J
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPA1GN 
 
 BOOK3TACKS
 
 /^J^L a? (T&i 
 
 SILVAN HOLT'S 
 
 DAUGHTER, 
 
 BY HOLME LEE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "KATHIE BRANDE, "GILBERT MASSEXGER, 
 "THORNET HALL," ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
 
 1858. 
 
 [ The Right oj Translation ?s reserved.]
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/sylvanholtsdaugh01leeh
 
 853 
 
 
 y> 
 
 ELIZABETH ISHEKWOOD WILLIAMSON 
 8to gftorg 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chap. 
 
 I. Wildwood Grange and its Master 
 II. Sylvan Holt's Daughter . 
 
 III. A Mat Morning 
 
 IV. The Postmistress at Beckford 
 V. Mrs. Joan Clervaux 
 
 VI. Taking Tea at Oakfield 
 VII. Margaret Holt and Martin Carew 
 VHI. Sylvan Holt's Mystery 
 IX. Old Wounds 
 
 X. A Start on a Journey 
 XI. A Morning Walk 
 XII. A Game at Croquet 
 
 XIII. At Deepgyll .... 
 
 XIV. At Oakfield 
 
 XV. Martin's last Week at Home . 
 XVI. Good-bye. .... 
 
 XVII. Fireside Stories . 
 XVIII. Sylvan Holt's Keturn 
 XIX. Lawyer Meddowes 
 XX. At the Grange 
 XXI. A Eevelation 
 XXII. Margaret seeks Advice 
 XXm. A sad Story .... 
 
 
 Page 
 
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 5 
 
 
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 30 
 
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 56 
 
 
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 78 
 
 
 91 
 
 
 103 
 
 
 131 
 
 
 155 
 
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 191 
 
 
 198 
 
 
 212 
 
 
 . 217 
 
 
 . 249 
 
 
 . 265 
 
 
 . 270 
 
 
 . 280 
 
 
 . 293 
 
 
 . 305
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEB, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WILDWOOD GRANGE AND ITS MASTER. 
 
 When the great Langland estates were dis- 
 membered early in the present century, Wild- 
 wood was bought by one Sylvan Holt. Upon 
 the farm there was a spacious house, very ruinous, 
 styled the Grange, which he repaired, and where 
 he took up his abode. Whoever built it originally 
 must have had a loving eye for the picturesque ; 
 nowhere in all Mirkdale could a finer site for 
 extent and beauty of prospect have been found. 
 Even in midwinter, when the snow lay a foot 
 deep upon the hills, and the hollows were drifted 
 full as frozen lakes : when the loud north wind 
 VOL. i. b
 
 2 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 was at its mad Christmas gambols in the woods, 
 and the great pine branches bent and swayed 
 beneath their sparkling weight of winter fruitage, 
 it was beautiful ! 
 
 It had the first glimpse of dawn in the yellow 
 east, and the last dim purple reflection of sunset 
 in the o-or^eoas west. When the luscious summer 
 lay panting and athirst in the bosom of the dale, 
 cool zephyrs, forgotten of the spring, revelled 
 there freely. AVhile the snow was still lying 
 under the black shadow of its patriarchal oaks 
 and cedars, outstanding sentinels of AVildwood, 
 the violets were opening amongst the moss in the 
 sunny south borders ; when the valley was filled 
 with a rolling tide of mist, it rose clear above 
 the dun haze ; and when storms were abroad, they 
 rioted grandly round the exposed and gusty scaur, 
 tossing the strong boughs that crowned it like 
 dishevelled, elfish locks. 
 
 Lower down in the dale were many sweet 
 sheltered nooks, where others might have chosen 
 to nestle their homes, but the isolation of this 
 lonely old eyrie, perched on the craggy edge of 
 the moor and remote from any public road, had
 
 WILDWOOD GRANGE AND ITS MASTER. 6 
 
 been its chief recommendation in the eyes of 
 Sylvan Holt. It presented to the valley a long, 
 irregular, dark grey front, weather-worn by the 
 storms of nearly three centuries, and ingrained with 
 variously tinted mosses and lichens. It was roofed 
 with heavy flagstones, which can alone withstand 
 the tempestuous blasts of this hill-country; and 
 under the eaves, and even in the porch itself, were 
 colonies of swallows' nests, to which the old birds 
 returned year after year. If any curious stranger 
 had rashly proposed to examine near at hand the 
 quaint, many-gabled house, he would most likely 
 have been warned off in some such terms as the 
 following : — 
 
 " Yo 'd better not ! t' master '11 set t' dogs on 
 yo' : he 'd threap doun auld Nick hisseP if he 
 cam i' his gate, wad yon Sylvan Holt ! " which 
 warning would have suggested a tolerably 
 correct epitome of the Squire's savage, misan- 
 thropic character, and also of the reputation in 
 which Mirkdale held him. 
 
 The horizon was girdled by hills upheaved in 
 long dusky billows against the sky ; heathery 
 swells, skirted by rugged little pasture fields, 
 
 B 2
 
 4 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 sloped steeply to the beck, and the tangled glades 
 of Wildwood, from which much of the farm lands 
 had once been redeemed, stretched almost to the 
 walls of the Grange. There was no garden, 
 properly so called, but merely a pretty plain 
 place, unenclosed from the moor on the one hand, 
 and the woods on the other, but laid down with 
 turf which time had made as soft and mossy as 
 velvet; a few dwarfed fruit-trees grew on the 
 sunny side of the house, and below the parlour 
 windows there was a narrow border planted with 
 turfs of primrose, violet, and other flowers, which 
 Sylvan Holt's daughter Margaret had dug up 
 from the sheltered roots in the forest.
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER- 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 The said Margaret had come to the Grange 
 when but three years old, and since that date 
 she had been growing up as wild, and almost 
 as ignorant, as a colt in the heather. Sylvan 
 Holt regretted bitterly that she had not been 
 born a boy, and therefore did his utmost in 
 every way to remedy the mistake. He set his 
 face steadily against her learning any kind of 
 woman's work, from the plain sewing into which 
 Jacky, their sole female servant, would fain have 
 initiated her, to the accomplishments of music 
 and French, which Mrs. Joan Clervaux, down 
 at Oakfield, had compassionately volunteered to 
 teach. 
 
 Margaret had a fine natural intelligence, but 
 it was certainly in the rough. She could thread
 
 6 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 the remotest tracks of the moor blindfold; was 
 in the 'secrets of the sheltered little hollows 
 where the heather bloomed first and faded last ; 
 she knew every shady glen and sunstreaked 
 glade in Wildwood; knew the nooks where 
 grew the greatest profusion of flowers ; knew 
 when the various trees opened and shed their 
 leaves; in what month the note of every bird 
 that visited Mirkdale was to be heard, and what 
 places each delighted to haunt. She was also 
 conversant with Jacky's north -country songs, 
 legends, and traditions — for Jacky adhered to 
 what she was pleased to style " t' auld faith," 
 and was rich in such romantic lore; add to 
 this that she could read — and loved readino* 
 when the volume suited her — that she could 
 write and spell tolerably, could sing in a sweet 
 untaught fashion, back any horse in her father's 
 stables, and make his flies when he fished up 
 Blackbeck, and the list of her accomplishments 
 is complete. 
 
 Let her not, however, be rashly prejudged a 
 hoyden : for nature seemed to have intended 
 her originally for one of the better end of
 
 SYLVAN HOLT S DAUGHTER. 7 
 
 womankind. She was now a fine, well-grown 
 girl of seventeen: strong and hardy from her 
 free out-door life, but naturally graceful in 
 person ; and with a face whose pure, soft, healthy 
 blush was beauty-proof against the harsh moun- 
 tain winds. She was never loud - voiced or 
 boisterous : indeed, unless there was something 
 remarkable to excite animation, her manners 
 were rather indolently calm than otherwise. 
 
 Profoundly as Sylvan Holt was disappointed 
 in her sex, she was truly the delight of his 
 eyes : he thought there was nothing in the 
 world to compare with her. Though savagely 
 sarcastic and even brutal to people in general, 
 to her he was always loving, tender, and con- 
 siderate. He had sustained one cruel, terrible 
 wrong in life which had turned his blood to 
 gall; but she kept a sentient, wholesome spot 
 of humanity warm in his heart's core. It was 
 odd to hear him come in from rating Anty in 
 the fold-yard or Jacky in the kitchen, and then 
 to see him fondle Margaret; calling her Ins 
 cooing ringdove, his bonnie skylark, his wild, 
 unbroken filly. He would have her out with
 
 8 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 him to follow the fox-hounds and harriers, to 
 tramp at his side when he went grouse-shooting 
 on the moors or visited the wilde-lying sheep- 
 walks of his farm; he made her, indeed, as 
 companionable as he could have done had she 
 been really a son instead of a daughter; and 
 Margaret returned his absorbed, one-idead love 
 with a canine fidelity of attachment that could 
 see no fault in its object. His stormy brows, 
 his harsh angry voice, had never inspired her 
 with dread: for her slightest glance, even the 
 ring of her foot upon the floor, hushed his 
 most unreasonable moods ; and she clung to 
 him with a yearning and passionate fondness 
 like that which in after years, ever and always, 
 made her heart warm to the remembrance of her 
 home at Wildwood. 
 
 There was a vein of idle contemplativeness 
 in Margaret's character which made it rather 
 a complex one to understand. With a Leghorn 
 hat covering her wealth of short brown curls, 
 a plaid over her shoulders, and her favourite 
 dog, Oscar — a magnificent brindled staghound 
 as tall as a donkey — close at her heels, she would
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 9 
 
 ramble about the moor or Wildwood from morn- 
 ing till night : sitting; down to rest and bask in 
 the sun when weary, and returning home at 
 twilight luxuriously contented with the manner 
 in which she had spent her day. She was a 
 very innocent, guileless, happy creature. Yet 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux waved her head dolorously 
 over her feminine shortcomings, and read her 
 many a serious lecture on the duty of employ- 
 ing her time more judiciously ; but hitherto 
 this duty had not come home to Margaret : 
 she liked her life very well as she found it, 
 and was much more intent on enjoying than 
 improving it.
 
 10 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A MAY MORNING. 
 
 That year Mirkdale did not put off its winter 
 weeds till May was come. Eerie and mournful 
 winds went wandering up and down the naked 
 fells ; in lonely hollows, in dim pine woods, on 
 pale blanched Christmas peaks the March sprites 
 lingered still : their voices thrilled keen and 
 bitter through the winter nights, and breathed a 
 chill monotony over the long and sunless days. 
 A shroud of grey sky lay close on the hill tops, 
 a sullen vapour wavered below. Blackbeck, 
 swollen by the rains and melting snows in the 
 loftier regions where it had its source, rushed and 
 eddied over its pebbly bed with frantic foaming 
 violence ; the ford by which Margaret was used 
 to cross to church was become a turbid impass- 
 able torrent, and the wooden footbridge a mile
 
 A MAY MOPXIXG. 11 
 
 below had been swept away. The steeps of 
 Litton Fell and Fernbro' showed brown and 
 bare through clouding mists, and the low-lying 
 fields in the bottom of the dale wore a uniform 
 tint of dull and lifeless green. The long torpor 
 of a dreadful winter hung lethargic on the 
 paralyzed limbs of nature : her sleep was heavy 
 as the sleep of Death, — her waking seemed still 
 afar off. 
 
 Day by day, Margaret had persevered in her 
 rambles, though the tracks across the moor were 
 almost morass, and the wood-walks dripped damp 
 from every bough. One after another she had 
 seen the flowers peep shyly up from last 
 year's fallen leaves and perish, rain-beaten and 
 crushed. Her heart thirsted for the genial spring : 
 she wanted to see the sunshine and swift shadows 
 flitting in their noiseless chase over the dark 
 hills, the russet moors, the pleasant meadows; 
 to see the larches hang forth their brilliant 
 emerald tassels, and to feel the perfumed breath 
 of flowers on a more kindly and balmy air. 
 
 As if in gracious answer to her longing, spring 
 came in shining raiment up to "Wildwood on her
 
 12 SYLYAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 birthday. Jacky woke her with the news. " Eh, 
 Marg'ret ! " cried she, " Fernbro 's pulled off his 
 night-cap at last, and here 's old Mrs. Joan 
 Clervaux 's sent to bid you down to her house 
 this afternoon to drink tea. Shall I say yo '11 go ? 
 T' lad 's waiting." 
 
 " Stop, Jacky, where is my father?" 
 
 " He was awa' to Middlemoor market afore six 
 o'clock." 
 
 "Then send word that I will go. Open the 
 window, Jacky — what a glorious, glorious sun- 
 shine ! " 
 
 Jacky set the lattice wide, and put out her 
 hand to feel the air : " All 's fair laughing an 
 singing for joy like t' little hills i' t' scripture,' 
 said she : " hark to t' birds, Marg'ret, an to t' beck 
 brattling ower t' stones — that 's the clapping o' 
 hands : I 'd be fain to be young an' get a holiday 
 mysel' ; but I ha' to wesh, an' to bake, an' what 
 not." 
 
 " Let the baking and washing alone, Jacky, 
 and ask Anty's wife up to dinner for company." 
 
 " An' what '11 master say to sic' like daft 
 doings? Me an' Anty's wife is doddered auld
 
 A MAY MORNING. 13 
 
 "bodies 'ut can't bide his threaping: lie put me 
 in a bonnie quandary this morning afore he 
 started ; I ain't gotten ower it yet." 
 " What was he angry about, Jacky ? " 
 " About nought in particular 'ut I can speak 
 on. He 'd turn 'led oat o' t' wrang side o' his bed 
 as he oft does, an' was as cross as Nick's hat- 
 band. It 's a gude thing for some o' us his bark's 
 waur nor his bite." And grinning ruefully, Jacky 
 went away with Margaret's message. 
 
 Then Margaret got up. Her toilette was 
 quick and simple ; it began with a complete 
 drench of stinging cold water, which made her 
 firm, smooth, glossy skin glow and tingle, and 
 it ended in the donning of a maize-coloured 
 china silk dress prettily embroidered, that had 
 been a present from Mrs. Joan Clervaux a 
 few months before. As she opened her door 
 to go down-stairs, Oscar, who had been lying 
 in wait for her on the mat, jumped up with 
 his customary boisterous caresses, and then stalked 
 off before her into the porch, as if inviting her 
 to come out and taste the delicious May morning 
 in all its dewy freshness. She followed, and
 
 14 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 stayed long gazing up and down the dale, with 
 that delicious, indefinable exhilaration throbbing 
 at her heart which is, perhaps, youth's greatest 
 riches. She felt obliged to give it expression, 
 and said aloud to the staghouncl, who was grate- 
 fully snuffing up the warm air, as if he too 
 enjoyed the change cf weather — 
 
 "I feel all glorious, Oscar! don't you?" to 
 which he responded in dog fashion, with a 
 short bark and a heavy flourish of his great 
 tail. 
 
 So different was the aspect of the valley since 
 nature had lifted up her dejected brow, and her 
 veil of fogs and sleety rains was rent away, 
 that it appeared to be the magical work of genii 
 of enchantment, who had done their spiriting 
 in the dead of night, while all the world slept. 
 The opposite hills seemed to have approached 
 nearer ; the undulations, and various growths 
 and tintings of their surface were quite distinct; 
 along their ridge firwoods ; sloping westward 
 to Fernbro', vast tracts of heath and whins ; 
 below, fields green as emerald, with here and 
 there a patch of dark brown cornland, where
 
 A MAY MORNING. 15 
 
 the blade was scarce yet above tlie ground. 
 Columns of smoke drifted and eddied skywards 
 from the lime-kilns amongst the hills, and waver- 
 ing, vaporous clouds, scattered apart, and hanging 
 in mid air, marked where were clustered many 
 household fires — cares of man dimming God's 
 morning. Near at hand to admire was the rich, 
 soft, velvety darkness of the branching cedars 
 and firs ; the yellow-coloured young oak-leaves, 
 and bits of blossomed blackthorn in the ragged 
 hedges that divided the small pastures ; and, for 
 music, the chorus of all the feathered tribes in 
 Mirkdale, the never-weary voice of the beck, the 
 stealthy whisper of the trees one to another, and 
 the plaintive flute-like tones of the wind, steal- 
 ing from hollow to hollow, and from peak to 
 peak, with the last farewells of winter. 
 
 Margaret lingered in the porch so long that 
 at length Jacky came, rather impatiently, to 
 summon her in to breakfast, which, for the first 
 time that year, was laid in what was called the 
 summer parlour at Wildwood Grange. It was 
 a spacious but low ceiled room, with two wide 
 windows almost to the ground, and light green
 
 stained walls covered with prints after Raffaele's 
 cartoons — prints which had been Margaret's 
 lesson - books lone; before she was induced to 
 learn to read. It did not contain any great 
 luxury of furniture — Sylvan Holt could not abide 
 extravagance ; there was an oval walnut-wood 
 table polished like a mirror, a bureau of curious 
 carved workmanship, a book-case filled with old 
 books, several high straight-backed chairs that 
 were never moved from their places, an ancient 
 settee stationary beside the window nearest the 
 fireplace, and two special chairs — one cumbrous, 
 black leather -covered, and ungainly, the other 
 a low beehive chair — which migrated between 
 the summer and winter parlours, just as did 
 Sylvan Holt and his daughter. Margaret also 
 had a basket of flowering plants which were 
 her own peculiar care and property, and the 
 only other ornamental articles in the room were 
 some tall jars and vases of the grotesque dragon 
 china, which had been bought in a lot with the 
 other furniture, and a richly inlaid Indian work- 
 box that she had received from Mrs. Joan 
 Clervaux as a bribe to learn needlework — a bribe
 
 A MAY MOPvXIXG. 17 
 
 which had failed of its intent; as all bribes deserve 
 to do. 
 
 As the arrangements of Margaret's days 
 depended solely on her own pleasure they were 
 never very complicated. After breakfast she 
 always first fed the tame birds that were ac- 
 customed to visit the window; next she read 
 her chapter in the Bible — a duty to which her 
 father himself had trained her, on the principle 
 that it is an excellent thing for a woman to be 
 pious ; then she made belief at housekeeping 
 with Jacky in the kitchen for a little while, and, 
 if Sylvan Holt was at home, she afterwards 
 read aloud to him for an hour out of a book 
 of history. They always omitted this intellectual 
 exercise if an eligible excuse offered, but if not 
 they went through with it punctually, as a duty 
 they owed to the mild remonstrances of Mrs. 
 Joan Clervaux. On this particular morning both 
 the housekeeping and the history were neglected, 
 and as soon as the chapter was ended Margaret 
 donned her straw hat and plaid, and started off 
 with Oscar — both of them as eager as they could 
 be for a ramble in the almost forgotten luxury 
 
 vol. i. G
 
 18 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 of a sunshiny morning. They were aiming direct 
 for the moor when Jacky saw them from the 
 kitchen window, and elevating her shrill voice 
 arrested their further progress. 
 
 " I 've getten an arrand for you, Marg'ret, 
 to keep you fra' draggling your clean frock 
 amang t'wet ling," cried she, having a careful 
 thought for the afternoon's visit. " Anty ha'nt 
 had leesure to go down to Beckford sin' Sunday, 
 an' he '11 no' ha' time to-day : will you go 
 an' ask Tibbie Ryder for t ' master's letters ? " 
 
 Margaret hesitated for a moment, looking rue- 
 fully at Oscar ; then saying, " Yery well, Jacky," 
 turned off in a contrary direction down the fields. 
 The foot-path ran along under a hedgerow 
 where the white May buds were just beginning 
 to peep amongst the green, and beyond which 
 lay a considerable tract of forest-land that had 
 been thinned but never brought into cultivation, 
 and where the low shrubs and gorse, that had 
 since grown up very thickly, afforded a good 
 cover for game. Margaret loitered by the way, 
 gathering a posy of wild flowers — speedwell, 
 forget-me-not, primrose, clog-violet, and wood-
 
 A MAY MOKXIXG. 19 
 
 anemone — which had a peculiar and dainty delight 
 for her, as being the first she had culled that 
 year. Oscar ranged over the fields, meantime, 
 in a state of most glorious excitement : he had 
 espied a young leveret, and when only in Mar- 
 garet's company he considered himself free to 
 give chase to whatever quarry appeared in view. 
 His temptations became stronger still when on 
 reaching Wildfoot — a lovely knoll where Black- 
 beck made a sudden curve — the path diverged 
 into the wood itself. His mistress led him by 
 the ear part of the way, whether he would or no, 
 but he slily took advantage of a careless moment 
 when she was looking up and trying, deftly 
 enough, to imitate the whistling of a blackbird on 
 a branch overhead, to break away from her and 
 carry dismay into the bosoms of several promising 
 families of young pheasants. It was through 
 a narrow glade of nearly a quarter of a mile 
 in length, between closely planted fir-trees, that 
 the pathway ran, and here and there shone about 
 their roots clusters of pale primroses as stars shine 
 through a dark night. The mould was soft as a 
 carpet, being composed of ages of fallen verdure, 
 
 c 2
 
 20 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 which gave out a pungent scent as the foot pressed 
 it — a scent that always pervaded Margaret's 
 after- dreams of home. This glade issued into 
 Beckford Lane, nearly opposite Greatorex Mills, 
 below which was Horsebrigg. Scarcely fifty 
 yards beyond was Oiikfield, and about half-a-mile 
 further on was the village of Beckford itself, 
 almost hidden in the scoop of a hill.
 
 THE POSTMISTRESS AT BECKFORD. 21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE POSTMISTRESS AT BECKFORD. 
 
 Tee Post-office at Beckford was kept by a little 
 shrivelled old woman named Tibbie Ryder, who 
 had the reputation of being a wise woman, 
 cunning in foreseeing future events, in confound- 
 ing the wicked devices of ill-disposed persons, in 
 discovering lost or stolen articles, and in curing 
 bewitched horses, cattle or individuals. Some 
 persons accused her of being herself the witch 
 who first worked the malicious spells and then 
 demanded money for taking them off those upon 
 whom they had been laid. Nobody, it was said, 
 had ever incurred Tibbie Ryder's animosity 
 without paying for it very dearly. To be evil- 
 wished by her was sure to be followed by family 
 misfortunes, by destruction of property, and in
 
 22 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 extreme cases, by bodily disease of a lingering cha- 
 racter, and even by death itself: lucky was it for 
 Tibbie that the terrible days of fire and faggot were 
 past, or she and her fine grey cat would assuredly 
 have made a lowe on Beckford-common, such 
 as there was many a one lighted in England in 
 the much lamented good old times ! 
 
 The mischief she wrought as a witch was 
 formidable enough in keeping alive ignorance 
 and despicable fear, but Tibbie had yet other 
 tools in her possession from which, in part, arose 
 her evil reputation. She knew all the private 
 skeletons and public scandals in Mirkdale, for 
 her opportunities had been great and her industry 
 untiring. Many was the wafer that had yielded 
 to the warm, tender blandishments of her tea-kettle 
 spout ; many the seal that had betrayed its trust 
 under the poignant torture of her red-hot needle. 
 She knew, as well as did Sylvan Holt himself, 
 the miserable ghastly history of his early life; 
 she was cognizant of Mrs. Joan Clervaux's youth- 
 ful romance ; she was quite well aware of the 
 petty envies, jealousies, hatreds, malices, and 
 uncharitablenesses that animated the correspond-
 
 THE POSTMISTEESS AT BECKFORD. 23 
 
 ence of some of tlie most demure and respectable 
 people : and one or two of the very best folk in 
 Mirkdale had pleaded guilty of debt and diffi- 
 culties at the secret tribunal of this inexorably 
 inquisitive old woman. 
 
 When Margaret appeared at her gar den gate, 
 Tibbie was engaged hi the study of Sylvan Holt's 
 London paper, the cover of which had con- 
 veniently come off in her hand. So profoundly 
 was she absorbed in the details of a horrible 
 murder that she did not hear the light foot 
 approaching until a shadow fell across the floor 
 and Margaret stood in the doorway asking : (i are 
 there any letters for our house, Tibbie ? " 
 
 Tibbie started guiltily : 
 
 u Wha' is it?" said she, lifting her hand to her 
 spectacles and pretending not to see ; " Wha' 
 is it ? I suld know that voice. Eh ! it 's 
 Margaret Holt ! Letters, honey ! yes, there's 
 ane's been here sin' Monday: a letter fra' 
 furren parts fra' t' look on it : " and skilfully 
 holding the newspaper so that her gown skirt hid 
 all but one treacherous corner that would stick 
 out beyond, she tottered into the adjoining
 
 24 
 
 room which served as post-office, parlour, and 
 bedroom all in one, brought tbe document from a 
 drawer in an old press and banded it to Margaret, 
 who turned it over and examined it narrowly 
 about tbe seal. It looked very suspicious : there 
 was a trace of burning on the edge of the paper 
 where it had been closed, and the impression was 
 blurred, as if a finger had touched the heated wax. 
 
 " This letter has been opened, Tibbie,"' said 
 Margaret decisively. 
 
 " I '11 take my dying oath it's not !" asseverated 
 the story-telling Tibbie ; " why it's sealed wi' wax ! 
 wha 'd open it think ye ? " Margaret and the 
 postmistress had formerly had many a long crack 
 together touching the traditional superstitions of 
 Mirkdale, but lately a certain coolness had ensued 
 between them on the score of Tibbie having 
 opened a letter from Mrs. Joan Clervaux to her 
 young friend when she was absent from Oakfield 
 at Christmas, paying visits amongst her rela- 
 tions, and having disseminated absurd and 
 exaggerated rumours in Beckford founded upon 
 what she had learnt therein. 
 
 " If you look at it till Doomsday vou '11 make
 
 THE POSTMISTRESS AT BECKFOKD. 25 
 
 nought out ; there 's been no tampering wi' it 
 sin' it came to my office/' Tibbie added, soften- 
 ing unaccountably, as Margaret still continued to 
 examine the seal. 
 
 " I hope not, my father will be sure to discover 
 it if there has; and you know he threatened to 
 report you the next time there was anything 
 suspicious;" replied Margaret with unconvinced 
 severity. 
 
 Tibbie evidently became anxious to change 
 the subject. 
 
 " Wait till t' fust time comes, an' then talk 
 o' t' next ! " retorted she with an air of affronted 
 innocence: "My conscience is as clear as t' 
 day." With this touching climax she retired 
 into the post-office and closed the door; hastily 
 folded the newspaper, slipped it into the cover and 
 then called out to Margaret, who was progressing 
 slowly down the garden-walk, that she had for- 
 gotten to give her the last week's paper. She 
 brought it out with a quavering apology for the 
 bad memory of a failing old woman which was in- 
 tended to restore peace between them ; but Mar- 
 garet was not so easily propitiated ; her young
 
 26 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 face was capable of expressing sternness and dis- 
 pleasure, and her lips remained closely sealed. 
 Tibbie generally bad an available fund of gossip on 
 band which she could introduce on an emergency, 
 but at this moment her wit failed her: she 
 trembled and was visibly confused; it is even 
 possible that her naughty old tongue might have 
 faltered into further strongly attested denials of 
 her Eveish curiosity had not an opportune diver- 
 sion taken place. This came in the person of a 
 young lady mounted on a handsome bay horse and 
 followed by a servant in livery. It was Miss Bell 
 Rowley, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Rowley of 
 Bransby Park, a girl between whom and the post- 
 mistress there existed an avowed enmity ; for she 
 was so particular that her letters should be 
 delivered to her scrupulously intact that she never 
 received one from the old woman's hand without 
 asking suspiciously, " Are you sure you have not 
 opened it, Tibbie?" Tibbie always answered, 
 " You '11 never be content till you've got my life, 
 Miss Bell," and occasionally she put a note of invi- 
 tation or something equally unimportant, under- 
 neath her tea-kettle after she had read it instead
 
 THE POSTMISTRESS AT BECKFOED. 27 
 
 of transmitting it to its destination out of pure 
 revenge ; so Bell had missed many a pleasant party 
 through lack of knowing that she was asked to 
 join it. 
 
 " Letters, Tibbie ? " asked she laconically, and 
 receiving as brief a negative shake of the head, 
 she rode on without stopping. 
 
 "You'll knaw wha' that is?" said Tibbie 
 sarcastically ; u all t' world knaws her ! There 
 an't a bolder-faced or bolder mannered lass i' all 
 Mirkdale, be she gentle or be she simple, than 
 yon Bell Rowley ! She was safe to come riding 
 this way as soon as she got word that Mrs. 
 Joan Clervaux's nephew was down at Oak- 
 field." 
 
 " Martin Carew ! when did he arrive ? " asked 
 Margaret, forgetting in an instant all her vexation 
 about the letter. 
 
 Tibbie thought, Ci I 've got tfie measure of your 
 foot, miss ! " and then said ; " He arrived last 
 night. He's come for a leave-taking like, for 
 he 's received his orders to be off to the Indies, but 
 he '11 be here a fortnight somebody telt me. Mrs. 
 Joan Clervaux '11 take his going sorely to heart,
 
 28 
 
 I doubt, for he's always been a good lad to 
 her/' 
 
 This was news to Margaret Holt, news of the 
 pleasantest! Of course, she would have learnt 
 it later in the day, but she was pleased to have 
 heard it before going to Oakfield, and she began 
 secretly to hope that her dear old friend Mrs. 
 Joan would not be at home that day to Miss Bell 
 Rowley, whose presence would utterly spoil what 
 she knew was intended to be an afternoon of 
 great enjoyment for her. Martin Carew and 
 Margaret Holt were friends of long standing, 
 and would have doubtless a thousand insig- 
 nificant things to say to each other that were 
 not for her great ears and critical eyes to hear 
 and dissect. 
 
 As Margaret went up the fields homewards 
 she kept out of the grass, thinking what a lucky 
 thing it was that Jacky had sent her to Beckford 
 instead of letting her trail about the wet moor 
 all the morning to spoil her clean fresh dress. 
 Arriving at the Grange, she remembered the 
 letter again, and calling Jacky into council 
 exhibited the suspicious appearances to her.
 
 THE POSTMISTRESS AT BECXFOIU). 29 
 
 Jacky made a cross in the air before mention- 
 Las Tibbie's dreaded name, and then agreed that 
 it had certainly been opened and reclosed. They 
 laid it, seal upwards, on Sylvan Holt's desk, and 
 there left it to await his return from Middlemoor 
 in the evening.
 
 30 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MRS. JOAN CLERVAUX. 
 
 The Mrs. Joan Clervaux to whom frequent 
 allusion has already been made in these pages, 
 was an unmarried, lady of good family and 
 moderate fortune residing on her own property 
 at Oakfleld, whose chief work and pleasure in 
 life might he said to consist in benefiting others. 
 Her name was a proverb in Mirkdale for all that 
 is excellent, just as was Sylvan Holt's for all 
 that is churlish. The way in which they became 
 acquainted was as follows. 
 
 Margaret had not passed through the common 
 infantine disorders before coming to Wildwood, 
 and soon after she was smitten with scarlet fever. 
 Her father was almost beside himself, and poor 
 Jacky, terrified at his insane rage and grief, made 
 anything but a judicious nurse. The neighbour-
 
 MRS. JOAN CLERVAUX. 31 
 
 hood was not on terms of intimacy with the new 
 owner of the Grange, who had come into Mirk- 
 dale a perfect stranger, therefore no kind, 
 motherly woman came to offer service or advice 
 until Mrs. Joan Clervaux, touched by what she 
 heard of the child's danger and Sylvan Holt's 
 extremity of sorrow, ventured to brave his 
 notorious savagery, and presented herself at his 
 door. She was admitted, and under her care, 
 Margaret recovered. Gratitude would be a weak 
 word to express what Sylvan Holt felt towards 
 this excellent woman ; it was, he said, as if she 
 had restored his child to him from the brink of 
 the grave, and the friendship thus begun con- 
 tinued without interruption : but up to this 
 date Mrs. Joan Clervaux's was the only neigh- 
 bourly foot that had crossed the threshold of 
 Wildwood Grange. 
 
 The mistress of Oakfield was a gentlewoman of 
 a type not common in these days. She had been 
 born and bred in the dales and had never 
 travelled far beyond them at any time of her life ; 
 her accent was marked by their provincialisms and 
 her mind by their vigorous healthy tone. To
 
 32 
 
 strangers "both might possibly have betrayed a 
 tincture of harshness ; but to those who knew and 
 loved her, her words and sentiments were as a 
 pleasant strengthening bitter in the mouth. 
 Though nearly sixty years old, she was as alert 
 and active as a young girl ; she still walked many 
 miles daily, still rode on horseback to make calls 
 at a distance, still preserved her cheerful elasticity 
 of spirits, and no little of the bloom and expression 
 of her once great beauty. She was a tall, stately 
 commanding woman in appearance, and all her 
 surroundings and belongings testified to a natural 
 and inborn refinement which had not been 
 frittered into fastidiousness by over-cultivation. 
 She was well-read in history, biography and 
 travels, but her natural preference lay with books 
 of romantic literature — either prose or poetry; 
 and she could still take as vital an interest in the 
 complications of a pretty love-story as any young 
 maiden to whom the passion is only a name 
 fraught with beautiful mystery and much tempta- 
 tion.
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 33 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 
 
 Going to take tea with Mrs. Joan Clervaux 
 meant; so far as Margaret Holt was concerned, 
 arriving at Oakfield early in the afternoon, and, 
 whatever the season, staying only to the edge of 
 twilight, so that she might walk home alone. As 
 soon, therefore, as she had eaten her mid-day 
 dinner, and seen Oscar composed for his siesta in 
 front of the kitchen fire, she set off on her visit. 
 Two miles of picturesquely varied scenery lay 
 between Oakfield and the Grange ; but instead of 
 taking the same route as in the morning, which 
 was, indeed, the shorter, she went by the fields 
 that lay along Blackbeck, whose waters were still 
 foaming in flood over the great mossy stones that 
 made a ford in summer. A turbulent stream 
 Blackbeck was at all seasons of the year, but now 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 it glanced so bonnily under the overhanging 
 bushes, flinging up tiny clouds of spray as it 
 bounded from fall to fall, that Margaret almost 
 longed to kilt her petticoats to the knee and wade 
 through it, as she had often done when a little 
 girl. But instead she followed its windings past 
 Greatorex Mills and down to Horsebrigg, and 
 crossing there found herself at Oakfield just 
 about the time that Mrs. Joan Clervaux was 
 observing to her nephew that " that wild little 
 gipsy, Margaret Holt," would soon be there. 
 They were sitting in the drawing-room together 
 when they heard the gate clash, and Martin imme- 
 diately opened the glass door upon the lawn, and 
 went down the avenue to meet her. 
 
 "Aunt Joan, here is Margaret pretending not 
 to know me ! " cried he, as he came back. 
 
 Margaret shook hands with her old friend, and 
 then glanced round at him ao-ain. " I begin to 
 see you now," said she archly ; " at first sight 
 you were quite strange ; " and her forefinger 
 traced a curved line along her upper lip. 
 
 Martin laughed : " When you were a little 
 maiden no higher than this, Margaret," said he,
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 35 
 
 lifting his hand to a level wifh Mrs. Joan's work- 
 table, "you used to declare that you would be 
 courted by none but a bearded knight, and 
 that if he were only brave enough you should 
 marry him and follow him round the world on 
 a packsaddle ! " 
 
 " Oh ! I have changed my mind since then ! " 
 retorted she, and sitting down on the couch 
 she loosed the strings of her hat and uncovered 
 her hair, which the wind had blown about her 
 face and neck in a very pretty disorder. 
 
 Martin Carew ventured to touch it with his 
 profane hand, and to observe that his Aunt 
 Joan had not instilled orthodox principles of 
 hair-dressing into her mind yet: and a pair 
 of scissors lying conveniently within reach, at 
 the sight of them he fell into temptation, and 
 secretly snipped off one small glossy tress. 
 Margaret was quite unconscious of the theft, 
 but Mrs. Joan saw it, and said very gently, 
 " Don't be foolish, children," and then she sent 
 Margaret up-stairs to take off her plaid and 
 emoothe those provoking curls. 
 
 "Aunt Joan, if ever I marry a wife it shall 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 be Margaret Holt ! " said her nephew decisively, 
 as soon as the sound of the retreating footsteps 
 ceased : he looked very eager, very much in 
 earnest too. 
 
 " That is just like you, Martin ! always rash, 
 obstinate, and impetuous ! You make up your 
 mind in a hurry, and nothing can turn you. 
 Supposing Margaret does not choose you — and 
 I am sure the child has not a serious thought in 
 her head — what then ? " 
 
 " Well, if she does not, I '11 live and die a 
 bachelor for her sake ! " 
 
 " I don't believe it, Martin Carew ! you are 
 only a boy — yes, I know what you mean to 
 insinuate," added she, as her nephew caressed 
 the shady moustache which had caused Margaret's 
 shyness when they met ; " you are a soldier, 
 and are going; to carve out a fortune with 
 your sword, and do mighty grand things, I 
 dare say; — but this is a tangible certainty: 
 you are a lieutenant with a lieutenant's pa} r , 
 and nothing besides; you are certainly to 
 remain five, and it may even be ten years in 
 India "
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 37 
 
 Margaret re-appeared, and Mrs. Joan Clervaux 
 was silent. " Miss Bell Rowley is coming over 
 Horsebrigg," announced she; "I saw her from 
 the window on the stairs." 
 
 " Coming already ! " said Mrs. Joan ; i{ she has 
 been to the Rectory to luncheon, and she sent 
 word that in returning home she should stay 
 and have an early tea with* me. You did not 
 count on so much fine company did you, gipsy ? " 
 
 Margaret laughed at her dismay being detected, 
 and Martin Carew hastily suggested that they 
 two should retreat to the greenhouse, where there 
 were some beautiful flowers out, and only waiting 
 to be admired, he said. 
 
 " You will do nothing of the kind at present ; you 
 will stay and help me to entertain Bell Rowley, 
 both of you," interposed Mrs. Joan ; and before 
 any further remonstrance or excuse could be 
 attempted, the unwelcome visitor presented her- 
 self at the glass door. 
 
 She was a middle-sized, thick-set girl, witJi 
 large limbs and extremities; a broad, highly 
 coloured face, which some persons styled hand- 
 some and others coarse : a voice full of loud
 
 38 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 self-assertion ; and a forward pretentions manner. 
 By dint of a noisy freedom of tone she had acquired 
 a reputation for great warmth of heart, which 
 enabled her to be one of the most successfully 
 selfish persons that ever breathed; and though 
 ingrained with some of the most disagreeable 
 qualities, she had been so long provided with 
 scapegoats for all her faults by an easy, inju- 
 dicious mother, that she believed herself to have 
 been all original perfection, just slightly warped 
 by the wicked neglects and seductions of nurses, 
 teachers, and companions. 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux, charitable as she was 
 to the world in general, had an extreme dis- 
 taste for Miss Bell Rowley, and perhaps that 
 young lady's flippant familiarity and ostentatious 
 pride had never shown themselves to her in 
 stronger colours than they did now in contrast 
 with Margaret Holt's frank simplicity. The 
 two girls were well known to each other by 
 sight, but they had never before met to be intro- 
 duced, and Bell Rowley, after acknowledging 
 Margarets presence with a curt, patronizing 
 nod, whispered confidentially to Mrs. Joan —
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 39 
 
 96 The Holts — are they good people ? I thought 
 he was only a sort of farmer." 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux had a quietly lofty way 
 with her when she wished to rebuke impertinence, 
 against which even Miss Bell Rowley's audacity 
 could not stand ; and at the expressive glance 
 she received, she immediately desisted from 
 her inquiries about Margaret, and assailed 
 Martin Carew with the fall batteries of her 
 fascination and eloquence. Martin had a spice 
 of wicked drollery in his composition, which 
 incited him to draw out her salient characteris- 
 tics of boasting and self-adulation; he listened 
 with an air of the most earnest gravity to her 
 marvellous feats of prowess in the hunting field, 
 and at the recital of one awful leap across Black- 
 beck near Hellgap, which she asserted had never 
 before been accomplished either by man or fiend, 
 he responded in so deeply impressed a tone that 
 Margaret could not forbear smiling — 
 
 " You must surely have ridden Pegasus ! " 
 
 " Oh no, we have not a horse called that : 
 it was only Doctor Slops," replied Bell mytho- 
 logically unconscious of her blunder, and then
 
 40 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 turning to Margaret she said — " The last time 
 we hunted the stag — in March it was — you 
 were out with your father : he rode a very 
 handsome black horse — do you think he wants 
 to sell it ? I took quite a liking to it." 
 
 " No, I am sure he does not : Faustus is 
 his own favourite/' replied Margaret laconically. 
 
 " Indeed ! We fancied that perhaps he wished 
 to show it off in the field. What a pity you 
 were not out with us that day, Mr. Carew, we 
 had such a rare run. The stag was turned 
 down at Burniston Hang, and made directly 
 for Blackbeck ; it crossed just below Greenfell, 
 and then took the open fields towards Allonby, 
 and so over into Ferndikes, where it was caught. 
 I should have been in with the first, but my 
 mare — I don't know what ailed her — fell behind 
 early. You were pretty well mounted, Miss 
 Holt." 
 
 "What did you ride, Margaret?" Mrs. Joan 
 Clervaux inquired. 
 
 " Crosspatch." 
 
 i( She is a beautiful creature ; why did you give 
 her that ugly name?"
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 4l 
 
 " Because she is rather vicious, and will not let 
 anybody mount her but myself." 
 
 " I would both mount her and tame her too/' 
 cried Bell with scornful decision : " I never yet 
 saw the horse that I could not manage : I 
 must have been born for a jockey! I always 
 tell papa that I have but one ambition in life, 
 and that is, to ride and win a steeple-chase." 
 
 She looked round for applause, but Mrs. Joan 
 Clervaux was diligent at her lamb's-wool socks, 
 Margaret was gazing meditatively at the waving 
 laburnums in the garden, and Martin Carew 
 was mentally quoting certain lines from Hudibras 
 that are far more forcible than polite. After 
 receiving a few more harmless shots from Bell's 
 long-bow he opened the glass door; and, in 
 defiance of a monitory glance from his aunt, 
 he whispered to Margaret to come out into 
 the garden, which she immediately did ; and 
 the boastful Amazon, much to her annoyance, 
 was left alone with Mrs. Joan Clervaux. 
 
