 Caleb had no power to call it forth. 
 Every day she went to school, where she 
 learnt reading, writing, and sums ; but 
 these serious studies had little interest for 
 her. Catherine's tastes were all practical ; 
 knitting, and sewing, and cooking, and 
 a maternal care of her godfather. She 
 soon found out that Caleb needed her 
 care. In those early months after his 
 return from Waterloo, he might often 
 have been seen sitting for hours smoking 
 his pipe with an air of dejection as he 
 thought of his lost friend and his loss of 
 active power. But little Catherine's return
 
 42 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 from school never failed to rouse him, to 
 stir him from despondency to the half- 
 anxious, half-pathetic solicitude with which, 
 conscious chiefly of his own awkwardness 
 and his own good-will, he strove to take 
 her father's place ; till, gradually and 
 naturally, he, in his turn, began to lean on 
 the fresh energies of the growing child, 
 and Catherine's will and Catherine's care 
 became law to the little household. 
 
 ' Godfather, there's your pipe gone out 
 again,' she would say, coming in with her 
 books and satchel, ' give it me and I'll fill 
 it for you. And I'm going to boil the 
 kettle and make the porridge ; I can, god- 
 father, quite well, better than you can. 
 And if you'll sit still I'll warm your old 
 shoes for you, too. Is your arm aching 
 much this evening, godfather ?' 
 
 Such had been Catherine's childhood. 
 When she was about fifteen her grand- 
 mother died, and it was then proposed to
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 43 
 
 take the girl from Caleb's care and place 
 her at school in the nearest town, some 
 twelve miles off. But Catherine refused 
 to go. She did not like schooling, she 
 loved Haysted ; she would not leave her 
 godfather; she would study farming, but 
 she cared for no other studies. There 
 was about Catherine a certain power that 
 already made itself felt. She was never 
 unreasonable ; she did not come to decisions 
 quickly, but she always knew exactly what 
 she wished and why she wished it ; and as 
 her wishes never soared to the unattain- 
 able and the illimitable, there was nothing 
 to confuse the clear judgment she brought 
 to bear upon them. 
 
 Catherine remained then with her god- 
 father, and the Hill Farm was let for a 
 term of years. But her tenant dying 
 shortly before she came of age, she decid- 
 ed herself to go and live at the farm, in 
 company with old Mrs. Matthews, the late
 
 44 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 tenant's widow. Catherine came of a 
 vigorous stock, and saw no reason why, 
 with the help of her grandmother's bailiff, 
 she should not farm her own lands and 
 look after her own property ; she had, in 
 fact, in these last months, spent more of 
 her time at the farm than in the village, 
 learning at once and superintending the 
 large business of the farm life. As for 
 Caleb, he had always known that his god- 
 daughter must one day leave him ; he 
 knew that it was fitting she should take 
 her place in her own home, nor would he 
 once listen to her entreaty that he would 
 go and live with her. But not the less he 
 awoke on that June morning to feel that 
 darkness had fallen on him and his house, 
 to a sense that his life was broken as it never 
 had been broken before ; no, not even on 
 that other June day when his friend died 
 beside him on the field of Waterloo. 
 
 The sun had long been up when he rose
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 45 
 
 at last, reluctantly, as though loth to take 
 on him the weight of the heavy day. He 
 went downstairs to the little sitting-room. 
 Catherine was there already, moving 
 about, making the porridge, setting the 
 breakfast things as usual. Caleb sat down 
 and watched her, thinking of the day — 
 it seemed but the other day — that she had 
 laid her cheek against his arm, and said 
 she would stay with him. He sat watch- 
 ing her ; yes, she was his little lass again 
 and all the past years were to come. 
 
 Catherine set down the porridge dish 
 and came and stood in front of him. There 
 were tears in her eyes. 
 
 * Godfather/ she said, *I wish I could 
 stay with you, I wish T could. I. shall 
 never be so happy again as I've been 
 here.' 
 
 * Nay, my lass,' said Caleb, rousing him- 
 self and trying to smile, * you've stayed 
 here over long, most folk would say, a
 
 46 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 grand rich lady as you might be, and one 
 who holds her head so high. Put on thy 
 best gown to-day, lass, that all the folk 
 may see how fine you can look.' 
 
 ' Why, godfather, I never care about 
 looking fine,' said Catherine, smiling a 
 little, * and my best gowns and my worst 
 are much alike, for that matter. You 
 know I don't care about fine gowns.' 
 
 'And we shall see each other,' Caleb 
 went on, slowly rubbing the palms of his 
 hands together, ' we shall be none so 
 far apart but we shall see each other, 
 Cathy.' 
 
 ' Why, yes,' said Catherine, ' you'll come 
 and see me, godfather, every minute you 
 have the time. And there's Sundays ; 
 you've promised always to walk to church 
 with me, you know, and spend the day 
 afterwards at the farm. You won't forget 
 that.' 
 
 *Ay, ay, my lass, we'll spend our Sun-
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 47 
 
 days together, please God,' said Caleb. 
 But he looked drearily before him into the 
 room, as he sat with his chin resting on 
 his hands as though it were vacant already 
 to his imagination. 
 
 * And, Will,' said Catherine, hesitating a 
 little, * Will's always spent his Sundays 
 with us, except the years he was away ; 
 he'd miss it if the custom was broken 
 now. He must come to the Hill Farm 
 too.' 
 
 ' Ay, ay,' said Caleb again, ' Will shall 
 come too. I should miss the lad anyhow, 
 if I didn't see him once a week. For all 
 he was away nearly three years, and has 
 only been back a month, it seems only 
 natural to have him about again. And 
 now, lass, give me the porridge and go put 
 on thy best gown.' 
 
 An hour or so later the door of Caleb's 
 house closed behind Catherine as she 
 started with her godfather to walk up to
 
 48 THE WOOING OF CATHEEINE. 
 
 the Hill Farm. A few hours later agaio, 
 she stood bidding him farewell at the gate 
 at the top of the lane. There had been a 
 dinner given at the farm in honour of 
 Catherine's coming of age ; the guests 
 were still there, the sound of voices and 
 laughter came through the open windows ; 
 but Caleb, who had sat silent throughout 
 the meal, had escaped as soon as it was 
 over. 
 
 * I'm tired/ he had said to Catherine ; 
 ' Tm none o' this sort, as you know, Cathy 
 — I'm best away and alone.' 
 
 Catherine made no remonstrance with 
 her godfather, but she walked with him to 
 the gate, and stood there holding his hand, 
 as though reluctant to let him go. 
 
 *Come soon and see me, godfather,' she 
 said; 'come to-morrow. I shall be alone 
 to-morrow, and there'll be no one to 
 disturb you.' 
 
 ' Nay, my lass, not to-morrow ; I've work
 
 THE WOOIXG OF CATHERINE. 49 
 
 to do, as you know,' said Caleb, ^ and you 
 and me's apart now, Cathy; it's best we 
 should know it. Sunday I'll come and 
 welcome, and the days'll go ; no fear.' 
 
 So they parted. Catherine returned to 
 her guests, whilst Caleb went his lonely 
 way with bent head, down the lane to the 
 valley. 
 
 He went his way, but not immediately 
 to his own home. He had work waiting 
 for him ; but his day had been broken into, 
 and he felt too unsettled, too forlorn to 
 return at once to his workshop and his 
 tools. He made a long round by fields 
 and lanes and paths, to a little grassy 
 meadow shut in by bushy hedges, and 
 ditched on two sides by a running stream 
 overhung here and there by faintly odorous 
 clusters of dog-roses. At one point, where 
 the cows had trodden down a drinking- 
 place for themselves, and where stout 
 hemlocks and cuckoo-pint stood thick 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 among the flowering June grass, was an 
 old oak-tree where, some five-and-twenty 
 years before, Caleb, with a laughing vil- 
 lage lass at his elbow, had carved his own 
 and the girl's initials entwined with a true 
 lover's knot. Poor Caleb ! here had been 
 the romance of his early life, a common-place 
 romance enough, yet bitter as ever a shy 
 youth of twenty suffered and lived through 
 — a saucy, black-eyed wench who first lured 
 on, then turned her back on the awkward 
 lad, and married a rich farmer instead. 
 Years ago she had died ; but Caleb, broken- 
 hearted at the time, had kept a tender place 
 for her in his heart ever since. And yet 
 from that day to this he had never re- 
 visited the spot that held his closest memo- 
 ries. What brought him here now? His 
 dreamy eyes sought the initials he had 
 cut, as though expecting to see them still ; 
 but they had long since disappeared. 
 Caleb stood leaning on his stick, his me-
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 51 
 
 mory ^one back iuto the past, his mind 
 entangled between past and present, the 
 years before he had known Catherine — 
 and now Catherine was gone again — the 
 years of his youth and the years of his 
 age, all mingled and confused. What did 
 it matter? since all alike was sadness and 
 loneliness. He shook his head at last 
 and turned away. 
 
 It was dark when he reached home and 
 entered his empty room. He struck a 
 light. All was in order, and his supper 
 laid in readiness on the table ; for a girl 
 in the village came in and out to do the 
 house- work. Caleb sat down heavily in 
 his arm-chair ; he was tired with his walk, 
 tired with the long day, too tired almost 
 to think. He sat down, and drawing the 
 candle near him, took up his pipe that lay 
 on a ledge at his elbow, and prepared to 
 light it. The bowl was empty ; for the 
 first time in many years his hand sought 
 
 e2 
 
 ^??!1!1^ n. lUiNOiS
 
 52 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 his pipe, to find it unfilled. Caleb laid 
 it down again absently, and leaning back 
 in his chair, sat sunk in vague and weary 
 thought. In a few minutes he reached 
 out his hand, and took up the pipe again ; 
 it was still empty. Caleb's eyes wandered 
 round the room ; his head fell on his 
 breast. Yes, his life was broken ; and 
 courage seemed gone, and strength and 
 power to mend it.
 
 53 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 At one-and-twenty Catherine Bligh was a 
 tall, rather large, finely-moulded young 
 woman, with a round fair-complexioned 
 face, an abundance of yellow hair, and 
 grey eyes, whose direct glance expressed 
 at once clearness of mental vision and 
 a good and straightforward simplicity. 
 Catherine was not a beauty; but there 
 was in her aspect a fresh comeliness that 
 to those who loved her was better tlian 
 beauty ; and no pleasanter sight could 
 have been seen in Haysted than herself, 
 as she walked to church with her god- 
 father on the Sunday following her de- 
 parture to the Hill Farm. Catherine's
 
 54 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 dress was simple almost to plainness ; it 
 corresponded with ber mind, and rejected 
 the frills and ribbons and vanities dear 
 to most girls of her age. A grey home- 
 spun gown, a straw hat with a knot of 
 blue ribbon under her shining plaits, this 
 was her attire now ; her only adornment 
 a gold watch at her side, and a bunch 
 of June roses in front of her dress. But 
 Catherine's head was erect, and she walked 
 with dignity and ease. In manner she 
 was somewhat reserved always, talking 
 little, seldom smiling, never lingering to 
 gossip; and the villagers among whom 
 she had been brought up, said she held 
 herself high, and thought too much of her 
 money. 
 
 Catherine, in fact, was by no means 
 indifferent to the wealth and position 
 with which fate had endowed her. She 
 liked the heaped-up abundance of the 
 old farm, where she now moved as mis-
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 55 
 
 tress ; the big kitchen, where the ruddy 
 glow, emblem of hospitality, never died 
 upon the wide hearth ; the well-filled 
 barns and presses, the stores of fine-woven 
 linen, linen spun and woven and fashion- 
 ed by grandmothers and great-grand- 
 mothers for generations past ; and outside 
 the far-spreading fields and pastures, the 
 golden ricks, the horses and cattle, the 
 fruitful orchards, even the neglected gar- 
 den of herbs and straggling briars — she 
 liked them all ; but less through the 
 consciousness of wealth and position that 
 they conveyed than through a sense of 
 the width and graciousness of this sweet 
 plenty that the heavens above and the 
 earth beneath combined to prepare for 
 her day by day, through the knowledge 
 that here was enough and to spare for 
 all, for those of her own household and 
 for the poor, who need never be turned 
 from her gates.
 
 56 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 To Catherine, in the midst of her 
 wealth, there could be, it seemed, no 
 sweeter or nobler lot in life than to stand 
 with full hands to supply those that were 
 empty, to ^ive food to the hungry, gar- 
 ments to the naked. She loved this large 
 power of giving to all around her; she 
 loved herself to scatter handsful of grain 
 to the fowls, to pull down the cut grass 
 for the cows, to feed the young calves with 
 new milk. Hers was the golden life, the 
 large primitive life of the golden age; and 
 something strong and primitive in her 
 nature sprang to meet it. For the hour — 
 such hours are brief — she lived, without 
 knowing it, in Arcadia. Of her money she 
 thought little ; of her power of using it a 
 good deal ; of what people said, nothing at 
 all. She inherited her grandmother's in- 
 dependent spirit, and was ready to stand 
 alone, indifferent to the popular voice and 
 opinion.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE- 57 
 
 This was the Catherine known to all the 
 village and the country round. Another 
 Catherine there was, who on that same 
 Sunday evening might have been seen 
 wandering in the little weed-grown garden 
 behind the old farmhouse. It was a very 
 neglected garden of herbs, and fruit-trees, 
 and flowers, and full of charm, as such 
 gardens are to those who take delight in 
 Nature's wilful escapes from decorum. 
 Catherine, indeed, who loved a large and 
 fruitful order, meant to have it duly 
 pruned in time and set to rights ; but 
 in these first days at the Hill Farm she 
 also found a charm she could not have 
 defined in the spot just as it was. Yes, 
 a charm lay for her in its very neglect. 
 Catherine had more passion than senti- 
 ment in her nature ; and yet it was the 
 sentiment of the place that addressed her 
 now, its sweet liberty of growth, its way- 
 ward yet persistent choice of sunshine and
 
 58 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 free air. It harmonised with a new spirit 
 that had stirred within her in these last 
 few weeks, a spirit that overpassed her 
 wonted range of thought, to write for her, 
 who had never read a verse outside her 
 Psalter, the fresh poetry of life. Ah, 
 happy days, when all Nature is a poem 
 that clerk and dunce can read alike, since 
 each alike is wise through the wisdom of 
 the divine eternal folly. 
 
 A man's footstep trod the path outside 
 — not Caleb's slow step, but a firm, youth- 
 ful tread ; the little wicket leading into 
 the garden clicked and opened. Catherine 
 moved from where she was standing, and 
 came forward a few steps to meet the new- 
 comer, smoothing down her hair as she 
 did so. 
 
 * Is that you, Will?' she said, in a voice 
 that had a very sweet accent in it. * I 
 can't see you hardly in the dark. I just 
 came out to cut a lettuce for supper.'
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 59' 
 
 The young fellow laughed. 
 
 * In the dark ?' he said. * Wait a minute, 
 and I'll fetch a lantern.' 
 
 ' It's no matter, and the moon'll be up 
 in a minute,' Catherine answered ; but the 
 young man was gone. In a few minutes he 
 returned, bearing a lantern, whence a long 
 line of light fell with his progress, across 
 the strange contortions of the old apple- 
 trees, making them look, as they started 
 out of the surrounding darkness, like deni- 
 zens of some enchanted wood. It flashed, 
 as he approached, on Catherine with her 
 yellow hair and grey dress, as she stood 
 leaning against a gnarled and moss-grown 
 trunk, a bovver of green leaves above her 
 head. Will went up to her, holding the 
 lantern high, so that the light fell between 
 them, illuminating each youthful face ; hers 
 fair, colouring a little in the sudden blaze ; 
 his handsome, sunburnt, with brown curly 
 locks carelessly tossed back from his fore-
 
 '60 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 head. The light fell between them, and 
 they both laughed outright. Catherine, 
 who rarely laughed, was the first to recover 
 herself. 
 
 ' Will/ she said, ' what are you laughing 
 at? I am sure I don't know.' 
 
 ' I'm laughing ' he began ; but, as he 
 
 spoke, his eyes met Catherine's and he 
 broke off. For the space of a second they 
 stood, he looking down at her, her eyes 
 widening a little like a child's, as they 
 met his gaze ; then with a sudden flush 
 she moved away abruptly out of the light 
 into the encircling darkness. Will did not 
 speak; but in a moment he followed her, 
 and setting the lantern on the ground, 
 began to help her cut the salad. 
 
 Will Franklin was grown into a fine 
 manly young fellow who wore his rough 
 farmer's coat, his heavy boots and gaiters, 
 with an air which implied that if in these 
 matters he did not follow the latest
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 61 
 
 fashioD, it was from no want of knowledge, 
 but from a superiority to frivolous details. 
 More than once, when he and Catherine 
 had been seen together in the village, it 
 had been remarked that they were a hand- 
 some couple, and that old Caleb Field knew 
 what he was about in bringing together 
 his rich god-daughter and his nephew. 
 Caleb, who generally saw last what was 
 just before his dreamy eyes, had no such 
 thought, even remotely, in his mind. But 
 he had lost none of his old affection for his 
 nephew ; he had missed him greatly during 
 his absence from Haysted, and it was a 
 delight to him to have his company again, 
 as in old times, on Sunday afternoons. For 
 Will had been away for nearly three years, 
 studying various methods of farming in 
 different parts of the country ; and it was 
 family trouble that had called him home 
 now. 
 
 Old Franklin had been a prosperous
 
 4)2 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 man in early life, and bofch affection and 
 ambition had induced him to do well by 
 his only son, giving him first a good 
 education at a grammar-school, sending 
 him then out into the world, as has been 
 said, to study. But things of late had gone 
 ill with the old man ; failing health had 
 come, and failing powers ; crops were short, 
 rent in arrears, and behind all, a squire 
 and a squire's agent disposed to press hard. 
 He recalled his son, to lend a helping hand 
 and put in practice all the knowledge he 
 had acquired of the latest improvements 
 in agriculture. Will, who had, in fact, 
 seen not a little of the world since he left 
 home, was a very ambitious young fellow, 
 determined to do well for himself in life ; 
 and he set to work with a will to settle 
 matters at home. But he complained 
 bitterly to his uncle that his father's old- 
 fashioned notions stood constantly in the 
 way of his plans for improving the farm.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 63 
 
 * He tells me to do what I think best,' 
 he said to Caleb, as they sat together at 
 the Hill Farm that Sunday evening, ' and 
 the next day 1 find that he has contradict- 
 ed all my orders. If I complain, he tells 
 me that mine are new-fangled notions that 
 will never come to any good. He might 
 as well have kept me at home, or let me 
 stay away altogether, if all I've learnt is to 
 cfo for nothinof.' 
 
 Caleb pondered a while before an- 
 swering. 
 
 ' "Well, lad, you must have patience,' he 
 said at last, slowly, ' it's hard, maybe, for 
 young and old to work together. When 
 one's seen many a thing fail, and many a 
 fine notion come to nought, it is hard to 
 believe that the next one that turns up 11 
 set the world straight for once and all. 
 But I daresay you're right, lad, in your 
 ideas, for you've a clear head and a 
 straight way of looking at things, so far
 
 64 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 as I can judge. What is it you want to 
 do? Tell me about these new notions o' 
 yours.' 
 
 Will explained at length, warming with 
 his subject as he went on ; and Caleb, lis- 
 tening attentively, understood the general 
 theories well enough, though he was too 
 ignorant of farming to follow the details. 
 
 ' Well, uncle, I wisli I had you to work 
 with instead of my father,' Will said at last. 
 ' I might have a chance then.' 
 
 Caleb shook his head. 
 
 * Nor you wouldn't like that, neither, my 
 lad,' he said, ' I've no head for business, 
 Will, not outside my own work ; and these 
 last few days I'm thinking I've not much 
 left for that either. You should talk 
 to Catherine, lad, about your fine schemes. 
 She, now, has a wonderful head for 
 business.' 
 
 * Catherine has no need of my talking 
 to her,' said Will, ^ whatever she does,
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 65 
 
 prospers. Where is Catherine ?* he added, 
 looking round ; and then, seeing she was 
 no longer in .the room, he had gone into 
 the garden to look for her. 
 
 Caleb, seated in the deep chimney-cor- 
 ner, smoking a pipe filled for him by 
 Catherine, had recovered more serenity 
 than he had known since the day his god- 
 daughter left him. Here at least was an 
 hour free from the sadness that held him 
 like a heavy dream in his empty home ; 
 here, seated by Catherine's hearth, with 
 Catherine moving to and fro, he recognised 
 himself again. Caleb was no longer a 
 young man ; and clear though his intelli- 
 gence was when he roused his mind to bear 
 upon any point, he had always had a confused 
 way of looking at life that left him half 
 the time with a half-realization only, even 
 of matters that most closely touched him- 
 self. He felt without perceiving. But 
 with Catherine at hand, perception was 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 easy enough. He turned to look at her 
 now as, followed by Will, she entered the 
 room and began moving about, intent on 
 some household matter, smiling a little as 
 she passed her godfather. In Catherine's 
 presence, when she was at home with 
 those she loved, there was something 
 sweet, gracious, and benign. Will's eyes 
 followed her wherever she went; Caleb 
 watched her with a dreamy, half-melan- 
 choly look ; only old Mrs. Matthews with 
 her white cap and her white hair, dozed on 
 in the chimney-corner, taking no heed. 
 
 ' Come and sit down, Cathy/ said Caleb, 
 at last. She came and seated herself on a 
 low chair in front of the fire ; and shading 
 her eyes with one hand, laid the other on 
 her godfather's knee. Caleb placed his 
 thin brown nervous hand gently on hers, 
 which was brown also, but firm and soft 
 and flexible, as strong to support, tender 
 to caress.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 67 
 
 ^ You've a look of your father to-niglit, 
 Oatliy,' Caleb said, after a minute's pause ; 
 * you're not like him, you take after your 
 mother's family ; but you've a look of him 
 when you sit like that. You remember 
 your father, Cathy ?' 
 
 ' Why, of course I remember him well, 
 godfather,' said Catherine, * and yet, whiles 
 I forget him,' she added ; ' his face, I 
 mean. It seems to fade like, when I try 
 to see it plain.' 
 
 *Ah! well, he remembered you; he 
 often talked about you. I remember in 
 particular one evening. We'd been on the 
 march all day, up to our knees in mud, 
 and soaked through and through; but 
 your father only laughed at it, Cathy. 
 He thought little o' mud and rain or 
 other things that most men were fit to 
 grumble at ' 
 
 Will here pushed back his chair with a 
 movement of impatience. This sentence 
 
 f2
 
 68 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 was the beginning of an old, old story of 
 Caleb's, one of his old stories of the war, 
 from which, to Will's mind, all gloss of adven- 
 ture and romance had been rubbed off years 
 ago. Will had heard enough about the fight- 
 ing by this time ; he could not pretend that 
 he cared to hear his uncle's stories again ; 
 on the contrary, he hardly concealed that 
 they bored him to death. If Catherine had 
 not been there, seated where he could watch 
 the firelight on her hair and rounded cheek, 
 he would have risen abruptly and said good- 
 night. Will had a certain affection for his 
 uncle, even a certain gratitude for many 
 kindnesses shown to him by Caleb ; but he 
 had the want of generosity common in 
 young people at once slightly defiant of 
 their elders and quite certain of being 
 about to do a great deal more in the 
 world than has ever been done before. 
 Will had an ardent, ambitious spirit, and 
 certainly felt no great reverence for an
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 69 
 
 old uncle who bad settled down quietly 
 for life, content to be parish clerk, and to 
 li^e in a little house in the village street. 
 Why should he care much, one way or 
 the other, for a dreamy, fast-ageing man ? 
 For Caleb was, in fact, no longer young. 
 An old man indeed he was not, since he 
 was still two or three years under fifty ; 
 and yet the epithet, ' Old Caleb/ which his 
 queer, secluded ways had gained him years 
 ago, was felt now to befit his age. He 
 had never altogether recovered his strength 
 after Waterloo ; his hair early turned 
 white, the slight stoop of his tall figure 
 became confirmed as he sat bending over 
 his work for hours. He had begun to 
 acquire, too, some of the habits of old 
 age. He liked to sit each evening in his 
 own chair and in his own corner, to rise 
 and to go to bed at the same hour; he 
 liked to work and to rest, each at its ap- 
 pointed time, to find each day repeating
 
 70 THE WOOING OF CATHERIXE. 
 
 itself with the monotony of a life from 
 which little more can be hoped or expected. 
 Yes, he had begun to like all that, as 
 old people like it. His routine, indeed, 
 had been shattered, and he had been left 
 to feel his way as best he could to a new 
 condition of things. And yet, seated 
 quietly now, with Catherine's hand on his 
 knee, he felt at peace for the hour ; nor, 
 striving to resign himself to what fate 
 had brought him, dreamed to what ends 
 fate should lead him yet.
 
 71 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Towards sunset on the following day, 
 Caleb again made his way up to the 
 Hill Farm, partly on business, partly to 
 still a restlessness, a dull craving that 
 had been on him all day, unsettling him 
 in his work, making him long for the 
 hour when he could lay his tools aside. 
 He had not meant to go again to the 
 farm until the following Sunday. He 
 and Catherine were apart now, as he had 
 told her ; yes, they were apart. But 
 throughout the hours that sense of lone- 
 liness, of worse than loneliness, of some- 
 thing missing at every turn, torn from 
 his life to its irreparable loss, the sense
 
 72 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 that bad haunted him ever since Catherine 
 passed from under his roof, grew upon 
 him till it became intolerable. He would 
 go to the Hill Farm. He had no expecta- 
 tion of seeing Catherine ; she had told 
 him the previous evening that she was 
 to spend the day and sleep at the house 
 of a friend at some little distance. But 
 a message could be left with Mrs. Mat- 
 thews ; he could rest awhile in Catherine's 
 house, nay, smoke a pipe perhaps, as he 
 had done last evening on Catherine's 
 hearth. His lass would not be there ; 
 but the room that was her home, where 
 he had seen her last, would be less 
 empty than the room that could never 
 be her home again. 
 
 It was nearly dark by the time Caleb 
 reached the farm. The door stood open ; 
 the maids were somewhere at the back, 
 and without meeting anyone, he went 
 in through the passage towards the
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 73 
 
 kitchen, used as a sitting-room by Cathe- 
 rine, more than her parlour. Some design 
 for his work — for Caleb very frequently 
 made his own designs — had been vexing 
 his mind during his walk ; and making 
 his way into the low-beamed room, light- 
 ed fitfully by leaping flames, he walked 
 straight up to the hearth, with the inten- 
 tion of finding a piece of charred wood, 
 and making a rough sketch on the white- 
 washed wall, as it was his habit to do 
 at home. 
 
