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 THE 
 
 PENNYCOMEOUICKS 
 
 Jl Hlovei 
 
 BY 
 
 S. EARING GOULD 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 >!FHALAH,' 'COURT ROYAL,' 'jOHS HERRING," ' THE GA\TF.ROCK-> ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON 
 SPENCER BL.ACKETT cS: HALLAM 
 
 MIT.TON HOUSE, 35. ST. BRIDE STREET, LUPGATE CIRCUS, E,C. 
 
 1889 
 
 [A// rights r^senfii'l
 
 /
 
 gZ3 
 
 V.I 
 
 \ 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I 
 
 X 
 
 Jg CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. SHAKING THE TREE - - . . i 
 
 ^ II. SALOME ------ 17 
 
 to ' 
 
 CW III. A TRUST - - - - - - 34 
 
 t}{ IV. ON THE TOWPATH - - - "51 
 
 , V. RIPE AND DROPPED - - - - 70 
 
 ^, VI. A COTTAGE PIANO - - - - 81 
 
 ., VII. TAKING POSSESSION - - - - 98 
 
 J VIII. IN ONE COMPARTMENT - - - - IIO 
 
 IX. ARRIVAL - - - - - - 130 
 
 -V X. WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE - - - 147 
 
 ^ XI. EXPECTATION - - - - - 162 
 
 XII. SURPRISES - - - - - 181 
 
 XIII. WHAT NEXT? - . : - - 196 
 
 XIV. ADMINISTRATION - - - - 2l6 
 XV. THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE - - - 232 
 
 XVI. WHO.'' WHAl ? ----- 248 
 
 ^^ 
 
 4
 
 y
 
 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SHx\KING THE TREE. 
 
 There is an aboriginal race in Borneo, of which it is 
 said that they dispose of their aged parents and rela- 
 tives in an interesting, novel, and altogether aboriginal 
 fashion. 
 
 They courteously, but withal peremptorily, require 
 them periodically to climb trees, and when they are 
 well up and grappling the branches, they shake the 
 trees. If the venerable representatives of the earlier 
 generation hold on, they are pronounced to be still 
 green ; but if they drop, they are adjudged ripe, are 
 fallen upon and eaten, the palms of the hands and the 
 soles of the feet being reserved as the prerogative of 
 the heir-at-law, as the richest morsels. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 2 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 We do nothing of this sort in Christendom, least of 
 all in civilized England. God, we thank Thee that 
 we are not as other men are, even as these Borneans, 
 for the conversion of whom we put prayer up at the 
 family altar, that is, the breakfast-table, or offer our 
 mite — a veritable mite, a microscopic fraction of our 
 income. We look in England on our aged relatives 
 with reverence, not with greed, and if we butter them, 
 it is not because we desire to eat them, but because 
 they are susceptible to butter. We never calculate 
 the number of pounds they weigh, we never look 
 hungrily at their palms, and never put the ladder 
 against the tree, and with hat off and professions of 
 respect and endearment invite them to climb. The 
 Esquimaux act very differently from the Borneans ; 
 they take their ancient relations, and put them out of 
 their huts in the cold, and leave them to freeze or 
 starve. What a stride humanity has made with us ! 
 We deal with our poor, meagre relatives in this way ? 
 We ! — as little do we turn them out in the cold as we 
 do fall upon and eat up our plump ones, like the 
 Borneans. 
 
 'One of the pleasures of having a rout, is the
 
 SHAKING THE TREE. 3 
 
 pleasure of having it over,' said Tom Hood, in his 
 poem of Miss Killmansegg and her Golden Leg, and 
 he said truly — most truly, when that rout was one of 
 obligation or of interest, or of obligation and interest 
 combined, when it was not a spontaneous burst of 
 hospitality, but a laboured affair, and like a laboured 
 h'terary effort — heavy. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom, or as she was pleased to accen- 
 tuate her name, Siddy-bot-TOME, sat before the fire 
 with her silk evening skirt turned up over her knees 
 to prevent it from becoming scorched, and with her 
 neat little feet on the fender. 
 
 What tricks we do play with our names to deliver 
 them from the suspicion of vulgarity. How we 
 double the capital F's, and convert the is into y's, so 
 that common little Finches can strut as Ffinches and 
 insignificant Smiths can add a cubit to their stature 
 as Smythes ! How for distinction we canonize our 
 final syllables, and convert Singeons into St. John's, 
 and Slodgers into St. Ledgers ; and elevate Mungy 
 into Mont Joye, and Gallicize our Mullens into Mol- 
 leynes, take the blackness out of Death by spelling it 
 Dc'Ath and even turn a Devil into De Ville !
 
 4 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 The candles had been blown out on the chimney- 
 piece, in the sconces on the walls, and on the piano. 
 A savour of extinguished candles pervaded the 
 room. 
 
 Mrs. Siddy-bot-TOME — her name is given as pro- 
 nounced once again, that it may stamp itself on the 
 memory of the reader — Mrs. Siddy-bot-TOME (the 
 third time is final) — sat by the fire with puckered 
 lips and brows. She was thinking. She was a lady 
 of fifty, well — very well — preserved, without a gray 
 hair or a wrinkle, with fair skin and light eyes, and 
 hair the colour of hemp. Her eyelashes were lighter 
 still, so light as to be almost white — the white not in 
 fashion at the time, but about to come into fashion, of 
 a creamy tinge. 
 
 She was not a clever woman by any means, not a 
 woman of broad sympathies, but a woman who gene- 
 rally had her own way through the force and energy 
 of her character, and as that force was always directed 
 in one direction, and her energy always exerted for 
 one purpose, she accomplished more than did many 
 far cleverer women. She rarely failed to cany her 
 point, whatever that point was.
 
 SHAKING THE TREE. 5 
 
 Whatever that point was, it was invariably one that 
 revolved about herself, as the moon about the earth in 
 the universe, as Papageno about Papagena, in the 
 ' Magic Flute,' and as the cork attached to the cat's 
 tail in the nursery. 
 
 If Mrs. Sidebottom had been a really clever woman, 
 she would have concealed her ends and aims, as those 
 who are smuggling lace or silk, coil them about them, 
 and hide them in their umbrellas, under their cloaks, 
 and in their bosoms. But she lacked this cleverness, 
 or failed to admit that selfish aims were contraband. 
 We are all selfish, from the smallest herb, that strives 
 to outrun and smother those herbs that grow about 
 it ; through the robin Pecksy, that snaps the worm 
 from its sister Flapsy ; and the dog that holds the 
 manger against the ox ; to ourselves, the crown of 
 creation and the climax of self-seeking, but we do not 
 show it. The snail has telescopic eyes, wherewith to 
 peer for something he may appropriate to himself ; 
 but the snail, when he thinks himself observed, with- 
 draws his horns and conceals them behind a dimple. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom was either too eager or too care- 
 less, or — for charity hopeth all things — too sincere, to
 
 6 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 disguise her horns. She thrust them this way, that 
 way ; they went up to take bird's-eye views ; they 
 dived beneath, to survey matters subterranean ; they 
 went round corners, described corkscrews, to observe 
 things from every conceivable aspect. They were thrust 
 down throats and into pockets, and, though small, 
 were of thousandfold magnifying power, like those 
 of a fly, and, like those of a prophet, saw into futurity, 
 and, like those of the historian, explored the past. 
 
 In a lounging chair, also near the fire, but not 
 monopolizing the middle like his mother, sat Captain 
 Pennycomequick, the son of Mrs. Sidebottom. He 
 wore a smoking jacket, braided with red or brown ; 
 and was engaged languidly on a cigarette-case, look- 
 ing for a suitable cigarette. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom's maiden name had been Penny- 
 comequick, and as she despised her married name, 
 even when accentuated past recognition, she had 
 persuaded her son to exchange his designation, by 
 royal licence, to Pennycomequick. 
 
 But euphony was not the sole or principal motive 
 in Mrs. Sidebottom that induced her to move her son 
 to make this alteration. She was the daughter of a
 
 SHAKING THE TREE. 7 
 
 manufacturer, now some time deceased, in the large 
 Yorkshire village or small town of Mergatroyd in the 
 West Riding, by his second wife. Her half-brother by 
 the first wife now owned the mill, was the head and 
 prop of the family, and was esteemed to be rich. 
 
 She was moderately well provided for. She had a 
 sort of lien on the factory, and the late Mr. Side- 
 bottom, solicitor, had left something. But what is 
 four hundred per annum to a woman with a son 
 in the army dependent on her, and with a soul too 
 big for her purse, with large requirements, an ambition 
 that could only be satisfied on a thousand a year. 
 Would any stomach be content on half-rations that 
 had capacity for whole ones ? On the fringe of the 
 Arctic circle a song is sung that * Iceland is the fairest 
 land that ever the sun beheld,' but it is only sung by 
 those who have never been elsewhere. Now, Mrs. 
 Sidebottom had seen much more luxuriant and 
 snugger conditions of existence than that which can 
 be maintained on four hundred a year. For instance, 
 her friend, Mrs. Tomkins, having six hundred, was 
 able to keep a little carriage ; and Miss Jones, on a 
 thousand, had a footman and a butler. Consequently
 
 8 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom was by no means inclined to 
 acquiesce in a boreal and glacial existence of four 
 hundred, and say that it was the best of states that 
 ever the sun beheld. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom's half-brother, Jeremiah Penny- 
 comequick, was unmarried and aged fifty-five. She 
 knew his age to a day, naturally, being his sister, and 
 she sent him congratulations on his recurrent birth- 
 days — every birthday brought her nearer to his accu- 
 mulations. She knew his temperament, naturally, 
 being his sister, and could reckon his chances of life 
 as accurately as the clerk in an Assurance Office. 
 To impress the fact of her relationship on Jeremiah, 
 to obtain, if possible, some influence over him, at all 
 events to hedge out others from exercising power 
 over his mind, Mrs. Sidebottom had lately migrated 
 to Mergatroyd, and had brought her son with her. 
 She was the rather moved to do this, as her whole 
 brother, Nicholas Pennycomequick, had just died. 
 There had been no love lost between Jeremiah and 
 Nicholas, and now that Nicholas was no 'fnore, it was 
 possible that his son Philip might be received into 
 favour, and acquire gradually such influence over his
 
 SHAKING THE TREE. 9 
 
 uncle as to prejudice him against herself and her son. 
 To prevent this — prevent in both its actual and 
 its original significations — Mrs. Sidebottom had 
 pulled up her tentpegs, and had encamped at 
 Mergatroyd. 
 
 The captain wore crimson-silk stockings and glazed 
 pumps. He had neat little feet, like his mother. 
 When he had lighted a cigarette, he blew a whiff of 
 smoke, then held up one of his feet and contem- 
 plated it. 
 
 ' My dear Lambert,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, * I wish 
 you could slip those red stockings of yours into your 
 uncle's beetle-crushers.' 
 
 ' They would be too roomy for me,' said the 
 captain. 
 
 * Not at all, Lamb. Your feet would expand to fill 
 his shoes/ argued his mother. 
 
 'My feet are pinched enough now — certainly,' 
 sighed Lambert Pennycomequick. 
 
 * This dinner will not have cost us nothing,' mused 
 Mrs. Sidebottom, looking dreamily into the coals. 
 * The champagne was six-and-six a bottle, and three 
 bottles were drunk,' she also heaved a sigh.
 
 lo THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 'Almost a pound. Surely, gooseberry would have 
 done.' 
 
 ' No, Lamb ! it would not. It never does to be 
 stingy in such matters. Though how we are to pay 
 
 for it all ' Mrs. Sidebottom left the sentence as 
 
 unsettled as the bill for the champagne was likely to 
 remain. 
 
 ' I don't see why you should not tell Uncle Jeremiah 
 how crippled we are.' 
 
 • Never,' said his mother decisively. ' Man's heart 
 as naturally closes against impecunious relatives as 
 does a tulip against rain. When you are bathing, 
 Lamb, you never voluntarily swim within reach of an 
 octopus. If you see one coming, with its eyes fixed 
 on you, and its feelers extended, you strike out for 
 dear life. It is so in the great sea of life, which is full 
 of these many-armed hungry creatures. The waters 
 are alive with them, great as a needy relation, and 
 small as a begging letter. It is insufficient to know 
 how to swim ; one must know also how to kick out and 
 keep away from octopuses. No, Jeremiah must not 
 suppose that we want anything of him.' 
 
 * It seems to me, mother/ said Lambert, ' that you
 
 SHAKING THE TREE. il 
 
 might just as well tell him we are in difficulties and 
 need his assistance. I am sure he sees it; he was 
 very cold and reserved to-night.' 
 
 ' Not on any account. You are quite mistaken ; he 
 has not a suspicion. Let me see, the waiters were 
 half a guinea each, and the pheasants seven shillings 
 a pair. We could not have sixpenny grapes — it 
 would never have done.' 
 
 ' 1 hate reckoning on dead men's shoes,' said Lam- 
 bert. ' It is mean. Besides, Uncle Jeremiah may 
 outlive us both.' 
 
 ' No, Lamb, he cannot. Consider his age ; he is 
 fifty- five.' 
 
 ' And you, mother, are fifty, only five years' differ- 
 ence.' 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom did not wince. 
 ' You do not consider that his has been a sedentary 
 life, which is very prejudicial to health. Besides, he 
 has rushes of blood to the head. You saw how he 
 became red as a Tritoma when you made that ill- 
 judged remark about Salome. Apoplexy is in the 
 family. Our father died of it.' 
 
 * Well, I hate counting the years a fellow has to 
 live. We must all hop some day.'
 
 12 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' I trust he enjoyed himself,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 
 ' He took one of the anges-d-cJieval. Did he touch 
 the ices ?' 
 
 ' I think not/ 
 
 ' I am sorry — I mean, I am thankful, they are bad 
 for apoplectic persons, Lamb. He pays income-tax 
 on twelve hundred.' 
 
 ' He does not live at the rate of five hundred.' 
 
 * Not at the rate of three.' 
 
 * Perhaps eventually he may leave the mill to 
 Philip, and the savings to me. I won't think of it, as 
 it may all turn out different ; but that would be best 
 for me.' 
 
 * Not best, Lamb. Both the savings and the mill 
 should be yours.' 
 
 * What should I do with the mill } You would not 
 have me turn manufacturer V 
 
 * No ; but you could sell the business.' 
 
 ' This is like selling the lion's skin before the 
 lion is killed,' said the captain with a little im- 
 patience. 
 
 After a pause, during which Mrs. Sidebottom 
 watched a manufactory and a bank and much treasure
 
 SHAKING THE TREE. 13 
 
 in the red-hot coals crumble down in the gradual dis- 
 solution to ashes, she said : 
 
 * Lamb, you have no occasion to be uneasy about 
 your cousin Philip.' 
 
 * I am not. I have not given him a thought' 
 'Jeremiah can never .forgive Nicholas for withdraw- 
 ing his money from the business at a critical moment, 
 and almost bringing about a catastrophe. When 
 Nicholas did that I was as angry, and used as strong 
 remonstrance as Jeremiah, but all in vain. Nicholas, 
 when he took an idea into his head, would not be 
 diverted from carrying it out, however absurd it was. 
 I did not suppose that Nicholas would be such a fool 
 as he proved, and lose his money. He got into the 
 hands of a plausible scoundrel.' 
 
 ' Schofield ?' 
 
 'Yes; that was his name, Schofield, who turned his 
 head, and walked off with pretty nearly every penny. 
 But he might have ruined himself, and I would not 
 have grumbled. What alarmed and angered me was 
 that he jeopardized my fortune as well as that of Jere- 
 miah. A man has a right to ruin himself if he likes, 
 but not to risk the fortunes of others.'
 
 14 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 The captain felt that he was not called upon to 
 speak. 
 
 ' It is as well that we are come here,' pursued Mrs. 
 Sidebottom. ' Though we were comfortable at York, 
 we could not have lived longer there at our rate, and 
 here we can economize. The society here is not 
 worth cultivation ; it is all commercial, frightfully 
 commercial. You can see it in the shape of their 
 shoulders and in the cut of their coats. As for the 
 women But there, I won't be unkind.' 
 
 * Uncle Jeremiah winced at my joke about 
 Salome.' 
 
 * Salome !' repeated his mother, and her mouth fell 
 at the corners. ' Salome !' She fidgeted in her chair, 
 ' I had not calculated on her when I came here. 
 Really, I don't know what to do about her. You 
 should not have made that joke. It was putting 
 ideas into your uncle's head. It made the blood rush 
 to his face, and that showed you had touched him. 
 That girl is a nuisance. I wish she were married or 
 shot. She may yet draw a stroke across our reckon- 
 ing.' 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom lapsed into thought, thought that
 
 SHAKING THE TREE. 15 
 
 gave her no pleasure. After a pause of some minutes, 
 Captain Lambert said : 
 
 ' By the way, mother, what table-cloth did you 
 have on to-day ? I noticed Uncle Jeremiah looking 
 at it inquisitively.* 
 
 ' Naturally he would look at it, and that critically, 
 as he is a linen manufacturer, and weaves fine 
 damasks. I hate shop.' 
 
 ' But — what table-cloth was it ?' 
 
 * The best, of course. One figured with oak-leaves 
 and acorns, and in the middle a wreath, just like 
 those thrown over one's head by urchins for a tip, on 
 the Drachenfels.' 
 
 'Are you sure, mother?' 
 
 * I gave it out this morning.' 
 
 ' Would you mind looking at it ? I do not think 
 the table has been cleared yet. When I saw Uncle 
 Jeremiah was professionally interested in it, I looked 
 also, but saw no acorns or oak-leaves.^ 
 
 * Of course there were oak-leaves and acorns ; it 
 was our best.' 
 
 'Then I must be blind.' 
 'Fiddlesticks!' said Mrs. Sidebottom.
 
 i6 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 However, she stood up and went into the dining- 
 room. 
 
 A moment later the captain heard an exclamation. 
 Then his mother left the dining-room, and he heard 
 her ascend the stairs. Shortly after she descended, 
 and re-entered the room with a face the colour of a 
 table-cloth, or, to be more exact, of the same tone as 
 her eyelashes. 
 
 ' Well,' said the Captain languidly, ' have the oak- 
 leaves and acorns disappeared in the wash ?' 
 
 ' Oh, Lamb ! what is to be done ? Jeremiah will 
 never forgive us. He will feel this acutely — as an 
 insult. That owl — that owl of a maid has ruined our 
 prospects.' 
 
 ' What has she done .?' 
 
 'And not one of the waiters, though paid half a 
 guinea each, observed it.' 
 
 ' What was done ?' 
 
 ' She put a sheet on the table, and made up your 
 bed with the oak-leaves and acorns !'
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SALOME. 
 
 I LAY in bed this morning, musing on the feehngs of 
 those aged Borneans as they approached ripeness, and 
 noticed the eyes of the rising generation fixed on them 
 with expectancy, saw their red tongues flicker out of 
 their mouths and stealthily lick their lips. I lay in 
 bed considering whether my time had come to crawl 
 up the tree, whether, perhaps, I was already hanging 
 to one of the branches, and felt the agitation of the 
 trunk. But the thought was uncomfortable, and I 
 turned back to the Borneans who live very remote 
 from us, and I considered how sensitive they must 
 have become in old age to every glance of eye, and 
 word let slip, and gesture of impatience observable in 
 the rising generation. I mused over the little artifices 
 that would be adopted by them to disguise the ap- 
 proach of ripeness; how, when extending their shaking 
 VOL. L 2
 
 i8 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 hands over the fire, they would endeavour to control 
 the muscles and disguise their tremble ; how they 
 would give to them an unreal appearance of nervous 
 grip ; how they would talk loud and deep out of their 
 quavering pipe; and how they would fill in the creases 
 in their brows and cheeks with tallow, and dance at 
 every festival with an affectation of suppleness long 
 lost. And I considered further how that all these 
 little artifices would be seen through and jeered at, 
 and how they never for one minute would postpone 
 the fatal day when the tree would be indicated, and 
 the command given to ascend. 
 
 Then next, having felt my ribs and counted them, 
 and my thews and found them shrunk and with no 
 flesh on them, I thought of the Esquimaux, and the 
 way in which their elders were put out of doors and 
 exposed to die of cold ; and after I had left my bed, 
 at breakfast, throughout the day, I remained mighty 
 touchy and keenly observant, and alarmed at every 
 slight, and fault of deference, and disregard of habitual 
 consideration, thinking it might be a premonition that 
 I was being considered fit to be turned out into the 
 cold.
 
 SALOME. 19 
 
 Among barbarians it is customary to surfeit a 
 victim destined to become a sacrifice. It almost 
 seemed as if the birthday-banquet given to Uncle 
 Jeremiah by his half-sister had been given with this 
 intent. Mythologists tell us that Pluto, the god of 
 the nether world, and Plutus, the god of wealth, were 
 identical divinities, variously designated according to 
 the aspect in which viewed, whether from that of the 
 victims offered to the god, or from that of the im- 
 molator. The god of Death to one was the god of 
 Fortune to another. 
 
 Uncle Jeremiah Pennycomequick was not indeed 
 shaken by his half-sister and nephew whilst clinching 
 to the Tree of Life, but was apprised by them as to 
 his ripeness, and to his calibre, and was not unaware 
 that such was the case. Indeed, as already intimated, 
 Mrs. Sidebottom was as incapable of concealing 
 her motives as is Mephistopheles of concealing his 
 hoof. She flattered herself that it was not so, and 
 yet she wore her purposes, her ambitions, in her 
 face. 
 
 As Jeremiah walked homewards it was with much 
 the same consciousness that must weigh on the spirits
 
 20 THE PENKYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 of a bullock that has been felt and measured by a 
 butcher. 
 
 He opened his door with a latch-key, and entered 
 his little parlour. A light was burning there, and he 
 saw Salome seated on a stool by the fire, engaged in 
 needle-work. The circle of light cast from above was 
 about her, irradiating her red-gold hair. She turned 
 and looked up at Jeremiah with a smile, and showed 
 the cheek that had been nearest the fire glowing like 
 a carnation. 
 
 * What — not in bed ?' exclaimed the old man, half 
 reproachfully, and yet with a tone of pleasure in his 
 voice. 
 
 * No, uncle ; I thought you might possibly want 
 something before retiring. Besides, you had not said 
 Good-night to me, and I couldn't sleep without that' 
 
 ' I want nothing, child.' 
 
 * Shall I fold up my work and go V 
 
 ' No — no,' he replied hesitatingly, and stood look- 
 ing at the fire, then at his chair, and then, with doubt 
 and almost fear, at her. * Salome, I should like a 
 little talk with you. I am out of sorts, out of spirits. 
 The Sidebottoms always irritate me. Velvet is soft,
 
 SALOME. 21 
 
 but the touch chills my blood. I want to have my 
 nerves composed before I can sleep, and the hour is 
 not late — not really late. I came away from the 
 Sidebottoms as soon as I could do so with decency. 
 Of course, it was very kind of my sister to give this 
 
 dinner in my honour, on my birthday, but ' He 
 
 did not finish the sentence. 
 
 The girl took his hand and pressed him to sit down 
 in his chair. He complied without resistance, but 
 drew away his hand from her with a gesture of un- 
 easiness, a shrinking that somewhat surprised her. 
 
 When in his seat, he sat looking at her, with his 
 elbows resting on the arms of his chair, and his palms 
 folded before his breast like the hands of a monu- 
 mental effigy. Salome had resumed her place and 
 work. As he did not speak, she presently glanced up 
 at him and smiled with her slight sweet smile, that 
 was not the motion of the lips, but the dimpling of 
 the pure cheek. He did not return her smile ; his 
 eyes, though on her, did not see her and notice the 
 inquiry in her countenance. 
 
 Jeremiah was aged that day fifty-five, or, as Mrs. 
 Sidebottom put it for her greater comfort, in his fifty-
 
 22 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS 
 
 sixth year. The dinner party at his half-sister's had 
 been given entirely in his honour. His health had 
 been drunk, and many good wishes for long years 
 had been expressed with apparent heartiness ; but 
 what had been done to gratify him had been overdone 
 in some particulars, and underdone in others — over- 
 done in profession, underdone in sincerity ; and he 
 returned home dissatisfied and depressed. 
 
 When the peacock unfurls his fan, he does not per- 
 sistently face you ; if he did so, words would fail to 
 express your admiration, but the bird twirls about on 
 his feet, and foolishly exposes the ribbing of his 
 plumage, so as to provoke contemptuous laughter. 
 It is the same with selfish and with vain persons. 
 They make a prodigious effort to impose, and then, 
 still ruffling with expanded glories, they revolve on 
 their pivots, and in complete unconsciousness exhibit 
 the ignoble rear of sordid artifice, and falsity, and 
 mean pretence. 
 
 Joseph Cusworth had been at first clerk and then 
 traveller for the house of Pcnnycomequick, a trust- 
 worthy, intelligent and energetic man. Twcnt)'-t\vo 
 years ago, after the factory had fallen under the sole
 
 SALOME. 23 
 
 management of Jeremiah, through the advanced age 
 of his father and his half-brother's disincHnation for 
 business, master and man had quarrelled. Jeremiah 
 had been suspicious and irascible in those days, and 
 he had misinterpreted the freedom of action pursued 
 by Cusvvorth as allowed him by old Pennycomequick, 
 and dismissed him. Cusworth went to Lancashire, 
 where he speedily found employ, and married. After 
 a (gw years and much vexation through the incom- 
 petence or unreliability of agents, Jeremiah had 
 swallowed his pride and invited Cusworth to return 
 into his employ, holding out to him the prospect of 
 admission into partnership after a twelvemonth. 
 Cusworth had, accordingly, returned to Mergatroyd 
 and brought with him his wife and twin daughters. 
 The reconciliation was complete. Cusworth proved 
 to be the same upright, reliable man as of old, and 
 with enlarged experience. His accession speedily 
 made itself felt. He was one of those men who 
 attract friends everywhere, whom everyone insensibly 
 feels can be trusted. 
 
 The deed of partnership was drawn up and en- 
 grossed, and only lacked signature, when, in going
 
 24 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 through the mill with Jeremiah, Cusworth was caught 
 by the lappet of his coat in the machinery, drawn in, 
 under the eye of his superior, and so frightfully 
 mangled that he never recovered consciousness, and 
 expired a few hours after. 
 
 From that time, Mrs. Cusworth, with the children, 
 was taken into the manufacturer's house, where she 
 acted as his housekeeper. There the little girls grew 
 up, and made their way into the affections of the 
 solitary man who encouraged them to call him uncle, 
 though there was absolutely no relationship subsisting 
 between them. 
 
 Jeremiah had never been married ; he had never 
 been within thought of such an event. No woman 
 had ever made the smallest impression on his heart. 
 He lived for his business, which engrossed all his 
 thoughts ; as for his affections, they would have 
 stagnated but for the presence of the children in the 
 house, the interest they aroused, the amusement tliey 
 caused, the solicitude they occasioned, and for the 
 thousand little fibres their innocent hands threw about 
 his heart, till they had caught and held it in a web of 
 their artless weaving. He had lost his mother when
 
 SALOME. 25 
 
 he was born, his father married again soon after, and 
 his life at home with his stepmother had not been 
 congenial. He was kept away from home at school, 
 and then put into business at a distance, and his 
 relations with his half-sister and half-brother had 
 never been cordial. They had been pampered and 
 he neglected. When, jBnally, he came home to assist 
 his father, his half-sister was married, and his brother, 
 who had taken a distaste for business, was away. 
 
 One day of his life had passed much like another ; 
 he had become devoted to his work, which he pursued 
 mechanically, conscientiously, but at the same time 
 purposelessly, for he had no one whom he loved or 
 even cared for to whom his fortune might go and for 
 whom, therefore, it would be a pleasure to accumu- 
 late. And as for himself, he was without ambi- 
 tion. 
 
 When daily he returned from the mill after the 
 admission of the Cusworth family under his roof, the 
 prattle and laughter of the children had refreshed him; 
 their tender, winning ways had overmastered him and 
 softened his hitherto callous heart. It was to him as 
 if the sun had suddenly broken through the clouds that
 
 26 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 had overarched and chilled and obscured his life, and 
 was warming, glorifying, and vivifying his latter 
 days. 
 
 Time passed, and the little girls grew up into young 
 women. They were much alike in face and in colour 
 of hair and eyes and complexion ; but there the like- 
 ness stopped. In character they were not twins. 
 Their names were Salome and Janet. Janet was 
 married. A year ago, when she was barely nineteen, 
 the son of a manufacturer at Elboeuf, in Normandy, 
 had seen, loved, and made her his own. 
 
 This young man, Albert Victor Baynes, had been 
 born and bred in France, but his father had been a 
 manufacturer in Yorkshire, till driven to distraction 
 by strikes at times when he had taken heavy contracts, 
 he, like a score of others similarly situated, had 
 migrated with his -plant and business to Normandy, 
 and opened in a foreign land a spring of wealth that 
 copiously irrigated a wide area, and which greed and 
 folly had banished from its proper home. About 
 Rouen, Elboeuf, and Louviers are bristling factory 
 chimneys and busy manufactures, carried thither by 
 Yorkshire capitalists and employers, and where they
 
 SALOME. 27 
 
 initiated, the French have followed, and have drained 
 away our English trade. 
 
 Young Baynes had come to Yorkshire and to Mer- 
 gatroyd to visit relatives, and he had at once lost his 
 heart to Janet Cusworth. As he was the only son of 
 a man in good business, and as * Uncle ' Jeremiah was 
 prepared to act liberally towards the daughter of 
 Joseph Cusworth, no difficulties arose to cross the 
 course of love and delay union. It was said that 
 Jeremiah Pennycomequick could hardly have behaved 
 more liberally had Janet been his daughter. But 
 another reason urged him to generosity beside his 
 regard for the girl. This was gratitude to Albert 
 Victor Baynes for choosing Janet instead of his special 
 favourite, Salome, who had chiefly wound herself about 
 his heart. Janet was a lively, frolicsome little creature, 
 whom it was a relaxation to watch, and whose tricks 
 provoked laughter ; but Salome was that one of the 
 twins who had depth of character, and who, as the 
 millfolk declared, had inherited all her father's trust- 
 worthiness, thoughtfulness, and that magnetism which 
 attracts love. 
 
 Salome continued her needlework silently, with the
 
 28 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 firelight flickering over her fair face and rich hair. 
 Her complexion was very delicate, and perhaps the 
 principal charm of her face consisted in the trans- 
 parency not of the skin only, but of the entire face, 
 that showed every change of thought and feeling by 
 a corresponding dance of blood and shift of colour in 
 it — and not colour only, for as a mirror takes the 
 lightest breath and becomes clouded by it, so was it 
 with her countenance ; bright with an inner light, the 
 slightest breath of trouble, discouragement, alarm, 
 brought a cloud over it, dimming its usual brilliancy. 
 
 ' Yours is a very tell-tale face," her sister had often 
 said to her. ' Without your opening your eyes I can 
 read all that passes in your mind.' 
 
 At the time that young Baynes had stayed at Mer- 
 gatroyd, Jeremiah had been uneasy. The young man 
 hovered round the sisters^ and spoke to one as much 
 as to the other, and divided his attentions equally 
 between them. The sisters so closely resembled each 
 other in features^ complexion and hair, as well as in 
 height and frame, that only such as knew them could 
 distinguish the one from the other, and the distinction 
 consisted rather in expression than in aught else.
 
 SALOME. 29 
 
 How anyone could mistake the one for the other was 
 a marvel to Jeremiah, who was never in doubt. But 
 the resemblance was so close that Albert Victor 
 Baynes hung for some time in uncertainty as to which 
 he should take, and was only decided by the inner 
 qualities of Janet, whose vivacity and sparkle best 
 suited the taste of a man whose ideas of woman 
 showed they had been formed in France. 
 
 Whilst Baynes was in uncertainty, or in apparent 
 uncertainty, Jeremiah suffered. He loved both the 
 girls, but he loved Salome infinitely better than her 
 sister ; it would be to him a wrench to part with 
 brilliant Janet, but nothing like the wrench that would 
 ensue were he required to separate from Salome. 
 
 Those who from childhood have been surrounded 
 by an atmosphere of love, who have come to regard 
 it as their natural element, such have no conception 
 of the force with which love boils up in an old heart 
 that has been long arid and affectionless. In the 
 limestone Western Hills there are riverless valleys, 
 tracts of moor and mountain without a rift, dead and 
 waterless, yet deep beneath, in secret channels, streams 
 are flowing, and mighty vaults form subterranean
 
 30 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 reservoirs, by all who pass over the surface unsus- 
 pected. But suddenly from a cliff-side pours the long- 
 hidden water, not a spring, a rivulet, but a full-grown 
 river ready to turn millwheels and carry boats. So is 
 it with certain human natures that have been long 
 passionless, without the token of soft affections : the 
 all-conquering stream of love breaks from their hearts 
 in mighty volume and unexpectedly. 
 
 There had been nothing of self-analysis in Jeremiah. 
 The children had sprung up under his care, and year 
 by year had seen them acquire an inch or a fraction of 
 an inch in height, their beauty develop, their intelli- 
 gences expand ; imperceptibly they had stolen from 
 infancy into childhood, and from childhood in like 
 manner had crept unobserved into maidenhood, and 
 then flowered into full and perfect beauty ; and each 
 stage of growth had carried them a stage further into 
 Jeremiah^s affections, and had cast another and a 
 stronger tie about his heart. He had loved them as 
 children, and he loved them as beautiful and intelligent 
 girls, as belonging to his house, as essential to his 
 happiness, as the living elements that made up to him 
 the idea of home. The only sorrow he had — if that
 
 SALOME. 31 
 
 could be called a sorrow which was no more than a 
 regret — was that they were not his own true nieces, or, 
 better still, his children. When Janet was taken and 
 Salome left, he was thankful, and he put away from 
 him for the time the fear that Salome would also take 
 wing and leave him in the same manner as Janet had 
 gone. How could he endure recurrence to the old 
 gloom, and relapse into purposeless gathering of 
 money? How could he endure life deprived of both 
 Janet and Salome ? How can a man who has seen 
 the sun endure blindness ? Or a man whose ears 
 have drunk in music bear deafness ? Deafness and 
 blindness of heart would be his portion in that part of 
 life when most he needed ear and eye — deafness and 
 blindness after having come to understand the melody 
 of a happy home, and see the beauty of a child- 
 encircled hearth. 
 