 " Really that Margaret Holt would be a well- 
 looking creature if she did not wear her hair 
 so like a boy's! What a straight, finely poised
 
 42 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEE. 
 
 figure she has ! " remarked Bell, watching the 
 recusants as they crossed the lawn. "So you 
 patronize her, Mrs. Joan ? " 
 
 •* She is my very dear young friend : I love 
 Margaret Holt as if she were my own flesh and 
 blood, Bell Rowley ! " 
 
 " I had no idea of it ! is she odd at all ? " 
 
 Mrs. Joan did not answer, and so Bell judged 
 it expedient to speak of something else. But 
 her next choice of subject was not more fortunate ; 
 or, rather, her manner of treating it jarred the 
 feelinp-s of her auditress. 
 
 " I hear that Mr. Carew is going out to India 
 with his regiment next month : why does he 
 not exchange and stav at home ? " asked she. 
 
 " Martin Carew knows better than to shirk 
 his duty, I hope. He is a brave, modest lad ; and 
 I, for one, have no desire to see him turn his sword 
 into a bodkin." 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Joan, modest! Are not modest 
 men myths? But joking apart — how is he to 
 get forward? We all know he is too poor to pur- 
 chase his steps ; and without money or influential 
 patronage there is small chance of promotion,
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 43 
 
 though I suppose it is more rapid out there than 
 here. But then the risks — he might die of the 
 climate, or perhaps be killed ! " 
 
 MVell, Bell Rowley, that would be only 
 the fortune of war ! " replied Mrs. Joan, breathing 
 a little faster as she caught a glimpse of her 
 nephew walking to and fro with Margaret. 
 " Only the fortune of war ! Not a w r ord to 
 chill him shall he hear from me. He is an 
 enthusiast in his profession, and as he did not 
 enter it to play at soldiering, he will earn some 
 honours before he is grey." 
 
 "Ten years is the usual time they stay out, 
 is it not? I don't know how you can bear to 
 part with him for so long ; it seems almost as if 
 you did not care for him. I do wonder you 
 let him go ! you may, perhaps, never see him 
 again ! " 
 
 " Bell Rowley, do you think w r e have nothing 
 in this world to do but to consult our own 
 selfish feelings ? " said Mrs. Joan with severity, 
 though her lip quivered irrepressibly. " If I 
 never do see my boy again — which at my age 
 is too probable — what then? Am I to blight
 
 44 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 that promising young life for the sake of keeping 
 him tied to my elbow-chair ? " 
 
 " If you take that exalted view of it, I suppose it 
 would seem hard ; but most of the men I know — 
 Ross, and Outram, and " 
 
 " Not a word against them, Bell ! I know them 
 too : — wild, hare-brained, thoughtless lads they 
 seem, full of fun and frolic ; so is Martin Career : 
 he is as playful as a child sometimes, and as gentle 
 as the gentlest woman — but they are one and 
 all brave men and brave soldiers, and I am 
 sure they love their country and their honour 
 better far than shameful ease ! " 
 
 Bell Rowley raised her eyebrows, and declared 
 she had never looked on the service in any other 
 light than that of the most idle 'and aristocratic 
 of the professions resorted to by gentlemen ; 
 she imagined that Mr. Carew would be only 
 too glad to do garrison duty in some pleasant 
 country town where the society was good, in 
 preference to bring grilled alive, or very likely 
 shot, in that dreadful India, where, according 
 to the newspapers, fighting was for ever going 
 on.
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 45 
 
 " Then you have totally misunderstood his 
 character/* said Mrs. Joan ; " Martin Carew is a 
 better soldier than carpet knight." 
 
 " I 'm sure I shall always regard him in future 
 as a most chivalrous person! " rejoined Bell pertly; 
 " but to my weak mind it does look excessively 
 Quixotic and high-flown to prefer active service to 
 those pretty reviews and mock fights." 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux did not vouchsafe any 
 answer to this proposition : she knitted assiduously, 
 and reflected that poor Bell had never felt the 
 stirring influence of noble or lofty thoughts, and 
 so could not be expected to give them utterance : 
 or even to comprehend them where she saw 
 how by their power others were moved. Bell's 
 soul was essentially of the earth, earthy, and 
 would never rise above the animal wants and 
 indulgences of a life of selfish pleasure; Mrs. 
 Joan had tried often before to get at some finer 
 vein in what seemed all clay, but never with 
 success, and now she was so excited by the fears 
 that Bell's heartless suggestions had called up, 
 as to be incapable of reasoning with her, or indeed 
 of speaking at all for several minutes. At last,
 
 46 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 by way of a break in what was becoming a painful 
 silence, she proposed to her visitor that they 
 should adjourn to the greenhouse, and look at 
 some new plants that had recently been sent 
 from Walham Castle. Bell always professed to 
 hate and despise innocent amusements, but she 
 now felt uncomfortably that she had hurt and 
 offended one whom to abuse — as her amiable 
 custom was with her acquaintance — could only 
 redound to her own disadvantage, and therefore 
 she strove to efface the bad impression she had 
 made by going into raptures over Mrs. Joan's 
 favourite floricultural beauties. At any other 
 moment, perhaps, she would have perversely 
 declared that she hardly knew a cabbage from 
 a cabbage rose, have called the nettle a graceful 
 plant, vowed she liked the smell of wild garlic 
 or turnips better than lilies, and have otherwise 
 manifested her contradictious temper. But Mrs. 
 Joan's quiet and lofty gravity overawed her into 
 respectful behaviour for a brief season. 
 
 While they were in the greenhouse, Martin 
 Carew and Margaret Holt were pacing about the 
 shrubbery walks, exchanging experiences during
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 47 
 
 the interval since their last meeting about six 
 months before. Martin had lost his parents 
 ( who had married very early and imprudently ) 
 whilst but a child, and ever since Oakfield had 
 been home to him ; it was, indeed, the only home 
 he had ever known, and that was how he and 
 Margaret had become such fast friends. They 
 had been like brother and sister together while 
 they were children ; and later on, when he was 
 sent to a military training college for his education, 
 and only came to Oakfield for his holidays, they 
 were still constant companions. Margaret was 
 made the confidant of all Martin's chivalric as- 
 pirations from his boyhood to the present hour, 
 and the lapse of time which had lifted them to early 
 manhood and womanhood seemed to have caused 
 no perceptible change in the nature of their 
 friendship. 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux looked out at them 
 through a screen of flowers, and saw Margaret 
 laughing — a most musical laugh hers was too — 
 with unrestrained girlish glee, probably at some 
 ludicrous story Martin was telling her of his 
 Tipperary quarters, and thought in her own mind
 
 48 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 that however deeply pledged were his affections, 
 she at least was fancy-free. Bell Rowley, assidu- 
 ously following the direction of Mrs. Joan's eye 
 in the hope of meeting with an opportunity to 
 throw in some conciliatory remark, also noticed 
 the unreserved manner of each to the other and 
 said — 
 
 " One might almost take those two for cousins, 
 Mrs. Joan ; it may perhaps seem an absurd remark 
 to make, but, allowing for difference of sex, 
 they are extremely alike. Don't you think so ?" 
 
 " It never struck me before, but I do see that 
 air of resemblance which persons seem to acquire 
 by long liking and association," replied Mrs. 
 Joan with awakened interest : " but it is more 
 in manner than feature. Martin never was a 
 pretty boy, but he has a fine manly face, and 
 his heio-ht is noble : all our family are tall. As 
 for Margaret Holt, I never saw a young girl with 
 greater promise of beauty, and of beauty which 
 will last too: — but she is scarcely formed yet," 
 
 " What a sad pity it is she has been so strangely 
 brought up ! I feel quite sorry for her, poor thing," 
 said Bell demurely.
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 49 
 
 Ci Your pity is wasted, then, on one of the best 
 and noblest and most intelligent of creatures!" 
 returned Mrs. Joan, who always warmly defended 
 her favourite to others, though she lectured her 
 herself. e< Margaret Holt stands in need of no- 
 body's commiseration." 
 
 "Perhaps not, though a careful education is 
 generally considered an advantage. Yet I dare 
 say if she had met with no better teachers than I 
 did, it is quite as well that she escaped without. 
 What incapables mine were ! mamma always says 
 that I lost far more than I gained with them." 
 
 (i It was entirely your own fault if you did, 
 Bell : you were a most conceited and headstrong 
 child ; " said Mrs. Joan, who was the only indivi- 
 dual in the world from whom Bell could bear to 
 hear a disagreeable truth without flying into a 
 rage. 
 
 (i Oh ! I daresay I was troublesome ! " replied 
 she in a vaunting tone : " but those two Doves 
 were such fools : I could turn either of them 
 round my little finger ! I had only to fling myself 
 down on the floor, and scream loud enough and 
 long enough, and they let me do whatever I 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 wanted, for fear I should make myself ill. Then 
 as for Miss Sharpe, though she did get through 
 two awful years with me she was worn down to 
 an anatomical study before she left: mamma 
 always said she never took any interest in me, 
 or tried to form my character at all ; but that was 
 a slight mistake of mamma's, for she was at me 
 for all evers ! I never hated anybody half so much. 
 But I did not dare be as bad with her as the 
 others, for she was so satirical, and never minded 
 speaking out plain, to mamma or papa either, just 
 what she thought of any of us : not a bit like 
 most governesses, who, between parents and 
 pupils, hardly dare call their souls their own." 
 
 " Oh ! Bell, Bell ! I have heard of your school- 
 room battles and triumphs until I am sick at the 
 sound of them ! You ought to blush to speak of 
 them, instead of glorying in them as you do. 
 You are far more to be pitied than Margaret 
 Holt." 
 
 Bell laughed : 
 
 " I know you think me a wild girl, but I 
 gmt on very well, notwithstanding," said she ; u I 
 have always plenty of partners at the balls and
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 5L 
 
 men in the hunting-field, and that is all I care for. 
 I was never meant for a pattern of propriety." 
 
 " Do you behave better to your mother than 
 you did, Bell? I used to see you very selfish and 
 t}-rannical at home ; " said Mrs. Joan. 
 
 " It is her own fault ! she ought to have given 
 me some good whippings when I was a child, and 
 then I should have mended my ways." 
 
 " And how do you go on with your maid, poor 
 Lucy? I understand from her aunt that she 
 wishes to leave you." 
 
 " You will be shocked, I know, but sometimes 
 I declare I wish she were a serf, and I a Russian 
 lady, that I might beat her insolence and stupidity 
 out of her ! Only yesterday she dared to tell me 
 to my face that flesh and blood could not stand 
 my tongue or my temper ! Very pretty that from 
 a Sunday school scholar to her mistress." 
 
 " I am not surprised, Bell, and I hope you 
 mean to profit by her rebuke to correct and 
 restrain both ; " said Mrs. Joan drily. 
 
 Bell fumed in secret over this novel view of 
 her grievance, but judged it expedient to let the 
 subject drop. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 By and by tea was ready in the drawing-room; 
 but Martin Carew and Margaret had betaken 
 themselves to the beckside, and were some time 
 before they returned. When they did come in, 
 at last, it was with a proposal for a day's excursion 
 to Deepgyll Falls, while the hill streams were 
 still in flood and the cool May weather continued 
 fine. 
 
 " Sit down and make tea for us, Gipsy, and we 
 will talk of that presently; " said Mrs. Joan, who 
 saw Bell Rowley (figuratively) prick up her ears 
 at the mention of a riding party ; and with whom, 
 for private reasons of her own, she wished her 
 young friend to associate as little as possible. 
 
 Margaret took her place before the tray, as had 
 been her custom when she visited Oakfield ever 
 since she was tall enough to handle the teapot ; 
 and Martin brought the music-stool besides 
 her for himself, that he might help her with the 
 urn. 
 
 Bell Rowley looked on in great amazement and 
 whispered, 
 
 " You seem quite like a daughter of the house ;" 
 but Margaret either did not hear or did not
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 53 
 
 understand, for she took no notice of the remark 
 which was intended to discompose her. 
 
 Every trivial incident of the meal — all Martin's 
 half-teasing assiduities to his favourite — were noted 
 and conned over hy Bell, who began at length, in 
 spite of her thick-skinned vanity, to experience a 
 vague sensation of uneasiness at being an evidently 
 discordant element in the party. A victim to 
 all the mean tortures of jealousy, she never could 
 endure with graceful equanimity that any person 
 should outshine her, or absorb more attention than 
 herself, whatever the company. Many were her 
 manoeuvres to draw Martin from his allegiance, 
 but failing all, she tried to comfort herself by 
 enumerating mentally such of Margaret's social 
 disadvantages as were within her ken. First, 
 the equivocal position that Wildwood held in 
 popular estimation ; then Sylvan Holt's barbarism 
 and seclusion; next, Margaret's isolation from 
 society, her lack of proper education, and last, 
 though perhaps not least, the irregular ideas she 
 indulged in with regard to dress. This charitable 
 spiritual exercise was not altogether cheering, as 
 Bell's gloomy countenance betrayed, and at length,
 
 54 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEE. 
 
 finding it impossible to make herself the centre of 
 attraction, she subsided into a sullen silence, 
 pouting her heavy lips, contracting her thick 
 brows, and feigning a total abstraction from what 
 was passing. 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux was well acquainted 
 with all these signs of temper; for Bell wore 
 them at home sometimes during several days 
 together : when woe betide the luckless servant 
 or younger child that crossed her humour ! But 
 Martin and Margaret, who knew her much less 
 intimately, were sorely puzzled to understand 
 what was making her face look as black and 
 lowering as Greyscaur with a thunderstorm gather- 
 ing over it. For some time they left her all 
 the more to her own cogitation ; but, at length, 
 mindful of the graces of hospitality, Martin 
 asked her a question which started her afresh 
 on the tack of her equestrian achievements. She 
 bloomed out again all noise and exuberance, and 
 so continued until her horse was brought round 
 to the door for her to return home. Martin went 
 out, and after assisting her to mount, achieved his 
 peace completely by a promise to ride over to
 
 TAKING TEA AT OAKFIELD. 55 
 
 luncheon at Bransby Park the next day ; but Bell 
 marked her displeasure at Margaret by over- 
 looking her altogether when she shook hands 
 with the others, and just nodding her a cavalier 
 o'ood evening- as she turned and rode off.
 
 56 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MARGARET HOLT AND MARTIN CAEEW. 
 
 It was now almost dusk, the sun liacl been set 
 some time; so Mrs. Joan Clervaux kissed her 
 favourite and bade her put on her hat and plaid : 
 
 " Martin can walk with you to Wildfoot ; " said 
 she ; " but neither of you loiter by the way, or it 
 will be dark before you can reach home : next 
 week you shall go to Deepgyll Falls." And then 
 the old lady dismissed them, reminding Margaret 
 that if her father had returned from Middlemoor 
 he would most probably come down the fields to 
 meet her : so they set out at once. 
 
 " This is pleasant, Margaret. I am glad you 
 are not a talking girl," said Martin, as they went 
 up Beckford lane. 
 
 " What for : because you so dearly love to 
 talk yourself ? " asked Margaret mischievously.
 
 MARGARET HOLT AND MARTIN CAREAV. 57 
 
 " No ; but because my ears ache with Bell Row- 
 ley's magpie chatter." 
 
 " Don't be censorious, Martin : she is a very 
 popular character." 
 
 " She does not harmonize with this time of 
 night, like one I know : she is not quiet and cool 
 and balmy. Margaret, I shall often remember 
 this bonnie Mirkdale when I am in India. If 
 you should ever hear anything sighing beside you 
 in the twilight, it will be my disembodied spirit." 
 
 "I hope not, Martin! I shall be rejoiced to 
 welcome you home in the flesh, but if you come as 
 a ghost I will have nothing at all to say to you." 
 
 " Don't be hard, Margaret ! I wish you would 
 pay me angel visits out there." 
 
 " Why, Martin, you 'd be horribly afraid if 
 I did. You are talking nothing but nonsense to- 
 night." 
 
 "What places do you haunt most? I want to 
 fancy your incomings and out-goings, and to be 
 able to raise up pictures of you before my mind's 
 eye whenever I choose." 
 
 " Mrs. Joan says I must begin seriously to 
 read and improve myself, and Jacky bids me
 
 58 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 learn to mend stockings; so imagine me growing 
 dull over Rollin, and pricking my fingers cruelly 
 with long darning-needles." 
 
 " No ! I would rather have visions of you in 
 this Swiss hat ranging the moor with Oscar, as 
 we used to do when I came home for my holidays 
 a year or two ago ; or else sitting on the old settee 
 by the window of that quaint summer parlour, 
 dreaming and wishing for me. By the by, 
 Margaret, would your father be glad to see me 
 if I came up to the Grange ? " 
 
 " He is never glad to see anybody, Martin." 
 Martin Carew, with loverlike selfishness, inter- 
 nally blessed Sylvan Holt for the unsociable 
 disposition that kept people in general from 
 Margaret's presence, but he would have approved 
 a dispensation in his own favour extremely ; and 
 while conjecturing what made the owner of Wild- 
 wood so recluse, he could not help wondering how 
 that fragrant blossom, which he hoped some day to 
 appropriate to himself, had ever sprung from so 
 rugged and ungainly a root: but aware of 
 Margaret's boundless attachment to her father, 
 he immediately turned the conversation, and said,
 
 MARGARET HOLT AXD MARTIN DAKEW. .59 
 
 "When I am gone, my Aunt will miss me, 
 Margaret ; you must go often to cheer her, for I 
 believe she loves you better than anybody else : 
 you suit her, and she suits you. Am I right ? " 
 
 "Yes, Martin, and then I shall hear news of 
 you sometimes; she always lets me read your 
 letters. What a quantity of strange things you 
 will have to tell us ! Mind you write long, long- 
 letters, and often, often" 
 
 "I promise faithfully! And you really will 
 be interested to hear what I am doing, and how 
 I get on?" 
 
 " Of course I shall ! I expect you will come 
 home to us a general, or a colonel at the least ! I 
 know you will be a great man some day, Martin ; 
 and we shall be so proud of you! Mrs. Joan 
 and I have talked about it often." 
 
 "Oh, Margaret! it will be your dear, bonnie 
 face that will encourage me to win my laurels, 
 if anything does ! I shall always think that one 
 kind soul is giving me its prayers and good wishes. 
 But ten years, even five years, is a long time !" 
 
 " No, Martin, no ! you will be seeing new 
 places, and doing new duties: fighting perhaps;
 
 60 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 it makes me shudder to think of that ! and 
 we shall he talking over your last letter or 
 expecting your next : then we shall read all the 
 Indian intelligence in the newspapers. Oh, the 
 time will pass ! and when you come hack, there '11 
 he Wildwood and Oakfield and Mrs. Joan and me 
 looking not a day older than we did when you 
 went away! Beckford Church hells shall he 
 rung merrily that day, Martin, if I ring them 
 myself!" 
 
 " But I shall he an old fellow with grizzled hair 
 and moustache ; you won't know me, Margaret ! " 
 
 " Certainly not ! And you will have a yellow 
 face and a had temper, and what more horrid? 
 Why, Martin, you will only he thirty ! " 
 
 " Your arithmetic has not heen quite neglected, 
 I see. Then you won't forget me in ten years? 
 you should give me some gage." 
 
 " You are in a melancholy mood i I shall not 
 talk to you any more to-night ; besides, here we 
 are at Wildfoot. Say good-hye ; and don't tell Bell 
 Rowley to-morrow when we are going to Deepgyll, 
 or she will want to go too." 
 
 "I might as well walk a little further with
 
 MABGABET HOLT AND MARTIN CABEW. 61 
 
 you ; it is dark by the woodside. TTho are these 
 coming down, Margaret ? r ' 
 
 "My father and Oscar: there, you are not 
 to come over the stile : " and drawing her hand 
 from his, she ran swiftly up the steep path towards 
 them. Martin waited a moment to see her join 
 Sylvan Holt, and then turned back to Oakfield, 
 musing doubtfully on Margaret's frank expressions 
 of affection, and his Aunt Joan's declaration 
 " that the child had not one serious thought in 
 her head."
 
 62 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S MYSTERY. 
 
 Sylvan Holt met his daughter with hand 
 outstretched, as she came running up to him, and 
 immediately asked who had been her companion. 
 Her reply that it was Martin Carew, Mrs. Joan 
 Clervaux's nephew, appeared to satisfy him ; but it 
 elicited no further interrogatory or remark, and 
 they went silently homewards — Margaret hanging 
 on her father's arm, for she was tired ; having, 
 indeed, been on foot nearly the whole day. 
 
 There was a lighted lamp on the parlour table 
 when they entered, as it was now dark in the 
 house, but the curtains were undrawn and both 
 the windows wide open. It was one of Sylvan 
 Holt's peculiar and fantastic whims that never in 
 any season or any weather would he permit either 
 clay or night to be shut out ; so that while the
 
 63 
 
 moonlight, lamplight or firelight were struggling 
 together on the walls, the ceiling and the floor, 
 belated travellers low clown in the valley recog- 
 nised the old Grange at Wildwood by two dimly 
 shining windows, within which the master and his 
 daughter sat, sometimes reading or talking 
 together, but much more frequently quite silent. 
 Martin Carew, as he went along by the wan night- 
 waters of the beck, paused often to look up at 
 them, and to try, with the fanciful enthusiasm of a 
 young lover, if he could distinguish Margaret's 
 shadow moving in the room: but their yellow 
 glow through the thickening mists was unbroken, 
 and though not much given to poetical imagery, 
 he said to himself that it was like a halo shining 
 
 o 
 
 about her presence ; then laughed at the foolish 
 conceit, and began to whistle away his sombre 
 thoughts. 
 
 Sylvan Holt was a tall, powerfully built, 
 middle-aged man, clad in dark grey frieze, such as 
 was the habitual wear of the Mirkdale farmers at 
 this period. His countenance was that of a 
 profoundly melancholy and suffering person ; his 
 lips were curved downwards, his strong brows
 
 64 SYLVAX HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 raised stormily; and deep,wavedj transversal lines 
 marked his forehead ; his hair was dark, thick 
 and harsh, only slightly streaked with grey ; his 
 whole aspect that of a man who at some past 
 epoch of his life had been trailed through a 
 slough of misery, shame, and perchance crime, 
 and to whose flesh the poisoned stains had clung, 
 eating into and corroding his very soul. Pas- 
 sions quick and strong in their vitality, whether 
 for good or ill, could alone have fitly animated 
 his iron frame: nor were there any signs of 
 natural failure or decay about him yet. He 
 was like a mighty ship suddenly rent by a ter- 
 rific explosion, or half-consumed by a fierce 
 conflagration, but of which enough still remains 
 to witness that it was a grand and goodly vessel 
 once upon a time. Margaret's features were a 
 soft copy of his ; finely and daintily modelled it 
 is true, but of that type which might petrify into 
 a like sad severity, if her problem of life should 
 prove hard to solve. 
 
 When she had been a few minutes in the room, 
 she went to one of the windows and looked down 
 the valley, through the deepening twilight, letting
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S MYSTERY. 65 
 
 her thoughts follow Martin Carew on his home- 
 ward walk, not with any of the soft, tender 
 pulsations of awakening love, but with the quiet 
 yet deep sisterly interest that it was natural 
 she should feel in one whom she had known 
 so long and so intimately. While she was still 
 standing there, silent and abstracted, her father 
 approached the bureau and perceived lying on 
 the desk the letter which she had brought up 
 from the post in the morning. He took it 
 carelessly, and carried it to the light to read; 
 but as his eye scanned the few brief lines of 
 which it consisted, the whole man was changed ; 
 and when he came to the last words, he crushed 
 it in his hand, and staggered blindly to his 
 chair. As he dropped into it, turning quite 
 away from the light, he groaned like a man 
 in acute bodily pain; and Margaret, who was 
 about to go to her room to put off her hat and 
 plaid, immediately looked round, startled and 
 alarmed. 
 
 There was for a moment an awful expression 
 on his face: it was as if a corpse had become 
 sentient, and were stirred out of its stony calm 
 
 VOL. I. f
 
 §6 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEK. 
 
 "by a sudden spasm, an acute throe of living, 
 breathing anguish. The veins of his forehead 
 swelled into purple cords, and a convulsive 
 quiver ran through every morsel of flesh upon 
 his bones. Some terrible soul-ordeal, burning 
 and poignant, was passed through in that instant 
 such as not many of mortal organization can 
 endure and live. 
 
 " Father, what ails you? I am sure you are 
 ill. Oh, what has happened ? " questioned 
 Margaret, terrified at his strange look. 
 
 " Hush, child ; let me alone ! " 
 
 He leant his face down upon his hands and 
 was silent, while she stole to the door and fastened 
 it, lest Jacky should come in by chance, and 
 then turned and watched him mutely from a 
 distance. She could not long bear thus the 
 sight of his struggle, and running suddenly 
 to him she flung her arms round his neck 
 crying — 
 
 " Speak to me, father ! tell me why you are 
 suffering ?" and kissed him repeatedly. 
 
 He let her hang there for a few seconds till 
 she felt, like an electric current through every
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S MYSTERY. 67 
 
 nerve, the great sobs of pain that shook his bulk ; 
 and on her little hands, that half-unconsciously 
 stroked and caressed his, fell tears drawn up, 
 each one with a distinct throb of agony, from 
 that secret source of wretchedness which had 
 flooded and drowned his better life, even as those 
 fatal Eastern inundations waste in one night the 
 bountiful districts that are the hope and sustenance 
 of a people. 
 
 This could not last long, or it must have killed 
 him ; he lifted himself up with a groan and took 
 his daughter in his arms. 
 
 " It is a frosty night, Margaret, you shiver ; 
 I think I shiver too. Why don't you stir up 
 the fire ? " said he, looking at her vaguely. 
 
 " There is no fire, father : Jacky has filled the 
 grate with green branches. Don't you see that we 
 have changed from the winter to the summer 
 parlour ? " 
 
 " Yes, I noticed it when I came home, but it is 
 very cold." He shook as a slight, delicate child 
 might shake in a frozen north-east wind, but still 
 encircling Margaret with his arm, he drew her to 
 the open window. There was a newly risen moon, 
 
 f 2
 
 68 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 and the arch of heaven was regal with stars ; hut 
 gusts broke heavily out of Wildwood from time 
 to time, like blind Samsons bursting their bonds, 
 and then rushed over to the moor, bowing the 
 tree-tops in front of the Grange as if forcing 
 them to do homage to the night, throned and 
 crowned in the purple sky. Margaret put'forth 
 her hand, and would have drawn down the sash, 
 but her father stopped her. 
 
 " I cannot get breath, there is a dreadful 
 weight somewhere ; " said he hoarsely. " What 
 is that, Margaret, wavering white against the 
 woodside ? It is gone — no. Look ! it is like the 
 flutter of a woman's dress." 
 
 " That, father ! It is only the little poplar tree 
 whose leaves the wind turns on the silver side. 
 How your hands burn ! " 
 
 She lifted one of them, and held it against her 
 cool cheek for a moment, then lightly touched 
 it with her lips, then pressed it against her bosom. 
 
 " What can I do for you ?" said she, as tenderly 
 as one might speak to a sick child ; (( you are 
 troubled and overtired and want rest. Will you 
 lie down and let me stay by you ?"
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S MYSTERY. 69 
 
 He broke suddenly, almost roughly, away from 
 her, and began to pace the room, giving loose 
 to a turbulence of passionate gesture. 
 
 u Oh ! hound, devil ! " cried he, striking out 
 his clenched hand savagely against the air as 
 if he were assaulting a visible antagonist. " If 
 he had had a thousand lives I would have killed 
 him." 
 
 Margaret ventured to seize that fierce hand, 
 and imprison it within her own. 
 
 " Be still, dear father, you terrify me ! You 
 do not know what you are saying :" whispered 
 she soothingly. 
 
 " He is burning in hell for it, burning in hell 
 now !" hissed he between his closed teeth, while 
 his eyes glittered with insane triumph. 
 
 Margaret feigned not to hear his strange ex- 
 clamation, and continued fearlessly — 
 
 " Father, you did not forget me to-night : I 
 saw you coming to meet me as soon as I 
 got to Wildfoot. Did you remember it was 
 my birthday?" 
 
 He stared at her for a minute or two in a 
 bewildered way, as if striving to recover him-
 
 70 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 self from an agitating dream, and pressing his 
 hand to his forehead, said confusedly — 
 
 " Yes, I remembered it. I bought you a little 
 silver arrow at Middlemoor to fasten your ribbon ; 
 here it is : " and he gave her the trinket from 
 his pocket in a box. 
 
 Margaret took it out, admired it, and thanked 
 him ; then she fastened it in the front of her 
 dress, forced him to look, and bade him say 
 if it was not pretty there. Often before she 
 had seen him passionately excited or weighed 
 down by a deadly depression, but as often her 
 affection had been powerful enough to exorcise 
 the evil spirit. Now, however, all her little 
 wiles and caresses failed to dissipate the darkness 
 of his dark hour ; though she strove, by every 
 winning art her love could devise, to draw his 
 thoughts to herself, and keep them from wander- 
 ing back to the contemplation of his own wrongs. 
 She spoke of Martin Carew's departure to India, 
 and of all she had seen and done down at Oak- 
 field that day : matters which would have 
 interested him at another time because they 
 interested her, but which now fell vacantly on
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S MYSTERY. 71 
 
 his ear. When the subject of her visit was 
 at last exhausted, she was obliged to think of 
 something else to say. 
 
 " What shall we do to-morrow, father ? " she 
 began to ask; "you have not been out fishing 
 this spring — shall we go ?" 
 
 He paid no heed to the question — perhaps, 
 did not even hear it — for he returned wearily 
 to his chair, and sank back into the grim abstrac- 
 tion of his ordinary mood. Margaret sat down 
 at Ins feet and rested her head against his knee ; 
 and presently his fingers crept in amongst her 
 curls, tangling them as they always did when 
 she assumed this favourite childish attitude. She 
 stayed there some time, glad to see him regain 
 his habitual calm, yet full of anxiety to learn 
 what cause had stirred him so terribly, and not 
 daring to ask, lest she should renew the torture. 
 Oscar had stretched himself along the rag, and 
 lay slumbering wakefully, with one ear laid 
 forward to listen for Jacky's ponderous step 
 mounting to bed, which was his signal for taking 
 possession of the warm kitchen hearth. Soon 
 after the house clock struck ten this signal was
 
 72 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 heard, and the dog immediately stalked to the 
 door, which Margaret was obliged to rise and 
 open for him. The slight noise disturbed her 
 father's reverie: he asked if she were going to 
 bed, and was it late ? 
 
 " No, I want to keep you company ; " replied 
 she cheerfully ; " it was only Oscar, who was 
 growing impatient of the cold. I will shut the 
 windows now, father, for since dark quite a storm 
 of wind has come on ; I hope the rain will keep 
 away." 
 
 "You look white and scared, Maggie," said 
 her father, as she came and knelt down beside 
 him, and turned her face to his to be kissed; 
 " You had better go to bed ; you cannot help me 
 with what I have to do." 
 
 "But what have you to do to-night, father?" 
 interrupted she ; (i don't think any more now, let 
 every thing rest." 
 
 " Let every thing rest ! " repeated he in a 
 raised voice : " Oh, Maggie, there are some 
 things that cannot, will not rest — that murder 
 rest ! " His passion seemed verging again to 
 uncontrollable frenzy, and Margaret clung to
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S MYSTERY. 73 
 
 him trembling and almost weeping; the sight 
 of her tears gave him a shock that for the mo- 
 ment restored his self-command, and drawing 
 her to his breast he said, with inexpressible pathos 
 and tenderness : i( My love, my pet ! it is need- 
 less and cruel to grieve thee. But there has come 
 at last the end of my great affliction, and I think 
 it has almost turned my brain — but you are not 
 frightened of me, Margaret ? I would not hurt 
 a hair of your head." 
 
 " Oh, father, I 'm sure of that ; but leave all 
 trouble for to-night, and go to bed — will you, 
 dearest ? You are not fit to do any work at all, 
 or I would stay and help you." 
 
 " You could not help me, Maggie, so go and 
 sleep for both. Some day you must know what 
 all this means." 
 
 Margaret shuddered with a sort of premonitory 
 dread, but she tried to dissemble it as her father 
 rose and went back to the window, which he 
 reopened. For several minutes he stood gazing 
 out into the moonlight, and then said quickly — 
 
 " Maggie, if you believed in ghosts, would you 
 not say that the writhing and swaying of that
 
 74 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEK. 
 
 young poplar tree, as the wind changes its leaves, 
 was a white figure beckoning to us ? " 
 
 "Many people have seen ghosts in less likely 
 things," replied she, laughing softly, for she 
 thought he was jesting. But he checked her 
 and said — 
 
 "Don't laugh, Maggie! it sounds profane to 
 laugh beside a grave, and such a grave!" Then 
 he went on, in a tone of biting sarcasm, as if 
 he had regained his grip of the broken strain 
 of his habitual thoughts. " Oh, child, child ! 
 what do you know of tins bitter world ! All 
 plausible and fair-seeming, yet in truth more 
 hideous than the valley of dead bones! For 
 misery it is only hell's antechamber." Margaret 
 tried to lay her hand on his blasphemous lips, 
 but he put it aside. " You are innocent, you 
 are pure, but not more innocent and pure than 
 she was once. Get to bed, little one; get to 
 bed! and pray God to keep you safe from 
 temptation ! " and while she was entreating, " Let 
 me stay with you, dear father, do let me stay 
 with you!" he led her gently to the door, put 
 her out, and turned the key upon himself.
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S MYSTERY. 75 
 
 Margaret waited and listened for a minute or 
 two, then retired slowly to her chamber oppressed 
 with heavy disquietude. She pondered over the 
 mystery of her father's words until she was almost 
 dazed by trying to eke out therefrom a history. 
 "The end of his great affliction," the savage 
 threat, the burning tears, the corpse-like agony 
 she had witnessed, all seemed to point to some 
 dark and tragical passage in his former history; 
 but what? At last flashed into her mind the 
 recollection of the letter she had brought up 
 from the Beckford post that morning the letter 
 from "furren parts," as Tibbie Ryder had told 
 her ; that, though strange, like all the rest, was 
 still a clue; for, no doubt, it had brought the 
 tidings which had caused such poignant grief, 
 rending asunder the veil that shrouded the awful 
 sepulchre of the past. 
 
 It was long before she slept. She could hear 
 her father moving in the parlour below; some- 
 times there was an interval of silence : then what 
 sounded like a heavy groan; and once, Oscar, in 
 the kitchen, emitted a short angry bark, followed 
 by a prolonged and dreary howl which made
 
 76 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 the blood run cold in her veins; for the Mirk- 
 dale superstition is that when the housedog howls 
 thus, Death is coming with stealthy swiftness up 
 to that homestead. The moonlight shone full 
 into the room, making grotesque shadows out of 
 wardrobes, chairs, and curtains upon the dark 
 walls, and the wind clamoured boisterously at 
 the lattices, as if it had a tale to tell that would 
 not brook delay. There was a huge silver fir 
 before one window that glimmered like a dark 
 robed spectre, and staggered and swayed and bent 
 forwards, as if struggling to come into the maiden 
 presence that haunted the chamber, while it was 
 ever held back by the strong and jealous arms 
 of the storm, which was effectually barred out. 
 Then the little gusts shrilled down the chimney, 
 through the keyhole, and from under closed 
 doors; and a vague empty moaning wailed to 
 and fro the passages and long disused upper 
 stories of the Grange, as if a chorus of dead 
 sighs all blended into one, had revisited the place 
 where they were born out of suffering hearts. 
 Margaret's imagination ran wild sometimes after 
 the ludicrously terrible superstitions with which
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S MYSTERY. 77 
 
 Jacky had peopled it ; but now there was present 
 before her mind the solemn reality of what she 
 had seen her father endure, and this kept back 
 the host of spiritual terrors that had often assailed 
 her childhood in that great silent room by night. 
 She listened intently to every noise in the house, 
 rousing herself up again and again, when almost 
 conquered by weariness; the last sound she dis- 
 tinguished was the opening and shutting of the 
 drawers in the heavy old bureau ; then sleep over- 
 came her unawares, and she awoke no more until 
 the morning sun shone broad and bold into her 
 chamber.
 
 78 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OLD WOUNDS. 
 
 Jacky, the Grange servant, was a woman of 
 stubborn Yorkshire build ; hard-featured, rough- 
 skinned, strong-limbed and cross-grained, but 
 faithful as a dog to her master, and as tenderly 
 attached to Margaret as if she had been her 
 nursing-mother. There was a power of work in 
 her short, stout arms, and in her surlily inde- 
 pendent character, a will that would have kept her 
 going for ever rather than " be fashed wi' ony 
 feckless bits o' lasses," as she designated the young 
 women whom from time to time she had had 
 under her in the kitchen. She had the whole 
 sovereignty to herself at this period ; she washed, 
 ironed, cooked, baked, brewed, churned, sewed, and 
 did all the housework to her own entire satisfaction.
 
 OLD WOUNDS. 79 
 
 She never gossipped about the ways of the Grange, 
 or railed at her master, or tyrannized over her 
 thoughtless young mistress : but, as in duty bound, 
 while the first sheltered and the others fed her, she 
 did to all true and honest service. When Mar- 
 garet awoke, she heard Jacky's voice uplifted in a 
 harsh timeless lilt as she returned from milking ; 
 and presently the servant came into the room, all 
 blouzed and purple with the cold, for the spring 
 mornings in Mirkdale are almost as keen as 
 December. 
 
 " Has my father gone out of doors yet, Jacky ? " 
 Margaret immediately inquired. 
 
 " Yes ; he's been awa down to t' law croft wf 
 Anty this hour. What ails him, think yo' ? he 's 
 no' his ain man at all ; " replied the servant, 
 coming to the bedside, and drawing back the white 
 curtains as a signal to Margaret that it was time 
 to get up. 
 
 " He was tired and ill last night, and he 
 had some work to do that kept him up late. 
 Have you seen him this morning, Jacky ? " 
 
 " I met him i' t' cow pasture, an' the like o' his 
 countenance ! I never wakened any corpse mair
 
 80 
 
 like a deid man's ! He lias never seen his bed last 
 night, an' lie's sae dour an' whisht, I'se amost 
 flayed to look at him. I'd gie something to hear 
 him threaping again after his wont. I was 
 weel nigh tempted to let t'milk skeell fall, to 
 see if that 'ud start him out o' his odd gird. You '11 
 no' leave him to go down to Oakfield to-day, 
 Margaret?" 
 
 " Oh no ! And, Jacky, keep the men from 
 talking if you can ; for though he is ill, there is no 
 need that all Mirkdale should know it. He will 
 soon be himself again." 
 
 iC I wish he may wi' all my heart ! You 'd 
 hear t' dog i ' t' night howling; ? it went fair 
 through me : it was awfu' ! " said Jacky, sinking 
 her voice to a tone of mysterious solemnity, and 
 shaking her head lugubriously. 
 
 a There was an unusual noise, with my father 
 being astir ; and perhaps Oscar thought it was 
 thieves breaking in," replied Margaret, feigning 
 a carelessness that she was far from feeling. 
 " But did he look so very bad this morning, 
 Jacky?" 
 
 "He'd a real ill countenance, Margaret —
 
 OLD WOUNDS. 81 
 
 strucken down like a man that's getten a call 
 or a warning. But I 'd no liae you scared, 
 my bairn ! I don't know what my fule's tongue 
 is at to talk that gate to you. He's young, 
 is master, an '11 pull through mony a hard bout 
 o' sickness yet : we '11 send for Doctor Macmichal 
 to come an' see him if he's no' better to' morn." 
 
 (t No, Jacky, no ! whatever you think, don't 
 let him see you notice any alteration in him," said 
 Margaret, eagerly. 
 
 "Very well, I won't, bairn. But get up 
 now, for you '11 be t ' first thing he '11 ask for when 
 he gets home : he 's coming by t ' woodside already, 
 an' look how heavy he walks ! I must go an' see 
 to making t' breakfast ; " and without further 
 parley, away went Jacky to her kitchen. 
 
 Sylvan Holt came up the green slope fronting 
 the house, and continued to pace backwards and 
 forwards there, until Margaret, being dressed, 
 opened her window and wished him a blithe good 
 morning, thinking it better not to revert to last 
 night's painful scene, either by look or word, 
 unless he began it. She then ran down-stairs, 
 and with a face and voice as cheerful as usual, 
 
 vol. i. G
 
 82 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 met him coming into the house. However, her 
 childish gaiety seemed to annoy him, for he said 
 abruptly — 
 
 " Go softly, Margaret, for a day or two. I feel 
 as if we had some one lying dead in the house." 
 
 His face was, as Jacky had observed, more like 
 that of a corpse than of a living man, so rigid were 
 the features, so blue the skin about the mouth 
 and temples. Breakfast was on the table, and 
 he sat down mechanically in his place, but could 
 not eat: Margaret urged him in vain. When 
 the things were cleared away, and she had scattered 
 the dole of crumbs to the birds, she began to ask 
 him what must they do that day? He replied 
 that all should go on as usual ; so she read her a 
 chapter in the Bible and then brought out a 
 volume of Rollin's Ancient History. She went 
 steadily through her customary portion, found on 
 the map the places mentioned, and then recited 
 from memory the chief incidents in the lesson. 
 Her father all the time sat stiffly upright in his 
 chair, like a grieving automaton : his hands clasped 
 before him and his head bowed down ; he appeared 
 to be soothed and stilled by the pleasant ring of
 
 OLD WOUNDS. 83 
 
 lier fresh young voice, but was quite oblivious to 
 the sense of what she was reading. When she 
 ceased, he let his head fall back against the cushions 
 and sighed wearily. 
 
 u And now, father, what shall we do ? " sug- 
 gested his daughter. 
 
 " I have no heart for one of your rambles, 
 Maggie; take your own way without me. 
 I have letters to write," was his reply. 
 
 " Then I will stay with you, and when they are 
 done we will have out Faustus and Crosspatch, 
 and ride to Beckford to post them — shall we ? " 
 
 "Yes, if you like." 
 
 He went to the bureau and took out several 
 parcels of papers, which he brought to the table 
 and began to examine, but in the midst of this 
 occupation his thoughts perpetually wandered away 
 from it. His hand that held a document would 
 suddenly fall by his side, his eyes become fixed 
 on the floor, and so he would remain, statue- 
 like and absorbed, for half an hour together ; then 
 with an effort, violent and distressing, he would 
 rouse himself and go on with his distasteful task. 
 
 Margaret ensconced herself by the window 
 
 G 2
 
 84 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEE, 
 
 where the flowers stood, now filled with azaleas, 
 one glowing flush of crimson, rose, and purple, 
 contrasted with a mass of purest white. She 
 had an open hook on her lap, a volume of Scottish 
 ballads — but she did not often have recourse 
 to it : her heart was too busy and anxious, too 
 athirst with love and fear for her father, to 
 be quenched at the well-spring of other minds. 
 As the morning advanced, the sun came out 
 powerfully, and the air gained a balmy soft- 
 ness. 
 