 He walked up to it, expecting to find Mrs. 
 Matthews there. Summer and winter she 
 spent a good part of her old years in dozing 
 over the fire. But Mrs. Matthews was not 
 there : in place of the wrinkled old wo- 
 man, in her black gown and decent widow's 
 cap, some one with long plaits of hair 
 and rounded cheeks soft with the bloom 
 of youth, sat sleeping in the arm-chair 
 set on the raised brick hearth, sleeping
 
 74 THE WOOING OF CATHEEINE. 
 
 with hands loosely folded and head re- 
 clined, in an attitude of complete repose. 
 A pair of steel shoe-buckles shone in 
 the fireliofht below a dark-blue cotton 
 skirt ; but from behind, through a low 
 western lattice, some last sunset gleams 
 gilded the sleeper's fair hair, and were 
 reflected back here and there from the 
 depths of the dusky room. It was Cathe- 
 rine ; but Caleb, who imagined her to 
 be miles away, did not at once recognise 
 her. Still half-entangled by his own 
 thoughts, half-confused by the confused 
 light in the dim room, he only saw as 
 in some vision, a fair woman sleeping 
 there on the hearth in the mysterious, 
 mingled light of fire and sky. 
 
 He was still looking at her with a dawn- 
 ing consciousness that this was Catherine, 
 but a Catherine whom he saw with new 
 eyes that had never so seen her before, 
 when she awoke and looked up smiling
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 75 
 
 a little as from some pleasant dream. 
 
 ' It's you, godfather/ she said. ' I 
 seemed to hear some one come in ; but I 
 must have been asleep, I believe. I've 
 been out and about since dawn almost, 
 and had sat down to rest for a minute. I 
 must have gone off without knowing 
 it.' 
 
 Her eyes, as she spoke, sought the 
 darkness behind Caleb ; but finding no 
 one, she rose and crossed the kitchen to 
 close the door he had left open. Caleb, 
 meanwhile, made no answer. He stood 
 watching Catherine with troubled eyes as 
 she came back to the hearth, and first 
 throwing on some light wood to make a 
 blaze, raised her hands and began to 
 adjust the long plaits loosened during her 
 sleep. Catherine was used to her god- 
 father's fits of silence, but the strange ex- 
 pression in his eyes as she turned and met 
 them startled her.
 
 76 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 ' Why, godfather, what's the matter T 
 she said in sudden alarm. * Are you ill? 
 Has anything happened T 
 
 She laid her hand on his arm as she 
 spoke. Caleb started at her touch and 
 moved away a few paces, passing his hand 
 once or twice over his eyes, like a man 
 who tries to free himself from some illu- 
 sion in which he yet believes. 
 
 ' No,' he said at last ; * I'm well enough, 
 and there's nothing happened that I know 
 of, Cathy.' 
 
 He seated himself slowly in the arm- 
 chair. Catherine stood looking at him as 
 he sat, with his hands spread out on his 
 knees, his eyes fixed on the floor; then 
 taking his pipe from his pocket, she began 
 to fill it from a tobacco-pouch that hung 
 by the high chimney-shelf. Suddenly 
 Caleb looked up, a strange excitement in 
 his eyes. 
 
 ' Catherine 1' he cried : but checked
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 77 
 
 himself. * Where's Mrs. Matthews?' he 
 said hurriedly. ' I came to leave a mes- 
 sage with her. I thought you were away, 
 Cathy. How is it you're here ? You 
 were going to be away all night, you said ; 
 you told me so yesterday.' 
 
 * Why, so I was going,' said Catherine ; 
 ' and then Margaret sent word to put me 
 off, and I'm to go on Wednesday instead. 
 But if you want to see Mrs. Matthews, god- 
 father, she's back in the dairy, helping 
 Molly to finish up the butter for to-morrow. 
 Shall I call her ?' 
 
 ' No — no ; it's no matter for to-day,' 
 said Caleb, ^ another day '11 do as well.' 
 
 He mechanically took the lighted pipe 
 Catherine offered him, but he let it lie un- 
 heeded between his fingers whilst he sat 
 as before, leaning forward a little, his eyes 
 on the floor. Catherine stood and watch- 
 ed him in silence. In all his varying 
 moods she had never before seen her god-
 
 78 THE WOOING OF CATHEKINE. 
 
 father like this. Suddenly he rose. His 
 cheeks were flushed, his eyes at once dim 
 and eager fixed themselves on her, yet not 
 on her, one would have said, but on some 
 vision beyond her. 
 
 So he stood for a moment ; then gradu- 
 ally his look took a fuller consciousness. 
 
 ^ Good-night, Catherine,' he said, turning 
 abruptly, * I must go. I'll come back soon, 
 but I must go now.' 
 
 Catherine stopped him as he began to 
 move towards the door. 
 
 'Godfather,' she said, 'you're not well, 
 I'm sure you're not. Stay here to supper 
 and sleep. I can't bear for you to take 
 that long walk home when you're not feel- 
 ing well.' 
 
 * No, no, I'm well enough, and I must 
 be going,' said Caleb, * I can't stay now. I 
 shall be better at home.' He moved again 
 towards the door as he spoke, and Catherine 
 followed him through the passage, out of
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 79 
 
 the house into the little front garden. 
 The sunset light was almost gone ; masses 
 of cloud were slowly drifting up from the 
 west, spreading over half the heavens ; but 
 the stars were beginning to shine in a clear 
 grey sky behind the slender branches of a 
 cherry-tree, and the night was mild and 
 still. Catherine and her godfather stood 
 together for a moment at the little garden 
 wicket. 
 
 ^ Are you sure there's nothing wrong?' 
 Catherine said again, * you've heard no bad 
 news, godfather ? not of Will, nor of — of 
 anyone ?' 
 
 Caleb looked at her in some wonder. 
 
 *0f Will?' he repeated. 'What news 
 should I have heard o' him? No, no, 
 I've seen and heard nothing of Will since 
 we walked back together last night.' 
 
 He took Catherine's hand in his, and stood 
 gazing at her for a moment in the grey 
 twilight. A brief tremor passed through
 
 80 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 his frame ; he let her hand drop, and with- 
 out another word walked away into the 
 darkness of the tree-shadowed lane.
 
 81 
 
 CHAPTER TV. 
 
 Caleb Field walked home that eveniu^ 
 through a world that one moment's ex- 
 perience had made a changed world for 
 him. It was late when he reached his 
 own house. His hearth was fireless, the 
 window was set wide open towards the 
 village street where a clear moonlight 
 was now shining down, and lights were 
 already beginning to kindle in some 
 of the little upper windows set in 
 the sloping red roofs. Caleb found a 
 candle in the darkness, lighted it, and 
 placed it on a long deal board fixed 
 as a table in front of the window. 
 Some of his lighter work, on which he 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 Lad been engaged before lie left home two 
 hours ago, lay there, his tools scattered 
 before it ; for he had intended to set to 
 work again on his return. He had intend- 
 ed to work, and sitting down now, he 
 mechanically took up a fine saw. But in 
 a moment he laid it down again, and stand- 
 ing up, looked around the room with the 
 same strange eyes whose troubled glance 
 had disturbed Catherine up at the Hill 
 Farm. On the walls were his rough char- 
 coal sketches ; chips of wood and half- 
 finished pieces of work lay about ; a small 
 table laid for supper stood in the middle of 
 the room ; the church-key hung on its hook 
 by the high chimney-shelf, on which stood 
 neatly arranged his little store of china 
 cups and saucers and ornaments. All 
 around him were the familiar signs of the 
 cares and joys of the life he had led these 
 thirteen years past ; but Caleb looked at 
 them now with a sense that these things
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 83 
 
 had in some way lost that perfect fitness 
 into which he and they had grown to- 
 gether, with a struggHng, half-painful 
 consciousness that the old placid life, 
 rudely broken into the week before, was 
 fallen completely from him now, fallen like 
 a cast-off garment, never to be resumed. 
 
 As his eyes wandered round the room 
 they fell upon a little china mug standing 
 on the cliimney-piece ; on it the name 
 ' Catherine ' was inscribed in gilt, half- 
 effaced letters. It had been his own 
 present to his goddaughter when he first 
 brought her home ; and it had been left 
 there forgotten when she went away. 
 Caleb took it down now and carefully 
 wiped the dust from its edge, handling it 
 tenderly, as a thing to be touched with 
 reverence ; then setting it on the table 
 where stood his untouched supper, he sat 
 down and gazed at it fixedly for a few 
 moments. Who shall say what memories 
 
 g2
 
 84 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 it awoke, and what emotions ? Suddenly 
 springing up, he stretched out his arm 
 with a passion, a fire and excitement that 
 transfigured the whole man. 
 
 ' Cathy, Cathy, come back to me,' he 
 cried, ' I love thee, Catherine, I cannot 
 live without thee.' 
 
 He stopped, startled by the strangeness 
 of his own voice breaking the silence of 
 the room. But his words were a revela- 
 tion to himself, an interpretation of the 
 helpless longing, the heavy sense of loss 
 and solitude that had settled down upon 
 him like some dull, bewildering dream. 
 He loved Catherine; he loved her, he 
 
 loved her With a strange rapture he 
 
 repeated the words to himself; he loved 
 her. Nay, when had he not loved her ? 
 He had loved her from the day when as a 
 child, she had put her little hand into his 
 with a look of trust in her quiet eyes, 
 until that other day when, grown through
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 85 
 
 her slim girlhood into a fair woman, she 
 had crossed the threshold of his door, 
 leaving behind her a dusky room that for 
 ever missed her presence. He had always 
 loved her. Their two lives had never 
 mingled ; they had lived under the same 
 roof, and he had guarded her to the ut- 
 most fulfilment of his promise to her 
 father ; but always he had looked on at 
 this mystery of childhood and girlhood 
 growing up at his side as a thing alto- 
 gether above and apart from himself ; and 
 it had needed, he knew it now, but a touch 
 to change that gentle reverence into the 
 passionate worship of a man for the woman 
 he loves. 
 
 Caleb sat and pondered these things, 
 his eyes fixed on the little gilt-edged 
 mug before him, till the passion and 
 the trouble passed from his eyes and in 
 their place came an expression of infinite 
 sweetness. His little lass was one, and
 
 86 THE WOOING OF CATHEKINE. 
 
 the woman he loved was one, and yet they 
 were the same ; and the ripeness and ten- 
 derness of such a love filled his soul for 
 the hour with joy. Already the old life 
 was beginning to absorb the new ; scarce- 
 ly, already, could he recal the time when 
 Catherine had been other to him than she 
 was now. 
 
 A tap at the casement startled him; 
 and turning, he saw Will Franklin's face 
 looking in from the outer darkness. 
 Caleb rose and went to the window. Tho 
 street was all dark, the upper lights were 
 extinguished, the moon had disappeared 
 behind uniform grey clouds, and a gentle 
 rain was pouring down. 
 
 ' Come in, lad, come in out of the rain/ 
 Caleb said, ' I'll open the door.' 
 
 He went round and unlocked the front 
 door. Will came in, shaking the rain- 
 drops from his rough coat as he entered 
 the room.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 87 
 
 'I saw your light burning, uncle,' lie 
 said, * as I went up the street. My father's 
 ill and I've been for the doctor. He told 
 me that if I would wait twenty minutes 
 he'd drive me home, so I came round to 
 see you. I hardly thought, though, to find 
 you up so late.' 
 
 Caleb glanced at the eight- day clock ; it 
 was past midnight. 
 
 ' Why, I'd lost count o' the time alto- 
 gether,' he said. * Sit down, lad, and have 
 some supper after your walk. What's 
 wrong with your father ?' 
 
 * I don't know/ said Will, * he's been ail- 
 ing this day or two, and wouldn't let me 
 call in anyone. But to-night he's so much 
 worse, that I came off for the doctor with- 
 out letting him know.' 
 
 * Well, well, he'll thank you for it after- 
 wards, maybe,' said Caleb ; * your father's 
 not an easy man. Will, not an easy man ; 
 I've known that this many a year. But if
 
 S8 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 you're in want o' help, I'll come home with 
 you and welcome.' 
 
 * Thank you, uncle ; but I don't know 
 that there's much to be done,' said Will ; 
 for Caleb's quarrel with his father, as he 
 knew, had never yet been made up. ^ I'll 
 look in to-morrow evening, though, if I 
 can, and tell you how we're going on, and 
 what the doctor says.' 
 
 Will poured out, as he spoke, a glass 
 of ale from a jug standing on the table. 
 In doing so his attention was caught by 
 the little china mug, and he took it up to 
 examine it more closely. 
 
 * Why, this is Catherine's,' he said ; 
 *how well I remember it. She used to 
 lend it to me when I had been good, as 
 she called it. How did it come here ?' 
 
 * Well, it was forgotten, I suppose,' said 
 Caleb, ' it'd been standing so long with the 
 other china on the shelf there. I took it 
 down this evening to dust it.'
 
 THE WOOIXG OF CATHERINE. 89 
 
 Will stood gazing at the faded gilt 
 ^ Catherine,' much as Caleb had done an 
 hour or two before. All at once his face 
 flushed ; with a hasty gesture he turned to 
 his uncle as though about to speak ; 
 but Caleb checked him by taking the mug 
 from his hand and replacing it on the shelf. 
 
 ' I can't have it broken — it's been there 
 so long,' he said, by way of apology. 
 * Besides,' he added, with a tender smile, 
 ' it ain't mine, it's Cathy's ; and maybe 
 8ome day she'll like to have it again.' 
 
 Will looked at his uncle. Some change 
 had come over him, inexplicable to the 
 young man ; his eyes were bright, he held 
 his head more erect ; something alert in 
 step and gesture made him. look ten years 
 younger than his wont. Will looked at 
 him in wonder ; he forgot the words he had 
 meant to speak ; and the clock striking at 
 that moment, he drank off his ale, and began 
 buttoning up his coat.
 
 90 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 * I must be off,' he said. ' Uncle, when 
 you see Catherine, perhaps you'll tell her 
 about my father ; I may not be able to 
 get up to the Hill Farm just at present. 
 But I'll be over here again to-morrow.' 
 
 *Ay, ay, I'll tell her,' said Caleb. He 
 followed Will to the door, bolted it behind 
 him, and returned to the room. He came 
 back slowly, and for a minute stood with- 
 out moving ; in the silence he heard the 
 doctor's gig come rattling down the street, 
 and the sound die in the distance. Then 
 his head drooped, and he sank again 
 into his chair. Will's visit had broken in 
 upon the brightness of his dreams ; it was 
 not to be recovered. Nay, rather a subtle 
 pain had stolen upon him, coming he knew 
 not whence nor wherefore. He sat with 
 his arm resting upon the table, his head 
 on his arm ; and so fatigue overcoming 
 him, he must presently have fallen asleep ; 
 for he was aroused by a breeze blowing
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE- 91 
 
 freshly in, and looking up, saw a dripping- 
 dawn coming greyly in through the win- 
 dow, and so awoke, a new man, to the 
 consciousness of a new day.
 
 92 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 On the morning of this same day that 
 opened with such grey dawn, with such 
 transfigured life for Caleb, Catherine and 
 Will Franklin w^ere walking together up 
 the steep lane that led to the Hill Farm. 
 Caleb's first thought, when Will had begged 
 him to inform Catherine of his father's 
 illness, was that here was an occasion to 
 go up to the farm the next day when work 
 was over. But Catherine had forestalled 
 him. She had come down herself to the 
 village to tell her god-father of an event 
 that touched her closely — the sudden and 
 unexpected death of her old bailiff. It
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 93 
 
 "was a real trouble to Catherine. She had 
 liked and trusted the old man ; it was 
 her first experience of the interference of 
 death with the business of life, and it had 
 fallen suddenly upon the peace and pros- 
 perity of her home-coming to the Hill 
 Farm. Her first idea had been to go and 
 tell Caleb ; the strangeness of his conduct 
 the evening before had passed for the time 
 out of her mind, and there was nothing 
 in his manner to-night to recal it. No^ 
 there was nothing to recal it ; to Cathe- 
 rine, pre-occupied with other matters, he 
 seemed just the same as usual as he sat 
 there listening, with bent head, almost 
 silent, hardly looking at her. If he was 
 diffident and reserved, as he had never 
 before been with Catherine, if he was 
 burning with an intense consciousness 
 that held him almost motionless in her 
 presence, she only thought that he was 
 tired, as he often was after his day's work,
 
 ^4 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 and that slie must not worry him too much 
 with her own troubles. 
 
 She had risen to go when Will came in, 
 as he had promised, to report on his 
 father's state ; and when he offered to 
 walk home with her, she consented at 
 once. Her little maid was there, indeed, 
 and the two girls could have walked 
 home safely enough along the quiet roads 
 even after darkness had set in ; but Cathe- 
 rine had her own reason for accepting 
 Will's escort. There was a proposal she 
 wanted to make to him about his home- 
 affairs, which want of opportunity, want 
 of courage too, perhaps, had withheld her 
 from making hitherto. Even now, when 
 they were alone, she still hesitated. Will 
 also found little to say at first, and they 
 walked on side by side, almost in silence, 
 through the moonlit darkness towards 
 the farm, the servant-girl loitering not far 
 behind.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 95 
 
 How had these two first learned to 
 know they loved each other ? ISTot a word 
 of love had ever passed between them ; 
 nay, the frank companionship of their 
 childish days had hardly yet changed in 
 character. But love in its commencement 
 has no need to write its tale in letters of 
 fire across the heavens ; its suggestions 
 may be as delicate, yet its prophecy as 
 sure, as those of the coming day, when the 
 sky whitens to dawn, or reddens to sun- 
 rise. A flash of wonder, a deep red flush 
 on Will's face when they first met after a 
 separation of nearly three years, a fainter 
 blush, a slight smile on Catherine's lips ; 
 these, or such as these, were all the signs 
 either had ever given. Not a word of 
 love had passed between them. Catherine 
 was a rich woman, Will a poor and strug- 
 gling man ; and Will, although but a 
 petty farmer, with a practical mind and 
 ambitions no purer than those of strug-
 
 96 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 gling mankind in general, loved Catherine 
 with that first unreasoning love which 
 abhors calculation, and introduces an ele- 
 ment of passionate romance into the most 
 egotistic character. A larger and simpler 
 nature than his might have been capable 
 of forgetting, for a time at least, the 
 woman's riches in the woman. But this 
 was impossible to Will. He was very 
 ambitious, and he could not shut his 
 eyes to the fact that, with Catherine's 
 lands and Catherine's money at his dis- 
 posal, most of his present ambitions would 
 be within easy reach. His utmost stretch 
 of magnanimity could only recognise with 
 a sort of anger that this thought of Cathe- 
 rine's wealth in some way desecrated his 
 love for Catherine herself. 
 
 Nevertheless, there had latterly arisen a 
 certain consciousness between them, which 
 now that they were together, led to silence. 
 Both, too, were pre-occupied ; Will with
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 97 
 
 the worry of his home affairs, from which 
 not even Catherine's presence could set 
 him free, and Catherine with the suggestion 
 about those affairs which she at once 
 wished and hesitated to make. And yet 
 both were gradually wrought upon by the 
 rare sentiment of the hour. The moon 
 brightening from moment to moment in 
 the warm-tinted sky, swept clear of clouds 
 since last night's rain ; the shadows that 
 fell across the light-flooded path where 
 the lane ran low between grassy tree- 
 crowned banks; the still air filled with 
 honey-scents and dew ; the chirp and rustle 
 of some wakeful bird ; the sudden whirr of 
 a night-moth circling round their heads, 
 and the silence hardly broken by these, or by 
 the loitering footsteps of the little maid as 
 she now paused and lingered behind, now 
 hurried to overtake them — all these things 
 thrilled them to an intenser consciousness, 
 set them in a remoter isolation, in which 
 VOL. I, H
 
 ^8 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 the pulses of each seemed vibrating to one 
 touch, the enchanted touch of the white 
 and balmy night. Insensibly the space 
 between them lessened as Will drew nearer 
 to Catherine's side ; his eyes sought hers, 
 almost he touched her hand to clasp it as 
 when in childhood they set out hand in 
 
 hand on some childish expedition All 
 
 at once the farm-lights shining at the turn 
 of the lane broke the spell. Catherine 
 moved away a pace from WilFs side, and 
 stood waiting for the girl behind to join 
 them. 
 
 * Run on, Lizzie,' she said to her, ' and 
 see that supper s ready.' Then turning to 
 her companion : ' Will,' she said, rather 
 hurriedly, ' I want, if you'll let me, to 
 speak to you about your affairs. You're 
 in a deal of trouble at home, I'm afraid, 
 besides your father's illness.' 
 
 * Trouble enough,' Will answered, im- 
 mediately recalled to a sense of his home
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 99 
 
 cares. * Our lease is out at Michaelmas, 
 and the squire lias sent word that we must 
 pay up all arrears, or he won't renew it. 
 I may, or may not, be able to raise the 
 money ; but if I do, where's the good ? 
 We shall be as hard up as ever when next 
 rent-day comes round ; and now my father 
 is down with rheumatic fever for the next 
 three months, the doctor says. So there'll 
 be the expense of his illness, and every- 
 thing at a standstill besides, if he goes on 
 as he does now ; for he's got a notion into 
 his head that nothing can be done unless 
 he sees to it himself.'. 
 
 Will spoke with a good deal of bitter- 
 ness. Only that morning he had had a 
 trying scene with his father, when the old 
 man, made more obstinate and perverse by 
 illness, had insisted on seeing the farm-men 
 himself; and seeing them, had at once 
 contradicted some orders his son had 
 given. 
 
 h2
 
 100 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 * Why, that's hard/ said Catherine, * for 
 of course, Will, you know what is best to 
 do.' They had reached the farm-house 
 now ; but, instead of going in, she turned 
 on one side and went on with Will into the 
 little garden at the back. As they passed 
 along, her eye rested on her own barns 
 and sheds and haystacks, on all the shelter- 
 ed home enclosure and on the fields beyond, 
 spreading peacefully in the moonlight, 
 whence a plentiful harvest would presently 
 be gathered in. As Will had said, every- 
 thing prospered with Catherine. 
 
 ' Will,' she said, ' I've been thinking it 
 over, and it seems to me very hard that 
 you, who know so much and could do so 
 much, should be hampered for want of 
 money, and that too, when there's so much 
 money in the world, and a deal of it wasted.' 
 
 ' That's in the nature of things,' said 
 Will, rather gloomily, *it's hard, as you 
 say ; but I daresay it's all right.'
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 101 
 
 * I don't think so,' said Catherine ; 
 ■* since I've been rich, Will, I've understood 
 a great many things about poor people 
 that I never thought of before ; I under- 
 stand now why they say it's so hard they 
 should suffer, when others have more 
 than enough. I think perhaps they're 
 right, and it is unjust, and I'd do anything 
 I could to help them.' 
 
 ' 1 don't say so/ answered Will, slightly 
 nettled, 'though I'm poor enough, God 
 knows.' 
 
 ' I wasn't thinking of you,' said Cathe- 
 rine, simply ; ' why, I never could think 
 of you in that way, — not as being rich 
 or poor, I mean. At least,' she went 
 on, summoning up her courage finally, 
 ^ only so far as want of money prevents 
 your doing what you think best down at 
 the farm. And that's why I want to ask 
 you. Will, whether you think a loan 'ud be 
 ^ny good to your father just now. It
 
 102 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 need only be a business matter between 
 him and me, you know, and it might help 
 to set things straight again/ 
 
 Will walked on in silence for a few 
 minutes, reflecting; trying to set what 
 might be right towards his father against 
 an almost unconquerable dislike to the 
 idea of borrowing money from Catherine. 
 
 * Thank you, Catherine,' he said at last; 
 'but to speak frankly, as matters standy 
 it might only be throwing good money 
 after bad. Later on, if we are harder up 
 than I hope to be, about the rent, it might 
 be right for my father's sake to accept your 
 offer. But as regards the farm, my father 
 has somehow let things go all to rack and 
 ruin this last year or two, and though he 
 says he wants my advice, as I told you, he 
 won't take it. The luck's against us, I 
 suppose, and we're in for a bad run ; 
 but heaven only knows how it will all 
 end.'
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 103 
 
 He walked on gloomily at Catherine's 
 side. She did not at once answer ; her 
 liead was full of plans to help Will and his 
 father, and she had thought beforehand it 
 would be simple enough to propose them 
 when once a beginning was made. But 
 something in Will's tone checked her. At 
 last she spoke. 
 
 ' I'm in trouble, too, Will,' she said. 
 * Did you know ? My grandmother's old 
 bailiff, Martin, died quite suddenly to-day. 
 I don't know what I shall do without him. 
 He was a cross-grained old fellow in some 
 ways, but he was good to me, and thorough- 
 ly honest ; I'd quite counted upon him 
 when I came up here for good. And now 
 I shall have to look out for some one else, 
 for I couldn't ever manage this big place 
 all by myself. Even my grandmother al- 
 ways had Martin to help her, though she'd 
 farmed for so many years. But whoever 
 I get, I shall miss Martin sorely. And he
 
 104 THE WOOING OF CATHEKmE. 
 
 seemed quite well yesterday. I can't 
 hardly believe it.' 
 
 Will was silent for a moment. Cathe- 
 rine's voice sounded sad, and tears came 
 into her eyes as she finished speaking ; 
 he had never seen tears there before. 
 At last : 
 
 ' Would to heaven,' he cried, passion- 
 ately, * that I were a rich man, or that 
 I had at least a shilling I could call 
 my own ; so that I might hold my head 
 up in independence, and not stand here 
 like a beggar, or worse. And you offer 
 me money — you, Catherine !' 
 
 Catherine stood still. 
 
 'Why, Will, I never meant to vex 
 you,' she said in a voice that trembled 
 a little. 
 
 * Vex me!' he cried. He caught her 
 hand in his. * Tell me, Catherine,' he 
 went OD, vehemently, * what would you 
 think of a man who should seek to win
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERIXE. 105 
 
 a woman better born, or richer, or — or 
 — above him in any way of that sort, 
 and had nothing to give her in return ? 
 Wouldn't you call him a beggarly scoun- 
 drel, though he loved her better than 
 his own life ?' 
 