 What must be the distress of him who has had a 
 well-furnished house to have an execution put in, and 
 everything sold away from before his eyes, nothing 
 left him but the bed on which to lie and gnash his 
 teeth ? How bald, how cold, how hateful the dis- 
 mantled home will seem without the thousand com-
 
 32 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 forts and beautifying objects to which his eyes have 
 been accustomed ! The children as they grew up had 
 furnished Jeremiah's house with pleasant fancies, had 
 hung the walls with bright remembrances, and filled 
 every corner with tender associations. The floor was 
 strewn with their primrose homage. The thought 
 that as he had lost Janet, so must he some day lose 
 Salome, rose up continually before Jeremiah, and 
 sickened him with fear. He tried to steel himself in 
 expectation of it. It was in the nature of things that 
 young girls should marry. It was inevitable that a 
 closer and stronger tie should be formed, and then 
 that cord of reverential gratitude which now attached 
 Salome to him would dwindle imperceptibly, yet 
 surely, to a thread, and from a thread to a filament. 
 In proportion as from the new bond other ties arose, 
 so would that attaching her to him become attenuated 
 till it became formal only. 
 
 A great pain arose in Jeremiah's heart. 
 
 And now, this evening, he looked at the girl engaged 
 on her needlework, and observation returned into his 
 eyes. Now he began that work of self-analysis, with 
 her before him, that he had never thought of engaging
 
 SALOME. 33 
 
 in before, never dreamed would be requisite for him 
 to engage in. 
 
 As he looked steadily at Salome, his closed palms 
 trembledj and he separated them, put one to his lips, 
 for they were trembling also, and then to his brow, 
 which was wet. 
 
 Salome's soft brown eyes were lifted from her work, 
 and rested steadily on him. 
 
 ' Dear uncle/ she said. * My dear — dear, uncle ! 
 You are unwell.' 
 
 She drew her stool close to him, and threw her 
 arms about him, to draw his quivering face towards 
 her own that she might kiss it. But he started up 
 with a groan, backed from her arms, and paced the 
 room in agitation. He dare not receive her embrace. 
 He dare not meet her eyes. He had read his own 
 heart for the first time, helped thereto by a casual 
 joke from Captain Lambert Pennycomequick at table 
 that evening. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A TRUST. 
 
 During dinner that evening the conversation had 
 turned on modern music. Yorkshire folk are, with 
 rare exceptions, musical, and those who are not 
 musical are expected, at all events, to be able to take 
 their part in a conversation about music. Someone 
 had spoken about old English ballads, whereupon 
 Captain Lambert had said, as an aside to his uncle: 
 
 * No one can doubt what is your favourite song.' 
 
 ' There you have the advantage of me,' said Jere- 
 miah simply. 
 
 ' " Sally in our Alley " — but I must say you take slow 
 time in getting to the last verse.' 
 
 Then he hummed the words : 
 
 ' And when my seven long years are out, 
 Oh, then I'll marry Sally ! 
 And then how happily we'll live, 
 But not in our Alley.'
 
 A TRUST. 35 
 
 Then it was that the blood had rushed into the 
 manufacturer's temples, a rush of blood occasioned 
 partly by anger at being made the subject of a joke, 
 and partly by the suggestion which startled him. 
 
 Never before that moment had the thought occurred 
 to him that it was possible for him to bind Salome to 
 him by the closest and surest of ties. No, never before 
 had he imagined that this was possible. 
 
 How one word starts a train of ideas I As a spark 
 falling on thatch may cause a conflagration, so may a 
 word carelessly dropped set blood on fire and drive a 
 man to madness. That little remark had produced in 
 Jeremiah an effect greater than Lambert could have 
 calculated, and his mother went very near the truth 
 when she rebuked him for saying what he had. From 
 thenceforth Jeremiah could no longer look at Salome 
 in the old light ; she was no more a child to him, and 
 he no more an old man beyond the reach of that 
 flame that sweeps round the world and scorches all 
 men. In Wagner's great opera of the ' Valkyrie,' 
 Brunnhild is represented asleep, engirdled by a ring 
 of fire, and Sigurd, who tries to reach her, can only 
 do so by passing through the flame, and to render it 
 
 3—^
 
 36 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 innocuous he sings the wondrous fire-spell song, and 
 the flame leaps and declines, and finally goes out 
 to the cadences of the spell. But Jeremiah now 
 found himself caught in the Waberlolic that enringed 
 Salome, knowing no incantation by which to abate 
 its ardour ; whilst she sat unconscious of the peril 
 to which she subjected others, of the magic that 
 surrounded and streamed forth from her, guileless 
 of the pain which she occasioned him whom she 
 beckoned to her. Jeremiah was caught by the flame, 
 it curled round him, and he writhed in its embrace. 
 He was an old, at all events an elderly, man, his age 
 five and fifty, and Salome was but twenty. He had 
 passed the grand climateric when she was born. Could 
 he, dare he, love her, except with the simple love of a 
 parent for a child ? But could he love her thus any 
 longer now that his eyes were opened, and he had 
 discovered the condition of his own heart .'' When 
 Adam had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge his child- 
 like simplicity was gone, and he made himself cover- 
 ings to hide himself from himself and from others. 
 So now, this man in the decline of life had tasted also 
 and at once was filled with shame at himself, and he
 
 A TRUST. 37 
 
 sought out evasion of the truth,, a disguise for his 
 feeh'ngs, lest Salome should suspect what was passing 
 within him. 
 
 * Salome, my child,' he said, ' those Sidebottoms vex 
 me beyond endurance. What do you think ! They 
 served up a really sumptuous dinner on a table covered 
 with a sheet' 
 
 ' A sheet — from a bed !' 
 
 ' A sheet, not a tablecloth. It was characteristic' 
 
 ' Has that upset you r 
 
 ' No — not that. But, Salome, I have been consider- 
 ing how it would be, were this factory, after I am no 
 more, to fall into such hands as those of the ninny 
 captain.' 
 
 'There is Mr. Philip,' said the girl. 
 
 'Philip !' the manufacturer paused. 'Philip — 
 
 I hardly consider him as one of the family. His father 
 behaved outrageously.' 
 
 ' But for all that he is your nephew.' 
 
 'Of course he is, by name and blood, but— I do not 
 like him.' 
 
 ' You do not know him, uncle.' 
 
 ' That is true ; but '
 
 38 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' But he is your nearest relative.' 
 
 ]\Ir. Pennycomequick was silent. He returned to 
 his chair and reseated himself ; not now leaning back, 
 with his arms folded on his breast, but bent forward, 
 with his elbows on his knees and his head in his 
 hands. 
 
 He looked into the fire. After full five minutes' 
 silence he said, in a tone of self-justification : 
 
 ' I can never forgive my half-brother Nicholas.' 
 
 ' Yet he is dead,' said the girl. 
 
 There was no accent of reproach in her voice ; 
 nevertheless Jeremiah took her words as conveying a 
 reproach. 
 
 ' I do not mean/ he said apologetically, * that I 
 allowed him to die unforgiven, but that his conduct 
 was inexcusable. I have pardoned the man, but I 
 cannot forgive his act.' 
 
 ' Philip, however,' said Salome, ' is the son of the 
 man, and not of his mistake.' 
 
 Jeremiah was touched, and winced ; but he would 
 not show it. 
 
 * My brother Nicholas acted in such a manner as to 
 produce an estrangement that has, and will have,
 
 A TRUST. 39 
 
 lastingly influenced our relations. Philip I saw at his 
 father's funeral, which I attended — which,' he repeated 
 the sentence, ' which I attended.' 
 
 The girl said no more. She knew that Jeremiah 
 was not a man to brook interference, and she was 
 well aware that this was a matter in which she had 
 no right to interfere. But he was not satisfied with 
 so slight a word of self-justification ; he returned to 
 the topic, with his face turned from her, looking into 
 the fire. 
 
 ' It was thoughtless ; it was wicked. The mill was 
 left between us, burdened with a certain charge for 
 my half-sister ; and Nicholas never took the smallest 
 interest in the business. I did the work ; he drew 
 his share. He got into the hands of a swindling 
 speculator, who fired his imagination with a scheme 
 for converting the Desert of Sahara into a vast inland 
 sea, the company to have the monopoly of the trade 
 round its shores. My brother's head was turned, and 
 he insisted on withdrawing his share from the mill. 
 He would sell his share — draw all his money out of 
 
 the concern, and pitch it wherever Schofield 1 
 
 mean wherever it was most likely to be engulfed and
 
 40 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 yield no return. I remonstrated. I pointed out to 
 my brother the folly of the scheme, the danger to 
 me. I had no wish to have some man, of whom I 
 knew nothing, thrust into partnership with me. I 
 must buy my brother out myself. I did this at a 
 moment when money was dear, and also at a time 
 when it was necessary to provide the mill with new 
 machinery, or be left in the lurch in the manufacture 
 of figured damasks. I had to borrow the money. 
 Slackness set in, and — God knows ! — I was as nearly 
 brought to bankruptcy as a man can be without 
 actually stopping. Your father came to my aid. But 
 I had several years of terrible struggle, during which 
 bitter resentment against my brother Nicholas grew 
 in my heart. We never met again. We no longer 
 corresponded. As for his son, I knew nothing of him. 
 I had seen him as a boy. I did not see him again till 
 he was a man, at his father's grave. If Nicholas had 
 considered my prejudices, as I suppose he would call 
 them, he would not have put Philip in a solicitor's 
 office, knowing, as he must have known, my mistrust of 
 lawyers. I will not say that I would not have given 
 him a place with me, had Nicholas asked for it ; but
 
 A TRUST. 41 
 
 he was either too proud to stoop to request a favour 
 of me, or his old prejudice against trade survived his 
 ruin.' 
 
 * Philip may be good and sensible, and a nephew to 
 be proud of. How can you tell, uncle, that he is not, 
 when you do not know him ?' 
 
 * He has chosen his profession now. He is a lawyer, 
 and so his line of life leads away from mine.' 
 
 Then ensued silence, broken at length by Salome. 
 
 ' Uncle,' she said, ' I have had a letter from dear 
 Janet, and what do you think ? She is coming to 
 England, and most likely to us. She does not say 
 when ; but those dreadful Prussians are making their 
 way to Rouen, in spite of the wonderful stand made 
 by General Faidherbe and the heroic conduct of his 
 troops. Janet says that she wonders how any soldiers 
 can stand against an army commanded by a man- 
 devil, for that is what the Prussian general is named. 
 She says that Albert Victor has felt it his duty to 
 volunteer to fight for the country of his nativity and 
 adoption, so dear Janet is alone, and Albert has 
 advised her to take refuge in England till the tyranny 
 be over. But Janet says she is in hourly expectation
 
 42 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 that the Prussians will be out-manceuvred, surrounded, 
 and cut to pieces, and, much as she hates the enemies, 
 her chief anxiety is that the French may not forget 
 to act with humanity in the moment of victory. She 
 says that the affair at Amiens was quite misrepre- 
 sented by the English papers, that Faidherbe obtained 
 a splendid victory, and only retired in pursuance of a 
 masterly plan he had conceived of drawing the 
 Prussians on, so as to envelop them and crush them 
 at one blow. Moreover, Janet says that this blow is 
 expected to fall at any moment, and to show how 
 thorough a partisan she is — even to me she has begun 
 to spell her name in the French way, Jeannette.' 
 
 ' Janet likely to come to us !' exclaimed Jeremiah. 
 
 * Only in the event, which she says is more than 
 problematical, of the enemy occupying Rouen. She 
 tells me that the spirit of the French is superb. The 
 way in which every man has flown to arms at the call 
 of his country is unparalleled. She says that the 
 Emperor was the cause of the disasters that have 
 occurred hitherto, but that France has found a man 
 of almost superhuman genius, called Gambetta, who 
 is already causing consternation amongst the Prus-
 
 A TRUST, 43 
 
 sians. She says that she has seen it stated in the 
 most trustworthy Paris papers that in Germany 
 mothers still their children with the threat that if they 
 cry, they will invoke Gambetta.' 
 
 ' Janet will certainly be here shortly,' said Jere- 
 miah. ' The war can only go one way' 
 
 ' I shall be delighted to see my darling sister, and 
 yet sorry for the occasion of her visit. She tells me 
 that the factories are all stopped. The hands are now 
 engaged in the defence of their country. Oh, uncle ! 
 what would happen to Janet if anything befell Albert 
 Victor ? Do you think he was right to leave his wife 
 and take up arms as a franc-tireur ? He is not really a 
 Frenchman, though born at Elboeuf.' 
 
 To her surprise, Salome saw that her old friend was 
 not attending to what she was saying. He was not 
 thinking of her sister any more. He was thinking 
 about her. When she asked what would happen to 
 Janet were her husband to be carried ofif, the question 
 forced itself upon his thought. What would become 
 of Salome were he to fall sick, and be unable to 
 defend himself against his half-sister. He was perfectly 
 conscious of Mrs. Sidebottom's object in coming to
 
 44 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 Mergatroyd, and he was quite sure that in the event 
 of paralysis, or any grievous sickness taking him, his 
 half-sister would invade his house and assume authority 
 therein. He saw that this would happen inevitably ; 
 and he was not at all certain how she would behave 
 to Salome. Mrs. Cusworth was a feeble woman, 
 unable to dispute the ground with one so pertinacious, 
 and armed with so good a right, as Mrs. Sidebottom. 
 What friends had Salome ? She had none but him- 
 self. Her sister's house was about to be entered by 
 the enemy, her sister to be a refugee in England. 
 The factories at Elbceuf were stopped ; it was un- 
 certain how the war, when it rolled away, would leave 
 the manufacturers, whether trade that had been stopped 
 on the Seine would return thither. What if the 
 Baynes family failed ? 
 
 Would it not be advisable to secure to Salome a 
 home and position by making her his wife ? TJien, 
 whatever happened to him, she would be safe, in an 
 impregnable situation. 
 
 ' Salome !' 
 
 * Yes, uncle.' 
 
 She looked up anxiously. She had not let him see
 
 A TRUST. 45 
 
 that she was aware that he was in trouble of mind, 
 and yet she knew it, though she did not guess its 
 character. Hers was one of those sympathetic natures 
 that feels a disturbance of equilibrium, as the needle 
 in a magnetometer vibrates and reels when to the 
 gross human eye there is naught to occasion it. She 
 had watched Jeremiah's face whilst she spoke to him 
 of her sister, and was surprised and pained to notice 
 how little Janet's calamities and anxieties affected 
 him. 
 
 What was the matter with him ? What were the 
 thoughts that preoccupied his mind ? Not a shadow 
 of a suspicion of their real nature entered her innocent 
 soul. 
 
 ' Dear uncle/ she said, when she had waited for a 
 remark, after he had called her attention, and had 
 waited in vain, ' what is it ?' 
 
 ' Nothing.' 
 
 He had recoiled in time. On the very verge of 
 speaking he had arrested himself 
 
 ' Uncle,' she said, ' I am sure you are not well, either 
 in body or in mind.' 
 
 He stood up, went out of the room, without a word.
 
 46 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 Salome looked after him in surprise and alarm. 
 Was he going off his head ? She heard him ascend 
 the stairs to his study, and he returned from it almost 
 immediately. He re-entered the room with a long 
 blue sealed envelope in his hand. 
 
 ' Look at this, my child, and pay great attention 
 to me. An unaccountable depression is weighing 
 on me — no, not altogether unaccountable, for I can 
 trace it back to the society in which I have been. It 
 has left me with a mistrust of the honesty and 
 sincerity of everyone in the world, of everyone, that 
 is, but you ; you ' — he touched her copper-gold head 
 lightly with a shaking hand — 'you I cannot mistrust; 
 you — it would kill me to mistrust. I hold to life, to 
 my respect for humanity, through you as a golden 
 chain. Salome, I have a great trust to confide to you, 
 and I do it because I know no one else in whom I 
 can place reliance. This is my will, and I desire you 
 to take charge of it. I commit it to your custody. 
 Put it where it may be safe, and where you may know 
 where to lay hand on it when it shall be wanted.' 
 
 ' But, uncle, why not leave it with your lawyer.' 
 
 ' I have no lawyer,' he answered sharply. ' I have
 
 A TRUST. 47 
 
 never gone to law, and thrown good money after bad. 
 You know my dislike for lawyers. I wrote my will 
 with my own hand after your sister married, and I 
 flatter myself that no wit of man or rascality of 
 lawyers can pervert it. I can set down in plain English 
 what my intentions are as to the disposal of my 
 property, so that anyone can understand my purpose, 
 and no one can upset its disposition.' 
 
 ' But, uncle — why should I have it who am so 
 careless ?' 
 
 * You are not careless. I trust you. I have perfect 
 confidence that what is committed to you you will 
 keep, whether the will concerns you or not. I wish 
 you to have it, and you will obey my wishes.' 
 
 He put the paper into her reluctant hands, and 
 waited for her to say something. Her cheeks were 
 flushed with mingled concern for him and fear for her- 
 self. Such a valuable deed she thought ought to 
 have been kept in his strong iron safe, and not con- 
 fided to her trembling hands. 
 
 He put his hand on her shoulder. 
 
 ' Thank you, Salome,' he said. 'You have relieved 
 my mind of a great anxiety.'
 
 48 THE PEXXYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' And now, uncle, you will go to bed ?' 
 
 He stood, with his hand still on her shoulder, 
 hesitatingly. ' I don't know ; I am not sleepy.' He 
 thought further. 'Yes, I will go. Good-night, my 
 child.' 
 
 Then he left the room, ascended the stairs, passed 
 through his study into his bedchamber beyond, where 
 he turned down the clothes, and threw ofif his dress 
 coat and waistcoat, and then cast himself on the bed. 
 
 His brain was in a whirl. He could not retire to 
 rest in that condition of excitement. He would toss 
 on his bed, which would be one of nettles to him. He 
 left it, stood up, drew on a knitted cardigan jersey, 
 and then put his arms through his great-coat. 
 
 About a quarter of an hour after he had mounted 
 to his room he descended the stairs again, and then 
 he encountered Salome once more, leaving the little 
 parlour with the envelope that contained his will in 
 her hand. 
 
 ' What ! You not gone to bed, Salome ?' 
 
 ' No, uncle, I have been dreaming over the fire. 
 But, surely, you are not going out r 
 
 * Yes, I am. There has been such a downpour of
 
 A TRUST. 49 
 
 rain all day that I have not taken my customary 
 constitutional. I cannot sleep. The night is fine, 
 and I shall go for a stroll on the canal bank.' 
 
 ' But, uncle, it is past twelve o'clock.' 
 
 ' High time for you to be in bed. For me, it is 
 another matter. My brain is on fire ; I must take a 
 composing draught of fresh night air.' 
 
 ' But, uncle ' 
 
 * Do not remain up longer. I have acted incon- 
 siderately in keeping you from your bed so long. Go 
 to sleep speedily, and do not trouble yourself about 
 me. I have my latch-key, and will let myself in. The 
 gas shall remain turned down in the hall. 1 am 
 always upset unless I have a walk during the day, and 
 the sheets of rain that poured down have kept me a 
 prisoner. I shall not be out for long. I will cool my 
 head and circulate my blood, under the starry sky.' 
 
 * But you will find the roads sloppy, after the 
 rain.' 
 
 * The towpath will be dry. I am going there, by 
 the canal. Good-night.' 
 
 She held up her innocent, sweet face for the kiss he 
 had neglected to give her a quarter of an hour ago, 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 when he left the room. He half stooped, then turned 
 auay without kissing her. 
 
 ' Good-night, dear Salome. Mind the will. It is a 
 trust.' 
 
 Then he went out.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE TOWPATH. 
 
 There are points, occasions on life's journey, when 
 our guides fail us, and these points and occasions are 
 neither few nor far between. The signposts that 
 might instruct us are either illegible or have not been 
 set up. The forming of a determination is of vital 
 importance, but the material on which to form a deter- 
 mination is withdrawn from us, as the straw was taken 
 from the Israelites when they were ordered to make 
 bricks. 
 
 We buy a map and start on our journey, and come 
 to branch-roads which are not set down. The map is 
 antiquated, and no longer serviceable. 
 
 We buy a legal compendium which is to obviate 
 having recourse to lawyers, and when we encounter a 
 difficulty, turn to it for enlightenment, and find that 
 precisely this question is passed over. 
 
 4—2 
 
 U. OF ILL U3.
 
 52 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 We purchase a manual of domestic medicine to cut 
 off the necessity of calling in a doctor at every hitch, 
 and when a hitch occurs we discover that precisely 
 this one is unnoted in our book. 
 
 We are provided with moral vade-nicainis which are 
 to serve us in all contingencies, but are arrested at 
 every hundred paces by some knot which the instruc- 
 tions in our vade-meann do not assist us in untying. 
 
 Jeremiah now found himself in a predicament from 
 which he did not know how to escape, at a fork in life's 
 road, and he was unable to form a judgment whether 
 to turn to the left hand or to the right. 
 
 By his own generosity he had rendered his position 
 discouraging. He had behaved to Janet with so great 
 liberality when she married, as to produce a deep and 
 general impression that Salome would be treated with 
 at least equal liberality in the event of her marriage. 
 An admirer might hesitate to offer for a portionless 
 girl, however charming in feature and perfect in mind, 
 not because necessarily mercenary in his ideas, but 
 because he would know that as single life is impos- 
 sible without means of supporting it, so double life, 
 containing in itself the promise of development into
 
 ON THE TOW PATH. 53 
 
 a number of supplemental lives, is proportionately 
 impossible. 
 
 Jeremiah, might, accordingly, with almost certainty, 
 reckon on being left to a solitary and barren decline 
 of life, after he had come late to appreciate the warmth 
 and amenities of domestic association — after he had 
 enjoyed them a sufficient number of years to esteem 
 them indispensable. 
 
 He recalled the dead and meagre existence he had 
 led before he received the little girls and their mother 
 into his house, and he sickened at the prospect of 
 recurring to it. He could not disguise from himself 
 that if he lost Salome, everything that gave zest and 
 interest to life would be taken away from him. He 
 would be forced to revert to the hard uniformity of his 
 previous existence ; but that thought was repugnant 
 to him. Most men look back on their childhood or to 
 college days as a period of exuberant vitality and un- 
 spoiled delight. To but few is it not given to begin 
 their Book of Genesis with Paradise, flowing with 
 sparkling rivers whose beds are gold, rich with flowers, 
 redolent with odours. Sooner or later all are cast out 
 through the gates, and there is no return — only a
 
 54 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 reminiscence. To some more than to others the smell 
 of the flowers clings through life. The youth and 
 early manhood of Jeremiah had been joyless, spent 
 among briars and thorns, and only late had he found 
 the gates of Eden, and the cherub with a smile had 
 withdrawn his sword, and allowed him a look in. 
 What would be the end of life to him if Salome were 
 taken away ? As his health and powers of resistance 
 failed, his house would be invaded by the Sidebottoms, 
 perhaps also by the unknown Philip, and they would 
 wrangle over his savings, and hold him a prisoner 
 within his own walls. But — dare he suggest to Salome 
 that she should be his wife ? He did not shut his eyes 
 to their disparity in age, to the fact that her regard for 
 him was of a totally different texture from such as a 
 man exacts of a wife. Would it be possible to change 
 filial into marital love ? Was it not as preposterous 
 of him to expect it as was the infatuation of the 
 alchemist to transmute one metal into another ? 
 
 Then, again, would not his proposal shake, if it did 
 not shatter, her respect, forfeit that precious love she 
 now tendered him with both hands without stint } 
 By asking for what she could not give, would he not
 
 ON THE TOW PATH. 55 
 
 lose that which he had ah-eady, Hke the dog that 
 dropped the meat snapping at a shadow, and so leave 
 him in utter destitution ? The harbour of the thought 
 of a change of relations had affected the quality of his 
 intercourse with her, had clouded its serenity, dis- 
 turbed its simplicity. It had prevented him from 
 meeting her frank eye, from receiving her embrace, 
 admitting the touch of her lips. He shrank from her 
 innocent endearments as though he had no right to 
 receive them, tendered in one coinage and received in 
 another value. Were he to communicate to her the 
 thought that fermented within him, would not the 
 yeasty microbe alter her and change her sweet affec- 
 tion for him into something that might be repug- 
 nance ? 
 
 He drew a laboured breath. 
 
 ' I am in a sore strait,' he groaned ; ' I know not 
 what to do. Would to heaven that my course were 
 determined for me.' 
 
 He had reached the towpath beside the canal. 
 
 * Good-night, sir.' 
 
 He was startled. The night watch had met him, 
 the man employed to walk around and through the
 
 56 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 factories at all hours of the night, on the look-out 
 against fire, on guard against burglars. 
 
 * Good-night, sir. Just been on the bank to look at 
 the river. Very full, and swelling instead of going 
 down. Lot of rain fallen of late. Cold for the gold- 
 fish yonder.' 
 
 * Good-night,' answered the manufacturer ; ' I also 
 want to see the river. There is more rain yonder.' 
 
 He pointed to the western sky. 
 
 * The river is rising rapidly,' said the man ; * but 
 there's no harm can take Pennyquick's — ligstoo high.' 
 Jeremiah's factory went by his surname, but con- 
 tracted by the people through the omission of a 
 syllable. 
 
 Then the man passed on his way, rattling his keys. 
 The gold-fish ! What did he mean } 
 
 Outside the wall of Mr. Pennycomequick's factory 
 was a pool, into which the waste steam and boiling 
 water from the engine discharged, and this pool was 
 always hot. It swarmed with gold-fish. At some 
 time or other, no one knew when, or by whom, a few, 
 perhaps only a pair, had been thrown in, and now the 
 little patch of water was thronged with fish. They
 
 ON THE TOW PATH. 57 
 
 throve, they multiplied therein. The mill girls cast 
 crumbs to them from their breakfasts and dinners, and 
 were allowed to net some occasionally for their private 
 keeping in glass globes, but not to make of them an 
 article of traffic. There was not a cottage in Penny- 
 quick's Fold that had not such a vessel in the window. 
 Jeremiah saw that the overflow from the river had 
 reached this little pool and converted it into a lake, 
 chilling the steamy waters at the same time. Mer- 
 gatroyd town or village stood on the slope of the hill 
 that formed the northern boundary of Keld-dale. 
 The Keld rose in that range of limestone mountains 
 that divides Lancashire from Yorkshire, and runs from 
 Derbyshire to the Scottish border. After a tortuous 
 course between high and broken hills, folding in on 
 each other like the teeth of a rat-trap, leaving in 
 places scarce room in the bottom for road, rail, and 
 canal to run side by side, it burst forth into a broad 
 basin, banked on north and south by low hills of 
 yellow sandstone, overlying coal. Some way down 
 this shallow trough, on the northern flank, built about 
 the hill-slope, and grouped about a church with an 
 Italian spire perched on pillars, stood Mergatroyd.
 
 58 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 There the valley spread to the width of a mile, and 
 formed a great bed of gravelly deposit of unreckoned 
 depth. A couple of spade-grafts below the surface, 
 water was reached ; yet on this gravel stood most of 
 the factories and their tall chimneys. The nature of 
 the soil forbade sinking for foundations. Accordingly 
 these were laid on the surface, the walls, and even the 
 chimneys, being reared on slabs of sandstone laid on 
 the ground. It might seem incredible that such fragile 
 stone-slates should support such superincumbent 
 masses; nevertheless it was so. The pressure, how- 
 ever, did not always fall on gravel equally compact ; 
 this resulted in subsidences. Few walls had not 
 cracked at some time, most were banded with iron, 
 and not a chimney stood exactly perpendicular. 
 
 The canal and the river ran side by side, with a 
 towpath along the former ; but the high-road had 
 deserted the valley and ran on the top of the hill. 
 Neither canal nor river were of crystalline purity, or 
 of ordinary cleanness ; for into them the mills and 
 dye-works discharged their odorous and discoloured 
 refuse water, dense with oil and pigment, with impuri- 
 ties of every description and degree of nastiness.
 
 ON THE TOW PATH. 59 
 
 Fish had long ago deserted these waters, and if an 
 occasional eel was caught it was inedible, so strongly 
 did it taste of oil and dye. 
 
 The Yorkshire towns and rivers have their special 
 ' bouquet,' which does not receive favourable apprecia- 
 tion by a stranger ; it is not a fluctuating savour like 
 that pervading the neighbourhood of Crosse and 
 Blackwell's, in Oxford Street, which is at one time 
 redolent of raspberries and another pungent with 
 mixed pickles ; summer and winter, spring and fall 
 alike, the same dyes, the same oil, and the same hor- 
 rible detergents are employed, and constitute a per- 
 manent, all-pervading effluvium, that clings to the 
 garment, the hair, the breath of the inhabitants, as the 
 savour of petroleum belongs to Baku, and the spice of 
 orange flowers and roses is appropriate to the Riviera. 
 
 Far away in the north-west, above the boundary 
 hill, the sky throbbed with light, from the iron fur- 
 naces seven miles distant, where the coal and iron were 
 dug out of the same beds, and the one served to fuse 
 the other, as in the human breast various qualities are 
 found which tend to temper, purify and turn to service 
 the one the other. The flames that leaped up from
 
 6o THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS, 
 
 the furnaces as thirsty rolling tongues were not 
 visible from the Keld-dale bottom under Mergatroyd, 
 but the reflection was spread over a wide tract of 
 cloud, and shone with rhythmetic flash, as an auroral 
 display. High up the river, at right angles to the 
 axis of the valley, stood a huge, gaunt, five-storied mill 
 for cloth and serge, commonly known as ' Mitchell's.' 
 Every window in Mitchell's mill was alight this night, 
 for it was running incessantly. Trade in cloth and 
 serge was brisk on account of the Franco-German 
 War. What is one man's loss is another man's gain ? 
 The rattle of guns in France produced the rattle of 
 the looms in Yorkshire; and every bullet put through 
 a Frenchman's or a German's uniform put a sovereign 
 into the pocket of a cloth-weaver in England. Such 
 is the law of equilibrium in Nature. 
 
 Business was brisk among the cloth-workers, but 
 slack among the linen-weavers ; the dead on the 
 battle-field were not buried in winding-sheets, least of 
 all in figured damasks. 
 
 An unusual downpour of rain had taken place, 
 lasting continuously forty - eight hours. The very 
 windows of heaven seemed to have been opened ; at
 
 ON THE TOWPATH. 6i 
 
 sunset the sky had partially cleared, but there were 
 still lumbering masses of cloud drifting over the face 
 of heaven, as icebergs detached from the mighty wall 
 of black vapour that still remained in the west, built 
 up half-way to the zenith over the great dorsal range, 
 a range that arrested the exhalations from the Atlantic 
 and condensed them into a thousand streams that 
 leaped in ' fosses,' and wriggled and dived among the 
 hills, and cleft themselves roads, to the east or to the 
 west, to reach the sea. 
 
 To-night the Keld was very full, so swollen as to 
 have overflowed, or rather to have dived under the 
 embankments, and to ooze up through the soil in all 
 directions in countless irrepressible springs, trans- 
 forming the paddocks into ponds, and the fields into 
 lagoons. 
 
 The towpath was the only walk that was not a 
 mass of mud or a sop of water. It ran well above the 
 level of the fields, and the rain that had fallen on it 
 had drained — or, as the local expression had it, 'siped' 
 away. 
 
 Along this towpath Jeremiah walked with his 
 hands behind his back, brooding over his difficulties,
 
 62 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 seeking a solution that escaped him. If he remained 
 silent, he must be content in a year or two to surrender 
 Salome to another. If he spoke, he might lose her 
 immediately and completely ; for were she to refuse 
 him she must at once withdraw from under his roof 
 and remain estranged from him permanently. 
 
 But — what if she were to accept him ? He who 
 was nearly thrice her age ? And what if, in the event 
 of her accepting him, her heart were to wake up and 
 love another? Had he any right to subject her to 
 such a risk, to impose on her such a trial ? Would 
 there not be a sacrifice of his own self-respect were he 
 to offer himself to her ? Would the love he would 
 demand of her, given hesitatingly, as a duty, forced 
 and uncertain, make up to him for the frank, ready, 
 spontaneous gush of love which surrounded him at 
 present ? 
 
 ' I am in a strait,' said Jeremiah Pennycomequick, 
 again. ' Would to Heaven that the decision were 
 taken out of my hands, and determined for me.' 
 
 He had reached the locks. They were fast shut, 
 and the man in charge was away, in his cottage across 
 the field ; there was no light shining from the window.
 
 ON THE TOW PATH. 63 
 
 He was asleep. No barges passed up and down at 
 night. His duties ended with the daylight. The field 
 he would have to cross next morning to the lock was 
 now submerged. Mr. Pennycomequick halted at the 
 locks, and stood looking down into the lower level, 
 listening to the rush of the water that was allowed to 
 flow through the hatch. He could just see, below in 
 the black gulf, a phosphorescent, or apparently phos- 
 phorescent, halo ; it was the foam caused by the fall 
 of the water-jet, reflecting the starlight overhead. 
 
 As Jeremiah thus stood, irresolute, looking at the 
 lambent dance of the foam, a phenomenon occurred 
 which roused his attention and woke his surprise. 
 
 The water in the canal, usually glassy and waveless, 
 suddenly rose, as the bosom rises at a long inhalation, 
 and rolled like a tidal wave over the top of the gates, 
 and fell into the gulf below with a startling crash, as 
 though what had fallen were lead, not water. 
 
 What was the cause of this ? Jeremiah had heard 
 that on the occasion of an earthquake such a wave 
 was formed in the sea, and rushed up the shore, with- 
 out premonition. 
 
 But he had felt no shock, and — really — a petty
 
 64 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 canal could hardly be supposed to act in such events 
 like the ocean. 
 
 Jeremiah turned to retrace his steps along the path ; 
 and he had not gone far before he saw something else 
 that equally surprised him. 
 
 In the valley, about two miles above, was, as already 
 said, Mitchell's Mill, lying athwart it, like a huge 
 stranded Noah's Ark. It had five stories, and in each 
 story were twenty windows on the long sides; that 
 made just one hundred windows towards the east, 
 towards Jeremiah ; one hundred yellow points of 
 light, against the sombre background of cloud that 
 enveloped the west. 
 
 The night was not absolutely dark ; there was some 
 light in the sky above the clouds from stars, and a 
 crescent moon, which latter was hidden, but it was 
 not sufficient to have revealed Mitchell's without the 
 illumination from within. Here and there a silvery 
 vaporous light fell through the interstices of the 
 clouds, sufficient to give perspective to the night 
 scene, insufficient to disclose anything. Now Mitchell's 
 was distinguishable as five superimposed rows of 
 twenty stars of equal size and lustre.
 
 ON THE TOW PATH. 65 
 
 All at once, suddenly as if a black curtain had 
 fallen over the scene, all these stars were eclipsed — 
 not one by one, not in rows, by turns, but altogether, 
 instantaneously and completely, snuffed out at one 
 snip, and with the extinction Mitchell's fell back into 
 the common obscurity, and was no more seen than if 
 it had been blotted out of existence. 
 
 ' Stopped !' exclaimed Mr. Pennycomequick in- 
 voluntarily. ' That is queer. I thought they were 
 at full-pressure, running night and day.' 
 
 What followed increased his perplexity. 
 