 Margaret leant her head against the side 
 of the open window that she might feel its tender 
 glow upon her cheek, and the light luxurious 
 dallying of the breeze with her hair. She was 
 a true Sybarite at heart; avid of enjoyment, 
 deliciously susceptible to every impression of 
 beauty: eager to extract their innate germ of 
 grace from the simplest forms of nature and 
 life ; and quick to discern a grotesque charm in 
 what to many would be rugged, ugly, repulsive. 
 Yet was there in her mind no strain after plea- 
 sure ; no craving for imaginary happiness : her 
 tastes were all simple and pure as her youth
 
 OLD WOUNDS. 85 
 
 and her innocence. The great swells of faded 
 brown heather towards which her eyes turned 
 were all alight, not only with present, but past 
 sunshine; remembrances of long September, 
 knee-deep wadings through its purple bloom 
 with Martin Carew or with Oscar, who now 
 lay asleep on the grass, his dry tongue out, 
 panting and dreaming of the cool beck that 
 raved through the little pasture fields below, 
 yet too lazy to get up and drink. In Wildwood 
 there was a grand concert, whose echoes came 
 wafted on the breeze to Margaret's ears like 
 the singing of birds in a dream, all blended, 
 harmonious, and soft. She let the sense of 
 delight grow upon her ; closing her eyes to 
 listen, undiverted by the momentary gleams 
 and shadows on the hills, until she was satiated 
 with sweet sounds, and a restless movement 
 of her father recalled her vagrant fancy back 
 to him. 
 
 He had in his hand a letter — a letter so 
 discoloured and faded that it seemed to have 
 been written half a lifetime ago and since 
 saturated with tears again and again. Margaret
 
 86 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEK. 
 
 looked up at the rustling of the paper in his 
 shaking grasp, and saw that dark glittering 
 under his brows which had dissolved in such 
 burning drops last night. She immediately turned 
 aside, as if not daring to be a spy on grief like 
 this in the bold daylight, and when she glanced 
 at him again, the spasm that had reduced him 
 to almost womanish weakness was past. But it 
 was the last thing he read, and when he had folded 
 it he remained long buried in a gloomy reverie. 
 Afterwards he began to write, but so slowly 
 and with such apparent difficulty of expression, 
 that before he had completed a single page 
 the mid-day bell, which summoned the men 
 in from the fields to dinner, rang. He threw 
 down his pen impatiently and tore up what he 
 had written: a sudden resolution had seized 
 upon his mind. 
 
 " I will go : I will see her face again," said he 
 in a low voice ; " she is dead, and cannot reproach 
 me any more. Yes, I will go ! " 
 
 Margaret, who had only caught the last few 
 words, approached him, asking anxiously — 
 
 (i Go where, dear father ? "
 
 OLD W0U3TDS. 87 
 
 (C I cannot tell you, Margaret, but I shall not be 
 long away. Run and tell Jacky I want her, for I 
 must start directly.*' He spoke with nervous 
 rapidity, while his face flushed and his whole 
 frame shook with eagerness and excitement. 
 Margaret, who was generally prompt to obey him, 
 now hesitated and tried to reason with him. 
 
 " Father, you are not fit to travel," said she, 
 laying her hand gently on his arm ; * or if you 
 must go, let me go with you. I should be 
 wretched, if you went alone, knowing you so 
 ill." 
 
 " Let me be, Margaret, I cannot take you. I 
 am not ill," replied he, releasing himself abruptly 
 from her hold. Whatever he was intent on had, 
 for the moment, superseded every other con- 
 sideration; he began hastily to sweep the 
 scattered papers from the table, and to thrust them 
 back into the bureau, utterly regardless of Mar- 
 garet's pleading countenance. Finding him ob- 
 stinately bent on his own will, she now withstood 
 him no longer, but summoned Jacky, who on 
 hearing what her master proposed, attempted 
 to lift up the loud voice of remonstrance, but was
 
 88 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 silenced by an imploring glance from Margaret. 
 The servant received her orders under protest, as 
 it were, and then went away to pack the little 
 leather valise that had travelled half the world 
 over with Sylvan Holt when he was a young 
 man, but which for fourteen years back had lain, 
 adding daily to its covering of idle dust, in one 
 of the empty chambers. 
 
 Meantime, Anty and Tom received their direc- 
 tions about what was to be done on the farm in 
 the master's absence, with Margaret standing by 
 and listening to every word with a doubtful heart, 
 and when everything seemed to be arranged that 
 needed arrangement, and everything prepared that 
 needed preparation, Sylvan Holt ordered Faustus 
 to be saddled immediately. 
 
 "And Crosspatch too," added Margaret. i: I 
 shall ride as far as Middlemoor with you, 
 father." 
 
 He raised no objection, except to say that it 
 would be night before she could get back to Wild- 
 wood ; so she went to put on her habit. The 
 short interval that elapsed before the horses were 
 ready Sylvan Holt spent restlessly afoot — going
 
 OLD WOUNDS. 89 
 
 from room to room, looking eagerly out at the 
 weather, and acting in a vague hurried way that 
 testified to the secret perturbation of his mind. 
 It was very different to his general habits to 
 undertake any scheme in haste: Jacky, indeed, 
 could not remember that during her long servi- 
 tude at the Grange, which dated from his coming 
 to it, that he had ever made a journey at all : and 
 the sudden announcement of the present one 
 quite disconcerted her. She went upstairs to 
 Margaret, on the pretence of helping her to dress, 
 but in reality to bid her, if she saw the oppor- 
 tunity, to try to dissuade her father from setting 
 off in his present state, even at this — the last hour. 
 
 Margaret shook her head : 
 
 " It would be of no use to argue, Jacky ; we 
 should only make him angry,*' replied she. 
 (i His mind is fixed, and go he will. I cannot 
 understand what is driving him to such a danger- 
 ous step just now : he will be ill on the road." 
 
 " T' excitement he 's in '11 keep him up ; but 
 where is he going? I never heard that he had 
 kith or kin. Has he told you aught, Mar- 
 garet?"
 
 90 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " Nothing, absolutely nothing ; I am no wiser 
 than yourself, Jacky." 
 
 "There's Anty bringing Faustus round to 
 t' door an' Crosspatch following : you maun't keep 
 him waiting at any rate," said the servant ; and 
 Margaret ran down-stairs and mounted, just 
 as her father was about to ride off without 
 her.
 
 A START ON A JOURNEY. 91 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A START ON A JOURNEY. 
 
 The changeful aspects of her horae-country were 
 woven inextricably amongst Margaret Holt's 
 reminiscences of this period. Each event had its 
 background ; its pervading air of chill or warmth. 
 Years after, in alluding to events now occurring, 
 she would say they happened on such a day — 
 mentioning whether it rained or shone, or was only 
 over-clouded and dull, and sometimes going into 
 details that showed how her singular and secluded 
 early life had trained her mind into habits of 
 minute observation. 
 
 It was very bright noonday when she and her 
 father rode away from the Grange in this hasty 
 fashion, leaving Jacky at the door muttering 
 words of ill omen and wonderment as she shaded 
 her eyes with her hand, and watched them out of
 
 92 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 sight. The way to Middlemoor lay over Scarr- 
 fell, which stretched beyond and above Wildwood 
 for many dreary miles. Through a cart-road cut 
 into deep ruts the long ascent wound, sometimes 
 between fir plantations enclosed within low walls, 
 but commonly open to the moor. It was a 
 laborious hill, too dangerously encumbered with 
 loose stones to allow of riding beyond a foot's pace, 
 and as they advanced the woods ceased altogether, 
 the seared ling lay, wave beyond wave, on either 
 hand, with here and there a patch of yellow furze 
 rising out of the dusk expanse, or a huge boulder 
 of rock lifting its grey crest crowned with the 
 glossy green of bilberry bushes. Now and then 
 Margaret's eye caught the glitter and ripple of a 
 watercourse flashing in the vivid sunshine, and 
 then suddenly lost it again amongst the heath, 
 though its voice continued long audible. There 
 was a perpetual play of light and shadow upon 
 the hills, for, bright as the day was, there were 
 hosts of flying clouds in the sky which drifted 
 before the wind as it blew keenly over the 
 northern ridges. In crossing the brow of Scarr- 
 fell the blast was cutting and sleety, but once the
 
 A START ON A JOURNEY. 93 
 
 opposite descent begun, the temperature became 
 sensibly milder. 
 
 It was a long ride of ten miles, a silent ride 
 too, for Sylvan Holt was harassed and excited by 
 feverish and painful thoughts, and wherever the 
 road appeared a degree smoother than ordinary, 
 he was only intent on pressing forward as eagerly 
 and as fast as possible. The afternoon was far 
 advanced when they came in sight of Middlemoor, 
 a grim little market-town chiefly colonised bv 
 miners, whose huts straggled irregularly up the 
 steep slope of a hill. Before reaching these they 
 came to a point where two ways met, and here 
 Sylvan Holt spoke to his daughter for the first 
 time since they left the Grange, telling her that 
 she must return home by the lower and more 
 frequented road, as the moon did not rise until 
 late, and she would be alone except for Oscar. 
 Now that the silence was broken, Margaret 
 ventured to ask her father how Ion a: he should 
 be away from home. 
 
 " A week — perhaps, rather more, for it is 
 a long journey ; but I will write to you, Maggie," 
 replied he, regarding her kindly.
 
 94 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEK. 
 
 iC I wish I were going with you, father," said 
 she with reviving courage, now that she saw he 
 thought of her again ; ** you have never left me 
 before. It will seem so strange with only Jacky 
 in the house." 
 
 " You must go down to Oakfield oftener ; Mrs. 
 Joan Clervaux will like to have you. I almost 
 begin to wish you had more friends, child : you 
 and I seem to hang quite alone together." He 
 spoke in a tone of regret — a strange tone for 
 him. 
 
 " I don't want anybody else," said Margaret 
 quickly, " and if I did, Martin Carew is as good 
 as a brother to me. But I shall long to see you 
 home again, dear father." 
 
 Sylvan Holt made no reply, though his daughter 
 watched eagerly for some sign that might lead 
 her to think he was relenting from his resolution 
 to leave her behind ; but none such appearing, she 
 did not dare to risk his displeasure by again 
 pressing her anxiety upon him, and they rode 
 forward in silence to the " Old Horn," the only 
 place of public entertainment that Middlemoor 
 contained.
 
 A STAKT ON A JOURNEY. 95 
 
 "Now, Margaret, you must turn back," said 
 her father in a tone which admitted of no 
 remonstrance. So she held out her hand, bravely 
 swallowed down a few natural tears, and tried 
 to say good-bye cheerfully. He kept hold of 
 her fingers a minute or two in a way that 
 showed how sensible he was that the parting 
 must be hard for her, and added : u When I 
 come home, darling, I will explain to you why 
 I must go, and why I go alone. God bless you, 
 and good-bye!" And there they separated, 
 Sylvan Holt riding forward to Haward's Cross, 
 to take the coach going southwards, and Margaret 
 returning sorrowfully home. 
 
 The low road made a considerable circuit round 
 the base of Scarrfell into Mirk dale and then ran 
 along the bottom through several small villages — 
 Butterworth, Askrise, Carrick and Beckford. Be- 
 fore Margaret had gone half-way, Fernbro was 
 shrouded in twilight haze and a dun reflection 
 of sunset was reddening the sinuous lines of hills 
 in the west. Oscar stretched out, still unwearied, 
 after Crosspatch's fast trot, but the night soon 
 fell, and as they went through Beckford town
 
 96 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 street, the cottage clocks were striking ten, and 
 all the village seemed to be abed. Oakfield lay 
 back twenty yards or so from the highroad, but 
 as Margaret rode past, so hushed was the night, 
 that she heard the hall door open and shut, and 
 some person come out. It was Martin Carew, 
 intent on smoking his evening cigar in the shrub- 
 bery, that agreeable solace not being allowed him 
 within the precincts of his Aunt Joan's maiden 
 establishment. Margaret pulled up, and waited 
 by a wicket gate which led into the road from 
 the grounds, until he came within speaking range, 
 of which she was warned by the familiar perfume 
 that he delighted in. He detected her before she 
 spoke sitting quietly on horseback, and for a 
 second fancied he must be under some optical 
 delusion, for visions of Margaret always accom- 
 panied his evening smoke. Her voice reassured 
 him, however, and he demanded what made her 
 out at that late hour — had she dropped from the 
 clouds ? To which she replied with another 
 question — Was Mrs. Joan Clervaux to be alone 
 on the morrow ? for if so she wanted to come and 
 spend the day at Oakfield with her.
 
 A START ON A JOURNEY. 97 
 
 " I shall be at home, Margaret, if you come, 
 I'm sure," was Martin's reply. "But you have 
 not told me yet why you are out so late." 
 
 " My father has set off on a journey, and I have 
 been with him as far as Middlemoor. He will 
 be absent a week or longer." 
 
 "And you are left alone at Wildwood? Oh! 
 that will never do ! we '11 send for your carpet- 
 bag, and you must stay with ns. Come in now ; 
 Oscar too ! " and he opened wide the gate as if 
 he expected his impromptu invitation would be 
 accepted. 
 
 Margaret laughed at his eagerness : " I don't 
 own carpet-bags," said she ; " and Jacky will be 
 on the look-out for me lest the briggadobbie 
 should catch me, so I must ride fast; good night! 
 I shall come to-morrow." 
 
 She was just trotting off when a servant came 
 running under the trees with a message from 
 her mistress, that Margaret should go up to 
 the house and speak to her for a moment; so 
 she turned her horse, and went in at the gate. 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux had retired to her room 
 when Martin Carew went into the garden to 
 
 vol. i. n
 
 98 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 smoke his cigar, and looking casually out of the 
 window to see what the promise of the night 
 was, she espied Margaret and her nephew hold- 
 ing a colloquy at the gate ; hence the summons. 
 She opened the sash, and putting forth her head as 
 her young friend appeared below, made the same 
 inquiries and received the same answers as Martin 
 Carew had done: but her invitation was much 
 more imperative ; she ordered Margaret to dis- 
 mount and come her way in immediately, and 
 would not listen to a word in contradiction of her 
 command. 
 
 " You will catch the toothache, Aunt Joan : put 
 down the window, and I will bring her in ! " 
 cried Martin, highly delighted at finding himself 
 so ably seconded : and as Mrs. Joan's head dis- 
 appeared he insisted on lifting Margaret, who was 
 quite independent of his help, from her saddle. 
 She, however, would not enter until a servant 
 had been commissioned to go up to the Grange 
 and quell Jacky's anxieties : then she went into 
 the drawing-room, perhaps not altogether dis- 
 pleased at being thus unexpectedly reprieved from 
 the solitude of her own home while her father
 
 A START ON A JOURNEY. 99 
 
 was away. It was some time before Mrs. Joan 
 made her appearance, as she was giving directions 
 for her young guest's accommodation ; but at length 
 she came in, followed by a servant with all the 
 belongings of a dainty little supper. 
 
 " I know you are hungry, Margaret, or, if you 
 are not, you ought to be," said the old lady, 
 pleasantly ; " Martin, draw the table near the 
 fire, so : now help her to some of that cold 
 chicken. Never mind your hat, Gipsy, let it 
 lie on the floor ; " and everybody, Oscar included, 
 gradually settled into a very cosy domestic party. 
 
 Margaret had touched nothing since breakfast, 
 and was really faint ; but when she began to eat 
 there was a swelling in her throat that seemed 
 to stop every morsel half way ; and though her 
 cheeks were brilliant with her long ride in the 
 night air, her eyes had an excited yet languid 
 expression quite unusual with her. Mrs. Joan 
 Clervaux did not fail to observe it, and began to 
 advise an early retreat to bed, notwithstanding her 
 nephew's remonstrance that, having sacrificed his 
 cigar to come in and talk to Margaret, he was 
 not prepared to lose her company so soon. By- 
 
 II 2
 
 100 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 and-by, when she had a little recovered herself, 
 she looked brighter, and then Mrs. Joan asked 
 where her father was irone. Margaret said she 
 did not know. 
 
 " It was a sudden movement, then. You did 
 not mention his leaving you when you were here 
 yesterday." 
 
 "It was quite sudden ; an idea seemed to strike 
 him all at once, and he would set off directly. 
 He was quite unfit to leave home, for he was 
 very ill last night. Something had happened 
 that upset him sadly; I never saw him so 
 unnerved before." 
 
 " Don't you know what led to it, Gipsy ?" 
 
 "He had a letter from abroad, perhaps that 
 was it, but I cannot tell. I know nothing for 
 certain, neither to what place he is gone nor when 
 he will return. He only said it was a long 
 journey, and he would explain why he took it 
 when he came back." 
 
 Mrs. Joan started and looked anxiously at 
 Margaret when she named the foreign letter, but 
 recovering herself on the instant she said with 
 an air of cheerfulness — " Well, Gipsy, I dare say
 
 A START OX A JOURNEY. 101 
 
 he had good reasons of his own for going and not 
 saying anything to anybody : you must stay here 
 until he comes home again, that is all ; Martin 
 and I shall be very glad of your company. Don't 
 be downhearted, child, but eat some more supper. 
 Martin, put a screen before the fire ; it is too hot 
 for Margaret." 
 
 It was one of the strangest things in the world 
 to see Margaret look out of spirits, for when any- 
 thing went amiss with her she was far more in the 
 habit of battling it down or laughing at it than 
 of giving way. And even now she would rather 
 have had it supposed she was tired bodily than 
 troubled, could she have deceived the affectionate 
 eyes that were so watchful of her. She began 
 to ask Martin Carew what he had done at 
 Bransby Park that day, as a means of diverting 
 attention from herself; but Mrs. Joan was not 
 so easily hoodwinked; she only allowed Martin 
 to tell one incident of his visit, then promptly 
 stopped him, bade him go and take the consola- 
 tion of another cigar, and convoyed Margaret 
 up-stairs to her bedroom. 
 
 i( Now, Gipsy, I did not order a fire to be
 
 102 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 lighted, because I knew you would be tempted 
 to sit up by it if I did, and you will be much 
 better asleep," said Mrs. Joan, kindly: "so say 
 your prayers, and don't forget the desolate and 
 oppressed, or any who are sick and in misery, and 
 depend upon it things will look brighter in the 
 morning ; they always do." 
 
 " Don't you think I need be anxious about my 
 father, then?" Margaret asked. 
 
 " No ; let anxiety rest. What profit is there in 
 it either to him or you — wait patiently for his 
 coming home." 
 
 "You did not see how wretchedly ill and 
 shaken he looked." 
 
 " But I £an imagine. Now, Gipsy, I will not 
 let you talk yourself into a fever, so good-night ; " 
 and the old lady kissed her and went away.
 
 A MORNING WALK. 103 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 A MORNING WALK. 
 
 Mrs. Joan Cleryaux's prophecy proved correct — 
 matters did look brighter the next morning. 
 
 Thanks to a very complete physical weariness, 
 a clear conscience, and perfect health, Margaret 
 slept without dream, nightmare, or startled 
 awakening until after six o'clock, when she heard 
 the sound of the gardener sharpening his scythe 
 to mow the lawn, where the little daisies lay as 
 thick as snow flakes. Everybody at Oakfield 
 rose early; it being an axiom of its mistress 
 that one hour of the morning was worth two 
 later in the day, and breakfast was always laid 
 in the sunny book - room punctually at eight 
 o'clock. In consideration, however, of Margaret's 
 fatigue of the day before, Mrs. Joan issued orders 
 that she should not be called until later, so that
 
 104 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEK. 
 
 when she made her appearance at the usual time, 
 fresh as a flower, blooming, bright-eyed, and 
 cheerful, she was received as an agreeable 
 surprise. 
 
 "Well, Gipsy, you look ready for any mis- 
 chief this morning ! " was Martin Carew's greet- 
 ing. 
 
 "And feel so too," replied she. "Mrs. Joan, 
 do you think it likely my father has yet got to 
 his journey's end ? I hope he has." 
 
 " That depends entirely on where he was going 
 to — but even if he be still on the road he will 
 take no harm in this beautiful weather," said 
 the old lady, pleasantly. " Now, Gipsy, I '11 
 thank you to pour out the coffee for me this 
 morning while I read my letters." 
 
 " I like this ; it looks extremely comfortable," 
 remarked Martin Carew, lifting his easy chair 
 several degrees nearer to Margaret, and speaking 
 in such a tone of thorough enjoyment that neither 
 she nor Mrs. Joan could forbear smiling ; " ex- 
 tremely comfortable ; I feel the delights of being 
 a domestic character intensely. Aunt Joan and 
 I always picnic at breakfast in a rough indepen-
 
 A MORNING WALK. 105 
 
 dent way when we are alone, out you make it 
 look like home, Margaret." 
 
 " I am afraid then her coming is not the best 
 style of probation for your Indian experiences," 
 said Mrs. Joan, shaking her head. 
 
 u Oh, yes, it is : 1 shall expect to have my 
 coffee made for me in the same fashion when 
 I come back ao;ain : I shall look forward to 
 it. Margaret, what a glorious day for Deepgyll." 
 
 This last suggestion was made in a cautious 
 whisper, but Mrs. Joan heard it nevertheless, and 
 negatived it most decisively. 
 
 " I will not hear of it, Martin," she said, laying 
 down the letter she had been perusing ; " you 
 must think Gipsy is as tough as bend-leather 
 to bear riding over the country as you could do 
 yourself. Don't tempt her to knock herself up 
 with over-exertion, or I will not let her go out 
 with you at all." 
 
 This threat was effectual; Martin promised 
 to take the tenderest care of her, all the while 
 laughing at Margaret's look of demure bewilder- 
 ment at Mrs. Joan's outbreak of sharpness. 
 
 Oakfield was not an idle house by any means.
 
 106 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux acted as her own steward 
 and her own housekeeper; and she therefore 
 generally had some business on hand; she also 
 did a little in the way of farming, and made a 
 point of going round her fields periodically to 
 inspect the state of the rising crops and the 
 condition of her live stock. Her factotum was 
 one Robbie Clarke, a man who had grown old 
 in her service and who made her interests as 
 his own. When she was a gay young lady 
 residing under her father's roof at Walham 
 Castle, Robbie was a groom -boy especially 
 attached to her person ; on her father's death 
 he followed her into her maiden retirement at 
 Oakfield, and since then he had passed through 
 various transitional changes, until he was become 
 her right-hand man and a very prominent feature 
 in Beckford annals. Who so weather-wise as 
 Robbie ? who so knowing in all matters agricul- 
 tural, pastoral, political, legal, and theological? 
 He was adviser - general in all difficulties, umpire 
 in quarrels, foremost amongst the very few who 
 dared to scoff at Tibbie Ryder's supernatural 
 pretensions, and an authority on disputed doctrinal
 
 A MORXING WALK. 107 
 
 points (being a deacon "amongst the Methodists) 
 equal, if not superior, to the Rector himself. 
 
 After breakfast Mrs. Joan was summoned to 
 an audience with Robbie, so Martin Carew and 
 Margaret' were consequently left to their own 
 devices. Martin proposed to give his companion 
 a lesson in something useful — she suggested 
 fortification — but finally they decided to walk 
 up to Wildwood, as Margaret thought Jacky 
 would expect to see her, and Oscar was invited 
 to join them, which he did with a sober satis- 
 faction : that dog never looked thoroughly happy 
 except when he had his young mistress entirely 
 to himself; he was of a keenly sensitive and 
 rather jealous temper, and always looked with 
 an eye of critical disfavour on any person who 
 attracted her notice from himself. He ought 
 to have been called Turk — Margaret sometimes 
 did call him Turk, but she appreciated his 
 exacting affection very highly nevertheless. He 
 now walked solemnly, with head and tail de- 
 pressed, close beside her, grateful if her idle 
 hand tweaked his velvety ear or patted his neck, 
 and apparently not in the least tempted even
 
 108 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 when a rabbit got up and started across the 
 path; he was keeping watch over Martin most 
 likely, and would not leave Margaret in such 
 suspicious company to pursue his vocation for 
 a moment. 
 
 The road being very retired and the hour 
 early, they met very few persons, but there was 
 no lack of sprightly talk to beguile the way. 
 On reaching the Grange they all three went 
 straight through the house into the kitchen ; but 
 Jacky was not there, and a terrible din above 
 stairs announced that she had taken advantage 
 of an empty house to delight her domestic soul 
 in the scrubbing and scouring, lifting and shift- 
 ing, of a grand spring clean. Margaret, therefore, 
 mounted the wide, shallow-stepped staircase to 
 where the servant was, leaving Martin sitting 
 in the window seat of the first landing, and 
 found that her father's room was the present 
 scene of action. Anty's wife was down on her 
 knees scouring the worm-eaten boards of the 
 floor, and Jacky, with brushes and waxed cloths, 
 Avas busy polishing the wainscot, being elevated 
 on a short ladder to reach the upper panels
 
 A MORNING WALK. 109 
 
 for that purpose. As soon as Margaret appeared, 
 Jacky gaily descended from her perch to give 
 her greeting, and Anty's wife sat back on her 
 heels for a rest, and employed herself in keep- 
 ing off Oscar, who was seized with a longing 
 to paddle over the section of floor that she had 
 just washed. The furniture was piled one piece 
 on another in apparently inextricable confusion, 
 and Margaret would have found no temptation 
 to remain after exchanging a few words with 
 the servant, had she not perceived lying face 
 downwards upon the bed a large picture. She 
 asked Jacky what it was, and bade her turn it 
 over. 
 
 "It was i' masters closet, behind a heap o' 
 trunks an' boxes that ha' never been shifted sin' 
 lie cam' to Wildwood ; an' I thowt as he was out 
 o' t' way, I 'd ha' a thorough good righting an' 
 siding," replied the servant, and assisted by 
 Margaret she succeeded in raising the picture 
 up against the wall. 
 
 It was a female portrait, life-size and full length. 
 
 "Who is it?" asked Margaret in an under 
 tone.
 
 110 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 u She 's a weel-faured lady, be she who she 
 may," observed Anty's wife, peering curiously 
 forward, but not rising from the floor. "What 
 bonnie een she has — yo'd say she war laugh- 
 ing." 
 
 Jacky was silent, but on Margaret's repeating 
 her question she said — 
 
 "I don't know, bairn; but most likings it'll 
 be your mother." 
 
 The figure was that of a woman in the pride 
 and lustre of youth; very fair, brilliant, with 
 a smooth low brow, bewildering soft dark blue 
 eyes, and luxuriant hair flowing loosely on her 
 neck. The dress was simple yet picturesque ; it 
 consisted of a scarlet boddice cut low on the 
 full bosom, and a skirt of rich white satin falling 
 in long, broad, rippled folds to the feet; the 
 arms were bare almost to the shoulder, but a 
 scarf of black lace trailed over one, as if worn 
 to enhance its splendid voluptuous form and 
 colouring. There was an air of conscious grace 
 and loveliness in the attitude which was a little 
 daring, perhaps also a little defiant, but the 
 picture altogether was that of an eminently
 
 A MORNING WALK. Ill 
 
 beautiful and fascinating woman. Margaret drew 
 a few paces back to look at it again, till the 
 soft winning eves seemed to pursue hers, and 
 the arch lips to smile tenderly as she gazed. 
 
 " If this was my mother, I don 't remember her 
 at all," said she gently, and then she called 
 Martin Carew to come up and look at the 
 portrait ; telling him first whose Jacky supposed 
 it to be. He remarked that it was a fine painting, 
 but did not appear to admire it altogether ; then 
 he compared it feature by feature with Margaret, 
 and was compelled to acknowledge many traits of 
 resemblance. Margaret's brow was larger, but 
 the beautiful eyes were the same, and the delicate 
 mouth and the exquisite contour of the head and 
 neck : indeed, Jacky had ample grounds for sup- 
 posing it to be her mother's picture, if only from 
 the likeness it bore to her, which grew as it was 
 looked at. 
 
 " I should like to have it hung up in my room, 
 Jacky, if you think my father would not mind," 
 said she, lingering fascinated before it. 
 
 " Don't name such a thing, bairn," cried the 
 servant in genuine alarm at the proposition;
 
 112 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER, 
 
 " it 'ud be more nor our lives is worth to let him 
 knaw I've shifted aught i' that closet, so oft as he 
 has bid me let it be ! Mind you never let on to 
 him that you 've seen it, or Jacky '11 go packing 
 that blessed minute ! " 
 
 " Oh ! why did you bring it out ? " asked Mar- 
 garet, reproachfully. 
 
 " Whisht, bairn, whisht ! I can't be fashed wi' 
 sae many questions. If you'd bided down at 
 Oakfleld, where I thowt you was safe, there 'd 
 ha' been no harm done," replied Jacky, testily. 
 
 " There is no harm done as it is," said Mar- 
 garet, with perfect good humour. " Put every- 
 thing back just where you found it, and I will not 
 trouble you with any more of my visits until 
 vou have had time to ransack the Grange from 
 
 J CD 
 
 cellar to garret." 
 
 " Don't fly out in a pet wi' poor Jacky, then ! " 
 exclaimed the servant, with a touch of crusty 
 penitence. " Bairn, I love you that weel I 'd be 
 fain to give you your way, but if master threaped 
 at you for ae small thing you did contrary, wdiere'd 
 you be ? " and moving her ladder she resumed her 
 polishing operations with great vivacity, turning
 
 A MORMNG WALK. 113 
 
 a resolutely deaf ear to any further conver- 
 sation. 
 
 Margaret therefore proposed that they should 
 go down-stairs, whither Oscar waited to precede 
 them ; and Martin said he thought he ought not to 
 have paid his first visit to the Grange in her 
 father's absence — would he not resent it as im- 
 pertinent ? 
 
 "■ Oh, he would not care if he knew I brought 
 you," replied Margaret, and as they went out into 
 the long corridor from which the chamber doors 
 opened she said, did it not look like a house redo- 
 lent of past times gone to decay ? Martin thought 
 it did ; and notwithstanding his former scruples, 
 when she offered to show him over it, he was very 
 glad to accede ; so she procured a large ring full of 
 keys from Jacky, who was rather scrupulous about 
 giving them up until they promised to do with- 
 out a candle, and led the way to the top story to 
 begin with. 
 
 They went out first upon the leads, from which 
 elevation they could see over Litten Fell into 
 Scartondale with its boundary hills beyond, and 
 further still, like a mere level gray line on 
 
 YOL. I. i
 
 114 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 the remote horizon, lay the sea : Margaret's 
 long sight could even distinguish white specks of 
 sails upon it. The house front consisted of five 
 gables, the three centre ones rising in height 
 considerably above the other two : but in all this 
 block of building — three stories besides the 
 ground flour — there were not half a dozen habit- 
 able rooms. Some of the doorways were bricked 
 up, and all the upper windows were bolted and 
 barred with cumbrous wooden shutters. One 
 entire end gable, by means of a side entrance and 
 an external stone staircase, had been transformed 
 into granaries, whilst the opposite one was con- 
 verted into cow-house, cart-shed, apple chamber, 
 and other farm-offices. In the middle gable 
 was the porch and the spacious hall, floored, 
 roofed, and panelled with black oak, and in 
 those at either side were the summer and winter 
 parlours. The kitchen, a great stone wilderness 
 full of emptiness and echoes, lay at the back, 
 and the bedrooms which Margaret and her 
 father occupied were frontward over the parlours. 
 Above the hall, and with a recess extending 
 over the porch, was an apartment of which Mar-
 
 A MORNING WALK. 115 
 
 garet said, as her companion pushed open the 
 door for their inspection, " Now, this is the Ghost 
 room ! " 
 
 She was like a sunbeam flashing into the gloom, 
 for all over the exterior wall of that gable had 
 twined an immense bushy growth of ivy, which 
 had almost hidden under its interlaced and matted 
 branches the one immense window by which the 
 room was lighted. A few chequered gleams 
 filtered through the green leaves upon the floor 
 where the dust lay so thick that every footstep 
 left its track, and the bare walls were distained 
 with damp and mildew until not a trace of their 
 original colour remained. It had been used as 
 a chapel when the Catholic Langlands possessed 
 the Grange, but no relics of its former sanctity 
 were left. 
 
 A heap of rusty armour lay in one corner, just 
 where it had been flung down when Jacky was 
 put into the house by Sylvan Holt to clean a 
 few rooms, and make them habitable for himself 
 and his daughter ; she would have sold it for 
 old iron long ago had not Anty, who had been 
 page boy at the Grange before the ruinous break- 
 
 i 2
 
 116 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 up of the Langland family, threatened her that 
 if she did, something bad would be sure to haunt 
 her. Pie remembered each dinted morion and 
 shattered breastplate as having been set up in 
 the hall, bright and stately — as if some warrior 
 had just put them off, he told her — in the hall 
 where for many a year the rain rained through, 
 and the rats held high holiday, until Sylvan 
 Holt came in and took possession. Anty re- 
 verenced the old family far more than the present 
 one ; he always regarded his master as an inter- 
 loper who' would some day yet have to go out 
 and make room for the restoration of the old 
 stock. Jacky had her reminiscences of the house 
 too, but she always ceded to Anty's better and 
 more intimate knowledge of the family, because 
 her service had been in kitchen and dairy, but 
 Anty had been the ladies' page ; Anty had known 
 a previous generation, and his father had held 
 the high office of steward to the broken fortunes 
 of the last Lord Langland. So, though Anty 
 w r as a poor-spirited old man who could only 
 groom a horse and talk by the hour of his better 
 days, a certain awe and respect attached to him
 
 A MORNING WALK. 117 
 
 as beino; a visible remnant of the former state 
 kept up at Wildwood Grange. 
 
 " What is the ghost, Margaret?" asked Martin, 
 -who remained standing in the doorway, looking 
 in. 
 
 " Nothing visible, only a dreary moan as of 
 some one quite worn out and despairing." 
 
 Margaret pretended to imitate the spiritual 
 manifestation, and then laughed merrily, startling 
 out of the silence a troop of echoes; as these 
 died away there swelled through the room a 
 long windy sigh; she ran out hastily into the 
 passage behind Martin. 
 
 " If it were twilight that would really be 
 serious," h said he, laughing in his turn, and then 
 he advanced into the room drawing Margaret 
 by the hand. They approached the window, 
 and stood where the sunshine glimmered through 
 the ivy upon the floor, but just then, as if a 
 shadow had passed over the day, all the wonted 
 lustre faded suddenly, and a blast of cold air 
 rushed between them. 
 
 They fell apart, and Margaret asked quickly — 
 " Are you superstitious, Martin ? "
 
 118 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " No ; there is a broken pane in the window/' 
 replied he. 
 
 A dark object flew noiselessly out of the gloomy- 
 recess where once had stood the altar, and 
 Margaret ran shuddering to the door. 
 
 " Come away, Martin, I don't like this room," 
 cried she ; " there may be something in Jacky's 
 stories — at all events, I never dare make fun of 
 ghosts." 
 
 " Ghosts, Margaret, that was only a bat ! " 
 said Martin. But with a queer contradictious 
 solemnity, they spoke in whispers till the door 
 was locked and they had escaped into the 
 common -day air and sunshine of the parlour 
 down-stairs. Even when there, they could not 
 quite forget the haunted room, and recalled the 
 sigh, the cold blast, and the flight of the bat, 
 like little children who, after hearing a terrible 
 story, dwell with fascinated reluctance on the 
 mysterious terrors that make them quake in 
 their beds — only Martin was laughing all the 
 time. 
 
 Presently Margaret remembered that she was 
 to collect a few of her belongings to carry down
 
 A MORNING WALK. 119 
 
 to Oakfield; and her companion, who never conld 
 refrain from teasing her for long together, begged 
 to remind her especially of her thimble and 
 bodkin, on the plea that he wanted to see if 
 she had improved in her sewing since the last 
 time he beheld her doing reluctant stitchwork. 
 
 She assured him she was becoming almost a 
 skilful hand, information which he received with 
 a tantalizing incredulity; so, to convince him 
 of the truth of her statement, she exhibited 
 a tolerably neat piece of plain hemming and 
 seaming which she had accomplished under his 
 Aunt Joan's superintendence. Martin dearly 
 liked to make Margaret defend herself: she 
 always did it with such a pretty earnest sincerity 
 as if she really valued his approval; so after 
 examining the work with an eye of connoisseur- 
 ship he remarked that he did not think it 
 particularly well done ; indeed, he believed he 
 could have done it quite as well, if not better 
 himself. 
 
 (t Mrs. Joan said it was a great improvement on 
 my last piece," replied Margaret, rather disap- 
 pointed. " You should remember, Martin, that
 
 120 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 until quite lately whenever my father saw me 
 sewing he always pulled it away from me." 
 
 Martin broke into a merry laugh: "Oh! you 
 dear little gipsy ! " cried he, " you are not going 
 to pretend you liked stitchwork then, or that you 
 like it now, are you? I give you warning that 
 I can't believe that I " 
 
 "Well I don't like it, Martin," replied she 
 confidentially; "I really don't, but then Mrs. 
 Joan and Jacky remonstrate with me so 
 seriously about being like a boy, that " 
 
 " You are not a bit like a boy, Margaret,*' 
 interrupted her companion ; " unless it be that 
 you have none of the small feminine vanities and 
 jealousies about you. Bell Rowley is a bad imita- 
 tion of a boy, I grant, but you, Gipsy, — you are a 
 very woman." 
 
 " There is one thing that I should enjoy if 
 1 could do it — sketching from nature," said 
 Margaret, brightening again under the influence 
 of Martin's encouragement ; " I have often tried, 
 but I had no one to show me how." 
 
 " My Aunt Joan used to be quite an artist — 
 why did you not ask her ? I can set you going
 
 A MORNING WALK. 121 
 
 myself, if you like ; as you are not to be knocked 
 up you shall have your first lesson this afternoon ! " 
 Martin was quite eager and interested, and so was 
 she. 
 
 " There is nothing I should like better," said 
 Margaret, colouring high with delight ; " but you 
 will have to be very patient with me, Martin. 
 I have often tried to draw flowers, and I have 
 done this house over and over again, but I never 
 succeeded in making it look right : it was 
 all out of perspective, but I could not alter it 
 properly even when I read the rules in a book at 
 Oakfield." 
 
 " Let me look at some of your sketches, 
 Margaret : I dare say they are better than you will 
 allow." 
 
 Margaret immediately brought out a handful 
 of papers from the table drawer and laid them 
 before him. Martin took up one after another, and 
 examined them quietly for several minutes, while 
 she waited his opinion with unfeigned anxiety; 
 and seeing that she was diffident but earnest on 
 this subject, he checked the temptation to tease her 
 again, and said as gravely and sincerely as she could
 
 122 
 
 wish, " You have a bold clear touch and a 
 shrewd eye, Gipsy, if you are ignorant of rules. 
 You will draw well — really well. Not in a 
 pottering school girl fashion, but with taste, even 
 with genius." 
 
 " Now, Martin, I don't want you to natter me. 
 Do you mean what you say ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do. You might have learnt of a master 
 for a dozen years and have done nothing so good 
 as these if you had been without real taste. 
 Talent even in the rough goes much further than 
 polished mediocrity." 
 
 She looked greatly pleased : " Do you think so, 
 Martin ? I am glad ; now, I shall work regularly, 
 and the wet days will never seem long again — it 
 will be such a resource. Let me find my pencils 
 before we go." And from the same receptacle 
 as the drawings she produced the rude common 
 tools bought at Middlemoor, with which she had 
 accomplished them. 
 
 <e Did you never tell Aunt Joan ?" Martin asked. 
 
 " No ; but I will tell her now, and she will 
 help me when you are gone. Sometimes I wish 
 you were not going so far off, Martin."
 
 A MOHNING WALK. 123 
 
 " So do I, but it can't be helped : I am glad 
 you feel that though, Gipsy ; I thought the other 
 evening that you did not care so much as I wished 
 you should. But we won't talk ourselves into the 
 dismals so long beforehand. Have you gathered 
 together all you want ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think I have : but I must just run 
 back and speak to Jacky for one moment." 
 
 Margaret was of so thoroughly good a nature 
 that she would have been very reluctant to leave 
 Wildwood without composing the servant's injured 
 feelings by a few kind words ; but as Jacky was 
 very easily propitiated, she almost immediately 
 rejoined Martin, who waited for her in the porch. 
 He had a proposition to make which had occurred 
 to him in her absence, and as she came out 
 he said pointing to a bare part of the stones ; 
 " Margaret, let us bring a cutting from that 
 crimson winter rose that grows up the verandah 
 at Oakfield, and plant it here. How high do 
 you think it will reach in five years ? " 
 
 " Up to the first story windows, perhaps. I will 
 have it at my side of the porch, and then I shall 
 watch its progress as it creeps higher and higher.
 
 124 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 The first rose it bears that I can gather by leaning 
 out of my window, I'll send to you, Martin. 
 Then you will be nearly coming home, perhaps- 
 I hope you won't stay ten years away from 
 us." 
 
 These thoughtless, affectionate, frank-hearted 
 speeches did not please Martin Carew so much as 
 they ought to have done. He would have pre- 
 ferred a little suggestive shyness ; would rather 
 have had Margaret less sisterly, in short. But 
 she went on in her perfect guilelessness, telling 
 him that the birthday of the rose should be 
 marked yearly by a nail driven into the wall, so 
 that when he came back to Mirkdale he might see 
 its annual growth : and she never observed that 
 he did not respond to her promises, being quite 
 satisfied with whatever he chose to say or do, 
 and totally unsuspicious of what he was ex- 
 periencing. 
 
 The position of the rose-tree settled, they 
 loitered slowly down the woodside and through 
 the fir-tree glade into Beckford Lane, where 
 they met Mrs. Joan Clervaux going up to 
 Greatorex mills, and Robbie Clarke marching,
 
 A MORNING WALK, 125 
 
 as his respectful custom was, about two paces 
 behind her, with his long neck craned forward to 
 hear any remark she might have to make, and 
 his hands clasped behind him over the small of his 
 back. 
 
 " This is gracious weather, sir ; one may 
 almost see the grass grow," said he, touching his 
 hat to Martin Carew. 
 
 Martin agreed with him, but Margaret, who 
 had been a great pet with the old man when a 
 child, and had not yet grown up to a proper awe 
 of his character, began to rally him on the failure 
 of a recent prediction of his that " there'd be no 
 rain for four an' twenty hours," which had deluded 
 her into taking a long ride on an unpromising 
 day, and sent her home drenched. 
 