 ' No !' said Catherine. They had reached 
 the end of the garden, where the path 
 widened into a little grassy space, 
 shut in by trees, and leafy fruit-bushes 
 hung with gooseberries and ripening 
 bunches of red and white currants; 
 overhead stood the moon, showing in 
 white distinctness each leaf and twig 
 and blade of grass within the little en- 
 closure, blanching Catherine's complexion, 
 slightly tanned by the sun, to a dazzling 
 fairness, and giving a more spiritual touch 
 to her rounded features and pale golden 
 hair. Her hand still lay in Will's. It 
 was a moment in which another woman 
 might have trifled or coquetted; but in
 
 106 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 Catherine's large and simple nature no 
 instinct was stronger than that of straight- 
 forward simplicity. 
 
 ' I think/ she said, * that when love 
 is equal, there's nothing else can count. 
 But if you set one thing against another 
 in that way, why, then I think a man 
 that's worth anything should be so much 
 above a woman, in manliness and strength, 
 that nothing of such things as you've 
 mentioned should reckon for aught beside 
 it.' 
 
 * Do you think that, Catherine ?' 
 
 *I do, Will. I'd scorn a woman who 
 could think otherwise.' 
 
 *I wish I could think so,' said Will 
 gloomily, dropping her hand and turning 
 away. 
 
 Catherine turned also, with a sudden 
 revulsion of feeling. She had been so 
 anxious to give clear expression to what 
 she thought, that she had half lost sight
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 107 
 
 of any personal bearing in the question. 
 But now that her words met no response 
 from Will, she turned quickly, moving 
 swiftly away out of the moonlight into 
 the shade of a little overgrown path lead- 
 ing to the farm-house. In a second Will 
 was at her side. 
 
 ' Stay, Catherine,' he said, in a voice 
 both passionate and pleading. * Don't go 
 yet ; don't go till you hear what I have 
 to say. I'm only a poor man, and I don't 
 know that I shall ever be a rich one — 
 not such as ought to think of winning 
 you for a wife. But my life is yours, and 
 you know it — you must have known it 
 this long time past. Let me be your 
 bailiff, your servant, what you will ; let 
 me serve you as Jacob served for Rachel 
 — I'd wait for you more than twice seven 
 years, Catherine.' 
 
 He spoke the last words in eager, ten- 
 der accents, stretching out both hands to-
 
 108 THE WOOING OF CATHEKINE. 
 
 wards Catherine in the shadow. She 
 turned again and placed her hands in 
 his. 
 
 ' Are you to give all, and I nothing ?' 
 she said, her voice trembling a little be- 
 tween sudden tears and laughter ; ' that 
 wouldn't be fair, either, to my thinking. 
 One thing's yours already, what I care 
 most to give you, Will — and so is all the 
 rest. Why, what does it all matter?' 
 
 And together they walked back to the 
 farm-house.
 
 109 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Will did not appear the following Sun- 
 day at the Hill Farm ; but as Catherine was 
 coming from afternoon church, a note was 
 handed to her by a little farm lad. It 
 was from Will. 
 
 ^ I have twice been up to the Hill Farm 
 since last Tuesday, but you were away, 
 staying with a friend, I was told. To-day 
 my father is worse and I cannot leave him. 
 I have been thinking over — I have thought 
 of nothing else — all that passed the 
 other evening, and of what I've often 
 heard said about you, Catherine — that 
 being what you are, you might make as 
 good a marriage as any in the county.
 
 110 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 And I say agaia that I've no right to let 
 you bind yourself to a poor man like me. 
 I can never care for anyone else ; my love 
 and life are yours, and you know it ; and 
 let my word stand to live and die in your 
 service. But I will not put myself in the 
 way of a better fortune for you ; and so I 
 hold you free, Catherine, if you will have 
 it so, till in. better times, perhaps, I can 
 claim you as I should. And so God bless 
 
 you ' 
 
 To this Catherine made the following 
 answer, sending it down that same even- 
 ing by one of the farm men : 
 
 * 1 do not know whether what I say is 
 right, nor whether I shall rightly say what 
 I mean. I'm no scholar, Will, like you, 
 nor never shall be; you know that well 
 enough by this time. But my thought is 
 this, that after what passed the other 
 evening, I could never hold myself free,
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. Ill 
 
 nor could I ever care to think of a bet- 
 ter fortune. I did not speak in haste 
 then ; I meant what I said, and I say again 
 now, that if love between us is equal, 
 what matters ought else? But for the 
 rest, all that I have is yours, as I also 
 am altogether and for ever yours. 
 
 * Catherine.' 
 
 Caleb was again spending his Sunda}^ 
 evening at the farm. He also had not 
 seen Catherine since the previous Tues- 
 day — a whole lifetime, as it seemed to him, 
 and a lifetime of emotion. For in a na- 
 ture like his, when, among a hundred 
 struggling impulses that never quite see 
 the light, one passion is fully born, it must 
 needs be of proportionate intensity. Caleb 
 had more or less dimly felt his way to 
 many things in life; but when he knew 
 that he loved Catherine, it seemed to him 
 that he lived for the first time. And yet
 
 112 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 not even now, perhaps, was he fully awaken- 
 ed to the realities of that life. His position 
 in regard to Catherine was so peculiar, his 
 relations with her had been at once so 
 intimate and so distant, that the trans- 
 forming touch which revealed to him that 
 he loved her, still left that love surrounded 
 with something of remoteness. A tumult 
 was in his brain, his passion absorbed him 
 as it grew from day to day ; and yet in one 
 sense he held it as a child might hold a 
 treasure of golden coins, a treasure of 
 delight indeed, but one to be cherished 
 for its own sake, without any thought of 
 its uses for himself or for the world. 
 
 Naturally, therefore, the doubts and 
 perplexities that were disturbing Will had 
 no place in Caleb's mind. Catherine's 
 wealth and position could have no import- 
 ance for him ; they had never been part of 
 her in his eyes, less than ever could they 
 they become so now. He planned no
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 113 
 
 definite future ; he felt no immediate wish 
 even to alter his present relations with 
 Catherine, j^evertheless, he did at once, 
 after his own fashion, make an effort to 
 bring his life into some sort of harmony 
 with hers. On the day when she had 
 come to tell him of the death of her old 
 bailiff, he had sat for a long time after she 
 went away, troubled by her sadness and his 
 inability to help her ; till a sudden thought 
 striking him he went out and up to the 
 Yicarage, to ask the Yicar to lend him some 
 books on agriculture. 
 
 ' Are you going to turn farmer, Caleb ?* 
 said the Yicar, smiling, and looking out 
 some old books on his shelves. ' Here are 
 some volumes that are quite at your ser- 
 vice ; but I am afraid they are rather out 
 of date, for they belonged to my father.' 
 
 Caleb made no reply to the Yicar's ques- 
 tion ; he took the books home and began 
 to study them at once. He found it tough 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 work; he had not the most elementary 
 knowledge of farming, and though Will's 
 theories had interested him, the technical 
 terms he met with now baffled him at 
 every turn. But Caleb would not be 
 baffled ; Catherine was in need of help ; 
 perhaps he might learn to help her. All 
 that evening and each succeeding evening, 
 until long past midnight, he sat with his 
 eyes fixed on the dull pages, as if to com- 
 pel them to teach him what he wanted to 
 know. Anyone looking in through the little 
 window from the village street, might have 
 thought this stooping lean-faced Caleb to 
 be some old and dried-up student, caring for 
 nothing but the dusty books whose leaves he 
 slowly turned by the light of his one long- 
 wicked candle. No one could have guessed, 
 for there was nothing in his appearance to 
 betray it, that here was a heart grown 
 young and pathetically unwise through 
 the force of a love so absorbing as to leave
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 115 
 
 no room for any consciousness but that of 
 its own strength. And yet not young ; 
 for one is the youth of love, and ano- 
 ther the love of older life. Was Caleb 
 happy as he sat there ? A strange fever 
 possessed those midnight hours, an im- 
 measurable longing, an endless unrest. 
 Often he would push aside the volumes 
 with their terms and jargon strange 
 to him as an unknown tongue, and sit 
 with his arras stretched out over the 
 table, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall. 
 ' Catherine, Catherine !' he would repeat 
 under his breath ; till his voice, breaking 
 above a whisper, would startle him by a 
 cry that died within the narrow compass 
 of the room, but seemed to him loud 
 enough to waken the sleepers under every 
 roof in the village. Then once more 
 drawing the book towards him, he would 
 sit dimly peering into its pages, till fatigue 
 compelled him to desist; and presently, 
 
 i2
 
 116 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 with returning daj, the day's work brought 
 to him a saner mood. 
 
 On this Sunday evening, whilst Cathe- 
 rine was writing her letter to Will, Caleb 
 sat smoking as usual by the farm fire. He 
 had at once fallen back, as has been said, 
 into his old manner towards Catherine; 
 the custom of years is not readily changed. 
 Something less dreamy he was, perhaps, a 
 trifle more nervous and abrupt; but the 
 change was still too slight for Catherine 
 to note, especially just now, when she was 
 pre-occupied as she had never in her life 
 been before. 
 
 She came back when she had sent off 
 her note, and drawing a chair forward, 
 seated herself at Caleb's side. It was 
 already dusk in the low-beamed room, but 
 in the Sunday leisure no light was needed 
 beyond the red glow on the hearth, 
 and the grey summer twilight, brightened 
 by a single star, filled the long lattice.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 11 7 
 
 Catherine sat clown quietly without 
 speaking, for the profound feeling that 
 had stirred her whilst writing to Will 
 had hardly yet subsided. But when, in- 
 deed, was Catherine not quiet? In her 
 busiest moments she spoke and moved 
 without haste or bustle ; and if through 
 this tranquil temperament she lost some 
 of the charm natural to youth, its im- 
 pulses, its unthinking gaiety, its winning 
 perversities and contradictions, the im- 
 mense tenderness of her nature atoned to 
 those who knew her for such deficiency, if 
 deficiency it must be called. Cast in too 
 large a mould for the common joys of 
 girlhood, she was young through the 
 strength and depth of her passions, 
 through her unreasoning hopefulness, and 
 her enjoyment of the bounteous lot that 
 had so far made up her experience of 
 life. 
 
 She sat now in an attitude of repose,
 
 118 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 leaning back in her chair, her eyes^ 
 in which was a very sweet expression, 
 fixed absently on the fire, one hand 
 supporting her cheek, the other me- 
 chanically stroking a larga tabby cat, 
 which wandering round the room, had 
 finally leaped into its favourite resting- 
 place on Catherine's lap. Caleb, turn- 
 ing his head, looked at her, and some- 
 thing persistent in his gaze presently 
 compelled her attention. She roused 
 herself and met his eyes with a smile. 
 Catherine was rarely inattentive to her 
 godfather's presence, but she had forgot- 
 ten it now. Caleb looked away again, and 
 knocked the ashes from his pipe. 
 
 * Have you done anything about a bailiff, 
 Cathy?' he said at last, breaking the long 
 silence. 
 
 Catherine coloured a little. ^Nothing^ 
 yet, godfather,' she said, thinking of one- 
 bailiff who had already offered himself.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 119 
 
 ' Catherine ought to get a husband, 
 that's what I say,' said Mrs. Matthews, in 
 her high-pitched, tremulous voice, ' and 
 she's a girl to pick and choose as she likes, 
 for there's many a one 'd be glad enough 
 to have her. There's young Reynolds, 
 who wears a gold chain and as good a 
 coat as the squire himself, comes to Hay- 
 sted church as regularly as Sunday comes 
 round for nought but to look at her. But 
 Catherine's getting a name for holding her 
 head too high, and looking down upon 
 them as are as good as she, and that's 
 always a bad thing for a girl. She'd best 
 make her choice now, whilst she can have 
 it her own way, and take who she likes.' 
 
 Caleb listened to these words. A tremor 
 passed through him ; he let his pipe fall 
 on the hearth, and it lay there in frag- 
 ments. Catherine's marriage had never 
 occurred to him as an immediate possi- 
 bility. Once, a year or two before, she
 
 120 THE WOOIXG OF CATHERDfE. 
 
 had had an offer from a rich farmer, whose 
 fields adjoined her own, and she had then 
 told her god-father she did not want to 
 marrj, ever. He had accepted her words, 
 not for what a girl's words in such a case 
 are worth, but as a statement of fact, and 
 thought no more of the matter. But Mrs. 
 Matthews had put the subject before him 
 in a new light, in which he vaguely saw 
 himself also; and that no longer simply as 
 the man who loved Catherine, but as others 
 might view him, the man who should seek 
 to win her. He turned to Catherine, 
 shading his eyes with his hand. 
 
 ' Have you ever thought o' marrying, 
 Cathy ?' he said, in a low voice. 
 
 Catherine was engaged in picking up 
 Caleb's pipe and finding him another, and 
 did not immediately answer. His question 
 disconcerted her. That very evening she 
 had meant to speak to her godfather about 
 herself and Will- but Will's note had
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERIXE. 121 
 
 changed her intentioD. She did not like 
 to say anything before hearing from him 
 again. 
 
 ' I have thought of it, godfather/ she 
 said at last, without looking round. 
 
 Caleb sat gazing into the fire, rubbing 
 his forehead slowly with one hand. 
 
 * What Mrs. Matthews says is very true, 
 Cathy,' he said at last, in a troubled 
 voice ; ' you're a girl as might make as 
 good a marriage as any in the land. 
 Would that be your way now, Cathy, of 
 looking at things ?' 
 
 * As how, godfather ?' 
 
 ' To look out for a man who could give 
 you money and land, and make a lady of 
 you, maybe ?' 
 
 ' No,' answered Catherine, ' I should 
 never care to be other than I am, god- 
 father.' 
 
 ' Then,' said Caleb, slowly, ' if a poor 
 man — a man as had nothing to recommend
 
 122 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 him but that he loved you, Cathy — was to 
 come to you, and was to ask you to be his 
 wife ; then, if you loved him, you'd say 
 "yes"?' 
 
 * I would,' said Catherine. She turned 
 quickly to Caleb as she spoke ; her breath 
 came quicker, her colour rose, nearly in 
 that moment she had told him all. But 
 again she checked the impulse as before, 
 and moved away quickly to the window. 
 What did her godfather mean ? Had he 
 seen "Will? could Will have spoken to him? 
 
 Caleb, on his side, sat silent. He had 
 spoken without premeditation ; the words 
 still sounded in his ears when he had done 
 speaking, as though another than himself 
 had uttered them — nay, as though Cath- 
 erine's answer had been made to another 
 than himself. He also rose presently, and as 
 Catherine began to busy herself about the 
 supper, slowly paced the room. The troubled 
 look had deepened on his face. He felt
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 123 
 
 shaken from such fevered bliss as his 
 dreams had known in these last four days ; 
 disturbed in that lonely Paradise in which 
 he had sought his joy, and thought they 
 might walk hand in hand together.
 
 124 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Caleb spent that night at the farm. He 
 Lad business at L , a town some twenty- 
 miles off, connected with some fittings to a 
 library that he had been commissioned to 
 execute ; and the Hill Farm standing about 
 half way between Haysted and the point 
 on the hiorh-road where he could catch 
 the passing coach, he had arranged to sleep 
 there on Sunday night, taking the coach to 
 L on Monday, and returning on Tues- 
 day evening to Haysted. 
 
 He bade farewell that morning to Cath- 
 erine as she stood in the flagged passage- 
 room leading from the kitchen to the dairy. 
 The early June sun streamed in through.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 125 
 
 the open doors and windows, glorifying the 
 rough walls, and casting thin shadows from 
 the fluttering green leaves outside on to the 
 stone-paved floors. There was a smell of 
 fresh-baked bread mingling with the scent 
 of the homely garden flowers ; the loaves 
 just drawn from the oven stood piled on 
 the kitchen dresser, but the kitchen itself 
 was empty; hardly anyone was about; for 
 all the hands that could be spared had 
 gone to help in the haymaking, and Cath- 
 erine with one of the maids was engasfed 
 in packing sundry bottles of cider and 
 buttermilk in baskets to be carried up to 
 the hayfields later on. 
 
 She smiled as Caleb came up, and 
 went on filling the basket that stood be- 
 side her close to the open garden door. 
 Outside, a little child belonging to one 
 of the farm-labourers, was toddling about 
 in the sunshine, shaking its skirt at a 
 brood of downy chickens, who, watched by
 
 126 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 a distracted hen cooped on the grassy bank, 
 were straying about the path and over the 
 threshold. The cat, stealthily climbing 
 an apple-tree in pursuit of a bird, came with 
 a leap to the ground as it missed its prey ; 
 and the child frightened by the sudden 
 spring, ran screaming with outstretched 
 arms through the door into the room 
 where Catherine was at work. Catherine, 
 who loved children, stooped down and tak- 
 ing up the little thing set it on the table 
 beside her, smoothing down its pinafore 
 and its rujffled hair, yellow and fluffy as the 
 chicken's down, and stopping its wide- 
 mouthed screams with a kiss and a piece 
 of cake. Caleb looked on in silence at the 
 sunshiny homely scene, that ever after 
 lived in his memory. Last night's trouble 
 still lay latent in his mind ; he had hardly 
 spoken that morning. But he looked at 
 Catherine with a profound melancholy and 
 tenderness in his eyes, of which she, intent
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 127 
 
 on her work, remained unconscious. She 
 was intent on her work; but she had 
 tied a ribbon in her shining hair, and 
 through her busiest moment ran the 
 thought that Will would surely find time 
 to come that morning and answer her note 
 in person. 
 
 * Good-bye, Cathy,' said Caleb at last, ^'11 
 try to look in on my way back to-morrow 
 evening and tell you how I've got on. 
 
 Catherine nodded and smiled in answer, 
 and taking the child on one arm accom- 
 panied her godfather to the farm-yard 
 gate. Caleb paused when he got there; 
 he wanted to speak to Catherine before he 
 left. He wanted to say to her — what? 
 He himself could not have told. To repeat 
 the words he had spoken last night? A 
 weight lay on his heart and brain and held 
 him silent. 
 
 * I'm loth to leave you, Catherine,' was 
 all he said at last.
 
 128 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE.- 
 
 'Why, godfather, it's only till to-morrow/ 
 said Catherine, in some wonder. She stood 
 lingering with her hand on the latch of the 
 gate. * Shall you be going near Franklin's 
 farm, godfather?' she said ; *are you likely, 
 do you think, to see anything o' Will ?' 
 
 Caleb looked up sharply. There is no 
 form of strong love without its complement 
 of latent jealousy. It seemed to Caleb all 
 at once that Catherine thought and spoke 
 overmuch of Will. 
 
 * How should I be likely to see anything 
 o' Will ?' he said. ' Franklin's is more than 
 a mile t'other side of the high-road, and I 
 don't know what should take me there. 
 I haven't forgotten the sort o' welcome I 
 got the last time I went, though my sister 
 was living then, and one would have 
 thought Franklin might ha' found a civil 
 word to say to his wife's brother.' 
 
 He went on his way, vexed with him- 
 self for his own irritation and for the
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 129 
 
 sharp words he had spoken. The point 
 on the high-road where he was to meet 
 the coach was nearly two miles from the 
 farm. He had allowed himself more than 
 enough time for the walk ; but avoiding 
 the intricacies of the lanes, he struck 
 straight across the moorland by a path 
 that was little more than an irregular 
 track, winding at first among low mounds 
 and dells, soft with sheep-nibbled turf, 
 strewn with tiny flowers, and then along a 
 wilder tract of ground, where on one side 
 it skirted a high broken bank grown over 
 with furze and bracken, and on the other 
 overhung the precipitous sides of a deep 
 sand-pit. Beyond, it dipped down a steep 
 incline to a marshy bottom, and finally 
 emerged on the high-road. 
 
 Caleb walked on more quickly than was 
 usual with him, trying to shake off the 
 discomfort of his nervous irritation. He 
 had already crossed the stretch of moor- 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 laud lying immediately behind the Hill 
 Farm, and had reached the spot where 
 the path narrowed above the sand-pit, 
 when he saw Will coming towards him, 
 walking briskly in the fresh morning air. 
 His father was better; and with Cathe- 
 rine's letter in his pocket, and her words 
 at his heart, it was impossible, he found, 
 not to go up to the Hill Farm, in the 
 hope of seeing her. He was walking along 
 joyously, now whistling, now breaking in- 
 to snatches of song, his head full of the 
 woman he loved, and of the future that 
 lay before him. To do Will justice, he 
 thought most of Catherine ; but it was 
 only natural that his mind should also 
 dwell upon himself as Catherine's husband. 
 For years his best-defined ambition had 
 been to farm his own lands, to try his 
 own experiments, to become a gentleman- 
 farmer ; perhaps, who knows ? a squire 
 even, receiving rents, hunting with his
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 131 
 
 own horses, taking his place as an equal 
 among the county gentry. Never had 
 such ambitions been stronger than since 
 his return home, since he had found him- 
 self at every turn hampered through want 
 of money. And now, as master of the 
 Hill Farm, what might he not accom- 
 plish ? 
 
 A hundred plans were occupying theyoung 
 fellow's mind, yes, and worthier thoughts 
 too — thoughts of how he would hence- 
 forward be a better man than he had ever 
 been before, more worthy of such a woman 
 as he knew Catherine to be — when he saw 
 his uncle approaching, and paused on his 
 own rapid way to speak to him. 
 
 ' Why, lad, what brings you up in this 
 direction so early?' said Caleb. ^ How's 
 your father ?' 
 
 *My father is much easier this morning,' 
 said Will ; ' more like himself than he's 
 been for this week past. As to what 
 
 k2
 
 132 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 brings me here, uncle, I'm on my way to 
 the Hill Farm, to see Catherine.' 
 
 'And whatever need take you to the 
 Hill Farm at this hour o' the morning ?' 
 said Caleb, all his irritation instantly re- 
 vived. ' I should have thought, "Will, that 
 with your father lying sick at home you 
 might ha' found something better to do 
 than be running up to see Catherine at 
 this time o' day.' 
 
 Caleb's tone passed unnoticed by Will ; 
 indeed, he hardly heard the words ; for a 
 sudden impulse had come over the young 
 fellow to tell his uncle everything. Yes, 
 as Catherine's guardian for so many years, 
 he had a right to know as soon as possible 
 what was going on. He answered, there- 
 fore, without making any direct reply to 
 Caleb. 
 
 'Uncle,' he said, getting rather red, 'I 
 want to speak to you about Catherine and 
 myself. It's only just settled, or I should
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 133 
 
 liave spoken before ; but I know she would 
 think as I do, that you ought to know that 
 I've asked her to be my wife, and that she 
 has consented ' 
 
 He stopped, startled by the change in 
 his uncle's face, as Caleb turned and leaned 
 back against the bank by which they were 
 standing. 
 
 ' What ?' he said. ' What's that you're 
 saying ? Let's hear it again, lad.' 
 
 ' I was saying,' repeated Will, rather 
 taken aback, ' that Catherine has consent- 
 ed to be my wife.' 
 
 ' Consented to be your wife ?' said Caleb, 
 slowly. ' Why, you don't hardly know 
 each other, you two, not to call knowing. 
 You didn't see each other for years, till a 
 few weeks back, and I've hardly seen you 
 speak to one another. Have jou. and Cathy 
 been deceiving me ?' he said, in a louder voice, 
 looking at the young man and frowning. 
 
 ' There has been no deceit in the
 
 134 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 matter,' answered Will, witli some heat- 
 ' one doesn't need to know Catherine long 
 to love her.' 
 
 ' Love her ?' said Caleb, with a sort of 
 angry laugh. ' What can a lad like you 
 know about love ? Why, I love Cathy, 
 and that's a different kind o' love to yours, 
 I take it. Do you hear, boy ? I love her, 
 I tell you.' 
 
 Will stared at his uncle. He must cer- 
 tainly be out of his mind ; that was the 
 young man's first idea, as all Caleb's queer 
 ways flashed across him. He kept down his 
 rising anger, and answered as quietly as he 
 could. 
 
 * Of course you love Catherine, uncle,' 
 he said, ' we all know that ; why, you have 
 been like a father to her all these years. 
 That is why I am speaking to you now. I 
 thought it would not be right to go on 
 without your consent.' 
 
 'My consent to what?' said Caleb. 'I
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 135 
 
 tell you that I love Catherine, and that's 
 plain English, ain't it ? And what's your 
 love to mine ? Tell me that/ 
 
 He raised himself as he spoke and stood 
 confronting the young man, his stick 
 planted firmly on the ground, but his 
 whole frame as he leaned on it, trembling 
 with passion. Will made no immediate 
 reply, and Caleb went on with increasing 
 vehemence. 
 
 ' What's your love compared to mine, I 
 say ? I've loved Cathy since she was so 
 high, since she was a little thing as would 
 come over with her father, and take a sup 
 out o' my cup and look up smiling in my 
 face. Why, I loved her when you was 
 nought but a little chap, getting your 
 schooling ; and if I only found it out a week 
 ago, it's because I've been a fool — a fool. 
 What's a lad like you, that was at your 
 spelling-book the other day, to know of 
 love compared to me ?'
 
 136 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 Will was confounded by his uncle's 
 vehemence. If he were mad, there was 
 reason and coherence in his madness; 
 yes, and a passion that could assert itself 
 with overwhelming force. A blind anger 
 towards a rival such as this took posses- 
 sion of the young fellow. 
 
 ' A fool ?' he answered. ' I should think 
 you'd need to be a fool indeed, uncle, to 
 think of a girl like Catherine. Why, 
 everyone talks about you as " old Caleb," 
 and she looks upon you as a father — as a 
 grandfather for aught I know.' 
 
 * Looks on me as a father, does she ?' 
 said Caleb, in a voice hoarse with passion ; 
 * then I'll act a father's part by her, as you 
 shall see. She shall not be left at the 
 mercy of every penniless lad as comes 
 courting her for her money, and thinks 
 he'll make a fine thing out o' marrying her. 
 I'll have a word or two with Cathy before 
 that comes about. Go your way home, lad ;
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 137 
 
 not a step nearer to the Hill Farm shall 
 you go to-day. I've something to say to 
 Catherine too, and I'll say it. Go home, 
 I say. Why, damn it all, you're your 
 father's son after all, I believe.' 
 