 He heard the steam whistle of Mitchells shrill forth 
 in palpitating, piercing call, not briefly, as if to give 
 notice that work was over, not peremptorily, as signal- 
 ling for a new batch of hands to replace such as were 
 released ; not insistingly, as calling out of sleep, but 
 with a prolonged and growing intensity, with full force 
 of steam, rising in volumes to the highest pitch, as 
 though Mitchell's great bulk were uttering a shriek of 
 infinite panic and acute pain. 
 
 And then, from the hillside, where stood another 
 mill, called Poppleton's, howled a ' syren ' — another 
 contrivance invented by a perverse ingenuity to create 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 the greatest possible noise of the worst possible 
 quality. 
 
 ' Surely there must be a fire,' said Jeremiah ; 'only 
 bless me ! I see no flames anywhere.' 
 
 Then he heard a tramp, the tramp of a galloping 
 horse, on the towpath, and he stood aside so as not 
 to be ridden over. A parting in the clouds let down 
 a soft gray light that made the surfaces of water into 
 sheets of steel, and converted the canal into a polished 
 silver skewer. Along, down the towpath, came the 
 horse. Jeremiah could just distinguish a black travel- 
 ling spot. He waited, and presently saw that a man 
 was riding and controlling the horse, and this man 
 drew rein somewhat as he saw Jeremiah, and hal- 
 looed, ' Get back ! get back ! Holroyd reservoir has 
 burst.' 
 
 Then along the towpath he continued at accelerated 
 speed, and disappeared in the darkness in the direction 
 of the locks. 
 
 The alarm bell on the roof of * Pennyquick's ' began 
 to jangle. The news had reached the night-watch, 
 and he was rousing the operatives who lived in the 
 mill-fold. Then the 'buzzer' of the yarn-spinning
 
 ON THE TOW PATH. 67 
 
 factory brayed, and the shoddy mill uttered a husky 
 hoot. Lights started up, and voices were audible, 
 shouting, crying. 
 
 What was to be done ? 
 
 Jeremiah Pennycomequick considered for a moment. 
 He knew what the bursting of the reservoir implied. 
 He knew that he had not time to retrace the path he 
 had taken to its junction with the road. He was at 
 that point where the valley expanded to its fullest 
 width, and where the greatest space intervened be- 
 tween him and the hillside. Here the level fields 
 were all under water, and before he could cross them, 
 wading, maybe to his knee, the descending wave 
 would be upon him. He looked towards the locks- 
 man's cottage ; that offered no security, even if he 
 could reach it in time, for it lay low and would be 
 immediately submerged. He turned, and ran down 
 the path towards the locks, and as he ran he heard 
 behind him — not the roar, for roar there was none, 
 but the rumble of the descending flood, like the 
 rumble and mutter of that vast crowd that swept 
 along the road from Paris to Versailles on the memor- 
 able fifth of October. Then a wet blast sprang up 
 
 5—2
 
 68 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 suddenly and rushed down the valley, swaying the 
 trees, and so chill that when it touched Jeremiah as 
 he ran, it seemed to penetrate to his bones and curdle 
 his blood. It was a blast that travelled with the 
 advancing volume of water, a little forestalling it, as 
 the lightning forestalls the thunder. 
 
 Mr. Pennycomequick saw before him the shelter- 
 hut of the locksman on the embankment, a shelter- 
 hut that had been erected as a protection against rain 
 and wind and frost. It was of brick, and the only 
 chance of escape that offered lay in a scramble to the 
 roof. 
 
 How mysterious is it with our wishes and our 
 prayers ! We labour for many a year with taut 
 nerve, and ambition keenly, unswervingly set on some 
 object. We hope for it, we entreat for it, and it is as 
 though the heavens were brass, and our prayers could 
 not pierce them, or as if it were indifferent to our 
 desires ; it is as though a perverse fate smote all our 
 efforts with paralysis, and took pleasure in thwarting 
 every wish, and frustrating every attempt to obtain 
 what we long for. At another time, hardly knowing 
 what we say, not calculating how what we ask may be
 
 ON THE TOW PATH. 69 
 
 accomplished, not lifting a little finger to advance its 
 fulfilment, we form a wish, vague and inarticulate, and 
 instantly, completely, in the way least expected, and 
 with a fulness hardly desired, the prayer is answered, 
 the wish is accomplished. 
 
 * Would to Heaven,' Jeremiah Pennycomequick had 
 said twice that night on the towpath, hardly meaning 
 what he said, saying it because he was in perplexity, 
 not because he desired extraneous help out of it ; 
 * Would to Heaven,' he had said, * that my course were 
 determined for me !' and at once, that same night, 
 within an hour, Heaven had responded to the call.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RIPE AND DROPPED. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom slept soundly, only troubled by 
 the mistake about the tablecloth. The captain slept 
 soundly, troubled by nothing at all. The scream of 
 steam-whistle, the bray of buzzer and bawl of syren, 
 the jangle of alarm bells, and the hum of voices out- 
 side their windows, did not rouse them. They had 
 become accustomed to these discordant noises which 
 startled the ears every morning early, to rouse the 
 mill-hands and call them from their beds. Moreover, 
 the whistles and buzzers and syrens were not in the 
 town, but were below in the valley, at some distance, 
 and distance modified some of the dissonance. 
 
 It is true that Mrs. Sidebottom dreamed, and to 
 dream is not to enjoy perfect rest. She dreamt that 
 her brother Jeremiah was examining the tablecloth,
 
 RIPE AND DROPPED. 71 
 
 and that she was dribbling water over the sheet out 
 of a marrow-spoon, in patterns, to give it an appear- 
 ance of being figured with acorns and oak-leaves. 
 And she found in her dreams that Jeremiah was hard 
 to persuade that what he had before him was a figured 
 damask tablecloth and not a sheet And she thought 
 how she assured her brother on her word that what 
 he saw was a watered table-cover, and mightily pleased 
 she was with herself at her ingenuity in equivoca- 
 tion. 
 
 But towards morning the house was roused by 
 violent ringing at the front-door bell, and by calls 
 under the windows, and gravel thrown at the panes. 
 The watchman had come, at Salome's desire, to 
 inquire if by chance Mr. Pennycomequick was there. 
 He had gone out, after his return home, and had not 
 returned or been seen. Fears were entertained that 
 he might have been swept away in the flood. 
 
 ' Flood ! what flood ?' asked Mrs. Sidebottom. 
 
 ' The valley is full of water. Holroyd reservoir be 
 busted.' 
 
 'And — Mr. Pennycomequick has not been seen .'*' 
 
 * No, ma'am. Miss Cusworth thought there might
 
 72 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 be a chance he had come back here and was staying 
 talking.' 
 
 ' He has not been here since he dined with us/ 
 
 * He said he was boun' to take a stroll on t' tow- 
 path. I see'd him there. If he's not got off it afore 
 the flood came down he's lost.' 
 
 * Lost ! Fiddlesticks ! I mean — bless my soul.' 
 Mrs. Sidebottom's heart stood still for a moment. 
 What ! Jeremiah ripe, and dropped from the tree 
 already. Jeremiah gone down the river with the 
 anges-d-cheval inside him that he had enjoyed so 
 recently. 
 
 She ran upstairs and hammered at her son's door. 
 His window looked out on the valley, not into the 
 street, and he had not been roused at the same time 
 as his mother. As she ran, the thought came to her 
 uncalled, like temptations, ' I needn't have had 
 champagne at six-and-six. It does not matter after 
 all that the sheet and the tablecloth changed places. 
 I might just as well have had cheap grapes.' 
 
 ' Lamb !' she called through the door, ' Lamb ! Do 
 get up. Your uncle is drowned. Slip into your 
 garments. He has been swept away by the flood.
 
 RIPE AND DROPPED. 73 
 
 Don't stay to shave, you shaved before dinner ; and 
 your prayers can wait. Do come as quickly as pos- 
 sible. Not a minute is to be lost.' 
 
 She opened his door, and saw her son with a dis- 
 ordered head and sleepy eyes, stretching himself. 
 He had tumbled out of his bed and into his dressing- 
 gown. There was gas in the room, turned down to a 
 pea when not required for light ; and this the captain, 
 when roused, had turned up again. 
 
 * Oh, Lamb! Do bestir yourself! Do you hear 
 that your uncle is dead, and that he has been carried 
 away by a flood? It is most advisable that we should 
 be in his house before the Cusworths or the servants 
 have made away with anything. These are the critical 
 moments, when things disappear and cannot be traced 
 afterwards. No one but the Cusworths know what 
 he had, there may be plate and jewellery that belonged 
 to his mother. I cannot tell. We do not know what 
 money there is in the house, and what securities he 
 has in his strong box. My dear Lamb ! Yes, brush 
 your hair, and don't look stupid. You may lose a 
 great deal by lack of promptitude. Of course we 
 must be in charge. The Cusworths have no /ocus
 
 74 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 standi. I shall dismiss them at the earliest con- 
 venience. Good gracious me, what things you men 
 are ! If you go to bed you get frouzy and rumpled 
 in a way women never do. I have noticed, in cross- 
 ing the Channel, how a man who gets sea-sick breaks 
 up altogether and becomes disreputable ; whereas a 
 woman may have been ten times as ill, yet when she 
 steps ashore she is decent and presentable. I can 
 wait for you no longer. I shall go on by myself 
 When you are ready, follow.' 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom ran back to her room, and was 
 equipped to start in an incredibly short time. When 
 she again came forth she looked into her son's room 
 once more, and said, ' I do hope and trust, Lamb^ that 
 your uncle took his keys with him. It w^ould be too 
 frightful to suppose that he had left them behind, and 
 that these Cusworths should have had the house to 
 themselves and the keys all this while.' 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom hastened to the residence of her 
 half-brother, which stood on the slope of the hill a 
 few minutes' walk from the factory. There was now 
 sufficient light for her to see that the whole basin of 
 the Keld was occupied by water, that not the fields
 
 RIPE AND DROPPED. 75 
 
 only, but the mill-yards as well were inundated. The 
 entire population of Mergatroyd was awake and afoot, 
 and giving tongue like a pack of beagles. The street 
 or road leading down the hill into the valley was 
 crowded with people, some hurrying down to the 
 water, others ascending, laden with goods from the 
 houses that had been invaded by water. The cottagers 
 in the bottom had escaped, or were being rescued. 
 What had become of the workers in Mitchell's no one 
 knew, and fears were entertained for them. The mill 
 itself stood above the water, but if the hands engaged 
 in it had attempted to leave it, they must have been 
 overtaken and carried away by the flood. Fortunately 
 the majority of the mills were nearer the hillsides 
 than Mitchell's, so that escape from them was com- 
 paratively easy. The rush of the torrent had been 
 along the course of the river and canal, and though 
 the water surged against the wall that enclosed the 
 mill-folds, and even entered the walls and swamped 
 the basements of the houses therein, it was with 
 reduced force. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom gave little attention to the scenes 
 of havoc, to the distress and alarm that prevailed.
 
 76 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 Her one dread was lest she should reach her brother's 
 house too late to prevent its pillage. 
 
 When she arrived there she found that Salome was 
 not in, that Mrs. Cusworth, a feeble and sickly woman, 
 was frightened and incapacitated from doing anything, 
 and that the servants were out in the streets. 
 
 * What made my brother go out ?' asked Mrs. Side- 
 bottom ; * why was he not in bed like a Christian ?' 
 
 ' He had been sitting up, talking with Salome,' 
 answered the widow, ' and as he had taken no exercise 
 for two days, and did not feel sleepy, he said he would 
 take a short walk.' 
 
 ' What keys has he left, and where are they ? I do 
 not mean the key of the groceries, or of the cellar, 
 but of his papers and cash-box.' 
 
 Mrs. Cusworth did not know. She had nothing to 
 do with these keys ; she supposed that Mr. Penny- 
 comequick carried them about with him. 
 
 ' Probably,' said Mrs. Sidebottom ; ' but gentlemen 
 when going out to dinner sometimes forget to take 
 the keys out of their pockets and put them in those 
 of the dress suit. I had a husband. He did it, and 
 many a lecture J have given him for his want of
 
 RIPE AND DROPPED. 77 
 
 prudence. Do you know where his everyday clothes 
 are ? I suppose he went abroad in his dress-coat and 
 smalls. I had better have a look and make sure.' 
 
 Mrs. Cusworth thought, in reply, that probably the 
 clothes would be found in Mr. Pennycomequick's bed- 
 room. 
 
 •There is a light in it, I suppose,' said his half- 
 sister. * By-the-way, who had charge of the plate ?' 
 
 * I have/ answered the widow. 
 
 * You have, then, the key of the plate-chest V 
 
 ' There is no plate-chest. There is a cupboard.' 
 
 ' Iron-plated ?' 
 
 ' Oh no ; there is no silver, or very little — only 
 some teaspoons, all the rest is electro. But do you 
 think, Mrs. Sidebottom, that dear Mr. Pennycome- 
 quick is — is lost V The widow's eyes filled and she 
 began to cry. 
 
 ' Lost ! oh, of course.' 
 
 * But we cannot tell, we do not know, but he may 
 have taken refuge somewhere.' 
 
 * P'iddlesticks — I mean, hardly likely. He was on 
 the towpath,''and there is no place of refuge he could 
 reach from that/
 
 78 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' Really dead ! really dead !^ The poor widow 
 broke down. 
 
 ' Dead, of course, he is dead, with all this water. 
 Bless me ! You would not call in the ocean to drown 
 him. I have known a case of a man in the prime of 
 life who was smothered in six inches.' 
 
 ' Yes, but he may have left the towpath in time, 
 and then, instead of returning home, have gone about 
 helping the poor creatures who have been washed out 
 of their houses, and some of them have not had time 
 to get into their clothes. It would be like his kind 
 heart to remain out all night rendering every assist- 
 ance in his power.' 
 
 ' The^e is something in that,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 
 and her face became slightly longer. ' He has not 
 been found.' 
 
 ' No, not yet.' 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom mused. 
 
 ' I don't see,' she said, ' how he can have got away 
 if he went on the towpath. I have heard he was 
 seen going on to it. The towpath is precisely where 
 the greatest danger lay. It is exactly there that the 
 current of the descending flood would reach what
 
 RIPE AND DROPPED. 79 
 
 you would call its maximum of velocity. Is not 
 Salome come in yet ? Why is she out ? What is she 
 doing ?' 
 
 Then in came her son, in trim order ; neither the 
 danger in which his uncle might be, nor his prospect 
 of inheriting that uncle's fortune, could induce Lam- 
 bert to appear partially dressed. His mother drew 
 him aside into the dining-room. 
 
 * Lambert,' she said, ' there is no plate. I am not 
 sorry for it, for if Jeremiah had laid out money 
 in buying silver, he would have gone in for King's 
 pattern, or Thread and Shell — which are both odious, 
 vulgar and ostentatious, only seen on the tables of 
 the nouvcaiix ricJies' 
 
 ' Is my uncle not returned ?' 
 
 ' No, Lamb ! and, there is a good soul, run down 
 the road, bestir yourself, and ascertain whether the 
 towpath, to which your uncle Jeremiah said he was 
 going, is really submerged, and to what depth, and 
 ascertain also at what rate the current runs, and 
 whether it is likely to subside. Mrs. Cusworth thinks 
 it not impossible that your uncle may be helping the 
 wretches who are getting out of their bedroom
 
 8o THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 windows, or arc perched on the roofs of their houses. 
 Oh, Lamb ! if your uncle were to turn up after the 
 agony of mind he has occasioned me, I could hardly 
 bear it ; I would go into hysterics. My dear Lamb ! 
 do keep that old woman talking whilst I run upstairs 
 to Jeremiah's dressing-room. I must get at his every- 
 day smalls, and see if he has left his keys in the 
 pocket ; men do such inconsiderate things. I must 
 do this as a precaution, you understand, lest the keys 
 should fall into improper hands, into the hands of 
 designing and unscrupulous persons, who have no 
 claim on my brother whatever, and no right to expect 
 more than a book or a teacup as a remembrancer. 
 Lamb ! it looks suspicious that Salome should keep 
 out of the way now. Goodness gracious ! what if she 
 has been beforehand with me, and is out concealing 
 the spoils ! Go, Lamb, make inquiries after your 
 uncle, and keep an eye open for Salome. The girl is 
 deep. I will go and search the pockets of your 
 uncle's panjams, pepper and salt ; I know them. We 
 must not put or allow temptations to lie in the way 
 of the unconscientious.'
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A COTTAGE PIANO. 
 
 Mr. Pennycomequick had but just reached the hut 
 of the keeper of the locks when he saw a great wave 
 rushing down on him. It extended across the valley 
 from bank to bank, it ovcrswept the raised sides of 
 canal and river, and confounded both together, and, 
 as if impelled by the antagonism of modern socialism 
 against every demarcation of property, caused the 
 hedges of the several fields and bounding walls to 
 disappear, engulfed or overthrown. 
 
 The hut was but seven feet high on one side and 
 six on the other, and was small — a square brick 
 structure with a door on one side and a wooden 
 bench on that toward the locks. Unfortunately the 
 hut had been run up on such economical principles 
 that the bricks were set on their narrow sides, instead 
 of being superimposed on their broad sides, and thus 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 made a wall of but two and a half inches thick, ill- 
 calculated to resist the impetus of a flood of water, 
 but serviceable enough for the purpose for which 
 designed — a shelter against weather. It was roofed 
 with sandstone slate at a slight incline. Fortunately 
 the door looked to the east, so that the current did 
 not enter and exert its accumulated strength against 
 the walls to drive them outwards. The door had 
 been so placed because the west wind was that which 
 brought most rain on its wings. 
 
 Jeremiah put a foot on the bench, and with an 
 alacrity to which he had long been a stranger, heaved 
 himself upon the roof of the shelter, not before the 
 water had smitten it and swirled about the base and 
 foamed over his feet. Had he not clung to the roof, 
 he would have been swept away. To the west the 
 darkness remained piled up, dense and undiluted, as 
 though the clouds there contained in them another 
 forty-eight hours of rain. A very Pelion piled on 
 Ossa seemed to occupy the horizon, but above this the 
 vault became gradually clearer, and the crescent moon 
 poured down more abundant light, though that was 
 not in itself considerable.
 
 A COTTAGE PIANO. 83 
 
 By this light Jeremiah could see how widespread 
 the inundation was, how it now filled the trough of 
 the Keld, just as it must have filled it in the remote 
 prehistoric age, when the western hills were sealed in 
 ice, and sent their frosty waters burdened with ice- 
 bergs down the valleys they had scooped out, and 
 over rocks which they furrowed in their passage. 
 
 Jeremiah looked at the lock-keeper's cottage, not 
 any longer as a possible place of refuge, but out of 
 compassion for the unfortunate man who was in it. 
 Not a sound issued thence ; not a light gave token 
 that he had been roused in time to effect his escape, 
 if only to the roof Probably, almost certainly, he and 
 his wife were floating as corpses in their little room 
 on the ground floor. 
 
 Away on the ridge to the north, yellow lights were 
 twinkling, and thence came sounds of life. The 
 steam calls had ceased to shrill ; they had done their 
 work. No one slept in Mergatroyd — no one in all 
 the towns, villages, and hamlets down the valley of 
 the Keld — any more that night, save those who, 
 smothered by the water, slept to wake no more. 
 
 Hard by the lock, growing out of the enbankment, 
 
 6—2
 
 84 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 Stood a Lombardy poplar. The sudden blast of 
 wind accompanying the water had twisted and 
 snapped it, but had not wholly severed the top from 
 the stump. It clung to this, attached by ligaments 
 of bark and fibres of wood. The stream caught at 
 the broken tree-top that trailed on the causeway, 
 shook it impatiently, dragged it along with it, ripped 
 more of the nerves that fastened it, and seemed 
 intent on carrying it wholly away. 
 
 Notwithstanding his danger and extreme discom- 
 fort, with his boots full of water, Jeremiah was unable 
 to withdraw his eyes for long from the broken tree, 
 the top of which whipped the base of his place of 
 refuge ; for he calculated whether, in the event of the 
 water undermining the hut, he could reach the stump 
 along the precarious bridge of the broken top. 
 
 But other objects presented themselves, gliding 
 past, to distract his mind from the tree. By the wan 
 and straggling light he saw that various articles of an 
 uncertain nature were being whirled past ; and the 
 very uncertainty as to what they were gave scope to 
 the imagination to invest them with horror. 
 
 For awhile the water roared over the sluice, but at
 
 A COTTAGE PIANO. 85 
 
 last the immense force exerted on the valves tore 
 them apart, wrenched one from its hinges, threw it 
 down, and the torrent rolled triumphantly over it ; it 
 did not carry the door off, which held still to its lower 
 hinge, at least for a time, though it twisted the iron 
 in its socket of stone. 
 
 The water was racing along, now noiselessly, but 
 with remorseless determination, throwing sticks, straw, 
 and then a drowned pig at the obstructive hut. At 
 one moment a boat shot past. If it had but touched 
 the hut, Jeremiah would have thrown himself into it, 
 and trusted that it would be stranded in shallow 
 water. He knew how insecure was the building that 
 sustained him. There was no one in the boat. It 
 had been moored originally by a rope, which was 
 snapped, and trailed behind it. 
 
 The moon flared out on the water, that looked like 
 undulating mercury, and showed a dimple on its 
 surface above the hut ; a dimple formed by the water 
 that was parted by the obstruction ; and about this 
 eddy sticks and strands were revolving. Then there 
 approached a cradle in which whimpered a babe. On 
 the cradle stood a cat that had taken refuge there
 
 86 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 from the water, when it found no other spot dry 
 for its feet. And now the cradle swung from side to 
 side, and as it tilted, the cat leaped to the upraised 
 side, mee-awing pitifully, and then, as the strange 
 boat lurched before a wave on the other side, the cat 
 skipped back again to where it was before, with tail 
 erect and plaintive cry, but, by its instinctive shiftings, 
 preserving the balance of the little craft. The cradle 
 was drawn down between the walls where the sluice 
 had been, and whether it passed in safety beyond, 
 Jeremiah could not see. 
 
 Now his attention was arrested by a huge black 
 object sailing down stream, reeling and spinning as it 
 advanced. What was it .'* A house lifted bodily and 
 carried along ? Jeremiah watched its approach with 
 uneasiness ; if it struck his brick hut it would pro- 
 bably demolish it. As it neared, however, he was 
 relieved to discover that it was a hayrick ; and on it, 
 skipping from side to side, much as the cat had skipped 
 on the cradle, he observed a fluttering white figure. 
 
 Now he saw that a chance offered better than that 
 of remaining on the fragile hut. The bricks would 
 give way, but the hayrick must float. If he could
 
 A COTTAGE PIANO. Sj 
 
 possibly swing himself on to the hay, he would be in 
 comparative safety, for it is of the nature of strong 
 currents to disembarrass themselves of the cumbrous 
 articles wherewith they have burdened themselves 
 and throw them away along their margins, strewing 
 with them the fields they have temporarily overflowed. 
 It was, however, difficult in the uncertain light to 
 judge distances, and calculate the speed at which the 
 floating island came on, and the rick struck the hut 
 before Jeremiah was prepared to leap. He, however, 
 caught at the hay, and tried to scramble into the rick 
 that overtopped him, when he was thrown down, 
 struck by the white figure that leaped ofl" the hay and 
 tumbled on the roof, over him. In another instant, 
 before Jeremiah could recover his feet, the rick had 
 made a revolution and was dancing down the stream, 
 leaving a smell of hay in his nose, and the late tenant 
 of the stack sprawling at his side. 
 
 'You fool !' exclaimed Mr. Pennycomequick 
 angrily, ' what have you come here for ?' 
 
 'I could hold on no longer. I was giddy. I 
 thought there was safety here.' 
 
 ' Less chance here than on the rick you have
 
 SS THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 deserted. You have spoiled your own chance of life 
 and mine.' 
 
 * I'm starved wi' caud,' moaned the half-naked man, 
 ' I left my bed and got through t'door as t'water 
 came siping in, and I scram'led up on to t'rick. I 
 never thovvt t'rick would ha' floated away.' 
 
 *Here, then,' said Jeremiah, removing his great 
 coat, but with a bad grace, * take this.' 
 
 ' That's better,' said the man, without a word of 
 thanks, as he slipped into the warm overcoat. ' Eh ! 
 now,' said he, ' if t^vere nobbut for the way t'rick 
 spun aboot, I could na' ha' stuck there. I wouldn't 
 ha' gone out o' life, spinning like a skoprill ' (tee- 
 totum), ' not on no account ; I'd a-gone staggering 
 into t'other world, and ha' been took for a drunkard, 
 and I'm a teetotaler, have been these fifteen years. 
 Fifteen years sin' I took t'pledge, and never bust out 
 but once.' 
 
 ' You have water enough to satisfy you now,' said 
 Jeremiah grimly. 
 
 * Dost'a want to argy ?' asked tne man. * Becos if 
 so, I'm the man for thee, Peter — one, three, twenty, 
 what dost'a say to that, eh ?'
 
 A COTTAGE PIANO. 89 
 
 Jeremiah was in no mood to argue, nor was the time 
 or place suitable ; but not so thought this fanatic, to 
 whom every time and place was appropriate for a dis- 
 pute about alcohol. 
 
 'I wonder whether the water is falling,' said the 
 manufacturer, drawing himself away from his com- 
 panion and looking over the edge into the current. 
 He saw apples, hundreds of apples swimming past ; a 
 long wavering line of them coming down the stream, 
 like migrating ants, or a Rechabite procession, turn- 
 ing over, bobbing, but all in sequence one behind the 
 other. By daylight they would have resembled a 
 chain of red and yellow beads, but now they showed 
 as jet grains on silver. They had come, no doubt, 
 from a farmer's store or out of a huckster's cart. 
 
 Jeremiah leaned over the eave of the hut to test the 
 distance of the water ; then caught an apple and threw 
 it on the roof, whence it rolled over and rejoined the 
 procession on the further side. 
 
 ' 'Tis a pity now,* muttered the man in nightshirt 
 and topcoat, "tis a pity aboot my bullock, I were 
 bown to sell'n a Friday/ 
 
 Suddenly Jeremiah recoiled from his place, for,
 
 90 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 dancing on the water was a human body, a woman, 
 doubtless, for there was a kerchief about the head, and 
 in the arms a child, also dead. The woman's eyes 
 were open, and the moon glinted in the whites. They 
 seemed to be looking and winking at Jeremiah. 
 Then a murky wave washed over the face, like a hand 
 passed over it, but it did not close the eyes, which 
 again glimmered forth. Then, up rose the corpse, 
 lifted by the water, but seeming to struggle to gain its 
 feet. It was caught in that swirl, that dimple Jere- 
 miah had noticed on the face of the flood above his 
 place of refuge. 
 
 How cruel the current was ! Not content with 
 drowning human beings, it romped with them after 
 the life was choked out of them, it played with them 
 ghastly pranks. The undercurrent sucked the body 
 back, and then rah it against the bricks, using it as a 
 battering-ram. Then it caught the head of the poplar 
 and whipped the corpse with it, as though whipping 
 it on to its work which it was reluctant to perform. 
 The manufacturer had gone out that night with his 
 umbrella, and had carried it with him to the roof of 
 the hut. Now with the crook he sought to disengage
 
 A COTTAGE PIANO. 91 
 
 the dead woman and thrust her away from the wall 
 into the main current ; he could not endure to see 
 the body impelled headlong aj^ainst the bricks. 
 
 'What art a' doing?' asked the man, also looking 
 over. Then, after a moment he uttered a cry, drew 
 back, clasped his hands, then looked again, and again 
 exclaimed : ' Sho's my own lass, and sho's a hugging 
 my bairn 1' 
 
 ' What do you mean ?' 
 
 ' It's my wife, eh ! 'tis a pity.' 
 
 Mr. Pennycomequick succeeded in disengaging the 
 corpse and thrusting it into the stream ; it was caught 
 and whirled past. The man looked after it, and 
 moaned. 
 
 ' It all comes o' them fomentations,' he said. 
 
 * Sho'd bad pains aboot her somewhere or other, and 
 owd Nan sed sho'd rub in a penn'orth o' whisky. I 
 was agin it, I was agin it — my mind misgave me, and 
 now sho's taken and I'm left, 'cos I had nowt to do 
 wi' it.' 
 
 ' You may as well prepare to die,' said Jeremiah, 
 
 * whisky or no whisky. This hut will not stand much 
 longer.'
 
 92 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 « 
 
 ' I shudn't mind so bad if I'd sold my bullock,' 
 
 t,^roancd the man. ' I had an offer, but, like a fool, I 
 didn't close. Now I'm boun' to lose everything. 'Tis 
 vexing.' 
 
 Just then a heavy object was driven against the 
 wall, and shook the hut to its foundations, shook it so 
 that one of the stone slates was dislodged and fell into 
 the water. Jeremiah leaned over the eaves and looked 
 again. He could make out that some piece of furni- 
 ture, what he could not distinguish, was thrust against 
 the wall of the hut. He saw two legs of turned 
 mahogany, with brass castors at the ends that glis- 
 tened in the moonlight. They were about four feet 
 and a half apart, and supported what might be a 
 table or secretaire. The rushing water drove these 
 legs against the wall, and the castors ran and felt 
 about the bricks as groping for a weak joint where 
 they might knock a hole through. Then, all at once, 
 the legs drew or fell back, and as they did so the 
 upper portion of the piece of furniture opened and 
 disclosed white and black teeth, in fact, revealed a 
 keyboard. This was but for a moment, then the in- 
 strument was heaved up by a wave, the lid closed over
 
 A COTTAGE PIANO. 93 
 
 the keys, and the two brass-armed legs were again 
 impelled against the fragile wall. 
 
 It is hardly to be wondered at that the ancients 
 attributed living souls to streams and torrents, or 
 peopled their waves with mischievous nixes, for they 
 act at times in a manner that seems fraught with in- 
 telligence. It was so now. Here was this hut, an 
 obstruction to the flood, feeble in itself, yet capable 
 of resisting its first impetus, and likely to defy it al- 
 together. The water alone could not dissolve it, so it 
 had called other means and engines of destruction to 
 its aid. At first, in a careless, thoughtless fashion, it 
 had thrown a dead pig against it, then the corpse of a 
 woman weighted with her dead babe ; and now, 
 having cast these away as unprofitable tools, it 
 brought up, at great labour — a cottage piano. A 
 piano is perhaps the heaviest and most cumbrous 
 piece of furniture that the flood could have selected, 
 and, on the whole, the best adapted to serve its pur- 
 pose, as the deceased pig was the least. What force 
 it must have exerted to bring up this instrument, 
 what judgment it must have employed in choosing 
 it ! And what malignity there was in the flood in its
 
 94 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 persistent efforts to break down the frail substructure 
 on which stood the two men ! The iron framework 
 of the instrument in the wooden back was under 
 water, the base with the pedals rested against the 
 foot of the hut. The water driving at the piano thus 
 lodged, partially heaved it, as though a shoulder had 
 been submitted to the back of the instrument, and 
 thus the feet were driven with sharp, impatient strokes 
 against the bricks. Moreover, every time that the 
 piano fell back, the lid over the keys also fell back, 
 and the white line of keys laughed out in the moon- 
 light. But whenever the wave heaved up the piano, 
 then the lid fell over them. It was horrible to watch 
 the piano labouring as a willing slave to batter down 
 the wall, as it did so opening and shutting its mouth, 
 as though alternately gasping for breath and then 
 returning to its task with grim resolution. 
 
 The moon was now disentangled from cloud ; it 
 shone with sharp brilliancy out of a wide tract of 
 cold gray sky, and the light was reflected by the 
 teeth of the keyboard every time they were disclosed. 
 Hark ! The clock of Mergatroyd church struck three. 
 The dawn would not break for two or three hours.
 
 A COTTAGE PIANO. 95 
 
 ' I say, art a minister ?' suddenly asked the man 
 in a nightshirt and great-coat. 
 
 * No ; I am not,' answered the manufacturer im- 
 patiently. * Never mind what I am. Help me to get 
 rid of this confounded cottage-piano.' 
 
 ' There, there !^ exclaimed the man ; ' now thou'rt 
 swearing when thou ought to be praying. Why dost'a 
 wear a white tie and black claes if thou ba'nt a 
 minister ? Thou might as weel wear a blue ribbon 
 and be a drunkard.' 
 
 Mr. Pennycomequick did not answer the fellow. 
 The man was crouched in squatting posture on the 
 roof, holding up one foot after another from the cold 
 slates that numbed them. His nightshirt hung as a 
 white fringe below his great-coat. To the eye of an 
 entomologist, he might have been taken for a gigantic 
 specimen of the Camberwell Beauty. 
 
 ' If thou'd 'a been a minister, I'd 'a sed nowt. As 
 thou'rt not, I knaw by thy white necktie thou must 'a. 
 been awt to a dancing or a dining soiree. And it were 
 all along of them soirees that the first Flood came. 
 We knaws it fra' Scriptur', t'folkes were eatin' and 
 drinkin'. If they'd been drinkin' water, it hed never
 
 96 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 'a come. What was t'Flood sent for but to wash out 
 alcohol ? and it's same naavv.' 
 
 Mr. Pennycomequick paid no heed to the man ; he 
 was anxiously watching the effect produced by the 
 feet of the piano on the walls. 
 
 ' It was o' cause o' these things the world was 
 destroyed in the time o' Noah, all but eight persons 
 as wore the blue ribbon.' 
 
 Again the forelegs of the piano crashed against the 
 bricks, and now dislodged them, so that the water 
 tore through the opening made. 
 
 ' There's Scriptur' for it,' pursued the fellow. ' Oh, 
 I'm right ! but my toes are mortal could. Don't we 
 read that Noah and his family was saved by water ? 
 Peter, one, two, three, twenty — answer me that. 
 That's a poser for thee — saved because they was 
 teetotalers.' 
 
 At that moment part of the wall gave way, and 
 some of the roof fell in. 
 
 ' Our only chance is to reach the poplar-stump, 
 said Jeremiah. ' Come along with me.' 
 
 ' Nay, not I,' answered the man. ' The ships o' 
 Tarshish was saved because Jonah was cast overboard.
 
 A COTTAGE PIANO. 97 
 
 Go, then, and I'll stay here and be safe. I'll no be 
 any mair i' t' same box wi' an alcohol-drinker.' 
 
 He drew up his feet under him, and put his fingers 
 into his mouth to warm them. 
 
 Mr. Pennycomequick did not delay to use persua- 
 sion. If the man was fool enough to stay, he must 
 stay. He slipped off the top of the hut, and planted 
 one foot on the piano, then the other ; his only chance 
 was to reach the broken poplar, scramble up it, and 
 lodge in its branches till morning. To do this he 
 must reach it by the broken top that at present was 
 caught between the legs of the piano, so that the 
 water brushed up over the twigs. Jeremiah sprang 
 among the boughs, and tried to scramble along it. 
 Probably his additional weight was all that was 
 required to snap the remaining fibres that held the 
 portions together, for hardly was Mr. Pennycome- 
 quick on it than the strands yielded, and down past 
 the crumbling hut rushed the tree-top, laden with its 
 living burden, entangled, laced about with the whip- 
 like branches, and as he passed he saw the frail struc- 
 ture dissolve like a lump of sugar in boiling water 
 and disappear. 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TAKING POSSESSION. 
 