 " I did not say there'd be no sleet and no snow, 
 Miss Marg'ret," retorted Robbie, who, like oracles 
 in general, could never be proved in the wrong. 
 " And I did not speak for Scartondale either. 
 We 'd no rain at Oakfield, only hail ! " 
 
 Margaret laughed and said : " You are always 
 right, Robbie ! Now tell me and tell me truly, 
 will it be fine weather to-morrow ? " Then she
 
 26 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 whispered aside to Martin : " If it is, we will go to 
 Deepgyll," and lie nodded acquiescence. 
 
 fi Yes; it'll be fine for ever so many to-morrows. 
 There '11 only be flying showers this month — 
 nothing worse ; " proclaimed the seer. 
 
 " No hail j nor sleet, nor snow ? " asked Mar- 
 garet, with mischievous pertinacity, but Robbie 
 would pledge himself to nothing further. 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux was the owner of Greato- 
 rex Mills, the tenant of which had sent down to 
 her that morning with a message about certain 
 improvements that he wanted making, and she 
 and Robbie Clarke were now on their way thither 
 to see about them ; so Martin and Margaret 
 turned back with them, and while the business of 
 pulling down and rebuilding was being talked 
 over in the miller's parlour, they two sat on a 
 stone bench outside watching the huge water- 
 wheel flashing round in the sunshine, and the 
 foaming mill-stream rushing down between its 
 green banks. 
 
 In after years these two, now resting happy 
 and silent in the bright May noon, remembered 
 with vivid distinctness every incident of this
 
 A MORNING WALK. 127 
 
 day, so trivial in the telling, so insignificant 
 even in the acting, for it became a great epoch 
 in both their lives, though while it was passing it 
 seemed no more marked than many another 
 day. Martin had taken up a handful of sparkling 
 gravel, and was casting it pebble by pebble into 
 the water, checking off his sanguine hopes, 
 perhaps ; when it was all gone they looked in each 
 other's face and laughed — that idle light hearted 
 laugh which is the very peach-bloom of gaiety ! 
 
 The sound caused Oscar, who had made himself 
 into a footstool for his dear young mistress, to open 
 his intelligent eyes and glance up at them interroga- 
 tively, as if desiring to know why they broke the 
 pleasant silence in that unmeaning way? Perhaps 
 an idea occurred to him that it might not be so 
 very unmeaning after all, for when he had given 
 it a few moments' consideration, he rose gently 
 up and thrust his long nose confidingly into 
 Martin's hand — the first unsolicited mark of favour 
 he had ever shown him." 
 
 a Oscar has a thought, now, if he could but speak 
 and tell it to us," said Margaret. e( I often wish 
 he could talk to me."
 
 " I '11 interpret for him ! he is adopting me as his 
 master," replied Martin, looking more at the dog 
 than at her. 
 
 " Let us see if he will stay with you when I go 
 away ; " and she set off down the lane. Oscar 
 hounded after her, came hack to Martin at his call, 
 then pursued her again. Margaret stopped, 
 pointed to Martin, and said, " Go to him, stay by 
 him ; " Oscar obeyed, but looked back wistfully 
 two or three times to see if she were following ; 
 when he found she was not, he licked Martin's 
 hand and left him, but left him slowly and 
 with a divided heart, as it were. Martin 
 whistled and shouted, " Oscar, Oscar, old fellow!" 
 and Margaret walked swiftly and silently away, 
 but in a few minutes he was beside her; she 
 feigned to drive him back and spoke in a loud 
 imperative voice, but Oscar dragged himself 
 abjectly to her feet, and took the end of her 
 plaid in his mouth, so she fell to caressing him and 
 calling him a variety of flattering names, which soon 
 revived his spirits ; and then, instead of returning to 
 the mill, where she had left Martin, she began 
 to gather wild flowers in the hedgerow. When
 
 A MORNING WALK. 129 
 
 he overtook her with Mrs. Joan and Robbie Clark, 
 she said triumphantly — - 
 
 " Oscar remains faithful to his first allegiance ; 
 but I am afraid we have wounded his feelings in 
 the trial." 
 
 " I did not know you were going to leave me 
 altogether. Why did you not come back ? " asked 
 Martin. 
 
 " Because I knew you would follow soon; 
 so I stayed to gather these : " exhibiting some 
 primroses. Martin was disconcerted for a 
 moment, but recovered himself when she gave 
 him a cluster of the flowers and bade him- 
 press them in his Bible to keep him in mind of 
 that day, and she would do the like. Martin's- 
 went to India and back with him, but Margaret 
 lost hers before the year was out. 
 
 " What are you two sentimentalizing over ? " 
 inquired Mrs. Joan drily ; " and who has offended 
 Oscar? " 
 
 " Oscar is becoming very sensitive and hard 
 to understand," said Margaret ; u I thought 
 a while since he was going to forsake me for 
 Martin, but he has reconsidered it, and elects 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 to stay with his old love — don't you, my 
 beauty?" 
 
 " I thought he meant a united ownership," said 
 Martin, but in so low a tone that nobody heard 
 him. Robbie Clarke smiled grimly: 
 
 " I think Miss Marg 'ret you 're getting into 
 metapheesics when you talk o' t' dog's feelings : I 'm 
 of opinion Oscar loves a bone better nor either o' 
 you," said he, respectfully in tone, but sarcasti- 
 cally in manner. 
 
 " Robbie, I shall quarrel with you if you say 
 such things of him ! He has the heart of a lion ! 
 noble fellow ! " cried his mistress. 
 
 " And I guess a lion would enjoy eating you 
 more than aught else ! " persisted Robbie. 
 
 "Well, and don't people say when they love 
 each other very much, e I could eat you up ? " 
 retorted Margaret. 
 
 "Oh, Gipsy, I could eat you up!" whispered 
 Martin, but Margaret only laughed, and told 
 Mrs. Joan what he said, and she called them a pair 
 of foolish children.
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 131 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 
 
 The drawing lesson was not forgotten in the 
 afternoon, and Mrs. Joan Clervaux being admitted 
 into the secret of Margaret's wishes, added her 
 meed of praise and encouragement to her nephew's, 
 so after dinner master and pupil went to work. 
 
 " You shall make a sketch of Oakfield for me 
 to take away to India," said Martin; and, as 
 Margaret thought the suggestion charming, a 
 chair, footstool, and stand, were carried out, and 
 placed in an eligible position at the remotest 
 corner of the lawn. 
 
 The house itself was neither picturesque nor 
 pretty, but it was backed by some of the tower- 
 ing forest trees from which the place had its 
 name, and a great bay window at one side of 
 the door, with a verandah over it, broke the 
 
 K 2
 
 132 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 regular line of the front, and threw a shadow 
 across the grass, which Margaret at once discerned 
 as artistically available. She had a firm touch 
 and a quick eye, but, reflecting on the destiny 
 of her labours, she took assiduous pains to make 
 the sketch a success. Martin, at first, stood by 
 her, but, at length, finding how little direction 
 she needed, he said humbly — 
 
 " Margaret, do you mind my having a smoke ? " 
 and as she replied, " No, she was used to it, and 
 rather liked the scent of a good cigar out of doors," 
 he sat down on the grass near her, and resting 
 on his elbow with his head on his hand, glided 
 presently into a beatific day-dream, from which 
 he roused himself up, now and then, to look in 
 his companion's intent face and to ask her how 
 she was going on. 
 
 The weather was warm and sunny as an ideal 
 midsummer day. The airs stirring amongst the 
 trees were just strong enough to shower down 
 the white and rosy blossoms in the orchard, and 
 to waft fragrant breaths from the lily-of-the- 
 valley bed, the jonquils, and the pale, heavy- 
 headed, double narcissus. It was the very time
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 133 
 
 for young hopes to bud, and young hearts to 
 glow, or even for old ones to revert with wistful 
 pleasure to their merry springtide past and gone. 
 Martin's eyes dwelt on Margaret's quiet face 
 with lingering co^ etous tenderness ; if, when her 
 glance met his, she had looked at all conscious, 
 he might have spoken perhaps, and thus have 
 changed the course of two lives ; but her maiden 
 meditations were calm and unembarrassed, her 
 cheek softly coloured with its natural blush, and 
 her gaze as steadfast and unshrinking as a little 
 child's. Martin wisely held his peace — but in 
 so doing he added one more to the long list of 
 lost opportunities which never return. 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux, who was at her writing- 
 table by the drawing-room window, looked often 
 at the young pair upon the lawn, and began to 
 build for them a beautiful castle in the air, from 
 whence she descended to a vision of certain ruins 
 gleaming white and lonely far in the dim vista 
 of her own faithful memory. Though she had 
 contemned Martin Carew's rash declaration that 
 if ever he married a wife it should be Margaret 
 Holt, such a consummation of his desires would
 
 134 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEK. 
 
 have crowned her projects for him very happily; 
 hut, like most elderly people who have seen 
 half a lifetime of fine schemes disperse into thin 
 air, she would not suffer her mind to dwell on 
 so remote a possibility as their union; and the 
 idea of an engagement — which had actually dared 
 to suggest itself to Martin's mind as something 
 eligible and very delightful — she would have 
 negatived decidedly had she known it. As the 
 excellent old lady watched the two, thus thinking, 
 prevising, and remembering, the time passed 
 swiftly away, and she was not half through her 
 daily instalment of correspondence when she was 
 interrupted by an invasion of visitors from 
 Bransby Park. Margaret, also, was so deeply 
 interested in her work, and Martin so far astray 
 in the Elysian wilds of imagination, that neither 
 was at all conscious of being observed until a 
 loud, familiar voice cried out — 
 
 " My life, what a picture of rural felicity ! " 
 and Miss Bell Rowley advanced across the lawn, 
 grinning and bowing with a significant and 
 sarcastic courtesy. 
 
 Martin felt anything but complimentary to-
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 135 
 
 wards her as she went on, in her free and easy 
 way— 
 
 " I 'm sorry to break in on your innocent and 
 improving occupation, but we have driven four 
 miles for the chance of a game at croquet, and we 
 can't be disappointed." 
 
 "Who has come besides yourself?" asked 
 Martin not very civilly, for at that moment he 
 was inclined to hate Bell with vivacity. 
 
 " Colonel Fielding, mamma, and Fanny : did 
 you not hear us drive round to the door ? No ? 
 Then you must have been engrossed." 
 
 " Who is Colonel Fielding? " 
 
 " You would have seen him yesterday if you 
 had chosen to stay half an hour longer, as I 
 entreated you : he came directly you left." 
 
 " That does not tell me who he is." 
 
 " Well, then, he is the knight sa?is peur et sans 
 reproche. Ask Mrs. Joan: she knows him, and 
 all his people too ; she must have met them at 
 Walham Castle. But come, throw away your 
 cigar, and be my partner, Martin Carew. Do 
 you play croquet, Margaret Holt ? " 
 
 Margaret said she could play a little, but not
 
 136 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 well, and Bell Rowley proceeded to arrange and 
 order in her usual fashion. 
 
 " There will be two couples only," said she : 
 " Fanny need not play, and Colonel Fielding 
 can be your partner " (to Margaret), " you will 
 have him to teach, for he knows nothing about 
 the game. But where are the hoops ?" 
 
 " The lawn was mown this morning, and the 
 gardener took them out, but we can soon replace 
 them," replied Martin. 
 
 " Oh yes, I know where they are kept," and 
 Bell, intent on her game, ran off to the tool-shed, 
 whither Martin reluctantly followed, to bring the 
 balls and mallets. They then began to fix the 
 hoops in the ground as the game requires. 
 
 First a stick : then three hoops at equal spaces 
 of three yards from each other : then three more 
 hoops at a certain distance to the right and three 
 to the left about two paces in advance, but 
 parallel with the first set, opposite to which are 
 placed three more, while at the other limit is set a 
 second stick. The game is played with balls and 
 mallets. Each person has a ball, which being 
 placed beside one or other of the sticks, he must
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 137 
 
 endeavour to strike through the first hoop : if he 
 miss itj he must stand by until each of his antago- 
 nists has had his turn, but if the ball go through 
 the first hoop, he may strike it again and send it 
 through the second, again and send it through the 
 third, again and bring it into position for passing 
 through the hoops on the left. Every time a hoop 
 is passed through, the player is privileged to go 
 forward. When all the balls are out, if the ball 
 of one player strike another he may croquet 
 his antagonist — which he does bv placing- the two 
 balls close together, setting the left foot firmly on 
 his own ball, and striking it so that the adversary 
 ball (if the blow be strongly and skilfully dealt) 
 flies off to the furthest limit of the ground, which, 
 of course, lessens its chance of success; for the 
 game is won by whoever drives his ball through 
 all the hoops in order, and brings it back first to 
 the stick, from which the start was made. 
 
 The spaces being measured out, the hoops were 
 speedily fixed in the ground by Martin Carew 
 and Bell Rowley. Bell was immensely fussy and 
 noisy ; her tongue was never still for a moment, 
 and Martin marvelled secretly how anybody so
 
 138 
 
 stout could run to and fro and talk with such 
 unwearied vehemence (for every sentence was 
 uttered in a declamatory tone, as if it were a 
 famous moral dogma) without losing breath ; 
 but loss of breath was a casualty that appa- 
 rently never happened to Bell. While they were 
 thus employed, Margaret Holt began very 
 reluctantly to put up her unfinished sketch, and 
 she had just closed her portfolio when Mrs. Joan 
 Clervaux, Lady Rowley, her second daughter 
 Fanny, and Colonel Fielding, issued forth upon the 
 lawn. Bell immediately took upon herself the 
 ceremony of introduction and called out abruptly 
 as they drew near — 
 
 "This is Sylvan Holt's daughter, mamma! Colonel 
 Fielding, you may be her partner, and we shall beat 
 you easily, Martin Carew and I." Bell generally 
 adopted the Christian name of her acquaintance 
 at a second interview, she thought it set them 
 on better terms both with themselves and her to 
 dispense with all formalities of address ; and it 
 was very rarely indeed she found anybody who 
 resented her impertinent familiarity. 
 
 At their queer introduction Colonel Fielding
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 139 
 
 and Margaret looked towards each other and 
 bowed, but neither spoke at first, and Margaret 
 began rather nervously to roll her ball to and fro 
 with her mallet until her partner elect at length 
 begged her to enlighten his ignorance by explain- 
 ing to him the rules of the game. She was 
 beginning to do so accurately enough when Bell, 
 the oracle, stood forth, took the words out of her 
 mouth, and delivered a lecture on the science of 
 croquet which quite confused the little knowledge 
 he had already gained of it. While Margaret 
 was speaking he listened with deference, but as 
 soon as Bell gave tongue, he turned aside and 
 addressed himself to Martin Carew, which was 
 rude, perhaps, but let it be pleaded in his excuse 
 that the Bell-clapper had been dinning in his 
 ears all the way from Bransby, and his patience 
 was fairly worn out. 
 
 Colonel Fielding would have been ' a noticeable 
 man in any place or any circumstances, with his 
 fine dark face, keen deep set eyes, and soldierly 
 bearing, but he appeared especially so now, in 
 juxtaposition with Martin Carew's handsome but 
 comparatively boyish figure and fresh -coloured
 
 140 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEE. 
 
 visage. Bell Rowley's sarcastic description of 
 him was plainly suggested by his appearance, and 
 Margaret, shyly pleased that he had been allotted 
 to her as a partner, thought to herself that he 
 was equal to her ideal of any of those grand 
 stalwart knights of old who figured in her 
 favourite ballads and romances. 
 
 Before the game could begin, there was a little 
 dispute to settle between Bell and Fanny Rowley; 
 Fanny wanted to play singly, and Bell would not 
 let her. Their mother was obliged to arbitrate 
 betwixt them, and she admonished Fanny to stand 
 out of the way and not be tiresome to her elder 
 sister, whose part Lady Rowley always took/ not 
 from any preference, but for peace and quietness 
 sake, not daring to contend with her imperious 
 daughter. Lady Rowley was a plump florid 
 person, a softened maturity of Bell, and Fanny 
 was a fat, self-complacent, calm, good-natured 
 little body, who would have been a comely dairy- 
 maid, but who was sadly deficient in all the 
 personal requisites of fine ladyhood. The quarrel 
 settled to Bell's triumph, she put forth her claim 
 to commence the game, and nobody raising a voice
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 141 
 
 against it, she set her Id all by the stick, threw 
 herself into an attitude of confidence, poised her 
 mallet, cried aloud, " Now look how I do it ! " 
 and struck her ball so far aslant that it passed 
 outside the hoops and far beyond them into a very 
 disadvantageous position, seeing she would have to 
 return a considerable distance to get back in front 
 of the first hoop. Little Fanny laughed, which 
 all the others forgave her, but Bell began a wordy 
 demonstration of the causes which led to her 
 failure, instancing the mallet 's being slightly 
 chipped on one side, the ball being lighter than 
 she supposed and her hand being out for 
 want of practice. 
 
 It was now Margaret Holt's turn, and she, not 
 intent on making any astounding display of skill, 
 drove her ball through the first and second hoops 
 with one direct stroke, and through the third in 
 the same manner, and then sent it m front of the 
 line of hoops to the left, and there she stopped. 
 Bell Rowley at once demanded that they two 
 should change mallets, on the plea that Margaret 
 had taken the one that she was accustomed to 
 play with. Margaret gave it up without demur,
 
 142 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 and Bell received it, saying emphatically : (( Novj 
 you will see what execution I shall do." 
 
 She, however, had to wait until Martin Carew 
 and Colonel Fielding had played their game. 
 The former sent his ball through all three hoops at 
 once, and Bell being his partner, admonished him 
 vehemently to croquet Margaret Holt's ball, and 
 Avhen he aimed at it and missed, she scolded him 
 pretty roundly, while he laughed and shrugged 
 his shoulders. Colonel Fielding now took his 
 turn, and though he had never seen the game 
 before, by dint of a steady hand and a correct eye, 
 he made the same stroke as Martin Carew had 
 done, then croque'd his partner's ball — as the 
 rules permit — drove it through the three left- 
 hand hoops, sent his own after it, and left his 
 own ball in front of the third set of hoops, with 
 Margaret's only a couple of paces behind it. Bell 
 was now in a state of almost dancing excitement, 
 which was not lessened by Fanny's crying out 
 maliciously — 
 
 " You don't look much like winning this game, 
 Bell ! " and in this frame of temper she made 
 a very ineffectual return stroke, and her ball
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 143 
 
 went further astray than ever, which again 
 necessitated explanation. 
 
 While she was talking, Margaret Holt went 
 through the third line of hoops, struck the stick 
 beyond and began to return; but failing in one 
 of her strokes, her ball hit a hoop and rebounded, 
 at which Bell clapped her hands — dropping her 
 mallet for the purpose ; and then insisted on 
 showing how the accident might have been 
 avoided. 
 
 Martin Carew following next, succeeded in 
 his attempt to croquet Colonel Fielding's ball, 
 which he sent flying off into the evergreens 
 at the furthest end of the lawn ; then he 
 croque'd Margaret's, and sent it off to join 
 her partner's in the same place. From that 
 moment he went on triumphantly, keeping well 
 ahead, for Colonel Fielding and Margaret had 
 several turns in bringing back their balls to 
 the positions from which they had been driven, 
 and Bell's, in sporting phrase, was nowhere. 
 Martin could not be overtaken, and he came 
 in and hit the stick first. 
 
 (S We have won ! we have won ! " shouted Bell ;
 
 144 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " I told you we should : we "will play you again 
 and beat you again too !" 
 
 Colonel Fielding, who was not the man to 
 relish being beaten even in a game of croquet, 
 told her she was the last in the race by a long 
 way. 
 
 " No matter," returned she, " Martin Carew 
 and I played partners, therefore we won, we won, 
 we won ! " and she ran from one to another of 
 the lookers-on announcing the fact with exuberant 
 glee. 
 
 Fanny looked at her sister scornfully, and 
 told her she had played badly, she could play 
 fifty thousand times better herself; and possibly 
 a second quarrel might have ensued, had not 
 another party of visitors appeared in the avenue. 
 These were Mr. Wilmot, Rector of Beckford, 
 his wife, and a bachelor gentleman named Paley. 
 Bell Rowley had told them where she was 
 going and what for, in the morning, and had 
 taken upon herself to invite them to Oakfield, 
 so that their appearance was not quite so acci- 
 dental as it seemed. 
 
 The Rector was a small vivacious man, very
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 145 
 
 kind-hearted, very well-intentioned, and most 
 desirous of doing his duty ; only sometimes his 
 ideas of what the said duty was seemed but ill- 
 defined : he galloped about the parish dropping 
 religious tracts here and there; he gave away 
 half-crowns and bottles of wine, and begged the 
 people in his twenty-minutes long sermons to 
 go to church and keep away from the public- 
 house ; and jested a little sometimes about his 
 office with the young ladies, on the plea of being 
 their spiritual adviser, in a way that would have 
 been styled flirting in a less reverend character. 
 Some of his sedate parishioners found fault with 
 him in consequence, but everybody agreed that 
 the little man's heart was in the right place. 
 His wife was a tall fair Irishwoman, very fluent 
 of tongue, and rather inclined to romance, but 
 equally as kind and as well-meaning as her 
 husband. 
 
 Mr. Paley was of quite another order of 
 man. lie gloried in one of those cheap repu- 
 tations for wisdom and superiority of character 
 which are earned by the possession of a bald 
 head, an owlish solemnity of expression, and 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 a peculiar slowness and indistinctness of speech. 
 The man never either said anything or did 
 anything, yet all Mirkdale regarded him as a 
 scholar and profound thinker. He encouraged 
 the idea by occasionally delivering sententious 
 paradoxes, to the end that all brilliant talkers 
 are people of small brain, just as shallow streams 
 babble most — and his converse proposition was 
 that silent, stupid folk are the solid and reliable 
 props of the temple of wisdom. His step partook 
 of the slow, deliberate density of his mind ; his 
 every gesture, indeed, was fettered by it, so that 
 when he proposed to take a mallet and engage 
 in a game of croquet with the young people, 
 his offer was not received with any great satis- 
 faction. He solemnly invited Mrs. Wilmot to 
 join also ; and then the rector, with an incidental 
 remark that croquet was a strictly clerical game, 
 challenged Fanny Rowley to be his partner. 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux and Lady Rowley watched 
 the progress of the game from a garden seat under 
 the verandah : it was as good a position for the 
 study of individual character as any other, and 
 croquet seemed a favourable medium for the dis-
 
 A GAME AT CKOQUET. 147 
 
 play of peculiar traits. Mr. Paley walked deliber- 
 ately round his own ball, made solemn pauses of 
 consideration over other people's, and wasted every- 
 one's patience by remote calculations of what he 
 might, could, would, and should do if his ball were 
 otherwise placed, and invariably ended with a 
 feeble abortive stroke that missed its aim. Colonel 
 Fielding was prompt and accurate; he had brought 
 no experience to the game, but his eye and me- 
 mory seized and embraced its every chance : 
 Martin Carew was hasty and sudden, and fre- 
 quently overlooked his opportunities of harassing 
 his antagonists, but he had skill and nerve : the 
 Rector was careless and uncertain ; he made 
 strokes good or bad with equal indifference : 
 Bell Rowley's play has been already shown: 
 Margaret Holt and Fanny Rowley w T ere almost 
 equal in practice and both free from any desire 
 to astonish by their ingenious strokes : and Mrs. 
 Wilmot was scarcely less vehement and noisy 
 than Bell. They talked one against the other 
 from first to last, contradicting, wrangling, and 
 arguing vociferously : but to give honour where 
 honour is due, Bell had decidedly the best of 
 
 L 2
 
 148 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 the match : right or wrong she would not be 
 silenced, and Mrs. Wilmot, with flushed face 
 and heated temper, at last acknowledged her- 
 self ignominiously talked down by a chit of a 
 girl ! 
 
 When it was not their turn to play, Colonel 
 Fielding and Margaret stood side by side dis- 
 cussing Mirkdale and its beauties. The Colonel 
 said he had long been a stranger in it, but he 
 professed to have felt formerly a loving admira- 
 tion for the simply grand character of much of 
 its scenery. He spoke as if he wanted to excite 
 the latent enthusiasm of his young partner, who 
 seemed to him a pleasant fresh study of woman- 
 nature, and if so, he succeeded to his will. 
 Margaret's momentary self-conscious shyness past, 
 she talked to him with her natural lively grace, 
 not paring down her phrases to baldness as con- 
 ventional propriety sometimes drills woman into 
 doing, but colouring her words with quaint 
 vagrant fancies and her thoughts with odd turns 
 of expression such as he was not used to hear. 
 Then her voice seemed to caress the ear with 
 its soft, sweet, changing tones, and her face, while
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 149 
 
 animated, was still beautiful, gentle, and pure 
 womanly. Colonel Fielding was thinking to him- 
 self that he should like to see more of this " rare 
 little girl," as in his own mind he called her, when 
 Bell Rowley screamed out shrilly — 
 
 " Colonel Fielding, it is your turn to play ! I 
 wish you would mind the game ! " 
 
 He both looked and felt impatient of the inter- 
 ruption, went and struck his ball carelessly, and 
 immediately returned to Margaret ; she, blushing 
 slightly, ventured on a rebuke, telling him that 
 her ball was first, and that if he did his best, 
 perhaps they should win the game. 
 
 " Would you like to win ? " asked he — " well, 
 then, I won't risk our chance again." 
 
 They actually did win, and as soon as the fact 
 was proclaimed, Bell Rowley flung down her 
 mallet, and said she should play no more that 
 day, everybody was so stupid ! A third game 
 took place without her, and then the diversion of 
 croquet ended. Mrs. Joan Clervaux and Lady 
 Rowley came down to the group on the lawn, and 
 there was the ten minutes' regulation gossip before 
 they separated. The Wilmots and Mr. Paley left
 
 150 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 together as they had coine, but the Rowley party- 
 was not in any haste : in fact Bell had not yet 
 accomplished all she came to do. 
 
 " Were you not speaking of a ride to Deepgyll 
 Falls some day this week ? " said she, attacking 
 Margaret Holt point blank. Martin Carew over- 
 heard her and came to the rescue ; but he was 
 too late ; Margaret, unused to evasion, had ac- 
 knowledged they were. 
 
 " Then, don't you think we might as well make 
 a party and go all together ? Colonel Fielding, 
 we want you. These two" (pointing to Martin 
 and Margaret) " are going to Deepgyll Falls — let 
 us fix a day and go with them. What does 
 everybody say to to-morrow?" 
 
 Colonel Fielding expressed himself charmed 
 with the plan, and turning to Margaret said he 
 should be glad to have her for a guide in revisit- 
 ing the picturesque scenes that they both so much 
 admired, to which she replied with a smile and 
 an inconsequent "yes." Martin was vexed and 
 astonished at her ready acquiescence, though it 
 did not exactly appear how she could have 
 extricated herself by saying less, and bidding
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 151 
 
 them settle the ride amongst themselves, he 
 marched off in high dudgeon to gather up the 
 balls and mallets that were strewn about the 
 lawn. 
 
 " Then let it be to-morrow," Bell authoritatively- 
 decided. u To-morrow — we'll meet at Tibbie 
 Ryder's at half past eleven." And having gained 
 her end, she announced the arrangement to her 
 mother and Mrs. Joan Clervaux as settled, and 
 proposed to have the carriage round at once, 
 saying she was sure their visitation had been 
 long enough. 
 
 When they were gone, Martin Carew began 
 to express his discontent at losing all his promised 
 pleasure in the ride to Deepgyll by the intrusion 
 of Bell Rowley and Colonel Fielding ; he seemed 
 to the full as jealous of sharing Margaret's com- 
 pany with any one else as Oscar was : but she bade 
 him never mind; she thought the excursion must 
 be pleasant, no matter who went, and then she 
 returned with alacrity to her sketch. Martin 
 brought out a chair for himself and gave her 
 the benefit of his society, but he was much less 
 amiable than before the game of croquet. He
 
 152 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 would cross-question her as to what she thought 
 of this person and what she thought of the other, 
 especially of Colonel Fielding — and Margaret 
 answered vaguely, and asked him if it were 
 possible she could have made up her mind about 
 any of them on so short an acquaintance, which 
 annoyed him the more, for he fancied her evasive. 
 
 After her letters were written, Mrs Joan Cler- 
 vaux also joined them, and then Martin im- 
 mediately began to ask who and what Colonel 
 Fielding was — his tone and manner betraying 
 an unaccountable pique. 
 
 " You are going to tilt at a windmill, Martin," 
 was Mrs. Joan's apparently irrelevant reply. 
 
 " Not at all ; bat it is not pleasant to have his 
 company thrust upon us whether we will or no. 
 Margaret and I were to have gone to Deepgyll 
 by ourselves, and now Bell Rowley has invited 
 herself and him to go with us. I would rather 
 not have gone at all." 
 
 Margaret could not help laughing and rallying 
 him on his ill humour, but Mrs. Joan, who under- 
 stood its cause better, received it in silence, and 
 felt, that all things considered, it was perhaps
 
 A GAME AT CROQUET. 153 
 
 fortunate that Gipsy and he were not to have a 
 solitary ride. 
 
 u Bell Rowley said you knew Colonel Fielding's 
 family, Aunt Joan, who are they?" Martin 
 presently inquired, more calmly. 
 
 i{ Bell is mistaken. I knew his mother before 
 her marriage, when she was Geraldine Favell, 
 but I have never met her since. The Fieldings 
 are a good Scotch family of considerable wealth, 
 but I am only acquainted with them by hearsay, 
 except with the Colonel, of whom I saw a great 
 deal some years back, when he was no older than 
 yourself, Martin." 
 
 "I hate a Scotchman, don't you, Gipsy?" 
 whispered Martin, regarding her with a queer 
 expression. 
 
 Margaret now saw his drift and replied mis- 
 chievously : " No ! on the contrary, I approve 
 of the one we have seen to-day, he is like Bayard — 
 Bell Rowley said so." 
 
 This declaration and the manner of it was 
 balm of comfort to him ; he thought it spoke 
 volumes of indifference, so he took another cigar 
 and gradually smoked himself into a more genial
 
 154 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 temper. By-and-by Margaret's sketch was 
 finished, signed with her name and the date, 
 and put away affectionately in his desk, to be 
 taken out and looked at again and yet again 
 as a remembrance of Oakfield, of Gipsy, and 
 of a thousand vain unspoken hopes.
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 155 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 
 
 If Margaret Holt had been left up at Wildwood 
 alone she would have felt her father's absence 
 much more than she did, though as it was, not an 
 hour of the day passed that her thoughts did not 
 recur to him, and follow him in imagination on his 
 solitary journey. But Mrs. Joan Clervaux dis- 
 couraged her occasional fits of reverie, and Martin 
 Carew either talked himself or made her talk 
 until it was not easy to get even five minutes to 
 weave a tissue of possible calamities, had she been 
 so inclined. 
 
 Oakfield was a very pleasant place to stay at, 
 for there she was amongst friends of whose liking 
 she felt secure. Even the servants who had 
 known her from a little one (for Mrs. Joan 
 Clervaux was a lady in whose service men and 
 women stayed till they grew gray) delighted to 
 
 /
 
 156 
 
 see lier come about the house. She was so 
 modest, kind, and thoughtful, so gay and good 
 humoured, so ready to oblige, and so grateful for 
 the smallest assistance that any of them rendered 
 her, that they waited on her hand and foot for the 
 mere pleasure of her thanks. 
 
 Perhaps the one who favoured her most was 
 James Groves, who kept the horses, drove his 
 mistress out, and followed her in her not unfre- 
 quent rides. He was a comely little man with a 
 moon visage and sandy hair, almost elderly now, 
 but of that order of men who preserve something 
 of the boy to the last hour of their lives. Though 
 it was in horses that his soul chiefly delighted, he 
 was a well-conducted and even religious man; 
 (why are a taste for horses and a taste for 
 respectability so rarely found united in one and 
 the same person ?) Margaret had won his 
 highest esteem and regard by the splendid way in 
 which she sat her restive mare Crosspatch; he 
 thought and said she beat for riding every lady 
 he had ever seen. Miss Bell Rowley rode well, 
 but she was dumpy and liked to show off, and 
 James did not approve of that in women-folk;
 
 AT DEEGPYLL. 157 
 
 then she talked boastfully of being able to sit any 
 vicious horse that could be shown her, and he was 
 incredulous of her skill. He knew she had 
 thrown down one animal and broken its knees in 
 trying to make an exhibition of her cleverness, 
 and he would have been very sorry to trust her 
 with any horse of his. But as for Margaret Holt, 
 her he would trust with anything, for she knew 
 what horses were and loved them. James was 
 holding forth in this strain to Martin Carew, who 
 did not show any disposition to silence him, when 
 Margaret, shortly after breakfast, came into the 
 stable-yard with a lump of sugar and a piece of 
 bread for Crosspatch, who, since her craziest filly- 
 hood, had been used to these delicate attentions. 
 
 Crosspatch was a dark bay mare in high 
 keeping and admirably groomed, almost thorough- 
 bred, and without a flaw in her beauty. James 
 Groves said she would be worth a couple of 
 hundred guineas, but for that fidgetty temper of 
 hers, which showed itself in her wild and dangerous 
 eye. At the sound of Margaret's voice and step 
 she turned her head round as she stood in the 
 stall, and arched her fine neck under her
 
 158 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 mistress's caressing hand. The sensible creature 
 loved her, and when Margaret had administered 
 her dainties and was going away, she followed her 
 with her eye as if sorry to lose sight of her : the 
 girl told her they were to set off to Deepgyll at 
 eleven o'clock, and bade her be on her best 
 behaviour; no doubt, Crosspatch understood the 
 warning tone of the injunction, for she had been 
 used to that voice ever since she was a day old, 
 and even when she was out to grass and Mar- 
 garet came into the field, at her call she would 
 trot to meet her and follow her as closely as a pet 
 clog. 
 
 That all servants, poor people, and animals 
 loved this young girl was a sign, I take it, that 
 she was truly lovable and truly good in these 
 early days. Oscar came up to her where she 
 stood talking to Martin Carew and pushed his 
 head under her arm, and old Floss, the Oakfield 
 house-dog, who had retired on a pension long 
 since, was toothless and had given up barking as 
 a waste of his short breath, stretched at his chain, 
 and whined mournfully because he could not get 
 at her, and before leaving the yard she went up to
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 159 
 
 him and inquired after his health " for all t'world" 
 said James Groves, 6i as if he'd been a Christian." 
 In the course of the morning a groom rode 
 over from Bransby Park with a note from Bell 
 Rowley to Martin Carew bidding him go down to 
 the Rectory, and invite Mr. and Mrs. Wilmot to 
 join their riding party : she said that an excursion 
 with so few people was always stiff and dull, and 
 that besides Colonel Fielding she should bring a 
 Mr. Barlow and Bertha Leven, who were staying 
 at Bransby, and Fanny and her brother Tom, an 
 impish lad of thirteen. Mrs. Joan Clervaux 
 thought Bell very impertinent, and Martin's 
 wrath was redoubled, but Margaret said nothing, 
 and only seemed to anticipate pleasure in the 
 ride. As there was no help for it, Martin was 
 obliged to walk off to the Rectory with Bell's note, 
 and he presently returned with a sulky announce- 
 ment that the Wilmots would be glad to go. One 
 of the primary elements in the success of a party 
 of pleasure is that people should meet exactly at 
 the appointed time ; delays and frivolous waitings 
 for dilatory arrivals always sour somebody's 
 temper, and that probably pricks the individual
 
 160 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 all the day after, even if it do not pervade the 
 entire party. Mrs. Joan Clervaux kept this fact 
 before their eyes, so Martin Carew, Margaret, and 
 James Groves in attendance, contrived to start from 
 Oakfield with so nice a punctuality and calcula- 
 tion, that they rode into Beckford village from one 
 side as the Bransby Park people entered it from 
 the other. The Wilmots were to wait for, but 
 only for about five minutes ; and Tibbie Ryder 
 issuing forth with letters to distribute, those who 
 received any occupied the interval in reading them, 
 while the rest rode to and fro, all the village folks 
 being on their door steps to watch the gay caval- 
 cade. When the Rector and his wife appeared, both 
 as beaming and full of apologies as good-natured 
 people always are, there ensued a discussion as to 
 which of two roads they should take. Deepgyll 
 was quite at the head of Mirkdale, and could 
 be reached either by a road that ran through the 
 moor on the north side of the valley or by one low 
 down on the southern slope. It was finally 
 settled to go by the former, from whence, the 
 morning being deliciously bright and clear, many 
 fine views would be visible, lest ere their return,
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 161 
 
 mists, so common and so opaque in these 
 districts, should rise and overcloud the horizon. 
 
 At this second start Bell Rowley contrived to 
 effect a change of companions and to secure for 
 herself Martin Carew. She had ridden from 
 Bransby with Colonel Fielding, but she was not 
 particularly at ease in his society. He was too 
 grave, too old, or too clever for her, and would 
 never respond to the sometimes coarse, and almost 
 always flippant, boastful, or ill-natured trash that 
 flowed without let or pause from her tongue. He, 
 therefore, fell back and rode with Margaret, quite 
 intentionally seconding Bell's manoeuvres to get 
 rid of him, for her tawdry pretentiousness was 
 inexpressibly wearisome, and Margaret's freshness 
 and even ignorance were doubly charming by 
 comparison. Martin Carew, being younger, was 
 a degree more tractable than Colonel Fielding, but 
 it certainly had not entered into his pre-arrange- 
 ments to flirt over a ten mile ride with Bell while 
 somebody else was engrossing Margaret, and at 
 every possible opportunity he reined back his 
 horse and spoke to his favourite, leaving Bell to 
 proceed alone. She, however, had not the smallest 
 
 VOL. I. m
 
 162 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 hesitation in recalling him to her side, or in telling 
 him she was shocked at his want of common 
 politeness — not to mention gallantry. Martin 
 wonld not respond to her raillery, and got visibly 
 out of humour at last, for their conversation 
 dwindled to a monologue, which Bell sustained 
 with her customary vivacity. 
 
 The makeweights of the party paired off as 
 chance or inclination suggested. Mr. Barlow 
 and Bertha Leven took the lead and kept it, 
 apparently very much afraid lest anybody else 
 should join them, for they had a peculiar and 
 mutual interest in each other as lovers. He was 
 a dark shrewd-eyed man, a barrister by profession, 
 and she was a fortune, a merry one, whose face 
 was a perpetual open-mouthed laugh. Behind 
 them followed Fanny and Tom Rowley quarrelling, 
 and then the Rector and his wife, neither of them 
 very well pleased that a day out was thus turned 
 into a conjugal tete-a-tete. Martin and Bell came 
 next — Martin who had given himself over bound 
 tongue and sense to vexation, and Bell loud and 
 noisy with joke and repartee : but at last it dawned 
 upon him as one means of delivering himself from
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 163 
 
 the Bell incubus, that the Wilmots ought not to 
 be left to each other, so he pressed on and joined 
 the lively Irish lady, while the Rector wheeled his 
 horse round and brought it up beside Bell. She 
 felt enraged to the last degree, but had policy 
 enough not to break out there and then, and the 
 Rector, not being very quick-sighted to what he 
 was not meant to see, made himself very agreeable 
 and rattled on about the scenery, the people, and 
 the gossip of the neighbourhood in a much more 
 entertaining way than Martin Carew was capable 
 of. Colonel Fielding and Margaret Holt brought 
 up the rear. 
 
 Daring the last few days of bright warm 
 sunshine the fresh green leaves had opened 
 thickly on every tree, and as Mirkdale was well 
 wooded and chiefly pasture lands, it had altogether 
 the aspect of a beautiful cultivated park. There 
 was a rustling wind abroad amongst the branches, 
 which seemed to sway gaily and gladly in the 
 sunny sweetness of the spring morning, and the 
 occasional ring of a young laugh or voice, and the 
 clatter of the horses' hoofs on the roads harmo- 
 
 M 2
 
 164 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 nised with the sounds of merry nature as they 
 went along. 
 
 Margaret Holt was in that buoyant mood when 
 everything beautiful or pleasant is doubly enjoyed, 
 and Crosspatch went easily and quietly beside 
 Colonel Fielding's horse, as if she were at one 
 with her mistress and liked her company. Very 
 narrow had hitherto been Margaret's acquaintance 
 amongst gentlemen : her father, Martin Carew, 
 and the Rector, might be said to be the only three 
 she knew. To be sure, some few old sportsmen 
 who admired the little girl for her cool 
 daring riding — Sir Henry Traflford, the master of 
 the Mirkdale Hunt, John Blounte of Riswicke, and 
 old Paley — had always uncovered to her with as 
 much deference as if she had been the greatest 
 lady in the county, but Sylvan Holt gruffly 
 responcled to their civilities himself, and marked 
 very undisguisedly that he did not intend she 
 should have any intimacy with anybody whatever. 
 This rigid seclusion had strongly influenced her 
 manner, which was very winning in its mixture of 
 shy reserve and natural frankness — a manner such 
 as is never seen amongst girls who, almost from
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 165 
 
 their babyhood, begin to think of the world where 
 some day, perhaps, they will be hacked about and 
 lose all freshness of heart, mind, and feeling, 
 before they have proved one sensation worth ex- 
 periencing. Colonel Fielding, a man who had 
 lived in the world and was one of it, found her 
 captivating and attractive exceedingly. He liked 
 to see the bright surprise of her eyes when he 
 answered some of her inquisitive demands (she 
 had undertaken to catechise him about the 
 amusements and accomplishments of gay ladies in 
 London), and to watch the vivid play of expres- 
 sion on her mobile features. Sometimes she fell 
 silent for a quarter of a mile or so — a pretty 
 meditative silence hers was — and then she would 
 begin again on the same topic, which seemed 
 suddenly invested to her fancy with greater 
 interest than it deserved. Once her lips re- 
 mained sealed rather longer than usual, so Colonel 
 Fielding said, " I am still open to your interroga- 
 tories, Miss Holt." 
 
 Margaret laughed ; " Do you like clever 
 women ? " asked she : " women like those we have 
 been talking about."
 
 1G6 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEE. 
 
 "Yes, I do. Accomplishments rarely spoil 
 women and sometimes improve them ; keep them 
 from idling and hanging about for hours without 
 occupation. I like to see a wholesome mental 
 activity, certainly." 
 