 Caleb was standing in front of Will 
 now, barring the narrow path. Will grew 
 furious. 'No words could have been so 
 stinging as those just uttered by Caleb. 
 
 * Are you mad, uncle ?' he cried, ' go to 
 the farm and welcome. Say what you 
 like to Catherine; what do I care? 
 But let me pass — let me pass, I say !' 
 
 Will raised his voice as he uttered the 
 last words, and slightly shifted a small 
 stick that he was carrying. The action 
 roused Caleb in his turn to fury. 
 
 ' Would you strike a man old enough to 
 be your father ?' he cried ; ' why, go to the 
 devil then — two can play at that game, 
 my lad.' 
 
 He tried to wrench the stick from Will's
 
 138 THE WOOING OF CATHEEmE. 
 
 hand, but failing, seized him by the collar, 
 and flung him violently backward. The 
 young man, unprepared for the attack, 
 staggered, missed his footing on the nar- 
 row pathway, and fell headlong down the 
 precipitous bank into the sand-pit below. 
 The height was considerable, though the 
 fall was broken here and there by furze 
 bushes ; at the bottom, half buried in the 
 sand, lay an old cart overturned ; and as 
 Will fell, his head struck violently against 
 one of the iron-bound corners, and he lay 
 motionless. 
 
 For the longest minute in his life, Caleb 
 watched the strong young hands that 
 caught desperately at one bush and an- 
 other only to lose their momentary hold, 
 and heard the dull fall below. For an- 
 other minute he stood, paralysed by hor- 
 ror ; then trembling, shaken from head to 
 foot by a chill dread, he made his way 
 down a little sloping path that led to the
 
 TEE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 139 
 
 sandpit. He knelt down beside Will ; he 
 loosened his necktie and raised his head ; 
 he laid his shaking hand upon his pulse 
 and heart ; but there was neither sign nor 
 movement. Will was dead. 
 
 It seemed ages to Caleb's stunned con- 
 sciousness before he raised himself from 
 his knees, trying to steady his whirling 
 thoughts ; but in truth it was not many 
 minutes. He looked round the lonely 
 sand-pit, where the morning sunshine lay 
 warm and clear, and the bees were hum- 
 ming among the gorse-flowers ; then stood 
 gazing down on the motionless form at his 
 feet. He never thought of seeking help ; 
 he never doubted that Will was dead. 
 The attitude in which the young fellow 
 lay, his half-closed eyes and fast-chilling 
 hands, left no suspense in Caleb's mind on 
 that point. Moreover, there had been a 
 momentary deadly meaning in his action, 
 a purpose not of continuous death, but of
 
 140 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 instant, swift vengeance, that must, be 
 felt, have worked its own fulfilment. And 
 yet in a minute he knelt • down again, 
 chafing the cold hands with hands that 
 trembled so much they could hardly do 
 his bidding, striving in his despairing ter- 
 ror to bring back one spark of life ; but in 
 vain. Will was dead. 
 
 Caleb raised himself once more and for 
 a long time stood motionless, with no im- 
 mediate sensation beyond a numbing horror, 
 a dull wonder at this strange silence, this 
 sudden quenching of vigorous young life 
 and manhood ; then with slow unsteady 
 steps he began to move towards the path 
 that led from the sand-pit. He moved away, 
 but with no thought either of concealment 
 or of flight. Caleb had the instincts of an 
 honest and simple man, not of a criminal ; 
 and one moment's action, however des- 
 perate, could not change the traditions of 
 a lifetime. He had no thought of conceal-
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 141 
 
 ment ; on the contrary, through all the sick 
 horror that was shaking him from head to 
 foot, confusing his senses with physical 
 cold and helplessness, one certainty made 
 itself felt — that the only thing left to him 
 now was to confess what he had done be- 
 fore heaven and earth, and through such 
 confession expiate his guilt. 
 
 It was with this feeling that he roused 
 himself, making a few steps forward, un- 
 certainly, like one dazed with dreams, 
 drugged with sleep, but still with a definite 
 purpose to tell his story to the first man 
 he should meet. As he slowly moved away 
 from Will's side, feeling with his stick as 
 he went, he saw an open paper lying on 
 the ground near him. It was Catherine's 
 note to Will, which had fallen from his 
 pocket as he fell. It attracted Caleb's 
 attention, alive to every trifle, as men's 
 attention is apt to be in the great crises of 
 life ; slowly stooping, he picked it up. He
 
 142 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 recognisod the writing at once, and as his 
 eyes fell on the concluding words, ' alto- 
 gether, and for ever yours, Catherine,' he 
 dropped the paper with a cry of anguish that 
 seemed to rend his very soul and scatter 
 the cloud of bewildered horror that had 
 confused his thoughts. It was true then, 
 what Will had said. Catherine loved him ; 
 yes, it was Will she loved .... And 
 he — oh, God ! he had worked not only 
 the destruction of a life dear to him from 
 its beginning, but a destruction no less 
 fatal, that of the happiness of the woman 
 he loved. As Catherine's grief rose before 
 Caleb's mind, he was seized with a passion- 
 ate despair. What would her life be hence- 
 forward ? Her lover was dead ; he lay 
 there dead ; and her godfather whom she 
 loved, to whom she would naturally cling 
 in her sorrow, would stand before all the 
 world as the slayer of that lover, of one 
 whom he had loved almost as his own son.
 
 THE WOOIXG OF CATHERINE. 143 
 
 To whom could Catherine turn ? Who 
 would help and support her when he, her 
 second father, was pointed at by all men as 
 a murderer ? Caleb dropped his head on 
 his hands and groaned aloud in his utter 
 despair. What retribution could fall on 
 him that would not be light compared with 
 Catherine's shame and sorrow when his 
 deed became known ? . . . . Then let it 
 remain unknown ; a deed of darkness, let 
 the darkness of silence cover it. Let him 
 bear for ever the intolerable weight of a 
 hidden sin, rather than bring such desola- 
 tion upon her young life. 
 
 Hardly had Caleb come to this resolu- 
 tion, striving with a desperate eifort to 
 command his thoughts enough to know 
 what he must do next, when he heard 
 voices approaching, and with a sudden 
 instinctive fear that seemed to blast his 
 entire life, he hurriedly hid himself behind 
 a clump of bushes that had taken root in
 
 144 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 one corner of the sand-pit. The voices 
 came nearer, and presently he saw two 
 men who were bringing down a donkey-cart 
 by another road to cart away some sand. 
 Caleb shrank further back into his 
 hiding-place ; but though he could no 
 longer see what passed, he could hear. 
 He could distinguish the sudden pause, 
 the exclamation of the men as they dis- 
 covered Will, the silence as they stooped 
 down to examine him. 
 
 ' It's young Franklin,' he heard one of 
 them say at last. ' I know him well ; I've 
 worked on his father's farm. He must 
 ha' met with an accident, and slipped down 
 from the path up there. He were a steady- 
 going young chap, else I should say he 
 must ha' been drunk to miss his footing. 
 It's none so narrow as all that.' 
 
 'I've said any time this twenty year 
 there'd be an accident up yonder, with 
 neither hedge nor fence above that bit o'
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 145 
 
 bank,' said the other, in a thick, husk}- 
 voice ; ' we'd best take the lad home and 
 send for a doctor. He's only stunned.' 
 
 * Nay, he's dead,' said the other man ; 
 ^ I can see that well enough. But we'll 
 take him home none the less, for the cart's 
 handy, and if the doctor can do him no 
 good, he can do him no harm neither now. 
 So lend a hand, will you ?' 
 
 They said a few more words in a lower 
 tone. Caleb, with his intent watching, 
 could hear their movements as they raised 
 Will from the ground and slowly retreated. 
 At last the sound of steps and voices died 
 away; and in the succeeding silence, he 
 came out from his concealment and looked 
 about him. 
 
 Then, indeed, a horror of great dark- 
 ness fell upon him, as he stood face to 
 face with what he had done. Will was 
 gone — a trodden spot on the sand, a blank 
 space, a deathlike silence settling down, 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 were all that remained where he had been. 
 For him nothing more could be done or 
 undone for ever; for himself there re- 
 mained to take up his life just where he 
 had left it one half-hour before, but a life 
 to be weighed down henceforward by an 
 awful memory, by an unutterable burden 
 of secret sin that could never be removed. 
 Caleb, searching through this darkness 
 in which the sky seemed to have grown 
 black above his head, strove to find one 
 familiar thought from his past world to 
 help him, and strove in vain. He fell 
 upon his knees on the sand where he 
 stood, crying aloud in his anguish, ^ My 
 God, my God, help me!' But no an- 
 swer came ; only the weight of dark- 
 ness seemed to draw closer and closer 
 round him like a palpable cloud. To a 
 man like Caleb, who, with no profound 
 theological views, had yet a simple piety, 
 a habit of referring his daily actions to
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 147 
 
 be judged by an invisible standard of 
 right and wrong, no catastrophe could be 
 so awful as this sudden hiding of the face 
 of God, this swift opening of a spiritual 
 hell in which nothing remained to him of 
 the faiths of his past but the conviction of 
 sin, the dread certainty of judgment. As 
 he knelt there on the sand, his whole 
 frame shivered and trembled under this 
 terrible sense of the irrevocable, this cut- 
 ting off for ever from every hope and joy 
 and emotion that had constituted his life 
 so far. 
 
 The necessity for action saved him from 
 madness, as it has saved many a man 
 before. He thought of Catherine, and the 
 thought at that moment was salvation ; 
 for her, something still remained to be 
 done. Were anyone to find him in the 
 sand-pit, his presence there would connect 
 him at once with Will's death, and all that 
 for Catherine's sake he wished to conceal 
 
 l2
 
 148 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 would be discovered. Nay, if he wished 
 to escape suspicion, he CQuld do no less 
 than carry out his original intention of 
 
 going to L , transact his business 
 
 there, and return home the following even- 
 ing as he had proposed. Caleb then 
 slowly gathered himself together ; and 
 still trembling in every limb, groping 
 blindly in the bright sunshine, made his 
 way out of the sand-pit, and with such 
 haste as he could use, down the steep bit 
 
 of moorland beyond. The coach to L 
 
 was half-an-hour late, and was just coming 
 up as Caleb reached the high-road. He 
 mounted on the top, and was carried on 
 his way. 
 
 He went on his way with the ever- 
 present vision of the scene in the sand-pit 
 crossed by another vision, that of the mo- 
 ment when the lad should be carried over 
 the threshold of his desolate home. But 
 Caleb was wrong; Will was never to pass-
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 149 
 
 his father's door again. Hardly was the 
 cart well outside the sand-pit, when 
 the driver pulled up his horse and 
 paused. 
 
 * I wouldn't take him to Franklin's farm 
 neither,' he said to his companion, * it's 
 nigh upon three mile from this, and old 
 Franklin's lying ill, so that such a shock 
 might kill him outright. Best carry him 
 to the Hill Farm ; it's not above a mile 
 across the heath, and he's known there. If 
 there's ought to be done for him, it'll be 
 done.' 
 
 And to the Hill Farm Will was carried.
 
 150 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 It was near dusk the following evening 
 when Caleb, with bent head and dragging 
 footsteps, approached the Hill Farm. The 
 fever that succeeds a deed of violence was 
 upon him ; he must know the worst as it 
 was known to other men ; he could not 
 keep away. But about the farm all lay 
 quiet and as usual in the evening light; 
 the haymakers were returning from their 
 work, the homely farm sounds were set- 
 tling down into the night's rest. Caleb, 
 who had fought his way through the black- 
 ness of the last thirty-six hours by the 
 glimmer of hope that had come to him in 
 the words, * He's only stunned,' felt that
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 151 
 
 hope strengthen ; longing and dreading to 
 see Catherine, he made his way into the 
 kitchen. No one was there but Mrs. Mat- 
 thews, standing over a saucepan by the 
 fire. She turned round and threw up her 
 hands with a shrill cry when she saw 
 Caleb. 
 
 ' It's you at last, Caleb Field,' she said. 
 * To think you should ha' been away, to 
 think of it. Have you heard the news ? 
 Do you know what's happened to your 
 own nephew since you left these doors 
 only yesterday ?' 
 
 ' Ay — I've heard summat,' said Caleb, 
 in a low voice ; ' but it ain't true — I trust 
 in God it ain't true. The lad ain't really 
 dead ?' 
 
 * Ay, but he is,' said Mrs. Matthews, in 
 her shrill old tones, beginning to cry. 
 ' He's dead, sure enough, poor lad. The 
 doctor was sent for, and all was done as 
 should be done ; but there were never any
 
 152 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 hope. He must ha* been killed on the 
 spot, they said ; there weren't a breath o' 
 life in him when they brought him in.' 
 
 Mrs. Matthews put her apron to her 
 eyes, and lifted the saucepan from the fire. 
 Caleb seated himself slowly and painfully 
 in his accustomed seat by the hearth, lean- 
 ed forward with his hand shading his eyes, 
 and so sat silent for a while. Fortune 
 could not better have favoured his wish 
 to keep his secret than by giving him this 
 first interview with Mrs. Matthews. She 
 was the last person in the world to ques- 
 tion him, or to criticise his behaviour. 
 
 ' How's Cathy?' he said at last, with an 
 effort. 
 
 ' Catherine takes on so as never was/ 
 said Mrs. Matthews, wiping her old eyes. 
 * She were in here yesterday when they 
 brought the lad in and laid him on the 
 settle yonder ' 
 
 She stopped as Caleb sprang to his feet,
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 153 
 
 bis whole frame convulsed, as by some 
 violent slaock. 
 
 'What!— here F he said. 'Good God 
 — they brought the lad in here ?' 
 
 'Ay— didn't you know that, Caleb Field ?' 
 said the old woman, beginning to cry 
 again. *'Twas a matter o' two miles 
 nearer than to Franklin's farm, so they 
 brought him here straight. And Cathe- 
 rine, she were standing here, as might be, 
 and she were just saying, ^' I think I'll go 
 up to the near meadow myself for an hour, 
 and if I'm wanted by anyone, you'll know 
 where I am, granny," when they brought 
 the lad in, and laid him down on the 
 settle. And Catherine just stands and 
 stares for a minute, and then down she 
 goes on her knees beside him, and flings 
 up her arms like a mad-woman. And I 
 says to her, " Catherine, this is neither the 
 place nor the conduct for a young woman 
 like you." And she answers me, "This is
 
 154 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 my affair ; you've neither to meddle nor 
 make here. He was to ha' been my hus- 
 band ; nobody knew it before, but all the 
 world may know it now." And so she's 
 gone on ever since.' 
 
 Caleb stood speechless, grasping the 
 back of the chair with both hands, shaken 
 from head to foot by this new shock. 
 Here, under Catherine's own roof, lay her 
 dead lover — here lay the man whom he 
 had slain, 
 
 ^ Where— where's Catherine?' he said, 
 speaking at last in hoarse, almost inaudible 
 tones. 
 
 ' She's with him upstairs,' said Mrs. 
 Matthews ; ' he's laid out there in the best 
 sheets, looking handsomer than he ever 
 did in his life, poor lad, though he were 
 always a good-looking young fellow, and 
 Catherine stays by him night and day. 
 She never undressed last night, nor slept 
 a wink, I believe. She don't cry and she
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 155 
 
 don't speak ; every now and then she'll 
 come wandering down and around like a 
 ghost, looking about her, but with never 
 a word, and as if she saw never a thing ; 
 then up she goes again, and there's 
 nothing'll move her. Poor lass, poor lass, 
 she takes it hard, she do. And I telling 
 her only two days back she ought to get 
 herself a husband.' 
 
 Caleb made no reply. He stood silent 
 a while, with bowed head and stooping 
 form, leaning on the back of the chair ; 
 then with uncertain steps began to move 
 towards the door. In a moment he 
 paused, steadying himself against the cor- 
 ner of the table. 
 
 ' Where ?' he said again, hoarsely, with- 
 out turning his face towards Mrs. 
 Matthews. 
 
 * In the corner-room you'll find 'em,' 
 she said. ' I wanted to have him laid out 
 in the best bed-room, where my husband
 
 156 THE WOOING OF CATHEKINE. 
 
 died, for I said, '' It ain't lucky to have 
 death in every room in the house." But 
 Catherine, she would have it her own way.' 
 The corner-room was one that in the 
 old-fashioned rambling house opened off 
 an angle of the staircase, and overlooked 
 the garden. Driven, compelled by that 
 resistless impulse, that imperious de- 
 sire to see and know the worst, Caleb 
 unclosed the door, and paused upon the 
 threshold with a sickening shuddering 
 dread he could not at once overcome. 
 Two steps led down into the room, with 
 its low-beamed ceiling and simple farm 
 furniture. The light had almost left the 
 lattice, and a dim candle burned on the 
 table at the further end ; dark-flowered 
 chintz draped the casement and big arm- 
 chair, and curtained the bed ; but on the 
 side towards the room the curtain had 
 been drawn back, revealing a white-sheeted 
 form that lay there on the couch motionless.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHEEINE. 157 
 
 Beside it sat Catherine, motionless al- 
 most as itself. She was leaning back in 
 her chair, her head thrown back, her hands 
 folded loosely, as though she had dropped 
 there from exhaustion ; now and then a 
 slight shiver ran through her, and her pale 
 face, which seemed to have grown thinner 
 since yesterday, was fixed in a strange, 
 strained expression. But as Caleb ap- 
 proached her at last with his slow, drag- 
 ging steps, she moved her head, looking at 
 him uncertainly for a while as doubting 
 whom it might be ; recognizing him then, 
 she mechanically held out one hand to- 
 wards him, and turning her face again, 
 remained motionless as before. 
 
 Caleb took her hand, and held it loosely 
 for a moment in his cold fingers, steadying 
 himself, meanwhile, by the grasp of his 
 other hand on the foot-post of the bed. 
 A strong convulsive trembling shook his 
 whole frame ; for two minutes he may have
 
 158 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 stood thus, his eyes fixed on the ground, 
 not daring to look on the dead. Will lay 
 with his head slightly raised on a broad, 
 lace-bordered pillow, his brown curls fell 
 on his forehead, he looked hardly more 
 than a boy ; yes, and on his face now was 
 something of the boy's candour and sim- 
 plicity of expression that had passed from 
 it otherwise in these later years, mingled 
 with the strange wisdom of death. When 
 Caleb at last raised his eyes, he all at once 
 felt, apart from his miserable remorse, a 
 despairing sorrow for this young life cut 
 off, a yearning love and pity for his sister's 
 son, for the lad whose growth he had 
 watched with pride since he was a little 
 round-cheeked child. His breast heaved ; 
 with a half-uttered groan he dropped his 
 head on his hands and broke into deep 
 sobs. 
 
 His tears relieved the terrible tension of 
 the moment, but they brought no other
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 159 
 
 relief; they could do nothinp^ to lighten 
 the pressure of his load, or shake aside the 
 blackness that had fallen like a curtain 
 between him and his old life. But in 
 Catherine this strong agony of a man's 
 tears touched a new chord. She began to 
 tremble, her hands tightened their clasp ; 
 she too at length burst into weeping, sobs 
 that seemed to rend her very breast, a 
 storm of tears raining down upon the 
 pillow in which she buried her face, as 
 though to stifle the sound of her despair. 
 
 The sight of this passionate, living grief 
 by the side of Will's still face, that could 
 not change for all the sorrow of the woman 
 he had loved, wrought in Caleb a new 
 anguish. Lifting his hands above his 
 head — 
 
 ' Would to God,' he cried, ' would to 
 God, Cathy, would to God, it had been my 
 life in the stead o' the lad's !' 
 
 Catherine heard the words ; Caleb had
 
 160 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 been her care and her charge for too many 
 years for his heartbroken cry not to reach 
 her even now. Still weeping passionately, 
 she rose, and putting both arms round 
 his neck, laid her head on his shoulder, as 
 if in recognition of their common grief. 
 Caleb, by a strong effort of the will, stood 
 rigidly passive under her embrace, that 
 seemed to scorch him like flame, to brand 
 him like red-hot iron; for it made no part of 
 his purpose to betray his guilty shrinking 
 from her innocent touch. Only he said at 
 last, 
 
 ' IVe no words to comfort thee with, 
 Cathy — no words, my lass.' 
 
 Catherine loosened her hold ; her arms 
 dropped from Caleb's neck ; she sank again 
 into her seat, altogether apart from him, 
 as he felt in helpless misery. The strain- 
 ed look on her face had passed with her 
 weeping, but in its place was utter 
 despair.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 161 
 
 * There is no comfort/ she said, speak- 
 ing for the first time. ^ If it were only my 
 own sorrow/ she went on, in broken ac- 
 cents. ' I could bear it, though it's a sore 
 one ; but it's him I'm thinking of. He's so 
 young — he never wished to die .... Oh^ 
 it's cruel, cruel ' 
 
 ' Ay, it is cruel/ Caleb answered, in a 
 low voice ; then suddenly stretching out his 
 arm, ' Why should it ha' been? ' he cried 
 passionately, ^ why should it ha' been al- 
 lowed to be?' 
 
 He checked himself, fearing to say too 
 much ; and for a time there was silence. 
 Then Caleb spoke again. 
 
 'You should ha' told me, Cathy,' he 
 began, in a low uncertain voice, looking as 
 he spoke towards TVill, as if he too could 
 hear the words ; yes, if the lad were any- 
 where that he could hear, he should know 
 how sorely his uncle repented. ' You should 
 ha' told me, my lass, how you and him loved 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 each other. I never guessed it; God help me, 
 I never guessed it. If I'd known, I should 
 ha* come to see as how it was the best 
 thing for you both — yes, I should — if I 
 hadn't been taken by surprise. But I 
 never guessed it ; I never saw you much 
 together, nor thought you'd much to say 
 to each other. God knows I never so 
 much as thought of it once.' 
 
 Caleb spoke, but his words fell on si- 
 lence. Will could not hear, Catherine 
 heeded him no longer ; he was alone in his 
 remorse and his despair. He turned, and 
 in silence left the room.
 
 163 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Enquiry was diligently made into the 
 possible cause of Will's death: but no 
 further light was thrown upon the subject. 
 There was no reason to suspect foul play ; 
 the young man had had no enemies, and 
 his money and silver watch were of course 
 found untouched. Moreover, when Hodge 
 the labourer repeated his husky assertion 
 that he had been expecting an accident to 
 happen at the old sand-pit any time this 
 twenty year, there were half-a-dozen 
 people ready to prove themselves his equal 
 in prophetic wisdom by stating a similar 
 conviction. It was then universally ac- 
 cepted as a fact that the saddest event 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 known in Haysted for many years, had 
 come about through a simple accident. 
 
 The funeral was fixed for the follow- 
 ing Sunday. The day before, Caleb went 
 to the vicarage and resigned his place as 
 clerk. 
 
 ^For a time, Caleb,' said the Yicar, 
 kindly, 'we will find a substitute for a 
 time ; but we cannot consent to part with 
 you altogether. You are too valuable to 
 us/ 
 
 ' No, sir,' said Caleb, ' I must give it up 
 altogether. I've had a shock, sir, I've had 
 a shock; I ain't myself, nor ever shall be 
 again.' He shivered slightly as he sat 
 leaning forward in his chair, his elbows 
 resting on his knees, his head bowed on 
 his hands, a haggard and utterly broken- 
 down man. The Vicar looked at him in 
 kindly compassion. 
 
 ^ You take this too much to heart, Caleb,* 
 he -said. ^I am aware how great your
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 165 
 
 affectior >vas for your nephew, and that the 
 shock to you must have been a heavy one. 
 But time will do much to heal your sorrow, 
 as well as that of others who have more 
 reason than you even to mourn the poor 
 fellow's death. And then, as Christians, 
 we must believe that everything is ordain- 
 ed for the best, and submit to the will of 
 Providence.' 
 
 *For God's sake, sir, don't talk to me of 
 the will o' Providence,' said Caleb, suddenly 
 springing up and standing erect ' It 
 warn't the will o' Providence that Will 
 should die, the best and finest lad in the 
 country round, and leave my Cathy broken- 
 hearted, and his father nigh crazed for 
 want of him. I know better than that, 
 sir ; and I'm 'thinking there's many things 
 in the world that ain't for the best, and 
 with which Providence has nought to do 
 — and then them that's innocent have to 
 suffer most, and that's a cruel thing — but
 
 166 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 it's all a puzzle to me, and I see no way 
 out of it/ 
 
 Caleb's head sank upon his breast as he 
 finished speaking. The momentary fire 
 died out of his eyes and his voice, and h& 
 stood motionless, his hands resting on the 
 back of his chair. 
 
 ' Well, Caleb,' said the Vicar, after a 
 pause, * you are not quite yourself to-day, 
 and we will not argue the point further; for 
 I think that you yourself will come to see 
 in time that submission to God's will is 
 all that is fitting for us poor mortals, who 
 can see but a little way into the decrees of 
 Fate. But I wanted to speak to you about 
 your goddaughter. I hear that she was 
 engaged to this poor young man, and is in 
 much trouble.' 
 
 ' Ay, sir,' said Caleb, in a low voice, ' she's 
 nigh heart-broken, poor lass — that it should 
 be so.' 
 
 ' I should be glad to be of use to her if
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE 167 
 
 I could/ said the Yicar with kindness ; * if I 
 call this afternoon, shall I find her at home?* 
 
 ' She'll be at home, sir, she don't stir 
 from the house,' said Caleb, taking his hat 
 and preparing to go. *I don't know as 
 she'll see you. She's heart-broken, poor 
 lass — God help her.' 
 
 When Caleb went to the farm, he told 
 Catherine of the Vicar's intended visit. 
 She raised her heavy eyes with languor. 
 
 ' Why should he come ?' she said. 
 
 * He thought you were in grief, Cathy,' 
 said Caleb, ' and that he might be able to 
 comfort you, maybe.' 
 
 ' My grief is my own,' she answered ; * no 
 one can touch it. I do not care for him to 
 come — unless you would like it, god- 
 father ?' she said, turning to Caleb with 
 something of her old solicitude. 
 
 'No, child,' said Caleb, 'I've seen the 
 parson, and we've talked together. But 
 he's got no words to fit me.'
 