 The valley of the Keld for many miles above and 
 below Mergatroyd presented a piteous spectacle when 
 day dawned. The water had abated, but was not 
 drained away. The fields were still submerged. 
 Factories stood as stranded hulls amidst shallow 
 lagoons, and were inaccessible, their fires extinguished, 
 their mechanism arrested, their stores spoiled. The 
 houses in the ' folds ' were deserted, or were being 
 cleared of their inhabitants * From the windows of 
 some of these houses men and women were leaning 
 and shouting for help. They had been caught by the 
 
 * For the enlightenment of the uninitiated it will be as well to 
 describe a fold. About some mills are yards, and the enclosing 
 walls of these yards form the backs of cottages facing inwards 
 on the mill, which are occupied by operatives working in the 
 factory.
 
 TAKING POSSESSION. 99 
 
 water, which invaded the lower story, locally called 
 the * ha'ase/ when asleep in the bedrooms overhead, 
 and now, hungry and cold and imprisoned, they 
 clamoured for release. Boats were scarce. Such as 
 had been possessed by manufacturers and others had 
 been kept by the river, and these had been broken 
 from their moorings and carried away. Rafts were 
 extemporized out of doors and planks; and as the 
 water was shallow and still in the folds, they served 
 better than keels. One old woman had got into a 
 * peggy ' tub and launched herself in it, to get stranded 
 in the midst of a wide expanse of water, and from her 
 vessel she screamed to be helped, and dared not 
 venture to move lest she should upset her tub and be 
 shot out. 
 
 Not many lives, apparently, had been lost in the 
 parish of Mergatroyd. Mr. Pennycomequick was 
 missing, and the man at the locks with his wife had 
 not been seen, and their cottage was still inaccessible. 
 But great mischief had been wrought by the water. 
 Not only had the stores in the mills been damaged, 
 and the machinery injured by water and grit getting 
 into it, and boilers exploded by the shock, but also 
 
 7—2
 
 loo THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 because the swirl of the torrent had disturbed the 
 subsoil of gravel and undermined the walls. Fissures 
 formed with explosions like the report of guns ; one 
 chimney that had leaned before was now so inclined 
 and overbalanced that its fall was inevitable, and was 
 hourly expected. 
 
 All the gas jets fed from the main that descended 
 into the valley were extinguished, and it was apparent 
 that the rush of water had ploughed up the ground to 
 the depths of the main, and had ruptured it. Walls 
 that had run across the direction of the stream had 
 been thrown over ; the communication between the 
 two sides of the valley was interrupted. It was un- 
 certain whether the bridge was still in existence. The 
 railway had been overflowed, and the traffic stopped. 
 The canal banks and locks had suffered so severely 
 that it would be useless for the barges for many months. 
 
 Tidings arrived during the day from the upper 
 portion of the valley, and it appeared that the destruc- 
 tion of life and property had been greatest where the 
 wave burst out from between the confining hills, before 
 it had space in which to spread, and in spreading to 
 distribute its force. Heartrending accounts came in,
 
 TAKING POSSESSION. loi 
 
 some true, some exaggerated, some false, but all 
 believed. 
 
 That night of terror and ruin did not see the 
 roll of death made up. Such catastrophes have far- 
 reaching effects. The wet, the exposure, the shock, 
 were sure to produce after-sickness and succeeding 
 mortality. 
 
 With ready hospitality, the parsonage, the inns, the 
 houses of the well-to-do, were thrown open to receive 
 those temporarily homeless, and food, warmth and 
 clothing were forced upon them. But such as were 
 received felt that they could not protract their stay 
 and burden unduly their hosts, and insisted on return- 
 ing prematurely to their sodden houses, there to 
 contract rheumatic fevers and inflammations. 
 
 Twenty years ago, the author of this story wrote an 
 account of such a disaster in a novel, the first on which 
 he essayed his pen. Time has rolled away, and like 
 the flood, has buried much ; and amongst the things 
 it has swept off and sunk in oblivion is that book. 
 Probably not a dozen copies of it exist. He may now 
 be permitted to repeat what was there written, when 
 the impression produced by the cataclysm was fresh
 
 I02 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 and vivid ; and let not the rare possessor of the lost 
 novel charge him with plagiarism if he repeats some- 
 thing of his former description. 
 
 Near the spot where the Keld left the hills had 
 stood a public-house called the Horse and Jockey. 
 The full violence of the descending wave fell on it 
 and effaced it utterly. The innkeeper's body was 
 never found ; the child's cradle, with the child in it, 
 had gone down the stream, kept from overbalancing 
 by the kitchen cat, and so escaped destruction. The 
 beer casks floated ashore some miles down, were never 
 claimed, and were tapped and drunk dry by some 
 roughs. The sign of Horse and Jockey came to land 
 twenty miles away, unhurt ; it was the most worthless 
 article the house had possessed. About a mile and a 
 half above Mergatroyd was a row of new cottages, 
 lately erected on money borrowed from a building 
 society. They were of staring red brick, with sand- 
 stone heads to doors and windows ; the flood carried 
 away three out of the four. 
 
 In the first lived a respectable wool-picker with wife 
 and children, all Wesleyans. He and his wife and 
 child were swept from life in a moment, and supplied
 
 TAKING POSSESSION. 103 
 
 the preacher at their chapel with a topic for his next 
 Sunday's discourse. 
 
 In the second Hved a widow, who sold 'spice,' that 
 is to say, sweets, together with sundry articles in the 
 grocery line ; a mighty woman, rotund and red, with 
 a laugh and a joke for everyone ; a useful woman to 
 mothers in their troubles, and to children with the 
 toothache, whooping cough, and other maladies. 
 Black bottle and peppermint drops, Mother Bunch's 
 syrup, soothing powders, porous plasters, embroca- 
 tions, and heal-alls various, and of various degrees of 
 mischievousness, were her specifics, and when the 
 doses were nasty her lemon-drops and sugar-candy 
 were freely given to cleanse the mouth of the taste of 
 medicine. Now, she was gone down the river, her 
 lollipops dissolved, her medicines dispersed. Away 
 she had gone, floundering and spluttering, till her 
 lungs were filled with the fluid she involuntarily im- 
 bibed, and then she sank and was caught among 
 some sunken tree-snags, and her body was afterwards 
 recovered from among them. 
 
 In the third cottage resided a musical shoemaker, a 
 man with one love, and that the love of his bass viol.
 
 I04 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 A wiry, solemn man, greatly in request at all concerts, 
 able to conduct a band, or take almost any instrument 
 himself, but loving best — a viol. 
 
 Now, he was gone, and grit had been washed into 
 the sacred case of the cherished instrument, ruined 
 along with its master. 
 
 In the last cottage of the row lived a drunken, good- 
 for-noihing fellow, who did odd jobs of work ; a fellow 
 who had driven his own wife with her bairns from the 
 house, and lived with another woman, as intemperate 
 as himself, and with a mouth as foul as his own. This 
 house and those within were spared. 
 
 ' Well, now,' said an elder to the preacher, after the 
 sermon at Providence Chapel next Sunday, ' ah, did 
 think thou wer't boun' to justify the ways o' Provi- 
 dence.' 
 
 * So I would if I could,' answered the preacher, 
 ' but they b'aint justifiable.' 
 
 Where the folds and fields were not too deep in 
 water, lads waded, collecting various articles that had 
 drifted no one knew whence. Some oranges lodged 
 in a corner were greedily secured and sucked. One 
 man ran about displaying a laced lady's boot at the
 
 TAKING POSSESSION. 105 
 
 end of a walking-stick, which boot had been carried 
 into his kitchen, and was useless unless he could dis- 
 cover the fellow. There was much merriment in 
 spite of disaster. Yorkshire folk must laugh what- 
 ever happens, and jokes were bandied to and fro 
 between those who rowed and waded and those who 
 were prisoners in their upper chambers. 
 
 The pariahs of society were alive to their oppor- 
 tunities, and were descending the stream, claiming 
 everything of value that was found as being their 
 own lost property. In many cases their claims were 
 allowed ; in others the finder of some article, rather 
 than surrender it to a man whom he suspected, would 
 cast it back into the water and bid him go further to 
 recover it. 
 
 A higher type of pariah started subscriptions for 
 the sufferers, and took many a toll on the sums accu- 
 mulated for the purpose of relieving the distress. 
 
 What had become of Mr. Pennycomequick ? That 
 was the question in every mouth in Mergatroyd. 
 Salome knew that he had left the house just after 
 midnight to take a walk by the canal, and the watch- 
 man had seen him a little later on the towpath.
 
 io6 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 Since then he had not been seen at all. It was pro- 
 bable that, hearing the alarm signals, he might have 
 taken refuge somewhere ; but where ? That depended 
 on where he was when the alarm was given. If he 
 had ascended the canal he might have made his way 
 into Mitchell's mill ; that was a hope soon dispelled, 
 for news came that he had not been seen there. If 
 he had descended the canal it was inconceivable that 
 he could have escaped, as there was no place of refuge 
 to which he could have flown. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom had not a shadow of doubt that 
 Jeremiah was dead. Not dead ! Fiddlesticks ! Of 
 course he was dead. She acted on this conviction. 
 She moved into her half-brother's house. It would 
 not do, she argued, to leave it unprotected to be 
 pillaged by those Cusworths. A death demoralized 
 a house. It was like the fall of a general, all order, 
 respect for property, sense of duty, ceased. Lambert 
 should remain at home, where he had his comforts, 
 his own room, and his clothes. There was no neces- 
 sity for his moving. 
 
 * Besides,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, * I could never 
 trust a man, especially with women. Talk of men
 
 TAKING POSSESSION. 107 
 
 as lords of creation ! Why, they are wheedled and 
 humbugged by women with the greatest facility. If 
 Lambert were here, the Cusworths, the maids, would 
 sack the house under his nose, and he perceive nothing. 
 I know how it was when I was newly married. Then, 
 if anything went wrong among my domestics I sent 
 Sidebottom down the kitchen-stairs to them. He 
 returned crestfallen and penitent, convinced that he 
 had wrongfully accused them, and that he was him- 
 self, in some obscure manner, to blame.' 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom gave orders that her brother's 
 room should be made ready for her. 
 
 ' Uncle Jeremiah's room, mother !' exclaimed Lam- 
 bert, in astonishment. 
 
 ' Of course,' answered she. ' I am not going to 
 leave that un watched ; why, that is the focus and 
 centre of everything. What do I care if they steal 
 the sugar, and pull some of the French plums out of 
 the bag in the store-closet .'* I must sit at nfy post, 
 keep my hand on the strong box and the bureau.' 
 
 ' But suppose Uncle Jeremiah were to return .''' 
 
 * He won't return. He cannot. He is drowned.' 
 
 * But the body has not been recovered.'
 
 io8 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' Nor will it be ; it has been washed down into the 
 ocean.' 
 
 * Rather you than I sleep in his room/ said Lambert. 
 After a sh'ght hesitation Mrs. Sidebottom said, in a 
 
 low, confiding tone, * I have found his keys. He left 
 them in his dress-coat pocket. Now you see the 
 necessity there is for me to be on the spot. I must 
 have a search for the will.' Then she drew a long 
 breath, and said, ' Now, Lamb, there is some chance 
 of my heart's desire being accomplished. You will 
 be able to drop one of your «'s.' 
 
 ' Drop what, mother ?' 
 
 ' Drop one of the ;/'s in the spelling of your name. 
 I have never liked the double n in Pennycomequick. 
 It will seem more distinguished to spell the name 
 with one 7i.' 
 
 The captain yawned and walked to the door. 
 
 ' That is all one to me. I don't suppose that one ;/ 
 will bring me more money than two. By the way, 
 have you written to Philip ?' 
 
 * Philip !' echoed Mrs. Sidebottom. * Of course not. 
 This is no concern of his. If he grumbles, we can 
 say that we hoped against hope, and did not like to
 
 TAKING POSSESSION. 109 
 
 summon him till we were sure poor Jeremiah was no 
 more. No, Lamb, we do not want Philip here, and 
 if he comes he will find nothing to his advantage. 
 Jeremiah very properly would not forgive his father, 
 and he set us all an example, for in this nineteenth 
 century we are all too disposed to leniency. I shall 
 certainly not write to Philip.' 
 
 * I beg your pardon/ said Salome, who at this 
 juncture appeared at the door. ' Were you mention- 
 ing Mr. Philip Pennycomequick .?' 
 
 * Yes, I was,' answered Mrs. Sidebottom shortly. 
 Salome stood in the doorway, pale, with dark 
 
 hollows about her eyes, and looking worn and 
 harassed. She had been up and about all the night 
 and following day. 
 
 * Were you speaking about sending for Mr. Philip 
 Pennycomequick .''' she asked. 
 
 ' We were mentioning him ; hardly yet considering 
 about sending for him,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 
 
 * Because,' said Salome, ' I have telegraphed for 
 him. I thought he ought to be here.'
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IN ONE COMPARTMENT. 
 
 In a second-class carriage on the Midland line sat a 
 gentleman and a lady opposite each other. He was 
 a tall man, and was dressed in a dark suit with a 
 black tie. His face had that set controlled look 
 which denotes self-restraint and reserve. The lips 
 were thin and closed, and the cast of the features was 
 stern. The eyes, large and hazel, were the only 
 apparently expressive features he possessed. There 
 is nothing that so radically distinguishes those who 
 belong to the upper and cultured classes from such as 
 move in the lower walks of life as this restraint of the 
 facial muscles. It is not the roughness of the hand 
 that marks off the manual worker from the man who 
 walks in the primrose path of ease, but the cast of 
 face, and that is due in the latter to the constant
 
 IN ONE COMPARTMENT. iii 
 
 inexorable enforcement of self-control. In the com- 
 plexity of social life it is not tolerable that the face 
 should be the index of the mind. Social intercourse 
 demands disguise, forbids frankness, which it resents 
 as brusquerie, and the child from infancy is taught to 
 acquire a mastery over expression. As the delicate 
 hand-artificer has to obtain complete control over 
 every nerve of his hand, so as to make no slurs or 
 shakes, so also has the man admitted into the social 
 guild to hold every muscle of his face in rigid discipline. 
 This is specially the case with the priest and the 
 lawyer and the doctor. Conceive what a hitch would 
 ensue in conversation should the lady of the house 
 allow a visitor to discern in the countenance that she 
 was unwelcome, or for a man of taste to allow his 
 contempt to transpire when shown by an amateur his 
 artistic failures, or for the host to wince when an 
 incautious guest has exposed the family skeleton ! 
 It is said that the late Lady Beaconsfield endured her 
 finger to be jammed in the carriage-door without 
 wince or cry, and continued listening or pretending 
 to listen to her husband's conversation whilst driving 
 to the House. All members of the cultured classes
 
 112 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 are similarly trained to smile and not change colour, 
 to listen, perhaps to sing, when pinched and crushed 
 and trodden on and in torture. Would a priest be 
 endured in his parish if he did not receive every insult 
 with a smile, or a barrister gain his cause if he suffered 
 his face to proclaim his disbelief in its justice, or a 
 doctor keep his patients if his countenance revealed 
 what he thought of their complaints ? 
 
 If we turn over the Holbein collection of portraits 
 of the Court of Henry VHI. we see among princes 
 and nobles the same faces that we 6nd now in farm- 
 houses and factories. The Wars of the Roses had 
 dissolved all restraints, and men of the first Tudor 
 reigns were the undisciplined children of an age of 
 domestic anarch)^ But it was otherwise later. The 
 portraits of Van Dyck and Lely show us gentlemen 
 and ladies of perfect dignity and self-restraint. 
 
 What is also remarkable is that each age in the 
 past seems to have had its typal cast of countenance 
 and form of expression. The cavaliers of Charles I. 
 have their special characteristics that distinguish them 
 as much from the courtiers of Elizabeth as from those 
 of Charles H. With Queen Anne another phase of
 
 IN ONE COMPARTMENT. 113 
 
 portraiture set in, because the faces were different, 
 and again in the Hanoverian period how unlike were 
 the gentlemen of the Regency from those of the first 
 Georges ! Difference in dress does not explain this 
 difference of face. The men and women in each 
 epoch had their distinct mode of thought, fashion in 
 morals and manners, and the face accommodated 
 itself to these. 
 
 And at the present day that which cleaves class 
 from class is the mode of thought in each, the rule o( 
 association that governs intercourse in their several 
 planes ; and these affect the character of face in each, 
 so that the classes are distinguished by their counte- 
 nances as they were by ages in the past. 
 
 When collier Jack calls bargee Jim a blackguard, 
 Jim replies with a curse on the collier's eyes, which 
 he damns to perdition. But if collier Jack says the 
 same thing to gentleman Percy, the latter raises his 
 hat, bows, and passes on. 
 
 Education,if complete, does not merely sharpen the 
 intellect and refine the manners, but it gives such a 
 complete polish that affronts do not dint or adhere ; 
 they glide off instead, leaving no perceptible trace of 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 impact. To the outward appearance, Christianity and 
 culture produce an identical result, but only in outward 
 appearance, for the former teaches the control of the 
 emotions, whereas the latter merely forbids their 
 expression. 
 
 The face of the gentleman who sat opposite this 
 lady in the carriage was an intelligent, even clever 
 face, but was somewhat hard. He looked at his com- 
 panion once when he entered the carriage, hesitating 
 whether to enter, and then glanced round to see 
 whether there was another passenger in the compart- 
 ment before he took a seat. There was at the time 
 an elderly gentleman in the carriage, and this decided 
 him to set his valise and rugs on the seat, and finally 
 to take his place in the corner. If he had not seen 
 that elderly man, with the repugnance single gentle- 
 men so generally entertain against being shut in with 
 a lady unattended, especially if young and pretty, he 
 would have gone elsewhere. Where the carcase is 
 there will the vultures gather. That is inevitable ; 
 but no sane dromedary will voluntarily cast himself 
 into a cage with vultures. 
 
 The old gentleman left after a couple of stages, and
 
 IN ONE COMPARTMENT. 115 
 
 then, for the rest of the journey, these two were 
 enclosed together. As the man left, Philip looked out 
 after him, with intent to descend, remove his baggage, 
 and enter the next compartment, before or behind ; 
 but saw that one was full of sailor boys romping, and 
 the other with a family that numbered among it a 
 wailing baby. He therefore drew back, with dis- 
 content at heart, and all his quills ready to bristle at 
 the smallest attempt of the lady to draw him into 
 conversation. 
 
 The train was hardly in movement before that 
 attempt was made. 
 
 ' You are quite welcome to use my footwarmer,' she 
 said. 
 
 'Thank you, my feet are not cold,' was the ungracious 
 reply. 
 
 ' I have had it changed twice since I left town,' she 
 pursued, ' so that it is quite hot. The porters have 
 been remarkably civil, and the guard looks in occasion- 
 ally to see that I am comfortable.' 
 
 * In expectation of a tip/ thought the gentleman, 
 but he said nothing. 
 
 * The French arc believed to be the politest people
 
 ii6 THE PEXNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 in the world,' continued the lady, not yet discouraged, 
 ' but I must say that the English railway porter is far 
 in advance of the French one. On a foreign line you 
 are treated as a vagabond, on the English as a 
 guest.' 
 
 Still he said nothing. The lady cast an almost 
 appealing glance at him. She had travelled a long 
 way for a great many hours, and was weary of her 
 own company. She longed for a little conversation. 
 
 * I cannot read in the train,' she said plaintively, 
 * it makes me giddy, and — I started yesterday from 
 home.' 
 
 ' In-deed,' said he in dislocated syllables. He quite 
 understood that a hint had been conveyed to him, but 
 he was an armadillo against hints. 
 
 The pretty young lady had not opened the conver- 
 sation, if that can be called conversation which is one- 
 sided, without having observed the young man's face, 
 and satisfied herself that there was no more impro- 
 priety in her talking to one of so staid an air than if 
 he had been a clergyman. 
 
 * What a bear this man is !' she thought. 
 
 He on his side said to himself, ' A forward missie !
 
 IN ONE COMPARTMENT. 117 
 
 I wish I were in a smoking-carriage, though I detest 
 the smell of tobacco.' 
 
 Pretty — uncommonly pretty the little lady was, with 
 perfectly made clothes. The fit of the gown and the 
 style of theTbonnet proclaimed French make. She 
 had lovely golden-red hair, large brown eyes, and a 
 face of transparent clearness, with two somewhat 
 hectic fire-spots in her cheeks. Her charming little 
 mouth was now quivering with pitiful vexation. 
 
 A quarter of an hour elapsed without another word 
 being spoken, and the gentleman was satisfied that 
 his companion had accepted the rebuff he had 
 administered, when she broke forth again with a 
 remark. 
 
 * Oh, sir ! excuse my seeming rudeness, but — you 
 have been reading the newspaper, and I am on pins 
 and needles to hear the news from France. It is true 
 that I have just crossed the Channel from that dear 
 and suffering — but heroic country ; I am, however, 
 very ignorant of the news. Unfortunately our journals 
 are not implicitly to be relied on. The French are 
 such a patriotic people that they cannot bring them- 
 selves to write and print a word that tells of humilia-
 
 ii8 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 tion and loss to their country. It is very natural, 
 very noble — but inconvenient. That superb Faid- 
 herbe — I do trust he has succeeded in crushing the 
 enemy.' 
 
 ' He has been utterly routed.' 
 
 ' Oh dear ! Oh dear !' the little lady was plunged 
 into real distress. 'This news was kept from me. 
 That was why I was hurried away. I wanted to 
 bring my nieces with me, the Demoiselles Labarte, 
 but they clung to their mother and would not leave 
 her. It was magnificent.' Then, after a sigh, * Now, 
 surely England will intervene.' 
 
 The gentleman shook his head. 
 
 ' It is cruel. Surely one sister should fly to the 
 assistance of the other.' 
 
 * The English nation is sister to the German.' 
 
 * Oh, how can you say so ? William the Conqueror 
 came from France.' 
 
 * From Normandy, which was not at the time and 
 for long after considered a part of France.' 
 
 Then the gentleman, feeling he had been inveigled 
 into saying more than he intended, looked out of the 
 window.
 
 IN OXE COMPARTMENT. 119 
 
 Presently he heard a sob. The girl was crying. 
 He took no notice of her trouble. He had made up 
 his mind that she was a coquette, and he was steeled 
 against her various tricks to attract attention and 
 enlist sympathy. He would neither smile when she 
 laughed, nor drop his mouth when she wept. His lips 
 closed somewhat tighter, and his brows contracted 
 slightly. He had noticed throughout the journey the 
 petty attempts made by this girl to draw notice to her- 
 self — the shifting of her shawls, the opening and shut- 
 ting of her valise, the plaintive sighs, the tapping of 
 the impatient feet on the footwarmer. Though he had 
 studiously kept his eyes turned from her, nothing she 
 had done had escaped him, and all went to confirm 
 the prejudice with which he was inclined to regard her 
 from the moment of his entering the carriage. He 
 rose from his place and moved to the further end of 
 the compartment. 
 
 * I beg your pardon,' said the young lady, ' I trust 
 I have not disturbed you. You must excuse me, I 
 am unhappy.' 
 
 • Quite so, and I would not for the world trespass 
 on your grief.'
 
 120 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' I have a husband fighting under the Tricouleur, 
 and I am very anxious about him.' 
 
 The gentleman made a sHght acknowledgment with 
 his head, which said unmistakably that he invited no 
 further confidences. 
 
 This she accepted, and turned her face to look out 
 of the opposite window. 
 
 At that moment the brake was put on, and sent a 
 thrill through the carriage. Presently the train 
 stopped. The face of the guard appeared at the 
 window, and the little lady at once lowered the 
 glass. 
 
 ' How are you getting on, miss ?' 
 
 * Very well, I thank you ; but you must not call me 
 miss ; I am a married woman. I have left my husband 
 in France fighting like a lion, and I am sent away 
 because the Prussians are robbing and burning and 
 murdering wherever they go. I know a lady near 
 Nogent from whose chateau they carried off an ormulu 
 clock.' How unnecessary it was for her to enter into 
 these details to the guard, thought the gentleman. 
 He could not understand how a poor little heart full 
 of trouble would long to pour itself out ; how that
 
 IN ONE COMPARTMENT. I2I 
 
 certain natures can no more exist without sympathy 
 than can plants without water. 
 
 ' Don't you think, guard, that the English Govern- 
 ment ought to interfere ?' 
 
 ' Well, ma'am, that depends on how it would affect 
 traffic — on the Midland. Where are you going to, if 
 I may ask .''' 
 
 * Mergatroyd.' 
 
 * There has been a flood, and the embankment of 
 the railway has been washed away. For a day there 
 has not been any passing over the lines, and now we 
 are ordered to go along uncommon leisurely.' 
 
 ' But oh ! guard, there is, I trust, no danger.' 
 
 * No, ma'am, none in the least ; I'll take care that 
 you come by no hurt. The worst that can happen is 
 that we shall be delayed, and perhaps not be able to 
 proceed the whole way in the same train. But rely 
 on me, ma'am, I'll see to you.' 
 
 ' Oh, guard, would you — would you mind ? I have 
 here a little bottle of nice Saint Julicn, and I have not 
 been able to touch it myself. Would you mind taking 
 it ? Also, here — here, under the bottle.' 
 
 She slipped some money into his hand.
 
 122 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 The guard's red face beamed broadband benignant. 
 He slipped the money into his waistcoat pocket, the 
 bottle he stowed away elsewhere ; then thrusting his 
 head inside he said confidentially, ' Never fear. I'll 
 make it all right for you, ma'am.' 
 
 When the lady, who was none other than Janet, the 
 twin sister of Salome, mentioned Mergatroyd as her 
 destination, the eyebrows of her fellow-passenger were 
 slightly lifted. He was looking out of the opposite 
 window to that at which she conversed with the guard. 
 Now he knew that he would not be rid of his com- 
 panion for the rest of the journey, for he also was on 
 his way to Mergatroyd. There was but a single 
 subject of comfort to him, that the distance to Merga- 
 troyd was no longer great, and the time taken over it, 
 in spite of the hint of the guard, which he discounted, 
 could not be great either. 
 
 The short November day had closed in ; and the 
 remainder of the journey would be taken in the dark. 
 The lamps had not yet been lighted in the carriage. To 
 the west he could see through the window the brown 
 light of the set day, the last rays of a wintry sun 
 arrested by factory smoke. The gentleman was uneasy.
 
 IN ONE COMPARTMENT. 123 
 
 If the dromedary will not voluntarily enter the cage 
 of the vulture, he will not remain in it in darkness 
 with her without tremors. 
 
 * When do you think, sir, that I shall reach Merga- 
 troyd ?' asked the young lady. 
 
 ' That is a question impossible for me to answer,^ 
 replied the gentleman ; 'as you heard from your friend ' 
 — he emphasized this word and threw sarcasm into his 
 expression — ' the guard, there are conditions, about 
 which I know nothing, which will interfere with the 
 punctuality of the train.' 
 
 Then he fumbled in his pocket, drew forth an orange- 
 coloured envelope, from this took a scrap of pink paper, 
 and by the expiring evening light read the telegraphic 
 message in large pencil-marks. 
 
 ' Your uncle lost. Come at once. Salome.' 
 
 Salome ! — who was Salome ? 
 
 He replaced the paper in the envelope, which was 
 addressed Philip Pennycomequick, care of Messrs. 
 Pinch and Squeeze, Solicitors, Nottingham. 
 
 The message was a brief one — too brief to be intel- 
 ligible. 
 
 Lost — how was Mr. Jeremiah Pennycomequick lost?
 
 124 ^^^ PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 When the train drew up at a small station, the 
 young man returned to the down side, by the lady, let 
 down the glass and called the guard. 
 
 * Here ! what did you say about the flood ? I have 
 seen it mentioned in the paper, but I did not under- 
 stand that it had been at Mergatroyd.' 
 
 * It has been in the Keld Valley.' 
 
 * And Mergatroyd is in that valley ?' 
 
 * Where else would you have it, sir ?' 
 
 * But — according to my paper the great damage was 
 done at Holme Bridge.' 
 
 ' Well, so it was ; and Holme Bridge is above Mer- 
 gatroyd.' 
 
 Philip Pennycomequick drew up the glass again. 
 Now he understood. He had never been to Merga- 
 troyd in his life, and knew nothing about its situation. 
 He had skimmed the account of the flood in his 
 paper, but had given most of his attention to the nar- 
 rative of the war in France. It had not occurred to 
 him to connect the * loss ' of his uncle with the inunda- 
 tion. He had supposed the word * loss ' was an euphe- 
 mism for 'going off his head.' Elderly gentlemen do 
 not get lost in England, least of all in one of its most
 
 IN ONE COMPARTMENT. 125 
 
 densely populated districts, as if they were in the back- 
 woods or prairies of America. 
 
 But who sent him the telegram ? He had no 
 relative of the name of Salome. His aunt, Mrs. Side- 
 bottom, who was now resident, as he knew, at Merga- 
 troyd, was named Louisa, and she was the person 
 who, he supposed, would have wired to him if anything 
 serious had occurred requiring his presence. 
 
 His companion was going to Mergatroyd, and pro- 
 bably knew people there. If he asked her whether 
 she was aware of a person of the peculiar Christian 
 name of Salome at that place, it was possible she 
 might inform him. But he was too reserved and 
 proud to ask. He would not afford this flighty piece 
 of goods an excuse for opening conversation with him. 
 In half an hour he would be at his destination, and 
 would then have his perplexity cleared. 
 
 The train proceeded leisurely. Philip's feet were 
 now very cold, and he would have been grateful for 
 the warmer, but could not now ask for permission to 
 use what he had formerly rejected. 
 
 As the train proceeded the engine whistled. 
 
 There were men working on the line ; at intervals
 
 126 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 coal fires were blazing and smokins^ in braziers. The 
 train further slackened speed. Philip Pennycomequick 
 could see that there was much water covering the 
 country. The train had now entered the Valley of 
 the Keld, and was ascending it. 
 
 What a nuisance it would be were he stopped and 
 obliged to tarry for some hours till the road was re- 
 paired, tarry in cold and darkness, without a lamp in 
 his carriage, caged in with that pretty, coquettish, 
 dangerous minx, and with no third party present to 
 serve as his protector. 
 
 The train came to a standstill. The young lady was 
 uneasy. She lowered the glass and leaned out ; and 
 looked along the line at the flaming fires, the half- 
 illumined navvies, the steam trailing away and mingling 
 with the smoke, the fog that gathered over the inun- 
 dated fields. A raw wind blew in at the open 
 window. 
 
 Then up came the guard, sharply turned the handle 
 and threw open the door. ' Everyone get out. The 
 train can go no further.' 
 
 All the passengers were obliged to descend, dragging 
 with them their rugs and bags, their cloaks, umbrellas,
 
 IN ONE COMPARTMENT. 127 
 
 novels, buns and oranges — all the piles of impedimenta 
 with which travellers encumber themselves on a 
 journey, trusting to the prompt assistance of mercenary 
 porters. 
 
 But on this night, away from any station, there 
 were no porters. The descent from the carriage was 
 difficult and dangerous. It was like clambering down 
 a ladder of which some of the rungs were broken. It 
 was rendered doubly difficult by the darkness in which 
 it had to be effected, and the difficulty was quadrupled 
 by the passengers having to scramble down burdened 
 with their effects. It was not accordingly performed 
 in silence, but with screams from women who lost 
 their footing, and curses and abuses launched against 
 the Midland from the men. 
 
 Mr. Philip was obliged by common humanity to 
 assist the young lady out of the carriage, and to collect 
 and help to carry her manifold goods ; for the civil 
 guard was too deeply engaged to attend to her. He 
 had received his fee, and was, therefore, naturally 
 lavishing his attention on others, in an expectant 
 mood. 
 
 Mr. Philip Pennycomequick somewhat ungraciously
 
 128 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 advised the companion forced on his protection to 
 follow him. He engaged to see her across the 
 dangerous piece of road and return for those of her 
 wraps and parcels which he and she were together 
 unable to transport to the train awaiting them beyond 
 the faulty portion of the line. 
 
 The walk was most uncomfortable. It was properly 
 not a walk but a continuous stumble. To step in the 
 dark from sleeper to sleeper was not easy, and the 
 flicker of the coal fires dazzled and confused rather 
 than assisted the sight. The wind, moreover, carried 
 the dense smoke in volumes across the line, suddenly 
 enveloping and half stifling, but wholly blinding for 
 the moment, the unhappy, bewildered flounderers who 
 passed through it. In front glared the two red lights 
 of an engine that waited with carriages to receive the 
 dislodged passengers. 
 
 * You must take my arm,' said Mr. Philip to his 
 companion. ' This is really dreadful. One old lady 
 has, I believe, dislocated her ankle. I hope she will 
 make a claim on the company.' 
 
 ' Oh, dear ! And Salome ! — what will she 
 say?'
 
 IN ONE COMPARTMENT. 129 
 
 •Salome?' 
 
 * Yes — my sister, my twin-sister.' 
 
 When Philip Pennycomequick did finally reach his 
 destination, it was with a mind that prejudged Salome, 
 and was prejudiced against her. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ARRIVAL. 
 
 * What — no cabs ? No cabs V asked Philip Penny- 
 comequick, on reaching the Mergatroyd Station. 
 
 * What a place this must be to call itself a town and 
 have no convenience for those who arrive at it, to 
 transport them to their destinations. Can one hire a 
 wheelbarrow ?' Philip was, as may be seen, testy. 
 The train had not deposited him at the station till 
 past seven, instead of four-eighteen, when due. He 
 had been thrown into involuntary association with a 
 young lady, whom he had set down to belong to 
 a category of females that are to be kept at a distance 
 — that is, those who, as he contemptuously described 
 them, run after a hearth-brush because it wears 
 whiskers. He misjudged Janet Baynes, as men of a 
 suspicious temper are liable to misjudge simple and
 
 ARRIVAL. 131 
 
 frank natures. There are men who, the more forward 
 a woman is, so much the more do they recoil into 
 their shells, to glower out of them at those who 
 approach them, like a mastiff from its kennel, with a 
 growl and a display of teeth. 
 
 Who this woman was with whom he had been 
 thrown, Philip only knew from what she had told 
 him and the guard. He was aware that she was the 
 sister of his correspondent Salome, but he was 
 ignorant as before who Salome was, less only the fact 
 that she must be young, because the twin-sister of his 
 fellow-passenger. If like her — and twins are usually 
 alike — she must be pretty, and as mental character- 
 istics follow the features, like her coquettish, and 
 ready to make love — as Philip put it — to the hearth- 
 brush because of its whiskers. 
 