 " Oh," thought Margaret, internally, "if you only 
 knew what an ignorant girl you are talking to ! " 
 But the Colonel did not think at all about the 
 matter — or if he did he supposed she had been 
 put through the usual course of book-learning like 
 others of her age and station ; the only ignorance 
 she had betrayed was ignorance of the ways of 
 the world, and that freshened his fancy delight- 
 fully. He had known women so long and so 
 intimately, and had been jarred out of tune by so 
 much paltry envy, jealousy, vanity, and pretension, 
 that sometimes he was cynically inclined to cry 
 out that feminine guilelessness in the new 
 generation was a myth, and to see an unspoilt and 
 beautiful embodiment of it in Margaret's person 
 renewed his faith. 
 
 He was not very well pleased when Bell 
 Rowley, tired of what she irreverently styled 
 " the little parson's cloak," rode back and joined
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 167 
 
 herself to them; or when, by-and-by, the road 
 becoming narrower, where only two could con- 
 veniently go abreast, Margaret went forward with 
 Mr. Wilmot a little way, and then exchanged him 
 again for Martin Carew. 
 
 Martin's first remark when she joined him was, 
 that they were close to Deepgyll and he had not 
 had her to himself at all: then he made her 
 promise that she would go down to the falls 
 with him and nobody else — a very strong 
 emphasis on "nobody else;" and Margaret said 
 she would if he wished it, but if any one joined 
 them was she to bid them " go away ? " Martin 
 was by this time in that unhappy frame of temper, 
 when a jest appears an injury, and he replied, 
 harshly, that she could please herself. Margaret's 
 white brow flushed but she made no retort, and 
 soon began to talk as gaily as ever, while her 
 companion's conscience pricked him severely for 
 what he had said, but still not severely enough 
 to make him confess it. 
 
 The nearer they approached Deepgyll the more 
 picturesque the road became, winding through 
 deep ferny brakes, and gradually descending until
 
 168 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 it emerged upon a bridge, below which the river 
 foamed and boiled amongst great rocky fragments, 
 torn, perhaps, from the precipitous walls that 
 shut in the torrent on either hand. At one end 
 of the bridge was a small inn, by the door of 
 which several of the ladies had already dis- 
 mounted, and were tying up their habit skirts 
 for the greater convenience of walking through 
 the woods. Martin got off his horse, and was 
 going quickly round to help Margaret, when 
 Colonel Fielding stepped forward and super- 
 seded him ; this was too much for his for- 
 bearance ; he felt so angry that he would have 
 behaved very foolishly, and have abandoned 
 Margaret altogether, had she not stopped his 
 retreat by saying — 
 
 " Martin, you will come with me, won't you ? I 
 shall want you to help me over those stones below 
 the fall where Ave got across the last time we were 
 here: to that pretty plantation — you remember it?" 
 
 Yes, he remembered it. Colonel Fielding, 
 however, either did not or would not see the 
 drift of Margaret's words, and kept his place 
 beside her with steady composure, while the
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 169 
 
 whole party ate oat-cake, crisp, hot, and buttered, 
 which Bell Rowley declared was the proper 
 thing to do at Deepgyll ; and when they dis- 
 persed in groups through the woods, he still 
 went with Margaret, assisting her down the steep 
 rough places with his officious hand, while Martin 
 Carew — his occupation gone — followed sulkily in 
 the rear. Perhaps Colonel Fielding had an object 
 in it, perhaps he had none, but whenever he 
 addressed Martin that clay, he made him feel 
 and look the inexperienced, raw, and — for the 
 nonce — not too amiable stripling. Margaret's 
 cheeks tingled with pain and vexation more 
 than once at his curt, impatient speeches, which 
 fell pointless on the Colonel's lofty urbanity ; she 
 was feeling, probably, that his irritable young 
 temper did not show him to the best advantage 
 just then. 
 
 A flight of steps cut in the rock, and overhung 
 by slender bushes, led down to the stony margin 
 of the river ; sometimes the water flowed close 
 under the walls, but it had already receded 
 somewhat into the centre of its bed, leaving 
 clear pebbly pools amongst the fallen masses
 
 170 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 that encumbered it. Looking up from the foot 
 of the rock, there rose a great grey precipice 
 fringed along the top with slender beech and 
 ash trees and an undergrowth of hazel and alder 
 bushes. In the crevices waved tufts of grass 
 of golden rod, and ragged robin, and here and 
 there trickled down narrow threads of water 
 cold and clear as ice. The opposite side of the 
 river was at this point no longer precipitous ; the 
 gentle, flower-sown glades of a young plan- 
 tation sloped down to the water's edge, and by 
 the checkered sun and shade upon the green turf, 
 and the flittering joy of breeze and bird amongst 
 the trees, wooed all seekers after the picturesque 
 into their pleasant solitudes. 
 
 " There is our wood, Martin ! Is it not beautiful 
 to-day ? And what a profusion of wild anemones ! " 
 cried Margaret, standing still to look across. " I 
 am so glad we came ! " 
 
 " But you cannot go over here f " said Colonel 
 Fielding, pointing at the foamy currents sweeping 
 amongst the stones. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I can easily, when we have been up 
 to see the falls."
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 171 
 
 * Margaret Holt is not a helpless fine lady, 
 Colonel Fielding," added Martin, with what he 
 meant for contempt, but which was only anger. 
 
 " So I perceive. Your Mirkdale maidens are 
 a race of Amazons,'* replied the Colonel, laughing : 
 61 Amazons, not hoydens, understand." 
 
 Martin muttered something about impertinence, 
 and inarched forward, leaving Margaret and 
 Colonel Fielding to follow. For about twenty 
 yards or more, a jutting rock hid what was 
 before them, but on turning its flank the whole 
 expanse of the falls met their view — the foamy 
 white glory arched by a shattered rainbow. The 
 trees above dipped their branches to meet the 
 flying showers of spray, and the sun shining on the 
 vast volume of water as it poured from ledge to 
 ledge sparkled as on an avalanche of diamonds. 
 They were the last of the party to arrive, and 
 those who had preceded them were expatiating or 
 not, as their tastes inclined, upon the marvellous 
 beauty of the scene. Mr. "VVilmot had mounted 
 on a low rock in the form of a table, and kept 
 quoting fragments of poetry and exclaiming — 
 
 " Oh ! glorious, very fine, indeed ; " while his
 
 172 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 wife insisted upon informing him that the falls 
 were neither so wide nor so lofty as certain Irish 
 ones that she named. At some distance off were 
 Mr. Barlow and Bertha Leven, and if a very 
 blithe blushing face and merry half downcast eye 
 are entitled to tell a tale, there was a happy little 
 heart at Deepgyll that day. Fanny Rowley was 
 seated silent and contemplative with her toes 
 dangling over a pool, into which her brother Tom 
 flung stones for the avowed purpose of splashing 
 her habit ; and Bell, somebody cried out, had 
 been down to the falls, had pronounced them 
 stupid, and was gone up again through the wood 
 alone. 
 
 Martin Carew's temper was so sadly wrong 
 now that, with a boyish perversity, he invited 
 Fanny to accompany him lower down the river 
 where they could cross into the plantation. 
 Fanny accepted with glee, and when Margaret 
 saw them set off together her colour rose 
 
 o 
 
 violently. To her great dismay Colonel Fielding 
 observed it. 
 
 " Our young friend looks thwarted this 
 afternoon. Do you know what has gone
 
 AT DEEFGYLL. 173 
 
 amiss with Lira ? " asked he, in a faintly sarcastic 
 tone. " Shall we pursue him or not ? " 
 
 " We are going the same way, " replied Mar- 
 garet, and they followed down the river side until 
 they reached the host place for crossing. 
 
 While Martin was dragging the slow, unwieldy 
 Fanny from rock to rock — for she had little 
 or no spring in her — he had the further morti- 
 fication of seeing Colonel Fielding help Margaret 
 over and go up with her through one of the 
 sunniest glades. True, Margaret waited and 
 even called to him to follow, but he feigned not to 
 hear, and they were soon out of sight. He 
 deserved to make posies for Fanny Rowley for 
 an hour, which she asked him to do that she 
 might boast of it to her sister Bell afterwards. 
 
 While everybody else was thus employed, Bell 
 Rowley was intent on executing a private scheme 
 of her own, which had never ceased to ferment in 
 her mind since the day of her meeting with Mar- 
 garet Holt at Oakfield, when Margaret had said 
 that no one could mount her mare Crosspatch 
 but herself. This remark Bell received in the 
 light of a defiance or challenge, and watching her
 
 174 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEE. 
 
 opportunity she stole away to the inn to make 
 secret trial of her skill. There was nobody 
 visible but James Groves, who was sitting on a 
 bench outside the door reading an old newpaper, 
 so to him she addressed herself, desiring him to 
 bring out Miss Holt's mare, as she wanted to 
 ride it. James grinned respectfully, but de- 
 clined compliance, and Bell who, when her fancy 
 was cross, was not choice in her manner of speak- 
 ing to inferiors, demanded insolently, who he was 
 that dared to disobey her ? 
 
 "I'se Mrs. Joan Clervaux's servant down at 
 OakfieLi," replied James, sturdily, " and I'se 
 under Mr. Carew's orders to-day : he warned me 
 to be special careful of Crosspatch." 
 
 a Oh ! I'll answer to your master and mistress 
 too, — -just bring her out," persisted Bell, trying a 
 wheedling tone. 
 
 <( No, miss, it won't do nohow. Can't disobey 
 orders ; an' besides, ma'am, you'd paril your neck," 
 replied the uncomplimentary James. 
 
 Bell said he was a most impertinent person, 
 and she should certainly inform his mistress ; 
 but the staunch old servant was unmoved by
 
 AT KEEPGYLL. 175 
 
 the threat, and to prevent mischief he walked 
 off to the stable, locked the door, and carried 
 away the key. 
 
 Bell chafed fiercely at her disappointment, and 
 continued to hang about the house until she saw 
 James go down the road to the falls, when she 
 went boldly into the inn and knocked at the 
 parlour door, through the upper half of which, 
 it being glass, she saw the landlord taking his 
 siesta. The man roused himself and came out, 
 on which Bell said she wanted her horse — she 
 would go to the stable and show him which 
 it was, as the grooms were all out of the way. 
 Not suspecting any trick, the man led the way, 
 growled at finding the door locked, but fetched 
 a second key from the house, and in a few 
 minutes Bell had the proud delight of seeing 
 Crosspatch led up to the stone steps by the 
 wall. 
 
 The sagacious creature had allowed herself 
 to be brought out quietly enough, but as soon 
 as she saw Bell and heard her voice, she began 
 to show her temper by running backwards, 
 dancing sideways, and jerking her head round
 
 176 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 impatiently, but these pranks only whetted Bell's 
 thirst for conquest. The man commented on 
 the animal's shyness of her mistress, as he sup- 
 posed Bell to be, but she explained the mare's 
 reluctance to let herself be mounted by saying, 
 that he — the landlord — was strange to her, and 
 that she did not like strangers. With the 
 greatest difficulty she was at last brought to a 
 stand by the steps, Bell sprang into the saddle 
 instantly, grasped the bridle, and the man loosed 
 the mare's head. As soon as she felt herself 
 comparatively at liberty, she gave a bound for- 
 ward which almost unseated Bell, but not failing 
 in nerve, the girl contrived to hold her well in 
 hand until they came to a smooth stretch of turf 
 by the wayside, when she gave her a good breath- 
 ing gallop. 
 
 This might have contented her, but Bell could 
 not think her triumph complete until she had 
 exhibited herself before Margaret, so she turned 
 into the wood and rode down the narrow path- 
 way towards the falls. This pathway had never 
 been intended for other than travellers on foot ; 
 in many places it neared the edge of the precipice,
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 177 
 
 which was everywhere more or less concealed 
 by the undergrowth of ferns and bushes. Cross- 
 patch was very fidgetty and uneasy, but Bell, 
 who was glorifying herself in imagination on 
 the sublime crisis when she should thus appear 
 before Margaret Holt, paid no heed to this 
 monitory chafing; she was holding the bridle 
 carelessly, when all at once a bird flew out of 
 a bush close before them ; the mare shyed, Bell 
 pulled sharply and angrily, and used her whip 
 Crosspatch ran backwards, reared straight up^ 
 came down clattering on its fore-feet, but still 
 without unseating Bell, reared again and again, 
 quite unconsciously trampling towards the edge 
 of the abyss. Suddenly the rash girl became 
 aware of her peril, and she had but time to 
 fling herself clear of the saddle when the poor 
 beast's hind legs slipped over the precipice, and 
 after an instant's frantic but ineffectual struggle 
 to recover herself, she crashed down on the rocks 
 below. 
 
 Bell, with no more serious hurt than a few 
 disfiguring scratches on her face, hastily rose 
 and stood aghast, livid, trembling, with her eves 
 
 vol. I. N
 
 178 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER 
 
 upon the torn mould where the mare had striven 
 to regain her footing. Just at that moment 
 James Groves came leisurely across from another 
 part of the wood, whistling cheerfully as he 
 fingered the stable-door key in his pocket, and 
 thought how lucky it was he had been present 
 to refuse Bell Rowley's demand. But as he 
 drew near and saw her pallid, scared visage, 
 the broken plants and ground cut up with the 
 mare's feet, what had happened flashed instan- 
 taneously into his mind. 
 
 Bell burst out into a confused explanation, in 
 which her own imminent danger and wonderful 
 escape figured most largely, but James cut her 
 short. 
 
 " Miss Margaret's mare has fallen down here ! " 
 screamed he savagely, while his fat face grew 
 crimson with rage and grief : " Oh, Lord, didn't 
 I tell you, you couldn't and shouldn't ride her?" 
 He shook a furious fist in Bell's face, and adding 
 that she deserved tying up by the thumbs, set 
 off as fast as he could run to the steps. Bell 
 followed, miserably crestfallen and remorseful : 
 if it had been anything but a horse she would
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 179 
 
 not have cared so much, she thought; what 
 would people say ? She who had always counted 
 herself the best rider in Mirkdale to have brougnt 
 any horse there ! — so stupid ! so mortifying ! 
 
 By this time all the party had left the falls 
 except Mr. Wilmot, and when Crosspatch fell 
 over the precipice he was not twenty yards off. 
 He was standing beside her as James came 
 scrambling over the rocks, and said very quietly 
 as he came up : — 
 
 " She '11 have to be shot." 
 
 The poor creature lay on her side, not strug- 
 gling, but quivering all over, and making a scream- 
 ing, panting noise. James began to cry, and Bell 
 approaching asked with a guilty face: — 
 
 " Is she much hurt, Mr. Wilmot ?" 
 
 "Hurt ? she '11 have to be killed ; her back 's 
 broke ! " blubbered the groom ; " Oh, what '11 
 Miss Marg'ret say ? She did love her mare, she 
 did." 
 
 "Killed!" repeated Bell in dismay. "Oh, 
 surely you won't need to do that, will you?" 
 
 " The sooner the poor creature is put out of 
 her misery the better," replied the Rector sternly. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " You have been very culpable, young lady, and 
 have destroyed a most valuable animal, not to 
 mention its being so great a favourite." 
 
 "I wish it had been myself instead," cried 
 Bell, with a spasm of well-earned wretchedness, 
 for just at that instant Margaret Holt's merry 
 voice and laugh were heard, and she, Colonel 
 Fielding, Martin Carew, and Fanny, appeared 
 round the jutting rock. 
 
 " What has happened ? " cried Margaret, for 
 everybody immediately looked at her. She ran 
 forward, and James, who was by the mare's 
 head, stood aside sobbing and crying like a 
 schoolboy. Margaret did not speak, but knelt 
 down as the poor beast, at the sound of her 
 voice, turned its filmy eye towards her. Bell 
 began a vociferous self-exculpation until Colonel 
 Fielding frowned her into silence, and she got 
 out of sight to hide her shame and mortifica- 
 tion. Margaret stroked her favourite's glossy 
 neck for a moment or two, and then looked up 
 at those around with eyes darkened by suppressed 
 tears. She tried to ask if anything could be 
 done, but broke down in a passion of childish
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 181 
 
 sobs and laid her face on the poor mare's neck. 
 Colonel Fielding answered her distinctly that 
 its life could not be saved, while Martin Carew 
 stood by with that straitened feeling at the 
 heart which in men answers for tears. He 
 begged Margaret to come away, but she refused, 
 and when the Rector returned from the inn 
 whither he had gone to borrow a gun, she 
 stretched out her hands over the animal as if 
 to keep everybody from approaching. Colonel 
 Fielding therefore took hold of her and raised 
 her from the ground with gentle authority, 
 saying at the same moment with great feeling — 
 
 " It must be done, my dear child." 
 
 She did not resist, but stood shivering and 
 clinging to his arm, while the Rector gave James 
 the gun to load; she was observant of all that 
 passed, for checking her sobs she said to Martin 
 Carew- — 
 
 "You do it then, Martin, the man's hand 
 shakes so." As Martin obeyed and took the 
 gun into his hands she averted her face for 
 a moment ; there was a sharp crack, a ringing 
 reverberation amongst the rocks, and poor Cross-
 
 182 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 patch lay dead. Margaret [could not restrain 
 a cry at her favourite's death-note ; and quitting 
 her grasp of the Colonel's arm, she rushed forward 
 and bent over it again. 
 
 ee Ah," said the Rector, twinkling his eyes, 
 " one must know the sort of life that poor girl 
 leads to understand her passionate fondness for 
 an animal." 
 
 Colonel Fielding replied, "Indeed?" as if 
 he would have liked to hear more ; but the 
 Hector suggesting that it would be well to take 
 Margaret away as quickly as possible, he ap- 
 proached, and in the same tone that had influenced 
 her before, begged her to leave the place. She 
 rose unassisted, and saying to Martin Carew — 
 "I should like to have her buried at Wild- 
 wood," started away at a swift pace up into the 
 woods, never looking back, and crying bitterly 
 all the way as she went. "With the exception 
 of Martin, nobody there had ever known or cared 
 much for her before, yet every one now respected 
 and sympathized in her childishly expressed 
 sorrow ; Fanny Rowley cried almost as bitterly 
 as herself.
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 183 
 
 Ah! how grieved, how remorseful Martin 
 felt that he had spent his vexed feelings in 
 wounding her already that day ; he was ashamed to 
 follow her and talk to her as he would have done 
 but for those foolish moments of jealous temper, 
 and she did not seem to expect he should : indeed 
 Margaret was more hurt by his frivolous neglect 
 than she would have been by hard words from 
 others, neither was she one easily to forget the 
 stino; he had given her — comino- at this time 
 too it seemed doubly keen. But Colonel Fielding 
 had no such restraint upon him, and overtaking 
 her, presently he offered his arm to her in 
 mounting the steep pathways. She, at first, 
 glanced round mechanically for Martin, but he 
 was a long way behind enduring his fit of repent- 
 ance, so she began to ease her heart by pouring 
 forth to the Colonel a host of trivial recollections 
 of the unfortunate mare, ending almost every one 
 with, " Oh ! you don't know how fond I was 
 of her ! " or, " She liked me better than any one, 
 she was always tractable with me." 
 
 Margaret had no more reticence than a child, 
 and the Colonel listened to her with as crave
 
 184 SYLVAN HOLT'S DALGHTEK. 
 
 and feeling an interest as lie would have accorded to 
 one. Her affections and her emotions were strong, 
 and nothing had yet taught her either to conceal 
 or be ashamed of them. This death of poor 
 Crosspatch was her first bitter grief of separation 
 from anything beloved, and for the time she 
 felt literally to loathe and hate its cause. When 
 Bell Rowley came up to her soon after, and 
 attempted to renew her excuses, Margaret turned 
 pm her with indignation, and exclaimed " Don't 
 dare to speak to me ! " Colonel Fielding looked 
 down with surprise at her blazing glance and 
 passion quivering lip, and thought in his own 
 mind that, spite of these floods of tears and 
 childish reminiscences, it was no weak, milky 
 nature that could give such force of expres- 
 sion to dislike and scorn. Bell was thorough!}" 
 abashed, and did not venture to intrude herself 
 again. 
 
 On reaching the inn, there was a difficulty 
 about procuring a horse for Margaret to return 
 home. The only expedient that could be devised 
 was to put her saddle on Colonel Fielding's and 
 that he should walk ; the proposition came from
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 185 
 
 himself, and was obliged to be accepted, as neither 
 the pony that James Groves rode nor Martin 
 Carew's horse had ever carried a lady. The 
 rest of the party therefore started at their own 
 speed, and Margaret and Martin kept pace with 
 the Colonel, who made light of his ten miles' walk, 
 and seemed to like his post at the young girl's 
 bridle : for he persuaded her that for a time 
 at least it would be well for him to lead the 
 animal that was strange to her and had a wilful 
 temper on occasion. Their progress was neces- 
 sarily slow, but James had been sent forward 
 to quell his mistress's anxiety at their non-appear- 
 ance earlier, so they did not hasten, and the 
 two hours and a half that were spent on the 
 road served to make them all three better 
 acquainted with each other and themselves. Martin 
 Carew alone was restless; he did not like the 
 appearance of understanding that was growing 
 up between his favourite and that grand-visaged 
 Colonel, who looked so tenderly after his charge, 
 that she could not but feel grateful to him. 
 They talked together, not always including 
 him in their conversation, and often he could
 
 186 
 
 not hear what either said; then the foul fiend 
 Jealousy bit her cruel fangs deeper into his 
 heart, and his young blood mounted hotly to his 
 brow. 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux came a mile along the 
 road to meet them, Oscar following her. The 
 dog sprang up joyfully to his young mistress, 
 and then ran round the strange horse she rode, 
 barking interrogatively as if he would ask what 
 was become of his friend Crosspatch. So 
 Margaret understood him, at least, and said with 
 a quivering voice, while tears brimmed her eyes, 
 " She won't come home any more, Oscar ; " 
 then she would have told her good friend 
 what had happened, but sobs impeded the utter- 
 ance, and Mrs. Joan bade her hush. 
 
 " Don't break your heart, love, with talking 
 about the poor creature : I have heard all from 
 James Groves, and I think, as he does, that Bell 
 Rowley deserves whipping ; " and with this the 
 painful theme was set aside. 
 
 When they reached Oakfield, Mrs. Joan said — 
 
 " You will come in and dine with us, Colonel 
 Fielding, will you not? You will be too late
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 187 
 
 at Bransby Park." He seemed glad, even eager, 
 to accept the invitation, and they all entered the 
 house together. 
 
 o 
 
 While Margaret Holt was absent, taking off 
 her habit, there were some comments made on 
 Miss Bell Rowley's character and conduct such 
 as she would not have liked to hear ; though, 
 perhaps, they might have done her good, and 
 have prevented her dilating so much on her 
 deliverance from a danger which her own pre- 
 posterous vanity had incurred. But when 
 Margaret reappeared the conversation changed 
 immediately, and Colonel Fielding began to 
 inquire of Martin when his regiment sailed, 
 and to talk on those professional topics which 
 are always interesting to soldiers, whether they 
 be only at the outstart of their career, far advanced 
 in it, or nearing its close. Martin was obliged 
 to leave off tilting with his windmill and converse 
 with this man, whom he was disposed to regard 
 as his mortal foe, lest his Aunt Joan should 
 discover his enmity, but he did it with an 
 ill grace enough. Colonel Fielding had been 
 in India several years himself; there he had
 
 188 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 won his captaincy and majority very early, 
 and had been what is commonly called a most 
 successful and fortunate man, for he had neither 
 powerful patronage nor much money to back 
 him, and yet he was colonel in command of 
 a regiment at thirty-two. He was an excellent 
 officer, and personally brave as a lion — rashly 
 brave, venturesome, his detractors said, being 
 able to say nothing worse: but it was a fault 
 on the right side, and one which the world 
 in general inclines rather to praise than blame. 
 
 Margaret was extremely quiet and silent, but 
 no one attempted to make her talk, though she 
 listened attentively to all that passed. Her face 
 showed traces of tears in its pallor, but hers was 
 not a countenance that grief spoilt ; for her pure 
 and noble type of beauty rose superior to the loss 
 of brilliant colour and the quenched brightness of 
 youthful glances. There was a slight fold between 
 her brows, and her lips were compressed ; but her 
 softened, plaintive eyes were full of a feminine grace 
 and sweetness inexpressibly winning and lovely. 
 Martin Carew watched her furtively, sometimes 
 answering; Colonel Fielding at strange cross
 
 AT DEEPGYLL. 189 
 
 purposes, and betraying his feelings very palpably 
 to that acute observer. The Colonel had pene- 
 trated Margaret's sentiments too, and could afford 
 a little compassion to the love-sick lad who was 
 a brother and nothing more to his first divinity. 
 Perhaps his own youth had passed through a like 
 fiery discipline, but if so, the man was none the 
 worse for it now, as Martin Carew would be 
 none the worse for it at thirty-two, if he could 
 but have known it. 
 
 Colonel Fielding left early, and his departure 
 was an immense relief to Martin Carew. Mrs. 
 Joan, however, began to speak of him in terms 
 of high favour, and to say how glad she was to 
 have renewed his acquaintance ; but Martin found 
 occasion soon after to remark that Colonel Field- 
 ing seemed to him a man of a proud, stern 
 character, under all his gentle courtesy of man- 
 ner — a remark so near the truth of what had 
 impressed itself both on Mrs. Joan and Margaret 
 that neither attempted to speak in mitigation of 
 it, though a faint blush dawned on Margaret's 
 cheek as she thought to herself that it was often 
 these strong characters — such as her father's —
 
 190 
 
 whose tenderness was the deepest and most faith- 
 ful where it was once bestowed. 
 
 She was neither of an age nor a temperament 
 to indulge in morbid self-anatomy, yet a vague 
 consciousness of some new impulse began from 
 this time to stir in the soul of her. Whence it 
 came and whither it tended she never thought or 
 cared to think. It ivas but a faint dawn-gleam 
 trembling on the distant hills of life, not daring 
 yet to pierce its holy hollows or dark caves, which 
 love or pain or passion might some day lighten 
 up with wild electric fires — for her nature was 
 ardent, quick, strong, vital, impetuous as his 
 whose blood ran in her veins. The only thought 
 it suggested was a longing to be more like other 
 women — more accomplished, more cultivated; 
 Mrs. Joan, while profoundly in the dark as to its 
 cause, hailed the result gladly when she began 
 to perceive it, and only wished that the necessity 
 had struck her young favourite earlier — but, as 
 she cheerfully told her, it was better late than 
 never, and Margaret said she would begin to try 
 to improve herself, though these tardy beginnings 
 are always difficult.
 
 AT OAKFEELD. 191 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AT OAKFIELD. 
 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux and Margaret breakfasted 
 the next morning without Martin Carew ; he had 
 gone up to Wildwood very early, Margaret knew 
 on what mission. Soon afterwards she and Oscar 
 set off to the Grange together and arrived just in 
 time to see the last sod laid on Crosspatch's 
 grave. It was made near the wood-side, and 
 Martin was busy cutting the mare's name on the 
 bole of a tree that overshadowed the spot, when 
 Margaret appeared. He asked her if she liked 
 his choice of place, and she said "Yes," and 
 thanked him. Anty and Tom shouldered their 
 spades and marched off in respectful silence, but 
 Jacky, as soon as she descried her young 
 mistress, came hurrying towards her, pouring 
 forth volleys of wrathful denunciation against 
 Bell Rowley : the old woman declared she would 
 have the law of her if the mare had been hers,
 
 192 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 and promised that she would not let master rest 
 when he came home until he saw about it. This 
 mention of "master" suggested an inquiry 
 whether Margaret had yet received any letter 
 from her father. She had not, but as Tibbie 
 Ryder came to Oakfield each morning, she 
 supposed that if there had been anything for 
 her the post-mistress would have brought it. 
 
 " I 'd no' trust her to 'liver up our letters if 
 they're no asked for," said Jacky suspiciously ; 
 " master's been gane now one, two, three days — 
 to-morrow's Sunday an' there's no post. I 'd ha' 
 you go down to Tibbie yourself, Margaret, an' 
 see." 
 
 Accordingly Margaret and Martin bent their 
 steps thitherwards. Both were silent until they 
 reached Wildfoot and came into the wood, then 
 Martin took courage and said abruptly — 
 
 " I was in a horrible temper yesterday, Mar- 
 garet, can you forgive me ? " 
 
 " Yes, I can forgive you, but you were very 
 cross : what ailed you ? " asked she, softening 
 towards him for what he had just been doing. 
 
 " I wanted your company to myself, there was
 
 AT OAKFIELD. 193 
 
 nobody else I care for, and I could not have 
 you a single moment. Do you know, Mar- 
 garet, I should like you to prefer me before all 
 the world ! " The last sentence came out in a 
 rushing whisper, as if Martin were afraid of the 
 sound of his own voice or else of his hazardous 
 words, and his heart beat very thick after he had 
 uttered it. 
 
 " And who is there in the world that I should 
 prefer before you, Martin, except my father and 
 Mrs. Joan ? " replied Margaret, looking at him 
 reproachfully, with eyes pale from yesterday's 
 tears ; " if you were really my own brother I 
 could not love you better." 
 
 " Well I suppose not," said Martin, gulping 
 down a host of passionate phrases which nearly 
 choked him, and trying to feel heroic in his 
 disappointment, for he did think she would have 
 understood him then. He tried to persuade 
 himself that he would rather she had laughed 
 at him or been angry than that she should have 
 made that simple, open declaration of attachment 
 which was like an extinguisher over the candle of 
 his hopes. But the flames of twenty are soon rc- 
 
 tol. i. o
 
 194 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 kindled; one tiny spark is blown up into a 
 volcano at white heat by a faint gust from the 
 lips of self-delusion. Martin hoped and despaired 
 and hoped again ten times a day. He thought if 
 he only might speak openly he should win his 
 cause ; but no, the tide had gone back from him — 
 he had missed the turn, and what he wished with 
 all the ardour of his youth was become amongst 
 the things that might have been, but never were. 
 He fell silent until they issued out into Beckford 
 Lane, when he began to talk rather fast and 
 incoherently of his approaching departure. 
 
 "Tell me, Martin, why you were so unkind 
 yesterday ? " Margaret interrupted him to ask : 
 " had I done anything to vex you ? " 
 
 " No, but I was a jealous fool, that was all." 
 Martin felt a masculine satisfaction in thus 
 humbling himself at a question that seemed to 
 portend well for him ; " I did not like to yield 
 you up to Colonel Fielding, and I thought him 
 very intrusive ; he might have taken Bell or 
 Fanny Rowley for his companion." 
 
 There was no answer from Margaret, merely a 
 shy turning away of her face, and a moment's
 
 AT OAKFIELD. 195 
 
 stoppage to gather a cluster of blue forget-me-nots 
 that peeped up out of the stony watercourse by 
 the wayside. 
 
 " However," Martin went on, " I shall keep 
 you to myself now ; I dare say he has left Bransby 
 this morning, as he only came for three days. 
 What did you find so pleasant in his conversation, 
 Margaret ? he is very grave." 
 
 Margaret said she did not know, and began to 
 walk a little faster ; then suddenly changing the 
 theme, she regretted not having brought a slip of 
 the rose-tree that they were to plant by the 
 Grange porch, and bade Martin remember it the 
 next time they came up. 
 
 The walk to the post-office at Beckford was 
 unproductive; there was no letter from Sylvan 
 Holt to his daughter, and she and Martin 
 returned home to find that Sir Thomas Rowley 
 and Colonel Fielding had called at Oakfield in their 
 absence. Sir Thomas had come to express regret 
 at his daughter's reprehensible conduct, and to 
 offer compensation for the loss of the mare ; but 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux begged to refer him to 
 Sylvan Holt on his return to Wildwood, saying 
 
 o 2
 
 196 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 that neither she nor Margaret could act inde- 
 pendently in the matter. 
 
 " I knew the poor mare had more than money's 
 worth to you, Gipsy," the old lady added con- 
 siderately, " and I was glad you were out to 
 escape Sir Thomas's awkward apologies. Colonel 
 Fielding inquired about you most kindly, and left 
 his farewell compliments." 
 
 Margaret stooped down to pat Oscar and pinch 
 his velvety ears. She was both glad and sorry ; 
 it was a boon to have escaped Sir Thomas, but 
 she would rather not have missed Colonel 
 Fielding. Martin asked if he was leaving 
 Bransby Park that day. 
 
 "Yes, he will be half-way to Middlemoor by this 
 time," replied Mrs. Joan ; " he is going into 
 Scotland to stay with his own people some 
 time." 
 
 No one expressed regret, or asked any further 
 question; only Oscar had the benefit of Mar- 
 garet's caresses a few moments longer, and 
 Martin Carew recovered his wonted vivacity and 
 good-humour. Colonel Fielding's departure eased 
 his mind of a mighty burden. Mrs. Joan then
 
 AT OAKFIELD. 197 
 
 began to speak of a pleasure she should soon have 
 in seeing his mother, her former friend, who was 
 coming to pay a long-promised visit at Bransby 
 Park. Margaret who seemed to have taken a 
 silent fit, woke up suddenly as to a theme of 
 intense interest, and asked question after question 
 concerning her ; but Mrs. Joan's recollections went 
 little further than to convey that in her youth 
 she had been gay and graceful and a celebrated 
 beauty. Whether she was proud or the reverse^ 
 kind or unamiable, clever or dull, she did not 
 mention ; but Margaret deduced that she must 
 be good from Mrs. Joan's desiring to meet her 
 again.
 
 198 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MARTIN'S last week at home. 
 
 The next day, Sunday, there were walks to and 
 from Beckford Church in the morning and after- 
 noon, and in the evening — deliciously warm and 
 balmy it was — Martin and Gipsy had a long, 
 dangerous stroll under the trees of the shrubbery, 
 and became perfect friends again. But that 
 night, when Margaret had retired, Mrs. Joan 
 Clervaux took her nephew to task, and herself 
 a little also, about the critical position he was 
 working himself into with his eyes wide open. 
 
 " There must be no engagement, Martin," said 
 the old lady with great solemnity. She never 
 doubted but that Margaret would be his if he 
 asked her ; but Martin rather bitterly replied that 
 he had no encouragement to make one ; Mar- 
 garet cared nothing about him. In fact, though
 
 MARTIN'S last week at HOME. 199 
 
 amity was restored, slie had not raised his expec- 
 tations in the least ; she had been very open and 
 kind, but had talked chiefly of poor Crosspatch, 
 and Martin did not relish any allusions to the day 
 at Deepgyll ; he would have been glad for every 
 reason to blot it out from the record of the days 
 that had been. 
 
 A brief sketch in outline must carry us 
 through the last week of his stay at Oakfield. 
 
 On Monday morning early they walked up to 
 the Grange to see Jacky and plant the red rose by 
 the porch, and returned home through Wildwood, 
 where they loitered so long that they were late 
 for dinner, and Mrs. Joan Clervaux sat in great 
 fear and perturbation of mind, sorely distrustful of 
 Martin's reticence : but her feelings were restored 
 to calm when they re-appeared laughing, at some 
 small mischance, and in the utmost good-humour. 
 In the afternoon Lady Rowley and Bell drove 
 over from Bransby for a formal peace-making, 
 and Margaret, who had been previously prepared 
 for the visitation by a lecture from Mrs. Joan on 
 the Christian duty of forgiveness, tried not to look 
 fierce at the now humbly repentant Bell, and con-
 
 200 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 versed with her about the studies that girls work 
 at with their governesses. Bell, being on her 
 good behaviour, gave information to the best of her 
 ability. In the evening, Margaret investigated the 
 Oakfield. bookshelves in search of Bruce's 
 Geography and Mrs. MangnalPs Questions, but 
 found neither, and was much rallied by Martin 
 Carew on her sudden thirst for useful knowledge. 
 She went to bed in a doubtful frame of mind, and 
 dreamt that she was standing barefoot on the 
 lawn, with a croquet mallet in her hand and a 
 wreath of asses' ears on her head, while Bell 
 Rowley, Colonel Fielding and Martin Carew 
 pelted her with quarto volumes, which turned 
 into ugly toadstools and fungi as they fell about 
 her. 
 
 The next day, Tuesday, Martin and Margaret 
 paid a second visit to Tibbie Ryder to ask for 
 letters. There was one from Sylvan Holt, brief 
 and business-like without a trace of emotion. He 
 said lie could not return to the Grano-e until the 
 following week, as he had certain affairs which he 
 desired to settle in London, but that he would 
 write ajmin. Margaret did not waste herself in
 
 speculations as to what these affairs might be 3 
 as he had promised her full explanation when he 
 came back, but much cheered by the tone of his 
 letter, she recovered all her natural verve and 
 gaiety. Her father was well, and apparently in 
 his hard grave mood, so she rested in the hope 
 that he was quite himself again, and gave up her 
 anxiety ; until it came, she had scarcely dared to 
 acknowledge how strong an undercurrent of fear 
 for him had been marring much of her enjoyment 
 at Oakfield: now she could give herself up to 
 being happy without self-reproach intruding to 
 quench every smile and hush every laugh. The 
 afternoon was spent by her in writing a long, long 
 letter back — the first she had ever had occasion to 
 address to her father, containing minute details 
 of all she had seen and done since he left her, 
 omitting only the incident of the portrait taken 
 out of the closet in his room by Jacky. In the 
 evening she and Martin strolled up to Wildwood 
 to tell the servant what news ; as they returned 
 Martin relapsed into a jealous mood from some 
 careless observation of his companion, and began 
 to dwell dismally on his long expatriation, for
 
 202 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 which folly she gave him a sensible rebuke that 
 restored him to his senses. 
 
 On Wednesday, immediately after breakfast, 
 Martin rode away to "Walham Castle, where he 
 was to spend two days hi his uncle's family. As 
 soon as he was gone, Margaret resumed her ex- 
 amination of the bookshelves, and after diligent 
 search disinterred several ancient school-tomes 
 inscribed with Mrs. Joan Clervaux's name. The 
 old lady commended her, and promised her some 
 new books if she proved herself in earnest; so 
 Margaret worked for a couple of hours, not 
 breaking off more than once in every ten minutes 
 to ask Oscar if she was not very industrious, 
 and to caress his handsome head, which he leant 
 confidingly against her knee. This earned her 
 a holiday, and as Mrs. Joan was going to make 
 a houserow visitation of her poor pensioners and 
 cottage folk, Margaret betook herself to a long 
 ramble on the moor with her dog. 
 
 On Thursday morning, Mrs. Joan Clervaux being 
 engaged with Robbie Clarke on divers matters of 
 business, Margaret diverted herself with reading, 
 drawing, and talking confidentially to Oscar. In
 
 maktik's last week at HOME. 203 
 
 the afternoon the two ladies, with the staghound 
 for cavalier, took a vigorous constitutional, which 
 was lightened with reminiscences of Geralcline 
 Favell. In the evening Margaret sewed a little, 
 and wished a great deal for Martin Carew home 
 again. 
 
 On Friday morning he came to breakfast, 
 having ridden from "Walham since seven o'clock, 
 to lose as little of the day as possible. Robbie 
 Clarke having still business that engaged Mrs. 
 Joan, they were left very much to themselves. 
 Occasionally a moody moment overcame Martin, 
 but he tried to put it off and be as gay and blithe 
 as Margaret seemed. She said, "Let us be 
 merry while we may," and would not gloom at 
 all. 
 
 They were very erratic that morning. They 
 first wandered up to the Grange to see Jacky, 
 who had completed her cleaning operations ; then 
 they visited a certain favourite den in the moor, 
 where the young ferns made a plumy green oasis 
 amidst a dusky sea ; next they struck deep into 
 the heart of Wildwood, where the sunshine came 
 as dimly through thick branches as it comes
 
 204 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 through cathedral windows, for they must needs 
 visit together once more before this long farewell 
 every dear old haunt of their childhood. Dinner 
 time was forgotten, and Mrs. Joan Clervaux 
 sitting at home, alone and unthought of, tried to 
 say calmly, " Youth must pass," and not to feel 
 anxious more than was in reason. Just as tea 
 was brought in they returned, weary but cheerful, 
 and neither of them burdened with any fresh 
 confidence to pour into her faithful bosom. 
 
 On Saturday everybody began to feel that this 
 was the last day but one, and everybody was 
 more than usually thoughtful for Martin, while 
 Martin was more than usually thoughtful for 
 everybody Margaret spent the morning in 
 making a queer little housewife of red silk, 
 which she stocked with needles, pins, threads, 
 buttons and tapes ; when finished it was dropped 
 into one corner of Martin's portmanteau, and 
 was more sacred to him than ever was relic of 
 saint or martyr to holy devotee; it is not on 
 record that he put its contents to their earthly 
 purpose : no ! in his eyes the threads and needles, 
 the buttons and pins were things glorified — set
 
 martin's last week at home. 205 
 
 apart from common use for ever. It was a long 
 day, for no one settled to any regular employment, 
 and there was less talk and more thought in the 
 twilight than there had been for many twilights 
 before, Margaret's great gaiety had given way 
 at last, and she was very hushed ; her good-night 
 was only a whisper. After it Martin went out 
 into the shubbery, and smoked his unwholesome 
 cigar in a peevish melancholy mood. Mrs. Joan 
 watched him from her window until he came in, not 
 quite at peace in her own mind, and perhaps 
 wishing that to-morrow with its softened feelings 
 were over. None of the three slept very peace- 
 fully, and the sun rose on that to-morrow, waking 
 them up to the actual presence of that most dreary 
 time " the last day together." 
 
 And " our last day together " was the idea that 
 filled the mind of each of the small party that 
 assembled in the Oakfield bookroom for break- 
 fast that Sunday morning, though no one made 
 open allusion to it. There was not any strain 
 to be cheerful, yet as little was there depression. 
 The dreariness of parting lies more with those 
 who stay than those who go, and Martin, in
 
 206 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 his young elastic spirit, experienced a certain 
 restrained eagerness which dulled the pain for 
 him, if pain there were. He probably felt more 
 at leaving Margaret than at leaving Mrs. Joan — 
 mother as she had been to him in all but name — 
 but even leaving Margaret had its background 
 of hopeful promise, its future of noble endeavour. 
 It was the first Sunday in the month, when the 
 sacrament of our Lord's Supper was regularly 
 administered at Beckford Church, and Mrs. Joan 
 desired that they should partake of it together 
 lest such an opportunity should never recur 
 again for them. And the day passed, as every 
 day passes, be it day of waiting or day of work, 
 and the solemn evening came. All the time of 
 Martin's stay at Oakfield the weather had been 
 calm, sunshiny, and pleasant, but this evening 
 surpassed all previous ones in its soft blue still- 
 ness. Not till summer warms into lustrous 
 August or golden - grained September, do the 
 Mirkdale skies put on their imperial sunset 
 robes, or the moors burnish to a rich glow of 
 royal purple. In spring the clouds are tender 
 grey, the sun fades down beyond Fernbro'
 
 MARTIN'S last week at HOME. 207 
 
 without gilding its broad flank, and the pale 
 twilight melts imperceptibly into night. 
 