 168 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 He turned as be spoke, and left Cathe- 
 rine abruptly. Every day he went up to 
 the Hill Farm for a few minutes, but for 
 a few minutes only. He had thought to 
 comfort Catherine ? A gulf lay between 
 them, the gulf of his guilty consciousness. 
 He shunned her eye, he shrank from her 
 touch, there was torture to him in her 
 very presence ; and yet a torture that he 
 went to meet, for it seemed all that was 
 left to him of life. Who shall say how 
 he spent the intervening hours in his 
 desolate house? The door was closed, 
 the blind drawn over the little window ; 
 within, a man now shaken by paroxysms 
 of remorse and grief, now sitting for 
 hours with a numbed consciousness that 
 had more of stupor in it than of pain. 
 The dreaminess habitual with Caleb 
 became part of his torment now. Torn 
 from it with violence, forced to face and 
 to recognise the inexorable truth, each
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 169 
 
 lapse into oblivion that relieved him for 
 the time made each new awakening more 
 terrible. Yet through it all Caleb was 
 blessed in this, that those years of unselfish 
 love to Catherine were with him still. Yes, it 
 was his love for Catherine that roused him 
 again and again, that braced him to go 
 forth in his misery and meet the world 
 like a man. He did not know it ; his past 
 life seemed to himself to have been burnt 
 up for ever, to have fallen in ashes in the 
 devouring flame of that fatal hour. But 
 past righteousness, like past evil, lives on. 
 It was Caleb's salvation now. 
 
 Old Franklin had had a relapse on hear- 
 ing the news of his son's death, which could 
 not long be kept from him, and lay in a 
 precarious state ; but all the village, which 
 had known Will from boyhood, followed 
 him to the grave on Sunday afternoon. 
 Catherine was there, though women in
 
 170 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 those days rarely attended funerals. It 
 was her will to go. And Caleb was there 
 also. Wrung with remorse and helpless 
 sorrow, he had yet to stand as chief 
 mourner at his nephew's grave. 
 
 When Caleb first understood what was 
 expected of him, he acquiesced indeed, 
 but to himself he said he could not do it ; 
 the horrible irony of the situation worked 
 on his imagination beforehand; he could 
 not do it. But when the time came, a 
 deadness of feeling fell on him, and loss 
 of realisation that not unfrequently come 
 to help mortals in the supreme crises of 
 life. Will's death was ever present with him, 
 yet now it seemed long ages ago; and this 
 dismal ceremony of to-day, in which so 
 many had part, hardly associated itself in 
 his mind with that tragic moment known 
 to himself alone. It was his secret that 
 oppressed him, the sense of separation 
 from his fellow-kind through the know-
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 171 
 
 ledge hidden in his own breast. How 
 strange that he alone among them all 
 should know — surely they too must know. 
 The desire to proclaim the truth aloud, to 
 have done, for ever with this intolerable 
 weight of sin and of isolation, grew on him 
 from minute to minute. For the burden 
 of sin lies in that sense of isolation from 
 God and from man, in the awful loneliness 
 in which the sinner is set apart. 
 
 In the midst of his friendly neighbours 
 pressing round, Caleb stood an outcast, 
 and he knew it. Only at the last, catching 
 sight of Catherine's face as she stood look- 
 ing down into the grave, an overwhelming 
 pang of misery drove out every other 
 thought. Down there, alas, hidden away 
 from sight, unfriended and alone, lay the 
 strong young life that had loved life and 
 love so well. 
 
 The day was wet ; but as the people left 
 the little graveyard and dispersed, the
 
 172 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 clouds began to lift. The people dispersed 
 talking, along the roads to their own 
 homes ; whilst Caleb with Catherine at his 
 side pursued his silent way up to the Hill 
 Farm. The rain had ceased by the time 
 thej reached the top of the lane and passed 
 through the farm-gate ; and beyond the 
 world of clouds and mists, and of wet 
 fields and meadows they looked out to 
 where a streak of sunshine was lighting 
 up the distant hills. Caleb paused before 
 entering the house. 
 
 *See yonder, Cathy/ he said with the 
 anxious tenderness that like an incessant 
 pleading cry, was in his voice always now 
 when bespoke to her, *the sun's beginning 
 to shine. We shall have a fine evening 
 after all, maybe.' 
 
 ^ I wish the sun 'ud never shine again/ 
 said Catherine heavily, turning from him 
 with wrung hands. 
 
 Caleb stood silent in this anguish of
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 173 
 
 seeing her aDguish that no word of his 
 could lighten. Presently Catherine came 
 back to his side. 
 
 ' I've been thinking what I shall do^ 
 godfather/ she said, *and I've decided to 
 go down this evening to Franklin's farm. 
 He's got no one to nurse him but the farm- 
 servants, and I'll be as good a daughter to 
 him as I know how.' 
 
 ' As you will, Oathy,' said Caleb, in a 
 low voice. She was drifting further and 
 further from him ; well, he could stretch 
 out no hand to hold her. 
 
 'I've heard of some one to take old 
 Martin's place for the present,' Catherine 
 went on, ' and Mrs. Matthews '11 take care 
 to keep the house in order. Later on, 
 maybe, I'll know better what to do. I 
 can't think now; everything seems broken 
 and confused.' 
 
 Caleb did not answer. He stood look- 
 ing out on the landscape, which in the
 
 174 THE WOOIXG OF CATHEKINE. 
 
 misty shifting light had in its wide 
 expanse something of the immensity and 
 vagueness of the sea ; suggesting too, like 
 the sea, an infinity of possibilities beyond. 
 And as he looked, a new thought came into 
 Tiis mind ; but one that fitted in so well 
 with some former thoughts, that it became 
 at once a fixed resolution. 
 
 ' You'll not be wanting me any more 
 now, Cathy,' he said, 'and that's well, for 
 I'm going away too.' 
 
 'You, godfather,' said Catherine, startled ; 
 ' for long, do you mean ?' 
 
 ^Ay,' he said, * f or a long time, and a 
 long way off. I'm going abroad, Cathy. My 
 life's broken up too ; IVe nothing more to 
 do with Haysted ; and I've a fancy to see 
 some o' those places again that your father 
 and me was at together in the year '15. 
 I shall be off as soon as mav be ; and 
 you'll write to me sometimes, my lass, and 
 tell me how you're getting on/
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 175 
 
 Caleb spoke in a low voice, but with 
 composure. Catherine did not at once an- 
 swer, but stood at a little distance from 
 Caleb, looking at him with straining eyes, 
 that gradually softened into something of 
 their old tenderness. 
 
 'Godfather/ she said gently, but with- 
 out approaching him, 'you re not fit to 
 go; you're ill now with all this trouble, 
 and you might get worse in foreign parts 
 with none to help you but strangers. 
 Why should you leave us all ? Or, if 
 you'd rather be away for awhile, let me go 
 with you and take care of you.' 
 
 Caleb shook his head. 
 
 'Nay,' he said, * you must stay and look 
 after Franklin. You're in the right there, 
 my lass. He'll need somebody now, and 
 I've no right to stand in his wa3^ And 
 you'll be happier without me, Cathy. 
 I should only darken your life if I 
 stayed.'
 
 176 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 * Nothing could do that/ she answered, 
 *all is dark already. Everyone is going 
 away from me — even you, godfather.' 
 
 She stood gazing before her with a hope- 
 less misery in her eyes, but attempted no 
 further remonstrance. Caleb took one or 
 two turns up and down, then came and 
 stood in front of her. 
 
 * Cathy,' he said, in a broken voice, * if I 
 could do aught to comfort or help you, God 
 knows .... God knows, my lass, whether 
 I'd do it. It breaks my heart to see your 
 sorrow . . . you as ought to ha' been, and 
 might ha' been, so happy. But I'm not 
 what I was, and I should darken your life — 
 God is merciful to such as you, Cathy — I 
 trust in God that he's merciful to an inno- 
 cent sorrow like yours . . . and by-and-by, 
 when you come to see it, I won't be there to 
 come between Him and you again, maybe.' 
 
 Caleb's voice sank till the last words 
 were almost inaudible. He took Cathe-
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 177 
 
 rine's hand as once before, and stood look- 
 ing at her with an inexpressible yearning 
 in his eyes. 'God bless thee, Catherine/ 
 he said ; and was gone. 
 
 Catherine started and moved forward a 
 step or two. ' Godfather !' she cried. But 
 Caleb was gone. 
 
 YOL. I.
 
 178 
 
 PAKT III. 
 
 Ten years later, a figure strange to Hay- 
 sted was seen making its way along the 
 village street, towards tlie close of an au- 
 tumn day. In the failing light it could 
 be distinguished only as that of a thin old 
 man very much bent, who walked feebly, 
 pausing now and again and leaning on his 
 stick, as though to rest. A lad standing 
 at one of the cottage doors reported that 
 he had seen that same figure in the after- 
 noon crossing the fields in the direction 
 of the Hill Farm. He knew him again, 
 he said, by the queer cut of his hat and
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 179 
 
 coat, the like of which he had never 
 seen before; and he took him to be a 
 foreigner, for he had a knapsack on 
 his back and looked as if he had 
 walked a long distance. So said the 
 lad, and his listeners heard with doubt 
 and some suspicion ; for what should 
 bring a foreigner to Haysted? The 
 children were all at their supper or 
 being put to bed ; else the stranger might 
 have had a troop of them at his heels as 
 he passed along the street in the direction 
 of the Vicarage. As it was, only a cur 
 flew out and barked at him. 
 
 Caleb Field looked strange to Haysted, 
 for in these years his dress and outward 
 appearance had conformed itself with that 
 of his neighbours in the little Belgian 
 village where he had been living and 
 working. Bat Haysted had no strange- 
 ness for him, beyond the strangeness that 
 attends a rush of familiar associations on 
 
 n2
 
 180 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 a mind grown apart from its old self. He 
 paused now and then, but it was less for 
 the sake of rest — though of that he stood 
 sorely in need — than to satisfy his passion- 
 ate thirst to look again upon the objects 
 dear to him from infancy; to take in, even 
 in the twilight, the familiar outline and 
 colouring of the brown walls and red roofs, 
 the trees yellowing and strewing their 
 leaves before the autumn blast, the old 
 church-tower grey against the grey back- 
 ground of the misty autumn sky. Once 
 he retraced his steps and stood motionless 
 for a while ; it was before the little 
 window jutting out into the street, 
 the window of his home, where he had 
 been used to sit and work. A light 
 shone behind the red curtain ; even 
 as he looked, the house-door burst 
 open and two boys with shouts of glee 
 came tumbling out, and stood to stare 
 mutely at the stranger until a woman's
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 181 
 
 sbrill voice recalled them. The door 
 slammed to ; then the curtain was with- 
 drawn for a moment, a face looked out, 
 the well-known interior was revealed. 
 The two boys were settling themselves 
 noisily at the supper-table ; the table still 
 stood in the centre of the room ; a fire 
 burned on the little hearth and shone 
 warmly on the whitewashed walls. But 
 neither hearth nor table held a welcome 
 for Caleb now. God ! to what a lost world 
 it all belonged. With one of those pangs 
 that anticipate death, he turned away, 
 and paused no more till he reached the 
 Yicarage. 
 
 He gave his name, and was shown into 
 the Yicar's study. A little, soft-haired 
 girl, the pet granddaughter of the house, 
 was building bricks in one corner ; she 
 gazed with wide-open eyes and ran out of 
 the room, frightened by the strange old 
 man who looked at her with a pathos she
 
 182 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 could not understand from beneath bis 
 white eyebrows. In a few minutes the 
 door opened again, and the Yicar himself 
 appeared. He also had aged, had grown 
 a little bent and withered in these last ten 
 years ; but he looked hale, ruddy, and 
 erect by the side of the broken-down man 
 who rose at his entrance. 
 
 ' Sit down, sit down,' said the Yicar, 
 compassionately, shaking hands with him, 
 ' I am glad to see you again in these parts, 
 Caleb. I have heard of you from time to 
 time through your goddaughter, Catherine 
 Bligh, and I was afraid you had given up 
 
 Haysted altogether But you look ill, 
 
 Caleb ; the journey has been too much 
 for you, I fear.' 
 
 * Ay, sir, I'm very ill,' Caleb answered^ 
 ' I haven't long to live. The doctor told 
 me that before I left, and that's how I 
 come to be here to-day. For there's some- 
 thing I must say before I die, and I'd
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 183 
 
 sooner say it, sir, to you whom I've known 
 most o' my life, than to a stranger/ 
 
 * You must have something to eat first, 
 Caleb,' said the Vicar, rising to ring the 
 bell, *you look quite exhausted. I will 
 order some supper to be sent in here.' 
 
 'No, sir, thank you kindly,' said Caleb, 
 * I couldn't eat anything, and I had a cup 
 o' tea up at the Hill Farm ; Catherine saw 
 to that. I'm strong enough for what I 
 have to say.' 
 
 Caleb's voice in fact, though low, was 
 calm, and his manner collected. He waited 
 a minute while the Vicar seated himself 
 again ; then he began. 
 
 ' You remember, sir,' he said, ' about 
 this time — 'twere in June, though — ten 
 years ago, when I gave up the clerk's 
 place and went away, right out o' Haysted ?* 
 
 ' Surely, Caleb,' the Vicar said, ' it was 
 just after your nephew's death. That was 
 a great shock to you, I remember.'
 
 184 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 ^ Ay — a very great shock,' Caleb answer- 
 ed, ' and you'll remember, sir, about tlie 
 lad's death, how everyone thought it was 
 an accident ?' 
 
 * Surely, Caleb,' the Yicar said again, * it 
 was an accident, and a very sad one. It is 
 not forgotten in Haysted, I can assure 
 you. I never knew a finer nor more 
 promising young man.' 
 
 ' He was, he was,' said Caleb. His head 
 dropped for a moment. ^I think some- 
 times,' he went on, in a lower voice, ' what 
 he'd ha' been by this time if he'd lived ; 
 there's nothing can ever make up for that 
 — nothing. And it warn't an accident . . 
 I could never tell before; thank God, I 
 can tell it now. 'Twas me that did it, and 
 have had the lad's death heavy on my soul 
 this ten year past.' 
 
 *You, Caleb,' said the Vicar, startled, 
 but incredulous. He thought his old clerk 
 the victim of some morbid delusion ; such a
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 185 
 
 case had come within his experience before. 
 Caleb answered the tone, if he failed to 
 detect the thought. 
 
 ' I did it/ he said, solemnly. He drew 
 a long breath and sat silent a while, his 
 hands spread out on his knees, his eyes 
 fixed on the ground. ^ I was fond o' Will 
 always,' he went on, presently, ^ and if he*d 
 come by his death as you, sir, and all the 
 neighbours thought, I should ha' mourned 
 the lad sore. But that wouldn't have drove 
 me away from my home and my work and 
 all that I loved best, to go and live among 
 strangers — not but what they was kind to 
 me, very kind.' 
 
 Caleb's head dropped again, and again 
 he was silent for a moment. 
 
 * No,' he went on ; ' there was worse 
 than that, there was worse. It all hap- 
 pened ten years ago, and there's not 
 been a day hardly since then that I haven't 
 gone over it in my mind. I'd been sleep-
 
 186 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 ing up at the Hill Farm — for I had to 
 
 meet the coach to L in the morning 
 
 — and as luck would have it, I took 
 the path by the old sand-pit. Presently, I 
 see Will coming along ; and we stopped 
 and had some talk. No matter now what 
 it was about ; but something the lad said 
 angered me. He were hot-tempered, and 
 I was an old fool, and so we had words 
 together. He had a bit of a stick in his 
 hand, and he shifted it, so ; and I thought 
 he were sfoino^ to strike me. I don't be- 
 lieve now he'd ha' done such a thing ; but 
 I thought it then, in my anger, and seized 
 him by the collar and flung him away. 
 His foot slipped, and he went off that 
 narrow bit o' pathway there, over into the 
 sand-pit. When I got down to him, I found 
 that he were dead.' 
 
 Caleb paused. The Vicar, with convic- 
 tion growing in his mind, said nothing, 
 but waited for him to speak again.
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 187 
 
 ' He were dead,' Caleb repeated. ' No 
 matter how I felt . . . But I had no 
 thought o' concealment then, sir — not till 
 I thought of Cathy. I knew that she and 
 Will cared for each other, and I thought 
 to myself, the lass'll be heart-broken 
 enough when she hears that her lover 
 is dead ; but when she knows that it's 
 me, her old daddy — for that's how she 
 always thought o' me — as has done it, it 
 will kill her outright. So I made up my 
 mind that I'd say nothing, and try to be a 
 comfort to her, as had no other comfort 
 left — but it were no good — there was 
 always something as came between us — 
 and she felt it too, I know she did, though 
 she didn't know what it was.' 
 
 Caleb ceased speaking, and sat with his 
 hand shading his eyes. The Yicar too was 
 silent for a moment. 
 
 'Your revelation has been so startling 
 and unexpected, Caleb,' he said at last ;
 
 188 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 *it has taken me so completely by sur- 
 prise, that I hardly know with what words 
 to meet it. How far you were guilty in 
 intention of your nephew's death, you 
 alone can tell ; but of this I feel sure, 
 that it is only through such a confession 
 as you have made to-night, that you can 
 find true comfort and peace.' 
 
 'Comfort and peace,' repeated Caleb, 
 slowly. ' If it had been them as I was 
 thinking of, I might ha' told the whole 
 truth years ago, as I've longed to do many 
 a time, so as none can tell but them as 
 has had a sin lying hidden and heavy on 
 their soul. And I won't be deceiving you 
 now, sir. I ain't come here with any 
 notion o' delivering myself up to justice. 
 I don't know what the law 'ud do to me; 
 but i£ I hadn't known that I haven't 
 enough life left in me for it to take hold 
 of, I shouldn't be here to-night. I'd no 
 more bring sorrow and disgrace into my
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 189 
 
 Cathy's life now than I would ten years 
 ago. No, it ain't that; it's that I want 
 you, sir, to tell my Catherine the whole 
 story when I'm dead and gone, and when 
 it won't grieve her too much. You'll tell 
 her, sir, so that it won't grieve her too much 
 .... you'll tell her,but she'll know that well 
 enough, there's been never a moment since, 
 that I wouldn't ha' given my life for the 
 lad's, if that could ha' been. But I couldn't 
 bear, if we should ever chance to meet 
 in the next world, to know there's that 
 between us still, or that she should think 
 I went to my grave meaning to deceive 
 her. If you'll tell her all, sir, she'll for- 
 give me — I know she'll forgive me.' 
 
 * My poor fellow — ' began the Vicar ; but 
 Caleb went on, in a voice that for the first 
 time became high and tremulous. 
 
 * Perhaps I've been all wrong, sir — 
 perhaps I've held myself to be o' too much 
 account ; but that's been my feeling.
 
 190 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 When I went away ten years ago, I 
 thought I'd ruined her life as it was ; but 
 I might ha' known better than that — I 
 might ha' known my Cathy better. She's 
 the sort of woman as would turn her life 
 to good, whatever happened. I heard 
 from her, sir ; she wrote to me often. 
 She told me as how she'd brought old 
 Franklin home to live with her at the 
 Hill Farm, and how, when he died, she'd 
 taken in first one little orphan, and then 
 another, till she'd made a home for little 
 things as had no other home to look to. 
 And she said to me to-day, " Godfather," 
 she said, " that time you went away I 
 was nigh crazed, I think, and there was 
 nought but blackness before me. But I 
 see now how I was wrong and where I 
 was wrong." When she said that, sir, I 
 knew I hadn't done her all the harm I 
 might ha' done. Only as I came away, 
 and saw her standing in the gate with the
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 191 
 
 little \ms all about her, and one clinging 
 to her neck, I knew — I knew that I'd cut 
 her off ' 
 
 Caleb's voice broke and died away ; he 
 sank back in his chair exhausted. The 
 Vicar rose and rang the bell. 
 
 * You are tired out, Caleb,' he said ; Sve 
 will talk no more to-night. You will 
 sleep here, and to-morrow you can say 
 anything further you may wish, and I will 
 give you what help I can.' 
 
 'Thankyou kindly, sir,' Caleb said, ^andfor 
 listening to me as you have done. I don't 
 know as I've much more to say — only that 
 you should repeat it all to Catherine.' 
 
 He sat motionless, whilst the Vicar 
 left the room. Presently returning, he 
 showed Caleb up into a little white bed- 
 room, where for that night he could 
 sleep in peace. An arm-chair stood by 
 the bedside; before it was a small table 
 with a candle. Caleb sat down wearily in
 
 192 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 
 
 the arm-cliair, leaning forward on to the 
 table. The Yicar lingered before leaving 
 the room. In his first surprise and per- 
 plexity, he had perhaps not said all that 
 he might. 
 
 ' My poor fellow/ he said again, ^ I can- 
 not doubt that your repentance is sincere ; 
 all that you have said to-night proves it. 
 But if any words of mine can help you — 
 or, better still, you will find here words 
 
 that cannot fail ' He placed his hand 
 
 as he spoke on a Bible that lay on the 
 table. 
 
 Caleb looked up. 
 
 * Thank you, sir,' he said ; ' I won't say 
 but I've come to read my Bible again in 
 these last years ; but it seems to me some- 
 how as if it weren't for me to speak about 
 it — as if what I'd found there lay between 
 God and myself.' 
 
 He said no more,and the Yicar went away. 
 The next morning, when he followed a
 
 THE WOOING OF CATHERINE. 193 
 
 servant into the room, be found that 
 Caleb had slightlj altered his position. 
 He was leaning back in the arm-chair 
 now, his head resting on the cushion ; the 
 candle had burnt down to its socket, 
 and the bed was unslept in. Caleb was 
 dead. 
 
 It all happened nearly sixty years ago. 
 It is an old story now; only a tradition of 
 the truth lingers in the village where the 
 events took place. But three graves still 
 rise side by side in a sunny corner of the 
 little churchyard ; and the same green and 
 daisied coverlid that shelters Will and 
 Catherine spreads itself over Caleb. Side 
 by side they lie together; for so Catherine 
 willed it. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 o2
 
 197 
 
 n AN INN GARDEN, 
 
 * That time,— O times !— ' 
 
 — ' I REMEMBER the girl as if I had seen 
 
 her yesterday/ said Madame Sophie E . 
 
 * I do not know her history ; I have never 
 seen her again. But what I do know, I 
 will relate to you, since you wish to hear 
 it :— 
 
 IS'ot far from the city of L lies a 
 
 little inn garden by a river. It is now 
 some years since circumstances obliged me 
 
 to spend a twelvemonth in L . I am 
 
 not used to the life of a great city. I found
 
 198 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 little in it to please me ; and it was with 
 delight that I one day accidentally discov- 
 ered this garden, to which I could go with 
 so much ease that I henceforward found 
 myself in it again and again. A quarter-of- 
 an-hour by train brought me to a small 
 station, at which I alighted. A brief space 
 of dusty high-road then lay before me, still 
 bearing traces of the adjacent city in mean 
 houses, in ragged wayside weeds whitened 
 by the dust or splashed by the mud raised 
 by a hundred carts and waggons that daily 
 lumbered along to the city gates, in fre- 
 quent wine-shops and a half-listless folk, 
 in all the shabby life, lacking the charac- 
 teristics of town and country alike, which 
 clings about the outskirts of a great town. 
 But a sudden turn led at once to a scene 
 that had every charm which absolute peace 
 among rural surroundings can give. A 
 deep winding lane ended in a quiet little 
 inn set between poplars and green hedges*
 
 IN AN INN GAEDEN. 199 
 
 Cocks and hens were for ever pecking 
 about the grass-grown threshold of the 
 open door, or straying into the passage 
 that ran through the house ; ducks quacked 
 and straggled to and from a shallow pond ; 
 pigeons cooed ; the deep resonant bark of 
 a chained house-dog announced every new- 
 comer. An atmosphere of homely coun- 
 try life, in short, lay about the place ; it 
 seemed to me that I had come upon a 
 paradise of peace and sunshine and quiet, 
 when I first discovered the little inn in its 
 sheltered nook. A trellised vine was train- 
 ed above the door in front, and behind the 
 house lay the garden of which I have 
 spoken. It was a long strip of ground 
 shut in on either side by high bushy hedges 
 and rustling poplars- There was no turf, 
 and hardly any flowers brightened the uni- 
 form green ; only a few straggling roses, a 
 few bushes of rosemary set in some plots 
 of thrifty vegetables near the house. Lower
 
 200 IN AN INN GAEDEN. 
 
 down, green vine-covered berceaux afford- 
 ed a cool shelter from the sun ; and at the 
 extreme end of the garden, divided from it 
 only by a low ivy-grown wooden palisade, 
 ran a river which gave the whole place its 
 character and its charm. It was not a 
 wide or rapid river : on the contrary, it was 
 a gentle stream, so narrow that every wild 
 flower growing among the deep grass in 
 the opposite meadow could be seen from 
 the garden; so quiet, that its unruffled 
 surface had almost the glassy surface of a 
 pool, and its clear depths reflected each tree 
 and bush, each blade in the fringe of grass 
 that overhung it from the high banks, 
 each leaf of the water-plants its tranquil 
 current hardly stirred. Above and below 
 the little inn the river made a bend ; 
 willows and elms closed in the prospect, 
 and added the charm of the mysterious 
 beyond to the deep seclusion of the scene. 
 Immediately opposite the garden lay a
 
 IN AN INN GARDEN. 201 
 
 breadtli of verdant meadow-land shut in 
 by rising ground behind, by trees on either 
 side ; red and white cows sometimes wan- 
 dered there, or came down to where a break 
 in the overhanging bank had allowed a 
 muddy path to be trodden to the river's 
 edge. For sunlight and shadow, for peace 
 and the suggestions of peace, for coolness 
 and verdure, and silence unruflfled except 
 by the inarticulate murmur of ripple and 
 birds, I know of no spot to equal my little 
 river garden. 
 
 And I describe it minutely, for it is in- 
 separably connected in my mind with the 
 girl whom I saw there for the first and 
 last time. 
 