 At the station he had reckoned on finding a cab 
 and driving to his destination, whilst his companion 
 went off in another. But to his vexation he found 
 that there were no cabs. He must engage a porter 
 to carry his traps on a truck. He resolved to go first 
 of all to his uncle's house and inquire whether he was 
 lost in the flood and if he had been heard of since the 
 
 9—2
 
 132 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 telegram was despatched. Then he would put up for 
 the night at the inn, and his future movements would 
 be regulated by the information he received. 
 
 ' By the way/ said he to the porter, * I suppose you 
 have a decent hotel in the place, though it is deficient 
 in cabs.' 
 
 * There are three inns,' answered the man, ' but all 
 full as an excursion train on Good Friday. The poor 
 folks that ha' been turned o't haase by t' water ha' 
 been ta'en into 'em. Where art 'a going, sir ?' 
 
 ' To the house of Mr. Pennycomequick,' answered 
 Philip. 
 
 ' Right you are,' said the porter, * Mrs. Baynes is 
 also boun' to t'same, and I can take t'whole bag-o'- 
 tricks on one barrow.' 
 
 Philip turned to Janet Baynes with an impatient 
 gesture, which with all his self-control he was unable 
 to repress, and said : 
 
 'You are going to Mr. Pennycomequick's, I under- 
 stand, madam.' 
 
 There was no avoiding it. The tiresome associa- 
 tion could not be dissolved at once, it threatened to 
 continue.
 
 ARRIVAL. 133 
 
 ' Yes/ answered Janet, ' I spent all my life there 
 till I married, and my mother and sister are there 
 now.' 
 
 * Not relations of Mr. Pennycomequick ?' 
 
 ' Oh dear no. He has been like a father to us, 
 because our own father was killed by an accident in 
 his service. That was a long time ago, I cannot 
 remember the circumstance. Ever since then we 
 have lived in the house. We always call Mr. Penny- 
 comequick our uncle, but he is no real relative.' 
 
 Philip strode forward, ahead of the porter ; from 
 the station the road ascended at a steep gradient, and 
 the man came on slowly with the united luggage. 
 Janet quickened her pace, and came up beside Philip. 
 
 It was like being beset by a fly in summer. 
 
 * Are you going to Mr. Pennycomequick's ?' asked 
 Janet, panting. She was a little out of breath with 
 walking to keep up with her companion. 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' I am not strong. My breath goes if I hurry, 
 especially in going up-hill.' 
 
 ' Then, madam, let me entreat you to spare your 
 lungs and relax your pace.'
 
 134 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 * But then — we shall be separated, and we are going 
 to the same house. Would you mind going just a 
 wee bit slower ?' 
 
 Philip complied without a word. 
 
 He questioned for a moment whether he should 
 inform his fellow-passenger of the news that the 
 uncle was lost. But he reflected that he knew nothing 
 for certain. The message he had received could 
 hardly have been couched in vaguer terms. It was 
 quite possible that his explanation of it was false ; it 
 was also not at all improbable that the alarm given 
 was premature. If Salome were like the young 
 scatter-brain walking at his side, she would be 
 precisely the person to cry * Wolf !' at the first alarm. 
 He might have inquired of the porter whether Mr. 
 Pennycomequick had met with an accident, or whether 
 anything had occurred at his house ; but he preferred 
 to wait, partly because he was too proud to inquire of 
 a porter, and partly because he was given no oppor- 
 tunity to questioning him out of hearing of his com- 
 panion. 
 
 ' Are you going to stay at uncle's ?' asked Janet. 
 * I really am unable to answer that question.'
 
 ARRIVAL. 135 
 
 ' But, as you have heard, all the inns are full. Have 
 you any friends in Mergatroyd?' 
 
 ' Relations — not friends.' 
 
 * What a delightful thing it must be to have plenty 
 of relations ! Salome and I have none. We were 
 quite alone in the world, except for mother. Now I 
 have, of course, all my husband's kindred, but Salome 
 has no one.' 
 
 There was no shaking this girl off. She stuck to 
 him as a burr. In all probability he would be housed 
 at his uncle's that night, and so he would be brought 
 into further contact with this person. She herself 
 was eminently distasteful to him — but a sister un- 
 married ! — Philip resolved to redouble his testy 
 manner towards her. He would return to Notting- 
 ham on the morrow, unless absolutely compelled by 
 circumstances to remain. 
 
 There was — there always had been — a vein of 
 suspicion, breeding reserve of manner, in the Penny- 
 comequick family. It was found chiefly in the men 
 — in the women, that is, in Mrs. Sidebottom, it 
 took a different form. As forces are co-related, 
 so are tempers. It chilled their manner, it made
 
 136 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 them inapt to form friendships, and uncongenial in 
 society. 
 
 Uncle Jeremiah had it, and that strongly. To- 
 wards his own kin he had never relaxed. The conduct 
 of neither sister nor brother had been such as to inspire 
 confidence. To the last he was hard, icy and sus- 
 picious towards them. But the warm breath of the 
 little children had melted the frost in his domestic 
 relations, and their conspicuous guilelessness had dis- 
 armed his suspicions. To them he had been a very 
 different man to what he had appeared to others. 
 Philip's father had behaved foolishly, withdrawn his 
 money from the firm, and in a fit of credulity had 
 allowed himself to be swindled out of it by a smooth- 
 tongued impostor, Schofield. That loss had reduced 
 him to poverty, and had soured him. Thenceforth, 
 the Pennycomequick characteristics which had been 
 in abeyance in Nicholas ripened rapidly. Philip had 
 learned from his father to regard the bulk of mankind 
 as in league against the few, as characterized by self- 
 seeking, and as unreliable in all that affected their 
 own interests. Philip was aged thirty-four, but looked 
 older than his years. The experiences he had passed
 
 ARRIVAL. 137 
 
 through had prematurely fixed the direction of his 
 tendencies, and had warped his views of life. In 
 photography, impressions made on the sensitive plate 
 rapidly fade unless dipped in a solution which gives 
 them permanency. So is it with the incidents of life ; 
 pictures are formed in our brains and pass unnoticed, 
 unregistered, till something occurs to fix them. The 
 great misfortune which had befallen his father had 
 acted as such a bath to Philip's mind, leaving on it 
 the indelible impression of universal rascality. He 
 could remember the comfort in which his childhood 
 had been passed, and the grinding penury afterwards. 
 Obliged to work for his livelihood, he had chosen the 
 law, a profession ill calculated to counteract the 
 tendency in him, inherent, and already declared, to 
 regard all men as knaves or fools. 
 
 Nicholas's last years had been spent in useless 
 repinings over his loss, in grumbling at his brother 
 and sister for not coming to his aid, and in hatred of 
 the man who had ruined him. 
 
 He had been too proud to appeal to his half-brother, 
 and was angry with Jeremiah for not coming forward 
 unsolicited to relieve him. Had he gone to his
 
 138 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 brother, even written to him to express regret for his 
 injudicious conduct, it is probable, nay, certain, that 
 Jeremiah would have forgiven him ; but the false 
 pride of Nicholas prevented him taking this step, and 
 Jeremiah would not move to his assistance without it. 
 
 Thus a mutual misunderstanding kept the half- 
 brothers apart, and embittered their minds against 
 each other. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom had been of as little help to her 
 brother as had Jeremiah. Mr. Sidebottom had, indeed, 
 taken Philip into his office as a clerk, but no Side- 
 bottom contributions came to relieve the necessities 
 of Nicholas. His sister was profuse in regrets and 
 apologies for not doing anything for him, always 
 weighting these apologies with a lecture on his wrong- 
 doing in withdrawing his money from the firm ; but 
 she gave him nothing save empty words. Nicholas 
 entertained but little love for his sister ; and Philip 
 grew up with small respect for his aunt. 
 
 By the time that Philip had reached the Penny- 
 comequick door he was in as unamiable a temper as 
 he had ever been during the thirty-four years of his 
 life. He was damp, hungry, cold. He more than
 
 ARRIVAL. 139 
 
 half believed that he had been brought to jMergatroyd 
 on a fool's errand ; he did not know where he was to 
 sleep that night, and what he would get to eat. The 
 inns, as he had heard, were full ; no more trains would 
 leave the station that night, owing to the condition of 
 the line ; there was not a cab in Mergatroyd, so that 
 he could escape fronn the place only on foot, and that 
 without his baggage. 
 
 Moreover, he was in doubt with what face he could 
 appear before his uncle, were Jeremiah at home. His 
 uncle, whom he had only once seen, and that at his 
 father's funeral, had on that occasion shown him not 
 the smallest inclination to make his acquaintance. 
 Would it not appear as if, on the first rumour or sus- 
 picion of disaster, he had rushed to the spot without 
 decorum, to seize on his uncle's estate^ and with no 
 better excuse than a vague telegram received from an 
 irresponsible girl. 
 
 * Here is the door,' said the porter. Janet ran up 
 the steps with alacrity and knocked. 
 
 Mr. Pennycomequick's house was formal as himself, 
 of red brick without ornament ; half-way up the hill, 
 with its back to the road, and without even that
 
 I40 THE PEXNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 mellow charm which old red brick assumes in the 
 country, for this was red begrimed with soot, on which 
 not a lichen or patch of moss would grow. The ugly 
 back was towards the street ; the uglier face looked 
 into a garden that ran down the slope to the valley 
 bottom. There were two square-headed windows on 
 one side of the door, two similar windows on the other 
 side, over each an exactly similar window, and over 
 the door one with a round head that doubtless lighted 
 the staircase. Above these was another story similar, 
 but the windows less tall. Who does not know this 
 kind of house? They are scattered in hundreds of 
 thousands over the face of England, and who, with a 
 grain of taste, would not a thousand times rather 
 snuggle into a thatched cottage, with windows broad 
 and low, winking out from under the brown eaves ? 
 Not if one lived to the age of the Wandering Jew 
 could one become attached to one of these gaunt, 
 formal, dingy mansions. The door was opened in 
 answer to the bell and knocker, and Philip, after 
 paying the railway porter, requested him to wait five 
 minutes till he ascertained whether he was to spend 
 the night there or go in quest of a bed.
 
 ARRIVAL. 141 
 
 Then he entered the gas-lighted hall, to see his 
 travelling comrade locked in the arms of her sister, a 
 young girl of the same age and height and general 
 appearance, with the same red-gold hair, and the same 
 clear complexion, who was flushed with excitement at 
 meeting Janet. 
 
 A pretty sight it was — those lovely twins clinging 
 to each other in an ecstasy of delight, laughing, kiss- 
 ing, fondling each other, with the tears of exuberant 
 pleasure streaming over their cheeks. 
 
 But Philip remained unmoved or contemptuous. 
 He saw his Aunt Louisa and Captain Lambert on the 
 stairs. 
 
 * I know well what this bit of pantomime means,' 
 thought Philip. ' The girls are showing off before two 
 young men.' 
 
 ' What ! Philip here !' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom, 
 who hastened down the stairs to greet her nephew. 
 * Oh, Philip ! how good of you to come ! I made sure 
 you would the moment you heard the news, and yet 
 I was not sure but that you would shrink from it — as 
 you were on such bad terms with your uncle. I am 
 so glad you have arrived to assist us with your
 
 142 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 professional advice. This is a sad, a very sad 
 case.' 
 
 ' Mr. Philip Pennycomequick !' exclaimed Salome 
 disengaging herself from her sister's embrace and 
 standing before the young man. She lifted her great 
 searching eyes to his face and studied it, then dropped 
 them, ashamed at her audacity, and perhaps a little 
 disappointed at what she had seen ; for the moment 
 he came towards her he assumed his most uncompro- 
 mising expression. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon,' said he stiffly. ' Whom have 
 I the honour ' 
 
 ' I am Salome Cusworth, who telegraphed to you.' 
 
 He bowed haughtily. ' I am glad.' 
 
 Then Salome, abashed, caught her sister's hand, and 
 said to Mrs. Sidebottom : ' Oh, please, let me take 
 Janet away first — she knows nothing, and you must 
 allow me to break the terrible news to her myself,' 
 
 She drew her sister aside, with her arm round her 
 waist, into a room on the ground-floor, where she 
 could tell her privately the great sorrow that had 
 fallen on them. 
 
 Philip looked inquiringly after them, and when the
 
 ARRIVAL. 143 
 
 door had closed, said to his aunt : * Who are they ? 
 What are they ?' 
 
 * You may well ask,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. ' They 
 are the petted and spoiled daughters of your uncle's 
 housekeeper. He has brought them up beyond their 
 station, and now they will be unfit to do anything 
 when turned adrift.' 
 
 * But,' said Philip, ' one is married.' 
 
 ' Oh yes, of course. She has caught her man. I 
 know nothing of her husband, or how he was tackled. 
 I dare say, however, he is respectable, but only a 
 manufacturer.' 
 
 'And the unmarried sister is Salome.' 
 
 ' Yes, an officious pert piece of goods.' 
 
 ' Like her sister.' 
 
 ' Now,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, * what are you going 
 to do } In this house you cannot well be accommo- 
 dated. There are rooms — but everyone's head is 
 turned, servants and all. No toast sent up at break- 
 fast. Your best way will be to gc to Lambert's 
 quarters in my house. Here you would be amidst a 
 party of tedious women ' 
 
 * I want to be as far as possible from those young
 
 144 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ladies,' said Philip. * One has been in the train with 
 me for many hours, and has worried me beyond 
 endurance.' 
 
 'Certainly. Go with Lambert. In my house you 
 will be in Liberty Hall, where you can smoke ' 
 
 * I never smoke.' 
 
 * And drink whisky and water.' 
 
 * I take nothing at night.' 
 
 ' And talk over social scandals.' 
 
 ' In which I have not the smallest interest.' 
 
 ' Well, well, we dine in a quarter of an hour here. 
 
 You will stay. No dressing, quite en famille. Fried 
 
 soles, a joint and cutlets ct la tomato.^ 
 
 * Thank you. I accept ; for the inns, I learn, are 
 quite full. I will give orders to the porter to take my 
 traps over to your house, and then, perhaps, you will 
 give me ten minutes to tell me what has happened 
 to my uncle, for I am still in the dark respecting 
 him.' 
 
 ' So are we all,' said Lambert. 
 
 From the room into which Salome had drawn her 
 sister, and which was the sitting-room of their in- 
 valided mother, could be heard the sobbing of Janet
 
 ARRIVAL. 145 
 
 and the broken accents of the old lady and Salome. 
 There were tears in all their voices. 
 
 Then there flashed through the mind of Philip 
 Pennycomequick the thought that, here without in the 
 hall, were the sister and two nephews of the lost man, 
 who had been as yet scarcely alluded to by them, but 
 he had been told about what there was for dinner ; 
 whereas, divided from them by a door were three 
 persons unconnected with Uncle Jeremiah, who were 
 moved by his death or disappearance as by that of a 
 dear connection. 
 
 Philip, however, said nothing. He turned to the 
 front door to speak to the porter, when a violent ring 
 at the bell called his attention to another man who 
 stood on the steps. 
 
 * Beg pardon,' said this man, ' where is Miss 
 Salome ?' 
 
 ' I will call her,' said Philip. ' Who shall I say 
 wants to speak to her ?' 
 
 * The night-watchman, Fanshawe.' 
 
 * Oh, Mr. Fanshawe !' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom, 
 running through the hall to him, * has he been found ?' 
 
 * No such luck,' was the answer. 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 Philip tapped at the door through which the girls 
 had retreated, and Salome opened it. Her eyes were 
 glittering with tears, and her cheeks were moist. 
 
 ' There is a fellow called Fanshawe wants a word 
 with you,' said Philip. 
 
 The girl advanced through the hall to the door. 
 
 'Oh, miss!' said the night-watchman, 'some o' us 
 chaps aren't content to let matters stand as they be. 
 For sewer t'owd gen'lman be somewheer, and we're 
 boun' to mak' anither sarch. We thowt tha'd like to 
 knaw.' 
 
 ' But — where ?' 
 
 ' I't canal.' 
 
 ' How?— By night ?' 
 
 ' For sewer. Wi' a loaf o' cake and a can'l.'
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE. 
 
 With a loaf and a candle ! 
 
 We live in the oldest world, where men labour to 
 do the simplest things in the most roundabout way, 
 and to put whatever they come in contact with to 
 purposes other than those intended. We have seen 
 champagne bottles used as candlesticks, and a bonnet 
 given to a cat to kitten in, and a preacher haranguing 
 in a theatre, and a pugilist occupying a pulpit, women 
 dressing and cutting their hair like men, and men 
 affecting girlish ways ; members of Parliament exhibit- 
 ing themselves as blackguards, and leaders of the 
 people leading them to political suicide, as Jack the 
 Giant-killer made Giant Gruff-me-gruff rip himself 
 open. Those who have feet to walk on, affect stand- 
 ing on their heads, and those who have heads to 
 reason with, think with their stomachs. 
 
 10 — 2
 
 148 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 With a loaf and a candle ! 
 
 Astronomers tell us that there are as many suns 
 visible in the firmament as there are human beings in 
 Great Britain — about thirty millions, and that each of 
 these suns is presumably the centre of a system of 
 worlds like our own, and perhaps peopled by beings 
 of like calibre to ourselves. Let us say that each sun 
 is given ten planets, that makes three hundred millions 
 of worlds, having in them the same proportion of 
 thoughtless, unreasoning beings as in this globe with 
 which we are familiar. Who would have supposed that 
 there was such a diffusion of silliness, wrongheaded- 
 ness, and blunder brains diffused through space. 
 
 With a loaf and a candle ! 
 
 It is the fashion to believe in evolution, to hold that 
 mankind is developed through a long progression from 
 something as inarticulate as frog spawn. And we 
 believe it, because we see so much of this inchoate, 
 inorganic spawn still taking the place of brain in the 
 heads of humanity. 
 
 Men have grown and become vertebrate and have 
 branched into members, but the spawn still lingers as 
 it was in the cells of the skull.
 
 WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE. 149 
 
 With a loaf and a candle ! 
 
 Full a score of in-the-main not unintelligent men 
 were about to search for the body of their master with 
 a loaf of cake and a candle.* How a loaf and a candle 
 should conduce towards the finding the object they 
 sought, it is not easy to see. What there was in the 
 nature of the loaf or candle to make each appropriate 
 to the purpose, not one of these in-the-main not un- 
 intelligent men asked. 
 
 The upper reach of the canal had drained itself 
 away, but at the locks the rush of water had furrowed 
 the bed, pent in as it had been between the walls, 
 and had left deep pools. Below the locks the face of 
 the land was flat, the fall slight, and there the canal 
 was brimming, and much of the water that had over- 
 flowed still lay about in the fields. This portion of 
 the Keld basin went by the name of the Fleet, which 
 indicated a time, perhaps not remote, when it had 
 been a waste of ooze and water channels, sometimes 
 overflowed and sometimes dry. 
 
 The whole of the drained canal bed had been 
 
 * In Yorkshire, cake is white bread : bread is oatcake — 
 Haver-bread.
 
 I50 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 searched between the lock and the bridge that carried 
 the road across the river and canal, a distance of 
 three-quarters of a mile, but without success. The 
 men who intended prosecuting the search in their 
 own fashion were clustered below the shattered locks. 
 But the gathering did not consist of men only. With 
 them were some mill-girls from a factory on the slope 
 that had not stopped, not having been affected by 
 the flood. They wore scarlet or pink kerchiefs over 
 their heads, pinned under the chin, and plain white 
 pinafores to protect their dresses at their work from 
 the oil, a custom as picturesque and becoming as con- 
 venient. These girls were there, because it was an 
 unsuitable place for them — no other season will suffice 
 to explain their presence. But women, water and 
 wind, will penetrate everywhere. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom and Salome were also on the canal 
 bank. They had no faith in the experiment about to 
 be tried, but each for different reasons thought it ex- 
 pedient to be present. Salome would not be away, 
 so intense was her anxiety about the fate of Uncle 
 Jeremiah, and Mrs. Sidebottom would be there so as 
 not to seem indifferent. Janet, tired from her long
 
 WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE. 151 
 
 journey, and not strong, did not come out ; she re- 
 mained with her mother. Philip and Lambert Penny- 
 comequick were there as a duty ; a disagreeable and 
 onerous duty the captain considered it, because it 
 spoiled his dinner. 
 
 A loaf and a candle ! 
 
 A good round loaf of baker's bread had a hole 
 scooped out of it, and into this hole a tallow candle 
 was thrust. The candle was lighted and sent adrift 
 on the water of the canal. 
 
 The night was dark, the moon did not rise for 
 another hour or more. All the mills in the valley 
 were dark. Not only had they been brought to a 
 standstill by the flood, but the main of the gas was 
 broken. This was the cause of the eclipse likewise 
 of the lamps on the road. The water had left the 
 cottage of the lock-keeper, and the bodies of the dead 
 man and his wife had been found and laid on the 
 sodden bed. A yellow glimmer shone out of the 
 window, for a candle burnt there, and a fire had been 
 kindled. An old woman, a relation, driven from her 
 home by the water, was sitting there, trying to coax 
 a fire to keep in, in the wet and rusty grate, and
 
 152 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 supplying herself with gin to keep out the chill from 
 her bones. 
 
 The town on the hill flank twinkled with lights, and 
 just beyond the ridge pulsated the auroral flicker from 
 the distant foundries. The lamps on the railway 
 shone green and red. Some of those engaged in the 
 search bore lanterns. 
 
 The cluster on the embankment with the moving 
 lights, the occasional flash over a red kerchief or a 
 white pinafore and the reflections in the water, united 
 to form a striking picture. 
 
 ' Si' there,' said one man, 't'leet' (light) 'be headin' 
 agin t' stream.' 
 
 * There's no stream flowing,' said another. 
 
 ' There owt ta be, and there is for sewer. T'can'l 
 be gan'in up t' course.' 
 
 ' Because t' wind be blawing frae t' east.' 
 
 It was true ; the loaf of bread which had been placed 
 in the water, instead of taking a seaward direction 
 with the natural fall of the current, was swimming 
 slowly but perceptibly upwards. The yellow flame of 
 the candle was turned towards the locks, showing in 
 which direction the wind set, and explaining naturally
 
 WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE. 153 
 
 the phenomenon. The current was so slight that the 
 wind acting on the loaf had power to overcome it. 
 
 ' Sho's travellin' upwards,' said the first speaker. 
 * Sho's boun to seek him aht.' 
 
 Into the canal suddenly fell a mass of undermined 
 bank, making a splash and sending the floating light, 
 gyrating and dancing as the wavelets formed. One of 
 the mill-girls, going too near the edge, had trodden on 
 the loosened soil, and nearly fell in herself, provoking 
 a laugh and a reprimand. 
 
 ' Mind what tha'rt aboot, lass,' shouted one of the 
 men. 
 
 • If tha falls in I'm none bound to hug thee aht.' 
 
 ' I can crawl aht wi'out thy hugging, Bill,* answered 
 the girl promptly. 
 
 ' Eh !' said another, ' Effie, for sewer thou'rt not 
 bawn to be drowned.' 
 
 Some byplay went on, a half romp, in the rear, 
 between a young woolcomber and a girl reeler. 
 
 ' Na then,' shouted the night-watch, * we're none 
 come aht for laikes ' (games), ' and if you're gan'ing 
 to remain you must be quiet' 
 
 The incongruity of their behaviour with the gravity
 
 154 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 of the occasion struck the young people, and they 
 desisted. 
 
 What had become of the refuge hut ? 
 
 Curiously enough, till this moment no one had 
 noticed its disappearance, perhaps because of the 
 completeness with which it had been effaced. No 
 sooner had the stream penetrated to its interior than 
 it had collapsed, and every brick and slate and rafter 
 had been swept away from the platform it had 
 occupied. 
 
 The policeman had joined the party, carrying a 
 bull's-eye lantern. 
 
 One of the men had provided grappling-irons, 
 always kept near the bridge, because accidents 
 were not uncommon in the canal and the river ; 
 drunken men fell in, children in play got pushed 
 over, girls in paroxysms of despair threw them- 
 selves in. 
 
 The loaf with the light had now got above the spot 
 where the bank had fallen in, and the ripple aided 
 the wind in carrying it within the locks. 
 
 ' Sho's got an idee !" 
 
 * Wheer ? I't crust or i't crumb ?'
 
 WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE. 155 
 
 ' Sho's makin' reet ahead for t' deepest hoyle (hole) 
 in all t' canal.' 
 
 It was so, the loaf had entered within the walls. 
 
 Every now and then, on a ripple, the bread leaped 
 and the flame wavered as a banner. The draught 
 snuffed the glowing wick, and carried some of the 
 red sparks away and extinguished them in the black 
 water. 
 
 The searchers now congregated on the paved plat- 
 form, and looked timorously yet inquisitively into the 
 gulf where lay the pool dark as ink. The candle- 
 flame faintly irradiated the enclosing walls, and 
 painted a streak of fire on the surface of the water. 
 
 When thus enclosed, the movements of the loaf 
 were such as to give colour to the superstition, for it 
 careered in circles, then struck across the canal, went 
 back as if disappointed in its quest, ran up the course, 
 and then turned and went down the enclosed space, 
 and finally came forth from between the walls. There 
 it halted a moment, and danced and careened over, 
 and righted itself again, as relaxing from its search, 
 and tossing the flame in a defiant manner, as if it was 
 disgusted with its work and resolved no longer to
 
 156 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 prosecute the inquiry. But a minute later it came 
 apparently to a better mind, the flame became steadier, 
 it recommenced its gyrations, described a loop, and 
 suddenly became stationary at a spot a little short of 
 half way across the canal. 
 
 The strange conduct of the loaf was in reality caused 
 by the currents and revolutions of the water, but as 
 these were unperceived by those who looked on, they 
 became impressed with the conviction that the loaf 
 was really animated by a mysterious occult power 
 that impelled it to fulfil the task allotted to it. 
 
 All now stood hushed for full five minutes, almost 
 breathless, none stirring, every eye directed to the 
 light, to see whether it would remain where it was, or 
 recommence its wanderings. 
 
 Then the night-watch exclaimed : 
 
 ' The moon !' 
 
 All turned to the east, and saw the orb rise red 
 above a wooded hill. The darkness was at once 
 sensibly relieved. 
 
 * Naw then !' shouted Bill ; * in wi't irons, just at 
 place wheer t' can'l stands.' 
 
 The grapplers were cast in, and caught immediately
 
 WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE. 157 
 
 in some object near the surface. The men drew at 
 the ropes, and the waters gurgled and were disturbed 
 about the loaf, producing a broad commotion. The 
 loaf leaped, turned over, and the light was extinguished. 
 It had accomplished its task. 
 
 ' Whatever can't be ?' asked one of the men. * Sho 
 might be a coil (coal) barge sunk i' t' canal. Sho's 
 sae heavy.' 
 
 ' Stay,' said the night-watch. ' T' water for sewer 
 ain't deep here, nobbut up to t' armpits. Whativer it 
 be, 'tis this at ha' caught and held t' cake. Ah fancy 
 t' top o' t' concarn is just belaw t' surface. If some 
 o' you chaps'U help, I'll get in, and together we'll hug 
 it out.' 
 
 Two or three volunteered, and after much wading 
 and splashing a cumbrous article was heaved out of 
 the water, but not by three or four men, for several 
 more, taunted by the mill-lasses, went in to the assist- 
 ance of the first volunteers. 
 
 'Why,' rose in general exclamation, 'sho's a 
 pi-ano 1' 
 
 This discovery provoked a laugh, in which all 
 shared.
 
 158 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' How iver could a piano ha' got there ?' was 
 asked. 
 
 * That beats a',' shouted another, ' that t' loaf and 
 can^l shud tell where a piano lay drounded.' 
 
 ' T' instrument 'ud sarve to produce a necessary 
 accompaniment to some o' thy songs, Joe/ 
 
 The moon had risen by this time sufficiently to 
 transform the whole sheet of water into one of light. 
 
 The bell of Mergatroyd Church-tower began to toll 
 for evensong. Suddenly the laughter, the jokes, the 
 exclamations of wonder died away — for something 
 was seen that had risen from the depths, disturbed by 
 the commotion of the water and mud when the piano 
 was extracted. And see! the loaf with its extin- 
 guished candle was swimming towards the object. It 
 reached it ; it capered about it ; it ran round it ; and 
 then attached itself to it. 
 
 ' What was it ?' 
 
 The glassy, silvery surface of the water was broken 
 by it in several places. 
 
 Then there rushed by along the line a train, with 
 the engine shrieking and shrieking continuously to 
 give warning to workers on the embankment that it
 
 WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE. 159 
 
 was coming. And that shriek so wrought on the 
 nerves of some of the girls present that they screamed 
 also in sudden terror, for, though no one answered the 
 question what that blot on the canal surface was, 
 everyone knew. 
 
 All stood motionless again, and waiting till the 
 scream of the train was lost, and then, in silence, two 
 men waded into the water, reached the object, drew 
 it after them to the bank, and with the assistance of 
 others raised it and laid it on the towpath. 
 
 Then the group drew towards it, after a momentary 
 hesitation and recoil, and the policeman passed the 
 ray of his bull's-eye lantern up and down it. 
 
 The question could no longer be asked, ' What was 
 it?' 
 
 It must now be put, ' Who is it ?' 
 
 Yes — who? For the body just recovered was 
 defaced almost past recognition. 
 
 ' Whoever he may be,' said the policeman, ' we 
 must find out by his cloas, for his face and head be 
 that mashed and mutilated — 'tis a pictur'. For cartain 
 the piano must ha' fallen on him, that is, on his head, 
 and left not a feature to recognise.'
 
 i6o THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 'And the clothing is queer,' observed the night- 
 watch. 
 
 It was so. The body recovered was partially 
 • naked, with bare legs and feet, and wore nothing 
 more than a nightshirt and a great-coat. 
 
 ' Stand back,' ordered the policeman. ' Let Miss 
 Cusworth come for'ard.' 
 
 And he stooped and spread his hankerchief over 
 the face. There was no need for her to see that. 
 
 Salome stepped forward. She was shuddering, but 
 spoke with composure, and not till she had thoroughly 
 studied the corpse at her feet. 
 
 ' This cannot be Mr. Pennycomequick,' she said ; 
 •he was dressed in a black suit. He had been out to 
 dinner.' 
 
 * I beg your pardon,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, who had 
 pushed forward ; ' he was not dressed. I went into 
 the bedroom as soon as I knew he was lost, and found 
 that his dress-clothes were there and the bed dis- 
 turbed/ 
 
 The policeman, kneeling, examined the pockets. 
 From that in the breast of the overcoat he drew forth 
 a card-case, and held it close to the lantern.
 
 WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE. i6i 
 
 Salome said immediately : 
 
 * That is Mr. Pennycomequick's card-case.' 
 
 ' And his cards are in it,' added the policeman. 
 
 Salome looked again attentively at the body. 
 
 ' That is Mr. Pennycomequick's overcoat. I know 
 it — but that cannot be Mr. Pennycomequick wearing 
 it' 
 
 Then, overcome with the horror of the scene, 
 Salome shrank back. 
 
 The policeman had now extracted a letter from the 
 pocket ; the address was blotted, but after a little 
 examination could be made out, ' J. Pennycomequick, 
 Esq., manufacturer, Mergatroyd.' 
 
 ' It is strange that he should be without his boots/ 
 said the policeman. 
 
 * Not at all/ said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'Anyone but a 
 fool, as soon as he is in the water, kicks them off, as 
 they fill and drag him down. I can swear to the 
 identity — that is my brother. Remove the body to 
 the house.' 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EXPECTATION. 
 
 As Philip Pennycomequick came next day to the 
 house of mourning — mourning, because three dress- 
 makers were engaged in making it — he saw that all 
 the blinds were down. In the hall he met Salome, 
 who was there, evidently awaiting him. She looked 
 ill and anxious, and her eyes were bright with a 
 feverish lustre. She had not slept for two nights. 
 
 The extraordinary delicacy of her complexion gave 
 her a look as of the finest porcelain, a transparency 
 through which her doubting, disturbed and eager 
 spirit was visible. Her pallor contrasted startlingly 
 at this time with the gorgeous tone of her luxuriant 
 hair. Her eyes were large, the irises distended as 
 though touched with belladonna, and Philip felt his 
 mistrust fall away from off him, as in some fairy tale
 
 EXPECTATION. 163 
 
 the armour of a knight loosens itself, drops, and 
 leaves him unharnessed before an enchantress. But 
 the enchantment which dissolved his panoply of sus- 
 picion was an innocent one, it was the manifestation 
 of real suffering. He could see that the girl was 
 rendered almost ill by the mental distress caused by 
 the loss of her friend and guardian. That she had 
 loved him, and loved him with an innocent, unselfish 
 affection, seemed to him undoubted. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon for waylaying you, Mr. Penny- 
 comequick,' she said, in a timid voice; one white hand 
 lifted, with an uncertain shake in it, touching her lips. 
 ' But I very much desire to have a word with you in 
 private before you go upstairs to Mrs. Sidebottom.' 
 
 ' I'm at your service.' 
 
 She led the way into the breakfast-room, recently 
 cleared of the meal. She went to the window, and 
 stood between the glass and the curtain, with her left 
 hand entangled among the cords of the Venetian 
 blind. In her nervousness it was necessary for her to 
 take hold of something. Her delicate fingers ran up 
 the green strings and played with them, as though they 
 were the strings of a harp on which she was practising, 
 
 II — 2
 
 i64 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 and, strangely enough, Philip felt within him every 
 touch ; when she twanged a cord, some fibre in him 
 quivered responsive, and was only lulled when she 
 clasped the string and stopped its vibration. 
 
 A faint tinge rose in her white face to the cheek- 
 bones and temples, touching them with more than 
 colour, an apparent inner light, like the Alpine glow 
 after sundown on the white head of the Jungfrau. As 
 she spoke she did not look at Philip, but with eyes 
 modestly lowered on the ground, or out of the window 
 looking sideways down the street. 
 
 ' What I wished to say to you, Mr. Pennycomequick, 
 will soon be said. I shall not detain you long. I am 
 sorry to differ from Mrs. Sidebottom, but I cannot 
 share her conviction that the body found last night 
 is that of your uncle.' 
 
 ' You do not dispute that he is dead ?' 
 
 ' No,' she sighed ; ' I think there can be no question 
 about that.' 
 
 ' Or that he was last seen on the canal bank at 
 no great distance from where the discovery was 
 made ?' 
 
 * No,' she said, and her fingers unconsciously played
 
 EXPECTATIOX, 165 
 
 on the blind cords the time of the melody in Chopin's 
 ' Marche Funebre.' 
 
 ' Why do you say no ?' 
 