 For an hour after tea Mrs. Joan paced the 
 terrace in front of the house leaning; on her 
 nephew's arm. Margaret would have left them, 
 but the old lady bade her remain, saying : 
 
 et We are all friends here, Gipsy, there are 
 no secrets." 
 
 In that hour were uttered the gentle cautions — 
 
 CD 
 
 potent fruits of grey experience — which age may 
 offer to youth ; and the venturesome, high dreams 
 which youth will tell to loving age. Words of 
 encouragement, words of gratitude and faithful- 
 ness were freely exchanged, pleasant words to 
 remember on either side if, in those long un- 
 certain years of separation, Death should forbid 
 each evermore to behold the other with the eyes 
 of the flesh. Margaret walked a little apart, 
 silent, sad, and very sorry to lose her com- 
 panion — her almost brother. When the dews 
 began to fall, Mrs. Joan would go in-doors, but 
 Martin said, " Let us stay awhile longer, Mar- 
 garet," and so they strayed into the shrubbery 
 walk, where the chestnut blossoms had powdered
 
 208 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 the earth as with, a light fall of snow. There 
 was a great twittering of birds, and a whushing 
 wind amongst the upper branches that filled the 
 air with music. Margaret liked that whushing 
 mood of the Mirkdale woods ; it sounded soft 
 yet hurried, as if its wings were freighted with 
 a happiness that could not rest in silence, but 
 must utter itself in gentle voices. 
 
 " Well, Margaret, this is our last evening 
 together," said Martin, giving words to the 
 uppermost thought in both their minds. 
 
 " Yes ; Martin, I don't like these partings — 
 I cannot get a distinct view of when or where 
 we two may meet again," said she, suddenly. 
 
 " You have been thinking about that ? But 
 you love me, Margaret?" said he, with suppressed 
 vehemence — it was the last chance. 
 
 " Yes, I do love you dearly, brother mine ! " 
 she replied, with infinite sweetness, and a frank 
 fearless gaze into his flushed countenance. 
 
 He put a great constraint on himself, and they 
 took several turns in silence, while the birds went 
 on twittering, and the wind breathing its calm 
 chant of content and peacefulness.
 
 martin's last week AT HOME. 209 
 
 " I wish we could see something of what is to 
 happen in these absent years, Martin/' were 
 Margaret's next words. 
 
 " I thought I was to find all just the same as 
 I leave it, and that you were to ring Beckford 
 church bells for my coming home," replied Martin, 
 bitterly. " Have you begun to previse changes 
 that are to make Mirkdale a strange place to 
 me?" 
 
 " Nay, I cannot tell." 
 
 Margaret could have told, if she had so willed. 
 She could have told that since he came to Oak- 
 field and she had met him — a child in all that 
 makes the child — a new interest had beam 
 insidiously to wind itself into her life, and to 
 dcvelope in her the sweet feelings of maidenhood ; 
 she could have told that swift coming events 
 were already casting their shadows before upon 
 her path, and that these years of absence looked 
 no more a mere passage way to the great event 
 of his return, but the mysterious, still dark, arena 
 w T herein was to be enacted her own immediate 
 drama of life : but she twice repeated that vague 
 S I cannot tell," then sighed and gazed up into 
 
 vol. I. p
 
 210 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Heaven, where the stars were beginning to peep ; 
 so there fell another silence, for Martin need no 
 longer argne down his heart with prudential 
 maxims or chilling doubts — he saw the truth, or 
 thought he did, and knew his fate was fixed. 
 The twilight grew deeper every moment, the 
 bird-song fainter, until at last Mrs. Joan's voice 
 was heard saying from the window : 
 
 " Come in now, children ; remember, it is our 
 last night together." 
 
 Margaret left them early on purpose, and then 
 the aunt and nephew had a long open-heart talk 
 by the fireside ; she was their last theme. 
 
 "Margaret does not love me, never will love 
 me," said Martin, " so I have held my peace ; 
 she knows nothing." 
 
 " That is right, my brave good boy ; right not 
 to disturb her mind ; you would not have needed 
 words to tell you if it had been otherwise. Gipsy 
 is very affectionate and very frank ; she would 
 have no idea of playing with you." 
 
 " I see that, and it leaves me no loophole for a 
 glimmer of hope. We are brother and sister — 
 but it is a disappointment, Aunt Joan, and a
 
 martin's last week at home. 211 
 
 cruel one. I have loved her ever since I was a 
 lad." 
 
 " You are none the worse for that, Martin ; she 
 is worth it. I may wish it had been otherwise, 
 but as it is, be a man." 
 
 Martin had his head down, and his fingers 
 clenched in his hair; Mrs. Joan did not see his 
 face for several minutes, and when he raised it, 
 at last, it was only to say : 
 
 u I am glad I did not tell her ; it would have 
 done no good. Let us get to bed, aunt."
 
 212 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 GOOD-BYE. 
 
 " Ten minutes to three," said Margaret looking at 
 her watch, "no use to go to bed again. I might 
 sleep too long and miss him. Dear Martin ! " 
 
 She drew the curtains quietly aside, and let in 
 the wan grey dawn. Distinct lay the hills, the 
 moors, the lonely farmsteads : distinct sounded the 
 rush of Blackbeck, distinct the first waking notes 
 in the old trees of the shrubbery. But there was 
 not a sigh of wind ; nature seemed oppressed or 
 languid, and the pale eye of day opened heavily. 
 Martin was to set out on his journey at five 
 o'clock; he and Margaret had bade each other 
 good-bye over-night, but she had promised him she 
 would be up to see him set off. When dressed, she 
 sat by the window in a thoughtful though not 
 melancholy mood ; yet, ever and anon, her throat
 
 GOOD-BYE. 213 
 
 swelled and tears rose in her eyes. Young hearts 
 grow tender over these partings, but let them take 
 their blessed privilege of looking forward and be 
 thankful; that is a consolation that the old dare 
 scarcely claim for theirs. 
 
 By and by, there began a stir in the house — 
 everybody awake, yet everybody going softly. 
 Servants hurrying through their work of re- 
 gular brushing and dusting, that their young 
 master might see no difference from ordinary 
 mornings. 
 
 Then there was the clink of breakfast-things 
 being carried into the pleasant little bookroom, 
 and soon after Mrs. Joan and Martin went down- 
 stairs together, Margaret would not follow im- 
 mediately, but watched the gardener early at his 
 work in the avenue, and Bobbie Clarke coming 
 across to talk to him about mistress's nephew 
 going away — as the Beckford oracle declared — 
 to the dreadfullest of strange lands, where the 
 men were savages, and snakes and tigers were as 
 plentiful as bumblekites in Mirkdale hedges. The 
 domestic women-folk, whom Robbie Clarke had 
 thus instructed, regarded Martin with reverent awe,
 
 214 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 and speculated wildly on his chances of escape 
 from such manifold dangers : they hoped mistress 
 did not know of them, for as he was bound to 
 go and fight his country's battles whether she 
 would or no, it was as well she should not 
 harass her mind with his risks. He must take 
 his chance with the rest, Eobbie told them, but 
 they 'd all be proud of him yet ; and many a 
 coarse yet kindly face watched at door and 
 window, that early May morning, to give him a 
 homely, hearty word as he rode away. 
 
 When Margaret joined them, Mrs. Joan was 
 standing with her two hands resting on Martin's 
 shoulders speaking to him quite cheerfully. The 
 lad himself kept his face turned aside to the 
 window for a moment or two, and then they all 
 sat down to breakfast, Mrs. Joan still support- 
 ing the conversation, and determined to send her 
 dear nephew away in good heart, if it depended on 
 her courageous self-control. The meal was soon 
 over, and then all the household came in to 
 prayers, which Mjs Joan read, perhaps with 
 longer pauses than usual, but still without fal- 
 tering. After this Martin shook hands with
 
 GOOD-BYE. 215 
 
 the servants all round, thanked them for their 
 blunt good wishes and predictions, and then said 
 very quietly — 
 
 " Well, I must go now." 
 
 Margaret and Mrs. Joan saw James bringing 
 his horse round to the door, and did not delay 
 their parting, which was even less painful now 
 taken " sune than syne." " God bless you, my 
 boy ! God bless and keep you ! " and " Good- 
 bye, dear Martin," said the women; then a 
 kiss, a long long strain of the hand, a hasty 
 pulling down of his cap over his eyes, and Martin 
 ran out. 
 
 "I'll write before we sail, Aunt Joan !" cried 
 he, plucking up a spirit as he mounted his 
 horse, for till now he had been almost tongue- 
 tied. "Mind you write too, Margaret! That 
 will do, James ! Good-bye, aunt ; good-bye, Gipsy ; 
 good-bye all ; " and, with a wave of his cap and 
 a sudden flush over his face, he trotted out at 
 the gate, while those two, bravely swallowing 
 their tears that he might not be damped, watched 
 him out of sight. Now that he was gone they 
 could turn in doors, and weep and comfort each
 
 216 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 other as tender-hearted women will: perhaps 
 Martin Carew himself, as he rode under the 
 dewy trees alone on his journey, felt not all his 
 boyhood past, and did not see either earth or 
 heaven very clearly for some little way.
 
 FIEESIDE STORIES. 21 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 FIEESIDE STORIES. 
 
 Three days after Martin Carew's departure from 
 Oakfield, Margaret received a second letter from 
 her father, which had been so long delayed upon 
 its road, or else by Tibbie Ryder at the post- 
 office, that she found he would arrive the same 
 night. It was necessary that she should go home 
 at once, to be ready to receive him on his return 
 to the Grange, and also to send off Anty im- 
 mediately to Middlemoor with Faustus : she there- 
 fore bade Mrs. Joan Clervaux a hurried good-bye, 
 and set off with Oscar to walk home. 
 
 Jacky was in all the throng of churning the 
 week's butter when she reached the house, but 
 she received Margaret's news with satisfaction. 
 
 " Master '11 be home to-nfclit ' " cried she, 
 pleasantly ; " well, indeed, I '11 be fain to see him 
 back, an' you too, bairn ; t' auld house isn't like
 
 218 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 itsel' when either of you 's awa. An' ha' you 
 had a good time doun at Oakfield ? " 
 
 " Yes, Jacky, very ; but I '11 tell you about 
 that by and by. Where is Anty ? " 
 
 " Happen you '11 find him i' t' fauld yard ; but 
 if he 's no' there he '11 be in to his dinner enow." 
 
 Margaret would not wait for the man's ap- 
 pearance, but sought him round the farm until 
 he was found, when she hastened him off to 
 Middlemoor, lest her father should arrive at the 
 Inn and find no horse waiting for him to ride 
 home. Then she returned in-doors and put off 
 her hat in the summer parlour, while Oscar, 
 with a vast sigh of content at finding himself 
 in his old quarters, stretched his great frame 
 across the broad sunny bar that poured through 
 the open window upon the faded floor. How- 
 blank, how empty, the room looked after gay, 
 lightsome Oakfield ! The basket of flowers 
 showed like a speck of brilliant life in a desert, 
 and for a minute or two Margaret felt as if 
 something greatly lacked in the hollow sounding 
 house ; but for a minute or two only. Turning 
 her gaze outwards, there lay before her that
 
 FIRESIDE STORrES. 219 
 
 glorious picture which had made her mind instinct 
 with beauty — bonnie Mirkdale, in all the lustrous 
 richness of early summer. Oakfleld could not 
 match that. A gravelled terrace, a velvet lawn, 
 a screen of trees and shrubs, were soon learnt 
 by heart, but this fiew was ever fresh, ever 
 changing, as the sky, or the wind, or the weather, 
 changed. 
 
 " It is pleasant to be home again, Oscar, after 
 all," said she, aloud ; " eh, boy, don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 Oscar turned a sleepy eye upon her for an 
 instant, as if remonstrating with her for breaking 
 his nap with so unnecessary a question ; but she 
 wanted something to talk to, and flapping her 
 hat in his face bade him get up for a lazy, good- 
 for-nothing, brave old dog. Oscar, however, was 
 not old ; he was only a whelp yet, and perhaps 
 he resented the accusation of antiquity: at all 
 events, he did not quit his sunny lair for his 
 mistress's side as she bade him ; he only stretched 
 out his immense legs and laid his head down for 
 another comfortable snooze. Margaret, therefore, 
 finding he would not come to her, came to him,
 
 220 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 and sitting down on the floor told him a variety 
 of little secrets of no general interest, but 
 which he probably appreciated as highly as they 
 deserved. 
 
 (i There is somebody missing we shall never 
 see again, unless there be a paradise of dogs and 
 horses, Oscar," said she, tweaking one of his 
 sleek ears by way of fixing his attention. " Poor 
 Crosspatch, boy ! " At the familiar name the 
 beast lifted his head suddenly, looked to the 
 door, listened, then dropped his muzzle upon his 
 outstretched paws, whining disconsolately. Mar- 
 garet patted him, sat still and silent a little 
 longer ; and then with a sigh and a rather un- 
 christian ejaculation touching Miss Bell Rowley, 
 betook herself to her room up-stairs. Jacky 
 presently found her out there, and came in to 
 see what she was doing ; she soon spied, or fancied 
 she spied, a shadow of discontent on her fair young 
 mistress's face, and being ever jealous lest she 
 should grow to love any place better than the 
 Grange, she tried to probe the seceret of it by 
 shrewd questions. 
 
 " He was a brave lad, yon Martin Carew. I
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 221 
 
 aye like to see a soldier — Philip Langland, he was 
 a soldier. You and Mistress Joan Clervanx 'ud 
 ha' a sad miss of him after he was gone ? " said 
 she, interrogatively. 
 
 " Yes," returned Margaret with an air of 
 abstraction. Jacky took nothing by her insidious 
 move. 
 
 " That strange gentleman, Colonel Fielding I 
 heard Anty ca' him — is he a soldier too?" per- 
 sisted she ; " ane doesna' see the like o' him i' 
 Mirkdale oft. He minded me o' auld Lano-land ; 
 Braw an' fine he was, but he 'd getten a deil i' his 
 twa een ! " 
 
 " Yes, Colonel Fielding is a soldier, Jacky ; he 
 has fought in India in ever so many battles." 
 Margaret brightened into greater interest now, 
 and, under the old servant's cunning cross- 
 questioning, betrayed much more than she her- 
 self knew she had to betray. 
 
 " And where does he live, this grand Colonel ? 
 Is he his father's eldest son, or a } r oung one among 
 many ? " asked Jacky slily. 
 
 "He is in England now on furlough for three 
 years, and he has gone into Scotland to see his
 
 222 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 own people. He had two elder brothers once, but 
 they are both dead since he went to India — but 
 he has four sisters living, two married and two 
 unmarried." 
 
 Jacky smiled at her accurate information, and 
 inquired further : " an' has he a mother, Mar- 
 garet?" 
 
 (i Yes, and she is coming to Bransby soon. 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux says she was a celebrated 
 beauty once, and they called her Geraldine 
 Favell." 
 
 "That's a bonny name! she'll be rare an' 
 proud o' her son, I '11 warrant. I only saw him 
 once ; but except master and ould Langland, and 
 Philip 'at was killed i' Spain, I don't mind of a 
 man sa' like what a man suld be to look at. An' 
 is he kind spoken? " 
 
 " Oh ! yes, Jacky ! You should have heard how 
 sorry he was for poor Crosspatch ; she might have 
 been his own favourite instead of mine." 
 
 Jacky's curiosity was without stint; she con- 
 sidered herself entitled to know all the private 
 concerns of Sylvan Holt and his daughter ; when 
 she was not voluntarily taken into their confidence
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 323 
 
 she would worm and question until she elicited 
 the heart of every secret ; but once possessed of it, 
 she was silent and faithful as the grave. She 
 continued her interrogatories with a tangible 
 object in view — she wanted to learn exactly how 
 this u grand colonel" stood in Margaret's good 
 graces — she began to think he stood first of all, 
 even before young Martin Carew, the tried friend 
 and favourite companion of so many happy years. 
 
 " That other gentleman wha racle to Deepgyll 
 wi' you, wha was he? A black ill-faured man," 
 she asked. 
 
 " His name is Barlow ; further I know nothing 
 about him," was Margaret's indifferent reply. 
 
 u Parson Wilmot went too, and lile Tom 
 Rowley : you 'd be a gay party so many o' you. 
 An' wha companied wi' you that day ? " 
 
 " Colonel Fielding." 
 
 "Colonel Fielding! How oft did you see him 
 when you were down at Oakfield, Margaret — 
 every day ? " 
 
 "Oh no! only twice. But it was so strange, 
 Jacky, we seemed to know each other and make 
 friends all at once."
 
 224 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " You '11 be fain to see him again, my 
 bonnie ? " 
 
 "I don't suppose I ever shall. It was more 
 than ten years since he had been in Mirkdale 
 before, and it may be twenty before he comes 
 again." 
 
 " You 've seen him twice too oft if you're never 
 to see him again, but that I '11 no' believe. Did 
 Mrs. Joan Clervaux like him? " 
 
 "Yes, everybody likes him except Martin 
 Carew. But why do you say I have seen him 
 twice too often if I never see him again, Jacky ? " 
 
 " Nay, bairn, I can't render an account o' every 
 word I speak — how suid I ? I am glad you ha' 
 had a gay time down at Oakfield, for I doubt 
 we'll be only dull when we get master home. 
 Does he write i' ony sort o' gude spirits ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell what he is feeling or doing, 
 for he says nothing at all about himself; but I 
 hope he is as usual — the letter reads as if he 
 were." And at Jacky's blunt request, Margaret 
 took the letter from her pocket and read it 
 aloud. 
 
 " Paper don't grin or dodder or flush, you see,
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 225 
 
 bairn," was the servant's comment; " it just 
 speaks, and maybe lees. Fra' that bit o' writing 
 ane might say master was hissel' again, but I 
 misdoubt it sorely." 
 
 " Oh ! be quiet, Jacky dear ; I 'm clown- 
 hearted to-day ! You '11 make me cry if you 
 frighten me about my father ! " exclaimed Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 " Don't heed me then, my bairn ! what an 
 auld fule's tongue mine is. But it's as well 
 to see, you know, Margaret, if aught does 
 ail him. You hadn't need be scared for a 
 word or twa. You 're all he has, an' he 's all 
 you ha' o' bluid kin. An kin's nearer than ony 
 friend." 
 
 u Jacky, when you talk in that way a spasm 
 of terror comes over me ! I have no one but 
 him. But I will not listen to you ! Why should 
 he not be as well when he comes home as ever 
 he was ? " 
 
 "Why should he not, indeed? is it for Jacky 
 to say ? I mean only don't be wilfu' blind if he 
 suld not. Tak' you tent o' him an' mak' him 
 tak' tent o' hissel'. He'd gotten a look i' his face 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 226 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEK. 
 
 when lie went awa' that he '11 never lose, it 's my 
 opinion." 
 
 Margaret stood thoughtful and distressed for a 
 little while ; then her natural gaiety and cheer- 
 fulness of temper, which always looked on the 
 "bright side of things, and hoped for the best, 
 returned to her. 
 
 " Jacky, you are a dear old croaker ! " cried 
 she, laying a hand on the servant's rough, red 
 arm, " but I will not be frightened. I am going to 
 be altogether happy when I have my father back, 
 and won't it do him far more good than if I were 
 to go mooning about like daft Ailie at Thorpe- 
 stone? always predicting and foreseeing terrible 
 things that it would make me mad to think of? " 
 
 Jacky shook her head and told Margaret she 
 was a wild bairn, but she did not know but that she 
 was right. 
 
 " Of course, I am right ! If I were to carry a 
 long solemn face to meet him he would say it was 
 a changeling and not Margaret ! " 
 
 " An' you wad' be a changeling surely if you did. 
 Wha expects a long, solemn face from you, Sun- 
 day's bairn that you are ? "
 
 FIRESIDE STOEIES. 227 
 
 "Pray, what difference does my having been 
 born on a Sunday make, Jacky. Is this another 
 of your quaint superstitions ? " 
 
 "Whisht an' I'll tell you what I ha' heard 
 Lady Frances Langland say about it — she had 
 her whims an' her fancies fu' as Strang as any 
 ignorant body o' us a ? Now are you listening ? " 
 
 Margaret nodded acquiescence, so the servant 
 proceeded in a chanting tone. 
 
 " Monday's baim is fair o' face, 
 Tuesday's bairn is fu' o' grace, 
 Wednesday's bairn 's the child, o' woe, 
 Thursday's bairn has far to go, 
 Friday's bairn is loving an' giving, 
 Saturday's bairn works hard for its living, 
 But the bairn that is born on a Sabbath day, 
 Is lucky, and bonnie, and wise, and gay ! " 
 
 " e Lucky, and bonnie, and wise, and gay ! ' " 
 echoed Margaret : " that 's me ! And on what 
 day were you born, Jacky ? — on Saturday ? " 
 
 " On a Thursday, bairn, so the rhyme lees — 
 ha' I far to &'o? I cam' to Wildwood when I 
 was twal' year auld, an' here ha' I lived ever sin'. 
 Ne'er out o' Mirkdale ha' I set foot, an' only ance 
 ha' I been to Middlemoor fair." 
 
 "But you don't know what you may do yet, 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Jacky. You have not lived more than half 
 your life; you may go half round the 
 world!" 
 
 " Yes, if you marry a soldier, Margaret, not 
 else," replied the servant slily ; ( c I 'd be fain 
 to follow you, as Katie out o' Beckford followed 
 Philip Langland's bride. Katie was auld an' 
 stiff, but she had nursed her an' wad go : an' 
 baith mistress an' maid an' Philip hissel they 
 never cam' home to Wildwood ony mair. First 
 he was killed, then his bonnie lile wife she died, 
 and Katie — it shames me to tell it o' a decent 
 Mirkdale body — she got wed to a rampagious 
 horse-soldier. Lady Frances said to me she was 
 all but a man hersel' soon, tramping after his 
 regiment, an' taking a hand in fighting, an' I knaw 
 not what besides!" 
 
 Margaret laughed : " Oh, Jacky ! to think of 
 you perhaps married to a rampagious horse-soldier !" 
 cried she merrily. 
 
 " Wad I demean mysel' ? Katie was aye flighty 
 an' liked men — but to tak' up wi' a horse-soldier. 
 Why, bairn, what are they but murderers every- 
 one ? Has that Colonel Fielding ever killed ony
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 229 
 
 puir things? I 'd ha' asked him an' I had* been 
 yon." 
 
 "Perhaps he has. He looks as if he would not 
 mind doing it in hot blood." 
 
 " Didn't I say he had a deil i' his twa' e'en ? 
 If Jacky's aye to wed 3 give her a man o' peace, 
 pray ! none o' yonr men butchers ! " 
 
 " Then you do intend to marry some day, 
 Jacky?" Margaret said, with a mischievous little 
 smile. 
 
 " What for suld I not — onybody speak straight 
 up for me ? I 'se mak' a gude working Avife for 
 a puir man, suldn't I now ? " 
 
 " Yes, Jacky, I am sure you would. Let 
 me think — there is that miller from Greatorex — 
 Oh, Jacky, you are blushing ! I Ve found you 
 out." 
 
 " Don't be ower sure o' that, Margaret ! He *s 
 been sweet on me for lang, but we sal never 
 put up our horses together i' t' same stable, I 
 knaw. Nay, bairn, I shan't tell ! let me go ! " 
 and with a queer mixture of shyness and shrewd- 
 ness contending on her countenance, Jacky made 
 her escape out of the room, while Margaret, full
 
 230 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 of girlish fun, pressed on her to elicit the mighty 
 secret. To think of Jacky in love, Jacky being 
 courted! great, lumbering, hard-featured Jacky, 
 whose visage only needed a moustache to give 
 her as " rampagious " an air as any horse-soldier 
 that ever rode forth conquering and to con- 
 quer. 
 
 Margaret had resolved to be cheerful, and 
 cheerful she tried to be, but she was very rest- 
 less also. To and fro the house all the afternoon 
 went she ; now singing a verse or two to an 
 old air, then talking to Oscar, and again drop- 
 ping into a thoughtful silence — her father, Martin, 
 and the day at Deepgyll occupying her by turns ; 
 wherever the fit seized her, there she stayed 
 and dreamed it out. The time was very long ; 
 her father, she knew, could not arrive before 
 nine or ten o'clock if he came by the coach 
 to Haward's Cross, and each hour that passed 
 seemed drawn out to double the length of its 
 predecessors. As the day advanced, also, the 
 air changed and darkened as if it were surcharged 
 with thunder, while Fernbro' and Litton Fell 
 slowly shrouded themselves in garments of livid
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 231 
 
 mist : a storm was evidently brooding which 
 only waited for night-fall to burst over the 
 valley in tempestuous force and beauty. The 
 wind at first moaned drearily, then came in 
 piercing yells and shrieks, before whose bitter 
 blast the two stately cedars and the silver fir 
 rocked like fragile reeds, while the great oaks 
 groaned^ and tossed dismally, as if struggling 
 with their [tormentor. Margaret, chilled to the 
 bone, as she paced the long passage on the 
 upper story, whither she had gone to look out 
 over the open country and watch the rising 
 of the storm, folded her maud about her head 
 as if she were on the moor ; that passage was 
 lonelier, wilder, more desolate than the moor, 
 colder too as the wind whistled down it as 
 through a funnel. Jacky missed her young 
 mistress for a couple of hours or more, but 
 towards tea-time she heard her coining down 
 the stairs, and called out to her to stay her 
 wandering feet beside the bright kitchen fire. 
 Margaret looked in, and seeing all clean and 
 orderly, for the day's work was done, she 
 accepted the invitation to enter, saying —
 
 232 SYLVAX HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " I '11 have my tea with you too, if you '11 let 
 me, Jacky ? " 
 
 Jacky was proud of the honour. 
 
 " Let you, my bonnie ! surely I will, an' be 
 fain too!" cried she with rough, tenderness. 
 " Sit you doun in t' settle corner, an' I '11 make you 
 some cakes — what sort will you ha' — griddle-cakes 
 or singing hinnies ? " 
 
 i( Singing hinnies, Jacky — let me help." 
 
 " No, bide still, you 're company ; it 's lang 
 sin' I 've seen you to tak' tea, an' it 's no manners 
 to set you to work when you ha' come at last. 
 Call that gret dog that you pettle so, he's like 
 to ha' his tea wi' his mistress, I knaw." 
 
 Oscar, who was not commonly free of the 
 kitchen until the rest of the household retired 
 to bed, came reluctantly and suspiciously even 
 at Margaret's summons, and when he had got 
 into the middle of the floor, stood with a meek 
 doubtful eye on Jacky for a minute, but, as she 
 neither ordered him out nor charged at him 
 with the rolling pin, he stalked over to his 
 protectress, and made himself exceedingly at 
 home upon the hearth. The singing hinnies
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 233 
 
 were soon compounded and soon baked ; Jaeky 
 placed the round oak table in a convenient 
 position for her company, and made tea in a 
 curious old set of china which was worth more 
 money than she had any idea of. The warmth, 
 the fragrant scent, the scrupulous and delicate 
 cleanliness of all in Jacky's domain made it a 
 far pleasanter place than the summer parlour 
 when a thunder-storm was brewing, and so the 
 company thought. 
 
 "Now, Margaret, reach to : I ha' not made t' 
 singing ninnies only to look at," said Jacky, 
 setting down a ewer full of rich yellow cream 
 that she had just brought from the dairy, and 
 then lifting her own favourite straight-backed 
 chair into the glow of the hearth. Margaret 
 needed no second invitation ; that long march in 
 the corridor had given her a keen appetite ; and 
 both she and Oscar did ample justice to Jacky's 
 dainty providings. 
 
 " We're boun' to ha' a wild night, I doubt," 
 remarked the servant, as the kitchen grew almost 
 dark under the gathering clouds; and a hoarse 
 swell of wind rolled up and broke violently
 
 234 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEK. 
 
 against the house-end. Margaret rose and went 
 to the window to look out at the wrathful sky, 
 wishing aloud that her father were safe at 
 home. 
 
 (i Bide ye still, bairn, an' ha' patience : he can't 
 be here these three hours," Jacky assured her. 
 " T' coach doesn't get to Haward's Cross till 
 seven o'clock : then he 's to walk to t' Auld Horn, 
 an' to ride ower t' moor here. It 11 be full eleven 
 afore we see him." 
 
 (( And there is no chance that the storm will 
 hold off till after that ? " Margaret said. 
 
 " No it '11 come down enow ; but never fear, 
 bairn ! Sylvan Holt is neither sugar or salt ; he '11 
 no melt i' a shower." In fact, before Jacky had 
 finished enjoying her third cup of tea, there came 
 a rattle of hail against the glass, a vivid spear of 
 lightning glanced dazzling across their eyes, and 
 there was a fearful crash of thunder which burst 
 directly overhead and rolled away in harsh 
 reverberations amongst the hills. Margaret 
 cowered back into the settle-corner, shuddering 
 and stopping her ears with her fingers. 
 
 " I was never afraid of the thunder before, but
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 235 
 
 tliat gave me an awful sensation," said she, 
 dropping her hands as the noise died solemnly 
 away. It was not repeated for some minutes, and 
 the silence which ensued was profound, the storm 
 seemed to be taking breathing time for a renewed 
 outbreak after that first terrible overture chord 
 which had made the earth shake. 
 
 " My father used to tell us when we were lile 
 bairns at home that t' thunder was God's voice speak- 
 ing in wrath," Jacky remarked seriously ; " an' I 
 think so too — else why sulci we hold our breath 
 to listen, an' fall into a tremble as we ha' both 
 done? But t' scientific folk ha' quite another 
 explanation for it ; you suld hear Robbie Clarke 
 preaching o' t' wonders of nature." 
 
 " I would rather hear you, Jacky. You must 
 tell me one of your strange stories to beguile the 
 time." 
 
 "Wait till t' storm's owered then; it's weel 
 nigh cleaved me ! Oh ! but it 's awful, bairn ! 
 That was a crack ! " 
 
 They sat quiet for a long while : indeed from 
 the combined uproar of the wind and the rain, 
 their voices must have been inaudible to each
 
 236 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 other had they attempted to speak. Now and then 
 a blast of hailstones came down the wide chimney 
 and dropped hissing into the fire, while the 
 lightning flashed and the thunder succeeded 
 continuously. Oscar, a decided enemy to waste, 
 considerately ate up for his share all the singing 
 hinnies that were left after tea was over, and 
 then he and Margaret adjourned to the front of 
 the house toVatch the progress of the storm while 
 Jacky sided away the cups and plates. Upon the 
 ridge of Litton Fell and the crest of Fernbro' the 
 spear-lightnings were playing dangerously and 
 incessantly, and the air was shaken terribly by 
 the fast following echoes of the thunder. For 
 half an hour the storm raged with violence, 
 twisting and rending the ancient trees on the 
 front, which groaned mightily as if deprecating its 
 fierce wrath. Then it rolled over into Scartondale, 
 and gradually southwards, till the thunder was 
 only a faint, distant rumble, but the blinding 
 white sheets of rain still continued to sweep down 
 like a curtain from the sky. 
 
 " Come back to t' fireside, Margaret, it '11 bide 
 like this all night ! " cried Jacky presently. " If
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 237 
 
 master 's a wise man he '11 sleep at t' Auld Horn, 
 and come home in t' morning." 
 
 " I am quite sure he will never stay away for 
 any rain," replied Margaret, resuming her com- 
 fortable corner of the settle. " Don't you think, 
 Jacky, we should have a fire lighted up in his 
 bedroom ? " 
 
 "An' a rare bonnie lowe suld we ha' for all 
 Mirkdale to see ! " cried Jacky, sharply, " why, 
 bairn, t' chimney's fu' o' auld bird's nests and 
 such like rubbish ! There 's never been a fire 
 in t' Grange sin' you cam' till 't, except i' t' winter 
 parlour, t' kitchen, an' t' brewhouse. A fire, 
 say ye ! I think I see Jacky such a fule as to 
 try t' making o' ane ! Why, t' master 'd fling 
 t' brands fra' ane end o' t' chamber to t' other ! 
 If he 's wet lie '11 come in here an' £et dried, 
 as he 's done a h under' times an' mair ! " 
 
 " Listen, Jacky, ^ there 's some one at the fold- 
 yard gate! Who will it be?" asked Margaret, 
 starting to her feet. 
 
 " It 's Tom housing t' kye : he hadn't need 
 leave 'em out a night the like o' this. If 
 I 'd knawn, I 'd ha' had 'em driven up afore
 
 238 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 t' milking, an' ha' saved my auld legs t' walk doun 
 t' pasture." 
 
 Margaret sat down again with a stifled sigh of 
 impatience. 
 
 " Bless t' bairn, what ails ye that ye can't 
 bide quiet ? " snapped Jacky. a How 's ye to bear 
 up if a trouble suld fall on ye, if ye 're sae weary 
 of just waiting ? You '11 wear your bonnie self 
 to skin an' bones with fidgetting an' fretting ! " 
 
 " I '11 be good now, Jacky, if you will only 
 tell me a story. We 're both ready, Oscar and 
 I, and let it be one of your very best — a true 
 one." 
 
 <s Where 's t' stocking I 'm knitting for t' master? 
 I must ha' my work afore I talk." 
 
 The servant soon found what she wanted, and 
 then, settling herself majestically erect in her 
 stiff chair, she asked Margaret — 
 
 " Ha' ye ever heard tell o' Nesham Hall ? " 
 
 " No, Jacky ; where is that ? " 
 
 " Up o' t' border. My mother was a Scotch- 
 woman, you knaw, an Eliot, an' it's fra her I 
 heard o' Nesham Hall. It was an Eliot owned 
 it when she was a lass, ane o' her kin, a petty
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 239 
 
 laird, wha'd kye, an' sheep, an' a galloway or 
 twa. Here we 'd call him only a yeoman farmer, 
 bnt there he held himsel' a gentleman as high 
 as ony, because he 'd come o' an auld stock : I 
 can't say a gude stock, for them Eliots was as 
 reiving thieves as any on t' border; an' some o' 
 em were all t' better for a righteous hanging, as 
 I ha' heard my mother say, an' she was like to 
 knaw " 
 
 <e Yes, Jacky, but Nesham Hall ? " interposed 
 Margaret, who knew by often experience that 
 unless she checked the story-teller's erratic 
 propensity in the outset she should hear no more 
 of the old border fort that night. 
 
 " I 'm coming to that now. Nesham Hall had 
 been a place o' defence ance, wi' a moat, an' 
 draw-brig, an' portcullis, an' what na' beside to 
 keep out t' enemy, but i' my mother's clay, 
 t' moat was a rank, weedy dyke, they 'd built a 
 stone brig, an', for aught I knaw, made nails o' 
 t' portcullis. But t' stone walls was there, an' a 
 grand farmhouse they made. Robert Eliot was 
 a randy fellow, aye mair blithe at feast an' fray 
 than at biding at hame, an' wi' no manner o'
 
 240 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 respect neither to t' king nor to t' law o' t' land. 
 You sal judge what heed he paid to his ways 
 fra' ane o' my mother's tales about him. 
 
 " Ane morning at breakfast-time a wandering 
 tinkler body came to Nesliam Hall back-door; 
 Robert an' his farm-men were all eating at ane 
 table together, as t' custom is i' that country, when 
 he knocked, looked in t' kitchen, an' asked had 
 they anything i' his way to mend. Now, Robert 
 Eliot was a sudden man, an' he just remembered 
 that about t' same time i' t' last year a tinkler had 
 stolen fra' t' bench outside, where it was set to 
 drip, a bran new copper kettle ; so as soon as 
 he sees t' stranger, he ups wi' an' aith an' catches 
 t' scared body by t' scruff o' t' neck. 'Thou 
 thief! ' cries he, dancing him in amang t' men as 
 if he'd been a lile bairn, f I'll hang thee up enow 
 o' t' highest tree i' Stapler's market-place; ' an' wi 
 that he bid ane o' his fellows bring him a rope : he 
 made a cunning slip knot an' put it round t' 
 tinkler's neck. f Thee '11 steal na' mair copper 
 kettles ! ' says Robbie. T' men thought it a fine 
 play — not taking t' master to be in earnest — an' 
 they followed him as he made t' tinkler run i' t'
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 241 
 
 halter all t' way to Stapler's — a matter o' three 
 miles. T* tinkler was wroth, but na' much 
 feared, for he thought it was only a frolic too, 
 till they cam' right in t' market-place, i' t' midst 
 o' all t' country-side, for it was a gret fair day. 
 Then he began beg Robbie Eliot he would let him 
 gae, ' Nay,' says Robbie ; c I'se boun' to hang thee 
 up o' this tree ; ' an' he trailed him under ane o' 
 three elms that grew i' Stapler's market-place : 
 folks nocked round to see t' sport. ( What 's thee 
 boun' to do wi' t' puir body ? ' asks ane. i I 'se 
 boun' to hang him,' says Robbie, as grave as a 
 judge. i Surely no, says another. ' Surely 
 yes, says Robbie ; an' wi' that he cast t' rope end 
 far over a big branch, an' calls to ane o' his men 
 come help him heave. 'Nay, Robbie, it's murder! 
 let t' fellow gae ! ' cries his cousin. ( He stole my 
 new copper kettle that was to make my brose, an' 
 I'll hang him!' cries Robbie wi' another gret 
 aith. An' he load ha' hanged him too, but when 
 t' folk saw he meant it, they laid hands on him 
 an' held him off, tho' he fought like a lion to 
 get at puir tinkler again. Seeing, at last, he 
 shouldn't be let hang him, he screams out, ' Was 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 it thee stole my copper kettle lira' t' door?' an* 
 t' miserable body falls down o' his knees an' says, 
 'Yes, master.' Then says Robbie, 'Let me ha' 
 Tom Painters' pot an' brush — black paint, Tom, 
 an' I '11 fettle him off.' Nobody gainsaid that, an' 
 when Tom brought his brush an' pot, Robbie 
 gets t' tinkler flat down o' his back, an' paints 
 his face, an' neck, an' hands as black as a coal, 
 an' then he ties him up to a tree to dry i' t' sun- 
 shine. They called that tinkler 'Black Jerry 
 thief to t' day o'his death." 
 
 " But, Jacky, was that the story you meant to 
 tell me when you began about Nesham Hall?" 
 Margaret inquired. 
 
 " No, bairn, it wasn't — that 's to come yet ; 
 but what I mean to tell you happened i' t' same 
 Robert Eliot's time too, an' it shows the bluid 
 he was o' — a graceless, ill-slip o' a graceless stock. 
 "Well, bairn, i' ane o' t' upper rooms at Nesham 
 Hall there was a lady's skull. It lay atop o' a 
 big aik kist, all carved ower t' panels wi' scenes 
 fra' t' scripters, and filled fu' o' women's gear. 
 There was grand gowns o' satin an' velvet all 
 fretted wi' t' moth, an' furs, an' linens, an' rich
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 243 
 
 laces all dropping i' bits. An' besides there was 
 lots o' trinklets and ornaments i' goold an' silver, 
 o' old fashion, but set wi' stones an' pearls o' 
 gret price. Robbie thought ance to sell some 
 o' these precious jewels, but as he was taking 
 'em to Carlisle he was waylaid an' robbed by- 
 two men ; they were hanged for t' deed, and 
 when Robbie got back t' jewels he put 'em away 
 again into t' kist where they was afore. T' 
 story went that lang ago ane o' t' Eliots o' 
 Nesham took off a bonnie English lady an' 
 married her against her will to get her fortune. 
 But her father an' her brothers, thinking she 
 went wi' Eliot o' her own liking, sent after her 
 the aik kist wi' her claithing an' ornaments, an' 
 all her money i' another kist, an' they bid her 
 be told that sin' she had taken up wi' their 
 mortal enemy for her husband, she suld never 
 mair see the face o' ane o' them. An' her mother 
 she cursed her, an' said Eliot suld gie her sorrow 
 to sup. An' sure eneu he did. He squandered 
 her money as if it was chucky stanes, an' when it 
 was all gane he just hated t' sight o' his wife. 
 She fretted an' she pined till her beauty was 
 
 it 2
 
 244 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 lost, and she never brought him a bairn at all. 
 She wad rail at him madly by t' hour, an' ane day 
 she says, f O! I wad I were i' my grave?' 'An' 
 I wad sae too?' says he. '"Wad thee see me 
 dead wi' joy? Then will I surely live to spite 
 thee ! ' cries his wife ; ( and forth fra' Nesham Hall 
 my bones and my kist sal never gae while an Eliot 
 bides master in it!' An' she did live to spite 
 him an' to see him flung fra his horse by his ain 
 door, an' killed on t' spot. But his nephew, wha 
 got Nesham when he died, w r anted to drive her 
 her out. Living she wad not gae, an' it was said 
 he murdered her an' buried her under what was 
 t' kitchen hearthstane. I' my mother's time a 
 woman's skeleton was found there: they carried 
 t' skull an' laid it atop o' t' aik kist, an' left t' rest 
 o' t' bones where they was. Now, Robert Eliot 
 had Nesham Hall then, an' he sware that he'd 
 ha' nae ghaists an' nae skulls i' his house to his 
 knowledge, so ane morning he gave orders that 
 baith kist an' skull suld be flung into t' Millden 
 Pool. e An,' says he in his jeering way, ( to 
 show the lady honour due, though she cam' to 
 Nesham Hall mounted on a pillion an' tied hand an'
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 245 
 
 foot, she shall leave it i' a carriage and four.' 
 They yoked four horses to t' biggest waggon, 
 an' it took five men to cany t' aik kist donn stairs 
 an' put it in : but Robert Eliot wad bring t' skull 
 i' his ain hand. He tossed it upon some straw 
 they 'd set to steady t' kist, making as if it burnt 
 his fingers and cried : ( Now drive away wi' 
 thy deil's load, and mind ye fling it into t' Millden 
 Pool fro t' Blackrigg !' That was t' deepest spot 
 i' t' Pool. Well, t' carter cracked his whip, 
 an' t' beasts tried to draw, but bless you, bairn ! 
 not a hoof could they stir fra' t' grand ! At that 
 Robbie Eliot fell into a gret rage. He cursed 
 an' sware, an' he wi' his men pushed while 
 t' horses pulled ; but it made no odds — t' wheels 
 didn't an' wouldn't stir. It was early i' morning 
 when they began, an' they didn't stop till night- 
 fall. Then says Robert ; ' Carry t' kist back 
 an' put t' skull where ye faund it ; for I perceive 
 that surely they 've to bide at Nesham Hall 
 till we Eliots be all gane ? Now that 's true, 
 Margaret, my mother 'd seen both kist an' skull 
 of 't." 
 