 I visited it often through that long hot 
 summer ; I made friends with the hostess ; 
 1 sometimes dined there and sat through 
 long afternoons, reading and writing at one 
 of the green tables set about in shady 
 corners. I even thought at one time of
 
 202 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 leaving the city altogether during those 
 sultry months, and of establishing myself 
 at my little inn ; a fresh white curtain 
 swaying to and fro in an upper casement 
 seemed to promise an equally fresh inter- 
 ior ; a cool retreat with a verdant prospect 
 of trees and green-shadowed water. But 
 on reflection I gave up this idea. I feared 
 to miss part of the charm of my garden in 
 becoming familiar with it, in losing the 
 sense of contrast between the hot roads 
 and its leafy freshness, in bringing the 
 dusty cares of every-day life to desecrate 
 this tranquil nook. One grows an 
 epicure in these matters, as one grows 
 old ; a naive pleasure, a fresh impression 
 becomes a treasure to be hoarded, not 
 recklessly used or flung aside after the 
 careless fashion of youth. Therefore Ire- 
 solved to stay in the city ; and I was con- 
 firmed in this resolution by a certain 
 Sunday afternoon excursion that I made
 
 IN AN INN GARDEN. 203 
 
 to the little inn. Alighting from a crowd- 
 ed train and issuing from the station, I 
 found the road lively with carts and public 
 vehicles filled with young men and city 
 maidens ; and long before I reached my 
 garden, the sound of loud voices, of song 
 and laughter, warned me of what I should 
 find. I looked and fled. I did not 
 grudge them the garden, Heaven knows. 
 It was I who was out of place. But, 
 since it was quiet I had come to seek, I 
 fled. 
 
 It was more than a week before I went 
 again. I arrived early and found, as was 
 not unfrequently the case, that I had the 
 garden to myself. It was drawing to- 
 wards the end of the summer, and the 
 mellow sunlight, the sense of ripeness in 
 the air, gave, as I remember, something 
 more of repose to the quiet spot. I seated 
 myself in my favourite corner ; the hostess 
 happened to be absent, but the little maid
 
 204 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 served me my usual noonday meal oE 
 coffee and eggs. I arranged my books and 
 writing materials on the little table before 
 me and on the bench at my side, and was 
 looking forward to a long and peaceful 
 afternoon, when two new-comers entered 
 the garden and arrested my attention. 
 
 At the first glance, indeed, I took them 
 to be merely such a bourgeois couple as 
 sometimes strayed in there to breakfast ; 
 but a closer observation made me change 
 my opinion. The man who was tall, fair, and 
 handsome, was no bourgeois. His hands, 
 in one of which he carried a pair of dog- 
 skin gloves, were white, with carefully 
 kept nails, and a plain seal ring on one 
 finger ; his coat was well cut ; he had an 
 air of ease and good society. The girl, 
 who was quite young, wore a neat pink 
 cotton gown, rather faded in the wash, 
 with a white muslin bow carefully tied 
 under her linen collar ; on her head,
 
 IN AN INN GARDEN. 205 
 
 when sbe entered the garden, was a little 
 white net bonnet with pink ribbon strings, 
 a trifle faded like her gown ; but this she at 
 once removed and hung up on the branch of 
 a tree, showing some thick twists of dark 
 hair. She was slight, and she was also 
 pretty, but more through colouring and 
 expression perhaps, than through feature ; 
 her cheeks had a charming natural bloom, 
 set off by her pink gown ; her eyes, which 
 were small rather than large, shone with a 
 brilliant fitful light under their dark 
 lashes j she had a determined, almost 
 stubborn-lookiog mouth and chin, and not 
 at all a classic nose. Her hands, which 
 were gloveless, were pale and smooth as 
 those of city girls used to a sedentary life 
 are wont to be, but neither well-shaped 
 nor well-kept : on one finger she wore a 
 cheap coral ring. 
 
 They had given their orders apparently 
 on their way through the house, and sat
 
 206 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 down at one of the little green tables to 
 await the arrival of their meal. My pre- 
 sence did not seem to disturb them in the 
 least; though as they had placed them- 
 selves just opposite me, I was near enough 
 to hear every word they said. Their con- 
 versation, in fact, was unintelligible to 
 me, as it turned almost exclusively on 
 persons and incidents well-known to both, 
 with rapid passing allusions to one thing 
 and another. It was the girl who talked 
 most ; leaning forward a little, her arms 
 folded on the table, she spoke with great 
 vivacity ; whilst her companion lounging 
 back in his chair, with his hands ia his 
 pockets, responded by an occasional word 
 and nod. Now and then she sprang up 
 and mimicked a gesture, a step, a move- 
 ment ; then reseating herself, talked on 
 as before. The restless gaiety of her 
 manner, in which there was no affectation 
 and which yet seemed to me not altogether
 
 IN AX INN GAKDEN. 207 
 
 natural, contrasted with the immobility of 
 her companion. She laughed a good deal, 
 whilst he hardly took the trouble to smile. 
 All the effort and exertion of the conver- 
 sation were on her side. 
 
 She paused at last in her eager talk, and 
 sat silent for a moment leaning back in 
 her chair, her hands clasped behind her 
 head, her bright eyes gazing before her : 
 then jumping up, she began to flit about 
 the garden with the half-springing step 
 and inconsequent movements of a child. 
 Espying a solitary flower on a climbing 
 rose, one of the few roses which the 
 garden produced, she sprang to get it and 
 failed ; it hung too high overhead. She 
 desisted after one or two attempts, and the 
 man, who had been watching her, slowly 
 rose and went to the spot. He was tall, 
 as I have said, more than a head taller 
 than she was, and reached it without 
 difficulty.
 
 208 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 * Here is your rose,' he said, holding it 
 towards her. 
 
 She did not at once take the flower. 
 She had torn her finger with a thorn and 
 was holding it in her mouth. ' Give me 
 your handkerchief,' she said in a moment. 
 
 He drew a handkerchief from his 
 pocket and gave it to her. It was a cam- 
 bric one, with an initial embroidered in one 
 corner. The girl took it ; then using her 
 teeth as scissors, she cut the edge of the 
 hem, tore off a long strip that included the 
 initial, and wound it round her finger. 
 
 * There !' she cried, in a joyous voice. 
 
 * Whoever embroidered that for you, will 
 never have her work used by you again.' 
 
 ' I have not an idea who worked it,' he 
 answered. 'You, perhaps. One buys 
 them by the dozen.' 
 
 ' I don't do embroidery,' she said, rather 
 curtly. She took the rose from his hand. 
 
 * This is mine ?' she said. * Well, then, I
 
 IN AN INN GARDEN. 209 
 
 give it to you. It was for you I wanted 
 it.' 
 
 She put it in his button-hole, and felt 
 for a pin with which to fasten it securely, 
 but could not find one. ^ No matter,' she 
 said, * it will hold. Now promise me one 
 thing — that you will keep it always.' 
 
 He looked down at the flower. 
 ' Always ? This rose ?' lie said. ' Do 
 you know what a dead rose looks like ? 
 Like that ' — picking one from the rose- 
 tree. * What on earth should I keep a 
 thing like that for ?' 
 
 She laughed. ' Well, give me that/ she 
 said, snatching the dead rose from his 
 hand and thrusting it inside her frock. 
 * Now, we've each got one ; and if I keep 
 mine, you might keep yours.' 
 
 ' I don't in the least want you to keep 
 it,' he answered ; ' but do if you like. 
 You're always rather sentimental, you 
 know.' 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 * Vm not : you know Vm not, ' she 
 cried. * But I suppose one may have 
 feelings.' 
 
 ' No, don't,' he said, walking away to- 
 wards the table again. This scene had 
 passed so close to me, that I had inevitably 
 heard every word that was spoken ; and 
 now, as her companion turned his back on 
 her, I saw a look of anguish that moment- 
 arily whitened her cheeks come into the 
 girl's face. She stood motionless, her brows 
 drawn together, her fingers tightly inter- 
 laced, struggling apparently to master 
 some strong passion or emotion. She suc- 
 ceeded. In another moment the blood 
 came rushing back, her fingers unlocked ; 
 with a snatch of song, and the same gay 
 springing step as before, she ran up the 
 garden to meet the white-capped maid who 
 was advancing with a tray. 
 
 * Here is our breakfast,' she cried. ' And 
 I am hungry. What have you ordered "^
 
 IN AN INN GAEDEN. 211 
 
 Chocolate, I hope, and galette and an 
 omelette.' 
 
 They sat down together just within the 
 shadow of one of the vine-covered berceaux, 
 precisely opposite to where I still kept my 
 seat and my book. Between us lay only 
 the garden path, flooded by the hot mid- 
 day sun. The girl interested me, and as 
 it was they who had chosen their position 
 I found no indiscretion in keeping the seat 
 1 had previously held. Their repast lasted 
 a long time. I observed, however, that, 
 whilst her companion made an excellent 
 meal, the girl, who had declared herself 
 hungry, touched hardly anything. The 
 delicacies she had desired, appeared, and 
 she allowed herself to be helped from each 
 dish in turn ; but she employed herself in 
 feeding a cat and dog belonging to the inn, 
 who had come and seated themselves, one 
 on either side of her. Her gay mood had 
 changed a little ; she talked less and looked 
 
 p2
 
 212 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 more at her companion, who did not look 
 much at her, but rather at the plates and 
 dishes before him. 
 
 * We are extremely dull,' he said at last, 
 taking out his watch, ' and we may have 
 to spend an hour yet in this hot little hole 
 of a garden. I shall go and order some 
 champagne.' 
 
 He rose as he spoke and walked away 
 towards the inn. The rose, loosely fasten- 
 ed in his button-hole, fell out as he moved. 
 He did not notice it, but the girl did. She 
 picked it up, pressed it with a passionate 
 gesture to her lips, then thrust it hurriedly 
 inside the bosom of her frock, pressing 
 both hands tightly over it with an energy 
 that brought the varying colour to her 
 cheek with a rush. When her companion 
 returned, she was idly tracing a design 
 with her forefinger in some spilt red wine 
 on the green table. He glanced down at 
 his coat.
 
 IN AN INN G^VRDEN. 213 
 
 * Where is my rose?' he said. 
 
 ' Have you lost it ?' she answered, with- 
 out looking up. 
 
 ^ I suppose so — I had it a moment ago/ 
 He looked down and about him on the 
 dusty ground. She also stirred slightly, 
 and with the point of her shoe moved aside 
 the leaves that clustered at the foot of the 
 vine trellis. He resigned himself. 
 
 * You will have to get me another/ he 
 said. 
 
 ' Never,' she answered, leaning back in 
 her chair with folded arms, and looking at 
 him with a smile at once defiant and pro- 
 voking. ^ I will never give you a rose 
 again.' 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders slightly. ' As 
 you will,' he said ; ' I shall not die for want 
 of a rose.' 
 
 She looked at him for a moment in 
 silence. ' Die !' she said then. '1 believe 
 you will never die, unless it be of old age.'
 
 214 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 * Thank you for the prophecy,' he said, 
 laughing, ' and may you prove a true 
 prophet. Here ; let us drink to your old 
 age and mine.' 
 
 The champagne had been brought; ho 
 filled a glass and passed it to her. She 
 just touched it with her lips ; then spring- 
 ing to her feet, held it aloft, whilst in a 
 clear untaught voice she sang a drinking 
 song, which an opera recently the fashion 
 had made popular. Her companion, who 
 was smoking, joined in the chorus with a 
 lazy hum, watching the while, with half- 
 closed eyes, the rings of smoke that he 
 puffed into the air. She sang the song 
 through ; at the end, whether by accident 
 or intention, I do not know, the glass fell 
 crashing to the ground. 
 
 ' Bravo ! bravo !' said her companion. 
 * Excellently well sung ! But you have 
 lost your wine.' 
 
 He pushed his own glass towards her
 
 IN AN INN GARDEN. 215 
 
 as he spoke. She took no notice of it, 
 but dropping into her chair, sat with her 
 elbows on the table, her chin propped 
 on her hands, gazing before her into 
 vacancy. 
 
 ' Do you know what I should like better 
 than anything in the world ?' she said, 
 suddenly turning to her companion. 
 
 ' What ?' he answered. 
 
 * To go once, only just once, to a box at 
 the opera.' 
 
 ' Well, I will take you,' he said. 
 ' You will ?' she cried, eagerly. ' Oh, 
 when ?' 
 
 * To-morrow night.' 
 
 She sprang to her feet again, clapping 
 her hands. * To-morrow night — do you 
 mean really to-morrow night ?' 
 
 ' Certainly I mean it,' he said. * I will 
 take a box to-morrow, and call for you in 
 the evening.' 
 
 She stood looking at him, her hands
 
 216 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 clasped as though in ecstasy. All afc once 
 a shade stole over her face. 
 
 ' This dress,' she said, looking down at 
 it and lifting a frill, ' it will not do — and 
 it is the only one I have.' 
 
 * Oh, it will do well enough,' he answered, 
 carelessly ; ' put a flower in your hair. 
 You always look charming, you know.* 
 
 ' But I want to go to a large box,' she 
 said, her eyes widening a little with a look 
 of anxiety, ' in the centre of the house, 
 where I can see every one and be seen.' 
 
 * Yes, yes, I understand ; but you will 
 do very well. You can put a rose in your 
 hair.' 
 
 * The dead rose,' she said, with a laugh. 
 
 ' What do you mean ?' he said, frowning 
 a little. 
 
 ' Oh, nothing,' she answered ; ' see, here 
 is some one come to speak to you.' 
 
 She turned quickly round as she spoke 
 the last words, and stood with her back to
 
 IN AN INN GAKDEN. 217 
 
 him, her hand pressed tightly on her heart. 
 The little inn-maid had approached once 
 more to tell the gentleman that his horse 
 and servant had arrived and were waiting. 
 
 * I must go,' he said, with a certain 
 alacrity. He paid the bill that the maid 
 had brought, and rose. 
 
 ' You don't mind staying here alone till 
 the train goes ?' he said, as he buttoned up 
 his coat and drew on his gloves. 
 
 ' JSTot in the least — oh, not in the least/ 
 she answered ; ' it is only half-an-hour, 
 you know/ 
 
 ' Then I will be off at once. I have no 
 time to lose.' 
 
 He took up his hat, but still lingered a 
 moment, as though he hesitated to say 
 some final word. It was she who spoke 
 it. 
 
 ' Till to-morrow evening, then,' she cried, 
 in her clear, childish voice. ' You will call 
 for me ?'
 
 218 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 *Yes, yes; that is it/ he said, with an 
 air of relief, and putting on his hat. ' I 
 will call for you.' 
 
 They walked up the path together — she, 
 with her springing steps, at his side. 
 About half-way up the garden she paused, 
 and without any formal farewell apparent- 
 ly, allowed him fco go on alone, whilst she 
 stood, one hand shading her eyes, the 
 other pressed on her heart, in a way that 
 seemed habitual with her. He walked on 
 up to the inn, but before entering it, 
 turned and looked back. Instantly the 
 girl started from her attitude, waving and 
 kissing both hands in a sort of joyous 
 adieu, till he had turned again and passed 
 out of sight. One minute longer she stood, 
 whilst a sound of horses' hoofs could be 
 heard retreating up the lane, fainter and 
 fainter in the distance. Then she turned. 
 Gropingly, as though blinded by the sun- 
 light, she made her way to the table again.
 
 ^ IN AN INN GARDEN. 219 
 
 and fell back in a chair as thougli sbe had 
 been shot. 
 
 I thought she had swooned, so colour- 
 less was her face, so motionless her closed 
 eyelids and loose hanging hands. I went 
 up to her, and raised her head, which had 
 fallen back against the wooden framework 
 of the berceau. She had not fainted, for 
 she roused herself at the touch and sat 
 up, leaning forward, her head and chin 
 raised a little, her arras straight and rigid, 
 her hands tightly clasped, like one in a 
 paroxysm of anguish. 
 
 'Oh, I can't bear it — I can't bear it ' 
 
 she said, as if the words were wrung from 
 her. 
 
 *You are suffering. Can I not help 
 you ?' I said, trying to take one of her 
 cold hands in mine. But she resisted the 
 attempt, though I believe she was hardly 
 conscious of my presence. 
 
 * Oh, I can't bear it ' she repeated^
 
 220 IN AX INN GARDEN. 
 
 with a moan, and sat motionless for a 
 moment, gazing before her with blank eyes. 
 Suddenly she started to her feet, and 
 made a step or two forward in the direc- 
 tion of the house ; but her strength failed. 
 She caught at the table to support herself, 
 and sank back again in the chair with the 
 same deathlike pallor as before. Unable 
 to guess the cause of her misery, I could 
 yet divine by her utter prostration now 
 what the last hour must have cost her. 
 The wine still stood on the table. I poured 
 out a glass, and held it to her lips. She 
 tasted it, then sat up, and drank it eager- 
 ly. It revived her, if only to a keener 
 anguish ; it gave her the power and the 
 will to speak. 
 
 ' I never wished him good-bye,' she said, 
 in heart-broken accents. ' I might have 
 said one word ; and now it is too late. I 
 shall never see him again.' 
 
 She wrung her hands in bitter regret or
 
 IN AN INT^ GAEDEN. 221 
 
 self-reproach. No one could see a fellow- 
 creature held by such mortal anguish as 
 hers, without striving to find the clue to 
 it. 
 
 ' Who is it you will never see again ?' I 
 said. "Not your friend who has just left 
 you ? Is he not to take you to the opera 
 to-morrow night ?' 
 
 ' Oh, the opera ' she said, clasping 
 
 and unclasping her fingers. ' He was so 
 anxious to deceive me, he forgot. There 
 is no opera now.' 
 
 It was true, though I also had forgot- 
 ten it. There was no opera at that season. 
 In a moment she began to speak again, 
 rapidly and excitedly. 
 
 ' He thought to deceive me, but I de- 
 ceived him,' she said. ' He could never 
 have guessed that I knew. He would 
 have hated me, if I had made a scene. 
 He used to like me, he said, because I was 
 always bright ; and he will remember me
 
 222 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 bright. I was just the same to him to the 
 very last, though I knew I should never 
 see him again.' 
 
 She paused. Even then, though her 
 words were addressed to me, I doubt if 
 she were fully conscious of my presence. 
 She never once looked at me, or turned 
 her eyes in my direction. 
 
 ^How did you know?' I asked her at 
 last. 
 
 ' I was told,' she said, more absently ; 
 'and I inquired, and found it was true. 
 When he asked me to come here to-day, 
 I knew it was for the last time, and know- 
 ing what T did, his manner told it me too. 
 We have often been here,' she went on, a 
 little wildly, looking round her. 'This 
 frock — it was new the first time we came 
 — and he said he liked it better than any 
 dress he had ever seen.' She started to 
 her feet again, both hands pressed with 
 the familiar gesture on her heart. ' Oh,
 
 IN AN INN GARDEN. 223 
 
 I can't bear it — I can't bear it ! ' she 
 cried. 
 
 We were interrupted. 'Lisa, I have 
 come !' cried a voice from the upper end 
 of the garden. 
 
 A young woman, poorly clad in a dingy 
 brown gown and shawl, came running 
 towards us with outstretched hands. 
 
 * Is he gone ?' she cried, breathlessly. 
 
 I do not know what moved the girl. 
 "Was it the outspoken question acting like 
 a visible presentment of her woe, or the 
 familiar apparition of her friend recalling 
 too vividly the dusty gloom of the work-a- 
 day life to which she was about to return? 
 For one moment she stood looking at her 
 with startled eyes ; the next, with one 
 swift rush she had reached tbe end of the 
 garden, had cleared the low palisade, and 
 sprung into the river. So swift was her 
 movement that we heard the splash and 
 noted the meeting waves, whilst still too
 
 224 IN AX INN GAEDEN. 
 
 stiffened with horror to move from the 
 spot. 
 
 She was rescued instantly. Just below 
 the garden a little wooden platform, sup- 
 ported by piles driven into the bank, 
 projected into the stream, and made a 
 mooring-place for a boat. The boatman^ 
 a strong-built, elderly man, was there, 
 preparing to loosen his little bark. He 
 heard the plunge. As the girl rose, he 
 caught at her dress with his hook, and 
 with his sturdy arms lifted her out of the 
 water. Almost by the time we had reached 
 the bottom of the garden, she was stand- 
 ing beside us again in the sunny path, 
 dazed, drippiug, half-stunned, but other- 
 wise not the worse. She stood still in 
 the centre of the path, and looked down 
 at her mud-stained frock. 
 
 'It is a good thing it will wash,' she 
 said in a minute, with a laugh. 
 
 Her friend put her arm in hers and
 
 IN AN INN GABDEN. 225 
 
 tried to draw her towards the inn ; but 
 she resisted, and freed herself from the 
 grasp. She stood shivering in the bright 
 sunshine, pushing back her long hair, 
 loosened and streaming with wet, from her 
 face. The man, with a shrug of his shoul- 
 ders, had gone back to his boat. No 
 alarm had reached the house; we three 
 were alone. All at once the girl dropped 
 on to a bench close bj, and broke into an 
 agony of weeping. Five minutes before, 
 I doubt if she could have shed a tear ; 
 now the cold, the clinging wet of her gar- 
 ments, the physical wretchedness and dis- 
 comfort, had touched a lower chord of 
 misery, and she wept aloud, convulsively, 
 rocking herself to and fro with despairing, 
 heart-broken sobs. Her friend, mean- 
 while, stood beside her. She was a pallid, 
 rather sullen-looking young woman, with 
 a worn face. She did not speak, but put 
 her arm round the younger girl, who 
 VOL. I. , (J
 
 226 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 turned presently and hid her face against 
 her friend. In another minute she rose, 
 and suffered herself to be led away to the 
 house. 
 
 I followed them, but only to desire the 
 maid to see to their comfort and give 
 them anything they might need. Then I 
 returned to my afternoon's work. I can- 
 not say I did much. Shaken and startled 
 by the scene I had just witnessed, my 
 thoughts were with the girl who had 
 roused in me an interest so sudden and so 
 deep. I did not go to her. Involuntarily 
 I had been an intruder in a tragic hour of 
 her life ; the recognition that the intrusion 
 had not been unwelcome lay with her ; 
 and with her friend at hand I knew she 
 would not feel herself helpless or deserted. 
 Still I was unwilling to go away without 
 seeing her once more. The hours passed : 
 the girl's bonnet still hung on the tree 
 where she had tied it in the morning, and
 
 IN AN INN GARDEN. 227 
 
 by this sign I knew that she and her com- 
 panion had not yet left the inn. Towards 
 evening, when I was preparing to take my 
 
 departure, the bonnet was fetched ; and re- 
 
 I 
 turning to the house, I met the two in the 
 
 passage, and found that they proposed 
 returning to the city by the same train as 
 myself. The girl looked pale and languid 
 and disinclined to speak. The pink cot- 
 ton was clean and dry again, her dark hair 
 was neatly coiled ; but the pretty colour 
 was gone from her cheeks, the light 
 had died out of her eyes ; her frock hung 
 about her in limp folds, and the crisp 
 white muslin bow, which had given the 
 last touch to her dress, had disappeared. 
 All the freshness was gone from her toil- 
 ette of the morning as it was gone from 
 herself. 
 
 Her friend, I fancied, kept a sort of 
 jealous guard over her, and we travelled 
 back to the city in different carriages. 
 
 q2
 
 228 IN AN INN GARDEN. 
 
 But on arriving I sought her out before 
 leaving the station. The interest she had 
 awakened in me was too keen for me to 
 let her go without some parting word. 
 
 * Will you come/ I said, ' and see me, 
 or may I come and see you? I should 
 like to know something of you, to hear 
 how you are.* 
 
 She looked at me in silence. 
 
 ' No,' she said at last, shaking her head, 
 ' your life lies there — mine here,' — point- 
 ing with her two hands ; ' we have nothing 
 more to do with each other.' 
 
 The words were defiant ; but her voice 
 and the look in her eyes were not. The 
 next moment she had disappeared with 
 her friend in the crowd. I have never 
 seen her since. 
 
 It was long before I re-visited my river 
 garden. A desecrating breath had passed 
 over its green berceaux, a life-tragedy had
 
 IN AN INN GARDEN. 229 
 
 troubled the peace of its limpid waters. 
 It was already autumn when I saw it 
 again ; the paths were damp, the yellow 
 vine-leaves were beginning to thin. The 
 silent melancholy discouraged me — I went 
 there no more.
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE.
 
 233 
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 ' Sleep, sleep, happy cliild ! 
 All creation slept and smiled. 
 Sleep, sleep, happy sleep, 
 While o'er thee doth mother weep.' 
 Songs of Innocence. 
 
 * Do you see that island yonder ?' said our 
 host. ' It holds a rather curious cave, 
 that I am about to take vou to visit ; a 
 cave with a history, too, for it served as a 
 hiding-place in the last century, like so 
 many of our odd nooks and corners in this 
 part of the country.' 
 
 The country was the north-east coast of 
 Scotland; and as he spoke, our boat parted 
 us from the land. It was an abrupt and
 
 234 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 rocky shore we left behind us, divided at 
 the point at which we had started by a 
 narrow glen running up into the hills. At 
 the foot of the glen stood our host's ances- 
 tral home, an old stone tower, bare and 
 lonely without, full of warmth and modern 
 comfort within ; about it lay a little gar-' 
 den, furnished with such few flowers and 
 hardy shrubs as the bleak winds would 
 permit to grow. But cold and bleakness 
 alike seemed far withdrawn to some nether 
 world on this summer afternoon. Before 
 us and around spread a smooth expanse of 
 sea, pulsing blue and waveless in the tran- 
 quil light, with white reflections from the 
 high white clouds floating overhead. Far 
 away, between us and the horizon, lay a 
 dark group of rocks, towards one of which, 
 larger than the rest and somewhat de- 
 tached from them apparently, we were 
 steering. It lay altogether apart, we 
 presently found, as the boat propelled by 
 strong rowers, shot swiftly onwards, and
 
 AN ISLAlin) GRAVE. 235 
 
 the group changino^ its character, the rocks 
 discover themselves as islets, not huddled 
 together as they showed at a distance, but 
 spread over a very considerable space of 
 water. That larger island for which we 
 were bound was of some size and very 
 rugged and abrupt in appearance, rising 
 almost to a point in the centre, and with 
 rocky sides now falling sheer and bare to 
 the water, now sloping more gently and 
 covered with thin grass and hardy brush- 
 wood. Some sea-birds rose and clamoured 
 at the sound of our oars and voices, lifting 
 their heavy wings against the blue ; other- 
 wise all was still in the lonely place. It 
 lay so lonely, rising there in the midst of 
 the summer sea, it had an aspect so remote, 
 that some tale of enchantment might have 
 held it as its centre ; a remoteness en- 
 hanced by those other lonely rocks which, 
 washed by the same waves, visited by the 
 same sunshine and air, lay eternally fixed, 
 indifferent and apart. We rowed twice
 
 236 AN ISLAND GKAVE. 
 
 round the island ; the still sea hardly 
 broke into a ripple round its rocky base, 
 cleft, so far as we could discover, by 
 neither creek nor cranny large enough 
 to admit an oar. We rowed round twice ; 
 where, we inquired then, was the entrance 
 to the cave of which we had been told. 
 