 ' Mr. Pennycomequick was full dressed when he 
 went out — that is to say, he had on his great-coat and 
 his boots and — in fact it was not possible that he could 
 be discovered in the condition in which the body 
 recovered from the canal was found.' 
 
 ' It is, of course, difficult to account for it, but not 
 impossible. My aunt declares that she went up to the 
 bedroom of my uncle the same night, found the bed 
 disturbed, and the dress clothes, or some of them, on 
 the chair. She concludes that he pulled on his over- 
 coat and went out half-dressed, that he got caught by 
 the water somewhere in some place of temporary 
 refuge, and saw that his only chance of escape was to 
 strip and swim. That he drew on his great coat 
 again as a protection against the cold, till the proper 
 moment came for him to make the plunge — but she 
 concludes that he never did start to swim, either his 
 courage failed him, or the flood rose too rapidly and 
 carried him away before he had removed the over- 
 coat. This may be an over-ingenious explanation,
 
 i66 THE PEXXYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 nevertheless it is an explanation that accounts for 
 all; 
 
 * Not for all — the body is not that of Mr. Penny- 
 comequick.' Salome spoke decidedly, and as she 
 spoke her hand gapped the strings hard. 
 
 Philip stood by the table, resting his hand on it. 
 The morning light fell strong on her face, and illumined 
 her auburn hair. Philip took occasion to examine 
 her countenance more closely than had been possible 
 before. She was like her sister in build, in feature 
 and in tone of colour, indeed strikingly like her, but 
 in that only — certainly, Philip thought, in that only. 
 
 All at once she looked up and met Philip's eyes. 
 
 * No — a thousand times no,' she said. ' That is 
 not uncle. He was brought here because Mrs. Side- 
 bottom desired it, and is convinced of the identity. 
 No objection that I can raise disturbs her. I thought 
 that possibly, last night, I might have judged on in- 
 sufficient evidence, and so I went this morning into 
 the room to look at the corpse. Mrs. Sidebottom had 
 sent last night for women who attended to it, and it 
 was laid out in the spare room.' She began to tremble 
 now as she spoke, and her fingers played a rapid
 
 EXPECTATION. 167 
 
 movement on the blind cords. ' I had made up my 
 mind to look at him, and I did.' 
 
 She paused, to recover the control that was fast 
 desertinfj her, as the delicate crlow of colour in her 
 face had now left it. ' It is not my uncle. I looked 
 at his hands. The head is — is not to be seen, nothing 
 is distinguishable there — but the hands are not those 
 of Mr. Pennycomequick.' 
 
 ' In what does the difference consist ?' 
 
 ' I cannot describe it. I knew his hands well. He 
 often let me take them in mine when I sat on the 
 stool at his feet by the fire, and I have kissed them.' 
 The clear tears rose in her eyes and rolled down her 
 cheeks. ' I am quite sure — if those had been his 
 dear hands that I saw on the bed this morning, I 
 would have kissed them again, but I could not.' She 
 shook her head, and shook away the drops from her 
 cheeks. * No — I could not.' 
 
 ' Miss Cusworth,' said Philip, * you are perhaps 
 unaware of the great alteration that is produced by 
 immersion for many hours.' 
 
 'They are not his hands. That is not uncle.' 
 
 She was so conspicuously sincere, so sincerely dis-
 
 i68 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 tressed, that Philip relaxed his cold manner towards 
 her, and said in a gentle tone : 
 
 ' Did my uncle wear a ring? There was none on 
 the hands of the man found yesterday.' 
 
 ' No ; he wore no ring.' 
 
 ' With what did he seal his letters ?' 
 
 ' Oh ! he had a brass seal with his initials on it, 
 with a handle, that was in his pen-tray. He used to 
 joke about it, and say he was a J. P. without the 
 Queen's commission.' 
 
 ' For my own part,' said Philip, * I am beyond 
 forming an opinion, as I have seen my uncle but once 
 since I was a boy, and then under circumstances pre- 
 cluding exact observation.' 
 
 Salome said nothing to this, but heaved a long 
 breath. Presently Philip said : 
 
 * Your mother — has she been taken upstairs ^ 
 
 ' Oh no !' exclaimed Salome, excited as by a fresh 
 terror. ' You do not know my mother. She has 
 heart complaint, and we have to be most careful not 
 unduly to excite and alarm her. She has suffered 
 much on account of what has taken place ; and the 
 shock of seeing ' She shivered. * It cannot be.'
 
 EXPECTATION. 169 
 
 ' And your sister ?' 
 
 ' She turned faint when brought to the door, and 
 I could not persuade her to enter. She has been 
 much tried by the German invasion of France, and 
 her hurried journey.' 
 
 ' Is there anything further you have to say ?' 
 
 ' No; Mrs. Sidebottom is wrong, that is all' 
 
 Philip withdrew. 
 
 The girl had gained in his estimation. There was 
 strength in her such as lacked in her sister. She 
 must have had courage and determination to go by 
 herself into the room where lay the mutilated corpse, 
 and she had formed her own opinion, independently, 
 and held to it with a firmness there was no breaking 
 down. 
 
 Philip ascended the stairs thoughtfully. It had 
 seemed to him at the time that his aunt had rushed 
 at identification with undue precipitation ; still, she 
 was the sister of Uncle Jeremiah, and therefore better 
 capable than anyone else. Now he was himself 
 uncertain. 
 
 When he entered the study where Mrs. Sidebottom 
 was, she saluted him with :
 
 I/O THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' Well, so you have had your interview with Salome. 
 She has been hanging about the hall all the morning 
 for the purpose of catching you.' 
 
 Philip made no reply. Her light tone jarred on 
 his feelings, coming as he did from the presence of a 
 girl full of sadness. 
 
 ' Has she gained you over to her side ?' 
 
 * Upon my word, I do not know what to think.' 
 
 ' Fiddlesticks !' said Mrs. Sidebottom ; ' she has 
 made eyes at you. Girls with good eyes know 
 how to use them ; they are better advocates than 
 their tongues.' 
 
 'The difficulty to identification seems to me in- 
 superable.' 
 
 ' Pshaw ! I have no doubt at all. He had been 
 to bed ; he went out without his coat and waistcoat. 
 He was last seen on the canal bank, not so very far 
 from the place where the corpse was found. The 
 body is discovered wearing the great-coat. I have 
 told you how I explain that. I suppose Salome has 
 made a point to you that the nightshirt was not that of 
 Uncle Jeremiah } Her mother looked after his linen.' 
 
 ' No ; she said nothing of that.'
 
 EXPECTATION. 171 
 
 * But I identify the shirt/ 
 
 * You, aunt ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; it is one I gave him.' 
 
 ' You — gave him ? An extraordinary present.' 
 
 * Not at all. I was his sister ; and I know that an 
 old bachelor's wardrobe would be in a sad state of 
 neglect. I intended to replenish him with linen alto- 
 gether.' 
 
 Philip was greatly surprised. He looked fixedly 
 at his aunt, to make out whether she were speaking 
 seriously. She dashed off, however, at once on 
 another topic. 
 
 ' That girl,' she said, * naturally resisted the con- 
 clusions at which I have arrived.' 
 
 ' Why naturally V 
 
 ' Oh, you greenhorn ! Because if it be established 
 that Jeremiah is dead, out goes the whole Cusworth 
 brood. They have lived here and preyed on him so 
 long that they cannot endure the notion of having to 
 leave, and will fight tooth and nail against the estab- 
 lishment of his decease.' 
 
 * Not at all. You misjudge them. They allow that 
 he is dead, but disbelieve in the identity of the corpse
 
 172 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 found with my uncle who is lost, which is another 
 matter.' 
 
 ' Out they shall go,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 
 
 ' It is painful for them to leave a house where they 
 have been happy, and in which the young ladies have 
 grown up from childhood.' 
 
 * Other people have to undergo painful experiences,' 
 said his aunt ; and again, ' Out they go.' 
 
 * Not at once.' 
 
 ' As soon as the funeral is over.' 
 
 * But why act with such precipitation ?' 
 
 ' Because I cannot endure them. Do you re- 
 member the story of the Republican judge, when a 
 gentleman contended before him for his paternal 
 acres against a sans-culotte^ who had appropriated 
 them } " These acres," said the plaintiff, " have 
 belonged to my family for four hundred years.^' 
 "High time," said the judge, "that they should be 
 transferred to others ;" and he gave sentence for the 
 defendant. These Cusworths have been in possession 
 quite long enough. High time that they should 
 budge, and make room for me.' 
 
 * But you must consider the feelings of the old
 
 EXPECTATION. 173 
 
 lady. You have no excuse for acting peremp- 
 torily.' 
 
 ' I shall inquire what wage she has received, pay 
 her a month, and send her off. That is to say,' added 
 Mrs. Sidebottom on further consideration, ' I will pay 
 her as soon as I have got some of Jeremiah's money 
 out of the bank.' 
 
 * And that cannot be touched till his will has been 
 proved.' 
 
 ' There is no will,* 
 
 ' How do you know that ?' 
 
 * I have searched every drawer, closet, and chest. I 
 have looked everywhere. There is no will.' 
 
 ' It will be at the lawyers'.' 
 
 * Jeremiah never had a lawyer. That was one of 
 his fads.' 
 
 * Then at the bank.' 
 
 ' I wrote to the bank the moment I heard of his 
 death. I have received an answer. There is no will 
 at the bank/ 
 
 ' There is time enough to discuss this later.' 
 ' No, there is not,' said Mrs. Sidebottom peremp- 
 torily. ' The factory must not be allowed to come to
 
 174 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 a stand, and the business to drift away. You have no 
 claim.' 
 
 'That remains to be seen. If there be no will, I 
 shall have a claim, and a pretty substantial one.' 
 
 ' Your father withdrew his share from the concern. 
 I did not. I have my interest in the business, and 
 will see that it be kept up. Where is Lamb .?' 
 
 * The captain will be here directly. Hush ! I hear 
 him in the hall.' 
 
 In another minute, Lambert Pennycomequick 
 entered the room, very fresh, well dressed, and 
 pleasant. 
 
 ' Lamb !' exclaimed his mother, ' there is no will.' 
 
 'Then, I suppose,' said the captain, ' we shall have 
 to take out an administration. I don't understand 
 these things myself, but Cousin Philip is here on the 
 spot to manage for us.' 
 
 'If there be no will,' explained Philip, 'you, Aunt 
 Louisa, as sole surviving sister of Uncle Jeremiah, 
 will have to act. You will have to take oath that he 
 is dead, and that he died intestate. Then you will 
 be granted administration as next of kin. If I had 
 any doubt about his death, I would enter a caveat
 
 EXPECTATION. 175 
 
 and prevent the grant ; and then the death would 
 have to be proved in solemn form in court. But I 
 have no doubt that my uncle is dead, though I may 
 think it an open matter whether the body in the 
 other room be his.' 
 
 ' And, if I am granted administration as nearest of 
 kin, all the property comes to me T said Mrs. Side- 
 bottom. 
 
 ' Not so — most certainly.' 
 
 ' Why not ? I am nearest. I alone have a stake 
 in the mill. Yours was withdrawn long ago. I am 
 his sister, you only a half-nephew.' 
 
 ' For all that, you do not take everything. I have 
 my share.' 
 
 * Well, if it must be, we will divide into three. I 
 take a third in addition to what I have by my mar- 
 riage settlement ; Lamb has a third, and you the 
 remainder.' 
 
 ' Wrong again, aunt. Lambert is out of the run- 
 ning. The estate will be divided between you and 
 me in equal portions.' 
 
 * This is monstrous. My Lambert is a nephew 
 every whit as much as you.'
 
 176 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 'Yes, but you intervene. Such is the law.' 
 Mrs. Sidebottom was silent for a moment. Then 
 she said irritably : * I wish now, heartily, that there 
 had been a will. 1 know what Jeremiah's intentions 
 were, and I would grieve to my heart's core to have 
 them disregarded. In conscience, I could not act 
 differently from his wishes. If he omitted to make a 
 will, it was because he knew nothing of law, and 
 supposed that everything would devolve to me, his 
 sister. Philip, knowing the rectitude of your principles, 
 I am sure you will decline to touch a penny of your 
 uncle's inheritance. You know v^ery well that he 
 never forgave your father, and that he always re- 
 garded his leaving the business as an acquittal of all 
 further obligations towards him.' 
 
 * I must put you out of doubt at once,' said Philip. 
 ' I shall most certainly take my share.' 
 
 * I do not believe that my brother died without a 
 will. I never will believe it. It will turn up some- 
 how. These old fogies have their odd ways. Perhaps 
 it is at the mill in his office desk. What a world of 
 contrarieties we do live in ! Those persons to whom 
 we pin our faith as men of principle are just those
 
 EXPECTATION. 177 
 
 who fail us. However, to turn to another matter. I 
 presume that I am in authority here. You have no 
 caveat to offer against that V 
 ' None at all.' 
 
 ' Then out go the Cusworths, and at once.' 
 'Not at once. That is indecent. If you will have 
 it so, after the funeral give them notice. You must 
 act with humanity.' 
 
 ' The girl is insolent. She has the temerity to dis- 
 pute my assertion that the dead man is Jeremiah.' 
 
 'She is justified in forming her own opinion and 
 expressing it' 
 
 ' Of course, you take her part. She has been ogling 
 you with good effect. Lamb, will you go down and 
 call her up 1 I must have a word with her at once, 
 and ascertain the amount of wages her mother has 
 received, and how much is due.' 
 
 ' Remember,' said Philip, ' that Mrs. Baynes has 
 come here from Normandy, and that Mrs. Cusworth 
 is ill, and that houses are scarce at present in Mer- 
 gatroyd.' 
 
 • Then let them go elsewhere. To Jericho, for all I 
 care.' 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 Philip was very angry. He was offended at his 
 aunt's insinuations about himself, and indignant at 
 her want of feeling towards those who had been 
 companions and friends to his uncle. 
 
 Lambert had left the room as desired. 
 
 ' Aunt Louisa,' said Philip, ' I insist upon your 
 acting with courtesy and consideration towards the 
 Cusworths. I do not mean to threaten you ; but I 
 shall not tolerate conduct that appears to me as 
 ill-judged as unjust. As you said yourself, we must 
 remember and act upon the wishes of the deceased ; 
 and it would be contrary to them that the old lady 
 and her daughters should be treated with disrespect 
 and unkindness.' 
 
 ' You leave me to deal with them,' said Mrs. Side- 
 bottom, somewhat cowed by his manner. 
 
 ' You know my opinion. You will find it not to 
 your advantage to disregard it,' said Philip haughtily. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom shuffled her feet, and arranged her 
 skirts, frowned, and examined her pocket-handker- 
 chief, where she discovered an iron-mould. 
 
 Then Lambert reappeared with Salome, and as 
 they entered the door, Philip turned towards it and
 
 EXPECTATION. 179 
 
 took up his position near the girl, facing his aunt, as 
 if to protect Salome from insolence and injustice. 
 Mrs. Sidebottom understood the signification of the 
 movement, bit her lips, and said with constraint, 
 looking on the ground : * May I ask you, Miss 
 Cusworth, to favour us by taking a chair ? There is 
 no occasion for you to stand in my presence. I have 
 taken the liberty to send for you, because my poor 
 dear brother is dead, and as no reasonable doubt 
 remains in any unprejudiced mind that his body has 
 been found * 
 
 Salome's lips closed. She looked at Philip, but 
 said nothing. She had made her protest. One on 
 this occasion would be superfluous. 
 
 ' We desire in every way to act according to the 
 wishes of my darling brother, whom it has pleased a 
 beneficent Providence ' — she wiped her eyes — ' to re- 
 move from this vale of tears. As his sister, knowing 
 his inmost thoughts, the disposition of his most 
 sacred wishes, his only confidant in the close o^ life, I 
 may say I know what his intentions were as well as 
 if he had left a will.' 
 
 * There is a will,' said Salome quietly. 
 
 12 — 2
 
 l8o THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 < A will !— Where ?' 
 
 ' In my workbox.' 
 
 A silence ensued. Mrs. Sidebottom looked very 
 blank. 
 
 ' On the very night he died he gave it me to 
 keep, and I put it away in my workbox, as I had 
 nothing else that locked up. My workbox is in my 
 room upstairs. Shall I fetch the will ?' 
 
 * No/ said Philip, ' let it stay where it is till after 
 the funeral.'
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SURPRISES. 
 
 When the funeral was over, and the family of Penny- 
 comequick was assembled in the house of the 
 deceased, or assumed to be deceased, manufacturer, 
 Mrs. Sidebottom sent her compliments to Salome, 
 with a request that she would favour her with an 
 interview in the dining-room. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom was dressed in fresh black satin 
 and crape that became her well, as her hair and face 
 were fair. Of this she was aware, and she took the 
 opportunity of surveying herself in every mirror that 
 she passed. Really in her mourning she looked 
 young again. The black seemed to produce on her 
 much the same effect as the photographer's stipple, 
 wherewith he effaces the wrinkles of the negative. It 
 was as though the life of Pennycomequick were a 
 capital of which, when Jeremiah lost hold, his heirs
 
 i82 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 had taken possession. Not Mrs. Sidebottom only, 
 but also her son seemed to have come in for a bequest 
 of vitality. The captain looked brighter, less languid 
 than he had for long. 
 
 Philip's suspicious nature had been displeased by 
 the statement of Salome that the will was in her 
 possession. It appeared to him strange that the old 
 man should have entrusted so important a document 
 to the care of a girl of nineteen or twenty. It roused 
 in his mind that mistrust which had been laid. He 
 asked whether the fact of this consignment did not 
 show that the Cusworth family were deeply interested 
 in the will ; whether this taking possession of it were 
 not the conclusion of a conspiracy to get the old man 
 to make a testament altogether in their favour. 
 
 He did not, on this occasion, move to meet Salome 
 when she entered the room, but took his position 
 apart, with arms folded, and face imperturbable, and 
 set hard, as if a frost had congealed it. 
 
 Philip was not by any means unconcerned as to 
 the disposition of his uncle's property. He would 
 have been raised above the passions and ambitions of 
 human nature had he been unconcerned, for the
 
 SURPRISES, 183 
 
 disposition was likely to affect materially his whole 
 after-life. 
 
 Philip was now aged thirty-four years, and was 
 only a solicitor's clerk. The utmost he could expect, 
 without a windfall, would be when well advanced in 
 years to be taken into the firm of Pinch and Squeeze 
 for his mastery of the details of the business. He 
 would be incapable of purchasing a partnership, as he 
 was wholly without capital. What means his father 
 had possessed had been thrown away, and therewith 
 his prospects. 
 
 Philip's only chance of recovering his proper 
 position was through a bequest from the uncle whose 
 will was about to be read. 
 
 If Jeremiah had died intestate, he would have come 
 in for a share of the business, and for a good lump 
 sum of money^ for it is quite certain that his uncle 
 had saved money. He might then have either 
 purchased a partnership in a good legal house, or 
 carried on the factory, remaining at Mergatroyd. 
 
 It was true that he knew nothing of the technique 
 of linen weaving, but his training had taught him 
 business habits, and he was confident that in a short
 
 i84 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 time he would be able to master the ramifications of 
 the business. There is a tool sold by ironmongers 
 that contains in the handle, saw, file, gimlet, turn- 
 screw, chisel, bradawl, and punch. The nozzle of the 
 handle is provided with a grip that holds or discharges 
 such of the tools as are required or done with. Thus 
 the instrument can be converted at pleasure into 
 whatever is desired. 
 
 A business education makes a man into such a 
 convertible tool, ready, as required, to be saw, file, 
 turnscrew, or punch. Philip was conscious of his 
 mental flexibility, and confident that if he resolved to 
 make a new departure, he could fit himself to it. 
 The knowledge that he had been without means had 
 not soured him as it had his father, but had hardened 
 him. His profession had conduced, as this profession 
 does in many cases, to foster in him a strong and 
 touchy sense of rectitude. Brought into contact with 
 mankind in its ignoble aspects, seeing its sordidness, 
 selfishness, laxity of principle where self-interest is 
 concerned, he had framed for himself a rigorous code 
 of honour, from which nothing would make him 
 swerve by a hair's-breadth.
 
 SURPRISES. i8s 
 
 In the past he had made no calculation on receiv- 
 ing anything from his uncle, but now that the possi- 
 bility of his getting something was presented to him, 
 he could not contemplate the decisive moment with 
 equanimity. The tiger that has tasted human blood, 
 ever after disdains the food that previously satisfied 
 its maw ; and the young lady who has been through 
 a London season, or only ventured into a first ball, 
 will not afterwards return to the sobriety and mono- 
 tony of country life. If Philip had been left to plod 
 on at Nottingham without expectations, he would 
 have accommodated himself to his situation with dull 
 resignation ; but now that a prospect of independence 
 had been dangled before his eyes, he could not return 
 to his old career without intensified distaste. 
 
 Yet he was far from forming great hopes. He 
 knew that Jeremiah had been a vindictive old man, 
 never forgiving his brother a mistake which had cost 
 that brother more suffering than it had Jeremiah. It 
 was more probable that the old manufacturer would 
 leave everything to his sister and her son, with whom 
 he had always maintained unbroken connection, than 
 that he should favour him. Whether Jeremiah liked
 
 i86 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 and trusted his sister and her son, and to what extent 
 he liked and trusted them, Philip had not the means 
 of judging, that alone could be revealed by the will. 
 
 U he should be disappointed, his disappointment 
 would be more grievous to bear than he cared to 
 acknowledge to himself. He was, indeed, angry wi'ih 
 himself for feeling any flutter of hope. If he should 
 be disappointed, he would return to Nottingham, to 
 his former routine of life, and spend the rest of it in 
 a subordinate position, destitute of that brightness 
 and ease for which a man of education craves as an 
 atmosphere in which his soul can breathe and expand. 
 He did not desire ease because indolent, but to 
 obtain scope for his faculties t6 develop in other 
 directions than those to which they were professionally 
 turned ; and to polish the other facets of the inner 
 self than those exposed to the daily grindstone. He 
 would like to buy books, to take a holiday on the 
 Continent, to purchase small artistic treasures, to be 
 able to rise out of the contracted circle of petty 
 clerk-life, with all its small prejudices and narrow 
 interests. 
 
 For fifteen years he had lived this life that was un-
 
 SURPRISES. 187 
 
 congenial, and unless his uncle's money gave him wings 
 to rise out of it, he must remain in this Stymphalian 
 bog. Consequently it was with a beating heart, and 
 with inward fluctuations of hope and fear, that he 
 awaited the decision ; but none of this unrest could 
 be seen in his face, that did not bear in it a sign of 
 expectation. 
 
 As Salome entered, Mrs. Sidebottom waved to her 
 to take a seat. The girl, however, with a slight 
 acknowledgment, stepped up to Philip, and extend- 
 ing to him the will, said : ' It was given to me to keep 
 safely, should anything occur. I cannot even now 
 resign it absolutely, as Mr. Pennycomequick told me 
 that I was to keep it and prove it.' 
 
 'You prove it!' exclaimed Philip, glancing at her 
 suspiciously. 
 
 • You 1' cried Mrs. Sidebottom. ' Fiddlesticks ! 
 That is to say, impossible.' 
 
 ' You must remain in the room, Miss Cusworth,' 
 said Philip, ' whilst the will is read, after which we 
 will remit it to your charge.' 
 
 ' I object to such as are not of the family being 
 present,' said Mrs. Sidebottom.
 
 i88 THE PENXYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' Your objection must be put aside,' answered Philip. 
 ' As Miss Cusworth has been entrusted with the 
 document, and required to prove it, she must remain.' 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom tossed her head. 
 
 Philip drew his penknife from his pocket, opened 
 it, and leisurely cut through the top of the envelope, 
 extracted the document, and unfolded it. He glanced 
 at the heading, and then, with lawyer-like instinct, at 
 the end, then, with a sharp look of surprise at Salome, 
 who waited with lowered eyes, he said : ' This is 
 worthless. The signature has been torn away.' 
 
 ' Torn away 1' echoed Mrs. Sidebottom. 
 
 Salome looked up in astonishment. 
 
 * This is a cancelled will,' said Philip. ' It is of no 
 more value than waste paper. When do you say 
 my uncle entrusted it to you ?' 
 
 ' Shortly before he left the house on the night 
 that he disappeared. I am quite sure he thought it was 
 of importance, from his manner towards me in com- 
 mending it. He said it was a trust, an important 
 trust.' 
 
 ' Then,' said Philip, * there is some mystery behind 
 unsolved.'
 
 SURPRISES. 189 
 
 'Read it,' urged Mrs. Sidebottom ; 'and see if 
 that will clear it up.' 
 
 ' I will read it, certainly,' said Philip ; ' but it is a 
 document entirely devoid of legal force.' 
 
 Philip began to run his eye over it before reading 
 aloud. 
 
 ' Well, upon my word,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, ' you 
 are inclined to keep us on tenterhooks. The will, if 
 not valid, is still interesting, no doubt.' 
 
 ' This,' said Philip, in a tone that had harshness in 
 it, ' this is a most extraordinary document. It is in 
 the first place clearly made up from some of those 
 formulas which are found in popular handbooks ; for 
 aught I know picked out of " Inquire Within for 
 Everything," or the " Family Save-All." The last 
 portion is also clearly taken from no formula at all, 
 but is the expression of my uncle's peculiar idiosyn- 
 crasies.' 
 
 * Well, read it, and pass your comments on it later,' 
 said Mrs. Sidebottom, shifting her position in her 
 seat and rearranging her skirts. 
 
 Before reading, Philip cast a searching glance at 
 Salome. He now seated himself at the table, and 
 proceeded to read :
 
 I90 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' I, Jeremiah Pennycomequick, of Mergatroyd, in 
 the County of York, and the West Riding of said 
 county, manufacturer, being in sound health and in 
 full possession of my faculties, do give, bequeath, and 
 devise all the real and personal estate of which I shall 
 be possessed or entitled at the time of my decease, 
 together with my factory, my house with garden, which 
 are all leasehold for twenty-one years, together with 
 all the appurtenances thereof, unto Salome Cusworth, 
 my adopted daughter, absolutely ; chargeable, how- 
 ever, with such sum annually to be paid out of the 
 profits,/?'^ j^ata, to my half-sister, Louisa Sidebottom, 
 as was agreed by her marriage settlement. And I 
 further direct and bequeath to my nephew, Lambert 
 Sidebottom, and to my nephew, Philip Pennycome- 
 quick, to each severally an annuity of one hundred 
 pounds, to be paid to the said Lambert Sidebottom 
 and the said Philip Pennycomequick during their 
 respective lives, in half-quarterly payments. And I 
 hereby request my executor to invest a sufficient sum 
 in the purchase of such annuities out of the moneys 
 arising from my personal estate. And I further 
 appoint the aforesaid Salome Cusworth, my adopted
 
 SURPRISES, 191 
 
 daughter, sole executrix of my will, and revoke all 
 former wills by me at any time heretofore made. 
 
 ' And whereas I have been during the whole course 
 of my lifetime an enemy to lawsuits, and what little 
 I leave I desire may not be squandered away on the 
 gentlemen of the long robe, for whom all the venera- 
 tion I have is at a distance, and wishing that there 
 was more justice and less law in the world, I devise 
 that should any legatee trouble my executor by going 
 to law, by commencing any suit of law, in any tribunal 
 whatsoever, the said person be deprived of the benefit 
 of the legacy hereby bequeathed.'* 
 
 Philip paused, then added: 'The will is dated about 
 a twelvemonth ago, and is witnessed by Marianne 
 Cusworth, widow, of Mergatroyd, and John Dale, 
 surgeon, of Bridlington.' The silence that had been 
 maintained during the reading continued unbroken 
 for a couple of minutes after it was concluded. 
 
 The first to break it was the captain, who said : ' A 
 bad job for me. I lose my hundred a year, and am 
 left as before, dependent on my mother's apron-string.' 
 
 * The conclusion of this will is taken verbatim from one 
 made by a member of the author's family, and proved in the 
 Prerogative Court of Canterbury (Bedford, f. 167).
 
 192 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 Philip looked at Salome ; she saw by the contrac- 
 tion of the irises of his eyes that there was aversion 
 in his heart. 
 
 •Miss Cusworth,' he said in metallic tones, 'there 
 is but one explanation of this extraordinary matter ; 
 this explanation that presents itself to my mind is 
 not to your credit. Shall I say what I think, or shall 
 I forbear?' 
 
 * Tell me what your opinion is,' she said quietly. 
 ' This will was drawn up, clearly without advice 
 and by his own hand, by my uncle, Mr. Jeremiah 
 Pennycomequick. What can have induced him to 
 make such an unjust disposition of his property in 
 your favour you can best tell.' 
 
 ' I cannot tell It is unjust. I am glad that the 
 will is worthless.' 
 
 ' Sour grapes,' muttered Mrs. Sidebottom to her 
 son. 
 
 ' That undue influence was exercised, I make no 
 doubt. Had this will been perfect, with signature 
 complete, Mrs. Sidebottom, who risks nothing by the 
 outrageous proviso in the second part, would have 
 contested it ; this I doubt no more than I doubt that
 
 SURPRISES. 193 
 
 pressure was brought to bear on an old, and perhaps 
 feeble naan, to make this will.' 
 
 Salome's blood flamed up to the roots of her hair. 
 
 ' After this will had been made and duly attested, 
 my uncle on thinking the matter over calmly, con- 
 sidered the injustice he had done, and cancelled his 
 signature. He had changed his mind. You, I presume, 
 still exercised pressure on him, and to relieve himself 
 of this, he gave the will into your custody ; it was a 
 deception probably justifiable under the circumstances. 
 He unquestionably intended to make another will with 
 quite different provisions, but was prevented by death 
 from executing his intentions.' 
 
 * You think,' exclaimed Salome, her bosom heaving 
 and her colour changing rapidly — 'you think I could 
 behave so unworthily.' 
 
 * I can find no other solution.' 
 
 She was cut, wounded to her heart's core. 
 
 ' You say that the will was given you to keep. 
 For what reason ^ Because it interested you ex- 
 traordinarily .'*' 
 
 * Yes,' said Salome, * so Mr. Pennycomequick said 
 when he gave it me.' 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' But why did he think it necessary to give it you 
 when he knew it was invalid ? He must have done it 
 to quiet your importunities. I can see no other 
 reason.' 
 
 ' You wrong me/ said the girl, with pain and 
 dignity. ' I am sure that he did not know it was 
 worthless when he handed it to me. His manner 
 was so serious.' 
 
 * You do not suppose it was tampered with after it 
 came into your possession ?' 
 
 ' Oh no, certainly not. It was locked up in my 
 workbox under the tray where are my cottons and 
 needles.' 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom watched their faces and followed 
 the dialogue with almost breathless attention. Now 
 she smiled sarcastically. 
 
 ' It is disappointing,' she said, * after the toils have 
 been laid to lose the game.' 
 
 Salome again crimsoned. 
 
 * You think that I used my position in this house, 
 took advantage of my nearness to Mr. Pennycome- 
 quick, to induce him to commit an injustice ?' 
 
 Philip bowed stiffly.
 
 SURPRISES. 195 
 
 ' You charge me with the grossest breach of honour, 
 with wicked ingratitude to the man who has been to 
 me as a father ?' 
 
 ' We do not accuse you personally,' said Lambert, 
 who thought that, as he would have expressed it, his 
 cousin and mother were ' down on the girl too hard,' 
 * but we think it awfully queer that uncle should have 
 made such a will. Your mother, for instance ' 
 
 ' My mother is as incapable of such meanness as 
 myself,' said Salome. ' To such as can think of me so 
 basely, no justification I could make would be of any 
 avail. With your leave ' 
 
 She bowed, and now white as ivory, with spots of 
 fire in her temples, she swept out of the room. 
 
 13 — 2
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WHAT NEXT? 
 
 What was to be done ? 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom was the first to see what was to be 
 done. 
 
 ' I shall take out an administration at once,' she 
 said. 
 
 Philip said nothing. Oi^ course she must do what 
 she said. She was the proper person to take out an 
 administration as nearest of kin. " But he was not 
 thinking of her and of what she proposed to do. He 
 was standing still with the will in his hand. Salome 
 had not reclaimed it, as it was worthless. He pro- 
 ceeded to fold it and replace it in the cover. Philip 
 was not easy in his mind. He had spoken in a rude 
 manner to the girl, throwing a gross charge against 
 her, and had grievously hurt her.
 
 WHAT NEXT? i97 
 
 Was the charge just? Was it possible to explain 
 the peculiar circumstances in any other way than that 
 which had occurred to him? 
 
 Suddenly looking up at Mrs. Sidebottom, and then 
 at the captain, he looked down again, and this time 
 with great attention at the envelope. 
 
 'The envelope has been tampered with,' he said. 
 
 *In what way?' asked Mrs. Sidebottom. 
 
 * It has been opened by means of a heated penknife. 
 Here are the marks of the smoke that have been 
 rubbed off the blade upon the paper ; and here are 
 cuts made by the knife in the paper. The envelope, 
 after having been sealed, was opened carefully, even 
 cunningly.' 
 
 ' Why carefully or cunningly I cannot tell, but of 
 course opened it has been,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 
 ' Vou do not suppose Jeremiah could destroy his 
 signature without opening the envelope?' 
 
 ' Certainly not. But I should not have supposed 
 he would take pains to do it in such a manner. He 
 had plenty of long envelopes at hand. Then, again, to 
 refasten it a different sealing-wax was employed to 
 what had been used before, a slight difference in tint
 
 198 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 of scarlet, and one impression of the stamp can be 
 traced over the other, the earlier not being wholly 
 obliterated. Excuse me one moment, Aunt Louisa, I 
 should like to have a look at my uncle's study.' 
 
 ' Philip — the room is in disorder !' said Mrs. Side- 
 bottom, starting to her feet and flushing, ' I cannot, 
 really ; upon my word, I will not permit ' 
 
 But he had left the room before she could prevent 
 him. She moved to follow him, but reconsidered her- 
 self and turned back. 
 
 ' Fiddlesticks !' she said angrily ; ' nothing but 
 fiddlesticks.' 
 
 • I am the sufferer,' grumbled Lambert ; ' I shall be 
 left in the cold. You and Philip take everything.' 
 
 'What I have serves to make you comfortable,' 
 retorted the mother. 
 
 ' That may be/ answered Lambert, ' but it is one 
 thing to have money of one's own, and another thing 
 to have to come to one's mammy for every penny, and 
 to find that the mammy rarely has any pennies in her 
 purse.' 
 
 * Hitherto I have been pinched in circumstances. 
 It will be different now, Lamb, you will see.' After a
 
 WHAT NEXT? 199 
 
 pause, she added, ' Unless that meddlesome, vexatious 
 prig, Philip, prove an obstruction. 
 
 Presently Philip returned. 
 