 Margaret was a model listener to old world
 
 246 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 stories. She accepted the wildest and most 
 improbable fictions in perfect good faith, never 
 stooping to question the narrator for explanatory 
 details, or to suggest common-place accidents 
 for upsetting the most slenderly constructed 
 supernatural theories. She had listened to Jaeky's 
 picturesque and romantic lore in this confiding 
 spirit ever since she was a little all-believing 
 child, and it would still have been one of the 
 thoughts the furthest from her mind to attempt 
 to throw discredit on any of her wild tales. 
 Jacky had her vanity ; she liked to see Margaret's 
 face brighten with interest or intelligent surprise ; 
 to see her fine eyes dilate, and her curved lips 
 open with a pretty, breathless terror as the mystery 
 unfolded itself ; and then to see her fall back in her 
 chair and cry, " Tell me another, Jacky, I am 
 sure you cannot be tired yet," was the most 
 enticing flattery in the world. Margaret pleaded 
 as usual for the continuance of the stories, but 
 the servant bade her observe that while they had 
 been talking, the evening had sped, and that the 
 clock was just upon the stroke of ten. 
 
 et An' I must make up t' fire to broil a steak for
 
 FIRESIDE STORIES. 247 
 
 master's supper, an' set t' kettle on," added Jacky, 
 bestirring herself diligently. " You can help me, 
 bairn, if you '11 lay t' cloth on t' little round table 
 ready for him." 
 
 " What here, in the kitchen, Jacky ? " 
 
 " Yes, isn't it as bright as ony palace ? He^'ll 
 be fain of a bit o' fire, for if he's ridden fra' 
 Middlemoor he '11 not have a dry thread on 
 him." 
 
 Margaret accordingly covered the oak tea-table 
 with a fine damask napkin, and set all in order as 
 she was bid. That passed away another ten 
 minutes, and then she knelt down on the hearth 
 by Oscar, who was dreaming, snorting, and growl- 
 ing crossly in his sleep. " What ails you, old 
 boy ? " said she pulling one of his ears gently to 
 wake him, but without effect. 
 
 " Which way does his nose point, Margaret? " 
 Jacky asked. " For they say i' Mirkdale that 
 when a dog dreams like that there's strangers 
 coming to t' house." 
 
 " Oh ! Jacky, what queer fancies you have. 
 His nose points down to Wildfoot." 
 
 " Then your father '11 come that way, and
 
 248 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 may be bring some one wi' him, but if he doesn't 
 lie 's half a stranger himself ! " 
 
 "I wish he were here, for it is raining faster 
 than ever," said Margaret, ensconcing herself 
 by the window and striving to penetrate the 
 murky night. The light of fire and candle 
 danced in the outer darkness, but nothing external 
 was visible, except that once Margaret thought 
 she saw a dusky object moving towards the 
 door, but as it remained swaying to and fro, she 
 at last concluded it to be only a branch hanging 
 over the wall into the foldyard. Jacky had 
 resumed her knitting when all her preparations 
 were in a proper degree of forwardness, and now 
 sat solemnly awaiting her master's arrival : then 
 Margaret came back to the fireside, but she also 
 was quite silent, and through the stillness of tlie 
 vast old kitchen the peevish, sudden blasts of rain 
 against the glass resounded with wearisome 
 monotony.
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S EETUEX. 249 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S EETUEX. 
 
 AVith all their affection, the women were not 
 so quick-eared as Oscar. When the hush 
 within was most profound he suddenly lifted 
 his head, listened, then rose, stretched himself, 
 and stalked to the door. At his first signal 
 Jacky had hastily thrust her knitting into the 
 dresser drawer, and having lighted her lantern, 
 she and Margaret went to the yard-gate by which 
 any one coming on horseback over the moor 
 would enter. 
 
 " Oh! I wish the wind would lull for a 
 moment; I can hear nothing!" cried Margaret 
 impatiently, for just then the storm seemed to 
 have redoubled its fury. 
 
 Jacky bade her " whist," and both listened 
 intently for some seconds. (C That's t' crunch o'
 
 250 
 
 t' carriage wheels!" said the servant; "it '11 come 
 up to t' hall door, bairn. Master's done wisely no' 
 to ride Faustus home through this hurly-burly ! " 
 
 Margaret's heart beat loud and fast as they 
 rapidly traversed the house and issued into the 
 windy porch, whence, through the clouds of 
 driving rain, they descried a carriage drawn 
 by two horses laboriously mounting the rough 
 cart-road to the Grange. The gleaming lamps 
 threw a faint radiance around them in every 
 direction, and showed to Margaret and the servant 
 a pile of heavy luggage on the roof and a second 
 person sitting inside with Sylvan Holt. 
 
 " Why, if Oscar's nose wasn't right ! " exclaimed 
 Jacky in a tone of angry surprise and bewilder- 
 ment which even at that moment made her young 
 mistress smile. " Master's surely gone daft to 
 bring onybody here wi'out a single word o' 
 warning. I couldn't ha' thowt it o' him!" 
 
 There was no time for any further remark, 
 for almost before the vehicle stopped, Sylvan 
 Holt descended from it and clasped Margaret, 
 who had run out to meet him, in his arms. He 
 was followed more deliberately by a small dark
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S RETURN. 251 
 
 man, who, the moment he felt solid ground 
 beneath his feet, began to stamp and to stretch his 
 cramped limbs to revive his benumbed circulation, 
 exclaiming — 
 
 "Thank God, that's over! such roads, such 
 horses. It has, indeed, been a hard tug, Mr. Holt." 
 
 (i So it has, Meddowes, but I warned you what 
 to expect," responded Sylvan Holt grimly, and 
 then he turned to his daughter once more, 
 passed his hand tenderly over her head, which 
 was all wet with the rain, and kissed her warm 
 soft lips, asking if his darling was very glad to 
 see him home again that her eyes were looking 
 so over-bright. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, so glad ! I did not know until this 
 moment how glad I could be ! Come in, come in ; " 
 and clinging fast to his arm she brought him 
 straight through into the kitchen, and set him 
 in Jacky's chair for examination, as she said. 
 The examination was conducted chiefly by kisses, 
 but as there was no change in the manner of 
 their reception, she presently perched herself on 
 his knee, with her arm round his neck, and her 
 soft cheek against his, and declared that he was
 
 252 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 just the same as ever — her own black-browed, 
 stern-visaged, tender-hearted, dear old father. 
 He was as happy as herself to indulge this fond 
 enthusiasm of affection, but at length she sprang 
 up, reproaching herself for forgetting how tired 
 he must be ; so he laid aside his travelling gear, 
 and began to straighten his limbs by a march 
 through and through the echoing kitchen. 
 
 o o a 
 
 i( We have got him back, and he shall never 
 leave us again, shall he, Oscar? Rejoice, old 
 boy!" whispered Margaret to her dog, who was 
 following Sylvan Holt solemnly to and fro, glad 
 to see him again, no doubt, but not showing it 
 exuberantly. For herself she was half-wild with 
 delight, her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed, and 
 she looked the very impersonation of happy 
 youthful loveliness — if the parting had been sad 
 the meeting was infinitely sweet, sweet enough 
 to repay all past anxiety. Her father seemed 
 touched by her warm affection. 
 
 "Come, let me look at my treasure again!" 
 said he, stopping at the firelight for the purpose. 
 After gazing in her beaming face for a minute in 
 silence, he kissed her smooth white forehead, drew
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S RETURN. 253 
 
 lier to his breast, and said, " Thou 'rt more like her 
 than ever ! " and for a moment his eyes glittered 
 as hers had done before. 
 
 Meanwhile the stranger stood in the hall, 
 watching the removal of the luggage by Anty 
 and the driver. Jacky was contemplating him 
 with extreme disfavour. 
 
 " What 's me to do wi' yon doited lawyer 
 body ? I know he 's a lawyer by t' look on 
 him," soliloquized she under her breath. 
 
 The little man must have been singularly 
 quick of hearing, for he promptly solved her 
 difficulty by suggesting — 
 
 " Oh, you may put me anywhere under shelter ; 
 in the hayloft, if you like." 
 
 Jacky stared in astonishment, thinking surely 
 the man could not be canny to have such long 
 ears, and then said with great asperity — 
 
 " It 's t' best lodging you 're like tc get at 
 VTildwood Grange this night, unless you choose 
 to lie upo' t' lang settle i' t' house-place, if Oscar '11 
 only let ye bide there ; but he 's no favourer o' 
 strangers, isn't Oscar." 
 
 The new comer was rather surprised at being
 
 254 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEE. 
 
 so literally understood, but lie refrained from 
 answering ; and when the boxes, portmanteaus, 
 and travelling bags, were all brought in-doors, 
 he dashed out to the carriage, examined every 
 pocket, lifted every cushion, and peeped under 
 both seats, in quest of any waifs or strays that 
 might have been overlooked, and finding none, 
 he returned into the hall, picked out from the 
 luggage a square tin box, and marched through 
 into the kitchen with it : 
 
 " For all t' world," said Jacky, indignantly, " as 
 if t' Grange belanged to himP 
 
 As he entered, Sylvan Holt and Margaret were 
 still standing together upon the hearth ; his 
 hands were resting heavily on her shoulders, 
 and she was gazing up into his face with the 
 most affectionate scrutiny. 
 
 " This is her daughter, Meddowes," said he, 
 turning her round abruptly to confront the stranger, 
 (S you would have seen the likeness in her face, 
 would you not? Shake hands, Maggie, he is 
 the faithfuliest friend thy father has found in 
 the world — the only one he can swear will 
 prove a faithful friend to thee."
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S RETURN. 255 
 
 Mr. Meddowes bowed low over the shy little 
 hand that was immediately extended towards 
 him and muttered a few awkward, almost in- 
 audible words of compliment, after which he 
 retreated to the lang-settle and deposited thereon 
 himself and his tin box without encountering any 
 remonstrance whatever from Oscar. Indeed, so 
 far from supporting Jacky's insinuation, when 
 she returned to the kitchen, intent on her 
 culinary duties, she found the lawyer and the 
 staghound on terms of great amity; Oscar was 
 even submitting to be caressed and to have his 
 ears played with by him, a most remarkable 
 instance of urbanity. 
 
 Sylvan Holt had again betaken himself to 
 pacing the kitchen floor, with Margaret beside 
 him ; they were talking softly of various incidents 
 that had occurred during their separation, and 
 Mr. Meddowes, that his presence might be as 
 little as possible a restraint on them, concentrated 
 his attention on the steak that Jacky was cook- 
 ing; to admiration. She little thought his know- 
 ledge in that branch of the art was as practical 
 and perfect as her own ; perhaps if she had,
 
 256 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 she would not have felt it necessary to keep 
 such a strict though furtive watch upon him as 
 he detected her doing. 
 
 " I hope there 's nought amiss wi' him," said 
 she to herself, " he 's getten a queer uncanny 
 look as ever I saw. What a gret forehead he 
 has, an' them eyes o' his are i' twenty spots at 
 once. I wish he 'cl laugh or speak, or do any- 
 thing but spy." 
 
 Jacky was of a morally suspicious temper, and 
 was much inclined to see treachery in the lawyer's 
 swift but stealthy looks and ways, but if she 
 had heard her master's panegyric on his character 
 she could scarcely have done him that injustice, 
 evilly disposed as her mind was towards him 
 on account of his unexpected arrival. When 
 she had set supper on the table, and seen the 
 travellers settled to the enjoyment of it, she 
 retired up-stairs to devise some expedient for 
 his accommodation ; but, after opening door after 
 door to rouse only dust and spiders, she was 
 at last forced despairingly to acquiesce in her 
 own first sus^estion that he must lie on the 
 lan^-settle for that nigHt at least. She took
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S RETURN. 257 
 
 from the chest an armful of blankets, lavender- 
 scented sheets, and trudged with them to the 
 kitchen, where she cast them down on the dresser 
 with a lamentable groan. Jacky hated to be 
 put out of her way; she was a machine that 
 worked well and heartily in its own accustomed 
 fashion, but creaked miserably when pressed in 
 its speed. Supper was over, and Oscar was 
 disposing of its relics while the rest of the 
 party had drawn domestically round tne fire ; 
 something there was in this comfortable arrange- 
 ment — added to the grand grievance of which 
 she had received no more authentic warning than 
 Oscar's disturbed dreams — that quite upset the 
 small remains of her temper. She demanded 
 sharply, were they going to sit there till to-morn? 
 Didn't they see it was going on to one o'clock ? 
 Then she lighted Margaret's candle and bade 
 her go off and get a good beauty sleep, and told 
 Mr. Meddowes that if he would shift himself 
 and his box she would see to making him up a 
 bed. 
 
 The lawyer, wonderstruck, immediately com- 
 plied, but Margaret was restive and would not 
 
 vol. i. s
 
 258 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 stir a step until her father did. She coaxed 
 him to walk about again, and then whispered a 
 reminder of his promised explanations. 
 
 '• Not now, Maggie ; give me a few days' rest, 
 and you shall know all," replied he in the same 
 subdued tone, while a most painful expression 
 contracted his grey face. She was sorry she had 
 mentioned the old subject, and on Jacky's 
 reiterating her advice, she kissed him fondly, 
 bade good-night, and went to bed. 
 
 " Is this the best accommodation you can 
 provide for my friend, Jacky?" Sylvan Holt 
 asked, as the servant was proceeding to fold 
 blanket after blanket and lay them along the 
 settle to supply the place of a mattress. 
 
 " Either this or t' hay chamber," replied 
 Jacky curtly ; " but he '11 lie safer and warmer 
 here." 
 
 Mr. Meddowes, though he was contemplating 
 the preparations for his repose with internally 
 dismal forebodings, tried to protest that he should 
 be quite comfortable, and made an apology to 
 Jacky for intruding into her sanctuary which 
 mollified her acrimony in some degree ; nobody
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S RETURN. 259 
 
 likes to have a trouble undervalued, and the 
 servant took pains to show that she considered her 
 present task a trouble of no small magnitude. 
 The lawyer had discovered the important position 
 she held in the household, and taken her personal 
 estimate of it and herself accurately and promptly ; 
 her hard-featured blunt face was a good index 
 to her character, and his first verdict thereon 
 did not on better acquaintance call for recon- 
 sideration. 
 
 " A Scotch tongue and moral grafted on broad 
 Yorkshire shrewdness ; much sagacity, obstinacy, 
 and self-sufficiency, indomitable courage and 
 fidelity, and a warm-heartedness, rough outside 
 but sweet to the core, like one of her own russet 
 pippins ;" — he certainly did her more justice 
 than in her present humour she was likely to 
 do him. 
 
 " You and I have fared worse than this, Med- 
 dowes. You '11 remember our makeshifts of five- 
 and-twenty years ago in your dreams — Spain, and 
 that intolerable auberge at Aries," remarked 
 Sylvan Holt. 
 
 Mr. Meddowes endeavoured to look amiably 
 
 s 2
 
 260 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 unconscious of the difference five-and-twenty 
 years make in a man's enjoyment of discomforts, 
 and said lie wished lie might, but he should try 
 to make the rattling shutters fast before he 
 thought of sleep, for they reminded him of an un- 
 pleasant adventure in the Pyrenees, where he 
 should always think he had had a narrow escape 
 of being murdered in his bed for the sake of a 
 handsome rifle and seven gold pieces. There 
 were many allusions to former travels, but no 
 full details, and the storm filled up the frequent 
 pauses. 
 
 "You don't often hear the wind like this in 
 your close quarters at home, Meddowes ? " Sylvan 
 Holt said, as it came violently against the house- 
 end. The lawyer replied no, not often, and 
 Jaeky muttered something about wishing that 
 the ill-wind that had blown him there would blow 
 him away again, for she was at her wit's end for 
 pillows to conclude her preparations; she rolled up 
 another blanket, covered it with a sheet, and 
 saying sharply, " That's t' best I can do for you, 
 at any rate ; " began to rake out the kitchen fire 
 with vehemence.
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S RETUEX. 261 
 
 " My good soul, let it be," whispered Med- 
 dowes ; " I don't like to be left in the dark." 
 
 " You can ha' a candle — I always put out t' 
 fire afore I sleep," was the sturdy response, and 
 she continued her operations. Sylvan Holt 
 apparently considered the matter too insignificant 
 for his interference, for bidding his guest resign 
 himself philosophically to the force of circum- 
 stances, he wished him good-night, and left him 
 to improve his acquaintance with the servant. 
 
 " I promise you to see the fire out before closing 
 my eyes," persisted Meddowes, with touching 
 humility. 
 
 " I ha' found men 's no' to be trusted ; " and 
 Jacky raked on until every bit of live coal was 
 strewn upon the hearth ; then she rose erect, 
 straightened her obstinate neck, and gave the 
 stranger a sharp, defiant glance. But Jacky 
 had met her match in the quiet lawyer ; as she left 
 the hearth he coolly possessed himself of the 
 shovel, and drew the coals and cinders together. 
 
 " You 're not surely going to keep t' fire burning 
 up o' t' hearthstone !" cried Jacky ; "what man- 
 ners is that i' a strange house ? "
 
 262 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " Yes, I am," replied Meddowes ; " unless you 
 prefer that I 'should keep it burning in the grate." 
 
 " It '11 soon go out — there's nae mair fuel i' t' 
 house place!" and Jacky looked solidly trium- 
 phant at outwitting him. 
 
 " Yes, there's an old chair," insinuated the dark 
 gentleman, pointing significantly at the servant's 
 peculiar property. 
 
 " You wadn't surely go to break up t' furniture ? " 
 exclaimed she ha unfeigned horror. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! — doors, anything ! " responded Med- 
 dowes gravely. 
 
 " Then tak' your ain way ; you beat all ever 
 I saw ! " snapped Jacky, and with a great deal 
 of unnecessary noise she restored the coals to the 
 grate and brought the wood basket from a closet; 
 " There ! set t' Grange a fire if you've a mind to ! " 
 added she. 
 
 "Never do anything so unnecessary," replied 
 Meddowes. " By the by, have you often storms 
 as violent as this up here ? " 
 
 Jacky was sulky, but she condescended to 
 answer after feigning not to hear, and causing 
 the question to be repeated.
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S RETURN. 263 
 
 " Sometimes we lia' worse, i' harvest time 
 chiefly. I ha' seen fields o' ripe corn laid as flat 
 as t' floor." 
 
 " The wind makes a wonderful noise all round 
 the house ; it ought to be strongly built to stand 
 this sort of thing often." 
 
 " It is strongly built. They didn't run up 
 places o' lath an' plaster when Wildwood Grange 
 was made. Bui speaking o' t' wind. You suld go 
 up to t' top story, i' t' corridor, where Margaret 
 took her walk this afternoon. I 'd rather be up o' 
 t' moor mysel'." 
 
 " Your mistress is a beautiful young creature to 
 be secluded here ; it must often be terribly dull 
 and lonely for her." 
 
 "Margaret Holt's t' flower o' all Mirkdale, 
 but as for her being lonesome, I don't see how 
 that can be when she has her father, an' mysel', 
 an' Mrs. Joan Clervaux, besides them that come 
 an' go to her house. She never made no plaint to 
 me ; she 's o' doors most days wi' this gret dog o' 
 hers, an 's very blithe an' frolicsome — eh ! she 's 
 wild sometimes, I tell her. It's ony lately she 's 
 turned a bit serious about her father — there's
 
 264 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 something ails him for certain, but what it is wha' 
 knows ? " 
 
 Mr. Meddowes was staring contemplatively at 
 the fire, and did not respond to this feeler. Jacky 
 therefore said no more, and presently after, having 
 concluded her domestic labours, she sourly bade 
 him good-night and left him to his cogitations or 
 slumbers, muttering as she shut the door, " I 'm 
 far fra' sure o' him, but it's not much mischief 
 he can do wi' Oscar lying there, unless he's 
 getten a charm to bewitch him wi', an' I wadn't 
 be him to try it on t' beast if I valued my life : 
 however I'm not going mount guard over him ; if 
 master will bring such like cattle home he must 
 watch 'em himselV
 
 LAWYER MEDDOAVES. 265 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 LAWYER MEDDOWES. 
 
 The first thing the lawyer did when he found 
 himself alone was to rise from his seat with a 
 jerk, exclaiming, emphatically: 
 
 " I had no conception of this dreary old rats' 
 castle ! How can a sane man vegetate here when 
 Abbey meads is standing empty and Rushfall is 
 going to rack and rain? Oh, that miserable 
 woman accounts for it all ! Why did the fool 
 ever run his head into matrimony ? " 
 
 Mr. Meddowes was a bachelor — some of his 
 friends said, an intense old maid — but, at all 
 events, he was a man with as little sentiment 
 and as little romance as a good man can have. 
 He would tell you he knew right and wrong, 
 honesty and treachery, and that he could ap- 
 preciate genuine family affection, but for fine 
 feelings and passionate professions, lie thought
 
 266 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 them mere trash and lumber on tlie way of 
 human life, and would gladly have seen them, 
 to use his own expression, carted off it straight- 
 way and pitched into Lethe. He was often 
 a harsh censor, because, having few weaknesses 
 himself, he could not be lenient to the weak- 
 nesses of others: to hear him speak sometimes 
 you might have thought he was a man without 
 a heart, had not all his acts tended to disprove 
 the libel ; his colleagues said of him that with 
 all his ability he had too many fastidious whims 
 and altogether too much of the woman in him 
 to push rough-shod over other folk's misfortunes 
 to reap his harvests, and that he would never 
 become a rich man by his profession. This 
 was likely enough, for, as a rule, he carried his 
 hand in his pocket and was always giving; in 
 fact, he was satisfied with his means and his 
 career, and, being a solitary man, had no wish 
 to leave anything behind him but his good 
 name. He possessed the true talisman of suc- 
 cess, however his use of it might be regarded. 
 All who came within the sphere of his influence 
 he won, and the tact he had in mastering strong
 
 LAWYER MEDDOWES. 267 
 
 unruly wills was, to say the least of it, remark- 
 able. That he should have gained the entire 
 respect and confidence of a misery - embittered 
 man like Sylvan Holt speaks for his strong moral 
 power. 
 
 His present situation was unusual decidedly, 
 and after a moment's contemplation of his im- 
 promptu bed, not all his compassionate respect 
 for Sylvan Holt, or all his admiration for Mar- 
 garet, could prevent him from crying aloud that 
 they lived like savages in that out-of-the-way 
 place. He would have been extremely glad to 
 have found himself within reach of his own 
 comfortable four-poster, for though he had sug- 
 gested the hayloft to Jacky, he was one of the 
 last men in the world to accommodate himself 
 to primitive modes of existence ; Sylvan Holt's 
 reference to their foreign makeshifts five-and- 
 twenty years ago was only prompted by the 
 recollection how very ill he had supported them 
 even then. As he groaned in spirit over his 
 strange lodging, the fire gradually died out, and 
 under the glimmer of a single candle the vast 
 kitchen looked far from cheerful. The remote
 
 corners seemed indefinably mysterious, an ancient 
 clock whirred and ticked lioarsely by the door, 
 and the windows, spite of his attempts to fasten 
 them, rattled peevishly, as if an impatient hand 
 shook them from without, and every timber hi 
 the old Grange creaked and groaned as if its 
 hour of destruction was come. Presently he 
 grew weary and sleepy, but he could not fashion 
 to dispose of himself on the settle at all, so he 
 seated himself in Jacky's chair, and tried to take 
 repose there. But for a long time the attempt 
 was useless, and when, at last, weariness over- 
 came him, his slumbers were pestered with the 
 wildest and most improbable dreams. Jacky was 
 fighting him for the possession of the tin box to 
 light her fire with, then she was tucking him 
 up in a child's crib which suddenly turned into 
 a clock-case full of creeping things innumerable. 
 Again, he was in a chaise going at a break-neck 
 gallop over hill and dale, and his impression was 
 that he was going this awful pace to be married 
 to Jacky. Then the chaise was overturned, and 
 he came down with a terrible crash upon the 
 floor and woke. Oscar sprang up and growled
 
 LAWYER MEDDOWES. 269 
 
 over him menacingly, as if demanding what he 
 meant by conducting himself in so unseemly a 
 fashion in the dead of the night, hut presently he 
 let him get up and resume his uneasy chair. 
 
 " I never did believe in ghosts before, though 
 I was afraid of 'em, but I 'm sure this place is 
 haunted," muttered the lawyer. " Oh, my bones, 
 my poor aching bones ! "
 
 270 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 AT THE GRANGE. 
 
 " How long is t' strang-e gentleman likings to 
 bide up at Wildwood, master?" Jacky inquired, 
 waylaying Sylvan Holt for the purpose as lie 
 came out of his room the next morning. He 
 said he positively could not tell. 
 
 " Then what 's me to do wi' him ? He can't 
 lie nowhere every night, and there 's not a spare 
 bed i' t' house ? He 's a delicate bit o' a body 
 as ane may see, an' he '11 no' put up with make- 
 shifts wi' as good a grace as some o' us. What 's 
 he here for ? Where did you pick him up ?" 
 
 But Sylvan Holt was now out of hearing, or 
 at least out of answering distance, and therefore, 
 the questions which safely vented Jacky's bit 
 of temper did not provoke the furious retort 
 that she might have received at another time. 
 
 Sylvan Holt seemed to have laid aside his
 
 AT THE GRANGE. 271 
 
 former savage mood, but there was an expression 
 of profound weariness and melancholy in all 
 his gestures and all his movement. He went 
 into the porch and stood Tor some time looking 
 down into the hollow of the valley, where the 
 swollen course of Blackbeck showed amongst 
 the trees. The rain had ceased several hours 
 before, but there were dark watery masses of 
 cloud blowing to and fro the sky, and the 
 land was sodden and drenched. Presently he 
 paced across the turf towards the road, and 
 Margaret, who had been watching for him from 
 her window, discerned a slight inclination in 
 his frame, a stoop of the shoulders which was 
 new to her. Age seemed to have crept upon 
 him unawares, and the wind lifted the grey 
 hair from his massive forehead and scattered it 
 as irreverently as if it had been toying with 
 the sunny locks of an innocent child. There 
 was something so unlike her father in this 
 appearance of self-neglect or forgetfulness, and 
 something withal so dejected in his whole air, 
 that Margaret was painfully touched, and hastily 
 tying on her hat, she ran out to him crying —
 
 272 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEK. 
 
 " Wait for me, dear father ! I am coming." 
 
 He did not hear her, for he continued to 
 descend the lane by the woodside without 
 stopping. She soon overtook him, and linking 
 her arm affectionately through his, she began to 
 tell him how glad she was to have him safe at 
 home with her. 
 
 " It cheers me too to hear my little daughter's 
 voice once more, because it is always trilling 
 and happy," said he, patting her hand ten- 
 derly. 
 
 " It was a long day yesterday, waiting for 
 you, father. I hope if you have ever to go 
 away again, you will take me with you." 
 
 " I may safely promise that, Maggie, for I 
 have made my last pilgrimage. You have 
 had trouble since I left you? Crosspatch is 
 dead." 
 
 "Yes — don't let us talk about her now. She 
 is buried up there, and Martin Carew cut her 
 name in the bark of one of the trees. Martin 
 Carew is gone away to India with his regiment, 
 did I tell you that before, father?" 
 
 " You said he was under orders before I left,
 
 AT THE GRANGE. 273 
 
 Maggie, and you mentioned it again in your 
 letter." 
 
 Sylvan Holt glanced anxiously in his daughter's 
 face, but it was so placid and quiet that any 
 disturbing thought he might have had concerning 
 her was set at rest. Her old playfellow's presence 
 or absence was not an hourly recurring joy or 
 pain, as he had once almost feared to find it. 
 They were silent until they reached Wildfoot, 
 and then they sat down together on the stile. 
 
 " You have told me nothing yet of your 
 journey, father?" Margaret then said, hesitat- 
 ingly. 
 
 " There will be time enough to talk about it 
 by-and-by ; for the present, I have many other 
 things in my mind, Maggie, and you must ' be 
 patient." 
 
 He appeared to shrink from the subject with 
 such violence of repulsion, that she was almost 
 as glad to leave it as himself; still the fact of 
 there being an acknowledged reserved theme 
 between them was a restraint. Margaret would 
 have chosen, perhaps, to hear it discussed and 
 banished at once, but her father had not nerve 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 to enter even into an ontline of events, which 
 must inevitably shock and grieve her more than 
 anything life had yet inflicted upon her: so he 
 waited, and it shortly happened that the hard 
 
 task was taken out of his hands, and rudely 
 
 * 
 
 performed by one who had no interest in it but 
 curiosity. 
 
 While they were still seated on the stile they 
 saw Mr. Meddowes, tin box in hand, carefully 
 picking his way down the hill towards them. 
 Sylvan Holt and his daughter had been so long 
 habituated to their unceremonious and primitive 
 mode of living, that it did not occur to either 
 of them to inquire particularly after their guest's 
 last night's rest. Sylvan Holt nodded absently, 
 and Margaret asked him how he liked their 
 valley — did he not think it beautiful? But the 
 lawyer, a Londoner born and bred, was no en- 
 thusiast for rural scenes, and his disturbed slum- 
 bers had not conduced to put him in a frame 
 of mind to enjoy a raw damp morning ; he was, 
 in fact, both peevish and sour, and he wanted 
 his breakfast, so his reply was not very gracious. 
 He said Mirkdale appeared to him rather dreary
 
 AT THE GRANGE. 275 
 
 than otherwise, and he certainly should not like 
 to live in it. 
 
 " Oh ! you should see it in August when the 
 moors are in bloom," Margaret assured him ; 
 " then you would admire it." 
 
 " I prefer London to the country at all seasons," 
 said Meddowes, obstinately. " Somebody once 
 declared he could see no difference between one 
 green field and another — well, I am of that some 
 body's opinion whoever he was." 
 
 "Then suppose we all go in-doors," was 
 Margaret's cheerful reply ; so they walked back 
 to the Grange, where the lawyer gradually re- 
 covered his natural amenity of temper as Jacky's 
 excellent breakfast appeased his hunger. He 
 softened so far as even to allow that there might 
 be some things in which Mirkdale surpassed 
 London, and instanced as one the richness and 
 sweetness of its cream; and then he entertained 
 Margaret by telling her some of the tricks that 
 were played with innocent milk, flour, sugar, and 
 other comestibles. Margaret wondered that the 
 people who consumed them were not poisoned, and 
 said how wicked a place London must be ! But 
 
 T 2
 
 276 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 immediately after remembering all that Colonel 
 Fielding had told her of its gaieties and glories, 
 she added, that it must be very delightful too, and 
 hoped that some day she should see it. Sylvan 
 Holt had hitherto remained buried in silence, but 
 at this novel sentiment he looked up in his daugh- 
 ter's face, and said, " See London, Maggie ! what 
 has possessed you with that fancy ? I brought you 
 up to love Wild wood ! " 
 
 " And so I do love Wildwood, dear father, but 
 still I should like to see the Court and some of the 
 grand balls," persisted she. 
 
 Mr. Meddowes smiled, (i You will live to do 
 that, I daresay, and to sicken of it very heartily," 
 replied he. 
 
 " Do people ever tire of London, then ? It 
 seems strange they should, when there must 
 always be so much that is beautiful and 
 new." 
 
 "Nothing is new long — a gay London life 
 would prove the sorest drudgery to you. You 
 would never get a comfortable night's rest — " 
 and the charms of that, with his recent experience 
 of the Grange kitcnen and Jacky's high-backed
 
 AT THE GRANGE. 277 
 
 chair, recurred in vivid contrast to the lawyer's 
 memory. 
 
 " You would be out of your element in fashion- 
 able society, Maggie," said her father. " Depend 
 upon it, Mirkdale suits you best and always will. I 
 would not trust her — trained as she has been — 
 in that intoxicating, selfish whirl, Meddowes, for 
 millions ! " 
 
 " Country lilies and roses soon fade in our 
 atmosphere," added the lawyer, glancing at 
 Margaret, and then touching his own parchment 
 cheek significantly. She laughed, and innocently 
 appropriating the compliment, said she did not 
 think there was any risk for hers at present — she 
 longed to see Loncfon, just as she used formerly 
 to long to see Cinderella's ball and pumpkin 
 coach. 
 
 " I 'm glad to hear it ! Dream of Vanity Fair 
 afar off, if you like ; but beware of setting your 
 innocent little foot into any of its booths, that is 
 my sage counsel. Mirkdale has the better air for 
 spring flowers," said Meddowes. 
 
 Here Jacky came in at the summons of the bell 
 to remove the breakfast things, and fixing her
 
 278 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 shrewd grey eye on the lawyer, she sternly 
 addressed him. " So it didn't please you to sleep 
 in t' bed I 'd made up for you upo' f lang settle, 
 why couldn't you say so ? " demanded she, with 
 an air of being excessively disgusted at his 
 pride. 
 
 " Oh ! my excellent creature, don't say a word 
 about it ! I did exceedingly well, thank you ! " 
 protested Meddowes, hastily, for he did not wish 
 Sylvan Holt or his daughter to know how tenderly 
 sensitive he had been to his nocturnal discom- 
 forts. 
 
 " You didn't do exceedingly well, so where's t' 
 use o' saying so ? " responded Jacky, waspishly. 
 " You'll not have f chance o' t' settle again, 
 I can tell you, for I sal gi'e you a bed elsewhere 
 an' sleep on it mysel'." 
 
 Meddowes was internally thankful ; he foresaw 
 that he was going to succeed to Jacky's own 
 sacred couch, which, even if located in one of the 
 ruinous chambers, would be, he never doubted, 
 stuffed with the very best of goose feathers. But 
 for once the lawyer was mistaken in his previsions. 
 Later in the day Jacky met him alone in the hall,
 
 AT THE GRANGE. 279 
 
 and conveying him np to the third story, threw 
 open the door of a vast wilderness room, and 
 pointing £o a hard narrow pallet in the remotest 
 corner said, " Now, that's where you '11 ha' to lie 
 to-night — it's clean an' sweet, an' if t' rats don't eat 
 you — for which there's sma' temptation — an' t' 
 chimney stack don't fall through t' roof, as it 
 threatened to do last night, you'll tak nae harm, 
 tho' you are so nesh. T' rain doesn't come 
 in at yon far corner." Meddowes quaked in 
 silence, and Jacky was avenged.
 
 280 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 A REVELATION. 
 
 Breakfast being over Margaret hovered about to 
 see what her father was going to do with himself, 
 but finding that he showed no disposition for 
 going out of doors again, she proposed to Oscar 
 that they two should have a walk on the 
 moor. 
 
 " Would you really walk in such threatening, 
 rainv weather ? " asked Meddowes sdancinff at 
 the lead-coloured clouds. 
 
 " Yes ; it is wild and stormy, but when I am up 
 on the ridge of the fell, it is grand to watch the 
 changes in the valley : will you go ? " 
 
 " No, thank you ; no, thank you, indeed, my 
 dear young lady ! " replied the lawyer, shuddering ; 
 " besides I have some work on hand that will not 
 permit me to take holiday to-day, and I am afraid
 
 A REVELATION. 281 
 
 you must also forego your expedition for a short 
 period. Mr. Holt, we promised to go to business 
 straightway, did we not? and your daughter's 
 presence is necessary, I think." 
 
 " Yes, Maggie, you must stay here, we want 
 you," said Sylvan Holt, nervously. " Make the 
 matter as brief as possible ; tell her no more than 
 needs at present — the rest may come another 
 time." 
 
 " Certainly, certainly. Will you be pleased to be 
 seated, Miss Holt ? " and the lawyer drew a third 
 chai^to the table. 
 
 " But what do you want with me ? " Margaret 
 asked, glancing at her father, who was leaning 
 over the table with his face hidden in his hands. 
 She felt bewildered and uneasy, as if some calamity 
 were threatening her. 
 
 "Nothing very terrible," replied Mr. Med- 
 dowes ; i( my intelligence would please some girls, 
 but I almost think you are above being affected 
 by it. I only want to tell you what a rich 
 heiress you are, and then to go into a few 
 necessary details." 
 
 Margaret's colour deepened, and she sat down,
 
 at the same time drawing a little nearer to her 
 father and resting her hand upon his arm, while 
 Oscar, not at all comprehending why his beloved 
 mistress was entrapped into staying quietly there 
 instead of taking her usual ramble out-of-doors with 
 him, placed himself majestically at her elbow to 
 keep an eye on the proceedings of the strange 
 gentleman. 
 
 "You may perhaps be surprised at the sud- 
 denness of my announcement," said the lawyer ; 
 "but really there is nothing in it; instead of 
 merely inheriting Wildwood at your father's 
 death you must also inherit his other property — 
 Abbeymeads, Rushfall, and Brightebank ; " at the 
 mention of her father's death, Margaret's eye 
 travelled with a flickering of pain towards him, 
 but still she did not speak — her heiresship was the 
 vaguest of vague ideas to her — but the idea of 
 losing him was terrible. 
 
 u Further you must be informed that you are 
 left absolutely in control of everything without 
 any reserves, or pledges, or conditions, so that 
 you could alienate all your possessions the day 
 after you received them if you chose; neither
 
 A REVELATION. 283 
 
 are you encumbered with guardians or advisers of 
 any kind." 
 
 " But you need never forget that you have 
 two proved friends in Mrs. Joan Clervaux and 
 Meddowes here/' interposed Sylvan Holt. 
 
 "And, of course, we all hope you will be 
 an experienced woman before you are called 
 on to support your dignities," said "the lawyer, 
 " neither need we lose sight of the probability 
 that they may ultimately rest on other shoulders 
 better able to bear them." 
 
 Sylvan Holt looked up impatiently, and bade 
 him keep to the point and not wander off into 
 generalities. 
 
 "Enough said, Mr. Holt, I will; but it is 
 only right to mention such contingencies." 
 
 Another vexed gesture from the master caused 
 him to turn again to Margaret, and to proceed 
 with a slight inflection of sarcasm in his voice, 
 though there was no trace of it in his countenance. 
 " Many years ago, Miss Holt, circumstances 
 occurred which made your father out of love 
 with all the pomps and vanities of the world, 
 and drove him to take refuge in this seclusion.
 
 284 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 What those circumstances were I need not explain, 
 though I must ever deplore their results both 
 to him, to yourself, and to all who depended upon 
 his example and encouragement " 
 
 Sylvan Holt's dark blood rose, and he took 
 the words angrily out of the lawyer's mouth : 
 " Meddowes, you are a fool ! " exclaimed he, 
 without any circumlocution. " Did I bring 
 you here to preach ? There is one thing for 
 you to understand, Maggie, and at present, 
 one only — and that is the heavy burden that 
 must come upon you when I am gone. I have 
 thrust it aside, and I leave you free to do the 
 same, if you choose. I believe you would be 
 happier without this laborious grandeur, but 
 Meddowes says, no, you must make your trial 
 and use your rights. Well, use them or give 
 them up, whichever you prefer ; I place no restric- 
 tions in your way — none." 
 
 " And I trust she will not be so cowardly 
 as to hide her talent, and creep away from the 
 station to which she is called," said the lawyer. 
 
 Margaret seemed rather troubled and bewildered 
 than otherwise, but all she said was, " Oh ! father,
 
 A REVELATION. 285 
 
 I wish I had been educated as other women are ! 
 I am not fit for any place but Wildwood ! " 
 
 " And I should be very glad to think you 
 would always stay there," replied her father, 
 earnestly. 
 
 Meddowes shook his head : " No, no ; we will 
 not listen to that poor suggestion ; one sacrifice 
 is enough," said he. " Such seclusion is neither to 
 be expected nor desired ; young birds must fly. 
 And as for the education question, Miss Margaret 
 is not too old to learn now." 
 
 " But I would not like to go away from Mirk- 
 dale and leave my father," interrupted Margaret, 
 hastily. 
 
 " We will consider of that afterwards. I must 
 now claim your patient attention while I read 
 to you certain papers in your father's presence : " 
 and from the tin box Meddowes extracted a 
 document containing a summary of the farms, 
 mills, tenements, and water-courses on the great 
 estate of Abbeymeads; this he proceeded to 
 recite in a dry, monotonous tone, until Sylvan 
 Holt checked him to ask if he considered this 
 tedious process necessary.
 
 286 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 "Absolutely," w as tne reply ; "I have sanc- 
 tioned your crotchets about the will, but I must 
 insist on your daughter being made acquainted in 
 your lifetime with what are her natural possessions. 
 Bless my life, sir, she might be defrauded of one 
 half of them and never know ! " 
 
 " She would be none the worse if she were," 
 replied Sylvan Holt, grimly. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Holt, if not for your satisfaction 
 or for hers, then for my own ! " And certainly 
 Meddowes did seem to feel an intense satisfaction 
 in mouthing over all the appurtenances, manorial 
 rights, &c, &c, of the two great properties of his 
 employer and friend. Margaret was like her 
 father; she thought it all excessively irksome, 
 but refrained from saying a word, and when 
 the lawyer laid a little book before her and said, 
 " I prepared that for you to study at your leisure," 
 she hoped the sitting was at an end. Her father 
 asked what the book contained. 
 
 " A copy of what I have been reading — the 
 extent of each farm and the various rentals 
 simplified for a young lady's comprehension. Now, 
 by a careful reference to that, Miss Margaret,
 
 A REVELATION. 287 
 
 you may be your own steward if you like," 
 said he. 
 
 " I hope you will be the happier in looking 
 forward to such an idle appointment, Maggie," 
 observed her father, sarcastically. " You do not 
 throw off the startled expression Meddowes' first 
 announcement gave you, and this is pleasanter 
 still." 
 
 " I am not the happier for looking forward 
 
 to anything " she was going to say, " to 
 
 anything without you," but she stopped 
 short. 
 
 " I told Meddowes you would be better 
 contented with Wildwood and a tidy portion of 
 five thousand pounds than with all this parapher- 
 nalia of wealth, but he refused to hearken and 
 called me mad ; so I presume my gay little 
 Margaret, who is at a loss how to spend half-a- 
 crown now, must some day make her curtsey 
 in society as a rich heiress. How shall you sup- 
 port the novel character — eh, Maggie ? " 
 
 * I believe, father, I might almost have liked it 
 if you and I had lived at one of these fine places 
 from the beginning, but now I wish you had
 
 288 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 never told me — I do, indeed : I shall be so 
 strange and ignorant ! " 
 
 " All ! Meddowes threatened that yon would 
 live to reproach me, and here it comes already ! " 
 
 " I reproach you, dear father ; oh ! no ; I do not 
 mean that ! " 
 
 " Whose fault was it that you were not 
 educated as other women are? Mine, Mar- 
 garet." 
 