 Our host smiled as he answered. 'You 
 might row round many times without dis- 
 covering it,' he said. Tor more than a 
 hundred years it was a secret kept by one 
 family on this coast ; the smugglers even 
 never discovered it, and but few people, I 
 believe, are acquainted with it now. One 
 of my ancestors who fought at Culloden 
 found a refuge here afterwards ; and though 
 there is no cause for secresy in these days, 
 we have done what we could to keep the 
 place free from idle sight-seers and plea- 
 sure-parties. Here we are, however.' 
 
 The boat stopped as he spoke at a point 
 of rock where some happy combination of
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 237 
 
 soil and aspect had favoured the growth of 
 a raass of brushwood hanging close to the 
 water s edge, so that in high and stormy 
 tides the lower branches must have been 
 washed by the waves. Eaising his oar, 
 one of the boatmen pushed these aside, 
 disclosing a fissure so narrow that only 
 a few feet within the entrance the boat 
 stuck fast ; whilst a projecting angle 
 seemed to close the mouth of the cave, 
 producing from without the illusion of 
 solid rock. Immediately within, how- 
 ever, the roof rose, a sandy floor sloped 
 steeply upwards, and jumping from the 
 boat, we found ourselves after a moment's 
 groping, in one of those singular caverns 
 that delight the visitor to rocky seas and 
 shores. A dim twilight filled the place, 
 such light as there was filtering apparent- 
 ly through some aperture above, for the 
 air was sufficiently fresh ; and one of the 
 men lighting a lantern he had brought
 
 238 AN ISLAND GRAVE, 
 
 Tvitli him, a central cave with a lofty roof 
 was revealed, frora which smaller caves 
 branching off on either hand were lost in 
 darkness. The island was so small that 
 the whole can have been of no great ex- 
 tent ; but as the light flashed here and 
 there, showing now an opening, now an 
 unknown depth of shadow, it looked as if 
 it might be the entrance to Hades itself, 
 a passage hall to the very centre of the 
 earth. It seemed devoid of life ; the slop- 
 ing floor w^as strewn for a little distance 
 from the entrance with drift and seaweed, 
 but beyond it lay empty, above the reach, 
 as one might judge, of the stormiest waves, 
 trodden only by our recent footsteps. All 
 the more conspicuous then in its presence, 
 was the one object which told that human 
 life had once been present there. It was a 
 headstone somewhat sunk in the sand, that 
 at the upper end of the cave marked a 
 small mound protected, as one sometimes
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 239 
 
 sees a grave protected in country church- 
 yards, by osier twigs bent across. The 
 twigs were comparatively fresh ; but the 
 headstone was old, and discoloured even 
 in that remote corner by sea air and spray. 
 Our host held the lantern so that its light 
 fell on the rudely-cut inscription, almost 
 illegible now; an inscription of a few words 
 only, and a date more than a century back. 
 We stood for a moment in silence ; a multi- 
 plied murmur from the faint washing of 
 the waves outside was all the sound that 
 reached us, the walls of the cave rose high 
 into the darkness above. It was a great 
 and solemn vault for one small resting- 
 place of the dead. 
 
 * I have a sentiment about that little 
 grave,' said our host, as we seated our- 
 selves again in the boat, and made for the 
 shore. * It is a very small item in this 
 tumultuous world, but we found its history 
 in an old paper written by that same
 
 240 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 ancestor of ours, Robert Stuart, who took re- 
 fuge here after Culloden. He was a soldier 
 of reputation, a scholar and a poet — I can't 
 say much, though, for his poetry; we have a 
 volume of it at home. He lived in the mid- 
 dle of the last century, you know, and though 
 I should judge him to have been a man full of 
 sensibility and imagination, he allowed him- 
 self to be too rigidly governed in his verse 
 by the academic spirit of his age. This 
 fragment of prose that we possess seems 
 to me worth all his poems put together. I 
 Avill read it to you this evening, if you like ; 
 it contains some account of his adventures 
 hereabouts after Culloden, and may interest 
 you now that you know the locality. My 
 old tower there belonged to him ; it came 
 to me through a younger branch of the 
 family, for he himself finally settled and 
 died in France.* 
 
 That same evening our host read to us 
 the paper of which he spoke. The begin-
 
 AN ISLAND GKAVE. 241 
 
 ning had been torn away and lost, we 
 found, and a few pages farther on. The 
 remainder was intact. 
 
 When the morning broke, I was 
 
 already well on my way towards home. 
 My wound had been so carefully tended 
 by those friendly people as to cause me 
 little further inconvenience; and the clothes 
 lent me by the farmer proved a sufficient 
 disguise. I went on my way briskly in 
 the keen morning air ; and my inward 
 dejection of spirit being visible to no man, 
 none suspected that they saw in me a 
 fugitive from that most melancholy and 
 disastrous field. Alas ! when I thought of 
 my scattered comrades, of those who were 
 prisoners, of those more fortunate who 
 were dead, of our fugitive Prince and 
 broken cause, a weight seemed to bow 
 down my head ; and had it not been for 
 that dear soul who, with her baby at her 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 breast, was counting the hours with prayers 
 for my return, it would have seemed little 
 to me, I vow, to join hands with many a 
 nobler man than myself who lay in fetters 
 now. But for her dear sake, I could still 
 return thanks to Heaven for life and free- 
 dom, and find courage to press on my way 
 towards home. On the evening of the 
 
 second day I arrived 
 
 Our abode at that time was a square 
 stone house or tower on the coast, built 
 by my grandfather and looking east over 
 the sea, with a strip of garden, where only 
 herbs and hardy shrubs would grow. I 
 had sent my wife there at the beginning 
 of the troubles, since through its remote 
 situation and the loyal temper of the 
 country round — loyal to the king and to 
 our family alike — it was a safer residence 
 for her than our estate near Stirling. The 
 bay in which it stood was landlocked by 
 cliffs on either side, and thus we were
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 243 
 
 less exposed to the elements than might 
 otherwise have been the case. Never- 
 theless, it was but a stormy and wind- 
 beaten spot, and often after my return, 
 as Mary sat with the infant on her knee 
 over the parlour fire, she would drop her 
 work and raise her head to listen to the 
 moan of the blast round the angles of 
 the house. For she could never get over 
 her terror of pursuit, and heard a signal- 
 gun or the tramp of soldiers in every 
 storm-gust and dash of rain. For myself, 
 I had few fears, and beyond keeping 
 strictly within the walls of the tower, used 
 few precautions. The country-people, as I 
 have saidjWere well-affected, though,through 
 poverty and other causes, they had taken no 
 part in the rising ; nor were King George's 
 soldiers (or so I thought) likely to visit so 
 remote a spot, save through tidings reach- 
 ing them of fugitives in hiding there. 
 Therefore, I say, I had few fears, and lived 
 
 r2
 
 244 AN ISLiVND GRAVE. 
 
 on with such occupation as I could find in 
 my books, waiting always for news from 
 France that might determine my going 
 thither, since that was the scheme on 
 which my mind was set. But as yet no 
 news was come ; nor could I learn the fate 
 of my Prince ; and this suspense I found 
 harder to bear than any alarm that might 
 visit me as to my own safety. 
 
 My wife however, fearing always, and 
 finding me, I suppose, hard to arouse at 
 that time in the matter (my mind being 
 occupied with other things) could not rest 
 until she had consulted with an old fisher- 
 man, David Maclean by name, who had a 
 cottage and nets and boats down in the 
 bay, and lived there with his son, a lad of 
 fifteen or thereabouts. David had lived 
 there always, and his father before him ; 
 nor could my wife and I count on each 
 other more faithfully than on David's loy- 
 alty and service. He too, like myself,
 
 AN ISLAIO) GRAVE. 245 
 
 began bj bidding my wife have no fear, 
 since not a man in all the country round 
 who knew (and they were but one or two 
 who did know) of my presence at the tower 
 would betray me ; and the search too, as 
 he understood, was beginning to die out 
 everywhere. But if the worst came to the 
 worst, he went on to say, he knew a place 
 where the laird could be hidden so that no 
 one in the world, let alone King George's 
 soldiers, need hope to find him. My wife 
 inquiring eagerly what place, he pointed 
 to two or three small islands that lay mist- 
 ily on the horizon outside the bay. In one 
 of these, he said, there was a cave whose 
 entrance was so cunningly hidden by rocks 
 and bushes that, except by one who knew 
 of such a secret beforehand, its existence 
 could hardly be discovered. He himself 
 had found it out one day by accident, 
 whilst looking for an oar that had dropped 
 overboard and floated away ; and feeling
 
 246 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 sure from its appearance that the place had 
 never been visited within the memory of 
 man, had kept the secret to himself, think- 
 ing it might be useful one day in these 
 troubled times. David Maclean had spoken 
 to me of this before ; but Mary, hearing of 
 it now for the first time, began at once to 
 beg David to take provisions there from 
 time to time, as he could do it without 
 being seen, together with peat and fire- 
 wood and other necessaries. And that very 
 day she began to collect and to send one 
 thing and another, to be in readiness in 
 case of need, she said, since at the last it 
 might be too late to think of them. I 
 lauo:hed at her at the time, thouo^h I let 
 her have her way ; but was afterwards 
 thankful to her indeed for her dear and 
 careful forethought for our wants. 
 
 At last, however, as the days passed on, 
 and I, except for my heaviness at the 
 absence of news from over the water, and
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 247 
 
 at the woeful tidings of my friends that 
 rumour brought me from time to time, 
 remained tranquil, and as there was no 
 word of pursuit in our corner of the 
 country ; my wife too, began to calm down 
 and to be happy again in her babe, who 
 was now more than six months old, and 
 beo^innino^ to have smiles and clinmnsr 
 fingers, and many little cries and ways 
 such as rejoice a mother's heart. Now 
 too, she began to venture again from the 
 house (for many days after my return 
 she had hardly left it) and with the 
 baby in her arms to visit the glen, 
 which running up among the cliffs, 
 sheltered the growth of some few trees, 
 and wild-flowers in summer, and where 
 already, since the spring was advancing 
 and the snow melted, fresh grass and 
 buds were beginning to appear, which she 
 loved to gather and put into her baby's hands 
 that she might see it shake them away
 
 248 AN ISLAND GKAVE. 
 
 again and again. It happened then one 
 day that she had gone up there as usual, 
 Trith our old Jeannie at her side to help 
 her carry the baby. It was ^ fine after- 
 noon, windy as it always is on that coast, 
 but with a bright sun shining ; and the glen 
 being sheltered from the north, my wife 
 proposed to take the child to its upper end, 
 and be away an hour or more. But she 
 had been gone hardly half that time, when 
 I saw her from my study window run 
 round the corner of the house alone, 
 Jeannie and the child being far behind. 
 The next moment she burst into the room 
 and dropped white as a sheet into a 
 chair. 
 
 'Dear love,' I said, 'what ails thee?' and 
 started up to give her a glass of water. 
 But she put it away and sat up, panting 
 and catching her breath with her hand to 
 her side till she could speak. 
 
 ' Eobert,' she said at last, ' you must
 
 iVN ISLAND GRAVE. 249 
 
 send to David Maclean and go away at 
 once ; there is not a moment to lose.' 
 
 * Do you mean that you have seen any 
 soldiers ?' I asked, not a little startled, I 
 own ; for the danger had almost passed 
 from my mind. 
 
 ' Not soldiers — no,' she said, catching 
 her breath again, ' I have seen — oh, 
 Eobert, I have seen Malcolm Graham.' 
 
 And when she said that, I was more 
 startled than before ; for if ever man bore 
 a deadly hatred to another, Malcolm 
 Graham bore such hatred to me. For he 
 was an ill-conditioned man, full of evil 
 passions, and had wanted to marry my wife 
 when she w^as not yet my wife, but the 
 light and joy of her father's house. 
 
 ' We met face to face in the glen,' she 
 went on quickly, ' he was coming down as 
 I was going up. Yes, he spoke to me ; he 
 asked news of you. He asked if you had 
 recovered from your wound : he smiled as
 
 250 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 he spoke, and I would not answer him a 
 word. Then he asked me if you were at 
 home now, and I answered him with a lie, 
 for I saw he knew and suspected some- 
 thing. I told him no, you were in France ; 
 and he smiled again and said it was a 
 pleasant country, and bowed aod went on. 
 He did not see baby, I thank God for that, 
 she was hidden with Jeannie among the 
 trees. But oh, Eobert, I told him a lie — ' 
 
 And with that my wife flung her arms 
 round my neck and hid her face on my 
 shoulder; for she was hardly more than a 
 child yet, and her father was a strict and 
 God-fearing man. 
 
 ' And I would tell it twenty times over 
 again to save you from danger,' she said ; 
 ' but oh, I wish — I wish I had held my 
 peace, or had had trust in God so as to tell 
 the truth. For a lie is a heavy sin, and 
 evil will come of it, and a judgment be 
 laid upon us.'
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 251 
 
 When she was grown a little calmer, 
 she began to urge me again to send at 
 once for David Maclean, and seek the 
 refuge I have spoken of. To see David I 
 had no objection ; but only a more dire 
 extremity, I determined, should drive me 
 from home ; both because I held it coward- 
 ly to fly from danger not yet apparent, and 
 also that if Malcolm Graham were lurking 
 about the neighbourhood, I had no mind 
 to leave my wife alone. I knew little of 
 him beyond what I have said ; but I 
 knew him for an unscruplous man, careless 
 of means to gain his private ends, and 
 that to annoy my wife might seem to him 
 as legitimate a revenge as to betray me. 
 But though I could not consent to leave 
 the house, we nevertheless sent for David ; 
 and telling him what had happened, 
 charged him to keep a strict look-out for 
 news, and above all, to discover if possible 
 the movements of Malcolm Graham. And
 
 252 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 further we began to speak more seriously 
 than we had yet done of making our way 
 to France. Mary and I indeed had often 
 talked this over together, since the King's 
 cause being lost for the time in England, 
 I was anxious to share my party's fortunes 
 abroad, and she willing to follow me to the 
 world's end, be it where it might. Only, 
 still doubting and fearing, dear woman-soul, 
 to leave her father's land and cross the 
 stormy spring seas with a child so young as 
 ours, we had agreed, all seeming quiet, to 
 let the matter rest till the season should be 
 somewhat more advanced, and the news 
 which I expected daily, should reach me from 
 abroad. Now, however, it was she who 
 was eager and pressing that we should set 
 out without delay ; and to this end David 
 Maclean was desired to watch for a certain 
 small vessel whose captain was well-known to 
 him, and which, plying between our Scottish 
 ports and Dunkirk, from time to time ran
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 253 
 
 intoourbay. In this vessel, he assured us, we 
 might make the voyage without too much 
 discomfort to Mary and the child ; also it 
 was now nearly due ; only the weather 
 threatening storm with strong winds 
 blowing off the shore, it was not impossi- 
 ble there might be some delay. 
 
 After this interview my wife became 
 calmer, since, with a hundred preparations 
 to make for leaving home, she had her 
 hands and mind full, and less time to fret 
 from anxiety. And yet I could see she 
 had resumed her old habit of listening; 
 and twenty times in the day would start 
 and run to the door to look out. Nor 
 would she stir a foot from the house, nor 
 allow me to sit during the day in any but 
 a little room with a bolted door opening 
 out at the back, for escape in case of a 
 surprise. And at night, as she told me 
 afterwards though she would not at the 
 time, she dreamed again and again of
 
 254 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 prison gates and a scaffold and thousands 
 of upturned faces, and she and her baby 
 striving and striving to see the face of a 
 prisoner who was being led out, but always 
 pressed back by the crowd. 
 
 In this way three days may have pass- 
 ed after my wife's first alarm, and David 
 had seen nothing of the ship, detained, no 
 doubt, by contrary winds ; nor of Malcolm 
 Graham, who seemed to have vanished 
 from the country noiselessly as he had 
 come. And my wife rejoicing at this, I 
 would not tell her that to me it was the 
 worst sign of all, and that now for the 
 first time I saw real cause for fear„ For 
 life after all is sweet, and the sweeter when 
 dear to those dearest to oneself. I also 
 then took to listening, though I would not 
 let her see it, and sat in expectation, set- 
 ting ray papers in order the while, and 
 packing such few books as I thought 
 to take with me. At last on the even-
 
 AN ISLAND GRA\T]. 255 
 
 iug of the third, or it may have been the 
 fourth day, the blow we looked for fell. 
 
 I remember the night as though it had 
 been yesterday ; it was among those that 
 do not pass from a man's mind till 
 memory fails in death. The storm that 
 had been rising for three days past was 
 gathering towards its height, and though 
 our walls were thick, we could hear the 
 wind raging round the house with wild 
 moans and sighs as the gusts rose and 
 fell, and shaking our parlour casement as 
 we sat before the fire. The baby had 
 been ailing with some trifling ailment, 
 and Mary had been upstairs with it chief 
 part of the evening ; but now it had fallen 
 asleep and Jeannie had taken her place, 
 while she came down to me. She had 
 some warm baby garment in hand which 
 she was fashioning for the voyage ; for 
 she thought of nothing now but the 
 voyage, and all fear of the sea had left
 
 256 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 her, so that she would have crossed it on 
 the stormiest as on the calmest day. It 
 was ten o'clock, and she had begun to 
 fold up her work and prepare for bed. 
 • Perhaps to-morrow,' she said, ' the ship 
 will be here.' And at that moment there 
 came a knock at the door. It was David 
 Maclean's knock, and before I could move 
 my wife had flown to open it. The next 
 moment David himself stood within the 
 doorway, lantern in hand, dripping with 
 rain and salt water. 
 
 *Is it the ship, David?' my wife cried, 
 breathless. 
 
 'Na, na, nae word o' the ship, worse 
 luck to it, but your honour maun come at 
 once,' he replied ; * there's no a moment to 
 lose. The red soldiers are up at the village.' 
 
 To my dying day I shall remember my 
 wife's pale face and affrighted eyes. * Is 
 Malcolm Graham with them ?' I asked. 
 
 * Na, na, there's nae word o' Malcolm
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 257 
 
 Graham, but your honour 11 please to come 
 at once ; the coble's a' ready, and the gear ; 
 we maun e'en win through the storm and 
 the dark as we can.' 
 
 How it was I know not, but at that 
 moment I felt neither haste nor fear, nor 
 anything but reluctance to quit that dear 
 hearth and all that belonged to it, to leave 
 my wife alone, and the infant sleeping in 
 its cradle upstairs. But with Mary it was 
 far otherwise. In a moment, whilst I 
 hardly knew what she did, she had fastened 
 my cloak and wrapped my plaid round my 
 shoulders ; and throwing her own plaid over 
 her head, had thrust me, she clinging the 
 while to my arm, out at the door, along 
 the little garden path, through the wicket 
 and down the waste of sandy grass that 
 lay between it and the beach. My pistols 
 and sword I had already laid hands on in 
 the first moment of alarm ; David with 
 the lantern, followed close at our heels ; 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 and thus suddenly I found our peaceful 
 fire-lit home left behind me, and the wild 
 night outside closing in darkness round 
 us. 
 
 The night was wild indeed, moonless 
 and starless, with beating rain. The wind 
 howled and whistled in our ears, but 
 through its tumult we could hear the roar 
 of the surf that surged for miles along 
 the rocky shore ; and when we reached 
 the beach, we could see the dim white line 
 that lost itself in the night on either hand. 
 A lantern flashed for an instant where the 
 little boat was drawn up on the shingle, 
 and then was darkened, leaving a blackness 
 more pitch than before. My wife and I 
 stood clasped breast to breast ; through 
 the darkness I could see her face lifted 
 close to mine ; our cheeks were wet with 
 miugled tears and rain. We had spoken 
 no word since we left the house ; but now,
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE 259 
 
 ' Dear heart,' she said, ' I cannot — cannot 
 leave thee.' And so, clino-ing closely to- 
 gether, we moved step by step, as by one 
 impulse, down towards the breaking line 
 of surf. All at once she raised her head, 
 which had sunk on my breast. * Oh, hark,* 
 she said, ' I hear baby crying.' Dear soul, 
 it was but her fancy, for through that 
 wild uproar of wind and surf and rain no 
 sound could reach us from the distant 
 house. But now, as though torn apart by 
 that great anguish of divided longing, her 
 arms fell from my shoulders to her side. 
 A moment lonofer her hand cluno^ to mine; 
 but as David, his preparations ended, 
 shifted his dark lantern once more, and 
 sent a narrow line of light across the 
 streaming raindrops and up the wet stones, 
 with a sob she tore herself away, and fled 
 up the beach. I think she turned once 
 more; but tears dimmed my own eyes, and 
 
 s2
 
 260 AN ISLAND Gil AVE. 
 
 the thick beating of my heart dulled all 
 my senses. In another moment she was 
 lost in the darkness. 
 
 I sat down in the bottom of the boat, 
 and we pushed out through the surf on to 
 the tossing invisible sea. And of whither 
 we were going or of how, I seemed to have 
 no clear consciousness; for in that im- 
 penetrable blackness, that blotting out of 
 heaven and earth in the elemental rush 
 and roar which obliterated all kindly 
 human sounds, it might, so it seemed to 
 me, have been the immeasurable sea of 
 Eternity, the sea without change or limit, 
 across which we were being driven ; hard- 
 ly could I believe that the sun would ever 
 rise agaio, or children's voices gladden the 
 ear. If there were danger (and I have 
 sometimes wondered since how so small a 
 boat could live in such a sea, and blessed 
 again those brave hearts that risked their 
 lives for mine), I had no knowledge of it
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 261 
 
 theD ; since earthly danger seemed far 
 withdrawn beyond that gulph of darkness 
 which closed us round. And so for two hours, 
 or it may have been for three, since time 
 held no count and left no mark, we made 
 our unseen way. I could not think, I 
 may have tried to pray ; but no prayer 
 would come, for horror of the night and 
 unchained blast of the storm ; no, not till 
 a vision of my wife, watching and praying 
 beside her baby in our sleeping-room at 
 home, unloosed my soul and turned it to- 
 wards the Father of all spirits. And just 
 then a louder sound was added to wind 
 and wave, and the dim white line of the 
 surf showed itself again, encircling the 
 island for which we were bound. 
 
 So many sunken rocks lay about the 
 little place of refuge, that even in daylight, 
 much more in this Tartarean darkness, it 
 required no small skill to find the one 
 narrow passage into which the boat might
 
 262 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 be thrust ; so that another hour may have 
 passed in wary touchings at one point and 
 another before the wished-for channel was 
 found and the boat run in. And now, had 
 I been in such a mood, I might have re- 
 called many a boyish dream and vision of 
 romance such as visit young hearts when 
 life is new and all things strange, and 
 beautiful through their strangeness. For, 
 pushing aside some hanging branches, 
 David ran the boat so far as might be, up 
 the little creek to the entrance of a large 
 cave, as I discovered in a moment ; when, 
 safe now from all danger of being seen, he 
 opened his lantern and let the light strike 
 up the walls and along the vaulted roof. 
 And never could I describe the joy that 
 light gave me, the sight of his ruddy 
 countenance and the bloomine cheeks of 
 the lad, after the nameless weio^ht of 
 blackness through which we had passed ^ 
 so that I have since thought, rather, but
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 263 
 
 for the sake of Mary and the child, would 
 I have stayed ashore that night and faced 
 a hundred deaths, than encountered the 
 terrors of that brief voyage. 
 
 Now from my heart I thanked my 
 wife for her foresight in causing fuel and 
 provisions to be placed here ; for soon we 
 had a fire lighted and some supper pre- 
 pared, the smoke, escaping in part through 
 the entrance, and in part through some 
 aperture above, causing us little incon- 
 venience. And so presently (I, for one, 
 with a grateful heart) we lay down to 
 sleep ; not however, before I had held 
 some consultation with David Maclean as 
 to our future plans. He was to leave the 
 island, so we agreed, before daybreak ; and 
 going straight to the tower, was to con- 
 vey my wife and the baby to her father's 
 house some thirty miles distant, where she 
 would, as I knew, be in perfect safety. In- 
 deed, I had already urged her more than
 
 264 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 once to go there, but she had always re- 
 fused, saying that her husband's house was 
 now her proper home. What next should 
 be done would be matter for future delibera- 
 tion ; in the meantime David was to return, 
 the weather permitting (for the boat, in 
 fact, ran no little danger in those stormy 
 seas), the next night but one, and give an 
 account of what had passed. 
 
 When I awoke therefore in the morning, 
 I found myself alone. A dim twilight 
 filled the cave ; for though I had slept late 
 and it was fully day, little light could 
 penetrate through the overhanging bushes 
 that hid the narrow entrance. Still I 
 could judge better now than the previous 
 evening of the nature of the place I was 
 in, and found it to be lofty and vaulted, 
 with smaller caverns branching off on 
 either side of the central one, a place 
 curious by its size and its construction. 
 And whether formed by the action of the
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 265 
 
 waves, or by some convulsion of nature, 
 I knew not, nor have ever known. 
 
 Here then I passed the day well 
 enough, occupied by many thoughts, some 
 indeed anxious and heavy, but others not 
 so painful ; since the isolation, the strange 
 and savage place, the surging of the sea, 
 and my own situation which had the 
 excitement of peril escaped but not yet 
 overcome, stirred in me a singular senti- 
 ment of romance, agreeable as it was novel ; 
 which, having a note-book and pencil with 
 me, I strove to set down in verse, but 
 with so little satisfaction to myself that I 
 afterwards tore up the paper and burnt 
 it. 
 
 ' And I have little doubt,' our host here 
 interrupted himself to say with a smile, 
 ' that it was the best poem my ancestor 
 6ver wrote.' 
 