 ' It is as I thought,' said he. * The sealing-wax 
 employed the second time is that now in the pen-tray 
 on my uncle's desk ; not only so, but his knife is there 
 also, bearing on it the traces of exposure to fire. It 
 was probably thrust into the flame of the gas to heat 
 it so as to enable it to dissolve the wax off the seal.' 
 
 ' No doubt about it,' said Mrs. Sidebottom ; ' and 
 this proves that Jeremiah cancelled his will shortly 
 before his death. I should not be surprised if he did 
 it the same night that he died, immediately before 
 giving it to Salome.' 
 
 * The case is a most extraordinary one,' said Philip. 
 
 ' Not at all ; it is clear as day.' 
 
 Philip did not care to debate the matter with his 
 aunt, so he left the room, and taking his hat, entered 
 tlie garden. 
 
 The garden, as already said, descended from the 
 house to the valley. It consisted of two slopes, 
 divided by a wall ; the upper slope ended in a terrace- 
 walk, with the coping of the wall serving as a parapet
 
 200 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 to it. Access to the lower garden was obtained by a 
 flight of steps at each end. The upper of che two 
 divisions was devoted to flowers, the lower to vege- 
 tables, and fruit-trees were trained against the wall 
 that buttressed up the terrace. 
 
 Philip paced the upper terrace for several minutes, 
 and was unable to come to a decision ; he could not 
 see that the matter was as simple as his aunt pre- 
 tended. For, as he argued, why should his uncle have 
 taken pains to preserve the original envelope when 
 there was no apparent necessity for so doing. If any- 
 one else had opened the envelope, then he could 
 understand the care taken to preserve it with its 
 superscription, ' The Last Will and Testament of 
 Jeremiah Pennycomequick,' and to conceal the fact 
 that it had been adroitly unclosed. 
 
 But who would have been likely to commit such an 
 act } Certainly not Salome, in whose keeping, under 
 lock and key, the will had been. It was hardly 
 possible that it had been tampered with since it was 
 given to her. Was it possible that it had been can- 
 celled before, unknown to Jeremiah ? 
 
 Philip saw that he had not the data, or had not data
 
 WHAT NEXT? 201 
 
 sufficient, on which to come to a decision. He must 
 have another interview with Salome. He therefore 
 returned to the house, and meeting a servant in the 
 hall, asked her to request Miss Cusworth to speak with 
 him a few minutes in the garden. 
 
 Without delay Salome came. She had not put on 
 a bonnet, but had thrown a gray shawl over her head, 
 and pinned it under her chin like a mill-girl. Some 
 of her burnished hair, like autumn oak-leaves flaming 
 in the evening sun, shone out from under the shawl, 
 and the gray wool contrasted pleasantly with the 
 delicately beautiful complexion, now no longer white, 
 but with flying tinges of colour in it, like a sunset sk}' 
 in which are drifts of vapour, high aloft, undefined, 
 yet sensitive to the rays of the declining orb. She 
 was deeply wounded, and the changes in her colour 
 followed the fluctuations of resentment, humiliation, 
 anger and pain in her heart. 
 
 She had been crying — Philip saw that — for though 
 she had wiped her eyes, the tears were still near the 
 surface, and with difficulty restrained from over- 
 flowing. 
 
 * Miss Cusworth,' said Philip, with stiffness, but an
 
 202 THE PEXXYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 attempt at graciousness, * I regret that I addressed 
 yoa a few moments ago without that charity which I 
 was bound to entertain. I was surprised, indignant, 
 and rushed to a conclusion which may prove to have 
 been formed too precipitately. I shall be greatly — 
 very greatly obliged, if you will accept my apology, 
 and allow me to ask you a series of questions on the 
 subject of the will, to enable me to form a matured 
 opinion as to the manner in which it was cancelled, 
 and by whom it was done ; two points that appear to 
 me at this moment by no means as clear as they did 
 a quarter of an hour ago, because a close examination 
 of the envelope has shown me that it was opened 
 recently, and in a manner that seems to me suspicious/ 
 
 * I w^ll answer any questions you put — as far as it is 
 in my ability to answer them.' 
 
 ' And — we shall be more at our ease, more in 
 private, if we take the lower walk at the foot of the 
 wall,' said Philip, ' as from the windows everyone can 
 see us here and comment on our interview. May I 
 ask you to do me the further favour of walking with 
 me below the steps ?' 
 
 ' Certainly,' answered Salome, and began to descend.
 
 WHAT XEXTP 203 
 
 Philip would have been devoid of the elementary 
 faculties by which beauty is perceived and admired, if 
 he had not been struck at this time by the young and 
 graceful figure that preceded him, and by the perfect 
 sweetness of the innocent, sad face that turned at the 
 bottom and looked back at him. She did not reproach 
 him with her eyes, and yet, when he caught them, his 
 own eyes fell, and he became uncomfortable and con- 
 scious of having wronged her. She puzzled him. 
 Was she tricky, double, self-seeking ? or was she what 
 she looked — sincere and straightforward ? 
 
 A consciousness stole over Philip that had he lived 
 in the same house with her for sixteen or seventeen 
 years, as had Uncle Jeremiah, and had come to make 
 his will, then without her uttering a word of per- 
 suasion, he would be leaving her everything he had — 
 just as Jeremiah had at one time done ; only he would 
 never have worded his will in such a clumsy, absurd, 
 and unusual fashion. As soon as he reached the foot 
 of the steps, he took his place at her side. Here was 
 a broad walk parallel to that above, facing the sun, 
 sheltered, with the trained trees against the wall on 
 one side, and a box-edging on the other, with, in
 
 204 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 summer, a border of herbaceous flowers fringing the 
 beds of cabbage, onions, brussels sprouts, and carrots. 
 ' I am at your service,' said Salome. 
 
 * Then I will begin my catechism at once,' said 
 Philip. ' Please to give me an exact account of what 
 passed in your last interview with Mr. Pennycome- 
 quick.' 
 
 * Do you mean actually the last — as he went out 
 for his walk by the canal, or when he gave me the 
 will to keep ?' 
 
 ' I mean the latter.' 
 
 ' He had been out to dinner. I sat up awaiting 
 him, thinking he might want something before he 
 went to bed. It was most unusual for him to accept 
 invitations to dine out. When he came back * 
 
 ' He had been dining with Mrs. Sidebottom, I 
 think ?' 
 
 * Yes ; when he came back it was early — that is to 
 say, earlier than I expected. But he was out of 
 spirits, and told me he left as soon as he could get 
 away for that reason.' 
 
 * Had anything occurred to disturb him ?' 
 
 ' Not that I know. But he certainly was in a
 
 WHAT NEXT? 205 
 
 more desponding mood than I had seen him in at 
 any time previously.' 
 
 ' Did he give any reason for it ?' 
 
 Salome hesitated. 
 
 * What reason did he give for his depressed 
 spirits }' 
 
 * He did not exactly give a reason for it, but he 
 was a little mistrustful — perhaps of the world in 
 general' 
 
 ' And of anyone in particular?' 
 
 Salome coloured ; her hand caught her shawl 
 below her chin and worked nervously at it. 
 
 ' I had rather you did not force me to answer that 
 question,' she said timidly. 
 
 * Very well,' said Philip, ' only let me observe that 
 this is not answering me with the fulness that was 
 promised.' 
 
 ' I think he was unjust — and I had rather that 
 little ebullition of injustice was forgotten.' 
 
 ' Go on,' said Philip. * Did he give you the will, 
 then ? — and was it in anyway in connection with the 
 mistrust he expressed ?' 
 
 * I cannot say that. He started up, said he would
 
 2o6 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 confide to me a most solemn trust, that concerned me 
 
 nearly, and went out of the room ' 
 
 ' Whither did he go ?' 
 
 * To the study, I fancy ; and in a moment re- 
 turned ' 
 
 * Excuse me. In a moment?' 
 
 * Yes, almost directly, returned with the paper.' 
 ' It was in the envelope ?' 
 
 *0h yes, just as I gave it you.' 
 
 'You do not think he would have had time to 
 open the envelope, tear off his signature, and reseal 
 the cover before coming back to the room where you 
 were ?' 
 
 * Oh no ! He went upstairs and came down again 
 immediately.' 
 
 ' Now tell me. Are you quite sure that he believed 
 the will was intact when he gave it you ?' 
 ' I am sure of it from his manner.' 
 ' And where did he keep it before he gave it you V 
 ' I do not know.' 
 
 * Had you any previous knowledge of the will and 
 its contents ?' 
 
 * None whatever. I have not even heard my mother
 
 WHAT NEXT? 207 
 
 speak of it ; and she must have known, because she 
 witnessed it. But T am sure also she had no idea as 
 to its contents, or she would have joined with me in 
 entreating him not to make such an unjust disposi- 
 tion of his property. I am glad the will is worthless, 
 because I never could have felt that I had a right to 
 receive all uncle — I mean Mr. Pennycomequick — left 
 me in that will. I should have felt that I was robbing 
 the relations, and I would have refused to benefit by 
 the will.' 
 
 ' Who is the John Dale who signed as witness along 
 with your mother .?' 
 
 ' Mr. Dale ! Oh, he was a dear friend of Mr, Penny- 
 comequick. He always spent his Christmas here, and 
 uncle went at Whitsuntide to spend a few days with 
 him at Bridlington. Mr. Dale is trustee to Janet. 
 We both like him.' 
 
 Salome spoke so openly, so quietly, and with such 
 self-possession, that again his suspicions began to 
 yield to the charm of her honesty, as they had before. 
 
 ' One matter further,' said Philip. ' After Mr. Penny- 
 comequick had given you the will, you locked it up in 
 — I remember you said — a workbox.'
 
 2o8 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' Yes, in my workbox.' 
 
 ' And the workbox— was that put away anywhere ?' 
 
 ' Oh no. I use it every day.' 
 
 'Then — the same box is unlocked very often ?' 
 
 * Yes.' 
 
 * And left unlocked ?' 
 
 Salome hesitated a moment, then said : * Yes— but 
 it is in my room. No one would meddle with my 
 things — no one has any interest in my little odds and 
 ends. Besides, no one would be so mean.' Then 
 after a pause, ' Mr. Pennyconiequick, you charged me 
 with a piece of baseness which ' — she shook her head 
 impatiently, as if to shake off the imputation — ' which 
 it is a stain on me to think of as possible. I could 
 not — I would die rather than do what is mean. 
 Mean !' She turned her face suddenly round on 
 him ; it was flushed, and the eyes sparkled. ' No, 
 Mr. Pennycomequick, I could be wicked, but not 
 mean — no, not that on any account, under whatever 
 provocation — no, not mean 1' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon. Miss Cusworth, most sincerely. 
 I committed myself to a rash charge, which I with- 
 draw.'
 
 WHAT NEXT? 209 
 
 She paid no attention to his apology, but went on : 
 * No, I would not have taken advantage of the will 
 had it been in form and right ; for that would have 
 been mean. Dear Mr. Pennycomequick I loved and 
 love still from the depths of my heart ; but he had his 
 faults, and one was that he was not forgiving to his 
 own relations — to you. And he thought harshly of 
 his sister, Mrs. Sidebottom, and despised Captain 
 Pennycomequick. I had no claim on him at all, and 
 if he saw that he had done wrong, and had himself 
 cancelled the will, no one would rejoice more than 
 myself; for it would show me that he had returned to 
 a more kindly view of you all.' 
 
 ' But how do you account for the signature being 
 torn off?' 
 
 * I have not thought much about it since. I thought 
 only of the hurt you had done me.' 
 
 ' Is it possible that he can have changed his mind- 
 invalidated his will, and then forgotten that he had 
 done so ? No, that is impossible. The act was too 
 recent,' Philip argued aloud. 
 
 ' I would not have had people think ill of dear old 
 uncle/ said Salome, pursuing her own train of thought, 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 2IO THE PESNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 little concerned how the will was invalidated, con- 
 cerned only with her solicitude for the memory of the 
 deceased. ' He had been unspeakably kind to my 
 mother and my sister and me. Everyone would talk, 
 all would say he had been unjust, supposing that will 
 had stood. Over his grave — that was not he who 
 was buried to-day — his grave, wherever it may be, 
 heart-burnings would have arisen, and reproachful 
 words would have been cast at his memory. He 
 wrote that will in some queer mood when he was not 
 quite himself. He never, I must say it, quite valued 
 Mrs. Sidebottom as a sister, and he was ill-pleased 
 when she left York and settled at Mergatroyd. The 
 captain, he thought, had not much brains and was 
 imprudent about money. You he did not know, and 
 he had a mistaken prejudice against lawyers. But 
 there — how the will was made of no effect ; whether 
 by himself or — or how, matters little ; the deed is 
 done, and no one can ever say that he wronged his 
 own flesh and blood.' 
 
 She had spoken quickly, eagerly, without pause, 
 and with a heightened colour. 
 
 A sudden idea came into Philip's mind with a flash.
 
 WHAT NEXT? 211 
 
 * You — Miss Cusworth ! For the sake of his memory 
 did you meddle with the will ?' 
 
 This was a repetition of the charge. First, he 
 charged her with coarse self-seeking, now with blind 
 self-effacement. 
 
 ' I — I — oh ! Mr. Pennycomequick, of course not. 
 It was a trust. I could not touch it, even to save his 
 dear name from reproach.' 
 
 ' Miss Cusworth/ said Philip, ' have you any objec- 
 tion to my seeing your mother V 
 
 ' Not in the least. Only remember she is frail. 
 She suffers from her heart.* 
 
 ' Will you take me to her at once }' 
 
 ' Certainly. Follow me.' 
 
 She led Philip up the steps, through the upper 
 garden ; Philip's eyes, which had watched her descend 
 the steps with admiration, saw her mount them with 
 even greater. She conducted him to the room occupied 
 oy her mother as a parlour. 
 
 The old lady was in black, and was dusting. That 
 was her daily occupation. She travelled about the 
 house with a duster in her pocket, and when the 
 duster became dirty she took her pocket-handkerchief 
 
 14—2
 
 212 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 and dusted with that ; and it was also black. She 
 had been an energetic woman in her youth, and now 
 that she suffered from her heart, was impatient at not 
 being allowed to do as much as she had been wont. 
 She had made an excellent housekeeper to Mr. Penny- 
 comequick. When he was short of domestics she 
 turned her hand to anything — cooked, did housework, 
 needlework — would have cleaned the knives and boots 
 if the boy had failed. The deficiency in servants was 
 not an extraordinary event. In a manufacturing dis- 
 trict few girls care to enter domestic service and submit 
 to its restraints, when they can earn their livelihood 
 at the mills, and have the evenings to themselves in 
 which to meet their friends. When Mr. Pennycome- 
 quick's establishment was complete, she spent her 
 day in making up for the deficiencies of the domestics 
 — putting straight what they had crooked, cleaning 
 out corners they had neglected, brushing down cob- 
 webs they had overlooked, detecting breakages they 
 had made, and repairing rents they had effected in 
 household linen. She was not a good-looking woman, 
 but the likeness of the two girls to her was traceable ; 
 moreover, she must have had at one time auburn hair,
 
 WHAT NEXT? 213 
 
 for though her hair was much darker now, it had in it 
 glints of red copper. Her heart-complaint had given 
 to her face a waxy, even greenish tint, and her lips 
 were leaden. 
 
 On being introduced to her, Philip felt somewhat 
 ashamed of not having made her acquaintance before, 
 because he had allowed himself to be influenced by 
 Mrs. Sidebottom's prejudice. His aunt had treated 
 the widow with studied indift'erence, and when 
 noticing her, behaved towards her with supercilious- 
 ness. Mrs. Cusworth had accordingly kept very much 
 to herself in the rooms allotted to her use. 
 
 Janet was fired with indignation at the discourtesy 
 shown to her mother ; she wished to defy Mrs. Side- 
 bottom, but her mother bade her remember that now 
 this lady was in authority^ and that she and her 
 daughters remained in the house upon sufferance 
 only. 
 
 Philip bowed on entering, and apologized somewhat 
 lamely for not having made the lady's acquaintance 
 earlier, and then, turning, saw Salome glide out of 
 the room with her arm in that of her sister. The girl 
 rightly understood that Philip desired to speak with
 
 214 THE PENNYCOMEQCICKS. 
 
 Mrs. Cusworth alone. He proceeded at once to cross- 
 question her on the subject of the will. 
 
 * You must excuse me,' he said, ' but I am forced to 
 make inquiries. I presume you have been told that 
 a very advantageous will, made in favour of your 
 daughter, has been found, cancelled, and no subse- 
 quently drawn will has been discovered. Mr. Penny- 
 comequick gave this valueless one to Miss Cusworth 
 to keep, and I cannot doubt he did so believing he 
 entrusted her with one that was valid. Now, either 
 he took this one by mistake for a subsequent will 
 which has disappeared, or the will has been — no, I 
 will not commit myself to the statement of the alter- 
 native. Be so good as to tell me what you recollect 
 about the signing of the will ?' 
 
 * It was done just after Janet's wedding.' 
 
 * Were you aware of the contents ?' 
 
 * Certainly not. Mr. Pennycomequick sent for me 
 to his study, where he was with Dr. Dale. He merely 
 asked me to witness his signature to his will ; but he 
 entered into no particulars.' 
 
 ' You had no reason to believe he intended to con- 
 stitute Miss Cusworth his heiress?'
 
 WHAT NEXT? 215 
 
 * Not the least. I supposed he would leave her 
 something as he had dealt so liberally by my other 
 daughter at her marriage ; I neither wished for nor 
 expected more ; certainly for nothing which might 
 cause annoyance to the family.' 
 
 * He never alluded to his intention ?' 
 
 * Never. He was a reserved man.' 
 
 * And you have no reason to suppose he made 
 another will subsequent to that .^' 
 
 ' I know nothing. I was not called in to witness 
 another.' 
 
 ' Thank you,' said Philip, rising. ' The mystery is 
 to me as dark now as before, only ' — and this he said 
 to himself — ' the one explanation I gave at first is, I 
 am now convinced, certainly the wrong one.*
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Philip Penxycomequick returned to the garden. 
 He was still greatly perplexed, but a new and dis- 
 quieting suspicion had invaded his mind. He was 
 now completely satisfied that no undue influence had 
 been used to force the old man to mzike his extra- 
 ordinary' wilL He was also tolerably certain that he 
 handed it to Salome in good faith, believing it to be 
 untouched. The will had been tampered with, either 
 just before or after his death. It was hardly possible 
 that this could have been done before, when preserved, 
 as he little doubted, in the iron chest in which Jeremiah 
 kept aU his deeds and pap>ers of value. It was more 
 probable that the mutilation had been effected after- 
 wards, when carelessly kept in Salome's workbox, 
 which probably had a lock easily fitted with a key
 
 ADMIXISTRATIOX. 217 
 
 and which was sometimes incautiousl)^ left unlocked 
 when Salome was not in her room. 
 
 But who would be likely to do such an act, commit 
 a felony ? He dared not accuse his aunt ; even in 
 thought, such an accusation was too terrible. He 
 had no confidence in her rectitude. His mistrust of 
 her truthfulness had been deepened by her audacioos 
 assertion that Jeremiah had worn a nightshirt she had 
 given him, a statement which he was convinced was 
 untrue, and one made by her to get over the difficulty 
 about the linen of the drowned man differing firom 
 that known to have belonged to her brother. 
 
 He could not disguise firom himself that, on the 
 supposition that Mrs. Sidebottom had mutilated the 
 will, all the difficulty in explaining the myster>^ dis- 
 appeared. She had heard from Salome where the 
 ill was — in her desk and in her roooL It was to 
 Mrs. Sidebottom's interest to know its contents, and 
 to invalidate it when she did know them. But Philip, 
 though he held his aunt in low esteem, could hardly 
 think she could be guilty of such wickedness^ But 
 how else explain the difficulty. Then, again, sup- 
 posing he reached moral conviction that she had
 
 2i8 THE PESXYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 tampered with the document, what course could he 
 pursue? He had absolutely no evidence to justify a 
 public accusation, and without very strong and con- 
 clusive evidence he could not make such a charge — a 
 charge of felony against his own aunt. 
 
 When he considered the grounds on which his 
 suspicion rested, he found how slight they were. The 
 facts were that Mrs. Sidebottom knew where the will 
 was, that she was in the house, and had opportunities 
 of obtaining access to the will, and that it was to her 
 interest to destroy its force. He had no reason to 
 think his aunt morally capable of such a crime. His 
 belief in her veracity was shaken, but it is a long 
 way between telling a lie and committing a crime 
 such as that he was half-inclined to attribute to 
 her. 
 
 With his mind still unsatisfied he went to the study, 
 where he knew he would find her. Captain Lambert 
 had gone out. The captain had borne the restraint 
 imposed on him by the death of his uncle with im- 
 patience. He had been prevented from playing his 
 usual game of billiards. He had yawned in the 
 morning and stood at the window with his hands in
 
 A DMINISTRA TION. 2 1 9 
 
 his pockets, then had shifted his position to the fire, 
 and stood before that with his hands behind him, and 
 found neither position to his taste. In the afternoon 
 he had lounged between the two houses, and had 
 sauntered in the garden, and grumbled and yawned 
 continually. In the evening, when alone after dinner, 
 in his frogged smoking-jacket and slippers, lounging 
 in an arm-chair, he read a little, and when Philip 
 was there, talked with him. But nothing satisfied 
 him ; the Field he found ' awfully dull !' his cousin 
 * awfully prosy !' and he pronounced as his criticism 
 of every novel he dipped into that it was ' awful 
 trash !' 
 
 Philip and Lambert had no interests in common, 
 because Lambert had no interests at all. Philip was 
 reserved, Lambert open, with the difference that exists 
 between a purse and a glove. Philip had much in him 
 which was not for all the world, Lambert had nothing 
 in him whatever. 
 
 Lambert was easy-going, selfish and good-natured 
 in what did not touch his own comfort and ease. He 
 had little conversation, and what he had was un- 
 interesting. We come across people continually who
 
 220 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 have to be dredged that anything may be got out of 
 them, and when dredged, yield nothing to compensate 
 the labour of dredging. In some rivers it is worth 
 while to try the depths with rakes and grapples, or 
 even by diving, for on examination they yield gold- 
 dust, diamonds and pearls. But out of others nothing 
 is extracted save pots, weeds, the waste matter and 
 sewage of civilization. When Lambert was dredged 
 he gave up worthless stuff, scraps of stale news, old 
 jokes worn to pieces, venerable conundrums that had 
 lost their point, and familiar anecdotes retailed without 
 salt. Undredged, he yielded nothing, except among 
 those of his own mental calibre, and with them he 
 talked about people he had met, houses at which he 
 had visited, wines that he had drunk, game that he 
 had shot, the relationships of his acquaintance, about 
 jolly fellows, nice girls, good cigars, and scrumptious 
 dinners. He was a harmless, lazy man who would 
 not wilfully do what was wrong, and would never 
 exert himself to do what was right. 
 
 There are tens of thousands of these negative beings 
 about, male and female, useful in their way, as nitrogen 
 is of use in the atmosphere, void of quality itself, but
 
 A DMINISTRA TION. 22 1 
 
 diluting the active oxygen ; as certain ingredients are 
 serviceable as fluxes to valuable metals, but have no 
 other known use in creation. 
 
 Lambert's mother had energy for both, and managed 
 for herself anil for him. He was well content that it 
 should be so, it saved him trouble. He left her to 
 decide everything for him, as he left his clothes to be 
 brushed and folded and put away by the servant. 
 And as he was a man without a pursuit, he voted 
 everything he had to do a bore, and was voted by 
 everyone who knew him the worst of bores. 
 
 * Well, Philip,' said Mrs. Sidebottom cheerily as her 
 nephew entered ; she was engaged in looking through 
 a list of designs for mourning dresses. ' Well, Philip, 
 I am knocked to pieces with the strain, and am glad 
 all is over. I hope you have had a satisfactory inter- 
 view with that girl, brought her to a humble frame of 
 mind, and induced her to confess that she and her 
 mother concocted that abominable will }' 
 
 ' On the contrary,' answered Philip gravely, * I am 
 satisfied from what she and Mrs. Cusworth have told 
 me that they had nothing to do with it. Not only was 
 no undue pressure brought to bear on my uncle, but
 
 222 THE PENXYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 they were completely ignorant of the contents of his 
 testament.' 
 
 ' Fiddle-faddle,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, ' I don't give 
 them credit for being such fools. They had Jeremiah 
 in their hands for many years. He made that will in 
 their favour, at their suggestion ; only when I came 
 here did his conscience speak out, and then he 
 cancelled it. The case is as plain as a pikestaff.' 
 
 ' You wrong her — her mother,' said Philip with 
 some heat. 
 
 * You — yourself,' retorted Mrs. Sidebottom, ' accused 
 her of having employed unfair means to procure the 
 will. I am only repeating what you said.' 
 
 'I did so. I was hasty. I now regard both Mrs. 
 and Miss Cusworth as incapable of such conduct' 
 
 * Why ! — what a weather-cock you are ! You men 
 are easily talked round by women. A cow has horns, 
 a horse has hoofs, and a dog teeth, for self-protection ; 
 but a woman has only her tongue, which she can use 
 skilfully — far more skilfully than the brutes use their 
 weapons. Why, Philip, there are insects that accom- 
 modate themselves in colour and appearance to the 
 ground they are on, or the tree or leaf they are
 
 A DMINISTRA TION. 223 
 
 destroying, so as to escape detection ; and you would 
 have this precious Salome less clever than an insect ? 
 She has assumed the colour necessary for imposing on 
 your eyes.' 
 
 Philip winced. He had changed his mind twice with 
 respect to Salome, and both times in consequence of 
 an interview with her. 
 
 * I have a proposal to make,' he said ; ' but before 
 making it, I must lay the case before you plainly.' 
 
 ' I desire nothing better, but I wish Lamb were here 
 also.' 
 
 * I wish first to discuss it with you alone, after that 
 we can take Lambert into conference.' 
 
 * I am all attention.' 
 
 ' In the first place, I take it that my uncle made the 
 will without having been subject to any direct pressure. 
 Indirect there was, but that was also unconscious. 
 The children had grown up in his house, he had 
 become warmly attached to them, and when one was 
 married, he provided for her.' 
 
 ' Most unbecomingly and unnecessarily.' 
 
 * He did as he thought fit. The money was his own 
 — his savings ; and he had a perfect right to dispose!
 
 224 THE PESNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 of it as he considered proper. In full possession of 
 his faculties, more than a twelvemonth ago, he made 
 a marriage settlement of a large sum on one of the 
 young ladies, and then, as she was provided for, he 
 made his will, providing for the sister. Miss Salome 
 had been as a daughter to him, he loved her not less 
 than he did ]\Iiss Janet, and certainly had no intention 
 that she should be left destitute when he was removed.' 
 
 * I grant you all that,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. ' He 
 might have left her an annuity of fifty or a hundred 
 pounds. That would have sufficed. But why leave 
 her everything ? But there — what is the good of dis- 
 cussing a document which is of no legal force ?' 
 
 ' Allow me to proceed. Whether he acted rightly 
 or wrongly is a question 1 will not enter into. What 
 he did was what he had proposed in his heart tc- do, to 
 provide for Miss Salome, and to leave to Lambert and 
 me only small annuities. He did not bequeath the 
 factory to Lambert, whom he very well knew was not 
 calculated to manage a business, and he did not leave 
 it to me, because he knew nothing about my capabili- 
 ties and character. I think it is by no means improb- 
 able that there is somethinc: else behind. Miss
 
 A DMINISTRA TION. 225 
 
 Cusworth may be engaged to a suitable person, whom 
 Uncle Jeremiah approved as one Hkely to carry on the 
 business and not throw it away. I conceive that the 
 will may have been prompted quite as much by concern 
 for an old-established and respected business as by 
 regard for the young girl. He may have calculated on 
 the marriage, but not have cared to allude to it at an 
 early stage of the engagement. This is merely a 
 conjecture of mine, and I have no knowledge of any- 
 thing to substantiate it. You must take it for what 
 it is worth.' 
 
 ' Oh, that is likely enough ; but as the will is can- 
 celled, why harp upon it ?' 
 
 * Such I imagine was the mind of my uncle when he 
 framed that will. In two words, he desired that the 
 firm should be carried on, and that his adopted 
 daughter should be provided for.' 
 
 ' I allow all that' 
 
 ' Now the will has been invalidated in a mysterious 
 manner by the signature being torn away. By whom 
 that was done is not known to us, but I do not allow 
 it is at all conclusive that Uncle Jeremiah did it 
 himself.' 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' Of course he did it. He did it because I was in 
 Mergatroyd, and he had come to value me. Besides, 
 Lambert had changed his name ; he had ceased to be 
 a Sidebottom, and had become a Pennycomequick. 
 Indeed, he said as much to me. He was mightily 
 pleased at the change. It was a compliment he took 
 to heart.' 
 
 Philip frowned. His aunt had recollections of 
 things said and done that came in very conveniently 
 to support her theories. 
 
 * My impression is,' said Philip, 'that the will was 
 not torn by my uncle, but by someone else.' 
 
 'And pray,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, tossing her head 
 and moving uneasily in her seat,' do you suspect any- 
 one?' 
 
 ' I accuse no one,' he said drily ; ' I have no right 
 without evidence to do so.' 
 
 ' Good gracious me !' laughed Mrs. Sidebottom. 
 * What an imagination you are endowed with, Philip ! 
 First it leads you to scheme out the whole story of the 
 concoction and destruction of the will, and this you 
 pour out on Salome Cusworth ; then you withdraw 
 the charge, and you conceive a probable engagement
 
 A DMINISTRA TION. 227 
 
 between this young minx and an Admirable Crichton, 
 who is to manage the mill and carry on the business ; 
 and now you have an idea of some outrageous fraud 
 having been committed. Save us from such vagaries 
 of the fancy !' 
 
 ' As it was my uncle's intention that Miss Cusworth 
 should be left comfortably off, and as — by whatever 
 means his will has been mutilated — she is now left 
 wholly unprovided for, which is most certainly against 
 his wish, I propose to you that we, who become the 
 heirs, should do something to assure to Miss Cusworth 
 a provision at least equal in amount to that made for 
 her sister.' 
 
 * I — I do not understand.' 
 
 ' What I say is plain enough. We who share the 
 property of my uncle must deduct from our shares in 
 equal proportions such sum as will, when invested, 
 bring in for the sole benefit of Aliss Cusworth the 
 modest sum of a hundred and fifty pounds per annum.' 
 
 'A hundred and fifty fiddlesticks!' said Mrs. Side- 
 bottom. * I'll be hanged before I agree to that !' 
 
 * To what extent, then, do you propose to meet my 
 suggestion ?' 
 
 15—2
 
 228 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 * Not at all. I will not consent to give her a 
 farthing !' 
 
 * You decline to carry out the wishes of your 
 brother ?' 
 
 * I dispute that they were his wishes — at one time 
 maybe, before I arrived at Mergatroyd. After that 
 he changed his mind altogether, and in evidence — he 
 cancelled his will.' 
 
 * I am by no means prepared to allow that that was 
 his doing.' 
 
 ' A hundred and fifty pounds ! Why, at four per 
 cent, that would be nearly four thousand pounds. I 
 would rather throw my money into the sea, or give it 
 to a hospital.' 
 
 ' I repeat, it was the purpose of the testator to 
 provide for Miss Cusworth. He had not altered his 
 purpose on the night that he died, for he handed her 
 the will to keep in such a manner ' 
 
 * According to her own account,' interjected Mrs. 
 Sidebottom. 
 
 ' As showed that he believed the will was untouched. 
 Either before that, or after — I cannot say when or by 
 whom — the act had been committed which destroyed
 
 ADMINISTRA TIOX. 229 
 
 the value of the will. But Uncle Jeremiah to the last 
 intended that the young lady should be provided for.' 
 
 * I will consent to nothing.' 
 
 * Very well,' said Philip, 'as you cannot agree to my 
 proposal, no other course is left me than to enter a 
 caveat against your taking out an administration/ 
 
 ' What good will that do V 
 
 * It will do no good to anyone — to you least of all ; 
 I shall state my grounds before the Court — that I 
 believe the will of my uncle, which I shall present, has 
 been fraudulently dealt with by some person or 
 persons unknown, and I shall endeavour to get it re- 
 cognised, although it lacks his signature.^ 
 
 ' What !' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom, turning all 
 colours of mottled soap. ' Throw away your chance 
 of getting half!' 
 
 'Yes — because I will not be unjust.' 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom was silent. She was considering. 
 Her fidgets showed that she was alarmed. 
 
 * You will be able to effect nothing,' she said. ' The 
 Court would say that Jeremiah acted improperly when 
 he left his property away from his family, and that he 
 did right in cancelling the will.'
 
 230 THE PEXXYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 'Anyhow, I shall contest the grant of letters of 
 administration.' 
 
 ' What a chivalrous knight that girl has found in 
 you !' sneered Mrs. Sidebottom. ' You had better 
 throw yourself at her feet altogether.' 
 
 Philip made no answer. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom fished up an antimacassar that 
 had been on the back of her chair but had fallen from 
 it, and had been worked into a rope by her movements 
 in the chair. She pulled it out from under her, and 
 threw it on the floor. 
 
 ' I detest these things,' she said. ' They are shoppy 
 and vulgar. Only third-rate people, such as Cus- 
 worths, would hang them about on sofas and arm- 
 chairs.' 
 
 Philip remained unmoved. He knew she was 
 taking about antimacassars merely to gain time. 
 
 Presently he said, * I await your answer.' 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom looked furtively at him. She was 
 irritated at his composure. 
 
 'Very well — as you like,' she said, with a toss of 
 her head ; * but I did not expect this inhuman and 
 unreasonable conduct in you, Philip.'
 
 A DMINISTRA TION. 231 
 
 ' I take you at your word. That is settled between 
 us. Now let us turn to another consideration. The 
 mill must not be stopped, the business must be carried 
 on. I do not suppose that Lambert cares to enter 
 into commercial life.' 
 
 * Certainly not.' 
 
 'Or that you particularly relish life in Mergatroyd.' 
 
 ' I hate the place.' 
 
 ' I am quite willing to undertake the management 
 of the factory, at first provisionally, till some arrange- 
 ment has been come to between us. As soon as the 
 administration is granted, we shall consider the division 
 of the estate, and deduct equally from our several 
 shares that portion which we have resolved to offer to 
 Miss Cusworth.' 
 
 ' As you please,* said Mrs. Sidebottom sulkih'. 
 * But you treat me abominably. However — now, I 
 suppose, unopposed by you — I can ask for right to 
 administer?' 
 
 * Yes — on the conditions to which you have agreed.' 
 'Wait — this house is mine, I suppose. Then I 
 
 will clear it of those who are odious to me.' 
 She started from her seat and left the room.
 