 " Never mind whose fault it was, so that it can 
 be amended," interposed the lawyer, who did not 
 like the regretful tone the affair was taking. 
 " Miss Margaret will wear her honours meekly 
 as they ought to be worn, and so they will become 
 her perfectly. I had almost finished my part 
 of the business when you put me out ; when I 
 have mentioned Brightebank I have done : it is 
 a little place not far from Abbeymeads which 
 was settled on your mother, but as it is only a 
 house with the surrounding gardens the name 
 is enough ; it is mentioned in the book I have 
 given you." 
 
 " Brightebank sounds as if ought to be a pretty 
 place — is it pretty ? " Margaret asked, for the first
 
 A REVELATION. 289 
 
 time showing any interest in the details of her 
 inheritance." 
 
 " Yes, very pretty indeed — beautiful ! That 
 is to say it was so once/' replied the lawyer. 
 Sylvan Holt had risen and walked away to the 
 window, and Margaret, now following him, 
 slipped her hand through his arm and began to 
 whisper inquiries about it. 
 
 " Father, did you and my mother live at 
 Brightebank ? Do you know, I have a curiosity 
 to see it if you did." 
 
 " Only for a short time, Maggie ; you were 
 born there, but the place is all gone to destruction 
 now," was the hurried answer. 
 
 Margaret would have liked to ask further if her 
 mother had died there, but some inexplicable 
 reserve withheld her. She had never in her 
 life — not even when she was a little child — heard 
 her mother's name pass her father's lips. 
 
 (t Now we will release you for this morning,*' 
 said Mr. Meddowes ; "you have been much 
 more patient than I anticipated." 
 
 " Don't catechise me as to how much I 
 recollect," laughed Margaret, taking her dis- 
 
 TOL. I. U
 
 290 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 missal in good part. " Now, Oscar, we will have 
 our walk. Father, we shall go to Oakfield and 
 inflict on Mrs. Joan Clervaux a second-hand 
 edition of this disagreeable news." 
 
 " So be it, darling, and as you will be close to 
 Beckford, go forward, and ask Tibbie Ryder if 
 there are any letters for us." 
 
 Margaret promised not to forget, and having 
 donned her hat and maud, at the sight of which 
 Oscar testified renewed confidence in the strange 
 gentleman, she set off down by the woodside, 
 speculating on what Mrs. Joan would say to her 
 strange tidings. 
 
 For herself the facts she had been listening to 
 were still mystical and shadowy ; it was impossible 
 to tell yet what influence they might exercise over 
 the future, but having a taste and fancy naturally 
 luxurious, the possession of great wealth sounded 
 pleasant ; though there was something too unreal 
 about this to challenge much enjoyment. There 
 was, however, a little agreeable excitement in her 
 mind till she thought how happy, how contented 
 she had been up at Wildwood. Could she be 
 happier elsewhere? She was satisfied with her
 
 A REVELATION. 291 
 
 simple cambric dress, her plaid and straw hat — 
 what could jewels and fine clothing do for her 
 more ? She loved liberty — her wild rambles by 
 wood and lull in fair weather and foul — would 
 she be as free encompassed with what her father 
 had designated burdens ? Her educational de- 
 ficiencies, her lack of accomplishments, rose up 
 before her in spectral guise. She saw herself in 
 imagination an ignorant, unpolished country girl, 
 an anomaly amongst those gay and brilliant 
 women whom Colonel Fielding had expressly 
 said he liked. Even if it were possible to modify 
 her defects, how hard were the means ! disliking 
 all serious application, and unfitted by her 
 peculiar training for any life but that she had 
 hitherto led. It was true that she possessed a 
 natural refinement and a delicacy of taste which 
 would keep her safe from all glaring mistakes 
 were she thrown into that gay world she so 
 coveted to see, but still she was as different from 
 the carefully tended and highly cultivated flowers 
 that grace that world, as is the heather on the 
 moor from the choice exotic. 
 
 She was not much of a castle-builder — her life 
 
 u 2
 
 292 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 was too active for that — or else as she went on 
 her way she might have been beguiled into laying 
 out a splendid future for herself; neither had 
 she forgotten that her father had said these bur- 
 dens would not come upon her until he was 
 gone — a word of such fearful import as to cloud 
 over all beyond in thick darkness; but happily 
 her mind and frame were elastic and healthy 
 enough to be able to shake off mere shadowy 
 forebodings, and to preserve their vital strength 
 to meet the shock of the real trial when its 
 time should come — and already, while she was 
 singing though the fir-tree glade as blithely as if 
 Abbeymead, Rushfall and Brightebank had never 
 existed — the vague, secret cloud which had in- 
 visibly pervaded all her life past was gathering, 
 gathering swiftly into storm to burst without 
 warning upon her head.
 
 MARGARET SEEKS ADVICE. 293 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 MARGARET SEEKS ADVICE. 
 
 Mes. Joan Clervaux was busy in her green- 
 house when Margaret reached Oakfield, so she 
 went to her there, and seated herself on the steps 
 to take a little breath and courage before open- 
 ing her budget of news. The old lady made 
 many kind inquiries about Sylvan Holt's return, 
 his appearance and health, and then ran on to 
 communicate her own great event of the morning, 
 without noticing the restless excitement of her 
 young favourite's manner. 
 
 "You will be glad to hear, Gipsy, that I have 
 received a letter from Martin Carew — he was to 
 sail yesterday," said she with her usual cheerful- 
 ness ; " there are affectionate messages to a certain 
 wild young maiden of his acquaintance — but per- 
 haps yon would like to read them for yourself? 
 and she gave her the closely written epistle to
 
 294 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 peruse while she went on tying up her plants, 
 snipping off withered buds and leaves, and altering 
 the position of here and there an ornamental 
 flower-pot or basket. Margaret eagerly received 
 the letter and read it twice through, remarking 
 as she came to the end of it the second time, 
 that Martin seemed to have gone in very good 
 spirits. 
 
 " Yes, and that is cheering to reflect on," 
 replied Mrs. Joan. " I begin to think that I may 
 live to see him come home again with well won 
 distinctions. I have great faith in Martin — he 
 is a very fine character, Gipsy — impulsive but 
 generous, is he not ? " 
 
 Margaret acquiesced, and thought she had better 
 enter on her own affairs, but put it off again and 
 only said : 
 
 " That is a beautiful rose that you are removing^ 
 Mrs. Joan ; is it a new one? I don't remember 
 to have seen it here before." 
 
 " Yes, my love, it is a new one, and a very rare 
 one too ; its perfume is exquisite. John sent it 
 from Walham yesterday. You shall have the 
 first slip if you like."
 
 MARGARET SEEKS ADVICE, 295 
 
 " Thanks. My basket looks very gay now with 
 the geraniums and azaleas you were so kind as to 
 send me." 
 
 " Has the crimson rose that you and Martin 
 Carew planted by the porch up at the Grange struck 
 well ? " 
 
 (( Yes, it will be a strong tree by and by ; it 
 looks very hardy." 
 
 " I expected you earlier — what have you been 
 doing all the long morning ? Walking with your 
 father or busy in-doors ? " 
 
 u Busy in-doors with my father and Mr. Med- 
 dowes — Jacky and I were vastly surprised when 
 he arrived with a stranger, you may be sure: 
 Jacky was very wroth too — for she could not 
 devise him a bed anywhere but on the lang-settle 
 in the house place." 
 
 u Mr. Medclowes here ! " said Mrs. Joan, in a 
 tone of anxious surprise. " Do you know what 
 he has come about ? " 
 
 "Yes. If you will leave your flowers for a 
 little while I will try to tell you all about it — I 
 don't know that you will think it very important, 
 though it sounds so." Margaret laughed as she
 
 296 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 spoke, and made room for her old friend beside 
 her on the steps. 
 
 " Anything that concerns you is always im- 
 portant to me, Gipsy — well, out with this mighty 
 secret ! " responded Mrs. Joan, gaily ; at the first 
 mention of Mecldowes she had rapidly changed 
 colour at some premonitory suspicion in her own 
 mind, but she had as quickly recovered her 
 countenance on glancing at Margaret's flushed 
 but happy face, and seeing in it no signs of 
 trouble. 
 
 Ci Mrs. Joan, do you think me fit to be a rich 
 heiress? that is what Mr. Meddowes tells me I 
 am," said she, bending down shyly. 
 
 The old lady breathed a sigh of intense relief 
 which rather puzzled Margaret. 
 
 "A rich heiress!" she echoed, " a rich heiress! 
 Well, Gipsy, perhaps the idea might have startled 
 me if it had been a new one, but I have known 
 it a long time." 
 
 " Oh, have you ! then why did you not warn 
 me of my future position, and tell me how miser- 
 ably deficient I should be in it ? I think it would 
 frio-hten me if I dared to look it straight in the
 
 MARGARET SEEKS ADVICE. 297 
 
 face. I am sure I wish it had befallen anybody 
 but me." 
 
 u You will wear to it after a while — but it will 
 make no immediate difference to you, will it ? " 
 
 "No, except that I must make up for lost 
 time. Tell me what I must do ! Oh, I wish these 
 were the days of fairies and wishing-wells — I 
 would go and wish to become all at once as 
 clever and accomplished as I should like to be ! " 
 
 Mrs. Joan could not forbear smiling at her 
 earnestness. 
 
 " Oh, Gipsy, there is no royal road to learn- 
 ing for you, more 's the pity !" said she; " nothing 
 but plod, plod, over the sharp stones of difficulty. 
 But how old are you ? seventeen, I think." 
 
 " I shall be eighteen next May." 
 
 "That is nearly a year off: still, I think you 
 are too old to be sent away to school ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ; and besides I could not leave my 
 father — that is impossible ! " 
 
 " But do you really mean to set to work, 
 Gipsy ? really and truly ? You have been going 
 to begin so long that I am afraid I have not much 
 faith in your good resolutions."
 
 298 
 
 Margaret reflected a moment or two with a 
 rather serious countenance, and then said : 
 
 " I feel that I must — but how ? Who will 
 teach me ? " 
 
 "I think we can supply the teacher readily 
 enough if the r pupil be only forthcoming at due 
 times and seasons. You were apt to be a little 
 restive and unpunctual with me sometimes, if you 
 remember, Gipsy ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Margaret, without much evidence 
 of contrition ; " yes, I was. I did not see the 
 necessity of study then, but lately I have begun 
 to feel ashamed of my ignorance ; and now this 
 sudden announcement of what I must do and 
 bear some day shows me all my incapacity at 
 once. I cannot play or speak any language but 
 my own, and w T ho but you or my father would 
 care to hear me sing ? Then as for my drawing, 
 much as I like it, what can I do ? When we 
 have said that I can read and write we have 
 said all — and every poor girl in Beckford can do 
 that." 
 
 " The end of education is not mere display, 
 Gipsy; recollect that, and don't be discouraged.
 
 MARGARET SEEKS ADVICE. 299 
 
 Comparisons are in general odious things, but I 
 will make one for your comfort. Hundreds of 
 pounds and years of drilling have been spent 
 over Bell Rowley, yet she is in every point your 
 inferior; she has not a good natural capacity, 
 but she is inflated with conceit and at the same 
 time she lacks the common-sense to put to the 
 best use what has been instilled into her with 
 so much labour and sorrow. She is thorough in 
 nothing, but is just an idle gossiping fine lady 
 with exuberant spirits and an indefatigable 
 tongue. I prefer my ignorant little Gipsy a 
 thousand fold ! " 
 
 " That is your partiality ; you love me, and 
 you do not love Bell Rowley." 
 
 " My child, I do love you dearly but I am not 
 blind to your deficiencies, and I tell you honestly 
 that nothing but hard work and diligence will 
 ever make them up. There has been one thing 
 in your favour fortunately — you have always had 
 a taste for reading which has put a miscellaneous 
 store of facts into your mind — then I think 
 you do know something substantial of history and 
 geography."
 
 300 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " You have endeavoured to teach me, and 
 so has my father/' said Margaret ruefully. 
 
 " Yes, and though you were careless enough, 
 you could not be stupid if you tried, so that in 
 spite of yourself you did learn something." 
 
 " But I never shall be like other women, never 
 while I live ! " 
 
 ts I don't think you will, Gipsy, so you must 
 even be content to abide in your own distinct and 
 separate identity." 
 
 61 1 wish I knew a little of German, and Italian 
 or of French. Colonel Fielding spoke to me of 
 Schiller's Mary Stuart and of Petrarch's sonnets, 
 but I knew nothing about them except what 
 I had read in that biographical dictionary you 
 once lent me." 
 
 " You must have translations, Gipsy. I am 
 afraid it would be too arduous a. task for you, 
 with your habits, to begin learning foreign 
 languages now; they are learnt best and most 
 easily early, for there is a great deal of gradual 
 up-hill work before you can enjoy a book in a 
 strange tongue. If you were accustomed to 
 application it might be different, but you are not."
 
 MARGARET SEEKS ADVICE. 301 
 
 if Translations do not seem a fair way of know- 
 ing an author, but still it is so vacant to be igno- 
 rant of what clever people talk every day." 
 
 " Where did you pick up the idea that clever 
 people talk of Schiller and Petrarch every day ? 
 My dear, they talk about their neighbours' 
 business, and settle the affairs of the nation, just 
 like the rest of us. There is something angular 
 and fussy in clever women that I don't admire, 
 generally speaking, and I suspect that when you 
 talk about clever you mean much more than that 
 hard sounding word ever did. Lady Rowley is a 
 clever woman and Mrs. Wilmot is a clever 
 woman — do you wish to resemble them ? " 
 
 " No, decidedly no ! " replied Margaret with 
 energy, " I would rather be like that Geraldine 
 Favell, of whom I have heard you speak, than 
 any one else." 
 
 " Ah yes ! Geraldine Favell was a very 
 lovely, graceful, accomplished woman, and how 
 her son venerates her ! Did Colonel Fielding ever 
 mention his mother to you, Gipsy ? " 
 
 " No." There was a sudden rise of colour in 
 Margaret's cheek, and she began carelessly to
 
 302 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 twitch off the leaves of a beautiful myrtle that 
 stood by her in a flower-basket, without knowing, 
 in the least w T hat she was doing. 
 
 " I cannot have my plants spoilt, let those mis- 
 chievous fingers rest," said Mrs. Joan drawing 
 away her hand and holding it fast. M Now let us 
 finish our discussion of the educational scheme — 
 What do you say to a governess ? " 
 
 6i But who would live up at Wildwood except 
 ourselves? And besides, I am sure my father 
 would never consent to have a stranger in the 
 house." 
 
 " I never supposed he would : but I think she 
 might lodge at Mill Cottage, where the curate 
 used to do ; and, as you heed neither wind nor 
 weather in your walks, you might go down to her 
 every morning after breakfast. I believe I know 
 the lady to suit you — it is a Mrs. Sinclair who 
 educated my brother John's girls. She is both 
 clever and accomplished, and what is of more 
 importance still, she is a pious good woman, whose 
 friendship may be a stay to you all the days of 
 your life." 
 
 " But do you think she will venture to under-
 
 MARGARET SEEKS ADVICE. 303 
 
 take me when she hears how I have been brought 
 up ? " asked Margaret dubiously. 
 
 " It will be an Herculean task ; but she is 
 not easily daunted. I think we must consult her 
 about you." 
 
 if Let me tell my father and Mr. Meddowes 
 first. Oh! Mrs. Joan, I wish I had taken 
 your advice and worked when I was younger — 
 I cannot understand why my father would bring 
 me up like a boy, and why he never told me 
 before what I have learnt to-day." 
 
 " Don't come to me for explanations, Gipsy," 
 replied Mrs. Joan uneasily, and she made haste 
 to change the subject by asking if Margaret had 
 observed in reading Martin Carew's letter that 
 he had sent her a paint-box to use in remembrance 
 of him. 
 
 u Yes, I am so glad of it ! it will be a charming 
 resource now that summer is come." 
 
 " It arrived by the carrier last night, so if you 
 come into the drawing-room you can take posses- 
 sion at once. The dear lad sent me a new blotting 
 book also, and I have been making use of it in 
 answering his letter."
 
 304 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEE. 
 
 6 i Is your letter sealed up yet, Mrs. Joan ? " 
 " No, my love, it is not — there it lies on the 
 table if you wish to send him a few lines of 
 thanks." 
 
 Margaret first inspected the paint-box, and 
 then seating herself at the writing table scribbled a 
 half-sheet full of news, and put it into the envelope, 
 and that done she said she must be going again, 
 as she had to ask at Beckford for her father's 
 letters. Mrs. Joan did not try to keep her, as 
 it was his first day at home, but made her 
 promise to repeat her visit on the morrow, and 
 bring word how the proposal for her education 
 was received; and Margaret, who was really 
 eager to have some plan arranged for herself 
 as soon as possible, said she would not fail to 
 commend Mrs. Sinclair at home, and that she 
 believed her father would readily consent to what- 
 ever she now desired.
 
 A SAD STORY. 305 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A SAD STORY. 
 
 Tibbie Ryder was standing outside the cottage 
 door, cleaning her lantern, and talking to it in 
 true witch fashion, as Margaret Holt drew 
 near to the gate. The old woman examined 
 her dress with an astonished, inquisitorial eye, 
 and then went forward to meet her, saying : 
 
 " There 's no letters for t' Grange at all, honey ; " 
 then she added hastily, lest Margaret should 
 escape before she could get the question out ; 
 " Ha' you getten your father back yet, Miss 
 Marg'ret ? " 
 
 " Yes, he arrived last night. Are you quite 
 sure there is nothing for us, Tibbie ? " 
 
 " Wad I tell you there wasn't if there was ? 
 You suld knaw Tibbie Ryder by this time! 
 Don't take no offence, Miss Marg'ret, but I 
 must say I am surprised you ha' not putten on 
 
 YOL. I. X
 
 306 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 mourning: not so much, as a black ribbon on your 
 hat!" 
 
 " Put on mourning, Tibbie ? For whom 
 should I put on mourning ? " said Margaret, flush- 
 ing violently. 
 
 t( Why, for your mother, bairn — she 's only just 
 dead. It doesn't look natural o' her ain child 
 to show no respect, though we don't say t' poor 
 lady was all she ought to ha' been, either to you 
 or Sylvan Holt." 
 
 Margaret stared at the old woman as if she 
 doubted whether she heard aright, but her lips 
 turned ashen pale, as she said at last, 
 
 "Tibbie, I don't at all understand what you 
 mean — what do you know of my mother ? " 
 
 " Then your father an't told you ? He ought 
 to, no matter what she was. Why, bairn, your 
 mother died about three weeks since," said Tibbie, 
 heartily wishing she had held her tongue, for 
 her information had been obtained in the usual 
 irregular manner. 
 
 " I always thought she had died when I was a 
 little baby," gasped Margaret. 
 
 Tibbie was now thoroughly scared for the
 
 A SAD STORY. 307 
 
 consequences of her indiscretion, and she did 
 not make her position better by what she said 
 
 next. 
 
 " Yon '11 remember walking down for t' letters 
 that day Mr. Carew came to Oakfield — no, it was 
 the day after — an' Miss Bell Rowley rode by while 
 you was here. You got a furren letter — it was for 
 your father. Well, it was that brought t' news. 
 She 'd just died, it said, an' would he go over to 
 her burying. It was i' France " 
 
 "Then you had opened that letter, Tibbie!*' 
 said Margaret, instantaneously joining the whole 
 thread of circumstances which had preceded her 
 father's sudden departure from the Grange. 
 " What more do you know ? " 
 
 * Nought, bairn, nought ! Is it for me to be in 
 folks' private concerns?" cried Tibbie, with an 
 injured air, but trembling violently. 
 
 " It appears, Tibbie, that you do pry, or you 
 could not have told me what you have done. 
 Tell me all you know." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Margaret, don't go to get me into 
 trouble ! T' letter came open i' my hand, an' I 
 sealed it up again."
 
 308 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 (t What more clo you know, Tibbie, I insist 
 upon bearing? I do not believe the letter came 
 open : you opened it, and swore it had not been 
 touched." 
 
 " I 've telled you all I can, bairn ; go to Mrs. 
 Joan Clervaux — happen she '11 know more," 
 Tibbie returned, very humbly and fearfully. 
 
 Margaret was so struck, so paralysed by the 
 shock of this wholly unexpected intelligence and 
 the manner of its communication, that she stood 
 for a considerable time beating with her foot upon 
 the ground, but quite silent, while Tibbie Ryder 
 waited her departure, wishing herself well out of 
 the dilemma into which her talkative, gossiping, 
 prying tricks had led her. At length, without 
 again speaking, Margaret turned away and 
 walked slowly towards Oakfield — all the previous 
 conversation of the morning quite obliterated by 
 the event she had just learnt. Mrs. Joan Cler- 
 vaux was still busy amongst her plants in the 
 greenhouse when Margaret appeared before her, 
 but at a glance the old lady saw that something 
 was greatly amiss with her favourite, and hastily 
 dropping her scissors and gardening gloves,
 
 A SAD STORY. 309 
 
 she took her by the hand, and brought her in- 
 doors. 
 
 Margaret would not sit down, but leaning 
 against the side of the window opposite to Mrs* 
 Joan's couch, she began by asking — 
 
 " Mrs. Joan, do you know anything of my 
 mother ? " The poor girl's lips quivered, and her 
 frank beautiful eyes were downcast with shame 
 and pain. Mrs. Joan looked away from her, 
 much troubled, but she did not immediately 
 answer. ee Whatever you know tell me," per- 
 sisted Margaret, bending her head down as if she 
 were cowering from a blow. Still Mrs. Joan 
 was silent. " Why don't you speak ? Oh, tell 
 me, do tell me about her if you know ! " im- 
 plored the stricken girl passionately. 
 
 " My dear love, I do know, but you have been 
 a happy child in your ignorance; don't begin 
 to crave already for sorrowful wisdom." 
 
 " Tibbie Ryder opened a letter to my father 
 and read it: she just now betrayed herself by 
 telling me that it brought intelligence of my 
 mother's death: and summoned him to her 
 burial. I want to know why I have been
 
 310 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTEE. 
 
 suffered to believe she died when I was a baby, 
 while she has been living abroad, and is but 
 a few weeks since dead ? Why was she not with 
 us at Wildwood ? " 
 
 " Margaret, you are so ignorant of the world 
 that I can scarcely bear to tell you the sad, 
 miserable history! She did die to you, Gipsy, 
 when you were a little baby, for she abandoned 
 you." Mrs. Joan paused, and the scarlet flew 
 into Margaret's face ; there was so much upright- 
 ness and pride in her character that to have 
 learnt her mother's name was a dishonour stung 
 her to the quick. She put up her hand to cover 
 her eyes, and said in a low, hoarse voice — 
 
 " Go on, tell me everything — was she so 
 wicked? " 
 
 " She was very sinful and guilty. Yes, Gipsy, 
 if I speak at all I must speak plainly — she was 
 very guilty. I dare not excuse her to spare you, 
 lest I should seem to put wrong for right, and she 
 was without excuse. But her punishment over- 
 took her soon, and it has been very long and very 
 sore." 
 
 K And did my father love her ? "
 
 A SAD STOEY. 311 
 
 " Oh I Margaret, the life he has led since she 
 disgraced him may tell you how he loved her ! I 
 believe it has been one weary passage of longing 
 and remorse, for he has never felt himself clear to- 
 wards her. He ought never to have married her." 
 
 « Tell me all that too. How was it ? " 
 
 * It is strange to speak to you, Gipsy, of these 
 things," replied Mrs. Joan, uttering every word 
 with visible reluctance. " It would be happier 
 to keep your ignorance, dear love. Give me 
 leave to be silent — if you bid me speak, I must 
 speak so harshly." 
 
 "Tell me all the truth; I know the worst 
 already, but I want explanation," replied Margaret, 
 impetuously. 
 
 " Oh, child, child ! it can give you nothing but 
 pain : it is so utterly sad, so utterly hopeless ! " 
 
 " Well, speak ! I cannot breathe till you have 
 told me all : do speak, in pity — nothing can be 
 worse than this cruel silence ! " 
 
 " Then let me be brief, Gipsy ; though to make 
 it clear to you I must begin from the first germ 
 of evil." She paused a moment as if collecting 
 her strength for the task, and then proceeded in a
 
 312 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 low hurried voice: "Your mother's affections 
 were already engaged when your father "met 
 her, but her family was ambitious that she should 
 make a wealthy marriage, and she was weak 
 and foolish enough to imagine that luxury would 
 compensate her for the absence of love ; so she 
 yielded to her friends' importunities; and, discard- 
 ing her cousin, to whom she was attached, married 
 Sylvan Holt, whom she positively hated. You 
 shudder, Margaret ; but oh ! it was true, she has 
 confessed it since with floods of unavailing tears. 
 She was then a very beautiful, very lovely 
 fascinating woman, wedded to pleasure and every 
 worldly frivolity, and for a time the scope her 
 husband's indulgence gave to her extravagance 
 supplied the vacuum in her mind left by the 
 loss of her betrayed love. You were born, and 
 for a few months she was induced to live at 
 Brightebank in a pleasant retirement, but this 
 soon became wearisome to her. She desired to 
 go to Paris, and your father for the first time 
 thwarted her : he had discovered with bitterness 
 that he had no share in his wife's heart, and he 
 began to fear both for her and for himselfl
 
 A SAD STOKY. 313 
 
 Sylvan Holt was a terrible man to offend; you 
 may judge, Margaret, how violent would be his 
 hatred to one whom he suspected, and he sus- 
 pected his unhappy wife's cousin of still pursuing 
 her." 
 
 Mrs. Joan paused, as if from sheer inability 
 to proceed; Margaret had never stirred or un- 
 covered her face, only now and then she drew 
 a long gasping breath, as if she were suffocating. 
 After a few minutes' silence Mrs. Joan recom- 
 menced : 
 
 " You can guess, Gipsy, that it was then she 
 abandoned you — a tiny nursling that she had 
 not yet taught to lisp her name ! Oh, it was 
 cruel ; it was cold to you, her innocent little 
 baby ! Sylvan Holt's fell anger rose to its 
 climax. He neither ate nor slept until he had 
 tracked the wretched pair to their hiding-place. 
 Margaret, your father killed him in her pre- 
 sence ! " 
 
 Margaret suddenly let fall her hand from her 
 burning face — 
 
 " It was just," said she, with stern vehemence ; 
 "just!"
 
 314 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Mrs. Joan was startled at the transformation 
 in her countenance — a little while ago so bright 
 and innocent but now fevered and contracted 
 with passion. But she did not attempt to reason 
 with her yet ; she went on sorrowfully with her 
 story, herself almost abashed beneath the fixed 
 gaze that Margaret kept upon her face : 
 
 " Your father was arrested and tried in Paris 
 
 for the murder " 
 
 "It was not murder!" interrupted Margaret, 
 fiercely. " Who said that righteous vengeance 
 was murder ? " 
 
 " The law so regarded it, but by reason of the 
 extenuating circumstances he was only condemned 
 to two years' imprisonment." 
 
 The poor girl drew a long shuddering breath 
 through her clenched teeth, and cowered down 
 upon the floor crying out of the bitterness of her 
 heart — 
 
 (i Oh, my father, my father ! " 
 
 * When that period expired," continued Mrs. 
 
 Joan, " he came up, a stranger, to Wildwood, 
 
 bringing you with him. During the time of his 
 
 detention in France you were left under the
 
 A SAD STORY. 315 
 
 care of a nurse at Abbeymeads ; she married 
 when you were taken from her. Your unhappy 
 mother had sustained such a terrible shock by 
 the death of her cousin in those awful circum- 
 stances that for several years she was obliged 
 to be kept under restraint: but, afterwards, 
 partially recovering, she was transferred to the 
 care of a physician where she still was when 
 I last heard of her. But I do not think she was 
 ever quite herself again.'' 
 
 " She is dead now ! yes, she is dead ! " exclaimed 
 Margaret rising from the floor, and standing 
 erect ; " and Tibbie Ryder asked me why I had 
 not put on mourning for her — not so much as a 
 black ribbon on my hat ! Oh ! I do not mourn 
 for her, not I ! I wish she had died when I 
 was born, that I might have thought of her at least 
 without a blush ! " There was a hard unnatural 
 vehemence in her voice and maimer painfully 
 shocking to her old friend, down whose withered 
 cheeks the tears flowed abundantly as she went on 
 in the same tone ; " Oh ! Mrs. Joan, this dishonour 
 falls very heavily on me; my father's life wrecked — 
 everything of happiness destroyed. I had always
 
 316 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 thought of my mother with such a sacred love : 
 once I saw her picture. Oh yes, it was beauti- 
 ful ! There can be nothing more lovely ! but I 
 would have trampled it under my feet if I had 
 known what I know now ! " 
 
 " Oh ! hush, Gipsy, hush, my love ! You are 
 speaking of her who gave you life — and she re- 
 pented sorely before she died ! " 
 
 " Gave me life only to dishonour it ! No, I will 
 not think of her with tenderness any more ! Look 
 at my father. I understand now all that was so 
 mysterious before: I know why we have been 
 hidden at Wildwood — because we were ashamed 
 to front the world ! Abbeymead, Rushfall, Brighte- 
 bank — what need I think of them for ? gladly 
 would I exchange them all for an untainted name. 
 A rich heiress ! e Poor girl,' people will say, when 
 they see how ignorant and strange I am, ( Poor 
 girl, no wonder ; she has been worse than mother- 
 less ! ivorse than motherless ! ' " 
 
 Mrs. Joan endeavoured to say something to 
 cool her passion, but Margaret would not listen ; 
 " Let me go now and take my misery out of 
 sight ! " said she, shivering from head to foot ; " I
 
 A SAD STORY. 317 
 
 do not think I can ever feel like my old happy 
 self again ! " Though she said she was going, she 
 still lingered, and there was a silence of several 
 minutes, after which she added, in a lower and 
 softened tone, (C You have known this terrible 
 blot all along, Mrs. Joan, and yet you have neither 
 despised nor avoided me." 
 
 " Oh no, Gipsy ! I have loved you very dearly, 
 and so will others love you too." 
 
 Margaret stood a short time longer gazing out 
 at the sky and trees with hot tearless eyes : then 
 she shook hands and stepped from the glass door 
 upon the lawn. Mrs. Joan would walk down 
 the avenue with her as far as the gate. 
 
 " Come to me again soon, my child, you need 
 comfort," said the old lady kindly : u I will try to 
 be a mother to you." 
 
 " Oh ! don't use that name to me ever again — it 
 
 CD 
 
 has no holy meaning to me ! " cried Margaret, 
 trembling all over ; " be to me what you have 
 always been, — my very kind old friend." Mrs. 
 Joan was deeply touched, though the poor girl 
 seemed like flint. " Does Martin Carew know ? " 
 she asked suddenly.
 
 318 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " No, my love, I am sure lie does not. The 
 circumstances happened abroad and are of such 
 old date that probably few persons are aware of 
 them. Your father confided them to me, that 
 when the opportunity came I might relieve him 
 of the task of telling you. He desired that you 
 should know them when you grew up, but he 
 dreaded speaking to you himself." 
 
 "How shall I meet him when I go home now? 
 I cannot act a part even if I would." 
 
 a There is no need, Gipsy ; this is the explana- 
 tion he promised when he left you. As soon as 
 he sees your face he will know that you have 
 heard it, and that it has taught you a hard lesson 
 of humiliation." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Joan ! of degradation, of abasement, 
 rather. When any one looks at me I shall think 
 he reads it in my face." 
 
 " Come down and talk with me to-morrow — 
 your father can spare you better now he has the 
 company of Mr. Meddowes." 
 
 " I should like to hide myself and be forgotten — 
 or else to forget all the misery and disgrace that 
 have come upon me to-day."
 
 A SAD STORY. 319 
 
 " You must not be morbidly sensitive, my dear 
 love : carry your trouble to God. I see you can- 
 not bear more now, so good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye ! " And Margaret went slowly 
 along under the hedge like some poor wounded 
 thing trailing itself painfully out of human sight. 
 There was hot anger and keen resentment 
 in her heart, but no throb of sorrow, no pulse 
 of pity, for her miserable dead mother. Her 
 father's sufferings and wrongs, the dark shadow 
 overcasting her own life, were vivid as letters 
 of fire, but the long tear - washed repentance 
 of her whose sins had caused all was unrealized 
 to her mind. Before her wrathful imagination, 
 suddenly matured and quickened, there arose 
 a picture of that beautiful voluptuous woman 
 who had first sacrificed an honest love for a 
 legal prostitution, and, too late, sickening of 
 her hollow life, had fled from its cold decorum 
 into an abyss of irremediable guilt. 
 
 None are such stern judges as the young and 
 pure : they have not stood in the farnace-blast 
 of strong temptation, and because their innocence 
 is untried, they regard it as impregnable. Mar-
 
 320 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 garet was very liarsli and cruel while she thought 
 herself merely just; at this period she felt that 
 she could not and ought not to forgive her sinful 
 mother, and she nursed her anger in her heart 
 as a righteo us anger. 
 
 When she came to the stile at Wildfoot, she 
 saw her father and Mr. Meddowes pacing to 
 and fro the grass in front of the house. She 
 could not bear to meet either of them then, so turn- 
 ing on her steps, she made a detour through the 
 woods, which brought her out close to the back 
 of the Grange. The heavy rains of the previous 
 day and night had left the long grasses wet, 
 and the leaf -mould soft and soaked, but the 
 trees were refreshed, and the foliage trembled 
 with a revived lustre and beauty. In the open 
 glades the sweet breath of the wild honeysuckle 
 which wreathed its garlands from branch to 
 branch, was scenting the air, and dull as was 
 the day, and heavy as were the clouds, the little 
 bird songsters were far from silent. Oscar, as 
 if sensible of his dear mistress's trouble stalked 
 solemnly along beside her, occasionally pushing his 
 nose against her hand or turning a wistful eye
 
 A SAD STORY. 321 
 
 upwards to catcli hers ; but Margaret was too 
 absorbed to have either word or look for her 
 noble favourite. On reaching home she went 
 straight to her own room, unseen by either Jacky 
 or her father, and there shut herself in to ponder 
 on her great calamity. 
 
 As dinner-time drew near, she was forced to 
 contemplate the necessity of meeting her father. 
 She heard Jacky say in passing from the kitchen 
 to the parlour : " Marg'ret 's awa' to Oakfield ; 
 we '11 see her no more till night fa' :" and then 
 she heard her father reply : " She must have 
 returned through the wood and gone up to her 
 room, for there is Oscar lying asleep in the porch." 
 Soon after, Jacky came to the stair's foot and 
 called out — 
 
 " Marg'ret, are you there ? T dinner 's ready." 
 
 A sensation of deadly faintness came over 
 her, and she saw a white face — white mask, rather 
 — reflected in the glass which she scarcely recog- 
 nised as her own. 
 
 " I must not go down looking like that, my 
 father would be so startled," she said to herself ; 
 and she did not respond to Jacky's summons, 
 
 VOL. i. Y
 
 322 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 hoping they would think she had stayed down 
 at Oakfield while Oscar had come home alone. 
 But Sylvan Holt mounted and knocked at her 
 door, asking — 
 
 " Maggie, are you here ?" 
 
 She immediately opened it, and bade him come 
 in. For a minute they confronted each other in 
 silence, then Margaret said, in a tone that sounded 
 fierce and harsh while it trembled — 
 
 " Father, I have heard my mother's story to- 
 day." Sylvan Holt groaned, and his eyes fell 
 before hers. "Yes, and I listened to it as you 
 must [know I should, with shame and anger," 
 she went on. " Oh ! she was cruel, she was 
 wicked ! I understand our solitude now. Father, 
 why are these tears in your eyes?" 
 
 " Because I loved her, Maggie, and she is dead. 
 Say nothing of her now but what is pitying and 
 compassionate." 
 
 " I can neither weep nor mourn for her ! I 
 would rather weep for you and for myself that 
 we must bear the dishonour she earned." 
 
 "I wish you had gone with me, Margaret; 
 then you would have felt that all the anguish has 
 not been ours."
 
 A SAD STORY. 323 
 
 u But all the sin was hers." 
 
 " Let God judge between us ! I was harsh 
 and angry and she had never loved me : perhaps, 
 if I had been more gentle she had not fallen. If 
 you had seen her poor dead face as I saw it, 
 you would have been constrained to forgive, 
 even as I forgave her; it was so worn and 
 channelled with tears, and her hair was like 
 that of a very, very old woman.'' 
 
 u Oh ! dear father, do not speak so of her ! I 
 do not desire to think of her like that. I have 
 seen her picture in your room, and when I recall 
 it my heart is hardened against her. She does not 
 merit that I should be sorrowful for her sorrow, 
 and I will not." 
 
 " My feeling was once the same as yours, child, 
 and it was far more bitter than this present grief. 
 Can she hear us, Maggie — do you think the spirits 
 of our dead are conscious of our regrets ? " 
 and as he spoke Sylvan Holt looked up to the 
 slatey sky. 
 
 " Oh ! if she can indeed hear us let her know 
 that the child she abandoned spurns at her 
 in her grave!" cried Margaret passionately. 
 
 T 2
 
 32-4 
 
 " She had no mother's heart that could leave 
 me as she did ! Father, how old was I when she 
 forsook me ? " 
 
 " You were but a tender little baby, scarcely a 
 year old, Maggie — but speak gently of her for 
 my sake." 
 
 There was a crimson spot burning on the girl's 
 cheek, and the natural relief of tears did not come 
 to her. 
 
 " For your sake, father, I will keep silence ; but 
 never ask me to forgive her : never bid me re- 
 member her as mother of mine," said she hardly ; 
 " I have no mother — no mother living- or dead ! 
 As she dishonoured me, I disown her." 
 
 " You cannot drain her blood from your veins, 
 and she did love you, Maggie; she loved you 
 dearly," interrupted Sylvan Holt. " I well 
 remember how very tender she was over you to 
 the last : how she fondled you, how she caressed 
 and kissed your baby limbs the day she left us. 
 It was me she hated — you she fondly loved." 
 
 " I will not believe it ! She had not even the 
 animal attachment to her young that might have 
 kept her to guard its helplessness."
 
 A SAD STORY. 325 
 
 " Oh ! child, child ! You cannot understand 
 all the struggle. I will tell you : she wearied me 
 with petitions, year by year, that I would let her 
 see you only once before she died, but I said, no, 
 no — she should never living behold your face 
 again. And when she was dead, Maggie, then I 
 repented. You were her own child ; you had lain 
 on her heart when she was pure ; you were, 
 indeed, her only sinless love ; and I had kept you 
 from her. When I saw her in her coffin she 
 seemed to ask me for you still. I had never 
 thought of her wasting sorrow, never once. I 
 still remembered her beautiful and defiant — and 
 oh ! the ghastly change ! Maggie, be gentle on 
 her memory, there may be many sorrows and 
 temptations in God's hand to try you." 
 
 " Speak of it no more, father, it does not touch 
 me : my heart is petrified against her now and for 
 ever. May God forget me in my trouble if I 
 forget our cruel wrongs ! Give me your hand — 
 let me kiss it — it has no murder stain for me: 
 there, father, you did justly — there you wrought 
 retribution," and as she spoke, Margaret grasped 
 his hard hand and pressed it to her lips.
 
 326 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Sylvan Holt drew it away; 
 
 " My conscience does not smite me for that 
 deed — but sometimes, sometimes I am haunted by 
 a wish that he had lived," said he hoarsely: 
 "it comes upon me in the dead of the night, 
 and I see him as he fell, clasping her knees and 
 crying " Kiss me, Maddie, kiss me, I am dying ! " 
 and she clung to him like a crazed creature, and 
 cursed me — She loved him, Margaret, and it was 
 I who came between them." 
 
 Margaret's countenance was set like marble, but 
 her eyes glittered : 
 
 " I say, father, if you had destroyed her too, 
 you had but done justice," cried she sternly. 
 "But let us cease — that past is beyond our 
 undoing. Will you leave me ? " 
 
 Sylvan Holt stood for a few minutes hesitating 
 with his hand on the lock, and then went silently 
 out. Margaret did not quit her room again 
 that day ; and when Jacky came up towards 
 evening to bring her her tea she refused to see 
 her or to receive the food. A violent natural 
 instinct it was that possessed her, a savage 
 instinct, a heathen instinct : a mingling of
 
 A SAD STORY. 327 
 
 repulsion for her mother's sin and compassion for 
 her father's fate that had no germ of Christian 
 forgiveness or love in it. Her pride was abased, 
 her, honour was laid low; in fancy, she saw 
 the finger of scorn pointing at her as worthy 
 of all contumely, or the eye of curiosity scanning 
 her features for some trait of resemblance to the 
 poor, lost wretch lying in her dishonoured foreign 
 grave. 
 
 It was bitterer than gall to Margaret's upright 
 spirit to feel herself surrounded with this atmo- 
 sphere of obloquy, and the more she dwelt upon 
 it the denser it grew. It appeared to enfold 
 her as in a mantle which everyone seeing must 
 recognise. One moment she would sit silent, 
 heavy, shrinking within its darkness as the 
 Israelites of old shrank into their mourning sack- 
 cloth ; the next, she would rise with head erect and 
 dilating eyes as if she flung it from her disdain- 
 fully, and felt only the white raiment of her own 
 maiden purity ! 
 
 It was a species of frenzy that hurried her 
 to and fro all that day and all that night. The 
 poor young creature, new to all true grief,
 
 328 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 raved, rebelled, and sickened over her calamity 
 as the inexperienced do sicken over a sorrow 
 that looks so indefinably vast as to darken all 
 the future and even heaven itself to their 
 eyes. 
 
 " What shall I do, how shall I bear it ? " was 
 her cry at one time ; then she grew defiant 
 and dreary ; but soon the miserable reality came 
 back, crushing her into the dust of humiliation, and 
 covering her head with its ashes. 
 
 She thought she could never hold up her 
 face again without a burning blush of agonizing 
 shame, and if God had taken her at her word 
 then, she might have died in the bloom of her 
 beautiful youth. But he did not : He mercifully 
 left her to learn how cunning a dresser of our 
 wounds is slowly moving Time, and to gather 
 her share of good out of the lottery of human 
 life. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I. 
 
 London: Printed by Smith, Eldeb and Co., Little Green Arbour Court, E.C
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 823P242S C001 v.1 
 Sylvan Holt's daughter/ 
 
 3 0112 088986960