 When the night was come — and in my 
 place of refuge it was dark long before the
 
 266 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 twilight had faded from sea and sky — I 
 ventured to light the fire which I had 
 feared to kindle during the day, lest the 
 smoke escaping should be visible from a 
 distance. I thought so to cheer my loneli- 
 liness, perhaps ; but if so, I presently found 
 reason to repent ; for as the wood and turf 
 caught and blazed and flamed up, throwing 
 uncouth lights and shadows on the strange 
 walls and roof of my abode, such thoughts 
 lighted up within me as I had never-known 
 before, as I have never known since ; a 
 darkness of the spirit moreover falling on 
 me, worse even than that blackness of the 
 night before. And such nights as those 
 two I trust in Heaven never to pass again, 
 not even when I walk through the valley 
 of the shadow of death, which they surely 
 most resembled. For all at once I felt as 
 though imprisoned there alone in the 
 centre of the earth, where no rav from 
 heaven could ever reach me more ; and
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 267 
 
 that in the awful shadows of the cavern 
 which moved witb the leaping flames, were 
 lurking all the evil passions my life 
 had ever known ; so that a great terror, 
 like no terror of mortal thing, laid hold on 
 me, and my hair seemed to rise on my 
 head, and the minutes were like eternities 
 that have neither beginning nor end, and all 
 my past seemed to fall away from me and be 
 as nothing. So stricken was I indeed, and 
 paralysed by that unknown horror, that I 
 stood, knowing neither whither to turn nor 
 what to do ; till, rousing myself desper- 
 ately, I groped my way to the very mouth 
 of the cave and tore asunder the bushes to 
 look out on the night, thinking that per- 
 haps some kindly star shining in heaven, 
 some friendly light at sea, might lift that 
 awful dread from heart and brain. But 
 the night was black, nay, blacker if possi- 
 ble than the previous one had been ; no 
 light was in earth or heaven, and rain and
 
 268 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 spray dashed coldly in my face. But even 
 rain and spray were welcome now^, as signs 
 from the world from which I was cut off; 
 and while I stood and gazed something 
 blacker seemed to grow out of the black- 
 ness, a different strain from the surge of 
 the sea struck upon my ear ; a boat's keel 
 grated at the sandy entrance of the cave, 
 and the next moment David Maclean, 
 springing out, set my wife with our infant 
 in her arms at my side. 
 
 Good God ! how changed looked that 
 haunted spot as I drew her forward into 
 the cave; with what friendly warmth the 
 fire blazed to receive her, as chilled and 
 drenched she drew shiverinor towards it. 
 The baby lay warm and dry within her 
 plaid ; but first of all she thought of 
 it, and then, dear heart, of me ; or 
 rather, of us both together, for her eyes 
 sought mine at every turn, and presently 
 she rested in my arms. Nor had we been
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 269 
 
 parted for an eternity, indeed, instead of 
 for some four-and-twenty hours, could 
 heart have met heart, I think, Tvith a 
 greater passion of tenderness, with a pro- 
 founder gratitude for reunion after dangers 
 overcome. 
 
 She could not stay behind, she told me 
 presently, as we all sat at supper to- 
 gether, the baby sleeping on her knee. 
 (She had shown it to me again and again 
 since she came in, as though some great 
 time had in truth elapsed since I saw 
 it last.) She could not stay behind, 
 and had thought to go out of her 
 mind when David proposed to take her 
 to her father's house. She had made up 
 a bundle, therefore, of such things as 
 she most needed ; and going with the 
 child down to David's house, had remained 
 there in hiding all day. Meanwhile the 
 soldiers had searched the neighbourhood^ 
 and made sad havoc up at our house, she
 
 270 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 feared ; seizinor every paper they could 
 find, hacking the furniture through sheer 
 wantonness, and tearing up the books ; 
 and this last grieved me more than the 
 rest, since I had left no papers there 
 of value, and the furniture was worth 
 but little. And what mattered a ruined 
 home when wife and child were with me 
 here ? 
 
 And so, Mary continued, when the even- 
 ing was come, she wrapped up the baby 
 warmly ; and the sea being somewhat 
 abated and the child recovered from its ail- 
 ment, so that she thought it could take no 
 harm — and here she looked earnestly in its 
 little face ; but it was sleeping peacefully, 
 and she went on — David brought the 
 boat ; and she had minded neither wind nor 
 waves for the thought that she was on her 
 way to me. And when I asked her 
 whether the darkness had given her no
 
 AN ISLAND GKAVE. 271 
 
 alarms, she answered, no ; for always in 
 her mind was the verse of the Psalm : 
 * The darkness is no darkness unto 
 Thee ;' and after God, she trusted in 
 David Maclean. Dear heart, 1 think she 
 had a braver soul than mine, and one 
 that would never quail before imaginary 
 fears. 
 
 Of the ship there was no sign ; the 
 storm must have delayed it ; and before 
 David left us that night it was agreed that 
 for fear of exciting suspicion he should 
 come no more to the island for a few 
 days (since we had provisions in plenty), 
 unless the ship should appear, or we had 
 some other special need. But on the 
 fourth night, the darkness favouring, he 
 was to come again ; for we should be 
 waiting for news, and suspense is hardest 
 of all to bear. 
 
 The next day and the beginning of the
 
 272 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 next passed peacefully. My wife even in 
 the hurry of departure, had thought of 
 putting into her bundle one or two of my 
 favourite volumes, with which I could 
 entertain my leisure so long as the twi- 
 light of the cave allowed me to see the 
 print. Of other light we had none, except 
 the fire at night ; for something, and often 
 something essential, being always forgotten 
 at the last moment, we had neglected to 
 bring oil for the little lamp David Mac- 
 lean had placed here among other things ; 
 a want we only discovered after he had 
 left, and it was too late to remedy it. My 
 wife, however, made light of the discom- 
 fort, since we were together and the baby 
 lay always warm and well-cradled in her 
 arms ; and indeed, we had been parted so 
 much since our marriage, that we seemed 
 in those days never to have finished what we 
 had to say to each other, but talked half 
 the day and night through, planning our
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 273 
 
 life in France, where it was my intention 
 to take service, if possible ; for though I 
 loved books, it was in a soldier's life that 
 my heart's desire lay. 
 
 In this way the time passed, and all might 
 have gone well, but towards the middle of 
 the second day the child began to ail. It 
 began to ail ; but of what its ailment might 
 be, or of its cause, we had no knowledge 
 whatever ; for until then it had always been 
 bright and strong and healthy, and more 
 forward, its mother always told me, than in- 
 fants are apt to be at that tender age. At 
 first my wife hiding away her fear from her- 
 self, would not own that anything was 
 wrong; it was sleepy, she said, or hungry, or 
 fretting for want of fresh air and sunshine. 
 But in a few hours, for children's ailments 
 progress fast, she could no longer shut her 
 eyes to the truth ; for the infant, instead of 
 slumbering peacefully in the ruddy warmth 
 of the fire (for it was now night), or sitting 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 up in its mother's lap, springing and fight- 
 ing with its little fists and stretching out its 
 feet to the blaze ; instead of all this, I say, 
 it lay heavy and waxen-pale, not even 
 wailing and fretting now, but almost 
 motionless with closed eyes and half-open 
 mouth ; and presently, as the night drew 
 towards its close, and the dawn, as we 
 could judge, was spreading over the sea 
 outside, it began to refuse all nourishment. 
 Then I saw a look of anguish and wild 
 terror, such as I have never beheld on an}'" 
 other human countenance, come into my 
 wife's eyes. But she said not a word, only 
 wrapped the child more closely in her arms, 
 now pacing the cave with it, now crouch- 
 ing again before the fire, chafing its little 
 hands and feet. And still what ailed it, 
 we could not tell, since this was our first 
 child, and my wife little more than a child 
 herself.
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 275 
 
 So the night passed and the day dawned, 
 but with it no hope of human aid ; for we 
 had no boat with which to reach the land 
 and fetch a doctor, or a woman skilled in 
 infant maladies ; nor in this wild weather 
 which still continued, though the storm 
 was fast abating, was there hope of any 
 fishing-boat leaving the shore and coming 
 within hail. I cursed my want of fore- 
 thought now in bidding David Maclean 
 leave us for three days alone in this remote 
 and savage spot ; but cursing or repentance 
 alike were of little avail. For presently, as 
 the day wore on, the baby fell into strong 
 convulsions from which it rallied only to 
 fall into them again ; and I pray God I may 
 never again know aught like the anguish 
 of those helpless hours when I could only 
 come and go, watching the sufferings of 
 those dearest to me on earth. Nor had I 
 known before how large a space of hope 
 
 t2
 
 276 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 my little daughter filled in my future life, 
 how close the name of father lay upon my 
 heart. 
 
 It might have been towards three or 
 four in the afternoon, for the grey twilight 
 that was all we knew of day was beginning 
 to fade ; though not to leave us in utter 
 darkness, since all that day we had never 
 thought of putting out the fire, whose light 
 and warmth were needful for the child. 
 It might have been then between three 
 and four, and my wife had laid the infant 
 down for an instant on its little bed whilst 
 she attended to some necessary trifle, when 
 I heard a noise behind me, and looking 
 round, saw a man coming towards us 
 through the firelight and dusk. At first 
 I thought it was David, and with a sudden 
 hope went quickly down the sloping floor 
 of the cave to meet him. But as he came 
 nearer, I saw that it was Malcolm Graham. 
 He had a smile on his face as he approach-
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 277 
 
 ed us. Lurking, hidden for greater cer- 
 tainty no doubt, in the neighbourhood, 
 with eye and ear alert like the hunter's 
 for every trace of the hunted prey, he may 
 have tracked us that day by the smoke 
 that must have risen from our fire. 
 However that may have been — and I never 
 learned — he was there before our eyes ; our 
 poor refuge was discovered, our last hope 
 betrayed. For advancing with that same 
 evil smile, he looked us well in the face ; 
 then turned to leave the cave with such 
 treacherous purpose in his heart as it were 
 no riddle to guess. As he turned (it had 
 all passed in a moment, and stunned by its 
 suddenness, I had not even moved since I 
 discovered it was he) Mary looked up and 
 saw him also. 
 
 I suppose there may in truth be in- 
 fipirations, that like God's angels, descend 
 straight from heaven. My wife can have 
 had no time to think or reason; nay, I
 
 278 AN ISLAND GEAVE. 
 
 know not how she can have had time to 
 realize what was taking place ; nor could 
 she in talking of it afterwards, ever clearly 
 recal what she had done, still less what 
 impulse moved her. But in an instant she 
 had sprung to her feet ; and rushing past 
 Malcolm Graham to the entrance of the 
 cave where the little boat in which he had 
 come was grounded in the sand, with a 
 mighty effort she pushed it out to sea ; so 
 that, wind and tide both setting from our 
 island, it floated right away. Then coming 
 back, without casting so much as one look 
 on Malcolm Graham, imprisoned now along 
 with us, she knelt down again by the in- 
 fant's side to take it in her arms. And I 
 believe at that time neither of us gave one 
 thought more to the man who had come 
 there with such treacherous intent ; for 
 just then the baby's face changed j it put 
 up its little arms, gasping with wide open 
 eyes ; and even as its mother took it up.
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 279 
 
 witli one last struggle its sweet life passed 
 away. 
 
 At first she would not lay it down, but 
 clasping it wildly to her breast, began to 
 pace with it to and fro, as she had done on 
 many a wakeful night at home ; pausing now 
 and again to gaze for a moment in its face, 
 only to press it then more closely to her 
 bosom -with quick-hurrying steps, as 
 though to fly from the anguish of her 
 grief; and in truth I do not know how 
 mortal spirit is framed to bear such agony 
 as was laid on hers then. But presently, 
 going up to her, I drew her gently towards 
 the little couch ; and taking the dead baby 
 from her arms which at first resisted, then 
 yielded to my touch, I laid it down again 
 and closed its eyes, so that it seemed 
 to lie sleeping and at rest. Then the 
 mother, stooping over it, did all else that 
 needed to be done, composing its little 
 limbs and smoothing some downy locks
 
 280 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 under its cap (sheddiug no tear the while 
 for the great spasm of grief that held her 
 heart) till the infant lay there still and 
 straight with the print not of life, but of 
 immortality on its face. When all was end- 
 ed, she knelt down, and spreading out her 
 arms, encircled the child and hid her face 
 in the pillow. So we stayed motionless and 
 silent, for how long a time I took no note. 
 At last I roused myself to make up the 
 fire, which was dying out, and coming 
 back, raised up my wife and led her in 
 front of the blaze. For her hands were 
 icy cold, and she shook now and shivered 
 and trembled as before some strong blast ; 
 turning her eyes too on me from time to 
 time, whilst I chafed her hands, as who 
 should say, * Help me.' And I, alas, alas ! 
 had no help to give ; only my great love 
 that seemed to her then, as I too well 
 knew, a thing very far off ; even as the 
 love of our Father in Heaven seems too
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 281 
 
 often a strange and far-off thing to the 
 broken hearts of His children. Only at 
 last, seeing that she made no resistance 
 to what I did, I fetched some food and 
 wine and made her take them, for she had 
 touched nothing that day. 
 
 All this time we had seen and heard 
 nothing of Malcolm Graham. Mary, I 
 believe, had clean forgotten him ; indeed, 
 she afterwards told me as much. But for 
 myself, though I gave him no thought, I 
 had always the consciousness of his pres- 
 ence near us ; and it added to the bitter 
 anger risen in my heart against the man 
 who was the cause of our misery, that in 
 f50 sacred and awful an hour as this my 
 wife and I should not be alone. 
 
 Looking round the cave now, I saw that 
 he had thrown himself upon a heap of 
 sand in a dark and remote corner ; and 
 since he was in a sense our prisoner and 
 dependent on us, I took some food to
 
 282 AN ISLAND GKAVE. 
 
 place Dear him. I dreaded to see his face, 
 for I felt that if it still had on it the smile 
 it wore when he entered the cave, the 
 devil would urge and God alone could 
 prevent some deed that would weigh on 
 my soul for ever. But his face was pressed 
 upon his arms against the rocky wall ; and 
 when at my approach he turned it slowly 
 round, it wore a look so piteous and hag- 
 gard that a strange compassion for the 
 man who had wronged us began to fill 
 my heart. And I have often thought 
 since that if, as I have reason to believe, 
 a true repentance had begun to work 
 within him, no sharper penance could 
 have been devised than those hours he 
 spent as spectator of the sad and woeful 
 ruin he had wrought. To speak to him 
 then, however, was beyond my power ; and 
 he, having looked at me in silence for a 
 moment, turned his face again to the 
 wall ; and so I left him.
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 283 
 
 All my care now was to persuade my 
 wife to go to rest; since in an hour or 
 two David Maclean might be looked for 
 according to our agreement, and it was 
 my wish that we should dig the grave 
 there in the spot where we were. For as 
 my wife and I sat hand clasped in hand 
 before the fire, I had turned the matter 
 over in my mind. And first I thought 
 that dear treasure should be entrusted to 
 David to be buried in our little churchyard 
 far among the hills. But then I thought 
 that we ourselves might never see our 
 land more, and its grave would remain 
 strange to us, and in its last resting- 
 place we should have no part; so that 
 sooner would the mother lay it here in 
 this spot consecrated by her grief and by 
 that sweet parting breath. Also, in other 
 days, if so we willed, we might return to 
 take it away and plant that immortal seed 
 (since such is our faith) in other ground
 
 284 AX ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 where it and we might rest together. But of 
 all this I said no word to my wife ; knowing, 
 as I did by the pang that cut my own heart 
 at the thought of that little form being 
 hidden for ever from our eyes, what keener 
 wound, what more exquisite anguish would 
 rend her tender soul. Only presently, by 
 such persuasions as I could use, I tried 
 to induce her to go to rest. At first 
 she would not, and I knew that in her 
 heart was the thought of the icy blank 
 where till now warm love had lain at her 
 breast; but at last — for she was always 
 docile, sweet soul, where her own will was 
 concerned — ' If I may have baby, Robert,' 
 she said ; and with that her mouth quiv- 
 €red a little ; but her eyes were always 
 tearless and wide open, as though they 
 would never close again. So she went 
 away into an inner cave that we had made 
 our sleeping-place, and lifting the little 
 couch with its burthen, I placed it beside
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 285 
 
 her; and presently she lay still, with 
 her arm stretched out over the baby. 
 Whether she slept, I do not know; but 
 she lay there motionless as her little one 
 at her side. 
 
 This done, I went down to the mouth 
 of the cave, to await David's arrival, and 
 look out on the sea and sky. There were 
 stars for the first time these many nights 
 past, and a dim expanse of tossing waves 
 visible, sinking to calm. I could see lights 
 here and there on the water where the 
 fishing-boats were putting out again to 
 sea, and one light that burned steadily 
 and never moved, as of a ship at anchor. 
 With all my heavy grief and trouble, 
 something, I own, of hope and life began 
 stirring and reviving in my heart at these 
 friendly signs in sky and earth. For to 
 fight one's way, sword in hand, with blows 
 given and blows received and Heaven 
 above all, through the troubles of life, is
 
 286 AN ISLAND GKAVE. 
 
 a portion that every man worthy of the 
 name claims as the best that life can give. 
 But to stand helpless, bound, cut off from 
 the open d^.yand common fellowship of man, 
 to witness and to share an anguish that one 
 cannot touch, is to be in a strait so narrow, 
 an abyss so black, that I pray God I and 
 mine may be in our graves rather than 
 pass through the like again. 
 
 I was still gazing when I heard the 
 plash of oars close at hand, and looking, 
 saw the boat with David and his son. He 
 sprang out joyfully, with good tidings 
 written on his face. The ship was come, 
 he said, and at daybreak to-morrow would 
 stand out again to sea. We were to join 
 it, and be on board by seven o'clock. In a 
 few words I told him all that had hap- 
 pened, and his countenance changed and 
 fell; for he loved us all, and a hundred 
 times had held our baby on his knee. 
 
 We went back into the cave, for there
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 287 
 
 was no time to lose ; by daybreak or soon 
 after we must be on our way. I looked 
 in on my wife ; but all was still and dark 
 where she was resting with that sweet 
 unearthly presence at her side. As for 
 Malcolm Graham, he lay face downwards 
 now on the ground away in his dark 
 corner, his head buried in his arms. He 
 may have been sleeping ; I do not know ; 
 we none of us approached him to see. 
 
 We chose a spot opposite the mouth 
 of the cave, where the vault rose high 
 overhead, where, as w^e fondly fancied, 
 through that eastern entrance, a red ray 
 from the rising sun might visit it now 
 and then. We chose it far back from 
 the highest point of the tide, though the 
 ground sloped so steeply upwards, that there 
 was little fear that in the roughest weather 
 the water would penetrate above or below. 
 The sand was soft and readily moved, and 
 that was well, for we had no proper imple-
 
 288 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 ments to dig with; and although we 
 worked steadily and hard, yet the 
 greater part of the night was gone before 
 we had made a bed so deep that I felt sure 
 our infant might sleep there in unmoved 
 peace. But it was done at last. 
 
 And when it was done, the worst mo- 
 ment of all lay before me ; I must rouse 
 my wife to tell her that I was come to 
 take away her baby. Nor do I know in- 
 deed how I could have accomplished such 
 a task, but that she, lying there waking 
 and watchful I suppose, though motion- 
 less, must have known what was going 
 forward. For when I went in with the 
 lantern in my hand, she rose up at once 
 (she was already dressed, having lain down 
 in her clothes) trembling from head to foot 
 again as on the night before. She knelt 
 down by the baby, and drawing off the 
 plaid that covered it, looked down on its 
 placid face, with her hand held tightly on
 
 AN ISL^VND GEAVE 289 
 
 her heart ; then smoothing the pillow under 
 its head, and the folds of its little night- 
 gown about its feet, she wrapped the long 
 plaid again round and about it ; and so 
 (her lips clinging at the last to its baby lips, 
 as though never to be severed) she lifted 
 it in her arms, its little head still laid on 
 the pillow, and herself carried it into the 
 outer cave where the grave was dug. She 
 it was who gave it into David Maclean's 
 arms as he stood ready to receive it, the 
 tears running down his face ; he laid it 
 down very gently, and I, standing there, 
 with my arm round my wife, repeated the 
 Lord's Prayer ; for I could think of no 
 other words with which to pray. David 
 laid another plaid at the bottom of the 
 grave, hiding the little form wholly from 
 our view ; and then I led my wife away, 
 for her weight lay heavy on my arm, and I 
 thought she would have swooned. 
 
 But she did not swoon ; she only lay on 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 AN ISLAND GKAVE. 
 
 my breast like a stone, whilst that sad work 
 went on in the outer cave. Nor was it 
 possible to leave her long even in that 
 woeful indulgence of grief, for time was 
 passing and we must needs be gone. I 
 wished to do no more than wrap her cloak 
 about her, and lead her to the boat. But 
 when she saw what I would be at, she 
 broke away from me, and first standing as 
 one bewildered, began to look round her for 
 one thing and another. I saw then it was 
 for her baby's things she was seeking, 
 and began to help her collect them ; 
 when all at once, at the sight of some 
 little garment, some empty woollen shoe, 
 she, who till now had not shed a tear, 
 broke into an agony of weeping, with such 
 sobs, such tears, such heart-rending, heart- 
 broken sorrow, that I wonder our heart- 
 strings did not in truth crack, and we, 
 with that sorry story of our lives, pass into 
 the eternal silence.
 
 AN ISLAND GKAVE. 291 
 
 Yet when that convulsion was ended, 
 she rose, shaken indeed, bub more collect- 
 ed than she had yet been, and began quick- 
 ly to put together every little thing that 
 had belonged to the child, for there was 
 now no time to lose. Whilst she was so 
 occupied, I went to consult with David as 
 to what should be done with Malcolm 
 Graham ; since to let him loose again upon 
 our track till all danger was past, seemed a 
 thing not to be thought of. David was 
 for leaving him there in the cave with food 
 till we should be safely across the water. 
 But remembering the horror of loneliness 
 that had closed in upon me that first night, 
 I was averse from leaving any fellow-mortal 
 to endure, perhaps, a similar torture ; nor, 
 to say the truth, could I bear the thought 
 of leaving our baby in such company as 
 his, that innocent grave to the guardian- 
 ship of such a watcher. Of these reasons, 
 however, I said nothing, urging only other 
 
 u2
 
 292 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 objections ; suggesting rather he should be 
 taken in the ship with us to France, whence 
 he could make his own way back. To 
 which David demurring, as doubtful what 
 the captain might say to another passenger, 
 we were still debating the point when 
 Malcolm Graham himself stood before us. 
 In all those hours I do not know that he 
 had moved ; in our bitter grief be had had 
 no part ; and what the hours had brought 
 him, I cannot say, but I never looked upon 
 the face of man so changed as his. But 
 in this life also, men go down into hell, 
 and meet their evil deeds face to face. 
 
 * Do what you will with me,* he said, 
 * but I swear before God I have no thouo^ht 
 of ill towards you any more.' And with 
 that he went down on his knees and lifted 
 up his hands. ' You do not trust me,' he 
 said, after a pause. * So be it; take me 
 where you will.' 
 
 I could not trust the man at once, and
 
 AX ISLAND GRAVE. 295 
 
 no doubt my face showed it. But at that 
 moment mj wife spoke. She had come to 
 my side, her cloak closely wrapped round 
 her, the hood drawn forward over her face. 
 She was ready to depart. 
 
 ' I trust you, Malcolm,' she said. ' Come 
 with us now, and afterwards David Maclean 
 shall row you back to the shore.' 
 
 After that no one said a word ; and so, 
 sorrowfully and silently, we got one by one 
 into the boat, and David and his son took 
 the oars. The storm was gone, the sun was 
 newly risen over a world new-made, and was 
 shining on a blue and rippling sea ; behind 
 us the line of coast lay receding and melt- 
 ing in the distance. Once my wife looked 
 back to where our tower stood at the foot 
 of the glen ; then drawing her cloak more 
 closely round her, she hid her face on my 
 shoulder and grieved with that grief with 
 which no man intermeddleth. 
 
 In about two hours we reached the ship.
 
 "294 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 A ladder was let down over the side, and 
 my wife and I prepared to go. Then Mal- 
 colm Graham stood up again before us. 
 
 ' Forgive me/ he said. But again I 
 could not answer. For the evil he had 
 worked, and the anojuish he had brouorht 
 on my wife, were heavy upon me. Only 
 she, dear soul, because she had suffered 
 most, found forgiveness in her heart. 
 
 ' You are forgiven, Malcolm,' she said, 
 ' try to be a better man.' 
 
 ' So be it,' I said then, and left him 
 standing there. We have never seen his 
 face again, and know little of what became 
 of him afterwards; but I doubt greatly 
 whether he came to much good, for he 
 was a man of violent passions and irregular 
 life. Of his repentance towards us, how- 
 ever, I do not doubt, nor have ever had 
 any reason to doubt. 
 
 We bade farewell to David on board 
 the ship, and to me it was a sore wrench
 
 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 295 
 
 to part with him ; not only for the service 
 he had done us, which could never be re- 
 paid, but that he stood to me at that mo- 
 ment for country, home, kinsmen, and all. 
 For my wife, I think she had but one sad 
 thought that pressed closer and closer on 
 her heart and shut out all heaven and 
 earth by degrees. And so we sailed, and 
 in about three days made the coast of 
 France. After that my wife had a long 
 illness, during whicb, in the delirium of 
 fever, she would always cling to the little 
 bundle of her baby's things, pressing it to 
 her heart and rocking it backwards and 
 forwards in a way most pitiful to behold 
 — too pitiful to write of further here. 
 
 Many years have passed since then, 
 I found service in France, and we have 
 never seen our own land again. It is 
 changing greatly, I hear, and the hopes 
 crushed on that fatal day at Culloden,
 
 296 AN ISLAND GRAVE. 
 
 have never fully revived. For ourselves 
 we have prospered; sons and daughters, 
 both fair and strong, are growing up 
 about us ; but the dear presence that first 
 informed us with what love the Father of 
 all informs a parent's heart, lives unchanged 
 from its sweetness in our memory. We 
 have never disturbed its innocent rest. 
 David Maclean at our desire set up a stone 
 carved and inscribed, to mark the spot ; 
 and as time has gone on the thought has 
 grown dear to us of that lonely grave, 
 sublime in its soHtude, visited by red 
 glimpses of the dawn, consecrated by the 
 solemn chant of wind and wave that 
 ceases neither by day nor night about its 
 seagirt walls. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON; PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEiai HODSK.
 
 ^i^ 
 
 
 SMn;'Mr.°^''-'-'''°«-URSl! 
 
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