 CHA:T77 XV 
 
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 234 THE PEXXYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 and wondered how long it would be before his eyes 
 stiffened and he saw the things of creation no longer, 
 lie could distinguish the shadows in the moon and 
 make out the darkened portion of the disc. How 
 cold and cheerless it must be yonder ! A life of 
 numbness and lack of volition and impulse must be 
 the lot of the Selenites ! Fear of death, anxiety for 
 himself, had disappeared ; only a sort of curiosity 
 remained in his brain to know whether the condition 
 of life in the moon was more miserable in its chill and 
 helplessness than his present state of drifting in the 
 cold water. 
 
 Then he turned his head to take a last look at 
 Mergatroyd. The lights were twinkling there. He 
 could distinguish those of his own house on the hill- 
 slope. He would never again set foot within its doors, 
 enjoy the comfort of his fireside ; never see Salome 
 again. And then in that odd, incongruous manner in 
 which droll thoughts rise up in the mind at the most 
 inappropriate moments, it occurred to him that there 
 was to be anchovy-toast for breakfast. He had been 
 asked by Mrs. Cusworth if he liked it, and she had 
 promised it him. And as he drifted, immersed in the
 
 THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE. 235 
 
 deadeningly cold brown water, at the thought tlie 
 taste of anchovy came into his mouth. 
 
 The valley of the Keld contracted — a spur of hill 
 ran forward from the ridge on which Alergatroyd was 
 built, and forced the river and canal to describe a 
 semi-circular bend. The line, however, had bored 
 itself a way through the hill, and came out beyond, in 
 a park, among stately but blackened elms. The spur 
 contracted the volume of the flood, which therefore 
 became deeper and more rapid. 
 
 With his numbed hands Mr. Pcnnycomcquick un- 
 loosed his white neckcloth, and with it bound his arm 
 to a branch of the poplar, tying the knot with one 
 hand and his teeth, whilst the water ran through his 
 mouth over his tongue, and washed away from it the 
 smack of anchovy that fancy had conjured to it. 
 
 Then he resigned himself to his lot. A dull sense 
 of being in the power of an inexorable fate came over 
 him, the eagerness for life had faded away, and was 
 succeeded by indifference as to what befel him, this 
 to make way, as the cold and misery intensified, for 
 impatience that all might be over speedily. He still 
 looked up at the moon, but no longer cared what the
 
 236 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 life of the Selenites was like, it was their concern, not 
 his. The thought of anchovy toast no longer had 
 power to bring its flavour to his tongue. Then the 
 moon passed behind a drift of vapour that obscured 
 but did not extinguish it, and Jeremiah, half-uncon- 
 sciously with his stififening lips, found himself mur- 
 muring the words of Milton which he had learned at 
 school, and had not repeated since : 
 
 ' The wandering moon 
 Riding near her highest noon, 
 Like one that hath been led astray 
 Through the heav'ns wide pathless way, 
 And oft, as if her head she bow'd, 
 Stooping through a fleecy cloud.' 
 
 And so murmuring again, and more brokenly, at last 
 fell into complete unconsciousness. 
 
 The critic who generally hits on those particulars 
 in a story which are facts, to declare them to be im- 
 possibilities, and those characters to be unnatural, 
 which are transcripts from nature, is certain to attack 
 the author for making a man who trembles on the 
 confines of death think of anchovy toast and quote 
 ' II Penseroso ;' to which criticism we answer that he 
 has had no experience such as that described, or he
 
 THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE. 237 
 
 would know that what has been described above is in 
 accordance with nature. 
 
 For how long^ Mr. Pennycomequick was unconscious 
 he never knew, and no one, of course, was able to 
 inform him. When he returned to himself, he found 
 that he was lying in a contracted and queer bed, in 
 the side of a chamber equally contracted and queer, 
 tenanted, as far as he could make out, only by a con- 
 tracted and queer human being, whose sex was not to 
 be determined at first glance. If Mr. Pennycome- 
 quick had recovered his sense of smell at the same 
 time that he recovered his other senses, he would have 
 supposed that during the period of unconsciousness 
 he had been steeped in creosote, for the atmosphere 
 about him was charged with the odour of tar. 
 
 He was, in fact, on board a coal-barge, in the little 
 low cabin, and in the little low berth that occupied 
 almost an entire side of the cabin. This cabin was 
 but five feet high ; it was lighted by the hatchway, 
 through which the steps descended into it. At the 
 extremity, opposite the hatch, was an iron stove, the 
 pipe from which poked through the deck above. At 
 this stove was done all the cookine ever done in this
 
 238 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 establishment, and all the washing supposed to be 
 necessary in it, as a concession to public prejudice. 
 On the side opposite Mr. Pcnnycomequick's berth 
 was another, on which were heaped gowns, coats, 
 wading-boots, a frying-pan, a bird-cage, a broken jug, 
 Tom Treddlchoyle's ' Bairnsley- Folks' Almanack,' and 
 a Bible. When that berth was tenanted by a human 
 inmate, then the gowns, coats, boots, frying-pan, bird- 
 cage, broken beer-jug, almanack and Bible were trans- 
 ferred to the floor. 
 
 Near the stove, peeling potatoes, and as she peeled 
 them chucking the peelings on to the berth, with its 
 accumulation of gowns, coats, frying-pan and other 
 articles, was a woman wearing a man's black felt 
 wide-awake, a man's coat, and smoking a mahogany- 
 coloured pipe. 
 
 Her face was so brown, rugged, and masculine, that 
 it was only possible to determine her sex when she 
 stood up. Then she revealed petticoats, short, and 
 fastened together between the calves, so as to convert 
 them into something like Turkish trousers. Beneath 
 them protruded feet as big as those of a man, encased 
 in stout boots.
 
 THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE. 239 
 
 * Bless me !' exclaimed Mr. Pennycomequick. 
 * Where am I ?' 
 
 Then the woman half rose. She could not stand 
 upright in the cabin, she was so tall ; and she came 
 over to the berth in stooping posture. 
 
 * Eh, lad, tha'rt wick ! Uos't a' want to know wheer 
 tha' art ? \\ hy, for sure, tha'rt i't Conquering Queen^ 
 as carries coils t' Goole.' 
 
 * How came I here ?' 
 
 'Ah reckon ah hug-ged (drew) thee aht o't water 
 mysen. Ah saw thee floatin' by on tha' rig (back) 
 taizled like i' an owd tree. Sea (so) I had thee aht i' 
 a jiffy. If ah hed'dnt, tha'd been dead long agone. 
 Hev naw a sup o' tea, and we'll talk after.' 
 
 Mr. Pennycomequick tried to move — to raise him- 
 self—but he was stiff in all his joints, and unable to 
 stir more than his head. 
 
 ' Wecl naw !' exclaimed the woman, ' tha'rt wor nor 
 I thowt. Ah be main sorry for thee. Ah'll bring t' 
 pegg\-tub, and turn't upside daan, and sot me a top, 
 t^ll do as weel as owt Ah can talk ta thee a bit — I 
 da'ant mind. But I'm glad tha'rt better, lad. Come 
 na,' if tha woant ha' no tea, mebbe tha'll tak a sup o' 
 tar-water.'
 
 240 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 By degrees Mr. Pennycomequick got to under- 
 stand how he had been rescued, and where he was. 
 
 The flood had caught the Conquering Queen coal 
 barge some way below Mergatroyd, where the land 
 was flat, and where accordingly the water had spread 
 and its violence was expended. It had snapped the 
 cable that fastened the boat, and she had been carried 
 on down the canal. She had not been lifted and 
 stranded beyond the banks, but had gone along with 
 the current in the proper course. The Conqnering 
 Queen was the property of Ann Dewis, who inhabited 
 and managed her, along with a boy, a gawky lad of 
 fifteen, all legs and arms, which became entangled 
 among ropes and chains, and stumbled over lumps of 
 coal and mooring posts, who never descended the 
 ladder without slipping and falling to the bottom in 
 a heap ; and whose face and body, if not perpetually 
 begrimed with coal dust, would have shown blue with 
 bruises. 
 
 Ann Dewis had given up her berth to the man she 
 had drawn out of the water, and slept on the floor 
 beside the clothing, bird-cage, cooking utensils, and 
 literature sacred and profane.
 
 THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE. 24 t 
 
 ' Sure sartain,' said Mrs. Dewis, ' t'ull be a long 
 time wal (until) thar't better ; and curias it es, but all 
 wor profezied i' Tom Treddlehoyle i' hes predicshons 
 for 1870. Jest yo listen till this. November: Ah 
 look for menny foakes bein' brawt low, throo abaht t' 
 middle ta fend a' t'munth ; hahiver, theaze a good 
 prospecht a' ther' sooin lookin' up agean, if it is at 
 they're laid flat a' ther' back. T'es fortunate these 
 floods doant come offance (often) or we'd a' be ruined. 
 Looik here, lad, ah'l clap t' pot o't'stove an' mak thee 
 poultices for thy joints.' 
 
 Six weeks were passed by Mr. Jeremiah Penny- 
 comequick in the cabin of the Coiiqiiering Queen, in 
 great pain, sometimes in delirium, for he was attacked 
 with rheumatic fever. Throughout his illness he was 
 attended indefatigably by Ann Dewis. She called in 
 no doctor, she procured no medicine. The- sole 
 remedy she knew and favoured, and which she ex- 
 hibited against all diseases, was tar-water, a remedy 
 easily made on board the barge, of material always at 
 hand. 
 
 Ann Dewis was reduced to temporary inactivity by 
 the destruction wrought by the flood. The canal 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 THE PEXNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 was closed for repairs, and the repairs were likely to 
 consume many months. Accordingly she could no 
 longer ply between the coalpits and the wharf on the 
 Humber. This enforced inactivity enabled her to 
 devote her undivided attention to her patient. She 
 had no house of her own — not an acre ; no, not a foot 
 of garden ground of her own in any of the various 
 forms of ownership — freehold, copyhold or leasehold. 
 She had no other home than her barge. She paid no 
 taxes — no rates ; the only charges that fell on her 
 were the dues levied at the locks. And ' Darn it !' 
 said Ann ; ' that flood will ha' sent up the dues like 
 scaldin' water sends up t'momenter.' 
 
 She belonged to no parish, came into no census, 
 was attached to no denomination, and was identifiable 
 as a Yorkshire woman of the West Riding only by 
 her brogue. When the fever quitted Jeremiah Penny- 
 comequick, it left him weak as a child. He lay 
 in the berth powerless to rise, and long after his mind 
 had cleared his joints were swollen and painful. He 
 foresaw that many weeks, perhaps months, must 
 elapse before he regained his former strength. 
 
 She did her best to amuse her patient as well as to
 
 THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE. 243 
 
 cure him. She read to him the richest jokes out of 
 ' Tom Treddlehoyle,' and puzzled him with questions 
 from the same, compounded as conundrums. But what 
 interested him chiefly was her account of herself. 
 
 She had been married, but that was nowt but 
 a scratch, she said. ^ Wunce I thowt for sartain sure 
 ah'd hev to give up to be Dewis, and stick to the 
 Schofield.' 
 
 * Schofield !' said Mr. Pennycomequick, and passed 
 his hand over his brow. His memory was somewhat 
 affected. The name was familiar to him, but he did 
 not recollect when he had heard it. 
 
 * Eh, lad, it wor a thing of no consekans. Ah'll tell 
 thee t' tale.' For the benefit of south country readers 
 we will to some extent modify the broad West Riding 
 brogue. 
 
 ' It was na' lang that Earle and I were ac- 
 quainted ' 
 
 ' Earle ?' 
 
 * Eh, every man has two names, as he has two legs, 
 and two arms, and two eyes and ears. He was called 
 Earle Schofield for sartain ; and he used to come and 
 visit me in t' Conquering Queen. My mother was 
 
 16 — 2
 
 244 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 dead, and had left me a tidy bit o' brass, for shoo was 
 a saving woman, an' shoo had been cap'n, boatswain, 
 steward, and all to t' Conquering Queen ever sin' mj- 
 father died. All t' brass he and she had addled (earned) 
 was kip in — but there I wi'nt tell thee, not that I 
 mistrust thee, but we're all frail crecturs, and terribly 
 tempted. So there, lad, this here pipe belonged to 
 Earle. He wor a bit o^ a gentleman, he wor. He'd 
 niver been in a coil barge trading up an' down t'canal. 
 We'd a famous scheme atwixt us. He was to set up 
 a coil store an' a hoffis by t'vvarf at Hull, an' he sed 
 that he knew o' a chap as 'ud sell t^good-will and all 
 his custom for a hundred pounds. And Earle — he 
 wor an uncommon clever hand at accounts, he figured 
 it a' up on a slate, and he showed me how great 'ud 
 be our profits. And he to'd me that it wor the coil 
 marchants as got a' t'profits out o' t'sale o' coils, and 
 I got nobbut their crumbs, as I may say. And he 
 showed me how if he sold and I carried coils we'd be 
 rich in no time, and after we'd got married then I 
 tow'd him where I kep' t'brass. I didn't tell him 
 before — believe me. We were sitting on this deck, 
 d rawed up by t'side o' t'wharf at Hull, as he showed
 
 THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE. 245 
 
 a' that, and as I tow'd him where I had my brass. 
 Then he took t'pipe he vvor smoking out o' his mouth 
 and put it into mine, and sed I wor to kip it aleet 
 wall he came back, he'd go an' deposit a hundred 
 pound, he sed, for t'good-will, and secure the hoffis at 
 wunce. And I let him take all my brass, for sartain 
 I thow't as we'd been married for three weeks all war 
 right, and what was mine was his. He took t'brass, 
 and he went ashore, and t'last words he sed to me 
 wor, " Ann, keep t'pipe aleet wall I return.' I waited, 
 but from that day I've niver clapt eyes on him.' 
 
 ' And your money ?' 
 
 ' Nor on that noather.' 
 
 ' What a great rascal he must have been !' 
 
 ' Nay, I won't say that. We're a' sinful creeturs, 
 and our temptations is terrible. Wot became o' him 
 I can'na say, but for sure sartin he'd a mind to retarn 
 to me, or he'd not ha^ tow'd me keep t'pipe aleet. 
 Wha can tell, he may ha' got a drop o' liquor on 
 shore, and ha' been robbed, and then ashamed to 
 come back and tell me ; or he may ha' found t'chap 
 none .so ready to sell t'good-will — and so ha' gone 
 about looiking for summat else and not found it — or
 
 246 THE PENNYCOMEQUJCKS. 
 
 lie may ha' been took by them rampagin' an' roarin' 
 lions, as seek whom they can lock up — the perlice. 
 Nay ! I'll not condemn him, and allow that he wor a 
 rascal, for what sez Tom Treddlehoyle : 
 
 '"This world, we all naw, hez its ups and its daans. 
 An' shorter, wi'r time keeps windin', 
 An' day after day we are crost i' wir way, 
 Then speak of a man as yo find him." ' 
 
 * But I think you found him serve you badly 
 enough,' said Mr. Pennycomequick, from his berth, 
 ' to walk off with your savings and leave you with 
 nothing,' 
 
 ' Nay, not exactly,* answered Anne. * There wor 
 this pipe for wun, he left ; and,' after a pause, ' there 
 wer Jozeph. T'bairn came varra comfortin' when I 
 wer i' a tew aboot loising ma' brass. Besides, t' lad, Joe, 
 ha' been ov use to me as much as I paid a lad afore 
 seven shilling a week, and he hev a' been t'same 
 to me for six years. If tha comes ta reckon at fifty- 
 two weeks i't year, that^s eighteen pound ten per 
 hannum ; and for six year that mounts up to nigh 
 on a hundred and ten pound, which is a scoering off 
 of t^ account.'
 
 THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE. 247 
 
 * And that is his pipe you are smoking ?' 
 ' Ees, for sartaen. I sed I'd keep't aleet, and if he 
 comes back at t' end o' seven more year, I'll say, 
 " There, Earle, is t'pipe burning, and as for't account, 
 Joe hev a' scored it off, interest and principal.'
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 WHO? WHAT ? 
 
 It is hateful — hateful as poison — the packing, the 
 turning out of drawers, and then the tilting of the 
 drawers to get out the dust and grit and flue that has 
 accumulated in the corners ; the arranging of corre- 
 spondence, the discrimination between valuables and 
 things that may become valuable, and things that are 
 not, but were valuable ; the throwing away of rubbish, 
 the consideration as to what things are to be disposed 
 of, and if disposed of, how to be disposed of, and to 
 whom, and all the business and care and misery of 
 change of quarters. 
 
 And yet, how out of thorns spring roses, and out of 
 troubles virtues come into bloom ! Never, probably, 
 in our whole career did charity, the bond of all 
 virtues, so luxuriate, throw out such all-embracing
 
 WHO? WHAT? 249 
 
 tendrils, emit such fragrance, ripen into such fruit, as 
 on the occasion of change of quarters. Old boots, 
 shghtly damaged bonnets, heavy battered pieces of 
 furniture, for which a dealer would not give sixpence ; 
 articles that would fetch nothing in a sale, antiquated 
 school-books, magazines five years old, novels that 
 have lost their backs, games, deficient in one or two 
 pieces, odd gloves, iron bedsteads minus their brass 
 knobs, and that have to be tied together with wire ; 
 cracked dishes, snipped tumblers, saucepans corroded 
 with rust — with what lavish and lordly magnificence 
 we distribute them to all who will accept such 
 alms. 
 
 And then — what a lesson does change of quarters 
 teach us, to discriminate between the worthless and 
 the valuable ; and with equanimity to endure separa- 
 tion from things which have become interesting to us, 
 but which we cannot remove. When the author was 
 a boy, his life was spent in travelling on the Con- 
 tinent ; in rambles from the Pyrenees to the plains of 
 Hungary, from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, and 
 wherever he went, he made collections of objects of 
 curiosity, crystals, petrifactions, dried flowers, butter-
 
 25© THE PESSYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 flies, mediaeval armour, books. Before quitting any 
 place of sojourn for a winter, or halt for a night, his 
 father explored every pocket and crevice of the car- 
 riage, and turned out the treasures there secreted, on 
 which his son's heart were set and his pocket-money 
 had been expended. 
 
 Nothing escaped his eye, nothing melted his heart. 
 The author came to a place bringing nothing with 
 him, and left it, carrying nothing with him awa\', all 
 he acquired he was forced to leave. It was an excel- 
 lent discipline for life, and yet hardly attained ; even 
 to this day he finds that he clings to trifles. 
 
 How many times since boyhood has he had to shift 
 quarters? and each time he has experienced a struggle, 
 and has had to surrender some things on which his 
 heart was fixed, but from which it was, perhaps, well 
 to be free. He recalls how one winter at Bayonne, 
 he collected every match and spill-end that had been 
 used for lighting cigars and candles till he had ac- 
 cumulated a trunk full. When, in spring, the move 
 came, his father peremptorily refused to despatch this 
 trunk-load of scorched paper scraps hy grande or petite 
 Vitesse to Vienna, and they were consigned to the
 
 WHO? WHAT? 251 
 
 flames. When he was in Yorkshire, he had collected 
 some prehistoric querns, stone hand-mills. When he 
 contracted with a furniture-mover to translate his 
 goods to the south of England, the man struck at the 
 mill-stones, they were not in his bond. The author 
 had to resign them ; but his heart aches for those 
 stones to this day. 
 
 When a family has inhabited a house for nigh on 
 twenty years, it is incredible what accumulations have 
 gathered round them, how every corner, cupboard, 
 closet, drawers, the cellar, the attic are stuffed with 
 articles of various utility and importance, or let us 
 rather say of different degrees of inutility and worth- 
 lessness ; none of which, however, can be spared with- 
 out a pang, for to every one of them a recollection 
 clings. 
 
 The Cusworths had been, not indeed twenty years, 
 but approaching that time, in the house of Mr. Penny- 
 comequick. Every room, the garden, the attic, were 
 crowded with reminiscences, mostly pleasant ; to the 
 ordinary eye a thin veil of soot took the brilliance and 
 sharpness off all things in this smoke-laden part of 
 England, but to the girls, Salome and Janet, every-
 
 252 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 thing was overlaid with the gold dust of childish 
 memories. Mrs. Cusvvorth had come to regard the 
 house as a quiet home in which she might spend her 
 declining days, without a care for the future of her 
 children, for Janet was provided for, and Salome 
 would not be forgotten. But now, with the loss 
 of Mr. Pennycomequick, the prop had fallen on 
 which the future was reared ; and suddenly she 
 found herself in bad health, obliged to think about 
 her prospects, and leave the house in quest of another 
 home. 
 
 Mrs. Sidebottom, with the eagerness with which 
 some women fly to do a spiteful thing, had taken 
 advantage of her position to give the widow notice to 
 remove. 
 
 The Cusworths had received notice to move within 
 a fortnight, and it was not easy for them to find 
 quarters into which to go. Salome had sought lodg- 
 ings in Mergatroyd, but in vain. There none were 
 vacant, and she had been obliged to engage tempor- 
 arily a part of a house in the nearest manufacturing 
 town, a house that was called Redstone, but which 
 was popularly known only as Blackhole. It was a
 
 WHO? WHAT? 253 
 
 low house, surrounded by tall factories that crushed 
 it into a well between them, into which no sun could 
 penetrate, but which received all day and night showers 
 of condensed soot. She counted herself fortunate in 
 having secured this, and she had already given orders 
 for the removal to it of some of the packing-cases 
 filled with their goods. 
 
 The time had been one of strain to Salome, already 
 distressed by the loss of her best friend, and the sub- 
 sequent doubt about the identity of the corpse re- 
 co\ered. Mrs. Sidebottom had gone out of her way 
 to make her feel uncomfortable, had said ill-natured 
 things, had slighted her mother, and irritated Janet 
 to the verge of an outbreak. She had been obliged 
 to exercise great self-control, to disregard the sneers 
 of Mrs. Sidebottom, to screen her mother and hold 
 her sister in check. She had been painfully affected, 
 moreover, by the mistrust Philip had shown, and 
 though he had apologized for what he had said, the 
 wound dealt to her self-respect was unhealed. She 
 felt this blow the more because she had unconsciously 
 reposed confidence in Philip ; not that he had given 
 her reason for reliance on him, but that she had felt
 
 254 THE PEKNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 the need for someone to whom to look, now that Mr. 
 Jeremiah Pennycomequick was removed, and she had 
 trusted that he would be honourable and considerate 
 in his conduct, as behoved a Pennycomequick. 
 
 To add to her difficulties, her mother had suddenly 
 and unaccountably had a relapse, was seriously 
 shaken, and in no condition to be moved. Unac- 
 countably, for the attack had not come on when it 
 might have been expected — on hearing the news of 
 the death of the old manufacturer. She had borne up 
 marvellously under this trial ; the bringing the corpse 
 to the house and the funeral had not materially affected 
 her. She had spoken of the necessity she was under 
 of leaving the house with sorrow, indeed, but not 
 agitation ; she had taken some interest in the assort- 
 ment and packing of the family goods ; and then, in 
 the midst of the preparations to depart, had been 
 taken alarmingly ill. 
 
 When the funeral was over, Mrs. Sidebottom had 
 returned to her own house. All necessity for her re- 
 maining in that of her deceased half-brother was gone. 
 Nevertheless, she was in and out of the house several 
 times during the day.
 
 WHOP WHAT? 255 
 
 One evening she had left after nine, having dined 
 there with her nephew, who had moved into his uncle's 
 apartments, and had enjoyed some of her brother's 
 best wine. 
 
 At half-past nine the front-door was locked and 
 chained, and the gaslight in the hall turned down, but 
 n(jt extinguished. Old Mr. Pennycomequick had kept 
 early hours, and the servants observed the same routine 
 of meals and work that had been instituted in his time, 
 as they had received no orders to the contrary. Now 
 that Philip had taken possession of his uncle's apart- 
 ments on the first-floor, and went to the mill at the 
 same hours, and took his meals at the same hours, the 
 house seemed to have relapsed into its old ways, out 
 of which it had been bustled by the advent of ]\Irs. 
 Sidebottom. 
 
 Mr. Pennycomequick's apartments consisted of a 
 study, with a bedroom opening out of it. The front 
 of the house on the same floor was taken up with a 
 drawing-room, rarely occupied. A third door on the 
 same landing admitted into the spare bedroom, in 
 which the corpse of the drowned man had laid till the 
 burial.
 
 256 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 On the ground-floor were two rooms, corresponding 
 to those occupied by Mr. Pennycomequick, and these 
 had been given up to Mrs. Cusworth, one — the outer 
 — served as sitting-room. The dining-room and a 
 breakfast-room — the latter under the spare bed- 
 chamber — completed the arrangement on the ground- 
 floor. Formerly Mrs. Cusworth and her daughters 
 had slept on the story above the drawing-room and 
 Mr. Pennycomequick's suite, and Salome's apartment 
 were there still ; but of late, owing to her mother's 
 infirm.ity, her bed had been transferred to the inner 
 room, which had been transformed from the house- 
 keeper's ofiice to a sleeping-apartment for the old 
 lady, to whom it was injurious to ascend many steps ; 
 and as it was not advisable that Mrs. Cusworth should 
 be alone at night, Salome had slept in the room with 
 her. Since the arrival of Janet, however, she had 
 returned to her apartment upstairs, as the old lady 
 had expressed a wish to have her married daughter 
 with her. 
 
 ' My dear,^ she had said, ' it is not much more that 
 I can expect to see of Janet. She will have to return 
 to her husband before long, and I am not likely to live
 
 WHOP WHAT? 257 
 
 to have the pleasure of many of her visits ; so, if you 
 do not mind, Salome, I should wish her to sleep in 
 my room whilst she is here, that I may have hi r by 
 me as much as I may.' 
 
 Salome had accordingly returned to her chamber 
 upstairs. She was glad that at this time her sister 
 was there to relieve her of attendance on her mother, 
 whilst she went in search of lodL;ings and was engaged 
 in packing. 
 
 ' I am expecting a summons to return to l^lboiuf 
 every day,' said Janet, 'directly I get the news of the 
 route of the Prussians. Providence never intended 
 that barbarism should prevail over culture ; and the 
 French have such accomplished manners, and surh 
 perfect taste — \vh\', the German ladies I have seen 
 have no idea how to dress.* 
 
 ' V'ou forget, Janet,' said the sister, 'that the bar- 
 barians did, of old, overwhelm Roman civilization.' 
 
 ' Oh yes ; but only that they might assimilate the 
 culture, and become civilized themselves. If the 
 result of this v» retched war were that German lad;es 
 learned how to put on their clothes tastefully, I could 
 almost forgive Sedan and .Mez.' 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 25S THE PE.WYCOMEQL'ICKS. 
 
 Salome had as little knowledge of the arrangement 
 arrived at between Mrs. Sidebottom and Philip as has 
 the reader, and for the same reason. It had not been 
 divulged- She, of course, could ask no questions. The 
 reader does, but he must wait He shall be told pre- 
 sently. Suffice it for him to know that Mrs. Side- 
 bottom had, unopp)osed, sworn to her brother's death, 
 without will, and had taken out letters of administra- 
 tion. 
 
 Philip did not have his meals with the Cusworth 
 party ; they were ser\-ed to him apart 
 
 On this evening, after the house was locked up, 
 and the ser\'ants had retired to bed, Salome was in 
 her own room ; she had been engaged there for some 
 hours, examining and sorting the house-bills, and 
 destroying such as were not required to be pre- 
 served. When this was done, she began to pack her 
 little library in a deal case, first wrapping each volume 
 carefully in newspaper. As she did this she came 
 on a garden manual that Mr. Pennycomequick had 
 given her on her birthday when fifteen. The sight 
 of this book suddenly reminded her of a score of 
 hyacinth-bulbs she had put in a dark closet under
 
 lypjo : WHAT ■ 2:9 
 
 the stairs, in which to form shoots before the>- were 
 put in their glasses. The book had advised this as a 
 corrective to the development of leaf at the expense 
 of flower. In this cupboard, which Janet and she as 
 children had named the Pummy closet — a name that 
 had adhered to it ever since — she kept as well sundiy 
 garden requisites^ 
 
 Fearful lest she should forget the bulbs if she post- 
 poned their removal to another time, and accustomed, 
 on principle, to do at once whatever occurred to her 
 mind as a thing that had to be done, she gently 
 opened her door and lightly descended the staircase. 
 
 The steps were carpeted, so that her foot was 
 noiseless. She had no need of a candle, for the gas, 
 though reduced, still burnt in the hall. 
 
 She reached the bottom quickly; she was unwilling 
 to disturb and alarm her mother, and so trod noise- 
 lessly through the hall to the closet door, beneath the 
 steps. Her garden-gloves, some tools in a little box 
 that had been given her by Janet, and the bulbs were 
 there, the latter, in a row, showing stout homs^ She 
 gathered these bulbs into a chip-basket, and took the 
 rest of her possessions in the other hand. Thus en- 
 
 17—::
 
 26o THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 cumbered, she closed the Pummy closet door with her 
 foot, put down the basket, turned the key, took up 
 the basket and stepped out into the hall with the 
 intention of reascending the stairs as noiselessly as 
 she had come down. 
 
 But before she had reached the foot and had turned 
 the balustrade, she was startled to sec a figure on the 
 first landing. At first shock she thought it was Mr. 
 Jeremiah Pennycomequick dressed to go out, as she 
 had seen him on the night that he disappeared. If 
 the hour was not now midnight, it was near it. 
 
 Salome could not see whence the figure had come, 
 whether from Philip's room or from the spare bed- 
 room. Only from the drawing-room he could not 
 have issued, as that door was in view, and was shut. 
 
 Who was it ? 
 
 The figure descended slowly, and with inaudible 
 tread. The light from the gas was sufficient to show 
 that the figure was that of a man, but not to let her 
 see his face. 
 
 With a sickening feeling at the heart, and a chill 
 that ran through every artery and frosted her blood, 
 and deprived her both of motion and the will to
 
 IIHO? WHAT? 26 r 
 
 move, she stood looking at the apparition that glided 
 down the staircase, leisurely, noiselessly. She recog- 
 nised the great-coat and hat — they were those of Mr. 
 Pennycomequick. The great coat was that in which 
 the corpse had been discovered invested. 
 
 Who was this coming — coming probably from the 
 room recently tenanted by that strange, awful, dead 
 man } 
 
 That was the first thought of horror that shot 
 through her brain, followed by another still more 
 horrible, ' What is it ?' 
 
 For a while Salome was bereft of power of speech 
 and motion. There was a sensation in her brain as 
 though a handle were being turned that had attached 
 to it every nerve in her bod)-, and that they were 
 being spun off her and on to a reel, like silk from a 
 cocoon. Her hands contracted on what she held ; 
 she could not have let them fall had she willed to 
 relax her grasp. They stiffened as do the hands of 
 a corpse. She could not cry out, her tongue was 
 paralyzed. She could not stir a step forward or 
 backward ; all control over her knees was gone from 
 her.
 
 262 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 When the figure had nearly reached the bottom of 
 the stairs, it stopped and turned its head towards her, 
 and looked at her. 
 
 The light of the lowered gas-jet was on her and off 
 the face of the apparition ; all she saw was black 
 shadow, as all she had seen of the face of the corpse 
 on the bed had been — a black handkerchief cast over 
 it. But she distinguished the hair, somewhat long 
 behind the ears, and frowzy whiskers about the jaws. 
 That was all she could make out in that moment of 
 acute, agonizing horror. The figure stood looking at 
 her, and she heard the clock in the hall, tick, tick, 
 tick, tick, and then begin the premonitory growl that 
 preceded striking. The figure moved down the final 
 steps, and stole in the same stealthy, noiseless manner 
 to the garden door, and disappeared through it. 
 
 The look of the back, the set of the well-known 
 overcoat, the way in which the hat was worn, all 
 recalled to her the dear, lost friend, and yet she knew 
 it could not be he. He would never have inspired 
 her with shuddering dread. He would not have 
 passed her without a word. 
 
 In another moment the spell of rigidity was taken
 
 WHO ? WHA T ? 263 
 
 off her. The blood rushed tingh'ng through every 
 vein, her hands, her feet, recovered activity, her heart 
 bounded and shook off its fear, and her mind recovered 
 its proper energy. 
 
 She ran after the apparition, and found tliat the 
 garden door was actually open. Instantly, without 
 further consideration, she shut and locked it, and 
 then flew upstairs and knocked vehemently, loudly, 
 at Philip Pennycomequick's door. 
 
 He opened it, and was surprised to see Salome on 
 the landing, breathless. 
 
 ' Is your mother worse?' he asked, for he saw that 
 she was shaking and white. 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Pennycomequick, do tell me. Have you 
 had a man here with you ?' 
 
 * I do not understand.' 
 
 'I have seen someone descend the stairs. If he 
 did not come from your study, he issued from that 
 
 room in which — in which ' She shuddered. * I 
 
 mean from the spare bedroom.' 
 
 ' No one has been with me.' 
 
 ' ]^ut he came down the staircase, slowly and sileiuly, 
 like a shadow, and passed me.'
 
 264 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 ' I have seen and heard no one.' 
 
 * And yet, there has been someone in the house.' 
 PhiHp thought, and then said : * Miss Cusvvorth, 
 
 your nerves have been over- wrought You have been 
 imposed on by your imagination.' 
 
 ' But — the garden door. I found it open. I have 
 just locked it. The figure went out through it.' 
 
 ' Did you distinguish who it was?' 
 
 'No, he came from the best bedroom, wearing dear 
 uncle's — I mean Mr. Pennycomequick^s overcoat and 
 hat.' 
 
 Philip again mused. 
 
 * All my poor uncle's clothing,' he said, after a 
 moment of thought, * all that remained, the overcoat 
 included, I ordered yesterday to be laid out in the 
 spare chamber. I told your mother to dispose of 
 them as she thought proper. 1 made no doubt that 
 she knew of poor persons to whom they would be 
 serviceable.' 
 
 'But no pL>or person would come at this time of 
 night, and slip out stealthily at the garden door, which 
 ought to be locked at half-past nine.' 
 
 * Let us go into the spare room and reassure our-
 
 WHO? WHAT? 265 
 
 selves/ said Pliilip. ' You will find the overcoat 
 there, and then, perhaps, you will come to the same 
 conclusion that I have, that \'ou have been over- 
 worried and over-wrought, and that fancy has conjured 
 up the ghost.' 
 
 lie went back into his room for a candle, and 
 Salome, standing alone, with beating heart, on the 
 landing, asked herself whether she had been deluded 
 b)' her imagination. 
 
 Phili}) returned with the candle. He smiled and 
 said : ' 1 remember paiticularl}- that great-coat. It 
 was laid on the bed, and the hat b}' it. I went into 
 the room this evening, about half-past eight, and both 
 were there then.' He had his hand on the door. 
 * You are not afraid to come in with me?' 
 
 Salome shook her head. She had begun to hope 
 that she had been a prey to fanc}-. 
 
 He opened the door, went in, and held the light 
 over his head. Tiie great coat and the hat — were 
 
 gone ! 
 
 LND OF V(;L. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILUKORU.